#Connect to exist†trace

[thedevilplayshouse]

rewatching 2x05 and thinking about louis' motivation in saving daniel. daniel who was in deaths embrace before louis intervened, and doesn't that sound familiar? louis does something careless, people get caught in the crossfire, and scrambling for absolution he cant find in himself he insists to his partner this innocent must be saved

depressed, suicidal, spiraling from the guilt and grief of deeply loving claudia yet not in the ways which counted, here is this boy. this boy who should be dead, this boy who is intertwined with louis at his worst and is in some form a reincarnation of the same hope that prompted louis to turn claudia.

drenched in guilt with low resolve to live, here is proof of redemption. in ruins of homes aflame and families dying because of me, here is a girl i can save. in this apartment of dozens dead in my get high, fuck and kill spree, here is a boy i can save.

"She asked if I was an angel! Me!"

"Listen as though I'm the voice of God or an angel, talking to you (...) youre not inconsequential or a junkie. Youre a bright young reporter with a point of view."

i like to think saving daniel was louis first attempt of transforming his love for claudia into something non-destructive after her death. it became guilt, became violence, became hatred but with daniel it returned to the beacon of hope she was originally

so let him live. let me save you without the harm of staying with me. live a long full life unburdened and with the joy and success i wasnt able to give her. 'as long as you walk the earth ill never taste the fire', then she stopped walking the earth, then i did taste the fire, and this is me trying to stay alive. trying to refamiliarize with love using her blueprint

[alexiroflife]

"in every life"

curse reincarnation, fluff

ryomen sukuna x reader

Synopsis: you, a former sorcerer and sukuna's wife, are killed in the heian era. sukuna does not believe in a life without you, so he takes it upon himself to bring you back a thousand years later

to sum it up: you are sukuna's life, and no matter how long he has to wait, he will bring you back to him by any means necessary

WC: 3,621

Warning(s): angst in the beginning, reader death (but you're revived), brief icky descriptions of a vessel's possession

-> ask | sukuna fic list

Sukuna remembers the exact moment you left him, soul fluttering almost gracefully from your eyes as your body fell limply into his four arms.

The moment replays in his mind as though it had only happened yesterday, or perhaps as recently as a few hours prior. Time has never been something the king of curses worried himself over, for his strength and existence exceeded such mortal constructs, but when his thoughts wander to you as frequently as air fills and deflates from his lungs, the very concept grows skewed and suddenly, time is a matter of great importance to him.

A king is nothing without his queen beside him, his rock, his partner, and that is what you are. That is what you were, but Sukuna refuses to address you in any form of past tense because your temporary withdrawal from the planet and from his side would never alter the fact that you are his, that you have been his, and that you will be his until the end of time. 

Sukuna has never been one for romantics, for connections that tie his free spirit down from the unfettered, terrifying rule that he leads, but when you entered his life, his opinions shifted and his ambitions changed, making room for you at his side upon his throne. 

The two of you had been married for years before you left him. Sukuna had never bothered to count, but now he finds himself mulling over the years’ contents in search of a piece of your memory that can stay with him until the time comes for you to return to his hand. 

When you were alive, Sukuna never fathomed you leaving his side. He almost feels he should punish you for so abruptly taking an absence from him without permission, castigating your spirit until he feels that the space you once occupied close to him emanates remnants of an apology, of guilt, of a promise to never do such a foolish thing ever again. 

When you were alive, you were a sight to behold, a perfect fit for the title of his wife. You were deserving of each and every privilege he bestowed upon you; of holding his face in your small, dainty hands, of pressing your lips to the textured plate of his face, of throwing your legs over his thighs as you settle onto his lap with a large, burly arm coming around you and securing you there for all of his servants and former concubines to see how high you sit amongst him and how low they remain beneath the two of you. 

You always said what you were thinking. While he ensured that everyone within and outside of his temple feared him, you were always unaffected by his intimidating presence. He remembers one instance in which you were lying beneath him, a mess of silk fabrics swarming your bare figure over your reserved place in his bed with your hair splayed out messily over the pillows and your eyes weighted with a foolish look of what he could only describe as enchantment and tender allegiance.

He feels the ghost of your fingers trace his jaw as he looks down at you quietly, dwarfing you in his mass. A smile touches your soft lips with a rosy hue swirling over your (s/c) skin. 

“Your eyes are quite beautiful.”

Your voice is a whisper of past enamorations through Sukuna’s ear as his brows arch in reminiscence. He remembers how he glared at you in confusion, face hard though he always allowed you to continue admiring him, to continue touching him without consequence. His eyes, which mirror the color of fresh, crimson blood as he has watched it gurgle from the mouths and limbs of his victims, staining the streets, his hands, and his monstrous legacy, are windows you believe to be… beautiful.

Your sentiments never failed to befuddle him. He never did understand why you associated such a ferocious beast with beliefs so light and pure. He is not beautiful, he had thought. He never desired to be beautiful. He is simply Ryoman Sukuna, enough of himself to be categorized in unique isolation, separate from your labels of aesthetic charm and peace. 

You’re silly. Silly with love and submission, he thinks, but he has never denied you of these admirations though he fails to agree. 

Besides, you are his wife. He would have allowed you to worship him in any way you pleased if you asked, and in truth, you hardly did ask. You knew what you were to Sukuna, how you and only you remained the only soft spot that the salmon haired demon withheld in his breast. You were beyond requesting approval to love him in the ways you saw fit, and Sukuna was pleased because you knew, in all spaces, that you were his and he was yours. 

Among all the trophies of battles won, of cities conquered, of titles obtained, you are Sukuna’s greatest prize. 

His love for you was always silent, long glances and grips of the waist, orders to slaughter on your behalf and the pat of his hand over his beefy thigh to beckon you over. His love was an unrestrained space for you to express your desires, to demand his attention, and his compliance with a veil of frustration poorly masking his easy willingness to give you anything you pleased. His love was long, sleepless nights, the marking of his territory by means of stinging bites and purple bruises over your smooth skin that no living being in his wake could mistake for anything but a reminder of your connection to him. 

His love was you incarnate, just a woman before hell’s greatest crown, but his love no less. His wife. His queen. His eternity.

Sukuna does not know why he mourned you when you died. He found himself reacting impulsively, in a short-lived panic when your blood spilled over his skin and your eyes lost the light that he’d been following through the tunnel of his rein for years. 

He knows death is a taboo concern only for mortals to fret over, but when you die, he feels as though he has died himself. Your life flashes before his eyes, your time with him, and this strange ache swarms his body and manifests as a ball in his throat as his ruby hues melt over you in alarm. 

He struggles to accept your parting. He’s viciously angry, a horrible wreck that his servants fear stepping too close into proximity as the time passes and your vacancy weighs itself over his temple and his body like a mountain. He had believed your death to be painful, but the period that follows, the period of waiting stings him like no pain he has endured before. 

A king needs his queen, and without you, no matter for how long, he feels empty. He rampages his heartache away, but it no longer holds the satisfaction it did when you were with him, watching from the sidelines and cheering him on. His estate feels colder somehow, the dent you’ve left in his bed losing its shape and the memory of you fading from others’ minds, but not from his. Never from his. 

Sukuna knows that he will see you again. In any era, no matter how much farther into the future, he will find you once more, bring you back to his embrace, and dust off the crown that he has reserved for your pretty head alone. 

He holds onto a piece of you, storing it safely, awaiting the time to revive you even within his own cursed slumber after having sealed himself for a millenia, severing parts of him and scattering it over the country.

You, however, remain stowed safely in one place. A place he will remember to return to when he reawakens in rebirthed flesh.

Now, a millenia following your untimely death, Sukuna stares emptily at the woman before him, curling and tossing around with bound wrists and ankles at his feet.

She’s crying, screams of horror rising into the starry sky as Sukuna’s eyes glint menacingly beneath the moonlight. He watches her carefully, curling his lips. He looks at this pest, this fragile, forgettable mortal woman and sees everything that you are not. For a moment, he hesitates, his fingers clutching over the ancient parchment wrapped object he holds protectively within his grasp at his side. 

His brows draw together in frustration induced by your vessel. He knows he picked wisely, however, he can not deny the hesitation that captures his mind when he contemplates whether this vessel will do your worth justice. Whether it will truly bring you back the way he plans for you to be. 

He holds up the object in his hand, your energy emitting from behind the paper and through his veins, easing into his blackened soul. You are practically calling to him, holding his hand, murmuring into his ear that it will be okay. 

Sukuna is reminded then and there solely by the spirit of you that nothing in this world could even begin to dwindle the brilliance in which you shine, that even within the body of a bird or a squirrel, your essence would burst through. You will reincarnate wholly as how you left him, and as nothing less. 

With a heavy exhale through his nose, Sukuna unravels the object, tossing the parchment to the ground, and takes a step forward to approach the young woman squirming in the grass before him. He walks over her, feet planted on either side of her figure, and bends down. Her eyes go white with terror as snot and tears dribbles over her nose and down her cheek. Sukuna looks into her coldly, grasping a hand over her face and digging his black nails into her jaw. 

She shudders an agonizing, shrill screech that is soon muffled by the manner in which Sukuna squeezes her cheeks inward and forcefully pries her mouth open. 

With a steely, disconnected glare, Sukuna takes the object imbued with your cursed energy, your ring finger. He pulls your wedding band from the decrepit digit and pushes it to the woman’s lips. Her eyes go wide as she chokes over her jaw’s lack of mobility, and the taste of something foreign and timeworn on her tongue. Her stuttered, whimpering gasps release and she gargles once Sukuna pushes the object down her throat. He slaps his hand back over her mouth as it slides down her throat and she twitches uncontrollably, eyes cracking with red veins. 

