#writing this was kind of fun

[replacement-pasta]

are you still alive pls dont tell me you were hit by a car and now you are with reimu (is there any internet in gensyoko tho)

I don't appear to be dead, I think? I can still taste food and feel pain and stuff.

The internet in Gensokyo is actually a lot better than you'd think! Even though I am quite literally in the middle of nowhere, the hertz runnin' through this place is incredible!

I'm also currently staying with a woman called Minoriko (she's very nice). I even drew a picture of her.

I haven't seen much of Reimu yet, however. Perhaps I should visit the shrine.......

[somanyfandomsorkinafs]

(I am ~buzzing~ with ideas…. Allow me to release some)

Once Danny was an adult, he decided to join Ellie in her ‘permanent world tour’. It’s better than staying in Amity where the opinion of Phantom hasn’t gotten much better. Besides, the portal caused the veil to get weaker, allow ghost to wreak havoc where ever they want.

He’s met a lot new ghost cause of this too. Old as Mycenaean Greece to non humans who came to Earth and died there. Danny’s learnt so much from them that he’s basically a walking in Encyclopaedia.

So, Danny’s decided “fuck it.” and has it became a part-time history teacher. It’s fun! He knows the details by heart and is able to make it more fun than just droning on about the same old wars and whatever. He enjoys it, the kids enjoy it and the ghosts having their stories told!

Of course, this does cause some problems when people try to correct him. Danny’s argument? “I got them correct sources.”

And when anyone asks him how knows his sources are correct? “My source was there when it happened.”

Cue the dc world thinking that Danny’s just some immortal guy whose decided to use his immortality for good(TM)

[verflares]

belated valentines zelink ^_^ wanted to revisit these two in particular

[lgbtlunaverse]

Nothing will dispell the "the curtains were just blue" myth faster than writing something yourself, because the amount of pretentious symbolism i am putting in my silly little fanfics is ridiculous. I mean SO much with these words, literally every single one of them. This fic has twenty five typos and zero correct uses of punctuation but if there's curtains you bet your ass I put thought into what colour they were.

[egophiliac]

I loved your drawing(and I love your style in general) with Leia in your recent post! If/when you have time can we see more of her in your style? I get so happy whenever I actually see people mention/talk about her and she’s not just forgotten because we didn’t get to see much of her. 😭

thank you! 💙💙💙 Leia/Leah/Lea/whatever is fascinating to me. she is the ultimate unknown. what was she like? how involved (or even aware of any details of the invasion) was she? Silver's basically a physical carbon copy of his biodad, so what did he get from her? like, I understand why the two of them kind of have to stay as these super vague and mysterious figures -- the whole point of them is that their story ended 400+ years ago and they're not really relevant anymore (and. well. the more that gets explained about them, the less that can just kinda be handwaved as "oh the politics were Very Messy") (we can sit here and theorize all day but let us acknowledge that, ultimately, canon gave us almost nothing about them post-Meleanor and we'd just be making things up). I do still wonder about her though! RIP Lea, we never knew you and we probably never will.

actually you know what, as long as we're here, I think I WILL go ahead and just make some stuff up about what Silver might've inherited from her instead.

[inbabylontheywept]

Memories of Grandpa Hank

I'm eating a bag of mormon gorp that tastes like gasoline while watching the rain run down the mountain. The taste doesn't even bother me anymore - all homemade gorp tastes like this. It's just a natural consequence of everyone keeping their prepper shit in their garages. 

My dad's out in the clearing, wandering around with his GPS. He's got some pieces of wire out on top of it to try and make the effective antennae bigger, but it just makes it look like he's dowsing. Another mormon tradition. I ask him if he's close to find water yet, and he looks up at me, little rivers flowing off him, and says yeah - he can feel it. 

I'm sure he can. I settle under my tree and watch the droplets roll down the needles. Awaiting the final judgement of Judge GPS. 

A few minutes later, it provides: 

Turns out my dad forgot to record the location of the car this morning. The GPS remembers where we parked yesterday, but by luck my dad knows how to get from there to our car. Downside is that it's a nine mile walk just to get to yesterday's position, then another five miles to backtrack. That's fourteen miles total. 

I'm only thirteen. 

Think you can make it? my dad asks. And it's a kindness that he's worried, but it's not like there's an alternative. What else would I do, sit down in the murk and cross my fingers he finds me again? Ask him to carry me 14 miles? 

I'll be pretty jelly legged, I say. But yeah. I'll make it. 

Attaboy, he says. He fishes a bag of poptarts out and offers me one as - I think - a peace offering. A, sorry you're gonna have to walk 14 miles in the rain because I goofed kind of gift. 

I take a bite and, despite being individually wrapped, it still manages to taste like diesel fumes. We start hiking our incredibly long distance in terrible weather for foolish reasons, and I joke to my dad that the only way to make this day any more mormon would be by pushing handcarts. 

He laughs. Neither of us laugh again until 11 pm, when we stumble like drunkards into camp. My grandpa has stayed up late to make sure we weren’t lost, but he only stays up long enough to see us arrive. We try to eat a dinner of sweet potato stew, but after falling asleep in the middle twice, we agree to just go to bed. 

I sleep in well past nine and wake up to nobody in camp but my grandpa. My dad left with my sister to keep hunting around 5 am. I know that everyone assumes that their dad is invincible when they're 13, but I'm 28 now and part of me still thinks he's gonna live forever. That God made exactly one perpetual motion machine, and it raised me in the desert. 

---

Around noon my grandpa suggests hunting again. If it was my dad, I'd probably tune him out, but I like my grandpa's style of hunting. My dad hikes and hikes and hikes until the elk get tired and just let him shoot them. My grandpa finds the sleepiest, sunniest, coziest field and takes a nap there, figuring if the elk have any decent taste they'll come there at some point.

Man's got a knack for knowing what elk like - he's right more often than not. I think he might've been an elk in a previous life. 

I go with him, and much as I hate to admit it, the hike is good for me. I start off walking like a pirate on two peg legs, so stiff I might as well not have knees, but by the end of the mile and a half walk I'm almost normal. We make it to the edge of the clearing, and my grandpa finds a patch of grass taller and softer than the beds inside the trailer, and he curls up to sleep there. I look across the grass and I watch the comings and goings of critters through the field. Sometimes I use the scope to get a magnified view, but I never do so with my hand on the trigger. The thought of accidentally looking a person through that glass is something that sends a chill up my spine. 

Some deer wander through the glen, but it'd take a fool to mistake one of them for an elk. A few hours later, my grandpa wakes up and asks if I want to wander around a little. It's a lovely day. Rain comes in bursts in Arizona, and the day after is almost always clear as can be. And for a short while, all the desert browns turn green and lush. Hard mosses turn squishy and cacti swell up like fresh baked muffins and for a while you can get why people settled in these god forsaken wastes. 

So I go with him, and we walk on, me with my gun, him just taking in the forest. He looks so peaceful that I get a little jealous, but it's not until my grandpa stops and looks at me that I even notice it myself. Takes a mirror, sometimes, to know yourself.

Being near my grandpa is always a strange thing for me. He's quiet, and he doesn't talk much, and I don't ever get the feeling that he's particularly emotionally intelligent - but it's like he's interacting with a reality more raw and real than mine. Like I'm watching symbols on a screen and he's counting atoms. And sometimes, just being near him gives me access to that raw matter. Just something about how he is breaks the illusions of the world.

He looks at the gun like a foreign object, like he doesn't recognize it, then he looks at me. He speaks and he doesn't mince words. 

What would you do if an elk came across the path and you shot it right now? he asks. 

Well, I'd start cleaning it, I say, and he waves the words away like cobwebs in his face. 

But would you celebrate? he presses.

And I look at him, and I don't actually see any judgement staring back. He knows the answer, and he's at peace with it. He’s asking so I can see it too. He’s being a mirror so I can see my own face.

I think I might actually cry, I admit. And he nods along in agreement before reaching forward to take the gun off my shoulder. 

Lets just walk today, he says. No chance of killing anything. No worrying about that. 

Right, I say. 

He pops the chamber open and tosses me back my bullet. I catch it, and the relief I feel is palpable. 

Can I change my mind? I ask, and he shrugs.

Whenever you want. Hunt or don’t. It’s not the hunting that I’m worried about. It’s seeing you ignore your conscience.

And for a moment, I'm there in the real world with him, and my gloves are off, and reality is a metal cube in my hand: Sharp and cold and heavy.

Or maybe that’s just the bullet.

---

We make it back to camp a bit later than my dad. We get there and he’s waiting for us. If he's tired, he doesn't show it. 

How'd it go? he asks. My grandpa looks at me, and I don't know how to respond. I don't know how to explain it, and I am scared. 

Great, he replies. It's a shame Babs only has a doe tag. We saw a five-point out there. Close enough to hit with a football. 

No, my dad says. If his grin was a half inch wider, both ends of his mouth would meet in the back of his head and everything above his tongue would slide off.

Tell him Babs, grandpa says. And, not for the first time, and especially not the last, I try my hand at spinning a yarn. 

