#we have really normal calls where nothing strange happens

[bigfan-fanfic]

Worth More than Gold (Reader x Laios Touden)

@alex126486 Reader first meeting laios in gold scraping , reader listens laios fascination on monsters and what they tasted like then asking he could cook one for him one day

"Do you remember? Back when we first started out with gold scraping?" You chuckle over at the tallman.

Laios doesn't look up from where he sits preparing the rest of the vegetables from Senshi's garden for you to fry up with the last of the basilisk meat and egg you're making. "Remember what?"

it's always been exciting being around Laios.

You were one of the Touden Party's three mages. Marcille with her explosive fire specialty, Falin with her cleric powers, and you with a specialty in protection and gnomish magic.

You once worked together with him as part of a gold-scraping band.

And it was then that he began talking to you all about his fascination towards monsters.

Little facts about the creatures you would face.

And when you gave no indication of disgust, Laios took the opportunity and ran with it, happily expounding upon monster features for hours upon end.

And when it became clear that you enjoyed his sessions of information -

he began to speculate with you about how monsters tasted.

Would a cockatrice taste more like chicken or more like reptile?

Do strangling plants have sweeter fruits than man-eating plants?

"Who knows? Maybe one day I'll cook you one."

Laios' jaw dropped, and he looked almost about to cry before he nodded seriously.

"That sounds great! What are you thinking of cooking?"

And years later, after traveling with Senshi deeper and deeper into the dungeon, you remember your offhand little promise.

"I once said I'd cook a monster for you. Way back when we were gold scraping."

Laios beams, and you know he never forgot. "I did! I didn't think you had."

"I hadn't, til just now. It must be so much fun for you to discover all the answers to the questions you've had."

Laios nods. "It's a dream come true!"

He glances over at a glum Marcille. "Though of course, saving Falin's the top priority."

"Of course." You nod. "Though if I can be honest, I've really enjoyed the stuff you and Senshi have made."

"That's great!"

"I know Marcille and Chilchuck tend to be squeamish about it-"

("Hey!" Marcille whines)

"-but I dunno. So-called 'normal' animals are pretty weird and gross too, but we eat them. Farming can be nasty too, what with fertilizer, but we don't consider crops gross. It's all just... part of a cycle. If you can make it taste good and it's safe to eat, then why not?"

Laios looks at you with something akin to awe. Chilchuck and Marcille look as though they have lost an ally to madness.

"Anyway, try this. I wanna know if I seasoned it enough." You hurriedly say, seeing Laios still looking at you with that strange expression.

He opens his mouth, seemingly expecting you to... feed him?

So you do, resting the chunk of cooked egg and meat on his tongue, feeling his mouth close around your fingers.

So innocuous, but so intimate, your fingertips compressed as his mouth moves from them, slipping out from the corners.

Part of you is going crazy, thinking one thought - that you've just put your fingers in a teammate's mouth and he just... ate from them. His lips touched your fingers.

His eyes flash up to yours. "Mmmmmm! That's perfectly seasoned."

"Oh! Uh... good." you feel your face heating. Chilchuck smirks over at you. "Good. Those vegetables, then?"

He happily hands them to you.

"Thank you."

"Hmm?"

"For keeping your promise. For cooking. For feeding me."

It's an odd way of phrasing it, but you enjoy the sentiment. "You are welcome, Laios... anytime."

He grins, and leans in close. "You might even be better at cooking than Senshi. It might just be that tallmen have different palates and spices they like, but I love it when you cook."

"I, uh... thanks. That means a lot."

You all but flee to prepare the stir-fry, lowering your gaze, smiling to yourself.

Maybe nothing happened yet, and he's just being nice.

But the friend you've had a crush on since those days of gold-scraping has just practically kissed your hand and complimented your cooking.

And that is worth far more than any gold.

[remxedmoon]

sifdile loss.

blame @startagainaprologue

[bodythiefsblog]

The Whisper of Control - Part 2

Read the first part, here.

John arrived at Lukas’ apartment with a mix of excitement and unease. The job opportunity his father had mentioned was exactly what he needed, but something felt off. His father’s tone during their brief call had been strange, almost robotic. Still, John pushed his worries aside, convincing himself that his father had just been tired or stressed from work and knocked on the door.

“Shit!” Lukas whispered inside the apartment, and walked towards the door while thinking to himself. “You got this, you got this, just do it again.”

Lukas opened it with a welcoming smile. “Hey! You must be John. Come in! Your father is just in the living room,” Lukas said, gesturing toward the couch where Caleb sat, seemingly asleep.

John stepped inside and immediately noticed his father on the couch. His excitement was quickly overtaken by concern. His father was slumped over, his tie loosened, his normally sharp suit wrinkled and out of place. “Dad?” John called softly, stepping closer. Caleb didn’t respond.

“Dad, wake up,” John said, a little louder this time as he shook his father’s shoulder. For a brief, terrifying moment, John feared the worst. But then, Caleb’s eyes fluttered open. He blinked slowly, as if coming out of a deep sleep, but something in his expression was wrong – his eyes were dull, devoid of the sharpness and authority John was used to.

“WTF?” Lukas thought to himself, and watched closely, a twisted satisfaction curling in his chest as he realized what had happened. Caleb wasn’t the same man anymore. He was nothing more than a puppet, completely under Lukas’ control, thanks to the power he had unwittingly discovered – his influence (and his cum, apparently…) had expelled Caleb’s soul, leaving his body to be dominated by Lukas’ will, like… possessed by it.

“Dad, are you okay? You weren’t answering me, and… something feels off,” John said, his voice tinged with worry.

Before John could press further, Caleb forced a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m fine, son. Just had a bit too much to drink,” he said, his voice eerily calm. “I’m sorry if I worried you.”

John felt a wave of relief wash over him, but it was mixed with confusion. Something was definitely off, but before he could question it further, Lukas spoke up.

“Your father’s been working hard, John. He just needed to relax a little,” Lukas said, his tone smooth and reassuring. Then, with a glint of mischief in his eyes, he added, “In fact, he’s never been happier.”

Seeing John begin to relax, Lukas decided it was time to test the limits of this new power. He focused on John, summoning “The Whisper” again, letting it coil around the young man’s consciousness.

“Relax, John,” Lukas said and sat down with an arm over Caleb’s shoulder, his voice low and commanding. “Come here. Sit next to us.”

John obeyed without question, his concern for his father overshadowed by the irresistible compulsion Lukas had planted in his mind.

Lukas then confidently turned to Caleb, his puppet, and commanded without speaking, “Reassure your son, slut. Tell him you’re okay.”

Without hesitation, Caleb smiled at John and said, “I’m fine, really. I just had a bit too much to drink. Nothing to worry about.”

John looked relieved, but the lingering unease in his eyes told Lukas that a small part of his will still suspected something was off. Lukas, eager to test his power further, whispered another command into Caleb’s mind.

���Now, invite your son to stay for a drink. You want to spend more time with him. He’s very hot.”

Caleb immediately turned to John, “Why don’t you stay for a bit, son? Have a drink with me. We don’t get to spend enough time together. You look hot as hell.”

John looked slightly confused by that last comment.

“What a dumb bitch!” Lukas said inside Caleb’s mind. “You weren’t supposed to say that…”

John hesitated for a moment but eventually nodded, sitting down next to his father. As Lukas observed them, he felt a thrill of control and domination – knowing that both men were now under his influence.

Lukas wasn’t done yet. He wanted to see how far he could push them. Focusing on John, he used “The Whisper” to plant another thought deep within his mind. “You want to be close to your father. You feel an overwhelming bond with him.”

John’s demeanor shifted subtly as Lukas’ suggestion took hold. He leaned closer to his father, feeling an inexplicable warmth and connection. Lukas grinned, knowing that he had successfully implanted his will into both father and son.

With a twisted smile, Lukas leaned in and whispered, “Kiss me, Caleb. Show your son how much you care for me.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Caleb obeyed. He leaned in and kissed Lukas deeply, his hands gripping Lukas’ shoulders as though they were the only thing keeping him grounded. The kiss was intense and unrestrained, a stark contrast to the stoic figure John had always know his father to be.

John’s eyes widened in shock. The scene before him was surreal – his father, the epitome of authority and control, was now passionately kissing another man, and in front of him no less. A part of John wanted to look away, to deny what he was seeing, but he couldn’t. He was rooted to the spot, his mind spinning.

Lukas extended his influence once more, sending “The Whisper” snaking into John’s mind. “Your father is exactly where he wants to be, John. And now, you want to join him. You want to be close to us both.”

John’s resistance crumbled under the weight of Lukas’ power. The confusion and unease that had plagued him just moments ago finally faded away, replaced by an inexplicable urge to obey. He no longer questioned the strange scene before him; he only felt the need to be a part of it.

Lukas watched as John’s expression softened, his body relaxing into compliance. He had successfully manipulated both father and son, bending them to his will with ease. The discovery that his control could extend so far – especially with the added effect of his physical dominance over Caleb’s body – filled him with a dark thrill. But now he wanted John’s body as well…

“Good boy,” Lukas murmured, satisfied. “Now, let’s enjoy this moment together, as a family.”

The game was only beginning, and Lukas was eager to see just how far his new power could take him.

“Stand up, John. Go find a jockstrap in my room and perform a sexy dance using it. Show us how much you want to entertain your slutty father.”

“Yeah, baby, show us how much of a bitch you are, like me!” Caleb shouted.

------

Lukas was overjoyed when John entered the room.

John’s body moved against his will. His movements slow at first, but soon he began to dance sensually, his hips swaying and his hands exploring his body. He rubbed himself provocatively, the dance a display of forced seduction.

Lukas watched with a sadistic pleasure, enjoying the complete domination he had over John. Even Caleb was drooling just by watching his son dance.

“Now, finger yourself with the seed of our boss, slut!” Caleb commanded.

“That came out of nowhere, daddy,” Lukas said, laughing, and then said to John. “You’ve heard your father, and call me “boss” just like your daddy does.”

“Yes, boss. Yes, daddy.” said John while fingering his hole and showing the massive pair of cheeks he got from his father.

As John danced, Lukas jerked off, put some of his cum inside John’s hole, leaned in and whispered in his ear. “You did so well tonight, John, but I don’t want your mind, just your body. I hope you can understand that.”

“I get it, boss,” said John, turning his head, lost in Lukas’ eyes.

“Now cum for me”.

And as John came, he blacked out, leaving all of his body ready to use and control.

[6rookie-writer0110]

Eyes on the ground

Reader/Son x Clark Kent & Lois Lane

Request - I wanted to ask if it was possible for you to write a AU of sorts. A crossover between Scarlet Witch and Superman & Lois. Where Clark and Lois have a third son and turns out that he's he's krypton's Scarlet Witch/Warlock. MC is younger than the twins.

Lois and Clark are in the kitchen talking alone. They see you playing catch with your brothers outside.

“Do you think any of them will get powers?” Lois asked.

“Maybe… I’m not sure. They don't show any signs and nothing strange has happened for now” Clark said.

“They are too young. I just want them to have a normal childhood” Lois said.

“I understand. Let's not worry about that for now” Clark said.

They see you are playing rough with your brothers. It was Jon's idea to play football in the backyard. You wanted to show off and prove that you are strong enough to play rough. Jon threw the ball at Jordan but you caught the ball, then you and Jon started to wrestle for the ball. Lois and Clark left the kitchen and went to stop you and your brothers playing rough.

“Boys enough” Clark yelled.

He grabbed the football then you and your brothers, then you started to breathe hard.

“We were playing,” Jordan said.

“We told you three many times not to play rough,” Lois said.

“It’s football. I'm strong they can't beat me” You said.

You start to flex your biceps and your brothers roll their eyes.

“Y/N, you can't play rough every time you play football,” Lois said.

“I’m not a baby,” You whined.

You hate it when they treat you like a baby, you want to prove to them that you're not a baby.

“Go inside the house all of you,” Clark said.

“Not fair. I was having fun” You said frustrated.

You kicked the football so hard that you broke the kitchen window. Jordan and Jon gasped and you didn't expect to break the window.

“In the house now!” Lois yelled.

“Sorry,” You said.

You and everyone else go inside the house. Your father made you clean up the mess while he watched over you. He starts to give you the speech and you really don't want to listen to the speech but you don't say anything.

In the family, you're the youngest, and your parents are more protective of you. You always try to prove that you are not a baby and don't need protection. Clark and Lois love their boys but you are a bit wild because you like to explore.

———-

Jordan and Jon want pizza for dinner. They asked their parents but they said no, then Jordan got an idea.

“Y/N, go ask mom and dad for pizza for dinner,” Jordan said.

“You and Jon already asked and they said no,” You said.

He puts his arm around your shoulders.

“They will say yes to you because you are the rainbow child,” Jordan said.

“Don’t call me that” You said.

“It’s true, Y/N. You know mom had miscarriages before she had you. Go ask for pizza” Jon said.

“Okay, but they will say no,” You said.

They follow you downstairs, but they are in the hallway listening. You are in the living room, while Lois and Clark are sitting down on the couch.

“Mom, dad can we have pizza for dinner?” You asked

“Okay, sure. I will order the pizza, Y/N do you want to come with me?” Clark said.

“Yeah,” You said.

Jordan and Jon are happy that they will eat pizza for dinner. You leave the house with your dad and get in the truck, he lets you pick the radio station. He listens to you talk about your favorite band.

After buying pizza and before going home, he stopped the truck.

“Why we stopped?” You asked.

“I’m going to show you how to drive” Clark smiled.

“That is cool!” You smiled big.

You and your dad switched seats. You are feeling so excited that your cheeks are hurting from smiling. He starts to tell you what to do and you follow his instructions. You are starting to drive the truck slowly

“You are doing great, Y/N,” Clark said.

“Wow, this is fun” You giggled.

You go a little fast and he tells you how to stop the car and go again. Then he made you change seats now he is driving home, and you tell him how fun it was to drive.

✬ ✫ ✯ ✫

Tal-Rho sent his army to attack the town. Everyone is starting to panic and trying to get out of town. Clark went to fight Tal-Rho somewhere. Your mom made you and your brothers get ready to head to the army base in town. You and your family head to the truck but Tal-Rho’s army arrives.

“Stay away from us,” Lois said.

“Mom,” You said.

You are feeling scared and they are feeling scared also.

“Stay away from us!” You yelled.

You run towards the person to punch them, but they push you hard towards the ground. You want to prove that you are strong but the person was going to attack Jon but Jon stepped in and got hurt, the enemy used heat vision to hurt your brother. Jon fell to the ground and he was bleeding fast you ran towards him.

“Jon!” You cried out.

You touch his stomach and you see the blood on your hand. Your heart is racing faster and you start to cry.

“Jon, I’m sorry! I-I didn't want you to get hurt. I'm sorry!” You cried out.

Lois and everyone noticed a magic aura surrounding your body.

“Mom, what is going on?” Jordan asked.

“What are you doing to him!?” Lois yelled at them.

“We are not doing that to him,” He said.

Your eyes changed colors then you yelled, then a powerful magic blast and you hit the enemies. They passed out and your magic from your hands went to your brother’s body and he is starting to get healed. Jon looks at you then the magic disappears. Lois helped you and Jon stand up then she hugged you and your brother.

“What just happened?” Jordan asked.

“We will figure that out later, now we have to go,” Lois said.

Your mom took you and your brothers to the army base in town. Your brothers are looking at you strangely and they start to ask questions, but you don't know how to answer them.

Clark arrived at the base with the suit on. You and your brothers don't know yet that your father is Superman. Everyone knows that you are a huge fan of Superman. You have some posters and action figures in your bedroom. You run towards him and you are smiling

“I’m a big fan” You smiled.

“Oh… um thanks for being a fan” Clark smiled.

“I can't believe I'm really meeting you” You happily said.

“Superman we need to talk,” Sam said.

He followed your grandfather to a private area and Lois is there. They start to talk about what is going on.

“What do you mean, Y/N has powers?” Clark asked.

“Not the same powers as you. It seemed powers like John Constantine, would have but his powers actually appeared all over his body. Jon was hurt but he saved him” Lois said.

“How did he even get magic?” Clark asked.

“I have no idea, I thought you would know. Go change, the boys need you right now” Lois said.

“It will be okay,” Clark said.

Clark hugged his wife and kissed her on the lips. Clark tells Sam, what Tal-Rho wants to do. They talked for a while then Clark changed clothes then went to see you and your brothers. You start to tell him what happened and Clark asks questions about the powers, but you don't know what to say. Then Clark went to talk with Jon and he hugged his son tightly.

——-

You are lying in your bed and your dad walked in. He sits on the edge of the bed and before he can say a word, you said something first.

“Are you and mom going to send me away?” You asked.

“What makes you think that we would send you away?” Clark asked.

You sit up and you struggle to say something at first, but he waits for you to say something.

“Because I have powers and it's my fault that Jon got hurt,” You said in a low voice.

“Y/N, we love you and we will never send you away. You are our son and we will never abandon you. And it's not your fault that Jon got hurt. He doesn't blame you, Y/N. This is new to us and we will get through this together” Clark smiled.

“Thanks, dad” You said.

Your dad hugged you tight and you believe what he said to you.

“Go to sleep, it's late,” Clark said.

“I’m not tired,” You said.

“Nice, try. Y/N, go to sleep it's written on your face that you are tired” Clark said

“Goodnight,” You said.

“Goodnight, Y/N,” Clark said.

You lie down and you watch your dad turn off the light and leave. You close your eyes and you start to fall asleep.

✬ ✫ ✯ ✫

Clark just told you and your brothers that he is Superman. He picked up a truck, Jon and Jordan were in shock but not you.

“Y/N, you don't seem impressed,” Lois said.

“I saw dad, use his powers before and I saw his suit in the closet. The glasses are not a good disguise” You said.

“How come you didn't say anything?” Jordan asked.

“You and Jon wouldn't believe me. One time, I saw dad use his ice breath to put out the fire in the barn. I don't want to wear my underwear on the outside, no offense dad” You said.

“Y/N, I’m not asking you to wear your underwear on the outside. So that means, I have magic and I have the same powers as you?” You said.

“So, cool I have the same powers like dad” Jon grinned.

“Do I have powers?” Jordan asked

“We don't know yet,” Lois said.

“Sorry, I’m late I had to deal with something in hell,” John Constantine said.

He appeared through a magic portal. Clark introduced John to you and your brothers. Then John lights his cigarette and he stares at you.

“Why is he here?” You asked.

“He has magic and he will people with it. We don't know anything about magic and we thought that he could help you” Clark said.

“He is old and smells bad,” You said.

“Y/N, don't say that. That is rude” Lois said.

Your brothers couldn't help to laugh.

“And you still wet the bed,” John said.

“Whatever, old man,” You said.

“You two be nice. And try not to go hard on my son” Clark said.

“I can't promise anything. Let's get started” John said

Your family watches John use his magic. You try to use your magic but nothing is coming out of your hands. But he laughed then he hit you with your magic and you fell to the ground.

“John! I told you not to be hard on my son!” Clark yelled.

John used his magic to stop your parents from interfering.

“I know what I'm doing!” John yelled.

“Don’t hurt them!” You yelled.

You are walking forward towards him. Then a powerful magic arua starts to come out of your hands. Then everyone witnessed a dark magic book appear in front of you. It turned to the page on what magic to use

“How did you make that book come to you?” John asked.

You read the magic words and used the magic to hurt John. But he was quick to block your magic with his magic. You tried again but he blocked it again. Then he stopped and he tried to get the book but the book moved closer to you.

“Boy, you do have any idea what book you have!?” John said very loud.

“No. It's my first time seeing it” You said.

“That book is called Darkhold and it's connected to you. Study that book from start to end. contained spells, formulas, and information on how to create machines to harness energy from other dimensions, Study the book” John said.

“Wow, that is a lot,” You said.

You hold the book and you won't let him read it. John explained what kind of magic you have to your parents. Lois isn't happy about you having chaos magic and she doesn't want you to have magic. But she won't stop loving you and Clark will feel the same way. Later, John teaches you how to summon your magic and how to control it.

———-

You haven't been studying the Darkhold magic book. You are playing catch with your brothers in the barn. You and Jon are trying to help Jordan activate his powers. Jordan tried to pick the tractor but he couldn't do it.

“I guess i don't have super strength,” Jordan said

“Try throwing the football far?” You said.

“I can try,” Jordan said.

Jon laughed because he knew that Jordan couldn't throw the football.

“I can throw a football,” Jordan said

“Yeah, right. But go ahead and you will miss” Jon laughed.

You throw the football at your brother but with force. He didn't catch the ball and the ball went through the wall.

“Mom and dad are going to ground you forever,” Jon said.

“Why you didn't catch the ball!?” You yelled.

“You didn't throw it straight!” Jordan yelled.

You tried to use your magic to fix the hole, but you opened a portal for a few seconds but it closed.

“What was that!?” Jon yelled

“I don't know, I’m still figuring out my powers,” You said.

Again you used your magic and you fixed the hole. You are smiling about it because you won't get in trouble. But you started to play with your brothers again, they kept throwing the ball at each other so you wouldn't catch it. But you used your magic to catch the ball and you are happy about it.

“That’s cheating,” Jon said.

“You are just slow” You teased

They started to chase you and you started to run fast. Lois and Clark are outside talking and you run toward them, but Jon uses his speed to catch up to you. He tried to get the ball but you won't let go, then Clark and Lois made him let go. He got in trouble but not you and they made you and your brothers go back inside the house.

[toomanystoriessolittletime]

The agent and the witch

Summary: All Marcus did was touch a bronze cat figurine after a new shipment of stolen art came in. He never thought a simple touch would make him travel back in time to meet his witchy soulmate.

Pairing: Marcus Pike x fem. witch reader

Wordcount: 5.9k

Rating: M

Warnings: timetravel-magic-soulmate AU, confusion, fluff, a masquerade ball, my take on how magic works, some.... kissing, falling in love, more time travel

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Full Masterlist // Marcus Pike Masterlist

Marcus had the headache of headaches. His eyes were still closed and he groaned, loudly, before he slowly blinked his eyes open. The room he was in was dark and he turned his head, finding a single candle burning on the bedside table. 

Frowning, he tried to remember where he was and what happened. 

He went to work this morning.

They got a new shipment of artefacts from the middle of the 19th century that the lab was checking for their realness. 

Marcus remembered flirting with the cute new lab techie Kristin who was way too young for him, but hey he was just a man and some flirting should be allowed. 

He remembered her showing him a bronze figurine of a cat that she thought was adorable. Marcus remembered picking the figurine up and then. 

Nothing. 

“You’re awake. Good,” he jumped, his hands flying to where his weapon should be normally, sitting himself up to find a woman sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room. 

He didn’t have his weapon on him. He remembered leaving it in his office. Shit. 

He blinked his eyes, not used to the darkness as the woman got up from the chair and walked towards him. She was wearing a long dark purple gown that reminded him of those princess movies his little sister had watched back when they were little. There was a small smile on her lips and she had beautiful green eyes. 

“Now you can tell me, where you stole my figurine?” she flicked her fingers towards him and held up the bronze cat with the other while Marcus headache seemed to work on making his head explode. He closed his eyes, only now noticing that he could not move anymore. Slightly panicking he tried to will his arms to move but it was like his body did not respond. 

“Fear not, I put your body on a sleeping spell, but your mind is still awake. Clearly. I might take the spell back once you start explaining,” the woman said and Marcus looked at her. 

“Spell?” he asked, his voice hoarse. 

“Yes.”

He wanted to ask more questions but, the woman only raised her eyebrow as she waited for him to talk. 

“I… haven’t stolen anything. A whole load of stolen artefacts have been shipped to HQ this morning and the lab had been checking them to validate if they were real or not.”

The woman tilted her head. 

“Listen, I have no idea what happened after I touched the figurine but if you let me call my boss I’m sure we can work something out.”

“Your… boss?” the woman asked.

“Yes… I’m an FBI Agent and I work in art thefts.”

“FBI?” she asked, looking at him like he grew a second head, and Markus sighed. Nothing made sense. Not him waking up with this strange lady, not her telling him he was under a spell, nothing. 

“Federal bureau Intelligence?” he helped. The woman still looked at him as if he had grown a second head. 

He sighed. 

„My badge is in my suit jacket,“ he said, the woman still not reacting. It gave him some time to really look at her and at the room he was in. 

There was no real light source. No lamp on the ceiling, not even a lamp on the bedside table. There was a what looked like a Gaslamp next to the door the woman was standing. It was dark outside, which made the whole set up felt like straight out of a horror movie. The furniture was made out of what looked like heavy wood. 

But it was the woman that fascinated him most. 

Her hair was styled back in a sleep bun but some curls had fallen out of her hairdo. The dress she was wearing looked expensive. He was no expert in fabrics but it looked like it was silk.

And definitely not out of this century. 

Which left him to ask his next question:

„What…. What year is it?“ He asked and finally the woman took a step closer, the bronze cat still in her hands as she looked down at him with eyes full of interest. 

„It’s 1824,“ she said and Marcus lips parted in surprise. 

„Why?“ She asked.

Marcus couldn’t help but chuckle. A chuckle that turned into a full laugh the woman was less than appreciate of. 

„I’m so sorry. This must have been the best prank ever. Is my sister behind this?“ He asked.

„I have no clue what you are saying. Why did you want to know which year it was?“ She asked him, now standing right next to the bed, the heavy fabric of her dress swishing against the bed he was still lying on, unable to move. 

„Because it’s 2024,“ he said, still laughing. But the longer he laughed the more her face changed into one of concern, his laughter slowly dying.

He gulped. 

„This isn’t a prank, isn't it?“ He finally asked. 

The woman sighed. 

„I’m afraid not, Mr….“

„Pike. My name is Marcus Pike,“ he said and for the first time the hint of a smile came to the woman’s lips.

„Mr. Pike. I think you being here is a spell gone massively wrong. This never happened before. I used the same spell for everything, how could it have gone so wrong?“ She asked herself and Marcus cleared his throat, her eyes snapping back to look at him. 

„Spell? Like… magic?“ He asked, still more than confused. 

„Yes,“ she nodded.

„So you’re a….“

„I’m a witch. Yes.“

When Marcus woke up the next morning, reaching for his phone and not finding it, for a small moment, he forgot that he… time traveled?

But once consciousness took over he sat himself up with a start looking around. 

He seemed to be in the same room he was in yesterday, but now the sun shone through the big windows. The walls were painted in a deep rich red, the furniture equally held in dark colours like he remembered from the night before. 

He took a deep breath, sighing when he exhaled. Rubbing his hand over his eyes he swung his legs out of the bed, noticing he was still wearing his suit from the day before. Well… The day before 200 years in the future.

He still could not wrap his mind around having time traveled. And there still was a part of him that thought this was all just a big joke. 

Stretching his muscles he slowly walked towards the window, lips parting in awe when he took in the busy street in front of the house. 

People were dressed similar to the woman he met yesterday. The women wearing long gowns, the men dressed in posh suits and each one wearing a hat. There were carriages pulled by horses driving on the street.

When he further looked around there was a lack of all things that were normal to him. 

No cars, no street vendors, no street lamps, no skyscrapers.

He startles when there was a knock on the door behind him, the door opening shortly after and in walked the woman, the… witch he met yesterday. 

„Good Morning Mr. Pike,“ she said with a small smile, carrying various items in her arms she set down on his bed. 

„Good Morning Mrs…“ he said and she huffed a laugh.

„I am not married,“ she said as she turned back towards him with a small smile. She told him her name.

„But I am only called Peach around here. There’s a big peach tree garden behind this house that I open for the city free of charge,“ she explained and Marcus found himself smiling at her. 

They stared at each other for a moment before Peach seemed to blink herself out of her trance.

