#this pattern is really easy to size up and down

[nocsa]

So I'm just a seamstress working out of my house doing my own thing, but for some reason the idea of maybe getting some of my designs manufactured and selling them or doing some kind of fashion show is on my mind rn.

So

Out of curiosity, if I were to make this dress available for sale (the design, not the exact fabric) would anybody out there be interested in purchasing this thing? It's made out of bamboo/rayon, is incredibly lightweight and flowy and twirly, and has pockets.

[bi-writes]

polarity | ghost x f!reader

maybe we're not so different after all.

type: one-shot (8.3k), AO3

cw: this piece is actually super dark proceed with caution, dark!ghost, dark!simon, sunshine!reader, mature language and content, suggestive language and content, graphic depictions of violence + gore, smut, unprotected piv, cumplay, oral, simon is not a good or nice person (except to reader), reader also maybe isn't a good person who knows, reader has hair long enough to hold, curvy/plus-sized!reader, meet-cute until it's not, background breeding kink, size difference, size kink, military inaccuracies, references to simon's past canon trauma, 18+

Ghost does not believe in love at first sight.

The concept is for children; even when he was a child, he doesn’t think he would’ve believed it then, either. There was no love where he went, even to the places where it was owed to him. In his own house, he feared what love felt like. The kind he knew was pain and misery and the terrifying reality of what it meant to always be looking over his own shoulder.

Love at first sight chewed Simon Riley up—and what it spat out was terrible, big, and caged-off from the rest of the world.

Ghost is built of many layers. Not like an onion, no—onions are easy to manipulate. With the tip of a knife, you can cut right through its skin and tear it apart, but Ghost is not built the same way. He laid concrete out in front of himself a long time ago. The things around him are rotten, curled in on itself, and it would take too long to unbury him for anyone at all to want to spend the time and try. He prefers it this way. He likes it this way. Being alone means there are no surprises, and there is no one waiting for you. There is no one to disappoint, and there is no one to prove right or wrong. There is only today and tomorrow, because yesterday has already passed, and he doesn’t care to think about what already was.

It’s Johnny that’s brought him here. In a pub too loud, with watered-down drinks that cost a quid too much. He didn’t have an excuse today to turn him down. Johnny’s got a sister he needs to see, and his sister has got a friend—someone from her uni, taking the same chemistry courses, or something like that. He can’t really remember, he wasn’t paying attention too closely, but Johnny offered to pay if his lieutenant just gave him company in the long drive into the city.

The booth is too small. His bourbon tastes off. All he wants to do is smoke a cigarette, but he’s been staring daggers at the “No Smoking” sign that’s posted behind the bar. There’s a ringing in his ears that’s been following him since they got off their last op just a few days ago, and it feels strongest here in this room, with too many unknowns in too many dark corners.

“Johnny!”

A soft voice squeals. Simon’s eye twitches, and he looks over Johnny’s shoulder to see a pretty brunette with bright, blue eyes smiling wide as she hurries towards them. Johnny slips out of his seat to cradle the woman to his chest, rocking back and forth as he hugs her. His baby Emily, he hears Johnny mutter. She’s got that same square jaw and strong brows, and Ghost imagines that if Johnny were to grow out his hair, it’d grow in the same matching, bouncy curls that Emily has. She sounds so happy to see him, and Ghost swirls a gloved finger around the rim of his glass as he watches.

It tastes sour, looking at something that he used to have. He wishes that he didn’t want it as much as he thinks he does at this very moment.

“Oh! Sorry, forgot for a wee second there. This is who I told you about—”

Emily steps aside, and there you stand.

Glossy, pink-tinted lips. A cardigan that hugs your frame with a knit, sunflower pattern. Light wash jeans, baby blue boots. Your fingertips are painted glittery and pink, and your baby blue purse matches your shoes.

Emily says your name, and you hold out your hand for Johnny to shake. It’s then that your eyes move to the shadow behind him, and Ghost licks over his teeth, satisfied, when you visibly swallow and your eyes widen a little.

“Ach, don’t mind ‘im. Tha’ scary bastard is just my lieutenant, Simon,” Johnny nods his head over his shoulder. “Simon, would ye introduce yerself, fer fuck’s sake? Stop brooding over there.”

Naturally, Emily sits next to her brother, already squeezing his shoulders and excitedly telling him about some fellowship opportunity she was up for. You slip your purse off your shoulder, shuffling towards the space next to Simon. You grip the edge of the booth to hoist yourself up onto the high seat, and you smile a little when Simon holds out his hand for you.

You take it, smooth palm in his gloved one, and it takes no effort at all for him to tug gently and get you up to sit. He sniffs, looking up when he finds himself staring a little too long at the curve of your jeans, but it’s hard not to when both of you take up the entirety of the booth. Just to fit, Simon has to lean back, and you adjust your cardigan over your shoulder when Simon stretches one big arm out behind you.

“So, uh…” You clear your throat. “What are you drinking, Lieutenant?”

“Piss water,” Simon says lowly. He cringes a little at the bite of his tone—he never means to be curt, but it always comes out that way. You purse your lips, tapping your nails on the wood, and you look at him over your shoulder.

“Hmm,” you make a face, “so Johnny made it?”

It takes a few moments for Simon to realize you’re telling a joke. The silence must mortify you, because you’re looking down and tearing a piece of yarn out of your sweater, and Simon realizes he’s wearing his mask, and you can’t see his face, and she’s trying to break the fucking ice—

“Nah,” Simon shrugs, shaking his head. “His tastes more like right shit.”

Your eyes flicker up, and you stare at him for just a few moments under your lashes before your hand goes up to cover your mouth. You giggle, cheeks warm, and he blinks at you slowly as your entire body relaxes. Your thigh touches his, and his fingers flex on the hand that’s thrown behind you, twitching as he thinks about letting them graze the skin peeking out from under your sweater.

When he gets the urge to touch you under your chin, he nearly curses out loud because fuck—

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Simon knows it as soon as he lays his eyes on you again. Staring right into yours, hand fidgeting behind you as it wants so desperately to cup the back of your neck and tangle into the strands of your hair—fuck, fuck, fuck—he’s so fucked.

He knows it, too, when you’re in his bed. Sunflower sweater draped across his floor, boots in the hallway, glittered nail-polish piercing his biceps as he tilts your head back, bares your throat, sinks his teeth into the delicate flesh there. You giggle, and it’s the rainbow after a storm. The drink of water after days in the desert, the stitch that holds the seams together, the pins that will take his broken bones and put them all back together again—

He’s feeling his cum dripping between your thighs when you ask him about his scars. He adjusts the edge of his mask as soon as you ask, sniffing under it as you smooth a finger over a puckered scar on his chest left behind by the ricochet of a stray bullet, one of many. You squeeze your thighs together when his long fingers move in squelching circles over your cunt, and your back arches when he slips them inside of you. You take his jaw between a few fingers and grip it tight, pressing your lips against his mask as you whine and kick your feet in overstimulation.

He doesn’t want you to ask questions. He doesn’t want to burst this bubble of warmth and goodness and intimacy that he’s created, because then this will be something else. Right now, he’s the mysterious, black ops military man you’ve spent an incredible night with, and if you start talking, you’ll learn. You’ll understand. You’ll find out why he doesn’t want to talk much. You’ll discover what he is under the skin he wears, and he already knows he’ll terrify you. There is nothing good about what someone uncovers under the lid he keeps over his head.

“Where did you get this one?” You point to a particular nasty white gash on the side of his ribs. He rubs a thick hand down your bare back, cupping your ass and squeezing gently.

“Op in Baghdad,” Simon murmurs. “Hand to hand.”

You touch a small circular scar on his arm.

“And this one?”

“Cigarette.”

You push the blankets down a little and bring your knee up. Simon grips the side of your thigh, and you hike your leg up to give him a better look at the puffed scar across your kneecap.

“Look at this,” you giggle. “I fell off my bike when I was little.”

“Tha’ right, swee’eart?”

“Mhm. Just like you.”

“Just like me.”

You’re still there in the morning. Cheek smushed against his chest, leg tangled between his, arm curled around his middle. There’s a little drool drying on the side of your mouth, and Simon thumbs along your jaw as he watches you sleep. The glittery eyeshadow you were wearing last night has smeared across your cheek a little, and you’re glowing. A good shag and a good night’s sleep, and you look like a right angel in the early hours.

You look like one on his couch, too. You look like one in his shirt that barely fits over your tits, watching his telly, eating the shit plate of eggs he made you since he’s never bothered to learn how to cook. You look beautiful getting your clothes back on and smelling just like him as he drives you back to your flat.

You look like his when he crowds you against the door of your place, masked mouth against your open lips as you fumble for the doorknob and yank him inside to get his pants off.

Your flat blinds him. There’s different colors scattered across the place. A fluffy pink carpet in the living room. String lights hung everywhere, in different colors, twinkling gently. There’s plants of all shapes and sizes hanging from the ceiling and overflowing from their brightly colored pots. No plate or cup is the same shape or color or even matches one another, and there’s lamps in the shapes of mushrooms and fish sitting on your mismatched coffee and side tables. You collect everything—movie posters of all kinds on the walls, an entire wall of funny clocks, another wall of arts and crafts that must be homemade, framed and hung up.

Your home is what you are. Fun and colorful and happy and bright, and Simon hikes his mask up so he can bite and lick and nearly eat you as he tries to absorb all of it. There is nothing inside of this place that doesn’t incite joy, and he feeds on it like a leech. He must have it, because he never has before, and whenever he lets go, he feels it less, and that cannot happen, he won’t let it go.

If it isn’t your smile keeping him close, your pussy is the next best thing. You look incredible on your knees—perched on your elbows, ass up, pushing back against him as he fucks into you lazily. You’re so beautiful, in every position, but there’s something about getting to push your thighs apart a little and watch you take his cock that makes his belly clench as he watches you suck him in again and again and again. There’s a ring of slick gathering at the base, making it nice and easy for him to kiss your cervix, and you sound so pretty—soft whines of his name, little mewls that make his jaw tick.

“Simon—Simon, please—”

He doesn’t like to hear you beg. You deserve whatever you ask for, whatever you want. Those big eyes should never desire anything. He never wants to see you pout or blubber—he wants you relaxed and pleasured and incoherent from how fed you are in every aspect, and he’s going to fuck you right into this mattress until he gets you right where you’re meant to be.

You tell him he looks funny in your bed, surrounded by the squishmallows and fluffy teddy bears, but he doesn’t mind. He didn’t realize what a proper bed could do for his back, because yours has springs and memory foam, and his body just sinks into it just right.

He gets woken up in the middle of the night by his phone. Wheels up at 0500, and now he’s dreading getting into his truck. There’s something warm on his chest, and for a moment he thinks it’s you, but then he blinks into focus when the thing on his chest moves and stretches, staring down at him with curious green eyes. It’s a chunky tuxedo cat, and it’s wearing a black bedazzled collar.

“‘ello,” Simon mutters, scratching under its chin. The big thing just nuzzles against his hand before moving to the end of the bed to curl up between your feet.

Simon tries not to think about you on the drive back, and he tries not to think about you as he puts his gear on; but there’s a bouquet of fake sunflowers on a secretary’s desk mocking him, and when he goes to put his gloves on, there’s still glitter on his fingertips.

You are everywhere. You are in the warmth of the sand that gets under the fabric of his mask. You are in the water that sustains him on hour fifteen of sitting on a rooftop. He sees you in the bright red that trickles from the hole in his target’s forehead, matching the red of the strawberry plushie that you were holding the morning he left.

He notices himself more. How much space he takes up. How loud his voice is. He compares the way his cock looks in his hand now to the way it looked in yours, and he has to swallow the groan that threatens to break when he thinks about the way you thumbed at the tip and cooed about how pretty he was. Delicate, pretty hands, not at all like his own—not at all like the roughness of his palms, the scars along the backs of his hands, the blood against his raw knuckles from beating a hostile into the ground just to feel something.

Just to feel anything.

Standing next to you, it is all too clear what kind of man Simon Riley is. He’s not a man at all—he’s nothing more than an extension to his rifle, and when the trigger isn’t getting pulled, he’s just not that fucking useful.

Johnny is in a mood. Scowling like a brat. Glaring at the back of his head. Hitting him with his shoulder whenever they pass by each other. Simon is indifferent, and Simon pretends not to care, so he takes it in stride, but it makes his teeth ache with how annoyed he is.

“What the fuck is wrong with ye?”

He doesn’t like being scolded, especially not by his sergeant; but he sits there, and he takes it, because what Johnny is telling him isn’t a lie. There’s a girl that woke up in an empty bed—a sweet one, with glassy eyes, and she thinks he’s a two-faced asshole that slipped out when she wasn’t looking. A girl that can do casual, but not a girl that can tell him about the dreams she’s too scared to write down and lets him rest his head on the same pillow where she rests her own. Too intimate, too many words, too many times he came inside of her and told her that’s where it’s supposed to be—in y’r pretty pussy, baby, right there—

He’s never done this before. He doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t stick around where he knows he doesn’t belong, and he never thinks he’s done anything wrong enough to warrant some kind of apology. With Simon, you get what you get, and he doesn’t think he advertises himself as someone warm, empathetic, considerate; but he’s sitting here, his truck still running, and there’s a decaying plastic-encased bouquet of yellow tulips resting haphazard in the passenger seat.

He’s been waiting on your doorstep for more than five minutes. He sees you peeking through the window in your kitchen, and his eyes find yours through the blinds. He narrows his eyes at you, squeezing the bouquet until the plastic crinkles under his fists. It takes a couple more moments before you open the door, and Simon sniffs under the mask when he sees your eyes again. They’re big and wet and sad.

He never wants to see them like this again.

You’re sweet, so you take the flowers from him. You purse your lips as you stand there, trying to keep your lip from wobbling, but it’s very clear you’re trying not to cry. You hug the flowers close to your chest, and Simon brings his hand up, tucking his gloved fingers under your chin and tipping it up.

“‘ello, swee’eart,” he murmurs. “Were y’lookin’ for me?”

“N-No.”

“Y’r a bad liar, baby.”

It takes a few minutes to get you settled. Sitting on your couch, batting at your tears with the sleeve of your sweater as Simon turns the kettle on in your kitchen. The cat weaves between his legs as he steeps the tea bags, and when he comes back into your living room, you’re staring at the droopy tulips, rubbing a thumb over the petals.

“‘ere,” Simon murmurs, setting down a mug in front of you.

“I…” You wipe under your nose. “I-I don’t need your pity, Simon.”

“Not here for tha’.”

“I know Johnny said something to you, and I really don’t want to talk about it—a-and if that’s why you’re here, I really don’t want to talk about it.”

You pick up one of the stuffed animals that sits on your couch. It’s a goldfish, fat with stuffing around the middle, with a comical smile and rainbow-colored scales. You hug it, resting your cheek on it, staring at Simon through wet eyelashes as he stiffens uncomfortably. Crying, emotions, talking—he doesn’t do any of these things. This complicates things. Relationships make things more difficult, and connections mean he has obligations, and he’s already seeing now what this kind of thing will be between you.

It’s too much.

It’s not enough.

“He did say somethin’,” Simon mutters. He sniffs, looking down at his gloved hands. His fingers curl into fists as they rest on his thighs, and he lets out the breath he’s holding harshly, shaking his head. He doesn’t understand what he’s doing here, but the thought of getting up and leaving seems worse. “Didn’t sit right wit’ me.”

You tuck your legs underneath you, and he watches as you absentmindedly knead the stuffed fish. You hum lowly, sheepish, and then you open and close your mouth as you try to find the words to say.

“I know we…” You flinch a little. “It was just…I know it was just a day. A night.” You rub your nose. “I feel so stupid. I don’t want you to feel bad. I don’t want you to feel…like you h-have to come here and…explain, I…” You close your eyes. “I-I just…I really like you, Simon.”

I really like you, Simon.

He leans his head back against the back of your couch. Something in his chest squeezes tight, and he swallows hard as he listens to you say it again and again in his head.

I really like you, Simon. I really like you, Simon. Don’t you like me?

“Oh, love,” Simon breathes. He turns his head to look at you, and you’re already looking at him. You have the fish to your chest, hugging it tighter, and he reaches over and touches under your chin gently. “Y’don’t want this. Y’don’t want me. I know y’think y’do, and ‘s sweet, but y’don’t want this.”

“Tell me why,” you say softly. “Convince me, then.”

“Do you…do you even know wot we do?” He asks. “The kinds of things they ask us to do? Wot I’ve done t’get here?”

You shake your head, and when his hand opens up, your cheek finds his palm, resting there, nuzzling.

“We’re murderers with fuckin’ passes,” he whispers. “There isn’t a line we don’t cross. No boundary we don’t ignore. They killed my whole fuckin’ family, and then I came back for more, because tha’s the kind of life I live, and tha’s the kind of work I do. When I come home, I have someone else’s blood on my clothes, do y’understand tha’?” He leans closer, touching his nose to yours. “We go places tha’ no one comes back from. Even now—” He pinches your chin between two fingers, “—I strangled someone with these very hands, love, tha’s the kind of man I am. Look at me—”

You flutter your lashes, meeting his eyes, and he shakes his head.

“Tha’s wot I do, love,” Simon grunts. “And the worst part of it is tha’ I fuckin’ like it.”

You lift a hand up and wrap it around his wrist. There is no resistance as you draw his hand off your face and hold it instead, intertwining your fingers and resting them in your lap. His hand dwarfs yours—long, deft fingers and spread palm that covers your own completely. You scoot a little closer, getting up onto your knees, and Simon’s eyes follow you as you abandon the stuffed fish to put one hand on his shoulder and the other cupping his masked cheek.

“You didn’t say no.”

“Wot?”

“You won’t say no,” you whisper, sliding the hand on his shoulder up to caress the back of his neck. “To me. To this.”

“Because I can’t,” Simon groans. “Need you t’do it.”

“But I…” You lean down and press your forehead to his. “I-I do want it. I want you. You’re…” You kiss him through the mask, a soft press of your lips against his. You feel him kiss back, and you pull away slowly. “Please. Please, Simon?” You kiss down his cheek, thumbing under his eye, and he lets out a shaky breath as you fall into his lap, knees on either side of him. His hands come up easily, cupping under your thighs, and you whine as he drags your hips forward, a slow grind that makes you shake. “Won’t you try? For me?”

Getting Simon into your bed is too easy. He looks nice here, underneath you. You press down onto his chest for leverage, using it to help throw your hips back against his. He’s deep, pulsing inside of your cunt—your rhythm stutters every time he touches your cervix, but his tight grip on your ass keeps you moving.

You’re so wet. You’ve never been wetter with another man. Sweat, tears, slick—every part of you leaks when you’re with Simon. You dig your nails into his chest, and he grunts, when you start to feel your orgasm creeping up on you, you arch your back to get friction onto your clit and squeal when Simon gets the hint; he lifts you up and plants his feet against the bed to fuck up into you and force your eyes into the back of your head.

He tastes like you after awhile. After spending days in your flat, his kisses start to taste as sweet as the pastries you make, and he starts to smell like the citrus soaps you keep in your bathroom. You get a whiff of lavender from his clothes after using your laundry detergent, and he sleeps like the dead after round two inside of you. Cum cooling between your thighs, mouth fixed to your throat, fingers stuffed inside of you to keep warm as he breathes in a sigh of relief until he’s deep asleep. He still doesn’t take his mask off, but he gives you his mouth, and you fix yourself there, mouth against his, kissing him feverishly whenever he exposes his lips just for you.

“Will you miss me?” You ask. He’s standing at the door, pulling his jacket on. He flips the hood up over his head, clicking his tongue as he fits a hand into the back pocket of your jeans and squeezes, pulling you towards him and into his chest.

“Mhm,” he mutters. You giggle, cupping his cheeks, and when he puts his thumb between your lips, you let him open your mouth, tilting your head as he spits onto your tongue before kissing you wetly. You wrap your arms around his neck, charmed bracelets jingling as you try to climb up to him. He bends, gripping you under your thighs before he hoists you up and against the wall. You moan, scratching along his back.

“Do you really have to go?” You whisper between kisses, and he hisses in response.

“Got to,” Simon sighs, but you smile wide when you hear the sound of his belt buckle. “But I can be late.”

Like you, Simon feels like he’s seeing the world for the very first time—all in color. Food has taste. Views have beauty. His gun feels heavy, and his cot is cold to the touch. Time finally has duration—it hangs and drags now, minutes and seconds taking too long as he sits in a dark room and listens to his captain explain an op he could care less about. His leg bounces impatiently, fingers twitching as he watches the screen and tries to pay attention.

Complicated. Difficult. Not enough and too much.

You are so beautiful. Your name lights up his phone, several pink and yellow emojis beside your name that you entered yourself.

we miss u! xoxo

There’s a picture of you and your cat. You’re seated on your couch, a pink blanket in your lap, a selfie of you holding up your cat in one arm. Simon clenches his jaw when he sees that you’re practically naked—in just a yellow lace bra, blanket covering your lower half. You send another picture after a few seconds, and Simon licks over his teeth. Another selfie of you, cleavage on display, and he can see the little rhinestones that are sewn into your bra. He can also see the little butterfly clips you have in your hair and the darling smile you wear.

He comes in his fist later, selfie on display in one hand, his mind on the sound of your voice. It’s never happened so fast—just a few languid tugs, and he’s spilling over his thighs like a teenager.

It’s all he thinks about. The blood runs warmer, easier. His gun fires quicker. He’s got tunnel-vision now, eyes on his prize—the sooner he finishes, the quicker he gets home, so he sinks his blade into throats and keeps his feet moving. He keeps quiet, keeps steady, and as soon as he’s got his target in his sights, he pulls the trigger without a second thought.

“Got somethin’ on yer mind, LT?”

Simon narrows his eyes. Johnny looks smug—a ghost of a smirk on his face, face red from sweat and his own cheekiness. Simon just leans his head back against the side of the helicopter, looking outside as the ground gets farther and farther away.

“Never pegged ye fer the type.”

Simon’s hands dig into his rifle.

“Always liked tha’ one,” Johnny continues. “Got a sweet face. Always wondered why she never liked me. Guess she likes ‘em big ‘n scary.”

“Careful, Johnny,” Simon warns, glaring at him.

“I just—”

“No, listen ‘ere,” Simon snaps. “We don’t talk about ‘er. We don’t mention ‘er. She is off limits, to you or anyone else. As far as y’r concerned, she doesn’t exist, yeah? Repeat it back t’me.”

“Don’t know who yer talkin’ about, LT,” Johnny says after a few moments. Simon looks away, shaking his head.

“Good boy.”

He doesn’t go back to his flat. There isn’t anything there that he wants; everything he needs leads straight to you. You’re cooing when he comes through the door, murmuring lowly as he drops his duffel bag and shoves his masked face into the crook of your neck. He crowds you against the door when you shut it, and you giggle as he takes deep breaths of your perfume. His hands grab at your waist, sliding down the backs of your thighs, feeling over the soft skin and biting at your throat even through the mask.

“What happened, teddy bear?” You mumble, scratching the back of his neck. “What did they do to you, huh?”