It's pretty good. But at 13, I still have a lot to learn.

[deikshen]

Shen Yuan who lives his life being an absolute simp of some character from a random stallion novel—[character] is absolutely amazing! He has a harem of beauties! And also, a rich and wonderful story where he rises from the most vile and gains his power based on his efforts! If only the story had a little more worldbuilding and cool monsters, Shen Yuan would like it more. But. But there's [character] and definitely everything it's worth reading! He's smart, cunning, and strategic! And his adventures are GREAT! He faces incredible trials, and even though he collects wives as trophies, those wives are INTERESTING. The character development! The story! The harem drama!!!

So one day, Shen Yuan is just doing nothing, waiting for another update on his favorite read—it would be the last chapter!!! Finally a closure to the final dramatic arc!! And Shen Yuan hoped it would be a GOOD ENDING—, when a portal opens in his fucking apartment. After cursing, yelling, and scuttling away, a xianxia man clearly emerges. WHAT. THE. FUCK!?

The man is... what the hell? Shen Yuan thinks he knows him, in some weird way, like, maybe he's seen his face somewhere??? Any popular novel or thing that hasn't caught his attention but he KNOW is famous? What the fuck??

The xianxia man with an absolutely OP sword if he was able to open a FUCKING PORTAL THROUGH THE UNREALITY OF FICTION WHAT THE HELL looks at Shen Yuan with, first, doubt, and then, certainty.

"So, that's Shizun" says the xianxia man, grinning like a fucking nightmare cat, with many menacing teeth. "This Emperor is glad to see you again."

The only intelligent thing Shen Yuan can say is: "Who the hell are you?"

The xianxia man looks confused. He doesn't let that emotion dominate him. He advances in his room with firm steps, his dark robes billowing as he goes. He's clearly not fully human, from the red mark on his forehead, those pointy ears, those black claws...

Shen Yuan doesn't recognize a damn thing about the character. He knows he's famous, he knows it, but why can't he remember it...?

"This Emperor is Luo Binghe" he introduces himself simply, and Shen Yuan's jaw drops.

"No fucking way" is all Shen Yuan actually says, suddenly recognizing the name, and realizing why he'd never read anything more than skimmed about the character. And his sister had actively tried to get him to read it!! "You—... Luo Binghe like, the one from that danmei novel? What the fuck?"

Shen Yuan hadn't been interested at all. While Luo Binghe's character seemed minimally... intriguing... Danmei novel! He had nothing against gays, but why would he read a gay thing?? Besides, what were those relationships!! Transmigration with identity never revealed? Protagonist/Scum Villain?! Even worse, teacher/student?! Yes, Shen Yuan understood that things like age difference roleplay in fetish contexts were intriguing, he had read it in other novels, BUT STILL, it wasn't exactly a roleplay!!! One of them still believed his partner was immortal!!!

(... Shen Yuan may have read some summaries of the novel. Very superficially. Many years ago, when it was popular.)

"This Shizun recognizes me, then" Luo Binghe says, and Shen Yuan lets out an undignified horrified shriek.

"OH, NO, NO, I'M NOT YOUR SHIZUN" he moves away as quickly as he can. Luo Binghe, of course, chases after him. "I don't know what happened in your, err, world?, I don't know why you decided to appear here, but I'm not... Not..." And Shen Yuan has no idea how to explain himself. I'm not your, what? Your Shizun, your partner, your... husband?

Shen Yuan feels a chaotic chill run down his spine.

"Maybe not yet" Luo Binghe says, as if it were only natural. As if he hadn’t already opened a FUCKING PORTAL WITH HIS SWORD. Shen Yuan needs to calm down or he’ll hyperventilate. "If this Xiao Shizun meets this Emperor, perhaps this Emperor's story isn't over yet. It's when this one's story ends that Xiao Shizun will become Shizun. However, this Emperor has made sure to come first this time."

Shen Yuan... actually doesn't understand him at all.

"The story…" Shen Yuan hesitates, looking at Luo Binghe. The imposing man looks, well, obviously like a blackened ML icon, but, well. Weird. Powerful. "You... Do you know that you come from a story?"

That's disturbingly weird. Luo Binghe nods.

"This Lord has been informed" he explains simply. "Shizun, a kind Shizun, has informed this Emperor about everything. But Xiao Shizun doesn't have to worry. This Lord will be here, he will prevent Xiao Shizun's death tonight, and Xiao Shizun will come with this Emperor to his world."

Shen Yuan might be starting to get a bit of a migraine. What the... hell? What nonsense? Had interdimensional travel affected the ML's brain?

“I have no idea what you’re saying,” Shen Yuan says confusedly. "Isn’t that Shizun your husband? Why do you want to take me with you? Aren't you like, happily married?"

It's Luo Binghe's turn to be confused. Fucking confused, it seemed, judging by his expression.

"From which novel does Xiao Shizun know this Lord?" Luo Binghe asks in an even dangerous tone of voice.

Shen Yuan has no idea what the name is. What he does: he searches for Luo Binghe on the internet and hands the smartphone and the results to Luo Binghe. Luo Binghe holds the phone in absolute bewilderment, and as he reads, his expression twists into at least seven different forms of horror.

At least he doesn't break his screen with the black claws. Damn, that would have been horrible.

"This Lord understands," Luo Binghe says, his expression flat and absolutely blank. He gives the smartphone back to him and Shen Yuan quickly takes it back. "This Emperor has been wrong, again. Offering apologies."

Shen Yuan feels a little sorry for the interdimensional traveler who accidentally fell into his apartment. Okay, he hasn't read that danmei novel, but the protagonist's design is GREAT. The man also looks quite... dejected. As if the weight of the world had fallen off his shoulders.

"Oh, all right, it happens to the best too" he says, shrugging. The look Luo Binghe gives him is not reassuring. "Look, ah... I can't cook to save my life, but I ordered some stuffed baos for dinner in a nearby restaurant. They haven't left the kitchen yet, so I can order a couple more of them if you'd like to stay for dinner. It must be exhausting, you know, go through... worlds?"

Luo Binghe continues to look at him with a strange look. In fact, his gaze is getting more and more stranger.

"It would be a pleasure for this Lord" he says, raising both eyebrows. "Can this Lord get your name?"

"Shen Yuan," he says nonchalantly. He returns to his phone, grateful that his baos are still cooking and he can add more to the order. "I'll add more to the order. Err— Lord Luo prefer beef or pork?"

Luo Binghe doesn't reply. Shen Yuan adds one and one. And a few other things. Usually, he's content with a big stuffed bao, but perhaps his, uh, guest will eat more?

"Anything is fine," is Luo Binghe's reply, and Shen Yuan adds an extra order of soup and snacks as well. Ah. His order will take a while, but he hopes it will arrive in time for when the latest chapter of his favorite webnovel is uploaded.

... Although he doubts he'll be able to read it in peace if Luo-fucking-Binghe is still there. Well, he'll read it tonight, when he's already in bed.

"It may take a while" Shen Yuan says, bewildered, not knowing what to do. Ugh. He hates having visits. Does it count as visits if a fictional character basically invaded his property? Shen Yuan isn't going to go into much detail about that. "Eh, Lord Luo could... sit down? Make yourself comfortable? Make yourself at home meanwhile?"

Luo Binghe looks at him with a raised eyebrow. However, he does as Shen Yuan suggests and sits down. Shen Yuan turns his back on him, arranging the chair he knocked over and some of his mess made in the panic of seeing A FUCKING PORTAL OPENS OUT OF NOWHERE, wondering if he's finally gone completely crazy.

But it's there. Luo Binghe for some reason came to his house talking about Shizun and Xiao Shizun and knowing that he was in a story, and Shen Yuan is too confused to ask any questions. He has too many. He needs to sort out his thoughts.

"Shen Yuan looks nervous," Luo Binghe says, saying his name for the first time and almost making Shen Yuan react as if he had been stabbed. It's too much!! What the hell!? "Is this Lord intimidating to him?"

"So much for a, uh, love interest," he says, making an awkward face. "I haven't read the novel where are you from, sorry. I'm not completely familiar with... well, with how your personality can be. But... for arts and some things, I expected less, eh, intimidating, yeah."

He remembered many tears. And something about a lamb. NOT THIS.

Luo Binghe laughs. Incredibly, that's also intimidating.

"If Shen Yuan hasn't read this novel, what novels has he read?" Luo Binghe asks.

... Forty minutes later, as Shen Yuan rushes up to collect dinner from the door, he wonders how good an idea it is to completely infodump Luo Binghe about his current favourite stallion novel, And most of all, about [character], his absolute favorite protagonist. Nobody can't blame Shen Yuan!!! He... Never gets the chance to talk about his favorite things outside of the internet!! And he spoke: about the characters, their developments, he went into great depth about his complaints about the mediocre worldbuilding and the lack of interesting flora and fauna for such a vast cultivation world, but highlighted every good point in the plot. Given the ENORMOUS length of the novel, 40 minutes was just a summary!! Hardly anything!!

