#well that was a lie. i do like the stories a lot too. but the songsssss oh good lord

[wildsaltair]

Stalking Tiger

Pairing: Maximus Decimus Meridius x reader

Rating: M (some non-descriptive spiciness, lots of angst and hurt/comfort)

Word Count: 8.6k

Author’s Note: It's time for some Spaniard adoration! This is actually part of a larger narrative (everything is the same except Maximus was single AU) in which reader is a slave sent to entertain Maximus in the gladiator school, but they end up falling madly in love and kind of living in agony day to day worrying that something will happen to the other. This is a really special story to me, and I hope y'all will enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it :)

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

“I fight Tigris of Gaul tomorrow,” Maximus whispers to you. His mouth is right beside your ear, his breath warm on the side of your neck.

His words register with you a moment later, and you stiffen as you consider the implications. Tigris of Gaul is the only undefeated champion in gladiator history, known for his brutality and ruthless efficiency at killing. The thought of your love facing him is frightening, no matter how capable you know he is.

You’ve been lying with your back against his front, his arm wrapped around your bare waist securely, but you shift to lie on your back so you can see his face.

He moves with you and props himself up on one elbow, looking down at you with such fondness that your heart nearly melts. He strokes your hair from your forehead with gentle fingertips, as if he’s forgotten the subject he just brought up.

“Tigris of Gaul?” you whisper back, knowing your eyes betray your concern. “They told you?”

He sighs softly, eyes tracing over your features with care. “Proximo warned me. He fears that it may be a trap from the Emperor. A way to ensure my death.”

You shudder. It’s no secret that the Emperor wants your lover dead, especially as his popularity among the people has grown.

And what would your life be without him? This Spaniard, this indomitable gladiator, has become your whole life. Months ago, you began as a stranger, a slave sent to entertain him for one night, but every time you look in his eyes, you see the love in your heart reflected in him. You are his hope, his peace, his joy, and he is everything to you.

He feels your shudder and draws you close, burying his face in the side of your neck while you wrap your arms around him. Neither of you needs words to communicate in moments like this.

He presses his lips tenderly to the side of your neck, once, twice, three times. His free hand touches your side and strokes your skin comfortingly, as if you were the one about to face possible death tomorrow.

“Are you afraid?” you breathe into his ear, gently stroking his bare back. His skin is so warm, so smooth between the scars.

He hesitates, just breathing against your skin, then his hand slowly slides up the side of your body. “I fear nothing,” he whispers, “except losing you.”

Tears well up in your eyes immediately at the sweetness in his words, the soft passion in his touch. His fingers trace the swell of your chest, the fragile length of your collarbone, the soft column of your throat. He is still nuzzling the side of your face with his nose, his eyelashes brushing your cheek.

These moments are treasures to your lonely heart — jewels you carry in your chest for the endless days when you are apart.

“Do you think Tigris will cheat?” you ask him softly, trying to think of how this fight might be rigged.

He kisses you again, with the pressure of a feather, just below your ear, and a tremble of pleasure runs through your body. “I am sure that the Emperor will have an added layer of danger to the fight. Single combat is too commonplace for an event such as this.”

He sighs when you drag your fingertips down his shoulder blades, tracing the faint notches in his spine. He dips his head so that his forehead is folded into the crook of your neck, his hand lowering to trace your curves again.

“You will win,” you assure him, though your heart pounds at the thought of him facing a battle already slanted against him. “You always win.”

His hand stops wandering and presses flat against your chest, directly over your heart. He can feel it pounding like a drum beneath his palm.

“I will win for you,” he murmurs, pressing his body more firmly against yours when you lay your hands flat on his back. “I will win if only to see you again.”

Again, tears rise in your eyes, threatening to choke any response you might have. He feels the emotion coiling in you somehow, wraps his arm around your waist to pull your bare body close against his. Your legs tangle with his, your arms hooking around his back so you can bury your head in his broad shoulder.

“Let me come watch,” you beg him quietly, already knowing the answer from many similar conversations.

He shakes his head vehemently, arms locked around you firmly. “No, my love,” he whispers. “I do not want to see what your master forces you to do, and I do not want you to see what mine forces me to do.”

“It’s different with you,” you insist, your voice breaking. “A thousand strangers see you fight every week.”

“You are not a stranger. And I would not have you see the side of me that has won me the favor of the people.”

You know the truth of his words, and in all honesty, you do not wish to see him fight. Despite your curiosity, the thought of seeing your beloved fighting for his life in an arena, facing insurmountable grotesque odds, while all around you people cheer for someone’s blood, makes you sick to your stomach. You know seeing him fight would only increase the fear you already feel for him every moment.

You kiss the base of his neck tenderly, and he responds as he always does: with a faint shiver and a sigh of pleasure. “I will honor your wish,” you promise. “But my heart will be with you every moment.”

“I know,” he breathes against your skin. “That is the thought that has carried me through many dark hours.”

Your designated time is close to being over, so you cling to each other with all the passion tethered in your hearts. Moments like these only serve to remind you of how easily all this happiness could vanish, of how fragile and dangerous such a love is. You are slaves, and your moments together can only last so long as the gods are merciful.

So you just hold each other, basking in the warmth of one another’s skin, and the steady beating of each other’s hearts, and the even cadence of each other’s breaths, perfectly in rhythm.

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

A roar from the crowd. Deafening, then muted, then scattered, then horrified, then deafening again.

You are perched by the window of your room in your master’s house, your ear closely attuned to the sounds of the crowd in the arena several streets away. You would never violate your promise to Maximus and go to watch his match secretly, but you cannot help listening to the sounds of the crowd to ascertain how he is faring in the fight.

The crowd is chanting his name now, over and over like a refrain. He must be entering the arena.

Spaniard! Spaniard! Spaniard!

They scream his name, yell it like a battle cry. It is a chant, an anthem, a moniker for a fierce warrior and entertainer.

Only you know his true name. Maximus. Only you breathe and whisper and cry out his true name, night after night, cradled in his arms, in the intimacy of his bed, while he looks deep in your eyes and coaxes the sweetest pleasures from you.

And only you have the joy, the privilege of hearing your own name tumble from his lips again and again and again, night after night, when his head falls back and his eyes soften with pleasure and contentment while you thrill him with your own coaxing.

You have been imagining the match in your mind all day, wondering what will be awaiting him when he steps onto the sand. He is such a capable fighter, such an indomitable force, but every man has his limits. The Emperor, you know, will test each of them.

Another deafening shout, his name mingled with the screams of horror and fascination as the match resumes.

Your heart is pounding as loudly as you can imagine that it would if you were in the arena beside him.

You do not know when you will see him next — as far as you know, your master has not arranged for you and the other slaves to go back to Proximo’s gladiator school for at least another week — and you ache at the thought of having to wait that long to see him again. To hold him, to examine him for injuries, to whisper your love to him and feel his body pulsing with life.

You fear for him every day, but these days, the stakes are so much higher, the risks so much greater for both of you.

Another deafening roar shakes the whole street, and you pray silently to every god you have ever heard of that your love is still alive.

How long can this go on? This compassionate allowance to let you and the Spaniard share your love once a week or so? How long can you expect fate to be so kind, so merciful to let you find peace and surrender in his bed, in his loving arms, before one of you is ripped away forever?

Tears spring anew to your eyes at the thought. He could be killed, or seriously wounded and sent somewhere far away. You could be bought as a live-in lover or sent somewhere else permanently.

As it is, Maximus is the most successful gladiator in Proximo’s school and therefore the most likely to be allowed to have you continue coming to him on certain nights. You, on the other hand, have no such power, and your favor with the Spaniard can only last as long as he does.

But what would it matter? If he dies, all your hopes die with him. Your master can sell you as lion bait for all you care, if you have to live in a world without the comfort of your love’s embrace.

The crowd suddenly goes silent, and so does the beating of your heart. Your mind swims with the possibilities. Is he dead? Is Tigris dead? Has something even more unthinkable happened?

Your hands are clenched into fists, your eyes squeezed shut as you wait for something, anything, to give you a sign about what has happened.

The whole world seems to stand still as you wait.

And then, from several streets away, the arena erupts into cheers and screams: Spaniard! Spaniard! Spaniard!

And your heart sighs as you drop into a chair, suddenly exhausted from the strain of worry. The shouts continue to ring down the street, and people outside your window take up the shout as well, acclaiming Rome’s greatest hero since Caesar.

Spaniard! Spaniard! Spaniard!

All their shouts are drowned out by the beating of your heart and the relief that floods your mind.

He lives. He lives. He lives. And you will see him again.

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

You are thoroughly shocked when a messenger from Proximo comes to you that night, requesting that your master send you to the gladiator school alone.

Your master’s look is skeptical and disapproving, but the weight of gold coins in the purse sent with the message prevents him from making any comments.

You slip through the front gate of the gladiator school in a matter of minutes, heart flying at the thought of what might be happening, why you could have been summoned here alone by Proximo himself.

You’ve heard what happened in the arena, of course. Everyone has been speaking of it all day. Maximus and Tigris of Gaul, evenly matched, fighting ferociously with swords and axes. Man-eating tigers leaping from hidden trapdoors, barely tethered by chains and swiping at the two fighters. The Spaniard, gaining the advantage and winning the match. Then defying the Emperor’s death command and sparing Tigris’ life, to the massive approval of the crowd.

Your heart swells with pride to think of it, as well as worry, as you slip into the main chamber of the gladiator school and wait for Proximo to appear.

Proximo is waiting for you, you discover, assessing you with cold eyes. “What is it that so fascinates him about you?” Proximo wonders aloud, scanning your body as thought he might find something everyone else has missed.

“He cares for nothing but you,” the gladiator trainer continues, pacing with a feigned air of casuality. “Every time I ask him what he wants as a reward for the fame and riches he brings me, he only asks for you. Over and over. Why?” Proximo’s question hangs in the air, weighty like a storm cloud.

You have no answer for him, of course, and he knows his questions are rhetorical. He waves his hand dismissively in the direction of the gladiators’ cells.

“Go to him,” he commands you with an odd air of defeat, as though you have somehow bested him by remaining a mystery. “He has won the day and the affection of the mob. Again. All he asked in return was for you to come to him tonight.”

Your heart soars as you fly through the hallway. The guard unlocks the cell door, and when the door clangs shut behind you, barely a moment passes before you have flung yourself into your love’s strong, welcoming arms.

Maximus holds you slightly off the ground for a moment, his face buried in your hair while he breathes you in. It’s when he exhales jerkily that you feel something wrong.

You pull back slightly, hands resting on his broad shoulders while he sets you back on your feet. “What’s wrong?” you ask, sensing his apprehension.

He shakes his head, gazing deep in your eyes as though he is amazed to see you. “I did not think Proximo would let you come,” he wonders, running his fingertips through your hair gently. “He must have been very pleased.”

“He was,” you confirm. “He said he was willing to offer you whatever you asked. And he was confused as to why you only care about me, instead of anything else he offers you.”

Your love’s brow crinkles into a frown at that. “He spoke with you?”

“Only for a moment. I think I puzzle him — he doesn’t understand what you see in me.”

Your words are light, teasing, but the Spaniard fixes you with a gaze that could melt steel. He tightens his hold around your waist, pulling you close so you can feel his every breath.

“Am I the only man with eyes to see you?” he wonders, leaning forward to press his lips lightly against your cheek. “Can it be true that no one else recognizes you for what you are?”

Your heart warms at his praises, because you know he means every word. Other men, including your master, see you as unimpressive, plain, suited for little more than gladiator entertainment. But to this man, this Spaniard who loves you so much more than his own life, you are a precious treasure whose every movement bewitches him.

You smile in return, and he lets his lips travel over your face — your jaw, cheeks, nose, chin. His tender affections are right in character for him, but you can’t shake your concern.

“Why did you ask for me tonight?” you ask cautiously, eyes closed as he kisses your forehead with the utmost tenderness. “You have never asked for me on a night when I was not already to be sent to you.”

He sighs, resting his lips against your forehead. For the first time, you realize that he is trembling slightly in your arms, as though nervous.

“I needed to be with you,” he says simply, dipping his head to rest in the curve of your neck.

His words worry you. Perhaps his fight with Tigris frightened him more than he is willing to admit aloud.

Wanting to comfort him, you stand on your toes and wrap both arms around his neck, stroking his back soothingly as he breathes into your shoulder. When his breath catches, a pained gasp escaping his throat, you freeze, afraid of hurting him.

“What is it?” you whisper, loosening your hold on him even as he cradles you in place.

He takes a deep breath to steady himself, shakes his head slightly. “It is nothing,” he assures you. He thinks for a moment, strokes your spine with his warm hands. “I just needed to have you near tonight.”

Still concerned, you put your hands on his chest and push a few inches between your bodies. Looking into his eyes seriously, you ask, “Are you hurt?”

He gives you a soft smile, fingers tracing patterns on the sides of your ribs. “I am all right,” he says vaguely, not answering your question the way you hoped.

Still, he does not protest or stop you when you pull out of his embrace and step to the side to look at his back, which seems to be the afflicted area based on the way he flinched at your touch.

When you finally see his injury, you cover your mouth with both hands, eyes filling with tears of horror, anger, and sorrow.

His back is razed with four long claw marks, stretching from his left shoulder blade to his right hip. His tunic, although clearly fresh, has soaked through with the blood, staining the fabric a deep red. A series of small cuts on the backs of his arms, neck, and spine betray more abuse at the hands of his opponent.

Tiger claws. Your love was clawed by a tiger in the arena today, in addition to nearly losing his life to a fierce opponent.

And he seeks your presence as his comfort, you remind yourself. You are his peace, his solace, his only joy.

Your heart swells at that thought, but it aches and weeps at the sight of his terrible wounds, at the pain he must be enduring even at this moment.

He turns to face you, his eyes shadowed but soft on your features. “Do not cry for me, my love,” he murmurs, brushing his fingertips over your cheeks to wipe away your tears.

You shake your head vehemently, pressing your lips together to keep from bursting out in emotion. “How can they do this to you?” you whisper harshly. “You have done nothing, yet they torture you with this terrible pain.”

“The pain is nothing,” he assures you with a gentle smile. “All I feared was that I might die without saying goodbye to you.”

Your heart breaks again, over and over, at the sincerity in his voice.

“You thought you would die?” you ask in a whisper, leaning in to his touch. He is still stroking the side of your face tenderly, but you are afraid to touch him again, to possibly worsen the pain you know he must be in.

He thinks for a moment, eyes trailing down to your lips. “I came closer to death today,” he finally admits in a quiet voice, “than at any other time in the arena.”