The king of curses holds her still as her body flops wildly, her chest lurching forward and limbs flying about. Her body can not handle the intrusion of a thousand year old sorcerer’s influence, so it fails. Her eyes roll into her skull and her fingers twitch once her limbs have stilled in the grass. A symphony of crickets chirping lifts into Sukuna’s ears as the woman beneath him goes completely silent, dead, still.

He waits. After a millennia of existence confined to cursed flesh, after years of the cold left in your wake nipped at his skin, after battling bodies for dominance over a vessel, he waits just a few seconds more for you.

After it seems as though he has lost you for a second time, the body’s eyes flicker. Sukuna stills above you, pupils shrunken in anticipation.

Movement shifts beneath him. A chest rises, and breathing begins steadily through it. The color of this vessel’s skin shifts, transitioning slowly, milking into the hue of gentle (s/c) that Sukuna once caressed with his rough fingers. Color flushes through pale cheeks, and irises of (e/c) roll back from the skull and stare widely ahead, directly into Sukuna’s gaze. Finally, your voice comes, a gentle hum of confusion and discomfort as you regain your lost senses.

Sukuna’s heart skips as the familiar warmth of your body emanates from beneath him again, and his hand is slowly sliding from your parted lips. He feels as though he’s just run a marathon despite his inability to wind himself. He breathes out heavily, gradually, and silence envelopes the two of you in the darkness of the late night. 

While Sukuna had planned this from the very moment you went dead in his hands, he feels somehow starstruck by you. You look as beautiful as you were centuries in the past, skin smooth, brows curled, lips soft as though you had not been gone from his life for more than a brief second. You have returned to him as he had thoughtfully calculated, and yet, he can not fathom the fact that you are here at long last, mere centimeters away, manifested into truth by his graze of your chin. 

The muscles in your brows pull together in disbelief, glimmering eyes shining over as you take in the sight before you. The last thing you felt was a blade slicing into your heart and ripping down through your body, the last vision of Sukuna racing to throw you into him as your opponent met his end with the selective mutilation of his internal organs at your husband’s hard, feral, red glance.

You blink hurriedly, shooting a hand out to your husband’s bicep. “...Ryo?” you whisper in a trembling voice, knowing him by gaze and presence and touch alone. 

The said demon’s brows angle and his body lurches forward with a sharp exhale upon hearing your voice utter his name outside of the confines of his mind’s nostalgia and imagination. He is overcome by the return of you to him, eyes fiery with longing for his once lost love and shoulders aching as the weight that had been crushing down finally releases. The sensation of your fingers curling over his arm sends chills down his spine, for time has never altered Sukuna’s course of existence, but time tells in the way he physically shivers when your loving contact revives on his skin after having been stripped of him for what feels like eternity.

Tears pool in your eyes and your shaky hands raise to smooth over his face, exploring his marked skin and familiarizing yourself with the structure of the being you fell in love with many lifetimes ago. Sukuna’s brow flinches as you feel over his face, and his own palm cradles over your cheek, dwarfing your head in the fashion it always used to as the back of his fingers skim over your heated flesh. 

“Ryomen,” you say his name again, voice crumbling and your shoulders jerking in awe.

He trips down into you, hands clutching over your head as you guide his face down with his hasty movements. Your name tumbles hoarsely from his rumbling voice, against your lips, and slotting into your mind in a haze as his lips meet yours urgently. 

You cry gently into him, lips parting and pushing back in as he kisses you fervently, savoring you, burrowing you into his body’s memory to recover the time he has spent deprived of you. Your hands fly over his neck, down his back, detailing the ridges and the muscles rippling beneath the fabric of his shirt that you know so well. He presses himself down into you, pulling you in closer by your head, flushing your chests together to intertwine your souls once more. Heady grunts and growls heave into your mouth between frenzied, stunned, satisfied kisses, and each time a tear of yours catches into the liplock, Sukuna is pulling it into his lips, saltiness swirling through the sweet release of his misery. 

He’s missed you. So very much, he’s missed you. He doesn’t know how he has managed to go so long without you now that you are here again, now that he is holding you again, kissing you again. 

“My king,” you whimper when you get a chance to break away, foreheads bumping as Sukuna shushes you gently.

“Do not fret, peach,” he soothes you, lips brushing yours as his now loving gaze spills into your own. “You are alright.”

Despite Sukuna’s ruthlessness and his wild murderous expeditions, as well as his blood-curdling tone that further accentuates the weight of his threats when thrown into the direction of others, Sukuna melts into calmness for you, his low voice mellow and meditative, enraptured in the peace that you bring him. You know all sides of your dear husband, and yet this is the rawest side of him that you know, that he treats you with. 

“What happened?” you whisper as his hands run over you, catching your tears and tracing the curves of your flesh. “Where are we?”

“In the garden,” he answers you easily, kissing the corner of your mouth gently. 

“At… at home?” 

He hums in affirmation, leaning back just a bit to stare into you. The pairs of your eyes shine as they absorb the image of one another, still and sincere. Grass tickles your ears and your arms, and you look down, realizing that you are lying in a patch of greenery. You slowly tilt your head to the side, and Sukuna keeps his gaze glued to you like you will disappear before him. Your eyes capture the stems of daffodils and lavender that sprout around your head, pointing into the night sky and swaying gently in the warm breeze. You recognize the plants as the ones you had always taken to tending by the creek behind Sukuna’s temple, which he had the servants fashion as a suitable garden for you to indulge in. 

You do not recall being here last. You recall dying. You recall your world going dark.

You turn back to meet his heavy eyes. “What did you do?”

He is silent for a moment, taking his time to study you before answering as though the question is the simplest one he has ever been asked. “I have brought my queen back to me. As I have always sworn to do if we were ever separated.”

“...How long have we been separated?”

“It does not matter.”

“How long was I away from you, Ryo? How long did I leave you for?”

“It does not matter,” he reiterates gently yet ever so firmly. “Do not think of it.”

“Please-” you frown, eyes shining over again. “I hadn’t- I didn’t mean to leave you. I don’t know how I even let it happen… I can’t imagine what that must have gone through…”

Ryomen catches the guilt in your gorgeous eyes and he is quick to gather you up in his arms. He pulls you up slowly, keeping your eyes locked as you allow him to lift you from the ground with his arms wound tightly over your waist. Your hands go to Sukuna’s shoulders as he kneels over you, keeping you steady and upright, face to face, nose to nose, eye to eye. 

“I refuse to allow the first thing you do in reincarnated life to be reminding me of what life was like without you,,” he says. “I do not wish to revisit it. It does not matter,” he repeats for a third time. 

You tilt your head with the tug of your lips downward sadly, threading your hands through his pink locks and holding onto the nape of his neck. The moonlight milks over you regally, as though the stars have aligned for this very moment, to illuminate you both in the universe’s joyous eye. You swallow hard. “Am I a curse?”

“You are my wife. I will not tolerate you labeling yourself as anything different..”

You inhale deeply, bringing your forehead back to him and closing your eyes. His arms pull you in tight, rhythmic breaths easing you into this reality complacent, affectionately, lovingly. 

“I’m sorry I left you, my love,” you murmur.

Now that he’s heard you apologize, seen your remorse sparked by something out of your control, he doesn’t fare well with it. 

You are not a plague to him, a burden, and telling him that you are sorry in his mind now insinuates such. Even after leaving him, after stealing away his warmth, after haunting his slumber and his consciousness for eons, he does not fault you. He would never fault the woman he chose to keep by his side in wellness and in death. 

He does not accept your apology. You have done nothing but love him, yet Sukuna is the one who should have protected you. 

He runs a hand over the back of your head, down your hair, and exudes his message of impenetrable love to you through his embrace and sweltering red eyes. “All I ask of you is that you stay. In this era and the next. Stay by my side as you are meant to be.”

You nod eagerly against him. “I will,” you whisper. “I will, I promise.”

Sukuna reaches down at his side for the ring he had set down. With one hand to your back, he pulls your wedding band forward and presents it to your twinkling eye. You gasp. 

“You still have it,” you sigh.

“In what world would I not?” 

You bring your hand down, spreading your fingers, and you watch as the kind of curses slips the rusted treasure over your finger, fitting it perfectly into place with the renewal of your marriage and the reunion of your hearts.

You admire the way it looks upon your hand happily, and Sukuna drags you back into his lips, pecking you tenderly before moving back in with his hands firm to you. You shift further up so that his arms can completely take you in, heads bumping as your lips swim together in commemoration of a rebirth into a new life.

[dyke-husband]

Letterpress print on black linen cloth. 24point clearface heavy. This took 4 hours to set the type btw.

Text reads: “I fantasize about a dildo with nerve endings. I type "how to fuck a partner with my clitoris" into the search bar. The results are articles & reddit posts with tips for helping your boyfriend find your clit. I realy think str8 folks should have to search through dozens of search results about Dyke sex before finding whatever they were actually looking for. Anyway. I imagine pulling my leather harness over my hips, the black silicone connecting just above my clit. They kiss me and trace the scars on my chest. They let me touch them & they touch my silicone, they guide me inside of them. I'm not sure what this would feel like, A dildo with nerve endings does not yet exist. But I know it would be as close to heaven as i'll get.”