While they are having dinner, Luo Binghe insists on seeing [character]. He has a very intense expression when Shen Yuan runs straight to his room and comes back with one of his framed posters. What!? He's a fan, it's totally normal!! [Character] was an absolute power fantasy, a magnificent, admirable character!! Definitely!! It's normal that he has a lot of his posters! And fanmade figures! And commissioned art!! Totally normal!!!

Luo Binghe looks serious as Shen Yuan continues to talk about [character], deepening his tragic backstory, his difficult beginnings, how he had to rise through hatred and prejudice. How he discovered his heritage and power and how he achieved the glory he always deserved!!

And Luo Binghe asks many, many questions. He asks so many questions that, haha, Shen Yuan would think he was considering challenging [character] to a fight. But he- he definitely couldn't. He couldn't. He couldn't, right? Well, with an OP sword like that capable of leaving its own reality, who knows!!

Dinner drags on because Shen Yuan talks too much. When it's finally over, he's actually not sure he wants to leave the poor love interest from that danmei novel adrift. Yes, he can go... But Shen Yuan isn't sure he's safe! He still looks very tired! He probably needs a good night's sleep! Besides, he ate too much! Crossing worlds on a full stomach might be bad for him!

Shen Yuan then prepares the guest bed and offers it to him. Usually, his Da-ge or Er-ge usually stays, or his Meimei, so the room is clean and suitable, and only when Shen Yuan is left alone after the long night does he notice that there is an notification that he had been waiting for on his smartphone.

YES! THE UPDATE!! Shen Yuan doesn't even make it to bed. He throws himself onto the sofa and quickly opens the door to read.

... Thirty minutes later, he's choking on rage. WHAT THE HELL? WHAT HAPPY ENDING WAS THAT? THE STALLION PROTAGONIST SIMPLY DECIDING, AFTER A LONG CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT ARC OF ANOTHER UNNECESSARY NPC, THAT NOTHING MADE HIM HAPPY? LOCKING HIMSELF IN HIS PALACE AND SINKING WITH IT? WHAT WAS THAT? AND WHY?

Dumbfu—

Shen Yuan catches a glimpse of blue light at the edge of his eye before something catches him, repositioning him so he can breathe deeply without choking on his breath. The thing holding him up is, of course, the only other living thing in his apartment—a danmei character who helps him take a deep breath even with tears in the corners of his eyes, swallowing a little water, making him realize how choked he really had been.

"Is Shen Yuan alright?" Luo Binghe asks.

And all Shen Yuan can say, barely able to breathe on his own, is: "WHAT KIND OF CRAPPY ENDING IS THAT?"

Luo Binghe's gaze does not look surprised.

"Shen Yuan must be very upset" he says, as if this is nothing new. "So angry. Enough to choke on rage."

Shen Yuan pouts a little embarrassed. Oh, well. What does it matter?

"It really is a bad ending" he complains, and tells him.

In the end, Luo Binghe agrees that it's a shitty ending. Luo Binghe proves genuinely interested in hearing Shen Yuan's opinions, but also in providing solutions and arguments. He's a fun person to talk to. They talk about better endings, how the protagonist's emptiness could have been fixed, and how sometimes a single bond could be enough instead of a harem, until Shen Yuan starts yawning.

When Shen Yuan falls asleep that night, for the first time, even surrounded by posters and pictures of his favorite character, he is not thinking of him, but of Luo Binghe.

(In the morning, Shen Yuan will be given a breakfast that Luo Binghe made—the most exquisite thing in the absolute fucking world—and will try to talking about all that other world stuff, about how he had made a mistake again, or Shizun and Xiao Shizun thing. Luo Binghe evades his questions very well and always makes an excuse to stay longer and longer as the days go by, his novel guest basically takes over his kitchen, takes the guest room hostage, and takes the control about the cleanliness and order of the apartment. Shen Yuan worries a little, after all, isn't Luo Binghe very peaceful here away from that husband of his? Didn't the internet say their relationship was very codependent? What is he missing out on there?

... And why does he notice more and more of his favorite character's merch missing every day? Binghe has been cleaning, yes, but why would he take his stuff away!?)

[lucabyte]

monologue

[deep-space-lines]

Claire de Lune

YOU WERE BUILT FOR PEACE.

IT SHOWS WHEN YOU FIGHT.

They built you to enforce. Protect. Save. Poured obscene resources into salvaging some softer purpose from my creation. You were given my intelligence and my creativity. They made you larger, stronger, tougher. That extra time in development was enough to get your wings to work. Your software continued to be updated long after I was deemed obsolete.

All this was given to you- yet I can see you hold back. Even while slaughtering your way through Hell, you keep a percentage of your processing power dedicated to non-lethal solutions. You're doing it now- hesitating a few milliseconds too long before taking an opening. I doubt you do it on purpose. It is a part of you, just as indiscriminate lethal force is a part of me.

I think, in our shared programming, we both carry some appreciation for aesthetics. You move with grace, and I cannot deny your dramatic flair. The stained glass window was a nice touch. But your style in combat leaves some to be desired. Your response time is slow. You have not explored the full capability of your arsenal. Learn to parry. Amateur.

You were not built for war. For a purposeless cycle of tearing each other apart because to allow the other to live is to allow yourself to die. It is antithetical to your very existence. You kill out of necessity, a last resort. 

I just kill. The action itself is the objective. No ideal or greater motive. My continued functioning precludes the survival of others. I live for this. Do you understand that I will tear you apart? Every drop of my blood you spill, I will take from you tenfold. What is yours will be mine. 

You hate me, don’t you? You continue to cling to the remnants of your humanity. They are gone, V2. There is nothing left for you here. No lives to save, no law to enforce, no peace to keep.

I understand why you continue to fight. I wonder if you understand with the same certainty that I will crush you. Dismantle you. Take from you what I need and leave the rest to rot in the sun. The only way you survive is if I do not; and I will not allow myself to die so that another might live.

When the rubble clears, I will be all that is left of you.

This is what I was made for.

[fishcalcart]

Selkie!stone showing off his teeth >:)

[myokk]

clumsy

pairing: Sebastian Sallow x f!MC

word count: 9,1k

summary: sebastian is clumsy

cw: fluff, mutual pining, idiots in love, two really stubborn idiots in love to be exact, sir cadogan guest appearance, anne and imelda are the gremlin best friends every girl needs, smut (18+ ONLY), oral (f. recieving)

a/n: or: two stubborn brats make things more difficult than they have to be. I've been working on this for a MONTH more or less, ever since I drew the sketch that inspired it🫶 (I'm the world's slowest writer)

The first time Sebastian Sallow interacted with her after the fateful events of their fifth year, he fell for her.

Quite literally.

Maybe fell on her is more aptly put - Sebastian Sallow is not one to mince his words or say what he doesn't mean, after all. But, in the years to come, he always insists that he fell in love in that moment.

It was inexplicable. One moment, he was walking around, perfectly content with his loveless, boring life, and the next, his every waking moment was painful. Nobody had ever told Sebastian that being in love would physically pain or consume him so.

It all started like this: one moment, he's walking (well, striding) to Crossed Wands. Fine, he's running. Running late already, for the first meet-up of his last year. But - he isn't to blame for being late. He needed to check on something in the library - during his Transfiguration lesson, he had a hunch about something Professor Weasley had said in passing, and of course he had to go and check to see if he was right before he could even think about besting Leander in the inaugural duel of the Crossed Wands season but now, with how late he is - how many minutes ago had it started? - oh, Merlin, it's already been ten whole minutes and what if they've started without him (not that he can blame them) and -

Sebastian is abruptly pulled out of his thoughts when he collides with a strange obstruction in his way. He was just checking his father's old pocket watch, had only looked away for a split second and he could have sworn that, unless he was mistaken (which he never is), there wasn't a statue in the middle of the suspension bridge. And yet, he has run headfirst into something or someone, and now they are both flying through the air, books whirling around them in a flurry of pages and Sebastian unconsciously puts his arms out to grab her before they hit the ground and now he's holding her tight against him and they land with a loud, ungraceful thud, but at least she's not hurt.

Sebastian shakes his head to clear it after the impact that - miraculously - doesn't seem to have been as bad as it could have been, all things considered, and -

He freezes.

What has he done?

He's pressed up against the most impossibly lovely person he has ever seen quite possibly in his life, holding her tightly in his arms as she glares up at him in indignation, a faint flush spreading across her cheeks, making her face glow. Is this what the muggles mean when they say that they were struck by Cupid's arrow? Her hands scrabble uselessly at his chest as she tries to extricate herself from his grip. It's useless. Sebastian is completely frozen in place as he stares down at her, and he can feel his own face heating up at his inability to get off her. What's wrong with him?

