#But I found that I didn’t have the willpower

[son1c]

part 2 of my sonic x dungeon meshi crossover is finally here!! read part 1 if you haven't already and please enjoy 🐉

Something was wrong. Even with his eyes closed, Sonic knew that. It felt like something was poking around inside of his head, its ghastly claws sinking into his delicate brain-meat, and it hurt! In fact, the relentless jabbing was more than just painful; it unnerved him, its apparent wrongness causing his stomach to twist and turn as if to say, Get out!

So, Sonic scrunched up his nose and did something. 

What did he do? How did he do it? These questions weren’t important to Sonic. All that mattered to him was that it worked. As soon as he gathered his strength, the intruder retreated. It took Sonic’s soon-to-be migraine headache along with it, leaving Sonic to exhale in relief. 

Good riddance, he thought.

Then, Sonic opened his eyes.

Surrounding him were the rolling fields of Green Hill. The grass swayed in a gentle breeze and the sky was a perfect blue. Sonic looked around, but there didn’t seem to be any Flickies nearby, because he couldn’t hear their telltale song. In fact, other than the wind, it was completely silent, almost like the whole world had just two occupants: him and the creature laying across his legs.

"Well, then," the creature--a winged lion--mused, its voice pleasant. "How did you do that, I wonder?"

Sonic blinked. He realized he couldn't feel his legs and tried to move out from under the lion, but couldn't. Frustrated, he asked, "Mind gettin' off me?"

The lion sighed. "I'm afraid I can't." Sonic opened his mouth to protest, but the lion continued, "A powerful spell has bound us together. But enough about that. I'm much more curious about you."

"Me?"

"Oh, yes. You."

Sonic didn't like the look in the lion's eyes. They sparkled, not unkindly, but not in a way he found particularly trustworthy, either. "First," Sonic said slowly, "you tell me something."

The lion smiled. "Of course," it replied. "Anything."

"What were you doin' in my head?"

The lion's eyes grew wide. "Ah, so the cat’s out of the bag, is it?" When Sonic frowned, the lion went on to say, "I was looking for something. I'm surprised you were able to tell--usually, no one notices." Tilting its head, the lion asked, bemused, "But you're not of the usual sort, are you?"

Sonic's eyes narrowed. Looking for something? He didn't like the sound of that! "Not cool, dude," he said, ignoring the lion's comment about him being weird. "You have a mouth, right? If there's something you wanna know, use it and ask!"

"Fair enough," the lion conceded. Then, it set its large head down on Sonic's chest. "For what it's worth, your mind shut me out quickly. A passing glance is all I managed to capture before you overwhelmed me." The lion paused. "Yes, you're truly unusual."

Sonic bristled. He was liking this guy less and less by the minute. "What, you thought I'd roll over and let you take whatever you wanted? Not a chance!" He tried to shove the lion's head off him and sit up, but couldn't. The lion's skull was like a cinder block that'd been bolted to his rib cage and it refused to budge.

Irritated (and beginning to feel a little claustrophobic), Sonic spat, "Just who are you?"

The lion's smile returned. "Me?" Its yellow eyes flashed. "Hmm. Right now, I suppose I'm you."

The grass stilled as the breeze died. But Sonic wasn't afraid.

"So much for a lion!" Sonic sneered. "You're more like a copycat. All roar, no bite, I'll bet!"

"An imitation has no appeal to me," the lion replied smoothly. "What I'm really after is happiness. Now, it's my turn. So, please, tell me: what do you desire?"

Sonic gritted his teeth. The wall he'd unknowingly constructed to keep the lion out of his mind grew stronger with his determination. Then, with both hands, he grabbed the lion's head and lifted it off of his chest. Finally, he was able to sit up, although his legs still felt tingly.

"Such willpower!" the lion said, delighted.

Sonic furrowed his brow. After a moment, he let go of the lion's head and muttered, "What's with you? First you wanna know about my desires, then you're happy when I fight back?" He shook his head in disbelief. "I don't get you at all."

Chuckling, the lion replied, "The chase sweetens the prize."

Sonic snorted. "If all you want is to make me happy, that's easy. Just get off me!"

Instead, the lion curled up on Sonic's legs and closed its eyes. "I like you," it said, almost absentmindedly. "You're interesting. Indeed, anyone else would've folded to my vast consciousness. But there you are, still here."

Sonic didn't really understand what the lion was saying, but it made him angry anyway. "I'll never fold to you!"

A lazy grin played on the lion's lips. "Then we'll have to share. After all, you won't be going anywhere without my legs." Cracking an eye open, the lion added, "Although, you may find your heart has shifted once you wake. The Lord of the Dungeon's blood flows through it now..."

Sonic squeezed his eyes shut in exasperation. This whole conversation was so confusing!

Suddenly, Green Hill began to fade. Literally--the world around them was melting away into nothing. Before it disappeared completely, the lion said, "Good luck, Sonic."

//

Thistle inspected the gauntlet Sonic had surrendered to him with an impatient sort of fervor. He looked at each finger, the thumb, and the palm, but still didn’t find what he was looking for. So much of his focus was devoted to searching for the inscription he knew to be there–somewhere–that he didn’t notice the lion chimera peering over his shoulder until their faces were practically touching. 

Thistle jumped. “Stay back!” he snapped, a bead of sweat rolling down his neck.

Sonic blinked, surprised by the mage’s outburst. But then he huffed and did as he was told.

"You hurt his feelings," Merlina told Thistle.

"It doesn't have feelings," Thistle replied automatically. Once he was sure Sonic wasn’t going to sneak up on him again, he began prying a screw loose from the gauntlet with his fingernails. Maybe the inscription was hidden underneath the plating?

Merlina put her hands on her hips. "Oh, certainly not the demon. But what of the hedgehog?"

Thistle didn't look up. "What of him?"

Merlina bit her lip. She didn't like how dismissive Thistle was, but it would be suspicious for her to care about Sonic like a friend, when they were supposed to be strangers. Still, when she looked over at the lion chimera, she couldn't help the ache in her chest, because it was her summoning spell that had brought him here in the first place. Though, her plan had gone awry.

In the end, Merlina simply turned away from Sonic and said to Thistle, "Nothing. Have you found the inscription yet?"

Thistle ignored her. But if he’d responded, it probably would've been something along the lines of, No. Or, No, obviously. Or maybe even, No, and you're not helping, so be quiet!

In response to his silence, Merlina turned up her nose. If he was going to be rude, then so be it, but as a member of the King's Court, she was above such petulant behavior! For that reason, Merlina chose to return his silence in kind. 

Truly, the irony was palpable… 

If Sonic had been listening to their conversation, he would’ve rolled his eyes. But he wasn’t listening, because he was more focused on his paws–all four of them. 

Leaning over, Sonic stared down at his two front paws with wide eyes. A strange feeling filled his chest as he watched the moonlight shine through his gray fur. He knew without touching it that his fur was rough, like a nice winter coat, and that his dark claws could tear through even the toughest armor.

He tapped one of his toes. The sensation of his claw scraping against the dirt confirmed that what he was seeing was real, but it didn’t make the strange feeling go away. Like a boulder, or maybe a whole mountain’s worth of cascading rocks, it weighed heavily on Sonic’s chest. And it only grew stronger as he continued to look down at the feet that didn’t feel like his own.

Finally, Sonic looked away from his paws. He couldn't bear to see them anymore, since they were making his head hurt. Was he angry? Was he happy? The strange, seemingly contradictory feelings pounded against his skull like a jackhammer, threatening to split his head in two.

That’s not me, he thought. That can’t be me.

In desperation, Sonic looked this way and that, trying to find something--anything--to ease the pain. But everything he saw only made it worse. The feathers covering his chest and arms, the dragon with a human head, the she-mage Merlina. They all served to further his confusion until eventually, he turned his attention toward the only thing he had left to turn to: Thistle.

Instantly, a wave of calm rushed in. It washed away all other feelings and rid the lion chimera of his headache. He blinked slowly. His strange body didn’t bother him so much now. No, it didn’t bother him at all. His quills relaxed and his feathers laid flat, all because of that wicked glass vial, containing none other than a drop of the mad mage’s blood.

The winged lion had been right about Sonic’s heart. 

Now, Sonic cared only for the Lord of the Dungeon.

“There you are,” Thistle hissed. He’d finally pried the plating off Sonic’s gauntlet. Between his thumb and forefinger, he held up a single iron strip to examine under the light of the moon. The glyphs glinted with an unmistakable power, their carving as masterful as he’d expected, each stroke etched perfectly into the metal. “I knew the Great Wizard Merlin’s work hadn’t been lost. With this, I’ll finally be able to…”

“There are still more fragments to be found,” Merlina interrupted, looking uncomfortable. “Or have you forgotten?”

Scowling, Thistle pocketed the iron strip before discarding the rest of Sonic’s gauntlet. It fell to the grass with a muted thunk.

Sonic cocked his head and gave the gauntlet a brief glance, but quickly lost interest. He felt nothing at the sight of its mangled corpse and forgot about it as soon as he looked away. Yawning, the lion chimera closed his eyes and began to think about blueberries…

It was then that the dragon chimera approached. Her heavy footsteps caused the earth itself to tremble as if in warning while her long tail swished behind her, slow and steady. She peered down at Sonic, her bright yellow eyes standing out against the shadows of her face, her expression unreadable.

Sonic cracked one eye open to look at her. Her size failed to intimidate him, and her pinprick pupils drew another yawn from Sonic. If she thought he'd be impressed by her Studio Trigger shading, she had another thing coming! But right as Sonic was about to go back to daydreaming, he noticed the red splatter on her huge dragon hand, and his nose twitched.

Heedless to the danger, Sonic got close enough to her hand to touch the splatter. It was dry and cracking but still smelled familiar, although something about it wasn’t quite right, like a latte with the wrong kind of milk, or a chili dog without the chili.

Just when Sonic was about to take a step back, he found himself being picked up by the human hands of the dragon chimera. At first, he squirmed, his wings flapping uselessly in an attempt to get away. But then he caught sight of the dragon chimera’s face and stopped.

She no longer looked like she belonged in a suspect lineup for the critically acclaimed 2023 game, The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. Instead, her features had softened to a more natural state, and Sonic couldn’t help but think that she looked too kind to be a dragon. 

“You’re,” Falin started to say, her voice strained, “just a… child…?”

Sonic wanted to fire back with a witty retort, but when he opened his mouth, he found it hard to say anything. It was like there was a weight pushing against his throat that hadn’t been there before, making even simple sounds difficult. Clearing his throat didn’t solve the problem, which irritated him, but he wasn’t a quitter, so he forced the words out anyway.

“Nnnothin’... ‘just’... about it!”

Then, with his back paws, Sonic pushed off against the dragon chimera’s feathery abdomen and flipped out of her grasp. He landed on the ground with Olympic grace, rubbing his nose with his thumb as he grinned up at her. But his throat was shredded from just those four words, so he let his actions speak for themselves. 

Falin, in all her mid-20s wisdom, knew that Sonic was trying to look cool. So, she clapped her hands together and smiled at him, because who was she to deny him of that? She’d already killed him once. Instead of sulking about what had been, unbeknownst to her at the time, a cold-blooded child murder, she found it much more productive to be supportive.

Now that Sonic smelled like the Lord of the Dungeon, there was no need for Falin to commit double child homicide, anyway.

Hurray!

“Dragon,” Thistle said, commanding both her and Sonic’s attention. “The next artifact awaits. Quickly, now. We mustn’t keep Delgal waiting.”

As the dragon chimera shuffled over to Thistle, Sonic’s keen eyes noticed something. Inside Thistle’s chest, another blueberry had formed, and it sat, radiating warmth right next to the mad mage’s heart. Sonic remembered the irresistible taste of the first blueberry he’d eaten and before he knew it, he was moving, running past the dragon chimera and straight at Thistle.

In turn, Thistle held up one of his hands and demanded, “Stop!”

Sonic skidded to a halt. He barely managed to avoid plowing into Thistle, his nose mere inches away from the mad mage’s outstretched palm. Impatiently, Sonic flicked his tail. The delicious blueberry was so close now. It was making his mouth water.

“You’re more useful to me in this form than as a book,” Thistle said. “But if you start acting as you did before, it won’t matter. I’ll return you to the pages. Understand?”

Sonic didn’t understand. He had no idea what Thistle was talking about. Still, he really wanted that blueberry. So, he flashed Thistle a thumbs up and gave the mad mage a toothy grin. 

At this, Thistle wrinkled his nose. “Perhaps your other head was best,” he muttered. Then, he straightened his face and put his hands on his hips. “I want to gather all the artifacts before two week’s time. The next one isn’t far, but we shall need to…”

To be honest, Sonic stopped listening after Thistle said “I want.” Because when those two words were uttered, the blueberry in the mad mage’s chest grew a little bigger, and with it, the flavor grew a little stronger. In that moment, Sonic figured out how he’d be able to eat that blueberry, as well as every other blueberry that sprouted from Thistle’s heart. 

He’d make sure Thistle got everything he wanted. 

And in exchange, Sonic would eat the blueberries. 

//

Tails wasn’t worried about Sonic. He knew Sonic. Sonic was the coolest guy he’d ever met and stronger than most people could ever dream of. So, when Sonic didn't show up after Tails and the knights finished off the last of the monsters, Tails figured he must still be fighting the dragon.

It was a big dragon, Tails reasoned. In fact, it was huge! And things only got that big if they had several hundred health points, right? By that logic, it made perfect sense that Sonic wasn’t back yet; it could take him all night to fell an enemy as ginormous as the red dragon! 

In the meantime, Tails focused on helping people who’d been hurt from the monster invasion. He pulled up his socks, spun his twin tails, and got to work surveying the area. He’d make sure no one was left alone in the rubble… which there was a lot of.

Tails shook his head. Restoration plans could wait. 

Sonic was counting on him to help these people right now!

It was a little hard to see through the haze of destroyed architecture, but not even the darkness of night could keep Tails from hearing the cries of two kids trapped under a broken food cart. With Percival’s help, Tails was able to pull the kids out from the wreckage and get them standing again. Then, he sent them off toward the castle where the rest of the townsfolk had gathered.

Lancelot wasn’t as content as Tails to simply let Sonic be, however. As Tails and the other knights helped the injured, Lancelot kept looking off toward the horizon until finally he said, “I’m going after him.”

Gawain scowled under his helmet. “You’re needed here, Sir Lancelot. Stay and help the people whose lives you’ve sworn to protect.”

Lancelot bristled. “Their safety is assured,” he said, his voice hard. “Unless I’m wrong to entrust them to your care?”

Gawain rose to his full height, but before he could draw his weapon, Percival moved in between him and Lancelot. “Now’s no time for a quarrel,” she interjected. “There’s much to do.” She spoke confidently, but the echo of her voice through the empty, damaged streets gave her words a more solemn gravitas. “With Prince Tails, that makes four of us. If we each tend to something, we can assure the continued safety of our kingdom and its people. As is our sworn duty.”

Gawain grumbled, knowing she was right.

Tails, meanwhile, blushed at the title Percival had unceremoniously bestowed upon him. If Sonic was uncomfortable being called a king, then Tails was embarrassed to be called a prince! 

“I’m going,” Lancelot said, looking directly at Gawain. “When I return, it will be with the king.”

“Wait,” Tails suddenly said, having regained his composure. “Sha–... um… Sir Lancelot, don’t go. I know you’re worried, but Sonic’ll be fine. He’s beat bigger bad guys than this before! Really.”

Lancelot’s intense stare caused Tails to fidget with his tails. But he had faith in his big bro, so he didn’t back down. “It’s just… Don’t you think we could use your help around here? Those monsters broke a lot of stuff, including the wall! What if more monsters get in? I really think we should fix it first. Before anyone goes anywhere, I mean.”

“The fox is right,” Gawain said. 

Lancelot turned away from Tails and the other two knights. It was impossible to see his face under the visor, but if Tails had to guess based on the hard line of his mouth, he probably didn’t look very happy right now.

“I want to see King Sonic’s return too,” Percival told Lancelot. “And we shall. After securing his people.”

The tension in the square was so thick, it could be sliced with a sword. But as the dust settled, so too did Lancelot’s frustration, and before long, he turned back toward the three of them. Curtly, he said, “One hour. That’s all I can spare.”

True to his word, Lancelot stayed to help Gawain, Percival, and Tails rescue the remaining townsfolk from precarious situations. (One of them had even gotten stuck inside a chimney somehow! After being freed, the man explained that he’d been trying to hide from the monsters, but didn’t realize how narrow a hiding spot he’d chosen until it was too late.) 

By the time half an hour had passed, every last person had been sent to the castle. That left just one thing: fixing the town’s outer wall.

The part of the wall where the red dragon had broken through was nothing more than piles of broken stone. The wall had crumbled completely, leaving a distinctly dragon-shaped hole behind, and creating an unwelcome window out into the dark forest on the other side.

If Tails had more time, he could’ve invented a contraption to fix the wall for them. Maybe some sort of brick flinger? Or a cement spitter? Unfortunately, he was in the Middle Ages, and he had no idea where to find the materials he’d need to build those things. So, that meant Plan B…

“Stand aside,” Lancelot suddenly said, startling Tails out of his reverie. 

Tails looked up at Lancelot, but the knight didn’t seem to be angry. In fact, he seemed determined, and so Tails did as he was asked. Though, his ears were perked in curiosity. The fox didn’t know much about Shadow, so he was interested to see what his doppelganger could do.

As it turned out, “what Lancelot could do” was fix the wall. Not only that, but he fixed the wall without lifting a single cinder block! He just drew a small, detailed circle into the dirt at the foot of the wall, and then burned it into the ground with the bottom of one of his jet shoes. Once the circle was aflame, it sent the stones in motion, seeming to reverse time until they all tumbled back into place, just like they’d been before the dragon had knocked them down.

Gawain rolled his eyes. “Show off,” he grumbled.

“Wow!” Tails said, his eyes sparkling. “That was amazing! How’d you do that?”

Lancelot didn’t look at Tails when he replied tersely, “I learned it from my mother.”

Tails raised an eyebrow, but before he could comment, Percival set a hand on Lancelot’s shoulder. “Thank you for your help, Sir Lancelot,” she said. “Now, I believe you have somewhere else to be. Sir Gawain and I will await your return with King Sonic.”

Gawain looked like he wanted to protest, but thought better of it when Percival shot him a glare so withering, its heat could be felt even through her visor. 

Hmph. Well, he didn’t want to be around Lancelot for any longer than he had to be, anyway.

So, Gawain and Percival left for the castle. Lancelot’s shoes began to spark as they powered up, signaling his impending departure, his body already leaning the same direction he’d seen Sonic and the red dragon disappear into.

“I’m coming too,” Tails said.

Lancelot didn’t want to waste more time arguing. Would he have preferred to go alone? Yes, of course. But he’d kept his king waiting long enough, and wasn’t willing to make him wait any longer, so instead of fighting, he gave Tails a sharp nod.

The dragon’s tracks were large and noticeable, even in the relative darkness of night. Tails and Lancelot followed them out into the forest, taking note of the crushed bramble and torn bark along the way, until they reached the wicked spike field, where they suddenly stopped. 

Tails looked around. The spikes were as plentiful as they were jagged, and he could see a blue quill lodged into one of them. That by itself wasn’t a bad sign–Sonic lost quills during fights all the time–but it was the silence that began to unnerve Tails.

Sonic was loud. If he was around, Tails and Lancelot would’ve already caught one of his quips on the wind. But they hadn’t. Instead, the only sounds in the forest were the quiet rustling of the leaves and an ominous dripping from one of the spikes.

Tails looked at that spike. He saw it, broken in half, the sharp tip hanging horizontally over the ground. There were claw marks at the base from the dragon, so it was clear she had broken it. And there was another blue quill stuck to the side of it, too. But that wasn’t all.

The dripping was forming a puddle on the ground. A very large puddle that made Tails sick to his stomach. It smelled like iron. It was red like Sonic’s shoes. And it was dripping from the tip of the spike.

Lancelot stood beside Tails. He looked at the puddle of blood too.

Tails’ mind was racing. There was no way that blood could belong to Sonic. It must be the dragon’s blood. But if it was the dragon’s blood, then where was the dragon? And, more importantly, where was Sonic?

The puddle of blood stared back at Tails in response to his question.

The silence pressed in on Tails like an omen. It was suffocating, but he couldn’t let himself choke on it. Sure, this looked bad. Really bad. But Sonic had been through worse and made it out. He must’ve made it out of this too. All they needed to do was keep looking, and they’d find him.

Because Sonic wouldn’t die. He wouldn’t leave Tails alone. 

He just wouldn’t do those things.

“Sir Lancelot,” Tails said, his voice small, “let’s–”

Lancelot stopped Tails with a harsh, Shh!

Tails strained his ears. He heard branches cracking as they shifted in the wind. He heard distant voles chattering nervously. And then, far away, he heard the sound of heavy footsteps–heavy enough to belong to the red dragon.

No words were said. Tails and Lancelot simply took off, careful to avoid the pool of blood, in the direction of the sound. Eventually, it led them to the lake where this story began. But Sonic and the dragon weren’t there. As if by magic, everyone who’d been at the lakeside had disappeared. However, they’d left behind three crucial clues: Sonic’s gauntlet, a pair of tattered, bloody white gloves, and a single strand of long red hair.

Tails was horrified at the state of the gloves, but Lancelot was more focused on the hair, because he knew who it belonged to. 

“She was here,” he said, his voice low and filled with barely contained rage. “Merlina the Wizard.”

[behold-the-griffin]

okay, so I WAS live-blogging my read through of @athingofvikings fic, A Thing of Vikings, but I stopped some months ago, and THAT was because I was curbstomped by the need to create THIS:

All hail Queen Ruffnut the Wordsmith of Norway, first of her line. May her reign be long and prosperous.

[froggiewrites]

Wanting

Pairing: Sanji x Reader

NSFW

Summary: You have never wanted anyone more than you want Sanji. You don't want to admit it, but as you end up alone together on a new island, the universe seems determined to make you. Warnings: Smut, There Was Only One Bed, Possessiveness (a bit from both Sanji and Reader), Reader really matching Sanji's energy on the horniness here Word Count: 5.6k Crossposted from Ao3

You had never wanted anyone more than you had wanted Sanji.

You hated to admit that tragic, embarrassing fact, but it was true all the same. You wanted him. You had always known you’d liked Sanji, from the moment you met and he threw himself at your feet, knew you found him endearing and silly, but wanting him? That was different. Wanting was real. Wanting was demanding. Wanting had you pacing the deck after yet another dirty dream about your silly little cook, trying to calm down enough to be able to face him at breakfast.

Your bare feet hit the grass of the Sunny’s deck as you pray that this will pass, that you’ll be able to see your dear friend without yearning for him so deeply it threatens to rip a hole in your chest, but every time you close your eyes you can still feel his lips against yours and see his face twisted in pleasure. You huff with frustration, throwing yourself down to lay on your back and stare at the sky. Maybe the morning sun will burn out your retinas and you won’t have to worry about seeing his face at all anymore.

“You alright down there?” His voice is still raspy from sleep, and your eyes shoot open as you use all the willpower you have not to rub your thighs together.

“Sanji!” Your voice is an octave higher than you would have liked to admit. “Hi! Good morning! Um, yeah. I’m uh–I’m fine. Peachy.”

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about his hands reaching down to grab you. Don’t think about how his dick would feel in your mouth.

Fuck. Damnit.

“Are you sure? You’re a little red.” You finally look up to see his face, his hair a little mussed and his eyes softened with concern. You want to kiss him. God, you want to kiss him.

“I’m okay, I’m just, uh. A little hot. That’s all.” You focus anywhere but his eyes, those beautiful kind eyes, because you know if you focus on his eyes you’ll do something you’ll regret. Or maybe you wouldn’t regret it at all, because you’d finally know what his lips feel like.

No. Not now. Not ever. You are not all hot and bothered over Sanji. Not your dear friend Sanji, who is looking at you with so much care it makes you physically ache.

“Do you want to come inside? I can make you something to cool you down.”

You picture being alone together in the kitchen, his practiced hands and talented fingers moving with such purpose as he slices and dices, just to make something to please you. You picture those fingers moving with a different purpose, working for a different pleasure. If you go in that kitchen you fear you’ll do something you can’t take back. “I’m alright! I just need to lay here.” Your voice definitely just audibly cracked.

His face falls a little at the idea that you won’t come with him. You try not to let your heart flutter at the idea he wants you around. That he wants you alone with him. “Alright, well come on in if you change your mind, okay? I’ll do–make. I’ll make anything you want.”

What was that?

Your imagination, surely.

“Of course, Sanji. I’ll let you know if I need you–anything.”

“Right.”

“Yeah.”

You stare at each other for a moment before he turns and walks into the kitchen without even a goodbye, and if you didn’t know better you would think the tips of his ears were red. Surely not, though.

You cover your face and groan, rolling onto your front to block out the world. You hear sets of footsteps pass as your other crewmates wake up and decide to leave you to your misery instead of asking. A small mercy, but one you’re grateful for.

Once you finally manage to drag yourself off of the ground, your thoughts filled with simple, unsexy things like cold showers and paint drying, you make your way to the kitchen for breakfast. You come in only on the tail end of the meal and conversation, hearing Nami’s voice dictating how things are going to go on the next island.

“—need to make sure we aren’t separated. There’s an island-wide curfew, and we need to make sure that none of us break it. We don’t want to risk drawing attention to ourselves.” You can’t see her face but you are familiar with the scathing side-eye she’s almost certainly giving Zoro and Luffy right now.

