#If I don't wind up using it for that I'll use it for something else. Like an OC or something

[bonestrouslingbones]

glanced at multiple au ship tierlists and found myself thinking "how have none of these had cherryberry on it when that used to be like right under kustard for the most popular sanscest ship" im going to bed

[stars-self-ships]

would it be a strange thing to randomly pop in and say that your names are really pretty/cool? (@canarycurse)

It wouldn't be strange at all, in fact I very much appreciate you stopping by just to tell me that! Noelle is a pretty recent addition to my preferred names but if I had to go by anything aside from Micah or Star, it would definitely be that name! 💙✨

Also, if anyone is reading this, please consider addressing me as Noelle because my good friend Organ did the other night and I was just totally starstruck by it /positive

[killerplink]

DEVOTION

Pairing: Jason Todd x Female Reader

Plot: A fight with Jason gets heated—sharp words, stubborn tempers, neither of you backing down. But when the tension snaps, it turns into something else entirely. Something raw, desperate, and messy.

Words: 10k

The apartment door slams behind you both, the sharp sound echoing in the quiet space. Your heels clack against the hardwood as you stalk toward the bedroom, too pissed to even look at him right now. Jason follows, his heavy boots thudding after you, that cocky swagger in every step even though you're very clearly fuming.

"Are you really gonna be mad all night?" he asks, tone half lazy, half exasperated.

You whip around so fast your hair flies over your shoulder, finger already pointed at his chest. "Yes! Jason, I swear to God, you're fucking impossible!"

His brows shoot up, that infuriating smirk tugging at his mouth. "What'd I do now, doll?"

"What'd you do? Are you serious?" You step closer, eyes flashing, and jab a finger into his chest. "You almost started a fight at the restaurant! Over nothing! Just—someone bumped into me, and suddenly you're ready to crack skulls like you're still some street kid with nothing to lose, except you have everything to lose, Jason! I have everything to lose!"

That softens his smirk, just a little. But it doesn't disappear, not entirely. "Baby, I had it under control."

"No, you didn't!" Your voice breaks on the words, frustration and fear tangled up too tight in your chest. "You never have it under control when you get like that. You stop thinking. It's like you don't even care what happens to you."

He exhales sharply, running a hand through his hair. "You're bein' dramatic."

"Oh, fuck you." You turn away, arms crossed tight, nails digging into your own skin like you can hold yourself together if you just squeeze hard enough. "I'm not being dramatic, Jay. I'm scared. Every time you act like your life doesn't matter, it scares the shit out of me because your life does matter. To me."

That knocks some of the wind out of his cocky sails, but true to form, Jason Todd never backs down that easily. "I can handle myself, baby. I've been in worse fights before you even knew me."

"And maybe that's the problem!" You spin around again, hands flung wide. "You're so used to throwing yourself into danger like you've got a death wish, you don't even think about the people who love you, who have to watch you do it. Who have to fucking wait and hope you come home in one piece."

His jaw clenches, that sharp edge of defensiveness flashing in his eyes. "I came home tonight, didn't I?"

"Barely! If Dick hadn't dragged you out of there—"

"—I would've walked out just fine on my own," he cuts in, voice hard, like he's this close to losing his temper too.

You both stand there, breathing hard, anger seeping through every pore. Your heart is hammering against your ribs, anger and fear and love all tangled into a knot you can't untie. And goddamn him, even now, with his blood still running hot from almost throwing down, with that cocky little glint still in his eye—he looks good. Messy hair, jaw clenched tight, that black shirt stretched over his broad chest, his hands flexing like he still has adrenaline to burn.

You want to shake him. You want to kiss him. You want to scream until your throat hurts.

Jason exhales, slow and heavy, like he's trying to ease some of that heat out of his chest before you both say something you can't take back.

"Baby," he says, quieter now, "I'm fine."

Your throat closes up. "For now."

He takes a step closer, hands sliding to your waist, fingers curling into your dress. "I'm not goin' anywhere, pretty girl."

You shake your head, eyes stinging. "You can't promise that."

Jason sighs as he leans down, forehead tipping against yours. "What do you want me to say, huh? That I'll never lose my temper again? That I'll play nice and walk away every time some asshole gets in my face? That's not who I am."

"I know," you whisper. "But it's who I wish you could be. Just for me."

That hits somewhere deep, somewhere tender he doesn't let many people see. But instead of softening, Jason leans into the heat instead because that's how he knows to handle fear, with fire.

"C'mere," he mutters, dragging you into him, arms wrapping tight around your waist. "You wanna fight with me? Do it right here, baby. Get it out of your system."

You shove at his chest, and he catches your wrist, twisting you into him like a dance, his breath warm against your ear.

"Or," he says low, voice all gravel and heat, "you can find a better way to work out all that attitude."

"Fuck off," you snap, but it's weaker now, your anger unraveling into something messier, hotter.

He chuckles, lips brushing the shell of your ear. "C'mon, pretty girl. You're pissed, I'm pissed, and you're standin' here looking like that." His hands slide down, grabbing your ass hard through your dress. "We both know exactly how this night's gonna end."

Your breath catches, nails curling into his chest again, not pushing this time, just holding on.

"Still mad at me, baby?"

"Yeah."

"Good." He grins against your mouth, teeth nipping at your bottom lip. "Let me make it up to you."

Your hands land flat on his chest, shoving him back, catching him off guard enough that he stumbles two steps out of the bedroom. And before he can say a damn word, you slam the door right in his stupid, handsome, reckless face. Not locked, just shut, because locking it feels too final, too mean, and you're pissed, but not that pissed.

Jason stares at the door for half a second, then his forehead drops against it with a low thud, and he knocks his head against it once, twice, just hard enough to feel it.

"Fuck."

He didn't mean to ruin the night. He never means to ruin shit when it comes to you. But the moment that asshole's hand brushed against your ass—innocent or not—it flipped a fucking switch in him. And maybe that's fucked up, maybe he's got a million unresolved issues tied to losing everyone he's ever given a shit about, but you?

You're his. His girl, his future, his everything, and seeing someone else's hand anywhere near you sends him spiraling into that ugly, possessive part of himself that only you've ever managed to soften.

And yeah, maybe the guy didn't mean it, maybe it was just a crowded restaurant and accidents happen, but Jason's not the kind of man who plays it cool. Not when it comes to you. Not when he loves you so much it hurts sometimes, sitting right there under his ribs like a bruise he can't stop poking.

He presses his palms to the door, wishing he could just rewind the whole night—go back to you looking so pretty at the restaurant, all smiles and soft touches, letting him steal kisses between courses. You'd been happy. And then he fucked it up. Again.

Inside the bedroom, you sit on the edge of the bed, fingers curled into the sheets, trying to hold back the sting in your eyes. You won't cry—you won't—but your throat's tight, and your chest aches, and the night feels like it's unraveling right between your fingers.

Tonight was supposed to be fun. It's Tim's fucking birthday, for God's sake. The restaurant had been beautiful, the food actually good for once, the atmosphere soft and warm with all your friends laughing and talking and teasing each other.

And then some random guy brushed past you on his way to the bathroom, bumping your hip, and Jason went feral. You love that he's protective—God, you do—but Gotham is full of crazy assholes, and you don't want him starting a fight with someone who might pull out a gun and blow his brains out over a misunderstanding.

The thought makes your stomach churn, fear sliding ice cold down your spine, and you have to shake it off before it eats you alive. You stand, fingers reaching behind you to unzip your dress, and it slides off your body in a whisper of fabric, pooling at your feet. And that's when you catch your reflection in the mirror, and yeah, no wonder he couldn't keep his hands off you all night.

The lingerie underneath? It's not the kind you wear every day. This is the good shit—black lace and thin straps, sheer panels teasing the curves of your tits, a matching thong barely covering anything, thin enough to show just how wet you already are.

Because for all the shit he's pulling tonight, Jason's still your hot ass, broad shouldered, cocky as hell boyfriend, and your pussy? She does not hold grudges.

You're still mad. You still wanna shake him until his teeth rattle. But you also want him to fuck you so hard you forget why you were even mad to begin with.

You sigh, tug open the bedroom door, and march straight into the living room, chin high, steps confident even though your knees are still a little weak from all that adrenaline. And, yeah, maybe from how fucking good he made you cum this morning.

Jason's slouched on the couch, head tipped back, hands dragging down his face, and when he hears your footsteps, he looks up, and freezes.

His eyes rake over you, slow and dark, tongue darting out to wet his lips like his mouth's gone dry. "Jesus Christ."

You cross your arms under your tits, pushing them up just a little higher. "What? Cat got your tongue, big guy?"

His gaze flicks from your face to your tits to the sheer lace stretched over your hips, and the way the thin strip of fabric between your legs is already dark with how wet you are.

"You're tryin' to fuckin' kill me," he mutters, half to himself, half to you.

You cock a hip, all attitude, even though your pulse is hammering. "Thought you liked a challenge."

Jason pushes up from the couch, moving slow, shoulders broad and tense, every line of him saying he's holding himself back—barely. "You're still mad at me."

"Furious," you agree.

"And you're standin' there looking like that."

You glance down at yourself, trailing a finger over the top of your bra, down the center of your stomach. "Yeah. What are you gonna do about it?"

He's on you in two steps, one hand cupping the back of your neck, the other grabbing a handful of your ass, yanking you flush against him. "Gonna fuck the attitude right outta you, baby."

"Promises, promises."

He kisses you hard enough to steal your breath, hands already roaming, already tugging at the straps of your bra, already ready to tear you apart and put you back together again, but you're faster. You grab two handfuls of his shirt, spinning him around and shoving him back onto the couch. He goes down without a fight, grinning like the cocky bastard he is, because you both know you can't actually budge him unless he lets you.

But fuck, does it turn him on when you try.

Jason sprawls into the cushions, legs spread, hands braced on his thighs like he's daring you to climb on top of him, but instead, you drop to your knees between his legs. His whole body tenses, chest rising slower, breath catching because you—all pissed off, all attitude, all tits spilling out of that black lace bra—are kneeling right there, looking up at him like you're about to ruin his fucking life.

And for once, Jason Todd has nothing to say.

You reach for his belt, slow and deliberate, dragging the leather free of the loops with a sharp tug, and you swear you see his fingers twitch. He's already getting hard, already pressing against the front of his jeans, already so fucking easy for you.

The buckle clinks as you undo it, popping the button next, tugging the zipper down with a sound that seems louder than it should be. And then you pull his jeans and boxers down just far enough to free his dick, and—fuck.

He's so fucking big, already thick and flushed, veins standing out along his length, and a bead of precum clings to the slit, catching the low light. Your pussy throbs on sight alone, clenching around nothing, still sore from the last time he was inside you.

Jason's hand lifts, fingers reaching for the back of your head—because of course he wants to grab your hair, guide your mouth, fuck your throat—but you slap his hand away, sharp and quick.

"No touching."

He freezes like you've just short-circuited every thought in his head. "What?"

"No. Touching." You wrap your fingers around the base of his cock, giving him one slow, punishing stroke, twisting your wrist just the way he likes. "You wanna act reckless? You wanna scare the shit outta me? You wanna start fights over shit that doesn't matter? Then you can sit there with your hands to yourself while I handle this."

Jason's jaw clenches, shoulders tight, every muscle in his thighs twitching, but he obeys. Barely. His hands grip the edge of the couch so tight his knuckles go white.

You lean in, licking up the underside of his cock in one slow, wet drag, ending with a kiss to the tip that leaves your lips shiny with precum. "You're such a fucking idiot, you know that?"

"Yeah, baby," he rasps, voice already rougher. "I know."

You pump him slow, fingers squeezing just right, thumb swiping through the slick at his tip before you slide down again.

"What if you got yourself shot tonight, huh? What the fuck am I supposed to do if you get yourself killed because you can't stand someone breathing in my direction?"

"Fuck." His head tips back, throat flexing, cock leaking even more into your palm.

"Who's gonna love me the way you do? Who's gonna fuck me if you're dead, Jason?" You squeeze his dick just to see his hips jerk. "Who else knows how to ruin me like you do?"

"Baby—"

"No. Don't talk." You flick your tongue against the tip, barely a taste, before you sit back on your heels, jerking him slow and mean. "You don't get to talk, you reckless, possessive, stupid fucking man."

His abs tighten, hands still white-knuckling the couch, and his cock twitches in your grip, a fresh bead of precum sliding down the side. "You love that I'm possessive."

You glare up at him, lips curling. "I do. But not when it puts you in danger, asshole." You kiss the tip again, softer this time. "Not when it makes me scared I'm gonna lose you."

Jason's breath stutters, and you see it. That crack in his tough guy armor, the one only you ever get to see. But you don't let him soften.

Not yet. Instead, you drag your tongue along the underside of his cock again, pumping him faster, twisting your wrist just right, watching his thighs tense and his hips fight not to thrust up into your mouth.

"Keep your hands there," you murmur, voice all sweet and mean at once. "And maybe—maybe—I'll let you cum down my throat."

"Jesus fuckin' Christ."

His head falls back, a bead of sweat sliding down his neck, and you know you've got him right where you want him.

Jason yanks his shirt over his head, tossing it aside, not even bothering with unbuttoning it, because if you're gonna make him suffer, the least he can do is give you something to look at. And fuck, do you look.

Your hands rest on his thick thighs for a second, gaze dragging over every inked inch of him—the dark ink across his chest, the jagged lines along his ribs, the script down his arms that you've traced with your tongue a hundred times before. He's so fucking hot, all muscle and attitude, sprawled out, dick rock hard in your grip, glistening with spit and precum.

"Enjoyin' the view?"

His voice is pure gravel, but there's a waver in it, like he's already hanging by a thread.

"Shut up."

You lean in, dragging your tongue along the underside of his cock again, tracing that thick vein with the tip of your tongue until you reach the head, circling it slowly before you take him into your mouth, lips stretching, jaw aching already, but you don't stop. You never stop.

He's too fucking big, he always is, but you try anyway, sinking lower, feeling the weight of him press against your tongue, the blunt head nudging the back of your throat.

"Greedy little thing," Jason mutters, hands twitching, and you see it. The instinct, the need to grab your hair and fuck your throat until you're crying.

But you slap his thigh sharply. "I said no touching."

"Baby—"

"No."

You sink back down, hollowing your cheeks, sucking him deep until your throat spasms around the fat tip, gagging. Tears prick your eyes, spit pooling at the corners of your mouth, but you fucking love it. Love the way his thighs tense, love the way his dick jumps on your tongue, love how fucking desperate he looks.

Jason's chest heaves, fingers curling into fists at his sides. "You're evil."

You hum around him, the vibration making him swear under his breath, and you pull off with a filthy pop, a string of spit connecting your mouth to his cock before you drag your tongue up the side again.

"Yeah? And what's that make you for loving it?"

"Completely fucked."

You grin, all teeth, and take him back into your mouth, bobbing your head faster, sucking him down until you gag again, drool dripping down your chin, slicking his cock even more. Your thighs press together, your pussy throbbing, panties soaked through. You can feel it, the sticky mess between your legs, the ache in your cunt, the way your body needs him, no matter how mad you are.

Jason groans, deep and low, and you glance up at him through wet lashes, seeing the flush on his chest, the tension in his jaw, the muscles jumping in his stomach. He's so fucking close already, you can tell, and every time he tries to lift a hand, you slap it back down, keeping him helpless beneath you, all that strength and power completely useless unless you let him use it.

"Baby, please." His voice cracks, and it's the hottest fucking thing you've ever heard.

You pull off one more time, stroking him fast and messy, your spit slick hand gliding easily along his length. "Please what?"

"Please lemme touch you."

You shake your head, licking up the underside again, tongue teasing his slit before you suck the head back into your mouth, hollowing your cheeks until his hips buck, just once, just enough to choke you again. You swallow hard, tears sliding down your cheeks, and his dick throbs so hard you can feel it on your tongue.

"Be good," you murmur around him, voice muffled and obscene, "and I'll let you cum."

Jason's head falls back, a broken groan ripping from his throat, and you know you've got him. You sink back down, taking him as deep as you can, lips stretched tight around the fat width of his cock, spit and precum slicking your chin as you work him with all the devotion you can muster. What you can't fit—and there's always part of him you can't fit—you stroke with your hand, fingers gliding over the thick base, your palm sticky with drool and his slick.

Your tongue works the head, lapping up every drop of precum he leaks, tasting that salty, addictive tease of what's coming, and you fucking love it. You flick your tongue against his slit, suck gently on the sensitive tip before you sink down again, sucking hard, cheeks hollowed so tight your jaw aches, but you don't fucking care.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ," Jason groans, his voice wrecked, head tipped back against the couch, muscles tight like he's holding himself together with sheer fucking will. "You're perfect, baby. Mouth so goddamn good—fuck, you always know how to suck me just right."

The praise makes your pussy clench hard, heat flooding your belly, and you double down, bobbing your head faster, working him with both your mouth and hand until your throat burns and your jaw trembles. Every time you pull back, you leave a messy trail of spit and precum glistening along his length, but you dive right back in, tongue swirling around the head before you take him deep again.

"Look at you," Jason breathes, his voice low and rough. "So fuckin' pretty like this. My perfect girl. You love this dick, don't you?"

You hum around him, the vibration making his whole body twitch, and he groans so low it vibrates in your chest. You pull back just enough to gasp, "Love it, Jay. Best fucking dick I've ever had."

"Yeah?" His grin is sharp, dangerous. "Then show me, baby. Show me how much you love it."

Challenge fucking accepted. You take him deep again, swallowing around the head, ignoring the gag reflex that flares up as you press lower, working him into your throat until your nose brushes the skin at the base of his cock. You gag again, spit bubbling past your lips, but you don't stop. You fucking love how heavy he feels on your tongue, how thick and hot and perfect he is, filling your mouth like he was made for it.

Jason's fists clench at his sides, his whole body trembling with restraint. "So good for me, baby," he mutters, voice cracking with it. "So fuckin' good. My pretty, filthy fucking girl. Takin' me so deep—fuck, 'm gonna cum, baby. Gonna fill that perfect mouth."

You moan around him, and that's it. His hips jerk, cock swelling, and then he's cumming, thick ropes of cum spilling across your tongue, hot and salty and so much, it makes you whimper as you swallow, throat working hard to take it all.

He always cums a lot, his balls emptying in pulse after pulse, and you keep sucking, milking him through it, letting every drop slide down your throat until your belly feels warm with it. His cock throbs against your tongue, so sensitive it makes his hips twitch every time your tongue flicks over the head, but you don't stop until you know he's completely spent.

"Fuck, baby," he groans, voice rough and almost shaky. "Gonna kill me one of these days."

You pull back slowly, licking your swollen lips, wiping the mess from your chin with the back of your hand, and grin up at him, all fucked-out satisfaction. Jason pulls you right into his lap, and you gasp, hands flying to his shoulders to steady yourself.

His hands slide down to grab your ass, fingers digging into the soft flesh, grinding you down against his cock, still hard and slick with your spit, and you moan when you feel the thick length press up against your soaked lace panties.

"Fuck," Jason mutters, dragging you along his cock again, feeling how drenched you are even through the lace. "That pretty pussy misses me already, huh?"

"Jay," you murmur, voice soft, needy, and when you lean in, he catches your mouth in a kiss—hot, messy, all tongue and teeth, licking into you like he's starving for your taste.

He groans low when he tastes himself on your tongue, dirty and possessive, and you whimper into his mouth, hips moving on their own, grinding down against him, chasing friction.

You break the kiss to breathe, forehead resting against his, and your fingers stroke the hair at the nape of his neck as you whisper, "Do you love me?"

Jason's hands flex on your ass, holding you tighter, and his voice is low, earnest when he says, "You know I do, baby. Love you so fuckin' much."

You lick your lips, eyes dark with want. "Then fuck me like you mean it."

His eyes flash—something feral, something wild, and before you can say anything else, he's moving, standing up with you in his arms like you weigh nothing before he lays you down on the couch, his jeans and boxers kicked off in one rough move. He kneels over you, hands already tugging your bra down until your tits spill out, and he doesn't even bother unclasping it before he's on you.

"Love these tits," he mutters between kisses, licking over one nipple, sucking it into his mouth before letting it go with a wet pop. His tongue flicks over the other, sharp and teasing, before he closes his lips around it, sucking hard until you gasp and arch into him. "So fuckin' pretty, baby. Could spend all day suckin' on these."

You tug at his hair, breathless, moaning when he drags his teeth over your nipple, just the right amount of rough. He leaves a trail of messy hickeys down the curve of your tits, marking you like the possessive asshole he is, and you swear your pussy gets even wetter from it.

He kisses down your stomach, hands already hooking into the waistband of your panties, tugging them down just enough to get access to you. "Love this body," he murmurs, licking over the waistband before kissing your hipbone. "Love this pussy. Love you, baby."

You whimper, spreading your legs instinctively, and he groans at the sight of your panties clinging to your soaked folds, the lace darkened with how wet you are. His fingers trace along the edge of the fabric, barely touching you, just enough to make your thighs twitch in frustration.

Then his tongue flicks out, teasing you through the fabric, just the lightest drag of warmth over your clit, and you jolt, hips twitching up, chasing more.

Jason hums, amused, as he pulls back, blowing cool air against the damp spot where his tongue just was. "So fuckin' wet for me already," he mutters, voice wrecked, his breath hot against your cunt.

His fingers slide down, pressing against the soaked lace, rubbing slow, lazy circles over your clit, just enough to make you ache but not enough to satisfy.

Your hips stutter, desperate for more friction, but he doesn't give it to you. He presses a kiss to the inside of your thigh, his scruff scratching at your sensitive skin, and then, another flick of his tongue, this time firmer, tracing over your clit through the thin barrier of lace.

"Jay—" Your fingers tighten in his hair, trying to pull him closer, but he only chuckles, the vibrations making you tremble.

"You love this, don't you?" His voice is thick with hunger, fingers still rubbing slow, teasing circles over your clit. "Love bein' all messy for me, panties soaked, beggin' for my mouth..."

He leans in again, dragging his tongue over you, pressing the fabric against your cunt, making it cling to every swollen, aching inch of you. Then his teeth close around the lace, tugging just enough to make you feel it before letting go.

Your thighs tremble, your body desperate for more, but he just keeps playing with you, running his tongue along the slick fabric, soaking it even more, his fingers pressing right against your entrance, but never giving you what you need.

"Jason—" you whimper, pushing up against his mouth, but he only smirks, pressing another teasing, barely-there kiss over your clit.

"Patience, pretty girl," he murmurs, eyes dark, voice rough.

He finally hooks a finger into the crotch of your panties, pulling them aside to bare you to him, and then his mouth is on you. Hot, wet, tongue sliding through your folds before fucking into you, slow and deep, licking you open like he's savoring every drop.

You moan his name, thighs trying to clamp around his head, but his big hands grab your thighs and hold you open, spreading you wide like he's got all the time in the world to devour you.

"Keep 'em open, baby," he growls, voice muffled between your thighs. "Wanna see this pussy when I eat you."

He fucks you with his tongue, nose brushing against your clit, and every time you try to roll your hips or squirm away from the intensity, he holds you down and just keeps going, messy and obscene, spit and slick dripping down to the couch beneath you.

Jason groans into your pussy, the sound vibrating against your clit, and he sucks. Soft at first, just enough to make you gasp, before he latches on and really sucks, lips wrapped around that sensitive bundle of nerves, tongue flicking against it, over and over, relentless.

"F-Fuck—Jay—" Your voice is all breathy, wrecked, your fingers pulling at his hair, but it only spurs him on.

He hums again, mouth still latched to your clit, and then drags his tongue down, lapping at your folds, hot and messy and so deep you feel it in your gut. He groans like he's starving for you, like he could live off this alone, tongue pushing inside again, fucking you slow and deep before dragging up to swirl around your clit.

And then he does it again. And again. And again.

His hands squeeze at your thighs, holding you open, keeping you spread, his thumbs rubbing slow circles into your trembling skin, soothing even as his mouth drives you insane.

"You taste so fuckin' good, pretty girl," he rasps against your soaked cunt, his lips slick, his chin glistening with your arousal. "Could eat you for hours."

He presses a soft kiss right against your clit before flattening his tongue, licking a long, slow stripe up your pussy, gathering every drop of slick before pushing his tongue back inside you.

