#*touches the floor of this post like an abandoned ruin*

[orchidyoonkook]

Under The Willow Tree | MYG

Title: Under The Willow Tree   

Pairing: Bad Boy!Min Yoongi x (F)!Reader

Rating//Genre: (T) | One Shot, Small Town AU, S2F2L, Implied Age Gap, Slow Burn, Angst, Touch of Fluff, Darker Subject Matter, First Kiss, Silce of Life

Summary: The town outcast shows up in the one place you find solace from it’s residents. The people you force yourself to fit in with, even though you never want to be anything like them. Will he ruin your only place of salvation, or become the most unlikely friend?

Warnings: PG16, some not necessarily positive non-specific religious discussions, people using religion in a negative may, plot twisty, cursing, kissing, semi-apparent abandonment issues, discussions of dead parents and guardians, mentions of alcoholism in a parent, mentions of illness in a parent, yoongi has tattoos and a motorcycle, motorcycle lessons, longing, mishandled emotions, catharsis.

Word Count: 7401

Release Date: April 10, 2023, 4:05PM

A/N 1: This happened due to a writing prompts post I shared sometime in late march. I’m quite proud of it considering I hadn’t planned anything so the entire story was written as I was writing. Very different than my normal writing process. 

A/N 2: Thank you endlessly to @borahae-k​, @katykatmeow​, @here4btsfics​ and @phthartic-fox​​ for beta’ing this. I love you all for your help, support and kindness. 

It happened under a willow tree. A weeping willow.

Your favourite willow, to be specific. Even though there’s just the one.

It’s by the pond deep in the woods behind your house, where you watch ducks swim through the long, wispy branches that just reach its shore. Where you sit at the base, waiting for the sun to set the sky ablaze with colour as it falls into the horizon for another good night's sleep.

The one under which you had your first kiss.

You’d been waiting. Wanting it to be special, with the right person.

But a brief brush of soft, pink lips with the last person you ever expected had you wanting more, more, more.

It’d been a few months since he started coming to the willow. You’d assumed for the same reason you did.

To get away. From anyone and everything.

There aren’t many places in your hometown that allow for privacy, and you imagined he needed it more than anyone. Somewhere far from the residents' judgmental stares that were always nothing less than smothering.

Hailing from a very small, very rural, religious town where everybody’s known everyone for generations, your community is one where you follow in the footsteps of your parents and grandparents before them.

Where your life is already decided for you at birth, whether you know it or not.

Copy. Paste.

Copy.

Paste.

You’re born there; either at home with a midwife or in the one floor hospital down the main road. Raised there; a hand-me-down wearing, bike riding, creek-playing child.

You go to school there; stuck inside the same four walls from the ages of 4 to 18. Get your driver's licence there; from the sheriff after a road test that a 9 year old could pass.

You graduate there; from the same high school your friends, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents went to. Get a job; in town or on a farm, the only two options there are. 

And marry there; before 25, lest you become a spinster, subject to the gossip vultures also known as your neighbours. Then have some kids before growing old and dying, your permanent resting place dug in the same graveyard as everyone else that came before you.

Copy. 

Paste.

It’s a suffocating fate that petrified you to your core. And you’ve known you didn’t want it for as long as you can remember.

You never liked their rules. Didn’t want to become one of them, to do as they do, live the way they live.

You’d skillfully escaped making any true friends as you grew older, but kept the people you could tolerate close enough to not be bored on weekends. They’re all temporary placeholders in your life anyway, people who sound like robots stuck in the same settings. People who would hold you back.

What’s worst of all is that you don’t share the religion they claim to be so hallowed and wonderful. The one that’s unwittingly forced them all into this life of monotonous repetition.

You dream of more. Of life outside this dreaded purgatory.

Of leaving.

But no one ever leaves. They’re stuck here, in this downwards spiral of life you’re so desperately trying to dig yourself out of. It makes you feel like a fraud, constantly pretending to be one of them. Always wearing a mask just to make it to the next day alive, unharmed by them and their values.

It makes you feel like there’s always a pair of eyes watching, waiting for you to mess up and reveal your blasphemous self.

You’re terrified they’ll discover the truth. Terrified of the ostracisation that will come the second they know you aren’t one of them.

You’ve seen it in real time. What they do to people who don’t conform.

Seen how they treat him.

Two years older. Bleach blond hair and a sleeve full of tattoos. A leather jacket he wears like armour with all black clothes to match. And last, but certainly not least, a motorcycle.

You daydreamed about that bike. Taking it and riding far, far away.

The busybodied people of your town never had a kind word to be said about him. Instead, choosing to call him any and every horrible name under the sun.

Beast, bastard, demon, monster, criminal.

Unable to understand him, understand anyone different.

They herd their children away from him in the streets; parting like the Red Sea when he walks by.

As if he were acid.

As if he was evil itself, and not just a young man.

You’ve never even heard him speak because no one dares to talk to him, worried any contact could turn them, seduce them into whatever his sick ways were.  

And you’re ashamed to admit you’re one of them…sort of.

You aren’t worried about speaking to him, you’re worried about what being seen speaking with him will do to you.

You’re someone whose only salvation from complete and total social isolation relies on fitting in.

And even if it kills you to pretend, you only need to do it for a little while longer.

You just had to make it to college. You’d be the first one in decades to go. Their mindset of ‘you have everything you need here so why bother leaving’  having not once in your life resonated.

You can deal with them and all of their beliefs about what you should do with your life for the short hours of school and occasional shifts at the diner, so long as you can escape to your willow tree, you’ll be okay.

The weeping willow in the middle of the forest behind your house is the only one in the area. You never understood why that is, but it’s your oasis away from everything you hate.

The tips of its branches sway rhythmically in the wind, and moss creeps up its trunk. It’s surrounded by dense, plush grass for you to sit on, and after all the years of sitting in the same spot, a little groove in the shape of your body has formed at its base. 

Its canopy protects you from the outside world, creating a space where you don't have to hide. Where you can proudly be yourself without fear. Where you spend as much of your time as you possibly can to keep your sanity intact.

No one bothers you here.

Your mum died years ago from an illness they never diagnosed, her plot in the town’s graveyard long since filled.

And your dad never notices you gone, too drunk in your house up on the hill to care.

So as long as there’s a constant supply of food on the counter and beer in the fridge, you’re free to do as you please.

Under the willow you do your homework and sketch. You take pictures and eat breakfasts and lunches and dinners. You listen to music and dance under the safety of its shade.

Under the willow you read great adventure novels, and dream you’re the protagonists whisked away on grand adventures. Anywhere but here.

Under the willow is your home away from home. Next to the pond, under the stars.

So it’s to your great surprise when an unexpected guest pries open the curtain of flowing foliage one spring afternoon. A bleached blond, leather jacket wearing, motorcycle riding, guest.

You don’t see him at first, too focused on the sketchpad in front of you. He steps in, and watches you work quietly, waiting for you to notice him.

You fascinate him. Every other girl in town can be found at one of three places, yet you were never at any of them. Not at the restaurant sipping on a milkshake. Not at the library studying. And not at the church volunteering. 

You’re always elsewhere. 

And he’s finally figured out where that is. 

He was nervous at first. To follow you. You’d never spoken but that wasn’t anything new to him. No one in this town ever did. 

Not to him.

But you don’t look down at him like the others do. Or jump out of the way when he walks by. You don’t tear away from his gaze as fast as the others. You hold on, even if for just a second longer. 

Unknowingly, you’ve captivated him more than anyone else he’s ever met.

So he followed you to see where you vanish off to, not expecting you to go into the forest behind your house. 

For a half second he considered you dangerous, because what on earth could you be getting up to in a forest for hours? But as he trailed the sounds of your footsteps and saw the small clearing with the tree, it began to make sense.

After jumping ten feet from seeing something tall and dark in your periphery, you exhale a large breath when you realise you aren’t in any danger, and shake out the nerves. 

You’d normally worry he was there to hurt you, but something in you knew he never would. Never could. Maybe it was the look he gave as he regarded you. 

Soft. Wistful even.

“What are you doing here?” You ask, wary. The first words you’ve ever spoken to him.

Barely contained inside the limits of the willows perimeter, he shrugs, and takes a long look around your little sanctuary.

And as he does, you get your first real look at him.

He’s handsome. Stoically so. And for only a moment do you wonder about all the stories hidden behind his eyes.  

The ones now focused on you.

“Wanted to see where you disappear to. You’re never in town.”

So what if you were never in town? Why did he care? Wait—How did he know? Does he pay attention to you?

…Why you?

You didn’t think he cared to notice anyone in this town, let alone you enough to know you don’t follow the social expectations of someone your age.

To pick up on the fact that you’re never there at all.

It makes a million things run through your mind—Why does he care about where you go? What about you is so special? Does he even know your name?—before one resounding thought hits you like a ton of bricks.

Can you trust him?

No one else in this town does, but all of their reasons are superficial bullshit.

All you know is you don’t know the first thing about him, and that now he knows about the one place you feel safe.

“That’s intentional,” you say, cautious. Not giving away anything but not saying much either.

“Can’t blame you,” he responds, before checking out the rooftop of bright green and muttering, “Eyes and ears everywhere.”

Those four words alone are all you need. 

He gets it.

“Yeah.”

Maybe you can trust him.

Observing each other for a silent minute, there seems to be an unspoken understanding forming between the two of you.

And he shoves his hands in his pockets, asking, “Mind company?”

You think about it for only a second.

No. No you didn’t.

“As long as you’re quiet. I’m trying to focus,” pointing the eraser end of your pencil to the sketchpad on your lap. “The cattail leaves are the hardest to get the lines right.”

He nods, finally breaking free of his position at the branch's edge. Nearing the base of the tree, he crouches down, about a quarter of the trunk's diameter away from you. It’s close enough to still see each other, but far enough to not bump into one another.

And before nestling in fully, he extends a tattooed hand to you.

“Yoongi.”

An introduction.

“Y/N,” you return, putting your pencil down in the crease of your pad and shaking.

His hand is calloused, the ones you get from years of working with your hands. And strong, a firm grip. The kind you’d want to pull you up if you were dangling over a cliff. 

So many stories contained in a 3 second touch. Yet you find yourself wanting to know all of them.

Releasing, he settles in.

What surprises you most about the whole encounter isn’t his arrival, or speaking to him for the first time, or even the handshake.

It’s that when he’s comfortable, with one leg up for an elbow to rest upon, he digs a book out from the confines of his jacket.

Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island.

Your favourite.

Spring fades into a wonderful summer of late nights and early mornings. Of beautiful blue skies and vivid sunsets you appreciate a little more now that you have someone to share them with.

Yoongi comes almost, if not, every day to the willow. Always a different book in hand. Always one of the classics.

The Iliad, 1984, Jane Eyre, Moby Dick, Anna Karina, Dracula, Little Women, Frankenstein, Catcher in the Rye, and those are just the ones you can remember because you’ve read them too. Some of them more than once.

You never expected to have anything in common with the boy that sits next to you. But from the little you’ve spoken to one another over the months, you’ve found that you share so much more than just reading habits.

On a warm April afternoon he told you he reads because he loves it but also to escape the daily hell that is your town.

    “Mmm, what’s your favourite?” you’d asked.

    Yoongi was lying down with an arm behind his head, staring into the treetop. Brave New World sat opened and facedown on his chest, his hand resting atop it.

    “Pride and Prejudice.”

    That was the last answer you expected.

    “Why?”

    He lifts his head to look at you.

    “I thought the answer would’ve been obvious.”

After a cold drink on a hot June morning he told you his dreams of moving across the country. As far away as he could get.

    “Just have to save up enough money first.”

    You wondered how he made any. He definitely didn’t work anywhere in town…maybe waiting to inherit?

    Who knew?

    Both on a blanket you’d brought, Yoongi’s lying opposite and beside you, his feet by your hips. He used his balled up jacket as a pillow while you sat in your usual spot, capturing the way the branches swayed in your sketchpad.

    He’d taken to reading to you while you drew, including you in the grand stories he now knew you loved to read too.

    That day he had The Great Gatsby, a story you’d read about 20 times.

    You often dreamed of attending one of his parties. Of seeing the green light across the way, or having a conversation with Nick, why he stayed.

    “Are you anywhere close?” you asked, in reference to his saving goals.           

    “Getting there,” was all he gave.

And on a miserable, rainy night in the middle of August, is when you learned he’s all on his own.

    Sitting beside each other, you both huddled underneath his jacket for what little protection from the rain it could give. Water droplets fell from the tips of his bangs as he spoke.

    “My parents died in a car crash when I was 9, and then my grandma who took care of me, when I was 15.”

    You grieved for him as he told you his story.

    How he had to raise himself.

    Just like you did.

    “I’m sorry,” you’d replied gently. Softly. Knowing how it felt to have no one support you. No one to help you.

    Knowing how it felt to be alone.

    You understood.

    You did, you did, you did.

    Yoongi just stared at the ground, unable to meet your eyes. And you’d wondered if any of the water on his face was salty as he breathed out a quiet and heartbreaking, “Thank you.”  

    It made you question how many kind words he’d heard since his family passed.

    And also incredibly pissed off at the people in your town for how they’d treated him.

    How you’d…treated him.

    A silent promise was made then and there. Never having felt more embarrassed and furious with yourself than in that moment. You’d learned your lesson, and hoped that offering up your own piece of vulnerability might help him feel not so alone.

    Though you watched the rain turn the pond into a canvas of vibration as you did. Words dragged from the deepest parts of your soul, burning the back of your throat as they left.

    “My dad hasn’t been sober a day since my mom died. His eyes are turning yellow,” you said, hugging yourself to stop shaking, convinced yourself it was because of the cold.

    Even though it was August.

    “He doesn’t recognize me most of the time.”

    You closed your eyes, a familiar tang washing over your tongue as you licked the water dripping from your lips.     He gave no response, but an arm found its way over your shoulders and squeezed.

    He understood.

It’s the beginning of September. The air’s started to nip at your cheeks, and the ground crunches a little more everyday with all of the leaves falling underfoot.

The tips of the willows leaves have begun to turn the colour of the morning sun, and by the time mid October rolls around, it’ll look like golden hour every hour of the day.

Yoongi finally tells you about the job he has at a mechanic's in the next town over. He explains how they don’t pay him nearly what they should, but he doesn’t complain because every cent brings him closer to leaving.

Just him and his bike.

You turn sheepish.

“Can I tell you something?”

He sits closer after all this time, more comfortable around one another. Still not enough to touch, not crossing that invisible boundary line, but enough that you don’t have to turn your head much anymore to see his eyes.

Brown and endless.

“Yeah, sure.”

You take a deep breath.

“I kind of always dreamed of taking your bike to get away from here and never come back.” He gives you a look and you shrug. “Seemed the easiest route to take.”

A smile that starts as a smirk turns into a healthy laugh.

“What’s so funny?” You demand. He has to calm himself down a bit before answering.

“You just uhm…don’t seem the criminal type to me, Cattails.”

There’s a flutter of something in your chest at the stupid nickname. For the drawing you did the day you met.

He continues, unaware of the goings on inside you. “Stealing? You? Nah. Not a chance.”

You open your mouth in mock outrage, scrunching your brow and bringing a hand to your chest.

“I’ll have you know I’d make an excellent criminal,” you lie to his face. He knows it too. 

But giving in, you detail the plan you’d always kept in your head for emergencies, heat slowly rising in your cheeks with every word.

“I’d take the key from you when you weren’t looking, duplicate it at the hardware store, and slip it back into your pocket before you ever noticed it was gone. Then go to your place in the middle of the night and be halfway across the country before morning.”

“Oh yeah?” he says with a raised brow you don’t trust.

“Yeah,” you confirm with a little too much faux confidence.

“And where do I keep my key, Y/N? Hmm?”

“Your jacket pocket,” you’d deduced long ago.

“Mmm,” he tsks with a shake of his head. “Nope.”

Oh. Well then it must be,

“Your pants pocket?”  

“Nuh uh, try again.”

Damnit!

You’d never thought much about it. How many places can someone keep a key on them without a bag and it not be in their pockets?

“Ummm, in your wallet?” Far-fetched but worth a shot.

“Ooo,” he blows through pursed lips before smirking at you again, but this one was different. It caused something very deep inside of you to turn to lava. “Good guess, but also no.”

Closing his book and setting it down, Yoongi straightens and reaches inside the collar of his shirt, retrieving a necklace you didn’t know he wore.

It’s small, the key, and almost silver. The colouring is tarnished from years of use, with worn teeth and some lettering at its base.

He holds it against a palm to show you.

“Why there?” You ask, wondering if there’s a reason aside from convenience.

With a sad tug of his lips, he answers. “Bike was my dads. I like to keep him close.”

A tender smile meets your own plush as you stare at the little key, appreciating it more after learning the importance it has to him.

And Yoongi watches you, viewing his ticket to freedom with the biggest eyes he’s ever seen, full of that same compassion and understanding you’ve always given him.

An understanding he didn’t think he’d ever see again from this place.

One he doesn’t know if he deserves.

Before you can respond, he’s taking the chain off and sliding it over your head, hand lingering for a second longer than necessary at your nape.

“Yoongi,” you hesitate.

It’s the first time you’ve said his name out loud.

You like the way it feels on your tongue. Warm, sweet. Like honey.

What you don’t know is he loves the way it sounds coming from you.

You falter. “W-what are you doing?”

“What’s it look like I’m doing?”

“But it’s your key! Don’t you need it?”

“Nah, got a spare in the storage compartment of the bike,” he says, gesturing to the one you now hold in your palms. “This way you won’t have to go through the hassle of stealing it.”

“But I—”

“Keep it,” he cuts you off. “In case you need it more than I do.”

It never leaves your neck.

“You want me to what?” You ask as you walk towards the forest edge, Yoongi trailing on your left.

“Take her out for a spin. See if you even can. You’re the one who has all these grand plans but doesn’t even know how to turn it on,” he explains, referring to his motorcycle.

“Those were just daydreamed plans! I never thought I’d actually use them! What if I crash?”

He was kidding right? He must be.

For all the time you two have spent together, you’ve never spoken or been around one another in public. An unspoken agreement.

What happens under the willow tree, stays under the willow tree.

So to be out in the open? On his bike? You don’t know if you can. Or if you should.

But then you remember a promise you made not long ago.

“You won’t crash,” he says, like it’s the most ridiculous thing he’s ever heard.

“How do you know? Like you said, I don’t even know how to turn it on,” you hmph.

“Because I’ll be there.”

And maybe it’s the tone of voice he uses, or the fact that you trust him, you find yourself saying,

“Okay, fine.”

Minutes later you’re swinging a leg over the bike, and sinking on to the surprisingly comfortable seat.

“Where do I put the key?” You ask, taking it from your neck and handing it over.

Yoongi puts it in the side of the motorcycle, somewhere close to your knee.

“Here,” he shows as he turns it to the ‘ON’ position.

“Oh.”

What a weird place for an ignition. 

“Mhm,” he acknowledges, then points. “Put your hand on the brake, it’s the part that sticks out on the right hand side. Hold it firmly against the handlebar. Don’t roll the handle bar itself back though, okay? That’s the throttle.”

Doing what he says, you hold the brake tight against the handle bar, murmuring an ‘okay’ under your breath.

“Now hit that button there on the right to let the fuel pump start up,” referring to the button beside the brake near your thumb. You do so.

He checks a little gauge on the side near the ignition. Seemingly pleased, he continues. “And now hit the button on the left to start it.”

Following his words once again, the engine roars to life the second the button is pressed, purring powerfully.

You feel exhilarated and a little terrified. But he’s here. You know you’re safe.

Voice a little louder to combat the noise from the motor, he says, “Okay, now on the left handle bar, grab the clutch. I’ll show you how to move into first gear, and look at me,” your eyes meet his, “do not let go of the clutch.”

You nod, but for extra precaution, he clamps his hand over the one you have holding it. You watch as he bends to put your left foot on a pedal and presses it down till you hear a pop, pushing up the kickstand when he rises.

The bike is heavy, now that you’re the only thing keeping it up right, you can feel its weight. And you understand why they’re designed to be able to have your feet on the ground even when sitting. You’d probably fall over otherwise.

“If you’re uncomfortable you let me know, yeah? And if you get scared just do what you’re doing now with this hand,” he squeezes for emphasis, “it’ll take all the power away from the engine and you’ll just coast until you stop, okay?”

“Okay!” You say, more excited by the minute. Your toes and fingertips are starting to tingle.

“I‘m gonna let go and you’re going to very, very slowly let up on the clutch—not all the way. Just enough that you move at about a pedal bike's pace. Let me jog down the road about 50 feet or so, and then you meet me there. Hold tight to the clutch again when you’re about 20 feet from me and I’ll catch you. Sound good?”

Nodding one more time in confirmation, nerves crawl all over your skin. You can’t describe the new feeling fully, but the closest you can find to it is probably the beginnings of an adrenaline rush.

You watch as Yoongi jogs down the road, throws his hands up over his head, and gives you two big thumbs up.

Taking a deep breath, you slowly release some pressure off the clutch and begin to move forwards. You know your feet are supposed to go on the metal foot rests below you, but you're so focused on not falling or crashing that you just stick them out so they don’t touch the ground.

Halting your left hands release at the speed he said to, you cruise along, wind picking up with your increased pace.

Holy shit!

You’re riding a motorcycle! 

You never thought you could, it was just a dream for so long. Something you kept in the back of your mind just for fun, but now you’re actually doing it! Your driving down the road on an actual real life motorcycle!? All by yourself!?

Turns out all you needed was a little encouragement and someone you trust to spot you.

Aiming for Yoongi, you clamp down on the clutch once again, cutting power to the engine. You drift right into his awaiting hands braced for the impact, and he slides a little on the gravel road before getting you to a full stop.

He presses one of the buttons you did earlier and the bike shuts down, allowing you to jump off.

You’re positively giddy.

“Oh my god did you see me?! I just did that! I just drove a motorcycle! Can you believe it?! I can’t believe I just did that!” You don’t even register what you're saying, too full of excitement to care.

Yoongi can’t contain his grin as he gets the bike standing on its own. Your joy is too infectious not to take part in, and he walks over for a high five to celebrate. 

But to his surprise, you bypass his hand completely and embrace him, throwing your arms around his neck.

It takes only a second before he’s enveloping you with his own, not letting the chance to hold you go by.

“Thank you!” You say, before letting go, not even realising what you did. You’re too busy catching your breath from all the rambling and jumping around, still filled with the remnants of your elation.  

Meanwhile, Yoongi can’t get the feeling of your body against him out of his head. How soft you were. How warm. The way you smelled like a mixture of your natural scent and outside.

And he’s asking, “You wanna to go for a ride?” before he can tell himself not too.

The question makes you pause. Was he serious? Because you can’t think of anything you want more.

Staring at him, your answer is far too gentle for someone who was just screeching with joy. 

“Really?”

He nods, still untrusting of his mouth, confirming with a ‘mhm.’

You don’t hesitate. You want to feel like that again.  

Not a minute later he’s giving you the helmet and securing it tightly. He also makes you wear his leather jacket to protect your torso, leaving him in just an oversized black t-shirt and dark ripped jeans.

Swinging a leg over, he pats the seat behind him.

And you’re glad to have the helmet on because without it he would most definitely see your inability to meet his eye. You can barely focus on anything aside from the sight in front of you and being wrapped in the scent of him. But then he gives a tattooed hand to help you hop on, and says,

“You have to put your arms around me and hold on. Otherwise you might fly off the back when we accelerate,” holding his hands behind him to guide yours. 

What? You didn’t think this far. He—you have t—Ummm, well... 

“Okay,” you answer, voice small, letting your hands be guided. 

Despite the loss of his jacket, he’s still deliciously warm, and the heat in your cheeks increases tenfold with your hands now splayed over his abdomen. 

Lightly defined muscles meet your fingertips through the thin material of his shirt and you do your best to memorize them as he turns on the bike and pulls away from the curb.

He starts slower than normal to make sure you’re alright, but when you give him the thumbs up, he speeds up to just over the limit and you hold tight.

You’ve never felt so free, loving the rush of wind that flows over your body from going so fast. It’s pushing a welcomed cold through the fabric of your clothes as your body temperature has only increased since getting on.

You could go anywhere, do anything. Nothing and nobody could stop you.

You want that. You want it so bad. And he gave you the key to be able to. 

Literally.

But now when you think about leaving, you think about leaving with him. Yoongi driving and you sitting right here on the back, nothing but each other, the road, and hope for the future.

Growing confident enough to release your grasp after a few minutes, you raise your hands in the air, and let the wind catch your fingertips.  A whoop of joy leaves you at this newfound feeling he’s given you. 

Then another, and another, before returning them to their place around him.

Yoongi can’t help but smile the biggest he has in years when hearing your squeals of glee.

Because for the first time in a long time, he feels it too.

Yoongi doesn’t come to the willow for almost a week.

He’s never done that since he started coming. Not once.

And you’re worried.

Where is he? Is he okay? You have no idea.

It’s not like you can go looking for him.

And you two aren’t anything anyway, so you shouldn’t even be this worried in the first place. If he’s safe, or in the bottom of a ditch somewhere.

But you can’t help it.

Just like you can’t help the feelings that have blossomed for him over the months. The feelings you didn’t want to admit to yourself for fear of him not returning them.

Yet there they were, and there isn’t anything you can do about them now.

They make you wonder if you’ll ever see him again.

Six days.

It takes him six days to return. Stomping in, and visibly pissed off.

“What’s wrong?” You ask once he’s close enough to hear.

“I’m leaving,” he says flatly, uncaring. Like you asked him what colour the sky was.  

And your stupid, silly little unrequited heart shatters.

“What?”

“I’m leaving. Taking off. Getting out of here. I can’t do it anymore.”

Piece by piece it falls from your chest and into the depths of your stomach.

“B-but why? What happened?”

“I got fired.”

“Fired?”

“Yeah, fired. I tried all week to fix this one stupid mistake I made,” he explains, smoothing over his creased brow with two fingers. “But it cost more to fix than to keep me around, so they fired me. I don’t have the amount of cash I planned for, but I have enough to make it work. And I can pick up odd jobs on the road if I need to.” He nears, extending a tattooed hand. “I just came to get my key and say goodbye.”

Your hand reaches for it, clutching it tightly. You don’t want to give it back.

Who the hell is this? Because you barely recognize him. It certainly isn’t the Yoongi you’ve come to know.

The wonderfully kind, classics reading, dream-sharing, motorcycle instructing, freedom key giving man.

The one who told you about his grandmother, and his parents. Who read you stories while you drew and ate meals together. Who taught you how to ride his motorcycle.

The Yoongi you fell for.

Your Yoongi.

The person currently standing in front of you isn’t him at all.

