#fleet rectify

[wlw-webcomic-bracket]

Carla Rutten introduction

Fleet introduction

How the round robin group stage works

[future-crab]

For me, the real villain moment in "A Little Priest" is not when they decide to kill people and bake them into pies - that's fine - but when they abandon their "eat the rich" plan and decide to just eat anybody.

[cosmicsociology]

Hi, I am up at 2 AM. I think was actually onto something from a previous post.

I was going back to some parts of The Dark Forest to grab quotes and I saw this:

Together, the 5,500 crewmembers were like an infant who had been cut from its cord, then cruelly tossed into the abyss of space. Like that infant, there nothing they could do but cry. Yet Zhang Beihai’s calm eyes were a strong force field that upheld the stability of the formation and helped them maintain their military poise. Children cast aside into the endless night needed a father most of all, and now, like Dongfang Yanxu, they found the power of that father in the person of this ancient soldier.

[floralettered]

dressed in sunlight / warmed the cold that lived inside me ꒰ ﾟ ׅ caleb ♡ ﾟ ꒱

summary. “anything,” he says, and that’s everything, isn’t it? you set the tin on the table behind you. wipe the hair from his eyes and trace a path to his jaw. caleb shudders, canting to follow your touch. “god,” he murmurs, “anything."

tags. mc!reader, my belated interpretation of no-return night bday sex, mc's grief over losing caleb is very much present and so is his trauma so there's some minor angst, first times, fingering, oral (f receiving), piv, fluff, love confessions, praise, overuse of "baby", dacryphilia, unsafe sex acknowledged without much care from either party, they want the cookie too bad sorry, caleb pushed my smut vocabulary beyond limits i previously believed i was capable of, etc. this is my first post so support is super appreciated :3

word count. 6.1k

The last minutes of the day stretch midnight blue across the walls, and somehow it feels like if it doesn’t change now it never will. You’ve tiptoed around it a lifetime. You’ve wrapped yourself in him, warm at his hearth, cool at his headstone. You’ve mourned him, watched him slip away and then return to you, not with a moment of his absence where you were anything less than half of him — How many people can say that? How many people can weep in the arms of someone they once weeped over the grave of?

You turn in what should be sleep but can’t be. There’s too much of him and too little, things you thought once not to want for but what is one impossible wish granted above getting him back? It’s hard not to be greedy. The sheets smell like him, and he smells like you: fresh laundry and the shampoo he’s been buying you since high school, stolen back-and-forth in a played out excuse to visit and steal it again. Once-empty shelves are now lined with photos, books, hard-won plushies and badges encased, model planes you built at his table. So little belongs to him anymore, and he’s filled all of it with you.

Still something is missing. It doesn’t feel like absence in the way losing him did, the numb waking and sleeping and seeking answers to make sense of existing without him — and you don’t think you ever would have. This is anticipatory. It’s one of those things, you guess, like your stolen shampoo; you’ll dance around what you both know so that there’s always a reason to come back.

That’s the game. It’s good sportsmanship to lie here and let it play out.

But then is it losing to make the choice in a second, breathless at your own daring, your overwhelming need to grab the tin beside you and march to the door? You hope not. It’s seven minutes to midnight; if you think about it any longer you’ll stop yourself, and it’ll pass with the day. Maybe this is winning, then.

Or maybe he’s waiting for you like he knew you’d come, your necklace dangling in his hand, his fingers twitching over something that isn’t you — and for Caleb, everything else is, foremost, defined by its lack of you. Because he doesn’t stop, shocked, arrested by the sight of you at the foot of the stairs, candy tin dumbly in hand like either of you still believe that’s why you’re here. His lips curl in a way someone else might not notice. Your necklace falls against his chest. It rises with his steady breath, buttons on his blazer undone. That’s the game: you notice everything, and he knows.

“Hey,” you say, voice small, tired. You’re still in your dress. It’s clear you got no more sleep than he did. “I thought you might still be up.”

“Yeah.” And his smile stretches to something full, sunshine in the dark.

“Not ready for the day to end, huh?”

“Mm, not yet. You did good, Pips. Don’t want it to go to waste.”

“Good?” You mimic offense.

“Amazing,” he rectifies teasingly, “Perfect, brilliant, the best—”

“Yeah, yeah. Suck-up.”

“For you.”

He wears it like a badge of honour. Not like his Fleet awards, Colonel cap and insignia, sports trophies and a thousand other achievements (because he is perfect, brilliant, the best). It’s like you said. They’re things defined by their lack of you. There’s nothing he’s prouder of being than yours.

“Want your final gift?” you ask, waving the tin at him.

“Come here,” he says, quietly, and it’s an answer to something else.

You do. Of course you do. In the steps it takes to reach him, you feel weightless, like the sensation of his Evol softly suspending you, pulling you hazily toward him. His power has never made more sense than this moment. He is the gravitational force you orbit — yours no more than you are devastatingly, wholly, infinitely his.

You stand before him, not quite between his legs but too little is in the way of you now not to know you’ll get there. Your fingers, slightly shaky, ring against the tin as you twist it open. He steadies your hand with his, and you know he’s looking at you but your eyes stay fixed on the array of colours, not quite ready for what you’ll find when you meet his. A second. That’s all you need. You pretend to consider the flavours. He’s patient with you, brushes the skin of your fingers and waits.

Caleb is good at waiting for you. Would wait for you forever, take whatever you gave him, follow you anywhere.

You fish a yellow candy from the corner, smile mischievously when you press forward and hold it to his mouth. He opens for you. The look in his eyes is exactly what you thought it would be, and it’s hard to keep your smile as much as it’s hard to stay upright when you press the candy to his tongue and feel it graze your finger.

He winces somewhat, then laughs, slides the lozenge to his cheek to talk. “Lemon flavour? You always give me the sourest ones.”

“You said they’re your favourite like a hundred times!”

“Uh-huh, but you test me by going sourer each time, don’t you? Findin’ excuses to torture me.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You let me, you masochist.”

“And now you’re being mean to me on my birthday.”

“Hardly.” You glance at the clock, shudder on a breath you hide in a cough. “Only two minutes left, so it doesn’t count.”

“Yeah? You gonna go back to being mean to me tomorrow?”

“No,” you say without much thought. There’s something about his voice when he gets like this, unfair of him to call you mean when he says it in that tone. He’s mean. Dizzying. “Maybe,” you add quickly, “if you deserve it.”

He hums, glances over when the clock ticks. “You’ve got a minute to decide. Maybe you can be nice to me in the meantime. Make up your mind at midnight.”

“And what could I do in a minute to know?” you ask, but it’s half a sigh. You’re inching between his legs now, spread open, anticipating the moment you fully fill the space. Carefully, you oblige him. His knees bracket your hips but don’t touch. You could be held another way if you wanted, how you imagine it sometimes — too often and for longer than you’d like to admit.

Slowly but surely, a knee brushes your hip. When you only skip a breath but stay, his eyes slip down, and he takes the chance, brushes against the other until you’re snug between his thighs.

“Anything,” he says, and that’s everything, isn’t it?

You set the tin on the table behind you. Wipe the hair from his eyes and trace a path to his jaw. Caleb shudders, canting to follow your touch.

“God,” he murmurs, “anything.”

So you climb into his lap like coming home.

It feels like it: soft and warm and sturdy, his arms coming up to hold you without a second’s pause, and you love him. You kiss him. He welcomes you in.

If midnight strikes, you’re beyond caring the moment his lips are on yours. The days could blur like this, a thousand birthdays in a week, all the years you spent wanting this made up in the time you swear you will have it. Caleb, fortunately, seems to be of a similar mind. One hand lingers at your back as he cradles you closer, the other twining up your waist to the nape of your neck, your jaw, big palm swallowing your cheek with the brush of his thumb. He holds you there. Only lets you squirm if it’s to push forward, and you have no intention of going anywhere else. And he’s loud. God, don’t you know he is; you’ve tried following his workouts before, the one-handed pushups, the military precision, sweat trickling down the neckline of his tank top to territory untreaded. But to feel his sounds against your mouth when you’re only kissing — and fine, sure, your hips are rolling somewhat on instinct — is so intensely foreign that you’d stumble if he wasn’t holding you so tight.

You pull away to breathe. It stings. Pathetically, you literally ache to part from him. But you’d frame the image of him dazedly chasing your lips if you could, and that alone is worth it.

Caleb slumps back against the couch with a half-lidded gaze and cheeks already flushed, shaking his head like he’s not sure you’re real. “Wanted you — needed you like this for —”

“How long?” you whisper, mouth dry.

He laughs. It sounds verged on a sob. “All my life.”

“Oh.” You still, and you hope he knows it’s because your mind has gone too fuzzy to come up with anything better. “Okay, you — you can have me. As long as… Can I have you?”

His head falls back with a broken sigh. “Can you have — You kiddin’ me? Baby, you do. Please.”

You nod, kissing him again, guiding his hand to your shoulder while you copy the way he said baby over again in your head. He traces the ribbon there and pulls back when you loop his fingers through it to tug it free.

“God. Are you sure?”

“Mhm,” you say, and scatter your confirmation in kisses up his neck. He curses, free hand cupping your thigh now, squeezing as if to steady himself. “Want you.”

And then the ribbon is as undone as he is, cascading down your dress with all of its jewels, cool air prickling the skin of your chest when he follows suit on the other side. It’s gone as quickly as it comes, engulfed in an instant by Caleb’s warmth. His mouth traces the new skin available to him. He moans when your hands grip his hair. Spurred on, he kisses lower, as reverent as he is curious, as loving as he is hungry. You can’t help but tug when his tongue grazes your nipple, and he hums in satisfaction, drags you by the hand under your thigh so that you’re straddling him properly, as if you weren’t before. His hard length presses perfectly between your legs.

You grind against him and he stops, keeps you still. “Fuck — not yet. Gotta wait for me, baby.”

“But you’re —”

“I know, I know, no fair. Too much I wanna do with you first, though.”

“Caleb…”

His mouth traces lower as he hoists you up, Evol pressing in now, the pressure colder, but familiar, part of him like everything else, and you want everything. “Let me be greedy? Wanna be good to you. Please.”

You suppose that’s it — everything — offered to you plainly. What are you going to do but take it?

You nod. Small, first, reeling somewhat from the fact that this is happening, then earnest when his eyes tell you it isn’t enough.

“Thank you,” he says. Sighs it into a kiss at your navel as his fingers work their way to the insides of your thighs and dig like he knows to expect your shudder. You wrap your arms around his shoulders. He presses closer, feather-light, just the tips of his fingers now, relenting his grip to his Evol in favour of testing the grounds of your skin, how the goosebumps raise on the round, soft shape of your bare thighs. You’d considered wearing stockings that morning. Dreamed of this moment but not dared believe in it, and abandoned them regardless in the same eager hope you always have for him. Thank god.

“Caleb,” you breathe again, the word dry, sticky when your mouth tries to shape it right. “Let me down — I want — need to feel you.”

He groans, shakes his head with your hands on his cheeks, tilting his face so that your sweetest eyes might make him give in like he always does, but even then he denies you. He has to grit his teeth through it. Can’t linger on your gaze too long before pulling you down just enough to bury his face in your neck but not to feel him firm between your legs again.

His fingers find their way there instead, and you’re jolting over his lap when they graze the juncture of your thigh just as his teeth come down softly on your collar, soothing the sting with his tongue. But even Caleb’s patience wanes. He’s got his spare hand pushing your dress up around your waist, trailing the lace band of your underwear with restraint you’re not sure he would’ve had if you’d done this years ago, when you probably should have. It’s something to think about, rocking as far as you can against the weight of his Evol — Caleb in his college years, with you, swallowed by the size of him in a little dorm bed as he pants above you, his fingers —

His fingers pushing aside the fabric of your panties and finding the wetness there, moaning into your neck at the feeling, the sound you make with him. You gasp, blink open eyes that were blissfully, painfully shut, dream discarded. The reality is better. You claw at his shoulders.

“Caleb, please —”

“Fuck, okay, so pretty like this. Knew you would be.”