“Why are you looking at me?” Zoro’s voice is defensive in the way it only gets when he knows whatever he’s being accused of is inarguably true.

Nami sighs. “It’s too early for this. Anyway, we’re going to pair up to make sure no one gets stranded alone on the island just in case we miss curfew. I wrote all of our names on pieces of paper, and I’m going to draw–”

“Why do you get to draw?”

“Yeah I wanna draw! I’m the captain!”

“It doesn’t matter who–”

You tune them out for your sanity as you retrieve your plate from Sanji’s outstretched hands. He gives you a soft, sincere smile that cuts to your core. He looks so wonderful like that, when he isn’t trying to woo you and he’s just being…Sanji.

“I kept it warm for you.” He leans closer so you can hear him over the din of voices behind you. Your eyes are level with his chest, his shirt unbuttoned halfway so you can see his entire torso. You need to look away. You need to stop ogling.

You don’t.

“Thank you,” you murmur distractedly. You don’t know if you’re thanking him for the breakfast or for the clear view of his happy trail.

His chest gets closer, and you feel his warm breath against your ear. “Of course. Anything for you.” He’s so close. You could so easily put your lips against his neck. You could bite him right now, make him make such wonderful noises right here in front of everyone.

“Hey, are you two even listening?” Nami’s annoyed voice rings out from the table behind you.

You both stand at attention like navy soldiers the moment she calls for you. Her tone means business. That silly argument earlier seems like it soured her mood for the entire day.

“Of course, Nami!” Your tone rings false, and she gives you a dour look that you shrink under.

“Ugh. Whatever. Important bits: we’re staying paired up on this island. Be back before dark. Don’t draw attention to yourselves. Got it?”

“Yes, Nami!” You both chorus.

“Great. I’ll start pulling names.”

Your captain pouts. “But I–”

“I’m pulling names.”

“Awww.”

The pairs came quickly: Brook and Usopp, Franky and Robin, Luffy and Chopper, and Nami and Zoro (to Sanji’s audible displeasure). You laugh along with everyone else for just a moment at Sanji’s fit before you realize what it means.

“God, if it pisses you off that much then just switch partners with me!” Zoro’s voice is filled with annoyance, his eye turning to you.

Sanji pauses for a moment, his eyes finding yours, and you can see pure and utter euphoria hit him when he realizes. The fury at Zoro’s suggestion hits a moment after. “No way in hell, mosshead!”

The bickering continues, as it always does, and you try to calm your thoughts once again. A day alone with him. A date, perhaps. You imagine at first walking hand in hand while shopping, stopping in a cafe to enjoy together, and other simple domestic things that make a small lovesick smile make its way onto your face.

And then you remember your dream, hear his lovely voice cry out in a broken whine, and your silly daydreams turn to dark alleys and frantic, fumbling hands taking what they need before you’re caught. You imagine getting to run your hands down his torso, following the teasing trail of hair you saw earlier down, wrapping your hands around him and making him whimper.

You stop your thoughts because you are in front of an audience and are going to lose your sanity if you allow yourself another moment of this.

Sanji and Zoro have stopped fighting, and the crew is pairing off as everyone decides their tasks for today. Zoro has been designated Nami’s shopping bag holder, and his protests fall on deaf ears as the conversations continue without him. You and Sanji will be grocery shopping, of course. He has the list ready to go, which means all you need to do is keep him company and try not to get jealous when he inevitably hits on a stranger. You can do that, grit your teeth and give tight-lipped smiles that hopefully hide the taste of iron on your tongue. Maybe if you’re lucky she’ll reject him, refuse to give him the time of day, and he’ll turn to you as he licks his wounds. He’ll find comfort in you, and you’ll gladly give it. You can ease the sting of rejection as he eases the yearning ache in your chest.

As the crew moves to leave the kitchen, Zoro begins to lean over to you, presumably to make some gruff joke about how miserable your day will be with Sanji, wearing a smug grin hiding the boyish amusement he gets from teasing the man he would never admit is his friend. Before you can hear it, give him a soft laugh and a roll of the eyes, your vision is filled with the soft blue of a slightly unbuttoned shirt and there’s a large, gentle hand on the small of your back.

“I said hands off, mosshead.” Sanji’s voice holds more hostility than you’d expect. Most days even their worst of fights have an air of levity to them that they would never admit, but this has real anger behind it, venom spitting from his lips in a way you had never heard. The hand on your back presses firmly, commandingly, in a way that makes your knees weak. “Let’s go, angel.” His voice softens, then, not filled with the candied sweetness he saves for his usual flirtations, but the type of tender sincerity and affection saved only for a small inner circle you are forever grateful to be a part of.

“What, I can’t talk to her? Possessive pervert.” There’s less anger behind Zoro’s words and more confusion, but you can hardly hear it as the door slams firmly shut behind you. Sanji’s breathing is labored with anger, his shoulders drawn tight, but you hardly notice over the feeling of his fingertips on your back, brushing just above your ass, so close to moving lower. His hand moves to your hip instead, grabbing firmly, not enough to bruise but enough that you couldn’t leave if you wanted to.

“Sanji? Are you alright?” Your voice is hesitant as you try to keep the lust out of it, but he seems to take it as discomfort. His eyes widen, his hand immediately leaving you, and you can’t help but let out a soft whimper at the loss. He, of course, takes this as pain.

“Oh god, darling did I hurt you? I’m so sorry, I–”

“You didn’t hurt me, Sanji, I’m fine. I was just worried about you.” You give him a reassuring smile, teeth only slightly clenched from concentrating on anything other than how strong he felt, on how good it felt to be held, on the feeling that his fingerprints have been burned onto your skin even though the fabric of your shirt.

His face is troubled, his eyes watery from even the idea of hurting you, but he relaxes when you take his hand in yours, gently rubbing his knuckles with your thumb. “I’m fine. I just can’t stand the idea of you running off with mosshead and him getting you lost. He’d probably leave you alone in the woods somewhere.” The words ring falsely in your ears. He hates to admit it, but he trusts Zoro to protect you, no matter the situation. The safety of the crew is one of the few things they’ll always agree on. He does not and would never think Zoro would leave you for dead.

“He wouldn’t do that.”

Sanji goes quiet, unable to bring himself to disagree, to lie to your face a second time. What was he thinking? “Yeah, I…I know.” His voice is weak and strained, but before you can pry further he starts to walk ahead, pulling the grocery list out of his pocket, clearly shutting down the conversation. You stare longingly at his back for a moment, at his broad shoulders, before following in his footsteps.

Shopping is tense, at first, as he tries and fails to calm down, but you eventually find a rhythm. You both fall into each other, a brush of the hands here, a hand on the arm there, the pull so magnetic you cannot help but follow it. Eventually you find yourselves walking hip to hip, you holding his arm, pressing it to your chest incredibly deliberately as he tries and fails to pretend he doesn’t notice. He keeps sneaking glances at you out of the corner of his eye, and you revel in the attention, preening under his wanting gaze. Your thoughts are about nothing but him, nothing but his shining blue eyes lingering on your chest, nothing but the hard stops he keeps making so your tits press even harder into his bicep.

He’s looking at you. God, he’s looking at you, no one else. Your chest tightens at the idea it could always be like this, that he could be yours.

Neither of you notice how late it’s gotten until the sun is already more than halfway behind the horizon. You’re reluctant to break the tension as he pulls you closer when you walk past a group of rowdy drunks, but you remember Nami’s warnings and your blood runs a little cold.

“Um, Sanji? Do you know what time it is?”

He checks his watch with no sense of urgency, clearly not grasping the situation. “It’s almost nine, why?”

“Curfew is at nine thirty, isn’t it? And the ship is…” you think for a moment, “about an hour away?”

He stops in his tracks, causing your chest to press against him again. “Ah.”

A beat of silence.

“Nami’s going to kill us.”

“I think you’re right.”

“The marines will notice us if we’re out past curfew.”

“Right again, my dear.”

“We’re fucked.”

“Mhm.”

More silence, stretching further and further as reality sinks in.

“I…guess we should find somewhere to stay?” Your voice is a little meek.

“I guess so.” He tries to keep his tone even, but there’s something almost mischievous behind it, something you can’t place. The ends of his lips twitch into an almost smile before he stops it. You don’t know what he’s thinking, but you pray it’s something perverted. Maybe today he’ll get brave and act on it and you’ll have an excuse to throw yourself at him, give into the feeling you’ve been fighting all day.

You both attempt to find an inn with two open rooms, but the first three are fully booked with drunks who have beaten you to it. The curfew inches ever closer, and you still have nowhere to stay. If you stay on the street and get caught by the marines, you know Nami will kick your ass for alerting them to your presence. She probably already will for how long you’re delaying your journey. You focus on Sanji’s arm resting around your shoulders to ground yourself and ignore the dread creeping in and settling in your bones.

You finally find an inn that will take you, but you immediately run into a problem. Or what you’ll pretend is a problem.

“Please tell me you have availability.” Sanji’s voice is tinged with desperation as the clock ticks down.

 The woman working the desk seems exhausted, having clearly dealt with much worse customers than yourself earlier. “Is a queen bed okay?”

“A queen bed, like singular?” You put on a good show of acting confused and a little upset, hiding your giddiness well.

“Oh, are you two not–” Her eyes are lingering on where you’re connected, your arms wrapped around his. “I’m sorry, I assumed–well. Um. We only have one room left, I assumed you would want to share it.”

“One room?” Sanji’s voice gets a little loud, and a stranger would mistake this for anger or upset, but you can hear excitement in his tone. He glances at you again, at your face, at your chest, at your legs, admiring you for just a moment, certainly imagining something that would make you flush. “Only one room?”

“I’m sorry, there’s nothing else I can do. We really only have one. If that doesn’t work–”

“It works.” You both speak quickly. You pretend you don’t see him visibly fist pump when he thinks you aren’t looking. He pretends he doesn’t see you excitedly rock on your feet, a visible twinkle in your eye. The woman hands you a set of keys, and you’re both off.

As you walk to the room, you talk around it, pretending you both aren’t absolutely thrilled by this turn of events. 

“I can’t believe they only have one room. I know it’s busy, but this place is massive. It’s hard to believe it’s fully booked.” You try to sound annoyed, but a giggle makes its way into your voice as you imagine being tucked into the single bed with Sanji’s arms around you.

“It’s ridiculous. And with only a queen bed? Not even two twins? Or a king? It’s the most inconvenient it possibly could be.” He can’t fight his smile when he says only a queen, as he imagines both of you having nowhere to run except into each other. He could cry at the idea of having an excuse to hold you close, to feel you pressed against him with your head resting on his chest. It’s so domestic he could pretend it was real.

You both perfectly match each other’s steps in this liar’s dance even when the door closes, even when there’s not a single person to call you on it but each other. You cannot admit that you want this, out of fear that it might shatter the feeling of giddy excitement surrounding you both. You cannot put to words what is happening, lest you make it real. Real has worries attached to it, questions of the future and what this all means and what it changes. If you stay quiet you stay in the dream, where instead the only thing you have to think about is the pounding of your heart and the comforting heat of another next to you.

“I can sleep on the floor,” he says, visibly upset by the idea. He has to offer you the choice, he is a gentleman, but his eyes are pleading for you to deny the idea and welcome him into your bed.

“Don’t be silly, Sanji. You don’t need to ruin your back, there’s plenty of room for the both of us.” You leave out the internal pleading for him to come closer as soon as humanly possible. He can’t know how you may be even more desperate for him than he is for you.

“You’re an angel, my dear.” His smile now is genuinely affectionate, filled with a fondness that makes your chest ache. He looks younger like this, unburdened. “Well, let’s not wait, hm? I bet you’re exhausted.” His hands reach for the buttons of his shirt, and you watch, enraptured, as he slowly undoes each of them, revealing more and more of his body to you. You’ve seen it before, due to his favor for open silly Hawaiian shirts, but you can’t help but swallow at the sight, eyes never daring to look away. He’s so beautiful. He’s so strong.

You wonder if he could break you.

You wonder if you could break him.

He slips the shirt off easily, his hands moving down to his belt, the clink of the buckle sending a shiver down your spine and breaking you out of your trance. You can’t let him undress while you stay fully clothed. It’s rude. You let your hands slide down to the hem of your shirt, swiftly removing it, and he stops in the middle of unbuttoning his pants to stare, jaw slacked. You can see him grow hard at the sight of your chest as his eyes bore holes into you. His gaze is burning, his pupils blown out, his breathing growing heavy.

“Sanji?” You reluctantly call out to break the spell, not wanting your masquerade to end quite this soon.

“Yes? What is tit–it?” His eyes haven’t moved a centimeter, honed in on where your breasts spill over your bra.

“You’re staring.” You keep your tone teasing. His eyes finally trail up to your face, where he finds a twitching smile as you try to hold back your giggles. His expression shifts from lustful to lovestruck as his eyes soften and his smile widens.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, breathlessly.

“So are you.” His smile widens further as he finally looks away from you, suddenly bashful. His cheeks are flushed slightly pink, and you finally break and huff out a laugh. It isn’t seeing you half naked that gets him, or the idea of sharing a bed, or the lustful thoughts he’s certainly been having all day. It’s a simple compliment, not even a particularly good one, that flusters your dear cook. It makes you want to take his face in your hands and place kisses all over it, with a tenderness that would make its way under his skin, marking him as well and truly loved. It makes you want to drop to your knees and worship him, take him into your mouth and not stop until he’s utterly spent and crying from the overstimulation. It makes you want him, in every meaning of the word.

But you don’t want to break the illusion yet, still a little nervous about being the first to step over the line, so instead you slide your thumbs beneath the waistband of your jeans and quickly step out of them. You make your way to the bed, making a show of throwing yourself onto your back, bouncing a little as his eyes eagerly take in the movement of your breasts, your thighs, every inch of you. After allowing him a moment to admire, you shift to pull the blankets over yourself, tucking yourself in. You’re going to play your part. But you’re allowed a moment of fun. You look up at him, doe eyes blinking and arms outstretched welcomingly. “Sanji, aren’t you coming to bed?”

He pauses for a moment, his eyes turning to your face, and in that moment you swear you can see into his head. You see dreams of the two of you intertwined, not sexually, but just…together. You see his head resting against your chest, eyes closed in absolute bliss. You see the soft sunlight of the morning bathing you both in gold, warming you to your bones. You see a different scene, the two of you in a more intimate embrace, bodies pressing closer than you thought possible, hips moving and hands everywhere, a tender moment that almost feels like worship. You see an entire life together, every little moment, and you see Sanji’s eyes fill with tears at the idea of it.

He rips his pants off, practically diving into the bed with you, and his arms wrap around your waist like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He buries his face into your chest, nosing between your breasts, and somehow still keeping up this silly ruse, he mumbles, “This bed’s pretty small. Guess we’ll have to get even closer.” He pulls you tighter, and you’re almost sure he can’t breathe from how much he’s pressed his nose into your skin. You giggle, and you can feel him smile against you. He places a kiss right against your sternum, gentle and affectionate, before pressing one up slightly higher, then one higher than that, as he makes his way up to your neck. His facial hair rubs against your skin, the ticklish feeling making you laugh even more. He places one final kiss where your jaw meets your neck before pulling up to whisper in your ear. “Can I please kiss you? I think I’ll die if I don’t.”

“Please do,” you whine out. He doesn’t wait another moment before your lips crash together, teeth briefly clacking together in his excitement before it softens into something more tender and intimate. He groans softly into your mouth, lips parting, welcoming you in. You gladly accept, and he fully pins you beneath him and you explore each other’s mouths.

His hands slide underneath you, one pulling you upward into him as the other fumbles with the clasp of your bra. The moment it releases, he swiftly tosses it behind him, breaking your kiss to stare at your chest. His mouth is slightly agape as he pants, eyes wide, taking in the sight. He looks as though he wants to speak, but nothing comes out. The silence stretches out as he takes in every inch of your breasts, before he eventually reaches a shaking hand out to brush his fingers against your skin. He lets out a quiet breath of awe. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life. A goddess. I can’t believe this is happening.”

“You took the words out of my mouth, Sanji. This is a dream come true.” Your voice is quiet with the vulnerable admission, and his eyes leave your chest to meet yours.

“You dreamed of this?” He sounds like he really truly can’t fathom the idea.

“Dozens of times. Almost every dream I have is about you. Last night I–” You stop yourself in embarrassment, face flushing.

He leans closer with an intensity he usually saves for battle. “Last night? You dreamed about me last night?” His eyes are boring into you, stripping you bare, staring straight into your heart and soul.

“Yes,” you softly admit. “I dreamed about you last night. About this. The real thing is so much better.”

“Oh god,” he breaths out, before he kisses you again, hard and fast. His hands envelop your tits, groping and squeezing. You can’t stop yourself from keening into his mouth when his fingers brush against your nipples, and you can feel him grind against you when he hears. His hardness presses against your bare thighs, showing how badly he wants you. He grabs at you like you’ll disappear between his fingers, fade away like all of the dreams that have been haunting you.

Another pinch at your nipples makes you cry out, and you pull back, begging, “Sanji, please, more!” You want to feel his fingers inside you, his tongue, his cock. Any and everything he could give you you want, and you feel so sure that he would gladly let you take it. He would give you the heart out of his chest if you asked.

He moans as his bulge rubs against your thighs again. “Fuck, of course, angel. Whatever you want.” He slides lower, and you feel his fingers slide along the fabric covering your slit. He carefully traces a path up to your clit, lightly pressing against it through your panties, making you suck in a breath. His eyes travel between your face and his fingers, taking note of your reactions.

He eventually slides off your panties, letting out a soft noise of appreciation once he’s able to see all of you. He leans closer, mumbling something you don’t quite catch, before his mouth is on you.

“Ah, Sanji!” You cry out in surprise, your thighs clenching together, and you can feel him moan against you at the pressure. His tongue moves expertly, which you suppose makes sense; Sanji is a man who knows how to appreciate a good meal. His hands reach up to grip your thighs, not to pull them apart, but to pull you even closer, hooking your legs over his shoulders as he dives further into you. His nose brushes your clit, making you keen again, and you can feel him smile against your cunt. 

You feel a familiar tension building in your gut as his tongue shifts to your clit and he inserts a finger, then two, then three inside of you, curling in a come hither motion that makes you see stars. You get noisier and noisier as the coil tightens, and Sanji only grows more enthusiastic with every moan and cry he manages to pull from you. His hips are grinding desperately against the mattress beneath you. Your thighs continue to tighten around his head, and you worry you’ll crush him, but you imagine that’s the way he’d want to go.

With one final flick of Sanji’s tongue and push of his fingers, you come unraveled around him, nearly screaming his name as you’re hit with white-hot pleasure. His fingers work you through it, only stopping when your thighs go slack around him and you let out a soft whimper. He crawls up to see your face, to see the evidence of his work, and you can see he’s absolutely covered in your wetness, his facial hair soaked in you. His pupils are blown out, his eyes nearly entirely black and looking nearly maddened with lust. He kisses you, and you can taste yourself on his lips.

“Please, please let me feel you. I need to feel you around me. Please.” His voice is ragged as he pants, a whine behind it as he begs to fuck you.

“Please,” you whimper back.

His fingers hook below the waistband of his boxers, and he slides out of them slowly. His cock stands proudly, long and thick, leaking precum. He gives you no time to admire it, swiftly lining it up with your entrance and slowly pushing himself into you, moaning into your ear at the feeling.

“Darling, you feel heavenly,” he groans. He sits still for a moment, giving you time to adjust and just enjoying the feeling of you tightening around him. “I could never have imagined how perfect you are. The dreams never did you justice.” You try to move your hips, but his hands are holding you still. You let out a whine, pathetic and wanton, and his lips tug into a smile. “Are you ready, my dear?”

“Yes, god, yes.”

He pulls himself out slowly, before reentering a little faster, the next time a little faster than that, increasing his speed bit by bit until he’s relentlessly pounding you into the mattress. He mumbles endless praise for you that gets lost between his moans, only allowing you to make out princess and tight and perfect. The room is filled with these small praises and the sound of slapping skin. You lean up to kiss him, but he doesn’t let you, instead staring intensely into your eyes, determined to see your face when you cum.

He watches your face as your orgasm grows closer, his hips speeding up and his fingers reaching for your clit. His gaze is loving, admiring, nearly worshiping, and his words at some point turn into a prayer: for you, for him, for what you’ve created here in this room to last long after the door opens and you return back to a life where this becomes real. Your orgasm hits you harshly, making you cry out, and he watches enraptured as you come apart around him. He tries to keep his pace steady, but his hips stutter as he cums inside of you, filling you with warmth.

He stays like that, cock inside of you, eyes locked onto yours. The only sound in the room is your heaving breaths, the only sensation either of you feel is the warmth of the other grounding you here.

“I think I love you,” he murmurs. “Can I say that? Can I make it real?”

You wrap your arms around him, pulling his head to your chest, cradling him there. “Please do. I want it to be real. I want you. I love you.”

He adjusts, pulling out of you, crawling up slightly to fully make his home in your chest. His shoulders shake, and you hear a sniffle. You don’t say anything, simply running your hands gently through his hair, across his cheeks, down his back.

“I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you.” He nuzzles his face even deeper into you.

“I think I’ve wanted you just as long, even if I didn’t realize it.”

“I adore you.” His voice is thick with emotion, and you think maybe this confession is deeper and more difficult than his first. 

“I adore you too, Sanji. You’re one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met.”

You sit there, basking in each other’s presence, enjoying a world where this gets to be real. You drift off to sleep peacefully, with the reassurance that when you wake this won’t just have been another troubling dream. Nothing is more real and grounding than his arms wrapped around you, his leg thrown over you, his lips still lightly pressed against your skin. You know you’ll see him tomorrow, shining brilliantly in the sun, and walk back hand in hand. You still dream of him, but the lovesick smile he gives you when you open your eyes is better than any dream you’ve ever had.

[zaldritzosrose]

Make Me Want To Sin (Aegon x Betrothed!Reader)

Summary: He'd heard it so often, it must be true. "It's still innocent if our clothes stay on". And Aegon has every intention of living by that, especially with a betrothed as beautiful as you.

(Thank you to @lynnbeth5172 for sending me the most Aegon coded tweet ever!)

TW: She/Her pronouns, afab reader, dry humping, fingering, mentions of loss of virginity, innuendo, profanity, Aegon being himself.

Words: 1743

No beta because I like living on the edge!

Aegon counted himself lucky. Not only had his betrothed been chosen for him, but marriage had also never been something he’d sought out himself. But his mother had chosen someone beautiful. One of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen, he’d wager, and Aegon had see a lot of women.

You were a lady of a Great House, as expected. His marriage was never going to be one of love and romance, Aegon knew that. He was a prince after all. Though romance wasn’t really his forte, he had to admit it.

Pleasure. That’s where his expertise lay, in his own opinion. And you were sweet and chaste. A follower of the Faith, nothing more could be expected from someone chosen for him by his mother. Of course, she’d want someone like that.

Aegon, however, found every excuse to tease and tempt you.

“Come now, my dear, I have heard it said time and time again,” Aegon cooed, his fingers linking with yours as you walked the gardens, “As long as we remain clothed, it is all innocent.”

This wasn’t the first time he’d tried this. Stolen kisses in secluded hallways were one thing, but you’d had it ingrained into you that you needed to remain pure for your wedding. Meaning, of course, no intimacy. But Aegon was determined. He knew, from the way you’d sigh his name whenever he’d touch you a little more intimately or kiss you a little harder, that you wished for it as much as he did.

But you were a far less sinful person than he was.

“And I have told you, it is tradition for a betrothed couple to wait until their wedding night.” You answered, not hiding the roll of your eyes.

Four months you had been betrothed and Aegon was insatiable. But never forceful. Something that had surprised you, based on the stories you’d heard. And maybe, that was what slowly broke your resolve. Not that he knew it was breaking.

Two week until your wedding, that was all that remained. But Aegon seemed even more impatient. You took it as a compliment, of course. Or at least, he would tell you that you should. That he was so hopelessly attracted to you that he couldn’t wait a moment longer to have you.

Each compliment, each lingering touch, each flirtatious whisper in your ear at dinner, was breaking down your wall more and more. And Aegon knew it.

When you didn’t chastise him for the way his hand now rested on your silk covered thigh at dinner, he knew he was getting closer to his goal. He wanted you to want him as he did you.

His fingers squeezed at your flesh ever so slightly, watching as the pink flush crept up your chest and higher to your cheeks. But you didn’t ask him to stop, as you usually did. Aegon took a little confidence in that, slowly drifting his hand higher until he stopped short of the apex of your thighs. Inches from where he wanted to be the most.

“Aegon…” you warned, and he simply flashed you that smile you had grown to love.

His hand remained where it was for the rest of the dinner, but he knew he could get a little further next time.

It was a week until your wedding now and your willpower was almost at its end. It seemed like now, everything Aegon did in your presence was arousing. And he could see it. How your eyes would linger on his hands when they held his wine cup, or on his lips when he spoke. He had you, almost.

Aegon was sat in the library with Aemond, though the younger prince was the only one reading. Aegon came here because you enjoyed it and spending time with you was what he enjoyed. The corner you had chosen was quiet and as Aemond wandered away in search of something else to read, Aegon saw his opportunity.

With a gentle pull, he tugged you from your chair to his lap, revelling in the small squeak of surprise you let out.

“Aemond could return any moment...” you whispered, trying desperately to ignore Aegon’s hand on your shin, trailing a path beneath the fabric of your gown.