Dog, mutt, devour. He’s been away for too long, been starving ever since he left, and you take it with a smile. Simon is never too much for you. Simon is never too rough or too loud, and he is never too far into your space or too attached. You drink it so lovingly, and you never push him away.

He watches you carefully as you help him take his gear off. You start with the weapons. You slip the gun out of its holster on his chest, emptying the chamber and taking the magazine out. His grip on your waist tightens at the sight of you handling it with such ease, and you just shrug as you set it aside.

“I’ve been practicing.”

You unload all of his throwing knives, from his thigh holster and from inside of his boot. You find another small pistol attached to his boot, and you sigh as you unload it the same. Your hands find the buckles of his thigh holsters, and when you slide it off of him, you settle on your knees and tip your head back to look up at him.

He caresses the back of your head, and you swear you hear him purr. You lean forward, pressing your cheek to where his belt is. You kiss there, right against his zipper, and his fingers tangle into your hair just enough for you to feel a little pressure. He’s still gentle, still kind, but his eyes are so dark. You wonder if the way he looks at you now is the way he looks at his targets. Is this hunger the same—the same for you as it is to get the job done? They say love and hate are so alike, so intertwined; is that why he keeps coming back? Does he chase this feeling all the time?

What is it that you are?

An addiction? Or a necessity?

You take his dirty clothes from him as he undresses in the bathroom. Shirt, jacket, belt, pants, socks, boxers—you eye him with a smile, biting your lip, and Simon winks at you from under the mask as he slides a big hand down his middle.

“Wot?” He asks. “Like wot y’see, love?”

It would be impossible not to. Thick arms, tattoos on display. Unforgiving muscle and fat. His hands ungloved, you can see the split of his knuckles and the bruising from where he must’ve hit something—someone. Then your eyes skim over the curls just over his cock, which hangs heavy and red between his thighs. Simon has no shame—his nakedness is not something he cares to hide, especially not to you. You stand on your toes and gives his cheek a kiss before taking his clothes to the laundry room.

You’re at the sink when he’s freshly showered. There’s a bottle of peroxide next to you, and you’re wearing gloves, and he watches as you have his pants half in the sink as you work on scrubbing at the fabric.

“Wot ‘appened?” Simon asks. You hum, shrugging, ringing out a bit of the fabric.

“Just some blood. I’ll get it out. What do you want to eat for dinner, baby?”

Simon thinks that’s the moment he knew he was in love with you. Hair pinned back, baby pink matching lounge outfit with the tiniest shorts he’s ever fucking seen, scrubbing out the blood from his clothes as you talk about supper.

He knows he was fucked from the moment he met you—but it’s now that he knows he’ll never leave.

He’s reminded again of that feeling when you call him angrily from your flat. He’s pushing a trolly in the store, eyes sweeping over the selection of chocolate in the baking section. You were baking chocolate scones and would be making some ganache tomorrow, and he’s squinting at the paper you gave him with your list when his phone starts ringing.

“‘ello, love?”

“Simon, are you serious?!”

“Wot happened?”

“There’s—Simon! There’s a grenade in…in the jar!”

“Wot’s tha’?”

“The jar with my powdered sugar. I found a grenade in there!”

“Oh. Mmm. Right. Leave it there.”

“Simon! And are you taping ninja stars under my tables? I found two already!”

“Dunno. But sounds like someone ‘ad a good idea, wanted t’be prepared, y’should leave them there.”

“Simon, you are—” There’s a pause, and then he smiles under the mask when you laugh. “Just get my chocolate and get back here, please.”

You have no idea what Simon was talking about. You don’t understand what it is that he was running from. There’s so much of himself that he was meant to show to someone else. He’s been hiding for so long, and not just underneath the mask he wears—but there’s a man under it all, and you love when he comes out to meet you.

Maybe he is a little terrible. Maybe he really is just the thing you don’t need. You think about that a little too long when the water in the sink runs red again, his shirt an entirely different color from whatever it is that he had done before he got home. Maybe he really is wrong for you—it crosses your mind when you’re dusting the shelves and find a loaded pistol in the vase that used to hold your apology tulips.

He lives an entirely different life than you. He drags colors into your home that you tried so hard not to embrace, all the black and blue and grey that you’ve always felt could swallow your entire self—but you don’t know what the alternative is. There is no one else in the world that looks at you the way that he does. There isn’t anyone’s hand that feels the way his does when it’s against the side of your face or tangled between the strands of your hair or warm between your thighs.

You don’t think anyone else would mean it if they saw you crying and threatened to kill whoever had made you so sad; because he does mean it, doesn’t he? He would do it if you asked, wouldn’t he?

That’s love; you’re convinced it is. Love is the boundaries you say you won’t cross that you step right over without thinking. Love is the places you say you could never go that are already behind you. Love—real love—is the doorway that Simon keeps passing through even though he promises you that this is the last time whenever he leaves.

“Look at me—ha, Simon!—look here.” You fit the headband onto over his head, fitting the cat ears on top of his head. He grunts a little, sighing through his nose, and you warm up the makeup remover between your hands. Delicately, you start to rub it into his face. He closes his eyes, and you carefully work your fingers against his skin as the eye-black begins to run easily. “Almost done.”

You use a warm cloth to wipe his face. The eye-black comes off, but the scars remain, and when he opens his eyes, you know that you haven’t really taken anything away from him. There’s still something that weighs heavy on his shoulders, and you lean forward to get closer to him, keeping your voice quiet.

“What was it this time?” You ask, putting both hands on his face and keeping his eyes on yours. He blinks, and he goes somewhere else. He’s thinking about it. There’s something he’s looking at, somewhere far away, over your shoulder.

“He begged me not to,” Simon murmurs. “Told me their names.”

Moms. Dads. Partner. Children. They always have names at the end—as if attaching themselves to another will make their deaths harder. Men are singular beings. Rarely are they life support for another.

“It’s okay,” you tell Simon. You close your eyes as you rest your cheek against his.

“It is?”

“Uh huh.” It’s so warm here, arms around him, face tucked against his. “I forgive you.”

It’s okay. I forgive you. Everything is just as it should be.

“Y’don’t know wot I did,” Simon counters. “Wot I…got outta him.”

“It doesn’t matter,” you say softly. You squeeze the towel out, wetting it again with warm water before passing it over his face again. You hold him under his chin, catching the droplets of water, and you smile as you kiss his nose gently. “It never does. Never will.”

“But—”

“I made your favorite,” you interrupt, plucking the cat ears off of him and tossing everything into the laundry basket. “There’s brownies in the kitchen. I want you to try.”

Is Simon really committing heinous war crimes when his reward is chocolate decadence and wet pussy?

You look so cute. You’re wearing a flowery pajama set, tiny shorts and cropped shirt, something that leaves nothing to the imagination as he pulls the gusset of your panties to the side and sinks into you easily. You brace yourself against the back of the couch, sitting up in his lap. Simon groans when your tits are right in his face, pebbled nipples poking through your shirt fabric, and he reaches up to pinch them between greedy fingers as you sit right down on his dick and take him to the tilt.

“Fuuuuuuuuck—” Simon breathes. The wet squelch is making his head spin. His wet girl, his pretty girl, his sweet girl. He sharpens his teeth when he leaves, and you dull them when he comes home, letting him sink his teeth into you and eat. You keep him in balance; the push and pull that he always felt he struggled with is nonexistent now that you’re here. When Ghost used to get put back into his duffel, Simon felt like what was left behind was almost too much to take. The nightmares, the torture, the disregard for what was moral in favor of what got the job done—it is gone with you. Your absolution resolves him of this debt.

How can he feel he’s done anything wrong when you’re calling him teddy bear and taking his cock like this?

You drag the hem of your shirt up slowly, and when your tits are bouncing, bare and sweaty in front of his face, Simon loses his train of thought. His mouth falls open, tongue hanging out, and you cup the back of his neck to draw him close until his lips wrap around your nipple and suck. You whimper, keeping him there, slowing your hips to watch him let go for just long enough to spit on your chest and lick it right back up.

“Feels so good, teddy bear,” you whine. “You’re so big…” You wiggle your hips until just the tip of him is inside you, and then you sit back down, drawing out a long moan from the both of you. His hands fall to cup under your thighs, and you feel like you’re melting as his tip prods against a squishy spot inside of you and makes you see double. You grab onto his shoulders, digging your nails in, crying. “Oh—right t-there, baby—right there—”

“Right there, swee’eart?”

“Mhm! M-More…”

“My sweet girl,” he mumbles, and you squeak when he grips the fabric of your shorts, grunting as he tears the fabric apart. His fingers cup both sides of your ass, spreading them, using the new leverage he has on you to start picking you up and bouncing you with nothing but sheer strength. You’re thick everywhere that he needs you to be—hips, stomach, thighs, all the perfect places he hopes any girl he’s with will be. They never quite had it the way you do; when his fingers dig and feel nothing but softness, he hisses because it feels so good to grab onto you. It makes his mouth water. It makes him so fucking hungry. It makes his cock ache and his balls heavy, and he’s going to come if he keeps seeing your breasts sway like that as you take his cock so well. “Fuck—” He shakes his head. “Fuck!”

You lick into his mouth just as he loses control. Fingers under his chin, tongue around his teeth as he holds you down on his lap and fills you nice and warm. Your hips stutter, and he lets you lean back just enough so you can touch your clit and squeeze around him. You look down between your bodies, touching tenderly where you’re connected, like you’re fascinated by how much of him fits inside of you.

You settle after a few minutes. You rest your palms on his chest, squishy muscle supporting you as you lift your hips and let him out. You lean over him, whining when you feel fluid slipping down your thighs and gathering underneath you.

“You’re thinking too much,” you whisper as you slip your shirt back on. Simon hums as he holds you in his lap, cock twitching as he watches you move your hair out of your eyes and lick your own fingers.

“Got a lot on my mind,” is all Simon gives you. You let your knee fall open, and you use your fingers to swirl between your folds before you guide them up and into Simon’s mouth. He chuckles, taking them, and you lean forward to kiss his cheek just as you pull your fingers back out.

“You’re not supposed to think about things,” you murmur. “How many times do I have to tell you, Simon?” You cup one side of his face, making him look at you. “You could never do something wrong. Everything is okay.” You smile. “You believe me, don’t you, teddy bear?”

It’s so easy to believe you when you look at him like that. You’re so pretty—you always are. There is nothing terrible about your mind. Your brain isn’t rotten between the flesh as his must be. There is no blood forever under your fingernails, and you don’t sleep thinking about the graveyards you fill with your heavy hand. You don’t know what it feels like to have a gun burn in your palm, and you’ve never heard the screaming of someone who only has one limb left to spare. You don’t know how long it takes before a father will give up his children, and you’ve never seen your tombstone so clearly that the callous of your hands feel like the rock it’s made of.

Whatever you say must be true. Whatever you forgive him of must be good enough. There is nothing you cannot give, and there is nothing you can say that won’t be absolute reality. He feels like he poisons you every time he touches you, but when he takes his hands away, the skin underneath looks the same, and your smile never fades. You don’t bruise like other people do when he puts a hand on them. You don’t flinch when he raises his arm. You don’t scream when he comes close to you.

He hears your laughter wherever he goes. He’s kneeling now, bone digging into the ground as he lifts up his arm that holds a blade high. The bullet would be quicker, but this feels better. It pierces the neck, flesh giving away to its sharpness like a hot knife through butter, and Ghost licks over his teeth as he watches something sacred leave their eyes. For a moment, he feels bad about what he’s done. He closes his eyes, squeezing them shut, looking for his alternate reality.

I am no good. There is nothing good in me. I am not made of it.

There you are. Sitting on your knees between his thighs, cheek nuzzled against his jeans, sparkly, glossy lips curled into a wicked smile as you fist his cock and coo up at him. When you kiss his tip, you leave it shining, and then your tongue comes out of your mouth, and it’s over for him. There is a heaven inside of you. When you suck, his mind blurs, and his jaw aches with how hard he clenches it as you dip your head and take him deep. You whine because you like it. No one’s ever liked Ghost the way you like him. No one’s ever seen the mask and giggled the way you do. There’s no one that looked at the layers he’s made of and thought to use their fingers to lift them up to tuck themselves inside. His shell is not a barrier, it’s merely an illusion, and there you are—blinking up at him, bouncing in that sunflower sweater, wet eyes like diamonds. He feels warmth in his hands, and he thinks it’s from how hard he’s just come, but when he opens his eyes, it’s merely blood soaking into the fabric of his gloves.

The house is dark when he comes home. The cat is staring at him from her spot by the window, blinking slowly as he toes off his boots and passes by her with a soft scratch under her chin. He finds you in your bed, face against your silk pillow, wearing fuzzy purple pajamas and hugging a well-loved stuffed bear. Your nightlight is on, casting soft shadows of a moon and her stars, and Ghost finds himself watching you for more than just a moment. He stays there in the doorway, rooted to the spot, watching the gentle rise and fall of your chest as you snooze.

You wake up when the bed dips from his weight. Groggily, your hand moves, searching for him, and when you find the fabric of his hoodie, you close your fist around it and pull him until he’s nearly on top of you.

You taste sweet. When you kiss, Ghost chases the sugar sweet that still lingers on your lips, and you seek the ash from the cigarette he smoked outside. Your knees fall open, and Ghost settles between them. Too big, but he forces himself there anyways, one big arm wrapping around you and under your back before he yanks it into an arch and bites against the side of your neck. Where he saw blood earlier, all he sees is the give of your skin under his teeth. Instead of begging, instead of screaming, he hears your soft whine, a breathy call of his name that makes his cock so hard, he has to yank down the zipper of his jeans before he cuts himself on it.

Where he saw death in their eyes, he finds nothing like it in your own. When he is inside of you again, he tells himself he’ll never leave. His body has new purpose, and this is it.

You’re sleepy all over again once you come. Draped over his chest, palm rubbing against his solid middle, legs tangled between his. You smile at him as he turns his head to look at you, and he slips his hand under the hem of your shirt to caress you at the base of your spine.

“Good day at work?” You mumble, snuggling into his side. Simon tightens his grip on your middle. When he feels the flesh squish under his hand, he breathes nice and easy. Just what he expected. Exactly as he prefers.

“Good day, love.”

“You got all the bad guys, teddy bear?”

Simon licks his lips. He thinks about who had the unfortunate opportunity of being at the end of his scope today, and he thinks about who it’ll be tomorrow. He likes this routine. It satiates something nasty in him, but he’s never been quiet about the way it makes him feel. It’s what drew you to him, wasn’t it? He told you about all the horrible things that exist in his head, and you’re still here, you’re still in his bed—it wasn’t enough to push you away, so there’s no need to hide this dark truth from you. If anything, you might want to go again.

His cock twitches at the thought.

“No,” Simon tells you, and you shrug, closing your eyes.

“That’s okay. There’s still tomorrow.”

Simon feels something ache under his ribs when you say it—like taking the words straight out of his mouth. You are so in tune, it would scare him if he wasn’t already convinced that you were meant for him.

But even if you weren’t, I’d chain you to this bed. Never let you go.

He wonders what color your blood runs. He doesn’t think it would be red—you’re too pretty to have blood be such a color. Maybe it’s pink. Purple. Maybe it’s yellow. Maybe it glitters just like the sparkles you love to wear.

Maybe it runs black. Maybe, underneath it all, you and Simon are one and the same. Maybe you are rotten inside. Maybe you’re an illusion, too, maybe what he sees is just a mirror-view, and the real you hides and plays your limbs with puppet strings and masks the horrible, terrible, evil things that live inside of you—

You pat his chest a little, pouting, an annoyed breath leaving you as you close your eyes.

“Go to sleep, Simon. It’s late.”

It is late. You’re right. Always right, his smart girl, always telling him how he needs to hear it so his mind settles and his body relaxes.

It’s okay.

Isn’t it?

I forgive you.

He can never do anything wrong.

Everything is just as it should be.

Everything is just as it should be.

[luvether]

BURNT SUN-KISSED POPPIES. mydei

summary, to be the childhood sweetheart of Kremnos‘ heir came the times where he sought comfort in you for all his tragedies.

mydei x gn!reader. fluff content. childhood to adulthood. secret pinings. puppy love. yearning. teasing. quality time. princess treatment. hurt with comfort. historical!au not canon compliant to amphoreus lore. written before version 3.0. [3.6k wc]

What are the chances you get to visit Castrum Kremnos during your father’s many business trips?

By the Gods above, luck was in your favor that day.

Because visiting Castrum Kremnos meant being able to see their renowned young crown prince Mydeimos, rumored to be one of the future heroes of Okhema city and the lion of Kremnos—and in secrecy to you, also the receiver of your affections for as long as you remember.

You aren’t certain when this unimaginable pull happened, was it the way you first saw the dawn captured red upon his braided hair? Or was it his big eyes that furnaced and melted into gold ingots with flicks of honey?

Your heart flutters at the thought of simply just encountering him, your fingers bunching up your fabrics as your carriage arrives at the city gates.

With a table full of wine, goat cheese and fruits—it was easy to slip away from your father. He was too busy settling jovial talks about the kingdoms’ flourish with Kremnos’ leaders to realize your absence. The unfamiliar palace is bigger than you expected, grandeur even, completely different from your home city. When your eyes trace the intricate patterns upon their pillars you can immediately seize out the lion from its marble carvings. But despite its size, it was no challenge to locate the prince.

The sound of clashing wooden swords would indicate where he was since you are aware of his duties to fight—and it is said that crown prince Mydeimos is usually seen spending his leisure on swordsmanship practice with young lord Phainon.

At times, you envy how often Lord Phainon is mentioned around the prince.

They both seem really close.

When the harsh clacks of wood on wood floats around your ears, your hurried paces falter into quiet footsteps. You find yourself sneaking under an olive tree and peeking through the shrubs, eyes landing on two boys on the garden with cobblestone beneath their leather boots—they seem entirely engrossed in their sparring. Under the honeyed heat your lips purse, watching Mydeimos dance around Phainon, wooden swords blurring your vision, swishing and parrying in front of them as each boy exchange light blows with one another.

An exhausted rasp of a chuckle comes spilling down Mydei’s lips, he angles his sword to block when Phainon leans forward, cutting down hard in his direction. You’ve noticed their manner in fighting and can weed out the difference in an instant. Lord Phainon is calculated with his movements, there’s stability in his balance, reassurance woven into the sinews of his back beneath his white tunic. Prince Mydeimos on the other hand is more fluid, he makes use of his dynamics and his footwork is unpredictable, but there’s grace captured in it—like he’s dancing—lunging forward in strict confidence then sidestepping, bouncing back then spinning.

Mydei smiles—a boyish grin that crinkles his eyes—seemingly setting the whole place an inch brighter than before and you’re blinded by the setting sun. You tilt your head more, unable to deny the warm flush from the pillows of your cheeks when you see the hint of dimples on his face, dimples.

The prince is truly astonishing.

Years you were under the tutelage of different priests, learning about prophetic dreams and imagery and clairvoyance—but maybe you were too dizzy watching the boys zip around the gardens, or maybe you were too into your daydreams you didn’t notice how they had hastened their attacks. Mydei was now attacking Phainon in quick succession, seemingly drunk under the thrill to notice Phainon’s stuttering words of take a break or slow down your highness. You were too distracted to notice how the prince swipes up, cutting the atmosphere—the lord’s wooden sword flies out his grasp and comes spinning in your direction.

Oh.

You feel the solid plank crash against your forehead—barely registering the shock that jolts through the two boys when you stumble onto the marble floor, holding your face that seems to quickly heat at both the pain and the embarrassment.

Oh.

“Oh, lord what have you done—“

“Me?” Phainon panics. “You were the one that didn’t stop attacking, I told you numerous times how I prefer a great sword than a simple one. I’m unfamiliar with the weight.”

“Well, I—“

“Ow…”

Their attention snaps back to you. Mydei tosses his wooden sword onto the cobblestone uncaringly and along with Phainon, comes to your aid.

“Hey, are you okay?” Both holding out their hands when they ease you back to your feet. Phainon leans down to brush the crumbs of dirt from your attire, checking to see if you have other injuries whilst Mydei winces at your reddening face.

“I—truly, I apologize.” You can hear the sincerity and guilt in the young prince’s tone. “I didn’t mean…”

“No, I—“ you were quick to speak up as well. Your face furnacing even more when his concerned honey eyes latch with your own—to think your first interaction with each other would be this, how humiliating.

“I was the one who intruded.” You murmur, leaning down to bow. “I apologize for getting in the way, young lords i didn’t want to disturb—“

“Oh gods.” Phainon curses.

You lift your head, confused, until you feel something hot trickling down your nose. Both your hand and Mydei’s fly up to your face, barely containing the blood that rolls down your chin.

“Prince, I think we are in trouble.”

“Stop saying nonsense, Phainon. Tell a servant to fetch us a cloth and a basin of water immediately.”

He didn’t need to be told twice and he was swift, his feet tapping along the marble as he sprinted down the hallway and now you were left alone with Kremnos’ young heir.

You can feel your heart pounding in your chest.

Luck was definitely not on your side today.

“Hey, uhm…” Mydei trails off. You see the cogs in his head turning before he gently lets go of your face, you feel a soft pressure at the back of your skull instead as the prince beckons you to lean down towards him.

“Here, press your nose on my tunic. It would be a problem if we don’t add pressure to stop the bleeding—“

Your eyes widen, cheeks hot as coals. You find yourself shaking your head fervently, using the young prince’s shirt to help your nosebleed? if your reputation hadn’t sunk to the bottom of a seabed, it had now. How could you, and to Prince Mydeimos of all people?

But Mydei is persistent, somehow unaware that your flushed face is more likely due to the shame you felt than your injury.

“Please.” He pushes gently. “I insist.”

His palm on the back of your head is steady, fingers rubbing the hair there, his other hand pinch his fabric shirt and tugs it up to press against your bleeding nose. ”Lord Phainon will be back soon, so rest assured. I truly apologize for my lack of manners today.”

It felt like a whole minute with you in close proximity with the Prince, then after that, when a servant came to tend to you—both prince Mydei and lord Phainon received an earful from the adults, to dare bring harm upon a young guest clergy from Janusopolis is an act of slander, they said to the young boys.

And you are no different as your father shakes his head at you, “you’re very lucky that they practiced with wooden swords, what were to happen if they were using actual weapons, what if it was a spear?”

You turn away, “I’m sorry, father—“

“That’s enough child. I should’ve known this would happen, especially with that curiosity of yours. I’ve told you time and time again to steer clear from training grounds, you are not fit for combat.” He pats your shoulder softly. “Come now, let’s not dawdle. We still have to visit the other cities.”

But father, it’s not mere curiosity. You wanted to combat but decide against it.

When you tag along with your father with flushed pink nose and defeated shoulders, you dare slip a glance from behind. Watching the young prince and the lord getting scolded.

But what you didn’t expect was Prince Mydeimos’ honey eyes already on you.

You turned away quickly and never looked back.

A week passes and your shame does not settle nor fade.

“Looks like you had quite a delightful time.” A throwaway comment from Anaxa, you don’t respond and he doesn’t even bother to look in your direction, flipping another scroll and perusing the text casually.

“What do I do, Anaxa, Hyacine?”