It’s too good. He’s too good. All at once, half-suspended, his mouth kissing a necklace on your throat while his fingers curve upward to find your clit. You don’t know where it comes from. Thoughts of him in college? Your Caleb, tall and pretty and ever-so-wanted? You can’t help it.

“How are you… Have you — ah — done this before?” you ask, but it’s strangled, caught in his hair, stuck to your open mouth.

He stops. It’s not even a fair question. What would you tell him if he asked you the same? That despite his best efforts, you’d kissed and been kissed, fumbled around to touch, been touched before retreating, too uncertain even with kind hands on tall pretty bodies, terrified to feel them and think only of him?

“I told you,” he says, and his voice is so breathy now, rasped like it gets on your favourite mornings, “Wanted you all my life. Why would I?”

You nod, feeling dizzy. “Just — just good at it. Guess I could’ve said that better.”

A surprised, satisfied little laugh escapes him. Scowling at his self-congratulation, you shut him up with your lips. So he’s yours, good, conversation over, thank you. But Caleb is smiling so proudly against your silencing kiss, fingers right back to work, and the first delicate circle he draws over your clit has you keening, stuttering into him.

“Too much, honey?”

“Fuck, Caleb —”

“That’s okay. You can do it.” He sounds so sincere. Sugar-spun. Your sweet Caleb, looking up at you with dewy eyes and pink lips. “God, you’re wet. Gotta let me in.”

“Uh-huh,” you exhale, nodding limply into his neck.

“I can?”

“Please.”

“Oh, you’re —” His thumb keeps its place but two fingers trail down, curl at your entrance and you lurch helplessly against his Evol to meet them — “Too good to me, baby.”

His ring finger presses in first. There’s some symbolism lost on you you’ll smile sleepily about later. Not now. Now he slides into you, enveloped without resistance, and you curse. You’d be writhing if you had the movement, squirming to push him deeper. Caleb is muttering something, both of you at the beating pulse of the other’s throat, and it feels like a mantra he’s etching to your skin. It sounds like the sort of patterned speech someone repeats to themselves to wake up from a dream.

“More,” you plead, and with anyone else you’d be embarrassed at the desperation in your voice, but you don’t think it could be anyone else. You don’t think anyone else could be made so broken just by pleasing you.

“More?’ he rasps in awe, like he isn’t obliging you already, finger sliding in to the knuckle. A warm pressure builds steadily inside you. He coils so nicely against it, the friction blinding. Your vision dances.

It’s something beyond instinct to bite down on him harder than he did you. It starts with grazing teeth, and then you’ve never been content just having some of him, have you? So you latch around the skin, summer-gold, fresh from the shower. You can’t help it. You need to. 

“Fuck —” His spare hand scrambles from thigh to hip, grabbing tight, twitching at the shallow indent of your teeth in his neck. His Evol loosens enough for your shoulders to slump, cocooned around his torso. You pant, kiss, almost as wet and messy on his Adam’s apple as you are on his fingers, and he sounds like he’s struggling to hold on.

Good, you think. In the heat haze of your pleasure and his faltering control, your trembling hand reaches down and wraps around his clothed length.

Caleb’s Evol slips completely, second finger barely tipping into you when you sink down on his lap and ease it to the hilt.

It’s something about the evidence of his desire and the way he grips you harder. Something about the sight of his hand buried between your legs, fingers vanished to the knuckles in the warmth of your cunt. The added friction of his thighs under yours, grinding frantically against him while he’s still blinking over some fired circuit in his brain. If it’s all too much for him you don’t notice in any way that matters. The rope grows taut and snaps, and only when you come do your teeth finally unlatch from him, crying into his flushed ear instead.

You’re shaking so hard it’s difficult to process the moment he returns to you. This. Here. Your body spilled over him, panties to the side and thighs spasming over his clenched wrist. But he does. Oh, he does — the focus comes back to your eyes in time to catch his darkening, burning, sweeping down to the mess you’ve made of his lap. It’s hard not to relish the look in his eyes and the twitch of his cock, imagine how good this is for him, memorize the bead of sweat trickling down his cheek. 

Caleb doesn’t want you thinking about how it feels for him. Caleb doesn’t want you thinking at all.

Wordlessly, he flips you over. Tugs your dress up by the ribbons and lays you on the couch all while you’re still panting. It’s you who can’t quite cling to reality enough to play even, keep the control you so narrowly won when you’re still coming down from his fingers. And then the absence of them is suddenly so overwhelming that you’re pushing up on wobbly elbows to catch the moment he’ll surely curl them into you again.

That’s not what you find him doing.

Instead, he’s sliding your panties down legs he wrests open despite their jerking, kissing his way back up from your ankles until his breath is warm against your cunt.

“Said you’d let me be good to you,” he breathes, bitter but without any bite.

“You —” He kisses the inside of your thigh, licks a stripe up the residue of your orgasm — “Oh, you are good to me.”

“Uh-uh, baby. I told you I wanna do more and you’re bein’ greedy. You don’t even know how much I wanna do. Don’t have a damn clue, do you? Can’t make me come yet or I won’t get to do it all.”

You’re swallowing instead of talking, mouth dry, head progressively lighter but apparently not light enough for him because you’re still mustering the urge to argue.

“You’d come from that? Me on your lap?”

You don’t pose the question to embarrass him, and he isn’t.

“I can’t believe I have you,” is what he says, so raw, so suddenly unabashed in the wake of all the shame he carries that you don’t know what to do with it but hold your breath. “Just you is enough. Don’t think you’d have to touch me at all.”

“Oh.” Stupid. You’re stuck on the syllable again.

“But,” he goes on, “You told me you’d be nice.”

And he presses his lips to your clit as if to test your word, a little whine in his throat when you gasp and buck your hips. He forces them back down. No Evol. Just his hands now. Maybe to prove he can.

“That was — ah — think it’s tomorrow now, Caleb.”

“Today, baby. Your head’s all dizzy, huh?”

You nod feebly.

“Poor thing. Gotta let me take care of you then.”

Again. Your head copies the motion without thinking, hips struggling against his hold, his mouth inches from where you need him.

“Ah,” he tuts, “Tell me, please? Tell me I can take care of you.”

You fall back onto a pillow, unsure when he placed it there, but warmth spreads in the place you feel his absence at the knowledge that he did. He’s already taking care of you. Always has. 

“You can take care of me, Caleb — baby, please.”

Maybe the word does to him what it does to you, because he hitches your thighs over his shoulders with a low groan and does. He takes care, tongue laving against you and then in, fingers right back on your clit in case his mouth gets too busy lapping at whatever you’ll give him. And you’re remiss to hold back. As if you had a choice, your body wound in the throes of his touch. He’s making more of a mess of you than he’s cleaning up the last. His moans reverberate against you. At a point, startled from your steady, shallow panting when he slides two fingers back in and presses your clit from both sides, you realize he’s as lost as you are. Consuming you and consumed. You thrash helplessly as the feeling rises again, hands weaving through his hair as you peer down from your heaving chest.

He’s moving. Not just his mouth and the quick joints of his wrist with every curl of his fingers — Caleb is moving somewhere lower, hips desperately grinding against the couch as he eats you out. You fucking mewl. High and wanting, face immediately turning over to bite the pillow he set for you. 

He stops with a jolt. Stiffly, pulls away, a scratchy sound at the back of his throat, movement suspended as your necklace swings beautifully across his chest. You squirm in pathetic display for his mouth to latch onto you again, his name spilling tenfold from your lips. The pillow is damp where it drools out of you.

“Fuck. Stop, stop.”

You try, less effort on your part than his, grip tight on your thighs as his eyes wrench shut.

“W-Why?”

“Almost came. Fuck. Give me a second.”

He did say just you were enough.

Still, it’s a devastating thing to know. Maybe you could come from just him too — hands on your thighs, yes, but nothing of him anywhere else but the inches he’s retreated away from you, mouth glistening, hair mussed from your desperate fingers.

“You can,” you say, babbling somewhat, your voice entirely shot. “Want you to. Come back.”

“Jesus, baby, don’t do that.”

But with his hands on your thighs, yours are free to push through his hair again, stroke the messy strands from his face and brush your trembling thumb over his wet lip. He curses, lets you graze his teeth with glossy eyes before slapping the palm down and away like it’s enough to unravel him. When he pins your hand to the cushions, a new freedom is offered to buck your hips, and the last of his resolve vanishes with the provocation. It’s not on purpose. It’s his fucking fault, really, he’s completely possessed you. That doesn’t seem to matter much to him. 

Caleb burrows into your cunt with something too ruined to be anger but animalistic all the same, Evol seizing you, and you come a second time, fixed against his mouth without an inch for escape.

His ministrations are unfaltering. He isn’t wasteful and he isn’t forgiving — tongue fucking into you even when you stutter in the comedown. You think you’re speaking, begging, aware enough to try to muffle your moans with a bite to the pillow but his Evol takes that from you too. He doesn’t stop. Must have conjured some impossible determination because you make the same noise that almost destroyed him before but it does nothing to cease his pace now.

“Can't,” you whine, “Too much — ah, Cal-uh-uhb —”

His mouth departs from you only for the time it takes to deny you. “Can, honey. So good for me.” 

“Need to hold… something…”

So generous, your Caleb, he relents control of one of your hands. It immediately winds its way back to his hair and pulls. Your chest is still heaving, body twitching with all the movement it has available as his mouth finally salves its assault, licking at the soaked skin of your inner thighs instead. But it gives you a moment. A breath.

He looks up at you, staring in some sacred way while you struggle to keep your eyes open. Even when the pleasure begins to fade to a calm, steady buzz, legs slumped under the caress of his hands, you moan softly at his fingers pulling free. Time seems to still to just this. You lock your heavy-lidded gaze on his, find him, keep him there with sudden urgency. You’ve had him as long as you can remember and yet you’ve spent your whole life looking for him.

“Promise me you’re real,” he breathes, like he’s done nothing but look for you too.

Your eyes go hot. Blurring at the corners until nothing is clear but him. “I thought I lost you.”

“No,” Caleb says quickly, Evol gone again, inching up your torso to wipe your tears before they fall. “No, it’s you and me, Pips — I couldn’t… I would’ve found a way back to you.”

“I looked for you everywhere.”

He presses his lips to your forehead. “I know.”

“I never would’ve stopped.”

Your cheek. Hand on the other. “I know.”

“You’re really here?”

“I’m here.” He kisses you. “I love you.”

You nod, smiling, crying, laughing maybe. “I love you too.”

His breath catches in his throat, blinking rapidly. The cool quiet of his apartment is warm in a way it’s never been before. “I dreamed about you. I’d wake up… reachin’ for you. If I didn’t have you like this, it’d be enough; you know that, right?”

It’s your turn, pulling him down, kissing his forehead. “I know.” You wrap your arms around him. “But I’m glad it’s like this.”

He sighs contentedly, squished against you, hands trailing reverently down your waist. And you know he’d sleep like this, still fully dressed, still hard — clean you up a little before you doze off — and that would be more than he’d once allowed himself to want. It’s long past midnight now. You owe him nothing and never have. There’s no transaction here. You just love him. You just want him in all the ways he can be had.

“Can you…” It’s ridiculous to be shy now. You grumble into his neck nonetheless, still putty from the hips down. “I don’t wanna sleep yet, Caleb.”

“You—?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck. Are you s—”

“I’m sure, dummy.”

He twitches at your thigh. “How are you so mean to me when you’re bein’ so nice?”

“That doesn’t make any — ah —” His hand wedges between your legs again — “Sense.”

“Mm, you know exactly what I mean.”

“Shut up.”

“Like I said.”

You get to work on his buttons. 

“You love me,” you say as you descend to his navel, skin revealed by the inch.

He isn’t shy to repeat himself. “I love you. More than anything.”

“Forever?”

“Forever. Longer. However long you’ll have me.”

His shirt is shrugged off his shoulders, flexing on instinct at your touch, the muscles tanned and corded. You squeeze and pull him closer. Don’t want anything separating you. Want him to be part of you.

“I love you,” you murmur between kisses, low as he’ll let you go before his abdomen clenches and he’s pushing you back up the cushions and unbuckling his belt.

“I can’t — Need to be inside, baby.”