[theplotmage]

Principles and Laws of Magic for Fantasy Writers

Fundamental Laws

1. Law of Conservation of Magic- Magic cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed.

3. Law of Equivalent Exchange- To gain something, an equal value must be given.

5. Law of Magical Exhaustion- Using magic drains the user’s energy or life force.

Interaction and Interference

4. Law of Magical Interference- Magic can interfere with other magical effects.

6. Law of Magical Contamination- Magic can have unintended side effects.

8. Law of Magical Inertia- Magical effects continue until stopped by an equal or greater force.

Resonance and Conditions

7. Law of Magical Resonance- Magic resonates with certain materials, places, or times.

9. Law of Magical Secrecy- Magic must be kept secret from the non-magical world.

11. Law of Magical Hierarchy- Different types of magic have different levels of power and difficulty.

Balance and Consequences

10. Law of Magical Balance- Every positive magical effect has a negative consequence.

12. Law of Magical Limitation- Magic has limits and cannot solve every problem.

14. Law of Magical Rebound- Misused magic can backfire on the user.

Special Conditions

13. Law of Magical Conduits- Certain objects or beings can channel magic more effectively.

15. Law of Magical Cycles- Magic may be stronger or weaker depending on cycles (e.g., lunar phases).

17. Law of Magical Awareness- Some beings are more attuned to magic and can sense its presence.

Ethical and Moral Laws

16. Law of Magical Ethics- Magic should be used responsibly and ethically.

18. Law of Magical Consent- Magic should not be used on others without their consent.

20. Law of Magical Oaths- Magical promises or oaths are binding and have severe consequences if broken.

Advanced and Rare Laws

19. Law of Magical Evolution- Magic can evolve and change over time.

20. Law of Magical Singularities- Unique, one-of-a-kind magical phenomena exist and are unpredictable.

Unique and Imaginative Magical Laws

- Law of Temporal Magic- Magic can manipulate time, but with severe consequences. Altering the past can create paradoxes, and using time magic ages the caster rapidly.

- Law of Emotional Resonance- Magic is amplified or diminished by the caster’s emotions. Strong emotions like love or anger can make spells more powerful but harder to control.

- Law of Elemental Harmony- Magic is tied to natural elements (fire, water, earth, air). Using one element excessively can disrupt the balance and cause natural disasters.

- Law of Dream Magic- Magic can be accessed through dreams. Dreamwalkers can enter others’ dreams, but they risk getting trapped in the dream world.

- Law of Ancestral Magic- Magic is inherited through bloodlines. The strength and type of magic depend on the caster’s ancestry, and ancient family feuds can influence magical abilities.

- Law of Symbiotic Magic- Magic requires a symbiotic relationship with magical creatures. The caster and creature share power, but harming one affects the other.

- Law of Forgotten Magic- Ancient spells and rituals are lost to time. Discovering and using forgotten magic can yield great power but also unknown dangers.

- Law of Magical Echoes- Spells leave behind echoes that can be sensed or traced. Powerful spells create stronger echoes that linger longer.

- Law of Arcane Geometry- Magic follows geometric patterns. Spells must be cast within specific shapes or alignments to work correctly.

- Law of Celestial Magic- Magic is influenced by celestial bodies. Spells are stronger during certain astronomical events like eclipses or planetary alignments.

- Law of Sentient Magic- Magic has a will of its own. It can choose to aid or hinder the caster based on its own mysterious motives.

- Law of Shadow Magic- Magic can manipulate shadows and darkness. Shadowcasters can travel through shadows but are vulnerable to light.

- Law of Sympathetic Magic- Magic works through connections. A spell cast on a representation of a person (like a doll or portrait) affects the actual person.

- Law of Magical Artifacts- Certain objects hold immense magical power. These artifacts can only be used by those deemed worthy or who possess specific traits.

- Law of Arcane Paradoxes- Some spells create paradoxes that defy logic. These paradoxes can have unpredictable and often dangerous outcomes.

- Law of Elemental Fusion- Combining different elemental magics creates new, hybrid spells with unique properties and effects.

- Law of Ethereal Magic- Magic can interact with the spirit world. Ethereal mages can communicate with spirits, but prolonged contact can blur the line between life and death.

- Law of Arcane Symbiosis- Magic can bond with technology, creating magical machines or enchanted devices with extraordinary capabilities.

- Law of Dimensional Magic- Magic can open portals to other dimensions. Dimensional travelers can explore alternate realities but risk getting lost or encountering hostile beings.

- Law of Arcane Sacrifice- Powerful spells require a sacrifice, such as a cherished memory, a personal item, or even a part of the caster’s soul.

[arayapendragon]

dr. jacobo grinberg, the scientist who went missing for researching shifting 🗝️

the man, the myth, the legend. being a keen enthusiast of the human brain from a young age, dr. jacobo grinberg was a mexican neurophysiologist and psychologist who delved into the depths of human consciousness, meditation, mexican shamanism and aimed to establish links between science and spirituality. 

grinberg's theories and research can be tied to reality shifting, seeing as he explored the fusion of quantum physics and occultism. being not only heavily established in the field of psychology but also a prolific writer, he wrote about 50 books on such topics. he was a firm believer of the idea that human consciousness possesses hidden and powerful abilities like telepathy, psychic power and astral projection. 

the unfortunate loss of his mother to a brain tumour when he was only twelve not only fuelled his interest in the human brain but also pushed him to study it on a deeper level, making it his life’s aim. 

he went on to earn a phd in psychophysiology, established his own laboratory and even founded the instituto para el estudio de la conciencia - the national institute for the study of consciousness. 

despite sharing groundbreaking and revolutionary ideas, his proposals were rejected by the scientific community due to the inclusion of shamanism and metaphysical aspects. on december 8th, 1994, he went missing just before his 48th birthday. grinberg vanished without a trace, leaving people thoroughly perplexed about his whereabouts. some believe he was silenced, while others believe he discovered something so powerful and revolutionary that changed the entire course of reality, or well, his reality. 

grinberg's work was heavily influenced by karl pribram and david bohm's contributions to the holographic theory of consciousness, which suggests that reality functions the same way as a hologram does. meaning, reality exists as a vast, interconnected macrocosm. it even suggests that all realities exist among this holographic structure. 

lastly, it also proposes that the brain does not perceive reality, rather actively creates it through tuning into different frequencies of existence. 

this not only proves the multiverse theory (infinite realities exist), but also the consciousness theory (we don’t observe reality, but instead create it). 

grinberg’s most notable contribution was the syntergic theory, which states that, “there exists a “syntergic” field, a universal, non-local field of consciousness that interacts with the human brain." - david franco.

this theory also stated that 

the syntergic field is a fundamental and foundational layer of reality that contains all possible experiences and states of consciousness.

the brain doesn’t generate consciousness, it instead acts as a receiver and its neural networks collapse the syntergic field into a coherent and structured reality. 

reality is created, not observed. 

we can access different variations of reality (which is the very essence of shifting realities)

the syntergic theory is even in congruence with the universal consciousness theory (all minds are interconnected as a part of a whole, entire consciousness that encompasses all living beings in the universe). 

grinberg concluded that 

all minds are connected through the syntergic field 

this field can be accessed and manipulated by metaphysical and spiritual practices, altered states of consciousness and deep meditation. 

in conclusion, the syntergic theory proposes that our consciousness is not a mere byproduct of the brain, but rather a fundamental force of the universe. 

grinberg was far ahead of his time, and even 31 years after his disappearance, the true nature of reality remains a mystery. regardless, the syntergic theory helps provide insight and a new perspective on how we access and influence reality. 

summary of grinberg’s findings:

the brain constructs reality 

other realities exist and can be experienced

other states of consciousness exist and can be experienced 

consciousness is not limited 

all minds are connected through the syntergic field 

shamanic, spiritual, metaphysical and meditative practices can alter and influence our perception of reality. 

some of grinberg's works that can be associated with shifting:

el cerebro consciente

la creación de la experiencia

teoría sintérgica

[s0dium]

Obsession

Warning: Love drunk men, fingering, titty sucking, nipple play, unprotected sex, love drunk reader

~

Love courses through your veins. He’s all you can think about.

You wonder if it's normal to be this enamored with someone, to be this hopelessly head over heels infatuated and obsessed. You can't even focus on what needs to be done anymore because he's absorbed your entire being; he's in your head when you wake up, a gentle whisper in the back of your mind during conversations, a constant in your dreams, day or night.

But it's a doomed one-sided crush you remind yourself. You're not even sure if he knows you exist and in quieter moments, you wonder if perhaps it’s better this way. Loving from a distance means you never have to face the potential heartbreak of rejection, never have to see that polite smile of someone who doesn’t return your feelings. It's safer, you tell yourself, to admire him from afar, keeping your heart guarded behind the shield of daydreams and what-ifs.

So surely, right now in this moment, you must be dreaming.

It feels too vivid, too intense to be just a figment of your imagination. The warmth of his breath against your cheek, the weight of his bare body pressing gently down on yours, the softness of his lips moving against your own with an insatiable hunger—it all feels astonishingly real.

Because it is.

You don't know how but now you're naked underneath him, letting him touch, grope, suck, kiss, nip, and bite anything his hands and mouth can find. He doesn't let up either, he's exploring your body like a starved man, like he'll never get a chance to touch you ever again and wont pull away until he's had his fill.

You gasp when you feel his fingers between your legs, tracing your inner thigh before gliding between your pussy lips. Instinctively, you jerk back at the feeling; his fingers collecting your arousal and sliding up and down. But before you can speak, he kisses you again, his tongue eagerly intertwining with yours. When he finally pulls away, leaving you breathless, a thin strand of saliva connects your mouths.

"Just let me take care of you okay?" He hums before dipping two fingers into your tight hole. "Just been waiting so long to do this."