So that is the reason for this midnight visit, you realize. A narrow brush with death. The knowledge that he is not invincible. That he could have been killed by a stray swipe from a tiger. Perhaps his first real encounter with fear since he became a gladiator.

Eyes burning with more tears, you squeeze your eyelids shut and reach up to clasp his hand in yours. “I knew something was different about today,” you mutter. “I could sense it, even last night.”

He nods, still letting his eyes focus on your mouth as though afraid to meet your eyes. “The Emperor grows bolder,” he agrees. “More intentional.”

Again, your heart flips in your chest at that thought. The most powerful man in the Empire, with his sights set on death for the man you love.

“I am glad you called for me,” you whisper, opening your eyes to meet his gaze. “I want to share in everything with you — your joys, your sorrows, your fears, everything.”

The look he gives you is so sweet, so tender, so full of gratitude and adoration, that your heart melts again.

He doesn’t speak, just cups your jaw with his hand and pulls you close for a kiss. Not wanting to hurt him, you rest your hands lightly on the inside of his elbows, stroking your thumbs over the sensitive skin. He sighs into the kiss, lips moving gently against yours.

When he tilts his head to rest his forehead against yours, you whisper, “Are you in pain?”

He hesitates, then presses another soft kiss to your lips before answering. “Not unbearably,” he whispers back.

Which is as close to admitting his pain as he will ever get, you know. Knitting your brow in concern, you tilt your head back to look up into his eyes. The top of your head is level with his chin, and he smiles down at you with such fondness and love.

“Let me take care of you,” you request quietly, stroking the sides of his face. He closes his eyes and relaxes into your touch, sighing in pleasure at the contact.

“I did not bring you here for that,” he counters with the faintest smile, eyes still shut as he basks in your gentle touch. “I only wanted to be with you. Do not worry about the scratches; they will heal quickly. Proximo vowed that I would not have to fight again until next week to give them time to heal.”

His words hardly reassure you, and you slowly run your hands down to the sides of his neck. “Let me take care of you,” you repeat, gazing at him passionately. “I want to.”

Your lover opens his eyes, and his expression softens even further. You can sense in his manner that he did not intend for you to care for his wounds, but that he is grateful and pleased that you want to anyway.

“Do whatever you wish,” he murmurs, leaning in again to capture your lips in a gentle kiss, “so long as I am close to you.”

What love could ever be sweeter than the tenderness he feels for you, that in his moments of greatest fear and pain, he longs for your calming presence?

When your lips part, you step out of the circle of his arms, ready to begin your job of tending his wounds. You survey him carefully, looking for any injuries you may have missed when you threw yourself into his arms earlier.

There are a few small cuts on his face and a bruise forming under his right eye, but nothing particularly grievous. You notice a slice across the top of his left hand, but it has been crudely bandaged with a linen strip.

Meeting his intense gaze, you motion for him to take off his tunic so you can get a better look at the tiger’s claw marks on his back. Wordlessly, he does as you ask. Watching him undress is nothing new for you, but when his tunic is off, the damage to his skin is even more obvious. Your throat clenches when you see the deep cuts on his back.

“You will be scarred from this,” you whisper, hands hovering over his back but afraid to actually touch him for fear of increasing his pain.

He smiles softly over his shoulder at you. “I do not mind the scars,” he teases you, “so long as you are here to ease the pain.”

His body bears further evidence of the fight now that you can see his bare skin. Deep cuts on the backs of his arms and shoulders, and one shallow one running down his side. He’s covered in bruises as well, from his breastbone to his ribs. Every time he breathes, you sense the painful movement of his bruised skin.

Another wave of emotion strikes you at the sight of his wounds. Your hand still hovers over him, afraid to make full contact, and he turns his head to look at you.

A moment later, he turns fully and wraps you in his arms, clearly ignoring the pain it causes. You bury your face in his bare shoulder, blinking back tears.

“I cannot stand to see you like this,” you tell him, your heart breaking as you think of all the pain he has borne. “I cannot stand to see what they do to you.”

He lays his cheek against the top of your head, rocking you back and forth in his arms as if you were the one in need of comfort. “They can do nothing to me that I am not fitted by nature to bear,” he promises you in a soft voice, the one that you know is reserved only for you.

You do not bother trying to argue him out of that philosophy, choosing instead to rest your hands lightly against his waist. He does not flinch, but his muscles relax at your soft touch.

Several moments pass in that way, just holding one another close, enjoying the simple pleasure of sharing a quiet moment away from the rest of the world. Your times together are always so brief, so bittersweet, and your heart aches at the thought of having to leave him like this tonight.

I will make it worth it, you promise yourself. I will take away his pain, even if only for an hour.

Without a word, you lift your chin and look deep into the man’s eyes. He gazes back at you steadily, firmly, lovingly. His hands are feather-light on your waist.

Just as silently, the moment passes, and you take one of his warm hands in yours to lead him toward the bed. He follows you without a word, then sits on the edge of the bed when you indicate for him to do so.

His eyes widen in surprise, however, when you do not join him on the bed. Instead, you kneel down at his feet, between his legs, and lean forward to press your lips against his bare chest. Lightly, with the pressure of a breath, you kiss every bruise on his body — from his collar, to his breastbone, to his ribs, to his stomach. He breathes deep and slow while you trail your lips over his skin, never flinching as you take care not to press your kisses too hard.

When you have finished with his torso, you lean back on your heels and take his hands in yours. Still, he looks down at you with such wonder, such abject shock that you are paying these careful attentions to every inch of his weary body.

He nearly shivers when you press a kiss to the tops of his hands, then each of his fingers, riddled with cuts and callouses. All you want to do is shower him with the love you feel, the love you always worry you will never have another chance to express.

Over his palms, his wrists, his sensitive inner arms with pulsing veins, you continue kissing his skin with utter softness. He raises one hand to rest on the back of your head, tangling his fingers in your hair.

Sitting up on your knees, you push yourself to be at eye level with his chest. Another brief moment of eye contact, his gaze searing into yours as your souls communicate without words — I adore you, I lay my entire life at your feet, for the rest of my life I am yours.

Then you rest your hands on his thighs, leaning forward to press your lips and tongue to his neck, right where he is most sensitive.

He does exactly what you want him to do — he shudders from head to foot and draws a quick breath, overcome by the pleasurable sensation. His hand is still gripping the back of your head, and his fingers tighten ever so slightly in your hair.

You still intend to care for his wounds, but right now, all you want him to know is how much you love him, how much you desire to pleasure him the way he always pleasures you.

Passionately, your lips move against his neck, and your whisper is so soft you wonder if he will even hear it. “Show me where it hurts,” you request. “Show me where to touch.”

He is so vulnerable for you in this moment, his body bared to you and his eyes closed, head tilted back while you explore his neck with your lips and tongue. It’s the most intimate position he can be in, with you so close to his exposed throat and heart. No one else sees him this way: no one else has his trust the way you do.

One of your hands reaches up to rest against his chest, which rises and falls more quickly as his pulse accelerates. The faster he breathes, the warmer his skin grows, and you grip his leg more firmly with your other hand.

His own larger hand falls to grip yours there. “Touch me wherever you please,” he murmurs, breathless and shivery. You are thrilled by the way he responds to you, and you can sense that this is what he needs now — to take comfort in your touch, in your love.

“I will be careful,” you promise, nuzzling his neck while your free hand rubs circles on his chest.

He moans, the softest, sweetest sound you have ever heard in your life, and he whispers, “I am at your mercy, my love.”

And, indeed, he is.

You are careful, just as you promised you would be. He seems to finally let down his guard in front of you now, to stop covering up the pain. You can sense it in his ragged breathing, his flushed skin, his faint winces when he leans forward or back slightly.

Wanting to help him release his tension but also knowing he cannot lie back or rest against the wall, you go back to your kneeling position on the floor. While he takes a deep breath, you lean forward again and touch your lips to his stomach. The muscles there are tight, but he softens and relaxes when you press kisses in a trail lower, his hips moving in an involuntary response.

You’ve reached his lower abdomen, reveling in the warmth of his skin and the pressure of his hand on the back of your head, when he stops you.

“No,” he whispers, voice hoarse with strain. A thin sheen of sweat has broken over his skin, and his eyes are glassy as he looks down at you, breathless.

You rest a hand on his waist again, stopping immediately. “Did I hurt you?” you ask softly, heart aching at the thought.

He shakes his head and closes his eyes for a moment. “No,” he assures you. “It feels so good.”

You smile at that, leaning forward to kiss your way down his torso again, but he stops you a second time.

“Not that way,” he insists, and suddenly you realize what he means. He so rarely lets you get on your knees and pleasure him — just him — without regard for yourself. He much prefers for you to reach your pleasure together, both of you achieving rapture at the same time if you can. You’ve gotten into such a rhythm now that you can manage it nearly every time.

You want to ease his pain this way, to focus only on pleasuring him, but he won’t let you — not even when he’s throbbing and aching for you so badly. You should have known he wouldn’t.

“You can’t lie on your back,” you remind him gently, enveloped by the warmth of his gaze as he frames your face with both hands. “And if you straddle me, your cuts might open again. We need to be careful.”

He smiles back at you, stroking your hair. “We will,” he promises. “Stand up.”

You do as he asks, reminding yourself that you wanted to satisfy him tonight, and if this is really what he wants, you’ll give it to him. As always, you are struck by the selflessness of his gesture — he cannot stand the thought of simply using you for his pleasure if he cannot bring the same feeling to you.

He stays seated on the edge of the bed, but he pulls you close to him with his hands on your waist. Gently, and slowly so as not to inflame the scratches on his back, he lifts the hem of your shift and helps you tug it over your head.

Undressing you himself is one of his favorite parts of lovemaking, you’ve discovered. He delights in slowly uncovering your skin night after night, baring you himself, seeing your reaction to his first touch.

A moment later, his hands are gently pressing onto your bare body, gripping your hips to pull you forward. You finally understand what position he is angling for, and you climb onto his lap with his assistance.

And thus are your next moments spent. He drags his lips over every inch of your skin he can reach — your neck, shoulders, chest, collarbones. Every sensitive spot he has memorized, he attends with his tongue. His hands are tender on your lower back while he holds you in place, smiling into your skin each time you gasp and shiver at his touches.

When he finally pauses to take a breath, you seize your opportunity and do the same to him. He shudders in your arms, nearly comes undone for you when you lean forward, touching your body gently against his.

Every breath is in rhythm with each other, every movement perfectly in sync. While you press open-mouthed kisses to the curve between his neck and shoulder, he aligns your body right where he needs you, holding your waist with his strong hands.

He sets the rhythm, and you follow his lead while he moves you back and forth — always in control, even in this position. Sometimes he winces in pain or tenses when he pushes too hard, but he never stops his pace. He leans forward occasionally to kiss your lips or neck, and you let your hands wander over his broad shoulders, his heaving chest.

Unexpectedly, just as tension begins to coil in your belly, tears spring to your eyes. Even in the heat of passion, your lover looks up into your eyes with such sweetness, such tenderness.

Sometimes his eyes flutter shut when he gasps in pleasure, but he always opens them again, fixes his gaze on you while he makes love to you.

What could be sweeter than this? you wonder. To gaze deep into one another’s eyes while you pleasure each other?

There is no shame, no apathy, no indifference. There is only love in his eyes, sheer joy at being close to you, wrapped up in your limbs and heat and affections.

It’s true intimacy, you know, to have each other’s bodies memorized, and to still be content to look so deeply into each other’s eyes.

He reaches his release first, one arm tightening around your waist. He moans again, deep in his throat, and his head naturally falls back, eyes closed, lips parted. You drag your hands through his dark hair, swipe at the sweat on his temples.

He whispers your name, once, twice, three times, opens his eyes and looks deep into yours while he tenses and relaxes in rhythm with you.

You reach your own climax a moment later, encircled firmly by his strong arms, still moving in rhythm with his body, and you only have the strength to lean forward into his embrace, your head tucked into his neck, while you breathe his name over and over.

The moment is perfect, utterly perfect, in a way that only true lovers can experience.

You are still catching your breath when he dips his head against your shoulder, still breathing deep to recover from his intense release.

“I love you,” he murmurs passionately, “with all my heart and soul.”

You try to reply in kind, but his lovemaking has left you so breathless that you can barely make a sound.

But he isn’t finished. “I am yours,” he continues, lips brushing your neck as he speaks in a voice only meant for you. “All I am and ever will be is yours.”

“I know,” you finally manage to reply, breathless and soft.

“If ever I should die without saying goodbye to you,” he whispers against your throat, “know that I died loving you with my last breath, and that your name was the last word on my tongue, and that I will wait for an eternity until my soul meets yours in the afterlife.”

If you were not already overcome by emotion before, his impassioned confession brings you nearly to sobs. Carefully, you wrap your arms around his neck and pull his body fully against yours.

“My beloved,” you whisper, and he sighs softly at your endearment. “I have nothing to give you but my heart, and it has long been yours. My every heartbeat is for you alone.”

In the wake of your passion, sharing every breath and shiver in your close embrace, your feelings seem to spill over like a waterfall, and he kisses the base of your neck to hide his own surge of emotion.

“You are my only joy,” he tells you. “My only peace. My world is cruel and dark and brutal, but your light wraps around me and gives me something to live for.”

“And you,” you say tearfully, “are the sun in my sky. You are the first ray of morning and the last ray of evening. I have no light but you.”

He rests his forehead on your neck and breathes you in deeply. “I am yours,” he repeats, softly, like a prayer. “I am only yours for the rest of my life.”

Your response is to tighten your limbs around him and rest your head against his shoulder. No more words are needed, for you both can understand each other without speaking.

And in this silence, your lonely heart is comforted, his pain is eased, and your love is only sealed further by the sweet assurance you feel in each other’s arms.

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

You know you only have an hour with him, so once both of you have caught your breath and taken your fill of each other’s soothing touches, you finally disentangle yourself from him and sit down beside him on the bed.

Just as you feared, the deep claw marks on his back have reopened after your passionate lovemaking, blood trickling down his back again.

“If I thought reopening wounds could be so enjoyable,” the man tells you teasingly, “I would ask to fight a tiger every day.”

You can sense that he’s covering up his pain with the teasing tone. He is shaken — far more shaken than you have ever seen him — but he’s trying to be strong for you.

Sitting beside and slightly behind him, you are kneeling on the bed. You didn’t bother putting your clothes back on, as both of you have become so comfortable with one another that it seems to make no difference, especially since you’ve just finished making love.

Biting back the wave of emotion that threatens to overtake your words, you give a sighed laugh. “You do not need to risk your life for my attention,” you say, only half-joking. “It is yours whether you are clawed or not.”