“What must you do?” Anaxa shoots you a puzzled look. “Bumping into Prince Mydeimos in Okhema is one in a million, and I am certain your father won’t take you back to Castrum Kremnos after that troubling incident.

“This is so unfair.” You bury your face onto your arms.

Your younger companion heartens over your shoulder, “Cheer up. I’m sure you’ll stumble into him eventually.” Hyacine smiles at you. “After all, Okhema is celebrating a festival. You never know.”

Your eyes gloss over the open window, from the distance you hear the alluring instruments hither thither in gracious waves, the warm winds gossip, the furors of the crowd echo, the clinking of wine and your companions’ soft murmurs from behind you. You lean your cheek against your arm, watching the sky like a meadow of blues.

Distracted, you don’t notice someone approaching until you see a hand come over your vision.

Your eyes flutter, tracing the calloused palm down the arm before meeting the face.

Honey eyes greet you back.

You jolt, Prince Mydeimos.

He sees the recognition spark in your eyes and he smiles, “So it was you.” He lowers his hand, tugging his cloak. “I thought I recognized someone familiar on the window, it’s nice to see you again!”

“Prin…Prince Mydeimos.” You've straightened now. “What are you doing here?”

Your heart seizes when you watch him lean close to you, his dimples are prominent from here, like an intentional dip on a carved marble. He presses a finger to his lips, his boyish grin almost contagious.

“I sneaked away.” He rasps. “It’s a little stiff to have servants follow you around in Okhema’s festival.”

“Oh, I see.” Your eyes fleet. It seems like it has caught the attention of your companions, for the young priestess and sage are now leaning against the wall beside the window, out of view from Mydeimos.

The prince places a hand on the windowsill. “Do you want to come with me?”

Your lips part. “Come with you?”

“Yes. I uhm.” Mydei turns away, then looks back at you. “I want to make it up to you, for what happened last week.”

“There’s no need for that, prince. I’m perfectly okay now and it’s my fault you and the lord got into trouble.” Despite your incessant shakes, he combats it with stubbornness.

“I understand. But I still feel responsible for what has happened.” He tells you. “Then, if not to make up for it, just keep me company?”

“I’m not supposed to…” You hesitate.

But then you felt a foot tap your ankle. Your eyes flicker briefly towards Anaxa and Hyacine—one giving you an encouraging nod and the other had apathy in the face, but he tilts his head on the window as if beckoning you to go. You crack a smile then turn to Mydei and nod.

His smile widens, then he hoists you out of the window frame, strong arms around your torso. Your cheeks darken at his actions.

When the two of you walk down the street, you are splashed with the joyful spirit weaving through the festival. You don’t usually participate whenever these festivals happen, you have no one to go with you. You never wanted to bother your father with your trivial requests, and you had your own duties to finish that you don’t have time for leisure.

The prince tries to match your pace, shoulders barely touching but it wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable. In fact, Mydeimos has been kind to you which was far from the confident boy who held a spear in the arena.

He treats you as if you are something to him—you immediately shake such thoughts from your head.

Mydei taps your shoulder, pulling you out of your daydreams. “Are you hungry?”

In the young prince’s hands were two figs. You graciously took one from him. “Thank you, Prince Mydeimos.”

The honeycomb in his eyes softened. “Please just call me Mydei.” The fruit is brought to his lips, a crunch resounds when he takes a big bite.

During that time, under the golden festival hue—Mydeimos appeared like a brilliant child, the spirit still flickering a candle in his eyes and the looks he gave you, they were so undeniably soft. You both stopped at small stands, lingered at performances and smiled at the musicians playing instruments—all the while the prince made sure you were entertained and satiated with food; soft bread, cakes, olives. He even goes on a tangent when you had said you never tried specific meat before—those that were exclusive to the high and wealthy.

The prince would take each meat from the table, cupping a hand beneath your chin when you take a bite out of his portion.

You perk up. “It’s good.”

“Right?” Mydei laughs. “This one’s my favorite. We usually only have these in Kremnos during—“

“Are you eloping, my dear prince?”

Your attention is dragged to the owner of the quip. Lord Phainon appears from the thick of the crowd, and his teasing tone brings heat to your cheeks. Mydei scowls at his companion, “why are you here?”

Phainon greets you by ruffling your hair, “have you even an inkling of remorse for your pitiful servants?” His ocean blue eyes aren’t laughing despite his smile. “They’ve been looking for you for an hour or two, to the point it’s starting to spin into a commotion on the festival streets.”

This prompts Mydei to sigh. “Those fellows…”

A flute and strings draws their attention. Suddenly the crowd erupts into cheers, some step forth, dancing on the streets. You can feel Mydei’s eyes on you, then flickering to Phainon.

Maybe it was the expression on the prince’s face that Phainon let out a heavy sigh. “I’ll deal with your servants. You have an hour.”

“That’s all that I need.” Mydei smiles when Phainon turns on his heel to leave. “I owe you, my friend.”

“It’s nothing.” Phainon’s eyes flutter over to you, and his gentle smile returns, mouthing a take care of him before tugging on his hood and disappearing. At that time, you didn’t really know what the young lord meant with that.

And you didn’t have time to ponder, Mydei’s large hand is inching over yours, his fingertips brushing your skin. You look over to him and he asks, “do you know how to dance?”

You barely remembered what you responded back. The prince’s hands have captured your own, more of a soft caress than a hold before slowly pulling you onto the streets and the flurry of dancing citizens. The outside lights careens into the expression on his face when he tells you to dance with him.

You both circle each other and you watch his footwork—sidestepping, bouncing back then spinning—Mydei’s hand is not far from yours, and he pulls you into his dance, a palm seeking refuge on your torso and the other securing your hand, he spins you around and you cannot help the bubble of a laugh from slipping from your lips.

Between the flurries and the crowds there was nothing but you and the prince, everyone else was barely a splotch of watercolor on canvas.

An hour burns through quickly when you’re having fun. The sky began to dim and the festival had hushed, when his servants finally found him and he got in the carriage, he pops his head out the window, calling your name before you can leave.

You seek the honey in his eyes once again, and he leans into his open palm, “visit Castrum Kremnos sometimes.” Mydei grins. “It's a bore to always spend time sparring with Phainon and he’s not a great dancer like you are.

You mirror his grin with your own. “If this is what my prince wants, then I’ll obey.”

The brightened smile that Mydei gave you felt like he had shaved a piece of the sun and reflected it on his own expression. “See you.”

“Goodbye, Kremnos’ prince.”

That expression of his had engraved into your membrane as years shuffle and roll, it’s the exact same face he shows you when you finally visit him—not as a clergy guest of the city but Prince Mydeimos’ guest.

So it's very hard for you to believe in those rumours, rumours that stated that Castrum Kremnos’ hero had gone manic—the same as when the heretical black tide came and made the titans mad. It’s just difficult.

You’re aware that war and battles change a person. It came to make their blooming heart wither into a wasteland, but you know Mydeimos for so long.

You knew him as his childhood friend, as someone who had admired him and his heart for years on end—you never believed rumours about him and if it were true, you wanted to make your own judgement and witness it for yourself.

So when talks of Mydei’s arrival from the battlefield reached your ears, you did not hesitate to start packing for the trip.

Your journey to Kremnos was hasty. You had ignored the rebuttals your father threw at you and got on the carriage. As years passed, so did Castrum Kremnos. It did not beguile a glow like it used to, but your mind’s a raging storm. Your pace is impatient as you run down the corridors of the familiar city.

The sound of the steel sword would indicate where he was since you are aware of his duties to fight—and it is said that crown prince Mydeimos is usually seen spending his leisure on swordsmanship, alone.

Your hand is pressed against the olive tree bark, heaving heavy breaths as your eyes land on Mydeimos’ back, his muscles and sinews are hardened under the reddish hue of sunset, flexing as he moves his sword to cut the air. You barely notice the look on his eyes as well, gone were his large honey pupils and chub on his cheeks, now his gaze has sharpened into resin, narrowed with furrowed brows. He’s no longer as talkative or carefree as back then.

You take a step closer and flinch when Mydeimos turns to your direction, the sword lands heavy above your shoulders, almost grazing your cheek and ears.

The air hangs heavy with tension.

“It’s me, Mydei.”

At the sound of your voice, the prince wavers. The sword is immediately retracted and his heavy heaves are all that fills the air between you two.

“You…” Mydei runs his fingers through his wet hair. “You really do have the habit of just wandering into the practice grounds like this.”

You look away. “I’ll try not to next time.” You were just a little worried about him today.

When you feel a fingertip running down your jaw, you turn back to him.

Mydeimos’ eyes land on something on your face, his frown deepening. “There’s a cut.” He tells you. is there?

You cannot help the slight sting or wince when he presses the wound. At your reaction, he tries to pull away but your hands are quick to capture it, placing his calloused palms back on your cheeks.

“It’s okay.” You tell him but he’s noiseless.

Instead he tilts your head sideways, then leans down. His rough lips on your cheek is all you feel and you’re engulfed in Mydei’s scent of bonfire and wood and smoke.

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs, pressing another kiss to your other cheek and you told him it was fine. His head lands heavy on your shoulder so you don’t dare ask him how he’s been or how the battlefield was—you doubt he’d want to answer it right now.

“Will you stay for a bit?” He’d ask you and in response you’d embrace him.

“For as long as you wish.”

He pushes a bit. “Will you be by my side then?”

“If you command it, I will.”

Silence.

“Stay with me today?” Mydei adds. “Please?”

For a moment, Phainon’s words are on your ears: take care of him.

You tug him back and hold his cheeks on your palms, your eyes dissect his every fold and dip in expression, the downcasted frown and tired eyes. You give him a bright smile—a smile that flickers a glow on his honey pupils—then rest your forehead against his own.

“I’m here for as long as I live.” You murmur sweetly. “Even if it’s just us left, I’ll be with you.” because I love you, Mydei. For everything that I have.

You don’t announce it, but Mydei’s expression seems to shift when he gazes into your eyes, like he’d read the words written in them.

And holding him like this, you prayed to yourself—to wish nothing but endless glory and victory to Mydeimos for all the tragedies he’d witnessed.

You are not skilled in combat, but you’d hope your support and embraces can heal his wounds just as much. But when Mydei leans forward and presses another kiss on your forehead and two cheeks, your skin is matted and sun-kissed at the trail of his lips. It’s as if he’s telling you that yes, you’re healing him, you’re making him happy.

And you smile at the manner.

[sunderwight]

Demon Saint Shen Yuan.

Luo Binghe had never been relieved to see his shizun suddenly arrive into a situation, but there was a first time for anything. And a bloodthirsty demon invasion was the kind of situation where anyone would want to have an immortal master turn up, even one as intimidating and unfriendly as Shen Qingqiu.

The demons had arrived some hours ago. Luo Binghe himself had only become aware of the situation recently, as panic spread and he and Ning-shijie were caught up in the chaos. He hadn't even been sure that it was a demon invasion, or what that might entail, until he found himself running for his life from a group of horrifying inhuman figures in mismatched armor, wielding fearsome weapons and clashing with the senior Qiong Ding disciples.

Ning-shijie had pulled him to the main pavilion, but that ended up being the central point of the troubles. A nymph-like demoness, who didn't look as though she could be much older than they themselves were, imperiously ordered the other demon warriors to claim Qiong Ding's sign and to beat up any cultivators they came across. She was dressed more scandalously than Luo Binghe had seen anyone dress before in his life. Not even the ladies who stood outside the Warm Red Pavilion had worn so little, her figure barely obscured by scraps of crimson silk and bits of silver jewellery.

To the right of her, there stood a boy who seemed even younger. He was dressed in red as well, but his clothes at least did more to cover him, particularly the large and hooded cloak he wore. The two demons looked very similar, surely close relatives, but where the demoness kept calling out orders and making a display of being in charge, the demon boy was quiet. His pale gaze cut through the crowd and then seemed to land on Luo Binghe. There was such intensity to it, it was almost as if he had been looking for him.

A chill went down Luo Binghe's spine. He wondered if that demon boy would attack him. Why else would a demon be looking for someone like him, except as easy pickings?

Before he could find out, however, Shen Qingqiu descended into the chaos like a gift from the heavens.

Luo Binghe wasn't alone in his relief. Even though his shizun looked deathly pale and murderously enraged, almost everyone seemed to be in a mood to praise his arrival with thanks and cheers. Finally, a peak lord had come! Even the demons had to sit up and take notice of that.

The young demoness came forwards, an assessing glint in her eyes as she looked Shen Qingqiu up and down. The other demons fell into step behind her. Well, sort of? Looking at the motley collection of warriors, Luo Binghe didn't really think they were capable of the sort of orderly formations that human soldiers used. There didn't seem to be any two of them the same size or shape, there was of course no uniform, and there was an atmosphere which implied that even though the little demoness was in charge of them, this was a situation that could change at any given moment.

Despite his fear, Luo Binghe was somewhat curious about the demons. He had heard a lot about such beings, but even at his age he knew that reputation and rumor were not always to be trusted. The demon race was a mystery to him. So these were the people that the righteous world deemed beyond redemption?

As the demoness put forward a challenge to Shen Qingqiu, Luo Binghe's gaze drifted towards the boy with her.

He couldn't help it. For some reason, that demon boy had not stopped staring at him even once! He had only just glanced at Shen Qingqiu, and then gone right back to looking at Luo Binghe! When Luo Binghe met his gaze, he finally did look away, but again only for a moment. Then it was back to staring, then looking away again, and then staring again. What could possibly be so interesting about Luo Binghe, out of all the people around?

The pattern only ended when Shen Qingqiu moved forward, and Binghe was jolted from his concerns by the realization that his shizun was going to fight.

Despite his master's harsh way with him, he was excited. He had never yet seen his shizun fight, and only knew his prowess by implication and reputation. A one-armed demon came forward to be his challenger. Shen Qingqiu did not wait to even exchange the usual courtesies, instead he moved at once, drawing forth Xiu Ya and sending his sword glint to carve through the air. When the one-armed demon dodged, Shen Qingqiu called up a cloud of dust and hit him directly in the face with it.

Luo Binghe blinked in surprise.

These kinds of tactics... weren't they a little... underhanded? Who was the demon and who was the righteous cultivator?

He probably should not judge. He knew that conventional wisdom held that demons were not truly 'people', and a demonic beast should be promptly dispatched. But the demons here spoke, and looked mostly human, and this match had been agreed to, even if under heavy duress. In a way it wasn't unlike a duel between cultivators. So why was his shizun fighting so dirty?

Regard for his master slipped further. Luo Binghe had been attempting to hold onto it, but he was increasingly convinced that it wasn't worth the effort. Even fighting an opponent who had only one arm, Shen Qingqiu was pressing every advantage he had and then some.

The outcome was lackluster and predictable, though the demoness still looked very displeased as her subordinate was killed. Demons probably weren't as concerned about dirty tactics as righteous cultivators, though, so she only announced that the next match would be against her.

Shen Qingqiu called for volunteers. The demon boy glanced at his senior, then looked out towards the group. His gaze lingered on the Xian Shu peak disciples just a few seconds before Liu Mingyan came forward to answer Shen Qingqiu's call.

Luo Binghe frowned.

Was it a coincidence, or did this demon boy have some kind of clairvoyance?

If so, what did all of his staring at Luo Binghe imply...?

But, no, it couldn't mean anything. Luo Binghe was nothing and nobody, after all. He didn't even have a spiritual weapon, and hadn't received any martial training yet. At this rate he would be lucky if he wasn't kicked off of the peak, and he knew it just as well as everyone else did. Liu Mingyan was just a bit older than him, but the differences between their abilities were like night and day. Luo Binghe was so behind that he could scarcely even comprehend her fight with the demoness. It didn't even seem like they were fighting to him, not really, but Ming Fan seemed to understand it and enthused about it to everyone nearby, and Shen Qingqiu only watched with narrow eyes until finally, it seemed, the disciple from Xian Shu lost.

Luo Binghe tried not to wince. That meant they were one to one, and there were no other peak lords or head disciples present to fight the next match. He glanced around, wondering which of the senior disciples might do. There were a few from Qiong Ding, and some elders from Zui Xian...

The feeling of eyes on him drew his attention back across the pavilion.

That demon boy was staring at him again. Even more unexpectedly, so was his shizun. He felt all the hairs go up on the back of his neck as Shen Qingqiu called out:

"Luo Binghe. Come forward."

His feet rooted him to the spot in genuine shock. That couldn't mean what he thought it did, could it? Why was his shizun calling for him? By name, no less? He couldn't mean for Luo Binghe to fight, could he? He'd lose his match and end up as a meal for demons! He didn’t even have a sword!

Shen Qingqiu stared at him, fierce and more terrifying than any of the demons so far, and before he could consider running away, self-preservation instincts compelled Luo Binghe to go over and bow in acknowledgement.

"Shizun," he said, trying not to shake.

Shen Qingqiu sneered at him.

"Since certain parties have insisted that you have some talent, let's put it to the test. My personal disciple shall go and handle the next match."

Oh.

So.

Shen Qingqiu wanted him dead, then?

At once, Ning-shijie raised her voice in protest. But she petered out as Shen Qingqiu shot her the kind of cutting, quelling look he almost never used on her. Even Ming Fan and some of the other Qing Jing disciples shifted uncomfortably. But to intervene, they'd have to volunteer in Luo Binghe's stead, and none of them would do that. He hadn't managed to endear himself to any of them, so of course they wouldn't stick their necks out for his sake.

"Shizun..." he tried, falteringly. He would die, but also, the sect would lose face. Shen Qingqiu couldn't really mean for that, could he? Maybe he expected Luo Binghe to run away, to leave and rid him of an incompetent student for good, but how could Luo Binghe do such a thing? He had nowhere else to go.

Shen Qingqiu glared impatiently at him.

"Is this the next champion?" the demoness asked, and laughed. "I'd feel too bad siccing one of our elders on the little creature. Hey, Didi! You fight him!"

The demon boy next to her shot her a startled look. It made him seem surprisingly human, even though the slight parting of his lips revealed a sharp set of cute little fangs.

"Me?" he asked, incredulous.

The demoness smirked.

"You don't want to? What, are you afraid of that shrimpy thing? How embarrassing! Our Sha family will never recover from the disgrace!"

The boy looked like he wanted to throttle his older sister for a moment. But instead of backing down, he glanced off to the side. There was nothing there, yet he stared intently at empty space for several seconds. Then his shoulders slumped, just a bit, and he strode forwards.

Standing across from one another in the middle of the impromptu fighting ring, Luo Binghe got a better look at the mysterious demon. Either he was small for his age, or he was in fact even younger than Luo Binghe had initially guessed. He felt almost sympathetic, because the boy was a full head shorter than him and pretty scrawny. Some of the other demons around had arms and legs bigger than him. His long hair was straight and loose but for a single ornament, which was only revealed when he swept the hood of his cloak down. He was dressed in crimson from head to toe, with silver embellishments that matched his pale eyes. Long black nails sprouted from his fingertips, nearly as dark and shiny as his boots. With one hand he motioned and called to his grasp a wicked-looking spear, adorned with red tassels. At his belt were a pair of folded fans. The metal kind used as weapons, rather than the frail type which Shen Qingqiu used to hide his sneers.

After a moment, the younger boy straightened across from Luo Binghe and then, to his surprise, offered him a polite bow of acknowledgement.

"Let's get this over with," he murmured.

Luo Binghe wondered if he would have to face him bare-handed, but someone whistled from off to one side.

Liu Mingyan, to his surprise, tossed him a spare sword from somewhere. It was no spiritual weapon, but it was definitely better than nothing.

He nodded in thanks, then turned back and awkwardly returned the bow to his opponent.

The demon boy let him, and did not charge first. He twirled his spear and circled around, as if assessing Luo Binghe's threat level. I have none, Luo Binghe thought to himself, half-hysterical, but at this point he realized that every second of delay was another second he could still live. He eyed the fans cautiously, knowing just enough to know that he would have no recourse at all over ranged attacks. But the demon did not reach for them.

In the end, it was Binghe's own sense of tension that got the better of him. Just as the demon side were beginning to jeer, he settled the sword as best as he could in his hands and lunged forward.

The demon boy parried him easily. Reflexively, he'd even say. The parry left him staggering and wide open, but instead of pressing the advantage, his opponent backed off.

"Come on," he thought he heard a soft voice murmur. "Get into a proper stance. You've seen them before, you know what it looks like."

Luo Binghe blinked and hesitated, confused.

"Didi, just beat him into the ground already!" the demoness jeered.

The younger boy didn't take his eyes off of Luo Binghe, however.

"If you want me to fight, you have to put up with how I do it," he called back.

His older sister visibly sulked. Even without directly looking at her, the body language was easy to read.

"So boring," she sighed.

They were toying with him. That was it, right? He was being mocked.

Luo Binghe couldn't even blame them, not really. He didn't know what he was doing in this fight either. But he wasn't entirely without some pride. The shame of his own ineptitude made him feel hot and shaky. Swallowing, he took the mockery as advice anyway and focused on himself. He did know, at least in theory, what the Qing Jing sword stance looked like. He'd even tried copying it on his own several times. Without a word he settled his posture into his best approximation of it.

Across from him, his opponent's lips twitched upwards in a baffling hint of a smile.

Luo Binghe decided to try defensiveness again, and settled in to watch and wait.

This time, he was rewarded with an attack. The demon boy circled once more before finally lunging with his spear. The move seemed obvious, almost too slow, but still Luo Binghe struggled to counter it. The edge of the spear slashed across his arm.

The demon boy winced the same time that he did.

There was a slight delay, then another attack.

It was obvious who the better fighter was. Luo Binghe couldn't think of any reason outside of mockery for the fight to draw on, for why he wasn't just being gutted like a fish, but after a few more lunges and awkward attempts at blocking had sent rivulets of blood down his sleeves, he wasn't sure if he was grateful for it or not. His heart picked up, and he decided that his only chance was probably to try and catch his opponent off-guard.

So he switched and went on the offensive again, charging with the sword and trying everything he could think of to just land a hit.

The demon boy evaded him like it was nothing at all, but he also seemed to approve of this approach more than the other.

"That's it," his soft voice said. "If you don't know enough of swordsmanship, you'll just have to use force. You have a lot of talent. It's a shame no one's taught you properly how to use it. But the energy's there, right? Come at me again, come on, there! Like that! You're strong. You are stronger than me. You're taller as well, use it to your advantage..."

Luo Binghe swung with all his might, but at the last moment he realized the blow might actually hit, and in a flurry of panic it suddenly occurred to him that he wasn't sure he wanted it to.

He pulled back, tripped, and stumbled into the dirt. The demon boy aborted a wide swing of his own, and somehow ended with the edge of his spear just a hair's breadth from Luo Binghe's throat.

The boy's eyes widened. He paled, as if something about this horrified him.

Luo Binghe closed his own eyes and dropped his sword.

"I yield," he said. Just as Liu Mingyan had done.

"Worthless! Fight until you have won, or don't call yourself my disciple any longer!" Shen Qingqiu snapped at him.

The spear swiftly withdrew. Luo Binghe hung his head. The silence that descended was filled with strange tension. He wasn't even certain he could name everything behind it, or if he even wanted to try. There was a ringing of panic in his ears, but the chief feeling in him was resignation. He couldn't win. He'd lost his place, this home he'd tried to find in the wake of his mother's death. His chance to become a cultivator.