Aegon only hummed in response. He couldn’t care less if Aemond returned, his only focus was you. Knowing he wouldn’t let you go anytime soon, you tried to return to your book. But the words were nonsense as Aegon’s hand dipped between your thighs, toying with the fabric of your smallclothes.

“Aegon, here? Really?” you asked, your voice cracking slightly as his fingertips dipped beneath the undergarment.

Again, you only got a hummed response, as Aegon’s lips found the sliver of exposed skin at your shoulder. As if on instinct, your head tilted, giving him more access to your body. You could feel him beneath you, the hard length of him pressing against your backside. You knew you shouldn’t, but it was getting more of a challenge to resist.

“Do I make you want to sin, my lady?” Aegon whispered, his voice taking on the low tone that always had you shivering.

His words sent a rush of heat down your spine, pooling between your legs. And you knew he could feel it, his fingers slipping your smallclothes aside.

“If our clothes stay on, it is innocent, that is what you said?” you asked, repeating the words he’d said time and time again.

Aegon grinned into your neck. He had you and the time he’d waited now was worth it.

“Yes, my sweet girl, that is how it works.” His voice was soft in your ear, but his words had you whimpering, combined with the slow movements of his fingers against your pearl.

Aegon wanted to feel you, just a little something to sate him before your wedding night. Something to tempt you, prepare you for what was to come.

His hand delved deeper, a single digit slipping between your folds now. The groan he let out as your heat enveloped his finger was near sinful. He’d pictured this, time and time again alone in his room. But nothing would compare to actually feeling you. The slick heat of your arousal that was already dripping onto his skin. His own cock pulsed against your backside, and he couldn’t help but grind his hips up into you. He needed more.

“Oh…Aegon..” your voice was like music to his ears. The library was quiet at this time, but he captured your lips and swallowed your moans. Just in case. He couldn’t afford to be caught now.

He sped up, slipping another finger inside and rolling his thumb against your pearl. Your head falling to his shoulder, burying your face in the crook of his neck as you felt a tight knot in your stomach. Aegon could feel it, you were so very close, and he wanted to see you come apart for him.

And it didn’t take long. He curled his fingers inside you, chewing on his lip as he felt your muscles clench and hold him inside. And only seconds later, the most delicious moan of his name fell from your lips, thighs closing around his wrist as you peaked.

“That’s it. You are so very beautiful when you come, my lady…” Aegon purred, slowing his movements until he stopped.

Your head rested against his shoulder, your breath coming out as pants as you came down from your high. You’d never felt anything quite like it, but the way Aegon’s hand continued to squeeze at your body, you knew he wasn’t done with you.

With practised moves, he maneuvered you to straddle him, bunching your gown just high enough to expose the flesh of your thighs. The new position sent a shot of pleasure up your spine and you instinctively rolled your hips against him.

“You are insatiable, my prince,” you mused, Aegon’s hands now rested on your waist, urging you to move again.

Aegon only chuckled, the feel of your body against his knocking all thoughts from his head. This was what he’d imagined, what he’d wanted. And now he had it, he didn’t know where to begin. Something about the way you looked at him now, chest still heaving ever so slightly. Skin flushed from your peak. You had never looked more beautiful.

“Still innocent…” he mumbled, bucking his hips up against you as he helped you roll your hips.

His lips found yours, hands slipping from your waist to your backside. You could tell by the way he held you tight, kiss messy and rough, that he was close to his own end. And you’d be damned if you didn’t please him as he had you.

You braced yourself against the back of the armchair, trying to keep your movements as fluid as possible. And the groans that left Aegon’s lips told you were doing something right. The feel of his cock pulsing and twitching under his breeches felt better than you could ever imagined. It wasn’t long before his grip became bruising, slamming his hips up into you, chasing the friction despite the clothing between you.

His face glistened a little from the exertion, hair sticking to his skin. Your lips found his jaw, as they had many times when your past kisses had got heated. But this time was different. Your teeth nipped his skin as the rut of his hips hit your core in just the right rhythm to have you peaking again.

“Yes, fuck…” Aegon was lost to pleasure now and feeling you peak again was enough to have him following with his own. With the last few ruts of his hips, his head fell back against the chair and his eyes closed.

Both of you sat quietly. You’d expected to feel ashamed, like you’d done something you shouldn’t have. And yet looking at your betrothed, cheeks flushed, lips swollen from your kisses, you felt both satisfied and proud.

The silence was only broken when Aegon chuckled, a deep sound that had your head tilting in confusion.

“I knew I would tempt you,” he smiled, pulling you down for any other kiss.

You smiled into it, relishing the slight hiss he gave when your hips pushed down against his. Your thoughts wandering to exactly how your upcoming wedding night would be.

“You were right,” you whispered, lips brushing against his.

“You do make me want to sin.”

Taglist: @valeskafics @nyrasproblm @alexagirlie @targaryen-dynasty

[jinyoungbirth]

Not to sound like everyone and anyone but MAN the pandemic really took everything from me

[anthurak]

Something I’ve always found rather curious about the Adventure Time fandom, specifically Bubbline shippers, is that nobody seems to talk about how the show slipped in what might be the most angsty, hardcore and emotionally raw Bubbline stories disguised as a wacky Rashomon-style recap in the episode Ketchup.

Like it’s pretty clear that Marceline is doing the whole ‘Lollipop Girl and Rockstar Girl’ puppet-show because she doesn’t want to traumatize BMO with what happened while they, Finn and Jake were gone, and also because she herself doesn’t want to revisit those memories directly.

But when we start reading between the lines and recognize that Marceline’s embellishments are really more to tone DOWN events, I think we get a very stark and raw depiction of what Marceline was doing when Patience set off Ooo’s elemental apocalypse.

Just to kick things off, how much does anyone want to bet that this joke translates to ‘Marceline and Bubblegum had a fight and Marcy was giving Bonnie some space… and because of that, Marceline wasn’t there to protect Bonnie when she was kidnapped by Patience.’?

Kinda adds another layer to Marcy’s whole ‘I was so afraid something bad would happen to you’ breakdown in Come Along With Me, doesn’t it?

Next we have ‘Rockstar Girl smacking off the potato-heads growing on her’ which pretty easily translates to; ‘while everyone else was getting overrun by the elements, Marceline was able to fight off the elemental contamination for possibly entire days while she tried to find a way to help Bubblegum’. And given what we see with Finn and Jake only able to resist the contamination for maybe a few hours at a time, and how willpower was one of the only things that could hold it off, that says a LOT about just how DESPERATE Marcy was to help Bonnie. I mean, you want a really hardcore and messed up image? Imagine if Marceline was actively cutting or RIPPING off the contaminated parts of herself to keep it from spreading and regrowing those parts with her vampiric regeneration?

Then we have ‘Rockstar Girl went after the Blue Tranch’, which I can only imagine translates to ‘Marceline going on a GOLB-DAMMNED WARPATH to hunt down Patience St. Pim’. And let’s remember that A. Patience was currently a super-charged Elemental and B. Marceline would still be fighting off elemental contamination herself, whether the Candification from Bubblegum, the Ice-ification from Patience, or even both.

I mean, when we think about it; ‘Rockstar Girl played some really loud music that the Blue Tranch didn’t like’ quite possibly translates to the most insane battle of the entire show. Like on one side we’ve got Patience St. Pim, seasoned Elemental who could already make Ice King look like an amateur, super-charged with elemental energy making her probably the most powerful Ice Elemental in thousands if not millions of years. And on the other side, we’ve got Marceline, consumed and possibly more than half-crazed with rage, fear and desperation to help Bonnie, going ALL-OUT with her numerous vampire powers, possibly some of her demonic powers, all while fighting off the encroaching elemental contamination.

And if ‘The Blue Tranch begged Rockstar Girl to stop and go away’ is anything to go by, I think we can assume that Marcy utterly WRECKED Patience’s SHIT. As in, Patience may well have ended this fight with an axe in her gut, a claw choking the life out her and Marceline threatening to devour her very SOUL if she didn’t tell her how to help Bonnie.

(Here’s another fun thought: Something that notably separates Patience from the other current elementals of Ooo is that whereas Princess Bubblegum, Flame Princess and Slime Princess are all physical manifestations OF their elements (Gum, Fire and Slime, respectively), while Patience is human. Yet when we see her during the arc, she seems to have lost her human body and assumed fully elemental form as well. Now we could of course assume that this is simply due to the elemental overcharge just like the others. Buuuuttt… what if Patience was FORCED to assume this new form because her human body could no longer SURVIVE after the utter THRASHING she received from Marceline?)

Finally, we of course have the end. Something which seems all too easy to imagine even with Marceline’s toning down of events:

Marcy rushing back to the Candy Kingdom as fast as she can. Even though she’s exhausted from her fight with Patience and the days spent fighting off the elemental contamination. To the point where now she can only barely hold it off and maintain her sanity. Perhaps she wonders if this is what it was like for Simon during their time together…

Even though she knows speeding back this fast is only draining her strength faster, but that doesn’t matter to her. Because what matters right now is the trinket, potion, or something or other clutched in her hand that Patience gave her. Something that Marcy can’t be sure will even work. But she hopes it will. That’s the only thing keeping her going, the only thing holding her together at this point.

A blind, desperate HOPE that this will save Bonnie…

When she finally returns to what was once the Candy Kingdom, Marceline finds the massive tower of gum. Perhaps like Finn and Jake later on, Marceline at first isn’t sure what she’s looking at and thinks Bonnie is at the top. So she flies right to the top in a burst of speed that drains her already dwindling strength even further.

And there Marcy finds Bonnie. Or rather, what Bonnie has BECOME. Perhaps she doesn’t even remember Marcy.

Perhaps for Marcy, this is like losing Simon all over again. Except instead of the father who raised and cared for her over ten years, it’s a woman that Marcy has loved for the better part of a millennium. A woman she was only just able to start loving again after so long. But now, just like Simon… she’s gone.

And this realization does what all the elemental power of Ooo could not.

It breaks Marceline.

Just like that, Marceline doesn’t even try to use the ‘antidote’ Patience gave her. Instead, perhaps Marcy gives Bonnie one last kiss and just… accepts the madness.

Because now, at least they can be together.

[areyouwell]

Sciophobia

Noun: An extreme fear of shadows. An adult or child with Sciophobia may experience extreme stress and anxiety in everyday life due to the nature of light and shadow.

Ch.2

Ch.1 <---

Pairing: Logan Howlett x F!Mutant!Reader

Warnings: the most DISGUSTING, tooth-achingly sweet fluff, like candyfloss-style shit. i vomited twice writing it and once again proofreading it. they make pasta together for TWO THOUSAND WORDS so if that ain't yer thing im sorry the good stuff will start soon. and by that i mean body horror. i threw up writing that for a completely different reason...

Word count: 11k (strap in and strap on folks)

A/N: as mentioned in the warnings, this is almost pure fluff. sure there's MC rage so strong my timbers were shivered but other than that it's mostly fluff. i want you guys to know, i am setting us all up for failure, because this WILL get sad. but it'll get hot first, then downright filthy, the a little disgusting before it gets sad, we got a while to go so booties ch.2 LFG

Taglist: @badbishsblog @reidsworld @idioticstar @toogaytofunctiondangit

“Maybe just try… concentrating harder?” 

It took all of your willpower not to cross the few steps it would take to punch Scott’s lights out. Why the Professor assigned him to help with your training, you’d never know. Sure, it wasn’t like you were constantly at each other’s throats like he and Logan seemed to be, but you never exactly saw eye to eye either. Scott was too… neat, for you. He liked rules too much, always following what his head told him he should do, rather than following his heart or gut. It was infuriating on missions, and you’d had plenty of arguments about the correct course of action before he became the de facto leader whether you liked it or not. 

That was shortly before you went away, so you didn’t really have much time to experience the dictatorship of Scott Summers, and now you were back, you weren’t entirely sure you wanted to. 

“Ya know what Scott? I’d never thought of doing that, thanks!” you bit sarcastically, sweat beading along your brow. You’d been at this for well over an hour now, hour two fast approaching with no progress. You’d successfully shadow-walked, though Cyclops noted your hesitation to do so. But could he blame you? The idea of shadow-walking and then suddenly not having the strength to pull yourself back together, or whatever it was you did, was quite frankly, terrifying. 

Scott sighed, placing a hand on his hip and running the other through his hair. “Alright, take ten, I’ll talk to the Professor.” He said, already making his way towards the iron doors. You let loose a frustrated breath, bracing your hands across the back of your neck. This was hopeless. Utterly hopeless. What’s worse, is that there was no proof you could actually do those things. No proof that was the Professor was saying was fucking true. 

You were glad the back wall was cast in shadow as you stormed across the floor, sending your fist careening into the metalwork, instantly regretting your outburst when the crack of your split knuckles rang out louder than the punch itself. Clamping your lips between your teeth to stop yourself from crying out, you let yourself breathe through the pain, savouring it just slightly. It was good. Pain was good. It reminded you how you weren’t just a pile of shadows wandering aimlessly through the air yet. You doubted you could feel a broken hand if you didn’t have a hand to feel with. 

Turning your back to the wall, you slid down to the floor, head buried between your knees with your arms casing you in, throbbing hand gripping your opposite shoulder tightly. You wouldn’t cry. You would. Not. Cry. That wasn’t you. You don’t cry. Since when did you cry?

This was how Logan found you. He’d been stuck in a meeting with Xavier and Storm all morning, going over the blueprints of the latest rescue mission the team would embark on. Though in all honesty, he was barely listening, his thoughts disobediently drifting back to you. The memory of your smile, the teasing lilt in your voice, the way your arms felt wrapped around his neck, the scent of your hair invading his heightened nose. He wondered how you were getting on with Scott, and he pitied the fact you were having to do this with Scott. That was until the man of the hour walked through the doors, disrupting the meeting and finally releasing him back into the world. 

It’s no wonder his feet led him straight to you, you’d been on his mind that much. So to see you like this, curled up against the opposite wall, your hand an angry red, it tugged at his heart. 

You didn’t seem to notice him as he crossed the room, only looking up when he kicked the gym mat with his foot. There was that smile again. The one that didn’t reach your eyes and only serve to fool people who were fucking idiots into thinking you were okay. 

The last person you expected to see walk through those doors was Logan. Last you’d heard, he was stuck in a meeting with Charles and Ororo. Scott was initially furious he’d been asked to help develop your mutation instead of intent ‘crucial strategy meetings’ so he called them, but he soon lightened up when you not-so-subtly reminded him it’s because Charles thought he was the best option to help you. 

You sighed heavily, bracing your good hand on your knee as you rose to your feet. For Logan to see you in such a sorry state wasn’t high on your list of priorities. You were pretty sure it wasn’t on that list at all. 

“Not goin’ well?” he asked softly, and you had to grit your teeth to stop yourself from tearing up. You watched his eyes flicker from your face to your hand, thick brows pinching in concern. You followed his line of sight, not that you needed to, you could fucking feel your knuckles pulsing fire up your arm. 

“Uh, no, not really. I’d love to say I did this punching Scott, but he left before I could, so I took it out on the wall instead.” You half smiled, and Logan found himself blowing out a huff of laughter. Even in this state, in this mindset, you could still find humour. 

Sinking your hand into the shadows across the wall behind you, you felt the familiar tingle of, what you now know was your body breaking apart, before the slight itch of pulling it back together as you dragged it back out, good as new. 

Logan thought for a moment, hazel eyes flicking from you to the shadows behind you. “Have you tried–”

“If you’re about to say ‘concentrating harder’ I might have to hurt you.” You interrupted, much to his amusement.

“I’m assumin’ that’s what Scott said?”

“Word for fucking word,” you said with a slight lopsided smile. Now that one reached your eyes. 

Logan took a few steps forward, now borderline pinning you against the wall. If it wasn’t for his hearing, he would have missed the way your breath hitched slightly, the slight shudder in your exhale. He chalked it down to your apprehension toward your situation. He had to. Giving himself hope like that just led to a shit load of hurt.

“What I was goin’ to say, was have ya tried from in there?” he raised a brow, his eyes looking past you and at the wall behind, and you had to take a minute to remember what you were talking about, his proximity all but throwing all and any thought out the window. It was achingly familiar to yesterday in the kitchen.

“You might be onto something…” you breathed when you remembered how to form words. Now you were thinking about it, he could be right. Why on earth were you trying to call the shadows to you, when you could drag them out with you? However, the idea of once again disappearing into shadow didn’t fill you with the same sense of freedom it once did. 

And Logan could see it. The hesitation, apprehension. You’d told him you were scared last night, but this was the first time he’d seen it. “I’ll be right here, yeah?” Fuck the way you looked at him shattered his heart. You wanted to be brave, you wanted to have the same sense of wonder you always did when it came to your mutation. He looked at the clench of your jaw, the flare of your nostrils as you nodded. 

“Alright… don’t go anywhere.” you half-joked, sliding your hands down the cool wall behind you, feeling your skin tingle at the mere idea of disappearing into the darkness. 

“Where would I go? You’re right here.” Logan responded, placing his index finger on the centre of your forehead and pushing ever so slightly. It gave you enough courage to fall back into the darkness, feeling the release of those threads holding your corporeal body together. 

Logan wasn’t really sure why he said that and he hoped to fuck you were too nervous about this whole thing to actually register what he’d said. He breathed out a sigh of relief when he watched you fold into the shadow, taking a few steps back and looking at his watch. Any longer than three minutes and he’ll start to think this was a really bad idea. Though, he probably should have told you that before you disappeared. 

Fuck.

It was always a strange sensation. Your consciousness was still intact, but the rest of your body had disappeared, scattered into a million different pieces. Probably billions. You couldn’t see, but you didn’t need to. You could sense. Sense the layout of the room. Sense where the shadows begin and where they end. Everything became nothing, and it was freedom. Quieting your thoughts, you concentrated. Concentrated on pulling. It was the same itching sensation you felt when leaving the shadows, except you tried to ground yourself.

Ground yourself in a place that had literally no ground.

This was fucking impossible.

You felt yourself slipping, the shadows around you not knowing what it was you were asking. Did the shadows have consciousness too? You didn’t know. Who fucking knew? And you didn’t fucking care. You tried to concentrate again, pulling against those threads you used to bring yourself from one place to the other toward you.

And only succeeding in moving again. Walking. This was no fucking different to what you’ve always done. Just moving from one point to the next. You’d already fucking mastered that. 

But at least one good thing had come from this. You weren’t afraid anymore. 

You were fucking angry.

Your consciousness writhed like a ball of angry vipers, pulling at all and any threads you could sense around you, flicking from one place to another with no rhyme or reason, no direction. 

If you could scream, you would have done. If you could lash out, you would have done. Rage rippled through your senses, those threads around you thrashing and flailing. Useless. Fucking useless. Maybe this was the fate you deserved. Disappearing into nothing, being nothing. Maybe you did deserve it. 

But you wouldn’t fucking accept it. Not yet.

This is “–fucking POINTLESS!” you roared, stepping from the shadow, your body itching all over, buzzing with adrenaline, your back almost burning. Your eyes took time to adjust to the light again, but you were too furious to register anything. “What’s the fucking point? Nothing works! I can’t pull them toward me, I can’t pull them with me, this is fucking stupid!” you continued your tirade, almost feeling the physical weight of your failure heavy upon your shoulders. “I can’t fucking do it, so why bother trying? It’s been a day and I’m already sick of this shit!” you heaved, breath searing your newly formed lungs, sending shockwaves of fire through your shoulder blades. You couldn’t remember a time when you’d been this angry. “If this stupid fucking mutation doesn’t kill me I’ll do it myself I swear to fucking god and what the FUCK are you smiling at Logan?!” You bellowed, your eyes finally registering what they were seeing. 

Logan had probably the world’s most gorgeous smile, and you wished you weren’t too pissed off to appreciate it. But before he had time to answer, Scott and Charles entered the room, Scott dropped a mug of what looked like freshly brewed coffee straight onto the floor, the shattering of the ceramic lingering in the air as the room fell deadly silent. 

“What?” you asked, now slightly fearful as the three men peered at you, each with a different expression. Scott seemed utterly horrified, his jaw slack and agape. Charles looked almost smug, a knowing smile pulling at his lips. And Logan?

Logan just grinned at you, arms folded across his chest. “You did it,” he whispered, nodding to what you thought was the wall behind you. Your eyes lingered on his as you turned your head, finally looking at what everyone else in the room seemed to be seeing. 

Honestly, you were fucking shocked you didn’t notice. At least now the burning in your shoulder blades had an explanation. 

Two broad, rippling wings of pure shadow spread wide from your back, the darkness almost pulsing along with your rapid heartbeat. It felt good, and you noted the lack of pressure about your body. Those threads that seemed constantly under strain had loosened, seemingly constantly fed by the shadows at your back. 

You slowly pulled at the strings, watching the wings move and shift with your intentions. Your fury dissolved as you watched in complete awe, along with the three others in the room. They folded close to your back and you felt the buzzing of energy against your leg, before you extended them again to their full size, tips grazing either side of the room. 

“Wh… H-how?” Scott managed to stutter, taking a cautious step forward. You looked from your shadows to Cyclops. 

“It, uh, it was Logan’s idea. Pull them out with me rather than trying to pull them towards me…” you were still reeling, slowly extending your fingers before trying to move the rest of your body. You didn’t know how much concentration it was taking to keep them intact, and you were a little afraid of letting them slip. Your breath came heavy as if you’d run around the estate at least four times. 

Logan looked back at Scott, unable to help his ‘fuck you’ brow raise. And to his satisfaction, Scott clicked his tongue in irritation. He turned back to you when he heard your slight laugh, clearly having noticed the silent exchange between them.

“How did you even know about this?” Scott asked accusingly.

“She told me.” Logan retorted as if it was the most obvious response on the planet. Scott just stood there in shock.

“She… she told you? She told you. As in, the one over there?” Cyclops pointed at you and you flipped him off in return.

“Yeah? Who else would we be talkin’ ‘bout?”

“It’s just, she doesn’t tend to… do that,”

“She is right fucking here!” you held your arms up, gesturing to yourself in a way that thankfully returned the boys’ attention back to the situation at hand. 

“Yeah well, this is all well and good,” Scott continued, crouching now to pick up the larger pieces of the shattered mug, “but how do you release them?” he finished. 

He had a point. You couldn’t wander around the school with two giant wings stuck to your back, as much as you wanted to. How would you get through the doorways? Xavier wheeled forward until he was next to Logan, his face now much more serious.

“Carefully. Release it too quickly and the threads could go with them,”

“Wouldn’t that just mean she would be back in the shadow?” Logan asked, slight concern lacing his baritone voice. There was a catch here, and every single one of you knew it. 

“Ordinarily yes, however, she cannot disappear into her own shadow. If she releases those threads anywhere other than back to its original form, there’s a risk of her disappearing with it and getting stuck,” He explained, to nobody’s understanding. You knew you couldn’t disappear into your own shadow, you’d tried before and your body simply wouldn’t let you. 

“So wait… I can pull the shadow with me but have to return it to where it was, essentially?” you asked, slowly so that your question could be understood, even by yourself. Charles nodded, and you took a deep breath in an attempt to calm yourself. 

Logan couldn’t help but feel partly to blame for this. He’d encouraged you to take this step, to try alternate methods of developing your mutation, and now he had, you were stuck like this until you felt sure you could release it carefully. Shit.

‘She made it this far because of you. We have a chance at changing her fate because of you, Logan. You cannot regret that.’ It was always jarring when the Professor found his way into his head, and it wasn’t the least bit soothing. What did ease him a little, however, was your slight reassuring smile, renewed with confidence. 

You could see he was battling with guilt, terrified that he may have endangered you. But you could do this. You’d already managed to achieve something you never thought you could today, what’s one more miracle?

“Hooookay, let’s try this… carefully, right?” it was a rhetorical question because honestly? You were a little scared, and stalling seemed to give you time to collect your thoughts and calm your slightly stuttering heart.

“Carefully,” Charles instructed, and you nodded once before taking another deep breath. Holding it for a few moments, you tightened the threads you hoped to fuck were holding you together, keeping them in place before blowing out the breath, releasing your connection to the wings behind your back. You felt them bleed down your shoulders, shivering slightly as the shadows snaked down your legs and back against the wall behind you, returning to their original state. 

You’d closed your eyes at some point, honestly, you couldn’t remember when. You were scared to open them, scared to see if you’d fucked anything up, if parts of your body were just completely shadow, or whether you had accidentally grown multiple limbs or something. You knew your mind was running away from you, but you couldn’t help it, as ridiculous as it felt.

Logan smiled slightly to himself as he watched the shadows wash away and return to the wall, and that inward smile broadened when he noticed you weren’t moving, eyes clenched shut, your hands balled into fists, your shoulders tensed and hunched. He stepped forward and up to you, gently bracing his hands on either side of your neck, thumbs angling your jaw up a little. Your soft gasp didn’t escape his ears.

“Y’alright?” He asked, eyes searching your face before finding your own gaze, your lids having fluttered open. You visibly relaxed, one hand that was previously balled into a tight fist now gently sliding up his wrist, resting atop his forearm. Your touch was electric, fingertips sending shivers down his spine. 

“Fine, I think,” you responded, gliding your nails through the hair on his arm. It was an absent response to his touch. You wanted to be closer to him, to bury your head in the crook of his neck and breathe in his pinewood scent. His breath was a mix of mint and tobacco, and you wondered if his lips had a permanent hint of whiskey if you were to taste them, having been told by a grumbling Jean that was who the hidden, half-empty bottle in the cupboard belonged to.