After a brief look around the room, you find the one courtesy the gladiator school has provided your injured lover: a bottle of liniment. Fetching it from the table, you fold yourself beside him on the bed.

“Face the wall,” you instruct him softly. “I will rub this into your scratches.”

He does just as you ask without hesitation, bracing himself with one hand against the wall. You can sense the tension in his strong frame, the effort it is taking to keep from betraying how much pain he is in.

Tendrils of blood are still running down his bare back, so you first wipe away the blood with the washrag on the table. He gasps at the first touch of your hands, then relaxes a bit at the relief.

“What was the purpose of giving you ointment,” you ask lightly, trying to distract him from the pain, “if your scratches are impossible for you to reach yourself?”

He relaxes a little more, a laugh shifting his position. “Perhaps they were counting on you to be my nurse,” he replies.

You only smile at his words, rubbing the liniment onto your fingertips and beginning to apply it to his skin. The tiger’s scratches are deep, ripping his skin from corner to corner. He tries to hide his reactions, but he can’t keep from jerking a quick breath anytime you press ointment into his cuts.

“Did anyone even look at your wounds?” you ask him, still trying to keep the conversation light but edging toward sensitive territory.

He breathes, deep and slow, before answering, his voice strained. “Yes,” he murmurs. “Proximo had them examine me after he saw how much I bled. The physician said he did not need to bandage me, so he just gave me the ointment to keep infection away.”

Another gentle press of your fingers, and he arches his back slightly in pain. You’ve only just finished tending the first scratch, shoulder to hip, so you pause and lean forward to press your lips to the back of his neck. He sighs contentedly.

As much as you despise Proximo’s gladiator school and its cruel treatment of your beloved, you take a small consolation in knowing that you are the one who gets to care for his wounds.

The thought of anyone else putting their hands on him, of anyone else seeing him undress and touching his body, is distressing to you. You know he is violated in so many other ways — forced into life-or-death situations every day in the arena — but you have always taken comfort in knowing that he does not suffer at others’ hands the way you do.

You push such thoughts from your head. Right now, all you care about is that he is yours, body and soul, and that he craves your gentle touch to ease his pain.

You resume your ministrations to his back, alternating between wiping away his blood and applying the thick ointment to his scratches. He works hard to hide any pain, your only indication being his white-knuckled grip on his thighs.

“Will you be able to sleep tonight?” you ask quietly. He usually sleeps on his back, but that will be impossible until his scratches are healed.

He just nods, clenching his teeth to keep from betraying his pain. You are rubbing ointment into the last of the four cuts, and you notice that he is trembling again, probably from the pain and the exertion of trying to hide that pain.

You finish as quickly as possible, then wipe away the last of the blood from his back. Eager to comfort him somehow, you lean forward and kiss him softly on the back of his right shoulder, where there are no scratches.

The shiver that runs down his spine, and the breathless moan he elicits, are like music to your ears.

“Are you all right?” you whisper, lips brushing his skin softly.

He draws another shaky breath, nods his head. “Yes,” he murmurs. “Thank you.”

You simply lay your cheek against the back of his shoulder. You long to wrap your arms around him, to hold him close to your body and share your warmth with him, but the scratches make that impossible.

Instead, you indicate for him to turn around again, and he does so, moving slowly so as not to irritate his scratches again. When he is facing you, you begin using the washrag on some of his other injuries.

“Proximo is sending you back into the arena next week?” you ask, dabbing at the cut running down the side of his ribs.

He winces slightly but does not make a sound. “Yes. The Emperor has called for another holiday, and I will be expected to fight in the games.”

You press your lips together. His eyes have fluttered shut, and his hands are still gripping his thighs, all from the pain of you tending his wounds. You can’t imagine him being ready to fight again in only a week.

You say as much to him. “It is as though Proximo does not care whether you can lift a sword or not.”

He smiles sardonically, eyes still closed. “I finished the fight today after being clawed by a tiger,” he says lightly. “He knows I will do whatever I must to stay alive.”

You are grateful that his eyes are closed, because you can’t suppress the worry and sorrow that cross your face at his words.

Every fight brings him closer to his inevitable death, a vicious slaughter to the shouts of a fickle mob.

You bite back tears that threaten to spill over, determined not to burden him with your own pain.

“Who will tend your wounds,” you ask, “if I am not here for the next week?”

He opens his eyes at that, gazes at you deeply, as if suddenly remembering that no fights mean no nights with you.

“I do not know,” he says quietly. “It does not matter.”

It matters to me, you think, but you just give him a sad smile and continue your ministrations. Delicately, you wash the bloodied cuts that form a lattice over his neck and collarbones, then swipe the cloth over his bruises. He winces again when you press the cloth against his chest, and you reach out your free hand to steady him.

“Is it too painful?” you whisper. Your heart breaks to see him like this.

But he shakes his head, biting back the pain and smiling tightly at you. “No,” he assures you as you set the cloth aside. “You have no idea how much it means simply to be with you.”

His gaze swallows you whole, wraps you in an embrace that warms your soul. He lifts one hand to stroke the side of your face fondly, and you lean your face into his touch.

“I do,” you tell him coyly, covering up the wellspring of emotion in your chest. “Did I not just remind you that you are my one joy? My only peace?”

He drags his fingers down your jaw, your throat, the swell of your chest. His eyes follow his fingertips, and goosebumps break out over every inch of skin he brushes. A shiver runs up your spine while he traces his fingertips on your lower abdomen gently, almost without thinking.

He looks up at you through hooded eyes, his lips pulled into a smirk. “You like that?” he teases, dragging one fingertip up the center of your body.

You can’t keep from shivering again, harder this time. The pleasure you just shared with him is still fresh, your skin still sensitive.

“You know I do,” you smile, arching your back. “I live for it.”

With a smile, he tilts his head to the side and continues tracing one finger over your most sensitive areas. He seems weary, you notice, especially after making love so passionately. His attentions are languid, curious, relaxed.

When his fingertips return to your face, tracing the shape of your lips, you raise your own hand and touch his chest lightly. His skin is still warm and flushed, and you press your palm gently over his heart.

It thunders under your hand. At the contact, his eyes close for the briefest moment, his lips parting, but he opens his eyes to fix you with a heated stare.

“It beats for you,” he breathes, swept up in the moment. “Only for you.”

He lifts a hand and presses it against yours, flat against his chest, while he just looks at you with all the love and passion within. Your own heart starts pounding wildly in response, and you impulsively reach for his other hand to press it against your chest.

You sit like that together for a few beautiful moments, just enjoying the familiar rhythm of one another’s heartbeats. One day his heart will stop beating, you remember unwillingly, and you’ll be left alone.

This is the burden of loving a gladiator: never being able to enjoy your time with him fully, because you always have that knowledge in the back of your head.

You push those thoughts aside again, determined to be strong for him the way he’s strong for you.

“It will not take long,” you murmur, leaning forward to press your lips against the corner of his mouth. “You will heal quickly.”

He hums in response, fingertips still tracing quiet patterns on your bare chest. “I will heal as quickly as I can so you can return.”

“Do not risk yourself only for that,” you warn him. “I would rather wait a bit longer than have you go into the arena too soon. You have to get your strength back first.”

“You are my strength.”

Your love bows his head then, resting it on the curve of your neck so he can breathe you in. Your hour is drawing to a close, and you are reminded once again that in his moments of greatest pain and fear, he only longed to be with you.

You can feel his warm breath on your neck, his hot skin burning against yours. The pain is catching up to him, you realize, and he needs to rest now. You know this, but your heart breaks at the thought of leaving him.

“I don’t want to go,” you whisper, tears filling your eyes once again.

He swallows hard, lifting his hand to cup your jaw. He’s still nuzzling your neck, as though basking in your warmth for the last time. “Beloved,” he whispers back, and his voice breaks, and you know that this time you have shared is different, more painful, more precious for both of you.

If only the rest of the world could see the Spaniard this way — completely vulnerable, intimately surrendered to the one he loves.

You trace careful fingertips over his shoulder, down his strong arm, then over his ribs, his waist, while he nestles his face against your neck. You wish you could hold him and comfort him all night, reassure him of your love every moment.

But the guard pounds on the door just then, signaling that your time is over.

He grips your jaw a little tighter, presses a soft kiss to your shoulder, then releases you. If the look in his eyes is anything to judge by, he feels the same bereavement at your parting that you do.

You dress in silence, motioning for him to stay on the bed and not aggravate his claw marks. He watches you thoughtfully, transfixed by every movement as you put your clothes back on.

“Will you send me word?” you ask him quickly, in a hushed voice. “If your injuries worsen, I mean? Or if anything happens?”

His smile is faint, pained, but grateful. “Yes.”

“And you will not rush Proximo to put you back in the arena? You will wait until you are healed?”

“I will.”

You’re dressed now, just lingering because you don’t want to go. The guard pounds the door a second time, but you just can’t tear yourself away.

Taking a quick step forward, you stand before your love, cradle his face in your hands. You press a kiss to his forehead, and when you straighten, he is looking up at you with the sweetest eyes you have ever seen.

His gaze is one of peace, and contentment, and adoration, and tenderness, and longing, and a thousand other soft emotions that he only shows to you.

He tilts his head to the side, kisses your inner wrist as you caress his face.

The door slams open, and the guard loudly informs you that your time is up, but Maximus just holds his lips against your wrist for one more moment, feeling your pulse as it races at his touch.

Then he is releasing you, and you are walking backwards to the door, and even as the door shuts, you can read the message in his eyes.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

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

More of my fanfiction if you're so inclined :)

[moonshynecybin]

I was watching Mask Singer and some interactions between stars and the jury reminded me of how celebrities (alright, usually it’s mostly singers and comedians but actors too sometimes) and it reminded me of your movie stars AU and Marc and Valentino being invited to random games shows and special games night together, having to captain a team each to battle over trivia or having to cooperate on the most random activities (did someone say forced proximity / communication? is that too much of my brand? well, oops) (accessorily, would Valentino agree to participate in those game shows if he knew Marc was coming? probably not but that’s a detail)

context. helppppp truly like first time around pre-breakup its one of those PR tours for their movie that is like. well as an rpf warrior you'd be asking yourself some questions. you'd have some thoughts. theories, even. like why are they in each others LAPPSSSS fully zendaya laughing (side note. they absolutely DO the iconic lip sync battle rihanna umbrella thing where marc goes insanely hard for no reason while vale is standing to the side in like. basketball shorts losing his mindddd.) its like witty, charming, a LITTLE sexy as they are trying to get people to come see their romance movie, and theres a lot of pink-cheeked delirious flirting its very fun

POST BREAK UP. well as you have said it is a proximity nightmare akin to nothing they have ever faced before. like its one thing to do a stageplay with an ex, where they can both be "in character" and sort of avoiding their feelings by experiencing the catharsis of acting or whatever. turn it off when they leave and try not to think about it. NOPE ! this is one where they just kind of have to be around each other doing little games on camera and it makes them feel crazyyyyyy... tipsy on talk shows getting asked about their first project and awkwardly skirting around their breakup... spanish and italian men getting annihilated on hot ones (this one just makes me laugh... MARC DOESNT LIKE SPICY FOOODDDD...). trying to come up with sfw annecdotes about them both on-set (impossible marc keeps trying to start stories that he forgets end with "and then he was inside me"). forced into the newlywed game and they crush it to an UNCOMFY degree bc they are obsessed with each other and have been keeping tabs on each other for like a decade. and then the final straw is when they make them do one of those LIE DETECTOR TESTS and its so crazy they cant send half of it to air so its only like three minutes long post edit and everyone is like ???? because they dont know marc asked him about their feud with his eyes all intense and vale was sweatinggggg trying not to give up the ghost

[nalyra-dreaming]

Hi, I have some loose thoughts, and I would like your opinion, I know that in the books everything is about Lestat (and that the series will be more about him and Louis) but I really hope that doesn't happen in the series because I always ending up hating the characters where everything is about and for them, and i want to keep liking Lestat! it's simply annoying, I would like the series to explore the history of the four characters, I think it would be much more interesting, I also think that people aren't really analyzing Armand and his relationship with Louis properly, people tend to think that Armand controls Louis 100% of the time and the writers and Jacob himself have said that they wanted Louis to have some agency, for example, when Armand suggested new art for the wall, he suggested colorful art and people insist on saying that Armand keeps him in an prison, controlling everything in the apartment, leaving everything dark, I don't know, when at least for me Louis is doing this, because he is unhappy and in a way, he wants Armand to be unhappy too, they are both not with who they want to be, and I think Louis must have really asked Armand to make him forget the first interview because he was no longer able to deal with the guilt about Claudia and Lestat and he didn't really want to try to commit suicide again, but Armand, in order to keep the lies going, had to keep controlling his mind, so he kept increasing the control until he reached a point where he didn't even wanted (obviously i dont know, just especulating) but he didn't know what to do, because I think Armand loved Louis in some way. I also don't see people talking about the fact that Armand thinks that Marius, who is older and more powerful than him, died at the hands of other vampires (who I think were younger than him, I don't remember) so why not they believe that Armand really thought that the coven could kill him, if they were focused, we know that he could have prevented it but I don't think he knew that...anyway, I think we have to listen to what Armand has to say, because until now we only know about lies and omissions that he told, we don't know what was really happening or what was going on in his head until this moment. Sorry, because it's a lot and english is not my first language!

Hey!

Not everything is about Lestat :), but he is the narrator of a lot of them, and is part of the story in most :) Given the books Rolin said he takes from (already) makes it clear that he focuses on the Loustat/Lestat centric books, which carries obviously repercussions for the show. But that just as a note :)

I do think, and I just said this in another ask again, too, that the show is built on the big four, namely Louis, Lestat, Armand and Daniel. These are the corner stones they chose, and the rest of the relationships and stories will revolve around them I think. But... Lestat will stay, and, well... he will be very prominent in the upcoming seasons, let's put it that way.

I... have an idea for when Louis could have asked for his memories to be erased, but I don't think he would have asked Armand. I mean, this is the guy who keeps the stones in his ankles as a reminder. I don't think he would willingly choose to lose the memories, no way. There might be ways to make that statement true, story-wise, but if it is, there is a LOT more to it.

Armand had to constantly readjust Louis, that is no speculation, that is something Assad has said :), and that is clearly visible in s2, too, especially on rewatch. Louis' behavior shifts, radically, from part to part, depending on what is... needed.

As per Armand and the "coven killing/controlling him"... nonny, that part has been proven a lie. It has been proven by the few pages we got of the trial script as well. Armand was never in any danger from them. He directed the trial. He was their master for centuries.

