#ill probably continue being barely active for a little while

[transmascgalactaknight]

my parts for the kirby gotcha collab , race car and twirling star rocket ::3

[wizashcs]

Hi pookie

Ill give you a good start on this bc Im so happy you write these ahain💗

Can I get some ideal date headcanons with Zoro, Nami and Robin? Like what is their dream date would look like with their s/o. Sfw/nsfw is fine too~

Thank you for always supporting me, my dearest!! Of course, I'll give you everything you want.

One Piece Headcanons - What is their dream date with their s/o like, with a little spice~

Zoro

This man is such a loser when it comes to dates, because if he's in love, I'm sure he doesn't know what to do exactly. I think he's relying on his partner more in the planning of dates, since he's fine as long as you're happy. (But choose an activity that he likes or at least doesn't hate, because then he wouldn't get grumpy.)

His ideal date is just you, him, and a beer for each one of you. You'd just find yourselves a nice little nowhere, without the sharp noises of your crew members, and just talk. Maybe he'd even get a little more open about his old stories when he was a pirate hunter, or he'd even talk about his days in training, when he was just a boy. He'd also listen to you talk, secretly being glad that he gets to know the little things about you. (He would be so surprising sometimes, when he'd just randomly give something to you that you've mentioned him years ago. You'd be so emotional about it, while he denies the fact that he remembered at all. No need for him to be called a sweet loverboy, you know.)

Nsfw part:

Since you two have found a little privacy, the swordsman would probably get cheesy enough to pull you onto his lap, listening to you like that, then, after a while, he'd start to run his fingers under your shirt while he's behind your back. When you ask him "What are you doing, Zoro?" - he'd simply reply: "Nothing, continue." You decide to join his game, by trying to ignore his touches on your bare stomach and chest. Needless to say, Zoro would take this as a challenge, and will do everthing to make you lose. You can feel him getting hard on your bottom, his chest touches your back, his mouth is sucking on the side of your neck, leaving blood red hickeys on you, marking you as his once again. Meanwhile, he'd play with your nipple with one hand, and tries to untie your bottom clothes with the other. You two will not get out of there without breaking a sweat, that's for sure.

Nami

(s/o is afab)

Nami likes money, but also likes spending money, especially when you're with her to do that. You two would decide to have an all-day date, including some shopping, and then in the evening a hot bath together, undisturbed. When you guys are out there shopping, she'd insist to buy some new clothes for each one of you, and believe me, she hypes you so much when you put on a new set of clothes. "Baby, this was literally made for you. You look stunning." Even if you're insecure about it, she'd buy it for you. Who knows, maybe one day you'll change your mind. (She will be working on changing your mind very hard.)

When you came back home with your stuff, you two decide to have a bath together. I'm sure she have planned all this, so she'd buy scented candles and colorful bathbombs for your lazy night together. You sit in the tub first, so Nami could sit between your legs, pressing her back against your bare chest, leaning her head to your collarbones. At first, you'd just enjoy the bathbomb's gentle tangerine scent, and the blinking lights of the candles you lit, with the ship's easy rocking. Silence, at last.

Nsfw part:

The feeling of Nami's red hair tickling your skin, she's caressing your leg with her nails gently, from knee to thigh. It would drive you crazy. She always drives you crazy. "Nami, you're doing this again..." You breathe out softly. It seems your scolding wasn't very impactful with that pleased moan. She'd turn her head to you, and smile playfully. "Doing what?" She answered with brattiness in her voice. You both know where'd that lead to. The door is locked, so who could stop you two? Nami turns over to you with her body as well, and you'd pull her into a passionate kiss. She'd hug your neck with one of her hands, and with the other, she'd start to wander down across your chest, then your stomach, slowly down there, on your heated spot. She would begin drawing circles around your clit, and after a little while, her middle finger would find your slippery entrance under the water, carefully but also confidently pushing her way into you. You moan and run your fingers through her orange tufts, making her sigh a little. "It's been so long... You won't escape me now." She'd say just before she'd lean back hungrily to the mouth she was longing for.

Robin

Robin would appreciate cozy dates, where you two would visit a nearby library, finding some goods to read together back on the ship, in her room. You'd choose something easy, a short romance novel for the night, instead of an archaeological science book. (I mean, she would really like that, and I'm sure she would read from those to you as well, but no way that's an easy subject.)

When you came back from the library with the book you chose together, you decide to settle into Robin's bedroom. She would open a nice bottle of wine for the two of you, and you could begin your cozy, reading night. You'd read the chapters aloud, and when you reached the end of a chapter, you would take turns. To be honest, you both love hearing eachother read. There's something of a passion, an art about reading to someone. Robin's words flow into your mind like a river, wishing the chapter would never end, because that would mean she'd stop speaking on her gentle voice, and you'd have to take turn. "I could listen to your voice all day." You said, when Robin finished her part. The woman smiled gently, almost shy. "I could read you all day."

Nsfw part:

So you persuaded her to read the rest of the chapters by herself... She sat on a sofa all this time, but as the time passed, you two found yourselves laying on her bed, cuddling. Robin held the book between her two summoned hands, while you rested your head on her chest, snuggling up the her tall, slim shaped body. She held you in her own arms, while she was reading the last chapter of the book. You'd stroke her arm that held you, and then, from a sudden thought, you'd put your hand on her lower stomach, starting to caress her with your nails tenderly. Her stomach jumped a little each time when you touched her, but she managed to keep her words flow the same as before. You became pretty amazed, seeing her being able to resist for so long, even after you began to do the same to her inner thighs, and eventually reached her womanhood as well. Yep, she'd read the last chapter until the last page's last word, while you literally finger her. "You are an unbelievable one." She says, and just after she put the book on her nightstand, she'd turn to you and pull you closer with all four of her hands. "Now... Let's see how long you can ignore my touches, my love."

[chuck-fag]

ouhggy maybe tell us more about your selfship with chuck.... ⊂⁠(⁠´⁠･⁠◡⁠･⁠⊂⁠ ⁠)⁠∘⁠˚⁠˳⁠°

I haven’t really thought it out much but I got some stuff about it (im not THAT active of a selfshipper). So basically, Terry (my s/i) works in IT at HHM (mainly because that is where im most knowledgeable in real life and it also makes it more ironic that he likes Chuck). He is friends with Ernesto and wants to volunteer to do errands for Chuck since he wants to take the load of his friend. In the time talking to Chuck, he realizes he likes him, I mean really likes him. They both relate to each other in the fact they are ostracized for their mental illnesses (my s/i is autistic and Chuck is well… Chuck). Chuck also finds Terry endearing and enjoys talking to him, he doesn’t really realize he also likes him too though since he has trouble with relationships. They continue to progress into some sort of secret on and off thing where they are quite affectionate with each other, but it ONLY stays in Chuck’s house since Chuck is quite high profile and him being accused of homosexuality would be quite damming to his reputation (its 2002). They continue having on and off secret rendezvous off company time and really feel a connection. Sorta skipping around, when Chuck is launching his investigation on Jimmy for swapping numbers on documents, Terry is right by his side, Chuck describes him as a “confident” to Howard and the private detective. Terry is honestly pretty neutral to Jimmy though, he thinks he is trouble but doesn’t hate him personally, he just wants to help Chuck. When Chuck delivers his chicanery monologue, Terry can be seen with his head in his hands near Rebecca. Soon after, Chuck is ultimately the one who cuts things off with Terry, saying he “doesn’t need him anymore” and that he needs to get back to being a normal person. This devastated Terry very much, as he is kind of a gay infatuated loser and has no one else in his life he can say he loves. When Chuck dies, Terry is on the side of Howard in believing it is a suicide. He has to keep himself stoic while at Chuck’s funeral to not arise suspicion about their true relationship. Although, Terry can barely even function anymore at work and loses all passion he had for his job. He sometimes just stands completely still in front of that giant Chuck portrait and reminisces about what once was. When Howard dies a year later and HHM is downsizing, he quits, seeing no value in the company anymore. I haven’t really thought about anything with him afterwards, so he probably either gets a job and is unhappy living in monotony somewhere else, or isolates himself to the point he is almost completely withdrawn from society (a NEET perhaps). I’ve also thought about him just committing suicide in various ways, but I think it would be lazy just to write him off like that.

…Holy shit this is a wall of text. Sorry it got a little dark in the end, I just wanted time to adhere to canon as closely as possible. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got, really. The main reason I am into selfship is 1) I like conjuring up stories I can live vicariously through in my head and 2) I want to see Chuck with a errand-twink (Terry is 35, but whatever, still a twink to me lolll). Thanks for asking ^_^ !!

[jazlynriddle-legacy]

Deleted Scenes Ch 4:

In light of Discovery

Summary:

Anne wasn't the only one who changed after the curse, Ominis swallowed the words, grieving once more for the brief happiness they'd had together.

A series of fill in snippets of interactions between Sebastian and Ominis in-between quests, starting with Ominis confronting Sebastian after he catches Main Character leaving the Undercroft.

Ending with a longer epilogue chapter that takes place post-game, where Sebastian and Ominis find a way to move on and mend their friendship.

Warnings: Spoilers

Link to AO3 can be found here (with additional tags)

Notes:

This chapter takes place after the Shadow of Discovery quest, where Sebastian tells Main Character about the relic spoken of in Slytherin's spell book, before asking the Main Character to keep it a secret from Ominis.

Only for Ominis to reveal himself and that he'd heard every word, and then get revenge for Sebastian telling Main Character about his childhood trauma, by telling them about Sebastian's childhood trauma.

I imagine their interactions after that point would be very strained since Sebastian literally just walks out. So, instead, I took a dive into what might be going on in Sebastian's head after that.

I think it's very important to remember that as confident as he appears, Sebastian is just a kid, he's got hormones, insecurities and anxiety. He's inexperienced and lacking in proper guidance, because wow is Solomon a terrible guardian for a traumatised kid with no therapy. And that's on top of the trauma of watching his parents die, and separation anxiety from being apart from his twin sister for an extended duration while she's deathly ill.

Sebastian lifted his eyes from the book before him, closing the tome quickly, leaving a finger trapped in its pages, as Professor Binns glided by his desk. It was always so annoying trying to conceal his activities from a ghost. Blast their ever-hovering feet.

He slumped back down in relief as the teacher floated past, before he flipped the book open again.

Salazar Slytherin's spell book was endlessly fascinating, despite being frustratingly difficult to interpret, and so he had taken to charming the cover to appear as a textbook and continued studying it in History of Magic, since it was the only class he'd get away with reading during.

As Sebastian performed one last cursory scan of the room, his eyes landed on Ominis, falling asleep beside their friend. He felt his stomach tighten. That used to be him sitting beside Ominis. Instead, Sebastian was sitting alone at the back of the classroom. Their new friend probably saw more of Ominis than he did at this point.

Truth be told, he was a little surprised at just how much Ominis' anger and disapproval hurt. Having his best friend barely say anything to him, besides asking where their mutual friend might be, was beyond painful.

Sebastian had just been trying to be considerate when he’d asked their friend not to tell Ominis about their plans with the book. He may not completely understand why Ominis was so intent on blaming himself for what he'd been forced to do by his abusive family, but he understood that it had been horrible and traumatic. He'd simply wanted to protect Ominis from having to interact with Dark Arts again.

Sebastian watched as his friend also fell asleep beside Ominis, his chest burning with envy. He was tired too, but he didn't have the luxury of peaceful sleep.

Why couldn't Ominis understand what he was doing? Sebastian was trying his best here! Trying to keep himself from lashing out at Ominis for abandoning him when he needed him most. Respecting Ominis' desire to distance himself from Dark Magic.

He understood Ominis' fear of the Dark Arts, and Sebastian truly didn't want to hurt him. It was just unfortunate for him, that Anne's life was more important than Ominis' feelings. If Ominis didn't want to be involved, well, it hurt, but Sebastian could accept that. Anne's wellbeing was his burden to bear, not Ominis'.

Besides, it wasn’t like Sebastian didn't want to stop, he couldn’t stop. Did Ominis think he hadn't tried everything else already? That Sebastian was jumping into Dark Magic purely because he wanted to? Sebastian had tried everything he could think of, it wasn’t his fault that the most promising avenue left to them involved Dark Magic.

Anne was suffering and she was his twin. She'd been with him since they were born, he'd already lost his parents, clawing, and gasping for air at his feet. He would not lose her, she was the only family he had left.

Solomon didn't count, his existence made absolutely no difference in their lives, dead or alive. His uncle was useless, a man who gave up on his family and cowers from protecting the village from the creatures that ruined their lives. The creatures that were still ruining the villagers' lives.

Sebastian sighed, feeling weary and lonely. He wanted to go back. Back to a time before this constant fighting with Ominis and his uncle. Before every waking hour was spent fearing the arrival of an owl informing him of his sister's passing. Like an ever-present sword of Damocles, looming over his head.

Back to when Ominis and Anne were both by his side. He just needed them with him, he was trying to stay strong, but Sebastian had never been so alone. Every moment was a battle of will, struggling to behave like a functional human being, to chase the image of his sister’s crumpled form from his mind’s eye. He felt like he was losing his mind.

Rubbing a hand over his face, Sebastian shook his head, turning his attention back to the spell book. Here at least, was something that wasn't nebulous, uncertain, and stressful. Writing, on the pages of a book, were stable and unchanging. Fact and knowledge, a fixed point without ambiguity.

Sebastian clung tightly to the feelings of awe that still filled him, when he remembered that he was holding a manuscript written by one of the founders of Hogwarts. Allowing it to wash away his frustration with Ominis and his worry for Anne.

This book represented progress. This book was a symbol of his efforts to save his sister. It didn't matter if it led to a dead end, he just had to keep trying. The thought of doing nothing was unbearable. The thought of helplessly watching as he lost his family again, was unbearable.

Sebastian would find a cure for Anne and then everything would go back to the way it was supposed to be. He had to.

Nothing was more important than that.

Notes:

Am I the only one who finds the story of Sebastian's parents' supposed "irresponsibility and recklessness" to be the weakest part of the writing? Like, they died from an accidental undetected gas leak in the cellar. How is that reckless and irresponsible?

They could have been doing anything in that cellar besides reading books, they could have had their bedroom in the cellar and been boinking. I don't see anything here besides an unfortunate accident that could have happened to literally anybody.

[smilingformoney]

It's Severus' first day as an Unspeakable, and he discovers there's more to the job than he realised.

Read on Ao3 or below the cut:

The tour, it turned out, took most of the day.

The Department was huge - and this was only one sector. The whole place must have been bigger than the entire rest of the Ministry, maybe even bigger than Hogwarts. Severus’ eyes widened when Payne led him into the Artefacts Room, which stretched far into the distance, containing stacks upon stacks of objects imbued with dark and unknown magic. He could probably spend years examining the shelves and barely make a dent in the treasure trove that sat within that room.

And yet, when Payne showed it to him, she passed over it like it was nothing more than a junk room. She continued the tour, and by the time they returned to the top floor, it was lunchtime.

“I usually eat in my office,” she said. “There’s a canteen upstairs, but I try to avoid it. I just bring food from home.”

Severus paused. Was she inviting him to join her in her office, or telling him to use the canteen?

She looked him up and down. “Guessing you didn’t bring lunch from home?”

“No…”

“Canteen it is, then. Wait here.”

She disappeared into a nearby door, which Severus realised was marked with her name. She emerged moments later holding a paper bag, which presumably held her lunch.

“You have your own office?” Severus said in amazement as he followed her down the hall. “Does everyone have one?”

Payne chuckled. “Nah, some people share. I was lucky - that room came spare just as I joined. Guess my luck had to run out some day.”

“What do you mean?”

“Emmett didn’t tell you? You’ll be sharing with me while you train up.”

Severus smiled. “It’ll be like school,” he said, “when we used to study in the library.”

Payne glanced at him, but quickly looked away. “Yeah, I loved not talking to you for hours,” she said. “Best part of my week. Come on, I’m starving.”

She led him out of the Department door and down the corridor to the lift. The Department had been quiet, silent even, with hardly a soul passing them. Out here, Severus heard voices coming from a side corridor, and he glanced down curiously as they passed.

