#which sounds like so much fun. and the perfect reward for sitting through being Poked and Stabbed and Itchy for two hours

[supercantaloupe]

trying hard to avoid the kitten this week cause i have to be off my allergy meds until thursday

[sevendeadlymorons]

Hello! I don't really see many guys who play Obey Me so it's actually kinda interesting to see that. I hope no one has been rude to you.

If you are open to requests- how about one where the MC isn't afraid to pact command the brothers when they want something? Be it a change in their behavior for a bit or for them to do something for them 😏

Hey! Thanks for the concern, everyone has been lovely on here so far, so I’m hoping it’ll stay that way, haha!

But anyway, that sounds like it’ll be fun to write 😏 I haven’t written anything In a while, so excuse the poor writing :)

MC Controls the Demon Boys with Their Pacts

NSFW // Sexual Language

———————————————————

MC has been wanting to be able to use their pacts on the brothers for a little while now. So one day, they decide to pay Solomon a visit...

———————————————————

Lucifer

MC decides today is the day. The day when they finally make Lucifer kneel at their feet. They walk up to Lucifers room and knock on the door, anticipation running through their veins. The door swings open and there stands the one and only avatar of Pride. It was quite late at night so he looked exhausted and quite ready to collapse none the less.

“Ah. MC. What are you doing here so late at night?” He smirked. Looking at him smile like that made their stomach twist into knots and they felt they couldn’t hold back more longer.

“May I come in?” They ask innocently, flashing him a smile and stepping closer inside.

“I don’t see why not..” Lucifer moves to the side to let them in and they smirk at him as they go past, running the plan over in their head to make sure it’s flawless. Lucifer turns round to shut the door but as soon as he does, he feels MC’s hand rub over his shoulder. They could feel him slightly stiffen at the meer touch of them. They lick their lips and lean up towards his ear...

“Lucifer. Lock the door. Now” They whispered seductively in his ear. Visible chills ran down his spine as a subtle click came from the door. Perfect...

“What do you think you’re doing, MC?” He said in a cold but also seductive way, turning around to put his face close to theirs. MC shrugs playfully and wraps their arms around his neck pulling him closer.

“How about you go sit on the bed for me...?” They purr, so close to his lips that they could feel his hot breath against their skin. He obeys his order and walks over to the bed with MC in tow. He pulls them in by the waist but MC pushes him down and straddles him. “I’m in charge tonight, Lucifer..” They plant kisses all down his neck, tangling their hand in his hair and tugging at his clothes. Silent groans escape his throat as he lays motionless underneath MC. They begin to unbutton his shirt as arousal pools in the pit of their stomach. They kiss down towards his navel, looking up at him with lewd eyes. They start meddling with his belt, tugging at it desperately, their eyes not leaving his. A tent building up inside his trousers, and desperation and desire burning in his eyes.

“Please, Master... Keep going”

Mammon

MC was watching Mammon on the floor of their room, most likely selling something he stole from around the house. He looked so happy at something, which made them curious. MC didn’t really plan to do this today but they suppose it was a good moment...

They hopped off the bed and joined him on the floor, startling him slightly, but more or less not the reaction they were looking for. They huffed and playfully rolled on top of Mammon.

“Ey, MC, what do ya think you’re doin’?!” Attempting to wriggle his way out from underneath her, a light pink blush spreading across his cheeks.

“Mammon. Stay!” They spoke harshly, causing him to stop in a halt. MC felt an overwhelming feeling of power rush over them when they stared down at Mammon’s face, so shocked and vulnerable. They wanted more... “Kiss me”

Mammon’s body shot up, crashing into MC’s lips. They instinctively closed their eyes and pressed into the kiss harder, desperate for his touch and the taste of his lips. They ran a hand through his hair, gripping and pulling at it, a growl escaping his lips as his arms wrapped tightly around their waist, pulling them in. MC broke away from the kiss to explore his neck and collar bones. They kissed and sucked every inch, covering him in lovely red bruises, his mouth wide open with moans leaving his throat. MC could feel his heart racing inside his chest, like it was close to exploding, the faint pink blush that was previously covering his face was now replaced with a bright red tint and lustful eyes, like a predator reading to pounce on it’s prey.

They could feel Mammon gradually taking over them, leaning greedily into the kiss, pushing them further back so that he’s almost straddling them. Their name escapes from his lips in a lazy moan as his hands begin to wander underneath their clothes...

“Master... Please... Give me another order”

Levi

Levi had invited MC over for a game night, and was currently sat on the floor, game controller in hand, presumably on the last level on his game. It was somewhat exciting seeing him in his zone. His fingers quick at the buttons and his tongue slightly peeking out of his lips. Unfortunately, it did mean not much attention was on them. They planned to change that...

Usually at this time, Levi was pretty distracted and not really in touch with the world around him, which gave them a perfect opportunity to sneak behind him. MC crawled around to where Levi was sitting and put their hands around his waist, resting their head in the crevice of his neck. Levi continued to play his game so MC decided to test how long it wound take him to notice. They creeped their hands down towards the hem of his shirt, and fingered their way inside, towards his stomach. They felt him jump in surprise and swing his head back to face her

“MC—?!” They cut him off with a kiss, no longer able to resist. The outline of his muscles underneath his shirt, alleviating their desires and overpowering them with lust. They reached a hand towards his jaw, cradling it, pushing his face closer towards them to delve deeper into the kiss. They felt his body go limp from their touch and felt a hand gently touch their hip.

“Levi. Turn and face me.” He didn’t hesitate in obeying his masters orders, and was quickly facing MC, pushing deeper into the kiss, sloppy kisses and tongue included. His hands were placed either side of MC’s thighs and he was already on his knees, leaning over them. For a quick second, for the first time ever, they saw a glance of deep desire and arousement in his eyes. Burning passion as his cheeks grew red and he wandering hands explored more of their body. They wanted more, they wanted him to envelop her body in a tight embrace as he touched them in more erotic places...

“Levi. Stay.” A low whimper formed in his throat as he was forced off them, looking hurt and confused. MC proceeded to crawl up to Levi and place multiple kisses all over his neck, occasionally nibbling his collar bone to hear him groan in pleasure. Their hands wandered over his sweats, tugging and palming at them, causing his breathing to hitch and his face to burn up, his obvious arousal clearly showing. They giggled at his reaction as they licked over a bite mark, causing his head to lean back and moan their name deep in his throat.

“Master, I need you, now...”

Satan

It was quite late at night. MC was having no luck sleeping, so decided to wander around the house a little bit. As they walked past the library, they noticed a lamp was on. They weren’t exactly allowed up past this hour, so they peeked around the corner to check who it is. And there sat Satan, book in hand, tea by his side and a small red lamp dimly lighting the room around him.

MC didn’t plan on going to sleep any time soon, so decided to join Satan for a little while. They silently walked behind him where the couch was sitting and gently wrapped their arms around his neck, hands draped down towards his stomach. His body tensed up but relaxed when he turned around and saw MC, a silent purr leaving his lips from the sudden touch.

“MC? What are you doing up? Can’t sleep?” He asked, grabbing hold of one of MC’s hands and stroking it lightly, a small smile creeping onto his lips at the warmth of it. Just this small amount of affection made MC’s stomach flutter and they were finding it difficult to contain themself. Being alone at night made their situation worsen. “Would you like to join me?” Offering out a book from the pile that sat next to him. MC didn’t answer, their eyes were glued to the gently smile plastered on his lips.

A sudden urge came over them and they leaned down towards his ear, so close, they were positive he could feel their breath on his skin. “Satan. Put the book down.” He quickly obeys his order, placing his book on his knees, MC’s hands still wandering over his stomach and breath radiating across his skin. They reward him with kisses plastering across his neck, turning to his ear to nibble on and sucking the red marks they leave behind. Satan was a flustered mess at this point and was getting riled up by the second. They could feel him squeezing their fingers in arousal and groaning at each mark they leave.

They walk in front of Satan who desperately grabs and claws at their hips to try and get them as close to him as possible, desperation and desire burning in their eyes. A slight ping of wrath as he drags them towards him onto their lap to envelop into a deep passionate kiss. He was rough, and they were both panting seconds into the kiss, breaking away every few moments to take a breather before continuing, even deeper than the last.

Satan was grinding into the kiss now, his arousal obvious in his trousers, poking at them, making the pool in their gut grow larger by the second. “Take off your shirt. Now.” A commanding growl escaped MC’s lips as they felt the never fading smirk on his lips spread wider. Satan breaks the kiss to pull off his shirt, but is immediately back into it as soon as it’s off him, the shirt flung across the floor. MC traces their finger over his abs and grips on tightly to his shoulder, as low moans escape each others lips.

“So... What next, Master?”

Asmo

Asmo had decided that today was a good day to pamper eachother. Just the two of them alone. And honestly, he’s probably more excited about it than they are. You two are sat on the bed together talking about whatever gossip Asmo could think up, because let’s face it, he hears it all, when they had an idea that was sure to make the Avatar of Lust falls to his knees..

Asmo had forgotten about the world around him and just kept on talking about things that MC didn’t exactly understand.. so they decided to spice things up and a bit and make things much more exciting. MC smirks at Asmo as they crawl their way over to him and place a hand right on his thigh.

“Oh, MC, how dirty of you!” He smirks in obvious enjoyment at their sudden move, ready to lean in for a kiss.

“Asmo. Stay.” They weren’t going to let him get what he wants that easily. Asmo stares in disappointment as he obeys his command. MC leans forward towards his neck, pulling down his shirt slightly and licks from his chest, up towards his jaw. A shiver runs up his spine as his body expresses how much this excites him. His hands are already slivering it’s way towards their lower back to tug them closer to his body, his eyes blazing with more lust than usual. He knew what he wanted and he wanted it now...

MC’s hands explored his body, using their finger tips to tickle certain sensitive places. He groans in pleasure as his hands grip tighter to your clothes, desperate for you to relieve him of his heightened arousal. They place 2 fingers underneath his chin as he desperately leans forward to engage in a kiss.

“Kiss me. Now.” Asmo lunges forward and he doesn’t hold back. He’s rough, lewd with desire and a longing to be touched more. Moans escape their lips as his hands trail over their body, discovering new erotic and sensual places. You should know better than to tease the Avatar of Lust...

“Do you like it when I touch you there, Master?”

Beel

MC was staring at the ceiling when they suddenly felt quite hungry. They thought they’d just quickly go downstairs to grab something to eat and then come back up, easy. But as they head down the stairs, muffled clashing noises could be heard in the kitchen. It wasn’t unusual to be heard in this house, especially with Beel around, so when they turned the corner to see none other than Beel helping himself to the fridge, they weren’t exactly surprised and instead snook up behind him to give him a hug.

He let out a sound of surprise at the sudden touch, and looked down to see MC squeezing at his waist. He gave them a sweet smile and offered them a bit of food. “You hungry too? There’s not much left, but I’ll happily share what’s left with you.” He grinned at them and continued to eat. They sighed as they realised they weren’t going to get much of a reaction out of him this way.

They swiftly let go of his waist and looked up at the tall man before them. “Beel. Stop and look at me. Now.” His body obeyed the order he was given and spun around to face them, so MC grabbed his shirt, and pulled him down into a kiss. Beel dazedly stared at them for a few seconds, once again surprised by the sudden affection, before eventually closing his eyes and pressing into the kiss, deepening it. MC’s hands moved from his shirt to his neck as their hands ran through his messy, orange hair, gripping at it suddenly, making him groan against their lips. “Beel. Lift me onto the counter” His hands quickly lifted them up and harshly placed them onto the counter, never once breaking the kiss. It was filled with passion and both their eyes were lust filled, both wanting more. MC’s hands trailed underneath Beel’s shirt, and towards his back, clawing at it slightly.

Beel started to explore MC’s body, making them moan onto his lips as his fingers ran over sensitive areas, sending chills down their spine and arousal form between their legs. He nibbled on their lip, occasionally breaking the kiss to bite down on their neck. His eyes looked so lewd as he stared at MC, begging for permission to go further.

“Master... I want to taste more of you...”

Belphie

It was a peaceful night with Belphie. He’d asked them to stay and sleep with him, which, of course, they agreed to. But they had to get up because they were hungry. So now here they are, standing in the doorway of the attic, Belphie’s soft snores echoing around the room, the sounds of his breathing and the way his chest rose and fell so soothing to them. They couldn’t get enough of it. They walked over to where he was laying. He was cuddled up in several blankets, his arms tightly wrapped around his favourite pillow. MC was going to just get into bed and go to sleep, but they had other plans..

MC places a hand on Belphie’s shoulder and gently shakes him, no reaction. Didn’t surprise them really. MC eventually decides to crawl onto the bed and sit on top of him. They stare down at him, still sleeping softly, completely oblivious. It’s somewhat cute when they think about it. He actually always talks about being woken up by his true loves kiss so... MC licks their lips and leans down towards Belphie’s ear, giving it soft kisses and licking down towards his jaw. He stirs in his sleep and groans, grasping at their waist. They wiggle their hips playfully and chuckle to themself, once again leaning down towards his ear

“Belphie. Wake up. Now” His eyes bleakly open to MC sitting on top of him, a wet sensation along his jaw line. A smirk creeps across his lips as he looks them up and down, not saying a word. He leans forward to kiss them, but MC only pushes him back down again. “Stay, boy.” The heat from their breath tickles his neck and he obeys willingly, but bucks his hips against them smugly, causing them to gasp. They lean down and cock an eyebrow at him before going back to his neck, running their hand through his hair whilst the other runs up and down his leg. He groans and places his hand on their lower back, pulling them forwards slightly.

They move their hand towards his chin and pull it up so he’s looking at them. They tease him for a bit before slowly connecting their lips together, tongues entwining seconds later. Belphie was desperate for any type of touch, every moment that MC touched him, made him want to lose control. MC felt him become erect underneath their crotch, Belphie often grinding his hips into them to get some sort of friction. He moans against their lips from meer touches from them, he was overcome with clear lust and was waiting on his Masters orders on what he should do next.

“Keep going, just like that, Master...”

[secondhand-trash]

Heart Knot

A/N: this is in honor of the whole 30 minutes in which I knew how to knit because I was bored at a school function and forced my friend who brought an unfinished scarf with her to teach me lmao

Description: You did not have much happy memories regarding both knitting and your past crushes, but the boy that had your heart now just so happened to be a great knitter. 

Pairing: Kita Shinsuke x reader

Word count: 7827

Playlist:

Permanence//Bears In Trees

The Way You Look Tonight//Frank Sinatra

Hiding Tonight//Alex Turner

-

Kita Shinsuke’s first exposure to the art of knitting was through his grandmother, who taught her grandson the ways you could weave anything into something from doing each repetitive action properly and with care.

Something beautiful, something soft, something that could bring warmth to someone else on a harsh winter morning.

Winter in Hyogo could be rough, with inches and inches of snow blocking the road from down the mountains and into the towns. Kita Shinsuke spent his winter days away from school still waking up at the first ray of sunshine beaming through the paper window, his body glued down on the sweet comfort of his futon but still, he never overslept even as other kids his age would protest just for a few extra seconds in the warmth. 

By the time he was done with the daily chores, it would already be way into the afternoon and his tiny hands, soaked in water to wet the towels, would be shaking under the cold. Grandma Yumie always brought out the kotatsu in times like this. “It is a luxury,” she said with a chuckle as her grandson watched in awe at how the tiny round table in the living room had now been transformed into a warm cave, shielding the winter cold out with the blanket draping down the sides, “a reward for those who worked hard in the cold.”

The days he spent with his grandmother was some of his fondest memories, to the point where years later, even as he was old enough to have his own house with paper windows and a round table perfect for being turned into a kotatsu, he still insisted that there weren’t any feeling better than laying under the warm blankets after a hard day at work with the tv playing and a cup of warm tea in his hand.

When he was small, very small, with his fingers still a bit clumsy and not quite able to aim at the little loops held together by the yarn, Kita would sit there and watched as grandma Yumie brought out the baskets and baskets of colourful yarn, all sorts of sizes and patterns, and let him pick which one she should use that day. The afternoon news was playing in the background, and baby Kita had his palms holding on the warm mug of tea that was far more diluted and with way more honey drizzled into it than the one sitting in front of the older woman. His golden eyes all round and focused on the needles going in and out of the woolen piece that grew longer and longer with each flick of her wrist.

He could not figure out what had happened in the quiet hours where he just stared, not yet worked out the way each loop and thread came together in holding everything together, but all he knew was that the scarfs grandma gave him were always the softest and warmest, and comes in all the colours that lighted up the roads of Hyogo that were covered in white.

Kita learnt how to knit when he was old enough to remember the sequence at which the needle thread through the yarn. One hook under the open loop, the other holding it still, before pulling it out and putting the neat knot in place. He started with the thickest needle and the yarn that showed every knot and pattern clearly, before slowly moving to thinner threads and fancier ways of knitting. Now, winter afternoon at the Kita household consisted of grandmother and grandson sitting side by side around the kotatsu, the afternoon programs playing softly at the background as the sounds of yarns brushing against each thread filled the air.

There had never been a single cast out of place in whatever he made, whether it be a scarf or a pair of socks or a little hat for the puppy next doors. Because knitting was about patience, the knowing that you just had to keep repeating and repeating to make sure everything holds together, until you eventually had something good in your hands. It was feeling the tiny bumps under your finger once you had the finished product laid out in front of you, knowing that you put time and care into every single one of them.

Grandma Yumie complimented her grandson on everything he had ever made, smiling until her eyes were just two thin curves as she watched the boy who wasn’t so tiny anymore with his golden eyes fixed on the needle going in and out of each loop, the knitted fabric growing longer with each flick of his wrist.

-

You could not knit to save a life.

But you had tried, you really did. 

Once, when you were 12 and sitting in art class, your eyes beaming at the many balls of yarn your teacher had brought in.

“Today, we’re going to learn how to knit!” The teacher, with pins all over her apron and a book of stickers for the kids who did well poking out of its pocket, said as she placed the plastic box on the table, “By the end of class, you can all bring home something you made to give to your parents!”

You liked art class. It was fun being able to play around with crafts supplies under the disguise of early creativity development, and the things you brought home were always somewhere around the house.

You liked the way you could walk past something you had made and know that it was good enough to be put up, and liked the feeling of showing people the things you were proud of.

You picked out your colours carefully, imaging the way your father would have fitted a dark brown scarf into his work clothes or how mom could have used something in that lovely cream coloured yarn that was ignored by the other kids who went straight for the blues and yellows. You ended up with balls of grey in your arms as you made way back to your seat, thinking that it would go well with, well, everything.

You did not quite remember how you felt about the knitting process itself, all you knew was the excitement budding up in your chest as you just kept repeating and repeating, until the grey bundle of yarn got smaller and smaller.

You knew you could make something they would like, you just knew it.

The outcome of the hour and a half where you did nothing but fidget with yarn and needle was a subtly misformed scarf, a bit crooked at the edges because you forgot how to tie up the piece by the time it was long enough to be thrown around your shoulders and back. It wasn’t exactly the most intricate piece of knitwear, with small ends of the thick thread clumsily tugged back within the grids and some places missing a loop or two. 

But still, it held together nicely with the softest texture, and you were proud of yourself.

Your parents took the gift graciously when you presented it to them like you were handing them something of the uttermost value, complimenting you on your hard work and thought as they felt the piece in their hand. You made your father promised to wear it out the next day and he complied with a grin as he threw the scarf around his neck.

Now that you looked back on it, it was definitely not something a proper adult would prefer to be seen in in the public since it was rather... wonky, to put it lightly.

But you were small, and you did not have any idea that even though you tried what you thought was your best, sometimes your best was just not enough.

Oh, the way you froze when your father handed the pile of loose yarn to you that was all bundled up with a worried stare, your throat tight while you used all the might in you to suppress the urge to let the tears just fall.

You soon learned that loose ends and hasty stitches meant that even the slightest tug would make the whole thing crumble, and hours of your dedication was not a match to even the most accidental pull at the widened hole where you tried to hide all the mistakes you made.

You told yourself you were never knitting ever again at age 11, with your face buried in your pillow at the late nights when you didn’t have to fear letting anyone know that you were crying over a few balls of yarn.

At age 15, you had your first real, serious crush, the kind that made the pitch of your voice go higher unconsciously and the corner of your lips tug up just at a passing thought. Your crush was popular, the type of boys that spoke each word loud and clear like they had endless energy. You thought he was dazzlingly good-looking, even though he still had a bit of the awkwardness of being mid-puberty left in the soft arc of his brows and loop-sided grin. He was the captain of the football team, always the first to dash out the classroom with a dusty ball in his arms during break. You spent a good amount of your recesses just looking out of the window with your elbows propping you up against the frame, pretending to listen to whatever your friends were saying when you were looking at him instead.

Occasionally, he would look up from the field as he jogged backwards, and your heart always skipped a bit at the possibility that maybe his gaze had stopped at you for even just a second.

Holiday season rolled around the corner as you looked out one morning to see dots of white landing on the glass, each speckle of the snowflake clearly visible as it plastered on the window, the one you always pretend to not be looking too longingly out of while doing exactly just that. The nearer your last day of school before winter break was, the more you felt the knot twisting and turning in your stomach at the thought of whether you should try and disguise all that feeling into what could be as simple as a normal holiday greeting, between normal classmates.

It was at a passing that you overheard your crush telling the group of people who were crowding around his table during one lunch break that he thought it was attractive when people hand out handmade gifts, earning a round of high-pitched responses from those who were smiling a bit too widely for it to be natural around him, each one of them claiming that then they would try to make something for him.

You shifted in your seat, pretending that you were just napping on your desk casually instead of pitifully eavesdropping on a conversation you both wished you were part of and was absolutely detested by.

You had long decided that you could not even pretend that you were crafty by any means, but sadly, you were also young and very much so head-over-heels in love with a boy who just announced to everyone who was, like you, trying hard to impress him that he basically preferred people who make their own presents.

So that was how you found your way back to the knitting needle that you had not touched since 4 years ago, after how every single trashy article in every single teen magazine that you, at age 15, read an unhealthy amount of, told you that there was no better present to give that would portray the amount of thought and care you were willing to put into something like a garment that was hand knitted with only the receiver in thought.

It should be quite clear that the editors of those articles were just too lazy to come up with something new and picked the safest, most conventional option to put in there, but you were too desperate to find something you too could do that you didn’t care.

You left school each day in complete darkness now that the sun was long gone in the middle of the day as the end of the year approached, and spent the little free time you had to yourself at home struggling to knit. Your hands were a lot more in control compared to the last time you knitted, but the lack of guidance in every step of the way as you relearnt how to knit all from the very beginning.

It was cold, and your fingers were already hurting from the chill, but it did not stop you from staying up each night trying to get the piece done before it was finally the holidays.

You had spent hours looking for tutorials only, always battling between the knowledge that your skill was not enough to replicate a good half of the videos you had bookmarked and thinking that the easy ones were too basic for you to gift to someone. You settled on a neck warmer, something you could imagine the boy you so pined after wearing while running on the court. And as you held the finished piece up under the light, you were proud of yourself for actually carrying through.

There were no messy threads in the scarf this time, and you were sure this was something that could at least be of use to whoever got it.