He killed Claudia and tried to kill Louis.

That said, you are correct, the "current" knowledge of the characters has to be taken into account. And Armand might not know yet that Marius is still alive (though I do think that him hanging art of Marius in the penthouse speaks volumes). I say might, because it depends. In the books he sees someone he thought dead at some point, and ... that must have led to a lot of speculation.

And yes, I would love to "listen" to Armand, as you put it. I would LOVE an adaptation of TVA or maybe a spin-off of him and Daniel in Night Island. I'd love that.

But Armand has been giving a very edited tale, that has already been stated, and he has changed the tale in Louis' head, has implanted and changed memories. Daniel latching onto the fact that Lestat could not have spoken in Louis' mind after turning was supposed to be the clue there.

Next season, Lestat will give his account - and whether this fandom likes it or not, but Lestat is canonically doing so for Louis, to make him understand, and he has no reason to lie and he does not soften much either. And that understanding of Louis being the driving motivation will have the "documentary" result in something quite different than what s1 & 2 were - and Louis will understand.

In the books, that is when they reunite - before other things happen. I... no matter the other stuff they put into s3, but I don't think that will be any different here, since they keep quite close to the books for the big emotional points.

[endlessburningdarkness]

**I headcanon their relationship falls apart anyway, even without a reveal, bc there's only so long Shen Yuan can lie to himself and put up with terrible sex and LBHs manchild behaviour. I imagine he logs out at some point and returns to his real life.**

Can you develop more this, please? =)

Through most of the story, Shen Yuan is going from one crisis to another. He doesn't have time to sit down and think and be honest with himself. After the story ends, and he has to think beyond just surviving I imagine he will eventually realize he wants more than a relationship built on a lie, and terrible sex and the life of a cultivator.

I imagine he'll crave modern things more and more, not to mention, finally remembering his family and the life he left behind, the life he could've had, where he doesn't have to get his arse ripped open bc the protagonist will cry and destroy the world if he doesn't feel sufficiently "loved". Isn't it telling that both LBH and SY's idea of love requires sex, which one of them doesn't enjoy?

I also imagine he won't be able to deny how manipulative and coercive LBH is, and LBHs appeal as a character (and he does still consider LBH a character even in the end, its why he insists on bottoming, bc the stallion protagonist couldn't possibly take it up the arse) will dwindle and fade away.

It's like how you like badboys in fiction, but if you really had to deal with one irl day in and day out for years on end, you'd say fuck it and pack your bags. If the story book world is now real, that means real human emotions and realistic reactions to things, and I can't see Shen Yuan, realistically, wanting to stay.

So he would find an out, either by killing himself or just logging out and going back home. I don't think LBH would let him leave, and he knows that. It's why he feels so pressured to keep LBH happy and content and sees it as his responsibility, bc an unhappy LBH = world ending. Eventually though, he'd get over that idea, once he has time to pause and think things through and sort out his feelings and get used to his new, disappointing life.

Maybe Shen Yuan becomes the new protagonist, and lives out his dream of being LBH. bc that's the real reason he was reading th original novel, it was a male power fantasy, and Shen Yuan bought into that. He wants the power fantasy and he'll ultimately have to confront his own unhappiness and disappointment within himself. There's only so long you can lie to yourself. Shen Yuan lies to himself in order to survive, but once survival is secured, he will have ample time to realize he's been lying to himself, and that he doesn't want to continue.

And maybe some things are worse than death. I can't imagine years of lying and being coerced into a relationship with painful and humiliating sex is gonna feel any different from torture via human stick a few years down the line.

Him logging out and continuing with his normal life is probably the funniest outcome. I can see him writing fanfiction of Shen Qingqiu becoming a demon lord and fucking LBH/women as a sort of therapeutic exercise to deal with his trauma in the real world afterwards.

Honestly, I think he'd be relived to escape and probably give up his online hating. Which is ultimately the message mxtx wanted to send by writing a story about a straight online troll ending up getting fucked in the arse so badly he bleeds every time. don't hate in front of the author's face, aka the comment section, which is what Shen Yuan was shamelessly doing, harassing the author so much the author remembers all his comments. It would be a nice ending to say he learned his lesson?

But i also don't think an online hater deserves what Shen Yuan is put through in the story as "punishment" for his bad behaviour. It's not that serious imo. Good thing its a fantasy story and doesn't take itself too seriously. It would be a lot more depressing then, and not nearly as funny.

I may have gone a little offtopic. Oh well.

[hello-universe-lovers]

Well, time for my stp au ranting (thanks @neverpathia for getting me off my ass)

For some context, have this:

SLAY THE PRINCESS: THE FIRST DRAFT AU:

(SPOILERS and OC TALK ahead)

Let's start with someone I've been referring to as the Player

(Do not mind that the sketch has a different title name. This was literally the first draft, ironically enough. And some beta voice designs weee~)

Her name is Ley, and her design is honestly what I call the "Pocket OC", a blank slate that I can insert into any universe or fandom with some modifications. For this application, she is the unfortunate Mortal that the Narrator decided would be GREAT at princess slaying!!/s

Contrary to Larry, who only had to do 5 loops to freed the Shifting Mound. Ley has to go through 11 FOR ALL THE VOICES. Since LQ isn't exactly capable of calling the voices back to him like She can. And with the "2 voice per loop" rule, she has to collect em one at a time. Fun times/s

I feel her personality is best described when I go into the routes with her, in contrast to Larry (note that they are in a specific order).

THE PRISONER:

Her first was the Prisoner. Her skepticism of the Narrator and the Princess (expressed by bringing the knife down to the basement) quickly melted away into sympathy for the Princess and resolved to save her. Unlike Larry, she didn't had to cut off her hand. Rather, she cut one of the links with the Pristine Blade, rendering it blunt. When the Narrator took over, the Princess had to bash her head against the wall, knocking her out/killing her (they have the same effect).

In the Prisoner Chapter, she woke up in chains, rather than free, and the Prisoner is her usual self. And to add to her headache, there was a new Voice with the Narrator: the Voice of the Hero (pre-egg crack). She informs her that she's been stuck here for a while, and the knife was out of their reach, presumably upstairs. Ley, not giving up, broke her thumb to get out (since the chain was for Larry's neck, not hers) and did the same for the Prisoner's wrist cuffs. With freedom and a knife again, the Prisoner asked how she was going to get her out of there. She did the same thing she did last time: cutting her free. When asked why she thought that worked and not trust her in her "alternative" plan: she did trust her, but she didn't want her to get hurt for the sake of freedom. Hero encourages her on with her choices, seeing how far a strong will can get you, as well as subtly demonstrating she can still influence this world, even for a human.

But, as the Shifting Mound claims the Prisoner and she finds herself in the Long Quiet. The Mirror is still there, but rather than showing her own reflection, she sees the Hero, in how she perceived the Voice, through her route. She says "Hi" to her (who finally cracked her egg) and comments on how Proud she was of Ley for keeping her good nature, even in such a difficult circumstances. However, their conversation couldn't last long as the darkness of the mirror starts taking Hero away. Hero screamed in fear, and Ley bangs on the mirror, but the Voice returns to the Long Quiet, to where she is meant to be. But she inherited Ley's Chivalry, and it will stick with her

(Don't worry, I won't rant too much with the rest, this is the first. The rest of them will be shorter)

Edit: so that was a lie!

THE RAZOR:

(Oh I forgot Stubborn went through a redesign godddd--)

Her next route is where her personality changes the Story. Let's be clear here: she isn't Larry. She has no God powers that makes her go numb to pain or make it go empty. But what she has is drive. Perseverance is a HELL of a drug, and it's what she did to Conquer the Razor.

After being stabbed by the Princess in the Chapter 1, Ley tried to give her the benefit of a doubt, but it's clear that this Princess's love language is "STAB! STAB! STAB!!", so it's time to arm up. It's difficult, she died a lot, but overtime, she realized that the arena they were in...was changing. Warps, cracks littered the walls of the cabin and basement. An idea was sown, and luckily she has the perfect voice to keep her going. Stubborn had to take a backseat, which he hated, but he got what he wanted. Clash after clash, the basement showed signs of breaking down. She even tore off one of Razor's arms to use as a sword. Once you have a goal that isn't just "winning", your motivation skyrockets. Chapter 4 wasn't named "Mutually Assured Destruction", but "the Bird and the Mountain". As the Princess showed her new form, Ley showed her plan's fruition. The basement finally gave out under the abuse, and collapsed on top of both of them. The Bladed Razor looked up at the sky from the hole that opened up, while pinned under tons of rubble and was memorized. Ley, meanwhile, made her way out of the rubble, in pain, but alive. This is where an unintended Side effect of her influence came in. Because she felt someone lifted her up and helped her approach the Razor. The Princess was surprised, but she had no regrets. In fact, she had fun!! Seeing her slowly growing to triumph over her was fun! And the stars were pretty to look at too! She was ok with dying now, promising to maybe try something else, now that the world is open to her...

But they won't have that next encounter, as Ley finds herself in the Long Quiet once more.

Stubborn was struggling against being unraveled, but he had to congratulate her. If it was him, he would have fought her over and over with no stop. But her plan not only stopped her, it also kept her going. With a brain like that, nothing could stand in her way. Ley gave her peace with him, reassuring that the Quiet won't hurt him, it's taking him somewhere he belongs. And to tell Hero she said "hi", when he sees her...

The NIGHTMARE:

With so many deaths in one loop, it left her feeling the fatigue in the next Loop. In her tired state, she decided she needed space from both the Narrator and Princess to think, so she left the basement. She didn't, however, closed the door to the basement. She left it open to show that she wasn't gonna leave her in limbo. While she thought of what to do, exhaustion finally kicked in and she fell asleep. However, when she woke up, the door to the basement was blocked by the table. She rudely asked the Narrator what happened, and that's when SKEPTIC made himself known. He came while she was asleep, and decided that it'd be safer to talk with the door blocked. Panicked, she quickly opened the door, asking the Princess if she's OK. But her haste to check on her let her tripped and broke her neck in the fall.

The next time, Skeptic is once again not being helpful. Apparently he and Narrator had a talk while she was "dead" and Skeptic doesn't believe in anything Narry is saying about their situation. Not even the ominous cabin and the drop to the basement. For once, his Skepticism kept her alive because when the Nightmare showed up, he just didn't believe she could do that. It's not Paranoid but it will do. For Ley herself, it may felt like absolute shit to have your organs barely work, but it gave her time to say sorry to the Princess and helped her out of the basement. When asked why she said sorry, when she didn't ask for it, she responded that she deserved one anyway.

In the Long Quiet, She confronted Skeptic for his mistakes...but she does thanked him for keeping her alive, even if it was accidental on his part. He apologized for his misjudgment and was grateful to meet someone like-minded. Maybe she can discover the truth of this place, where he could not. Then he was taken away, though he resisted a little.

(Bonus but between every few loops, she just crashes into Shifty to sleep. Not repeating what happened with the Nigthmare, now that deep sleep can apparently summon these guys. Not that she'd remembered)

The TOWER:

Her hesitation to kill the Princess gave the next one an Ego boost. And Smitten is here because of a misguided respect for the Tower, that could be interpreted as "love". With a voice that's all about devotion and a literal Goddess, she was THIS close to succumbing. BUT the Tower just HAD to take the face of a loved one, brcause Ley wasn't a "little bird", try and persuade her. Which just made her ANGRY. The Fury of the AUDACITY!!

Now, Smitten believed in love, and if Tower's love language was "devotion", he was gonna give it to her. And he didn't appreciate this Lady not seeing the LOVE like he did. However, in her fury, Smitten saw her memories, and of the Love that she had with this other woman. But it ended tragically and bitterly. Died by a fire. But it was REAL. A REAL love that was meaningful that was more than devotion.

Ley pushed the Tower out of the window, letting them fall into nothingness. The Tower realized that maybe using the face of a dead loved one was a bad call...but she still thinks highly of herself. Ley coldly responded "what is a God to a non-believer?"

She is taken away, leaving Ley to fall on forever. But she soon landed gently on the ground. Facing the mirror, Smitten was crying for the lost of the Tower, but also at the beauty of Ley's love. If that was what True Love looked like, maybe He could find it again. Ley told him that True Love doesn't exist. There isn't "the one" for you, just the "love" you made together with the one you choose. Smitten has a lot to think about, now...as he fades away.

The WITCH/THORN:

To go from a tragedy to a romance, Ley didn't want to betray the Princess. But the Narrator forced her hand, and in comes our "favorite" asshole. Rather than being summoned by Ley's feelings, it was the Narrator's feelings projected onto her, the rush of pulling one over on someone. Ley is NOT happy with either of these people in my head, and Opportunist was content to go back and forth between choosing a side. It got to a point where it caused her such a headache that she broke the Pristine Blade by jamming it against the root wall, and bent the handle so no one can get it out. It was an act of desperation against the Narrator and to show trust to the Witch. However, just as they were about to leave, Opportunist decided to try what the Narrator did last time. Ley struggled hard against him, which scared the Witch so much that she stabbed her with a sharp piece of root from the ground. She fell, but muttered an "I'm sorry" before fading away.

The next time she woke up, she had a pain in her chest. And the Voice was less of a voice and more of a person. This is where the Voice finally have a body of their own in the Construct, and Ley's first action was punch the ever loving shit out of the Opportunist. Blaming him for the Witch stabbing her when she was THIS CLOSE to saving her! She never wanted to betray her but the Narrator and now him were projecting those feelings onto her and now SHE has to bear the brunt of their treachery. She did stop wailing on him, but he was crying and begging her to stop by the end of it. All she did was glare in return, saying how pathetic he truly was...before walking to the cabin, skipping the Pristine Blade all together that was just sitting there. The Thorn was there, vulnerable and surrounded by painful thorns, obviously she is scared of Ley for even MORE reasons than the canon one. Because how could she still trust herself, after what she saw and almost did? Ley answered back that she resisted, every step of the way. She never stopped resisting, and she will continue to resist, until both of them made it out of here. With her bare hands, she tore into the vines, not caring if they bleed, Thorn's protest or the Narrator's attempts to make her stop via tedium. She ketp going.

Then, a tap on her shoulder. Whipping around, it's the Opportunist, one hand holding an eye that she punched earlier, and another...the Blade, extended to her, hilt facing her. He makes a non-committal reasoning for being here ("it's better to stick together" and all that) but I ranted enough about what he actually feels before...so with the knife, she cut the Thorn and the 3 of them Escaped the basement.