You keen, legs twitching, and he groans into you, hands tightening, like he can feel you dripping for him.

"Goddamn, look at you," he mutters, breath hot against your cunt as he pulls back just enough to admire the mess he's making of you. "Drippin' down my fuckin' chin, baby—"

The wet, obscene sounds of his mouth on you echo in the room, filthy and desperate, and all you can do is whimper and take it.

When he pulls back just enough to suck your clit into his mouth again your whole body jolts, and he hums in satisfaction, eyes locked on you as your mouth falls open on a gasp.

"C'mon, baby," he murmurs against you, every word vibrating against your skin. "Cum for me. Wanna taste you."

It hits you hard, your back arching, thighs trembling in his grip as you cry out, body clenching tight before it melts into pleasure. You swear you see stars, the intensity making your head spin, and he groans low in his throat as he licks you through it, sucking every drop you give him, cleaning you up with his tongue like a man fucking starving.

He doesn't stop until you're trembling, oversensitive and gasping for breath, your hands tugging weakly at his hair, begging for a break. When he finally pulls back, his mouth and chin are glistening, and he wipes his face with the back of his hand, grinning down at you like the devil himself.

"Goddamn, baby," he mutters. "Tastes even better when you're mad at me."

Jason flips you onto your stomach like you weigh nothing, handling you exactly the way you love—rough enough to remind you how much stronger he is, gentle enough to show he'll never actually hurt you. And you already know what he wants, so you arch your back, pushing up onto your hands and knees, glancing over your shoulder with a bratty little smirk that makes his jaw clench.

His hands slide down your sides, slow, deliberate, before they settle on your hips, fingers digging in just to hear you gasp. Then he grabs the lace of your panties, tugging them down over your ass, baring your soaked cunt and the mess he already made between your thighs.

"Fuck," he mutters, palming your ass, squeezing and spreading you open to get a better look. "Always so fuckin' pretty back here."

The first slap lands sharp, making you jolt forward, your slick thighs trembling. The sting blooms hot across your skin, and you whimper, but it only makes you arch deeper, pushing your hips back toward him.

Jason watches, transfixed, as your pussy clenches around nothing, dripping slick onto his cock when he presses the thick head between your legs. He's still hard, precum leaking from the swollen tip, and you rock your hips, rubbing your soaked folds against him until he curses under his breath.

"Needy little thing," he grits out, guiding his cock to your entrance. "Can't even pretend you're not desperate for me."

He starts pushing in, splitting you open slow, and the stretch knocks the air from your lungs, leaving you trembling under him. "Oh, fuck—"

"Always so fuckin' tight for me," Jason groans, one hand stroking down your stomach, feeling the way your body stretches to take him. His fingers slip lower, over your clit, slick and swollen, and you shiver all over when he rubs slow circles over it. "Goddamn, baby."

You rock back, taking him deeper, moaning as your pussy clenches down hard around him. He curses, leaning over you, chest pressed to your back, and murmurs low in your ear, "You want me to fuck you like I mean it, huh?"

You nod frantically, words catching in your throat, and Jason groans, pulling back just enough to grab your hips, steadying you before sliding in deeper, bottoming out with one slow, brutal thrust.

He gives you a second, like he always does, letting you adjust because he knows he's big, knows he's a lot, and he loves you too much to hurt you.

But you're impatient, your body burning with need, so you glance back over your shoulder, panting, "Thought you said you loved me."

His jaw tightens, a flush spreading down his chest, and he growls, "I do."

"Then fucking prove it," you challenge, and that's it, the last frayed thread of his self-control snaps.

Jason's hips slam into yours, driving his cock so deep you see stars, and you cry out, fingers scrambling for purchase against the cushions. His hands grip your waist, holding you still so all you can do is take it, body jerking with each brutal thrust, wet sounds filling the room every time his cock splits you open.

Your cunt grips him like a vice, soaked and clenching around him, dragging him back in every time he pulls out, and the slick slide is so obscene, so messy, it only makes him fuck you harder. His hips snap against your ass, the slap of skin on skin echoing, and you bury your face in your arms, moaning his name like a prayer.

"Still wanna fucking die, you idiot?" you gasp between moans, glaring at him over your shoulder, and Jason groans, dropping one hand to slap your ass again.

"Shut up," he pants, driving in deep enough to knock the air out of you. "God, baby—you're so fuckin' wet for me."

"Because you're—you're so fucking stupid," you sob, half-scolding, half-moan. "What if—what if you get yourself killed, and who the fuck's gonna fuck me like this?"

"Jesus Christ," Jason groans, the filthy confession sending a sharp pulse of heat straight to his cock, making it throb inside you. "No one, baby, no one else is ever gonna touch this pussy."

He fucks you harder, deeper, grinding into you until you're shaking under him, toes curling, nails clawing at the couch. Every thrust punches little gasps from your throat, and you can't stop talking, can't stop scolding him even as he's fucking you stupid.

"You love me?" you pant, voice high and breathless.

"Love you so much, baby," he groans, leaning over you, lips against your ear. "Love you, love this body, love this perfect fuckin' pussy. All mine, baby. All fuckin' mine."

"Show me," you whisper, voice shaking. "Show me how much."

Jason's hips snap forward, hard enough to drive you into the couch, and you moan his name, cunt squeezing tight around him. "I'll show you, doll," he pants, sweat dripping down his back. "I'll show you exactly how much."

His hands are everywhere—gripping your hips, spreading your ass, fingers digging into your skin hard enough to leave marks tomorrow, and you'll love every fucking one of them. Each thrust is brutal, his cock sliding in and out of your soaked pussy, so slick with arousal and his precum that it drips down your thighs, making a mess.

"Look at this greedy fuckin' pussy," he groans, thumbs spreading you open wider just so he can watch. "Suckin' me in like you missed this dick."

"I did," you gasp, fingers clutching at the couch cushions. "But you're still a fucking idiot."

Jason grits his teeth, hips snapping forward hard enough to shove you up the couch, your knees scraping against the fabric. Your slick little cunt grips him tight, soft and warm and soaked inside, milking his cock every time he drags back just to slam back in. Precum leaks from the swollen tip, mixing with your slick, and every thrust pushes it deeper, making you feel so full you can barely breathe.

The couch creaks under both of you, the whole thing rocking with the force of his thrusts, and Jason can't tear his eyes away from the way your ass bounces every time his hips smack into you. Your skin glows, sweat-slick and gorgeous, and he can see the way his dick stretches you open, disappearing into your perfect pussy over and over again.

"Fuck, baby," he groans, almost to himself. "You're perfect. This pussy's fuckin' perfect."

"Damn right it is," you pant, pushing back against him until you're stuffed full all over again. "And if you get yourself killed, who the fuck is supposed to fuck me like this?"

That ticks him off just right this time. His hand shoots out, grabbing the back of your neck, not to hurt, but to hold, to control, and he hauls you upright, your back pressed flush to his broad chest. You gasp, legs shaking, the stretch of his cock inside you deeper, hitting that sweet spot that makes you cry out.

"Who said I was goin' anywhere?" he growls against your ear, hand sliding up from your neck to wrap gently around your throat. "You think I'd leave you, baby? Fuck no."

His other hand finds your tits, fingers tugging at the bra you still hadn't taken off, yanking the cups down completely so your soft skin spills into his hand. He palms your breast, rolling your nipple between his fingers, and you moan loud, head tipping back onto his shoulder.

"You love me?" you whisper, breath hitching with every thrust.

"You know I do," he pants, fucking up into you, hips rolling slow but deep, stuffing you so full you swear you can feel him in your throat.

"Then fucking show me," you challenge, rocking your hips down to meet him.

Jason groans, fingers tightening on your throat just a little, enough to make your cunt flutter around him. "I am," he mutters, mouth hot on your neck. "Fuckin' you so good no one else could ever touch you— no one else could make you this wet, this fuckin' messy."

He shoves you back down, face to the cushions, ass in the air, spreading you wide so he can see everything. Especially the way your slick pussy stretches around him, sucking him back in every time he pulls out, shiny with your wetness and his precum.

"Fuckin' shit, baby," he groans, watching his cock slide in and out of your perfect little pussy. "You're fuckin' drippin'."

"Because you're that good, asshole," you snap back, voice muffled by the cushions.

Jason slaps your ass hard enough to make you jolt, cunt squeezing down on him so tight his vision blurs for a second. "Yeah? Then why the fuck you talkin' so much?"

"Because you're a fucking idiot," you sob, back arching when he drives in deep. "You don't—you don't need to start shit every time someone looks at me, Jay. You're the only one who gets to fuck me like this, don't you know that?"

Jason groans, hands tightening on your hips as he slams into you harder, hips snapping, driving you into the couch so deep your knees nearly buckle.

"I know, doll," he pants, voice wrecked. "I know, fuck—I just love you so much, I can't stand anyone else even lookin' at you."

"Then—then fuck me harder," you gasp, tears in your eyes from how good he feels, how perfectly his thick cock fills you up, dragging against every sweet spot inside you. "Fuck me so good I can't even think about anyone else."

Jason yanks you up again, your back flush to his sweat-slick chest, his cock buried so deep you swear you feel him in your fucking lungs. His big hand cups your jaw, turning your face toward him, and he kisses you messy, tongue sliding between your parted lips like he's starving for the taste of you. It's sloppy, wet, both of you panting into each other's mouths, sucking on tongues, biting at lips.

You moan into his mouth when his free hand finds your clit, two fingers rubbing sharp, relentless circles over the sensitive little bud. It's too much, too fast, your cunt already stretched wide and soaked around him, every rub of his fingers making you clench down tighter.

"Fuck, baby," he groans, breath hot against your cheek, hips snapping up into you so hard you bounce. "You're so fuckin' wet—you're drippin' all over my dick."

His fingers don't slow down, and you can't do anything but take it, legs shaking, cunt squeezing around him, your swollen clit throbbing under his ruthless touch. The heat coils low in your belly, sharp and fast, climbing so high so fast it almost scares you.

"Jay—fuck—wait, I—"

Your hand flies down, grabbing at his wrist, trying to ease him off your overstimulated clit, but he's not budging, the muscle in his forearm flexing as he presses down harder.

"No," he growls into your ear, voice wrecked. "You wanted me to fuck you like I mean it? This is what that fuckin' means, baby."

His dick pounds into you mercilessly, every thrust dragging against your sweetest spot, thick and hot and leaking inside you, smearing precum along your fluttering walls. You're soaking him, so slick you can hear the obscene squelch every time he sinks in to the hilt as he rubs your puffy little clit.

Your whole body locks up, spine arching, mouth falling open as you cum so hard it knocks the breath out of you, that sharp edge of pleasure tipping you into freefall. Your pussy clamps down on his cock, tight and trembling, and Jason fucking moans, jaw clenched, hips stuttering as you soak his dick with wave after wave of hot, slick arousal.

But he doesn't stop.

"Gimme more," he pants, fingers ruthless on your clit. "C'mon, baby, you can do it, show me how messy you can get."

"Jason, I—fuck—fuck—"

Your thighs quake, eyes rolling back, and when he starts to slap over your clit lightly, it hits like a live wire—your whole body seizes, cunt pulsing around him, and then it happens.

You fucking squirt, hot and sudden, a slick rush spilling from your cunt, drenching both of you in a messy gush that soaks the couch, his thighs, your thighs—every inch of skin that's pressed together—leaving your pussy glistening, clenching around his dick as your juices drip down to the cushions. It's a mess you didn't even know you could make, and Jason loses it.

You both knew you could squirt when you were drunk off your ass, but this? This was all him. And you're both wrecked with it—you, boneless and trembling, him, harder than fucking steel inside you, completely gone for you.

"Holy fuck, baby," he groans, voice somewhere between awe and pure hunger.

Your whole body shakes, tears spilling down your cheeks from the sheer intensity, overstimulated to the point of pain-tinged pleasure, and Jason kisses you through it, swallowing your sobs and moans right from your tongue.

It's still so messy—hot, wet, open-mouthed, tongues licking into each other's mouths, tasting sweat and spit and you, and he groans deep in his chest like you're the best thing he's ever had.

His cock keeps sliding into your soaked, fluttering cunt, so slick it's almost effortless, but you're still so tight, sucking him in greedily. His fingers finally ease off your clit, stroking instead of circling, soothing instead of torturing, but his kiss stays just as hungry. Desperate like he's trying to memorize your taste, the way you moan into his mouth when you can barely even catch your breath.

"Baby," he murmurs between kisses, breathless and tender and filthy all at once. "You're so fuckin' good for me. Love this pussy—love you."

Jason's lips break from yours, sliding down your jaw, over the curve of your throat, hot breath ghosting over your pulse before his mouth seals against your neck. He sucks hard, tongue flicking over the skin, leaving a bruising, sloppy mark.

And the whole time, his hips keep working, dragging his thick cock in and out of your soaked, swollen cunt, slow but deep, hitting every spot that makes your toes curl.

"Fuck, Jay—" you whimper, head tilting to give him more of your neck, hands clutching at his wrists, his arms, anywhere you can reach to steady yourself.

He hums low in his throat, all smug and wicked, and you can feel him smirk against your skin. "You want my cum, baby?"

You moan loud, nodding so fast it makes him chuckle.

"Of course you do," he murmurs, voice low and gravelly, kissing his way up to your ear. "This needy little pussy loves my cum, huh?"

"Yes," you gasp, writhing against him, trying to push back and take him deeper, to make him give it to you.

But he just teases, slowing his thrusts, dragging every inch out before pushing back in so slowly, letting you feel just how thick and hot he is inside you. "Thought you were mad at me, pretty girl."

"I am," you snap, but it's breathless, your earlier fire softened by the way he's fucking you so deep and slow, pulling every sound he loves right out of your throat.

"Yeah?" he smirks, tongue licking over your racing pulse. "Then why should I cum inside this perfect little pussy if you're still so fuckin' mad?"

"Jason—" you whine, pushing back harder, but his hand holds you steady, thumb pressing into your hip, controlling the pace no matter how desperate you are.

"Gotta convince me, baby," he taunts, voice all low and syrupy-sweet, fingers sliding down to your clit just to flick it, making you jolt and clench down hard on his cock. "Why should I fill you up, huh? Gimme one good reason."

"Because I need it," you gasp, fingers clawing at the couch cushions. "Need you to cum inside me, need to feel it—fuck—please, Jay."

"Need it?" He grins against your neck, biting just hard enough to make you yelp. "Sounds like my girl's not so mad after all."

"I am—"

"No, you're not," he cuts you off, fucking into you a little faster, just to hear the pitch of your voice climb. "You just like actin' tough until you're full of my dick, huh?"

You nod frantically, pride shredded, nothing left but raw, aching need. "Yes—yes—God, yes—please, Jay."

"Please, what?" His cock drags against your sweet spot with every thrust, his fingers circling your clit again, faster this time. "Say it, baby. Tell me exactly what you want."

"Want you to cum inside me," you sob, back arching, thighs trembling. "Want to feel it dripping out—want to be so fucking full of you, Jay, please—"

That does it. His grip tightens as he snaps his hips forward, fucking you deep, no more teasing, just hard, filthy thrusts, skin slapping skin, his cock driving into your slick little cunt until the wet noises echo louder than your breathless moans.

"Fuck, baby," he groans, forehead pressing to your shoulder. "Gonna give it to you— gonna fill this perfect pussy up."

You moan his name like a prayer, clenching down so hard it makes him stutter, and then he's gone, hips jerking, cock throbbing deep inside you as he spills, hot and thick, cum flooding your pussy in pulse after pulse after pulse.

It's so much—the heat of it, the way his dick twitches inside you with every spurt, and fuck, you feel everything. The way his cock pulses, the way his cum paints your insides, so deep, so full, your body reacts before you even realize, pleasure slamming through you again, white-hot and all-consuming.

"Oh—fuck—fuck—"

Your whole body trembles, seizing up as you arch, as your walls clamp down hard around his dick, the overstimulation pushing you over the edge again, even sharper this time.

Jason groans, choked and wrecked, because he feels it. The way your pussy flutters, grips him like a vice, milking him, dragging out his orgasm as another thick pulse of cum spurts deep inside you.

"Shit, pretty girl—fuck—"

His voice is hoarse, breathless, hands locking onto your hips as he bucks up, rutting into you with slow, desperate rolls, like he's trying to fuck his cum deeper.

You're soaking him, your release gushing around his dick, slick dripping down to his balls, making everything filthy as you keen, breath hitching, body trembling. The pleasure is so much you can't stop shaking, can't stop gasping, every little twitch of his cock sending more sparks crackling through your limbs.

Jason groans again, deep and raw, his fingers digging into your skin, keeping you right where he wants you, his cock still buried inside, still throbbing, even as his hips slow, his whole body shuddering against yours.

"Jesus Christ, baby—" He swallows hard, head falling forward against your shoulder, voice thick, half-slurred. "Damn near killed me."

But he doesn't let go. He won't. His arms curl around you, holding you close, keeping you locked against him, cock still nestled deep, even as his cum drips out, thick and hot, making a mess between your thighs.

You both shudder, your pussy milking him for everything, his cock twitching, still so sensitive it makes him groan low in his throat as he grinds against you, lazy and slow. You're so full you leak around him, creamy slick dripping down his balls, sticky and hot, smearing where your thighs press together.

It's messy, obscene, perfect, and he loves every second of it.

He kisses your shoulder, still panting, his hand sliding up your stomach to cup your tits, lazy fingers playing with one nipple. "Still mad, baby?"

"Maybe," you mumble, face buried in the crook of his neck, completely fucked stupid.

Jason's laugh rumbles low in his chest, warm and rough and just so him, his lips pressing to your temple in a lazy, affectionate kiss. "You're a terrible liar, doll."

His cock slips free from your fluttering cunt with a slick, obscene noise, your pussy clenching reflexively at the sudden emptiness, already missing him even with his cum still leaking from your swollen slit. It smears down your inner thighs, dripping onto the couch cushion below, and Jason watches it like a man obsessed, fingers tracing over the slick mess he made of you before finally easing you down against him.

You whine, soft and spent, but you don't fight it when he turns you gently, pulling your smaller body right on top of his, the perfect little puzzle piece to his broad, muscular frame. Your skin feels like it's buzzing, every inch of you overstimulated and tender, but his hands are so gentle.

Big palms soothing up and down your back, warm fingers tracing lazy circles along your spine. His lips find your temple again, softer this time, and the two of you just breathe, hearts still pounding, somehow falling into the same steady rhythm.

You nuzzle into his neck, breath warm against his skin, and for a while, the only sound is both of you catching your breath, bodies molding together.

After a long, quiet moment, Jason's voice breaks the silence—rough, hesitant. "I'm sorry."

You blink up at him, your face blissed-out and sleepy, limbs heavy, but you still reach up, cupping his cheek, thumb brushing gently over the scar there. His hand comes up to cover yours, his palm dwarfing yours as he lifts it to his mouth, kissing your palm, his lips warm and soft.

"I'm sorry too," you murmur, voice soft, but Jason just shakes his head.

"Nah," he says, eyes flicking up to the ceiling like it's easier to talk to that than to you. "It was my fault. I just..." he trails off, breath hitching slightly, and for a rare moment, Jason Todd looks nervous.

You wait, patient and quiet, until he finally sighs, his grip on your hand tightening just a bit. "I never had this kind of love before," he says, voice so low you almost miss it. "Ever."

Your heart aches, and you squeeze his hand back, silently urging him to keep going.

"And yeah, I don't—I don't know how to behave sometimes," he admits, tongue flicking out to wet his lips. "I know it's wrong to be so fuckin' possessive. To assume you're mine just because I want you to be."

"Baby," you whisper, brow furrowing, but he keeps talking, like he has to get it all out before he loses his nerve.

"It's selfish and stupid," he says, frustrated with himself. "But I just... I never felt this way about anyone before. And it's fuckin' terrifyin', but it's also the best goddamn thing that's ever happened to me."

Your chest aches, soft and warm and so full of love for this man who's only ever known how to fight for what he wants, and now he's fighting himself, just to figure out how to love you right.

You tilt his chin until he's looking at you again, your eyes wide and soft and just a little stunned, because yeah, Jason's softer with you, you know that. But this? This vulnerability, this naked honesty, this is rare. This is the part of him no one gets to see.

"What are you talking about, baby?" you whisper, thumb tracing his lower lip. "I'm yours. You don't have to doubt that."

His eyes darken, something vulnerable flickering beneath the heat. "Yeah, but—"

"No 'but'," you cut him off, leaning down to kiss him—soft, sweet, no heat this time, just love. "I am yours, Jay. You don't own me, but I belong to you. And that's my choice."

His arms tighten around you, almost crushing you to his chest, but you don't complain. You just melt into it, letting him hold you like he's afraid you'll slip through his fingers if he lets go.

And yeah, maybe your pussy's still throbbing, and there's cum dripping down your thighs, and you both reek of sweat and sex, but right now? Right now, all that matters is this.

You shift slightly on top of him, just enough to press your lips to his chest—soft, lingering, right over his heart. It's steady beneath your mouth, a quiet, strong beat that reminds you he's here. And you hold onto that, breathing him in as you kiss him again, even softer this time.

Jason's hand slides up your back, fingers weaving into your hair as he cups the back of your head, guiding you up just enough to press a kiss to your forehead. It's so gentle, so sweet, and your chest aches all over again, tears pricking at the back of your eyes.

"I'm sorry I said I want you to change for me," you murmur, voice quiet and a little hoarse. "I didn't mean it like that. I just..." you sigh, fingers tracing idle patterns over his ribs. "I knew what I was getting into when we first met. I knew. And I thought that over time, it would be easier to just... I don't know... get used to the idea that one day you might not come home."

His hand tightens slightly in your hair, not enough to hurt, just enough to let you know he's listening.

"But it's not," you whisper, voice cracking slightly.

"I know," he says softly, his lips finding your temple again.

You exhale, shaky and uneven, and your voice wavers when you say, "I just want you to promise you'll always come back to me. I can't lose you, Jason. You're the only person in my life I've ever loved like this, and I just... I can't—"

The words catch in your throat, and you almost sniffle, but Jason's already there, tilting your chin up until you meet his gaze. And fuck, the way he looks at you—like you're everything, like you hung the goddamn moon—it almost breaks you.

He can't stand seeing you cry. Not like this. Crying because he fucks you stupid? Sure, any day of the week. But crying because you're scared of losing him? That kills him a little.

His thumb strokes along your cheek, brushing away the tears threatening to spill. "I promise, doll," he says, voice low and steady and so fucking sincere it hurts. "I'll always come back to you."

You nod, swallowing hard before you nuzzle back into the crook of his neck, letting his warmth wrap around you like a shield. His arms tighten around you again, holding you like you're his lifeline. And maybe you are.

And yeah, there's still mess between your thighs, and the couch probably needs to be burned after what you just did to it, but none of that matters right now. All that matters is this. Just you and Jason, skin to skin, hearts pounding in sync, holding onto each other like the world outside doesn't exist.

After a quick cleanup—you both do what you can with the poor couch, but honestly, there's only so much scrubbing that'll save it—you end up in the shower together, lazily soaping each other up with that vanilla body wash you love. Jason grumbles about how it's too sweet and not him, but the second you press your slick, warm body against his under the spray, he shuts up real fast.

Wrapped in clean clothes, smelling like dessert, you curl up on the couch, freshly dressed in one of his worn-out t-shirts that hangs off your shoulder and a pair of cotton panties. Jason settles next to you in his sweats, bare chested, all warm skin and ink as you tangle yourself around him like the needy gremlin you are.

A box of shitty pizza rests between you—a sad, greasy excuse for a meal, but somehow perfect for tonight—and some trash reality show plays in the background, the kind that makes you both question humanity.

Jason glances at you, his arm stretched around your shoulders, fingers tracing lazy circles on your skin. "So... we good?"

You roll your eyes, groaning dramatically, before leaning over to chomp a massive bite out of his slice, despite the fact you're already holding your own.

"You little brat," he mutters, shaking his head, but there's no real heat in it. If anything, the way he smiles at you—soft, warm, a little exasperated—makes your chest feel too small for your heart.

You just flash him a smug grin, mouth full of stolen pizza, and lean your head on his shoulder, sighing happily. "We're good, Jay."

