#who went to church every Sunday but also thought it was okay to give the babies whiskey when they’d get a sore throat

[harveydentures]

If Legolas has limited relationship skills because his mom was dead and his dad was distant then Tauriel must have gotten all the emotional mentoring of a neglected pou. Her lowborn parents were murdered by orcs and then the local monarch decided that was good context for him to use her as a personal catspaw? How much support do you think she got coming up? No wonder she falls in love with the first non-royal family member that’s decent to her.

[bucknastysbabe]

now, catholic school priest criston and aemonds twin. Criston is from a catholic family, wanted to be a priest since he was a little boy, going to the sunday mass with his mothet was like the highlight of his week, went into the seminary very young, never had a girlfriend, he is a good man alright. then aemonds twin, whos not catholic, not even christian, her dad doesnt even go to church but alicent is very catholic and she wanted her kids to go to catholic school. but shes a menace, a straight up gremlin, like aegon but a girl and not a loser (srry aegon ily). And criston is sure the devil sent her to tempt him and shes like but what if it was god the one who sent me for you??? And specially for you??? Like, as a treat?! 🤗

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 6k of filth and catholic guilt

Tags: 90’s catholic school setting, Criston had the Crisis, mutual masturbation, confession booth shenanigans, age difference, manipulation, teacher/student relationship, sexual tension, Targtower reader, Criston’s woe is me internal monologue, oral (f!receiving), multiple orgasms, pnv!sex, Jesus saw that Crispy, DESPERATION, priest kink, #imahorridcatholic

A/N: I made that priest edit and I’m proud also listened to talk by hozier for the entire last part. I’m a gremlin and made her her daeron’s twin.

Taglist: @fairysluna @aemonds-holy-milk @targaryenbarbie @arcielee @bambitas

Criston knew his purpose since the day he could recall. Nothing pleased him more than sitting in mass with his mother, going through Sunday school, getting ready to become an official Catholic. Confirmation was the one of the happiest days of his life.

Vocation became the forefront of Criston’s mind in school. He probably annoyed the hell out of Father Dondarrion, pestering the priest with questions upon questions about seminary. In the mean time, he was the best altar boy a Cole could be. A-team altar boy! Strong fumbled the bells every time, it repulsed Criston.

He did other school things such as tennis, won a state championship in that, got some offers for a spot on a college team. Then in the other season he played second base for the baseball team, won a state championship in that and received multiple offers to college teams. No, Criston had his mind made up. He could lead others to victory— through Christ’s love of course. He had to admit his father was quite pissed about the baseball team but he’d be okay. Criston had a little brother, he was athletic.

The young man had even tried dating, just to see if God called for Criston to instead populate the world and lead a family. Not tend to the flock of sheep. There was a plethora of girls but he fell for a devil.

Her name was Rhaenyra Targaryen and she left him in a puddle of tears. The rich girl couldn’t respect staying chaste until marriage. He was ready to give her a ring. The priest sniffed recalling her harsh words, “You, like, won’t even dry hump me? What’s the point?” At the time the young man was miffed, broken, distraught. Criston held a hand over his heart as he whispered tearily, “You want me to be your whore?”

Mind you, he was a foolish 17 year old. The man was tested with her, but he learned from the experience. Criston was obviously meant to be a priest. He prayed and prayed for God to reveal his path. The answer came in Father Dondarrion giving Criston a letter from the Archbishop himself, inviting the young man to join seminary.

Criston took his first vows at the tender age of 18. He spent the next seven years learning and perfecting his bond with God, ready to guide his brothers and sisters in Christ. He’d smile and wave off comments at his home parish, often elder women asking why such a handsome young man would devote his life to chastity.

He rarely thought much of it. Jerking off was a boring thing, simply a biological process Cole needed to take care of. He took no shame nor pleasure in it, not truly thinking of anything at all. It would lessen as he aged but currently Criston was twenty-five and a ‘hot blooded’ young man.

He got his first job as a teacher in a Catholic school. At the beginning, Father Criston Cole found a passion for teaching while on a mission trip. He was ecstatic for the job. A year later he was significantly less overzealous. Add some years later Criston found himself, well, bored. Agitated. Discontent if you will.

Lord knows he had to calm himself for these wayward children. After a long day the man would pour some scotch and wonder why the rich ones were the worst behaved. Especially the damn Targaryens— he thought he could escape from that name.

Rhaenyra’s father had remarried and they had five children. Rhaenyra had five herself, different fathers came the whispers. The two youngest apparently looked like her. Criston smirked into his glass, God was watching and protecting him even as a foolish kid. She left the church anyways, but the children were polite and well-behaved in class.

Alicent Hightower-Targaryen’s children were a handful. Aegon made Criston sick to his stomach, the idiot either drunk or high in class, flipping up skirts of poor girls. If the priest thought about the eldest too long he’d grow a headache. He chose not to dwell on the fact that the family generously paid for Aegon to graduate— like a twisted version of simony.

Then along came sweet Helaena, she made good marks but often had to be drawn back to attention, and he tried to stifle the bullying drawn to her strange nature. Aemond was another headache, in a good way. He seemed to fit the vocational lifestyle and bonded with Criston over it. Criston truly enjoyed discussing hot topics in the church with the smart lad.

Aemond just needed to let his anger go and let God in, Criston had to do the same, his temper could be stormy. Then Aemond graduated and went off to study the sciences. Criston frankly thought he was done. He forgot. The twins were seniors and signed into his year-long Papal History elective.

He was now 32, and God really had sent him a test this time. In the form of good-natured Daeron’s wily sister. He had to send her to the Headmaster’s office the first day! The pale-haired girl was wearing an…indecent…skirt. One to catch long shapely legs.

He huffed and downed the rest of his scotch. He knelt before his icon of Christ and prayed. ‘Please my loving lord, I am afraid you shall test me, but give me the strength to pass through this.’ He felt strange. This girl was trouble. Criston wiped his face and grabbed his scotch again, one more would do for the night. He hissed, “FuckingfuckfucksticksFUCK!” Eyes widening he apologized to the empty room, “Forgive me my lord, that was uncouth.”

It was November 1997. Father Cole thought about making a request to a parish to be their full-time priest. He suited up for the lovely worship of Mass, mood sour. Deacon Erryk was next to him, almost out of his seminary studies. Erryk hummed, “How’s the class this year?”

“A pain in my side. I have another Aegon Targaryen in the form of his youngest sister. She seeks to make me miserable.”

The man stifled a laugh and prodded, “Damn. Aegon was bad, he was in my class with you. My condolences Criston, pray that Mary will bless the girl with some sense.”

Criston grumbled, “Indeed.” He felt old. Erryk was about to be a priest now.

Mass went off good as gold, the younger altar boys falling into place easily. He could always see the believers and non-believers based on their actions. Some wouldn’t even stand when he entered the room, the cross bearer ignored too. If Criston could start throwing Holy Water he would, ingrates.

In the front row, Daeron and his sister sat. Criston tried not to grimace as he sat down in his chair. They’d have mass every Friday at the school. Confession on Tuesdays. Criston would teach a RCIA class next semester for those outside of the school at night.

She was staring at him, wearing another little dress with her button-up underneath the skinny straps. He could see her smokey eyeshadow and glossed lips, moving around a piece of gum. Daeron held himself in reverence, hands clasped. Criston turned away, he would not give the evil little blonde any satisfaction!

He shivered when she knelt and took the body of Christ, tongue lapping against his fingers with a licentious look. The priest almost yelped, moving onto the next. He was shaken for the rest of the ceremony. Maybe he should call for advice— no, no, they would think Cole some sort of deviant pedophile. That was a problem enough and she was merely being a temptress. ‘Son of a fucking BIIIIIIITCH’, he thought angrily. Then did the sign of the cross.

The beleaguered priest sat at his desk during his planning period, grading papers. The headphones on his head played some songs— his only vice. He loved ‘radical’ music. So Criston kept that little secret to himself. He liked to belt rock ballads. Only by himself in the rectory.

How embarrassing. A grown man of the cloth.

The door opening had Criston jerking his head up, hand flicking off his walkman. He raised a brow when it was the little Targaryen and her mother, livid by her expression and wild red hair. She shoved the girl in a seat and crossed her arms.

Criston stood up and greeted the frankly scary woman, “Miss Hightowergaryen, oh, Hightower-Targaryen yes!” He peeked at teary red eyes, deadpanning, “And you.” The senior scoffed, “Good to see you too Father.” He ignored her quip and cautiously asked, “What seems to be the problem?” Alicent raved, “She’s going off the wrong path, just like Aegon. Guess where Aegon is, tell Father Cole please!” She gave her daughter a sharp look.

The girl mumbled something before getting a pinch to her arm. She croaked, “He’s in rehab! Rehab! Alright there mom!” The younger curled in and hid under her blonde hair, streaked with some sort of red dye.

He frowned but couldn’t say he was quite surprised. Criston offered, “My apologies, may he find the light of His way soon. Occasionally some rejoin the church or convert after getting clean and sober. Is there an issue with my student Miss?”

Alicent sighed, calming a bit and taking a deep breath. She looked up, doe eyes wide and pleading. The mother asked, “Can we go into your private office for a second Father?” She stopped and hissed, “Don’t you move an inch!”

A roll of violet eyes was the answer, pouting lips turning further downward.

Criston perched on his desk and tried to soothe the woman, “Alicent, relax my old friend, what can I do for you?” He offered a look of sympathy, watching her pace and run a hand wildly through her hair. The woman stopped in place and whimpered, “She’s so lost, I can’t screw up another one of my babies. I need you to keep an eye on her, pray and guide, something…Something so I know I tried.”

She looked very tired, taking a sharp breath in to chew at her nails. Alicent rambled, “She was so good, her and Daeron were so good. Then she turned sixteen and something happened, I don’t know what, and it’s gotten worse. She hates Sunday mass, like Aegon and Rhaenyra. I don’t want to lose her forever to whatever this is, straying off the path.”

He nodded contemplatively, hand on his chin, thinking. Alicent was in a state of chronic stress, even back when they were all in school. She married Rhaenyra’s father so young, nineteen to be exact. He felt a need to protect the woman of God, just trying her best to lead her children to heaven since Viserys did not seem to be in the picture.

He swore, “I’ll do my best, you have my word Alicent. God bless you, let me bless you.” He prayed over her and the tenseness seemed to leave her shoulders. Alicent smiled softly and thanked Criston, the pair of them exiting the office.

Her daughter remained seated, looking more miserable by the second. She gazed up with curious eyes, mouth still set in a pout. Alicent beamed, “Father Criston will be keeping an eye on you and reporting to me, okay? You will behave and try to learn that the path of the righteous is never easy.”

She raised a brow, “So I’m going to have my priest follow me around? That’s uncool.”

Alicent stiffened and remarked, “No. You’ll come to him when in trouble. You’ll be spending lunch with him too so you don’t go off and smoke like a vagrant. We will go sign it in with the headmaster now. Get up.”

Criston had to hold his jaw closed. He definitely did not know what he was signing up for. Hail Mary, full of grace rambled off in his head. This would be a tumultuous year for sure— inked and sealed onto paper. God bless him.

“I guess we’ll be the best of friends now,” she snarled tearily.

Criston placed a hand on her shoulder and hummed, “God works in mysterious ways Targaryen.” Internally he was climbing a mountain and shouting at the heavens like some Bible prophet. He was feeling very Job-like at the moment.

First of all, he truly didn’t expect the girl to sit in his classroom during lunch. Criston raised a brow when she entered, slammed down her lunch and plopped down. She cocked her head and smiled, “Afternoon father.”

“Afternoon,” he replied, turning his gaze back upon the scripture he was annotating. Cole wanted to comment on her sudden chopping of that beautiful white-blonde hair, or the fact she smelled of minty cigarettes. She wasn’t supposed to be smoking.

It remained quiet until she blurted, “Do you smoke?”

Yes, in fact he did. But she didn’t need to know that. Criston murmured, “No I do not.” To which she lobbed back, “Is it not a sin to lie? I saw you in the parking lot! Also you smell like marlboros sometimes.” Her face turned bright red— like she had no control over her yapping.

Criston peeled off his glasses and sat back in his chair to level the girl with a stern look. He flatly stated, “Yes, good point, it was a sin for me to lie. Although as your teacher and priest I would not have you pick up bad habits,” he took a moment before asking, “How do I smell of cigarettes in class? Are you sniffing me?”

She stammered, “N-no! No! It’s just when you pass by, I don’t know, stop!”

Criston shook his head in concern, “Please do not sniff me in class, that’s, that’s strange.”

“I don’t sniff you! Quit saying that! Okay, enough of smoke talk! Hi how are you doing Father Cole?,” she animatedly gestured, eyes wild and cheeks pink.

He couldn’t help but snicker at her mad gestures. Snickers turned into genuine laughter, Criston slapping his desk a bit. A different hand slapping down on his desk made the man look up, donning a grin at her grumpy face. The littlest dragon hissed, “Ha-ha very funny. I asked you a question. Small talk, since I’m stuck here with you for lunch.”

Criston shrugged and replied, “Ask a better question, I don’t know how I’m doing half of the time. Especially having to babysit a legal adult.”

Her pout was endearing, the girl biting into her sandwich in an aggressive manner. She chewed and swallowed before blurting, “Is it true my half-sister dumped you in highschool?” Criston squawked in surprise, heaven on earth, how would she even get the knowledge? Rubbing the bridge of his nose he sighed.

“Yes, she dumped me. Didn’t want to stay chaste until marriage. That was a little personal don’t you think Miss Targaryen?”

She seemed to contemplate his words, sounding out her thoughts, “Now you’re a priest and she has like 2 baby daddies and a gay hubby. Cool. Love my family.” Her laugh was a sharp giggle, almost sarcastic in nature. Nothing like the torture of Aegon’s nonsensical shrieks.

Criston smiled a bit at the information, leaning back in his chair. He sucked on his teeth and asked her, “Why’d you cut off all your hair?” She narrowed her eyes and smiled, “I was wondering if you would make a comment, quote some scripture that shorter hair is for lesbians and therefore I’m going to hell.” The older man gaped and stared, almost choking at her blunt words.

“No- what? You’ve got some sort of an imagination!,” he sipped on a water bottle, offended she would assume he was that mean, “I think it fits you nicely, glad whatever dye you put in was lost in the chop.” He shook his head, muttering about lesbian scripture. She giggled again, content with flustering the priest.

Criston tried to hold off a headache as she yapped about school. He snorted a bit when she marked some of the students on the dot. Soon the bell rang and she packed up her lunch, swinging her backpack on. Stopping at the door she asked, “So what’s your poison of choice? I like the fancy camel ones.”

He stared blankly before deadpanning, “Marlboro reds, now begone Targaryen.”

Her endearing giggle echoed as she left, the door swinging shut. Criston sat back in his chair and sighed— she had spunk. He quite appreciated it. Maybe she was a gift to spice up his growing distaste of where his life was at.

His dark eyes widened. He’s got to be too young for a midlife crisis? Now he really wanted a cigarette.

Father Criston Cole was indeed having a mid-life crisis. He stared at his reflection in the mirror, fitting his clerical collar on. Peering closer he inspected his face. He was still relatively young looking, hair not showing any grays. Practicing a smile he immediately dropped the grin. Crows feet. Great.

The priest shivered at the slight wrinkles. Why did he care? He didn’t have anyone to impress. A cheeky smile and icy eyeshadow, choppy blonde hair flitted through his mind. Goodness gracious he was her teacher, her priest, went to school with the girl’s parent. A spiritual guide!

This was bad. The damn girl had him wrapped around her ringed pinky. Bringing her little gifts, letting the blonde stay after school to chit chat. One time he let her cry on his shoulder, upset about rumors swirling. Criston heard a lot in the classroom.

Slut, whore, burnout, bitch.

He didn’t want to know what the little dragon got up to in her spare time but his knuckles did whiten at the thought of her not treating her body as a temple. Letting stupid boys have their way. Not like he could help. He was a priest and the farthest he’d ever gotten was smooching Rhaenyra and grabbing her tit before freaking out.

He needed to pray. Pray away these sinful thoughts. Guilt wracked his chest. He couldn’t turn the girl away either— he made a promise to Alicent. On a better note, her grades and attendance had improved. Ali called him once to thank the priest for helping her daughter. Although the girl still was apprehensive about faith. He didn’t push the subject; she didn’t bring it up. Maybe sometime soon.

Brushing back his curls, Criston sprayed cologne on his dark garb. He bought it on a self-indulgent whim. Maybe to cover the cigarette smoke, truly to entice a certain favorite student. Instead he was pestered by other girls bringing treats and batting their eyes at him. The man of the cloth could care less about the others. He was hopelessly haunted by his agnostic, rebellious student.

The man prayed some, did a Hail Mary before smoking a cigarette or five with his coffee. He was jittery at school now, worried that somehow a teacher or the elder nun would run and declare him a sinful wretch. Locking himself in the office until class time seemed like a good option.

He tried to grade some papers, mind drifting off to the increasingly heavy burden on his shoulders. Something needed to give— he was afraid what that might be. Deacon Arryk gave the homily that morning mass since Criston was out of sorts. Trying to not stare when she knelt and took the body of Christ. Playfully flicking his fingers with that tongue and saying ‘amen’.

Thank the Trinity and the saints he was covered head to toe in thick vestments. Hiding his cock just brought to mind Criston’s change in habit. Jerking off wasn’t a mindless activity anymore. He imagined plump lips and her raspy voice, teasing him, so delightfully mean. Then he’d flip her around and- he usually came with a pathetic noise by that point in the fantasy.

He pressed his fingers into his temples, groaning aloud. Doomed. Eternal hell. Purgatory sentence maximum if he got lucky. The second bell of the day woke the man from his racing mind. Criston straightened up and popped some gum in. Mary take pity on his soul. Satan himself was testing Criston. Although he couldn’t help but think she was anything but demonic.

The next day the tired priest had to attend confession for two hours. Usually it wasn’t a laborious affair; most of the kids who attended were the devout sort and only had some venial sins. Daeron Targaryen was a regular attendee, his twin was not.

He thought he was done for the day, sighing in relief. The two hours were up. Until the curtain swished and someone entered. The brunette thought to groan and hit his head on the wood. Fuck him— sorry, forgiveness please Lord for the profanity.

Criston’s eyes widened when he heard a familiar voice. That lilting, teasing, raspy voice that was the specter of the nightmares and fantasies. He could faintly see the outline of her, that damn silvery blonde hair.

“Uhhh, bless me father for I have sinned. It’s been, uh, one year since my last confession?” She made the sign of the cross, bracelets jingling. Criston could snort— blondie was obviously reading off a note card. She remained quiet afterward.

He prodded, “Go on child.”

She huffed, “I’ve lied, slandered, gossiped about others. I’m inattentive in mass. I don’t respect my parents. I’ve been ungrateful, taking the lords body out of a state of grace. Obviously I’m egotistical, depraved of thoughts, I’m selfish.”

Father Cole swallowed.

She laughed blithely, “I could probably keep going except for mortal sins? I steal, sneak, deceive, suffer from jealousy and envy. Bad bad envy. Always want what I can’t have, y’know?”

He wanted to ask her to clarify…but had a feeling.

The twin’s voice lowered to a purr, “I think you’re waiting for the grand finale. I’m lustful, wanton, perform unnatural acts of sex. Inordinate affection, especially for men who are sworn to another. I defile myself to the thought of him.”

Criston gripped his black slacks roughly, cock swelling so fast he was pretty sure his vision had spots in it. He discreetly tried to readjust himself, swallowing back a whine. The man was no better than a horny boy— denying the pleasures of the flesh for so long.

“I’m a fornicator. Not lately. I can’t stop touching myself to the thought of him.”

The priest hadn’t stopped rubbing himself, biting on his bottom lip to shut up as she rambled on. Oh, it felt so goddamn good he was panting. Meanwhile from the other side he could hear her shifting, voice growing breathier as she talked.

“I think about him touching me, kissing me, those pretty lips and dark eyes only for me. I fucking hate when other girls talk to him— I slashed one’s t-tires.”

“No swearing,” Criston grunted.

“Sorry, where was I? I came so hard the other day wondering what his cock would feel like inside of me. I don’t know if y- he would last long but I’d keep riding, oh mmh!,” her breath hitched and he could hear slick noises from beyond the screen. She was touching herself in the booth. Touching herself. In the booth.

He leaned back, head thumping against the wood, practically humping his hand. Criston whined through his nose, mouth hanging open. The man was a goddamn mess, pleading, “You’d ride him huh? Until he got ready again?”

“Mhmmm, yeah, I’d put his pretty cock in my mouth until I felt him get hard. Hah, what do you think he would do to me?”

Oh holy spirits, he had no clue? Everything? He’d do anything? He drew on his fantasies and the dirty mag a boy brought to class once. Criston went home and asked forgiveness for seeing the woman…doing that.

His voice was much more desperate than he expected, tan cheeks turning a shade of darker red. Criston rambled, “I, oh heavens, he would do whatever she asked, maybe, maybe, put his mouth on her.”

He must have said the right thing, her breath quickened and he could see the outline of her arm moving faster. Emboldened, Cole practically whined, “He’d lick and suck at her until she was crying and grabbing his hair, ohfuckinghellfires!” Criston’s cock throbbed and twitched as he cursed and shoved a hand down his slacks.

“Yeah? Yeah? He’d eat me out? Suck on my clit, slip some f-fingers inside? I’d want it so bad,” she whimpered shakily. The priest panted and popped the button so he could fist himself easier, moaning shamelessly, scrunching his eyes closed.