“Wizengamot,” Payne explained shortly.

“So close to us? Is that safe?”

“Believe me, the safety measures are there. If you had any ill intent, you’d not be able to get in.”

The door to the lift opened and they stepped through. Being on the bottom floor, the lift was empty, though it slowly filled up as they ascended the floors. Severus noticed the others giving them a wide berth, and he wondered if Payne had a reputation, or they were just uneasy around Unspeakables.

The canteen was bustling with activity. Severus saw Payne wince at the sudden noise when the doors opened, and he had to hurry to follow her as she made a beeline to find a table.

“Food’s over there,” she said shortly, pointing to the buffet, which was nearly as grand as a Hogwarts feast.

She sat down and began opening her bag of lunch, then glanced up when she saw Severus hesitating.

“It’s free,” she said in a soft voice. “Just like Hogwarts, except you gotta bring it to your table.”

Severus breathed a sigh of relief. He had indeed been worrying about payment, and he was glad she’d answered his silent question; he didn’t fancy telling her he was too poor to afford lunch.

As Snape hurried away to help himself to some food, Persephone pulled her lunch from her bag. She hadn’t known until she came in that morning that she’d have Snape trailing her; otherwise she wouldn’t have bothered packing a lunch. But she had, and she didn’t fancy letting it go to waste, so she sat there with her ham sandwich, a packet of crisps and an apple, and decided to use the time while she was waiting for Snape to come back to have a look around.

Augustus Rookwood was getting a little too cosy with a female Wizangamot lawyer who was definitely not his wife. Arthur Weasley had his nose in a book; a muggle book, by the look of the unmoving picture on the cover. Alastor Moody was also eating lunch from home, his magical eye darting around, no doubt waiting for attacks.

And approaching her table with all the fluid swagger he could muster was Lucius Malfoy.

“Well, well,” Malfoy said in his silky smooth voice. “It seems the vixen has emerged from her den.”

“Malfoy,” Persephone replied shortly.

He glanced down at her plain little lunch. “Is the food here not to your liking?” he asked with a hint of disdain.

“What do you want, Malfoy?” Persephone asked, uninterested in whatever game he was trying to play.

“I simply thought I’d say hello. It’s so rare you grace us with your presence. What would one call one who is not an Unspeakable? A Speakable?” Malfoy chuckled at his own joke. “Tell me, what occasion merits such a visit?”

“None of your business.”

Malfoy winced. “Now, now. Is that any way to speak to your betters?”

Persephone put her sandwich down and sighed. Not this stupid blood status stuff again. For some reason, Malfoy thought that because his family were all magical, that somehow made him better than her, despite the fact that she was a considerably better sorcerer than him. She could beat him in a duel, and he knew it.

“You’ve said hello, Malfoy. Now, please leave.”

Lucius was about to respond, when he spotted something over her shoulder and his expression changed completely. His eyes lit up - subtly, but the spark was there - and he smiled.

“Look who it is!” he said warmly. “I do believe I owe someone a bottle of Ogden’s best.”

Persephone glanced over her shoulder to see Severus approaching with a plate of food. He smiled too when he saw Malfoy; not a wide, toothy grin like Malfoy wore, but a more bashful, closed smile.

“Hello, Lucius,” he said as he reached the table.

“Agent Payne and I were just catching up!” Malfoy exclaimed, flicking his cloak behind him as he sat down opposite Persephone. “It’s so rare to see her out of her natural habitat. She’s not training you, is she?”

Snape hesitated at the head of the table, as if uncertain where to sit, then decided to sit next to Lucius.

“Actually, she is,” he said in reply. “She gave me the tour this morning.”

“That’s enough, Snape,” Persephone said sharply. “You don’t want to break your Vow before you’ve even taken it.”

Malfoy threw up his hands in innocence. “I ask nothing!” he insisted. “Wouldn’t want you dropping dead on my behalf, Payne. Well, if you can’t tell me about your morning, I’ll tell you about mine. I was awoken rather rudely by Narcissa, who insisted I give her my opinion on her gown for the day. Then the Daily Prophet came…”

As Malfoy droned on, Persephone resumed people watching as she had been before the interruption. She pretended to listen to Malfoy as she ate, but her eyes focused over his shoulder, watching her colleagues go about their days. A lot could be learned from the simplest of observations; one just needed to know how to read body language, to read lips, and to notice small details, like the way someone wore their hair, or the state of their dress.

Still Malfoy was talking, and Persephone was sick of it. She wanted some time to herself, and so she stood, picking up her remaining apple.

“I’m going to finish my lunch in my office,” she announced. “Snape, you remember your way there?”

Snape nodded, and she left without a second glance.

“Thank Merlin she’s gone,” Lucius said once she was out of earshot. “I feared she’d never leave. Tell me, how are you finding the ice queen?”

Severus frowned. “Ice queen?” he questioned.

“Oh, yes, she’s probably the most aloof, disinterested person here. Quite distasteful - and awful fashion sense. She needs a splash of colour, an embellishment or two - but she wears nothing but those ridiculous plain outfits.” Lucius scoffed. “All the better to sneak around in, I suppose.”

There was some truth to what Lucius was saying - Payne had been distant that morning, nothing like he remembered. She had always been quiet and kept to herself at school, but when they had spoken, she had always been nice. She would smile when she saw him approach the corner in the library they both liked, and even when they didn’t speak, Severus felt comfortable in her presence - or as comfortable as he could while also sporting a raging crush on her.

“So it’s true you’re to take an Unbreakable Vow,” Lucius commented. “It’s well-known in the Ministry, of course - that’s why we call them Unspeakables, because they cannot speak of it without dropping dead. But that’s about the only thing we do know. Oh, that and the obliviations, of course.”

“Obliviations?”

“Yes, when someone is fired from the Department of Mysteries, they get obliviated. It’s always quite the gossip when it happens, because of course the obliviators immediately start telling everyone they see that so-and-so was fired from the Department of Mysteries for one reason or another. Misuse of knowledge, dating co-workers, that sort of thing.”

Severus frowned. “Dating co-workers? Do they really fire and obliviate people for that?”

“Oh, yes, they have a very strict rule down there. We found that out when two Unspeakables were fired and obliviated for dating. It’s tragic, really - they fell in love, and their punishment was to forget one another on top of most everything else about their lives. Merlin only knows what happened to them. The romantic in me hopes they found their way back to one another, but I guess we’ll never know.” Lucius suddenly spotted someone in the distance. “Ah, the Minister’s here! I’d better go speak to him. Why not come for dinner Saturday, Severus? We can celebrate your new position.”

“Yes, I’d like that,” Severus replied as Lucius stood.

“Mmm, but don’t bring your new friend. We don’t want the dinner table freezing over. Cornelius! Just the man I wanted to see…”

After finishing his lunch, Severus made his way back downstairs and managed to find Payne’s office without getting lost. He noticed that over lunch, the nameplate had changed to include his.

Office 394 Persephone Payne, Unspeakable and Severus Snape, Trainee Unspeakable

He knocked, then pushed the door open when he heard Payne grant him entry.

“You don’t need to knock,” she said, glancing up from the book she was reading. “Didn’t you see the sign?”

“I didn’t want to disturb you -”

“You’re my trainee. Your job is to disturb me. Here - this came for you.” She pushed a folded letter across the desk to him. “Dunno if Emmett told you, but all your post gets redirected here now and checked before you get it. Security and all that.”

No, he hadn’t been told. Nor had he been told he’d have to take an Unbreakable Vow. He knew the Department was high-security, but he was a little bitter that this was all being imposed on him without his consent.

Severus picked up the letter curiously; no one ever wrote to him, only Lucius, who he’d just spoken to. He wondered if it was a letter from the muggle prison that held his father, as they occasionally sent him updates about his father’s deteriorating health.

His heart did a somersault when he recognised the handwriting across the front. Feminine, but not cursive - Lily had never quite mastered that skill.

Severus sat down in the seat across the desk, staring at the envelope. What could Lily possibly be writing to him about?

“You’ll have your own desk tomorrow,” he heard Payne saying, but the blood was pounding in his ears and he hardly heard her. Lily had hardly spoken to him since the day she broke their friendship off, a little over two years ago. She’d certainly never written.

He gulped, swallowed his fear, and opened the letter, fearing a tirade from her for all the ways he was terrible.

But what he read was even worse.

You are cordially invited to the wedding of James Fleamont Potter and Lily Margaret Evans

on 31st August 1978 at St Nicholas’ Church, Cokeworth

Please RSVP ASAP with dietary requirements and name of plus one.

It was true. Severus knew Lily had started dating Potter in seventh year - it was impossible not to know, as they were all over each other, snogging at every possible opportunity. And when graduation came, everyone was abuzz with the news that Potter and Evans were going to move in together during the summer. And now they were getting married. It was rather fast, but Severus supposed Potter wanted to commit Lily to a vow before the rose-tinted glasses lifted and she remembered who he really was.

Speaking of vows… he had one of his own to make, Severus remembered, just as the door opened and his new boss stepped through.

“Good, you’re both here,” said Director Bitterwood. “Are you both ready?”

Payne nodded as she stood, withdrawing her wand from her pocket.

“Ready for what?” Severus asked, slipping the invitation into his pocket, copying Payne’s movements and standing up.

Director Bitterwood looked at Severus seriously over his glasses. “Ready to commit to the role,” he explained. “It’s time for your Unbreakable Vow.”

[youarenotthewalrus]

Read Swords and Deviltry. Thoughts:

In "The Snow Women," Fafhrd's community is meant to be tight-knit and suffocatingly insular, and while the author nails the latter he fails at the former due to the fact that Fafhrd only seems to have personal relationships with like, three people? The story would've benefited from the addition of like, one or two friends and maybe a mentor (we know Fafhrd's a trainee skald, obviously someone is training him). In particular, Velix the Venturer's little speech to Fafhrd about how civilization isn't all it's cracked up to be and he'd be better off staying in Snow Clan as a big fish in a small pond would have been more convincing and resonant if it had come from some kind of Snow Man mentor figure, someone Fafhrd looks up to, instead of a foreign out-of-towner who Fafhrd barely knows. Adding male characters with an investment in keeping Fafhrd from leaving also would've helped alleviate the misogyny inherent in the main voices trying to prevent Fafhrd from following his dreams being his controlling mother and the high school girlfriend he knocked up.

"Ill Met in Lankhmar"'s structure is bizarre. It's a dead-wife revenge story that spends 80% of its length in the first act before the guy comes home and finds that his wife has been brutally murdered, then has to blitz straight to the ending because it's a novella and there are only like ten pages left for that revenge to actually happen. Because the dead girlfriends are alive not just for most of this story but for the previous two in the collection, this ends up being very frustrating, because it means that we have spent almost the entire book developing characters whose only role in the plot is to get fridged. It feels like a waste of potential, especially since as a first-time reader I have no reason to prefer Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser over them and even if they had to die for continuity's sake would much rather have seen them play a bigger and more active role in the plot even if it cut into our time watching the boys get drunk and fuck around. (Incidentally, while the other two stories more or less stand alone this one is clearly in prequel/fanfiction territory where it is relying on the reader having a pre-existing investment in the characters in order to work properly, which makes the decision to make the collection built around it the "first" book in the series questionable, even if it does make sense chronologically.) I don't know what the competition was like in 1971 but I really struggle to imagine a world in which I would've voted for this to win a Hugo.

Uh, since the other two got a bullet point each I guess I should say something about "The Unholy Grail"? It was fine. The dynamic where Ivrian's dad simultaneously hates his dead wife for having been cruel and abusive to him while also hating Ivrian for not being more like her was fucked up in an interesting way, and of the three stories' climactic acts of black magic this one is probably the most interesting by virtue of the fact that we see it from the POV of its caster rather than its victim. I'm still bemused by the absence of anything resembling a grail though, especially since the other two stories had pretty descriptive titles.

[inkwell-intermission]

I'm d33ply in love with the pin heads. Any ideas on their personalities? What about powers?

I’m glad you like them! As carapacians most of them wouldn’t really have “powers” per se- although I think Pounds has a horrorterror at least, maybe one or two more do as well but that’s less likely. I do know about their personalities though! Little blurbs about each of them under the cut!

 Leadoff - intolerant of goofing off on the job and tries his best to keep things organized. right-hand-man to LB, very dedicated to his job. easier to please than someone like Crowbar, if its not on the clock he doesn’t mind silly shit. tries to keep work and his private life separate and fails often. Clumsier than he'd admit to. Generally infuriated by his romantic interest in LB, who usually only has eyes for bowling.  

Split - tries to be very polite and casual but is deeply neurotic and tries to micromanage his own bowling alley and everyone else's if he gets a chance. Odd numbers, mismatched colors, and broken patterns make him very uncomfortable. when he's not actively distressed, he's actually very pleasant and a good conversationalist.

Turkey - Girlboy extraordinaire serving butch realness, oozes confidence and well liked by the ladies. Probably the most well-rounded and stable member of the gang. Self-aware, suave, a slight mean streak when it comes to pranks and teasing. favorite past time outside of work (bowling) is getting into bar arguments, dancing, poetry, and courting classy dames.

Four-Bagger - The kind of nerd who brings a protractor to bowling practice. Not "shy", but very polite while lacking a lot of social awareness. Infodumping incidents happen regularly. Asks for permission to do things as he does them in a "knocking on an opened door" kind of way without ill will. Has Victorian chivalric sensibilities and gets embarrassed by women's ankles. Built like a popsicle stick.

Five-Bagger - Incredibly dignified and self assured, but bowls with surprising ferocity with an abnormal mph on her throws. Internalizes some of her more improper feelings that she gets out by bowling. Unafraid to be confrontational but does not lose composure or temper if she can help it. Femme savante in the Rococo sense- join her for tea and witty debate- you'll lose. :)

Sixpack - Boxes in his free time, very good at it. Gets into a lot of physical fights. Blunt and to the point, and is both uninterested in and barely takes the time to try and understand metaphors, or flowery hypotheticals. More of a brawn than brain type, but is not unkind- she hates when the little guys get picked on. Homosocial jock behaviors abound, goes more silent and stoic when interacting with girls.

Dead Wood - Improperly finished clone, resulted in discoloration and several oversized disproportionate limbs. Obscenely strong in relation to his cloning defects- "Dead Wood" means pins that get knocked so far away from the end that they cannot be picked up and re-stacked. This happens often considering how hard he can bowl. Self-conscious and embarrassed often by his clumsier size and generally awkward personality, not very confident. Generally cheerful despite often being the butt of (misplaced) jokes implying "Dead Wood" implies erectile dysfunction and similar crude ideas.

Quick Eight - Experiences chronic pain and phantom limb soreness after having lost left arm and leg in a Dersite shelling during the Skaian conflict. Is overly confident, cheerful and snarky, which is a partial facade. Bowls somewhat unconventionally due to difficulty balancing with the ball in hand. They're always down for a good time, whether its joyriding, drinking, a party, an intimate dalliance, and the like. Chases positive feedback. Tries to downplay difficulty caused by disability and overcompensates out of habit after military pressures to continue adequate performance post-injury.  Should probably go to therapy about it.

Big Ears - Oldest member of the Pinheads, and kind of fed up with it all. Cigar smoker, actively flaunts dress code with his black top, hides it with white coat. He really likes bowling- but not so much being in the gang. Sticks around, but definitely considers leaving under guise of "retiring". Gruff and straightforward, and is always happy to deal out a good bludgeoning. Enjoys old music, ballroom dancing, and nights in.

Sandbagger - Plays up the idea of being incompetent and uses her appearance and performative helplessness to score men, whom she objectifies and treats as disposable. Like if a lady womanizer did it to men. Intentionally keeps her scores low to keep her bowling handicap high. Prefers ping pong and chess to bowling. Flirtatious. Kind of a mean girl. Has a hard time expressing her feelings authentically. Loves a good cocktail and doing anything but work.

LB (Pounds): OBSESSED WITH BOWLING to a near Freudian degree. Insistent on dress codes and bowling-based nicknames within the gang or else, dedicated to the bit and the aesthetic. Wants a complete monopoly on bowling in the city and cracks down on thieves, cheaters and anyone trying to start a rival bowling alley. Otherwise he doesn't call for a lot of operations. Collects bowling balls and pins. Name says it all- has a tendency to throw when bowling so that the ball smashes into the lane rather than rolls smoothly. Professional and positive but intense. CANNOT overemphasize his bowling fixation.

