#wanted to try something big again. forgive me its been a while

[tiddlebink]

Joel for @hermitadaymay !! might end up being the only one i do because its also my birthday lol

[sluturu]

GAG ON IT .ᐟ — N. KENTO ୨‧₊˚✩

about. the only thing you want more than anything in the world is to get your boyfriend off but… you don't know how. luckily, nanami kento is a great teacher.

pairing. nanami kento x f!reader (non-sorcerer au)

wc. 2.6k

cw. dom!nanami, sub!virgin reader, (messy) oral (m. receiving), humiliation kink (if you squint), reader has a heavy praise kink, f!masturbation, pet names, face f!cking + deepthroating, head-pusher nanamin <3, slight angst (again, if you squint), reader is kinda insecure about lack of experience, lots of praise and validation ♡

kit’s note. hi, i'm (sorta) new here so pls forgive my writing and any mistakes... i haven't written in, like, 84 years and this really wasn’t supposed to be as long as it is. nonetheless, i hope u enjoy my very first jjk fic — kit ୨ৎ

nanami kento was one sexually experienced man. 

you knew this. from the very first glance, it was undeniable. something in the way he carried himself, the gravity of his presence, told you—no, assured you—that he would unravel you, reshape you, and leave his mark in ways you couldn’t yet comprehend.

and, of course, you were correct.

you, however, were his perfect contradiction, a stark contrast that bled into everything you had built together, evident in every moment, every choice, every collision of your worlds.

nanami was your first boyfriend, and while school had offered its version of ‘sex education’ and the internet had no shortage of explicit material, none of it had ever translated into real experience—well, until him.

you’ve been turned on before, no doubt about it. you’ve given yourself a few weak orgasms with an amazon vibrator, sure. but the carnal desire you got when nanami was around was a feeling you’d never experienced before. how could a man be so hot and sweet and turn you on without even trying? he was perfect. beyond perfect. 

and he was respectful. always so respectful. he wanted your first time to be everything you’ve ever dreamed of because he knows that’s what everyone deserves– it’s what you, above all, deserve. that’s why he decided to take it slow regardless of his personal desires. 

it started with soft pecks. the teeny tiny ones that had you aching for more. those slowly led to real kisses, his tongue seeking solace in your mouth, roaming and exploring the new territory. then came the make out sessions, him leaving love bites on your neck while you rocked yourself against him subconsciously. which finally verged on him eating you out with his thick, long fingers fucking in and out of your cunt. 

he was amazing– so mind-boggling that you couldn’t make sense of it. while you knew that he knew what he was doing, it had you appalled. he could make you cum one, two, three times in one sitting and you’ve never even heard of anything like this in your friends’ sex lives. 

there was one miniscule problem with nanami, though. when you would ask if he needed help with the big… issue in his pants, he’d brush you off with a “don’t worry about me, sweetheart,” like the gentleman he is.

the more and more he refused your helping hand, the worse you felt. why should you be the only one that gets to feel good? especially when it’s at the hand of someone as compassionate and caring as nanami. 

the insecurities had been festering within you for a while now. all you wanted was for him to feel good. you wanted him to have the same toe-curling experiences that he gives you. you wanted him to cum for you, because of you.

you’d hoped that one day, he might ask you for help to get him off, yet that day never came. 

it’s why you decided to take matters into your own hands, asking him to come over to your apartment and dropping to your knees the second he entered your home. you gave him the biggest doe eyes and pout you could muster. 

he was stunned, mouth ajar and eyes widened. you’re not usually so bold with him, which was fine. admittedly, he always thought your aversion to talking about sexual things was kinda cute. 

still awestruck after a minute, he breathily asks, “sweetheart, wh-what are you…” 

“well, ken, i’ve been thinking about you and me a lot lately and i realized… you’re always so giving… ‘n you’re always taking such good care of me.” you shyly trail off him as your hands itched to touch him… to take his cock into your hands– into your mouth. “i wanna take care of you now, if you’d let me?”

“you don’t have to do that, my love. i do those things because i want to, not because i have to. you should know that.” he says, airly. a voice that you’ve only ever heard a handful of times. one that makes your cunt pulse. 

“i know. i jus’ want you to use my mouth, ken. you’re… you’re always making me feel good,” you beg with your eyes. “wanna make you feel good, too.”

“oh, baby,” he smiles softly at you, hand cupping your cheek while his finger brushes over the pout on your lips. “but you always make me feel good.” 

you slightly open your mouth allowing his thumb to enter. your lips wrap around his finger, eyes fluttering close and a broken, needy moan sounding in your throat. you suck the way you’d actually suck him off, hand coming to wrap around his wrist while your tongue swirls around him.

nanami holds back his moan at the sight of you crazed and depraved. he’s seen you needy before but never to this degree. never so eager to please.

“fuck,” he muttered to himself, slipping his thumb out of your mouth and smearing your saliva over your lips. he pulls your bottom lip down, “you want it that bad, princess?”

 you nodded, “please— so bad, kento.” 

and he could never say no to you. especially not when you’re giving him teary eyes and that voice. 

so he nods, unbuttoning his pants and pulling the zipper down. the sound alone excites you, yet you can’t help but feel the apprehension of being face to face with his cock. 

nothing could’ve prepared you for the sight before you. while you’d felt him through his pants during your messy makeout sessions, his intimidating size exceeded your expectations by a mile. you accepted the challenge, nonetheless. 

and now, here you were struggling to take his cock down your throat. and while he’d been praising you like crazy, you knew good and well he wasn’t getting off anytime soon. it’s when he suggested eating you out instead, you knew that your attempts were futile.

“you wanna try again, baby?” nanami coos softly as he strokes the top of your head. “we can stop if you wanna… i can eat that pretty pussy instead, i don’t mind at all.” the suggestion makes your heat throb but you shake your head incessantly. you can do this.

you look up at him through your wet lashes and he twitches in your dainty hand. “i wanna make you cum for once.” the words tumble out of your swollen lips in a mutter. 

he frowns, hands coming back to your cheeks, only this time, the pads of his thumbs meet the wet, heated skin, brushing away the remainder of your tears.

you might be too good for him. you don’t even know how many times the thought of you alone has gotten nanami off. you don’t know how many cold showers he’s had to take, how much self-control it takes to be around you.

he sighs, squishing your face and forces you to look up at him. “alright, sweetheart, open wide for me, yeah? i’ll guide you.” his hands force you to nod. your heart skips a beat and the kaleidoscope of butterflies swarm wildly in your stomach. 

you oblige almost immediately, parting your lips, ready to (try and) take him again. 

“‘kay, we’re gonna go slow. remember to breathe through your nose– and no teeth.” he instructs and you’re nodding, wrapping your pretty lips around his gorgeous length. “i’ll let you lead, you can move your head down a little more when you’re ready, yeah?”

nanami sharply exhales when he feels the warmth of your mouth. heat spreads through his toned body like a wildfire– you drive him crazy. 

even more crazy when you suddenly remember what you’ve seen in the pornos your friends forced you to watch. you look up at him through your lashes, letting your tongue swipe against the slit of his cock. “fuck, that’s it, sweet girl. use that tongue.”

you don’t know why, but the whispered curse that slips from his plump lips– lips that are raw from the way he can’t stop gnawing at them– has you arching into him. your cunt is begging for friction, so much so that it has you weeping. your eyes and your pussy. 

his praise spurs you on and you push your head down some more. it makes you gag, yes, but you remember what he said, breathing heavily through your nose. you’re already crying and looking back up to see his face contorted in pleasure has you taking him deeper and deeper. you need more of these reactions– you don’t think you’ve ever wanted anything more, but that could be the need to please clouding your judgment. 

nanami can’t resist the urge to fuck your cute little face when you look at him like that. the tears… the big, wide eyes trying to keep contact with his eyes… the way you look like a complete, utter mess all for him. 

he moves his hands to dig into your hair before pushing you some more. the tip of his cock gets lodged in your tight throat and he loses it when he feels you attempting to swallow around him.

he throws his head back and lets out an echoing moan. “you’re suuuch a good girl. take my cock so well, pretty. ‘m so p-proud of you.” he praises. “so good f’me, aren’t you?” 

you choke, letting the tears fall without an ounce of shame, but you nod with your mouth full of cock. you could care less about the way he’s actively bruising your throat, you’re making him feel good… and that makes you feel good. so good that you’re subtly fucking the air in hopes your boyfriend doesn’t notice.

“yeaaah, you are…” he hums, looking back down at you, taking him like the good girl you are. of course he notices you, he has a keen eye for these things. “aw, look at you. so needy… ‘s sucking me off getting you hot ‘n bothered?”

you whine in agreement, vibrating him to his core. you choke at the words, spluttering all over his cock creating bubbles of saliva at the base. his hands tug on your hair, pulling you off and it leaves you heaving, soft sobs ripping from your throat. 

“tell me, sweetheart. i wanna make sure my girl is always satisfied.” he demands in a somewhat authoritative tone.

“k-ken, don’t care ‘bout that– i-i wan’ you to cum,” you practically beg to have him back in your mouth, but his hands in your hair hold you still. 

he shakes his head, “uh-uh, none of that. go ahead and play with yourself for me, just like i taught you. you remember that, don’t you, my love?” 

he makes your head nod again, his cock throbbing at the sight of your drool covering the entirety of your chin. 

you let out a shaky breath as your hand moves from his muscular thigh to the waistband of your shorts. as you slip inside, your fingers find your desperate clit, rubbing it in circles the way he taught you. “k-ken, pl-please,” you moan.

he shudders, stomach flipping and cock twitching eagerly like he’s some teenager who’s never been touched. “please what, pretty girl?” he asks, his attempts to mask his neediness were vain and it was starting to show. 

“please, fuck my face, kento. ple–” your words are muffled by nanami shoving his cock back into your mouth. 

he lets his composure fly out the window, the guttural groan he’s been keeping down comes out loud– loud enough to make your eyes widen. “g-god, sweetheart– you’re… you’re gonna drive me–” he pushes your head down, squeezing his eyes shut as you swallow around him again. “insane. fuck, you’re so good, so good for me– fuck, baby, you’re making me feel so good.” 

nanami knows he’ll probably regret rambling like this later, but, unbeknownst to him, it has you rubbing your clit like your life depends on it. messy circles over the unduly sensitive bud while he thrusts into your mouth with just as much vigor. 

you gag and gag and the only thing it does is make nanami whine. he will definitely hate himself later for losing his self control, but right now? he’s madly in love with you and he’s showing it by giving you exactly what you want. pounding his cock into your mouth, using your face just like you asked. 

your eyes roll and brows furrow in ecstasy, the now-familiar knot in your tummy forms with zeal. 

“sweetheart– ugh, forgive me.” he moans, voice cracking handsomely. “fuck, baby. ‘m gonna cum– y-you’re making it so hard to hold back.” 

why would you want him to? that’s the exact opposite of what you want. you try to relay that by snaking your free hand to the back of his thigh and pulling him towards you. 

he hears your actions loud and clear and, before you know it, you feel the ribbons of seed painting your throat as his cock twitches uncontrollably. 

the groans that leave his mouth are sinful. you’ve never heard him sound like this in the entirety of your time together— so unhinged and feral. you find that what’s coming out of his mouth might be your favorite sound ever and it’s definitely become your favorite side of him. the side of nanami where he’s the complete opposite of his otherworldly, chivalrous self. the gentleman you’ve grown to know and love is a hungry, filthy, masked freak and you fear that you’ve just released a beast upon you. not that you mind in the slightest. the thought only excites you further.

“god, you’re such a good fucking girl,” he says through gritted teeth. “so pretty and perfect, all for me. my good girl.” 

your fingers work faster at the praise and your muffled whimpers grow louder. all the while, your mouth overflows with his heavy load and you feel it beginning to leak from the corners of your lips. 

once nanami notices, he pulls himself out of your mouth and you cough, choking over the exorbitant amounts of cum in attempts to swallow all of it. 

“k-ken,” you heave, your voice hoarse. your fingers are still rubbing at your clit, uncoordinated, yet it’s getting the job done. “did i do okay?” 

nanami’s still coming down from his mind blowing orgasm, chest huffing and puffing, but when he hears you seeking validation, he’s on his knees before you in an instant. 

his hand slips in your panties and finds yours, your nimble fingers toying with your bud. 

“so well. now c’mere,” he mutters. his fingers guide yours— he’s simply moving yours for you— and his other hand comes to cup your cheek. hungry for a taste, he slams his lips against yours, tongue invading your mouth despite the fact that he just came in it. 

his fingers move yours faster and faster and you don’t even realize he’s pushing yours aside to take over. 

you’re so weak when it comes to him. with him tonguing your mouth and his fingers working you, it’s no wonder you're coming undone in less than a minute.

you moan a mantra of his name into his, your body going taut as the knot in your tummy unravels. 

he lets you ride it out, playing with your cunt till your shaky hands wrap around his wrist and you pull his hand away. 

he moves his lips to your cheek, trailing wet pecks all the way to your ear. he whispers in your ear, tugging on the lobe with his teeth.

“i might be addicted to your pretty little mouth, sweetheart.”

© all works belong to SLUTURU 2025. do not copy or repost.

[takes1]

final part asahi x feral reader w/ a size k!nk

skip the intro if you want again, (i marked the beginning of actual smut for ease of navigating) couldn't resist adding some kuroo stuff bc i love writing him even if its not sexual/thirst. this has turned a bit more into porn with plot forgive me i'm simple

warnings. heavy nsfw. minors DNI

info. nsfw / soft+rough kissy missionary sex / mentions of personal restraint / multiple orgasms / mentions of masturbation / gentle giant!asahi / asahi keeping your mouth shut / mutual size kink / sweet asahi / dacryphilia if you squint / sex toys (vibrator) / kuroo's sister!reader / kuroo cockblocking / kuroo being protective / 3.6k words / thanks for reading this asahi series!! it's been a delight!

haikyuu collection. more hq here! part one here. part two here. part three here.

more links. my ao3. masterlist. requests open!

You chose some giant clothes to cover the fact that you weren't wearing anything underneath.

Then, with your security chair out of the way, you quietly slipped into the hall.

The familiar sound of Helldivers 2 on the entertainment speakers assaulted your ears. Of course, he got to invite friends over for the weekend.

You padded downstairs, the ache between your legs nearly unmanageable. You clenched your fists at the sight of his lazy ass as you walked behind the couch to get to the front door.

It was funny how quickly he zapped all desire from your body. You did not enjoy sobering up so quickly.

"I thought you said you were staying home!" Tetsurou called as soon as you grabbed the leash off of the rack.

You nearly pulled a muscle rolling your eyes so far back. You shook the thing violently from the doorway so he'd get it through his thick skull that you were literally doing what he texted you to do.

A couple voices muttered something, but your brother spoke volumes above it--

"Wait two seconds, shit-head!"

You clipped the hook into your dog's collar. To Hell with whatever he wanted. You unlocked the door and slipped on a pair of giant, black crocs.

That garbage pile gave you enough grief about your no-plans-plan in the past 12 hours to deserve being stranded on a barrel in the middle of the ocean. He could handle playing games with his friends while you went to walk the dog.

"C'mon, baby," You cooed and closed the door behind you.

It was, thankfully, nice and cold outside. You were glad you opted for some warm clothes.

"Where are my shoes?!" He yelled through the crack in the door. Almost to the end of the driveway, you didn't figure he had the gumption to follow you without them.

You pushed your hood up and pulled the strings.

A stop at the other side of the gate, and you waited for Maru to finish pissing in order to continue the walk. The big, empty street looked a little creepy in the dark.

flip!-flip!-flip!-flip!-flip!

You were glad to not be alone, but still threw your head back when he rounded the corner. His hands were shoved into his basketball shorts and he was shivering.

You both looked down to each other's feet at the same time. He had to put on your flip-flops, so his heels were hanging out the back and his grippers were on the pavement.

A silent exchange went down, one shoe at a time.

Now walking again, you returned to your baseline agitation.

"I don't need a bodyguard to walk the dog."

"Try being a little less stupid, and I'll trust you to not run off with the first guy you see."

You stopped dead in your tracks. "You think this is me sneaking out?"

He didn't respond quickly enough.

You kept walking, glad he was so cold that his teeth were chattering, "You're an idiot--."

He pushed you, unable or unwilling to argue.

"Why would I sneak out with the dog?" You muttered.

Another stop for Maru. It was silent, again, and you were wishing he would just go back by himself already.

"What's that smell?" He sounded ridiculously close to your head.

You looked up and realized that was because he was sniffing your hood. A sudden insecurity of smelling like sex flashed through you.

Pushing hard on his chest, you declared, "Fuck off."

It didn't send him flying the way you wanted it to. It only pissed him off, especially because he knew that smell from somewhere. He just couldn't recall exactly how right now.

You expected him to push or slap you back, so you tensed, but no such move was made.

"One day you'll thank me," He muttered with a grumpy chuckle.

A glance didn't do you any good. It was too dark to see his face.

"For what?" You rolled your eyes again.

It was quiet for so long that you were certain he had just been joking. As if he did anything to help you out, anyway. All he did was piss you off and get in your way.

"For making sure you don't get hurt."

Frustration on the tip of your tongue, you began to retort, "I--," but fell short of the will to say anything back for a minute.

Your glancing around in the dark didn't help you form any thoughts.

Maybe Asahi being so kind was just luck. Not the wise intuition you claimed to be guided by. There were already many times tonight that could've made a turn for the worse, and you hadn't realized until after the fact.

That didn't change how you felt, though, other than some newfound patience for Tetsurou's difficult, demanding nature.

Maru didn't want to go much further than the fifth lamp post, so your small party turned around before you could cross the street.

It was quiet on the way back. Just the jingle of your dog's collar and the flip-flip of these shoes you hated.

You rounded the corner and closed the gate behind you, Tetsurou opting to walk ahead since it was evident to him that there was no danger anymore.

It was just getting to be a comfortable silence when he had to speak up one last time.

"Has this tree always been sideways?"

You genuinely thought it was a joke, so you didn't spare a look when you crossed behind him to get inside. He caught you shoulder the way you hated so much and you swiped your hand to hit him, but saw what he was talking about and froze.

The both of you took a moment, dumbfounded, to stare at your lawn tree. It looked nearly snapped, like a hurricane had come through, but it hadn't rained in weeks. Nothing else was wrecked. Just the tree.

You felt guilty about it for just a second, but rationalized that it had nothing to do with you. You weren't sure what that was from.

"Maybe it was rotted from the inside?" You thought out loud.

He glanced around, suspicion at its full peak, and guided you inside swiftly by your upper back.

Tetsurou locked the door behind you and stayed stock-still, staring through the peephole for so long you didn't bother saying anything to him before heading back upstairs.

At your door, you heard him call to Kenma and Bokuto.

"Did one of you kick that tree in the yard?"

You collapsed against the door with a soft shut and an even softer sigh.

There was no time to deconstruct everything that was discussed, because your eyes followed a sound that nearly made you jump out of your skin.

The man took up so much of your bed. He was on his back, scarred knuckles brushed slowly up and down, a casual pump to quell his impatient cock.

His hand fit much better around it than yours. In his other hand, held closer to his face, he was clicking a small device- the familiar buzz of which inspired a complete takeover of tension between your legs.

Your embarrassment was no secret, and neither was his curiosity.

"I'd love to use this," He grinned and looked you up and down, undressing you with his eyes.

It took some effort to find the lock on the door and make your shaky way over to the bed. Like last time, he met you at the side.

However, you noticed that before you left, he didn't have the same edge in his brow, or the eagerness that defined the way he pulled you into him.

When you stumbled, he caught you and tilted your head for a restless kiss. He was shoving his hands under the waistband of your pants and humming a sort of approval against your cool lips. It sent your stomach back into those fluttery waves of excitement all over again.

"You should take your clothes off," He muttered, fully immersed in his desire since he never had to sober off of it.

