#when i kill myself she will not mourn or miss me and she will be in the majority

[ame-to-ame]

there are things that you don't do for a year or more and pick up just right where you left off and these days i fear loving you might be one of them

[foldingfittedsheets]

The location of the sex shop I worked was a haven for spiders. We had tall ceilings and skylights and unused storage rooms. It was a spider paradise. We quickly sussed out which coworkers to call on in case of emergency. The Dorito lady was a solid ally for spiders but absolutely petrified of moths.

But there’s actually a hierarchy of fear. Most people don’t realize. The person least afraid is the one forced to deal with the bug in question. If coworker B was scared, but coworker A was petrified, well coworker B was gonna have to screw their courage to the sticking place because by the law of fear they were the most competent person on scene.

Thus enters Rick. Rick first appeared in the back storage room. This room doubled as a second bathroom so we went in on a semi frequent basis. The girl who’d gone in to pee shot out again gibbering with fear about the biggest spider she’d ever seen had just run across her boot.

We sicced Dorito lady on it. She returned, shaking her head. “He was squatting on a power cord where it plugs in. I couldn’t get a clean shot at Rick.”

“Rick?”

She shrugged. “Spiders that big need a name. Seemed like a Rick.”

Rick, freshly named, became a store menace. I’d normally say this was probably a case of multiple spiders being mistaken for one but everyone who encountered him swore up and down there could be no mistake. This spider was massive, fast, and distinct. A gladiator among arachnids.

I never encountered Rick. His exploits grew in the telling but the theme was consistent: no one could kill him. He’d hunker in places that no one could reach and dart away when a strike missed. He also chased off the more faint hearted, charging them in bold dashes. There could be no benign cup transplant to remove Rick from the premise. He was not leaving.

The saga of Rick continued for two months. Not seeing him was almost worse, a fearful wariness when going to the bathroom or stepping into quieter areas. I waited with dread, hoping my eventual run in would have me on shift with Dorito lady to protect me.

It was not to be. There was a girl the same who hated my one moment of singing that was absolute piss-herself scared of spiders. She’d slam straight into a panic attack and couldn’t think or speak. And so it was that one night on shift, I heard her scream.

It was unmistakable. I was in the front window turning off the open sign. Through an obstacle course of mannequins and lingerie I performed an acrobatic sprint out of the window, darting up to find her quivering at the front counter, fully crying. I radiated calm at her and said, “Just point.”

I knew it was Rick. Our destinies were intertwined and we had always been pulled toward the inexorable battle that was drawing nigh.

Her hand raised to point to our sandwich board sign at the front of the store. So Rick had the metaphorical high ground. There was no quick easy strike on the slanted signs surface.

I armed myself and marched into battle, my knuckles white on my chosen weapon. I would do this, because I must. Because there was no one else. And because I wanted to close and go home.

I saw Rick immediately and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen a bigger spider since. Outside of a tarantula, he was truly the most massive spider I’ve ever beheld outside a zoo enclosure or terrarium.

We regarded each other. Rick launched off the sign toward me and I stomped my foot reflexively, making him pause in his charge. Then I raised my weapon. Anything else, I believe Rick could have evaded. He’d bested most of the store thus far. But I had chosen chemical warfare.

I doused the shit out of that spider with cleaning spray, stunning him with a barrage of chemicals. While he froze, choking on the unexpected deluge, I dropped a paper towel over him. My foot came down.

I felt his exoskeleton crunch and I can feel it still to this day. The shattering was as of bones and I truly mourned that we had been forced into senseless war. If only he has cleaved tighter to the shadows. If only he’d crawled willing into a cup for relocation. I released a full body shudder of horror, fear, and adrenaline as I stepped back.

I took several quivering breaths. I donned a veneer of calm and tidied the battlefield of it’s corpse then went to reassure my coworker that all was well, while internally I still shook.

You fought well, Rick. I hope you sired many more monstrous children to haunt retail workers in the years to come. Rest in valor, you monster.

[shoutzwastaken]

.

[star-girl69]

Because Of You

Clarisse La Rue x Fem!AphroditeCabin!Reader

—-

synopsis: years after your rite of passage, the boy who’s heart you broke just won’t leave you alone. clarisse, your girlfriend, quickly decides she’s not a fan.

a/n: should i stop procrastinating and then forcing myself to write shitty fics quickly? probably. but not today!! this is kinda just like an au of dont delete the kisses but… you guessed it… IDC!!!!!!!! from this ask

thank you all so much for patiently waiting i love y’all soooooo muuccchhhhhh 🫶🫶💋 as i mentioned on my acc i have the next week off from school, pls expect more content then!!

Because Of You - Lana Del Rey (Unreleased)

warnings: NOT PROOFREAD, this sucks so bad y’all sorry lolllll, y/n is a year round camper!, starts out very background heavy but i really don’t care 😭, creepy men UGH, ugly bitches not being able to let shit go, im gonna say sexual harassment just incase, swearing, usual demigod stuff y’all know what you’re getting into, jealous!clarisse YESSS, possessive!clarisse ik i screamed!!, protective!clarisse too, slightly graphic makeout scene, i think that’s all, tell me if i missed anything!!

—-

When you were young, you were thrilled by the thought of love.

The idea of belonging not only with someone- bodies fitting together like puzzles pieces- but belonging to someone- wrapping around you like a warm blanket.

Later, your half-siblings would describe mostly similar experiences to yours- an overwhelming desire to be loved, wanted, needed. Ever since you ran into camp with a monster hot on your heels and satyr shouting encouragement next to you- everyone’s stared at you. They poke and prod, they act like they’ve never seen a daughter of Aphrodite before.

It’s annoying, but it makes you feel good- but not quite.

Until Alek came along.

You were both 13, you still believed in soulmates, and you wanted nothing more than to be with each other for the rest of your lives.

You were 13, and he felt like the only one for you.

And when you had to break up with him to fulfill your rite of passage- it felt like the world was ending. You cried for days and begged your sister Phoebe to say it wasn’t a true, it was just a mean, mean prank.

But she couldn’t tell you that, and there were more types of love that romantic.

While you longed to hold someone, to be held- you also craved your mother’s approval like you were starving. You wanted her love, you wanted her to visit you in your dreams, you wanted gifts from her, you wanted everything and anything she could give you.

So, it hurt like you had never known hurt before, but you did it. Alek seemed entirely indifferent to it, almost ignoring you and pretending you hadn’t said it- but you felt a warmness around you, a dove flew between trees, you knew your mother was there and she approved.

Breaking up with Alek felt like the sun had exploded on top of you.

Being with Clarisse felt like the sun was wrapped around you.

—-

After Alek’s initial denial, he went through all the other stages of grief, mourned your relationship like you did, and you came out on the other side with a one-sided agreement to forget it ever happened.

Alek got stuck. Or went back. He started to believe that you were still meant to be, that much you could tell.

Until that day at the training fields when your hand slipped at archery and you almost shot Clarisse in the head- and she had glared at you so harshly while you ran over and examined her head, gushing out apologies and fretting over her.

She pushed you away, hand lingering for a second, eyes softening before she quickly looked away.

“Just… be more careful,” she had said, almost like a question, like she wasn’t sure the words were coming out of her mouth.

And, Gods, were you terrified it was all some secret plan. Make you think it was alright only to corner you in the woods and probably kill you, or something.

And when she asked the next day to teach you how to shoot a bow, you agreed with tears in your eyes, knowing of her reputation, and it took a lot of trust and a lot of swapped secrets for her to prove to you it wasn’t all some elaborate plan.

But even if her plan was to kill you the entire time, you fell in love over her fixing your stance, hands brushing as you accidentally grabbed the same arrow, stolen looks across the pavilion.

It wasn’t until a random kid bumped into you, making you fall and twist your ankle. Clarisse had this look in her eyes that was so genuine, so full of love and care for you, softly caressing your leg after she had punched the other kid in the face.

And you realize as she said you were doing great, limping while she helped you to the infirmary, that this was something.

And as much as you hated the violence being committed over you, it was the hottest thing you’ve ever seen, and the warmth in your chest was all you had ever wanted. This was what it was like to belong with someone, to someone, with her, to her.

This was what it was like to be admired. Loved. Wanted. Needed.

And when she softly told you goodbye, you had kissed the corner of her lips and thanked her- turning to walk into your cabin, ankle already feeling better thanks to the ambrosia.

She grabbed you by the wrist and turned you around, pulling you against her tightly and kissing you so harshly like she had just found the secret to the world in her lips on yours, her hands on your hips.

And when she finally pulled away, embarrassing strings of spit connecting your lips, she said she was sorry. Probably the first time she had ever said that to someone, and you smiled.

“Sorry. It’s just… once your lips were on mine, I don’t think I can ever stop. I don’t wanna stop.”

And she kissed you again and it was all you ever wanted out of this life- to love and be loved, to hold and to be held, and it was all because of her.

—-

The welcome back campfire is your favorite time of year.

It’s when the camp comes alive, when the Gods themselves seem to return to this place- even Mr. D is a bit more lively with all the pure infectious energy running through the first few days of camp. Everyone’s getting settled, classes haven’t started quite yet, and the year round campers get a much needed break.

As much as you and Clarisse wanted to keep things private, when she punches someone in the middle of the pavilion for accidentally bumping into you, it’s not hard to figure out Clarisse cares for you more than she does anyone else.

And after one of your younger siblings, Cara, a 12-year-old notorious for staying up late, saw you and Clarisse kissing that first night- it spread like wildfire.

But it was the winter, so it still felt secret, until summer rolled around and Clarisse kept getting more and more annoyed by every camper who entered the gates. She would grab at you in the middle of meals, drag you into her bed, even kiss you in public- do all these things that seemed so out of character for her, but she was a different person when she was with you.

Everyone had been looking at you oddly all night, shocked, confused, even Clarisse has cracked a genuine smile at someone who dropped their drink- squeezing your hand.

Maybe they had all heard the rumors. Maybe they didn’t believe them.

But it’s all cleared up when Clarisse leads you to the best seat, the log not too far from the fire but not too close, wrapping her arms around you and kissing your temple.

Your cheeks heat up, only because Clarisse is never this touchy in public, and never around this many people before.

All of the eyes on you feel weird- they feel so judging.

And you’re not used to that, however vain it may be.

“Everyone’s staring at us,” you mumble, shuffling closer to Clarisse so your legs are pressed together.

She leans her head against your shoulder. “‘S okay. Don’t worry about ‘em, baby.”

You huff. “Did no one ever teach them it’s rude to stare, though? Like… c’mon.”

She sighs dramatically, lifting her head from your shoulder.

“Stop fuckin’ staring,” she says. Not quiet shouting, but her voice is loud and forceful. Her voice carries weight.

And eventually, at the risk of Clarisse’s wrath, all the wandering eyes stop.

A few of Clarisse’s siblings laugh from around you, commenting that the stares were getting a bit ridiculous, everyone just grateful that you all might get a little reprieve from the overwhelming stares and whispers.

But, you still feel uneasy. Clarisse kisses your shoulder.

And while you look around at the faces very pointedly not staring at you, there’s one person who still is. You roll your eyes, open your mouth to comment on it- but your mouth quickly snaps close at the sight of Alek.

—-

You don’t mention it to Clarisse. Maybe because breaking his heart haunts you, maybe what could have been haunts you.

You try not to think of Alek or that night, you try not to think of the entire age of 13. You always knew that Alek never quite let you go. He still sort of believed that the two of you would come back together- subscribing to some abstract belief soulmates.

You don’t think about Alek. Everything you do is because of her, because of Clarisse.

Sometimes, knowing you have secret admirers makes you feel all happy, but now that Clarisse sneaks you into her cabin every night- it makes you feel weird. You really don’t want anyone except for Clarisse, the idea of even being near someone else kinda disgusts you.

But, you choose to believe that maybe he was just shocked, and he’ll get over it in a few days.

You spend your days in the summer sun with Clarisse, holding her hand on walks through the strawberry fields, still using your archery lessons to spend time together, staring at each other from across the pavilion at meals, dreaming about a future together when it gets dark and you’re forced to whisper softly.

Alek is just always lurking. Is it coincidence? Is he stalking you? Every time you’re with Clarisse, trying to enjoy a nice date, he’s there- staring at you like a lovesick puppy.

And if it wasn’t because of her, you would probably be flattered. But you have Clarisse, you’ve moved on, you’re in love and happy.

It’s the late afternoon, you’re trying to enjoy a long moment with her, breathe in the sweet smell and just feel how happy you are, know it’s because of her.

The fields are still crowded with kids who pushed off their chores until the end of the day, so you and Clarisse stay on the outskirts. Not too far into the woods that’s filled with satyrs and nymphs who have grown very hostile towards any two campers who make their way into the woods. But not too close.

You don’t even register that other people are there. You’re going on about your annoying half-brother, she’s pretending to listen intently- but it’s just enough to be here with her, and at least she’s listening to the sound of your voice. At least that brings her some comfort, and that makes you feel good.

“And then, he said-” you trail off, feeling like something’s crawling all over you, practically being able to feel the anger in the air.

“Hm, what?” Clarisse asks, snapping out of her reverie at your silence.

Alek is glaring at you, of course. It just feels so juvenile. You had received letters from him for years- ones that he didn’t sign- but you knew. He said that the two of you had so much more to give together, that a second chance was all he needed to make you forget about the rite of passage, about pleasing your mother.

Clarisse squeezes your hand, leaning closer to you.

You used to like the feeling of getting those letters, of knowing you were loved and wanted. But now, with Clarisse, because of her- it feels wrong.

She follows your eye line and Alek quickly looks away, back down at the strawberries he’s supposed to be picking.

Clarisse’s hand tightens around yours.

“Who the hell is that?” she huffs.

You suck in a breath. “Alek.”

“Al-huh?”

You smile, despite how uneasy you feel.

“Alek, Clarisse. From my rite of passage?”

“Oh,” she nods, nose scrunching ever so slightly. “The one who left you those creepy letters? Has he left anymore?”

“No, no,” you say, risking one more glance at his back- just to assure yourself. Maybe you’re just making it all up. “Not since last summer. I mean, he was staring at us the night of the bonfire too, he’s always around on all our dates- it’s just creepy, at this point.”

“Sounds like the fucker has a death wish,” she drawls. “I’d be happy to help him with it.”

You bump her shoulder with yours. “Yeah, yeah Miss Violence.”

She smiles back, but she searches her eyes and you can tell she doesn’t like what she sees.

“Hey, c’mon. I’ll kill him if he pulls some shit again.”

“Clarisse.”

“Beat him up?”

“Clarisse.”

“Physically threaten him?”

“Clar-”

She smacks her hand over your mouth. “Shhh,” she smiles. “Don’t stress. I’ll take care of it.”

“Clarisse!” you shout, laughing, but her hand is still pressed tight over your moth.

“Oh, sorry, baby, I can’t hear you!”

“Bitch,” you hiss, and she frowns.

“Mean.”

—-

Clarisse, unfortunately, is true to her word.

Alek finally leaves you a note. It’s simple, unsigned, but obviously him. You recognize his chicken scratch scrawl.

All it says is:

I miss you, we could be something

She writes him a note back, a long one- first talking about all of her accomplishments as a daughter of Ares, then detailing all the ways she’ll make him regret thinking about you.

She tells you now, whispers in her bed, she laughs and your mouth hangs open.

“Clarisse!” you gasp, scolding her with a soft hit to her shoulder.

She rolls her eyes and moves closer to you.

“What else was I supposed to do? Ignore it? You don’t know me if you think I could just ignore some random dude flirting with my girlfriend. He’s a fuckin’ weirdo, and hopefully that note will teach him somethin’.”

“I mean. I doubt it will,” you mumble after a moment.

She smiles, your heart squeezes- because her smile is so beautiful- and because Clarisse never smiles like this. It’s bloodthirsty. It’s almost inhuman. It’s Godly.

“Then I’ll have to teach him in… other terms.”

—-

Dinner this evening is slow and relaxed. It’s Friday, so you’ve all made it to the end of the first official week of camp. Chiron let’s the rules fade away tonight, cabin tables have been abandoned and everyone sits where they want.

A few Hermes kids volunteered to start a fire, Mr D is busy trying to get the new kids to sneak him some alcohol- but he’s hard pressed to find ones who haven’t already been warned not to.

The energy in the air is infectious. The promise of a late wake up tomorrow, a fun night, the feeling of the moon and the fire, warmth on your skin- it’s a recipe for lowered inhibitions, for everything to come a little easier.

Clarisse sits next to you a table in the pavilion. You’re surrounded by Silena and Beckendorf, a few Hermes kids, a few Ares kids- a big mosh of random campers squeezed together at this one table- but it works, for whatever reason.

There’s nothing like laughing at someone’s shitty joke and feeling Clarisse laugh with you, pressed close to her so you can feel her chest rumble, feel her arm squeeze around you.

“He did what?!” Silena screeches, looking at you with wide eyes.

You laugh at her shock, at the audacity of Alek.

She sneaks a quick glance at Clarisse, who seems entirely engrossed in her siblings’ arm wresting tournament at the next table over.

“Yeah,” you sigh, feeling sort of complacent with it now. It’s not like anything will change. You’re here because of her, because of Clarisse. Everything you do is because of her.

Breathing, eating, sleeping. Basic human functions and the need to survive has only strengthened with the motivation of staying alive for her.

“Anyways,” you smile. “Clarisse left him back this big, long note. All about how she’s the strongest girl at camp,” you roll your eyes, but you’re smiling too big to be anything but joking. Besides, everyone knows she’s probably right. “And then threatened him a whole bunch. So, hopefully, he’ll just get his head out of his ass and then everything will be good again.”

You breathe out at the end of your small rant, and Silena smiles sympathetically.

“Hopefully,” she echoes.

But, because of Clarisse, because of her arms around you, you don’t feel anything but peace.

—-

Of course, life is not straightforward for demigods.

At the end of the day, you’re doomed to fall in your parents footsteps- except there is no immortality for you to fall back on. You’re vain and you’re proud, just like your parents, and you step too far, jump too high, and you’re as left dust on the floor.

