#dwindle and diminish

[itsybitsybatsy]

I've been lurking in the G/t community for long enough, so I figure it's about time I introduce my OCs! They're the main characters of my current WIP called "Dwindle and Diminish".

Basic premise? Sizeshifter protagonist participates in a fantasy heist, with the catch that he's cursed to slowly shrink away into nothing so long as he has these powers. Now he's on a quest to find the cursed contract that gave him these strange abilities and destroy it, before he completely shrinks away into nothing altogether. In the meantime, he learns how to not only accept his situation but take advantage of it, utilizing every new shrunken size to its maximum potential in his quest to become a master thief.

Anyway, meet Emory Bloom (shifter) and Lucy Fox (normie), the two main protagonists of Dwindle!

(Apologies for using a Picrew instead of drawing the characters myself 😔 I unfortunately lack any real art skills, so hopefully this will suffice instead!)

A few years ago, Lucy got into a car wreck that killed her entire family, leaving her as the sole survivor - unfortunately, that same accident also left her in a heavily vegetative state. Emory, one of her only living relatives, took charge as her primary caregiver, and has sacrificed his life and happiness to give her the best quality of life he can. But with little to no support system to help, Em consistently feels inadequate and wishes he could do more.

One day, Em is presented with the chance of a lifetime: accept a curse that will steal away about a foot in height, and in exchange receive the magical powers needed to restore Lucy's health to her pre-accident condition. This seems like a pretty sweet deal on paper, but it quickly becomes apparent that the contract is trying to steal a lot more than just twelve inches.

Determined to put a stop to his shrinking curse, Em and Lucy put together a team of thieves to help them steal the contract draining his soul before it's too late. All the while Emory finds new and inventive ways to take advantage of his dwindling state to help him become a better thief.

Basic personalities:

Emory (initially 6'3" but gradually shrinking) - responsible, mature, and very polite to strangers, but with a profoundly sharp wit and deadpan/sarcastic sense of humor around loved ones. He's very patient and empathetic, and strongly characterized by his intense loyalty to Lucy (as well as everyone he cares about). Has a problem with being self-sacrificial, associating his worth as a person with his ability to care for others. As a result, he can be a bit of a pushover at times. He used to have a passion for his aquarium hobby, but gave up a lot of his own personal interests in order to invest more of himself into Lucy's care. Now that her health is restored and she doesn't need a caregiver anymore, Em is slowly rediscovering all those passions again.

Lucy (5'4") - fierce and passionate, very artistic and creative and pours herself into everything she does. Can be loud and abrasive and impatient, but that's how you know she likes you. Because when she's genuinely mad, her rage is cold and silent and terrifying. Loves reading, writing, art, and cooking. Any kind of artistic pursuit is something she will gladly experiment with. However, she's also burdened by a strong weight of guilt. She blames herself for the car accident that killed her family, she blames herself for Em giving up his happiness to take care of her, and most of all she blames herself for Em taking on the curse to restore her health. She sees this as her fault, and therefore her responsibility to fix - no matter the cost.

For years, Em acted as Lucy's caregiver. But as Em becomes increasingly smaller, that dynamic switches - now, Lucy is the one responsible for taking care of Em instead of the other way around. And for Em, who considers his existence to be a burden and that he must always take care of others in order to prove his worth (and also has a boatload of trust issues)...well, you can imagine that he doesn't handle this change very well.

Anyway, I'd be happy to elaborate on the story and characters if anyone is curious! I understand things are a lot less interesting since I don't have any visuals to show you (curse my lack of art skills!), but hopefully this gave you all a good sense of their personalities and dynamic!

[capitalism-is-a-psychopathy]

Billionaires destroy more than they create

In a land often championed for its economic opportunity and equality, the American Dream promises that anyone who works hard can rise to prosperity. But for many in today’s middle and lower economic classes, that dream is fading, shadowed by a reality that feels increasingly rigged. At the heart of this issue lies a stark and glaring imbalance: billionaires, a minuscule fraction of the population, wield a staggering concentration of wealth and influence. This is not just an issue of economics but one that touches the foundations of democracy and fairness.

Imagine the economy as a massive machine, built to churn wealth throughout society. In an ideal world, this wealth would cycle effectively, where each part contributes and benefits in turn. But as billionaires amass wealth at unprecedented levels, this machine has come to function more like a funnel, siphoning resources from the broader society and concentrating them at the very top. This dynamic, driven by complex financial structures and tax strategies, isn’t merely an accumulation of personal fortunes but a systematic extraction from the economic potential of others. The capital that could have flowed through wages, education, and public infrastructure is often diverted into private bank accounts and shell companies, rarely benefiting the people who drive and build the economy day by day.

As wealth accumulates at the top, so too does political influence. Billionaires, with vast financial resources, can fund political campaigns, lobbyists, and entire networks of think tanks dedicated to shaping policy. Through these channels, they push for tax policies, regulations, and trade agreements that benefit the ultra-wealthy at the expense of middle- and lower-income families. Politicians, indebted to these donors, increasingly look to billionaire interests rather than to constituents’ needs. This creates a disturbing feedback loop: billionaires influence politics to further policies that reinforce their own wealth and power, leaving the broader populace with dwindling opportunities to influence their own government.

This concentrated power extends far beyond campaign finance and lobbying. With ownership over significant segments of media networks, billionaires control the narratives that millions consume daily. Through these media outlets, they shape public opinion, diverting attention from policies that would challenge wealth accumulation and pushing narratives that frame the ultra-wealthy as essential “job creators” or “innovators” rather than acknowledging their role in widening economic divides. Issues that might threaten their economic stranglehold are often buried, while others, that create division and distract, are amplified.

For the middle and lower classes, this confluence of wealth, media, and political power has a real impact. Stagnant wages, diminishing job security, and rising costs of living aren’t natural outcomes of a complex economy—they’re symptoms of a system shaped to benefit those at the top. Policies that could lift working-class Americans, like raising the minimum wage, universal healthcare, or better labor protections, are often stifled in legislative deadlock, thanks in part to the political influence of the ultra-wealthy who stand to lose from them.

So, as this cycle continues, the gap between billionaires and everyone else widens. The billions accumulated at the top no longer signify mere success but a barrier to mobility for everyone else. The middle and lower classes find themselves carrying the economic burdens, often working harder for less. Meanwhile, billionaires remain insulated, living in a different economic reality, one far removed from the struggles of the average American. This isn’t just an economic imbalance but a distortion of democracy itself, as the machinery of power and influence is pulled further from the reach of ordinary citizens and held more tightly by those whose interests rarely align with theirs.

Without addressing this imbalance, the promise of opportunity, the cornerstone of the American Dream, becomes less attainable with each passing year, not just for the lower and middle classes but for the nation’s future as a whole.

Addressing their manipulation

Billionaires and their advocates often employ a familiar set of narratives to justify their wealth and the structures that enable it. These arguments, framed in terms of the free market, capitalism, or fear of socialism, are not only misleading but often serve to distract from the deeper systemic issues at play. Below is a breakdown of these claims and the counterarguments that expose their flaws:

1. “It’s Just the Free Market at Work”

The myth of the “free market” implies that billionaires achieve their wealth purely through talent, innovation, and competition in a market where everyone has equal opportunity. But in reality, the U.S. economy is far from a genuinely “free” market.

Counterpoints:

• Government Subsidies and Tax Breaks: Many billionaires’ businesses rely heavily on taxpayer-funded subsidies, special tax breaks, and other forms of government assistance. Large corporations frequently lobby for policies that grant them tax advantages, including offshore loopholes and capital gains tax breaks. This creates an environment where they aren’t competing on equal ground but rather with significant state support, distorting the market in their favor.

• Anti-Competitive Practices: Many large corporations, especially in tech and finance, engage in monopolistic behavior, buying out competitors or using aggressive tactics to drive them out of the market. This concentration of power stifles competition, contradicting the notion of a “free” market where anyone can succeed if they work hard.

• Inherited Wealth and Privilege: A significant portion of billionaire wealth is inherited rather than self-made. Generational wealth compounds, giving the ultra-wealthy an enormous head start over those without similar family resources. This challenges the idea that wealth accumulation is simply the product of individual merit or a fair market.

2. “This Is What Capitalism Is Supposed to Look Like”

The argument here suggests that capitalism is an inherently competitive system, where the most successful rise to the top, benefiting everyone through innovation and job creation. This narrative hinges on the idea of “trickle-down economics,” where the wealth of the richest eventually spreads throughout society.

Counterpoints:

• Trickle-Down Economics Doesn’t Work: Decades of evidence show that wealth rarely “trickles down” to the rest of society in any meaningful way. Income inequality has only widened, with wages stagnating for most workers while billionaire wealth has soared. Billionaires tend to reinvest wealth in ways that concentrate their holdings, like in stocks, rather than in ways that benefit the broader economy.

• Wealth Extraction, Not Wealth Creation: Many billionaires achieve and maintain their fortunes through rent-seeking behavior—extracting wealth from existing resources rather than creating new value. Hedge funds, private equity, and real estate empires often profit by cutting costs (like labor) rather than by innovating or producing new goods and services. This dynamic benefits investors but hurts workers and consumers.

• Capitalism Can Take Other Forms: The capitalism practiced in the U.S. today, sometimes called “neoliberal capitalism,” focuses on minimal regulation, tax cuts for the wealthy, and privatization. However, other countries demonstrate that capitalism can function with stronger social safety nets, wealth redistribution policies, and tighter regulations on corporate power. Nordic countries, for example, balance capitalism with robust welfare systems, ensuring a more equitable distribution of wealth and services.

3. “Without Billionaires, There Would Be No Innovation or Job Creation”

A popular myth is that billionaires are essential “job creators” and “innovators” whose wealth ultimately benefits society by funding new businesses and creating employment. This claim positions billionaires as indispensable to economic growth.

Counterpoints:

• Public Funding Fuels Innovation: Many of the biggest technological advances, including the internet, GPS, and medical breakthroughs, were developed with public funding rather than billionaire investments. Government research grants and subsidies often lay the groundwork for major innovations that billionaires later profit from. In other words, society bears much of the financial risk, while billionaires reap the rewards.

• Small Businesses Create Most Jobs: Small businesses, not billionaires or large corporations, are responsible for most job creation in the United States. Big corporations often eliminate jobs through automation, outsourcing, or consolidation. They may employ a large workforce, but they also tend to exploit workers through low wages, precarious employment, and cost-cutting measures.

• Billionaires Accumulate Wealth Through Wealth, Not Innovation: Many billionaires maintain their wealth not by creating jobs or innovating but by using their existing capital to generate more wealth, often through financial instruments that have little to do with actual economic productivity. Stock buybacks, dividends, and passive investments grow their fortunes without necessarily contributing to broader economic prosperity.

4. “Any Alternative Is Socialism or Communism”

When calls arise for higher taxes on the wealthy, stricter regulations, or broader social programs, the response is often to invoke the fear of “socialism” or “communism.” This argument seeks to paint any attempt at wealth redistribution or regulation as a slippery slope toward total government control.

Counterpoints:

• Social Safety Nets and Regulations Are Not Socialism: Social safety nets, progressive taxation, and regulations do not equate to socialism or communism; they’re features of a balanced capitalist system that seeks to prevent extreme inequality and protect public welfare. Countries like Germany, Canada, and Denmark combine regulated capitalism with strong social programs, resulting in healthier economies and greater well-being for citizens without abandoning capitalism.

• Inequality Threatens Capitalism: Growing inequality and economic instability can undermine the foundations of capitalism. A healthy capitalist economy requires a strong middle class with buying power, which excessive wealth concentration undermines. Reforms like progressive taxation, labor protections, and universal healthcare aren’t a rejection of capitalism but rather a means of stabilizing it.

• Historical Success of Mixed Economies: Many of the most successful and prosperous countries practice a mixed economy, where capitalism coexists with social policies that promote equality. The U.S. itself has employed a mixed economy model in the past, particularly after the New Deal, which implemented social safety nets, labor protections, and financial regulations that led to a period of unprecedented growth and prosperity for the middle class.

5. “They Earned It Fair and Square”

Finally, the idea persists that billionaires deserve their wealth because they “earned” it. This argument suggests that any policy aiming to redistribute wealth is fundamentally unfair, penalizing those who worked hard to succeed.

Counterpoints:

• Systemic Advantages and Wealth Hoarding: As previously mentioned, many billionaires begin with advantages—like family wealth or elite educational opportunities—that aren’t available to most people. Additionally, billionaires often employ complex strategies to avoid taxes, lobby for favorable regulations, and capitalize on government subsidies. These factors mean they haven’t earned wealth solely through hard work or merit.

• Billionaires Didn’t Build Alone: No billionaire operates in isolation; they rely on infrastructure, public education, and the work of thousands or millions of employees. A CEO’s wealth is made possible by a web of collective contributions, yet that wealth is rarely shared equitably. While billionaires might be rewarded for their role, their fortune is far from the result of individual effort alone.

In short, these narratives around billionaires often mask a more uncomfortable truth: today’s system is structured in ways that favor the ultra-wealthy at the expense of the broader population. Economic reform, rather than a threat to capitalism, is a necessary step to ensure a more just, equitable society where wealth accumulation doesn’t depend on privilege, influence, or systemic manipulation.

Making a change

Addressing the economic imbalance and the unchecked power of the ultra-wealthy presents a unique challenge, especially given the intense political polarization in the United States. For the middle and lower classes to push back effectively, they will need to build a coalition that transcends party lines and focuses on shared economic interests rather than divisive rhetoric.

1. Build Awareness Through Shared Issues, Not Ideology

The rhetoric around “free markets” and “socialism” often obscures real issues of economic struggle that affect both conservative and progressive working- and middle-class citizens alike. Instead of framing the issue in ideological terms, framing it in terms of tangible, shared grievances can help bridge the divide:

• Focus on Economic Inequality: Income stagnation, unaffordable healthcare, and housing insecurity are felt across the political spectrum. By shifting the narrative from “class warfare” to “economic fairness,” advocates can sidestep partisan language and emphasize the shared experience of economic struggle.

• Highlight the Impact of Corporate Power on Local Communities: Framing issues around how large corporations hurt small, local businesses can resonate strongly with both sides of the political spectrum. This approach often taps into conservative values around community and self-reliance, while also aligning with progressive critiques of corporate overreach.

2. Organize Around Labor Rights and Worker Protections

Historically, unions have been instrumental in improving working conditions and advocating for fair wages, and labor movements transcend political divisions. Many Americans—left, right, and center—share concerns about the erosion of workers’ rights, stagnant wages, and the declining influence of the average worker.

• Expand Union Participation and Labor Movements: Reinvigorating unions and expanding labor protections could give workers a stronger collective voice. New labor movements that focus on economic rights without overtly partisan language could attract support across the political spectrum, particularly when they champion issues like fair wages, workplace safety, and job security.

• Support Worker Cooperatives and Employee-Owned Businesses: Promoting models like worker cooperatives or employee-owned businesses can offer a compelling alternative to the current structure of corporate ownership without resorting to divisive rhetoric. These models prioritize local control and shared economic benefits, appealing to values of self-sufficiency and fairness.

3. Pressure Politicians on Key Economic Policies

A key to bridging the partisan gap is to focus on policies that benefit the broader populace rather than framing them as part of any ideological agenda. The majority of Americans, regardless of political affiliation, support policies like fair taxation, healthcare reform, and increased access to education when framed in terms of fairness and opportunity.

• Promote Tax Reform as “Fairness,” Not Redistribution: Instead of advocating for “redistribution,” proponents can push for tax policies that ensure everyone pays their fair share. Policies like a wealth tax or higher taxes on capital gains can be framed as holding the ultra-wealthy accountable rather than demonizing them, a stance that resonates with people who value fairness and personal responsibility.

��� Advocate for Antitrust Legislation: Pushing for stronger antitrust laws to break up monopolies and prevent anti-competitive practices can appeal to both sides. For conservatives, this aligns with the values of market competition; for progressives, it aligns with corporate accountability and consumer protection.

4. Engage in Alternative Media and Independent Journalism

The ultra-wealthy often own or influence major media outlets, which can shape public opinion in ways that protect their interests. For the middle and lower classes to gain a clearer view of economic issues, alternative media sources and independent journalism that aren’t beholden to billionaire interests are crucial.

• Support Independent News Outlets: A growing number of independent news organizations are dedicated to in-depth economic reporting without catering to corporate interests. Supporting these outlets allows individuals to access a range of perspectives that help reveal the true impact of policies on ordinary people.

• Utilize Social Media Responsibly to Build Cross-Party Awareness: Social media, while often a divisive force, can also be used to spread information about economic injustice. When used responsibly to share facts, case studies, and stories of economic hardship, it can cut through the rhetoric and provide people across the political spectrum with a shared understanding of the issues.

5. Prioritize Voting Reform and Campaign Finance Reform

Money in politics is one of the core reasons why economic policies favor the wealthy. Bipartisan support for reducing corporate influence in politics is possible, especially when the focus is on fairness, transparency, and accountability in government.

• Promote Campaign Finance Reform as an Anti-Corruption Effort: Campaign finance reform, which seeks to limit the influence of wealthy donors and corporations on elections, can appeal to conservatives and liberals alike who are frustrated with the influence of money in politics. Instead of framing it as an anti-capitalist measure, framing it as an anti-corruption measure can attract broader support.

• Support Voting Reforms for a More Representative Democracy: Reforms like ranked-choice voting, ending gerrymandering, and preventing voter suppression can help create a political environment that more accurately represents the will of the people rather than special interests. By creating a more representative democracy, policies that reflect the economic needs of the middle and lower classes have a better chance of being enacted.

6. Create Cross-Partisan Grassroots Coalitions Focused on Economic Issues

Many grassroots organizations are focused on economic justice, but they tend to align themselves with one side of the political spectrum, often losing potential support in the process. Building cross-partisan coalitions that emphasize shared economic challenges rather than ideological differences could foster stronger, more united advocacy for middle- and working-class issues.

• Organize Around Issues, Not Parties: Groups like the Poor People’s Campaign, which focuses on poverty and economic justice, have successfully united people across political lines around issues that transcend party loyalty. This approach allows people to focus on their shared struggles, making the movement harder for politicians to ignore.

• Build Community-Level Alliances: Many economic issues are felt acutely at the local level. By focusing on community-level initiatives that address healthcare, affordable housing, and education, people can create practical, on-the-ground solutions that don’t require alignment with national politics. These local successes can serve as models for broader change.

7. Emphasize Civic Education on Economic Policies

Finally, bridging the gap will require education and awareness. Many people accept billionaire-fueled rhetoric because they lack exposure to alternative perspectives. Civic education efforts that focus on teaching economic principles, tax policy, and the influence of corporate power can empower people to understand the real impacts of current policies on their lives.

• Create Accessible Educational Resources: Podcasts, documentaries, workshops, and community discussions can all serve as tools for demystifying economic issues. When people have a clearer understanding of how things like tax policies and wage laws work, they are better equipped to make informed decisions.

• Promote Financial Literacy and Empower Individuals: Financial literacy programs that help individuals understand budgeting, credit, and investments empower people to navigate the economy more effectively. While this doesn’t directly address systemic issues, it gives individuals a greater understanding of the forces shaping their lives and can be a first step toward broader engagement.

By approaching these issues with a focus on shared struggles, fairness, and practical solutions, the middle and lower classes can work together to build a movement that transcends political divides. This movement can challenge the status quo without becoming mired in divisive ideological battles. The real strength of such an effort lies in its ability to unite ordinary people around a common vision for a fairer, more just economic system—one that serves all citizens, not just the wealthiest few.

[mercurial-chuckles]

🍂 smutty sept fest ask 🍂 

ok, hear me out,, established relationship bucky x female!reader. then, prompt #11 with consensual free-use pass but the reader always pretends to be an innocent little bambi when bucky fucks her in random places at anytime of the day; because she knows bucky has a corruption kink :)

anyway---

Enlivened Mornings

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader WC: 2.5k (Yes, I redeemed myself after the previous 16k Mr. Grumpaholic oneshot) A/N: This is an entry for Smutty September Fest. I did my best @winterarmyy Hope I did justice to your juicy ASK. Warnings: Mature content | Minors DNI | Overloaded fluff (kinda my brand, ya see :D) | Hot specimen Bucky | Bucky being a menace | Quickie!?! | 'Tis just smut, my dear hoes | Needy Bucky | Language | SMUT | smidge of semi public sex if you really really squint | Lemme know if I'm missing anything. Note: Do not Steal, Copy or Plagiarize any part of my work! Banner credits to me and the photo credits to the internet. Check out my other works: Masterlist

Indulge Away!

****

The early morning light filtering through the soft curtains of the bedroom pulled Bucky slowly out of the sleepy haze. He stretched his arm, searching. When he didn't find you, he propped onto his elbow, blinking his eyes open to notice the crumpled blanket on the side.

He wondered if you were curled up underneath it. Sometimes, you had a habit of escaping his clutches if he didn't already have you wrapped tightly in his arms because you complained he ran hot, no thanks to the serum. Also, the constant libido-appeasing activities you both did don't help your case either.

However, Bucky needed you wrapped around him. His usual tactic would be changing the thermostat to the coldest setting and tugging the blanket off you. He was all too aware that's a bit of an extreme move, but you came crawling into his arms, clutching him tightly, as you should be.

Works every fucking time!

Today, that was not the case. You were not in the bedroom, and Bucky sighed, throwing the blanket away, and focused his ears.

The faint sound of rhythmic breathing drifted from the other side of the door, and the need to see you won over the morning inertia, and he walked out of the room in search of you and to drag you back to the bed.

There you were. In the middle of the sun-kissed room, barefoot on the yoga mat. Dressed in soft, form-fitting sports bra and leggings that hugged you deliciously, and hair loosely pulled back in a pony. The morning light played across your skin, casting a soft glow that made you look ethereal--like something right out of his usual dream.