[yesimwriting]

Crossing lines

General Kirigan/the darkling x reader

Summary: This was requested by my friend @vvsdiamond28 who also writes and has a really good kirigan x reader story up right now! The request was basically for a fic in which the reader is out wandering at night and runs into kirigan while he’s in the banya and then they get to talking and some other stuff before he admits to only trusting the reader and giving her his real name. This gets kinda steamy bc of the request and bc the story called for it lol but it’s not full smut bc i decided that it would be better to do that as a part 2 so that i could add some jealousy tension haha

a/n i think im back?? Ive been working on requests a lot and ive really enjoyed writing regularly again. A small side note, after rewatching revenge of the sith im kinda in the mood to try writing an anakin fic 😭 pls he was my OG fictional crush,, so either send help or a request for him or something, Anyways,, back to this fic--ahh i had fun writing it but i still feel awkward writing steamier stuff so be nice!! 

-- 

Those that wander in the night, lost in uneasy thought--there’s probably a lot that can be said about them. But I can’t think of anything to be said about me. Nothing good comes from walking around a place full of powerful and tense people in the middle of the night. It wouldn’t take much effort to interpret my actions as suspicious, and yet I continue forward. I’m an idiot--just because I can’t sleep doesn’t mean I have to wander around campgrounds. My presence is barely tolerated here, I shouldn’t try backstroking in waters I can barely tread. 

But still, I walk, eyes more fixated on the open night sky than anything else. The moon is as full as an overflowing glass, the stars twinkling as if desperate to compete with a light it will never be able to duplicate. I sigh, pressing my lips together. Maybe the stars and I have more in common than I thought. Normally, that would be a good thing. 

Letting out a weary breath, I continue forward, away from the relative safety of the main tents. I’m still on the grounds, I’m approaching the border where the tents of higher ranking officials are. That should make me more nervous, but if anything it almost eases me slightly. 

General Kirigan is not the type to be friendly, and yet our interactions have always been laced with a touch of intimacy I can’t quite explain. We’ve been alone together more and more frequently, and I think that’s how I like him best. It’s strange, but when we’re alone some of his sharpness dulls, leaving space for something I might consider humor or actual personality on anyone else. He probably speaks to many girls like that when they’re alone together--a fact I have to fight to remind myself of--but it’s the closest thing to friendship I have here. Maybe it’s foolish to hold onto that, but I can’t bring myself to release my grip on those sentiments. At least not yet, when the kind moments are still rare and fleeting and no line has been crossed. 

The danger, however, comes from the prospect of not recognizing lines before they’re crossed. Even now, as I walk aimlessly in the night, pacing in hopes of exhausting my thoughts, I’m crossing lines in a much more literal way and even these are ill defined. I must be in new territory now, and even that I can only vaguely recognize because of the strangely humid scent that surrounds this area of the grounds. 

I’m near the banya. I didn’t intend to wander here, but the thought of splashing water on my face is too tempting to pass up on. I move closer, finding a sense of peace in having some direction, even in a small way. 

When the promise of water is only steps away, I begin to regret everything. There’s a figure in the bath. I freeze, ready to attempt to shrink away in hopes of disappearing before I’m caught. This could easily turn extremely awkward even though I technically haven’t done anything. Most people don’t bathe at this hour. Who bathes this late at night? 

I keep my eyes on the individual, trying to make out who they are and how aware they are of their surroundings in the dim light. Pale skin, dark hair--unbelievably attractive torso. My eyes linger there longer than they should. I force my gaze upwards, towards their face as if that can erase my ogling. Embarrassment leaves my face burning--I’m not the ‘ogling’ type, and this person doesn’t even know I’m here. I keep my eyes on them as I step back, taking in unaware features as best I can in the dark. 

I know them--I--Saints, it’s Kirigan. 

Fantastic. Of course he has to be even more impossibly attractive while shirtless and wet. I turn my head upwards sharply, more desperate to not be caught than ever. I would never, ever recover from being caught. Whether he’d tease me or be angry with me, I don’t know. I also don’t know which option I’d prefer. 

I step back again, my gait wider due to my urgency. Snap. The sound of both a twig and my chance of a stealthy escape being shattered. I cringe, craning my neck to the left in a desperate attempt to make it clear that I wasn’t watching him. I take another desperate step, ready to duck behind a nearby tree. Maybe he hasn’t seen me--maybe he’s distracted and assumed that some kind of rabbit or something passed by. He may not actively dislike me, but I’m not sure any semblance of favor he may have for me extends to this situation.

“Y/n.” His tone reveals nothing but his level of certainty. Ignoring him will only make me seem guilty. 

I pause, keeping my gaze off of him. “Yes.” It wasn’t really a question, and yet I still answer it like one. “I was--I couldn’t sleep so I thought I’d get some air, and I was walking kind of aimlessly and I ended up here and I didn’t think anyone would be here.” Why do I feel like I’m making this situation worse? “I’m sorry--I’m gonna--I’m going to go now.” This is the kind of embarrassing moment that will come back to me when I’m trying to fall asleep at night. I know it.

“You know the polite thing to do after intruding is to make eye contact.” 

I don’t think my face has ever felt this warm before. At least he doesn’t sound angry, but his voice doesn’t reveal that much. I raise my gaze carefully, turning my head slowly. “I didn’t mean,” I exhale slowly, “It wasn’t my intention to intrude.” 

He straightens slightly at my words, exposing more of his chest. I stay still, eyes trained on his to avoid an accidental lapse. “You could make it up to me by offering conversation.” Kirigan’s tone is deliberate, his words measured and calm. I don’t speak, feeling like I’m being presented a test I don’t understand, but most of our conversations leave me feeling like that. “Only if you’re comfortable.” 

And just like that, I’m backed into a corner. A challenge. To deny him now would be to expose the effect he has on me. My chin raises a fraction of an inch as I take in that assured half-smirk. “Why wouldn’t I be comfortable?” 

Kirigan arches a dark brow, assessing my response. “Then sit,” his voice has not changed, “You want air and I want company.” 

I don’t think anyone that looks as good as he does shirtless has ever had trouble finding company, especially with the smooth way he speaks. Despite this, I step forward to accept his challenge without calling him out on his coyness. Each step is the crossing of another invisible line until I’m near the water’s edge. I make sure to keep my nightgown at a respectable length as I sit down. 

I make a point of extending my legs towards the water while leaning back so that I can’t be easily accused of being a coward. “I feel the need to warn you that I might not make particularly interesting company.”

He angles his head to the side slightly, drawing attention to his jawline and neck. I force my stare to focus on the water. “I’ve never found you uninteresting.” 

There’s something resigned in the way he says this. On instinct, I look up, taking in the slight softening of his features. The release of his usual sternness only adds to his beauty, a fact that I’m already resenting. 

“You may be the only one.” It’s not meant to be a deprecating comment, but I’m not sure my partial laugh softens my bitterness. I hope it does--I’d rather his interest than the interest of my entire unit. 

Kirigan shifts forward, the water moving with him. “Do you think that any coldness you’re experiencing has to do with you?” 

The question has me drawing my eyebrows together. What else could it be? I shrug, “I’ve considered it.” 

He nods once, eyes hardening slightly. “Do you always have trouble sleeping?” 

The personalness of the question shouldn’t surprise me as much as it does. Kirigan seems to only understand boundaries when he’s the one setting them. “Not really.” A partial lie--this time I’m glad I can’t quite bring myself to look at him. “It’s not uncommon for me, but it’s not something I deal with every night.” 

I risk shifting my eyeline when I hear the sound of water moving. Kirigan’s now resting an arm on the rim of the pool, wet skin dangerously close to my ankle and lower calf. “It’s not always easy,” his voice is low now, “Being alone with your thoughts.” 

That’s not the kind of reply I’d expect from him. I blink twice before turning to study his expression. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him seem so tired--so weary and human and in need of something. The line between his eyebrows and the far off quality of his eyes leave me with the strong desire to give whatever it is he needs to him. The urge to reach out, to touch him in hopes of breaking him free from his odd trance leaves my stomach knotted. That line is too clear to cross so recklessly.

I need to chase away the serious atmosphere he’s created. “Is that why you bathe so late at night?” I let myself smile, “To avoid thoughts?” 

“I like the peace of it.” Something akin to amusement touches his words. “And for the record, little dove,” the nickname is pointed and earns him an eyeroll, “The warm water doesn’t exactly chase away thoughts so much as encourages others.” He pauses. “You understand, considering you can barely look at me.”

This is the most embarrassing thing to have ever happened. The suggestive jilt to his words has to be intentional. Damn him. I turn my head, forcing myself to meet his gaze. “I can look at you just fine.” 

“And if I were a Heartrender and could hear your heartbeat your pulse would be normal?” The question is teasing, a small smile pulling at his lips. 

The warmth in my face increases, spreading down my neck. Kirigan’s expression remains smug. “You’re not as funny as you think you are.” 

“No?” He leans forward, angling his head so close to me I can faintly feel the warmth of his breath on my lower calf. “I find myself amusing.” 

At least being around him like this is getting easier. I open my mouth, ready to provide some sarcastic comment I haven’t thought out yet. My mouth clamps shut on instinct when I feel his touch on my ankle. The faint contact quickly grows, his fingers brushing up my ankle and calf, leaving drops of cool water across my skin.

“What are you doing?” That’s a--a fair question, right? I’m not sure, rational thought slipping from me more and more with each passing second. 

“Nothing, really,” his reply is quick. “Nervous?” 

There is no way he doesn’t know what he’s doing. I roll my eyes, fighting against my instinctual fluster. “No,” a full lie, “You’re just getting me wet.” 

“Barely.” When he’s not busy being brooding he’s not much better than an irritating child. He retracts his hand slowly, fingers grazing my skin slowly as he submerges his hand beneath the water. The loss of contact should feel like a victory. It doesn’t. “Y/n,” he shifts closer, back straightening.

There’s an odd seriousness to his demeanor that almost leaves me reeling. “Yes?” 

He beckons me forward. I hesitate, but comply, letting myself shift closer to the water’s edge. Kirgan’s lips part, but no words leave him before he moves his arm, purposefully splashing water over my thighs and bottom of my nightgown. I let out an instinctively annoyed sound. “That is getting you wet.” 

“Kirigan!” My tone is as menacing as I can make it, but he continues to grin. There’s such a lightness to the look I almost forget to be annoyed. Almost. “I should tell the entire Second Army how much of a child you are.” 

My threat does nothing, his smile softening without fading. “They fear me too much for your stories to make a difference.” He says this flatly. “All of them except you.” 

I don’t know if I’m supposed to make something of that comment. A brief moment passes in which I think his eyes come close to softening. Maybe that’s a side effect of seeing the world as you want. Wait...what do I want? Him? No, no, I can’t. 

Okay, he’s objectively attractive and sometimes I think I may see more depth in him than he wants to be capable of. But that doesn’t mean I’m allowed to want anything with him. Even if he was trustworthy enough for me to be with him in any capacity...even casually, it could never happen. Nothing good could come from having relations with the highest ranked general and I doubt he’d ever want me like that. He likes to fluster people and I’m an easy target. I just accept it because being some level of entertainment to him is better than being nothing to everyone. 

“I don’t think there’s much point in fear.” It feels like a fair answer. The fairest answer I can manage, anyways. 

He sighs, the sound heavy. His hand stretches forward cautiously. I watch him and make no attempt to stop him from touching my lower calf. His fingers trace absentmindedly across the skin. “Of course you’d think that.” 

Again, I don’t know what to make of his words. Or his actions. He couldn’t find anything wrong with me just slightly adjusting my position. It’d be a polite way to remind us both of the natural order of things. But then again, someone like him is allowed to be mad about anything. And I’m not sure I want to remind us of our place. 

Actually, I’m completely sure that I want the opposite of that. But admitting that to myself is enough of a risk. I’ve already crossed thousands of tiny lines and what I want will require us to cross a thousand more. 

“I’m a little surprised you’re not reminding me how foolish a notion like that can be.” 

He lets out a tiny breath as he shifts even closer to me. “Maybe I’m enjoying your foolishness.” 

“I’m not sure if I should take that as a compliment or the opposite.” 

The slightest hint of a smile is visible to me beneath the moon’s glow. There’s something about darkness that adds beauty to things. I wait for him to reply, but instead of speaking his  hand moves further up my leg. I struggle to hide my reaction to his long fingers trailing up my skin.

He’s touched me before, sure. Tiny moments in which he’d push a strand of hair out of my face or wipe at a bit of dirt on my cheekbone. More recently, he had gripped my hip firmly to guide me through a crowd of soldiers. He had been in a hurry, stealing me from a conversation with the only member of my unit that’s been somewhat friendly to me. It wasn’t serious--he had just been rushing me because he only had a minute between meetings and apparently he had too long of a day to not take a moment to speak with me. 

“Are you alright, Dovey?” Normally, the nickname and all of its variations earns him an eyeroll. But everything is a lot less humorous with his hand half up my lower leg, leaving a trail of cool water wherever he touches. 

His fingers press more firmly into my skin. “Yes, I’m fine--it’s just late.” 

“Hm…” Kirigan breathes before tilting his head slightly. “You’re warm.” I stay silent as his hand shifts slightly. “Perhaps too warm.” 

If I’m hot that has absolutely nothing to do with fever. “I’m fine, General, I promise.” 

“Come closer,” he says, “It’ll take me no time to check.” 

...A little too convenient. My nightgown is still embarrassingly damp from the last time I eased tonight. “Please tell me you don’t find me that naive.” 

“Naive? No.” He lifts his hand slightly. “Warm? Yes.” I still don’t trust him. “I’m not going to do anything. I promise.” 

His eyes are dark and the limited lighting of the moon doesn’t offer me much in my analysis, but what I can see makes him seem genuine. “Why do I feel like that’s not the first time you’ve had to say that?” Despite my comment, I move towards him. 

The back of Kirigan’s palm is pressed to my forehead for less than a second. He brushes his hand down the side of my temple, rotating his wrist so that his fingertips can touch my cheek. His hand then continues to move down my jawline and then my neck...and then finally trails down my collarbone. I bite my tongue to avoid exhaling audibly at the contact. 

“Warm,” he concludes with a tsk, and yet he doesn’t withdraw his hand. “Though that could just have to do with the climate.” His thumb slips beneath the sleeve of my nightgown. “Perhaps you could benefit from joining me.” 

I bite my tongue to avoid letting out a surprised, embarrassingly enthusiastic squeak. I don’t know what’s gotten into him...maybe it’s the night air and the prospect of being fully alone. I should be strong enough to break whatever spell he’s starting to place on me. But I’m not. I’m really, really not. 

He pulls on the sleeve of my nightgown slightly. “I’m…” 

“Unless you’re nervous?” Another damn challenge. To shy away from this would be to expose myself. He tugs on the sleeve a little more assuredly, exposing my shoulder to the humid night. “Do I make you nervous?” 

His voice comes out a shallow rasp. I feel it straight in my core. “...Not more than you should.” 

“More than I should?” 

Ugh--too honest. I let myself get distracted. It shouldn’t be too difficult to explain what I meant. He knows he’s feared. He wants to be feared. “I’m sure we’re both aware that there are a fair amount of cautionary tales revolving around you.” 

His hand falls next to my lap. Oh? I didn’t expect to miss the contact between us so much. His expression seems to have fallen slightly as well. Was it my response to his question? It felt fair and straightforward without being too blunt. “And you believe every cautionary tale you hear?” 

There’s something stiff about the way he asks the question. His moodiness is making me miss his touchiness even more. At least then I didn’t have to feel like I made a mistake. Did I say something wrong? “Should I?”

“It depends on whether or not you plan on being brave.” 

“I told you...I don’t see much point in fear.” 

“And yet you’re still there.” A bit of humor returns to his voice. “Why is that?” 