The day when you were supposed to gather the courage to hand out the present came sooner than you were ready for. You came back to school early that day, knowing that your crush was usually having morning practice at the hour and no one else would be around. 

To your surprise, there was already another neatly wrapped box inside of his desk drawer by the time you got back. Its tag was hanging out of the tray rather deliberately, like a sly wink and a wave. Your chest tightened that someone was already one step ahead of you, but quickly fed yourself the narrative that it was actually better this way. This way, your gift would not stand out and seemed like it did not belong there. 

It was just a scarf, but the little paper bag that you spent an embarrassingly long amount of time decorating the night before felt so heavy in your hands as you stared blankly at it, the nerves settling in your stomach as your throat tightened at the last minute conflict.

The loud footsteps that neared broke you out of your trance, and you threw the gift bag into your drawer before pretending like you were doing something else. You cursed inwardly when you saw that it was the last person you wished to see at this moment, a rare sentiment given how your eyes usually search for him in a crowd.

The group of boys didn’t seem to pay you much mind as they huffed, laughing at something you did not catch on to as they threw their bags down. You masked the pounding of your chest with a violent stroke of your highlighter against the notebook that opened up hastily in front of you when you heard them going near the table you had been eyeing all morning.

“Huh? What is this?” 

You buried your nose in your book, but glanced at the few boys gathering around the desk from the corner of your eyes. 

Your heart wrenched when you heard one of the boys snorted, before shoving the box into your crush’s chest. “It’s for you.”

The sharp tear made your scalp tingle, but you fought back the urge to sit up straighter in reflex.

Couldn’t let them know you were listening, couldn’t let them know you cared.

“Ah... it’s a scarf,” even in your most delusional mind, there was no way you could ignore the slight hint of annoyance at his voice. 

“Hm, they said they made it themselves.”

The density of the air around you was a stark comparison to the boys’ howling and laughing that followed. The recipient of the gift only shoved the garment into the box roughly before plopping the lid back on.

“So?” one of his friends asked, snickering, “what are you going to do about it?”

The click of his tongue that followed twisted around your throat until all the blood rushed up to your face, burning and suffocating you. “Do you want it?”

“Hell no, why would I want a re-gift?” The other boy yelled with a holler, “why don’t you just keep it yourself  

“Well, I can’t wear it, can I? It’s gonna give them the wrong idea.” The nonchalant way he so easily brushed off the undoubted hours and hours of effort whoever made the gift must have dedicated to the present that was now pushed to the very back of his drawer felt foreign to you. A pang of bitterness welled up in your mouth, running your tongue dry as your mind go blank. 

“Besides, don’t you think getting something handknitted from someone you aren’t with is a bit too suffocating?”

The gift bag in your drawer remained to stay right where it was when other people started rushing into the room, when the class bell rang, when the same boy who you now realised wasn’t as nice as you thought he might be rushed out with the same smile he had on when he came in that morning. 

You shoved it into your bag first thing when you were getting ready to leave, hoping that no one would catch on.

You were surprisingly serene when you tore into hours and hours of effort until it was just a bundle of yarn on the floor.

You were age 15, swearing that you were never doing crushes ever again and finally decided with determination that knitting was just not for you

-

But life has its ways of making you think twice about every promise you had made to yourself.

First in the form of a snowfall you had not expected, and then with a boy who was always prepared for the cold.

Waking up early in the mornings just to tread yourself through the chilly streets sucked, but having to rush out because the initial “5 minutes more” you told yourself as you pulled the futon over your head once more turned into you having to rush out the door with your coat barely even worn properly in the matter of a flutter of your eyes. 

Your mouth was dry and your stomach empty from skipping past the breakfast that had already gone cold on the table by the time you passed it by. It wasn’t until you felt the pain tearing at your skin from the few bits of your body exposed to the specks of snow flowing down onto the back of your hand, so cold that it felt almost like a burn when the feeling settled, that you remembered the mittens you had also left at the side of your dresser. 

Great, just wonderful.

Winter in Hyogo was forgiving on some days, brutal and mocking on the others. The grey clouds were thick and gloomy as you dashed down the road, pulling the collar of your jacket up desperately to shield your face from the wind that you were up against face first, slicing down like blades before you finally made the last turn into the comforting walls of your school building. Your face felt numb of any senses even as you brought your palm up to try and give it some warmth, only to hiss into your hand when the frosted tips of your fingers brushed against your skin.

The bell rang almost right on cue as you stepped into the classroom, letting out a sigh and salvaging in the temporary supply of warmth from your own breath. Your lips were so dry and so chapped from the cold, even just darting your tongue out to swipe over the rough edges had it almost tearing at the thin skin. You winced at the pain, which did not serve you anything other than making the ache worse.

You sighed as you sunk down on your chair, finally able to let your limbs go slack at your sides after being so tense all the way through your walk. The sudden release of the tension you had been holding on you resulted in a broken inhale as you tried to calm the beating dee under the many layers you were wearing, feeling as if you were suffocated in your core with the heat trapped in and only within the center of your body.

“Are you alright?”

Turning to your side was a struggle as you shrugged off the stiff coat you were wearing. You were sure you looked nothing short of ridiculous as the puffer jacket hung loosely around your arms, your arms extended awkwardly to hold it from sliding off the ground. Your state of being was a stark contrast to the boy who was sitting next to you, his back all straight and proper. 

You did not really think much about Kita Shinsuke, even though he had been sitting next to you for almost half a year now. There was something distant about him, like he was in a whole world of his own while everyone else just circulated around. He was always polite, never slipped up, getting back earlier than most and arrived at each function punctually. Your image of him was that he was always paying attention in class while everyone else was drooling off, his voice loud but calm when he was suddenly called to read out whatever passage you were supposed to have read at home but obviously didn’t.

It was strange, you were almost distancing yourself from him despite physically being next to him at all times.

He just didn’t seem so real, didn’t feel very human to you.

“Are you alright?” Kita asked again, this time tilting his head a little seeing that you were looking ahead blankly instead of responding.

You snapped out of your trance, quickly yanking off your jacket to place it on your lap in what you hoped was a swift motion to save the embarrassment of acting like a socially numb idiot.

“Oh, I’m fine,” you smiled, shoving your hands under your coat to try and warm up the fingers you still couldn’t feel under the fleece, “thank you for asking.” You added, almost like a second thought as you grew more and more uneased by his seemingly doubtful gaze.

Kita’s eyes went to your hair that was still not yet tidied up from being tangled up by the wind, the dots of water on your coat that was no doubt left from the snow, and your hands that were now rubbing together again and again under the coat according to his guess.

His brows furrowed at the way you were folding yourself smaller and smaller, pulling the heavy jacket that was about to slip off your lap up against your body desperately.

There was a rush of shiver to your spine at the way he pursed his lips together, and you gulped as subtly as you could while trying to maintain the smile on your face. 

There was a speckle, a tiny bud of warmth setting off in your stomach when he turned around and slipped his hands into his jacket, hung neatly at the back of his chair unlike yours, and took out a small packet. It was a white fabric pocket but you could see the black powder inside from the thin fabric. 

You did not react when he held his hand out, slender fingers holding on the hand warmer mid-air as he waited for you to take it from him. You blinked at the boy who you had never really looked at properly until now, and felt a strange twist in your stomach at the notice that there was a slight flush on his face from the cold, dusting over his cheeks and leading your gaze to his eyes that were looking at you patiently.

He must have thought that you were so strange, you grimaced to yourself when the pang of guilt rushed to your face and burning to the tip of your ears at the remembrance that you had assumed him to be the strange one when you were being so disrespectful right now.

You held out both hands in front of him, looking like a child when he dropped the little bag in your hand. Nothing could stop the sigh from slipping out of your lips when you felt the heat it was emitting, landing on your fingertips like coal in the snow and seeping into your skin.

The warmth travelled from your skin down to your veins, running slowly and slowly until it settled down as a fuzzy tingle in your chest at the thought that it was so warm because he had been the one keeping it in his pocket, likely trapping the heat within his palms when he was holding the warmer himself.

“Thank you Kita kun...” you said appreciatively, swallowing the whine that was threatening to come out with the last note of your voice when you felt your senses slowly returning to you.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, and your heart skipped a beat when he leaned his chin on his palm and gave you a tiny smile, “you should keep it, my hands don’t get cold that easily and I brought mittens.”

You did not speak to him again that day as class started and he, like the good student you never were, put his attention back to things that were more worthwhile. But you could not help but listen carefully for the first time ever when he was once again called to read out the lengthy piece of literature you didn’t study, and feeling a burst of exciting, nerve-wracking warmth budding in your chest.

-

At age 15, you promised yourself you were not doing crushes over dumb teenage boys again. At age 17, you realised that the pang in your chest when Kita Shinsuke replied to your greeting each morning (one that you tried hard to make it sound as casual as one could get, if you may add) with a smile was the same as that when you imagined your old crushed looking up from the ball court to lock gazes with you. 

But Kita was not a dumb teenage boy, he was nice and well-mannered and asked you if you were alright on a winter day. So you told yourself you did not exactly break your promise, even though there was a lingering fear at the knowing that there too was a time when you thought the boy who sneered at the carefully wrapped box on his desk was nice and beaming like the sun.

(You had, however, screamed into your pillow in frustration the day he told you they made him the captain of the volleyball team for the next year when you carefully suggested that he seemed happier than usual. “Captains,” you groaned into your make-shift punching bag, “why are they always captains?”)

Winter passed, and then it was spring. Spring was the time for a new start, but you were not excited about changes. You had been content with a simple “good morning” every day made possible by the convenience of your adjacent tables, but how were you supposed to conceal your yearning for a smile and a nonchalant word of care as nothing out of place if you had to go out your way just to even catch a glimpse at him?　

You had to force yourself, clamp your lips tight together to stop the pitiful squeal that was close to bursting out from the back of your throat when you saw the familiar kanji, the same one as the direction always pointing people forward and the brightest star hanging on the sky, at the “ki” column of the class list. 

Your third and last year and still in the same class, this was a sign, this had got to be a sign.

The anticipation was hard to conceal as you paced down the hallway until stopping at the sign of “3-7″ above the door. The embarrassment immediately followed the initial rush of glee at the boy who was, as expected already there. He was sitting at the first seat at the row leaning by the wall and even though your heart died a little at the conflict that you could not slack in class with the whoever it was standing in front of the blackboard so close to you, you still walked closer to the table right behind his with carefully controlled steps.

“Good morning Kita kun,” you said, still fumbling to find a balanced tone between letting him know you were happy to see him but not too much, glad that you were in the same class but not in a creepy way, hoping that he also searched for your name the way you looked for his but not holding out too much for it.

your throat tightened when he smiled back at you, “Good morning, (y/l/n) san.”

“You are early,” you blurted out, praying that it wasn’t too sudden.

“Yes, I had to stop by the club room to prepare for the upcoming tryouts before coming back.” He had turned around to face you completely, and you searched for everything your brain could come up with to keep the conversation going.

“Oh right, you are the captain now,” you cursed yourself for stating something so obvious in your brain, absolutely loathing air-headed your own voice sounded in your head. You breathed in, mastering your courage to appear confident and charming, “I hope it’s alright if I sit here behind you?”

You were smiling, but your knuckles were hurting from how hard you had to grip at the handle of your bag just to hold yourself back from fidgeting. The chair was already half pulled-out, and you crouched down just slightly as you waited for a response.

You knew you were the one who asked, but what if he said no?

But he didn’t, and not even the fear of appearing like a fool in front of the boy you so wanted to impress could stop you from grinning ear to ear when he laughed. You didn’t think you had heard Kita laugh before. It was an addicting sound, crisp like bells and like the pink petals that were falling off the trees all around campus. 

You knew at that moment you didn’t care if this crush was just as dumb as the last one, or that you might end up looking like a fool for going against what you had so sternly told yourself when you were 15.

Screw 15 year old you, they knew nothing.

“Of course.”

-

Then winter rolled by the corner, as an angry current sweeping the dried leaves off the road and the temperature dropping and dropping until you were taking out your heavy coat from the back of your closet again.

It was with great regret and exasperation that you found out, one year after starting to learn more about Kita Shinsuke, that he was brilliant and absolutely so passionate about knitting.

The way you had a whole storm brewing in your head over something as simple as getting back to your classroom after lunch break to see a very calm, serene Kita at his table, with a ball of yarn on his lap and two needles threading with each other in his hand, was an absolute joke. You had tried to form an interest in volleyball just to have more chances to talk to him, going as far as to sit through the hour long practices matches that Inarizaki always had with other schools at the far back corner of the gym just to have something to bring up in a passing the next day. But of all the things, of all the things this person who seemed to be good at everything liked, it has got to be the one thing that you associated with nothing but bad memories.

“What are you making?” you asked, holding back the screaming thoughts in your head as you slid down into your own seat and leaned forward.

The little glimmer of joy in his eyes was hard to miss, and you were not sure if you want to feel triumphant for finding a new excuse to talk to him or cry because you had not looked at a knitting needle in years.

“I’m knitting socks,” he said and held up the tunnel of knitted fabric dangling off his needles, “it’s almost Christmas, and I wanted to make something practical for my teammates.” 

“Hm?” You nodded, urging him to go on as if your own scalp was not frying from the recoil of what happened the last few times you wanted to make something practical for someone.

“This is for Akagi from class 6,” he immediately added, thinking about how you might not know who Akagi from class 6 was, “he had been complaining about having cold feet at morning practices lately.”

(You did, in fact, know who Akagi from class 6 was, but decided to let him give you the information instead of exposing how much attention you paid to the Inarizaki Volleyball Club.)

Man, you had never wished you knew how to knit as much you do now.

“Can you teach me how to knit?”

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck-

You froze at the words that went straight through your brain to your mouth and vocalised in the quiet classroom. 

“There’s something I want to make,” you gulped, stumbling to force a smile onto your face, “for someone.”

Someone as in, well, him.

You had already braced yourself to chuckle it off when he said that he was busy, or just some sort of well-intended reasoning that would all point to the immediate  conclusion in your head that you were just overstepping boundaries as no one but another classmate who just happened to sit near him for the past year.

But the screaming in your head stopped, leaving your world in absolute silence when he placed the ball of yarn onto his table and pulled another ball out from his bag.

“Sure.”

-

You did not notice, which was strange because you were usually the first to overthink on each of his miniatures, that Kita Shinsuke nearly dropped the needles in his hand when you quickly, in the middle of your inner panicking, suggested that there was someone you wanted to knit for.

He wavered for a brief moment, wondering if he really wanted to teach you how to knit for someone else, before feeling a sour guilt that he was being a bad friend by hesitating to help you when you asked.

He wondered who it was that you wanted to make something for, he thought to himself as he handed you the spare pair of needles he had.

Must be someone important to you.

-

So every day until you eventually go on break for Christmas and the new years, you would go back to your classroom early during lunch period to learn how to knit from Kita Shinsuke, who was coincidentally who the eventually finished piece that you hope you would finish was meant for.

You went into this with no thought other than to suck up on your own impulsiveness and just milked what had become of it as much as you could, trying to fish the opportunity of spending extra time with him. You were not even sure if you would actually give him the finished piece if there would be any, you were not sure if you were prepared to go down the progress of determination turned hesitation turned eventual heartbreak that last time you had to muster up any courage just to gift something to another person.

Even though this was all an excuse for you to talk to Kita, there was no denying that the 3 years in which you avoided knitting only made your hands even clumsier than before. He was always patient, always stopping his hands with whatever sock or hat or glove he was making to take a look at what would hopefully become an intact piece of knitwork dangling off of your needles.

“Let me see.”

The soft hum from his nasal every time you called for his assistant was enough to have you weak, and you were so glad that he put all his focus on helping you because then he wouldn’t notice you staring at him rather shamelessly.

On days when the weather was good, it was as if his eyes were the winter sun, the same one that was spilling in through the windows and casting a soft halo around him, all while his brows contorted in concentration over your work.

It turned out that Kita Shinsuke was great at teaching, and while much slower than him, you eventually managed to sit in comfort silent with him in the tender winter afternoons of Hyogo and let the sounds of thread pulling filled the air. You were trying but he was a natural, even though he claimed that it was just a direct result from years, a decade of practicing.

In the time you had struggled to focus on one piece, you had seen Kita worked on a multitude of things you were sure you should not even attempt to make. There was a nice thick pair of gloves for Ojiro, the trusty spiker who was feeling bothered by his dry hands from cold water. Another pair of gloves but this time fingerless because, to quote Kita, Suna Rintarou probably wouldn’t wear anything that kept him away from his lovely touch screen. You saw woollen hats twice but in different colours, and he had explained that he thought of making something different for the ruckus twin boys but figured they would just get into yet another fight over who gets what.

Crush aside, you wished you had a slither of his skills.

“I think anyone can be good at knitting,” he said, handing you back the row of maroon casts you had asked him to check up on with an approving nod. His fingertips just barely brushed against yours as he let go of the needles, sending shivers up your forearm that you were so glad was covered by your cardigan.

You laughed, brushing your finger at the few spots that you struggled to get right on the pattern, “I doubt.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean?” he said, pointing towards the casts that got neater and neater as you progressed visibly, “you are already getting better.”

You pursed your lips, toying with the unfinished hem.

You had learnt a long time ago that sometimes you tried your best, but the best was not always enough. Sometimes, the best would get you a huff and a complaint that your heart and soul was too heavy, too suffocating. Sometimes the more and more you put into something meant that you did not know where to put it anymore once you tore it apart after no longer having someone to give it too, but it was too much to shove back into the hole in your heart.

You wondered if your best or your “better” was enough this time.

“Kita kun.”

“Hm?” he hummed, like how he always did when you look up at him from your hands. But you did not look at him this time, twirling the loose end of the yarn in your index finger instead.

“Do you think getting something handknitted from someone you aren’t with is suffocating?”

Kita frowned at the sad smile that was on your lips. You were looking at what he assumed would be a scarf from the casting and the patterns, rubbing at the slightly crooked cable. Were you thinking of the person you want to give it to? Were you worried that they wouldn’t like it? He had made himself stop speculating who it was that made you get back early each day and struggle so clearly with something you didn’t seem to exactly enjoy just to make something thoughtful for them, but he couldn’t stop the bitterness from welling up that it was someone who made you worry over them finding you suffocating.

He wanted to tell you that anyone who thought so was not someone who deserved your time, but swallowed it down anyways.

“No,” he said, and you finally looked up at him, “I think it is rude to think that of someone who put effort into doing anything with me in mind.”

And there it was again, the same warmth that tingled until it was all you could feel. Like a hand warmer, like a simple hello in the mornings, like the winter sun that was shining on you.

Right.

You smiled, a genuine one this time.

Because Kita Shinsuke was not just some dumb crush, because he wasn’t like the boy who never really did look up to see you, because you were ok with breaking every single promise you had made to shield yourself off just for a chance with him.

He seemed confused at your sudden change of mood, but you only shook your head and picked up the knitting needles again.

“You’re right.”

-

To say that everyone was hyped for winter break was an understatement.

But you, you were just really nervous.

You greeted Kita when you came back in the morning as usual, feeling the nerve bundling up in your stomach already just from knowing that if this went badly, you could not bear it to pretend to still be his friend from then on. Classes did not pique your interest in the slightest, and the only time you even diverted your gaze upwards from the book you were staring at blankly was when Kita’s voice rang in the classroom, blocking the blackboard from your view as he stood up to answer some question you did not know the answer to.

He looked warm, you remarked to yourself as your eyes scanned through the grey vest he was wearing.

Did he make it himself? Maybe you should ask him for a tutorial later.

And then you remembered that it was the last day before break, and your knitting sessions with him was already over. Your scarf was finished, he even complimented you on it. (“I’m sure whoever got this will be very pleased,” he had said, and you were just praying to whatever entity you could think of that he would still think so when you give it to him) It wouldn’t make sense for you to go to him anymore, and it would be awkward for both of you if he knew that you were only learning how to knit to be around him.

Your hands were so cold, nearly in pain as you grip on the box that you had been hiding in your bag all day long. You backed out of giving it to him during lunch when no one else was around, deciding that you would rather not stare at his back for another few hours after basically exposing yourself. But the day was about to come to an end. The winter sun was always gone early, and the sky was lit up in shades of orange and red as students rushed home for the start of their break.

You sucked in a deep breath when you saw him packing up his things after the end-of-class bell rang.

“Kita kun?”

“Yes?”

All you could hear was the beating in your ears and the hilt of what was a steady rhythm when he turned to look at you. His voice still made you melt, and heat spread on your face like the fiery cloud hanging on the sky from the setting sun.

Warm, bright, beautiful.

“This is for you,” you tried to stop your voice from shaking as you looked into his eyes, the same ones that widened when he saw the box on your extended hands, “thank you for helping me all through last year.”

You had to remind yourself to breath as Kita took the wrapped present. “Can I open it?” he asked, his hand hovering above the ribbon.

You tried to maintain the smile on your face.

“Of course.”

Kita knew the scarf that was sitting inside the box, he could point out which cast was his doing and which ones you had asked him for help even with his eyes closed. He had wondered about what you had done with it, whether the person who got it was worth your heart and soul.

He had wished, with sincerity, that it would go well for you but there was also a selfish part of him that pondered, contemplated how it might go if he told you he would love to have that scarf.

You grimaced when he didn’t say a word, before slowly closing up the box. You had prepared yourself for this outcome, but part of you still felt a familiar sting in your chest.

Until you saw him digging into his own bag and pulling out a tiny bag. You were still dazed as he handed it to you, his fingers holding onto the handle and a smile on his face as he waited for you to take it. You reached out with both palms, before the weight of it settled in your hand.

It was a pair of gloves, soft and sturdy in your hands without a single stitch out of place. Your finger brushed against the intricate patterns at the center before stopping at the elastic hem. You could not help but slid it on, gasping in awe at how it fit perfectly.

Kita was smiling at you, and he was throwing the end of the scarf to his back when you looked up at him. The one he had worn that morning when he made way back to school under the cold was shoved into his bag and replaced by the less well-made one you had given him.

But he didn’t care, he loved it.

“Should we go?” He asked, holding his own gloved-hand out, “They are closing the school soon.”

You finally got to be mesmerised by him without having to shy away, and the way his eyes were full of you could only be matched to the sun that was setting outside, rays of what would be the last of its shine until tomorrow reflecting off the snow.

Beautiful, soft, and had your heart all warm and gooey.

“Let’s go.” You replied, grinning ear to ear, before taking his hand.

And it was so, so warm.

[thesweetestkimberry]

your own after party

pairings: hanta sero x reader

summary: wanting to escape the party, you and sero decide to have a little fun on your own.

warnings: SMUT, not much story honestly? not at all serious sex, just some good ol smut, squirting, oral- female and male receiving, overstimulation, curses, bit of underage drinking, words that’ll probably make you cringe, kind of latina reader and latino sero, crack???

notes: MINORS DNI,, CHARACTERS ARE IN THEIR THIRD YEAR MEANING THEY ARE 18+,, this was my first time writing a full smut fic so pls take it easy, like i said in the warnings this is giggly and not very serious sex.