And yeah, the couch will never be the same, and the pizza's objectively terrible, and the show's giving you both secondhand embarrassment. But with you curled into him, his arm wrapped around your waist, and your bare leg hooked over his thigh, Jason figures he might just be the luckiest motherfucker in Gotham.

[nochepsicodelica]

Bear Boyfriend Toji ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ ᕦʕ •`ᴥ•´ʔᕤ ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

You've been away for three out of the five days you took off work to spend time with your family. Toji stayed behind for work, but never went a day without letting you know how much he misses you and wants you to come home already. He calls and texts plenty, and you do the same, assuring him that you'll be home soon. He's made a habit of calling you at the same time every night. Two in the morning.

One fifty-nine became two, and as if he knows it's his cue, your phone rings and Toji's contact name appears over a picture of him sleeping on the couch, bundled up in blankets.

"Toji," you say, as if you're expecting an explanation for why he's calling so late. "It's two a.m., baby. What's going on?"

"Hey, pretty girl. I was just wondering when you're coming home," he asks, his voice deep and low, fitting for what time it is.

You let out a hushed laugh on the other end of the line. "The same day, Toji. You asked me this last night and the night before. I'll be back in two days."

He groans, frustratedly. Getting days as a response is the worst thing ever for him, right now. "That's forever from now. I'm starting to go nuts over here by myself. Can't you cut it short? For me?"

"Sorry, baby. I'll be home soon, I promise. I won't be leaving your side for a while. At least not because I want to."

He sighs, the sound riddled with his loneliness. "I fucking miss you, doll. I wasn't gonna do this today, but I can't sleep for shit without you next to me. What normally doesn't bug me when you're here, irritates the hell out me, now. Like the wind shaking the windows and my own tossing and turning."

"I'm sorry, love. I feel something similar to that, too. I hear when my parents open their bedroom door to use the bathroom and one of my little cousins is still up playing videos games right now." You smile when you hear Toji yawning obnoxiously. "I miss your suffocating bear hugs. I wish you were here to put me to sleep."

"Yeah? You miss being held tightly in my arms?"

You can practically hear the smile on his face. "I do," you assure, a smile of your own spreading on your lips.

"What else do you miss about me?"

You laugh at the tone he uses to ask the question. He's expecting something dirty, but you won't be giving that to him. "I miss your handsome face. You know those green eyes are one of my greatest weaknesses when it comes to you."

"Yeah? What else about me makes you weak?"

You hum, already knowing the answer. "Your soft morning kisses... the way you draw shapes on my tummy with your fingers when I can't sleep at night."

"Fuck, I really miss doing those things, ma," he mumbles.

The line goes quiet for a second, but his signal isn't choppy and he hasn't dozed off. He's imagining the softness of your skin and the little stars and circles he would be drawing on your tummy if you were there with him. He's thinking about the hushed bouts of laughter that would ensue when your energy and playfulness comes out at the wrong time—when you're supposed to be sleeping. With a sigh, he continues his restless conversation, spurred on by his longing for you to be with him.

"Come home to me, already. Please?" He sighs, heavily. He's never felt more like a child—unable to sleep without the presence of the person who brings him the most comfort. "Sorry. I'm sounding pretty pathetic here, aren't I?" He asks, a low rumble of his chuckle caught on the line.

"No, you don't, my love. I miss you like crazy, too. It's the longest we've been apart in a while and it seems like we're both going through withdrawals," you say, unable to hold back a small laugh. "Sorry, saying it out loud sounds kinda funny. Makes it sound like we're addicts out of context."

"Well, I'm addicted to you. Miss everything about you."

"Yeah? Like what?" You ask, fully prepared to hear him slip some of his dirty thoughts into it.

"Mm... I miss the way you sleepily kiss the scar on my lips, before you fully wake up in the morning, and the way you run your fingers through my hair when I lay my head on your chest after a shit day at work. And... of course i'm missing the pretty sounds you make when I get between your thighs."

"Toji," you chide, with a giggle.

"Sorry, sorry," he says, through a chuckle. "Just really miss you, doll. Call me dramatic, already."

"No. For what? Not everyone has a partner that would act this way after being apart for only three days. I'm just lucky like that. You love me?"

"You know I do. So fucking much. I miss your body against mine. Not even trying to be a horndog, I swear. Just want your warmth and your kisses back."

"I know, baby. When I get back, we'll cozy up together and take a nice, long nap, and when we wake up, we can do anything you want. Anything, okay?"

"Yeah, alright, doll."

"It'll be okay," you promise. "You tired?"

"Yeah, I'll leave you be so you can get some rest. Just wanted to hear your voice."

"We can stay on the phone," you offer. "'Fall asleep together, if you want. Or is that stupid?" You ask, with a soft laugh.

"Nah, nah, nah, that sounds good, ma. I'd like that a lot," Toji responds, encouragingly. He sets his phone down next to his pillow and puts you on the lowest volume of speaker. Your voice is more audible, but still only meant for him to hear. "You there, doll?" He asks, once he's settled into his comfortable position.

"Yeah. Ready to go to sleep?"

"Mhm. Love you, gorgeous. Talk to you tomorrow."

"Love you, baby. Goodnight."

Toji credits you for the way he was snoring within minutes. Your presence comforted him, even if the physical aspect of it wasn't with him. He spent a couple minutes just staring at the ceiling, but as time went by, his eyelids started feeling heavier, and there was no way he was going to fight it when that was what he needed help with all along.

[thestarsaboveme]

Reader thinks the Lads men are cheating with MC

masterlist

this was a request from a kind anon.

summary: angst with comfort, reader and lads men having a misunderstanding because reader is overthinking that they’re cheating on her with the mc since they always spend time with the mc and spending less time with the reader.

xavier ver. | rafayel ver. | zayne ver. | sylus ver.

caleb x reader | angst/comfort

There was a time when Caleb used to show up with your favorite drink before you even asked.

He'd call you ''pipsqueak'', kiss your forehead, and ramble about the most bizarre cosmic theories while you curled up beside him.

Now…the only thing constant was his absence.

And MC.

-

''I'm going out with MC again today,'' he'd said casually that morning, slipping on his jacket. ''She's got some readings I wanna help her decode.''

You nodded, trying to be supportive. ''Again?''

He glanced at you. ''Yeah. We've been making progress. She's intuitive. Gets the rhythm of it.''

You gave a faint smile. ''Right.''

He leaned down, kissed your cheek quickly, and said, ''I'll be back late, but I'll text you, okay?''

But he didn't.

Again.

-

You scrolled through your messages that night, seeing blue bubble after blue bubble with no replies.

Dinner's ready if you want to swing by.

Hope the readings are going well.

Are you okay? It's getting late.

Each one unanswered.

And then your heart twisted when you checked MC's social feed. Just a short video clip of her and Caleb, both laughing as he showed her something on a holographic tablet.

He looked happy. Relaxed. Engaged.

The kind of look he used to save for you.

-

It wasn't just tonight. It had been weeks.

You told yourself it was work. That MC was a client, a partner, a hero in her own right. Of course Caleb would be focused on her.

But even when you were in the room with him lately…you still felt alone.

Like he was always looking past you. Toward someone else.

You didn't even notice your hands were trembling as you typed the message.

I need to talk. Can you come over? Please?

It took six minutes for his reply to come through.

On my way. Give me 15.

-

He arrived exactly 15 minutes later, his hair wind-tossled, coat still half-zipped, and an easy smile on his lips that immediately faded when he saw your face.

''Hey…what's wrong?'' he asked, stepping inside.

You didn't answer right away. You just stood there, looking at him, trying to figure out where the boy you fell in love with had gone.

''You and MC seem close,'' you said finally.

Caleb blinked, confused. ''I mean, yeah. We've been working side by side for a while. Why?''

You looked away. ''Are you cheating on me?''

The words cut through the room like a sharp blade.

His mouth parted slightly, stunned. ''What?''

''I need to know, Caleb. I can't keep pretending this isn't eating me alive.''

He took a slow step toward you. ''Pipsqueak…no. I would never. Where is this coming from?''

You laughed bitterly. ''From weeks of watching you give her your time, your focus, your energy. And leaving me with scraps. From seeing the way you light up around her. From missing you when you're standing right in front of me.''

His brows pulled together, the easy charm in his expression replaced by something heavier.

''Is that really how you feel?''

''I don't know how else to feel. You don't look at me the way you used to. You don't see me.''

He ran a hand through his hair. ''I didn't know it had gotten this bad.''

''That's the problem,'' you whispered. ''You're so good at reading the stars, Caleb. But you haven't been reading me.''

Silence stretched between you.

Then, in a voice low and raw, he said, ''You're right.''

You stared at him, heart pounding.

''I've been out of sync. Focused on work. On helping MC process everything she's dealing with,'' he said. ''And I thought…I thought you were okay. That we were okay.''

''Because I didn't say anything sooner?''

''Because I wanted to believe we were solid enough to weather it,'' he said. ''But I see now I've been neglecting the one thing I can't afford to lose.''

You folded your arms tightly. ''So what was it, then? Just convenience? You two work well together, so I got put on the backburner?''

He stepped forward, voice steady but filled with something deeper. ''You were never on the backburner. MC is a colleague. A friend. Someone I respect. But you…''

He stopped, looking straight into your eyes.

''You're the only person I've ever loved without fear.''

Your breath caught.

''You think I'm fearless, right?'' he said. ''The charming one. The one who always has a line ready. But you terrify me.''

''Why?''

''Because you're real,'' he said. ''Because you see through all the masks. Because when I'm with you, I'm not pretending to be the guy who always knows what he's doing. I'm me. Just Caleb.''

You swallowed hard. ''Then why didn't you show me that lately?''

''I was scared,'' he admitted. ''That I'd burn out. That I wouldn't be enough for both of you. For her mission, for your heart. So I leaned into what I knew. Work. Banter. The stuff I could control.''

You looked at him, searching for the lie.

But there wasn't one.

''I thought maybe…'' you hesitated, voice trembling, ''you were starting to feel more connected to her. Like you admired her more.''

Caleb stepped forward again, slowly this time, until he was close enough that you could feel his warmth.

''I do admire her,'' he said honestly, ''But I love you. You are not the same. You'll never be the same.''

Tears welled up, and you turned your face away.

He gently cupped your cheek, guiding your gaze back.

''I should've told you more. Made time. Asked how you were doing instead of assuming,'' he said. ''And I know an apology doesn't erase the loneliness I caused. But if you let me…I'll prove I haven't forgotten how to be yours.''

You let out a shaky breath. ''I didn't need fireworks, Caleb. I just needed you.''

His eyes softened. ''Then let me come back to you. No shields. No distractions.''

You didn't respond with words.

You just leaned into him, letting his arms wrap around you.

Letting the quiet between you finally mean something healing.

[zephyrchama]

You were sick. Your head was in a fog and your throat hurt something fierce. It was sweltering hot yet you shivered under the covers, hoping for the fever to pass soon. Your body, doing its best to get better, decided to empty the contents of your stomach over the side of the bed.

Beelzebub was the first to discover your condition. He came to wake you up in person when you hadn't shown up on time for breakfast. You were teetering like a newborn deer trying to clean up your mess. He was taken aback at the sight, at how clammy you were, and gently wiped the sweat from your face while checking how warm your forehead was. "You should lay down," he recommended, practically pushing you back into bed. You asked him to guide you to the bathroom instead.

He disappeared to fetch Lucifer. The eldest arrived immediately upon being informed of your condition. Your face muscles twitched as you tried to hold back a second round and apologized for the state you were in. Lucifer told you to stay quiet and just rest. "If you want to apologize, then get better soon."

"Don't tell anyone about this, ok?" you tried to ask. It came out as a garbled, barely perceptible whisper sending bolts of pain through your neck. You didn't want anyone to know how bad things really were.

"I do need to inform Diavolo, but rest assured I'll keep it brief." After ensuring you had water and would be fine alone for a few hours, Lucifer left early to inform RAD of your absence. He later texted you, "Don't hesitate to summon me if you need anything."

The house was quiet. It felt surreal to be the only one there. After some time had passed, you hobbled back to your bedroom and tried to sleep through the pain. Blissfully unaware of the chaos occurring elsewhere.

RAD is no small academy by any means, but rumors sure do spread fast. In first period, Beelzebub told Belphegor the sight he witnessed. They were overheard by Asmodeus, who lamented your absence to Solomon. Solomon asked Raphael to come with him to prepare some nutritious human food so you'd recover faster, and had to be forcibly stopped by Simeon. Luke found out by interrogating Solomon about why he was causing a scene in the kitchen.

Mephistopheles caught wind of the gossip and went directly to Diavolo for confirmation. Lucifer was none too happy at the situation, but the rumor mill was already spinning in full force. He did his best to uphold your image by telling anyone who broached the subject, "it's just the sniffles."

By lunchtime, Mammon was taking bets on how sick you were. "500 grimm says they're explodin' from both ends." "If that were the case, one of us would have stayed at the house with them," Satan rebutted, spying an easy win. "500 grimm says it's just coming out the bottom." They went back and forth, with others occasionally chipping in new symptoms such as hives or internal bleeding. Asmodeus, unable to listen any longer, left the cafeteria to post vague stories about his concern for you on social media.

Leviathan and Thirteen sent you get-well-soon text messages. One was full of worry and asked you to respond ASAP so they knew you weren't dying, as anxiety over your condition was causing them no end of fear. The other assured you to rest easy knowing that your candle was fine and you had plenty of time left before you kicked the bucket. It even recommended passing your bug onto someone else for fun.

You only saw the notifications in the evening, when a pounding headache woke you up and resounding footsteps in the hall signaled that people were home from school.

There was a knock at the door and Lucifer announced you had company. The crown prince and his butler imposed with a tray of fresh herbal tea. It would have smelled amazing if you possessed the ability to breathe through your nose. As the door shut behind them, you spotted at least ten figures out in the hallway.

Barbatos silently served you a hot cup, hopeful the rising stream would assist your sinuses. "Looks like you're recovering well!" Diavolo chimed. "That's great. I feared you were going to heave your guts out all day."

The frank sincerity caught you off guard and you choked on your tea. Barbatos was quick to grab the cup before it spilled.

"You knew?" you rasped. "Oh yes. Lucifer said it wasn't that bad, but tales of your illness have spread all over campus. We know human bodies aren't very strong."

You hunched down into the blankets to hide. The heat spreading across your face this time was not due to fever.

[demon-at-peace]

DC + DP

Danny helped people. That was what he did. He protected others. That was his job. he ignored the little voice in his head that dreamed of visiting the stars. He did his job well. But it never ended.

"Help us," people screamed at him after they'd shot at him, and he did. They never said thank you. Not one. He helped them nonetheless.

"Help us," the ancients asked him after ignoring his place on the throne for years. After they pretended he wasn't worthy because he was still alive. (at least part of him was.)

"Help us," his friends asked as they applied to colleges. Colleges he'd dreamed of attending, colleges they promised they'd go to together. But he stayed behind, because people needed him.

"help us,' the newly dead begged, uncertain and lost. Just like him, unguided and stuck, wanting to move on. They did, moving forward. Danny remained behind tethered and lost.

"Help us," the GIW begged when the ghosts tried to declare war. Danny did, saving those who cut him open. There was peace once again. Still no one thanked him

"Help us," and Danny did. He helped. he didn't protect, he'd solved all their problems. Now he sheltered them, the little boy who dreamed of the stars stopped dreaming. Some days he'd dream. Not often.

Today was one of the few days, Danny was sitting watching, space was silent, Danny liked that. He was alone with the stars, the stars he'd reached but could never be his. Like something just out of reach on a shelf. Right there, your fingers brushing it but never close enough for you to grab it.

Danny wasn't held back by gravity but by people. By a job he never signed up for. A job he wished he could quit. Couldn't he though? wasn't it just a matter of saying no?

His thoughts were halted by the jerk of a summons. I'll say no this time, he decides. He arrives and waits there's a silence. And suddenly someone bows, others follow suit.

To him. The Ghost Boy. The fake king. The Halfa, a freak of nature. The boy who'd dreamed of the stars.

"High king phantom of the infinite realms," they began. And Danny stares. High King, he'd never been called that before, never with such respect. So he stares, at the man who looks like a wind could blow him over. With a name from the pits of hell and the magic to match it.

"Hellblazer," he whispers the name of rumors. The man startles surprised at being recognized. Danny studies them, he's waiting for them to say it. Demand it as every other has.

"We'd like to negotiate a deal," The hellblazer speaks with such confidence and Danny freezes. This isn't how it goes. This isn't how it works. People don't make deals deals, bargains, agreements, with Danny. They simply make demands of him.

"What do you want?" he asks already bored, waiting for the ridiculous request.

"Well we've tried everything," this time it's a man dressed in complete black who speaks, with a horned cowl, "But we can't defeat them so we were wondering if you could help?" he asks gruffly.

"Who?" he asks quietly.

"Darkside," the name is unfamiliar to Danny but the way the Hellblazer says it. "In return we're willing to offer a soul, or anything else you desire."

Danny stared at them in shock. A deal. They offered a deal, offering a soul for him to defeat a villain they'd tried to defeat,]. They were scared, terrified even. They ddin't tell him to help them. Didn't demand it. He didn't need a soul though.

He didn't need anything, but for once he didn't want to say no. ahe wanted something though. "A home," he speaks first, "A place to stay in this dimension," he specifies just incase.

"Thank you," the Hellblazer breaths, then holds out his hand. "Deal," he offers looking tired and relieved but a bit worried. Danny smiles wearily.

"Deal," he breathes, and magic fills the room, an oath, a binding one. "Guess I'll deal with your problem now?"

"I guess?" the hellblazer smiles and Danny leaves.

--

John doesn't know what to say, doesn't know what to do, the king is powerful, it hangs around him, heavy and soft. When he said deal though the room broke. The magic latched onto his and John didn't know what to say. It was gentle, powerful, and terrifying.

He left without a word, simply vanishing, but he was doing what he'd said, and now it was there turn. Guess he was going house shopping? "We need to fulfill our end of the-" he begans only to be interrupted.

"Done," Batman stares out the window in frustration. "It's by Fawcet so we have one hero constantly monitoring them."

"Why you don't trust him?" John asks sarcastically but the bat nods utterly deadpan..

"Besides they have the most heroes besides gotham," he says easily, "Gotham is cursed, and metropolis has too big a population to be risked."

The rest of the league doesn't argue with his logic the they look amused. "Let's just watch the fight," he grumbles seeing their expresions.

they do so without complaint and the fight is.... horrifying. the king is hardly trying, and Darkside is already down. The king stares him down with those toxic green eyes of his and smiles.

when he starts talking though is when John's blood runs cold. his voice is like ice, nothing like the whispery tone he'd taken with them, it's cruel and dark and angry.

"Help you?" he laughs, "why should I?" the king laughs. "I help people, when they ask nicely, I help people who say please and thank you," he scoffs. "Most don't."

There's a crunching of bones that makes John almost hurl. Or he would if he hadn't forgotten to eat lunch again. "Besides you should know already, I don't like killers, so have fun!" they grin as they wave and suddenly darkside is gone, all that is left is destruction. "

"Hello," the king greets them calmly and John shudders at the sight of him.

"We found a home," John says with as much confidence as he can. "Here's the address," the king smiles, it's surprisingly human.

"Thank you!" the king smiles at him as he passed and John remembers his comment about manners.

"You're welcome," he stutters as the king leaves again.

--

Danny stares at the house with wide eyes, it's large, warm and homey, in a rundown part of the city so he's less likely to be bothered. He smiles softly, until he remembers the fight.

Danny had lost his temper, but the way he said it. "Help me," an order, like he actually expected Danny to listen. Like he expected Danny to just obey. Danny was sick of that, he wanted to live. Wasn't that okay?

He didn't need to obey others, he wore a crown, a mockery of one but it's power was the same even if the title was mocking. He ruled the realms, every detizen had to obey him. He didn't use the power but still... he had the power.

Still he went overboard, he'd thrown him to the realms to be treating, certain that Frostbite would help. He finds a kept on the door, magic practically coating it, metallic and recognizable.

He smiles softly, the hellblazer wasn't who demons painted him out to be.

[yoiisa]

HIII SOFIE <3!

I wanted to makes wind breaker x reader request! How about one where their s/o is like WHIPPED for them. Like hear me out, they write about the boys like almost every single day and gush over pictures they took of them, their looks and literally every single move of the boys. They just SIMP so bad for them 💔💔

But, the s/o doesn't show this side that much. They think the wbk boys would be weirded out and try to control their overbearing affection, keeping it on the down low.

But then the wbk boys find their diary/notes app with like hundreds of notes/diary entries about the boys and like the gallery about them and whatever else. As for the conclusion, s/o dies from overheating!

And could you do this for Sakura, Suou and Kaji??

Thank you for reading💞💞

not a chalant bone in y/n's body . . . real tho

➜ sakura haruka is also short circuiting whenever he sees you ➜ the fact that you act so nonchalant in front of him just makes him angry because the least you could do for him is match his energy ➜ when he finds your diaries, he honestly is weirded out a bit, though not because he's shocked as to how much you love him ➜ after all he still knows that you care about him ➜ but he it shocked because he's like why the fuck doesn't she show it around me?!

"[name] are you ready yet?" sakura asks, leaning back on his hands as he sits on your bed. "Almost, I'm just gonna put some jewelry on first and then we can leave," you say rushing off into the bathroom. He sighs and calls out, "Togame told us to get there early so we could hang out with him before he has to work another stand. Hurry up!" "Yeah, yeah." He rolls his eyes at your dismissive tone and looks around your room. Suddenly, his eyes land on a notebook, left wide open on the floor. It's half tucked under your bed though, and Sakura bends over and plucks it up from the floor. In blue ink, all over beige colored pages, is your scrawls about him and the conversation you had yesterday: oh my god, sakura is so cute! today he asked me to come with him to a summer festival that one of his friends invited him to. he looked so sweet and shy AHHHHHHHH his face was all red and chubby i wanted to pinch his cheek and give him kisses oml he's perfect i'm so lucky to be his girlfriend!! You exit the bathroom and you're halfway through saying something, when those thoughts get thrown out the window. "Haruka! Why are you reading my diary?!" you cry, snatching it from his hand and practically chucking it across the room. "What the hell man?" "What hell me? What the hell you!" he says, his face the same shade as a fire hydrant. "What was that?" "W-what was what? What did you read?" you ask. "Your entry from yesterday!" he says and realization dawns on you. Oh, you'd been in a fit of cuteness aggression, and had haphazardly written down the entry. "Oh, that," you mutter. "Yeah, that," he says, and runs a hand through his hair. "How come you never talk to me like that? You're always so . . . normal around me." You giggle and turn his head so that he sees himself in the mirror. "Look at yourself. Look how read you are." When Sakura sees your point, he just nods and grabs your wrist. "Okay, okay, let's just go already."

➜ suo hayato instantly clocks the fact that you're faking how "normal" you are in front of him ➜ he doesn't really care that much though, because if anything it just makes you cuter in his eyes ➜ when he finds your diaries and flips through them, he only finds you even cuter! i mean who wouldn't ➜ you're literally waxing poetics about how mysterious and cool he is and it's the closest he comes to just bursting out into laughter

Suo walks into your bedroom after you, closing the door behind you. "Alright, these are the clothes I got yesterday," you say pulling bags off of your dresser. Your diary falls on the floor, but you don't notice it, to one-track minded on showing Suo the new shirts and skirt you got. "I'll go try them on?" Suo tears his eyes away from the diary on the floor and nods. "Okay." He watches you disappear into your walk in closet, and once the door is shut (perhaps against his better judgement), he picks up the diary and reads the page it opened up to: Dear Diary, I wonder if Suo actually likes me as much as he says he does. I know he's really sweet all the time, but I can't help feeling like this. Maybe it's just cuz he's so cool and . . . nonchalant (omg i can't believe I wrote that out loud). I try to match his energy as best as I can but still, sometimes I worry that I'm still too much. I just love him so much, I don't want him to think I'm boring. Hopefully he doesn't! He hears the closet door opening and chucks the diary behind him. He stands at attention as you step out, twirling as you show off the new maxi skirt you got. "What do you think?" you ask, but before you can even get another thought in your head, Suo comes up to you and hugs you tight. One hand wraps around your shoulders and the other cradles the back of your head against his chest. "I love you," he whispers. "I love you too . . . are the clothes that cute?" you ask sheepishly, slowly returning the hug. He smiles and kisses the top of your head. "Yes, [name]. They're cute, you're always cute." He pinches your cheeks as they turn red and kisses your forehead.