Point proven: his cock slips free from his briefs, painfully hard, flushed for you. You reach for it, mouth watering. Caleb grabs your wrist and groans in a hoarse, fragmented way when you part your legs instead. His head falls to the crook of your neck.

“Fuck. I don’t have… I didn’t want to assume…”

Oh. Right. Protection. You’ve only been warned a thousand times. “I don’t care.”

You don’t care? Point proven, in a terribly honest way: you cant your hips up and slide filthily slick against him. It would be so easy to guide him where you want him. You shudder under his glorious weight, digging your fingers into his biceps while his clutch white-knuckled at the cushions on either side of your head. There goes that mantra again, more like a prayer now, like begging for you and mercy as if they’re one in the same. But he’s not holding you down anymore and that has to mean something. 

You’re grinding up, a bit hard on your sensitive thighs but you’re no quitter. You’re inviting him in, warm and welcome, and you’ve been home to him too long to stay waiting at the door.

“Okay, okay,” Caleb gasps. He shifts to squeeze your waist and lift your hips nice and snug around his. His other hand wraps around his length, weeping from the tip, wet enough at the apex of your thighs to rub through and lubricate. You keen at the feeling. “I’ll be slow, baby. You okay?”

“Uh-huh. Please.”

“So good,” he praises, not sinking in yet but lined up just right. “Can you — ahh, keep bein’ good so I can get one more from you, honey, please? All I want.”

“Y-yeah.”

He eases the tip in. “Yeah?”

“God, I can’t —”

“Can’t? — Oh, fuck — I know, I know, but y’can’t clench around me like that, baby. Said you could do it so I need you to keep your word.”

“M’trying. Need more.”

“Gimme a… give me one second, pretty. God, you’re so…” 

Warm. Warm, you want to finish. Blistering at how perfectly he sinks in, forehead sticking to yours as you inhale each other’s hot gasps. You want to wrench your eyes shut at the pressure as much as you need to immediately wrest them open again. You can’t look away from him. Then you don’t know which part of him to look at; his eyes are volcanic, more pink than violet in the sunset hue of the lights you strung for him, fluttering as he presses deeper, but — then there’s the point of contact where he does it, lapsing from sight like his fingers did, burrowed steadily inside you.

There’s the initial sting but he’s so sweet, your Caleb, patiently murmuring praises into your mouth: so good, like I dreamed it, please and please and please. It’s more overwhelming than anything else, the need to be as familiar with this part of him as you are the rest, shuddering around the foreign stretch as he slowly pushes to the hilt. Your hands scrabble at his shoulders for purchase and his head falls. Soft, dark hair curtains your vision. It’s less sweet, less patient when he teeths your jaw and mutters, “Mine.”

For a moment you stay like that, testing the air, the feeling of skin, marks of old scars and new, all senses to prove it’s real. You asked him already. He promised he was. And you don’t think you could conjure this — never dreamed him quite right when you did.

Then he moves. Your nails carve moons in his skin you’ll kiss better later.

“You’re — ha —”

“Please,” you sob, reduced to the word, unsure of exactly what you’re even asking.

Caleb’s cock twitches inside you. “You cryin’, baby? It’s okay.”

Are you? You don’t think you care. His thumb is at your cheek to wipe the tears, your old bite mark faded between the fingers, and you whine a soft, “More.”

“Yeah? You want me to keep going?” It’s a strained question, a needy thing, like he’s always tried not to be for you. It’s hard for him to imagine parting now — and you know that because you grab on tighter at the thought — but he would without blinking. Clean you up and carry you to bed, talk it through in the morning, love you no matter how you have him. 

But how many more ways can you tell him you want him? Grind into his hips, flutter around him so his teeth clench on a moan? You are his mirror, comprised of his best and worst parts, and he’s never turned away. You never will either.

“Stay,” you plead, taking his hand. 

With the lights shadowed by the veil of his hair, his eyes are the same soft purple you look for in every sunrise. Tears pearl in them, a gaze that doesn’t shine like this for anything else, and he’s cradling you by the hips, loving you — the best thing his hands have ever done — whispering it in a jagged, barely-there voice as he pulls back and thrusts in again.

“I love you,” at the column of your throat.

“I love you,” between kisses that slope to your chest.

“I love you,” in your open mouth, tasting him, too gone to say it back but he knows.

Caleb holds your trembling thighs open around his waist every time your body tries to squeeze them shut, manoeuvres you to fit him deeper, praises never ceasing even when you can’t muster the energy to rock to meet him anymore. He’ll do the work for you, tell you how good you are, how sweet, his perfect girl. Leave it to him, he says, so eager to please you. And the pressure builds again. Your head is too fuzzy to know what words are spilling from your mouth but his name. 

“You’re gonna give me one more, baby?” he groans, awed like he didn’t swear to bring you there.

You attempt to agree.

“Yeah, you are — fuck, I can feel it. Please.”

And he’s babbling on as the feeling rises to something almost unbearable, the blurry edge of all your senses tangled, fizzling wires all coiled together. The weight of him on you and in you. You’ve never known where you end and Caleb begins, but this is something else. You gasp for comprehension, nowhere to turn, nothing in the world but the shape of him.

The wire snaps. He doesn’t last through it.

His back must be bleeding with the toll your fingers have taken on his skin, squeezing him dry in more ways than one. He spills into your cunt, pulsing, pace quickening like it isn’t enough. You’re blindingly hot underneath him, spasming through it. Your thighs are drenched. You are crying, you must be. The pleasure is undoing, the kindest way you’ve ever been unraveled, thoughts gone to him how he wanted. Your shared release pools between you as his thrusts finally slow. The sound is lewd. Impossibly, you want more. You’d tell him to stay again if you could form the word.

He knows. He’s yours.

“You did so good, honey,” he sighs in your neck, still stuttering gently into you. “Thank you.”

“I know, I know. Don’t…” You swallow. Your mouth is painfully dry. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Caleb laughs breathlessly as he engulfs you in his arms. He presses a kiss to your temple. “Think you need some water, Pips."

You grumble wordlessly against his chest.

“So you are bein' mean again? That’s the official decision?"

“Mhm."

“Huh," he hums with another kiss, grinning at the little shudder you give as his lips trail down your jaw, “How about I get up — yeah, yeah, I know, baby, don’t look at me like that. How about I get you some water and then come back inside?"

"Caleb." You blink, gasping when his tongue sweeps over your breast. “Again?”

“…Pretty please?”

With a glance over his broad shoulders, you debate whether the seconds it’ll take him to get to the kitchen and back are worth it when you’ve already got him nice and warm and wrapped around you. But his eyes gleam luringly with promise, sweaty and messy and pink in the face. 

God, you love him.

“Hurry up.”

He’s never moved faster in his life.

[rahuratna]

Part 2

Synopsis: Hunting never quite prepared you for this; for falling in love. You're uncertain about the true nature of your relationship with Olivia, now that you've both expressed your passion in the most primal, fundamental way possible. She takes steps to rectify that.

[MH Wilds Olivia x Fem Hunter/Reader]

Content: Romance, angst, humour, falling in love, W/W, courtship, lovers' spat, smut (in previous and next chapter).

Dividers by: @saradika-graphics

(Kudos to @that-basic-simp who's headcanon that Olivia was a wildcard in her youth has now become canon in my mind. It just makes sense!)

A hunter is accustomed to living rough, to take pleasure in the few luxuries they are afforded once their reputation has been established.

You've had your fair share of days under unforgiving sun, skin sand-blasted as you forged through parched desert landscapes, or tugged your boots from the powerful suction of a mire with each draining step.

Yes, you'd known hardship and toil, the way most hunters had.

So why was this so difficult to navigate?

Perched on your seikret as you patrolled the Scarlet Forest for tempered monsters, you were aware of her eyes scanning the trees around you, as well as the exact moments that they landed on you, tracing over your form in the saddle.

She didn't mean anything by it.

Olivia was merely performing her due diligence; remaining vigilant, taking stock of your current environs, maintaining a steady watch for her companions, including you.

You envied her, somewhat.

You weren't able to clear your mind so capably of your intimate encounter with her after the battle against the Ajarakan at Azuz City.

You were the one who found yourself watching after her while you were all at camp, watching the way she polished her weapon and shuddering as you remembered the way she'd handled you.

You were the one who caught a glimpse of her training, the bare lines of her powerful shoulders visible as she swung her hammer with practiced ease. And you couldn't help but remember how those same shoulders had felt beneath the grip of your nails, the way they'd rippled sinuously as she'd pressed you further down under the weight of her body.

You wondered what she made of all of this. You wondered why she could remain so calm, as if the current status quo was the most natural order she'd ever witnessed in nature.

Luxuries. Those that were ill-afforded to a hunter.

That's what you and Olivia had, wasn't it? A luxury of time, stolen sweetness and passion, a fleeting moment between two people who were drawn together by circumstance, nothing more.

Even as you had the thought, you recognised it for the lie it was.

Maybe it had been a culmination of physical passion on her part, but to you ...

No. It wouldn't do to dwell on that. Or the voice that whispered to you, oh so treacherously, that Olivia's steadfast and honorable personality wouldn't allow her to make such a decision without some kind of true feeling. That was not her nature, and you knew it.

On the one hand, you were crippled by the doubt of not knowing, and on the other, held back by your fear of seeming inexperienced, naive or just plain silly to be dwelling on such matters. Surely a hunter had more important things to focus on than matters of the heart (or loins)?

And yet, you sometimes found yourself questioning the unfairness of it all.

Having lived the life you had, how were you supposed to know what was right? How were you supposed to know how to navigate this new and infinitely more dangerous territory?

You could settle for the simple explanation for now; the fact that Olivia was content with things  between you as they were, and would perhaps join you in your tent again, in some uncertain time in the future, that she would confine her heated words of tenderness (that you absolutely weren't pining for) to those secret hours before the dawn.

Yes, you supposed you could accept that as her current intention towards you.

If only you knew how very wrong you were.

The first hint you received that all was not playing out as you imagined was the co-ordinated patrols.

The recent upsurge of tempered and frenzied monsters across all habitats meant that the units on the ground were often stretched out, required to travel between different locales every few days in order to see to new issues that cropped up here and there.

You'd teamed up with a variety of other hunters by now, including the laid back but capable Rosso and the earnest Alessa. In recent times, though, it seemed that Olivia was almost always the squad leader assigned to your area.

If it happened a couple of times in a row, you wouldn't have given it another thought. Seven times, though? That was certainly pushing the boundaries of the probable when it came to coincidence.

After the ninth occasion when your SOS flare had seemingly summoned Olivia out of the aether, you decided to question her on it, as delicately as you could.

On the ride back to camp, you fell behind, allowing Alma and your trusty palico to take the lead. Scarlet water splashed against the soles of your boots as your rode beside Olivia in silence for a while, knees brushing companiably against hers. She seemed content to simply be at your side, but this was the best time to ask the question.

"Olivia, are you ... keeping track of my missions?"

She turned to you, the red-tinted water reflecting in faint bars across her cheeks.

"What makes you say that?"

You waved a hand between her and you.

"This is the ninth time you've answered my call. Normally, the others happen to be in the area too and - "

She raised an eyebrow.

"You'd like them to answer your call instead?"

"No! That isn't what I meant."

She regarded your flustered face with her trademark equanimity for a moment before her mouth twitched slightly and she looked away. Your eyes narrowed.

"Olivia."

"What?"

"The truth, please."

She sighed.

"If you must know, then yes. I have been keeping track of your missions, but not because I don't think you're capable."

You watched her, waiting for an explanation. The words that emerged from her next were a little stilted, as if she hadn't fully made sense of them herself.

"I always look out for my unit. Erik, Werner, and Athos, of course. You know that right?"

You nodded, a faint crease appearing between your brows. Olivia did make sure they were taken care of, going so far as to remind Werner when to eat when he was too caught up in his latest project.

"Well, the same applies to you. It may not be official orders, but I consider you to be one of our unit. And all that comes with it."

Her eyes met yours and you felt that small jolt of anticipation, that thread of golden, electric awareness that wove through your whole body every time she fixed her full attention on you like this.

"So, I'm family, then?" you asked, half teasing.

She stared back, perfectly serious.