『° 。✰˚⋆☾⋆。✰°』

The party your classmates had thrown for the end of finals was a big one, especially being in your third year, it seemed like a momentous occasion. Drinks were snuck in, music was pouring into the room from the large speakers Jiro supplied, bodies were mixing and mashing together on the self proclaimed dancing area, and people were overall having a good time.

You and Sero were having a blast. solid red cups in hand, mixed with juice and alcohol that now flowed through your systems, offered a pleasant warmth in your bodies. Still conscious of thought and actions, however loose when it came to body functions like how tense you usually stood during parties.

the main lights were out but the colorful LEDs and party lights entertained everyone as they let themselves go in the dark, actions being momentarily lit up by bright colorful lasers and spotlights.

“having fun babe?” Sero asked you, his arm around your waist as he took a sip from his drink, eyes glued to you though. the roar of the music muffled his words, but you were somehow able to make out his question, nodding and also taking a sip of your drink as well, making a face at the taste of the alcohol.

“yeah!” was all you responded, looking around the room at your classmates who also mingled with students from other classes.

unsure if it was the alcohol in your system, or just you feeling yourself, but you did feel a bit bold at the moment, and deciding to turn in early, you planned on taking your boyfriend with you.

You smirked and turned around to grab Sero by the front of his shirt, “let’s go cariño.” You said as you watched his face flush, his stupid grin staying plastered on his face, “yes ma’am!” He said as he pushed you both into the elevator, not even bothering to let anyone know you were heading back up to the rooms.

One of his hands was placed on your hip, pressing you against the wall of the elevator, while the other pressed against the wall beside you, caging you in.

Your lips moved with his feverishly as you cupped his cheeks, pulling him closer. one of your hands went around to tug at the hair at the base of his neck, his brows furrowing at the feeling.

His hands moved down to your ass, where he gave it an affectionate tap, slightly bending down and holding the back of your thighs, “jump.” He said against your lips, you groaned in distaste at the request but did as you were told.

You jumped, only a little, but that was all Sero needed to lift you up by your thighs and press you back against the elevator wall.

His lips left yours for a moment, making you whine. Fortunately, his lips were back on you as quick as they left, this time on your neck, your head thrown back in pleasure.

He listened to your sounds as he placed gentle open mouthed kisses onto your neck and collar. not waiting another moment before he began to harshly suck on any spot he deemed worthy, leaving fresh red bruises in his wake. you knew they would eventually turn into darker marks, littering your skin and becoming a hassle to cover, but you didn’t care in that moment.

You would tug at his hair when he tended to bite a little too hard, making your moans come out a little more high pitched than the others.

The elevator stopped on his floor and he set you down, only for you to drag him to his room hand in hand. His smile returned, looking a bit dazed as his eyes clouded with lust, yours not looking any different.

Arriving at his door, you kissed him again, wrapping your arms around his torso and fishing for his keys in his back pocket. you giggled when he pulled away and started peppering your face with kisses, pulling you against him in a tight hug.

You pulled away and turned to unlock the door, only to feel him press up against you, your breath shuddering at the contact. He leaned down to your ear and whispered, “come on babe, put the key in.” his words making you breathlessly laugh, his own mixing with yours.

You once again did as you were told and inserted the key, Sero letting out a moan in time, making you throw your head back against his chest in laughter, “you’re such a dumbass.” You said fondly as you turned your head to kiss him, fumbling to unlock the door, “okay bakugou.” He said teasingly, making you gasp as you opened the door.

“Fine, I’ll just go to bed.” You teased back, taking off for his bed and flinging yourself onto it, kicking your shoes off in the process.

Sero laughed and took the keys out of the door, shutting and locking it once he was inside. You didn’t even bother to turn on the light. The fairy lights you had gotten for him, which were currently on his room divider and bed post, were enough to light the room in a soft glow. adding to how beautiful he thought you looked.

He kicked off his shoes and removed his shirt, running to his bed and throwing himself on top of you, making you squeal out. “Hanta! Get off!” You laughed as he went limp, letting his full weight rest on you, while his mouth curved into a grin.

He poked your sides, making you squirm, knowing how ticklish you were never seemed to escape his mind as he teased you endlessly with that knowledge. You shouted in surprise as he straddled you and began to tickle your sides, making you shriek with laughter, his smile growing at the sound.

“Hanta! Baby stop! I’m gonna pee!” You cried out as he laughed out loud with you, finally ceasing his torture. He calmed himself and bent down to rest his forehead on yours, smiling when he met your eyes which were practically squinting with how wide your smiles were.

“I love you Hanta.” You said throwing your arms around his neck, “I love you too.” He said softly as he gave you a gentle peck on the lips, trailing down to the last bit of exposed skin at the collar of your shirt. His hands roamed down to the hem as he began to toy with it, looking up at you through his lashes, “can I?” He asked, as you nodded.

He slowly pulled your shirt over your stomach, making you instinctively place your hands there to try and hide yourself, “babe, we talked about this.” He said gently as he kissed your cheek.

“I know, I know. I just...” you trailed off as he scooched back and took hold of your wrists, gently prying them away from your soft stomach. You turned your face to hide in his covers, but gasped when you felt his lips leaving small kisses along your stomach.

“You don’t have to do that every time.” You said embarrassed, “I’ll keep doing it until you see yourself the way I see you... perfect” he said, gently pushing your shirt high enough for you to tug it over your head yourself, tossing it to the ground.

You were about to use your arms to try and cover your bra-clad chest, however, deciding against it, making Sero smile widely at you. as a small reward, he leaned down to place a proud kiss on your lips.

Sitting up onto your elbows, you made a move to remove your bra, only for Sero to grab your hands and ask you if you were okay with it. You cupped his face and pulled him into a kiss while his hands moved behind you and unclasped your bra like you had taught him.

Once off, you laid back down and watched his eyes roam over your exposed form, pupils dilating. “God you’re gorgeous.” He said hiding his face in the crook of your neck, making you laugh, “oh shush.” You responded, gently swatting at his already exposed chest, “I’m serious!” He said coming back up and looking at you.

“These shorts need to come off don’t you think?” You said fiddling with the adjustable strings at the front of your shorts, “I think they do.” He said as you hooked your thumbs under your shorts and pulled them down, back arching to get them over your butt, making Sero hiss.

“You good baby?” You asked concerned as he nodded, a lopsided smile on his face, “yeah, you just.. Rubbed against me that’s all.” He said gesturing to the front of his sweats where there was a notable tent being pitched there.

You giggled and kicked your shorts off, leaving you now only in your (color) cotton underwear that had a little bow in the front. Sero loved this pair because he loved to kiss the satin bow, knowing it was so close to the place where you really wanted him, but felt so far at the same time.

You had bent your legs and spread them for him as he rested in between them, his arms wrapping under your knees and pulling you close. He loved to feel your thighs, and that’s what he did. Gently massaging them, knowing how insecure you were about them. He also placed gentle kisses along them until he reached your core.

You whined and gripped the covers as he placed a kiss onto your covered clit, making you flinch at how sensitive you were already.

“Babe?” He asked as he played with the waistband of your panties, gently pulling it and letting it smack against your skin, the sound being more noticeable than the sting

“Yes please.” You begged as you arched your hips, allowing him to take off your underwear and watched as he stared.

“Fuck...” he cursed under his breath as you felt his cock pulse against your thigh, “Can I? Please?” He asked, inching his fingers closer to your cunt, “yeah...” You said breathlessly as you propped yourself onto your elbows, throwing your head back with a heavy breath as he gently inserted his middle finger.

You took deep breaths as he leaned down to give you a kiss, making you moan at how his palm rubbed against your puffy clit. He gave you a few seconds to adjust to his finger while he whispered praises into your ear, telling you how well you were doing so far.

He pulled out his finger half way and put it back in up to his knuckle, making him groan at how your walls were basically sucking him in, making him think back to what it feels like once he was actually inside you. inserting another finger, this time his index, you squirmed at the pressure, “I know baby, but you’re doin so good for me.” He said gently as he pushed his fingers in and out of you, smiling as you tried to hide your face behind your hands.

“How many times have we done this and you’re still trying to hide from me?” He asks with a laugh, “sh-shut up.” You bit back making him grin.

After about a few minutes of that, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a condom, making you arch your brow. “One should always be prepared.” He said as he struggled to open it, “didn’t you say you were gonna go out with Kaminari earlier?” You asked him, watching in amusement he dropped the condom, “shhh” he said while running a hand over your face, making you sputter and laugh, smacking his hand away.

While occupied with the condom, he had failed to notice you crawling over to him, and it wasn’t until he felt you tugging at his sweats and boxers, that he looked down at you, dropping the condom yet again.

“Is this okay babe?” You ask as you gently tug at his waistband, the sight making him gulp, “y-yoU-“ he began voice cracking, making him clear his throat while you softly laughed at him, “ahem! You don’t have t-to.” He said as he watched you kiss his abdomen, making him whine.

“But I want to baby.” You said as you looked up at him through your lashes, making him swear and run a hand through his hair, “y-yeah, go ahead”. He said nodding breathlessly as you pulled down his sweats and boxers making him sigh in relief.

He always tended to get a bit embarrassed whenever you decided to go down on him, so he tried to lighten the mood a bit,” do you umm.. do you want to hear some music?” He asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

“fuck yeah!” You responded, taking hold of his dick and making him groan as he grabbed your phone. “W-What do you wanna listen to?” He asked as you slowly began to pump your hand around his length, moving next to him so you could see your playlists, “play that one.” You told him gently as you continued to pump your hand around him. his hands trembled as they hovered over the shuffle button of the playlist, his breaths coming out in short puffs and fogging up the glass.

He had turned on the Bluetooth, per your request, so that it would connect to a speaker you had gotten him for his room. The music started, and the beat kept just the right pace.

You leaned down and took the tip into your mouth, pushing a few strands of hair behind your ear and swirling your tongue around the tip.

He saw you struggling with your hair, so he brushed it back with his fingers and tied it back with a scrunchie. He had gotten into the habit of keeping them on his wrist when you two had started talking, seeing as though you always seem to lose yours.

He sighed deeply as he held onto your ponytail and watched you take him into your mouth. sitting back on his knees while you sucked him off, soft grunts and groans came from him while you bobbed your head to the consistent beat of the music.

pressing the tip of your tongue against his frenulum, he choked on air and thrust up into your mouth, hitting the back of it and making you slightly gag.

“Babe please.” He begged, thinking about how he wouldn’t last if you kept going. You seemed to get the message and pulled off of him with a wet ‘pop’ making both you and Sero turn pink, “Just lay back.” He whispered, watching as you fell back onto his sheets and made yourself comfortable.

He made his way back in between your thighs, and groaning at how your juices were leaking and coating the inside of your thighs. This time, he managed to open the condom with no problem, rolling it on and taking hold of himself, gripping the base a bit.

“Ready?” He asked as he lined himself up with your entrance making you whimper, “yes baby.” You responded reassuringly as he bent over to rest his forehead against yours, both his hands intertwining with yours and eyes screwing tight in concentration.

He began to slowly push in, making you both gasp at how quickly your body accepted him. He continued to slowly push inside you until he bottomed out, hips meeting yours perfectly. “How you feelin babe?” He asked, concentrated on staying still for you.

You nodded and gently laughed at how serious of a face he was making, only to stare at him when he groaned at how you tightened around him, “s-shit! Hold on, don’t do that- oh fuck.” He gasped as he slightly thrusted into you, making you whine.

“Shit I’m sorry! Are you okay?” He asked concerned while you tried not to laugh, “I’m fine baby,” you began as you cupped his cheek with one of your hands, the other still intertwined with Sero’s, “you can move now.” You said as he nodded, beginning to slowly pull out, and making you both groan.

Making sure only the tip was left in you, he pushed back in, a little faster this time making you mewl. Once he was sure you were okay with his size, he began to thrust, first at a slow pace, matching that of the beginning of the current song.

But as the tempo of the music picked up, so did his hips. “Ah fuck! Hanta!” You moaned out as he moved to hold the underside of your knees, pressing them up to your chest. “Oh shit!” He grunted out as he began to pound into you at this point, both of you letting out noises only you two could hear.

He bent down to kiss you, this kiss being more intense than the others. This one was full of fire, tongues writhing against one another as you both swallowed each other's moans, cries and breaths.

His thrusts became more forceful than before as he watched your breasts, entranced at the way they moved due to his thrusts. only urging him to go harder and faster, making you cry out in the process.

Suddenly, he pulled out, a sound of a mixture of confusion and dissatisfaction passing your lips, but before you could protest, he leaned down to your ear, “on your hands and knees.” He said roughly as you flipped over quickly, arching your back and sticking your ass out for him to see.

As he admired the position, you reached a hand under you and spread open your cunt, feeling your juices drip onto your hand, Sero groaned aloud and threw his head back as he gripped his hair. You laughed at his reaction and turned your head to look at him, “please baby, put it back in.” You whined due to the loss of feeling his cock ravishing your insides.

He got up on his knees and pressed into you again, the new position making you cry out, this one hitting deeper.

You tried to grip at the bed sheets, only for Sero to take hold of both your wrists and tie them together behind your back with his tape. You gasped at the sudden change, but moaned at the restriction. How badly you wanted to grab the sheets or fist his hair, but your hands remained bound behind you, your face digging into the mattress while you screamed as he hit that one particular spot inside you that made you see stars.

Now taking note of where that spot was, not only did he thrust up into you, but he pulled you onto his cock at the same time, hitting that delicious spot with enough force to make you forget your name.

without warning, he reached down to rub at your clit that had been begging for attention, making you cry into the bed and causing your hips to jolt at the added pleasure. Soon enough, a familiar knot began to form in your lower abdomen.

Your moans began to get higher and his thrusts a little sloppier, letting him know that you both were close. “Shit.. (y/n), t-the way you’re sucking me in is- ah!”

As you both neared your ends, he leaned over to your ear, unintentionally hitting deeper inside you, he whispered, “cum for me, mi amor.” He said, making you gasp, the knot in your abdomen snapping and eyes going cross eyed as your mouth opened into a silent scream. Sero was not far behind because after a few hard thrusts, he stilled inside you with airy breath and whispered curses as came into the condom.

he moaned at the way your walls were throbbing around his cock, almost milking him for all he had. He carefully pulled out and removed the condom, haphazardly tossing it into a trash bin by the door. You on the other hand, being too tired to move, stayed face down ass up on the bed, making Sero laugh.

“Babe? Mind untape-ing me?” You asked with a tired giggle, only for him to smile back at you, only this time, a more sinister look hid in his eyes, “babe?..” you ask confused as he moved his face down to your still-dripping cunt.

he moved closer making you jolt, “Hanta, what are you- AH” you cried out as he attacked your oversensitive clit with his tongue, the sensations making you cry and back away to no avail.

“No! S-Sero please! I can’t!” You cried out as tears of pleasure began to form as he held onto your thighs tightly, not letting you move away as he devoured your cunt.

You sobbed into the bed as your legs began to shake, making him laugh into you. you shuddered at the vibrations of his laugh and moaned uncontrollably, “Is my baby about to cum again?” He said teasingly as he furiously circled your clit and prodded your insides with his tongue.

Your toes began to curl and you tried to get out of his hold, your moans getting higher and higher, until they suddenly got caught in your throat.

A gush of fluid sprayed out of you making Sero sit up straight. you let out a sharp sob at the overstimulation, your boyfriend frozen as you came down from your high, managing to think about what he was going to say next.

he didn’t say anything until his gaze fell onto your surprised face.

“Did I just-“ “did you just-“ you both spoke at the same time, the two of you still in awkward positions. “I didn’t know I could do that.” You weakly laughed out as Sero gently cut you out of the tape, kissing your wrists softly and gently turning you on your back.

“That was so hot... I’m gonna have to make you do that again.” He said nuzzling into your chest, his arms wrapping around you tightly while you played with his hair, legs intertwined.

“Do you want me to run a bath?” He asked, snuggling up to you more, making you laugh, “yes please. But, amor?” You call, continuing when he hums in acknowledgment, “I don’t think I can move.” You say with a light chuckle, the both of you laughing at the predicament.

“God you’re amazing.” He said as he leaned up to kiss you, only for you to pull away after a few seconds, “what’s wrong? Are you okay?” he asked concerned as you shook your head, “yeah. I just like this song.” You said making him laugh and litter your face with kisses.

『° 。✰˚⋆☾⋆。✰°』

my phone is on 3 percent lmao,, this was just a fic i wrote when i just needed some comfort,, please don’t take it seriously 😭

[usmsgutterson]

Page Eighty-Three- Kaz Brekker

Real (Page Eighty-Three series, part 3)

And thus, here we arrive at the end of the Page Eighty-Three series! I’ve been working on it almost a week now, and had the idea brewing in my brain for two weeks beforehand, so, considering the way that I’ve chosen to publish all the parts, it’s not gonna be a very emotional goodbye for you guys, but for me, oddly enough, it is?

Its the first fic I’ve done that’s been more than two parts, and I guess that adds to it? I don’t know! But, anyways, on with it!

Also, a gentle reminder, I only have Kaz being a little on the touchier side because this is a bit of an AU of sorts, and they’re around twenty four in this last part, which gave him time to work on his trauma more and get comfortable with touch!

Fic type- fluffy as fuck

Warnings- a very brief mention of the flashback in the first chapter (to be specific, nina says ‘stopped you from getting hatecrimed’) and a brief sexual innuendo

T H R E E Y E A R S L A T E R 

You knocked out after you’d killed your father, and went home completely unconscious on Inej’s boat, tucked onto a cot with Kaz at your side. Genya had decided to spend a little time around Ketterdam, get to know the ins and outs and provide intel for Nikolai when he asked for it, and Nina had decided that her home could be Ketterdam for four months of every year. 

Inej did her thing, catching and killing slavers all around the globe, but her visits to Ketterdam became more frequent after you’d gotten back. 

Jesper took your amplifier and made it a project for himself, removing the claw from the obsidian and instead using his fabrikator abilities to turn it into a bracelet that you wore on your right hand, made of gold, with the claw dulled out so that it didn’t poke you when you moved your wrist.

A year after you’d returned home, when yourself and Kaz had gone into his office one morning, book clutched in one of your hands, the other interlaced with Kaz’s fingers, you found a box sitting on his desk.

A note from Zoya was taped to the top of it. 

A top tier bitch deserves a top tier amplifier, it read. Bracelet. Wear it on your right wrist. It’ll go with the bear claw wrapped in gold.

You kept the note, reading it to yourself whenever you needed a laugh, giggling about it with Nina when she needed a laugh, too. 

All of those small moments ended up leading to a much bigger one, though. The day that Kaz proposed. 

It was a pretty simple proposal, but you loved it. 

--

“I had to get advice from Jes about this,” was how he started it, even before he’d gotten down onto one knee. “He proposed to Wylan in the fall, and I know that the Winter makes Ketterdam look absolutely stunning, and I know that you like the scenery, so, well, here we are.” 

You’d been walking around Ketterdam, the clicking of Kaz’s cane against the pavement a soothing sound for the both of you. 

You’d managed to make it near the outskirts of Ketterdam just by walking, as Kaz’s leg was being decent to him and he wanted to walk until you’d arrived at one of the more scenic spots. You indulged him for the sake of it, making sure you took breaks and that he got water when he was tired. 

It’d been snowing, and the sky had yet to darken beyond a light grey. You and Kaz both had snow in your hair, but to one another, it just added to handsomeness, so neither of you moved to brush the snow out of your hair or off your faces. 

“When we were seventeen,” he began, feeling for the box in his pocket. The one with a ring inside, cushioned by red, velvety fabric. “You read me a quote from the book I’d gotten you that day. You’ve memorized just about every poem in it since, and I happen to have done the same thing.” 

“The quote that you read to me was from The Sun and Her Flowers. It was on page eighty three,” he grinned at you, a fully fledged smile. Something he saved for you and you exclusively.

“I’m going to change the wording a bit, because it’s in the past tense, and we’re not past tense. The quote was ‘you were mine, and my life was full,’,” he said. “I’m changing it to ‘you are mine, and my life is full.’ Because thats how I feel.”

“Kaz?” You asked. “Do you have something planned?” He raised an eyebrow at you as he clutched the box.

“I suck at words, so, from Rupi Kaurs book Milk and Honey, I offer you this,” he carefully got down onto a knee, using his cane to keep him steady for a few quiet moments as you realized what was happening. 

“‘You are every hope and dream I’ve ever had, in human form.” He pulled out the ring, opening the box and holding it out to you. “That’s page forty nine, love.” 

“If you can’t think of an answer, please, just-- anything works,” if Jesper had told sixteen year old Kaz Brekker that he’d end up on his knees, begging you for a response to his proposal at just twenty two, he’d have called Jesper crazy.

“Yes,” you mumbled. “Yes, Kaz Brekker. If you’re asking me to marry you, it’s an immediate yes.” He used his cane to get himself up to standing again, slipping the ring onto your ring finger and accepting the hug that you pulled him into.

You were going to marry Kaz Brekker, the love of your life, and you couldn’t wait for it. 

--

The day seemed to come at you quickly, even though you’d not set the date until Winter of year that you turned twenty four. 

First, it was calling Nikolai and asking if you could cash in the reward for killing your father and doing him and the world a justice that they deserved, then it was finding suitable tuxedos and sending out invitations and planning a million different things at once. 

But, eventually, you, Jesper, Wylan, Genya, and Nina, were all on Inejs boat, headed toward the Little Palace.

Then, all of the sudden, you were in the last stretch of time before the wedding. Alina, Mal, Genya, Zoya, and Nina were talking as Genya tailored you, getting rid of some of the blemishes and fixing up little things about your face that you’d asked her to tailor until the end of the ceremony. 

“It’s weird,” Alina said, pressing a kiss to Mals cheek as she glanced at her own wedding ring. “I remember you as this fourteen year old boy who used to gawk at the attractive guys in the Second Army, the boy who resented his powers and swore at his father at any chance that he got, and now you’re and you’re completely different.”

“Different how?”

“Kaz Brekker,” Genya said, running her finger under one of your eyes gently, as to get rid of your eyebags. “He’s good for you.”

“And you don’t resent your powers anymore,” Zoya adds. “You don’t use them often, but you don’t resent them.” 

“You use them, don’t you, mate?” Mal quipped. “Or were my eyes tricking me when I went to wake you and Brekker up this morning, only to find you keeping light out of your room with a flick of your bloody wrist?” 

“I was tired,” you pouted. “Kaz and I both were!”

“Ah, newlyweds,” Nina joked.

“It’s not like that!” You shouted. “Zoya, help me out!”

“He’s able to kiss you now,” she said. “Like, with tongue and stuff. Theres no reason he wouldn’t be able to enjoy a fun little tumble with you here and there!”

“’Tongue, and stuff,’” Mal repeated. “Yes, Zoya, because, as a twenty six year old woman, that’s totally adult phrasing.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to describe it any better,” Nina quipped. Genya and Alina hummed their agreement as Genya moved to your hair, fluffing it and styling it so it that it looked nice as you adjusted the cuffs on your dress shirt. 

“Wheres my blazer?” You asked, grabbing your tie from Genyas lap, tying it as she evened out some of the color near your roots. 