But there was nothing for it. At least this way, he might still walk away with his life.

"No," the demon boy said. "Keep going. You can definitely win."

Luo Binghe blinked at him, bewildered.

Somehow the gaze that met his was earnest. There really did not seem to be a trace of mockery in it, in fact. The demon boy settled the butt of his spear against the floor of the pavilion.

"Didi, what the fuck are you doing?" the demoness called. "You won, just come back over here and we'll claim our spoils!"

"Don't interfere, this matter is between us two men," the little boy called back. Then he extended an arm. A red silk ribbon fluttered out from his sleeve and kicked Luo Binghe's discarded sword into the air, caught the handle, and gently tossed it back towards him.

Luo Binghe just barely caught it.

"What are you playing at?" he asked.

The boy smiled.

"No game," he said. "I just think you can beat me. Don't you want to see if you can? You haven't even really tried."

"But I don't know how to fight..." Luo Binghe protested, unable to keep the helpless despair from his voice.

The boy shook his head.

"Of course you do. Every living thing knows how to fight when it needs to. You need to defeat me, don't you? Your life depends on it. So fight me like it does!"

The spear jerked forwards, a quick flash of gleaming, deadly metal that carved a path across Luo Binghe's cheek. The pain was almost refreshing, somehow. Like a splash of cold, clean water to the face.

Fight like his life depended on it?

But it didn't. Not really. It was clear to him that this boy, strange though he was, demon though he was, harbored no killing intent towards him. Even the demoness hadn’t killed her opponent. Only Shen Qingqiu had done so.

And yet, he wasn't wrong, was he? If Luo Binghe lost this fight, Shen Qingqiu would finally have the excuse to be rid of him. His master must have long regretted choosing him in the first place, though Luo Binghe had no idea why he had done so, or why he had so bitterly despised his every effort afterwards. Regardless, without Qing Jing Peak, what was left for Luo Binghe? He'd be back on the streets, with little hope of making any kind of future for himself. He had lived that life just long enough to know the sorts of things that happened to people like him, and to know he wanted nothing to do with it.

He had loved his mother, but he did not want to live and die the way that she had.

The spear came at him again, and this time Luo Binghe let instincts take over and dodged out of the way.

He really was fighting for his life, wasn't he?

The demon boy pressed him, and his heart beat faster. He found himself answering the moves with less thought, less concern for form or structure. Soon he was smashing his sword against the spear with sheer brute force, animal intensity. He bared his teeth, widened his stance, and listened to the little voice in the back of his head that always wanted to roar.

Though he didn't actually roar. He didn't have the breath for it. His opponent finally wasn't giving him room to hesitate, and oddly enough it seemed to be granting Luo Binghe a strange sort of advantage. The spear had reach, but it was less dangerous when Luo Binghe got in closer. Though getting struck with the shaft was still painful. Red ribbons filled his vision as the demon boy left cuts and bruises in his wake, his clothing seeming to do almost as much fighting as he himself did, and yet Luo Binghe began landing meaningful hits as well. It was like fighting a bird, he thought. A bird and a hurricane. The boy's bones seemed light enough to break, and somehow after several intense minutes of skirmishing, something did break.

His opponent let out a hiss as the blow landed heavily against his arm, and the snap sound was loud in both of their ears. The spear dropped to the ground with a clatter.

Impossibly, Luo Binghe found himself leveling the blade of his sword at the demon boy's throat. Silvery eyes looked up at him, and if he didn't know any better, he'd say that the emotion in them was relief. But that made no sense. Didn't he want to win?

Did he... not approve of this invasion, or something along those lines...?

"I yield," the boy said.

There was the barest flash of visible fear, at last. Wariness. A moment where he seemed unsure if Luo Binghe would let him. It seemed so strange, considering how honorably he'd conducted himself, but then again... why would he expect Luo Binghe to be the same? He'd just seen his master, the lauded Xiu Ya sword, fight like a depraved bandit. According to humans, the demon race were creatures without integrity. Maybe demons told the same sorts of stories about cultivators, though. Brutal creatures with no pity, no mercy, who hunted down even children like animals and spared no courtesy unless threatened into it.

Hastily, Luo Binghe lowered his sword.

He looked back towards his master, and he felt a moment of irrational hope. He had won. He had won! There was no reason for it, and yet he had!

But Shen Qingqiu didn't even look back at him. The man was already moving stiffly away, as if he couldn't even be bothered to ensure the invaders kept their word. With his back turned, any number of demons could have rushed forward to avenge their comrade's loss. Luo Binghe was aware of being both abandoned and surrounded.

When he looked back at his opponent, however, the boy only nodded and then returned to his sister. He retrieved his spear with his off hand, and was careful with the arm that had broken.

As soon as he drew close to Sha Hualing, however, she smacked him sharply across the face. Then she reached to his hair and pulled out a silver ornament, a pretty thing shaped like the demonic huadian on both of their foreheads. Tossing it down, she stomped on it with her bare foot. Even with only the soles of her small feet, the impact was strong enough to break it.

"Useless!" she hissed. "What the fuck was that?"

"It was your stupid idea anyway, I told you I didn’t want to fight," the boy muttered back.

It earned him a hiss, and another smack.

Luo Binghe didn't even realize he'd raised a hand, as if to intervene, until Sha Hualing turned her sharp gaze towards him. He hastily withdrew, unwilling to get into another fight, even if he sympathized with his enemy's treatment. It seemed neither of them would get much in the way of congratulations from their superiors.

Sha Hualing’s expression was assessing, however. As if she too had seen something in him, though Luo Binghe couldn't imagine what.

He didn't have much time to bother trying anyway. His shijie started pulling at him then, visibly anxious. They were still surrounded and outnumbered, and now they were without even the presence of a peak lord to shield them.

Luo Binghe let himself be pulled away, and was moving through the throng of remaining disciples by the time the dishonorable demon hordes finally kept their word, and left.

[24601orwhatever]

I know it can be hard at times to differentiate / spot & name the students in Les Misérables, so here’s a little cheat sheet!

I’m by no means an expert on all of them and obviously there are costume changes between productions & actors so this won’t be perfect… but this should at least be kind of helpful when put alongside their line distributions (though those can and will change depending on the amount of swings on in the show!)

First up: Feuilly! Commonly, he is wearing an orange waistcoat with light (sometimes patterned) grayish pants + a black long-coat and cravat!

notable moments/lines: he is the one to climb the tower during DYHTPS and sing the classic “the blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France” speech; “at rue de bac they’re straining at the leash”, “let them come if they dare, we’ll be there!”, he begins drink with me “sing with me, the songs we knew” (pretty sure he is the non-lead Amis who speaks the most)

Jean Prouvaire (Jehan)! His green is quite a bit more saturated and bright compared to Grantaire. His waistcoat is embroidered with flowers and he wears a (varying shade of) green tailcoat on top. His cravat color changes quite a bit 😭

noteable moments/lines: follows after Feuilly in Drink with me “here’s to pretty girls who go to our heads”, he’s (usually…) the character to steal Grantaire’s drink from him in ABC and run away with it, “so what’re we gonna do with this snake in the grass?”

Joly is like the pastel version of Marius! His coat is a light blue, with his waistcoat a varying shade of blue as well (often with some white detailing)

notable lines: “what’s wrong today, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost!”, “here’s to witty girls who went to our beds”, “here comes a man in uniform, what brings you to this place?”, “theres a boy climbing the barricade!”,

Lesgles or Bossuet is very stylish in his deep red tailcoat and light waistcoat! He also has a wild variety of cravat colors 😭

notable lines: “Look how they turn and run!”, “come back, gavroche, don’t you dare!” , “they will do what is right!”

Courfeyrac is Usually in a striped waistcoat with a deep blue waistcoat… but for whatever reason he’s quite different/inconsistent in the US tour? Luckily, he’s got lots of lines

Notable lines: “make them pay for every man!”, “before we cut the fat ones down to size”, “students, workers, everyone - there’s a river on the run”, “then join in the fight that will give you the right to be free!”, “and if I should die in the fight to be free-“

Combeferre is an easy one: He wears a long brown coat with a (commonly) yellowish waistcoat!

notable lines: “a spy who calls himself javert”, “at Notre Dame the sections are prepared”, “will you join in our crusade-“, “this is where it begins!”, “make them pay through the nose!”

Unfortunately I have no idea where or how to spot Bahorel, or really if he even canonically exists in the new version of the show… I know some actors have referred to themselves as bahorel before, but it feels too inconsistent :/ so just pick whatever unnamed student you’d like to be him I guess!

[gumify]

20/20 feat. toji fushiguro ❝ BOYFRIEND!TOJI NEEDS GLASSES ?! ❞

now playing… blind by role model.

summary. after months of denying his deteriorating eyesight, your boyfriend finally lets you drag him to an optometrist appointment.

tags. boyfriend!toji x fem!reader, fluff, some suggestive parts, established relationship, toddler!megumi being the cutiepie that he is, boyfriend!toji being everything a man should be (hot, blind, and utterly whipped).

wc. 2.6k

note. I ❤️ NERDS

ㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤyou heard that right.

boyfriend!toji, who very clearly needs reading glasses, but would rather take his blurry ass eyesight to the grave before ever accepting it.

boyfriend!toji, who always — always — asks you to read the labels on his food for him to make sure he’s getting the right amount of protein in or whatever. (he claims the tiny letters make his head hurt, but you like to tease and blame it on his age. he never laughs.)

boyfriend!toji, who is never not squinting. it’s pretty easy to see why people think your partner’s so intimidating, considering the fact that his already daunting eyes are narrowed into slits 24/7. most people you encounter on a daily basis probably think he’s internally cursing them… not that he minds. even if he had 20/20 vision, he’d probably be glaring at them anyways.

you first notice it on a night you’re cuddled up and watching a movie with him. boyfriend!toji’s leaned into the corner of your L-shaped couch as you nestle your head against his broad, firm chest — lifting it momentarily to gawk at the devastatingly hot specimen of man currently tracing patterns down your spine with his calloused fingertips. his face is pretty much devoid of any emotion, as it usually is whenever he’s fully relaxed; but you notice his gaze deviate every once in a while from the television, his almond-shaped eyes crinkling at the corners as his jade irises go in and out of focus.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“turn the sound up, dove.” toji murmurs, too comfortable in his current position to even think about reaching for the remote. spotting the way your lips twist into a stubborn (but no less pretty, mind you) pout, he huffs. “... please.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“but ‘m too lazyyy.” you whine.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“so am iii.” he replies, kicking up the pitch of his normally husky voice to playfully match that of your protest.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“hmpf. aren’t you the man, anyways?” you counter, poking him in his pecs to emphasise your point. “all the labourful work’s on you, babe. ‘m literally just a girl.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“thought y’said we should abolish gender roles.” he drawls.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“… not this one.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“that doesn’t sound very fair.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“tojiii!” you roll your eyes, “we don’t even need to turn the volume up — jus’ read the subtitles!”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“ya’ mean the size five ass writing at the bottom of the screen?” he scoffs, “i don’t have x-ray vision, dove.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“x-ray vision wouldn’t even—” you stop yourself short, choosing to save yourself the middle school science lesson and shaking your head at your boyfriend’s antics instead. “the subtitles are perfectly visible. you just need glasses.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“wha—” he sits straight up, sounding almost offended at the accusation. “no i don’t.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“yes you do.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“no i don’t.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“yes you do.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“no i d—”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“it’s past midnight, toj’!” you tut, “last time we turned the volume up this late, we got a noise complaint, remem—”

toji cuts you off by squishing your cheeks together with his thumb and forefinger, forcing your lips into an exaggerated pucker and planting an equally dramatic mwaaah against them with his own.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“do you remember why we had to turn it up in the first place, hm?” he teases, giving you another softer peck before releasing you from his grip. “don’t think it was the movie they were complainin’ about, dove.”

ugh. he always knows how to shut you up.

you make it your life’s mission for the next week to make boyfriend!toji realise just how blind he really is. and you don’t have to do much, seeing as he only further proves your point himself.

for example, boyfriend!toji asks you how many boxes of strawberries you’d like him to pick up at the grocery store one day. too immersed in your morning reading to give him a proper reply, you hold up three fingers from across the room. he comes home with five.

boyfriend!toji misreads a sign on the highway later that weekend — which leads to him taking a wrong exit, and the two of you showing up to your fancy dinner reservation half an hour late. you end up spending date night eating mcdonald’s in the backseat of his volkswagen instead. (greeeat.)

boyfriend!toji damn near kills one of megumi’s friends who’s over for a playdate the following week. the little boy’s mother had talked his ear off at the front door about her son’s plethora of life-threatening allergies — even given him a list she’d taken upon herself to print out beforehand — and he still managed to miss the ‘MAY CONTAIN NUTS’ warning plastered on the chocolate bar in bold red lettering. if you hadn’t come to the rescue, practically diving headfirst into the living room and snatching the confectionary from the child’s grip, you imagine his mother would most definitely have the both of your heads on a platter by now. (phew.)

so boyfriend!toji finally gives in, letting you drag him along to one of your optometrist appointments for a check-up.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“this is dumb.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“just read as many letters as you can from the screen, mr. fushiguro.”

“… what is this, pre-school?”

“toji.”

the man slumps back against the optometrist’s padded chair at the sound of your voice, folding his arms across his chest and giving you a silent little hmpf before doing as he’s told.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“a, f, g, k… e, t, o, d, z… p, m, j, f, l — this is so stupid — n, r, s.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“good. now onto the next level.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“uhhh…” you watch your boyfriend’s everpresent confidence begin to falter at this stage, brows furrowing as he squints against the darkness of the small room. “m… f… c? uhhh, no — that’s an o. wait! actually — a d.”

you stifle a giggle at the scene unfolding before you, and he shoots you a warning glare.

“keep going, mr. fushiguro.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“that’s a… k… then a z…” you swear he’s just making up letters at this point, “and— the fuck, is that a hexagon?!”

with the click of a button, your optometrist fishes out a sheet of paper and slaps it down on the table next to him.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“your prescription will be ready soon.”

boyfriend!toji, who picks up his new glasses the following week — a standard rectangular pair with black frames that you helped him choose.

boyfriend!toji, who quite literally tells you to wait outside as he tries them on for the first time in your shared bedroom, locking the door behind him as if he were going into some sort of top secret mission.

boyfriend!toji, who refuses to come out for the next ten minutes.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“toji, this is ridiculous.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“i look like a fuckin’ incel!”

you give the doorknob another jiggle; yet, still, he doesn’t budge.

“unlock the damn door, fushiguro!” you huff, “i need to get ready for bed!”

a short pause.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“… fine.” you hear your boyfriend murmur. followed by the sound of his footsteps treading closer to the door, the knob turning slowly before he adds, “promise y’er not gonna laugh.”

you roll your eyes, “sure.”

and then the door peels open to reveal… well, what might just be your newest obsession.

the stark black frames do nothing to mask the stubborn blush tinting toji’s cheeks but goddamn, do they compliment the rest of his features well.

they’re not too chunky, nor too thin; just the perfect amount of thickness to emphasise the angles of that strong jawline, those prominent cheekbones, and the pair of brows almost always raised in sinister jest. his eyes also look darker, sharper — if that’s even possible — flecks of emerald in his irises brought to life by the viridescent sheen of the lens.

fuck, your boyfriend’s so hot.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“ya’ think so?”

you blink a couple times, too distracted by the man’s new look to realise you had voiced that last thought fact aloud. but if the way his subtle frown morphs into a shit-eating smirk is anything to go by, he’s most definitely caught on to the effect it has on you.

and oh, does he love it.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“cat got your tongue, dove?” toji hums, the hellish glint in his eyes magnified by the lenses. “c’mooon, say something. y’er lookin’ at me like i’m a piece of damn meat.”

it’s true.

you should be ashamed of the way you’re blatantly staring at him as if you’re a hormonal middle schooler catching a glimpse of the opposite gender for the first time — but you can’t find it in yourself to care. not when your man looks this fine. and certainly not when it’s already taking everything in you to keep your jaw from dropping onto the ground and drooling all over the place.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“still nothin’?” toji pouts mockingly. “aw, y’er breakin’ my heart here. don’t tell me my girl doesn’t want me anymore?”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“shut up, toj’.”

he pushes the glasses further up the bridge of his nose. a statement.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“or you must reaaally like ‘em, huh? got ya’ all speechless and i didn’t even do anything. but i bet you’d just looove to—”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“toji.”

he raises a brow. a challenge.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“bed. now.” you blurt out, much to the protest — or could it be encouragement? — of your own deafening pulse. you bite your lip before adding, “… n’ keep the glasses on.”

again, toji smirks. that goddamn smirk.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“yes, ma’am.”

truth be told, neither you nor boyfriend!toji could have anticipated the effects of a pair of measly glasses. (five rounds, then another two in the shower, actually.) but one thing’s for certain — now, he wears them around with a newfound pride.

the first time boyfriend!toji comes home from a particularly challenging job not only battered and bruised, but battered and bruised in his equally damaged glasses, your eyeballs almost pop out of their fuckin’ sockets. he stands in the doorway with his chest heaving; one of the lenses of his glasses cracked; slashes of crimson adorning his brow, cheek, and even that signature scar decorating his now-bloody lips. you have no idea whether to feel concerned, or truly deplorable amounts of turned on — probably a little bit of both. and that you most definitely are.

when boyfriend!toji lets you pick out his outfit for dinner at your parents’ house, you’re practically bouncing off the walls in excitement. you land on a safe option — a creamy knit sweater that hugs his muscular build oh-so deliciously, paired with some black slacks and, of course, his glasses. he looks so… sophisticated like this, you think. so handsome. you can barely keep your eyes off him for more than two seconds as he helps your father clear the table and converses with your mother over a glass of merlot.

and don’t even get you started on megumi’s recently developed habit of climbing atop boyfriend!toji’s lap to toy with the frames in his lil’ hands. the sight alone is enough to make you melt — every. single. time. and even more so when the kid decides to steal the glasses off of his father to wonkily place them on himself, giving you a gap-toothed grin across the room as you feel your heart swell at the uncanny resemblance.

see, these are only some of the very many reasons you happen to love boyfriend!toji’s new at-home look… though for him, it all comes down to one thing.

boyfriend!toji comes to this epiphany a couple of weeks after his first trip to the optometrist. megumi’s sleeping over at a friend’s place, so you and him decided to make the most out of the free night. namely, by hitting a swanky new speakeasy in town and letting loose for once in a blue moon.

alas, boyfriend!toji’s not the drinker he used to be — which means you’re nursing the man back home after no more than three and a half whiskey highballs at the ripe ol' time of 10pm.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“fuuuck, my head’s spinnin’.”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“ya’ big baby.” you tease, earning a distasted scowl from your boyfriend. “okay, okay - where are your glasses? ‘s not helping that you can’t see straight enough sober.”

toji barely manages an “mph.” in reply, murmuring something that vaguely sounds like “— bedroom… top drawer…” before slumping against the couch like a giant ragdoll.

by the time you return with his glasses in hand, he’s still letting out tipsy grumbles into the empty air. drama queen, you think, walking up ‘til you’re right in front of him and bending down to meet him at eye-level from his position on the couch to slide them into place yourself.

your heart does the usual thing it does whenever you see toji in his glasses — or toji at all, for that matter — and the way he’s looking at you through his thick lashes and heavy-lidded gaze isn’t helping.

immediately, something clicks.

toji’s eyes widen enough behind the lenses for you to see his pupils dilate, and before you know it, he’s got your face cradled in his hands.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“toj’—”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“my god, woman…”

he’s nothing short of mystified. your brows knit in confusion at his sudden change in demeanour, but he’s too lost in his own mind — in you — to offer any sort of explanation.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“have you always been this pretty?”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“w— what?”

you’re unable to suppress the giggle forming in your chest at toji’s words, but he’s being dead serious. you cock your head to the side ever so slightly and he gifts you with a light peck on the corner of your lips.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“i mean it.” he says so sincerely it almost makes you wonder what the fuck has gotten into him. (most probably the highballs, but you digress.)

he doesn’t even look tipsy anymore. well, not on the alcohol, at least. he pushes his glasses to the bridge of his nose, the stare framed oh-so prettily behind them now beyond blown out. his hands are so big yet so gentle; able to ghost the slopes of your facial features with his thumbs whilst still keeping your face still and focussed on him at the same time.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“y’make me feel so lucky, dove…”

you start to shy away under the intensity of it all, but toji doesn’t let up. his eyes are everywhere — it’s as if he’s searching for something; or, better yet, memorising it.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“the most beautiful thing i’ve ever seen…”

it’s been too long since he’s gotten a chance to look at you; really look at you — the subtle beauty marks that sprinkle your skin, the lines decorating the outer corners of your pretty eyes and lips that serve as a testament of all the times he’s made you smile, and all the other tiny details that make you… well, you — in all of your 20/20 glory.

it always feels like the first time.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“i love you s’much, my beautiful girl.” he kisses the words into your skin, each one as reverent as the last. “never forget it.”

boyfriend!toji, who makes sure to get his eyes checked at least twice a year now — because there’s no chance in hell he’s letting himself miss out on any of this again. ㅤ

© GUMIFY 2024 do not steal, replicate, or modify my work.

[bellyyearner]

Office life at 550+ lbs

Word count: 1061

Extreme obesity, mobility issues, work environment, feedee perspective

No gender mentioned POV

Being a working feedee is hard sometimes, especially when your gain slows down to a snails pace despite how much you've been eating. In the last 3 years you've only put on another 40lbs, but you have an easy job that pays the bills and allows you to live comfortably so you can't complain too much. The only part of this job you hate though, is the journey inside.

As you exit your car you can already feel the sweat forming between your rolls, it's been taking a few tries lately to stand up after swinging your hefty left leg out onto the concrete. You've even questioned if you should bring your car to the shop to check the suspension just in case your fat ass crashing back down onto the driver seat a half dozen times a day might be causing issues. At the very least you were thankful for your personal parking spot only being about 250ft from the elevator up to the office floor. Only 100ft from the buildings entrance and the cold AC running throughout the building.

And so you begin your slow pendulous waddle, thighs scraping against each other with every step, causing so much friction your jeans always have a distinct wear pattern only a couple weeks after buying them. One foot infront the other you waddle, repeating the laboured motion as your breath grows heavy and your belly slaps against the tops of your thighs. Halfway to the door now you hear the clicking of heels against the concrete, 2 interns whizzing by you without a word. You can't even imagine moving as fast as they do, or why they'd even want to move that fast in the first place. Your sense of urgency left you a couple hundred pounds ago.

Another 20 heavy steps later you reach the door, a mailman on the other side who was about to leave opens it for you, clearly staring at your mammoth size and brow covered in sweat. You make it inside and can barely catch your breath to say thank you before he's gone. The AC graces your hot sweaty skin and you feel relief, you spot your double wide chair HR had fought to get installed for you last year, and plop down on it with a huff. All there's left to do is catch your breath for a couple minutes, walk 60 steps through the lobby, turn right, walk 10 steps to the elevator, a minute of standing, and another 30 steps to your cubicle. Where you will then chow down on a couple snacks you brought and rehydrate before looking at spreadsheets and grazing on more food for 8 hours. A routine you had grown so accustomed to that it became second nature.