"Yeah- I should," You breathed against his rough, needy lips.

You were slipping back in quickly, though, when he took your lips in a chaste, passionate kiss all over again. His hands were slipping over your skin, discarding your hoodie before you could do it yourself.

His whole body was warm, it felt like he was burning through you when you stepped out of your pants and fell against his front. Like a melting ice cube.

When he picked you up this time and set you down, it was less premeditated, more animalistic. You gave a giggling smile when he parted your legs for him.

Any shyness he had before was long-gone after 10 minutes of imagining what he was going to do to you- you squirmed at his spit-slick fingers slipping over your soaking cunt.

"Still so wet for me," He muttered, pleased, into your hair, while his massive body settled over you.

That intense, near-evolutionary drive kicked in again where you believed you could take whatever he wanted to give you all night. It may have been the smell of his sweat, it may have been his grumbly voice.

"Obviously," You smirked. He grinned at your confidence.

"We can take this slow," He rolled a condom on without wasting any extra time, "I don't wanna hurt you."

The statement floored you for a moment. He didn't notice as he lined himself up with your tightness.

It echoed in your brain during the most contradictory part possible.

He sank into you- it wasn't easy, but after hours of build-up -more if you counted the self-pleasure you couldn't resist before he arrived- it was beyond rewarding to watch all of the stress and worry on his brow melt away in one smooth, slow stroke.

"Fuck- fuck, fuck," You whined, his grasp on your hip reassuring, but still a pen in which you couldn't wriggle from or adjust against, "God-!"

Your thighs twitched on either side of him, forcibly relaxed- you tried to catch your breath, but felt like your lungs were too constricted to do so.

His thumb brushed your cheek.

Patience and gentleness in the midst of it all allowed you to breathe a little easier.

Only kindness, with a hint of pity, remained in his expression as you gasped and struggled to ease up around his cock.

He looked away for a moment, his hand leaving the side of your face, and you heard a saving grace.

Asahi did you the liberty of placing it against your clit. His face lit up at the sight and sound of your newfound gratification.

"I bet that feels better, huh?" He smiled against your parted lips, stealing a few of your moans with an excited kiss.

There was a hard-to-pin inquisitiveness about his attitude surrounding your vibrator. Like he was dying to use it on you, feel you writhe around his still cock.

"Ohh my god-! Ah-Mn!" You cried against his lips.

It was met with chuckle and the slow pump of his hips sinking deeper into you.

It dulled the discomfort of his size, leaving only a feeling of fullness between your legs, a satisfied craving, and the intense waves of pleasure from your clit.

His pretty face and perfect body over you- how could you not just announce your paradise to everyone in the city?

One hand laced in yours, and you took control of your vibrator to swirl it the way you preferred while he picked up his leisurely pace.

He barely caught your high-pitched tone at the combination with an alarmed kiss.

Stalling, he warned, "You gotta be quiet," and leaned to press further kisses against your neck.

He quickly learned that you weren't going to stay that way for him, even if his balls were allegedly on the line.

The feeling of him going deeper, your thighs bouncing from his weight that shifted your entire body, and the building waves over your clit.

"Asahi," Came out in a needy moan.

"Shhh," He cooed, gripping the bottom half of your face to get your focus on him.

The beat of his thighs against the back of yours stole your attention instead- you squeezed against his palm with furrowed brows.

Another noisy cry at his size splitting through you, and he instinctively covered your mouth to shut you up.

He thrust hard into you and stayed there, earning a pitiful whimper, and leaned in close to catch your avoidant eyes.

A mutter against your heated skin, "Do I need to keep you quiet?"

His cock was stretching you beyond your limits- that steely look in his pretty brown eyes was so layered.

You clenched around him, butterflies attacking you now, of all times, at his stern tone, but genuine concern.

A gorgeous smile spread across his features when you nodded, helpless, but honest.

He felt too good- he filled you up better than you had imagined. You were stunned to feel that you were already close. There was just no possible way.

This wasn't how you wanted it to go.

It was too soon- you didn't want it to be over so quickly. But now, of course, you realized you didn't have the physical capacity to take him all night.

You tried moving the overwhelming buzz away from your needy clit, but met the resistance of his hand instead.

He pressed just enough to guide you right to an edge you couldn't pull back from. You whimpered against his palm.

You couldn't tell him you were about to cum. You couldn't move away, or speak, nor did you possess the will to push against him. All you did was claw, weak, across his back.

The look in his eyes responded to your subtle panic-pleasure without a word. A gentle fondness that he shouldn't have been capable of while he gave you his rougher strokes.

He removed his hand from your mouth just to swallow your sounds with a starved kiss, an avid grumble at the back of his throat when you took his tongue so well.

"Mm-!" You squeaked, nails digging deep red trenches into his shoulder.

It was an ultimate submission you never had the insurance to safely experience before.

You got the chance for a gasp before getting cut off -half a second before you could alert the entire house- by his huge palm again.

Asahi groaned as you tightened around him. He quickly shut himself up by flexing away the pleasure and leaning down to pant, warm breath spilling against your ear.

"Shh- I got you," His kindhearted whisper strung you along, crushing you underneath his weight, while he repeated that sweet promise, "I got you, baby."

All your worry of it being too soon dissipated as your orgasm wracked through your entire body and filled you with pure bliss. He fucked you hard and steady through it and didn't even grant you the dignity of looking away from him.

Your chest was tight at the end of it, eyes stinging, and you would've sobbed if he wasn't still keeping you quiet.

He watched your journey the whole time through your eyes, wholly captivated by your big, glossy fixation on him. When you blinked away the burn, he took no time to kiss them away.

Your body naturally relaxed, a twitchy and overstimulating process.

He slowed for you after he sucked the rest of your complicated tears up.

He was so heavy, so adamant on keeping your noise down that you couldn't tell him to stop. You weren't sure that you would try, even if he wasn't hindering your communication. The fact that you trusted him so much right now wasn't necessarily wise, but it felt right.

His growing intensity didn't hurt, but it didn't start to feel good until a raspy voice told you:

"Feels so good," He swallowed the spit gathered in his mouth and seethed, a light chuckle breezing past his lips, "You got no fuckin' clue."

That was just kind of sinful confession that gave you nervous chills even though he was already fucking you senseless.

He studied how your eyes clouded over at his words. A restrained, toothy smile nudged your jaw in a sugary kiss.

"I'm not gonna be able to get enough of you," He finally took his hand off of your lips and you were able to gasp at the impact of his words.

When he readjusted, he swept your legs up to his shoulders and dipped back down.

"A-Ah!" You barely choked out before he moved his hand back to its diligent place over your loud mouth.

He was so deep- you felt like he'd split right through you. Yet, you welcomed the possibility with the blessing of another steady-growing climax.

Yet, only one of you was so careless. He was so tender, so considerate because he could feel it, too. How fragile you really were in this position in regards to his size.

"God," He sighed at your loving stare.

"Gonna- ah, make me cum, lookin' at me like that," He groaned, a bit strained.

He finally dipped his head with closed eyes at the sweet, slick heat he just wanted to bury himself in. He couldn't get too carried away, now that it was starting to get difficult.

Your shitty stamina stroked his ego so much that he forgot he wouldn't be too far behind for a while. He got a bit ahead of himself and was paying for it with the climbing pressure in his stomach.

Your pussy was reason enough to fuck you harder, but that face was what really tested him.

His hand twitched at the compelling desire to hear you scream for him, but again, had to keep his sanity for the two of you. Next time he would make sure that brother of yours wouldn't be in the way.

He tried to keep an edge going, but found it laughably difficult to settle down.

If it wasn't your Fuck-me-harder eyes building up the needing to cum, it was your cute tits squished against your soft, scratched-up thighs, right under his chest.

It was impossible to keep himself from riding that high in the end.

As if to spite him, to completely spend all of his restraint, your watery eyes rolled back again. Your muffled whines filled his ears as you tightened once more around him, weaker this time but still more than enough to send him over the edge.

"G-od,fu-ck," He groaned, hitting just the right spot to fuck out both of your orgasms.

You felt him swell inside of you, his grip on your hand crushed yours back to the point that you couldn't claw him, his hips stuttered to a slow stop, deep inside of you.

A sense of satisfaction beyond the physical softened your face, your resistance between his fingers, and all your aching muscles. You weren't quite sure what it was, but didn't feel rushed to figure it out.

He was trembling when he released the lower half of your face, a beautiful sweaty and out of breath mess on top of you.

Once again, you gasped at the opportunity to breathe better.

He tensed up immediately and you flinched at the twitch of his cock inside of you.

"Shit- was I choking you?" He managed to stay worried right after he came.

You grinned, carefree on the backend of your own, and shook your head, "Mm-mm."

The look of unmatched relief that washed over him was supremely attractive.

He pulled himself out, slowly, and made a face at how much he came before turning to discard the tied-up thing into the trash with a solid toss.

You welcomed his cuddly shuffle up to your side by burrowing into his slippery chest, and sighed at last, "Cute butt."

That, of all things, made him uncomfortable. He cringed when you spared a glance up to his face from his chin. You rolled your eyes at his overthinking.

"You must be an athlete, or something--," You rubbed your face harder into his chest and felt his laugh resonate throughout your body.

It all felt natural. The joking, the cuddling, the winding down. You both forgot that you weren't together, let alone that you had only known each other for less than a week.

It was already warm with him next to you, but you were happy to be under the soft throw he found and pulled over.

"I can't believe you came twice," His soft laugh invited an embarrassed, but sharp look from you.

He clarified, "It's really hot, don't get me wrong--,"

"I'm not usually so easy," You half-joked.

A big, handsome guy that knew how to use his dick, went down on you, listened to you, and didn't shy away from a vibrator? It'd be a challenge to find a girl who wouldn't cum that quick.

You blushed under the cover of darkness at his gentle, comforting hold on your breast and reassuring kiss to the side of your neck.

The ache in your belly was evident when you were flipped over to be little spoon. It burned pretty bad and you couldn't exactly hide it.

"Did I hurt you--?"

"No," You muttered, clearing your throat, "No, I wouldn't say that."

He placed a big hand on your tummy, feather-light, and you looked over your shoulder to meet his perceptive gaze.

You sure as hell couldn't lie to this guy. He saw right through you.

You pouted and gripped your pillow. Of course you couldn't handle his dick the way you wanted to, the way you bragged about or even genuinely thought you could.

"You were so good," You admitted, a little sad in tone.

A warm kiss to the back of your head. He took the weight of his arm off of your sore body, sighing into your hair.

"You were, too."

He decided to drop the subject, since you both had strong opinions that seemed to clash.

You smiled.

You talked about a range of topics for the rest of the night. General information, first, then personal interests that turned into a long conversation about volleyball, then family history, then academics, then personality, goals, and attraction.

Soon it was 4 in the morning. You were eating popsicles from your freezer and discussing the adventure he had to get up to your window.

You both watched, trying your best to stay quiet, a minutes-long video one of his friends sent in the Karasuno volleyball group chat of him falling out of the tree outside.

A hand flew up to your mouth to silence your intense giggle-fit. You had no idea how you were going to keep something like this a secret from Tetsurou.

Before too long, the pain in your tummy was just an ache and the stranger in your bed turned into a lover overnight.

taglist:

ty for all the replies and reblogs and likes!! it means so much. it's really nice seeing all the other asahi appreciators out here!!

@valiantqueengarden @rinheartshyunlix @alpha-mommy69 @yuyunhoo @insertamazingnamehere

@kreishin

@ruu-https @kasai-https

@40unung @deluluforcarlos55 @lili-harg @beyond-your-stars @noyaskneepad

@rinheartshyunlix @vintagevict0ria @am-3-thyst

<3 u are literally asahi mvp @screamin-abt-haikyuu

masterlist.

requests open!

[mrsfudd]

Behind your back-final part

warnings: fighting, cursing

not proofread lmao

It had been 3 weeks since your big fallout with Paige and KK. Paige had been icing you out which was expected. You guys have had fights before obviously, just not to this extent. You’re still her baby sister and you’ve been hoping she can swallow her pride and forgive you. With KK though it was different. She didn’t owe you anything and you knew it was going to take something big to win her over…hopefully.

“Girl, you skipped your morning class again?” Chloe asked.

Your roommate Chloe has been helping you process the whole thing. Your friends back home could only help so much, they could barely understand the full story. For that reason Chloe has really been your backbone.

“KK has a class in the hall right next to time, the last time I saw her I wanted to die I felt so bad.” You said laying on the couch.

“Y/N, you cant hide forever. You’re too grown to be acting like this. Grow up and do the right thing.” Chloe said with a tone that only comes out ever so often.

“I don’t know chlo, I know she doesn’t wanna hear from me and Im not gonna make the situation worse” You say.

“So, talk to someone who might.” Chloe said while tossing your phone on your stomach.

You haven’t talked to Paige in a few days, when you did talk it was only about your mom or siblings. Maybe a mention of how the basketball season was going but never anything after that. She was treating you like you were kids again and you stole something out of her room. It was childish but what else could you do.

You: Paige

sissy 💕: what

You: can we talk, ik ur mad but i said i’m sorry

sissy 💕: i said its fine

You: dont be like that, js ttm p pls

sissy 💕: alr bru ill come by in a few

This is the longest Paige had been mad at you and it was really causing a rift in your relationship. You love your other siblings but you and Paige have always been close. You were happy she was coming to talk but nervous on how it was going to go.

“Y/N, open the door” Paige said monotone.

“Hey P” You said opening it and walking back to the couch.

You sat down and she just walked around and stood against the wall.

“Paige im sorry” you said with a voice crack.

“I know” Paige said while texting.

“What the fuck is your deal Paige? Im sorry I know you feel betrayed but you have to realize I was doing it for you okay? To protect your feelings so if what makes me a bad person then whatever but im not gonna sit here and let you give me these dirty ass looks like im one of your opps or something” You scream.

“Y/N, you need to stop acting like the world revolves around you. You’re so fucking spoiled I cant stand it. You’ve been treated like a princess your whole life and you expect everyone to forgive you and be at your beck and call. Grow the fuck up and own up to your shit. I don’t care about your dumbass sorry Y/N. You hurt one of my best friends so im not in the mood to listen to one of your sob stories” Paige yelled right back.

“Finally some emotion Paige! You’ve had your back turned to me for weeks. You keep saying I need to grow up and im trying. You and your fucking ego Paige I cant. Im trying to do the right thing but nothing is fucking good enough for you. The fact that you can sit here and say I’m spoiled is crazy, your fucking spoiled Paige. I know I hurt KK and im trying to make it right but I cant with you two walking around campus catching a attitude every time you see me” You yell trying to hold back tears but one falls.

“Now you’re fucking crying? This is exactly what im talking about bro. Grow up Y/N.” Paige said throwing her hands up.

“Yes! Yes I am. I have nobody Paige. I don’t have friends anymore, I don’t have KK and the one person who I expected to always be by my side hates me. I tried Paige I really did, i’ve apologized more times than I can count. I don’t know what to do Paige, im sorry.” You say full on crying now.

“Y/N hey wait” Paige said finally lowering her tone.

“Just leave Paige, I don’t care anymore” You said wiping your face.

“Y/N stop, i’m sorry” Paige said walking closer to you.

Paige finally caved. She still had a soft spot for her little sister and knew this wasn’t worth fighting about for so long.

Paige came to give you a hug and you completely broke down. Paige rubbed your back letting you vent about all you’ve been feeling and how if you wish you could go back and change it all you would in a heartbeat.

After you had calmed down, you and your sister spent hours together laughing and giggling talking about your favorite childhood memories. It felt so good to finally make up with someone so important to you. You guys had ordered food and hung out till it was dark outside. Everything was calm until Paige asked a question that made your heart drop.

“So sis, what are you gonna do about KK?” Paige asked with a eyebrow raise.

“I have no clue” You said looking down picking at your nails.

“Well I think you should text her you know, break the ice maybe?” Paige said passing you your phone.

“I guess so P” You said hesitant.

You: hey kk u busy?

KK baby 😘: nah why

Before you could respond Paige showed you her groupchat with KK sending a screenshot of your text saying “i wonder what she has to say”. At first you felt a wave of nervousness run through your body but with closer examination you seen that she still as your contact saved as “my princess 👩🏽‍❤️‍💋‍👩🏾” and you had a slight feeling that there was hope in rekindling your relationship.

You: ik u prob dont wanna talk but i cant stop thinking about you

Before you could say anything else Paige showed you KKs text asking what she should say to you.

“Dont worry, I got you” Paige chuckled.

KK baby 😘: u wanna meet up n talk?

You: yea can i come to ur place

KK baby 😘: doors open

“Oh my goshh” Paige said while shaking you by your shoulders.

“Stop you don’t even know whats gonna happen” You say getting up and putting your shoes on.

“Have funn, don’t make it worse Y/N” Paige said walking into the kitchen.

The walk over to KKs dorm was sickening. The thought of being in a room alone with her was enough to make you puke but you stayed strong.

You loved KK and was determined to make sure she knew that.

You gave a slight knock before walking into her dorm.

"KK?" You say softly, extremely nervous.

"Hey Y/N" KK said in basically a whisper.

Before you could say anything else KK cut you off.

"So what did you want?" KK said with a real attitude.

"I just wanted you to know that I was sorry and that I didnt mean to hurt you. I-" You said.

"Y/N, Y/N stop I know this already. You've sent me numerous paragraphs about how sorry you are" KK cut you off, walking closer to you.

"I know, im sorry um again but I jus-" You said before KK cut you off again.

"What do you have to say Y/N, im tired of the sorrys" KK said.

You took a big breath and swallowed before saying " KK, I cant function with knowing you and me aren't on good terms. You are everything to me and I should of made that known before. I know that doesn't make what I did any better but I was scared and I was being dumb and I-"

"Thats right you were dumb, but continue " KK said while cracking a little smile.

"All I wanted you to know is that I love you KK, like none of that fake bullshit like l genuinely love you and I miss you and I know this isn't fixing anything but I cant leave here without you knowing this. I completely understand if you hate me because what I did was really shitty but im sorry. I want you in my life and I never meant to make you feel anything different" You blurted out terrified for her reaction.

"Y/N, I could never hate you" KK said with a soft tone.

Before you could get anything else out KK said "I miss you too Y/N, if im being completely honest I get why you did what you did. Not saying I agree with it but I understand. Our relationship had started off on the wrong foot anyway"

"Soo, does this mean I get a redo?" You said smirking.

"Y/N don't push your luck" KK said.

Your heart dropped and you were about to start apologizing again until you seen KKs smile. She was the light in your life and you were hers.

KK walked closer to you and pulled you in by your waist. She pulled you in tight wrapping her strong arms around you.

KK had you stuck in her embrace for what it felt like hours. Her muscles relaxed as she felt you.

For weeks she'd been feeling like a part of her was missing, you were missing.

"I love you baby" KK whispered in your ear.

"I love you more" You whispered back.

8 days later

You, KK, Paige, and a few other girls from the team were all hanging out in Janas dorm. Some of the girls admitted they missed you and were pissed at Paige for leaving you out.

KK had took a picture of the you and her kissing and was planning on posting it.

"Mama what song should I use" KK asked while laying on you.

"Any baby im not sure" You said playing with her hair.

Paige had walked past you and playfully pushed your shoulder making you laugh.

You went through so many ups and downs trying to navigate the 2 most important relationships in your life. The tears shed and arguments on arguments seem like nothing now. You were finally at peace. No more secrets or hiding. You had everything you needed, ready to enjoy life with the people you love the most.