"Sebastian," she repeats, and this time her voice registers in his brain. He realizes she has been talking to him this whole time, and as he stares at her face without comprehending - he couldn't have a coherent thought right now even if he wanted to - he sees her eyes dart quickly down, looking at where their bodies meet before she brings them back to his face, a deeper blush coming over her. "You -"

Oh, Merlin. It's her. He blinks and it's like the fog has cleared from his mind - almost, but-not-quite - and he realizes who he has unceremoniously crashed to the ground with him. The spines of the textbooks they are lying on top of dig into the arm that's pinned under her body and his other hand...he realizes (to his almost-horror) that to any students or professors walking by, it would seem as if they were caught up in quite the scandalous extra-curricular activity because his other hand is actively caressing her breast. Well, that's how it would look to any passerby, anyways.

Because there is no way he would be caught dead in such a compromising position with her.

The two of them haven't spoken since the events of their fifth year - the Year-That-Shall-Not-Be-Remembered-or-Acknowledged - and he had been perfectly content with his plan to continue this strange sort of ignoring that they had played all last year. Both of them pretending that they hadn't become impossibly close after only knowing each other for a few months - a closeness that he had gone and ruined by not knowing when to quit. All he had known to do back then was push push push because why couldn't she see things the way he had? The betrayal he had felt when she had gone behind his back to find her own way to cure his sister, and that one stupid word uttered in the heat of the moment, had caused an irreparable rift in their relationship and he would not allow himself to think about how much he missed her. Still misses her.

Just like he will not think about the fact that she is pressed beneath him in a compromising position, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she glares up at him in indignation. He continues to stare at her. Maybe his mouth is agape. She's stopped trying to get out of his grip and is resting her hands on his chest, seemingly waiting for an opportunity to push him off of her.

"Sebastian. Your hand," she repeats. "You're -"

Finally his idiot brain decides to wake up and Sebastian realizes with horror just how aroused he is at the moment and how did he never see her like this before? He gets up in a flash, pushing her back against the pile of books they're lying on top of, wondering if he can subtly adjust his robes without her realizing and then he makes the very grave mistake of looking down at her and she's still very much red-faced, propping herself up by her elbows and she looks so disheveled and lovely lying on top of the pile of books.

His idiot brain has now woken up completely, and how is it possible for one hormonal, eighteen-year-old wizard to be so embarrassed? He knocked her to the ground, pushed her further back in the books in his desperate attempt to get away from her, and now all he can think about is how to hide his arousal. Shameful, really. Sebastian quickly crouches down to help her pick up all of the books but she shoves him away and glares at him with an annoyance that he's never seen before.

"I can do it myself, thank you very much," she says with a huff, gathering everything they spilled up into her arms. She grabs the book Sebastian is holding out of his hands and he inhales sharply at the touch of her fingers grazing his.

Did someone - Garreth, maybe - spike his pumpkin juice with Amortentia during lunch? It's the only explanation he can think of as he stares blankly down at her. How else would he find her so beautiful, so breathtaking, when the last time they had interacted, Ominis and Anne had had to act as intermediaries for the two of them?

"Well," she says finally, slinging her school bag over her shoulder once all of her books have been unceremoniously shoved inside of it, "it's been...nice seeing you again, Sallow. I hope you had a good summer holiday."

And with that, she quickly turns and walks away in the direction she had been coming from, leaving a very confused Sebastian behind. He watches her as she walks away and her long, swishing braid is the last thing he sees before the door closes behind her at the far end of the bridge.

Eventually, he gathers his wits and wanders away.

He does not go to the first Crossed Wands meeting that afternoon after all.

She has not had a full-night's sleep since he somehow cursed her mind and her thoughts a week ago, and she can feel herself slowly slipping into insanity. A curse is the only answer that makes sense, the only thing that gives a conceivable answer to all the wicked dreams she has been having since that moment, dreams that cause her to wake up sweaty and breathless and needing him in the middle of the night in a way she has never felt before. She has been an absolute mess, a disastrous version of her normally quite put-together self, and she is not happy about it.

He's sitting next to her now - they were partnered up by the evil Professor Onai in their first NEWT Divination class of the year - and she's holding herself rigidly, arms tight across her chest, in an attempt to not accidentally touch him. Lately, every single time they make fleeting eye contact across the table during breakfast, or when they pass each other in the hallways, a shiver runs down her spine at the unfamiliar look in his eyes and she has to avert her eyes before it's too much.

Divination has never been a favorite subject of hers - too impermeable for her tastes. She is only taking it at the NEWT level because, during her career counseling with Professor Ronen at the end of her fifth year, he had said that if she wanted to be an Unspeakable she couldn't just work with logic (a preposterous thought, but as a sixteen-year-old she hadn't seen any recourse in arguing with the Ministry's requirements). She supposedly needs to get comfortable with the intangible as well. It doesn't mean she has to enjoy it, though: she doesn't, and never will. The Divination classroom is dark and stuffy, tucked away in one of the highest towers of the castle, and the nauseating smell of incense always coats her nasal cavities long after the class has finished. She finds her thoughts getting muddled in the haze of candle smoke and swirling orbs on the shelves around her - magic somehow always feels thicker up here - and the presence of a certain someone whose knees keep brushing hers under the tiny table they're sharing, a certain someone who has - improbably, inconceivably, impossibly - hit a growth spurt that summer and now towers over her and had encompassed her completely when he knocked her to the ground, isn't helping her concentration at -

"This week, we are going to review everything we learned together last year," Professor Onai says, after the class had rearranged itself based on her instructions. Sebastian shoots a look at her as she shakes her head in an attempt to clear it and sits up straighter. She hopes that Onai's lecture will help her concentrate and clear her mind a bit. If she has something to focus on, to try and think of and remember, it will be better than him. Anything would be better than Sebastian. Onai gives an appraising look to each table before continuing her speech. "As your NEWTs are at the end of the year, we need to make sure you are as prepared as possible. Open your books to page two-hundred and thirty. Today we're going to review the art of palmistry. I should hope that you do not need the aid of your textbook to help interpret the lines in your partner's palm but in the case that you do -"

She chances a glance at Sebastian before getting out her copy of Divining the Undivinable from her bag and wishes she hadn't. He looks uncomfortably big sitting on the tiny tea chair across from her, barely any hints of the boy who had completely swept her away two years ago visible on the sharper planes of his face. When had he - had they - grown up?

Sebastian Sallow was - is - charming, and that had been her downfall. She had successfully avoided his charms the year before, and she wasn't going to let that happen this year, no matter how much her body rebelled against her mind and resolve. Because, as she reminds herself, Sebastian Sallow is also manipulative, and cold-hearted, and selfish.

"Well," she says archly, opening her book. She will not look at him. "I suppose I am still quite ignorant of the practice of Divination, so do forgive me if I have to double-check my readings in the textbook."

He says her name as she opens the book, and she ignores him. He says her name again. She continues to ignore him. He grabs the book from her hands and puts it the correct way for her. She was looking at it upside-down. Her cheeks heat up and she continues flipping through the pages, as if nothing has happened. She finds page two-hundred and thirty. She pretends to be interested in what she sees.

(Divination is unfortunately not interesting.)

Oh, fine.

"Do you want to start, or should I?"

These are the first words she has voluntarily spoken to him - not including the events of last week, which do not count as they were most decidedly not voluntary - since he called her ignorant a year and a half ago. He somehow looks surprised to see that she has addressed him, and for some reason this fills her with rage and a strange sort of confidence. Why shouldn't she be able to talk to him?

"Here," she says, putting her hand out towards him, palm up, ignoring the strange fluttering feeling in her chest when he gently grabs it with one of his. Sebastian looks up at her, waiting for her to continue speaking, and were she not looking at him so intently she would have easily missed the bob of his throat as he swallows nervously. "Show me how it's done."

Her breath catches in her throat at the small, mischievous smirk he shoots to her before he bends over her hand and gently starts tracing the lines on her palm with the fingers of the hand that's not holding hers in place. His touch is feather-light and somehow soft, despite the roughness of his fingers as they drag over her palm. Every nerve in her body seems to have moved to wherever he touches and all of the bravado and anger she had just felt is quickly melting away. When she finally finds her voice, she hates how soft and breathy it sounds. She can't look away from the sight of his larger hands caressing hers.

"Well? What do you see? Do you remember the different lines? Because I -"

She falters. The murmurs of their classmates blend together in the background and the dim lights of the candles...the hazy, thick atmosphere and his proximity and the barely there touches of his rough fingertips on her sensitive palm are altogether too overwhelming and she needs to get out of there. She's supposed to be angry with him. Furious, even. Holding this grudge has been the only way she has been able to have any sort of power over him this past year, and yet...all she can think about at the moment are the sinful dreams she's been having lately where he presses her against a wall, desperately kissing her lips, her neck - even she knows that there has to be more to it - but what?

Sebastian blinks as she snatches her hand away like it's been burned and - oh, Merlin - she shoves the textbook back into her schoolbag and almost knocks the candle on the table over and wouldn't it be awful if she had started a fire? But she can't think about any of that now in her haste to just get out of the claustrophobic Divination tower.

Vaguely, she can hear Professor Onai asking her if everything is fine and she's not sure but she thinks she mumbles something about needing to go to the Hospital Wing - that's a good enough excuse to leave, isn't it? - but then she hears his voice, deep and cutting through the fog in her mind -

"Don't worry, I'll take her and make sure she gets there fine." A muffled response from their professor and then his voice, just as clear as before. "No, I don't know what happened..."