You look at the handle bar bolted into the wall and remember when you found it insulting, but now it was a necessity. Gripping the bar you start to stand hoping a second try isn't needed because of how many people were in the lobby. You can feel your heart quake and your knees whine but thankfully you hauled your lard laden ass off the seat in one attempt.

The second journey begins and the heavy waddle ensues, gut bouncing, thighs scraping, mouth open and breathing loudly enough that you're attracting attention. You try to ignore their stares but it's only fueling your appetite, already making a mental list of what you're going to grab from the vending machine once you get off the elevator. A few minutes later you round the corner and take the final few steps only to notice a sign on the elevator. You can't read it yet but you can feel your heart sinking already. It can't be right? They would've told you. They would've sent an email or a text. "Out of order".

Panic sets in, you can't climb 4 flights of stairs, you bought a one story house for good reason, you haven't had to climb more than a curb in years at this point. Your mind is growing frantic as you feel the burden your legs are under grow stronger, anticipating if you're really gonna be expected to climb the stairs.

Your phone buzzes, a text from Susy in HR

"Hey! I'm so sorry 'your name', this just happened like an hour ago and I totally forgot to tell you. The elevator is having some major issues and we don't know when it'll be fixed. I dug up that old paper work you filed 6 months ago about work from home and I'm gonna push it through asap! I've sent Lucy downstairs with a work laptop for you to bring home, just take a couple days off while we get all the paperwork in order."

Relief washes over you as you hear the distinct clicking of heels coming down the stairs. You steady your breath and try to seem unfazed, almost certain you look ridiculous.

Lucy: "Hey 'your name', here's your laptop and a cherry cola, figured you would need it before heading back to your car ;). You know I'm gonna miss seeing you around here, less stuff to talk about and no one to gawk at. You have my number so just let me know if you need me to come over to help you adjust"

A quick farewell and her heels were clicking back up the stairs, but all you could think about was how you're never gonna see the inside of that office again. With no where to go and no decency to be upheld there was no reason you wouldn't finally break 600lbs. You chug the Cola, wanting to make one final show for the coworkers and acquaintances you've made over the years, and start the final journey, one to immobility.

With a gassy belly swaying from side to side, your humongous thighs atop fattened lard laden calves carry you through the lobby one last time. Not even trying to hide your burps and groans you walk out of the building, skipping the chair by the door you once saw as a refuge. Thoughts of what takeout you're gonna get delivered and a quickly growing Walmart order forming in your mind as you slowly waddle through the parking lot one last time. All fueled by the dream of being an immobile work from home piggy

Part 2

[oli150]

How does Jockification take place? It usually starts very subtly, maybe you start to notice weird behavioural patterns, maybe you no longer like your clothing and find greater appeal to wearing sports gear. Before you know it you're lying in your bed jerking off more and more and with every climax you fall deeper and deeper into jockification. This is what happened to the straight A nerd Christopher.

Christopher was extremely proud of his achievements in academia he was a true braniac and a massive teachers pet studying Economics in University now. One day though Christopher was walking back home and bumped into his classmate, a total jock called Mike, Mike was a business student and only shared one other module with Christopher in Economics... but Mike clearly got in on a sports scholarship... Christopher always wondered how his bully got into a business degree...

"yo! what's up Kris Brah huhuuh!" Shouted the jock in a very dumb tone. Christopher rolled his eyes years of being intimidated and bullied by Mike finally boiled over as Christopher said "My name is not Kris, it's Christopher... how many times do I have to tell you this? And we're not bros! You bully me on a regular basis!"

The dumb meathead just chuckled and said "maybe if you didn't act like a pent up nerd, you wouldn't be such an easy target huhuhuhu... but don't worry *you'll be such a good dumb bro like me soon huhuhu*" after saying that Mike just walked off leaving Christopher to think over what he just heard.

Next day Christopher woke up, he still was contemplating his encounter with Mike the other day... "You'll be such a good dumb bro like me soon"... is he mad? questioned Christopher... then he approached his closet and looking through his clothes he thought how unremarkable and boring they were... maybe he should invest in something more comfier then these buttoned up shirts and jeans are becoming more and more uncomfortable... surely he could get a pair of sweatpants and t-shirts to walk around in... maybe even get some gym shorts and a tank top...

"gym shorts and a tank top?... why would I wear those I don't even go to the gym..." he got weirded out by this thought as he'd never have contemplated wearing gym shorts and a tank top... but he didn't give much thought to it and went off to college in a fresh buttoned up shirt and jeans.

After class Christopher was returning back home, he was thinking of maybe going to the library after coming back and getting some lunch at his dorm, however his thoughts soon shifted to a desire to walk into one of the sports shops he was passing by. He walked right into the shop and bought a bunch of gym clothes without a thought, only realising what he did when he arrived back to his room

"why did I buy all this stuff?? I never wear any of this and now I have like 5 pairs of gym shorts and tank tops!" Christopher soon felt a desire to put the clothes on, "actually maybe on second thought I might put it on..." he put on the gear... figures he bought gym gear 2 sizes larger then his for some reason... but wearing it felt really good...

Christopher became very aroused quickly which took him off guard as he rarely jerked off and it was usually when he wanted... this time he became erect almost without thinking about it... he lay down on his bed and started vigorously jerking his 3" pole soon cumming all over his new black tank top. "Ugh... guess I have to wash it now huhuhu..." He didn't realise how dumb he sounded after his climax... he also didn't realise as his body became more defined as he began to have an outline of a six pack on his stomach, his dick also grew from 3" to 5"... Christopher thought where he wanted to go before he came back from his classes... the library was it?... nah he thought of going to the gym instead...

After coming back from the gym Christopher was a sweaty, smelly, horny mess... usually he'd jump right under his shower to wash the smell off but instead he flopped himself on his bed to satisfy his lustful dick in his new gym shorts. He started jerking off, his grunts and moans became more audible, his voice became deeper and deeper his balls began to fill up and expand with testosterone, lust and extremely viral cum. He blew yet another load onto his gym clothes out of his now 7" dick but he saw that he was still very horny so proceed to jerk off again..

This time he didn't notice as his muscles began to expand while her jerked off. He now had a cobblestone six pack of abs on him, two huge dominating pecs protruding out of his chest. His arms pumped up from useless twigs into two beefed up weightlifters while his legs became so muscular that you'd never even know that Christopher never ran a mile in his life. His face shifted also and became extremely well defined and moisturised, his pimples evaporating into nothing as he lay there jerking his rod... which now finally expanded into a 10" cum cannon. Christopher finally came, this climax leaving him looking like a jock.... Now all he needed was to embrace being a jock mentally...

After opening his eyes from the climax Christopher noticed how he was now lying naked on his bed covered in cum in an extremely hot body... Which turned him on again as he grabbed his rod without thinking about it.

As he jerked off he began to smile and laugh but then something hit him... "Wha... what is happening to me?? I look... like a jock??... I... I am a nerd?!" He said panting between the words, he tried to stop jerking off but to no avail... it was like his body wanted to jerk off and his mind couldn't stop it...

As soon as his mind tried to put any resistance to the Jockification process it started to change... it began to be assaulted as all of Christopher's current knowledge began to be drained into his balls. His mind now said that he was a football player on the Uni team and he was doing a business degree. He only got into college cause of his sports prowess on the gridiron in his high school. He loved football as well as all sports... but particularly football... him and his best bro Mike played together on their high school team and usually fucked after every practice in the steaming showers when all the other teammates left, "that was the best part of practice huhuhu" he thought to himself... of course now he was called Kris... Christopher was such a nerdy name and Kris was no nerd...

"buh... but I am a nerd!..." Christopher has a brief moment of lucidity, his scared and anxious eyes looking around trying to stop what was happening to him... to no avail... he finally closed his eyes and when he opened them again they were full of cockiness and lust "I'm such a fucking BRO!" He shouted as he thrust a large wad of cum out of his cum slinger solidifying his new persona.

With cum and sweat still all over him Kris grabbed his phone and immediately texted his bro Mike "yo Mike... you coming to practice tonight?" To which Mike responded "I see you've finally become dumb a bro huhuhu! fuck ye bro! Wouldn't want to skip the post-practice 'workout' session with you huhuhu!"

Kris playfully smirked at the text from his bro... he knew he'd enjoy this evening with Mike today... he loved their little rendezvous after practice in the locker room... yea he was finally such a dumb jock... such a dumb bro huhuhuu:

[paddlescuddlesbubblesgurgles]

A Series Of Firsts

I remember the first time my scale read ‘error’. It ticked up to 408lbs and then the dreaded letters appeared. 

I remember the first time I ate enough for more than 3 people. Just 3 is somewhat common for me. 

I remember the first time my knees hurt just from trying to stand up. I’m really heavy. That was 40lbs ago. 

I remember the first time I became so full my overhang was lifted slightly off my fatpad. So full I was distended to absurdity. 

I remember the first time I learned if I lifted up my gut with my arms, it relieved my lower back pain. 

I remember the first time a chair broke beneath my weight, I would also end up breaking a couch, and a bed. Then a toilet cracked beneath my weight. 

I remember the first time a car noticeably sunk and the metal squealed when I sat inside it, and then the reverse when I got out.

I remember the first time my belly popped a button off a shirt, then it would rip one. Same for my waist breaking buttons off pants, and my thighs ripped holes in the legs. I have also destroyed a few pairs of underwear when I’ve sat down.

I remember the first time I realized my chest is bigger than many others’ chests. Usually mine are bigger. 

I remember the first time my side profile in the mirror shocked me. Can I be this wide? That is constant now.

I remember the first time I became winded just bending over it squatting down for longer than a minute or two. 

I remember the first time someone implied I need an extended mechanical grabber to pick things up because I’m so fat that my belly prevents me. 

I remember the first time I realized I’m getting too fat for easy penetration. 

I remember the first time I needed to lift up my belly and get my arm underneath it to pleasure myself. 

I remember the first time I was so stuffed full I couldn’t reach. My belly was stopping my completely no matter the position.

I remember the first time I realized nothing in most clothing stores fits me. I cannot shop in person usually. 

I remember the first time I outgrew my favorite shirt. This happens constantly now. 

I remember the first time I was out of breath from simply standing up after stuffing myself. This would create an inescapable pattern.

I remember the first time I ate an entire cake at once. I actually bought 2, couldn’t finish the second. 

I remember the first time I ate so much I fell asleep trying to digest it. An extra large pizza from a local place that I ate 90% of. 

I remember the first time I cured my insomnia by eating so much I couldn’t stay awake. 

I remember the first time I learned my body was desirable, that there are people who love pigs. They love gigantic, overfed bellies. 

I remember the first time I started trying to belch to make more room inside my gut. Pretty much every meal now. 

I remember the first time I realized a single thigh of mine is bigger than most people’s entire torsos. My belly can threaten someone’s entire body in size. 

I remember the first time I ate 15 cookies in a row. Regular habit now. 

I remember the first time someone told me to count calories and start overeating every meal. I had 7-10k every single day for 12 days straight. 

I remember the first time I ate enough for 8 people. An entire pizza, and 3 entrees completely inside my belly, with a 2 liter Diet Coke. 

I remember the first time I ate so much I couldn’t swallow anymore, and my jaw hurt, and I was actively fighting to keep it down. More common now. 

I remember the first time I ate an entire tailgater tray from a fast food restaurant. 

I remember the first time I ate 8 combos worth of food. Almost the entire menu. 

I remember the first time I smothered someone with just my belly. Completely enveloped their head in my overhang. 

I remember the first time someone made fun of me and called me fat in public. Unprompted stranger. That hurt. 

I remember the first time I wanted my belly to hang to my knees, and become so much bigger than it is now. That was 30lbs ago or so. 

I remember the first time I considered myself too fat, too heavy for myself.

I remember the first time I strongly considered going much further past my max weight, just because someone asked me to.

I remember the first time I outgrew a measuring tape. Those 60”s just aren’t enough for my body now. 

I remember the first time I realized I am living to eat. 

[vampire-connoisseur]

Since 2025 is apparently the year of the no-buy and the stash down, I have a very controversial opinion.

I think "using up your stash" is barely an improvement to just continually buying new yarn. The idea comes from a good place, but when the goal becomes reducing the size of your yarn stash, it just becomes a challenge to use what you have any way possible so you can buy more.

If you don't particularly want a granny square blanket, you probably shouldn't use pristine skeins to make one. Same thing with cabled beanies or what have you. When you start trying to use up your stash, instead of just limiting yourself to knitting with mostly yarn you already own, the goal can become to burn through it as fast as possible chasing the feeling of progress, instead of ending up with useful things that you or people in your life will love. If you knit a hat and then never wear it, it isn't actually any better than not knitting the hat at all, in terms of waste.

I honestly think yarn should not be such a defining feature of the hobby. I think it holds inherent excitement because a new skein could become anything, we automatically feel interest and desire for new skeins, and it has the same dopamine fountain properties as other forms of shopping, but it probably isn't good for most of us. When the most exciting part is buying the skein, and then using it becomes an obligation, the joy of knitting and crochet is reduced to consumerism.

Yarn is beautiful and exciting to me, but I'm really trying to change the way I see it. Instead of an exciting blank slate, I'm trying to teach myself to view yarn as a companion. I don't want yarn to be what excites me, because then the hunger for more of it never goes away. I'm glad when I run out of a beautiful yarn because it means I can buy more. Buying is the reward. New yarn is a treat. I don't want that to be part of my life, though. I'm trying to see yarn as enabling the project, and if anything the pattern as the exciting component. When I knit, I try to focus on the work itself, the properties of the finished object and what it will be for, and the techniques I'm learning or practicing, instead of my progress through the yarn.

It's difficult because often inspiration comes from the yarn, and yarn is something that all knitters and crocheters can share an enjoyment of regardless of experience level, style, or time investment, but I still think it's doing more harm than good.

When I buy yarn, I want to be thinking about all the time I'm going to be spending with it. I'm going to be touching it, carrying it with me, frogging it, measuring it, finding patterns for it, and examining it as I knit it up. I will probably use it for multiple projects, at the very least in scrap form, and it will probably lead me to consider buying more yarn of a similar weight and fiber content to use in conjunction with it. That's what I mean when I say it should be a companion instead of a commodity. It goes with you and you pull projects out of it; you don't transform it into projects and move on.

I don't want to use yarn I thought I would love in patterns that don't make me happy and that no one in my life particularly wants. I want yarn to be a resource, rather than a burden. If there are no projects I want to make with my existing yarn, I should save it for later or find another owner for it. I don't want to choose projects out of obligation to yarn I have so that I can make the space to buy more.

Part of me wonders if the emphasis on yarn has amplified the boom in very plain knitting patterns. I can't speak to crochet, but I know that the most popular patterns on ravelry and among knitting youtubers are very simple stockinette pullovers or plain ribbed beanies or something else that is very quick and easy to make and doesn't challenge your knitting capabilities. It could just be because these are what become wardrobe staples, but I also know that a lot of non-knitters wear complex cabled and lacy sweaters and cardigans on a daily basis, including very fashionable people. These simple patterns emphasize yarn choice and let you process stashed yarn faster, but how many people knitting them would rather have a more complex piece, and just don't feel inclined to dedicate the time to one sweater when it could be used to make three?

Anything that slows down your purchasing will be beneficial to your finances and environmental impact, but I think an even greater change in perspective than what you get from a buy ban is in order. You may learn what yarns you actually enjoy or become more creative or experiment with new techniques, but that doesn't actually address the supposed materialism or consumerism issues regarding how we engage with our hobby.

I honestly don't know if building a stash should be a goal or common practice at all. I know all the defenses; I think it makes sense to want to save yarn if your finances are unpredictable, but I think this is a separate issue not really related to the topic of stashing generally. That is either a sensible behavior in a situation that a lot of people with massive craft hoards are not in, or a maladaptive response to traumatic experiences. Either way, saving yarn when you get your hands on it is different from building a "mindful stash" or knitting to use up what you have as fast as possible.

I know a lot of people reason that if you have what you need to create on hand, you can make things more easily, but there are so many limitations of material, quantity, weight, and color that knitting from stash for many people is just an additional challenge (I know for amigurumi artists this is not really the case) and when you have a large stash, it becomes a question of whether you can use it before your tastes change. I know I have a lot of aran weight yarn I don't really know what to do with.

I don't think we should use shopping for joy or comfort. I suspect we would be happier if we almost exclusively bought yarn we planned on using immediately. I saw a youtuber turn an entire advent calendar into a granny square blanket in the name of "stash busting," and maybe she really treasures that blanket now, but if not, I don't see why it had to be "busted" in the first place.

Maybe our engagement with yarn should take the form of reading up on our material options, building lists of specific things we want to try, or following whatever source of yarn is within our budget-- not to seek out deals or new releases, but to get a sense of what our options will be when we do decide to replenish our supply. Instead of looking at skeins of yarn and indulging or fighting a drive to snap them up before they're taken away from you, we could try to translate the skein from a visual and textural experience in the moment into the entire course of working with the yarn. We should imagine the experience of working with it and the finished objects we can pull from it.

I think making fewer finished objects would be okay, as long as each one was worth more to us. Using less yarn on the same budget would also let us try fancier yarns. And when shopping for deals, it's worth remembering that the qualities of the yarn are not what you are bargaining for, but the enjoyment and utility you get per dollar. Even very expensive yarn that you get for cheap and then rush through using is only worth the fun you got from using it and the pleasure the finished object brings you or others (unless you sell the FO).

Joy from shopping is very temporary and sometimes comes as a loan when the purchase becomes a burden and we miss our money and time. I think shopping for fun, especially online, is an inefficient way to get value for our money at best and a maladaptive behavior at worst. I'm curious how often we buy yarn for the act of searching and buying instead of because we want a new yarn in our lives, and I'm curious how doing so impacts how we engage with our hobby.

TL;DR: I think a lot of people have a shopping problem, not a hoarding problem. I think no-buy time and working from stash will not resolve the underlying issues, and I think different behaviors would make us happier.

My mind could be changed, but these are my thoughts right now.

[tkpuke]

23 and jayvik pretty please :3

Jayce + Viktor - 23. “Yes…I mean, no!”

author’s note: okay so the plot for this was heavily inspired by @ticklish-ghost , @home-of-the-squirmle and I’s discussion on one of their posts so why not make it into a fic okay? okay cool

It was nearing midnight, the only light shining into the lab through the curtains was the moon and its luminescent stars scattered around the sky. Viktor perched an elbow on the table, leaning his cheek on his hand while reading a book that could hold answers to have them move forward with their project. They were close, but it seemed like they were met with a dead end. Scientists don’t take those lightly, so they hungrily search for other possibilities and correct their mistakes on what went wrong.

He doesn’t have a clue on his partner’s whereabouts, but he’s not going to waste time searching for him. Usually Viktor takes the extra mile and works on projects a little more than he’s suppose to. He tends to struggle with the definition of teamwork when he’s been mostly alone his entire childhood, so he has no issue working alone while Jayce heads off for other duties or sleeps at a healthy time compared to Viktor’s sleep schedule.

It was peaceful and quiet. Viktor treasures nights like these. Until something was dropped beside him, creating a loud thunk.

“Look what I made.” A voice suddenly spoke out from behind, it belonging to Jayce which made Vitkor nearly jump a foot from his chair. “Jesus Christ—Jaycewhendidyougethere-“ He looked beside him to see what was dropped, picking it up to examine. An iron knife in the perfect size to fit in your pocket, the ends in a twisted pattern to make it look a little stylish. His face doesn’t show it, but Viktor is slightly impressed. There is no interest in him for weapons, but when it’s created so clean and perfected by Jayce himself, he can’t help but be in awe.

He then puts the knife down, finally meeting Jayce’s eyes. “Another tool that will never be used for its purpose.” Clear to say Jayce has made a couple of tools, most having the same theme: sharp and dangerous. He never uses them, as Viktor stated, but Jayce always gives the ‘you never know’ excuse. In reality the man just gets bored out of his mind at times and gets these random surges of creativity to go down and make any toys his heart desires. Who wouldn’t if they had the skill to properly do so?

Viktor’s eyes started to register that Jayce is full on shirtless right in front of him, muscles exposed and pumped to its core from all the wielding. It never really dawned on him how strong of a guy Jayce is, feeling a bit fragile and small the more he compared his own build to him. How easy it could be for Jayce to effortlessly pin him. How he could take away Viktor’s right to squirm by simply sitting on his waist. How he could be picked up with one singular arm by Jayce with zero sweat.

Jayce caught on to his more than five second stare. Viktor noticed.

He took attention to the soot covered all over Jayce’s upper body, taking that as an explanation of his longing stare. “You’re dirty. Here, sit.” Viktor nudged his head over to a nearby chair, heading over to grab a cloth that will soon be damped with water and soap. “Oh, thank you. You really don’t have to.” Jayce chuckles all flustered in appreciation by Viktor’s care, taking the seat anyway. Viktor comes back, starting to dab the cloth on his shoulders while he works his way down. “Hmph, I’ve seen you sleep before in this state. Least I can do is help you get cleaned up.”

“Hey, I get too exhausted sometimes!” Jayce replies defensively, but gives a soft smile at the end. He grabs the knife he created earlier, fingers feeling around it. “You have to admit, this one looks a bit cooler than the others I have made.” Viktor nods in somewhat agreement, now focusing on the upper chest to clean off. “You can keep it, if you want to of course.”

Viktor shakes his head, not meeting Jayce’s eyes while conversing. “There’s no need for me to have it, but thank you for your…kind offer.”

“You’re keeping it.” Jayce responds back with, putting it on top of the open book Vitkor was previously reading so he won’t forget to take it with him. The other only sighs, being aware it’s a losing battle to argue with Jayce when he’s so set on gifting someone something they’ve never asked for. It’s one of the man’s many love languages: giving gifts.

His hand started moving down more, getting near his upper ribs. A quick shift of change in Jayce’s demeanor, beginning to have trouble sitting still like before and biting down his lip hard. Viktor catches on. Of course he did when he begin to rub the cloth against his body more gently, hoping it sent a ticklish shockwave. Revenge was right in front of him from all the times Viktor was ruthlessly, in his opinion, tickled silly by Jayce who never shot down an opening opportunity to do so. Little to Jayce’s knowledge, Viktor has been seeking out opportunities himself to get back. The whole idea of touch is just a subject he awkwardly moves around in, never having someone so playful and lovingly touchy like Jayce in his life.

With the way Jayce was squirming and huffing air out of his nose to suppress the giggles forming in his throat, it fueled newfound confidence in Viktor’s actions. He took it a step further, pretending a spot of soot around Jayce’s ribs was giving him difficulty to rub off, so he pressed his fingers deeper while curling them a little.

Not expecting the firmer touch along with feeling nails through the cloth gliding around his ribs freely, a surprised gasp slips out. Small giggles came right after, instinctively grabbing ahold of Viktor’s wrist. Viktor raises a brow, feigning confusion. “Sorry, does this tickle?”