@private-but-not-a-secret @teddygrahamslam @syraxsbigfanfr @destinybueckers44

[mylovesstuffs]

even hell had a heart || lucifer!joshua

outline. you prayed every night not to fall in love with the wrong person, until—he showed up. he says your name like a forbidden prayer. “even your god can’t hate me more than i hate myself for wanting you.” you don’t kiss; just stare, and that feels holier than sin. /// svt 10th anniversary; a reincarnation love anthology

genre: supernatural au, religious/dark fantasy au, romance, slow burn, angst with emotional intimacy, psychological drama, forbidden love

pairing: lucifer!joshua × human fem!reader

content: bittersweet/hopeful ending, lucid-dreamscape/metaphysical elements, gothic spiritual tone, religious symbolism and imagery, prayers as narrative devices, longing and restraint, shadowed pasts and emotional healing, watching-from-afar/guardian dynamics, intimacy without physicality, dream visits and blurred reality, sanctuary as symbolism, mutual yearning and unspoken love, strong mother-daughter bond, confessionals and breakdowns, subtle faith crisis, psychological tension with metaphysical layering, suppressed desire, restraint over romance, near-kisses, forehead touches, temple kisses, somewhat possession imagery, protective lucifer trope, intimate physical closeness, reader finding comfort in the “wrong” being, shadow vs light metaphor used emotionally and spiritually

warnings: religious themes and christian symbolism, spiritual trauma/conflict, possession-like states (chanting, pressure, trance), mentions of past emotional and physical trauma (implied sexual trauma, abandonment), psychological horror imagery (dream sequences, altar bleeding, glowing eyes), mentions of self-doubt, crisis of faith, emotional breakdowns, mild sensuality (no smut but heavy emotional tension and intimacy), mentions of mental health (breakdowns, hallucination/delusion implications), light swearing/cussing, fire, blood, and dark imagery, angels vs lucifer conflict, reader's isolation and vulnerability, reader’s faith being shaken and questioned

a/n: this is the first installment of my series svt 10th anniversary; a reincarnation love anthology! i think i re-edited it to check for my usual silly mistakes… but honestly? i don’t remember anymore 😭 so let’s just call it partially proofread [because i truly don’t know if i finished or not]. i actually finished writing this a while ago, but then completely forgot about it and didn’t get the time to schedule this or the next parts properly. so here i am—posting it directly... please forgive any dumb typos or weird phrasing. i promise the next installments will be properly proof read [will try my best]—this is just my “i-did-my-best-but-my-brain-forgot” edition. hope you’ll still enjoy it despite everything!

Happy 10th Anniversary, SEVENTEEN! even though i’ve only been a carat for 7 months, it feels like i’ve known you forever. in this short time, you've become such a big part of my life—your music, your passion, and your bond with each other have brought me comfort and happiness in ways I can’t explain. thank you for giving your all for the past decade. thank you for being the light in so many people’s lives, including mine.

word count: 7,033 words

taglist: @i-am-confused-about-life @supi-wupi @shirebusking @ateez-atiny380 @jrinbb @thepoopdokyeomtouched @purploozi @reiofsuns2001 @xuhaosgirl @markoplolo @livelaughloveseventeen @dcrlingyou @chanranghaeys @https-seishu @mrsjohnnysuh @iknowimanicon @lavichyne636 [oranged marked blogs can't be tagged :(]

It all began on a day so ordinary, no one could have guessed how quickly everything would change.

The sky wore its usual color that neither blessed nor cursed the earth beneath it, merely watched, indifferent. You had just left the chapel, your palms still damp from prayer, from pleading with something higher than yourself to protect you from falling in love with the wrong person, again. Your footsteps echoed across the worn cobblestones as if the world were hollow, waiting to be filled with something that would either save you or break you, and when you saw him standing at the edge of the alley, half-shadow and half-light, everything inside you paused—breathed in too deep—then forgot how to breathe out.

A man, looking too good to be true, stood there like he had stepped out of someone else's legend, but ended up in your story, looking right back at you. It wasn't even a glance, or a curious flick of the eyes. He looked at you as if he was reading you line by line, like each breath you took was a word in a sentence he already knew by heart. The air shifted, slightly heavier, as if it, too, recognized him.

He didn’t smile right away; that came later. That devastating softness, the lift of lips that belonged on a saint but bled like a sinner's. At that moment, he only looked, as if he already knew you, as if he had seen your soul laid bare on an altar, trembling under the weight of its own guilt, and for reasons that would never make sense, your first thought wasn’t fear. It was familiarity. The echo of a hymn you once heard in a dream, sung in a language your body remembered but your mouth could never speak.

Your throat was dry, and you weren’t sure why. You took a step back, or maybe forward, you couldn’t tell anymore. And still, he said nothing, but just watched with his unwavering gaze fixed on you.

You swallowed. “Do I… know you?”

His head tilted slightly, just by a fraction, like he was listening for something only he could hear. A lie you hadn’t told yet? Then, finally, he spoke. “Your name,” he said quietly, as if it were too holy for the noise of the world, “it’s…” he stopped. You waited for him to continue and not leave in this space of suspense, but he looked at you like he was afraid of finishing the sentence. “It’s yours,” he said, finally. “But it sounds like mine when I say it.”

“What?”

He didn’t have to repeat it, and he didn't. The way he said your name, it didn't sound like just a sound. It was a remembering. It was sorrow and longing tangled into syllables that felt like a prophecy gone wrong. He only just said your name, it shouldn't be a big deal, but it was a big deal because it sounded like a confession. Like he wasn’t supposed to know it, like it had been carved into the walls of his ruin a long time ago and he had spent centuries pretending he had forgotten it.

You felt something curl in your chest. It felt very tight and ancient. “I never told you my name,” you whispered.

“No,” he said. “You didn’t have to.” He said it again, “yn,” like a prayer he wasn’t allowed to say out loud. He took a step closer, “I thought I forgot it.”

Your voice was a breath now. ���And?”

“And I was wrong.” 

Something about the way he said it made your fingers curl into fists, like your body was preparing for a storm it had already survived once. “Who are you?” you questioned again, but he didn’t answer that. 

Instead, he asked, “Do you remember me?”

Silence stretched between you while you tried to think of something to say. You feel defeated even though you have no reason to be.“I—” you hesitated. The shape of the answer was in your chest, not your mouth.

And then that soul-fracturing smile finally resurfaced again. You didn’t know you’d been waiting for it. “I knew it,” he whispered. “You don’t know why yet… but you will.”

Your breath hitched that you didn't even realize you’d been holding it. Something inside you stirred like a shadow shifting beneath a locked door. You didn’t know this man, and yet, everything about him felt like déjà vu whispered into your bones. His presence was a verse you'd underlined in some forgotten scripture. You just couldn’t remember where. “You’re scaring me,” you said quietly, but your voice didn’t tremble the way it should have.

“I don’t mean to.” His eyes softened. “That’s the last thing I want.”

“Then tell me who you are.”

He hesitated as a storm passed through his expression, it was grief, maybe, or regret, or something older than either. “I was someone who loved you.” 

Your lips parted. “Loved?”

He met your gaze. “Still do,” and he said it like it was a curse, like loving you had cost him lifetimes.

You took a step back, instinctively, but something tethered you there. Some invisible thread humming between you both that didn’t ask for belief. It simply was.

“I don’t—how?” You searched his face, desperately, for answers. “How can you say that? We’ve never met.”

He gave a slow, bitter smile. “Haven’t we?”

The wind picked up, brushing past you like it, too, carried memory in its folds. “You’re lying,” you said, “or I’m dreaming.”

“Maybe both,” he replied. “Maybe neither.”

Your hands were trembling now, but it wasn’t from fear. It was something else; you just couldn’t name it. You looked away, trying to steady yourself from whatever creepy shit he was spewing. 

He took one cautious step closer. “I waited. I waited longer than I knew was possible. And when I stopped waiting… I started forgetting. Not you though—but what we were.”

You looked up at him again, your voice brittle. “Then why now? Why remember me now?”

He paused before saying, “because you called me back.”

A silence fell between you again, which was thick, reverent. Your chest felt too tight, your thoughts too loud. “I didn’t call anyone,” you said, but it sounded unsure even to your own ears.

“Maybe not with words,” he responded, “but something in you remembered. Some part of you… still aches for me.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

A pause again as he looked at you like that was the final heartbreak. “Then let me earn it back.”

And in that moment, time tilted, something opened inside you, around you. Like the memory of something sacred being reawakened. Your footsteps faltered once, twice, and before instinct took over, you turned on your heel and ran.

The hem of your coat fluttered behind you, your breath catching in uneven gasps. Gravel crunched beneath hurried steps, and the distant glow of the main road flickered. Your heart slammed against your ribs as you glanced back over your shoulder, eyes scanning the path behind you to see it, empty. He’s not following you. You don't know if that makes it better or worse.

Your fingers, trembling and cold, flagged down the first cab you saw. The car jerked to a stop beside the curb. You threw open the door, nearly stumbling in as you rush inside.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“17th street, Park Road C,” you muttered, giving the address in a voice that didn't sound like your own.

The door slammed shut, and the cab lurched forward. Streetlights blurred past like holy candles left out in the rain. With fingers still shaking, you pulled out your phone and called your mom. She answered on the second ring.

“Sweetheart?” Her voice was lined with surprise, then worry as you greeted her with a trembling voice. “Is everything alright?”

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you managed to speak out, “I’m coming over,” you said quickly. “I—I just need to be home. I’ll explain when I get there.”

“What happened?” she asked, her tone was turning sharp and maternal. “Your voice—are you crying?”

“No, I’m not,” you lied. “Just… I need to see you.”

You hang up before she could ask more, and the ride was quiet. Your mind was not.

Every time you close your eyes, you see him. The way he looked at you; like he knew your sins by name, like he forgave them anyway.

By the time the cab stopped in front of your mother’s house, you threw cash at the driver with fumbling fingers and left without waiting for change—you, who would argue over ten cents, but right now, none of that mattered.

She’s already at the door when you arrived, concern written all over her face. Her eyes took in your disheveled hair, the sheen of sweat still clinging to your skin, the way your chest rose like you’ve run from the devil himself.

“Oh, my baby,” she breathed.

You fell into her arms, and she immediately drew you inside. She didn't even ask—just took a towel from the kitchen, gently patting the sweat on your forehead, your cheeks. Her hands were cool, calloused from years of care. Her touch was the closest thing to sanctuary you’ve known.

Once you're seated on the old floral couch, she kneeled in front of you, still holding your hand. “Tell me,” she urged with motherly love and caution. “What happened?”

And you listen to her urge as you always do. You tell her about the chapel, about the man who looked at you like a psalm remembered, about the way he said your name like it had been carved into him, about the fear, the familiarity. The strangeness of it all.

She listened in silence, then, wordlessly, she stood, pulled out her Bible from the cabinet and sat beside you. She opened to Psalm 91, the same passage she used to read when you were afraid of thunder. “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty…” Her voice was steady, and each verse a balm poured over your shaking soul. “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day…”

You closed your eyes, your head rested against her shoulder. You wanted to believe the words, wanted them to fill the empty place inside you that opened the moment he looked at you. And yet… How did he know your name? You keep telling yourself it’s a coincidence. Some cruel trick of the universe, but the tightness in your chest refuses to ease.

The whole day, it lingered like the aftertaste of smoke in a holy place.

By evening, you asked her, “Can I stay here tonight?” Your voice broke on the last word.

Your mother, alarmed, cupped your face. “Of course. You never have to ask. But… what’s happening to you, sweet girl?” Her eyes searched yours. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

You shook your head, unable to explain. 

Later, you retreated to your childhood room. Everything’s smaller now, dustier. The wallpaper faded, the bed too short, but the air smelled of lavender and old memories.

You begin your nightly ritual.

Knees to the floor, rosary between your fingers, beads sliding like rain through trembling hands. Bible open in your lap, the spine falling naturally to Isaiah 43.

"Fear not, for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine." You whisper prayers through clenched teeth, through breaths that shake and falter.

You mouth verses between silent screams. Words crash into the hollowness inside you like waves against cathedral stone. You don’t ask for peace; you ask for forgetting. You open your eyes, and he’s there.

Standing by the edge of your bed like he never left the chapel; as though time itself had bent backward to let him in. 

You freeze, trembling from the marrow outward, the chill crawling up your spine like a ghost pressing its lips to your nape. The blood drains from your face, your ribs forget how to expand, as the rosary drops from your hand.

You gasp, voice strangled with fear, stumbling back as your knees knock against the side of your bed. “You—how did you get in here?” Your fingers tremble as you reach blindly behind you, grabbing the Bible you had just been praying over moments ago. You grip it tight against your chest, its cover warm, as though your desperation had set it alight.

Heart hammering, you inch backward toward the window, hand groping for the latch, the scream clawing its way up your throat like a creature trying to be born. But then, something presses against you.

It wasn't a hand, or even air. An unseen weight pins your lungs. It isn't painful, but it's like there's an invisible palm over your mouth and another over your soul, and you can’t scream. Or move—which makes it worse. Because you’re a physics professor, for God's sake. You understand energy, pressure, forces, mass. But this is not science; this is blasphemy made manifest.

Your lips part to cry out, to mutter a Psalm, but instead, a voice you don’t recognize escapes your mouth, thy light hath no hold on He who knew it first…

Your eyes widen in horror. The words fall from your lips like black honey. Ancient, terrible, but beautiful. You try again, though the arch be sealed, I know thy name, oh First-Forgotten… Again, and again.

Every time you open your mouth, this chant, this liturgy from some who-knows-what age, pours from you. You begin to hyperventilate as your knees buckle. He takes a step forward.

His eyes… glow. Not metaphorically or symbolically. They glow. Red. No—deep, like the core of the earth. Anger so old it forgot what it was angry at; the color of damnation wept into velvet.

Your throat tightens, and you really, really think you’re going to pass out, what the hell is this? Oh God, am I dying? Is this a dream? This is not happening—this is not—this is not—you keep on spiralling inside of your head.  But the man in front, no, not a man—just watches you with something devastating in his expression; it didn't look like cruelty, not even satisfaction. Sorrow it was.

“You called me,” he says softly, voice like smoke, making it sound like it used to be a hymn but came from heaven with him.

Your knees hit the floor with a soft thud, not sure if it's fear or faith that brought you down. You're still clutching the Bible like a lifeline and whispering prayers, but they melt into more of that cursed chant. You try to scream again, to call your mother, but your voice falters. Only silence comes, not even a whimper. Then suddenly, the pressure lifts. You inhale so sharply your lungs scream, and you look up at him, voice trembling, “Who… who are you?” You again crawl backward, the Bible shaking in your hands.

He tilts his head slightly, and for the first time, his expression shifts just faintly. A crack in the mask, something like nostalgia, like regret. “A shadow,” he says, “of what I once believed I could be.” His voice carries the weight of centuries, of battles lost, of names erased.

You hear wind in it, fire. Angels sobbing into the void. He takes one last look at you, and the light in the room flickers. You blink—and he’s gone.

The moment he disappears, your body collapses into a heap. You gasp for air as if it were your first breath in years. Your mother rushes into the room, footsteps urgent.

The moment you see her, the dam breaks in you. You crawl to her like a child, tears hot and fast as you wrap your arms around her waist, clutching her like the earth after a long fall. She holds you, shocked, and concerned. She crouches and cradles your face in her hands.

“Sweetheart, what—what happened? Tell me. What’s going on?”

But you can’t speak, so you only cry. She leads you to your bed, sitting beside you, pulling you into her arms like she did when you were small and afraid of the dark. She wipes the sweat from your brow with the hem of her sleeve, humming softly, her voice cracking seeing her daughter like this. Then she begins to tell you stories of childhood things. About the first time you prayed, how you’d cry if a bird fell from a tree, how you once said you wanted to marry the sky because it never seemed to lie. She holds you like you're her baby again; but you’re not. You’re a woman broken by something no priest ever prepared you for.

And as your eyes finally drift closed from exhaustion, and sore heart, you begin to wonder if you’re losing your mind. Because when you finally fall asleep…you dream of him.

At first, it’s alright, you are in a field of dusk which seemed colorless, shapeless. The air is thick and warm, humming with a strange music that you don’t hear with your ears, but your soul. Above you, the sky is full of stars, but they’re not still. They’re falling one by one, but it isn't even shooting stars. Each one descends with a long, echoing scream, a light extinguished mid-cry. You cover your ears, but it doesn’t stop the sound from crawling into your head.

When your eyes move around, you see, in the center of the field: an altar. Old stone, ancient, and cracked, but it bleeds. Blood, thick and glistening, seeps from its edges, trailing down like vines. You feel the earth pulse beneath your bare feet. You take a step forward, and the stars fall faster.

“This place is sacred, and yet, it suffers.”

You turn around to see the owner of the voice, and he’s there standing at the edge of your bed—but it’s not your bed anymore. You’re still in the dream, and the field has wrapped around you like a memory. He stands in shadow, half-light playing against his face. His eyes glow again, dim now, but the sorrow in them is still unmistakable.

“Why are you here?” you whisper, or maybe you don’t, maybe it’s only a thought, you’ve forgotten how to speak in dreams.

“To see,” he says, “if you still kneel.”

You do, but not because of him, because the weight of the dream, the altar, the stars—all of it presses down on you, compels you to your knees. You feel small, fragile, and very mortal, and yet part of something divine.

You look down and your hands are suddenly stained red. You know it's not your blood. “You were never meant to carry this,” he murmurs, stepping closer. “But you keep praying like it’ll disappear. Like it isn’t written into you.”

You look up at him. You want to scream at him, you want to cry, want to reach out. “Why are you haunting me?”

He kneels, finally, before you, “because once,” he whispers, so close now you can feel the chill of his fall, “I believed in the light. I saw you.”

The stars crash louder, the altar shudders, the earth splits—and you fall. Falling into black. Into memory, and fear. Into the scent of fire and old books, of sanctuaries burnt and prayers unanswered. You scream, and wake up.

You're gasping, drenched in sweat. The room is dark, and your mother is not found to be in your room anymore, but the Bible still rests on your nightstand. And at the foot of your bed, a single white feather, charred at the edge.

-

He never meant to get close, meant to feel. It started with your voice; your whispered prayers in empty chapels, your trembling Amens in the dark, your quiet pleading to a God who never answered. He watched from the shadows at first, not behind walls, but behind time, just far enough to not be real, just close enough to ache.

You reminded him of something he’d spent eternity trying to forget. Grace. Not the kind sung about in hymns, but that bled, that knelt even when it didn’t have to, that forgave even when it was breaking. She still believes, he’d murmur into the silence of his exile. What a dangerous thing.

He told himself it was curiosity. When you wept in the stairwell at work, unseen by the world, you weren’t unseen by him. When your hands shook, lighting the Sabbath candle, and you prayed for strength with trembling lips—he watched from the other side of the veil. When you clutched your Bible like a weapon, knuckles pale and face wet from nightmare, he was already there, in the corner of your room.

Your pain mirrored something he thought he no longer possessed, a heart. And somewhere along the line, he stopped counting your sins, and started memorizing your smiles.

He sits now, cross-legged in the middle of a decayed cathedral, wings long burned to bone,

his hand holding the white feather from your bed. "Why her?" a voice hisses from the shadows.

He doesn’t flinch. "Because," he says, eyes half-lidded, "she prays like it’ll save her from me. And I keep hoping it might save me." He appears only when you break, not to offer solace, but to see if he still can’t stop himself from touching your name in the air. "She makes me soft in the places I’ve sealed with ash."

But it’s getting harder to stay away, because one night soon, you will kneel in prayer and say, please don’t let me fall, and he will answer without thinking, "Then stop calling for me, little light. Because every time you do, I come closer. And I am not your salvation. I am the thing your salvation warns you about."

He still stays, because even Hell, in the hollow left by Heaven, had a heart once. And its last beat might just be you.

-

By the time you realize what you were seeing, it was too late to pretend you hadn’t. He was there again, standing on the chapel stairs.

You froze mid-step, breath catching in your throat. The late afternoon sun bled amber through the high cathedral windows behind him, but casting no shadows across his figure. 

Staying still for a minute, looking at each other across the space, you dared to walk toward him. You stopped halfway, cautious, trembling, as if speaking to him might undo the very air around you.