He’s the hard, cold exterior, crafted over years of verbal and societal abuse. The one everyone avoids at all costs when walking through town. The person he had to become in order to survive.

You don’t know this person.

And you hate it.

You hate it so much it decides to exit your body in the form of tears. Ones of sadness, frustration, and heartbreak.

He’s—he’s leaving. 

Actually leaving.

This place, it’s people.

You...

The few remaining pieces of your heart plunge to the floor, crumbling to dust as they hit. Nothing but a hollow, empty cavern remaining where it once sat.

“But I–you…,” the lump in your throat only getting bigger when you try to speak. You face away from him.

Don’t let him see you cry.

He’s clearly never felt anything close to what you do for him, so suck it up. Reign it in. You do it everyday. So why can’t you do it now?

You don’t get to feel this way!

Shove it back down, get it down!. Crush it all until it’s nothing.

Make it go away. Far, far away. 

Yoongi’s face is falling while you’re taking deep breaths to calm down.

In all of his rage and despair at his terrible week, he’s forgotten who he was speaking to.

His kind hearted, music-sharing, been through hell and back, kickass girl. The one he can call his only true friend.

He’s such an asshole. He hadn’t seen you for almost a week, which killed him in of itself. And then the second he does, all he‘s able to do is spew the frustration and misery he’s been feeling the entire time you were apart.

Nah, he’s worse than an asshole.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t ha—”

But he freezes at the sound of a small, wet inhale.

You’re crying.

He made you cry.

And a regret bigger than the ocean drowns him.

“Hey, wait, please,” he says, rushing over, but you hold out a hand to stop him. “Please, don’t cry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

He reaches for you again, and again you stop him. You can’t let him comfort you.

Not when he doesn’t realise he’s become the only person in this whole godforsaken, judgemental hellhole of a neighbourhood wasteland you have.

Your grandparents are dead, along with your mum. Your dad’s an abusive drunk, too far gone to remember he has a daughter. You don’t have any aunts or uncles or cousins to rely on, nor do you have any real friends.

You have no one, aside from Yoongi.

And now you won’t even have him.

So you can’t let him comfort you. Can’t let him see you break.

You can’t, you can’t, you can’t.

Because you don’t know if you’ll be able to put yourself back together without him if you do.

But a quiet, “Y/N, please,” imbued with pain you haven’t heard since a rainy August night leaves his lips. A last ditch effort to get you to look at him, to let him help. 

And it breaks you completely, bursting into a million tiny pieces to match your heart on the floor.

An unrestrained sob falls from your mouth, and he pulls you into his chest, wrapping his arms around you. Yours go to his neck as he drags you onto his lap, gripping tight. 

He holds you through every whimper and hiccup and stuttered inhale and shudder. Through every muttered ‘please don’t go’ and ‘please don’t leave me,’ that escapes, stroking a hand along the back of your head and down your spine, soothing.

He whispers, “it’s okay. I’m right here. It’s okay,” on repeat with the motion. Over and over and over until only occasional sniffles and deep breaths remain.

You hug him tighter as you start to shiver, the warmth created from your breakdown beginning to wear off. Yoongi doesn’t hesitate to slide off his jacket and throw it over your shoulders. An instant cocoon of warm and comfort.

When his hands find their place back around your waist, he dares to speak.

“I got you.”

“I know.” And you do. Your voice is a little wobbly, as you’re unmoving from the embrace, but you most definitely do. 

This is your Yoongi. The one you’ve come to know. To trust. 

Of course he’s got you. 

You use one of your long sleeves to dry your eyes and under your nose. With the nearing autumn weather, you’ve returned to occasionally wearing them.

“I’m sorry,” you breathe into his neck after a long beat of silence.

“What could you possibly be sorry for, Cattails?”

The return of your nickname has a grin threatening to emerge.

“For freaking out. I didn’t know that was going to happen.”

“Don’t be,” he says firmly. “I sprung that on you in such a shit way because I was in an even shittier mood. And you clearly weren’t prepared to hear it. I should’ve known better, so don’t you dare be sorry about anything,” he loosens his hold to pull back and look at you. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

You look down, hiding, not wanting him to see you like this.  

“None of that,” he whispers, and brings a finger to your chin, tilting up.

It doesn’t meet much resistance.

Your eyes are still a bit swollen and patchy, but it’s the concern in his that makes you crack the smallest of smiles, if only to see his worry erased.

He already has enough on his plate. No need to add to it.

Not able to offer much more than a quirk of the lip, you’re relieved that it’s enough when he starts to wear one of his own.

It’s then you realise your position. Like the sight of it cleared your brain fog.         

You’re kneeling over his lap, sitting on his thighs, face inches from his. One of his hands is holding your chin up while the other rests low on your waist, your own still loose around him.

So close, yet so far away.

Because he’s leaving.

And that thought alone allows you to throw caution to the goddamn window. It’s not going to matter once he’s gone, and you’ve wanted it to be with someone special.

He’s as special as they come.

Leaning forward, you close your eyes and the gap between the two of you.  

Eyelids fluttering as your lips brush his. Soft, and gentle.

Like him.

You hold only long enough to make sure it counts before pulling back.

It’s funny, really.

It was just a few seconds, but you already find yourself wanting so much more with him. An unfamiliar but welcomed electric pulse finds itself running through your blood at the thought, and it makes you want his lips everywhere. 

Your mouth, your jaw, your neck.

Anywhere he can reach.  

Sparks pool inside you. Sparks and butterflies and fast flowing lava.

You let yourself relish in the glorious feeling for a single moment, before the reality of what you just did sinks in.

And then you’re scared.

Terrified, actually.

To open your eyes, see his face. His reaction.

What if he hated it? What if he’s never felt anything but platonic affection towards you and now you’ve gone and done this?

Sure, he’s leaving. But now that you think about it, does him leaving mean you’ll never see him again?

What if you just ruined everything?

Teeth sinking into the plush of your bottom lip, you take a peek.

For the second time today you feel your heart breaking, this time at the look on his face.

Is it shock? Or worse.  

Disgust?

Doesn’t matter.

“I’m sorry,” you blurt. Not knowing what else to say.

“I’m sorry,” you say again, trying to get out of his hold, but he keeps you there. Unyielding. And you start rambling. “I shouldn’t have done that. You clearly don’t—It’s just that you’re leaving and I—“

Lips on yours shut you up.

It’s fervent and needy and passionate as he pulls you closer by the hips, desperately trying to get you as close to him as physically possible. Your nails drag over his scalp as your fingers snake through his blond locks. They elicit a delicious groan from his mouth that you consume with your own.

It’s the most intoxicating sound you’ve ever heard, and you want more of it. So you do it again, and again, and again.

He moves down your jaw and neck, sucking at the tender flesh near your pulse point, and your mouth drops open at the feeling.

You’ve always wondered, but…you didn’t know it could feel like this.

Every touch, every whisper, every press of his lips to yours feels amazing. He’s pulling pleasure out of places you wouldn’t have thought possible before him. And you never want to go back to not knowing.

The sweetest of whimpers leaves your mouth as he gently bites a soft spot, then soothing the glorious pain he created with the kindness of his tongue.  

Yoongi swears to any god who will listen that he’ll do whatever they want so long as he gets to hear that sound repeatedly and for the rest of his life.

He returns to your lips and says, “come with me.”

You’re so focused on feeling that it takes a moment for his words to land. “What?”

“Leave with me. Let’s get the fuck outta here, and never look back, the both of us. Together.”

Yoongi looks so serious but..

He—he can’t be serious can he? 15 minutes ago he was going on and on about leaving and needing his key back and saying goodbye.

And now?

Sensing your hesitance, he punctuates each of the next three words with a kiss. 

“Come. With. Me.”

It makes your answer arrive without really thinking. You don’t need to think. Not when you know deep in your newly reconstructed heart that it’ll always be the same whether you think about it or not.

So long as you’re with him, you know you’ll be,

“Okay.”

“Yeah?” He questions like he can’t believe it. Can’t believe you'd agree.

You make sure there isn’t a single doubt in his head as you look him dead in the eyes and confirm.

“Yes, Yoongi,” another kiss. “I’ll go with you.”

He pulls you into him for what feels like a million more under your shared willow tree.

Your salvation.

And you know they’re going to be the firsts of many, many more to come.  

Three days later, and two bags packed full of all your earthly possessions, you’re on the back of Yoongi’s motorcycle.

In those three days he’s prepared everything else you’ll need. He’s gotten a cute leather jacket and helmet for you, some reading materials for the road, snacks, drinks. A place by his side for the foreseeable future.

In the same span of time, you’ve given him a home in your heart, someone he can rely on other than himself. Talk to, trust, experience life with.

Something he hasn’t had in nearly ten years. 

Something he never wants to lose again.

He swings a leg over and you unclip the chain from your neck, handing him the key to the bike, to your now shared future.

Driving out of town—straight down Main Street—you watch as all the people you grew up with, who you almost destroyed yourself to fit in with, gawk.

Watch as they judge you for being with him, your best friend. For leaving, and not doing what they all expected of you.

For not being like one of them.

Because you’re not one of them. 

You never have been.

And just like the dust that flies behind the wheels, you feel weightless, not giving a single fuck what they think for the first time in your life.

You don’t have to anymore.

You’re free.

A/N 3: Thanks for reading, loves. Xoxo, - Yoon <3

[caramelberzatto]

permanent // c. berzatto

HELLO <3 here we have one serving of tattoo artist!carmy, made hot to go, fresh this afternoon!!! i may have enjoyed writing this way too much, now i just wanna book more tattoos LMAO anyway ENJOY MWAH LOVE YOU!!!!!!! carmy x gn!reader (no mention of pronouns.) - Clarke xx

“I know a guy.” That’s what your friend had told you when you’d jokingly expressed a desire to get your first tattoo. But then she’d shot the ‘guy’ a message, right then, over brunch, and you’d almost choked on your food. Now, a week later, you were sitting anxiously at the aforementioned friend’s side on a shiny, velvet couch. Fingers drumming on your knees, you glanced at the clock. Four minutes until your session was meant to start.

Through the saloon-style doors, you could hear the overlapping drone of the equipment; you were no stranger to tattoo parlours, having been the support person for many of your friends, but today would be the first time you’d be in the chair, rather than in the waiting room. And this was a new place, a few blocks east of your apartment, but apparently the artist was awesome and charged lower rates because he’d only just opened the parlour.

“How do you know this guy again?” You whispered to your friend, trying to act like you weren’t freaking out a little.

“He did my spine a couple of weeks ago, and he’s so chill. Super hot, too, so that’s a bonus. Something to focus on rather than the sting, y’know? Real nice voice.”

You swallowed, unsure if that last tidbit of information was a good or bad thing. Your friend's phone buzzed in her pocket incessantly and she picked up, excusing herself, leaving you alone in the waiting area, swallowing your panic. For a moment, you considered following her, abandoning your reluctant post by the decorative, vintage globe of the world.

“You my next one?” The doors swung open with a squeak, ruining your escape plan, revealing a man with a messy head of curls and a tragically easy smile. He held his hand out and your gaze snagged on the tattoos on his knuckles before you took it, graciously, and he pulled you up off the couch.

“I think so, yeah,” you said, trying not to let your nervousness show, relishing in the somewhat soothing warmth of his palm. 

“Awesome, just follow me through here and hop onto the second chair for me.”

You did as he asked, not even moving of your own accord, simply running on autopilot. He did have a nice voice. Goddamnit. 

You swore you could feel the thudding of the bass-heavy music through the floor as you followed him through the parlour, gaze straying to the way his muscles in his back moved beneath the tight black shirt he wore. Once you got comfortable, the man settled down on a wheeled stool, sliding closer to you.

“Alright,” he fiddled with the equipment in his station, straightening the individually-packed needleheads, sifting through a few sheets of paper with various designs on them until he found the one he was looking for. The one you’d picked out after hours of trying to decide.

“First things first, my name’s Carmen.” He paired it with another soft smirk, and it put you at ease.

“Hi,” you said, and it came out embarrassingly breathily. Clearing your throat, you adjusted your position in the chair and offered him your name. It was hard to focus on much after that.

The softness of his touch as he held your wrist, twisting it slightly, so he could place the stencil. The way he looked up at you, a quiet demand to ‘relax for me’ slipping off his tongue like honey. The closeness as he leaned in, the buzz of the needle making your heart leap into your throat. The way his brow furrowed while he focused, carefully tracing the stencilled lines.

“Remember to breathe for me, darlin’.” His voice was a murmur. A quick glance, a locked gaze, a subtle check-in to make sure you were comfortable. “Feelin’ alright?”

“Yeah, fine.” It wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be, and it probably had something to do with the fact that you were completely and utterly distracted by Carmen. In fact, the sting was almost… soothing?

“Good. You’re doin’ really great, ‘m almost done.” 

He was so close, haloed by the overhead light, and you couldn’t tear your gaze from him. His hand was so steady, so careful and practised, and you found your thoughts straying to places they shouldn’t go. Slowly, you crossed one leg over the other, and you could’ve sworn Carmen bit back a smirk.

He pulled back, setting the handpiece down. “There we go.”

There it was, permanent, on your skin. Glancing down at the fresh ink, you smiled. You hadn’t thought you’d love it so much, but it just looked… good. 

“Suits you,” Carmen said, raising a conspiratorial eyebrow. “You better come back for more.”

Unable to focus, you could barely manage anything but a ‘thank you’ and an ‘I love it’ as he wrapped your arm in clingfilm, sealing it with a strip of tape. He’d drifted closer, and your knees loosely slotted together; just enough space between you to make you crave less of it.

As he walked you through the aftercare procedure, you found yourself staring at his lips, the way they curved around each word, and only the sudden ‘there you are, all tatted up!’ that announced the return of your friend snapped you out of it. Rising from the chair, blinking away the headrush after sitting for so long, you tried to ignore the searing imprint of his hand on your hip as he stood, too, steadying your stumbling frame.

“I’ll see you again, yeah?” He muttered so only you could hear it, leading you back into the waiting area so you could pay. And a sense of boldness welled up in your chest, and before you could hold them back, a string of words tumbled out. 

“Only if you want to.”

[m1d-45]

-Pari Anon

Pari!Reader gets sad when their leaf mask gets torn. Whether they were playing too rough or Wei (the cat in the inn lobby) tore it, they lost their mask. They have those sad anime eyes (the cutely exaggerated ones). They want to fix it, but no one else knew about that leaf mask.

They stay gloomy for the rest of the day until Xiao comes back.

The next day, they see a little replica of Xiao’s mask made from wood. It was sitting near their nest. When they tried it in, it was light but sturdy. Who could have gotten it for them? How was it so detailed? Who could have known? Oh well. Time to play, little Pari thinks.

Xiao didn’t have the heart to just leave them after he heard them crying when the leaf mask was ripped. He might have put a charm on this one so it wouldn’t break as easily.

[ previous post ]

xiao was better than this. the last yaksha, conqueror of demons, the bane of all evil himself.. searching the plains of liyue well into the night for a suitable piece of wood to carve. it wasn’t for an offering, it wouldn’t be turned into an incense bowl or statue, it was neither for a critical repair or somehow enchanted to be a danger. no, this wood would be used for a far more frivolous purpose: you.

you, who he’d been watching from the roof as you played on the balcony below. you with your mock spear and wei with his paws, uselessly batting at each other in a play fight. he thought it was ridiculous, really—your thin wings would surely bleed beneath any monster’s claws, better you learn to run away from danger—but had watched. it was harmless fun. you ducked behind the potted bonsai for protection, racing around the trunk and likely making the poor cat dizzy, when a harsh rip echoed into the night. you stopped, looking behind you as the two halves of your ‘mask’ fluttered to the floor, torn by one of the branches of the tree. his only thought was that you weren’t hurt, watching as wei tackled you off the pot and onto the floor, but you squirmed free quickly, floating over to the remains… sadly? wei followed, sniffing the leaves, but you didn’t seem interested in playing anymore. you sat by the leaves for far too long, not even moving when wei curled up beside you.

it was nothing. it was a leaf tied around your head with another’s stem, bound to rot and flake away anyway, but you were sulking the next day. he never thought he’d return to his makeshift room and have you not fly up to him with a cloud of chirps, and he quickly decided he didn’t like it. if you were sad you lost your mask, then he’d just have to get you a new one.

he kicked at the remains of a campfire, stomping out the remaining embers. an abandoned adventurer’s camp of some sort, the air free of any malicious warnings. besides the remains of the campfire were a few stray logs, likely spare firewood. he dug through the measly pile, pulling out a log. there was no rot, water damage, no sign of bugs or anything else that would ruin the wood. without another thought, he tucked it under his arm, turning and vanishing into the wind.

he had left when you were already asleep, so he could go straight to his room, but he made a stop first. yanxiao hardly jumped when he turned from the stove, though he did eye the log in his hands strangely.

“what can i get you?”

“i need to borrow a knife.”

“…” he laughed, propping his hands on the table in front of him, and xiao grit his teeth. an adepti, reduced to this… “what, did you lose your spear?”

“of course i didn’t,” he snapped, “but i’m not foolish enough to think i can use a spear to carve wood.”

yanxiao nodded in understanding, reaching into his pocket for a small flip knife. it was barely as long as one of his fingers, the handle a dark wood. “this should do, i think.” he threw the knife underhand, and xiao caught it with ease. the blade flicked out easily, sharp to the touch. “remember to cut away from you, yeah?”

his grip tightened on the knife, leaving without thanks.

safely in the shadow of his room, xiao finally relaxed. one by one, he removed his guards and charms, quietly setting them in their respective places. you were curled up in your bed as always, none the wiser as he stepped out onto the balcony. he sat facing the moon, setting his mask on the floor beside him. again drawing the small knife, he braced the wood in his lap and began to carve.

yanxiao was many things, but a fool he was not. he had heard from verr about your mask tearing yesterday, about how you sat quietly on xiao’s terrace for the rest of the day in a pout. you were a strange guest, certainly, but you were xiao’s. he kept very limited company, and those he lingered around felt his affections quietly.

when flowers had blown off their tables prior to the reception of an important guest, a mysterious bundle of qingxin had found it’s way onto the reception desk to replace them. when the eccentric xianyun had stopped by for a ‘surprise lunch,’ a small note in familiar writing on his table told him her tastes. when your small, flimsy mask tore in two… well, he couldn’t wait to find out.

he worked as usual, trading guesses with verr as he helped ferry plates back and forth. would he fetch you new leaves in perpetuity? fetch new ones from your home nation of sumeru? find a new toy to distract you? neither of them had ever met a pari before, didn’t know what you wanted or needed to thrive, but they entertained themselves with nonsense speculation nontheless.

xiao showing up in his kitchen without warning was nothing out of the ordinary. yanxiao had learned to pick out the shift in air pressure that signaled his arrival, wiping off his hands and putting the washed vegetables aside. the flat expression on his face was also routine, but the log he held most certainly wasn’t. handcarved offerings weren’t all too uncommon in liyue, especially from an adeptus, but he had a feeling it wasn’t for rex lapis or another adepti.

the next question, of course, was what he would carve. verr suggests a wooden mimic of the leaf mask and he can’t hide the way that makes him laugh, his smile wider than usual as he greets customers.

that night, if you stood just quietly enough beneath the upper balcony and the wind blew the right way, you would hear the quiet scrape of wood and metal. and the next morning, if you were anywhere near the inn, you would likely see a bright pari weaving through the levels, eager to show off their brand new mask carved by the hero of dihua marsh himself.

[lostbetweenvampiresandmusic]

Ok, i got one. AU where Lost Boys the movie exists, inspired by those events actually occurring in the 80s. So it'd be like 12 & 13 with reader x Marko? Maybe the reader's a serial killer or something dead like a Ghoul or Zombie, and after a showing of Lost Boys in Santa Carla, they take a soon to be victim to the cave, and then end up just fucking the victims shit up. Little does the reader know, the cave isn't a abandoned as they had thought, and Marko falls in love the second reader disembowels the guy.

(Not me hitting post instead of edit😅) Thanks so much for the request! It got a bit darker than i expected, but it was an interesting one to figure out, so I hope you'll like this as well!💜

12. "I shouldn't have seen that movie..."

13. "Did you know this cave is haunted?"

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

I smiled as the familiar sounds of Cry Little Sister blared through the sound system, echoing over the beach. At least a hundred people had gathered here to watch the movie, and I couldn't be more pleased. You see, in my profession, it was of utmost importance to stay inconspicuous. Stay invisible within the crowds, stay out of sight whenever someone was looking for something - or rather someone. And, above all, have a good eye. It takes skill to know how certain people will respond when you first approach them. To calculate their next moves. If you fail in approaching the right person, you're whole job is going to be ruined.

Luckily, I was good at what I did. So, with two beers in hand, I smiled at a guy in his early" twenties. He seemed carefree, easy going - the perfect type.

"Mind if I sit with you?" I asked sweetly, offering a beer as an exchange for the favour, and as a conversation started.

"No, no, pretty ones like you can join me anytime," the guy winked, causing me to grin. Yeah. He would do perfectly.

We sat together the whole movie, chatting and laughing, and when the movie came to an end, I knew I had the guy wrapped around my finger. It had been easy. Agree with him, initiate some physical touch - and here he was, willing to follow me anywhere.

As he helped me up, a wonderful idea popped into my head. "Do you want to check out the caves?"

"Wait, they're real?"

I nodded. "Not too far from here. It's supposed to be pretty secluded," I said with a wink, causing the guy to grin and readily agree.

Together, we walked over the beach and through the forest - it was not very far, just 3 miles or so, but far enough to tire a guy like him out for just a little bit.

"Can we stop for a bit?" He asked, out of breath, as we reached a clearing. I shook my head, pointing at the 'do not enter' sign.

"There's no need, we're here."

"It says not to enter."

I nodded. "So?"

"I- listen, I like you, a lot and I would love to do more but - I don't think this is my thing?"

I smiled. "Sorry. I should have clarified what I wanted first. We don't have to do anything, but I would love it if you joined me if we went to explore that cave."

"Just exploring?"

"Yeah. The second we see something that's off, we're out of there. I promise."

The guy thought for a moment, sighing deeply before nodding. "Alright."

I grinned, taking his hand and leading him down the stairs. He didn't need to know that I had been here several times before during the day, exploring to see whether this would be a good secondairy location or not. Needless to say, I declared it to be a good one.

"Did you know," I stated as we stood at the cave entrance, " that this cave is haunted?"

The guys eyes widened. "Are you sure?"

"That's what they say anyways. They also say that there are actual vampires here, but we both know that that's bullshit, right?" I grinned. Who knows whether or not they existed, as far as I could tell, they weren't living in the cave.

"I- I am not sure about this -" the guy began again, and by now, I had to admit that I lost my patience. So, with a gentle nudge, I pushed him inside. He screamed as he rolled through the entrance, falling on the floor several feet below. I heard a loud, sickening crack, and I knew that his leg had broken when he cried out. Easily, I jumped in after him, landing on my feet next to his body.

"What did you do that for?"

"What?" I asked innocently, ignoring his terrified expression. "You're not really telling me that you're scared?"

"What if I am, hm?" The guy asked. "I never should have seen that movie..."

"That we can agree on," I crouched down beside him, taking a sharp knife out of my coat pocket. "If you hadn't been there, I wouldn't have picked you up."

"Wh - what are you going to do?"

"Me? I'm going to have some fun. I've been told I need to study up on my biology. You are my practice material."

"What?!" The guy paled. "You can't do this! You- HELP, SOMEBODY!"

"No one will hear you," I smiled, "I thought I told you this place was rather secluded, hm?"

"Let me go, you freak!"

I chuckled, swiftly moving my knife down, cutting his hand off in one swift movement. The guy screamed and cried, bleeding all over the floor as he tried to crawl away. Lazily, I walked after him, my foot landing on his back, stopping him in his crawl.

"Turn over."

"No!"

"Don't make me turn you over. You'll regret it."

The guy weakly turned, laying on his back. "Good boy," I said before kneeling down on top of him. I talked to him while I acted, explaining how I would drag my knife from his throat all the way to his navel, how I would slowly but surely take every single organ out. The more I talked, the deeper I cut, the quieter his screams became. In the end, all that was left was an empty vessel, the insides spread around the cave.

I stood up, ready to go outside, when I saw a young man staring at me. He looked at me, not with fear but with admiration. A childlike wonder. "You did quite a number on him."

I shrugged. "He had it coming. Who are you?"

"I'm Marko. What did he do?" I looked at him, trying to determine if I would tell or kill him. He was handsome, but somewhere behind his cool look, I knew that I was no longer the only killer in the room. There was something about him.

"Besides annoying me with his existence? He sold drugs to some middle schoolers."

"So, do you avenge people often?"

"Why do you ask?" I looked at him, my knife still in hand. He grinned.

"Because after seeing this, I think I'm in love."

[firein-thesky]

Act II

|| kaeya alberich x afab!reader || E/18+ || hurt/comfort/fluff || wc: 37k || ao3 || masterlist || Act III -> coming soon! ||

When you, a beloved artist and performer of Mondstadt, attract the attention of the Fatui, there is only one person you seek out for help; the infamous Cavalry Captain of the Ordo Favonius, Mondstadt's beloved bastard.

minors and ageless blogs dni, 18+ only

❀ give me a world masterlist ❀

❀ for you are the world (as i am in pieces) - @lorelune ❀

a/n: hello! i am two days late, but here is the second act!! instead of splitting into multiple parts/posts, i just linked the ao3 at the bottom to continue reading! 37k is actually insane of me. i struggled a great deal with this act and it was the source of a lot of frustration but...i am ultimately happy with how it turned out <33 big shout out to my buddies @lorelune who helped me a lot and beta-ed parts, as well as @suguwu who beta-ed and gave me some great feedback on this act, and finally, @acerathia for beta-ing and giving me feedback as well! i am very appreciative of all your help! also please go check out lore's lovely diluc fic linked above as part of this collab!! without further ado, here is act ii! i would love to hear your feedback!! your thoughts!! your predictions! anything! thank you all for reading and i hope you enjoy <3

tags: afab reader (she/her pronouns but is rather gender fluid/binds her chest sometimes and presents both femme and masc), alcohol use, mentions of kidnapping, mentions of stalking/full on stalking from the fatui to the reader, smut, oral (f!receiving), use of "good girl", friends with benefits, somewhat unclear and messy dynamics, mentions of heartbreak/abandonment issues, bodyguard au technically, fake dating au technically, angst, hurt/comfort

SCENE I

Somewhere dark and stone, dripping, and cave-like. Shadows press and shudder and shift. This is an unknown place and sharply different to Mondstadt’s gold and sky. Confined and cold. Each sound should echo softly or loudly, should repeat itself over and over again. 

Kaeya moves with his back to us, slipping among the darkness as if he might belong there. 