„I unfortunately have not figured out yet, what went wrong with my spell. So I am afraid you will be stuck here until I can figure out a way to send you back, Mr. Pike,“ she said, walking over to his bed. 

„Please call me Marcus,“ he said and she hummed.

„Well, Marcus. You might be a man from the future, but we can’t let people know that. So I grabbed some old clothing from my brother who is currently out of state,“ she explained. 

Marcus stepped next to her, looking over the clothing she had spread over the bed. 

„I think you and him have the same stature, so the clothes should fit,“ she said and Marcus nodded. 

„I’m sure you have a lot of questions for me, some of which I will not be able to answer, but I’ll try. If you like you can join me for breakfast on the patio once you dressed?“ Peach asked and he agreed.

„I am a little overwhelmed if I am honest. I hope a cup of coffee can fix that,“ he hummed.

„Oh you’re in luck. We received a bag of coffee beans just last week. I will ask the cook to prepare some. Personally I am not too keen on it. It’s too bitter for me,“ she smiled and Marcus could not look away from her captivating smile. 

„Anyway. I will leave you be. Once you dressed just come down the stairs and go to your right. You should see the sitting room with the patio right outside right away,“ she nodded with a warm smile and Marcus mirrored her. 

„Thank you,“ he said just before she exited his room. 

„You are in this situation because of me, Marcus. It’s the least I can do.“

A week went buy and Marcus was slowly getting used to his new normal in the year 1824. If he was honest with himself he quite enjoyed not having to get into work every morning at the crack of dawn to work for 12 hours only to get some shitty take out on his way home and pass out in front of the TV. 

Instead he could sleep in and just dream into the day. 

Only yesterday Peach had took him on a walk around the capitol. He was fascinated how different yet familiar everything looked. And it was interesting how quickly he got used to the lack of noise in this century. 

There were no cars, no planes. Yes there was some screaming now and then, but nothing compared to the hum of the city he had gotten used without even noticing it before. 

The air was fresher and the people were kinder. 

He had started strolling though the neighbourhood twice a day after Peach had walked around with him the first two days. But he quickly learned that she was a busy woman. 

She was a valued member of the community and even though there were people, mostly men, around who did not take well to a unmarried woman being in charge of an estate, let alone a family business, her success spoke for herself. 

She was also fascinating, intelligent, had a killer sense of humour and one of the most beautiful smiles he had ever seen. More than once he caught himself watching her as she read through her spell book, searching for something that would get Marcus back home. 

And she was doing all that while also planing a giant masquerade ball for Halloween which would happen in the next week.

He knew by now that once she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and slightly aggressively brushing over her cat’s Lucius fur meant that she was getting frustrated. He learned to get her her favourite tea from the kitchen would calm her down and give him one of those small smiles and a squeeze of his hand as thanks that he was sure by now she knew made him blush. 

Of course, only he could accidentally travel back in time by touching a bronze cat, only to fall for the witch who put the spell on said bronze cat. 

„I have a theory,“ she said, exactly a week after Marcus had appeared in her house. 

It was night, Marcus sitting in an armchair opposite the fire place, her second cat Lucky in his lap, purring affectionately as he brushed over her head. He was reading a book, a glass of scotch waiting on the little table next to him. 

Peach was sitting in the armchair next to him, new spell book and another much older looking book in her lap. She was cuddled under a thick fur blanket, Lucius squeezed next to the books in her lap, the black cat only rarely leaving her side.

She was wearing his reading glasses, something she was almost giddy about once he told her what they were as he found them in his suit pocket, the dark thick frames sitting on the tip of her nose. 

„You have?“ He asked and she turned her head to look at him. She was pursing her lips and he found himself wanting to close the distance between them to kiss her plush lips. He took a deep breath, willing these thoughts away. 

„Yes,“ she nodded, sucking her bottom lip in. 

„Are you gonna… tell me about it?“ He asked, raising an eyebrow.

She loved and hated when Marcus looked at her like that. 

Marcus Pike plopped into her life exactly a week ago, and it was like a switch had flipped inside her head she did not know had existed before. 

And when he looked at her like that, his big brown eyes giving her his full attention, more than once she found herself forgetting whatever she was about to say. 

How could it be that no man from her time had held her under his spell as much as Marcus Pike from two hundred years in the future did?

It was like something clicked into place ever since he got here, and she found herself getting less interested in finding a away to send him back into his time. Which was not fair to him, but if she only thought about not seeing him ever again the sadness that took over her made it almost difficult for her to breathe. 

And as he looked at her now, sitting in the armchair next to her, Lucky, her cat that had never let anyone but her touch her until Marcus arrived as she sat in his lap, she again found herself forgetting the words she was about to say. 

She blinked at him, trying shake herself out of his spell, suddenly nervous about the theory she was about to tell him. 

„There is a…. Story about a witch who used the same spell I did on the same figurine. It brought her back the figurine and a man, she wrote was from sixty years in the future.“

„When did that happen?“ Marcus asked, leaning in closer. 

„About a hundred years ago. This spell book is from the mother of one witch from my coven,“ she explained. Marcus nodded. 

„Did she find out why it happened?“ He asked. 

Rubbing her tongue over her teeth, she took a deep breath. 

„Can you show me your left elbow?“ She asked. He frowned.

„Please?“ She added with pleading eyes and he looked at her for a moment more before he nodded. She watched him as he carefully set his book down and pulled the sleeve of the shirt he was wearing up and over his elbow. 

He breath stuttered when she saw the purple scar right above his elbow, the one she got after burning herself when she was just fifteen years old and experimenting with some potions. 

„Marcus…“ she whispered. He was looking at his elbow too, frowning. 

„I… didn’t have this before. What does this mean?“

Instead of answering him she to pulled at the sleeve of the dress she was wearing, showing him the matching scar. 

„It is said in these books, that witches that were born during a full moon on St. Hallows eve have the blessing of soulmates,“ she explained quietly. Looking up at him she found Marcus watching her, listening. 

„It is said that they have the power, knowingly or not, to summon their soulmate. Their one true mate.The universe will chose and find a way to bring them to the witch before her thirtieth birthday,“ she whispered. 

Peach saw Marcus process the words.

„The soulmates share every scar on each others body,“ she continued and Marcus gulped.

„Could you…“ he started before he cleared his throat. 

„I have a scar on my right hip from when I was shot…“ he began and her eyes widened.

„You were shot?“ She asked alarmed.

„Comes with the line of work,“ he shrugged. 

„Did it hurt?“

„Like hell,“ he chuckled and she released a shuddering breath. 

They looked at each others hands for a while. 

„I also have a scar on my leg ankle. Had to get surgery when I was little,“ he said after a while. Taking a deep breath she nodded, before she pulled her left leg up and pulled her dress up. She felt her cheeks warming as she pulled at her stockings. She had never undressed in front of a man like this and she was thankful when she noticed Marcus adverting his eyes. 

She stared at her ankle for a moment, her fingertips brushing over the scar she did not have a week ago. 

„Marcus,“ she whispered in awe and he turned his head to follow her sight. She jumped when she felt his hand on her ankle, his fingers brushing over the scar. 

When she looked up she found Marcus already looking at her and tears filled her eyes. His expression changed to concern as the first tears rolled down her cheek. 

„I did this,“ she whispered. 

„I pulled you from your time, your life, your family. It’s my fault you’re here. I’m so sorry, Marcus,“ she sobbed and she didn’t realise he had gotten up to hug her until she felt the warmth of his chest against her cheek. 

He soothed her, rubbing his hand over her back. 

„Peach,“ he whispered and she shakily breathed out. 

„You may have pulled me from my time, but you did not pull me away from my life,“ he said, chin resting on top of her head. Hesitantly she put her arms around him, her heartbeat slowing down. 

„My life only consisted of work. The only thing I might miss is my sister and her children. But apart from that? There is nothing for me there,“ he explained. 

„That sounds like you already made plans to stay,“ she whispered. 

„Is there even a way to go back?“ He asked. She pulled away from him so she could look at him. 

„There is. I would have to do it before my birthday. It’s a potion you take on the morning of St. Hallows eve that bring you back once the full moon has risen,“ she explained and he nodded. 

„So we have time,“ he said and she frowned. 

„Time for what?“

The smile he gave her made her knees weak.

„To get to know each other. To… to make a decision.“

„You really thinking about staying?“ She asked.

„I have been thinking about it for the last two days already,“ he smiled sheepishly and she found herself smiling at him. 

„I have also been thinking about kissing you,“ he added and her eyes widened. 

„You have?“ She asked and he nodded. Peach sucked her bottom lip in. 

„I have been thinking about many things. But kissing is the most innocent one,“ he said with a mischievous smile and her lips parted. 

She felt hot all of the sudden. 

„Marcus…. I have never…. I am not…..“

„Hey. It’s okay. We don’t have to do anything. I just wanted to be honest.“

„I do want to do something though,“ she whispered. 

„What do you want to do?“ He asked and she tilted her head up, looking into his eyes. 

„Kiss you,“ she whispered so quiet he wouldn’t have heard her if he hadn’t been already leaning in, lips so close to hers, he could feel her warmth. 

He smiled at her. 

„Now?“ He whispered. She nodded. 

„Now,“ she repeated. 

Marcus brushed his nose over hers, breathing her in before he slowly closed the distance between them and kissed her softly.

„What is it like in your time?“ Peach asked a couple days later. Both Marcus and her were lying under one of the Peach trees, enjoying the sunny day. She was lying with her head on Marcus’ chest, his arm wrapped securely around her, keeping her close. 

Since they had kissed for the first time, many have followed. 

She couldn’t go long without having him close, the planning of the Masquerade ball having been done with a great input of Marcus due to the fact that she just couldn’t bring herself to part from him. 

People had began to talk. Of course they did. 

Even though she was a great help and valued member of the community, there were still people whispering behind her back, calling her a mad spinster. 

Well, technically she was one. Is one. 

She had never been with a man, having been happy with her life as it was. But ever since Marcus came into her life, she began to ask herself if maybe there was a way to be even happier. 

Which brought her to her question about his time and how it was. 

She couldn’t imagine what the future was like.

But the letter she had received from her brother was concerning. He had been traveling for a while, and reported of the rise of the witch trials and the burning of witches. 

He was concerned for her and frankly, she were starting to be too.

She had noticed the whispers too, her coven spreading awareness, asking everyone to be even more cautious. 

„What do you want to know?“ Marcus asked, grabbing her hand, his fingers beginning to play with her fingers. 

Peach hummed, trying to think what exactly she wanted to know. 

„You said you worked as an… Agent?“ She asked, feeling him nod. 

„Yes. I am an FBI Agent. They are sort of a police, if I had to describe it. There are different sorts of police formed for different crimes. I work in art theft. Which means if a important piece of art, such as a painting or let’s say a bronze cat figurine get stolen, I get called to find out what happened,“ he explained. 

„Is this a dangerous kind of work?“

„Not really.“

„You did get shot though,“ she said, turning her head so she could look at him. He hummed, his finger wrapping around hers, holding her hand. 

„That was a…. Very unique situation that will never happen again,“ he said. Peach kept looking at him before she slowly nodded. 

„Where do you live?“

„At the moment in a small apartment that I pay way too much for,“ he chuckled, making her frown. 

„Rent is very expensive, but I do have my eyes on a house not to far from here actually. I looked at it a month ago and put in an offer.“

„I hope you get it,“ she said and he smiled at her. 

„Why do you ask?“

„I… might have not told you everything about the soulmate situation,“ she said and Marcus raised one of his eyebrows in question. 

„The summoned soulmate can go home, like I said. But the only time they can go home is before the thirtieth birthday of the witch who summoned them ends. If they stay beyond that day there is no going back,“ she explained. 

„The potion I brew this morning, while you were reading in the study can send you back into your time,“ she continued and Marcus squeezed her hand. 

„However the soulmates witch can also chose to go with them if she takes the potion too,“ Peach said quietly, and Marcus stilled beneath her before he sat himself up, pulling her with him. She was looking at him as he took her other hand. 

„You would go with me? Leave all of this?“ He asked, brows furrowed. 

„Would you stay here? Leave your whole life in the future that sounds like it has so many advantages compared to this time?“ She asked. 

„I would stay if it meant I could stay with you,“ he said sincerely and she found herself leaning in to kiss him softly. 

„And I would go with you if it meant I could stay with you,“ she mumbled against his lips. 

„But you don’t know what you would be getting into. I know both sides. I know what I would give up by staying here with you. Yes there are certain things, like indoor pluming I would miss, but I would have you. I could… I could grow old with you. Here. In this beautiful place. We could get married. Have children if you want them. You could teach me witchy things,“ he grinned and she giggled before her face got serious. 

„I might be in danger if I stay here. Witch trials are on the rise and my brother wrote about having heard of witch burnings on his travels. I don’t know if we could have all you dreamed of, if we stayed here,“ she mumbled. Marcus hand came to touch her cheek, his eyes focused on hers, his face serious. 

„I read about the witch trials once. I don’t think I would have a way to protect you,“ he sighed and she smiled sadly. 

„So tell me everything you could think of from your time. So I am as prepared as I could be if you would accept me to join you,“ she said.

He kissed her instead, pulling her close against his chest. 

„I would be honoured to have you with me, sweetheart,“ he whispered against her lips, before he began to tell her about his future. 

It was the night before St. Hallows eve.

Her brother had returned home earlier that day and once he had met Marcus, it seemed like he knew she was about to leave. Peach had a long talk with him after lunch, walking with him through the gardens, explaining everything. 

It would hurt her to leave her brother behind, but he told her he would be happy letting her go into a future where she could live with her soulmate, instead of having to be scared to lose her to the witch trials and their fanatics. 

It also meant he had to stop his travels, and finally settle down to take over the family business. But as he told her with a shy smile about a girl he met on his travels who was supposed to visit with her family in the following weeks, Peach felt better about leaving. 

After dinner her brother, Marcus and Peach took a nightcap, checking if everything was ready for the big ball the next day. Peach had made some costumes for the both of them, giving it to them before saying good night, retiring to her chambers. 

As she sat in the middle of her bed for what would probably the last night in her home, her century, she tried to think about what to take with her. She knew from Marcus that not everything he had on him made it to the past, to her. She could only hope that her spell book that she would put in her pocket would make it with her. 

She also had instructed her brother that, if possible, the should store some of her trinkets and things at a secure space at the local bank. She didn’t know if it would wait for two hundred years for her, but she wanted to try. 

She was about to blow out her candle to go to sleep when there was a knock on her door.

Knowing there was only one person who would seek her out so late, she called for them to enter, smiling when Marcus walked in, closing the door behind him. 

„What brings you to this side of the house on this late hour, dear sir?“ She asked teasingly. He slowly walked over to her, stopping in front of her bed. 

„I missed you,“ he just said and her heart stopped, before it beat twice the speed again. He was dressed in a long white night gown, something he was not used to, as he told her, telling her that he usually slept naked, making her flush with warmth. 

Nibbling on her bottom lip she looked up at him.

„Would you like to spend the night with me, Marcus?“ She asked. He exhaled audibly, his eyes closing. 

„That was not my intention. But I have to admit I would love to,“ he said warmly. 

„What was your intention then?“ She asked.

„A good night kiss,“ he said and she could his cheek blushing slightly. 

„I already gave you three,“ she teased and he chuckled, before he pulled back the covers of her bed, slipping under neath them. He turned to her, his face almost touching her. 

His arm came to carefully rest on her hip over the blanket. 

„I will never have enough of you, sweet love,“ he whispered and she smiled, butterflies in her belly as she closed the distance between them, kissing him softly. 

The kisses quickly turned passionate, tongues playing with each other, hands exploring each others body. It was when Marcus leg slipped between her legs and she instinctly moved her hips, her breath stuttering against his lips that he stopped. Painting for air as he rested his forehead against hers.

„We should stop,“ he whispered.

„What if I don’t want to stop?“ She whispered back and he groaned. She could feel his manhood hard against her belly and she had read just enough to know what to do to make him feel good. 

Slowly she let her hand slip underneath the blanket, her finger finding his hard length, giving it a small squeeze. He moaned her name and she had never felt so powerful.

„While I want nothing more than to fuck your little pussy,“ she gasped at hearing those words, „I would prefer we wait until we are in my time. I don’t think I could stop myself from coming inside of you and while I love the idea of babies, we should wait at least a little to work on them,“ he said and she parted her lips in a small O. 

„There are ways in the future that prevent pregnancies?“ she asked, fascinated. 

„Several,“ he nodded, before kissing her again. 

„There are however certain other ways to explore each other without going the full way,“ he continued, slowly kissing down her neck. 

„Oh?“ She asked. 

„Would you like to let me show you?“ He kissed down to her collarbone, pulling at her nightgown, looking up at her with dark eyes. 

„Yes please,“ she gasped, her eyes slipping close as his lips kissed down her body. 

The masquerade ball was in full swing once Marcus and Peach entered the hall. Him dressed completely in black, the beautiful black velvet cloak she had let made for him, fitting him perfectly. His face was hidden behind a simple black mask. Yet she knew it would be him anywhere. 

She was wearing a deep green silk dress, with a mask that matched Marcus’.

After they…. Explored each others bodies until the early morning hours, they had woken up in each others arms, spending the whole morning in bed with Marcus wishing her a happy birthday in all ways he could think of.The both had drank the potion before having breakfast, sealing their decision with a kiss before they left her chambers to help with the last preparation for the ball. 

Yet when the time came, Marcus seemed to be easily distracted from the dress she was wearing. His fingers seemingly finding their way underneath it and inside of her, making her sing his name while the whole house was already filled with guests, leaving her being late to her own ball. 

Now they were dancing.

They were laughing and she couldn’t remember ever being that happy. 

It was a quarter to midnight when they made their way outside, drinking the second part of the potion she had made, sealing it yet again with a kiss. 

Her bother was waiting with them, away from all the guests. 

They said their goodbyes, her crying a little at the thought of never seeing him again. 

„Be happy,“ he whispered, before he kissed her forehead.

Marcus and him also said their goodbyes, her brother whispering something to Marcus to which he nodded, before Marcus joined her back, taking her hand. 

„Do you know what happens next?“ Her brother asked, to which she shook her head. 

She looked at Marcus as the church bell began to ring and he kissed her with a smile. 

And then. 

They were gone.

One year later

„Careful,“ Marcus stopped Peach as she was carrying another huge pumpkin. He rushed over to her while she rolled her eyes affectionately. He took the pumpkin from her, carrying it to the house. When he came back he pulled her against him, or as much as the belly between them let him, kissing her nose. 

„You are not allowed to carry anything heavy, doctors orders,“ he reminded her and she sighed, dramatic. Looking down she felt her black cat, Lucius the second, slip by her legs before he walked outside to where Marcus had left the door open. 

„It wasn’t that heavy,“ she pouted and he sighed, kissing her pout away. 

„When is the coven coming?“ He asked. 

„In about twenty minutes,“ she mumbled, jumping in the next moment when the dishwasher began to sing its little melody to inform them it was finished. 

She still was getting used to the future.

Both Marcus and her had been more than surprised when she did not only find her trinkets and things she had asked her brother to put in the back safe, but a significant amount of money and estates in her name. 

Which is why they were now living on a small farm close to Marcus’ sister who, much to Marcus’s surprise, was a witch too. 

„So we have enough time for some…“ he kissed down her neck making her sigh. 

„You know twenty minutes is nothing enough, my love,“ she hummed making him sigh. 

„Later?“ He asked. 

„Later,“ she nodded, kissing him. They enjoyed each others embrace when they both felt a kick from her stomach, both chuckling. Marcus hand slipped onto her belly, another kick following. She put her hand on top of his, the ring he had put on her finger only last week at a small ceremony in their garden, sparkling in the light. 

Even though the future came with an overwhelming amount of new things they learned that contraceptives weren’t as reliable as Marcus thought.

Their little one was due in four months.

„I love you,“ she said and the smile he gave her was almost blinding. 

„I love you more,“ he hummed. 

„In every century?“ She asked and he chuckled. 

„In each and every one you find me,“ he smiled against her lips as he leaned down to kiss her. 

[sissylittlefeather]

Double fic day...

It Feels So Right (how can it be wrong?): Part 2

A/N: This mini series is SO FUN. Just a reminder this is the one where ghost!Elvis possesses Austin during the filming of Elvis (2022). If you need to get caught up, read Part 1 here. Enjoy this second installment!

Warnings: 18+ minors DNI, kissing, cussing, fingering, oral sex (f receiving), p in v penetrative sex, unprotected sex

Word count: ~2.5k

Elvis is nervous about how Austin will react when he finds out he used his body to go out with you, but what's done is done. And he has every intention of begging to let it happen again.

******

The next day at work, you deliver your coffees like you always do.

Elvis hasn't found a way to tell Austin what happened. Austin can tell something is going on, but he assumes it's just some weird ghost business and doesn't pry into why Elvis is acting strange.

But when you walk up to Austin, Elvis tries to catch his attention.

"Austin. Man, I-"

"Hey!" He looks at you and then looks around to make sure you're talking to him.

"Hi..."

"I brought you a coffee. You said you like two creams and two sugars, right?" Elvis puts his face in his hand. That's his coffee order. He's not even sure what Austin would want.

"Oh... umm..." You look at him and your smile falls. You thought something special happened last night, but maybe it was just another in a long line of one night stands for him.

"Anyway. Here." You hand him the coffee and then walk back to where you normally stand, waiting for someone else to tell you what to do. You take a deep breath and try to make sure you don't let the tears that are trying to gather fall down your face.

"Goddamnit." Elvis whispers under his breath. Austin turns to him.

"What the hell was that?"

"You really don't remember anything when I'm... in you... do you?"

"No. What did you do?!" Elvis sighs and tries to think of how he can explain what happened between you last night.

"Well..."

"Elvis. They're going to call for me on set soon. Start talking."

"We went out last night."

"We?!"

"Me and her. But she thinks it was you..."

"You just thought you'd borrow me for the evening?"

"Look, I'm sorry, but I really like her and it was... it was really great."

"Elvis, did you have sex with her in my body?" Elvis cringes and looks down at the floor.

"Mayyybeee..."

"Elvis! What the hell?!"

"I'm sorry! You said no and I just really like her..."

"If you'd asked again, I probably would've said yes."

"Wait? Really?"

"Yes. But you didn't ask-"

"I know. I'm sorry. I won't do it again. I promise."

"We had sex?"

"... yes..."

"It was good?"

"Austin, it was incredible. She's amazing-"

"It's my turn."

"What?"

"I'm taking her out tonight. And you stay out. I wanted to ask her out, so I'm going to." Elvis stands there speechless. This is not what he expected. He expected anger or permission to continue. But this is something totally different. He did not expect competition. Austin takes a sip of the coffee you brought him and winces.

"Two creams and two sugars, dude? Have you never heard of a latte?"

Elvis rolls his eyes and Austin turns and walks towards you.

"Hey! I'm sorry I was awkward. Thank you for the coffee. What are you doing tonight?" You look up suddenly, a bright smile on your face.

"Oh, nothing! You wanna hang out?"

"Yeah, that'd be awesome. Can I pick you up around 7?"

"Yes!" He leans forward and kisses your cheek and whispers in your ear.

"I'll see you then." He walks out to the set and you blush. You try to focus on what you're supposed to be doing but the only thing in your head is the fact that you might actually be dating Austin Butler.

What you don't see is the smirk Austin shoots to Elvis. As he passes him to get to where he's going, he whispers.

"Game on, man."

******

That night, Austin shows up at your door dressed far more casually than the night before. Also, his hair is messier and he seems more confident.

"Hey, baby. You ready?" You nod. Apparently sleeping with you was an ego boost of some kind, but you're not exactly complaining. He seems to be more at home in himself and the confidence is hot.

For your date, he first takes you to a small restaurant he's found while he's been in town. It's a hole-in-the-wall type of place, but the food is amazing. Next, he takes you for cocktails at a local bar. It's small and intimate, but upscale nonetheless. After that, you find yourself back at his place on his couch.

This date somehow feels completely opposite of the one last night, but it's not bad, it's just different. He's just as sweet and thoughtful as he was the night before. He settles onto the couch next to you and throws his arm around you.

"You wanna watch something?"

"Sure. What did you have in mind?"

"Anything you want, baby."

What you don't know about this date is that Elvis is there the whole time. He tries to stay quiet, but throughout the evening he finds himself giving tips to Austin about what you like and don't like. The competitive side of him is begging him to shut up, but he also wants to see you taken care of. Austin is doing his best to ignore him, though. He wants to earn your affection in his own right.

"Well. What's your favorite Elvis media?" You ask. Elvis laughs.

"Ha! She's still thinking about me." Austin looks at him and rolls his eyes. He wants to yell at him that she didn't know it was him, but he also doesn't want to appear crazy.

"That feels like work for me, baby. We can watch something if you want, though..."

"Oh, no! I'm sorry. I didn't even think of it that way. We can watch whatever you want."

"How about some music?"

"Yes! Even better." He stands up and walks over to a record player and starts flipping through albums.

"Most everything I have is oldies. Is that okay?" You smile. Elvis scoffs. Oldies.

"That's the music I grew up with."

"Alright then. Fleetwood Mac, Three Dog Night, America, or Elton John?"

"Oh, man. That might be the hardest question anyone's ever asked me." Austin looks at you softly. You really are something else. "America. I'm in a mood tonight."

"I love it." Austin smiles. Elvis wishes you'd asked for something a little more his style, but he respects that you like what you like. The greatest hits album plays and Austin sits down next to you on the couch again. He fidgets with your hair on your shoulder absentmindedly. You turn to face him and you feel the energy between you become charged with something. He leans in slowly and presses his lips to yours. His hand cups your cheek and he kisses you again softly. The next time he leans in, it's an open-mouth kiss and his tongue slides into your mouth passionately.

But something is different. You can't quite put your finger on what it is, but the way he's kissing you is slightly different from last night. As he kisses down your neck, you decide that maybe you're just remembering wrong. Besides, this is excellent. Why would you complain? He sucks lightly on a spot near your collarbone.

"I don't think she'll like that." Elvis is still standing next to the couch. He's trying not to watch but his curiosity gets the best of him. Austin wants to ask if he plans to stay the whole time, but he can't really do that without freaking you out.

You moan softly as Austin's hands go to your breasts and he lays you down on the couch, situating himself on top of you. He pulls your shirt off quickly and then takes his off and you're shocked that he's moving this quickly. Last night you had to practically force him to touch you and tonight he's already got you half naked. Maybe it's just because this isn't the first time you've been together. His lips are all over your body as he kisses and licks your chest.

Elvis scoffs.

"You're paying too much attention to her top. Move down." Austin is trying so hard not to hear what Elvis is saying, but it's really starting to drive him crazy.

"Give me just a second, baby." Austin stands up and walks over to the record player. As he does, he mouths to Elvis. "GO. AWAY."

"What? It's not like she can see me. Besides, it looks like you need the help." He turns the music up really loud and walks back over to the couch. You look at him a little strangely and he smiles.

"Sorry, I just... wanted it... loud..." Elvis cracks up laughing at Austin trying to cover for his weird behavior. Austin goes back to kissing you and slides your pants down and off. Elvis rolls his eyes and turns his back. He doesn't really want to watch you with another man. Austin looks at you naked on the couch and shakes his head.

"Goddamn, baby, you're gorgeous." You smile. That sounds like him. He settles between your thighs on the couch and lowers his mouth to your clit. Your back arches as he moves his tongue over and around your sensitive bud. He pushes two fingers into you and spreads them, stretching you out as he licks you. That's new, but it feels good, so you don't protest. You feel your orgasm building as he keeps working his mouth on you.

"Oh, God, Austin." You moan.