Rolling my eyes, I shift forward, letting my legs dip into the water. This is as far as I should let this go. I’ve already lost too much more control. “Better?” He’s strangely tense again, a hint of something bitter playing at the smug look he tries for. “You alright?”

“Of course you’d ask me that.” He says this with a tired sigh. “You can never make things easy.” 

“I don’t understand.” 

He shifts backwards slightly. I can feel the distance between us like I’d feel a pebble in my shoe. “Do you believe all the stories about me?” 

Is he still bothered by that? “I didn’t mean it as literally as you’re taking it. All I meant is that people are intimidated by you, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s the way things have to be, you’re the only Shadow Summoner in existence and the army needs you to be intimidating so that they can act on your guidance.”

“The way things have to be,” he echoes, his voice strangely weighted. “There’s a specific kind of loneliness that comes with being feared by everyone.” 

Oh--I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him feel defeated like that. I reach for his hand without thinking, pulling his fingers towards my lap. “I don’t--I’m not scared of you.” It’s a weak attempt to comfort him, but it’s the only one I can think of. “That probably doesn’t mean anything, but I--” 

His hand turns in my lap, squeezing the exposed part of my thigh. “It means something.” Kirigan’s voice has hardened in a different way. “You’re the only person I’m certain of.” 

Everything in me seems to tighten at that. At the implication of something so personal from someone so closed off. “Kirigan, you don’t have to be as alone as you feel. You talk to me all the time and you do so in a way that makes it easy to forget the cautionary tales.” His hand moves further up my thigh. I fight as I try to remember our usual dynamic. “You’re the only one that talks to me like that.” 

“Have you ever considered that maybe the others refuse to take to you because of the favor I’ve shown you? The instinct to stay away from me is strong enough to extend to those around me.” Kirigan’s hand moves higher up my thigh. “To be near me is to involve solitude.” 

“I don’t care.” The answer leaves me too quickly. “Being near you is worth it.” 

He leans closer before resting his chin on my knee with no hesitation. “Careful, you don’t understand the line you tread.” Kirigan places his hand more firmly between my thighs. “Or perhaps you do...perhaps you know what you want to cross.” 

This time I can’t help the airy sigh that leaves me. Kirigan pushes against my thigh slightly, separating my legs. I feel his breath on my inner thigh before I know what’s going on. I can’t move, I can’t think, I can’t even breathe. That inability to do anything but feel my heart pound against my chest only worsens as I feel his lips press into the inside of my thigh. His lips trail up my skin before his teeth gently sink into the top of my thigh. 

“Is the line you want to cross?” He breathes the question so softly I feel like I’m being coddled. Everything in me feels too hot to think of any kind of coherent response. Kirigan uses his free hand to pull the fabric of my nightgown as high up my thighs as he can from his position below me. “Or maybe this is the line you want to cross?” Kirigan pulls me forward so suddenly I let out a tiny gasp. I’m not fully on the edge of the banya. “Or perhaps this one?” He kisses the skin of my inner thigh gently. Each time I exhale too loudly, his teeth graze my skin. He gets harsher with each passing second. “Lay down.” 

My body listens to him on instinct. How is this happening? How am I this powerless to fight against something that’s so clearly wrong? The sound of water shifting causes my entire body to tense. He’s pulled himself out of the water. Kirigan moves above me instantly, water dripping from his toned chest and dark hair and onto my still damp nightgown. 

Before I can speak, he’s on me completely, his lips pressing against my jaw. He kisses down my neck, his teeth grazing against my skin sporadically. He pulls away from me by tracing his tongue across my collar bone. I let out something dangerously close to a moan. “Such pretty, little sounds.” 

“Kirigan--” 

“The only name I want you to hear from your lips is the only name that I’ve not given myself. The only name that holds meaning to me.” 

His lips graze where my skin meets the hem of my now soaked through nightgown. I’m not sure the poor lighting is offering me enough coverage now. There’s no way the thin fabric leaves much to the imagination while being this wet. He kisses up my chest and neck until his lips reach the shell of my ear. 

“Aleksander.” The name is grace in the form of a breath so soft it’s more like I’m feeling the name than actually hearing it. 

He presses his lips against the spot on my neck directly beneath my ear. I exhale into the contact. “Aleksander.” As I test his true name on my tongue, his teeth dig into my skin much more harshly than before. 

I let out a partial squeak at the sudden shift in pace as his hands grip my waist. “Say it again. Say my name again.”

He traces his tongue gingerly over the skin he just aggravated with his teeth before I can speak. The soothing sensation is so much I can barely find my voice. “Aleksander.” 

His hand bunches the bottom of my nightgown, raising the fabric to my hips. “...Say it just like that.” Kirgan’s rough hand slips between the bone of my hip and the fabric of my hip. “Like I’m the only one that knows you like this.”

“Aleksander.” I breathe as he traces invisible patterns into my skin with his lips. “Aleksander.” Each use of his name earns me extra attention--a stronger hold on my hip, a more adamant nip at the base of my neck. I feel my need for him so heavily I swear it’s leaked into my bones. “Aleksander.”

When he pulls away, I fight the urge to whine. The night is still humid, but with the absence of his touch I feel like I’m shivering. He regards me silently for a long moment before shifting his weight again. I feel my heart stall in my chest as his hand softly brushes a strand of hair out of my face. He lets his hand linger there, at the apple of my cheek. The entire world seems to stall as he leans down, his hand cupping the side of my face as his mouth inches closer to mine. 

“I can feel the fluttering of your heart.” 

Any poor defense dies in my throat as his lips meet mine. He gives me no time to think about what’s happening as he presses into me even harder. Kirigan holds my face as his teeth graze against my bottom lip. My mouth opens slightly in surprise, giving him the opportunity he needs to slip his tongue into my mouth. His tongue slowly brushes against mine, coaxing me into total, delirious, compliance. When he starts to pull away, I react, my hands flying forward to grab his hair. He lets me get away with tugging him towards me, prolonging the kiss as he bites my bottom lip. 

One of his hands leaves my face and travels up the hands holding onto his hair. He pulls me off of him easily, pinning both of my wrists above my head with one hand. “Easy,” Kirigan warns, “You’ve been such a good girl, let’s not ruin it before we’ve started.” 

A tiny sigh leaves me. I can feel the pride he takes in that as his hand trails further down my body. His fingers ghost along the hem of my underwear teasingly. 

“Is someone there?” I’ve never damned the voice of a stranger more. 

Panic and dread roll in my stomach. I’m going to get caught like this, with my nightgown bunched at my hips beneath the General Kirigan. An unclothed, wet, General Kirigan. “I’m bathing.” 

Okay...good...Aleksander spoke. Anyone with common sense would run at the thought of invading on Kirgan’s privacy. It’s a good thing that the soldier had the sense to linger behind a thicket of bushes. “Pardon General, but there’s been a crucial development. A new strategy should be thought of as soon as possible.” 

No. No. The thought of losing contact so entirely, of having a moment that should have never happened be ripped from me before it’s even really happened is overwhelming. I feel my lips pull into a pout. Kirigan’s hand adjusts on me, his thumb pressing teasingly over where I’m neediest. I bite my tongue to avoid making an inappropriate noise. 

“Five minutes--I’ll be in the strategy tent in five minutes.” 

“I’ll tell the others, General.”

Great. I hear the stranger disappear, his feet crushing twigs and grass as he leaves us. Aleksander’s attention returns to me quickly. Disappointment swells in my chest as I take in the solemn look that crosses his features. His hand moves to my chin quickly before pulling me into another deep kiss. It’s too short lived. 

“I have to go.” 

Frowning, I lift my hand to trace my fingers up his arm. It’s softer than I should allow myself to be, but it doesn’t really matter anymore. Not when this is probably never going to happen again. “Do you?” I mumble to myself, half joking.

He sighs once, his thumb brushing against my cheek. “No pouting.” 

Now that whatever little bubble we were in has popped, I’m capable of normal feelings. Including shame. “I am n--” 

“Easy, little dove, I’ll remember all of this when I find you again.” 

This...this is going to happen again? “You’re going to find me?” 

“I haven’t yet heard your voice crack on my name as I undo you.” He punctuates the promise with a kiss to my jaw. “Again.” Another kiss. “And again.” Another brush of his lips as he finally pulls away. “And again.” 

My breath catches itself in my throat as he moves off of me entirely. Damn whatever change in the war that’s pulled him away from me so suddenly. I sit up as he stands. I’m not sure where to look now that he’s not in close enough proximity to cloud my thoughts. I should leave as he dresses, but I can’t quite bring myself to. It doesn’t feel safe, not when the man that interrupted us could reappear at any moment. Not when I want to hold onto his presence like this as long as possible. 

 He squeezes my shoulder warmly as he passes before bending down to press one more kiss next to where his hand is. 

“Soon,” he promises again. 

--

General taglist: @theincredibledeadlyviper, @grishaverse7 @benbarnes-supremacy  @tranquilitymoon @kaitlyn2907 @lunamyangel @christinawxxx @deceivedeer @real-mbappe @tonks33

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

So...Misery style, how would you make Tomione work? (Or how would you do a Tomione story?)

Thanks, Anon, this might be harder than the Dramione one.

Well, again, to please my deranged captor, I'd likely follow the plot of your standard Tomione fic and hope it passes muster. "Oh yeah, Hermione's back in time and she's doing back and forth mind games with Tom and it's really intellectual." With any luck, my feet aren't smashed into oblivion.

But I think you're trying to get at what I would really do if I really had to write Tom/Hermione and I had to make it something I would read. At least, that seems to be the spirit of this ask.

So, we're going the thriller route people. A lot like Misery, actually.

Instead of Ginny, twelve-year-old Hermione picks up the diary. Like Ginny, Hermione quickly becomes besotted with Tom Riddle trapped inside. However, unlike Ginny, Hermione goes straight to the library and starts asking pesky questions.

Hermione's never heard of memories stored in objects before, the theory behind portraits and pensieves are completely different, what spells did Tom use and where did he find them? Did Tom Riddle invent an entirely new branch of magic at the age of 16 without anyone noticing? What was Tom's special service to the school?

Tom starts sweating when it becomes clear that Hermione's stumbling a bit too close to the truth (that this is not ordinary magic and highly dangerous shit) and that she's clearly going to start asking around about Tom Riddle (to Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Hagrid, who were all near Hogwarts at the same time Tom was going to school).

Tom confesses that he may have created the diary using something very... illegal. Hermione is appalled and asks if it was gasp dark magic! He admits it is but points out it's a bit late now, like it or not, he's stuck in the diary and running to Dumbledore isn't going to make that go away any time soon. And it wasn't like Tom asked to be shoved in a diary either.

Hermione's very conflicted, on the one hand, Tom's the first real intellectual friend she's ever had. Harry and Ron are nice, but they're morons and they thinks he's a nerd. Tom encourages her intellectual pursuits and confirms her concern over various what not and what have you happening in Hogwarts.

Eventually, Hermione decides that Tom in the diary can't help being a diary (though the other Tom, the real Tom, she'd have words with), and decides that she'll try to help him get a body.

Great, that's great, Tom says.

But it keeps getting worse.

Tom tries to possess Hermione, but unlike Ginny, Hermione knows that Tom is a dangerous, dark, artifact. If she's suffering negative health effects, losing her memory and ending up in the girl's lavatory, she's going to research this and decide that either a) she's suffering ill effects of using dark magic b) she just got possessed by Tom.

Either way, she tells him she can't use the diary anymore, it's affecting her health and she must research. Well, Hermione researching does Tom no fucking good, but he can't stop her.

The Chamber of Secrets, as a result, is never opened.

Instead, Hermione continues researching, and Harry and Ron... begin to get on her nerves. It's not like last year, there's no Flamel to research, no over-arching mystery, and they seem to be growing tired of her. In turn, Hermione's getting a little tired of quidditch, getting detention, etc.

She's a little tired of Hogwarts, if she's being honest with herself.

Hermione's now had a taste of having a friend who isn't there to simply use her brains. And it's very addicting. She decides not to tell Ron and Harry about Tom, they'd just get needlessly concerned (the irony of this isn't lost on her but what can you do)

In the end, she opens back up the diary, and point blank asks what Tom needs to get a body. Before Tom can tell her, Hermione lists out her own theories. Life cannot be created from nothing, golems and puppets cannot last in the long term, to get a real body... human sacrifice is on the table, isn't it?

Well shit, Tom thinks to himself. He tries to assure Hermione it isn't but ends up confessing that, well, yes, it kind of is.

They have another huge row about it, Hermione slams the diary shut, but the wheels in her brain are spinning.

Does anyone deserve to die?

Hermione, at first, adamantly tells herself the answer is no. No one deserves to be sacrificed. Tom's fate is cruel, but the original Tom made his bed and should lie in it. It's unfortunate, but that's just life. Not the diary's fault, of course, but nothing that can be helped.

But then she keeps thinking about it.

Malfoy struts through the school like a peacock, sneering every time he sees her, laughing every time Snape deducts points from her in Potions for being a 'smarmy know-it-all'. Every time he can get away with it he's shoving her in hallways, calling her a mudblood, and assuring her that she's worth less than the dirt beneath her feet.

She watches as Malfoy torments and bullies Harry, she looks at Draco's father, and she asks herself if the world would really be so much worse off if Draco Malfoy were to disappear?

Draco Malfoy's being groomed to use dark magic, he practically brags about it at every opportunity, why is his life worth more than Tom Riddle's, someone who has paid the price for dark magic?

Isn't Hermione, in a roundabout way, only giving Draco what he deserves? The fate he'd meet at some point in the not so distant future?

Draco does something phenomenally cruel and stupid to the trio, likely to Harry, and that settles it. Hermione's going to murder that motherfucker and get Tom Riddle a body.

Hermione tells Tom the plan, she's passing off the diary to Draco, she has her full blessing, her permission, and whatever help he requires from her to eat Draco Malfoy alive.

Tom is unwillingly impressed, he was a vicious gremlin as a twelve-year-old, but even he wasn't committing murder in cold blood.

Tom's not sure how he feels about murdering a Malfoy, that's bound to get noticed, but Hermione's unyielding. Draco Malfoy, or Hermione goes to Dumbledore.

So, Draco Malfoy it is.

The rest of the year is spent with Tom Riddle murdering Draco Malfoy and coming up with some excuse for his disappearance. The chamber isn't opened as Hermione reminds Tom that this would make it entirely too obvious who is behind this. Instead, Tom likely has Draco partake in increasingly erratic schemes to humiliate Harry Potter that end up endangering himself.

Near the end of school, Draco disappears into the Forbidden Forest to find acromantulas to put in Potter's bed and... never comes back.

A huge search is put on, Draco Malfoy is never found, and the acromantula infestation in the forest is now actively battled by ministry employees. Dumbledore is sacked as headmaster, Hagrid fired for having been responsible for the acromantulas in the first place, and Hogwarts is closed the following year.

Hermione is... conflicted about all of this. She certainly didn't mean to fire Hagrid (had no idea he was even remotely involved with the acromantulas) and certainly not Dumbledore. It wasn't Dumbledore's fault at all.

Tom, who is now a free man but has no idea what to do with himself, meets up with Hermione and points out that Dumbledore should have been sacked ages ago: he let kids get away with this stupidly dangerous shit and the year before actively endangered his students and lured a dark wizard into the castle. As for Hagrid, he raised a dragon illegally on school grounds, did release his pet acromantula into the wild, and more. They were terrible at their jobs.

Hermione, ever so reluctantly, agrees.

It's too bad though, Hagrid was very nice and Dumbledore's a great wizard (don't even get Tom started).

As for Tom, well, he had such dreams. Of course he planned to either meet up with his glorious self or (upon learning that Voldemort was blown up by a toddler) take the mantle of Voldemort for himself. But now that he's out, he has no idea where to start. Murder Harry Potter, certainly, but after that?

Tom only has the vaguest idea of who the original Death Eaters were, and they seem to have effectively scattered. More, how does he go about this? Sure, Tom had ideas when he was in school, but they were just ideas. He's never led a revolution before, has no idea how to impersonate an older, more knowledgeable, version of himself. He barely understands the political climate in this new, post-Voldemort, Britain.