Kaeya has spent nearly an entire day attempting to tail one of the Fatui members he knows is keeping tabs on you. There’s three, he believes, and they rotate in shifts, much like he, Diluc, Jean, and Venti rotate being near you. 

For the first time in a long time, he hasn’t spent his entire day with you. Nor the previous. Venti stayed with you in your own home and now you’re with Jean. 

He hates to admit it, but he’s become rather accustomed to watching over you. 

But he needs answers for you, so he’s been running all over the city, searching for their reasoning. 

This is the closest he’s gotten to a new discovery; this ruin beneath the earth, ducking and weaving through an old, stone crypt of some sort. 

He realizes rather quickly it must be some secret meeting place for the Fatui in the city, especially those dealing with the Abyss Order.  

The narrow hall opens up into a larger space where an old desk, piled with papers and maps sits under lantern light. Shadows grow large and spindly on the floor. On the stone walls are photos and torn notebook paper, pinned and plastered together, a collage of secrets. 

Kaeya peers carefully from his hiding spot to get a better look. 

He wants to look at that desk, all the information atop it. He’s certain there must be something there of use, even a greater hint. But he needs this member to leave. 

Kaeya picks up a stone, smooth and cool to the touch. He has to play this carefully. 

There’s an adjacent hallway across this room. It leads to further darkness. And with the Fatui member’s back turned to him, facing the desk, if he can aim well enough, he’ll be able to–

Kaeya throws the stone and watches it sail through the air, finding it’s mark as it clatters into the bend of the wall down the hallway. He flattens himself to his own wall, waiting and listening. 

“Who's there?” The Fatui member calls and Kaeya holds his breath.

“Hello?” Again, before he hears their footsteps stride towards the hallway Kaeya had thrown the stone in and away from him. 

He waits as they retreat, deeper and deeper, echoing softly. 

He knows he won’t have much time now. 

As silently and quickly as possible, he rushes to the desk. His eye flies over all of the papers and maps and scribbling notes. 

Your name jumps out to him. He skims. 

Vision: Pyro 

Strength: Low

Intelligence: High

-Not a fighter

-Use discretion; known and beloved by Mondstadt and other nations. 

Kaeya searches harder, shuffling through the papers a little. 

There’s a ledger with all the places you’d gone, every single day. There are notes about where best to kidnap you and Kaeya’s stomach sours as he reads words like use force. And torture if necessary. 

But what is it they think you know? What would they need to torture out of you? 

He moves another piece of paper, only to catch sight of something that makes his heart stop. 

Your diary. 

There’s no mistaking it. He’d know it anywhere now. 

How do they have this? It should’ve been in his home or safe with you. 

Horror sweeps through him–they don’t–they couldn’t have taken you, could they? 

You’re with Jean, he tries to rationalize. Had you hidden your diary again? Had they found it? 

If you hid it, had you snuck away from Venti or Jean in the last day or so? His mind spins sharply. 

Footsteps echo. 

He’s out of time. 

He disappears down his own hallway, heart ricketing in his chest wildly. If they had you, would you be here? Should he search? Is he being unreasonable? 

He’ll go to Jean first. 

Use force. 

You’ll be with Jean. And if you’re not, Jean will organize a rescue party. He’s found their hideout. 

Torture if necessary. 

Kaeya breaks the surface of the world with a new urgency. The day is melting into evening and the light nearly blinds him a moment as he stumbles out. He doesn’t have time, he breaks into a sprint. His mind flashes hotly, imagines he wish he could never conjure. Images of you tied up, bloody, beaten–

He runs towards the city gates fast and hard. 

Strength: Low 

He shouldn’t have pawned you off on others–he should’ve stayed beside you. This whole time. He should’ve had Diluc look for the Fatui, he shouldn’t have bid you goodbye yesterday. He should’ve checked in with you. 

His ribs ache, his legs burn. He doesn’t stop. 

What was he thinking? You’re practically a sitting duck. He knows this. 

Not a fighter. 

You wouldn’t stand a chance against them. What if Jean is already searching for him because you’ve been taken? He imagines bursting into the city to find her or Venti or Diluc, with some pale look on their face. 

The knights on watch must know something is wrong as he runs beneath the gates–they call after him, but don’t stop him. 

“Where’s Jean?” He barks to the one trying to catch up to him. 

“Headquarters, I think!” 

Kaeya veers sharply for Headquarters. 

He prays he’ll burst through the door and find you there, with Jean. You’ll be pestering her as the sun sets, chirping and flitting around her office while she tries to get paperwork done. You’ll be there, he tries to tell himself, you will be. They must’ve just nicked your diary. 

He throws open the door to Headquarters, rounds the corner and bursts into Jean’s office. Jean is standing on the opposite side of her desk, back facing Kaeya and–

You’re nowhere to be found. 

His stomach drops. 

“Jean,” he says her name sharply, a note of desperation. “Where is she?” 

Jean turns, startled by his appearance, by his urgency, but–

“I left her with Venti. They said they were going to Angel’s Share to perform some songs.” Jean steps towards him, “why? What’s wrong?” 

“They have her diary.” Kaeya gets out, rushing out the door of her office. 

“Kaeya!” She barks after him, but he’s already pushing his way out of Headquarters. He won’t rest, not until he sees you, until you’re right in front of him. “What are you–where was her diary?” 

“I don’t know,” Kaeya snaps, taking stairs two at a time, “I thought it was at my apartment but she’s always hiding it and–” He breaks into another run, heading towards the tavern, “when did you leave her with Venti?” 

“I don’t know,” Jean gets out, keeping pace with him, “a few hours ago, maybe? I had a lot to do–” 

Kaeya curses under his breath. 

“I still don’t know what they want with her but–their notes were about using force. Or–” he can’t get the word out. “They think she knows something.” 

“About what?” 

“I don’t know.” Kaeya bites out. 

He rounds the corner to Angel’s Share sharply and Jean takes it with him. 

“I’m sure she’ll be here with Venti.” Jean gets out, attempting to be calm with him. She’s attempting to be a leader. 

Kaeya throws open the door, gaze flying across the room and–

He doesn’t see you. 

His blood runs cold. 

For once, he wishes it was Diluc at the bar, but it’s Charles. 

“Has Venti been here?” And then he asks for you, too, says your name with a shot voice. 

Charles shakes his head, “haven’t seen either of them at all today. They were supposed to play music tonight, I think–” 

Kaeya doesn’t let him finish. He rushes out. 

He has half a mind to start shouting like a lunatic for you, all over the city, wandering like a mad man with your name a cry on his lips. 

“Maybe they went to her house before–” Jean tries to rationalize, but he can tell she is beginning to fret, too. 

Kaeya is already ahead of her, rushing towards your home on the hill in the city. He can’t help his pace, the run he breaks into again. He tries to think of you throwing open the door, laughing at his worry. Where else would you be? He wants to hear you say. 

But when he pounds on the door, there is no answer. Not a peep. Your little space is quiet. 

“Do you have a key?” Jean asks, but Kaeya doesn’t have the time. 

He takes a step back only to kick in the door easily, letting it fly open on its hinges. 

(He promises he’ll get you a new door, a better one, one that isn’t so flimsy–that could be so easily broken into. He thinks of you asleep here, with a door like that, and his worry grows insurmountably.)

He shouts your name as he enters. 

No answer. 

He storms the place. Your bedroom, your bathroom, all familiar and all so empty. 

“Venti!” Jean calls, and then your own name, too, as she searches. 

Nothing. 

“You know how they are,” Jean tries to rationalize, “they’re always getting up to trouble. They could be anywhere.” 

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Kaeya growls, rushing past her and back out the door. He’s beginning to panic. He can feel the tendrils of it creep up his chest, wrapping like vines around his poor throat. His head is growing foggy, warped with his fear. All he can see is you being dragged away. 

Use force. 

His mind feels hot, too sharp. 

Torture if necessary. 

“Kaeya,” Jean barks his name, rushing to catch up to him. 

Her voice is a balm, he wants–she should–

“I’ll try to get ahold of Diluc and send word out to search the city for her.” Jean says and her voice is filled with authority now, level-headed and steady, “where else would she be?” 

“I’m going to my apartment.” Kaeya says, mind narrowing, “in case she’s–I don’t know–” 

“Go,” Jean agrees, a command, “and if she’s not there, keep searching–you know her hiding spots now.” 

Kaeya nods dazedly. 

Jean grabs him roughly, on the arm, jerking him to face her. One hand coming down on his shoulder. 

“We’ll find her.” She promises and she dips her head a little to force him to meet her eyes. They’re all stone and determination. The eyes of a leader. “Do you hear me, Captain?” 

Kaeya nods, more assuredly now, “yes,” he agrees, finding his voice, her eyes. 

She shoves him a little, a push to go, “I’ll reconvene with you shortly. Stay sharp.” 

Kaeya doesn’t need another moment; he picks his eyes up to catch the city skyline of Mondstadt, of his apartment in the distance. He breaks into a sprint. He tries to focus only on his breath, on the way his feet carry him swiftly, weaving in and around the city. 

He tries to force away what he’d seen. 

He bounds for his home, feels his heart and fear ratchet up inside of himself. He’s imagining his home empty. 

He’s imagining you gone. 

He’s imagining the door shut tight and locked, how he’d left it, and you’re nowhere to be found. A cold space. An empty space. 

He takes the stairs two at a time, he tries the door and it–it’s locked still. 

He doesn’t pray. He’s not a religious man. And that stupid Archon–

Is sitting perched on his kitchen counter, overlooking the living room.

“Ssh,” Venti hisses, finger to his lips, as he points to his couch. The one Kaeya has slept on nearly every night since this whole ordeal started. The one you are currently occupying, curled up beneath the blanket he usually uses, sleeping soundly.

Or, you were. 

You blink awake, slow, confused. 

Kaeya rushes to your side. 

He kneels. 

The door is left ajar. 

“You’re here,” he gets out, winded, rough. 

“Kaeya?” Your voice is so small and confused. 

Without thinking, he brushes a strand of hair from your face as gently as he can, hands shaking. He’s still panting, chest still heaving. But–

“I’m here.” He says then, astonished, relieved. 

He wants to pull you off the couch and into his arms. He wants to hold you. He wants to collapse on top of you. 

He falls back onto his bottom, breathing hard, all his fear leaking out of him swiftly. “Oh, you’re here.” He says again, voice breaking, as if to assure himself. 

You sit up, eyes pricking with concern, “what’s wrong?” you murmur, “where else would I be?” 

Kaeya can’t even speak yet, but he laughs, delirious, out of breath. 

“No where.” He says, “I thought–you were–” 

“She was trying to nap,” Venti finally speaks up and his eyes are far too keen. “Before our performance tonight.” 

Kaeya looks at him. Venti looks back. 

The door is open. 

He heaves out a rough breath. He hangs his head between his shoulders. He tries to calm himself. 

“I need to tell Jean to call off–” he laughs, “oh, Diluc is going to lose his mind.” 

“Call off what?” You ask.

“Your search party.” Kaeya finally can get out. Your face brightens to shock. 

“My search party? Kaeya–”

“Venti, why don’t you find Jean and tell her where you’ve been? Before the whole city turns upside down looking for her.” Kaeya then says. He won’t look at him but he can feel Venti’s eyes on him.

But then Venti laughs, and chirps, “aye, Captain!” 

And he flits out of Kaeya’s home. 

Venti shuts the door behind him and seals you away with him. Kaeya exhales roughly again, elbows resting on his knees. 

“Are you okay?” You ask for a second time, so sweetly. So sincerely. You lean towards him like you want to touch him. 

And he wants to say, I was scared. He wants to say, I was terrified of losing you. I could’ve torn the whole city apart looking for you. He wants to say, I’m so relieved to see you. Hold me. Let me hold you. 

Instead, all he says is, “they had your diary. And I thought–” 

The door is shut tightly. 

“Oh,” you breathe, “I left it at home, the last time we–” 

“They must’ve broken in.” He agrees softly. And then he looks rather sheepish. 

“What?” You ask, as if you know. 

“I broke in. I owe you a new door.” 

“Kaeya!” You scold, “why did you–why were you so–?!”

“Jean and I thought you were kidnapped!” Kaeya defends himself.

“Kaeya–” 

“We were searching for you. Since you weren’t in any of the places you were supposed to be.” He begins to scold. 

“Kaeya,” 

“Didn’t I leave you with Jean? You should’ve stayed with her.” 

You suddenly launch forward, arms wrapping around his neck, falling from the couch and onto his body. His breath is almost knocked out of his lungs for the millionth time today because of you and surprise colors his face. Raises his brows. 

You hug him tight, face pressing to the crook of his neck, a bundle in his lap. 

“I’m okay,” you murmur, “I’m right here.” 

His arms, which had come up in surprise, finally settle over you. They wrap all the way around your shoulders, your middle, pull you closer, and he’s sure his heart is such a mess in his chest. He’s sure it sounds like a disaster. 

But you press harder into him, fingers digging into his muscles. 

“I’m sorry I scared you,” you say, and then your voice tilts upwards playfully, “didn’t think you’d really send the cavalry just because–” 

He pinches your side. 

“I had reason to believe–!” 

You start to laugh, into his throat. You shift to pull away and he wants to keep you there, he wants to hold fast to you and not let go. He wants to cling to you. But he lets you move away to look at his face once more. 

You look at him in a way that just makes him feel naked. He wants to hide. He wants to say something clever. 

“Thank you,” you suddenly say. 

“For what?” Kaeya laughs, “causing a ruckus? Waking you from your nap?” 

“For coming for me.” You cut him off. “I feel safe with you and this just proves that–” 

Kaeya slackens a little, perhaps surprised or unsure or–you always leave him wobbly and uncertain. You always disarm him so swiftly, so viciously. 

“Of course I’d come for you.” Kaeya says and he does mean it. He softens it’s truth with, “it’s my duty.” 

But that night, you don’t ask him to sit beside you as you fall asleep���he does so anyway. You don’t say a word, except to ask him for another bedtime story playfully, except to hear him speak, as you always do when he stays with you. 

You didn’t ask but he needed to. 

It’s not his duty, but he wanted to.

He can’t imagine not watching you drift off to sleep tonight, of all nights, when he thought he’d lost you. 

He watches you sleep soundly in his bed, back rising and falling as you curl around one of his pillows, cheek endearingly squished against it. He doesn’t sleep. 

The door is locked tight. 

And even though it's not his duty, he watches over you, anyway.

***

SCENE II

On the docks of Cider Lake in the early afternoon sun. Venti is perched beside you, plucking lazily at a lyre. Your feet dangle off the dock, swinging like a child. The sky is endlessly blue. Clouds are like sleeping rabbits in the sky. The wind kisses you. 

“I feel their eyes most when I’m with you.” You say suddenly, glancing at your companion out of the corner of your eyes. 

A note strums from Venti’s fingers. He hums lightly. 

“Not sure what the Fatui would want with a measly bard.” Venti shrugs, “maybe they think I’m the weakest of your guards.” 

“Maybe,” you say, but you don’t believe that. You don’t believe it because–well, because you noticed them following him first. At first, you weren’t quite sure and you had mentioned it to Venti, but he’d shrugged you off. 

Breezy as ever. He’d pretend there was nothing to worry about. 

You turn towards him and look at him before you murmur, low enough that any ears listening would only catch the sound of the gently lapping water, “why were the Fatui following you?” 

“I believe I’m supposed to ask that of you,” Venti replies with a smile but you can tell, there’s a chipping like a porcelain teacup losing a piece of its lip. 

“I wasn’t sure at first,” you tell him softly, eyes glancing out over the calm lake, “but then I caught them intercepting letters and messages of yours. I caught them in the belltower and I knew.” 

The belltower in the cathedral was a place Venti had shown you early in your return to Mondstadt. He’d told you it’d been a place that he came to play music, to look out at the world below. A secret place for him, now for you; a gift, he’d said. Places are a gift to give the people you love and secrets are, too. 

Then you’d caught a Fatui member snooping through the hidden items Venti had left there; music sheets, maps the two of you had crudely drawn, and old clues to scavenger hunts long past. 

The two of you had always liked sending the other all over Mondstadt; it’s why you hide your diary. He hides new songs he wants you to learn. You’d leave clues, games to play, puzzles to solve for each other. 

Venti plucks out a few, odd notes on his lyre. Goosebumps erupt over your skin.

“You don’t think I have dealings with them, do you?” Venti asks queerly. There’s a funny sound to his voice. 

You shake your head quickly, “Archons, no.” And then you tilt your head, “but I did what I do best.” 

A wrong note. It rings discordant in the air. 

Venti looks at you. 

“You didn’t.” He almost begs, but he knows. 

“Of course I did.” You respond and Venti looks genuinely distraught. So you add, “nothing terrible–but I wrote you false letters. I led them on a goose chase a little, like I always do when the Fatui gets too close or comfortable in Mondstadt.” 

Venti shakes his head, “you shouldn’t have meddled here.”

“They’re looking for something of yours, aren’t they?” You ask slowly. 

Venti, for once, is quiet. The wind catches on your clothes in a burst. It’s confirmation enough. 

“So I sent them all over Mondstadt with puzzles and clues and fake letters.” You said, “and really, I thought it was harmless but–” 

“Did you tell this to Kaeya?” Venti asks.

“Not specifically this. I always toy with the Fatui when I can, though, he knows that.” 

Venti shakes his head slightly, fingers digging into the wood of his instrument, “and with all the hiding places and riddles between us, I’m sure they–” Venti stands abruptly, “I need to speak to Kaeya.” 

You stand with him suddenly, “why? What for?”

Venti frowns at you and it’s an expression you hardly ever see him wear. 

So you press tenderly, “what are they looking for, Venti?” 

“You’re such trouble,” Venti replies and his voice catches with emotion; he doesn’t  mean it meanly, in fact it’s–well, it’s fond. Mournful, almost. The wind rushes past the two of you, stronger now. Water laps at the docks. 

“Give me a clue.” You try to charm him but it sounds more like a plea. “Like always. I’ll figure it out and you won’t ever have to say it outloud, if you’re that scared.” 

Your heart feels like a brewing storm in your chest. Venti has never hidden things so openly from you. It frightens you. 

But Venti shakes his head for once, small and soft. “Not this time, my friend.” 

“Venti–” 

He suddenly looks away, down towards the other side of the dock, where the cobblestone of the street meets the wood. Kaeya is standing there, waiting to relieve Venti and walk with you to Springvale for rehearsal. The gold of his coat glints in the afternoon sun. He looks like a knight. 

He waits for you. 

“You have rehearsal,” Venti says, and his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes, “go.” 

“Please, will you tell me?” You ask again. You swallow hard around sudden tears; stupid and silly but–aching. You can’t name why you feel like crying, only that you can tell something far larger is on the horizon. 

It hangs like a storm. 

You can feel its pressure, now more than ever. 

Tell me, you want to beg him, you want to sing, you want to scream. Let me help you, let me in. 

Venti looks at you with love and affection and sadness. He looks at you with a heaviness you can’t name, but can taste. It’s ancient. It’s otherworldly. You want to hold him. You want to hide him from the world. 

“Not yet,” he replies. 

“Why not?” Your voice breaks as easily and fragile as a bird’s wing. 

Venti smiles sadly, “because if you knew, you’d put yourself in even more danger than you already have for me.” 

You open your mouth, but he continues;

“And this isn’t your battle.” He turns away, eyes glassy, but waves at Kaeya, as if nothing is wrong. He smiles at you, watery and fond. 

“Besides, you’ve never been much of a fighter in the first place.” 

***

SCENE III

In the living room of Kaeya’s apartment. Soft, evening blue light through the windows. Hazy, dark shadows. You’re curled up on the couch, legs tucked up underneath you, with a cup of tea held in your palms. You’re ready for bed. Kaeya enters from his office with a stack of letters and papers; what the audience can see of his face is that he’s somber for once. He casts the greater shadow.

“Will you tell me again why you thought it was a good idea to toy with the Fatui?” Kaeya asks and in his hand, he has only some of the letters and maps and sheet music that you’d been leaving for Venti. 

Or, the Fatui. Since you knew they were rifling through Venti’s things. 

“I always toy with them.” You reply simply, taking a slow, burning sip of tea. It’s chamomile and rose. A hint of cinnamon. Kaeya prepared it for you before disappearing to do some work in his office. You swallow. “And I never said it was a good idea.” 

“Then why do it?” 

“Why are they following Venti? What are they looking for?” 

Kaeya lets out a sharp breath, perhaps growing impatient. “I don’t know. Right now, I need to know why they think they need you to find it, though.” 

“Well, I made it seem like I had whatever they’re looking for.” 

You watch Kaeya freeze for a moment and if you weren’t so intuitive and just a little wittier, you’d make some sort of joke about cryo and freezing in place. 

“Why?” He demands suddenly. 

“I wanted to get them off Venti’s back.” You say, “this is what I do when the Fatui get too close to the people I know. This is what I do when the Fatui think they can stick their hands in Mondstadt. Someone has to teach them a lesson.” You take another little sip of your tea, and then add, “and I don’t have a sword–my weapon is my pen. My voice. My wit.” 

Kaeya shakes his head, “you don’t even know what you’ve gotten yourself into.” 

You gesture smoothly, “then enlighten me.”

“This is bigger than you, do you understand that?” Kaeya then says and you don’t think you’ve ever heard him quite so stern. 

His face is shadowed. It’s growing darker. 

“Sure,” you say easily, “that’s why I had to intervene.” 

“I don’t think you actually understand.” Kaeya says and his voice has grown more serious, imperative, a little lower. 

“I’m not an idiot,” you snip, “clearly! Since I’ve managed to fool the Fatui and send them running all over Mondstadt.” You can feel your hackles rise a little, heat swimming in your chest, up your neck. “And most importantly, away from Venti–since he’s got some huge secret that no one will tell me!” 

Kaeya moves suddenly to sit on the coffee table in front of the sofa you’re on. Your knees nearly brush. He splays out your letters and music sheets and maps. “Why didn’t you come to me before doing all of this? Before involving yourself?” 

“Because I always mess with the Fatui!” Your voice raises and you finally move to set the tea cup beside him on the coffee table. “I didn’t think it was any different than any of the other times!” 

“The Fatui aren’t just–” Kaeya gestures, papers crinkling beneath his grip that has grown tighter with his own frustration. “–some band of half-wit politicians or merchants for you to toy with! They’re dangerous.” 

This quiets you for a moment. And then, “so? A lot of things are dangerou–” 

“So?” Kaeya repeats, “so?! You’re not even–” he laughs, but the sound is scraping and hollow, off-kilter. It’s disbelief, almost a scoff, “you’re not even a fighter. You’re not a Knight or a warrior. You’re not even an adventurer of some kind.” 

Silence stretches between the two of you. 

“Can you ever trust my own judgment and intuition? I have made it this far–” 

“But you’re reckless.” Kaeya says, “specifically, you’re reckless with yourself. You know the Fatui are dangerous–it’s why you’re worried about Venti, right? It’s why you intervened.” Kaeya says and then his voice gentles, “so why don’t you have the same concern for yourself?” 

You feel your jaw lock. It ticks. 

You look away from him defiantly, out towards one of the windows, blue with the evergrowing night sky. 

It strikes a strange note inside of you. You have concern for yourself, you want to say, you came to him, didn’t you? Eventually. 

But it doesn’t negate what you did, which was reckless. He’s right; you could’ve turned to him immediately, you could’ve gone to Diluc or Jean or him. But instead, you tried to distract the Fatui; you tried to dance and sing and entice them onto the path you’re on, instead of the one Venti is on.

You gave them a performance. And now, with all their eyes set on you, like the hungry, vying eyes of an audience, a predator, you are in danger. 

“This isn’t a game anymore. This isn’t funny or—or breezy. You’ve gotten yourself into real danger, do you understand?” Kaeya then says and you can tell he’s trying to get you to look at him again. 

“I have you and Jean and Diluc to—“

“But your recklessness got us all here. You rush head first into—into everything, without regard for yourself.” Kaeya continues. “You’re an open book. You wear your heart on your sleeve—it’s like you have no self preservation whatsoever.” 

You sit in silence. You cross your arms over your chest and you feel a hard, little ache in the pit of your throat.

He’s chipping away at something inside of you, something already too tender to take the beating. 

“It’s not a bad thing to be open.” You say and your voice is tight, thicker than it should be. 

“No,” he agrees, “but you have no regard for yourself and all of it for everyone else.” 

Tears prick your eyes, much to your dismay. 

You know the reason. You can feel it, somewhere in the back of your mouth, down where your throat is tight. 

You can’t lose Venti. 

Venti could lose you, you’ve decided. The world could lose you. But you are so terrified of loss and really–you must’ve been easy to leave if–

If it could be done so effortlessly. 

(You think of yourself as a child and your father setting you down for the last time. You think of yourself at an altar, forever waiting, the way you waited for your father your whole life.) 

Venti can lose you. 

But you can’t lose Venti. 

You hope that maybe if you give enough of yourself to the world, it will need you bad enough to never lose. You think one day, it’ll fill the empty, aching wound inside of you that has been just left to dry out. Crack and splinter. 

Sometimes, you think if you scare someone bad enough, they’ll look at you and say they can’t lose you. You think maybe if you scare yourself bad enough, you’ll finally look at yourself and say I can’t lose you. 

“Don’t cry,” Kaeya hushes softly and you wipe quickly at the tear that has freed itself to slip down the slope of your cheek. 

It makes you want to cry harder, for some reason, for him to be so tender now. 

He sets the papers down beside you on the couch finally. He reaches out and touches your knee, broad palm surprisingly warm, as he rubs a gentle pass with his thumb. 

“Why are you crying?” Kaeya then asks, coaxing, gentle.

You sniff hard. 

You dig a little, you search for the answer. Is it because you’re careless with yourself? Is it because you’re scared now? Is it because he pointed it out at all—that he noticed enough, saw through you enough, to finally say it? 

Is it because—

“I worry about you.” He says when you don’t answer him. 

—you’re worth fretting over?

You shake your head a little, perhaps in an attempt to disagree with him, perhaps in an attempt to reassure him. But nothing comes out except another few tears. 

You try to keep the sob back, the noise trapped with the reason in the back of your throat. You fear what will come out. 

“I’m sorry,” you manage to whisper and when you finally turn to face him, he’s right there, and for a moment, you think he might move further to hold you. You think you might just slide into his arms. 

You hold your breath. 

You think he holds his, too. 

“I don’t need an apology.” Kaeya finally murmurs and he doesn’t fold you into his arms, but he turns up his hand on your knee carefully. His palm, an offering. “I just need you to be more careful.” 

Slowly, you slide your hand into his. 

You’ve held his hand plenty now, know the rough scrape of his calluses against your own, but it has never quite felt like this.

Real. Weighted. 