“Why me?” you asked, voice thin and dry.

He turned his head slightly, a ghost of a smile teasing his lips. “Because you still kneel,” he murmured, eyes not leaving yours. “And I missed how that felt.”

You inhaled sharply, heart galloping in your chest. Frustrated, you looked around—half-hoping someone else might see him. Half-hoping you were just imagining it all again. You don’t even know him… but you know you should fear him.

There hasn't been a single day since that night in your childhood room that you haven't felt that sliver of fear lodged beneath your ribs. And now, seeing him again, tangible in the light of day, the fear twisted into more dangerous: fascination.

You swallowed, “Why are you so obsessed with kneeling? It’s not like I’m kneeling to you, I kneel to God.”

His smile darkened into something else, you take it as wicked, slow, and unbearably calm. He took a step closer with no shadow clinging to his boots like living things. “Do you think it matters who you mean to kneel to?” he says, “when the ground already belongs to me?”

His voice slid through you like warm oil over cold steel; seductive in sound, terrifying in weight.

“It’s not sin I tempt you with,” he remarked. “It’s understanding. I see you, entirely. And you’re still not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse.”

Your breath hitched. His eyes flickered red, a molten glow blooming in their depths. You stumbled back, remembering all over again why you were supposed to fear him. “Wh-who are you?” you stammered. “Do you have a name? What… what are you?”

He stepped into a beam of stained-glass light, and for a moment, you could see the ancient exhaustion lining his face; the weight of centuries etched beneath flawless skin. “They called me Lucifer,” he said softly. “But you can call me Joshua, if it makes you feel safer.”

It didn’t. You blinked. The name itself felt like a trick. “You’re… a devil?” you whispered. “What the hell is a devil doing…” you trail off realising the situation you're in and that you shouldn't be talking like this right now. “What do you want with me?”

“I didn’t choose to fall for you,” he said. “But your prayers—they reach places they shouldn’t. You ask not to fall for the wrong person. And I… I shouldn’t hear that. But I do.” Your hands trembled, the air grew too thick. Your knees weakened. “What if the wrong one falls?” he added, voice nearly a breath. “And your beloved God just... lets it happen?”

You couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. You backed away instinctively, stumbling through the chapel doors and collapsing at the altar, desperately searching for sanctuary, but even here, it felt compromised—tainted by his presence still lingering on your skin. You were scared, but not of damnation. You were scared because your faith wasn’t cracking from lust; it was breaking from the longing to be seen.

In days passed, he became your paradox. Your tormentor and your comfort. You felt him in flickering candle flames, in reflections that didn’t match your movements. On rooftops at night, watching, not interfering… most of the time.

A car swerved one night and missed you by inches. You knew it would’ve hit you, but it didn’t, because something, to be more specific —someone, stopped it.

At your weakest, when your hands shook too violently to lock your door or strike a match,

a warm whisper brushed your ear: that's enough, you did it.

You never told anyone explicitly; they’d lock you away in an asylum if you did. And besides, who would believe something so foolish, something that they can't make sense of?

You broke down in the confessional one rainy evening. You couldn’t explain why, just sobbed, endlessly, hands twisted in your lap, eyes clenched shut. You didn’t notice something passing through the wall. Didn’t feel the pew shift under someone else's weight.

Until his warm, impossibly warm hands wiped the tears from your cheek. His palm still radiated heat like a dying star. The scent of fire lingered, smoky. “You remind me of a time before,” he whispered.

“Before what?” you choked.

“Before I was only what they feared. Even Hell had a heart once.”

He wasn’t trying to drag you down, he was hoping, desperately, that you might reach back.

-

You let him stay a little longer in your room. You told him about your life, about your nights studying under dim lamps, about scraping your way through a system that wasn’t built for naive people, about the exhaustion, the loneliness, the little victories.He listened to your rambling unblinking. You could tell he already knew, but he let you say it anyway.

“You make me question everything I’ve ever believed,” your fingers brushed a physics journal lying beside your pillow.“The laws of motion. Time. Reality. God.”

He tilted his head. “Maybe I’m just a new variable,” he offered.

You exhaled shakily; not quite a laugh, not quite a sob. “Maybe I’m losing my mind.”

He reached out, fingertip just barely grazing your wrist. “Or maybe you’ve finally opened it.”

You looked at him, something tender stirring where only fear had lived before. He wasn’t just a nightmare with red eyes anymore. He was—broken. Human, in a way that terrified you more than horns and hellfire ever could. “Why do you come to me?” you asked.

His gaze flickered to the floor as if the question pained him. “Because you pray for peace,” he whispered slowly, “and I hope you find it. Before I ruin it.”

Your fingers moved of their own accord, tracing the back of his hand, so warm it bordered on scorching. He didn’t flinch, and neither did you, and before you knew what it meant, your forehead rested against his—your first true touch. It was innocent, reverent even. You could hear nothing but the clock ticking on your nightstand and your own heartbeat skipping like a frightened thing. He stayed there, unmoving, as though if he dared shift even slightly, he might break something sacred between you.

He fell for you in that silence; not because you feared him, or even because you saw him. But because you still knelt, still prayed, even when the world burned around you.

He was Lucifer. But around you, he was a shadow with soft eyes, full of restraint that cracked at the edges. “I can’t touch you without burning,” he let you know, voice tight.

“And yet you still try,” you whispered back, your hand trembling as you laid it on his cheek. You could feel it—the molten resistance under his skin, the air around him warped slightly like heat on pavement. You could see it in his eyes too, the agony of holding back, of containing a force that once defied the Almighty.

His forehead remained pressed to yours, until you leaned back slightly. He reached to keep you close, hands hovering at your shoulders, not daring to grasp. “Are you still scared of me?” he asked.

You swallowed. “Yes… but it’s not the fear of what you are—it’s fear of what this could mean. But it’s better. It’s better than the time I didn’t know you. Better than that first day on the chapel.”

He closed his eyes. “You always remind me of a time. You remind me of a time I felt grace.”

You didn’t know what to say, so you prayed, silently and internally. The words tangled with your breath as you pleaded for peace, for understanding, for something beyond this impossible intimacy. He stayed perfectly still, listening; not to your voice, but to your prayer. He wasn’t trying to damn you.

He began to visit you in dreams, but not with sin. With silence, and seeing.

And your prayers turned confused—full of contradictions, of longing for someone you weren’t meant to long for. He wanted redemption, but the closer he got to grace, the more violently Hell responded.

You had noticed it first in the mirrors, your own reflection watching you too long. The sound of wings, but not his—fluttering behind your ears when you knelt. The angels didn’t comfort you—they judged. That was cold, bright, cruel. They didn’t understand why you still let him near, and when they came, it wasn’t with harps or halos; it was with wrath.

The ground cracked under them, with wind and holy fire erupting in your bedroom. Your rosary shattered on the floor as they advanced. That’s when he stepped forward.

He didn’t flee, but stood between you and the divine, hand raised not in violence but in defiance. “I won’t let you harm her,” he growled, and the room trembled at his voice.

His fire didn’t scorch you, it instead shielded you arching over your body like a barrier, his wings unfurling in a storm of black smoke and crimson light.

Later, when the angels vanished with seared feathers and scornful eyes, you collapsed. “God never loved me like you do,” you choked.

He didn’t reply, but he looked ruined. He sat on the edge of your bed. “You don’t understand what you’re saying,” he murmured. “You’re asking to walk beside something that even heaven cast out.”

“And you,” you whispered, reaching for his burning hand again, “are asking me to walk away before you break me.”

His eyes flickered red, then human, then red again. “Yes.”

But you shook your head. “I would rather walk through fire beside someone who sees me than kneel in a church that ignores my ache.”

He stilled, making the universe held its breath, and in that stillness, he looked at you as though you were made of light he was never meant to touch. As though he could finally understand why angels fell: not for rebellion.

You were the temptation, and yet, you were tempted by him. The irony burned; you were falling—not into hell, but for it.

Joshua stood at the edge, between damnation and redemption, and neither path looked holier than the way your eyes held his. 

He moved closer, until there was no air between your breaths. Until his presence became heat, and that heat became longing. “You pray not to fall in love with the wrong person,” he muttered, voice low and wrecked. “And your God… not only didn’t answer—but made the wrong entity fall for you.”

His words struck deep. It wasn't with mockery, but a bitter kind of awe, as if even he couldn’t believe it. You looked him in the eye and reasoned, “At least it’s a wrong entity… and not a wrong human. For that, I do thank Him.”

That broke something in him, and in you. He touched your face slowly, hesitant, reverent. A hand that had once ended worlds now trembling to touch your cheek. His thumb brushed your lower lip, as if asking for permission he had never dared to take, and still, you didn’t pull away. You tilted your head into it; permission.

He exhales, ragged and stunned, like the contact burned him, and maybe it did. You don’t speak when his fingers trace the line of your throat. You just breathe as he studies your reaction like a man terrified of ruining what little good remains in his hands. “This is wrong,” he whispers. “You know that, don’t you?”

“But so was everything that hurt me before you,”

"You were never meant to be touched by fire like me."

“Then why,” you ask, your voice barely a thread, “does it feel like warmth for the first time?”

He leans in closer than close, and your lips don’t quite meet, but the air between you sizzles with the proximity. His breath is hot against your mouth, and when you close your eyes, you feel him flinch as if trying not to touch you, yet.

He’s trembling—not from lust, but from the sheer restraint of it. “I could destroy you,” he says against your lips. “Easily.”

You press forward, just enough to whisper against his mouth, “Then destroy me gently.”

And that undoes him. “Say it again,” he demands.

“Say what?”

“That you thank your God… for sending the wrong entity.” You smile, half-shattered and half-defiant. Something wild flickers in his eyes, something ancient and starving.

He lifts your hand and presses it to his bare chest. "Feel that?" he murmurs. His heart, thudding against your palm, which felt erratic and alive. "That’s for you. You, the one thing in this world I can't touch without burning, and still, like you said—I keep reaching." You are fully clothed, and yet you’ve never felt so bare beneath someone’s touch. And still, there is reverence. Always reverence. He touches you like a priest at the altar, like you are a sacrament he is forbidden to hold but worships anyway. “I never wept for heaven,” he confesses. “But you—you make me weep.”

You cling to him like an answer you weren’t supposed to find, and that was when the darkness crept in. It wasn't from him, but from the echoes of your past.

His breath hitched. “Don’t let me ruin you,” he rasped.

“Maybe I’m already ruined,” you said softly. “Or maybe you’re what kept me alive.” Your voice cracked at the edge of truth.

You remembered the nights you couldn’t breathe. The silence that swallowed you whole when no one came. The sharpness of words meant to raise you, but instead left bruises. You remembered the cutting cold of abandonment, the nights someone touched you when they shouldn’t have, the ache of a body that didn't feel like yours anymore, and the prayers you muttered into your pillow, prayers for sleep, for peace, for escape.

The world didn’t break you all at once. It did so slowly, cruelly, as if daring you to notice, and when the world forgot you, he didn’t.

You didn’t realize how you got back to breathing properly, how you started lighting candles instead of hiding from the dark, until you traced it all back—to him. To the nights he just sat there invisibly, to the moments his gaze, heavy and broken, told you you weren’t invisible, to the way he listened, even when you didn’t speak.

He never told you to forgive the world, he never asked you to stay. He simply healed. And it was that, that stitched you back together.

It was him. He was the answer your prayers were too broken to phrase. You gasp, not from fear but from remembering, and he sees it. He pulls back, alarmed, the heat in his eyes replaced with concern.

“You okay?” he asks while his eyes searching for discomfort or fear, and then forehead to yours again, grounding you.

Tears on your lashes now, you nod. “You brought me back,” you reply. “I didn’t realize it… but you did.” He presses a kiss to your temple, then your closed eyelids, like comfort; like home. But then he stiffens.

You feel the shift, and the warning. “I need you to walk away,” he said, voice suddenly hoarse. “Right now. Before I break you for real. I’m close… too close. And I can’t—”

Before, there were moments when he almost reached for you, when his hand would hover an inch from yours, trembling like the air between you were on fire, like touching you might scorch him but not touching you might kill him slower; and there were moments where you swore you saw tears, not fire, behind his eyes.

He never kissed you, never let you fall. Never let himself fall either. And that was the tragedy, pretending the view was enough. But God, if staring could be a sin, you were both damned tenfold.

You tried to walk away before he even asked for it, days and months ago. You blocked his number, even though he never called. You stopped looking in shadows, stopped waiting for something you wouldn’t get even though you wanted, started keeping your rosary closer, like faith could be armor thick enough to keep his memory out—but mid-prayer, your hands would shake, trembling open in the air, and your heart, traitorous and tender, would whisper his name before your lips could finish the verse, and you hated yourself for it. And then, then you’d lift your head and there he would be, sitting quietly, as if he had never stopped watching, as if you belonged to a story that wouldn’t let itself end.

I told myself I wouldn’t come back, he said back then, his voice was barely there, but your God… He still listens to me when I ask not to love you anymore. He just won’t answer.

And that’s when you broke finally and violently—you screamed at him, threw the nearest book, told him he ruined you, told him you hated him for making you feel like this, for making you question everything you thought was sacred, for pushing you into a place where nothing felt safe, not even your own faith.

He just looked at you like he’s been waiting for this; for the rage, for the ache, for the truth—and he looked at you like you’re his religion he doesn’t believe he deserves but still kneels toward. I hate me too, he said, and it’s not an excuse or a plea, it’s a confession.

He doesn’t say he loves you. You don’t say you love him. Because that’s not the kind of story this is.

Maybe in another world, if the devil had a heart and heaven wasn’t so far out of reach, maybe you would’ve been his salvation, and he would’ve been your first prayer, and you, his last chance at being saved.

-

Even your God can’t hate me more than I hate myself for wanting you, he told you once, not under the safety of night, but in the unforgiving clarity of day, when sins cast long shadows and truth had nowhere to hide. He said it with that maddening calm, like a man already condemned, no longer pleading for heaven, but still aching for a taste of light before the final fall.

You didn’t touch him then, not for a long time. But you stood too close, and shared silence the way others shared skin. He hovered, always, his hand never quite reaching yours, as if even that would be too much; a blasphemy neither of you could bear. And somehow, that restraint, that impossible ache wrapped in reverence, felt holier than the kiss you never dared to steal.

You tried to tell yourself that he was the test. The devil’s whisper clothed in tenderness. That his eyes, red not with fire but with sorrow, were the markings of your downfall. But what kind of demon stood between you and temptation, not pushing you forward, but holding you back, whispering, you don’t deserve this kind of ruin, even as his own heart splintered beneath the weight of wanting you?

Because he did want you. And you—shaking, stubborn, shrouded in your prayers and your guilt and your half-sung hymns—you wanted him back.

You began to learn the small things first: that he didn’t like loud noises, that he found church bells both agonizing and beautiful, that he sometimes stared at stained glass for hours, chasing memories he couldn’t hold on to. He flinched at kindness, laughed like it surprised him. He didn’t sleep, instead, he watched; you, mostly—and when he thought you weren’t looking, he wept without tears.

He had a heart, you realized. That was the cruelest part. Even hell had a heart, and it beat for you.

[messenger-of-babel]

Always Late

Summary: Batman was late when you needed him the most, but he refused to let it happen again. (Batfamily x sibling!reader)

Word Count: 4.5K (This was supposed to be a quick fic 💀)

Notes: BIG AUTHOR NOTE INCOMING Before anyone comes for me- I know this was supposed to be a day for Chris. I'm just feeling a touch sick but still want to get a fic out, and I'm currently not able to churn out and go through his, so I'll write some Chris later! Instead I wanted something else, consider it a change up to shake some life back into the theme. I also rambled hella long on this one, so strap in, it's long and the plot got lost in the maze of my mind. I had to shuffle things around and it just kept growing and growing, oh my god so I hope it makes sense to everyone still. Clark caemo, some (very??) OOC villain work cause I forgot some of my original plot and villains so begging on my knees for forgiveness fr. GRAPHIC VIOLENCE/ TORTURE DESCRPTION FOR SOME AREAS. I should have made this two parts but I messed up and made just one massive fic. Was supposed to be batfam x reader but it started feeling more like bruce x reader hahaha. RIP my sleep schedule please reap the benefits of my labour. 😭

Again I was originally here to be a resi blog but I can't help writing for DC after a day of reading comics. On that topic I actually finished collecting Tom Taylor's run at #118, my store held #119 for me so I get to read that as a reward after the hell that will be my Monday.

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When you were taken, it caused a widespread panic among Gotham.

Tabloids across the city wrote about the latest missing person, this time none other than the latest member of billionaire Bruce Wayne's family. The Gotham Gazette had been running articles about you for months already, including the scandal that had come with it. Your dirty laundry and past had been aired for the entire city to read and speculate upon. Whether Bruce had just adopted you out of pity, sympathising with the way that you had lost your parents the same way he had. Gossip about it could all be a ploy for him to expand his influence in Gotham, after the riches and estate that your family had left you behind in their untimely death. The city was thrown into chaos from the death of your parents, both of them from founding Gotham families and well-established lawyers. It was shaken more once the Wayne had taken you into his household, and now it was all but alight as you vanished.

Fingers pointed in every which way, your disappearance marking the fourth among affluent families in Gotham. Accusations had even been hurled at Bruce, claiming that he had killed you in order to gain your assets and the other missing people were to establish an alibi. After all, Bruce Wayne had no alibi for the night that you went missing.

But he had an alibi.

Bruce reflected upon that fact for three days already, while he tore his hair out trying to find you. He had been out in the city, patrolling as usual. The disappearances were the latest case, and he was determined to stop them before they continued. He had been so involved in the case, standing so close to the evidence that he didn't even consider the option that he himself would be affected, or consider the perpetrator might targe the Waynes. he hadn't expected to get a call from Alfred a little past midnight, the butler wheezing painfully into the receiver.

Blood freezing in his veins he had come home to an empty house, windows on the third story smashed in. Alfred was slumped by the phone, its sleek body hanging off the hook. Bruce had pulled the cowl off without a second thought, cradling the older man's head in his lap with shaky hands. He had relaxed slightly when there was a steady pulse under his fingers, and the tension eased further when the older man had opened his eyes.

"Alfred," Bruce had sighed out, moving the old man from his lap to against the wall, hand keeping him upright. "Are you okay-"

"They took them." came the old man's mumbled reply, and for a second Bruce's jaw just hung there.

"What do you mean?" he asked, heart thudding painfully against his ribs, panic rising once more.

"They came through the window, cut the lights. I pretended to be unconscious to use the phone line, but they came back. Cut it shortly after I rang you." the older man said, looking up with remorseful eyes. "I'm so, so sorry, Mr. Wayne." he said forlornly. "I couldn't stop them."

Bruce looked down; jaw tensed. "It wasn't your fault." he said firmly, trying to quell the despair radiating off the old man.

"They took them kicking and screaming. I could hear them the entire time, but I couldn't do anything I-"

"Alfred." Bruce said sternly. "Alfred it's okay. Let me handle it, you go make some tea." he said, helping the old man stand up.

"Tea, yes, yes that's right..." the butler murmured to himself, hand to his head. "It's been a while since you asked me for tea, sir."

"It's not for me." Bruce said, pulling the cowl back on. "It's for you. make yourself some tea and we'll patch you up. Take it easy tonight, wait for the shock to wear off."

Alfred looks at him, hesitating, but eventually nods. "We, sir?"

Bruce hums, fists at his side. "Yes. This case has escalated. It's time to request help."

He keeps his voice level as he walks away, but Alfred notes the way that he turns the corner, and the anger put into his stride.

When he gets to the cave he wastes no time, calling in everyone he can think of. His chest feels tight, breath short as his vision swims. Every signal he can send he does, the blurring in his eyes seeping into his mind too. He cradles his head in his hands, trying to calm it but to no avail. It's only when the ringing of the Batcomputer cuts through the fog that he is able to look up, shaking fingers hitting the accept call button.