"Yes. That's what I meant. It's not just about protection. I know you can hold your own, whoever answers the signal. I just want to be the one who responds because that's what I feel is best. That I'm the one fighting beside you."

You were silent for a minute, absorbing this. Olivia's posture had become rather stiff, and her glance raked along your face from the side, as if assessing your response to this.

You couldn't have that.

Alma had disappeared around the bend up ahead.

Leaning sideways in the saddle, you craned your neck and aimed a kiss at her cheek. Your mouth found hers instead, jostling you slightly back as she guided her seikret closer to yours.

Warm, slightly chapped, her lips were gentle, then firm, intoxicating as she always was. She released you, exhaling against your cheeks and you let out a small sound in response, tilting your head as she captured you again.

There was a shift in the light ahead, against your closed eyelids, and you drew away from her, an ache erupting in your chest that you knew no remedy for.

The brief moment of sunset-hued longing in her own gaze, the soft allure of her deepest buried self, caught and held you.

On the way back, you couldn't help the sporadic smile that would break out across your face.

Olivia could keep her composure. You were starting to decipher what lay beneath.

A ball of flame rockets over the top of the rock you're crouched behind, exploding against the cliffface. The enraged Tempered Guardian Rathalos was a foe to be reckoned with indeed, in turns burning the ground and leaving explosions of Wylk-powered energy in its wake.

Dashing out from behind cover, you witness a sight that temporarily stops your heart. Olivia, astride her seikret, charging head on at the raging creature. You could tell from the way she was standing slightly in the saddle, the line of her back and legs taut as a coiled spring, that she was attempting to mount it.

You shout to her, but your warning call is lost amidst the charging of the Rathalos' coming attack.

Whistling for your own seikret, you barely register the lurch of your body through the air as it swings you onto its back. Your eyes are completely focused on her and her damnable daredevil charge, hair flying behind her like a battle pennant as she speeds up.

Some part of your mind is telling you that this isn't out of the ordinary for her. That Olivia is constantly pushing the furthest boundaries of her abilities, always trying new attack combinations and strategies that risked life and limb, all in the name of being the best hunter she can be.

Didn't you do the same?

That didn't make it any less harrowing to watch the woman you -

No.

Focus on the beast. Focus on the swell of its fiery breath. Clear your mind, as she must be doing right now. Match the stride of your seikret with hers. Reign it slightly to the left, just as the blast exits the gaping jaws and then -

Olivia leaps, straight for the Rathalos' back. She isn't going to -

Then the reptilian gaze lands on you, and you fire off a round of Wyrmsbane from your slinger, right between the eyes. It flinches back, roaring with rage, and in this moment, Olivia lands successfully.

Her feet plant on the spiny plates of its back, hunting knife driving into the softer parts between as she lets out an answering yell. The beast attempts to buck her off, but you turn your mount sharply, firing off another round at its chest.

Olivia skirts forward to the head, shrugging off the flame that spills from the creature's mouth, and draws her hammer, landing a powerful concussive blow on the plate above the brow.

Staggering, the great, scarred body topples over, crashing onto its side. In an instant, you dismount, drawing your weapon. Olivia slides across the head, readying her own blow.

At her side, you watch the way she pivots on her heel, the powerful curve of her waist, the arc of the hammer as it comes down once, twice, three times, each strike timed with precision as you both land your attacks in tandem.

The Rathalos lies defeated, one wing extended out at your feet.

Olivia turns to you, and you see something wild, something ecstatic in her expression. Her breathing is heavy, the ends of her hair are scorched and the sleeve of the tunic she wears beneath her armour is torn, the flesh reddened with scratches.

She isn't her usual composed self as she strides across the ground towards you. You've barely sheathed your weapon before her hand grasps your hip like a steel vice and she tugs you against her, lips smashing against yours, artless, no aim other than to be closer to you.

Vaguely, you are aware of your palico asking if this is a human mating ritual.

You gasp into her mouth, your fingers scraping across her epaulettes, before you remember that stunt she pulled. You ball up a fist and bring it down with a light thump in the middle of her chest.

She separates from you, panting slightly, but doesn't release you from her grasp.

"What?"

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"That jump! That was just plain reckless."

She suddenly registers that you are angry with her and her eyebrow cocks in a way that infuriates you even further. Still, she doesn't release you.

"What about it? I've been practicing that for a week now. Athos knows."

"And you decided to test it out on a Tempered Guardian Rathalos?"

You punctuated each word with a stabbing finger to the middle of her chest. It does nothing but strengthen her hold on you, your body pressed flush against hers. You see an answering fire in her glance.

"The more dangerous the better. At least I know it works when it counts."

"Did you hit yourself with your hammer during training?"

"Are you insulting the Captain of another unit?"

"Oh, you're pulling rank now, huh?"

"Well, it seems like you're forcing me to."

Your palico was now asking if fighting was also part of a mating ritual, at which Athos promptly places her paw over his snout.

You take a deep breath, attempting to calm yourself, which wasn't easy with her current proximity.

"Olivia, it was ... impressive, I admit, but - "

"So you can admit that much?"

"That doesn't mean it wasn't ill-considered!"

"You know what else is ill-considered?"

"What?"

She leans forward and captures your lips in a searing kiss again, and your resistance is sapping away by the minute. You arch under her touch, your fingers sliding up her waist.

There's something different here, something she wants you to experience first hand. She'd told you stories before, about her youth, and the way she'd taken on the most dangerous missions to prove herself.

Time and responsibility had tempered those desires, but it seemed that they sometimes simmered just under the surface, and you couldn't deny having seen it in her before.

Olivia had been a firebrand, true to form, and as she consumes you, tilting her head, pushing you back, tasting you thoroughly, a realisation strikes you.

She wanted you to see her, all of her, even the parts she kept concealed so well, the parts that nobody but you (and Athos) would witness in her now.

When her arms finally drop from around you, you place your forehead against hers, breathing her in. You offer her a half smile, nose brushing against hers.

Olivia glances sideways and Athos places her paws on her hips.

"No use asking for my approval, Livvie. Seems like mew've decided."

Your palico gawped in outrage.

"Approval? My meowster is the best of the best!"

"Eh? Anyone who gets Livvie as a pawtner is the luckiest."

"Mew want a catfight on your hands?"

"Nyah, I'd win."

Olivia clapped her hands together.

"All right, you two go on ahead and tell Alma that we're done here. We'll just carve and get cleaned up after."

Your palico shot you a look that was a little too knowing.

"Meowster, send up an SOS flare if it gets too much."

Your mouth fell open, aghast.

"You've got the wrong idea - "

Athos waved at you both.

"Happy carving."

When they are both out of sight you turn, heading straight for the Rathalos, pulling your knife from its sheathe. Olivia is close behind you, but she refrains from touching you, to your relief. You're not sure you can resist her.

After a moment of silent carving, your hands now slick with the wylk-infused secretions that pass for blood, she asks you a question.

"Are you still angry?"

"I'm not angry. I'm just ... seeing you ride right at that thing, getting ready to jump - "

"Not the first time I've done it."

She was reading your mind again. And she was right. This was the crux of the issue.

It shouldn't bother you. It really shouldn't. You remembered the feeling of deep admiration you'd had when she'd charged right at the Arkveld without even knowing the first thing about the monster.

So why would it be any different now? The world didn't change because of your feelings for her. If anything, it was you that had to adapt to  the new order, to the fact that hunting would never stop being dangerous for either of you.

You paused in your repetitive action, still unable to face her.

"This isn't something that's on you. You have nothing to apologise for. It's me. I'm the one that needs to come to terms with ... some things."

So saying, you complete your task, heading to the nearby river to wash. She remains silent, but you feel her eyes watching your every move, the way she holds back the things she would say to you.

The wyverian ruins wash you both in their cold light.

Later, at camp, you try to distract yourself with boardgames with Alma. She's always been better at them than you, but you take comfort in the familiarity of defeat and her idle, warm chatter.

You can put aside thinking about more serious issues when the warmth of the brazier steals into your limb and leaves you languid, pleasantly fatigued after your bath.

Your palico is lounging at your side, head pushed into your ribs as you rub at his ears. It's as if they can all sense your inner turmoil, and are doing all they can to take your mind from it.

Someone approaches, stands just outside the ring of firelight. Alma glances up, and from the way her posture immediately straightens, you know it's Olivia.

"Ah, Olivia - "

Your palico surges to his feet, tugging on Alma's hand.

"Let's go see Gemma. I think she's made me the most purrfect breastplate."

"Oh ... of course!"

Straightening her glasses, Alma shoots you a confirmatory look and you nod, smiling slightly. Always the protective one, is Alma. She never fails to make you feel like you're in good hands.

Olivia finally steps into the warm ring of light, raising her hands to the blaze. She warms them in silence for a minute, and you wonder what she could possibly be here to say to you.

The heaviness of the day's events suddenly burdens you like a lead weight, and you feel it in the way your shoulders slump slightly.

Olivia settles onto the bench beside you, her shoulder pressing into yours.

"Forgive me for sounding forward, but shouldn't you be more pleased to see your lover?"

It's the first time she's referred to herself as such aloud, and you can't help the way your lips curve in response.

"Should I be?"

She exhales sharply and then her fingers are under your chin, turning your head gently to face her. There it is, that infinite tenderness and desire she bears only for you, the set of her mouth that makes it seem like she's almost in pain.

Her voice is low, charged with feeling, and it makes you shudder slightly.

"Please, look at me. I don't want ... this. Whatever this is. I don't want it between us."

You shake your head, patiently explaining to her yet again.

"Olivia, I said earlier that you have nothing to - "

"I do." Her grasp on your chin tightens ever so slightly. "I do have to apologise. For making you think you have to deal with this alone. I just ... I'm afraid I'm not very good at these things."

"But there's nothing you - "

"Yes, there is. I can comfort you. I can hold you. I can listen to your concerns and not behave like an idiotic youth who's just received their hunting license. I can be here when you need me the most. I can make compromises too, because if that isn't what all these years leading my own unit has taught me, then I'm a failure indeed."

Her harsh assessment of her own actions makes you reach up, wrapping your hand around her own. You bring it to your lips, speaking against her skin.

"We're both learning, Olivia. And we've got to adapt. But I suppose a little help from my own partner at times would definitely be something. And maybe ... practice those stunts a little more before trying them out in the field, yes?"

"Only if you're the one practicing with me."

"Suppose I'll have to stock up on healing potions, then."

"Am I that dangerous?"

Your laughter this time was genuine, and some of the tension she bore in her frame dissipated.

"You're the most dangerous woman I know."

Even now that you knew she was dealing with these feelings in her own way, the natural course of her actions always surprised you a little.

Your next hint that she was far more serious about your relationship than you had initially expected were the numerous small gifts that inevitably headed your way.

As Captain of her unit, and veteran hunter, Olivia had made numerous connections over her career than enabled trade deals. Shipments of goods under careful supervision would make their way to various base camps, courtesy of the deals she brokered, each containing valuable supplies and equipment for the hunters.

Sometimes, there was something rather specific for you among these shipments. And it was obvious, to anyone who cared to scrutinize, that as practical as all of these gifts were, they were tailor-made to suit you.

There was the new sheathe for your hunting knife, made of a beautiful dark leather that you'd once expressed appreciation for. There was a talisman of protection, woven together with feathers from a bird you'd once mentioned that was native to your home region and village.

There was a delivery of your favourite honey sweets to the Avis Tent (by the time you'd arrived, your palico had looked at you with a guilty expression and stuffed cheeks, Alma hiding a wrapper discreetly in her pocket, while Nata looked on at their antics and giggled).

There was one particular morning when you'd emerged from your tent at the Ruins of Wyveria, a short while after the Rathalos debacle, and a glorious, fresh and familiar scent had assailed your senses. Glancing around in confusion, you'd spotted a nosegay of flowers from the Plains tied across the entrance of your tent.

Your eyes widened as you took in the vivid purple hue of the flowers, remembering one particular evening when ...

A step sounded outside the sheltering canvas, and Olivia appeared around the corner, eyes flicking between you and the hanging flowers.

It was still very early, and only a few people were stirring around camp. She was out of her armour for a change, in a soft, fleece coat, belted at the waist against the cold of the ruins.