Love has changed Bucky Barnes ineffably. It was truly a power of love; the nightmares dwindled, and redemption seemed not so far-fetched.

You did that. You'd unfathomably filled his heart with so much light that all the shadows of the past diminished under his feet like it's always noontime.

My beautiful girl. His heart screamed, reminding that this was not a dream. You were not a dream.

You were unobservant, and he took his time, devouring everything you.

Despite making fun of your situational awareness all the time, or lack thereof, the truth was that Bucky was downright stealthy and fully aware of it. Stealth was innate to him, made his job easier, and made sneaking behind you much more fun.

The way your eyes widened, your heart picked up, and the relief crossed your face upon recognizing him gave Bucky a slight rush, a constant addiction to see the relief when you noticed it was him.

He wasn't really proud of how much fun he had irking you. You were fucking adorable.

One evening, you barged into the apartment purposefully, thrusting your phone under his nose, and accusing him that he had Cuteness Aggression. Bucky had fun taking you apart against the fridge that night, and what a great night that was.

Bucky let his gaze trace every movement you made--the arch of your back, the bend of your legs, the way your muscles shifted beneath your tight clothes, and the uncovered skin.

He wanted to kiss you, lick every tiny inch of your skin, make you beg until your toes curled, and watch you reach the gates of pleasure and beyond, which you let him take you.

It was unreal, the feeling when he was nestled deep inside you, and you looked at him with so much love.

Bucky doesn't know what he ever did to deserve you; maybe the redemption did work, and the universe took pity on him. That had to be it, for someone like you to love him with all his scars, emotional and physical.

There was something so intimate, so quietly beautiful about the moment, about watching you all domestic in what he considered his safe haven. Home. Yes, you were home.

You moved into a gentle forward fold, hands gliding down to the floor as you bent over with a soft exhale. Bucky's breath hitched, his heart doing a slow flip as he watched you more; eyes followed the curve of your spine, unable to stop the wave of desire stirring in his chest to just place a large palm on your back and...

His cock twitched, and his mind queued the images of the way your body moved under his command.

With each stretch and bend, transitioning from one yoga pose to another with fluid precision, the need to bury deep inside you while you sing his praises and beg him overpowered. Then, you inhaled deeply and exhaled, moving into a downward dog pose.

Fucking hell.

He finally snapped out of his trance.

An almost animalistic groan reverberated in his chest.

~

Startled by the sudden noise, you turned over your shoulder. Bucky was leaning against the door frame, legs crossed and arms folded, in only his black joggers. A relief spread over you as you smile at him widely, not breaking your pose.

"Morning," you teased lightly, wiggling your legs slightly to balance yourself from becoming a puddle watching him in all his sexiness.

It had been a whole three days since you saw him. Last night, he told you he would be home late and asked you not to wait up, but you always did. The need to see him safe and sound after he came home from missions was perfunctory at this point and eased your mind.

Well, he did get late because you tried keeping yourself awake, but as you snuggled on the couch watching Tangled, the day's toll and the fact that Bucky was safe and coming home to you melted all your worries away.

You inadvertently let the sleep consume you from the pattering sounds of the rain on the windows, and the occasional thunder lulled you deeper.

When you woke up, you found yourself wrapped in his arms. His right arm found its way under your shirt, his large, warm palm cupped your tit, and his muscular thigh lodged dangerously close to your panty-covered pussy.

If you had let your lust-hazed mind take the reins, you probably would have moved a bit closer to his thigh and rubbed yourself or woken him up in other ways you knew he enjoyed.

However, you knew he hardly slept on the missions. So, you let him get some more rest.

Now, looking at Bucky watching you with that look you were too familiar with had your thighs clenching involuntarily, and he noticed. He always did.

Bucky's steely gaze narrowed on your form, and his lips twitched with an all-knowing grin. He pushed himself off the wall and purposefully strode toward you.

He stood behind you, and you tried to stand up, needing to hug him and revive the taste of his lips in your mind, but he stymied your efforts.

Placing his large palm on the small of your back and pressing it firmly, "Don't stop on my account. I like this view," he sniggered, voice still raspy from sleep, sending a jolt through your body.

Bucky's hand moved to your waist, tracing his fingertips on your exposed skin. Your breath quickened, coming in puffs, and the heat spread across your body like wild unwarranted fire.

You felt your eyes close on their own accord as he moved his fingers deftly; skin singing at his touch.

His palm moved down to your ass, and he squeezed, making your belly flutter, and you sighed in delight.

"Missed me?" he questioned, moving forward to hover over your entire form, and his hard bulge rubbed on the cleft of your ass making you moan. He placed his chin on your right shoulder, nuzzling his stubble on your throat, and you turned to capture his lips, but he inched away to kiss your ear.

He ran his metal palm on your inner thighs, slowly inching them up to your belly. The cold fingers sent you reeling, and the familiar bubble of need built, spreading through your body as he moved his fingers inside your panties; all too soon, he retracted.

"Bucky," you whined desperately. He brought down his palm on your ass and spanked you.

"Ahhh FUCK," your moan resounded obscenely, lacing through the pureness of the morning, and the sudden force of his hand had you collapsing, and your knees gravitated to the ground. The impact was cushioned by a pillow, which you had no idea when he placed it. Thankfully, his metal arm held your shoulders, steadying you.

Heat spread across your lower belly, and you clenched at nothing. You were drenched and slightly embarrassed at how quickly he got you there.

Bucky rubbed your other ass cheek and hit you with much more force. The moan you let out was desperate, decadent even, and you were barely conscious about the window to your balcony, which you left open for some fresh air.

Bucky chuckled darkly, and you knew you were in for it.

He hooked his thumbs, his fingers moved inside your leggings and panties and yanked them down. You yelped at the suddenness, and the unmistakable tearing sound of the fabric told you the demise of your leggings. Another one notwithstanding his strength.

You looked over your shoulder only to see him crouch and rub his fingers all the way from the back of your ass to the front, backhanding your pussy and you mewled.

"I'll ensure you get all the stretching, doll," he vowed, running one palm from the back of your thigh and up. You felt the skin prickle under his touch as he rubbed your ass and moved it up your spine all the way to the nape of your neck. He twisted your hair into his hand and yanked; the painful pleasure had you squeaking.

"Mine to ruin, aren't ya, baby?" He remarked as you felt him wrap his metal arm around your waist, enveloping you completely, and rut himself into you. The first touch had you stumble forward, but thanks to his grip, you didn't faceplant onto the mat.

Bucky waited a second longer to give you a semblance of control if you wanted to use your safeword, which he often did when he got in such a mood. All you felt in that moment was your love catapult for him, and the lascivious need for him.

You wanted to shout, "Fuck me already," but you stayed silent, knowing fully well he would make it a point to edge you.

Bucky had a multitude of moods; most often, he just wanted physical touch; sometimes, he needed control when he fucked you without any volition, anytime, anywhere, within reason, of course. You loved it when he got that way, and he was plenty aware and played you like a fiddle.

Gazing over your shoulder, you simply rolled your hips, encouraging him. His wolfish grin made you shudder.

Oh, boy!

Bucky placed a kiss on your exposed skin on the back and nipped at it, making you squirm. His stubble tickled the side of your neck as he nuzzled a bit into your skin before straightening up, and with one practiced thrust, he was inside you, and you felt your body constrict. "Nghhhh, fuck," he groaned loudly, and you gasped for breath.

The unease with the sudden intrusion slowly left when he waited a beat longer before he set a pace that felt inhuman, superhuman even, like he was.

"Good girl," Bucky grunted. You would have nodded like a bobblehead if he didn't have your hair gripped tightly.

Undoubtedly, your neighbors must know by now you both were having a really good morning.

Bucky yanked you up, and you were now against his chest, purely with his support, ankles hanging in the air as he pounded into you from behind. You cried at the angle his cock touched your cervix.

He stopped suddenly, "Bucky, please," you sniveled.

"Not stopping for the world," he promised, "just need to see you, sweetheart," he muttered, turning you suddenly, and you flail unsteadily. He dexterously lowered you gently onto the mat, set the pillow underneath your hips, and knelt before you.

Staring into the darkened blue eyes in daylight always awed you. A ray of sunlight danced on his cheek, highlighting his face, and you preened.

He was so gorgeous, enchanting.

Bucky licked his lips and parted them, clutching your wrists in his large palm, groaning as he entered you, your eyes shut, mouth gaping open as he leaned more into you in a plank position, putting just a bit of weight on you every time he bottomed.

His bed hair called you to tug at it, which you knew he loved, but he held you firmly, shaking his head warningly as you tried to get out of his grip.

"Missed you so fucking much," Bucky roared. You looked at him with those wide eyes, biting your lip, the almost innocent gaze you gave him, making him lose his tether of control as he cursed, tapping your thighs, and you obeyed, winding your legs around him, and he fucked you with much more vigor.

"My fucking precious doll," he purred, lips ghosting your open mouth. His cock repeatedly pounced into that spot, making you cry. He pulled your bottom lip between his teeth, nipping at it and sending shivers to your core.

Everything built up, and you reached the edge of orgasm, eyes rolling. You clenched delightfully, body contracting, belly tightening.

He shifted, propelling his weight slightly onto you, and moved his right arm between your bodies to pinch your clit, and you cum, milking him. "Oh, fuck," he shouted, holding your chin and tapping your cheek.

"Gripping me so good," he hissed, gritting his teeth, rubbing your overstimulated clit.

As you came down, heavily breathing, he pulled you into a searing hot kiss, stealing your breath away.

"Mmm… take it," he ordered, and you became aware of the coil tightening in you again. You focused on the pleasure building quickly inside your belly.

His fullness, the way he grunted, holding you close, and the way he looked at you had you reaching the edge the second time.

"Aww, look at you," he whispered, almost condescendingly, into your ear. Bucky didn't slow his pace, still thrusting into you.

You were surely going to take the day off. You thought as your eyes shut at the sheer building of the pressure.

"Eyes on me, sweetheart," Bucky rasped deeply, and your eyes rolled in pleasure, unable to comply.

"I said," he left your wrists and placed his forearms beside your head, "Eyes." Thrust. "on." Grind. "Me," Thrust.

You marshaled everything in you to focus your eyes on him. His darkened gaze, that slight knowing smirk had you falling, and he snapped, growling as his hips stuttered, his cum painting all over your thighs and pussy.

After a few moments of stillness, he leaned forward, putting his weight on you, and you both breathed into each other, trying to steady your breath. He rolled his hips slightly, and you squealed at the overstimulation.

"Now, do you wanna come to bed?" he interposed smugly as he kissed your jaw. "Or do you need more yoga?" his jubilance had you rolling your eyes dramatically. Yet, you knew you were going to follow him into the damn bed anyways.

Temptation. Yes, that's what Bucky was. Pure six-foot, blue-eyed, brunette temptation, and he was all yours.

****

Ahhhh... I'm gonna take a dip in the cold water, my dearies. How was it?

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[koalaflower]

Can you do Sae x reader x Rin? The brothers are fighting for her love.

All’s Fair in Love & War

pair. rin itoshi x afab!reader x sae itoshi

genre. explicit. graphic smut. ANGST. aged up characters.

includes. dom!sae, love triangle, fwb, cheating, voyeurism, penetration, rough mirror sex, toxic relationship, rin yearns for you. NO happy endings.

synopsis. sae knows. of course he knows. but his own brother, of all people?

a/n. hi anon!! thank you so much for asking! i didn't know what genre you wanted so i did all of them heh... if you wanted a fluffy, silly love triangle, you came to the wrong person bc this ruined me (i cried 3 times while writing this) :D

word count. 5.3k

10.10.19.

It was dark outside. The same empty sky you were met with the night Itoshi Sae left for Spain. No moon, no stars, just the incessant sound of crickets chirping and the rush of water padding  against a hollow creek.

Everything was quiet. Too quiet. You missed his familiar presence beside you. How the moonlight cast its faint glow across his face, and his eyes sparkled in wonder as he pointed up at the stars overhead. You could hear his laughter like a gentle breeze, reminding you over and over the names of the constellations that frequently slip your mind. Maybe he is there, halfway across the world and looking up at the same starry sky.

Your knees are pulled to your chest, arms wrapped around yourself as the wind pricks at your skin. Four years. It had been four years since Sae left for his training regime in Europe. As time went on, he called less, his replies became more distant, and eventually, all forms of contact fizzled out. Still, you waited, telling yourself his phone was simply confiscated or he needed time to himself.

And in a week, he’ll be home. Back in Japan, where you can fuss over him from a close distance, and he can look at you with that same playful affection.

The floorboard creaks, and you feel a soft, heavy weight settle upon your shoulders. You pull the jacket around yourself, a quiet sigh leaving your lips and billowing into the night air in a puff of white smoke. You don’t have to turn to know who it is.

“It’s cold,” he says, though he doesn’t make any attempt to leave, opting to settle in this moment with you instead. This is the third night Rin has found you like this, and despite his usual nonchalance and disdain for much of everything, he’s concerned.  “Can’t you sulk inside?”

“You didn’t have to join me,” you reply, eyes casted downward. This was a state you liked—a vulnerability that belonged only to you. His brows crease, annoyed by the brevity of your response.

Neither of you speak, basking in the familiar silence. He sat here with you on most nights, sometimes in complete silence as your breaths mingle with the crisp air. After all, what was there to be said? Rin missed his older brother, and you missed your boyfriend.

“Do you think he misses us?”

It was a question you’d asked yourself frequently, an incessant thought that plagued you during the bouts of loneliness.

Rin was quiet for a moment, his eyes flitting up to the seamless dark sky. There was a small gleam in his eye, a hopeful light that hadn’t diminished despite his dwindling relationship with Sae.

“Yeah,” he replies. “He does.”

He has to.

A tense silence follows, and he rubs his thumbs together, a sort of nervous habit he hasn’t been able to shake since you were children.

“Yeah,” you whisper after a while, a small smile forming on your lips. It makes his stomach churn, the quiet longing etched onto your expression.

He shifts his body closer until your arms touch, letting you rest your head on his shoulder. This was the only way you slept these days, with the comfort of his presence.

He’s quiet before his voice finally cuts through the silence. “You miss him a lot, don’t you?”

A huff parts your lips. 

“Every day.”

09.9.21.

The sheets crinkle beneath you as you stir, and your hand subconsciously reaches for the body beside you. It's cold. Maybe as cold as that night two years ago.

Magenta hair, striking teal eyes, and an athletic, lean stature. You could’ve recognized him anywhere, but he was different. Older. More jaded. There was no warmth in his gaze, only a mask of cold indifference.

Foolish. To think time wouldn’t change him. To think devotion would be enough to anchor him to you.

Slim fingers cascade through your hair, combing through the years of heartache with sullen familiarity. But it did little to soothe the guilt gnawing at your chest.

When your eyes flutter open, you’re met with the same brilliant blue—a color so deep, you almost lose yourself in its depths. Its loneliness.

But you knew better.

Knew better than to mistake an eclipse with a sunrise. And it was Rin Itoshi’s eyes gazing back at you.

He watches you wake, his expression blank save for the barely noticeable furrow of his brow. His hand continues its gentle ministrations, fingers tracing a path through your hair before coming to rest on your shoulder.

The sun was already high, its light spilling through the window and casting a warm glow over the room. It was almost midday, yet neither of you moved, as if prolonging the intimacy would chase away the unease.

You can’t hide the disappointment etched onto your face—the slight downturn of your lips and subtle droop of your eyelids.

The change is small, almost imperceptible, but he’s memorized the language of your face, and disappointment is a dialect he knows too well.

And yet, he understands. He knows what it means—that you wish it were Sae’s body pressed so close to yours, Sae’s fingers threading through your hair. You wanted more, and it was his responsibility. Always his, to fill the empty spaces his brother left behind.

“Y/n,” he starts, tongue darting out to wet his lips, as if testing the syllables. “Why do you do this to yourself?”

Why?

Maybe it was the uncertainty. The pleasant memory of what was and the quiet, unspoken possibility of what still could be.

It wasn’t fair to him. Hell, it wasn’t fair to Sae, this twisted carousel where you yearn for one person yet seek comfort in another. A part of him found you selfish, but he could never really hate you for it.

No matter how cruel it was.

“Why wait?” he asks. His face remains unchanging, but his grip tightens ever so slightly. “For someone like him.”

Someone like Sae.

Rin adjusts himself, slowly sitting up until the covers pool around his waist. His bare chest is lean, chiseled from years of training.

You don’t answer, gaze fixated onto a specific point on the duvet where his hand fists the wrinkled linen.

He lets out a quiet scoff, frustration flashing in his eyes before it’s replaced with a resigned melancholy.

“I’d give you more than he would.”

It’s true. You know it’s true. And maybe that’s the most unfortunate part of it all. To cling to the ghost of someone’s past and let the present slip through your fingers.

“I know,” you reply. 

So simple. So vague.

He loathes the way you use him, a poor substitute for something you can’t have.

It’s not enough. He’s not enough. And that’s a bitter pill to swallow.

“I love him.” 

Him. Always him and never you.

A bitter wave of envy floods his mouth, and he feels sick. Sick at the sight of you, of the longing and the ache that never seems to fade. Yet despite it all, the worst sickness is the cyclical way he forgives you.

Rin lets out a slow, shaky exhale, turning to stare up at the ceiling instead.

He doesn’t know what to say, what he even can say. It wouldn’t change your feelings, wouldn’t lessen the dull ache in his chest.

If this is how love felt, he didn’t want it.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur, but the words fall flat. He doesn’t want your apologies. Sorry won’t erase the anguish or the years of wallowing. He just wants it all to go away.

But that’s impossible, and you both know it. 

So he stays. Endures the misery. Clings to the illusion of a real, genuine connection.

“You don’t mean that,” he says, watching as you push yourself upright. The blanket falls from your shoulders and reveals the softened red marks that bloom across your chest.

He can touch you, trace every inch of your skin, but he will never be yours. Never the one you yearn for.

It’s a petty, childish desire. He knows you can’t choose who you love, but he hates the thought of losing you to someone so undeserving.

His eyes follow you as you slip out of bed, the room feeling hauntingly quiet with each retreating step.

Your absence ricochets like a physical tremor. Even as he lays there, the sheets cool against his skin, he can't ignore the hollow sensation that settles over him.

He rolls onto his side, facing away from the place you’d occupied.

The clock on the wall ticks slowly, its sound stretching through the silence. He doesn’t know how long he stays there, with his mind racing and body unmoving.

09.24.21.

It’s midnight when you find yourself at his door again.

It was only a matter of time—whether you’d break first or him. And tonight, it was you, empty-handed and tear stricken as your fist raps against the hard wood. It’s hollow, empty, but you can hear the faint hum of the TV through the wall.

It wasn’t completely uncommon for Rin to leave the monitor on, given his tendency to spend entire nights analyzing footage. You always scolded him for it, though your lectures were met with stubborn defiance.

Fortunately, you brought a spare key.

The door unlocks with a sharp click, and you have to squint to adjust to the darkness, a faint blue light radiating from the monitor’s screen.

“Rin?” You call out, sucking in a breath as you push past the mess of shoes sprawled across the entrance. His silhouette was there, unmoving against the couch even in the dark of night. He doesn’t stir, doesn’t even turn at the sound of your voice. What could he be so focused on?

“Are you awake?” You kick off your shoes and place them neatly to the side, moving closer.

“You didn’t reply to my—“

You pause, the words dying in your throat.

Rin wasn’t here.

The figure lifts his gaze from the match he was watching, eyebrow lifting in faux surprise at your unannounced entrance. Yet, there was a sense of inevitability to it. Like he’d been expecting you.

Sae cocks his head to the side, expression almost bored. There’s no warmth in his greeting, not even a hint of a smile when he regards you. His darling lover. “It's the middle of the night.”

He leans back, his eyes flickering to the clock on the wall. He doesn’t waste time asking what he already knows. What you already know. 

His eyes simply dart down to the metal hanging from the grooves of your fingers, a pair of house keys Rin had so generously given you a year into this forsaken rendezvous–a sure token of your infidelity.

“I thought… your flight…”

“Cancelled,” he replies, as if this was just a regular occurrence, another boring late night for him. “I’m staying in Japan for another week.”

His eyes remain fixated on you, studying your reaction as the TV’s whistles and cheers fade into a quiet static.

“Why?” He asks. “Expecting someone?”

An unintelligible string of syllables leave your lips, your body rigid with surprise.

He leans forward, his chin propped up in the palm of his hand and a condescending gleam flashing in his eyes. He can’t help but find it amusing, the way you cower beneath his heavy gaze. The way he strips you down and renders you spineless.

“I asked you a question.”

He’s backed you into a corner, and you know there’s no proper explanation for this—for the clothes left draped over the living room couch, your belongings scattered across the apartment floor. 

He’s not stupid. Sae Itoshi was anything but stupid. 

It shouldn’t affect him, but he can’t help feeling disgusted. Not just at you but at himself for allowing you to exist within the frayed margins of his family’s complicated history. He’d put you on the back burner as soon as his career took off. But seeing you now—doe-eyed and clad in a shirt too big for you, too long to be his—felt like losing. Like investing time into a match he was designed to fail.

“I—why didn’t you tell me?” 

He looked tired, bored even. Like he’d rather be anywhere but here, stuck in this conversation with you.

You wonder if Rin knows his older brother is here, casually lounging on the couch like he belonged there. Like he had as much of a right to be here as the porcelain mugs lining the wooden coffee table. 

It was just you and Sae now, and that should've been liberating, but it only made everything worse. 

How peculiar it is, to both resent and yearn for your lover.

He doesn’t justify your question with a proper response at first, instead studying you in a way that only Sae could. Analyzing each flutter of your lashes and twitch of your hand like he does with his opponents.