In the Long Quiet, the Opportunist stood before her. The root that stabbed her chest was now in his and blooming a rose, and the shiner she put in his eye was now a poppy, like the Thorn's. He...apologized, truthfully, for his actions. There is no one to witness them, so to him, this was his only chance to say sorry. He just wanted to live...and that blinded him to the opportunities that he could have gotten, if he was kinder. Ley said that she...won't accept it, not yet...but she can acknowledge that if he's truthful, than one day, she will. And that she wasn't the only person he'd hurt. Thorn was too...if he see her again, he has a lot to make up for. He begged to not be taken away, to not die or be asleep before he got to say sorry to her. But something tells Ley that he will see Thorn again...but she won't.

((I am stopping here because I am CRAMPING: tune in next time for Broken, Cheated, Hunted, Paranoid, Cold and Contrarian!

And thanks for making it this far. It was...very nerve wracking to do this. To show my work like this outside of friends so I hope this resonated with you and I hope you asked me questions about them.

[edge-oftheworld]

going back through some of this fandom's history has made me realise, we really see people as black and white good or bad don't we?

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

analyzing hermes, emet-selch, the ancients and ascians, how they're written, and the fandom's reaction to them be like hm. emet-selch's role in this fuckery is compounded by the fact that his backstory as a genocide survivor is incongruous with his ruling a huge genocidal colonialist world power in the present da [ANTISEMITISM BLAST]

[thebirdandhersong]

Just started TLJ for fun because it was a Long Day and I wanted some form of distraction that didn't involve the current Ghost Crew kinda high stakes episode I was halfway through and I must say..... this is so strange to me

[darkdragon768]

WARIOWARE'S VOCAL SONGS ARE SO FUCKING GOOD I'M GOING INSANE

[silkentine]

Me when they are the sisters ever: 😭😭😭 They came out soooo freaking well. I won’t lie, they took me a thousand years to finish but through the constant support from all of my buds (and my latent bisexuality), we made it 😤

Hopefully you guys know the deal by now: design choices, easter eggs, and (NEW!) closeup shots below the read more. ⬇️

I wanted Ace to have a very down-to-earth vibe and looked at Aussie beach-girls, coastal cowgirls, and vaqueras for reference. (IDK, I’ve just always envisioned Ace as part-Australian🌺 and Mexican 🏴‍☠️) Her clothing choices are mostly natural or utilitarian materials like the painted wooden beads on her top, her woven fabric and leather belts, and her denim jumpsuit. I gave her bikini top a zen-garden kind of feel because I read the first Ace’s Story Novel and I loved how idyllic and peaceful they made Sixis Island sound so I wanted to invoke that in some way.

Speaking of her painted wooden beads, they hang off the back of her top and represent her connection to Sabo and Luffy. They watch her back once she sets sail. She only wears one red glass bead earring because the other one got ripped out of her ear when a child, leaving her earlobe torn (don’t think about it too much 😢). Also, YES! she does wear a hibiscus flower just like Rouge (because I hate you and I want to make you cry, muhwahahahaha).

Also, I really wanted her to have super textured curly hair that licks behind her like flames. I am always considering whether or not a character should have long hair or not because I don’t want it to be a hindrance if they’re in a fight (or if they ARE a fighter with long hair, how to they avoid an enemy making use of that?). Ace is, of course, a Logia-type Devil Fruit User so I think she wouldn’t have trouble with people grabbing it LOL I get the feeling that she doesn’t take very good care of it even though it looks amazing. Like you’d think it would be soft and bouncy just by looking at it but if you ever get the chance to run your fingers through it, it’s a total rat’s nest and there’s sand and food all up in it. She still falls asleep while eating 😂 but she tries her best to only do it around people she can trust (woman moment 😔).

Honestly, her design is not that different from Ace’s canon look. It feels really vital to Ace’s character to have a lot of skin showing. And he’s always hanging all over himself with his hips all cocked like the weight of the world is too much to stand up straight. It is certainly not my OWN preference to make her an absolute smoke show. That’s just the character, okay? (I’m partially lying and the proof is that I turned the emblem on Ace’s hat strap into a sternum tattoo for no other reason than that it is sexy af.)

Here are some closeups of Ace:

Now for Sabo, I’ve made her very girly. I tried putting her in pants or something more militant but she told me that she’d wear the big poofy sleeves and hiked-up ruffled skirt. I think Sabo has always had a strong grasp on his fashion sense and individual flair and I truly believe that his personal style is one of the major influences for the rest of the Revolutionary Army resulting in the very flashy, queer, steampunk aesthetic (aside from Dragon’s plain-ass cloak). So of course I had to implement her nonconformist look when reimagining her as a woman and dress her up to the nines.

I’ve given her very ornate jewelry that is there to tell a story, even if she herself doesn’t know it. I like to think she picks up stuff from her travels that resonate with her, such as a damaged set of earrings with one stone missing or red cup-shaped shells featuring three nestled pearls. Another accessory that cannot go unmentioned is her dragon claw hat pin that keeps her top hat resting on top of her hair (and is definitely used as a weapon when the situation simply doesn’t call for trusty metal pipe). She also has a veil that obscures her prominent facial scar. I imagine she’s not very keen on the reminder of the incident from her childhood that took away her memories. I also kept her chipped toothed because 1) it’s fucking adorable and 2) is a visual reminder that she no longer aligns herself with the nobility who would have gotten such a thing fixed. She is so poised in almost every outward facet of her life from her dignified role as the Chief of Staff to the elegant materials in her clothing that it can be easy to forget she was also a rough and tumble forest dweller. Every time Koala remembers this, he lets out the biggest sigh.

Her hair is inspired by Gibson Girls and Elizabeth Swann from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I wanted it to be fussy and tidy but fall apart when she’s in moments of distress. For example, when she remembers her sisters, her hair starts to look like Ace’s flaming mane. I’m so in love with her, I think she looks like an adorable little porcelain doll that would fuck you up. I made an effort to keep her eyes a little bit manic. I get lost in her steely black orbs (and also Ace’s warm brown ones, but we’re talking about Sabo rn).

Here are her close-ups:

Plot notes for this AU:

For this series of character designs, I wanted the expressions and outfits to be aligned with the canon plot but I don’t know if I have the heart to kill fem!Ace in my AU. I’m too attached and ASL has suffered enough!!!!! But Ace’s death is also a major defining moment for Luffy so it feels disingenuous to completely avoid it. Also a huge aspect of Sabo’s character is carrying on Ace’s will and I have so many thoughts about how the Dressrosa Colosseum scene would play out if they were all women. Oh well, I’ll cross that tragic bridge when I get to it. I’m definitely going to draw some Modern AU Girl Piece ASL though. They deserve to hang out with no stakes 😭 They are sisters!!!

Check out the tag “girl piece” on my blog for my other One Piece genderbends! 🥰

[whispers-whump]

Some writing advice

that I like to use when I write. None of this is meant to be taken as hard and fast rules, they’re just things I like to do/keep in mind when I’m writing and I thought maybe other people would enjoy! <3

Never say what you mean

This is an offshoot of the very common “show don’t tell” advice, which I think can be confusing in application and unhelpful for scenes where telling is actually the right move. Instead, I keep the advice to never say exactly what I mean in stories.

By using a combination of showing and telling to hint at what you really mean, you force your reader to think and figure it out on their own, which makes for a more satisfying reading experience.

You might show a character getting angry and defensive in response to genuine care and concern. You could tell the audience that the character doesn’t see/talk to their parents often. But never outright give the real meaning that the character feels unlovable because of their strained relationship with their parents and as a result they don’t know how to react to being cared for.

Your readers are smart, you don’t need to spoon feed them.

Be sparse with the important things

You know how in a lot of movies there’s that tense scene where a character is hiding from something/someone and you can only just see this person/thing chasing them through a crack in the door? You get a very small glimpse of whatever’s after the character, sometimes only shadows being visible.

Do that in your writing. Obscure the important things in scenes by overdescribing the unimportant and underdescribing the important.

You might describe the smell of a space, the type of wood the floor is made of, the sound of work boots moving slowly across the room, a flashlight in the character’s hand. And there’s a dead body, laying in a pool of blood in the far corner of the room, red soaking into the rug. Then move on, what kind of rug is it? What is the color, patterns, and type of fabric of the rug?

Don’t linger on the details of the body, give your reader’s imagination some room to work while they digest the mundane you give them.

Dialogue is there to tell your story too

There’s a lot of advice out there about how to make dialogue more realistic, which is absolutely great: read aloud to yourself, put breaks where you feel yourself take a breath, reword if you’re stuttering over your written dialogue. But sometimes, in trying to make dialogue sound more realistic, a little bit of its function is lost.

Dialogue is more than just what your characters say, dialogue should serve a purpose. It’s a part of storytelling, and it can even be a bridging part of your narration.

If you have a scene with a lot of internal conflict that is very narration-heavy, breaking it up with some spoken dialogue can be a way to give some variety to those paragraphs without moving onto a new idea yet; people talk to themselves out loud all of the time.

Dialogue is also about what your characters don’t say. This can mean the character literally doesn’t say anything, they give half-truths, give an expected answer rather than the truth (“I’m fine”), omit important information, or outright lie.

Play with syntax and sentence structure

You’ve heard this advice before probably. Short, choppy sentences and a little onomatopoeia work great for fast-paced action scenes, and longer sentences with more description help slow your pacing back down.

That’s solid advice, but what else can you play with? Syntax and sentence structure are more than just the length of a sentence.

Think about things like: repetition of words or ideas, sentence fragments, stream of consciousness writing, breaking syntax conventions, and the like. Done well, breaking some of those rules we were taught about language can be a more compelling way to deliver an emotion, theme, or idea that words just can’t convey.

Would love to hear any other tips and tricks other people like to use, so feel free to share!!!

[doctorsiren]

Okay, doodle request:

Reigen meeting Serizawa before Claw got to him. Maybe helping him start leaving his room?

I had a lot of fun with this one. I wanted it to parallel the scene of Serizawa meeting Suzuki, and so pages 6-8 are directly referenced from the manga (just in a flipped format so it reads left to right like the rest of the pages) and I also referenced some shots from the anime (like the final panel of page 10). For the dialogue in those middle pages, I referenced lines from the unofficial English translation of the manga, the official English translation of the manga, and the anime. (I was picking and choosing which lines I liked better). I also had fun with the colouring, which is something I love to do in comics especially. It starts out with Reigen in a muted, paler, desaturated palette with no highlights. But when he meets Mrs. Serizawa (I gave the name “Azumi” because it means something along the lines of “safe home/harbour”), she’s much more warmer and saturated and she has highlights. Once she starts explaining her son’s situation, that’s when Reigen has the variation of colour as well as the introduction of some small highlights. Then, the colour palette changes in every panel after that point. Serizawa is done with a grayscale palette, with the only colour on him being the bright light of the TV screen (reflecting video games as his only joy and his escape from reality). As Reigen talks to him, Reigen slowly start to lose some of that variety and saturation (AKA hope) he got from Mrs. Serizawa until he goes grayscale as well when he thinks that Serizawa might know he’s a fraud. He decides to switch up his approach and actually open up, which is what causes the variations in colour to return. Serizawa stops being grayscale in the panel where Reigen reveals that he too is lonely. (He’s a gray-blue palette, but it’s not true grayscale). The next page is in bright colours as Reigen opens up and doesn’t lie, which causes Serizawa to have bright colour as well, since now there is light and hope. In the page after that, Serizawa’s colour fades until he is grayscale again because it’s him not believing fully and still having doubts, while Reigen maintains that bright colour. (Also silly Falsettos reference on that page). I have Reigen’s colours shift from yellow until he reaches pink which is the colour I just have assigned as His Colour (since his tie is pink). Serizawa gains colour again and he shifts from that muted dark blue to finally orange (which is his colour) as he finally accepts Reigen’s help. The light from the TV is no longer coloured, and is just white, because Serizawa now has a new source of colour in his life (that being a real friend.) It ends with them being in their normal palettes at a normal happy saturation, contrasting the muted colours of the start of the comic. With the umbrella, I still wanted to include it and give it a role in the story, but in a different way from how Suzuki used it. While Suzuki used it to directly manipulate and control Serizawa, Reigen used it as a way to open up a choice for Serizawa to either let Reigen stay or make him leave. He asks Serizawa if he can sit and stay for a while since it’s raining outside and he didn’t bring an umbrella, despite clearly having done so. And then I ended the comic with a shot of the umbrella to emphasize that point.

Sorry for the long and probably unnecessary explanation. I just really love explaining my intentions and symbolisms in my art. Yeah I just had a good time over the last few days doing this :) I thought it was an interesting idea and I couldn’t think of a way to reflect it better than in a comic (which was also partially inspired by this wonderful Ageswap AU comic made by @fend13th about Reigen helping Serizawa)

[jasontoddsno1simp]

Thank you.

I see a lot of posts saying Jason being told this (as well as the way Bruce grieved him) would change things, and I mean...

Sure, maybe it would, but it damn sure wouldn't be for the better.

Because, at the end of the day, his murderer is still alive and he still has no justice.

Nevermind the fact that he's treated by the narrative that wanting that, wanting someone to care enough to give it to him makes him a selfish and ugly person. But we don't got time for that;!

The thing surrounding Dick killing the Joker for Tim and Bruce reviving him is that if Jason ever learned about that, his two conclusions would be:

A) Tim is worth killing for, and he (Jason) isn't;

B) Dick's clean hands are worth more than Jason's mangled corpse and his memory and his legacy.

[wilwheaton]

Hey man, I could use a few talking points to help convince a friend that Musk is horrible. I'm reading 'Think Again' by Adam Grant (good read btws) and he says to help convince people to come to your viewpoint that it can be good to have 2 or 3 strong points instead of 10 mixed points. The counter argument I get from people about Musk being good is that he did spacex and tesla, and without him we'd be decades behind. Maybe, but I don't have good ammo. Please help as I get too angry tobe critical

Well, listen, the fascism, the transphobia, the chaos, and the unwavering support for autocrats all over the planet really ought to be enough to outweigh anything else, if you ask me. It sounds like you know some people who got excited about the companies he threw money at, and they are having a tough time updating their feelings due to current events. Or maybe they share his values and don't want to admit that.

But I'll try to offer some simple facts.

He did not do engineering with Tesla or SpaceX or even PayPal. He is a fraud. He walked into these existing businesses, where people had done actual work and engineering, threw some of his Apartheid money at them, and took credit for their work. He claims, over and over again, to be a founder of these companies, and that's just straight up a lie that is easily disproved.