➜ kaji ren is more calmed down by the fact that you are so chill around him ➜ he doesn't feel as nonchalant around you though, so the fact that you are seemingly able to keep your head when he's around is able to keep him relatively calm ➜ however, that gets flipped on its head when he finds your diary ➜ when you stumble upon him after he'd looked through it all, he looks ready to completely combust ➜ it heavily triggered his cuteness aggression and he spends the rest of the day stubbornly holding your hand and refusing to let you go

Kaji barely got any sleep last night. He'd spent the night over at your house, and he was way too nervous to properly sleep at all. You went to bed around midnight, whereas he went to sleep at 2 AM. His heart felt like it was about to explode those entire two hours, but finally he fell asleep when his exhaustion outweighed his anxiety. When he woke up, you were already awake, sitting with your back to the headboard. You look down at him and away from the book you were writing in and smile. "You finally awake sleepyhead?" you ask, patting his head. He hums and nuzzles into your pillows. You laugh and say, "Okay, I'm gonna go to the bathroom first. I didn't wanna go while you were still asleep." You close the book and set it on the nightstand, before slipping out from underneath the covers. Kaji stays still in bed for a while, before he lifts his head and his eyes zero in on the book on your bedside table. He reaches for the book, curious to see if you were drawing something. He flips open to the bookmarked page, removing the pink ribbon and tossing it back over the cover. His eyes widen as he sees what you were writing. he's so cute, oh my god. he's sleeping right next to me right now, and it's the first time he's spent the night over at my house!! I hope he's comfortable, and not too cramped. Oh my god, his cheek is so squishy! Imma paste a photo later next to this page, but I took a photo of him sleeping and his cheek is all squished against the pillow. wait, lemme just . . . i just pinched his cheek! oh my god he'd never let me do that if he was awake, i win! Kaji slams the book shut, not able to read anymore. He puts the book back on the nightstand and practically jumps off of your bed. He leaves your bedroom and sees you exiting your bathroom. "Kaji, what's wrong? Why's your face so red?" you ask. "Did you pinch my cheek while I was asleep?" "Huh? N-no, why?" you stammer. "I . . . I just thought I felt something before I woke up," he mutters. There's no way in hell he's telling you that he read your diary. You find out still though, since Kaji didn't bother to put the ribbon back anyways.

[andorsdoll]

Like A Vow || Cassian Andor x Reader

Summary: You’re reckless. He pretends not to be. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. But Cassian Andor notices everything—especially you.

Word Count: 2.8k || Warnings: coworkers to lovers, super soft angst, smut at the very end, cassian is so tired but so in love, rough sex, oral(f recieving), p-in-v(unprotected), creampie, etc.,

Author's Note: First ever smut in my 20 something years of living and of course I choose Cassian for this. Are there any Cass stans out there? 🥲 Feel like nobody ever talks about him but he's so important to me. After this fic, I'll probably take a breather as I don't really have much else planned besides a few messy drafts. Anyways, if there's a single Cassian lover out there who reads this and enjoys it, it'd make my heart absolutely soar. Thx 4 reading, everybody!

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　

You weren’t expecting a warm welcome.

The Rebellion didn’t deal in courtesies. Every outpost, every mission—it was about efficiency, survival, and who was still standing at the end of the day. But still, you were expecting something more than this.

Cassian Andor doesn’t even look at you when you step into the command tent, at first. He finishes reading whatever’s on the datapad in his hand, brows furrowed, jaw set tight. You wonder if this is just how he always looks—on edge and bracing for impact. When he does look up, it hits you like a punch to the stomach. He looks at you like you’re a problem. Like you’ve already made a mistake by being here.

It’s the first thing you notice. Not his sharp jawline, not the rough stubble shadowing his face, not even the way he stands—feet planted, arms crossed, every muscle taut with something unreadable.

No, the first thing you notice is the weight of his gaze. Suspicion. Guarded. Calculating.

They had sent you here with little explanation—assist Captain Andor, integrate into the missions, follow his orders—but no one warned you that he’d look at you like this. Like he’s waiting for you to prove him right. You press your lips together. You were clearly not the ally he was hoping for. Tightening your grip on the strap of your bag, you speak for the first time, "You think I'm a liability."

Cassian’s steady gaze stays on you. “I think I don’t know you.” His eyes sweep over you, assessing. “But you’re not easy to trust.”

You've heard that before, from officers who kept one hand on their blaster and the other one ready to push you out of the way. From commanders who never let you forget what you used to be before the Rebellion.

You take a step closer, letting the fire in you flare just a little. “Guess you’ll just have to keep an eye on me then.”

Cassian’s jaw tightens. But he doesn’t step back. Though he doesn’t say anything after that.

━━━━⊱︎⊰━━━━

Weeks later on a mission, your boots are soaked through and the wind cuts sharper than it has any right to. You’ve been through worse—nights sleeping under damp tarps, mornings where frost settled into your boots before you could even lace them. But something about tonight’s cold sinks straight to your bones.

Now you’re standing in the cold pretending it doesn’t bother you. And Cassian notices. Of course he does.

He shrugs off his coat and tosses it at you with a flick of his wrist. You blink down at it, then back up at him. “I’m fine.”

“You’re shaking.”

“I’m—”

“Put it on.”

His voice is firm, but not unkind. Like he’s made a decision and arguing won’t change it. Annoyingly, that tone of his sends heat straight to your core, even as your breath fogs in the freezing air.

You stare at him a beat longer, breath puffing out white clouds, before exhaling sharply and sliding the coat over your shoulders. It smells like blaster oil and heat and the weight of him—sharp, worn, unmistakably Cassian.

━━━━⊱︎⊰━━━━

It takes a few days to make it to the next fallback point. The terrain is rough, the weather brutal, and morale is low. But it’s Cassian you’re watching. He’s quieter. He won’t look at you for long. He barely speaks unless it’s to give an order. And somehow that grates on you more than all the orders he’s ever given.

The fourth night, after yet another bare-bones meal for dinner, you slip away from the firepit and follow the faint sound of water. You find him standing knee-deep in the river, arms tense, shoulders bare under the moonlight. Cassian turns when he hears you. “You’re supposed to be sleeping,” he says.

“So are you.”

He doesn’t argue. You glance at the bruises across his ribs. The streaks of ash on his jaw and the ripple of tension he always wears on it like armor. “You’re hurt,” you say softly.

His gaze flicks to your arm, still bandaged. “So are you.”

You step into the river without thinking. The water is cold, biting at your skin, but you keep going until you’re close enough to reach for him. Your fingers skim over his shoulder, across a bruise forming high on his chest.

Cassian exhales, eyes fluttering shut for just a second. Then—soft, almost careful—“Don’t move.”

You don’t ask what he means. You don’t have to. His skin is warm under your palms, your gaze observes his face when he drags you a little closer. Your thumb traces a cut along his jaw. But, he catches your wrist. And then his lips brush the inside of your wrist, so lightly you could lie to yourself and say it was nothing.

“Cassian…” you whisper.

He stays quiet. He doesn't kiss you, even though deep down you want him to. Just presses in—closer than before—close enough to catch your breath, and stays there. And in the silence, only the night answers back.

━━━━⊱︎⊰━━━━

The next mission isn’t long, but it’s long enough for you to notice the way Cassian's eyes feel on you when you’re not looking. Enough for you to realize what’s been holding him back isn’t doubt but worry. Not about you. For you.

You’re crouched behind a low ridge one night, surveying a mining compound, and you can feel the air between you charged and tight.

“You’re quiet,” you murmur.

“I’m thinking,” Cassian says.

“About?”

“Extraction routes.”

You glance at him. “Liar.”

He doesn’t deny it. Just says, “You’re not easy to ignore.”

You blink, then look back toward the compound. You don’t answer—just let the corner of your mouth lift, and hope he catches it.

“You’re reckless,” he says after a moment.

You huff a quiet breath. “So are you.”

“Yeah, but you’re new.”

“Yeah, but I’m not stupid.”

“No,” he says after a pause. “You’re not.”

You watch him from the side. “Are you always like this with new people?”

“I usually don’t care about new people.”

You go still. Cassian’s eyes flick toward you. “I notice everything. You should know that by now.”He stands up, lingering just a little bit closer.

That night, you patch up a graze on his shoulder. He doesn’t pull away when your fingers brush skin. He watches you with his jaw tense like always.

When you’re done, he says, “Thank you,” and your chest aches with the effort of pretending it means nothing. But you’re both pretending. And the cracks are starting to show.

━━━━⊱︎⊰━━━━

The mission’s gone sideways in too many directions, and you're running out of clean shots and clean exits. But what gets under your skin isn’t the enemy fire, it’s the way Cassian keeps pushing ahead like you’re not right there beside him.

You cover him. Twice. He doesn’t acknowledge it. Just reloads and barks for you to move faster.

By the time you reach the rendezvous point, your heart’s hammering, your thigh’s bleeding, and your patience is gone. “I had that angle,” you snap as you duck behind a crate.

“No, you didn’t,” he fires back, checking the charge on his blaster. “You hesitated.”

“I was covering you.”

“I didn’t need covering.”

The tension crackles as loud as the blaster fire behind you. You don’t look at each other, you don’t have to. The frustration between you is too sharp, too close to something else.

Later, back at the safehouse, frustration follows you both in. He slams the door harder than necessary. You drop the intel onto the table harder than you should.

You don’t speak. But it’s all sitting there, tight in your chest, waiting to blow and the silence between the two of you gets heavier by the second.

━━━━⊱︎⊰━━━━

The mission went to hell. Again.

Cassian’s bleeding from his lip, your boots are caked in dust, and the intel package you weren’t supposed to have is now sitting in your bag—because you grabbed it first. He didn’t.

“I had it handled,” he snaps as you storm into the safehouse. “You didn’t have to blow our cover.”

You rip off your gloves. “You were pinned with a blaster at your neck. Forgive me for improvising.”

“You didn’t listen,” Cassian growls, flinging his arm out like he’s one second from losing it. “I told you to wait for my signal!”

You toss your gloves to the floor, scoffing. “You would’ve been dead if I had, Captain.” Your voice cuts—sharp and aimed to hit.

His eyes narrow. “You think you’re clever.”

You step in, a bit closer, voice steady. "No. I know I am.”

And then he breaks, finally. One second of silence and he’s on you, mouth crashing into yours like he’s trying to shut you up, like it’s the only way left to speak or reason with you. It's everything that’s been coiled tight between you two breaking loose all at once.

His hand grabs the back of your neck, anchoring you just before you’re slammed against the wall, breath knocked from your lungs, his mouth crashing into yours like he’s done pretending. Fingers in your hair, body pressed tight to yours, his lips trailing fire down your jaw and neck, every inch of space, gone.

“You don’t think. You act," He reprimands while he keeps trailing down, suckling, "Like you’re not mine to worry about,” he mutters against your skin.

“I’m not yours—” A moan from your lips cuts you off before you can finish when his mouth finds the curve of your neck and lingers there, sucking slow and deep until the skin heats beneath his tongue and you know it’s going to mark.

“You’re just pissed,” you breathe, thinking maybe this is fury, maybe it’s impulse, maybe it’s everything all at once.

“I’m in love with you,” he bites out. “It’s the same thing.”

Cassian’s chest rises fast against yours. He doesn’t pull back. You try to say something. Anything. But your voice falters again, and all that comes out is breath.

He reads that like a signal. One second you’re standing, the next he grips your thighs and lifts you, carrying you across the room with staggering purpose. You barely register the room spinning around you before your back hits the cot, frame creaking beneath the weight of your bodies.

He’s hovering over you, the heat radiating off of him. His breath, hands, mouth, are all over you like he’s making up for every second he had to wait.

His hands are rough where they want to be, but loving where they linger. He shoves your shirt up, palms your breasts, thumbs working slow circles until you arch into him. He strips you down fast, dragging your pants off with a growl, and you can barely think while you undress him too.

His mouth trails along your stomach, down your thighs, and when you whimper, when your hips lift instantly for him—he presses you down with both hands.

Steady. In control. Maddening.

His eyes drop—and for a moment, he just stares. Like the sight alone took the breath from him. His mouth parts, jaw slack, eyes glazed with something close to awe. “Perfect,” he whispers, almost like it wasn’t meant to come out. “Look at you…”

He lowers himself again, breath warm against your thigh, lips ghosting over your skin as he settles between your legs. His tongue starts slow and focused. You gasp as his tongue begins to lap up every bit of your slick. And when you moan this time, it's his name. But it sounds like a plead and it only makes him hungrier.

He devours you like he’s starving. Like he hasn’t tasted anything real since the war started. Like you’re the first thing that’s made him feel full in a long time.

His tongue moves slow at first with long, deliberate strokes from bottom to top, savoring every drop like it’s keeping him alive. Then faster, more focused, the flat of his tongue dragging over your clit with maddening precision, again and again, until your hips jerk under his mouth. He groans into you, the vibration sending sparks through your spine.

And when you're gasping, legs trembling, everything unraveling, you fist your hand in his hair and yank. His head lifts fast at that. He's looking at you with heavy lidded eyes, his lips glistening, chin wet. He’s drenched in you, mouth parted like he’s still tasting you. The look in his eyes is wrecked and ravished, like if you gave him one more second down there, he’d never come back up.

But you don’t give him the chance. You tug him higher, guide him with shaking hands. He groans when your fingers wrap around his length as you angle your hips and drag him toward where you need him most.

And then, he sinks in slow and deep.

When he finally bottoms out, his eyes are searching your face like he’s afraid he imagined it. Your cheeks are flushed, lips parted, eyes glazing over with pleasure—you look like everything he never thought he’d be allowed to have.

“Feels like..” he whispers, voice shaking. “Feels like you were made for me"

He pulls out slow—torturously slow—and then thrusts back in hard, with a sharp snap of his hips and you break open beneath him, undone and unfiltered.

Your breath’s caught somewhere between a gasp and a moan, but you still manage to say his name—barely audible, but a tantric prayer. He says yours in return, like a vow, like it's the only thing grounding him.

The cot rocks beneath you with every thrust, steady and relentless. Cassian's hands stay locked onto your waist while he fucks into you like he’s making up for every second he had to pretend this wasn’t real. Every thrust gets rougher, deeper, like he wants to live inside you.

You’re already close, the pressure building fast. Your nails dig into his shoulders, your breath catching on every thrust. “Cassian—”

He groans when you say his name like that, desperate and broken. His hand snakes down between your bodies, fingers circling your clit without hesitation, firm and focused. “I’ve got you,” he rasps. “Come for me.”

And this time, when he gives a command, it’s not like the others. Not barked out in the field, not clipped and tactical. This one’s just for you, just for now.

And you obey. It hits hard—your whole body arching, clenching around him, mouth open in a moan you can’t even bite back. He watches you fall apart like it’s the most important thing he’s ever seen. Like he’d die to make it happen again.

“Fuck—you’re squeezing me so tight" he mutters, voice unraveling. You grab his face and make him look at you. “Finish inside me.”

His jaw clenches, like he’s trying to hold it together. “You want me to?” He asks, looking down at you, so fucking beautiful, afraid that wanting it this much might break him.

You nod, eyes never leaving his. And that's all it takes for Cassian to let out a low, guttural groan while his rhythm falters. His hips snap forward once, twice, then he buries himself deep, gasping your name like it’s the only word he remembers.

He stays there, buried deep, breathing like he doesn’t want to leave this version of himself. One of your legs is still wrapped around his waist, trembling but holding him in place, like neither of you are ready to let go.

You can feel him still inside you—thick, spent, warm. His release already starting to leak out of you and around him, sticky and slow between your thighs.

“You’re reckless,” he mutters. Though it sounds like affection when he says it this time.

You hum against his skin. “So are you."

And still, he doesn’t move.

The room is quiet but the soft sounds of the cold night outside echo. The wind, the faint hum of crickets, and the distant rustle of leaves. It all feels far away. Like nothing exists outside this cot, this breath, this moment.

Afterward, when you’re trembling and tucked into his chest, you let yourself sink into the warmth of him. He feels solid, quiet, and safer than anywhere you’ve been in a long time.

Your voice is barely above a whisper, almost shy. “I didn’t mean that thing I said earlier… about not being yours.”

He kisses your temple. “I know.”

[unintentionalseductress]

"I don't know why people complain about sloppy seconds" with pervy professor nanamin after his favorite student shows up to class already creampied by someone else >_< pervy prof nanami drives me crazyyyy

My god people talking to me about pervy professor Nanami are gonna drive me insane, I love him so much. Are you the same anon that participated in the game and mentioned pervy Nanami with the ropes?

(it might be kind of obvious how much I enjoyed writing this. can't help it. I'd be his cum dump if I could).

"I don't know why people complain about sloppy seconds"

--------

You were his student. HIS STUDENT.

Kento knew better than to get involved with you but something just drew him to you like a moth to a flame. Maybe it was how you were so close to graduating but still looked like an innocent doe-eyed thing, your cute little skirts too short, those thigh-high socks you liked to wear so coquettishly inviting.

He knew you had a boyfriend, he'd seen you two hanging around campus, barely hiding his envy as the two of you got handsy and made out shamelessly in view of everyone. It should be HIM gripping your thigh like that. It should be HIS lap that you sat on while you made out. But with gritted teeth he kept his composure, keeping a cool attitude towards you whenever you were in his class.

Today however, he was distracted the moment you came in. You were walking differently, almost gingerly, like you were holding in a breath. You took deliberate, slow steps to your seat, putting your bag down then turned to talk to a friend, leaning your upper body on the desk. He swears you're doing it intentionally to tease him, to make him lose his goddamn mind, and that was when he saw it; your too-short skirt hiked just high enough to flash him a little strip of your adorable pink panties, a stain of moisture visible, bleeding into the back part of the crotch.

Jealousy hits him in the stomach like a strong punch, practically leaving him winded. You had dared have sex right before his class? With that annoying frat boy who was barely keeping a passing grade? And then had the nerve to flaunt your used cunt in his classroom? Oh, that simply wouldn't do. With a huge effort he grits his teeth and starts his lesson, unable to ignore how you kept squirming in your seat, clearly struggling to keep whatever load your boyfriend had given you inside, to keep it from dribbling into your panties and down your thigh...

It was merciful when he was able to dismiss the class. But he called your name. Your heart skips a beat as you hear his gruff voice but you turn around, wide-eyed and sweet looking, and he feels his cock tighten painfully in his pants.

"Kindly close the door and lock it."

Your breath hitches and you feel like your legs are wooden but you follow his instructions and approach him at the front of the class.

"Is something wrong?" Oh you poor, sweet, lamb, standing there without a clue as to what's going on in your professor's head.

"You need to be more careful of your attire," Kento clips out, not failing to observe the way your nipples hardened under your shirt as he spoke. So he did have an effect on you.

"Excuse me?" you ask incredulously. "Who are you to tell me what can and can't wear?"

"I can if half your cunt can be seen from under your skirt. Yes, that's right," he adds with a smirk as your face reddens. "I saw a lot more of you than appropriate. Were you being intentionally provocative, or are you unaware what an inappropriate length all your skirts seem to be?"

"You-you...!" You gasp at him in embarassment and slight shame, but heat pools in your belly at the knowledge that he had been privy to your upskirt flash. "You perverted old man! I'm telling the dean that you're preying on your students!"

"Hmm go right ahead," Kento says smoothly. "And I'll tell him you're flashing your cunt to everyone that will see. With the way you're dressed, I'm sure there will be no questions left. And to make it even more interesting, I might add that there were...questionable body fluids all over your panties. As a concerned professor, I was only expressing my concerns for my student's well-being." The smile on his face could not be more smug and you wanted nothing more than to wipe it off his handsome, chiseled, face.

"Is that all? You wanted to lecture me about my clothes?"

"Are you aware how inappropriate it is to come to class with another man's semen in your cunt?" He grins as you look gobsmacked, spluttering.

"I-but I!"

"You were very uncomfortable for the length of the class. I could see you squirming." The grin is positively wolfish now.

"How dare you! You have no proof."

"Then you wouldn't mind showing me your panties? Since you're so keen on proving your innocence."

His words send a thrill down your spine straight to your clit which throbbed under his scrutinizing eyes. You could've said no. But the predatory way he was looking at you, jealousy barely contained made you want to do something shocking and brash. With a huff, you stand.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Kneel on that desk chair." You do so, feeling a little turned on as you do so, then try not to react as Kento's large hands hike up your skirt, revealing the pink panties that were stained with another man's cum.

"So utterly shameless," he growls before bringing his hand down on your ass, the resounding smack satisfying to his ears as your cheek stained red, your squeal of shock echoing through the classroom. Kento covers your mouth and spanks you again, your squirms futile as the slaps filled the classroom. When your ass was perfectly red and bore signs of his handprints, he stops. There were tears in your eyes and you sniffle.

"Aw, is the little slut crying from getting a much needed punishment? Will you remember not to enter classrooms full of cum from now on?"

You gasp as he pulls the panties off, running his hands over your thigh-high socks, then coming to your front to cruelly pinch your nipples.

"Have you ever been fucked by a real man before?" One of his hands drops to your cunt and traces your lips. You whine and try to move, which only results in your earlier creampie trickling out of your cunt, dripping obscenely onto the chair. Kento's eyes go feral at the sight.

"Shameless cumdumpster of a whore," he whispers into your ear, almost lovingly. "Let me show you what it's like to carry a real man's load."

You hear his zip being undone and you find that you don't want to resist him. Your hot professor wanted to fuck you, and you were damned if you said you hadn't thought about it before. His tip lines with your entrance and he slowly spreads your folds apart, splitting you into two and he fills and stretches you. You whimper at how thick he is, how good he felt inside you.

"I don't know why people complain about sloppy seconds," he growls in your ear as he starts to thrust. "Pussy is all nice and wet and slick. You'd been needing a second fuck today hadn't you?"

You moan as he begins to rut into you with abandon, the noises filling the clasroom. "Professor..."

"Professor..." he repeats in a high-pitched mocking tone, the humiliation adding on to your arousal. "That's right, I'm your professor. And I own your cunt. You think your pathetic keg sucking boyfriend has any idea how to please a woman?"

His fingers find your clit and begin to circle it and you cry out, your vision going hazy.

"That's right...real men not only fuck their whores, they satisfy them too."

He continues to firmly stroke your clit and to your embarrassment, you cum sooner than you thought you would, the orgasm hot and intense, something your boyfriend had never been able to achieve. You sob in delight as your pussy flutters around his cock, setting his teeth on edge.

"That's right. Let it all out you pathetic slut. How many times were you fucked and left dissatisfied? When you could have been on my cock, getting off?" He sloppily thrusts into you, lewd wet noises filling the air, then with a bark, feels his ball tighten satisfyingly before emptying themselves into your pussy, hot ropes of thick cum filling the cavern.

"Don't waste it," he says as he withdraws, watching your hole pucker in an attempt to keep it all inside you.

"Now you can go to the rest of your classes knowing what it means to be properly fucked. Tell your boyfriend I said hi later, when he tries to eat you out and tastes only me."

(I am now horny. Any hot professors need a cunt?)

[reallyromealone]

Title: oh hey a mate(s)

Chapter: one

Fandom: obey me

Pairing: demon brother's x male reader

Warnings: suggestive themes, readers got truama, internalized gender hatred, anxiety, panic attacks, mentions of being a breeding tool, self hate, reader doesn't really understand sex, sexual themes, omegaverse, male reader, mentions of mpreg

🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️

"HE STOLE THEM FROM ME!" (sisters name) Screeched out in a rage as she threw things around "they were supposed to be MY mates! And he stole them! That whore stole them!" She was hyperventilating at this point as her body shook, feeling robbed of her alphas.

Of her life, the thing she wanted more than anything.

"I know sweety but maybe we can set you up wit--"" I don't want someone else! I want the princes!"

And she was going to get them.

She swore it.

'fuck you (name)'

Holy shit this place was big.

God he felt under dressed, especially beside these alphas who were dressed so fancy and perfect.