“Yes…I mean, no!” Jayce got too distracted from the ticklish grazes that the question failed to register on time for him to think of an answer that may save his dignity. Viktor nudges Jayce’s firm grip off of his wrist, and he hesitantly does so. His partner looks up, doing incredibly well on not cracking a smile to foil his true intentions. “Yes? No? Which one is it?”

Jayce finds Viktor’s calmness to a newfound discovery nerve-racking, wishing he could read his mind right then and there. This is the first time Viktor has ever tried to tickle Jayce, but the poor man truly believes it was done on accident. He’s been so use to Viktor taking his ticklish onslaughts like a champ and never immediately attacking back, or even days later. Jayce had his own assumption that Viktor would never live up fully to his playfulness and do so much as tickle him back. The guy doesn’t even complete Jayce’s friendly hugs most of the time by wrapping his own arms around him, just kind of standing there until he pulls away.

So that’s why Jayce is sitting here, staring into Viktor’s questioning eyes, not knowing exactly on how to respond. He decides to lie, feeling like there’s no use in telling the truth if Viktor won’t indulge a little more.

“Um, just a little. Felt weird mostly.” He so badly does a terrible job of convincing. He releases a quiet held back sigh, not knowing if it was out of relief or disappointment when Viktor continued on cleaning after not questioning him a bit more. Viktor created a pattern, dragging the cloth and his fingers across Jayce’s skin that wasn’t ticklish at all. Then in the middle of doing so, he would press more firmly and curl his fingers again just enough for his nails to graze.

Jayce is terrible at holding in his giggles, making weird ‘kcchh!’ noises and sometimes letting a couple out for a few seconds but in a whisper tone as if Viktor isn’t right in front of him to hear them all. “You’re giggling a lot for someone who claims to just be a little ticklish.” Viktor nonchalantly states, placing a hand on top of Jayce’s shoulder to keep him steady. Jayce was about to do another failed attempt of denying until that pattern Viktor was doing met down around his stomach.

Jayce snorts, instantly slapping a hand to cover his mouth in shock as Viktor pauses his movements. His mouth twitches upward for a split second, almost smiling from Jayce’s flushed cheeks. “Oh, so it does tickle.”

“Viktor, wait—“

“You lied to me?”

“Nononono, it’s just that—“

“No need to explain yourself, Jayce. I’ll be careful.” You’d have to be dumb to not practically hear the smile in Viktor’s tone. Both of them, and if anyone else were to be in that room, would very much know that Victor won’t be ‘careful’. Viktor kept up that god forsaken pattern again, but this time letting it tickle Jayce more frequently than it cleaning.

He observed Jayce’s reactions, testing out different areas around his stomach and what brought out a louder reaction than the other. Fingers curling to the middle of his stomach earned him a full boisterous laugh. Nearing his belly button made him receive laughs that shot an octave higher with an occasional whistle coming from the gap of his two front teeth. Cleaning over his belly button made Jayce snort again, a noise Viktor was seeking out for.

Jayce’s rambunctious laugh got Viktor stuck in a trance. How it’s so loud it can be heard from all over Piltover. Jayce’s high pitch snorts coming out only when Viktor tickles somewhere particularly more sensitive. His eyes being closed shut, a random push to Viktor’s face as if it’ll tone down the ticklish sensations. Viktor now understands Jayce completely. He doesn’t want to stop the fun and hearing the flow of his laugh, everything so mesmerizing and ridiculously childish. Viktor could do this all day. 

Two hands grab Viktor’s wrists while a leg kicked out when he dragged the cloth over his belly button again, shaking his head. “Hohold on plehehease!”

Viktor scoffed. “Stop being a baby. I’m not doing anything.” But it was clear as day everything was now being done with purpose. Hands still holding onto Viktor’s wrists, Jayce takes the granted time to catch his breath. “Hehehe…ohohokay, I am one hundred percent sure I’m clean now.”

Viktor tsked, watching him take in air like he ran a marathon. “I think you might be more ticklish than me, Jayce. Isn’t that something?” Jayce abruptly stares at him, peeved. “Ohoho, is that what you think? Let’s put it to the test then.”

Viktor is now the one grabbing at Jayce’s wrists, pushing with all his might out of reach. “No, Jayce! Stop!” Jayce manages to skitter across Viktor’s side, earning him a squeak that he’s terribly embarrassed of. Jayce relishes it.

“What are you, a mouse?” He teases, letting Viktor push his hands away so he can feel like he’s having the upper hand ever so often just to play fair. Viktor stops his attempts of fighting back, shooting a glare but meanwhile grinning. “At least I don’t snort like a pig.”

Viktor just sealed his own coffin shut. “Oh, is that how you want to play?” Jayce gets up from his spot, startling Viktor. He picks him up with ease, showing no effect of Viktor’s shoves and shouts to be put down at once. Jayce lays him down on the couch softly, a location Viktor is all too familiar with by how frequent Jayce pins him down and tickles him mercilessly whenever Viktor, in Jayce’s words, deserves it.

Jayce does not attack right away, taking the time out of pure entertainment to watch him struggle a bit as if by some miracle today is the day Viktor manages to escape Jayce’s evil clutches.

He’s already giggling. “Jahayce, I am telling you now. Do not.” He manages to sit up a bit, hoping to level with Jayce more and seem convincingly threatening when his cold glare meets his eyes.

Jayce’s hands started slowly moving downwards.

“I now know where you’re most ticklish. I promise you, I will not be gentle when my next chance comes if you dare to do this.”

A leap of excitement was felt in Jayce’s heart at those words, causing him to smile and shrug before drilling into Viktor’s hips.

“I can live with that.”

[caninescreations]

Nine Years, Nine Months, and Nine Days

it's late so i'll edit the post later and make an AO3 link when im not sososo so sleepy. no title BUT i did piggyback this idea off that one anon who proposed cat!stan but back in New Jersey to @dark-lord-of-awesomeness and i was like... "yeah i can take a crack at that"

creative liberties taken with the premise, though, and absolutely NONE of this is beta read. did it all in two late-night sessions. you get spellcheck and that's about it, baybee

1963 Stanford and his brother were nine when it happened. There had been an old woman on the boardwalk, layered in crocheted shawls and cardigans despite the muggy September weather, her snow-white hair pulled tight in a braided bun at the top of her head like a head of cauliflower. She had the sort of puckered face that belonged to people who don't know what smiling is, and probably never did, and she had been parked square on a bench where the sand met the street, tossing breadcrumbs to seagulls that hovered in the air around her but did not seem to want to land. By her side was a carpet bag almost as big as she was, sitting open and overfilling with myriad items. Sheafs of patterned papers, browning flowers, one iridescent beetle that tried to clamber out before her wrinkled hands nudged it back inside.

He thinks it was the beetle, really, that started it. The both of them had been so fixated on its size and color, and so confused as to why an old woman would even have a bug in her bag. Stanford wanted to examine it, to see if it was a species he knew. Stanley just wanted to know how heavy it was, and maybe if it could fly, too.

"If she catches me," Stanley had said with a clever grin, a small crab cradled expertly in his palm, "then I'll just say I saw a crab tryn'a nab her snacks."

Stanford had nodded along, agreed with the logic.

The old woman had been keener than either of them had expected, though. Stanley's arm had only gone elbow-deep into the bag, barely time to root around for the beetle, when her bony fingers had snatched him up and pulled him to front, too fast for Stanford to intervene.

"Thieving little paws best keep to themselves, young man."

"I wasn't thievin' nothing!" Stanley had protested. "I- I saw a crab in your purse. Thought it woulda scared you out of your old-lady skin like a cartoon skeleton if you saw it."

"Well, aren't you sweet?" She'd let him go, then, his wrist red from the force of her grip. "Such a considerate little thing ought to be rewarded as he deserves."

She'd produced from her sleeve then something small and shiny that crinkled. A piece of candy, sort of brownish from what the two of them could see through the white waxed paper wrapping.

"Here," she said.

"Wait, really?" Stanley asked, accepting the candy as any nine-year-old would. "People don't usually thank me for rootin' through their stuff without asking."

"People don't usually keep live animals in their bags, either." She scattered another handful of crumbs along the ground, and the birds continued to not land.

"Fair enough. Say, you don't happen to have an extra, do ya? I got a brother, see, and hard candies don't split easy enough to share."

"This one is just for you," she had smiled. Then her sweet tone dropped. "Now scoot. I've got birds to bait."

And Stanley had.

He didn't end up splitting the candy in the end- one bite had revealed its flavor as toffee, and while Stanford never minded accepting a spit-covered hemisphere of hardball sugar, he hadn't been in the mood for that particular taste that particular day. On top of that, it had been sort of sticky-on-the-outside in the way that only really old candy got, and Stanford hated feeling it on his teeth. So Stanley ate the whole thing, chattering on with it tucked in his cheek as they returned to the beach and played on the wrecked boat they'd found earlier that summer. The mugginess continued late into the afternoon, until the clouds grew heavy with rain and threatened to spill down upon them.

And then, he remembered, something happened. Stanley had curled over onto himself, groaning in discomfort. Lightning flashed above them. Stanford had crouched with his hand on his brother's back, trying to soothe what he thought was a simple stomach-ache. But then his brother was coughing, and retching, and convulsing on all fours on the sand like something was trying to crawl out of him. The sky opened up and began to pour out onto the beach like a vertical tidal wave, and his brother got smaller, smaller, smaller- until sitting under his hand, curly-furred and yowling, was a little kitten.

=== 1964 Stanford was sitting underneath the table on the floor, sulkily poking at his peas and mashed potatoes. In the next room over, Ma and Pa were arguing again. He could hear their muffled voices through the walls. Beside him, on the floor, Stanley sat eating Stanford's portion of the evening's meatloaf. It had been a long time since his transformation, but his brother was still kitten-sized, all doe-eyed and chubby in a way that kept their mom cooing and their father acquiescent to any cat-related shenanigans.

"If I told you once, I've told you a thousand times, Caryn- I'm not letting a cat eat at the table like its a person!"

"Stanford is grieving, Filbrick!"

"He's mental, that's what he is! And you keep feeding into it, letting him convince himself that his brother isn't gone! He needs to accept reality, he needs to move on, and he can't do that if you keep indulging him like this!"

"Move on? Move on-?! Filbrick, Stanley is missing, not dead!"

"It's been a year, Caryn. What do you think happens to little boys who are lost for that long, huh? They don't come strolling in through the front door, that's for sure! We're not gonna let him coast by on false hope."

Stanford tuned them out. His brother finished eating and mewled quietly, crawling into his lap and pawing at his shirt. Stanley couldn't talk, but Stanford had gotten a book from the library about Morse code, and though his teeny kitten body was still a little wobbly, he could get a short and misspelled message or two out. It's how they'd settled on the name currently adorning Stanley's collar, when it became clear that their parents weren't willing to listen. Archer, after the giant lady from his brother's favorite poster.

"No, I'm okay, really," Stanford said. "If Pa won't let you eat at the table, I'll just eat on the floor. You can have half of my dinner, and then you won't have to eat the cat food. I know it must be gross."

The purring he got in response let him know without it needing to be spelled out that he'd said the right thing.

=== 1965 Stanford planted his face in his hands and groaned. "That does it. I've read every book in the public library, and there is nothing about magic curses. I hate it here." From his backpack Stanley crawled, chirping as he swiped at the used stack of books to Stanford's left as if to agree. He was steady now, if still ridiculously small. "We may have to take our research excursion beyond the reaches of Glass Shard Beach. We might even have to take a bus."

Stanley clicked out a short word.

"Well of course I'm gonna hide you. We might not need money for two tickets but they don't let animals on the bus. My backpack's fine, isn't it?"

…A reluctantly-chirped 'yes'.

"We'll figure this out, Stanley. I know it's… been a little while," if two and a half years even counted as such, both the summer and their birthday coming in hot, "but I've got your back."

=== 1966 "If you don't shut up about the cat I'm getting it put down," Filbrick snapped. "It's not Stanley. It's never been Stanley. It is a cat. It eats kibble and shits in a box. Your brother ran off and got himself kidnapped or murdered and now you're imagining things because you can't face the truth like a man. So either cut the crap and get your head screwed on, or Archer gets the boot. Am I understood?"

Stanford took a deep, shuddering breath and gripped the animal in his arms more tightly. It wiggled uncomfortably, but rather than yowl in complaint as it usually liked to, it curled its tail up under itself and pressed into his belly like it was trying to hide there, claws curling into the black suit jacket.

"Stanford Filbrick Pines, look at me when I'm talking to you. Am I understood?"

"…Yes, Pa. I understand."

Filbrick shook his head and grit his teeth, keeping his eyes on the road. "Twelve freakin' years old and still acting like magic is real. You're disrespecting your brother's memory with all this nonsense."

=== 1967 Stanford sat at his desk, staring at the stack of cards wishing him a happy thirteenth birthday. He was a man now, technically, having muddled his way awkwardly through his passage in the torah, wishing Stanley had been there to cut through the thick tension with a quip and a smile. But Stanley wasn't here. It was only him and Archer.

His hand ran along his cat's back, carding out a few knots from its curly fur as his eyes bore holes into the cardstock.

"You're just a cat," he muttered to himself, a repetitive chant he'd forced himself to learn after Pa's outburst at the funeral last year. Anything to keep Archer from being taken away. "A very smart cat, but a cat nonetheless. Magic isn't- magic doesn't happen in Glass Shard Beach. I was a confused little kid who missed his brother too much."

=== 1968 Stanford, fourteen, sat with his homework in the shade of the Stan o' War, its rotting deck letting in beams of hot sunlight through the woodworm-eaten holes in the wood. Archer was lounging beside him, stretched out in the sand with its paws kneading the air contentedly. Its tail flicked back and forth lazily as it rumbled like a car engine, loud and grounding.

"A kitten!" He startled at the girlish squeal, nose lifting from his book to find some vaguely-familiar young woman in a swim skirt and sandals whose name escaped him. "Stanford, I didn't know you were a cat person- is he yours?"

"Er, yes. Though Archer isn't really a kitten. It's just small. I think it might be a breed of munchkin cat."

"That's pretty groovy," she said, crouching down and reaching out for a petting.

"Ah, I wouldn't-" Stanford began, trying to warn her off. But Archer had already rolled to its feet and hissed, shaking the sand off its body in the girl's direction and trotting with a huff to his side. He chuckled nervously as she brushed the sand from her arms, saying, "Sorry about that. It doesn't really like other people- just me and my family. My cat is kind of protective like that."

"Aw, a regular little man of the house, ain't he?" the girl cooed at it, maintaining her distance. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna steal your pet boy. I just thought a cutie like you might appreciate a woman's touch."

"I'm not sure that Archer is interested in interior design," Stanford said.

"I was talking about giving him a good scratch behind the ear," she laughed. "Though if it's interior design we're talking about, that boat could use some. I've seen you hang around this old thing for years, and you ain't ever done anything with it."

"Ah, well. It's a quiet place to think," Stanford mumbled, drawing circles into the ground with his littlest finger and rather wishing to get back to his homework the more the girl made it apparent that he was woefully behind on his half of the social upkeep. "It doesn't need to be anything more than that."

"A quiet place, huh? Was I interrupting your alone time?" she asked, getting back to her feet. Archer meowed indignantly at her, and she amended, "Ah. Right, I'm sorry. Can't be alone if you've got Archer, can you?"

"…No, I suppose I can't," Stanford replied, a small smile warming his expression.

=== 1969 "What do I need a car for, Pa? Everything in this town is close enough to walk to." Stanford followed his father outside to the back lot, Archer close at his heels. His father stopped at the car- not the family car, they never went anywhere that required a vehicle to get to, and Pa seemed only to ever use it to get larger big-ticket items for the pawn shop or to get to those secret society meetings he went to every month- and held out the key.

"Whether or not you get your nose out of those books of yours long enough to actually earn the scratch to get your own car is irrelevant. Driving is a skill no man can do without. Now get behind the driver's seat- you're gonna learn how to drive stick. None of that namby-pamby automatic transmission garbage they're rolling out these days."

"Of course, Pa." Stanford opened the door and unlocked the passenger side as he slipped into the seat. Archer hopped in immediately, hopping nimbly from his lap, to his shoulder, and then out of the way and into the back seat.

"And put that damn cat back inside, I don't want it making a mess in my car."

"Archer has never once urinated or defecated in your car, Pa. It's a smart cat, it knows what it can and can't get away with."

"And it's not gonna start now! It already thinks it owns the house, I'm not letting it ruin my upholstery."

"It doesn't cause any trouble," Stanford tried to say.

"No trouble, eh? No trouble when it won't eat the cat food I shell out for, no trouble when it scratches up your bed posts and the good sheets, no trouble when it keeps getting into the fridge and eating the pastrami!"

"That was one time!"

"I paid good money for that pastrami!"

"And I paid you back for it!"

"It's about the principal of the thing, Stanford. If you don't teach that cat some respect it's gonna walk all over you."

Stanford neglected to mention the multiple occasions during which his napping father could be found with Archer in his lap, one wide hand set on its rumbling side without complaint.

"Can we just start the driving lesson?"

Filbrick shook his head. "Not until that cat is out of this car."

Stanford let his head drop onto the steering wheel and groaned.

=== 1970 When Stanford came home from school that day, Ma had been cradling Archer like a baby and smothering the poor thing's head with kisses. Archer, in contrast to its reactions to other displays of over-affections by strangers, was purring loudly with tightly-shut eyes even with her thick rouge smeared into the fur on its head.

"What's going on here?" asked Stanford, setting his bag down on the coffee table. It thumped with books, but the new straps held their weight well.

"We've got a little hero here," Ma told him, fingers scritching underneath the cat's chin. "I was havin' a client over to do an in-house reading on account of she was willing to pay more, and your cat caught her tryna steal the jewelry from my nightstand while I was in the bathroom. Ran her right outta the house, he did! Ain't that right, Archer?"

It let out a self-satisfied meow, brash and loud, and snuggled more into her arms.

=== 1971, April Stanford did something he hadn't done in years that night, and curled up on the mattress of the bottom bunk. The pamphlet for West Coast Tech was crumpled between his hands, the paper already half-ripped. He kept his eyes trained on the far wall, mind carefully blank as the poster for 'Attack of the Fifty-Foot Tall Woman' stared back at him. Quiet as a church-mouse, Archer leapt onto the bed and crawled under his arm to nestle against his chest. He could feel it rumbling quietly, its thick and curly fur shedding onto his wrinkled clothes.

"I made a fool of myself today," he admitted to it. "Stumbled over my speech to the recruiters and bumped the table. The whole machine broke down, just like that, and then they left. My one ticket out of Glass Shard Beach, gone like dust in the wind because I couldn't properly deliver a formal presentation in front of an audience."

Archer nosed under his chin, and he let his fingers release the pamphlet in order to card through its pelt. There was no judgement from it- never had been, not since he'd adopted it from the streets in the wake of his brother's disappearance. A strange thing, small as a kitten for ages, growing so slowly that it was only through pictures that anyone in the house had noticed it had grown at all. Nine years, enough for any cat to be considered old, and still as spry as a cat one-ninth of its age. But still just a cat at the end of it all. Long-lived through good caretaking and scraps of meat slipped under the table at dinner time. Loyal as a dog and twice as crafty.

"At least you don't care that I'm a failure," he mumbled. "Not that that will change Pa's reaction when he finds out I blew it."

Archer lifted a paw and smacked his face. There was a lot of force behind it, though the cat had miraculously decided not to use its claws. It meowed directly into his ear, and squirmed from his grip. He didn't move, more confused than anything else, as it jumped to the floor and trotted to his desk, which was currently still covered in papers. He knew it liked to play with his work, but only after he'd been sitting and thinking for hours on his own.

He watched it sniff around, its little paws digging scrap paper and notes onto the floor before it found something that seemed to catch its attention. It nudged the paper to the center of the desk, sat down on its haunches, and yowled at him. Stanford groaned- Archer was a chatty cat at the best of times, but when it yowled it wouldn't stop until he'd come to see what it wanted or his Pa came in to yell about the noise.

Not wanting to face the man this soon after the most humiliating day of his life, Stanford dragged himself out of the bottom bunk with a sigh and shuffled over to see what his cat was fussing over. It was an empty college application, one of many he'd been handed by his guidance counselor to fill out "just in case" his first choice fell through. Just looking at it made his stomach churn, the idea of going through all that effort of applying to somewhere only half as good and still getting a rejection letter swirling around in his mind's eye until he snatched up the page and crumpled it in his hands in a fit of anger.

When it was no more than a tightly-wadded ball in his hands, Stanford dropped it to the ground and sat aggressively at the desk. His elbows hit the table and his fingers found their way into his thick, curly hair to yank and tug his frustrations out. Archer made a little wheezy huff, hitting the floor with a thud and returning back to the desk after just a moment. When he bothered to look up, his cat dropped the paper from its mouth and pawed at it, leaning in close to his face and yowling loudly at him once more.

"What, you think I should keep trying? Do you want me to get on my hands and knees and go campus to campus, getting the door slammed in my face?"

Archer bopped him in the nose with a paw and hissed in displeasure. The clever cat always seemed to be able to tell when he was putting himself down, and refused to indulge him whenever he did. Just like-

He looked back down at the crumpled application and began the process of gently un-crumpling it. With a sigh, he grumbled, "Well. If I fill them out, at least Pa can't get mad that I'm 'not trying hard enough'. What do you think the statistical likelihood of getting a full-ride scholarship is for a freak from a backwater New Jersey town?"

Archer slammed its head into his cheek before it bit him.

=== 1971, June

He was passing his parent's bedroom when, through the open crack in the door, he overheard their conversation. Stanford stood still against the wall, hands still dripping wet from the bathroom.

"Whaddya want me to do, huh, Caryn? It's a cat. I'm not gonna let Stanford ruin his own future just because he can't follow a simple dorm rule!"

Ma sighed, "It's not like he'd have t' hide it forever, Fil. That poor animal's almost ten, it'll probably pass away before too much longer."

"Then we keep it here and get it put down while he's away," Pa replied. "He can cry and moan about it when the semester's over."

"Filbrick!"

"What? You're tellin' me you wanna watch that thing limp around like our last one? We'd be doing it a favor."

Stanford chanced a peek through the door, trying to catch sight of either of them.

"I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying our son's been through enough! Let him have the cat. Let him take it to college with him." Caryn gestured as she spoke, the smoke from her cigarette trailing after her hand like a record of the motions. "At the very least let him be around to watch it die. Give him some closure for it? Honestly, Fil, the kid's leaving to start summer classes tomorrow. Summer classes! I didn't even know colleges did that. He'll be workin' himself like a dog, I know he will. At least the cat'll make sure he pulls his head out of his books long enough to eat and sleep."

Her tone was pointed, and Stanford saw Pa grit his teeth and massage his brow with one hand. "Fine. We'll keep the damn thing fed while he's away. But it's not going with him. I'm putting my foot down on that. He'll be eighteen tomorrow, a full-grown man. And full-grown men do not need fluffy little animals to make 'em feel better about their feelings."

Stanford clenched his fists and moved away from the door, the single slice of birthday cake he'd forced himself to eat sitting heavy in his stomach. He wouldn't leave his only friend behind.

…Admittedly, he should've known that trying to hide Archer in his coat when it was mid-June was not one of his smarter ideas.