He literally did nothing except throw money at people and take credit for their work. Look at every Tesla up to the (chokes back laughter) Cybertruck. Those Teslas look like cars, because they were designed by engineers. Look at the Cybertruck. When you stop laughing at what a joke it is, know this: that's what happens when Elon Musk is in charge. It's like a ten year-old with some crayons drew it on a menu at Denny's.

All of the things his weird fans claim he made possible, are things that would have happened, and were in the process of happening, without him. He literally did nothing to advance the technologies or engineering. In fact, SpaceX whistleblowers have told reporters how they had to keep Musk occupied with bullshit, so they could do the real work without him fucking it up all the time with his incompetence.

But even if he were telling the truth, even if the myth were fact, it would not outweigh the damage, the pain, the chaos, and the suffering he has inflicted on millions and millions of people, all over the world with his lies, his spread of misinformation, and his incitement of angry incels.

Also, don't forget, when Ukraine was trying to defend itself, he turned off Starlink access when they could have decisively ended Russia's aggression. A lot of people have suffered and died as a direct consequence of that action, which he took to support his buddy and fellow autocrat, Vladimir Putin.

That's more information than I think your friends will be willing to hear. Studies indicate that people who are heavily invested in the myth of a person will fight hard to hold onto the myth, and reject truth and facts, because it's so jarring to them. Musk has built a cult of personality, and maybe your friends are stuck to it.

I'd gently encourage your friends to consider one key fact: he has lied about his entire origin story, he has lied about his contributions to Tesla and SpaceX. He lies about everything, except when he posts on Twitter like a 12 year-old edgelord, because that's who he is, emotionally.

Finally, and this is for you, specifically: if your friends insist on supporting a fascist, a racist, a misogynist, or a bigot, because they think rockets are cool, maybe it's time to look for new friends.

I hope this helps.

And fuck Elon Musk.

[anantaru]

— does he like it when you're being clingy?

including wriothesley, neuvillette, kaveh, scaramouche x gn! reader

꒰ genre ꒱ — fluff & crack, lots of physical touch, established relationship, kissies, love sick genshin men

— wriothesley

as much as wriothesley shows off his strong demeanor for the outside world to see, he cannot lie to himself when it comes to you— because the duke likes seeing you be clingy with him and search for his vehemence.

to him, there was nothing better than having your arms all padded up around him while you kiss his little worries away— so for all he cares, let the outside world call him bewitched if they must, or caught in an angelic spell for that matter. to wriothesley it didn't sound bad nor did he really give a damn about what a so called nobody would say about his life, alongside the fact that he found it quite amusing whenever they did talk about him.

the duke was exceptionally gentle with you, but sometimes he just wants to be able to see you love him in a whole differing modus other than you simply uttering out the three delicate words— in fact, wriothesley too, cares about you so much that he's trying to keep you around all the time, having you enveloped in his arms like he always daydreams of whenever you were apart from each other— hoping that you'd visit him so he could listen to whatever story you might tell him about.

now, was this a new feeling? well, yes. simply put, it was one he had never experienced before. the man had always been faithful, protective and nurturing in his life, so when love solidified the senses of his body, wriothesley was able to finally share his love with somebody.

what you did not know was that wriothesley was slightly frightened in the early stages of your relationship, to someone like the duke it wasn't particularly a breezy walk in the park to open up to another individual and realize that for the first time in his life, he was able to trust someone undoubtedly without fearing a possible mistreat.

now, he admits his love to you when he felt ready to do so, and when he does spell out the three words that bonded a relationship anew, your lips curl deeper into a passionate smile as he kisses the sides of your mouth.

your company alone was an important determination factor of his mood, and although he doesn't want to trouble you with his work, nor was he really allowed to share important and confidential details, wriothesley was certain that you would always be there to listen to him no matter what crossed his mind.

interesting how his heart has not once melted in his entire life prior to finding his soulmate. that's why in his eyes, there is no truer language than the language of love.

a cruel world that has been so cold go him surely wouldn't give him such wonderful gift?

alas, it did— wriothesley could feel it in his bones whenever you held him close to your chest late at night, his ear shell quietly pressed right above your heart. the silent vibrations place a pure tepidness of passion on his soul when he finds himself gradually softening to it, on all occasions smiling as he falls asleep in your arms.

— neuvillette

in the early stages of your relationship, when you had first placed your lips on neuvillette's, the three letter announcement evaporates from his tongue as fluid as when sunlight enters the raindrops and emerges as rainbows from afar.

and yes, much to his surprise he didn't die because of it, who would've saw that coming? although the iudex wholeheartedly believed that he would suffer from a cardiac arrest due to the vast bursts of anxiety gradually chugging away his confidence.

"can i sit on your lap?" you smile gently, unsure whether his silence is that of enthusiasm or distaste.

neuvillette can hardly register it at first before he presses out a pathetic little yes when his excitement reaches the roof of his head and violently breaks through it, showing you those open and loving eyes that were the golden entry to his soul.

you hear a deep, breathless pant when you sit on him, witnessing how a hefty amount of redness catches up to his face until battering his ears, ultimately coaxing out a shiver from his spine.

don't misunderstand his unusual reactions— but neuvillette couldn't quite fathom that you belonged to him and sought out his body like that, it's always special when you nonchalantly rounded your hands on his face and replenished his energy anew, as if his frame was reborn in its most perfect form solely when he felt your trace.

and so, he cannot get enough of your warmth— no wonder when you remind yourself of the pure emotions that he harbored deeply for you.

instinctively, you rest your body against his chest, a soft glow rounding up your facial features, "ah, can't wait until you're done with this," you huff and point at his office desk being crowded by a bunch of papers as you press a small peck against the tip of his nose, ruffling his hair a little.

"it is rather late, you mustn't stay here," he insists, a barely distinctive curve of his lips turning all the difference in the choice of his tone.

"oh? does that mean you want to get rid of me?" how terribly skilled you were when you soaked your words in viscous sarcasm— so skillful in fact that neuvillette would always fall for it head first, or that's what you thought.

he raises a brow before curving one arm around your waist, leaning you against his chest so you wouldn't be able to move an inch, even if you tried.

"now," he playfully scolds, "you, my love, couldn't be farer from the truth."

"and here i thought you must know me by now?"

"i'm joking with you!" you panic, battering his cheek with little kisses as if he didn't know— but neuvillette sees how happy you were whenever you believed you fooled him.

he cocks an eyebrow at you, his mannerism in a questioning stance.

"apologies, aren't jokes supposed to be humorous?"

you scoff, "hmpf, now you're just mean!"

— kaveh

from an outer perspective, one couldn't possibly figure out who was clingier towards the other person— and even with someone being a close friends of the both of you, it's beyond the bounds of possibility to crown a winner.

you or kaveh? who yearned for the attention of the other more? to answer such difficult question, you should first know of the moniker a certain scribe has given you, in fact, within your friend-group kaveh and you had instantly claimed the title of most insufferable couple.

you might wonder, was that a bad thing? oh well, not at all!

and kaveh doesn't even attempt to conceal the priceless smirk on his face whenever he heard his roommate address the both of you as that— it turned him deeply fulfilled that everyone was able to see how crazy he was about you.

your heart feels full by his comforting arms that each throb rattles across your limbs and muscles, feeling weightless at the welcoming cradle— your love being whole, one touch and a gentle kiss on the lips and you feel on a bed of roses, tucked up in velvet.

"what is it?" kaveh leans at you, raising a brow at the way you peak behind his shoulder. during closer inspection, you catch up on a sneaky little smirk that frames his lips the more you focused on what's behind him, "c'mon baby, tell me," kaveh kisses your cheek.

"i think they're calling us insufferable again." you point behind his shoulder, specifically at a table with three people— one wholly focused on the cards in his hands and remaining unbothered while the others sneakily glanced over to you every now and then, whispering incoherent mumbles into each others ears with their palms covering their lips.

and your words don't achieve anything besides making him all the more amused when he wraps his arms around your waist, it's evident, very much so but kaveh was fond of the situation— perhaps he even prided himself on it, he has the audacity to act surprised though.

he laughs, nudging the tip of his nose against your jaw, "they're probably just talking about a way to beat cyno in tcg."

he continues, "we should leave early," and states firmly, "but i think alhaitham took my keys again."

"how does this always happen?" you note tiresomely before dropping your head onto his shoulder— a little too dramatically so that the scribe picked up on it immediately, revealing a triumphant smirk.

perhaps that is why they say love is such magic, this gift from the universe that was unable to be compared, this sweet addiction that no matter what situation you were in, big or small, if it's the two of you facing it together, it was nothing.

— scaramouche

even if scaramouche doesn't straight out admit it to you, he likes it whenever you were clingy with him— and after a good while of you two being in a relationship, he will more and more show his genuine love of it until he’s practically playing with the thought of begging for more.

in the beginning it starts by how fast his cheeks flame red and his focus dwindling as you hug him. after that particular encounter scaramouche memorizes what you did and decides that this must be a proper way to greet you as well— maybe even give you a little kiss on the cheek if he's feeling like it.

scratch that, what he lacks was the courage to go that far.

but no matter how often you would greet him this way, the action alone send him spiraling, shyly snuggling closer to you, inch by inch, although not risking it to hold eye contact and instead averting his gaze as he attempts to indulge in it nervously— stiff as concrete with both arms frozen on each side of his body when you wrapped your limbs around him.

he leans into your touch and closes his eyes— how warm, it's as if the sun itself would shine down on him and prickle on his skin, you feel so whole, like a home.

your touch, it's difficult to explain besides the fact that it carries such passion, and before scaramouche could register it— what was once scarred long ago expresses gentleness all of a sudden. 

although not everything from his past could be forgotten, yet your presence made it bearable.

what was also a crucial task to scaramouche was his recent curiosity in understanding the concept of love and how he fell for it— while he ultimately came to the conclusion that the only way to understand love is to feel it, attempt to embody it, or embrace it in its complete form. 

next time, you greet him with a blank look on your face as he applies your method on you first, slightly catching you off guard as he welcomes you home almost wordlessly, taking your hand in his cold one when he pulls you into a hug— it is a silent engage and the way he practically dragged you into him made your forehead smack his shoulder.

thankfully scaramouche doesn't have to speak in order for you to understand what he was trying to signalize here.

what's following next would be considered even sillier than him blatantly copying you, but when the two of you walk alongside each other through the hustling streets of sumeru city, you flinch a little at a strong grab on your hand ambushing you, "hey, nope— hold on, stop walking and give me your hand dammit," scaramouche scoffs as he chases after it, when with a quick motion, he traps it finally and tangles his digits around your own.

"there's no fun if i make it easy," you wink, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to his jaw, "i like the faces you make when you're mad, you know? your expressions are so cute."

"don't you realize you're wasting time like that?" scaramouche clicks his tongue before squeezing your hand in his grasp, letting out an audible hmph before turning his head towards the street.

"honestly? that's fine by me," you coo softly, smothering him with the attention he craves as more of your fingers dig into the soft flesh of his palm.

"as long as you still love me, of course."

©2024 anantaru do not repost, copy, translate, modify, claim as your own

[bimbosandbubbles]

All Consuming

Starring Yandere Siren Gojo and Geto

Synopsis- Two months ago you became a sole survivor to a supposed animal attack on a lake trip and because of that you’ve become alienated from everyone else in your much too rural community. However,you’re finally not so alone when two mysterious men are way too interested in you…But something’s a little off about them..

Fic for my Summertime Slashers event!

Warnings-mates,Geto and Gojo kinda have a feeding kink in this(they like seeing you eat bcs they only eat human flesh and obviously you don’t 😭), stalking,cum marking(you’ll find out), voyeurism,mirror kink,mutual masturbation,biting,oviposition,icky flirting(they’re very confused on the fact that humans don’t just mate like sirens do), dubcon,borderline noncon,multiple sex scenes,leg worshipping?,manipulation(you’re very vulnerable in this and they take advantage of that),abuse of super natural power(not clearly stated but implied),panty sniffing,lots of breeding kink,and ofc and always CHUBBY READER!

An explanation on sirens and how I tweaked them from traditional folklore! Just so you can have more understanding on why things happen in this fic! So Sirens typically are beings that lure men in with their beautiful voice and then capture them with their magical touch! This is kinda like that but not really! Geto and Gojo are male sirens so they usually target the opposite sex! Their siren voice isn’t necessarily singing it’s just something they can activate in this fic! Also they can go on and off land if they’re well fed! In this fic I imply heavily that sirens take mates like many other sea life!

WC-6.9K/6,925

"Can you give a description of him?"

"Them." Is all you can answer. Seething hot acid pulls at the back of your throat,begging to come out on the steel table. Your quaking hands grip the very edge of the table for some kind of support—a sense of grounding in this situation.

"Right,them. My apologies. The descriptions though,(Reader)?" You gulp,"Well one was taller than the other had these piercing blue eyes,almost like light itself. The other had these soulless black ones...emotionless and empty kinda."

In front of you there's this quiet man presumingly sketching away the description. "Anything else?" You bite your lip and glance down at your scarred fingers but you quickly look away because the memory of just why those injuries remain are there is much too fresh. "I don't know...everything was a blur. I can't remember a thing other than seeing them..."You swallow a thick wad of spit before you utter another word,"tear into my friends."

The officer in front of you stares into your glassy eyes that you bet are red and bulging to the point it looks like you've been choked instead of crying. He sighs,"Look,(Reader) you seem to be a nice enough girl but these details are just not enough to drive this case. This is the third time we've invited you down to the station and you've said nothing to make us believe two men did this to your friends."

"Please! I saw them! I really,really did! I swear! I wouldn't lie about seeing those—those monsters!" The officer sighs and ounces the bridge of his nose,"Let's be real,when the attacked happened you were intoxicated,right? You were out having fun with your girlfriends and probably doing other substances. Or maybe the shock of seeing your friends mauled by an animal got to you. Whatever the case may be I know it's not two human men who ate your friends in front of you."

You clench your fists in pure disgust at the audacity this person has in front of you. He's not the one who had to see it,he's not the one who had to watch your friends cry and beg for help and couldn't do anything about it, and he's certainly not the one who had to live through their constant cries of pain. You finally raise your voice an octave,"I know what I saw and I won't suffer through some accusations pushed onto me because this story isn't believable enough for you!"

The officer doesn't take lightly to your shouting and doesn't remain so calm with his doubt. "I'm tired of listening to your bullshit anyways! There is no man eating monster with glowing blue eyes! And there definitely isn't another soulless black eyed creep!" He takes a deep breath and stands from the metal chair. You sit there in silence fighting back tears and you have no clue why the liquid is fleeing your eye ducts.