The floors were marble and two grand staircases winded on each side and paintings that had to be centuries old hung on the walls "we will have one commissioned for you soon enough... Maybe one with us all" Belphegor yawned as he wandered the halls "for now, let's get you settled in" he said and looked to a nervous looking Leviathan who nodded.

(Name) Was nervous as he walked beside the demon who seemed to want to be anywhere but here "I-im sorry if I wasn't who you were expecting... I'll try and not step on your toes" (name) whispered, anxiously fiddling with his fingers and looked down "i-i dont-- fuck... I'm really nervous and anxious and just I don't really talk to omegas often so I'm just--" the demon seemed panicked and (name) felt relief flood through his veins as he pumped out calming pharamones for the Alpha "hey... I get it, if it's any consolation... I'm not great with people either-- hell I think this is the first time I ever left my families property!" He laughed a bit but Leviathan was shocked at his words "you never been into the capital or even your home town?" He asked genuinely and (name) shook his head "nah, my parents didn't trust me going out there-- you know how troublesome an Omega can be"

What the fuck? That's all Leviathan could think as he looked at the Omega worried "I- you're not troublesome?" He whispered and (name) just smiled "I try not to be" (name) giggled a bit as they continued to (name)s apartment, the Omega expecting a quaint bedroom but...

"I think we went to the wrong room.... This is awfully big" (name) said softly to the envy demon who looked confused "you like your apartment?" Asmodeus popped out from nowhere and pulled (name) close with a flirty grin "we had the butlers being your things in, don't worry we didn't let them unpack... Pharamones and all that ~" he pulled (name) into the apartment and (name) felt overwhelmed by all this "there's a nesting room there~ if you need help don't hesitate to ask"

"A-are you sure?"

"Sure of what?"

"That this is for me?"

"You are to be our mate, I personally wanted you with me but Luci wanted you to have your own space... Something about acclimating" his words teasing and (name) chuckled but cut short when his stomach growled and the two demons looked curious "oh yeah! Humans need to eat for survival!"

(Name) Felt embarrassed as he silently cursed his stomach for exposing him like this as the demons looked at one another in a silent conversation.

They were definitely having a sibling meeting later.

(Name) Dissociated during the rest of the evening, eventually ending back in the rooms he was given, the size of his old house if not a bit bigger...

Everything was pristine as he took out his belongings, his prized possessions and small hobbies to occupy him.

A few heirlooms and books and his childhood stuffed toy 'this will go in my nest' he thought as he looked at the nesting room doors, two ornate doors in a rose gold shade, the apartment all light colors unlike the rest of the palace.

It was a strange contrast, almost like they didn't know what to expect so they just made what they thought humans liked. It was funny really, demons trying to understand what humans wanted or needed as he was doing the same, wondering what these demons wanted or liked.

Getting up he went to the nesting room and was overwhelmed by the nesting supplies he was given, piles and piles of blankets and pillows and soft things, his purring could probably be heard from outside the apartment as he snuggled into them, a sense of safety he wasn't quite used to washing over him.

He was excited to make a large nest, spending half the night making it perfect for him to rest in and just not think about the fact he was to be mated on his next heat to seven strangers that were also fucking royalty! Well there goes not thinking about it because here he was!

Also his sister! Holy shit she was mad! And like at his wedding she will be there! Fuuck!

(Name) Was just sitting there head in hands as he processed the fact that within 24 hours he was now engaged and now in the public eye!

(Name) Curled up closer into his blankets and let out a shutter of a sigh, he wondered if he would be able to do the things he enjoyed before... Would he be allowed to garden? Would he have to dress more Omegan? Or would he be able to wear clothes that were comfortable?!

He needed to walk, movement to process this.

Getting up he walked out of his apartment and into the hall, dark and grand, ceilings at least 15 feet tall and paintings lined, some he recognized as the siblings and some unfamiliar as he walked around curiously.

Somehow he made it to the kitchen "I hope they don't mind..." (Name) Whispered as he sliced an apple, careful and gentle as his stomach growled a bit.

"Can I have some?" A voice startled him out of his thoughts causing him to slice his finger "shit!" The voice said and (name) looked to see Beelzebub who in turn looked a bit startled as he took (name)s bleeding finger and put it in his mouth, the Omega looking thoroughly concerned as Beelzebub sucked on the blood "I feel like this is incredibly unsanitary" (name) whispered worried and beez released his finger "demons saliva can heal amongst other things, depends on the demon really"

"Oh " (name) said dumbly as he looked at his wet but healed finger "what else does your saliva do?" He asked curiously and Beelzebub smiled at the others cute and curious expression "ah, well besides healing my saliva can work as an aphrodisiac if ingested!" (Name) Looked concerned and Beelzebub laughed "don't worry, it only works if I were to like make out with you or eat your ass!"

And now (name) was flustered as the gluttony demon kept laughing at his embarrassment "so why are you up so late?" Beelzebub asked after calming down and sealing some apple slices and cutting up some more, handing (name) an orange "just... It's stupid"

"Oh please!" Beelzebub pushed and (name) sighed "I'm just... I'm having trouble processing this stuff, it's stressful and like-- I never left my property let alone this! My sister wanted to be with you guys and she's already insufferable, this is just worse! I'm just paranoid that you guys are going to realize that like this was a mistake and reject me and like the fear of being an Omega in general! Will I be able to do the things i enjoyed before? Will I be a breeding tool?!" He was hyperventilating now as Beelzebub panicked "hey hey, calm down! It will be alright and-- no we aren't making you a breeding Omega.... shhh" beez tried to calm him as footsteps quickly made their way to the kitchen.

"What is happening?" Lucifer and the others seemed startled as the smell of distress was heavy in the kitchen "he's worried we will strip him of his rights and make him carry our young" Beelzebub explained as he lifted (name) into his arms and set him on the counter "were demons but we aren't monsters" Satan said disgusted and Asmodeus smiled "we would never do that unless it's what you're into~" he teased the Omega as they crowded him "I know it's an incredibly hard adjustment but know we mean well, it's literally impossible for us to not fall for each other" it's true soulmates would eventually fall for one another due to the bond "and we are sharing one mate so that means you have seven people to love you" mammon said in a rare moment of genuine care "what do you mean?"

"Oh yeah, he knows basically nothing about secondary gender or soulmates" Levi said softly and the demons looked horrified "well I know what we are doing tomorrow" Satan said simply and (name) looked ashamed and couldn't meet their eyes, feeling stupid for his lack of knowledge.

"Well his town is backwards" Belphegor yawned and wandered off back to bed now that the problem was solved "goodnight...."

(Name) Was led back to his room by Beelzebub and Asmodeus and looked confused when they put sweaters in his arms "the smell of your alphas will calm you~" Asmodeus said simply and the two wished him a good night.

And for once?

He sleped peacefully.

(Name) Spent the next few days learning about soulmates and secondary genders, the two interlocking "when your heat comes, it will be dangerous for you to not mate with your soulmate" (name) read the book in his off time, the book explaining how the bonding is key to not cause rejection symptoms or a drop, he definitely didn't want that. Fuck how does he have sex? Fuck.

Time to go figure that out, he really felt behind on this shit.

(Name) Made home in the library as he looked for any books that would aid him "Hmm? Looking for sex books ~ didn't know our omega was like that" Asmodeus seemed to love just appearing out of thin air and scaring (name) who dropped the book "i-i it's not like that!"

"Hmmm? And what is it about? Oh you're so cute when your flustered!" He cooed and (name) huffed "I am trying to figure out like, how sex works and stuff... I wasn't exactly taught... Just put on suppressants so my family could avoid it" he just constantly felt ashamed with them, their faces of realization and pity as (name) tried not to cry "well, if you like I could teach you~ don't worry I won't touch you where you don't like" Asmodeus could get used to his omega so flustered as he got closer, his alpha giddy at his mate being untouched "the first thing one should know is their body after all~"

"I- uh... I'm not sure..."

Asmodeus let his lips barely touch (name)s as he caged him against a bookshelf and smiled, his tail flickering and (name) seemed a bit startled by it All as the demon gently kissed him "that was... Uh.." "your first kiss?"

"Yeah..."

"Did you like it?"

(Name) Could only nod as the lust avatar giggled sweetly at his adorable Omega "oh, you're going to fit in nicely here~!" He doted on (name) a bit "don't worry darling, we won't do anything your not ready for but if you're willing... To experiment a bit, I'm always a summon away" and with that he was gone, (name) left with nothing more than the smell of his pharamones, sweet Jasmine and warm vanilla.

It wasn't till after lunch that Lucifer brought him to the gardens, a small greenhouse and a garden plot stood "we had it cleaned up, you said you liked gardening" he said simply and looked down at (name) who looked like he was given the potion of youth "really? Thank you so much..." (Name) Was releasing the happiest pharamones and Lucifer kept composure but god damn did that boost his ego as an alpha, making his mate happy.

"Just clean yourself off after you finish" Lucifer said calmly and (name) beamed at this "of course!"

(Name) Puttered in the greenhouse and began planting things, thankfully it was early in the season so he had time to make a nursery for plants "oh, sor--" (name) immediately shut up as he saw Belphegor sleeping in a sun beam, cozy and calm. Looking around (name) found his cape that Satan had made for him and covered the demon with it "it's still chilly" he whispered and went back to work, unaware the demon was awake and watching intently at the Omega who was carrying heavy pots and sacks of soil around.

(Name) Kept quiet for the Alpha, he must be so exhausted to fall asleep in a greenhouse of places so it would be best to let him rest! Eventually (name) moved outside, it was less chilly but a slight chill but movement will keep him warm! Using twine he found in the greenhouse he sectioned spots of the garden plots for various things like carrots and garlic amongst others, they were still in the nursery but it's good to get things ready now, he reasoned with himself.

"Your Highness! It's quite cold!" A servant panicked as she saw (name) in nothing more than a shirt and pants and apron, dirt on his cheek "don't worry! I'm alright!" He reasoned but she was not having it and removed her cape "it's not good for an Omega to be cold like this!"

Before she could drape the cape on (name), he felt fur on his shoulders as Mammon smiled with a warning "don't worry, he's warm" his eyes telling the servant to leave and (name) looked confused "oh hello!" (Name) Smiled at the demon who felt annoyed at how sweet the other was, his bond making his heart beat fast "Luci wanted me to take you into town so get ready" he grumbled and (name) nodded, a simple smile on his face as he wandered to the palace "where's your cape anyways?! It's freezing for mortals!" He chastised and (name) chirped "Belphegor was sleeping and I wanted him to be cozy!" (Name) Couldn't explain why he felt so calm and comfortable with the princes but they made him feel safe, even if they were sometimes like angry chihuahuas.

"You're weird" mammon said with no bite as they walked to (name)s area.

The tailors and seamstresses worked tirelessly to put together some clothes for (name) and his new class, the maids commenting about how the seamstress always kept embroidered sleeves on hand as the brothers always tore clothes during training--- well save for Asmodeus and Belphegor who couldn't be fucked to do stuff like that.

(Name) Felt regal, a beautiful vest made of silk and embroidered with birds and roses and a linen powers shirt and nice pants and expensive boots "you look wonderful your Highness!" A maid commented, (name) growing fond of his personal maids who cheered him in, them all being mated and married betas.

(Name) Was curious as he looked around the city, never really interacting with so many people who looked at he two in awe, the guards keeping a fair distance as he looked at stalls "you seriously never been in a city?" Mammon said incredulously and (name) looked confused "no? It's not right for an Omega to be by himself around alphas, I would be a temptation" reiterating his parents words and Mammon was horrified at the omegas genuine belief that HE was the problem and not alphas who couldn't keep their hands to themselves "well we are unpacking that later"

He didn't even want to get into the family thing, remembering the chat he had with his brothers when (name) had his meltdown and the acceptance that their Omega came from a very problematic living situation but he seemed to be acclimating well.

Or at least he hoped.

Mammon was confused as (name) handed him a stuffed bunny "what is this?" He raised an eyebrow from behind his circular sunglasses "well we didn't get to actually court because of being soulmates so I got you all courting gifts" he chirped out innocently, remembering what he was taught by Lucifer and deciding to put it in action though he seemed to have gotten it backwards as it was supposed to be the Alpha who gave the courting gifts.

"I- uh... Thank you?"

(Name) Seemed pleased as they continued their walk through the cities market, a giant hub of the equally giant city as Mammon stared at the bunny that was made of fabric the same color as his eyes, a small detail that made him flustered.

He noticed (name) budgeting, a soft smile on his face "you know we have basically endless money, right?" Well mammon didn't, he was cut off and put on a strict budget but (name)? He still had his money privileges "that's your money, this is so much!" To (name) it was a lot of money as he did the budgeting of the house back with his family, this was ten times of what they made in a year! "I am fine with this"

Hell, how did they get the exact opposite of them?!

A nervous Omega who was innocent and naive and sweet as honey!

"Oh you are absolutely precious!" Asmodeus cooed at the stuffed rabbit that fit in his hands "I hadn't even thought of courting!" He said with exaggerated sadness and (name) watched the others alphas reactions, though it wasn't the fanciest courting gift, it was a genuinely thoughtful one.

"He was worried about spending the money, he literally budgeted it" mammon groaned and Lucifer snorted "you could do well to learn that" he said as (name) seemed reminded and handed him back the coin bag, the Omega barely dented it "I got a few things for my hobbies but I brought back the change!" He said sweety and Lucifer had cute aggression at that moment as (name) looked at him with so much pride "you know you could have spent all of this right?" He said a little slow, (name) nodding "but that would be rude, I'm spending all your money without care... I don't like that"

Seriously, how did they manage to be fated with the sweetest Omega?!

"He didn't even but himself actual things for himself! He bought things to make us things!" Mammon groaned out but they all knew he equally swooned at the fact their Omega was so sweet.

But also he didn't buy himself anything, Asmodeus has had to bring him to eat and Beelzebub would put food on it.

"Rural Omega culture is different than cities, they're treated more as a commodity" a maid explained to Asmodeus one night as she helped him get ready for bed, she herself being an alpha from the boonies "an inconvenience would be a better word though, everything your saying shows he was treated like how my love got treated, need to make them feel genuinely valued" she went to explain how omegas need regular scenting and assurance to keep mentally regulated and (name) probably never had that.

Which would explain why he seemed like he was constantly waiting for the next shoe to drop despite growing used to them.

Like it was all going to go away.

His dreams were often that, every night he dreamt of waking up in his old room as his sister lived the life she wanted and he was stuck in that musty bedroom where he would rot.

"Your dreams are noisy" Belphegor mumbled as he crawled into bed with (name) and held him close, pumping out pharamones as he thought smugly about the fact he's technically been in bed with (name) before the others. (Name) Snuggled in his chest and physically relaxed, chirping in his sleep as he clung helplessly to him and he was hooked.

He wanted this more and was already annoyed he would have to share with his brothers.

(Name) Let his mates to be plan the wedding though he and Beelzebub thought of food together, the demon horrified at how little foods he got to experience and made him try everything for the wedding and smiled at his happy face with good food "these are mirangue cookies! Like eating plaster that loves you!" He exolained and (name) basically melted at now delicious it was.

Beelzebub was more than happy to share food with him, his alpha wanting the Omega to be well fed to carry his pups after all.

They were all anxious for mating, their bond slowly making them VERY intense about (name) who after weeks, finally sat close to Satan as he read with him though (name) did struggle a bit "omegas being taught to read is laughable, I taught myself as much as I could" he explained and that's when Satan decided he would read for (name), the two spending an hour or two in the library reading together like how Lucifer spent his time teaching (name) new things when he wasn't busy or just dragging him along with things.

(Name) Was always well behaved, he thought of (name)s family and how they were... How did this come out of THAT.

But now, (name) had one worry...

Would he invite his family to his wedding?

[felassan]

David Gaider on Alistair, under a cut for length:

"Ah, Alistair. Depending on who you ask, he's the adorable woobie with the biggest heart or the irritating, over-used man-child. Yes, he is indeed all of those things. Good characters have flaws to go with their virtues. Ugly spots. That is literally their humanity. He was a bit of a bear to write, at the outset. James (Ohlen, the first creative director on DAO) had this idea he needed to be a grizzled Warden veteran - older, distrusting. Everyone hated him instantly. I call this the Carth Onasi Problem, and suggested to James that maybe I try something else. My observation says that the characters who are generally liked the most are the supportive ones. Enthusiastic. Funny? Sometimes, sure, but that's *not* required. I need to digress. See, at the time James had this (regrettable) period where he believed everything could be derived from a formula. He even sold this idea to the founders, Ray and Greg. Google 'BioWare formula'. Anyway, how this relates is because James thought the DAO cast needed a Minsc: a comedy character who would become super popular and, ideally, the icon of DA. "Isn't that Alistair?" you ask. "Arguable," I say, "but no." James had me to up a huge list of 'comedic archetypes' and I wrote some possible dialogue for each one. Then he had the team vote. The winning archetype? The Buffoon - like Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin. James was pleased. I was not. "The problem," I said, "is I don't find the Buffoon funny." 😅"

""But you're a professional." "Sure, I *can* write him... but comedy isn't science. I need to find him funny. If I write him, the only comedy I'll mine is where he makes fun of himself." James took that on board and then passed the character onto someone else. The result? Oghren. I rest my case. So back to the supportive character: that was my thought for a new Alistair. It was a special case, after all - the DAO PC was thrust into a terrible situation. They needed someone who had their back. A bud. A *likeable* bud. I was watching Buffy at the time, and my thoughts drifted towards Xander. Now, I know Joss Whedon is persona non grata these days, but this was 2006, OK? I was watching Buffy and thought, "man, Xander is such a wasted character" and considered how to fix him. Then I realized this might work for Alistair. Plus, I wanted to see if I could replicate the Whedon vocal patter. That was the new Alistair: a more useful and likeable yet equally dorky version of Xander. We had very strict rules in DA about language: no modern speech styles, colloquialisms, any words that came into use in our world after 1900 got severe side eye... but Alistair? Alistair got a blanket pass. Was it great that the lead writer's leading man got to break the rules? I guess not, but it's my opinion that you can break those kinds of rules - selectively, in small doses. Too much and you break the illusion. And it worked. Alistair was an instant hit. Not just with the team, but with the fans."

"Confession time? Yes, I knew Goldanna wasn't meant to be Alistair's mother. But neither was Fiona, originally. I think fans caught wind of some revisionism at work, and OK it's true. I had a more Arthurian idea for his birth but I stopped liking it... yet not soon enough to go back and make edits. Should I have just left it be, left Goldanna as his mother? Maybe. It was one of those writer things I just couldn't let go of and I probably could have used someone to sit me down and go "Gaider, please. Just stop." I still like Fiona, and where I took it. But I probably shouldn't have gone there. Casting Alistair was SUCH a chore. He required a weird mix of devilish charm, but with enough sincerity and adorkableness it didn't come off as smarmy. Every audition went full smarm... until Steve Valentine up and appeared out of nowhere. In the midst of a batch of audition files, there he was. We brought Steve in "just to try out", and he pulled it off. Even the "frog time" line, which (seriously) nobody else could. And when he got to the romantic lines, Steve's voice turned into pure butter without, again, sliding into "oh, he's slightly creepy". Both Caroline and I were sold. And he was so gloriously easy to write. It's a well I'd probably return to... a bit too often, maybe? Maric, then Anders in Awakening, and then Alistair kept popping up in future games and the comics because, yes, he was pretty much the breakout comedy character of DA. Which still makes me happy. 😁 CORRECTION: Goldanna was someone Alistair thought was his *sister*, and her mother his mother. Look, it was almost twenty years ago, OK? 😅 --- I actually had a whole scene written in DAI where Fiona tells him, but the requirements were so specific for them both to be in Skyhold and it seemed like it'd be relevant only to a small small sub-section of fans (and confusing to everyone else) so it was dropped. Rightfully so, I guess."

[source thread]

User: "The Buffy vibes were strong in DAO and I was very happy with that at the time. What I loved about DAO was the mix of dark themes entwined with bits of levity. That's how I like my angst. Dark, broody with a side of ha-has and y'all delivered in DAO for sure." David Gaider: "That's a me thing. I like going dark - really dark - and then pairing it with light, comedic moments. It provides peaks and valleys in the tone, and prevents either from becoming overwhelming. Hey if it worked for Shakespeare (alas, poor Yorrick), it can work for DA, right? 😉" [source]

[tossawary]

I have about 10k of fic that's about as far from SVSSS as I've ever written, taking greater inspiration from fics I've written before, which I've been using as writing warm-up. It's a pre-canon third transmigrator AU from the outsider's perspective of Linguang-Jun. (Linguang-Jun having a great reputation as a hunter is something that I originally came up with for the Stardust AU.)

Like SVSSS Mobei-Jun, Linguang-Jun is fun to write because he sucks pretty bad; it's a LOT of fun to try and write a setup for him that's going to explode eventually (not yet, but eventually, inevitably) and in a specific way. How many parallels can I draw? I think it's amusing to think about how the cringefail ballad of Moshang and all the rest of SVSSS is taking place in the crater where Linguang-Jun's dreams used to be. (That happened to my buddy Tianlang-Jun, too, now that I'm thinking about it, and he decided to make that everyone else's problem.) Such is the life of a mere background character!

I don't know when I'll be posting this to AO3. I don't like to post WIP there unless I can fully focus on them. If I don't continue this story, I'll post it eventually to AO3 as an open-ended one-shot or something. But for now... Enjoy!

Warning for minor character death and graphic violence (and vomiting) in the first part, and also unpleasant demonic attitudes to things. Everyone but Linguang-Jun is an OC.

Chapter One: A God's Spear

There is no greater feeling in the world than the long thrill of the hunt. 

Chasing their prey, they become the laughing winds rushing across the yellow steppes, howling at the heels of the thundering herds, even felling centuries-old pines that have bent for every natural storm but never broken before. They send corpse after corpse of scavengers squawking and flailing for their lives. 

Mobei Yang cannot wait to sink his teeth into the monster wrecking its way across the northern kingdoms. They are chasing a Giant Sea Heron... or rather: the creature that used to be one before it met a hole in the world. Did it breathe the poisonous gases too deeply? Did it feed on the vent's escapees too hungrily? Did it become mesmerized by the shimmering chaotic energy and allow itself to dream where reality itself is torn apart? 

Who knows? Who cares? Mobei Yang's lordly brother doubtlessly hadn't cared to ask the babbling messenger either, before waving the lesser demon on to younger men who can truly appreciate the unique challenges of what an unstable Abyssal gateway can create. 

Already two times the height of a large man, the creature has swelled in size to become twice as large as that. Its brown neck has thickened, its dark head has grown a sharp and lopsided crest, and its unnaturally elongated beak is now the same size as the rest of its body, perhaps, a god's spear capable of swallowing grown demons whole. The giant creature needs its folded, white wings to walk along the ground now, almost like a large monkey or a small bat, but it struts slowly along not unlike a long-necked antelope. 

All the Giant Sea Heron does now is eat: struggling to grow, struggling to sustain its growth, struggling to fill the endless hole that's crawled inside of its core. It has left a bloody, dissatisfied trail behind it. Which the breathless messenger claimed had started with its own former mate and eggs, the messy remains found abandoned in a nest on a high sea cliff. 

The giant creature looks so heavy, lumbering awkwardly around the corpse of a Black-Moon Rhinoceros - the crescent of the horn is unmistakable - to jab its long spear back into the dark guts and yank it apart. Ah, it's picking one of those parasitic snake demons out of the body. 

Its eyes have become enormous, bulbous; they have a sickly pale color and are rimmed with mucus. Abyss-touched creatures are often sick, like Abyssal creatures themselves are often blinded by sunlight. The giant creature doesn't seem to notice anything as a brown fox darts out of the tall grass and steals a piece of the kill that had been tossed aside, nor does it care anything for the circling black vultures that aren't yet nearly so brave. 

Just looking at it, one wouldn't think that the elephantine creature is still hollow-boned enough to fly! Yet when their hunting party ambushes it, the giant creature somehow vaults itself into the sky, folding hideously in on itself and then launching upwards in an ascension even more unnatural than a human's. 

Mobei Yang watches its heavy wingbeats take it high up into the heavenly clouds, beyond the easy reach of most demons. All of their hunting prowess, all of the joy they have spilled on their skill, leaves them with nothing today. But this is nothing! When his faithful followers look anxiously towards him for direction, Mobei Yang is the first to laugh at their failure, at the renewed challenge, and they soon echo him. 