Tom keeps hanging around Hermione because, well, inertia. He has no idea what else to do. (Hermione, while still torn over the consequences of her actions as well as the distant thought that she enabled murder, is quite delighted to have him around).

Tom tries to wheedle Harry's address out of Hermione and gets a lot more information than he bargained for. Harry lives with abusive muggle relatives, Dumbledore is apparently keeping him there, all of this sounds bizarre. Tom is officially weirded out.

Still wants to murder Harry, of course, but also wants to dig into this a little further...

And before this becomes a full on fic outline, eventually this will lead to the murder of Dumbledore, probably the murder of Ron when Ron inadvertently discovers 'the truth', Hermione telling Tom they're now an item, Tom trying to escape the relationship, only to learn there's no escaping Hermione.

Hermione becomes the next dark lord. Tom has no idea how this even happened.

[labarch]

Attempt at a Witch Hat Atelier timeline

We are still missing a lot of backstory for our main cast, but I thought I’d try and write a timeline based on what we know so far, and explore where their storylines might intersect.

I am pulling these numbers out of my hat for convenience sake, but here are some approximate ages for the characters: at the start of the manga, let’s say Coco, Tetia and Agott are all 12, Riche is 11, and Qifrey and Olruggio are 28.

20-23 years ago: Olruggio leaves his birth town Godley and moves to the Great Hall, maybe as young as 5 years old.

While many witches are born in the Great Hall, Olruggio comes from a town called Godley in the North. Yet he doesn’t remember Utowin, who came from the same place. We know that young witches usually start their training between the age of 7 and 10, but since witch society is awfully elitist, Olruggio would have been sent there as soon as his talent for magic became apparent.

Being ripped from his home at an extremely young age could explain his fear of being unwanted and left behind: he overworks himself as a way to feel useful and validated, is defensive about his own feelings, and he gets agitated and sometimes aggressive whenever Qifrey hides things from him.

20 years ago: arrival of Qifrey at the Great Hall at age 8. Olruggio befriends him soon afterwards. The both of them start sneaking out at night to chase Brimhats.

8 year old Qifrey was one fierce little thing, you have to give him that. His abuse at the hands of the Brimhats was brutal enough to break a grown man, but he picks himself up and goes right after them like “Alright jerks, you’ve got some explaining to do and I want my eyeball back!”.

Also it cracks me up that Olruggio was carrying this massive book in their flashback. Gotta love that his reaction to Qifrey’s “Let’s go chase some terrorists!” was “Sure, let me just pack my homework =>”.

Finally, there might be a slightly more selfish motivation for Olruggio’s fast friendship and devotion to Qifrey. Olruggio’s self-esteem lies in his ability to help people, so he would naturally be drawn to someone helpless. It’s unclear how much of Qifrey’s memory was missing: apparently he didn’t know about birthdays. How many other basic concepts was he missing? Did he know how to read? Between that, his lack of knowledge about magic and his injury, he was probably completely dependent on Olruggio at the beginning. Given Olruggio’s wish that they go back to “the good old times” when they were always together, I am wondering whether some hidden part of him misses being essential to someone. It’s well-intentioned, but not entirely healthy, especially if he is using Qifrey as a coping mechanism for his own insecurities.

14 years ago: Olruggio and Qifrey make a pledge of (betrothal) friendship, exchange tassels and attempt the Librarian test at age 14. It is their last adventure together, but Qifrey will continue his investigations on his own, to Olruggio’s disappointment and betrayal. Qifrey starts wearing his half-tinted glasses.

In the pledge flashback, they are wearing their old tassels, but they have swapped them by the time they undertake the third test. Also, when he remembers that pledge, Olruggio says that Qifrey’s investigation “should have ended at the Tower of Books”. The tower is the last likely place where Qifrey could have found answers about his past and a non-forbidden way of getting his eye back. Olruggio probably made him promise that he would stop his search afterwards.

Beldaruit says that he thought Qifrey had given up on his search after the third test, but Olruggio tells a slightly different story. Apparently he thought Qifrey “finally stopped causing trouble” after taking in apprentices, which means he was still behaving suspiciously right up until he became a teacher. Alaira also comments on Qifrey’s interest in the Brimhats in the first volume, so clearly his investigations were common knowledge among his friends, even as an adult.

Olruggio’s anger whenever the Brimhats are mentioned would then be caused not just by his own fear of forbidden magic, but by the reminder that Qifrey broke his promise to him, and refused to leave his past behind. Naturally, Olruggio doesn’t know about Qifrey’s change in circumstances: he is no longer looking to retrieve what he lost, but trying to stop an impending threat.

Qifrey’s discoveries in the Tower of Books also seem to have renewed his disgust towards his own scar: he starts wearing glasses shortly afterwards, even though his eyesight hasn’t yet started deteriorating.

14-5 years ago: in that interval, Coco’s father dies of illness. Olruggio becomes more and more famous for his magical items, and is given the title “Shining Torch” / “Master of Lights”. His glowstone paths become widely popular, and are installed around the castle near Coco’s mom. Both Qifrey and Olruggio pass the fourth test and complete their training.

At this stage, I really doubt that Qifrey intended to become a teacher. Whatever information he found at the Tower of Books convinced him he had to stop the Brimhats’ plan. He was probably planning to complete his training and then go straight on to his quest, not really expecting to return alive.

There are also hints that this was a strained period for Qifrey and Olruggio: Olruggio mentions that he would like them to confide in each other “just like old times”, which implies that they grew more distant after the Librarian test. I’m suspecting that Qifrey was trying to slowly remove himself from Olruggio’s life, hoping Olruggio would be so famous and beloved by the time they graduated that he would forget about Qifrey and barely notice his disappearance. Qifrey’s self-esteem isn’t the best y’all.

5 years ago: Coco receives the magic picture book from Iguin at age 7 at the Silver Night Festival. The Brimhats stop showing signs of activity. Qifrey takes on his first apprentice (probably Tetia, age 7). He interrupts his investigation of the Brimhats and creates the atelier. Olruggio becomes his Watchful Eye.

We don’t know exactly how old Coco was when she got her book, but her tiny chubby face makes me think she was 6-7. Alaira also tells us in the first volume that the incident with Coco’s mother is the first sign of Brimhat activity in five years. I am thinking that after Iguin gave away the book, he instructed the other Brimhats to keep a low profile until his scheme could hatch.

I also wonder whether Coco getting her book might coincide with Qifrey becoming a teacher and creating his atelier. Given that Qifrey is probably tied to Iguin’s schemes, how coincidental is it that Qifrey wandered into Coco’s village and set her fate in motion? Perhaps Iguin contrived for them to live in the same area so that they would meet eventually. Either he somehow influenced Qifrey’s choice of location for his atelier, or he selected Coco as his “child of hope” because of her relative proximity as well as her love for magic.    

7 years old is when we could expect Tetia to have passed the first test. For now we know little about her backstory, but we can guess a few things: she is enthusiastic and ambitious, but gets easily side-tracked by pet projects and struggles to stick to the curriculum. She craves positive feedback and is worried her spells and interests will be condemned as frivolous. It makes me think that she passed her first test early, but was then mistreated by her first teachers for being too childish.

We’ve seen that Qifrey has a compulsive tendency to adopt children in distress. It would fit his character if he became a teacher on impulse. Maybe he had to pass the fifth test in a rush to be allowed to keep Tetia by his side. This also brought Olruggio back into his life, as he was the only one willing to follow him away from the atelier as Watchful Eye.

The complicity between Tetia and Qifrey, and Tetia taking on the role of a big sister for both Riche and Coco, also make me think she was Qifrey’s first apprentice. Tetia is often shown teasing Qifrey, quoting both Qifrey and Olruggio, and imitating Qifrey’s teaching style: I can totally see them as a little family of three at some point in the past.  

4 years ago: Riche starts training under her brother’s master, a creepy asshole, at age 7.

We actually have a clear timestamp for that one in chapter 25, woohoo! Riche’s old teacher can eat a brick.

3-2 years ago: Qifrey and Olruggio learn about Riche’s mistreatment in her old atelier and promptly adopt her. Beldaruit takes on Ririfin as an apprentice. Qifrey’s eyesight starts deteriorating. He adds the light protection glyph to his glasses.

Before that time, Qifrey might have intended to put his quest on hold until after Tetia’s graduation, but now his impending blindness puts him on a time limit. He can’t do a lot about it however, since the Brimhats have been keeping a low profile for years and are not leaving him any clue.

It’s unclear how long Riche stayed at her old atelier, and whether she joined Qifrey before or after Agott. I’m hoping she made it out as soon as possible.

2 years ago: Agott passes the first test at age 10. She gets accused of stealing someone else’s spell, is rejected from her prestigious family’s apprenticeship, and joins Qifrey’s atelier.

Agott has been treated harshly by her family for not being enough of a genius. She mentions passing the first test at 10, the upper end of the normal age range. She was probably given a hard time for starting her apprenticeship so “late”, which explains why she is now adamant about passing the other tests as quickly as possible.

I wonder whether she felt ambivalent about joining Qifrey’s atelier at first. On the one hand, Qifrey was taught by the Sage of Education himself and is clearly very powerful. On the other hand, he has only a couple students and lives in a weird little school in the middle of nowhere, a big fall from grace compared to her prestigious upbringing. I wonder whether Qifrey went to find her after he heard she was the object of nasty rumours (he knows a thing or two about those), and Agott didn’t feel like she had other options.

0 year ago: Coco and Qifrey meet. Iguin goes “F***ing finally, I thought I’d have to watch that humdrum one-eyed twink bake potatoes for another five years. It’s dragon-slaying time now baby!!!”  

[renaerys]

22. for reds 🤡

This is 100% not what you asked for (yet...👀), but I give you part 1 of what we're calling the Weird King AU. I'm turning this into a proper multi-chapter High School fic because I love you and I'd jump on any bandwagon for you.

xxx

Like most young, conventionally attractive Supervillains, Brick had made a bit of a habit of failing upwards. It was pretty easy in a town full of simpering morons content to project their own narrative assumptions onto him, and who was he to crush their dreams when they made his life a little easier?

For example, dating.

“You can tell me, you know.” His cute date, Tracy, sipped her milkshake across from him.

“Tell you what?”

She softened and reached her hand across the table. “Your tragic backstory. I’ll listen without judgment, I promise.”

Brick tried to think of something tragic, but it all seemed pretty underwhelming as far as Supervillain origin stories went. “You mean like how I was born in a toilet?”

She made an oh shape with her lips. “We all have those days where we feel like we were born in a toilet, Brick.”

He’d dated Tracy for three months before she broke up with him out of the blue in tears: sorry she couldn’t fix his baggage, she just wasn’t strong enough to handle all that tortured darkness, but she wished him nothing but health and happiness. Brick deleted her number from his phone and spent twenty whole minutes staring at the toilet in his bathroom, wondering what the lesson here was.

But everything changed when Mojo got out of prison and moved Brick and his brothers back to Townsville, where he enrolled them in the local high school alongside their former arch nemeses, the Powerpuff Girls.

Suddenly, everything Brick did pre-supposed ill intent. These people remembered him as the pest who had graffitied their local monuments and blown up their cars and endangered their children. They held no love for him, and at best they feared him. This was not Citiesville, where he’d been a tall, cold glass of Voss water in a sea of recycled Dasani.

He found himself thinking about his birthing toilet again as he stepped into the cafeteria alone and the conversation quieted down as his new classmates watched him from the safety of their tables. His next moves here were critical. He was no longer at the top of the food chain, but fear and mystery surrounding his origins and character gave him a certain power over his peers.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of social suicide, I will fear no cringe,” he said to himself.

The jocks were out. Capable though he may be, Brick was not much of a team player unless there was a blood contract involved requiring his participation on pain of satanic torture. The drama kids were also a hard pass, not because he thought drama was lame, but because they had barely noticed him walk in, and Brick did not have the energy to deal with people more self-involved than himself. Some of the unaffiliated tables could be safe, but without a good understanding of the nuanced social dynamics in the high school, he could be heading toward irreversible doom, and that was a risk he was not willing to take.

He saw his salvation just ahead. It was the only option, all else being equal. In an environment where he couldn’t be certain of his baseline status and potential for upward mobility, there was greatness to be had only by association and certainty only in the devil he knew.

Brick helped himself to the empty seat directly across from Blossom Utonium to a chorus of gasps and staring.

Blossom did not startle like her table mates had. She watched him critically behind a head full of bangs as she balanced her soup spoon in her hand. “Really.”

Brick unwrapped the burrito he’d purchased in the lunch line and brandished it before him. “Really.”

He took a bite of the burrito. It was not hot enough. The two girls to Blossom’s left whispered to each other about that bad boy and he’s hot, though.

Blossom daintily spooned soup into her mouth without spilling a single drop as she continued to watch Brick for signs of his imminent dark side transformation.

The guy next to Brick was brave enough to ask him what his next class was. Brick had a mouth full of disappointing burrito, so he passed the guy the printout of his class schedule in lieu of answering.

“Wow, all APs, huh? Hey, we’re in U.S. History together next period, nice. I’m Mike Believe, by the way. Brick Jojo, right?”

Brick didn’t answer him immediately on account of the burrito currently occupying his mouth hole, and Mike took it the wrong way.

“Oh, yeah, we all know who you are. Blossom sort of filled us in.” He winced like he’d inadvertently revealed a terrible secret.

Brick swallowed his food and washed it down with a gulp of water. “Saves me some time.”

Mike looked super relieved. “For sure! Hey, I could lend you my notes if you want to catch up. Gershwin’s giving a quiz on the Progressive Era on Friday, and she’s a hard-ass who definitely won’t care that you just transferred…”

Brick chewed on his lunch as Mike continued to talk at him about classes and other vaguely helpful, albeit uninteresting, information. But Mike seemed normal enough, a little chatty but not in an overeager sort of way. Blossom was no longer clocking his every move and seemed to be absorbed in her friend’s latest swim team cheating scandal, until Brick reached for his water bottle and she suddenly laser-focused on his wandering hand.

Her keen attention to him was honestly flattering, if expected. It was in his nature to be noticed, and in this narrow respect she was no different from anyone else whose head he turned. If she chose to feed her interest with the flames of suspicion, then it was no difference to him.

But if she was anything like him—and on a chemical level she was probably the closest to him that a person could get—he suspected it took tremendous effort to hold her full and sustained attention. The world they inhabited was as vapid and mundane as the humans that surrounded them, and even the most gracious of gods grew bored of worship. Which explained all the smiting and fucking and generational curses upon entire households in everything from Greek mythology to the Old Testament.

Brick was pretty deep into a fantasy of Blossom going full Ixion and the Wheel on the swim team when Mike tapped his shoulder. “You ready to go?”

It took him a moment to realize the bell had rung and he had a class to get to—AP U.S. History with Mike, apparently. Brick gathered his tray and his bag and followed Mike. When he looked back at the table, Blossom was already gone.

xxx

That whole first week was painfully boring. No one bullied him, or pranked him, or picked a fight with him, of course. But no one really approached him, either. His brothers were more determined to make an effort. Boomer announced he was trying out for the soccer team because there was no rule saying a Super with extremely well documented ties to active criminals and the forces of Hell couldn’t kick a ball around a field. Butch had gotten himself invited to a midnight screening of Snakes on a Plane in some rich kid’s home movie theater, but only after that same kid had accidentally spilled milk on Butch and burst into tears in front of a cafeteria full of Juniors and Seniors. Brick declined the invitation Butch extended to him. He had that AP U.S. History exam to study for on Friday, anyway.

He shared all of his classes with Blossom. Even in the classes where her assigned seat was behind his and he couldn’t see her, he could feel her lobotomizing stare at the back of his head whenever she glanced up from her notebook. And while Mike’s notes were perfectly adequate and the friendly gesture counted for more than the content (a gesture Brick would not soon forget), there was a far more efficient way to accomplish his goal of murdering the class averages while also taking the edge off his loner doldrums.

“Can I borrow your class notes?”

Blossom rose from her seat and pulled her hair tie out to re-do her extremely long ponytail. She held the elastic between her teeth as she worked. Her teeth were very straight, he noticed. Some pretty nice girl-teeth, generally speaking.

“Which class?”