He folds his fingers between yours gently. Your hands lock together, woven, knuckle over knuckle. Palm to palm. 

You’re both watching your hands, enamored, maybe terrified. 

You cling to him in a way you haven’t clung to someone in a long, long time. 

You think you’ve tried to hold onto everything like this; with too much force, gripped in your rebellious fist. You think everything you’ve ever held must’ve been crumpled and ruined from your grasp, you think everything must have the indents of your fingers permanently etched there. 

You want to squeeze, you want to bear down on his hands like a dog who finally caught a bird. 

“Can you promise me that?” Kaeya prompts gently when he doesn’t receive a response from you. 

You glance up at his searching face, the way he’s watching you carefully, scouring to see any flicker of emotion. 

You nod a little, jerky, unsure. 

“Will you say it for me?” He murmurs and dips his head a little to keep your straying gaze. 

You swallow hard around the lump in your throat, tight and hard. 

You feel your eyes fill with tears again. 

But still, you manage to croak, “I’ll try to be more careful.” 

You can tell the response displeases him somewhat; you can tell he wants more. But anything more right now, may feel like a lie. 

And you’re no good at that. 

“Okay,” Kaeya agrees, “thank you.” And then he adds with a gentle lilt, “I’m sorry for making you cry.” 

You laugh a little through your tears, “it’s okay–” you mumble, letting your eyes fall back to your intertwined hands. “I probably needed to hear it.” 

His thumb makes a slow, comforting pass over the back of your hand. 

For a moment, the space fills with silence. 

You watch the careful sweep of his thumb, you watch the flex of his  hand, the veins against his wrist. You can feel the room fill with something more, a growing of a feeling, stretching amongst your ribs. Perhaps amongst his. You think there is something blooming inside of him, something he’s terrified of, something you’ll always long for. 

(If you could feel his pulse in his wrist, it would be jumping, picking up in a fierce little tempo.) 

He’s tenser now, you realize. His breath is caught somewhere in his chest, like he might speak again. 

You wait for him. 

He opens his mouth. 

But then after a moment, he closes it. 

You pick your head up to examine his face, to try and discern what it is he wants to say now. 

And mostly, it’s a mask of causality. 

(His trembling heart is the only thing that gives him away now.)

Maybe, the depth of his eye, or maybe it’s only a trick of the light. 

You want to say, what is it? Or prompt him for more. You want him to speak what is so clearly on the very tip of his tongue. 

Tell me, you want to say, tell me what seems to scare you so badly. 

“I–” he starts. He stops. 

And then neither of you speak and the tension stretches and something inside you grows. You cling to him harder without realizing it, as if anticipating the way he’ll pull away. You don’t want him to go. You can feel it, your heart unfurling for him, you can feel the way he holds you, too. 

In the same way that you hold him. 

You hope he leaves indents in your skin. You hope he never lets go. 

“Yes?” You prompt gently. 

But then he clears his throat and glances away. 

The spell is broken and he forces his hands to loosen from his own hold on you. He forces himself to recede and to calm his heart. You watch as he mentally pulls away from you. You force yourself not to cling harder to him, to catch his hand and hold it close to yourself, to pull him closer to you. 

He says, “Mondstadt cares very deeply for you–and you for Mondstadt. I only wish–” he draws in a small breath, “that you’d afford yourself the same care.” 

You wonder what he was going to say instead. You know this is not his original thought, but the secondary, more distant one. You almost want to ask him, you want to needle and beg, but you know Kaeya well now. 

You know he doesn’t say anything he hasn’t carefully thought about or that he doesn’t want you to hear. 

Still, it manages to make you soften, to make tears press again behind your eyes. 

You turn to tuck your face into your shoulder, like it may stop him from seeing you cry. You squeeze his hand like a lifeline. 

“Oh, look what I’ve done now.” He says and his voice is light–he’s teasing you gently, holding you tighter again as you laugh now and sniffle, fingers still digging deep into his hand. 

“I’m sorry–” you mumble, “Am I hurting you?”

You loosen your grip on his hand. 

“I’ve been through far worse,” he soothes, running his thumb back over the dips and plains of your hand. 

You try to keep yourself from bursting into heavier, harder tears. You can’t even quite name why; your care for him, or his for you. The fact that he won’t name it, or because you’re scared he’ll leave if you do. 

You’re nearly trembling with it; you’re afraid he’ll say one more word, one more phrase and you’ll simply fall to pieces.

You don’t know what it is about care; but when someone is gentle with you, it makes you feel as if they’ve torn you to shreds. It turns you inside out. It turns you into a child again, desperately seeking it out. It feels foolish now sometimes, over dramatic.

But Kaeya holds your hand and you take deep, shuddering breaths until you don’t feel as if you’re going to bawl your eyes out anymore. 

You don’t want to stop clinging to his hand, though. 

“I should get to bed,” you finally say, if only for him, if only to give him an out because it’s easier than if he finds it himself. You’re too fragile for him to pull away first tonight.

So you slip from his grasp and stand. Your legs feel a little wobbly, unsure of yourself. He looks up at you, from beneath the fan of his dark lashes. You swallow hard, around the tears, around whatever it is he makes you feel. 

You can still feel the pressure in your hand, the way his fingers feel against yours. 

Again, he looks as if he wants to say something. 

You wait, expectant. 

And again, he lets it fall. 

Instead, he says, “yes–it's another early morning. I’ll let you sleep.” 

He stands now, too, collecting the papers, gathering them into his hands carefully. All of your wit and love and craft. All of your recklessness in the palm of his hand.

“I’m going to stay up a little longer,” he says then, “if you need anything.” 

Now it's your turn to look up at him. 

And there must be something too raw, too sincere in your eyes, because he can’t look for long. 

“Kaeya,” you want to draw his gaze back to yours, but he doesn't quite reach your eyes. Still, you need to say, “thank you.” 

“For scolding you?” He asks, light, too light. He tries to create distance. Coldness. 

“For caring about me.” 

He swallows. He doesn’t confirm or deny it. But he looks guilty, a man held back, everything carefully in place. Not a word misspoken, not a look out of place. Sometimes, you have the urge to destroy that veneer. Sometimes, you want to know what he looks like without all his thoughtfully placed appearances. 

You wonder if you will ever see him like that. You wonder if he will ever tell you more; if he will ever let you in. 

You think maybe you will stay like this forever, close to him, but not too close. 

With care, but without it spoken. Always in the blue dark and never in the dawn. 

He clears his throat, “it’s my job to look out for you.” 

Your heart falls a little, sharp, like a plummeting note, a tight draw of the strings of a discordant chord. You swallow around the lump in your throat. 

“Yes,” you agree distantly, nodding your head, “I suppose it is.” 

“I’ll be in the office.” He says because he must slip away from you now. You think when he gets too close, he grows scared of being burned. 

He closes the door behind him.

You watch it for a moment, steady. 

You wonder if it’ll stay like this forever; always on the other side of the door. 

When you go to sleep that night, you leave the bedroom door ajar, as if to prove something. 

But in the morning, you find it shut tight. 

At rehearsal, you’re somewhere else, off in your mind. Though you say your lines, you feel as if you miss them, like they’re coming out automatically, half-hearted. 

And the only ones that rings true, that resonates throughout the stage is one you’d previously thrown away;

“Hold on tight–don’t let go.” 

This time, your voice cracks with it, breaks over the don’t. 

That night, Kaeya presents you with a bouquet of flowers; a show in front of the world. 

And when he brushes his knuckles against yours, you eagerly slip your hand into his as you walk home. 

You don’t even care that it’s for the world and no longer for you.

You are, if nothing else, a good actor (or of foolish heart);

So you pretend it’s real, with the flowers he gave you nestled into the crook of your elbow, and his hand curled around yours. You pretend that you are walking home with your love, and the sun is setting, and you are filled to the brim. 

You laugh as if that’s the case. You lean into him as if that’s the case. 

You knock into him as you walk, desperate to be close, to feel his side against yours. You are desperate to have more of him; all his attention, all his affection. 

To not feel like a world away–or like there’s a door between you, one that you don’t know if he’ll ever open or not. 

***

PRELUDE TO SCENE IV

Springvale in the afternoon, the sun warm and bright; it makes everything sparkle, almost radiant. The grass seems lush and full, the lake is shimmering. 

Klee eats cut fruit happily beside you at a picnic table. You steal a piece or two from time to time. Kaeya sits across from you and Klee, his back to the audience.

“Are you and Kaeya boyfriend and girlfriend?” Klee suddenly asks around a burst of valberries. 

Despite everything, you feel your heart tick up in a strange, sharp tempo. 

Your eyes fly to Kaeya, who's already looking at you. 

You share a silent conversation with each other and a series of increasingly dramatic expressions;

What should we tell her? 

The truth? 

What? No! 

Then you tell her–

“Yes,” Kaeya finally says, “we are boyfriend and girlfriend.” 

Klee picks her head up, perhaps surprised at his answer. “You’re dating?!” She asks, louder now and you can’t help but laugh. 

“Yes,” Kaeya lies, perhaps for any eavesdroppers, “we’re dating, Klee.” 

She looks between the two of you. 

“Miss Jean said you’re in love with each other.” Klee says casually and that makes both of you freeze momentarily. 

You feel heat rush into the high points of your face. Your mind whirls, spins into overthinking. Why would Jean say this? To keep your covers? A kinder way to say it to a child? 

For a moment, you fear Jean knows a part of your heart that you fully haven’t gotten to know yet yourself. 

You fear there is some truth to it. 

(Perhaps love is too strong of a word but—)

You adore Kaeya. 

You have your whole life, you think, from when you were young and chasing after them with childlike, outstretched hands, to adulthood, where you have always held respect for him and now—

Something more, perhaps, after all your time with him. 

How could you not? What chance did you have against him, anyways? 

(You hope he doesn’t dare read your diary again. 

You suddenly worry that Jean has instead.) 

You’re almost fearful to catch Kaeya’s gaze, you swallow hard, but force yourself to. And when you do, you realize he’s–

Amused. Near laughing.

That absolute bas— 

You kick him underneath the table and he yelps a little. You hide your snicker behind a hand against your mouth. 

“We care about each other very much.” You tell Klee, sobering. 

“Are you gonna get married?” She asks then, just as casually, around another piece of fruit. 

Kaeya makes a noise of surprise, “married?” He asks Klee, “where are these questions coming from?” 

“I thought if you’re boyfriend and girlfriend, then you get married.” Klee responds. 

“Sometimes,” you agree, nudging the bowl of fruit closer to her little hands so that she can reach the last few pieces better. “But right now we’re just boyfriend and girlfriend.” 

Klee hums around her berry. 

And then she looks up at you, “do you guys kiss?” 

The word kiss is punctuated with disgust, almost sick curiosity; as if she might not be able to believe it. 

It makes you choke, then stutter into a laugh. Kaeya laughs as well, full and surprised. 

“People who are dating do tend to kiss, Klee, so yes.” He says, amused with her. He catches your eye across the table. You swallow hard with the way he gazes at you, infinitely pleased and laid back, deeply amused. By you or Klee, you’re not sure. Still, you can’t help the smile that touches your lips, perhaps just as entertained, perhaps a little rueful. 

“Gross,” she declares. And then she looks at Kaeya, “do you think she’s pretty?” 

You look at Kaeya expectantly, propping your chin in your hands, and sing, “yes, Kaeya, do you think I’m pretty?” 

He smirks, leaning back in his seat a little, and a fissure of heat rips through you. You bat your lashes for him. 

“I think you’re beautiful, darling.” Kaeya croons, sweet as ever, and enough to make you damn near melt. 

You can feel heat in your face, despite it all. You feel like a teenager. You feel like a girl with a crush, a boy with his love in front of him, and not a clue what to do. Bumbling and suddenly young, graceless. 

A pang hits you squarely in the chest; you wish this was real. You wish he was being honest. 

Klee squeals in embarrassment or surprise. “You’re going to get cooties!” She tells you. 

You use her as a distraction, leaning down a little to conspire with her, “Kaeya does have cooties.” You agree in a faux-whisper. “But I have the antidote.” 

“You do?” Klee asks, “what is it?”

“Its a secret recipe,” you begin, putting on a good show of trying to come up with the ingredients, “but it certainly starts with the essence of butterflies.” You glance over at the field behind you, which you know is teeming with butterflies.

You used to chase them here in your youth until the sun set and the fireflies sparked to life in the evening dark. And then you chased their soft, blinking lights until the other kids were called home. And it was just you and the rolling fields and endless night skies and bumbling bugs. You’d try to carry one home with you so you wouldn’t feel so lonely. 

Klee follows your gaze and watches as one of the butterflies flits and flutters. 

“Can I ask for your help, little Spark Knight? Will you carefully catch me a butterfly? Don’t hurt it, though, we need it alive for the antidote.” 

Immediately, she is perking up, jumping up from her seat. 

“You can count on me!” 

She bounds off into the field of swaying wildflowers. 

You turn back to Kaeya. 

His eye is soft, perhaps fond. 

Before you can loose your bravery, loose your courageous little heart, you stand and move to his side of the bench so that you can watch Klee. 

Your shoulder brushes with his. Your thigh touches his. You’re aware of it all, sharply, keenly. 

He looks at you and you gaze back up at him. For a moment, you get swept away in his star-blue eye. The bend of dark lashes. Like the butterflies in the field, your heart flutters, feeling as delicate as their wings. 

“Careful,” Kaeya says softly, so smoothly that his voice could be a melody, “or people really will think we’re in love.” 

Heat smarts your face again. But you tip your chin up because you’ve never shied away from a challenge before; “why do you say that?” 

Kaeya suddenly reaches out and carefully, as if you might fall to pieces at his touch (and really—you think you might), takes hold of your chin. His thumb barely brushes your bottom lip. Then he says, “the way you look at me.” 

“You were looking at me first,” you accuse but your voice is hushed. 

“And you shouldn’t melt when I touch you.” 

Your stomach swoops like a bird in the sky and then soars. Your lashes flutter. You’re close to him—almost nose to nose. And now you really do think of kissing him like he’s actually yours. As if he could be. 

His eye drops to your lips, thumb inching upwards. 

“Then you shouldn’t touch me so.” You murmur, earnest, and if your voice is soft with pleading—a pleading for what, you can’t tell—then whose to say? “Like—like you want to kiss me.” 

Your nose brushes against his. 

“Don’t—” his voice sticks, “don’t kiss me. No one’s even watching.” 

“Do you not want me to?” 

“Yes, I want—” he stops. 

Your heart sings. I want, I want, I want—

He swallows, “we shouldn’t, though.” 

“Why not?” You dare to ask, hands drifting to his chest, his collar bones. 

You can almost, almost feel his smile, slow and fond, “well, firstly, you’ll get cooties…” 

“Kaeya,” your own smile is a warm curve that you want to feel against his.

“Secondly,” He begins, drawing in a soft breath that you feel beneath the palm of your hand. 

“I have a butterfly!” Klee shouts, head suddenly poking up from the wildflowers in a burst of petals. 

You and Kaeya jolt away from each other, hands drawing back into your laps, facing away from each other as if teenagers caught by your parents. Heat zips through you in a rush. 

He almost—you almost—

Something in your chest bats its wings, excited, elated. It takes to flight. A smile overtakes your face, winning, determined. 

Oh, you think, glancing at him as you head to Klee, oh, you want me, too. 

She opens her little hands for you and the moment she does, the butterfly escapes into the sky—taking to flight. 

You laugh as she squeals. 

She races after it. 

And then you do, too. 

In an instant, Kaeya has joined you, too. 

And it dissolves, the sun slowly moving throughout the sky, into running and chasing and laughing. The joyful sound of your laugh, of Klee’s excitement, of Kaeya’s fondness. 

It melts like the sky, like your heart, like the way you do when Kaeya touches you. 

There’s a moment, quick, when you’re in the wildflowers with him. He’s on his back and you lean over him. 

He peers up at you. 

Beautiful man that he is with sparkling eyes. 

You think, people really will think we’re in love, if you look at me like that. 

And then you say, boldened by the day and the sun and the warmth and the tempo of his heart beneath your open palm;

“You’ll be mine yet, Captain.” 

He blinks, perhaps surprised, before a full, warm laugh falls from his lips. 

“Is that a challenge, princess?” He purrs, looking up at you with a halo of flowers beneath his head. 

You grin, beautiful and wicked and radiant. 

“It’s a promise.” 

And then you stand to run after Klee, down the sloping hill, and into the arms of the sky hanging above your heads. 

He watches you and you can feel his gaze on your back, your silhouette against the sky, your laugh caught on the wind, and tuck the vow into your heart. 

Hope it tucks into his, too, finds it’s home there where no one has before and claim it as yours, yours, yours. 

You open your palms and a butterfly, blue as the sea, as a bird’s wing, leaps from your hands and takes to flight. Takes to the sky all open just for you. 

***

SCENE IV

The belltower in the Cathedral, high above Mondstadt. Storm clouds cling to the horizon. The sky is mostly dark, but the sun escapes through a sliver of clouds and still shines for now, casting the world in a strange contradiction. More ominous. More stunning. Burnished buildings set against wicked, deep blue storm clouds. 

Your skirts swirl against gold and silver bells, as blue as the clouds. Kaeya turns and twists, so we only catch flashes of his face. 

Kaeya takes the steps near two at a time to keep up with your pace. You lift your skirts with one hand, racing up the curving, stone steps, and your other hand holds fast to his. You drag him up and up and up. 

The whole day, you’d dragged him all over Mondstadt, to all your favorite places; bakeries and music stores and the library. Eagerly, he’d followed, been at your side, at your heel like a loyal dog. 

(A lovesick pup—) 

Kaeya thinks he could spend countless days with you like this. 

The world is always more brilliant with you—he can’t deny it. 

And now, you’ve promised him another secret place of yours. 

“How much further?” He breathes hard, surprised to find himself winded. His legs almost burn; there have been far more stairs than he originally thought. Or was promised. but he was also promised the best view in all of Mondstadt, with one of your sweetest smiles.

And really, how could he have denied you then? How could he deny you at all today?  

“Not much!” You chirp back and then all it takes is a little more, until you come to a wooden door. 

It gives easily under your weight, your excited push, throwing it wide open. 

Light gleams, the world bursts before his eyes in a shimmer of gold, a rain of color and life. 

You sweep into the space, the arch beneath the stones and over the other side of one of the great bells. If he peers down, he can see the wooden scaffolding where someone stands to pull on the huge rope below. No doubt, it would take up this whole space, swing wildly so that the two of you would have to nimbly dodge and move, duck just to keep your heads. 

He hopes you’ve accounted for this, too. 

He follows you carefully around the bell, only to come to the other side of it and have the whole world open up before you. 

And it’s just you, in the breeze, and the storm clouds, above all of Mondstadt. 

You hang, perhaps a little too precariously, off one of the large stone pillars. 

Kaeya has half a mind to grab you, to pull you back towards him. But the wind favors you. 

“Isn’t it beautiful?” You breathe and you’re so taken with it all, that he can hear your voice catch. 

“It is,” he agrees, but he’s not looking at the world the way you are. 

He’s looking at you. 

He watches you watch the streets below and the clouds above. He watches love and adoration paint across your face; joy and a strange sort of melancholy. 

Oh, you’ve always been so open.

Finally, you inhale. 

 Whilst still looking at the world below, the heavens above, you say, “I can’t explain what it does to me–the sky and the city and the wind when it touches me.” You look as if you could almost cry, and immediately his heart gives a lurch in his chest, “I don’t know how anyone can stand it.” 

Something in him twists and constricts. He wants to wipe your tears. He wants to coo, don’t cry, don’t cry. 

You laugh, “I’m sorry,” and shake your head like you’re silly, “I can’t help it–I’m just so happy. I adore the world so much.” 

You turn to face him, open and raw, “I know these haven’t been ideal circumstances,” you start and you shift, and like he’s drawn to the movement, like you’ve pulled him in, he moves, too. 

And then he’s standing in front of you. In front of an ancient bell from a nation that isn’t is, but could be. Above the whole world. Beneath the storm of it. 

“But I’ve been–” a tear escapes and again, as if he possessed, before he can even think, his hand has darted out to catch it. You laugh again, joyful and aching, “you make me so happy. And I—“

“Doesn’t seem so,” he murmurs, “seems I’ve made you cry.” 

You laugh again, sweet to his ears, like their own song. Your hands come up to his chest, palms open and flat against his racing heart. He’s sure you can feel it. Can you hear it? He hopes not. 

And no one is watching. He doesn’t need to stand this close to you or wipe your tears. 

You don’t need to put your hands on his chest and look up at him like that, in a way he doesn’t deserve. 

(You’ll be mine yet, Captain.) 

You look at him like he could’ve hung the moon. Or carved your beloved Mondstadt itself with his own hands from hill and valley. 

An ache spreads its wings like a bird in his chest. It isn’t fair, he thinks, to be looked at by you, with this expression on your face, when he knows he can’t have you. He knows you can’t be his, not truly. 

He wishes you wouldn’t look at him so. 

“They’re happy tears,” you tell him, pawing at his chest, creeping up towards his neck. You sway towards him. You finish what he tried to stop you from admitting, “—and I adore you.” 

Kaeya’s heart gives this twist, like it’s trying to rebel against him. He wants to run. He wants your arms around him. He wants—

“Careful,” Kaeya murmurs reflexively. Careful of what, though, he can’t say. 

Careful with yourself around him? Careful with him? 

You don’t heed his warning at all, and like you always have, you barrel towards all that you want. You press up to him. 

“You do make me happy,” you say again, sweeter now like honey on your lips, tip your chin up like you might offer him a taste. 

“Everything makes you happy,” Kaeya counters, shaking his head fractionally, looking down at you with lidded eyes. 

“Not true,” you almost pout up at him, shaking your head, fingers tightening in the collars of his shirt like you know he’s thinking about fleeing. 

He has half a mind to kiss you. You’re leaning up on your toes a little. He can smell your perfume; red berries and honeysuckle. Warm vanilla. He feels something tighten inside of him, hot and aching. He needs to put a stop to this—

He says your name, in warning. Perhaps fear. 

And you look up at him through the fan of your lashes and say his name like it’s a melody, “Kaeya.” 

He shakes his head now, fractionally, “don’t.” He murmurs, voice a low rumble. 

“Don’t what?” You ask innocently and then you do it again, as if you know perfectly well, “Kaeya–” 

His hand comes down to clutch your wrist, to keep it from moving around to the nape of his neck. He stills you. 

You look up at him, questioning, almost desperate. Perhaps unsure–you go to pull away, but he seizes your wrist, holds it tight to his chest and keeps you close. 

Thunder rumbles. 

“Don’t say my name like that.” He croons, voice a little rough, “don’t torture me.” 

He watches your face transform into understanding. Into—

Your fingers sink back into the fabric of his clothes, emboldened, “Kaeya,” you say like it bursts on your tongue, and then again, “Kaeya,” you hum, sing his name on a note that could be its own siren song. “Kaeya,” you purr as one of your arms winds around his neck. 

His poor heart—

He makes a noise; a soft groan of frustration, a little growl, back in his throat. 

“You’re such trouble,” but his other hand is squeezing at your hip now. “I swore to everyone I had nothing but pure intentions with you.” 

Your nose brushes his, a smile licking at the corner of your mouth, “I surely hope not.”

“I’m supposed to protect you.” He gets out.

“You do—you are.” Soft, sweet little assurance. 

He shakes his head again, barely, nose brushing yours. Fractionally closer. “You’re my responsibility.” 

“Are my desires, too?” You murmur and when you lean towards him to close the short distance between your lips, he suddenly seizes your jaw in his hand.

You gasp.

“And what of mine?” He asks, eye glinting like the too-hot part of a flame. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?” 

His voice is a low rasp.

You look up at him with wide eyes, soft in the center, your eyebrows drawing in a little and you look—you look like you adore him. Like you’re desperate for him. 

“Sleeping in my bed every night, my clothes—“ Kaeya allows his thumb to drift over your bottom lip, slow, parting it from your top. He exhales roughly. “What am I supposed to do with you?” 

“Kiss me,” you plead.

Lightning cracks across the sky in a fissure of heat. 

“I shouldn’t.” He counters, even as you kiss at the pad of his thumb. Lips soft and warm, wet as your tongue darts out in a flash of heat. He inhales tightly, letting his thumb be drawn into the crux of your mouth. 

You look up at him through your lashes. He has to fight back another groan. There’s a flush on the nape of his neck, heat that swims beneath his skin. He’s certain you’ll melt him with your gaze alone.

What’s he supposed to do?

How’s he supposed to survive you? 

He scrambles for his wits. 

And firstly, he pulls his thumb from your lips.

“Kaeya—“ you coax again, “Kaeya.” 

“Stop it,” he hushes, “I can’t.” 

“I want you,” you murmur, almost whine.

“You’re a brat.” Kaeya groans finally, “stop tempting me.” 

“I’ll beg,” you sing sweetly. “Is that what you want to hear?” 

“No,” he says quickly because the thought of that makes his mind screech to a halt. “Never. I’d never—“

Make you beg.

He swallows around the words sharply. 

He lays his hands, long and broad, on your shoulders. 

He forces distance between the two of you. 

Thunder grumbles unhappily across the sky.

“I’m not going to kiss you.” 

“But you want to?” 

And the way you look at him, so earnestly and so desperately—

“That’s besides the point—“ You open your mouth to speak, only for him to continue, “my job is to protect you. This would be highly unprofessional of me.” 

“Since when have you—“

“You deserve better.” He finally says, words flying from his mouth before he can stop them, “I am, frankly, a rake and a cheat and—“

“That’s not—“

“The point is,” Kaeya continues over you, lest you do something even worse and try to fight or deny him, “it would be unwise of us.” 

“I, for one, have never claimed to be wise.” 

Kaeya laughs now, full and warm and fond. He shakes his head. You’re near glowing with just the sound of his joy. So he continues;

“It would be foolish. Perhaps, even, one of the worst things we could do.” 

His voice lilts, turns melodic. 

Your hands are back on his chest somehow. Flat over his heart, nearing his collar again. He’s losing. You’re sidling close and he wants to bring you closer still. He can feel all the curves of your body to his, fitting up against him like a missing puzzle piece. 

“Utterly disastrous, really.” He continues, voice growing fainter. He’s losing. 

“Wildly reckless?” You murmur, tipping your chin up, offering your lips to him like a sweet lamb to sacrifice. 

“Terribly…” he drifts, feeling the brush of your lips against his, “stupid, I’m afraid.” 

You hum lightly, barely, in acknowledgement before he’s suddenly closing the distance and kissing you soundly.

Oh, he’s lost. 

(It’s a promise.) 

The wind picks up sharply for a proper storm. Lightning flashes behind his eyelids. 