"She's about to cum. Don't stop." Elvis hollers over the music. He can tell even without looking. Austin has to use every ounce of his acting skills to keep it together and stay focused on you. But Elvis is right. Your hand goes to his hair as you shudder and pulse around his fingers, your orgasm washing over you like a curtain of intense pleasure. He pulls back and wipes his mouth with his hand.

"You want me to fuck you, baby?" That's a slightly shocking difference from last night, but it's still hot, so you nod as he drops his pants and crawls on top of you. Elvis puts his face in his palm. He's wracking his brain for a way to get Austin to stop, but he can't think of anything. Instead, he stands faced away looking up at the ceiling while Austin pushes into you and begins to fuck you steadily.

"Yes! Yes!" You cry out breathlessly and Elvis hollers again.

"She's gonna cum again." Austin is so close to his own orgasm that he finally loses control.

"GODDAMNIT ELVIS DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS?!" He pulls out and sits up, looking at Elvis, who turns around slowly.

"You were doing just fine-"

"And yet you couldn't keep your mouth shut!" You look at Austin and over in the corner where he's looking. There's nothing there.

"Austin, what the hell-"

"I can see Elvis! Okay? I see him. He's here."

"You..."

"And sometimes he possesses me and does some of the movie. Last night, he thought he would take me for a joy ride and go out with you. That was him last night. Not me." Elvis looks between you to see how you'll respond to this information.

"Austin, I know you've worked really hard to get into this role..."

"No- I mean I have- but this is not that. I swear he's right over there." He gestures to Elvis in the corner who waves awkwardly, but you can't see him. That's when you realize that you're naked and grab your shirt to cover yourself.

"Tell her I've already seen her naked. She doesn't have to cover up for me." Austin rolls his eyes.

"Elvis says he's already seen you naked."

"Oh. Wait. He's really actually here?"

"Yep."

"And he takes over your body sometimes?"

"He does."

"And that was him last night and not you?!"

"Yes."

"Prove it." Elvis and Austin answer at the same time.

"What?"

"Prove it. What did you call me last night?"

"What do you mean?"

"You called me a specific pet name all night. What was it?"

"I don't know. Honey? I know he says honey a lot."

"Nope. Wrong. Let me talk to him." Austin stands up and pulls his pants back on. Then he looks over at Elvis.

"You heard the lady. Come on." Elvis nods slowly and then jumps. He opens his eyes in Austin's body. He sits down next to you on the couch and reaches his hand out to touch your cheek. He'll never get enough of the way your skin feels.

"Hey, doll." You close your eyes and lean into his touch.

"It really is you."

"It's me. And I called you doll."

"That's why everything has been so different tonight."

"Yes, I've been trying to tell him-"

"Wait. You've been here the whole time. Were you watching us-"

"No! I swear I turned my back. You can ask Austin." You look at him suspiciously.

"Can I talk to Austin?"

"I'll have to jump out and then you won't be able to see or hear me."

"But he will. So he can tell me what you say. If he lies, just come back."

"Alright then. Can I kiss you first?" You nod and he leans in and presses his lips to yours. He kisses you softly a few times and then pulls back. Elvis pulls himself out of Austin and sits on the other side of you on the couch. Austin shakes his head and blinks.

"Do you remember what happens when he's possessing you?"

"I don't."

"That's why you were so weird about the coffee this morning."

"Yes! Also I drink a vanilla latte. Elvis drinks coffee."

"Wow." You sit for a second trying to absorb what just happened.

"So which one does she pick?" Elvis asks Austin tentatively.

"I don't know, man." He turns to you. "He wants to know which one of us you pick."

"Pick?"

"To date." Elvis nods to Austin, who nods back. "We both want to know."

"Why do I have to pick? What if I want you both?"

"You can't even see Elvis!"

"No, but I can when he possesses you. I want you both." You stand up and put your clothes on while the two men sit dumbfounded on the couch. Once you're dressed, you turn and face Austin on the couch. "Where is he?"

"He's here next to me on the couch."

"Alright then." You look where you think he is and then back at Austin. "Figure it out, boys. Make a schedule or something. But I want you both."

You lean down and kiss Austin on the cheek. Then you turn to the other side of the couch and blow a kiss to Elvis.

"I'll see you in the morning. Y'all have fun coming up with a plan for how this will work." You walk to the front door and slip out, closing it behind you.

Elvis and Austin look at each other and bust out laughing. When they stop, Austin sighs and Elvis clicks his tongue. Elvis speaks first.

"Man, she's somethin' else."

"You got that right."

"I guess we better figure it out."

"I guess so..."

******

Until Part 3

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Taglist:

@ccab @elvisfatass @elvisalltheway101 @aliypop @18lkpeters @dkayfixates @tacozebra051 @your-nanas-house @deniseinmn @joshuntildawn13 @lookingforrainbows @60svintage @littlehoneyposts @epthedream69 @louisejoy86 @rjmartin11 @from-memphis-with-love @deltafalax @atleastpleasetelephone @cinnamoroll-things @returntopresley

[magiccath]

A Mind Full of Blissful Terrors

tenth doctor x GN!reader

Summary: In which the Doctor and reader investigate a strange spaceship

CW: horror elements, body gore, and one singular f-bomb

Word count: 7.4k

A/N: many, many drafts, and too many months later, I have finally finished this one. I really hope you guys like it.

You bounced into the TARDIS control room, more than excited for your next adventure with the Doctor. He could take you to a grocery store and you would probably enjoy it. 

“Where to today?” You asked with a smile. 

“I was thinking someplace relaxing, we’ve been running for the past couple of days,” the Doctor suggested, looking at you for approval. 

“Yes please!” you groaned, tilting your head back. 

The Doctor smiled to himself, pleased at his own ability to know when you needed a break. 

“Maybe we could head to Italy for some of that pasta you love?” he suggested, leaning back against the console. 

“I would love some pasta!” you cheered, moving over to him. The Doctor smiled at you, the kind of smile that overtook his face. The corners of his eyes crinkled and his eyebrows angled slightly upwards. 

“Allons-y!” He cheered, turning back towards the console. He started messing with it, flipping switches and pressing buttons. He did it all too fast for you to make sense of it. He was about ready to lift off when it started.

The TARDIS was beeping. The kind of sound a car makes when you forget to put your seatbelt on. The only issue was, the TARDIS doesn’t have seatbelts. You didn’t know the ship as well as he did, but you did know it wasn’t a normal sound. 

You looked about in confusion before shouting his name over the incessant noise. 

He looked back at you, just as confused as you were. That didn’t bode well with you.

The ship lurched forward aggressively, sending you tumbling across the room. You crashed into the railing, the impact making you wince. The Doctor stumbled too, tripping over himself in the process and crashing to the floor. 

“What happened to Italy?” You yelled, frustrated. You had flown to Italy before, and it was never this bumpy. 

“It’s not me!” The Doctor protested, getting up from the floor where he had landed. The ship rocked again, almost sending him back down. 

“Can you stop it?” 

“I’m not quite sure,” he grumbled, rushing about pressing buttons and pulling levers, all the while trying not to fall again. Unfortunately for him, centuries of experience meant little when your ship had a mind of its own. 

You gripped the railing for dear life, squeezing your eyes shut in hopes it would just stop.

“It’s a distress signal,” he explained after a while, squinting at the screen in front of him. 

“What?” You opened your eyes. It didn’t sound like a distress signal to you.

“Someone has patched through a distress signal, there’s nothing I can do about it,” he said, clutching the computer screen in front of him. 

You let out an exasperated sigh, letting go of the railing. This wasn’t entirely unusual. The TARDIS had a habit of hijacking your trips and taking you places you didn’t really want to be. It was no surprise that your vacation was being postponed by some “distress call.”

The ship landed with its signature thump, the impact sending you stumbling again, this time into the console. You quickly regained your balance, running your hands through your hair anxiously.

You could be anywhere just about now, and the thought made you slightly uneasy. The Doctor, on the other hand, seemed more than excited for the adventure at hand. He rushed to the door, eagerly throwing them open with reckless abandon. Warily, you followed him. 

You didn’t know what to expect, but this certainly wasn’t it. 

Before you was a seemingly endless hallway. There were no windows, only large expanses of steel paneled walls. There was an incessant beeping in the distance, but you couldn’t pinpoint the sound. It was hard to see too far in front of you, the hallway was completely dark. 

The Doctor rummaged around in his coat pocket, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and a small flashlight. He handed the latter to you and started off down the hall without explanation. You had no choice but to switch the light on and run after him. 

He walked around with curiosity, his eyebrows furrowed. You walked slowly behind him taking in the ominous surroundings. He led the way with his screwdriver, scanning just about everything. He stopped every down and then to frown at the readings.

The beam of your flashlight was small, leaving you mostly in the dark. From what you could see, the hallway was a mess. Rubbish lined the floor; empty food packets, ripped fabric, and various pieces of plastic and metal. You were sure you saw a few bones, but you scuttled away anxiously before continuing.

Distracted from your own surveillance, you walked straight into the Doctor’s back. 

“Sorry,” you winced. He shook his head, unbothered by the disturbance. 

“It doesn't make sense,” he mumbled to himself, continuing down the hallway. He didn’t say it with his usual childish enthusiasm, rather, he seemed to be harboring thinly veiled anxiety.

You sulked after him, the floors creaking incessantly underneath your feet. 

You continued to scan your surroundings. The ceiling was lined with large vents, a few of which were damaged. You didn’t get a solid look, but the hissing coming from them led you to believe they were air vents. Perhaps you were on a space base? Or, a ship?

“Doctor?” you whispered, an unease spreading through you. You couldn’t explain it, but something felt off.

“This way,” he instructed, tilting his head away from the noise. He could get like this. Distracted. In the moment, whatever danger lurked around the corner was paramount to everything else. 

An uneasy feeling that you were being followed crept up on you. You picked up your pace, practically running to catch up with the Doctor. Every now and then you would cast your gaze backward, nervously searching for the presence you sensed. You could have sworn you were seeing shadows, looming forms that sulked after you. It was likely just your brain playing tricks on you, right?

You still used your light to survey the hallways behind the Doctor. For the most part, you were just encountering various forms of rubbish. That was until you stumbled across a body. You gasped, jumping back from it. Your shoes left bloody tracks from the puddles of blood surrounding the corpse.

“What is it?” The Doctor asked worriedly, by your side in an instant. You pointed at the body in front of you, your eyes unable to move away from it. 

The sight was far from pretty. The person was a member of the ship’s crew, their work suit featuring a name patch and company logo. The Doctor moved closer, examining the branding. You scanned the name tag, unsure if knowing the identity of the deceased would make it better or worse. As much as you didn’t want to look at their face, it was hard not to. It was entirely blown open, the skull in cracked fragments from the damage. The flesh on the right side of the face peeled back, blooming like a fungus. On the other side, an eyeball hung from its socket, the optic nerve stopping it from falling to the ground. 

It was the kind of grotesque death that stuck with you, that popped up in your nightmares for months after seeing it. 

“There's not anything we can do for him,” The Doctor said, his voice close to your ear. You jumped, unaware that he had moved back to your side. You shook your head, forcing yourself to look away from the dead body. 

The Doctor offered his hand to you solemnly. You took it, clutching onto it like a tether. Maybe if you squeezed his hand tight enough you could forget that there was a dead body a few meters away from you. 

You stopped looking closely at the ship after that, focusing mostly on what was directly in front of you. If you investigated, you might risk finding more horrors. The Doctor didn’t seem any more comfortable than you, but he continued his scanning and searching of the hallways. 

As you reached the end of a corridor, you stopped with a sudden gasp. The Doctor whipped his head around, terrified that you had found something gruesome again. He relaxed when he saw where your eyes were trained. 

Before you stood a beautiful expanse of space, planets, and stars floating all around. A messy watercolor of shapes and colors, all colliding to create a perfect masterpiece. You had seen some of the masters at work, even posed for a painting with Leonardo Da Vinci. The most famous paintings didn’t compare to the sight in front of you. It was stunning. No, it was more than that.

“Wow,” you breathed, marveling at the sight before you. You could see a hundred galaxies and still find them mesmerizing. You shook your head, snapping yourself out of it. 

“Spaceship then?” you deduced, looking back at the Doctor. He nodded, his eyes already trained on you. A sky full of stars, and he was looking at you. 

“Suppose we should figure out where the crew is?” you suggested, trying to be of help.

“Right,” He said, his smile fading. “Where is the crew? A ship has got to have a crew, doesn't it?” 

You nodded solemnly as you followed him. Even if he didn't seem too keen on it, he was still going to investigate. 

He mumbled to himself as he walked, trying to work it all out in his head. He did this a lot, it was his way of thinking. Sometimes, he expected you to listen, but most of the time he was just lost in his own world. 

You approached an intersection and cleared your throat, pulling his attention back to you.

To the right was a hallway like all of the ones you had walked down before. Dark, ominous, and probably housing more dead bodies. You didn’t really want to investigate and find out.

To the left was a similarly eerie hallway, but you could make out a flashing red light at the end of it. The beeping alarm appeared to be coming from that direction as well. You pointed in that direction, surmising that you should go in that direction. 

“Oh, yes, we should probably go that way,” he agreed, but he didn’t move. 

“Doctor?” You asked, looking at him with concern. You offered your hand, trying to replicate the sense of comfort and unity that he had provided for you earlier. 

He smiled, still not his usual happy smile, and took your hand gently. He didn’t squeeze like you did, but you knew he still viewed the hand-holding as a tether. 

“Dark, scary, abandoned spaceship that makes weird noises,” the Doctor recapped as the two of you moved down the hallway. 

“What could go wrong?” you winced. 

The Doctor grimaced, “Don’t say that.” 

A thick, steel door loomed in front of you, bright red lights flashing from the other side. You weren’t quite sure if you were prepared for what lay beyond it. 

Without hesitation, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver to unlock the door. It looked like he was sticking to his usual MO: act first, think later. 

Hesitantly, you slipped in the door after him. You couldn’t say that you shared the same carefree demeanor as the Time Lord.

The first thing you noticed was the windows. The front of the room was covered with thick glass. The view was still beautiful, but you weren’t looking at it. At the moment you had more pressing matters, like the spider web-like fractures that sprinkled the surface of the glass. You tried not to dwell too much on the implications that might have.

Your eyes focused on the rest of the room, darting around to look at all of the damage. Taking in the technological panels around the room, you inferred that you were currently in the central control room of the ship.  

Wires poked out of their metal containers, a few of them shooting sparks into the air around them. Something had clearly made its way through the room, tearing up anything it could find in the process. The disheveled state of your surroundings did little to quell your anxieties. 

On top of it all, the alarms on the ship were more than overwhelming. The flashing lights were blinding, a deafening alarm heightening the pain in your head. 

You moved slowly into the room, your eyes still scanning everything. The Doctor wasn’t as observant as you, shuffling through the mess of wires in a desperate frenzy. He was anxious, and that didn’t help your own anxieties. 

Behind one of the main control panels lay another dead body, this one fully decapitated. You didn’t want to actively look for the head. Whatever had happened, you were too late to do anything about it, you knew that much. That kind of damage just wasn’t something that you could fix.

The Doctor mulled about the nearby screens, trying to get them to turn on. After some brute force accompanied by the sonic, he managed to get the system to boot up. He started by turning off the alarms, a service you were more than grateful for. 

“There’s security footage…” The Doctor mumbled, moving closer to the screen in front of him. He mumbled a few more things, but you didn’t listen. He was probably just talking to himself again. 

You moved about gingerly, taking in the entirety of the room. You examined the damaged control panels while the Doctor continued his fiddling with the working screens. 

Absentmindedly, you picked up an empty box. You dropped it almost immediately, terrified by what was directly behind it.  

In front of you laid a fragment of skull, gooey bits of brain seeping out of it. A singular, unfocused eye stared back at you relentlessly from its socket. 

You looked down at your hand in horror, noticing the small amount of blood from when you handled the box. The sight left you gasping for air, your hand shaking uncontrollably. 

“Doctor,” you cried. You wanted to turn away, wanted to forget the image of it. It was like a car crash, so terrible that you wanted to look away but you just couldn’t. 

You stumbled backward, tripping on another skull fragment. Your foot landed directly on it, sending a painfully loud crack through the room. You gasped in horror, lifting your foot gingerly. The damage from your shoe cracked the damaged bone further, creating a mess of small bone fragments, blood, and what you presumed was the deceased’s brain. The sight was so painfully unnatural, you felt your stomach muscles contracting in fear. You were terrified you might throw up.

“Doctor,” you cried again, feeling tears prick the back of your eyes. 

He ignored you, something he often did when he was in the zone. It wasn’t personal, he just tended to hyperfocus.

You repeated his name, urgency forcing its way into your voice. 

“There’s nothing we can do,” he said, looking over at you sadly. He really wished there was something he could do. If he had the ability, he would save everyone that ever existed. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way.

You choked back a sob, eyes still not wanting to look away from the carnage in front of you or the gore on your hands. You knew there was nothing that could be done about the gruesome scene, but that didn’t make it any less scary. In all reality, who would feel comfortable in a room of dismembered body parts? 

The Doctor whispered your name, placing a hand on your arm gently, “Look at me.” 

You shook your head, terrified. As much as you wanted to, you couldn’t look away. Your vision was blurring, distorting the bloody mess of your hand.

“Look at me!” he snapped, grasping your shoulders and effectively pulling you back to reality. The volume of his voice scared you, but you could tell from the tone he was doing it out of love. 

“We need to get to the TARDIS. Now,” He urged. His face was clouded and sad, neither of which eased your fear.

He tried to hold your gaze, tried to get you to look away from the horrors in front of you. He hated that he couldn’t protect you from this. 

“There is something on this ship, something dangerous,” he explained. “It’s probably still here, and we need to leave. Now.”

You blinked, fighting back tears. You didn’t want to be scared. You wanted to be useful and brave. You wanted to be someone the Doctor could admire, someone he could love. Standing in fear, on the verge of tears, was hardly something he found attractive. 

A distinctly alien clicking came from the other side of the room, sending the Doctor rigid. You stared up at him, your eyes practically bulging out of your head. He swallowed harshly, his throat bobbing aggressively. Slowly, he tilted his head in the direction of the door. 

“Slowly. Quietly.” He mouthed. You nodded and followed his lead, sneaking as carefully as you could to the door. 

You didn’t dare take your eyes off of him. You didn’t want to risk laying eyes on whatever else was in the room. If your attention remained on his face, it was almost as if everything was fine. Almost as if you were somewhere safe and comfortable. 

You let the Doctor lead you to the door, his hands placed firmly on your waist. His touch served as an anchor, keeping you tied to reality. 

You were almost halfway to the exit when it hit him. He’d left his sonic screwdriver on the main control panel. 

You saw the panic flash across his face. As much as he tried to hide it from you, you always notice when he’s upset. 

“The sonic,” he mouthed. 

You nodded slowly, letting him know it was okay to let go. You knew how important the sonic was, you’d need it sooner rather than later. 

He was hesitant. The Doctor didn’t like leaving you when it was safe - he dreaded leaving you when it was dangerous.

You nodded again, hoping that your eyes did the talking for you. The two of you weren’t getting too far without the sonic, especially not on a strange spaceship with some monster alien on it. He had to go back, even if that meant leaving you. 

Reluctantly, he started to slowly back away from you. He kept his eyes trained on you for as long as he could before he had to turn away to look where he was going. He moved as quietly as he could, taking extra care to not draw attention to himself. 

Eventually, he made his way back to the console and grabbed the sonic. In the process, he managed to fumble it a bit. He froze, holding his breath in the hope that he hadn’t just revealed your location. The room was silent for a few seconds, long enough for him to think the course was clear. He let out his breath, relieved. 

The clicking resumed from the corner of the room, now closer to you than to him. You saw the recognition flash across the Doctor’s face. You started to turn towards the noise but the Doctor shook his head. You froze, not daring to move. 

You heard the windows crack further, the sound of glass breaking unnaturally loud in the silent room. The shattering made your stomach drop, your breathing labored and tense.  

“Run!” The Doctor shouted, already making his way out of the room. You were on opposite ends of the room, it made no sense for either of you to wait for the other. 

Even still, it took a second for the Doctor’s words to register. Once they did, you set off running. 

You had to get as far away as you could. The blood rushing in your ears was enough to dull the sounds around you. The only thing that mattered was getting out. 

You could hear the monster moving and hissing behind you, the sound growing closer and closer. You looked behind you, panic coursing through your body. You couldn’t see anything, and you didn’t dare stop to get a good look. You could hear thumping in the vents, maybe that’s how the alien was getting around. You stopped running, turning your attention to the vents above you. Sure enough, that was the origin of the noise. The hissing was getting louder, the proximity of danger sending you into a frenzy. 

You didn’t know what to do. You were on a strange spaceship in the middle of nowhere with a potentially deadly alien coming after you. Even worse, you were separated from the Doctor. 

You turned around in circles, raking your brain for a way out of this. The more you thought about it, the more panic you felt. It was times like this that you wished your body went into fight mode rather than flight. Maybe then you could be useful. 

You hardly had time to react before the alien had dropped down from the vents and onto you. You let out a shout before it grabbed you, the force of it knocking you out. 

-

You woke up in your bed, your head feeling heavy and groggy. The memories came back to you slowly, the ship, the alien, the dead bodies. You shuddered, looking around the room anxiously. Your eyes landed on the Doctor and you let out a sigh. 

“You’re awake,” he smiled brightly. 

You smiled back at him, feeling a warmth spread across your body. 

He moved over to you, gathering you in a tight hug. You buried your nose in his neck, inhaling his signature scent. The calming mix of linen, peppermint, and strong tea. The smell was familiar and comforting, a welcome sensation after the anxiety you had just endured.

“I was terrified, I thought I lost you and t-that thing,” you choked, stumbling over your words. It didn’t really matter, you were with the Doctor now. The steady thumping of his duel hearts provided a baseline that calmed your frantic breathing, effectively quenching your panic.

You finally pulled away from the Doctor enough to look at him. Oftentimes, you found you could learn more from the Time Lord’s eyes than his words. 

“Are you ok?” he asked, his eyes riddled with worry. 

“I’m ok,” you shook your head, “I’m ok now.” 

You really were. It was silly to think that the Doctor could fix everything, but he sure could fix a lot of things. You felt safe with him, especially when he had saved you from random spaceships and homicidal aliens.  

“Thank you for getting me out of there,” you smiled. He hugged you again, and you relished in the comfort. You could stay like this forever, wrapped up in his arms.

The next thing he did shocked you. The Doctor kissed you. 

He held your face like it was his entire world and placed his lips against yours gently. You melted into the kiss, tangling your hands in his shirt. 

You felt tears slide down your face - from relief, from joy, and just pure pleasure. Kissing the Doctor was everything that you had ever wanted and more. 

He kissed you like you were his everything, like he couldn’t get enough of you. When he pulled away he looked into your eyes adoringly, a smile creeping across his face. 

He kissed the top of your head, the feeling comforting and familiar. 

“Stay with me?” you asked, holding onto him.

“Always,” he whispered into your hair.

-

The Doctor couldn’t find you, and he was starting to worry. 

You both had seen what the alien did to people firsthand. He didn’t want you to become its next victim. It could take your mind, and even worse, it could kill you.

A race he had previously believed to be extinct that possessed the power to show you your deepest desires. Lost in self-indulgence, the creature could feed off of your energy until you were drained. The sheer force of it usually caused your head to explode. The corpse with the blown-up face in the hallway should have clued him in. He ridiculed himself for not figuring it out sooner. 

Not knowing where you were or if you were still alive was sending the Doctor into a spiral. 

He ran through the endless halls, desperately searching for you. He couldn’t hear the alien moving around, and the silence was deafening. He didn’t know if it was on the other side of the ship, well away from you, or if it was busy feasting off of your brain. 

As he turned the corner, his fears became a reality. 

You were sprawled out on the floor, your shallow breathing the only sign of life coming from you. The alien clung to you, the contact enough to establish a psychic link. 

He had to be smart about this if he wanted to keep you alive. He needed to get the alien off of you as quickly as possible and pull you out of the dream-induced state before your mind turned into mush, or worse.

He flattened his back against the wall, his breath coming out in short pants. His mind raced, scenarios playing out one after another like a series of movies. He couldn’t mess up, not if he wanted to make it out of this in one piece. Not if he wanted to save you.

He peered around the corner, looking warily in your direction. The alien only had the capacity for one victim at a time. Considering it was latched onto you, he was mostly safe. That was unless there were multiple on the ship. 

He decided it was a risk worth taking and rushed to your side. He picked up your hand, holding it gently. You were breathing, but just barely. He needed to move fast. He said your name a few times, hoping it might rouse you, even if he knew it wouldn’t. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, allowing his fingers to travel towards your head. He hated invading your mind like this, especially without your permission. It was a direct violation, but he couldn’t think of much else to do. 

He didn’t know what he had expected to see, but images of your lips on his were certainly not on the list. He dropped the connection instantly, scampering away from your limp body. 

He shook his head. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. The alien had gotten in his head. That was the only explanation. 

He held his head in his hands, trying to get rid of the residual images of the two of you. He didn’t want to think about it too much. If he did, he might find himself falling deeper into the rabbit hole. He feared it was just the alien showing his own desires. 

“It’s just a dream,” he whispered to himself, trying to get ahold. It wasn’t real. It was just what he wanted to see.

Once he had settled his mind enough, he focused on establishing a physic block. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with saving you if he was fighting the alien himself.

-

You were happy and safe in the Doctor’s arms. He was holding you against his chest, and you could hear the steady beating of his hearts. The sound was comforting and familiar. 

You couldn’t think of a single place you would rather be. The Doctor felt like home to you.

He traced circular patterns onto your back. You were sure it was circular Gallifreyan, but you were too blissful to focus on it. 

Your peace was violently ruined as you jerked up in pain. Your head was suddenly filled with screaming. The pain shot through your head, causing you to pull away from the Doctor. 

You could see the concern on his face, could see his lips moving. He was probably asking if you were okay, but you couldn’t hear it. All you could hear was the noise. 

You collapsed to the floor, squeezing your eyes shut. Panic rushed through you, pushing tears from your eyes. You felt like you were dying. Maybe you were. 

You curled into a ball, clutching your head desperately. You gripped and pulled at your hair, anything to try and end this pain. It wouldn’t go away, no matter what you did. 

You screamed, the sound gruesome and raw. You didn’t know what else to do. 

After what seemed like hours, the noise grew to a painful crescendo that drowned out even your own voice. 

As suddenly as it all started, the noise ended. The change was shocking, enough to leave you extremely light-headed. The shift from everything to nothing was more torturous than relieving. 

You sprang upright, a gasp falling from your lips. 

Your eyes darted across the room anxiously. You were back in the TARDIS, but you couldn’t remember getting there. Next to you was the shriveled corpse of some alien. You gasped and shoved yourself away from it, fear coursing through your body.

“It’s ok,” the Doctor said, holding his hand out, “you’re ok.” 

“What the fuck just happened?” You gasped, leaning away from him too. Your eyes continued darting around the room in fear. You couldn’t remember much, just running from the monstrous hissing and clicking in the vents. You figured the dead thing next to you had been chasing you, but you couldn’t remember the Doctor being there with you.

“Take a deep breath,” the Doctor urged. 

You shook your head and repeated your question, “What just happened?” with a pant. 

“That alien,” he gestured to the corpse, “had you in a trance, I helped pull you out of it,” he explained, calmly. He was looking into your eyes with worry. 

“A what?” You asked, shaking your head again. It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. 

“The alien on this ship,” he explained. You cut him off with a gasp, the horrors of the control room rushing back to you. The box, the bodies, the blood. You looked down at yourself with fear, half expecting yourself to be maimed. 