You don't even have time to react before he's curling his digits and massaging a sweet spot you could only dream about hitting on your own. His other hand gropes your left breast and with his index and thumb, begins to play with your perky nipples. As if that wasn't enough, his mouth found your other breast and gave it the same attention, licking sucking, and rolling your nipple like it was candy.

Colors dance across your closed eyelids and you wonder if this is heaven, if you've died and reached nirvana because the pleasure is just that good. You dont know if you can handle this, handle the fact that he's sucking and playing with your nipples while finger fucking you. Your toes curl and uncurl from the hot searing euphoria that is absorbing your body and emitting from your core. Your back arches off the bed and your crying his name, moaning it even, something you only dreamed about doing late at night when you craved him.

Suddenly, his mouth releases your nipple with a pop and he ceases all of his ministrations, leaving you breathless and confused.

"Fuck, I-" He's breathless himself, his face flushed and pupils blown. "Need to be inside you, need to feel you." He practically groans, and you thickly gulp at his words. Your brain goes fuzzy and you dizzily watch him pull down his boxers, the length slapping against his abdomen after being released from its confines.

He watches you lay down on the bed, breasts and cunt glistening from juices. You dont know this but he actually thinks he is dreaming. You look like a painting right now and he has to bite his lip to stop himself from spilling just at the sight of you.

"Please," You whine, "Please fuck me."

Who is he to deny you?

Without a word he presses his tip against your entrance and slides into you, grunting at the snug fit of your walls. You let out a loud moan from the feeling of him filling you so so perfectly, so well you mentally curse yourself for thinking a dildo or your fingers could ever do the job.

Then with a moan of his own, he slides out of you, nearly leaving you empty, before rocking himself back into you. Oh, how he wanted to fuck you slow and nice, like you deserved, but as the seconds passed, his resolve seep away until he just couldn't possibly hold back anymore.

His thrusts become faster, quicker, slamming in and out of you with such vigor and ease due to your combined juices coating and dripping from both his length and your hole. The friction is delicious, and his tip seems to hit your g-spot perfectly with each thrust. He even grabs the underside of your thigh and pushes them against you, effectively folding you and half and allowing him to go even deeper inside you.

You could feel your rational slipping away as he groaned about how fucking good you felt, about how good you where taking him, how he had been dreaming about this. You want to say something too, say something about how you feel the same way, but the only thing that comes out of your mouth right now is wanton moans of his name.

The pleasure was becoming too much, it had been slowly building and building and you know your about to break any second, burst with such euphoria you don't know if you will ever come back from the high. Before you do though, your brain manages to work again for half a millisecond to express the exact words you are feeling.

"Love you! M'love you so much!" You gasped before letting yourself succumb to the mind-numbing orgasm that was waiting for you. Your whole body shook and quaked from the pleasure and your mind went white. You thought you might cry, from happiness or pleasure you did not know. But you didn't. You simply went limp while you let him use your body like a sex doll.

You are barely clinging onto consciousness when you feel his hips stutter against you and he scoops you up, holding you close while he cums inside you.

"Love you too, love you too." He groans against your ear.

Any character you want ;)

[tiramissyoucake]

I loveeeed your characterization of omnimark it felt so mark but distinctly himself like something was different in a way that made sense

if you ever wanted to expand on it; how did omnimark and wifey meet? was it early on in his life? college? or even when did he become omniman (omnivincible?) and was his personality and their relationship initially different before some event happened?

Thank you!! I think of him as a mature version of Mark who sadly took too much after his father, less attached to his mother and more.. independent, hope you like this !! Kinda long not rlly and not exactly proof read hhhh

Maybe cw, a little manipulative.

Before Mark's powers kicked in, you were a distant dream girl. He never talked to you, you always kept to yourself and no matter how quickly he ran to your desk after class, you'd be gone. He was certain you didn't know he existed in school.

The only time you ever 'talked' to him was during a test. Of all the things he forgot, he didn't bring a blue pen with him. Fumbling with his bag and pockets, he saw a pen peek into his peripheral vision. Looking up, he saw you, a small smile on your face as you offered the pen.

It was a wordless exchange, but it meant the world to him. He kept a close eye on you since then, glancing at you in hallways, passive looks in the little classes you shared, he'd always watch you, never talk to you.

He hated the human side of himself, weak, dependant, like a comical teenage boy. He felt on top of the world when the Viltrumite in him finally kicked in, granted he had an easier time pushing aside personal affairs while listening to his father's guidance. It wasn't long before he graduated school and had to take up the Omni-man mantle after his father's disappearance.

He berated his human side for being too much of a coward to talk to you.

He was so young, but everyone knew he was the only fitting candidate for the mantle. The only Viltrumite. Although he humoured his mother's demand for college, Mark never made many connections outside of his home. He left, killed a bad guy or two, made it in time for college classes, and went home to study or unwind. During the time between high school and college, he took up exercising, starting at a local gym before moving a few pieces of equipment to his room.

Life was stable. That's the best word that he could use to describe it. Wake up, fight, class, train, sleep. Earth needed him, and he didn't need much else.

Not until he saw you again.

At first, it was in a college class where he spotted you sitting in the centre, front enough to focus, back enough to blend in with everyone else. Though after the first week, you were gone. He assumed you dropped the class; the professor seemed egotistical, and he was forced to stay because of a time conflict in his schedule.

The second time was during an attack by some no-name alien bounty hunter looking for earthling heroes. The criminal had some sort of alien DNA detecting gizmo that traced Mark's Viltrumite genetics to his university. Wrecking havoc left and right, students, professors, and staff sprinting left and right.

You were caught in the crossfire, the bounty hunter zeroed in on you, maybe civilian casualty would lure him out, and what better way than to hurl a car to paint the sidewalk red?

Fear flooded you as a shadow overlapped your form, shielding yourself with your arms as best as you could while running, the car seemed to stop in mid air, your eyes following the trajectory you thought the car grew wings and started flying, but no— it was... Omni-man's descendant.

He looked down at you as he effortlessly held the car over his head with one arm, those goggles fooled a lot of people, but you know that familiar gaze, you felt it on your back too many times during school. "... Mark?"

He's actually happy you recognised him and proud. You were always a smart girl, of course you'd notice the spineless stalker from school. "We have to stop meeting like this." He wasn't one for quips, but he couldn't help himself, flying past you to deal with the intruder on his planet, the car boomeranged back to the villain as you escaped to safety.

Days since then, he wasn't able to find you, but he wasn't worried. You always kept to yourself, you wouldn't expose his identity, he was sure of it. Although he'd be lying if he said that pesky teenager didn't come clawing his way back out of the depths of Mark's soul at the sight of you again, did you think he looked cool? Were you surprised? Do you remember when you lended him your pen?

He must've been thinking of you too much, apparently, spotting you waiting for someone outside the class you dropped, and that someone may have been him when your eyes lit up at the sight of him.

"Hey, Mark! Can we talk?"

That human side of him started squirming like an annoying bug.

.

"I wouldn't have known," You mused, propping up your cheek on with your hand. "The cute but timid Mark Grayson, a superhero?"

A chuckle escaped him, that loser version of him from school again. "My powers didn't kick in until later, so... The timid Mark Grayson was genuine, sadly." He admitted, it didn't sting as bad to say so when you looked at him with so much interest.

"'Sadly'? No! Mark, both are lovely." You smiled, lowering your hand. "I liked how geeky and sweet you were! And you look so much more... grown-up now!" You tried to find the correct words, the extra muscle definitely demanded attention. "don't worry, I've got no one to tell."

"I know." He answered too quickly. You raised an eyebrow.

"... I mean that you're not that kind of person." Regret would swallow him up later for being vulnerable. "I always knew you as a kind girl, you even gave me your pen when I never asked."

Your face was warming up, oh, he was doing good.

"I think I had a crush on you, now that I'm looking back on it." You were getting flustered as he smiled so sweetly at you. Maybe he should've been honest from the beginning.

"I'm flattered.. I never had the chance to talk to you, now I'm regretting it..!" You barely strung the words together, fiddling with your hands on the table, you paused when his hand covered your own; it felt calloused.

"We can start catching up, if you'd like?" Be suave, don't be a sweaty teenager. He's a grown man now. "Dinner? Sometime this weekend, if you're free?"

Your smile told him everything he needed.

.

It's like life couldn't get any better. On weekdays, he was a hero and student, and on weekends, he was taking you around the world for any over-the-top romantic date. His father travelled the world with his mom, and it's appropriate that he'd follow in his footsteps.

He found you first this time, in the same spot at the library. The one near the hallway leading to the obscure cafe and just a few feet away from the computer science books shelves, his hand settled on your shoulder

"Hey you." He smiled, a rare smile as he leaned down to kiss your cheek, he took the seat in front of you as you returned his smile and shut your laptop. "Hey, I wanted to talk to you about this week's date."

He already had something planned, perking up. "You're gonna love what I have planned, it's kinda far but that just gives us time to talk during the trip, dinner, dancing- you'll love it."

"I actually wanted to talk to you about that.." his expression shifted, you had that nervous smile on your face, one he recognized from when you were trying to accommodate to whoever was in front of you at the cost of your own comfort. "you know we don't have to travel half way across the world to have fun, right...?"

Mark sat up, eyebrows furrowed, he planned to take you to Amsterdam too. "Well, yeah. but isn't it fun? c'mon, you'll like what I have planned."

"Mark, I appreciate it, but can we postpone that? maybe we can do all of that here?" your hand caressed his, but his frown didn't move, you were trying to butter him up. The promise of next time gave him hope, he figured he'll try to indulge you this time. "I appreciate it, really, but I don't want you to feel like we need to travel to have fun or have a moment..."