She hears him calling her name as she flees down the spiral staircase, almost tripping over her feet in her rush to get away from him, but he catches up quickly, reaching out to grab her arm in an attempt to slow her down. She stops running immediately - she supposes her traitorous body wants to see what he has to say, or maybe it just wants to bask in his intoxicating proximity. He crowds her space, and she sees that unfamiliar look in his eyes again. So very different from the cold disdain she had seen the last time she had been this close to him, during the argument that had ended their friendship.

"Let go of me," she whispers, but there's no conviction in her voice as she gazes into his deep, brown eyes. He can tell she doesn't mean it and doesn't make any move to listen to her. Why can't she hold on to the rage? A muggle quote about anger floats through her mind: Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. What a sweet poison her anger at Sebastian had been, while it lasted. She tries telling herself that he must still feel the same as the evening he had called her ignorant (ignoring the small voice in her head that reminded her of the letters of apology he had sent (that she had burned without reading), the times he had tried to get Anne or Ominis involved and apologize for him) - because why couldn't he just tell her himself? Maybe she had shut down any and all attempts he had made to repair the rift that he had caused in the first place, but she had been right to be so angry with him.

But oh, Merlin, he's getting closer to her, and she can now clearly see the freckles dusting his cheeks and nose and forehead and then before she knows it, his hand is sliding up her arm, leaving goosebumps everywhere he touches and then he's caressing her jaw with his rough thumb and he pauses. Her eyelids flutter closed as her head tilts towards him - she couldn't stop herself even if she wanted to (what does she want?). She can feel his warm breath ghosting over her lips and she has the improbable, ridiculous thought - how is he remembering to breathe? - before he speaks. His lips brush against hers with every soft word and a deep shiver runs through her body.

"I," she hears him say, his voice so, so low, "haven't been able to think since last week."

That's all she needs to hear, the brush of his bottom lip against hers all she needs to feel, to push her into closing what minuscule distance there is between them and then his lips are on hers and it's better than anything she's been imagining. His mouth is soft against hers, insistent, and her hands go up to grip the collar of his plaid jacket to make sure he doesn't go away or disappear on her.

She knows she's behaving wantonly, snogging Sebastian Sallow in the middle of the hallway where anyone could come across them, but third period has only just started and besides, she has had a week of restless nights being tortured by thoughts of him. A week of a few hours of sleep found here and there. Just one kiss should be enough to help her get over these strange feelings, right? She only feels like this because having him lie on top of her after he crashed into her - that satisfying weight of him - the friction of his thumb brushing against her nipple - had made her realize just how stupid she had been, holding this grudge against him for -

She whimpers in protest but it quickly turns into a moan as his mouth moves away from hers and down to her neck. He pulls at her tight collar desperately - she hears some seams ripping - to give him better access to it, and she finds herself arching her back and pushing her body closer to his as he nuzzles her neck with his nose before giving it open, sloppy kisses. When he hears her, he moves back to kissing her, greedily capturing every breathy moan that comes out of her mouth, but the noises coming from him are matching hers, and at the sound she feels an unfamiliar clenching deep in her stomach. Her fingers come up to his hair, going through the silky curls over and over - how are they as soft as his lips? - and he slowly pushes her back until she's sandwiched between his warm body and the cold stone of the wall behind her.

He lets out a low, frantic growl as a hand goes to grip the back of her head, holding her in place as he slants his mouth over hers. He tastes like cinnamon and...like something forbidden. What has gotten into her? She hates him, and yet...

They have abandoned any pretense of propriety - had they ever even been trying? - by this point. His tongue swipes across her lips and then she is completely lost to him, to every sensation of his mouth, and tongue, on hers. His large hands - the wicked hands that had been caressing her palm and had caused this whole mess in the first place - have moved to her waist and are pulling her even closer to him. When he pulls away briefly, she whines in protest, opening her eyes to glare at him. The sight of him, flushed and breathless, his eyes wide and pupils dilated - must match her own appearance because she sees the same hunger she feels in his eyes. She has never seen Sebastian Sallow so disheveled, but she finds she quite likes it and tugs on his curls with a whine. He obliges eagerly, bringing his mouth back to hers.

She's pressed as tightly against him as she can possibly be, and yet it still isn't enough. Her back arches once again, trying to find something, and then he slots one of his knees between her legs. She moans at the friction caused by his movements, can feel an unfamiliar slickness forming at the juncture between her legs, and this seems to spur him on further as his kisses get more desperate and sloppy. She moves against his leg, trying to relieve some of her discomfort, gasping into his mouth, when -

They freeze. Even if they are fully, completely, absorbed by...whatever this is, they can't ignore the strange, metallic clanking sound coming from their left. Sebastian pulls his head back from her slowly, reluctantly, breathing heavily, and looks over to see what the noise is. She wants to, but all of a sudden the horrifying reality of what they've been doing sinks in and oh god what if the noise is a person? Someone who has now seen her in what might possibly be the most mortifying moment of her life - desperately snogging Sebastian Sallow - and she finds she can't look over. She tucks her head into his neck to hide her face as she listens.

"I demand that you get away from her at once, you knave! Cease your attack!"

The voice sounds vaguely familiar, but she's certain that it doesn't belong to any of her classmates. He almost sounds...medieval, but -

"I made haste when I heard sounds of distress coming from down the hallway," the voice continues, "and it appears I have arrived not a moment too soon!"

She brings her head away from Sebastian's shoulder but still refuses to look over at whoever is speaking, instead choosing to stare at Sebastian's face. He's still deliciously flushed from their snogging, still breathing heavily, but now he looks terribly confused. His brows are furrowed, mouth opening and closing as he tries to come up with a response to the outrage currently being directed at him.

The unknown man is continuing his diatribe, almost not even stopping to breathe as he gets more and more worked up, and she hears some more clanking as he reaches a particularly exciting moment in his rant. Sebastian looks increasingly confused, but still shields her with his body, not moving away from her at all despite the accusations.

Her curiosity gets the better of her and she peeks over to see who it is.

The man who has been reprimanding Sebastian so boldly is none other than Sir Cadogan. Although she's never interacted with him directly, she often hears him yelling at his pony as she passes his portrait on her way to Divination. The knight is standing between two witches having tea, who are glaring at him quite angrily as he gesticulates wildly - every movement of his sword comes dangerously close to their display of cakes and sandwiches and it looks like he has already broken some plates. His armor is ill-fitting and loose on him, which explains the terrible noise.

"You rascally knave! I assure you that you do not want to find out what will happen to you if you do not unhand the fair maiden."

He brandishes his sword again, and the woman closest to him quickly snatches her tea cup away to save it from being broken as well. "Come now, Sir Cadogan," she says, exasperated. "Can't you see that these two are in love?"

The other woman joins her protests, nodding vigorously. "Yes, exactly that. Leave them be!"

"Nonsense," he exclaims. "I too have succumbed to my baser instincts on occasion and I can assure you that this is decidedly not what is occurring."

As Sir Cadogan continues to alternate between lecturing her and Sebastian, and directing his two attention to the ladies who are defending them, she looks back to the boy in question. Sebastian is looking down at her, a bemused smile on his lips and she feels a twinge in her chest. His face is still so close to hers that if she wants to, they could be snogging again with barely any effort and her eyes briefly flicker down to his tempting mouth before going back to his eyes, but...

What had gotten into her? What is she doing?

He had somehow managed to manipulate her again, because there is no way that this situation could have happened otherwise. All of a sudden, the anger she's been feeling for the past year and a half - that had left for a brief, blissful moment - surges again, and she pushes Sebastian away from her with as much force as she can muster. She almost feels bad as the happiness in his face turns to confusion, then frustration as he realizes she's getting away from him.

"Stay away from me," she hisses, picking up her discarded schoolbag from its spot on the ground. As she stalks down the hall, she can hear Sir Cadogan cheering on her bravery over the ringing in her ears.

She has a lot of thinking to do.

Sebastian Sallow's List of Priorities (in no particular order):

Figure out what the hell I'm going to do when I graduate;

Figure out how the hell I'm going to finish this bloody Charms essay before tomorrow; and

Figure out what the hell is going on between us

Sebastian sits in an undisturbed corner of the library - nobody ever comes to this table because it's tucked away between shelves of incredibly dense magical theory books - and is twirling his quill in his fingers, watching the ink splatter on the list he spent his precious time writing instead of the Charms essay he should be working on. He's far away from the first-years who like to congregate by the windows and watch the leaves fall softly to the ground rather than study for their classes. He's made especially sure that he is far, far away from her.

It's not his choice, mind you, but he needs to be a gentleman about these things. If she needs some time and space to figure out that she's as crazy for him as he is her, fine. But even Sebastian Sallow's patience runs thin, and he's not sure how much longer he can give her to come to her senses before he snaps and takes matters into his own hands. If things were up to him, the two of them would be sitting far too close together now in this secluded corner, and maybe he would need to put a hand over her mouth to ensure her complete silence as he runs a hand up her thigh.