“It’s ok,” he urged again, “I got rid of it, you’re safe.” 

You shook your head, hoping it would all go away. 

“It’s gone.” 

You looked up at him with tears in your eyes. 

“It’s over.” 

A tear slid down your face. You still didn’t know why you were crying. Relief? Fear? Happiness? 

The Doctor let you, he knew it was a lot. You had almost died after all. He moved over to you, offering a hand so you could stand up. You let him pull you upright until you were standing. 

“Is there anything I can do?” He asked, brushing your tears away gently. He was so gentle with you, even in your dreams. 

“A hug would be good,” you stuttered. The Doctor didn’t waste any time pulling you into his arms. He held you tightly, like he was afraid that you would slip out of his grip. 

Your face came to rest in the crook of his neck, the feeling and smell all too familiar. The tears came faster then, harder too. You couldn’t hold them back. 

The Doctor pulled away, looking at you with concern, “what’s wrong?”

“Why couldn’t it have been real?” you sobbed, fairly certain you were incoherent like this, “why can’t you love me?” 

You wanted to take it back the minute that you said it. Once you saw the words register with the Doctor you knew it was all over. 

You wiped your tears hurriedly, stepping back from him. 

“You don’t have to answer that - I don't know why I said that,” you laughed, even though you didn’t find it funny. You were embarrassed that you had shown your cards like that. Embarrassed that you had let the Doctor know how you really felt about him. But even more, you were mad at yourself for asking such a selfish question. For wanting something simply because it felt good to you. 

“But I do,” the Doctor whispered back, confused. How could you not see that?

“Yeah, as a friend,” you said, more to the floor than to his face. You were fiddling, moving farther and farther away from him. He felt like you were drifting away, and he wanted you to come back. 

“No,” he shook his head vigorously, his floppy hair flying across his forehead. 

“It’s ok,” you mumbled, the back of your legs hitting the TARDIS console. There was nowhere else for you to back up. 

“No, really. I cannot tell you how much I care for you,” he said, he desperately wanted to reach out to you. He didn’t know how to prove this to you, to show you just how much he truly loved you. He wasn’t good at being emotionally vulnerable, that much he knew. But that didn’t change the way he felt about you.

You shook your head again. “It’s not real”. You were dreaming again, you had to be. That was the only sensible explanation for all of this.

“It is,” the Doctor pleaded. He hated that this was happening, hated seeing you in pain. 

“I can show you,” he suggested, holding out his hands. He didn’t have the words to prove it to you, but he had the memories.

“I can develop a telepathic link, I can let you into my mind. I can’t lie to you in there,” he offered. You frowned at his outstretched hands, your brain still processing his words.

“You can say no,” he added, “after what happened today I wouldn’t blame you.” 

You thought about it for a moment. You really wanted to believe the Doctor, so you nodded. 

The Doctor moved towards you gently, still giving you plenty of chances to recoil from his touch. His fingers landed feather light against your temple. His eyes fluttered closed, and you followed suit. 

It was like being pulled through space. There was no warning or preparation, just a sudden feeling of vertigo crashing in on you. 

Before you knew it you were inside the Time Lord’s mind. It felt like literally walking around his brain, digging in the creases that he never let anyone see. It wasn’t the kind of experience that you could explain to someone, even if you had wanted to. 

For the first time, you saw what you looked like from his eyes. Images of your smile flashed in front of you, the speed of it making your eyes hurt. It was weird to see yourself like this - from someone else's point of view. It was like looking at someone else entirely. 

You had only ever seen yourself in a mirror, or pictures. Your face seemed backward to you, and it took a second for it to register that it was. So this is how people see me? You thought, looking at yourself with a newfound sense of scrutiny. 

You didn’t get to dwindle on it for too long before the memories started playing. It was like a mental backlog of home videos, and you wondered how the doctor could remember this much of you. Surely he had more important things in his brain than you? 

It started in the early days, back when he had first met you. You couldn’t help but notice how young you looked. 

“I have room for one more,” the Doctor had offered, leaning against his mysterious blue box casually.

“I don’t know,” you had said, tilting your head, “that ship looks a little small.”

The Doctor grinned at you and opened the door, beckoning you inside. This was always his favorite part.

“It’s… smaller on the outside,” you gasped. The Doctor looked at you shocked, no one had ever said that to him before. The typical response was somewhere along the lines of “It’s bigger on the inside!” followed by complete shock at the defiance of the laws of space. Instead, you looked at the ship with unmistakable wonder, adoration, and curiosity. Your hands danced across the cool metal of the ship, fascinated by everything around you. You had the wonder and inquisitiveness of a child, fascinated by even the simplest of things around you. 

“It’s beautiful,” you smiled at the Doctor, the grin taking over your whole face. The Doctor couldn’t help but be amazed at you, at the wonder you had for the world around you. It was beautiful, and he couldn’t look away.

The scene faded, a new one taking its place.

In the new memory, you ran into the TARDIS control room, a giant smile plastered on your face. This memory was later, you could tell not only by your face but by the clear comfort you had with the ship. By now, you were more than comfortable calling it home.

“Doctor!” you laughed, plopping down next to him happily.

“Yes?” The Doctor asked, and you could hear the smile in his voice. 

“Guess what I found?” you asked, an eyebrow quirking upwards. You remembered this day. You had spent hours trying to figure out the organizational system in the TARDIS library. You eventually figured out that there wasn’t really one and gave up. However, in the process, you stumbled across a book. 

In the Doctor’s memory, you held up a dusty book ceremoniously. 

“A book?” he asked with a laugh. 

You shook your head, your smile unfaltering. 

“It’s your favorite book,” you laughed, shoving the book into the Doctor’s chest. 

“How do you know that?” He asked, thumbing the pages fondly. 

“You told me once,” you shrugged, a scarlet flush creeping across your face. 

“I did?” He asked, setting the book off to the side. 

“When you took me to see Jane Austen,” you explained, leaning against the console comfortably. 

“I asked what your favorite book was, and you told me it was this one,” you put your hand on top of the old hardback, fingers brushing across the worn cover. In your memory, you had been looking at the book, too scared to meet the Doctor’s eye. From his perspective, the focus was on your face. The slight smile that tugged at your lips, the way that your hair fell into your face. There was no mistaking the way that the Doctor looked at you at that moment. You had seen it a hundred times on television. You felt a heat flush to your cheeks. Not in the memory, but in the current moment. 

The Doctor’s memory moved on, the moment fleeting. 

In this scene, he was hunched over the TARDIS console. He hung his head in a way that conveyed distress, his spiky hair falling over cloudy eyes.

“You alright?” you asked, placing your hand on his shoulder gently. 

He looked over at you, almost surprised to see you. 

The Time Lord’s eyes were always so expressive, and you didn’t like what you saw in them. You couldn’t recall a time you had ever seen them this sad. There was a darkness in them, the kind that worried you. 

“I’m always alright,” he said tightly, forcing a sad smile. 

“No, no you’re not,” you said, tracing your hand down his arm. You let your fingers interlace with his, and his eyes trained themselves on the connection. 

“Why do you stay with me?” He choked, clearly fighting tears.

You frowned, confused by the question. “Why wouldn’t I?” 

“The things I’ve done…” he trailed off, lost in his own dark thoughts, “They’re unforgivable.” 

“You’re not your past,” you assured, rubbing calming circles on the back of his hand with your thumb. 

“I keep doing them. Horrible things,” he shook his head. “I’m a monster.” 

“Don’t say that,” you ridiculed. He laughed sadly, turning away from you. 

“Hey.” you guided his face back in your direction gently, your touch comforting. “You are a good man.” Your eyes darted between his, taking in anguish laden in them. 

“You’re the Doctor,” you stated with a laugh. Your hands traveled down to his chest, resting over his hearts. They thumped a steady rhythm, the beat comforting and familiar to you.

“You have the biggest hearts of anyone I know,” you said, still holding his eye. Your hands moved back up to his face, holding it gently. He closed his eyes, a single tear rolling down his freckled cheek. Your thumb swiped it away without a second thought. 

“You are so good,” you reassured. 

“I don’t deserve you,” he cried, the tears more frequent now.

“Well, you’re stuck with me,” you chuckled, the slight humor of it bringing a small smile to his face.

“Seriously,” you added. Without a word, he pulled you into his arms, hugging you tightly. 

“Thank you,” he whispered into your hair.

The scene melted away again, a new one taking its place.

“It’s your name,” the Doctor explained as you thumbed a pendant. It was small, hardly bigger than a coin. Engraved on the surface was a series of intertwining circles, a pattern you easily recognized as circular Galliyfreyan. 

“How did you?” You asked, your sentence trailing off as you looked up at him in wonder. 

“I had it specially made,” he shrugged like it meant nothing. 

“It’s beautiful,” you breathed, looking down at the necklace in adoration. There was a twinkle in your eyes that you had never picked up on before. 

“Can you put it on for me?” You asked holding the necklace out to the Doctor. He nodded meekly, taking the chain from your hands. 

His hands lingered on your skin as he fastened the chain around your neck. You could feel the electricity in his touch, the way that he didn't want to let go. 

You turned around with a smile on your face, your hand ghosting around the pendant. 

“How do I look?” You asked.

The Doctor smiled to himself, taking the moment to memorize your face. The distinct lines of your expression, the shine in your eyes, the joy on your face. All of it was captivating. You were captivating. 

“Beautiful,” he whispered, and he meant it. 

The scene moved on. You weren’t in the next one, the area unfamiliar to you. 

The Doctor was sitting in the console room, his head bowed. Donna stood above him, her arms crossed. The sight of the redhead made you sad, you missed her. You missed your best friend. 

“You’re acting like I don’t already know this?” She laughed, the sound painstakingly familiar. 

The Doctor looked up at her like a wounded puppy. 

“I’ve seen the way you look at them,” she continued, “like they’re the only person in the whole wide world that matters.” 

“That’s dramatic,” the Doctor groaned. 

“It’s true,” she glared at him. He didn’t argue. 

“Are you going to tell them?” She asked, her gaze softening. 

The Doctor shook his head, “I can’t.” 

“Why?” Donna glared. 

“Have you ever heard the saying ‘Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it than to have never had it?’?” He asked her, pain in his eyes. 

“That feels contradictory.” 

“I mean, I would rather have them as I do than not have them at all,” he explained. Donna sighed and sat next to him, looking at him sympathetically. 

“I don't think I could live without them,” he sighed, burying his head in his hands. 

The scene faded, and you were left with the Doctor’s face looking at you worriedly. You hadn’t realized you were crying until he wiped the tears from your face. 

“Are you ok?” He asked, eyebrows furrowed with concern. He hadn’t wanted to upset you further. That was the opposite of his intentions.

You smiled at him. You weren't crying from sadness, or even anxiety like before. No, these were happy tears. Happy that it was real, that the Doctor really loved you. It was everything you had ever wanted.

You threw your arms around the doctor, holding tightly onto him. 

“I love you,” you whispered into his ear. You felt it was about time you said it. 

“I love you too,” the Doctor sighed like it was a breath he had been holding in. 

“So, so much,” he shook his head, wrapping his arms around your waist. He lifted you off the ground ceremoniously, swinging you back and forth gently. 

You laughed lightly, pulling back to look at his face. 

“Say it again,” you smiled, relishing in the feeling of his words.

“I love you,” he smiled back, and you knew he meant it. 

[mirkwoodshewolf]

Fallen angel; Dean Winchester x reader

*Author's note*

Well this request was really starting to collect dust in my inbox but I finally got around to doing it so I'd like to thank @topstory21 for being so patient with me for their request and hope that you enjoy it.

Warnings: Swearing, violence (this is SPN after all), mentions of family death, some angst and fluff.

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things

@queen-paladin

@waddles03

@psychosupernatural

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels

@remussl0vers

__________________________________________________________

I awoke to find myself out in a field and the sound of mooing next to me.  I turned with a groan to see a few cows staring at me as they continued their grazing, their deep brown eyes staring deep into my very soul.  Slowly I got up feeling nothing but aches and pains in my body which I found strange.

Normally my body heals on its own pretty fast being an angel and all that but now my powers weren’t working.  Wait, how did I even get down to earth in the first place? Dean didn’t pray for me and Cas wasn’t in trouble nor was big brother Gabriel causing any trouble.

After composing myself I walked out of the field and followed the road to the nearest town where I managed to find a convenient store.  I walked in and saw on the tv above about a meteor shower the like of which these humans had never seen before.  It was then I remembered what had happened.

I—I had fallen.  And not just me but—every angel in heaven had been cast out and fallen to earth.  I tried to tap into the angel radio but I came up with nothing, not even static.  No, no, no, no this couldn’t be happening.

“Miss? Miss? Are you alright?” I turned to see a young man in his young teen years and I asked him.

“Where am I?”

“Miles City, Montana.” He answered.  “Do you uhh—need me to call someone?”

“No, no I….thank you. Forget I was here.” I then walked out of the store and felt a sudden overwhelming feeling after realizing that I had now become a fallen angel, I wasn’t in Kansas, I can’t communicate with any of my brothers and sisters, and I had no access to my powers.  “Why didn’t I accept that cellphone that Dean offered me? I just had to follow the rules. No human technology in heaven. I could’ve played off like big brother Cas but nooo.”

Okay (Y/n) just calm down and think about this.  You’ve got a location, now all you need to do is find a way to get in contact with either Dean, Sam or Cas.  Surely someone will let me use their phone for just a moment or two to make a call.  I saw a group of skater teens gathered by another convenient store and I walked up to them and asked.

“Excuse me, could I use one of your cellphones to call someone?”

“Why can’t you just use your own lady?” asked a rude boy with face acne.

“I—seemed to have misplaced it. Please it’d just be for a minute or two.”

“Sorry lady. We don’t even carry our own phones. Parents tracking us and all that shit. That’s why we just have our go-pros.” Said another boy with long brown hair.

“Your parents only worry for your safety.”

“Jesus Christ another Karen comin to tell us to what to do. Let’s get out of here.” The teens then got on their skateboards and bikes and soon left me in the dust (quite literally as they purposefully kicked up the rocks and debris nearby).

“I swear children today have no respect for anyone. And why do they keep using that term Karen?”

“The rise of social media and technology raising them and careless parents not fit to discipline them.” I jumped at the voice and saw a woman with curly blonde hair.  She appeared to be around her early to mid-40’s but she still held someone of a youthful glow about her.  Her hypnotic green eyes glared out towards the teenagers that had just left me in the dust.

“They do seem to think they’re above authority nowadays don’t they?” I vocalized my thoughts.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to intrude or anything but I had heard you were in a bit of a bind and just thought I’d offer my help.” She said turning toward me.

“I’d greatly appreciate it, thank you Miss…..”

“Agatha. Agatha Dubois.” She extended her hand out and I greatly took it as we shook hands.

“Thank you Miss DuBois, really I do appreciate it. You would not believe that I’ve been through today.”

“From what I heard about those meteor showers, I’d say it was quite an event. Some people have lost their homes due to collateral damage from the explosions that had been happening.” Oh my….I hope I didn’t cause anyone any harm when I had landed.  “If you don’t mind helping me load up some stuff into my truck, I’d be more than willing to allow you to use my telephone. Maybe even get you a nice home-cooked meal. Lord knows you look like you need it.”

Being an angel I’ve never really had the taste for food.  But now with my grace potentially gone and now feeling 100% human, I could feel the extreme hunger that was now knowing at the edges of my stomach.

“Are you sure about all that? All I’d really need is just to use a phone.”

“Ahhh don’t worry about it. Besides, my mama always taught me to help out a stranger in need.”

“Well, thank you Ms. DuBois.”

“Oh you can call me Agatha. Now c’mon, these gas tanks can get pretty heavy and you’d be a life savior if I didn’t have to make more than two trips.” I walked over towards her truck and helped her load up the gas tanks that I’ve seen be used to grills for barbecuing.  Once we were done, I got up in the passenger seat and she drove us towards her cabin out in the woods.

We unloaded her truck and after storing away the last gas tank in her shed, I wiped my forehead of the sweat that now clamped onto my brow.  Whew, who would’ve thought this is what humans feel like after every work day?

“I greatly appreciate you helping me out (Y/n).” Agatha thanked me.

“I’m glad I could help out. Now may I ask where you’re phones at?”

“Come with me to the kitchen and it’ll be right by the sink. Sometimes cell reception gets a little funky so I keep a landline just in case.” She escorted me towards her house and it was like any other home I had seen.

Decent cabin with various trinkets, knick-knacks, furniture and pictures.  Some by herself and others with what appeared to be either friends or family.  We got into the kitchen and she pointed the phone out to me.  And boy I hadn’t seen phones like that since the 1970’s.  I walked over to it, picked it up and began dialing Dean’s number but just as I started to press the last two numbers, I felt something hit the back of my neck and I was knocked out like a light.

*Dean’s POV*

Now we’ve had crazy things happen to us before, hell we started the freakin apocalypse for crying out loud. But this shit…..this was way beyond anything we’ve come across.  To be told that the trials for sealing off Hell for good was nothing but a rouse, a filthy lie.  And now hundreds maybe thousands of angels, including my girl are scattered throughout the world.

“Anything coming up yet?” I asked Sam who was on his laptop typing away.

“Nothing other than the news talking about the supposed ‘Great meteor shower of 2013’.”

“How bout Cas, heard anything from him?”

“No.” I let out a growl as I paced through the motel room. 

“I told that girl to keep the damn phone, why doesn’t she ever listen to me?”

“You can’t blame (Y/n) for this.”

“I’m not! She’s not the one who casted the angels out of heaven. And don’t go thinking I’m blaming you either, we both believed that those trials would be for the demons of Hell. If I ever see Metatron again…..”

“You won’t be able to do anything Dean.” We both jumped at the sudden voice of Cas appearing behind us.

“The hell have you been?! We’ve been calling and praying to you and you just ghost us!”

“In case you hadn’t noticed Dean, I’ve been a bit busy as of late.” Cas sneered sarcastically.

“Cas, what exactly is going on out there?” Sam asked him.

“The angel radio has been blaring nonstop of angels in a state of panic. However it’s about half the normal voices I usually hear. I fear that most of the angels that had fallen had also lost their grace. Including (Y/n).” oh fuck no! If she’s lost her grace then…..she’s practically useless out there.

Unlike most angels, she’s more of a diplomat than a soldier, hardly ever really fought unless her life depended on it.  She’s confessed that the only real wars she’s participated in was the 100 years War with Joan of Arc and some battle during the Civil war.  But she’s had her powers to use to take down any demon or monster that came at her, without it she’ll—NO!!

“Do you know where she might be?” I asked.

“I’ve tried everything in whatever power I have left since my own casting out and I’ve come up with….how you guys say, squat.” My breathing sharpened, “However, there might be someone we could see in order to find her.”

“What do you mean Cas?” I asked.

“In her secret visits down here to Earth back during the Civil war, I’m told she once connected with someone who was able to see and know all of the past and the future.”

“What you’re saying she met with a fortune teller?” asked Sam.

“No, not people who claim to know your fortunes I literally mean a deity that can see the past and the future. An oracle.” Said Cas.

“You—you serious? Like an actual oracle?”

“We’ve come across dragons before Dean, oracles don’t seem so farfetched.” Said Sam with a shrug.

“Alright well, how do we get in touch with this oracle?”

“If I recall, their last known location was deep in bayou of New Orleans.”

“Then Louisiana it is. We’re wasting time let’s go!” I ordered as the two of them followed me outside to the car and I floored it till we got to Louisiana.

We reached the city within a day and a half and managed to book a ferry ride down the bayou to where Cas would guide us.  He said the oracle lived on a small island on the bayou known as Moonscar isle.  I leaned up against the railings of the ferry staring out into the murky waters and creepy swamps.  Normally I’d be saying we’re living out an actual Scooby doo location but all my mind was thinking about was (Y/n).

“Dean.” Cas voice called out to me.  I felt his hand on my shoulder, “We’ll find her. She might not be the strongest fighter of my sisters but she is clever. If she does run into trouble, she’ll find a way out of it.”

“You better be right Cas. Cause I don’t know what I’ll do if we find her too late.” We soon reached the dock of Moonscar isle and I drove us through the bumpy roads.  I know you ain’t used to these roads Baby but I promise you, we’ll be back on the smooth road soon.

“Okay Cas did (Y/n) say anything specific on how to find this oracle’s location?” Sam questioned.

“It should be the only thing living on this island. No one has lived here since the days of the Civil War.”

“Seems easy enough.” I floored Baby a bit faster until we hit a hump which caused all of us to hit our heads on the roof.

“Dean I know you want to save (Y/n) but maybe try to go easy on the gas. At least until we hit smoother terrain.” Suggested Sam.  As we drove through the thick mist, we soon caught sight of what appeared to be torches lighting the way.  We followed the light until we came upon a small cabin.

I turned the engine off and the three of us got out of Baby and closed the doors.

“Typical, witchy and spooky. Remind me to question her friends when we find her.” I told them both before trudging through the wet mud and marshes towards the cabin.  I climbed up the ladder which lead to the cabin above and I opened the door only to be greeted by a hissing snake.  “JESUS…..”

“No Jesus Christ be ‘ere. Only the one who speaks between the realms of gods and mortals.” A female Cajun voice spoke up.  The snake retreated backward but kept its unblinking eyes on me as hand reached out and stroked it’s head.

Soon a woman in an old, and when I say old I meant like past century or two old, dress.  Long and elegant yet battered and weathered by time.  Her hair was styled in dreads and styled much like Eddie Van Halen’s hair.  But what had me unsettled was the snake-like eyes that she had.  Give me black, red, yellow, or even white eyes but not snake eyes.

“Calypso.” Cas greeted.

“Castiel.” Her wicked and rotten smile greeted.  Seriously I’ve seen vampires with better dental hygiene than this woman.  “And de Winchester brothers. Calypso ‘erd many tings about you two. Destiny and fate twists around you both like puppets on a string.” Calypso said as the snake that scared me now began wrapping itself around her neck.

“Yeah we uhh—get that a lot. Listen we’ve come to…..”

“I know what it is that you come for cher.” Calypso interrupted my brother.  “Enter but be weary of your step.” Oh yeah sure that’s comforting.  We entered inside the cabin and saw that the entire place was filled with jars, voodoo stuff, jars with the most randomness, weird, freaky and creepy stuff I had only seen be put in movies.  Snakes, bats, and rats also made their home in this cabin.  “Sit down.”

We were lead to a table that held scrolls, maps and books that would make even Bobby’s library seem like the kid’s section at the library.

“You ‘ave come to seek ma Cherie (Y/n).”

“Yeah, do you know where she is?”

“To answer such a question must be bound. For her heart may soon be in de ground.” I soon felt my chin being tilted upward as I was now forced to look up at her.  “You above the two share that bond with ma cher.” I forced my way out of her strong grip.

“I may have failed Spanish but I know what that endearment means so don’t be trying to call her any of that when she’s already spoken for.”

“Angels ave lived many lives. To stick to one partner is never just enough.” She said with me with a seductive smirk.  Okay so did she mean that she and (Y/n) once…..okay not that I don’t think it’s hot but c’mon Dean now’s really not the time to be thinking about things like that right now.

“Calypso. We’re worried about her, Cas has said she’s lost touch with angel radio. And if that’s true then that means she’s lost her grace when she fell from Heaven.”

“When de angels fell from the sky, Hell itself shook. More demons seep out now to destroy their lifelong foes. The balance between them has now shifted to Hell’s favor, and if not set straight, all will be lost.” Calypso said as she walked over towards one of her bookshelves and allowed the snake to slither down her arm and track down a rat.

As she spoke, just seeing the snake hunt down the rat and catch it before wrapping itself around it and squeezing it to death made me feel uncomfortable.

“Calypso, you and (Y/n) were close with one another. If you still care for her at all, will you help us find her?” the oracle remained silent before she said.

“I ave wha you seek, but I demand special payment before I can give this precious gift away.”

“What is it that you want?” I demanded.  A slow, wicked smirk came across her face.

*My POV*

I woke up feeling groggy and with a massive headache but I also felt my hands and feet were strapped down.  I struggled to get up but I heard Agatha’s voice.

“There’s no point in struggling.” I turned my head to see her cleaning up an angel blade.  “That there is angel blades mixed with the strongest iron melted and forged into handcuffs.”

“You know what I am?” I asked her.

“Trust me sweetheart, you’re not the first angel we came across.”

“We?” I then thought back to the photo’s I saw in her cabin.  “Your family.”

“Yeah. My husband Frank, and my two boys Nathan and Jake. My husband and I had left the hunter’s life behind in order to raise our two boys. But when word got out that the apocalypse and the end of the world was happening, well…..let’s just say the Winchester’s weren’t the only ones on the demons radar. Soon the angels started coming after us, all because we refused to be their pawns.”

“I take it that the angel that came to you was called Zachariah?”

“Yeah.” She sneered. 

“Figures. I hated that douchebag so much. Out of all my brothers, I hated him more than Lucifer and Michael combined.”

“Just because you claim that, doesn’t mean I’ll go easy on you.” She said as she stood over me and placed the angel blade right to my neck.

“Listen Agatha, even if you do kill me it won’t change anything.”

“I’m not gonna kill you. At least not yet. First you’re gonna tell me where I can find that rat bastard, and then once I’m through with him then I’ll kill you. And finally be rid of you angels.”

“I don’t think the angels will be the least of your concern these days. If any hunter out there knows all lore, then they’d know that what they witnessed wasn’t a meteor shower.”

“They were fallen angels yeah, yeah I read up more on the lore once we kept running into Zachariah and after he had killed my boys. That’s why I’ve been hunting down you angels that came here. And you dearie, make number three.”

“Who were the other two?”

“Didn’t care to ask them. But they proved useless to me in the end. But oh do I remember seeing your name in some of the lore books. The Angel of Mercy. So any angel that’s out there, you would know where they are.”

“That was before I had fallen. Now I’m as mortal as you are. I’m of no use to you Agatha. And even if you were to kill me, no angel is going to tell you where to find Zachariah.”

“Then I guess I’ll keep killing your kind until someone screams.” Gunshots suddenly fired just a few feet away from her and I heard Dean’s voice roar out.

“THE HELL YOU WILL!” we looked up to see Dean with his revolver pointed right at Agatha.

“The infamous Dean Winchester.” Agatha mocked in praise.  “Should I be honored by your presence?”

“Cut the small talk you psychotic bitch, I ain’t here to make friends.”

“From one hunter to another, I thought the job was to kill any monster that got in our way? That includes these so called ‘angels’.”

“Look, I’ll admit that most of them were douchebags with wings but the one you’ve got right there. She’s about as harmless as a kitten. So I’m only gonna say this one last time, let her go or I pump you full of lead.” It was then I saw Castiel and Sam sneaking in from the back, when I caught my brother’s eye, he pressed his finger to his lips as I withdrew his own angel blade while Sam took out his own pistol.

“Not until I get what I want. And I’ll kill anyone who gets in my way.” It was then Sam came up and grabbed Agatha in a headlock with the gun placed at her back.

“First rule you should’ve remembered. Never bring a knife to a gun fight.” Sam sneered in her ear.  Castiel then came up and freed me of my bonds and cupped my face checking me for injuries.

“Are you hurt?”

“Besides the ache in my head and the aftermath of falling from heaven, I’m fine.” I brushed his hands away from my face and stood up and walked over to Dean.  I placed my hand over his gun and gave him the look to lower his gun.  He stared at me wide eyed in anger but I gave him a harsh look which got him to obey my order.  “You misunderstood me what I had said earlier.”

“What do you mean?” Agatha snarled as she tried to struggle but Sam kept a firm hold of her.