You instantly mourned the loss of his touch when he stepped back, though you were grateful he did. You’d been dangerously close to kissing him, and whilst you still wanted to, perhaps not without an audience of Charles and Scott.

“How are you feeling?” You blinked when the Professor addressed you directly, having forgotten what living in reality was like for a few moments. Nodding along with an answer you hadn’t voiced yet, you grinned along with a deep, contorting rumble of your stomach.

“Apparently, starving.” A chuckle escaped your lips and you braced a hand against your stomach in an attempt to soothe away the uncomfortable feeling of hunger. 

“I think that’s enough for today. Logan, could you take this one to the kitchen? Make sure she’s fed.” There was a knowing look in Professor Xavier’s eye that Logan wasn’t sure he liked. Sure, he may have just lovingly held your face whilst bringing you back from the brink of terror, but that didn’t mean there was anything going on between the two of you. You met yesterday!

“Sure.” he shrugged, trying his damnest to sound nonchalant about it. You stretched your arms up above your head, popping your elbows slightly as you followed Logan from the room, feeling a thousand times lighter than you did when you entered two hours ago. Honestly, you couldn’t believe you’d succeeded. 

The doors closed behind you with a soft swish, and you paused to appreciate the man walking ahead of you. You’d known each other for less than twenty-four hours, and yet you’d tear the fabric of the universe apart to ensure his safety. You knew almost nothing about him, and yet you felt the strangest pull towards him, a yearning to be around him, to be near him. It was infuriating, but so fucking exciting at the same time. Could this maybe be something? Did he feel this weird connection too? Or was it just your delusions working overtime? Honestly, hard to say.

“Take a picture, it’d last longer.”

You snapped from your daze to notice he’d turned back to you, realising you weren’t following him. Flashing him a broad smile, refusing to feel any kind of embarrassment that he’d caught you practically staring at him, you jogged a little to catch up, effortlessly falling into step beside him.

“Wanted to thank you,” you looked up at him through the corner of your eye, catching his own gaze. 

“What for?”

“Everything. Logan, I’ve known you for less than a full day and you’ve already helped me more than people I’ve known practically my whole life. The Professor excluded. So yeah, thanks.” You shrugged, hitting the button on the lift to take you both back up to the ground floor. The doors closed and you leaned against the back wall, crossing one ankle over the other. 

“You need better friends if you’re thankin’ me for anythin’. Wouldn’t anyone else do the same?” he asked, mirroring your stance against the adjacent wall, folding his arms across his chest. You snorted a laugh, and he found himself smiling at you.

“Yeah, friends would, but like I said, we haven’t even known each other a full twenty-four hours yet.”

Logan cocked a brow, his smile morphing back to a small smirk. “Well pardon me, princess, I thought we were friends.” 

You rolled your eyes, and Logan had a horrendous feeling he’d misread the entire situation between you. “I mean like, lifelong friends, asshole. People I’ve known ever since I can remember. Not people I met yesterday,” you finished, gently kicking his foot with your own. Logan straightened up as the lift slowed to reach the ground floor, softly flicking your forehead in response to your kick, causing you to bat his hand away.

“Yeah, well, what can I say? You made an impact,” he shrugged, and you grinned.

“Oh yeah?”

“Don’t let it get to your head, bub. I’m just sayin’ you show up after not existin’ and immediately cause trouble.” he watched your expression shift from mischievous to a sheepish pout, unable to beat the trouble-maker allegations. He sighed slightly. “But hey, maybe I like trouble.” The doors opened for the both of you to leave, Logan being the first to make his exit. Though, you stayed behind for a beat.

“Or maybe trouble just likes you,” you retorted with that same lopsided smile he’d come to admire so much, before pushing back against the wall to join him. 

“Yeah well, ‘m’not mad about it either way,” he mumbled, and you thought better about teasing him for it. You imagined this was about as close as he was gonna get to voicing genuine care for you, so you let it drop, simply humming a thoughtful smile in response. 

You don’t know why you were expecting the kitchen to have a few people in it, since classes were currently going on. Maybe it was due to the fact you hadn’t exactly settled back into the life of a teacher yet. Not that you were a teacher anymore, the man currently rifling through the snacks cupboard had seen to that. You found, with no small degree of surprise, that you missed it. You missed teaching combat and strategy, you missed taking the kids through training drills and exercise routines. You missed helping them hone their mutations, with Jean’s help, or Ororo’s help. Sure, the worry of them getting hurt always used to play on your mind, but now you were back, you realised that the worry was worth the fulfilment. 

Taking a seat at the table, you propped your chin up on the heel of your palm, watching as Logan crouched to one of the cupboards below the counter. You didn’t pretend like you weren’t enjoying the view. He really did look fantastic for one hundred and thirty. In peak physical condition.

“I’d say take a picture again but I’d really rather you didn’t,” you were too focused shamelessly staring at his ass you hadn’t noticed he was peering at you over his shoulder with a not-so-subtle smirk. You flashed one right back.

You were coming to like that phrase. “I wouldn’t be opposed,” you retorted, wiggling your brows up and down. Logan snorted a laugh. 

“You flirt with everyone like this?”

You shook your head, moving to rest your chin on top of your now interlaced fingers. “Nah, only with the ones over ninety. I have a thing for older men,” you winked and he rolled his eyes.

“Stop,” but judging from his expression, Logan was finding this just as amusing as you were. But as much as you wanted to continue, your curiosity got the better of you.

“What’re you looking for?” you asked, standing from your seat at the table and skirting around the wood to sit on the edge closer to him, peering down over his shoulder. 

“There used to be a packet of insta-noodles in here somewhere but I think one of the kids got to it first,” he explained, and you gasped dramatically, to the point where he actually looked a little concerned over his shoulder. “What?”

“Insta-noodles? My brother in Christ, please tell me you were not about to give me instant fucking noodles?” you felt something in you die at the thought, and something else died at his affirming nod.

“Yeah, what's wrong with that?” he asked, genuinely perplexed by your reaction. It was just noodles for fuck’s sake, it wasn’t like he’d just offered to kick a baby. He blinked at your barked laugh of disbelief, watching as you hopped off the table and shooed him aside.

“Step back fossil–”

“Hey!”

“and let me do this. We’re going to actually have food. Like, real food. Take a seat or watch and learn.” You shot him a look over your shoulder, before gathering whatever ingredients you needed. Logan dragged one of the chairs back from the table, taking a seat to watch whatever it was you were about to make. 

You started by dicing an onion, a pan with oil already heating up on the gas stove, and it took all of three minutes for Logan to be impressed by your knife skills. You almost wielded the thing like a dagger, flipping it this way and that, before scooping half the pile of onion and dropping it into a plastic bowl. The other half you scraped into the pan, and Logan couldn’t help but savour the sound of the sizzle and the smell of food. Suddenly, he too was starving.

You crossed to the fridge, rummaging around the bottom shelf before pulling out a tub of minced beef, and a packet of mushrooms. Closing the door with your hip, you lay the ingredients out on the counter, pulling open the cupboard above your head to retrieve a box of breadcrumbs and a carton of eggs. Though he saw you pause briefly, turning your head back to him.

“You’re not vegetarian or vegan, right? Probably should have asked yesterday,” your question made him laugh, and you tilted your head to the side. “What?”

“Do I look vegan to you?”

You stuck your tongue in your cheek to stop yourself from smiling. No, no he didn’t. But at the same time, you’d made a similar mistake in the past. And it still haunts you to this day.

“Just answer the question, Lo’” you grit, placing a hand on your hip. Logan blinked, trying his best to get past the nickname you’d just given him. Usually, nicknames were his thing, having about a million different ones for a million different circumstances. He barely managed to shake his head, earning himself a smile of gratitude from you, before you turned back to your task at hand and he could settle himself with his brow pinched between his thumb and forefinger.

You crouched again, rifling through the cupboard with cans. Pushing a stack of soup to the side, you froze solid, your eyes blowing wide as your hand shook at what you saw. Another mug, though someone had gone to great lengths to hide this one. Your fingertips grazed the faded image, a photograph of a younger-looking you and a girl with fair features, her braids tied back at the top of her head. Her smile was brilliant. Dazzling. It took you a moment to will your blurring vision away, before inhaling deeply and bringing out the chopped tomatoes you’d been looking for, setting it to the side. Taking a moment to push her from your mind whilst stirring the slowly browning onions, you then cross to fill the kettle, flicking the switch to start boiling. Logan blew out a breath, having recovered from his heart stuttering and finally went back to watching you cook. 

It was calming, almost hypnotic, the way you moved about the kitchen. Folding the onions in with the beef mince, breadcrumbs and two eggs. Only, it just occurred to him he had no fucking clue what you were making. Standing from his seat, he moved over to lean his shoulder against the fridge door, now having a clear line of sight to watch what you were doing.

“What’re you making?” he asked, smiling slightly as you startled. He didn’t mean to scare you, he just honestly didn’t realise how deep into the process you were. 

“Meatball Marinara,” you answered, your fingers incorporating the ingredients in the bowl until you were left with a sticky, meaty lump you could form balls out of. 

“From scratch?” he asked, eyes slightly wide. You’d spoken at length about your cooking last night, and how you’d learned, and it wasn’t that he didn’t believe you, it was more that he didn’t quite realise how impressive it was until he was here, watching you. 

He swore, your smile could start and end wars.

“It’s pretty quick and easy, to be honest,” you explained, eyes never leaving your task despite feeling his own trained on you. You grabbed the salt from the spice rack, twisting the grinder a few times until you felt it was right. That was what a lot of cooking was for you. Just feeling. When you felt something was done, you’d take it from the oven. When you felt something needed a little more seasoning, you’d sprinkle some paprika in for an extra kick. Nothing was ever done by the book. 

It’s mainly why you didn’t exactly get on with Scott.

“Huh…” Logan responded, watching how you’d started to take small portions of the beef and roll it into little balls, placing them onto a separate plate. 

“Could you give the onions a quick stir? ‘ve got meat hands,” you wiggled your slightly shining fingers in his face, and he jerked back, much to your amusement. Logan fought the urge to flick your forehead again, settling on ignoring your evil little laugh and instead focussing on his critical mission of stirring onions. 

“D’ya cook like this when you were away?” he asked, finding an insane amount of domestic comfort in cooking with you. He saw you shake your head out of his peripheral vision. 

“Nah, didn’t have time, plus I was moving around a lot. Usually, it was quicker and easier things than this,”

“Like insta-noodles?”

You could fucking hear his smirk, and you managed to stop yourself from cracking an egg over his head. “No. Never insta-noodles. Ever.”

You’d finished making little meatballs and had started splitting apart a bulb of garlic, crushing the cloves beneath your knife before peeling off the skin and dicing them before dropping them into the pan he was still stirring. His eyes closed involuntarily as you leaned across him, once again your scent hitting him like a freight train, only this time your shampoo had blended with the sweet, slightly musky smell of your sweat. It was enough to drive him fucking feral. 

“Keep stirring that, or it’ll stick to the bottom and burn,” you instructed absently, halfway through chopping up a few mushrooms before leaning across him again to drop them into the pan as well. Logan held the spoon like it was his lifeline, knuckles draining white as you moved around him to retrieve another pan.

“Yes ma’am,” he responded, and you snorted another laugh. He really had to pull himself together. 

You poured the boiled water from the kettle into the new pan, lighting the burner and setting it on a high heat, bringing the water roiling before grinding salt for what Logan felt was far too long. He wondered vaguely if you had high sodium levels, or how your blood pressure was. You waited again for the water to come back to a boil, before placing a sizeable amount of spaghetti into the pan, putting slight pressure on the tips so the ends would soften and bend faster in the water. 

Placing the lid over the pan, you went to check your watch. Your watch that you weren’t wearing. Fucking goddamnit. You looked around for a clock, before noticing Logan’s wrist. 

Logan’s soul nearly left his body at the way you grabbed his hand, twisting his wrist to make a note of the time. You weren’t exactly rough, but it was assertive enough for him to think twice about the kinds of things he was into…

Wait, what the fuck was he talking about?

“You could’ve just asked the time,” he muttered, tugging his wrist back almost possesively. 

“Hm?” you blinked. In truth, you’d been utterly lost in how good this felt. How right it felt to just do average, mundane tasks with him. “Oh, right, yeah, sorry. Could you tell me when ten minutes have passed?” you asked, almost instantly busying yourself again by carefully dropping the meatballs into the pan he was stirring. “Gotta brown off the meat first…” you instructed softly, almost absently. But he listened, slowing his movements. Your resulting smile was radiant. “Hey, you’re a natural!”

Logan raised a brow. “I’m stirring a pan, bub. Not exactly gourmet style.” You laughed, gently hitting his bicep with the back of your hand, only to stop in your tracks, shaking your knuckles out. 

“Ow! I thought you said your bones were made of adamantium,” you exclaimed, rubbing over the back of your hand with your other palm. In truth, it didn’t really hurt, but you just wanted to make a point because nobody has the right to be this built. It was insane.

Logan bit his tongue to stop from smiling, his eyes sliding from that pan to you. “Just the result of a good workout regime,” he shrugged as if it were nothing special. In reality, he knew he looked good. He put a lot of work into his physique, and whilst his mutation did help with that, it was still nice to be complimented on it once in a while. 

“Huh… you don’t say,” you responded, cracking open the can of tomatoes once the meatballs had browned to your satisfaction. The metal sizzled slightly as you poured in the sauce, setting the can to the side and retrieving a few basil leaves from the window box on the opposite side of the room. Logan hadn’t noticed it before, remarkably, and though having no experience with plants in recent history, something told him he wouldn’t have too much trouble identifying what they were.

It was a weird feeling. Remembering something he didn’t actually remember. Though it had been the story of his life for the last few years. 

You dropped the leaves into the sauce, leaving him to stir the pot whilst you brought out two sets of plates and cutlery and set them on the counter, angling your head so you could catch sight of the time from the watch on his wrist. He would have just told you if he didn’t think you were deriving some kind of joy from attempting to read his watch sideways.

Removing the lid from the pan, you scooped up a single piece of spaghetti, blowing away the steam before dropping it into your hand when you thought it was cool enough. You shot him a quick look Logan could only describe as pure mischief, before throwing the spaghetti against the backsplash of the stove. He watched as the pasta hit the wall with a sick squelch, before sliding down the tiles. 

He looked back at you, and you almost instantly burst into fits of laughter. “The fuck was that for?” he asked, his brows furrowed in perplexion. 

You managed to recover from laughing, though hiccuped through a few giggles. “You can tell whether spaghetti’s done by throwing it at the wall. If it sticks, it’s raw, if it slides, it’s done,” you exclaimed, tilting your head to get another look at the time, noting that those ten minutes were up.

“Really?” 

“Nah, that’s an old wive’s tale. Honestly, it’s just kinda fun to pelt spaghetti at a wall and call it ‘cooking’.” You sent him a wink, and Logan shook his head in fond disbelief. He felt like he’d seen so many sides to you in the last twenty-four hours alone. And if he was being completely honest with himself, he wanted to see more. He wanted to see how many sides to you there were, and whether he would like them all as much as he liked the ones he’s already seen. Your fury included.

“Your ten minutes it up, by the way,” he reminded you, and though he had a feeling you already knew, you nodded in thanks anyway, removing the boiling pan from the stove and flicking off the burner, the blue gas flames retreated to nothing. Skirting around him to the sink, you tipped out the water, using the lid of the pan to stop the rest of the spaghetti from falling with it. You shook the pan slightly, shaking out any pieces that had stuck together, before setting about separating the contents into two portions, one slightly bigger than the other. 

“How’s it looking?” you asked, leaning back to take a look at the sauce. If Logan had to grit his teeth after smelling your scent one more time his jaw would fucking snap. You really weren’t making this easy on him, were you? Part of him wondered if you were doing it deliberately, but there was no way of you knowing about his heightened senses. Unless you’d asked around, which, with everything you’ve had going on since you got back, he sincerely doubted. 

“Looks good to me, but I’m not the expert here,” he handed you the spoon, stepping to the side for you to take over. Your fingers brushed his as you took it, and he tried his fucking best to ignore the slight buzz you’d left. 

Lifting the spoon to your lips, you sampled what you’d been slaving over for the last twenty minutes, smiling slightly as the sweet, tarty flavours burst on your tongue. It was a new sensation for Logan to wish he was a spoon, but here he was. 

“Perfect!” you beamed, dipping the spoon back in the sauce and turning to him, your palm cupped beneath the wood to prevent anything from spilling onto the floor. “Wanna try it?”

Logan shrugged, stepping forward and allowing you to bring the spoon to his lips. Your eyes never left his, the tips of your fingers grazing the coarse stubble beneath his chin, but you didn’t move away. He struggled to focus on anything other than how close you were to him, the feeling of your fingers on his jaw, your breath fanning the lower half of his face. Your hopeful eyes waiting eagerly for his verdict, searching his expression for any kind of clue. And he was suddenly afraid of what you’d find there. 

Stepping back, he pretended like he was savouring what you’d fed him, and whilst it was fucking delicious, it didn’t compare to how he imagined your lips tasting. Or anything else, for that matter. 

“‘S’really good,” he managed, and you immediately looked as if you weren’t waiting with bated breath for his approval.

“Isn’t it? Fuck I’m good,” your laugh was more akin to an evil mastermind than someone who’d just made meatballs, but Logan would be hard-pressed to find another time in his life when he felt this at peace with the world. At least, not in the life he could remember. “Sit, I’ll bring it over,” you instructed, removing a larger, metal spoon from the drawer, which he took off you the moment he could.

“Pretty sure it’s supposed to be the other way ‘round, bub. You cooked,” he glanced pointedly to the seat you’d just gestured to. But clearly, you were, amongst many other things, incredibly stubborn. 

“Not sure how you worked that one out, you cooked too,” you folded your arms across your chest, setting your jaw. 

“Yeah, barely. Sit your ass down,” he pointed to the chair with the spoon in his hand, but you still refused, now leaning against the counter as if you could get any further away from the table. Logan sighed heavily, placing the spoon down again. “Didn’t wanna have to do this…” he muttered, and you didn’t have the chance to ask what he meant by this before his arms were around your waist and you were lifted effortlessly off the ground. 

All breath fled from your lungs. Your hands instantly fell to his shoulders, nails clinging on for dear life as he carried you to that godforsaken chair. His grip around your body tightened as you attempted to wriggle free from his arms, laughing breathlessly, exhilaration coursing through your body. Only, the moment he tried to set you down, you did a complete 180 and wrapped your arms around his neck, your legs around his waist.

“Let go,” his words were muffled against your neck as he bent almost double, and you leaned back until you were practically hovering above the chair.

“Seemed like a good idea a minute ago, huh?” You arched a cocky brow and were met with an expression mirroring your own. 

“So you gonna cling to me forever? That your genius plan?”

“If that's what it takes,” 

“Let go,” the way he said your name almost had you falling to the floor, your muscles suddenly growing weak. But you stayed strong, out of nothing but principal at this point. He wasn’t even holding you anymore, you were clinging on through sheer willpower alone. For the sake of being stubborn.

“You made this bed, now lie in it,” you responded haughtily, refusing to look into his irritated façade.

“That doesn’t make any goddamn sense,” he growled, and you fucking melted. That wasn’t fucking fair, and judging by the steadily growing smirk, he knew it. His hands gripped both your calves, successfully peeling you from his waist whilst you were distracted. You had no choice but to let your legs fall to the floor, catching yourself on the chair behind you, much to his triumphant grin. 

“You cheated!” you gaped, sitting cross-legged on the seat. Logan barely looked over his shoulder as he started spooning the sauce onto the two piles of pasta. All that over fucking spaghetti. And you didn’t even regret it a little.

“How’d I cheat?” he asked, though you were aware he knew full well how. And you were right. He did know. Of course he knew. He’d used that specific voice countless times before. Usually under very different circumstances. He just wanted to hear you say it. Hear you say how it affected you. 

But, true to form, you were stubborn.

“You’re stronger than I am,” you sighed, glaring heated daggers into the back of his head. You wanted to be petty, to stand up and take the spoon from him again, but in all honesty, you don’t think you’d survive another round of ‘sit on the fucking chair’.

Logan looked at you over his shoulder, his eyes swirling with knowing, and you stuck your tongue in your cheek and looked away, not giving him any satisfaction of confirming what he was thinking. You’d been so caught up in avoiding eye contact, that you almost jumped when he set the plate down in front of you, setting his own at the opposite place. At least he’d had the sense to realise the large portion was for him. Credit where credit was due, you guessed.

A comfortable silence blanketed the kitchen as he took a seat, two glasses of water in his hands, and you smiled a thank you. If you had your brother to thank for anything, it was teaching you how to cook. Well, it was many more things than that, but at this moment, it was cooking lessons. He didn’t want you going into the world with the culinary skills of a carrot. His words, not yours. 

You had a feeling Logan was a hard man to impress, so listening to his small grunt of appreciation was music to your ears. “Told ya I was a good chef,” you beamed after swallowing a mouthful and taking a large sip of water. 

Logan nodded in agreement. It wasn’t like he could disagree, the proof was right there, in front of him, in his fucking mouth for fuck’s sake. And the peace pesto from last night. Though he was glad his metabolism was fast. Pasta two days in a row can’t be good for anyone. “Never said you weren’t,” your expression fell from pride to scowling in seconds, and the corner of his mouth quirked up. “You’re a fantastic chef.”

Your eyes narrowed as you searched for any hint of dishonesty, but you came up short. Though he said it as if to placate you, something told you he really meant it. You were just playing around, in all honesty, teasing in order to forget what just happened between you, and you’d gotten so much more than you bargained for. 

Much like the other night, you both fell into comfortable, mundane conversation, finding refuge in how fucking normal everything felt right now. You laughed and smiled as if the threat of disappearing into nothing didn’t constantly hang above your head, and he teased and joked as if the weight of his forgotten life didn’t constantly burden his shoulders. You could get used to this. Dangerously used to this. 

Logan was completely enamoured by you, once again finding himself encapsulated by the way you talk, from moments where you get really into whatever story you’re telling, to quieter moments when you let the conversation settle. If he was to die tomorrow, unlikely but worth entertaining from time to time, it was moments like these he was sure would flash through his mind. 

“What about you? I’ve talked your ear off about my life but you never talk about yours. Though, I guess there’s a lot to talk about,” you mused thoughtfully, twisting your fork through your spaghetti, or whatever was left of it. Logan grunted, shifting in his seat to lean against the back of the chair.

“It’s not a happy story,” he admitted quietly, buying himself some time by taking a long glass of water. Your gentle eyes found his, a soft smile pulling at the corners of your lips.

“I’m not looking for a fairytale. Just who you are,” you fought the urge to reach across the table and slip your hand into his. Though you didn’t want to push him to divulge anything, you just didn’t wanna feel like the whole conversation was one-sided. Sure, he would chime in with a few anecdotes but mainly it was just asking you questions. 

If he was being honest with himself, Logan wasn’t sure he wanted to tell you anything about his past. He knew you wouldn’t judge, clearly having seen a fair amount of bullshit yourself, and the fact that it simply wasn’t who you were. No, his problem lay with the fact that he didn’t want to dampen your spirit with his sob story of a past. How he only remembers through thrashing nightmares, waking up soaked in sweat, heart racing. You didn’t need to know any of that. 

“Alright… I–” he began before quite literally being saved by the bell. Logan looked at his watch, brows raising at how easily time had once again run away with the two of you. You blinked, looking around as if you could find the bell and ask it personally why it was going off so early before the echoing of ongoing conversation shattered the domestic delusion you’d both managed to trick yourselves into feeling.

“Another time,” you stood from the table, leaning over to grab his plate, but he swatted your hand away and instead took your own. 

“Never learn, do ya?” he asked with a slight smile, and you rolled your eyes. With a heavy, defeated sigh, you conceded, simply allowing him to take your plate to the sink. Stretching your arms high above your head, you popped your stiff shoulders, turning your head as two students you knew well entered the kitchen.

“You made meatballs?! No fair, I wanted some!” Jubilee whined, her books still clasped against her chest. Artie stuck out his forked tongue, much like a snake would taste the air around it before his curious face morphed into a frown. It seemed he too wouldn’t have minded meatballs. 

Logan looked over his shoulder at the two newcomers, his eyes darting between you and them, your guilt written all over your face.

“I’ll make them for you again sometime soon. We could have one of those big dinners we used to do, remember those?” you asked, your eyes alight with hope. Logan had heard of those. Apparently, you used to cook for the whole mansion, and the students would drag tables and chairs from all different rooms and have a huge feast together. Of course, he didn’t believe a word anybody said about it, since he was convinced you were a figment of everyone’s collective imagination, but now he knew you very much did exist, he could envision you dancing around the kitchen for hours on end, preparing dish after dish.

Jubilee’s face lit up at the suggestion, her hand hitting Artie’s arm excitedly. “Seriously? You mean that? We’ve missed doing that so much. Nobody cooks the way you do!” She bounced on her toes, before whirling and darting from the room, most likely to tell the rest of her friends. Artie lingered for a few seconds, clearly not knowing whether he wanted to stay or to race after Jubilee, before he too turned on his heel and ran after her. You chuckled softly, running a hand through your hair.

“What’ve I gotten myself into…?” you muttered, startling slightly as a hand rested on your shoulder. You looked up at Logan, unable to accurately decipher his expression. All you knew was that it was soft. Softer than you’d seen in the last day or so. 

“Were y’always this good with em? The kids?” he asked, and you huffed a laugh. You wished you could say yes, absolutely, you’d always been naturally gifted at looking after children. But that wasn’t the truth. 