"Any excuse to extend a hunt is a cause for celebration!" Mobei Yang shouts, receiving a gleeful roar in response. "If you want a meal that doesn't fight back, then go back to the Ice Palace, cowards!" 

They don't find it again that day, but the mood is still good when they make camp, freed from the dullness of the courts. At home, Mobei Yang is a prince, sought after and respected, but also one among many formidable clan members working to keep his elder brother's favor. On the hunt like this, he might as well be the Lord of the Northern Desert already. 

The wind picks up as the sun sinks. The clouds darken and writhe against a beautiful, burning sky. Shuang Tao, his right-hand, a frost wind demon, loudly and laughingly recalls some of their best kills, their most daring and reckless feats, over the years. A blur of memories now. 

Mobei Yang knows a great deal about the habits of hunted creatures, but this one is new, even before it became the only thing in the world like it. Weak-minded creatures and demons touched by the Endless Abyss tend to go uselessly mad: short memories and shorter tempers and a thin grasp on reality if any. He's hunted Emperors of the Abyss before, those malformed masses of demonic energy that die with every step they take out of their pits, and White Sea Whales, their clever and vindictive cousins that never took man-shaped forms. 

"I'm preparing myself for disappointment, really," Mobei Yang drawls, accepting a new cup of wine. "But ahhh, that skull will look beautiful in the West Wind Palace... hanging over the hall, I think." 

As they were watching the ruined creature, it must have seen them. It must have been watching them as well. In one moment, Shuang Tao is toasting the evening and tomorrow and every hunt after. In the next moment, the setting sun vanishes all at once, as the Giant Sea Heron falls on them like the wrath of the heavens. 

Its enormous beak spears through a demon before it lands with a heavy thump, before any of them know it's there, and a second demon rolls away from the continuing jab. Not fast enough to escape the sharp drawing of blood. 

The Giant Sea Heron's massive wings crash through the camp as it lands. Mobei Yang is knocked head over heels into the grass and dust. His wine spills everywhere. 

Mobei Yang rolls with the blow and recovers quickly, unharmed, of course. And he is the first to summon his weapon and strike back, hastily followed by his hunters, but the creature is well-fed, unflinching, faster than something of its size should be, lunging like a snake. 

Its spiritual energy is unleashed with its battering wings: it's foul, rotting, almost overwhelming. Ice spears and arrows don't seem to pierce its feathers at all. Hastily formed spells break easily against the burn of its spiritual strength.

Shuang Tao throws an ordinary spear, whistling with the wind behind it, and manages to draw blood from its featherless  leg. But the wound is glancing, a shallow cut in surprisingly thick skin. 

"Mire it!" Mobei Yang shouts, summoning ice around its feet. The ice is too weak, too slow, cracking open immediately. 

He dodges its long beak, its heavy wings, its beak again. It seems fixated on him more than the others - not uncommon when dealing with spiritually starving creatures, it wants the most meal - but it still gets distracted when another hunter tries to rope its wing. It pulls on the wing up sharply, pulls the unready hunter into the air, and then spears the weak demon through with its long beak. 

It's much cleverer than Mobei Yang thought that it was. Much stronger. Not clever enough to live, but still annoying, still thrilling, still enough to bare one's teeth. 

Mobei Yang dances towards Shuang Tao's fallen spear, flips it up with his foot, catches, and then launches it towards the creature's swirling eye. 

His aim is true! Of course! The Giant Sea Heron screeches and thrashes like a dying thing, but the spear clearly doesn't punch deeply enough to hit its brain. The spear falls out in the thrashing. Messily. 

The remaining ten hunters have formed a circle around the Giant Sea Heron, ready just out of easy reach, making it more difficult to kill them all quickly. One of the other hunters makes a second spear-throw for the other eye, not nearly so beautifully. The creature ducks blindness easily and screeches. Its raised feathers crackle with resentful energy. 

Mobei Yang can see it decide to flee. Maybe they're much stronger and cleverer than the creature thought they were too. 

The Giant Sea Heron goes down and tries to launch itself upwards, only to go nowhere, to stumble, to barely keep itself upright. The summoned ice they've been throwing at its feet has easily been cracked and crushed, but the water remains, and it has been skillfully manipulated by the likes of Heng Leyang and Xi Mingzhu. 

The water demons have made a mud pit and the Giant Sea Heron's thrashing has only sunk it deeper into the trap. The half-frozen mud is harder to break. 

The creature's rotten energy rises, bubbles, and then it screeches again, disorienting in its sheer loudness, its hatred and desperation rippling through the air. Most of the hunters cover their ears and it helps very little. The unnatural sound shakes through one's entire body. The first terrible screech is still rippling through the world when the next begins. 

Such venting of power can't be sustainable, but the unnatural screeching makes the battle wretched while it lasts. 

Mobei Yang becomes the black wind around the spearing beak, then twists away to attack this ruined creature, repeatedly. But shifting forms burns under the onslaught of spiritual energy. The hatefulness of it even disrupts him once, forcing him to become solid flesh again, and dodge as an ordinary demon might to avoid a raking of freed talons. 

It's hard work keeping the creature down, baiting it this way and that, keeping out of its deadly reach. They pick and they peck, but none of them are certain how to put this Giant Sea Heron down. The Endless Abyss has made a remarkable ruin here. 

Shuang Tao's young nephew, Shuang Qiang, keeps looking towards Mobei Yang with wide, expectant eyes. This is the young frost wind demon's first hunt with this royal party. Does he expect a retreat to be called here? Does he think that the spoiled, weaker, younger prince will go running back to his lordly brother now, swallowing his pride, begging for help? Mobei Yang has never surrendered in such a way and never will while he lives. 

If a creature can bleed, it can die. Through the ruined eye again might do it... 

Mobei Yang isn't certain how long it's been when a new hunting party appears, but the dying sun hasn't fully drowned yet. They must be local demons, summoned by the screeching or the spiritual rot. 

"They'll get in our way! Keep them back!" Mobei Yang snarls at Shuang Tao, who nods and turns to his nephew. 

He doesn't need assistance. Ordinarily, he might appreciate an audience, but this battle is slipping from fascinating to frustrating. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Mobei Yang tracks young Shuang Qiang's progress. The leader of the newcomers, a rock demon by the look of him, greets their messenger with an ally's gesture. Rather than charge in recklessly, they keep their distance atop the hill. 

Most of them. 

While trying to keep the Giant Sea Heron's feet frozen down, Mobei Yang sees a smaller figure break forward from the new hunting party. Shuang Qiang lunges to catch them and... misses? He shouldn't have missed. The figure running forward obviously isn't as fast or as nimble as Shuang Tao's nephew. 

One of the Hao brothers notices and also tries to grab the intruder, his hand should easily wrap around their spear, and yet... he also somehow fails. An illusion wind demon is fast and not easily fooled, but the Hao brother stumbles as though his hand didn't touch anything at all. 

Shuang Tao lurches to intervene and Mobei Yang whips an ice spear in front of his second's middle. "Wait," he orders, "I want to see this." 

The Giant Sea Heron fixes the approaching figure in its one eye and then spears its enormous beak forward. It should split the intruder, crush them. The enormous creature is faster than this fool. 

The intruder disappears. Mobei Yang isn't sure what happens. The figure's own shadow seemed to leap up to swallow them, or they fell down into it, and the blood-stained beak spears down on nothing. There was no noticeable burst of new spiritual energy. Nothing that could be sensed above the Giant Sea Heron's rotting wrath, at least. 

The Giant Sea Heron tilts its head in obvious confusion. It screeches its unhappiness again, much to everyone else's misery, before... the ruined creature jolts and abruptly cuts itself off. 

"How...?" Shuang Tao says. "On its back?" 

"What terrible posture," Mobei Yang remarks, too surprised to put the proper dryness into it. 

The disappearing intruder has somehow reappeared on the giant creature's back, struggling for balance. Despite their slowness, despite their obvious lack of strength, the shadowy figure somehow manages to drive their spear through the creature's long, feathered neck in a single thrust. Mobei Yang sees the spear tip come out the other side. 

The Giant Sea Heron thrashes wildly to dislodge its attacker. When it tries to screech again, the high shriek quickly dies off into a gurgle of dark blood. 

At first, the disappearing intruder clings to their spear like a tied rag, but they fall off within seconds and then vanish again. 

Where they go, Mobei Yang doesn't care. While the giant creature is distracted, he becomes the black wind again and rushes forward to take their place, to put solid hands on the embedded spear, then to push all of the wrath of a noble ice demon into this critical weak point. 

The ruined creature's neck explodes in a shower of ice, spiritual energy, blood, and no small amount of feathers. The severed head hits the ground with a heavy thump before the body finally topples over in an ungainly heap of wings. 

Mobei Yang rides the collapse down easily. Then he jumps off the body, still holding half of the broken spear in his hand, and looks the weapon over. The shaft is ordinary wood. As he felt when he pushed his spiritual energy into it, the spearhead at his foot appears to be without spell or even decoration. This spear should not have been able to pierce such a creature's throat with such singular ease. 

Some of his hunters are whooping with victory, with relief, but Mobei Yang is distracted away from their celebration of him by a stranger stepping audaciously in front of him. A... teenage boy? 

This demon is a full head shorter than Mobei Yang, which puts them at a taller than average height among most other demons, and their pale face seems young. They're plump like a seal, with large, dark eyes. They have no painted marks or tattoos. Their dark hair is cut shockingly short, close to their head, just long enough to flop over furrowed brows. 

Instead of paying the rightful attention and respect to a prince, the boy is frowning at the broken spear, and first crouches down to pick up the spearhead. Like Mobei Yang, the boy is wearing a fair amount of spilled blood. He must have been close. 

The boy stands up again and looks up with those big, seal-dark eyes. "Hurt?" 

Mobei Yang doesn't understand the word at first, so poorly pronounced, so heavily accented. The boy squints at him, looks him up and down. 

"H-help?" 

As though Mobei Yang didn't just kill the creature that this boy failed to finish. The boy's eyes are already drifting disrespectfully away to one of the dead hunters, partially crushed in the battle, a gruesome but unsurprising sight. Such is life, as they say, such is death. 

One would think so, at least, except that this boy's face turns sickly and he looks hastily away. His body jerks, a hand goes over his mouth, he jerks again, pauses, and then turns away from Mobei Yang completely to vomit on the ground. 

It's not often that Mobei Yang finds himself at a loss for words. The overwhelmed awe that he often inspires in lesser demons usually doesn't realize itself so unintelligibly or pathetically as this. 

"Please, do contain your excitement," Mobei Yang says. 

The boy squints up at him, teary-eyed, only to immediately start gagging again. He holds out a hand, apparently trying to cover up the offending sights. 

"How dare you behave so disrespectfully before a prince!" says one of the nearby hunters, Junjun, a mountain wind demon. "Don't you know who this is?!" 

The boy flinches away from this looming defense, staring warily up at Junjun without any sign of understanding. 

"I don't think he does," Mobei Yang says dryly. 

Unfortunately, Junjun takes this as introductions being in order. "This is the greatest hunter in the Demon Realm! A prince of the ancient rulers of the northern kingdoms, the Northern Desert Clan! The only living brother of the great Mobei-Jun! Linguang-Jun!" 

"Yes, yes, thank you." 

The boy looks between them, turning the spearhead over in his hands again and again, hunching his shoulders. "Sorry," he says, bowing slightly, once to Mobei Yang and twice to Junjun, all equally shallow. "Sorry. Sorry." 

And then, further proving his lack of understanding, the boy turns on his heel and runs away. It's so shamelessly cowardly that Mobei Yang laughs. 

"Stop him!" Mobei Yang calls out to the hunter ahead. "If you can." 

It's one of the Hao brothers, his expression immediately determined. Expecting slippery prey, the hunter should have little trouble; they're all used to disrupting disappearing tricks with their own spiritual energy, all of them practiced at wrestling opponents back into solid forms. 

Mobei Yang is surprised again when the flinching boy slips into his own shadow and then appears on the hunter's other side. 

The Hao brother is enraged, of course, which is at least amusing. The hunter roars and chases after the slow boy, who stumbles, looking over his shoulder with wide eyes, and then vanishes again. The boy reappears and disappears a few times on his way back up the hill. The Hao brother catches him once, only for the boy to apparently melt away in the hunter's hands, despite an obvious attempt to use spiritual energy to disrupt the escape. 

"Enough of that!" Mobei Yang decides, when the comedic pair are too close to the other hunting party. "Stop playing with your prey and come back here!" 

The Hao brother stomps back to join the other surviving hunters, gathering behind Mobei Yang. The newcomers whom Shuang Tao is escorting forward hardly seem fearsome, but appearances do matter. Mobei Yang looks best when he looks better than someone else. 

The boy skirts wide around Shuang Tao and dives back into the party of newcomers, which... doesn't seem to welcome him back with any enthusiasm. Like larger beasts dutifully making way for some tiny but venomous creature. The boy lurks behind the rock demon leader, peeking out warily, like a plump little seal sticking its snout of the ice. 

The rock demon leader is a large fellow, a little taller than Mobei Yang himself, fat and strong. Far more grim than handsome. A stone that ice could crack open without much difficulty, Mobei Yang is sure. 

"Greetings and welcome, Linguang-Jun," rumbles the rock demon. 

"This is Bocheng, the next clan leader of the Flying Mountain Clan," Shuang Tao offers. "Sworn to the Northern Desert Clan, of course, and at our service." 

Bocheng the rock demon appears less than pleased by his required obeisance, but Mobei Yang doesn't care much if some backwater warrior hates the fact that he has a king. So long as all due respect is shown to the future Mobei-Jun. 

"And who is that?" Mobei Yang gestures vaguely behind the rock demon. 

Shan Bocheng the rock demon's frown deepens. Some of the others step plainly away from their leader and the coward, so unwilling to shelter the boy from their superiors, even though demon children are supposedly all precious creatures. Sighing, the rock demon pulls the boy up beside him. His massive hand spreads across the mulish boy's back and touches those hunched shoulders with no trouble. 

"You introduced yourself to my hunting party so audaciously before," Mobei Yang observes. "You truly do have trouble finishing a job, hm?" 

The boy looks around miserably. It's like watching some pitiful sea creature try to crawl back inside its shell. 

"He wants to know your name," Bocheng says to the boy, with the slowness that one might offer to a particularly stupid baby. "Name. Naaaaame." 

Mobei Yang can see the way that the boy's eyes light up, before he bows again, deeper this time, and stays there. 

"Beida Wan," he says. "Sorry. I... sorry. Sorry." 

"That's a rather long name. So unique. Not very lucky, though," Mobei Yang says. Shuang Tao laughs, while some of the other hunters chuckle. 

"Sorry," the boy says again. "I... help." 

Bocheng the rock demon sighs again. The mauling of each word suggests another language, but none of these other clan members are stepping forward to offer their translation services. 

"Does he not speak Tongyu or Beiyu?" Mobei Yang can also follow the whispered conversation between two of the newly come wind demons, but there's no need to enlighten them of that yet. 

"No, we don't know what language he speaks," the rock demon says. "We don't know where he's from." 

"He just appeared one day and now he won't leave," complains a young water demon. "Because he saved Bocheng's life somehow, more or less, we can't just-" 

"Yubo, shut up," says the rock demon. 

"He really didn't know who he was interrupting," the young water demon insists. "Still doesn't. Stupid." 

"Let's hear this mysterious mother tongue," Mobei Yang decides. "Perhaps I or one of my faithful followers, worldly warriors that we are, will recognize a few words of it. Say something, boy." 

When everyone turns their eyes onto him again, the boy once more tries to shrink into a shell that isn't there. It takes some more prodding from the rock demon to get the confused, then annoyed boy to produce more than one word at a time. 

"Whadda fuckayou wan' fro'me?" 

Mobei Yang looks at Shuang Tao, who shrugs unhelpfully, and none of his other hunters step forward. There are many isolated languages and wretched dialects across the Demon Realm alone, but Mobei Yang doesn't even recognize the general sound of this one. It's very flat. 

"You must be a very long way from home," Mobei Yang says finally. 

The boy doesn't answer. He doesn't seem to understand the statement at all, squinting helplessly before taking shelter again behind the rock demon. 

Mobei Yang is distracted then by more conventional affairs. The locals had apparently been watching this destructive creature and had been preparing to kill it themselves, and so now must at least pretend to be grateful that their superiors arrived to defend them. Tradition and respect also demand that these lowly demons make an offer of hospitality. 

Some of his hunters are injured, two are dead, so arrangements must be made. Mobei Yang graciously accepts the hospitality outwardly, while inwardly accepting that there will be some trouble from his mother's family for even briefly associating with one of their many rivals, which is exactly what he'd wished to avoid when they set up their now-ruined camp instead of seeking shelter. Perhaps if he does his hosts sufficient damage during his stay, subtly of course, the familial moaning and groaning will be minimal. 

While Shuang Tao negotiates with the locals regarding the Giant Sea Heron's curse, Mobei Yang studies the intruder again. The Beida boy is staring at the sky, occasionally swallowing retching. He's been staying close to the rock demon like a little fly. How does someone with such obviously poor cultivation have such remarkable abilities? 

In his mysterious language, the boy mumbles to no one: "Didwe jus' killa fuckin' pterosaur...?" Utterly unintelligible. 

Beida Wan is cultivated enough that he eventually notices Mobei Yang watching him. He stares back, at first, his brow furrowed, and then shuffles to hide behind their shared host again. 

Chapter Two: The Wind Demoness 

That night, under the silver moonlight, Mobei Yang has his heart suddenly and ruthlessly stolen from him. 

The Flying Mountain Clan's fortress is built on and into a tall hill, the foundational stonework not unimpressive, presumably the work of several generations of rock demons. Of the many villagers still awake to greet them, Mobei Yang takes note of the mixture of rock and wind, with some noticeable brides of ice or water, some less distinguishable types, and some here and there of the animal kinds. It's all very rustic and quaint. Very homely. 

Mobei Yang is being led to the crown of the fortress in the hill, where rests the clan leader's home and his temporary accommodations. Most of his other hunters will be scattered around the other better residences in this place. 

"Oh, when we heard that monstrous screeching, I didn't dare to dream that your hunting would bring back such a handsome trophy. You are most welcome to our humble home, Linguang-Jun!" 

Mobei Yang looks away from a weathered stone carving of rampaging Red River Horses and up to the speaker standing on a stone ledge. His breath abandons him, as though plucked out of his lungs by fine and clever fingers, as though beaten from his chest in a single, mighty blow, and his unguarded heart is carried out along with it. Looking down upon him, veiled in moonlight, is perhaps the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. Peerless. 

He is not, let it be said clearly, a stranger to beautiful women. This demoness is tall, broad-shouldered, and her pale skin glows like untouched snow under the moonlight. Her finely beaded dress glitters faintly as she moves and bares most of her stunningly long legs, which have all the hardness and thickness of a powerful runner, the pride of any wind demon. She's wearing long, complicated braids in richly black hair. With a smile of such pretty fangs, she should be wearing pearls and jewels, instead of merely metal bells and ivory. Her pale gray eyes glow nearly as bright as the moon behind her. 

"We have not had a noble demon lord grace us with his presence in too long! If only I had been given time to prepare for you, Linguang-Jun... Days! A month! A year! We can only hope to meet some of your princely expectations..." 

"All of my expectations when it comes to enjoying my stay have already been effortlessly succeeded," Mobei Yang promises.  

This demoness's indulgent laugh is like the sweetest of songs. He desperately wishes that he wasn't covered in both dust and dried blood for such a fortuitous meeting. Fate can be so cruel. 

"My only disappointment is that we haven't met before," Mobei Yang continues. "Oh calamity, have you been busy battling the heavens for daring to outshine them?" 

"No, for they must be arguing over who among them has to face you in battle, Linguang-Jun, for such a wicked tongue," the laughing demoness answers, her smile wolfish in its wideness. "But the little human gods are welcome to come when they are ready." 

"What handsome trophies that hunt would make," Mobei Yang agrees. "Far more worthy of such a wonderful hostess... whose generosity may also, I hope, extend to her name...?" 

"Xiang Ningyue, the only child of Clan Leader Xiang Peng." 

Before Mobei Yang can remark that her mother must have been the moon itself, that grim-faced rock demon steps forward, pulling that strange, stumbling boy ahead of him again. It's understandable that the local demons wouldn't enjoy seeing their greatest beauty be so appreciated, but the interruption is nevertheless annoying. 

"Wife," says Shan Bocheng the rock demon. "Beida Wan needs to be washed. I'll see you it that our honored guests are given baths as well." 

Mobei Yang closes his mouth. 

Wife? Wife?! 

Xiang Ningyue, the most beautiful woman in the world, lets out a soft moan when she sees the boy covered in blood. "Oh, what did you do to yourself now?" 

Beida Wan frowns up at her and predictably says nothing, still trying to fold himself away into the protective shell that he doesn't have. When Xiang Ningyue sighs and gestures for him to come closer, he shuffles forward without any apparent appreciation for the privilege. 

"You're not coming back into our home looking like this! How am I supposed to-? Oh, fine! Fine!" 

Xiang Ningyue apologizes sweetly to them for this, before throwing out an impressive array of orders towards her husband, their servants, her clansmen, and her clansmen's own servants, as confident and as impatient as a whirlwind. Mobei Yang is still mildly stunned and nauseated when she drags the strange boy off. 

"...If I had such a wife, I wouldn't dare introduce her to any higher demon," Mobei Yang murmurs to Shuang Tao, who snorts in agreement. 

"She seems very willing to be stolen." 

"Mmm, clearly this pile of rocks is a little more interesting than previously known." 

A cold bath is most refreshing, even if the following meals are hasty and unbefitting of their stations: some lamb and vegetable stew, which is at least well-spiced. The accompanying wine is tolerable. 

While eating, Mobei Yang and his attending hunters suffer through a long and dull conversation with the elderly wind demon clan leader, the beautiful Xiang Ningyue's father, and Shan Bocheng, who is apparently the clan leader's most fortunate son-in-law. Mobei Yang wants the Giant Sea Heron's head for himself, that marvelously misshapen skull with its god's spear of a beak will look good mounted somewhere, but he doesn't much care what the locals do with the rest of the monster's awkward corpse. 

Xiang Ningyue rejoins them at this point, with the Beida boy slinking in behind her. The Beida boy's new clothes are less plain than before, but still oversized, now obviously borrowed, beaded and embroidered with the vibrant greens, yellows, and blues that this clan seems to favor. Very modest. The short, wet hair ruins any chance of dignity, sticking out at odd angles like an overgrown tuft of grass, partially covering the boy's eyes. 

Beida Wan is sat in the corner of the room with a bowl of stew, which he eats silently and slowly. Mobei Yang has relatives who have been poisoned who regard their meals with less disgruntled suspicion, and he says as much to the beautiful Xiang Ningyue, who laughs in her delightful manner once more. 

Xiang Ningyue's rock demon husband's glaring misery is quite delightful too, while his guests strive to make his beautiful wife cackle and preen, and so Mobei Yang doesn't call for the strange boy to be brought over to sit with them. He forgets Beida Wan almost entirely, until the boy becomes relevant in his retelling of their Giant Sea Heron hunt. 

"Trying to steal a kill from Linguang-Jun!" Xiang Ningyue laughs. "If I didn't already know that our dear guest Beida Wan is stupid, that would make it clear! How insulting! To think that you would need any help from someone like them..." 

"I can generously forgive our glorious battle being cut short if it brought me to such wonderful company all the sooner," Mobei Yang promises. 

When he looks over one or Xiang Ningyue's fine, broad shoulders, he sees that the strange demon in question is watching everyone very intently. Perhaps Beida Wan heard his name, obviously listening, head tilted shamelessly. 

"Perhaps a little more strength behind that killing blow next time, hm?!" Mobei Yang calls across the room. 

Beside him, Shuang Tao cackles drunkenly, and his other present hunters laugh and toast the stupidity and audacity of youth. The present locals join in. Except for Bocheng the rock demon, of course, though he doesn't move to defend the little fly that was clinging to him earlier. 