“All of them.”

He watched her wind the elastic around her hair with quick, adroit fingers. “That’s a lot of notes.”

“You’re the top of every class. No point in asking anyone else.”

She moved toward the hall. He followed her out. “Why would I help you?”

A legitimate question delivered without venom. Unlike her sister Buttercup, who’d “run into” Brick after school on Monday and told him to watch his back, Blossom didn’t have to do anything but maintain a general proximity to make her superiority complex known. Which was the kind of flex he could fuck with.

“Isn’t helping people sort of your mandate?”

They had arrived at her locker, which she opened with enough force to rattle the hinges. “I help the helpless. Are you helpless, Brick?”

Brick smiled at her baiting. Had she ever actually said his name at a normal volume before? It sounded good even in her baseline bitch timbre. “Critically helpless. I’m the new student who transferred in the middle of the semester, and you’re the only person who knows me.”

A couple other students clearly trying to get to the lockers Brick was blocking hovered just out of reach. They whispered to each other, but neither of them actually worked up the courage to ask Brick to move. He ignored them.

Blossom rummaged in her locker for the binder she would need for the next class. “Make friends.”

“Working on it.”

The locker door slammed and she faced him. There was something confrontational in the way she held herself before him that kicked him in the nuts back in time thirteen years to their more uncouth days when all he wanted to do was destroy her so he’d be the only one. Now they were older and wiser and he actually did need her notes to study, so destroying her was not high on his list of priorities.

“You want to be my friend.”

“We have so much in common.”

“So do lions and hyenas.”

“Both are apex predators, so.”

She took a step closer and peered up at him. Brick did not move, although he wondered what was so interesting about his face. She probably just thought he was hot. She was probably as bored as he was. She probably—

“You have lettuce in your teeth.”

Brick pulled back and covered his mouth on instinct. God fucking damnit.

Blossom was already walking away from him by the time he’d picked the food from his teeth. “I’ll expect my notes back in mint condition before first period tomorrow morning.”

Brick pressed a fist against the lockers and quietly fumed. “Dumbass…”

“Um, sorry, but do you mind…?”

The student who’d been waiting for her locker space to clear up had her palms up as if to assuage a feral stray. Brick pushed off the lockers, but his fist left a dent where he’d unleashed some of his impotent self-pity. He looked back at the girl, and she shook her head.

“It’s fine! It, uh, it happens sometimes.” She pointed a couple lockers down to Blossom’s, which was dinged up worse than the others.

Brick stared at Blossom’s locker, and then back at the girl. Her narrow, dark eyes were wide, but not out of fear. She was waiting for something, and like an idiot it took him a moment to catch up. “You’re trying to make me feel better about fucking up your locker.”

She laughed nervously. “I mean, it’s really fine! You just looked so miserable for a second there, and I just thought…”

Great, he was moping so hard he had an audience.

The five minute warning bell rang, and a flood of students rushed past them on their way to fourth period. Brick stepped aside so the girl could get to her locker.

“Hey, you’re the new guy, right?”

The new guy, yeah. How quaint. Except, she was waiting for a response, which wasn’t the absolute worst thing that had happened to him all week.

“Brick,” he said. But of course, she already knew that, and she was just being nice.

“I’m Kim. Kim Chan.”

“Okay.” He didn’t have anything else to say to her, so he decided to get his shit and get to his next class.

“Welcome back to Townsville, Brick.”

Brick shoved his hands in his pockets and stalked off. It didn’t occur to him until later that Kim was the first and only person who had properly welcomed him back home.

[weresilver]

40 (almost kiss) + 54 (secret relationship)? 🥰

Being in bed at 12:00 am will not stop me, I guess. Bonus Getting Together, I guess. Spent 3 or so hours at this. Ops.

Post S4. This is a disgusting amount of fluff. Unbeta'd (but self proof-read) as I wrote this from 12 am to 3:30 am.

On AO3

Years In The Making

Not that he believed it, but he was sure most people around him would say it was meant to be; something fated somewhere to happen somehow. Eddie didn't really believe that.

What he did believe was that they may have been too afraid (or maybe too repressed, in his case) to see what was going on, what had been growing for a long while. Years, maybe?

But getting shot (again) had given him a good shake, and he could say he'd been almost disappointed to see Ana by his bedside. No fault of her own, of course not, but...

He was pretty sure of what he wanted at that moment.

Breaking things off with her hadn't been that difficult, or painful, a couple of weeks after his return home. Ana's disappointment was clear, but she seemed to know as well as he did that they weren't going anywhere as a couple. With a promise to stay in touch, she walked out of his home one last time.

Now all he had to do was talk to Buck.

-

Buck had been cagey for the first few days when Eddie had asked him about Taylor. It took about a week and a couple of beers for him to blurt out, "She kissed me then ran out." He fidgeted for a couple of minutes. "Then she came back and we talked through it."

Eddie's heart sank, but he still put on a smile for the sake of his friend (if that was all that he would be for Buck, he'd make do). "And?"

"And we are at very different stages when it comes to romance." Buck shrugged, but the tiny frown was right there between his brows. "She became a good friend, but damn, we wouldn't have lasted as a couple."

Buck finished his beer and turned to Eddie, though not looking beyond the water bottle he was holding in his one good hand.

"She, uh... She isn't quite who I want." Buck cleared his throat, abruptly standing up and walking away from the dining table to place his empty bottle in the recyclable bin. "How is Ana, by the way?"

Eddie accepted the deflection well enough, watching as Buck stood by the doorway with his arms crossed, a stance that tried to project calm. Eddie doubted he was anywhere near it; he never enjoyed talking about failed relationships (including those that never took off).

"We broke up last week," he replied easily, standing up to refill his bottle in the kitchen. "Don't worry," he added, seeing the wide-eyed surprise (and dare he say, hope?) in Buck's expression. "It was pretty amicable and even. We both saw we weren't going to get anywhere and decided to split."

"Okay," Buck whispered, following him into the kitchen. "You okay?"

Eddie nodded, smiling. "Yeah, I'm fine." Though he had to ask... "Who is it?" Buck's confused, scrunched-up expression was pretty damn cute, making him look a little bit more like the Golden Retriever pup Hen and Chimney often compared him to. "You said Taylor isn't who you want, so who is it?"

"Eddie," he said on a groan, though he simply leaned against the counter instead of answering.

"See," Eddie spoke with a new bout of confidence (maybe just as ill-placed as the excitement he was starting to feel), standing against the sink across from Buck. "I'm kind of hoping for a specific answer here."

Buck didn't reply. Eddie had barely even noticed a shift in Buck's expression before he moved into his space, pressing a hard kiss against his lips, a huge contrast to how softly his hands cradled his head and how careful he was to not press against the sling and his injured shoulder.

Eddie wasn't sure if the bottle ended up on the sink or on the floor by their feet. What mattered was that he managed to get his hand on Buck's neck, drawing him even closer.

(Not that Buck let either of them press too close, and god, he loved him.

And he was distantly aware that he should be at least a little freaked out over the thought after one kiss - their first kiss - but, well... Years in the making and all that.)

-

One kiss became two, became many, and Eddie could see the same feelings reflected in Buck's blue eyes. Belonging, a finally and a home.

There was no need to go beyond kissing and cuddling, both of them content to sit even closer together, hands intertwined whenever they could.

It was... Soft in a way Eddie hadn't had in so long, intimate in ways he thought he wouldn't experience.

-

And they weren't subtle, weren't actively trying to keep anything a secret. Eddie was still off work, doing his PT as he should and Buck had been staying at his house (their home, he couldn't help but think every time) since Eddie got out of the hospital anyway.

But two months passed and the only two people aware of the change in their relationship were Christopher and Carla because they found them cuddled up on the couch, Eddie knocked out by painkillers and then too out of it to deny anything when his son questioned him about it.

(Christopher had simply nodded with a mumbled "Good" and left it at that. They still had no idea what that was about.)

The sling had come off a few days ago, though he still couldn't do that much, and it was driving Eddie up a wall. Buck was at the station, and he didn't want to think about the conniption he'd have if he drove there.

He knocked on Christopher's bedroom door, opening it slowly to see his son smiling at him from where he sat with his book.

"Hey, buddy." It was impossible not to smile back, feeling the all-encompassing warmth at the fact that he was still here, could see his son growing up for a while longer. "What do you say we pay a visit to the station?"

The frown he got for that was so much like Shannon's that he didn't know what to do with the pang in his chest. There was no guilt, not then, over the fact he missed her. He just did, she should be able to see how much their kid was growing, how much like her he could be sometimes. And maybe she was, if the afterlife turned out to be a thing after all.

"You are not supposed to drive."

And that tone was way too much like Buck's, just this morning, for Eddie to hold back his laughter.

"I was thinking we could take an Uber." He shrugged with his left shoulder. He might have been desperate to get out of the house, but he wasn't stupid; he didn't want pain and he didn't want to end up lectured by the entire team once he got there. "What do you say?"

Christopher considered it for a moment, then placed his bookmark and got up. "Let's go!"

-

"You better not have come in your car, Eddie!"

He rolled his eyes at the very much expected exclamation as Christopher giggled beside him.

"Don't worry, Buck," the kid said, walking ahead as Buck came downstairs. "I didn't let him drive."

"Thank God for you, kid," Buck said, kneeling on one knee to give Chris a hug. "Your dad is stubborn, he probably would have driven here if it weren't for you."

"Hey!" There was no real annoyance in his protest, but Eddie still said, "I get enough sass from my kid, don't you start, too."

Buck, in such a show of maturity, stuck out his tongue at him before turning to Christopher once again.

"Come on, buddy, let's go see the fun people."

Chris' laughter echoed in the station, and Eddie let the light atmosphere carry him upstairs to the loft where he was greeted by the rest of the team with hugs, and some friendly pats on (thankfully) his uninjured shoulder.

Chimney and Hen immediately walked with Christopher to the pinball machine, and Bobby had given him a plate of leftover breakfast to carry wherever he ended up sitting.

He chose the couch, where Buck had already made himself comfortable again and was currently watching the trio at the machine. They could hear Hen encouraging Chris to beat Chim's high score.

"Hey you," Buck greeted softly, an arm going around his shoulders as Eddie adjusted himself.

"Hey yourself." Buck glanced at the other side of the loft, then pressed a quick peck to his lips. Apparently, everyone was sufficiently distracted. "How are you?"

"So far so good." He took one of the biscuits from Eddie's plate, quickly popping it into his mouth as if Eddie hadn't sat here to share them. "I'd ask how your day is going, but it's obvious you're bored out of your mind."

Eddie groaned, letting his head fall back against Buck's arm. He was beyond bored, at this point, and no amount of movies or video games had helped. Buck's chuckle beside him was another pretty good incentive to get out of the house.

He turned his head to face him, his own expression undoubtedly soft as he took in the man that had been by his side for so long and for so many things already.

Buck's expression softened even more, somehow, his smile bright as the sun and even warmer. He leaned closer and-

And what sounded like a very undignified squeak interrupted their almost-kiss, causing Eddie to huff in mild annoyance and turn around.

Chimney stood by the dining table, gaping at them. Bobby was still in the kitchen and turned to look at them at the sound of Chimney's squeak.

"What's wrong, Chim?" Hen asked, frowning all the way from the pinball machine (where Christopher continued to play).

"They..." He gestured between the two of them. "Since when are you two together?!" He ignored Hen's own surprised exclamation. "They were about to kiss!"

"Yeah," Eddie confirmed, nonchalantly making himself comfortable in Buck's arms in the new position so he could look at the rest of their team. "And you had to ruin the mood."

Buck hid his face in his hair, and Eddie could hear the quiet snickering. They really thought the others would have caught up after two months of visiting Eddie at least once every few days.

"What about Ana?"

"We broke up two months ago, man."

"And Taylor?"

"Dude, we never started dating in the first place." The exasperation was clear in Buck's voice. "She's really just a friend."

Chimney nodded, satisfied for the time being. They had no doubt that there would be more questions later.

"When did this even happen?" Hen asked this time, walking over with Christopher.

"Two months ago," Chris answered before either of them could, smiling a little too innocently. "A week or something after Dad broke up with Miss Flores."

Eddie had no idea Christopher knew that level of details, but he had definitely been out of it when he told him. Maybe he said more than he remembered.

"Well," Bobby finally spoke up, walking over to their little family unit on the couch, now that Christopher was tucked on Eddie's other side. "I'm happy for you two." Eddie could feel whatever tension had been on Buck's body (not that there was much in the first place) drain out of him at Bobby's words. "And we can deal with HR and paperwork once you're back at the station," he added, directed at Eddie. Bobby's smile was genuinely warm, putting him even further at ease.

Years in the making. Maybe it was obvious to everyone else, but Eddie wouldn't change a thing about the road they took to get here. It had been hard and full of hurt, but what they had was solid and them and it was definitely worth it all.

Including the cheering, clapping, and whistles of everyone else when Buck pressed a kiss to his lips right there and then simply because he could.

[violetnotez]

HC: Mineta being a Pervert to the Boys S/o

@dekulover555: Hey could I request something with kamanari/bakugo/deku/kirishima when minnetas being a pervert to a fem s/o and like touching her up even after she’s asked him to stop please and thankyouxx

In which case MIneta can jump off a cliff

Pairings: Kaminari x reader | Bakugo x reader | Deku x reader | Kirishima x reader

(RULES  | MASTERLIST| REQUESTS OPEN!!! :))

--------------------

Kamanari

Usually Kaminari is a pretty chill dude

Him and Mineta used to drool over girls all the time- including you

They had talked and made elaborate plans all the time to see if they could somehow get the girls to be shirtless or get to see them in their underwear- but none of their plans would ever work, they were more just like fantasies they would freak out over

When Kaminari started dating you, those talks kinda stopped- he had a girl now! He didn't need to talk about other girls- he had one he loved and cherished and who was already hot!

So Mineta had been pretty deprived of any type of NSFW talk (cause nobody else was willingly gonna deal with his horny ass)

One day, you were sparring with Bakugo in the gym, when his quirk accidentally lit your shirt on fire

You instantly shouted in surprise, ripping off your PE shirt before it could burn you

MIneta-Boob-Radar Activated

“What the hell Bakugo!” you stood there, your skin turning red from the heat so close to your skin

“Well- you should have dodged it dunce face!”

As Bakugo was red in the face trying not to make eye contact with you, Mineta literally latched onto your leg

“No wonder why Kaminari’s dating you- your chest is amazing!” 

You tried shaking him off, but his grip was too strong- he started making grabbing motions towards your chest and you felt your cheeks get warm with anger

“Get off you of me little purple freak!”

Kaminari had been working with Kirishima, not noticing your dilemma until Bakugo had stomped over to tell him what was happening

Kaminari never got angry easily, but the sight of Mineta trying to crawl up your body made him erupt with rage

You were clearly uncomfortable as you tried to cover up your exposed top portion with a clingy MIneta on you

“Please! One touch, thats all!”

“Get the hell off of me Mineta!’

Kaminari ran over to you, yanking Mineta off your leg as Kirishima and Bakugo followed

your in Bakusquad if your dating Denki, its ride together or die together with this group

“What the hell are you doing dude?!” Kaminari yelled at Mineta who literally had tears in his eyes

This grape is way too damn horny oml

You instantly ran to Kaminari, hugging yourself against him- he always made you feel safe

Mineta trudged off, knowing full well he wasnt getting anything more with Bakugo and Kirishima glaring daggers at him

You hugged Denki, a soft smile gracing his face

“You okay babe?” he asked as he pulled away from you slightly, looking at your face

“Yeah, Im fine- I just need a new shirt, that’s all.”

Thats when it fully registered to him that you didnt have a shirt on- he then noticed how your slighty bare chest felt pressed against his chest, and then he looked down- and oh crap he probably almost had a boner right then and there

“I-uh-um-yeah, that’d probably be best!” he would stutter and giggle, feeling his quirk go into overdrive

“But you do kinda look nice like this though…”

“Denki I swear to god I will kick you.”

Bakugo

Does Mineta want to die?