"Batman?" comes the crackly voice of Nightwing, and the fog begins to clear slightly.

"Nightwing." he says back gruffly, voice hoarse.

"About time, you were making people pretty worried, you know." Dick chides, and there's the sound of yapping in the background. "What's the brief? What's happened?"

"Kidnapping." he says, voice thick. "Broke into the manor. Alfred is likely to be concussed, but it shouldn't be too serious. He's making tea, Robin is out on the other side of the city tonight. Red Robin is with you, isn't he?"

There's more shuffling on the other end before Dick responds. "Yeah, he's been helping in Bludhaven, he came last night."

"Bring him. Bring Oracle too. Everyone...come home." he murmurs, hands shaking as he tries to think clearly.

"Bruce, is everything okay with you?" Dick comes in, concern evident.

"Fine. I need people back immediately. Why?" he huffs back, rubbing the spots from his eyes with his fingers.

"Because we've all been trying to call you for the last few minutes. This is the first time you've picked up."

Bruce takes a deep breath, exhaling softly. He hadn’t realised how badly he had spaced out. "It's an emergency. They...they’re gone. They need to come home."

"The new kid?" Dick breathes. "Wait, you mean-"

Bruce nods even though he knows his eldest cannot see him. "Gone. Now come back and come back tonight." he ends the call before Dick can say anything else, and his tired eyes scan the monitor filled with a string of outgoing distress calls and an equally large number of missed ones. In his haze he had pressed every com line he had. He had pinged Jason, he had pinged Dick. Hell, he had even pinged the League and Clark, who hadn't even bothered to call for clarity, his response status just reading, 'On my way'.

He held his head in his hands, breaths laboured.

Bruce had held his own reservations when adopting you. He knew about the media uprising that it would cause, the rumours that were sure to fly. He had known what kind of mental state that would put you in, how it would angle you in a whole new world of cameras, but he couldn't help himself. He had seen you while in the suit, and maybe he had taken you in to make himself feel better. For not catching the person who had killed your parents, arriving too late. He had been training for this his entire life, it was his entire mission in Gotham, yet he couldn't stop the very crimes that had put him on this path.

If he had been faster maybe he could have saved your parents, disarming the man with the knife before it plunged into the chest of your father. Maybe he could have arrived faster so that he could have caught the offender that robbed your mother before giving her the same treatment and fleeing into the night. Instead, he was only there fast enough for him to hear you scream as your parents collapsed to the floor. He was there as you cried and shook them and tried to stop the blood spilling through your fingers, but you were unsure where to start. After all, how can someone make a decision between stopping the flow seeping from their father’s chest and the one from their mother’s throat?

He had been there to pull you away, was there to catch the last dying light of your father as he stroked your cheek before making eye contact with Bruce. "Look after my kid." he had whispered, something Bruce had nearly missed under all your screaming. Bruce pulled you away while he called for the GCPD, and from one father to another, he made sure to keep that promise.

Your relationship had been rough, clearly distraught at the way you lost your parents. You were older than he was when the same had happened, but you were still young. You had clung to Bruce the day he said he was going to take you in, and he had managed to soothe you with a soft hand up and down your back. Yet as the tabloids got worse and the gossip began to grow, you began pulling away from him and seeking the comfort of your room instead. He had done his best to protect you from the media, paying money to have articles removed and when that didn't work, he threatened to sue. It made the Gazette pull their head in a bit, but it still failed to be enough. Evidently, as there was now an empty bedroom on the third floor of the east wing.

All he could do was sigh and blink away the images of the children he had hurt, in the name of Robin or otherwise. He had to rub away the death of Jason that he reflected on in sombre moments when he thought no one was looking. He had gotten you into this mess, attached you with his name and all of its subsequent burdens. So, it was his duty to get you back and get you back safe.

Yet three days later, he had nothing.

The cave had been a buzz of activity for all three days, and Bruce, no, Batman, was acting close to a slave driver. Tim and Barbara hadn't left the caves computers in days, Damian and Steph constantly scouring the rooftops. Dick was concerned, hell, everyone was. Even the gruff Jason had been called in, and reluctantly he had answered.

"You find anything?" Dick asked, leaning against the wall with his younger brother. Jason was still suited up, coming back from the patrol around Bristol area. He removes the mask and shakes his hair free, sighing.

"Nothing. Areas come up empty. No sign of 'em."

Dick sighs, running a hand through his hair. "God, there's nothing on my end either. The Docks and all Southside of Gotham are clean, no traces. Any signs pointing to who it could be?"

Jason shrugs, helmet tucked under his arm. "No idea, as it stands, the kid's just gone missing. If Bruce isn't able to scrounge up a lead, I doubt I will. Not my forte. He should give Tim a break and send him out."

"Yeah, like he'll do that. He's got him tied to cave duty." Dick scoffs back. He feels bad, talking like your kidnapping was a causal affair. He didn't treat it like one, his heart stuttering when Bruce had called him in a haze and all shaken. It didn't a genius to see how attached Bruce had gotten to you in such a short amount of time, but sometimes Dick worried that Bruce was projecting his own trauma onto you. But still you were his younger sibling, a part of the family now. He had met you with a warm smile and a gentle hand the day that you moved in, coming in from Bludhaven to make the house a bit more lively while you got settled in. God, he knew what it was like moving in alone into that empty house, with only Bruce and Alfred to warm the halls. He had eaten dinner with you, took you out for walks in the garden when your grief allowed you move more than a few paces. He did his absolute best, and he knew that with time he could be a big brother to you.

Yet you hadn't been given the time, snatched away before Christmas even hit. He doubted you knew that Bruce was the Batman, or that the rest of the family had an interesting array of night lives.

Jason was the same in the way that he hadn't interacted with you much.

Honestly, he was awkward with kids, since the last kid of Bruce's he had met was the devil spawn who spat at him like an angry cat every chance he got. You were thankfully much older and easier to understand, but that still didn’t mean smooth sailing. Jason hated even coming back to the manor, and he and Bruce had been having one of their ongoing fights during the time he took you in, meaning he missed seeing you often. Yet he still talked to Dick (more so that Dick called him to make sure that he was okay) and the older man had seen you plenty. He felt like he knew you from Dick alone, but he wasn't oblivious to your story printed in the newspapers shoved under his apartment door. He pitied you, understood the grief that you must have been going through at the sudden violence that tossed your little world upside down. Sure, you had gone from luxury to luxury, but Gotham was unkind to everyone. it was the same violence that Jason strode to clean off the street, and his heart ached deep down that someone like you had managed to get caught in its claws.

"Do you think it could be the clown?" Dick asks quietly. "He'd do something as ballsy as this."

Jason tenses, thinking for a moment before shaking his head. "Not likely. That bastard likes to make a spectacle of things. No doubt he would have contacted the Bat the second he took the first victim or aired it like some twisted game show. It's not like him to lay quiet."

"So, it's someone else. It's unnatural for Gotham's villains to do something in the dark like this. I mean, it's been three days since they were abducted, and they're the fourth kidnap victim. There hasn't been a ransom note, a demand, a body. Not a peep for any of the captives. It's unnatural."

Jason hums in agreement, but they both jump as Bruce storms through grandfather clock entrance.

Everyone present turns, watching how Clark trails after him. Five sets of eyes watch the livid way the Bat cuts a path through the cave and gets into the batmobile, breaths too anxious to be released. Without a word the car screams out of the cave, and they all turn to Clark. Barbara casts a glance to Tim and then to Dick, who just shrugs, worry deepening on his face.

"What the hell's going on?" Jason growls, pushing off from the wall. Clark turns to face him, dressed in his Superman suit.

"We’ve found them." Clark says, face grim, and Dick shares a look with Jason. However, when Dick meets the eyes of Superman, he can see the flicker of worry in the Kryptonian. "Well let's get going then. Why did he leave alone?" Dick asked, slipping the domino mask back onto his face. Clark opens his mouth to speak but is cut off as Damian steps out behind his broad figure.

"Because it's the League." the younger boy says, green eyes boring in Dick's. "It's grandfather."

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

Bruce drove like his life depended on it, which wasn't fair when it was yours on the line instead. He could see the dots on his monitor indicating that the others were following him, and he had assumed that Clark had proceeded to fill them in. He had asked his old friend to look after the city while he sped towards the outskirts, just in case the League decided to do something while he had his guard on the city lowered. His com crackled to life, radio filling the otherwise silent car.

"Oi." snapped the voice of Red Hood, modulated and grainy. "Don't leave without telling us what's going on. Aren't you the one always spewing that 'feel-no-emotion' bullshit? To not let it cloud your judgement? Cause from the way I see it, you're acting kinda hazy."

"I trusted Clark would fill you in." he says back, voice tense. Red Hood scoffs.

"Yeah, and he did. You called us. You tell us what the hell you want us to help with, otherwise don't bother calling at all. Don't drag us out, get us invested then not let us help when it comes to it. What was your plan, beat the shit out of Ras and taken them back by yourself?"

Bruce falls silent, and there's a slight huff from Jason on the other end.

"Honestly? not the worst plan you've had, and I respect the enthusiasm, but you still should have looped us in. I want to get a hit in too."

Bruce turns his head to the direction of the radio, snapped from his concentration on the road momentarily and it's like Jason can feel his confusion through the commlink.

"Don't give me that silence." he groans. "They're family, aren't they? I'm not opposed to a younger sibling, you know." he huffs irritably. "But do me a favour and control Nightwing, hey? He's looking as coiled as you. You might have to fight him for the first hit."

Bruce doesn’t say anything before the comm cuts off, leaving him in the silence once more and eyes going straight back onto the red dot mapped onto his GPS. You.

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

When you awoke the first time, you couldn’t feel anything. Your hands were tied to your ankles behind you, black cloth wrapped around your eyes. what you did know was that you were lying somewhere concrete, face pressed into the dusty cement. You knew that on the day that you woke and they had brough you were, that there were other people thrown in the same cell as you. You also knew that those other people were dead.

You had heard them scream, heard the way that they begged for their lives when they were dragged from the pen you were in. One a day, until you were left alone with no one to talk to. They had all been kidnapped like you, affluent people that you recognised the names and voices of. You had heard some of them at events you parents had hosted and attended, and when you traded names, they had remembered you immediately. You weren't dumb, you knew that you had all been taken here because you were rich. That was the only thing that you had in common with the heiresses and finance brokers that had shared the cells with you, huddled up against the cool metal.

Now the only thing left was you and the stickiness that crept under the bars of your cage, grateful that the blindfold was on so you didn't have to see what it was. At first you thought that you were alone, that your captors had left, but you knew better. You could sense them all around you, quiet and watching. They were like an uncomfortable prickling on your neck, the ghost of fingertips across your skin. Yet the hours and minutes had bled into days, and now you didn’t care if they were there or not.

You knew that they wanted to kill you. They had killed the rest. You had been given small amounts of food and water the first day or two, but today there had been none. Your mouth was dry as you lay on your side, lips cracking with the desire to drink. Your throat felt like sandpaper when you swallowed, and the silence that you were met with when you called out only made your panic and helplessness rise. You had lost the ability to cry, body sluggish. It felt like everything was shutting down, the pain in your stomach unbearable and tongue heavy in your mouth. As the heat crept in and pulled sweat from your unwilling skin, you began wishing that they would kill you.

You supposed that your wish was answered when the creak of your cell signalled one of your silent observers had come for you, and the tug on the ropes binding your limbs together made you lurch forward. You kept your face pressed down, too weak to struggle against them as they dragged you out and gripped your hair, making you shift onto your knees at an awkward angle. For the first time in days, you heard someone speak.

" So, this is Bruce's new...child." Your captor hummed. You could hear the way that their boots scuffed as they walked, coming to stand in front of you. You could faintly feel the swish of fabric, long and tickling the floor. "I wonder if he was planning to hand the title of Robin over so soon.”

Your eyebrows furrow, but your barely functioning brain fails to process what he's saying.

"Are you aware of your family's lineage?" comes the voice from above you, commanding and deep with a hint of something malicious in the undertone, like a coiled snake waiting to strike. “Your real family, the ones who claimed to practice a just and fair law. Not Wayne.”

 You manage to shake your head weakly, grimacing as the image of your parents covered in blood flickered into your mind.

The voice above you tuts. "The sins of the father shall be bestowed upon the son," he recites softly. "And you are to pay the penance. Gotham will be purged, and the bloodlines of the corrupt shall be the first to burn, aware of their sins or not."

You don't even get a chance to ask what he's saying, the words sounding like biblical rambling. A scream is ripped through your throat instead as a sharp hot pain erupts through your shoulder, the sound of your own skin bubbling making you sick. You wail, body aching to thrash but the fatigue and weakness preventing you from doing such. The hands on your shoulders hold you still as the sensation is repeated across your body, stray tears leaking from your eyes despite your dehydrated state. It's only when you feel like you’re about to cross over, embrace the light spilling behind your eyes that you realise that the hands have left your body and that you're lying face down, discarded on the concrete floor.

You can feel the ache all over your body, a stinging and writhing pain that makes your whimper involuntarily. You can now make out that there is sound around you, echoing off the empty walls and causing your head to throb after days of silence.

For Bruce however, the world was silent despite being in the thick of the fight. They had pulled up the abandoned building on the edge of Gotham and Bludhaven, thankfully located by Clark and his x-ray vision after days of searching. He had stormed into the building with Dick, Jason, and Tim on his heels, his hands filled with a shake only the trained eye could determine as rage. The world had dripped into the pulsing cadence of his heartbeat as soon as he saw you, kneeling at Ra’s feet and being held by league assassins. He had hardly any time to process the way that you curled up and into yourself when you were dropped so carelessly, head thudding lifelessly against the floor. Forlorn, he eyed the way your body was covered with cuts and stabs, burns from the red-hot sword still held in the hands of a soldier. He hadn't known when the league had decided to dabble in torture, but Bruce felt like joining that night.

Jason and Tim were dealing with the assassins, the younger male finally freed from desk duty. He didn't know you as well as he would have liked considering that you lived under the same roof as him, but you had been warming up. He had really hoped that you could get along, but now he feared that this was going to push your back into the shell you had just started to crack, and that frustration was evident in the whistling of his bow staff as it cut through the air.

Dick had gone after Ra’s immediately while Batman raced for you, Dicks escrima sticks going for the head. Dick was fast and agile, muscles more tensed than usual as he sent well placed blow after blow. Yet Bruce wasn’t an idiot, he knew the limits of him and his team, and he knew the limits of Ra’s. That's why in what limited time that Dick bought for him he dropped to your side, slicing through your bonds with a batarang and letting your arms and legs fall free from their cramped position behind you. You groan lightly as he cradles you to his chest, weakly crying out as he justles the many wounds. He loosens the blindfold from your eyes, and your blink up at him a few seconds later, squinting against the light.

Your skin is sticky with blood both your own and not, flecked across the apple of your cheeks. He eyes the burns, the warped and rippled skin that blistered angrily and would surely get infected if not treated soon. He observes the many cages set up in the corner, the one he presumes was yours wide open and empty. He feels sick seeing the dead bodies in the other ones, imagining that it could have been you in there, dead like some caged animal for slaughter.

You make a weak whimper when he stands, and he has half a mind to join Nightwing in beating Ras so badly he'd need to use the pit again.

But he doesn’t.

He rises to his feet with you in his arms, and he calls for a retreat. You cry and moan as he hurries out, Jason and Tim covering your exit while Dick flips into the rafters and out of range of the Demon Head. He wants to fight; he wants to put them in their place for hurting his family. But the moment he had met your eyes again, it was like that day in the alleyway. You had seen him as Batman too that day, but as he laid you hurriedly in the back of the batmobile and patched Oracle in to prep the med bay, he knew that something was different from that night.

Because unlike the day you lost your parents, he had made it in time.

[dissociativewriter]

I feel like it’d be fun for the reader to have taken 4 years of Spanish or whatever language and just not mention it. Then one day randomly, they just mutter something like “Ayúdame…” under their breath and the LADS are like ??? You know Spanish????? Maybe after that, they call him cute names like “Mi amor” “Mi luz” “Mi vida” etc

okay this is such a cute idea so I’m gonna do headcanons for this! I’m gonna mix up the languages so it’s not the same thing five times, so I’ll have Spanish, French, and Italian! 🫶 (i had to check with google translate on every one of these cause i was like wait am i saying this right?? i hope the spanish is okay because i took french in high school lol)

cw: italian cuss word, other than that its fluffy although maybe a little suggestive with sylus

request event

Xavier

❀ You’ve been on this level for hours. It’s killing you. It should not be this hard, you know, and you shouldn’t care this much, but if you could just beat this level!

❀ Xavier watched your frustration, trying to figure out if he should offer his help or if it would just make things worse. He winced with you as the Game Over screen appeared again, almost missing your mutterings.

❀ “Ayúdame…” you whispered under your breath, frustration nearly bubbling over. Xavier froze, sitting next to you with wide eyes. “…Yes?” “You know another language?” he tilted his head. “Yeah I took four years of Spanish.”

❀ He’s signing up for Spanish lessons so fast. In the meantime, he’s asking you to speak Spanish to him sometimes. He says it helps him fall asleep. “Your voice is very soothing, especially when it’s another language.” You don’t really get it, but you’ll do it anyway. “Buenas noches, mi cielo,” you whisper, kissing his forehead as his eyes flutter shut.

Zayne

❀ The deadline for that assignment you’d forgotten was fast approaching. You were sat next to Zayne, furiously typing to finish it up while he went through patient reports. It was silent, mostly, save for the occasional comment here and there.

❀ You finally finished, quickly opening up the drop box so you could submit and be done with it. Of course, though, as you entered the file, a message appeared, in big bold letters. ERROR.

❀ “Pourquoi?!” you groaned, falling forward against your computer. Zayne’s fingers stilled over the keyboard. He looked up at you, adjusting his glasses. “You know French?” You sat back up, meeting his gaze. “Yeah, I took it in high school.” Zayne let out a satisfied hum. “I took some French classes in college.”

❀ Zayne was never one for grand gestures, so he showed his love in smaller ways. One of his favorites seemed to be quiet utterances in French that showed his care. “Est-ce que tu vas bien, mon amour?” “Veins te voucher, ma chérie.”

Rafayel

❀ It was another one of Rafayel’s art exhibits. You were so proud of him and the paintings were beautiful, but the people were so annoying. Dozens of upper class citizens pretending to know something about art, all while mostly ignoring Rafayel’s own explanations of the pieces. You were wondering just how fast you could get out if you faked a medical emergency when you heard someone muttering about how Rafayel was actually talentless, anyone could throw paint on a canvas and this was all meaningless slop.

❀ This is not something you’re just going to let slide. “You have something to say about my boyfriend?” you asked, walking over to them. Recognizing you immediately, they quickly changed their tune. “We were just talking about the genius behind this piece!” one of the men said frantically. “Leccaculo…” you muttered, turning away.

❀ “Why didn’t you tell me you knew another language?” Rafayel pouted. “I didn’t think it was important…” “I guess I’ll forgive you since you defended me like a good bodyguard. But now I want to learn, too.” You don’t know another day of peace after Rafayel finds out you know Italian. Everywhere you go, “what’s that in Italian?” “Un tavolo.” You deadpan. “What would you call me?” “Mostriciattolo.” You didn’t hear the end of that one.

❀ It’s alright, though. You can handle all his enthusiasm when it ended in quiet moments like this. Cradling his face in your hands, caring for and observing it like a delicate marble statue, whispering “amore mio bellissimo” as his tensions ease under your caring gaze.

Sylus

❀ You really needed to stop inviting Sylus over to your place. That six foot something man was a walking hazard in your home made for normal sized people. Between moving all your things higher on the shelf than you could reach and knocking into your cabinets so much that paint was beginning to wear off, you had had enough.