“Fuck no. Used to hate kids, to be honest with you. Thought they were annoying as fuck when I first started,” you admitted slightly sheepishly. “But, they grew on me. Still not a fan of like, other kids, but any who come to this school? Love ‘em.” 

“Makes me wonder why they sent you ‘round America and not someone more suited.” his eyes glinted with mischief and you lightly elbowed his ribs.

“I can be incredibly persuasive.” 

“That so?”

“Mmmhm,” you nodded emphatically, stepping out of his range and immediately missing the warmth of his palm on your shoulder. You hadn’t even noticed he’d left it there until you moved away and hopped onto the table, your feet dangling slightly. He didn’t take his eyes off you, scanning your face as though he was considering you. You cocked a brow. “What?”

“Teach with me.”

You blinked. Well, you weren’t expecting that. “Come again?”

“Teach with me,” he repeated as confidently as he’d said it the first time. You scoffed a laugh. 

“What? Why?”

Logan shrugged. “You’re better with the kids than I am, and it would give you a good opportunity to develop your mutation in a combat setting.” And I get to spend more time with you.

You hesitated. “I– I don’t know, Logan. It’s… I don’t think it’s a good idea,” While you wanted nothing more than yet another excuse to be around him, you didn’t know if getting back into teaching was the right thing for you at the moment. Yeah, you missed it. Fuck, you missed it more than you thought you would, but you really meant it when you said you weren’t cut out for it. If only you weren’t the only person who thought so. 

“One class.” he bargained. “Help me with one class tomorrow and decide from there.”

You pursed your lips, and Logan could almost hear your internal debate. “You’re not gonna let it go til I do it, are you?”

“Probably not,” he smirked, knowing he’d just got you to agree. Your resulting sigh confirmed it. 

“Fine. One class. No more than that.” In all honesty, you would have agreed just to see his resulting smile. 

“We’ll see about that bub, class starts at one tomorrow.” 

You nodded once, nerves suddenly bubbling in your gut. You were going to teach again, after being out the game for the last two years. Fucking hell you wanted to throw up. But you took a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds before exhaling. Maybe this was a good thing. A blessing in disguise. Sure, it had been a while, but maybe Logan was right. Maybe your mutation would only develop under times of stress. You were incredibly stressed today, and look what happened. 

“Alright, I’ll talk to Charles and Scott, see what they say,”

Logan huffed, clearly irate with the idea. “Don’t give a shit what Scott says. He couldn’t help you after almost two hours. I was there for two minutes and you made progress,” he huffed, and you couldn’t help but laugh slightly. Was he… was he jealous? No, that wasn’t possible. What would he have to be jealous about?

“Alright tough guy, rein it in. The way you helped out earlier, it wouldn’t surprise me if Charles is telling him you should be taking over my training,” you hadn’t even thought about it before you said it, but now it was out your mouth, you realised it was entirely plausible. Especially since anyone with eyes or ears could see how much better you got on with Logan than you did Scott. Logan suggested one approach and it worked like a charm.

“Ya think so?” Fuck was the hope in his voice as obvious to you as it was to him? The idea of helping you with your mutation, whilst slightly terrifying, excited him. He couldn’t help but think that would be a learning experience for both of you.

“Yeah, why not? Like you said, Scott couldn’t help after two hours,” you shrugged, hopping off the table. “Anyway, I’m in dire need of a shower and comfier clothing, so I’ll see you in a bit.” Logan almost cried at the thought of you no longer smelling like you do now, and he had half the mind to tell you to forget the shower, you smelt that fucking good. But he also didn’t want the reputation of the weird-smell guy, so instead of trapping you in his arms and begging you not to, he simply nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, see you later.” He grumbled, trying not to be obviously annoyed by the fact the time you’d spent together was coming to an end. You shot him a confused look, before disappearing out the door and up the stairs to your room. Logan stayed for a few more minutes, his eyes closed as he finally let himself get lost in your scent. He wanted you. Fuck he’d only known you for a day and he wanted you. How the hell was he supposed to just behave normally now you were back living here? It simply wasn’t possible. 

He groaned, running a hand down the side of his face. On the one hand, he really wanted to spend more time with you. He was actively looking forward to spending time with you. But on the other, he didn’t know how much longer he could behave himself. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep up this ‘friendly’ banter with you without it crossing the line. Had it already crossed the line?

Jesus Christ, he didn’t even know. He couldn’t help thinking this was likely about to get extremely messy if he didn’t get his shit together. But, at the same time…

He always liked a little mess.

Freshly showered, moisturised and pampered, you lay face up on your bed, your room feeling more like a forest than anything else. The steam from your shower still rolling out from your bathroom, and the more tropical plants you kept seemed to be absolutely thriving. You were thrilled, you really were, but you couldn’t take your mind off the day you’d just had. Not that it was over, it was only five in the afternoon, but so much had happened in the last day it was hard to wrap your head around.

You’d been replaced as a professor, your bedroom stolen, and you’d been informed that the mutation you thought you knew so well wasn’t actually what you thought it was at all, and that it could very well end you in seconds. You’d thrown a fit, broken your hand, dragged shadows toward you and constructed them into a pair of fucking awesome wings, and cooked with a man you’d known all of two minutes.

And the strangest fucking part was that you couldn’t get him off your mind. You couldn’t stop thinking about him. It was honestly getting a little irritating, seeing his face every time you close your eyes, hearing his laugh when your room got a little too silent. Feeling the ghostly touches of his arms around your waist, his hands on your neck. His breath against your ear. 

You flapped your arms down on your bed in defiance. You would not lie in bed thinking about him all evening. You refused. And luckily, due to an unexpected visit, you didn’t have to.

“He likes you, ya know,”

You screamed, whipping your head back to your door where you saw Kitty strolling in, completely unphased by your reaction. Grabbing one of your pillows, you threw it at her approaching form, watching as it soared straight through her body. Your jaw flapped, completely speechless. “I– Wh– Kitty! You can’t just waltz in here unannounced! Scared me shitless!” you exclaimed, running a stressed hand through your hair.

“Why? I always used to. Been gone that long, huh?” she asked, plopping down on the end of your bed and crossing her legs. 

“Yeah… guess I have,” It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for your accommodation to be broken into. The moment rumour got out there was a mutant staying a few streets over the road, you had to move. Sometimes you hadn’t been quick enough and had spent the rest of the evening frantically scrubbing blood from beneath your fingernails, before making a quick exit.

Those were the times on your travels nobody needed to know about. Those were the times you’d keep to yourself. 

You jumped again as your door burst open, a frantic Logan looking you up and down before his eyes darted around the room. “You alright? I heard screaming,” he panted, slightly breathless from clearly having sprinted up the stairs. 

Your heart grew five sizes. “Yeah, I’m fine. Kitty scared the shit out of me, ‘s’all,” you shrugged, too focused on him to notice the woman of the hour beaming wildly, looking between the two of you. 

His shoulders sagged, the man visibly relaxing, his eyes lingering on yours. “Okay…”

“Okay…” you repeated, unable to tame your disobedient smile as he almost awkwardly nodded his head. 

“Right. I’ll uh, yeah. Leave ya to it,” he clicked his tongue, sending you one last glance to make sure you were really okay, before closing the door. 

You sighed, shaking your head fondly, chuckling quietly to yourself. 

“Oh. My. God. You like him too!”

Looking up with unnatural speed, you scoffed, waving your hand dismissively. “The fuck are you talking about?” you asked a little too defensively.

“I’m talking about you and Logan. He clearly likes you, and now I can see that you like him too! Oh, this is so fucking cute, just wait until I tell Marie, she’ll go fucking crazy!” Kitty clapped her hands excitedly, and you had to catch one of her wrists in order to stop her. 

“What are you on about? Logan doesn’t like me, we’re just friends,” oh, was it supposed to hurt that much to say it? But, in all honesty, you don’t think you were ready to confront whatever it was you felt for this man. For now, you were pretty content to bask in not knowing, and being kind of excited about it.

“Mhm? Friends don’t eye fuck in the kitchen.”

You choked. Her tone was so matter-of-fact that if you weren’t actually looking at her, you wouldn’t have believed you were talking to Shadowcat herself, Kitty Pryde. “Kitty! Christ, what happened to you? And we weren’t eye fucking. I was hungry and refused to cook insta-noodles, so we actually made a meal.” You explained. 

“For almost four hours? Meatballs take twenty minutes, twenty-five at a push,”

“We lost track of time!”

“I repeat, for four hours?” she asked again, folding her arms and raising one of her thin brows. You pursed your lips to stop yourself from saying anything else incriminating. “Though as much,”

“I didn’t even say anything!” 

“You didn’t need to, it’s written over your lovestruck face.” She poked her finger toward your nose, and all you could think about was the way Logan flicked your forehead beforehand or the way Logan gave you that little push back in the training room. Or the way Logan–

Christ on a fucking boat when would it end?

“I’m not lovestruck,” you mumbled, dragging your knees up to your chest. You debated telling Kitty about your predicament with your mutation, for the sole reason of explaining why you and Logan were spending so much time together recently, but you didn’t think you could bear the look on her face. The only ones who knew, to your understanding, were Scott, as the leader of the team, Jean, as the leading scientist, Charles for obvious reasons, and Logan because you told him. You didn’t really want another person to know your problems, especially not Kitty. 

You couldn’t bear to see her face when you told her you weren’t a phaser anymore. The mere thought broke your heart. You had matching mugs and everything. You couldn’t do that to her. Let alone sharing the idea that your mutation could simply not allow you to return back to the corporeal world one day, and you’d be stuck as nothing but wondering consciousness in the shadows for, effectively, all eternity. That was a little too morbid to talk about even with Logan.

“He’s just… helping me get back into the swing of things. I haven’t been a teacher for a long time, Kit, and since he took my position, he’s offered to help me–”

“Get back into teaching! Oh my god, he has, hasn’t he? That’s so exciting! I thought you didn’t want to get back into it?” She asked, untucking her legs and swinging them around so she was now lying comfortably on your bed, her head propped up on her elbow. 

“Well, we’re not getting ahead of ourselves, but yeah, that’s the idea. Gonna help him with his class tomorrow…” you trailed off, your heart beginning to accelerate at the thought of teaching your first class in two years. “So yeah, that’s why we’ve been spending so much time together. It’s nothing serious, promise! Plus, since most of the new students are kids I found, he’s pretty much the only person I don’t know here.” You flopped back down onto your bed, angling your head so you could still see her.

There was a moment of comfortable silence, a moment to let the conversation settle and for your heart to slow a little, before Kitty spoke up again. “He was really excited to meet you,” she offered quietly, and your brows raised subconsciously. “Everytime someone started talking about you, he’d tune in. He was subtle, but Marie noticed it first, and she told me to look out for it. He was looking forward to meeting you for the best part of a year.”

You took a deep breath. That couldn’t possibly be true. “You’re good at seeing things that aren’t there, Kit. I love you for it, but sometimes things really aren’t that deep,” you explained softly, trying your hardest not to smile at the image of Logan only tuning into the conversation if it was about you. It was definitely a stretch of the imagination, but it was a pleasant one.

“Yeah yeah, you watch. I’ll be keeping an eye on your totally platonic relationship with Professor Howlett but mark my words, you’ll be together by the end of the month,” Kitty smacked your calf to emphasise her point, and you shook your leg threateningly, laughing at the notion. 

“I cannot wait to see you eat your words. I’m sure they’ll taste of falsehoods and regret.” You flashed her a toothy grin, and she stuck her tongue out in retaliation. You’d missed moments like these. In all honesty, you hadn’t realised how lonely the last two years had been. Hadn’t realised how starved of friendship you’d been until you found yourself talking and laughing amongst friends again. You didn’t realise how much you’d missed this place until you came home again, to both the old friends, and the new. 

[sebsxphia]

shopping lists.

robert ‘bob’ floyd x reader.

￫ summary: you rush to the shops after work to do a quick food shop, but bob floyd was not on your shopping list.

￫ word count: 3.3K.

￫ warnings: mentions of food, supermarkets, feeling hungry and fluff, fluff, fluff.

￫ authors notes: my description of the supermarket is based off uk supermarkets, so i apologise if there’s inaccuracies to us supermarkets! this also hasn’t been proof read. my main masterlist can be found here! 💌

Bob was starving.

He cursed himself under his breath as he drove back from base. He had the driver's window in his baby blue truck rolled down and his forearm resting on the side, his fingers pushing through the sticky summer air as he drove. Air conditioning alone wouldn’t keep him cool, as he still wore his flight suit from training earlier that day. He could feel how the ring of sweat around his neck was sticking to his collar, but he simply didn’t have the time or willpower to shower and change on base.

It had just gone five o’clock in the afternoon and he had gotten off later than he expected. He would’ve already had a small meal to keep him going until dinner by now, but low and behold, when he awoke this morning, as the sun was only a crack along the horizon, he realized he had no substantial food in his fridge.

Bob was a planner. He would do his fortnightly shop routinely, but something came up at work and it had simply slipped his mind. The only thing he could do now was drive as fast as he could to the supermarket, slip in, whisk around the aisles in record time and drive back home to cook something up in under an hour. He had another early start the next morning and as always, he had a routinely early bedtime.

Being a pilot made his reactions lightening fast. This would be easy for him.

As he pulled into the car park and zoned in on a space, he noticed another car also going for the same spot.

You were inches away from the space and although he was in a hunger-fueled rush, being the ever polite gentleman that he was, he let you go for it. Through the glare of the late afternoon sun reflecting off your windshield, he couldn’t quite make out the person driving, but he saw how you politely lifted your hand off the steering wheel to motion, “Thanks!”

Bob responded in turn with his wave and warm smile. He drove a little further forward past your car to find another space and the reflecting sun moved against your windshield to reveal you in a clearer light. You had the sweetest little smile as you thanked Bob. Your lips curled up to meet the creases in the corners of your eyes and your cheeks were a sweet rosy colour.

As he drove away and around the corner of the car park, Bob chewed at the inside of his cheek, still with a small smile twitching on his lips. He had a small hope that he would see you inside, only because he wanted to let you know that he was more than happy to give you the spot.

No other reason.

He was pulled out of his thoughts about your sweet smile as he felt his stomach grumble furiously. After doing a loop around, he managed to find a spot at the opposite end of the car park. He of course cursed himself again under his breath for going shopping at peak hours after everyone had finished work on a weekday, but he only blamed himself. He didn’t blame you. You were simply there first.

The almost freezing blast of air conditioner on his face as he entered the supermarket, was a welcomed change to the ever-growing humid air outside. The tiny, blonde baby hairs on the back of his sweat-coated neck stood up momentarily, as the icy air flowed down and through his flight suit. He felt himself cool down almost instantly. He pulled up with a shopping cart and started with fruits and vegetables at the front of the store. He was desperate to move fast, but his boots were heavy and searingly hot with every step he took around the aisles. That was the only spot on his body that the air conditioning could not reach.

As he came to the end of the fruits and vegetables section, he turned to reach for the tomatoes when suddenly a flurry swooped by him. It caught his attention instantly and he whipped his head around, with his torso moving inwards towards the tomatoes to avoid bumping into whoever had just swept by him.

It was you. The same person in the car park who he had given his space to. He observed as you descended the cheese and yoghurt aisle.

A small lump got caught in his throat and he swallowed thickly, as he watched how your sundress swished around your bare calves. He couldn’t help but let his cobalt blue eyes from behind his glasses, glance over you. Bob was raised right by his mom. He was respectful and well-mannered, but the simple and undeniable fact was, that you were the prettiest person he had ever laid eyes on. Even from the glow of the cool light down the food aisle, it could not diminish your luminescence.

He reached his slender index finger up to his glasses and pushed them up his nose ever so slightly. The prior sudden movement had caused them to jolt down the bridge of his nose by a centimetre.

As you walked straight down the aisle and turned to face the cheese selection, the delicate material of your sundress moved back into place to frame your body. It rippled over each curve of your figure and Bob’s heartbeat doubled in time when he caught sight of your soft belly in your sundress. He sucked in a harsh breath between his teeth as he wondered for a fleeting second, how soft your belly would feel to hold when his face was buried between your thighs.

He registered the smile creases in the corners of your eyes. The same ones that he noticed first in the parking lot and how they narrowed to read the label in front of you. Your eyelashes fluttered against one another as you blinked against the glaring light humming above you. As you raked over your options, he watched how your teeth grazed over your bottom lip and chewed nimbly at it. The same habit he had.

He needed some cheese and yoghurt himself, so perhaps he could catch you there.

Bob meandered some meters behind you and acted as if he was choosing his yoghurt option. He already knew what he needed. The same yoghurt he’d had for the past five years, but he was drawn to you. Like a moth to the radiating flame.

He cocked his head behind him to glance in your direction and you had already moved down the aisle to assess your next grocery choice. He took his multipack of yoghurts, placed it in his cart and wheeled it around to stand by you, again acting as if he was evaluating his cheese choice. From behind his glasses, he took another sideways glance. You were performing a balancing act of holding your shopping basket’s flimsy handles, holding the cheese in your other hand and somehow holding open a small notebook and crossing out the presumed item, with a pen.

At a glance, Bob saw how inside your notebook was filled with lots of little scribbles, and crossed-out parts and as you went to close it, the front cover was decorated with sweet little stickers.

“Jesus Christ. That is the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.” He thought to himself.

As you went to slide the pen back into the elasticated band, it slipped from your balancing act and slid along the dotted tiles of the supermarket, straight for Bob’s direction. It hit the sole of his boots and he heard your voice for the first time.

“Ah, shit.” It was muttered under your breath with annoyance, but he thought your voice sounded like sweet honey.

Before his thought process could catch up to him, he wondered if you tasted like sweet honey.

You spoke directly to Bob this time, as you scurried over and bent down to pick up the pen by his boots. He caught a fleeting glance at the swell of your breasts, resting in your sundress.

You laughed out faintly with your apology. “I’m sorry, my mistake—”

As you moved too quickly with embarrassment to pick up your pen, your flimsy shopping basket was swinging and the cheese you were holding also fell out of your grasp.

“Ah! Fuck.” You quietly cursed again to yourself, or so you thought.

Bob had caught your second string of curses to you accidentally dropping something and he thought it was rather cute.

“Here, let me.” He chuckled to himself as he squatted down to reach for your cheese and pen.

Both now standing upright, he handed your belongings back to you and felt how the palms of your hands were as soft as butter against his fingertips. You looked at each other directly and now without the glare of your windshield, he could finally see every delicate feature that made up your beautiful face. He thought that you were so pretty.

You went to open your mouth and speak, but your words got caught on your tongue. This kind stranger was incredibly handsome. He looked smart with his clean-shaven face and his dusty blonde hair parted neatly to one side, with a thick swoop. His rounded glasses didn’t have a single smudge on them and his cheeks were round as he smiled at you, although it still didn't take away from his strong cheekbones and firm jaw.

You blinked in a flurry as you took in his build. You were accustomed to seeing pilots around here with the air base being so close to town, but it was rare to see one in what you presumed was a flight suit of some kind. It was deep forest green in colour and harmoniously blended against his striking eyes from behind his glasses. It wasn’t tightly fitted, yet still, his broad shoulders and firm biceps were flexing against the coarse material. His thighs stood strong with his heavy boots planted firmly against the tiled floor. He was tall and practically towered over you, but he respectfully kept a distance between you both.

“I’m sorry again, thank you.” You smiled bashfully at him. Your eyelashes were still fluttering against one another and your rounded cheeks were dusted pink.

Bob couldn’t help himself. He grinned as he shook his head and politely rejected your apology.

“No need to apologise, Ma’am. It’s all good.”

Suddenly your eyes widened and your eyebrows raised with them.

The glimmer from the overhead light in the supermarket made your eyes sparkle with such an inviting glow.

“Oh! You were the nice guy in the parking lot! You let me take your space!” You pointed your finger towards him. His truck was significantly higher than your car and you were only able to get a glance at his face from behind your windshield.

Bob let out a chuckle and waved his large hand in front of him, diminishing the idea. He further wanted to wave off the ever-growing flush of heat that was creeping up from his chest. It flushed over his neck and cheeks and sat right under his glasses. The blasting air conditioning had once again failed him and his chest, neck and cheeks were now flushed warm.

“Oh, hey. Not at all, it wasn’t my space. You had it, fair and square.”

You giggled in response. His respectful and polite demeanour had your stomach feeling as though a million and one butterflies were fluttering through you, making their way up through your heart and coming out of your mouth with sweet giggles.

“Alright, thanks again though, I appreciate it. I was in such a rush after work. Always the way, isn’t it?”

You laughed again and the sound flowed to Bob’s ears, making his playful smile reach the tips of his ears.

“Tell me about it.” He agreed with a grin.

You flashed a last beaming smile at Bob as the conversation between two strangers in a supermarket came to its natural end and you turned around to continue following your shopping list.

That’s what he thought.

As you turned down the aisle, you once again cursed at yourself for not being more forward, flirtatious, or whatever it would be that would land you his number. He was gorgeous. Undeniably handsome. And he was so stupidly charming and polite.

You turned on a quick heel to see if he was still there, but he had disappeared and you were left alone in the chilled aisle, with nothing to comfort you but your notebook and the static overhead lights.

Bob too mentally scolded himself for not asking such a pretty sweetheart like yourself for your number. As he watched you turn away, he chewed on his bottom lip, curled his fists tightly, released them and then walked away.

He was a gentleman. He would not harass someone if they didn’t show a sign of being interested in him. But he was sure you were. He had a sharp and watchful eye, and he saw how rosy your cheeks turned and how your chest stuttered slightly as your breath got caught in your throat. But he was pulled out of his battling thoughts but his stomach grumbly furiously at him again.

He whisked down the remaining aisles to finish his shop, still with the hope of a fleeting chance to see you again, but he couldn’t ignore what his body was telling him. As he checked out, tapped his card on the machine and wheeled his shopping cart out of the store, he still had both his trained eyes on his surroundings. Just in case there was a single chance, a perfect moment, where he could catch you. Bob had been extremely methodical about his choices in life and he only ever perused something if he was certain. He had never been so utterly and completely sure that you were the one for him.

He fished his truck keys out of his flight suit pocket and just as he was about to turn the key in the door, he remembered.

“Fuck. Tomatoes.”

Bob didn’t need a list. It was all written down mentally and he rarely forgot things, but he remembered that as he was about to reach for the tomatoes, you came by earlier in a flurry. He would’ve called it fate if he ever had a chance of seeing you again.

“Fuck! Tomatoes.”

You groaned and threw your head back in annoyance. It was on your list, sitting on the next line down under cheese and then you remembered why you forgot it in such a fluster. You slammed the boot door of your car back down, locked it shut and headed back inside to grab the final item. Your feet moved quickly along the tile floor and you turned on your heel to find the stack of plump, rosy red tomatoes in front of you.

“Hello again.”

The familiar voice made the tiny baby hairs on your neck stand up and a row of goosebumps rise on your forearms in tow. His smile radiated warmth as it crinkled up in the corners of his eyes. He stood tall over you, still in his flight suit, but again you didn’t feel intimidated in the slightest. You felt a true sense of calm and safety wash over you.

Your lips parted to gasp with happy surprise at seeing him again, before they curled up into a relieved smile, mirroring his own.

“Hello again.” You repeated back to him. “I forgot tom—”

“I forgot some tom—”

You both spoke in unison, before snorting out a quiet laugh between yourselves.

“Apologies. You go.” Bob gestured towards you and the vegetable stand.

“I’m going to make a sauce when I get back home, but I completely forgot the main ingredient.” You waved it off with another giggle, yet still, you did not attempt to reach for said important ingredient. You simply stayed facing him with a gleaming smile.

Bob’s mouth watered at the sound of your homemade tomato sauce. His stomach still growled at him from inside, but he also felt how it twisted and turned on itself with exhilaration. He pictured coming home to you after work, sitting down together at your dining table and sharing the homemade sauce. You were, without a fault, the only person he had ever truly envisioned a future with and he couldn’t repeat the same mistake as before.

He nimbly chewed at his bottom lip, failing to notice how you were also doing the same, as he mentally prepared his next statement.

“That sounds, delicious. I hope I’m not oversteppin’ here, and please tell me if I am, but I’d love to have y’ number, Ma’am. I’d love to try some of y’ homemade sauce, if that’s okay with you?”

Bob was not an overly religious man, but he swallowed thickly and prayed with every hope that the last part of his sentence didn’t come across in the wrong way. It felt longer than mere seconds to receive your response, but he breathed out a short sigh of relief when he saw how your eyes crinkled up into an animated smile to match his.

“Yes, yes! I’d love that. Please, let me get my book…” Your fingers were trembling with giddy anticipation as you worked to open your bag and reached for your notebook. “Uh…” You flipped through to find a clean page and when you landed on one, you gestured it towards him. “Here you go.” You gushed.

“Thank you.” He began. “I’m Bob, by the way. Bob Floyd.”

You mentioned your name and he felt his heart flutter at how pretty it was. By how eagerly you had accepted his proposal to exchange numbers, he could see that you were just as into him, as he was with you. And so, he let his true feelings become known.

“That’s a real pretty name, sweetheart.”

You sucked in a harsh breath between your teeth and let out a bashful, “Oh…”

The sweet name that he had just called you, made your legs nearly twitch and tremble on the supermarket floor.

His long, slender fingers curled around the pen as he scribbled down his number. Your notebook and pen looked so small in his hands.

When he offered it back to you, you wrote down your number in a flurry and tore the piece of paper out from the binder. You handed it over and he tucked it into the top pocket of his flight suit. You thought that that was the hottest thing you have ever witnessed a man doing.