“Closet,” Alina answered. “I’ll get it for you!” Mal checked his watch.

“We’ve got three minutes to get down there,” he said. “Lets make the most of Y/Ns remaining 180 seconds unmarried.” You laughed, rolling your eyes as Genya stood, helping you up after.

Nina shot Genya a glance, and she took the hint, ushering Alina, Mal and Zoya out of the room and passing Nina your blazer as she left. 

Nina helped you into your blazer, running her thumb along your cheek with a smile. 

“I never thought I’d see Kaz Brekker married,” she said. “But hey, I guess stopping you from getting hatecrimed had it’s benefits, didn’t it?” 

You laughed, shrugging.

“I think that we’ll rebuild some of the Slat,” you said. “Make the rooms bigger. Get plaques declaring whos room is whos.”

“A golden plaque with Nina Zenik emblazoned on it?”

“Bolted to your bedroom door, Neens.” 

“I love you, Morozova.” She said, trapping you into a tight hug.

“I love you back, Zenik.” You said. “Now, c’mon. I don’t think anyone would take too kindly to me being late for my own bloody wedding, would they?” 

--

The wedding was small, taking place close to the entrance of the Little Palace. There were no chairs to sit on, but the few guests you’d invited didn’t mind it whatsoever. 

The guest list was fairly small, considering your tight knit little family. Wylan was Kaz’s best man, Your best woman was Nina. The people standing in the small crowd were all familiar faces.

Wylans mother, Marya Hendriks, and Jespers father, Colm Fahey were the oldest there. Among them were Nikolai, Alina, Mal, Genya, Rotty and Specht, and the two members of the Dregs who’d originated the King of the Barrel nicknames. Their names were Terrowin and Kira, and when you caught their eyes, they were beaming at you both.

Jesper was officiating, and as you met his gaze, you remembered how he was practically bouncing off the walls the day that you’d asked him to officiate. 

“Okay, now that they’re both here, we can begin!” Jesper couldn’t hide his excitement.

“Mr. Brekker,” Jesper laughed through the words. He’d not called Kaz ‘Mr. Brekker’ unless he was doing so in a jokey context. You knew that, had it been anyone elses wedding, they’d probably have gotten angry at Jesper for giggling through the words, but for you and Kaz, it just added to an already perfect day. “Do you take Y/N as your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do,” he said. 

“Mr. Morozova,” Jesper glanced at you, and you met his gaze, having to stifle laughter when you realized just how wide his grin was. How happy he seemed. He looked like he was about to start bouncing off the walls and screaming with joy. “Do you take Kaz as your lawfully wedded husband?”

“Hells yes,” you said, giggling slightly. For a moment, Kaz let his lips lift into a grin. You matched it with your own smile and took his hand into yours.

“You’ve prepared your own vows, so, Mr. Brekker, sir, you go first!” Kaz glanced at Jesper inquisitively, grin still on his face as he started talking and met your eye.

“I’ve loved you as long as I’ve known you,” he said. “And when my heart says something, I’ve learned to listen to it. I love you with my entire heart and so much more, and I hate that I’m not good with words, because that’s all I can say. Nothing else accurately cultivates the feelings I’ve felt for you since that night, when you were broken and bruised underneath that saintsforsaken lamplight. I promise to love you every minute of every day, Brekker.” You’d agreed to change your last name to his. You’d be Y/N Brekker by the end of the night.

“Mr. Brekker,” Jesper said. “Since you’ll be married in a few minutes and I have to get used to that last name on you, you may say your vows!” 

“When I was fifteen, I was caught and beat broken by a group of eight eighteen year olds,” you began. “But you saved my ass before I was killed, and it seems as though our relationship has been a series of saves ever since. Kaz Brekker, with the ring I’m about to put on your finger, I’m promising that I’ll do that forever. Please, though, try to avoid getting yourself kidnapped too often, okay?” His chest shook in silent laughter as he nodded.

“The rings, gentlepeople?” Jesper asked, Nina passed you the ring you’d slip into Kaz’s finger, and Wylan passed Kaz the one he’d put onto yours.

“Put them on,” Jesper said. You and Kaz both glanced at him once more, meeting each others eye thereafter, grinning and shaking your heads. It’d become very clear to you that the twenty four year old who you’d recruited to officiate your wedding was damn near close to letting out an excited squeal. 

Kaz put the ring onto your ring finger and you did the same for him, waiting for Jespers next words as you took a half a step closer to Kaz. 

“Kiss, you idiots!” Jesper said. Kaz laughed, pulling you close and pressing a kiss to your forehead.

He’d kiss you like nothing else later in the evening, when the only thing to bug you was a lamp that you’d left on, but you both agreed that a forehead kiss would be as far as you’d go in front of others. Kisses, to Kaz, were personal, and you respected and loved that about him. 

“Saints, bless this fuckin’ union!” Jesper shouted. You glanced at Alina, who shot you a thumbs up and a nod as the party part of the wedding kicked off. 

Terrowin and Kira were the first people that you and Kaz talked to.

“Did you secure it?” He asked.

“The property?” Terrowin was a Zemeni boy, with skin dark as night and eyes as warm as the sun. 

“Or the trip?” Asked Kira, a girl from Shu Han with hair black as the feathers on a crow and blue eyes as cold as the Fjerdan ice. 

“The property, first and foremost,” he said. “Did you get it? Did you give it the name I asked you to?”

“Yes, and yes,” said Terrowin. “Beside The Silver Six is a bookstore called Page Eighty-Three. It’s scheduled to open in the fall.” Your eyes widened as you made the connection.

“Page eighty-three?” You asked, smirk on your lips. Kaz shrugged.

“And the request?”

“The line from the poem will be put on the wall behind the clerks counter,” Kira said. “Just as you requested.”

“And the trip?”

“Your boat for Novyi Zem leaves in two days, Boss,” Kira said. “Two bells in the afternoon. It’s directly routed to Coftons docks.” Kaz nodded.

“Thank you,” he said. “We’ll see you when Page Eighty-Three opens.” 

“Damn right we will,” you said. Terrowin and Kira laughed as they walked away.

You glanced around the room, spotting Jesper and Wylan perched at a piano, playing the music that everyone was dancing to. Marya and Colm dancing close to them. Nina and Zoya dancing like idiots and laughing throughout. Mal and Inej making conversation and Genya and Alina heading your way.

“Congrats, you two,” Genya said. “Can I expect to see you both tanned and rested up when you get back from Novyi Zem?” 

“You’ll be in Ketterdam?” You asked. Genya nodded.

“For a couple of months, to make sure that your Jesper friend doesn’t colossally fuck things up while your friend Inej is doing her thing on the open ocean,” Alina said. “I’m there to visit for a bit, under the radar.” 

“Thank you, Alina,” he said. “Thank you both. For everything that you’ve done in these past years.” 

“No biggie, Brekker,” Alina said. “I don’t know you that well, but I see how happy you make Y/N, and he’s like a little brother. I care about his happiness.” 

“You two are absolutely bloody adorable,” Genya said. “Now, back to my question, will you be tan, or at the very least, well rested, upon your return?”

“Kaz is pale,” you said. “He’ll burn like a crisp. Me? I don’t really know. I guess it depends.” 

“We’ll be well rested,” Kaz said. “He’s a darkling. He can create shadow. I fully intend to use that to keep the sun out in the mornings.” 

“I won’t do whatever you ask of me!” You quipped.

“You had no issue with that last night,” he said, raising a teasing eyebrow. “Or this morning!”

“Mal was right!” Alina shouted, her and Genya bursting into giggles. “Damn it, I hate it when that happens!” You laughed.

You took another glance around you, spotting your friends.

No, wait. Scratch that.

Not your friends.

Your family. 

Your family was having a good time, eating, talking, dancing, laughing. They were enjoying themselves and congratulating you as you talked to Alina and Genya. 

Kaz had an arm around your waist, his cheek pressed against the side of your head as his other hand gently turned your wedding ring around on your finger. He was talking to people without arguing with them. He was holding you like you were the only thing that mattered to him.

Your life was perfect.

Kaz was yours, you were his, and your life was full. 

--------

tags: @whateverfandom00 @a-c-lee @incorrectquotesconaisseur @the7seannas​ @teatimeforusreaders​ @hunnybunimdun​

[allykakamatsu]

Hypothetical P5A

Okay, gonna make this clear right up front, I wanted to make this post for a while but the main reason I decided to do it now is because the Atlus announcement thing is almost here, and also cause I saw a video on this topic by Thorgi’s Arcade (go watch it btw it’s good) and while I agree with a lot of what he said, there’s also some things I’d change, not just cause I disagree, but also cause I think it would be fun. Anyway enough beating around the bush, let’s do this

Gameplay

I’m a firm believer in the phrase, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and the Arena games are already really good so not much to change. That being said, I still wanna change some things. First off though, we are keeping this 1 vs 1, no tag team matches. The arena games already have a lot of Mechanics going on and trying to keep everything as well as some new stuff WHILE adding a tag team button, yeah no let’s not outside of maybe a bonus mode.

This means I can’t add Batton Pass in as a new mechanic to represent P5, but I have a solution, that being Technicals. Status ailments already exist in this game, so how about when you inflict one and do a specific combo you do more damage, also providing risk vs reward as the player with the status will have a better idea of what the opponent will do making them more predictable. Also as for Persona’s, mostly everyone’s will be fully evolved, minus Yu cause him getting a final boss persona normally is a tad to OP, meanwhile the P5 characters will have their starting Persona’s, but they will evolve for big moves, like awakened mode supers and instant kills

I’m also borrowing Thorgi’s Arcade idea of having supports giving a slight buff in battle, like if you pick Fuuka your meter can build faster for a bit, meanwhile if you pick Futaba you’ll get an attack and defence buff. It’s the fairest way to include them without having to make them playable. I know Rise is already playable but this roster is going to have to be small as it is, and being a support doesn’t mean you can’t be DLC later.

Also, we’re not bringing back the Shadow Characters, just, we are not dealing with the likes of Shadow Naoto again.

:readmore:

Story

I am about to cop out a bit here, but Thorgi’s Arcade video had a really good idea for the story so I’ll just link it here https://youtu.be/yyB5rEM9UVU

To summarise for people who don’t want to watch, Nyarlathotep, the main villain from the Persona 2 games, has been gaining strength from all the suffering humanity has gone through due to 3, 4 and 5, and has gained enough strength to create a new Joker to try finish what he started and destroy the world. Mitsuru might think the Phantom Thieves are behind it cause this is clearly persona related and the fact that the leader of the PT’s is also named Joker is public knowledge, Naoto gets largely the same idea, Katsuya and Maya decide to have their own investigation, meanwhile the Phantom Thieves are trying to prove their innocence and help save the world. Nice excuse to bring everyone together, but who will the everyone be?

Base Roster

Okay, I know the dream is getting everyone from Ultimax back plus the new P5 characters, but given Arc System’s standard for small base rosters, I’m not holding my breath. The ideal would be everyone plus who I’m about to say for P2 and P5, but I’m keeping it… somewhat realistic. Anyway onto the actual size, 16 seems fair enough. One more than the most recent Guilty Gear game for a series that had pretty big success so that sound fair enough. Let’s get the obvious out of the way though, all the base 8 Phantom Thieves besides Futaba are making the cut

Okay so that’s obvious but how will they play? Starting off with Ren/Joker, Smash Bros already laid a great foundation with him being very fast on the ground and in the air plus being great at combos, so I see no reason to change that. Also no need for him to be a Jack of all trades either cause spoilers, Yu is coming back and he already fills that role.

As for the others, Ryuji I can see being a slugger charge hybrid. Basically starting out he hits pretty hard but is a bit on the slow side to compensate, but just like any good athlete, give him a chance to warm up, ie do a charge input, and he becomes a lot faster and has better combo potential. Or we could make him a toned down version of Little Mac where he’s great on the ground but he’s in trouble the second aerial combat is involved. Then there’s Morgana who with his ability to turn into cars and the fact he introduces thief tools like smoke bombs, I can see him being a faster but frailer successor to Teddie.

Then there’s Ann who, no doubt, she’s a Zoner, and with her fire she’ll be Yukiko’s sort of successor. However instead of healing, I’d implement the fact that she learns concentrate and have it so the more she charges it up, the stronger her attacks get, but the Meter will gradually go down over the match. Yusuke, as tempting as it is to cop out and say ‘have him play like Vergil in Marvel vs Capcom’, I have a different idea. Namely, take advantage of the fact that Yusuke can learn counter by having him be the defensive specialist, set up ice traps to freeze the opponent, and if they get close, he can either counter or go for some combos.

Then there’s Makoto who would definitely be a grappler. I mean, she practices Aikido and is really strong, she can 100% pull it off. Finally Haru…… TANK! I mean come on, Haru wields an axe, has a grenade launcher, and Melady is literally a dancing tank in a pink dress, it just makes too much sense. I’d also give her a bit of armor cause if she’s slow she at least needs a chance to get her attacks in.

Okay so that’s 7 out of our 16 slots down, and given that one slot will have to be saved for the Evil Joker who would be the villain, we’re halfway done with 3 games to go, lord help me.

Okay, starting this off with P4, I’m gonna give them more than the others purely because they were the focus of the originals and there’s less realistic cuts I can make compared to 2 and 3. To make things simple, every returning character would play the same, and as for the ones I’d bring back for the base roster, we’ve got Yu, Yosuke, Chie and Naoto. Why them specifically? Well Yu is the main character, Naoto being a detective would basically mean she’d be the one getting everyone involved in the first place, Chie is currently training to be a cop as confirmed in P5 so her getting called in makes sense, and Yosuke is the best investigator after Yu and Naoto, he’s always up for a mystery and the second he learns Yu is involved he’s joining in. I just couldn’t cut him.

Now before the really painful cuts, Persona 2 is really easy. Out of Innocent Sin party members, by the end of the series Maya is the only one left with a Persona, and Katsuya is not only older brother of Innocent Sin’s protag Tatsuya, but he’s also pretty important and a detective so he’s definetly the one Maya’s dragging into this. As for how they play, they both use guns like Naoto, but how I’d mix them up is with Katsuya, I’d let him attack while moving (unlike Naoto who has so stay still to fire) at the cost of less combo potential, meanwhile Maya dual wields her guns so she’ll probably play like Noel Vermillion from BlazBlue where she’d more or less just use the guns to get longer reach melee attacks instead of shooting.

Now, for the hard part. There’s only 2 slots left, one of them basically has to go to Mitsuru (not that I’m complaining I’d probably add her anyway) meaning now I have to choose between the rest of the Shadow Operatives/SEES for the last slot. I narrowed it down to the 3 that were in the original Arena cause they’re the most plot relevant, but that still meant I had to choose between Akihiko and Aigis. I ended up deciding on Aigis though cause A, with Labrys not making the base roster someone has to represent the robots of the series, and B, with Akihiko currently pulling a Ryu by travelling to get stronger, it makes more sense that Aigis would be closer and easier for Mitsuru to call up. Honestly I was tempted to bump the roster up to 17 so I could have both of them on the base roster, but this is ArcSystems, 16 is already kinda pushing it.

DLC

Given that this is a modern fighting game, DLC is inevitable. However since this DLC will likely be like Ultimax where the story acts to wrap up loose ends and have a new story, it’s going yo be big, especially since there’s going to be a fight with Nyaraloptep, so go big or go home in this case. Okay so first order of business, anyone who was in the previous arena games who wasn’t in the base roster is getting added back in, it’s only fair. That out of the way, the new faces I’d add are Futaba actually being playable now and the big 4 P5 characters I skipped, Akechi, Yoshizawa, and Sophie. Before anyone asks though, Sophie was added into a Dragalia Lost collab with Koei Techmo not being credited so she’s likely Atlus’s copyright so she's safe to add.

With that out of the way, how would they play? Starting with Futaba, I’d think she’d be the resident puppet fighter, sitting on top of Necinomicon and only occasionally adding in some of her own attacks like a projectile. Also she'd also probably act as a bit of a grappler cause her Persona has tentacles (no hentai jokes please) which have long reach so that'll be perfect for it. Next up is Akechi who I can see as semi being two characters in one. My basic idea is that at first Akechi will be fighting with Robin Hood and he'll be a solid jack of all trades with a slight focus on rush down. However once he goes into his awakened mode he'll gain Loki, which will increase his speed and attack strength, at the cost of his defence, turning him into a glass cannon.

Next is Yoshizawa, or 'Sumi as I like to call her, and her thing will be she's the mobility focused fighter, namely constantly moving around the stage and poking at her opponent while doing it, at the cost of being frail. Finally there’s Sophie who would be a combo focused zoner, as in her standard projectiles (the yo-yo’s) wouldn’t hurt that much on their own, but she can string them together into the fancy yo-yo tricks to potentially do big damage. As for how much this DLC would cost, it’s going to be very big, so €25 to €30 sounds fair

I think that more or less covers my thoughts. I could keep going on about this for a while, but I think this is a good place to stop. Hope you like my idea!

[lannister-slings-and-arrows]

Pedro's character reactions to an unexpected kiss on the cheek from the girl he's been trying to woo forever but continuously got rejected by?

Din is a little flustered when after he hands you a cloth wrapped loaf of that sweet bread you had spend a hour talking about last week you lean over and kiss the side of his helmet. He had given up trying to get your attention after you continuously ignored his offers to spar. You had made it pretty clear to him that you just wanted to be friends- hadn’t you?

Whiskey has been trying very loudly, very obviously, very obnoxiously to get into your pants since Tequila had introduced you a month ago. Honestly, under any other circumstance you would have given in already, the man was exactly your type and office gossip said that that lariat wasn’t the only thing he knew how to handle. But you were new to your supervisory position and you had a team of three young female agents working under you to whom you were determined to give a good example. And that meant no giving in to that cowboy and his cheesy pick up lines and dazzling smile. Until one of your girls got herself into some trouble on a mission with Whiskey and Tequila and instead of charging in to fix it, he grabbed the back of Tequila's collar and stood off to the side to let her handle it herself. She emerged from the fight with only some cuts and bruises and a cracked rib, but smarter for it and with the kind of confidence in her abilities that only comes from hands on experience. So you cornered him as the three of them stepped out of the plane and kissed him. You figured he deserved some kind of reward for his help. What you were not expecting (but what you really should have been, this whole situation was on you and your own stupidity) was for Whiskey to blink down at you stupidly and watch as you smiled politely at the other senior agent and start to walk away. What you also did not expect was to hear a ‘swish, whooshing” sound and for your arms to suddenly be pinned to your sides. You looked down to see a lariat wrapped snugly around your middle and you sighed and rolled your eyes. You were tugged gently backwards and rather than fall on your ass and be dragged- which you were sure he would do- you complied, and found yourself face to face with a grinning cowboy. “There now, little lady, that wasn’t so difficult was it?” You tried, and failed, to put your hands on your hips and heard snickers from behind you. “I hope that wasn’t the last of that sugar you were planning on giving out, honey, or I’m going to be mighty disappointed.” You sigh, unable to resist smiling back at the grinning idiot in front of you. “Let me go and I’ll see what I can do Jack” you bargain. He shakes his head and tips his hat back with his free hand. “Now, sugar, a this cowboy knows not to let his catch go without some much stronger assurances”. You step closer to him, you can feel the heat he radiates and smell his leather, spicy scent. He grabs the rope around your middle and hauls you against him, wrapping his arms around you, holding you up right. “I knew you couldn’t resist me forever baby.” You know you should shove him away, make him wait longer for a smart remark like that but frankly, this has gone on long enough and you don’t want to. You allow him to pull you up on your toes so he can bend down and kiss you properly. You’ll get him back some other way soon. 

Oberyn grabs your wrist as you turn to walk away and drags you back to his side and into his lap. “Now was that so difficult” he asks, a slow and sultry smile on his lips. You blush and try to look away but a long and elegant finger turns your face back to his, and once your eyes meet his eyes you can’t look away- they’re as mesmerizing as the snake’s he takes his name from. “It wouldn’t be very chivalrous of me to not return the favor, and not only that,” he pauses, his face a breath away from your own now. “Since I have looked forward to this for so very long, I wouldn’t deny myself the pleasure for all the gold in Casterley Rock.” He kisses your cheek gently, first one, and then the other. His lips are soft, full, and you feel only a hint of a scratch from his beard. Its tantalizing and you want more, that feeling is just this shy of not enough, and he pulls away with a smile. You frown at him and he laughs, hugging you closer to his body and leaning back in to press feather light kisses on your chin, your forehead, and then the tip of your nose. He then releases you, puts you gently off his lap and walks away with a bow. “I hope you have a pleasant evening, my lady.”

Ezra smiles softy at you and just stares. For a full minute he says nothing, and while you’re sure he has been quiet for longer since you made his acquaintance two months ago you can’t think of quite such a loaded silence as this. You were about to break the quiet with a rough joke or something when he placed his hand on your arm and squeezed gently. You looked up to find him smiling brightly down at you and you resisted the urge to sigh in relief, instead choosing to grin back. Maybe a quiet Ezra wasn’t always an indicator of trouble. 

Catfish blushes. Like the kind of blush that you thought only happened in Loony Tunes cartoons. His whole face turns red underneath the patchy scruff that had scratched your lips. The friends he had introduced you to (you were positive those were not their real names- Pope you might accept but no one would actually name a kid Iron Head) had been teasing him about his homebody ways since his daughter had been born and you could see it was bothering him. You kind of thought they were being jerks so you did the first thing that you could think of to make them stop. The silence that followed your kiss and “hey babe, I’m gonna go grab a beer you want something?” was almost too comical for you to keep a straight face. Fish managed a quiet “no thanks” and touched your arm briefly before you made your way to the kitchen. All was quiet and then you heard a muttered remark from the curly haired guy- promting hard laughter from the group of men. They were poking fun at Fish again. Jesus you can’t win with buttheads like this can you, you thought, rolling your eyes and returning to your seat on the arm of Catfish’s chair.

Tovar pretends to be annoyed. As usual. He “harumphs” and glowers at the trees surrounding you and you laugh and walk ahead of him.

Max- you know when a dog is begging to go play outside and is just sitting there staring at you and you finally turn your phone off and like, he just lights up and looks at you like yes? Yes? Finally?? And is just so sunshine and thrilled? That’s Max. It’s almost annoying enough to make you regret it, which you tell him, which only makes him laugh and continue to be disgustingly positive about it. (Note, this is you don’t know he’s a vampire Max. The scenario changes completely if you’re in the know.)

Javier is frustrated. After weeks of trying to get into your pants, you decide now, of all times, while you both are being SHOT AT is the perfect time to distract him with this? You grin, lean over and kiss his now stubbly cheek before standing and laying down covering fire for Steve and Carrillo as they go charging through the narrow room. And all he can do is just sit there. Surprised and frustrated. Women.

Maxwell had been trying to get your attention since he saw you in the elevator two months ago. Every day it was expensive gift after expensive gift, nothing had worked and he was getting more and more frustrated. Was that diamond tennis bracelet not nice enough? Did you not like the show he’d managed to get those tickets to? What was he doing wrong!? So when you finally looked up at him with a smile and stood on your toes to kiss his cheek when he handed you a cup of coffee (just the way you liked it- he had been practically stalking you for two months, it did have its advantages) that one time the whole office had to stay a few hours longer than normal he was a little confused. After all this time and effort all he really had to do was bring you coffee? Seriously?!