You gestured to the flowers.

"Is this ... "

The corner of her mouth quirked upward.

"Yes. Figured you could use some fresh scent after fighting that tempered Congalala yesterday."

You wrinkled your nose.

"Well, you chose right. I love the scent of these."

She was close now, her eyes drinking you in, in that manner that made your knees feel like they'd been stung by a paralytic wasp.

"I know. Do you remember that day?"

"I do."

Your voice had sunk lower, a barely audible whisper as you recalled that evening, when you'd captured a Quematrice on the Plains for Erik's study. Olivia had accompanied you, as she'd felt it her duty to oversee the mission that would benefit her unit.

You hadn't been particularly close to her, back then. She'd always drawn your attention, but she was still a colleague, a rather intimidating one too. Olivia's competence and command was unquestionable, and although she was cordial and always polite, there was an air about her that didn't exactly invite friendship.

That evening on the Plains had changed your perspective of her, for good.

The Quematrice has burned a swathe through some dry grass, and for fear of the blaze  catching over the wider area, you and your trusty palico had commissioned some wingdrakes to carry large buckets of water to pour over the area from above.

By the time the exercise was over, you'd been sore of body, exhausted, covered in soot, breath raspy from inhaled smoke. Olivia rode beside you back to camp, amusement colouring her expression as you'd slumped over in the saddle and grimaced at the smell of burnt vegetation that had seemed to ingrain itself in your nostrils.

She'd spied something off the trail and made a sudden detour, returning with a small cluster of purple flowers in her hand, picking away their stems and tying them around the bunch to hold them together. She'd taken off her gauntlets to work with the delicate blooms.

"Here, these should help with the smell."

Taken aback by her act of kindness, you'd accepted the flowers and held them up to your nose, inhaling deeply and sighing. The scent was fresh, a little less sweet than you'd expected, carrying almost citrusy undertones that banished the smell of burning.

"Well now. I think this might just be my new favourite blossom."

She'd nodded, offering a small smile.

"They're similar to the Styraca flowers back in Dundorma. During festival time, they'd deck the houses with them to clear out the vapours of the last season."

Clearing her throat, she'd looked off into the distance, pausing before reciting to you.

"The crown of warmer tides awaits, their jewels scattered among the fields. Weave them into your hair, my queen, and your heart shall surely yield."

You'd almost dropped the flowers in surprise, leaning towards her, intrigued.

"I didn't put you down for a poet, Olivia!"

She'd snorted and glanced away, and you realised that she was actually slightly embarrassed.

"Oh, I'm no poet. Just have an appreciation for other's verse, I suppose. That's one that's pretty popular around festival time."

While her attention was turned away from you, you hurriedly fixed the flowers beneath your helmet so that they looked like they were sprouting over your ear. You spread your arms regally as she turned back, noting the slight widening of her eyes.

"How's this for a crown?"

" ... um. Suits you."

"Think I'll win anyone's heart this way?"

"Maybe the Quematrice."

"Olivia! What kind of person do you take me for?"

Your combined laughter echoed across the Plains, and it marked the first time in your association with her that you could relax and enjoy each other's company without the constraints of duty and mission parameters.

You remembered it now, standing before your tent in the chill morning with her, as a defining moment. That had been when you'd seen past Olivia the Ace Hunter, past the trappings of her professionalism to the sensitive heart beneath, the woman who loved to read poetry in a sunny field, the sweat of training still on her skin, the wind tousling the wheat-hued strands of her hair.

Reaching up, you plucked a bloom from the small bunch, tucking it lightly behind her ear. In the softer light of the lantern, with the pale fleece of her coat wrapping her snugly and her eyes gleaming with sage-green fire, you'd never seen a more beautiful sight. 

Tilting your head, you traced the line of her chin, watching as she leaned unconsciously into your touch.

"What do you think now?" Your tone was soft, teasing. "Has your heart yielded yet?"

Her hand came up, circling your wrist, the callouses on her palms catching slightly on your skin. When she'd held you, back then in the tent after the Ajarakan fight, when she'd caressed you and bit and licked and gripped, she'd never shown any sign of hesitation, as if claiming what was rightfully hers.

So why was it this simple touch, this grip on your arm, that felt so shaky, so uncertain, like a child that grasps on too tight when you're in a crowded space, as if you'd leave them behind to face the unknown world alone?

She turned your hand over, placing her lips softly against the skin on the underside of your wrist, then again, on the centre of your palm. Something about the gesture blew the air right out of your lungs, as if she'd knelt before you and presented you her throat.

She never did answer your question.

She didn't need to.

Taglist: @rubberroomwithrats @ohgoodnesswhatdo @comradesepsis @pinkiedash101 @zephyrwolf5

@mystique-agent @moonskins @damnesis

@zellkabellk @queen-titania @moonmoonmon

@len1028 @jo-crow @ammirabilis

[rottenpumpkin13]

i feel like if time traveler rufus and time traveler chadley combined their talents they could be surprisingly effective

major if though

*Rufus spots Chadley wandering around and immediately feels a deep sense of unease*

Rufus: Hold on. Aren't you Hojo's cyborg assistant? You shouldn't even exist yet.

Chadley: Correct! I am an advanced artificial intelligence from the future, sent back in time to rectify past mistakes and alter the course of history for the better!

Rufus: Huh. What a coincidence. So am I.

Chadley: Fascinating! What is your intended course of action?

Rufus: Arranging my father's untimely demise, seizing control of the company, gradually phasing out mako energy in favor of sustainable alternatives to align with AVALANCHE's concerns, restoring Wutai's sovereignty with a formal apology, ensuring all SOLDIER operatives are cured of their degradation issues, and carefully breaking the news of his origins to Sephiroth before offering him a peaceful early retirement. You?

Chadley, hiding the machete behind his back because he was planning on killing Sephiroth to cut the problem at the root + human life is fleeting anyway and ultimately insignificant: Oh, I was just going around asking for combat data.

[starogeorgina]

𝐔𝐧𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧

Paring: Aemond Targaryen × Targaryen reader, minor Daemon Targaryen x Targaryen reader

Warnings: Swearing, smut, kidnapping, sexual blackmail, self harm (overall dark themes)

Chapter: 1.01

Blood and cheese.

Fucking blood and cheese.

The destruction that blood and cheese caused would haunt Aemond until the day he died. He never meant for Lucerys to die; he thought at most his nephew would piss his pants and fly off home crying to his mother; instead, he indirectly set off a chain of events that couldn’t be stopped and was responsible for tearing his own family apart.

If Arrax hadn't breathed fire on Vhagar, then Vhagar never would have...

It was his fault.

Deep down, he knew that.

And now Aemond had paid the ultimate price. He took his half sister’s son away from her, and now the blacks have taken his sweet wife and unborn child from him.

Not only was the prince demented with fear of not knowing what had become of his beloved wife, but his poor sister Helaena was forced to make the worst choice a parent could make and lost her firstborn son, Jaehaerys. He could never bring his nephews back, but perhaps he could still save his wife, if he ever found her. His wife’s dragon Stardust has been circling the keep, squealing loudly while looking for her rider since the day she was taken, and whenever the dragon went silent, a fleeting feeling of hope would cross Aemond's mind that perhaps she had returned, but that was never the case.

The prince’s fingers grip the leather arm rest of the chair tightly, and his knuckles turn white as his mind takes him to a dark place. Was someone mistreating his wife? Was she dead? He had been tracking the dates and had determined that his unborn babe should have been born two moons ago.

“Prince Aemond.”

He stands when the king's hand approaches him holding an opened scroll in his hand, “grandsire.”

“I believe we know where the Princess is.”

“You’ve said that before,” he spits harshly. “And all it did was cause my mother more heartache.”

As soon as the words leave Aemond’s mouth, he regrets them; his comment wasn’t fair. His grandsire cared for them all but had a particular soft spot for his granddaughters. Aemond often had to remind himself that his wife being taken affected the rest of his family as well. His grandsire had used every connection he had to try and find his wife, while his mother had sent ravens to Rhaenyra, begging for her daughter's return.

“I’m sorry,” Aemond says. “Where is she?”

Otto nods, giving him a look of understanding. “Dragonstone.”

“Dragonstone,” he repeats. Could it be that she was so close to home all this time? The last time Aemond thought he had found his wife, he ended up burning Harrenhal to the ground. “How do we know this isn’t a trap?”

Otto holds up the scroll: “A raven arrived from Prince Jacaerys.”

Believing he’s heard everything he needs to, Aemond goes to leave but is stopped at the door by Ser Criston, who gives him a sympathetic look and pats his shoulder. “There are still things you need to know, my prince.”

—

You stare up at the ceiling, waiting for your uncle to appear. He always comes when the sun disappears and the sky turns black. On cue, the door to the room is unlocked, and your uncle walks in with a strut in his step. One of his hands had a tight grip on the head of his Valyrian steel sword, while the other dangled the key.

Knowing what his intentions were, you pull up your gown, spread your legs wide open, lick two of your fingers before bringing them to your clitoral area, and begin rubbing in a circular motion. This wasn’t about putting a show on for your abductor; you just wanted it to be over quickly. “Your cunt of a brother stole my wife’s crown, sending her into early labor, and your husband killed our Lucerys in cold blood. You are going to rectify those things by replacing what was taken from us.” Since the day the maester cleared you for sex again, your uncle has visited you nightly.

Daemon smirks, “Such an eggar girl, I’m starting to think you enjoy our nightly activities.”

You wondered if Daemon convinced himself that he doesn’t mistreat you so he could sleep better at night and find a way to forgive himself because he knew the gods wouldn’t forgive him for what he was doing to his own kin.

“Don’t stop touching yourself until I say so,” he orders.

You do as he says, thinking of Aemond as you touch yourself.

“Husband.”

Aemond looks up at you with a smile on his face. You’d been searching for him for hours, and you now feel silly for not searching the castle's library first. He often reads late at night before joining you in bed, but because of the stormy weather, you thought your husband might have gone dragon riding.

“You’ve kept me waiting.”

“Oh, I must have lost track of time; my apologies,” he says sincerely. He puts a bookmark in place, then sits the book on the small table beside him.

You walk towards him with a smirk on your lips. “It’s quite alright, my love, but I don’t think I can wait much longer.”

“Wha—”

By unfolding your robe and pulling up your sheer nightgown, you grant Aemond complete entry to your glistening cunt. He slides his finger along your folds gently, “so wet already.”

“I warmed myself up while waiting,” you tease.

Aemond kisses over your clothed body while sliding a finger into you, a smile pulling on his lips. “Well, I better not keep you waiting any longer, my dear wife.”

Daemon smacks your hand away, replacing your hand with his, and rubs at your clit until a moan slips from your mouth. He kneeled down and buried his head between your legs, bringing you pleasure with his skilled tongue. You hated yourself for enjoying the feeling of his mouth on you. When your walls start to clench, Daemon abruptly stops and unties his breeches low enough for his cock to spring out. He spits into his hand and strokes himself to complete hardness before sliding into you.

You wince at the stretch. Daemon wasn’t much smaller than your husband, but it always seemed to hurt when he thrust into you.

Perhaps that was deliberate on his part.

It didn’t matter how rough Aemond was with you; he never hurt you. Not once.

—

It doesn’t take Daemon long to reach his peak inside you, filling you with seed. Once he’s caught his breath, he begins to quickly fix his breeches. “You had tears in your eyes.”

“I’m surprised you noticed.”

He scoffs, “If it’s causing you so much pain, I can have the maesters bring tea; that will help.”

“I don’t want a tea to dry my milk up, uncle; I want to see my babe, Daenys, and feed her myself.”

He shoots you a cold glare and says, “No.”

You practically leap from the bed and press your back against the door, just as he reaches to open it. “Please, Daemon, please. You said I could see my daughter. All I want to know is that she’s safe. Please, please!”

“I said you could see her once you held up your end of the deal.”

When he forcefully pulls the door open, you are forced to move forward to let him by, and your body shakes with anger. “I’ve held up my—”

Daemon grips your face harshly. “The deal was that I would return the Kinslayers babe to you once you're pregnant!”