This boy is POSSESSIVE

AN ANIMAL

You are his girl, his s/o, his lover, his EVERYTHING

If anyone touches what is his he will MURDER them

He overreacts allottt

But this anger definitely comes in handy when you needed a certain pervy grape to get away from you

During a training session, you had the unfortunate fate of being paired with Mineta

It would have been fine, if only Mineta would stop drooling all over you like you were a piece of meat

“You ready, beautiful?” he’d ask before you started your training mission

You rolled your eyes, trying to ignore his eyes practically undressing you as you walked past him

Mineta knows full damn well that by you being Bakugo’s s/o, he would get pummeled for so much as thinking such lewd thoughts about you

But he had been eyeing you for so long, and if Bakugo wasn’t around, he thought  he would be okay and not die if Bakugo wasnt near you

Oh how stupid that assumption was

As you two are walking, he just stares at your ass, keeping a few paces behind to watch it as you walk

“Can you not?” you ask, disgust in your voice

“What?” he asks as if he wasnt doing anything, “Im just walking.”

You fight the urge to kick him

You just sigh, turning around- it would be a long class period being paired with him for a training exercise, but you could manage

Of course this little purple idiot begins to start staring at your rear again

Anger and dread bubbles in your stomach- could he just not be like this for one second??

 You could easily pummel him into the ground- but you didnt want to waste your energy on somebody who didnt deserve to have your energy wasted on in the first place

So you continually took the anger that was caused by Mineta’s perverted staring

The icing on the cake though was when you felt a light squeeze on your rear, making you shoot around in shock

There he was, his hand in midair and this disgustingly blissful expression on his face

“Did you JUST-” you practically yelled out, rage and embarrassment making you begin to turn red

“I couldnt help it- it just looked so touchable-” he said, his hand about to touch you on your ass again

You took off in a run, Mineta making grabby hands behind you

You finally found Bakugo, who was paired with Yaomomo

“Katsuki!” you’d yell, running into his arms

He instantly noticed something was wrong- you were cuddled into his neck, giving a very pale looking Mineta a dirty look

“What the hell is going on?” he asked, his face harsh and serious

“He-he,” you gulped, the embarrasment rising, “he touch my, uh-”

Bakugo didnt need to hear anymore- he was concerned Mineta would do this, and now his fear became into reality

He internally kicked himself- he should have known Mineta would pull some pervy shit like that on you- he should have made sure you would have been okay

But that guilt quickly got overtaken by an incontrollable rage

“Did you just touch my girlfriend you fucking pervert?” he’d growl, his voice dangerously low

That meant shit was going down

Mineta gulped, his face paler than a sheet- Bakugo then grabbed him by the front of his shirt, dangling a terrified Mineta in the air

“Where?!”

“Huh?” Mineta asked in fear

“Where the hell did you touch her you idiot?!”

“Her-uh-her-butt-but-” Mineta sqeuaked out, trying to form some sort of excuse

Welp that when Bakugo saw black

You and Momo had to restrain Bakugo as he started going on a rampage, screaming all kinds of profanities

“You fuckng extra!! Im going to kill you! Shes my girl- you have no fucking right to touch her! Do that one more time and Ill blow you ass up! You hear me?! You so much as look at her and your ass will be seven feet under in your own ashes!”

Yeah- Whenever Mineta now sees you he walks the other way, and he hasnt bothered you since

Deku

Deku is very oblivious to Mineta’s harassment

Like- he can’t be that bad right???

*cough cough YES HE CAN

But if you tell him he will be the first to stomp over and give him a piece of his mind

If he sees it- oh he will be so UPSET

Mina has somehow rounded you up into one of her personal projects, in which she was creating an all girl dance

It was you, Momo, Toru, and Mina learning the choreography to a really upbeat girl group song

Tasty Carrots by Shou

You had finally learned all the choreography, now switching into outfits so Mina could put it into her social media

This girl def has a Tik Tok

Mina has put you all in little skater skirts, yours being high waisted, pleated, and reaching just barely reaching your mid thigh

Mina was squealing- “You all look so cute!!! We are TOTALLY going viral!”

Right as Mina started the music, and you began to do a few practice runs, Mineta and Kaminari walking past

Mineta had spotted you all from like a mile away

His literal wet dream- a bunch of girls dancing in little skirts

None of you notice though- you just continued with the choreography, attracting a little group on onlookers from the blaring music-including Midoriya

Mineta had pulled out his phone half way through and instantly started taking pics

At one part of the dance you have a tiny duet part with Mina where you bend down slightly

This perv instantly got right under you and took a whole ass pic

You heard a flash and look between your legs, seeing  the purple idiot

You screeched, your face red as you yanked your skirt down

Mina instantly started yelling at Mineta, trying to catch the little idiot while Kaminari tried to yank his phone away from him

Izuku was filled with raged-how dare he do that to you?!? He was about to give him a piece of your mind, but seeing your embarrassed face made him think otherwise

He ran over, wrapping you into a hug

You were feeling so dumb-you didn’t even notice the little group of onlookers forming, making you feel even more embarrassed

Midoriya then sees Mineta run past, and as if on instinct grabs him by the arm

Mineta squeaks, regret riding through his body-nobody has ever seen Midoriya look this mad

Izuku yanks Mineta’s phone out of his hand, quietly searching through his camera roll

He finds the picture and hi face turns a little red because geez you do look really hot-

He quickly (and permanently) deletes it, so Mineta can’t go into his recently deleted, and hands it back to him

“Don’t you ever, EVER do that again.” The threat seemed simple but the way Midoriya voice was full of ice and his eyes on fire made Mineta’s skin turn cold

Kirishima

sorry if this one seems longer than the rest!

It was the end of the year and Yaomomo had invited everyone to her house for a big summer celebration pool party!

Of course everyone was excited- Yaomomo was rich and her house was beautiful and massive! Also she was the best hostess anyone could imagine

Mineta was excited for another reason- he couldn’t wait to see all the girls in bathing suits of their own choice, not the dumb leotard-like ones the school made them wear

Secretly hoped they were as skimpy as possible

Momo had invited all the girls the night before to a massive sleepover- you all went shopping for new suits at a beach themed boutique

Of course it was super expensive, but the owners of the shop were friends of Yaomomo’s parents and gave you all a FAT discount

Everyone was super happy with their suits- yours was all red,  with a strappy red top, the bottom also matched in color and were slightly high waisted and showed off the sides of your thighs

The next morning you all spent time getting ready and helping Momo prepare to when everyone else came

Everyone started trickling in and greeting each other, getting snacks supplied by Momo and swimming or dancing to the “Top 50 Songs” playlist blasting outisde

You were in the kitchen getting some punch with Mina when Kirishima and Bakugo came in

Bakugo looked like he would rather be anywhere but there, while Kirihsima was just excited to find you and have some fun!

When Kirihsima saw you- his mouth dropped- you looked seriously stunning and he couldnt make his heart stop pounding so hard

Also your wearing red- he can try to act as chivalrous as he wants but he cant deny that red on you makes him go CRAZY inside

“Kirishima!” you yell happily when you see him, running over to give him a hug

He instantly twirls you around and tells you how pretty you look

You go outside and everyone begins to hang out, playing some games, swimming, dancing, or just plain mingling

Mineta is of course on a mission- he is just sitting in a really dark corner of the party pratically trying to memorize how all the girls look and drooling like a perv, concocting a plan in his twisted head of his

The moment he hears Uraraka yell- “Who wants to play volleyball- Boys vs Girls!” He instantly jumps up- now was time to get his plan in action

You and Kirishima join Uraraka, Izuku, Kaminari, Mina, Bakugo, and Tsuyu in the game

What you all didnt notice was Mineta, who was waiting patiently to pounce on one of the girls- he unfortunately chose you as his victim

When you wadded towards the end of the pool to try and save the ball, Mineta had reached over and pulled at one of the straps of your top, easily detangling it from your chest

You felt something loosen- and then horror rippled throughout your body

You qiuckly ducked under the water, only your eyes visible as your face was on fire

Mineta at first was cheering, your top tangled in his grubby hands, but then everyone started screaming at him, Mina throwing every threat she could think of while Uraraka tried to block you from sight and Froppy got you a towel

What really terrified Mineta was Kirishima- he was desperately trying to crawl out of the pool, all the boys trying to restrain him because he was literally going to KILL Mineta

Nobody had ever seen Kirishima that mad- even Bakugo

Mineta ran off, still holding onto your top as Tsuyu wrapped you in a towel

Kirishima ran over to you, wrapping you in a hug

“You okay? Im so sorry that happened! I’ll get your top back- I promise!”

And this boy did-of course after he calmed down- while Bakugo followed suit

As much as Bakugo hates to admit it, he does like you and you being his best friend’s girl, he protects you as much as Eijirou does

They both found where Mineta was hiding, Bakugo grabbing the little grape while Kirishima rambled on about “how unmanly that was” and how Mineta needed to “respect women and be more chivalrous”

Also may or may have not have told him that if he ever did anything like that again he wouldnt hestitate to teach him a lesson

After that little stunt, Yaomomo kicked him out of the party, all the girls breathing a sigh of relief

Kirishima came back, all the girls sitting around you and giving support-but once they saw Kiri they’d knew you’d be okay and gave you some privacy

This boy cuddled the crap out of you for the rest of the day and didnt wanna let go

------------

Requests open| Matchups closed!

[hannah-schooler]

Lavender and Peace Lily for the flower dialogue prompts please!

Hey!! sorry this took so long I was having Major writer's block this week

Here's some sick Ahsoka for the flower dialogue prompt Peace Lily. Thanks so much for the ask!!

“We’re not expecting any further complications, but it is crucial she abstain from any strenuous activities.” Vokara Che gave Anakin the rundown of Ahsoka’s recovery instructions in her usual no-nonsense demeanor. “If her condition does not improve by tomorrow morning, let me know.” The Master Healer shook her head as she busied herself removing IV’s and waking Ahsoka up. “We don’t know as much about this virus as I would like.”

Ahsoka groaned at the gentle hand on her shoulder, eyelids flickering open. Her normally bright blue—nearly luminescent—eyes were dull and cloudy. It made something clench in Anakin’s chest.

The near-disaster on Naboo was only a few short rotations behind them. While Rex, Padme, and the other clones who were exposed were recovering quickly, Ahsoka was still decidedly ill. Her wracking cough and ever present chills had sent Anakin running to the healers the moment they touched down in the Temple. They’d assured him that her body was recovering, if slowly, but he hadn’t missed the relief in Master Che’s body language when the blue pallor finally faded from his padawan’s skin.

Ahsoka let out another little groan and pulled her blanket around her shoulders. “Mmm. Five more minutes, Skyguy.”

Master Che snorted at that, then with a nod in his direction she left him to deal with getting his exhausted apprentice back to their rooms.

“C’mon, kiddo.” He pulled on her arm, trying to rouse her from the hospital cot. Ahsoka slumped against him, doing absolutely nothing to help Anakin support her weight.

“Alright,” he grumbled, adjusting her arms around his neck while trying not to drop the medicine the healers had given him. “We’re doing this the hard way then.”

Anakin hoisted Ahsoka up onto his back where she instantly tucked her face into his neck. By the time they made it out of the medical wing, she was already snoring softly.

If any of the other passing Jedi found it strange for Anakin to be carrying his sixteen year old apprentice through the Temple, they didn’t say anything. Though Master Windu did shoot him an incredibly amused look that said he and Obi-Wan would likely be having a good laugh about how Anakin had this coming.

They finally reached their shared quarters, and Anakin deposited Ahsoka gently onto the couch in the common area. He tucked a pillow under her montrals and rested a hand on her shoulder, shaking gently to get her attention.

She stirred, and Anakin waited while she took entirely too long to focus on his face. Especially for a girl whose attention to detail had been honed in a warzone.

“Mas’r?” she mumbled, sitting up with a hand pressed to her forehead.

“Hey, Snips,” he said, keeping his voice low. He pulled a blanket around her shoulders and she shot him a grateful look. “How are you feeling?”

She yawned, giving him his answer. He crouched to the ground in front of her and took her hands in his. Too small, he thought briefly, and then he was pulling her into a seated position and stifling a laugh at the pout that covered her face.

“Skyguy,” she groaned, already trying to lay back down.

He rubbed his hand across the valley between her montrals, earning himself a smack at his hand. “You can go back to sleep soon, but we need to get some food in you first.”

“Not hungry.” The words were muffled by the pillow she’d pressed her face into.

“Ahsoka, little one, I wasn’t asking.”

With a dejected sigh she sat back up, tucking her legs under her.

Anakin returned moments later with a bowl of soup in one hand and Ahsoka’s medicine in the other. He’d smelled it as he poured it into the little cup they gave him. He’d seen days old food from Mon Cala that smelled more appetizing.

Anakin placed the medicine on the table and Ahsoka eyed it warily, scrunching her nose at the murky green color. But then her annoyance was on a different subject as she snatched the spoon Anakin had held up in front of her face out of his hand.

She pointed it at him like a deadly weapon, eyes narrowed and far more awake than she had been moments ago. “I’m not a youngling. I’m perfectly capable of eating soup.”

Stifling a laugh he knew would probably get him smacked by his young apprentice, he raised his hands in surrender. He was slowly learning when to pick his battles with Ahsoka. Her independence was one he usually left alone.

Usually, he thought, as he fluffed the pillows behind her and tucked the threadbare blanket tighter around her shoulders.

After getting Ahsoka to take her medicine with only minimal complaining and minor bodily harm to either of them, Anakin reclined on the couch next to Ahsoka. She had turned on the holoprojector and was deeply engrossed in watching a cartoon he remembered from when he was younger.

They sat in comfortable silence for a while, until a soft weight landed against his shoulder. Anakin turned his head to find his little padawan slumped against him. A soft smile pulled at his face.

He shifted to rest his arm around her shoulders, and when she snuggled deeper into his chest, montrals barely scraping his chin, he would have sworn his heart melted just a little bit.

They’d hardly known each other for more than a month, and yet he already knew he’d do just about anything to protect her. She’d wormed her way into that exclusive circle of people he held close to his heart, and even though she’d bounced in with an attitude and stupid nicknames, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

A cold breeze rushed in through the overhead vent, and Ahsoka curled into an impossibly tighter ball in his arms. She scrunched up her nose, coming back awake, as she shivered.

“Hey, hey,” he soothed, sitting them both up. “Are you alright?”

“Cold,” she muttered, blinking slowly. He was starting to realize that while she was a chatterbox normally, when Ahsoka was exhausted her words were few and far between. She much preferred communicating with gentle taps and shakes of her head.

Concern shot through him at her statement and he pressed his flesh hand to her forehead. “Your fever’s not back, is it?” He pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders and wrapped his arms tighter around her shoulders.

Ahsoka let out an oof at the sudden movement, but Anakin barely registered it. It wasn’t until sleepy little giggles echoed into their apartment that he pulled back in surprise.

His padawan doubled over in laughter the minute he let go of her, and while it was nice to hear her laugh after the ordeal they’d all been through, he was confused.

“What?”

She waved away his question, still struggling to speak. “Nothing. I just had no idea you were such a—.” Fear raced through him at her tiny pause, as his mind hurried to fill in the gap. A terrible Jedi, a failure at following the Code. He knew he wasn’t setting a good example for her, being so blatantly attached. What if she told the Council? What if the way he cared so much made her uncomfortable, and she requested to be reassigned to a real Jedi.

His thoughts were interrupted by Ahsoka’s snort. “A mother hen.”

Anakin spluttered as Ahsoka continued to laugh. But he couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face at her teasing. He shoved her shoulder and she flopped against the couch still giggling.

He rolled his eyes at her. “Such insolence when I’m just trying to be nice,” he said, even as he shrugged out of his cloak and laid it over the blanket she was already wrapped in.

Her eyes softened as her laughter died out. Another yawn interrupted the silence, and when she leaned back against him he was all too willing to wrap her in his arms and keep her warm while she slept.

She was his little padawan. His responsibility. He couldn’t keep her safe on the battlefield—in the war. But this, he could do. He could give her a few hours of safe, warm rest. He settled back against the corner of the couch, and stroked a hand lightly down Ahsoka’s back lek. His comm was already off and thrown somewhere across the room.