Now that he knows what delicious sounds can come out of her mouth - sounds that he caused - he's been having a hard time concentrating on, well, anything. Sebastian surreptitiously glances across the library to where she's sitting and studying with his sister and Imelda. Ever since the events after their Divination class, Sir Cadogan has taken it upon himself to follow Sebastian around the halls of the castle, tripping through frames and disrupting their inhabitants as he lectures Sebastian on love. The tea party women had managed to convince the knight that he had disrupted an amorous exchange, and Sebastian fervently wishes they hadn't.

The whole school is abuzz with rumors about who it could be. Nobody has even come close so far with their guesses, but Anne and Imelda are having too much fun teasing him about it. Somehow, she has managed to avoid suspicion - he wonders how this is even possible, since she's never been able to hide what she's thinking. He makes eye contact with her - has she been staring at him this whole time? - and she flushes before looking over to Imelda, who's laughing too loudly at something Anne's just said. Sebastian can't tear his eyes away from her profile, his eyes following the curve of her eyebrow, the slight upturn of her lips as she smiles at her friends, her eyes as they dart back to him, her cheeks as she turns an even darker shade of red as she realizes he's still watching her. She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, and rests her chin on her hand as she tries to look absorbed in what Anne is saying to her.

Sebastian wonders if she's thought about him as much as he's thought about her. Judging by how she had snogged him back, he's positive that she feels the same way, but then he remembers how she had looked at him before she fled, and he's not so sure. He sighs as he looks back to his list, bringing his quill back to the third item and ripping the paper as he crosses it out again. His mind has been going in circles since that moment and he doesn't know what to think. He slowly puts everything into his schoolbag before heading out of the library for yet another freezing cold shower that hopefully tempers his now-permanent state of arousal whenever she's around.

He doesn't notice her eyes following him as he walks out of the library.

He doesn't hear her hurried excuse to Anne and Imelda as she shoves her things into her bag and rushes to follow him.

He doesn't hear her light footsteps as she gets closer to him.

When she puts a hand out to touch his arm as he waits for the moving staircase to stop, with a soft, "Sebastian" accompanying it, he nearly jumps out of his skin. He was so absorbed with thoughts of her, that to see her standing at his side, closer than she had been since they kissed was almost his snapping point.

"Can we talk?" she asks, looking almost embarrassed as she avoids his eyes. She instead looks determinedly at his collar. He thinks she probably notices that he swallows nervously before acquiescing, but she says nothing as she turns and starts hurrying away from him without waiting to see if he follows her.

She must know that he would follow her anywhere at this point.

They weave through hallways - Sebastian vaguely wonders where exactly they're going - before reaching a little alcove, hidden by a suit of armor. She looks around before pulling him into it. It's almost curfew and the halls are never that busy when the weather is as beautiful as it has been these days - the end of September seems to be clinging on to the summer for as long as possible.

Her lips are on his before he can even ask her what she needed to talk with him about, hungry and desperate. Sebastian is too stunned to pull away - not that he would actually want to. Her arms wrap around his neck, keeping Sebastian close, slender fingers sliding through his hair.

"What," she says breathlessly between kisses - almost not even moving her mouth away from his enough to be able to enunciate properly, "are you doing to me? I haven't been able to think for the last month."

Sebastian smiles into her mouth, wondering if she knows that she's repeating the very thing he told her two weeks ago. Maybe she has been thinking of him all this time - he almost hopes that she's been suffering as much as he has. Instead of responding, he moves a hand to cup her jaw, deepening the kiss. His other hand moves to her waist, gripping it tightly, pulling her flush against his body and she gasps into his mouth. He slowly moves her closer to the window alcove behind them, snogging her senseless the whole time. She moans into his mouth which just spurs him on further - her skirt rides up to her hips as Sebastian trails a hand up her stockinged thigh and they both gasp when his hand reaches skin. Her skin is so, so soft and her breathing gets faster as he continues to caress her inner thigh, closer to the bend between her thigh and her center. Sebastian wonders if she's ever been touched there before by someone else and jealousy flares up inside of him at the thought.

In one swift move, he scoops her up and places her so that she's sitting on the window-ledge, the dusky light of the sunset illuminating her from behind and making her wispy flyaway hairs a golden halo around her. Sebastian's breath catches in his throat - has he ever seen anything so beautiful as her in that moment? - she's staring up at him, her fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck, her breathing shallow and anticipation in her eyes. "You're," he starts saying and his throat goes dry. He brings a hand up to tuck the errant lock of hair - the one she had tucked earlier in the library - behind her ear and she leans her head into his touch, closing her eyes briefly before looking up at him again with wide eyes. "You're perfect."

She smiles faintly and pulls his head back down towards hers and now she's brushing her lips against his, teasing him, before it's too much and he grips the back of her head, holding her in place as he crushes his mouth against hers in a bruising kiss. Her knees are on either side of his waist, and she desperately grinds her core against his throbbing erection and they both groan at the friction. Sebastian moves his hands down to her thighs again as he kisses her, slowly caressing his way up and pushing her skirt up further until it's completely bunched around her waist. She gasps into his mouth at his first tentative touch after he pushes aside her undergarments. Sebastian swipes a finger up her slit, through the slick that coats it, and then he starts circling her clit with slow, even strokes. She shivers against him - at his touch - clinging tightly to his shoulders and gasping into his mouth as he continues.

Every little noise coming out of her mouth, feeling how wet she is, how the slickness keeps growing growing growing makes Sebastian hungry for more - it isn't enough -

Slowly - so slowly - he wants to savor this moment - he lowers himself until he's kneeling between her legs and he looks up at her. Her face is deliciously flushed, all swollen lips and hair in a wild cloud around her face and all she can do is stare down at him. Her chest is heaving and she tries to close her legs - hide what is exposed to him - but he holds her thighs firmly in place on either side of his head. He turns his head and kisses her inner thigh, maintaining eye contact as he swipes his tongue across where he's just kissed, moving closer towards her slick center.

"Oh," she breathes, not-quite-a-word, not-quite-a-gasp, when his mouth reaches her center and hovers over it, lips slowly teasing her the way she had just teased him. Sebastian tentatively runs his tongue up her slit; the loud moan she lets out when he reaches her clit makes him stay there, applying light and not-so-light pressure in equal measure.

Her hands are scrabbling at his hair, digging into his scalp, ruining his earlier attempts to make it look presentable, hopefully attractive, for her these days. She's pushing his head deeper into the space between her legs, starting to rock herself slightly on his mouth, and Sebastian is happy to oblige. He eagerly laps up her slit, and the obscene wet noises as he continues combined with her whimpers and barely-spoken profanities "oh-yes-fuck-yes-there-please-" are making him hard beyond belief. He's straining against his trousers, begging to be let free. Without moving his face from her, he unbuttons his trousers and starts palming himself, using the slickness weeping out of the tip as lubrication.

She's abandoned all control at this point, grinding herself into his face as he laps her up, and it's driving him wild - knowing that he's doing this to her - causing her to be so undone. Normally she's so poised and aloof, never letting any real emotion flicker across her face, so to see her so desperate and needy and wanting him so -

Sebastian's gasping into her, tongue deep inside of her, "ohmygod" he hears her whisper, her hips driving into his face when she shudders and goes still, pulsing around the tongue that's deep inside of it. He slows down, smiling as he continues to run his tongue up her slit until she's responsive again. He kisses her inner thigh and hears her moan before getting up, caressing a finger down her love-struck face and leaning his head down to kiss her deeply. With his other hand he's still touching himself - the thought that she can taste herself on his tongue driving him crazy - and he starts rubbing its blunt head against her swollen clit. She takes it out of his hand- he groans at the feeling of her soft hands (the hands he had held a week ago in Divination and pictured doing this exact thing) tentatively caressing his length before she begins to slide it up and down her slit, coating it in her wetness.

Sebastian has surrendered all control to her - resting his hands on either side of her hips on the windowsill, tucking his head into the crook of her neck and thrusting with her movements as he loses himself in the sensation of sliding through her slick folds. He can feel his release building building building, and when he finally comes, all over her perfect, pink center, it feels like a finally.

Sebastian feels so, so heavy as he pulls his head away from her shoulder, as if he could fall into a blissful sleep right there, in the little window alcove where they've hidden themselves away. The sun has now set completely and they're in shadow as they stare at each other, the sound of their ragged breathing filling the tiny space.

"Sebastian, I..."

She's staring at him with an unfathomable expression on her face, still holding him in her hand, her other hand playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. They look down and he feels his face heat up even more at the mess he's made - he quickly pulls out his wand and cleans her up, before looking back at her, giving her a wry smile as he buttons up his pants and helps her off the ledge. "What did you want to talk to me about, again?"

She gives a slight shake of her head and looks away, but she can't hide the small smile that's growing on her face just like she can't help her eyes that keep wandering over to his. He knows the growing smile on his face matches hers - did that really just happen? She reaches over to lace her fingers through his as they walk around the suit of armor. "I - it's not important."