After a brief stretch of silence, he finally speaks. "Didn’t feel the need to. I knew you’d come here regardless."

It’s accusatory. Clipped. His voice is tinged with a deep exhaustion, eyes hollowed out and sunken in, the bright teals dimmed to a muted ocean blue.

Did he know? The habitual way you seek familiarity in his brother. The destruction he’s invited into his home.

“Does it help?”

Is he a good replacement?

Sae knows he isn’t a good boyfriend. Far from it. And although he thinks he loves you, he doesn’t understand why you stay. Why you subject yourself to his long absences. He could only retrace it to a sense of helplessness. A childish desire to cling to the past.

But the fact it even comes to this—to you, donning an expression of guilt and something he could only describe as pathetic, and the knowledge that you’d go to Rin instead of him—makes his lips curl in disdain.

You want to justify yourself, spew evidence of all the late nights and missed phone calls back into his face, tell him he’s the reason. That he consumes you. But you don’t. 

Your lips are pressed into a thin line. 

“No.”

It’s a harsh truth, one you’d swallowed down to maintain a semblance of normalcy. You didn’t love Rin. Lust after, maybe, but love? Love was reserved for calloused fingertips and reddish-brown hair, frayed bangs and collared button-downs.

He exhales, rigid shoulders easing with weary resignation. His fingers beckon you over, and you follow. Like a moth to a flame.

You’re half basked in the glow of the TV and half shrouded by darkness. The light dances across your features as you look down at him, eyes glossy with sorrow for the way things had become.

His hand reaches out, tentatively parting the flush of your lips with a calloused thumb and pushing it down.

“Do you want attention?” He speaks to you like you’re an object of pity—a small dog flicking its tail for scraps of affection. The pad of his thumb gently glides across your jawline, his touch almost intimate, if not devastatingly tender.

In truth, Sae fears you. 

You’re a weakness—the lone face he searches for under crowded stadium lights and the silent pre-game prayer that tumbles from his cherry chapped lips.

You make him human, and it’s a foreign sensation, this kind of affection.

You let him guide your body onto his lap, the warmth of his chest bleeding into the back of your shirt that still smells faintly like Rin. 

He sees it then, faded marks like blemishes beneath his fingertips. There’s a bitter taste on his tongue, a violent cocktail of jealousy and betrayal. The worst part is he can’t fully blame you for wanting more than this. Brief messages and split second glances. He’s done this all to himself.

“I’ll remind you,” he murmurs, lips skimming against the outer shell of your ear.

And remind you, he did.

—Your clothes are strewn across the floor, bodies pressed together as his hand guides your face to look into the mirror. The reflection is obscene, and he feels a perverse sense of satisfaction in seeing you this way, so docile and recipient to his touch.

His hand trails between your thighs, nudging your quivering thighs apart to rub over your clit in slow, languid circles. He presses kisses along your neck, deliberately biting and nipping over the faded ones.

“Sae…” Your eyes are half-lidded and glossy. He hums in response, a low, rumbling sensation against your skin.

His other hand works to massage your breast, gently pinching and pulling at the hardened nipple. He takes his time with you, gauging any minuscule movement or reaction in the mirror like he’s analyzing a high intensity match.

“Look at me,” he says.

Your eyes flutter open to meet his piercing teal ones, so close you could feel his hot breaths fan over your skin. 

Sae watches you, slow and unblinking as your face contorts into pleasure, bottom lip taut beneath your teeth. 

You’re overstimulated, hardly able to respond when his lips crash against yours. It’s messy and hot, his hands sliding down your sides to grab at your hips.

Sorry is all he can murmur before he’s thumbing your folds apart, rubbing his flushed tip against your entrance. He doesn’t give you a chance to react before you’re sinking down.

“Fuck..! Sae,” you hiss, your insides adjusting to his large size. It’s been so long since you were filled like this, his cock splitting you open until your fingers are pressing half-moons into the plane of his thighs.

His pace is agonizingly slow, stretching you out inch by inch until he’s fully bottomed out. And then he keeps you pressed against him, planting kisses down your jawline as he waits.

He should ruin you. Ruin you for his naive little brother and anyone that gets you after him.

But you look so pretty like this, all teary-eyed and flushed with your puffy lips wrapped around the base of his cock.

“Okay?” he asks, tapping the side of your thigh with his finger. It takes you a moment to realize he‘s speaking to you, your expression dazed and glossed over.

“Okay,” you reply.

He nods, a toned arm wrapping around your torso before he’s lifting you up and slamming you back down. Your eyes flutter closed when his breath tickles your ear, but he gently coaxes them back open.

“Who do you see?” he asks, meeting your half-lidded gaze in the mirror.

Pretty lower lashes, vibrant blue eyes, and rough hands like hot furnaces.

He’s testing you, daring you to whisper syllables that aren’t his. His ego demands it, this stake of possession he knows he shouldn’t feel.

There’s no affection in his eyes, just a desire to reclaim.

He’s not Rin despite the blood coursing through his veins. He won’t give you the soft touches and adoring words you crave, won’t spin false pretenses of affection into your brain. He’s rough, tugging on your strings like a master puppeteer and discarding all your parts once your paint begins to peel. 

Yet here you are, coming back like the pretty little doll you are.

He juts his hips just slightly, the movement subtle but it draws a low moan from you. He leans forward, lightly pinching your clit between his thumb and index finger.

“—You, sae,” you gasp out, body taut and arching into his. It’s an erotic display, tantalizing and beautiful. “I see you.”

Why do you love him? Someone like Sae. That's what Rin had asked.

Your eyes meet then, in the hazy reflection. His gaze is duller, quieter, the vibrance they held from your childhood long gone and eroded by the years. It’s a strange kind of love, one that’s born from pain and demands sacrifice, cruel yet embedded into you. A love that lingers even if you didn’t talk for weeks. Even if he didn’t visit for months.

The answer is complicated, yet simple all the same: you don’t know.

His hand snakes around your throat, finger resting against your pulse point. He applies the slightest bit of pressure, thumb tracing soft circles onto your skin.

“How does he touch you?”

He hooks his arm under your leg, hiking it higher.

“Like this?”

A single snap of his hips and your head falls back onto his shoulder. Your walls squeeze him deliciously, a thin sheen of creamy foam forming around the base of his shaft. It’s embarrassing, but his grip on your chin is firm, tilting your face so you can see every twitch and shudder.

You shake your head, skin flushed and feverish. “This is… nghh…better.”

He almost smirks at that, a slight upturn of his lips.

“What about here?”

His free hand toys with your engorged clit, drawing wanton mewls from your spit-dribbled lips. Your nails rake red across his thighs, body shaking viciously but he doesn’t let you cum. Not yet.

In an instant, he’s picking you up and slamming you against the dresser, one leg hooked around his arm and the other supporting yourself as he drills into your greedy cunt. The vanity creaks and groans under the force of his thrusts, your tits pressed into the hard surface.

He can’t get close enough, can’t fuck you in the way you deserve and it drives him insane.

More, more, more. Why can’t he give you more? Why don’t you ask him for more?

With a single swipe of his arm, he sends all the trophies and miscellaneous objects cluttering his dresser to the floor, pressing your cheek flush against the mirror. Your whines are pitiful, heavy breaths fogging up the glass and tears staining your rosy cheeks.

He thinks you’ve never looked more beautiful.

“Tell me, Y/n, is this—shit—what he does to you?”

He’s so deep. So, so deep, and you don’t want this to end but you’re so close. You bite your lip, knuckles white against the counter as you try to prolong your release.

“Sae!” A lewd jumble of sounds escapes your lips, too incoherent to make out.

He scoffs, his grip on your thigh tightening as your body arches into his, taut as a bowstring. He angles your hips, hitting a certain sweet spot inside you that makes you sob.

“Yeah?”

“‘ts too much… Dunno if I can..!“

“Too much?” he teases, yet his touch is gentle, gathering strands of sweat-soaked hair and pulling it to the side. “You say that… to Rin?”

There’s a tinge of jealousy in his words, in the way his hand around your neck tightens just barely.

“You let him… hah… fuck this sweet cunt too?”

Shame courses through your veins—hot tears cascading down your cheeks. It makes you look even prettier, makes his cock throb achingly.

“‘m sorry! I missed—you."

Missed him?

He clamps a hand over your mouth, breathing ragged against your shoulder.

He doesn’t want you to explain yourself, to rationalize the way you allowed someone else to touch you, kiss you, love you.

That’s his job, no matter how shitty of a partner he was. You’re his to ruin, his to break and keep. Not Rin’s.

“Jus’ call me next time.”

Your eyes snap open at that, unable to process anything but his words and the sickeningly sweet way he was looking at you. Call him. Call him? The man who’s always traveling in and out of different states? Who could hardly reply to a one word text?

He holds your gaze, eyes unwavering as he waits for a response.

In another universe, he’d be able to give you all of it. His attention, his time, all his love. In anywhere or any place but this one, he’d be someone worth loving.

“I’ll answer you. Always for you.”

He sees the tears in your eyes, unable to stop himself from dragging his thumb over your wet lashes. His touch grows softer, grip laxing as he cards his fingers through your hair, the same way Rin does on especially lonely nights.

Being with you was like bleeding hearts and unsung melodies. 

Sae loathes to love you.

Your skin is slick with sweat, and his hands slide up your body.

“Close?” he asks, his voice a low rasp.

You nod breathlessly, eyes closed and lips parted open. He’s close. You’re close. He can feel your insides clamping down, and it’s intoxicating, the way you—

Sae’s attention is pulled away by the shadowy silhouette in his peripheral, standing like a ghost beyond the sliver of the bedroom door. 

Rin.

His teal eyes are blown wide, skin a ghastly pale white. He’s dressed in casual shorts and a white tee, dark locks clinging to the residual sweat on his forehead. The soccer ball gripped tight by fingers fall to the floor with a soft thud.

He’s watching the only girl he’s ever loved get fucked by his older brother, and it’s like his entire world is collapsing once again.

You don’t even realize, face practically melded against the mirror as he drags against every sensitive ridge lining your velvet walls.

Again. And again.

And again.

He doesn’t stop, something dark and proprietorial welling in his chest as he observes his little brother’s balled up fists and the stoic, blank expression adorning his face.

Sae’s hand slips from your mouth, falling to the side of your hip and tightening almost painfully at your wanton cries. He can tell the way it affects Rin, despite the apathy on his features—the way he tenses as if it physically pains him to witness your ecstasy.

This was no longer about his affection, his pleasure. It was about possession.

He grabs a fistful of your hair, tugging it back until you’re gasping his name. He wants your attention, wants you to look at him while he turns your insides out. Wants to see that lewd expression reserved only for him when you come undone.

And then he’s turning you to the side, spreading your legs wide open.

A beat of silence.

Your eyes widen.

“Ri—in..!”

It’s a cruel, tantalizing display, one he can’t pull away from. Rin can see everything—the mesmerizing bounce of your tits and your puffy, pink lips stretched wide on his brother’s cock. His mind compels him to run far, far from here, but his feet stay planted onto the floorboards.

Sae presses his face into the crook of your neck, peering up at him with an apathetic expression that’s borderline taunting. The dresser groans beneath you with each punctuated thrust.

“Know who that is, Y/n?”

He keeps his eyes trained on you, toying with your breasts as the obscene squelching grows louder.

“Focus,” he grunts, low but commanding. You pry your gaze away from Rin's, letting yourself be consumed by the heat of the moment.

“‘m—‘m coming… gonna cum!”

“Go on then.” Sae's fingers tighten in your hair, breaths heavy and labored as his lips instinctively find yours. He’s devouring you, every inch of you, and you allow him.

His cock is nestled snug against the rough lining of your cervix, pushing all the way in until he’s buried deep inside. You scream, orgasm crashing over you in violent, tumultuous waves until your jaw locks and eyes roll back into the top of your skull.

”Shit.” His head drops onto your shoulder, heavy breaths tickling the side of your neck. Rin’s presence becomes an afterthought as hot, sticky sperm spurts into your insides, coating your walls with a thick, creamy white.

He holds you there for a moment, rubbing soothing motions along your back. Your body is buzzing with exhaustion, putty beneath his touch as he adjusts your position and slowly draws out of you. A slow stream of white oozes from your fluttering hole—the physical evidence of your lovemaking.

Sae lifts you easily despite the heavy ache of his muscles, pulling you back onto the mattress with tender movements. The smell of sex permeates the air, your breaths evening out to a dull silence. 

Rin is gone, and the door is left slightly ajar, peering into the nothingness of the living room beyond. He sees it in your eyes, guilt for the cyclical way you let him in, let yourself be used. It’s agonizing–how much easier it is to succumb to the pleasure than drown in his rejection.

He guides your head to the smooth expanse of his chest, brushing his thumb over your swollen lips.

He whispers, “I love you.”

And just like that, your guilt wades into adoration. Just from those three little words.

It’s not the first time he’s said it, far from it, but you can’t remember the last time he did. His gaze is soft, unwavering, and there’s a foreign fluttering sensation in his chest—a love he’d describe as all consuming. 

Sae was never good at feeling, but loving you came easily. Even if it wasn’t enough to make him stay.

He notices the way your expression changes, the quiet flicker of hope and devotion, and it makes his heart clench. He’s not good at this. Love, affection, words of affirmation, it’s not something he can promise, yet here you are, clinging onto every word he says.

This is love, isn’t it? Staying with someone despite everything? Even if his heart pangs with pity and an obsessiveness disguised by affection.

“I love you too,” you murmur, leaning into his touch with a soft smile that blooms across your features. Like pink tulips blossoming in the spring.

He returns it with a small one of his own, pressing his forehead against yours. It feels so intimate, like he’s embracing the universe and its orbiting stars. Like he’s orchestrating the end of the world.

And then it’s gone.

The fondness in his eyes and slight curve of his lips fade into nothing at all.

He stares up at the ceiling, distant and unblinking. It’s over, and the game will commence again—this toxic push and pull, like two magnets constantly attracted and repelled.

He wants to reach out, to pull you into him and keep you there. He wants to promise you forever, to feel the words he knows are in his heart slip past his lips. But he doesn’t, letting the lump in his throat consume him instead.

The disappointment on your face is too heartbreaking to bear, and he has to tear his gaze away to lessen the dull ache in his chest. He’ll lose you. One day. You’ll have enough, gain the strength to leave, and turn him into another fragmented memory. But for tonight, he has you, and this is love, isn’t it? To devote yourself to someone and have them devote themself to you.

Your arm falls to your side, eyelids beginning to droop as you drift into a dreamless sleep.

He looks down at you, expression softening as he studies the steady rise and fall of your chest. There’s an ache in his chest that he doesn’t recognize—foreign yet familiar, like it’s a part of him, one that can’t ever be satisfied.

Maybe things would be different if he loved you a little more than his dreams. If he was a better man, a louder lover.

But he isn’t. 

And in the morning, he’s gone, the right side of the bed empty. The only remnants of his existence are the fading marks on your skin and the distant ache between your legs.

Love. What strange forms it came in. 

Love, as sobs rack through your entire body and the blankets coil around your shaking frame. As you bury your face into the pillows and Rin finds you again in the doorway, wearing the same helpless expression on his face. Again and again. Until reality distorts and you wonder if he’d been here at all.

How unbelievably unfortunate it is to love.

[paperclipninja]

I'm gonna sound very old person yells at cloud but I don't care, I feel like I need to say this. We all (well most of us) know that messaging Neil with any headcanons/theories/wishes/hopes/dreams to do with the show is a no-go because it could potentially compromise the story he wants to tell or ends up telling. And yes, he is a grown up who chooses what to respond to etc and I think it's wonderful he engages with fans and answers a lot of lovely and interesting questions about his process, writing and journey etc.

However, there is another reason not to send theories and ideas about how the show should go to the show creator in the hope of a response: it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether a theory is correct, or a speculation may or may not play out. That is why fandom exists.

Online fandom is where we all come together to yell and cry and throw around weird-ass ideas and theories and look at art and read fanfic and unite in our love of characters and a show. A huge part of being in fandom, is the way fandom theories become like an understood little bit of fanon lore that some people attach to, others disregard. But it doesn't matter. And part of the fun of fandom, is when a new season or a new episode of the show comes out, you have this collective catalogue of ideas and theories and headcanons and you get to yell and scream, "omg it happened1" or "lol that that thing was ever talked about" or "thank god that theory didn't come to pass".

Wanting to know now (not that we ever will) and not wanting to wait until the next season to find out the answers diminishes the fandom experience. I cannot stress enough how much we are in the absolute peak of the fandom experience right now. The between seasons time is the ultimate time to be a part of a fandom (as I'm sure many people are well aware), knowing there's another season coming energises everyone to create and connect and speculate and it's glorious! I know it feels like it'll be like this forever, but it won't. Next season is the last and yes, there will be a flurry and uptick of all the energy and excitement once again, and I absolutely believe Good Omens fandom will live on and remain active and thrumming. But there won't be theories and what ifs and hunting for clues for the next season, and over time it will dwindle a little and plateau and some people will fall into other fandoms, and while it will probably bubble away, there won't be the anticipation that sits with us now.

My point is, fandom is where we get to throw around ideas and flail and be ridiculous and also serious sometimes, but it's all for us. For the fans. Showing Neil theories or getting in a flap about a particular speculation and asking if x, y, or z might happen isn't just about putting the creator in an awkward spot, it takes away what fandom is about. Just let this time be ours. If you haven't been in fandom before, enjoy it! Don't be in a hurry to seek definitive answers or know things either way.

It doesn't matter if any or none or all of the things that float around end up being correct or incorrect. Fandom isn't about being right. It's about being a part of a community and being able to share ideas and it's about it being FUN.

So TL;DR Stop sending Neil fan ideas because that is for fandom, not for the creator.

[rueclfer]

smau request- maaaybe tomura trying to convince reader to wake up and hang with him super late bc he’s def a night owl & they end up staying up until sunrise; flirtation & heavy petting etc as we love to see it

i wrote this at 2am my brain is fried but waow loser/slightly more confident shiggy ily+ enjoy this mix of written and smau <3

twilight zone // tomura shigaraki

"oh my fucking god, knock much?" tomura exclaims, spinning around towards you in his swivel chair.

"shut up." you yawn, rubbing your eyes away from the bright PC screen illuminating the room. "like you weren't expecting me or something."

from his desk, tomura watches you click the door behind you and crawl into his bed. you pull the comforter up to your chin and nestle into his mattress as if he was the one that intruded on you in his own bedroom.

"wasn't half-sure if you were even going to come." he murmurs before shutting down his PC, diminishing the only light source in the room.

you feel the bed shift beside you as he stiffly lays down. "might as well light some candles too while you're at it." you tease.

despite how groggy you sounded, tomura could hear you signature smirk in your voice- the one that never failed to irritate the fuck out of him. he hadn't thought this far ahead- wasn't even expecting you to respond to him this late at all. all he could think about was how quick his late-night confidence was dwindling into nothing, making him squirm a bit in his own bed.

"i'd prefer to not have to look at your face." he mutters.

owch.

you don't respond. the exhaustion was ready to take over once your head hit the pillow. you think about the last time you had been in his bed like this.

it was about a month ago when you found yourself too drunk to even form a cohesive sentence. he didn't understand what you were blabbering about, but once he saw your swollen lips, flushed cheeks, glossy eyes, and handle of whiskey under your arm, he just assumed the worst.

you were drunk, touch starved, and desperate, but of course he knew better than to let you sloppily smash your lips into his like you intended two when you stumbled into his doorway. he spent that night half asleep in his gaming chair, periodically reaching over to make sure you were still breathing with his trash can pulled up next to your side of the bed.

once you sobered up the next day, he scolded you. relentlessly. strings of obscenities dripping from his mouth.

from that point on, he made sure to always find a way to keep you two at bay- something that he himself wasn't even sure how to go about. elbow nudges. kicking your feet under the dining room table. laying your legs over his lap on the couch without you asking. pats on shoulder. all to make sure that night never repeated- unsure if he could handle you throwing yourself all over him again.

"are you fucking falling asleep?" you feel a jolt on your shoulder as he shakes you awake. "wake up."

"i'm tired." you whine.

"well stop. i didn't invite you here to sleep in my bed." he huffs.

"the fucks got you up, then?"

"nothing."

you go silent for a moment.

"don't be annoying or else i'll leave." you deadpan.

"don't ask stupid questions then." he returns the attitude. "isn't it obvious? i can't sleep. can't even game right now. i just want to..." he voice falters at the end.

"...hang out with you, i guess."

oh.

your jaw slightly gapes open in surprise, spikes of heat crawling up your neck.

you tightly grip the fabric of the comforter. "well, when you say it like that, it sounds like you actually like me." you chuckle.

"didn't say that. we live together. bothering you is my only option."

"lucky you, i love when you bother me." you scoot closer, noses onto a few inches away from one another. "and even more when i bother you."

"yeah, i know. it's like you can't resist me or something." he pulls the comforter up over his mouth, shyly muffling his words.

"i should be thanking you then, right? thank you so much, tomu, for letting me lay in your bed with you. please. i want you. i need you. it's all i can think about when i'm just across the hall from you. " you roll your eyes.

he scoffs. "wouldn't be the first time you were pathetically begging for me either."

"as if." you spit. "i'd never."

"but you have."

a beat of silence passes. you press your lips together as hotness comes over your body while the events of that night surges back to you.

"you said you'd never bring that up again." you clench your teeth, cringing at the memory of tomura retelling that night's endeavors to you the morning after.

"needed to humble you a bit." he chuckles. "told you it's not a big deal though if you're still embarrassed about it."

"no shit, i'm still embarrassed." you tug the covers up to your nose. "i tried getting at you and you rejected me. i'll never live that down, tomu."

tomura goes quiet for a moment. he must've been thinking. he does that often- retreat back into his head when he isn't sure about what else to say. or maybe he had finally fallen asleep.

you glanced over his shoulder to the analog clock sitting on his desk.