Anakin tightened his hold, resting his head against the top of Ahsoka’s. A soft smile graced her face as the ends of his hair tickled her montrals.

“Get some rest, Snips,” he whispered, before surrendering to sleep himself.

[numptypylon]

Epilogue

I added a short epilogue to Reunion and Intersection today, but I also wrote a much longer one, full of fluffy comfort, to get through the angst-writing in the first two chapters. It’s unedited, unfinished and ridiculously self-indulgent, and I don’t think it really goes with the story, so I elected to not post it, but I’m attaching it here, under the cut, for those interested. Keep in mind it’s a reject for a reason though; this is what my writing looks like in the explorative phase where I’m looking for the point, and in this case I didn’t really find it XD

~2K under the readmore

Callum got there early. A lot of people eyed him warily, but a letter from Queen Janai was a good smoother-of-grumpy-elf-tempers.

No-one had seen Rayla, so… she was probably not here yet.

He went to the inn, bought a large room, lit a roaring fire in there, activating the Sunfire rock he used to keep warm at night under the covers of the bed, and calling for the tub to be filled. It had the usual Skywing heating arrangement, only needing a good Fulminis to heat the water.

He resisted flying out to find her. He risked missing her again, and her leaving town before he got back.

It was about… hitting the point of intersection.

So, he waited at the city gates. He didn’t have to wait nearly as long as he expected, considering the distance she would have had to traverse. Maybe she had recovered and had travelled faster than he thought.

It was definitely her though. A small, lone figure on the mountainside.

He intended to wait for her until she got to him, but then she stopped to lean against a tree and he realized that she had not recovered and was up there sick in the snow… and that resolve evaporated like it had never been.

Like he would ever let her struggle alone a moment longer than she needed to.

 **

 It was a measure of her exhaustion that she didn’t notice him until he was basically right in front of her, and even then, her reaction was so much slower than usual.

It still… it was hard to believe it was real. For her too, surely more so.

He numbly pulled his scarf off, packing it around her neck and head. He grazed her cheek and felt it and she felt it and… she felt it, because the tears that had built up in her eyes spilled over at his touch, slipping down her dirty and flushed cheeks.

She looked ready to drop, and felt it too, when he put his arms around her and her disbelief gave way to relief. Whatever ridiculous level of stubbornness had kept her upright for the last day and night of walking through snow and up mountains when she should have been in bed… fell away and she slumped almost completely in his arms.

She sobbed hoarsely for a bit, and he let her.

And she let him, when his hand cupped the back of her head and her hair tickled his fingers and it hit him too that… it was really real, she was here.

They needed to… get to the inn though, so he pulled away and wiped his face. They could… and probably would… have a longer cry and a longer hug later. But she was sick and cold and there was a roaring fire and a filled bathtub two minutes of flight away.

“Let’s go,” he said. “I knew you were coming this way and that you were sick. And I booked a room for… you.” For them both, he hoped, but-

“What?” she blubbered. “But… aren’t… aren’t you mad?”

“I mean, of course I am, but… that’s not really… that can wait.”

“I’m…” she laughed weakly, more tears spilling over. “I’m so happy to see you and there’s… so many things I would like to say and… and I’m such a mess right now and so tired and I’m just… I’m so tired I cried earlier just because a stupid pine branch hit me in the face and knocked me off my sled and it continued down the mountain without me and I’d have to walk instead and-“

“Hey, hey!” He stroked down her flushed, wet cheeks, along fresh scratches where presumably that branch had hit her. Sledding, huh… she always was extremely resourceful and oh so daring. And that explained how she got here so fast. “Rayla, it’s okay. You can rest first. I’ll take care of things… of you. For as long as you want me to, but… definitely for the next few days.”

“How c-can you… are you… here-”

He leant his head against her forehead, relishing in the feeling of contact, even if her skin was clammy and too-hot. “That’s… complicated,” he said. “And also simple. You called me here. I came.”

“Manis. Pluma. Volantis.”

 **

 She staggered, when they set down, steadying herself on his shoulder, and Callum was glad he had elected to land in front of the inn instead of at the city gates.

She definitely wasn’t well yet, her breath rasping in her throat, her forehead beading with sweat, cheeks and ears flushed. The fever had maybe broken, but it hadn’t quite left. And she was exhausted, trembling with the effort of staying upright, her eyes dull and glassy.

People were staring, when they went inside, but the innkeeper came over and recommended the soup of the day, and their house-made herbal tea blend with Sky Yak milk, and assured them it would be brought to their room shortly, with a look of very obvious sympathy at Rayla.

And then the door shut behind them.

“I owe-” she started, but he cut her right off.

“No. You’re owed,” he said tightly.

“Owed what?” She sounded… nervous.

“Soup. Hot tea. A warm bed and a fire someone else made. General fussing. Love. Forgiveness. Kindness. A damn break, for once.”

“L-love?”

“Yeah, love.”

Her clumsy fingers fumbled at the clasps of her armor. They were still ice cold when he touched them, the skin red and no-doubt sore.

But she for once didn’t resist any help he gave, sinking gratefully into the tub he had prepared. A warm bath was possibly not great for her fever, but… it was pros and cons and he needed to warm up her hands and feet.

She was barely conscious when he helped her back out of the tub, so he just put her down on a towel on the bed, drying her hair as best he could. He at least managed to get her awake to pull off her own wet underwear and pull his clean night shirt over her head.

 **

 “Callum?” she asked, because… she wanted things, and she could have them. “Stay with me? Please.”

He pressed against her back, warm and real.

His hands engulfed hers, big and soft and familiar.

Full of real little details that her brain hadn’t accurately recreated.

The callus at the side of his right index finger, from his charcoal pencil. The scar from a clumsy sparring accident at the second knuckle.

His voice when he said her name and when he told her it was okay.

His kinda… snuffling non-snoring sleep-sound.

And new things, that she hadn’t known to add.

His arms, still skinny, but stronger than they had been.

His too-long hair flopping over his ears.

And things she had yet to find out.

 **

 “Morning-“ she muttered, as she woke, feeling warm. And her throat felt a lot better, too and most of that sticky, gross fever feeling was gone, although there was still some sluggish daze, everything just a bit vaguer and floatier than it should have been.

“Afternoon,” Callum corrected lightly, but there was something not so light underneath. “You slept for… 14 hours. I bet you’re hungry.”

“I bet… you were worried.” That was a long time to worry and not wake her to assuage it but just sit in it, watching her sleep.

She reached out to stroke his furrowed brow. Her hands were bandaged though, so she couldn’t touch him properly. She didn’t remember, but did recall something about Callum saying he had called a doctor, and then she must have conked out pretty hard and slept through it.

She clenched and released her hands experimentally. Seemed alright except for being stiff and sore?

“What’s wrong with me?” she asked, staring down at the thick bandages.

“Except for the illness that nearly killed you because you’re such a massive dummy? Lots of things.” He took her hands, starting to unwind the bandages. “For your hands, hopefully only frostnip. I’m supposed to check that, when you woke, take you back to the doctor if there’s signs of deeper frostbite.”

There was some thick ointment, probably the reason for the bandages. Her hands looked reddened, the fingers a bit swollen, but… not so bad. Nothing was white or black or blistered, so really, nothing to worry about, where frostbite was concerned.

Callum wasn’t satisfied with a visual inspection though, cupping her hands in his, methodically checking she could feel all her fingers and make a full fist.

“I think it’s okay,” he said, breathing out, relieved. He did tend to catastrophize- “No… no risk of amputation this time-” His fingers slid across her left wrist, the faint whitened scars from where the binding had dug into her skin and where the sunforge blade had burnt her.

“It’s definitely okay,” she said. “Barely hurts.” She cupped his face, feeling his skin just fine against her fingertips. “It’s not like back then, okay?”

“How do you feel today?”

“Better. Way better. I’m ready to go, if-”

“What?!” He stared at her in disbelief. “Absolutely not. You didn’t hear what the doctor said. But I did, she got here while you were sleeping. And absolutely not.”

“What-“ Was it not just a regular bug?

He breathed, slowly and deliberately. “You’re okay, it’s a regular winter infection going around. But you did a number on your own immune system with the hypothermia and mountain climbing and… she said you were undernourished, dehydrated, stressed and critically exhausted. And that you would do well to take a week or more to fully recover, during which you should eat and rest plenty, stay warm and keep stress down. Does that sound like your regular travel, to you?”

Well… not so much.

“So, I’ll ask again, how do you feel today?”

“Tired,” she sighed. “My hands are stiff and achy. My throat hurts. My legs are wobbly. My head feels full of snot.” She smiled, despite all that. “My heart is happy to see you. It’s okay if you’re- I know… that it’s complicated.”

“It is. We have… some things to talk about. Promise you won’t leave until we do?”

“I promise.”

“Okay. Then, I think we should put the complicated things away for a few days. Until you’re better and it doesn’t hurt your throat to talk. Because… we have a lot of talking to do.”

“You don’t… need to stay. For those few days. If it’s hurting you to-”

He sighed heavily. “It does.” Yeah, he couldn’t say that it didn’t. Being around her with so much… unresolved. She didn’t want that for him. She didn’t… want to have those long and hard conversations right now either, when she was still tired and fevered and liable to burst into tears at the slightest provocation. “But it would hurt me more to leave. Didn’t it hurt you? To leave?”

“Yeah.” So, so much.

He reached out to pack his scarf around her throat more closely, the soft, warm knit a soothing feeling against the raw ache.

“Lie down, okay? Be sick? I’ll read you a story. It has murder and dismemberment in it, I asked the innkeeper specifically.”

[gottawriteanegoortwo]

The most baffling part of WKM is that everyone trusts and adores Damien, despite him being the only one in politics and actively in office. Mark made the mayor character the most trusted and loved. How????

(uh oh, you unlocked my 'Love Damien' mode)

You came to the right person! This is a great question and I will gladly go on a rant to try and help shed a little light on this!

In short, it's exactly because of how you phrased your question. There's a politician. He's seen as nice and trusted and loved. It seems like something that shouldn't be, and you assume the worst of him because it has to be an act for whatever reason; and that is because of the general view of politicians at the moment. I'm not touching IRL topics with a ten foot pole, but I will say that at present, there is a sorta wariness/a 'they don't care about us' vibe toward politicians in certain countries (including my own). That's something that then seeps into media.

Think about it. If there's a politician in a show of any sort (especially one holding office), they're usually up to no good behind the scenes or are unreliable - just like how a librarian might be cranky, for instance - in a sort of caricature. Off the top of my head I can remember seeing... A mayor that wanted to evict an entire community to build a business something-or-other to make lots of money, a mayor who branded a local team of agents as non-trustworthy when they went against his pretty crummy views (which could be the same show tbh), an absolutely useless buffoon of a mayor who needed the help of children to constantly save his city from supervillains, and a politician (maybe a mayor?) who constantly clashed with the chief of police in a city. This isn't even considering the times a politician character (whether or not they hold office) is involved with criminals, bribery, is being blackmailed, or even has a criminal record of some sort.

Damien is an exception to this trope. It may or may not be completely intentional, but it's genius on Mark's part. You walk in, see this well-dressed man with a rather cheesy Mayor badge pinned on... And people would immediately get suspicious... Something which Mark called people out on at a panel! Don't forget, every character was framed in a way to give reason for them maybe being the killer. I watched WKM (and got vaguely into the fandom) a week after it finished, so I missed the speculation in between each episode. From what I've seen, it appeared that a lot of people were wary of Damien, though I'm not too sure if it's because they were like "IT'S JUST DARK IN DISGUISE DON'T BE FOOLED" or if it was because of his job and mannerisms. Either way, it turns out his worries were genuine, and he was innocent of any crime that night, which completely subverts the expectation of a politician in a show. He's a rare breed - someone that has good intentions and a good heart, who wasn't 'tainted' by politics in some way.... But ends up getting corrupted anyway through matters far beyond his control.

Not only that, there's two important points that I think people forget and I'll go into better detail of under the read-more because this is getting pretty long.

-

1. The character that is the viewer has known Damien since university. That means they've been friends minimum... Let's say five years, but probably closer to ten. You're going to be more at ease and more 'yourself' around people you are very fond of, and Damien's face lit up the moment he noticed the viewer arrived. Since the viewer would be going into this cold the first time it's viewed, they wouldn't feel that bond and might think Damien's friendliness is an act. 2. While he is the Mayor, he's not The Mayor at that moment. He's merely a Mayor by title alone. For the events of Who Killed Markiplier?, he's just Damien. It would be different if we had walked into his office, but we arrived at a party with people Damien was comfortable with. He had no need to impress anyone because they were friends. Remember, the reason the badge exists is to tell the viewer what Damien does. Otherwise he could be any sort of businessman or guy in a fancy suit, and the explain everything video states that everyone thought Mark got the suit for a wedding when he shared a photo.

(Both points are showcased nicely in the very first scene we meet Damien if you compare the way he talks to the Detective - someone he barely knew - to the viewer - who has been a friend since university. When talking to Abe, Damien stands poker straight (almost rigid) and rests his hands on his cane. One hand moves to emphasise something, but the rest of his body remains still. There's a polite, yet formal, air to him. Here, he is The Mayor. I'd bet they were having casual conversation on how they met Mark or some other generic topic to break the ice. Then the pair notice you and that conversation is instantly DROPPED. Damien immediately lifts his cane as his entire body turns to the viewer. That smile isn't one that's given out of politeness. He's now Damien. There's no need to put on an act when it's a familiar friend. He still stands straight, but his body language and facial expressions are far looser and more casual. Gestures are with both hands now. His expressions are more playful, including widening his eyes to emphasise his tease about the viewer's skill of poker. This continues until he walks off-screen where, I presume, he was going to say hello to William.)

We don't know the extent of how much anyone trusts anyone else, but one of the big exceptions is the Colonel. I know I've written a headcanon on a roleplay blog about this, but he didn't know you, so he was polite, but distant and aloof. He had no reason to even care about you. We saw a good example of William acting like this the morning after. HOWEVER, after spotting the viewer talking to Damien outside at the end of the first episode, he notices a connection. The moment he knows you are Damien's friend he opens up with no hesitation in the second episode and is rather friendly toward you from then on. He trusts you because he trusts Damien, which to me suggests that our Mayor keeps good company and has a good judge of character. Plus, no one really has a reason to think ill of Damien. He and William have an argument focused on William's reaction to Mark's death (and don't forget that Damien wanted to apologise but William kept running away), while Celine shuts him down for Damien trying to get her to reconsider her idea; but neither are motives for them to be suspicious of Damien. Chef and George are indifferent, while the Butler is probably indifferent but feels comfortable enough to make a drug joke with Damien in earshot (and Tyler's IC stream as Butler had it that he thought well of Damien, but this might not be considered canon). On the other hand, you could say that the Detective is wary of Damien, but he was suspicious of everyone between all the work he did and the warning he got from Mark, so it's not completely reliable.

Speaking of, I haven't forgotten about the Detective's study and how there's a record sheet for Damien with something scribbled out. Unfortunately, I don't think it's something we'll ever get clarification on. I double-checked the explanation stream and there wasn't any mention of what was on it... But I feel like I heard Mark say something like 'forget about what is there, focus on why it's there', or how it got there in the first place? Maybe it was for another project, but the idea is more that the Detective's work was built up over time, and not in the span of that weekend; rather than focusing on every little piece of writing that can be seen. Perhaps there is something shady in Damien's life... But since it wasn't relevant to the 'story' we were being shown, it was omitted. This could very well be where people take the idea of a corrupt politician and run with it (and I have seen some excellent roleplayers over the years work with that!), or they could be like me and say that the crimes were things he was framed for. Or maybe, as I'm writing this, it could be like how Abe had documents for things that didn't happen in WMLW, and that the crimes he scribbled out were ones that Dark would do later... But that's going into theorist territory and that's not at all relevant to what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I've rambled on waaay too much as it is. He's trusted and loved as a character because he's so human. Mark pointed out in the explanation stream that Damien was the only one to question what was going on. He was upset, mourning, and had no idea what to do. It's a vulnerability that you don't see from people often, especially if they are supposed to be leaders.

If there's anything people wanna add or point out, jump in and do so! :D