Even though the same path had been left out for you to repeat, doomed footsteps to follow in, you step where they stepped and expect a different end.

The night is pitch black, besides for the brilliant stars and the bright, bright moon. It makes everything feel so private and secret. It makes Clarisse relax, makes her hold you closer but looser.

It feels good to feel her arm loose around you. She’s not afraid of you disappearing, because she knows of someone dragged you away you would rise up from the waves and straight back into her, into her arms.

The Apollo kids are playing music, voices hum along, the night is on fire with the crackles and the rising smoke, on fire with the peace, the content.

It feels like nothing can hurt you here.

But you’re a demigod, and life is not that easy.

The seat next to you is abandoned, and you barely even take notice as it’s quickly filled again- but you take notice of the eyes on you, of the body leaning forward to speak softly to you.

The fact that he’s here, the fact that he blatantly didn’t listen- you suppose you could have felt some sympathy for before, craving a life that wasn’t his anymore. Living off of memories made him too hungry.

Your mouth presses into a thin line as you recognize the voice in your ear.

“Y/N, I jus’ wanna talk.”

The rest of the table has fallen silent, and you realize everyone had almost immediately taken notice of his entrance- and you could tell by the way Clarisse’s body was tense against yours- he would regret ever coming over here.

“Clarisse,” you mumble, shifting closer to her.

She hooks her head over her shoulder, shifting completely so she’s straddling the bench, pressed up against your back.

Her tone is genuinely confused.

“Are you, like, okay in the head?”

The table, previously silent with fear, now bubbles with forced laughter.

“It’s not of your business,” Alek says, staring directly into your eyes. You feel like a deer caught in headlights, just completely shocked, too scared to move like it will all become real.

Clarisse puts her hand on your forehead and floats it down across your face, and your eyes voluntarily flutter shut.

“You’re not even worthy of being looked at by her,” and you can hear the smile on her voice. She confidence seeping from her pores- you can feel it all with the way she’s protectively wrapped around you.

“Y/N,” he says again, ignoring her through gritted teeth. “I just want to talk.”

“If you say one more fuckin’ word to my girlfriend I’m gonna kill you.”

There’s no smile on her voice, no edge of a joke. Not even angry. She’s deathly calm. She’s focused, like a 20 pound weight sinking to the bottom of the sea. She cuts through whatever she has to and everything else knows to avoid her.

You don’t know why the hell Alek just can’t let the 13 year old version of you go, why he’s looking something where there’s nothing, and you’re just so done with all of this.

You open your eyes, sitting up, letting Clarisse’s arms fall around you in confusion.

“Alek,” you start, softly. “We dated for a month when we were 13. That’s all it was, that’s all it’s ever gonna be. It’s over, okay?”

“Exactly,” he breathes. “A month when we were 13- and we were that good together? We could do so much more now, I wanna show you.”

“Okay, I’m done,” you mumble, standing up.

And without you in between, Alek finally gets a good look at the daughter of war. She’s pure, streamlined muscle. Every inch of her body has been meticulously trained to kill monsters- Alek knows that killing him would be easy.

Clarisse cracks her knuckles and you almost laugh at how cinematic it is.

—-

You hum as you run the alcohol pad over her split knuckles. Clarisse likes to leave the scars like this, the small ones, let them heal on her own. Even though she winces at the feeling, you know she’ll be walking around, proudly showing off her scabs until they finally fade away. She’ll cross her fingers and hope they scar, probably.

Clarisse watches you with admiration, admiring your movements, your voice, even though you’re really not doing anything special. But, to her, everything you do is special.

“Did you see how bad his face was?” she asks, trying to remain calm, but eagerness slips into her voice.

“I did,” you laugh. “It was real bad, baby. Good job.”

She huffs, as if it’s common knowledge.

“I always do a good job, just matters what level of good I’m on. I think this was one of my best works though, huh?”

She admires her split knuckles and you roll your eyes, finally starting to put some bandaids on the clean wounds.

“You’re crazy,” you mutter.

She shrugs. “You’re the one who let me. You’re the one who loves me.”

“Yeah,” you mumble after a moment, not really wanting to lie to her, tease her right now. She smiles soft and sweet, placing her fingertips against your jawline and leaning forward.

“Did you like watching me?” she breathes, her low voice hitting you right in the stomach, breath against your lips.

You circle her biceps with your hands and run them up and down the tense muscle.

“You know I did.”

“Three months no dessert,” she smiles.

“Three months of sharing with you,” you laugh. She smiles wider before finally, mercifully, putting her lips on yours.

Everything you do is because of Clarisse. It feels so good to be close to her like this- practically in her lap- fo feel how strong she is, to know what she did for you today.

It feels so good to know she loves you.

When you pull away, trying to chase her, she dodges you and kisses your jawline, your neck, and you throw your head back and release the most unladylike sounds as she leaves hickies on your neck, seemingly determined to make them as dark as possible, as easy to see. And a lot of them.

“Jealous?” you say, biting your lip to keep in a moan.

“Just want everyone to know you’re my girl. Want everyone to know who makes you feel good, feel loved, huh?”

You stomach twists and your mind goes blank.

“Huh?” she repeats, sticking her face in your neck to breathe in and out, catching her breath. “Why you feelin’ like this, baby?”

“Because of you,” you breathe. “Because of you, Clarisse.”

—-

y/n walking around the next day looking like she got attacked by a vampire

silena trying to be happy for y’all but also concerned for your health

clarisse just being proud as hell

—-

this was small so idk if y’all picked it up but clarisse was jealous before alek even came along- jealous that there were more campers coming! like? she just doesn’t like unworthy losers looking at her girl 🙄

—-

possessive!clarisse i love you so much baby

—-

taglist:

@lvrue @t-wylia @laughingcheese037 @kroumi @urdeadpoet @colezb @rey26 @harmzilla @elliewilliamsbae @amberfreemansburntface @kyuupidwrites @neverwaakeme-up @shark1008 @liballer @heyimadison @nvirskies @pnsteblnme @mar2ss @restellsss @ravisinghs-wife @marsconer @evangelinexo @randomhoex @luvrrish @rebecca37 @saltair-and-palemoonlight @ace-spades-1

[liahaslosthermind]

~ 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑫𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝑳𝒐𝒔𝒔 ~

(Past) Rhysand x OC, (Eventual) Azriel x OC Part 2 of Betrayal

Summary: He was out of his mind with grief. Azriel had been through his fair share of trauma. He had seen and done horrific things, but that was always with Adelaide by his side. Now, he didn't know what to do, and he was losing it. Warnings: Suicidal thoughts and ideology, Death of a loved one, grief, Hurt/No Comfort

His limbs ached as he stood up from his chair. He had been sitting there so long that walking felt much harder than it usually did.

He rubbed the haze from his eyes while walking to the door, the incessant knocking making his headache worse.

"Fuck, Az. You look- how do you- do you want me to..." Cassian stood in front of his brother, someone he'd known for 500 years, and didn't recognize the male he saw.

It had been the first time in almost 2 months that Cassian's knocks were answered. He had come to her room, everyday, multiple times a day, to plead with his brother to talk to him, to eat something, to just let Cassian look at him so he could see he was alive.

Azriel said nothing as he turned around and went back to the chair he had been occupying. Cassian closed the door behind him as he took in the room.

It was the same as it had been the day she left. Even though this had been the place Azriel spent most of his days, the Shadowsinger had kept it all the same, only touching her bed that he would sleep in the nights he could stomach it, or the chair he was currently in now.

A mess of papers on the desk brought tears to Cassian's eyes. Adelaide, sweet and caring Adelaide, had been making a list of Solstice gifts for her family when she was called to join some of the Inner Circle on a meeting all those months ago. A meeting that had been a trap for them. A meeting that ended up taking her life.

Azriel cleared his throat when Cassian went to pick up a piece of paper. He had tried to hard to keep her room clean while also not disturbing things from the spot she had put them in.

"Nesta told me that her and Elaine have been leaving you food but it remains untouched."

"Is there a question, brother?" Azriel asked. His voice had always been rough, and he had always been more on the quiet side, but Cassian could tell that because of lack of use, it hurt him to speak.

"Why aren't you eating? How can we get you to? I would do anything, Az." he pleaded.

The spymaster didn't answer.

"Whats the end goal? Believe me, if you want 1,000 years to mourn her, I will be with you every step of the way. I've tried to give you space, but you are killing yourself! You sit in here all day, only coming out when everyone is asleep or gone. What do you need to care about your life again?"

He was met with a distracted look from Azriel.

His brother was never distracted. He was never careless. He hadn't missed a day of training for no reason in hundreds of years. Cassian knew he still trained every once in a while, but Azriel always found times to do it when no one else was around.

Azriel didn't have an answer for Cassian, at least not one he would like.

How could I care for my life when her's is over? he thought. By the desperate look on Cassian's face, he could tell his brother knew the answer.

"I lost her too. I know it was different with the two of you, you were each others'... person, but she was as much my sister as you are my brother. I didn't... I didn't even get to say goodbye." Cassian finally broke at the confession. He hadn't let himself think about it, he had to keep himself together for Azriel. "The last time I talked to her, we where fighting over food. She stole the slice of cake I had saved for myself, I called her an inconvenience and a burden, she called me a spoiled bat who needs to learn to share." He let out a bittersweet laugh at the memory. They were usually at each others' throats, and when they weren't, they were teamed up to annoy someone else in their family. But they loved each other, always were there for one another, except in the end, when it mattered most.

"24 hours later, I was picking out the sarcophagus my sister was going to be laid in. I would have let her have all of my leftovers, all of my dessert, if it meant I just got one last conversation with her." Choking up, Cassian sank to the floor, a wave of familiar grief washing over him.

Azriel joined him, crying as he hugged his brother.

The two illyrians, sat like that for a while. Long after their tears had dried, long after the sun had gone down, Cassian finally spoke up.

"Why don't you go see her? Visiting helps me, talking to her even though I know she can't hear is something I do often."

In truth, Azriel hadn't gone to his best friend's mausoleum since the funeral. He couldn't see her like that, couldn't come to terms with it.

These past 6 months had been dark. Everyone was mourning her, many of the people of Velaris included, but none more than Azriel. Part of him had died, laid in the cold marble box that held her body. For the first few months, he had completely disconnected from reality. He went on with his daily routine, he trained, ate, went on missions, did paperwork, slept. But it was as it he was on autopilot, as if the real Azriel had been asleep that whole time.

Two months ago, he woke up. It was sudden, he had gone to his room for the first time in a while to grab some books that had been long overdo at the library, and the priestesses had kindly told him if they didn't get them back he would be banned for life.

Thats when he saw the blanket on the chair by his desk. She had given it to him over a century ago. It was a birthday present, a wool blanket that was enchanted to smell like her always. She had played it off as a self centered gift, so he doesn't forget about his favorite person while away on missions, in front of their friends, but Azriel knew that wasn't her true intention. Adelaide had always been a master gift giver, and she also knew Azriel had trouble sleeping most nights, but he never had any problems falling asleep on the couch next to her after a long night of conversations, wrapped comfortably in her own wool blanket.

He hadn't slept without it till the night she died.

Then, he picked it up, trying to see if the enchantment still worked. And that was all it took for him to wake up. It was awful, every bad feeling he had been too far disassociated to feel hit him at once. He curled up on the floor with the blanket wrapped around his hands and stayed there for days, silent tears never ceasing to fall.

After getting yelled at by Madja, who Nesta had called to knock some sense into him, he got up and went to her room, where he remained most of his days since.

He sat in the chair in the corner of the room, only eating to quiet his stomach, and tried as hard as he could to detach himself from the never ending agony that was his life now.

He told Cas he would see her, the general's face lighting up at the news.

He felt guilty, making Cassian so happy for something he knew would later destroy him.

Hours after Cassian had left the room, as the sun came up, Azriel went to his room to grab the blanket he hadn't touched in 2 months. Then he grabbed Truth Teller, wrote his final request, and went to see Adelaide.

The building was large, and beautifully constructed. He would have been happy that she had a resting place as elysian and inviting as she, but he knew Rhysand only spent that much money and made it this beautiful to try and lighten the guilt he felt.

The Shadowsinger stopped by the entrance, the sarcophagus without a lid placed up on the platform.

Before the funeral, Helion had come to place a enchantment on her body that would keep it perfectly preserved.

It had been more of a final gift to Addie than a show of good will between the courts. Adelaide had been a foundling on the border of Day and Night. Helion took her in as his ward and she grew up with access to the best education and scholarly texts Prythian could offer. Rhysand later made her head of the Night Court's scholarly texts, education, and research. She spent more of her life in Night than Day, but she never went so long without seeing the man who gave her all she had.

She used to tell Azriel she would take him on vacation to Day to meet Helion. He of course had met the man before but they had been the Spymaster of Night and High Lord of Day, Addie wanted them to meet as 'two of the people she loved more than anyone'.

They never did get that vacation.

And as Azriel finally looked down at her, Helion's gift to her felt like a cruel punishment to him.

6 months later, she was still as ethereal as she was the last time he saw her, but she was still just as dead.

This was where he would remain, his final request was to be laid to rest in the same building. He would be adding unnecessary pain onto his loved ones who had suffered so much already, but for the first time in his life, Azriel had decided to put himself in front of his family.

Looking her over one last time, he realized he was now completely numb.

Azriel held the gifted blanket and went to take off the one she currently had. Based off the fact it seemed to have been picked out with meticulous care to match Adelaide's coloring, and her outfit, there was no doubt it had been placed there by Mor.

On her lap, previously being covered by the blanket, laid a large and very old book.

Had one of the scholars she worked with placed it? One of the educators?

Strange marks littered the cover, but no title. Not till he opened the first page did he see what it was.

The Walking Dead

A cruel pick. Who would ever leave such a book with a corpse?

The second page was blank, so was the third, so was the fourth. Thumbing through the book, Azriel just about gave up looking at the blank pages when he finally found one with writing.

It seemed to be a poem, but it was formatted too strangely.

The title at the top read Eternally Intertwined.

A spell.

He almost dropped the book at the realization.

No one had left this book, it had been fate that had given it to him, kept it here waiting for him to stumble upon it.

He knew what he needed to do.

[galedekarios]

gale & his mother, morena dekarios

i thought it'd be nice to have a place to compile everything i could find about gale's mother, morena dekarios.

the first time you as the player get a vague mention about gale's parents is after saving mirkon, when gale brings up a story about his parents denying him a kitten when he was still a child:

Gale: One time my parents denied me akitten, so I summoned myself a tressym.

if you play a gale origin playthrough, you get a mention of her much earlier from tara, after she joins the camp.

this is a camp dialogue with its variants from act i:

Tara the Tressym: Well, if it isn't my favourite fellow himself. Player: How are things back in Waterdeep? Tara the Tressym: More or less the same - though news of some mad faction calling themselves 'Absolutists' is starting to trickle in. Tara the Tressym: I told your mother not to worry. That if they were anything to worry about, Baldur's Gate would handle things quick-sharp. Keep them from spreading their tendrils north. She still wants to know when she'll see you again, sir. I avoid giving any answers. But she misses you. Player: I miss her too. Tara the Tressym: I'll tell her. With my Cat Flap of Displacement, I can afford the occasional visit. I'd bring you along, if I could. Perhaps some day. - Player: I can't risk putting her in danger. Tara the Tressym: I know that, but she doesn't. She'd keel over if she knew just how you'd tried to manipulate the Weave. Or maybe she'd just say something like, 'My Gale always was one to make the impossible possible.' Oh, but she adores you. - Player: No more guilt trips, Tara. Please. Tara the Tressym: But then whatever will we talk about? Anyhow - I'm keeping my senses pricked for any sign of another item that might be of use to you. Hopefully something will turn up soon.

it's clear from the dialogue that gale's mother worries about him and loves him - adores him, really.

it also becomes clear that she doesn't know what happened to gale and that he nor tara has not told her.

another mention from act i, again from tara:

Tara the Tressym: Please tell me you've at least made inroads when it comes to finding someone to settle down with. Myself and Mrs Dekarios are starting to think you intend to die alone. Player: You've been visiting my mother? Tara the Tressym: Naturally. After you abandoned her, there was only me left to keep her company. She's very good company, though. Ah, the stories we've traded over toast and tea. You're a highly entertaining source of speculation. But speculation only goes so far! Tell me, Mr Dekarios - how have you been?

tara and morena are implied to have tea together regularly enough to trade stories about gale. tara is implied to be a sort of messenger between the two of them, likely after gale's isolation and subsequent abduction by the nautiloid, keeping morena informed, yet without revealing gale's secret and shame.

the devnotes also state that tara loves morena - high praise since other devnotes states that tara hates everyone except gale - and that she talks of her in an affectionate tone.

this is a dialogue in act ii after mystra has tasked gale to use the orb the moment he finds the heart of the absolute:

Tara the Tressym: Promise me, Gale. Promise me you'll find another way. Promise me you'll return home, when this is all over. Player: I can't make that promise, Tara. Tara the Tressym: You're going to kill me. And your mother. And then there'll be no one to mourn you when you've wasted yourself for no good reason at all.

i find it very interesting here in terms of other relationships that tara explicitly says that there will be no one to mourn gale except morena and her should he heed mystra's instructions and sacrifice himself. it speaks of the bond between tara, morena and gale - but also even more of gale's isolation and loneliness. we know from tara that she considers herself to be gale's only old friend and gale echoes as much. we also know that gale describes the dekarios family as the dekarios clan, that is "scattered" far and wide.

at the same time, the loud silence about gale's father becomes really apparent again. a while ago, i speculated about gale's father and i truly do still think that he abandoned morena and gale.

another snippet from an act ii convo, before gale reveals the details of elminster's letter to tara (or chosing to keep it to himself):

Tara the Tressym: I'm not one to pry. I'd rather make up all the juicy details myself over tea with your mother.

which again ties in with a similar line from act i, further cementing the fact that this is a regular thing between tara and morena.

still in act ii, tara says this if gale asks her if she'll still love him if he is a mindflayer:

Player: Will you love me when I'm a mind flayer? Tara the Tressym: Depends. Are mind flayers warm-blooded? If so, my prize napping spot on your lap won't be compromised. In which case, I suppose we could find an accord. And, of course, your mother would still think you a prince, no matter how many tentacles you had. And with a nautiloid, you may even manage to visit her more often.

again, gale's mother truly adores him. tara is utterly convinced she'd love him even if he'd turn into a mind flayer. at the same time, the dialogue again hammers home the fact that gale's been keeping his distance from his mother after he has acquired the orb.

the following lines are a compilation of some of tara's lines from act iii, all once again stating that she is a messenger between gale and morena, keeping morena informed about gale's well-being, while also looking after morena in gale's absence from waterdeep:

Tara the Tressym: You're almost at the end of this, Gale. You're nearly there. And not a moment too soon. Myself, I must away to Waterdeep. Your mother will be worried silly not to have heard from either of us - and now I can bring her the good news. When this is all over I'll be waiting for you, with a crackling fire and good book at the ready. Good luck, darling. - Tara the Tressym: I'm well past due to return to Waterdeep. I'm going to tell your mother that you'll be home soon. Don't make a liar of me, darling. - Tara the Tressym: I'll have to make up some good news for your dear mother, then. I'm going home, Gale. To look after Mrs Dekarios, and to remind you that there are people waiting for you in Waterdeep.

going back to companion gale, the next mention of gale's mother after saving mirkon, is from gale in an ambient with karlach:

Gale: I don't suppose you've any clue where we are in relation to Waterdeep? Karlach: From this distance between Elturel and Baldur's Gate, I'd say... a long way away.devnote Gale: Ah. That will make getting word to my mother rather tricky. No matter - what she doesn't know can't hurt her. Not at this distance, anyway.

it echoes the lines of dialogue that origin gale has, believing he endangers his mother with his condition and thus keeping his distance.

gale mentions his mother in an act iii dialogue after meeting tara on the rooftop of the open hand temple:

Gale: My tower in Waterdeep boasts an excellent kitchen and a wine cellar to rival Ondal himself. Not to mention a larder stocked with my homemade hundur sauce. Player: Hundur sauce? Gale: A Waterdhavian delicacy, spiced to leave exactly the right amount of heat lingering on the tongue, and served with that most sharp-toothed of aquarian residents, the quipper fish. I make it to my mother's recipe. It packs quite a wallop. As does she.

we know that gale's the designated camp cook from a conversation with wyll, and i think the conversation makes it fair to assume that gale's mother taught him how to cook.

still, maybe it's because i'm not a native english speaker and i might be missing some cultural context here, but the line "it packs quite a wallop. as does she." stuck out to me:

wallop. to hit something / someone hard.

this could mean that gale's seen her hit someone and packing quite a punch behind it. with what's been described of morena so far, i doubt it's because gale's ever been on the receiving end of that.

or perhaps it's less literal and more in relation to her seemingly larger than life personality that gale also hints at later, describing his mother as "intimitable" and "sometimes unavoidable". this description is from the following conversation that is currently sadly still bugged:

Player: So your last name is Dekarios? Gale: It is. Courtesy of my mother, the inimitable, dare I say it sometimes unavoidable, Morena Dekarios. It's been so long since I've used it. 'Gale Dekarios' cut a poor figure next to the wizard prowess of 'Gale of Waterdeep'. Player: Gale Dekarios... I think I like him more. Gale: You like to many things about me I'd have sooner discarded... Your generosity is quite wonderful. Gale Dekarios likes you too. Very, very much. Though let's keep his exitence between ourselves for now. - Player: Doesn't your matter mind? Gale: Oh, she's happy if I'm happy. Morena couldn't care one jot what I call myself. Tara's the real stickler for using it. Has done since I summoned her. I'd prefer you not follow her exmaple, if that's all the same to you. 'Gale' is more than sufficient. - Player: You're right. Just 'Gale is better. Gale: I agree. And on the plus side, if I get myself into any truly cataclystic straits during the remainder of our journey, my family name will go untarnished.

i love this banter so much and it makes me very sad that larian still hasn't fixed the issue of it not triggering. there's so much lore to explore here:

from gale dropping 'dekarios' in favour of 'of waterdeep', at first, to appear perhaps more grandiose, more suited to the ambitions he held when he was younger, to morena, apparently, not minding it, yet tara clinging to 'dekarios' (perhaps to keep gale's feet on solid ground as much as she could), to finally finding out that the reason that the gale we meet now is not using 'dekarios' still is because he doesn't wish to tarnish his family name should he indeed fall victim to the orb.

the last mention gale makes of his mother is during his act iii post final battle dialogue, in which he proposes to the player:

Gale: That being said, I wondered if you might consider accompanying me back to Waterdeep as a new member of the Dekarios clan? Player: Are you asking me to marry you? Gale: I suppose I am. Tara would be delighted. Not to mention my mother. But I'd be just as happy without such ceremony, so long as we're together.

this again mirrors what tara has been saying in her dialogue with an origin gale in act i: that morena and her were hoping he would find someone to find happiness with.

i think overall, even with only the very few bits and pieces we learn of morena, it's easy to tell that she truly loves and adores and cares her son, and that that love and care is clearly echoed back from gale to morena.

still, or perhaps more likely because of that love, gale keeps his secrets and his distance to morena because of the orb and the shame he feels he brought to his family.

it's all too easy to imagine that he wishes her to be proud of him and that he feels he has disappointed her and given her little reason to be proud of him in the same vein that he feels he has done with tara:

Gale: She'd [Tara] be most impressed by our efforts saving these tieflings. Proud, even. And I've given her little to be proud of recently.

anyhow, i hope i caught all mentions and that this was helpful to someone. 🖤

[consulting-ghosts]

Soo I loved this episode. I know we didn't get much of Agatha, but that last scene was soo good and intense that it was enough to keep me rolling till next week. 

So the coat is officially gone?  Which in a way I will mourn, but on an emotional level - about time.

Either way R.I.P. to this marvelous thing lost in the road and mud forever. We will never witness Agatha sweeping you around like a drama Queen.

I know most of you watch this show for Rio and Agatha and I love them too, but for me the soul of this show is Agatha, but also Billy and her too and I love them both. I've been waiting for Billy's backstory.

Lilia put a sigil in him, that was unexpected, but the moment he got behind that curtain I knew it would be her. He saw Alice too. That was nice. 

It's good to be right. I just knew he misses Tommy, ok? He has parents in this life even if he doesn't really remember them. 

Like I said, I just had a feeling that Agatha had suspicion that he was Billy all along. I mean she's smart. 

I did consider myself that he could be Nick but after ep 4 when we learned that he actually died, I was also sure that it's Billy.

I honestly think Rio was just trying to hurt her, when she said that he's not Agatha's son, or maybe just warned her to not get too close to Teen. Who really knows with her?

The whole scene with Agnes/Agatha was so hilarious. 🤣🤣 The toy gun killed me and  this whole “I don't want to go back to the closet’”line. So funny. 😂😂 I will never be able to rewatch this scene in ep. 1 without smilling like an idiot.

Where was Rio in all of this? She was supposed to be in the ‘interrogation’ scene but Billy didn't see her. Was it a figment of Agatha's imagination or Billy just couldn't see her, until the spell was broken? 

The whole scene with ‘Pietro’ Ralph was soo funny. 🤣 So Agatha was actually living in his house all this time. Lol. 

Billy keeps that boy of yours, he's amazing.

It's getting long, so I will talk about the last scene separately. 😉

[animereaderinsertwriter]

supermassive black hole

Gojo is dangerous like a supernova. You're dangerous like a black hole. It isn't love at first sight, but it's something close.

tw violence and sex and porn with plot

Excerpt:

It's so funny that I laugh until tears are squeezing out of the corner of my eyes.

She looks up at me from her kill with dark-bright eyes. With her hands still covered in viscera, she reaches up to touch the sides of my face. I'm still hard for her, and grow harder as she touches me again, melting my infinity. I am powerless against her. My greatest weapon, my ultimate defense, is shattered under her soft, pliant hands.

It gets me off.

A/N I forgot if i posted this already or not so here you go. there will also be a part two which i will link here when it is up.

ao3 link

A hush falls over the room as she enters. 

As well it might. This scene— a young woman entering the privy council— has not been seen for nigh on a century. Out of curiosity, I myself don't dare to speak or even breathe as she enters. I'd hate to miss the disappointed faces of those old farts as she crashes their party. Every moment of victory must be savored, after all— and I do love the taste of victory, even one so small as this one. 

Silk fabric whisks as she moves. Her formal robes are a discreet and tasteful mourning black, but at the hollow of her throat is nestled a red diamond— not a garnet or ruby, but a diamond in its rarest coloring. No doubt she wears it for us as a symbol of her indomitable will and impeccable breeding: a diamond for strength and elegance, red for rarity and for blood. It is a statement piece meant to remind us of who and what she is.

As if we could forget it. 

“Yo,” I greet her finally, smiling toothily. 

I know I look pale and wolfish under the fluorescent lights. It's part of my charm. The other four men in the room just look pale, and are without charm entirely— a tragedy. I would prefer it if everyone were as charming as me, or at least as pretty. It might not make me like them more, but it might make the whole experience of these meetings more bearable. 

The esteemed and lovely newcomer doesn't acknowledge me, but her eyes slide from my sunglasses to my chest and back up. I resist the urge to tell her where my eyes are. Notably, no one else greets her, and she is certainly not welcomed by anyone, not even as a pretense to propriety. 

They know she is here to enact change, and they do not like it. 

I revel in it. 

As the meeting commences, I catalog her features. It has been many years since I last saw her outside of an Instagram post— something that I begin to regret as I trace lightly with my eyes the sweet curve of her cheek, the whispering kiss of her gently curving lashes. It occurs to me as I watch her lips twist into a frown that she is prettier than she was in high school.   

That is to say, very pretty. 

I have always liked pretty things, and so much the better if they are sad or somehow tragic, too. And in her, there is an ineffable air of sadness that sets my teeth to itching.  

It is uncommon for a woman to sit the privy council of elders. It is less common still that a woman under fifty should do so. It is only through great personal tragedy that a woman of her age and status sits the council. Her grandfather, the most recent seat, is lately deceased, her father conspicuously absent; her brother, rest his eternal soul, was a bloodline contender to inherit the seat, but alas, rather talentless, and therefore newly perished, leaving the seat to the nearest surviving relative. Sad, indeed— but it is not grief that weighs on her shoulders like a sandbag. I can feel it, smell it, taste it, her loneliness, like bitter wine. 

It pairs well with mine.

“Focus, now,” says the nearest old man, white tufts of hair sticking out of his ears. “We must pick the catering company for our annual fundraiser. I haven't got all day, and we're off to a late start.”

And so the doddering begins. 

It is inane, whatever they’re all saying. Fortunately, I am not without entertainment. I put my feet on the table and watch how those wizened brows furrow. It is fun to annoy them back whenever they annoy me. Seeing the soles of my shoes dirty their table makes them ornery on the best of days. Today, their glares are fairly murderous. The newcomer, though, does not react at all. Her silk-gloved hands rest laced together in her lap, and she pointedly does not react to anything or anyone at all. 

As I watch her, it becomes clear that, sad and tragic or not, she is beginning to lose her patience. With what, I couldn't say— I never listen at these things anyway— but it's a safe guess that the doddering old fools are going on about something foolish or ineffectual. Her jaw clenches, then relaxes. The diamond at her throat shifts. For a moment, I believe that she will conquer her frustration, let it pass over and through her, until only the dignified daughter of sorcery titans remains. 

She speaks, and that moment passes. 

“Pardon me, reverend elders,” she says congenially, “I’m sure there is some fault in my understanding, but it seems to me that there are more important matters to discuss than what wine pairings we might consider for the council’s anniversary dinner. Might we table the cocktail conversation until a bit later?”

The two councilmen who had previously been yapping turn to look at her with outrage in their eyes. Her face remains open, as placid as a koi pond, and I grin. 

Oh, but I do adore novelty!

“You are new to this council,”one of them replies, disgruntlement coloring his voice. “These decisions, while small, must be made.”

She's not having it. 

“Any fool can select appropriate drinks.” She leans forward, eyes glinting sharp like steel. “What do you mean to do about the increased curse activity?”

The rest of the council hisses in unison. Whispers of insolent girl! and tactless upstart! cut like knives through the air. She remains unaffected. She's a woman after my own heart, and so I do the best I can to throw her a bone. 

“What do you propose we discuss, then?”

She looks at me— through me and into me— and inclines her head in respect. 

“I want to present a motion to the council.”

The other members stare uneasily at her. Their withered faces crease in concern and distaste, but they are bound by oath and by beloved tradition to hear her out. I gesture for her to take the floor, and she stands. Again, we are blessed with the image of her fine figure as she paces, panther-like, to the front of the room. She pauses there, thinking. 

“We have been fools too long,” she says quietly. It is almost a strain to hear her. “Sorcerers have always been a reactionary force against curses. It's an inevitability, the nature of the beast— but we have stayed more on the back foot now than we have in centuries. More of us die. Less of us stay to complete our education.”

She moves again, allowing her words to settle uneasily over her audience. When she stops, I realize that she intentionally moved to stand next to the marble bust of an old, legendary sorcerer— her great-to-however-many-degrees grandfather. She looks strikingly like him, and I realize that her movement was more intentional than I initially thought. 

“We lack understanding. We forget what our forefathers knew.” 

She looks at her ancestor, then back to her audience. To me . I might as well not even have my sunglasses on for all I fail to hide from her. I feel sure that she can see my very soul.

“We do not succeed against curses because we are stronger, better, or more capable. We are weak, pitiful in comparison.” Well, maybe they are weak and pitiful. That's something I've never been— but I don't take the slight personally. “We have succeeded thus far only because we outsmart them. The jujutsu sorcerer’s academy has forgotten its purpose. It has abandoned its study in favor of militant strength. The clans, likewise, have followed suit. The academy— this council — has forsaken academia, spurned knowledge, and teeters on the edge of destroying us all.”

The elders sit and merely blink, nonplussed. 

“And what are you suggesting we do, exactly?” 

Her eyes harden. Leonine and lovely, she tilts her chin up in defiance before speaking again. 

“I have assembled a team of excellent researchers— all brilliant, all with a pleasant pedigree. With the correct resources, I believe that I can turn them into a front-line reconnaissance task force whose purpose is to capture and study curses.” She pauses a moment, her brow creasing slightly. Then, she adds, “I believe that we can use them to suit our ends— more so than we already have. If a wolf can be tamed, so can curses. Perhaps one day there will be curses as loyal to us as dogs.”

It's brilliant, what she's suggesting— or, it would be if curses weren't manifestations of pure, actual evil . After all, why put human lives on the line when often one curse could do for another with relative ease? Once, it may have seemed that wolves were evil to men, and now their sons and daughters depend on rescue dogs, police canines, ans service dogs. And it isn't so terribly inconceivable that it could be done, taming curses— we just haven't tried yet. The benefit might just be worth the risk. After all, I knew someone once that made masterful use of the curses at his disposal. 

The wound from him is still raw and bleeding. I try not to imagine his smile, but it's like trying not to think of elephants. 

Ah, well— it's really a different thing from what she is suggesting and I know it. No one is capable of Suguru’s mastery of curses. At best, we would be trapping them, tracking them, and perhaps extracting information where we could. But who knows what such study could lead to? Human ingenuity has ensured the survival of the species for a very long time. Who's to say we couldn't develop new technology to aid us? 

The elders all exchange glances. Then one nods and says,

“Of course, you're right. Assemble your task force, girl-child. We will provide whatever resources you require.”

“ Whatever resources ?” Her eyes narrow in suspicion. “You don't know what I'm asking for yet.”

“Of course, you will need to draw up an expenditure report for council approval, but you seem a level-headed girl. We trust that you will not ask more than we can give.”

It is a clear dismissal, but she does not sit down. She's no fool. It's clear that she knows what I know:

They're agreeing with her to shut her up. 

More than that, I don't think they intend for her to live long enough to pester them about it. 

Stubborn, she stands there for the rest of the meeting, arms folded. She's still, statuesque, but the pissed-off press of her lips against each other belie her serenity. I am possessed of a childish urge to pass notes to her like a schoolboy. Fuck them, I would write. You're onto something. We could change the world.

Instead I sigh loudly and crack a smile when I get not one but two glares out of it. 

When it's all over, I catch up to her in the hall. Her posture is rigid and regal, a prideful measure against her painful dismissal. I touch her shoulder just to see if it feels real, or if it's made of the same steel as her backbone. 

I'm almost surprised to find that she is supple and soft under my hand. 

“Yo,” I greet her once more. “What a drag of a meeting, right?”

This is the wrong thing to say. I know it as soon as she stops short, eyes blazing.

“Gojo-san.” Her voice is polite and soft, but as cold as fresh snow. “How is your foot? I noticed you were elevating it earlier. I hope you aren't injured?”

“Oh, terribly injured,” I grin. “I'm positively lamed. Could I lean on your shoulder for support?”

Her eyes close. When they reopen, they make me wish I'd been less of a clown. They are tired, drawn, and I let my grin drop like the farce it is. 

“Hey, don't look so glum. They wouldn't hate you so much if you weren't right.”

She thinks on that for a moment, then adds cooly,

“And a woman.”

I grin. 

“And a young, pretty one at that.”

She hums noncommittally. 

“How long do you think they'll let me live?”

I'm not prepared for the question. She looks at me deadly serious, and I know she wasn't fooled for a moment by those moth-eaten codgers. She knows their game as well as I do, and I feel a sudden strange kinship with her— as if I am seen for once by someone who knows. It is at once relieving and terribly, awfully sad, because I know the answer to her question.

“If they have their way, you'll be dead within the week,” I say, “but that's generous. They'll try for tonight.”

Really, from their point of view, the sooner they're rid of her the better. It will give her less opportunity to talk about her plan to others and notify her task force, and it would give them an excellent opportunity to simply close the seat and refuse to let anyone else in. 

She nods thoughtfully. The diamond at her neck glistens, and I try not to stare. 

“And if I survive tonight? The week? Will they try again?”