The blonde’s voice was muffled, “Mmm- I’d take such good care of him, he could e-eat me out but I’d ride his cock until he couldn’t cum anymore, F-father please!” Criston could hear her squeal and his dark hair fell into his face as he curled inward. He babbled uselessly, rubbing himself as spurt after spurt of seed wetted his briefs.

There was a heavy feeling in the confession booth. The pair panted, sitting in silence. Shame poured over Criston like a bucket of ice. He quickly rearranged himself to not look like someone who just had the most intense orgasm of his life. The priest wanted to talk, truly, but he had no words.

So he bolted, ignoring her calls of his name. Criston kept moving, heading toward the rectory, he’d have to call out. Everything was spinning and he needed to just, just, he didn’t know. The stickiness in his pants was worsening the horrid feeling of being a pervert, he should’ve just sent her away. He will end this immediately tomorrow, for both of their souls if he hasn’t doomed them.

She didn’t appear for lunch. Did appear for class, eyes blazing into Criston’s head. Daeron even coughed and shoved her. She was glaring, not writing a damn thing as he lectured about the battle of Lepanto. The priest’s palms began to sweat. He wished the clock would go quicker.

“I’ll get a ride home, don’t worry about me Dare,” she said after the bell rung, students packing up their bags. Daeron raised an eyebrow but shrugged, moving on. One girl attempted to approach Criston with some papers in hand.

The dragon hissed something and shoulder checked the girl— Criston reluctantly scolding the blonde. Like it mattered, the other girl hightailed it out of his classroom. Pale eyes landed upon his own dark orbs, a strange look on her face.

“Office,” she said. Cole wasn’t in the position to deny. He tossed and turned all night, fighting whether to say fuck it and hang up the cassock or dismiss her and never speak of it again. When she was in his presence it leaned toward the former.

Criston walked in first, closing the blinds while she followed him. The man’s head jerked up when he heard the sound of the door locking. Little Miss Targaryen was wearing a particularly form fitting version of the school uniform, tits pushed up under the white button-down. Suddenly Criston was swallowing drool.

She snapped, “Sit down.”

He grabbed her shoulders and shook the senior a bit, leaning down to growl, “Do you even know what the hell you’re getting into? This could ruin us both! You aren’t going to order me around, I’m the damn adult here, I swore to your mother!” He sounded desperate, weary.

She sneered up at him, unphased, “Sit down or I’ll leave and pretend this never occurred. I know you want it, you want me,” she yanked at his white collar, “Mommy doesn’t have to know, Father.”

Why Criston was like a dog at a damn eighteen year old’s commands? He wasn’t quite sure. His tongue was glued down anyways, only huffing as he perched on the chair. She padded closer, smelling of vanilla and some other perfume. He bit off a whine when she sat on his desk, thighs spreading, giving the priest a view of her lacy skimp of underwear.

“Fucking hell baby,” he pled, hands aching to touch.

“What? You sure were enjoying yourself yesterday.”

He moaned, “We shouldn’t— this could cost us our souls. The deceiver is manipulating us, a test. I lost my wits yesterday.” Criston’s fingertips dug into his leaner thighs, eyes flicking between her pretty smirk and the peak of baby pink panties. The girl hummed sadly, faux pout setting his heart to aching something fierce.

“What if it isn’t the devil? What if I’m just a gift, for you, just for you Father,” she leaned in to his face, “Think outside your little imposed box. Don’t you feel this?” She snatched one of his hands, pressing it upon her beating heart, her soft breast.

He looked guiltily to the side. Criston whispered, “If you were a gift then why is are my feelings so wanton and lustful?”

Purple eyes rolled. She hiked the skirt up, exposing pale thighs and her cute underwear. Criston whimpered under his breath, hand still on her breast, squeezing. The girl moaned, “Chaste love, no, I think he sent me just for you, maybe you had the wrong calling?” Criston threw caution to the wind— the festering in his head grew, rotting away his senses.

He’d already fucked up. Her points were making more sense by the second. Why not enjoy life before he spent the afterlife in torment? He peered at his favorite and rasped, “Show me what to do, putting my mouth on you. Can I touch you?” The brunette internally cringed at his whiny tone. She smiled victoriously, breath delightfully hitching, manicured hands unbuttoning her top.

Criston grabbed ahold of those pretty thighs, marveling at how smooth they were as he pulled them forward until her ass was the only thing perched on his desk. She squeaked and grabbed onto his dark hair, cheeks going blotchy with pink spots. The priest figured he’d have a little instinct, something long denied festering along with his sinful thoughts.

Right now he was face to face with her cunt and Criston had lost his bravado, brown eyes peering up at her. She smirked knowing she had the upper hand again. The Targaryen laughed, “Alright, panties off first Father. Do you even know female anatomy?”

He blushed darkly, ignoring the comment and yanking down those pretty panties. They matched her bra, her breasts spilling out of the push-up with heavy breath. He stuffed the lace underwear selfishly in his pocket. Criston gritted his jaw, cock pressing painfully hard against the fly of his pants. She was glistening, swollen, something he could only conjure up and still get it wrong.

“The clit is the nub at the top,” she breathed.

Criston searched her eyes with his own, abashed at the lack of knowledge before delving his face between silky thighs. He moaned pitifully, embracing the natural scent, her hand in his curls. The man lapped at her sopping hole, excitedly delving his tongue inside, already obsessed with the sweet nectar.

“Fffuck,” she whined, thighs tensing around his neck. Criston’s nose bumped against her clitoris, reminding him of the ‘magic spot’ he’d heard girls giggle about between class changes. He licked his way upward, moaning, ignoring his own need. Pink lips sealed around her button, tentatively suckling.

The blonde jerked and mewled, “Criston, Criston, yes Father!”

He flicked his tongue against the button, big hands keeping those strong thighs from closing. She was trying to scoot away from his onslaught on her, whining and shivering. Criston pulled back to rumble, “All that talk and you’re running from my tongue now little girl?”

“M’gonna fucking cum,” she half-sobbed.

The priest wasn’t going to give up. He kept his attentions on that bundle, even slipping two fingers inside her pussy, exploring until she keened again. More and more slick covered his chin and fingers, utterly lost in this divine feeling. The blonde’s legs were shaking now, breath coming in short sobs. She babbled something, one hand white knuckling the desk, the other knotted into Criston’s hair.

He wished he could have saved her shrill cry of his name as Criston pushed the younger woman over that edge. She gushed and spasmed, finally pushing him away to settle down. Her makeup was smudged, hair a fucking mess. Cole thought she never looked prettier.

He was goddamn insane over her and he knew it. The devil long had his claws gripped into the priest. The man just lied and ignored until he couldn’t. Criston grabbed her and placed her on his thighs, cock pulsing, him reaching down to relieve pressure.

The blonde wrapped her arms round his neck, pretty pink nipples exposed now, the push-up doing nothing to help. She plastered herself to his body, lips mouthing across his neck, murmuring, “You learn quick, s’good.” Criston rubbed at her back, slipping a hand down to her a handful of her cute ass.

She pulled back, pale eyes roving Criston’s face. He stared in a daze as she spoke in a sultry, raspy tone, “You’re so hard, wanna fuck you, lemme fuck you Father.” He couldn’t help but moan long and low at her desperate plea. His cock was fit to burst, straining his briefs now.

“I want it, I want it,” he gasped.

In a flurry of movement he yanked off the collar, it would sicken him to have it on. She pulled at the buttons, pausing to unhook her bra, Criston shoving down his pants and underwear. She moaned, placing hands on his chest and sliding down trim stomach until a little hand grabbed his ruddy cock.

He made a strangled noise, eyes rolling up in his head. No wonder people did this— sin was utterly sweet. Criston panted her name, about to guide her hips onto him. He paused, brows furrowing. The deceiver himself spoke through her voice, “I’m on birth control, doesn’t matter.”

That’s all he needed to hear, roughly lifting her to guide his cock into that slick pussy. Criston made a gutted noise as she slipped onto him. Warm, wet, so goddamn snug and gently ridged. He whined, straight up whined, “Don’t move, don’t move, baby baby oh— haaah!”

She purred and pressed soft tits against Criston, their shallow breathing intermingling. The female whispered softly, petting his shoulders and arms, “S’okay, breathe, relax.”

Criston shook from head to toe, exhaling sharply, pitiful noises escaping a raw throat. He pressed his swollen lips to her forehead, forcing rapid breathing to a calmer state. Still, still, the brunettes balls throbbed and twitched.

He was gonna fuck her dammit. He’d gotten this damn far, his darkest desire to fuck and fill her up after more than two pumps would kill Cole. She teased, hands back on his chest, playing with his medals, “You can do it Father, you’re not so twitchy.”

He shook his head silently, focusing on the task at hand. Father Criston Cole could never deny his sweet little dragon. She’d started squirming and whining on his lap, slick soaking his loins. He took a tentative thrust upwards, lashes fluttering.

The dam broke loose.

Criston fucked and groped, lips messily smacking against her pretty plump pout. She rode him in earnest, meeting him thrust for thrust. The chair squeaked, they moaned, grunted, cried out, a feral quality to the sacred act. He was soaking in the slaps of skin, her hitches of breath, chanting his name like a damn litany.

Criston grabbed onto her hips, planting his feet on the floor, biting his lip and scrunching eyes tight. He was moaning and moaning, drool slipping out between searing kisses. His balls were drawing tight— pounding with the need of his release.

He shoved her upwards onto the desk, thrusting brutally as she cried in ecstasy. Criston pled, “M’gonna cum, c-can’t stop, oh fuck.” She cried, “Yesyesyes don’t you dare stop, m’close!” The older man felt his balls slapping against her ass, eyes rolling up again.

His orgasm hit him like a ton of bricks, Cole mouthing at perky tits, moaning as his release soaked her pussy. It was like he was floating. She bit down on her hand to muffle a wail, arching into him, cunt convulsing and wetting him further.

But Criston couldn’t stop. He kept fucking through the oversensitive pain, sounding like he was in agony as he pounded into her. Their mixed releases made everything slide easier, his turgid cock not softening. He babbled, “Not done, another baby, take it for me, take me please.”

The blonde’s only response was clinging to his tan body, nails digging into his shoulders, legs wrapped tight around his waist. She sobbed harder, “Do it do it— oh my God!” Criston whined her name through his nose, drunk off the feeling, not even aware of the blasphemy.

The office grew hot, noises of flesh and high sounds filling the small space. He couldn’t shut the fuck up either, rambling, “Wet baby, can’t help myself, gotta do it, fuck it all! M’still full up, gotta stuff you baby, how can I hngh not?” He reached down between them to circle haphazardly at her abused clit, the pretty thing writhing on his dick.

Another peak was approaching, he was already leaking, ready to empty another load deep inside her eager pussy. She tightened around him as he pinched her clit, crying real tears now, his name on her tongue like a broken record. Criston wetly cried into her fragrant neck, shoving himself deep inside to give her that last load.

He made a noise, she made a noise, everything growing foggy and distant.

Next thing he recalled was his demon, angel, twisted boon cuddled in his lap, tits still out. They were a sticky mess and he hoarsely asked, “How, ugh, long?”

“A couple of minutes. You went a little dumb there and I had to get your limp ass back into this chair,” she pressed her head into his chest, Criston naturally setting his chin on her head. His hands were slowly moving up and down her flanks. He still felt a bit dumb, dazed from the intense situation.

“You,” he swallowed, “Are a gift…I believe.”

She smiled softly, pecking his lips. The Targaryen mumbled, “We need to get ourselves together, I need a ride home.” Criston nodded, clinging tighter to her frame. He stammered, “O-okay, discuss this another time?”

“Sure, but after I show you what a blow job feels like.”

He didn’t object. The collar sat out of his sight, anything he once cherished gone from his mind. She took that place. He was irrevocably, obsessively infatuated. “I’ll have to leave my position after this year,” he murmured. She looked at him, a concerned look on dainty features.

“I think I’ll be around, will you?”

He remained silent, answer obvious in the air. He’d get down on his knees again and beg to never lose this gem. Fucked up from the get-go. For once, Criston Cole didn’t care. He kissed her instead.

[yanderepuck]

@lulu-the-smol-floof and I spent like 2 hours talking about the religions the guys were, so we looked it all up just to be sure. There are so many more arguments happening

Napoleon: was baptized into the Catholic faith as a child, however, he never became engrossed in the faith

Mozart: Catholic (and fairly religious)

Leonardo: more than likely Catholic. He referred to God as a supreme being. Could also be called a spiritual metaphysician.

Vincent: Protestant (father was priest, also nearly was a priest)

Theo: Protestant (father was priest)

Arthur: Catholic turned atheist(after studying medicine) then got interested in the occult.

Isaac: Born into an Anglican family, by his thirties held a Christian faith. Saw worshipping Christ as God was idolatry, to him the fundamental sin.

Jean: Catholic

Will: Protestant

Dazai: Christian but in the way that God is a punisher (in game possibly more Shinto since we see him in shrines)

Comte: He believes...in something

Sebastian: atheist but superstitious

Vlad: Eastern Roman Orthodox Catholic (going off Vlad in Impaler)

Faust: Protestant (was banned from churches tho)

Charles: Catholic

Drake: Protestant

Galileo: Roman Catholic (supported the church and hoped the church would support him, spoiler alert: they didn't)

~~

Fun lil thoughts now

Jean and Mozart are the only ones who go to church every Sunday.

Because here Leonardo is a pureblood, I think that maybe for a hot moment he was religious but very quickly turned his back on that.

Theo is SOOOOO mad that the three he hates the most are the only other Protestants. He's stuck with Will Faust and Drake.

Will actually grew up in the Church of England, which was possibly more Roman Catholic but when you look at his writing it reflects Protestant more.

Best part is that Faust is Protestant but Vlad has him working in a Catholic church. Vlad doesn't know the difference. Faust gives all his sermons in German and they aren't even sermons. He just bitches about this and gives out recipes, but Mozart is literally the only one who knows

Faust: I fucking hate this city. It's so dirty

Mozart: he's so right

Now bc they lean into Drake being more of a pirate, I don't think this man has much religion to him. He sticks to the pirate code. But I feel like if you showed him a sign of God he'd believe you.

Okay so Dazai. When we first talked about this we couldn't really find anything (I was honestly doing a quick Google search, not a deep dive), so we said he's probably Shinto, at least in game since we see him in shrines in some cgs. @tako-cafe informed me that he was first communist (when growing up) and then Christian, but int he way that God is here to punish/torture us bc humans themselves are sin and cannot escape it.

Arthur went atheist once he discovered science basically.

Isaac is actually right with the idolizing thing. It's actually blasphemous to have depictions of Jesus on a cross, or having a place dedicated to God. But that part sort of got lost bc obvs churches don't want you to know that. Also, he's just a god fearing man.

Isaac: going to church is a sin

Jean, across the room: ITS WHAT

That being said, Christmas Day, aka Isaac's birthday, Isaac and Arthur are the only ones at the mansion in the morning.

Dazai is going bc they have snacks. Sebastian is going because ..well.. we shouldn't trust them all to behave.

Back to Dazai. If we stick with him being Shinto, everyone in the mansion finds it weird as hell. Sebastian has to tell them that "no. This is actually the religion, not just weird things Dazai does"

Meanwhile Dazai is like "I need to go feed the frogs goldfish so that we have good weather"

Oh? Comte? Yeah. He believes. In what? He believes

Also, keep in mind that even tho that most of them are Catholic, they are all from different countries and time periods where being Catholic meant different things.

[slushiepizza]

Marie and Mother Mary

Relationship : Marie & Milo Greer

Tags : Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Post-Partum Depression, Gender Roles, Catholicism, Motherhood, Italian American Marie Greer

Word Count : 1,510

ao3

Notes and Warnings:

this fic kind of surprised me because I'm not super into the Shaw Pack. But I do find Marie Greer's presence and bits and pieces we know of her character fascinating. I wanted to explore Marie's mind and feelings about being a mother when she's dealing with a gambling husband; and for her to raise someone like Milo Greer- she must've done a great job as a parent.

I took inspiration from my own experiences growing up with Catholicism and specifically in relation to the biblical Mary as a religious figure; and how mothers often find comfort in the thought of a figure who related in their struggles of motherhood and womanhood. It also has a theme of gender roles/ alluding to rigid gender identities because of the circumstances that Marie grew up in.

This fic isn't really... religious per se, and it takes more of a neutral standing while still criticizing how religion could be used to provoke feelings of personal guilt and trauma in someone who grew up in it, while also giving comfort to anyone that needed the universe to say that everything will be okay. If any of the themes may cause distress in you, I do implore you not read this fic, as consuming writing is a vulnerable activity.

The year was 1993. Marie Greer walked into the empty church lot with her baby in her arms. It had been decades since she last stepped on its stone floors. The security guard stationed outside looked at her strangely, but let her in once she asserted that she was there to pray.

She passed the main building for a small garden in the back. There were rows of wooden benches but nobody to be found. Good. Marie didn’t want company at the moment. To call it a garden was an overstatement- it was tiny and cramped, overgrown with vines. In front of the benches, the centerpiece of all the foliage was a statue of the Virgin Mary. Mother Mary, she thought, the double entendre not escaping her. 

As soon as she sat down right in front of the statue- Milo wailed inconsolably like he always did. 

The baby’s loud cries echoed disturbing whatever peace that was left from the place. Marie sighed, tired and weary, of this. He was an especially sensitive child, smaller than other babies his age. Marie was used to catering to people who’d fuss over the littlest things, Colm had a particular affinity for order and cleanliness whenever he came back from blowing his month’s earnings in a night, after all. The addition of Milo to the family just added more on her plate- she had to catalog every single one of his many allergies, and make sure that the room was never dusty because he’d have a coughing fit otherwise. The replacement of their popcorned ceiling had not been cheap, either, not with Colm leaving barely anything left after his trips to Vegas.

She did this all for love. For him. For her husband. But oftentimes, she felt like there was nothing left of her to give. Dry. Hollow. 

She shushed Milo and lightly rocked him in hopes that he’d calm down but to no avail. He thrashed and turned, his nails accidentally scratched her in the arm. Marie winced and tried to soothe him, lightly patting his back. It took thirty minutes of rocking and soothing Milo until the baby went back to sleep. 

St. Mary’s weathered ivory-colored face looked down at her, her expression blank and unmoving. Her lips were sculpted into a serene smile. Her pupil-less eyes gazed back at Marie. 

Just like any other Italian-American family at the time, church was a routine for Marie growing up. Her mother would dress them in their Sunday’s best and wrangled her and her seven unruly siblings into the building. “Quit fussin’ your pigtails, Marie. I did that real pretty for you,” she’d chide. They’d sit in the back of the church because tardiness ran in that family’s blood like a curse. 

Past the twelfth and thirteenth pews, God felt distant. 

Marie would follow everything diligently. She stood up when everyone else stood up as the priest lifted the circular white wafer, the body of Christ, above the altar. As a child, her height wouldn’t allow her to catch a single glimpse of it. She’d comfort her younger siblings whenever they’d make a ruckus. But the whole thing- it went one ear out of the other. 

She could’ve sworn she tried her best to listen and followed whatever the adults did. 

I have greatly sinned, escaped past her lips as she did the same thing she had now, rocking her baby sister in her arms. At the time, she hadn’t even lost her milk teeth. 

She stopped going when she married Colm. He was the opposite of the man her mother wanted her to marry, and in retrospect, she felt that it was one of the many reasons she liked him. His mind was raucous, his eyes wild and unmoored. Like nothing was holding him back. Colm used to be an ambitious man- the thrill of being an Investigator for DUMP perfect for his unrested soul. 

Marie loved that part of him, the fact that he’d question everything, unbelieving in anything unproven. 

He said that he wanted to purge the world of assholes- the unjust, those who hurt others for their own sake. As he turned in empowered criminals in the pursuit of it, he became one himself. 

Marie met St.Mary’s gaze- almost challenging her hollow stare. Something surged through her, from the ache in her back settling to her tight diaphragm.

After the birth of her boy, Mary couldn’t cook or clean. All she did was stay in bed. Her sister came by to help take care of the house while Colm stepped outside as usual. She said that it was normal, her body had been through hell, after all. But the heavy feeling, the heaviness that settled in her chest persisted for the next two months.

 Marie hated feeling helpless- her house a mess, and her baby cried constantly. She was a woman of action, and stagnation shackled her, leaving her trapped. Her visit to the psychiatrist- and the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual- had told her that it was depression with a postpartum onset. She told the doctor that she refused to accept that she was a ‘bozo who was sick in the head’ and that she will cure herself with a margarita and a sorely needed hair perm alongside a fresh coat of manicure. 

And look where that got her. Crying in front of a statue in church.

She still stared at the other Mary, the statue’s size and height caused her to look like she was looking down on whoever prayed in the confined space, guiding them iin a time of need. With that, for once, Marie realized that she was angry. 

She wasn’t stuck to her mattress, fatigued, and lacked energy because of sorrow- she was so angry, the weight of her job description as wife, mother, woman, wolf, dog, bitch- Marie weighed down on her like anchors. She was angry, at the fact that Colm was nowhere to be found throughout all this, angry at her mother- for making her a mother to her own siblings when she was barely a child, angry at the fact that she couldn’t even love her child properly because she no longer had any love left in the hollow of her heart. 

The emotions had clawed the insides of her ribs and caused her to let out heavy breaths- she was a dog panting for air when there was none. 

“When does it get easier,” she demanded to the Mother of all Mothers through gritted teeth. “Tell me, Mary,” she begged, desperate, as tears started to roll down her face. “Tell me!” 

“When does being a mother ever get any easier?”