[yeochikin]

pottery class. | c. san

a/n: thank you @s1ardusk for requesting. ngl i loved writing this aaa 🥺🥺🥺 also heheheh chamomile and strawberry hehehe 👉👈 dfhjdfh anyways, hope you enjoyed it! as usual, do excuse any mistakes as this has not been proofread! ✨💖

soft music played through your earphones as your eyes were focused on the notes you had written down, head nodding up and down softly to match with the beats filling your ears. your lips moved absentmindedly as you read through your notes, pursing them occasionally upon seeing the slight mistakes you had written which you made quick work of fixing them right away. you are in your own little world.

on the other hand, a pair of curious dark brown eyes peeked into your room, half of their body being hidden from the outside. san, the owner of said body, slowly crept up towards your seemingly unguarded figure, hunched over your desk. his hands reached up as a mischievous grin settled itself upon his lips before starting to part them, taking a deep breath. 

“what do you want, san?” came your nonchalant voice, turning around in your seat to look at the male who was frozen with his hands in the air.

huffing, san’s arms came down to rest at his sides as his eyes glared down at your own unamused ones. ‘no fun’ he whispered underneath his breath, causing you to laugh lightly, playfully poking his side.

“y/n, my best friend, my whole shining star in my darkest nights, my little-” he started.

“you need something, don’t you?” you deadpanned, crossing your legs on top of the other, eyeing him knowingly.

san, pouted at you, a look you know all too well from the years of being friends with him. 

“so i saw this thing…” he started, now walking to sit on the edge of your bed, leaning on his elbows that were resting on both knees as his fingers were intertwined.

“san.. what exactly is this ‘thing’?” you interrupted, the male quickly shushing you. with a roll of your eyes, you leaned back against your chair and urged for him to continue.

“i’m not gonna tell you that but all i know is that it’s a new thing the both of us are gonna like.” he said confidently, grinning his dimpled smile. 

tongue against the inside of your cheek, you caught the glimpse of excitement twinkling in his eyes. you hesitated. from the years of knowing san, he is described as the ball of energy in your life while you are the hermit of this friendship and would much prefer to stay indoors, your safe haven as you will. it wasn’t because you’re lazy but trying new things would always create so many thoughts and conclusions running around in your mind, even though you had never tried it. 

sensing the hesitation, san walked up to you, and grabbed both of your hands into his larger ones, thumb rubbing against your knuckles as if to ease the anxious feeling bubbling up in your chest. san always knew the slight panicked look in your eyes, no matter how much you tried to not show it. but he is always there by your side, giving you time to calm your nerves, even if it took days for you to finally be ready. and by the time you needed to actually do it, he would stay behind you and offer praises to you, saying how well you are doing, and how.. ‘awesome’ you are, as he worded it. with both eyes casted on your hands being held, san spoke up, effectively gaining your attention. 

“it’ll be okay, i promise. you have me.” he spoke, voice all soft that managed to make your shoulders relax as you feel the tension that was built slowly fading away. finally making up your mind, you looked up at san who was already anticipating your answer, his lips curling up into an ecstatic grin upon seeing the nod of your head.

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

“so, this is what you wanted to show me?” you said, looking up at the sign above the doorway to what seems to be a studio, decorated with hand painted flowers along with little leaves.

san, who was excitedly bouncing on the balls of feet, nodded his head before placing his hand on your lower back to urge the both of you to enter.

turns out, the thing he wanted the both of you to try was a pottery class. his friend, wooyoung, had suggested it while the two were hanging out one day. the class managed to pique his interest, immediately having the image of your mini mug collection back at your place flashing in his mind. he didn’t exactly understand why someone would have a collection but he shouldn’t comment on that considering he has his own collection of plushies in his room. so he thought, why the hell not? you loved mugs and having to make one of your own? surely, you would love it.

and here you are, listening intently to the instructor who had her fingers shaping the clay almost effortlessly, courtesy from the long years of experience of doing so. though, you couldn’t say the same to yourself. you emitted a low at the way your clay almost falling off of the pottery wheel, managing to catch it before it landed on the floor to create a mess in your station. sadly, even though you caught it, the slab of clay was squished in between your fingers at the tight grip. 

san, who was sitting beside you and witnessed the whole thing can’t help but to burst out in a fit of giggles. you could only pout over at him before starting over yet again, wetting your fingers slightly and turning the wheel, this time careful not to let the clay fall off once again. your eyes widened ever so slightly in awe from the way the clay was moulded into the shape you want, grinning victoriously at the result.

while you were occupied, you failed to notice a pair of eyes from a certain raven haired male watching your every movement. san’s fingers were running up and down the clay absentmindedly, though he should be focusing on the instructor’s voice, you were far more entertaining to the boy instead. he couldn’t help but to coo internally from the way the tip of your tongue had peeked out at the corner of your lips with your brows creasing in concentration, the little smile on your lips as a sign of you mentally praising yourself caused san to feel his chest swell up in happiness.

he knew that you had a bit of a difficulty in stepping out of your comfort zone, and he is always prepared to stay by your side, knowing how much you needed the reassurance at times. even if you had a strong front, the years of growing up with you made him see right through it easily. it is when you finally started to ease up in new situations that made san feel proud. proud of you to try things even if you had a slight fear of them, proud of you to open up in seizing brand new memories with him. 

and even if you didn’t enjoy them, it was okay. san would bring you to your favourite tea place the next day, not only for the pastries and baked goods there, but he knew how much you liked to watch the tea maker make your teas with such grace before pouring them into the many themed tea sets she kept. he won’t even miss the fact that you would silently gush over the woman with her significant other whenever they called each other chamomile and strawberry, as cheesy as it sounds.

consider it as a reward for you to still embrace new experiences in life whether you like them or not.

“san, you’re supposed to make a mug, not a plate!” your voice cut his train of thoughts, immediately snapping his gaze down at the clay before gasping out loud. the clay he had shaped into a perfect mug (as he claimed it) was now a large flat clay still spinning on the pottery wheel, eliciting a frustrated groan from the male.

this time, it was your turn to laugh at him, said boy playfully glaring at you and lightly dipped his fingers into the water next to him, sprinkling the drops over at you in retaliation, much to your displeasure. and so began a mini water fight between the two of you. that was, until the instructor cleared her throat. the both of you stopped your little war and turned to look at her, suddenly acting all innocent as if you didn’t almost cause a huge wet spot in the back of the room. 

“as much as the two of you are having fun back there, i would appreciate it if you didn't sink my studio.” she said, both of you muttering your apologies before the instructor fixed her large framed glasses that were hanging off on the bridge of her nose. 

“sorry, ma’am!” the both of you said in unison and went back to moulding your clays, of course, with hushed teasings being thrown in every now and then.

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

by the time the class ended, you and san made a quick glance of each other’s mugs, both bursting out into a short laughter from the way your mugs had looked. both mugs had a slight crooked shape to them, a clear reminder of how inexperienced the two of you are, along with it being messily painted on. yet you didn’t mind, you were proud to add this little guy into your mug collection. by now, both of your clothes held traces of the events that had occurred earlier, from the smudge of paint on your sleeves to a little bit of clay was smudged on san’s shirt.

“so..” san started as he walked alongside you after exiting the studio. At his voice, you raised a brow.

“so?” 

“did you enjoy the class?” he asked, eyes wide while waiting for your answer.

“well, aside from us almost making a huge mess in the studio along with us struggling with the clay..” san grimaced at the memory.

“i enjoyed it, i won’t lie.” you added, flashing him a bright beam.

returning the grin stretching over your lips with his own, san reached a hand up to playfully ruffle your hair, him playfully cooing down at you as if talking to a baby, laughing once you slapped his hand away with a whine.

“i’m glad you enjoyed it and look, you even have a new addition to your collection!” he pointed out, the mug you held being hugged close to your chest as if it was the most precious thing in the world.

which to you, it really is the most precious thing. 

the two of you continued your walk home, san walking a few steps in front of you, then stopped as his name reached his ears. turning around to look at you, he quirked a brow up as if to acknowledge the call of his name from your lips. 

“you think we can go to the tea house tomorrow?” you asked, causing san to blink a few times from the unexpected question, then having his expression soften up.

with a shrug, he nodded his head. 

“i don’t see why not, i’m craving for their strawberry tarts anyway.”

perking up from the response, you jogged up to catch up with the male’s pace, starting to plan about the little trip tomorrow and of course, teasing each other during your time in the studio.

[sloppy-butcher]

Can I get some hcs for Freddy x reader who have like very love/hate reltionship? Like they annoy eachother constantly but still seek each others company. Thanks!

This is the first time I have ever tried writing for Freddy and to be honest, I am quite nervous I did him wrong. Please forgive any ooc characterizations i may accidentally give him - i tried my hardest to make him accurate to the 80’s version (yes, this one will be based on old freddy not the new one (2010 remake), hope that it okay <3) i also hope that you don’t mind if i make the reader a killer as i am only comfortable writing for freddy when the power dynamics are equal

Thank you for the request and i hope these are good enough for you 

Headcanons for The Nightmare (Freddy Krueger) with a Killer!S/O who have a Love/Hate relationship

When you are an obedient little dog, when you kill mercilessly and the Entity grows fat from your bountiful supply of food, the spider-god showers you with rewards. Most forms of these appreciations take a physical appearance (new and terrifying outfits to adorn during your daily workouts or new weapons for you to play with). But there were some gifts that were intangible, and otherworldly and oh so irresistible to you - dreams. The Entity lets you sleep if you do well in trials and sometimes even offers you sweet, beautiful dreams. They were indulging at first, so totally vivid in their detail and color that you could almost lose yourself completely in their daydreams. It was a spider web most wonderfully and intricately made. A labyrinth of the mind. But it did not take you long to notice the spider lurking in the corners of his creation.

You spotted him often hiding under the shadow of trees, just standing there in the corner of your eye - one look and he would vanish without a trace. You would have thought nothing of the strange occurrence had it had only happened once and in only dreams. During your walks in between realms, you’d spot the man through the treeline. He was unmistakable in his silhouette and in the way his eyes glowed a horrid orange. You did not fear him however, he was no worse a monster than you were. Rather you were annoyed by his presence in both reality and dreams. 

You bend down and pick up a rock, turning it over in your hands testing its weight and size. “Hey!” You shout at the man who halted his retreat into the dark, night wood at the sound of your voice. “Stay out of my fucking dreams, asshole!” You throw the rock at him, narrowly missing him and instead, striking a tree.

“Such a temper.” A hoarse voice coos from somewhere behind and you spin around to meet it. It was him, moving faster and quicker than air and appearing next to you, closer than ever before. You got your first good look at him. His skin was a sore pink leather and he smelled like smoke. “Trust me, sweetheart, I would if I could. Your dreams,” He takes out a hand covered in razor-sharp knives and mockingly strokes the hair out your face, “, are so boring.” You snatch his hand away from your face, barely noticing the sting of blades in your soft palm and the trickle of warm blood down your forearm. You did not grimace, did not cower, and did not back down. He grins at your defiant expression. “And here I thought you’d thank me for giving you the chance to live in such a wonderful world. I’m hurt,” He feigns agony, his free hand placed sorrowfully on his chest, “, good work always goes unappreciated.”

You scoff and show your teeth. “I would prefer nightmares if it meant I wouldn’t get to see you.” The man laughed and flexed his knife-fingers, fresh blood oozing out your wound.  

“Oh babe, you and me both. I don’t like this babysitter gig anymore than you do.” He leans closer grinning with his horrible yellow fangs, the scent of a recent kill seeping off his tongue. “I prefer nightmares anyway.” 

“You look like a nightmare.” You spit into his face, finally letting go of his weapon and glaring at him. He laughs again.

“You are a feisty one. I think you and I are going to get along fabulously.”

Of course, he did not heed your warning for that very same night you saw him again in your dreams. Though now, he made it a point, not to hideaway. He approached you and actively talked to you, following you around your dream like a resistant plague. He commented on your shit reality, on all the things you could have wanted to dream of, and yet you only wanted to be in an empty field at the brink of dawn. He shakes his head and degrades your poor taste with even more snarky comments. You knew you couldn’t do anything to him while in his dream but in the physical world - well, that is a completely different story. 

If he was going to bother you while you slept like a buzzing mosquito, you decided to bother him when you were awake. In the real world he was much less intimidating, that aura of cosmic power that bubbled around him while in a dream state, was not present in the night air and you smirked at his weakness. You mentioned his height, asking how anyone could be scared of such a small man. He’d lash out, swinging at you with both his blades and his harsh tongue.  He was easy to toil, easy to wind up but a task to deal with. Freddy could take a punch to his pride and deal out damage times 10. 1 mean-spirited remark deserves 10 more. 

Freddy thrived on this back and forth. Ordinarily, he would turn his nose up at the idea of bickering with another killer - sure, some of them were fun, simple minds with which to bend and manipulate in dreams but most were already so twisted in their own self-delusions that well, he just didn’t find them all that interesting. But your mind was sharp and quick, built in the skull of a hardened murder professional yet dainty enough to still yearn for the sunlight world of goodness. A perfect balance. It had been a very long time since last Freddy had had a conversation of equals - a real conversation where the table was not shifted in the favor of either one. If he said something that crossed a boundary or hit a nerve (a task he sought out to do almost every night) you would turn on him, shoot daggers at him with the sole intent of murdering his little ass. Sure, it never really scared him but there was no denying that in a way, to spare with an equal really turned him on. To be challenged. 

There were times when he would become too much. Like the static on a dead radio station, he would drone on and on about a certain topic he knew would heat your blood. Always poking his stick deeper and deeper into the bear until you’d bite. Luckily it was quite simple to turn him off - just don’t sleep. You never really needed to rest in the Fog anyway, tiredness never made its claim over your bones even after a long day at work. Sleep was merely a reward, after all, a gift that could be refused if so desired. If time could be recorded within the Entity’s world, then the longest you had gone without sleep, and without seeing that little creep, would have been 2 months. He had really pissed you off when in a dream he produced a small songbird and made you watch as he melted its skin off - all for sport. A sight that did not necessarily make your skin crawl but one that irked you. It was always a game with him, a competition to see who would break first and try to strangle the other. And, to be dead honest, it was starting to annoy you more than anything he could say or do. So you stopped seeing him, stopped dreaming, and stopped seeking him out in the woods. You were tired of always trying to be bested and frankly, his childishness was wearing you thin.

But there was no denying that in that quiet that ate up the space where Freddy used to stand, a strange loneliness would grow incredibly heavy and dreadful. You missed his rather repulsive company, his witty and sharp tongue always keeping you on edge and on your toes. There was no way you could stop your head from turning around to look for him, seeking out his small frame among the dark wood. It was lonely without the flies, silent and decaying slowly.

For the life of him, Freddy tried to move on. He had never tied himself to one person before, never allowed himself to latch on to anyone save for his favorite little toys. But with you it was different. It was fun to annoy you, it was fun to torment you in dreams. It was even fun when you reeled at him, hackles raised threatening to kill. It was exciting, it reminded him of the joy of being powerful and alive (in a sense). And when you never took his bullshit sitting down, when you'd raise to meet his call, oh how it set fire to his heart. To be challenged. He could feel himself wither away, the interest that you had sharpened only seemed to dull and break off in your absence. He’d hate to admit it, but he missed you. Missed your noise and missed that sweet dream of yours.

Both of you are too prideful to confess to the other that you were lonely. But when, one day, you find yourself dreaming a familiar vision, that built-up residue of solitude melted and you turned to face Freddy eagerly.

“Did you really think you could not sleep forever?” He crossed his arms over his gloating chest, a snake tongue flickering victories in between teeth. “I always get my prey.” You smirk, not surprised in the slightest by his rather rude welcome back. You look around at the grassy field surrounding you both shining a brilliant emerald, the sun feeling warm on your back, and the fresh, clean air carrying with it the scent of spring flowers. 

“Aw, you missed me, Frederick?” You tease him with his unused full name, casting a devilish side-eye to the dream-demon. You see a flicker of panic, alerting you that you had hit the nail on the head before he spits and loudly proclaims,

“Don’t be so far up your own ass!” His golden eyes gleamed pure hatred at you. “It's not a hat.” You laugh at the face of the fuming man, knowing that despite how his actions appeared malicious and distasteful, there was no feasible way to deny that the dream he had made for you was spectacular and expressed something deeper than just surface-level annoyance. 

[revisionaryhistory]

Three Days ~ 84

~*~Sebastian~*~

I have loved every moment we've been in Paris. Everything we've done, everything we've seen. All of it. But nothing more than the last five minutes. This was perfect. This was us. This was how it’s supposed to work. I knew what was going on with Emma and I went around her defenses the way she does my anxiety. I told her a story (true) about me to make sure she knew it was alright to be her and I understood. At first, she looked annoyed but I saw the change. My change in tone and what I said had triggered something.

Emma licked her lips slowly, like I do when considering, then started to smile, "Thank you. I knew what I was doing, but hadn't put it all together. You're right it doesn't feel like my choice, but it is always my choice. The rest is bullshit." She leaned closer and I closed the distance to kiss her. "I love you, Bastian."

I sat back, flagging down the waiter with flutes of champagne and handing one to Emma. I waved my finger back and forth between us, "So this is two people pushing and supporting each other."

She sat back with the same smug look I was feeling, "I think so. Growing together.” We laughed for a moment. "Sorry, I was being difficult."

I shook my head, remembering my session with Celie. "Even if this is the best we get, we're going to be just fine." I took her hand and brought it to my mouth. "I love you." I kissed her hand and laid it on the table, like every other time we've sat together.

A few minutes later Jessica and Gian came off the dance floor, "Are we interrupting?"

This tells me Jessica noticed the intensity of our conversation. "Nope, have a seat." I leaned onto the table. "Dancing is so much more fun before you watch other people and hope you don't look as spastic and uncoordinated."

Jessica reached over the table, laying her hand on my forearm, "Sebastian, I promise you did look just as spastic and uncoordinated."

We shared a car back to the hotel. Emma invited them to go along on our private tour of Montmartre, which I was on board with. I ran by the concierge desk with the update before joining the other three in the elevator where Jessica and Emma had planned our day. We'd join them in their room for coffee and leave from there. Us coming to them gave them a chance to show off their daughter. I’m good with that too. I'd like to play with a little girl.

I'm not around a lot of kids. My friends aren't replicating yet. I need to go to Emma's classroom soon. She has a little herd of them that aren't sick or sad, like a lot of the charity visits I do. It's very rewarding but difficult. A group of healthy happy kids would be fun.

Emma led the way into the bedroom. "Sebastian, would you come undo my dress?"

"Yes," couldn’t have been said fast enough. I took great joy unlacing her dress. Something was exciting about pulling the long strings one by one. Watching them slide through the grommets and along my fingers. I got a nice rhythm going.

On closer look, her hair wasn't a single braid but several coming together from different directions, some tighter than others. It hung going over one shoulder. "I love your hair like this." I kissed her neck on the side her hair wasn't. "Can I take it down?"

"Whatever you prefer." She glanced over her shoulder at me. "If I say no will I be forbidden to blow you?"

"That would be self-defeating." I slid her dress off her shoulders letting it fall to the ground.

I undid her hair much slower than I had her dress. I removed the band holding the three braids together then chose the middle one. I ran my fingers through the silky strands from underneath. I buried my face in her hair enjoying the smell and softness against my skin. I pressed my hips against her so she could feel what all this unlacing had done to me. Her bare shoulder was a perfect place to rub my beard. "Do I need to go shave so you'll let me go down on you?"

Emma snorted a laugh, "No. I like the feel of your beard on my stomach."

I kissed up her neck to her ear and whispered, "Not your inner thigh?"

She turned, draping an arm over my shoulder, her other hand on my chest. "I can't remember."

"Well, I'll have to give it a try and see what you think."

~*~*~*~

The next morning, I awoke first. Blondish hair spilled from her pillow onto mine. I was all too aware tomorrow would be the last day I'd wake up like this for a long time. Historically, filming days are long and I collapse as soon as I'm back to my room. During the day I'm focused on work or relaxing with my co-workers.

Which means mornings are going to suck.

I stayed put and soaked it all in. Emma looked over as soon as she woke up. A smile was forming while she rolled toward me. I lifted my arm to welcome her, moving to my side and holding her lightly. "Morning, sunshine."

"Good morning." She kissed my chest where her head laid. "Been awake long?"

"Not so much." I snuggled in closer. "Enjoying the view. You're beautiful in the morning."

She tilted her face up to meet my eyes, "Thank you. When don't you think I'm beautiful?"

I pretended to think, "Never."

"Te iubesc, Sebasti-an." "Te iubesc, Emiliana."

We started the day as we'd ended last night, naked and slightly breathless. While catching my breath I looked over with a sigh, "It's going to be a good day."

Emma rolled to her stomach, propped on her elbows. "Thank you again for bringing me."

The last thing Emma needed to do was thank me. That said, the simple appreciation was a nice change. It's a little shocking how often those words aren't spoken. I don’t keep track. I only notice when there's a consistent lack of them.

"You're welcome again." I kissed her nose, "Shower?"

Emma gasped, "Is that an invitation?"

"Can I wash your hair?"

"Sure."

"Yes, it's an invitation."

Reality smacked me after our shower when Emma dried off her shower supplies and put them in their leak-proof bag. I felt a twisting in my stomach, which must have shown on my face. Emma pressed her towel covered body against mine, "If I pack now, we can just enjoy tomorrow."

"Was I pouting?"

She shook her head, "You looked like I feel about it."

"Somehow that helps." Our laughter was tinged with something less than humor.

Emma did a lot of things to make tomorrow morning about us. She curled her hair, so she could easily pull it up. She laid out her clothes for the plane, so she could pack the rest. And she packed all the bathroom stuff except what she'd need in the morning. It wasn't like I couldn't bring her anything she left behind.

I hope she forgets something.

I was ready before her and headed into the sitting room. I settled on the couch to get into the app she'd installed. I didn't go into “Things for Sebastian”. That's not what I needed. I created a page and titled it, "Things for Emma"

1.      I love you

2.      You are beautiful. Inside and out.

3.      I miss you

4.      I crave the touch of your fingers

5.      And your lips

6.      I need to make a page for dirty thoughts

7.      In a room full of people I can feel you near

8.      It pisses me off when you won't let me rip something off you.

9.      I appreciate how kind you are to my mom.

10.   Your dad still kinda scares me.

Ten was my goal for the morning.

Jessica and Gian were closer to ready than they lead us to believe they would be. They had a nanny for the fifteen-month-old daughter Giulietta, but they liked to handle the morning routine and breakfast. Jessica let us in and ran back to the bedroom pointing us in the direction of Gian. He was sitting at the table supervising a toddler eating berries, yoghurt, and pieces of a croissant. Giulietta immediately stopped eating and shifted her attention to us. She held out her little pudgy arm pointing at me and said, "Da!"

My eyebrows shot up, "I don't think so, but you are cute."

Gian interpreted, "Every male is a Da."