Bob Floyd, as you now knew him, had seriously gotten into your head and clouded any reasonable senses.

You both exchanged some further light conversation, still with Bob shamelessly and sweetly flirting with you, before you both picked up your tomatoes, paid and left for the car park together. He insisted on walking you to the car to ensure that you got there safely, even though it was still broad daylight and when he left, he placed a soft kiss on your cheek.

You both went back to your separate homes and cooked your separate meals. As you were about to get into bed you sent Bob a text, the taste of your homemade sauce still dancing on your taste buds.

“this weekend, would you like me to show you how i make the sauce? would you like to come to mine? x”

You were caught by surprise when your phone dinged with a message notification moments after.

“I would love that, thank you for the invite, sweetheart. Can’t wait :-) x”

Bob lay in bed that night thinking about how to tell the story of how you both met at your wedding.

taglist: @beachbabey @tallrock35 @luckyladycreator2 @unmistakablyunknown @flames-thebitch @birdy-bat-writes @thedroneranger @randomfandomgirl97 @kmc1989 @swiftsgirlfriend

tagging those who may be interested: @sunblchdfly @floydsglasses @fridamoss @floydsmuse @bobfloydsbabe @laracrofted @hangmanapologist @rhettabbotts @lewmagoo @peachystenbrough @auroralightsthesky @cherrycola27 @withahappyrefrain @sugarcoated-lame @senawashere

[theladyofmanyfandomsfanfiction]

Imagine calling Sanji “Love Cook”…

Walking onto the deck you found Luffy laying on the wooden planks. Usopp was sitting beside him, Nami had her eyes through a set of binoculars with Zoro close by, head against the railing as he rest his eyes.

“What have I missed?” You asked.

Usopp looked at you and sighed. “Sanji said dinner would take longer than usual today.”

Zoro huffed. “Damn waiter probably burned the first batch.”

Usopp doubted the comment. Luffy jumped up and grabbed your shoulders as a realisation dawned. “Sanji doesn’t say no to you.”

And so, you were on the mission to uncover the great secret. You heard noises from behind the kitchen door and knocked while pushing the wooden panel open.

“You know, Luffy says that you’re being awfully tight-lipped about tonight’s dinner.” You walked in and saw pots and pans strewn across every surface possible. At the heart of the mess was the blonde-haired chef with a bowl and whisk in hand, mixing a blue-coloured cream.

“Wow. It’s like Mihawk tore his way through this place.” Your comment had Sanji turn, his concentrated frown flipping almost immediately.

He chuckled and approached the counter as you did the same on the other side. “Mihawk could only dream.”

He slowed the whisking and lowered the bowl. Grabbing a small spoon, Sanji scooped a small amount into his mouth and hummed in delight.

“Any chance I could get a taste?” You asked, voice rising in pitch ever so slightly while you took a seat.

Putting the spoon and bowl aside, Sanji wiped his hands of the excess flour with a white cloth. “Not today, I’m afraid.” While he didn’t normally decline your requests, today was a necessary evil so he offered a bit of insight as a peace offering.

“It’s a celebratory meal. Something special for entering the Grand Line.” He explained, pride in his voice as he threw the towel over his shoulders. “So, today's menu is a secret that I won’t be sharing with anyone.”

“Not even me, Love Cook?”

Sanji’s eyes closed as he gave bashful smile at the nickname. You were pressing his buttons and it was taking all his willpower to resist. He hummed knowingly and then looked at you.

“You know I can see what you’re trying to do, right?”

You leaned forward, eyes staring into his blue ones before briefly - and not discretely - dipping to his lips. “Is it working?”

Sanji also leaned across the counter until his nose bumped lightly against yours.

“How about I make you a deal? Let me keep this one secret for a little longer and I’ll make it up to you. Cakes, kisses - whatever you want.”

You smiled back at him. “And what if both those options sound good?”

Sanji inched a little closer and pressed a kiss to the tip of your nose. “Whatever you want.”

~ More imagines here ~

[reneeyaps]

coffee - leah williamson

inspired by the song ‘coffee’ by chappell roan.

warnings: angst, slightly suggestive content.

1.8k words.

leah williamson x reader.

Life looked a lot different these days. It seemed so long ago since the last time you’d genuinely smiled, since the last time you’d said you were fine and had actually meant it.

It’d been three months since you and your girlfriend of two years, Leah Williamson, had broken up, and yet it felt like you’d lived a lifetime without her. You were still awfully aware of the cold, empty spot beside you when you woke in the mornings, the absence of Leah’s presence at the dining table worsening that shard of grief you felt in your gut. That was your sanctuary, the place where you used to talk about your days and share secrets and stories and giggle about the most ridiculous things. Every day you went into the kitchen, still hoping to see Leah already up and dressed in her Arsenal training kit, pouting when you’d walked in on her making breakfast for you when she’d wanted to surprise you in bed. You’d leave for work every day and found you were still startled to see that her coat was not hanging next to yours on its usual peg, the framed pictures of the two of you no longer hanging on the walls.

It was as if there’d never been any trace of another person residing in this house with you, but the memories were still engrained in your mind, and the pain was unlike anything you’d experienced before.

‘Can't meet you for dinner at the Italian place

It's where I met your family, some words were exchanged

I'd suggest the jazz bar on MaryAnn Street but

You'd buy me a drink and we know where that leads, so’

Getting out of the house didn’t help, especially when everywhere you went you were reminded of the places you’d visited together, the memories you’d made. As you turned the corner, your eyes fell on the small Italian restaurant where you’d met Leah’s family for the first time. You remembered how anxious you were that night, how desperate you were to make a good impression. You’d stood in the mirror, staring at your reflection and debating whether or not you needed to change again when Leah had entered the bedroom, snaking her arms around your waist and planting a trail of kisses on your neck and shoulder.

“You look gorgeous,” she’d said, resting her chin on your shoulder and grinning at you in the mirror. You immediately felt yourself relax a little, a smile creeping its way onto your face. Leah had always been good at reassuring you, able to calm your racing heart and spiralling thoughts in a way no one else could. She’d insisted that her family were going to love you, and she’d been right. They’d been so warm and welcoming from the moment you entered the restaurant, and you eased into conversation with them as if you’d known them for years.

And how could they not love you when it was evident how much Leah adored you? She couldn’t take her eyes off you and insisted on holding your hand the entire evening, running her thumb soothingly over your skin, the gesture bringing a smile to your lips.

‘I'll meet you for coffee 'cause if we have wine

You'll say that you want me, I know that's a lie

If I didn't love you, it would be fine

I'll meet you for coffee, only for coffee

Nowhere else is safe, every place leads back to your place.’

A month after you and Leah had split, you’d unintentionally ran into each other at a mutual friend’s party. You’d intended to try and ignore her, knowing talking to her and hearing her voice and seeing her smile would just make things a million times harder. You’d overestimated your own willpower, though, soon finding yourself in Leah’s company once again.

She asked if you wanted to go back to hers for a drink, and like a fool you’d said ‘yes’. A couple of glasses of wine later, and you two were making out on Leah’s sofa, tangled up in each other’s arms. “I still want you, you know?” Leah had whispered, her hands trailing down to undo the buttons on your jeans.

“Then why did you leave?” You asked breathlessly.

Leah paused, her eyes shooting upwards to meet your gaze. “y/n…” She sighed. You studied her face, noticing the sadness in her eyes. How had you not noticed it sooner, how broken she was? You’d been so caught up in your own pain and despair that you’d failed to consider how she was holding up.

Leah pulled away, and immediately you missed her being close to you, not realising just how much you’d craved her touch. “I think it’s best if you leave,” Leah said, looking at anything but you, “before we do something we both regret.”

‘You said let's do the park 'cause I love the park

That may be true but god forbid it gets dark

Here come the excuses that fuel the illusions

But I'd rather feel something than nothing at all, so’

You’d wasted no time in calling an Uber for yourself, fleeing from Leah’s apartment and trying desperately not to let the tears flow in the back of the car. It just wasn’t fair — how could she do this to you?! You’d been naive enough to think that you and Leah were for forever, that you’d end up getting married and growing old together, content in each other’s company until the end of time.

A few days after the party, you saw Leah again. This time the pair of you crossed paths in the park where you were walking your neighbour’s dog. You tried to act like you hadn’t seen Leah, staring straight ahead and picking up the pace, but Leah caught up to you easily enough, her hand circling around your wrist and bringing you to a halt. You whipped your head around. “Leave me alone,” you told her. You’d wanted to act tough, but your voice faltered, and it sounded like you were pleading more than you were telling.

You snatched your wrist from her grasp and started to walk away, but still Leah followed you. “y/n, wait!” She called. “I just wanted to apologise —”

“For what?” You demanded. “For your actions the other night? Or for breaking my heart?”

Leah’s eyes brimmed with tears that she quickly blinked away. Her gaze fell to the ground, unable to look at you and the mixture of heartbreak and anger displayed on your face. “Both…I’m so sorry, y/n.” And then she turned and walked away without another word, leaving you with another emotion you hadn’t yet experienced in your heartache — anger.

‘I'll meet you for coffee 'cause if we have wine

You'll say that you're sorry, I know that's a lie

If I didn't trust you, it would be fine

I'll meet you for coffee, only for coffee

Nowhere else is safe, every place leads back to your-’

Back to the present day, and you were walking through the familiar streets, trying not to think about how the smell of freshly baked bread wafting from the bakery reminded you of the many mornings you and Leah shared croissants and coffee before you dropped her off at training. The city was alive with the sound of laughter and clinking glasses from nearby restaurants. You paid no attention to it, lost in thought with your bag of groceries in hand.

That was when you turned the corner and suddenly collided with someone.

“Oh, I am so sorry!” You exclaimed, looking up to apologise. When you saw who you’d had the misfortune of bumping into, your breath caught in your throat. “Leah?” You said, your voice a mix of surprise and disbelief.

“Y/n?” Leah’s eyes widened, a flicker of something — sadness, perhaps — passing through them. For a second the pair of you just stood there staring at each other, you feeling as though you’d forgotten how to breathe, Leah awkwardly scratching the back of her neck, and both of you unable to form a sentence.

“How have you been?” Leah asked eventually.

“I’ve been…good,” the lie rolled off your tongue easily enough, you had grown accustomed to it by now, after all, “busy with work and everything. What about you?”

“Same here…busy but good. Got a game coming up this weekend.” Leah met your gaze. “I’d love it if you could make it.”

“Leah —”

“Sorry, no…that was silly of me. Um…” Leah shook her head and sighed. “How about we go get some coffee? There’s a little cafe just down the street, you know the one where we had our first date?”

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” You asked, your voice gentler now.

“Probably not…but I’ve missed you, y/n.”

You contemplated her offer, every part of you desperately wanting to say yes. Realistically, though, you had to weigh up the potential consequences that might arise from agreeing to have coffee with Leah, remembering how much harder it was for you after you’d found yourself in Leah’s arms once again the night of your friend’s party. Seeing her again was just a reminder of everything you wanted, but everything you could not have. You had to say no.

‘We've done this before

And I don't need it anymore’

“We can’t, Leah,” you said eventually. Your heart broke at the sight of the sullen look on Leah’s face. “I mean you remember what happened last time —”

“It’s just coffee, y/n.”

“I know. But I don’t know if I can trust myself not to get too attached. I can’t let myself go there, Leah. Not again.” Your voice conveyed the ache you felt in your heart, the weeks of emotional turmoil you’d had to endure as you tried your best to carry on as if nothing had happened, as if you weren’t grieving what could have been. “Losing you is the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

Leah didn’t say anything. She knew deep down that you were right, and she knew that she deserved this rejection, that she only had herself to blame for the pain she’d put you through. She gave you a sad smile — God you missed how warm it used to be — and nodded her head. “I understand…”

You stepped forwards and kissed her cheek. “Take care of yourself, Leah.”

“You too, Y/N.”

It took every ounce of strength you had to walk away, to leave her there and not completely crumble. And as you crossed the street, you realised it was likely you’d never get over Leah. No matter how much time would pass, you’d probably never cease to question what could have been if things had been different, if you’d only fought harder to make things work.

‘So let's not do coffee, let's not even try

It’s better we leave it and give it some time

If I didn't love you, it would be fine

'Cause If we do coffee, it's never just coffee

It's never just coffee.’

[dark-and-kawaii]

You've done a remarkable job getting me hopelessly hooked on tieflings. It did get me wondering tho, how would the bachleors react to their partner begging for the knot? Properly too, face down, ass up, hands holding their cheeks spread.

Thank you for writing, I do appreciate reading your work. ♡

˚₊‧꒰ა♡໒꒱‧ Knotted ‧꒰ა♡໒꒱‧₊˚

₊˚⊹♡ YES!!! 100/10!!! I’m eating this up om nom nom!!! Something about the tieflings and having knots just make me drool!!! The way they’d fill you up so nicely- you’d never want another cock again, nor would you ever be the same~ ♡

₊˚⊹♡ Pairings: Zevlor x F!Tav/Reader - Rolan x F!Tav/Reader

₊˚⊹♡ Content: NSFW - Stretched So Good - Pussy Never Going To Be The Same - Tiefling Cock Has Your Tongue Dangling Out - Tip Of Their Cocks Kissing Your Cervix - Begging - Tummy Bulge - Spread Wide

Notes: I didn’t add Dammon because these got longish~ Enjoy my dear xoxo

‧₊˚✧[ Zevlor ]✧˚₊‧

The way your face was pressed into his bed roll, your ass thrown up in the air as your fingers spread your pussy lips... The look in your eyes, the way your tongue was out, panting, saliva dribbling down your chin. And that beautiful hole of yours, slick with your juices, glistening and twitching... No doubt you were playing with yourself in preparation for his return to the cave... That was pretty risky of you. If Tilly had decided to accompany him...

“Z-Zevlor~!” You gasp out his name in a breathy moan, “I want it- I- I want to take your knot please~”

A shudder runs down his spine as he listens to you. It takes all of his willpower to not just slam his hips into you, his aching cock twitching with every word that falls from your lips. He swallows thickly, his fingers pulling at the armor around his neck.

His face felt hot and his mind hazy.

He had to focus on something other than your scent, the way you called his name… “Y-you shouldn’t be here. What if someone came looking for me and found you in this compromising position-“

“I don’t carrrreeee~” your mouth hangs open, saliva dripping onto his sheets, “I want them to know~ know I belong to a foulblood, the most handsome oneeee~” you whined, wiggling your ass, spreading your legs a bit wider.

You were going to give this old man a heart attack. He had to open his mouth and take a few gulps of air to get more oxygen to his brain.

“A-are you sure? I fear it may-“

“I-I can take it~!” You cut him off, looking over your shoulder at him, “Y-you've stretched me out so much with your cock already... A-and I've seen it~” You give a small moan as you slip a finger into your pussy, “Y-your knot is so big... I-I wanna feel it stretching my pussy open~ break me~”

He gives a small groan, his hand moving down to free his throbbing cock, stroking the length as he watches you finger yourself. He wants nothing more than to slam himself into your little cunt, feel it wrapped tightly around him, but... He also wants to make sure that you'll be ok. Taking his thumb he smears the bead of pre-cum dripping from his tip onto the head, slicking it up before pressing his thumb into your needy cunt. He can't help but shudder when he feels how wet you are, his tail swishing in response as he slips his thumb deeper, watching as you start to suck him in.

You bite your lip as you look over your shoulder at the handsome tiefling, pushing yourself against him and his hand, wriggling your hips desperate for something bigger- much bigger. “A-ah~! Z-Zevlor, p-please~! I-I need more~ I-It's not enough~!”

He had never seen someone- never been with someone as desperate as you for him. He hated himself for saying you looked like such a whore in his head, but it was true. You were just a needy, whimpering mess on his bed roll.

Zevlor's thoughts were cut off when he felt you reach back and grab his throbbing cock.

“Zevy~ Fuck me please~! Stretch me open…“ You looked over your shoulder at him, licking your lips hungrily, “Commander~”

Hearing his title, feeling your hand stroking his cock, the sudden change in the way you addressed him… Despite his fear of harming your tight snatch, he’d give you what you desired, and he’d make sure to take such good care of you~

…

Your legs were quivering, knees weak, as you bit into his thin sheets, the only thing you had to muffle your screams. It had taken Zevlor a moment to get his knot halfway inside, his cock pulsing with each breath you took.

“mmmph!!!! fhhhh~ !! AHHH~!!! MMMMMM!!!!!!!!!~!!!~!!!!!~~”

Your knuckles turned white as you gripped his bed roll, your pussy stretching wider and wider. Tears rolling down your cheeks as his knot started to press into your pussy further. It felt like you were being ripped open, his knot growing wider and wider.

“My light, I can stop- I- I can pull out. I don't want to hurt you... If this mmph- if it’s too much... We can try some other nigh-“

Your hand released his bed roll and grabbed his arm, holding it tightly.

“I s’need it, commander... Please…~” Your words came out a choked sob, a plea.

His breath catches in his throat as he watches you push back onto him, his eyes going wide, the pain evident on your face as you force him deeper and deeper inside of you.

Finally, it popped inside.

The mouth of your sex stretched grotesquely as it engulfed his big meaty knot, your lips sealed around the base of his cock… “Ahhhn~!!! H-hhaa~! Oh gods, oh gods- Z-Zev!!! I'ms stuffed m‘full- soooo fff-full~!! I-it's stretching my tummy-!!”

Zevlor delicately moved his hand down and around your waist, and sure enough there was a little bump on your belly where his cock was. His hands moved to your hips, gently rubbing the skin and preventing you from taking him deeper. His heart was pounding, worried that his knot was too much for you. His hand slid over to yours so he could lace his fingers between yours before kissing your shoulder softly, trying his best to be comforting, “Shh… You're alright, I've got you...”

One thing was for sure, he was going to miss you when you both finally went your separate ways…

‎‧₊˚✧[ Rolan ]✧˚₊‧

You lay there panting, a thin gleam of sweat on your entire body, babbling his name like some sort of prayer. Feeling the cold air on your exposed, wet pussy as you spread it open for him, your hands pulling your folds apart to show him all of your insides… How your womb was ready and waiting for his potent tielfing seed.

“R-Rolan- Please-,” you were ready, it was time you took his knot. The way it throbbed, the tip of his cock oozing a thick and gooey white liquid, the base of his length throbbing and engorging with blood, turning his pretty cock into a bulbous, veiny knot that was just begging to be sunk into your waiting sex.

But Rolan didn't move, “I-“ he felt so foolish. Here you were, ass in the air, your pussy spread and waiting for him like some sort of offering, and here he was, the very picture of hesitation and uncertainty. His own mind was screaming at him, yelling that this was everything that he had been waiting for- he’s imagined filling your greedy pussy with his knot from the moment he met you… But now that you were begging, now that it was right here he was too scared to take the plunge.

He was so afraid to lose you, of being alone… It’s the reason he’s been purposely holding back from locking himself with you, not giving you his knot no matter how much you begged him. Rolan never said it out loud ever but deep down he was afraid you’d look at him like a monster if he showed you the true extent of his nature.

And you, ever the observant one, noticed.

Your hand reached between your thighs to grab the base of his dick, feeling the bulge of his knot pulsate against your palm. Squeezing him gently as you cock your head at him and pout, “don’t be so greedy~” you mocked him. You were still breathing heavily, but a smile graced your features. Your other hand, covered in a sheen of your own wetness, reaches back and grabs his tail. Gently, but firmly.

Pulling his hips closer to yours, guiding him, “if you don’t fill me nicely with that delicious knot~” you bring his tail up to your lips and lick a long, slow line from the base to the tip, causing Rolan to shiver and moan. Your teeth nibble at the base of his tail, biting down enough to make him squirm but not enough to cause him any real pain, “I’ll have to use this as the replacement. I think that will do nicely, don't you agree?~"

Rolan groaned at the sensation, his mouth agape as his breath became more ragged, “mphf - hah-” he covered his mouth, trying to keep from getting too excited. The idea of you shoving his tail in your cunt and riding it so deep until he saw the outline of it snaking through you- “S-so desperately needy and gr-greedy- li-like a whore in heat-“ he breathed on your shoulder…

…

Your head jerked back, “GUEAAAU!!!!!~” your tongue hanging from your mouth as saliva fell from your lips, your eyes crossed, your vision blurred, and your ears ringing. For a moment you couldn’t hear, see, or feel anything other than the sudden, overwhelming sensation of being filled stretched, your uterus being smashed repeatedly by his tip now that it was finally fully buried inside.

Rolan bit his bottom lip so hard he nearly drew blood, the sharp points of his teeth digging into his flesh and leaving indents, his face a mess… He could feel your sloppy pussy lips wrap around his knot, the popping noises it made as he would forcefully pull it out and then back in as it caught on your lips over and over. The sounds coming from your mouth made it sound like your internal organs would come popping out of it…

“M-my wom-b- A-a-augh- H-ha-h-h-hh-hhhh-h-h-!!!!! Sho’deep Rolan baby~! You're sooooo deep~!! I can- can feel you- so deep~!!! You're hitting- my cervix-! Ahhh!! Ah-!! You're making my pussy all stretched out and gaping f-from yo-your knot~!!!”

His hips moved on their own, the tip of his dick kissing the entrance of your cervix, trying to penetrate you even further than he already was. Your cervix was already starting to swell, and you could feel the pressure building up in your belly.

You were going to be filled with his warm milky tiefling seed, your body ready to welcome his into this world. You swore your eyes had heart shapes in them from thinking about how his knot would plug his cum up inside of you this time, keeping it nice and safe, until he’s ready to fill you up with another batch of it. And then another… And another… Never spilling a single drop…

[sagatale]

Dreams Of You

Hello everyone! So, I thought I would give posting fanfics a shot, starting with this small "blurb?" of Jacob Black. Obviously, aged up! I have been wondering quite a lot recently how imprinting would feel and be perceived since it's described as more intense than normal love. I really hope you like it, and if you have any other ideas for a longer fanfic you would like me to write next, let me know, and I might write it!<3 sexual content 18+ minors dni

“I dream of you all the time.” His voice was low, his breath brushing against your collarbones as he found a place in the crook of your neck. Warmth surrounded you, scorching skin burning through the layers of clothing, heating you until all left were cold fingertips and even colder lips. “Even when I’m awake, I still dream of you.”

The words were almost unrecognizable as his mouth pressed against your bare skin, sending shivers down your spine. His words never failed to make your heart flutter at his blatant affection for you. Never did it cease to overwhelm you, for he told you that there were truly no words that could describe how he yearned for you every minute—every second of his long, exhausting days. 

Indeed, you couldn’t imagine what that was like, for if you harbored feelings in that vast amount, there could be no other way for you to deal with them than simply exploding. 

Sometimes, when Jacob was perched over you, arms wound tight under your back as he hugged you close to him, strong legs helping him push into you, you could almost be sure your thoughts weren’t too far off the mark. The way his hands always seemed to handle you softly now strained against his strength, pulling you so tight against him as if having you close was the only way to keep him from eating you alive.

His pronounced brows permanently furrowed something so terribly, eyes tightly shut as sweat dripped down his skin, the salty substance dripping down your chest as his lips distracted themselves by dragging his tongue over your pulse, breathing in your scent til it consumed him whole. Strained breaths could be heard, grunts mingling with your quiet whimpers as your hands trailed over his shoulders, feeling his body tremble beneath them, shaking something so terrible. 

You’d ask him if he needed a break, worry consuming you when his strong arms gave up, pressing into you more urgently as the bed rocked against the wall. Yet it turned out there wasn’t anything the matter with his stamina as he growled in protest when you tried to sit up, his heavyweight over you making your attempts futile, desperate lips finding yours as he slowed slightly, grinding into you as you moaned at the tortuous rhythm he set. 

“You’re shaking, Jacob.” You’d say quietly, fingers threading through his damp hair as his hazy, warm, brown eyes found yours, once more planting his lips against yours. “I’ll be okay.” He’d mumble through the kiss, tongue caressing yours as his hand softly placed itself on your cheek, threading over your skin as if it were porcelain.

It didn’t take long for him to move inside you again, eyes glazed over as he stared into yours through lidded eyes, mouth open over your gasping one as your fingers ran through his black hair. Bringing him down to you once more, you felt the ridges and bumps of his upper body against you, muscles clenching with every thrust as if it took every willpower of his to control himself. 

“God.” He panted out, releasing you to slap his hands against the mattress, gripping the sheets tightly in one hand as you heard them rip under his harsh treatment, the other hand taking hold of the headboard. The wood complained under his hard hold, crumbling as his hold tightened. Your hand found his cheek amidst the pleasure coursing through you, thumb carefully stroking the skin as you whispered his name.

It felt like every sense of reality was swept away from Jacob as his unfocused eyes fell on you, heart thumping so hard against his chest it felt like it would punch through both skin and bones. Shaking his head, he looked at you again, still finding your lidded eyes staring back at him like he had created the world you walked on. 

“You’re gonna kill me,” He grunted, reveling in the feeling of your cold fingertips against his hot cheek as his stomach coiled something so terribly, making him believe he was going to go insane with desire.

In a way, he always feared being this close to you, for only being in your presence was overwhelming for him, never mind feeling your soft skin against his and hearing your pleasure-filled whimpers as he took you. Oh, how he had longed for you, how much he longed for you now, even though he was the closest to you he could ever be. 

He didn’t lie when he told you he always dreamed of you. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw you, like you were carved into his eyelids. He never could get close enough, and while that was a curse in itself, it was a curse he wouldn’t trade for any other.