I shrug. 

“Who's to say? Depends on how much you annoy them versus how powerful they think you are.”

I bend low enough for her to see behind my sunglasses and I give her a wink. 

“That's where being the strongest comes in handy. I do so love to annoy them.”

She hums and appraises me. 

“Do you know what my clan is known for, Gojo-san? What genes my father was hoping would be passed down to his children?”

I vaguely remember my own father saying something about her clan— something derogatory, like that they sucked the life out of things— but I politely do not bring that up and shake my head. 

“Can I touch you, Gojo-san?”

Confused, I nod. She pulls the black glove from her right hand with her teeth gleaming white against the silky fabric. On instinct, I keep my infinity on as she reaches for my hand, looking for signs of treachery— but I find that my precaution doesn't matter. 

It doesn't matter because she touches me anyway. 

I jerk my hand away from her, feeling unnaturally wounded. Her touch— so cold and feather-light— had eaten away at the cursed energy of my infinity. If she had really wanted to, she could have harmed me then. It shakes me to my core. And yet, as I watch her put her glove back on, she does not look victorious or pleased at all with herself. 

She looks sad. 

 “I inherited this— this hunger .”

I remember now what my father had said all those years ago. That her clan sucked the life out of people and curses alike. 

I can only hope he meant that first bit metaphorically. 

“I… should not have done that.” She avoids my gaze. “It was supposed to be a secret that this ability has resurfaced in my bloodline, a fail safe just in case—”

She looks at me uncomfortably then, and I understand all too well. She is my antithesis. If anything were to happen to me, if I were somehow compromised…

Well. Someone would have to neutralize me. I just never imagined that someone existed who could . 

“But I don't like secrets,” she continued. “I think instead of fighting each other, we should help each other. Consider that a gesture of good will. I want to live long enough to see my task force through.”

“Does it make you stronger?”

The question seems to catch her off guard. 

“Your technique. Does it make you stronger when you siphon someone else's energy?”

“Yes,” she admits. “When I absorb cursed energy, it supplements my own.”

It all starts to make sense. If sorcerers focus their energy into capturing curses and keeping them alive for study, then their cursed energy would provide a steady flow of power directly to her. I don't know if she could store that power up for later use, but regardless, easy access to ethically-sourced cursed energy to consume is something from which she stands to benefit from. 

Perhaps altruism is dead then. Still— I must know if it ever meant anything, all that talk about knowledge and academia and change, or if that was as shallow as it seems to me now. 

So I ask. 

Her answer surprises me. 

“I meant every word.” Her voice is soft. When she looks at me, her eyes are softer. “I think I can use my abilities to subdue curses more easily, to frighten and manipulate them. I'd at least like to give it a shot.”

She seems… genuine. I lean down, studying her, and the curious absence of fear in her eyes suddenly makes sense. She has no reason to fear me. Well, perhaps she has some reason— I'm a large man, and that goes more than a little ways in a physical tussel— but as far as cursed energy goes, anything I throw at her is fuel for her own abilities. 

She intrigues me. 

“Spend the evening with me.”

That gets a reaction. She flinches bodily backward, almost as if I'd asked to take a bite out of her. 

“Why?”

I shrug.

“Why not?”

It will sound egotistical if I tell her it's because I'd like to protect her, to deter any assassins at least until tomorrow. It will sound even worse if I tell her that she makes me curious. So I don't tell her any of that. Instead, I let her look at me and hold her gaze until she makes her decision. 

“Do you mind if I drop by my apartment and change?” she asks. “I don't want to wear my formals all evening.”

“Of course.”

We go together to her place. We exit the venue into the lowering light of five o’clock, and when she leads me through the train stop turnstile, I expect to take the train out to a country estate. We don’t. Instead, we take the train into the city proper. Two blocks from the train station— two blocks that I struggle to slow my strides enough to match hers— we come upon a coffee shop. It is surrounded by trees planted in the allies on either side that shade the building, and in passing I catch a glimpse of a green and brown painted birdhouse that seems to have a group of chipper and chirping tenants on one of the trees. (Y/N) smiles softly at them, then opens the door to the coffee shop for me. 

“You can wait here, if you'd like,” she tells me, nodding to the empty but comfortable-looking seating, “or you can come with me up to my flat, whichever you prefer. I'll only be a few minutes.”

I shrug. 

“I don't want to impose, but I'd love to see your home.”

She smiles, then leads me wordlessly towards the back of the shop. Along the way, she touches the shoulders of waiters and waitresses who smile and greet her warmly. The barista behind the counter wolf whistles at her, and she laughs and makes a rude gesture with her fingers. Abruptly, I realize what this looks like— what we look like— and I can't help but grin. 

She leads me up a set of stairs at the back of the coffee shop. Her key turns in the lock, and then I find myself stepping into a small but homey living room. 

“Sorry it's messy,” she says, “but I promise we won't be here long.”

She disappears around the corner, leaving me alone to observe her living room in silence. 

I don't think her home is messy. I've seen Yuji’s room. That is messy. This place is just… full. Full of books stacked haphazardly on end tables, plants sitting on window sills, and teacups left on the coffee table. There are even photos of people that I can only assume are her family and friends strewn about like so much decorative shrapnel across the room. It's nice in a way I can't explain. 

My own home is… not full. It's got designer everything and sparkling countertops and an unbelievably talented cleaning staff, but not… this. I find my place the lesser for it. 

When she reenters, my breath catches. She's wearing sneakers, shorts, and a T-shirt. It de-ages her by years. In this moment, she looks closer to Yuji's age than mine. Although I know logically that she's my equal or more in age, she seems small and fragile in comparison to who she had been mere moments ago. The her-that-is and the her-that-was are so different that I can hardly recognize her now. 

“Let's go,” she says, smiling up at me. “If we stay up here any longer, the shop owner will never let me live it down that I've brought a man home.”

Oh, but there is some aching in that smile. I surmise that she's been lonely in more ways than I have been. A pity. If I had known… 

I push that thought away. I didn't know, and I didn't make it my business to know. She's not the kind of girl I usually go for. For my more… human needs, I stay as far away from sorcerer society as possible, and with good reason. Still, it dampens my mood— spoiled brat that I am, I covet pretty things.

And she is so very pretty. 

Idly, I wonder what kind of lover she'd be as she leads me down the stairs. Each step brings a new image; one moment, she's kneeling in my mind's eye, sweet and so very submissive, like a pink-nosed bunny— the next, she's got her hands like talons in my hair, yanking it by the roots. By the time we reach the last wooden stair, I'm imagining her whispering sweet nothings as she strokes her strap, and I nearly trip when I realize she's stopped short in front of me.

“Did you hear me?” she asks, turning, and I'm so very grateful that my knee-jerk reaction to embarrassment is a shit-eating grin. If it wasn't, I feel certain my expression would give less sly arctic fox and more stunned snow hare. 

“No, sorry, I was distracted. What was it you were saying?”

“I was asking if you had a place in mind for us to go.”

As a matter of fact, I do have a place in mind. I nod but say nothing, offering her my arm. She takes it; I notice her warmth against me as we step out into the chill of the impending evening. Twilight settles over the street as we walk, and I'm suddenly very glad that she is pressed against me as I notice that my suspicions are confirmed. 

A man is following us. 

Back when I suggested that we spend the day together, I had suspected someone might tail us straight from the council meeting. On the train here, I'd thought we'd lost him. I was wrong. The man, clad in gray heather sweatpants and hoodie, trails lazily behind us just as he had earlier in the day. At this purple-gray hour of the day, he seems almost to blend into the sidewalk. It's not enough to fool me, though. 

I stop walking in front of a downtown club with a line out into the street. (Y/N) looks up at me, at once suspicious and perplexed, and I can't find it in myself to blame her for her skepticism. She doesn't seem like the clubbing type, and we are just a little bit too old to be at this club. Still, though, we pass as younger than we are, and this is familiar territory for me— one of my old haunts as a teenager with outrageous amounts of money and a fake ID. This is my turf, and I have a plan. 

I skip the line, show the bouncer my ID, and walk into the club. The man in gray stands in the queue, posture lazy, but I can tell I've frustrated him already. It won't work for long, though. He'll get through the line eventually. I just hope to buy us some time to talk before that. 

The inside of the club is dark. Red, blue, and purple lights spin across the dance floor, and black lights back light the bar. The smell of weed, liquor, and sweat fill my nose, and at once I feel completely at home, finally in a place that understands me. Here, I am not Gojo Satoru. Here, I'm just a man, same as anyone. 

When I look down, (Y/N) is also not herself. She is suddenly closed off and cold; beautiful, she is like an ice sculpture of a serene and sacred deity as her skin reflects the black light. It is not the desired effect. I want her comfortable, even pliant. 

I want her receptive. 

Reluctant though she is, she lets me lead her to the bar. There, I buy a shot and offer it to her. 

“Here, drink this.”

She eyes it skeptically, then meets my eyes with a dark look. 

“I don't drink.”

I grin and up the pressure.

“I don't buy that.”

“Okay. I don't drink alone with strange men in strange clubs.”

“I insist.”

She shakes her head. 

“I think this was a mistake.” She's all ice now, brittle, cold, defensive— but still so very lovely. “I'll be going now, Gojo-san.”

She turns on her heel. If it wasn't for my long arms, I'd never have caught her before she slipped away. Thankfully, I manage to catch her, and as my fingers close around her arm, I pull her back to me with a force I don't intend. She stumbles with the motion, and our noses brush. 

Maybe it’s proximity that prompts what I decide next— or maybe it's because it's always worked before, or because I have so very wanted to see how it would feel from the moment I touched her shoulder— but regardless of the reason, I kiss her. It is a simple kiss, but full power. Our lips press together, and I cup the back of her skull in my hand. I can all but hear her heart pounding as I pull away, body all a-tingle with the thrill of her. 

Her eyes are heavy, half-lidded. I think I have her. With our noses still only inches apart, I say,

“Take the shot.”

A wide range of emotion flickers over her features in a fraction of a second. Among these, I see sharp hurt, a laughing, incredulous face of shock, then searing outrage— and that's where she settles. She snatches the shot glass from my hand, slams it back, then slaps me so hard across the face that my ears ring. 

“How dare you,” she rages, slamming the glass down on the bar. “How— how dare you!”

Oh, she's furious with me. 

She's right to be. I was selfish. How long has it been since someone has kissed her with that kind of tenderness, I wonder— and how cruel was it that I had done so without thought or intention outside of getting my way? But even now with the taste of her chapstick in my mouth, I can't bring myself to regret it. She was too sweet. Like a wolf licking his chops from the first bite of game, I hunger for more. It's an animal feeling, terrible and true. I fight it as best I can. 

“Look, I'm sorry,” I tell her, holding up my hands. “I just wanted it to seem like we were having a good time.”

I lean in, lowering my voice. 

“We're being watched.”

Nothing in her body language changes. Her fists are planted on her hips and her face is furious enough to light a match without striking it. Oh, but her eyes— her eyes tell me she's caught onto me. 

“Why didn't you lead with that?” she asks, crossing her arms. “My skill has always been in finesse, Gojo-san.”

To prove her point, she turns her back on me, making our little squabble seem ongoing to an outside perspective. I have no doubt that she's scanning the upper floor, so I hug her from behind and press my face into her neck. 

“Second floor and to the right, leaning on the banister.”

She hums.

“Monochrome gray?”

“That's the one. I want to draw him out, see if he'll strike.”

She hums a noise of assent and tilts her head back to allow more room for me to breathe against her neck. 

To the rest of the world, our passing of information looks like a steamy make-up from a toxic, annoying PDA couple. Any passer-by would be fooled by it. It's impressive, really. My body, too, is fooled. There is a stirring inside me that asks in a still, small voice if I can't push my luck and ask for more of what I started— but I shove that greedy little voice down, because while I am a man of voracious appetites, I do have a modicum of decency. 

And besides, my face still hurts from that slap. 

As I hold her, I realize that I don't really mind the feeling of her siphoning my energy. I test it out a few times by initiating skin-to-skin contact purposefully, but on the whole, it just sort of feels like a cold tingling— like being touched briefly by a mellow, maybe drunken Jack Frost. 

“How does it work?” I ask, pressing my cheek against hers. 

“My technique?”

“Yes.”

She turns to look at me, bringing our noses closer together once more.

“I'm going to need more liquor if you want me to explain it in very much detail.”

So I buy her two more shots and then a bottle of soju, and she talks. Apparently, her technique doesn't rely on touch, which makes sense because she couldn't have touched me anyway with my infinity active. As long as the cursed energy she wants to siphon is within a certain range, all bets are off. 

“Of course, there are limits,” she says, touching my hand, “and certain… nuances. It works even better if I'm actually touching someone, for example— but that's the gist.”

I nod, thinking. I move my hand away from hers and tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. The gray man watches us still, and I decide to up the ante. 

“Let's dance,” I say with a grin, and, sufficiently lubricated by my financial investment in her inebriation, she lets me pull her to the dance floor. 

I have always loved to dance, but dancing at this club in particular has always been on a whole other level of fun. The DJ— who’s got to be a hundred years old by now, and his gold chains probably weigh more than he does— always plays the strangest but totally sickest mixes of modern EDM and 80’s disco music in existence. As she and I hit the dance floor, a mix of dubstep and Let’s Groove Tonight starts playing, and my face splits into a grin. To my surprise, my dance partner looks equally as enthusiastic. Her smile is radiant, and her hips start moving in a way I really, really like. 

We dance for what feels like ages. We don't touch very much at first; we just sort of skirt around one another and allow the tension in the air around us to ease as our limbs loosen and move to the beat. Eventually, though, we warm to one another, and I find myself holding her hips from behind as she moves tantalizingly against me— not quite grinding, but not quite not grinding either. The temptation of it all makes me crazy. I should never have started us on this path of teasing, not-quite-intimacy, but then her hand snakes up to rest at the base of my neck, and I forget myself. Her touch is warm, but the feeling of her siphon is cold. I freeze, I burn, I ache— and she laughs as my hand sneaks a little ways up the front of her shirt. 

In response, she presses harder against my front, and I manage to bite back a groan. 

“I've been thinking,” I say, leaning down so that my lips brush her ear. She shivers, and instead of feeling victorious, I feel voracious. 

“About what?”

Her breath is coming quickly now. My hand moves further upwards, feeling the icy burn of her skin against mine. She's so soft. I love it. 

“Your abilities. Give me details. Tell me how they want you to… end me, if that's what they want.”

“Ideally?” She grinds backwards— actually grinds— and I let my head tilt back. The press of her ass against me is a hell of a heaven. “I'm not so sure. It depends on what I think I can get away with.”

I squeeze her hip with my other hand.

“Give me a hypothetical.”

“Well… hypothetically, if you weren't predisposed to trusting me, then I'd just do what I did earlier and use my technique to slip past your infinity and make quick work of you with a blade or a gun.”

She shivers as I push my luck and nibble at her ear before I reply.

“That easy, huh?”

It might work. She'd have to make it a headshot, and even then it would be a gamble that she could stop my reverse curse technique with her ability. It could conceivably be done, but not without difficulty.

“Well, there are… complications.” She's breathing heavy now, and I can feel her heart beat fast as I pull her completely flush against me. “I don't have your reach or your physical prowess. It would be a gamble at best, and I prefer more sure odds.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.”

She turns, then, but doesn't move far from me. My half-hard cock presses against her belly, and her hands travel up my arms to my shoulders. They rest there, reaching up to play with the ends of my hair.

“And if I was predisposed to trust you?”

She looks up at me faux-sweetly then, and with the saccharine sharpness of a vampiress, she says,

“I would bring you into my bed, press the length of our bodies together, and consume your power until there was nothing left.”

I arch over her, angling myself so that she can see my eyes shining from behind my sunglasses. 

“And you're certain that you could bring me to your bed? I might not be so easy.”

She touches me. Her hand finds the hardness in my uniform pants, squeezes it through the fabric. Her expression is at once soft and sharp, like a pillow made of barbed wire. In the red-blue-purple lights of the club, she glows. 

“Yes.”

Something between us shatters then. We don't dance anymore, and our eyes are locked. It's horrible. It's a trap. It’s heaven. I know, I know it's stupid, but I lean forward to kiss her again, and she lets me. I cup her cheek with a too-big hand; it freezes and burns. I deepen the kiss, chasing more, more, more — but when my tongue slips past her lips, I feel a teardrop wet the base of my thumb. 

“Don't cry,” I murmur, resting my forehead against hers. “Why are you crying?”

She shakes her head, and I hold her. 

“I never wanted it,” she says, shoulders trembling. “I don't want to use my abilities to do harm. Not like this. I— I'm a lover girl. If I could quit being a sorcerer and move to a villa on the coast, I would, but— but I can't. ”

“Why not?”

“Duty.” She says it as though it's the most obvious thing in the world. “Honor. Family. I have a responsibility here.”

Jesus Christ. I can never let her meet Nanami. Give them ten minutes in a room together and they'd talk themselves into retiring to Malaysia. 

But then she continues, and I wish I could fly her to Malaysia myself. 

“They’d want me to m-make sure you f-finish ,” she says, tears squeezing out from the corners of her eyes. “It's been a topic of conversation that— that our bloodlines—”

She can't finish. She doesn't need to. It's so cruel and yet so very unsurprising that rage rises in my chest, frightfully strong and burning like a house fire. I feel a terrible grin crack my face, and I don't need to see her terrified expression to know I look like a monster.

“I'm going to kill them, you know,” I tell her, half-manic. How dare they? She could kill them if she wanted. Instead, she lets them make her cry. Pathetic. “It's the least they deserve for treating us like dogs. Fucking eugenics— evil bastards.”

She shrugs.

“Once they've done for me, there will be no one able to stand in your way of it.”

“Would you?”

“Would I what?

“Stand in my way.”

She thinks for a minute, then shakes her head. 

“No. No, I wouldn't, Gojo-san.”

I kiss her again. Her arms wrap themselves around my shoulders again, and I give into my desires. I pull away and murmur into her ear:

“Call me by my name.”

She hesitates.

“Gojo?”

I shake my head. 