4:27AM.

it was late- or early. maybe these past few sleepless nights had finally caught up to him, hopefully to save you from having to relive an embarrassing moment.

to him, tomura's brain was malfunctioning. crashing. blue screen error.

"uh. wait." he begins, breaking the silence. "reject' isn't the right word. you were drunk. i just did what anyone else would have."

"call it what you want. i just wanted a smooch and you weren't with it. it's whatever, i'm over it, you heartbreaker." you dramatically sigh.

"well, i'll give you one now if it'll get you to shut up."

it was your turn to error and crash now.

"really?" your eyes widen.

tomura's breathing stops. he wasn't sure what gave him the confidence to say that outloud. maybe it was because he couldn't clearly see your face. it was almost like you weren't there- like he was speaking out into the void that made it so easy for those words to slip out.

he didn't mean it. right?

"yeah."

fuck.

"-if you want though." he quips.

please shut the fuck up.

"last month wasn't a rejection. i just didn't want you to only want me when you're drunk, you know."

stop talking.

"but you're sober now and we're talking about it and i just-"

your lips crash into his. it catches you off guard as much as it does to him. despite how much you enjoyed listening to him ramble out his nervousness, you couldn't risk losing another opportunity to kiss him.

your hands crawl up to the side of his neck, rubbing the tender skin below his jaw as you draw him closer to you. the floodgates have opened now. tomura met your lips with the same eagerness.

you were pressed up against one another, legs intertwined, sharing a breath and heartbeats as your hands glided over each other's bodies.

your stomach was twisting with anxiety. how long had you been waiting for this moment? all of those shy glances around the apartment, subtle touches, and hidden affections had clearly not gone unnoticed.

his hand runs from the nape of your neck to your lower back where he slips his hand under your shirt, causing you to pull away in surprise from the sudden contact.

"your hands are freezing, tomu." you gasped. "what the fuck?"

"sorry." he sheepishly mutters against your lips. he keeps his hand against the soft skin of your back, lightly rubbing the area as an apologetic gesture as it warms against your body.

"sorry." you repeat, humiliation starting to creep up your neck as you two settle with the realization of what line you two had just crossed.

a beat of silence passes.

"um. so." he coughs.

"so...yeah." you respond.

it wasn't long before you two started giggling to one another like a couple of children.

"shut up." you laugh, hiding your face into the pillow.

"guess i did say you coukd have anything you want if you came over." he breathlessly chuckles.

"please. shut. up." you squeak out. "i'm going to sleep. it's already like..." you peer over his shoulder. "almost 5:00AM, tomu. good fucking night."

you turn around, letting your back face him. you could die right now. melt into this mattress and into nothing. thank god it was dark and thank god he shared this humiliation with you.

he slings his arm around your waist, bringing himself flushed against your back.

"i'm not tired." he mumbles into the back of your neck, peppering kisses into the soft skin. "stay up with me."

you mentally kick yourself. because you do- not that there was much left of the night to get through, anyways, but because when the night's haze dissipates, you'll be dealt with a bigger issue that you wouldn't be able to pass off as a drunken mistake.

[bonesvoid]

Hallowed Be Thy Name

word count: 4.2k

pairing: machine herald!viktor x cultist!reader

contains: cults, ritual sacrifice, blood, hematophagy (consumption of another's blood), kidnapping/being held hostage, mass murder, arson, virgin!reader, viktor fucks reader in his final evolution form, monster fucking?, sexy time with an eldritch horror, marking (viktor burns a sigil into reader), cunnilingus, monster cock, tummy bulge, fucking on an altar, dacryphilia, tongue fucking, mating press, cervix bruising, praise, getting fucked dumb, aphrodisiacs, somewhat psychedelic and ritualistic sex, rough sex, there's a happy ending (sorta)

summary: your commune worships the machine herald, your god. yet, his power and ability to aid the commune has begun to diminish. only you, a virginal sacrifice, can replenish his divinity.

a/n: this is probably my most graphic fic to this date, it borders into dark content territory so scroll away if you don't wanna interact with this!

You’re their sacrifice.

Your small commune relies on the gratitude and care from an old forgotten God, one made of machine with the divinity to heal. They call him the Machine Herald, praising him for his divine interventions. Nearly all of the commune has been infused with the Machine Herald’s healing machine, gold and white swirls on past injuries and disorders. 

It’s only with the recent generation–your generation–that the Machine Herald’s power has dwindled. Otherworldly forces have tampered with his divinity, threatening him into extinction. Through the body of the commune’s medium, the Machine Herald proposes a solution to regain his power and aid the commune; he demands a vessel, a body untainted by his influence, he requires the vessel to be pure and able to withstand the transfer of his divinity onto them.

You’re the daughter of the commune’s apothecary, an obedient sweetheart who always helps her parents. Whether they need a new herb from across the river or assistance with grinding up a powder for a new concoction, you do without command. The commune hails you as a valued member, a gift to their community.

The perfect sacrifice their God desires.

You stand before the altar in the commune’s holy center, candles lit around the pews in the shape of the Machine Herald’s sigil. Dressed in flowing white silk, you adorn a golden crown made of broken off machinery from loved ones long past. You keep your hands clasped together in prayer, as the rest of the commune awaits for the ceremony to start. 

Cassandra, the commune medium, approaches the altar and steps behind it. She sets down a series of offerings to the God; a bottle of wine, two pomegranates, and a golden bowl. Cassandra extends her hands out and the commune members rise from their seats, “Esteemed loved ones, those blessed by The Herald and those awaiting His touch, your presence today will be historical.”

Tears prick the corners of your eyes, ready to spill down your rosy cheeks. Cassandra directs the commune to sit back down and once settled, she barnishes a knife and sets it down on the altar, “For the first time since our home’s founding, one of our own will make full contact with The Herald!” gasps and cheers erupt through the holy center, “To become His vessel, to become one with His Glory!’

You attempt to plead for your freedom, but the excited shouts and yells from the commune drown out your voice. While kneeling at the altar, your feet are bound with hemp rope, preventing your escape. Although you are an obedient girl like all say, you couldn’t do this; you cannot lose your mind and body to a higher being like so. This isn’t your choice.

“Let us begin,” you peer up at the medium while she speaks. Cassandra picks up the knife and slices her hand open, crimson blood leaking from the wound. With the blood, she draws The Herald’s sigil on the canvass behind her. She then moves back to the altar and holds her bleeding hand over the golden bowl, filling it up with blood. 

“Here,” she hands the bowl of blood to you, “Drink up and summon Our Glorious Herald.”

Your hands shake and nearly drop the bowl. You debate what would happen if you did, but you have a feeling it would only end poorly. With tears rolling down your cheeks, you hold up the bowl to Cassandra and whimper, “Pl- Please, don’t make me- me do this!”

Cassandra squats to your level and wipes away the tears from your cheeks, “Oh, sweet child, it’s okay,” she reassures you, “I did the same ceremony before, when I became The Herald’s Voice. You will be okay,” she takes the bowl and presses the rim to your lips, “You will be okay, sweet child.”

You take the bowl from her hands and part your lips, slowly and painfully drinking the blood. Its metallic taste makes you want to vomit, but Cassandra prevents you from so, steadying the bowl with her hands. Once finished, you rip your mouth off the bowl and cough up some of the blood; it rolls down your chin and drips onto your chest. 

“You’ve done excellently, sweet child,” the commune medium praises you. She returns to the altar and grabs the wine, “To cleanse your pallet,” she hums, handing you the bottle. You eagerly drink it all up, desperate to rid your mouth from the taste of blood. Your skin suddenly heats up, your face burning and your core throbbing. You whine softly at the sensation and clench your thighs together, “What’s… happening…” you find yourself slurring words, as your vision blurs.

“We’re almost done, sweet child,” you hear Cassandra’s voice call out to you. Someone approaches you from behind and swoops you up from the stairs of the altar. They walk up to the altar and gently set you down in the center, “I’m sorry, honey.”

You recognize that voice, your father’s

“Daddy!” you cry out to him, “Please, don’t let them do this! This will kill me, Daddy!”

“I’m sorry,” he chokes back a sob, “It’s what The Glorious One demands.”

You try to yell, but Cassandra shoves one of the pomegranates into your mouth, your teeth digging into its skin. In addition to your bound feet, someone binds your hands together and ties your waist around the altar. Cassandra places the final pomegranate in your bound hands and exclaims, “Behold, Our Glorious Herald, may He bless you with His Divinity!”

The holy center rumbles, the echoes of a thunderstorm rattling the foundation. Cassandra’s mouth suddenly hinks open, her jaw snapping off its joints and unleashing a blinding light. Screams of terror and panic pierce throughout the holy center, as you regain clearer sight. 

Cassandra turns to face you, her eyes pure black and leaking bloody tears. A permanent smile is fixed on her face, her teeth unnaturally sharp and pointy. Your wails are muffled by the pomegranate in your mouth, as the creature descends onto you. Puppetering Cassandra’s body, the unholy creature hovers over your face, saliva and blood dripping onto your face.

“A… good… choice…” the creature speaks through Cassandra’s voice, pitched low and fuzzy like radio static, “I… will… cherish… you…” the creature grabs at your neck and pins you down, rendering you incompletely immobile, “Let’s… go… home.”

The holy center suddenly explodes, burning away the pews and the people inside. You, however, are witnessing this through a different realm, horrified. Helpless, you can only watch, as the fire from the holy center ravages through the entire commune, burning down buildings and scorching the bodies of commune members. In the aftermath of the fires, the remains of the commune reek of death and despair.

You fall to your knees and sob into your hands, “God, why… Why, why, why…”

“Divine punishment,” an accented voice speaks to you. Turning around, you’re able to take in your surroundings, a cosmos of stardust. You look at your body, an astral projection of yourself merging with the realm. There’s a sofa floating in the air above you and a man with sharp cheekbones and ruffled hair peers over, “Hello.”

Your body tells you to scream, but an odd sense of peace washes over you at the sight of the beautiful man. He snaps his fingers and the sofa vanishes before he floats down to your level, “Your medium betrayed your community,” he states.

“What?” your stomach–or whatever organ you have in this astral plane–churns.

The man floats closer to you, his white hair glowing with a blue tint. He has thick eyebrows, a few moles scattered about his face, and a hooked nose. His eyes shine a sweet honey amber hue. When he speaks, his voice vibrates through your rib cage and squeezes your heart with an unfamiliar feeling, “She failed to follow my instructions, she forced you to drink her blood in an effort to join in our union.”

Nausea bubbles up and you gag, covering your mouth with your hand. The man hovers around you, swimming aimlessly through the waves of the cosmos, “There was no way to prevent the fires when she signed the agreement; her failure to adhere to the contract triggered this.”

“Is everyone dead?” you ask, your voice meek as a mouse.

“Only those manipulated by my intervention,” the strange man answers, “Your generation was spared, they shouldn’t have to suffer because of the selfishness of the older generation,” his eyes shift through a kaleidoscope of colors, “May they rebuild a better community from the ashes.”

The gears in your mind click together, “You’re The Herald.”

“Indeed,” he hums, extending a hand out to you, “But my human name was Viktor.”

“Viktor,” you say his name, it rolls off your tongue effortlessly, “Pretty name,” you add on when you accept his hand. He smiles at you, affection twinkling in his eyes, “Pretty like you.”

Your cheeks turn a shade of pink, hiding your flustered state now unavoidable. Viktor chuckles at your state and tugs on your hand, “Allow me to show you around,” you allow Viktor to guide through the endless abyss of stardust. The heartbeat of the cosmos calls out to you, thumping and thumping. You’re awestruck by the astral plane, “This is amazing.”

“I agree,” Viktor chimes in. With his free hand, he snatches up some stardust and manipulates its form, producing a rose. He hands you the rose with a small smile, timid and sweet like a schoolboy asking his crush out, “For you, my dear.”

“T- Thank you,” you stammer and happily take the rose. You admire it between your fingers, an otherworldly creation. The rose slips from your fingers and returns to the cosmos as stardust, “Can we leave here?” 

“Yes,” answers Viktor. He lets go of your hand and an unusual sadness washes over you, the brightness of your astral form dimming, “I’ve remained in this realm for far too long, but we can leave whenever you desire.”

“Do I still have a body?” your eyes wide with panic.

“Yes, yes!” Viktor reassures you, “It lays dormant on the altar, untouched.”

“What about you? Where’s your body?” you inquire. 

Viktor’s cheeks tint pink at your questioning, “I do,” he answers, “But it’s not human.”

“Oh,” you frown, “What happened to your human body?”

“I shed it for the sake of evolution,” he intertwines a bony finger with a strand of your hair, playing with it mindlessly, “Yet, the only human part left of me remains trapped in the astral plane,” he drapes his free hand over your shoulder “I hope to regain access to it, hence my request for a vessel.”

You narrow your eyes at Viktor, “Are you gonna take my body?”

“No!” he retorts, “I need to connect myself to a vessel to absorb enough human essence to reform my human body,” the pink in his cheeks darkens, “I prefer not to possess your body for this process. I have a different method in mind.”

You blink at Viktor, curiosity evident in your doe-like eyes. The god’s cheeks redden and his eyes shift from amber to light pink, “Absorption through intercourse, the physical connection of two bodies as one, the most human way.”

You pull back from Viktor, your astral form glowing with various hues of red and pink, “Oh!” you’re unable to come up with a response, the idea of losing your virginity to such a pretty man–no, he’s a divine being, for fuck’s sake–makes you shudder with anticipation. You take a few moments to calm down, your astral form returning to its bluish white hue, and float back to Viktor.

“Is your true form scary?” you bit your bottom lip with nerves. Viktor offers you a reassuring pat on the cheek, “Likely, but I promise that I will not hurt you,” he touches his forehead against yours, “Will you do me this honor?”

“I- I-” your pulse quickens at his request. You could say no, you could, but you can’t. Something comes over you, a painful need for his touch. Viktor’s words have you in a trance, your mind going fuzzy and warm. You want to please him, to please your God, anyway you could.

“Yes, My Herald,” the desire to submit and devote yourself wholeheartedly shoves any logic, reason, and fear out of your mind. 

“Good girl.”

No longer are you in the astral plane, but back on the altar; your gown is stained in blood with a few scorch marks and you’re no longer bound to the table by rope. You sit up and spit out the pomegranate from your mouth, some of its juice staining your mouth and chin. The holy center is burnt to a crisp, ash and debris covers the ground; there’s no sign of life. 

“My dear.”

A deep, transcendental voice booms through the destroyed holy center. You swing your legs over the altar and scan your surroundings for the voice. Your eyes land on the center of the aisle, as a massive being walks down it. 

The creature holds a spiral staff, a shiny blue orb pulsating with each contact the staff makes against the ground. Its skin is a deep shade of purple with golden tendrils wrapped around different sections of the body. The creature has a flowing blue cape with red accents covering its shoulder, the only attire it possesses. A  third appendage sticks out of its back, resembling a claw. 

As it gets closer to the altar, you can make out its face. It’s simply a mask with vibrant golden sclera, the remnants of its face peeled out like a husk, and accompanied by wiry strands of black hair. A halo encases its head, made of oscillating runes of a long forgotten society. 

“Be not afraid,” the creature’s voice reverberates through the holy center. 

“Viktor,” his name escapes your lips, your body frozen in place, “Oh, Viktor.”

“My dear,” he stands before the altar, “Does this form scare you?”

“No,” never in your life had it been so easy to say the truth, “You’re beautiful.”

If Viktor still had human flesh for cheeks, he would be blushing. Instead, the halo above him fluctuates to a light hue of pink, “You grace me with such kindness. The love you possess in your heart is more radiant than a thousand suns.”

You open your mouth to speak, only to feel a dull throb in your pelvis. The effects of the wine Cassandra provided you have resumed, now that you’re back in your physical body. A large hand caresses your stomach, “That wine helps your essence circulate better through your body. I assure you that the effects are temporary.”

“My…” you stifle back a moan, wetness dripping from your cunt and onto the table, “My Herald, I pray for your guidance,” you shut your eyes tight and let out a pitiful whimper, “M- My Herald, I offer my purity to you!”

Viktor moves his hand from your stomach and down your pelvis, spreading your folds open. His hands are too big, he rubs a finger against your entrance and pulls back to examine your arousal, “A needy girl,” the runes in the halo shift red, “I shall tend to the needs of my devoted.” 

He’s so huge, at least two or three feet taller than you. Towering over you, Your Herald pins you down to the altar and the thinnest part of his mask protrudes open, revealing a long neon purple tongue. He kisses you eagerly, his tongue exploring the wet carven of your mouth. You’re getting drunk off a single kiss, as you embrace Viktor as best as you could. 

He pulls back from your face and his tongue slithers out of your mouth, a lewd ‘pop!’ followed after it. You peer up at the divine being through your eyelashes, “Need you…” you whimper to The Machine Herald, “Please…”

“Allow me the honor of tasting you more,” Viktor lifts up your legs and positions your pelvis towards his face. He unhinges his mask once more to expose his tongue and licks your pussy, prompting a restrained moan from you. 

“No need to quiet yourself,” your God informs you, “Let me hear you sing,” his tongue circles around your clit, wrapping around it and stroking it. You cry out from the sensation and vehemently chant Viktor’s title, as he tests the waters of your soaked cunt. His tongue dives inside your pussy, his masked face frigid against the throbbing warmth of your cunt. The Machine Herald tongue-fucks you without remorse and relishes the nectar of your pussy, pleased to see how easy it is for you to unravel.

“My- My Herald, I’m- I’m gonna-” words stumble from your lips, but fail to form a proper sentence, as you climax. You drench Viktor’s face in your juices, your body shuddering from the intense orgasm. The Machine Herald rubs circles on your thighs, as he withdraws his tongue out of your womb. He laps up the slick from your cunt and hums aloud, “You taste like the Heavens themself.”

“You spoil me, My Herald,” you giggle. Viktor places your legs back down on the altar and cups one of your cheeks, stroking it as gently as he could, “No, it is you who spoils me,” he touches his forehead against yours, “I have yearned for eons to embrace another,” a bit of his natural voice from the astral realm cracks through the surface, “I’ve waited for you to come to fruition, to be reunited with your soul.”

You don’t quite grasp what Viktor is referring to, your mind too consumed by arousal and desperation to question it. Nonetheless, you pull away and tap your forehead against his, a gesture of affection exchanged, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

The Machine Herald’s halo shifts to a hue of sunshine yellow, “Excellent… Now, lásko, let us become one,” you nod in agreement and remove your gown, displaying your nude body to Viktor. His hands trail down your body, mapping each dip and freckle, and rests you once more against the altar, “I must warn you, my cock is not that of a human’s. It may hurt.”

“I can handle it,” you promise Viktor. He nods and snaps his fingers, “Let us begin.”

A purplish light suddenly radiates from his pelvis and an otherworldly cock emerges. It’s thick, long, and ribbed; you salivate at the thought of it inside you. Despite your virginal status, you’re no stranger to pleasure yourself with toys that you’ve snuck in from visits to the mainland for supplies. 

The claw on The Herald’s back seizes your hands, slamming them above your head to hold you in place. Like a faithful discipline, you’ve already spread your legs open for Viktor. He shrinks his height to a more manageable size and joins you on the altar, lining his beastly cock to your entrance.

“I offer my purity to you,” you proclaim to The Machine Herald, “Take me as yours.”

“I offer my dedication to you,” he utters back, “Take me as yours.”

Viktor’s cock enters your pussy and you hiss at the intrusion, your cunt too small for his size. You feel the inner threads of your womb snap in two, as The Herald deflowers you. You take deep breaths while Viktor sheathes his entire length and girth inside you, a visible bulge poking out of your lower abdomen. 

“What a marvel you are,” he coos, caressing the bulge. You whine at his touch, tears rolling down your cheeks from the desperate need to be fucked, you can’t wait any longer–

Viktor suddenly shoves his hand against your stomach and heat shoots through your body. You bite back a pained sob, as Viktor traces his sigil onto your skin, scorching your once untainted flesh. The Herald wipes away your tears with his free hand, the other massaging the fresh burn, “You’re my mine, now and eternity, my goddess.”

You squirm against the claw around your hands, “Please, Viktor, let me touch you.”

“Alright, my dear,” he detaches the claw arm from your hands. You beckon him to lean closer and he does so, his cock hitting a new but pleasurable angle within your cunt. Shaking off the lust clouding your thoughts, you place your hands on The Machine Herald’s face. You’re quiet while you analyze his features, a being beyond normal human comprehension. 

“You’re magnificent,” you breathe out, nothing but pure admiration on your face.

The halo of runes deepend to a blood red and gold accents that snake around The Herald’s body pulsate. Viktor taps his forehead against yours, “I have missed your praise, lásko. You fill this body of mine with a foreign sense…” he chuckles, “Perhaps, I’m regaining the ability to feel, to emote,” he pulls away and asks you, “May I indulge myself in a long-forgotten delight of humanity? Intertwine myself with you, commensurate our union before the eyes of the universe?”

“Yes,” you consent, his prose as entrancing as his voice. The Machine Herald adjusts himself on the altar and you whimper with each poke of his cock. Once satisfied, Viktor places his hands between your waist and his halo morphs to a deep pink, “Ready, lásko?”

“Ready,” you confirm.

Viktor pulls out of your cunt just a bit before thrusting back inside. You gasp at the motion, the walls of your pussy contracting on instinct. Viktor chortles to you, “My, my. Your womb knows me well,” he thrusts once more, the tip of his monstrous cock kissing your cervix, “I can feel your essence, how vibrant your soul is.”

“Viktor…” you purr, trying to suppress a moan, “I don’t… All of this… So familiar.”

“Indeed,” he whispers back, “Enjoy yourself, I will take care of you.”