The single door to the room is slammed shut and locked, and you're all on your own again. Tears fall from your eyes as you move to the bed and curl up in the thin bed sheets. You felt like a fool when Daemon first took you as his prisoner. You sobbed and begged at his feet, promising to do anything it took to stay alive so that your unborn child could survive. And out of all the horrific thoughts that crossed your mind, you did not consider that he would force you into becoming a vessel, with the sole purpose of giving him another heir.

The only person who was kind to you was your nephew, Jacaerys. Sometimes he’d manage to sneak you extra food during the day, but mostly he’d sneak in to see you during the hour of the owl and would bring Daenys with him.

The few hours a night you got to spend with her made everything you suffered seem worth it, but it was never enough. The visits had become less and less, as Jacaerys was terrified of Daemon finding out. Your nephew promised he’d find a way to free you, but day by day, your hope of ever making it off Dragonstone was fading.

—

Aemond squeezes the sapphire necklace that he had made from his wife moons ago. It was his intention to give it to her on her nameday, but he never got the chance. Her eyes would light up whenever she got excited, and he imagined how they would look when she received her gift. He knew his wife would appreciate the sapphire carved into the shape of a heart. The sharp point of the bottom of the heart digs into his palm; the sting of it is the only thing that reminds the prince he is alive as he listens to his grandsire talk about his beloved.

“It seems Rhaenyra has slowly descended into madness, leaving the island under the charge of prince Daemon, who has deemed the princess his new— whore.” The pain and disgust in Otto’s voice was clear as he spoke of his granddaughter's fate. “Jacaerys states she has given birth to a healthy babe not long after she was taken, a girl.”

Aemond struggles to breathe as all the air is sucked from his lungs again. He had a daughter, a baby girl. Tears threatened to spill from his eye, but he squeezed the necklace harder to stop that from happening. It’s not until Aemond feels a warm liquid falling from his hand that he realizes he had held onto too tightly, and now he is bleeding.

Ser Criston notices but doesn’t draw attention to it; the knight clears his throat. “What does the bastard want in return?”

“For his mother's life to be spared,” Otto replies. “He even says he’d bend the knee if it meant saving her.”

“It could be a trick.”

“No,” Alicent says. “I don’t believe he would gamble on his mother's life. Rhaenyra’s sons love her; this we cannot deny.”

“Mother, I didn’t hear you come in.” Aemond's chest tightens with guilt when he spots the tears in his mother's eyes. “You shouldn’t listen to the details; it will only upset you.”

“Oh, my boy,” Alicent strokes his cheek, “we will get her back, the both of them. This I promise.”

[the-wayward-arc]

Every chapter/legion has their dark secrets so here are the Remnant Knights

The Remnant Knights unleashed sorcery altered Grimm upon the wider galaxy during the heresy. These strains, altered by Sorcery, could survive off Remnant due to the link between Salem and Remnant being cut off at the cost of them being uncontrollable and far more aggressive

It's a shame upon the Remnant Knights and one they can't truly rectify due to the fact that the Traitors got their hands on Many of the strains and use them for battle, spreading the Grimm more. Fabius Bile chief among them, creating more strains that are far more Lethal.

It's a dark secret as the official reason that Grimm are found elsewhere is because of the Traitors took them off world before their betrayal as a means to help eradicate them but used them for war against Humanity on a galactic scale instead.

There is no death penalty perse on Remnant. When someone is convicted of a heinous crime they are judged not to be of worthy of the life and thus, to the public are executed but in truth are handed to the chapters to turn into servitors.

The Remant Knights have a list of chapters they deemed "unworthy" of being Space Marines examples being Marines Malevolent, Minotaurs, the Carcharadons, Flesh Tearers, Death Spectres and many others. Said list is accessed by all Remnant Knight successor chapters and are tasked with assassinating as many of these space marines as possible during battles.

Currently 2 chapters have been wiped out, records say they were wiped out in the black crusades, in truth they were wiped by the successor chapters, a secret that will ensure never knows the light of day.

The Remnant Knights have developed a type of chemical agent that targets the unique biology of Space Marines, it's kept deep in their fortress monastery on Remnant, to be used should they be invaded by either the Imperium, chaos or worst, themselves should turn against their people.

A successor chapter did turn to chaos, they fell to Khorne and the Remnant Knights themselves put them to the sword. It's a secret they ensure is never known.

Even though they were ordered long ago to stop the production of the Atlesians Knights and Paladins, Jaune had them secretly continued to bolster the defenses of Remnant. The Knights and Palandins are standard issue in each fleet of the chapters that only a chapter master can activate should they need to.

Remnant's Final shield protocol is much like Imperial Fist's Last Wall protocal except all chapters will abandoned the Imperium to form the Legion once more to defend their homeworld. It's a contigency only two people can activate, The Remnant Knights chapter master Arael or Jaune himself. If Jaune were to activate it, a special kind of symbol activates as well to let the successors know it's their father calling them home.

[wlw-webcomic-bracket]

Davepeta introduction

Fleet introduction

How the round robin group stage works

[froleineeeee]

Caleb x Reader

A/N: Okay, so, this is my first attempt at writing fics since I was 15, the first time sharing it since I was 14 and my first time writing reader insert so... Please be nice, but do tell me what you think, it will help me get better ! I started with something that's not very long, hope that's okay ! Also, as good as my english is, it's not my first language, so if it's yours and you notice a grammatical error, do tell me so I can rectify it ! Anyway, here goes nothing...

______________________________________________________________

Word count : 798

Warnings : MC!reader, slight hurt/comfort, panic attack

You couldn't sleep.

Since you had come back from Skyhaven, you had been conflicted, unable to detangle the mess that was your brain at the moment. On one hand, you felt happy that Caleb was alive and well, but on the other hand, you felt something was… off with him. Like he wasn't the Caleb you knew in your childhood, while somehow still behaving like him towards you. It unsettled you deeply, but afterall, he was still Caleb, wasn't he ? He still called you the same stupid nickname, still teased you endlessly and still made sure you were healthy and happy. So why then did it feel like he was different ?

You figured, if you couldn't sleep, might as well try and see if you could reassure yourself somehow. You knew Caleb was likely to still be awake at this time, probably just coming back home from completing his duties as the Fleet's Colonel. So you did the only thing you could think of. You reached for your phone on your bedside table, unplugged it and after looking through your contacts, you dialed Caleb's number, bringing your phone up to your ear and laying back down.

The phone rang. And rang. And rang.

Just as you were about to give up, finally Caleb answered, sounding out of breath, like he had run a marathon. "Pipsqueak ? Why are you calling me at this hour ? Everythin' okay ?"

For a second, you froze, still not used to hearing his voice again. For a second, you felt relieved. Then you remembered how a phone call works and that you actually needed to answer him, so you said in a hesitant voice, "Uh, yeah ! Sorry, I'm totally fine, don't worry. It's just that I couldn't sleep and I missed you, so…"

You heard him chuckle at the other end of the line, the sound making you smile. "Damn, Pips, how would you live without me ?"

You laughed at his teasing words before remembering the whole year you had no choice but to spend living without him, your laughter dying in your throat. Suddenly, you felt like you couldn't speak, your throat closing in on itself and your chest aching. You couldn't breathe. Caleb, who knew you so well, picked up on what was happening immediately and began to panic, cursing himself for joking about this so carelessly, "Shit, I'm sorry Pips, I shouldn't have- Damn it. Okay."

He calmed himself down before saying in a soothing voice, "Everything's fine, Pipsqueak. Breathe. I'm here now, I'm alive and I won't leave you ever again, okay ? Breathe with me."

Hearing those words, that your foggy brain took a minute to understand, you slowly began to calm down, your breathing evening out as you followed his lead. You focused on his breathing, breathing along with him.

In. Out. In. Out. Then you let out a long sigh, the tension lifting off your shoulders slowly.

"Thanks… I'm sorry about that, it's still a bit fresh. Maybe avoid joking about it until I've had the time to diggest you being alive and back for good ?" you said when you finally came back to your senses.

"Yep. Totally. What do you say I cook something special for you next time you visit as my way of saying sorry ?" he said. You could hear from his tone just how guilty he felt for being the cause of your torment. He reminded you of a guilty puppy, and the mental image it summoned in your mind lifted your spirit as you pictured a puppy Caleb looking up at you with shiny eyes, ears flat on his head as he pleaded for your forgiveness.

You let him feel guilty for a few seconds before you answered, "Sure, sounds like a plan !"

"Great ! It's settled then. You should sleep now, Pips, it's late and tomorrow's not your day off, is it ?" he said, and for a second you wondered how he knew that tomorrow wasn't your day off but you chose not to question it too much. Instead, you answered "You're right, although that applies for you too, Colonel."

You heard him laugh softly before he replied, " You don't need to worry about me, Pips. But yeah, I'll get to bed soon, don't worry. So… Good night then ?"

"Yeah, good night. Sleep well." you said before hanging up and letting out a sigh. You dropped your phone on your bedside table yet again before letting your arms rest in a cross on your mattress.

You wouldn't know what changed about Caleb anytime soon, but as you closed your eyes and felt sleep overcoming your body, you thought that maybe this new version of him wasn't so bad. Afterall, he couldn't be that different if he still cared that much about you, right ?

Right ?

[kitchenisking]

Perfect by canyonoflight - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 6,484)

Polin consummate their marriage after the Butterfly Ball.

Interrupted by zalvera - (Rating: G, Words: 2,327)

The 'Bridgerton Drawing room lesson' continues uninterrupted. Eloise does not come back early. Violet does.

Dance With Me by ShadowsFiction - (Rating: G, Words: 1,312)

“That’s not how the dance goes,” she chides him gently, causing him to laugh at her, and slide his arms around her, pressing her back into his chest. He ran his fingers up her stomach, and she caught his hand before it went any further.

“This isn’t dancing,” she giggled and his eyes met hers in the mirror. She watched as his eyes darkened. Her breath hitched in her throat when she realized desire was written all over his face. She hadn’t felt beautiful in the longest time, or desirable, but watching him watch her, and the want that is expressed across his face– it made her feel something.

Or Pen is feeling out of sorts since she's become with child and Colin, being the ever sweet husband he is shows his wife how much he loves her.

Love Is Merely A Madness by Sea_Dragonfly - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 6,900)

Sneaking into Penelope Featherington's bedroom just before midnight was certainly outside the bounds of propriety; Colin knew that. But he was more concerned for his dear friend's health. She'd been struck down by a mysterious illness, and the ton was ablaze with rumours.

Colin just had to be sure she was well.

Or: Sex Pollen? Sex Polin.

Embers in the Hearth, Peace in the Heart by ScullyLikesScience - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 4,253)

New parents Colin and Penelope Bridgerton make some time for themselves.

Ruining Lady Whistledown by ArdentCastle - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 3,453)

‘I do not understand, how it is I can be furious with you. So angry at what you have done, and yet, desire you as much as I do,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t. I wish I could turn away from you. Forget what it was like to taste you, to feel you, to have you. I cannot.’ 

Season 3, Episode 8 - Colin didn’t leave the bedroom after going in to get the blanket.

//Pt 2 - Penelope writes a Whistledown column for Colin's eyes only

with my body, i thee worship by gentlewallflower (greyspilot) - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 4,076)

Colin wakes in the morning to his wife’s grip on his upper arm and his morning wood causing him all kinds of problems.

~

A direct continuation from 'to have and to hold' but can be read alone.

truly madly deeply by not_your_babyy - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 5,349)

Colin leans down, allowing his lips to brush against her ear causing her to shiver. In a low voice, he murmurs, “Although in truth, I wouldn’t oppose leaving the ball early to return home and rectify the night of our wedding. As well as every night since.”

“Oh.” Her chest rises and falls rapidly with the steadying breath she takes. Colin’s eyes unabashedly track the movement.

“But as it is your night, I do not wish to rush to end it,” he says teasingly, spinning her as if he didn’t set her body ablaze from just the mere suggestion of his previous words.

Her head feels as if it is floating with the butterflies overhead instead of attached firmly to her. Weakly she tries, “I mean there will be other balls and other dances, Colin. Surely one early night won’t have much importance.”