Her voice was a whisper, barely audible, as she started to sob and heave quietly. 

A soft breeze blew past the branches of the trees that surrounded her. It moved the leaves and allowed them to move gently back and forth. The statue still looked down at her, hand slightly outstretched in a supposed kind, helpful gesture. Ants crawled from the crack in the marble, they moved past Mary’s dress down to the hem, circling around her exposed foot, past the head of the sneak that was crushed triumphantly under her toes. 

Marie sank into her seat, tired. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, sniffling. Unbecoming of her, she thought. She’d rather die than let anyone see her like this. But there was a comfort between women, she supposed. Damage from rain stained Mary’s cheek like tears- not unlike the thick mascara that currently ran down her own. The air was comfortable, easy, and Marie felt light. It reminded her of the 80s. Of girls in the bathroom of the disco, talking someone out of calling their past lovers as they applied lipstick and passed cigarettes between one another.

“I guess,” she sniffed. “I guess you know better, right?” she stared into a picture that hung on a distant wall. In it, St. Mary cried as she held Jesus' dying body. “He didn’t give you a hell of a good time either,” her voice cracked pathetically. 

Girl, tell me about it, Marie imagined the statue said. The Virgin Mary had the voice of her best friend in college. Is that not what being a mother is? The pain so bad, it feels like you’re splitting in two? Going through all seven hells for your baby’s sake?

“Why do we even put ourselves through this,” she chuckled sardonically. “If I wanted to go through pain, I’d rather just listen to Colm talk about whatever fish he caught on the weekend.” 

Mary didn’t answer, and Marie understood. Milo opened his big eyes in her arms and reached up to her with tiny hands. He giggled, light and oblivious to the puffiness of Mary’s face and the swell of her eyes. She cooed at him and held up a finger. Milo wrapped his hand around it, gentle. 

St. Mary’s serene smile was still plastered on her face, her hand outstretched in the air between them. 

[purplesurveys]

1933

Do you ever get super bad buzzing in your ears? Only during situations that I come from somewhere that's super loud then I'm all of a sudden somewhere that's quiet.

Do you know anyone who has actually been in an alcohol or drug related crash? As far as I know, no. I'm reminded of an ugly crash we witnessed inside the neighborhood - it was a car that slammed right into a post, and it was a Sunday morning. There's a part of me that theorized 'alcohol-related' but we never did hear anything about the accident.

What is so wrong with cigarettes? They kill your insides, they make you look older, they stain your teeth, and the smell sticks to you.

Did you celebrate Fathers Day? We did but it was a little lowkey this year. Father's Day happened to be the day after we arrived back in Manila from Vietnam, and we were just so fucking tired. It wasn't even the day after – we literally landed in Manila at 4 AM on Father's Day.

In the morning we were up for like 2 hours to pick up the dogs from the doggie daycare we had them stay at + have lunch, but then we all went back to sleep the entire afternoon lol. Then that evening we went to church and ordered takeout from Chowking (my dad's favorite) to have at home. It was lowkey as the whole family needed it to be lowkey, hahaha.

Do you actually think you’re funny? I know I am around the right set of people. My humor doesn't make absolutely everyone else laugh, though.

Have you ever had a deep conversation with someone who was high on anything? No.

Do you ever wonder if there really is someone who can complement your personality well enough to stay together for the rest of your life? It does cross my mind sometimes, yes. But then I remember how my last relationship ended and how that can always happen again, and it becomes a lot easier to remember how I'm much better off alone.

Do you hate how being bisexual is like a trend? I never thought of it as one. People around here also don't treat it as such...if you're bi, you're just bi.

Have you ever gotten a professional massage? Just once before, but I hated how they made me strip down. I told them no, but they said it was a part of the package blahblah; and being non-confrontational, I went ahead and did it but I hated every bit of it and told myself I'd never do it again.

Do you have a good relationship with your first love? We do not talk.

What is something you’re currently nervous about? Work, and what possible tasks are out there waiting to pounce and give me my next anxiety attack. As has been going on for the last 4-5 weeks...

Do you have a popup blocker installed on your computer? Idk if it's the same thing but I have an ad blocker extension.

Do you feel like you have life figured out? I definitely do not feel that that's the case right now. I have my sights set on resigning, but have no particular next direction yet. I'm torn between wanting to use some time off to rest, and being pressured to hop to the next job. What I have going for me, I guess, is that I'm okay with either option – I'm leaving my fate to a theoretical spinning wheel and see where life takes me. And wherever it takes me, I at least know that I'm mentally capable of making the most out of it.

Have you ever used a laptop in a coffee shop? Yes. Sometimes my best work comes out in coffee shops.

What was the last worst feeling you felt? Apart from work which-is-technically-the-right-answer-but-I-don't-want-to-get-into-it – the second answer here is the VERY complicated feelings I have for Liam Payne. The man I grew up with and brought me years of happiness is very different from the man he transformed as in the years following One Direction. And yet, either way, the man is dead. There's so many nuances, so many layers to it that makes the grieving journey extremely complicated. It's hard to put into words.

I'm sad about a Human Being dying, and I'm sad about One Direction's cursed fate, and I am sad about the universe never giving Liam a chance. But I am remain angry with him for all the messy fuckery he said about the band that gave him a platform in the first place, and the messy fuckery he did to his exes. It's like, it's sad, but I also do not intend to let you off the hook.

Do you ever tend to over-analyse? Yes.

Do you know anyone that like, no matter WHAT, they’re always pissed off? I feel like work has influenced me to be like this some days, which makes me sad. I'm a shell of who I used to be.

How do you react when you’re pissed off? I take a few moments to breathe deeply and to address everything with calmness and kindness even though I'm already exploding from the inside.

What celebrity did your most current ex resemble? Gal Gadot in some angles.

What is something creepy that has happened to you (or someone you know) recently? A man knocking on my car window and speaking to me menacingly.

If you named your car or family car, what would you call it? I call her Mitsu, short for Mitsubishi hahaha.

What would you do if you were faced with an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy (at your current age)? Keep it and hope for the best with my parents.

What does it take for someone to earn your trust? They deliver on their promises/commitment/purpose. Surprisingly this is very hard to find in people. How hard is it to just...fulfill something you said you'd do?

Is there anything you should be worried about? Continued from anywhere between 5-7 days ago, I can't really remember. Yeah I'm a bit wary about job prospects given I'm considering resigning for good from my workplace. But until I don't have anything secured, I know that I need to keep being tied here. And I really hate that.

In any case, I've started giving myself the homework that I need to send applications to five openings every day. I've been able to keep at it so far, so only thing there's left to do is see where it takes me.

Are you dealing with any health-related problems right now? I'm pretty sure I'm consistently going through high blood pressure from work. Every weekday my chest feels consistently heavy/tight.

Do you think you should fight for love? It depends. Sometimes it's not worth fighting for.

Are you experiencing problems within a current relationship? No.

When you need a temporary escape, what do you do? I take these. Sometimes I'd go to a coffee shop and just alternate between people-watching and going through my phone for a change of scenery.

How long did your last feelings of heartbreak last? In contrast to the "until I die" duration I thought it would be, it actually just lasted 7 months, lol. I discovered BTS not too long after the breakup and I've since been able to move past it.

Do you ever go shopping with your parents (not including grocery shopping)? Yeah sometimes, when we go out on Sundays.

When the weather is chilly but humid, what kind of things do you tend to wear? Chilly but humid is a sensation completely unfamiliar to me because where I live you only get hot and humid, or more hot and more humid.

When you’re walking somewhere, do you bring an iPod to listen to? I haven't used an iPod in like 13 years, though all the music I listen to when outdoors is in my phone.

Have you ever had some kind of sleep-disorder before? How did it affect your daily life? No.

Have you ever had food poisoning before? Describe the experience: Yeah, a few times. Last time was about a month ago when I drank my coffee that I had actually made the night before. It didn't taste off, but apparently it started to go off already so I didn't know it would affect me until I threw up like four times in a row.

Have you ever read anything by Chuck Palahniuk? What did you think? No.

How do you tend to amuse yourself on long car journeys? It depends on the people I'm with. If it's with my family, I just come up with a bunch of questions to ask everyone in the car; that way everyone and myself are all entertained. Taking surveys has definitely helped me come up with questions, haha.

If it's with close friends, it's not that hard to find ways to amuse ourselves tbh because we never run out of stories and prompts to talk about. Sometimes we'll also sing together, if we find a playlist that we all love.

If it's with workmates or otherwise a bunch of strangers, I just put on my earphones to either listen to music or watch videos to drown everything and everyone out.

Do you find that caffeinated or alcoholic drinks make you pee more than normal? Not so much with coffee; but with alcohol, yes, only because I drink so much water when I have it. I'm constantly driving myself so I'm not supposed to get intoxicated whatsoever.

How often do you need to charge your phone and iPod (on average)? Tbh just overnight. I never get to use my phone a lot since I work from home the whole day anyway.

Do you still enjoy watching Disney movies? Yes. I just watched Toy Story 1 & 2 and The Emperor's New Groove a few weeks ago.

What are some interests you have in common with your parents? Mm with my mom, I guess we both like Miss Saigon? Well, she liked it first, but because she played it on cassette so much when I was younger I ended up taking an interest in it as well.

My dad and I both like sports to an extent, but he's into basketball and MMA and I'm into wrestling. We also have some sort of a relationship with food, given his career as a chef and me just being an adventurous eater.

How old were you when your parents trusted you to stay home alone all day? I was around 14 when they stopped getting house help.

How long do you like to date someone before you bring them home to meet your parents? Can't relate. I've dated one person and never formally introduced her because she's a girl and I didn't know how they would take it.

If you could go to one country for two weeks, all expenses paid, where would you go and why? I'd go back to Da Nang in Vietnam, so I can enjoy their slow-paced living again. It was my absolute favorite part of my trip there.

Do you drink more or less water than is recommended? I'd say less. 

Do you like taking walks? I do. The problem is that this country is one of the Least Walking-Friendly Places Ever, and also, it's very hot. It sucks to walk when you're just collecting sweat the entire time.

Do you go on vacation with your family a lot? Where was the last place you went? We do it as much as we can, aka when my dad is home. Our last vacation was in Vietnam; we went to Saigon and Da Nang.

What do your parents think about piercings and tattoos? Do you agree with them? I know they're fine with tattoos because they have their own and because they never acted like it was the end of the world when my sister started getting a bunch of tattoos all over her arms. I'm not so sure about piercings, though. But sure, I like that they're nonchalant about it. My dad's mantra is your money/body, your choice and tbh that's the best it gets.

Which is the funniest name you’ve ever heard? There was actually a viral Reddit post literally just this week or was it two weeks ago? where there was someone defending themselves naming their child Nyxiryn, only to get absolutely destructed by the internet. The name is bad in itself, but it was the discussion that it made it so hilarious.

What are your religious beliefs? Are these the same as your parents’? I was born in a Roman Catholic family. I am quietly atheist.

Do you find it difficult to get to sleep early when you have to be up for something the next day? Yes, mainly because it sucks that I miss out on what's supposed to be my free time.

Unless I need to wake up early to line up for a concert or to get on a flight for a trip, in which I case I have had absolutely no trouble falling asleep early the night before hahaha.

Do you still enjoy coloring in coloring books? I love coloring.

Do you remember the Land Before Time movies? Who was your favorite character? I haven't seen them.

What’s your favorite genre of book to read? Memoirs. Self-written or otherwise.

Who has more influence over your taste in music - friends or family? All over the place, to be honest! Sometimes I'll discover new songs myself; sometimes it'd come from my sister; sometimes it'd come from internet recommendations...

When someone talks to you constantly, do you get fed up and easily irritated with them? I feel like this can't be answered with a straight yes or no. It really depends on the person. If I like them, I'd feel flattered and excited that they'd want to keep talking to me. On the other side of the spectrum, if it's an agent constantly messaging me to get insurance (because this does happen, lmao) obviously I'd get irritated.

Are you one of those people who texts back instantly? Yeah. I have my phone in hand constantly so it can't be helped.

Do you think going to college / university is the best option after you’ve left school? Here in the Philippines, it is. Education is valued very, very greatly here. It's also treated like a privilege here, sadly enough.

Is it easy to sleep late in your house, or are other people pretty noisy in the mornings? I have the worst neighbors who for some reason houses a billion fucking kids constantly screaming and crying 24/7. No, it's not easy to sleep in; I've woken up earlier than I'd want to on more than one occasion because of those brats.

Do you prefer watching movies alone or with other people? With other people.

What’s your favourite place to get pizza from? I've tried so many different pizza places all my life but I'm sorry, nothing for me beats good ol' fucking Pizza Hut LOL

Do you ever do something, and then wonder how many people are currently doing the same thing as you? Only like 9 out of 10 times.

When’s the last time the power went out in your house? Couple of months back during Typhoon Carina. Fortunately we didn't have it as bad as many other cities; power just flicked off and on, then off and on before it came back on for good.

Is there a laundry basket in your room? If yes, what color is it? It's in the bathroom, not in my room. It's brown.

Do you like those different flavored Tootsie Rolls? Idk, I've never had a Tootsie Roll I feel like.

Do you keep your shoes on a shoe rack, or just throw them somewhere? Yeah we have two shoe racks.

Think of the last verbal argument you were in; what caused it? Been a while since I've gotten in one.

Does your refrigerator have one door or two? Two. Left is freezer, right is the fridge.

Do you smoosh bugs, or just let ‘em go? Unless they're flying around me or on my skin, I let them go.

Do you know anyone who collects stamps? Nope.

What was the last thing you deleted off of your computer? On my work computer, it was all the files from 2023.

[this-is-a-dystopian-parable]

okay okay OKAY YOOOOOOOO i watched it oh MAN that was a GOOD show. MAN. god does not answer because he is in all things and even our question is his answer gabriel delivering that last line BRO how do they come up with this shit duude dude. i love all of them . gabriel holy SHIT man are yall seing this shit WOW wow wow . that ending ? hello. the tree gabriel the tree the thing he did make up your OWN MIND HELLO. very good yes i like inspired very coherent thoughts thank you

WOOOOOOOOOO YEAHHH

Sooooo real. It's so fucking good. And so FUNNY TOO. GOD.

"They do each other harm in the dark" aaaaa "That they sent me is enough to make me disbelieve" aaaaa "I don't think he's out there, I think he's in here" aaaaaaaaaaaaaa

And giving Joseph a major character arc, him being so in love with Mary but so wrapped up in his own insecurities and trying to find any reason why he doesn't deserve this. And using the "let the father of the baby gather cherries" as PROOF that it's HIM whether it's his biological kid or not he's the FATHER he's the one they need. Both him and Gabriel doubt themselves and their place but what they see as their weaknesses aren't weak! They are valuable!!! And YEAH the way everything works out through Gabriel's choice. There isn't anyone who's going to do it for him, miracles are made by people making choices in the name of what they believe but it takes real people making real actions for miracles to happen... whether you believe in a great plan or not...

And the Man in Grey does such a good job in this. When you first see him he's taking the costume pieces out of the box that are later used for all the characters he plays??? Amazing. Every time he talks to Gabriel. The little interaction of him singing "Satan's power" while the sheep is singing gives me CHILLS.

The playwright's father was Protestant and his mother was Catholic and though he went to a Catholic church and sunday school he went with other family, like his parents didn't even go. They weren't super religious at home but insisted he was educated in it. And I think this kind of toying around with well-known Biblical stories, not just for some silly funny satire but to somehow make it MORE GUT-WRENCHING and put his own themes of faith in there is just. So cool and really shows off his respect for the topic & artistic integrity.

Anyways. I also have so many thoughts about this me and @helloladder have watched it like five times at this point.

[gaybd1]

okay let’s dive into this religious trauma lol it’s Brand New and I haven’t articulated it before and would love any advice or guidance bc I can’t afford therapy rn lololol

idk

Ok I grew up in a SUPER evangelical area like kids would stay home from school on Halloween and nobody was allowed to read Harry Potter… that kind of place. All the businesses would close on Sundays, you get it.

My dad actually wasn’t religious until I was 7 years old and he was Born Again and got EMBARRASSINGLY into it

I went to church every Sunday and like a Bible club every Wednesday where we no joke just memorized Bible verses and practiced proselytizing

My parents became missionaries and I spent a lot of my childhood practicing Religious Imperialism in Guatemala

I knew from a young age it was Wrong to be gay (trans wasn’t even in my vocab)

My family was REALLY in the Spiritual stuff which I still believe in because I saw these things happen but am trying to wrap my head around what the actual context might have been: possessions, real life miracles, stuff involving spirits and demons

Two important things happened when I was 14 which were a HUGE basis for the rest of my life:

1. I heard the word “transgender” for the first time. I looked it up and IMMEDIATELY knew that was me but had a HUGE freak out because I thought I would go to hell and I couldn’t lose my family so I immediately decided to repress it which I successfully did for another 6-7 years

2. I had a Religious Breakdown and was like “why am I doing all this bullshit do I even believe in it??” and then I swear to god (hehe god) I suddenly felt the Holy Spirit inside me. Like I’ve felt it since and I can’t describe it but it’s a serious light and presence inside me and I still honestly don’t know what else could explain the feeling

Anyway are these two things related who knowssss

Anyway I kept it up, walking the walk, talking the talk, pushing myself WAY more into femininity

In the first year of college I started IDing as non-binary just to give my still-repressed inner boy SOME relief

By this point I was SO over the proselytizing imperialistic aspects of Christianity but was still 100% in it for the spiritual elements

That summer I started working at a Christian summer camp full time for $100 a week (yeah, and they pressured us to donate some of that back to the camp) and it became my entire fucking personality I ate, slept, and breathed Jesus

I kept working there a few more years. I remember when the Pulse nightclub shooting happened my boss asked me to lead a prayer and I first of all had no idea why I was the one they asked lol but I also felt NOTHING about what had happened. (This memory terrifies me to this day)

At no time during any of this, did anyone tell me it was bad to be gay or trans. I just… had absorbed it all so much from my childhood that I kept pushing the narrative inside myself

A few years passed, I kept going to church and Bible studies, but I started to clear from some of that culty fog. Also my family was a lot less overtly religious at this point? My dad became a total asshole (that’s another post lol) and that kind of Killed the Jesus Mood there

I finally admitted I was trans and dug up those repressed feelings and WOW did I feel sick for what I’d done to myself for years when my identity was RIGHT FUCKING THERE

anyway I came out socially pretty quickly but was still kind of hush hush about it around home but also ASSUMED my family knew at this point, like they have eyes right?? (I was living back with my mom for Family Reasons and was sharing a room with my little sister omg ugh)

I kept going to church and listening to my Christian Music that I swore made me feel the Holy Spirit through all of this

People would give me Looks all the time and I probably was imagining like half of them at least but it still wasn’t a great vibe

I ended up moving to China and was able to find a Secret Illegal evangelical church to go to (THAT’S an entire other post) and I got really involved in the community there and at one point one of the church leaders was praying for me and asked god to like cure me of the confusion in my head and come back to my true identity or some bullshit??? that was so fucking jarring to me I never went back

I’ve started feeling more strongly about my weird feelings since then (that was like 5 years ago?) and haven’t gone to church since then but still tried to keep up the more spiritual aspects like prayer and reading the Bible. I’d go to church when I visited my family and would be fine talking to my mom about more spiritual stuff like prayer and following the Holy Spirit, etc.

My enthusiasm has been fading over time but I kept hanging on to “well I feel the Holy Spirit so this all must be real even though modern Christianity is so perverted from the true tradition but I still love Jesus so I’ll keep following him on my own even though churches suck”

And now pretty recently I’ve been like “okay actually no there are a lot of fucked up people who call themselves Christians and are just evil. I’ve been so hurt by Christianity throughout my life to the point that I denied my OWN identity for years without even being told to. I’ve definitely got some trauma to unpack”

And NOW super recently I have like palpably negative emotional reactions when I see anyone talking about Christianity or my mom mentions she’s gonna be praying for me or something. Like it seems like whatever trauma I have is getting worse??

I’d love to Get Over It…

ALSO if I ever told my mom how I’d feel she’d be so fucking disappointed in me bc she’s been drinking that kool aid her whole life and I CANNOT have my mom disappointed in me lol even though I’m pretty sure my siblings have similar feelings to me about religion

[angeltreasure]

Hi sister, I hope that you're having a blessed lent and that your puppy's surgery went well! I had a question, if that's okay. I wanted deeply to be a nun, my heart was really on fire for that vocation. But due to being disabled by severe mental illness, I was told no. Are there other ways I could be deeply involved in mysticism and the life of the church, bearing in mind my disability? I've thought about volunteering to help with cleaning the church but worry that I wouldn't be trusted due to my psychiatric history. Thank you, may God bless you ✝️💟

Hello there!,

I used to dread Lent in the past for a long time, but this year I finally cherish it more! It’s been really good so far. Thank you! He is resting by my side as I type to you. He had a removal of three spots with a laser, so one paw even has a cast that we’ll take off tomorrow. No throwing up so far, so the medicine is working good. I hope your Lent is going well! I’m sorry you were turned away from others because of your mental illness. Don’t loose hope though. Even though you may not be able to be a nun, you are still a very important to the church, because there are many parts to one body. I would ask your priest just the same to see if there is something you can join. Sometimes we don’t know until we ask. If he turns you away, don’t fear. There are many ways you can still help. You can:

- keep the Commandments. Go to Confession if ever needed.

- try to go to Mass every Sunday. If you’re able to, you can go more than once a week. The Mass is the highest form of prayer.