Giulietta held her arms up to me, "Up, Da."

I looked at her real Da, "This ok?"

"Yes, she's sturdy. You won’t break her."

Emma groaned, "She’s a sweet little princess."

I picked her up, holding her in front of me to talk, "Hi Giulietta. Can you say Hi, Seb?"

Gian said, "Give him a kiss."

She landed a very wet open-mouthed kiss on my cheek. "Ah, thank you." I brought her closer and kissed her cheek, without all the slobber.

Giulietta smacked her hands on either side of my face repeatedly, laughing with every sound and face I made. It became a game where I poked her and she laughed then she pulled or poked something on my face, the only place she could reach, and laughed at my response. Her giggling was precious, even more so when she got the hiccups.

Emma had sat down, Gian having poured her a cup of coffee, and Emma eating the same berries and croissant. I sat down with the baby standing and bouncing on my lap. I turned my head, opening my mouth, encouraging Emma to share her food with me. A few bites in and the little girl decided she wanted in on the action. She reached for Emma and left me.

I lost Emma too.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and talked with Gian about the tour. Cheese, wine, and bakery items while on a walking tour of Montmartre complete with museums and shopping before dropping us off at a cafe for a proper lunch. Although I’m sure Emma will continue with cheese and wine.

An overly cheery and overly expressive voice came from my left. Not talking to me, but about me. "Listen to that mean man, Giulietta. Making fun of me for my love of cheese. He's just afraid I love cheese more than him, which I do not. Or maybe he's afraid I'm going to steal all the baby kisses. She snuggled into Giulietta’s neck and started saying, "nom, nom, nom." More little girl laughter filled the air. This time ending with her wrapping her arms around Emma's head while Emma blew raspberries on her belly.

The fun ended with a recognizable sound followed by a less than pleasant smell. I backed away, Gian grimaced and apologized. Emma laughed, "What did you did, Guilietta? What did you do?" Gian started to stand, Emma shook her head, "Stay put. Where are her diapers?"

"There's a diaper bag by the couch."

I smiled at Gian, "You didn't fight that offer."

Gian snickered, "Never turn down an offer to change a diaper that smells like that."

Jessica joined us, noticing the missing people, "What have you two done?"

We both looked innocent. "Nothing."

I added, "Emma had her when the problem occurred."

Jessica teasingly pulled her husband’s ear, "You dumped our shitty baby on a new friend."

From the other room, Emma called out, "The best conversations happen during diaper changes." Emma came back into the room, holding her hands above her head, helping balance her as she tried to walk. "Who is that Giulietta?"

"Mama mama."

Jessica glowed looking at her daughter, "That's my baby girl."

She picked her up and hugged her, "You've been flirting with a boy then made him jealous by leaving him for another."

I snorted, "Not jealous of the diaper explosion."

"Baby wipes clean up everything." Emma looked at Jessica, "Can I use your bathroom?"

Jessica pointed. Emma left the door open while she washed her hands and she and Jessica kept talking, "You did that fast. You have younger siblings."

"Two little sisters and a niece. Olivia was out of diapers before I got there. We took turns with Harper." She joined us back at the table, "My sister had a tough delivery ending in an emergency C- section. I took care of Katie for the first couple of weeks. It’s crazy how formula goes in and toxic waste comes out."

"Fun fact." I raised a finger, "I've never changed a diaper."

"When we're old you can change mine."

I made a face, "I've got you by eight years. I think you'll be first with that duty."

Gian looked at us then his wife, "This has gone in a weird direction."

I snorted, "Usually does." This weird direction was courtesy of neither of us going near the baby thing. We’d discussed not discussing it.

Jessica handed the baby to the nanny and we headed to Montmartre. Our guide, Elodie, met us at the foot of the hill. Oh fuck, the way she looked at me. She not only knew who I was, she liked it.

Elodie was a good tour guide. She knew the history of the area, fast-tracked us through museums, and pointed out interesting shops. We stopped at several local eateries for a glass of wine or bite to eat then on to the next place. Emma enjoyed the cheese most, Jessica the macaroons, and Sian and I the wine. I held Emma's hand as we walked. Elodie would stop and turn to talk. And flirt. At one of our shopping stops Emma and Jessica came back from the bathroom right as Elodie laughed and put her hand on my arm. Both women looked at me and rolled their eyes. On our way to the next stop Emma leaned closer, "She flirts with you with me standing right here."

I nodded, "I noticed." She wasn't acting upset, but I thought it best to ask. "Are you pissed?"

She screwed up her face, "No. Do you think if you flirted back a little I could get some extra cheese? Maybe an off the tour place that can’t pay to be included?"

Jessica leaned over. "We'd appreciate wine."

I looked at them in turn, "You're trading me for cheese and wine?"

"They have really good cheese here."

Jessica just nodded.

Next shop when Elodie found her way to me for a little more flirting, I put my hand on hers that was on my arm and asked about any place off the beaten path that we shouldn't miss.

Elodie smiled, "We're contracted for certain establishments."

"I know, but you've seen what we like. Maybe a smaller place that’s delicious, but can’t afford to be on a tour." I leaned closer and whispered, "I'd appreciate it."

"I’ll try to think of a place."

"Thank you." I kissed her cheek, patted her hand, and walked to Emma. Smiling.

Emma pursed her lips try to look disapproving but started smiling. "That wasn't you’re A-game, but it's going to work."

"Cheese isn't worthy of my A-game."

Her smile turned a little evil, "What’s worthy of your A-game?"

"Separating you from your panties." I took her hand and led her outside.

Fifteen minutes later we were at a small store you wouldn’t find if you didn’t know it was there. All of us were happy. Jessica and Gian bought three bottles of wine. Emma nearly had an orgasm over a cheese, which made me happy. Elodie was happy when she said goodbye to us outside the cafe and I took a picture hugging her.

There'd been a lot of walking between cheese and wine stops. By design, we were supposed to be a little high as we shopped and still hungry at the cafe. We were. It was a fun meal with lots of laughter. Jessica had no lack of stories from filming and press for “The Martian”.

I only thought how Emma wouldn't be here for lunch tomorrow about a dozen times.

Our tour didn't include Sacré-Cœur. It was easy enough without a guide. We headed that direction after lunch. The street we walked down led past a small square with a big wall covered in words.

Jessica pointed, “The I Love You wall." She went in that direction. "I think there's over a hundred languages. You two need to find Romanian."

There wasn't a crowd of people. It was a polite tourist spot with people taking it in turns to take pictures near their language. We stood back and I quickly found the words. Jessica had found the Italian version. We traded phones for pictures. Romantic, coupley, tourist bullshit pictures. It was great.

The view of the city from Sacré-Cœur was beautiful. A little down from the crowd we sat on a wall overlooking the city. Gian and Jessica decided it was time for them to head back. We were going to walk amongst the artists. Emma got up to hug them goodbye then climbed back on the wall with me. The quiet moment enjoying the view was interrupted by my text notification. I was going to ignore it, but something told me to check. I nudged Emma to show her the picture Jessica had sent. They'd paused as they left to take a picture of us on the wall. My arm was around Emma's waist, her head was on my shoulder, and I was kissing her head. "I fucking love this."

"Me too." She kissed me. "This is what I want to post. Will you ask Jessica if it's ok?"

"Sure." I forwarded the picture to Emma before texting Jessica. She didn’t care.

I sat there watching Emma type out the caption, but still went to the app when my notification went off. She'd framed where we were on the bottom right and the Eiffel Tower was top left. It was a very sweet picture. I wanted to post it too, but if I did we’d have to evacuate the area. I wasn’t ready to leave.

Emma captioned it, "Beautiful view with my love."

I tapped the little red heart and commented, "Paris is for lovers."

Almost quicker than me Amy had commented, "You're in Paris? When will you be back?"

She responded, "Tomorrow night. 🙁”

I pulled her into a tight hug, "I'm proud of you."

She looked like I felt when she said the same thing to me. "This feels better. You were right."

I tangled our fingers, "I know you pretty well."

We kissed again and she whispered, "I love you, Bastian."

I put my hand on her face, "I love you, beautiful girl."

Emma found a watercolor of a window at Mont Saint Michel with purple flowers. I was told they were Wisteria. She negotiated the price, somehow paying more than he'd asked, telling him the extra was for the feelings it evoked. He rolled it into a thick cardboard tube that would travel well. He suggested unrolling it at the hotel until we were ready to travel.

Sunset was nearing. Our last in Paris. I'd researched this and knew the winding road to head down. The sunset against the buildings would open to a bigger view over the city. The area was crowded. I led her to a building to lean against. In the afterglow I picked up her hand, kissing it, "Do you want to play a game?"

Her eyes lit up, "A game. On our last night?"

"It will be perfect."

"What kind of game do you have in mind?"

"You seem tense. Like you could use a good massage." I shook my head, "Well, a mediocre massage but a happy ending."

I wasn’t sure if she was giving me the I love you smile or something dirty. Either worked. "Sounds fun."

I nodded, "Do you want me or a new massage therapist?"

"Neither. I want you, but neutral. Well placed kissed are good."

I nodded, "I got it."

"We're not sleeping tonight, are we?"

"Probably not."

[subwalls]

WHUMPTOBER 2021 - 6/30

No. 6 - TOUCH AND GO bruises | touch starved | hunger

Also available on AO3!

The first time George crosses the void, it’s to attend his best friend’s funeral.

Mostly for the purposes of rejecting it altogether. 

“You know he’s not dead, right?” George says. He adjusts his goggles, pressing tenderly at the indents the frame leaves on his face. “Let’s just get out of here. He doesn’t die that easily.”

“I know,” Sapnap says, frustrated. “I know he’s not dead. He’s just gone .” 

George can’t argue that. Neither of them remember their friend’s name—that’s damning enough, even without the week Sapnap spent nearly scalding the inside of his skull, scouring the city with the All-Seeing Eyes of the Gods without care for how much heat they generated, only for the search to turn out without so much as a grain of evidence that their friend even existed at all.

That’s the problem, George is pretty sure. The All-Seeing Eyes peel back the bells and whistles of lies and magic, exposing nothing but the raw truth of the world around them.

And the truth is that invisible werewolves can disappear themselves so thoroughly they can make the world be as though they never existed to begin with.

The Eyes can’t see them because there is nothing to see. 

Allegedly.

George is well aware that he shouldn’t know this. If their friend truly diluted his existence so thinly that nobody could find him, then neither he nor Sapnap should even remember that he existed. But they do; they remember his pronouns, even—and, if George strains for the faintest edges of his memory, the sound of his laughter.

So there are traces. It’s not a perfect vanishing act, which means there has to be a way to reverse it.

George tells Sapnap as much, when they leave the… gathering of people forgetting that they’re mourning even as they do it. Sapnap nods in agreement.

“Phil said most of the invisible werewolves have a token of some kind,” Sapnap says. “Like, a cypher that can bring them back. They tried to do it with this person, but it didn’t work.”

“What was it?”

“I think it had something to do with the Eyes? He didn’t tell me the details. It’s private.”

A part of George wants to snipe that they must not have been good friends then, if such a key detail couldn’t be shared with them. 

Logically, he’s certain that they did know, at some point. It just faded along with the rest of their memories of him.

“Okay,” says George. “We don’t need a cypher of whatever anyway.” He brings his hands up to his goggles, but the moment his fingers brush the cool, pitch-black glass, he hesitates.

It’s funny. The memory of that event—the figure leaning out of the sky with unending wings and crossed halos and an unmarked sphere of pale light that spoke so softly, choose who will see this through to the End —it’s glitchy, like a trying to straighten out a crumpled-up photo. The lines of wear and tear are there.

George knows that people have opinions about his friends jumping into SMP City without him, about his blacked-out goggles and their unnaturally glowing blue eyes. Most of them assume they left him behind, sacrificed his flawed sight to split the rewards between them both—Sapnap has whined about it before, most recently in the context of that Blood Breed conflict that roped him into the Syndicate.

In reality, George never gave up anything.

Or, better phrased: George was the only one who didn’t give something up.

He shoves the goggles up, and the All-Seeing Eyes of the Gods spring open with the near-musical string of notes that aren’t unlike the chimes of a computer’s start-up sequence.

Immediately, a headache of information slams into him with all the force of a ten-inch steel wall, WALL WALL BRICK BACKROOM DOOR AND STAIRWAYS DOWN A HUNDRED SOULS IN A CONCRETE ARENA ENDER FLESH BREAKING NETHER BLOOD DRIPPING HUMA CROWDS WATCHING WATCH WATCH—

George shudders in a breath, the blue-tinted view of his surroundings fizzling too-bright too-much, and he can almost hear someone in the back of his head, chiding, “If you’d just practiced instead of shutting it down and pretending like you don’t have it, George, you could easily handle that neural load by now. I’m telling you, you can’t keep pretending it isn’t there!”

George says, “I hate this part.”

Sapnap laughs at him. George turns towards him on instinct and sees the star-riddled void under that cloth eyepatch, a dead eye in form but a vacuum in function, A DEBT INCURRED A DEBT REPAID SIGHT FOR SIGHT AN EYE FOR AN EYE AND THE HOLE LEFT BEHIND AS THE HIGHER HAND TAKES AND THE HIGHER HAND GIVES AND THE CONTRACT REMAINS THE CONTRACT REMAINS—

—and oh, oh, he knows how to do it, he knows what to look for. 

If you could back out of a divine contract by just dissipating, then it wouldn’t be much of a divine contract, would it? Here stands George and Sapnap, two-thirds or maybe two-fourths of a contract etched in song and history and the pupils of their eyes. The other parties must exist.

They already do; the Eyes hum, blitzing through reams upon reams of information, lighting up not just George’s face but Sapnap’s as well, and because they exist, so must be the one who paid for their existence.

( Choose who will see this through to the End. )

(“If you have to take something, take it from me!”)

(We forgive your transgression. But we do not revoke the payment we have taken.)

(“Fine by me. This is better than what it was gonna be, anyway.”)

George’s eyes burn, escalating to an awful, awful heat that feels like it’s going to boil the blood in his veins, but still he sees, still he looks for those hairline fractures in reality, A SHADOW WAS HERE AND A FOOTSTEP THERE SEE IT SEE IT IT IS TRUE SO MAKE IT TRUE—

The gears of light twist, shrieking out some incomprehensible song, crackling with power in front of his eyes, and he can taste blood in the back of his throat and on his lips and it’s dripping to the floor now but still he looks.

A pressure on his wrist, tight enough to bruise.

“Okay,” rasps a SHADOW SILHOUETTE FIGMENT OF PRESENCE DRAWN BACK TOGETHER figure that flickers, wavering. “Stop, stop it, that’s enough, I’m here, I’m here—”

George slams his other hand over that pressure at his wrist and feels at first only the rough fabric of his own jacket, but then, abruptly, the softer cotton of a warm jumper.

“Turn them off, oh my god,” says—says—says Dream, waving his free hand through the light of the Eyes like he’s trying to dismiss them, just barely shuttering back into some normal level of existence. His grip on George tightens, desperate; his good eye meets George’s gaze pleadingly, while his other, an identical match to Sapnap’s, remains a featureless expanse of stars. “You’re going to roast the one brain cell you have left, you idiot, turn them off—”

George shuts his Eyes, and the stream of information dies abruptly. The silence in his head leaves him reeling, for a second, which gives Sapnap just enough time to scream in fury and tackle Dream to the ground, dragging George down with them.

“Don’t do that!” Sapnap shrills, making an aborted movement like he wants to strangle the life out of Dream but isn’t sure he won’t just give way under his touch. “You’re the worst, you’re the actual worst—”

“ What? How? I didn’t—”

“—and you suck, and the next time you get cornered by a Blood Breed you gotta call for help before you get muffined—”

The two of them fall into bickering so easily it’s comforting, like a backdrop of rain, just a wash of noise so smooth out the ruffled edges the Eyes left behind.

George reaches up, catching Dream’s arm before he can elbow Sapnap into oblivion. “You’re so annoying,” he tells him. “You said you specifically came here so you I didn’t have to use these things.”

“Well,” Dream says, “that’s not the only reason.”

“Still! You broke your promise!”

“I didn’t promise anything,” Dream complains, warm and alive and more present than ever. “You’re just being a baby. Both of you are.”

Sapnap shifts, and George pulls his goggles back over his eyes just in time to see Dream go still as Sapnap practically cradles his head between his hands.

“Remember what we said about us being your token?” Sapnap asks.

“Mhm.”

“I’m taking it back.” And then, as Dream’s face crumples, “I mean! I know you can’t like, change it, because it’s what makes you want to go come back no matter what and that stuff. But you can’t do this again, Dream. You were gone.” His voice lowers. “We barely knew you.”

Something in Dream’s gaze cracks, and he’s pushing himself up, clipping distractedly through them. Sapnap and George scramble upright as he sits primly a clean inch away from them both and says, “I know, but it’s not like I wanted to. I got snuck up on, okay? It’s not like I like being—being less, and untouchable, and spreading myself so thin I can’t feel anything at all.” 

He shudders, then, and some of the color bleeds from his clothes.

“It doesn’t feel great for me, either, Pandas,” Dream says, and Sapnap makes a wounded noise and lurches forward to wrap him in a hug.

George watches them, for a moment, and nearly envisions a void yawning wide between them before he realizes that Sapnap is pulling him into it too, and now they’re all wrapped around each other and stifling laughter about it, and it’s warm, and oh, George has been alone—on the other side of the void, reluctant to step past the dragon’s den—for so long now.

He’s missed this. The bracing tightness of Sapnap squeezing them like he’s got something to prove, the low hum in Dream’s chest as he relaxes, George’s own skin feeling almost too tight for the nostalgia that wells up in his throat, almost too warm to lean into it, but also offended at the very thought of trying to extract himself from it.

“How’s this,” Dream says, cautiously, muffled against Sapnap’s shoulder, “we let George move in with you, you Sap, and I—”

“Stop sleeping in the Syndicate’s offices and join us?” Sapnap says, poking fun.

“It’s comfortable,” Dream grumbles. “And there’s free food. And no biased landlord.”

George squints at him. “Is this about the Huma-only thing?” he says, and Sapnap nods quickly. “Isn’t your whole thing about avoiding that kind of stuff, Dream? How does a landlord affect you at all?”

Dream opens his mouth, stops, and then shuts it. And then, “Shut up.”

“Wow,” Sapnap says. “I think you left a few brain cells behind when you came back.”

Dream shoves his head away, messing up Sapnap’s hair. “The only thing I left behind was my breakfast,” he declares. “I’m hungry. Can we go get something to eat now, instead of sitting in a… random alley in the middle of nowhere?” He looks around, only just now noticing that they are, in fact, sitting in a random alley in the middle of nowhere. “Is this—where are we?”

Sapnap perks up. “Oh, yeah,” he says, “while we were looking for you, I—George—we saw what looked like one of those underground fighting rings. The entrance is kinda close to here. D’you think it’s that Las Nevadas crew Phil and Tech have been looking for?”

“Only one way to find out,” Dream says cheerfully, and looks at George.

George sputters. “I-I can’t believe you. I set my eyeballs on fire for you,” he says, indignant, “and this is how you repay me? By asking for more?”

Sapnap laughs, knocking their heads together, and something in George’s chest settles with a burst of rightness. “Maybe later,” he says. “Dream’s right, I’m starving. And tired. Your Eyes suck, George.”

“Thanks, you bought them for me,” George says, at the same time that Dream says, “I’m always right.”

[xmalereader]

The Mandalorian X Male Reader

-

|| Masterlist ||

-

@galaxis-pixi

Requested: So, uh, if y'all requests is open can u like, do a mando imagine where the reader is also a mandalorian ? they know each other since quite some time but mostly go on seperate missions, but this time they do one together and reader flies with him ? I hope that not too much, but yeh, would be real rad of you to do this! ya don't hav'ta but I really like your writing and stuff uwu

Warnings: Fluff, little green child, reunited.

-

-

The two knew each other when they were children, they were always close and playful with each other. Sometimes they would even cause trouble together and anger a few mandalorians but when a current age came the two forgot how they looked like once that helmet was placed in them. The continued to grow up together but the other always ended up busy, they were growing fast and they needed to learn the Mandalorian way.

One of them would be sparing with an adult Mandalorian, learning how to fight and defend themselves during a mission or current problems that needed defense. While the did that the other boy would be learning how to make his beskar armor, he worked with the armor and helped her every time a new Mandalorian would come in with a reward that they either wanted to share or melt into new armor. His job was to watch her but once he got older he learned the ways of being a blacksmith, he would create the armor and allow his teacher to place it on the Mandalorian.

The two friends slowly grew apart, to busy in their own roles that one of them was suddenly sent away. He left by choice; deciding to stay or leave. So, his choice was to leave the underground and live a life in the world above. He did remember his best friend and wanted to say his goodbyes but after years of wearing the helmet he instantly forgot on how he looked like. He had no idea if he was even amongst the crowd of mandalorians before he left. He had no choice but to leave without saying anything.

Din remembers that day perfectly, the two were so close as children but once that helmet was placed on them their friendship felt like it suddenly broke, breaking the two apart and drifting far away from each other. He was an adult now and took the job as a bounty hunter, living above grounds as he takes down bounty’s and turned them in for credits, other times he would receive beskar from his rewards. Things were well, perfect really. But, it never lasted long.

—

Two years.

Two years later they finally see each other again.

After the battle in Navarro both Din and the child become the only clan left, once the rest of the mandalorians exposed themselves and ran away from that life he was left alone as the only Mandalorian clan. Not knowing if their were more mandalorians out their in different planets or not. But he wasn’t worried about that right now, his main focus was on the child. He needs to find the kids own species or wait for it to come to age where he can become a Mandalorian himself.

Before he left the planet he remembers the armorer stopping him and suddenly asking about his childhood friend.

“Y/n”

She tells him that he’s still out there, wandering around space in a planet probably living his life. Who knows if he was still going by the creed or if he too removed his armor and helmet for a better life. Din didn’t want to get his hopes up, he didn’t want to think about him. Not after years of not seeing each other.

So during one mission is where he finally meets his childhood friend. He was fighting off a nexu, trying to keep the child safe and away from the beast who launched itself on top of Din but before it could dig its teeth into the Mandalorian a sudden force stoped the beast from doing so, he knows that it’s the kids doing but he couldn’t help but grow worried. The kid wasn’t strong enough to hold it back so In less than a few minutes the child suddenly grows tired and the beast falls back.

The nexu regained its energy and charged forward only to stop when a sudden strong language was shouted from above. The creature cowards down and backs up in fear as the stranger continued to speak in a different language that the Mandalorian didn’t understand.

Din backs away from the creature and takes out his vibroblade, before he could do anything a sudden figure lands in front of him. Their back facing him as the stranger shouts at the creature, waving its hand to back off the creature. The nexu whimpers softly before he backs away and disappears into the forest. Din was panting heavily, lowering down his blade once the strange turns around to see him.

“I thought you all ran away.” Said Din, putting away his blade as he stared at the other Mandalorian. He was slightly shorter than Din but then again, size didn’t seem to matter to them.

“Ran away? I’ve been living here for years now.” The other Mandalorian says back with his hands on his hips. Suddenly giving the other mando a look that Din couldn’t really see. “Then I’m guessing your from another clan.”