[empresskylo]

➠𝐌𝐃𝐍𝐈; 𝟏𝟖+ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓; 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓 ➠SIMON "GHOST" RILEY X AFAB!READER ➠WARNINGS | afab!reader. kinda mean!ghost to sad/sweet!ghost. smut. rough sex. trauma/ptsd. dub-con sorta. wc 1.8k ➠SUMMARY | after a bad mission, simon comes back and takes his pain out on you. ➠AUTHOR'S NOTE | had to get this out of my system okay....

𝐜𝐨𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ✩ 𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

ghost found you in his room as you sat peacefully on his small bed, a book nestled in your lap. you lazily turned the page unaware of his presence. the single light in the room created haunting shadows across your face that made you appear ethereal. usually, that would gain a smile from him, but he just glowered.

ghost had basically stormed into the barracks, soap trying to reassure him that the mission wasn’t a total bust as he made his way down the hall, heavy-footed and stomping.

when he made it to his room, he was less than pleased to see you on his bed. usually, he enjoyed having you with him after a long mission, your warm body pressed against his side, your hands stroking through his hair, his arms wrapped possessively around you. but not tonight. not after what he went through.

“out,” he barked.

you startled, putting a hand to your chest. “jesus, you scared me.” 

he threw his tactical vest on his desk chair and glowered at you. “i said out,” he demanded. 

a small sense of apprehension spread through you. you closed the book and placed it beside you on the bed. “is everything okay?” you asked timidly.

ghost took in an impatient breath, his eyes focusing on his wardrobe rather than on you.

“you need to leave.” he tore his mask off then his gloves and dropped them on his small desk. he ran a hand through his disheveled hair and took a breath to compose himself. he didn’t want to yell at you. “i’m not in a good mood. i jus’ don’t wanna take it out on you.” he had to muster all his willpower to explain this gently. 

he squeezed his fists into a tight knot and he shut his eyes, his mind going back to his men shouting in frustration and pain, calling out to ghost, unsure of what to do next. ghost saw himself panic and make the wrong call. 

“please, just leave.” his voice was more defeated that time, his patience wearing thin.

you stood up off the bed and ghost almost let out a sigh of relief until he heard you stepping closer to him. 

he spun to meet you. “god fucking damnit!” he cursed, slamming his hand on the wall beside your head.

you held back a flinch but he could see the heartache in your eyes. 

“i’m not afraid of you.” ghost sucked in a breath at your words.

simon’s face was scarred and broken from years of hell. and usually, that didn’t hinder the beautiful man buried beneath. but tonight, his eyes were dark and angry. his lips were pulled back in a snarl. he frightened you. not because you were worried he’d purposely harm you, but because you knew he would tear himself apart if left to his own devices. he thought he needed to be alone to decompress, but that wasn’t true. that would strand him in his own thoughts.

“i’m not leaving,” you tried to say with merit but your voice was soft. 

simon’s other hand came out and slipped around your neck, putting a small bit of force on your windpipe as he hunched over to speak, his breath fanning against your lips. “i’m in a destructive mood, pet. i don’t wanna hurt you.” 

“maybe i want to be hurt,” you challenged him. simon’s eyes darted between yours, contemplating picking you up, tossing you out, and locking the door, that, or letting his dark thoughts win.

“i won’t be able to stop once i start,” he warned.

you nodded, “i know.”

against his better judgment, his let the latter succeed, conceding to his fucked up mood filled with frustration, anger, acrimony, malice, and self-hatred. he quickly spun you around, pushing you up against the wall. his hands immediately went to your pants and he yanked them down in a hard pull, making you gasp.

one hand went to the back of your neck to keep you flat against the wall, the other fiddled with his belt. the clinking of metal had you squeezing your thighs together in anticipation. simon was rather gentle when you were together, he never wanted to put you in harm's way. it was the complete opposite really–he’d do anything to protect you. 

but tonight he felt like he had gone back to his old self. the version of him that was set on avenging his family. the part of him that had been tortured and locked away–beaten and broken. and he couldn’t seem to get those emotions to leave his system. 

simon thrusted his hips against you, one hand on the wall, one hand on your neck. you whimpered when you felt his cock slide against you, between your thighs and bumping your clit. your pants were gathered around your knees, making it hard for you to spread them further for him. both of simon’s hands came up and squeezed your breasts forcefully, pulling you into him in a hasty motion. 

“tell me what happened,” you whispered. 

simon grunted, nipping at your neck making you cry out. 

he spun you both around and bent you over his desk, shoving your face against the wood. his hands gripped your hips, holding them so tight you worried you’d have bruises come morning. 

in one swift motion, he buried himself inside you. you whined and he groaned loudly. his voice was guttural and husky as he spoke. “lost good men over a stupid fuckin’ mistake.” his hands yanked your hips back to meet his thrusts. “they died because of me.” his words were slightly slurred as he spoke through grunts. 

“simon,” you said faintly, but he likely didn’t hear you, too lost in his own mind. 

“i froze. i don’t know why i fuckin’ froze,” he said with pure, unhindered anger. you cried out as he slammed into you harder. you knew you were going to be a new level of sore by tomorrow. 

simon roughly grabbed you, pulling you up to him, his hand wrapping around your neck tightly, cutting off most of your airflow, and holding your body against his own. he continued to rut into you, your hips hitting the desk with each of his thrusts. you mewled, closing your eyes and holding back any tears that threatened to fall. 

his hand around your throat slid up a bit further, his fingers splayed across your jaw. his hot breath was by your ear now, leaving goosebumps. “you feel so fuckin’ good,” he growled. 

you weren’t used to this side of simon. sure, he was a cold-blooded killer, the antagonist of people’s nightmares. but not with you. he was never that way with you. 

but you’d be lying if you said the way he was using your body, letting everything out of his system, didn’t send sizzling tingles straight to your belly and between your thighs.

you felt like his fingers were leaving dark red marks along your throat and you struggled to swallow. “just let go, simon,” you encouraged, your voice staggered. 

one of his hands dragged across your stomach as he pulled you into him, his other hand on your neck pulling it to the side so he could nip and bite along your throat. “fuck. fuck,” he moaned. 

his hips never let up, if anything, he began thrusting into you harder and faster. “it’s not your fault,” you managed to get out. 

you heard him groan. you both stumbled forward a bit and your hips hit the desk painfully, making it slide back in a screeching motion. that didn’t deter simon as his hand slid down to your waist, then along your hip, yanking you back to meet his thrusts. 

he quickly pulled out of you and spun you around to face him. you saw tear marks streaking his face paint as you studied him for that brief moment of reprieve. 

he backed you against the wall and shuffled as he pulled your pants the rest of the way off and tossed them aside. he stood up, gripping your ass and hoisting you up. you wrapped your legs around him and he was immediately back inside you, rutting his hips at the same speed as earlier. 

he leaned into you, his face buried in your neck, his hand tugging at your hair. you yelped quietly at the way he pulled on your hair, your body slamming against the wall with each flick of his hips. you heard what might have been a whimper, his lips leaving little kisses along your neck where bite marks had appeared. 

“fuck, fuck, fuck,” he swore. his hand gripped your waist painfully tight and the fingers of his other hand–half buried in your hair, half against your cheek–pressed aggressively against you. the way he claimed you, took you for himself, and let his anger pour out of him, was almost possessive. 

you clenched around him, reaching your own high, triggering simon’s. his nails dug into you as yours tore against his clothed back. “god,” he grunted, followed by your name in a breathy tone, his hips keeping the same speed as his came inside you. 

you clung onto him, letting the last bit of pain leave him, before he slowed and gently loosened his grip on you. 

after several seconds of breathing heavily into your neck, he pulled back to look at you. you could see the tears that had lined his cheeks clearly now and one of your hands came up to rest against his jaw. he leaned into your touch, his fingers rubbing circles wherever they were against you. 

“im sorry,” he said faintly. 

“it’s okay, simon.” you gave him a weak smile. 

“it’s not.” he looked at you. saw the marks along your skin. felt the way his hand had been gripping you, sure to leave dark bruises. “i didn’t want to hurt you.” his voice broke over his last words. 

a tear slid down your cheek and he quickly wiped it away with his thumb. he set you down and you slid your hand in his, lacing your fingers together, and tugged him toward his bed. you pushed him down so he sat on the mattress and watched you. you stripped the rest of your clothes off and encouraged him to do the same. you slid on one of his t-shirts from his drawers and simon stripped down to just his boxers. 

you pushed him back and curled into the bed with him, clicking the light off. his arms immediately wrapped around you on instinct. he pulled you close and buried his face in your hair. his hands slid up under your shirt and you felt him rubbing patterns on your back. “i’m okay,” you promised him. 

he pulled you closer against him, tucking you into his side, wanting to have you as close as possible. “i love you,” he murmured, his thoughts settling to just thoughts of you. no one else. nothing else from that day. just you. 

“i love you, too,” you said back, your low voice honey to his ears. 

[dickgraysonsbitch]

Hi! Just found your blog and it’s the best thing ever honestly. I was wondering if you could do a Jason Todd x reader where the reader deals with migraines and sensory overloads? If not that’s totally cool, have a nice day!

thank you so much for your ask!! this was actually my first request ever 😭 nonny you will go down in history 💖 a psa that while i do have mild sensory issues, i don’t have migraines, so any and all criticism is welcome!

warnings: pills/migraines | 1.2k words | dividers by @cafekitsune | requests open !

You fell onto the bed, tucking your knees in close to your chest. Fifty minutes. This goddamned headache had been the bane of your whole existence for fifty minutes, and you couldn’t even catch a bloody break. Every week, it would come back like clockwork, and while you had your routine (two advils, an eye mask, and soothing ocean noises all while sitting in a dark room with a singular, mildly-scented lavender candle with two out of three wicks lit) it didn’t change the fact that every minute that you lay there, the throbbing sensation around your head came back worse than before.

Grasping the tip of your nose, you tilted your head back in order to swallow the pills next to you. If you didn’t, you’d eventually gag on the water, and that wasn’t really a pretty sight to see. It was a miracle that you could even work as a hostess, especially on the graveyard shift, because it was taking every ounce of your willpower not to throw up at even the most tamest memories—a sleepy child with food flying out of their mouth, or a costumer shouting about how ‘insane’ you were when you had only gotten through your second advil of the day. It wasn’t enough, clearly, because if it had been, you wouldn’t be holed up in your dark room like a vampire with chronic pain.

One knock on your window jolts you from your ibuprofen-fueled haze. Two knocks. Three knocks—god, who doesn’t have patience in this stupid city? Not everyone can be a metahuman that travels at the speed of sound.

You open your window, head still pulsing, but all thoughts of another cup of mildly sweetened honey tea dissipates when the Red Hood smoothly slides into your living room/kitchen (it’s Gotham! Rent may be low, but you are poor as hell), removes his helmet, and shakes his head like a wet dog, the domino mask he was wearing underneath somehow not falling off. He shoots you a crooked grin before plopping himself on your couch, resting his legs on your coffee table.

“Shoes off,” you grumble. “And for the millionth time, I have a door for a reason. And I put food on that table, and I don’t want to see your nasty feet on it.” While other people might be a bit more reserved when talking to a Bowery drug lord, you had never given yourself the same boundaries. He’d crashed into your apartment when he was injured one night a few months ago, and since then, the Red Hood swore to one, pay off your window, and two, make sure you were safe. In his words, it was the best way to repay you for saving his life—even though you didn’t really do anything of the sort. Basic stitches that you learnt in high school, because that was what they taught when a vigilante could collapse in your house due to blood loss any minute in Gotham.

“Woah…” he raises his hands up in mock surrender, his eyes glinting with mirth. “What’s wrong? Rough shift?”

He can always tell, and you’ve decided to refrain against trying to lie to the only crime lord that you’ll likely ever be friend with, unless the Penguin unexpectedly decides to lumber up your fire escape. (Hood’s gotten you a spiked baseball bat for occasions like that, because you complained about any firearms). A pang of pain from you head. Mental note, put out the candle, no wicks. Darken the room even more, try and fail to go to sleep. You have your second job in the morning tomorrow. Mental note, take a melatonin if you can’t sleep, pack a few pills of ibuprofen and acetaminophen if you can’t get through your morning shift. It’s two AM right now, you could still get three hours of sleep if you—

A rough, calloused hand gently caresses your cheek, sending a tingling sensation down your jawline, all the way down to the base of your spine. Okay, woah. “Take a deep breath, baby.” Hood’s deep, gravelly voice shakes your from your stupor. Oh. You were slipping back into your anxiety induced panic attacks, and you hadn’t even noticed. You take one deep breath, but instead of feeling like you’re stuffing an oversized pillow into a kid sized cover, you’re at ease, letting fresh air flow into your lungs.

“How you doin’ tonight, huh baby? I saw your kitchen light on, thought I’d stop by.” Red Hood rubs a simple circle pattern into your back, letting you lean onto him.

“I bet…” you take a shallow breath. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

A smile cracks through onto his face. “Nah, baby, just you. All the girls have nothing on you, baby. You want to tell me about your day?”

Maybe it was just his voice, but you were almost immediately more at ease than you wee moments ago. Red Hood would’ve had a great calling as a therapist, or even a guidance counselor, but you weren’t sure that he’d like it if you called him, arguably the most fearsome man in Gotham, a service worker. Men were weird that way.

“C-can you talk to me, Hood? I don’t know… you have a nice voice, I guess. Makes me feel safe.”

You could swear that you heard his voice crack before he cleared his throat. “Yeah, yeah, I can do that. So… I guess I didn’t do much today. Oh! This one sleaze-bag was trying to rob this eighth grader, and I’d never seen this old guy, okay? The kid, his name’s James, he immediately just swings his backpack at him. And I come in, this dude’s already gotten a broken nose…”

He keeps talking about the unexpected things that happened during his day, but your eyes are just trained on Hood. His sharp jaw, his toned arms, his hair and the decent-sized white streak that runs through it, his soft lips and the J scar that covered his left cheekbone, and you wondered what it would be like to know him without the mask on. Would he still be the same, sweet guy that you knew?

In a sudden moment of courage, you take Hood’s hand and squeeze it, your heart pounding nervously against your ribcage. “Thank you, Hood.” You whisper. “I don’t know… I don’t know what I would be done if you weren’t here. I’d probably be still having a killer headache right now.”

He smiles, something that you’ve been seeing him do a lot more often than he’s known for. Red Hood, vigilante, drug lord, crime boss? Nowhere to be seen. You try your hardest to gaze past the white lenses over his eyes, concealing his eye color.

“Jay,” he mutters softly, soft enough that if you hadn’t been sitting so close, you wouldn’t have been able to hear a word that he said. “Call me Jay.”

The head comes come back sometimes, but you usually tend to ignore the headaches after a dose of acetaminophen and a head massage from who might be the world’s best vigilante, Jay. You may not know his full name yet, but you know his heart, and under all that armor, under the Red Hood, is a man with a heart of gold.

please please please let me know if i got anything wrong so i can edit it!

[sincerelyneo]

wildflower | z.cl

“you know you are my favourite fantasy”

💿now playing: wildflower by 5 seconds of summer

❯ summary: Chenle just has to make it through one more round of twister. Then, you and his friends can leave and he can take care of the boner growing in his pants from your limbs grazing over his crotch every turn. Yeah, that’s his plan. Just one more round.

❯ pairings: chenle x fem!reader

❯ genre: friends to lovers, smut

❯ words: 4.0k

❯ tags: 18+ minors dni!, light petting, male masturbation, explicit descriptions of chenle's thoughts while he gets off, voyeurism, hand jobs, literally just horny chenle, reader uses she/her pronouns.

"Chenle, left foot, green," Jisung announces.

It's just a game of Twister, Chenle keeps reminding himself as the colourful spinner dictates his next move. So why is he feeling so flustered? He needs to get a grip. Like he said, it's just a fucking game for Christ’s sake, one that families play on holidays. There's no reason for him to be turned on right now, but he is.

"Dude, will you hurry up? I don’t think I can handle Jaemin's ass in my face much longer," Haechan grumbles from his awkward position on the board, head perched to the side to avoid eye contact with the back of Jaemin's jeans.

"Stop pretending you don’t love my ass." 

Chenle feels no sympathy for Haechan; after all, this stupid game was his idea. He's the reason Chenle keeps having to conjure up the most unsexy thoughts imaginable to suppress the growing bulge in his pants.

It all started with a trip to the mall earlier in the day. Chenle had turned his back for just five minutes to go to the bathroom, and when he returned, he found his friends gathered around the ridiculous board game on the shelf. 

"Come on, it'll be fun," Haechan insisted, while Jaemin practically bounced with excitement. 

Chenle thought it was stupid; he's never been any good at Twister. But they all begged and pleaded to buy the game instead of sticking to the original movie night plans Chenle had organised for their traditional Friday night hangouts. And truthfully, Chenle had no intention of playing the game, let alone buying it. That is, until you stepped off the wall you were leaning against to join the conversation.

You strode over to pick up the box Haechan was clutching onto and inspected it. Chenle's gaze was fixed on your fingers as they tapped the package gently. It was surprising how everyone instantly fell silent from the shock of you wanting to get involved in their antics for a change.

 "Come on, Lele, Haechan has a point. It does look fun," you encouraged.

Chenle's attention immediately shifted to your puppy-dog eyes, and he swore they were strong enough to break his willpower. Or maybe it was the way your lips protruded in a practised pout, staring up expectantly at him. Actually, now that he thinks about it, it was definitely the soft and eager "Please," that you uttered that had him heading straight to the counter with the box and his wallet. 

That's what landed him here now. Stupid you and your stupid eyes and your even more stupidly cute smile.

“Chenle did you hear me?!” Jisung waves the spinner in front of his face, “Left foot, green.”

He snaps back to attention, finally shifting his left foot to a green circle. 

“Fucking finally,” Haechan murmurs, “Sung, spin it for me.”

Jisung complies, giving Haechan his next instruction. Haechan begins to twist his body through the gap between Jaemin’s legs – he just needs to stretch a little more to reach the blue target in his vision. But then…

“Ow, what the fuck?!” Jaemin groans, his ass crashing down on the board from Haechan’s manoeuvring between his limbs. 

“That was totally your fault! If you didn’t wriggle your body at the last second I wouldn’t have—”

"Nobody cares, Haechan. You're out. Off the board," Chenle grits through his teeth. He can't stand the arguing; it only prolongs the silly game for him, and he doesn’t want that – he doesn't need that. He just wants to get this all over with.

But as Haechan and Jaemin move away from the board he realises that won’t be so easy because you and him are the last two players standing. Chenle gulps, the realisation hitting him like a truck. He’s the only player left that you can tangle your limbs up with. 

He doesn’t need this – this is what he’s been trying to avoid thinking about all night. You’ve only innocently brushed him this round, nothing overtly explicit. But just seeing you contort and arch alone was enough to trigger a twisted fantasy in his mind. 

Chenle considers forfeiting. Sure, he's a little competitive, but he’d rather lose than pop a boner in front of all his friends while playing the old-school classic game of Twister. He also knows Haechan would complain, insisting that the winner was rigged and therefore there needs to be a rematch. Chenle does not need a rematch.

He just needs to focus. Keep his head in the game for a little while longer. Then, you and his friends can leave. Yeah, that’s the plan. He just needs to breathe. 

Chenle composes himself, hastily waving his finger in Jisung’s direction. “It’s her spin.”

“Y/N, right-hand yellow.”

You’re already reclining, distributing your weight between a palm and a back foot. And you’re just as competitive, so when Jisung issues the instruction, you aim for the dot directly beneath Chenle but still behind him, manoeuvring beneath him for your hand to brush past his thigh before landing on the target.

Chenle almost stumbles at the slight touch, and it makes you raise an eyebrow. Was he ticklish or something? 

“Y/N, that’s cheat–” 

“Oh, so when she touches you, it’s cheating, but when Jaemin wiggles, I get told to get off the board,” Haechan complains. “I see how it is.” 

“Be quiet, Haechan,” Jisung says, and Chenle is thankful for the intervention as he shushes the boy and flicks the spinner with his hand. “Left hand, red.” 

Chenle looks down at the position you’re both in right now. So far, luck had been on his side as he was still on two feet, but you, you were on all fours and very close to him. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about looking down to see you pooled at his feet, looking up at him with pretty eyes, but he never imagined it like this.

The fact that this is all happening in front of his friends should be enough to kill his boner, but he’s still turned on. Not only was just the position of you on all fours tantalizing enough to begin with, but your last spin caused arms to cross over one another, pushing your breasts together. 

Damn. 

Chenle bites the bullet and goes for it, his body fully covering yours as he plants his right hand in front of him. In theory, his plan sounded like a good idea; if he places his right hand on the red dot behind you, he can just hover over you and then he won’t have to see you looking up at him with those pretty tits, he so desperately wants to fuck, on display. 

But that was all in theory, because Chenle may have overlooked one massive fatal flaw. The new position places his crotch right in front of your face, and Chenle hadn’t even registered that until he could feel your hot breath against the fabric of his sweatpants. 

This is not good.

Chenle can’t help but panic, he knows being like this, his clothed cock so close to your lips, he’s not gonna be able to hide his growing erection any longer. His cheeks flush, he doesn’t know how much more he can take, but he still tries to compose himself. 

It’s just a game of twister.

“Y/N, right-hand green.”

Chenle thanks the heavens when he hears Jisung tell you to move your right hand because it’s that hand that’s already put him in this stupid predicament. You move to a red dot and it helps create some space between your lips and his groin. And Chenle thinks the Earth is finally on his side, because Jisung’s next instruction is for him. 

“Left-hand blue.”

This seems perfect, he thinks. He can simply shift the hand that caused him to hover over you behind him. That should work. And it does, but only for a little while. Because on Jisung’s next instruction, you’re reaching over Chenle's shoulder with a hand, but your reach isn’t quite good enough, and he doesn’t know how much longer he can keep himself balanced on one arm. 

Then it happens – you land on top of him, and the room fills with whoops and cheers as the game comes to an end. But Chenle can’t comprehend that because all he can think about is you, and how your body is pressed on his, tits crushing him and looking so delectable. 

He sees you laughing, and God, how he adores your smile. He almost loves it as much as he loves how close you are to him, almost. You feel so warm, and he wants you to stay there forever, wrapped up in him as he... well, his thoughts suddenly take a more heated turn.

Damn, he’s getting hard.

No, fuck, he’s getting hard with you on top of him.

Without hesitation, Chenle brushes you off him and rises to his feet. He hastily adjusts his sweats to conceal his bulge, but nothing can disguise the sudden shift in his mood, which casts a frosty chill over the atmosphere.

“Dude, you good?” Mark asks. 

“Yeah, I'm fine,” Chenle responds, his voice strained as he tries to sound casual. 

The vibes in the room have turned awkward, suffocating almost. All he can think about is you, and he just wants this whole shit show to be over.

“Hey, why don't we call it a night?” he suggests, trying to mask the urgency in his tone. “I mean, it's getting late, and I'm sure we all have stuff to do tomorrow.”

You exchange glances with the others, sensing Chenle's unease, but you all agree to pack up and leave. As you gather your things and head towards the door, Chenle can't shake the image of you out of his mind. All he wants is to be alone, to explore the thoughts and desires that have been swirling in his head ever since the game started – he wants to deal with his boner.

Once you’re gone, Chenle lets out a sigh of relief, finally able to breathe again. But even with the apartment empty, his mind is still consumed by thoughts of you. He knows he needs to get a grip, but the memory of your touch, your laughter, lingers in the air, and he can't help but crave you.

He can’t control himself anymore, he just feels so needy. He sits down on the sofa, eyes fluttering shut as he thinks. He lets his tongue slip out from between his lips and one hand travels down his body, over his hoodie until he reaches the waistband of his sweatpants. 

He can still feel the warmth of your breath there, and he’s harder than a rock, but this time there's no need to hide it. He wastes no time slipping inside the fabric to palm himself, his hands cool and rough. He savours the feeling of rubbing his long, thick length slowly with both hands, imagining it's your body taking him in, and filling you to the hilt.

You.

The girl he could never quite shake. The girl who Jisung had introduced to the group a couple of years ago. The girl who started hanging out with them more often, securing her invite to ‘boy’s night’ at his place. The girl who he’d found himself having the same interests as. The girl who was seconds ago brushing soft fingers over his body while playing Twister.

His friend.

His mouth parts and he thrust his cock up into his fisted hands. Precum lubes the tip of his head as he spreads it around with his thumb, gently rubbing the slick up and down himself. Needing more glide, he spits into his hand and rubs it down his length, coating his cock. He knows that when he finally gets to bury himself inside of you he won’t need spit, you’ll be fucking soaking for him, he’ll make sure of it.

He squeezes his eyes shut and groans. He needed this, badly. It had been a long night of your body bending, spinning and twisting – and fuck – remembering the way your back curved so delicately in the first round. 

Not to mention you’d worn leggings that clung to your skin and a T-shirt that dipped low enough to flash everyone. Skimpy shit that you insisted were your ‘comfortable clothes’. He doesn’t believe that for a second – but he’s not complaining. They may have killed him when he was trying to hide his arousal, but now he’s glad he’s got a more accurate image for his thoughts. 

Thoughts that include him wanting nothing more than to feel your body beneath his, sweating and used. Panting. Hair wild and a mess, as his fingers explore every inch of your flesh. He wants you wet enough that your arousal seeps over your thighs. He wants his cum dripping out your mouth, down your chin, and pooling on your tits.

He wants you filthy.

Fuck.