- donate food to the poor

- you can donate clothing to help cloth others

- money to families in need

- help a family member iron sheet linens used for Mass

- you can can make sure your pew is clean when you’re ready to leave Mass

- you can buy flowers to decorate your church

- you can light a candle to say a prayer for a loved one or maybe your whole church. If lighting a candle is too dangerous for your condition, there are stores that sell fake candles that are powered by simple batteries.

- you can smile at everyone around you when you go to Mass. sometimes a smile is the start of peace. That smile can make such a difference to others especially a visitor.

- you can give a little snack to the homeless. Even if it’s just a tiny water bottle or a little snack bar. You can also give them something like a Rosary, prayer card, or picture you can print out of Jesus.

- if you can’t make it to Mass in person on hard days, remember you can watch one online or listen to one on the radio. You can offer that Mass as a prayer for someone you know who needs prayers.

- pray for the souls of Purgatory any day of the year

- make the sign of the cross before leaving your house

- bless yourself and loved ones with Holy Water

- I volunteered to join groups not present specifically in my church like the Rosary group (we pray one Rosary each day) and a vocation society (I pray for all the vocations in my diocese to help others). Maybe there is one you can find online too.

- you can start a Bible study with parents, siblings, other family, friends, schoolmates, and even coworkers. It doesn’t have to be fancy. The Holy Spirit will help guide you.

- you can call others around for coffee and donuts after church

- you can read Lives of the Saints by Fr Alban Butler. There is a saint written for each day in his book that can inspire you in finding your unique path to holiness to become a saint in Heaven. In fact there are many books on the saints that are quite interesting!

- you can listen to hymns even if you don’t know the words in other languages

- there are many novenas and litanies you can find. Maybe you can pray for others.

- I like watching documentaries and movies about the saints and religious orders. Those can be fun! It can give you a glimpse into their life.

- make time for prayer each day. Start small. It can be just when you wake up or right before going to bed. Increase the time when you feel comfortable.

- sometimes I like spending time outside of churches looking at the statues and sitting in the gardens. This can be a great source of comfort to calm yourself.

- Eucharist Adoration in person is amazing no matter how much time you spend in it! Many saints have benefited from it. If you can’t go in person, you can find a video of one on YouTube.

- although it is not required, you can explore the idea of covering your head. There are many ways from headbands, scarfs, mantillas, veils, hats, and more! Don’t head-cover for fashion alone, but only for loving God. It can be very beautiful. Our Blessed Mother covered her head too.

- find a saint you can learn a lot from. You may find more than one at different times in your life. You may want to learn about St. Thérèse of Lisieux! Her “little way” may be of great inspiration.

- collecting Holy cards or pictures can be fun and used to pray about Bible stories! You could even do both… For example, find a picture of a similar Bible story of the Gospels then take out your Bible to read that story.

- read a little bit of the Bible each day (or listen to it). Start as small as one verse. Anyone is welcome to it. I highly recommend starting at the Gospels.

- buy or make a small book/notebook of your favorite prayers. Use it when you need it and share it them with others.

- remember to take care of yourself too. Eat healthy and get exercise. You body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Hope those can be a great way to start! Don’t feel pressured to do them all at once. Find one that works best for you and see how you bloom. May God bless you. 😊🕊️ 🌹

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

I mean I'm sure your minions do send asks to me since I'm pretty sure we have a lot of the same people following us. 😂

But Hopes Lorenz was good!!! In fact, he was the only brain cell in the entire route!!! Poor man was too smart and, by proxy of being the only smart person in the room, had any and all of his good ideas shot down via everyone changing the subject to act like idiots (remember when he suggested they leave Edelgard for dead and everyone else dodged the topic and went lel lorenz u silly goose u sound like (claude or edelgard by your choice, neither of which are even remotely accurate assessments that the entire group ends up agreeing merrily with). Seeing this, Hopes Lorenz gives up and just goes with it because he's too smart for the dumb ppl to listen to. :(

Yes, I am (still) very bitter at how actually stupid the characters are in GW (as well as their whole uwu I feel soooo bad having to fight people from the Empire who are invading Leicester, and then them cheering and having a very joyful time slaughtering Kingdom soldiers and invading them with no remorse or thought whatsoever, except the single moment Claude felt bad for killing a man who sacrificed himself to save his friend and his friend's son... and then proceeding to basically say oh but we're gonna kill more of them anyway so ANYWAY. Then his line to Sylvain when Sylvain tells him he's gonna pay, after mind you Sylvain previously made a point to express to his friends his burning hatred toward any and all invaders, is basically just uwu sorry buddy it's war (it didn't have to be, y'all are the ones who invaded), and iirc if Judith dies he's like uwu we've all lost something (implying it's Okay to kill others because they've all suffered too, so it's fine if you make someone else suffer!)).

NOW THEN, on to the VW issues!

I think part of that was less Lorenz himself and more... they just needed someone who disagrees with Claude generally to disagree with Claude. Having anyone else say something about it would mean someone else disagreed with Claude, which was out of character for all GDs except Lorenz (and maybe Lysithea at most. Leonie doesn't care as long as she can show off her Captain Jeralt skills). It also promotes the Rhea and Church BaD narrative the series forces down your throat at any and all moments it's able.

That is to say, I don't think it's something Lorenz himself would normally believe, but they needed someone to believe it to have a counterargument against Claude to promote the Church BaD narrative. No idea why they kept that up at that point, seeing as the Church was allied with Leicester, but they do so there's that unfortunately.

I do think him not trusting Almyra is valid, because as I've mentioned before (to you I think, in a response to a post/ask of yours?), Almyra is viewed extremely negatively in Fodlan because of the constant raids. In every light of them we know about, including from even Cyril himself who was born there and lived there long enough to evidently form negative opinions about it, the place is just pretty nasty. Cyril mentions being happier in Fodlan and feeling like he has a purpose (at least once he's out of Goneril slavery).

I know I've mentioned this (Almyra being an apparently shitty place with shitty people) before on my blog at some point because I know I've talked about how fucking racist it all is, but... if you go plainly from what we know about Almyra and take out the fact that the writing for it was racist, we do know it's not the best place ever and even Claude has only really had negative experiences there (including the weekly Sunday assassination attempts against him).

Also kind of (read: very extremely) gross how Almyra treats Claude as being evil and disgusting for being half blood of another land when that's literally exactly what Byleth is and Byleth is the white person who is viewed by any and all as amazing, stupendous, wonderful and unironically godly. BUT ANYWAY.

Lorenz also could have made several points[...]

See, that's the thing about Lorenz. His character as we know it should be arguing these points, but he's the only character who actively disagrees with Claude/doesn't trust him, so he's the only one who can bring up these points. In a way it's pretty ooc imo for them to give him just whatever line they need at the time even when he should know better, but then... they do that a lot. Especially with every single solitary recruitable character in CF (fuck CF Ignatz and I hope he suffers for the rest of his life! :D)

I will say I think the urgency about the Opera company is valid since they're immediately in an area of Edelgard's reach. If they turned against her, she'd have them slaughtered pretty quickly because they'd have no time to escape. We (I think it was us lol) also iirc talked once about how it's implied that Edelgard was having all the people from the Southern Church killed who tried to run away and take refuge elsewhere.

I think based on that alone it's pretty reasonable that the Opera company was in extreme danger if they made their political stance known if it was not in favor of her war (which I can't see why it would be, since they're civilians who have nothing to do with it, but she made her point in the Lonato chapter that she'd sacrifice her citizens for her own selfish goals soooo).

Considering that, Gloucester could've had time to prepare some things as needed if needed, and if there was a dispute between father and son, on Edelgard's side it would be irrelevant because it was ultimately Erwin in charge and everything, including his allegiance, was his call alone and not Lorenz's. If Lorenz left, Gloucester would still be "hers" until whenever Erwin died/retired; in which case she'd probably just have someone else replace him and then it would actually be hers and not just hers by proxy. That said, I think that's why there was less urgency for Gloucester overall.

iirc after the Lonato thing he can be pissed at Billy when you reply with something like “it had to be done”?

He actually gets pissed regardless of what you say, i.e. the line is still the same.

didn't they actually cut a line in localized hopes where sylvain basically said that lmfao

Yeah, it's really annoying the way they spin everything to be "well maybe Edelgard is in the right after all" at every possible chance they can (woman literally basically says Claude can't rule Fodlan because he's a foreigner, which by itself is racist as fuck and also completely ignores the fact that he's half Fodlanese and has lived there and studied about it and considers it his home... and then they jam the nail in the coffin with their writers' obsession with Edelgard and have him fucking agree). Dimitri wasn't always in the right after all, except... that's obvious and he admits to it, eventually choosing to atone for it.

Then when it comes to Rhea they do the exact opposite and all good things she does for anyone ever is portrayed in a negative light at some point by someone in the story. People also don't understand red herrings, mainly because Jeralt is Good Dad and is therefore automatically correct about anything and everything he says about BaD Rhea. Instead of, you know, Jeralt being wrong and the story making it clear that he was and that no, Rhea isn't the big bad. Unfortunately they started off that way with the red herring but then ended up making the red herring the "truth" - in quotations because it's not and the story tells you it's not, but they keep pushing that narrative simultaneously.

In Hopes they have Edelgard in her support with Dimitri saying "she'd like to think she also takes responsibility for her actions".

Two things here:

This is essentially an example of Edelgard giving a non-answer. She doesn't admit that she's not taking responsibility, so she uses that she "would like to think she is" to make it sound like she is. It's an avoidance tactic, because she can't confidently outright say she also (like Dimitri, who outright says he does take responsibility when talking to her) does take responsibility. That is, she doesn't and she knows she doesn't, so she can't confidently say she does without knowing she's lying about something regarding herself (she can lie about others, but doesn't want to lie about herself).

The writers unfortunately stick this in here because they also don't want to admit that she doesn't. They want to keep marketing her as a hero in this game, basically removing the entire concept they started with in Houses about her being a villain. If they were to have her admit she doesn't, it paints her in a bad light, which they apparently don't want... but they know she doesn't, so they use the avoidance tactic to make it sound like she does or would be willing to.

So the moral of the story is basically that Lorenz can be used to act ooc at any time it's needed and used as the guy we can get mad at (and the dialogue makes a point of saying we should do that), but Edelgard must always stay in character because she is always correct about anything and everything, and if she were ooc then something she says wouldn't be correct anymore.

Lorenz was a better character than what they gave him to work with in Houses, and in Hopes, when he was given that chance to work with what he really was, they had the characters just ignore him for the sake of fulfilling the Edelgard-is-right centric plot of GW's second half. Which like... really fucking sucks that half of Claude's route is literally just a second route of Edelgard-is-right-centric.

It's still wild to me that people will go to bat for the nothing characters that are Randolph and Fleche as proof of Dimitri being bad; we know next to nothing about them, they have miniscule screentime, what little we do know of Randolph paints him as human scum who'd do horrific things if it meant a chance at a promotion, and Fleche illogically only ever holds a grudge against someone for killing her brother if that someone is AM!Dimitri, with her completely vanishing from the game in every other route.

Eh,

I'd say they play the same purpose than this random child in TS in Roland's story - at this point, both lords want vengeance, and they have to face someone who also wants (misdirected!) vengeance at them, smth smthg like war sucks because people die.

But it's completely wasted in FE16, because, as you said, Randy isn't a random or a civilian or a war orphan, he is a general leading an attack on refugees/civilians/randoms to gain more fame, and dies in the process.

Now, can we say Flèche's anger and death are ultimately directed at Randolph, who died for nothing and took his sister down with him in his quest for "muhrit" ? Or are we supposed to think that this scene is important because Dimitri, the Blue Lord, isn't supposed to fall as low as the Imperial Army - something he comes close to (apparently?) ?

And yet again, it completely fails.

Because for one Randolph - who also had a family and loved ones - we have 50 Waldos and Baldis, whose lives aren't given any fuck about.

We don't see a war prisoner, or an Adrestian civilian accusing Supreme Leader of having sent her/his wife/husband/daughter/son to death with a conquest they never asked and trying to off her.

Only Dimitri receives this backlash from - invaders who wanted to invade and suddenly remember they have loved ones so are very sad when their loved ones dies - Flèche, but not Claude nor Billy, as you rightfully pointed out.

And Supreme Leader never receives any backlash - or wake up call - from a real third party/civilian/casualty who could have done the exact same thing.

Emile mentions how, during her attack, the Holy Grounds near Garreg Mach were turned in a slaughterhouse, why don't we have any civilian who survived from that try to take a jab at Supreme Leader? Waldi's best friend? Baldo's mother? A war captive from Leicester/Faerghus or a conscripted Adrestian?

I laughed about it with friends earlier, and again with the teatime paralogue, but it truly feels as if only 1/3rd (since the church doesn't count) of the cast will face consequences for the war and suffers backlash from the constant fighting (they didn't even start!).

Whenever you have to deal with serious stuff in Fodlan, it'll be for the BL members.

The rest? Will sip tea, talk nonsense, try to solve "mysteries" and live as if nothing is happening in the background.

Just imagine how both deer routes could have been much more impactful and interesting - instead of being a recycled Billy route with a different infodump at the end - if Raphael's sister popped up to a War Council, asking Claude to stop coddling the Empire because their lands were invaded, her grandfather put to Aymr and her inn destroyed by the Imperial Army, or how Ignatz's older brother discovers how Adrestia is burning pieces of art and history and every material related to Leicester and Faerghus history because they want to push an "Adrestia Eternal" narrative. Heck, Claude could even discover more "lore" by picking a Leif route, sort of rescuing the people "handpicked" to become new Baldos and Waldis, discovering the secret of the artificial crest stones and maybe having an infiltration map where, lo, instead of receiving an info dump, they maybe witness Rhea being turned in a relic or used to "produce" artificial crest stones.

War BaD, but only when we can make the BL suffer for it, for the rest, it's just a bgm.

And even then, it can't be too critical of Supreme Leader, because she was made to sell alts in FE heroes or dubious Cipher Cards.

"Supreme Leader", "cute girls" and "I want to see how Faerghus and its knights will deal with the aftermath of the Tragedy while defending against the invading forces".

Tl; dr : Flèche and Randolph are named, which is a cheap way to make people care for them despite their role in the plot, but the demonic beasts and the civilians dying aren't mentionned nor talked about.

Hell, why do you think I gave names to the artificial demonic beasts? The game doesn't want you to think too much about them, but if I talk about Baldo and Waldi, maybe the fandom will?

[jaeminsz]

tw, religion? corruption (?)

since i dont know if u are okay with something like this, pls ignore if it makes uncomfortable!!!!!!

this is probably wayy to late but there were asks which chase atlantic songs enhypen members are and tbh jake as "friends" i agree for suuure but also knowing that jake was/ is a church boy?? that got me thinking

church by chase atlantic plus jake = (no pun intended) holy shittt, like how hot is that......tho...... like let him baptise in your thighs........and him being all shy, blushy and flustered cuz it feels so wrong but so good.....</3

pls dont pray for me 😇 😇

CORRUPTING CHURCH BOY JAKE????? i'm all ears. when he gets a taste of you, he'd be craving for it even more. all of his life, he was taught that lust was one of the seven deadly sins but whenever he caught a glimpse of you wearing a white dress, looking like you were sent from heaven, he couldn't help but stare at you. his thoughts were innocent at first, he simply found you beautiful. everything changed when he caught you with your pretty lips wrapped around heeseung's cock in one of the storage rooms in the back. he felt so guilty standing there with his eyes locked on yours as you continued sucking on his older friend's dick but he couldn't get himself to move an inch. when jake went back home that night, he couldn't erase the image of you out of his head. he ended up cumming to the thought of you giving him a blowjob and he didn't feel guilty at all, he felt some kind of relief. who would have thought that just a few days later, jake would be in the same spot heeseung stood, with you sucking on his red tip. ''why is this considered as one of the most sinful acts when it feels so fucking good?'' jake would moan when you take his virginity on a sunday while his parent's were at the church. he said he was sick just to stay behind and sneak you into his bedroom. ''because once you get a taste of it, your hunger for it will not stop. you want more baby, don't you?'' you reply with his cock deep in your pussy as you rode him. it would become a routine for you to fuck after church every week. you would teach everything you know about the sinful world of sex and pleasure, corrupting the boy with every word that comes out of your mouth. and now jake can't look at your lips without thinking of how they feels wrapped around his cock. if there's a reserved place in hell with his name on it, you would be the number one reason for it. he wouldn't be sad about it though since you would already be waiting for him there.

[quicksilverownsmysoul]

Hey I was wondering if you could do a fic or some headcannons of any character with a Hispanic reader teaching them more about their culture and meeting their parents? Idk it’s something special for Hispanic heritage month<3 (ofc you don’t have to do it if you don’t wanna)

Okay but I would love to do that!!! Love this !!! thank you anon for sending this in. Buckle up y’all cause this is gonna be headcannons for the Evans and they are gonna be hella long!!! (Also feel free to send in more x Hispanic reader requests for any character ) I also have a Peter x Hispanic reader in the works

The Evans with a Hispanic/ Latinx Reader (GN)

Tate

- literally in love with you

- gets really into the telenovelas but won’t ever admit it to you

- would be so nervous to meet your parents for multiple reasons (one being cause he was a literal ghost)

- when you met him you like did the sign of the cross and tried all those old tricks to free his spirit

- he was very amused

- I feel like your parents wouldn’t like him too much, they don’t like his energy

- it’s crushes him but he acts like he doesn’t care

- you still date him and tell him he doesn’t need their approval

- would love to hear about your culture especially all the ghost stories and superstitions

Kit

- fascinated with the low rider community

- literally wants to learn about all of them so you take him to meet up so he can talk to the mechanics behind it

- they make a lot of jokes about him calling him gringo and asking why this white man is here but he just laughs with them

- they actually all take a liking to him and how accepting he is

- he gets invited to all future meetups and helps work on some of the cars

- loves to learn cumbias and dances with you

- always twirling you around the kitchen

- your parents liked him well enough, thought he was polite but worried about how he would support you

- but after seeing how much he loved and respected you they were sold on him

- if you speak Spanish he’ll try to learn a couple phrases for you

Kyle

- wants to learn everything about you and your culture if you wanna share it with him

- always willing to listen your opinions when it comes to Hispanic/Latinx representation in media

- loves to watch telenovelas and will get huffy if you watch them without him

- he’ll gasp at the perfect times too and get really invested

- likes it when you sing Spanish lullabies to him, cradling him in your arms as you play with his hair

- he was so nervous to meet your parents, practiced what he was going to say about a million times

- probably had his friends pose as mock parents and have them reject him so he’d be prepared for the worst

- but your parents love him. Literally think he’s so ambitious and a perfect gentleman.

- They immediately asked when you two were getting married

Jimmy

- loves all the music, literally always humming a Juan Gabriel song or a Richie Valens song

- obsessed with Selena, has a poster of her in his cavern

- he bought it after you introduced him to her. When he hears dreaming of you tho all he can think about is you. Especially when you aren’t there and all he wants to do is hold you in his arms

- Was scared of meeting your parents, put it off for as long as possible.

- he knew you’re parents didn’t think anybody was good enough for you and he was sure they’d hate him too

- wore his gloves when y’all went, trying his best to seem respectable

- your parents were still wary of him tho, making it clear that they didn’t like that he was in a freak show. Didn’t think that life was for their kid

- you stand up for him and yourself and jimmy has never been more proud in his life

- tells you how much he loves you the entire ride home

- Loves when you rub vapor rub on his chest after a long day

- Loves all the candies from the mercados, like the peanut patties

James

- charmed by absolute everything about you

- was a little of ignorant when your first met him, his era imposing a very stereotypical view of you and your culture

- you help to teach him about your culture and break him out of that mindset

- he wants to learn and change for you and as time passes he does. Kills anyone who even says anything remotely racist to you 

- Like kit he is very into dancing your traditional dances with you

-probably rehearses it to perfection and puts on a recital for the whole hotel to watch

- fascinated with the concept of death in your culture

- Loves the fashion of it all 

- You introduce him to Raul Julia movies and he’s just starring at the screen like why am I in this movie???

Colin

- Will try and cook your favorite dishes for you but it’s a pain to get him to try it

- He’s a little put off by all the flavors but for you he will try it all

- He cannot handle the heat, anything that has even a hint of spice he will be dying. He tires to play it cool and be like that was good but the minute you excuse yourself he’s gulping milk down by the gallon

- Loves pan dulce, always has one with his coffee

- Loves to go to the markets with you and shop around for local ingredients

- You give him a little cross to wear and he never takes it off, always around his neck

- Will go to church with you every Sunday if you want, like you did as a kid

- If you get married he will be all for that traditional wedding, wanting you to embrace your culture as much as you want

- The family makes fun of him in Spanish and you have to stop youtrself from laughing with them

- Your parents like him but they think he’s a little goofy

- He was so flustered when he met them but in the end it all worked out. 

Warren

- Loves all of your traditions, he has so much fun learning them with you

- Adores abuileta hot chocolate, it won’t even be cold and he’s drinking it all day long

- Unlike Colin he can handle the spice, will do challenges with your family to see who can eat the spiciest tamales or just straight up eat a jalapeno

- If anyone tries to make fun of you he will fight them, yelling about how ignorant they are and how he will kick their ass back to Europe if they keep talking like that. 