The Mandalorian shakes his head. “I’m not, I’m from the same clan that I was born into. But I heard that they were all killed...including a good friend of mine.” He sighs out sadly and lowers his arms. He watched Din Make his way towards the child, gently picking him up. The Mandalorian eyes the child and the other mando before gasping. “Your the one who stole the bounty instead of turning him in?” He looks at him up and down. “Well you probably did turn him in since your covered in beskar armor.” He adds.

Din checks on the kid and finds him sleeping against his chest. “Yeah I saved him, got a problem with that?” He said in a protective way as he held the child close to him.

The other Mandalorian steps back with his hands up. “Sorry.” He mumbled out. “Anyways It’s been years since I last saw a Mandalorian. Care to tell me your name?” He knows that the mandalorians don’t use their birth names anymore unless needed too but Din didn’t have his clan anymore it was just him and the child and like the other Mandalorian said, his clan was also killed off leaving him on his own. He saw no danger in tell him his name.

“Din. Din Djarin.”

The other mandalorians eyes widen once he hears that name escape Dins lips.

“Din?” He suddenly says in a soft tone, slowly approaching him. “Din is that really you?” He asks this time.

Din steps back in confusion, he eyes the other before realization hits him. “Y/n?” He blurts out which earns him a slow nod from the other. He can’t believe it, it’s been years since he’s last seen his childhood friend. He always thought of him dead but here he was. Standing right in front him.

Without thinking y/n, pulls Din into a hug which causes him to freeze in surprise. He slowly lifts his own arm up to hug him back, he hasn’t had physical connection in years. The only person he allowed physical touch from was y/n but once he disappeared he despised the touch from others always giving them a look of disgust. But now here he was, hugging him once again.

—

“He’s not eating.”

“He doesn’t like it when people stare at him.”

The small green child was holding a frog in his small hands. He was giving y/n a look that meant that he didn’t want to be seen eating. “Why is he afraid?” He asks.

The two mandalorians were sitting back to back, their helmets off and on their sides as the two are in silence, we’ll semi-silence. They’ve been traveling together for a few months now and y/n has gotten used to having the child around.

“We visited a planet that had a village, it was full of children and they teased him while he ate a frog.” Din explains as he eats his own food by the fire and leans his head back against his partners head.

Y/n frowns at the explanation and cooed. “Aww you poor thing.” He says and reached out to gently stroke the child’s ears. “Don’t worry I won’t make fun of you.” He promises with a smile causing the child to coo back and began to eat his frog. Y/n tries hard not to cringe at the sudden gulping, he hides it by shoving his own food in his mouth.

The night was quiet and the only thing being heard was the sound of the wood burning and popping. The child was happily playing around with a small stick that he had suddenly found while the two adults sat back to back, not showing their faces as they ate.

“When was the last time you showed your face to someone?” Y/n suddenly blurts out, leaning back against his friends back. Din sets down his empty bowl and sighs. “When we were kids, before we were given our code.” He answers, watching the child swinging the stick around happily and giggling.

“That long huh?”

Din raised a brow at his friends tone, he sits up and clears his throat. “What about you?”

Y/n bites his lip and looks up at the stars to keep himself distracted as he spoke. “After I left I went from planet to planet, trying to find a job and maybe a place to settle down for awhile. I didn’t stop being a Mandalorian and I never broke the creed until I met this one girl, she was living in the streets and was being abused. I didn’t hesitate to take her in.” He explains. “She was a sweet little girl, I trained her to fight and I fed her, gave her warm clothes and a home. But as the years went by she grew up, become an adult. I didn’t make her into a Mandalorian. I didn’t want her to go through the pain that I was going through...” he sighs deeply and lowers his head, poking at the leftover food that he had in his bowl.

“The day that she left was the day that I revealed my face. She was shocked but also happy that she was able to see him for the last time, I remember when she kissed my cheek as a goodbye and then after that I never saw her again and I went back to my old ways.” He sets the bowl aside and picks up his own helmet, using his sleeve to clean off the dust that was covered in it. “What about the creed?” Din asks as he hears the other shuffle.

“The creed was broken, but I have no clan Din. No one could stop me from removing my helmet anymore, I only show myself to the people that I actually cared for.”

“Like the child that you saved and raised?”

“Like the child I raised.” With that he slips his helmet back on and stands up, stretching out his muscles, his back still facing Din. “I’m not the same y/n that you knew as a child, Din. I’m different.” He walks over to his hammock that he made and climbs in, turning onto his side to rest. “Goodnight Din.” He whispers out before he falls asleep.

Din had placed his helmet on after y/n did, he watched his friend lie in the hammock and sleep. Seeing his chest rise up and down as he slept. Din couldn’t help but repeat the story that y/n has told him about revealing his face to others and what it was like to be free for only a few seconds. Din was raised into the creed and he promised to keep his code but now that y/n was back with him he didn’t know if he wanted to keep going. He doesn’t know if he should Settle down or not.

As he thinks about his decisions he walks over to the child’s small pod and sets him in. Making sure that he remained asleep and covers him up with a blanket before closing the pod. He sat next to it and leans his head to look at the stars, he remembers when y/n and him would spend hours reading about the stars when they were just kids. Now they are adults, y/n has grown and so had Din.

—

The two mandalorians were sitting in a cantine, it was rare seeing two mandalorians out in public and seen together. It didn’t raise suspicion but fear to those around them since the Mandalorians are considered as warriors.

“Why are we here again?” Y/n asks quietly as he plays with his own blade, spinning it around the table in boredom. “There’s a bounty here that I need to capture, I need credits for fuel.” Y/n raised a brow and hums under his helmet. “Or, why not just steal from them?”

“And become a bounty myself?” Din hissed out.

Y/n frowns and sits back. “Aren’t you already a bounty?” He suddenly blurts out which was a wrong choice to do since Din slowly turns to glare at him. He couldn’t see his expression but he could feel the other glaring at him. “Right...sorry...” he mumbled out and puts his blade away.

He glanced over to Din and sighs deeply. “Listen you can do your bounty hunting work but I won’t.” He suddenly says as he stands up from his spot not wanting to make himself to obvious to the bounty. “What?” Y/n frowns at the other. “I’m not a bounty hunter, I’m not like you. I use my skills for something else, something that’s worth it.” He explains to him before leaving the cantine, heading back to the razor crest to check on the child that Din left behind.

Once y/n arrives he waits for Din to capture the bounty but during the mean time he spent his time playing with the kid. Cooing at it softly as he watched him grab his index finger with his tiny three fingered hand, he pulls the gloves hand into his mouth and began to chew and slobber all over it but y/n didn’t seem to mind the mess, he was still a child and learning.

As he keeps the child distract from the world he waits back in the razor crest for Din. He was taking longer than usual and was starting to worry, he continued to play with the child to keep himself from worrying but that little feeling kept coming to him. The child was able to sense the worry as well and began to whimper in discomfort. “Hey its okay.” Y/n sets the child down and removes his helmet, he sets it down and allows the kid to look at his face. His hair was growing out and needed a haircut soon, his hair was curling behind his ears which told him that it was slowly getting longer. “Really need to get myself a haircut, huh?” He tells the child who had stopped whimpering and stared at the unmasked mandalorian, yes the child has seen him without the helmet before but he never took in the details of the other man before, its tiny hands reach up to touch his face and cooed happily. Y/n laughs softly at the child. “you really are a strange one but lets be honest, Din took you in for a reason.” He whispered before hearing the front entrance being opened, he quickly puts his helmet back on and stands his ground, holding the child in his arms.

Din was the one to enter the razor crest, he was holding the prisoner by the arm and dragging him inside. “You’re late.” Said Y/n, once he took notice that it was din he lowers down blaster and sighs. “Been busy.” He answers back.

The prisoner takes notice of the other mandalorian and their eyes widen. “Another Mandalorian, well it is an honor!” Y/n rolls his eyes and placed the kid inside the cot. “Okay your sweet talk isnt going to free you.” He tells the prisoner.

“But it is an honor! And you sound quiet handsome.” They grin.

Y/n glares under his helmet and looks up to Din. “freeze him.” He says out loud.

The prisoners eyes widen as Din silently agrees and shoves them towards the back of the razor crest. The other mandalorian sighs and shakes his head before turning back to the child. “That was disgusting and lets be honest he’s not even that good looking.” He says to the child and leans back in the cot as the child clings on to him.

Din returns and chuckled. “You were always getting to conclusions, never getting the time to ask questions.”

“When someone like that talks to me they know that they’ll get killed.” He sets the kid down once again and turns to Din.

Din could only stare at his old time friend and shake his head, “He wasn’t wrong you know.” Y/n raises a brow, “What do you mean?”

“He wasn’t wrong when he called you handsome.”

“Din you dont even know what I look like, its been years.” He was blushing deeply and avoiding dins stare. “I know but I can easily tell that your handsome.” DIn approached Y/n and placed both hands on either side of the cot, next to his thighs as he leans close and bumps their helmets together. Y/n slowly smiles at the gesture.

Mandalorians that bump helmets is considered as a kiss, it was the only thing they had. At first y/n found it weird and different but having Din this close to him made him smile in happiness, he was glad to be back with him to be back with his mandalorian.

[c-atm]

Dere

Ok..Venom?"

"Marvel Venom..or Guilty Gear Venom?"

Steven looked at Connie quizzically, arching an eyebrow. He pursed his lips self-deliberation.

"Guilty."

"Yandere...Completely.  He tried to kill Milia over Zato's dead body."

"Pssh! That's not how it went and you know it."

Connie wagged her finger while clicking her tongue. "Subtext Mister. Subtext...You don't believe it was just because Milia killed him now…"

"Venom didn’t try to kill Milia for Zato when he was alive. Doesn't sound yandere-ish to me, just complete and utter loyalty to Zato”

“Uh-huh, live in your denial Bisky...We all know the truth. All you need to do is play his story mode and read the ‘Night of Knives’ LN.”

It was another peaceful day in era-3. Within Steven’s home, Connie(Heart Berry) and Steven(Mister) were laying face up on his bed, enjoying the lazy sunday afternoon. Hands intertwined as they played a little game, where they named a character from any type of media and decided what type of 'Derek's they were. It was stupid, senseless, humorfilled fun and they enjoyed it so much.

Steven shrugged with a smug smirk. “I don’t agree but, since i’m such a nice guy, I’ll let you have that.”

“In other words you have no retort..” Connie shrugged with a smug chuckle. “But I'll take the W.” She pursed her lips in thought  as she tried to come up with a character. “Wizemen.”

“From underneath the overpass?”

“Yuppers.”

Steven kissed his teeth before smirking. “Total tsun, you know this..We agreed on this when we reread the series. Especially with prophet Kyle...He was always one line away from the classic ‘baka’ line.”

Connie wavered her hand as she sucked in a breath. “I concur, but he did threaten lady Aqulia with live embalming more than once. That's more of the yandere side of the die.”

“But Aqulia was a damn psycho to begin with..She’s the yandere. He was just protective.”

“Oh yeah, no doubt. She actually made good on some of her threats.”

“Yeah, she’s completely nutso.”

Connie looked at Steven, his tone of voice was not mocking but almost appreciative. She raised an eyebrow.and hummed suspiciously, catching Steven attention. He arched his left eyebrow, seeing that impish glint in her black eyes.

“What’s up Heart Berry? You look like you’re scheming something.”

“I’m curious Mister,” She let out a playfully accusatory chuckle while poking his cheek. ”Name your top three fictional crushes.”

Steven's eyes widen at the sudden command. “What? Why?”

Connie kissed her teeth and rolled her eyes as she layed on her side. Her hand now teasing his chin whiskers. “Just trying to find something out. Now come on, out with it. What fictional person did you have the hots for?”

Steven  narrowed his eyes before pointing at her. “ No judgement?”

“No, painful judgements..I still withhold my right to give opinions.”

Steven rubbed his chin before giving Conie forehead a kiss, making her smile just a bit. “Deal.”

Connie bounced her shoulder up and down waiting anxiously.

Steven shook his head before he listed the first three names to hit his mind.

“Rena Ryuga, Yuno gasai, Anna..”

Connie looked at him wide eyed before falling into gigge. “OH my stars..You have a yandere fetish!”

“You said no judgement!”

[[MORE]]

“I’m not ..PFFT!... I’m not.hahaha.”  Connie took a deep breath trying to calm down..before breaking out again in laughter again. ”It’s so off-base Bisky! I can’t see the connect here...I thought you were more of a ‘dere-dere' fan with how schmaltzy you are.”

Steven kissed his teeth before smirking.  He lifted his left index finger up and pursed his lips. “Look, I love all ‘dere’ types, ok..I don’t discriminate.”

Connie side-eyed at her Mister retort, Her lips held in tight accusations. “Off the top of that curly dome of yours came three yandere names..One of them being queen yandere herself. So don’t spit any lies about you being indiscrimative, when you obviously have a type.”

Seven chuckled as he shook his head. “No, no, not gonna admit to that.”

“It’s ok..You like crazy female characters, everyone has their types.” She reassured with an impish grin, her hands up in surrender, before placing her hands on top of her head. “But really...Yanderes? Where did this fetish come from?!” Connie laughed, still trying to keep her mirth low.

“Ok. First it’s not a fetish...It’s a preference and not even in my top three.” Steven corrected

“It’s a fetish, Bisky.” Connie retorted with a smirk.

“Second, Have you seen the people I grew up with...The people I was raised by, the women in my family. With the exception of Amethyst and Peridot, each and everyone of them have yandere-like tendencies. I was conditioned.”

Connie snorted at his playful puppy eyed look, tapping him in the chest giving him a jesterly captious look.

“Yeah sure, blame the gems for your type.”

“It’s true!.” Steven offered. “Think about it. Ruby and Sapphire are so crazy about each other, they decided to literally exist as one person to the end of time. Pearl did everything and anything out of love from my mother. Not to mentioned the whole ‘fight a fucking war’ in her name thing."

Connie arched her eyebrow in incredulity. "You believe Garnet is the perfect example of eternal love."

Steven smacked his chest, smirking at his Heart Berry ."And I'm not denying that...I'm saying Ruby and Sapphire would shatter for one another and could be obsessive when it comes to the other...Obsessive to the point of not being able to operate. Do I need to tell you about the baseball game again?"

Connie squinted her eyes and squeezed her lips tight letting out a small growl, before nodding in resignation.  "Ok...You got that."

"Thank you...Do I need to explain Pearl?"

Connie let use a dry chuckle holding her hand up ."No need. I will take your word…"

"Again, thank you."

"Though it does bring up a question?"

"Which is?"

Connie sighed hands on her cheek. "Do I have yandere tendencies? Am I also a reason for your yandere fetish?"

She watched as Steven's face went blank and doe-eyed, before he snickered, chuckled and belly laugh. The sight of her Mister happiness made her heart warm and fueled her with pride, as it always did.

She pouted playfully, with her arms crossed. "Hey, it's a legitimate question."

Steven only laughed harder before sitting her across his hips. His hands on her own as he looked up at her. Still snickering, this time at her cute pout.

"I don't think you have yandere tendencies, though some of the things you’ve done are crazy..."

"Hey!"

He laughed as she slapped his stomach with a smile.

"Come on, tell me I'm wrong.  Back talking the diamonds, taking on monsters, leaping from Lion to try to stab blue and again to belly flop on my snout just to give me a kiss…Actually now that I think about it.. You've got them. The aspects of yandere that I find attractive.”

Connie grinned in jest crossing her arms across her stomach. "Oh and what are those? the violent outburst, the obsessive behavior. "

“I mean, you are a little firecracker.” 

Connie pointed at his smug smirking face, waving her index finger with a small blaze in her eye. “Boy, watch it or i’ll show you how yandere i can really be.”

“Promise?”  

A teasing grin enveloped the woman's face. “You’re pushing it.”  She shook her head, her nose flared a bit as she exhaled in jovial impatience.” So..Those aspects?”

He arched his eyebrow and he rubbed his chin. "Thoooose aspects."

"Yes! Speak or I'm taking your tongue."

"Then silence works in my favor."

Connie smirked impishly. "You would think so, but you don't know the reward for your compliance. Besides never said it would be with my own."

"Is there any other way?" 

"I could always hold it between my thumb and index." She pressed the digits tips together a couple of times in demonstration.

"We both know you'd prefer an oral operation. So, Nehh! Ack!"

Connie watched with mild amusement at Steven's surprised squawk as she snatched and held his tongue with her left thumb and Index.

"Aspects."

"Well, I can't verily tell you with my tongue captive now, can I?" His words were muffled but still comprehensible. He wiggled his tongue after she released it, going through dramatic  and exaggerated jaw exercises.

Connie kissed her teeth but  couldn't help the smile on her face. "Oh come on! I didn't even hold it for a minute, Steven."

"My tongue is very sensitive, thank you." Steven retorted as he continued his antics.

"Big baby."

"Oh, ouch. My pride."

 The two playfully and giggly sneered at each other, before Steven reached up to stroke her cheek.

“You’re sweet, protective, caring, dependable.”

Connie nodded as she slowly snuggled into his palm.“That’s the ‘Dere’ side.” 

“Focus, cunning, calculative, dangerous,”

She gave him a playfully ‘dark’ grin. “That’s the ‘Yan’, I suppose, hehe.I”

“Seductive, amorous, bewitching.”

Connie pressed the tip of his nose with her index finger, before trailing it down to his lips, hovering it a millimeter a way. “See now, you’re trying to butter me up.” She gave him a chuckle before kissing his palm and giving him a half-lidded smile. “Continue though.”

Steven chortled at the gentle instruction. “You’re quite unpredictable at times,and quite commanding....Actually, you might be more Kamidere/ Mayadere mix.”

“Ok, You know...I’ll accept the Mayadere classification. That’s fine but, Kamidere? I’m not that brash and you’re just being a punk.” Connie retorted as she flipped his bottom lips a few times. 

“EY!  Kahanni Maheswaren, ‘Story of the lord of the universe’. Your name is the perfect title for a Kamidere manga. Really couldn’t blame you if you did have a bit of a complex.” 

“Kiss your lord finger. Show the proper respect.”

Steven scoffed a laugh at the faux haughtiness of Connie's statement, the waving of her finger above his lips, and her cheshire smirk. 

“Such a teasing lord I follow.” With a husky breath he complied thrice, getting a blushing giggle from her. 

“Maybe, but I'm also very rewarding towards my most dutiful subjects.”

Steven arched an eyebrow before giving her hand another kiss “Really now, my little Teasedere.” 

“Teasedere now, huh? First, I’m a yandere, then a kami/mayadere mix...Now i’m a teasedere.” She leaned down a bit closer. “Are you just listing off your ‘preferences’ now?”

“You wanted to know them and I only said you were a teasedere.”

“You stated I had aspects of the others.”

Steven shrugged. “They’re your sub-categories.”

“Sub-categories, he says!” Connie laughed at his smug jesterly look. “You are on top of your game today. Hitting me with zinger after zinger.” She nodded her head, clapping her hands together. “I respect that, Mister.” She chuckled again before sighing. “Making me sound like I'm a multi-class RPG character or something. Sub-categories..Cute.”

“It is my middle name after all.”

“Your third one right, Cutie-pie? ”

Steven slightly shivered at the seductive tone of his middle name through her lips. 

“So.. What about you? Mr. Universe.” She bit her lip as she traced her index on his  chest. “Where do you fall in the ‘Dere’ spectrum?”

“Come on. I’m so Conndere with sub in deredere and teasedere.”

“Conndere huh? Aren’t you being extra charming today.”

“Well…” Steven pulled her down a bit closer, a certain smile and glint in his eyes “Just being a dutiful follower.”

Connie teasing ran her thumb upon his bottom lip. “Trying to get a reward, Bisky?’

Steven nodded playfully before giving the thumb a kiss. “I think I deserve it.”

Connie gave him a quick peck before sitting back up. “Don’t you tell anyone I did this.”

Steven watched as she took a deep breath trying to ease the embarrassed blush on her face.

Connie closed her eyes, as she held her face in her hands slightly pushing up against her jaw. Both her pinky fingers and her left ring finger on her cheeks. Her right ring and both her middle fingers standing up. Her index fingers resting against her temples gently. She parted her lips slightly as she opened her eyes looking down giving him a lovestruck and slightly faraway look.

“ It’ll be alright Steven. Connie will protect you. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

Her voice was breathly laced in adoration, inflexibility and a bit of insane obsession. She watched as his face turned red as his breathing became haggard. She smiled gently with eyes still holding the same faraway look as she leaned down to his ear and whispered to him in the same tone.

“Your Heart Berry will always protect her Mister.” She heard him very quickly groan as he breathed through flared nostrils and bit his lip.

 “I’ll love you and only you, forever Bisky.” 

“TEASEDERE OF A MINX!”  

“Uh-oh!”

Connie screamed out a laugh as Steven sat up, rolled over and pinned her under him.

“Was it too muuu-” She was interrupted by him nipping at her collarbone, causing her to  sigh and moan through the laughter as her hands.found his upper back and stroke the back Of his curly haired skull; her knees squeezed against his sides keeping him in place.

“Told  you...Hhmmh! It was a fetish.” 

Her breathless teasing got him to break away from her neck. He rested her head against her and looked at her straight into her eyes before speaking very coolly and  with a trace of authority. 

“Tease me again.”

The unvocalize challenge was heard as loud as a blow horn. 

““Feeeettttii-MMMM~MMM!” Her song of a taunt was cut short as he kissed her heatedly, His tongue twisting with as they held and pressed against each other, making her melt under him.

Needless to say, their game and discussion would be on hold for the time being. 

[thewritewolf]

Four Times (and the Lucky One) Chapter 3: Setback

Attempt #3 - Is a torn sweater and a classic dinner/movies Adrien's key to success?

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

And so we arrive at the recreation of the scene that inspired this entire fic - this one, by @sweetsweetsweetie, in case you missed it the first time - as well as the midpoint of this short story. 

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3

Adrien sat at his desk, resting his head on his arms as he waited for class to begin. The chill of winter had set in and he was almost grateful for it since that meant that his face was pressed up against the warm softness of his sweater. It was becoming thin in places from how much he had been wearing and washing it lately. He could sympathise - with all these late fall photoshoots and various other activities his father had crammed into his schedule, he was feeling pretty threadbare too.

Marinette passed by and he flashed her a warm smile as she made her way to her seat. She even paused in her conversation with Alya to tell him good morning. Taking her spot behind him, she continued talking. Since he had nothing else to occupy him, Adrien listened in while his eyes fluttered shut.

“Hey girl, isn't that charity thing you're in charge of coming up in a few weeks?"

"Yeah…” Marinette tapped at her desk. “I've got a lot of ideas but I need to start making a concrete plan so that I can submit a request for school funds. I'm going to come in early tomorrow morning to scope out the place and really start making decisions."

“Oh wow, you’ll probably be here before anyone else then, won’t you?”

Adrien’s eyes flew open. Despite the exhaustion he felt in his bones, that sounded a lot like an opportunity. Definitely one that he couldn’t pass up.

Marinette groaned. “Don’t remind me. Just thinking about waking up that early is making me feel tired.”