Beida Wan looks around at all of them, black-faced, even though there is an embarassing red flush crawling up his face. When he finally comes back to meet Mobei Yang's gaze, he bobs his head, neither quite a nod or a bow, and then stares determinedly at the floor, picking clawlessly at the beads of his trousers.

Xiang Ningyue sighs dramatically. "We've been trying to teach Beida to speak some Tongyu these past few weeks, but it's hard work! The only thing that's flatter and more useless than this demon's ears is their tongue..."  

"Does anyone in your clan have a map that this stranger can at least point at?" Shuang Tao leans forward to ask. "Or does he not know his homeland's geography?" 

Xiang Ningyue sighs even more dramatically. "He just stares at it for far, far too long and says, 'No.' Sometimes, he even shrugs!" 

"Does he perhaps... not want to go home, do you think?" Mobei Yang asks. "A remarkably slow runaway? A rather unfortunate fortune-seeker?" 

"Can he read Tongyu?" Shuang Tao asks. 

"I don't know why Beida would have run away from home, because this demon was clearly spoiled!" Xiang Ningyue complains. "No, they can't read any Tongyu either. They just scribble ugly nonsense characters into the dirt. They claim to be twenty-five years old, if you can believe it! But they're even more useless than a child when it comes to most things!" 

"Claims to be twenty-five?" Shuang Tao presses. "Does he know numbers or is he just counting tallies in the dirt?" 

"Beida can count up to ten using real numbers now," Xiang Ningyue explains, with a nod towards the latter option. "But laundry? Spinning, weaving, building, carving, braiding, cooking... They're such a picky eater, you wouldn't believe it! All useless! So useless! " 

Mobei Yang doesn't do many of those things either, but he can at least feed himself. "You're as generous as you are lovely to have taken such a useless demon into your household," he promises. 

"I know!" 

"Truly magnanimous." 

"At least they're an obedient learner," Xiang Ningyue says, finishing her second cup of wine. "Beida can count on their fingers and make stupid gestures in a way that's almost clever... but it's hard to believe that they're supposed to be older than I am! This demon really should be dead!" 

"Wife," her husband says reproachfully. 

"Where did you find him?" Shuang Tao asks, ignoring the rock demon. 

Xiang Ningyue either can't keep a secret or there isn't one to be kept. "We think that they fell out of the Endless Abyss." 

"Beida can't explain anything yet," says Shan Bocheng the rock demon, as if trying to remind his loose-lipped wife of something. "We don't know anything." 

"The Endless Abyss," Mobei Yang repeats, rubbing his chin. "Well, he's not like any Emperor of the Abyss that I've ever seen spawned in those depths before. He's much too small." 

Xiang Ningyue cackles again, as does Shuang Tao, and Mobei Yang smiles and studies the stranger again. 

A powerful warrior might go into the Endless Abyss to test their own strength, to prove themselves, but Beida Wan is much too cowardly to be an adventurer. 

Weaker demons will seek out the more stable gates into that hellish realm, the openings the least likely to tear them apart, and seek treasure or rare ingredients. One does have to be clever and slippery to survive such expeditions. 

Abyssal openings, natural or summoned, often take victims who stray too close. Some are taken when the hole in the world reacts somehow to the spiritual energy of a living creature. Others get snagged and dragged through by lurking creatures, which often can't live long outside of the Endless Abyss, but are eager for easy prey. The Giant Sea Heron killed today is the least of what the Endless Abyss can do to the things that it swallows. 

Some who are taken by the Endless Abyss manage to break free again. But most weaker demons don't survive such places physically or mentally whole. Especially not picky eaters. 

Even Mobei Yang doesn't hunt often in the Endless Abyss. His expeditions there last no longer than a few days, typically, and only through the most stable guards, better armed and armored than he is now. The lack of sunlight may be reminiscent of northern winters, but the sheer heat of some areas can be atrocious. 

"I think that Beida used to be-" 

"Wife," the rock demon says again. 

"I think," Xiang Ningyue repeats louder than before, "that little Beida used to be human." 

"Human!" shouts Shuang Qiang, the nephew of Shuang Tao, now looking at Beida Wan as though the demon might be diseased. "That's a human?!" 

"Well, not anymore, clearly," Shuang Tao says dryly. His nephew looks alarmed by the prospect of transformation. 

"Calm down, it's not catching," Mobei Yang reminds the other demons. "I hope." He sets his drink down, as the flavor seems to have gone off. "...That thing isn't one of those dream demon puppets is it? One of those artificial demons?" 

"Wife," the rock demon groans. 

"Dream demons tend to sign their work," Shuang Tao muses. 

"Well, yes, they're all narcissistic, everyone knows that," Mobei Yang agrees. "The boy is covering quite a lot of skin..." 

"But what would be the point of pretending not to speak Tongyu? Any grandmother knows how to check for possession! At least most types of possession..." 

"Beida is not possessed," says the rock demon. "We checked. We don't know that Beida was ever human." 

"I do," Xiang Ningyue says loftily. "You just don't like that a human saved your life! She saved my husband, so I spend more time with Beida than anyone, and I'm telling you: no killing instinct! None!" 

"That seems against their efforts to interrupt our hunt," Mobei Yang says mildly. 

"Oh, Beida will kill if you make them, just like they'll help with the butchering, but they're not any good at it," Xiang Ningyue says, nodding. "They'll run in to help, but they don't fight." 

"What does that mean?" young Shuang Qiang asks. 

"Won't scratch at anyone!" Xiang Ningyue says, listing offenses off on her claws. "Won't even snarl! Won't hit! Won't even willingly take a hit!  Not for fun, not for position, not for pride. Beida will run away from any fight, every time, and it makes all the boys and girls so badly behaved." 

"I've never known any demon youth to be able to resist a soft target," Mobei Yang agrees. "Our storytelling hostess, do indulge us, how exactly did your clan find this strange demon?" 

Xiang Ningyue lights up. The story isn't complicated, but it is enthusiastically told by the wind demoness: their hunting party was attacked by an Abyss-touched Sword-Toothed Tiger and her husband was injured in the ambush. Their hunting party had been, for nearly a full day by that point, followed by a stranger who had eluded all attempts to catch them, Beida Wan. Shan Bocheng insists that this distraction was the only reason that the Sword-Toothed Tiger managed to surprise him. 

To everyone's surprise, the cowardly stranger had rushed in at the last moment to assist Shan Bocheng. "Beida somehow put a stick up through the creature's jaw and into its brain," Xiang Ningyue says with an illustrative jab. 

"Without injury?" Mobei Yang asks. Sword-Toothed Tigers generally didn't simply let one approach. 

"Without injury! Owing such a debt, we of course had to take in this poor thing in, especially because Beida followed us home anyway." Xiang Ningyue sighs and says begrudgingly, "Beida does try. A real servant's heart, this demon has." 

As the wind demoness describes nursing her husband back to full strength, her vivaciousness does... falter. Briefly. Her lip wobbles as she mentions how worried she was. She and the rock demon are, according to her, childhood sweethearts, born in the same month only twenty years ago, and there may be genuine fondness between the young couple. 

How annoying. Sunk in a comfortably pool of drunkenness, Mobei Yang falls asleep that night wondering how one might lure such a beautiful demoness away from her marriage and her clan. 

One cannot simply kidnap a woman on a whim. One has to plan these things. 

He's more powerful than some backwater rock demon, of course, far more handsome, and far richer. His lordly brother even gifted him the Northern Desert's magnificent West Wind Palace as soon as he came of age! He can cover Xiang Ningyue in as many real jewels and rare bones as she likes! And when his childless, elderly brother finally passes, Mobei Yang will inevitably inherit all of his ancestral strength and become Mobei-Jun himself, and his lucky wife will have all of the Northern Desert at her whims. 

He certainly wouldn't make his peerless queen share her home with some strange, lost creature who can't speak and won't even fight for themself, neither a servant nor a second spouse... Though, what else does one do when a life debt is owed to such a wretched demon? Too publically to honorably ignore? Mobei Yang falls asleep still wondering. 

Chapter Three: A Clever Trick

The land upon which the Flying Mountain Clan lives belongs to the Northern Desert Clan by conquest, so upon them, Mobei Yang and his hunters cannot impose. Mobei Yang takes advantage of this obligatory hospitality by declaring that they will linger in this fortress for several days, until all injuries are mended and all corpses are tended to. 

"We'll have a real feast tonight!" Xiang Ningyue declares, swirling in excitement, looking out over her little queendom. "With singing and playing for the great hunters! And dancing! There are no more beautiful dancers in all the world than wind demons!" 

"Oh? You know, I've seen many wind demon dances before," Mobei Yang replies. 

The blood of the Northern Desert Clan dominates, but his mother was from the Black Wind Clan and they play on that connecting string often, trying to get Mobei Yang to dance for them where they can. 

"It seems like every dancer of skill has been summoned to the Ice Palace over the years," Mobei Yang continues. His elder brother is very, very fond of dancers. "I think I've seen everything by now." 

Xiang Ningyue smiles with all of her teeth. "You haven't yet seen me," she promises shamelessly. 

Mobei Yang laughs. "I haven't seen anyone like you before," he agrees. "You're a calamity." 

Before he can decide whether or not to get closer, to risk being scratched, a familiar figure plants itself beside them. 

"Mistress Ningyue," Beida Wan says. 

Mobei Yang sighs. "I thought you said that this demon didn't enjoy tasks such as butchering prey? He makes such a mess of your lovely name." 

Xiang Ningyue cackles, her initial annoyance melting away. "I did say that Beida was bad at everything!" 

Beida Wan looks back and forth between them warily. Away from their hosts, Shuang Tao has suggested that the strange boy may be some kind of ridiculous spy, but even Mobei Yang's second can't seem to believe his own suggestion. 

With great effort, the boy says, "Cook... say... help. Mistress Ningyue help?" 

Mobei Yang wonders if the rock demon sent the boy as interference, given that the boy clearly doesn't know better than to get between his betters and their prey. 

"That nasty old cook did not say, 'Help,'" Xiang Ningyue says, but she seems amused. 

"Help," Beida Wan repeats firmly. "Help! Help!" The boy waves his hands back and forth slightly, a mockery of flailing panic. "Help, Mistress Ningyue, help!" 

Xiang Ningyue laughs again and Beida Wan understandably looks pleased with himself for provoking it. Mobei Yang feels surprised that the strange boy is capable of humor despite his handful of Tongyu words. His smile reveals slightly crooked front teeth and small canines. 

The smile fades as Beida Wan looks at Mobei Yang again. "Ahhh..." 

"Ah, something to say to me as well?" 

"Master Bocheng say..." 

"Even repeating things is apparently too difficult," Xiang Ningyue complains. "So useless! A parrot would be a better messenger. And prettier."  

"Tr-trainer-ing," Beida Wan slurs out eventually. "Training. Lingu-Linguang-Jun." 

Mobei Yang bemusedly watches as the strange boy raises his fists, circling them slightly, in a poor fighting stance. It's vaguely reminiscent of a small child play-acting. Then Beida Wan shrugs, with those round cheeks flushed red again, and points down the hill. 

Mobei Yang follows the gesture to see a wide, dirt ring, where some of the local warriors are enthusiastically doing drills and eagerly beckoning some of his watching hunters forward. Such challenges to visitors are extremely common. And likely the only entertainment that Mobei Yang will be offered here until the promised feasting begins later. 

"Oh, we would be honored!" Xiang Ningyue exclaims, more elegantly. "Nothing interesting ever happens here! Some of our youths could stand to be made a little more worldly, Linguang-Jun, if your men would be willing to show us their strength." 

"I am your most gracious guest." 

If nothing else, Mobei Yang can show off for this peerless wind demoness, and perhaps even directly against her inadequate young husband. 

His hostess must excuse herself to the feast preparations, so Mobei Yang is escorted to the training ring by Beida Wan. Or so he assumes that is the strange demon's intention, as the boy steps back and makes a presumptuous beckoning gesture, repeating it often along the stairs and sloping roads downwards. 

It is the closest Mobei Yang has been to this stranger since the bloody death of that ruined creature. He cannot quite resist the urge to reach out and grab an arm. 

Beida Wan startles wildly, but as weakly as a child, before the boy then slips out between the fingers easily. Even with Mobei Yang making a mild spiritual effort to hold onto his prey. The boy simply dissolved like an illusion, with a faint shimmer in the air, before reforming a few skittering steps away. 

There is spiritual energy being used here, Mobei Yang confirms now that he can focus upon it. It's... slippery. Subtle. An insect landing in water: one would perhaps only notice it in a small, still pool. 

Beida Wan is looking at him with wide eyes and no teeth. "No," he says, flatly. 

Then the boy turns and runs ahead to the training ring, as though a wind demoness's son couldn't easily, immediately, close the short distance between them, if he so chose. Where does this Beida Wan come from that that wouldn't be taken as an invitation to chase? 

Mobei Yang follows sedately, ignoring the whispers and curious looks from the local villagers, and also from Shuang Tao, who has come to greet him. His hosts have set up a modestly comfortable and shaded lounging area for him and his hunters to observe the training and challenges, waited upon with drinks and cool cloths by some of the clan leader's servants again. 

Shan Bocheng the rock demon is acting as their master of ceremonies for this impromptu tournament, with Beida Wan lurking behind the young future clan leader again like a little fly that doesn't even bite. 

Predictably, there are several scowling warriors who evidently won't believe in their own inferiority without a demonstration. Just as predictably, there are several eager youths, at least half of whom are likely hoping that they might impress enough to be taken away from this place. 

"I do have some empty space in my hunting party at the moment," Mobei Yang remarks casually to Shuang Tao, just to fan the flames. 

The locals are determined to mark their territory. Some of the older warriors, canny and cultivated, even manage to put Mobei Yang's hunters on their backs several times, albeit inconsistently. Many of the villagers gather eagerly to watch. A group of younger children are squealing and shouting from a rooftop. 

Shan Bocheng is highly skilled for his young age, but not significantly powerful, and he intelligently doesn't dare to challenge Mobei Yang directly. While Mobei Yang is contemplating proposing a "friendly spar" between them, he is challenged directly by a young water demon, with more awe than arrogance, an appetite sharper than his cute teeth. 

"Yubo!" Shan Bocheng snaps. 

"Can't I have ambitions?" complains young Xiang Yubo, a cousin of Xiang Ningyue apparently, only seventeen years old. "Is it so bad to dream of losing a battle to the great Linguang-Jun?" 

Mobei Yang laughs. "I'll consider it," he tells the water demon. 

"I want to fight the boy who tried to take the killing blow from us!" declare one of the Hao brothers. "From the great hunter, Linguang-Jun!" 

Sitting behind Shan Bocheng, Beida Wan is drawing in the dirt with a stick. Unsurprisingly, he seems to be completely unaware that he's been challenged. 

"No," Shan Bocheng says. "Beida can't fight." 

At his name, the boy looks up and then around, squinting for some understanding. He scoots back, a little more behind the rock demon, like a small child. 

"He nearly killed an Abyss-touched Giant Sea Heron," says Xi Mingzhu, another of Mobei Yang's hunters. 

"That's... different." 

"How so?" Mobei Yang calls. 

The rock demon looks amusingly disgruntled, struggling to explain it. "Beida doesn't know how to fight like this." 

"Beida can stab things badly with a spear until they're dead and that's it," says young Xiang Yubo, the water demon. "And that's only if running away doesn't work!" 

"Yubo!" 

"What? It's true!" 

"Just for that... come fight Beida for us." 

"In front of-?! I'm not doing that!" 

Shan Bocheng the rock drmon ignores the whining and looks down at Beida Wan, who is still squinting at everyone. The rock demon picks the boy up by the back of his clothes and puts him on his feet. 

"Go train with Xiang Yubo," Bocheng orders. "Practice fight." 

Beida Wan's face twists up. "No," he says. He looks around at her waiting audience, then back at Shan Bocheng. "No." 

"Yes," Shan Bocheng insists. 

"No." 

"Yes." 

"No! No, no, no!" 

The rock demon has to physically push Beida Wan into the training ring and hand the boy a... staff? It nearly gets dropped. Shan Bocheng throws another staff at Xiang Yubo, who catches it easily and executes a skillful series of twirls, familiarizing himself with the weapon. 

"No... hurt?" Beida Wan says. 

"No hurt," the rock demon confirms. "No kill. Training. Practice. Go." 

Even before the young water demon can lunge forward, Beida vanishes. There one moment, gone the next, in a flicker of shadow and twisting air. He reappears on the other side of the ring without any attempt at counterattack. 

It's clearly frustrating for the young water demon, but it gives Mobei Yang the opportunity to study such remarkable abilities. Most elemental creatures can still be caught, can be followed, can be disrupted, can be forced between forms, unfortunately including Mobei Yang himself. It happened often when he used to spar against his lordly brother and all the overwhelming power of their ancestors. 

Beida Wan is... unrecognizable. Even when watching closely, there's often no clear thread of spiritual energy to follow from one point to the next. A broken trail. 

Shuang Tao is snickering at Beida Wan's clumsy form, the childish slowness, the obvious uncertainty, the unwillingness to strike back. It's distracting. It's understandable. Such remarkable abilities from such pathetic overall cultivation! 

But Mobei Yang wants to know how the boy is slipping away from a superior opponent, another warrior who is clearly experienced in fighting elemental creatures. He focuses on those subtle twists of demonic energy. 

And he finds himself thinking of... the iridescent shimmer in the air above a hungry Abyssal vent. 

Of the twisting flash of an otherworldly spiritual weapon being summoned to a waiting hand. 

Of the whisper when opening a small pouch hiding a deep stomach. 

Of a dream demon's illusions, spun by a creature hidden in another realm entirely. 

Of a monstrous creature disguised as something small, suddenly unfolding itself, ripping a giant's body out of a spiritual web to reveal its spider's trap. 

Of the way the air shakes when a Black Moon Rhinoceros Python screams. 

"...Ah," Mobei Yang says. 

Shuang Tao and the Hao brothers look at him with interest, but Mobei Yang ignores them to lean farther forward. If they can't figure it out, he's not telling them. 

The fight ends when the young water demon manages to trip Beida Wan, not for the first time, and Beida Wan is too dazed to get up before Xiang Yubo swings the tip of the staff up against his throat. The water demon taps for emphasis. 

Mobei Yang can see the boy's nervous swallow, but also the way that Beida Wan is watching the crowd more than his opponent. It's the boy's choice to release his weapon and indicate surrender. The only thing preventing his escape here should be spiritual exhaustion.  

"Well done," Mobei Yang calls out to the young water demon, who was persistent, if ineffective. 

Xiang Yubo pulls the staff back and demonstrates relieved gratitude, after such a frustrating duel. It must have been like trying to pin down a ghostly butterfly. 

Beida Wan rolls himself up and limps back to hide behind Bocheng again, sitting against the wall in a tired heap. 

"Strike back more," the rock demon says to his little fly. 

Beida Wan raises his hand sharply, an inward fist with the middle finger pointed upwards, though he drops it quickly. 

Mobei Yang wonders what that's supposed to mean. A salute? An agreement? An apology? Hard to say when Beida Wan's sweaty, red face is between his knees. 

He understands better now why this young water demon said that Beida Wan only knows how to run and kill. The boy doesn't have the strength or the speed to strike back ordinarily, to wrestle an opponent to the ground, to spar in a skillful way. All Beida Wan can do is sneak close and put a spear through an opponent's critical weak points, using an apparently natural ability to warp space itself around him. 

No wind demon, no matter how quick or powerful, can reach something that has slipped away into another realm entirely. 

Mobei Yang fights the young water demon, because it makes him look generous more than out of any personal interest. He wants to show Shan Bocheng the difference between them, especially with the beautiful Xiang Ningyue now watching from an overlook with some other local wind demonesses, their colorful scarves and skirts flowing like flags in the breeze.

And he wants to see Beida Wan's face seeing a true demon warrior demonstrate some of his strength. The boy alternates freely between very wide eyes and a frowning squint, apparently. 

Mobei Yang indulges a few challengers after that, out of boredom more than curiosity, and likely embarrasses some of them more than originally intended. The Ice Palace attracts countless challengers, fighting for countless reasons, and his lordly brother has become less and less willing to indulge any of them as the years go by; it's a responsibility on top of the countless cousins whose ambitions need to be treated like summer greenery: killed off before they become overgrown. 

The cheering and compliments are appreciated. The naked envy even moreso. "I did apparently have to prove to this clan that I have no need of help during any of my hunts," Mobei Yang says dryly, provoking laughter again. 

The rush of battle, however inglorious, makes impulses more difficult to resist. While lesser demons debate who has to follow such a performance, Mobei Yang looks towards the elusive little fly. 

"Beida Wan!" he calls. 

The boy's head snaps up. Several strings of surrounding conversation are cut off, but Mobei Yang isn't afraid of an audience. He echoes that condescending little beckoning gesture. By the way that Beida Wan's reddened nose wrinkles, Mobei Yang's demand is immediately understood. 

Shan Bocheng hauls the boy up by his collar again and Beida Wan begrudgingly slinks over to stand in front of Mobei Yang. His expression is wary. He remembers to bow in greeting quite belatedly. 

Mobei Yang doesn't give any warning before grabbing the boy's arm again. Again, Beida Wan is too slow to dodge, startling without dignity. 

"Whadda fuck?!" 

It would have been trivial to break this limb, to do far worse, but Mobei Yang waits patiently. He can feel the shift of the boy's elusive spiritual energy even better this way; he can shift his own weighty spiritual energy to counter the forces hastily moving to work here. 

He owes thanks to the depths his ancestors have given him. Perhaps also to the clan priestess who first taught him how to fortify himself against unstable Abyssal gates, so that his body and mind wouldn't be torn to pieces. And to those others who passed down onto him the ancestral knowledge of stabilizing such gates... of destroying them. Though Mobei Yang doesn't think one can discount his own impressive experience, learning how to disrupt summoned weapons and untie folded spaces and all those annoying tricks with just... a little... push. 

Beida Wan grunts, flinches, as the shadows twist and writhe and fail to whisk him away into whatever halfway realm he's been using. He pulls uselessly. He keeps trying, again and again, a panicking animal with a paw stuck fast. 

Mobei Yang keeps denying the boy an escape. It takes continuous effort, a fair amount of spiritual energy, and really, the boy should be grateful that Mobei Yang hasn't accidentally broken this arm. 

"No," Mobei Yang says dryly. 

Beida Wan stops struggling and stares up at him. Really, it reminds Mobei Yang so much of snagging a surfacing seal as a bored youth, all big eyes and flopping rage. 

Whatever this boy was before, human or not, he's just a weak demon now with a single clever trick. Remarkable abilities left raw and uncultivated. Mobei Yang laughs as he releases his unique prey, at yet another successful hunt, however short and simple it turned out to be. 

"You caught Beida," the young water demon, Xiang Yubo, says. "And he actually stayed caught!" 

"Oh, you just have to find the trick of it," Mobei Yang says airily. "Shan Bocheng, tell your clan leader that I've found some new demons for my hunting party!" 

It's like kicking over a wasp nest, with the buzzing that goes through the watching crowd. The rock demon remains grim. 

"Who?" Shan Bocheng says. 

"Such an honor!" Xiang Ningyue calls from her makeshift pavilion of ladies, far more civilized, all of her beauty on display as she leans forward. "The Flying Mountain Clan is honored to run with Linguang-Jun! But which of us are you stealing?" 

"Your young cousin, generous hostess," Mobei Yang falls back. "Xiang Yubo may have the potential to impress!" 

More importantly, the young water demon will give an excuse to return to the Flying Mountain Clan and speak with his relatives. Mobei Yang will simply have to tell his late mother's family, the Black Wind Clan, that he has a complicated plot to destabilize the leadership of their rival clan. 

"It's- Thank you! Thank you, Linguang-Jun! I won't disappoint you- I won't- I'll prove myself worthy-" Xiang Yubo stammers. 

Mobei Yang nods vaguely at the appropriate gratitude. "And I'll have this thing," he adds, pointing. "If you can bear to let this guest leave your hands." 

Xiang Ningyue cackles, as does Shuang Tao. The other laughter around them is more nervous. Beida Wan looks at Mobei Yang's finger like he doesn't know why it's pointing at him; presumably, he doesn't. He shuffles backwards... into the rock demon. 

"I... owe Beida," Shan Bocheng says. 