He palms himself up and down again, gritting his teeth and throwing his head back against the sofa.

He wants to bend you over, stretch you out. He wants to make you beg for him, writhe for him. Mould you to be his perfect little toy. If you could see him panting as he indulgently strokes himself to thoughts of you he’s sure you’d be flushed, embarrassed. 

The image has him shuddering and thrusting his cock up into his hand again. And again. And again. 

Fuck. What would you say if you knew? If you walked in and saw him?

You couldn’t blame him. Nobody forced you to insist on the game of Twister. Nobody forced you to trace your delicate little hands across his legs and arms and shoulders as you found the coloured circles. Nobody forced you to stumble on top of him, your grip holding his shoulders to find balance, immediately triggering his mind with thoughts of you riding him. 

And fuck – nobody forced you to be that flexible. 

His arms begin to ache at the punishing speed, but he couldn't stop. He wouldn’t stop. It felt too good. He hisses at the smooth glide over the sensitive underside of his head, head falling back again as he curses. 

He knows you’d beg for it - just like he is.

“Fuck, Y/N…”

You and Haechan are making your way through Chenle’s building, en route to the parking lot. Haechan had insisted on you driving him home tonight, citing that "Ubers are too expensive in this economy." But as you both walk towards the car, your mind starts to wander.

Chenle's behaviour tonight was odd.

He never ends your Friday night hangouts early, and his sudden shift in demeanour was quite... uncharacteristic. Moreover, he's usually very competitive, yet there were numerous instances during the game where he could have easily nudged or jostled you, but he refrained. It was almost as if you were a hot stove, and he feared getting burned by touching you.

Was he coming down with a cold or something? Whatever it was you don’t like it, and you’re about to ask Haechan about it. However, as your hand reaches into your jacket pocket, you realize: shit, you left your car keys.

"Mind waiting here? I left my keys back there," you inform Haechan and he looks at you unimpressed. 

He groans dramatically, “Y/N, it’s freezing out.”

"Relax, I'll be back in five minutes tops," you assure him.

 "I knew I should've gone home with Jisung.”

 You quirk an eyebrow, "What was that?" 

"Nothing, just hurry up." 

You return to Chenle’s building, taking the elevator up and walking down the halls. You hoped he hadn’t retired to bed if he was feeling unwell. Unfortunately, you can't even send him a quick text because your phone is with your keys.

You're slightly puzzled as you reach Chenle's door and find it open just a crack, unusual for him as he typically locks up immediately after everyone leaves. Concern creeps in — did something happen to him?

Anxiety triggers, and though you know you should knock and give him some warning that you're entering his apartment, your rational mind seems to switch off. And then it fogs because you just realised what you’ve just walked into.

Chenle’s head is thrown back with shut eyes, lips parted just a touch as he fists his cock. He groans, the motions causing a loud sloppy sound. His hand goes past the base of his cock and he grabs his balls, tugging at them with a whine. 

He fucking whined. 

You have to fight every urge not to gasp because the sight sends heat to the place between your legs, wetness pooling in your panties because he looks so hot, so unfiltered, raw and erotic. His face is so relaxed, his breath uneven, and you wonder what has got him so worked up. He looked like he was ready to kill moments ago. 

“Fuck Y/N…”

What the fuck?

Chenle sounds like he’s on the brink of an orgasm…to your name. Were you hearing it correctly? If only you could see better, peer further into his apartment, and realize that you'd made this whole thing up, then you could relax – you could curse your mind for playing such a cruel hot joke on you.

So you do, you creek the door open and that’s when you see his abs begin to quiver and his eyebrows knit tighter together. It was visible that he was getting close and he let out an involuntary yell, hips bucking as his hand pumps harder.

Your thighs rub together, and your legs threaten to tremble from the sight. You'd never imagined yourself being so turned on from watching someone else get off, but here you are, and you don't think you've ever been more aroused. 

And perhaps you’re a little too aroused because you don’t even realise that Chenle’s hand has stopped stroking because he’s staring straight at you, eyes wide looking like a deer in headlights. His cheeks are red and he’s awkwardly stuffing his very hard cock back into his sweats. 

“Oh shit! Fuck! I’m sorry,” you stumble over your words as you turn around, giving him a little bit of privacy. 

Chenle is at a loss for words. While he might have entertained the idea of you catching him, he never expected it to actually happen. And he certainly hadn't anticipated just how hot the glint of lust in your eyes as you watched him would be.

“No, it’s my fault…I should have locked the door.”

You’re still facing away from him, looking at his apartment walls when he stands to his feet and walks closer to you. You can feel the heat radiating off his body as he settles behind you. It’s a delicious warmth and if you weren’t just caught being a fucking perv, you would have let yourself bask in it. 

“N-No, I should have knocked, I just came to get my keys, I’m so so sorry–”

“Y/N will you just look at me?”

He cuts you off and you feel him wrap a hand around your wrist. You wonder if it’s the same one that was wrapped around his cock and – fuck Y/N – now is not the time. 

His gentle tug compels you to turn around and face him. You can't bring yourself to meet his eyes; instead, yours remain fixed on the floor. Still, you can feel the intensity of his gaze burning into your forehead.

"How long were you standing there?" His voice breaks the silence, prompting your mouth to open and close, resembling a fish for a moment as you process his question. 

"I-I um, not long," you stammer out.

“Not long?” He raises an eyebrow, “Were you planning on standing there until I came or what?” 

Your mouth goes dry as the realization dawns upon you because, yes, that's exactly what you were planning on doing. You wanted to witness what he looked like when he reached his climax, to see if he could possibly look any sexier than he already did as an orgasm washed over him.

“Lele—”

"You know," his finger reaches up to rest beneath your chin, trailing along your jawline until he has a firm grip, coaxing your eyes to meet his. "If you wanted to see me cum, the least you could have done was offer to help."

"W-what?" Your eyes widen in surprise.

"You heard me," he smirks confidently. "You gonna help me or what, Y/N?"

You bite your lip and nod, your hand dances along the hem of his sweats slipping inside to feel the length of his cock. It twitches in your grasp, and it doesn’t surprise you since he looked so close to his peak only seconds ago. 

Chenle sucks in a breath, he’s thought about this moment plenty, and today specifically, he’s been so pent up about it. He focuses on the feeling of your touch, slow but effective as you tease him. And Chenle swears he almost drools at the sight of you collecting his precum and licking it off your thumb – it’s so filthy – just as he fantasised.

The sounds coming from his mouth are heavenly and sinful all the same, echoing in your ears. Your hand hovers over his length again, only starting to stroke when he bucks his hips. The rutting of his hips forces you to quicken the pace and his breath is all but shallow gasps. 

Chenle can’t help the way his abdomen tenses, and his eyes find themselves falling on your low-cut top that had earlier been teasing him with your tits as you contorted your body for a stupid board game. Chenle thinks the view paired with your vigorous stroking might be enough for him to blow his load in his pants.

He's whining. He needs it. He’s chasing it. 

He spasms as you continue frantically fucking him with your fist. He meets your touches grunting and cursing with every thrust. He bites down hard on his lips when you grab his balls cupping and pulling and squeezing until you know his high is ready to hit him like a steam train.

Chenle’s body tenses, thrusting his cock as hard as he can manage. His stomach contracts as stars cloud his mind and he moans out your name. His body has never been hit by this much blinding bliss before – especially not from just a hand job. But still, his legs buckle and he has to steady himself on the wall behind him.

“Fuck Y/N! Just like that, gonna cum.”

Unashamed, his eyes roll back as cum shoots violently from his pulsing cock and all over your hand. His voice rings out clear and desperate with yells in the air. Long strings of hot cum coat your fingers, each rope eliciting another groan. Another clench. Another bliss.

You bite your lip, relishing the explicit sight of Chenle as he rides out his orgasm. Despite being soaked through with arousal yourself, your own pleasure takes a backseat; witnessing him in such a state – sweat glistening on his forehead, eyes glazed with ecstasy – is more than enough to satisfy you.

As you withdraw your hand from his sweats, you both gaze at the white substance coating your fingers. You're almost tempted to tease him with it, to watch him shiver as you lick it off your fingers, but that fantasy is abruptly cut short when the front door swings open.

“Seriously how hard can it be to find some damn keys—”

Haechan takes one glance at your glistening hand and the wet patch on Chenle’s pants and puts the pieces together. Then, he looks at you his eyes squeezing as he grimaces.

“If you left me in the freezing cold for fifteen minutes to give Chenle a fucking hand job, I'm going to kill both of you."

[sea-lanterns]

LET'S GET MARRIED!

synopsis: (childhood AU!) various genshin women proposing to you as children

featuring: miko, hu tao, dehya, ningguang

rating: sfw (anyone can interact)

warnings: gn! child reader, genshin women as children, fluff, puppy love, love at first sight, mentions of death (hu tao), funerals (hu tao), bullying (dehya), violence (dehya), poverty, may be ooc since they are children, not proofread.

art credits: whisper me a love song

MIKO

As a young kitsune, Miko was unable to transform into her human form due to a lack of strength and natural willpower. So, it was common for the yokai to be seen wandering around the shrine as a small fox, eating little snacks given to her by the shrine maidens, and terrorizing tiny children like the menace she was.

You’ve heard stories of a pink fox roaming the Narukami Shrine, but you didn’t think much of it when you sat down at a nearby bench to enjoy your lunch. Pulling out a small packet of your favorite chips, you tore it open before hearing a slight, rustling sound coming from within the bushes.

Rustle rustle rustle. 

You looked up to see one of the bushes in front of you moving, the branches shaking wildly before something pink and fluffy tumbled out from below.

A pink, fluffy, fox.

Miko had stumbled out of the plant with her fur all messy and tousled with leaves. A small yip leaving her mouth, as she shook like a wet dog and growled. Oh no, you’ve heard of this fox before. This was the terror of the Narukami Shrine, the infamous child attacker of Inazuma, the one, the only:

Yae Miko.

She sneezed as leaves blew out of her fur, before twitching her nose at the smell of your food. Once she caught a whiff of what you had in your lap, her eyes narrowed and she started glaring at you. Damn, even as a child, Miko still had that intimidating glare that could put an archon in their place, intimidating you with just a scowl before strutting up to you with confidence.

“…Hello?” You timidly say, looking down at the fox with worry. “You’re…you’re the fox that attacks kids, right? Please don’t hurt me, I’m just trying to eat my lunch.”

She narrowed her eyes at you. Even though she couldn’t speak, it felt like she was degrading you. 

“…Uhm. Do you want some? I can give you some if you like.”

Her tummy grumbled at an embarrassing time, causing her to only flatten her ears.

“…Okay.” You timidly reached into your bag and pulled out a small chip. Hesitantly, you held it out to her and waited for her to crawl up to you. “I hope it’s not that salty. I know kitsune taste buds can be pretty sensitive, so it’s okay if you don’t like it—”

She lunged forward to sniff the chip before biting onto it and gnawing like a dog. Cronch cronch cronch. She had crumbs spill all over the floor, but she seemed pretty satisfied overall, looking up at you for more. “Oh! Do you want some more?” She nodded, her tail starting to wag. “I can give you more, then!”

You ended up sharing half your lunch with the kitsune. Throwing her whatever you found in your lunchbox, and watching her devour it on the floor of the shrine. After a while, she seemed to have taken a liking to you and jumped on the bench beside you to lie down, letting out a content, purring noise. After that little interaction, you started coming to the shrine more often to feed and hang out with the little fox. Weeks passing by of this little friendship, you didn’t think your routine would change until one, fateful, day.

As you climbed up the steps leading to your favorite spot, you saw not the fox you’ve grown so accustomed to, but a small, pink haired girl around your age. She was waiting patiently on the bench you always sat at, before her ear twitched, indicating that she noticed you. 

Turning around, she had those same lilac eyes as your little foxy friend, as  they glimmered in a way that felt so familiar to you the more you stared.

“Finally, you came!” The girl said exasperatedly, folding her arms and pouting at you. “I was waiting all day! You keep a girl hungry, you know.” 

“I— sorry?” You looked so confused when she ran up to you and grabbed your lunch. “Hey—!”

“So, what did you bring this time? Fried tofu for Friday? I hope so…”

“Hey! Those are for my fox friend!” You exclaimed, snatching your lunchbox back. “I don’t even know you!”

“Are you dumb? I am your fox friend!” The girl yelled back, tugging the lunchbox back. “It’s me, Yae Miko!”

“Miko?!” Your eyes widened and you took a step back. No way, how could this bratty and sassy child be Yae Miko? “No way…”

“Yes way! I was able to transform into my human form the other night. I’m strong enough now!” She grinned proudly and showed off her canine teeth. Although a bit bratty and too overconfident, you could tell it was actually her due to her unique markings and fluffy, pink, ears. “Now, hand over the tofu! I’ve been waiting all week for this!”

You pouted and handed her the takeout box with tofu inside. “…Fine.”

She grinned and looked at you smugly before taking the carton out of your hands. “Thank you…!” She began eating with the elegance of a toddler before pausing her chewing mid way. “By the way, since I can talk now, I’ve been wanting to ask you something.” 

“Huh?” You gasped when she suddenly jumped on top of you and looked at you with those curious eyes. 

“I’ve decided I want to marry you when we get older.”

“What?!”

She smiled at you before hugging you close. Wanting to feel you in a way that had your little heart beating. “You heard me, I want to marry you! That way, you’ll feed me yummy food forever!” She exclaimed, staring at you in a way you couldn’t refuse. “Please?”

“I— o-okay…” your tiny kid's heart didn’t have the guts to refuse, so the moment you said yes, Miko smiled and nuzzled you close. “Hurray! Now you can feed me fried tofu for the rest of our lives!”

If only you knew, she would marry you for reasons other than fried tofu…

HU TAO

Funerals were typically held on rainy days like in the movies, so why was yours held on such a bright and sunny day?

You stared at the coffin in front of you with regret, regret for not being with your grandmother more, as she passed away in her sleep due to old age. The funeral was directed by Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, which meant you had an untimely encounter with the director’s eccentric granddaughter.

She was so…strangely upbeat. Of course, she paid her respects to the dead, mourning in a way to convey her sadness. But she was still quite the spunky one and you couldn’t help but get irritated at how nonchalant she was. 

There she was, prancing around the funeral giving jolly orders like it was nothing. You knew it was a part of her job, but did she really have to be so happy about it? You were slightly annoyed and went to sit by the pond to take a breather, pulling at the itchy black clothes your parents made you wear, before feeling the tears well up in your eyes. 

“Grandma…” your tiny voice trembled, sniffing and wiping away your tears, trying your best not to cry in front of all your family members.

“Yoo-hoo? Does someone need a tissue?” You heard a voice call, gentle footsteps walking up from behind and dangling a napkin in front of your face. “Better wipe up that runny nose, your face is too cute to be all snotty!”

“Hu Tao…” you frowned, taking her offered napkin and looking away. “Please go away, I’m not in the mood to play right now…”

Her face softened at the sight of you trying to hide your tears. Shamelessly trying to wipe your runny nose while hiding the fact that you were crying. “Okay…I guess I’ll go…”

Before she could leave however, your hand instinctively reached out to grab her sleeve, tugging her back. “No wait, I…” you grimaced and stared down at the floor. “I’m sorry, please stay…” Even though you were still annoyed, you still wanted the comfort of another person. Even if that person was Hu Tao. 

“Oh? Ah, okay…” Hu Tao immediately sat down beside you and looked at you with worry. “…Your eyes are really puffy, you know.”

“I know.” You mumble tiredly, wiping your nose with your sleeve and staring at the water. “I haven’t cried like this in a while.”

“Understandable. I mean, your grandma pa—” she stopped herself from saying more before slowly hugging her knees. “Ah…sorry.”

“It’s okay.” You mutter, a deafening silence overcoming you two. “You’re just trying to help.”

Another awkward silence. Usually Hu Tao was more talkative when it came to the two of you, but right now she was quiet as she sat down beside you and picked at the grass. While the adults in the background talked amongst themselves, Hu Tao finally snapped out of it and reached a hand out for you to take.

“…Hug?” She asked softly, opening her arms like a baby bear cub. 

“…Hug.” You say quietly, moving over to hug her while trying your best not to sob all over her shoulder. “There there. No need to hold back.” Hu Tao says reassuringly, squeezing you tightly. “You can snot over my shirt if you want. I have others.”

“No, ew.” You chuckle through your sobs. “That’s disgusting.”

“Well, I don’t mind if it makes you feel better…” she murmurs against your ear. “I don’t like seeing you so upset.” 

“I don’t normally get so upset, sorry…”

“No, it’s okay. I just want to cheer you up.” 

She patted your back comfortingly, before placing her hat on top of your head. “You know, I wish we could hang out more often. You seem like a pretty cool kid.” She smiles brightly at you before pulling away from the hug. “I wanna be with you more! Not just at the funeral parlor.”

“Sniff, really?” You blinked your tears away and looked up at her. 

“Really.” She says with a smile, cupping your hands. “…Actually, I have an idea!”

She plucked a dandelion sprout from the ground and got down on one knee, holding out the flower to your face. “Let’s get married when we’re older! That way, I can cheer you up whenever we’re together!”

Your face flushed at the sudden proposal and you immediately panicked. “Ah, wait! Aren’t marriages a serious thing? Don’t you have to be in love for that to happen?”

“Pfft! Who cares? Marriages make people happy, so I wanna make you happy too…”

She slipped the dandelion between your ear and smiled, giving you a smile you would soon see walking down the altar…

DEHYA

You ran down the streets of your hometown, trying to avoid all the bullies chasing your tail and diving down random alleyways to lose them as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for you however, you found yourself at a dead end with nowhere else to go, a bunch of big kids getting ready to make you their next target, as they took the liberty of picking up rocks to throw at you.

“Ah, come on! Can’t you leave me alone just this once?” You looked aggravated and fearful for your life, backing up against the hardened brick wall that led to your demise. “Don’t you get tired of picking on me all the time? Find something else to do!”

Your desperate pleas fell on deaf ears as they got ready to launch their rocks. You sighed and crouched down on the ground, trying to cover your head for the inevitable pain you were going to feel.

“Okay, just please make it quick…”

You squeezed your eyes shut and resisted the urge to cry, bracing yourself for the impact that…strangely never came? 

Instead, you heard the loud yells of a rugged and tomboyish girl, the sounds of kids screaming in fear, before footsteps sprinted away from you. The sounds slowly grew quieter and quieter, leaving you to open your eyes and see a pretty, short-haired girl standing in front of you.

“They’re gone now, I chased them away for you.” Was all she said before extending her hand out. “Are you okay? Did they hit you or anything?”

Your cheeks flushed hot at the sight of her trying to help you, as the girl was very pretty and the way she was staring at you with those piercing blue eyes made your heart leap with relief. What was this feeling? Could it be? Did you finally develop one of those things called crushes? 

You realized she was still staring at you and shook your head no.

“Ah, no…they didn’t.” You slowly took her hand and stood up. “I’m okay, thanks.”

“You sure? Your knee looks pretty bad.”

You looked down to see what she was pointing at and sure enough, you had somehow scraped your knee during the chase. “Oh, I guess I didn’t notice…” you brushed off some sand that had gotten on it and winced. “Don’t worry, it’s just a scrape. It’ll heal.”

“Not if it gets infected.” She huffs, grabbing your hand with her own. Wow, even for a kid as young as you, she sure was strong. “Come on, I’ll take you back to my tent. My name’s Dehya by the way.” 

She tugs you down to follow her to her camp and makes you sit down, grabbing all the medical supplies her arms could carry before setting them down in front of you.

“Uhm, do you know how to use these? Only grownups should use alcohol.” You scrunched up your nose at the sight, causing Dehya to laugh beautifully. 

“Pfft, you’re thinking of the wrong kind of alcohol,” she grins, applying some on a piece of gauze. “That’s drinking alcohol, it’s the kind that makes grownups all dizzy and say funny things. This is rubbing alcohol.”

She gently applies the gauze to your scrape and watches you hiss in pain. The moment she sees tears well up in your eyes though, she immediately grabs your hand.

“Ah—! I’m sorry, but this has to be done! My dad told me you have to disinfect wounds so you don’t get germs on it!” She squeezed your hand in comfort, helping you push through the pain before setting the gauze down to begin bandaging you. “I know it hurts, but adults go through scary injuries all the time and have to go through the same thing. You can be brave for me, right?”

She looks up at you with those piercing blue eyes and you couldn’t bring yourself to say no.

“Hah! That’s the spirit!” She smiles and finishes wrapping up your knee. “There, all done! Can you walk?”

You shakily got up on wobbly knees before almost falling backwards, if not for Dehya instinctively catching you. “…Huh. Seems like you need a bit more recovery.”

She helps you sit back down before frowning after a few moments. “Actually, I have to ask, how long have you been bullied by those bigger kids?”

“Ah, for a little while…” you mumble in response, hiding your face in shame. “It’s okay, they’ll get bored of me eventually.”

“Eventually?” Dehya’s face furrowed with anger. “No! I’m not gonna let them keep bullying you! You deserve better!” She huffs and grabs your hand, before dramatically getting down on one knee. “I’m going to protect you till the end of time. My dad said that you should always protect those who can’t protect themselves, so I’m doing that for you!”

“But—”

She looked at you with such fiery determination and you shut up immediately.

“No buts. I’ve decided I’m going to stick with you for as long as I can.” She smiled and held your hands, leaning in close with a grin. “Perhaps we’ll even get married…”

Your eyes widened at the idea. Married to Dehya? I mean, it’s not like you were opposed to it…

“Married? Oh, uh, alright….” Dehya smiled and patted your head.

“Good. I’ll make sure you’re safe as long as you’re with me.”

She bows down to you like a knight would before taking your hand and kissing it. 

“That’s what a good wife does after all…”

NINGGUANG

Due to living in poverty, little tiny Ningguang had to make a living by selling seashells on the beach. She didn’t have time to play with the other kids, or go eat lunch with them by the pier, so she ended up not having a lot of friends to talk to, due to her poor upbringing and determination for money.

She would’ve ended up alone if not for you, a humble, yet curious child who took interest in what Ningguang wanted to sell. They were mostly handmade wares and shells she found lying on the beach, so there wasn’t really anything of high value. Despite that however, you were intrigued, and moved a little closer to take a look at what Ningguang had to offer.

She noticed you, standing up abruptly to present whatever she thought would interest you. “You seem rather enveloped by my jewelry,” Ningguang says, lifting up one of the trays of rings. “They’re all handcrafted and personally made by me. The pearls you see are freshly harvested from oysters found by the Liyue docks.”

She looked proud of her little business spiel and gently took your hand into hers. “Would you like to try one? I can help you find your ring size.”

Despite her living in rags and dirt, you couldn’t help but find her beautiful as she looked up at you with gemstone-brimmed eyes. Blinking up at you in a beautiful shade of scarlet, as her warm smile brought you newfound feelings you’ve never felt before. What were those feelings you may ask? Perhaps something akin to fascination, or perhaps…a small crush? 

Nevertheless, you knew this girl was beautiful, and wanted to get to know her better. After browsing around her selection of wares for you to purchase from, your eyes landed on a particular set of jewelry. “Are these a set? They both match…” you ask with curiosity, picking up one of the rings.

“Yes, I made those two in mind for a couple who happened to be walking by.” She picks up the second one in the pair and holds it out to you. “They are matching rings and can symbolize anything. Romance, friendship, familial bond…”

She smiles at you and gently slips one of the pairs onto your finger. “Here, it seems to fit onto you perfectly. Do you like it?” 

You did. It was absolutely beautiful and you admired the glittering pearl like it was the second prettiest thing you’ve ever seen. (The first one being Ningguang)

“It’s beautiful. But…” your eyes moved down to the matching pair in the set. “I don’t have anyone to match with…”

Ningguang raised a brow at this. Well, you could always buy another ring, so it’s not like this was a big deal.

“Oh? That’s a shame. Then perhaps you could get something else? Or, even just take one of the pairs and leave the other.” She thought quite logically about the situation and didn’t seem bothered by your dilemma. After giving her suggestion, she was a bit confused as to why you looked so upset. “Uh…is something the matter?”

“We can’t just separate the pair!” You exclaim, your childishness shining through. “They’d get lonely knowing the other pair is somewhere else…”

“But they’re just…rings?” Ningguang looked confused as to what you were throwing a fuss about. “Rings don’t have feelings!”

“You don’t know that!” You shout back, holding one of the rings close to your chest. “It needs to know it matches with someone. Then it’ll fulfill its purpose in life…”

Poor Ningguang looked so confused at the whole ordeal before sighing in slight disbelief. Perhaps she was a bit too mature for her age to understand, but it seemed that splitting the rings apart was troubling you to a great degree. 

“Alright, I have an idea…” Ningguang murmurs, taking the second half of the pair and slipping it onto her finger. “You can keep that one, and I will keep this one. That way we will match.” 

Your eyes lit up at this solution. “So we can be…a bonded pair?” You ask quietly, looking at her with intrigue.

Dammit. Little Ningguang’s face blushed and she couldn’t help but grow flustered. “Yes, we can be a bonded pair…” she grumbles, ignoring the way you were starting to look cute. 

“Hurray!” You smile gleefully, slipping the ring on and handing you some mora. “Now we can pretend to be married! Like real couples!” 

She felt the blood rush to her face as she looked down at the matching ring in her hand, a spur of newfound feelings bubbling in her chest, as Ningguang had never felt this way before. 

From that day forward, Ningguang vowed to become the richest woman in Liyue. All for the sole purpose of potentially buying you a real ring to marry…