“When I told you that no angel was going to tell you where Zachariah was. It’s because he’s no longer with us. This man here,” I gestured to Dean. “My boyfriend, he’s the one who killed Zachariah and ended his endless lies and deceit. So your vengeance is wasted.”

The harsh look in Agatha’s eyes slowly began to soften as her struggling ceased.

“He’s…..”

“Yes. He’s dead. And no one is bringing him back, but nor would killing him bring your family back. Ask yourself this Agatha, if your husband and boys could see you now, would they want this from you? To be so consumed by hatred and vengeance that you’d lose yourself to it?”

“So you’re telling me all of this was an Inigo Montoya scenario?” Dean asked incredulously.

“Not now babe.” I hushed him.  “You’ve been consumed by your hate for long enough Agatha, it’s time to let it go.” I then gave Sam a nod and he released Agatha who just fell to her knees.

“Three years felt like an eternity. Everytime I close my eyes I can still see how he did it. He snapped my youngest boys bones like twigs, I can still see his limbs all twisted and contorted. My eldest boy, he stabbed him right through the back. I still can’t get the blood off my face from it spurting out. And Fr—Frank he……” Agatha wept into her hands.

The guys’ anger soon turned to sympathy as they stared at their potential enemy they were so adamant on killing now break down in tears.  I walked over to Agatha and knelt down beside her.  I placed my hand to her head and she looked up at me, tears slipping down past her lashes.

“Know that didn’t blame you. And they’ll always be watching over you until you are all together again.” Agatha crumbled once more as she wept into the floor and I chose to walk out with the guys following behind me.

There was a moment of silence as we walked away from Agatha’s property until Sam spoke up.

“I still sometimes can’t get over how you can still find the mercy and compassion in situations (Y/n).”

“That is who my sister is Sam. As the Angel of Mercy, she knows when force is needed, or when someone needs a compassionate hand. Agatha Morrison was just a grieving wife and mother, not a monster.” Cas explained.

“Doesn’t mean I’ll forgive her for what she did to you.” Dean said to me.

“That is up to you. But if you choose to continuously live with hate in your heart Dean, that’s all your life will ever be. You already carry such a weight of regret on you already Dean. Don’t add hatred to the mix.” I said stopping him as I placed my hand over his heart.  He looked me in the eye and said.

“How is it that you always have to get the last word in whenever we argue?”

“Cause you know I’m always right. Even when I’m wrong, I’m right.”

“But now will this show you to at least carry a phone with you? Not every human is like Agatha. Be thankful she was mourning as you said she was. Next person could’ve been a John Wayne Gacey or Ted Bundy copy-cat.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“No, no thinking about it. I’ll give you one of my old burner phones. You don’t have to upgrade to a smartphone.”

“Fine, I’ll take one of the burners.”

“Thank you.” Dean then brought me into his arms and kissed the top of my head.  “I was so worried about you. And you’re sure you don’t got a concussion or something?”

“I’m fine Dean, really. But question though, how did you guys find me so quickly?”

“We called in a favor from your old…..uhh—lover.” Dean groaned out the last part.

“My old lover? Dean what are you talking about?”

“The Oracle, Calypso.” Sam said.  I bit back my laughter but it soon escaped me as Dean demanded.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh you guys are a riot! Hahahaha! Calypso and me lovers! Hahaha!”

“Again not to say there’s anything wrong, especially now with people more accepting….”

“Sam, Calypso is just a friend. Nothing more. Being the child of Eros they’re a natural minx and will flirt with just about anyone, including me. But they never take it further than that cause they know I’m straight.”

“So you—you guys weren’t ever…..”

“Dean Winchester were you jealous?” I teased with a raised brow.

“What? No! No! No I’m completely comfortable with my masculinity and won’t be like those insecure bastards that feel the need to be possessive over their girls.”

“Tink again Winchester!” a portal soon opened up to Calypso’s cabin and there stood the old minx themself holding Juju, their albino python around their neck.  “You really got dis one wound up cher! Him really thought he was de only partner you ever had.” They laughed as they stroked Juju’s head with their index and tall fingers.

“Cally you are a card.” I shook my head as I entered through the portal and stood beside them.

“You know I can never resist a good joke mon cher.” I walked through the portal followed by Sam, Cas and Dean who was still flabbergasted.

After finding a motel in New Orleans, Dean lay down on the bed while I brushed through my hair.

“So you had us be sent out while you and Calypso talked. What did she—I mean they want? I mean the way they had it made, it sounded like they wanted something else like…..you know.”

“As I told you, being the child of a God of Love and lust, they can’t help but be attracted to anyone they see. But Calypso and I have no romantic feelings for one another. They merely demanded a poker game rematch.”

“Seriously? A poker game?”

“Yep. Our last poker game I had beaten her 10 games out of 12 and got 20lbs of their weight in gold they had collected. I’m gonna play against them in three days’ time to see if they’ve improved their skill to win back the gold.”

“And that’s all they want?”

“Yes Dean, now will you let this whole thing go?” I walked over to him and lay down beside him cupping the side of his face.  “The only one meant for me is you.”

“Your damn right I am.”

“Whatever happened to ‘not being the possessive boyfriend’ and ‘completely secure about my masculinity’?”

“I swear if you ever tell Sam this, I’ll deny every word of it.”

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to say it. And like I just told you, you don’t have to worry about anything.” I leaned in and gave him a soft kiss which he soon deepened before we proceeded to make love all night long after that.

[emotionallyattachednerd]

Storm's Heat Part 2 | IDW Drift/Deadlock x f!robot reader | NSFW 18+

Word count: 4900+ ( 2400+ each scenario )

Warnings: Smut ( spike in valve, breeding kink and knotting ), some violence and attempted/mentions of non-con. NSFW 18+.

Notes: Finally, I've managed to get something done with writing. Sorry for the delay in posting anything. Was very busy over Christmas and than I caught a terrible bug that lasted weeks, and it's still lingering.

Even with the poll I still couldn't decide, so I did something with two scenarios. Am I crazy? Yeah, sure, why not? Normally the polls help but I just couldn't stop thinking about both outcomes. This is a two part story, one of each with a different scenario of events. Hope you all enjoy. 🥰

☕ Coffee

Becoming part of The Lost Light crew wasn't something you imagined yourself to be in, but you were really grateful and honoured to be offered such a position. Your job is to monitor and analyse data, simple enough for you, and you are eager to meet the crew.

Ratchet is the only one you've met before a number of times, and it's thanks to him that you got yourself on this crew. He was your first visit as you made your way towards the med bay, the only place you imagined the old medic to be lingering.

However, you managed to get yourself lost along the way down the endless halls, and as your helm was spinning you weren't paying attention and ran into someone, knocking your data pads onto the ground.

"Slag! I'm so sorry!" You hurry to gather the number of pads without looking up in your frazzled state.

"It's quite alright, it was an accident." They say before helping you gather what you dropped. The voice sounded strangely familiar, making you look at them finally.

They meet your gaze, confusion filling both his and your optics, before yours brisky widens. "Deadlock?"

He stares back at you, mute and bewildered that you're here, and calls him by his old name. He looks completely different, but you knew it was him, and his autobot badge even catches in your view.

Finally, he's able to find his voice in his startled state. "That's not my name anymore, darling. It's Drift now."

The way he called you darling makes you smile a little. It's been a while since you've last heard from him. In your last encounter you remember him as Deadlock, a decepticon you found yourself trapped within in your outpost, and decided to let yourself go and grasp into the unforgettable desire he provided.

Standing back up he offers back your data pads and you smile as you take them back. "Dead-Sorry, I mean Drift. What happened to you? You joined the autobots?"

Drift offers a tender smile. "A lot did happen, it's a very long story."

"Maybe we could catch up later?" You ask without hesitation. All you wanted was to talk with him, find out the story, if he wanted to speak about it that is.

For a moment he continues to stare before smiling more fondly. "That would be nice, of course we can. Where are you headed?"

"Medic bay, I wanted to speak with Ratchet, he's an old friend."

"Old friend? I'll need to hear that story." He smirks softly causing you to return the same. "Come, I'll walk you there."

It wasn't until much later that both you and Drift managed to find the time to meet and catch up. You were curious about his story, and just how he became an autobot. You end up meeting in his quarters just so you both had some privacy, his idea, and you sensed he had some things to say to you.

And a lot he said.

"Told you it was long. Banished Decepticon. Wreaker. Autobot. Interrogator. Public Relations Officer. And now, third in command aboard the Lost Light." Drift finishes with a light shrug as if it was all nothing.

"That's impressive. You've done and been through so much. You should be proud of yourself."

"I know, but not everything is perfect. I've done a lot of terrible things still, taken innocent lives, rained chaos as a decepticon. That's something I can never forget and I have to live with. That's what I've accepted."

"But how will you find peace then?" You ask for furrowing your optics slightly.

"Maybe I was never meant to find peace?"

"You've been given all these chances to become better, and you have. Punishing yourself won't change the past, but you can still find peace."

Drift listens and offers a soft smile. "Well, I found you again, so that might mean something?"

You can't help but blush a little. "Yeah, I believe so." He offers you more energon and you accept. It's quiet before he speaks again.

"You look well." Drift says to break the silence that lingered, and he looks as if he's nervous around you. You honestly thought it's cute.

"Thank you. You've changed a lot, but it's a good look on you."

He sits beside you on the sofa and fiddles with his servos, rolling his digits while staring at the floor, pondering over his thoughts. "I'm glad we bumped into one another. There is something I would like to say. What happened at the outpost, I'm sorry."

You furrow your optics a little. "Sorry? What do you mean?"

"I took advantage of you, it was wrong of me to do that. I've done a lot of terrible things in my life, many mistakes were made, a lot of innocent lives were taken by my servos, and that's something I'll live with forever. What I did to you, again, I'm sorry."

You continue to stare at him, still confused, and let your own thoughts ponder through your mind. "Do you seriously believe what we did was against my will?"

"Yes?" Now he sounds confused. "At least I pressured you, pushed you, didn't I?"

"I don't remember it like that." You shrug before thinking back to that moment. "I remember an autobot and a decepticon were trapped together in an outpost in the middle of a bad storm that lasted at least a month. In the moment, fractions didn't matter, and I wanted it to happen because I was so uptight about being cooped up. You showed me a pretty good time, and I never once held any regrets. Not once did I ever consider what happened was forced on me."

Drift listens as you speak, letting everything sink in through tender optics before letting out a long and quiet vent, as if relieved.

"Are you certain I didn't hurt you?"

"Not once did you hurt me. I promise." You touch his servo under your own, offering an assuring rub. "I'm...I'm glad we got to meet again, I was hoping we would cross paths."

"How so?" Drift is curious by what you mean.

You decide to not without holding back. Even if he rejects you, at least you could finally move on with him out of your thoughts, maybe. Leaning closer you meet his lips with your own and share a tender kiss.

You feel him tense, but it quickly departs, and then you feel him leaning into it, welcoming the delicate smooch. Tilting your helm you deepen it a little and coil your glossa with his own, which he softly eagerly accepts while moving his servos across your waist.

This entices you to straddle his lap and press yourself against his chassis, letting every moment of this last for as long as possible, because you didn't know if this will ever happen again or what Drift was even thinking at that moment. All that matters is he is kissing you back, and you are craving more from him.

Finally, the kiss is broken, but you remain close as you gaze into his optics, taking in the softness that swims in them. All you can do is offer a sheepish smile before speaking.

"Call me crazy, but I was hoping to find you again. You kind of left your mark, I couldn't stop thinking about you." The confession gets you all shy. "I don't know, just that...guess I like you. You might've changed your life, your name, but you're still you, and I feel drawn to you."

Drift listens, letting her words sink in before giving a tender smile, reaching up to caress her cheek plating. "It's not crazy. I'll admit, I thought about you from time to time, wondering where you were and what you were doing with yourself. I honestly didn't expect to run into you again, but I'm grateful I have."

You return with a smile, a weight lifted off your shoulders hearing him speak words you were hoping to hear. "So, what now?"

"Would you like to keep going?"

You nod, because you didn't trust your own voice to stutter through the elation growing through your system. He brings you closer and kisses you again, your servos moving behind his helm once again while deepening the kiss together.

His servos skillfully move over your hips and waist, holding you against him while his glossa coils playfully with your own, letting out soft moans together while the kiss plays on.

You decide to keep going for more and descend your servo down between you both, running your soft digits against his heated panel, earning a hitched vent from him against the kiss.

He doesn't hesitate though and retracts his panel, his semi hard spike emerging out, and there he still has his knot, making you giggle lightly.

"Well, guess not everything has changed."

Drift smirks through a light moan feeling your servo wrap around his throbbing spike. "Can I assume you missed not just me, but my spike as well?"

"Maybe." You tease, sharing another gentle kiss with him as you stroke him, right across the thick base of his knot and caressing around it with a gentle squeeze causing him to let out a stuttered vent.

"Well, I can happily say that I'm ready and eager for your lovely valve. Think you can handle that again?" Drift asks through his heated vents, waist wiggling a little against your stroking of him while you continue to pump him gently.

"I can handle it, all of you, always." You sound so confident, and you were, very much, and Drift's smile stretches more as you answer this.

Keeping your servo wrapped around him you lift your hips up to hover over his throbbing spike before sinking down, feeling him pulse through your channel, quickly meeting with his knot that settles against your valve lips. You missed him, so dearly much.

"Drift." You call him by his name, forgetting his decepticon name, gracefully wiggling your hips and grinding down on him, rubbing your node against him that creates an abnormal, yet sensual rolling moan from him. "Oh Drift...."

Your body rocks in motion against him while wrapping your servos around his neck, bringing yourself closer, and you can't help but smile through your heated moans as you hear his alluring purrs, silky sounds that swim around your audios. His servos hold securely against your waist while helping to guide you more down on him, though you were doing most of the work yourself.

His knot endlessly grinds against your valve, desperately seeking the velvet warmth that already surrounds his spike riding through you. You want it, all of him, so much, and you eagerly respond by pushing yourself down more firmly to try and get that knot in you.

Drift lets out a rowdy moan, feeling you grip all along him while attempting to bury yourself onto his knot that throbs rapidly, his spike increasing in size little by little, before he helps by pushing you more harshly down on him, and this is the help you needed before you feel his knot push past into your valve, locking you both together with his knot expanding, creating a elegant throbbing bump against your valve.

A sharp cry echoes from you feeling sudden stretch expand through your channel, every ridged pulse sending waves of electric shocks against your inner walls that boil through your frame, embracing him tightly with your face buried against his inner neck, letting out ravenous moans that join his growing purrs.

Within moments, you're rolling your waist skillfully and firmly against him, feeling his knot tugging at your valve at each grind you deliver against him. He meets with your movements in sync, harsh grunts hitting your lips before kissing him deeply and joining your glossa's together. It's you that overloads first, clamping down on him and letting out a buzzing mewl against his lips as the shocks rush through you. Then you feel him jerking against your frame before stilling, warm thick ropes of trans fluids soaking your depths while his knot expands more and prevents anything from leaving.

Resting against his chassis you let out heated vents as your fans kick in to cool yourself off. Drift doing the same while his servos wrap around your body, holding you close against him, his knot buried deep within your valve as you clench around him eagerly still. You missed feeling so stuffed by his spike and knot.

"So, would you like to go on a date?" He manages to ask and you answer through a beaming giggle.

"Yes, please. That would be nice."

Drift caresses your cheek plating and leans forward to share a kiss with you. It's so tender, gentle through your senses. "I look forward to it, darling."

It's a date.

AU where Decepticons win the war...

Its a living nightmare for all autobots. This wasn't meant to happen, least not how you imagined it would turn out, and now you find yourself a prisoner of war, captured with your group as you attempt an escape off the planet, only to fail.

Optimus Prime was offline. The decepticons have won the war. Cybertron was under Megatron's control. Autobots were spoils of war. All the worst and horrible things were happening so quickly.

Your group is led off a shuttle and shoved into a building, no one knowing what's to happen. The autobots were at the mercy of the cons.

You're trembling, lips quivering as your bound servos clench tightly to try and ease your nerves, but this doesn't help in the slightest. You're terrified about what your fate is to be, or just what might happen to you. After all, you're a femme, not a lot like you around, and that makes you stand out more.

Rough servos suddenly grab hold of you, tugging you out of your group, and you find yourself in the grasps of a decepticon who is staring at you with the most putrid smile.

"Well ain't you fine and dainty. You're coming with me, sweetspark. Me and the boys are going to have a lot of fun with you." Your optics widen as you're suddenly dragged away, the shouts and curses of the other autobots are heard but ignored. They couldn't help you.

"No, no! Please!" You plead as you try to dig your pedes into the ground to stop but fail as you're pretty much dragged across through the erupted crowds and into another rowdy building, music and cheers screaming out from it. They were celebrating, and you are their next taste of victory.

Upon entering, the catcalls and whistles cut through your audios that make you tremble more, trying to hold back your tears as the grip on your arm tugs you through into the center.

"Got us some entertainment! Let's show the auto-slut how we like to treat a femme!" The con announces before shoving you into a group, and chaos erupts.

Your screams and pleads were silent through the decepticons' own shouts and calls, each trying to grab and tug at you, before being yanked away again by another. Your helm is spinning, you're tired, and your vocals hurt, you just wanted this nightmare to end.

Things only got worse when the decepticons now start fighting over you and punches are thrown, one managing to knock the side of your helm and throwing you to the ground. Your audios start ringing from the impact as you try pushing yourself up off the floor. Escape. You needed an escape.

Another pair of servos grab you and you start struggling again, only to stop when you hear a familiar voice against your audio.

"I've got you, darling."

"Deadlock?"

"The one and only." You can feel his smirk as he lifts you into his arms and loops your cuffed servos over his helm.

You don't answer but you do act instantly by holding onto him, your saviour, as he attempts to take you away from the others that still try to grab you, though Deadlock wasn't going to let that happen. He'll tear them all apart if he must.

Grabbing his blaster he shoots one nearest to him in the shoulder, not killing them, but enough to send a message for the others.

"Get back!" Deadlock snarls at them all. "She's mine!"

Energon splattered across your face as the shots rang out but you didn't even flinch, you have much more to worry about in that moment.

Everyone knew who Deadlock was and just knew how dangerous he could be. Though the message was sent, it didn't mean they were stopping.

"You have no claim over her! She's nothing but war spoils!" The one who had dragged her here argues.

"What the fragging pit is going on?!"

A thundering voice cuts through the air and sends shivers through you, making you hold onto Deadlock more letting out a whimper as he offers quiet shushes against your audio. You peek your optics up, only to face an enormous con approaching Deadlock.

"Having fun with the spoils boss!" Another cackles which earns them some eager chants.

"Turmoil, do you really want this kind of greasy behaviour in your city? Your troops allowed rape anyone they please?" Deadlock knew his commander. As blunt and taciturn as he was, he wasn't one to approve of that kind of pointless behaviour.

"Whose brilliant idea was it to bring the femme here, to a bunch of riled up horny soldiers?!" Turmoil raised his cannon, swinging it around causing the others to duck for cover, but he wasn't interested in shooting anyone. " That's why we got brothels, to handle your needs! Stupid. The lot of you!"

That was it then. No further attempts were made to get you.

Turmoil fixes his optics on Deadlock. "Get her out of here. I don't care what you do with her." That answer is good for Deadlock, and carries you away from the scene.

It's over. You're safe.

"Thank you, thank you..." You feel yourself cry softly into his shoulder, a sickening weight is lifted off and you're now safe.

"I won't let anything happen to you."

Deadlock brings you back to his apartment, which is rather nice, and makes you wonder just how important he was. You sit on his berth, cuffs gone, and he offers you energon which you accept before he then starts to tend to a few minor injuries on you.

It's been so long since you last saw him when you were stationed at that outpost. After the storm had passed, you both parted ways, and that was it. Deep down you missed him, no matter how much you told yourself how wrong it was, you couldn't help but feel the need to see him again. Did you fall for a con? Yeah, you think you did. Now here you are, ruined again.

Seeing you again wasn't something Deadlock had expected to happen, but he was glad he came across you in your situation just in time before it could escalate. He didn't like his property touched, and made that clear when he started shooting them.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?" He asks once he's taken care of the ones he visibly saw.

"I'm alright." You whisper back, still trying to process everything. Then you feel a touch against your cheek plating and meet his optics. How could someone look so dangerous and harmless at the same time?

Deadlock is sitting beside you on the berth as he takes in your cute face he had missed, his digit gently tracing across your cheek plating while tilting his helm, as if trying to read every detail about you while you lean into his touches, before you find your voice again. "What happens now?"

"You'll remain with me." Deadlock doesn't hesitate. There's no way he can let go of you again. "Turmoil is my commander and I'm his SIC, he was given the city by Megatron. Things are still adjusting and new laws are being laid, but I'll make sure he knows you're not to be touched by anyone else."

At least Deadlock could do this to make sure you're not bothered. "What you said before, 'she's mine', what did you mean by that?"

"It means exactly that." He leans closer, his ravenous optics lingering through your own closely. "You're mine, everyone will know this, I'll take good care of you."

It should've made you feel degraded to be owned, but it doesn't. You see it as protection, a safe haven, but best of all you'll be with Deadlock. The autobots lost, there's no point in resisting, not that you wanted to towards Deadlock. In fact, you crave for this touches already. Calmly, you lean into his servo still lingering against your cheek plating and offer a delicate smile. He returns the same with an upturn smirk before closing the distance between you both and kisses you. Kissing him back you tilt your helm, deepening the kiss you both share with your glossa's coiling together. Oh, you've missed his lips, those pointed dentas, everything about him.

He's the first to break the kiss but he keeps close, letting out a satisfied purr while he nuzzles into your face, making you smile more, the most you've smiled since your capture. He speaks again. "Why don't you use the washranks? Get yourself soaked in fresh oil, and I'll help with you polish after."

"Thank you." Getting up you run your servo across his shoulder while keeping your optics on his, a light tease that makes him smirk softly again in return. In the doorway you stop and turn to face him again, noticing he was putting away the medical supplies he had used on you. "Would you like to join me?"

Deadlock meets your gaze again before giving a rather pleased smile between his sharp dentas as his amber optics glowed wildly. "I would like that, darling."

In the washranks you both settle within the fresh oil bath together as you straddle yourself within his lap. Your servos glide across his armour, digits trace across his decepticon badge, and move them back up to caress his cheek plating fondly, admiring every inch of him.

Deadlock watches you, curious and pleased to see you exploring. He knew you were a smart femme and you weren't going to cause trouble. He missed your cute face, that innocent smile, he could never forget about you after your time together at that outpost. Letting out another purr he leans his cheek plating into your servo, kissing the inside of your wrist before leaning across to claim your lips again. He tugs you closer against him by your waist while the bubbling heat grows between you both, a crave you'll both be unable to shake of. You already knew he had become your obsession, an addiction you'll never want out of your life, your knight in shining armour to love and protect you.

"Fragging pit, you're so beautiful darling, cute little femme." Deadlock murmurs through his growing hunger against your lips. "I bet you've missed me, not just me, but my knot as well. I ruined you for anyone else to satisfy you, didn't I?"

"You did." You answer honestly. It's true, and sure, you've shared the berth with a few other partners after Deadlock, but none of them ever got close just how good he made you feel.

"Good." Is his amused answer before you let out a startled gasp when you feel his servo glide across between your legs and against your panel, only for you to retract it immediately for him.

His satisfaction is visible before he pushes a digit inside, and instantly you're rocking yourself against him, moaning loudly while clenching your already soaking valve around his curling digit.

"So wet and eager." Deadlock couldn't hold back anymore. "Turn around, I want that aft nice and high for me."

Obeying his command you turn yourself and lean over the edge of the in floor basin, lifting your hips with your exposed valve in view and dripping with oil while you wiggle, teasing him as you send a lustful glance back over your shoulder.

Deadlock lets out a deep sound from his chassis, a profound growl that runs through his entire frame at the sight of you. Retracting his panel, his already throbbing spike slides out, along with his thickened knot as the whole length pulses. He lays himself across your back and takes hold of the front of your throat, tugging you back and kissing you firmly that you eagerly return, rocking your hips back against his heated spike that glides against your valve lips, ridges stimulating against your node.

He humps you, getting off the intense stimulation, before directing himself against your valve and thrusts forward firmly. A choked gasp erupts from you, feeling his pulsing thickness stretch you wildly, forgetting just how big he was. His swollen knot presses against your valve and he keeps still, savouring your clenching valve as he moans loudly against your audio.

"Oh darling, I've missed your tight valve." He growls in desire as he rolls his waist, earning a cute mewl from you. "I'm going to frag you always, claim you day and night, always ready for you. Would you like that?"

"Yes!" You let out an intense loud whimper. "Please, make me yours!"

Deadlock is overwhelmingly pleased, giggling through a grin between sharp dentas before he starts moving, grinding against your aft with his servos wrapped around your middle to hold you tightly and sets a shallow and firm pace, thrusting his spike into your depths. There's no holding back from either of you as he breeds you to his desire, rutting wilding, earning constant lascivious mewls from your vocals, his helm resting against your shoulder as his heated grunts press into your audio.

You feel his thickening spike plunging deeply through your channel over again, heated possessive grunts hitting your audio while you fall apart under him, letting him breed you as he wanted. His knot hits the outside of your valve repeatedly, grinding against your node perfectly, sending shock waves through your entire frame.

The wet sounds you hear causes you to quiver more, enjoying just how silky your valve is for him, willingly welcoming every possessive thrust he delivers. Your metal armour clangs against him over again as does the oil swish around against his excessive movements. His grip around your middle tightens as he starts to grind himself more firmly, and you know what is about to happen.

All you can do is spread your legs more for him and move back to meet his strong movements, trying to help him knot you, as this is what you both seek and become tied together.

"I'll fill you deeply with so much of my warm fluids, your chambers are flooding, and maybe we'll have a sparkling. Is that something you would like, darling, huh?" His words roll out through heated purrs.

The very thought of having his sparkling sounded perfect. "Yes, yes, please, I want that!" You'll give him as many as he wants.

"Wonderful."

That's your only warning you get as he grinds himself firmly against you harshly, followed by sharp thrusts that rock you forward and makes you squeal out while he tries to push his thick knot in. It takes a little more effort, but eventually he manages to push through your valve, tying you both together. You cry out in bliss feeling his swollen knot imbed you, spike pulsing widely and tip pressing into your chambers while he keeps thrusting, your mewls loud and eager.

Lost in the moment you lose yourself and overload hard, clenching tightly on him as you cry out in bliss. He snarls through his violent thrusts, and he uses his dentas to bite into your shoulder to lock you in place before shooting thick ropes of his warm trans fluids into your chambers and soaking through your channel. His bite only adds to the arousal, as does the growing bump over your valve where his spike and knot lock you both in place together. His movements slow, turning into slow jerks that cause you to whimper as your cooling fans kick in and rest against the edge of the basin, knowing fully well you'll both be there for a while.

You find yourself drifting in and out of stasis, with the lack of recharge you've had your systems struggled to keep you alert. At some point you end up in his berth again, cleaned and polished, resting within his safe arms as his servos ghostly graze against your back in a soothing manner. Easily, you've fallen for him, love perhaps, and you want to be with him always.

Deadlock feels pretty damn lucky to have found you again, his special cute little autobot, and he had no plans ever letting you go. One day he'll convince you to switch the symbol on your chassis, joining you to the winning team and giving you the life you deserved.

"No one else can ever have you, you're mine. Only I can provide you with a good life, and that's right at my side. Do you understand?" His words whisper into your audio, making you respond through a low hum.

"I understand."

"That's a good femme."

[xetlynn]

Seth Clearwater Imagine!-

Flustered Flirt

Warnings: None really

Requested!