"And what better reward could you give than a placement with a superior clan?" Mobei Yang says, even though he really doesn't need to ask anyone's permission here. "If there's anything worthwhile to be learned from Beida Wan, the Northern Desert Clan will uncover it." 

"Yes, take them!" Xiang Ningyue calls. "If anyone can make a hunter of Beida, it's you, Linguang-Jun!" 

It's more likely that such a useless warrior will die sooner than later, but Mobei Yang doubts that the Flying Mountain Clan will truly cry over the loss. Perhaps something will be made of these remarkable abilities before that, but perhaps not. 

Shan Bocheng's shoulders sag slightly. The rock demon won't fight over this. 

Mobei Yang smiles down at Beida Wan, who remains wary and confused at first, and then hesitantly smiles back. Weakly. Not threateningly. Obviously false. Quite odd. The humanness is hard to unsee after Xiang Ningyue suggested it. 

"What an opportunity to bring our two clans closer together," Mobei Yang remarks, almost entirely to see Shan Bocheng struggle to remain polite again. "Let's look forward to the new future, hm?" 

[maximumzombiecreator]

I've seen a lot of posts recently where people say they can't find players to play non-5e TTRPGs with. As someone who moves countries every few years, I've had to rebuild my roster of local TTRPG players from scratch a number of times. Here's how I do it.

Caveats first: while I've done this in small cities, I have always done it in cities. If you're in, like, a rural environment, you might just not have enough interested people around. You can always do it online in that case. I'm not really going to cover finding players online, except to say you should probably look for communities for the specific system you want to play. Most of them are enthusiastically looking for new participants. Especially game masters.

Okay, first things first, you gotta find people. I generally find I get better results if the search is location first. That is, rather than using city-wide or regional Looking For Group type internet groups, I look for physical locations that host gaming groups. Local game stores, public libraries, gaming cafes/bars, etc.

Being location first helps avoid some common bad behaviours. Online LFG groups often have a few shitty people hanging around who can't find long term groups because they're shitty. They'll jump at the opportunity to join new groups where people don't know them, because everyone else knows better than to game with them. But location-based groups are better at filtering this. Someone who harasses people at an LGS can be banned from the store, but decentralized online groups struggle to handle these situations in my personal experience.

Being location first also solves the next problem, which is giving you a location to play. Eventually, when I have a long term group, I'll host games in my home. But there needs to be a level of trust before that feels safe, and we're looking for randoms, so for now we need a public gaming venue. If, for whatever reason, there aren't dedicated gaming spaces where you can do this, I've had the most success gaming in cafes or restaurants during off peak hours. I've run a bunch of games in restaurants from, like, 2pm-5pm on a Saturday, and as long as you're buying drinks and some snacks or something, and being polite and non-disruptive, it's typically not too hard to get permission.

Now, if that local group has enough interest in a non-5e system that I'm interested in running, I'll happily do that, and it's pretty free from there. Most people who are willing to play one other system will gladly try others if they find they like playing with you. But even in big cities, I feel it's pretty often the case that postings for local games of other systems don't wind up actually finding successful groups.

So, here is the bit where, unfortunately, finding people to play non-5e games with involves playing some 5e. Community groups are always looking for more GMs to run games, so I will set out to run a number of short 5e adventures, each with different groups. These are typically oneshots that I have the option of extending for another 1 or 2 sessions.

I always run adventures that I've written myself for these, because I want my particular GMing style to really come through. Looking for players is a two way street. I'm looking for people I like GMing for, but I'm also looking to make sure they know what they're getting. Especially if I'm going to ask them to play a system they've never tried, they should know that there's going to be something they enjoy. So, these short adventures are full of the types of silly but sincere NPCs I tend to run, the open-ended scenarios I prefer, the tropes I favour, etc. If someone isn't going to enjoy playing with me, I want them to know it from this adventure.

I structure the adventures to give me a lot of flexibility in terms of how long they run. They're nearly always mysteries, but with some active component to the mystery, so that if things drag or dawdle I can have the villain show up and force a final confrontation. They're also structured to have a natural "next thing." You find and defeat the villain, but there's an implied next villain you'll be going after. That way, if the group is working well and I want to continue, it's easy to present the option to the group. But if I'm not interested in continuing with the group, the next thing can just serve as an "and the adventures continue" implied epilogue, and the game still feels complete.

I don't like players just bringing their own character sheet to the table. Someone who brings a disruptive character can ruin a session without me getting much useful information out of it, other than that I don't want to play with that person. And if it ruins the experience for the other players, I'm often out the opportunity to game with those people, through neither of our faults. I've experimented with both asking players to submit their characters in advance or making them choose between a collection of premade characters. The former is a good check for whether people will put in a basic amount of effort and follow instructions, but it can dissuade people who are just looking to dip their toes into playing for the first time. The latter can turn off players who are into crunchy games and are excited about character building. As a result, I'll usually choose the approach based on what non-5e system I'm currently most excited about running. Do I want to get together a group for a rules-light game? Premade characters it is. Looking to run some PF2e? Please submit your character sheet in advance. Some locations also do more drop-in based games, in which case it's premades all day.

As I'm running the game, I'm observing the players. There's a simple vibe check, obviously. Do I like playing with this person? But I'm also looking at how they play. What are they here for, what's exciting them? Are they struggling with finding optimal turns in combat, or do they like mastering a system? Are they curious about the world, or do they glaze over when the spotlight isn't on them? Do they light up in dialogue scenes? Do they want to try crazy things outside of their on-sheet abilities? Remember, later, I'm going to try to persuade this person to try to play a game they've never played before. I need to know what specifically is going to excite them.

I have (always with permission) recorded sessions before to go over in making these choices, but honestly even just a few small reminder notes will help me unravel things later. If a session goes well, I'll ask at the end for people to give me their contact information if they'd be interested in playing again. Non-committal, at their comfort, and it doesn't single out people that I don't want to play with. I can always just not call them. Usually I find I'm interested in playing again with a little more than half of the players I meet this way. In my experience, it's fairly rare for a player to say they're not interested in playing again, TTRPGs rule and there's a DM shortage.

What I usually do is keep running these until I have enough people in mind to run something else, even if it isn't the system I'm most excited about. Probably it would be better to spend more time in this starter phase building up more connections, but after running like 4-5 5e adventures, I'm usually more than ready to run anything else, and if I have to shelve my Lancer ideas because I've mostly found crunch-averse players, I'm usually fine with that.

So, next comes the invites. Now, most players I meet this way will eventually be open to playing most games, but listen: you can put people well out of their comfort zone for their third TTRPG, but you gotta be real careful with their second. Most of the time, the game I'm inviting people to will be their first real exposure to a non-5e TTRPG. If they don't like it, they will run back to the safety of 5e and you will never get them out of it again. So I am very careful in picking the right system for the players I am inviting.

Whatever the new system I want to run is, I will set up a pilot session for it. I am very clear to players that I will teach them the system at the session, they do not need to know it in advance. Eventually, when I have a reliable group of TTRPG people to play with, I'll expect them to be able to pick up systems without a ton of help, but for players that are only used to the complexity of 5e, the idea of learning a new system is daunting. I rehearse the teaching of the game session. It's the only thing for TTRPGs I ever rehearse, but I want to know down pat how I'm going to quickly teach a new system and make it feel approachable and non-threatening. I'm also very clear that this will be a single session, with the possibility of turning into a campaign if we like it. All of this is structured to feel very safe. No initial learning required, no long term commitment, with a GM you already know you like.

But even as safe as that is, you still have to pitch the system. Why should the player be excited about playing this new game? Don't go all TTRPG nerd on them and explain all the details of the system, or use a bunch of jargon. Give them one or two things to be excited about with short, detailed anecdotes to back them up.

"We're going to be playing Blades in the Dark. It's a game where you play a gang of criminals in a haunted, steampunk dystopia. Every session you'll do heists, but instead of meticulously planning them, you start right in the action, and when you need to have planned for something, you can do a flashback scene to explain your preparation. One group I ran this for got busted by guards during an early heist, but used a flashback to create a scene where they had gotten a buddy of theirs a job as one of the guards, and he helped them out of the situation. And for some reason they fell in love with this bumbling goof I improvised to be the buddy, and then on a bunch of future jobs they kept using flashbacks to get him jobs wherever they were robbing. So this one idiot was just a de-facto crew member who worked a dozen different inside jobs despite being about as sharp as an eraser. And eventually they fucked up and got him killed, but they brought him back as a ghost, because you can do that in Blades in the Dark."

I find using a specific example of play really helps get peoples' imaginations going, which is what is going to help them say yes. And that example is tailored to what I know that player vibes with, what it is I think that makes them a good fit for this game.

The last detail about the invites is that I'm telling them, not asking them. It is not, "Hey, are you interested in playing this new game?" It's "I'm going to be running this new game. If you're interested in playing, please let me know what times work for you." If you're asking, you're going to get some "well but can it be 5e?" If you're telling, then they can choose to learn a new game in order to keep playing TTRPGs with a GM they know they like, or they can choose not to play at all.

Once you get enough yesses for a game, you run it, and then from there you're on your own. I think those are basically just friends you have at that point, and I'm not gonna tell you how to have friends.

Hopefully at least one person finds all that useful!

[brattysx]

#O2 — “Before You Touched Me, I Was Already Yours”

Geum Seongjae x Reader | Weak Hero Universe | +18 mdni!

Tags: Post-sex, Jealousy, Smut, Obsession, Emotional Domination, Unofficial Boyfriend, Internal Conflict, Psychological Reaction, Continuous Sexual Tension…

O1 — O2 — O3

The panties were still wet.

You tried to distract yourself with anything: the noise of the pages, the laughter in the background, the muffled voice of the teacher explaining another poem that said nothing. But there, sitting in the usual chair, I felt everything: the slight discomfort between my legs, the memory stuck in the bones, the heavy silence of it.

Geum Seongjae hadn't looked for you since that afternoon.

But it was worse that way.

Because he didn't need to look.

You felt him in everything.

The way no one touched you anymore.

In the space around you, which suddenly became his territory.

You knew he was watching.

Even when he didn't show up, he was.

I knew because the next morning he found the message.

😈 Seongjae:

Drink water.

I don't want you limping dehydrated around.

Ps: your black panties are beautiful, but I prefer it when you don't wear any.

You had read and reread it ten times. The skin burned. The stomach wrapped. You wanted to delete it. I wanted to block.

But he didn't block it.

You didn't even answer.

And he didn't send anything else.

Because I didn't need it.

⸻

On Tuesday, Minjun sat next to him during the break. You thought about smiling - you really tried - but before any word came out, a bottle of juice was thrown hard on the table.

You raised your eyes. And there he was.

Seongjae

Leaning against the chair, as if that place was already his. As if you were already.

- Sit up straight, Nonna. - he said, without looking at you. - You're very shrunken. Are you still in pain?

Minjun frowned, confused.

You are freezing. The words were stuck in the throat.

He extended the bottle for you.

- Here. You need glucose.

You didn't get it. I couldn't. He noticed. His eyes - dark, too calm - finally found you.

- Are you mad at me?

- I came inside, I didn't lie. You said it was mine.

Minjun coughed, uncomfortable. You closed your eyes for a second.

Seongjae smiled.

That fucking smile that has no mood.

Just certainty.

- Do you see, hyung? - he said, turning to Minjun. - Difficult girl like that only gets soft at the right time.

You pushed the chair back and got up. Quick. The heart shot. But he held your wrist before you left.

- If you get up now, I'll go after it. - he whispered low, just for you to hear. - And if I touch you again, you'll cum in three minutes in the women's bathroom. With the door ajar. Do you want this?

You didn't answer. He just sat back.

And the worst?

You trembled.

⸻

At the end of class, his cell phone vibrated with him.

😈 Seongjae:

Go down behind the building.

No one around. I'm waiting.

You didn't answer.

I have your blouse in my pocket. Fell from your backpack yesterday. It's still smelling you. Better come get it, or I'll end up making cum of her.

His face warmed up. The hands were sweating.

You knew that going meant more.

But part of you was already on the way.

Because you couldn't stop.

And he knew.

You shouldn't be there.

Your feet took you even when the rest of your body told you not to go. Every step towards the back of the school seemed like a conscious mistake, a path of no return, a door that opens by itself and swallows you - with the smell of danger, burnt cigarette, and something you hated to admit:

Will.

When he turned the side corridor, the world was silent.

There, behind the science building, where no one used to pass, he was. Leaning against the wall, hands in the pockets, head down. The wind swayed the strands of his hair, the shadow of the filtered sun created drawings on his face. But it was the presence. The weight in the air. He was waiting for you as if he had all the time in the world.

As if it were inevitable.

You stopped a few steps away. He looked up.

- He Came.

A statement, not a question.

- You called me.

- And you came.

His answer was dry, but full of... relief? No. Possession.

He came out of the shadow and walked slowly to you. The ground seemed firmer with him stepping on. As if even the concrete obeyed.

When he stopped in front of you, his breathing was already wrong. He took something out of his pocket - his blouse.

Double. But dirty with his smell now.

- He was with me all night.

- I slept hugging her. - he murmured.

- I woke up hard. Wet.

- It was your fault.

You tried to get the blouse, but he pulled it back.

- Not yet.

He tilted his face, his dark gaze going through you like a blade soaked in poison.

- I want to see your face.

- I want to see if you're still mad that I fucked you like that.

- Or if you're like that because you're thinking about what it would be like if I kissed you. Really.

You took a step back.

He gave two forward.

- Are you going to run?

- Do you think there's a place to run away after what we did?

Seongjae cornered you against the wall with a single movement. The blouse fell to the floor, forgotten.

His hands came to his hips, firm. And the mouth? The mouth was close to yours, but it didn't touch. It just hovered. Like a threat. Like an advice to centimeters.

- I thought about you all day.

- To your taste.

- In your voice when you moan my name.

- And how you squeezed me when I came inside you.

You shivered. The wall behind you was cold. But the heat came from inside. From the womb. From the thighs. From the heart that insisted on beating faster when he spoke.

He got closer.

- Are you wet now?

Silence.

- Okay?

- I don't...

He put his hand between his legs. Over the clothes.

- Okay.

You caught the air. The palm of his hand pressed without moving. Without invading. But it was enough.

- Are you going to say you didn't miss it?

- You don't have that right...

He laughed. A humorless laugh.

- Yes, I have.

- I have it since the moment you moaned with your mouth glued to the closet.

- I have because you let me in. Let me cum inside.

- You're mine now. And you know that.

Then he kissed you.

Strong. Wet. Angry.

The tongue invaded his mouth without asking for permission. The body stue to yours like a hot threat. His hands, before on his hips, went up to his back, pulling hard. Her breasts crushed on his chest. And you... gave in.

His arms rose instinctively. One hand ended up on the back of his neck, the other closed on the T-shirt. The kiss was dirty. Messy. Full of teeth and low sighs. He sucked, bit, drank as if he was hungry.

And maybe there was.

When he walked away, his mouth was red. Swollen. The lips are still wet with the mixture of the two of you.

- Look what you do to me.

He pulled his hand and put it over his pants.

Hard. A lot.

Palpable.

Hot.

- This doesn't pass here.

- Only you solve it.

You swallowed hard.

He turned you around. Quick. He stuck his back against the wall and came from behind. His breath in your ear. The cock pressing your ass, over the clothes.

- Tell me you want to.

- Tell me you're not leaving.

- That will let me fuck you again, now, here.

You closed your eyes.

His hand was already down her belly.

Slowly.

The back leaning against the wall was cold.

But his body glued to yours was the opposite - hot, hungry, throbbing.

His hand went down her belly as if she had all the time in the world. Slow. Curious. Studying. Knowing exactly where I was going to arrive. And the worst? You didn't move away. I didn't ask. It just trembled.

- You should run away, right? - he whispered against his ear, his lips brushing the skin.

- But you're standing still. Wet. And trembling.

- I win whenever you stay quiet.

The hand went under the blouse. He even snailed his bra. The fingers squeezed her breast like someone who discovers an old addiction. The thumb passed the already rigid nipple, and you let out a sound - low, almost a sigh, but he heard.

- It's sensitive.

- It must be because I marked you well yesterday.

He licked your ear. Slowly. With pleasure.

- Do you want me to repeat it?

You bit your lip. The eyes closed. The whole body wanting to move, but not knowing where. He involved you too much. He had his whole body around yours. A hot, raw, intimate prison.

The hand went down from his blouse into his pants.

And he laughed low when he felt it.

- No panties, nonna?

You are freezing.

- Why did it come like that?

- Why did you want to?

- Because you knew I was going to touch you?

He stuck two fingers without warning.

Wet. Ready.

Your body accepted it even before your mind reacted.

- What a shame - he murmured. - You're all open to me.

The fingers moved inside you. Slow, then deep. He found his points as if he owned each nerve. The palm of the hand pressed the clitoris while the fingers fucked slowly. And his head touched his chest. Almost a mute call for help. Or delivery.

He kissed you on the back of your neck.

- You're enjoying it, aren't you?

You didn't answer. But he moaned. And that was enough.

He took his hand, wet, and took it to his mouth.

He licked his own fingers as if they were candy.

- You taste like addiction.

And then he turned you head-on, again. The dark, hungry look.

His pants were already a little open. The erection was evident. Hot. Marking the fabric.

- Do you want to feel it?

He took his hand and put it on top.

- It's been hard since I saw you in the hallway.

- You left me like this. Now you'll solve it.

He pulled you by the back of your neck and kissed you. Strong. Dirty. Full of tongue and anger.

- Are you going to suck, nonna?

- Are you going to kneel like a good girl?

You were shaking.

But it went down.

The legs bending as if they belonged to him.

The hands unbuttoned the pants with trembling fingers.

His smell involved you - sweat, skin, horniness.

When his cock became free, throbbing, heavy, his mouth salivated.

He held her hair.

“ Opens well.”

You obeyed.

He put the tip in his mouth.

Licked.

He heard him moan. Low. But with strength.

“ Like this, that. Deeper.”

“You were born for this.”

“For me.”

The mouth moved. The hands held his head.

You didn't know if you were punishing yourself or surrendering yourself.

But deep down... I liked it.

And he felt it.

“Look at me.”

You raised your eyes, with him in your throat, and saw the way he looked at you.

As if you were everything.

And only his.

⸻

He yanked your hair.

Hard—but not rushed.

Your lips slipped off his cock with a wet sound, and before you could even catch your breath, he lifted you.

Literally.

His arms pulled you off the ground like you weighed nothing.

Like you were built to be held like that.

Your legs instinctively wrapped around his waist, and his cock was already pressing against your entrance—hard, slick, throbbing.

“Gonna let me in?” he whispered, resting his forehead against yours.

“Or are you gonna run again after getting me addicted?”

You wanted to answer.

But there was no time.

He slid in, all at once.

Pain and pleasure hit at the same time.

A jolt of heat.

A stretch that became fullness.

An ache that turned into something whole.

You threw your head back, moaning loud.

He growled into your neck.

“Fuck… so tight.”

“Like you’ve been waiting for me since yesterday.”

He started moving.

Fast. Rough. But so fucking controlled.

Every thrust slammed your body into the wall.

Every deep stroke buried him deeper inside you—like he was trying to carve your shape into the concrete.

“I should punish you for making me wait.”

“But you moan too pretty… makes me weak.”

He was fucking you with his eyes shut, teeth at your neck, like he was praying you’d never leave. His hands gripped your ass, dragging you back to meet every thrust.

The sound of it all—skin slapping, wet, raw—was obscene.

“You know what I love the most?” he murmured.

“That you try to hate me… but you still cum faster with me than with anyone else.”

That hurt more than his cock.

Because it was true.

You could feel it coming.

Your body tensing.

Breath hitching.

And he knew.

He always knew.

“You’re close, huh?”

“You like it when I talk dirty.”

“You like it when I call you mine.”

He held you tighter.

The rhythm turned brutal.

“Cum for me, nonna.”

“Cum like this, getting fucked against the school wall.”

“Cum while I fill you up.”

And you did.

Loud.

Soaked.

Shaking.

Completely his.

Your whole body seized.

Your head dropped to his shoulder.

You bit into his shirt to keep from screaming.

And that’s when he came too.

One deep thrust.

All the way in.

Hot.

Full.

Inside.

He was groaning against your skin, panting, clinging to you like he was trying to merge with your body. Like he never wanted to pull out again.

“I’m yours, fuck…”

“But you were mine first.”

“And you’ll be mine after.”

He stayed inside.

Both of you sweating, trembling.

You could feel him leaking out of you already.

You felt his weight.

His scent.

His madness.

And worst of all?

You felt how alive it made you.

He kissed your cheek.

Soft.

Almost tender.

“Who are you gonna smile for now?”

Silence.

But he already knew the answer.

omg! the guys really liked it, here's a gift for all of you!🤭🫣

I have part 3 too, only it, whoever wants to be add next taglist, let me know here in the comments!

[delopsia]

Happy birthday!!!

I'd like to request nebula bronc riding. Prompt: Pegging Robert Reynolds, Rhett Abbott

Thank you! ^^ I'm sorry that it took me so long to get to this one. I was saving my favorites for last 😔

Nebula Bronc Riding — Give me a prompt for your rider(s) and I'll write a drabble with it

Bob Reynolds

"There," pretty blue eyes widen like saucers. "There, there, there, ah—!" His head falls back onto the pillow once more, legs shivering as you hoist them back over your shoulders. It's hard to believe he's even this flexible, knees to his chest, drooling cock trapped between his thighs. And somehow, all six feet of him manages to look tiny.

"Are you sure you don't want the smaller strap, baby?" Tracing your fingers over his rim, stretched around a too-thick silicone cock. "You cute little ass can hardly take it." He's whining before you've finished talking, his cock twitching. Your newfound theory is proving to be a little more correct than you initially thought. "I want..." Bob gulps, squeezing his knees closer to himself, as if to try and fold himself in half. "I want it." A shiver visibly ripples through him, meek little whimpers dissolving into something louder. Now that you've found his prostate again, you're not leaving it alone, even for a second. Purposefully angling your hips to strike it, sacrificing the strength of your once carefully measured strokes. If the precum spilling onto his plush thighs is anything to go by, you reckon you can get him off from this alone. But you're dying to see just how far your theory stretches. Hooking your hands beneath his knees, you draw them apart. "Look," you coo, and there's something else you're about to say, a sweet little something to get him going, but Bob is already lifting his head. You can see the moment his eyes land on it. The obscene sight of this thick pink toy, sinking into his cute ass, stretching him so fucking wide. You don't know how he's even gonna walk to the kitchen in the morning, let alone anything else. A pitchy whimper falls off his tongue, and he's cumming without even a hint of warning. So he does have a size kink.

Rhett Abbott

"Shit, shit," his hips buck like those bulls he rides for fun, damn near causing your strap to slip out of him entirely. "Just like that, fuck!" Wind rushes past, your only reminder of where you are right now. Out here in the closed-off west pasture, miles upon miles of flat land and wire fences. There's nothing here to hide you. Just one person coming over that distant horizon is all it'll take to get caught. But Rhett's babbling like he doesn't care if half the town is watching. "Keep fuckin' me like that," his boot audibly kicks at the ground, stirring up another plume of dirt. "Keep...keep...oh." "You're gonna get us caught, cowboy," squeezing greedy handfuls of his thighs, you lean forward, as close as you can get to his ear. Taunting. "You're supposed to be working, remember? Or do you want someone to see you getting bent over your own truck?" Rhett glares at you from over his shoulder. Your hips snap back into him, and it dissolves, his eyes rolling as his mouth all but falls open. The groan rumbling out of his chest ought to be heard for miles. His arms crumble out from beneath him, collapsing into the hood of his truck. He's clawing at it, searching for leverage that isn't there. The only thing it does for him is make more noise, a dull squeal of palms gliding over cool metal. You draw yourself back, eager to get another look at the pale blue toy disappearing into his shaking ass. His favorite. Always a sucker for the long, oversized toys that leave him sore for days. Something possesses you to seize one of his arms, forcing it back and between your bodies. And Rhett already knows what you're trying to do, sliding two fingers around the silicone, feeling where it disappears into him. "I'm gonna cum again," he blurts, and his fist strikes the truck so hard that you worry it might leave a dent. "Fuck. Keep...keep..." When did he cum the first time?