You offer a small smile, enamored. The Machine Herald resumes his thrusting, the ribbed texture of his cock rubbing up against your walls. You feel so full with Viktor’s cock inside your cunt, you fear the emptiness that would later follow.

“Fuck!” Viktor grunts, picking up speed with his thrusts. His dick assaults your poor cervix, beating it to a pulp, but you relish in the feeling. Use me. I’m yours. The sound of squelching and pants echo throughout the holy center, as Viktor has his way with you. With glee, you watch as the bulge in your stomach shrinks and grows with each thrust. 

“Lásko!” The Machine Herald calls out to you, “You feel- You feel so divine around my cock!” He lifts up your legs and folds you in half, your feet dangling close to your head, “I need to claim your very being.

His mask unsheathes his tongue and kisses you, battling your tongue with his for dominance. You can’t think straight, your body is like dough for Viktor to mold. He slams his dick deeper into your cunt, reaching depths unknown to you. Your eyes suddenly light up gold, consuming your sclera and irises. Viktor angles his dick at your sweet spot and hits it; you utter a lewd whine and the intensity of the gold in your eyes grows.

“Almost there, almost there,” The Machine Herald growls, pounding you mercilessly without care. The knock in your stomach begins to unravel, as your orgasm approaches, “My- My Herald!” you moan, “Gonna cum!”

“Yes, cum for me, my goddess!” he commands you, his cock thumping around the walls of your pussy. Like the obedient girl you are, you do as you’re told; the knock in your stomach pops and ecstasy waves over you, “Viktor!” you cry out, as golden light beams out from your eyes.

The Herald groans profoundly while you orgasm, the walls of your cunt fluttering around his cock and squeezing it like a vice. Not waiting until you finish your orgasm, Viktor resumes his pounding, his own orgasm only moments away.

“My goddess…” he murmurs, his hand snaking down and resting on your chest, “Thank- Thank you for this,” Viktor struggles to hold back from his climax. 

You place your hand on top of Viktor’s, tiny in comparison. With your hands connected over your heart, you flash Viktor one last smile, “Anything for My Herald.”

Viktor crumbles at your words, unleashing his orgasm. The Herald shoots hot white cum deep inside your cunt, bypassing your cervix and filling you up with his seed. The light from your eyes travels towards Viktor and his body absorbs it, his halo morphing to the same shade of gold. 

You’re motionless, unable to move a muscle. An odd sense of power engulfs you, your skin emitting a dull glow of gold. Above you, Viktor’s body begins to convulse, sparks and wheezes echoing from him. In a flash, the entity loses its eldritch form and a familiar brunette man collapses on top of you.

“Viktor,” you exhale, “We did it?”

“We did,” he informs you, a grin on his face, “I shift back to human again,” he embraces you and peppers your neck with kisses, “We did it.”

You kiss his neck sweetly, hands entangling his chocolate waves, “You’re back,” a vision flickers across your eyes. You see yourself in a mirror, but the reflection is of a tanned man with broad shoulders and a pearly white smile. The vision vanishes and you close your eyes, exhausted from the day’s activities.

Viktor holds you as firmly as he could, a rush of emotion crashing over him.

I have you back… Jayce.

[deadly-diminuendo]

The Ascendant Takes a Bride

an ascended astarion x fem!reader oneshot / nsfw / ~4.4k words

Summary: Just as you and your family are about to fall into ruin, you agree to marry the mysterious Astarion Ancunín in exchange for his promise to pay off all your debts. Attractive and charming though he is, you cannot help but to feel nervous about your arrangement. Some say he is a vampire. You have seen evidence that both supports and counters that claim. You are not sure what to believe. Finally you find yourself alone with him on your wedding night—and Astarion has some unexpected surprises in store for you.

CW/Tags: breeding kink, wedding night, loss of virginity, vampire bites/blood drinking, piv sex, fingering, post-game

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Or read below...

Your husband lifts you across the threshold, tearing you from the comfortable life you knew and thrusting you into a fate unknown, a fate you hope will be kind but fear will be grim.

You did what you had to do. Your family would either flourish or it would fall, and you knew your willingness to marry Astarion Ancunín would make all the difference. Why accept utter ruination when you could instead ensure the prosperity of everyone you love?

Ill fortune plagued your clan for decades—dwindling wealth, diminishing influence, a decaying estate—there was almost nothing left. Poverty was no longer a distant nightmare but an imminent reality. Your parents prayed you might escape its chokehold with a prudent match, but without a single gold coin for your dowry, your prospects for marriage were dire.

When almost all hope was lost the unlikely offer came—the affluent and prestigious owner of the castle on the hill would be willing to pay off all debts and restore your household to its former glory—if only you would agree to become his bride.

The proposal shocked you. You had been introduced to the enigmatic pale elf, but he was far from a man you knew well. Your acquaintanceship amounted to no more than a few polite but empty conversations and the occasional twirl about a dance floor. Then again you did notice how his gaze tended to follow you about the room, and you could never help but to regard him with an equally curious eye.

You were both attracted to and intimidated by him. The gods themselves could not have crafted a more beautiful man, and yet… something about him unsettled you. His grip a little too tight, his smile not quite sincere. He gave you the distinct impression of a scoundrel only pretending to be a gentleman.

And you had heard whisperings about him. They say he is a vampire. A devious, ruthless, heartless man who subsists on the blood of his enemies.

Still you were intrigued. You spent more time than you care to admit constructing and revising his biography in your mind, attempting to, but never succeeding in unravelling all his mysteries. The red irises and the sharp canines certainly supported the local gossip. Yet you’d seen him in broad daylight. You’d seen him eat real food. You’d felt the heat of his skin every time you’d danced together.

Surely the rumours could not be true.

You had a choice to make. Suddenly you possessed the power to save your whole family. Everything—everyone—depended on you and you alone.

So of course you said yes.

Determined as you were, you could never fully exorcise your doubts. Instead you chose to ignore them, to focus on all the good that could come from this arrangement. Your troubles would be over. Your family would live well. You would want for nothing.

Not to mention it was surprisingly easy to picture yourself in his bed.

But those doubts you buried did not lie dormant. Oh, no. They crept and crawled beneath your skin, festering and mutating into a dread that now threatens to consume you whole.

You cannot help but wonder: are you a saviour or a sacrificial lamb?

Either way it is far too late for second thoughts. Today you vowed yourself to Astarion. You promised him your body, your heart, your soul.

You are his wife.

Every part of you tingles with nervous energy—the expected wedding night jitters greatly exacerbated by the misgivings you feel concerning your new husband—and yet you cannot deny the thrill underlying it all.

The way he kissed you at the altar was downright sinful. The way he whispered his desire in your ear made you shiver. The way he held your hips tight against his as you danced left you weak in the knees.

He frightens you, and excites you, and—gods help you—you want him to fuck you.

You thought he might throw you on the bed and make you well and truly his the very second you were alone together. Instead he sets you down with care, ensuring you find your footing despite the bulk of your billowing skirts.

You manage a brief survey of the room—a canopy bed draped in scarlet silk, a plush loveseat in front of the fireplace, high-vaulted windows welcoming in the starlight—and as excessive as it all is in its extravagance, you find it cozy. Romantic, even. A place that might yet become your personal paradise.

Or your gilded cage. You shudder.

Your gaze falls upon the object nearest you: an ornate full-length mirror. You almost fail to recognize the woman you see staring back at you. You are the very picture of fairytale whimsy in your intricate ivory lace and your crown of white roses. You smile. To hells with your unwelcome anxiety. This is your wedding night, and you will enjoy every minute of it.

Or at least you will try.

Astarion’s reflection closes in behind yours, and you find yourself rather relieved to see that he has one. Another strike against the rumours.

You admire him in the looking glass. High cheekbones, enticing lips, bewitching eyes. Even his so-called flaws, all his wrinkles and his laugh lines, suit him to perfection.

And he admires you right back—more shamelessly than you do him—hungry eyes mentally peeling off your dress as they rake you over.

“My beautiful bride.” You melt under his simple yet sultry praise, your imagination running wild with fantasies of what bliss the coming hours might bring. You know little of carnal pleasure but your own touch. By the end of this night you are sure to know much, much more.

His hands sweep across your shoulders, fingers slipping beneath the fabric of your little capped sleeves. In the mirror you catch a flash of that devious smirk, the one that hints at the rogue you think he truly is.

“Almost a shame that I have to undress you.”

Your mouth runs dry, any words you might have said forever lost in the silence.

You do want this. You want to make love to your husband. You want to learn to love him in every sense of the word.

You want to trust him.

But can you?

“May I?” he asks, one hand travelling down to the laces at your back, the other hand enclosing yours in his. Feigning chivalry all while his firm grip screams out his barely suppressed urge to tear your gown from your flesh and pin you hard against the wall.

This is it. There is no going back now. You passed the point of no return hours before, your fate sealed with two little words: “I do.”

He wants you.

And so you will let him have you.

“Yes.”

With that, his fingers thread through your laces, pulling them loose with alarmingly efficient speed. Quite the expert he must be. You have, after all, heard talk of his rakish ways. Those rumours are much easier for you to believe.

You feel your bodice loosening, though your struggle to breathe persists, the weight of this moment somehow heavier than the mass of your dress. You gather your courage to do your part, tugging off your sleeves and letting the fabric fall away from your skin, pushing what remains down over your hips. Astarion takes your hand as you step out and away from your unwieldy gown, kicking it unceremoniously into a corner. The second it is out of the way, he pulls you back in front of the mirror with a force that makes you gasp.

“Look at you,” he says, and you glance at your reflection. You are bare before him save for what hides beneath your lacy smallclothes. “You are exquisite, darling.”

His fingers dig into your skin, seeking all your soft and sensitive places, your body beautifully pliable under his exploratory touch. He gives ample attention to the delicate curve from your waist to your hips, and to the lovely heft of your breasts, squeezing and kneading and molding you to his liking. You watch, mesmerized, the self-consciousness that might have held you back fading away. His thumbs repeatedly ghost across your nipples, soft lips nuzzling your neck as he grows hard against your backside—and, gods, your cunt aches for him. Not even the graze of his sharp teeth, suspect as it is, could dissuade you now.

Lust obliterates what was left of your modesty as sweet sounds spill forth from your parted lips. Already you are falling apart in his arms and he has not yet once stroked you between your legs. “Please…” you hear yourself beg.

He laughs. It’s a hearty, almost mocking sound, but you are too far gone to mind. “You will have to be more specific, I’m afraid.” As if he could not guess. Both of you know exactly what you want. “Use your words, pet.”

“Please touch me.”

Insufficient.

“Make love to me.”

Much better.

And there is one other little thing you should tell him.

“Like no one before you ever has.”

There it is, that devilish, devastatingly sexy grin. He is pleased. Maybe a little too pleased. You again note the pointed tips of his canines, and you expect, one way or another, you will soon be devoured.

“Oh, my sweet little virgin,” he purrs, hands slipping off your smallclothes, a finger dipping inside your slick heat. Hells. A relief sublime and yet nowhere near enough. “You have been so, so patient for me, haven’t you?” Patient is the last thing you feel right now as you arch into his touch, desperate for more friction, more pleasure, more Astarion. “Rest assured, my little love. I will reward you well. Grant you your every desire. Of course, I expect all I want in return.”

“Anything,” you cry, and you mean it. You waste no time contemplating the meaning of his words, nor your own. You just want to be fucked.

“Anything?” You nod and he smirks, increasing the pressure and pace as he inserts a second finger, holding you steady as you squirm. “Such a good girl for me, aren’t you? All these years you saved yourself for my bed, and you didn’t even know it, did you?”

Should you be answering with a nod or a shake of the head now? You are no longer sure, your mind incapable of thought beyond imagining how glorious your orgasm will feel when he grants it to you. You eventually decide upon nodding, and you hear him chuckle.

“Adorable. The way you look, the way you sound—” He nibbles at your neck, then breathes into your ear. “And I bet you taste just as sweet.”

Your blood chills at the thought of him tasting it. A shiver runs down your spine.

No… Surely he speaks of something pleasurable. Something you have heard other young women gush and giggle about. Something you would like to experience for yourself. You let passion burn your needless worry away, writhing about as you refocus on release, your eyelids fluttering closed.

The next thing you know his hand is clutching your neck. “Watch.” You immediately obey his growled command, your eyes locking upon your own reflection, all flushed and disheveled. Gods, you look positively ravaged and you have yet to even take his cock. You glimpse his smile, a sure sign he is thoroughly enjoying the utter mess he is making of you.

“This pretty body of yours was meant to be mine, wasn’t it, pet?”

This time you know just what your answer should be. You nod furiously and he moves deliciously faster. It won’t be long now.

“Oh, and I assure you I will put it to excellent use.”

You nod again. You are certain he will. You keen as his fingers curl into you.

He grins. He knows he has you now.

“My, what an eager thing. You will be the perfect little vessel for me, won’t you?”

You agree. You would give him anything. As long as he takes care of you, too.

And he will take care of you, won’t he?

“A vessel to take my pleasure in whenever, wherever, however I want?”

You will. Gods, you will. You moan out your assent and punctuate it with his name. You will spend your life parting your mouth, spreading your legs, offering your body to fill and to fuck as he pleases. As long as he makes you come, too.

And he is about to make you…

“And to carry my children?”

You surrender to ecstasy as it wracks you senseless, clenching violently around his fingers and singing out your instinctive answer with ardour. “Yes!”

Only as the pleasure subsides do you begin to think things through.

What did he just say? What did you just say?

You knew this topic would come up eventually. It is an inescapable expectation among the nobility—sometimes unspoken, sometimes spoken very loudly—but always present either way. And yet the last thing you expected was for Astarion to speak of children right on the cusp of your consummation. You thought you would at least first get to know each other as lovers and partners before ever considering becoming parents.

Your state of shock does not discourage him. Instead he smiles wickedly as he gives your hardened nipple a pinch, sending another jolt of desire straight to your cunt. He begins rubbing your clit again, making you mewl, only to leave you whining when he withdraws. He leaves a trail of your own slick along your skin as his hand slides up to rest at your lower abdomen.

“Oh, my sweet love. I can already imagine how gorgeous you will look swollen with my child. You do want to give me a child, don’t you?”

You stare in silence though you have to admit it is not an unwelcome idea.

“You will let me come inside you, won’t you?”

Gods. Now that is an idea you welcome gladly. Something innate, something deeply ingrained within your core cries out your need. You crave it, crave to let him spill his seed inside you. You wriggle about in his arms as you picture it.

Motherhood just might suit you.

Astarion spins you around and you gaze into those stunningly hypnotic eyes. You press a hand to his chest and discover that his heart beats just like yours, its steady, strong tempo dismantling your lingering doubt. A mortal. Like you. 

“I can tell you want this, darling,” he says. Perhaps you do. “Your heart races at the thought. Give yourself to destiny. Give yourself to me.”

Only one answer comes to your mind.

“Yes.”

He captures your lips in a kiss that ignites your lust and kindles your affection. His arms feel like home. Like you have always belonged to him and you always will.

You need him now.

You only manage to undo a single button of his overcoat before he lifts you off the floor and lays you atop the silk and softness of his bed. Your bed, you realize. You imagine spending many endless nights together here in a tangle of limbs.

He stands there stripping himself as you lie and watch with rapt attention, and yet you hardly know where to look—his beautiful eyes bore into you with intense hunger, his deft hands work effortlessly through his every layer, his newly bared skin tempts and tantalizes you—every part of him competes for your admiration. When he finally pulls off his smallclothes your eyes are instantly drawn to his cock, thick and flaunting his desire. On instinct you part your legs.

The sight of you splayed in invitation lures Astarion onto the bed and over you, arms and legs caging you in, lips colliding with yours, cock ready at your entrance. You roll up your hips to tease him, your lack of patience testing what little remains of his.

Your little nudge is all it takes to make the last of it crumble and he crashes into you.

You wince at the initial tinge of pain. It passes in seconds, dulled by your arousal, and you are thankful for the mercy. You succumb to the pleasure of him stretching and sinking into you, your body eager to accept the whole of him as he slides deeper inside.

“Easy, darling. I promise a little pain is worth all the pleasure.” He gives you the soothing coos and slow movements of a gentle and cautious lover—a part he plays well, you would think, if not for the tension you detect coiled in his muscles. You recognize he is a man struggling to hold back, and that epiphany has your cunt clenching around him.

Emboldened by your obvious want, he starts to fuck into you in earnest, pushing in and pulling back in a rhythm you already know will be your new addiction. At first you try to match every intoxicating motion, pushing your hips upwards to meet him thrust for thrust, but instead you find yourself squirming wildly, only able to pet him as he works. You relish the sound of his grunts and groans, how they signal his enjoyment of you, though you know you are drowning them out with your wanton moans. He does look far too in command of himself for your liking, and in your mind you set yourself a goal: you will learn how to make him relinquish that tight control.

Of course, if Astarion wants to focus on your pleasure—well, you certainly will not complain about that. If nothing else, your husband is proving to be a generous lover.

You reach up for a kiss, eliciting from him a growl that rumbles down your throat as you taste his tongue. Never have you felt this close to another person, and you long to get even closer. You touch his face, his chest, his shoulders, wanting to explore every inch of his skin as you take every inch of his cock. When you throw your arms around his back, the scars your fingertips find there briefly distract you, but you quickly decide that is a story for another time.

Experimenting a little, you pull your legs back and angle your hips, the slight adjustment to your position an even better fit than you thought possible. You squeal when he presses into a delightfully sensitive spot—and so he does it again, and again, and again, repeatedly, rigorously, relentlessly. You concentrate hard on your impending climax, your mind conjuring up an image of him filling you to the brim with come night after night.

“You are mine. Mine to treasure. Mine to fuck. Mine to breed.”

That delicious thought sends your walls spasming, your mind shattering, your entire body pulsing with incomprehensible bliss. His name bursts from your lips as you ride out the sensation, and it pleases you to know you will be calling it out the rest of your life. You have never felt better.

Still you wanted him to join you in your freefall over the edge and you cannot help the twinge of disappointment you feel when you realize he did not finish with you.

Not that you mind continuing to indulge in your favourite new activity.

He stills a moment and you stare up at him, confused, concerned, even. “I would like to try… a little something else. Take a little more from you. That is if my dearest little love would be so good as to oblige me.” You cannot imagine what he means. You must look utterly baffled because he then chuckles and asks, “Do you trust me?”

“I would trust you with anything.” The words slip out automatically and yet they come as a surprise to you. He is your husband, yes. But you barely know him. You thought you were done questioning this, but a shadow of doubt creeps back in. Something in his tone you do not like. Honey laced with poison.

Is one night of passionate sex really enough to found your trust on?

You decide it is a good start at least, and brush off the invasive thought.

He grins and turns you around, his hands all over you again, his lips planting kisses along your back, your shoulders, your neck. You let out a contented sigh.

A sharp, searing pain rips through you. You grimace. In your hysteria you imagine daggers embedded in your neck. And then it hits you.

Fangs.

You married a vampire. You let him fuck you. You let him bite you.

The first shock subsides, leaving a throbbing numbness in its wake, blood rushing out of your veins and into his greedy mouth. You should be screaming in horror, planning your escape, forsaking your vows in hopes of a return to a normal life. Instead you lean back, pliant and willing, nestling yourself against him as he holds you in his fierce embrace.

You have never known such peril and yet in the cradle of his arms you feel… safe. 

You should not feel safe.

“Sweet hells,” he rasps when he stops, lapping at your wound one last time. “I have not tasted something so delectable in decades.”

This is madness. And yet a surge of pride swells in your heart at his praise. You do feel a little dizzy, a little weak—but still very much alive.

He pushes you to your knees and plunges back into you, a hand pressing you down as he fucks you into the mattress. You steal a little glance at him over your shoulder, meeting his eyes for only a second—but you will never forget their eerie, unnatural glow. You bury your face in your pillow and shut your eyes. Perhaps it is better that you don’t look. That you don’t know.

So this is Astarion out of control.

You tremble in ecstasy and in fear, still shaken by the frightful revelation, and yet still yearning to merge and meld with him endlessly. Your body begs you to bend to his will, an echo of his voice reverberating in your mind. Succumb. Surrender. Submit. So you do. You could not deny him now even if you wanted to.

You let yourself moan with abandon as his length slams in and out of you. You revel in the divine new depth this position allows him to explore and the feral sounds he makes as he drives into you faster. Bucking against him, you find yourself shaking as you reach the precipice of your pleasure.

With every pump, each more erratic than the one before, you can sense Astarion losing more and more of himself in his frantic search for euphoria. When at last he finds it, cock twitching and pulsing against your walls as he spends himself inside you, you break apart again with a delighted cry. Your final thought as he fully empties into you is a question of how long it will be before you begin to grow round with his child.

When it is done, you lie panting beneath him, logic and reason beginning to clear your clouded mind. You become all too aware of his seed seeping out of you, and the dull pangs of pain in your punctured neck. How can you just accept all of this?

Astarion settles in beside you, and taking a tentative turn, you face him, eyes catching sight of the red trail trickling down from the corner of his mouth. Blood. Your blood. He casually wipes it away as if it were no more unusual than a little spilled wine. You shiver.

You know your shock must be written all over your face. “Come,” he says, and you listen, shifting your body closer to his and giving in to his gentle caresses. When he speaks again, his expression is soft, his voice smooth. You feel a touch more at ease.

“You were so, so brave for me tonight. You need not fear what I am, love. Besides—I need you mortal. Fertile.”

A deluge of questions and concerns flood your mind, and yet that last word sends a thrill through you that shakes you to your core, pushing your worries away. Already you want more of Astarion—you want him to cherish you, to worship your being, to bring you heaven again and again. You snuggle up against him, communicating your desire with a burning kiss. 

You will ask for answers someday.

But not tonight.