- He someone is best friends with your grandparents, always offering to help and charming them 

- You are amazed and how he had them wrapped around his finger, watching as they pinch his cheeks and call him handsome in English and Spanish

- Your parents aren't too fond of him and don’t like that his parents are divorced but your grandparents just shush them and say that he’s perfect

- Always so smug now that he has their approval

Peter 

- Eats everything and anything you or your family makes

- Loves it all and is  wiling to try anything once, even menudo 

- Your grandma is always trying to feed him, saying that he’s too skinny and needs to eat more

- He has to like disappear after the fifth plate because she won't stop feeding him

- Your Spanish speaking family members call him Pedro

- loves the big happy family vibes never had that growing up 

- always playing with the little cousins at parties and jumping with them in the bounce house

- fights them over the piñata candy 

- He was nervous to meet your parents, nearly passing out when your dad starred him down at the door

- They all love him though and like how respectful he is around you 

- The aunts and older cousins are always gushing over his hair and asking if they can style it 

Charles

- big sweetheart

- Next to Kyle he is the most beloved by the family

- They always say how sweet he is and how pretty he is. Loves that he always brings something for parties, and usually makes it himself

- But since they found out he’s into photography he becomes the designated photographer for all events. Your cousins all hiring him for weddings and birthdays 

- You buy him a big fluffy blanket with one of those giant animals one it and it’s his favorite thing

- Loves to cook with you, always rolling out tortillas as you guys sing in the kitchen

Taglist: @coffeeandteaintheevening @kitwalkerangel  @livingmybestfictionallife @amourtentiaa @shlutnutt @rottenstyx @mossybank 

[letsgivethisonemoreshot]

Sinful Sunday:Day 4

Summary: Collab with @omg-im-such-a-masochist . Where every Sunday each of us will post a one-shot/hc/drabble based on a common theme. Each week will have a different theme as well as a different wrestler.

Word Count: 1,110 words

Common Theme For The Week: Song - "Going To Hell" The Pretty Reckless

My Choice For The Week: Edge

Tagging : @windhamsrotunda because Edge

I stood outside my childhood church, looking at the closed doors. I had gone here every Sunday with my family faithfully while growing up. Even more often as a teenager when I started seeing a guy they didn’t approve of. They thought he was a bad influence with his long hair and leather trench coats. The creepy smile he always gave them didn’t really help his case either. They thought he was going to be a bad influence on little old me. So they started dragging me to church services, youth groups, and volunteer weekends hoping that he wouldn’t influence me. I hadn’t been here in a while though, but with good reason. I got myself into a little trouble and had found myself in jail for the last few months. For theft, burglary, nothing major like murdering anyone. That anyone knew of anyway. So now that I was out, I thought I’d do the right thing and come back to church, possibly confess my sins, and move forward with my life. I was too late for Sunday Service. Everyone but the Priest was gone. But that’s okay because he’s all I really needed anyway.

I smoothed out my little white sundress and looked over at my friend who stood next to me. Probably someone else my parents wouldn’t have approved of. Leather pants with chains, a black vest, long dark hair partially back in a ponytail and a scruffy 5’o clock shadow on his face. They’d have taken one look at him and shunned him, not knowing the loyalty he had to those he cared about and the lengths he’d go to for them.  Afterall, he stood beside me now, ready to walk into this church and stand with me while I dealt with some pivotal things in my life. He held his arm out so I could link mine with his and opened one of the church’s double doors.

As I walked down the aisle between the pews, I noticed my old priest standing there, with his bible in his hands, partially looking like he had seen a ghost. Standing next to him was another man, dressed much more sophisticated than my friend Damian. His long blonde hair was neatly back also in a half ponytail and his beard was nicely groomed.  Dressed in an all-black suit with stunning black velvet embellishments all over the jacket. He looked almost as good in it as he did out of it. As Damian and I reached the front by the altar, my boyfriend held his hand out to me, which I gladly let go of Damian’s arm to take.

“Hello Father! Long time no see!” I greeted cheerfully.

“Y/n. I was always hoping you would come back.” He replied.

I slightly shrugged. “There is no where else I would rather be.”

“Would you mind coming with me back to my office? I was hoping to speak with you about a few things.”

“We don’t need to go to your office Father. We can speak about it out in the open. It’s just us and anything you have to say to me you can say in front of them. But I was hoping to do it afterwards.”

“Y/n, I’m worried about you. I heard rumors you were back, but I also heard why you were away.”

“I’m fine Father, I assure you.” I smiled.

“Fine? Y/n you were in jail!” He whispered, as if the other two didn’t already know.

“Yes, for stealing things I needed to survive.”

“Y/n you robbed stores, and threatened people!”

“Aren’t clothes, food, and money essential to survival Father? I may have needed to threaten a person or two to get them to give in, but that doesn’t mean I’d actually have hurt them. I just needed to convince them to give me what I needed.”

“You didn’t need to do that. You could have come here. The church could have helped you.”

“The church wasn’t able to help find my parents when they went missing were they father? This whole congregation and they still haven’t been found. The church wouldn’t have been able to help me the way I needed. They wouldn’t have given me the support that he has. So I’m here today to ask you to honor my mother’s final wish and have this drop dead gorgeous man make an honest woman out of me. Unless you want us to continue to live in sin.”

I could see the concern in his eyes. I’m not sure if it was at my statement, or the smirk my fiancé had across his face. His teeth showing like fangs. Eyes that peered right into the priest’s soul.

“No, I suppose I don’t want that. But are you sure that this is the path you want to take for the rest of your life?” He asked, trying to talk me out of it.

“Father, I love Mr. Copeland more than life itself. He takes care of me in ways I never could have imagined. He gives me things in life others dream of. I will follow his path to the ends of the Earth if that’s where it leads me,” I smiled, looking over at him.

“But you went to jail!”

“They took care of me while I was there.”

“You went there because of him!”

“She has made her decision,” Adam cut into our conversation. “Now we’re ready to get this started. We have everything we need. We have a witness, we have vows, and we have you. And she is more than willing. So let’s get on with this and no more stalling or else you’re going to be joining your friend up on that cross back there.” He threatened while pointing to the large crucifix behind the altar.

“Don’t worry Father, after you bless our marriage, we’ll still have our talk. It has been a while since my last confession and I would like to attest the things I’ve done and start this new chapter of my life with a clean conscience.” I smiled sweetly.

“And we can trust him?” Damian spoke up from behind us.

“Of course. He’s bound by his faith that anything I say stays between myself, him, and God.” I answered.

“It sure will. Because once you’re done sweetheart, Damian is going to have a little chat with him as well.” Adam smiled sinisterly. “And we’ll be taking whatever is in that collection plate there on our way out. Y/n tells me that people here are very generous.”

“You can’t…”

“Lets just call it a wedding present. Besides, it’s not like you’ll be able to have any use for it.”

[scuttling]

Impure

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairing: Aaron Hotchner/Latina Original Female Character Word Count: 4,557 Tags: 18+, NSFW, Priest kink, Religion, Confessional, Masturbation, Vaginal fingering, Oral sex, Unprotected sex, Somehow also sweet Summary: Hotch is a hot priest and steamy, smutty stuff happens. That's it, that's the fic. Note: This is a reformatted, previously published work. Link to A03 or read below! When Sophie Cortes moves to Whitehall, Virginia in the hopes of starting over, she expects it to be difficult. Removed completely from her family, her friends, the job she loved, and the only way of life she’s known for 28 years—it’s hard, and she prays for strength every day for a week before she passes a small Catholic church on her way to the post office. She hadn’t noticed it before, and she smiles, makes a vow to attend mass the following Sunday, and feels for the first time in a long time like God might actually be on her side.

She feels that way for a very, very short time, because the moment she lays eyes on the priest—Father Aaron Hotchner, the sign by the door says—she realizes she’s doomed.

He is not at all what she’d expected in this sleepy, pseudo-Southern town, in that he is hot like burning: he’s in his forties, tall, and kind of beefy, actually, with arms that fill out his clerical shirt a little too well, and a handsome face, dark hair, a kind smile. She takes a seat in the back, the first week she attends, but when he looks out at the congregation, she feels like his eyes are on her and only her. It makes her sweat more than the July heat, and she wets her lips, feels every bit the sinner she is.

The second week isn’t any better, or the third, fourth, fifth. Each time, she enters hopeful and leaves a horny, desperate mess. The sixth week, she confesses.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been... a while since my last confession. I’m new to town—you probably haven’t even noticed me—and I’m trying to start a new life. I was taking a walk around the neighborhood, and I found your little church, and I thought maybe it was God’s way of trying to help me on my journey.”

“It was. He brought you here for a reason,” Father Hotchner says through the lattice of the confessional booth, and Sophie exhales, leans her head back.

“No, Father. It wasn’t God who led me here, it was the Devil himself.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because the moment I saw you standing there, tall, strong, your hands wrapped around the edges of the pulpit, I began having impure thoughts, and they haven’t gone away. The moment I step foot in those doors, my core aches; I try to rub discreetly against the pew for some relief, but there are too many people around me, so I just sit there, hot and swollen, dripping wet, listening to your voice. When I kneel, I kneel for you, not God.” She breathes slowly, in and out of her nose, tries to calm herself down. “You talk about sin, Father, and while you do my body begs for yours; sometimes you pause to swallow, and I watch your throat, and I wonder if that’s you feeling me wanting you.” He is quiet for a moment before speaking again.

“You are right: Lustful thoughts are the work of the Devil. But you can overcome them.”

“I can’t, Father. I’ve tried. I’ve prayed for God’s guidance. I’ve been coming here for six weeks, and each time I see you I crave the touch of your hand, your mouth on my body. I always leave quickly when your sermon is over, because if you saw me, flushed, my nipples hard, my eyes wide, you would know what I’ve been thinking, Father, and I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“You were made by God in His image. You couldn’t disappoint me.”

“It doesn’t disappoint you to know I’m thinking of it right now? Of how the only thing between us is this partition, and how if I could get into your lap, maybe I could rub myself to climax, feel your hands on my hips, urging me on, until we both come, here in His house? Because that’s all I can think about, Father.” Tears well up in her eyes, but his voice is soothing.

“That’s okay. It’s alright. I’m not disappointed. I can help you through this.”

“How? Please tell me how, Father. I’ll do anything.”

“First, I want you to recite the Act of Contrition each morning. I want you to talk to God and tell Him you’re sorry, and then I want you to forgive yourself.”

“Forgive myself?” The idea seems insane, after everything she’s confessed to him.

“Yes. You deserve compassion as a child of God. And you should give yourself credit, for despite the heat of your flesh, you haven’t acted on your impure thoughts. God will have mercy because of your resistance. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, Father. Thank you, Father.”

“Good. May our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, through the grace and mercies of his love for humankind, forgive you all your transgressions. And I, an unworthy priest, by his power given me, forgive and absolve you from all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

“Amen.” Sophie leaves, and her hands are trembling. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been a week since my last confession. I’m not sure you’ll remember me…” The priest shifts a little, Sophie can see it through the barrier that separates them.

“I remember you. Have you forgiven yourself? Have you spoken to God?”

“I’ve tried, Father. I’ve done my penance, I’ve prayed, but I’m still so weak. Today, I watched a bead of sweat drip down your neck, and I wanted to run my tongue over it, follow it into your clothes and taste you, warm and salty. I’m soaked and throbbing even now, just recalling how my body reacted. It hurts.” He swallows hard.

“I’m sorry you are in pain, both mental and physical. But with God, you are strong. With God, nothing is impossible. You will get through this.”

“I didn’t just have impure thoughts this week, Father. I—I touched myself, and I imagined it was your hand. Your fingers inside me, filling me. I came to the thought of you, Father. Will I be forgiven?”

“God forgives you, and I forgive you.” She closes her eyes tightly, sighs.

“Thank you, Father. What is my penance?”

“I want you to spend one hour a day sitting on your bed, completely still and silent. I want you to think of all of the blessings God has given you, all of the ways He has made you strong. I also want you to donate your hands to a good cause; you know the nursing home on Fifth Avenue is always looking for volunteers. Maybe, if your hands are occupied doing God’s work, the temptation to use them in an impure manner will leave you.”

“Thank you, Father. I will.”

“May our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, through the grace and mercies of his love for humankind, forgive you all your transgressions. And I, an unworthy priest, by his power given me, forgive and absolve you from all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

“Amen.” “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been a week since my last confession.”

“Have you done your penance, my girl?”

“Yes, Father. I meditated and volunteered until I was so exhausted each night that I fell right to sleep.”

“And what was the outcome? Do you feel better?” She feels shame for what she is about to say.

“I didn’t think of you, but I dreamed of you.”

“What did you dream about?”

“I dreamed of laying beneath you, Father. I dreamed of being taken by you. I dreamed of you filling me up with come and whispering in my ear that it was God’s will.” The priest exhales deeply.

“Did you have the same dream every night?”

“No, Father. One night I dreamed of kneeling to pray, but then taking you into my mouth, performing an act of service on you. You came in my mouth and gave me five Hail Mary’s for worshipping at an altar that was not God’s.”

“Is there more?”

“Yes, Father. I dreamed of your head between my legs, tasting me. I called out your name in pleasure, and you held me tightly and pushed your tongue inside me until I cried, it felt so good. Then you spilled on my skin and—and praised me for fulfilling my duty to God.” His voice is soft when he responds.

“I think it may be time for private counseling.”

“Here at the church, Father?”

“Yes, with me. Once a week.”

“Father, I don’t know if—” She can barely look at him without moaning; how can he expect her to be counseled in his office, just feet from him… alone?

“Trust me. I will help you talk to God. We will find a way to remove these impure thoughts from your mind so you can live in God’s image as intended.”

“Yes, Father, thank you, Father.”

“May our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, through the grace and mercies of his love for humankind, forgive you all your transgressions. And I, an unworthy priest, by his power given me, forgive and absolve you from all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

“Amen.” “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been a week since my last confession.”

“You didn’t come to counseling.” He sounds disappointed, and she takes a trembling breath.

“No, Father. I’m sorry. You were giving communion, and I opened my mouth for you, and you placed the body of Christ on my tongue, and I… Forgive me, Father. I went into the bathroom and I touched myself. I couldn’t face you after that.”

“You touched yourself… here?” Shame makes her face heat, her eyes water.

“Yes, Father, I’m so sorry. I tried to resist, I did.”

“Did you have an orgasm?”

“Yes, Father. A strong one. That’s the closest you’ve gotten to me, and I couldn’t help the way my body reacted.”

“It’s okay. God forgives you, and I forgive you. Please come to counseling this week, no matter what.”

“Yes, Father. What is my penance?”

“Five Our Fathers, and I want you to wear a rubber band on your wrist and snap it every time you think of me. Maybe the pain will be a reminder to keep your thoughts pure.”

“I will, Father, thank you.”

“May our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, through the grace and mercies of his love for humankind, forgive you all your transgressions. And I, an unworthy priest, by his power given me, forgive and absolve you from all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

“Amen.” “Father Hotchner. My name is Sophie Cortes, I…” He stands from his desk, nods stoically.

“I know. Please, have a seat,” he says, gesturing to two armchairs in the corner of the room, and when she perches on one, smoothing her sundress beneath her, he takes the other. His eyes linger on her legs, and she instantly feels shame for the way she’s dressed, even though she’d felt confident and beautiful when she left the house. “You’re here because of impure thoughts that won’t go away. We’ve tried meditation, and service, and praying, but nothing seems to be working. I see you’ve been wearing the rubber band.” He nods to her wrist, and she swallows.

“Yes, Father, but I’m sorry, it’s complicated things further.”

“How so?” he asks with a tilt of his head. It’s so much harder for her to concentrate now that she can see him, now that he’s more than just a shadowy figure in the confessional box. And so close...

“It turns out, I find pleasure in the sting. It’s made me imagine other pleasurable, painful things.”

“Such as?” She sighs deeply, feels dirty, hopes it won’t make him look at her differently.

“Receiving spanking as penance, Father. Your strong hands hitting my thighs and behind until I’m a panting, dripping mess, begging for God’s forgiveness, and yours.” He wets his lips, leans in a little closer.

“Do you think that would help?” She can smell his after-shave, just like she could at communion, and she shifts in her seat, crosses her legs.

“I don't think so, Father. I would… want you even more, afterward.” He nods, pushes a hand through his dark hair.

“I’ll admit, I’ve been struggling, trying to decide how to go about counseling you. I’ve thought of reading scripture to you...” She squeezes her legs together, knows that wouldn’t work. She would only be turned on more, and that’s part of why she feels so messed up in the head. “I’ve thought of kneeling beside you, praying with you, your hands in mine, so we can talk to God together.” Her breath comes quickly at the thought, and he shakes his head. “I don’t think any of that will solve your problem, though, do you?”

“I don’t know, Father. I don’t—I don’t think so.”

“I think there’s only one thing that will help you, Miss Cortes, and I want you to know I don’t recommend this lightly. I have spent many nights talking to God about you.”

“You have?”

“Yes. And I remembered that sometimes, rules aren’t one-size-fits-all. Sometimes, we are allowed to bend them, in the right circumstances, and I think this situation is one of those circumstances.” He sits back in his chair, and he’s breathing heavily too, she notices. “Come here.”

Her mind goes abruptly blank.

“Come… there?” she asks, and he swallows, nods.

“Yes. In my lap. If you want to.” She wants to—that’s the whole reason she’s here—and he’s telling her she can, so she stands, takes a shaky breath, and settles on his thighs. He runs his hands carefully over her legs, then up her arms, caresses her cheeks. “Is this okay?”

“Yes,” she answers, breathless, and he slides his hands down her throat, over her breasts, and she moans at the touch.

“I think the only way to resolve the problems you’re having, Miss Cortes, would be to satisfy you. To give you what you’ve been thinking of since the first time you entered my church. Do you want me to do that?”

“Yes, Father.” She closes her eyes, and he gently cups her breasts, squeezes them in his hands. Her teeth sink into her bottom lip.

“Give me a Hail Mary,” he says, and she would do anything he asks in that tone of voice. She nods.

“Hail Mary, Full of Grace, The Lord is with thee.” His hands move to her waist, and she sighs. “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” His hands move to her thighs, and he pushes up her dress, rubs them up until his fingers meet the hem of her panties. She swallows hard. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

“Amen. Another,” he instructs gently, and he rubs his fingers against the soaked crotch of her panties, earning a soft moan.

“Hail Mary Full of Grace, The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” He pushes her panties to the side, his fingers gliding over her aching, wet heat, and she moans again, recites faster. “Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

“Amen,” he says, breathless. He guides a finger inside her and she skims her own hands along her body, trembles in his grasp. “Another.”

“Hail Mary Full of Grace, The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb—Jesus,” she sighs, when he slips another finger inside, and his other hand rests on her ass, putting pressure there, encouraging her to move. She lifts her hips and sinks back down against his hand, and he wets his lips, blows out a long, measured breath.

“Keep going, Miss Cortes.”

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” She gasps, grips the arms of the chair with her fingers and rides his hand, looking down into his deep, dark eyes. He squeezes her ass.

“Good girl. I want you to come on my fingers. You’ve imagined them inside you—does this feel better?”

“Yes, Father.” She rides faster, moaning, and he fists her dress in his hand, lifts it so he can watch her take him in, which makes her shiver. “Oh, please.”

“What is it? What do you need?” he asks, dropping her dress to touch her cheek.

“Another finger, Father? Please?” His brow furrows, determined, and he adds another; she pumps her hips four times, whines, and comes, clutching his shirt at his shoulders. When she’s spent, she sags against him, panting, and he holds her close, rubs a hand up and down her back.

“That was perfect. You did exactly what I wanted. Are you alright?”

“Yes, thank you, Father,” she murmurs, sitting up in his lap, and though she would love to kiss him, or run her fingers through his hair, she’s fairly certain that’s not what this is.

He offers her a tissue to clean up, slides his fingers out carefully and cleans them off as well, and she sits back in her own chair, legs crossed again. He looks at her seriously, leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

“I hope that helps you, Miss Cortes. I know you don’t want to have those impure thoughts.”

“No, Father. Thank you, I… I hope so too.” He nods, takes her hands in his, closes his eyes.

“May our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, through the grace and mercies of his love for humankind, forgive you all your transgressions. And I, an unworthy priest, by his power given me, forgive and absolve you from all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

“Amen.” He opens his eyes.

“I’ll take your confession Sunday, and then see you for counseling next week. We’ll see how you feel then.”

“Okay. Thank you again.” They both stand, and he walks her to the door; his eyes linger on her face, and she ducks her head, walks down the hall.

That night, she dreams of hands on her hips, holding her down, and helping her move. She wakes to a puddle in her panties. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been a week since my last confession.” She knows she sounds tired when she speaks, and he sighs at the sound of her voice.

“Tell me your sins, Miss Cortes,” he says low. She shivers.

“It didn’t work, Father. If anything, I think it made it worse. I dreamed of you again.”

“I dreamed of you, too.” She sits in silence, shocked, and her heart races. “Did you know I make house calls? For counseling. If a member of the congregation is in need.” She hums, shifts where she sits.

“I didn’t know that, Father. I might… I think that might help me. Will you have time tonight?”

“Yes. I can be there around seven, if that works for you. We can try again.” She gasps softly, presses her thighs together.

“Yes, please, Father.”

“Okay. Five Hail Mary’s for me, Miss Cortes. May our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, through the grace and mercies of his love for humankind, forgive you all your transgressions. And I, an unworthy priest, by his power given me, forgive and absolve you from all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

“Amen.” When Father Hotchner arrives at her apartment that night, he looks like a completely different man—all because of his eyes. They are smoldering, stormy, and the way they sweep over her body when she invites him in, offers him coffee… It makes her mouth water.

She pours a cup for each of them, but they never get a chance to drink it, because he takes her face in his hands and kisses her deeply, passionately, leaving her breathless. When the kiss breaks, she walks them back to the bedroom, and his broad hands grope at her, pulling her dress over her head and tugging her close for another kiss.