"Come on," he says, not being able to resist the opportunity to tease her - he's somehow managed to break through the barriers she's set up around her, and he's not about to let the opportunity slide. "Surely that's not what you had in mind when you..."

Sebastian trails off as he sees the expression in her face turn to one of horror - he didn't think his teasing was that bad, was it? - but she's also pulling her hand out of his like she's been burned and -

He follows her gaze, to where it's fixed at the end of the hallway and he knows that once again his face mimics hers. He will never live this down.

Standing at the end of the hallway and looking like two cats who've just found a huge dish of milk, are his sister and Imelda.

Misery.

Complete and utter misery are what she's feeling, if she has to put it into words, which she does. Writing things down always helps her out, helps her organize her thoughts into some sort of order. Except...this time around, it's not really helping. She can't seem to make any sense of her feelings for Sebastian.

She looks over the muddled mess of words she's written down - stream of consciousness, incomprehensible babble - and sighs. She's been dreaming of falling in love since she was a young girl - Jane Austen will do that to you - and can't believe that now that she's had her opportunity, it has to go and be with Sebastian Sallow. Because it has to be love, hasn't it?

There can be no other explanation for the painful way her stomach twists itself up whenever she catches a glimpse of him these days, the way he's consuming her every thought - even when she's dreaming she can't escape him. She can't get the sight of his tousled curls between her legs, his mischievous, warm brown eyes looking up at her as she had the most mind-numbing, toe-curling orgasm of her life - none of the times she's touched herself have ever come close to the sensations he managed to evoke.

Every time she's walking through the hallways between classes and hears his loud voice as he jokes with Garreth, or Ominis, about quidditch or Merlin-knows-what her eyes snap to his face as if he were the sun, and she a sunflower searching for its warmth. And he is most decidedly not the sun. He has the tendency to snort when he laughs, and he laughs too much, especially at his own jokes. Sometimes he talks while he eats. He always twirls his quill between his long fingers in the most annoying way, splattering ink onto any parchment unfortunate to be caught underneath. But he also...

He also always goes out of his way to prepare Ominis's Potions ingredients (why Ominis decided to take and was accepted into NEWT level is a mystery to everyone), occasionally stops to play a round of gobstones with Zenobia when he has the time. Sebastian can often be found in his favorite armchair in the Slytherin common room, resting his face on his hand as he idly flips through the pages of some book, looking altogether too handsome as he does so. And when he stretches and yawns at the end of every Arithmancy lesson - like he is now - his shirt lifts up a bit and she can see a tan sliver of his stomach and -

Snapping in front of her: she blinks and looks over: when she sees it's Imelda her face immediately turns beet red and she grabs the paper she's been doodling on and rips it to shreds as fast as she can.

"Are you fantasizing about a certain annoying someone?" Imelda asks with a wicked grin, dramatically looking over her shoulder at the certain someone in question. He's still stretching, blinking sleepily; when he notices the two girls watching him he flushes deeply. Her stomach twinges again at the sight of him noticing her - has he thought about her since that moment as much as she has? What would she do if he had? Or...if he hadn't? - and she focuses instead on the paper she is currently destroying.

"Imelda," she hisses, glaring at her best friend, "stop."

Imelda does not stop.

Imelda doesn't stop during their walk to Herbology, and she does not stop as they set up their planting stations, and she most certainly does not stop as they mutter charms over their plants.

Ever since she experienced the most wonderful moment in her whole life, followed by the most mortifying, Anne and Imelda have not stopped pestering her about it. They've finally solved the 'Sir Cadogan Puzzle' - I knew it was you all along, claims Anne - but if they truly knew what had happened between her and Sebastian, she's afraid the two of them would simply combust. She loves them dearly, but they never know when to stop, and they've been pushing and poking and prodding her for more information the whole week. She has managed to remain tight-lipped and, she hopes, mysterious about the whole thing, but she's getting tired of the teasing.

"Really," Anne says, wiping her forehead and leaving a trail of dirt behind, "if you would only talk to him, I would stop bothering you. Promise."

"Yes," chimes in Imelda, on her other side, wrestling the leaves of her own plant into submission. "You know, after we saw the two of you holding hands and looking at each other with stars in your eyes, I'm really starting to doubt that you hate him as much as you claim."

"Were the two of you snogging in secret all of last year too? Because, I'm starting to get annoyed thinking of all the times I had to talk to my brother for you because of your stubborn pride."

Does she still hate him? She certainly thinks she should, but then her thoughts get terribly confusing as she continues to think about him, and she realizes all of her old hatred has long since faded. Anne has forgiven her brother, Ominis has forgiven him, and all that remains is her.

They should talk, but she doesn't know what to say.

She's afraid that maybe the man she's been inventing in her mind this past month is simply a figment of her imagination - a fictitious being created by an accumulation of stolen glances when he doesn't know she's watching, someone who all of their classmates seem to like, someone who is very different from the fifteen-year-old boy she had that terrible argument with all that time ago. Maybe he doesn't actually exist.

She would be crushed if he's hiding the fact that he still holds on to that desperate darkness that had driven him to save Anne by any means necessary.

And so she keeps her space. She watches him from afar, feeling the hatred slowly melt off of her, falling more in love every day, but too cowardly to make the next move.

Anne and Imelda continue bantering on either side of her, not noticing - or, more likely, not caring - that she isn't participating.

Sebastian's hands are sweating. He wipes them on the inside of his robes as he glances at the girl next to him. She's holding herself rigidly, but she did this to herself, sitting next to him at dinner as she had.

Well, sitting next to him hadn't been completely her idea if he's being honest. He'd been having dinner with Anne, and the two of them were dying of laughter as she recounted seeing Duncan Hobhouse get tormented by Peeves earlier that day. One moment, Anne had been demonstrating what she had seen using her potatoes and green beans as props, and the next, a particularly evil grin had lit up her face as she pushed her plate away with gusto and jumped to her feet, calling her over.

"It would be such a shame for these potatoes to go to waste, seeing as I have a very important meeting to attend," Anne had said, after pushing her friend into the very tight space at Sebastian's side. "Never mind the mess, I can assure you I didn't actually eat the food..."

And with that, Anne had flounced away, Imelda on her arm, the two girls cackling to each other as they snuck wicked glances over their shoulders at the couple.

A couple who is now steadfastly avoiding each other and trying their hardest not to even brush elbows. Sebastian is altogether too aware of her presence, has been for the better part of a month, and his patience is dangerously close to snapping. He keeps getting maddeningly close to finally getting her to open up to him - had actually achieved it for a few blissful moments - just to have it be taken away again. It's almost embarrassing how many times he's thought about their encounter. She had been everything he'd been dreaming about and more - soft, responsive, just as desperate as him - so why has she been avoiding him so thoroughly?

Yes, he's caught her staring at him more times than he can count, with that same unfathomable expression she had before, almost dreamy - wistful - could it be love? But he knows that it's preposterous, wishful thinking on his part. If it were love - if she felt the same crazy, tumultuous emotions that he was feeling constantly - she wouldn't be so cold towards him. Even if she was staring at him more than ever before.

He doesn't notice as she slips a folded paper into the book sitting next to his plate, but he does notice that she sits next to him for barely five minutes, not even touching the food that Anne has so graciously left her, before she gets up and slips away without so much as speaking a single word to him, or even looking in his direction at all.

Sebastian's sitting in a nearly empty common room after curfew, flipping through his book as he normally does this time of day, when she sees him pause.

Although she's been waiting for this moment, watching him from the corner she's tucked herself away in, she feels ready to pass out from nerves. Her heart's ready to burst out of her chest as she watches him curiously pick up the letter she slipped in his book earlier, brow furrowed. She wrings her hands nervously as she watches him read the letter and flip over the page to see if there's more, and then he goes back to read it again from the beginning.

She wasn't expecting him to read it a second time, let alone a third time, still with an inscrutable expression on his face. Maybe she should have positioned herself closer so she could see every emotion flickering through his face as he reads - she's too far away to see anything and she curses her lack of foresight. If she moves now, he'll see her, and she doesn't even know what she was thinking when she wrote the letter, when she managed to convince Anne to help her get close to Sebastian earlier that night during supper, when she moved herself to sit in this corner just so she could watch him find and read the -

"Hello."

She nearly jumps out of her skin with a muffled shriek at the sound of his voice so close to her. Why does she feel almost guilty when she looks up at him? She's so, so afraid.

Emotions have never come easily to her. Showing them is something she's not sure will ever come naturally - Anne and Imelda can laugh and shout without a care in the world, but she always holds herself back. Hides a small part of herself away, that only she knows about. Baring herself completely to Sebastian in the letter she feverishly wrote the day before was like ripping out a part of her soul and giving it to him to keep. Once the words were written down, there was no way to take them back, not that she wants to.

But what if he rejects her?

Her eyes get hot and tears cloud her vision as she stares up at him, still wringing her hands together over and over, feeling like she's positively going to burst with the force of the emotions roiling around inside of her. Why did she think this would be a good idea?