+++

Astarion likes to watch you.

Never has he seen a lovelier creature. You sit smiling down at the sweet baby bundled in your arms, the swell of a second child already beginning to show even through the layers of your dress. You have done your duty so beautifully well. Like he always knew you would.

He decided he would have you the moment he saw you. So like a love he lost ages ago and yet her superior in every way. The defiance he recalled and resented had long been bred out of your line, replaced with a demurity and a domesticity that made you ideally suited to your purpose. You could not be any more perfect for him.

And so he made it his mission to make you his. No doubt he could simply charm you into bed, but it was not enough to make you want him. He had to make you need him. The fools in your family had already made much progress in that regard without his interference, but the pull of a string here and there ensured your desperation.

And of course he made every claim on you he could. He wedded you. He was the first and the only to bed you. And he impregnated you so very easily. It was like you were made to be bred. What better way to declare to the world that you are his and his alone?

Your beautiful brood of children will strengthen his reign, infiltrate and influence every powerful organization, spread the Ancunín name throughout the city and the whole world. And the nobility does like a lord to have his heirs—even if an immortal will never need a replacement.

He watches as you look up. You notice him and give him that pretty smile.

You have given him so much. Even love. In him you have awakened an affection he thought he might never feel again. That he did not even know he needed.

You complete him.

He smiles back at you.

There is only one claim left on you to make, one that will come years from now, when the time of child-bearing is behind you.

To make you his bride for all eternity.

Thank you for reading!

My AO3 | My Masterlist

[sevs-corner]

Based off (@/bluegiragi) CoD: Tf 141 Monster AU

(YALL ALREADY KNOW I HAVE TO DIP MY TOES INTO IT TOO)

tw: for the the future gore and all that, nsfw for the alluding/implications but no nsfw scenes (i cant write em at all) but still, 18+ !!!

I have a dark…veryyyyyy self-indulging dark and angsty idea for the AU

Imagine that you are on the run, barely surviving as one of the only humans left in a world overrun by hybrids.

Because of an outbreak making them quite feral, the human population dwindled in number as the Hybrids became more out of control yet better in controlling their species.

{A/N: Think of the serum/flowers used in Zootopia- something like that LMAO while re-reading this i just realized what i referenced w/o knowing}

Here’s how you enter the picture—

Humans, were actually found to be an amazing source to placate the disease, but because of the diminished amount of people, a ‘human’ now becomes a highly sought out commodity.

And the Tf 141 gang are one of those groups of who are privy to the information and has access to those resources.

High up in the food chain, they had both the money and the means to get this cure.

Yet, they were growing mad with each and everyday without one. They knew they were withering, becoming a shell of their former selves— so they become desperate.

Pulling every string they know, tugging at every thread they could find.

Surprise, surprise—they didn’t even need to look too far,

not when you stumbled right into their little trap.

A trap, they didn’t even intend for you— but here you are, strolling in like the pretty lil’ thing that you are.

Tangled up in a net, struggling and squirming like some prey, hoping to escape—

hoping to not be eaten.

But they can’t help it, you know?

Not when you smell so… utterly delicious and so tempting to claim for themselves.

In.

Any.

Way.

Possible.

[burrowglazer]

★ summary — during a sweltering day at the horse races, anthony bridgerton finds himself rather enchanted by a sharp-witted, and competitive newcomer... however his greatest challenge turned out not quite to be their playful banter but perhaps something deeper than just that. ˖˙ ꔫ —★★★★ pairing: anthony bridgerton x fem! reader ˖˙ ꔫ —★★★ content warnings. n/a ˖˙ ꔫ —★★ word count. 3.8k ˖˙ ꔫ —★ genre. fluff? not really. idiots in love except they don't know they're in love...? anthony being anthony?? ★ authors note: excuse my god horrendous writing, i fear i have just come back from a 2 year hiatus and well.. it seems as if all my writing sense have bene diminished into the ends of the earth. also mutuals. i need mutuals please, i need to be insane to someone.

Anthony always enjoyed a heartfelt competition.

Perhaps a bit too much for the likings of others, but it always seemed to be infused with his blood. It all came so naturally to him; there was no need to try. As a young boy, he would compete with his brothers, Benedict having quite a hearty laugh when he would fail to beat him in whatever makeshift game they conjured up. It made it worse for the already tense gentleman because his annoying, bothersome brother would never stop bringing out how he was younger than Anthony during such times.

But he was not a quitter. He never was, and he decided that he never shall be. Anthony perpetually told himself that, and the results always ended up in his favor at the end of the day. Just as victory appeared within his reach, he let it go once more, easily slipping through his fingers in the subsequent round. Anthony has always been perplexed as to why this pattern only ever appeared to surround him or why he only noticed it within himself far too much. 

It seemed quite the same when it came to his love life as well. Taking away the winning part—he never quite seemed to win. Conceivably, Anthony never thought he could truly love someone with his entire being; the sensation felt so foreign and despicable to think about. An acquaintance, he supposed, was something he could settle with. And yet, an admirable acquaintance proved hard to find in this economy. The number of women that lined up for a dance, a date—whatever it may be, were all too simple-minded, credulous, or even dumb, if Anthony really thought about it. None of them appeared to be a suitable partner.

Those thoughts haunted him day and night throughout the season—the wonder if he’ll ever meet anyone well-suited for him, he pondered to himself. Anthony deemed himself rather fortunate that he was a busy man, bustling about a handful of places in need to complete the tasks firsthand. When he had his hands full with some problem, even if it may be pointless, occupied his mind enough for him to forget about his marital issues. Taxation never seemed more interesting to him.

Conversely, he found that it bothered him most during social events. Whereas his problems stood face-to-face against him, sometimes it felt as if it were a direct punch to the gut. With the remaining eligible ladies dwindling, his temper for it all only grew to being far more annoyed than anything else. Any other year, Anthony would’ve respectively enjoyed the horse race that he attended within the company of his brothers, but at this time, his mind had been elsewhere as he mindlessly stumbled his way around the course grounds.

There were a number of people that stood around him, chatting expressively with one an

other. Ladies whispering in hushed tones, their husbands gathered amongst themselves, likely betting against one another. Anthony couldn’t help but to do so himself—a solid bet did him well most days. Although, perhaps, he wasn’t the brightest when it came to the subject despite betting upon the favoured horse.

Anthony tugs heartily at his neckpiece, adjusting the pressure against his throat as it pressed in such a peculiar way that he began to pay some mind to it. He adjusted it so that it was allowed to rest lightly, not entirely choking him out anymore as it had done just moments ago. The effort ended up being weirdly abominable.

Peeved, bothered, and sweaty, he decided sullenly the lemonade that the event offered would not be such a bad idea to him after all. Refreshing was the only word that happened to catch his mind as he politely hurries his way towards where the stand had caught his eye as he made his way into the event. It seems as if half of the people there had a similar idea, heeding from the lengthiness of the line. He could perhaps find some place else to get some refreshments, but if Anthony is being honest, the idea of continuing to walk in this heat whilst unknowing if there even was anything waiting for him out there, wasn’t one that he would immediately jump to. And so he begrudgingly waits.

The sun beats down harshly upon him, and he tirelessly slides off his top-hat to appease the sweat that had begun to cling onto the sides of his forehead. Anthony dabs the beads away silently with the cuff of his coat when no one else is paying any mind to him. He liked to call himself fortunate as the line dissipates fairly quickly, and it is only a few minutes later when he finds himself nearing the refreshments area.

“Cooling, is it not?” 

It takes Anthony a beat to realize that the sudden intrusion of the voice is addressed towards him. He swivels his head, pivoting himself so he can adjust to the sudden change in position to locate where the sound had come from. He is quick to answer the question as the fine-looking lady standing next to him stares right back into his betrothed soul.

First impressions always stuck near and dear to Anthony, and while usually it would be noted of their personality and not much else, he finds himself in a different situation to the norm. The first thing he notices happens to be the alluring eyes, mysterious with a gaze that would unsettle any person, man or woman. But the expression read differently, a polite smile stretched upon the delicate skin, her fair hair conditioned beautifully for this particular sunny day. Anthony is quick to return the smile, as he had done so many times before in the past. He could regard it as a daily occurrence now.

“Indeed, it is.” His response is considerate, his voice moderately even; it’s as if he were trained for this. And Anthony supposed he quite literally is trained for it. “Especially on a day as sweltering as this.” 

He can faintly hear in the background a man grumbling incoherently about keeping up the line, and he apologetically (although he doesn’t feel very apologetic) responds to the not-so gentleman behind him. He hastily picks his glass, an internal groan erupting in him when a couple of drops spill onto the earthly grass. At least it had avoided his clothing by its means. Anthony had already begun to walk away, lemonade secured, when he noticed the same lady who had engaged him in a brief conversation engaging in the same direction that he was headed. 

“Such events are quite amusing,” Her words are delicate, but they are firm enough for Anthony to know that she stands her ground. She stands ever so beautifully, firm but beautiful, letting her dress flutter slightly into the soft breeze that washes over the course. “I can not say that they were common in my homeland.”

Ah. So that is why Anthony failed to recognize her—a new citizen, or possibly just visiting some family for the season. After all, Mayfair was quite prestigious in its ways if you stood in the high rankings. “So I take that you are not from here?” He questions, even though he already knows the answer.

The lady shakes her head, the hair atop her head bouncing as she does so. “Not quite.” She responded appropriately. She rattles off some place that Anthony had surely never been before, and he nods upon hearing the answer. "I am here visiting, as my cousin kindly offered to host me, and who am I to decline such a gracious invitation?"

The words rolled sweetly off her tongue, as if she were making a harmonious melody. Certainly a clever tongue in her mouth, Anthony could think to himself. “Well then, I must certainly assume that you are here for the season.” 

It was an honest question. The lady looked to be in her earlier years of life, if Anthony really had to make a guess. Fair skin, beautiful features, and a voice as gorgeous as the waves in the ocean—what else would she be doing in Mayfair at this time of the year? It only seemed reasonable to make that assumption. He stands correct when she pushes her head down as an agreement, “Yes.” She says, yet she pauses for a beat before continuing her sentence, "Though I must say, it is quite a considerable departure from what I am accustomed to back home.”

"In a manner most agreeable, I trust?" Anthony says, and the lady smiles approvingly. It was quite a sugary smile, the sort that sat well within the presumably older man. It looked as if the course grounds had gotten crowded by tenfold since Anthony had turned his back, making the exertion towards the stands much harder than what it should’ve been.

“Well, yes.” Whereas, the tone of her voice contradicted what her words have stated. The lady’s eyebrows furrow for a mere moment, as if he were contemplating something of sorts. “Nevertheless, it is quite hard.”

He inclines his head. Anthony could somewhat agree with her words—the season was always stressful, a throatful of things to stress and worry about, a million matters to perfect to attract the best of the best. He had never felt too stressed, perhaps when he was swarmed with tasks to complete for the up-and-coming ball or party, but never on his performance at such events. Anthony believed that is why he suddenly threw himself in as an eligible bachelor, and the best if he may add, was so diminishing. "With a lady such as yourself, I must presume it is not exceedingly difficult."

The lady, which Anthony now realizes that he does not know the name of, blushes a shade of pink that could only be described as warm, like a rose pelting in the wind. She laughs graciously, accepting the compliment with ease. “I must confess, I am flattered, Mr…” Her words trail off as she too comes to realization with the fact she does not know how to address the young gentleman.

“Lord Bridgerton.” He introduces, his voice not in any way condescending as many others may take him on to be.

Anthony takes note of the way the lady’s eyebrows raise up in surprise, followed by the rather flushed look that began to tint at her cheeks. "Oh dear, I beg your pardon, my Lord." Tilting her head down hesitantly as if she were unsure of what formality would be the most appropriate. It almost forces a chuckle out of the Viscount.

"And whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?" Anthony continues on as it is only polite to ask so. 

"Mm, indeed. How remiss of me not to mention it beforehand…” The lady says, letting out a sort of awkward laugh that could be seen as rather affectionate. “My name is Y/n.” The lady states, followed by a surname that Anthony can faintly remember to be as one of the other Viscounts that lived in the city, although he couldn’t quite say he knew the name all too well. Certainly not one that he had talked to on the occasion.

“I see,” Anthony nods along, a faint smile tainted upon his lips before he even knows it himself. “Charming gentleman your cousin is.” He could not say if the man was truly charming, or a gentleman at all, as he had only read a couple lines about it from the Lady Whistledown paper that his family had received a couple of long weeks ago. 

“Charming, indeed.” The words were more so grumbled, as if she didn’t quite agree with the statement. “That is certainly one way to describe him.”

He chuckles at the disdain laced upon her voice. Anthony fairly enjoyed the new sense of emotion—most ladies he had the pleasure of talking with all embellished their compliments in spite of thinking the opposite. Being able to hear an objection that wasn’t sugarcoated heavily; Anthony would think that he notably liked the trait that distinguished Y/n.

The course grounds slowly appear into Anthony’s line of vision as the conversation dies down. The sound of chatter that did come from his or her mouth refilling his ears—excited husbands yelling bets at one another, ladies shaking their heads as so—the look that was etched on their faces would be one that Anthony could appreciate and find humorous.

"I must confess, some of the wagers being placed are rather simplistic in nature." Y/n cuts in through the stillness of their discussion beforehand. A nice conversation starter, but one that would rile many people up. "It appears as though none of these individuals have ever graced a racecourse before! How utterly rash of them to bet upon the favored contender solely because of his popularity."

He can’t help but be taken aback, although once again, her exaggeration was one that could be seen as comical. That is, before he had realized that he himself had also bet upon the favored horse, Nectar, which Anthony assumed the lady was talking about. For a moment, he wonders if her words are pure bullshit, if she was just making conversation with him. It is as if Y/n sees right through him.

“Oh my, do not tell me you have also fallen into the unfortunate trap of betting for Nectar.” Anthony can’t quite place what expression she expresses, but it does not look good. Disappointed, or perhaps pity. 

“Naturally, I betted upon him, it is a sensible bet, and he is a horse of sound character who shall undoubtedly finish with victory this afternoon.” He defends, the tone of his voice sounding rather offended at the plain mention of his unwary wager. Something deep down in him wonders if the lady was indeed right, if he really did not know what he was doing. Again, Anthony could not say he was educated well enough, and admittedly, he had bet upon Nectar due to the favorability of his win. “I have a well placed feeling about him.”

“A feeling?” Y/n’s eyebrow cocks up, the smile on her face now more jovial than polite. “Or is it the choosing of the horse that everyone has chosen? Well, I do suppose that adds to the list of husbands who shall be more than disappointed once the race has concluded.”

“I beg your finest pardon, I have made a strategic bet.” His words are more puncuated than before, suddenly relishing within the first person to truly give him some sort of competition that did not stem from his brothers or family, for that matter. “Nectar is a prized steed. He is quite well bred, highly trained, and, as many other people have shown, well favored.”

Y/n tsks, shaking her head as if she were scolding Anthony as his mother and father had done when he was a young boy. “I must assume you have not considered the quality of the racing course and the weather to assess the true potential? Although these sorts of events are not truly common back in my homeland, I do must say that many of these may just be common sense.”

She knows that her words are stretching the truth, that it wasn’t just common sense, but Y/n must admit that she took delight in having a friendly banter. She climbs up onto one of the wooden bleachers, sitting herself upon the heated seat, with Anthony following quickly behind her. “You see, my cousin had kindly explained to me the expectations of the race, and it is said that Nectar raced well at Doncaster; however, the track conditions were far from the same. A firmer course, if you will. While now, over here…” She pauses to wave her hand at the field of grass in front of her view. “It is much softer, and it is a rather humid day. He will much slowdown in the final leg, giving HighFlyer the much easy victory.”

Anthony scoffs. Foolish? Perhaps. Tinted with truth? Also yes. "Are you merely echoing the words your cousin imparted to you earlier?" He argues as well, Anthony never backed down from a challenge, and this lady was surely challenging him.

“And are you merely saying that I do not know about horse racing because I am a woman?” She tilts her head to look directly at Anthony; the grin that is placed strategically on her face was one that he could not argue with. And he is sure of that when he opens his mouth to bite back, but being blatantly unable to respond with something witty. Oh, that shit-eating smirk that was so easily disguised as a polite smile made Anthony oh-so infuriatingly upset. Upset because she knew what she was doing; upset because, well, he was moderately fond of that smile.

“We shall see then.” 

Famous last words, because well, he is proved to be utterly wrong. The course of disappointed groans that steamed through the crowd, which Anthony would not admit (but was a part of), as HighFlyer flew his way across the finish line were abominably loud. Nectar staggered behind him moments later, but not before the crowd had seen how winded he was by the heat and conditions. 

The lady behind him had laughed in delight, unable to celebrate fully before she must turn towards Anthony to shove it into his face. “I can not say that I have ever beat a viscount before.” Suddenly, all formality that was once there had been gone, destroyed, as if it had never been there in the first place. “I do suppose there is always a first.”

“And a last.” Anthony grumbles under his breath, in hope that Y/n would close off her ears to the harsh criticism. To his luck, she does hear.

“I must concede, you are just like the many men who claim to be gentlemen.” She replies, even though she seemed not to be very upset by the Viscount’s words. If that had been the case, it would have appeared as though Anthony had experienced numerous episodes of frustration—possibly humorous ones, but nonetheless, frustration.. "Unwilling to concede defeat, even when it lies directly at his feet." 

“I am able to concede defeat if the defeat deserves to be conceded.” His words are sharp, even though the smile tugging at his face says different to his own jumble of words. Anthony could not quite help it when he sees her eyes light up with something that he could not describe. “If it dares, look me in the eyes.”

“Ah, is that right, my Lord?” She questions, carrying herself with the confidence that he hadn’t seen in forever. An admirable trait indeed, if Anthony must admit. "Does not defeat gaze directly upon you as HighFlyer is crowned the victor of this afternoon's fine race.”

He sighs. Anthony was never one to be dramatic; he always held himself upright and, in his family's words, rather serious. Still, he had to admit that his gasp was a bit dramatic. “Ah… well.” His words trail off slowly, grimacing at the truth of the lady’s words. “I suppose you are… right this time.” The syllables were uttered slowly, followed by another huff of a breath that he could only feel to himself.

She laughs, that beautiful melody of a laugh. While in many cases, it would be regarded as an unpleasant sound unless it was done so delicately, hers was not delicate, nor was it ungracious. It was as if the notes from every music piece ever composed had all come together to form one masterpiece of a harmony, one that ebbed and flowed in all the right ways. 

“Oh rejoice! What a sound those words are!” Y/n breathes dreamfully. 

The track is far from empty, with many individuals walking over to congratulate the winner, while the others either mourn the losses of their empty wallets, or giggling gleefully over their new-found bundles of heritage. However, the bleachers were starting to thin out, leaving just a select few groups.

There is a sense that weaves through him as he ponders his next move. He could surely just stand himself up, mutter out a respectable goodbye, and leave, yet at the same time, he could not allow himself to just do that. Anthony seemed far better off conversing with this lady than with any other of the ones that he had danced or engaged with in the slightest. The thought made him laugh at his own stupidity, and yet;

"I cannot suppose it would be honorable of me not to inquire if you might attend the Hearts and Flower Ball with me. I trust you have heard of it?" Anthony asks, not just out of politeness but also the small amount of desire he feels for just a beat of a moment. One that felt odd and far too new in his chest, something that he had yet to feel in the weeks that had came, and the weeks yet to come. 

The lady showed a glimpse of astonishment, and Anthony wonders if he had made the right decision upon asking her about it in the first place. "My Lord, are you, perchance, inquiring if you wish to take me on a social outing?" Though even she could hear the tiny quiver that was woven, her voice seemed steady as she spoke.

“I… suppose I am, yes.” He stands with his head gently cocked to the right, extending his hand in consolation. Anthony can feel the regret seeping into his words as they were carefully placed, because God, if she came to deny his request, he was sure he could drop dead on the grass at that given moment. 

“I would love to.” And Anthony would not be able to stop the sigh of relief that washed over him even if he had tried. The tension that creased his forehead, all the way down to his calves, was quickly overridden with a sense of declaration. 

As he wove through the throngs of disassembling guests, waving courteously to the lady that he swore to uncover the mystery of, Anthony finally let himself pry out of dapper smile. For the first time in a while, he felt as if he were winning. Not just a kid-made, pointless game, but something much deeper than he could have ever imagined. Except, this time, he would not allow it to simply just… escape his grasp.

[regretsofaghost]

Pirate Week Day 1- Legends

AO3 link- here

Word Count- 500 words

There was once a beautiful boy.

This boy was graceful, elegant.

Witty to the point of arrogance.

The other boys thought it was high time this boy was taught a lesson.

So, they dragged him from his bed, to the docks.

They called out for a siren to some and take this beautiful boy away.

None thought that their cries would be answered.

It was simply a prank.

A trick, concocted by a boy who had felt he had been scorned.

For the beautiful boy had looked at him, and looked away.

He never thought the legends could be true.

That there were creatures who were more than happy to take beautiful boys away.

None of them could recount what happened.

One second there.

The next-

It was morning-

The scorned boy was gone-

And there was no beautiful boy.

For the longest time, the rumours had been spread.

That there were creatures in the waters, those who were more than happy to take a sacrifice away. That they offered little in return, when one forgot to name a price.

Charles had been terrified that he had been too late. That his friends had taken a prank too far, that they would do something none of them could take back.

He hadn’t expected his friends to turn on him.

Perhaps he should have.

Charles had always been naïve, in that way.

His father would agree; his mother would stay silent.

Perhaps it had been foolish, to jump in the waters. To take his chances, to trust that his swimming was more than enough to survive the choppy waves and current. That he could swim with the beating he had received before they tried to call upon the creatures of the waters to take him away.

That trust, that hope, diminished with each weak paddle.