💛🖋️🪞🐝💙

After the public Whistledown reveal at the butterfly ball in 03x08, Colin and Penelope make up for their wedding night after leaving the ball.

just a trick of light (to bring me back around again) by drjemmanugent - (Rating: Explicit, Words: 2,319)

“Stay.” Penelope’s voice breaks the silence, save for the fire made up by the night staff. Colin had already turned towards the door by the time she stood to face him. “Please.”

or, the one in which we explore that fleeting scene at the end of ep 8 ;)

My love was never conditional by lionheartwriting - (Rating: G, Words: 963)

First time writing for this show. I have come to terms with season 3 part 2. There's only a few minor things that annoy me, including the pregnancy announcement. So I rewrote the scene in which Colin and Penelope talk after Francesca's wedding.

Hope you like it!

[anxiousmilflover]

Essentially an AU where Agatha and Rio talk after Rio arrives on the road:

Agatha: What I don’t understand… is why you keep coming back? How - every time I find myself troubled, you materialize like some kind of ghost of Christmas past with your charisma… and your charm… and your magical quick fix to my fleeting mortality - all while knowing I’d never give you anything in return. Why are you here? Why even try when you know this time is fleeting?

Rio: You can hit me, hex me, stab me in the chest with the knife that you welded for me, and I’ll thank the stars that I was privileged enough to breathe the same air. I’ll smile in acceptance, as I bleed out and regenerate, only to meet my fate once again. What you don’t seem to understand, Agatha, is that- that none of that… no amount of pain, physical or otherwise, that you may cause me, could make up for the agony that I did.

So it’s ok, if you want to leave me behind.

Call a truce, just for the road.

I’d be grateful for every moment that I could gaze upon your face. You know that you were the person who gave me life, and I took that from you. There is no punishment upon this plane that you could inflict on me… in order to rectify that burn.

(Found this in my drafts from last year and wow, did I have FEELINGS lmao)

[sunflowerabyss]

Jealousy

Pairings: Older!Remus Lupin x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Angst, fluff, age gap (reader is in her twenties)

A/N: Here is another little one-shot based off this request: "can you write reader confessing her admiration towards lupin and being rejected and as a result, she focuses on other boys and it enrages remus?"

Find that story here: The Art of Understanding

____________________________________________________

The dimly lit room in Grimmauld Place was filled with an air of tension as the members of the Order of the Phoenix gathered for their latest meeting. Remus Lupin, wearing a wearied expression, sat near the fireplace, lost in his own thoughts. Unbeknownst to him, a young witch named Y/N sat nervously on the edge of her seat, her heart pounding with a mixture of excitement and apprehension.

After the meeting concluded, Y/N mustered the courage to approach Remus. "Um, Remus?" she stammered, catching his attention.

He turned to her, his tired eyes meeting hers. "Yes, Y/N?"

She took a deep breath, her fingers fidgeting. "I've been meaning to tell you something. I, uh, I've admired you for a long time. Your wisdom, your strength—it's really something."

Remus raised an eyebrow, a faint smile playing on his lips. "Well, I appreciate your kind words, Y/N. But...I'm not the right person for you. I'm too old, too damaged. You deserve someone who can offer you a future without the burden of the past."

Y/N felt her heart sink as the weight of Remus's words settled in. "I… I understand," she whispered, her voice barely audible.

As the days passed, Y/N tried to move on, to divert her attention to other members of the Order. She found herself drawn to the charismatic and rebellious Sirius Black, whose charm and wit seemed to distract her from the rejection she had experienced. In the midst of their laughter and camaraderie, Remus couldn't help but notice the subtle shift in Y/N's attention.

One evening, as Y/N and Sirius shared a lighthearted moment in the kitchen, Remus entered the room, his gaze involuntarily fixating on the scene before him. The laughter that had once been reserved for him now echoed in the room with Sirius.

A pang of jealousy and regret surged through Remus as he watched Y/N and Sirius, his heart conflicting with a mixture of emotions. He clenched his fists, his jaw tight.

Sirius noticed Remus's presence and shot him a mischievous grin. "Hey, Remus, care to join us?"

Y/N looked up, her eyes meeting Remus's for a fleeting moment. His expression was unreadable, a storm of conflicting emotions in his eyes. "I think I'll pass," he replied tersely, turning on his heel and leaving the room.

Y/N sighed, torn between the comfort Sirius offered and the unresolved tension with Remus. Little did she know, Remus Lupin, the man who had rejected her, was now grappling with the realization that perhaps he had made a mistake.

In the following days, Remus found himself unable to shake the turmoil in his heart. He couldn't ignore the growing realization that he might have been too hasty in dismissing any possibility with Y/N. A nagging voice in his mind urged him to confront his feelings and perhaps rectify the situation.

One evening, Sirius found Remus alone in the library, his eyes fixed on a book but clearly lost in thought. Sensing the tension radiating from his friend, Sirius took a seat across from him.

"Remus, what's going on?" Sirius asked, a furrow forming on his brow.

Remus sighed, running a hand through his graying hair. "It's complicated, Sirius. I think I made a mistake with Y/N. I pushed her away when maybe I shouldn't have."

Sirius raised an eyebrow, studying Remus carefully. "You mean you like her?"

Remus hesitated before nodding. "Yes, but I told her I'm not the right person for her. I said I'm too damaged. And too old."

Sirius chuckled, leaning back in his chair. "Well, you're right about being old." Remus felt an upward tug on his lips. "Mate, I don't think she sees you that way. I mean, I've been spending time with her, and it's pretty clear she's just trying to move on. She values you, Remus."

A mix of relief and regret washed over Remus. "I need to talk to her, set things straight."

Sirius grinned. "That's the spirit! Go talk to her. Clear the air. Trust me; it'll be better for both of you."

Taking Sirius's advice, Remus sought out Y/N the next day. The tension between them was palpable as he approached her, both unsure of what to say. Y/N looked up from her book, meeting Remus's gaze with a mix of curiosity and apprehension.

"Y/N, can we talk?" Remus asked, his voice soft.

She nodded, setting aside her book as they found a quiet corner in the Order's headquarters. The air felt heavy with unspoken words as Remus took a deep breath, preparing to lay bare his feelings.

"I meant what I said before, Y/N. I am too old for you, too damaged," he admitted, his eyes searching hers for any sign of understanding. "But I think I may have been too quick to dismiss any chance between us," Remus admitted, his eyes falling to look at his worn-down shoes.

Y/N sighed, a mix of emotions crossing her face. "Remus, you made it clear that I deserve someone without the burden of the past. I can't change that."

Remus reached out, gently taking her hand. "But I've been thinking. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe we could figure things out together. I care about you, Y/N."

A flicker of surprise and hope flashed in her eyes. "You mean that?"

He nodded. "I do."

Y/N's lips curved into a small smile, and she squeezed his hand. "I appreciate your honesty, Remus."

As they continued to talk, the weight of the unspoken tension lifted, replaced by a newfound understanding. In the end, they found themselves drawn to each other, the initial angst giving way to a sense of warmth and connection. As they stood in the quiet corridor, Remus couldn't resist the urge any longer. He leaned in, capturing Y/N's lips in a soft and tentative kiss, sealing the beginning of a new chapter for them both.

[all-pacas]

Do you think house’s “you only like broken people” theory ever got into comeron’s head? Like was there ever moments during her relationship with chase where he admits something awful about his childhood (nonchalantly/not thinking it was really awful because he’s a repressed bastard) and she immediately went “oh god what if he’s right” as a fleeting thought?

i'm going to take this prompt as an excuse to yell about lockdown for a minute.

something i find really striking about lockdown -- besides the obvious and hilarious retcon of it all -- is how cameron blazes in there with: this was all my fault, i pushed you out of my life, i am a broken person. and when i say it's a retcon, i mean it: none of this was very presented as a … problem, or an issue. we spent the entire series in cameron's head and not chase's; their divorce quickly swaps from because chase did a murder to cameron is broken.

CAMERON: Because everything you said is true. I'm a mess. I married a man I knew was dying. So God knows how screwed up I already was. Him dying messed me up even more. I pushed you out of my life. And I-I'm unfixable. Not you.

it's insane, right? chase murdered a person and cameron -- and the show -- decides that no, the real issue is that she never loved him and is broken. obviously, the meta reason is that chase is still on the show and needs to remain likeable. but still! it's nuts! while it's true that cameron does fear emotional vulnerability and has pushed chase away when he's gotten too close (s3 fwb and saviors are both examples of this), we've also seen her take pains to rectify her missteps and actually work quite hard to keep chase -- in the itch, she finds out she's been inadvertently hurting him and immediately tries to fix it; after dibala, her first reaction is to try very hard to forgive murder and stay married. it's… disingenuous to act like she's "always" pushed him away, she's "never" loved him, both for the show (which was always thoroughly on cameron's side to the point of completely ignoring chase's feelings/pov until now), for cameron herself, and most of all for chase, who admits he wants it to be her fault so it doesn't have to be his.

(i'm sympathetic to chase in lockdown, because i understand and we see how much the breakup fucked him up for years to come, but also. this is not a good episode for him. he yells and berates cameron until she tells him what he wants to hear -- that she never loved him -- and allows her to take full blame for their breakup, admitting it's easier for him this way. he does try and comfort her when she's crying, but only after he yelled in her face until she started crying. he is a fucking asshole.)

but interestingly, even now, even with all these retcons and getting assigned all the blame for chase's murder of a world leader, cameron never once suggests "i like fixing people." she admits marrying her dead husband was a Choice, and that she already had issues, and that it messed her up worse, but she never suggests she tried to or wanted to fix him. these things are true, and always have been. she then says she pushed chase out of her life which… is still an insane take (she didn't! she wanted to go to chicago with him! he took a job with house and told her "you do it too or we have to break up!"). but she never suggests i just wanted to fix broken people.

neither cameron or chase ever seem to think "fixing broken people" is her issue, actually. if anything, if they did believe this was her problem, now would be a great time to bring it up: chase is already angry with her, why not throw on "you like fixing broken people, but not me?", right? house really is the only one who has ever suggested it was a trait of cameron's, and, while the show does often suggest house is right, we really should not forget that he did it at a time he wanted to undermine her feelings for him, that "you only want to fix broken people" was a way of downplaying her crush and their relationship. no one else has ever thought this of cameron. that she's messed up and her dead husband did a number on her? absolutely. but that she has a thing for broken people? not even once. not even now.

-

as for the actual question: i don't know. i don't think so? house absolutely gets in cameron's head, and we see she takes his thoughts seriously. but so much of cameron and chase's relationship was about chase being supportive and offering advice and comfort that i don't think she ever thought for a second "i'm with him to fix him." if anything, given how quickly she admitted to him she was "broken" in lockdown, i think they may have both believed the opposite. if chase admitted to childhood trauma #84 in her presence, obviously her every nosy instinct would kick in and her every loving one would want to help and find out and, yes, fix. but their dynamic was never like that (the fact that her longest relationship on the show/in life was with chase in the first place) kind of proves house's supposition wrong on the face of it. and she seems to know it, too.

[bardic-tales]

Chaos Incarnate - FWC / FF 7 Alternate AU Story

Summary: Sephiroth marches through the ruins of Midgar to the Shinra Building, slaughtering anyone in his path to reclaim Bianca, who has been imprisoned and experimented on by Hojo and Shinra in this alternate world within the FWC. This is set in an alternate timeline within the Remake games.

Pairing: Bianca Moore (f!OC)/Sephiroth

Other Characters: Hojo (deceased), various Shinra personnel (deceased), implied presence of Shinra executives and SOLDIER operatives

Possible Trigger Warnings: Blood, body horror, canon divergent, captivity, death, experimentation, gore, main character death, medical abuse, mind control, murder, non-consensual medical procedures, physical restraint, PTSD, torture, violence

Author's Note: This short story was written upon for a request by requested by @craftyhal. The concept, characters, and specific plot elements were provided as guidelines for the piece.

Sector 7

Midgar, Gaia

1.

This time will be different, the silvered-haired man thought. They will not take her from me.

The streets of Midgar were silent. A stillness had settled in the wake of his destruction. Sephiroth walked through the smoldering wreckage of Sector 7 over smoking debris. His boots echoed against the charred, twisted remnants of the fallen plate. The air reeked of burnt steel, flesh, and mako: an intoxicating mixture of death and rebirth.