“Seth’s here, Mom!” I called out as I excitedly put my shoes on. She comes out from the living room with a smirk on her face. “Alright, have fun. I better not get another call from anyone on the rez or Chief Swan like last time.” She tells me, reminding me of what happened a few weeks ago when he and I were being loud and got kicked out of a store. My face warms up. “Yes, I know.” I swung my bag onto my shoulder, exiting the house. “Love you!” My mom shouts just as I shut the door. 

I speed walk over to Seth who was on an old dirt bike he and Jacob worked on together. He hands me his helmet. I grin, taking it. “Where’s yours?” I poke him, swinging my leg over the side. “You’re more important.” He simply tells me, and my heart quickens. Ever since my mom became good friends with Billy Black and Charlie Swan I have been going to the reservation. It was quite often, it was inevitable for Seth and I to meet. 

And first glance, it was something weird. The whole world shifted to something brighter, and in Forks, that’s saying a lot. 

I learned later on that he had imprinted on me. He’s a werewolf. It was strange to take in and have to act like it was normal but Billy had explained the stories to me.

 I knew what they believed in, even if they called it myths, after the imprint thing and then actually being shown everything there was no way I couldn’t believe in it. That would make me plain stupid. 

“[Name]?” I snap out of my thoughts. “Hm?” 

“Hold on.” He snickers, “Oh, right.” I say, wrapping my arms around his upper waist, he starts the bike and it jolts forward before going smoothly. Today we are going shopping for Bella and Edward’s wedding, it’s this weekend and I realized I had nothing to wear so we decided to go today. He already had his outfit so it was really for me. 

Seth is pretty excited about it too, he didn’t expect to be invited so since he was he’s been non-stop talking about it. It’s cute. 

Once we got to the little strip mall, he patiently waits for me to get off before following after me. I take my helmet off, placing it down. He starts laughing and I look up at him confused. “Your hair,” He points, I look at the window of the store in front of us and I realized it was super messy. “I’ll help you.” He smiles sweetly, flattening down my hair, I stare up at him, and watch his face turn a little red. “And you look as beautiful as ever.” He backs away like I’m an art piece. I roll my eyes, shoving him playfully. “Was I not beautiful with messy hair?” I cross my arms and his face drops. 

“No, I mean yes- I mean- you’re always beautiful. I was just saying that-” I cut him off with laughter. “I’m messing with you.” I take his hand in mine, and we both walk into a dress store. 

“Oh, right.” He sighs outloud, I smile to myself. 

Once we go in there’s a few looks here and there. Watching the both of us as we go through all of the dresses I thought were pretty. “How about this one.” I hold up a light pink dress that stops right before the knees. He stands back, thinking about it. “It’s pretty but I think you’re pretty without the dress.” He tries to flirt, and my eyes widen at his words. I look around to see if anyone heard but no one was near us. “Seth!” I whisper, hitting his arm. “What?” He seems surprised I hit him. “You just said I look better naked!” I again whisper to him, his eyes look like they’re about to pop out of his head. “No, I meant that you’re pretty out of the dress like you’re pretty- ugh, I’m an idiot.” He hides his face in his hands and I quietly chuckle, placing the dress back before holding his wrists, pushing them away from his face forcing him to look at me. 

“You’re not an idiot you just need to work on your flirting.” I tease him, and he squeezes his eyes shut in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I mean it’s not like you aren’t pretty naked, I wouldn’t know but gosh I just made this weirder.” He groans, throwing his head back as I laugh again, I pull him into a hug. “It’s okay, Seth. I know how you are.” I let him go and then moved on to the next dress.

It was a dark purple which goes into the color palate that they gave us for what to wear. It was another short dress too.

“I think I’ll go try this one on.” I kiss his cheek, going towards the dressing rooms. 

After getting changed, I turn to face the mirror, looking at myself in the dress. I sway my hips to see how it goes out. Approving how it looks I step outside of the room, “Seth!” I call out for him, he was looking at another dress but once I got his attention he jumps and then comes over. “Need help?” 

“No, I think this is the one.” I grin, fully coming out to show him, twirling around. He stares quietly at me. “Seth? What do you think?” I take the sides into my hands as I become self-conscious of his silence. 

“You look beautiful.” He tells me, my face grows warm and I look away from him. 

“Hey, I’m serious.” He says, “As beautiful as when my hair was messy.” I joke, he scoffs. “I don’t know if you can beat that look.”

I gasp, and he laughs. “I’m kidding, you look gorgeous, [Name].” He takes my hands in his. 

“You’re cute.” I step up on my tiptoes to peck him on the lips. I then step back. “Unzip me?” I turn around. “Uh, are you- are you sure you want me to?” He nervously asks.

I look back at him. “If you’re not comfortable I can ask a worker,” I assure him and he shakes his head. “I can do it.” He puts a hand on my hip then the other one unzips my dress. Once he’s done I turn around and smile. “Thank you.” 

I go back into the dressing room and shut the door. Getting dressed back into my regular clothes. Luckily the dress wasn’t super expensive. 

Bonus!

The three werewolves phase back to their human forms, Leah and Embry laughing uncontrollably as Seth hides his face like before from embarrassment. “You unzipped her dress, it’s not like you saw anything.” Embry cackles, Leah holding herself as she tries to calm her laughter.

“Okay, I get it!” He cries out angrily at the two for teasing him. “Hey, it’s okay. She’s your first girlfriend.” Leah tries to hold in her laugh, but Seth can immediately tell. 

“I hate being a werewolf.” He steps away from the two, storming off.

[sgiandubh]

Bcac and gotraveltheworldluv are stalkers and so defensive if you doubt them. The shenanigans are getting too old and predictable. I’m not even a shipper and I think something is wrong.  it just doesn’t make sense. These fake dates are really strange. I mean it’s just not normal so it is questionable. The credibility is not there and these other bloggers are just a bunch of strange women.  I actually believe he has a relationship more with his costar then any of these fake dates it just seems so forced  and on public display. If it was real, why innuendos and why post it knowing fans will seek out? I’m not talking about relationships I mean seriously how can he have been with six women in two months and made sure that everybody knew about it. I’ve come to the conclusion he’s definitely hiding something, I’m not sure what. Even being married secretly I know you guys don’t think he’s gay, but I definitely don’t think that he is with all of these women that he claims to be.  I don’t think you’ve had any girlfriends.

Dear Hiding Something Anon,

BCAC, who? As for the other Pearl of Great Price, well... religious hypocrisy at its finest, really. I wonder what her congregation would think about her dirty, dirty little secret. Online stalking all those women, even those remotely purported to have breathed around S, surely won't get her extra brownie points, or whatever they are called, back in her red neck of the woods.

Funny you are not a shipper, but still found a way to ask yourself all the right questions. According to the Anti Gospel, you are just one step shy of apostasy 😱.

Gay, he is not. That is a lazy theory based on next to nothing, spare a questionable blogger's speculations (and the 'evidence' singlehandedly fabricated on Wikipedia, long debunked by me) and Data Lounge's almost desperate merry go round of three inconclusive pics and my dog's aunt recollections (Lola's aunt probably hails from Carmarthen and I think she has an excellent pedigree, but that's just about it). Whoever came up with this bullshit has no real knowledge of the gay world's dynamics, either and probably a very superficial, second hand exposure to it.

Speculating he fornicated with a half dozen of women in less than three months (and under public, even obsessed, scrutiny) is borderline demented. Sure, he does not need the consent of the King for such leisure activities, but come on: do they hear themselves? From me to you, Anon - I know still waters run deep, but he never stroke me as the randy devil type. I've seen way worse, including in my own backyard (and you'd give Someone your first born to babysit, without even blinking - such a mistake).

So yes, he does hide something. Once you enter this rabbit hole and provided you take a long, critical look around, you're bound to discover many interesting bits and bobs that add up and paint a credible theory.

What do I think he hides? A love story of our times, Anon. With slammed doors, pillow talk, terms of endearment and deep feelings. And yes, your assumption is correct.

And gee, thanks for your words, too. Much appreciated - why be a hypocrite?

I also strive to be informative, Anon. You can seat by my side, at the back of the bus. This is where the most fun is happening and we even have the finest Gunpowder tea, freshly brewed.

[crepes-suzette-373]

Ichiji's right eyebrow being wonky is something that I'm not too sure about, because as an artist I understand that mistakes happen when you're really tired. I very often screw up my drawings when I'm tired too. Missing details, accidentally drawing something backwards or mirrored, drawing wrong accessories on the wrong person, etc.

But there are two examples where I felt like it looks too glaringly-visible to screw up:

As an example, there has been multiple times when I draw Sanji or his bros with their eyebrow backwards, so errors do happen sometimes. But the curl actually just flat out missing like this is a bit weird.

There's other panels where you can argue that it was meant to be covered by hair, but sensei just accidentally drew the hair parting too far to the left. The two above are just too dead-on to be missed.

And my whole point of bringing this up is the above examples also happen to be incidents where Ichiji is clearly displaying intense emotions.

The child panel, for example. Ichiji has been shown to be irritated at Sanji in other scenes, but this is the only time that he got so angry he started beating up Sanji. In all other times, he just watched, and Niji and Yonji are the ones doing the beating.

See below, how the brow under the bangs seems like it's drawn in the same manner as how Sanji's one is drawn, and see how different it looks when the curly brow is properly drawn:

Ichiji just looks so intensely enraged at that moment, it feels like there has to be something else that is wrong here.

I left that first one as the raw, because what he says (生意気) in this context seems to be better translated as "How impudent/how insolent". Why is he this angry about being hit? Why is he so angry that Sanji is "different"? Why say "don't touch me"? That punch was obviously weak and did nothing.

Judge was just unimpressed when Sanji tried to fight him, so what is Ichiji so angry about?

(incidentally, this is probably why a few people got concerned when Sanji called Vegapunk "insolent man")

As of now, we don't know what's happening yet, but you don't see this level of reaction from Niji and Yonji.

I have previously wondered if Ichiji's modifications are actually also "messed up", and that the eyebrow being weird might be indicative of that.

There were also panels where it seems like he's having emotional moments, like the adult Ichiji panel I highlighted on top (details and explanation in this post). If the weird eyebrow is explicitly happening during the emotional outbursts... that sort of makes him Sanji's reverse, which possibly implies that when Sanji's brows flip, it also looks like this:

There's also other lore analysis/theory I have that really points to Ichiji and Sanji being mirrors/opposite counterparts, which I probably might write up later, and if all of that is true, I don't know yet what sensei's intention for it is.

There's one additional scene where you might be able to argue the curl is also missing, but this one is not as glaringly strange as the first two:

If that was actually not a mistake, it's another point to the "display of emotion" argument.

It's less obvious in English, but in Japanese, he was using a rather unusually rough speech in this very specific panel. There's not enough dialogue to be truly certain that this is out of the ordinary, but again, if this is actually something that's not normal and the eyebrow is actually also weird... well, we have questions to be asked.

[elizabethwritesmen]

The Devil Wears Lace

chapter 5 : July 4, 2023

pairing: simon “ghost” riley x reader

summary: it’s 4th of july and your favorite soldier shows up at the firework show. you spend a little time with him and get a little drunk, resulting in some bad decision. everything is ok though, as long as he’s there with you.

warnings: 18+ for eventual smut, pining, no use of y/n, reader is almost forced into a pool, angry simon, possessive simon, fireworks, someone flirts with reader, i think that’s all but let me know if i missed anything!

series masterlist

July 4, 2023

A year had passed since my kidnapping.

It was surreal, really. I liked to brush off the experience like it had been nothing but it took a week in the hospital to detox me from all the drugs those guys had pumped in me and two months for my leg to completely heal. It wasn’t the kind of thing you just… forget about. The trauma was gone, though, mostly, but what was left creeped in once I realized it was the anniversary of it.

And then the worst thought crept in. What if they came back? One failed attempt so they try again?

I shrugged off those thoughts, returning to my outfit search. I’d tried on a million options, and upon seeing them on me, decided they were awful and should burn. Because of this what can only be described as character flaw, most of my clothes were strewn across my bed and floor haphazardly after being ripped violently and angrily from my body. I sighed, accepting defeat, and found my safe choice. A cream colored American flag sweater, just thin enough to wear on the beach, and a pair of light wash daisy dukes with rips and exposed pockets. I yanked on my birk style sandals and called it a day.

I rushed out the door with my hair pulled messily into a white claw clip and my makeup done in a rush, mascara just barely smeared and a thin layer of lip balm. I jumped into my car, speeding to the beach where the firework show was to be held.

Normally, I would’ve had to work, but Sabrina’s husband’s family just happened to be the owners of the bar and he decided to close for the night so everybody could enjoy the holiday. This was mostly due to pestering from Sab and I, but that was fine, considering we got what we wanted in the end.

Once I got there, I parked right beside her husband, Dylan’s truck. Once they saw me, they climbed out and we all walked to find a spot together.

“There are a lot of people here already,” I commented as we found a free space at the end of the pier, right in front of the water.

“Probably trying to get good spots like the one we just got,” Sabrina wiggled her eyebrows.

“You know who might be coming?” Dylan asked me with a smirk that made me nervous. I stood, waiting for him to tell me, and he bit, “Connor.”

Connor worked with me when I first started at the bar, but he’d quit after a few months to take a job offer in another city. He was nice, adorable and likable. He was never immune to my charms but he was much more respectful than any of the other men I used them on. We’d hung out and, well, made out a few times before he moved away. I never really cared about him or anything, so his leaving was fine with me, but I did miss having a man around that wasn’t creepy or strange or icky in the slightest. Of course, now I had Ghost, but was he really around? Not much. So what harm could flirting with Connor for the evening do?

“You invited him?” I asked, brows furrowed, “I knew you guys were friends but I didn’t realize you kept in touch.”

“Yeah, he has plans with his family today and came here for them, but he said he’ll probably be done early and head here.”

“Interesting,” Sabrina grinned, “Sounds like a good chance for you to get laid.”

I threw my water bottle at her, “Not everything is about sex, Sab!”

“Well it sure hasn’t been for you lately.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I raised an eyebrow at her.

“You’ve been stuck on Ghost for a year, flirting around with him and waiting for him like an army wife or something. And in that time, have you had sex or even done anything with anyone at all?” I cast my eyes downward, the truth in her words hitting me like ice water. “Exactly. I’m just saying, you need to get out of this rut or you’re gonna be hung up on a man you’ll never have for the rest of your life.”

Sabrina was always one for tough love. She never lied, and she only ever said exactly what she thought a person needed to hear.

“You know, I never really slept around even before I met Ghost,” My contradiction was weak against her words.

“I know. But I also know that’s the only thing that might get him off your mind and turn you back into a man’s worst nightmare.”

“Fine. You’re right. Hopefully Connor will stop by.”

“Atta girl!” She grinned, high fiving me with both hands as we settled into the chairs Dylan had carried out for us.

“Not to, uh, ruin this moment for you ladies or anything, but who is Ghost?” Dylan asked, seeming thoroughly confused.

“The guy I told you about, that always wears the mask. The one who saved her last year.”

“Oh!” recognition flashed on his face, “Somehow I’ve missed him every time he’s been here.”

“Well then you’ve also missed the googly eyes she makes at him.”

“I’m sitting right here!” I huffed, crossing my arms.

We hung out there for a couple hours, chatting and drinking a little more than we really needed to. I was nice and buzzed by the time night fell, and I looked around, surveying all the people there.

What I wasn’t expecting to see was Ghost and his three buddies a little ways away from us. They hadn’t noticed me yet, and I didn’t know whether that was a blessing or a curse. Did I have it in me to ignore him and just have a good night with my friends?

Of course I didn’t.

“Sabrina!” I hissed, smacking her on the arm until she paid attention to me. When she finally looked up from whatever she was doing on her phone, I gestured aggressively with my head to the guys in question.

“Fuck, who’d have thought? You gonna go say hi?”

“I don’t know, they haven’t seen me yet. It would be weird for me to just-“

“They see you now,” she raised a brow and gave them a slight finger wave, and I turned to see that they were, in fact, looking at me. Even him.

“Do you think they even want me to walk over there?” I asked.

“Of course they do, stupid, those boys are wrapped around your finger. Go!”

“No,” I sighed, “If he wants to talk to me badly enough he’ll come over here.”

“You and your dumbass hoe rules,” she rolled her eyes at me.

“They’re not dumb and I’m not a hoe!”

“Wait,” Dylan furrowed his brows, “That’s the man? The myth? The legend?” I nodded, giggling. “He’s fucking huge!”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Hell no, I’m guy crushing. Now I don’t resent Sabrina for telling me he’s hot.”

“You told your husband you think Ghost is hot?” I snorted at her, and she shrugged.

“He told me he thinks Angelina Jolie is hot. It was only fair.”

“So you guys just… share your gay crushes with each other? Any more you want to tell me about?”

“Well we’ve both agreed we’d have a threesome but only with you-“ Sabrina didn’t finish her statement, but I heard enough and reached my hand up to shut her up.

“I want to forget you told me that.”

“Fuck,” she gasped, “He’s coming over.”

“Really?” my tone was pathetic, too excited for my own good.

“You were right, I was wrong. Your hoe rules are not dumb!”

Before I could respond, he cleared his throat from behind me. I turned slowly, feeling his presence before I even saw him.

“Hey,” I grinned, and almost looked like he did too, under the mask.

“Wasn’t expecting to see you here,” he said, his voice the same rough melody as always.

“Well… I live here, and basically the entire town showed up, so..”

“That’s true.”

“What’s more weird is you being here. Considering this is a day to celebrate the US ditching England and you’re English.”

He shrugged, “I like American Independence Day. It’s interesting.”

“Interesting how?”

“Right now, the interesting part is you.”

I fought off the butterflies. Really and truly, I did, with everything I had in me.

“If you just came over here to flatter me, you can go ahead and go back to your friends,” I smirked, eyes narrow.

“Actually I came over to see if you’d wanna come say hi to them.”

“Awwww, so they sent you over here? And I thought you came over because you like me.”

Sabrina and Dylan had amused expressions on their faces, but neither said a word as they watched the exchange.

“They were just gonna wave you over but I told them I wanted to come ask you. Does that answer satisfy you?”

“I’m never satisfied,” I clicked my tongue, but I stood from my seat anyway, lightly grabbing his arm and letting him lead me away. “Be right back!” I called as I left, and my two friends waved goodbye to me, laughing.

“There she is!” Soap cheered as I approached, and a grin broke out over my face. “We started to think you didn’t wanna talk to us!”

“Was just waiting for Lieutenant Dan over here to notice me is all,” I hummed jokingly, getting on my tiptoes to pat Ghost on the head.

“Lieutenant… Dan?” he furrowed his brows, staring down at me, confused as ever.

“You’ve never seen Forrest Gump?” I practically shouted, mouth hanging open stupidly, and he shook his head. “That’s it, you guys are coming over to my place one of these days and we’re gonna watch it.”

“Fine with us,” Gaz shrugged, taking a sip of the drink in his hand.

Ghost still looked apprehensive and confused, so I told him in the sweetest voice I could manage, “Lieutenant Dan is super cool. I had a little crush on him the first time I watched the movie.” At that, his features relaxed, but they tensed again when the boys around us whistled.

“I think she’s got a little crush on you, Ghost,” Price laughed, and Ghost glared but I just giggled.

“I never said I didn’t,” I shrugged with a wink and the whistles got worse. “But I never said I did, either.”

We caught up, they told me as much as they could about what they had been up to but it wasn’t a lot at all. I noticed the more I saw them, the comfier they got speaking to me.

Then, I noticed Connor walking up the pier out of the corner of my eye, his own eyes already on me. A bright smile lit up his face and he picked up his pace to get to my side.

“Connor!” I squeaked as he pulled me into a huge hug, spinning me around in a circle and then waiting an extra second to let me go.

“Hey, sweet cheeks,” he winked, “You look good.”

“I look the same,” I scoffed.

“I know,” his voice was coy and I rolled my eyes, stepping back to put a tiny bit of distance between us, hyper aware of Ghost’s eyes burning into me.

“I can’t believe you made it,” I spoke, more tense than I normally would’ve been but I don’t think anyone picked up on it. I felt so awkward. I’d started the day with the intention of flirting with him, and doing anything I could to make him want me, and now I was a puddle for another man I didn’t even expect to see.

“Of course I made it,” he said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, “You’re here. I’d never miss a chance to see you while I’m in town.”

“I seem to have that affect on men,” I snorted, sparing a glance to Ghost and instantly regretting it. His eyes were hot, and they just about set me on fire, making my whole body feel tense and preyed upon.

“You always have,” Connor looked me up and down then, clearly liking what he saw, “Where are the lovebirds?”

“Over there,” I pointed to the end of the pier and he nodded.

“You gonna come join us anytime soon?” he asked.

“If you stay on your best behavior, I’ll consider it,” I smirked and he laughed all the way down to Dylan and Sabrina.

“You two seemed familiar,” Soap hummed, tone playful but eyes wary.

“He used to work with me but he moved away. This is the first time I’ve seen him in a couple years or so.”

“Guess time didn’t make him like you any less.”

I laughed, shaking my head. “Why don’t you guys come down to the end, with us? The view is better, and I don’t wanna leave you but I can’t ditch them.”

“Fine by me,” Price shrugged, and the others agreed. Ghost didn’t want to, but they talked him into it, saying it was either hang out with me or stand there alone.

“Finally decided we were worth your time?” Sabrina jabbed as we approached, and I rolled my eyes.

“You’re always worth my time, baby girl,” I leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead, “I was just having a chat.”

“Get a room, you two,” Dylan joked at our girly display of affection.

“Can’t, you married her before I had the chance,” I pouted, and they both laughed. I was straight as they come, but I still liked to joke about being gay for her. She was my best friend. What girl doesn’t do that?

“If anyone is getting a room with this one, it’s gonna be me,” Connor leaned around me to kiss me on the cheek and I all but cringed, shying away from him.

“‘This one’ isn’t getting a room at all, so don’t go getting your hopes up,” I was stern, but tried to be nice and protect the peace. I’d expected him to flirt with me. It’s not his fault I have a very angry looking Ghost watching over me and making me feel dizzy with need, my tummy a little sick from all the butterflies in there flying against my rib cage.

“See your mouth hasn’t changed much,” he just laughed, turning back to the side of the pier and leaning on the railing.

I approached Ghost, opting to root myself by him instead of by Connor. I wanted him to know that he was the one I’d rather have. It was silly, really, I shouldn’t have cared, but I did. I wouldn’t risk doing anything that would make him not want to see me again. I needed him to want to see me again.

This action didn’t go unnoticed by everyone else, their eyebrows raised but they stayed silent. Ghost just grabbed my arm and pulled me half an inch closer, satisfied with my choice, and I half smiled.

“Hey hot stuff,” Sabrina began speaking to me, “After the fireworks we’re going back to mine and hanging out by the pool. You down?”

“Are we all invited?” I gestured to the four men beside me and she nodded.

“Of course! I wouldn’t leave anyone out,” her tone of voice was the same as all the times she joked about Ghost and I.

“Then yeah, that sounds good. You guys wanna come?”

“I’d rather hang out there than some crowded bar,” Gaz shrugged, and the others nodded. Once again, all except Ghost.

“Come on, Ghosty, you’re not gonna let me go all alone are you?” I spoke, only loud enough for him to hear.

“You’ll have Connor with you.” He spat the name out like it disgusted him.

“I don’t want him with me. I want you. Besides, all your boys are coming. Please?” That one word did him in, his eyes meeting mine in a heated gaze.

“I’ll come.”

I smiled victoriously as we all settled in to watch the fireworks that were about to start. He placed his hand on the small of my back and lead me to the edge so I’d have a better view, which was shockingly sweet for the gruff man.

An hour or so later, we were all doing our thing by Dylan and Sabrina’s pool. I was laying in a lawn chair, drink in hand, on the border between tipsy and drunk, a giggling mess. At some point, everyone became comfortable with each other. Or at least, everyone but Ghost. He sat right beside me in the other lawn chair, watching over me carefully.

“You’re weird,” I hummed out, reaching out to tap him.

“You’re drunk,” he countered.

“That’s why you’re watching me so close? Cause I’m drunk?”

He cast his eyes downward, “Guess so.”

I let out a laugh, the embarrassing kind that I would inevitably regret the next day, attempting to stand up but wobbling on my legs. I just about fell but he steadied me.

“I’m gonna go get another, you want anything, silly little Ghost?” the sentence came out a slurred string of words, but he understood.

“No thank you, love,” he sounded kind, like he thought it was nice I asked, “Are you sure you need another?”

“One more won’t hurt me,” I shrugged, turning away to stumble over to the cooler and pull out yet another bottle. I found my way back beside him and plopped back down.

I couldn’t manage to get the cap off, and it was making me increasingly angry. Finally, Ghost grabbed it from me with a chuckle and took it off for me.

“So sexy when you do stuff for me,” I hummed, taking it from him and taking a long sip.

“That needs to be your last one,” he ordered and I giggled again.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“If you’d make the right choice on your own, I wouldn’t have to.”

I rolled my eyes, throwing the bottle back again. When I put it back down, Connor was in my line of sight, chuckling about something with Sabrina.

“Hey sweet cheeks, I got a real question for you,” he smirked at me, and I groaned.

“Oh God help me, what is it?”

“Will you jump in the pool with me like old times?” he implored, voice hopeful and I snorted.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Come on, you love bad ideas. You always have. Every time we’ve been here, we’ve jumped in the pool, don’t let this be the first time we don’t!” I still looked hesitant, and I was hesitant. I didn’t want to do it. Especially not with Simon right there, watching my every move, looking for any reason not to want anything to do with me. “Unless you’re scared?” Connor kept going. “You weren’t scared of anything when I knew you. Guess you’ve changed.”

His voice was a challenge and I knew it was a trap, but I fell right into it, indignantly arguing, “I am not scared.”

“Prove it, then. Strip.”

We got locked in a stare down before I huffed, standing from my seat, still wobbly but my determination giving me a boost. Simon helped steady me once again, still looking at me, assessing the situation.

“Fine,” I shrugged as I yanked my sweater over my head then unbuttoned my shorts and pulled them down, leaving a trail of clothes on my way to the pool. Once I got there, all I had on was my lace bra and underwear, cute and purple. I didn’t even think before going for it, jumping haphazardly into the deep end, the rush of water hitting me like a train. I felt it shift around me and knew he’d jumped in right after me as I fought to get to the surface.

I finally broke through, and took a deep breath in, laughing the loudest I had all night. Sabrina and Dylan cheered for us, mumbling on about how familiar it was to see us in their pool. I risked a glance at Ghost. He was expressionless. Well, from what I could tell.

I made my way to the side of the pool, crossing my arms there and laying my head on them.

“You’re staring,” I hummed.

“You look fucked out. You need to go fix your makeup.”

I blushed, and I knew he saw it because his eyes perked up.

“Help me out, then,” I pleaded, reaching one hand out towards him and he stared at it for a moment before making his way towards me and grabbing it. He used it to tug me up while simultaneously wrapping his other arm around my middle and pulling me out.

“You’re not gonna swim with me?” Connor pouted from the pool, and I shrugged.

“I proved my point. Swim alone.”

Ghost’s glare shut him up after that, and we headed inside to the bathroom. He left the door open behind us but we still had a sense of privacy that had never been there before.

“Here,” he sighed, opening the bag of makeup wipes that Sab had on the counter and retrieving one then using it to wipe my face. “You feel good about what you just did?”

“Well I don’t feel bad about it, if that’s what you’re asking.” He grunted. “Everyone enjoyed it but you, Ghost.”

“Yeah because everyone out there wanted to see you half naked.”

“What, you didn’t? You don’t like what you see or something?”