“Not that one.”

I nip at her ear, so my name comes out as a gasp. 

“Satoru.”

My own name has never sounded so sweet. She trembles and shakes as I kiss her neck, and I think I have her. How could I not? She's so responsive and soft and sweet and lovely beneath my hands— but then she shoves me away. Or, she tries to. All she does is move my shoulder a bit. Still, I give her space, and I realize her tears have not stopped. 

“I don't play games like this. I don't— I don't. ” I can see her shaking still and ache to hold her. I restrain myself. “It's too cruel, Satoru. This play-acting at intimacy—”

She hiccups, and I realize she's drunk. 

“I've hated you,” she admits. Her eyes are tortured, and she stumbles as a dancing stranger bumps into her. I touch her arm to steady her, but she rips herself away from me. “I've watched you from afar and I have hated you because you're powerful. You're powerful and attractive and wealthy, and you're disrespectful because you can afford to be while the rest of us have to— to play by a different set of rules.”

I watch her with a new respect for her volatility. She's like a cornered dog right now, trembling and snarling with fear. If ever the gray-clad man were to attack, it should be now, while she's distracted with me, but he's nowhere to be found. I should be concerned about that, but I can't be. All I can think of is the memory of her smile, and what I might have done wrong to make it go away. 

“But today— today you're on my side against the elders. Today you call me pretty and you kiss me like— like I belong to you, and even after I admit to being told to— to kill you eventually, you just hump me and get off to what tortures me. It's wrong, Satoru! You don't like girls like me— ordinary girls, the kind that swoon over wealth and strength and opulence— and I don't like men like you!”

This feels… different. Usually when girls say they hate me, it's because they secretly wanna fuck me or be me. Now, though… I’m not sure. I try to think what Suguru might say if he were here, but it all comes out wrong. He might tell me that I've been foolish, to give the girl some space and let her work through whatever she's got going on without me. Or maybe he'd tell me I've been selfish, that I want her because I've been all but told I can't have her— because it wouldn't make sense for me to have her— and to think of her feelings instead of my own. Maybe he wouldn't even say anything at all. 

Whatever the case, there's only one thing I can do, one person still living that I can listen to. 

So I listen to myself. 

“And what kind of man am I?”

She eyes me warily. 

“A dangerous one.”

True enough. I dry my mouth from where her saliva still lingers, branding and marking me hers. 

“And you don't like danger?”

She hesitates. 

“No.”

It sounds like a lie even to my untrained ears. 

“Then you don't like it when I kiss you?” I take a step forward, advancing on her. “When I touch you? When I bite your ear and make you say my name?”

She shivers.

“No.”

Another lie. 

“You don't think it would be hot to take me home with you tonight? To prove your little barista right about me?”

“No.”

Lie. 

We're nose-to-nose now. I bend so she can see over the top of my glasses, and sharing her breath, I say,

“So then you definitely don't get off on siphoning my cursed energy— on touching the untouchable?”

“N—”

Before she can lie again, I grab her and pull her in close. 

“I think you're a liar. What's more, I think you're lying because all this time you've told yourself that you couldn't have me, that it would be a sin to want the man that everyone wants.”

I grin. 

“Well, you can have me. It's not a sin to want me. It doesn't make you less , or a drooling fangirl or something. It means you are human, and that you have the good sense to want the same things that I want.”

Well, maybe that's not quite true. I'm not sure that she wants to crawl inside my ribcage and live there, but then her best friend isn't dead and her life isn't one big, rich, god-like sex joke. If she had all the issues I have, I feel sure she'd want me in the same way. 

“I'm supposed to kill you someday,” she protests, and I laugh. 

“Yeah, and how's that working out? Feeling homicidal yet?”

Oh, yes— her steel backbone is coming back to her. I can see it in her eyes as she sizes me up.

“Maybe.”

“Good. I like that in a woman.”

She shakes her head at me, incredulous. I crack a grin. The music around us is still loud, and there are dancing bodies all around, but she and I are still. It's so silly that I can't help but giggle a little, and then she's smiling too. Before long, we're both laughing, and I hug her to my chest as we both cackle in hysterics. 

“Take me back to your place. I want to buy you a coffee.”

She looks up at me, perplexed but still giggling. 

“What?”

“I want to buy you a coffee.”

“Huh? Why?”

I move her to arm’s length away and look deep into her eyes. 

“Because I want you to remember everything when I”— blow your back out, fuck you so good you forget my name and yours — “make love to you tonight.”

***

“So, have you always played pretend like this?”

The incandescent light of the coffee shop illuminates her with a lovely golden light that does wonders for her eyes. As I watch her sip sleepily from a ceramic mug, I think the drinks combined with the stressful day and passionate making out in the cab has finally caught up to her. The caffeine will perk her up soon, but I almost don't want it to. Watching her settle back into the soft, comfy chair that the owner reserves for her is almost adorable and endearing enough for me to set aside my desire. 

Almost. 

“I don't think I know what you mean,” she yawns. 

“You have plenty of money, and you're an heiress to a large estate in the countryside. You could live there, but you don't. You could have your own car, or you could have a personal chauffeur, and yet your taxi whistle is unmatched. So, let me ask again— do you always pretend to be a poor person, or is this a new thing for you?”

She huffs a laugh. She doesn't know it, but she's glowing, radiant with the energy she's consumed from me today. Thanks to my reverse curse technique, I don't feel a strain from it at all— but of course, that's only her passive siphon. I have no doubt she could have drawn more from me if she had wanted.

“It's not new, exactly. When I turned old enough, I got myself emancipated from my parents and fucked off here to live in the city. They cut me off, naturally, but between my work with Jujutsu High and working weekends as a barista, I did just fine.”

Her expression falls. 

“Of course, I ended up with everything anyway, in the end. Funny how life works.”

I know what she means. 

“So, this is home now?”

She nods. 

“Always. It's… hard sometimes, knowing I could have more luxury in my life if I wanted it, but that lifestyle doesn't feel properly mine. No, I'm satisfied here— and hardly poor by anyone's standards but yours.”

Satisfied— not happy. Still, I think of my own empty home and shut the fuck up. 

“Well, I don't really expect you to understand though,” she says slyly, raising her brows. “ Gojo-sama . Do you ever play poor?”

The honorific is properly teasing, but it still hits too close to home.

“No, never. I like to do whatever I want too much for that.”

She hums. 

“I do envy your free spirit. Were your parents just as free-spirited as you?”

“No.” No one is. But that stands to reason— no one is as close to godhood as I am. “I learned to be this fabulous all on my own. Suguru always said—”

I stop myself, but it's too late. She doesn't push me, but she does offer me her hand. Palm up on the table, her hand seems softer than it has a right to be.

If she only had known how much like him she would seem in this moment, she'd never have been so kind to me; if she had known how that one single wordless gesture would make me ache, I know she would have spared me the pain of it. But she could not know. She could not know because we had been in different years in high school, and so she would never have known Geto Suguru the way that I did. And now he's dead. No one will ever know him the way that I did ever again. 

I place my hand in hers.

“Tell me about him,” she says. 

So I do. 

I tell her how dear he was to me, how very like a second self he was. I tell her how much I miss him. I avoid the worst parts, the parts that hurt and the parts that feel too good, but I make sure she knows the important bits.

“Did you love him?” she asks me, squeezing my hand. 

“Of course I did.” I still do. 

“No, Satoru. Did you love him?”

No one has ever put it to me quite like that. That she has done so makes her once again so Suguru-esque that it makes me ache and ache and ache . 

“I… don't know,” I tell her truthfully. “I don't know that I could… love a man in that sense. If I could, it would be Suguru that I would love. But he's gone now.”

“Do you believe in soulmates?”

The question catches me off guard. I shrug in self-defense.

“Anything's possible, I suppose.”

“I do believe in soulmates.” Her eyes are so impossibly soft, but not pitying. In this moment, I love her for that. “And I believe that's what he was to you. It doesn't matter if it was romantic or not, or if it could have been. From the way you talk about him, I believe he was a part of your very soul.”

She squeezes my hand again. 

“And that means that he's still with you. He probably always will be. But Satoru— you can't carry him alone.”

I don't trust myself to speak, so I just nod. Maybe she's right. Maybe I should share him with her, let her carry that part of me for a while. 

I consider that for all of two seconds before it occurs to me that she might like him much more than she likes me— Suguru was always more measured, more grounded than me— and in a fit of jealousy I dismiss the idea entirely. I don't care if it's insane. I couldn't bear to lose her to him or vice versa even in the recesses of my imagination. I've never been a jealous man— jealous of what? Of whom? Who could ever have more than me, something that I could covet?— but I'm green with it as I think of her sitting in his lap, straddling his broad thighs—

Now, that is provocative. 

I hate it. 

She's mine, and you're dead, Sugu. Let me have this. 

His teasing laugh haunts me, and my chest fucking hurts. 

“Steel yourself, Gojo Satoru,” she chides me as I grip her hand tight like it's a lifeline. “You don't look yourself when you aren't smiling.”

“He’s dead.”

“I know.”

“I killed him.”

“You’re a sorcerer. We're sorcerers. We often meet more gruesome fates than murder. At least it was by your hand and not by some curse.” She sets down her coffee cup and places her other hand over mine. “One day, you'll be able to forgive yourself. Until then, be merciful. You can do little else but live in spite of it all.”

I'm not in love with her. It's too much, too soon— but that's very much what it feels like when I look at her across the table and she looks back at me, through me once more. It wouldn't take much, I know, to fall for her. It wouldn't take hardly anything at all. 

“Come upstairs,” she says. “The shop is about to close, and I've got some sweets up there to cheer you up and settle my stomach.”

“Do you think we're soulmates?”

I feel myself ask the question before I've thought it through. For a moment, I fear I've made a miscalculation, but then she smiles at me, and all is well.

“I couldn't say for certain— it's probably too soon to tell. What do you think?”

“I don't know either,” I lie. “Guess we'll have to find out.”

When the door to her home closes behind her and the lock clicks shut, something in the air shifts. She turns to look at me, loose and languid, and I grin. She bares her teeth in turn, and a thrill of danger, run, turn back tingles its way up my spine. Not much can get my adrenaline pumping like this, I think. But oh, her eyes are sharp. 

“Bedroom?” I suggest, cheeky. 

She raises a brow over her predatory grin. 

“So eager already?”

“What, is several hours of prolonged foreplay not enough for you?” I tease. “Should we go back to the privy council and let them get your blood up first? I do so like passion in a woman.”

She walks toward me, body slow and graceful. At first, I think she's going to kiss me, but the moment I lean in, she curves and steps in a circle around me. Tease. I have no doubt that if she were a cat, her tail would be swishing. 

“You are aware that this isn't one of your regular hookups, yes?” she says, her voice at once light and serious. She comes round to stand in front of me again, and a pointed forefinger presses into the center of my chest. “You can't expect this to be normal after all we've said today— unless I’m wrong and you regularly exchange trauma with your hookups, it seems to me that we're doing a bit of a different thing here.”

“Very different,” I assure her. “Can you handle that?”

She flashes me a steel-sharp grin.

“I cut my teeth on men like you, Gojo Satoru.” She drags her finger down my front, tracing a line of sensation from my chest down my to my stomach and all the way to the place where my happy trail meets my pants. “I told you, I'm a lover girl. How else do you think the elders expected me to seduce you if I hadn't whetted my blade on sex and heartbreak? Whatever comes, I'll be just fine.”

The implications of that are too much for me in this moment. To think that the elders had gone so far as to manipulate her love life— I have no doubt that they arranged for certain boyfriends to teach her what they wanted her to know, then to hurt her, break her heart and treat her like shit until…

I don't want to think about it. Those men have no place here. They aren't me, and I am not them. 

“Good to know,” I say, “Except, you're forgetting something.”

A brow raises. 

“Oh?”

I lean down until our breaths are one. 

“There are no men like me.”

I kiss her then, and she kisses me back. At first, I expect shyness, a modest timidity that builds into something more bold. She very quickly turns that expectation on its head. She kisses me with clear intent, one hand fisted painfully in my hair and the other touching me through my pants. She's wild and harsh and beautiful. I am already half in love with her when she takes my bottom lip between her teeth, and I fall the rest of the way when she pushes me backwards and orders me onto the couch. 

She mounts my lap. I squeeze one of her breasts as she settles. She's soft and sweet under my touch, and when she finally sits fully on my lap, the delicious pressure of our clothes sexes pressed against one another is almost too perfect. 

We kiss filthy, dirty, nasty— she sucks on my tongue, and I pull her hips forward, guiding her into grinding. She touches my cheek, my jaw, my ear, the base of my skull; I hiss as she pulls my hair sharply. I move with the pulling on instinct, baring my neck, and she licks a long, hot, wet line up my throat like a vampiress about to sink her teeth into her victim. Her hips move on their own now, and I feel flayed alive by the freezing, searing heat of her siphon. 

“You're so easy,” she murmurs in my ear as my cock strains in my pants. “This all it takes to get you going?”

She says that like she isn't plucking my strings and playing me like a harp— but then she's taking her shirt off, and I start to lose my mind. Her tits are perfect — as soon as she unhooks her bra, I make sure she knows it. I suck on them, play with them, and leave perfectly-shaped hickeys all in a row, marking them mine ; the gasps and heady moans she gives me for it is almost as good as the act itself. 

Suddenly, she moves. It startles me, and I find myself bereaved, wishing for her warmth. I'm not sad for long, though. 

“Bedroom,” she says breathlessly, chest heaving, “and lose the pants.”

She leads me to her bed, losing clothes as she goes. Her shoes, socks, and shorts soon litter the hallway like shrapnel, and I follow suit. In the doorway to her bedroom, my boxers get hung on my foot; she's apologizing for something— I catch the words messy and been busy — but then the world narrows as a shadow darkens the window next to her nightstand. 

The gray man has come. 

One instant he's at the window, the next he's leaping at his quarry with a knife. By the time he lands, though, she's no longer there. In the space of a fractured blink, she’s behind him, stepping into his moon-thrown shadow, and before I can do anything, her bare hand flares sun-like with cursed energy and she plunges it fully into the man’s back. He makes a sound like tires screeching, but the sound stops as suddenly as it began. 

She rips his spine from his body. 

She tosses it aside like so much garbage. Where she stands, the moonlight should illuminate her, but curiously, she stands in a perfect circle of shadow. Abruptly, I realize that she has not revealed all of her hand to me. Her technique isn't just a siphon, and it doesn't just absorb cursed energy. It's a vacuum. 

It's a black hole. 

I stare at her, stunned. 

Then I grin. 

“My, my,” I purr, “What on earth was that?”

She looks at the mutilated corpse on the floor and then back up at me. Then, she shrugs. 

“I played a lot of Mortal Kombat as a kid.” 

A hyena cackle escapes me before I can even think. No wonder the elders thought mixing our blood would be so beneficial. I am a shield, bright-flashing in the dark like the moonlight. She is a blade in the shadow, swift and sharp. With the kind of power she's putting out now and the new information I've gathered about her technique, I'm sure that she could level a city with sheer cursed energy output. 

In a flash of euphoric homicidal urge, I wonder how long it would take the two of us to destroy the entire world together. A day? No, not that long. Hours. 

It's so funny that I laugh until tears are squeeze out of the corner of my eyes. 

As I work to calm my hysterical laughter, I survey the corpse on the floor. I did not think that the elders would use a human unblessed by cursed energy to do this job. It seems too cruel, even for them— but she does not seem to care. She looks up at me from her kill with dark-bright eyes, and with her hands still covered in viscera, she reaches up to touch the sides of my face. I'm still hard for her, and grow harder as she touches me again, melting my infinity again . I am powerless against her. My greatest weapon, my ultimate defense, is shattered under her soft, pliant hands. 

It gets me off. 

We kiss. This kiss feels different than the others, though. Somehow it's deeper, more intense; it leaves a hollowness in my chest, a burning-freezing-empty feeling that sucks inward, pulling and pulling—

I breathe her name. Again. Again . She's not listening. Her eyes are half-lidded as she draws deeply from my cursed energy, and I panic as I realize that the empty, sucking, hungry feeling is the sensation of her draining me past what she should be, past what I can bear—

I shove her away from me. That seems to jolt her out of it, but her eyes are still so very distant that a thrill of fear shakes me like airplane turbulence. 

“So much,” she murmurs, finally meeting my eyes. “It’s an ocean. How do you bear it? Adrift? Floating?”

She means my cursed energy. Of course— I remember when I was first awakened to that great and terrible power. My reaction was not unlike her own. Distantly, I wonder if I was as frightening as she is in this moment. 

“Anchored,” I answer. “You must anchor yourself. Find your moorings, pretty thing, and the storm will pass.”

I hold out my hand to her. When she lowers herself to her knees instead of taking it, I'm startled. For a brief moment, I contemplate whether or not letting her touch me again is truly wise, but then she kisses the head of my cock, and all thought shatters. Her tongue traces my slit, and I'm lost. 

Whatever I had expected, it was not this. It was not a submission so powerful that it feels like dominance. She has a hold on me so powerful that I find myself genuinely frightened. 

As she places her hands, bloody and warm, on my trembling thighs, I am subsumed in her. She touches me like she loves me, like she is me, and her mouth is sweeter than anything I've known. Her hands grip my ass; she uses that grip to guide my hips, pushing me deeper into her throat. She takes more and more of me, sucking and licking and making a mess, and then in a stroke of real genius, she dips down to suckle at my balls, letting my cock rub sweetly against the side of her face. She is filth and sin and salvation, and in her, I am undone.

I come too fast, but she is not dissatisfied. Her hands move to her own chest, touching in sweet circles, and she shudders, letting her head fall back. Her skin shines red with blood as she finger-paints her own pleasure. I imagine that the temptation to touch herself even with those bloodstained hands is hot and tight in her chest, quelled only by her iron will and a fear of an unfortunate hygiene mishap. 

Oh, but I am not and never have been one for much restraint. I'm a rich son of a rich son. I wait for nothing I want, and I see no reason why she should either. 