You looked at him with such a submissive gaze, wordlessly begging him not to be mad at you, to remove that frown. He sighed, his hand turning to hold yours, palm to palm. "Okay. I know a good restaurant, I'm pretty sure I can get a reservation before this weekend." he relented, your hopeful smile returned.

.

Graduating wasn't a big deal for him, hero work paid him better than any job. the bachelor's degree was just some formality. you, on the other hand, you diligently got a job, got situated, and became a working member of society so quickly. He was proud of you but something felt missing, a naked layer of skin on your ring finger irked him.

"Paris?" your voice reverberated through his phone as he removed his suit. "Yeah, if you're free, don't wanna keep my successful business woman from her job." he smiled to himself as he heard you laugh.

"I can fit you in my schedule, sure." your playful tone riled him up as he changed into his civilian clothes. "Good, dress your best, I'll pick you up at 9 am."

"9 am?" you paused, that's the same time you'd go into work.

"Timezones, sweetheart." he explained, adjusting the collar of his shirt in the mirror. "It'll be well after sunset when we get there, we'll have dinner, go sightseeing, you ever seen the Eiffel tower?"

"Okay, okay! enough gloating, I'll be ready then." you agreed again. "I got a meeting, I'll talk to you later, love you!"

"Love you too." he concluded, the phone grew quiet, he glanced down at it and then set it down on his nightstand. His eyes trailed to the velvet red box, housing a ring too expensive to be a casual gift.

.

it was a corny, cheesy, sappy proposal at the very top of the Eiffel tower. and yet you looked at him so sweetly, like you were going to explode from sheer love and admiration for him. accepting the ring from him as he slid it carefully onto that same empty slot on your finger he'd been eyeing for months and kissed you with more desire than he's ever kissed you in your love life.

Naturally, it was a private wedding with only close friends and family, and you learned soon after marriage that Mark used the ring as an excuse to keep you under his watchful eye.

You had moved in together, slept in the same bed, and for a while, he let you work. He let you leave the house and sometimes dropped you off himself, but he couldn't shake off the nagging feeling that you should be home, where he can keep an eye on you and keep you safe. the near death experience he witnessed you succumb to back in college was still vivid in his mind.

"No." you vehemently denied as you looked up from your laptop. "Mark, I'm not going to stop working just because I got married."

"You don't need it." Mark replied as he sat on the other end of the couch, in his civilian clothes. "I get paid enough for the two of us, and it'll keep you safe and comfortable, maybe even get you used to it for.." his fingers traced up your leg gently, attempting to put you in a good mood, or a vulnerable one. "When we finally have kids?"

your knees came up to your chest to move away from him, your laptop hugged to your chest. "Where is this coming from? I like working, I like being my own person outside of 'superhero's wife'."

He lowered his hand, he had to be smart with his response, silence filled the atmosphere for an uncomfortable moment before he continued. "... do you remember when you first saw me as Invincible?"

Your hostile stance was lowered as he brought up that time you were almost crushed. "... I just keep thinking about what would've happened if I was too late, if I took a wrong turn and took longer to get to campus." He sighed, pausing for effect before looking up at you. "Sweetheart, you would've been crushed into the pavement."

He had to prevent the smile from appearing on his features as your eyes darted down, the fear swelling again as you remembered the panic that controlled your body in that moment, how he saved you. how he saved you.

"... Mark, that was just-" He continued, bordering on desperate as he cut you off. "you work in town, sure, and I noticed that those areas... baby, they're hot spots for villains."

You couldn't doubt him, he was the hero, he knew these things and he's never lied to you before. ".... I know you're worried, but I... I should be okay, you're never too late to-"

"What if I was?" His volume unintentionally raised, not what he intended but it helped as he watched you wince. "... Please, I know I'm being selfish but can you- promise me you'll think about it? see it from my perspective?"

Your lips parted and closed repeatedly, his eyes examining you, and unnerved you into looking down. "... I'll.. mull it over later."

You didn't notice how his smile stretched further than it needed.

.

One bad day, that's all it took to get you to want to leave work and never return. Your boss yelled at you for a mistake that wasn't yours, coffee spilt on your laptop effectively putting it into a coma, and the sunny morning quickly turned to a depressing rain as you walked home, your favorite professional shirt ruined and stained by rain and grime.

Needless to say, you burst into tears the moment your husband asked 'how was work?'

After maintaining your strength for a shower and a cuddle, he listened to you vent, he watched you cry in frustration with a hand on your back and your face buried in his chest.

"I hate this! I wish I could just quit!" Your emotions overpowered any logic, but the string of bad luck and your work going unappreciated as well as unpaid overtime, a person can only take so much. Mark knew more than anyone just how fragile you are, how fragile humans are.

He hummed in response, he shouldn't bring up his previous offer outright, he couldn't just drop a 'well, you could.' At your most vulnerable. He settled to pull you closer and kiss your head gently. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. You've been working so hard, it must be frustrating when it's all for nothing."

You stayed quiet, sniffling between deep breaths as he continued. "God, I wish I could take it all away." His eyes watched you carefully, seeing your eyes shift, he can practically smell the uncertainty and desire to just stay home wafting from you.

His influence was set, now all he needed to do was be a good husband. Mark ran a hand up and down your back gently, tracing shapes absentmindedly as he focused on getting you to forget about your unfortunate day. "I'll get your laptop's data recovered first thing tomorrow, okay?" He offered.

It took you a moment to respond, your moping did a number on you. "Thank you, Mark.." You sighed, sitting up and finally deciding to part from him. "I'll get dinner started."

He followed suit, sitting up with you and holding your hand. "No, no. Don't be ridiculous. You had a long day, let me handle dinner." He cupped your cheek gently as you shook her head. "No, Mark-"

"I'm all over it, I promise." He got up, letting his hands part from you. "How about Katsu dinner? I'll zip over to Japan and back faster than you can say 'Dinner'." He joked to lift your mood.

You held his wrists, assuring him. "No, please.. I need something to take my mind off of today, I think cooking is gonna help a lot."

"... if you insist, I like when you cook for me." Mark leaned closer to kiss your forehead. "Need any help?"

Your smile returned, just briefly. "No, I got it." You reassured once more. "Go clean up, okay?"

"Yes ma'am, I love you." He murmured, giving you a brief peck before the two of you parted ways. With his back turned to you, he had to withhold himself from smiling too hard. You're such a good housewife, and you didn't even know it yet.

[ozzgin]

Yandere! Sea Monster x Reader

In the spirit of Mermay, I come to you with a slightly different approach: an octopus hybrid, dwelling in the dark depths of ancient waters. :) Hopefully close enough to the sea monster you imagined, @wally0117

Content: gender neutral reader, male yandere, monster romance, reader likes sharks (a lot); inspired by The Shape of Water and My Octopus Teacher; photo from Whalebone Magazine

He’s always been aware of humans, naturally. Observed them from the beginnings of time, from the very first rudimentary attempt of a boat that crossed his waters. Though he can only guess how these creatures exist, how they breathe, how they move. What arrives in his depths is always a corpse of some sort. Bloated, decaying carcasses, rarely intact, whether chipped by fish or by time. Everything else is left to his imagination.

Until today. The fish are restless, the currents are stronger. Something must be happening above, stringing him along curiously. His many legs sway in tandem, opening and closing, as he investigates the source of interest. His pale white eyes narrow to a mere squint, unused to the light of the surface levels. At last, he finds it: a human.

Yet this one is unusual. Intact - save for the bleeding wound - and unlike the washed-out, cadaveric blue tint he’s normally accustomed to. He notices a twitch of the limb and it dawns on him: this one is still alive.

You wake up with a violent cough, thrusting out the leftover liquid that had invaded your lungs earlier. You clearly remember drowning, so how did you end up on shore again? The answer reveals itself rather quickly: a monstrous creature, albeit humanoid for the most part. The upper half resembles a man, but the torso ends in thick, enormous tentacles, now flopped onto the sand, surrounding your body. You search for the creature’s face, framed by translucent tendrils that seem to replace what you’d expect as hair.

“Thank you”. He scans your features and remains silent. Does he even understand human speech? After a moment of consideration, he looks ahead, surveying the water, then returns to you, giving you a nudge. He most likely wants to know how you ended up in that situation to begin with. “That’s, well…”

Conveniently enough, the monster has brought you back to your little camp, so you reach for your backpack and pull out a book. Of course, no words can ever replace the image itself. With renewed enthusiasm, you open your encyclopedia and turn it towards the man, showing him a photo of a sand tiger shark, tapping on it excitedly. “I was looking for sharks!”

Ever since the bizarre, life-saving encounter, you’ve been returning to the same spot most days. And without exception, the monster will be waiting for you in one of the neighboring caves. Judging by the pellucid, pale skin and his reluctance to be in the light, you guessed early on that he might be a creature of the depths.

One that has been around for a long time, it seems. Once he understood your interest in sharks and other aquatic animals, he developed a liking to play guide for you, silently touring you through forests of kelp, hidden caves, labyrinths of reefs and hills. He knows where the animals linger, and they don't scurry away when you approach. You've never dreamed of being so close to them, staring into their eyes and tracing their fins as they swim past you, unbothered and relaxed. The monster will gaze at you from a distance, amused by your passion.

On ground, you’ve begun your own little experiment: can the octopus creature learn sign language? You didn’t need long to discover how intelligent he is, mimicking your gestures with flawless ease, instantly memorizing the meanings, the connections, the implications. He seems to be terribly delighted by this newfound tool of communication, often asking you questions with earnest curiosity.