And that’s all it takes, Kaeya realizes, heart swinging wildly in his chest like a bell tolling. Knocking against his rib cage.

You throw your arms around his neck and deepen it. 

He groans in defeat, damning it all, and grabs at the skirts of your waist, squeezing at your hips desperately. 

Damn it all, he thinks again, knowing it’ll be something of a shipwreck; brutal and splendid and massive. Beautiful and heartbreaking enough that he just won’t be able to look away. 

More thunder, sky swirling and teeming and ready to just burst. He can feel it under his skin. 

You sink your hands into his hair. He nips sharply enough at your bottom lip that a gasp is wrenched from you. He swallows it. 

He wants so much more. 

The sky opens up and rain falls from the heavens in a golden and brutal downpour. 

***

SCENE V 

Dawn Winery in the evening, plum dark and warm from fire in the hearth. You and Diluc are at the grand piano, seated side by side, in an intimate and cozy parlor room. 

Kaeya has just entered and we see the side profile of his face as he watches the two of you. 

“Oh, do you remember this one?” You ask and immediately, music fills the space as your hands dance over the keys in a sweet, jaunty little tune. 

“Like this?” Diluc asks, setting his hands to the lower side to immediately complete the melody you play. “It’s this one, right?” 

“Yes!” You exclaim, the two of you playing with ease, a smile on your face. “We used to play this one all the time for our parents.” 

It’s such an innocent remark. Kaeya is almost caught off guard by it, by the memory that floods back to him. 

Crepus in the lounge chair, your parents across from him on the settee. The glow of the fire warm and gentle. Faces of people that swim in his mind, that he hasn’t seen or has avoided for a long time now, their smiles and laughs. People who left. Who died. Ghosts that once listened to your music, just as he is now, on the outskirts. 

Diluc, surprisingly, is not put off by the memory. Instead, he smiles, “I used to always mess this part up.” 

And then with ease, his large hands cascade over the keys. Not a note out of place.

“And look at you now!” You encourage him. 

He laughs softly, low, like the fire in the hearth. 

With ease, the two of you close the song together, watching each other with crinkled, happy eyes for the timing. For the last notes. 

He can hardly stand how lovely you look. Or how you look at Diluc. 

Have you ever looked at him like that? 

He clears his throat. 

When you see him, your face lights up and the way you say his name, with such warmth and adoration makes him feel worse somehow, “Kaeya!” 

Immediately, Diluc’s face hardens. 

“Apologies,” Kaeya says with perhaps more chill than he anticipates, “I didn’t mean to interrupt the concert.” 

“Not at all,” you respond, “how did we sound?” 

“Your music is lovely as usual.” Kaeya responds flippantly and you eye him for a moment, scrutinizing. 

And then, slowly, you say, “then you wouldn’t mind if we play a few more? This piano does bring back fond memories for me.” 

There’s a glint in your eyes; it could be the fire that favors you or a trick of the light. 

And because Kaeya pretends he doesn’t care, he says, “please; don’t allow me to stop you.” 

He takes a seat on the settee as far from you and Diluc as he can manage. 

Diluc sets his hands back to the keys and opens with a few, small notes, “do you remember this one?” He asks you.

“How could I forget?” You laugh, “I sang this one at every party and soiree we ever had.” 

And Kaeya also instantly recognizes the first chord that Diluc eases out, the tune of it like his childhood. He remembers you standing so small and young, by the piano which seemed so much larger when he was a boy. Your glowing face and sweet, little voice. 

And when you open your mouth to sing this time, it’s mature and warm, lower but more distinguished. 

The lyrics must come to you like from a dream, he’s sure of it. 

As if it was yesterday, you sing the song of a different time, a different lifetime ago it feels like. Of late nights in this very parlor, with laughter and the clinking of glasses. A house full. A heart full. 

You sing of angels and the moon in the sky, the stars, and a love from forever ago. 

And really, it’s so horribly fitting for you; the song is as in love with the world as you are. How could anyone sleep, you sing, how could anyone close their eyes to the night sky? To love? 

Kaeya realizes sharply that he feels as if he’s been sleeping for a very long time. 

He’s turned his eyes away from the stars and love and the whole world. 

And you, wonder that you are, have been desperately trying to wake him. To show him again. 

The last concluding notes ring softly, hang in the air, before you are smiling and leaning onto Diluc’s shoulder, hugging his broad arm to you happily. 

Kaeya looks at the two of you, the light and dark of Mondstadt. The joy and pride of the city, so beautiful in the fire. 

How could he ever compare to the two of you? 

“Kaeya, did you remember that one?” You ask suddenly, turning to face him. 

He somehow manages to unstick his voice, and lies, “not really.” 

After a moment, a heartbeat where you seem to see right through him, you ask, “shall we go home?” 

Yes, he wants to say. Let me take you home. Let me take you away. 

Instead, he says, “I’m hardly in a rush.” 

You stand from the piano bench and saunter over to him. Diluc turns to watch as you come to stand between his legs, peering down at him. 

“I missed you today.” You say honestly, “were you busy?”

Kaeya won’t return the sentiment in front of Diluc. In fact, he’s surprised that you’ve come this close in front of him at all. He thought this was supposed to be between the two of you and no one else. 

Selfishly, he wants to keep it that way. He wants you all to himself. 

Kaeya glances at his brother, then back to you. Diluc’s eyes narrow fractionally in suspicion as Kaeya says, “very, unfortunately.” 

You tuck a strand of his hair behind his ear. Your fingers drift then, hovering around his jaw like you might touch him more. You don’t. You say, “let’s go home, then.”

You offer him your hand and when he takes it to stand, you don’t drop it. You tuck up against his side. Kaeya feels something wobbly and fragile take a few, tentative steps inside of him, like a newborn fawn. 

How strange, he thinks, to imagine you as openly his. How strange, to have your genuine affection, your genuine adoration. 

“Thank you for playing with me, Diluc,” you say with a smile, “I hope I wasn’t too much of a bother today.” 

“You’re never a bother,” Diluc promises like the gentleman he is, “and I am always charmed to play the piano beside you.” 

Diluc glances down at your interlocked hands. You let him look. Kaeya fights the urge to pull away and create distance. You squeeze his hand. You say to Diluc, “perhaps we should throw a soiree, the way our parents used to. I miss being in the manor. And then we can play for everyone again.” 

Everyone except the ghosts, Kaeya thinks, their faces pale in his eyes. 

Diluc seems as wary as Kaeya is, for once, but it is so hard to deny you. Kaeya knows that well. 

As if to sweeten it, you let your head tip onto Kaeya’s shoulder, cuddling up to him even closer, “I think it’d be great fun. A reason to come together again.” 

Diluc meets Kaeya’s eyes briefly and he can already feel the scolding he will receive. He can already feel Diluc’s doubt and judgment. But instead of starting a quarrel, he says to you, “Perhaps we can arrange something.” 

And really, Kaeya thinks it's a testament to how charming and lovely you are. 

You bid Diluc goodnight, sweet as ever, and lead Kaeya out by the hand. 

He can feel Diluc’s gaze burning into the center of his back. 

And the moment you pull him around the corner and out of Diluc’s eyesight, you turn and suddenly pull him down into a deep, slow kiss. 

Kaeya’s eyes flutter in surprise and immediately, he attempts to pull away from you. It’s one thing for Diluc to see the way you held his hand, it’s another thing entirely for him to catch the two of you like this.

You hardly let him get a word out, before you’re pulling him back down into a dirtier, heavier, more desperate sort of kiss. 

He yields with a soft, surprised noise of wanting. He kisses you back, just as dirty, just as desperate—tongue licking into your mouth, heat stoking to life along the nape of his neck, the curve of his spine. 

When you pull away, he manages to get out, “well. Hello to you, too.”

You smile, wide and lovely. “I did miss you.” You say again, as if you know you have to convince him, and that he never believes you the first time. And still, he thinks you must be lying. You’d never miss him. 

But you lean up onto your toes to get him to kiss you again; which he does. Easily, happily. It’s gentler than the previous, a little more content, though no less heated. He draws you closer, as close as you can get. His tongue dips gently into your mouth, deep and hungry and exploring. He feels the fabric of your dress bunch up beneath greedy hands, pulling at them, pawing at you. 

A cleared throat. 

The two of you jump apart, whirling around to face Diluc in the entryway. 

He does not look pleased. 

Kaeya, for once, feels like a younger brother again, caught red handed. He opens his mouth for some strange excuse, but you beat him to it;

“We’re taking our role as a couple very seriously. Archon forbid the Fatui question our legitimacy.” 

Kaeya can’t help the laugh that barks out of him, before Diluc’s glare forces him to clear his throat and compose himself. 

“I can see that.” He says dryly. 

“It was my fault,” you then add, “Kaeya is, for once, blameless. I’m a bad influence.” 

“I highly doubt that.” Diluc drawls, “he’s never blameless.” 

Kaeya opens his mouth to speak, but you beat him to it again.

“We will truly be taking our leave now.” You then say, tugging at Kaeya’s hand, “goodnight, Diluc!” 

The door slams hard behind you. 

Kaeya looks at you, your back to the door, chest heaving a little. You look back at him. 

And then you burst into laughter. He shakes his head, but he can’t stop the smile that comes onto his face. The laugh of disbelief. 

“Diluc is going to kill me,” he finally says, “I can’t believe you.” 

“Oh,” you coo, striding past him, “should I protect you? Diluc is harmless.” 

Kaeya laughs again, though this time it’s dryer, not as funny, but more ironic. 

Well, he has an eyepatch to certainly prove otherwise. You must catch onto his shift in mood, because you take his hand again and assure him, “I’ll deal with Diluc, if you’d like.” 

“No,” Kaeya says, “no need to fight my battles.” 

“I did get you in trouble.” 

 “Well, that I can’t deny.” Kaeya agrees with a smile, slipping his hand around your waist and this time, he knows it is real. Realer than ever before. 

The stars are bright above your heads. The moon is full and shining like a coin and casting you in its soft light. Your eyes are crinkled in delight. 

“You’re also a liar,” you add and Kaeya pauses, looking at you.

It strikes a strange note in him. 

You continue, “I thought you said you weren’t the jealous type?” 

Kaeya’s brows prick upwards, “did you think I was jealous?”

“Kaeya,” you say his name warmly, with love, “I could feel you glaring a hole into the back of our heads while we were at the piano.” 

Kaeya laughs, but it’s rather hollow, “I’m not the jealous type, my dear. I’m sorry to disappoint. Did you have fantasies of being ravished by me in a jealous rage?” 

It’s a little barbed. 

If you notice (which you do), you don’t take his bait. 

“Well, now that you say it…” you tease, walking backwards and in front of him, a sly little smile on your lips. 

Kaeya shakes his head, “there’ll be no ravishing.” He promises, “I’m being a gentleman.” 

“Hm,” you hum lightly, “and how long do you plan to keep that facade up?” 

“It’s not a facade–” he starts to protest, but your hand is winding in the front of his shirt to pull him back into your orbit. 

You pull him into a hard kiss. 

This one is more desperate. Heavier. Hotter. 

He sees what game you’re playing. 

The walk home, in Mondstadt’s streets, for everyone and the moon to see, is a game of cat and mouse. Kissing hard and soft, slow and fast, against brick walls and wooden fences. Leaning into shadows and sharp, little gasps. Teasing kisses along the jaw, before slipping away, and back into the night. 

You manage to lead him right up to the threshold of his bedroom. 

He takes a stance here, roots himself down. He swallows hard—he has to steel himself, he knows. 

So he goes no further than the arch of the doorway, no matter how much you pull at him, or kiss him or tease him. And as hard as it is, he doesn’t even sway when you gaze up at him with that look in your eyes; dreamy and enamored. 

You look at him like he could be a great man. 

It’s absolutely horrifying. His heart jumps in his chest. He can feel as if he can hardly breathe.

“You really won’t sleep with me?” You ask, lips hovering just beneath his. His hands are latched tight to the doorframe of his bedroom as to stay them. To keep his resolve. 

Kaeya shakes his head, “I’m a gentleman.”

You let go of a tired sigh, “I don’t need you to be one.” 

He swallows hard. 

“I’m afraid I need to be one.” He answers. 

“I didn’t take you as chaste.” You murmur, kissing at the corner of his mouth, his cheek. All that warmth comes rushing back to him. 

“Hardly,” he scoffs reflexively, allowing you room at his throat, down the length of his neck. “But I am trying to preserve–” 

He stalls, when he feels your tongue at his pulse. 

You blink up at him innocently and supply, “you’re trying to preserve–?” 

He clears his throat, “some level of professionality. Dignity, maybe.” 

Protection, too, though he isn’t sure anymore if it’s for you or him. Perhaps both. 

The only way he sees this ending is poorly–he cannot foresee a current future where you don’t end up disappointed and hurt by him. He cannot see a future where you don’t leave for your own good. 

And besides, all things must end, he knows, all people must leave or be left behind. 

He was left once and he’s vowed to never be left again, standing in the rain, shivering and young. 

(He tries not to think of you—left at an altar.)

You pull away to look up at him, sweet-eyed and gentle, almost amused with him. “If you say so.” 

Reluctantly and with a great deal of his strength, he leans away to put distance between you. Coldness sweeps in. He tries to appreciate it. “You should sleep. You have rehearsal early tomorrow morning.” 

You step away as well. You offer him a little curtsy in jest, “as you wish, my most proper and chaste lord.” 

“I’m a lord?” He asks, astonished. 

“A prince?” you ask, “or do you prefer a knight? We can roleplay, if you’d like–” 

“Goodnight!” Kaeya announces then, reaching for the doorknob to begin swinging the door closed, to put distance between whatever it is growing between the two of you. 

You laugh, though, so warm and wonderful at his antics that he just can’t help it; he kisses you once more, soundly, goodnight. 

And this time, he says it gentler, lower and sweeter in a way he knows makes you shiver, “goodnight, princess.” 

He watches you fluster, the way you blink up at him. And now it’s his turn to laugh, low and soft and hot, before he quickly swings the door the rest of the way shut. Locking you on the other side of it. Far from his reach. 

Lest he do something horrible. 

Lest he want you too greatly. 

But when he lays down on the couch to sleep that night, he realizes he can hardly sleep at all–and, really, he thinks, who could sleep at all? With the night sky like diamonds, and the way you kiss him like you have everything to lose, and everything to gain. 

Like he could be desired to keep. 

How could he sleep at all? When there is a door between the two of you? And the world hums and glows and shifts, right from underneath his feet. 

How could he sleep? He hears you sing, around and around in his mind, at the piano of his childhood, and the one tonight, a lifetime later. 

***

Finish the rest on Ao3 ->

a/n: this act was too long to post on tumblr in full and i would've had to split it into three separate posts. i figured linking ao3 would be easiest to finish reading :)) thank you for reading!! let me know your thoughts!! <33

[isbuckybarnesokay]

Maybe something with Steddie, and Steve coming across Eddie being bullied pretty badly. Hurt/comfort 🥺 if you're interested of course

hi anon, i decided to set this in Scoops era, i hope that's okay!! sorry this took me so long to post :(( thank you sm for sending in a prompt <33

tw bullying, violence.

Steve hears them before he sees them. He's turned away from the door, crouched down to find and pull out a fresh tub of double choc chip when he tunes into the sound of a small crowd laughing. He pushes up off of the floor, kicking his legs out to bring the feeling back after being crouched for so long. There's no sign of anyone through the doors, but whatever's occuring is definitely getting closer.

There's only one other person in the store, Robin, who Steve exchanges a confused glance with. Robin shrugs and shakes her head. "No idea," she mouths.

So Steve carries on.

Five minutes later he gets a look at what's going on. There's a group of jumped up looking jocks - and, boy, doesn't that sight still make Steve cringe; makes him think about how he used to be - jostling and jeering at a lanky dude with long brown hair.

One of the guys darts forward and shoves at their chosen victim, who stumbles back and smacks his head a bit. Steve winces. He knows what concussion feels like and wouldn't wish it on anyone.

"Oh my-" Robin gasps. "That's Eddie Munson. What are they doing to him? They never- they never leave him alone."

The guy - Eddie, who Steve can vaguely remember from school - evidently retorts with something the group don't like, because he catches a solid right hook straight to the mouth. His head twists with the force of the blow and Steve watches blood spray from his mouth; gets stuck on the sight of the blood for a minute, oh god, Steve's so tired of blood and people getting hurt and-

"Steve, where are you going? What're you doing?" Robin sounds frantic.

He's hopped the counter in one smooth leap, the ice cream scoop already in his hand and his jaw set in determination. Steve shoots Robin a look and waves her back. She's got a hand planted on the counter as though she's going to follow.

Something hits the floor outside. The thud sounds heavy. Steve swings back around.

Munson is curled on his side, protecting his rib cage, and Steve sees red, a bit. He's out the door in a flash, strolling purposefully but with an air of calm that's only surface level, twirling the ice cream scoop as he goes.

"Alright, guys, that's enough," he calls, aiming for bored, plastering on that old facade he'd abandoned so long ago. "You're ruining my business here."

The group of jocks turn to face him, ready to tell him to shove off, but the one who is evidently the leader seems to recognize him. "King Steve!" he grins, holding his hand out to shake.

Steve just looks down at it dismissively. He's positioned himself between Munson and the group as surreptisiously as he can manage. "I'm serious, man, you guys wanna to get outta here - heard someone saying they're calling the police."

The group startles at that, shooting glances round the mall as if expecting the cops to flood the area any second now. "Shit," the leader murmurs. "Cheers for the heads up, dude."

They head quickly for the exit, seemingly having forgotten about their target. Steve huffs a sigh of relief and turns to look down at Munson.

The guy flinches hard when Steve crouches down next to him and sets a hand on his shoulder. "Fuck off, Harrington. I've- I've had- enough." Every word sounds like a struggle.

"Come on, man. We can fix you up out the back of Scoops."

Eddie opens his eyes then, staring blearily up at Steve. "Fix me up?" He sounds lost.

Steve nods. "Yeah man, gotta clean up that blood and check you for concussion. Don't wanna fuck with that, take it from me." He runs his eyes over Eddie's curled frame, bottom lip caught between his teeth. "Come on, man. Let me help you up."

Munson's eyes shoot wide. "Don't- touch me," he gasps.

"Shit. Shit, man, okay. I won't touch you. Just- come on. I was bullshitting about the cops but chances are someone did call."

Eddie laughs, sounding a bit incredulous. "You lied to your disciples? Are you feeling alright?"

Steve grimaces. "They are not my disciples. Now, let's go, yeah? Robin can help you if you don't want me to."

"Robin? As in band kid Robin? With the great laugh, like a fucking snort?"

"The very same."

-

They make it inside eventually, though halfway through the store Eddie has to give in to the need for support. He throws an arm over Steve shoulders, unable to fight off a groan at the pain in his side.

"Hey, man, you're okay. Not far now, I've got you." Steve fucking Harrington is being so fucking nice. It's unnerving.

When Robin has ushered them through into the back room of Scoops Ahoy, Steve directs him to on the staff table. Eddie can only watch in a mixture of both disbelief and a bit of awe as Steve opens a cupboard door and pulls out a tackle box filled with medical supplies.

"Alright," Harrington hums, turning back to Eddie. "Eyes up at me, please, Munson. How's that head feeling?"

And, oh, if this isn't the sweetest way Eddie has ever been touched in his life. Steve's hands and fingers are so gentle as they trace his jaw, eyes soft as he searches to make sure Eddie's gaze is clear. As he wipes the blood from Eddie's lip, Steve makes these gorgeous sympathetic noises in the back of his throat, and Eddie, god damn it, he can't help but want to hear more.

To check his ribs over, Harrington orders him to lie back. "Is it okay if we take your shirt off? You don't have to if it's not comfortable, but it'll just make it easier for me to check."

Eddie might lose his damn mind. Steve Harrington looking down at him with big, sincere eyes, asking for his consent to take his shirt off.

"Go for it, big boy."

If Steve's shocked by the nickname, he doesn't show it. He just blinks slowly and gets to work, apologizing time and again when Eddie winces at the movement of his arms.

"There we go, okay, you're okay, you're doing a great job, sorry, not much more now, you're good, you're okay-" Steve keeps up that endless stream of comfort, and whether Steve's aware of it or not, Eddie is beyond grateful for the hand Steve has curled over Eddie's wrist - for the way Steve gently rubs his thumb back and forth. It's grounding; soothing.

Eddie wants to sleep. He lets his eyes slip closed, grumbling when Steve's hand leaves his wrist. The grumble turns to a contented sigh when Steve cups his jaw, instead.

"Munson, hey, Eddie, man, you gotta stay awake. I'm sorry. It's a concussion thing."

Eddie blinks his eyes open slowly, looking up to see Steve leaning right over him, one hand planted firmly on the table beside Eddie's torso. Harrington grimaces down at him in understanding.

"I know it's not fun, but I'll be here with you, okay? Rob's gonna cover the rest of my shift so we can get you to the doctors, or the hospital, whichever you prefer."

They go to the hospital. And Steve does stay. And he checks on Eddie the next day, too, showing up at the trailer before work - and after, with a tub of ice cream filled with 3 different flavours in hand and no signs of leaving Eddie to eat it on his own.

[lesbianwriter]

Ahhhh increíble! Chefs kiss 🤌

Woe as me, I think I might die if there is no continuation to this amazing post!

(But I won’t die if you don’t want to)

I have delivered

Part one

It should’ve been easy.

Anybody with half a heart could say that the obviously right answer was to go and rescue Henchman right away.

But Villain wasn’t one of those people.

The clock ticked in the background as she as she mulled over the situation.

Going after Henchman would be falling directly into Hero’s trap—she’d be willingly placing her head on the execution block, a sitting duck to be hunted—and while Henchman certainly didn’t deserve to be tortured and the videos were an especially cruel touch, Villain wasn’t keen about the prospect of getting captured for her sake. Besides, Villain wasn’t a hero. She didn’t rescue people…often. At some point Hero would realize that her foe wasn’t coming and that torturing her underling was fruitless. She’d have to stop then.

Wouldn’t she?

Then, the worst that would happen to Henchman is a few years in prison. Or a correctional facility…

Exhausted, Villain squeezed her eyes shut before inhaling and looking back at the clock, watching the hand incessantly tick closer to midnight by the second.

Would Hero count midnight as a day gone by? If she did, then Villain didn’t have long to make up her mind. Henchman was probably already being tortured if that was the case.

The thought made Villain’s heart traitorously pound, so strong that she could feel it thump against her chest in a way that it hadn’t in a long, long time.

How could a single Henchman make her like this?

“You.” Villain whirled around to face the runt hiding in the corner. He hadn’t spoken a word since he delivered the message, and he shook like a thin tree in a hurricane. “Where does Hero want me to go?”

—

—

Villain had never been good at being vulnerable.

Memories floated to the surface of her mind, the ruins of her past rippling the water and disturbing the empty stillness that Villain had created, and as the old recollections threatened her defenses, she became increasingly aware of the pressure stinging behind her eyes and the devouring sense of loneliness.

Everything felt empty. More so than usual.

Villain tried to remind herself why her defenses were for the best.

Attachments did nothing but make the pain sting more when inevitably they crumbled, and Villain wasn’t the type to be an easy target for anybody—enemy or not. It was callous and cold, but it also meant survival. Her defenses and the walls she’d built up kept her alive. It kept memories from repeating and disturbing the fortress she’d built to protect herself.

Vulnerability was the worst feeling in the world, and Henchman made her feel it.

Logically, Villain should have stayed in her office and ignored Hero’s obvious trap. It wasn’t like she cared about Henchman. All this was about was dignity, because whether or not Henchman still worked for her, Hero’s stunt was an insult that would be corrected…it only happened that in the process Henchman wouldn’t be tortured. But it wasn’t for her sake!

At least Villain tried to delude herself into believing that as she made her way to the location that Hero had left for her.

—

—

It didn’t take her long to find the abandoned warehouse. It was the type of place that seemed as if it were sagging underneath the weight of its own misery, and everything was covered in a layer of dust and a stench of mildew.

Villain broke apart a rusty lock on the back door and it opened with an obnoxious creak, but even though she braced for Hero to lurch around the corner and attack her, it didn’t ever come. Instead, it was only a terse silence as she stepped into the space, her steps echoing on the floor as she scanned the room for either Henchman or Hero.

The longer she waited, the more that she thought of all the horrifying ways she could find Henchman, but when the door slammed shut, Villain figured she didn’t have much of a choice but to confront the weight on her shoulders.

“Sorry for the wait,” Hero smiled as she stepped closer. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

“What do you want?” Villain demanded, eyes narrowed to daggers.

“I think we should talk about what you want.” Hero responded. “If it were anybody else then you wouldn’t have bothered, but here you are. All for Henchman’s sake.” The hero tilted her head, almost amused. “I have to say, I didn’t think you had a heart, but you’ve pleasantly surprised me.”

“I thought villains were the ones who gave the monologues.” Villain stiffened, scanning the area for wherever Henchman could be. Her hands tightened around the gun in her pocket.

Villain could shoot Hero and watch her brains splatter against the wall for what she did—and oh how she craved to watch the do-gooder’s life fade from her eyes—but there was no way to know for sure if Henchman was even in the building. If Hero died, even if it was only temporary, then so did Henchman’s location. She couldn’t swallow back the sick feeling in her stomach at the thought of her annoying henchman being dead.

“I think we both know what I want.” Hero said, finally getting to the point. “It involves you behind bars for the rest of your miserable, disgusting life.”

“This is about Civilian.”

Villain’s mind flashed back to Civilian—Hero’s lover—and she was reminded of how the blood had stained her floor for weeks, seeping deep into the floorboard. It wasn’t meant to happen. Civilian had been killed during Hero’s rescue operation. Nobody knew who did it or when during the intrusion it had happened with all the chaos that had been unleashed everywhere in the building, but Hero had been the ones to stumble across her lifeless body, and Villain had followed second, equally as shocked as Hero was.

But she wasn’t pained how Hero was.

Her defenses didn’t allow her to care for or become attached to anybody, so didn’t have anybody who could ever make her feel grief—or any emotion for that matter—that intensely. Until now.

Until Henchman.

“Do you want to see her?” Hero cooed.

Villain watched with guarded eyes as Henchman was dragged out from behind a corner and tossed carelessly to the ground. Her bound body trembled, and she barely muffled a groan as Hero grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her head up into an awkward angle.

“She has such pretty eyes. Shouldn’t she look you in the eyes?” Hero continued, pulling her head back farther.

Fury flooded Villain.

Anger like she’d never known rushed through her veins until she was certain that her blood was truly boiling inside her veins.

Without thinking, Villain pulled out her gun and shot Hero straight through the heart.