She startles when I move closer to her, crouching. Her eyes widen as I suck my own fingers into my mouth and then press them against her sex. It is as though she did not expect me to want to participate in her pleasure.

As if I'd pass it up. I'm the strongest after all— in the streets and the sheets. 

“Lay on the bed,” I tell her, pressing deliciously against her clit. My mouth is next to her ear, and she shudders at my breath. “I'll even our score.”

She shudders again, but she obeys. 

Against her pillows— satin, I note— she relaxes pseudo-naturally. She lays lightly, propped and positioned like a princess, like someone posing for a painting. Elegant, demure. 

I don't want that. 

I tell her so. 

“Drop the act,” I say, pacing around the bed to approach from the foot of the mattress. I note with some regret that I leave a bloody footprint on her floor. “It isn't fair like that— my defenses melt at your touch. Yours should melt at mine.”

My knees touch the mattress. I climb onto the bed and pry apart her knees, the modest and lovely joints that press themselves together, hiding my prize from me. She is wet for me, and I salivate for her. 

“Give me something real.”

It's not a request. 

She looks at me, eyes wide. Suddenly she looks smaller than she ever has. No longer the lioness, she looks more like a frightened kitten, hackles up but trembling and soft. She's expelling cursed energy slowly but steadily, and reality is coming back to her. It's a hell of a crash— I know it must be— but she's taking it like a champ. I know grown men who would handle it with less grace. 

I reach out, dragging a finger through her sex from hole to hood, and she goes to pieces in an instant. 

Oh well. So much for composure.

“Please,” she says, slumping. Her legs widen, and I touch her again, gentle and slow. “ Please , Satoru.”

As I touch her lazily, her chest heaves with heavy breathing. She begins to shake, and, transfixed, I watch one of my too-long fingers breach her entrance. She's so warm. So tight. She whines as I press another finger inside, and I tear my eyes away from my work to watch her face. 

To my surprise, she's crying.

“Please,” she keeps saying, as though it's a litany against the darkness that creeps ever inwards from the night. “Please, please, please. ”

I touch her face with my free hand, and she leans into the skin of my palm. Her face is hot with tears, and I readjust myself so that I can kiss her fevered lips. 

“How long?” I ask, knowing it's unfair. 

She shakes her head. 

“A long time.”

I kiss her again, this time with lust and tongue and filth. It's dirty and mean of me, but I ask again. I need to know the weight of the burden I want to carry for her. 

“How long? How long has it been since your last lover?”

“Years,” she whispers against my lips, and my fingers slow inside of her. 

It's criminal. Absolutely illegally unfair that she has gone without tenderness like this for so long.

I kiss her again. Her arms come around my shoulders, and our bodies press against one another. She is warm and soft. Her tears fall freely, and I mourn for what I know to be the truth. 

I could leave tonight and find a worthy lover— a woman who would hold me gently, keep my secrets, and guard me jealously against harm either real or perceived. Yes, there is a certain… appeal that I carry, and there are many bad apples, but my experience remains that women are natural strongholds, bastions of kindness and strength and stability. On the whole, they are good. Or, they have been to me.  

I think of the men I know, of the men I trust, and the list falls frightfully short of where it should. 

It is the terrible truth of the inequality of our sexes. Years, and there has not been anyone for her. There has been no one  that she can trust, because she is vulnerable in a way that I am not. Her body and mind both are capable of too little and too much to risk.

It may not be man's natural instinct to destroy, but he does a damn good job at it despite his contrary design. 

So I do my best to chip away at her loneliness— to destroy only that which is meant to die— and let her feel my warmth. I grind against her, and she gasps. I nip at her lip, and she moans. These sounds I pluck from her until there is a gentle euphony of pleasure in the air as sweet as any song. Her legs are soft as they press against the coarse hair of my thighs; I let her twine her fingers in my hair and I revel in her touch. 

“You're beautiful,” I tell her as she arches. 

She freezes, then huffs a laugh that is too sharp-edged to belong in her bed. 

“Not beautiful like your usual dates, but I do alright for myself.”

I frown. It takes effort not to be pissed off. It's not exactly polite to bring other people into your lover's bed, even just nominally. Still, though, she is wounded. Patience is not my forte, but for her, I try. 

“No,” I agree. “You're beautiful like you.”

I like to talk, but there are, I admit, more efficient uses of our time. I kiss her, then put a long finger into her mouth. She takes it, and I wonder who managed to convince the world that models and actresses and pop stars are the only beauty in the world. It is as disheartening to imagine a world filled only with them as it is to imagine a world without them. 

Her mouth is hot and warm around my middle finger. I ease it in and out, watching the way her mouth works around it. It's so remarkably lovely, the shape of her mouth— my cock begins to stir at the sight. I add another finger, and then another, and then, satisfied, I remove them. 

“Put your legs over my shoulders and hold onto my hair,” I tell her, sure that my grin is a sharp and feral crack across my face. “I want you to guide me.”

I shift our positions so that my head is between her legs. My fingers return to their wonted place, fucking in and out of her pretty pussy, and my mouth settles over her mound. Gods, but her taste! I suck at her clit, and she jerks, yanking my hair as though I've zapped her with electricity.

“Do that again,” she gasps in perilous-sounding wonder, and as I obey, I look up at her. My gaze must be hungry, I know, but she doesn't seem to mind. Her eyes stay on mine, and it's a pleasure to watch bliss slowly overtake her until she's a million miles away from her thoughts and achingly present in her own body.

It takes less time than I thought it would to make her arch and cry out her pleasure into the dark of the night. Her orgasm is hot, heavy, and draining; she collapses backwards into her pillow as though I'm the one that's been draining her of energy, not the other way around. Still, though, the accomplishment makes me feel peacock-proud as I watch her chest heave and her body quiver. 

“When you're ready, you should go clean up,” I tell her, kissing her brow. “I'm going to take care of the body.”

She frowns at me, but I smooth the crease in her brow with my thumbs. 

“Don't worry, this is easy for me— and besides, we're not done yet.”

This— round one— is just a warm up, a little taste to whet our appetites. Before the night is over, I intend to have her in every position I can think of. I might not be able to time-travel back and fuck her every day for all the nights she spent alone and lonely, but I can make her forget she ever was so lonely, even if that's only for tonight. 

With a speed usually reserved for hare-beating tortoises, she climbs out of bed and eases her way to the adjoining bathroom. When I hear the shower start, I set about my work. By the time the shower shuts off, the only thing left to do is mop up the blood (so much of it! Really, the Mortal Kombat move was cool, but dreadfully messy), which I do once I find her mop (hidden strangely in a corner of her kitchen between the refrigerator and the counter). Once she's out of the shower, her bedroom is restored to order and our clothes are stacked neatly on top of her dresser. Most importantly though, she's clean, and so am I (well, mostly, anyway). 

Now, we can get to business. 

“It looks really nice in here,” she comments, glancing around. 

At least, that's what I think she says. I'm too busy staring at the place where her towel doesn't meet itself to really listen. She seems to sense this, because shortly after, she crawls onto the bed where I am and settles into my lap. She drops the towel, and then we are both delightfully nude. 

“I've got to figure out how to deal with those pesky old men,” she sighs, sliding her arms around my shoulders. “The audacity of them to send a non-sorcerer, as if I'm completely incapable of defending myself!”

“The nerve,” I agree, squeezing a double handful of her ass. In response, she spits into her palm and takes my half-hard cock in her hand. 

“We really could kill them, you know. If you were serious about that.”

She says the words so casually, and yet they reverberate deeply in my very bones. My heart beats hard and fast in my chest as she leans in to murmur in my ear:

“We could do it tonight.”

Her fist closes over the head of my cock, and I close my eyes. Desire thrums softly in my chest, a hollow ache. She's right. We could do it tonight. Together, it might even be easy. But should we, tonight? A move against the old fucks has to measured, calculated— but I've thought about it for so very long. Is that not measured enough?

It's not. I know it's not. We have to create structure first, something to channel the chaos into so that sorcerer society stays strong and stable. Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara aren't ready. The others are closer, but still so young. There hasn't been time to find any… bad apples. 

If I weren't Gojo Satoru— if I weren't the strongest— I would take this firebrand woman in my arms, kiss her, and remake the world with her. I would let her fill all my empty spaces and create some new creature who is not only Gojo Satoru, but more, impossibly and infinitely more. If duty did not weigh mountain-heavy on my shoulders, if I could but for a moment escape that great and terrible purpose, I would do all that I have ever dreamed. With her, it might actually all work out. She makes me feel invincible— a dangerous, deadly feeling, but euphoric. 

But it cannot be tonight… and we are promised nothing beyond that. 

I try to tell her this, but it just sounds like excuses. She says nothing. She just touches my hair, my neck, my back with her free hand. It stirs something deep and hungry within me, that silence. I want to take back every word and tell her that I'll make love with her over the ashes of those old fools and promise forever to her. I suppose that's the effect she wanted. Or maybe she really is speechless— I don't know. All I know is that I'm hard by her hand, and I shake as she kisses me tenderly. 

“You've been lonely too,” she says, resting her forehead against mine. “How is beyond me, but you have been. I can see it in your eyes. Is that why you really hide them?”

I have been lonely. I miss Suguru. He was the last person who could see through me like this. In moments like these, it frightens me how keenly like him she can be. It makes me afraid for her, afraid of her. 

I could really use my best friend's perspective on what to do about a new lady friend, too. At this rate, I'll end up marrying her and then where will we all be? I'll lose my forever-a-bachelor card. The horror! 

“I'm not now,” I tell her, bucking my hips to press more firmly into her hand. “Maybe we could—”

She twists her grip, and I hiss in pleasure. 

“Sorry,” she grins, terribly cheeky. “What was that, Satoru?”

“We could just scare them a little,” I suggest as she thumbs my slit. “The elders. We could— fuck — just set traps on their lawn, or set an orchard on fire, or—”

Fuck— am I really getting off to this? 

“Or egg their houses?” She teases. “No, you're not thinking big enough, Satoru. We're adults, not children. What if we kidnapped their pets and left a ransom note?”

“That's assuming they're not too evil to own pets.”

“But if they do own pets, I mean, don't we have an ethical obligation to rescue those poor animals from such harsh conditions?”

That thought never gets an answer. I'm too busy pushing her onto her back to talk.

She's so beautiful as she smiles up at me. It hurts to look at her. I sit back on my heels to align our sexes, and I take a moment to tease her, sliding my cockhead through her folds, up to her clit, and then back to her hole. I do it again and again, and then I press into her. I mean to go slowly, inch by inch, but her hot, wet heat takes me by surprise, and I take her faster than I mean to. She gasps at the intrusion, and I kiss her soothingly, apologetic. 

“Yes,” she hisses as I pull out and push slowly back in. “Fuck— ngh, fuck yes!”

I pick up the pace. It's incredible, the way she feels around me. My hands move all over her body, indecisive— every part of her is so perfect, so infinitely touchable, and all of it is an expanse of frozen fire begging to be explored. Her hips I squeeze gently, feeling the curve of them in my hand; her stomach I caress with fondness. Her breasts, of course, occupy much of my attention— not only because of their sweet softness, but also because of the sinful noises she makes when I brush a thumb across a pebbled nipple. She arches beautifully into my hands, and, unable to help myself, I slow our fucking to lean down and suck at her left nipple. 

“That's it,” I say against her skin as her hands tangle in my hair. “I want you to pull it.”

That much is true, but it's not all there is to say. Thankfully, she seems to sense what I'm really asking; her hand curls into a fist around the hair near my scalp, and she pulls my head backwards so that I'm looking into her eyes. 

“Fuck me while you're looking at me, Gojo Satoru,” she commands. The words send a shiver down my spine. “I want all six of your eyes tonight.”

What can I do but indulge her?

I hitch one of her legs upward around my hip, changing the angle of our coupling. She exhales a soft oh, and I fuck her deeply now. Those soft ohs build and build until they're a melody, a steady refrain of pleasure that drives us both towards our inevitable ends. 

“Stay with me tonight?” she asks as I push into her a bit more roughly. The question is swallowed by a sharp inhale, and I soothe her with a kiss. 

“Nothing could make me leave.”

Even the second coming of Sukuna could wait until tomorrow. Tonight is ours.

She doesn't ask me for anything past tonight. She doesn't have to. The answer is in the way that I hold her as we fuck, cradling her gently despite the intensity of skin-contact. Every inch of us is touching. We are connected so deeply that it becomes ludicrous to try and sort out what part of us belongs to whom. 

“Oh,” she exhales again as I press my thumb against her clit.“ Oh. ”

She cries my name like it's a prayer as I kiss the side of her neck. I do it again and again until she is keening quietly in euphoric pain and terrible ecstasy. I slow my thrusts as she clenches around me, and it is an exercise in willpower not to come undone inside of her like an overeager teenager. It is not lost on me that I could die like this, that she could kill me like this. Somehow, that makes the experience even more erotic. 

“Are you close?” I ask, breathless. “I'm close. I really hope you are too. If not, that's embarrassing.”

“Yeah,” she gasps. Her hand in my hair tightens. “Yeah, baby, I'm close.”

“Good, yeah, that's good.”

I start to ramble. I don't even know what I say to her— probably something silly, or cheesy, or maybe just something true— but I know it's a downhill slide from there to orgasm. It does not occur to me to stop and think, stop and ask , before it happens, what she would prefer. Instead, instinct gets the better of me, and I come inside her in ropes of intense ejaculation. I swear it takes years off my life, the way she milks me— but it's so, so worth it to watch her eyes roll back in her head, body all a-tremble. I wouldn't trade it for anything. 

“God,” she cries out in a high-pitched whine. “Oh, god… ”

I am not a god, contrary to popular belief. Still, in this moment, I wish I was so that I could lay claim to the broken way she calls out to a higher power than we. 

We're a mess as we recover. We're both sticky, shaking, and clinging to one another. Somehow, it feels like we didn't account for the intensity of it all, and I wish dejectedly for a pack of crackers to help bolster our blood sugar. 

“Oh, Satoru,” she says, touching my cheek with a soft hand. “Look at us. We're ridiculous.”

We are. I grin. 

“Oh, undoubtedly. Give me half an hour, and I think we can make it worse.”

She giggles, and I kiss her nose. 

We clean up together. The process is surprisingly intimate. Her hands clean the scratches she left on my back; my fingers comb through the snarls in her hair made by the intensity of our fucking. It's so nice to hold, to touch, to know— it's why I've always loved sex. With her, though, it's different. I've just never stuck around super long afterwards, and on the rare occasions where I did, I never felt like I needed the care and attention that my partner usually did. Tonight, though? Tonight I need her to touch me, to know me, to… to hold me. 

It's so strange. 

Later, as we lay entangled, I ask her what she's thinking about. I can't shake the feeling that I need something from her, something to prove she's here even though she's in my arms. 

“Just you,” she answers.

“Oh? What about me?”

Her eyes meet mine. They are equal parts fond and fearful. 

“There is coldness in you, Satoru. I always knew that. You're the strongest, and with that comes a certain… detachment to the rest of us.” 

My heart sinks. Thankfully, though, she continues before I can decide to kill us both where we lay along with half the city block. 

“But there is warmth too. The coldness I know, I understand— but I think it is the warmth that frightens me the most. I can weather the cold, wrap myself in layers against cruelty. But the warmth in you, the kindness… you burn me, Satoru. I'm afraid of what you could make me feel.”

There it is. She has managed to articulate to me the fear that nestles in my own chest; the fear that, when morning comes, she will disappear like smoke between my fingers. It's a great comfort to know that she feels it too— that we, in this as in much else, are equals. That comfort gives me the space to think logically, and I come to a conclusion about our coupling with a quickness that surprises me. 

What we have may not be love just yet, but it is more than lust. There is an uncommon depth to us that I want to sound to its limits. I will stay the night here and tomorrow, I decide, she will stay at mine. Eventually, we'll choose a place that we both like. More convenient that way, for sure. And of course, I think, we'll need matching toothbrushes. 

I tell her that last bit. She laughs at me and flicks my forehead. I squeeze her bum, and she turns her back to me— as if that isn't an invitation to spoon, pressing the lengths of our bodies together. I hold her there, and time loses meaning for the evening. Darkness overtakes me, and I sleep, holding her close .

[isaacarellanesismyhusband]

finding home

pair: platonic!Sirius Black x reader

summery: y/n(she/her) finds out that Sirius Black is her father but he didn't know that, and her mom found out after he was inprisoned, but then she was killed by Voldemort when y/n was a baby and was placed in an orphanage for wizards and witches. and he found out after the battle of Hogwarts (in which he survived) and came to find you and tell you and take you in...

masterlist | navigation | p2

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The aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts was like a dream, the kind of blurry dream that clung to your consciousness long after waking. The castle was a mess of broken stones, scattered belongings, and ghosts of memories. As the survivors gathered in the Great Hall to mourn and heal, you felt out of place, a stranger to all these people and their long, shared history.

You sat quietly by yourself, legs tucked up to your chest, watching as friends embraced, families reunited, and bonds were mended. The truth was, you'd never had anyone to miss. No family to grieve or to return to. You'd been raised in an orphanage for witches and wizards, a safe but cold institution that never felt like home. Your mother had died when you were just a baby—Voldemort’s doing, they'd told you. And your father? You’d never known him. No one seemed to know. No one had ever wanted to talk about it.Lost in your thoughts, you didn't notice the figure standing nearby until he spoke.

"You must be Y/N."

His voice was deep, warm yet hesitant. You turned, and your breath hitched in your throat. Sirius Black, the man you’d heard whispers about—both terrible and heroic—stood before you. His long, dark hair was tangled, and he looked exhausted, like he'd been through a lifetime of battles, yet his eyes shone with something like hope.

"Yeah, that's me," you replied cautiously, wondering why he was speaking to you. You had no connection to any of the prominent families or Order members.

He swallowed hard, and for a moment, he looked almost fragile—something you hadn’t expected from someone with his reputation.

"I... I don’t know how to say this." He knelt down in front of you, his voice cracking ever so slightly. "I only just found out myself."

You frowned, confused. "Found out what?"