“I didn’t say that,” his voice was deadly, as if he was chastising me. “That wasn’t smart. You’re drunk.”

“And you’re jealous.”

“I’m telling you that you made a dangerous decision and you’re accusing me of being jealous?”

“It wasn’t dangerous, first of all. I’ve done worse than that while I was drinking. And second of all, yeah. You’re jealous. You can admit it.” He stayed quiet, finishing up my face and going to walk out but I grabbed his wrist, tugging him back. “I’ve been rejecting him in the nicest way possible all night long.”

“Why?”

“Because I was scared if I didn’t, you’d decide I wasn’t worth coming back for again.”

“You can do what you want, it’s none of my business.”

“I know.”

“You can flirt back. You can damn near fuck him right in front of me and I’ll still seek you out the next time I’m here. You don’t have to worry one bit about that.”

“Is that a promise?” I asked, and he nodded, hand cupping my cheek. “I don’t wanna flirt with him. It’s pathetic is what it is. He came here tonight for me, thinking he was gonna get in these little lace panties, and the second I saw you he was an afterthought.”

His gaze was hotter than it ever had been, pupils a little wider when I risked those words. His voice was husky, going straight through me, “How rude of you.”

“You like me pathetic, huh? You like that I’m a little desperate?”

“You’re not desperate,” he chuckled.

“I am for you.”

He groaned, his masked face falling into the crook of my neck as his hands ghosted over my hips.

“Come on, let’s get back out there,” he pulled himself away and walked out, and I made no attempt to stop him that time, still trying to catch my breath.

A moment later I managed to compose myself, and I followed outside, laying back in my lawn chair. I was still a bit wet so I didn’t bother putting my clothes back on yet, but I was shivering slightly from the cold.

“Took you long enough,” Ghost mumbled from beside me and I rolled my eyes at him, leaning even further back, my eyes shutting. All the alcohol was getting to me, making me a little sleepy.

“You’re going to sleep?” The voice was Connor’s, and it was close. Before I could even respond, I was being picked up and held tightly in arms that didn’t feel like Ghost’s. My eyes shot open to see Connor carrying me towards the water.

“What’re you doing?” I asked loudly, squirming to get away. He just chuckled, clutching me tighter.

“Waking you up,” his voice was breathless as he laughed and I started struggling harder against him.

“Let me go! Please, let me go, fuck, God-!” I was full on wrestling him now to get away, not wanting to go back in the water. Thinking how wrong it was for him to throw me in there. He always used to do stuff like that when he’d lived close, and I hadn’t minded then, but I was drunk and it was late and-

My thoughts cut off there as he was yanked back from the edge by his shoulder.

“She said she wanted to be let go.” Ghost was standing there, looking as angry as ever.

“Chill, dude, this is our thing. We’ve always done stuff like this together, she’s fine,” Connor huffed incredulously.

“Does she look fine to you?”

They looked down at me, my lip trembling, fully uncomfortable in Connor’s arms.

“Connor, please put me down,” I tried one last time, “I don’t wanna be thrown in the water. I’m cold and drunk and-“

“Give her to me.” Ghost’s tone was not a playing one, sending shivers even down my spine and I could not imagine how Connor wasn’t cracking under that pressure. “Now.”

Connor sighed, nodding, setting me down next to Ghost who pulled me close into his chest, hand stroking my wet hair and wiping my cheeks where I hadn’t realized tears were falling.

“I’m sorry,” Connor looked at me and it sounded like he really meant it. “I just - we used to do shit like this all the time. I didn’t think you would care.”

“It’s ok,” I sniffled, snuggling closer into the broad expanse of man I was leaning against, soaking up the warmth for all it was worth.

“I’m gonna take her home, I think she’s had enough for one night.” I nodded as Ghost spoke, his arms even tighter than they’d been to begin with. “Get your clothes, come on,” he whispered into my hair and I did as asked, grabbing my shirt and shorts and slipping my shoes on. I gave Connor a quick goodbye hug and waved goodbye to the rest of my friends and his, who opted to stay for a while longer. They said they’d come pick Ghost up from wherever he needed, and he nodded as we left for the night.

He opened the passenger side door of my car for me and helped me in, frowning as I shivered against the biting night air. “Put your clothes on, sweetheart,” he suggested and I shook my head.

“Don’t feel - hiccup - like it,” my voice was practically a whine and he nodded, walking over to the driver’s side. On his way, be noticed a blanket in the back seat, and when he was situated in the car, he grabbed it and placed it over me. I cuddled into it, appreciating the gesture.

“Are you okay?” he asked me, as serious as I’d ever seen him.

“‘m fine,” my voice was weak, and I didn’t really understand why I was so upset. I’d been thrown into the water before. I never enjoyed it, but it never made me cry.

“Yeah? Doesn’t seem like it.”

“I don’t know why I’m so bothered,” I shrugged, “Guess with everything that’s happened to me I just felt scared. I don’t like… I don’t like feeling like I can’t get away from someone. Not if I don’t trust them.”

“You said you’ve known him for a long time, you don’t trust him?”

“Not like -“ I paused, wondering if I should say the next part, “Not like I trust you.”

He chuckled darkly, hand falling down to my stretched out knee and rubbing.

“You don’t know me at all,” he pointed out.

“I know you a little better than you think,” I huffed, “You’ve saved me three times now. You wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

He clicked his tongue, turning the car on and pulling away, following my directions to my house. He was gentle with me the entire time until my tears stopped and I was half asleep in the seat, head slumped and eyes hazy.

He pulled in the driveway, slipping out of the car and picking me up, leaving the blanket and my clothes behind.

Once we got to the door, he took one arm off of me just long enough to unlock it with my key and walked me inside, barely caring to get a look at the place at all as he walked to the hallway in search of my bedroom.

“It’s the one at the end,” I offered and he nodded, finding it and letting himself in, laying me down on my bed.

“I’m sure you wanna get out of your wet…. clothes,” he vaguely gestured to me, “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Don’t leave me here,” I gasped out, reaching desperately for his hand, “Don’t leave me here alone. I’m not ready for you to go yet.”

His eyes widened and he leaned back into me, crowding me and promising, “I’m not goin’ anywhere, just leavin’ the room to give you privacy to clean up.”

“Oh,” I hummed, relief settling in.

“You could say please, though,” his voice had that husk in it again, and I grinned.

“I don’t think I have to, you’re gonna stay either way.”

He tutted, “Doesn’t mean I don’t wanna hear it.”

I thought for a moment. “Fine,” I smirked, then, in the most seductive voice I could manage, I leaned up and drawled, “Please.”

His pupils blew wide and he nodded, his hand exploring my face, cupping my cheek, squeezing my chin and making my lips pucker, and then it drifted into more dangerous territory, resting around my throat. My breath hitched and he chuckled, giving one small squeeze before his touch disappeared. He walked out of the room, laughing all the way.

I rolled my eyes, going to my dresser to get clothes. I was still too sleepy to shower or anything but I at least wanted to wear something that covered me and didn’t smell like chlorine. I pulled on a T shirt and a fresh pair of panties, not bothering with more. Ghost had already seen me in just my undies, why did it matter? Then I went to the bathroom and thoroughly cleaned my face and brushed my damp and stringy hair.

Once I was done, I left my room and searched for him, finding him in the living room, lounged back on the couch like he belonged there. Wordlessly, I sat beside him, and he hummed, pulling me into his side and tucking me there comfortably.

He was so warm, I couldn’t help but sigh, sinking into him. My mind drifted to places it shouldn’t be, imagining sinking into his arms all the time. Imagining having his warmth forever. I pushed that away. Those were not feelings I needed to unpack.

Finally, I glanced up at the TV to see he’d found Forrest Gump and it was ready to play.

“Really?” I asked, the ghost of a smile on my lips.

“Wanted to see what this Lieutenant Dan was all about,” he shrugged, clicking the button and starting it.

I couldn’t pay much attention, I was much too content to just relax into his hold. I checked my phone, seeing a few missed texts from Sabrina asking if I was okay, apologizing for Connor, and of course, some innuendos about Ghost and me.

“You two have an interesting friendship.” I looked up at him as he said it and laughed.

“How so?”

“Doesn’t seem like you like each other very much.”

“That’s just how we are,” I shrugged, “She’s my best friend, we just like being mean to each other.” He grunted in response, prompting me to turn back to the movie. It didn’t take long for me to drift off, snuggled deep into him and feeling more safe and taken care of than I ever had.

I woke up to the feeling of being carried and opened my eyes slowly just as Ghost laid me in bed.

“The team is here to pick me up. I’ve got to go.”

I pouted, not ready to let him go just yet.

“I wish you didn’t have to leave.”

“You shouldn’t drink so much, sweetheart, it makes you sappy,” he chuckled, but the look he gave me was pitiful and it only made me want him to stay more.

“I’m not being sappy, I’m being honest. I don’t do that a lot, be grateful for it.”

He sighed, sitting down beside me and stroking my hair. “I’ll be back. I don’t know when but I promise I will.”

I nodded, trying hard not to drift back to sleep, wanting those last few moments with him.

My eyes widened as he lifted his mask to his nose, exposing the stubble on his chin and cheeks. He leaned down, taking my cheeks in his hands and kissing my forehead.

Oh, I was fucked.

His lips felt so good, I was addicted and he hadn’t even kissed me properly. I felt myself getting a little closer to the edge of the cliff I was bound to fall off of.

He pulled away slightly, still close enough for me to feel his warmth, and I sighed, eyes on his lips.

“You gonna give me a real kiss, soldier?”

“Not when you’re all tired and drunk like this,” he shook his head, brushing his thumb across my lips then pulling away.

“Ghost,” I called as he made his way to the door, “Goodbye.”

“Bye, sweetheart. Get some sleep.”

[mumms-the-word]

Illithid Souls

A Deep Dive Series

I've collected all my deep dives about illithid souls here for your convenience! These posts look into the question of if illithids have souls inside or outside of the BG3 game lore, with a more focused look in parts 2 and 3 at the cases of Tav/Durge, Orpheus, Karlach, and Gale.

Ultimately I came to my own conclusions, but I'm by no means trying to sell you on the idea that I'm the expert and can't be wrong. I wrote these mostly to gather lots of lore in one (or three) contained space(s) with both a textual and visual aspect, so that it makes lore-gathering/reading/viewing more fun.

As with all my deep dives, these posts are designed to equip you with some lore so you can build your own theories and ideas, but I do guide and organize my thoughts in ways that make sense to me, and present theories that I think are interesting or feasible. But lore is always a little hazy so I’m bound to be wrong or you’re bound to interpret things differently. Just have fun with the lore!

Without further ado~

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Illithid Souls - Part 1

What’s up with mind flayers and souls anyway?

This post begins by defining what D&D calls a soul, which is notoriously hard to define in any capacity both in or out of D&D lore. We look briefly at what happens when a soul dies normally, what Withers has to say about mind flayers and souls, and what D&D guidebooks like the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide and Volo's Guide to Monsters have to say about the afterlife, souls, and mind flayers. Basically, this is your intro to D&D souls lore before we get to how the game follows or ignores that same lore.

---

Illithid Souls - Part 2

The Case Studies: Tav/Durge and Orpheus

This post dives into some interesting context from the game for the Emperor, Tav/Durge, and Orpheus. Though I use Tav/Durge as the official case study here, looking at dialogue and reactions when Tav/Durge turns into a mind flayer, it's worth nothing that most Origin runs handle the mind flayer thing exactly the same way. This is where the D&D lore gets left behind a little bit and we get to really see how the game changes or adopts the concept of mind flayer souls. Read this one if you'd like a little more info about how your OC Tav/Durge might be affected by illithidness!

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Illithid Souls - Part 3

The Case Studies: Karlach and Gale

The final post looks specifically at in-game evidence or lore for Companion!Karlach that turns into a mind flayer, as well as what unique options an Origin run Gale gets if he decides to become a mind flayer at the end of the game. I ended up with a lot of questions while writing this post and I don't have answers for all of them, but it was fascinating to see some of the unique stuff you only see if you make Karlach a mind flayer, or are playing as Gale and decide to become illithid. Karlach provides some additional context to what it's like to be a special mind flayer in BG3, and Gale's Origin endings as a mind flayer are certainly unique and strange. Worth reading parts of if you're interested in either character!

---

As with all deep dives and metas, this is all just for fun! Yes, I called days of research and writing and editing fun, because I'm a...well. A thorough bitch, as Swoop would say. But I couldn't fit everything that exists in these posts and I did make a couple of decisions to leave things out, like extended conversations with the Emperor and basically any mention of Omeluum (sorry Omeluum, love you buddy! you have a soul in my heart) because I just didn't know where to put those things in.

So basically, this is not the end-all, be-all of lore! I'm happy to answer questions in the replies or in asks as well, just know that everything will be couched as my opinion and that you are encouraged to interpret the lore in ways that suits your play styles, headcanons, or beliefs.

Just have fun with it!

[markantonys]

My Mom Reacts To: wheel of time season 2 episodes 1-4 (season 1)

episode 1

"if i had to carry water all that way for a bath, i'd get a smaller bathtub" you know what? that is a very fair point. just get a smaller tub, moiraine!

mom, #1 Lan Stan: so, he doesn't have any powers, right? except cunning and strength and loyalty of course me: of course

mom: so liandrin wants nynaeve to become red because she........doesn't want her to have a warder? me doing a great aes sedai truth-telling: nynaeve is really powerful so liandrin wants to recruit her for her own team

my dad predicted moiraine was scamming bayle domon and loved it when it was revealed that she was. as always, not too much commentary from him because he remains silent and seems to not be paying attention for most of the time, only to randomly come out with a completely correct prediction or read on a scene.

"i don't think it's true that neat and tidy things can't be worthwhile 🙄" clearly my mom subscribes more to the Egwene School Of Thought than to the Alanna School Of Thought

lan to moiraine after she is Mean to him: make dinner yourself mom: GOOD FOR YOU

when lan brings her the plate later and puts it on top of the maps: "what if he gets greasy food all over her maps?"

"ugh i hate dark scenes where i can't see anything" [scary fade appears] "okay maybe it's good that i can't see"

episode 2

my mom got all confused about rand's dream of him killing his friends and wondered at first if it was real, please pray for her when tel'aran'rhiod is introduced later

"HE'S BALD??????" all of us when we first saw s2 rand's new look djkfgjh

"they must like him here if he gets free food" my boy, beloved wherever he goes :')

she wasn't particularly fond of mat last season, but he's gotten quite a few laughs so far this season! (notably the moment when we ALL fell in love with New Mat, when he was miming liandrin locking the door)

she gave an annoyed TUH! at elayne dissing egwene's room, but didn't comment further, possibly because i'd just told her 20 seconds earlier that elayne was my favorite character and she didn't want to offend me jdkfgh

she was like "wait, is she blue or green???" during a scene where alanna was wearing a slightly-darker-than-normal green outfit, so i think it was definitely a good call by the show to dress aes sedai in their ajah colors always. hard to keep track otherwise!

after moiraine had her hand on her knife when verin revealed she knew about the dragon: "what was she gonna do?? just stab her right in front of all the others??? that's ridiculous!" djkfjg points were made! poor moiraine just kinda panicked and lost all her braincells for a moment there.

my mom was a randgwene shipper last season so i thought she was gonna be pissed about rand hooking up with a strange new woman whilst egwene mourns his death, but she has not said a single word about that situation yet! i did once catch her reading lanfear's wiki article which she'd gotten onto after reading lan's because "i just want to know what happens to him and i'm not going to read all those books" so maybe she retained some info from lanfear's article that made her suspect something fishy with selene?

she recognized min from s1 right away and hastened to add her to her handwritten character list, when other characters needed a couple scenes to get that honor, and i remember she laughed a lot at min's lines last season and she did again today. guys, if my mom becomes a min stan, i may never recover lmao (i'm mostly kidding, show!min has done nothing wrong and is cool. MOSTLY kidding.)

re: the list, i told her she wasn't allowed to google and print out a list of characters because she would see spoilers, only to accidentally spoil her myself last season by instinctively writing liandrin's name down in the "bad guys" column and making her ask "wait, so she's ACTUALLY a villain, not just mean??", rip (but i played it off as "oh she's just unfriendly to moiraine so that's why i put her there" so we shall see whether or not she ends up being surprised by the black ajah reveal)

when min was saying how she sees glimpses of the pattern, my mom made a connection to perrin seeing the past earlier, which i thought was very interesting! (since we hadn't yet learned that what he saw was actually a sending from the wolves.) min's viewings and wolfbrothers are the two major magical powers that have nothing to do with the one power, and it always minorly bugged me that they don't Fit In to the rest of the magic system (despite my apparently-hypocritical mocking of people who get hung up on lore rules etc haha), so i just thought it was neat to think of them in conjunction with each other.

mom, shocked and dismayed: MAT'S GOING TO KILL RAND???????? me: [vibrating with glee over The Great Cauthor Stabbening]

when nynaeve is taken to the arches: "so is she getting a promotion?"

there was some line during the moiraine-lan divorce that got a big offended gasp from our #1 Lan Stan, but i forget which one it was (it wasn't "we were never equals" it was an earlier one)

my dad just laughed when they first showed suroth and her redonkulus getup jkjfg the correct reaction to the pomp and ceremony of seanchan high blood

episode 3

when the aes sedai were saying nynaeve was ready to take the test my mom was like "NO SHE ISN'T!!!!" and was pressed about them rushing her into it

during the bandit attack in the test: "boy, i wouldn't want to live in this world!"

when nynaeve left the tower my mom was like "is this what happens in the books?!" and i couldn't reveal yet that it was still part of the test so i just instinctively said "you'll see" which is my response to everything, and she was like "no i won't, i'm not reading all these books" lmao

my dad during the version of mashiara playing during the lanaeve reunion: why is "somewhere over the rainbow" playing

sheriam: she wasn't ready mom: THAT'S WHAT I SAID!!!!!!!!!!!

she was genuinely very upset for a moment because she thought nynaeve was dead, but i think she then guessed pretty quickly that It Ain't Over Yet

scene transition from nynaeve being left in the arches over to the seanchan: "we're going from bad to worse!"

i was dithering over uno's impending death because i didn't want to spoil them but i thought my mom might want a trigger warning, and thankfully my dad went "that horn looks like it's in a dangerous spot" when they first made uno kneel, so i was all clear to say "yeah this is about to get gory" lmao

my dad wondered if suroth was the dark one which fascinated me! i think everyday negroes had the same thought, iirc. i guess it IS the logical conclusion when you know that ishy is the dark one's right-hand man and in this scene we see him being suroth's right-hand man!

my mom thought elayne might be evil or a spy! how could she! i guess she isn't accustomed to wheel of time strangers just being friendly without an ulterior motive djkfg i didn't outright say her theory was wrong because i'm not about to be a booksplainer, but i'm sure i was so visibly baffled at the idea of elayne being evil that i shot down the theory nonetheless haha

when liandrin goes to visit mat again: "how does she have time for all this? she has her sick son, she has mat, and she has whatever else she does at the tower"

when liandrin blames mat for nynaeve's death: "this lady is CRAZY!!"

mat's "is that an 'i'm here to murder you' stare or a 'light i never realized how handsome you are' stare" line was a big hit! love to see my boy getting some appreciation in this house

...............which he promptly squandered when he a) initially left his cell without freeing min too, and b) did not go comfort egwene. but i pointed out that liandrin's been psychologically tormenting him for months into thinking his friends are better off without him, because i couldn't bear to see them judge my boy!

"it's like we're in 18th century france!" was the first thing out of my mom's mouth when they went to the cairhienin party, i'm sure the costume designers would be thrilled!

mom: how did this lady from the poor district get them into a fancy party? and how could she afford these clothes? 🤨 me: 🤷👀

when logain pours out the wine: "AFTER ALL RAND'S HARD WORK TO GET IT!!"

why did my dad laugh when the inn was on fire jdkfg maybe he just likes to see rand have a bad time

mom: jeez, maybe rand shouldn't stay in other people's houses anymore me: i'm sure rand's thinking the same thing

mom at the end of the test: it's so sad that they keep getting glimpses of the nice lives they could've had 😔

episode 4

mom 2 seconds before the camera reveals who the visitor is: is her little sister moiraine? [camera shows moiraine] mom: I GUESSED SOMETHING FOR ONCE

"it's pretty rude to show up to someone's house and then say 'i don't have time to hang out with you'!"

selene: the fire wasn't your fault rand mom: well it kinda was actually

there was some moment where my dad referred to "sneezing and burning down an inn, or whatever he did" and it killed me, i wish i could remember the context bc it was even funnier in context

"i speak with the amyrlin every time i open my mouth" was also a hit! as was perrin asking if he would turn into a wolf and elyas saying "don't be stupid"

mom when moiraine waltzes into the foregate dressed to the nines: i thought she wanted to keep a low profile

just earlier that day we'd been bemoaning the lack of pockets in women's clothing, as one does, so my mom was like "[delighted] now THAT'S a pocket!" when moiraine fit a whole-ass knife into the pocket of her fancy dress. WOT costumers understand the importance of giving girls pockets! lanfear's outfits have a lot too

my dad said "she seems like a bad guy" about selene during the mountaintop scene, he been knew! but he ended up falling asleep and missing the reveal that he was right

meanwhile, mom: "i'm just waiting for a monster to crawl up that cliff and get them"

when alanna & co go through lan's bags to get the poem: "aww, i thought they were his friends! 😔"

mom: too bad moiraine won't just ask her sister about rand, she talked to him at the party! anvaere: so if you want to know where that redheaded boy is, you'll have to ask me very nicely over tea mom: [just as smug as anvaere]

when ishy shows up at min's room: "how is he EVERYWHERE????"

she didn't seem TOO surprised when liandrin attacked the girls, and she clocked that liandrin was working for ishy after this scene with min (or rather, she asked me if that was the case and i said "you'll see")

she let out the fondest chuckle when rand was like "[choking back tears] i'm going to leave now, thank you" he is BABY YOUR HONOR!!!

as the Lanfear Reveal started my mom said "i just knew she was evil" so that must be why she was so silent on the relationship and so un-judgmental of rand, she must've clocked selene's Bad Vibes from the start! or else she retained something from reading lanfear's wiki article a while back lmao

even so, she went "OH MY GOSH!!!!" and clapped her hands over her mouth in shock when moiraine slit lanfear's throat, which i think is one of her biggest reactions to anything in either season so far! the initial stabbing, zero reaction, but the followup throat-slitting, freakout.

the "i'm a monster too" line + Undead Lanfear Moment has her CONVINCED that forsaken are some kind of creatures or zombies, i'm trying to explain they're just humans who are really powerful and evil haha

at the final shot of lanfear: "i'm going to have nightmares! i'll have to go read my murder mystery to calm down before bed." duality of woman

[taylor-on-your-dash]

Writing of 1989 Timeline

1989 changed Taylor's career forever. If Red had just sprinkles of pop sounds, 1989 was marketed as a pure pop album from the get-go.

While many fans and critics kind of expected that, it seems like:

Taylor didn't have a clear direction from the start (except for the cohesiveness): “I wanted it to be a sonically cohesive album, and it ended up really being the first I’ve done since Fearless. I also wanted the songs to sound exactly how the emotions felt. I know that’s pretty vague, so I really didn’t know where it was going to go, but I knew that I wanted to work with the collaborators I had such crazy electricity with on Red, like Max Martin. I wanted to do some things that sounded nothing like what we had done before.”

She knew that she didn't want another Red: “When people say that they like one of my albums, like when people told me that Red was their favorite album I'd done, I didn't take that as, 'So, I should make that again'. I took that as, 'Great, awsome, now I wanna make them like this new album just as much if not more than the last album.' But I want them to like it for different reasons.”

She was worried about the change of direction of her music: “I worry about everything. Some days I wake up in a mind-set of, like, ‘Okay, it’s been a good run.’ By afternoon, I could have a change of mood and feel like anything is possible and I can’t wait to make this kind of music I’ve never made before. And then by evening, I could be terrified of the whole thing again. And then at night, I’ll write a song before bed.”

October 17, 2012: [From a Lover Journal] Taylor writes This Love in LA. This will be the last song produced by Nathan Chapman and the only one recorded in Nashville.

“The last time I wrote a poem that ended up being a song, I was writing in my journal and I was writing about something that had happened in my life – it was about a year ago – and I just wrote this really really short poem. It said, 'This love is good /this love is bad / this love is alive back from the dead / these hands had to let it go free / and this love came back to me.' And I just wrote it down, closed the book and put it back on my night stand […] All of a sudden in my head I just started hearing this melody happen, and then I realized that it was going to be a song.”

Handwritten lyrics:

November 18, 2012: Taylor meets Jack Antonoff and his band, fun., for the first time in Frankfurt, Germany, while at the MTV Europe Music Awards. They bond over 80s music.

January 4, 2013: Taylor is seen in a boat without Harry Styles, ready to return to LA from the Virgin Islands.

She will wear the same dress in the Out Of The Woods music video (and also in Look What You Made Me Do)

January 10, 2013: Taylor tweets "Back in the studio. Uh oh...". She will confirm that the song was All You Had To Do Was Stay on October 27, 2014 on Tumblr.

Candids here;

“There’s a song on my album called 'All You Had To Do Was Stay.' I was having this dream, that was actually one of those embarrassing dreams, where you’re mortified in the dream, you’re like humiliated. In the dream, my ex had come to the door to beg for me to talk to him or whatever, and I opened up the door and I went to go say, 'Hi,' or 'What are you doing here?' or something — something normal — but all that came out was this high-pitched singing that said, 'Stay!' It was almost operatic. So I wrote this song, and I used that sound in the song. Weird, right? I woke up from the dream, saying the weird part into my phone, figuring I had to include it in something because it was just too strange not to. In pop, it’s fun to play around with little weird noises like that.”

January 11, 2013: Taylor is seen again at Conway Studios, likely to continue working on All You Had To Do Was Stay.

January 15, 2013: Taylor posts a picture of herself in the studio, with the caption "Somewhere in LA". She'll later reveal that she was writing How You Get The Girl.

“The song ‘How You Get The Girl’ is a song that I wrote about how you get the girl back if you ruined the relationship somehow and she won’t talk to you anymore. Like, if you broke up with her and left her on her own for six months and then you realize you miss her. All the steps you have to do to edge your way back into her life, because she’s probably pretty mad at you. So it’s kind of a tutorial. If you follow the directions in the song, chances are things will work out. Or you may get a restraining order.”

March 6, 2013: Taylor is seen going to a studio in LA.

March 23, 2013: Taylor posts a picture of herself playing guitar, which might mean that she was working on a new song: "Pre show. Columbia, South Carolina". This could be either Wonderland, New Romantics or a vault song.

May 27, 2013: While in Rhode Island for the Memorial Day weekend, Jack plays Taylor an instrumental track that will later become I Wish You Would.

“'I Wish You Would’ is a song that I wrote with Jack Antonoff and it was the first song we ever worked on together. I think, for this song, we wanted to create a sort of John Hughes movie visual with pining and, you know, one person’s over here and misses the other person but is too prideful and won’t say it. Meanwhile this other person is here and missing the same person; they’re missing each other but not saying it. And I had this happen in my life and so I wanted to kind of narrate it in a very cinematic way where it’s like you’re seeing two scenes play out and then in the bridge you’re seeing the final scene, where it resolves itself. So it says, 'It’s a crooked love in a straight line down, makes you wanna run and hide but it makes you turn right back around.’ It kind of is like that dramatic love that’s never really quite where it needs to be and that tension it creates.”