❀ Now, you couldn’t find your wallet. When you asked Sylus, he just shrugged, a wolfish grin on his lips. “I did clean up, sweetie, but I’m not sure where I put it. Why don’t you use my card instead?” This was definitely a plot he’d set up. You were steadfast on using your own money this time, so you searched your apartment.

❀ You did find it. On the top shelf. Out of your reach. “Tu te fous de moi?” you cried. Peeking his head in, Sylus raised an eyebrow. “Tu parles français?” Your head snapped to meet his gaze, your annoyance evident. “Did you do this?” you demanded. Chuckling, he took a few steps towards you, wrapping his arms around your waist from behind. “Just use my wallet, mon ange.” You kept silent as you felt your face heat up. Maybe the endearments could stay, even if you were mad.

❀ You eventually had to stop with the nicknames in other languages because every time you would say something cute in French, Sylus would respond with an endearment in a language you’d never heard and it was doing things to you. (He still weaponizes it, despite your protests)

Caleb

❀ The day had been a long one. You were practically on autopilot the moment you stepped through Caleb’s door, kicking off your shoes and tossing your bag on his couch.

❀ He took care of you, of course, like he always did. Cooking your dinner and holding you close as a movie played in the background. He watched as you lost focus on the movie, eyes closed more often than open now. Wrapping the blanket tighter around you, he whispered a quiet, “Goodnight, pip-squeak,” not expecting much of a response.

❀ In your half-consciousness, you muttered back an affectionate “Duerme bien, mi amor,” before promptly falling asleep.

❀ He stared at you with wide eyes, wondering just when his pip-squeak learned another language and he didn’t know about it. For now, Caleb lets you sleep. But when you wake up in the morning, you’re bombarded with questions. “When did you learn Spanish?” “Can ya teach me, pips?” “Does pip-squeak translate into Spanish or do I have to find you a new nickname?”

comments and reblogs appreciated and asks open! <3

masterlist

[mrsbarnesblog]

the reader has been begging rafe to watch vampire diaries with her because its her favourite show but its always been a firm no. rafe did something ( it can be anything ) and it upset the reader a bit and rafe asks the reader how he can make it up to her and she asks for girl night with rafe. face masks , making tiktoks , listening to music and of course watching vampire diaries

➤ w/c: 0.8k

➤ warnings: none

➤ a/n: thank you for the request <3 Rafe would've definitely pretended to be annoyed but secretly enjoyed it lol

masterlist

“I'm sorry, baby, okay? I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.” Rafe kneeled in front of you, as you were currently sitting on the couch, endlessly scrolling tiktok and paying literally no attention to your boyfriend. 

You two just had a small argument, and with Rafe’s short temper, it quickly went downhill. Even though there was nothing too serious and you knew that Rafe didn’t want to upset you, it still hurt you a little bit, so you wanted to teach him a lesson. 

“Please? Look at me, pretty girl. I’m really sorry.” He rubbed his hands up and down your thighs, leaving a few soft kisses. “How can I make it up to you, huh? Do you want to go shopping? Spend all of my money? Go on a date to your favorite place? Kick me? Just tell me and I’ll give it to you.” 

You were trying so hard to keep back a smile forming on your lips. Because who would’ve thought that Rafe, the big, scary and moody guy, would beg for your forgiveness, literally standing on his knees? You finally put your phone down, looking at your boyfriend and studying him for a few seconds. 

“Have a girls night with me.” You smirked, seeing how his brows slowly furrowed. 

“Excuse me?” 

“Girls night. Masks, snacks, music and vampire diaries are included.” His eyelids lowered, looking at you suspiciously. 

“Were you planning on pulling me into that shit? ‘Cuz I ain’t doin’ that. Told that a million times already, babe.” 

You just rolled your eyes, going back to your phone and acting like you didn't notice the way Rafe was burning holes into you with his stare.

“Are you really gonna ignore me again? I said, I’m sorry.” 

“And you also said that you'd do anything that I asked for. That’s what I’m asking for. Just one night, Rafe. No one’s going to see you being soft and cute except for me, you grumpy ass.” You held eye contact for a few seconds, already seeing how Rafe was hesitating between giving in and continuing to act like a child.

“Fine. But only one time, got it? And you can’t tell anyone about it.”

***

“Did you just take a photo?” Rafe’s head snapped towards you and you innocently bit your lip, locking your phone and putting it away. 

“Maybe… But you look really cute, just wanted to have it for myself.” You smiled at him, moving closer on your bed and fixing a few strands of hair that fell out of Rafe’s white bunny headband. He did look cute, laying and watching your favorite series only in his gray sweats, with no shirt, and most importantly, with a Hello Kitty sheet mask on his face. 

Before that, you had already cleaned and exfoliated Rafe’s face while sitting on top of him, which was the only reason why he didn’t complain every second, and then you brought all the possible snacks from the kitchen and took your favorite masks with you. It took quite some time to convince him to put it on, but a few kisses worked just perfectly. 

As the twenty minutes on your timer went off, you took both of your masks off with Rafe mumbling “finally” under his breath, and with another bag of chips, you snuggled into your boyfriend’s side. “Vampire Diaries” that you convinced him to turn on were currently only on the third episode, and you looked up from Rafe’s shoulder, noticing that he was actually looking at the screen. 

“I told you that it’s good.” You giggled, shoving chips into your mouth and then giving a few to Rafe. His hand wrapped tighter around your body, bringing you even closer. 

“It’s not.” 

“Then why are you watching it?” You arched your brow when he looked down at you.

“Because you told me too. You know that I hate this type of stuff, right, babe? This girl shit is not for me.” 

“Whatever you say, Rafey.” Your hand stroked his bunny ears, which were still holding his hair, then cupped his face to place a kiss on the lips. You knew that Rafe was just being stubborn and that he actually was enjoying your evening together; it was obvious by the way his body was in the most relaxed state possible, there was no usual annoyance, and he had that look in his eyes. The one that you always saw whenever you two were alone, when you were wrapped up in each other’s arms, when you made him happy and safe. “Thank you for this. It means a lot to me.” 

“ Anything for you, baby.” Rafe softened, lips curling in a lazy smile, as he caught your lips in another kiss. “Now watch your goddamn show, or I’m gona turn it off.” Rafe pulled away, playfully rolling his eyes at you, yet still looking back at the screen, now also too hooked on to miss any second. 

[samisverycool]

Hi! I love your yandere prince (sorry but you've written him too well not to like <3)

I just had an idea pop up and just wanted to share it.

So, the reader seems like a relatively strong female, in the sense of how she views herself and does seem to have the ability to yell at others when needed. (Unlike that time she was hit by two maids but then again it something she wasn't prepared for but she survived!)

And I just really wanna know how the princes reaction would be if reader stood up for someone sternly and even frightened the mean person by her glare. (Like maomao did from apothecary diaries and jinshi was surprised)

Thank you so much for writing your character! Hope to see more! Loads of love!<3

OMDZ this has been sitting in my drafts for so long 💔💔 bro im so busy its not even funny like release me rn pls 🙏

—> ooh yes, the reader is a very capable person! i haven't actually seen apothecary diaries, sorry 😞. thanks for the req tho ♡

࣪ ִֶָ☾. yandere prince . part five

part four

"that's exactly what i'm saying!"

a young maid by the name of lila beamed up at you, big eyes sparkling with excitement.

you were in the throne room, cleaning windows with other maids while the prince kept watch from his royal seat. lila was a new hire, and just a few years younger than you. she was shy at first, but after she warmed up to you it was near impossible not to adore her childish charm.

the two of you laughed as you sprayed and wiped, sprayed and wiped. the chatter was starting to increase in volume as the other maids started to give sideways glances at the pair.

you cracked a joke, making the young girl lose composure as she stumbled back. her heel caught onto the hem of her skirt as she bumps into another maid's bucket of soapy water. it clatters loudly onto the stone tiles, making some maids flinch.

lila gasped as she whirled around, hands flying to cover her mouth in shock. "oh. my. goodness. i am so sorry! that was an accident, please forgive me!" she immediately grabbed a nearby mop and bowed her head. "i'll help you clean it up. again, i'm really sorry—"

"well, yea, you should be."

the sour maid, marla's, voice cut through, sharp and unamused. her eyes were dull as she crossed her arms, "i didn't make this mess, so you can clean it up by yourself. maybe that'll teach you not to be so obnoxious while the rest of us are actually doing our jobs."

lila's face fell as her grip on the mop grew shaky, bottom lip trembling as she tried to hold tears back. her innocent eyes glazed over, not having the courage to talk back.

you frowned upon seeing her so upset. you stepped forward, "that's enough."

marla's gaze turns to you, incredulous. "excuse me?"

"she said she was sorry. it was an accident. don't you have any empathy?" you said flatly, placing a reassuring hand on lila's shoulder.

marla's scowls, "maybe you shouldn't be distracting others with stories—"

"maybe if you didn't pride yourself on picking on children, you would be more tolerable. stop yelling, it's unnecessary and frankly, embarrassing."

marla looks livid, lila is trying to stifle a giggle, and your eyes trail over to the throne.

there sits the prince, so quiet you forgot he was even there. papers were clutched in his hands, some in his lap, but his eyes were focused on you. he had this expression, not one of anger, but of awe.

"everyone, continue. you, my sweet, come here."

everyone bows their heads as they resume their work, even marla hurries back to her spot. you gently pat lila's back before approaching the dais leading up to the overly lavish seat.

you bow before the prince, but he pulls you closer. his eyes are wide, and you're taken aback by his boldness.

"you continue to surprise me," he laughs, too giddy, too pleased. "i knew there was something in there," he poked at your chest, "a fire. it just had to be provoked."

he smiles as his eyes light up, as if he can actually see a flame in your heart. this was the first time he'd ever seen you act this way, and it was addicting. like he needed to see what other emotions he could make you feel.

"you look cute when you're angry," he mumbles against your neck.

you glance around awkwardly, and the other maids pretended not to see anything.

[oodearest]

I’ve found myself back into Naruto after being somewhat indifferent to the end of Shippuden. Was not a huge fan of that final arc.

Anyways I remember initially being annoyed and/or disappointed with some of Sasuke’s actions towards the end of the series. Don’t get me started on him immediately trying to fight Naruto after they ended an entire WAR. Grrr!!

But I’m able to articulate better why I found the whole ‘let’s get Sasuke back’ rhetoric in Shippuden so frustrating. This might get long so bear with me, might as well format this as a zany essay while I’m at it.

Mission get Sasuke back — The terrible, no good experience of having your trauma ignored

It’s been a while so I could be wrong, but I feel like team 7 never address how absolutely valid Sasuke’s desire to leave is? Kakashi touches on it when he tries to reason with Sasuke pre-defection but I don’t think it ever got through.

In Sakura and Naruto’s case, they want him back, they say they want to be a team again, but none of them ever considers his perspective?

The inherent racism against the Uchiha

Their approach is pretty tone deaf honestly. Sasuke’s a victim of violence. His people were massacred. At the start of the series it’s only been like 5 years since it happened. Sasuke has no one. He also can’t trust anyone. Prior to the massacre the village ostracised them and feared them. In Sasuke’s lifetime, the village has never been welcoming to his identity as an Uchiha.

To top it all off this hatred was incited YEARS earlier by non other than the village’s own second Hokage. It’s pretty vile how much passive and oftentimes—straight up overt—racism is directed towards the Uchiha and no one ever calls it out?

Honestly after Sasuke learns the truth from Itachi, why would he ever feel at peace in the village again? How could he ever return there knowing what they allowed? Does he even fit in there? Did he belong in the first place?

The loneliness of processing his people’s oppresion

These are some complex issues. Sasuke starts tackling them at 12 when he first leaves and only really process it by the end of the war. He spends his adolescence seeking revenge, when he gets it he spends the remainder of the series grieving. He’s mourning, he’s searching for the truth, he’s trying to grasp anything tangible in this awful world he’s inhabiting.

I cannot stress how MAD I get when Sakura and Naruto are like come back, we miss you, what about our bond 🥺 Like guys priorities?? Sasuke is single-handedly tackling systematic corruption and discrimination, give him a minute.

All things considered, he handles those issues in lik four years. He’s pretty efficient.

Overall I don’t think Sasuke’s problem was ever about losing his morals or succumbing to rage. That played a role of course. But the crux of his issue was him fighting for himself, his people and getting justice for something that was largely brushed aside.

I think it’s disappointing that we don’t see more support from team 7 or the village. No rage on Sasuke’s behalf? Not even a brief acknowledgment that the previous leadership was cooked and unfortunately dropped the ball on protecting his people.

Does forgiveness even apply here?

Naruto is a series about forgiveness and redemption. Which can be so beautiful. However I get the sense they want Sasuke to move on from anger and that’s so not possible given what he experienced. There’s a reason reparations is a big part of reconciliation. Konoha was never going to do that under its current leadership.

Konoha is a system. If Sasuke opposes that system then it’s simply him paving a better way for himself. I don’t get why that concept is hard for them to understand. This village is so cooked that the Sannin peaced out of there as soon as they could. Didn’t even come back post Kyuubi attack.

Naruto is a forgiving character, but as someone who also got done dirty by the village it’s sad that he didn’t understand why Sasuke couldn’t drop all of his grief and plans, to simply return to being one of Konoha’s soldiers.

Anyways there’s a lot of nuance missing here that I didn’t go into detail about. Sasuke objectively did some horrible things. Shippuden is him processing trauma realtime, it’s not a surprise that he’s messy, raw and self-destructive. I switch between being so frustrated with him then feeling so sad about his circumstances.

They could never make me form a one-dimensional opinion on you Sasuke! You’re worth thousands of think pieces.

[bahrtofane]

thinking thinking of a college au where jude happens to accidentally runs right into you while he's rushing to make it to an exam and it sends you tumbling and he yells a bunch of apologies to you while you just stare at him with a from from the ground.

and he feels so bad oh so bad but his exam is in 5 mins and it takes him 8 to get there he needs to run.

post exam he spends his free time trying to find you and makes it his mission to properly apologize. he's a big guy and the concrete side walk isnt exactly a soft landing you definitely got a few bruises.

oh you definitely hate him and rightfully so. hes so mean!!

----

jude finds you again, eventually. after a whole month of asking around and stalking instagram posts and the schools website for any clues. he meets you again on the same side while hands tucked into the jacket you wear bopping your head to whatever music youre listening to through you headphones.

jude perks up right away, weaving through people till he taps your shoulder and hes finally found you again.

your eye brows raise as you turn. "oh my god its you." you sneer eyes narrowed.

"listen im so sorry-" he tries.

"yeah no shit i feel on my ass and had a bruise the size of my god damn face man." you’ve taken your headphones off now.

he winces. "i really am sorry i didnt mean to at all."

you scoff, "yeah buddy sure. do you always push people into the ground and run away or am i just that lucky."

he scratches the back of his head, trying not to make eye contact with passersby who are definitely ease dropping.

"i was late to an exam and didn’t see you. i've been trying to find you this whole time to apologize its been eating me up inside."

you sigh.

"listen, let me take you for dinner or pay for something. i really want to make it up to you i know the fall was a killer you landed so rough.."

"i know," you dead pan, "i was there."

he gives an awkward crack of a smile while playing with the zipper on his hoodie. "no pressure." he whispers.

"fine okay. but id rather not dinner. a cafe or something. "

he smiles, it reaches his eyes things time. "amazing," he hands you his phone, "give me your number and we can figure out when?"

you reluctantly take it, typing yoru number in and sending him a hi message.

he takes the phone back, texting you a quick hello its jude.

you hum, "your names Jude?"

He nods, "sure is."

"im still calling you tall asshole."

"ill take it."

he hopes you forgive him. (you do, this is an excuse to talk to him more).

[sourscheming]

Why the Tacomic scene in II 2 17 isnt as bad as some of you are making it out to be

II 2 17 SPOILERS BELOW!!

ive seen many people say they absolutely despise the tacomic scene in ii 2 17 due to many reasons. mainly being that the scene felt too rushed or that microphone was heavily out of character.

and while i can agree with these claims when looking at this scene from a first glance, ive realized this scene requires a lot more additional context and reflection to fully understand, using tiny bits and pieces left for us. and its my job to help glue them up! hope you enjoy my rambling :)

Arguement 1: Mic is very OOC

when first looking at this scene i can agree that yes microphone is very out of character. her acting so nonchalant, just playing off tacos actions. but let me tell you why shes not as ooc as some of you might think. first: a tweet from brian

“mic had always had a tendency to let taco off the hook” and this is very true! she will always try and play off taco’s actions due to how much she cares about her. and. with this being a life or death situation, she really didnt want to make a mountain out of a molehill and potentially die without any closure with taco. her playing off tacos actions might feel like its ooc, but it makes so much more sense whennyou consider their history and the fact thst in someways microphone still yearns and loves taco. she yearns for taco a 7/10 it used to be higher!! (source: brians streams) she still really loves taco despite everything.

i know what pissed many people off was microphone acting so… natural. she wasnt mad or anything. she was just so chill about it all when she shouldve been mad, right? i definitely agree with that, but most people seem to be forgetting this line

(nice callback to this scene btw)

but back to the point; mic hears everything. microphone always knew taco was in the hotel because she heard her. and doing this she had time to reflect and gather her thoughts so she wasn’t screaming at taco or getting mad irrationally. and keep in mind microphone most likely heard taco crying and screaming about pickle dying, i dont think she wanted to push her to do that again. hearing taco, the one who presented herself to be so strong and evil, just sobbing her heart out mustve been terrifying.

now i also wanted to bring up this:

microphone knows about the events of episode 15 and was most likely told taco died and why. she knows taco can die due to heavy emotional distress. acting angry and irrational and not sitting down to talk about wouldve stressed her out more and they couldve potentially lost her too. the reason why shes so chill about isnt because shes not upset about everything, it was because if she was, she risked the chance of loosing taco.

another tweet from brian to show microhone doesnt forgive taco yet, but she definitely woud in the future if taco proved herself:

and again it may not look like this in the episode, but microphones nonchalant attitude comes with a lot of jabs at taco, showing that she doesnt truly forgive her. plus, microphone never utters the words “i forgive you” once.

but the reason why shes able to move on so easily is because of how well she knows taco. taco had always struggled with apologizing, as seen in episode 13. she’s almost never used the word sorry consciously.

microphone had always been a big softie for taco being at least a bit sincere, so imagine how she felt when taco went fully sincere. and she knew she couldn’t just hug her and say i forgive you on a whim, so she sorta had to play it off to keep everything on track.

and this scene is so. impactful because of just what it represents. microphone had always been about “doing the right thing” and taco begrudgingly respected her wishes. but to see taco DOING the right thing mustve been such a turning point for microphone. shown her that taco CAN change, that she wants to. it solidifies that the care that microphone had wasnt one sided, taco LEARNED something from her. shes learning how to be better. shes trying because she wants to be with microphone. i think thats what really strikes a chord, she gained something, a friend.

Arguement 2: The scene felt really rushed

oh i definitely agreed with this at first. this segment will be much shorter because it’s basically hammering into your head that HEY they were in a LIFE OR DEATH SITUATION!!!

microphone needed to quickly rush taco out in order to keep her safe, they needed to do it quickly so they wouldnt die. again, mic wouldve reached out sooner but the situation was so stressful she only did it now. taco probably wouldve died if she didnt come out, and they all knew the onpy way they could pry her out was with someone she cared about.

do i wish they got 5 more minutes to talk? fuck yes, but also keep in mind they barely had time to do anything, so much was happening all at once they had to shoehorn something in. and with the points i listed earlier again, this was probably the best they could do due to circumstance.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

overall, while i do think this scene was rushed, theres still beauty to be had with it. its still really impactful when reflecting on it and i dont think it devalues the tacomic arc as much as some of you make it out to.

i wish there was more to this scene but i think what we got was pretty substantial especially considering everything that happened in ii 2 17.

they both still care for eachother, they both loved eachother so much, that they were able to put their grievances aside so they could spend their final moments together.

thanks for reading <3

[kingchroma]

Continuation of the Jake fic if you don't mind🥹. It was so sweet 💫

unplugged.