Their conversation was cut short when class started, but the gears were already turning in his head. This plan was destined for success!

---------------

Shambling through the deserted halls of the school, Marinette made her way towards her classroom. There was still plenty of time before she actually needed to be there, and she had nowhere better to be. Sure, she could technically go back home and slip into bed, but that would only buy her what? Twenty minutes? As strong willed a fully-awake Marinette COULD be, years of abused alarm clocks and delayed mornings reminded her that she'd end up being late today too. So to class it was.

Her plans were to get as comfortable as possible and fall asleep at her desk. Alya would definitely wake her up before class started. What she didn’t account for, however, was the classroom not being empty. Which might not have been that bad, if it weren’t for the fact that it was Adrien Agreste standing in the middle of the room looking pensively at a sweater sitting on a table.

A sweater which he must have just been wearing since the only thing covering his chest was a sleeveless undershirt. Marinette entered the room hesitantly.

“G-good morning, Adrien!” Nailed it. “What’s, um, what’s the matter?” Not perfect, but she’d take it.

“Oh!” He looked over at her and smiled, making her heart do a backflip. “Hello, Marinette. I’m just trying to figure out how what I’m going to do with my sweater.” He turned back to the piece of clothing in question and held it up. His hand poked through a large rip in the side. “The seam ripped and now I’m stuck here in the cold without it.”

“I could fix it for you!” She winced at how excited she sounded. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to mind. “Since, I, um, since I have a sewing kit on me most of the time.”

“Really? That’s great!” His eyes sparkled with joy and he offered the ruined sweater to her. “Would you please?”

“Of course! Just give me a few minutes…” She pulled out her miniature sewing kit and sat down at her desk to work. Adrien took Alya’s spot and watched her work.

“So what brings you in so early?”

In her surprise, she almost missed a stitch. “Oh, um, you remember that thing I was telling you just under a month ago?”

“Three weeks ago, actually.” She glanced over to him to see his chin resting on his hand. “That is, if you’re talking about the charity auction.”

“Y-yeah, that. So, ah, I needed to do some scouting for locations and talk to some teachers. Before I make any committees or anything.”

His eyebrows flew up. “Committees? This sounds a lot bigger than I thought it was.”

“Kinda? I, um, I tend to go… a little overboard. Sometimes. You know?”

“I get what you mean,” he smiled. “I can be a little… much sometimes too.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, but he seemed perfectly happy with companionable silence. After a few minutes of swift stitches, she’d fixed the sweater. She passed it back to him and smiled at how his face lit up. She watched him slip it over his head and giggled when his mop of perfectly styled hair popped out.

“Thanks, Marinette. You really helped me out here. Why don’t you let me make it up to you?”

“Oh no, you don’t have to-”

"I'm free this evening - for once - and I was wondering if you'd like to go out?"

For a moment, her soul left her body and she froze up. This couldn’t be happening. Adrien Agreste did not just ask her out. Then her mind processed what he’d said and she relaxed a little. He didn’t say on a date, he just said to hang out. Like friends.

"Oh! How about dinner and a movie?"

"That sounds great!"

She saw their friends through the glass. They’d gotten here a little early too, but not by much. People were going to start funneling into the school any minute now.

"Awesome! There's Alya and Nino, I'll go tell them!"

Clearly, he wanted to hang out with all his friends, right? They rarely all got to hang out together - surely he was itching for an opportunity to spend an evening having fun. He probably meant that he would pay for her fare when they go out as her reward for fixing his sweater. Yeah. That made sense.

"Yeah, and-wait. Marinette!"

Marinette was so happy that she’d get to spend time with Adrien, so focused on telling Alya and Nino the good news, that she didn’t even notice Adrien groan and bury his face in his hands as she left the room.

------------------

Adrien was on the verge of having a good time, which was to say he was having a very frustrating time.

He had spent the entire night like that - always so close to what he wanted while being so far away. At dinner, Marinette sat next to him, took a bite off his plate (at his insistence) to try what he had ordered. At the movies, he shared popcorn with the love of his life, saw her face illuminated by the light of the big screen. And yet it was NOT a date and she was painfully unaware of how adorable she was being. Like how her nose crinkled when he made a pun. Or how she gets excited over the good food. All the while Alya and Nino were practically all over each other, being exactly what he wanted to be with Marinette. He felt like his head was going to explode.

It was both a blessing and a curse when they stopped at Marinette’s house and Adrien stepped out to hold the door open for her. When he slid back into the car, he was surprised to see both Alya and Nino staring at him.

“Is… something wrong?” Adrien asked, looking cautiously between them. He was having trouble reading their expressions.

“So, are you going to tell us what tonight was all about, sunshine?” Alya watched him carefully and crossed her arms in front of her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Today was… a fun hangout. Between friends.” As much as the words tasted like ashes in his mouth, that was exactly what the day had been.

“Dude…” Nino tugged on his hat and shook his head. “We’re not blind. There was some kinda something going on in the background. Marinette might have been too caught up in-” He was cut off by a glare from Alya. “Um, things… but we totally noticed. You looked supes frustrated most of the night. When you weren’t making goo goo eyes at M, at least.”

No. No way was he going to have this conversation. The first person to find out his feelings for Marinette was going to be Marinette. Not his prying, if well-meaning friends.

“Sorry, bro. I can’t say anything.” He put a hand on Nino and Alya’s shoulders. “But trust me, guys. WHEN something happens between me and Marinette, you’ll be the first to know.”

Alya’s eyes lit up and she leaned forward to interrogate him further, but Nino pulled her back.

“Sorry, babe. This is your stop. You’ll have to terrify my bro later.”

She glanced rapidly between Nino, Adrien, and the Gorilla, made a face as if she'd sucked on a lemon and sternly pointed at Adrien.

“You better treat her right, centerfold.”

Nino and Adrien rode in silence for a few minutes, Nino only breaking the quiet when they arrived at his home.

Hovering at the car door, he poked his head in and said, “I’m happy for you, bro. You’ll be good for each other, I can already tell.” He grinned and held out his fist. “Good luck, dude.”

Adrien returned his smile and bumped his fist against Nino’s. “Thanks, dude.”

-------------------

Back at home, Adrien collapsed onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. He wanted to bang his head against his desk in frustration. He had been so close!

Although today hadn’t gone as planned, it hadn’t been a bad time. If he had ever been uncertain about dating her before, he wasn’t now. Not when he saw first hand how amazing a date with her could be. No one could deny that he was getting closer to his goal, either. Maybe actual double dates wouldn’t be too far removed from his future after all? Then they could look back at this and laugh…

Plagg snickered. “I guess the casual approach didn’t work out too well for you, kid.”

“It worked alright,” Adrien said with a frown. “It could’ve worked better, though. My problem was that the date idea was too much like a normal hang out. I need to have a more concrete date in mind when I ask next. Something so romantic that she can’t possibly mistake it for just hanging out.”

“You know what would be even more effective? If you just-hey!” Plagg was cut off when a flying pillow slammed into him. Even from beneath the plush layers of fluff, Adrien could hear Plagg loudly cackling.

[trulycertain]

I’ve just finished Hearts of Stone for the first time (I got the expansion packs last birthday, thanks Ma), and cor, I’m... still a bit dazed. That was one of the best experiences I’ve had with a game for a long time. Heck, in some games that would’ve been the main campaign. It truly feels like a work of passion.

The negative, to get it over with

I had some issues with the portrayal of the Ofieri. The people we see are monsters, mages, mystics and enemy guards. The first Ofieri person you meet is... a toad monster you kill. And then the next ones are your jailers. 

And you might say that Temeria and Redania are full of yokel stereotypes - I mean, the “How often should I beat my wife?” NPC line is a clear nod to that kinda thing - and plays on Slavic mythology, folk tales, and fairy tales, and Ofier is the nod to the Arabian Nights... but we don’t get many Ofieri characters, nor clear examinations of those tales. Instead we’re quietly directed back to Robin Hood and Beauty and the Beast homages (which I adore, but). And one of the first introductions you get to their pseudo-Arabic language (which doesn’t feel as researched as Sapkowksi’s cod-Welsh Elven, but I don’t know about Nilfgaard’s language) is a Redanian guy calling it “gargling.” *wince* After the interesting, often nuanced takes on pseudo-Slavic culture and the fantasy non-human racism, I found that a bit frustrating. 

And yet... In some ways, it feels like CDPR were aware of this. Because you don’t actually have to kill the rest of the Ofieri guards, and then the next people you meet from Ofier are scholars and thoroughly nice dudes. (And... merchants, which is another stereotype on its own, but maybe I’m reading too much into that and reading British biases into it.) And gosh, I find it interesting what little we see of Ofieri scholarship and spirituality, and runeworking/smithing as prayer. It’s like a mix of Islamic Golden Age mathematics - but with languages instead - and humanism, maybe with some Pagan influences. It’s really, really beautiful, and it’s clearly had some thought put into it. Also interesting is the interlinked duchies/city-states sort of system that the merchant nods at, which I’d love to know more about.

OK, so... maybe this is easy for me to say as an English lass who looks like a flour explosion in a snowstorm, but it feels wonky (to say the least), but... not ill-intentioned. If anything, the portrayal of the Ofieri is rather less biting than portrayals of other countries, though those portrayals also feel less.. loaded. I’m not sure what to think, to be honest. I had some issues with how strongly the pack tries to force you into romance with Shani and makes it a bit all-or-nothing. I wish I’d been able to buy her a drink or give her a nice rowan garland (actually, seriously, I need to draw her in that flower crown, it’s lovely and she was adorable) even as a friend, as a way to say goodbye, rather than just... buggering off and leaving her there sad, and failing a side quest to boot. Framing the romance that way made it very clear that “oi, you’ve made the wrong choice,” even if you had your reasons. And when you talk to her later, it’ll still treat things like you romanced her.

The Order of the Flaming Rose didn’t do much. Yay, fancy bandits. But... thanks for the armour, guys? Made a fair bit of cash off that, nice of you.

The positive (my favourite bit)

Shani! I haven’t played the first game or the second (I’ll... get there), so I hadn’t met her before. She’s wonderful. And much as I love Yen - and stayed faithful to her, though I was sitting there thinking, “Would books Geralt do this? I’m really not sure” - I liked how in contrast, Shani often gets into the thick of it with you. I also love a) doctor characters b) characters who put their calling above all else and have such strong purpose. She’s kind and wry and I was seriously tempted to romance her. I also like her admitting that it was a “make the most of the time we have” thing, and that it probably wouldn’t work long-term. I appreciate that honesty and again, that sense of purpose. Much like Triss, she’s not dropping everything for Geralt, who has his own crazy timetable and travels to deal with. That straightforwardness is lovely. 

And also... god, I really like her friendship with Geralt. Even if you don’t romance her, they’re so comfortable with each other, and it’s so clear how happy he is to see her. They relax around each other and she knows how to gently poke fun. Seriously, I can see why people liked her and wanted her back.

“And now I have nowt.” Bloody hell, is Olgierd von Everec actually written with Northern dialect as well as voiced with the accent? Is the dashing rogue... Yorkshire-accented? God, they must be Polish, Northerners almost never get to be upper-class or smooth in British media. (Even Sean Bean had to go posher for GoldenEye.) Nice to hear the language spoken properly.  I always admire the localisation when I’m playing Wild Hunt; it’s beautifully thought-out and detailed. And yes, Von Everec was an absolute jerk in a lot of ways even before the wish, but... a well-written, nuanced one. Also, considering some of the lasses we see in Skellige: sometime, I’d really like to have seen a female character along similar lines somewhere (one Geralt couldn’t bonk), though I know that won’t happen. (No more Geralt games. ;_; )

“A man must have some moments of madness from time to time. Tells him he’s alive.”

Iris! Goodness, I hesitated for nearly ten minutes over That Decision, and I still feel sad for her typing this post up on my couch, having finished the expansion an hour ago. I think it adds even more that I’d purchased “Starry Night Over the Pontar River” by Van Rogh (I can’t believe they even did that). I played Geralt as genuinely loving her paintings. (And seriously, speaking of assets, that Iris/Olgierd marriage portrait is lovely.) She was as complicated as her husband, though she got less screentime - and some part of me would have gladly trapped Olgierd in a painting and brought her back into the world, but I also know that necromancy in The Witcher doesn’t work like that. A very romantic-fairy-tale take on the tortured artist trope.

I even found Vlodimir interesting. I was glad that Shani called him on what was basically fancy sexual harassment and told him to keep his hands to himself, and he was clearly a real shite in life, but... yeah, even I felt rather sad for him after the dressing-down he got from O’Dimm. And to be honest, he does have some bloody hilarious lines. This series excels in “likeable bastard” characters.

I get shades! And I’ve been going round with the Mastercrafted Wolven Armour and those, doing the look I fondly call Douchebag Geralt, ever since. CDPR’s nerdery. It wasn’t particularly immersion-breaking, and it made me cackle. “Merchant With A Pearl Earring”? “Witness me”? “Geralt: The Professional”? “The Professor’s Glasses”?

All the optional NPC dialogue. You can doom yourself by not researching enough. You can never find the runewright. You can miss half the wedding party dialogue. You can miss things like the Van Rogh painting and the sad, rather interesting story of Vesemir and his lover (and the Viper Armour!). The game always rewards you for being interested in the story, and thorough (you are playing a detective, after all), but because it was smaller, they’ve also made HoS so dense and all that’s here in abundance.

“Delight in the world and all its glorious creations.”

The furious pace. It’s a rollicking, rip-roaring adventure. A frog prince! An old friend/lover! A political plot! A storm! A deal with... something not-good that may or may not be The Devil! A shirtless tied-up action-movie fight with five dudes! Dueling a reluctant immortal! Characters from distant shores! A horse race through the streets of a village! A Guy Ritchie-esque heist movie nod to Robin Hood! Getting possessed by a ghost and sitcom/rom-com hijinks while fishing for boots, herding swine, and retrieving fire-eaters! Haunted mansions and tortured artists and interesting grief and depression metaphors! A Seventh Seal-esque game of wits with something very old and very unkind! O’Dimm promised a big adventure... he wasn’t wrong. And it probably sounds like they’re throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks... and yet, it all makes sense and ties in beautifully. It’s really well-written and thought-out, and balances a touching story with CDPR clearly wanting to give you your money’s worth and take you on the best journey they can.

Gaunter O’Dimm. The one thing I did think was that they’d be more vague about who/what he actually was. I was surprised at the more overt things like the crossroads deal, and the Oxenfurt scholar. But I immensely enjoyed his character, and that trippy finale was fantastic, even if I spent everything after the first second or so muttering, “It’s a REFLECTION, oh my god Gaunter you have commitment to your theme, please let there be a mirror in the house.” (And it’s also kind of perfect that one of the main spectres who attacks you in his realm is a Hym. Punishment for misdeeds, the guilty conscience... I’m seeing a theme here.)

Treasure hunts and new armour.

“Like your new gear, Roach?” We got to see a bit more of Geralt's fondness for this Roach (not sure what number she is, to be honest) and that he treats her well.

Lots of quiet but intense, lovely Geralt moments. The kindness with which he treats Shani, and his quiet, wry joking around with her in comparison to Vlodimir’s crudeness; the fondness and understated grief with which he speaks of Vesemir, and finally getting to hear a bit more of what he thinks about his mentor; the guilt he feels over being pulled here, there and everywhere on adventures and how many people he’s left behind; more stuff on “Witchers are heartless bastards because mutations” and how untrue that actually is; his steadfastness about trying to avoid bloodshed in the heist; how he doesn’t like to see Vlodimir tortured, even if he is... Vlodimir. Course, I play Geralt as a (pragmatic, blunt) goody-two-shoes, so it might be different if you play him bloodthirstier, but there were some lovely not-blank-slate-protag moments. CDPR get that the characters are why people come to the games; I adore playing a game where “go to a wedding reception” and “have a snowball fight with your daughter to cheer her up” are missions.

I’d be interested to see anyone’s takes on this pack, because I was so busy trying to avoid spoilers when it came out (and I think I might have been knee-deep in Fallout 4? Not sure) that I missed most of the stuff on it. But it was full of fascinating characters, wonderful performances, some really sad, achey complex themes, and pulpy adventure. I spent... too many moments trying not to cackle in joy. And much as I tried to be a completionist and do base-game sidequests remaining after the main story and drag it out over several days, I spent enough time on this expansion that Geralt’s beard grew back and my backside went numb. So. Even with its imperfections, probably one of my favourite gaming experiences of all time. So.

...God, and there’s another, slightly bigger expansion to go. I’m not sure I’ll survive.

[espship18]

Kpop ship for guccigodv

Hello hello, helLO! After an unwanted break from ships six months wow I hate it I FINALLY have a ship for you guys! It feels good to be back at it again, and I have a ship for @guccigodv ! I’m excited let’s go!

Based off of your request, I learned this about you: 

You have tan skin, 5′7, with brown curly hair and brown eyes

R and B and hip hop are your favorite music genres

Some hobbies include: writing, dancing, fashion, working out, and travelling

Mom of the group 

You’re a meme lover

A hopeless romantic 

You can be emotional and protective 

Needs freedom and alone time 

Ideal type: affectionate, romantic, and like a best friend

And in your request, you have been asked to be shipped with BTS, NCT, and Stray Kids! I’ve had caffeine, let’s go!

BTS: J-Hope

Okay, SO, you two would be lovable cutie pies who love and laugh a lot. Together, you’re sunshiney happy babes, who can be hyper and wild, but also chilled out and you can vibe it out. Instagram baddies too omg, you two can SLAY the freaking game, man! I can just see you two doing fun and goofy dances to ‘chicken noodle soup’ and bouncing on the couches and the chairs- just don’t do it on the spiny chairs bc Hobi hurt himself on that last time, lol. Hobi would also be the best hype man, and the most lovable little bean you’re ever gonna find in your life. His mood range is very broad, so if you’re down and need a pick me up, Hobi is there for you, and if you wanna chill on the couch and read a book, he can put in his ear buds and work on his tracks and you two can have this warm and calming atmosphere. Hobi is also that boyfriend who will provide for you and he will get you anything you could ever need or want in your life. He never expects anything in your return either- he knows he has your life and your time as a payment/reward, and that drives him to go that extra mile and then some. You two would go on a lot of trips together, and you log your trips always so you can keep the memories. If you’re having a stressful couple of days or weeks, Hobi will invest and make you a spa day with the works. Hobi will scour the internet to find calming facials that he could do on you, which he would use one of the members as a test dummy so he won’t be a complete klutz when you’re supposed to be relaxing. This boy will even make home made bath bombs in your favorite colors and scents so you can take a load off. And if you need snuggles, Hobi will join you and you’ll have soft time together and giggle and just hold each other and maybe even fall asleep for a little bit. If it were to be date night, I don’t think Hobi would go above and beyond for date night- more like he will take a more calm and bonding time approach to date night. You two like to make funny meme’s of the boys when you’re on dates and you’ll send them out to the internet to consume. You two will also go through twitter and tumblr and find the best meme’s of the day- it’s more fun than people would think! PDA is two ways 1) attached at the hip or 2) he’ll watch over you. A L OT of hand holding, no matter what the feeling is, you two have a thing for holding hands. We got a forehead kisser too omg, there ain’t no way in hell that boy is that tall and you’re not getting a forehead kiss! So be prepared for a lot of them!

NCT: Winwin 

One of those ultimate friends to lovers story, omg. From what I’ve gathered so far, you two are easy souls and you can move with the wind and be happy together. You two can be very clingy to each other, but you also can have that alone time separated from each other- it’s healthy. I honestly think Sicheng would be the one to fall first- I like that idea a lot actually. Okay listen, when you two would meet, it wouldn’t take much for you two to develop crushes on each other bc you’re like cute af. You two would be friends for a long time, too scared to tell each other that you like each other, since I see a pattern that you two are quiet about your emotions normally, but when you have that catalyst that kicks the walls down, you become an open book. Since Sicheng is often stressed because of work and such, you’d be a really good source of relief and comfort to him, so I can see you two having a lot of deep conversations and pour your hearts out to one another, and THAT’S how you really fall for each other. You two also give me the vibe that you two love to have some healthy competition with each other. You give him challenges and drills to do whether it’s language skills or his dancing skills, you like to poke at him and tease him, which he’s a boy, he’ll take those challenges. At the end of the day, it’s all play and you just want Sicheng to shine, and he appreciates it more than you think he would. Okay L IS T E N, morning yoga- hear me out. As I mentioned in the intro to this ship, you two seem like easy going people, so it would SO FREAKING PERFECT if you two would get up early in the morning, have tea, and do yoga together. Sometimes if the caffeine in the tea kicks in you do the funny couples yoga poses, but you two always take time in the morning to reset and prepare yourselves for the day ahead. Dancing is also a big part of your relationship, we can’t forget that! You both experiment with different styles, you learn dances together, and I love the idea of you two combining your main type of dances together, so Sicheng’s traditional Chinese dance, and your hip-hop background. I’m very sure that you two can make some masterpieces together. Lastly, PDA. PDA is small and basic, there’s not a lot of pressure to feel like you have to be lovey dovey- you can just go with the flow. Sicheng would give the BEST bear hugs ever, he’s also a fan of forehead kisses, you also love to fiddle around with his hair when you get the chance as well! 

Stray Kids: Chan 

Okay so, this one may or not be my favorite one of the three, a match made in heaven! You two can cover all the nine yards of a relationship and I freaking love it!! First and foremost, I wanna say that you two would bond most over music. I honestly can’t remember if I’ve used this topic before, but if I did, ah well, but it’d be so cute if you two met at a little café. You both would be standing in line to wait for your coffee before you were gonna hang out and do some work at the café, and you’d have some artists pins on your bookbag, and Chan would notice that you two had similar tastes in music. He’d come up with a joke about a debate in one of the fandoms to you and it would catch your attention immediately. You’d have opposing views on the little debate(it’d be about a song or something), but you would find yourself getting your drinks together, sitting at a table to together, and talking about the music group plus more groups you’re interested in not long after that. Next thing you know, it’s been a few hours later and you two have talked about almost every range of music you can think of. It’s also really sweet because you two feel like you’ve known each other for a while, when you two would ask what your names were about three hours into talking to each other, it’s so SWEET OMG. After that day in the café, your relationship would just blossom so fast. I also like the idea of you two being workout buddies. You would help him get the motivation to be more consistent and take care of himself(which we al know that Chan needs it oml). You two would have that relationship like you just have the feeling that you two wanna be around each other constantly, and even when you’re not around each other, you find yourself always texting or sometimes facetiming. Then the stars align and you sort of just fall into a relationship. You two would have a lot of quirks- such as the way you two would get each others attentions. Instead of words, you would use sounds or motions. Example, sometimes you’ll just stare at Chan until he answers you, and then Chan will use animal noises, which get more weird as he tries to get your attention. A LOT of studio dates- it’s your little spot, it’s got a couch, you can get take out, it’s simple and effective and it works for y’alls vibes. Happy beans nonetheless! PDA is SO SWEET, I honestly think that Chan would be a clingy boyfriend. You both can be very snuggly, and don’t be shocked if Chan wants you to play with his hair- he’s soft like that, hehe. 

~STA