“Sophie,” he murmurs, and she puts her hands on his belt, fingers on the clasp.

“Please, Father, may I?” He nods, kisses her again, and she opens it, then his pants, and he guides her back against the bed; he begins at her throat, kissing her hot and wet, and he trails his mouth down her body, over her breasts, her stomach, down to her panties. He mouths at her soaked core, and she moans, arches up off the bed. “Oh, yes.”

He looks up at her, eyes hooded with lust, and he guides her panties off, presses his lips against her pussy in a deep kiss. He flicks his tongue a little, so she’s squirming, whining, and then slides back up her body to lick at her throat. “You taste like sin,” he whispers in her ear, and the moan that passes her lips is pornographic and filthy.

“Forgive me, Father,” she pants in return, touching his throat while he kisses her, and his hands press hard against her waist.

“No need, my girl. This is what God wants—I wouldn’t have dreamed of you if it wasn’t.”

She’s not entirely sure that’s how it works, but she’s not about to argue, not when he’s crawling back down to eat her pussy like it’s a feast he can’t resist, his hands on her thighs spreading her open for a gentle but unrelenting tongue.

“Oh, yes. Yes, right there, please,” she whimpers, and when her hands fall to his shoulders, he picks them up and puts them on his head, encouraging her to tug at his hair. She tips her throat back, moans, and tightens her fingers there, so his tongue is focused just where she wants him, and when she comes she comes wildly, arching up off the bed and clutching his head and nearly screaming her pleasure.

He kisses a path back up her body while she catches her breath, sinking back against the bed, and his tongue in her mouth is hot and dirty, tasting of her. It makes her head swim.

“Can I press inside you, Sophie? Can I make love to you and come inside you like you dreamed?” Her eyes nearly roll back in her head.

“Oh, yes, please, Father.” He pushes down his underwear and takes his cock in hand, presses the wet head inside her slowly; her hands move to his waist, fisting in his shirt, pulling him close, and he groans deeply when he slides fully inside. He kisses her, messy, frantic, and begins thrusting.

“I knew you were sent for me the moment I saw you,” he pants, and she moves beneath him, eyes focused on his gorgeous face and the expressions he makes when he glides in and out of her. “It was the first time you came for mass—you thought I hadn’t noticed you, but you caught my attention on that first day and never let go.” He nibbles her throat, and she rubs her hands over his shoulder, his head, pulling his hair and urging him deeper. “The version of me you dreamed of was right, Sophie; this is God’s will.”

She moans, her head falling back, mouth open, eyes closed, so much pleasure rushing through her body it feels like she’s floating, and she holds him close while he comes inside her, while he moans her name.

They stay there, arms wrapped around each other, hands sweeping over their bodies, and he pulls her close for a series of slow, passionate kisses that make her hum.

When they shower together, he washes her body, his hands careful and reverent, and he helps her dry off just as gently, with a soft, pleased smile on his face.

“How are you feeling?” he asks when they climb back into bed, their limbs entwined, his hand smoothing over her back, and she smiles too, a little shy.

“I feel good, Father, though I am wondering if you make these particular kinds of house calls often.” He laughs lightly, brings his hand up to caress her cheek, and he presses his lips gently against hers.

“This is a house call I’ve never made before,” he assures her, and he sweeps his thumb over her lips. “And one I’ll never make for another woman, I can promise you.”

“Will you make more for me?” she asks, truly curious, and his face softens, he nods.

“Yes, for as long as you’ll let me. I find it hard to condemn our thoughts as merely lustful and impure when I also feel a tenderness for you that’s impossible to ignore. I think you are a gift for me,” he murmurs, kissing her, “and I trust that God has reasons for bringing us together the way He did.”

They lay together a little longer, touching and kissing, and she moans when he presses a hand against her ass.

“May I make a confession, Father?” she asks, licking her lips, and he nods, pulls her closer. “I had one dream I didn’t mention to you, and I would like to see if we can replicate it. Can you come again?” He grinds his hips against her, and she feels him stiff and hot, sighs against his shoulder.

“Anything for you, my girl. What did you dream?” With an innocent smile, she pulls him close, whispers in his ear, and he leans back far enough to roll her onto her stomach—taking her breath away—and press his cock into her. He props himself up on one hand, runs the other over her ass and hip as he pumps inside, and she is swiftly ready to come again, moaning and gripping the sheets.

“Yes, yes,” she whines, and she guides his hand to her breast, where they squeeze together. “Harder, Father, please,” she begs, and he drapes his body over top of hers, mouths at her shoulder, and pounds his hips against her, leaving her an eager, wanton mess.

“You are perfection personified. My gift from God,” he whispers, and when he leans down to kiss her neck, she grips his hair in her fingers, moans.

“If I’m yours, come inside me again so I never forget it.” His hips move faster, less rhythmically, and when he spills inside her, she shudders, comes too; his hands are gentle again while they come down, and for the first time since she set foot in Father Hotchner’s church, she actually feels satisfied.

The next time he gives her communion, she looks into his eyes and offers her mouth; she offers it again later, and she can safely say that she prefers his body to the body of Christ.

[sisterspooky1013]

Only One Choice, Part 2, Chapter 13

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

She twists around within the confines of his arms and nuzzles against his neck. He smiles, pulling her closer as early-dawn light seeps in around the blinds. She hums contentedly, wiggling against him, and he pulls in a deep breath, flexing his hips gently towards her with a sigh. Pulling her head back, she looks at him with a sleepy smile.

“Hi,” she says softly, her fingers grazing over his bare back.

“Hey,” he replies, “I have to say, I much prefer that morning greeting to ‘what the hell?’”

Her smile widens.

“You might also be a touch confused if you went to bed alone and woke up with someone beside you,” she says, though not defensively.

“If I went to bed alone and woke up with you next to me, the only thing I’d be saying is ‘praise the lord,’”

“I thought you were an atheist,” she retorts, her hand sliding down his back until it slips just under the waistband of his boxers.

He shrugs. “It’s a figure of speech.”

“Well, speaking of the Lord, I told my mother I’d go to church with her this morning, so I’ll have to kick you out shortly,” she says, fingers brushing against the tops of his ass cheeks and effectively waking up his dick.

“You said you’re Catholic, right?” he asks, and she nods. “I think you may have some things to confess, Ms. Scully,” he continues, bringing his own hand to her panty-clad backside and pulling her against him so she can feel him growing hard.

She smiles mischievously at him. “That I do, thanks to you,” she says.

“So how does that work?” he asks, “forgive me father, for I have sat on a man’s face?”

She laughs out loud, a true guffaw, and shakes her head at him.

“They really don’t like you to get that specific,” she answers, “more like...engaged in sex acts outside of marriage, fornicated, euphemisms like that.”

“That’s too bad,” he says, slipping his hand under her panties at the leg so he can squeeze her bare ass cheek, “I’m sure those poor priests could use come juicy confessions to break up the doldrums of celibacy.”

“Mmm, I’m sure,” she says, digging her fingernails into his flesh.

He kisses her, chastely at first, the sleep-warm smell of her intimate and comforting at the same time. When he brushes his tongue against her lips, she pulls back.

“I have awful morning breath, Mulder,” she objects.

“So do I,” he replies, kissing her again, and this time she lets him.

They paw gently at each other, slow and sleepy in their exploration. His hands drift up under her oversized T-shirt to touch her breasts, and down over the smooth skin of her thighs. She trails her fingers over his bare torso, dancing along the hem of his boxers, brushing over his erection through the cotton. They sigh and kiss, a soft moan occasionally escaping when something feels especially nice. He tugs at her panties and she pushes them down to her knees, then scissors her legs until she kicks them off. Her leg falls open as he touches her softly, not with a goal in mind; touching just for the pleasure of touch. When he slips a finger inside, he groans at how wet she is.

“Mulder,” she says breathily, her lips close to his ear, “let’s have sex.”

He feels a surge of blood flush into his already stiff cock.

“Are you sure?” he asks, slowly pumping his finger in and out.

“Very,” she answers, her voice catching.

“Do you have a condom?” he inquires, praying that the answer is yes.

She pushes his hand away and rolls on top of him, kissing him and flexing her pelvis against his as she reaches into her bedside drawer. Finding what she was looking for, she rolls back to his side and holds up a black square with a smirk.

He pushes his own boxers off quickly, then moves to hover over her. Tugging at the hem of her T-Shirt, he waits while she sits up enough for him to pull it off over her head, leaving them both naked with him cradled between her thighs. They resume kissing and he can hear the crinkle of the condom wrapper as she tears it open, then feels her hands stroking him lazily before the cool latex touches the head of his cock. She rolls it down his length expertly and continues down to cup his balls, giving them a soft tug that makes him groan. Next he feels her grip his shaft, positioning the tip at her opening before her hands come to rest on his sides.

He slowly pushes into her, listening and feeling raptly for any indication that he’s hurting her, but soon enough their bodies are flush, his scrotum pressed against her ass with every inch of him tucked inside. She is tight and hot around him and he stays still for a moment, their lips brushing together softly. When he slowly pulls back and pushes into her again, they both moan as her back arches off the bed, her head dropping back against the pillow. He begins a slow, languid rhythm as they kiss, her hands scraping over his back and her legs wrapping around his hips.

“You feel so fucking good,” he professes against her ear, and he feels her throb once around him. “Can you come like this?”

“Probably not,” she breaths, “but that’s okay, it still feels really good.”

“No, tell me what you need,” he whispers into her neck, sucking at her earlobe.

“Maybe,” she says hesitantly, “if you lay behind me, kind of spooning.”

He withdraws from her and rolls on to his side, pulling her back against his chest. He touches her breasts for a moment and then slides his hand down to push her leg up, hitching her ankle behind his knee.

“Like this?” he asks, reaching between her legs to press the head of his cock against her opening as he routes inside.

“Mmmmm, yes,” she moans, and he resumes a steady pace as his fingers find her clit, gently circling.

He threads his other arm under her, crossing it over her chest so he can cup her breast, pinching the nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She gasps, and he feels her clench around him again, the sensation incredible both physically and mentally. She moves her free arm back to rest on his ass, squeezing and encouraging him as he thrusts into her. They are entwined like human pretzels, hands working as he moves within her, her head turned up to find his mouth as they kiss and touch and fuck slowly and quietly, save for the occasional moan and the wet slip of her as he pumps in and out. When she stops kissing him, just holding her open mouth against his, he keeps his movements consistent, knowing she’s close.

“Oh yes, oh god, don’t stop,” she keens, and he feels his balls tighten in anticipation.

She pulls in a big breath and holds it, her body going rigid. Then she lets out a long, low moan and he feels her clench tight around him before erupting into rhythmic throbs. It feels so amazing that he soon follows her, clutching her to him as his orgasm takes off just as hers is coming down, their shared release a cacophony of muted groans and declarations to deities only one of them believes in. They stay there entangled as he slowly slips out of her, kissing her neck softly.

“I need to take a shower,” she says regretfully, “gotta get ready to go confess what we just did,” she adds with a squeeze to his arm, and he chuckles.

“Okay. I’ll call you later?” he replies, standing and stepping into the bathroom to dispose of the condom.

“Please do,” she says, stretching before she rises from the bed herself.

He pulls her into a hug, already missing the feeling of her nakedness against his own.

“Say a few Hail Mulder’s for me, would ya?”

She pulls back and smiles up at him. “Of course.”

———

She sits between Missy and her mother in the pew, Charlie seated on the other side of mom, as Father McCue delivers his Sunday sermon. Though they have varying levels of belief in the religion they were raised with, Bill being the most devout and Dana a distant second, Maggie Scully lives for the Sundays when one or more of her children attend mass with her. The fact that all three of those who live locally made it today has her in an especially good mood, which is why she doesn’t seem to notice her daughters whispering in the pew beside her.

Missy keeps glancing over at her surreptitiously until finally Dana turns and gives her a pointed look, eyebrows lifted expectantly.

Missy glances at mom to ensure her attention is on the pulpit and then leans in close to her sister’s ear.

“You had sex, didn’t you?” she says in the softest of whispers, and Dana shoots her a look.

“We are in church, Melissa,” she whispers back, shutting down the conversation.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Missy retorts haughtily, and Dana jabs her in the ribcage with an elbow. Missy winces, then adds “see you in the confessional, Sis.”

After mass and the confession booth, where Dana admits to fornication and impure thoughts (so many, many, impure thoughts), they head to Mom’s favorite little cafe for Sunday brunch. The place is bustling at noon on a Sunday and the three Scully children and their mother are cloistered tightly around a small round table, munching on omelettes and sandwiches.

“Dana has a boyfriend,” Missy says flatly during a lull in the conversation, and Scully shoots her another look.

“Nice,” Charlie says with very little interest, but Mom is looking at Dana with a wounded expression.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing someone, Dana?” she asks with furrowed brows and a frown.

“It’s very new, mom. Nothing serious.” Even as the words leave her mouth, she knows it’s a lie; her feelings for Mulder are anything but casual, even if she’s not quite ready to admit it yet.

“When will we get to meet him?” Maggie asks next, and Dana sighs.

“I don’t know, Mom. Like I said, it’s pretty new. I’m not going to accost him with a family gathering anytime soon.”

“Well, tell us about him, then,” she prods, “what’s his name?”

Scully cringes. “Um, his name is Fox Mulder.”

“Fox? Like the animal?” Charlie asks with a dopey smile, suddenly deciding to engage in the conversation.

“Yes, Charlie, like the animal,” she replies with an irritated tone, “but he doesn’t like to be called by his first name, he just goes by Mulder.”

“You call your boyfriend ‘Mulder’?” Charlie teases, and she sets her jaw, glaring at him.

“I’m sorry, Charlie, what was the name of that trashy woman you brought to Easter dinner last year, Bambi?” she says with a cutting tone. Charlie stops smiling and narrows his eyes at her.

“Her name was Fawn. It’s a totally normal name,” he says dejectedly.

“That’s enough,” Maggie declares, shooting a look at Missy who has been giggling through the entire conversation. “I’m glad to hear that you’re dating, Dana,” she says, placing her hand on top of her daughter’s on the table. “When you’re ready, I’d love to meet him.”

Dana gives her a tight lipped smile and a nod, and they continue their meal in relative peace.

After they’ve parted ways at the restaurant doors, she is walking the two blocks to where she parked her car when she passes by a sidewalk cafe. She does a double take when she spots Mulder at one of the outdoor tables, a smile immediately curling the corners of her mouth at the sight of him. She walks towards the table and is about to approach him when she stops, realizing that he’s not alone. He’s seated with a woman with long, dark brown hair, and the way he’s smiling at her makes Dana’s stomach turn.

She steps behind a parked car and watches them for a bit, noting the casual way he touches her hand on the table top and the familiar crinkle at the corner of his eyes that is paired with an affectionate gaze. It is unmistakably the look between two people who are more than just friends, who know each other intimately. She feels nauseous, her heart pounding in her throat as they stand and he pulls her into a tight hug, rocking slightly as his hands brush over her back. They are starting to separate and she can see that he is tilting his head to kiss her so she looks away, not wanting to see. She stumbles to her car, tears breaking free and slipping down her cheeks. Once in the driver’s seat, she lets the sobs overtake her. She feels betrayed, and stupid, and guilty. Stupid because she should have known it was too good to be true and she fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Guilty because she deserves this, after what she did to Ethan. Reap what you sow; isn’t that what she’d been taught as a child?

Maybe it was all for nothing after all. Maybe she ruined her life and a potentially happy marriage for a man who saw her only as a conquest. She sniffs hard, wiping away her tears, and collects herself. Buckling her seatbelt and starting the ignition, she drives home. Once there, she gets to work ridding her apartment of any signs of him. She strips her bed, washes her sheets, throws away the still damp toothbrush he’d just used that morning. She removes him from her life once again, a life that will start over fresh tomorrow; starting over seems to be something she’s becoming an expert at as of late. She just hopes that one day her new beginning turns into something she can hold on to, and that this painful cycle of hurt and healing will eventually stop.

[gellavonhamster]

ghost stories

Suicide Squad (2016) || characters: El Diablo feat. everyone else || post-canon, sort of a fix-it

ao3 link eng || this was first written and published on ao3 in Russian in 2016 but I didn't attempt to translate it into English back then.  

Harley is the first to see him.

She catches the smell first. Something appears to be burning, and she checks cautiously if there is something wrong with the coffee machine. She doesn’t find anything suspicious – not that the appliances about to flame up smell like that anyway. Could it be that there’s a fire starting? That would be funny, but seems like there’s hardly a chance. It is the smell of a bonfire at the beach, of the fallen leaves being burned in the yards in fall, of a melting candle in the church; weirdly, all this at the same time. A smell that seems too pure for Belle Reve, for Gotham, for everything that makes up her life these days.      

Harley looks around once again – and springs to her feet like she’s been stung.

Chato Santana is standing next to her cage.

“Diablo?” she whispers, unable to believe her eyes. She would’ve thought she’s lost her marbles if there were any left to lose.    

“Harley,” says Diablo, and it’s his voice, his shy, sad smile, his eyes and his tattoos, and Harley squeals in delight as she rushes to him. The bars of the cage are live, so she only dares to stick out the tips of her fingers. He touches them with his hand – certainly alive, certainly not a product of her mind being tortured by boredom and monotony – and she laughs.

“You’re alive, alive, alive! How did you survive? And how did they let you in?”

“It’s a long story. And I don’t think I have much time,” Diablo looks guilty. He’s still holding her hand and looking at her so earnestly it’s almost worrying.  “Harley… don’t go with him.”  

“Huh? What do you mean, honey?”

“He’s coming here. Don’t leave with him, Harley, stay. It sounds strange, but this would really be for the best.”  

“Don’t leave with whom?” she can’t follow him. He gives her a melancholic look – and suddenly disappears. Without any smoke or flames or any other special effects. She can’t wrap her head around how it happened – it’s just that he was here a moment ago, and now there’s no one beside her, and she’s reaching out towards nothing.      

“Diablo?” she calls, and when she gets no answer, she decides to get things straight by asking the guards. What kind of cruel joke is this? Only one person is allowed to joke here, and that person is her. “Hello there! Mister jailer, yoo-hoo! Where’s my friend?”  

No one is in a hurry to respond. Finally, one of the armed-to-the-teeth guards approaches the cage.

“Why are you yelling, lady?”

“Where’s my friend?” Harley asks petulantly. “He was here just now, and we didn’t finish talking. Where did you take him?”  

“There was no one here.”

“What do you mean ‘no one’? I just talked to him!”

The guard examines her from head to foot. Looks like he’s chewing gum, which, combined with his empty apathetic stare, makes him look like a cow.

“Definitely crazy,” he sums up, and leaves. Irritated, Harley forgets to take caution, hits the bars and falls down on the floor right away, writhing in pain.    

“Well, well, well,” she whispers, playing the recent events over in her head. Chato was very much corporeal – not a ghost, then. Yet the guards didn’t notice him, and then he vanished into thin air. Harley thinks about the being Chato transformed into by the end of the battle – an ancient one, as if straight from the walls of some Aztec temple. Could some petty bomb kill such a being? Could the Enchantress’s brother have survived too?  

“I am friends with a god,” she informs the ceiling. “Incredible.”

About an hour later, her Puddin’ comes for her, and she forgets the advice Diablo gave her.  

  Croc sees him on the night of the same day. He knows for sure that it is night thanks to the TV listings – the only reference point for time and days of the week that he has. Not that it was bothering him too much, truth be told. Monday or Sunday, every day in Belle Reve is a carbon copy of the day before. However, Croc doesn’t complain. He has a roof over his head, water, food – even better food than he used to have in the sewers in days gone by – and a TV, and it is honestly not too hard to do without such extras as companionship and fresh experiences. Still, he is glad to see Diablo. Even though first he lunges at him with his fangs bared, because he doesn’t immediately recognize him and supposes that Waller and company are sick of feeding him and decided to kill him. Or to put someone else in his quarters, which would have been no less audacious.        

“Croc, it’s me,” Diablo hastens to say, and lights up a flame over his left palm – so unusual and out of place in the dampness of Croc’s cell. Croc freezes and watches the flame for some seconds. That must really be Diablo; there are hardly many people in the world capable of such tricks.

“Hey, man,” Croc says. “Whatcha doing here?”

“Just checking up on you.”

Well, that must definitely be Diablo. Croc knows that there are hardly many people in the world who’d care to check up on him, but that sounds like something El Diablo would do. Back then, during the mission, he was friendly, asked “You okay?” after each skirmish, and could clap him on the shoulder without shuddering. And there are definitely even less people in the world that would touch him willingly.      

“Did they just let you in like that?” wonders Croc. Diablo gives him a slight smile.

“They don’t know I’m here.”

“So you’re, like, a ghost?” Croc asks. It occurred to him from the very beginning, but it sounds particularly joyless when said out loud.

Diablo gestures vaguely. “I’m still figuring it out myself, to be honest.”

“Hmm,” Croc glances over his cell. A bag of food on the cot catches his eye. “You want a burger?”

“Nah, I’m good. Save it for yourself.”

“They’ll bring more today, I’m telling ya.”  

“Then I want one.”

“Then you’re not a ghost,” grins Croc, and the fact that Diablo doesn’t flinch or try to look away also proves that this is the real Chato Santana, because most people don’t like seeing Croc smile.

And so he and Diablo, who kind of is a ghost but kind of isn’t, sit there eating burgers and watching some crap on MTV. Life has taught Croc not to be surprised by anything, so everything’s fine.  

“So what happened after the bomb went off?” Croc asks. Diablo opens his mouth, and then closes it again, apparently at a loss how to explain.