She knew it wouldn’t kill her, but now that she knew that Henchman wasn’t somewhere else where she’d be killed if Villain didn’t find her—a rookie move on Hero’s part—she didn’t have to worry about shooting Hero. She fired more shots into the hero’s legs and kicked her aside as she rushed to Henchman’s side.

“She’s going to regenerate.” Villain muttered, slicing the ropes around Henchman.

“You came for me?” Henchman asked.

“Don’t think it’s for your sake.” She retorted.

It was.

It was for Henchman’s sake, and that terrified Villain.

[dragonbma]

I feel bad for waiting so long to add to these scriptscratches again so I’m just going to infodump on all four topics right now: (Vos Possession AU additions)

Moving into the Emporium:

During episodes one & two: Vos isn’t in control of himself when he enters Beacontown for the first time after returning from the Sea Temple. Romeo is ecstatic to explore this new location through Vos’ eyes, but doesn’t talk to too many residents. Instead, knowing that the Colossus is on its way, ‘Vos’ opts to take a nap in the emporium since Jack offered him a room. Vos doesn’t argue with Romeo on this one because it’s been a decade since he’s had a good rest and promptly passes out on the floor before Jack can bring him a sleeping bag. (Also, although Vos can hear Romeo’s thoughts too, he has no idea the Colossus is approaching.) Romeo splits from Vos to focus all his energy into being the Colossus. Later after a part of the shop gets wrecked, Vos wakes up in a panic and realizes he is in control of himself. Rushing out of the emporium mid-fight, he sees Jesse, Petra, Lukas, and Jack fighting the Colossus. Romeo is has to re-possess him before he can make it to Jack so he doesn’t ruin anything.

Post- episode five: Vos lives in the attic of the emporium and he and Jack have friendship lanterns. They like to activate the lanterns at the randomest points at night to wake the other one up. (more on that below)

Romeo’s Reparations:

Unlike in game where Petra argues to leave Romeo in the Terminal Zone, she instead is the more sympathetic one. Jack in turn wants to leave him there, abandoning Romeo as Romeo once abandoned so many. He didn’t get to see the cabin or the journal that Jesse and Petra found; all he knows is Romeo’s crimes against the previous admins, the people of the Underneath, and especially his friends. Because of this, Petra has to convince Jack to give him a second chance when they all return to Beacontown. Vos has mixed feelings. He wants to forgive Romeo, but is pretty wary after everything he went through so he opts to avoid the ex-admin whenever possible. (He sometimes freezes up in panic when Romeo is around.)

Jack asks Romeo about what became of the Sea Temple, but Romeo assures him that with his admin powers removed, the temple would be dormant and the entities within/around would vanish. Jack doesn’t seem convinced so Romeo offers to go himself to check. His theory was correct. The temple is essentially dead save for one peculiar oddity…

When Romeo returns from the temple, he has a gift: two linked sea lanterns. They remain dim until one is touched and both light up. (Like how friendship lanterns work.) “How is that even possible?” “Not sure really… I found them in the rubble. I figured I’d bring one back in case you wanted it, but when I picked it up, the other one lit up too. My guess is they must still be linked from being a part of the puzzle door.” (Since the door would only open if mirrored, each block got enchanted with its mirrored block to recognize the other. Does this make sense? Idk.) Jack finds this sufficient to mostly forgive Romeo and gives him props for working to make amends. ^ This scene is also fun because Jack had the initial conversation with Romeo without Vos’ knowledge as not to make his friend anxious. So when Romeo knocks on the emporium doors to deliver the lanterns, Vos accidentally opens the door and just stares for a minute before asking Nurm to get Jack. Jack of course explains the whole thing and Vos ends up forgiving Romeo, even giving him a hug.

Romeo patches a few things up in Beacontown before heading to the Underneath to try and make amends with Xara. (The people of the Underneath now live on the surface, but Xara stayed behind.)

Character Interactions:

Vos is socially anxious after having no one but himself to talk to for a decade. (During the first trip to Beacontown, Romeo hides this very well with his eager demeanor. Vos is honestly somewhat relieved to not be the one conversating.) Jack is quick to notice this and does his best to help his friend meet the residents of Beacontown. The people of Bad Luck Alley would probably find Vos interesting since he was an old friend of Jack.

Ivor is the first resident Jack introduces Vos to. After the events of season two, Jack is eager to show Vos around town and jumps at the chance to have his friend meet his idol. (Especially since Ivor settles back down in Beacontown after being a ninja.) The two are quick friends and Ivor is happy there is another alchemist in town. He also gets to explain to Vos what the Witherstorm was so that’s fun. Can’t imagine how that conversation would go. Turns out the two actually have a lot in common. (Plus, they both look old enough to remember Nether reactor cores /j)

For some reason, I feel like Nell tends to notice new arrivals in Beacontown and helps to assure them that the place is a chill area. She probably confides in Vos that she felt overwhelmed when first moving to Beacontown too, and offers to show him around. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?” The two likely have an interesting conversation after everything is over with and repairs are being made to the town.

What if Radar mentions how Jesse helped with Stampy and Stacy’s dessert booth and ‘Vos’ perks up? After eating nothing but pork chops for years, he is eager to have anything else so Jack buys him a whole cake which he attempts to eat in one sitting. /j unless…

Lluna! I already had a whole post dedicated to her so here’s that! Still haven’t decided what the adventure would be though…

New Adventures:

With his old friend back in his life, Jack is once again inspired to go adventuring again. He and Nurm usually just went exploring to map new locations and it’s been a while since he went on a real adventure. Petra still wants to take a break from Beacontown and find her life on the road so they head off together. Jack is eager to share some of his favorite locations. Jack asks Vos and Nurm to join to which Vos happily joins and Nurm instead stays behind to tend to the shop and Archie. (They return after a week or two for reasons to be added.)

Possible adventuring locations during their trip: swamp (I have a fun idea in mind with this one), woodland mansion, maybe a place Petra mentions from the displays in the emporium-

I can’t wait for them to find a pillager outpost. Jack and Petra go to take out the guards while Vos snoops around… and stumbles upon an allay locked up nearby. Seeing himself in the new mob, he frees it from the cage immediately. Not realizing how they work, he gives it a torch and just assumes it’s following him because he saved it. Vos names the allay “Callou” because obvious pun. Now whenever the trio hear about outposts, they make it a game to disrupt them. Jack and Petra take turns baiting the guards (like walking up and striking up conversations or just outright teasing the pillagers) while the other hides nearby to take them out. Vos checks for any allays or golems nearby and rescues them.

Lush cave. Lush cave. Lush cave. What more do I have to say?

(If you all have any Qs or just want me to elaborate on anything, feel free to ask!)

[nirikeehan]

happy friday! :D from the poem prompts, "Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars for you? That I would take you there?" for a pairing of your choice :3c

Whoops this one has been sitting awhile. But then I was missing Kingdom Come, my post-Trespasser AU where Thalia and Thom Rainier reunite, and wrote this. Everyone loves a sexy bathing scene, right!??!? I surely wouldn't ruin it with angst, would I?!?!?!?

For @dadrunkwriting

WC: 1525

CW: Mildly spicy ruminating, references to major character death

---

Thalia lowers herself into the tub on sore legs, letting the warm water take her. She lies, suspended, trying not to think: not of last night. Not of Thom’s easy smile when he saw her just now, dawdling in the doorway to the kitchen. Not of the kiss upon her brow, the joy beaming in his eyes. 

If he regrets what transpired, he certainly does not show it. 

He’s making breakfast for you, for Maker’s sake. 

Thalia sinks further down in the tub, trying to outrun her own shame. Is Thom right, and there was nothing to fear? If so, why does she still feel like she committed some terrible misdeed, from which there is no return? 

He said they don’t have to tell anyone, but Thalia thinks this is shortsighted. If she remains waylaid in Markham, staying at his house, someone eventually is going to make inquiries. Josephine, for one. Thalia is due in Antiva at the end of the month. 

It’s not like you have to stay, her mind reminds her. That is true. They have not defined this, whatever it is. Thom Rainier is not of the sort to expect to wed a lady just because he’s bedded her. Thalia bites her lip, the memories of his touch leaking back in. The way his sculpted chest looked and felt beneath her; the utter abandon with which she rode him, as if the world might end before they did. It felt safe and right, in the moment. 

It’s the thoughts and feelings that have come after that make her doubt. 

Under the water, her thighs tremble. She can entertain no illusions. If she stays, for whatever length of time, there is no doubt what their main activity will be. That river has already been crossed. There are too many years of pent up desire between them to consider this a one-time indiscretion. 

There is a knock at the door, and Thalia startles so badly she sends a tidal wave of water over the side of the tub. “Yes?”

“Can I come in?” 

Thalia panics, slides her good arm across her chest for modesty, then realizes how utterly pointless that is. She debates asking what he wants. “I… yes, of course.”

The door opens; Thom enters. Sleeves rolled to his elbows, the hair at his temples pulled back and fastened. She tries not to look at him too long, lest the lust pool in her anew. 

“Breakfast should be up shortly. Do you need help?” As if this is the most natural thing in the world. As if they’ve been playing house for years. 

“I manage all right,” Thalia snaps, more harshly than she intended. 

“Of that I am certain.” He sounds amused. “But why do a thing when you don’t need to?” 

Thalia chews her lip, realizing this has less to do with her infirmity than his sense of chivalry. She ducks her chin below the edge of the tub, gripping the rim as she stares up at him. He’s grinning under his beard. He thinks she’s being coy. Maybe she is. 

“What is it you’d like to do?” Thalia asks, keeping her tone playful.

“Wash your hair, maybe?” Thom’s voice is just as light. 

She lets out a slow breath. All the nights Cullen offered the same come back to her, when her hair was long and unruly and unable to be tamed with one hand. All the times she refused him, insisting he needn’t bother, until the day he found her with the scissors, the carnage of her red hair staining every inch of the floor. The way he reached out ever so gently to take the shears from her, the fear for her written so plainly on his face. 

Thalia squeezes her eyes shut. Is it any wonder what happened, after what I drove him to? 

“If you wish,” she says faintly. 

She dips her head under water and sits up, hugging her chest against the cool air. Thom kneels behind her and threads fingers through her hair. His hands are deft and nimble. She’s always known that, since the moment she spied his first woodworking project in the barn at Skyhold. He puts some perfumed soap on her scalp and works it in, so gently she feels herself relaxing against her will, leaning into his touch.

“My hair is longer than yours now,” Thom teases lightly. 

Thalia hiccups a giggle. “So it is.” 

“Why did you cut it? It was always so beautiful.” 

Her stomach twists with a strange mixture of desire and regret. Cullen feels close, hugging her as she sobbed against his chest amid the remnants of a life’s worth of uncut hair.

“I didn’t want to have to take care of it anymore,” Thalia whispers.

“I’d take care of it for you,” Thom says, planting a kiss on her wet shoulder. She shivers at the tickle of lips and scratch of beard. 

“Are you sure? When it was long, there was a lot of it. A veritable horde of hair. Impossible to control or domesticate.”

“I’m sure I’d be up for the challenge.” Thom’s voice is low and husky in her ear, and the room no longer feels so cold. 

Thalia pulls away from him, ducking under water. She feels the soap dissipate from her hair and surfaces with bubbles filming the surface of the water. She leans over the tub again, so that she can look him in the eye. Droplets trickle down her cheeks and nose. 

“What exactly is it you’re proposing, Thom Rainier?” she demands. “It isn’t only about hair.” Besides, hair wouldn’t grow that long in a few weeks, or even a year. Two years, or five. Her heart is thudding. 

Thom holds up his large hands, dripping in surrender. “Nothing. I’m just making conversation.”

 Thalia raises her eyebrows so high he begins to chuckle. 

“Don’t pout, love.” He leans down and kisses her forehead. He takes her under the chin and angles her face to gaze into his. “But is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars for you? That I would take you there?” 

She feels her resolve weakening against his inimitable charm. “And how long will that take?” 

Thom lets out a hearty laugh. “As long as we want it to.” 

He really sees no problem with this. “And what is Josephine supposed to do, with one missing from her bridal party, as we’re off exploring the heavens?” 

Thom lets out an exaggerated sigh, as if entertaining the anxieties of a child. “Right. That. So, is it illegal to return to Markham, once you leave it?”

Thalia opens her mouth, but a retort evades her, so she shuts it again. It occurs to her that if she were to leave, she might be too frightened to return. “Does that mean you’re inviting me back?” 

“Of course I am! I am at your disposal, forever and always. In whatever capacity you desire.” He bows his head in reverence, though his grey eyes burn to behold hers. “I should have thought that was obvious.”

Thalia swallows hard. That’s an incredible amount of power he’s bestowed upon her, yet she feels like the helpless one. What she really wants, she realizes, is to feel him inside her again, to perfect the steps to the carnal dance they tried out the night before. Once was far too fleeting to have satisfied her. The end of the month feels so far away. She licks her lips.

“Or,” Thom continues, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, “if you truly cannot bear being away from me for such a long time, you could always bring me along.”

Thalia barks out a laugh. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” 

“Cause a scandal, would it?” He looks almost eager at the prospect. 

“At the least.” Thalia does not remember whether Antiva has a standing extradition treaty with Orlais, where he is technically still wanted for hanging. Besides that, many of the elite echelons that made up Josephine’s social circle might not have even heard that the Inquisitor’s husband is deceased. “I’ll think about it.” 

Thom chuckles. “Please do.” He stands, dusts off his hands. “I ought to go make sure breakfast hasn’t gone cold. I’ll let you finish up.” He retreats to the door, lingers in the threshold. “Thalia?” 

“Yes?” She looks up, absently, from the piece of soap she’d picked up to scrub her arm. 

“I do mean what I said. I don’t want us to… fret, about what’s unfolding between us. I just want you to try it out, see if it’s something you’d like.” 

Thalia swallows against a sudden lump in her throat. “What? Staying here longer than…?” 

“If it would please you.” He’s trying so hard to be nonchalant, she realizes, but his knuckles have blanched as he grips the knob. 

Her heart pounds. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.” 

“Right. Exactly.” 

Thom closes the door. She sinks under the cooling water, and the world goes hazy. To get what she wants, after so long. Thalia isn’t sure if she’s filled with ecstasy or dread.

[bugboi-connor]

Moss City

Also posted to my AO3 under the same user.

Just over the bridge, the canyon dropped down into a valley nobody could prepare for. To scale down the wall into the fog below, such a feat had never been done. At least, not in a long time. This place, much like many others in the abandoned forest, were subject to decades of empty, aching silence. The life of people was no longer contained to the village of the valley, known in the past as Castellum Convalis - the city of serenity. Since time was passed over the ruins, what remained was almost impossible to foretell.

The bridge gently swayed, delicately frayed ropes dangling from thousands of feet above the fog that encased the town below. It looked ghostly; almost made of the fog it so desperately hung above. For someone to fall from such a height, there would be no return to above without help. But there would be no help to come in an empty city. None from a place long left to rot and succumb to overgrowth. How this place was left in ruins in the first place, there was no answer.

The natural overgrowth stretched down the valley walls, deep into the canyon below. It was silent; peaceful. Vines clung to the canyon walls, barely touching the grass below. Said grass was littered with pieces of fallen buildings, ruins stretching for miles on end. Moss and vines hugged the ruined walls, like tight-fitting clothing that would crumble the city in seconds. Everything from the castle to the townhouses was covered in a thick moss blanket.

Setting foot on the untouched grass to enter the remains of Castellum Convalis, the grass is long enough to catch hold of someone unfortunate to fall into it. The chill of fog clings to everything around, like a blanket. It's most notable on the stones that still remain untouched by both humans, and the flora of the forest. Like a layer of ice covers the surface of the stepping stones, skipping over the river shatters the surface of the still waters, a sharp crack with each step deeper into the abandoned village. It would be suspected that the floors of stone houses would replicate the same sound, but shatter at the presence of an intruder.

The first house to encounter when dropping into the valley is that of just one person. There’s only one bed, with sheets eaten away by the moths that hide between the bricks. Vines dangle from the roofless room and reach desperately for the floor. The leaves strewn across the floor crumble at the tremble of the wind. Some of the leaves stick to the wall, held up by tree sap from a grand oak that the whole house leans on.

This place, left untouched, was a tragedy. But in truth, it was a blessing. The valley was returning to its natural state; a place of plant life. And it would stay this way for millennia.

[dramamelon]

Constructicon Week is here! @constructiconweek

I'll be posting them here as well as reblogging with an AO3 link because they're all short pieces. :)

What Once Was

Day 6: Mixmaster | Welding Rating: T Tags: Minimal Editing, Canon Blender of IDW1 & IDW2, Snippets of Larger Story, Abandoned & Destroyed City, Haunted Houses, Whump, Blood and Injury, updated as necessary Fic Summary: In a moment of peace that was either the End of the War or a Temporary Truce (no one was quite sure where they stood yet), the Constructicons claimed the shattered remains of Crystal City as their own. So far, no one else had raised a fuss, leaving them free to rebuild as they wished. Chapter Summary: When things got ignored, someone was going to bear the brunt when it escalated. Poor Mixmaster had never even noticed anything unusual. Note: Tags have been updated!

He was sure it hadn't been his fault. There was no way Mixmaster tripped over his own pedes and fell down a flight of sharp-edged stairs to land at the bottom, dented everywhere, cracked open in several places, and laying in a growing pool of energon. A large spike of a shattered support truss hit on the way down left him with a large puncture in one side, the source of most of his vital fluid loss. An attempt to cycle the irises of his optics resulted in a disturbing grinding sound that had Mixmaster pausing the attempt mere moments after beginning. Instead, he slowly blinked his optical shutters, holding them closed long enough to let the flowing stream of cleansing fluid give the cracked lenses a good wash. Hook would appreciate him doing at least that much.

This was very not good.

His armor creaked as he tried to roll into a position he could more easily stand from, pain flaring from the wounds stressed by the action. He pushed a bit harder, hoping he might be able to get himself to help under his own power, but it quickly became apparent that wasn't going to happen. Giving up with a sigh, Mixmaster eased his frame back down against the ground and opened the team bond. The likelihood of the others laughing at his predicament was incredibly high, simply because all of them were Like That, but he knew they'd come around to help him before he completely bled out.

::If there's a chance someone's not busy right now, I would appreciate if I could get a little help?::

As the bond crackled with a swirl of curiosity, annoyance, and long-suffering knowing, Mixmaster could only cringe and hope he hadn't misjudged them. Really, of all the ways to go, deactivating in a broken heap at the bottom of a grand staircase in a ruined city had never crossed his mind. And oh, how very big the puddle of his living energon was becoming, stretching across at least half the length of the lobby. He touched his flagging consciousness against the bond again. With luck, he didn't sound like too much of a loser as he added a little extra plea to his request.

::Please?::

It all turned into a bit of a blur after that point. He didn't feel quite so bad about it, though, when what little his optics could decipher through the static haze was familiar green and purple. Might have been nice to be able to hear whatever Bones was saying, but Mixmaster knew one couldn't have everything.

He felt the rumble of the rest of his team as they rushed into the lobby of the medical facility they were searching, felt the heady and worried crush of their erupting EM fields. Maybe a snicker slipped from his intake when one of them slipped in the slick spill of his energon on the old and cracked tiles of the floor. He couldn't have said who it was. Or if it actually happened.

Then, hands were on him, pulling and shoving him onto his back—or as well as could be obtained with his barrel in the way. Whatever sound might have escaped him, Mixmaster kind of found himself grateful he was blissfully unaware of it over the raging agony that swept over his frame from the top of his helm to the tips of his pedes. When the severed lines were tied off he wept. When a piece of scrap metal was slapped against the gaping hole in his side and the heat of Hook's torch touched the edge, welding the panel to his torn plating, Mixmaster remembered no more.

[incense-burner-ideas]

I've seen so many posts and fanfics and fanarts of Wei Ying growing horny and desperate whenever LWJ is away because he's so used to having sex every day and going without is awful and terrible

And that's great, 10/10, I get it and endorse it

But

Consider this same concept, but with LWJ

WWX is gone on a nighthunt with the juniors as a supervisor, and it's something of a total of a week away. LWJ is happy about it, he is - the young ones have a lot to learn from WWX, and the fact that the elders allowed him to go instead of someone else is a good sign of them accepting his husband in the sect fully.

Except... it's lonely. In more ways than one. LWJ is so used to WWX being around him, by his side, that seeing empty space when he turns his head to tell WWX something or finding nobody waiting in the jingshi at night is unnerving. It reminds him of his 13 years of grief and longing and the quiet acceptance that he was always going to be alone.

It's a bit ridiculous, he knows. WWX will be back soon, of course, and his absence is only temporary because the juniors need a chaperone.

That doesn't make LWJ miss WWX any less, though.

Not only are daily chores and meals so very lonely, the bed is too. LWJ finds himself reaching for his husband to hold to sleep, but there are only pillows and blankets and the faint scent of the new soap WWX has taken to using, with notes of lavender and jasmine.

LWJ misses him so much it's pathetic. He misses WWX tinkering about in the jingshi before bedtime, misses the mess of talisman papers and hapazardly thrown books onto the floor alongside half empty jars of wine, misses the mischevious look in WWX's eyes when he abandons his work at last, saying "it's almost nine, isn't it?"

Oh and does LWJ miss hearing that and what comes after it, how WWX crawls over to him like a panther to its prey, his robes practically falling open to reveal his toned chest and the fading bitemarks of the night before, his hair a dark waterfall over his back and shoulders because he'd already undone his red ribbon.

And how soft his lips are when they kiss, warm and plush and tasting of wine and desire and the promise of yet another carnal, sinful, fulfilling night... how his hands work so expertly to open LWJ's own robes and seek skin and touch so reverently but so desperately, like it's the first and last time altogether.

LWJ swallows hard, tosses and turns in his lonely bed, eyelids full of images of the nights of passion that have played out on that mattress, the moans and the begs and the mindless dirty talk and nonsensical promises WWX always seems to make when he grows impossibly close to his release.

How his hands grip at LWJ's shoulders hard enough to leave nail indents in the skin, how his eyes look so glassy and far away and full of love as LWJ tells him to "look at me. Don't look away." and he does, mouth falling open around his name and his insides clenching in appreciation.

How hot WWX's skin feels, hot and sweaty and smooth and perfect, oh LWJ is dying to touch it, touch him everywhere and kiss him and bite him and etch his mark into his husband's skin forever.

God, when WWX comes back LWJ will keep him in bed for three days straight. He'll tie WWX up in all sorts of ways so he can't leave and then he'll absolutely fucking ruin him.

LWJ finds himself impatient, mindlessly tears at his robes to reach the offending bodily need that has him so desperate and near hyperventilation - and he's already hard and ready and it's so unfair WWX isn't there to comment on it, to kiss and lick at the head of his cock and tease until LWJ is a mess of precum and half-breaths.

LWJ suddenly feels like a teenager again, hormonal and uncontrolled, getting off to his imaginary trysts with WWX who, at the time, did nothing but rail LWJ up into an angry, horny mess.

He's still doing that, though the anger is now at the fact that WWX is away and he shouldn't be, fuck, he should be riding LWJ instead, whining at the size and how difficult it is to take all of it while looking over his shoulder with a lustful expression at LWJ who's gripping his hips to bruises.

LWJ moans in the silence of the jingshi, half in reality and half in his fantasy, desperately rubbing at himself to the rhythm of his imagination. When WWX comes back they'll do all that and more until they're both spent and immobile and LWJ will never let him leave like that again because it's torture.

How could he leave like that, after LWJ has gotten so used to his touches and his body and how intoxicating it can be to give into lust and fuck, how good it feels to have the person he loves at his mercy. Begging, pleading, crying, gripping at the bedsheets hard enough to tear them apart, back bowed to its tallest arch and screaming harder, faster, fuck, ah-

It's a few minutes later LWJ he returns to his body and realizes he needs to do a late night laundry change.

And to go buy rope the next day.

[levi-4uckerman]

Trial and Error (read full version on AO3!)

Eren Jaegar x Reader NSFW.

Setting: Modern/college AU w/ post-time skip Eren. Reader is a virgin, having just disclosed this secret to her best friend, Eren, after a heated exchange following weeks of sexual tension. NSFW.

Tags/TW (for preview): virginity trope (ik some of y'all don't care for it), childhood friends to lovers, vaginal fingering, unprotected sex, oral sex, explicit depictions of sex, teasing, Eren Jaegar's big fat dick (gotta be canon), awkwardness (r/t reader's first time)

Crosspost from AO3, where you can read Chapter One as well!

To be honest, he thought you were joking. A smirk played at the corner of his lips, furrowed brows turned upward as he cocked his head and said, “You’re kidding.”

You frowned. “Why would I joke about that?”

“Well, what about Armin?”

“What about Armin?” You laughed, sitting back on Eren’s knees.

You noticed a slight hue of red on his cheeks. “Well, you dated, right? He told me–,”

“Oh, I’m gonna kill that blonde creep,” you grumbled. “We didn’t do anything. We kissed, like twice maybe but it was awkward as hell.”

“Is this awkward?”

It wasn’t. You recalled that shaky, nervous kiss that you’d shared with Armin when you were 15, and this was nothing like that. You didn’t know if it was because of your feelings for Eren or if maybe you had just gotten more mature, but for some reason, this wasn’t like that at all. Biting your lip, you shook your head.

Eren groaned. “Don’t bite your lip like that, fuck. I’m trying to back off.”

“Who said you had to back off?”

“Y/N… you’ve never had sex, at all? Ever?” He asked, a frown tilting his lips.

You shook your head again. “I was… preoccupied in high school, alright? When you and Armin were busy running around trying to get your dicks wet.”

Preoccupied with chasing after you, Eren Jaeger.

“Successfully getting our dicks wet,” He added, with a slight wiggle of his hips underneath you. You rolled your eyes before sliding from his lap onto the couch beside him, still close enough to kiss him if you really wanted to.

“No,” you admitted, looking away as a warmth crept upon your features. “I’ve never… I guess I was just waiting for someone special. And then I turned 20 and that ‘someone’ still hadn’t come along.”

You watched Eren sit back, staring at you in quiet contemplation. Your lips still tingled with the ghost of his touch, your core uncharacteristically warm from the heated exchange. You breathed, leaning in to plant a gentle kiss on his cheek before standing up. He watched as you knelt down and started picking up the flashcards that he’d spilt on the floor in his eagerness to have you on his face.

“I’m sorry, Eren,” you said as you gathered them up into a neat stack. “I don’t want to ruin our friendship over this. I didn’t want to ruin it over the picture of my boobs. I just… I guess I can’t get over this hope that someday things will be different. Someday, you’ll change your bachelor status,” you said with a halfhearted laugh. The softness of your voice struck Eren so harshly that he flinched.

“I’ve done a lot of things,” he said with a sigh, picking up the index cards that were still on the couch and handing them to you. “I’ve never taken someone’s virginity, though.”