࿇ summary. missing you leads to crumbling defenses and an apologetic jake. ࿇ pairing. jake x reader

࿇ word count. 1.5k ࿇ warnings. gap's infidelity. jake being a loverboy. jerry being funny (to me). big deal execs being suspicious ࿇ author's note. this is part 2 of secrets. thank you anon for requesting! i didn't expect secrets would be loved like that

To Jake, love wasn’t exactly ideal.

It wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t a necessity. He thinks he can live without it.

He had seen more of Gapryong’s back leaving the doorway than having him inside of their home—unbothered, not even looking back as he left them again in the confines of their abode. It didn’t feel like a loving home if his mother was miserable, stuck in matrimony with a man who can’t keep it in his pants.

He even vaguely remembers an instance where he had confronted his father. But he can’t be blamed—Jake was only a curious child, wanting to be direct in asking if his father was off to meet up with those odd-looking women again. And all Gapryong tells him was this: you’ll understand when you grow older.

Jake was old enough to understand what his father meant by that, and his conclusion was: Gapryong Kim was not made for love, and Jake started to let go the idea of love.

He resents his father in many different ways. He thinks the old man should’ve just stuck himself with fighting injustices with his fists—something he knew best. Or maybe the old man shouldn’t have married his mother so that Minseon would be happier, even if it meant Jake wouldn’t have a life to live. He thinks the old man didn’t try enough in loving his family.

So, Jake didn’t exactly think that love was ideal. He also didn’t think that being a gangster was ideal.

Yet, here he is—landing himself exactly in those places.

He became Big Deal’s youngest boss. He fell in love with you.

Becoming Big Deal’s boss wasn’t exactly the sanest thing he had done in the past couple of years—but taking the risk and being with you was the most sure he has been in his years of living.

You understood his concerns as he begged for forgiveness at the same time. If Jake had the world in the palm of his hands, he would’ve had easily shown you to its inhabitants.

He was so proud to be yours—proud that he was with someone that he constantly wanted to shout to the world. He worships the ground you walk on, and he only had eyes for you. He sometimes prays to the Gods that he hopes that one day, he gets to show you off to everyone without worrying about the violence or the possibility of you being used against him.

For now, he has you as his secret—like an image held inside a locket, only for his to kiss and keep.

But his carelessness seeps through, cracking the walls he had kept so hard to build—the same walls that kept you away from Big Deal, from everything that could harm you—all because he missed you so much.

Jake was inside the makeshift office in one of the buildings in the street. He had his earphones on, ignoring the world for a little bit as he went back to his old habits back in middle school—trying to sleep the world off, or at least keep it at bay while he gets himself together.

Now that he has you in his life, he finds solace in you.

He relentlessly plays your past voice messages from the message thread you and him shared. You were talking about how your day went and he patiently listens to everything, keeping track of every detail even if he knew them already.

Still, he presses play because nothing eases and soothes him more than hearing you.

“I’ve got to go now! I have some errands to run.” You say in the voice message.

“I love you, Jake.”

“Take care.”

“I love you, Jake.”

“I love you, Jake.”

“I love you, Jake.”

He repeats the same voicemail over and over again until a smile forms on his lips, seeing your contact photo and hearing your voice brings him a large portion of happiness that fills him with nothing but good vibes.

He was going to start daydreaming of him again.

“I love you—”

“Boss.”

Boss—?!

Jake whips his head up, eyes wide in panic as he sees Jerry, in the same expression as him though the latter tries to change his visage, pretending as if nothing had happened.

“Jerry..”

“Your earphones were unplugged, boss. But I didn’t hear any I love yous,” Jerry says calmly, trying to diffuse the situation—but his blatant confession makes Jake facepalm in the slightest.

Fuck. This is why he needed to focus on his surroundings better.

“Jerry,” Jake says, looking at his number two who was already sweating bullets. “Did you hear anything?” he asks, knowing that Jerry did hear and see him repeat your voice message for a few times, but he wants to know if Jerry would lie to him.

“No, boss,” Jerry reaffirms himself, though he still feels embarrassed—as if he walked into something that he wasn’t supposed to even see or hear.

Jake only sighs, looks at Jerry a little bit amused. He does feel stressed at the fact that Jerry knows about you—but it can’t be helped. His secret was bound to get caught even just a little.

“All you can promise me is that you won’t tell anyone,” he tells Jerry.

“You can count on me,” is what Jerry replies.

Jerry leaves him alone, and Jake thinks about how one more person is aware that he’s in a relationship—and he relaxes for a little bit because it’s Jerry and not the others.

God forbid the others knew about this.

Jake doesn’t hide it from you though, because hours later in his little room, he talks to you about it.

“You’re not mad?” he asks as he looks at the ceiling, arm resting on his forehead as he cradles his phone with his free hand, placing it perfectly on his ear so he can hear everything you’ll say.

“Why would I be?” you reply, laughing a little on the other line. It makes Jake easily break out into a smile—he was down for you so bad. “You know I’ve always wanted at least one of them to be aware.”

“I know, I know,” he responds, sighing a little. “Just a little worried, baby,” he says, pet name smoothly rolling on his tongue.

Jake hears a little shuffling on your end and he thinks you might be getting ready for bed. “You’re always overthinking things,” you calmly reply to him—and he knows you mean no harm, just wanting to ease his head.

“He only heard my voice, he hasn’t seen me or anything,” you remind him, and that somehow eases him. You were right though—just your voice was heard. They can’t easily put a face on that. “So don’t worry, I’m okay.”

You’re okay, and that repeats constantly in his head. You’re not in harm’s way, and he surely can’t let you be in harm’s way—you’re one of the few things he wants to protect in this world he lives in.

“One day,” he starts, a little more determined. “One day I’ll let everyone know I have you.”

He says it with such seriousness that it surprises you, because knowing him, the thought of even introducing you to Big Deal was enough to make Jake keel from nervousness. “One day, huh?” you respond gently. “I can’t wait for it.”

“I promise,” Jake talks you through it again. “I won’t hide you from them. Just a little more time.”

Jake wishes that day comes because he feels like his chest was about to burst with the amount of affection that he has for you. But for now, he keeps it steady, makes a promise to you because he knows he won’t break it.

He knows he’ll let them know he has you—that he has someone who he loves so purely, so genuinely that it even surprises him that he had that kind of love in him in the first place.

“I love you,” he adds. While it might sound a little desperate, it’s nothing but the truth in itself. He loves you, and he will let you feel that love until his last breath.

࿇࿇࿇

On the other end of the street, Big Deal numbers 2 to 6 were having another meeting—if you call gossiping about Jake’s love life a meeting, then it is what it is.

“The thumb is sweating,” Lua comments off-handedly at Jerry who was looking down on his food, fists closed. “What’s up with you?”

Jerry only closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, trying not to say anything about what he had found today. His loyalty is to Jake, first and foremost, and so if he needs to lie to them, so be it.

“Are you okay?” Brad asks, concern evident on his face.

“Yes,” Jerry quips, finally opening his eyes at he looks at them.

“I’m just constipated,” he says in the most nonchalant tone that it sours the look of everyone in the table. Lineman opens his mouth. “It’s all the gukbap you’ve been eating. That’s gonna be one diabolical sh—”

Jason effectively shoves a several pieces of rice cake in Lineman’s mouth.

I’ve saved you, Jake. Jerry thinks before calmly starting to eat his gukbap. And I will do it again.

[doctorbitchcrxft]

Another Brick In The Wall | Supernatural Series Rewrite | A doctorbitchcrxft Original | Dean Winchester x Fem!Reader

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Fem! Reader

Warnings: oh lawd. all the warnings. just. all of them. please be cautious if you are a victim of sexual abuse, verbal abuse, religious trauma, or loss of a loved one. canon gore always applies. i never write anything exceedingly graphic for the sake of shock factor as i feel it is unnecessary, and if any of my content does not accurately warn its readers, please let me know

Word Count: 4005

A/N: Ugh. My heart is so full. Thank you, everyone, for reading and loving my stories. I love you. 

Fair warning: I want this season to feel like laying in bed staring at the wall in the dark wrapped in a big sweater while Preacher's Daughter plays in the background. And perhaps you’re laying on the mattress curled in a ball facing away from an estranged lover who sleeps soundly beside you. Let me know if I accurately evoke that feeling as we go along….

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Supernatural Series Rewrite Masterlist

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“Uriel! Get your ass down here!”

“What have I said about your attitude, (Y/N),” Uriel warned, appearing behind you with the sound of flapping feathers. 

“Sorry, but this is an emergency,” you said, pacing around the dark cabin. You pointed to the television with the remote and rewound to the portion of the news covering you. 

Uriel just stared at you blankly with an eyebrow raised. 

You gave him a questioning and expectant look. “Are… you gonna help me?”

“I thought you said you were careful,” the angel droned. 

You scoffed. “I was! I mean—” you pointed to the television that you’d paused on the frame of your face— “I’ve got different hair, and you can’t see hardly any of my face, but this isn’t great that they’ve somehow connected every-fucking-thing to me!” 

Uriel sighed, clearly frustrated with you. “What do you expect me to do, then? In case you haven’t noticed, Heaven’s preparing for war. I don’t have time to handle every inconvenience for you.”

“Whoa, what?’ you asked, startled. “Heaven’s preparing for war?”

“Hell won’t exactly be thrilled about giving up their new plaything,” he replied evenly. 

You swallowed harshly at the degrading mention of your partner. “When’s he coming back?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” Uriel answered. 

“What, why?!”

“(Y/N)—”

“No, why can’t you tell me?!” You marched up to Uriel with your finger in his face. “I’ve done so much for you fucking freaks, and you can’t tell me when he’s coming back?!” 

Uriel’s eyes hardened, and a clap of lightning caused you to jump away from him as the shadow of his impressive wings appeared on the wall behind him. 

“Okay,” you said timidly, still trying to appear tough, “I clearly pushed you a little far. I’m sorry.”

“That is your final warning, (Y/N). If you speak back to me again, I won’t be so forgiving,” Uriel stated firmly through gritted teeth. 

****

You drove to the outskirts of Pontiac, Illinois; the town where Dean was buried. You wanted to be there and lay eyes on him when he returned, and you figured it best to keep state-hopping to avoid police and prosecution. 

Much to your surprise, the small little town you’d laid Dean to rest in was completely abandoned. The gas station nearby looked like it had been ransacked, and all of its windows had been completely busted up.

‘What happened here?’ you thought. With your heart in your throat, you approached the little wooden cross Sam had fashioned to mark Dean’s grave and saw a human-sized hole that seemed to have been dug from the inside out. Your body shuddered in relief: Dean was alive! It was then you noticed the perfect circle of trees that had been blown over and away from Dean’s grave. There was no doubt in your mind that that angel Uriel had told you about had something to do with this. You wondered if it was an angel you’d heard of before or found a vessel for. 

You took your phone out of your pocket and found it without reception. 

‘Definitely an angel, then,’ you thought. 

How familiar you were becoming with angels was beginning to frighten you a bit. If only your mom could see you now. A smile crossed your face at the thought.

Even with as complicated a woman as your mother was, you loved her with all of your heart. She never occupied much of your thoughts; the memory of her was far too painful. With all the angel business recently, though, you were thinking of her more and more. 

You thought of the times she’d bandage your bruised knuckles when you’d used the tree outside your motel room as a punching bag to get out all of your frustrations. You thought of her teaching you to read and write, and the way she’d hum while she brushed your hair. You’d grimace and tell her she was tugging too hard, but now, you wished you had just one more lazy morning with her listening to her quiet song. 

She would tell you that god had a plan for your life and to unload all of your sorrows on him. So, you did. You would pray every night for him to take your suffering away; ‘please, god, I want this to be over.’ And it never was. Each new day brought another round of watching Steven, another round of training, or another fight with your father where your mother stood idly by. You felt trapped in an endless cycle. You felt god had abandoned you. 

Now, knowing for sure that all of that was in his “divine plan,” you pitied your mother. Maybe she really believed that god was going to save her and her children. Maybe she really believed that her first commitment was to her partner, and the Catholic doctrine taught that she shouldn’t divorce him. She never spoke much to you about her thoughts on your father’s treatment of you and Steven, but her actions demonstrated that whether she believed he was right or not, she would stand by him. The day you realized your mother loved her religion more than she loved you was the day you lost all faith in god.

****

You knew it wasn’t safe for you and Dean to be around each other. You knew you’d only be endangering the brothers and undoubtedly, Bobby, if you started running with them again. Everything in you screamed at you to go to Dean, but you fought yourself every step of the way. 

Instead, you tried to focus on nailing down their location so you could be sure to stay as far away as possible. Bobby’s number was the only one to remain reachable, so you tracked his. They were still in Pontiac, which meant you needed to get away fast. One last time, you went to the grave site where you’d buried Dean, his amulet feeling heavy around your neck.

Suddenly, you heard wings flapping behind you. “What do you want, Uriel?” You didn’t even bother to turn around.

“I see you’re in better spirits than I left you,” the angel answered.

“That’s not what I would call it,” you said. “Let’s skip the pleasantries, okay? I feel like we’ve progressed far beyond that in our relationship.” You turned to face the angel, who looked stoic as ever. 

“I have another job for you,” Uriel explained. 

You scoffed. “What? Dean’s out. I’m done now. I’ve got enough goin’ on with the feds on my tail.”

“You are done when I say you are,” Uriel asserted. “You are not done.” 

You suppressed an eye roll, knowing it wouldn’t get you far with him. None of the angels enjoyed your petulance; it was in your best interest to simply follow along. “What can I do for you?” 

“What you’ve always done,” the angel responded simply.

You hung your head low, glaring at the ground. “Uriel, I gotta be honest, man,” you sighed. “I’m exhausted. These guys you have me tearin’ to shreds are innocent.” “It is a test of their faith, (Y/N),” Uriel explained. 

That caught you off-guard. “What?” you breathed out. 

“What, you thought you were our first step? There is a process,” he replied. 

“And you decided to tell me that now?!” you questioned angrily. 

“It wasn’t important for you to know at the time,” Uriel answered simply. “You didn’t need all the details.”

“And why do I need them now?” 

“Because you’re beginning to doubt,” the angel stated. “I have no room for that. We are on a strict timeline.” 

You bit the inside of your cheek. “So, what, you guys ask politely, and then, you use me?” you asked. 

“No, child. We each approach our vessels independently. We allow them an escape from their problems. And we demonstrate to them that their faith will be tested. That’s where you come in,” he explained. 

“I still don’t understand,” you shook your head. “Why not just ask ‘em to kill their only sons up on a mountain, or something?” 

“Primitive,” Uriel dismissed. “And not a strong enough test of their faith. The body endures much when possessed by an angel. At any moment, the angel can be forced out. The pain you inflict acts as a vetting process of sorts. If they can endure whatever you’ve put them through and remain faithful, we won’t have to worry about our vessels betraying us.”

You allowed yourself a moment to process that information. “That’s fucking crazy, you know that, right?”

“You are lucky I have grown a tolerance to your sharp tongue. Zachariah would have cut it out.” 

When you looked back up from the ground, the angel was gone. 

****

That evening as you drove out of Pontiac, you heard the ringing in your ears again. Your head whipped to the right, and you thought, ‘Castiel.’

A man with dark hair and sculpted features was watering his garden while a blonde-headed child rode her scooter around the driveway. 

“Oh, god,” you muttered to yourself. ‘This poor bastard.’

Suddenly, you realized what name you’d heard: Castiel. Your mother’s favorite of the angels. The one she prayed to when she wanted him to give your father the gift of temperance. 

Anger and hurt boiled in your shattered heart. Tears swam in your eyes as you realized that even the angel your mother felt such a close personal connection to never cared. This was a worse reality than you could have ever imagined: he was real, god was real, and angels were real; and yet, none of them cared. 

To make matters worse, a girl was going to grow up without a father because of you. A girl with a seemingly kind and doting father was going to mourn the rest of her life because of you. Your mind and body no longer felt like your own. If Heaven wanted you for their brutal crusade, you were to comply. All you had become was an inconsequential weapon; a means to achieve an end. What would happen to you when Heaven no longer had a use for you? 

The anxiety that clawed at your chest when Dean was gone hadn’t subsided even though he was back. Uriel insisted that he was no longer giving you the nightmares, but they would persist now and again anyway. And on days where you didn’t dream of Dean, you dreamt of the pain you inflicted. You could no longer recognize yourself. Quite literally, you had become a shell of the person you were. Your skin lacked color and plumpness. The life had been completely drained from your eyes. 

More than just not wanting to drag Dean into your troubles with the law, you would be embarrassed to see him. In truth, you weren’t proud of the person you’d become. 

You thought that saving Dean would make you feel whole again. Admittedly, a stupid and naive thing to think, but you were convinced it would help you feel like yourself again. In actuality, you just felt more anxious. You knew that Dean and Bobby had been searching for— and probably found— Sam and would now be turning that attention to you. 

It wasn’t that you never wanted to see Dean again; that was so far from the truth. You just wanted to see him when you were ready. If you had it your way, when you gained a little weight back, had some color in your cheeks, and were completely out of the law’s sights.

For now, though, Jimmy Novak was your project. Castiel had already been testing him, and he was teetering on the edge of ready to give you a “yes.” 

You’d found a location to carry out your task at. It was an abandoned house nestled in the trees about two miles past Dean’s grave. Perfectly remote, especially now since the surrounding town had been wiped off the map by the angel; you just needed to get Jimmy in the trunk of your car. 

His wife brought their daughter to dancing on Tuesday nights, and you knew that was your window of opportunity. As anxiety-inducing as kidnapping should be, it was one of the only times you felt calm. That frightened you a bit, but you assumed it was due to the repetitive nature of your new version of hunting. As much as you hated to admit it, you were good at what you did. 

****

To soothe your complicated feelings toward your current situation, you hummed “Laughing on the Outside” by Bernadette Carroll to yourself on a loop while you waited for Jimmy to wake up. When he finally began to stir, you steeled your nerves and stopped your song. 

“Mornin’, sunshine,” you said. 

Immediately, he began to struggle. “Wh— What is this? Who the fuck are you?!”

“Look,” you sighed. “Relax, okay? Nothin’ bad’s gonna happen to you as long as you do what I say.”

“What the fuck—?!”

“Hey, Jimmy—” his head snapped to face yours when he heard you say his name— “I know Castiel has been reaching out to you; testing you.”

The man stopped struggling. “How— How do you know that?”

“All you have to do is say ‘yes.’ Just let him possess you, okay?” you urged. 

“Are you out of your mind?” he panicked. 

“Listen, buddy, you’re the one who believes there’s a giant man floating around in the sky. Which one of us is really out of their mind?”

That seemed to silence him. You gave him a moment to think. “What do I have to do?” he asked. 

“Wait, really?” you scoffed. “You’re makin’ it that easy for me?”

“I mean, I guess,” he replied. “Castiel said something about being tested. I, uh— I guess this is it.”

You nodded. “Damn. You’ve got way stronger faith than any of the other poor guys I’ve dealt with. Nice to meet you, Jimmy.”

He looked at you, confusion written all over his face, before he looked toward the sky in awe. Then, Castiel took over his body. His eyes flashed a brilliant blue, and he easily broke out of the ropes you had his hands bound with. 

As soon as you could tell the man in front of you had changed to Castiel, tears filled your eyes. 

Castiel seemed confused. “Why are you upset, (Y/N)? You’ve done great work.”

“Don’t fucking talk to me,” you said firmly, turning away from him. 

The angel sighed. “This is about your mother, isn’t it?”

You tried to stifle your cries so you could answer him. “You— You knew she was praying to you? You knew she needed help?” You spun back around to him, angry. “You knew I needed help?!”