It's probably anger or sadness,or both whatever the reason might be you curl up into yourself and sob in front of the two cops. "(Reader), I apologize...but I can't take this case serious. I know you're hurting,losing your friends in an animal caused massacre but you're wasting resources and precious time for cases that actually need to be solved. So just go home and get some therapy,yeah?"

Through teary eyes you gaze at the officer in his harsh eyes and you're left wondering why does no one believe you? It's been two months since the attack and you're doing all the right things;therapy,self groups,going back to normal life,yet you're treated like some crazy person. You've never been the type to lie. Never been the type to abuse someone's trust,so why?

Why are you so unbelievable? Are your tears not mournful enough? Is your slowly deteriorating appearance not evidence enough? Is the scars on your body just too artificial looking for people not to believe the truth?

With your head hung low you whisper,"Sorry officer,I'll go home."

▂▂▂▂

"Oh my god is that her?" The whisper flows through the dining hall. Another answers,"I think she's totally crazy."  Then another,"Oh be nice,her friends got mauled by some kind of wolf in front of her." "I heard it was a bear actually."

You chew on your mediocre sandwich trying to ignore the constant voices mumbling about you. It's the first week you've been back at uni since the attack and it's not going so well for you. People only pity you or look down at you for not just dying with your friends. Some people think that you're even responsible for their deaths. But it won't be much longer until you're free of the university gossip due to the fact that summer break is nearly two weeks away. And even with that time frame people are already leaving the dorms entirely.

And what makes it so unfortunate is that no one's in your corner anymore. Your parents have turned their backs on you because it's like a sin to have a child struggling with their mental health in this godforsaken small town. And your friends well...gone because of that very event. And you can't even dream about making any new ones because now you're looked at like some disease instead of a victim of a horrifying crime.

But it's okay,that's what you tell yourself. And that's the mantra that keeps flowing through your brain as you take bite after bite into your too cold food. You people watch from the wooden eating area—turning green with envy as you glance from after people enjoying each other's company.

That was once you, eating and laughing among your beloved closest companions. You don't wish to be bitter for others happiness but it's hard not to when you're actively being shunned by your whole town basically.

You glance down at your depressing looking tray of food and decide it doesn't even look edible to you anymore. You debate whether or not you should throw it away or just eat it. Simply because you haven't been eating much since the incident. You nimble on your lip and decide you shouldn't force yourself to eat food you don't even like.

You arise from your seat and wish you didn't because now all eyes are on you as if they weren't before. You sigh and walk all the way to trash trying to power through all the chatter and seething stares. They all look at you like some parasite slowly infecting them with your presence alone. 

Sure,you've been stared at before being that you're a bigger girl in a hick town but this is something different. Something crueler...and more hurtful. It's so hurtful that you're just probably going to skip all your lectures and run away into the comfort of your home.

However your mind sets that aside once you see two strangers sitting at your once empty table. Your brows raises as you walk confusedly back to the table to retrieve your book bag.

Once you come closer you're shocked to be met with eyes black as the night...eyes that are so eerily familiar. "Oh I'm sorry we didn't know anyone was sitting here!" His voice is calm and gentle,gentle to the point that you'd melt into the his arms right now because the longing for comfort roughly tugs at you. Pathetic,anyone would agree to that,however you're just so entirely vulnerable for any type of interaction and touch at the moment. Then you take a look at his face and you're shocked to see how handsome he is.

His long raven locks go past his broad shoulders that is covered with a loose breathable crew neck. Not only are his eyes pretty in color but the shape as well;his kind monolids gazing at you right now practically has you flustered. "It's alright..I was leaving anyhow." You mumble with a nervous smile. 

"Nooo! Stay! This table has so much room!" A chipper,more energetic voice adds in. Your attention is turned to the voice and this time you're even more shocked at how good looking this man is too. He has snow white hair that frames his pretty face along with eyes so blue they're almost hypnotizing. But again something in your belly finds those eyes too familiar almost like you've met the men before.

"Oh no you wouldn't wanna sit with me...people will start talking about you too." The black haired man smiles,"Let them talk," he extends his long arm on the back of the seat next to Gojo,"sit." Gojo moves from that seat to make sure you're the one in the middle of the two men. You shyly nod,"Thank you."

You sit down and feel a sudden presence of something....something intense between the three of you despite just making their acquaintance. "My name is Suguru Geto,"he points to the other man beside you,"This is Satoru Gojo." He smiles and waves,"What's your name cutie?" The white haired man peers at you as he awaits the answer to his question. "(Reader Full Name),nice to meet you guys." 

The both say it's nice to meet you also and you guys chatter about each others day,major etc. "Have you eaten yet?" Suguru asks. "Umm kinda,the food I got wasn't very good so I just threw it away."  Gojo say,"Oh no,eat with us! Me and Guru always eat good food so you'll like it for sure."

"No no it's okay! I wouldn't wanna have you guys pay for anything from the food bar." You used the word pay because all the good food you have to pay for instead of meal swipes. And because you're suddenly shunned from this town you're naturally unable to keep a job anymore,therefore making you broker than a joke. "I'll pay." Gojo says.

"It's o—" Gojo interrupts,his big hand managing to fully wrap around your plump upper arm,"I'll pay." He affirms. You just nod silently and watch as he walks up to the food bar to buy the items. Geto looks at you and smile,"So what's a pretty girl like you sitting all by herself for?"

You look down and feel your tummy doing backflips for two reasons;the compliment and the question. You're nervous to explain just why you're being ignored and you're nervous you'll mess up the chance of making new friends. However,you go for being honest and not lying,just to see if they'll actually be someone you'll want to have as companions.

"Well two months ago an incident happened at the lake with my friends. They were attacked by two monsters and I was the only one to make it out alive. But the weird thing is...I wasn't attacked at all...they just ignored me and only went for my friends. But after they were done they looked at me in this way—this way that was so,"you pause,trying to find your bearings,"haunting. Not like they wanted to eat me but something else entirely..." Your rub your pudgy fingers as you explain and Geto does something surprising.

He grips your hands to stop the constant movement. His smooth fingers rub soothing circles on your now healed skin. And it feels so good to be touched with affection, so good that you almost forgot to finish your story. "I went to the police as soon as it happened and I was told it was probably an animal attack but I know what I saw...I know wholeheartedly. And that's why I was sitting alone,everyone thinks I'm some crazy person making stuff up." Your bottom lip begins to tremble as you feel tears begin to pool in your eyes.

"And you probably think I'm crazy now too..." Your voice breaks and your brain is working overtime. How humiliating that you're breaking down to a total stranger in public too! God,why are you so pathetic? So vulnerable to the point you easily melt into the arms of an unknown person. Has your sense of self truly scrambled that far away from you? 

Geto extends his arm to wrap around your supple body,he's warm and smells like ocean breeze mixed with sandalwood. "I don't, I believe you." It's a whisper yet the impact is like a loud shout. "You do?" He gets closer,his soft pink lips muttering so close to the shell of your ear,"I do." You shiver involuntarily,your body unable to contain the way his coo affected you physically.

"Thank you." It's a mumble but still Geto acknowledges it with a soft squeeze on your body.

"I brought the food!" A happy voice interjects. Gojo sets down loads of plates of delectable looking food. And suddenly your tummy rumbles just looking at the many options of food.

Gojo hears it,"You hungry now?" You nod shyly and can't help but look down at the very good options. After weeks of eating too cold food and mess hall trash seeing the hot bar meals would make anyone hungry. White hair bobs as the tall man takes his seat next to you.

"Go on,eat." He smiles a toothy grin. His hand extends to your lips with a forkful of pasta that smells so good you literally inhale it. You instinctively open your mouth only to quickly close it. Because oh my God were you about to let this stranger feed you? Has hardly any human interaction made you so compliant?

Gojo pouts,"What's wrong?" You quickly try to reassure him,"It's nothing...but I can feed myself,y'know.." You almost forgot Geto is still holding you,the only cause for remembering is strictly based on the firm squeeze he gives your upper body. "Eat." He asks,more like demands.

Despite how demanding he sounded it was still gentle? Almost like a calming song in an odd way. You open your mouth and Gojo happily stuffs the fork in your mouth. You chew and melt into the flavors of the yummy dish but you can't fully enough it because the men you're sitting next to are quietly observing you.

Another bite is feed to you and another,then another until the pasta is all gone. Every single time you took a bite Geto and Gojo all watched in admiration. Geto,who still has you in a half embrace would caress the supple skin of your bare arms that are free from sleeves in your cotton cami. The texture of the pads of his fingers would rub you as you ate.

And Gojo would clean up your chubby face if he missed your mouth just a little bit. He'd use his thumb to wipe away the evidence of the mess with his oddly sharp and long tongue. His other hand also stayed close and near to the pudge that hangs low on your abdomen,practically cupping the fat that adorns the area.

And all while eating you didn't realize how intimate this interaction really is. Two men watching you as your spoon fed by one and both touching you so...personally;this is not a normal interaction between strangers. You know that,yet it feels too good to tell them to stop. You haven't been touched with affection in so long so why fight it when two handsome men are practically draped all over you?

"Would you like some dessert?" Geto asks. Gojo chimes in,"You should absolutely have some dessert. I got these cute cakes for you to try." You look down in embarrassment,"I don't know if I should...I just ate the pasta." Gojo quirks his brow up in confusion,"So? You can't have dessert too?"

You smile,"I guess I can." Gojo grins brightly,"Atta girl,open wide." Already with spoon in hand and a sweet treat in it, he moves it to your mouth. Of course you accept and chew happily on the sweet treat until a thought interrupts this indulgent interaction. Why haven't they eaten? You've been here,being fed and talked to by these for at least an hour or more,but they haven't eaten? Why come to the lunch hall then?

You quickly swallow the treat,"Aren't you guys hungry?" Geto answers,"Oh me and Gojo were earlier but watching you eat has satisfied our appetite." His response is followed with an enthusiastic nod by his blue eyed friend,"Mhm! You eat so cute it's hard not to get full."

You make a face full of doubt,"Umm,I dunno if you guys are trying to be overly nice to me but I don't believe that for one second." You push away Geto's hold on you and Gojo's slight grip on you to scoot away from the pair. Suddenly,you've fully realized that this whole thing is really weird even though you truly are enjoying the attention from the very good looking men.

But that enjoyment isn't enough to just ignore how fast and dangerous this all could possibly be. You don't know how you just dazed off and forgotten all about that. You stand up and urgently say,"Look,you guys have been really nice to me and I totally appreciate it but this is just all really weird for me so I'm just gonna—"

Geto stands up with such a quickness it's almost supernatural,"Shhh...you don't mean that sweet girl. Just come and sit with me and Saturo,yeah? We'll make all that confusion will go away,okay?" His words are so sweet,so soft and gentle;inviting to the point you almost relax back to the seat but you don't.

"No—can't. This is so personal and you guys don't even know me...plus everyone can see you behaving this way with me." You go to grab your bag but Gojo stops your exit this time. "C'mon cutie,it's okay. It's just me and Sugu,we wouldn't wanna do anything to hurt our lil pretty new friend. If it's the people watching...we can take you up to our dorm and continue this there."

Geto adds,"That's a good idea, all these people shouldn't be watching you anyways." You look at them in confusion and seriously debate if going back to their dorm is actually a good idea at all. "Don't treat your new friends like this;we're not gonna hurt you." Friends? Are they really calling themselves friends?

You bite your lip and glare down at your beat up sneakers,"I don't know.." Gojo pulls you close to him by gripping your soft hand,"It's okay,cutie. It's just me and Geto,we won't do anything."

You bite your lip,stumped with providing them with an answer,it's useless though because an arm links with yours and already starts ushering you along to exit the mess hall. "W-Wait!" You try to pull yourself away from the limb but it's like forged iron. Geto utters,"It's okay. Just come with us. It's just us."

You were panicked,worried,anxious to the point of feeling like throwing up. The feeling washes away as Geto soothes you with his words;odd considering the fact that he's not explicitly saying anything too calming. He's just talking,yet his syllables feel like warm chamomile tea that just eases your mind and heart.

It feels magical...too artificial of a feeling it's almost like being on a high. The feeling only increases when Gojo joins his friend in talking to you;literally and metaphorically syncing with him as he also links his arm with yours.

The longer they talk the more woozy you begin to feel. Your walls of distrust and logic melt away like rapid candle wax,so much so that you begin teeter into their touch.

Your mind is confused and vulnerable to the point you don't realize you're in front of their dorm room until Gojo pulls you into the room. They both free you of their hold and suddenly you feel more conscious.

"Why'd you take me here? I didn't even get a say.." Geto rubs the apparent flesh on the back of your arms,"It's alright...you'll enjoy being with us." Your brows scrunch and you want to spew something aggressive but his touch and his voice are just too...distracting.

"G-Geto.." you whimper. You don't know why you say his name,it's just the only thing your mouth will allow you to say. "Yes, tell me what do you want?" You snuggle closer into his touch,breathless and confused,"I don't know..." Gojo then walks closer to you,taking up the front portion of your body. His hands cling to your wide waist;digits dig into the dough like flesh.

"Would you like for us to give you an option?" The long haired man whispers in your ear,his lips practically pecking the shell of the cartilage. You're weak and feel all too needy. Needy for what is the real question though.

"Please,yes.." you lowly whimper. With that the two men place you onto a soft bouncy mattress,leaving you without the their touch for a few minutes but that doesn't last for long. Gojo already has his hands on your tummy,practically massaging the flesh with his hands. He leans forwards and starts suckling on the skin of your nape.

He starts thumbing the beginning of your loose fitting shorts,"I think these should come off." You gulp and grip onto him,"I-I haven't shaved just so you know." Gojo starts pulling down the waistband to the point he could see your bellybutton,"I didn't ask if you shaved,I said these should come off."  You gasp as you feel a new pair of hands on your thighs—pulling down the bottom half of the outfit.

Geto looks up at you from the position of him being on his knees;slotted perfectly in between your big thighs. "I agree with Saturo,everything should just come off you." Gojo starts pulling off the hem of your panties and once they're low enough Geto grabs the material and carefully slides them off your legs. He does something unusual,by bringing the damp material to his face and taking a deep inhale. He groans into the panties,eyes closed in bliss and a deep harbored groan flees his lips.

Gojo looks down in jealousy and whines for his other half to hand him the undies. You watch as Geto begrudgingly passes him the undergarment. Gojo brings them to his face and his bright blues eyes almost glow with light as he huffs in the smell of your pussy. "Mate smells so good. Fuck..."  You brows furrow in confusion,what did he mean by mate? It's such a primitive and almost animal like to refer to you as that. You don't have much time to think of it though as demand takes all your attention.