His Masamune, still slick with the blood of those who had tried to stop him, dripped crimson onto the cracked pavement. He had dropped the plate himself. Not AVALANCHE. Not Shinra. Him. It was only fitting for what humanity had done to her. Not Mother. Her.

The weight of the massacre did not burden him. The screams had been fleeting. No, he thought. They had been almost liberating, as those insects were crushed beneath tons of steel. They were necessary casualties: pawns in a grander scheme. The fools who served Shinra had stolen from him. They had taken her.

"Stay with me," he whispered as he gazed up at the Shinra Building standing like a beacon before he begun his march once more. He knew the President was looking down upon the destruction: ruin that he thought the Turks had caused. Reno and Rude had been the first to fall under the man's blade. Their blood still wet the console that dropped the plate, and after that, he had descended to Sector 7 to finish exterminating those insects.

The timeline had tried to resist, but his will would not be denied. Never again.

A low, whispering wind stirred around him, though the air was still. Shapes coalesced in the periphery of vision. Like smoke given form, their tattered cloaks of shifting black weaved through the air. They slithered between collapsed beams and broken buildings. Each were drawn to him like moths to flame.

The Black Whispers.

They trailed after him in silence. Neither guiding nor obstructing. No longer arbiters of fate, but puppets bound to his will. He smiled. How much they resembled Cloud and his puppetry. His persistence had not been mere defiance of death. It was a rewriting. Destiny itself had bent at the knee.

And why shouldn't it? After all, he was the Chosen One, future ruler of Existence, itself. The Whispers obeyed him now.

His fingers flexed around the hilt of his ōdachi as his pace quickened. He was being drawn to her. The pulse of their bond grew stronger. He could feel her. It was faint, almost drowned out in the suffocating energy of the city, but unmistakable. She was here. His Bianca.

Shinra had dared to keep her in their grasp. Sephiroth would tear their tower apart to rectify their mistake now. Midgar already was drowning in the blood of her citizens for their audacity.

2.

As he approached the Shinra Building, the Whispers gathered in a dense formation behind him, swirling like a living tornado. Their forms writhed and merged into him as he passed through the lobby. Flesh and shadow became indistinguishable for a moment. Here, in this timeline, Sephiroth no longer needed to hide within the bodies of robed men. He was whole. They were him.

Bodies lay in his wake. Some still warm. Their blood painted the grey floors of the lobby. The elevator panel was shattered. Its buttons slick with gore and bits of brain matter from the man whose head he had caved in with his boot. How his eyeball had popped out before Sephiroth's final stomp: a glorious symphony of red and bits of stringy black.

He had carved a path through security, through SOLDIER, through anyone foolish enough to stand in his way. As he scraped the gray globes off of his boot, Sephiroth thought about one thing and one thing only. He would not be denied her. She was close. He could feel it.

3.

Now, the hum of mako engines and the sterile scent of antiseptic filled his nostrils. It brought back memories of his time here. The R&D floor. Sephiroth was close now.

As he moved, his scar itched: the telltale half-healed wound where Cloud had buried the Buster Sword in his back. The boy had tried to kill him, but he had failed. He had slaughtered all of that village and the SOLDIERs and troopers who accompanied him on his last mission. Everyone, except the Head Scientist who had found his beloved in the Underground Library and transported her to Midgar.

Sephiroth had risen from the flames of Nibelheim stronger, reborn under Mother’s will. And now? He was in control of destiny’s jailers.

The doors to the laboratory were twisted off their hinges with their metal laying on the sterile floor. His Masamune having split them apart like paper. Sparks rained from the shattered overhead lights, casting eerie shadows over shattered glass tubes and overturned medical carts. Without any expression on his face, he stepped over the remnants of the door. Glass crunched under his boots.

The scent of mako was stronger here. Thick and suffocating. They had kept her in a containment chamber.

He stepped inside, and the Whispers followed.

His breath hitched.

There she was.

Bianca lay curled within an empty mako containment chamber. Her porcelain skin marred by lingering traces of glowing residue. Her indigo eyes, once alight with fire, were dim, hazy from whatever sedatives Hojo had forced into her veins.

Clothed in little more than a torn hospital gown, her body bore the evidence of their cruelty: restraints had dug into her wrists and ankles, her skin raw where she had fought against them. And there, peeking beneath the fabric, was her scar. The mark of her suffering. The mark of what they had done to her.

The Whispers stirred behind him. Their low hissing hum vibrated through the air. Not the white ones that the flower girl had tried to stop him with. No. These were his. They were twisted, corrupted, and black as the void between stars. Their presence filled the lab, pressing in on every surface like a second skin.

One of them reached toward Bianca, dancing before the tank, but Sephiroth turned, and it dissolved into smoke at his silent command.

She was not theirs to touch.

Rage twisted inside him. The white-hot fury pulsed in his temples.

Bianca stirred, blinking sluggishly as if emerging from a deep abyss. Her gaze found his, and a flicker of recognition passed through the bond they shared.

“Sephiroth.” Her voice was weak, hoarse from disuse. But he felt her relief. He felt the way her body unconsciously reached for him even in her half-lucid state. She had called out to him in their shared dreamscape; he had responded immediately.

He crossed the distance in an instant, kneeling before her. His leather-clad fingers brushing against her cheek.

“I’m here, Bia.” His voice was quiet, but there was a promise beneath it. Humanity would pay for its sins against her. He would see to it himself.

She exhaled shakily, pressing into his touch as if to ground herself. His free hand moved to the restraints. Thick fingers curled around the cold steel. With a flick of his wrist, the metal crumpled like paper. She fell forward into his chest.

He caught her effortlessly, wrapping an arm around her waist as he stood. As he cradled with his right arm, Bianca was light. Too light, he thought.

They had drained her, siphoned her blood, experimented on her like she was nothing more than another of Hojo’s grotesque projects. Once more, rage bubbled beneath his calm veneer.

The scientist’s fate had already been sealed.

Sephiroth turned, his gaze shifting toward the far end of the room. A shuffling sound, the faint wheeze of breath. Hojo.

The man was slumped against an overturned desk. His white lab coat stained with the dark blood that pooled at his stomach. Sephiroth had left the Masamune embedded in him, pinning him to the desk, before he had searched for Bianca on the R&D floor, ensuring the scientist would not slip from his grasp.

Now, as Sephiroth approached, the dying man lifted his head. His glasses were cracked and his breathing ragged, yet there was something in his gaze: a perverse satisfaction.

“She . . . is . . . magnificent, isn’t she?” Hojo’s voice was a rasp, gurgling as blood filled his throat. “Our greatest creation . . . angel strengthened with the beauty of . . . Jenova. You should thank me.”

The Whispers circled around him like vultures, pressing close, feeding on the last flickers of the mad scientist's life. Sephiroth did not grace him with a response.

With a slow, deliberate motion, he pulled the Masamune free. The wet popping sound of steel sliding from flesh was followed by a final, gasping choke as Hojo slumped forward. His blood soaked the manila folders beneath him, blurring the lines of the last project of the Jenova Project: Project N.

A fitting end.

Sephiroth turned away, as he held Masamune in his left hand. Bianca still cradled in his right arm. The glow in her eyes was returning, and the strength in their bond rekindling now that she was free. He felt the way she clung to him. Her fingers tightened around the fabric of his coat.

“Shinra will pay for this,” Sephiroth murmured. It was not a threat. It was a certainty. "They all will pay for this."

Bianca’s lips parted, a slow, wicked smile curving them despite her exhaustion. “Burn it.”

Oh, he would.

As he strode from the ruins of the lab, stepping over corpses and shattered glass. Flames ignited in his wake. The Whispers followed. Black tendrils coiling along the walls. The air was thick with the promise of vengeance, of ruin, and of fate rewritten.

By the time the fires consumed the Shinra Building, the only thing left of the corporation would be ashes and the soundless echoes of destiny screaming in reverse. This time, Sephiroth would not be defeated. He would make sure of it.

@themaradwrites @craftyhal @megandaisy9 @watermeezer

@prehistoric-creatures @creativechaosqueen @chickensarentcheap

@inkandimpressions @arrthurpendragon

[fayes-fics]

Benedict ÷ modern + tied to a door

Kinktober: Benedict + Bondage

Kinktober 2023 Masterlist

Mrs Bridgerton Masterpost

Paring: Benedict Bridgeton x fem!reader, modern AU.

Warnings: 18+ smut, minors DNI, mild dom/sub play sub!Benedict domme!reader, soft rope bondage, quickie sex, woman on top.

Author’s note: hi nonny 🫶 thanks for this. I realised I had not written a sub!Benedict for Kinktober, and this was the perfect prompt to rectify that. This is set in the Mrs Bridgerton universe, a few years after the sequel, when they now have three children. Enjoy! 😁🧡

He looks so beguiling, kneeling and tied to the cupboard door with colourful skipping ropes, even if his expression looks harried. At his side is a swag bag with Monopoly money scattered around it.

“What happened here?” you smirk, crossing your arms, leaning on the door jamb of the playroom.

“We were playing cops and robbers. Sadly, our children are better at knot tying than I give them credit for,” Benedict responds dryly, shaking his shoulders to indicate how well ensnared he is by the three of them, as the strains of them now playing boisterously in the garden below filter through the window pane.

“How was work?” he asks, seemingly giving up on his plight and shooting you a puppy dog look to come to his aid.

“Fine,” you shrug, sauntering over to tower above him.

“Are you going to help?” he frowns when you don't move to unfurl the knots.

“Oh, I don't know….I rather like the look of you all trussed up like this,” a devilish smile twitching the corner of your lips. You bend to lean over him, tilting his chin up with a finger, his jawline catching the light so handsomely as you do. “Imagine all the things I could do to you, Mr Bridgerton,” you whisper coquettish, his pupils dilating rapidly at your words.

“Mrs Bridgerton, how could you possibly?” he gasps in mock outrage. “This is our children’s playroom of all places.” Even as his face screams, ‘Please, god, yes, take me’.

You rub your thumb over his lush bottom lip as he shuffles his legs around to sit, legs straight in front of him, nodding at his lap with a bashful smile. You kiss him deeply, running your tongue into his mouth possessively before placing a heel on either side of his knees and hitching up your hem right in front of his face. He makes a slight growl as you give him a fleeting glimpse as you push down your underwear, then slowly lower yourself onto his thighs. 

“Better make it quick,” you warn with a brow raise, eyeing the telltale swelling in his jeans that makes your mouth water.

“Before they come back inside?” he guesses correctly as your hand shoots out to unzip him.

“Exactly,” you hum, distracted, delving into his underwear to wrap your hand around his always delightfully warm cock, revelling in his twitch and throaty gasp as you pump him lightly to full hardness, your other hand pushing your dress higher over your hips as you shuffle closer.

You groan loudly as you sink onto him, the soft ropes that bind him squeaking slightly around the door handle as he attempts to surge his hips up to meet your downstroke, a curse falling from his lips.

“Don't try to move, Mr Bridgerton,” you tease softly, “just enjoy the ride.”

His face is beautiful—desire, hope, pleading, blown eyes as you fulfil your promise. He snags a tooth over his bottom lip, arms tied helplessly behind his back. You begin a rousing rhythm, rising leisurely and sinking dramatically, enjoying the stretch his cock always provides.

“How many other parents fuck in their children's playroom, do you think?” he murmurs as you close your eyes, tilting your head back, wrapping your hands around his broad shoulders for leverage.

“I hope all of them. If not, they are missing out,” you sigh in response, revelling in the nudge to your hilt with each drop you make. Your eyes open, and you snap your chin back to look down at him. “Now stop talking, you dastardly robber. The only noise I want to hear from you is groaning of my name.”

“Yes, Mrs Bridgerton,” he rumbles dutifully as you reach around without breaking tempo to pull down your dress zip enough to loosen the neckline and unhook your bra. Wordlessly, you tip forward against his hot mouth, hissing as he gently bites your nipple, making you ride harder.

Oh yes, Mr Bridgerton. YES….

No taglist as these drabbles are short