That hope dwindled, as the boys shouted and jeered, as they watched him struggle to keep his head above water.

Charles wasn’t sure when they stopped watching, as something grabbed his ankle, and pulled him beneath the surface.

The salt water burned his eyes, and he choked as water rushed into his nose and mouth. He had been sure he was going to drown, that he had been sacrificed to the creatures his mother warned him about over and over.

Be careful around the water my boy.

Don’t go too far out.

Don’t go in when you hear singing.

Stay away when the water is rough, and don’t play with those boys who think those stories aren’t real.

The sea is unforgiving Charles; I don’t want to lose you to it.

There had been a moment.

A second.

Where Charles could could have sworn that he heard a song being sung.

One that sounded so sad, it had been full of longing.

Before he was throwing water up on the shore, a concerned voice and fluttering hands on him.

Charles turned to look at the other, and it was the most beautiful boy he’d ever seen.

[mariacallous]

Eva Szepesi, 92, is traveling this week to the Nazi concentration camp she narrowly survived, where her mother and brother were both murdered.

Szepesi, who grew up in Slovakia and now lives in Frankfurt, Germany, is one of the last survivors of Auschwitz alive today. Just 50 of them are expected to be present on Monday at the camp in Poland for a ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of its liberation — down from 300 a decade ago and 1,000 a decade before that.

The ceremony comes amid widespread anxiety over whether knowledge about the Holocaust is diminishing as the number of Jews who survived it dwindles. For Szepesi, however, the history has lost none of its power.

“Auschwitz will stay with me until the last day, the last moment,” she said.

For the first time, this year’s milestone ceremony will not feature any speeches by politicians. In addition to the survivors who speak, the only other addresses will come from World Jewish Congress president Ronald S. Lauder, representing major donors to the memorial site, and historian Piotr Cywiński, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

Five years ago, Poland’s president Andrzej Duda was the only politician to speak. This year, he is facing criticism over Poland’s pledge not to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant over the Gaza war, in the unlikely event that Netanyahu visits for the ceremony.

“A lot of people are tired of these speeches by officials, functionaries, politicians,” said Yves Kugelmann, the Switzerland-based editor in chief of Aufbau, a magazine started by German-speaking Jewish emigres in 1934. Its newest edition is dedicated to the subject of Auschwitz and memory, and includes contributions by survivors.

“It is important that we have the witnesses talking about what they experienced,” Kugelmann said.

When Soviet troops entered the camp on Jan. 27, 1945, they found 7,000 survivors whom the fleeing SS had left behind.

Twenty years ago, about 1,000 of them attended commemoration ceremonies at the site, in bitter cold. Now, that is the total number of Auschwitz survivors alive worldwide, according to an estimate by the Claims Conference, which negotiates restitution for survivors and recently launched a campaign featuring messages from 80 of them. (The group found last year that there were fewer than 250,000 survivors alive globally.) Most are in their 90s, and relatively few are able to make the trip.

This year’s event is “the last where we will have a visible group of survivors with us,” said Paweł Sawicki, deputy spokesman for the Auschwitz Memorial. “And this is why it is so important to put the entire spotlight on the survivors.”

“They will give the main addresses, and we will not have any politicians giving speeches,” he said, adding, “We do not want to assault this memory by [its] being politically instrumentalized.”

State representatives “will be present, but they will be listening to the voices of survivors,” Sawicki said, noting that it was survivors who in the early postwar years came up with the idea of having a memorial at the site.

Thousands of people are expected to be on hand for the ceremony, which marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day. (A Jewish and Israeli memorial day for the Holocaust, Yom Hashoah, falls in April.) A heated tent has been set up for participants around the infamous gate to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where, historians say, of the estimated 1.3 million people deported to the camp in Nazi-occupied Poland from 1940 to 1945, 1.1 million were murdered there; around 1 million of them were Jews.

For decades, their stories have been told by the few survivors. In the videos shared by the Claims Conference, one survivor, Alfred Sobotka, shares a photo from his bar mitzvah, and points to his father and brother, both gassed on arrival at Auschwitz.

Another, Alice Ginsburg, recalls “the heart-wrenching experience of being separated from my family” forever.

In just a few words, each of them paints a universe lost.

Szepesi, who also appears in a video, was the only survivor from her immediate family. She was only 12 when she was deported to Auschwitz in November 1944, several months after her family had sent her alone into hiding with relatives in Slovakia.

Very few children arriving at Auschwitz survived. She was selected for work, cleaning ammunition. She clung to the hope of being reunited with her family. Liberation came; she later returned to Budapest, where she met her husband, a fellow survivor named Andor Szepesi. They married in 1951, started a family and eventually applied for asylum in what was then West Germany, moving there in 1954.

Eva Szepesi first went back to the site for the commemoration in 1995, convinced by her daughters Judith and Anita. After the ceremony she spoke with students for the first time; they sat cross-legged on the floor in her hotel and listened, rapt.

“I just started and it all bubbled up,” she recalled. Since that time, she has spoken with numerous school groups, particularly in Germany.

“I start with my happy childhood, which was very short” but had a lasting impact, she said. “I received a lot of love.”

She tells them “that when they experience injustice, they should stand up and not remain silent; they should get informed, not believe everything straight away. And you have to be careful that something like that never happens again,” she said, adding that listeners “always tell me, we will be the witnesses of the survivors when they are no longer here; we will pass it on.”

In 2016, she finally learned the fates of her parents and brother. Her granddaughter researched at the Auschwitz archive and found Szepesi’s mother, Valeria Diamant, on a list of murdered Jews.

“I was so scared,” recalled Szepesi, who had accompanied her granddaughter to the archive. As if in a dream, “I saw my mother’s name with my own eyes.” She scanned the list and found her brother’s name, Tamás Diamant, as well.

She had waited 70 years, hoping her mother would come for her. It turned out she had been murdered shortly before Eva arrived at the camp.

“It’s always a terrible thought for me, that she saw from above that her little daughter marched in, into Birkenau, Auschwitz-Birkenau,” she said.

All Eva Szepesi has from her childhood, aside from memories, is a handful of photos that a neighbor had hidden and handed to her uncle, wrapped in a newspaper, after the war. Szepesi looks at them every day, and even sometimes speaks with them.

The shattering knowledge about what happened to her family brought some closure. But she still asks herself: “My little brother was four years younger, and he was murdered. Why am I allowed to live, and he had to die? But I don’t get an answer.”

Educators and Jewish organizations have been working to devise strategies for teaching about the Holocaust when the last survivors with memory of the Holocaust can no longer tell their stories — a prospect that grows nearer by the day. Virtual and augmented reality is increasingly playing a role, as are the children and grandchildren of survivors.

On Monday, Szepesi will be a guest of the World Jewish Congress, accompanied by her younger daughter, Anita Schwarz.

The return to Auschwitz is “like going to visit my grandmother. That is where I actually felt her presence for the first time,” Schwarz said.

“There are so many young people today who don’t know what Auschwitz is, who can’t relate to it at all,” Schwarz added. “Only when you really come to terms with history, and actually with your own family history, can you understand what it means and that you really have to do something, so it doesn’t happen again.”

[wutheringcaterpillar]

"if i say i miss you, i know that you won't.”

Summary: Cillian looks back at all the mistakes he made in his marriage. Writing to a wife that never came home after he realized too late he was the reason she ran away. Will one last letter change everything?

Warnings: Resentment, mentions of divorce, marriage problems, yearning

Tapping his cracked finger tips against the cold wooden table, fit snuggly to the side of the wall of the kitchen just beside the window. Cillian warmed his hands, cusping them around the simmering cup of honey tea while he scanned the same script for the ninth time. The words and acts blurring together in a silhouette of scattered thoughts.

He tried to focus to the best of his ability but the autumn sun peered in through the sheer blinds, pulling his depressed, tired eyes away from the scripture. It was at that point in the season the leaves started to fall in their poetic state, scattering across the front lawn and dwindling over the cracked sidewalks.

"Hm.." He hummed to himself whimsically as he watched a young couple walking happily hand in hand together down the street, involuntarily caressing the golden band that fit snug to his finger for the past fifteen years.

It felt like just yesterday his wife was wrapped in his arms, stealing the warmth of his body, her hair flowing freely over his shoulder while their legs were intertwined between the cotton sheets. Her head tucked between his head and collarbone while her plush, delicate lips pressed against the veins of his neck.

She had the giggle that would make any sorrowful man smile gleefully, so infectious, so pure. He missed it immensely.

It had been nearly a year since he saw the woman that took his last name. Marriages were a funny thing, the divorce statistic rising increasingly fast with each passing day. He never dreamed that he would become a part of such a number, not ever.

Her scarves still lay on the hooks behind the door, her remnants of clothes and shoes still decorating the once shared flat, only reminding Cillian that he was living with a ghost of a person who was still living, just not with him anymore.

The media pressed on the topic repeatedly in nearly every interview he did, questioning what was really going in his marriage. Being the private, family man he was, he dismissed these questions immediately, only wanting to stick to questions regarding the projects he was currently working on.

They slowly began to fade away, much like his wife as time passed. Speculations ever so often here and there when he was spotted out walking Scout by himself, never having taken the wedding ring off.

Papers were never signed, but in a way the void in the house crept into his gut, often causing him to just sit in the car, staring at the fortress that was supposed to be his safe haven. The house no longer feeling like home as much as it was a reminder of how his lifestyle slowly pushed her away.

No one talked about how celebrities still had their battles and money was just but an object. Cillian would have thrown it all away for her if he knew it would end with his wife disappearing and never coming home, leaving him a simple letter of her decision to leave.

Gulping, he wiped at his dreary eyes as tears were bearing down against the waterline of his baby blue eyes, desperately seeking an escape from the bottled up emotions Cillian avoided for so needlessly long.

She was a writer, a damn great one in his eyes but their schedules never aligned and the first book signing she had he couldn't push back a date for an interview. He hadn't asked her how it went, merely promising he'd make it up, yet he never found the time to do so.

Their love life diminished at a rapid pace, the date nights not so frequent, while every conversation lead to arguments, inevitably leading to mental exhaustion and her needing space away, time to think.

Their careers didn't align, and neither were willing to put their lives on hold for one another. She had missed out on so many oppurtunities to publish anymore, even passing on a job to be a writer for the times. She hoped this would fix the problems in their relationship, not realizing until far too late how many phases of her aspirations she passed on because of him. She refused any longer to sit around and wait for Cillian to find the time for their marriage, for her. He honored and respected her for that but the days soon turned into weeks, leading to months, leading to Cillian living how he was now.

The picture frames stared back at him every day, making him feel like a fool for not making time for her, for never fighting harder for their marriage and disregarding her hopes and dreams. The flashbacks of all the intimate moments warmed his heart, the arguments and feuds eating at his bones like acid did to a surface.

Stumbling into his office, he opened the left hand drawer, pulling out a pen and paper, sitting down like he did every week before he began to write, hands trembling each time as he held the pen.

" My love,

I write this with letter to you with good graces in hopes of you coming home.

I understand I've poisoned our love, I was so careless with your kindness, your strength, and your selfless love.

To you I'm just a man, but to me you're all I am. I once said I could never imagine my life without you in it and that holds true to this day. I realize our marriage wasn't perfect, no marriage is. However, I refuse for us to be some statistic we always said we would beat.

I find myself losing who I am every day you are away. I'm still trying to convince myself you are coming home, though I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, if you resented me even after how long it's been. Still can hear the creaks of us dancing on the patio, can still see your subtle eyes gleaming in the orange of the sunlight.

I understand the pain and hurt I've done to not only us but to you. I don't know if you read these letters but I won't be a bother any longer..

I just need to say, I still wear this ring every day and our love will never come off of this finger. Not a day goes by where I don't think of you and not a day will go by where I am not madly still in love with you. I need you, I need us.

I just wish for a chance to prove to you, my love, that I can be, I will be a better husband to you than what I was in the past.

Regardless I wish all the best to you.

Kindest Regards,

Cillian"

Licking the slit of the envelope, Cillian debated on whether or not this would work, but he refused to give up hope that one day she would return.

Clasping the mailbox shut, he noticed the paps walking toward him and scuttled back inside.

The weeks passed agonizingly slow after he mailed the letter.

The fifth night of the third week Cillian was sat in the recliner, lamp glowing over the table at the same script making notes of what could be changed or what expressions and mannerisms he should expose in the scene when a glare of light flashed through the window.

He hadn't thought much of it and tried to ignore that skip of his heart and the empty hope that it could be his wife until the sound of a car door closing echoed outside the house.

Like a young boy in love, nervous for his first date he hurriedly ran to the window in a rush of anxious optimism, pulling the curtain open hastily. All hope diminishing from his body, heart breaking when he noticed it was just the new neighbor's car pulling into their driveway.

Something told him she was never coming home.

The following night his assistant was doing the final fit for his red carpet premiere for "Small Things Like These", brushing at Cillian's hair until she gave him the thumbs up that he was ready to go.

Before exiting the room she tugged at his arm gently, eyes beading with sincerity and utter care and concern when she asked,

"She still hasn't come home has she?" What was he supposed to do, lie? Clearly nothing has changed in his life, nor did he even mention you anymore. Still trying to navigate through life without you by his side. With a simple sigh, he scratched at his forehead, unable to find the words, nor want to have to admit aloud that he didn't know where his wife was or if she'd ever be coming back.

With a simple look of hopeless confusion, Cillian rested his eyes sighing and changing the subject respectfully, mentioning how she should grab one of his jackets since the weather was supposed to decline into a chilly wind later on in the night. Holding the door open for her to follow him out to the car, she dropped the subject, merely nodding at his comment and mumbling a sincere thank you.

He smiled for the cameras upon arriving, playing the role of a successful actor and not allowing the prying voices to get a reaction out of him when they made comments about her, his one love.

She never wrote back. He still held onto her belongings unable to bare with separating from them. Never daring to take the ring off of his finger even if she didn't wear hers anymore.

[superprincesspea]

Courted by the Dragon

Chapter 14 - Secrets and Sapphires

Aemond Targaryen is both the cause and witness to the greatest humiliation of your life. You would rather die than see him again. Yet summer at court and the precipice of civil war have other ideas.