"Spread,so we can see that pretty pussy..." The ravenette orders you. You're about to do it but insecurity nags at you,the condition of your unshaven and wild looking pussy drains away at your confidence. What's the point of spreading anyway? The fat of your lips and hair will block the view of anything worth looking at.

"Spread." Gojo repeats. You shake your head no;embarrassment and now common sense are starting to grow back into your brain. Both of the men huff,annoyed with the fact they can't just view the pussy they can smell from miles away,even in water.

For two months since they last fed,they've been so stuck on finding this woman with an unearth like aroma. The being smelt of brown sugar and sweet honey. They've been so determined to find the owner of the scent they've enrolled in this stupid college and kept tabs on you for so long.

Now they have you,almost bare,snagged in their hypnotic touch,yet you won't even let them see what rightfully belongs to them? No. That just won't do.

"Gojo,bring the mirror over here." Immediately the man sitting next to you stands up and retrieves a long floor length mirror to right in front of the bed. You observe yourself in the mirror,tired eyes that look bothered, your flustered face and your slightly messy hair,all the way to your bare lower body.

Why bring the mirror though? Your question is answered when Geto suddenly arises from the floor,taking the space the former was sitting on the bed. His strong hand grips the fatty flesh of your thigh,placing it on his lap. Gojo,now sitting on the opposite side does the same action. You fluster,"What're you doing?" Gojo hums with a happy expression,"Spreading."

They both extend your legs further til your pussy is completely exposed to them in the view of the mirror. "Perfect." Geto says lowly into the cusp of your neck and shoulder. "So pretty,I just wanna lick it." You tensed at the admiration for such a private area,a private area that four pair of eyes are constantly eyeing hungrily.

"So many things we could make you do..." The white haired man suggests. "Mhm,but right now I wanna see her play with it." Geto answers. "P-Play with it?" You try to close your legs back but their grips are too strong on your legs. You couldn't do that—not in front of them. It's embarrassing;being open and exposing yourself raw like that.

Gojo whines,"You're so mean. Trying to close what's rightfully ours. Just play with it...you wanna make yourself feel good,right?" His words and his touch feel like the law,like you have to obey. He didn't say anything overly convincing,yet your body can't help but comply.

Your pudgy digits reach down in between the plump lips—traveling way down to the pulsing hole. The fingers circle the entrance,barely touching the wet flesh. You huff at the light touch,already feeling needy. "It's alright,you can put one in." Geto urges.

You gaze into the mirror,observing the sight of your finger so easily sliding into the welcoming hole. A gasp flees your lips as the appendage starts moving in and out of you. "There you go...keep going."

You obey,moving the lone finger faster and harder than the first few movements. "Fuckkkk,that looks so good. Mate looks so good playing with her pussy." Gojo howls out. Playing with your pussy is not the only view you're able to see in mirror. Gojo and Geto's are in the displaying glass as well;their hard cocks out in the open as they go up and down at the same pace as you.

You bite your lip,immensely turned on by the view of the two men bringing themselves sweet undeniable pleasure. Their hands wander up and down your legs,holding tight the excess flesh you have on the limbs. Geto groans,"Your legs are so pretty,just like the rest of you. So plump and soft. Perfect for giving you so many pups." You moan at his words,adding another digit for the adding bliss.

Blue eyes close in joy,"Oh? You like that? Wanna get pregnant with me and Sugu's babies? Wanna be full of pups?" His hips stutter up into his o shaped hand,"F-Fuck,say yes! Tell us how badly you want that." A whine falls from your babbling mouth,"Want! Need it so bad." Geto groans as he reaches over you to bite into the soft skin of your neck;sinking his teeth in so deep you can feel the light liquid of blood dribble down. Your back arches at the strange sensation that hurts,yet feels oddly so good.

Gojo also goes for a bite,lower though,he finds the spot of your plump shoulder to be perfect. "Mm,you're gonna take it so well when me and Gojo fuck you." The ravenette mumbles into your flesh. His hand travels down to the pouch of your fat that rest slightly above your uterus,he gives it a harsh grasp;fingers digging into the moldable skin. "Perfect,so perfect for giving babies."

Your digits curl into the wet cavern and your body almost folds itself just trying to reach that special spot that resides so deeply in you. You whimper in frustration,your average sized fingers not being just enough to reach that oh so very special spot.

Gojo laughs,"Can't reach? It's okay cutie,me and Sugu will be touching you there all the damn time. Just continue making yourself feel good,yeah? Want you to cum all over your little fingers so I can lick it off." With that bit of encouragement,you thrust deeper;curling the digits so far they're like hooks going into your sloppy cunt.

"Mmmm,look at your cute face. Making such adorable faces in the mirror for us.." Geto hums in your neck,lapping up with rouge from his bite with his slender tongue. Gojo grips your chubby face in his palm,"Right,look at those pudgy cheeks,just wanna bite em." He releases his hold and goes for a gentle nibble on the fat,almost suckling on it like a baby.

With a loud moan,your hand darts out to get a hold on Geto's hair;an action he revels in,loving the harsh pull on the silky strands. "Feels so good." You stammer. "Yeah? That feels good?" Geto purrs. You nod furiously,too caught up in your own pleasure to chatter anymore.

Geto and Gojo experience the same feeling—their eyes are shut in pure anticipation,their pretty swollen tips throbbing to let out the milky substance. You moan louder at the reflection in the mirror;the glass showing you the two men who are so close to falling off the brink of pleasure. The men who just look so desperate to spill all over your spread form.

Faster,harder,deeper is all the thought your mind allows you to even think. Your fingers are working overtime,trying to get over that brink of sweet ecstasy. With one hard thrust,your essence splays all over the mirror,distorting the clear reflection of the glass.

Geto cums soon after,then Gojo. As they do,they make it obvious the cum is all over your body. It mostly splatters on your thighs and your tummy.

You breathe heavily and look at them in astonishment,"Oh my God..."

You couldn't believe it,couldn't believe cumming in front of people you just met,couldn't believe letting them cum all over you,couldn't believe hearing them call you mate and say things like mate—isn't that really weird? You sit up away from the duo and look at them suspiciously. And again you feel more conscious without their touch on you.  More like you can clearly think and think logically.

"Why'd you wanna do this with me?" It's accusing,the question,it practically spews suspicion if it wasn't obvious enough. Geto reaches to touch your thigh,but you move away. "Don't touch me. I dunno what's going on with you two...but it's weird."

Gojo chuckles,"Aww,cutie are you feeling nervous? It's okay—" You cut him off with a desperate shout,"Answer my question! Please! Why?"

They look at each other for a few long seconds,thinking about what to say. You know they’re probably thinking about some elaborate lie that won’t even begin to fool you. How could you be so stupid? So easily wooed to do something so very intimate with these strangers? God,could you be anymore stupid?

They don’t give you any answers—no,the much bigger men tackle you onto the bed. Their hands grab all and any appendage that could fight back.

There it is again…that strange drossy feeling. It returns with a revenge time,it no longer feels like a light enjoyable feeling. Now it’s overtaking all your senses,stealing away your conscious mind.

“Sleep. You want to sleep. Sleep. You want to sleep.” Both of the voices chant to you,repeating the phrase over and over again. No! You don’t want to sleep,yet the more the repeat,the more they tell you what you want,the more your eyes begin to sag and you no longer see anything more.

Black.

▂▂▂▂▂

“No,Su’ you’re not covering her enough!” The annoyed voice of blue eyed man shouts. Geto huffs,”That’s all we have left in us. We could rub it in to scent her further. Calm down.”

Lips pout out in a childlike manner,”I’m just sayin so we can be careful. So many will probably want out mate,she’s so perfect for pups after all.” A chuckle follows,”You’re so possessive sometimes. No one will want her since we’ve marked her.”

“Oh,I’m possessive? You’re the one who said we should eat everyone just because that little guy friend of her touched her while making an escape. I—“Gojo points to his chest proudly,”just wanted to eat two or three but you got all murdery after he touched her.”

Geto rolls his black irises so far they disappear into the white of his socket,”Whatever. You would’ve ate them all anyways because you’re so damn jealous of others having her attention.” Gojo gasps,offending greatly,”Am not! I don’t get jealous like you!”

Geto laughs amused,knowing exactly how his life long friend works,”Alright,you win.” The white haired man hums triumphantly. Physically saying,”I know that’s right!”

“But are you sure we shouldn’t cum a little more on her?” Gojo cranes his head to look next to him,”No,we have to save some when we cum in her so we fertilize the eggs.” He nods,accepting the answer.

▂▂▂▂▂

When you wake up you’re greeted with the sight of loitering heads hanging above you.

You attempt to yelp only to have a hand roughly clap against your mouth. “Shhh,the yell will only echo in the cave.” A high voice says. Cave? Last time you checked you weren’t in a cave;the last location being a college dorm rooms.

The now known voice of Gojo exclaims,”I’m so happy you’re up though! Me and Geto were getting worried that we’d have to give you pups while you were asleep. Which is no fun cause we can’t hear your pretty little moans like that.” You cringe at his explanation—the thought of being used unconsciously giving you the creeps.

You get more creeped out though,the view of your surroundings not seeming so promising. There’s visible peeled human flesh in the cave,scattered around the stone. And the smell of old iron and rotten flesh takes over your nostrils. Oh God…you fingerfucked yourself in front of a bunch of monsters. And they probably want to eat you next too,just like your friends! Once they’re tired of you, you’re definitely on the menu.

Tears start streaming down your chubby face and your body begins to shake. “Just eat me already! Please don’t play with me and just eat me!” Your pathetic cries are met with laughter. This pauses your sobbing because why are they laughing at you?

“Oh my God! You’re so cute! Eat you? Noo!” Gojo folds over clutching his bare abdomen. Geto joins the laughter,”You’re so silly,we don’t want to eat you! You’re our mate! Imagine that,Gojo? Eating all our future pups like that!” Mate? Pups? These words sound familiar,like the ones they were saying the last time…intimacy happened.

Now that you look them in their true form you see why they chose the verbiage. They have scales matching their hair colors coating all four of their limbs,paired with gills on the neck’s and sides. As they laugh they also show their three rows of flesh piercing teeth. They were definitely some kind of animal like creature. But what?

“So you’re not gonna eat me?” You ask tentatively. Geto nods,”No,we want to make you our mate. That’s why we went through all that trouble of getting you.” Gojo urges in agreement,”Mhm! We just wanna fill you with pups and live with ya forever. And actually,”he lowers his hand down to his bare crotch gripping his already hard cock,”We’ve been meaning to do it soon as we brought you here. But you’re such a sleepyhead we had to wait til you woke up.”

You watch as he gives it a good stroke,looking you up and down as does so. And that’s when you realize you’re completely bare too;with some white milky substance coating your whole body. Another voice joins in,”Mhm,we’ve been dying to get inside you. And I don’t intend on waiting any longer.”

“W-Wait!” You try to protest but it’s no avail,Gojo is already on top of your naked body. Grips and gropes are felt all over from the monster,your chest,your plentiful body,your wide supple hips that sting as his hold won’t get any looser. He licks and bites every fiber in skin in front of him,everything being marked by his rough movements.

Geto comes in front of your laying position,stroking up and down as he watches his companion go feral with his urges. “Warm her up,Satoru. Make her feel good first.” He doesn’t respond verbally,his actions speaking loud enough for him;his mouth moves to suckle on the hard bud on top your breast aching for some type of stimulation.

You moan at the sensation only to be silenced by a passionate kiss from the long haired man. His tongue intertwines with yours creating a languid dance with the pink muscles. Gojo pops off your breast,sounding breathless and needy.

“I don’t wanna wait no more..Wanna be inside.” He whines,already lining up his cock with your soaked entrance. Geto sighs,”Maybe I should fuck her first…I’m more patient.” It’s a loud protest,”NO! Me! Please I want to first.”

You interrupt,swollen mouth readily to spew exactly what you want at this moment,”Just do it. Fuck me.” You don’t know what came over you to say that. Maybe it was their hypnotizing touch? They’re intimidatingly now known power over you? Or perhaps after months of being so harshly ignored you just needed this. Needed to be molded and groomed just to be something again…Whatever it is leads to the man on top of you finally giving into his desires.

With a shaky groan he impales you with his cock. He doesn’t halt nor wait for you to adjust—his urges of breeding being too strong. As he bucks into you he reshapes your legs to his satisfaction,bending them all the way against the fat of your stomach;indulging in the way the soft flesh jiggles with each rough piston of his hips.

“Good! Feel so good!” He howls into the echoing cave. “Look at you,taking it like such a good mate.” Geto purrs,rubbing his now scale textured palm on your soft face. “You see all the faces she makes when you’re fucking her,Saturo?”

“Y-Yeah! So cute!” He thrusts harder into your welcoming cunt,contorting himself to almost nuzzle your face every time he goes in and out of you. You whine and grip onto him,feeling an orgasm coming soon. You face twists into one of awaiting pleasure;the orgasm just teetering away from you.

“She’s about to cum! Go faster!” Geto encourages. Gojo,obliges,each of his harsh thrust definitely leaving bruising marks on the back of thighs and asscheeks.

Every movement is like a symphony—coordinating your final path to pleasure. The instruments? The clapping noises of Gojo prodding your hole roughly and passionately. The applause? The sweet noises you’d let fly past your tongue. And finally with one last shove into you,the orchestrater of your orgasm allowed you to sing his high praises.

You see white,yet Gojo doesn’t stop his hips—No he goes faster until he oozes into you hot white sticky semen. He stiffens for a second then reels back into the cavern,to the point his tip kisses your cervix. He stays in you until an odd sensation travels through your walls.

Orbs or something resembling a sphere fight against the strict wall of your womb. It starts with one,then the second,the the third,and the fourth is when you start to feel the invasion of whatever is being deposited in you.

“W-What’s going on?” Geto leans down and kisses your plump cheek,”Gojo’s giving you his pups. Don’t worry it’ll only hurt when they try to get into your womb,but you’re such a good mate you’ll take all of them.”

“A-All of them?” The reparation doesn’t help with understanding the idea. “All of them! And then you’re gonna take Sugu’s too! Isn’t that great?” Gojo joyfully informs you.

Your brain and body hurts so you simply just nod,pretending like you know what they mean. You’re tired. So tired that you lean into Geto’s gentle cupping of your face,closing your eyes;letting the two beings do whatever they want at this point.

Allowing yourself to be totally and wholly consumed by them.

REBLOGS AND COMMENTS ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED 🫶🏽🫶🏽 tysm for reading