Sirius glanced around nervously, as if the weight of his words was too much to bear in front of so many witnesses. Slowly, he reached into the pocket of his battered coat and pulled out a small, folded letter. He held it out to you, his hands trembling.

You hesitated, but took the letter, unfolding it carefully. It was old, the parchment yellowed with age, but the handwriting was unmistakably elegant. As your eyes skimmed over the words, your heart pounded in your chest.

"Sirius, if you're reading this, it means I've gone, and our child is alone. Our daughter, Y/N... she's yours."

You couldn’t finish the rest. Your hands shook as the letter slipped from your grasp, falling to the floor. You stared at Sirius, wide-eyed, your heart racing.

"Daughter?" you whispered, almost too quietly for him to hear.

Sirius nodded, his eyes filled with emotion—regret, sorrow, and something like longing. "I didn’t know," he said softly, his voice thick. "Your mother... she never had the chance to tell me. I—by the time I escaped Azkaban, she was gone. If I had known, Y/N, I swear I would have—"

You couldn't breathe. The words felt heavy in the air between you. He was your father? Sirius Black? The man who had been imprisoned for years, who fought in the war, who was now kneeling in front of you, his hands reaching out like he was afraid you might vanish if he moved too quickly.

"I don't know what to say," you managed, your voice small.

"I’m sorry," Sirius whispered, his voice cracking. "I’m so sorry for not being there. For missing everything. You shouldn’t have had to grow up alone, and if I had known—" He stopped, his jaw clenching as he fought to keep control. "But I know now. And I want to make it right. I want you to have a home, Y/N. With me.

"The world felt like it had tilted on its axis. You'd grown up with nothing but your name, your mother’s memory a distant, faded thing, and now... now there was this man, this man who was supposed to be your father, standing here, offering you something you’d never dared to hope for.

Family.

You stared at him, your eyes searching his face for something—some sign that this was real, that you weren’t dreaming. And all you found was sincerity, raw and open in his eyes.

"I..." You felt tears welling up in your eyes, and you quickly wiped them away. "I don’t know how to do this," you admitted, your voice trembling.

Sirius smiled softly, his expression understanding. "We’ll figure it out together," he promised, his hand finally resting gently on your arm. "You don’t have to do it alone anymore."

That was all it took. The dam you’d built around your heart broke, and before you knew it, you were sobbing. It was as if all the loneliness, all the fear and confusion, was finally escaping after years of being bottled up.

And Sirius—your father—didn’t hesitate. He pulled you into his arms, holding you tightly as you cried into his shoulder. His hand gently stroked your hair, his voice low and soothing as he murmured, "It’s okay. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere."

For the first time in your life, you believed it. This was real. He was real.

When you finally pulled back, sniffling and wiping at your eyes, Sirius was smiling at you through his own unshed tears.

"So," he said softly, his voice full of warmth. "What do you say? Would you let an old dog like me try to be a father?"

A soft laugh bubbled up through your tears, and you nodded. "Yeah," you whispered, your heart swelling with something you hadn’t felt in a long time.

"I’d like that."

Sirius grinned, his eyes lighting up with joy. He stood, offering you his hand.

"Come on, Y/N," he said with a soft chuckle. "Let’s go home."

[a-legacy-not-to-be-forgotten]

Why Ceroba and the Feisty Four were right

Not bothering with any fancy opening, it's exactly what it says it is: Ceroba and the Feisty Four were right to call out Starlo.

Now before you crucify me, I love Starlo as a character. But I'm tired of people (not calling out anyone in particular) pretending that he's done absolutely nothing wrong and demonize Ceroba and the Feisty Four for snapping at him (largely Ceroba, but I see the Feisty Four get shat on every now and then). And this is not me calling Starlo a jerk. Typically, calling him a flat-out jerk would mean he did shit on purpose with malicious intent, and I don't think he acted out of spite. Rather, he did all those things because he just didn't think about it in the moment. I understand that, and I can 110% relate to that myself, honestly.

That being said, he did make some legit dick moves over the course of the game. Exhibit A: Having Moray walk around with a snake in their boot and giving them rashes.

IK some of Starlo's more wild fans would probably do anything he says and all that, but put yourself in Moray's shoes (or boots I guess would be more appropriate). If your friend made you walk around with a rubber toy in your footwear that gave you a nasty rash, I think you'd be reasonable at least a bit angry at them.

Exhibit B: The Boulder Droppers

They're literal goddam boulders. That shit could've killed someone. Setting them up at a busy mineshaft is reckless enough as it is but leaving them on after you're done using them just makes things even worse.

Exhibit C: Blaming Clover for everything that happened and shooting them over it.

What am I supposed to say? If you hate Ceroba for what she did to Kanako and Clover, keep in mind that Starlo basically did the same exact thing.

Again, this is not me calling Starlo an asshole overall. Yes, he is a good monster deep down and just made some legit mistakes. But my point is, he does have flaws nonetheless and I can't stand people who ignore them. Like, him accepting what he did was wrong and coming to terms with that is one of the best parts of his character! C'mon guys.

And yes, people treat Ceroba as a horrible friend because she wasn't into it and apparently 'hates that part of Starlo' or whatever. If Ceroba actually hated Starlo's obsession with Western culture, do you think she'd indulge in his ramblings on humans?

...or helped him set up all of those wanted posters for him?

...or helping his family search for him when he 'goes missing' during a neutral run?

*sarcastically* Wooooooow, what a horrible friend...

Yes, I understand Ceroba is a very blunt and sarcastic person, but I think because of that, she ends up coming off as harsher than she means to be. Trust me, I can relate to that.

To call her a heartless bitch is a disservice to her character. She does care deep down, even if she isn't that good at showing it.

And hey, she's a mourning widow and mother, I wouldn't blame her for not being good at showing positive emotions.

As for the Feisty Five, our favorite enby fish puts it best themself:

My point is, despite snapping at him, Ceroba and the Feisty Four did not hate Starlo. They understood that his obsession over Western Culture was really important with him. It's made clear that they know he's a good monster deep down, despite his transgressions and were very ready to forgive him.

They just wanted him to dial it back. And yeah, he needed to. Granted, this is targeted at the 'Starlo did nothing wrong' crowd. If you admit that he's pretty heavily flawed but that Ceroba's done worse, I can accept that. Hell, despite me being a Ceroba apologist, I might even agree with you to a degree. But I am a bit tired of the fandom putting him on a pedestal while overhating everyone who remotely criticizes him.

[mutualdemise]

I'm down bad for a Jingliu yandere, who is using force/violence to make you stay

Future Proof [Yandere! Jingliu x GN! Reader]

Content warning: mentions of blood and violence

"If you want to entertain me so badly, pick this up and use the sharp end to finish him off."

In the midst of a cruel yet swift confrontation, she tossed you the man's blade, the one he had used to defend himself against her. You swallowed dryly, the clanging of metal against stone piercing through the wind's hollow tune. He lay there quietly, your shadow casting over him like a cold blanket. His eyes shifted to yours, his face skewed in horror, silently staring at you like cattle to a farmer.

It was comparable to an insect that was too slow—the man stopping in his tracks just as he saw you, asking if you were one of the missing persons. It was funny at the moment of his interaction, but Jingliu did not take kindly to humour. She lingered behind you, the strings of your confinement being her gaze. When he noticed her and reached for his sword, she swiftly struck him.

Like an insect, he couldn't even struggle. His sword was hastily tossed away, and his body was doused in his own blood. Who knew so much blood could come out of one person?

"You can end his life, ceasing the suffering instantly. Or you leave. There's a possibility he'll survive, but if that happens," She looks at you, staring straight into your eyes despite her blindfold. You could feel her crimson gaze burning through you, scathing and burning red hot.

"Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to start your lessons early. Count this as your first." Her voice drags on like silk weaving through your ears, and you're stuck rigidly staring at the sword tossed carelessly by your feet. You weren't going to kill the stranger who merely made a mistake by humouring Jingliu's attempts to teach you, but could you let him suffer with such little chance of survival in the first place? Jingliu liked to poke at you through situations like these: a scientist testing different methods. Her mind games were an abrasive attempt to get you to stay with her; out of your own will, sharpened to her liking.

"And if I don't do either?" You drawl, your arms limp by your sides. She liked it when you challenged her, knowing it would cost you her grace of mercy later on. Your legs ached, and your body tired from how hard she liked to push you to your limits.

"Then you'd stay here, watching the light leave this man's eyes." She spoke with an eloquent vigour, always saying 'you' instead of 'we' as if her body were long gone, a ghost of a monster haunting your shadow. You mourned your shadow, tainted by this fate, so tired of bearing to have to push past each day. It felt so slow, and yet when you look back, only a handful of days have passed. You contemplated escaping or even submitting to her will, but you felt if you were going to submerge yourself in this fate, you would get a say in how it would happen.

"If you're going to teach me, wouldn't it be easier to get me to do it myself?" You prodded, staring at your own reflection in the stranger's sword. Both were trapped and helpless, unless you removed yourself completely. Maybe saving this person would at least give you the satisfaction of defying Jingliu's games, and that would be through another game you imposed.

"Did you want to fight him?" Jingliu lightly taunted, her voice always a hollow monotone, but gradually you picked up on the slightest inflections in her responses, recognising her way of displaying emotion.

"Perhaps if he survived, then he would live to remember this encounter and train harder." You implied lightly, as Jingliu showed interest as she advanced towards you.

“And if you lose to him?" She hovered around you, an invisible forcefield restraining you from being touched. Jingliu might have slaughtered countless beings, but she drew the line at touching you without coming to her out of your own volition. She was a patient wolf, feeding a lamb for a bigger meal.

"I'll let you do anything to me, as long as it feels good."

[hsngvelvn]

thatcherlyra moments that make me lose my sanity

thatcher calling lyra DARLING PHANTOM???? #$%##$@$#adjsdk!*(@&%^$#&

lyra calling thatcher ANGEL????@#$$@#!@!#@$!^*&*%^

lyra was thatcher's muse in their own hauntingly beautiful way

thatcher putting coins on the eyes of phoebe's corpse so she crosses river styx and goes soundly into the afterlife (mind you, he was a CHILD, conditioned by a monster to believe that he was also one)

lyra's first kill being so as to protect thatch

little miss prim and proper diva pierson cussing only when he's around lyra

lyra jumping off of a cliff just to evade falling out of her deal with thatch of being tutored in the art of killing

thatcher finally agreeing to tutor lyra and picking thursday for their sessions just because she has chess games with silas every thursday

"She's so exquisite she makes me palpably ill,"

thatch calling lyra scarlett on rare occasions

their first time being intimate in the mausoleum, which in hindsight was very poetic actually

thatch having a full-on mental breakdown after the mausoleum in true aaron warner fashion

thatch almost breaking his carefully fabricated routine when he was about to kill player #1 for the whole circus stunt with lyra

this switch:

“I’m not a dog.” I bite out, even though I did what he asked. “You’re not?” He purrs, the edges of his lips tugging up. “Could’ve fooled me.” A strangled laugh comes from the back of my throat, pain tingling my side from what I assume is a fractured rib. “Did you just make a joke?” “If that will make you feel better about what I said, then sure. I made a joke.” The smile on my face is hard to remove, because he’s smirking and not in a wicked way. In this funny, happy sorta way. “Drop the towel.” He orders, kneeling on the ground in front of me

thatcher cleaning up lyra's wounds and being absolutely enamored with the freckles on her belly he discovered in the process

No, I won't explain myself for the following one

When my eyes open, fluttering in this state of bliss, I find him looking down at his lap. My brows tugging together in concern as I lean forward. My limbs feel impossibly heavy, exhaustion and pain slamming back into me with vengeance. “Thatch,” I murmur, looking down at his lap finding a dark spot on the center of his jeans, my jaw going slack. “Did I—Did you?” “It would appear,” he says, clearing his throat, but the haze of lust still heavy on his tongue. “My cock enjoys the way you taste as well, pet."

thatcher scaring tf outta a diner manager for being condescending towards his bug queen

lyra about to crack and out their little secret of screwing around in the background when she finds out about the threats thatcher has been receiving

Scarlett Lyra Abbott, I'm so gay for you rahhhh:

“If you die, it won’t just ruin me, Thatcher. It will be the reason behind the slaughter of this entire town.” I grind my teeth, knowing my grief at losing him would leave no one safe. “Do not shove me away, then allow yourself to be killed and blame me for what kind of monster is born in my mourning.”

calm down little miss cuntress:

If the Halo comes for me, like they promised, I’ll take it as a compliment.   But her?   If they figure out what she is to me. If they come for her?   I’ll paint the town red.

lyra not giving up on thatcher once during their exchange at her old home, her pushing herself to the brink to make thatcher see all that they were, and all they deserved, pop off queen!

them being each other's firsts

lyra- the girl known for being laid back and gentle- turning into this nasty bittersweet person in the aftermath of thatch's disappearance

thatcher having to abandon his meticulously placed plan again following lyra killing player #2 (colin)

despite her early throws of anger at thatcher pushing her away and being cold when he came back, lyra was quick to realise the whys of him putting her at a distance, that he was afraid of losing her

aksjjaksjkajkjkdhfjdfh, naur shes so sassy for this i love her sm man:

It does what it wants. It takes what it needs, and it doesn’t care what it does when it leaves. “Maybe I’d die for you, Thatcher Pierson,” I mumble. “But death is inevitable for us all. It’s what you’d do for me that matters.” His eyebrow arches in question. “You’d disappear again, just like you did when you were a little boy, just to keep me safe.” I push off the doorframe, turning to walk down the hallway with his eyes still on my back. “And I didn’t even ask you to.”

the iconic:

"I don’t want to share my space with you either, Thatcher. But it’s all you’ve got.” “No.” She lets out a little sigh, rolling her eyes. “Jail it is, then. Rot for all I care.” “I—” “Did something happen between you two?” Briar interrupts me, calling Lyra out for the false narrative she is painting. Looking at me and spewing words she thinks will affect me. Pretending that little heart inside her pale chest isn’t beating for me. Like my ghost doesn’t exist just for me. Like she doesn’t bleed for me. However, the rest of the people in this room don’t need to know that. “Yeah, like fucking?” Rook adds.

COMMUNICATING THROUGH ANNOTATIONS. BYE. I'M SO UNWELL.

thatcher learning deeply about lyra through her home and falling a little more with every childhood picture of hers and every taxidermized collection

thatcher stabbing conner's tongue for forcing himself on lyra. in the school. WHEN HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE AT THE CABIN, OUT OF SIGHT.

thatcher cooking for her, and asking her about her mom. especially significant because from this moment on, he had waved a massive fuck-you to the consequences and circumstances and had known deep within himself that he was always hers, as she always his

thatcher gifting lyra a taxidermized spider collection she'd secretly wanted for months

lyra killing conner for good

thatcher cleaning her mess up with the boys

oh they make me so sickkk:

"Death is trivial. He can't keep you from me. I'll follow you to the grave everytime and follow you in each life after."

[lasandra]

Super Massive End Game Veilguard Spoilers Under the Cut!

Seriously. If you haven't finished playing Veilguard, DO. NOT. READ. So I finished DA:tV and I have been really trying to sort out my thoughts... And well...

Sdlkajshdfklajhsdfklajhsdflkjahsdklfjhaskldfjhaskldfhj I CAN'T!!! My dudes I am SO conflicted!!! Solas is the only character I have ever come across that I both love to pieces and want the best for him but I also want to beat him until he is a puddle of bruised yolk and cracked shells. This dude KILLED VARRIC FOR REALSIES! I am not okay with that. My Hawke's GOING to hunt him down when she finds out. If the Tevinter Magisters can get into the Black City then dammit so can she. And when she does, I am not sure even Lavellan can save him. Amelia (My Hawke) has lost so many of her friends/family/loved ones she can't handle this anymore. He also killed God's gift to elves Felassan. It's been over a decade since I read The Masked Empire but I don't remember there being a great reason other than him being upset that Felassan failed. Dude has GOT to stop killing his friends lol. Especially the hot ones. Like. Come on. As if that wasn't enough, he manipulated Rook. I love my first Rook (Carwyn de Riva) so much that I am STRUGGLING to play another playthrough with any of the other Rooks I had planned. To see that he manipulated her with blood magic... Stopped her from being able to mourn Varric with the others properly.... AND tricked her into that prison??? He didn't think she'd be able to get out. Luckily she had plot armor because if she hadn't gotten out I would find a way into Thedas to rip him apart myself. *Aggressive breathing noises* I feel very normal about this, obviously. Seriously though, guys, I came THIIIIIIIS close to tricking him with the fake dagger even knowing that Lanaya (my Lavellan) wouldn't have gotten her happy ending. JUST so I could see the LOOK on his face when he realized ROOK outplayed him at his own game! At the SAME time however... The idea of sending him into the Black City alone... hurts me lol! I don't want him to suffer. Dude has suffered a lot and honestly, I'm not entirely sure his being a friend-murdering ass is *entirely his fault... The longer I sit with everything, the more certain I am that Solas didn't really have a choice. Seems very much like he was sort of bound to the will of Mythal. Maybe I've missed something, I'm not as lore-savvy as I once was. But in the end when Mythal tells Solas that she releases him from her service and only THEN (NOT when Lavellan BEGS him to stop) is he willing to do the right thing? I don't know. It just reminded me SO much of his personal quest in Inquisition where his Wisdom Spirit friend had been bound and twisted against its purpose. If it works anything like what we saw in Inquisition with whoever drank from the Well of Sorrows, who's to say when something was him vs the will of Mythal? It could be a bit of a stretch but, there's certainly room for that interpretation, I think. And if that's the case, then he doesn't deserve the hell that awaits him. It's also the only interpretation I can really accept Lanaya still wanting to be with him. Varric was her friend too. While forgiveness is something I give freely, I cannot imagine reconciling with a man who did what Solas did without him having been essentially forced into doing it. *Sighs deeply* I saw the different versions of his endgame images... Shit man. The only way this man gets a happy ending is with Lavellan. Dude looks so miserable and gloomy in all the other endings. Moire (Trevelyan) was Solas' friend. She wouldn't want to send him off to be alone in such a terrible place. That would seriously eat at her. (Rook wouldn't care. Her give a damn was busted after he betrayed her for the twenty-billionth time.) It can never be anything but a complete and utter rollercoaster with this man! I do think that the ending I got with him was as good as it possibly could have been though, given everything. Sorry for this really poorly written rant. I needed to get this out of my system and it's almost 3am lol.