“I was smoke,” he speaks finally. “Then I was flames. Then I became myself again.”

“I see,” Croc replies, although, of course, he can’t see shit.

“Who are you talking to?” comes the guard’s voice from behind the door. “Hey, scum!”

Croc puts the burger aside.

“Wait a bit,” he tells Chato, gets up, and heads for the door.

When he comes to the bean hole, the guard already looks like he regrets calling him.  

“No one,” Crock smiles as widely as only he can, and the guard, who isn’t among the people able to watch him smile without blinking an eye, steps back reflexively. “But come inside, and I’ll talk to you if you wanna. How about that?”   

When he turns around, Chato has already disappeared, and Croc could have assumed he has dreamed it all, but there are two half-eaten burgers on the cot, not one.

  Digger sees him next, and he isn’t even amazed. The bastards keep drugging him with all sorts of shit to calm him down. Usually after the shot he just lies there, feverish, and can’t even move, let alone stand up, but who knows, perhaps they’re testing some new poison on him. Or they’ve started using something stronger because they noticed that a couple of hours after the usual stuff he’s already able to yell, bang at the door, and do everything he can to get the best of them while cooped up inside. Or it’s simply that there’s already so much of this shit in his blood that it’s impossible not to have any screws loose, try as he might to keep them in place. In any case, he’s not exactly shocked when, as he tosses and turns on the floor after another injection, he turns his head and sees El Diablo, large as life and twice as ugly.

“Fuck me sideways,” Digger says. He doesn’t have any energy to be mad yet. “I must be tripping.”

“You’re not tripping,” Diablo objects.

“You died. So I must be.”  

“I didn’t die either.”

Diablo sits down cross-legged on the floor next to him.

“Has it crossed your mind that if you stop getting on their nerves, they might start treating you better?” he asks.

“Go to hell.”

“Message received.”

There’s a footfall outside; a whole bunch of people must be running somewhere.

“They’ve turned the entire joint upside down,” says Digger, because it’s been ages since he has spoken to anyone who’d at least pretend to listen, so a hallucination will do. “Blondie escaped.”  

“I know,” Diablo replies gloomily. “I tried to warn her not to go with the Joker, but she didn’t listen to me.”  

“Why warn her?” Digger asks. Harley Quinn is no bosom friend of his, but she kind of tore out the heart of the witch who kind of tried to end the world, and anyway, teammates probably should take interest in each other’s lives. Probably. He’s never really made sense of that teamwork stuff. “What’s he gonna do to her?”    

“At best, what he always does.”

Two tiny figures of fire appear on Diablo’s open palm – a man and a woman. The man backhands the woman across her face, and she falls down. Digger watches the dancing flames with fascination, and meanwhile in his head, bit by bit, stroke by stroke, a plan starts to take shape. He wouldn’t be Captain motherfucking Boomerang if he fails to use any opportunity that turns up – even a ghost of one. 

“Listen, mate,” he begins cajolingly. “If you’re really here and it’s not just me tripping… help an old friend out, won’t you? I’m fed up with being stuck here, you know.”

“I’m not gonna help you escape,” Diablo says calmly. “How do you imagine that would even happen?”

“Can’t you just burn the entire Belle Reve to the bloody ground?”

Diablo smiles.

“I can,” he admits. “But I won’t.”

The next thing he knows, the son of a bitch is gone without a trace. Anger and offence must be giving Digger strength, because he manages to leap to his feet. Like a lunatic, he thrashes around the cell, looking for at least some kind of proof that someone else was here a moment ago.  

“Oi!” he shouts, knowing damn well that the guards have long stopped listening to what he has to say. “Grab the devil! A convict escaped! Hey, wankers!”  

But he’s feeling lightheaded, and this shit must be really strong, and he collapses, badly hitting his head.  

  Tatsu sees him next – late at night, in her apartment. She’s a light sleeper, and wakes up as soon as she hears footsteps. The sword is close at hand, and she grabs it instantly, blade swishing through the air.  

“Who’s there?” Tatsu asks, and then repeats in English. “Who’s there?”

There is nowhere to hide in her bedroom. The only furniture is the mattress and the pair of chairs she uses to hang her clothes on. Everything is on the floor or on the windowsill – weapons, her laptop, the book she tried to read before going to sleep but could not concentrate on. It is an ascetic, comfortless dwelling that does not look permanent and is not supposed to become so. Fate and Amanda Waller, though, seem to have other plans in this respect.  

There is nowhere to hide in her bedroom – but someone’s definitely walking in the antechamber; she flings the door open – and sees El Diablo, standing by the entrance and looking around. In a blink of an eye Tatsu is next to him, and the blade of the Soultaker is pressed to his neck.  

“Katana, it’s me,” Diablo says, unfazed. “Chato Santana.”

“Chato Santana is dead,” she says through her teeth. Chato Santana was a gangster who killed, albeit by a tragic accident, his own family – but she fought side by side with him, he sacrificed himself to save the world, he called their squad his family and died for them. That is enough for her not to let anyone use his name as a cover. “Who are you?”    

“I’m alive,” Diablo replies. He puts his hands up to show he’s unarmed, and forks of flame appear on his palms. “Or sort of.”  

Sort of.

Tatsu lowers the sword and looks warily at the man standing in front of her.

“How did you…”

“You’re gonna have a new mission soon. Demand that Waller tells you everything.”

“About what?”

“I couldn’t overhear that,” he says with regret. “But…”

Something knocks on the window. Tatsu turns around quickly, but that must’ve been just a tree branch hitting the windowpane. When she turns back to Chato, he’s already gone, and her apartment is silent.

It’s just four in the morning, but she can’t make herself fall asleep again. Having poured a cup of tea, Tatsu sits down on the mattress and thinks, think, thinks about what just happened. Tatsu believes in ghosts – her sword is teeming with them, so she wouldn’t say that her worldview is shaken. Still, this is strange, very strange. What did he want to tell her? Why did he disappear so abruptly? Like… a broadcast was interrupted.    

Colonel Flag calls her at daybreak and tells her that there’s a shoot-out between two gangs on the outskirts of Gotham, with metahumans on both sides. When Tatsu arrives at Belle Reve, it turns out they must have considered it to be not enough to ruin her Saturday morning, because she is asked – more like ordered, actually – to escort an inmate from his cell, an inmate who attacks anyone who tries to enter and has already injured three guards with his bare hands, and it’s not reasonable to sedate him before the mission, and “he’s likely to obey if it’s you, Katana” – the last is Rick’s argument, and if he told that to her face and not on the phone, she would have had to strain every nerve not to hit him with something.    

No one tries to attack her when she enters the cell of Captain Boomerang – Harkness is sitting on the floor quite still, his arms around his knees, and when he notices her, he even smiles with bruised lips.  

“Hello, gorgeous,” he says. “Am I hallucinating you too?”

“No,” the question is unexpected and confuses her. “Why?”

“Well, they keep injecting me some crap, and lately I’ve been seeing things,” Harkness explains peacefully, even eagerly. His voice is quiet and hoarse, which, combined with his Australian accent, leads to Tatsu being barely able to make out half of what he’s saying. To hear him better, she crouches down next to him, still gripping the sword hilt – there is no telling if he isn’t just making her come closer to take her down and bolt. “Saw the devil yesterday.”      

“The devil?”

“Our devil. Día… de fucking Muertos. Chato Santana.”

Tatsu gives a shiver and, having lost her balance, half sits down, half falls on the dirty floor.

She isn’t the only one to have seen him. She isn’t the only one he wanted to send a message to.

“Hey, luv,” Harkness frowns and reaches out to touch her knee lightly. “You all right?”  

“Same as you, more or less,” she wants to reply, which of course would mean she isn’t, not at all.

“What did he tell you?” she asks him instead.

  When Floyd sees him, he is hardly surprised, since the others have already warned him. Boomerang, Croc, and Katana tell him everything while they’re waiting for the helo, and had it been just Boomerang, who believes inexplicably that he has a sense of humour although he certainly doesn’t, Floyd most likely wouldn’t have believed his ghost stories, but it is even harder to believe that Croc, let alone Katana would agree to take part in such pranks. Which is why he listens to them closely and takes note: okay, then he doesn’t have to worry about his mental heath if the late Santana suddenly appears out of nowhere to give some advice or share some news or simply ask how he’s doing. So the four of them keep whispering to one another like kids at the back of the class until their transport arrives – just the four of them, which is a pity. If there is anyone on the team that he had missed a little, it’s Harley. Floyd knows some things about the Joker, for it isn’t possible, as they write in the papers, to belong to the criminal world of Gotham and not know anything about the Joker. Floyd knows what Flag had spilled to him when visiting him in his cell or escorting him there after a visit to Zoe. Floyd thinks that in his entire lifetime he hasn’t understood a thing about love – is it even possible to understand it, on the other hand? – but he feels like the mad and brilliant Harley, Harley the whimsical, Harley the loving deserves better.                

“What’s with the gossiping?” Flag inquires suspiciously.  

“Nothing!” Croc and Digger answer in unison, in unison, and Floyd facepalms because seriously, are they in some cheesy movie or what? They don’t tell Flag anything yet, but Floyd is almost sure that sooner or later Santana will visit him as well, because Flag is one of them too, after all. Not that he’s even trying to deny it; no one’s making him drop by Floyd’s cell every other day to chat about some nonsense through the steel door.          

So Floyd is hardly surprised when, as he makes his way behind the dumpsters loading one gun after another, he notices a familiar, head-to-toe-tattooed figure standing nearby.  

“There are snipers on the roof over there and around the corner of the shop,” Chato says instead of greeting. Floyd nods.

“I noticed.”

“Eight men in the drugstore on the other side of the street. Each with a machine gun.”  

“How do you know?”

“I’ve just been there.”

“Got it,” there’s no time for lengthy conversations. No time to say: glad you’re alive, man. No time to ascertain: are you alive, though? So he thinks over the plan of action, making a mental note to ask all these questions later, when there are no bullets whistling past their ears.  

People like them deserve no guardian angels, frankly speaking, but they may have managed to earn one for all of them.

[kaylaxwrites]

Catch the Wind

Pairing: Matt Murdock/reader Words: 7.2k Summary:  You like Matt. You’re pretty sure he likes you too. Then why does he say no when you ask? What is he hiding and why won’t Foggy tell you?Request:  “How about an old friend of Foggy and Matt, who has this will they won’t they thing with Matt and she finally tries to act on it for her only to get turned down by him. His decision was because he is too focused on being Daredevil and doesn’t want her to be swept up in that so they decide to be friends, but it takes a strain on her relationship with Matt but also with Foggy too. Then like decide where it should go from there” (anon)  A/N: decided to put this all in one part at an attempt for more notes lol

For me to love you now Would be the sweetest thing T'would make me sing Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind

“Catch the Wind” - Donovan

You had been best friends with Matt Murdock for nearly as long as you could remember. As the longest—and oldest—resident of Saint Agnes Orphanage, you had been assigned to show Matt around when he first arrived after his father’s death.

You quietly knocked on the open doorframe. The boy inside sniffled and quickly wiped away his tears before turning towards you. “Come in,” he said, never meeting your eyes. At first, you assumed he was embarrassed to be caught crying.

“Nice glasses,” you offered, hoping to draw his attention away from the death of his parents—or whatever happened to his family that led him here.

The boy pushed the glasses higher up on his nose. “Oh. Yeah. Thanks, I guess.”

You stepped across the room and took a seat on the edge of his bed. “You must be special. Sister Anne would never let me wear sunglasses inside.”

“Oh, they’re…not really…sunglasses.”

He spoke so quietly, you didn’t really make out what he said. So you continued talking anyway. “I’m Y/N, by the way.”

“Matt Murdock.”

You stuck your hand out for him to shake. “Nice to meet you, Matt Murdock.” You froze awkwardly as the kid made no motion to shake your hand. But then you put everything together—his dark glasses, the way he never met your eyes, the cane you were now noticing against the wall—he was blind. And you were an idiot. “I’m, uh, holding out my hand for you to shake.”

“Oh, sorry.”

At last, you shook hands, and you tried not to let the awkwardness sink in. “Um, so Sister Maggie told me to show you around. Do you want to go?” Matt nodded and stood, collecting his cane off the wall. You stood as well, unsure of yourself. “I’ve given this tour a dozen times to newbies, but never to a blind guy. How does this work? Do we hold hands or…?” You quickly shut your mouth. Obviously, you wouldn’t be holding hands—why would you hold hands with a stranger?

“No,” Matt chuckled. “Just give me your elbow.”

“Oh, sure.” You did as Matt said and led him out to the hallway. “I don’t know if they told you, but your room is the third one on the right. You must be lucky. You got a single room. Most of us have to share.” You directed Matt down the stairs until you were on the first floor. “We can’t go in now because they’re setting up for dinner, but the dining hall is here on the left. Breakfast is at 7 on weekdays, 8 on weekends, and dinner is always at 6.” You led Matt further down the hall and out the door. You stepped into a small, sunlit courtyard.

“This is the way to the church,” you continued explaining. “I don’t know if you’re Catholic, but you’re gonna be here real soon.” You stopped in front of the doors to the church, but didn’t go inside. “We’re required to go to Mass Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings, as well as the weekly Mass school gives.”

“School?”

“Yeah, Saint Agnes also runs a school on the other side of the block. It’s where we all go.”

“So I won’t be able to go to my old school anymore?”

You sighed. Newbies always had a hard time finding out they’d no longer be attending school with their friends. “No. Sorry.” His face fell. “But! I think we’re in the same grade, so we should have some classes together. I remember when I was the new kid, but, hey—you already got one friend. It shouldn’t be too bad.”

“What friend?”

You nudged his shoulder. “Me, doofus.”

Matt smiled softly at you and from that moment on, you were thick as thieves.  

As you grew, you slowly realized you probably had more-than-friends feelings for Matt, but you never spoke about them out loud, nor did you dwell on them very often. Matt was your best friend—your only friend—and you didn’t want that to change. So you locked the butterflies in your stomach down tight and shoved those feelings in the back of your brain. It didn’t help that as you neared graduating high school, everyone thought you were dating. You even caught the nuns who worked the orphanage whispering sometimes about how wonderful the two of you would look married—as if things would ever get that far.

When you went to college, your pool of friends expanded by one: Matt’s roommate, Foggy. Foggy quickly became your other best friend—since you were around Matt all the time, it made sense that you and Foggy would be close as well. In fact, it was to Foggy one drunken night when you confessed your feelings for Matt for the first time.

You and Foggy stumbled back to campus after a night out on the town. You, Foggy, and alcohol were never a good mix—you always tried to drink the other under the table until neither of you could stand upright. You leaned against each other for support as Foggy fumbled with his keys to the dorm. You laughed loudly when he dropped them and fell trying to pick them up, but he quickly shushed you. “Shhhhh. Matt’s trying to study,” he slurred, trying and failing to whisper quietly. Matt said he couldn’t go out with the two of you that night because he had a test on Monday morning.

You made a zipping motion over your mouth, but giggled again as you watched Foggy unlock the door. He was on his knees, the doorknob at eye level, as he concentrated on putting the key in the lock as a surgeon would make an incision. He fell on his stomach when the door finally swung open. You leaped over him as soon as you could, eager to see Matt and annoy him to stop studying.

But the room was empty.

You turned to Foggy (finally standing), almost pouting. “Maybe he had to go to the library?” he offered. You shrugged, and then collapsed onto Matt’s bed. You weren’t sure your legs would hold you up any longer.

Foggy puttered around the room, trying to drunkenly change clothes, as you snuggled into Matt’s pillow. You closed your eyes to stop the world from spinning, but that made you realize how tired you were. “You know,” you yawned, almost half asleep now, “I think that girl at the bar really liked you.”

“Who? The pink shirt?”

You nodded into the pillow. “Yeah, she kept looking at you and smiling.”

“Huh.”

You peeked open one eye to stare at him. “Are you not going to ask me why I didn’t act as your wing woman?”

Foggy’s cheeks flushed. “Uh, no, that’s okay.” His voice was higher pitched than usual. What was he trying to hide? If you could move your limbs, you would have crossed the room to stare him down. As it was, you tried to be as intimidating as you could with your face half squished in a pillow.

“Who do you like?” you asked after a moment, finally coming to the conclusion that he must have a crush on someone.

“No one. Who do you like?” he countered.

“I’ll answer if you answer.”

He stared at you for a moment before flopping back on his bed. “You know the girl from my study group?”

You quickly sat up, instantly regretting it as the room—and your stomach—swirled uncomfortably. But you pushed it aside. “Marci Stahl? You like Marci?”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Don’t make a big deal about it.”

“Ooh, I am so going to have to tell her.”

“Don’t!” Foggy quickly turned to face you.

“Why not? I already know she likes you.”

“She does?”

“Um, yeah, it’s obvious.” That, and she sat with you at lunch one day and had asked about him.

“Cool,” he sighed happily, laying back down. You huffed a laugh, surprised that was all he had to say. You slumped back into Matt’s bed, eyes drifting closed. You were almost asleep when Foggy called you out on your promise. “Who do you like?”

You froze. You tried to search for a fake name, but the copious amounts of alcohol you had this evening meant you couldn’t think of one. So you sighed and figured you might as well say it. Foggy wouldn’t tell, right? And it was probably best you got it out of your system. “Uh…Matt?” you said quietly. You weren’t even sure if Foggy heard you.

But he did, and after a moment’s silence, he asked, “Have you told him?”

“Definitely not. I didn’t want to mess anything up between us and now…”

“Elektra,” Foggy finished for you.

It seemed Matt had been hanging out with Elektra more than you and Foggy lately. You tried not to let it get to you. Matt was allowed to have other friends, after all—even girlfriends—but something about her gave you a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach. You couldn’t put your finger on the feeling or why it was there, but it worried you nonetheless.

“You won’t tell him, will you?” you asked. But Foggy was already asleep.

You were pretty sure Foggy kept this secret over the years, as Matt never once mentioned it to you. Or he was so drunk he forgot about it. That, or Matt similarly thought you should just be friends and never brought it up himself. Either was okay with you.

But now your feelings were somehow growing and you were ready for things to change.

You were hanging out at Matt’s apartment—you always did, every Friday. It was tradition. The two of you were tucked into opposite ends of the couch, watching random things on your laptop. You described what was happening whenever an audio description wasn’t available. But it had been several minutes since you last spoke. Matt hadn’t dozed off, like you originally believed, but he was lost in thought. You tried not to disturb him, thinking he was planning his opening for a case or something like that.

But the three glasses of wine in your system had other plans.

You slowly slid across the middle of the couch until you were inches away, thighs nearly touching. Matt gave no indication that he noticed you. “Hey, Matt?” you whispered after a few moments of silence. His head tilted towards you, indicating that he was listening, but he said nothing. “Can I tell you something?”

“Always,” he replied. He turned his body to face you, realizing from the tone of your voice, you guessed, that this was serious.

“I-I—uh…” you began. You heart pounded. What even were words? “Ilikeyou,” you finally breathed in one rush of words.

“I like you too.”

Your heart constricted. “More than friends, I mean.”

“I know.”

What? Your brain froze. You couldn’t comprehend. You were expected Matt to laugh you off, Matt to turn you down, Matt to do anything but that. “You—you do?” Matt nodded. “Then why…why didn’t you say anything?”

“I could ask you the same question.” He was smiling at you.

“I didn’t want to change anything. Between us. But I told Foggy once in college… I think maybe part of me thought he wouldn’t be able to keep his big mouth shut.”

“Oh, he told me.”

Your eyes widened. “He did? Oh, I’m gonna kill him.” You sprung from the couch, searching for your phone. But Matt stopped you with a hand around your wrist.

“Hey, it’s fine.” He pulled you back to sit next to him. Your thighs were pressed against one another. “I thought you wanted him to spill.”

“A bigger part of me wanted him to forget. We were really drunk that night.”

Matt’s thumb moved to rub circles on the inside of your wrist. Goosebumps raised on your skin. “I remember.” You were surprised he did. But you guessed maybe it was hard to forget the time your best friend told your other best friend that they liked you. Even if you weren’t there. You were sure Foggy gave him all the details.

Matt continued to rub circles into your skin and it was hard to think about much else. Your eyes raised to meet his. You sighed. His eyes were so gorgeous. You wished he didn’t hide them behind his glasses all the time, but you understood. Even then, you wished you could stare into his eyes all day.

Your gaze flicked down to his mouth. Before you knew it, your lips were pressed into his. He froze for a second, not returning the kiss, and you panicked. But before you could pull away, his hand was on the side of your face, pulling you closer. As your lips crashed into one another, you regretted not doing this sooner. He was an amazing kisser.

As things delved deeper, you turned to press your body tightly against his. You threw one leg across his lap and eased him back against the back of the couch. Your hands roamed—through his hair, over his shoulder, down his arms, across his chest. But when you brushed across his ribs, he gasped in pain and pulled back. You instantly sprung off of him.

“Oh, my god, are you okay?” you asked. “What happened?” You knew Matt somehow amassed a large collection of bruises and broken bones—he was just clumsy, he’d tell you ever since they started appearing in your teens. But you weren’t so sure. You’d never even seen Matt stumble once. You slapped Matt’s hands away as you reached for the bottom of his shirt, pulling it up to reveal his ribcage.

Blue bruises stood in stark contrast to his skin, surrounded by cuts and scratches of various depths. He winced when your fingers ghosted across the widest bruise—was a rib broken? Several other injuries trailed around his side and you figured his back was in similar shape.

“What happened?” you demanded once more. “Have you gone to the doctor? Were you mugged? Did you call the police?”