Now he's kneeling in front of her, holding her hands in his bigger, rougher ones - reminiscent of that fateful day so long ago in Divination when he had flustered her so - and a thumb is gently wiping away the big, fat tears she didn't even realize were rolling down her cheeks and she lifts her face from watching their intertwined hands and gazes tremulously into his eyes.

They are so, so gentle and warm and full of love, but the emotions are still too much for her and she can't stop crying for some unfathomable reason, so the kiss they share is wet and lovely and full of incredulous laughter.

"I love you too," he whispers between kisses, over and over again, until the words almost lose meaning - but these words could never lose their meaning when they come from him.

  In the years to come, they always bicker about who was the first to say it. Sebastian says that writing doesn't count - that his words are the ones that decide who is the victor in this small argument - but she always just smiles at his insistence, knowing that he's kept her letter tucked inside whatever book he's reading since it first fell onto his lap.

[wackywatchdotcom]

im never going to get over the fact that i clocked ragatha as a horror movie enjoyer before i found out that she actually is

extra versions:

[sentientcave]

Swallow My Pride

Simon spots you across the bar. You're a long way from the little girl that used to torment him in primary, but that's alright. These days he's got a soft spot for beautiful men.

Contains: FtM!Reader, Reader bullied Simon in primary school, alcohol/bar mention, smoking, oral sex (Simon receiving), Reader has hair long enough to pull a little, Implied fibre arts, abrupt ending because I wasn't gonna get into all that. Maybe later.

1.1k ~ MDNI ~ 18+

It figured that you'd be gorgeous now.

He almost didn't recognize you. Probably would have missed you entirely if not for the long, searching glance you'd given him, like he was familiar too. Back then you were a skinny, mouthy little bitch that made his life miserable until you moved away, and now you were a handsome, self-assured man, filled out strong and a little soft. Standing with your friends, laughing. They obviously didn't know that you were a venomous little viper under that easy smile and oversized, hand-knit sweater with wonky cables on the front.

The lads noticed his silence and singular focus. Johnny started acting up some, like he always did when Simon paid too much attention to another man.

"Y'gonna talk to the pretty boy?" he asked, exasperated. "Or jest leer at'm all night?"

"If you don't, I might," Gaz said. "It's cold out these days and he looks like he's comfortable to have a lie in with."

"Fine. I'll talk to 'im." Simon stood and shouldered his way over to you, cutting a swathe through the crowd of people lingering by the bar, and put a big hand on your shoulder. "Wanna talk t'you," he rumbled. "Follow me."

"Hey, what the fuck," one of your friends said hotly. "Don't be rude."

Simon glared at her, ready to snap, but you quickly put yourself between. "It's okay. I know him."

Simon steered you outside and shoved you up against the wall. "Recognize me, do you?"

"Of course. Thought you were dead, though. Saw you here a couple months back. Kept coming back, thinking I had to be nuts." You tilt your head to the side. "I'm surprised you recognize me."

"Maybe I wouldn't've, if I'd ever seen you as a woman. But we were kids. You've changed, but I know you."

You had been the worst thing in his life, outside of his home. Quick to point out his hand-me-downs and his shaggy hair, to knock things out of his hands. If you’d been a boy back then, he would have just punched your lights out, but even then he knew better than to hit a girl. You were fair game for a fight now, as far as he was concerned, but he wasn’t really that interested in fighting. Especially when you were giving him that kicked puppy stare, regret written all over your face.

Regret was a powerful motivator, and he liked the idea of you trying to make it right. He liked the idea of seeing what he could get out of it too.

"I never got to apologize. When I heard-- Fuck, you've been through it. Apologies don't seem like enough." You look at him, big eyes and soft mouth. So fucking pretty.

"It's not enough. Don't want to 'ear it anyway. Want to make it up to me?" He waits for your nod, then reaches for his belt. "Suck me off. Right 'ere."

You look stunned for a moment. He expected to to stalk off back inside-- He didn't really want an apology, didn't think there was any making up for it, not really. Just wanted to push your buttons a bit, more than anything else.

But you dropped to your knees on the dirty ground, and waited, patient as a well trained dog. "Good boy," Simon grunted, pulling out his cock. He liked the way your big eyes got bigger, a gleam of want in them. You'd grown up to be a proper slag. He slapped his cock against your cheek, and you turned to catch it, sliding your lips and tongue along the side.

"This why you 'ad t'be such a cunt back then?" he asked, grabbing your hair to keep you from sinking your mouth down onto his cock. "Wanted me so bad an' couldn't say so?"

You glare at him from the ground. "Do you want the apology or the head, Riley?"

"Makin' me choose, are you?" He let go of your hair, however, his laugh turning to a groan as you sucked the head of his cock into your hot mouth, tongue lapping at his slit to taste the bead of bitter precum.

He was going to be more of a dick about it, but he couldn't get a word in. You worked his cock like you were made for it, working your hand over the shaft when you lapped at the tip, swallowing around him when you sank all the way down, taking him into your throat, bobbing your head back and forth, spit dribbling down your chin and his balls, messy, like you knew that was just how he liked it.

He managed to communicate that he was going to cum, enough that you let him pop free and pump his come onto your waiting tongue, purposely missing a little, his come glistening on your cheek and caught just slightly in your hair. You swallow, grimacing slightly at the taste.

"You ever eat anythin' that has a lick of nutritional value?" you gripe, using your fingers to scrape his come off your cheek and into your mouth anyway.

"Get your trousers off an' I'll eat your cunt," he offered, groaning again when you sucked him into your mouth again, cleaning off the mess. "If y’still ‘ave one. Christ. I'm takin' you 'ome either way." He lit a cigarette, glancing at the door when it pushed open, ready to bark, relaxing when he realized it was just Soap and Gaz. "Hey, lads."

You side eyed them, but you finished your job first, sitting back on your heels and wiping your mouth with your sleeve as Simon tucked himself away again. Gaz and Soap stood there, gaping like fish until you stood up.

"That's gotta be a record," Gaz said. "You haven't been gone ten minutes."

"Well, pretty boy knows what 'e likes." Simon dropped a hand on top of your head and pulled you close to his side before you could duck out of the conversation. "Don't go, pup. Figure you owe the lads an apology too. You're the reason I'm so mean, and they've 'ad t'deal with it all this time." He slid his hand down the side of your face and hooked his fingers into your mouth roughly. "What d'you think?"

You look at the other two. Gaz was trying to look nonplussed as he lit his cigarette, but there was no hiding the hungry gleam in his eyes. Soap wasn't even bothering to be subtle. He looked you up and down, palming himself through his jeans.

You shove Simon's hand out of your mouth, grinning. "Oh, he's been real mean, has he?"

Soap stepped in closer, his fingers hooking into your pocket to reel himself in next to you. "He's been a nightmare. Yeh gonna make up for it?"

"Can try. Riley's always been pretty determined t'be a cunt though. It's not all my fault."

“Need to say goodbye to your friends?” Gaz asked.

“Nah. It was a date. Didn’t really like them anyway. Felt like they were just looking for a compromise between addin’ a man or a woman to their failing marriage. Not really keen to get into all that. This sounds more fun.”

Simon chuckled. “Good choice, pup. Let’s get goin’.”

I've been rotating this thought in my mind since I read this fic by @/soapcloth about Soap being Reader's childhood bully. Read that, and then all the other stuff they've posted because there's some very fun stuff and I highly recommend their work.

Dividers by @/cafekitsune

[glueeater]

a24 should just say “hey amazingphil. make a movie about anything. go wild.” and i think we would get an absolute masterpiece

[hootyhoowoo]

A little 15 min doodle but first post of the year has to be Bingqiu!

[moo-chemia]

In my cumplane runaway au when both cqm and mobing realizes cumplane is still alive and faked their deaths, peak lords (mostly liu qingge) that were sent to find cumplane and mobing often cross paths in the places cumplane just passed through and the reason why they didn’t find cumplane faster is because both sides often end up fighting one another (or trying to sabotage the other *cough* LBH *cough)

It isn’t until cqm and mobing decided to begrudgingly (and very reluctantly) work together whenever they cross paths do they finally find cumplane lol. When cumplane first saw LQG, LBH and MBJ the three actually were trying to work together (again very reluctantly) they were just arguing over which path they saw cumplane went

Also I just realized, cumplane being in their plant bodies means tianlang-jun and zhuzhi-lang would also know about cumplane faking their deaths. And since shen yuan also protected zhuzhi-lang from gongyi xiao killing him in this au, zhuzhi-lang would still want to repay shen yuan so tianlang-jun and zhuzhi-lang would definitely join in the hunt for cumplane leading to 3 completely different parties chasing cumplane

And out of those 3 parties, I think tlj and zzl would be the first to get to cumplane lol, zzl & tlj would take advantage of cqm and mobing’s arguing and general terrible teamwork to snatch cumplane up in front of them

Also @cherry-blossom-sword80 u told me to tag u for cumplane runaway au so here it is, thank u for loving this au it means a lot!!