Masterlist

~~~

Maris’ anger had not diminished in your absence, and she was certainly glad of the thunderous scolding you received from your father.

His finger pointing, his voice booming so loudly you imagine half the keep can hear it.

Stupid, careless, girl.

He was right, you had been careless. You’d lost yourself in Aemond’s company and what could be more careless than that?  

Except, that wasn’t why he was angry. You'd gone missing for hours and your mothers' cheeks were still stained with tears. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, and you mean it, “I won’t let it happen again.” 

“You shouldn’t even let her join us in the hall tonight!” Maris pipes in when the shouting has dwindled down to a halt, her eyes narrowed and vengeful.  

But her attempt at siding with your father is soon thwarted because Borros Baratheon doles out the punishments, not his daughters, and a fresh wave of anger washes over him. 

“Quiet girl!” he snaps, before returning his attention back to you, his voice booming again, “you’ll get changed and you’ll do it quickly or so help me!”  

You don't need to be told twice, and rush to your room, pulling a yellow gown from your armoire before thinking better of it.  

Maris already thought you were trying to steal Aemond and, in her mind, yellow was the colour to do it in. So, you reach for the sapphire blue, making tonight its third outing of the summer and perhaps its final one too.   

You’re still fiddling with the tiny buttons when Cassandra sneaks into your room with a pitying look.  

She sits patiently on the bed, waiting for you to finish before picking up your brush and nudging you onto the stool next to your vanity. 

“We can’t have you looking like this,” she says, her voice cheerful as she gently pulls the brush through all the knots which had formed in the rain. 

Trying not to wince each time she hits a snag, you sit quietly, miserably , worrying the skirt of your dress and wishing your father had forced you to stay behind.  

You're still shaken from the way his voice had boomed in your ears, and you’d rather curl up in a ball and cry, instead of facing an evening of polite conversation and Maris’ seemingly endless supply of anger.  

“She’ll get over it,” Cassandra says, and you know she’s right but that doesn’t make it any easier. If you could skip forward to a place where Maris didn’t hate you, you would, but there was no quick fix, only time.  

“And...” she begins, waiting for you to meet her eye in the mirror, “ I think we both know she never had a chance.”  

Heart suddenly in your throat, you look at your hands, hoping to hide any of the thoughts which may have escaped onto your face.  

But Cassandra doesn’t need any confirmation of what she already knows to be true. 

“I do not believe I’ve ever seen Prince Aemond look at Maris the way he looks at you,” she says, and you stiffen, it was exactly what the Queen had said at the tourney. 

“If you knew why , you would be ashamed to have me as your sister.” 

You look up from your hands just in time to see Cassandra’s eyes widen with horror, the brush stopping its progress.  

“Do not tell me you have given him your virtue?”   

“No! ” you say quickly, surprised by her suggestion.  

Though, for one brief moment, you can’t help but imagine what that would be like.  

High Valyrian rolling from his tongue, long fingers wrapping around your waist instead of books. Would his kiss be gentle, hesitant even? Just a soft, momentary press of lips to test your willing.  

Or would it be certain? Urgent? Would he push you up against the bookcases, hard and feverish, his lips devouring yours before finding the racing pulse at your neck, his hands moving from your waist, hitching up the skirts of your dress and-  

Clearing your throat, you banish the thought away, but not quickly enough. Your cheeks are more than a little flushed when you admit, “I met him before we came to court.”  

“Where ?” 

“On the beach below the keep.”  

She laughs, her brow knitted with confusion, “why didn’t you tell anyone?” 

“Because I was alone… and I was…” you hold your tongue, could you really tell her the truth?  

“I was swimming ,” you whisper, and it feels both cathartic and terrifying at the same time.  

Cassandra’s fingers fall from your hair altogether and you dare not look at her in the mirror. Instead, you turn to meet her, face to face, your heart pounding harder than before, your palms slick with sickening nerves. 

Yet, instead of shame you find anger, an emotion which barely ever registers on her face, and her voice is low, tense .  

“Did he hurt you?” she demands in a hushed whisper which is no less powerful than your fathers bellowing. 

“No ,” you gasp, knowing precisely what she is thinking as you reach to touch her arm and reassure her, “he only looked, but he has teased me about it all summer.” 

She laughs then, relieved , her hands returning to your hair. “No wonder he looks at you like that .” 

“Like what?” 

“Like he is constantly on the brink of kissing you.” 

Your cheeks flush yet again, but Cassandra’s tone hardens, scolding you. “You know you really should have told me this months ago. And Maris. How could she ever stand a chance when Prince Aemond had already fallen in love with you?” 

“He loves tormenting me, nothing more.”  

“If you say so,” Cassandra teases before shaking her head, “I still cannot believe you thought you could keep this a secret. Heavens, you can be so wilful sometimes.” 

“But you’ll promise not to tell anyone?” you say, desperately, and by ‘anyone’, you mean Maris. 

“We are sisters, your secrets are mine to keep, not to share,” she reassures, sliding the last pin into your hair and you relax, turning on the stool to hug her tightly.  

It was strange, but despite all your torment, you hadn’t realised just how much you’d needed such comfort until her arms were wrapping around your shoulders and she was kissing the top of your head.  

It was no secret that you and Cassandra had never been as close as you and Maris, who were like partners in crime compared to your perfect, angelic, older sister. But her embrace is so steadfast, that it seems impossible to imagine you could have any better friend or sister than her. 

“You know...” she starts, as you pull away from the embrace, “we never did get to the bottom of who sent us these gowns...” 

You look down at your dress, the sapphire bodice glimmering with gems, and she was right. After trying to thank Tyland Lannister, you hadn’t really wanted to think who could have bought them. Or why. 

“Helaena told me that when Aemond lost his eye, they offered to replace it with gold,” she pauses for dramatic effect, “he chose a sapphire instead.” 

“A sapphire?” you choke, picturing the way it might glitter beneath the patch across his eye. So beautiful, so radiant.  Just like your gown.  

Then you think of the times you’d wore the dress in front of him and feel as though you might be sick. From nerves, from anger, from the sheer audacity of the knowing smiles you’d seen on his face each time. 

Were you really wearing something he’d picked out?   

You didn’t want to believe it, but who else could afford such a thing?  

Who else would choose this exact shade of sapphire blue?  

Hurrying towards your armoire, you reach for the yellow gown once again but it's too late. Your father's voice is booming into your room and it's time to leave, whether you’re ready or not. 

Cursing the entire situation, you trail behind your family all the way to the hall, wondering how long it would take them to notice if you decided to slip away. If you hadn’t gone missing this afternoon, you would chance it, but you’re not sure you can withstand any more of your father's anger. 

Instead, you think, so what if Aemond chose your dress? It didn’t mean anything .  

Except, you can’t even hold that lie in your brain for more than a moment before it falls apart.  Because it did mean something. Everything he’d done meant something . 

He’d met you on the beach in spring and thought of you often enough to invite you here for summer, to choose the books on your nightstand, and purchase the most beautiful gown you’d ever seen, for no other purpose than to see you standing in a room wearing the exact shade of his eye.  

Yet, the same man who’d done all those things, had also stolen more than one look at your naked body, threatened all your suitors, toyed with Maris, told everyone you couldn’t dance, embarrassed you in front of his mother, and killed Ser Glover in cold blood. 

He was impulsive, arrogant and completely ignorant to anyone’s feelings but his own. You still hated him, a few hours in the library couldn’t change that.  

You could only pray that he would not be in the hall tonight because hating him and facing him were too very different things.  

Yet there he was. Across the room. A dark line of fine black leather, his eye meeting with yours, holding all your attention before it slowly sinks to your dress.  

The slightest twitch of a smile quivers at his lips, and you know, beyond any doubt, that he was the mysterious secret admirer who’d sent three gowns to the Baratheon sisters. One pink, one lilac and one sapphire blue. 

You swallow hard and he begins to move, abandoning the people he was in conversation with, his usual cocky gait carrying him quickly across the room and, more importantly, directly towards you.  

He’s already made it halfway before you jump into action. 

Seven hells!  

What was he thinking?  

He was Aemond Targaryen. When he walked, people watched.  

Maris watched.  

He couldn’t just walk right up to you like this. He wasn’t the kind of man who walked right up to anyone- unless he was threatening them.  

Breaking away from your family, you skirt around the edge of the room, and he changes direction. Another smile twitching at his lips, as though he’s enjoying the chase. But you’re not going far, just far enough so Maris cannot see past the crowds. 

You wait for Aemond by a thick stone column and, when he’s close enough, you push him behind it, so you can be hidden from all the prying eyes that might be watching.  

“We can find more privacy than this if you wish to have me alone, issa jorrāelagon,” he says, a devilish smirk now filling his cheeks entirely. 

You sigh sharply, “that is the last thing I want!”  

“Are you certain?” his gaze scrapes down, to where the tips of your fingers are still pressed against his chest, “then why are you pinning me against a wall?” 

Embarrassed , you snatch your hands away, knotting them behind your back, your heart thumping as he laughs, enjoying every ounce of your torment as per usual. 

Then you let out an exasperated sigh, wondering, yet again, how you’d spent so many hours with this man.  

“You cannot just walk right up to me in front of the entire room,” you warn and, though a small frown creases into his brow, amusement still holds sway over his face.  

“How else am I to ask you to dance?”  

“You cannot!” you exclaim tartly, appalled to think that was what he was planning on doing. “You cannot even speak to me in front of them. I forbid it .” 

“You forbid your prince?” 

“Yes , Maris hates me enough as it is and, if you consider yourself my friend , you will do no more harm between us.” 

At that, you try to leave, feeling you have already spent far too long with the most conspicuous man in the room, but his hand slides to your waist, holding you still. 

“Do you consider yourself my friend?” he asks, and you cannot think of anything more dangerous than friendship with a dragon, but you’d say anything to placate him. 

“We can be friends if you stay away from me.”  

He snorts, “that's a strange recipe for friendship, would you not say?” 

“Not if the friendship is already strange,” you retort before pulling away from his grasp and heading straight towards your family, only to be intercepted by Lord Boremund before you can even make it five paces. 

“Little cousin,” he says, taking your hand, “please allow me the honour of your first dance this evening.” 

You accept, glad to be away from Maris for as long as possible and surprised when Ser Robin asks for your next dance, then Lord Thorne for your third.  

It seemed Aemond had not only allowed Tyland Lannister to resume the pursuit of your hand, but half of court too. Yet, like Tyland Lannister, it only made these men seem both spineless and fickle. 

Were they all afraid of a dragon?   

So, instead of feeling pleased to be dancing with them, you find yourself feeling increasingly annoyed, and you’re not the only one. 

Throughout every turn you make around the floor, you see Aemond pacing the edges like a caged animal and three dances is all it takes before he breaks. 

He strides fast, unconcerned by the movement swirling to avoid him, and you watch his every step with both heart pounding surprise and gut-wrenching exasperation, as he sweeps into Lord Thorne’s place and steals your hand without a single word to the other man.  

“What are you doing?” You hiss under your breath, extremely conscious of the scene he is creating.  

“It seems I cannot be your friend, ” he retorts, but you hardly hear him, you’re too busy looking around. Pleased to see that people are not pointing or staring, and the dance is continuing as though nothing is amiss.  

It’s only Lord Thorne who looks out of place, his cheeks flushed with anger, his steps faltering as he tries to move around the other couples.  

At this point, you think it might actually draw more attention if you stop dancing, but that doesn’t mean you have to be happy about the situation. You’re so mad at Aemond, you could stamp on his stupid foot. 

“You could have at least waited for the next dance,” you scold, knowing you would have rejected his offer, if he had actually asked.  

“I want all your dances, including this one,” he says, leading you into a turn and when you’re facing him again, you glare, ensuring he knows that, despite your current actions, you’re still very much annoyed. 

“And you think nothing of what I want?” you say. It was not half an hour since you’d told him not to speak with you, let alone dance with you. Yet here you were, in his arms. 

“Would you rather dance with them instead of me ?” 

Words stick on your tongue, and you're glad for another turn, so you can think of an answer, because you can’t exactly tell him ‘no’ .  

You wouldn’t rather dance with them.  

Lord Boremund was your cousin, Ser Robin was far too tall, and Lord Thorne was perfectly fine and perfectly handsome, except his touch did not set your skin ablaze as Aemond’s did.  

You face him again, and you must say something, so you think of propriety and all the rules which had been drummed into your head since you were old enough to walk. “As an unmarried lady, I shall not be obliged to give special treatment to anyone, even his grace.” 

“Then marry me.” 

What?  

You’re so surprised, you can’t help but laugh, your mind spinning, your cheeks heating beyond reason. “ Be serious, ” you say, almost choking on the words as they splutter from your lips. 

“I am,” he replies with a low voice, and he isn’t joking. He’s waiting, wanting, but you cannot possibly give him the answer he craves. 

You cannot even speak as he draws you in, holding you far closer than any man should in a room full of people. One hand on your lower back, the other brushing the length of your arm before he curls his fingers into yours.  

If there had been butterflies in the library, there are dragons now. Hatching carelessly in the pit of your stomach. Hot and dangerous, long wings reaching to the very tips of your toes until you feel flimsy in his sturdy embrace. 

You open your mouth, but there are no words, and what’s left is far worse than any words could ever be. You hate the sound which pants breathlessly from your lips, soft, submissive , welcoming his advances wholeheartedly.  

If you didn’t know any better, you’d say you were enjoying this. But you’re not. You don’t want him. Not as a friend, not as a husband.  

Yet your eyes still graze his lips, and you find yourself wondering, for the second time in a single evening, what it would be like to be kissed by him. 

"Marry me, Lady Baratheon,” he says again, and you both miss a step in the dance, almost colliding with another couple, before you regain control of your senses and wedge your free hand between your chest and his. 

Gods. You cannot meet his eye.  

“You do not dance well enough for me to condemn myself to marriage,” you whisper, your voice strained, before you force another laugh to break the tension. 

If he’s disappointed, he doesn’t show it, his tone is still light, playful even. “Is it marriage you disapprove of, or your prince?”  

You breathe out another shaky breath, but your voice is a little stronger when you say, “I do not disapprove of marriage. ” Only dragons.  

Aemond’s huff of amusement is light, meant only for your ears, and you’re grateful when the dance requires you to break from his arms and weave between the other partners. 

Inhaling a lung full of air, you’re certain not to let him reel you in again. Instead, you hold yourself rigid, your palm pressed against his chest to prevent any further encroachment into the battlements you’re trying desperately to defend. 

“Now behave yourself or I shall be forced to return to my room, for yet another evening,” you warn, daring to meet his eye. 

“Good ,” he smiles triumphantly, seeming to enjoy the way you’re struggling to hold him at bay, “I shall meet you there.” 

“With the guard outside the door?” you say hotly, imagining the look on Ser Maurin’s face if Aemond tried to waltz into your room without a chaperone. 

He leans in harder, forcing your arm to cave against his strength, “I shall climb in through the window.” 

When you turn again, you jab his rib, not too hard but hard enough to make him wince and remind him how difficult climbing would be with such an injury, “I think not , and in any case, I shall bolt it to be certain.” 

He chuckles and, though you’re not looking at him, you can picture just how smug his smile must be as he says, “you imagine a bolt across a window could stop me?” 

“No ,” you glance back to meet his eye, “but I’d hope his grace would not force himself into someone’s company if they had asked him to stop .” 

The music finishes before he can reply, and all the other couples break away with bows and curtsies to find someone new. 

But not you and Aemond. Aemond wants all your dances, and he does not relinquish control of your hand despite your efforts. He holds it tight, possessive, and you can feel as people begin to stare.  

“I shall scream if you do not let me go this instant,” you hiss under your breath, trying to remain composed. 

His jaw tightens, frustration seeming to cling to every muscle in his body just as he loosens his grip, sliding his hand behind his back so his stance is as formal as it is unyielding. 

When you turn to leave, you notice Maris who’s been staring at the whole scene with daggers instead of eyes.  

“If you truly care about me at all,” you begin, purposely avoiding his gaze, “you will ask someone else to dance this instant or I fear Maris will never forgive me.” 

Aemond snorts, “when you are here and she is in Storms End, it will not matter what she thinks.” 

“It matters to me!” you say, a little too loudly, but you’re so painfully annoyed with him that you can hardly be expected to contain your temper, “not that you seem to think of anything but your own selfish desires.” 

When you walk away, you feel him step to follow before he hesitates and turns on his heel to walk in the opposite direction.  

Not that you dare to look back or feel any relief that he has not followed you, you’re too anxious for that.  

Instead, you make it to where your sisters are standing with Belis, and Maris laughs as she says, “it seems Prince Aemond is pitying all the wallflowers with a dance this evening.” 

Then you do look at him and, just as you’d asked, he’s escorting another to the floor. Lady Staunten, who’d not danced all summer and seemed more terrified than pleased to be in his company. 

“Shall we take a turn of the room?” Cassandra offers with a warm smile and you’re grateful for another opportunity to leave Maris’ bad mood behind. 

“Did you ask him about the dress?” she says, when you are far enough away from the others and, quite honestly, you’d forgotten about the dress altogether.  

But you don’t say that, or anything, you’re too distracted, craning your neck to watch Aemond as he moves methodically across the floor, as though the dance holds no joy, only steps.  

Did he really just ask you to marry him?  

It was such a surprise, it felt like you could have imagined the whole thing. In fact, you wish you had imagined it. Then you wouldn’t have to think about it, and you were quite certain you could think of little else. 

It wasn’t every day a man asked you such a question- o r ever. But you couldn’t be entirely sure of Aemond’s motives. Did he truly want marriage and all that it entailed, or was it just another hot-headed impulse?  

Though you suppose none of that really mattered, since there were no circumstances in which you would agree to be his wife. Even if he wasn’t the most arrogant man in the world, he was still a Targaryen, and they were a strange family with even stranger proclivities.  

Yet, by the time you’ve walked an entire circle of the room, he’s asking another wallflower to dance, and you feel the unmistakable claw of envy, scratching at your skin. 

You turn away, wanting to forget about him but there was really no forgetting Aemond Targaryen. 

There wasn’t even safety in the bosom of your family. There was Alicent, talking to your mother with a coy smile and, for one heart stopping moment, you wonder if she knows . If they both know. 

Because marriage would not be a choice if your mother was involved. There would be no question about it, you’d be given to the crown without a single thought for your wishes, and that would be that .  

“Ah, Lady Baratheon,” Alicent says, noticing the way you’re lingering in her periphery.  

You curtsy politely, heart pounding as she waves her hand to beckon you closer.   

“We were just discussing how pleasant it would be to enjoy the last days of summer with a picnic in the Kingswood. Do you ride?”  

“Yes ." You even enjoyed it under usual circumstances.  

"Good,” she laughs, the curls in her hair bouncing with the movement, “there is not much room in the wheelhouse for so many ladies and the fresh air will give you vigour.”  

You start, thinking your mother might have something to say about the suggestion but she’s nodding along with the Queen. “You mean for me to ride all the way to the Kingswood?” you confirm, thinking it an unlikely ask for a high borne lady. 

“I’m sure one of the men will keep you company,” Alicent says as though it's the most natural thing in the world. But what she means is, Aemond will keep you company . 

Without thinking, you turn to look at him, annoyed that you cannot seem to retain autonomy over your own gaze, which seems intent to seek him out despite your wishes. 

When you turn back to look at Alicent, her smile reminds you so much of her son that you almost tell her to hell with the Kingswood and to hell with Aemond. But you’re sure your mother would have some choice words if you humiliated her in front of the Queen. 

So, you return her smile, thanking The Seven that Alicent has no idea her son just asked you to marry him. But she’s expecting it, you can see it on her face.  

What had Aemond said in the library? 

That she would finally think he was consenting to giving her a grandchild. Well, you aren’t consenting. As far as you were concerned, you had two older sisters and it was only proper that they should marry first. 

~~~

Thank you for reading!

[mindblowingscience]

It's the iris in the great eyeball of Jupiter, revolving to gaze balefully out upon the cosmos: the Great Red Spot, the single largest, longest-lived storm in the entire Solar System. Humanity has been observing it for centuries, a colossal anticyclone currently a little bit larger than Earth, with winds that howl around in an anticlockwise direction at up to 680 kilometers (425 miles) per hour. As mighty as it rages, however, the Great Red Spot has significantly diminished since the first definite records of its existence in 1831. The storm was once much larger; over time, it has dwindled, and it dwindles still.

Continue Reading.

[joybirdsworks]

While We Still Can

Missing Scene from Empire Strikes Back

On the way to Bespin, Han divulges his fears of the future to Leia, and asks her to make a promise she can't keep.

Cross posted on Ao3 here.

Word Count: 2,001

Trigger Warning: Mentions of War

Han’s hands tangled loosely in her hair. Her hand splayed across his chest, rubbing the pads of her fingers into the soft, tanned skin. She felt his heart beating under her touch, having come down to a languid, regular rate. They’d been here for hours, taking advantage of the seemingly infinite, yet quickly dwindling away time aboard the Falcon. Her fingers stretched with every inhale, relishing in feeling such life pulsating under her grip.

Life, but loss was dispersed there, too.

Leia was surprised to feel as much tension hiding beneath Han’s skin as she did. Even their first night spent together in this bunk, she recalled the way his muscles tensed under her, around her, in her. She expected them to soften under her touch, like butter under a warmed sun. She expected to be able to rub the tension from his shoulders, watching it ooze out of him in contented sighs.

But, his body didn’t relent. Even in moments like this, enjoying the state of sated, relaxed bliss, she felt tightness bloom across his skin. It was a worry she stored away in the back of her mind, something to return to in their liminal time here.

Leia felt the vibration more than she heard the hum that came from the back of his throat, his eyes fluttering open. The controls on top of the bunk reflected blue and yellow lights in his irises, which looked around before landing on her, the corners of his eyes crinkling in fondness.

She felt her heart warm. A slow, delicious thing. Her chest had a spark that she watched sputter into the flame of a candle, and when the hand in her hair fell to her hip, rubbing small circles there, she felt it roar to a furnace.

“Asleep?” She asked, barely above a whisper, determined not to ruin the sanctity of the moment. Her head lolled against his shoulder, her gaze climbing up his figure. He lazily shook his head back and forth, tickling the top of her’s with the scruff from his chin.

“Jus’ enjoyin’.” He murmured, words pressed into her hair, a delicate kiss placed at the crown of her head. His fingers ghosted across her hip bone, letting the warmth spread there too, rippling across her body. She tucked her head, hiding the smile that stretched across her features, letting her eyes come to a close, the hand on her hip slowly making its way to her waist. “While we still can.”

His last words were said so quietly, she almost didn’t believe she’d heard them.

So far, the diminishing timeline had been largely ignored in their whispered conversations. They both knew it was a war, and nothing was guaranteed. They could land on Bespin just to have to be separated, sported to opposite sides of the galaxy, wherever their fates were bound to take them.

This was borrowed time. It had gone unsaid, because even murmured in the dark, the dread crept in. It crept in and burrowed in the dark corners of the bunk, stealing the breath from one of them with the choking realization that this might be it, this might be all they get.

She felt that dire feeling constrict her heart, more at Han’s admission of it than her own musing. Her fingers wandered up his chest, applying pressure and dragging them in s-shaped patterns. They bumped over the raised edges of scars, scars she’d kissed while he told her each of their stories.

“We don’t know what will happen.” Her placations echoed across the cabin, the words sounding as empty as they felt. They fell from her lips like they were weighted, determined to drag the two of them down with them. His fingers tightened on her waist, and she reached out her other hand, capturing his and attempting to rub the worry out of it, her thumbs pressed into the meaty part of his calloused palms.

“Leia.” She usually delighted in the way he said her name. After years of taunting nicknames only addressing her station, hearing him say Leia was the same feeling she got when an orchestra would hit the crescendo of a piece, making the very air around her vibrate and pulse with the sound. But, now it sounded more like a plea than a prayer, his chest bottoming as he breathed out. She turned her head, looking up to see that the crinkles of his eyes had turned.

What was a time fondness darkened into melancholy. She felt the muscles in his chest contract.

“Han.” She pulled her hand out of his, lifting her head to prop herself up on an elbow. “What’s wrong?” It was a null point, she knew what was wrong. It hung over both their heads from the moment twelve weeks was uttered. But Han, who’d seemed so content to ignore the issue, was clearly warring with it in his mind.

His brows were pulled together, lining his face as he gazed at her. She could see the years there, briefly. The years of running, the years of smuggling, the years of constantly having to watch his back, only able to trust the Wookiee at his side. Her hands moved to tuck his grown out hair behind his ears, her nails lightly scraping against his scalp.

“‘ts just…” He trailed off, turning his head into her touch, his eyes fluttering closed again. His fingers curled around her, pressing the tips of them into the intended skin. “If ‘t feels so good now, how much is it gonna hurt later?”

She felt the words hit her like an assault, bringing to the surface all of her brimming worries about what awaited them when they eventually landed. It was a thought she’d had many times, volleying it back and forth across the corners of her brain most nights they spent tangled together like this. She’d just never expected Han to voice those same insecurities. Her gaze softened, offering a sad smile that said she understood, she worried about it, too.

“I know.” She voiced, more an exhale of breath than complete words. Her fingers traced from his chest to his shoulders, her touch light. The engines hummed in the room next to them, a series of clicks and whirs she’d come to recognize stuttered through their silence. “Is this about Bespin?” Half of her didn’t want to ask the question, feeling like they were tempting the universe if they spoke any of their fears into existence. The other half knew Han, and knew the way his brain needed to talk issues out in order to wrap his head around them. If he couldn’t fix something with his hands, it was almost like he needed to see the words that were spoken, like they were made of the breath they came from. He needed to tease out the issue like he’d find a faulty wire or a stripped screw.

His other hand lifted from the mattress, drawing up to ghost across her cheek, pulling a piece of her hair back and off her face. “‘ts not jus’ Bespin.”

She bit the inside of her cheek, seeing the variable forces pulling on them flash across his face.

“Can you make me a promise?” He asked, his hand floating down from her face, finding her own fingers on his skin. He folded his hand over her’s, pulling it up to his mouth and pressing his lips against it. They were cold against her knuckles, likely from the small fan built into the top of the bunk.

She nodded, though she knew that she had no capacity to keep promises in times of war. Too much was unknown, too much was at stake. He knew this too, she knew. Still, the way his eyes searched her, she’d never seen him look desperate before. It felt like a cold knife sliding between her ribs, cracking her chest open for the carrion birds to feast on her despair.

“If somethin’ happens to me, with the Hutts.” She resisted the urge to shush him, to rebuke his words, to slide a hand over his mouth to keep the fate he was speaking out of existence, even in the hypothetical. They had more worries than the Hutts. The Empire loomed heavy over their movements, like a boot on her throat. She could only imagine what a half a million credit price would add to that. “Chewie, he’s gotta go back to Kashyyyk.” He spoke into her knuckles, her skin muffling his words. “He’s gonna want to come after me, with the life debt. He can’t come after me. You can’t.”

Her spine stiffened, eyes narrowing as she took in the words from the man below her. She was not used to being commanded, though, this technically wasn’t a command. He asked, earnestly, which almost made it worse. The dread she’d been trying to keep at bay crept in bed with them, sliding in the negative space between their bodies, curling around their limbs and stealing the warmth from her bones.

“Han —” She started, but the way his eyes flicked to her made her words stick in her throat. “It’s noble that you think I can control a Wookiee.” She tried to twist her features into a smile, but it failed halfway there.

“‘ve seen you command larger armies.” He murmured, letting their hands fall to his chest.

“Those soldiers don’t rip people’s arms out of their sockets when they get upset.” She said, recalling his words from earlier in the trip. It got the corner of his mouth to lift, slightly.

“He’d never do that t’ you.”

“If I tried to keep him from you, maybe.” The corner of his mouth that had twitched up stretched, showing his teeth as he turned his head to try and hide the smile.

“Softies, all o’ you.”

“Rich, coming from you.”

His smile faltered, the dread must have curled around his neck and stuffed up his nose, the way she saw the lines of tension she recapture the moment. He seemed to wait for her to chew on his request, gnaw at the implications and run her tongue along the consequences.

“If it was me, would you come after me?” Her chest tightened at the implication, but she knew his answer before she saw the way his face fell, his lips pressing in a tight line and his jaw setting like stone.

“‘ts different, you’re a princess.”

“And you’re important to me, to Chewie, to the rebellion.” She countered, squeezing the hand that was holding hers. She almost hated herself for the words that were coming next, but she’d hate herself more for lying to him. “I’d give you the world, if I could, but I don’t think I can give you that.”

He wouldn’t look at her, but he unraveled their hands and put his around her waist, tugging on her so she’d slide herself on top of him, pressing their chests together. She could feel his heartbeat pounding through her ribcage, setting time to her body like a metronome. She pressed her forehead against his, feeling the stick of the cooled sweat there.

“I think I love you.” He whispered, fingers tight on her. This time, she did feel a fissure in her heart break open, letting the furnace there roar across the rest of her body, fueled by his words and his hands on her. She shuddered, the emotion shred through the little defenses she’d had left, the bare threads of her old, reserved self snapping under the weight of his affection.

It was a confession that didn’t require a response, but she gave one anyway, pressing her lips to his in a soft, chaste way. Letting a kiss be a kiss, one that was tender and sweet, and one that was foreign to him after years spent living in the underbelly of the galaxy. But, she was determined to shower him in as many as she was able.

While they still could.