"Gimme that damn cat, you're not taking it with you-"

There was an odd popping sound, a sparkling flash of light, and then the twelve-pound terror that Pa had been scruffing became instead two-hundred-and-ten. There was a rip, a yelp, and the three remaining members of the Pines family stared down at the fresh heap of limbs on the ground between them. Pa stared, agog, his fist still clenched. Between his fingers was half of a shirt, well-worn, with white and red stripes.

There was a human teenager on the ground, wearing the other half of the shirt and the tatters of an outfit meant for a child about a third his size. This teenager- a doughy-looking white boy wearing Stanford's own face with hair long enough to cover what the clothing scraps couldn't- looked up at the three of them with a sort of blank, uncomprehending confusion. Stanford could relate to that.

"St- Stuhh- St-" he stuttered out through his paling, sweaty face.

"Stanley…?" Ma warbled. The cigarette in her hand dropped to the floor and started to scorch a hole in the worn carpeting. Pa didn't even chide her- he, too, was staring down at the carbon copy on the floor where once was a cat named Archer. No-longer-Archer looked between the three of them, then down to the pair of calloused hands that now belonged to him. He looked back up, locking eyes with Stanford for a brief instant before flicking his gaze away and croaking out a one-worded question.

"M-ma?" His mouth moved like he couldn't quite remember how words worked. His limbs, too, twitched like they were used to a much more restrictive range of motion, pulled in close to the chest like paws.

"My baby boy-!" Caryn collapsed to her knees, her shaking hands reaching out and clutching Not-Archer by the face. Her fingers cradled his cheeks, turning his head this way and that, and he let her, limp like Archer went whenever Ma scooped it up. "You- where'd you come from? How are you-? Why were you-?"

She stopped trying to speak, then, letting out a pained and aching sound when-- Stanley, sweet Moses, his brother! Not a cat, never a cat-- he managed to get his arms around her shoulders and hold her back. She clutched him tight and began to cry.

"I knew it." Stanford's voice was flat. There was a haunted look in his eyes, and his hands came up to clutch at his arms. "I knew it. I knew it the whole time, and I-" he took a sharp breath inward. "I let everyone tell me I was crazy. I let you tell me I was crazy!" His head turned sharp to Pa, then, that haunted look hardening to icy stone.

"I watched my brother get turned into a cat! I asked for help- I begged for it! And you were gonna put him down!"

Pa snapped his jaw shut. "Your cat just turned into a naked hippie and your first thought is pointing fingers at me?"

"His name is Stanley!" Stanford shouted, clutching the air like he wanted to strangle something. His fingers twitched, all twelve of them, and he threw his arms out wide as he laid everything out. "He's my brother! He's your son! You said he went missing! You made us hold a funeral for him! He's here right in front of us but you won't admit that even though you're holding his shirt!"

And Pa looked at the scrap of fabric still held in his hand. When he opened his clenched fingers, he could see the care tag on the inside of the collar. Stitched there in his wife's blocky embroidery with cheap black thread in all capital letters was his missing son's name.

"I-" all at once, the man looked at a loss. The taught line of his shoulders seemed to sag, millimeter by millimeter. Hoarsely, Pa mumbled out something that Stanford, in a million years, would never have bet a cent on hearing. "I don't know what's happening."

"Sixer?" Stanford looked down to the ground, where his brother was wrapped tightly in their mother's arms. "I-is this real? Can you understand me?"

His knees and expression both crumpled. Bruising his tailbone on the ground, he reached out and clutched at one of Stanley's hands, lacing them together and squeezing with all his might just to make sure he wasn't dreaming. Stanley squeezed back, strong despite his lack of coordination.

"Stanley…" Stanford murmured. "Stanley, I'm so sorry- All this time you were counting on me, and I- I convinced myself that I imagined everything. I was a fool- I've been a horrible brother-"

"Hey." Stanley was looking at him with a stormy gaze- anger, bitterness from years of being ignored, likely, and why wouldn't he be? Stanford had all but abandoned him in his time of need, left him to languish for years under an unsolvable curse- His brother slapped his face with an open palm. It stung a lot more than the paw did. "Quit bein' a dick to yourself."

Stanford blinked, and then began to laugh. It wasn't a funny laugh- or, rather, it was a laugh that was funny-sounding. Of all the things for Stanley to say to him right off the bat, of anything for which his brother would take advantage of that most precious of human abilities, chiding him for self-flagellation was the least anticipated. And yet, when Stanford remembered Archer, remembered when his brother was last human, he couldn't imagine anything else.

He joined their mother in the hug, arms wrapping around both Stanley and her as he buried his hysterical laughter into his brother's thick, curly hair and sagged in relief.

[balkanradfem]

So I got incredibly lucky; one of the ladies I know is about to move, and she's looking to get rid of a lot of her stuff, so she called me up and asked me, if I wanted her old knitting supplies. And oh did I want her knitting supplies. I was at her place in 15 minutes, receiving a ful bag of various yarn and needles, and thanking her endlessly, which honestly had her a bit concerned for me. I got home, I snooped through everything, and I got, a LOT of supplies.

I divided the yarn based on fiber content; I have one smaller bag of cotton yarn, few little balls of wool, and a big bag of various acrylics; now this immediately had me in ethical peril, because if I make something out of acrylic yarn, and then I put it into the wash, it's going to leek microplastic all over the place, and I can't emotionally handle that. But if I made stuff that I never wash, it's possible that all the microplastic will just stay in the yarn, it's the wretched machine that makes it shed. So what I need is just horrible laundry habits, and I have that. What I really want is to learn how to make a hat, and if I end up making a wearable hat, I can just handwash it maybe? But even just the knowledge of making it is valuable to me.

So, I went back to learn how to knit; two years ago I made an unusable hat with messy yarn I found on the street, and using paintbrushes instead of needles. But I forgot how I've done that. So I pulled up a tutorial, and immediately I ran into several issues trying to make a practice sheet. I kept increasing the number of stitches I had, every row, and I didn't know how that was happening, and all the stitches on the end were loose and my little practice sheet was a mess. I imagined this happened to other people as well, so I looked up solutions – and found them, and then I was finally able to make a good looking little practice sheet! I made fabric and it looked nice!

That sheet was made using the knit stitch, and I needed to learn the purl stitch as well, something I've never tried before. And the purl stitch. Is a nightmare. I could not get my hands to memorize how to do it! Doing the purl-stitch practice sheet was a fight to the death between me and yarn. For every stitch I had to consciously think about every step, I couldn't do one smoothly, I had to wrestle with the yarn to death to make it happen. When it was over I felt like I gave my life for it and it had the nerve to look exactly like the knit sheet. They're the same stitch! But one is easy and the other is created in hell to torment me!

But okay, at least I knew how to purl, and could pull it off struggling and crying all the way trough. Time to knit.

I wanted to make a hat. I decided to use black yarn because there was a lot of it, and mentally prepared myself for the fact that I will make a very bad hat. I was going to follow all the instructions, and I had the stitches down, but it was going to still look very bad because it's my first, but I will learn a lot and I need to be cool with that. So with this mindset, I started.

Immediately I had to unravel the first row 5 different times due to multiple different mistakes with cast on (100 stitches!), and when I finally started the third row I realized that I forgot to co-join the edges to actually form a circle. This is where I had to go rogue. I knew then that if I were to unravel the hat one more time, it would never get done. I connected the edges belatedly, and then, another mistake presented itself.

See I was following a pattern, but the pattern specified a yarn size and circular needle size, but I never considered that having different weight of yarn and needle would affect my hat whatsoever. It was only on my 5th row that I realized my hat was way too big, like it would fit 2 heads, and at that point I'm like, oh I'm not starting over. I'm too deep in. I'm gonna reduce the amount of stitches now. Pattern is gone it's dead to me.

After 7th or 8th row I finally gave up on the purl stitch and decided to just end it in knit, because I was moving so slow, and at this point I am obsessed with the hat. I'm neglecting everything else in life in favour of obsessively knitting, my wrists hurt, my neck hurts, my both arms hurt, I want the hat to be done, I don't care how ugly it is. This is where I encountered another problem: the cable on the needles is too long for the hat, so it's tense and getting harder and harder to knit using it.

I am once again, fighting for my life against the tool I'm working with, I didn't understand why they made these needles like this and it kept getting worse until it got so tense that... part of the cable popped out. And I went OH.

The entire time... I could have pulled out a part of the cable and the hat would pleasantly sit on the rest of it, with the normal amount of tension. I felt like an idiot. But then how else was I supposed to learn this? Was I supposed to look up how to use circular needles before grabbing them? I looked at them once and said 'how hard can it be' and went on my merry way. But it could have been worse. I could have made the entire hat not realizing this was an option. At least it was just 10 rows of dumb behaviour.

I worked on the hat until 11:30pm the first day, and I got half of it done. I'm surprised by how good the knit stitch is looking; I expected to be worse at this. I wonder if it's because I had experience with weaving baskets from natural fibers, which taught me to keep continuous tension while doing it. I'm gonna finish this tomorrow and show you the results!

[sugar-petals]

Hey there!

Can you please kibbie type txt?,

Im very confused about their kibbie type especially yeonjun and beomgyu.

TXT Kibbe Body Types ♡

finally figured them out! enjoy the analysis. this time i used more hyperlinks not to crowd the post with images.

yeonjun - PURE CLASSIC

such a rare type! no wonder it's so hard to find his ID, plus his stylists dress him like a gamine (berets + wildly dyed/stripe hair = very G). but in reality, he is the clean aesthetic. a man with a perfect face and moderate to tall height. not an extremely towering frame like soobin, nor petite. perfectly balanced. Ns are also moderate and he has a little kibbe width, but N clothes usually give him sweater paws and pile on the body, making him look like another person. so, no blunt yang, more classic = oval (his face especially). where gamines have bones like short Ds, classics are "tame" sharp yang. it shows in his squarish shoulders. he's not a DC, though. his clothes are best 100% symmetrical like he is. at 1st i thought he's a gamine, but cropped lines are meh. a classic only needs a simple dress shirt to seduce you. gamine chaos patterns are too cluttered.

his red carpet looks rarely miss the mark: most regular evening menswear/suit and tie is all pure C. yeonjun's ideal look is: restrained. when you see him in a trench coat (the DC and D item incarnate), it's already too much to handle. put it on DC taehyung, he walks like he owns it! pure C has a less powerful frame and goes for vests > coats. as for ruling out the other subtype: soft classic morphs his face into someone else like romantic does. we're looking for "that's so yeonjun". he has lip injections, his mouth is much more balanced and less yin/pouty in its natural state. instead, he is the true midpoint of all the 13 types. a simple head to toe tux boosts his vertical line and matches his proportions well. gentlemanly clarity of lines.

huening kai - FLAMBOYANT NATURAL

signature fur coat: that's how you spot the N types! hyuka has width with added narrowness throughout his body, and quite some vertical at 6'0. he looks powerfully built with a rectangular, zero curve bodyline, like a block, straight down the torso and legs. his face's angles are not sharply, intimidatingly taut like a dramatic: they look softer, but it's actually N bluntness (think Gigi Hadid). same with the shoulders. not angular and bony like D, G, and C types. FN is a friendly giant, and can look "cute" up close. mind you, he just turned of kibbe-typeable age (22+). he still matures into his type.

besides wearing heavy, hard-hitting fabrics well, he thrives with a head to toe look. doing line breaks gamin-style goes against his harmony. dramatic and classic are too formal, awkwardly narrow or off size. D and SD fall flat, looking so serious. FN needs room to breathe, fluffed, bountiful hair and knit/rougher textures: bomber jackets, jeans, so charming on him! vice versa, romantic styles make him look like a child; he wears R fabric and curls often because pure R is TXT's concept, but it needs a bolder approach. SN yields a waist emphasis he doesn't require (belts do nothing for FN), and pure N is just regular-degular, doesn't really do it for his face. add some dramatic structure and deep colors and it works perfectly.

beomgyu - SOFT CLASSIC

D and N clothing are oversized on him and don't make his face pop, while R and G styles have too much distracting detail or become fuzzy: he's too tall to be that yin, either way. that leaves us with classic! his face is taemin-like, very lavish, but he has a more streamlined frame than a small TR, which would have been my first thought for beomgyu. compare the hands, though: TR taemin has soft, full, small fingers (R), while beomgyu's hands are elegantly sculpted, neither small nor huge (C). typing hands is underrated (pics easy to find + hardly any surgeries/filters/makeup on them)!

many classic category clothes really do look so neat on him, it's amazing. there's a reason why he's only marginally smaller than pure C yeonjun, who is his type neighbor. but beomgyu heavily benefits from SC waist emphasis/tucking shirts while pure classic and dramatic classic are not fitted enough, and even too long for him. asymmetry and leather edginess (= for sharp subtypes + dramatics) is not his cup of tea. yin subtypes are always less vertical, need gentler fabric, more flowing hair. gosh, soft classics are such perfect creatures.

taehyun - FLAMBOYANT GAMIN

just like his infinitely versatile fashion style, taehyun is an unpredictable mix of many types like one would expect of an FG. e.g. rounded jawline with sharp lip corners: a wild combination of essences. we see some soft, deer-like, youthful R features, some narrow/angular D in the bones, some muscly N tonedness (that already tells us in which subtype direction it goes). compact, but chiseled. like a petite dramatic type. not ultra small, femme-leaning, waist-emphasis-heavy like SG, and too much natural yang for pure G. pure G is only D + R, while FG is actually D + R + N.

the way taehyun drowns in casual clothing baekhyun-style already told me he's a gamine at one glance. the way he can wear showy TR clothing with insane decor proves his flexibility but penchant for small detail. patterns are a Gs best friend, as is the highschool uniform. line breaks work 100%, but he can also do a heeled head to toe black - FG has an elongated D undercurrent. this ID has the widest fashion range. taehyun reminds me of jonghyun a lot, and FG is his type. and a little j-hope frame-wise, FGs may have incredibly varied features but among each other, they are surprisingly familiar!

soobin - SOFT DRAMATIC

any D type is hard to miss. at 6'1, soobin has to be D, SD, FN; tiny chance of DC. next to broad FN hyuka, his narrow D bones and rectangular shoulders are obvious, and he eclipses the classics yeonjun/beomgyu. baggy natural styles hide him, the pants wind up too wide. gamine with its prints and patterns becomes a fuss since you have to size up the clothing to fit his yang proportions —mixed G materials don't work either — and the classic tux is too short. romantic type, 0 chance. (kibbe declared some 6'1 celebs as Rs in the past... they're mistypes. Rs are small/moderate as they are yin, the opposite of D. they could never border 6'2, ever).

and, easy tell: most male SDs are infuriatingly underdressed, and aren't fazed by diamonds whatsoever. stage uniforms, fantastic on soobin! his stylists try to put dark C clothes with long trousers on him, give him the gamine fuzzy bowlcut, and call it a day. little do they know who's hiding underneath all that... a stunning SD slayer. i did consider pure D, but if you put some nice silk fabric on him, it's just beautiful. only harsh angles all the time gets boring, even if it does have its desired effect. he can handle accessories so well, too. pure D cannot. if you upsize TR clothes with glitz and glam, he rocks it.

thanks for requesting @miraculousmayad! i love txt.

[c-e-d-dreamer]

Spare Me Your Happier Ending (I Want To Feel Everything)

A/N: happy happy @rhystaappreciationweekend everyone! You know they're my favorite rare-pair/crack-ship, and I can't wait to see what everyone creates. I'm kicking off the weekend with the Rivals prompt, particularly historical rivals. What is the historical period? Vague. What is the plot? Also vague. But onwards to what really matters: smutfest 😉

Read on AO3

Nesta walks down the long, stretching hallway, the sound of her heels clipping against the marble floor echoing in her ears. If she focuses, she can just make out the sounds of the string quartet playing a waltz in the ballroom, the soft sounds of swishing silk, of chatter and clinking glasses.

The sounds of joy.

Everyone is so happy to smile and raises their glasses in a toast. So happy to talk and dance with the other side. So happy to pretend that the last five years haven't happened. So happy to hang the purple and black flags right alongside the blue and silver banners. So happy to forget the bloodshed and the pain, all in the name of peace.

Peace.

It takes everything within Nesta to rein in her snort and eye roll at the notion. To swallow down her annoyance at this whole ball. To hold in her rage toward her father for agreeing to this whole treaty in the first place. Was it all for nothing? All those years of war?

"Nesta Archeron."

Nesta's steps freeze at the sound of that voice. She takes a moment to breathe deeply, sighing through her nose, before she turns around to face the Prince of Velaris himself. Rhysand. He stands at the other end of the hallway, dressed in an all black suit, silver threads sewn into the three mountain pattern of his kingdom along the lapels. His hands are shoved into his pockets, his stance easy and relax, but even with the distance between them, Nesta can see the slight upturn of his lips, the flare sparking in his violet eyes when they meet her own.

"Did you need something?" Nesta drawls, crossing her arms.

"Hiding from the party?" Rhysand fires back, walking toward her in slow, measured steps.

She refuses to be intimidated by the display, by the closing distance between them. She doesn't care who he is, doesn't care that he'll one day be a king. She'll be a queen, and she will not be cowed by all his cool bravado and swagger, by a man born with a silver spoon in his mouth who's never heard the word no before.

"Perhaps, I'm simply hiding from a pretentious ass of a prince," Nesta offers, raising her chin and looking down her nose despite the slight height he has on her.

"Is that so? And here I was hoping we might share a dance."

"Gladly. A perfect opportunity to put you in your place."

Rhysand chuckles at the remark, the sound low and taunting. He takes another step forward, but with their closeness, it forces Nesta to take a step back. Again and again he forces her to retreat until her back hits the cool stone of the wall, Rhysand crowding into the space in front of her. His smirk is wide and cocksure, his head tilting as his gaze sweeps over her.

As he sizes her up.

"Well, this is certainly quite the act," Rhysand begins, his hand reaching up for her face.

"Act?" Nesta scoffs, trying to jerk her head away, but his fingers merely curl tightly around her chin, holding her face firmly in his grasp, keeping her attention firmly on him.

"All that coldness, all that bitchiness, it's just a facade, isn't it? We both know what you really want." He leans in closer still, until Nesta can feel his warm breath fan across her cheeks, her lips. "You want to be used. Want to be stuffed full. Want come so deep in your cunt that you'll feel it and be dripping for days."

"Fuck you," Nesta snarls, raising her knee and aiming right for his balls.

But Rhysand is faster, his hand snapping down and catching her knee before it can make contact. She expects him to shove her leg away, perhaps expects him to fire a cruel retort right back at her. But his smirk only seems to grow, something dark flickering in his violet eyes.

A predator recognizing a worthy opponent. Recognizing the same claws and teeth, the same darkness that clearly twines like thorns around both their hearts after all these years of fighting.

"You can't lie to me," Rhysand tells her, his fingers moving in a way that they gather up the skirts of her dress, the fabric rising up over her ankle, her calf. "I bet if I reach under your dress, I'd find you already wet for me."

Nesta makes a big show of rolling her eyes, but she knows he's not wrong. Already, she can feel her body responding, can feel her chest beginning to heave, her heart beginning to pound. Already, she can feel heat licking through her veins and pooling low in her gut.

And she wants to hate it.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows that she should put a stop to this. She knows that she should push Rhysand away and simply return to her family and the ball still happening. But she can't stop thinking about his earlier words. His promise. She can't help but wonder what it might be like if they both truly dropped their masks, truly unleashed their claws and sunk them into one another.

"Find out," Nesta breathes, the challenge clear in her tone.

There's no describing the emotion that flickers through Rhysand's eyes other than pure hunger. The low candlelight glints off his too sharp teeth as a feral grin stretches across his face. His hand teases higher still, fingertips sliding against the inside of her thigh. Nesta's breath hitches in anticipation the closer he gets to where she wants him, goosebumps cascading down her leg and up her spine.

His hand finally finds her underclothes, two fingers dragging along her cunt through the fabric, and Nesta has to swallow down a whimper at that first touch. He must be able to feel what a mess she's already made because he groans softly, his fingers pressing with more purpose on the second drag.

"What do you know," Rhysand drawls, tracing a teasing circle over her clit. "Such a needy little princess after all."

He pushes her underclothes to the side, and Nesta gets her first taste of skin on skin contact. His fingers gather the wetness that pooled between her thighs, coating his digits with each teasing pass, but Nesta bites her lip hard. She refuses to beg, especially with this man.

Instead, she merely raises her chin higher, willing her voice to stay steady and cold despite the moan trapped in her throat. "Is this it, then? As disappointing as the Velaris armies."

Rhysand snarls from between his teeth, shifting his hand and pressing two fingers into Nesta's cunt. She gasps as the sudden intrusion, the stretch from just his fingers. They're thicker than her own ever were, reach deeper than hers ever could, and when he pulls his fingers back just to shove them deep again, Nesta's toes curl in her shoes.

"What was that?" Rhysand taunts.

Nesta opens her mouth to respond, but Rhysand chooses that exact moment to curl his fingers, any words dying in the back of Nesta's throat and replaced with a soft moan. From that damned smirk of his making a reappearance, it was clearly purposeful. He begins to move his fingers in earnest, thrusting his in and out of her cunt in a rough and brutal pace and stoking the fire brewing in Nesta's veins into a full blown blaze.

She can feel every drag of his fingers against the walls of her cunt, can feel herself getting even wetter beneath his skillful ministrations. She can hear the sound his fingers make each time they press into that wetness, mixing with the gasps and moans that tumble past her lips.

"Careful," Rhysand warns, leaning in and dragging his teeth over her throat. "You don't want people to hear you, do you?"

Nesta bites her lip hard, tries desperately to swallow down the whimper trapped in her throat, but it's hard to focus on anything other than the pleasure he's drawing out of her. It has her tossing her head back against the wall. Has her hips rocking down against his hand. Has her cunt clenching hard as though desperate to keep his fingers deep, to keep them right where they belong.

"Imagine what they'd think if they walked by and found you riding my hand."

Rhysand squeezes in a third finger, and Nesta gasps at the stretch. Her own hand snaps down to curl around his wrist, nails biting against his skin, but she doesn't stop him. She merely holds on.

"What they'd think if they knew how absolutely drenched you were, what a mess you're making of my hand."

"Fuck," Nesta whines high in the back of her throat.

"If they knew the way your sweet cunt keeps squeezing my fingers. So desperate and greedy."

Rhysand shifts his hand enough that he can press his thumb against her clit, working it in time with the fingers still driving into her again and again. Nesta can feel that familiar tightening low in her gut, can feel the pleasure carrying her higher and higher. She can feel herself right on that precipice, but before she can go tumbling head first over the edge, Rhysand pulls his hand away completely, everything coming to a screeching halt.

"What the fuck?" Nesta seethes, her breaths still heaving with those simmering flames.

She shoves hard at Rhysand's chest, but he catches her wrists, pulling her roughly into his body and leaning down to speak directly in her ear. "Did you really think I'd let you come on anything other than my cock, princess?"

Rhysand steps back, but he doesn't let go of her wrists. Instead, he uses the hold to drag Nesta away from the wall, to drag her down the stretching hallways. Everything passes by Nesta in a blur until she's being guided through a set of large, oak doors and into what she presumes must be Rhysand's guest chambers. But she barely gets a look at that either before Rhysand all but shoves her onto the large, sprawling bed in the center of the space.