[Voice Memo Intro Transcript] “This is another way I’ve written songs recently. This is a song I did with Jack Antonoff, and Jack is one of my friends and so were hanging out and he pulled out his phone and goes ‘I made this amazing track the other day. It’s so cool, I love these guitar sounds.’ And he played it for me and immediately I could hear this finished song in my head, and I just said ‘Please, please let me have that. Let me play with it, send it to me.’ And so he sent it to me and I was on tour and this was me playing the track on my laptop recording me singing the vocal into my phone and it ended up being a song called 'I Wish You Would', because Jack wrote back and said ‘I love that’. So this is another way of writing, it’s writing to track.”

[Secret Sessions] “Taylor said that she wrote ‘I Wish You Would’ a couple of months after her and Harry Styles broke up, and they decided to become friends again and she said this was the first time she had become friends with an ex, to the point where they were comfortable enough to talk about why the relationship didn’t work out. She said he told her about how, after they broke up, he bought a house literally one road adjacent to hers. Every day he would drive home, and accidentally turn into her street, and he told her how he just wanted to stop at her house and see her, but he never did. She said this song is about while he was in the car making the decision to get out the car and see her, she was sitting in her bedroom, wishing he would make the move and go back to her and just pitch up at her house. She compared it to a classic John Hughes movie where both parties want the same thing but neither has the guts to say anything. Honestly, she spoke so fondly of that relationship.” [this is from a secret sessioner and therefore it should be taken with a grain of salt]

Between May 28 and June 2, 2013: Taylor writes I Wish You Would. She settled in Rhode Island basically all summer, so it's possible that she went to Jack's studio in New York by car without being seen and especially photographed, cause I couldn't find any pictures with the same outfit. Conway Studios are also credited but it's possible that she recorded background vocals there. Taylor was in LA in late August.

June 7, 2013: During an interview at the CMA Music Festival, Taylor confirms that she has started writing her next album.

[Transcript by me] “[The new album] is starting, all the anxiety is starting and when the anxiety starts, then the writing happens right afterward usually. I like to write for about two years before I'm finished with an album because at this point I kind of know that whenever I read in the first year is going to get away, because I'm going to like it but it's going to sound a little bit like the last project I had, and the second year usually ends up sounding like the next project. So I think at this point I feel like staying the same is the easy way to go but it's not the way that I want to go creatively. I think you need to challenge yourself, I think you need to change up your influences, I think you need to be inspired by different things that you've been inspired by before. It's harder to call people you don't know, it's harder to think of topics you haven't covered and think of new ways to say old emotions that everyone feels. I think one of the things that I'm happiest with in the last year is the acceptance level in country music for me experimenting and for me trying to evolve and challenge myself musically because I think it's never felt better to be on that stadium stage performing knowing that and so welcoming of change.”

July 13, 2013: After a show in New Jersey, Taylor has an interview with Rolling Stone, where she says that she has been writing a lot.

“The floodgates just opened the last couple weeks,” she says of the songwriting process. “I’m getting to that point where I’m irritating to be around because I’ll be with you for half the conversation and then the second half of the conversation I’m clearly editing the second verse of whatever I’m writing in my head. I really loved collaborating: you work with a lot of different people and you find the people you have this dream connection with in the studio. I know those people and I know the ones I want to go back to. But I also have a really long list of the people I admire and I would really love to go and contact. So that’s kind of where that is. I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What’s the point? It’s so overwhelming that when you’re starting a project there are such endless possibilities if you’re willing to evolve and experiment. If you’re willing to become a different version of yourself, you can really go anywhere with it. And that’s kind of where I am. The kind of the laboratory experimental stage of really catching onto a new thing that I’m liking.”

Somewhere around June and early September 2013: Taylor and Jack write Sweeter Than Fiction. No credits are available but we know that it's the second song on which Taylor and Jack worked, so that places it before I Wish You Would and Out Of The Woods.

In 2014, Lena Dunham (Jack's girlfriend at the time) posted this photo of Jack and Taylor working on the song at Jack's house.

September 15, 2013: Jack completes the instrumental track that will later become Out Of The Woods, after his show was cancelled.

[Jack Antonoff] “When I did the track for Out of the Woods, which is a Taylor song that I'm really proud of, there was some issue at a venue and our show was canceled that night and I didn't have my stuff, I had left it on the bus, so I only had these old samples on what was on my laptop, and caught up that 'oh oh'' thing, and I only had one drum kit on there, and these dumb little things sometimes turn into a great song.”

Somewhere around September and October 2013: Taylor writes Out Of The Woods.

Voice memo here;

[Jack Antonoff] Although Antonoff and Swift shared studio time for some of their other 1989 songs while working throughout 2014, “Out of the Woods” was completed as a long-distance collaboration. “She’s very natural -— when she gets an idea, it just happens very quickly. I would send her these tracks, and when an idea would happen, we’d be 5,000 miles apart or whatever, but she would start emailing me these voice notes like crazy and it would just be happening so quickly that there’d be this excitement. There’s a frantic feeling in the song,” he says. “What’s interesting about ‘Out of the Woods’ is that it doesn’t really let up. It starts with a pretty big anthemic vocal sample that’s me, and then there’s a drum sample that kicks in that’s kind of huge, and then you don’t really know how you’re going to get any bigger, but then the chorus hits and it just explodes even larger. And then the bridge hits, and it gets even more huge.“When I was working on the track, I was thinking a lot about My Morning Jacket,” Antonoff continues, “and how everything they do, every sound is louder than the last, and somehow it feels like everything is just f—ing massive. And that’s the feeling that I went for. It started out big, and then I think the obvious move would have been to do a down chorus, but the idea was to keep pushing.” Antonoff is excited to share the rest of his work with Swift on 1989, but he views “Out of the Woods” as a highlight on the project. “This song means a great deal to me. On a production level, on a writing level, Taylor’s lyrics and her melodies — there’s something very important about this song.”

[Jack Antonoff] “After 'I Wish You Would' and 'Sweeter Than Fiction', we did 'Out Of The Woods'. So it was the third thing we worked on together, and probably the easiest. I sent her the track for it, and she sent back a voice note with the verse and chorus in what felt like five seconds. And it was just perfect. It's eerie how similar it is to what the final product is.”

“It kind of conjured up all these feelings of anxiety I had in a relationship where everybody was watching, everybody was commenting on it. You’re constantly just feeling like, ‘Are we out of the woods yet? What’s the next thing gonna be? What’s the next hurdle we’re gonna have to jump over?’ It was interesting to write about a relationship where you’re just honestly like, ‘This is probably not gonna last, but how long is it gonna last?’ Those fragile relationships... It doesn’t mean they’re not supposed to happen. The whole time we were having happy memories, or crazy memories, or ridiculously anxious times, in my head it was just like, ‘Are we okay yet? Are we there yet? Are we out of this yet?’”

“That line is in there because it's not only the actual, literal narration of what happened in a particular relationship I was in, it's also a metaphor. 'Hit the brakes too soon' could mean the literal sense of, we got in an accident and we had to deal with the aftermath. But also, the relationship ended sooner than it should've because there was a lot of fear involved. And that song touches on a huge sense of anxiety that was, kind of, coursing through that particular relationship, because we really felt the heat of every single person in the media thinking they could draw up the narrative of what we were going through and debate and speculate. I don't think it's ever going to be easy for me to find love and block out all those screaming voices.”

October 21, 2013: Sweeter Than Fiction is released. Big Machine was originally not on board with the release since they wanted a dormant period between album releases.

Late 2013: Taylor writes Bad Blood, after Katy Perry announces her Prismatic World Tour.

“For years, I was never sure if we were friends or not. She would come up to me at awards shows and say something and walk away, and I would think, ‘Are we friends,or did she just give me the harshest insult of my life?’ Then last year, the other star crossed a line. She did something so horrible. I was like, ‘Oh, we’re just straight-up enemies.’ And it wasn’t even about a guy! It had to do with business. She basically tried to sabotage an entire arena tour. She tried to hire a bunch of people out from under me. And I’m surprisingly non-confrontational – you would not believe how much I hate conflict. So now I have to avoid her. It’s awkward, and I don’t like it.”

“That was about losing a friend... But then people cryptically tweet about what you meant. I never said anything that would point a finger in the specific direction of one specific person, and I can sleep at night knowing that. I knew the song would be assigned to a person, and the easiest mark was someone who I didn’t want to be labeled with this song. It was not a song about heartbreak. It was about the loss of friendship.”

October 20 to 22, 2013: Taylor is in Cape Town (South Africa) shooting The Giver. One of the members of the cast is Alexsander Skarsgård. He is said to have inspired Wildest Dreams (or at least he's the most popular theory, as far as I know), because the music video is set in Africa and it features Clint Eastwood's son Scott as love interest, just like Alexsander is actor Stellan Skarsgård's son, but we don't actually know more about the song.

“I think the way I used to approach relationships was very idealistic. I used to go into them thinking, ‘Maybe this is the one – we’ll get married and have a family, this could be forever’. Whereas now I go in thinking, ‘How long do we have on the clock – before something comes along and puts a wrench in it, or your publicist calls and says this isn’t a good idea?’”

Note: Selena Gomez was present when Taylor wrote this song.

Handwritten lyrics:

November 19, 2013: Taylor records Blank Space. This is based on the wall behind her on an Instagram post from this day, the credits, and the behind the scenes clip.

Voice memo here;

Behind the Scenes here;

“Every few years, the media finds something they unanimously agree is annoying about me. 2012-2013 they thought I was dating too much, because I dated two people in a year and a half. ‘Oh, a serial dater. She only writes songs to get emotional revenge on guys. She’s a man-hater, don’t let her near your boyfriend.’ It was kind of excessive and at first it was hurtful, but then I found a little bit of comedy in it. This character is so interesting, though. If you read these gossip sites, they describe how I am so opposite to my actual life: I’m clingy, and I’m awful, and I throw fits, and there’s drama. An emotionally fragile, unpredictable mess. I painted a whole picture of this character. She lives in a mansion with marble floors, she wears Dolce & Gabbana around the house, and she wears animal print unironically. So I created this whole character and I had fun doing it.”

November 21, 2013: While at the American Music Awards, Taylor tells Billboard that she has around seven or eight songs ready.

[Transcript] “We got a lot already,” says Swift. “There are probably seven or eight songs that I know I want on the record. It’s really ahead of schedule for me. I’m just stoked because it’s already evolved into a new sound, and that’s all I wanted. And I would have taken two years to make that happen, but it just kind of happened naturally, so that’s all I could really ask for.”

December 2013: Taylor meets Diane Warren and they write Say, Don't Go.

[Diane Warren to Rolling Stone] Warren, who typically writes on her own, says the two of them “sat down and wrote the song,” which was released Friday as one of 1989 (Taylor’s Version)‘s vault tracks, “from scratch” during the last few days of 2013. She remembers being impressed with how specific Swift was with her lyricism and how considerate she was about how her fans might receive it. “She was very particular about how she said certain things. It was a really interesting experience. She gets her audience,” Warren says. “She’s deeply aware of how her fans want to hear something. I can’t explain it, but that’s probably why she’s the biggest fucking star in the world.”

2013: Taylor writes New Romantics and Wonderland. Not much is known about these songs, except that they were both written in 2013.

[About New Romantics] “People will say, 'Let me set you up with someone', and I’m just sitting there saying, ‘That’s not what I’m doing. I’m not lonely. I’m not looking.’ They just don’t get it. I’ve learned that just because someone is cute and wants to date you, that’s not a reason to sacrifice your independence and allow everyone to say whatever they want about you. I’m not doing that anymore. It’d take someone really special for me to undergo the circumstances I have to go through to experience a date. I don’t know how I would ever have another person in my world trying to have a relationship with me, or a family.”

New Romantics handwritten lyrics:

Wonderland Handwritten lyrics:

January 1, 2014: Taylor records Say, Don't Go.

[Diane Warren to Rolling Stone] Several days after writing the song together, they got into Warren’s office to record a demo, where Swift played it on her acoustic guitar. “We demoed it on New Year’s Day. And I’m a workaholic, and that’s fine for me,” she says. “But I remember being impressed that she did, too. Everybody’s on vacation, but she showed up.”

January 6, 2014: Taylor decides to look for a house in New York.

[Lover Journal] LA. So I've decided I want to look at places in New York. I know I went through this phase months ago, but it has to mean something that i've circled back to it, right? You know what they say, if you love something let it go and if it comes back... blah blah blah. so I'm leaving the day after tomorrow. Dating is awful. Love is fiction/ a myth. I'm over it all.

January 21, 2014: Taylor sends Ryan Tedder the I Know Places Voice Memo.

January 22, 2014: [From the 1989 Booklet] Taylor and Ryan finish and record I Know Places.

“I had this idea of like, when you’re in love, along the lines of 'Out of the Woods’, it’s very precious, it’s fragile. As soon as the world gets ahold of it, whether it’s your friends or people around town hear about it... it’s kind of like the first thing people want to do when they hear that people are in love is just kind of try to ruin it. I kind of was in a place where I was like, ‘No one is gonna sign up for this. There are just too many cameras pointed at me. There are too many ridiculous elaborations on my life. It’s just not ever gonna work.‘ But I decided to write a love song, just kind of like, ‘What would I say if I met someone really awesome and they were like, hey, I’m worried about all this attention you get?’ So I wrote this song called ‘I Know Places’ about, ‘Hey, I know places we can hide. We could outrun them.’ I’m so happy that it sounds like the urgency that it sings.”

January 23, 2014: Taylor and Ryan Tedder write Welcome To New York. Ryan produces a demo in three hours. This demo is the one included in the album.

“I wanted to start 1989 with this song because New York has been an important landscape and location for the story of my life in the last couple of years. I dreamt and obsessed over moving to New York, and then I did it. The inspiration that I found in that city is hard to describe and to compare to any other force of inspiration I’ve ever experienced in my life. It’s an electric city.”

[Ryan Tedder] “I thought we were going to walk in and start something from scratch because that's what I was used to. Then she calls me and says, 'Is it cool if I already have an idea?' I said, 'Sure.' She said, 'I have this song, I'm obsessed with New York and I just moved there, I want to write an ode to New York because no one's done it in a long time.' And then she sent me a voice memo. She's like, 'I want it to sound like the 1980s.' So the next day I brought in a Juno-106, which is a very 1980s keyboard, and I literally programmed that entire song right in front of her. It was very much on the fly, and that song was done in about three hours. And I did the rest of the production I think later that week.”

Handwritten lyrics:

January 26, 2014: Night of the 56th Grammy Awards. Taylor delivers a legendary performance of All Too Well, but loses the Album Of The Year Award to Random Access Memory by Daft Punk. This will prompt Taylor to make a "sonically cohesive" pop album.

[Lover Journal] January 25th. LA. It's the middle of the night and I was at the Clive Davis Party tonight which means... the Grammys are tomorrow. Never have I felt so good about our chances. Never have I wanted something as badly as I want to hear them say 'Red' is the Album of the Year.

“It was the night of the Grammys this year. I remember going home and playing a lot of the new music I had recorded for some of my backup singers and one of my best friends. We were all sitting in the kitchen and I was playing them all this music, and they were just saying, ‘You know, this is very eighties. It’s very clear to us that this is so eighties.’ We were just talking and talking about how it’s kind of a rebirth in a new genre, how that’s a big, bold step. Kind of starting a part of your career over. When they left that night, I just had this very clear moment of, ‘It’s gotta be called 1989.’”

“I woke up one morning at 4 a.m. and I decided the album is called 1989. I’ve been making ‘80s synth pop, I’m just gonna do that. I’m calling it a pop record. I’m not listening to anyone at my label. I’m starting tomorrow. I liked the idea of collaborating. But with 1989 I decided to narrow down the list. It wasn’t going to be 10 producers, it was going to be a very small team of four or five people I always wanted to work with, or loved working with. And Max Martin and I were going to oversee it, and we were going to make a sonically cohesive record again.”

January 2014: Taylor writes You Are In Love. This is actually speculation but it's based on (1) Taylor going to NY in early January and (2) Jack Antonoff confirming that it was the fourth song they did and (3) it's the only Antonoff-produced song that is copyrighted in 2014. Based on the credits, I'm pretty sure that Taylor and Jack worked on the song separately, with Jack recording the instrumental at the Jungle City Studios in NY (which is a studio that Jack used in 2014 to record Bleachers' first album Strange Desire) and Taylor recording the vocals at Conway Studio in LA.

“I wrote it with my friend Jack Antonoff who’s dating my friend Lena. Jack sent me this song, it was just an instrumental track he was working on and immediately I knew the song it needed to be. And I wrote it as a kind of commentary on what their relationship has been like. So it’s actually me looking and going, ‘This happened and that happened, then that happened and that’s how you knew you are in love.’”

“I’ve never had that, so I wrote that song about things that Lena Dunham has told me about her and Jack Antonoff. That’s just basically stuff she’s told me. And I think that that kind of relationship — God, it sounds like it would just be so beautiful — would also be hard. It would also be mundane at times.”

“We first worked on that song together and realized we kind of have a good thing, and the next thing we did was ‘Sweeter Than Fiction,’ which was on the [One Chance] soundtrack, and after that we did ‘Out of the Woods’ and another song called ‘You Are in Love.’

January 26, 2014: At the Grammy's, Diane Warren reveals that she and Taylor wrote a song together (aka Say, Don't Go).

[Transcript] “I worked with Taylor Swift on a great song. I don't even know what she's done [for her next album], I'm excited about the one that we did, it's pretty cool.”

[Billboard 2016 Interview] “I know [Swift] likes it, so hopefully it will see the light of day. I know she really likes the song. She didn’t want me to give it away, so hopefully that means she wants it.”

February 9, 2014: [From the 1989 Booklet] While in London, during the European leg of the Red Tour, Taylor and Imogen Heap write Clean in just 9 hours at Imogen's home studio. Taylor will sing the song just two times.

Voice memo here;

“'Clean' I wrote as I was walking out of Liberty in London. Someone I used to date – it hit me that I’d been in the same city as him for two weeks and I hadn’t thought about it. When it did hit me, it was like, ‘Oh, I hope he’s doing well’. And nothing else. And you know how it is when you’re going through heartbreak. A heartbroken person is unlike any other person. Their time moves at a completely different pace than ours. It’s this mental, physical, emotional ache and feeling so conflicted. Nothing distracts you from it. Then time passes, and the more you live your life and create new habits, you get used to not having a text message every morning saying, ‘Hello, beautiful. Good morning.’ You get used to not calling someone at night to tell them how your day was. You replace these old habits with new habits, like texting your friends in a group chat all day, and planning fun dinner parties, and going out on adventures with your girlfriends, and then all of a sudden one day you’re in London and you realize you’ve been in the same place as your ex for two weeks and you’re fine. And you hope he’s fine. The first thought that came to my mind was – I’m finally clean.”

“'Clean' is the last song on the album for a lot of reasons, but mostly because it felt like the complication of this emotional process I’ve been going through for the last couple of years. You know, I feel like my personal life was really, really discussed, and criticized, and debated, and talked about to a point where it made me feel almost kind of tarnished, in a way. And the discussion wasn’t about music. It broke my heart that I had made an album that I was proud of, and I was touring the world, and playing sold-out stadiums, and still they managed to only want to talk about my personal life. At a certain point I felt a switch and it was at the end of recording this album that I began to feel like my life was mine again and my music was at the forefront again. I was living my life on my own terms and I really no longer cared what people were saying about me. That was when I started so see people talk less about the things that didn’t matter.”

“I had this metaphor in my head about being in this house, there’s been a drought but you feel like there’s a storm coming. Instead of trying to block out the storm you punch a hole in the roof and just let all the rain come in, and when you wake up in the morning, it’s washed away.”

[Imogen Heap] “We met at my studio in London. She had the bare bones of “Clean.” She had the lyric, the chorus and the chords. I thought it was brilliant.I was really writing the tiniest amount just to help her do what she does. I put some noises, played various instruments on it, including drums, and anytime she expressed she liked something I was doing, I did it more. It was a really fun day. She recorded all her vocals during that one session. She did two takes, and the second take was it. We always thought she would probably re-record it, because we thought it can’t possibly be that easy. But after we lived with it for a few months, we felt it was great. I knew she loved it. She said she loved it and her mum loved it. But I wasn’t sure it would be included on the album. But everyone felt it had something special. It came together really magically.”

Imogen's detailed blog entry about this songwriting session.

[Taylor about Imogen Heap] “The coolest thing about Imogen for me was that there was no one else in the studio. There was no assistant; there was no engineer. It was her doing everything.”

February 11, 2014: Taylor gets a haircut. (I'm including this for funsies)

February 15, 2014: Taylor, Max Martin and Shellback write Shake It Off.

Voice memo here;

[Lover Journal] LA. This week I've been in the studio with Max and Johan every day and it has been the most creatively successful and fulfilling time. The first day, Johan just made a really up tempo drum beat because we decided we needed something up and light. We worked at it for a few hours before i just started singing "shake it off, shake it off, shake it off" And then the best way i know how to describe it is that the chorus just fell out of the sky. It ended up being this song about doing your own thing even though haters are gonna hate, and you just have to dance to your own beat. We all went home and I wrote the first and second verses and brought them in the next day. We wrote this chanty cheer leader bridge that I absolutely LOVE. We spent all day doing vocals and the next day recording the background vocals. I think it'll end up being the first single and Max said it's his favorite song he's ever been a part of.

[Max Martin during the lawsuit] “Shellback started out with a drumbeat. Shellback, Taylor, and I then collaboratively developed the melody and other lines of ‘Shake It Off’ to Shellback’s drumbeat. I did not write or provide any input into any lyrics in ‘Shake It Off,’ which were written entirely by Taylor.”

“I've had every part of my life dissected – my choices, my actions, my words, my body, my style, my music. When you live your life under that kind of scrutiny, you can either let it break you, or you can get really good at dodging punches. And when one lands, you know how to deal with it. And I guess the way that I deal with it is to shake it off.”

“The message in the song is a problem I think we all deal with and an issue we deal with on a daily basis. We don’t live just in a celebrity takedown culture, we live in a takedown culture. People will find anything about you and twist it to where it’s weird or wrong or annoying or strange or bad. You have to not only live your life in spite of people who don’t understand you, you have to have more fun than they do.”

February 19, 2014: Taylor, Max Martin, Shellback and Ali Payami write Style. This is the last song made for the album.

“I loved comparing these timeless visuals with a feeling that never goes out of style. It's basically one of those relationships that's always a bit off. The two people are trying to forget each other. So, it's like, 'All right, I heard you went off with her, and well, I've done that, too.' My previous albums have also been sort of like, 'I was right, you were wrong, you did this, it made me feel like this' – a righteous sense of right and wrong in a relationship. What happens when you grow up is you realize the rules in a relationship are very blurred and that it gets very complicated very quickly, and there's not a case of who was right or who was wrong.”

“This song is about those relationships that are never really done. You always kind of have that person, that one person who you feel might interrupt your wedding and be like, ‘Don’t do it cause we’re not over yet.'”

[Guitarist Niklas Ljungfelt] “I played on “Style,” a song I started with Ali Payami for ourselves. He was playing it for Max Martin at his studio; Taylor overheard it and loved it. She and Max wrote new lyrics. But I recorded the guitar on it before it was a Taylor song. It was an instrumental. I didn’t have a clue that Taylor would sing on it. The inspiration came from Daft Punk and funky electronic music.”

1989 is officially done!

[Taylor On Ryan Seacrest] “I'm pretty sure after we finished this one I knew the record was done. Shake It Off and Style were the last two songs to be written for 1989.”

February 19, 2014: While on tour, Ryan Tedder produces another three versions of Welcome To New York.

[Ryan Tedder interview] “I was in Switzerland on a tour bus, and I did four versions of 'Welcome to New York,' one of which I liked personally more, but the thing about artists is they become very obsessed with the demo. She was in love with the demo so no matter how hard I fought, she brought it back to the demo, so really what you hear is what I did on the first day.”

March 22, 2014: Billboard reports that Taylor and Ryan Tedder have worked together in LA in January

March 24, 2014: [From a Lover Journal] Taylor moves to New York.

[Lover Journal] So in the last few weeks, I've completely moved into my apartment in Tribeca. That's right, I'm writing this from my new bed in my new place, watching Law and Order with Meredith. Strangely, I've never felt more busy.

May 1, 2014: 1989 Photoshoot.

Behind the scenes photo shared by the photographers Sarah Barlow and her husband Stephen Schofield.

May 29, 2014: [From a Lover Journal] Taylor chooses another photo for the cover, after having a nightmare of the previous one being not enough.

May 30, 2014: Taylor chooses the album cover.

[Lover Journal] Shanghai. So we got to China at around 2pm and I knew it would completely ruin me if I slept when i got to the hotel, so I decided to work out. WHY IS THIS PEN RUNNING OUT?! Just went to my purse and got my pen. So a crazy story unfolded in the last 24 hours. Last night, I had this vivid dream where the photo I'd chosen for the album cover wasn't good enough, intriguing enough, artful enough. it woke me up. I couldn't shake it and it stayed with me all day. Because that nagging feeling I'd been pushing back for weeks was now confirmed in my gut... it wasn't good enough. I went to the venue, mind racing, wandering if I'd have to do an entirely new photo shoot... I got to my dressing room with newer versions of the "cover" I looked at it and felt nothing. The team pulled up this new scanned file of the polaroids we had taken during the shoot. I saw it within 10 seconds. The shot. The cover. It's a polaroid of me sitting against a beige wall with a blue seagull sweatshirt on. You can see my red lips but the photo cuts off my eyes. For some reason unknown to me it's the most intriguing photo i've seen. I think it's the mystery of not seeing my eyes. Maybe it just looks effortlessly cool. The craziest moment came when something caught my eye. The cover photo is photo 13. I kid you not. I played a sold out show in Shanghai tonight and the crowd was amazing. Tomorrow we go to Tokyo, where they'll have the whole ticker tape parade at the airport. Smile and wave...

Mid To Late 2014: Taylor and Jack write Now That We Don't Talk.

[Tumblr Music] "Now That We Don't Talk is one of my favorite songs that was left behind. It was so hard to leave it behind, but I think we wrote it a little bit towards the end of the process, and we couldn't get the production right at the time. But we had tons of time to perfect the production this time, and figure out what we wanted the song to sound like, and I just think it's, I think it's the shortest song I've ever had. I think it packs a punch. I think it really goes in for the short amount of time we have, I think it makes its point."

Conclusive notes

What 1989 represented for Taylor:

“The 1980s was a very experimental time in pop music. People realized songs didn't have to be this standard drums-guitar-bass-whatever. We can make a song with synths and a drum pad. We can do group vocals for the entire song. We can do so many different things. And I think what you saw happening with music was also happening in our culture, where people were just wearing whatever crazy colors they wanted to, because why not? There just seemed to be this energy about endless opportunities, endless possibilities, endless ways you could live your life. And so with this record, I thought, 'There are no rules to this. I don't need to use the same musicians I've used, or the same band, or the same producers, or the same formula. I can make whatever record I want.'”

“In the past, I've written mostly about heartbreak or pain that was caused by someone else and felt by me. On this album, I'm writing about more complex relationships, where the blame is kind of split 50–50 ... even if you find the right situation relationship-wise, it's always going to be a daily struggle to make it work.”

Bonus: Secret Messages

Author's note: I wrote this timeline around 2 years ago. While I found some dates later on, this is 100% my research. If you use this timeline for your posts, research or whatever, PLEASE, credit me! I'd be very thankful. This is 2 years of work.

Links to my other Timelines:

Writing of Fearless Timeline

Writing of Speak Now Timeline

Writing of Red Timeline

My Spreadsheet with a timeline overview

Credits:

Most of the quotes have been copy-pasted from Taylor Swift Switzerland.

Taylor Swift Pictures for the candids.

Heather from Nerdy by Nature for the WTNY handwritten lyrics picture.