[meichenxi]

languages, travel, identity, grief

Maybe some of you have heard of Xu Zhimo's Second Farewell to Cambridge (徐志摩 再別康橋 Translation: Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again, by Xu Zhimo | East Asia Student). It's an achingly lovely poem about a Chinese scholar who studied in the UK, and how he left so gently, taking nothing with him as he went. It brought me solace over the last year.

I thought for a very long time about how I felt about having to leave China, and what it felt like to mourn for a future that was never going to mine. I cried. How am I supposed to explain why? I'm not Chinese. I've got no family there, or a childhood to look back on. I couldn't explain it even to myself.

That pain was coupled with a type of uncertainty, a discomfort at myself for feeling so strongly. This feeling was not allowed. It meant - what? Something awful, probably. I was a racist, probably. I should hate myself, probably. Fetishization is the word that gets thrown around for white people and their time spent in East Asia at one end of the spectrum - at the other end it's just seen as embarrassing and deeply, you know, cringe. It's a self-interrogation - why do I feel so sad? Why do I feel this pull so strongly anyway, to a country that's not even mine? Why should it matter so much when I leave? I didn't feel like this grief has any sort of legitimacy. But it has taken from September - eight months after leaving - for me to pick up Chinese again.

I felt, for months, hollow and unsettled and drifting from place to place. I opened my textbook, and closed it again. The memories there were too painful. I'm not going to write about why I had to leave, but it wasn't by choice. I had loved the people in the school, even if it was for a short time. When you have no internet and are training eight hours a day, the days are coloured more sharply: bright and hurtful and wonderful all at once. We had no running water. It was in an abandoned hotel. I miss the monk at the temple door opposite the school, always on time at 6am to open it for our classes. I miss the folk at the local shop who invited me to watch films on their projector; once they killed a chicken for us. I miss the woman in the woods who gave me the chestnuts she had picked. I gave the chestnuts to the cook, and we steamed them and ate them by the lake. He wanted me to marry his son; he wanted it so strongly that he brought me pork, and desserts, and gave me paper, and promised me I could have a jade bracelet, that he would buy me a house. I miss the oldest martial arts teacher, who spoke in such strong dialect I could barely understand him. When I was sad and missing home one night, he told me that I should stay after dinner. In the silence and against the cicadas, he started to play the erhu for me. Later, my friend told me that he hadn't know what to say, how to comfort me; I was a foreigner and a young woman, after all. We had very little in common. But nobody has ever played a piece of music for me like that before.

And I miss X, my best friend there and partner in snack-smuggling crime. She is 19 years old, and a janitor's daughter, and one of the wisest people I have ever met. (She also rides an excellent motorbike, and lent me her hanfu, and we sped through the city giddy with our own daring and trying not to be caught.) We got matching haircuts; she had always wanted to cut her hair like a boy, and was too scared to do it alone. When I left, I told her to stay in touch: she shook her head. She said that some people were meant to know each other for some time, and no more. I think the death of friendship by attrition, by - as Elrond said! - the slow decay of time, is one of the saddest things of all. I deleted Wechat. I don't want to read over the old messages. By having this place - her, and the chestnuts, and the cicadas - as a memory, I can tuck it away it. I can keep it close.

I wrote a poem myself on the plane. That was the last I thought about China, the last thought I let myself have, in eight months. I kept myself away from it. It felt like a wound. And against that hollowness, there was constantly the question: Why should I have any right to miss this place? Who I am there? Why does it matter? We are all different people, wherever we go, and whoever we are with; we wear different skins, large or small. In China I was [...]. She was who I was. That name, that I introduced myself to people with - she was bright and friendly and tried to translate things just so. Everybody who goes as the only foreigner to a place - or the only foreigner that speaks the language - is a little bit self-obsessed. It happens. It's unfortunate, and something to guard against. But it also gives you its own kind of identity in a way: your identity is Foreigner. Your identity is a cultural bridge. Everyone you meet, in a country as friendly and curious as China, has questions about you. You stand with your feet in both worlds, and are not really part of either of them. That identity is easy to slip into, like cool water, like trying on new clothes. It's easier that thinking: who am I outside of that? Where am I going? I don't really know. I don't think anyone really does.

And then the second thing happens. I speak Chinese well, by this point. My accent is there, but it's slight. I am short, and have dark hair, and a generally similar build to many East Asians - so the questions I have got in the last few years have changed. Sometimes people think I have been raised here. Sometimes they think I am ethnically Russian, and nationally Chinese. Sometimes I get asked if I am half Chinese. Usually they know I am a Foreigner, 100% white - but not always. There is a peculiar rush that comes from that acceptance; from feeling the relief, just for fifteen minutes, that you belong. It's not about 'passing', or race-bending, or anything twisted - it's nothing so unnerving as that. It's just the human need to belong. Everyone gets tired of being stared at, after a while. And after a while, you start to think - I wish I understood. I wish they understood. I wish this were easy.

But then the conversation keeps going. You don't know a local word, or you misunderstand. You say something in a strange way, or you make a strange gesture, and the glass shatters, and - there you are again, naked again, exhausted again, explaining yourself again. That's the other half of it. There's solace in the Foreigner identity, because that means that's all you are. You don't have to think about your parents, or whether they worry about you so far from home; of course they do. The Foreigner is good and filial and a wonderful daughter. You can craft her into any shape you like. But it also marks you out again and again, endlessly and again, as Other.

There was a paper published a while ago that showed measures of acceptance of non-natives in native-speaking communities. It highlights a strange, but familiar experience to those who have lived abroad - the people who spoke the language to a medium level felt more accepted and less lonely than those that spoke the language to a high degree. It makes sense, and mirrors what I have found with both Chinese and German. When you speak a little Chinese, you are a wonder - a curiousity! Look at the Western girl go! People are kind, and curious, and will slow down to include you in conversations. You are thrilled with what you can access - all this knowledge, that other people don't have! Look how special you are!

And then you get better. And then you realise, cut by cut, that you will never be one of them. You don't want to be Chinese, per se; but you do want to be accepted. You are happy to be British; but you miss China like a wound, an old one, festering, even when it was never yours. How do you tell your family that you are not grieving a lost romance, a beautiful girl, but a language and a life? That there are words of majesty, of playfulness, that will never be yours? You speak well enough that people no longer bother to dumb things down, or explain them; you sit with your discomfort, smile painted on, because - you know. It's not bad. You understand most of it. And on the edge of that circle, smiling uncertainly, following the vast majority of what is being said, you are not clever enough and not witty enough to keep up with the chengyu, the cultural references, the slang, and the raucous laughter around you erupts, and you don't know what you've missed, and everybody says - she's quiet, that one. Maybe all the foreigners are? And all you are doing is sitting and feeling the distance between You and Them as heavy and as stifled in your chest as an ocean of dark.

So you go back. Back to your people. But when you sit with the other foreigners, you are apart. They laugh; what are these nutters doing? The Chinese don't make any sense. The Chinese do this - they do that. You sit there, and then there is a pressure building in your chest too, a discomfort, the desire to stand up and say - well, actually.

You are responsible for everything the Chinese teachers do, and have to explain things in a way that the students understand - Confucian thought, and Buddhist philosophy, translated in pithy bite-size adages for the West. You have no qualifications for this; everything you assert, you feel unsure. Uncertain. Someone else could explain it better, more nuanced, and you need to do more reading anyway - but here you are, and here they are, and you're the only one. And you do know. Not enough, but enough that their jokes, their pains, make you uncomfortable. You feel the need to defend both parties; to be a diplomat, every second of every day. In turn, when the students come to the teachers with problems, you have to translate their grievances in a way that the Chinese teachers will be sympathetic towards. Once I got asked: why do you never join us after class? Why are you always so quiet when you're not working? As a translator, you are always working. Every time you speak, you are working; what you choose to say, and what you choose to not say, and where you choose to intervene. You are building relationships, and disappearing, and you are becoming invisible, and you're a nothing, and you're everyone and you're nobody and nobody realises you are doing anything more than translating at all.

I wanted to stay. I couldn't have stayed. I wanted to be accepted as one of them. I wanted to be accepted for who I was. That means a foreigner. I wanted to be true to myself, which means that I would always be the Foreigner, which means I would always be apart from them. It is that contrast and juxtaposition which causes the grief. And there was never an ending to it, a resolution, a chance to reconcile myself (in China) with myself (in the UK), because all at once I had to leave. The grief comes most from the second arrow - not the pain of leaving, but the bewilderment of not knowing why I was in pain at all.

It's been eight months. Slowly, as spring comes, I feel like I am on surer ground. I can look at my old books, those painstaking notes, and I could look at new ones too and I'm starting to think, because this is what I tell my students, and maybe there's some truth in it - it's okay if you're not perfect. It's okay if you didn't achieve what you wanted to, and that the language - in its wholeness, and who can ever know that? - will never, not quite, be yours. It's the struggle and the process that means that I will know and understand Chinese in a different way, in my own way, in a slanted-to-reality sort of way, that is a treasure in and of itself. There is beauty in its brokenness too.

And there is sorrow, too. The sorrow that comes with easing yourself into a different life, and it holding you gently for a while. I sat there - I spoke to them. It's not only missing a place; it's missing a person you were, a stage of your life, for a time. It's knowing that a place has reached inside your ribs and taken root there - even if you don't return, you can never fully get rid of that again. You are two people now, with feet straddling two oceans. There are parts of you that loved and suffered and hated and grew in Chinese, not English. You can't explain that. You can't even begin. Sometimes - not often - you are a stranger in your own land. The poets spoke of that. In the age of fast travel, of the weekend break, we have forgotten the ways a place can burrow itself inside you, and find its own home.

It's not the same as the grief that someone Chinese will face. But it's still grief. I have put my life into Chinese. Maybe that is all it takes to grow love.

Now, I turn back to Chinese - as a foreigner, as Melissa, as myself. It's a bittersweet thing. I know that I cannot hold all of it. It will spill out, like the sun, and there is no way I can be that without losing myself and my history and my own green woods. But I think I am ready now. I am surer, and a little steadier on my feet.

[gravelsong]

I call this the "what if I overanalyzed the HELL out of the Arcee and Carly interaction" post because this scene was really good

Before this, the ONLY time we've really seen them interact is when Arcee saved Carly from falling. They're still on unfamiliar terms, probably only knowing each other through name. Arcee's come over to see Carly, being curious about her, wondering what she's doing, or both. Carly clearly doesn't give a shit though, responding in a very short, and clipped answer.

Okay, so she doesn't seem to be that thrilled about Arcee being over there. That's okay, Arcee will simply ask what Carly's doing instead of beating around the bush, which Carly ALSO responds to with a short, sarcastic answer. Her answer doesn't really help Arcee work out what's going on all that much, so she asks for further elaboration, both wanting to know more and also learn something new about Earth.

Carly gives another vague answer ("gotta start somewhere") so Arcee offers to join her in her activity, maybe hoping that they can connect more and she can learn further about what's on Carly's mind. However, Arcee's blaster causes a solid amount of damage, but it seems to catch Carly's attention and even makes her smile, impressed with the sight.

With Carly seeming more open, Arcee talks a bit about her own skills, her own history with weaponry. She IS a very impressive shot, as vouched by Optimus, but with her time spent fighting in the war, she's mournful over this, as her skill with a blaster adds to the carnage and horror she's seen (the flames in the background serving as a reflection of her memories, what she's witnessed through her talent).

Carly, who just recently lost her father to Starscream, is baffled by this statement, saying that Arcee's skill would REALLY help with killing decepticons (as she seems to have missed the point with what Arcee was trying to say). Carly even specifies Starscream, which makes it clear that she's practicing specifically for revenge purposes against Starscream (great news Carly, Soundwave already took care of that problem). Arcee recognizes this desire for revenge, and states her thoughts clearer: that she can see how Carly's falling to her rage, that her hurt is driving her to future pain (with Arcee probably reflecting on her familiarity with her own hatred).

Unfortunately, Carly is no longer open to listening, switching back into being angry and annoyed. She knows that Arcee's analyzing her, thinking that she knows better than her (also Carly is a teenager, and hurt teenagers tend to shut themselves off to focus on what they think is best for them). The remains of Arcee's shot also look like a burning inferno behind Carly, used as symbolism for her own feelings, her own rage.

("I apologize. It's just... you remind me of myself, when my gears were beginning to turn. I had a teacher then.")

Arcee isn't using subtle dialogue or small talk anymore, she's outright telling Carly of her own history, of how she was the same way. Of how she had someone she loved and trusted so dearly, but he died (ALSO MAGNUS IS DEAD AUGHH) because she allowed her hatred to control her. She was so focused on revenge, she lost another loved one. Even now, Arcee's reflection on her journey of healing is that her hate costed her far more than helped her. It's a painful memory for her, and she doesn't want to see someone else go down the same path she did.

But she's too caught up in her desire for revenge to really hear what Arcee's telling her.

Hell, even in the scene afterward, Cliffjumper is berating himself for not killing Starscream, and that Carly isn't even speaking to him anymore because he couldn't kill Starscream. Jazz tells him that there's no shame in pulling the trigger, but if that was true, then why does he feel so awful (he feels awful because he feels like he hurt Carly right there and then. Also, Starscream immediately grabbed her, and would've killed her if he hadn't been crushed. Cliffjumper is feeling guilty over not taking the shot because it could've killed Carly, and even though she survived, a part of her was still killed in that moment.)

[kaladinstormblessed09]

I finished RoW and now I don’t know what to do with myself. Please no spoilers for any of the secret projects and TLM. I haven’t read them yet. Also there’ll be bands of mourning spoilers in the review along with RoW

I loved all of Kaladin’s arc. I suffer from depression as well, so it was so relatable to see a main character in a fantasy series struggling too. And he struggles. This book Kaladin hits the lowest point. Starting from chapter 10 when he gets discharged, I cried on his behalf. I knew it was necessary. He kept freezing in the middle of the battle, but Kal was feeling betrayed by Dalinar even when he knew it was the right decision, and I felt the same. Even though I knew this was the right decision. He needed to be away from the fighting, from the battle. Kaladin’s scenes with Wit during the middle of his nightmare was one of my favorite moments in all stormlight. Wit tells kaladin that he'll be warm again, and I’ll hold Brandon to this. You cannot kill Kal off after you promised him that he'll be okay. Brandon, I’ll come for you. Don’t you dare hurt kal. And then Moash kills Teft. Sigh. This was spoiled for me, so all through the book I kept waiting for this. It was not a good experience. I thought he was going to die when the tower got taken, but then he didn’t. And I just wanted to get it over with, because it gave me so much anxiety knowing what happens but not when. I was almost relieved when Moash (I’m not calling him Vyre, that pretentious asshole) shows up. I knew it was about to happen now. I was mentally ready, but it still hurt so much. I cried the most in Row. Kaladin being catatonic holding Teft’s dead body is an image that will haunt me, and I’ll never forgive Moash. I don’t want a redemption arc for him. And before all Moash apologists come for me, it’s not because he killed Elhokar. I get that. It’s because he tried to manipulate Kaladin into killing himself. He used the things Kaladin told him in confidence and used them to get him to commit suicide. He was going to kill Lirin to use his death to further manipulate Kal, and he killed Teft. I don’t fucking care what deep reasoning you use to explain why he did what he did I don’t forgive him. And death is too easy for him. I want him to live with the pain. I want odium to stop taking away his pain. Even if Kaladin someday forgives him, which I don’t think he should. He killed Teft, I will never forgive him.

Lirin really annoyed me all throughout the book. He told kaladin at one point that he should’ve been a good slave, then maybe all these wouldn’t have happened to him. And just for that fuck Lirin. He’s a pacifist to the point where he maintains the status quo, and these types of people annoy me. If you want to live under the oppression good for you, but don’t begrudge the resistance. In the end he pulls through though. Now be a better father to Kal. Don’t call him a monster, or I’ll come for you Lirin. I’ll learn how to isekai into books and give Kal all the love that he deserves.

We barely got any Dalinar povs, and I’m mostly fine with it. I didn’t want to see the campaign at Emul, it’s just another battle. But I wanted more Jasnah. Jasnah/Wit relationship caught me off guard, because I always head cannoned Jasnah as a lesbian, but now I think she’s asexual? Someone please correct me if I’m wrong. It’s just really weird to see Wit/Hoid in a relationship. In the epilogue, did someone really got one over Hoid? Or was Hoid pretending? I can never tell with him. Also, the leader of the ghostsblood was Kelsier all along! And he named himself Lord of Scars. That’s the stupidest name ever. I love him so much! I have missed him.

I really liked all the fused stuff. Leshwi was one of my faves. I liked her and Kaladin’s on/off enmity. It was a fascinating dynamic. Actually, Brandon did such a good job with the characterization of the fused. Raboniel being my favorite. She was such a good character. She reminded me a bit of a mix of Semirhage/Ishamael from WoT. Her just trying to end this war that just goes on and on for eternity. Her motivations were so understandable. When she killed her daughter to save her from infinite torture I cried so much. The dynamic between her and Navani made me forget about Dalinar. I wanted them to get together and do science.

Navani was such a standout character. I love her, even though a lot of the science stuff went over my head. Her dealing with her imposter syndrome while inventing new fabrials and creating anti-voidlight. Aaaah the whole process was so freaking amazing. It makes me so mad to think about the prologue where Gavilar was such a shit to her. I’m glad he died, and that we get to see him die over and over again. I called it from the moment sibling was introduced that Navani would bond her and it felt so good when that happened!

I’m probably forgetting so much, but I had a blast. I inhaled this book in less than a week, and I kind of want to reread from TWoK again now. Waiting till December is going to be brutal. I’m so excited for Wind and Truth. I think it’ll be Szeth’s book. He’s such an underrated character and now him and Kal are teaming up to go to Shinovar. I can’t wait!