His hands fist into her skirts, the sound of tearing fabric especially loud in the quiet of the room. Her underclothes are next, and then Rhysand's fingers are curling tightly around her thighs, prying them apart. He spreads her wide open, exposing her cunt fully to him, and Nesta's hips jump in anticipation, her cunt fluttering around nothing, around the emptiness.

"Where's that cold, bitchy facade now?" Rhysand asks.

He reaches for the laces of his pants, deft fingers working quickly to free his cock. He shoves his pants down his hips, and Nesta has to swallow hard at the sight presented before her. His cock is long and curved slightly where it hangs hard and already leaking against his thigh. He fists his cock lazily, Nesta tracking every drag up and down of his hand, every slide of his palm along the veins there.

"Beg for it," Rhysand requests, stepping closer into the cradle of Nesta's thighs.

"Fuck you."

Rhysand drags the head of his cock over her cunt, teasing at her clit. "Put that smart mouth of yours to good use and beg for it."

Nesta presses her lips together against the moan bubbling up her throat, swallows down the shiver threatening to ricochet up her spine, at every slide, every tantalizing circle he traces. But she refuses to be ordered around in her own home, refuses to let go of her pride, no matter what her body so desperately craves.

Instead, she hooks her heels on the bed, spreading her thighs wider still. She reaches a hand down between them, knocking Rhysand's own away and gripping his cock. She slides her hand down and back up, dragging her thumb across the head, across the combination of precum and the mess of her own arousal there.

"Perhaps, I should find someone else at the party? Someone who can actually give me pleasure?"

With a growl, Rhysand's hand snaps to around Nesta's throat, squeezing once in warning. He kneels up properly onto the bed, violet eyes ablaze as he leans down until he's right in Nesta's face.

"Be a good girl and do as you're told. Scream my name."

The words are Nesta's only warning before Rhysand lines up his cock, pressing his hips forward and sinking into her cunt. The stretch is indescribable, even more so than his fingers, and while she doesn't follow the order to scream, there's no stopping the moan that's pulled straight from her throat. She can feel every vein of his cock pressing against the walls of her cunt, can feel him buried so deep and filling her so completely.

"Fuck, look at how you take me," Rhysand praises, rocking his hips forward still until he bottoms out. "Just desperate for cock, aren't you? Desperate for a good fucking."

"So show me a good fucking," Nesta grits out around a moan.

Rhysand smirks again, hooking Nesta's thighs around his waist. "Careful what you wish for."

He pulls his hips back just to snap them back forward again, his groan once he's buried again matching Nesta's own moan. He quickly sets a brutal pace, fucking into her hard and fast. Nesta reaches a hand up and over her head, fisting her fingers into the fabric of the blankets beneath her, trying to merely hold on.

The sound of skin on skin is overly loud in her ears, roaring right alongside her thundering heartbeat, her gasping moans and pleas, Rhysand's own grunts and groans. She can feel what a mess they're making between her thighs, can feel herself growing wetter still with each snap of Rhysand's hips, each time his cock slams home into her cunt. But it's hard to care when all she can focus on is the heat flooding through her veins, on the stretch of his cock and the way it strokes the walls of her cunt.

On the pleasure of being so full.

"What a shame our nations reached a peace treaty," Rhysand tells her, his hips never pausing even as his hand reaches roughly for her jaw, thumb dragging across her bottom lip. "I would have much rather taken you as my war prize."

Nesta huffs, trying to bite at his fingers in retaliation, but Rhysand merely chuckles mockingly. He moves his hand out of the way, settling it instead at her hip. It feels like a brand, that touch, the way his fingers dig into her flesh.

"I could have kept you right here, in this bed, stuffed full of me."

Nesta can't help but moan at his words, her cunt clenching down hard around his cock. Her heels scramble for purchase against his back, hips tilting up to meet his thrusts and draw his cock deeper still.

"Like that, do you? Like being stuffed full of my cock. Of my seed. Could breed the next heir of Velaris right here."

Nesta tightens her thighs around Rhysand's waist, using the grip and momentum to flip them over, Rhysand's back against the blankets and her astride his lap. "The next heir of Gwyll, you mean."

She settles her hands on Rhysand's abdomen, where his shirt has ridden up and bunches around his waist. She digs her nails into his skin, using it as leverage as she begins to move her hips, fucking herself on his cock. Rhysand hisses from between his teeth, but whether it's from the bite of her nails or the squeeze of her cunt, Nesta isn't sure. Nor does she care.

His own hands reach for the bosom of her dress, tugging it down until her breasts spill free over the top. His palms grope and knead at her breasts, thumbs dragging over her nipples, and Nesta keens loudly, her back arching. It all feels too good, the way his hands work her breasts, the way his cock fills her cunt, the way her clit catches and drags against his pelvis with every circle of her hips.

Rhysand sits up enough that he can close his mouth over one of her breasts. His teeth drag and tease across the sensitive skin there, his tongue laving over her nipple. His teeth sink in completely, just the right side of pleasure and pain, and Nesta explodes. Her release tears through her, practically shouting Rhysand's name as she clamps down around his cock.

She continues to move her hips shallowly, to chase the final tendrils of that high, but then Rhysand is flipping them back over. He hoists one of Nesta's legs up over his shoulder, redoubling his efforts from before. Nesta cries out as his hips slam against hers, as his cock spears into her cunt still fluttering with aftershocks over and over again.

"Mother save me, who knew having you come all over my cock could feel so good," Rhysand gets out between his groans. "Maybe I really will keep this sweet cunt just for me. Just for me to use. Just for me to fill and keep dripping."

It's almost too much, that over-stimulation, but already, Nesta can feel herself barreling toward that precipice again. Can feel that heat brewing too quickly. Dangerously.

"Please," Nesta whines, little more than a moaning, writhing mess. "Please…"

"Look at that. You can beg."

A few more thrusts, and Rhysand buries his cock with a groan. Nesta can feel the way his cock twitches deep within her, can feel the way he floods her cunt with the warmth of his own release. He continues to thrust his hips shallowly, one of his hands reaching down between their bodies until his fingers find her clit. It only takes a few presses before Nesta's whole body is convulsing, another orgasm leaving spots dancing behind her eyelids.

"That's it, really milk my cock."

Nesta slumps back against the blankets, tossing an arm over her eyes as she tries to catch her breath. She whimpers when Rhysand pulls his softening cock free, but it quickly turns into a gasp when he presses two fingers right back into her cunt.

"Make sure you don't lose a drop," Rhysand leans down to say right against Nesta's ear.

Nesta has to bite her lip, has to swallow down the whine trapped in her throat, but there's no stopping the way her cunt still flutters at the request, and from Rhysand's deep chuckle, the reaction has clearly given her away. He pulls away completely, and Nesta lowers her arm enough that she can watch him tuck his cock back into his pants, watch him retie the laces and fix his shirt.

He tugs at the sleeves, picking at something on the fabric and heading toward the doors, but he pauses with his hand outstretched toward the handle. He turns his attention over his shoulder, his gaze slowly sweeping over Nesta's frame where she's still sprawled across the blankets, still a mess of torn fabric, of sweat and his seed dripping from her cunt. The smirk he gives her is nothing short of male arrogance and pride.

"I still expect that dance by the way."

[sabotsen]

PGR Soulmate AU

Pairings: Lee x Skk; Chrome x Skk; Roland x Skk; Noan x Skk

Summary: Although they lost their soulmate mark when flesh and blood was replaced with metal and wires, proof that it once existed is right there — branded upon your skin.

Notes: Skk set as reader. General pining and yearning that goes with soulmate au trope. Markings are intricate and unique geometrical patterns matched only with your soulmate. They can vary in size but are often small and their location upon the body varies. Mates will have the same pattern in the same location. 

Lee

When he still had flesh and bone, his mark was located on his inner wrist — the geometric pattern sprawled over his median nerve like a caution sign. Morian was always careful with it, opting to hide it beneath bandages and wrist wraps most of the time. He hid it not out of superstition that scratching it would transfer to his partner nor did he do it out of preference to keep prying eyes off of it. No, Morian buried his mark simply out of guilt — if it had been located anywhere else on his body he would have left it well enough alone. But his mark manifested too close to his hands. Though he wears gloves on the job as a necessity, he always goes the extra mile to wrap up his left wrist as well. Just the thought of blood staining his skin there leaves a bitter taste in his mouth — coppery and rotten. Morian doesn’t imagine he will ever meet his soulmate, but still he can’t help but protect this single innocent thing mistakenly branded upon his skin. For years, as he worked in the filth and the dark, he kept that patch of his skin free of bloodstains. Perhaps it was all for naught, or perhaps it never mattered to begin with, as the first and last time blood trailed down his wrist and traced the pattern of his marking was when they broke his body down piece by piece and gave his heart to his brother. That was the last he saw of that pattern for a long, long time. 

Lee sees it by happenstance one day, not long after he joins the Gray Ravens. Even back then, you had a habit of getting injured when no one was looking. It had been a scouting mission, something simple and routine. Easy. Slowly, cautious step by step, he was adjusting to his new team, even if he still felt unsettled by your effortless kindness and patience. He wasn’t sure what to make of it back then, as all he knew at the time was false niceties with strings attached (he knows better now, but sometimes he wishes you would be selfish for once). They had paused in the ruins of a dilapidated mall while Liv ran a few more scans of the area; Lucia stood guard at the entrance to the small store corner they claimed, and Lee was running his own calculations to add information for Liv’s search. You, however, were rummaging around in the debris, quiet as a thief until you sliced your palm on warped metal. Your hiss of pain immediately caught the attention of all three of them. Liv and Lee were closest to you and leapt to your side with their weapons raised, while Lucia was quick to fall back within reach. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” you had said, “Just a scratch.” 

“This isn’t the time to be playing around,” Lee had hissed, “You have no idea what’s buried under the trash here.” 

“Please be careful, Commandant,” Liv had fretted as soon as she saw the blood seeping through your glove.  

“Sorry,” your sheepish smile, even back then, didn’t have an ounce of remorse. “That little girl said she lost her stuffed rabbit around here when they fled. I was hoping to find it.” 

Meaningless, Lee remembers thinking as he watched Liv pull the glove from your left hand and carefully clean the wound. Lee had watched idly — glaring, really, hoping his scowl would discourage you from future pointless endeavors — as Liv worked. It was only when she finished bandaging the wound and cleaning the blood from your hand entirely that he caught sight of it. You had raised your hand up slightly, fingers flexing as you tested the bandage. But that small movement caused the sleeve of your uniform to slide just an inch further down your arm and bare your wrist in full display. Branded on your skin was a geometric pattern Lee had not seen in years. 

Lee still remembers the way his own wrist itched and burned at the sight — as if that mark still lingered, etched somehow into the metal of him. If you had noticed how quiet he had fallen after that, how his lips pressed into a line so thin they paled, you never commented on it. Your mark was not spoken of, as if it wasn’t branded across your skin in plain sight, and the day continued on as if it were any other. 

Despite the long time that has since passed, Lee's eyes always linger on your mark when you're not looking. Most days he can catch a glimpse of it, flashing over the rim of your sleeve or from beneath the bottom of your glove. Even now, his breath catches at the sight every time, like a fisher’s hook snagged in his lungs he stumbles and shudders. Like a fool, he can’t help but search for it still and the nights that draw to a close without him catching even a glimpse of your mark are the longest and loneliest by far. There’s a fear — irrational though it is, he cannot shake himself of it — a worry that one day your mark will be erased. Just like his was. 

Now and then, to quiet his fears and that bitter taste that builds at the back of his throat, he finds ways to brush against your mark. His fingers graze it like a ghost’s kiss, barely noticeable, whenever he tries to pull you away from overworking, when he brings you something to drink while working, when he "adjusts" your uniform because the Commandant of the Gray Ravens cannot be disheveled like this. If you notice the way his fingertips always brush against your left inner wrist when he adjusts the cuff links of your uniform or plucks invisible threads from your sleeve, you do not comment on it. Nor do you say anything when his fears grow too large after he settles into his Hyperreal frame — bloodied and burdened with memories he cannot recall — and he places his fingers upon your wrist to press against the vein to take your vitals despite you both knowing the touch is unnecessary. 

He never once asks you what you thought about your soulmate marking. You have never asked about his. You are simply patient, as you always are — waiting for him to arrive at an answer he is ready to share. Sometimes he wonders what you think is on his mind when his caution falters and you catch him staring at your mark. He doesn’t regret giving his heart to Murray — not for one second. There is simply a part of him that mourns for the loss of that unique pattern once branded upon his skin. There is simply an ache left in the geometric shape of where it once was that metal has since erased. 

Lee can no longer prove to you what he once had, but he vows over and over again — a promise, an oath sworn upon a bloodied path paved with sacrifice built high like Babel’s Tower — he will remain by your side until the end of Time. 

Chrome

More often than not, Chrome finds himself thankful his frame coatings predominately have high collars. When he was younger — when he answered to Langston, his soulmate marking splayed across the curve where his neck and right shoulder met. Even back then, he wore high collars so hiding his mark was never an issue. As a Smith, it was something unneeded so it was never spoken of. Out of sight and banned from mention within that cold mansion, it became something private and delicate he would trace in the late nights when his burdens threatened to drown him in black waters. It was a comfort, a small thread of hope that someone somewhere out there would understand and accept him no matter what — even if he never managed to fully measure up to be a proper “Smith”. Even if he faltered and stumbled, even if he couldn’t understand or failed to bear the weight of all those expectations forced upon him — someone out there would understand. That mark was proof that to someone out there, he would still be enough. 

For a long time, Chrome was able to put the loss of his marking out of his mind. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say. He was busy enough wrestling a foothold for himself as a construct with all the criticism and blockades built from the expectations of people who never stepped foot on the battlefield; there simply wasn’t time to worry about romantic fantasies he was forced to bury alongside his flesh. 

The first time Chrome catches sight of your marking is also the first time you bridge the distance to him. He has always made it a point to maintain a measured distance from you, despite your warm greetings and kindness. Old habits die hard and he knows all too well how tongue wag in the wake of careless actions. The last thing he ever wanted was to cause you trouble of any sort. Yet such worries never seem to cross your mind — not back and certainly not now. That day had been an ordinary one, much like any other spend on Babylonia. Chrome had managed to catch you on your way back from the training grounds and asked if you had a moment later to review a report he forwarded to your terminal. 

“Sure,” you had smiled and easily closed the distance in the hallway to stand before him as you adjusted the towel around your neck. “Lee’s fixing mine, though. I uh… broke it a little.” 

Chrome had chuckled despite himself, failing to stop the gentle tease that tumbled from his lips, “How did you manage that?”

“That piece of blackmail is for Lee to know.” You had then pointed to the terminal in his hands, “But we can use yours.” Effortlessly, as if he was an old friend, you erased the distance even further and stood by his side, just a breath from his elbow. 

Chrome still recalls the way his thoughts seemed to stumble to a halt and fumble to start again as you leaned over, gaze downcast to the terminal in his hands as you asked if he could pull it up. He moved on almost autopilot, though his expression remained carefully collected (he had been trained enough not to let his mask slip for long). It was only after he pulled up the report and he was sure your attention remained glued to the screen that he allowed his gaze to wander. It started at your hand, where it curled in thought against your lips as you read, then it lingered over your features — you still have a habit of furrowing your brow whenever you read reports and he can’t help but find it adorable even now. His gaze traveled, following the curve of your jaw and down your neck until —- 

Chrome felt his heart sink through the metal of his ribs and pool to a bloodied, agonized mess at his feet. There, framed by the curve of your casual shirt and in full view as the towel shifted across your shoulders was a mark he knew achingly well. He could have traced its geometric pattern with his eyes closed despite the years since it last branded his own skin. But you raised your attention back up to him and he swallowed back the blood on his lips. He had smiled and spoke of the data outlined as if he wasn’t trembling, shivering to pick up the pieces of something he had never given himself time to grieve the loss of. Chrome bid you farewell in the hallway as if it were any other day, a polite yet gentle smile on his lips as he hid the trembling in his fingertips. 

Chrome makes a firm point not to mention or speak of your mark whenever he sees it. Gratefully, or perhaps woefully, it is in a place where he does not see it often. Your uniform is high collared and you have a tendency to overwork yourself so he does not often see you in more casual clothing that allows him to glance at the bare curve of your neck. There are times, however, he does manage to catch a glimpse of that mark. In those rare moments his self control slips and he can't help but reach out and brush against it, he always finds a way to justify it.  “You had something on you, Commandant, " he would say, as if brushing off dust from your collar. His touch is always gentle, a faint brush ghosting against your skin. If you notice the tremble of his fingertips, you never mention it. 

When the nights get too long, he sits for hours upon hours in the dark of his room, metal fingers digging into metal of his shoulder as if etching the pattern upon his frame might change something, anything. But he never dares to leave behind any traces of what he once had. It’s gone. What has been lost can never be returned and he could never prove to you or to the many, many voices of people too high and powerful that it had once been upon his flesh before it was taken from him. 

Chrome tries to find comfort, despite the pain that lances through him. The fact that he can even see your marking is a sign of trust; it is only in these quiet, unguarded moments you share with him that he fully sees it splayed across your skin. It is a gift, something to be cherished, just as he had quietly cherished those stolen moments as Langston, tracing that pattern again and again. Chrome is careful — so, so careful not to allow his gaze to linger overlong on your mark as your head bows to read the text off his terminal as you sit beside him. But something wounded, neglected and lonely, still writhes and wails in his chest — mourning the loss of something that will never return — and yet you sit pressed against him, his mark branded on your skin. 

Roland

Roland never thought much of his soulmate mark when he had it. He was too preoccupied with the camera, the audience, his role, his lines — there was no time to think of it, really. The pattern lay beneath his collar bone, as if unraveling at the crown of his heart. For the most part, it was easy enough to hide beneath his costumes and outfits, and with the camera rolling almost continuously, rare and few were the moments his mark ever saw the light of day. 

Even when he lost his mark, he never paused to think much of it. No, no, no, his thoughts were focused on the blue of his blood that oozed from metal joints. When he followed in the footsteps of Luna, it was all but wiped from his memory. 

Fate is a cruel Mistress, one Roland has never quite been able to outrun even after Mandhasti Real Park. It’s by a happenstance — by fate — that he catches sight of something he thought burned and lost beneath the ash and rubble. His chain blade managed to arc a trail of crimson across your front, damaging your exoskeleton and inflicting a rather nasty wound across your sternum just beneath your collar bone. It’s then that he sees it, as the blood oozes from the wound and you glare at him over the muzzle of your gun — that damningly familiar mark. Oh, what a twist! What irony! What a disgusting farce! Roland’s lips twist into a smirk but there’s something bitter about it. Something fragile and hopeless. 

“What a lovely mark you have there, Commandant. Such a shame I’ve seen it before.” His words are cruel, barbed and sharp — a blade turned inward just as much as it is outward. 

A flash of despair crosses your features, visceral and wounded, before you’re able to hide it behind a mask and the muzzle of your gun.  “What did you do to them?”

What did he…? Oh. Oh, of course you would think that. Something bitter coils in his chest and it falls from his lips in cruel laughter. If this is the role you would cast upon him then so be it. He sneers at you, “Come now, you can’t expect me to remember all the humans I’ve killed?” His sneer twists, cruel and fragile, “Though I suppose they must have been entertaining at least for me to remember their mark.” 

The sound that tears from your throat is a wounded, angry, and hopeless thing. It reverberates in the hollow cavity of his chest and rattles every nut and bolt holding him together as you lunge at him. For a moment, he hears Hermano’s echoing wail. 

Since then, Roland finds himself tracing the mark upon the metal of his chest in his own vital fluid. But the blue hue of his artificial blood sickens him — dredges up old memories and echoes with the voice of Hermano.  He never leaves it on him for long, but even after he wipes the blood away, he still sees Hermano in his reflection, metallic hands cradling the mark on his chest as if to shield it. Roland begins to avoid mirrors when he is foolish enough to indulge in this hopeless fancy. He never allows himself to indulge often or long, incapable of tolerating the bitterness that lingers on his tongue whenever he does. The bloodied mark wipes away so easily off the metal of him. As if it never existed, as if that pattern had never been a part of his flesh back when his blood still ran crimson. Isn't it funny how easily he is removed from the stage, how effortlessly he loses the role of yours?

Noan

Life on the train was hard enough without having to worry about a soulmate lost, somewhere out there in the cruel world. Although Noan cherished his mark in a way few others on the train did, he did not dare to spend too much time or attention on it. His mark used to curve over his ribs on his left side, sprawled like a bandage over a dire wound aimed at his heart. If he stopped to think about it, perhaps that placement, too, was a warning of his fate. 

It was only a glimpse, but Noan has always been too attentive and sharp for his own good. He caught sight of your marking one day while dropping by to visit the Gray Raven lounge. He had knocked and announced himself through the door, a small parcel in his hands from himself and Simon — who was too busy buried in paperwork to join him. He heard your voice welcome him in, warm and gentle as always, but as he opened the door he heard the rushed voice of Liv, “Commandant, wait.” 

He was greeted to the sight of you sitting on a small stool, your shirt rolled up and pulled over your shoulders to expose your back and you hunched forward. Liv stood behind you, carefully placing a compress on a nasty bruise blooming hues of violet and yellow across the expanse of your back. Noan had stopped dead in his tacks, worry rising to the surface faster than the twinge of embarrassment he felt seeing so much of your bare skin. “Are you alright, Commandant?” 

You had laughed, a smile on your face as you nodded. “Just a small accident, nothing to worry over.” 

“There’s plenty to worry about,” Liv had said before Noan could, voice firm. She took a moment to check one last time before she allowed you to sit up and helped you roll your shirt back down.

The movement caught his attention, though he dared not linger on why, and for just a brief moment he caught a glimpse of a familiar pattern splayed across your ribs. The memory rushed through him, merciless and unforgiving — like iron nails pierced into his lungs, forming a railway for things he has no right to feel. Noan tastes iron on his tongue as he smiles softly at you and converses about anything and nothing at all while the memory burns a hole through the snow to sear the delicate flesh of his heart.  

Since that day, Noan fills his sketchbook with drawings of the mark — both where it lies on your skin and where it used to lie on his. There's an ache, a chill that lodges in the metal cavity of his chest. Just another thing lost in the snow. 

He doesn't realize it at first but he keeps rubbing where his soulmate mark used to be when he still had skin and bones. His thoughts get too loud, his memories too close and too cold — his fingers drift to his left side and rub, rub, rub along the metal of his ribs. Tracing and grasping for proof that was stripped from him as he was remade into cold metal and wires.

Your hand gently touches his as you reach across the cafe counter, stilling his unconscious movement. Your voice is gentle, so gentle and your touch is warm, warm, warm. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

A thousand words bubble up from his weeping heart and claw up his throat. But it dies on his tongue, and all he can muster in answer is a quiet, "No, I'm just missing something, is all."

The smile you give is too kind, too bright, too gentle. "What is it? I'll help you look.” 

The laugh that spills from his lips is a helpless sound, fractured and resigned. "No need. It... doesn't exist anymore.”