Ah, yes, the questions. It makes sense that he’d want to know more about humans, though his interrogations are rather…particular. Specific. It’s less about humans as a whole, and more about you. How long have you been swimming here? How deep can you actually swim, with or without aid? Might you have a family waiting for you back home? A mate, perchance? No? Interesting.

"My vacation will end soon", you sign with pursed lips. He tilts his head. "Leaving?" his webbed hands gesture, somewhat uneasy. You nod. You can discern a glint of melancholy in his eyes. Eventually, he resumes: "Would you like to see my home?" Your eyebrows raise in surprise. His home? Down there? Was such a thing even achievable for a human like you?

The plump suckers attach themselves to your skin, one resting over your mouth. "Do you trust me?" You cast one final glance over the underwater abyss, a black hole trapping all light and matter. You shake your head in approval. Without hesitation, he plunges over the cliff, pulling you after him and into the yawning void of darkness. His form glows eerily, and his movement is swift and elegant. You can tell this is his land, his territory. You would've been dead a long time ago.

He releases you on the wet stone, inside the air pocket of a cave. You need a few moments to overcome the wave of claustrophobia pressing against your lungs. As you catch your breath, you recall your long path from the surface. It would be impossible to make it back out again without your friend. A cold shiver runs across your spine. "Have a break, and I'll show you everything else afterwards", he gestures with a smile. "How long will it take? I don't want to walk back at night", you explain.

Silence. You stare into his empty orbs, awaiting a reaction. There's not a sound, not a gust of wind, not a shred of light. "You're not going back", he finally answers.

You see, he's done a fair amount of research himself. He doesn't need an encyclopedia to figure you out: how you breathe, how you move, how you exist. In fact, he is rather confident in his ways of helping you adapt to a life spent together. He would've never brought you down here if he wasn't certain of your survival. His grin widens in anticipation, a strange warmth enveloping his innards at the mere thought of it: a future with you in it, right here. However, one question remains, a cheeky, perverted detail that has been on his mind from the moment he met you, yet he could never investigate it properly.

How do humans mate?

[glow-in-the-dark-death]

A Week (He Will Take You)

~

Danny moved to Gotham for school, while there he noticed that Gotham's ambient ecto was really murky for lack of a better word.

This didn't really affect him too much besides a mild headache every once in a while but that also just might be stress from all his school work so maybe not.

Anyway

This murky ecto seemed to effect the people who lived there or more importantly the ghosts,

They were visible to the human eye like most ghosts back in Amity but instead of looking very much like a ghost they still looked like humans if a bit off putting.

They all seemed to be continuing their normal lives as if still fully alive, with the people around them none the wiser.

Danny noticed this and began approaching them to figure out what was going on.

Apparently the murky ecto in the city had made it so that they were strong enough to still continue a somewhat normal life but not be able to cross over to the GZ.

In other words they were stuck in Gotham

Danny was the Ghost King so he could easily fix this problem, all he needed to do was give them a bit of pure ecto for around a week to fully stabilize them them then he would just open a portal into the GZ and they could cross over with all their things also transferring into the GZ for their new haunt.

Unfortunately this looked rather worrying to an outsider,

Imagine you're used to your neighbor being very outgoing so you and others see them a lot suddenly this man seems to appear in their life out of nowhere an at exactly one week, your neighbor and all their belongings in their home disappear no trace to be found.

You tell people and they begin saying the same story they knew someone and them a man with black hair and blue eyes appeared in their life, then they and all their things disappear in exactly one week.

Of course the police in Gotham do the bare minimum so they're no help.

But it starts to begin a trend, especially online.

"Oh careful or the blue eyed man will make you disappear in a week"

This of course after time catches the bats attention, Gordon had already given them all the information he had.

"Young adult early twenties, dark hair, blue eyes"

That was it.

The bats look into it and from their point of view Danny is a serial killer.

But they can't find the connection between all of his victims, they range from young children and the elderly from different backgrounds absolutely no connection,

Worrying enough he doesn't just make one person disappear he has taken entire families up to over a dozen, without anyone figuring out how he's doing it or why at all.

The disturbing thing also being that he seems to take everything in their home, leaving it like it has always been empty

Like no one had been living in it.

People have tried to take photos of Danny get some kind of evidence of his existence, but when they try to do it, it either comes out completely corrupted or their devise simply shuts down fully.

Danny of course has no clue what is happening he's just happy that he's able to help so many ghosts, and is trying not to fail his exams.

~

Danny leaving the house he just helped: "That went easier than I expected!"

Neighbor peeking from the window: "Shit it's that guy! "

~

Red Hood marching down into the cave: " The fucker took many from my territory without me even realizing it!"

~

Tim: "I'm pretty sure his kill count is nearing the hundreds and he just started like maybe 4 months ago, this is bad."

Barbara: " I think I got a theory, this matches up with the new school year beginning so maybe their not a Gotham native which narrows down my suspect list."

Bruce: "Hn."

Tim: "Yes thank you B for the insightful commentary"

~

Danny trying not to fall asleep while on his way to class: "Strange I keep seeing shadows following me, oh well must be the stress!"

Bats who are pretty sure Danny is the killer: "Has he done anything suspicious yet?"

~

Just an Idea

[sushirrrry]

you should do a blurb about how y/n is in her head during sex and she has to safeword out and there’s a little bit of angst with her and it just gets all fluffy at the end because he just wants to care for her ekakakzjakjskajsjsj

cw: explicit sex (m/f), explicit language, oral sex (f receiving), use of safe word, unwanted sex mention word count: 3979

breathe.

The actions had started slow—like it always did with Harry. The wonderous game of chess, moving your dominance, letting him give and take.

The two of you were curled together on the couch, bare legs brushing from time to time, your fingers idly tracing the veins in his forearm while his thumb circled your knee almost like his fingertips were trying to memorize you.

You were both a little buzzed from the wine that you had chosen to have for dinner, from the closeness, from the kind of long, winding conversation that peeled back old layers.

He was laughing at something you said, and then the air shifted almost suddenly. It was a pause, and then a look. It was almost like neither of you had to say anything to identify that there had been such a palpable connection that neither of you could understand.

It was electrifying to know that there was a person that could sense the rage that settled between your thighs, knowing that there had been a shift in energy.

And then, his lips were on yours; it was slow and certain at first, his fingers already sliding to your neck, his palm warm against your pulse as you felt it heighten just at the feeling of his breath along your lips.

He always kissed like he had all the time in the world, like nothing else existed but the way your mouth parted for him and the soft noise you made when he tilted your chin just right.

It was mesmerizing to you how he could hypnotize your senses to follow in his every move.

A short mewl escaped past your lips when he pulled you into his lap, grinding up against the thick line of him beneath his sweats. The friction made you dizzy. You weren’t even undressed yet, but the way his hands were roaming, hungry and familiar, had you clenching already. You remembered how he whispered, “Bedroom, baby. Let me have you properly.”

That was the thing with you and him – it was never proper.

It was usually dirty. Filthy, even.

There were moments when you both realized what you had done and wondered how your rage and need for one another had led you to that moment. The sweat, the words, the complete undoing of yourself and him. You loved looking at the small bruises left on your thighs from where his mouth bit or his fingers dug.

The foreplay had been a fever dream. He was so focused. His mouth had spent forever at your throat, your chest, between your legs—licking and sucking until your thighs were trembling, until your toes curled against the sheets. He kissed your body like it was the holy path; desperate for every inch, every tenderness.

When he licked between your folds, you gasped loud enough to echo off the walls in the small bedroom that he called his.

“Yeah, there,” he whispered against you, his voice gravel and velvet as the hotness of his breath bounced off of your skin. “So fucking sweet for me, aren’t you, my girl? You know I’d spend hours here, baby, just like this.”

His hands spread your legs wider, thumbs digging into your thighs as he buried his face deeper, his tongue practically diving into the sweetness of your core. The slow circles of his tongue were maddening—too good, too steady. You were soaked – practically writhing. He flicked his tongue against your clit, then flattened it, then sucked softly until you whimpered out in a way that drove his prey drive.

Harry spit directly on your clit, eyes dragging back up to you for a reaction more than anything.

“Pretty girls have the sweetest pussy,” his tongue flattened against your clit, humming softly to electrify the sensation. He took in a deep breath, the sight of his golden green eyes were heavy on your attention. “And you're the prettiest girl. in the world”

You felt heat building in you like it always did—molten, pressurized like it had been building up to a climax point. But tonight, there was something else– it was a flicker of tightness in your chest. The thought that you needed to come quickly, that you needed to give him what he wanted.

You tried to push it down. Let yourself get lost in the way he devoured you, because that usually worked to some degree. You just needed to think less, and act more.

But then he added fingers—two sliding inside, just how you liked, and the stretch hit different. You moaned, because it felt good, but your body tensed at the actions unmistakenly. He didn’t notice at first, too busy curling them just right to hit that spot that he knew would get you there, murmuring praise between strokes as his fingers grew slick.

And then he'd moved up your body again, licking his lips like he’d tasted something divine, exotic.

You trusted him – you always did, of course you did.

You were panting when he settled over you, his hands heavy on your hips, the head of his cock nudging between your folds as he watched it dragging slow and teasing through the slick he’d coaxed out of you. But instead of pressing in, he leaned down and said into your ear:

“Turn over,” he said, voice all honey and smoke that laced around every single nerve ending. “Want to fuck you into this mattress.”