Castiel nodded. “I did.”

“And you did nothing?” you scoffed.

“I don’t meddle in human affairs, (Y/N),” he replied evenly. 

“Then what fucking purpose do you serve?” you pressed, your voice rising. 

“I serve Heaven, not humanity. I’m a soldier. You have clearly misunderstood the faith entirely,” Castiel told you firmly. 

You threw your arms out to the side in frustration. “So why now? Why are all of you here?” 

“Something is coming. I am not at liberty to reveal what—”

You cut him off. “All of you fucking angels and your secrecy—”

“—And you should mind the way you talk to me.” He continued to talk over you. “Just as easily as I took Dean out of Hell—”

You couldn’t help yourself. “—God, I am so tired of having to listen to what you freaks say just because you have the biggest metaphysical dicks—”

“—I will throw you back in his place!” Castiel finished. 

Your mouth snapped shut. You knew he would make due on that statement if necessary; you were completely disposable to beings that have existed for millions of years. By the time you raised your gaze from the ground, Castiel was gone. 

****

Your world view was crumbling. Anxiety constantly filled you, leaving you feeling burdened with knowledge you never wanted of the afterlife and the truth behind “god’s plan.” It was becoming more and more clear to you that the only purpose humans served was to stand between Heaven and Hell like Job in the Bible; a man tortured by the devil to prove his faithfulness to the lord. 

With your heart in your throat, you ditched the car you’d kidnapped Jimmy Novak in and began the long walk through the night to the next one you could hotwire. When you made it out of the woods, you walked through a neighborhood you were hesitant to steal from given the many security cameras surrounding almost every house. And so, you continued to the main road. You stopped in your tracks when you saw that familiar Impala across the street from where you were standing. Heart thumping, you made your way to the side of the diner and peeked through the blinds. To your surprise, Sam was there— with a woman, at that. Everyone else in the diner was lying on the floor with blood drying around their eyes. 

‘What are you doing, Samuel?’ you thought. ‘Wait, where’s Dean?!’ If the Impala was there, Sam must’ve snuck out. Either that, or he was with Bobby. Pinning down his exact location wasn’t a true concern of yours, you simply wanted to ensure that you were as far away from them as possible. 

Sam, though, was concerning you. Who was he with? Who were the people in the diner? Had the dark-haired woman across the table from him caused this? All of these questions, you knew you couldn’t get the answers to. It was dangerous for you to be there as it was. And so, you hotwired a car parked around the back of the building and sped off into the night. 

****

You drove well into the next morning with no particular destination in mind. Naturally, your thoughts turned to Dean. What did he think you were up to? Did he feel like you abandoned him? God, you hoped not. If only he knew that everything you had done these past four or five months had been for him. 

Still, an uncomfortable feeling clawed at your chest. You remembered what he’d told you when you tried to torture that demon before he went to Hell. He was angry. He told you never to do something like that for him again. And yet, here you were. 

At this point, motels would be considered a luxury to you. You frequently opted to sleep in whatever car you’d stolen to help you evade any security cameras in the motel lobbies. Each and every move you made had to be carefully calculated, especially now that a ninth man had gone missing by your hand. 

From this moment forward, you knew you would be on the run. Life— and hunting, by extension— was going to become infinitely more difficult. Maybe this would be when you left it all behind. Maybe you’d live out the rest of your days with only a cat and some horrendous rom-coms to keep you company. As much as it hurt you, the chances of you seeing Dean again were growing slimmer and slimmer. 

After catching a few hours rest in the parking lot of a laundromat, you went inside to wash the few clothes you had with you. You always kept your head down, hood on, and sunglasses across your face. Sure, it was a bit suspicious, but you had to keep your identity concealed as well as you possibly could. Who knew what the authorities had discovered about you thus far? You couldn’t risk them gathering any further details on you. 

With that in mind, you cast a glance up at the television in the corner that was playing the local news. As you predicted, Jimmy Novak’s picture was displayed. Thankfully, they hadn’t identified you as a suspect— yet. Perhaps you were being a bit paranoid; Pontiac was far from the other kidnappings. Then again, the angels had selected people that were states away from each other, and they’d connected them in some kind of way.

With your clothes back in hand, you headed to the bathroom to brush your teeth and wash your face. 

‘What have I become,’ you thought, jokingly mocking yourself. Then, Uriel appeared behind you. You were long past startling at his sudden visits and simply sighed. “What’s up, Doc?”

“Where are you going?” he asked. 

“Uh—” 

“I have not permitted you to leave Illinois.”

“Oh, sorry, Your Featheriness, I didn’t realize I had to file paperwork with you when I go on a road trip,” you scoffed, putting your hygiene products back in your duffel bag. 

Uriel was clearly not appreciating your tone. “Go back to Pontiac. Trail the Winchesters. Or join them; matters not to us.”

Your heart dropped. “What, why?!”

“No matter what, they stay alive. They are the priority; even if it costs your life,” he explained flatly. 

Eyes wild, you rambled, “Wait, dude, what the fuck are you talking about? I’m gonna drag them into my FBI disaster if I do that—!”

“There is no room for argument,” Uriel stated. “I’ll send Zachariah the next time you talk back. I have tired of your insolence.”

Your lip trembled, anxiety flooding your body at the thought of potentially putting the boys in harm’s way. “Uriel, please, tell me what’s going on—” 

“That is not for you to know, child,” he answered dryly. 

“I thought you were done with me,” you pleaded, tears streaming down your cheeks. “Please, I did what you asked!”

“And now, we need you to do something more.” His tone was disdainful. “I didn’t take you for the emotional kind. Then again, you humans are all the same.”

Your heart was shattering in your chest. If Dean caught you tailing them, he’d be so angry. He’d immediately question why you hadn’t shown up as soon as he came back from Hell, and he’d be so hurt. Would he feel betrayed? If you were honest with yourself, you would in that situation. Even just the thought of hurting him so bad was causing a pit to form in your stomach. “Uriel, please, don’t make me do this,” you begged. 

The angel’s expression hardened further; if that was even possible. “How many times do I have to tell you that argument is futile? You will do as I say, or Dean will suffer the consequences; seeing as our punishments don’t scare you.”

Whether he was bluffing or not, you didn’t care. You couldn’t stand the thought of Dean being hurt again because of you, and Uriel knew exactly how to get you to comply. It pissed you off that an angel of the lord would blackmail you and that you were so willing to potentially hurt yourself to protect Dean. Everything about your situation made you hurt, and you couldn’t even reach out to the one person you needed most for help. 

“So, I just—” you tried to collect your courage, swallowing a lump in your throat, “stay away until they need help? Then, what? Do I disappear again?”

Uriel nodded. “If that’s how you wish to do things. This is your purpose, (Y/N). This is god’s plan for you.”

You laughed coldly, tears falling once more. As much as you wanted to scream mockeries at the sky, you knew better than to do that in front of Uriel. “Fine.” 

That was all he needed to hear. After your acceptance, Uriel was gone.

Series Rewrite Taglist: @polireader @brightlilith @atcamillanorrman @jrizzelle @insomnia-bookworm @procrastination20 @mrs-nesmith @djs8891 @tiggytaylor @staple-your-mouth @jesstherebel @rach5ive @strawberrykiwisdogog @bruhidkjustwannaread @mxltifxnd0m @sunshine-on-marz @big-ol-boat @mgchaser @capncrankle @chervbs @simpingdeadcharacters @nesnejwritings @stillhere197 @tearsforhan @take-it-on-the-run @iloveyou2mia @maxinehufflepuffprincess @ohgeehowdigethere @seninjakitey @berarenado @s0urw00lf @princessleahorgana @quarterhorse19 @isla-finke-blog @silverdoragon @karacaroldanvers @gayandfairycore @examishbookwyrm @star-yawnznn @real-sharena-h @fandomloverrr @metalmonki @onlyangel-444 @yu-winchester @benniwiththefanni @daisychaingirl @immagods @missmieux @yoongi-holland @littledebbieinabigworld

[aphroditelovesu]

Since requests are closing in a few days, I just wanted to put another one in. No rush go get it done of course!

I want to request a oneshot/reaction where Alexander gives reader a really, REALLY expensive necklace. Maybe it's a wedding present, a just because present , or something following the birth of the twins. You can decide what you want to do with that 😁!

Also, I keep picturing a necklace made of opal??? Not only is it a stunning gem stone, but it was also thought to be the tears of Zeus in ancient Greece, which would be an interesting tie to Alexander. Again, it's just a suggestion. You can use whatever gemstone you want!

Thanks, and take care ❤️❤️❤️!

--O-

❝ 📜— lady l: this had been sitting in my drafts for a while and I finally decided to write it. I got a little carried away, so it's a little big, but I hope you like it and if you want to order anything else, feel free, anon! Good reading and forgive me for any mistakes! ❤️

❝tw: none, just fluff and very soft!Alexander.

❝📜pairing: yandere!alexander the great x female!reader.

❝word count: 1,308.

Alexander wanted to find something to give you. Something expensive and extravagant, something that would leave you impressed.

He felt like he owed you that. Not only had you given birth to his children, but you were loved by him and he wanted to please you. He thought of several options: a horse, silk clothes, food and even drink. He still wasn't sure what you might like.

Until he had an idea after talking to Hephaestion. He was the one who gave you the idea of giving you a necklace made from a special and rare gem. And he knew it was the right choice to make.

It was no easy task to get a merchant to have the necklace he liked and deemed worthy of you to wear around your delicate neck, but after the fifth try with a different merchant, he finally knew what your gift should be. He decided to gift you with an opal necklace, a jewel that reflected the beauty and mystery of his passion.

It would change color and he would know that it would look beautiful and graceful on your neck. Everything about you was beautiful and graceful, so the necklace would only stand out on you and no one else.

This opulent piece was adorned with the most dazzling opals that could be found in the entire Empire. Each stone sparkled with vibrant colors, dancing like the aurora borealis reflected in the starry night. The necklace was a unique treasure, a harmony of opalescent hues, displaying hues of celestial blue, emerald green, and royal purple.

The merchant who sold it told him a story about the necklace and it was this story that convinced him to buy it. According to the Persian merchant, legend said that opals were gifts from star spirits, who bestowed their blessings on those who used them with love and wisdom. The necklace was not just a piece of jewelry, but a source of magical power. Its colors and reflections were believed to contain the essence of nature, connecting the wearer to the spiritual realms and bringing fortune and protection.

Whoever owned the opal necklace was seen as a keeper of ancient secrets, an heir to the ancient magic that flowed through the precious stones. It was said that opal possessed the ability to amplify intuition and creativity, allowing the wearer to see beyond the ordinary, opening doors to new possibilities and inspiration.

After this explanation, Alexander knew that this necklace must be yours. Not just because of your story, but because of who you were. From when you really came. No one was more worthy than you.

There was also another version of the story that convinced him to buy it. Knowing how religious Alexander was, the merchant also told him that the opal was made from the tears of Zeus. Long ago, at the beginning of Greek civilization, when the gods walked among mortals, Zeus, the mighty king of the gods, shed tears of joy and sorrow over human fate. These tears, upon touching the earth, transformed into radiant stones known as opals, carrying within them the duality of emotions of the great god.

Thus was born the opal, a legendary gem forged by Zeus' own tears. Each stone was shaped from divine emotions, capturing the essence of heaven and earth. Its unique iridescence reflected not only the colors of the rainbow, but also the contrasting feelings of joy and sadness, hope and despair, harmonized in an eternal dance of light and shadow. Ancient sages believed that the necklace was not just a manifestation of beauty, but rather a link between mortals and the gods. It was said that whoever wore the opal necklace would be enveloped in the protection of Zeus and would have the divine wisdom to navigate life's challenges.

And maybe when little Aella grew up, he could give her a necklace similar to the one he chose for you.

He smiled at the thought and with the necklace inside a small wooden box with gold ornaments, he walked to the room you shared in the Babylonian palace. Straightening his posture, Alexander knocked on the door and after hearing a soft ''come in'', he opened the door and smiled widely when he saw you sitting in a padded chair with Aella in one arm and Cyrus in the other. He fell silent when he realized the twins were asleep.

You looked at him and smiled softly when you saw what he had in his hands. Alexander placed the box on a table next to the bed and approached you, carefully taking Cyrus in his arm. You smiled lovingly when you saw him cuddling the baby in his arms.

Whispering, Alexander says, ''I have something for you.''

You smiled and asked curiously, ''What is it?''

Alexander carefully picked up the box with the arm that wasn't swinging Cyrus and placed him on your lap, looking at you expectantly. You smiled and opened the box with a little difficulty due to the sleeping child in your arms. Your eyes widened when you saw the lush opal necklace. You had never seen such beautiful jewelry.

Alexander, who was watching you like a hawk, smiled at you.

''Alexander, that's…'' You swallowed and took the necklace in your hand, carefully observing its details. The necklace was a magnificent piece, a heavenly masterpiece that captivated the eyes of all who dared to gaze upon it. Every aspect of the necklace was a symphony of intertwined beauty and magic.

The centerpiece of the necklace consisted of a main opal, a generously sized gem that radiated an unparalleled iridescent glow. This central opal was an explosion of celestial color, with soft, shimmering hues that moved like an aurora borealis trapped within the gemstone. Its tones ranged from the deep blue of twilight to the lush green of enchanted forests, and occasional glimpses of the deep red of divine fire.

Around the main opal, a series of smaller opals were skillfully arranged, forming a necklace that seemed to have been woven by the stars' own hand. Each smaller gem had its own color personality, some glowing an ethereal blue, others a crystalline green, and still others with purple and gold hues reminiscent of the sun setting over distant mountains.

The structure of the necklace was as intricate as the reflections of the opals. Delicate strands of gold wove between the gems, creating a sparkling frame that complemented the iridescence of the opals. Small, intricate metal sculptures, decorated with designs that resembled star constellations, adorned the necklace, giving it an aura of ancient magic.

''Do you like it?'' Alexander asked after you remained silent, observing the necklace with a strange expression.

''I loved it.'' You whispered, admiring the necklace. Alexander walked over to you and took the necklace from your hands and placed Cyrus back in your arms, careful not to wake him. He stood behind you and removed your hair from your neck, placing the magnificent necklace around your neck. You closed your eyes when you felt the touch of his calloused fingers on your skin and sighed when the necklace was placed on you.

''I'm glad, it suits you.'' He kissed your neck affectionately and you closed your eyes, smiling.

Alexander leaned closer to your ear and whispered, ''When I heard the story about the opal… I knew it would have to be yours and yours alone.''

You opened your eyes and turned your head, looking at him. ''And what is this story?''

Alexander smiled widely and after kissing your forehead, he began to tell you both stories he had heard from the merchant. You just listened in silence, delighting in his words, with your sleeping children on your arm and the weight of the beautiful necklace around your neck.

Your small, loving family.

[bringbackavac]

buddie arguments pattern in one sentence:

eddie’s self–loathing self-blaming tendencies and buck’s insecurities (which are usually resurfaced by the current problem) cause them to clash with each other, with eddie being hot headed/confrontational and buck being defensive.

this came when i was rewatching the 8x17 kitchen scene and realised that it felt like a lot of the past fights they've had??? the thesis is that its rooted mostly by their character flaws, history and upbringing. so i wrote this, and honestly i still have more to add. but let me know what yall think!

EDDIE: offense

when the fights get big, eddie’s the one who would raise his voice in frustration. sometimes by the need of having someone to blame. he’s not above using petty mean words, dripping with sarcasm and malice in the moment of heat, pointed straight at buck’s issues, to hurt where it hurts.

“because you’re exhausting! we all have our own problems, but somehow, we manage to suck it up. why can’t you?!” (lawsuit arc, 3x05) “i don’t know what you want from me, buck. forgive, forget, make you feel better about what you did.” ”when you decided to sue the department, to make cap the bad guy, did you ever stop for a minute to think what it could do to us?” (lawsuit arc, 3x06)

“wow, it really is always about you isn’t it?” “you got mad, so you acted out, like you always do.” “[…] if you need to be pissed off at me, to make it easier for you?! then be pissed off!” (eddie leaving, 8x09)

“[…] you’d make it all about you. the trial and tribulations of evan buckley, a tragedy in 97 acts.” (bobby’s death, 8x17)

even in smaller arguments, he’s never afraid to call buck out.

“you have a whole life ahead of you. so why don’t you take it as a win? stop feeling sorry for yourself.” (pulmonary embolism, 3x01)

“your actions, your choices, they impact the rest of us. thats what it means to be a part of a team.” (lawsuit arc, 3x06)

“you act like you’re expendable, but you’re wrong.” (shooting arc, 4x14)

he doesn’t realize the moment he gets carried away by his own anger, his mouth involuntarily spills the true root of his problem.

“i couldn’t even call you to bail me out of jail! […]” (lawsuit arc, 3x05)

“if you’re gonna make this about me having to choose between you, or my son, […]” (eddie leaving, 8x09)

BUCK: defense

on the other hand, buck is the type who draws back to himself and stays bitter on his own. loves to suffer and stew on his own, and when confronted, would always, always, try to defend himself—often missing the actual point.

“you’re my problem. your comfort level. you’re not supposed to just walk in here like you’ve been here for years! it’s meant to be a ‘getting to know you’ period.” (eddie joins 118, 2x01)

“you’re supposed to be truthful to your lawyer. why are you so pissed at me?!” “why can’t you see my side of this?” “i didn’t realize that. maybe i could visit christopher, you know the lawsuit doesn’t prevent that.” (lawsuit arc, 3x05) ”i needed my job back! i miss being here, being part of a team. i never meant for anyone to get hurt.” (lawsuit arc, 3x06)

”i know! […] but i made a promise, […] to his fiancée.” (trail derailment, 3x18)

“c’mon! it’s a fun story! it shows the neighbourhood has character!” (eddie leaving, 8x09)

“[…] instead everyone has been tip-toeing behind my back, cause apparently i’m to fragile to handle the truth.” (bobby’s death, 8x17)

so used to being doubted, judged and alone. so he reverts to his old ways of words to prove something. a point, his point, to be seen and understood and not left behind, again, and again, and again.

loves adding petty things that he knows would hit the mark too, while the anger is present. before he sobers up from the blinding red and can feel the hurt inside once more.

“so that’s how it’s gonna be now. you’re just gonna keep on ghosting me. cause, halloween is over, just so you know.” (lawsuit arc, 3x06)

“do i have to run everything by you now?” “this is my new best friend, blaze. […] don’t want him to think i’m abandoning him.” “he knows how to stay, unlike some people.” “yes eddie, i’ll move! you’re not the only one who can do that, you know?” *to the dog, knowing eddie is behind him* “[…] and don’t go running off your people anymore, okay? you have no idea how hard it is on them.” “i don’t need you either.” (eddie leaving, 8x09)

“and you! you’re moving back to texas, mm?! like its nothing! it doesn’t affect anybody else. it does!” (eddie leaving, 8x10)

“sorry i’m sad that bobby’s dead.” (bobby’s death, 8x17)

TLDR: when buck and eddie fights, they have their own type of hurting each other. the type built from old habits and knowing each other too well that both knows perfectly which words to use and which buttons to push for it to deliver most. just the same as they do in work, in partnership, and in co-parenting.

both understands that as petty and cruel-sounding they could get when they argue, it's all a facade to hide the real wound they can always see when the cold thick fog finally evaporates for clear sight. close and comfortable enough to have the intimacy of being real and raw, with the security that they'll never lose each other an unspoken oath.

it would never happen. losing each other is not an option. never ever. especially not by stupid, callous, meaningless words. they know each other's scars and pasts too much to put faults in moments of weakness held accountable. they have suffered and survived too much crap and bruise between them to dumbly do that.

and later, when all is said and done, has been laid bare in the air, long enough that the storm turns into still water, they would help each other clean the proverbial broken glass shards in the kitchen to make the space—their space—warm and safe once again.

because they would, and always will have each others backs.