You looked at him, surprised. “Really? Surely, you just never thought to ask.”

He shrugged, slightly disappointed that you thought he could be so callous. “No. I mean, I never straight-up ask about it, but I..,” He trailed off, not wanting to shoot himself in the foot with his words. “It always felt like a sacred thing to me. I mean it’s hot, sure, but it’s a line that I don’t want to cross with someone unless I know they’re not gonna regret it.”

“Regret having sex with you?”

He snorted. “Regret wasting their first time on me.”

You tilted your head at the gloom in his voice and set the now-neatly-stacked pile of index cards down on the end table, next to the long since abandoned textbook– still stuck on the chapter about associative learning. You sat back down on the couch. “Why would that be a waste? I don’t know if you’ve looked in a mirror lately, Eren, but the puberty and track team in high school were very kind to you.”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s not about what they look like, alright? It’s about who they are.”

“For a self-proclaimed footloose manwhore, you sure do sound pretty sappy about sex right now.”

He locked his eyes with yours, a flash of emotion you didn’t have enough time to decipher crossing them. “I don’t even remember the name of the chick I lost my virginity to. I was at some stupid high school party, drunk and drinking underage, and stumbled into the bedroom with some girl from another school. She probably doesn’t even remember that it happened. Sometimes I wish I didn't.”

You wanted to comfort him, but you weren’t sure how. You meekly nodded your head and accepted his answer with a small sigh. You picked up your notes and handed them to him. “Here,” you said while holding them out to him, “you can take these home to study for the test tomorrow. I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay the night here just because I asked.”

Eren gazed up at you with a frown. Your eyes averted as he grasped the papers and took them from you. He stood up and grabbed his jacket. You felt a lump forming in your throat as if you had lost something, but you knew that truthfully, he was never yours in the first place.

Right at the time you knew you should be hearing the front door slam shut behind him, you see his sneakers wander into your periphery. You spare him a look, frowning when you notice his jacket still on the table. “Didn’t you mean to grab that?”

“Shut up,” he grumbled, taking your face in his hands and pulling your lips back onto his, sending chills tumbling down your spine. Though surprised, you were grateful, and followed his lead with little hesitation. Your fingers curled in his hair that was now falling out of place, and your tongue tangled with his, soft whimpers falling from both of you.

He broke the kiss suddenly, flashing you the thing he had been fumbling with his jacket for. Your breath hitched in your throat at the sight of the square, baby blue foil package. You blushed as you realized you had never seen a condom in the flesh before.

Eren looked at you with reverence in his jade orbs, an arm now hooked around your waist. “If I’m doing this, I’m going to make sure it’s done right.”

All you could do was stutter out a nervous, shaky, “Oh… well, alright then.”

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

It wasn’t like the depictions you were so used to in the movies, or in your head, for that matter. You weren’t a mess of lips, hands, and teeth stumbling up the stairs to your bedroom. You weren’t shivering in anticipation. You simply took Eren’s hand in yours and traipsed upwards, the only indication that he was behind you being the weight difference when your pace was slightly quicker than his as you ascended. You held his hand tightly, idly picturing the way you used to do so when you were kids, running and playing together like the carefree children that you were. Your cheeks reddened at the memory, biting back a chuckle so as not to disturb the atmosphere of such a tender moment.

When you reached the door, there was no heated kiss against it. There was no pushing or shoving, and though you may have been a little disappointed in the stark contrast between what was actually happening and what you had expected to happen, you were basking in the warmth of Eren’s touch as he cupped your cheek and placed a gentle kiss on the corner of your mouth as he reached for the doorknob on your behalf.

Your dorm room was similar enough to your childhood bedroom that Eren recalled being in only a handful of times. You had the same comforter and sheet set that you used in 10th grade. You had the same anime scrolls on your walls. You had the same salt lamp on the tiny desk, crammed tightly into the corner of the room. He watched as you walked over to it, turning it on. His eyes fell to the Christmas lights that scaled the walls, following the dark green cord to its power strip that lay on the floor at his feet. How inviting. He stepped on the switch and flipped off the overhead light, watching as the room traded its harsh fluorescence for a warm, inviting glow. You turned to him, looking so beautiful, he felt his heart jump in his chest. He had never felt nervous before sex before. It wasn’t the spontaneity, either; he’d ended a number of dates having impromptu quickies in the backseat of his sedan.

So why did he feel his ears getting hot at the sight of you shyly peeling off your sweater to reveal the skin tight tank top underneath?

You were no better; you watched him stand there, the dull glow of the lights masking any emotion on his face as you kicked off your shoes. He was looking at you, but you couldn’t make out if his gaze was expectant or patient; was he waiting on you to do something? Was he simply digesting the moment? You had no idea. “So, uh… where do you want me?”

Eren shook himself from his trance, doing his best to blink away the sudden nerves that enveloped him. He tucked his flyaways behind his ears, removing his shoes as well before closing the distance between the two of you. He placed his hands gingerly on your waist and kissed you softly. While you were occupied with the motion he laid before you, he set the condom down on the nightstand. No rush, baby, he thought inwardly. All the time in the world.

You closed your eyes, trying your best to swallow the tension and let yourself get lost in the kiss. His hands were large and warm against your waist, and when his pinky lifted the hem of your tank top and brushed your skin, you couldn’t help but gasp as you felt the goosebumps rise to the surface of your skin. He broke the kiss to give you one thoughtful stare before saying, “I’m going to take this slow. You have every opportunity to tell me to stop if you need to catch your breath.”

He watched you nod, your eagerness and anxiety both plain across your flushed face. He guided you by your hips onto the bed, freshly made and smelling of your perfume. He couldn’t help but wonder if that was on purpose. He let you get comfy, lying back supine, supporting yourself on your elbows. He saw your eyes glitter with wonder and excitement as he took this opportunity to remove his shirt, the soft lighting of the room gleaming across the planes of his well-defined chest and abdomen. The corners of his mouth twitched upward into a smirk when he saw the way you bit your lip, your eyes devouring the sight of him standing there, shirtless in your bedroom. He climbed over your figure, appreciating the way your eyes followed his every move. He’d never been this intimate with a woman before; he’s had sex, lots of it, but nothing like this. And never with anyone like you.

You were nervous, too. He was close enough to you that you could feel the warmth radiating from his bare chest, his arms caging you in on either side. Staring into his deep green eyes, though, you felt safe. This was Eren. Within your heart, you knew that if anyone could take care of you, it would be him. You allowed him to pull your legs upwards and around him, both of you still clothed from the waist down. He leaned in for another kiss, passionate as ever, except this time, he craved some friction between your legs. You complied, sighing at the feeling of his hardness pressing into your core. Even through your layers, you were sensitive. You brought your hands up to tangle within his hair as he kissed you, deeply and sensually, increasing in hunger as his hips grinded into yours fervently. Despite the heat of the motion, you knew this was patience for him. You knew, inherently, that this was Eren taking his time with you. Every nip to your bottom lip was experimental in its pace, but not its practice; he knew what he was doing, but had never gotten an opportunity to take his time with it.

And your intuition was correct. Eren had never gotten an opportunity to explore the ardency of sex. It was about carnal desire, the pleasure of coming and going- literally. With you, he had a chance to explore the beauty of your curves, appreciate every single whine and whimper that escaped your mouth. When he moved his kisses from your lips to your jawline, and then down to your neck, he got a front row seat to the way your body shook beneath him. He kissed you slowly there, humming low in his throat as he inhaled the sweetness of your perfume. He felt your hands gain courage as you lowered your body to the mattress; he resisted shuddering as you ran your dainty fingers along the flanks of his back, coming to rest on his shoulder blades as his kisses deepened along your neck. He hungered for friction, doing his best to grind against your center as he sank his teeth into your neck lightly, but hard enough to coax a pretty little gasp from your gaping mouth. This girl is going to kill me.

You closed your eyes on instinct, biting your lip as he worked his magic. The way his lips attacked your neck made you moan on instinct, the crescents of your nails no doubt leaving little imprints on his back. You felt a groan vibrate against your jugular, noticing the impossible hardness pressing into your core. Panting, you called for him. “Eren,” you breathed, feeling hot behind the ears when your hungry eyes met his. Before waiting for his response, you grabbed the hem of your tank top and pulled it over your head. Eren simply watched, transfixed by your movement and bravery. Your eyes fell to his sweats, the way his arousal strained against the fabric had you biting your lip again. “Is that comfortable?” You asked, your blush searing against your cheeks.

“No,” He said, truthfully. He fell into the space between you and the wall on your bed, opting instead to lean into a kiss from the side. You started to turn to face him, but he placed a firm-but-gentle hand against your chest, urging you to lie back down. “Let me know if I’m moving too fast.”

You gulped as his hand moved farther south. Your eyes didn’t leave his; he was gauging your reaction, and as he reached the waist of your leggings, he stopped and raised his eyebrows as if to ask for permission. You nodded.

You took a sharp breath in as he slipped his fingers into your underwear, seeking out the bundle of nerves at the top of your entrance. Your eyes widened at the foreign sensation, registering it as unfamiliar but not at all unpleasant. His index and middle finger traced tantalizing circles over your clit, eliciting breathy moans to slip from your lips alongside a string of expletives that Eren was sure he’d never heard you say before. Looking into those emerald eyes you’d known your whole life, you felt a different emotion bubbling beneath the surface; alongside the pleasure, you were losing yourself in a serenity that you had never expected to find within your friendship.

The way your lips were parted, wet with his spit and red from your teeth, softly murmuring his name… it was driving Eren mad. With his fingers still at work, he leaned in for another deep, gratifying kiss that intensified the building sensation at your core. You were moaning now, against his lips, begging instinctually; you didn’t know what for.

Eren’s pace was quickening despite his vow to take it slow. He couldn’t help it. He just loved the blush on your cheeks, he loved the way you tried your hardest to keep your eyes open- eventually, the ecstasy getting the better of you every time, causing you to throw your head back and lose yourself. You were so reactive to every single thing he did. Every time he slowed his pace or released his pressure, you’d grab his wrist and whimper so beautifully pathetic, he couldn’t help but oblige. He could do this for hours, he thought with an inward smirk.

“Have you ever fingered yourself?” He asked you in a hushed voice, the dirtiness of his words juxtaposing his gentle tone.

You couldn’t look at him, despite the intense eye contact the two of you had held for so long before this moment. You simply nodded, your cheeks pink and your eyes avoiding his.

He smirked, his fingers inching farther south. “Dirty girl.” He placed a gentle kiss to the corner of your mouth before teasing you with his index finger. He groaned at the wetness. “Goddamn, baby, you are soaked .”

All you could do was whimper, your own fingers wrapped limply around his wrist as he continued to entice you. “Take them off,” you muttered, knowing you’d likely lose control of yourself soon.

“Hmm?” Eren hummed, testing the waters by planting his digit a single knuckle deep inside of you. You instinctively clenched around him, whining as you did so.

“Take them off. Take my pants off,” you repeated, your voice shaking.

“Oh, yes ma’am,” he said, withdrawing his hand to yank the fabric free from your legs along with your underwear, tossing them onto the floor without a care. He exhaled sharply at the sight of you, exposed and dripping for him. He grew impossibly harder at the thought of being the very first man to see you like this. Without conscious thought, his mouth started to water.

You saw the hungry look in his eyes as he stared down at your wet center and knew what he wanted. It was something you’d only ever seen in porn before now, and you had never understood the appeal. But now, caught in the carnivorous gaze of the man you had pined after for so long, you understood. He wanted to devour you, and you were eager to please. Your bottom lip was sore as a consequence of constantly sucking it into your mouth and biting down to savor the heat of the moment– but the pain be damned, you did it again, and it drove Eren fucking crazy. He had you beneath him once more, growling at the back of his throat as he took your lips into his own, the pad of his thumb working at your clit as if to prepare you for his next move. He broke the embrace, a spark in his eyes that deepened your trance. “Still okay, cupcake?”

The familiarity of your childhood nickname made the moment so much sweeter; you nodded vehemently, flashing your eyes from his face to where his strong arm disappeared between your glistening bodies.

Eren wasted no time withdrawing his figures from your slick opening, bringing them to his lips in a lewd manner that had your eyes widening in anticipation. He grinned at you as he licked them clean, humming sweetly as he did so. “Like maple fucking syrup,” he groused. He gave you another opportunity to back down, but you declined, instead tangling your hands in his smooth brown hair once more, encouraging him downward. He shuddered, impressed by your ambition, and kissed your sweaty skin softly the whole way down. He wanted so bad to tease you, to kiss the insides of your thighs until you pleaded for him to move closer; he wanted to tantalize you with light nips at your creases until your dainty fingers pushed him into you… but Eren was not a patient man. He had allowed an exception for you thus far, and would do so again and again if he had to, but he knew you were aching and so was he.

He plunged into your depths face first, taking your swollen clit into his mouth greedily. Your back arched at the explosion of white-hot lust that overtook your sex-drunk brain. The heat pooling between your legs was lapped up immediately by Eren, who was reading as completely content working his magic below your waist. You spared a peek down, your eyes watering at the eroticism of the image. Your best friend, as intimate as he could possibly be with you in that moment, giving you the best (albeit the first) head of your fucking life. You moaned as you felt the intrusion of his index finger begin again, clenching your muscles against him on instinct. His hands were much larger than yours, and his fingers much longer too; one of Eren’s digits had you feeling fuller than both of yours together. The thought excited you, so much so, that one particularly harsh flutter of your walls coaxed an aroused hiss from his lips. The sound reverberated against your sex, prompting you to close your thighs against him- just tight enough to squeeze a little. He moaned again, removing his fingers from you to push against your thighs, spreading you open for his covetous tongue.

Your head fell back in blissful yearning, completely at the mercy of Eren’s lecherous advances. He drooled over you, soaking you to the point that neither you nor he knew where his slaver ended and your wetness began. One hand snarled into his brunette strands and another one clutching the sheets, you weren’t sure how much longer you could last. Your hips bucked against the friction of his tongue, soaking up every ounce of molten pleasure that he gave you. You began murmuring his name. “Eren,” you’d breathe, and he’d acknowledge you with eye contact; you’d known him long enough to guarantee he was smirking with the half of his face that you couldn’t see. “How is it, baby?” He’d ask, checking up on you. Knowing good and damn well you could barely form a sentence. “Are you ready for another?”

“Eren, please,” you begged, the tension inside of you building to a breaking point, “I can’t take another.”

He tsked, giving you another taste before replying. “I hate to break it to you, baby, but I’m a lot bigger than two fingers.”

You cursed at that, tossing your head back with a pleased groan. It was when you felt his middle finger tease at your entrance, the way it slid in so easily thanks to Eren’s prior ministrations… you felt something snap inside of you. “Oh fuck,” you whispered, nearly choking on your words as anticipation gave way to unbearable heights and you came, hard on his digits. “What the fuck,” you hissed, falling backwards helplessly into a sea of desire.

But Eren was there to catch you, lazily pumping his fingers into you as you came down from your high. He used his spare hand to rub your inner thigh affectionately, the lower half of his face no longer hidden by your aching center. He watched your expression, full of fucked-out bliss, and painted a mental picture to keep forever. He liked to think of himself as a decent lover, but no one had ever made sounds or movements like you. Your body worked against his hands in perfect tandem, sinking onto every hook he threw at you. And fuck, you were so tight. Was it because he was your first? He knew that wasn’t supposed to make much of a difference…

His thoughts were interrupted by you sitting up, pulling your lower half away from him. He rolled over onto his side, supporting his head with the palm of his hand, elbow propped up on the mattress as he watched you with the smuggest look you’ve ever seen. You knew one look at him would have you blushing, so you instead chose to focus on the full moon just barely visible from your tiny dorm room window on the wall opposite the bed. “That was…”

“Incredible,” he finished for you, his choice of words cliche but effective still. You spared him a glance, finally, giggling at the mess you had made of his hair. He’d cleaned your arousal from his face, but your actions were still evident from the sight of his sloppy man-bun having become somehow even sloppier. He shrugged with his free shoulder, tugging his hair out of its restraints. You watched his velvet locks shake away to frame his face, somehow making him even more attractive. You cursed inwardly, sensing your libido hadn’t quite been drained from you.

You didn’t realize you were biting your lip again until he was in front of you. He’d broken from his relaxed posture to poise himself over you again– only this time, the expression on his face was soft instead of hungered. He reached a thumb, just as gentle, up to tug your bottom lip free from its confines. He kissed you, his bare chest rubbing against your breasts, his bare stomach gliding against yours in a manner so intimate that it felt almost wrong. He kissed you with a tender longing that you’d only deem appropriate for lovers. Only appropriate if it meant you could do it again… and again… and–

His hands, warm but surprising, unclasped your bra in a single motion. You had honestly forgotten it was still there– but somehow, when it was flung aside and you were exposed, you felt more vulnerable than you had since the start of this interaction. Here you were, bearing your complete self to your best friend, who was consuming it vehemently, his hands immediately exploring this new territory. Whispered expletives fell from his lips as he palmed your smooth, balmy skin. Your heart quickened again, your breaths becoming shallow in your expectancy of what was to come. Oftentimes, you wondered how it was possible to keep going after the first orgasm– your sensitive walls never seemed to bounce back as quickly on solo missions –but, here, at his mercy, you were as close to understanding as you’d ever been. It felt as if round one– though technically not real sex –simply wasn’t enough. If Eren had more to offer, you wanted it all.

When he slid into the groove between your legs to dive in for another kiss, you stopped him by hooking your thumbs into the waistband of his sweats. Your babydoll eyes met his hearty stare and you felt your heart ascend into your throat when you saw the excitement wash over his features. You felt powerful. “I… I think I want more.”

Eren wasted no time in assisting your effort to doff him of his bottoms. He did, however, pause when he was left in his briefs. He watched your wide eyed trance fall onto the bulge contained within the thin fabric and he did his best to read your expression.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” he said, gently. “I won’t be upset.”

You shared one last look at him before inhaling deeply and using the last shred of your self control to free his hardened member from its chains.

“I don’t think that’s gonna fit,” you said automatically, the words leaving your mouth before you realized you had said them. Immediately after, you glanced up at Eren with a hand over your mouth. “I meant–,”

“Cupcake,” he said, kicking his pants free from his legs to settle in between yours, “I know what you meant. But I have a feeling you’ll do just fine.”

That did it. The way your nickname rolled off of his tongue sent all of your apprehension flying away into the night. You had shared so many firsts with Eren; you went to your first prom with him, he was your first boyfriend– granted, you were third graders and it lasted all of 10 minutes –he was your first friend... Was this really so different?

Yes, you reminded yourself. It’s very different.

But you didn’t care.

Eren pulled a fleece blanket over the two of you; you weren’t sure why, but for some reason, it made you feel closer to him. It was definitely warmer, so you wouldn’t have complained either way. He shared one more impassioned kiss before giving you another out. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

You nodded.

“You only get one first time.”

“I know that, Eren.”

“I just don’t want you to–,”

“Oh my god, shut up and fuck me.”

---- There's more, I promise! Read the full fic on AO3 here.----

[esamastation]

Breath of the Wild snippet

Link is bored. It's a little startling how easy it's to see – how easy he's to read these days. Where before, hundred years ago, he'd been as unreadable as a brick wall, a look of serious determination as though permanently etched to his face, now he's an open book, covers flung wide. The serious frown still makes an appearance, of course, it's his default expression, Link's face simply rests in a way that makes him seem as though he's almost scowling, but now, should an emotion cross his mind… he does nothing to hide it. 

Like now, as his attention strays and his eyes wander and every so often he smothers a sigh or a yawn or a longing look directed at the door. It's in part painfully and in part endearingly clear how little attention he's paying to their meeting, and how much he wishes he could be elsewhere.

Zelda smothers a smile and then realises she's allowed herself to be distracted, and quickly turns her attention back to the meeting taking place in Impa's house.

"... a little difficult to test," Purah is saying. She's sitting cross legged in the middle of the floor, her seat cushion abandoned and papers flung about her – most of them about her anti-aging rune. "I can't even promise the test subject will survive the process, never mind that it will work even fifty percent of the time... so finding people to volunteer has been an issue."

"What, no old folks interested in regaining their misspent youth?" Robbie asks with a slight snort, adjusting his goggles. "I'd happily test it, if my work wasn't too important to risk!"

Purah gives him a look. "Well, duh. Most folk are the same," she says and shakes her head. "And besides, the population and age statistics don't exactly trend towards the elderly these days. The average life expectancy of both Hylians and Sheikah both trend about forty years younger than it used to be pre-Calamity. And the only way for people to reliably grow old these days –"

"Is to have a family or other support network, helping them," Impa muses, rubbing at her chin. "Which means they have things too dear to lose, for an uncertain chance."

"Just so," Purah says and folds her little arms, adorable in her seriousness. "I did post queries around Hateno village, of course, but I only had a couple of takers, and they all turned tail when I explained the risks. And we can't improve the chances without further testing. And we can't do further testing without candidates. And we're not likely to get more candidates with the chances being what they are - it's a vicious circle." 

By the door, Link looks ready to nod off. 

Zelda hums, looking at the papers Purah had brought, conflicted. It's incredible work, just as a concept, and Purah hadn't just left it at theory – and the results certainly speak for themselves! Purah is now, what, hundred and twenty, hundred and thirty years old? And she looks as though she is a girl of six, with all that time ahead of her and not behind. If the technology could be made reliable, it would no doubt change the future in ways Zelda can scarcely imagine… for the better, she hopes, for all the people of Hyrule.

But right now, she has more selfish reasons to make enquiries into the rune.

Zelda looks at Impa, sitting on top of a pile of pillows, her weathered, aged face thoughtful. Their eyes meet and Zelda steels her resolve. "Might there be any potential candidates in Kakariko village, Impa?" she asks.

"Hmm. I doubt it. Young Zain, maybe?" Impa muses. "Well, he's not so young. He's in his seventies, he has bad knees and no surviving relatives to support or be supported by. Bit of a sour grape, that one, though. Sceptic. Hard to convince."

"I'm sure if the Lost Princess and the Hero who stopped Ganon ask for it, anyone would be happy to give it a go!" Robbie says, slapping his folded knees. "Especially if they learn what it's all for!"

Zelda smiles, wincing, and looks down. Using her standing for such a thing… sure she'd done things of that nature before, pleading people to join their cause, ages ago… but never with the risks so high, and potential results so uncertain. She'd never liked asking people to risk their lives, for her or otherwise. Even with a cause so important...

"It would be a somewhat awkward thing to ask, though," she muses and looks down. "It is an awkward thing to ask. I'm… I'm sorry to have to ask it of you."

After all this time, all these years, all the service they'd already put in, to ask for so much more of them… but she had to. No one woman could rebuild a kingdom by herself. She needed help, she needed allies – she needed Impa and Robbie and Purah. With such a foundation, Hyrule might yet rise, better than ever, but for that to ever happen… Impa and Robbie needed to go through what Purah already had, and extend their already prodigiously long lives even further. They all deserved their quiet retirement, after all the effort they'd put in, but for Hyrule, Zelda would make this cruel request.

"Ha!" Robbie says, striking a pose. "Like I wouldn't do this without being asked! As soon as Purah can improve the odds – no, as soon as we can improve the odds –"

"What's that, you old coot, what do you mean by we?" Purah depends, bouncing to her feet. "If you think I will let you ever into my lab, mister, you're sorely mistaken –!"

"If we work together, combine the efforts of Akkala and Hateno tech labs, we're sure to succeed! With Cherry's incredible computing power and your Stone –"

"Your creepy ancient furnace is getting nowhere near my Guidance Stone!"

Link startles awake at the noise they're making and Zelda smothers a giggle while Impa sighs.

"I will ask Paya to check in on Zain, maybe he will be interested," Impa says and shakes her head. "But it's still a small test study, with only two subjects. I'm sorry, Zelda – as much as I wish to do this, I am with Robbie on this. The chances are too low and I have too much to lose, right now. Paya is nowhere near ready to take over for me here. There needs to be more candidate's, first, and I don't know where we can get them. But," she hums and looks away. "There might be someone who does."

Link yawns and then freezes, finding all of them staring at him. Then, clearly baffled, he points at himself quizzically, and Zelda offers him a smile.

Impa chuckles. "You've been all over Hyrule now, Link – you've traveled farther than probably anyone has in a hundred years. Better than anyone, you know the state of her people. Do you think there is anyone out there who might be interested in Purah's study – in regaining their youth, even at a risk?"

Link scratches the back of his neck thoughtfully and then takes out the Sheikah Slate, opening the map with an easy, well practiced wipe of his fingers over the screen. Zelda leans in, once more amazed – and a little jealous – of how far he'd gotten with it, how full of markers the map is. Hundred years ago, she'd estimated that there might be as many as a dozen sites of ancient Sheikah technology all over Hyrule. Link had discovered over a hundred. They now glow on his map, like glittering blue gems, the Towers and Shrines he'd seen and mastered.

Link zooms in on the map and then puts down three other markers. One in Zora's domain, one in Gerudo Town and last in Lurelin Village. Turning the slate around, he shows the map to everyone.

"Of course," Zelda breathes in realisation. "The Guardians never reached so far, so their populations were never so scattered or scarred. In Zora's domain, in Gerudo Town and in Lurelin, people can grow old peacefully, without fear of attack."

Link makes a face and a wobbling gesture with his hand and then shrugs. Zelda smiles, sadly. "Aside from monsters and other disasters and misfortunes, of course," she agrees. "But without fear of attacks by Guardians, they were allowed to prosper."

"Not the Rito, though?" Robbie asks, his goggles whirting and shifting like the eyes of a gecko as he looks between the map, Link and Zelda. "Or the Gorons?"

Link shrugs, rubbing at his neck.

"Gorons age like rocks, Daruk always said," Zelda muses. "And I suppose with Rito it can be difficult to tell their ages. If we send out invitations to the study, we should include them as well – assuming that the treatment by the rune isn't Sheikah exclusive…?"

Purah rocks back and forth on her feet thoughtfully, almost as though she's about to dance. "I… don't know? I calibrated the first version based on my own physiology, so it might be best to stick to Sheikah and Hylians for a start – but I can't see why it couldn't be adjusted. Gerudo are closer in structure to us than Rito and Gorons, or Zora for that matter. Might be best we start there, when we begin making modifications to include everyone."

"So, begin with Lurelin," Robbie says and nods. "How do we do that?"

"We'll make some posters and Link can zip in and out of Lurelin Village to post them," Purah says and strikes a pose. "It's just a snap for the Sheikah Slate."

Impa hums in agreement. "Best we make advertisements for Kakariko and Hateno as well, and perhaps some of the stables," she muses. "You never know who might take us up on it, and getting this technology to work at hundred percent will be a benefit to everyone."