Matt’s hands landed on your shoulders to stop your barrage of questions. “I’m fine,” he said, but he gave no further explanation.

“That’s not fine, Matt.”

“I saw a nurse. It’s nothing that won’t heal in a couple of days.”

You breathed a small sigh of relief. But you were still left with so many questions. “Who did this to you? What happened?”

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it’s handled. They won’t be bothering anyone else.”

“That’s good,” you sighed. You wanted to ask more questions, but you knew Matt was being purposefully vague. Why wouldn’t he tell you what happened? Why didn’t he tell you that he was hurt? You wanted to press him more, but you knew Matt was as stubborn as a bull and there was no way you’d get any more information out of him. Tonight, at least. So you decided to distract yourself with the other question filling your head. “So…what about us?”

“We can’t.” Matt’s answer was immediate. No hesitation.

You felt as if a horse had kicked you in the chest. Your breath was knocked out of you. “What?”

“I…we can’t. There’s too many things going on and I can’t risk it.”

“What’s going on? You can tell me—you can always come to me. You know you can.”

Matt hung his head, leaning over his knees. “I can’t.”

Your eyes stung with unshed tears. Matt always came to you. You practically told each other everything. Had you messed things up by confessing your feelings?

“Does it have to do with your bruises?” you said softly.

Matt didn’t reply.

You stared at him, searching for words to say, begging for him to say something. But each of you remained silent.

Nothing.

“I have to go,” you said at last. You scrambled to throw on your shoes and gather your things.

Your heart shattered when Matt made no move to stop you.

“Do you know what’s going on with Matt?” you asked Foggy, pushing your food around with your fork. The two of you were at your favorite diner for your regular biweekly lunches.

“Uh, no. What do you mean?” Foggy’s eyes instantly darted out of the window. He fiddled with his hands. Foggy may be a lawyer, but you had known him long enough to know he knew exactly what was going on.

“I was at his place the other night and he had these bruises…” You gestured over your ribcage, indicating where Matt’s bruises were located.

“Oh. He probably fell down the stairs again. You know Matt.” Foggy chuckled nervously. He wouldn’t meet your eyes.

“Mhm,” you hummed skeptically. You stared Foggy down. Once or twice, he would glance up at you, but his gaze fluttered away when he realized you were still staring. The waitress brought your checks over and he fumbled getting his money out of his wallet and struggled with gathering his things. Before he could get up and leave, you spoke his name, forcing him to look at you. “Foggy. What’s going on with Matt?”

“Nothing, I swear—”

“Foggy.”

He looked at you and sighed. You were hoping he realized you wouldn’t back down. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why.” It wasn’t a question. It was a demand.

“He promised me not to.”

“Is he in some sort of secret blind Fight Club?”

“If only.”

You reached across the table to grab Foggy’s arms. You leaned towards him. If your college days taught you anything, you might be able to puppy-dog-eye your way to get what you want. “Foggy. Is he in trouble?” you said slowly, quietly.

He turned his head, looking away, as if to find somebody who would rescue him from your gaze. But there was no one. “Y/N, I…I really can’t do this.” His voice was weak. “I can’t tell you.” He pulled free from your grasp, standing and walking away from you. “I’ll see you next week,” he said over his shoulder as he exited the building.

You sat back in your seat, resting heavily against the booth. What was going on? There was nothing, nothing that they had hidden from you before.

At least…not that you knew of.

So why were they hiding this?

You ignored their texts and calls over the next couple of days. You were angry that they were keeping things from you. You were upset that Matt had rejected your feelings just like that, so easily. Your emotions overwhelmed you and you weren’t sure how to process them—so you just ignored them.

After about a week of the silent treatment, they sent Karen over to your apartment one night. She carried your favorite takeout in her hands as a bribe. You took it, of course, but you weren’t happy about it.

“They’re worried about you,” Karen said once the two of you were sat at your table, food dished out in front of you.

You speared a vegetable with a little too much force. “Yeah, well, they wouldn’t have to be if they would just tell me what’s going on.”

“I’m sure they have good reason.”

“You didn’t see the state Matt was in. Something big is going on.”

“Matt said he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he was mugged and they don’t want to tell you so you’re not worried?”

“I wish that was the case.” You turned to face her. “How are you so calm about this? I mean, don’t you think something’s up?”

“I talked to him a few days ago and…he’ll tell us when he’s ready.”

You huffed and rolled your eyes. With Matt’s stubbornness, he wouldn’t tell you anything until the information leaked on its own. You’d have to wear down Foggy or…

Karen sighed. She could tell she wasn’t going to be able to get through to you. She decided to change the subject before you could rant any more.

“Seen anything good on Netflix lately?” she offered and the two of you made small talk for the rest of the evening.

A few days later, you were cursing yourself as you were backed into an alleyway. How could you be so stupid? You dropped your guard walking home for one minute and look where it got you. You knew to always be aware of your surroundings, so why did you stop to check the notification on your phone? Just one cute video sent from a friend of her dog and you were about to be robbed of your belongings…or worse.

You tried to form an escape plan—or at least a get-out-alive plan—but your brain was short-circuiting. You nearly shrieked when a dark mass seemingly fell from the sky. Your heart sped faster. Was this man an accomplice to your attacker? Would you now have to face two men to get out of this alley?

But you breathed a small sigh of relief as the man rose from his crouched position on the concrete. You had seen enough pictures in the Bulletin to recognize that this was the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. In the flesh. Right here in front of you.

The masked man took only one step forward but it was enough to send your would-be attacker running for the hills. The masked man cocked his head to the side, listening for a moment, before turning to face you. “Are you alright?” he asked. His voice was comforting, like an old friend.

You let out a shaky breath. “Y-Yeah, I’m fine.” You crossed your arms in an effort to hide your trembling hands. “I wish I knew all it took to scare someone away was to wear a mask. Maybe I’ll start carrying one around.”

The man smiled, small but tense. “If only that’s all it took.”

You glanced awkwardly around the alley, unsure of what to say next. “I, um, thank you?” You cleared your throat. “Thank you,” you tried again. “I…I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t shown up.” You tried to clamp down on your wandering thoughts, but it was hard to stop the flashes of possibilities in your brain.

“Is there anyone you could call to come get you?”

Matt. Foggy. Karen. But you still didn’t feel like reaching out to any of them just yet. You shook your head. “No. My apartment’s just two blocks away, anyway. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’m okay. I’m just a little shaken, but I can make it. Thank you.”

The man hesitated a moment longer, seeming to check that you would actually be all right, before scaling the nearby fire escape in leaps and bounds until he disappeared in shadow. You took a moment to collect yourself before stepping out into the warm light of a streetlamp. You hesitantly made your way home, skittish and jumping at every little noise. You sighed a breath of relief when the deadbolt of your front door finally slid closed.

Even though you were on the fifth floor, you went around your apartment, checking that every window was locked and secured. You pulled the blinds closed for good measure. You froze when you spotted a figure crouched on the fire escape across the street, but smiled as you realized it was the masked man, seeing you safely home. Despite the evening’s events, you felt safe knowing the masked man was protecting the city.

You spotted the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen several more times over the next few weeks. You would catch glimpses of him on your walk home, spot him in shadows from out your window, heard the stories of those he saved. It was comforting, knowing he was out there. You didn’t think his persistent presence would one day turn against you.

You awoke in the middle of the night to a noise in your apartment. You laid still, ears searching for another sound. You relaxed when you heard none after a few minutes. Maybe your neighbor just dropped something, you thought. You closed your eyes and tried to fall back asleep. You tensed again at the sound of fabric rustling, realizing after a moment it was just your window curtains in the breeze. What had you so jumpy tonight? You had seen the masked man just this evening, keeping watch over the block. You knew nothing was going to happen…

You were nearly asleep when a hand clamped over your mouth and nose.

You were dazed and confused when your eyes finally fluttered open. You weren’t in your bed—had you fallen asleep working at the kitchen table again? You moved to stretch your arms and back, but something tugged tight at your wrists. You glanced down with groggy eyes to find a neatly knotted rope around each arm. You kicked your legs to find that they were similarly bound.

In an instant, your sleepy mind flashed to full clarity.

Not good. This was definitely not good.

Your eyes focused just ahead of you. Across a small wooden table was a well-dressed man with dark hair. He was sitting casually, almost lazily, with one leg draped across the arm of his chair. He was twirling a knife idly in his right hand and barely glanced at you when he spoke. “Finally awake?”

“Where am I?” you responded, giving another futile tug to your bindings.

“New York City,” the man deadpanned. You nearly rolled your eyes—you could’ve figured that one out yourself. The sounds were distant, muffled, but you could still make out the sound of the hustle and bustle of the busy city. You couldn’t exactly tell which borough you had been brought to, but you knew you weren’t in a residential area. The room you were in was big with tall ceilings, dim construction lights, and no windows aside from darkened skylights on the roof. An abandoned factory. A warehouse, maybe.

Well, isn’t that just a bit cliché.

You shivered as a draft eased over your skin. The building certainly didn’t have central AC—you were freezing in the thin pajamas you had been kidnapped it.

Kidnapped.

You had just been kidnapped. Why this was only registering now, you weren’t sure. You fought the panic rising in your chest. Hyperventilating now would be no good and you didn’t want to know what would happen if you passed out. A count of five to control your breathing, then: “What do you want from me?”

“It’s not you we want, sweetheart.” He rose from his seat, straightening his suit jacked and adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves. He slowly stepped around the table and you couldn’t help but be reminded of a jaguar stalking its prey. You tensed when he disappeared behind you, but he was only gone for a moment before tossing several issues of the Bulletin across the table. “It’s him.”

You cautioned a closer look at the papers in front of you. Featured on each page was a different grainy photo of the man in the mask, Daredevil, whatever they were calling him these days. “I don’t—I don’t know him.”

“You don’t?” The man—your kidnapper—pulled out a few photographs, placing them slowly in front of you. The first was of you and Daredevil walking side by side. It was taken shortly after he had saved you from that alley, you realized, when he escorted you home. The second was a picture of the fire escape landing just outside your window. You were leaning out the window, handing him a bottle of water—the defender of Hell’s Kitchen needed to be hydrated, right? But glancing at the third picture, you were unsure of what it had to do with you. Until you realized it was of him kneeling on the rooftop of the building across from yours.

“We’ve been trying to track him down,” your kidnapper continued, “as he’s been interfering with several…business ventures of ours. He’s been very hard to locate. Fortunately for us, your apartment is one of his more…frequented locations. We just want to know who he is. Then we might be able to…set you free.”

“But I don’t know him!” you insisted again.

Your kidnapper retrieved a knife from his pocket, sliding the flat of it up the side of your arm. “It would be easier on the both of us if you just told me his name.”

“It would be easier if you’d just listen! I don’t know—” Your words abruptly cut off as the man slid the point of the knife against your thigh—not deep, but enough to slice through your pant leg and draw a thin line of blood. You could almost laugh. You were expecting much, much worse. “That’s the best you could do? I’ve had paper cuts worse—”

Your eyes widened. Why were you mouthing off at a time like this? Why would you say that? Stupid, stupid, stupid… In a flash, the man’s palm struck across your cheek, turning your head sideways. You tasted blood. Your lip was split. Fantastic.

“I just need a name.”

“I don’t have one!”

“Then let’s just hope he finds you in time.”

“What? No, please, please!” you shouted as his fist collided with your temple.

It was a slow night for Matt. He hadn’t stumbled across any emergencies needing his assistance nor could he hear any in the surrounding area. The night was almost too slow, it seemed. Without anything to do, he jogged across rooftops until he reached your apartment building. He always told himself it was just part of his nightly sweep of the neighborhood, but deep down, he knew it was more than that.

It had been weeks since you’d talked to him—well, talked to him as Matt, that is. You had been his best friend for nearly two decades now. It pained him every day the two of you didn’t talk.

But it wasn’t like he didn’t understand.

He rejected you. He probably broke your heart and, to top it all off, he was hiding a huge secret from you! He understood why you were giving him the silent treatment—he’d probably do the same if the roles were reversed—but he was thankful he could still at least check on you every day, even if it was as the Daredevil. He just wished you wouldn’t take it out on Foggy, too.

Foggy was torn, to say the least. He hated to see his two best friends apart like this and hated knowing he had contributed to it in some way. He wanted to tell you Matt’s secret, he really did! But he couldn’t. He desperately wanted to tell you so you could talk some sense into Matt, get him off the streets every night, but he couldn’t betray Matt’s trust like that. Even as much as he wanted to. He’d tell Matt as much, but things were already tense between them as they were.

Shaking his thoughts aside, Matt stepped gently onto your fire escape. He first noticed the cool air seeping out the window to your apartment. How many times would he have to remind you to lock it? He made three quick raps against the pane, alerting you to his presence. He waited for you to answer, but you never showed. He turned his attention away from the city and directed it to the inside of your apartment. But…he couldn’t hear you.

He could hear the loud thumping of the heartbeat of your upstairs neighbor and the quieter beats of her two cats but not you. He slid your window open wider and slipped into the space of your kitchen. The air was still. You hadn’t been here in a few hours. Dread pooled deep in his stomach.

Matt pulled his phone out of his pocket. Normally, he left it behind, but part of him hoped you would end your silent treatment one of these nights. Whatever the reason, he was thankful he had it. He just had to assure himself that you were okay—perhaps you’d gone to the store or out to a movie with a friend. He quickly dialed your number, paling when he heard your phone buzz on your bedside table. He hung up. Foggy’s number was next.

“Matt?” Foggy asked groggily, disoriented from waking up and confused that Matt was actually calling him.

“Have you heard from Y/N?” Matt asked quickly.

“No. Why? What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I just…stopped by her apartment and she’s not here. She’s not answering her phone.”

“I’m sure she’s fine. She’s probably at a friend’s place. Asleep. Like we should be.”

“Yeah. Goodnight.” Matt ended the call, nearly throwing the phone across the room in frustration. Something wasn’t right about this. He paced across your apartment, freezing when he caught the scent of…cologne? His heart dropped a little. Maybe you found somebody to replace—

His mind made the connection. That was the same cologne as one of the crime bosses he’d been following.

This time, he did throw his phone across the room.

You realized at some point you’d gone unconscious. You awoke to a throbbing in your skull and sharp pains across your abdomen. You couldn’t feel the rest of your body, but you generally felt like you had been hit by a truck. The taste of blood was heavy on your tongue. You pried your eyes open, but everything was blurry. Was one of your eyes swollen shut or just could you not see from the pain in your head? You pried your eyes open further and winced. Swollen. Your eye was definitely swollen.

You couldn’t catalogue any other specific injuries. All the pain swelled together, indistinguishable from one another. You thought maybe a finger was broken, but you couldn’t tell for sure. It definitely hurt every time you tried to flex your hand, though. You also realized deep breaths were something to steer clear from.

Your captor noticed your movements and stepped into your field of vision, leaning against the table in front of you. “Back, are we?” he asked. He casually bumped your knee with his, almost affectionately. You hissed from the pain the movement caused.

“Didn’t…didn’t think I could leave,” you wheezed. You’d certainly begged for it earlier. But your kidnapper made it clear the Devil arriving would be your only hope. Your kidnapper…you really needed to give him a name.

“Not yet.” Your captor—Zane. Yeah, let’s call him Zane—picked up a knife from behind him and twirled it in the air. You tensed, waiting for the pain to come, but he just continued to stare at you.

“Okay, listen,” you begged. “I’m weak. I’m weak, I know I am. I’m weak to torture. If I knew anything, it’d have spilled already. You’re good—you’re good at what you do, but I don’t have anything—”

“Flattery gets you nowhere. Besides, that isn’t even the goal anymore.” A glint from the knife was your only warning before it was embedded in your thigh. You screamed, begging, pleading, that your hero would find you.

Your bloodcurdling scream sent ice down Matt’s spine.

He had been poised outside the warehouse, waiting, listening, trying to find the best course of action to rescue you. But that sound had him throwing caution to the wind. He dove through the nearest window.

Three men were in this hallway. Matt dodged a bullet one of the men fired before ripping the gun out of his hands. A solid strike from the butt of the gun rendered the man unconscious and Matt turned to face the other two. His mind turned to autopilot as he incapacitated his enemies. Every move was instinctual, every hit uncaring.

At last, he found where you were being held in the center of the building. He tensed as he stepped into the room, hands raising in a sign of no harm. You were being held at gunpoint. Every step he took pressed the gun tighter into your temple, so he froze, thirty feet away from you.

Tears were streaming down your face. You knew a gun was being held to your head, but you weren’t conscious of much more than that and the knife still hilt-deep in your leg. Ringing in your ears drowned out all other sound. You weren’t sure how the Daredevil made it across the room or took down Zane, but you instinctively reacted when hands pressed down on your shoulders.

“No, please, stop!” you begged. “I don’t know who he is, I swear.”

Slowly, your senses came back to you. “Hey, it’s me. Calm down,” you heard. Your eyes fluttered open. The masked man blearily came into focus. You wished you knew what he looked like. He’d probably have such gorgeous eyes… “Y/N, hey.” A hand tapped the side of your face. “I need you to stay awake, okay? I’m gonna get you some help.”

“My eyes closed?” you mumbled. You were trying to stay awake, but your eyes had plans of their own.

“Yeah, they did.” He knelt down to untie the rope around your wrists and ankles. Once free, he tucked an arm under your knees and behind your low back. “This is going to hurt. I’m sorry.” On a count of three, he lifted you into his arms and you were out like a light.

 You groaned some time later as you were laid gently on what you thought to be a couch. You couldn’t tell where you were—higher thinking was on the backburner currently. The pain quickly erased any thought that came into your mind. You fought to open your eyes, though. You had to know if you were safe.

You were in a small apartment, on a living room couch like you originally thought. An expansive first aid kit was spread on the coffee table next to you. Several of the tools were bloodied; several packages were ripped open. You raised your eyes higher to find a woman and a man having a heated discussion. The man you knew—it was the Daredevil. You could tell even though his back was turned. The woman, though…you weren’t sure her identity. She wore blue, bloodied gloves and the ears of a stethoscope were around her neck. You caught the last of her argument.

“She needs a hospital, Matt. Only surgeons are qualified to remove impaled objects. And I, as good as I am at stitching you up, am not a surgeon.”

You thought hard to make sense of the words. Who needed a hospital? And wait… “Matt?” you croaked. She said Matt? Daredevil instinctively turned at the sound of your voice and you gasped at what you saw. His mask had been removed. You met the eyes of your best friend. Matt Murdock. “What? It’s you?” Matt sighed and ran a hand over his face. Fuck. This was everything he was trying to avoid. “This was why you had those bruises?” He nodded. “Foggy knows?” He nodded again. This was too much for you to wrap your head around.

Matt knelt by your head and took one of your hands in his. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I’m so sorry. This is why I couldn’t tell you, why we couldn’t be together. I knew someone was going to use you to get to me. It’s all my fault—”

You stopped his tirade with a whisper of his name. “Matt, it’s not your fault.” You reached up to wipe a smear of blood off his cheek. You weren’t even sure who it belonged to—you, him, or one of your kidnappers. “It’s not your fault. We’ll talk about this later. Right now I’m in a lot of pain and getting a lot of blood on a stranger’s couch. I need to know what the plan is.”

Matt turned to the woman and then sighed. “This is my friend Claire. She’s a nurse at Metro General. She’s going to take you to the hospital, okay?”

Matt moved to stand, but you gripped his arm. “You’re not going?”

“I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. I have to change clothes first. I can’t show up looking like this.” He gestured broadly to his bloodied suit. Your grip tightened. You didn’t want him to leave you. “I trust Claire with my life. She’s safe.”

You slowly loosened your grip. “Be fast,” you whispered. Matt nodded.

He and Claire loaded you into the passenger seat of her car. Matt pressed a kiss into your temple before closing the door behind you. Soon, the car was moving and you bared your teeth through the pain each turn and bump caused. Claire was a constant stream of “sorry.” You fought with everything you had to stay awake, but with the adrenaline gone, you felt every injury at full volume. But one ginormous pothole was all it took for your strength to shatter.

You groaned as you came to. Your eyes fluttered against the bright lights, but once they adjusted, you found you were in a hospital room. “I want to stop waking up in random places,” you whined. This was the third strange place you had woken up in since…however long it was since you were last at your apartment. A calendar on the wall said it was Sunday. So, two days.

Matt startled awake at the sound of your voice. You glanced over at him. He’d been trying to sleep in one of those uncomfortable hospital chairs. He had dark circles under his eyes, worse than usual. Had he been here this whole time? “You look like shit, Matt,” you said.

“Y/N, I—” he started, but you cut him off.

“You don’t have to apologize. I understand now, I do.” Matt slid his chair across the floor until he was right by your side. You reached down to take his hand.

“But if I—”

“There’s a million things both of us could have done differently to not end up right where we are. The blame’s not all on you, Matt.”

He was silent for a few moments. He pressed the back of your hand against his lips as he thought. “How are you not mad at me?” he eventually asked.

“They got me on the good drugs right now, I think. But once they release me…ooh, you’re in for it.” You squeezed his hand, smiling.

“Yeah?” He returned your smile.

“Yeah.” You sat quietly for a few moments, your heart monitor filling in the easy silence. “So are you really blind? Or is that something to throw off people from finding out your secret identity?”

“You think I’ve had an alter ego since I was ten?” he laughed.

“You never know,” you shrugged. You burrowed deeper into your pillows. “I think I’m going to take a nap now. Will you stay?”

“Always.”

You were nearly asleep when you had to murmur one last thought. “I love you, Matt.”

“I love you too.”