Buring your face in the pillow, you had willed yourself to just feel—to let go, to ride it out—but the air in your lungs was growing thin as you tried to relax and remember the moment. You try to remember the warmth and comfort this man brought you; all of the memories of satisfaction. It felt so far away as you tried to push those negative thoughts away, only focusing on the now.

Once on your stomach, the feeling of his hands spreading your ass, cock hard and hot against your entrance was almost enough to have you forget. It was almost enough to have you spouting nonsense that wouldn’t make sense later once you thought about it. The tip of his cock played in the wetness of your core, his fingers pushing it past inside just a moment to tease. Your ass sat upwards as he used his hand to spread you open further.

There were many points when you dreamed of having him everywhere – filling you up in each hole to make you full. They were filthy thoughts, absolutely sinning.

“Color?” His voice was raspy and almost done with the day before he looked around to make sure that you were listening to him.

You exhaled, heart racing as you swallowed down your decency. “Green.”

His hand fisted in your hair—not to hurt, just to pull your head gently to the side. His teeth scraped over your shoulder, his voice lower now. “Need you to say it again.”

“Green,” you gasped at the feeling of his hand wrapped around your hair like a ponytail, pulling you backwards just enough to meet his face. “Fuck—please.”

Then, he pushed in deep without much more of a warning.

The first stretch of his cock always made your breath hitch, but tonight it felt… sharper. There wasn’t a lot of prep, but sometimes that gave you the highest pleasure. You weren’t ready – emotionally, especially. You were wet, but something about the angle, the pressure, the pace—he didn’t give you time to adjust before he started moving. You usually thrived off the feeling of a bit of tightness that elicited some pain, it egged you on.

You were both so comfortable with one another that this felt like he thought you could take it. You knew he wanted to overwhelm you the way you usually liked, just on the edge of too much.

Green meant go.

But your body wasn’t meeting him there, and you could feel the reaction your body had on the explicit roughness that Harry possessed as his hips met your spread ass, cock buried deep within you. Harry knew what it meant to be deep inside you; it was truly a feeling you couldn't describe to anyone; the angle he knew to hit made your eyes roll back in your head when you were both on your A-game.

Tonight, your legs shook, but not with pleasure. You pressed your cheek to the pillow, trying to breathe through it, to like it and to exhilarate you. To tell yourself it was just a lot because you were so turned on, not because something was wrong.

Mostly, you didn’t know why something could have been wrong. He had done nothing wrong.

But then his hand came down on your ass in a sharp slap. You flinched at that, visible to him when you didn’t moan or groan or make any reaction. The reaction that came through with a hint of a sob that made you flinch.

“Baby?” he paused, breathing hard. He completely stilled for a moment; you couldn’t see his face, but you could imagine that his sight had gone a bit blurry.

“Keep going – green.” You mustered out, almost slurring at the way that you tried to lie. He couldn’t see your reaction; you kept it that way.

He growled and grabbed both of your wrists, pinning them behind your back, holding you down against the linen sheets. His cock pushed deeper, grinding over that spot that usually made you sob with an ache so deep you would orgasm just from that —but tonight it made your stomach turn.

The sound of his hips pounding into your skin, each thrust louder and louder as he found a steady rhythm to wreck you.

You bit on your lip with a ferocity that may split it, and fought the urge to cry.

Then he said it—words you usually loved: “You’re mine tonight. You’re gonna take it, yeah? Gonna be good – fuck, your pussy feels so fucking good tonight, angel.”

And the tears came right out of the corner of your eyes, streaming down your nose as you breathed in and the weight of him felt overwhelming.

It was just like that. You weren’t even sure why.

Your chest cinched like a belt had been tightened around your ribs. You couldn't breathe, couldn’t focus, couldn’t answer him. And then you heard yourself say it—not a shout, not a sob, just a whisper that felt like breaking glass:

“Red.”

Everything stopped. The only thing that you could hear was the sound of breathing and you weren’t even sure if it was you or him.

The grip on your wrists disappeared. His cock slipped free from your body. The weight of him lifted instantly which made you take in a deep breath. And then you were flipped so gently onto your back, his face hovering above yours, wrecked with worry.

You had never gotten to a point where either of you clearly stated red. It meant a break in the fantasy, back to a reality where either of you felt unsafe, felt the need to stop for a moment.

“Fuck, fuck, baby, are you okay?” His hands hovered but didn’t touch you; he sat on one side of your leg as his eyes traveled around you to sense the pain that you were exhilarating physically and emotionally. “Breathe. Talk to me. I’ve got you. Just breathe.”

“I—I’m—” But your voice broke, almost like a levy. The tears came harder, hot and silent down your cheeks as you felt the breathing start to sob in a way that hadn’t felt natural before.

“Oh, angel.” His own face broke, panic blooming into devastation. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t - I thought—fuck, I thought you liked it. You said green. I should’ve checked again. I’m so sorry.”

You shook your head, trying to sit up, but your limbs felt like lead as you pushed against the bedframe and shook the mattress. Your fingers wiped at your eyes as you tried to stop the tears from flowing.

He moved first, reaching for the blanket to drape around your shoulders before carefully sitting beside you, still giving you space, his hand out but not touching unless you said yes.

“I got scared to stop,” you choked out. “I didn’t mean to—I didn’t want to stop you—but it didn’t feel right. I was trying to stay in it, and then you grabbed my wrists and I just… I couldn’t anymore. I didn’t feel like me.”

Harry’s eyes softened at your words, fits of worry still laced within him, but he needed to keep his distance. He nodded slowly, then reached for your hand, fingers dancing along yours to try and invite himself back towards you. You let him – you felt worse that you had made him scared. His fingers were warm and trembling, lacing through yours.

“I’m proud of you for saying red,” he whispered, he nodded as he continued to stare. “That was the bravest thing you could’ve done. You didn’t ruin anything. Okay?”

The prompt of his words made you nod just slightly to continue, “You just showed me that you trust me. And that means everything.”

He leaned in then, his forehead against yours, your breath mingling in the quiet.

“I love you,” he said, the solidarity of the three words was a promise that both of you kept. But tonight, you felt it – really felt it, like you had never before. There were moments when you knew that he loved you, but in the pain, or around it, there had never been a moment so clear to you that his love was fluid and certain.

A sob broke in your throat, and he pulled you into his arms. And you let him.

You buried your face into his chest and let yourself be held, blanketed in the scent of his skin and the weight of his arms, the steady beat of his heart. He kissed the crown of your head and murmured, “You’re okay, I’ve got you.”

You stayed wrapped in his arms until your tears slowed. He didn’t rush you—just rocked you gently, rubbing circles into your back with one warm hand while the other cradled the back of your head like something fragile.

When you finally lifted your face, he cupped your cheek, thumb brushing away the dampness.

“Baby, can you tell me what happened?” You could tell that he had started to blame himself – did he push too far? Did he not understand what you needed? Was it just way too much? You hadn’t really known the answer yourself, but as you started to feel yourself calm down, you took a deep breath.

“I-I don’t know,” You shook your head, sniffling, “I-I think, I mean, I think I just… I just don’t know. It wasn’t you at all, I promise,” You turned your eyes up to him, licking your lips, “I swear. I-I don’t know, I just didn’t want you to be mad, but I just think I don’t feel like myself right now.”

It was almost magic, your words. He started to feel lighter, like he could breathe on his own knowing that he hadn’t hurt you, and that you wanted to stay close to him. The reality was, he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary; usually, this would have been a night to remember. A night to let your inner demons live on the sheets, and base themselves in your memories.

But, now, you were wrapped in a tear-stained blanket, leaning against him without a happy ending in sight.

“Can I do something for you?” he asked softly. “Something to help?”

You nodded, throat tight. You weren’t sure what you wanted, or what he could provide you, so you didn’t tell him what you needed. Instead, you allowed him to search for what he knew of you. You heard his inhale, feeling his arms wrapped around you in a warmth that you couldn’t explain.

“I’ll run you a bath, hm?” his hand rubbed against your arm “Just sit here, sweetheart. I’ll be right back.”

He kissed your forehead before slipping off the bed. You pulled the blanket tighter around yourself, knees drawn up to your chest, still trying to slow your breathing.

You heard him in the bathroom—water turning on, cabinet drawers opening, the soft metallic clink of the lighter he kept in the drawer for the candles that lit along the edge of the tub. When he returned a few minutes later, his eyes went straight to yours; his torso was long, shorts hanging on his hips in a way that felt like a sin that you couldn’t give him what he wanted.

“You want to come sit with me in there? I’ve got warm towels, your lavender salts, a candle lit,” He turned back to you after naming off his list, “I can make you some tea, if you’d like.”

You blinked at him.

“You’re spoiling me,” you whispered, voice hoarse.

Harry’s smile was tender, showing you that he cared on a level that you never imagined someone could. “You scared yourself. I just want to bring you back.”

He crossed the room, managing to make his way over to your side of the bed. You let him help you up, still swaddled in the blanket, and followed him into the bathroom, undressed with the exception of the blanket. The lights were low, just the glow of a flickering candle on the sink and along the edge of the tub. Steam curled up from the tub with the scent of lavender and eucalyptus filling the air.

“You can soak as long as you need. I’ll stay close, yeah?”

Your eyes ran along the large clawfoot tub that had been a selling point in the flat search that you both had gone on last summer; it was one of the reasons that you loved this place, along with the light that came in through the living room in the mornings.

“You’re not getting in with me?”

“Not unless you want me to.” He leaned against the counter, arms crossed loosely. “But right now I thought you might just want to be still, without touch. I can read to you, though, if that helps. Or we can just sit.”