"You're right," Zelda agrees, nodding. "Purah and Robbie, I suppose you two know best what should go on the poster. Can you make it?"

"It'll work much better, with your name under it," Robbie points out.

"We'll write a draft and you can copy it and put your royal touch and seal to it," Purah says and does an excited little dance. "This is so exciting! We'll get so many applicants and my little Guidance Stone will get to do it's thing!"

Zelda offers her a smile, all the while wondering, not for the first time… how much of a royal she even is, at this point. With the castle in ruins and the Kingdom in shambles, with no one to rule it for a hundred years… all that Zelda is now... is a story. The Princess that went to fight Calamity Ganon as the Kingdom fell asunder all around her. Not many even believe it. That might change with this meeting and the following cooperation, especially when they'd begin reaching out further, but right now… 

Princess of nothing indeed.

"So much was lost," Zelda murmurs, carefully resting her hands in her lap to keep herself from wringing them. She shouldn't concentrate on the losses. Not when there's so much to do. "It will be good to build something for a change. To improve things."

"Indeed," Impa says, nodding her head, her heavy hat tilting. "But if Calamity Ganon taught us anything, it is that we should take all due caution."

"Yes. And speaking of which," Zelda says and lifts her eyes to Robbie. "Your research in Akkala – I would very much like to hear more about it. Link showed me the armour and weaponry you made, they're very impressive – how did you manage it?"

Robbie all but launches himself into the story of Akkala Ancient Tech Lab, the research he'd done there, the progress he'd made, enthusiastically recounting the creation of his Ancient Furnace, Cherry. Zelda leans in, allowing herself to be drawn in, and by the door Link settles down with a sigh and begins nodding off again.

-

Hmm hmm. Took me 3 years, but I finally finished botw.

I might continue this one and it might end up a Stargate crossover. Who knows.

[harrysgloves]

Three to tango

story summary: You, Harry, and Florence have a good time in your makeup trailer.

warnings: Language // THIS IS P*RN WITH LIKE ZERO PLOT // Threesome // w|w // spitting // oral (female receiving) // i have no idea what a production company is so don't come for me.

a/n: Brushing off the metaphorical cobwebs and finally getting back into writing! Woo-hoo! Ending could have been better but... meh. Also, I'm posting from mobile. If it looks weird, blame Tumblr ✌😍

REQUESTED: by @iwannaholdyoutight- and @hazgoldenstyles

And also by all these people... sorry it took so long.. 😁

>>><<<

"Stop movin'." You grumbled for the millionth time that morning. Your focus on covering up all these damn tattoos that you loved had become one of the worst things you had to do almost every morning.

"It tickles." He whined as the makeup brush ran over the inside of his arm. He instantly flinched away from the brush the moment it glided against a particularly sensitive spot.

"Harry!" You groaned, your eyes closed in frustration when he shot you the most adorable puppy eyes.

"'M sorry, kitten." He cooed, his lower lip pouted out when you sighed loudly, grabby hands tried to enclose around your waist before you smacked them away.

"H, I gotta get this done or you're gonna miss set time." 

"Wanna kiss." Those big green eyes flashed up to you from his spot in your makeup chair and you knew there was no way you could say no.

"One kiss." You clarified, knowing damn well he'd use kissing you as a distraction from being tickled again. 

He nodded eagerly before leaning slightly up to your level. Your eyes narrowed, still not sure you could trust that he wasn't going to divert your attention but his lips. 

God, his fucking lips.

They looked so memorizing. The light sheen of chapstick he'd applied earlier was still lingering across the plush pink cushions. His tongue wetting them, taunting you to come closer, and it worked.

You were so naive to think he wouldn't do this.

You squeaked as his hands gripped the fleshy curve of your hips. His lips twitched up into a smile against your own when he pulled you forward onto his lap as quickly as he could. 

You knew you should have tried to protest a bit more. You should have attempted to keep him on track but when his thigh pressed against your clothed core, you knew you were done for. His tongue licked into your mouth as his hand got a firm grip on the round flesh of your ass.

"I see what you two do in here." That sweet voice floated through the thickening air in your makeup trailer as she opened the door. Your eyes lazily blinked open to see your smug boyfriend smile wide across his face. 

Whatever snarky come back that was sitting on the tip of your tongue was quickly choked down to the back of your throat when you looked up to see her wearing that. 

Who knew a robe could turn you on so much?

"Damn." Harry finally commented after your not so subtle shifting of your hips against his thigh. Now he completely understood why you'd suddenly gone silent. 

"Shut up." She mumbled under her breath. Her cheeks flamed red from your shameless stares. 

"You look great, baby." You smiled brightly, your hand extended out for her to take. "Mhm." Harry's quick agreement had both you and Flor rolling your eyes, but a small smile formed at the corner of her lips.

"Wait til you see what he's got to wear." She smiled brightly, her silky soft hand wrapped tightly in yours as she walked towards the both of you. 

"Better hurry up then," you practically jumped off Harry's lap, his lust filled eyes quickly turned fearfully as your eager hands reached for your set of brushes. "Hold him down for me."

"Gonna pay for this later, sweetheart." Harry grumbled as Florence's hand held down his arm. 

"Sort of counting on that, Harold. Now, be a good boy and hold still."

>>>

The rest of your day had been absolute torture. Your core ached, your underwear were beyond ruined, and you couldn't wait another minute for the both of them to finally be off set. 

Instead, the both of them casually took their time, leisurely hanging around to talk to other cast and crew while you were basically jumping out of your skin to get them back into the privacy of your trailer. 

After 30 minutes of them both shooting you sweet smiles and well disguised sultry eyes, you'd had enough. Your feet carried you as quickly across the lot to your haven, your fist clenched in your hand almost as tightly as your core.

You were dripping and the both of them knew you were having a hard time keeping your hands to yourself.

It started out innocent enough, Harry's tattoos needed to be touched-up about a million times with the edge of his suit rubbing away the makeup there. You had been practically drooling over the both of them all day but when he saw your legs tighten together, he could help but lay it on thick. His hand rested on the small of your back as he circled around you, nose pressed almost completely against your ear as he whispered a raspy thank you. 

Florence was just as bad and she wasn't ever the instigator out of the three of you. She couldn't help it when she heard a soft whimper leave your lips when she brushed a few hairs off your forehead when you were redoing her makeup after lunch. 

She smiled sweetly, too sweetly, before those plush lips pressed tightly against your own. Her hand laced around your jaw to pull you tighter into her kiss. 

She pulled away from you before you were even close to being done. "Only fair that I get to makeout with you in this chair if Harry gets to do it all the time." 

You felt like you could combust from how turned on you were and you were done waiting for them to do something about it.

You practically slammed the door to your trailer behind you, making sure to lock it before laying yourself out across your couch that sat in the corner of your room.

If they weren't going to do something about it, you would. Your hands fumbled around with the pesky pants that covered your legs, until you were finally free enough to touch where you needed.

The sigh of relief, shuddering feeling that ran through your body from the contact you were craving only lasted a moment before you heard a metal key fumbling around with the locks on your door. 

"Couldn't wait for us?" Harry chuckled, his keys to your trailer thrown on your table top.

"You two were taking forever!" You glared at him through your open legs. 

"Told you she couldn't wait any longer." Florence giggled as she pushed her way past Harry. Her hands on her hips but a smile danced on the corner of her lips.

"Are you two going to help me here or?" You were cocky, impatient, and your fingers weren't anywhere near as good as theirs was.

"Might just watch." Harry shrugged with a smug smile as he plopped down on the end of the couch. The furniture was barely big enough for the three of you to sit normally. His hands moved your legs to lay over top of his own. Your eyes could have shot daggers through him as he loosened his tie, his legs spread wide enough that your hand bumped his thigh with every slow circle around your clit.

"Baby." You whined, your pleading eyes flashing towards Flor. Who was already wearing nothing but a smile, her robe abandoned on the floor, and if you weren't so insanely turned on you would have turned to stick your tongue out to Harry. Gloating that at least one of them was nice enough to help you.

Having sex with them always seemed to be frenzied, blurs of quick paced moments that seemed to fly by.

Her thighs rested on either side of you as Harry peeled away the drenched lacy fabric between your legs. 

Her tongue dominating your own as she pulled down your top enough to free your breast. Her hands pinching and kneading across them as your back arched further off the couch.

You could hear Harry mumbling out a slur of curses, followed by the sound of his zipper. Your legs were bumped up and down in time with his strokes along his swollen cock.

"Soaking my leg, kitten." He groaned at the sight of your cunt soaking the thin material of his brown suit.

"Thought you were just gonna watch." Florence chuckled, her perfectly pouty lips swollen from how hard she'd been kissing you. The edges of them barely touching your own as she talked to Harry.

"Was gonna but she's so fuckin' wet, Flor." His voice was deeper than usual, gravelly, slow, "Bet I could jus'...." 

Your jaw fell open, your back arched off the couch when his fingers filled you. A wild moan ripped from your lungs when he curled them just right.

You could already feel the cord tightening in your lower stomach. You had been so wound up all day long from looking at them you were practically ready to snap within seconds. 

"Awe, poor thing's already about to cum." Florence cooed, her hand around the back of your neck, teasing your jaw with the edge of her nose. 

You always loved hated how well they could read you. How their teasing words made your face burn and your pussy flood with need. 

When she was harshly shifted down further into your chest, her own sweet sounding moan falling from her lips, you couldn't help your own snide remark, "who's the one going to cum too quickly now?"

She probably would have snapped right back at you but she couldn't utter out anything more than whimpers. You knew the feeling, Harry's tongue had a way of doing that, making you both shut up and he had proudly used it on more than one occasion to get you two to stop bickering about dumb stuff. 

Your hand laced through her blonde locks, her lips attached to your neck whenever she could control her mouth long enough to kiss your sweet spots. Your nipples peaked at the contact of her breast against your own, Harry's hand still pumped lazily against your sweet spot, his thumb running tight circles around your clit, and while it wasn't enough, you weren't complaining. You weren't ever sure how he managed to focus on eating one of you out while fingering the other when you knew damn well he was about to combust himself.

You knew she was close when her breathing became erratic, her chest heaving against yours. Her whole body shaking as her orgasm washed across her, her panting barely broke when you felt his warm tongue slipping through your folds.

You moaned at the feeling, your hips instantly shifted downwards, craving every bit of contact you could get from him. 

You could feel your walls fluttering around his fingers with every thick swipe of his tongue across your clit. Your eyes barely staying open when soft kisses were pressed lazily against your neck. 

Such a contrast to the harsh grasp of Harry's free hand digging into your one thigh. His gruts and groans were only muffled by the deafening sound of your soaking core.

Florence perked up her head from your chest, carefully turning herself completely around. Her legs on either side of your head as she draped herself across you to watch Harry at work.

Her sweet honey only inches from your face and fuck did you want a taste. You wet your lips, hands pushing her thighs down but she wouldn't budge.

Your huff of protest was quickly choked down when Harry's tongue ran tight circles around your clit.

"Gonna share?" That sweet voice asking that innocent question about broke you. Your walls clenched tightly trying to not get Harry to stop his fingers from slipping out of you, almost crying when they did anyway.

"Course, baby." 

You squeaked, your legs pushed backwards by your thighs, your body almost folded in half.

"Fuck, you got her soaking the couch." 

You were suddenly very appreciative about the fact neither one of them could see the embarrassment burning through your face. Your forehead pressed to Florence's leg as you whined, not wanting them to point how just how turned on you were.

You heard two simultaneous shushing sounds before your lower lips were pulled apart, the cool air licked across your slick, only making you whine louder.

When you heard and felt Harry's spilt against your core you thought you were done for. Lip tucked so tightly between your teeth you could taste the faintest hint of metallic against your tongue.

Then the softest kitten lick had you losing your mind, her tongue collecting all of his saliva on your clit before swirling around your entrance.

"Fuck," you cried, your nails digging crest moons into the flesh of Florence's thighs. "please, just fuck me already!"

"Don't think she can take anymore teasing Flor." Harry chuckled, yeah, chuckled, from between your thighs. 

"But I was having fun." She pouted, her tongue stopping its mesmerizing movements.

"Can 'ave fun with her after." Harry said as he started to shed the layers of his suit. 

"I'm literally right here!" You complained, your huff of annoyance jammed down your throat when Harry pulled up by your legs. Your face now exposed to his smirking, mischief filled eyes. 

"We know, baby," he cooed, almost too sweetly, something about the look behind his eyes made your pussy flutter but your mind anxious about how sore you'd be tomorrow. "Ass up for me."

You eagerly nodded your head, trying to roll over in your place before the tsking clicks of his tongue stopped your movements. 

"Like this." He said, pulling you off the couch. Your knees on the hard linoleum floor, your elbows resting on the seat of cushion in front of you. Giving Flor just enough space to sit pretty right in front of you.

Your arms instinctively circling around her thighs, pulling her core down to mouth. Her moans filled the small space around you. Vibrating off the walls with an echo. 

"Should 'ave done this in 'ere before." Harry mumbled more to himself than to either one of you as his tip teased your entrance. Your hips swayed instantly at the contact, slowly backing up the little bit you could to feel him slip inside of you.

He hissed, his fingers gripped the round flesh of your ass tightly before he surged forward, stuffing you to the brim with his cock.

"I ruin this pussy 'most everyday and you're still so fuckin' tight." He gritted out through his teeth, your walls clenched down around him at his words.

"Guess you're not fucking her good enough then." 

Your eyes widened in disbelief belief, disconnecting from her core so your mouth could gape in shock.

Did she hate you being able to walk?

"That so?" 

"'S what I said."

"Kitten," You squeaked when you were lifted by your shoulder, your back against Harry's chest. His hands snaked under your shirt just long enough to rip it off. "you can thank Flor tomorrow for why you won't be able to sit." 

"She'll probably be thanking me." The blonde rolled her eyes playfully teasing but enjoying the fact she was getting under his skin.

"Need me to stop, just tap my leg," his deep voice husked into your ear. Your hand tapping his leg, showing him you understood,  before you were hurled back in front of Florence's core by the back of your head. "good girl, now lick." 

You had Harry go hard on you before but when he sheathed himself fully inside of you in one go, you knew you were really going to be in for it. 

Your tongue tried to desperately get Flor off as fast as you could, your fingers slamming into her sweet spot, as your eyes rolled to the back of your head. You had a hard time knowing where to focus. Her addictive taste or his marksman worthy precision thrusts into your g-spot.

Your body felt like warm liquid was being pumped through your veins. Both of them gripping onto you at different ends, his hips grinding against your ass as he sat balls deep in your pussy. Her hips dragging against your mouth, fucking herself against your face. 

The sound of their collective moans slicked through the sticky, sex filled, air around you. Your mind lost in that space of non-thinking as your body moved back and forth between the two of them.

"Gonna cum all over my cock, sweetheart?" Your walls tightened around him as her fingers dug deeper into the back of your head. Her own cord snapping only moments before your own.

The white burning light washing through your body followed by the familiar gush of fullness in your lower tummy. 

"Holy shit," Florence breathed out, her arm dropped across her forehead. 

"Why haven't we done that here before?" Harry asked through short breaths.

"'S company property." You mumbled against the couch, your head buried into the soft material as your legs gave out to lay on the heaven-like cold floor below you. "We literally just said fuck you to New Line Cinema." 

You heard chuckling from either side of you, both of them still slightly out of breath.

"Hope we don't work with them again then." 

[itsbeaconhillsbaby]

the way I love you // tom holland x reader

a/n: hello my lovelies! it’s been a little while since I posted something, this piece has fully been kicking my butt but she’s finally here and I hope you like her even if she is a little rough around the edges. as always, love to know what you think. also, I will do an official post regarding rules but from here until I close them my * REQUESTS ARE OPEN * my 10th piece of writing (WHAT) is a requested piece that I'm so excited to share with you guys and the lovely human who requested it, so stay tuned for that but in the meantime, sending all the love, and I hope you're all staying safe out there, please enjoy! x 

word count: 2.1K warning: swearing, lil bit of angst if you squint summary: your best friend tom is helping you move in, but you have a secret and it’s been making things difficult. it’s time to fess up. 

The rain thumped against the windows, droplets eagerly chasing each other to the bottom. The wind whistled, branches reaching out as the trees shook. Soft wispy curtains were pulled tight to keep the cold, stormy weather locked outside. Yet the sounds of cars speeding through the flooded roads could still be heard from the storeys above. The room was almost bare, the orange glow of the streetlights casting warm shadows upon the wooden floorboards. A couple of unopened cardboard boxes were stacked up against one wall. One section of the room was lowly lit with battery-operated soft, twinkling fairy lights and flickering candles. The floor was decorated with a few cosy blankets and pillows. Half eaten cartons of sushi sat abandoned alongside a takeaway pizza box full of cheesy crusts. A laptop balanced precariously on one of the boxes, movie already playing. “Happy move-in day,” a voice whispers, just grazing past your ear. You lay on your front on the floor, wrapped up in an exceptionally fluffy blanket. Your best friend is sat semi cross-legged with his knees up, arms hooked around them, the pair of you only a breath apart. You turn your head lazily in his direction, unable to hide the grin from your face as he cocks his head, mimicking you with his own cheesy smile - noses almost touching. “Thanks for helping me out. Have I ever told you that you’re my favourite?” “Oh, not nearly enough.” He nudges your side, wiggling his eyebrows dramatically. You laugh, causing his face to soften at your expression before you focus your attention back to the small screen. Tom frowns slightly as you turn away, keeping his eyes on you as he drinks you in slowly. Your hair was almost completely dry from the rainstorm, and had begun curling at the ends and around your hairline, one piece had fallen across your face which he ached to tuck back into place behind your ear. You had a light flush across your cheeks, eyes shining bright as your face slackened, concentrating on the film. He let out a soft sigh before swallowing, dragging his eyes away from you and back to the movie. **** It hadn’t taken long for you and tom to gravitate closer to each other, a chill making its way through the apartment as you were yet to install a new heating system. You were tucked into his side, head resting gently against his shoulder, breaths synchronising. You shifted slightly, yet Tom kept a protective arm around you. A black screen took over the laptop as the credits started rolling. Tom let out a yawn, rubbing his eyes with one hand as he slowly sat up, bringing you with him. “I better go, it’s late and I have a bunch of meetings tomorrow. Plus you still have unpacking to do…” he teases, collecting some of the empty cartons. You nod, wrapping the blanket around your shoulders and gathering it around your waist as you hit pause on the laptop. Stretching your body out, you could already feel the twinges in your back from sitting on the hard floor. The sky had darkened considerably, storm worsening behind the curtains, rain lashing down hard. You glance across at tom, watching as he steps foot into the kitchen, tiding up the rubbish into a neat pile. You bite your lip slightly as you give him a once over. His hair was unruly, eager for a styling from Rachel as it attempted to curl against his forehead, and you could see where he’d been running his hands through it all day. You loved how relaxed he looked in your presence, allowing himself to be slightly unkempt and messy. You watched his mouth and eyebrows twitch animatedly as he cleaned up the kitchen, the sleeves of his oversized hoodie rolled up his forearms. Suddenly he looked up, eyes directly locking with yours and your felt your face flush. “Stop staring at me you div,” he teased, as his face breaking out into a grin, eyes creasing at the sides, still locked with yours. “Calm down movie star, you ain’t all that,” you laugh nervously, internally berating yourself for getting caught in a trance as you pick up the rest of the rubbish and join Tom in the kitchen, blanket slouched around your shoulders and trailing behind you. Truth was, something had changed during the last film Tom had been away filming for. Tiny butterflies would dance in your stomach whenever your phone pinged with a new message or silly photo he’d sent you. You brushed it off at first, thinking you were just missing his company. But by the time he got back, you felt nervous and giddy around him and everything was weird. It wasn’t until one day you found yourself waking up with a start as he began to infiltrate your dreams when you realised you were feeling very differently for your best friend than you’d ever felt before. “This place is nice, but I still don’t know why you turned us boys down though? Harrison said he asked before I came back and you said no?” he wondered aloud, miming an arrow through his heart as the pair of you make your way downstairs. You laugh at his antics but wrap the blanket that little bit tighter around yourself, finding the floor of your building suddenly extremely interesting. “Don’t tell me you’re sick of us lot already? We’ve been together too long for you to ditch us all now.” He gives you a little nudge in the arm with his elbow. You took a deep breath, shaking your hair out of your face. “I’ll still be round all the time. I literally live on the other side of the park,” you laugh as he pouts, “Tom, it’s not even 20 minutes away.” “Still doesn’t explain why you won’t move in with us?” You sigh, your frustration building. “Just leave it,” you snap, adding a quieter “please” after a beat. There’s a stifling silence as you both walk down the concrete staircase, you twist the mechanical lock on the front door and wait for the buzz as it clicks and opens up to the world outside.

Tom whistles at the torrential storm as he steps outside, trees were bending over, leaves billowing in the wind. The steps up to the building were gathering puddles of water and you could already see the road ahead was beginning to flood.

“Oh my god.”

The pair of you quickly throw the trash into the bin that was sitting at the bottom of some basement level steps.

“Listen, but I only ask because...it’s just, you’ve been a bit off since I came back from Atlanta. if it wasn’t for Harrison telling me he couldn’t make it today, you wouldn’t have even asked me to help you move in? What’s up with that?” he asks, standing behind you, shielding you from as much of the rain as he could.

“I just thought you’d be busy, y’know. What with being away for so long.”

“And? It’s not like that’s ever stopped you before. Seriously though, did I do something wrong? Did the boys? Because you can tell me.”

“Tom it’s nothing. Seriously, quit it.” Avoiding his stare, you shake your head and turn on your heel in an attempt to push the door back open but it stays firmly shut. You twist the handle multiple times as it jangles in response, remaining firmly locked. You freeze in immediate panic, feeling your pockets for your keys which were still sitting on your kitchen counter.

“Oh my god, no. No fucking way.”

“What? What is it?” He reaches a hand over your shoulder and gives the door a shove, “Is it stuck?”

“No tom, it’s locked! The wind must’ve closed it! I’ve left my apartment open and the keys are on the kitch – fuck! I’m such an idiot.”

“Hey it’s fine. Calm down. Hey, maybe if you lived with us we wouldn’t be having this problem…” he joked, pulling off his hoodie as thunder rumbled in the distance, the rain bouncing down onto the two of you.

“Now is really not the time Tom!” You exclaim, feeling your heart-rate spike, anxious about being locked out on your very first day living alone.

“Would you calm down, we’ll sort it. Your doors just unlocked, it’s not like you left it wide open.” 

“If you hadn’t been asking so many stupid questions, I wouldn’t have forgotten my keys in the first place!”

“Really?! You’re blaming me for caring about you? Alright listen, I just wanted to know what’s going on with you. I know you, and I know when something’s wrong! Why won't you just tell me?!”

“Oh my god, fine! You want to know so badly? It’s you, okay!” You shout, whirling around now standing chest to chest, you could feel your eyes burning with the tears you were fighting back, “You’re the reason I can’t move in with you guys! Because I hoped that this feeling would go away. If I avoided you it would go away and things would be normal and nothing would change. But that’s not the case!” You gulped in a breath, refusing to look into the deep brown eyes that were staring at you, so wide and confused, “That’s not the case, because every time I’m with you I feel like my heart is going to beat straight out of my chest. I get these stupid knots in my stomach whenever you so much as send me a fucking text. Sitting together in there side by side, alone together, casually watching a film and all I can think about is god, I wish he’d just kiss me! I don’t want to fall in love with you because this,” you gesture between the two of you, “what we are, it’ll all be gone and I’ll have ruined everything. And I can’t Tom. I can’t deal with that. So, there you go. I’m in love with you, and I hate myself for it. So, what? Are you happy now?! Does that clear everything up for you!”

Tom froze.

Your chest heaves, the tears that you let fall mixing in with the rain, leaving you sniffling. You push your soaking wet hair out of your face, roughly wiping your cheeks as you turn and hit the buzzer for the apartment block, banging your fist on the main door. 

“C’mon!”

Tom stood silently, still frozen outside your apartment entrance, the rain so heavy it was bouncing off of his clothes. His curls were flattened, droplets dripping from his hair, his nose, his eyelashes. his t-shirt was already drenched by the rain, fabric clinging to his frame. He blinks, once, twice then once more, his jaw unclenching.

He reaches forwards, fingertips lightly caressing your hand, his featherlight touch pulsating through your entire body.

You tear your hand away from him, a gasp letting loose, “Don’t.”

He perseveres, pulling you round, more forcefully this time until you are nose to nose again.

Your body shivers in the cold, wet air as you stare at the ground. Tom’s firm grip around your wrists.

“Look at me,” he says, his voice soft and gentle.

You squeeze your eyes shut, shaking your head as you exhale breathily.

He lets go of you, your hands curled into small fists at your sides, nails digging into your palms.

One hand lifts your chin to his level, his thumb softly collecting the mixture of tears and rain from beneath your eyes and brushing them away.

“I wish you’d just told me. It would’ve saved you all this hurt.”

His left hand comes up and tucks the soaking wet pieces of hair that has been whipping around your face in the wind gently behind your ear. Stroking the stray strands. 

Your teary, glistening eyes connect with his. They were alive with such care and concern. Before you knew it, that feeling was back in the pit of your stomach, pulling and twisting in knots as you stared into the eyes of the boy you loved. 

You blinked, eyelashes fluttering when all of a sudden, the hand that had brushed your tears away cradles the side of your head, bringing your faces together, the other hand lightly fluttering to your waist, pulling you in closer. 

The rain continued to fall, the two of you completely oblivious as your lips brush, foreheads pressed together. It’s soft and slow, almost uncertain at first before immediately intensifying, the two of you pushing your bodies against each other. You take a breath as he strokes your cheek and your lips with his thumb, pulling you back in for another gentle kiss with a hand to the back of your head, tangling in your soaking hair as he presses your faces closer together. 

The pair of you pull away, both your chests heaving as you exhale. 

“Why did you do that?” you ask, voice raspy. 

“Because. that’s the way I love you. Not just as a friend. And for years, I sat on it, too scared to ruin what we have.”  You shake your head, as a couple of bubbles of laughter spill from your lips. Tom’s face brightens up quickly, those little creases that you loved so much appearing at the outward corners of his eyes as he whispered, “C’mere. I got you.” 

He pulled you in, your arms immediately wrapping around his waist, his body cold under your hands. You could hear and feel his heartbeat, still in perfect time with your own. He tucked his chin so it was resting atop your head. His arm hadn’t moved, still cradling the back of your head, pressing you ever so carefully into his chest, the two of you just resting in each others embrace as the rain eased up slightly around you.

There was a beat, as you both relaxed into each other. 

“So, I'm glad we solved one problem, but you do know we’re still locked out, right?” Tom says as the pair of you burst out laughing.