You nodded again, fascinated that he could have been real. “Read to me.”

He acknowledged that with half of a smile before he gave you a nod. When he removed himself from the room, you let the blanket slip over your shoulders, down your back and legs. Your toe did a dance when you touched the water with your foot, testing it out for the heat. It was quite warm; you held onto the tiled wall before you stepped your way in.

A few minutes later, you were settled in the tub, limbs floating with steam rising around your shoulders. The blanket was gone, but the water replaced its warmth and the heat that surrounded your shoulders, taking away the tension. You leaned your head back, hair pinned up with a clip, the flicker of the candlelight playing on the tiled wall.

Harry had made his way back to the bathroom after picking up the book from your nightstand. He sat just outside the tub with your book in his lap, back against the cabinet, legs stretched out and facing you. He had changed into a hoodie and soft cotton shorts, the drawstring loose, the sleeves pulled over his hands as he thumbed through the pages.

He didn’t start at the beginning. He picked the place you’d left off—the chapter you’d dog-eared last week—and began to read in a voice so smooth and rhythmic that it felt like a lullaby.

Your breathing finally slowed. His voice washed over you, low and patient. There were no performance notes in it, no dramatics. He wasn’t trying to impress you. He was just being there. Just reading. Halfway through the chapter, he glanced up and saw your eyelids drooping as your breathing slowed.

“You falling asleep on me?” he asked gently, closing the book over his thumb.

You smiled faintly, blinking slow as you felt the way that your lips curled up at his question. “No… just relaxed.”

“Good.” He set the book down and moved toward you slowly.

He set the book down and moved toward you slowly, then, moving to the edge of the tub. His hands stayed visible, deliberate. You noticed that even now, even here, Harry was offering you the choice to be touched if you wanted that. The soft light bounced off the surface of the water as he knelt beside the tub and rested his arms on the edge. His eyes stayed up on you, not the delicate vision of your body.

“Can I touch you?” he asked; words were delicate and pressed together with intricacy.

You nodded, then remembered, voice first. “Yeah. Please.”

His fingertips grazed your damp forearm before settling there, thumb tracing idle circles. You could feel the warmth of him through the fog of steam, his presence grounding. He was so quiet, so steady, you could barely hear his breath. For a moment, neither of you even spoke.

Then, quietly, he said, “I’m really proud of you,” he rested his chin on his forearm, on the edge of the tub, “For saying something – earlier, I mean.”

You felt your throat tighten at the way that he spoke. You glanced away, heart aching with the vulnerability of it all; you knew that you had disappointed him – deep down, there was always disappointment, especially when breaking a fantasy. “I didn’t want to ruin it,” you said, the words small, soaked in shame.

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Harry said immediately, his voice firm but gentle as his eyebrows furrowed when glancing at you. “You made it real. You made it honest. That means more to me than any fantasy ever could.”

Licking over your lips, you let your head lull towards him on the back of the tub. Hesitating, your lips parted before you took in a breath. “I just… I got in my head. I wanted to want it. But something shifted. And I didn’t know how to explain it without disappointing you.”

“You didn’t disappoint me.” He leaned in closer, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. “Not even a little. You trusted me enough to tell me what you needed. That’s all I ever want from you – that’s what good sex is to me.”

You closed your eyes; his words poured into the cracks you hadn’t even noticed forming.

“I just feel like – there’s always been someone who wants to push limits,” you whispered, feeling shame in the words but even more shame in the memories. “Even when I froze up. I didn’t always feel like I was allowed to stop it.”

Harry’s jaw flexed, his thumb stilling on your skin. He didn’t rush to respond, just letting the weight of your words sit there, honored in the space between you.

“I’m not them,” he said eventually, quiet and sure – certain. “You never owe me anything. Not your body, not your performance. Definitely not your comfort. If I’m with you – like, really with you, then your safety isn’t negotiable. It’s the whole point.”

You let out a shaky breath, pulling your bottom lip in your mouth. “I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone say that to me.”

“Well.” He reached for a towel, unfolded it, and held it out to you so that you could stand up and step into it. “Then let’s rewrite the script.”

You let him help you out of the tub, arms winding around his neck as he wrapped the towel around you. He didn’t kiss you; he didn’t press. He just held you, rocking slightly, fingers brushing through your damp hair.

And in that moment, you realized: this, too, was intimacy. Not the hunger. Not the heat of the moment that made you want to forget everything around you. This was the space you needed to feel that intimacy. This was an invitation to stay exactly where you were, and know that he wouldn’t move until you were ready. Until you said so.

[mariasont]

GLUE MYSELF SHUT

it starts with ice on your tongue and ends with spencer trying not to picture what else his mouth might be good at

pairings: spencer reid x shy!reader warnings: 18+ MDNI, not explicit smut but it's suggestive, post prison spencer, fem reader, fluff, reader has an oral fixation, talk of alcohol, alcohol consumption (wine), spencer having some semi super-naughty thoughts, he’s obsessed with her lips, he’s so down bad it’s not even funny. except it is. i find it hilarious. i feel like the ending was weird but i stared at it for like 6 business days and couldn’t figure out how to fix it so #word wc: 1.6k request: here

The autonomic nervous system, when overengaged, compulsively chases external release valves. Little, repetitive distractions employed to dissipate internal pressure. Cognitive behavior theory identifies these as primitive anxiety-management strategies. Lip-biting, skin-picking, hair-twisting.

For you, the chosen method consists of timed intervals involving ice cubes, precisely fourteen minutes apart. Pinching it between cautious fingertips, rolling it contemplatively, savoring the brief burst of cold against skin.

He watches, a reluctant voyeur to the slow meltwater streams trickling along your fingers in mercury rivulets, until finally disappearing past parted lips. His eyes shutter sideways, hurriedly silencing the part of his brain that longs to quantify the thaw rate versus thermal conduction properties of ice on the surface of your tongue.

You’re studying a painting in the corner of the restaurant — abstract oils bleeding into one another in nebulous fashion behind Emily’s shoulder. Spencer finds himself studying you, an equally abstract form of art. You’re a fan of art. He’s seen your tendency to pause at gallery plaques, eyes tracing curatorial notes while your fingers twitch involuntarily, as though fighting the impulse to physically touch the described textures.

He isn’t much different at this moment. 

You’re never exacting, never critical of the things you see. You’re easy to please in the purest sense, content to absorb shapes and colors simply because they exist, acknowledging beautiful things without demanding it prove itself worthy.

It makes him wonder, morbidly, if you’re easy to please in other ways. 

Do you make noises when someone kisses you properly? Would your thighs tremble if they whispered how lovely you were, over and over again? Could you come from just a few well-placed touches?

He knows how polymers behave under heat. He wants to know if you’re the same.

He shouldn’t be indulging these thoughts. He’s repeated the admonition several times already, a silent internal chant that does nothing to stem the tide because here you are, unknowingly feeding it.

Your lips gleam with condensation, a lone droplet suspended just above your mouth, a tiny, inadvertent physics demonstration awaiting disruption.

His thumb tingles impulsively, a raw, tactile curiosity urging him to test the exact point at which tension collapses, to feel moisture yield to pressure.

He blinks hard, almost violently, screwing his eyelids shut in an effort to sever the treacherous visual connection tethering him precariously to your mouth. His gaze then drops like ballast to the nearest neutral object — his plate, where a roasted carrot glares back up at him with bland contempt.

Spencer coughs into a closed fist, a pathetic smokescreen for the heat scalding up his throat, licking at his ears like flame-starved oxygen.

With determined resolve, he refocuses, or at least pretends to, zeroing in on Rossi’s dramatic discourse about the fermentation processes and barrel chemistry. Wine science, he assures himself, is safe, dry, deeply unsexy. Unlike you. Unlike the mental imagery of your mouth encircled around other, less work-appropriate things.

These team dinners are, in most cases, a slow bleed. A sensory minefield dressed in linen napkins and over-loud laughter. Spencer doesn’t resent the company, he loves them, every single one, but the sound never stops, the social current too nonlinear to keep up with.

Noise and light and movement pile upon each other until his nervous system blinks seven different shades of red.

So yeah, usually, he counts minutes and builds exit strategies.

But tonight, that never happens. There’s no grit behind his eyes, no anticipatory urge for flight. Instead, there’s only a strange sense of equilibrium and the certainty that it begins and ends with you.

Every shy laugh you offer at Morgan’s jokes, every awkward tuck of your hair behind your ear when attention veers too close to you, every furtive glance his way like you’re reassuring yourself he hasn’t dematerialized between breaths.

He notices it all. Worse, he likes it. Relishes it in a way that feels almost parasitic when he dares to think about it too long.

You inch closer, lowering your voice to be aimed at him. “Do you think Rossi would be crushed if he found out I genuinely can’t taste the difference between this and, like, Welch’s?”

Spencer bites back an immediate grin, angling himself toward you until the barest fraction of space remains between your shoulders.

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

“So that’s a yes, then?”

“Pretty much.” He slides his glass your way. “Here, try this one. Rossi said it’s supposed to have subtle oak notes. I think that’s just the polite way of saying it doesn’t feel like lighter fluid.”

You accept his glass, fingertips brushing his as you take it. 

Spencer’s eyes cling to your mouth as you sip, lips parting over the same place his touched, sealing over it perfectly like you were made to erase him and replace him in one motion. 

When you pull back, the wine stains your lips in a dark, sultry crimson. He imagines pressing his mouth to yours until the color smears, until it becomes something new altogether — a hue birthed from shared breaths and synchronized heartbeats. He wonders what saturation your mouth would take on if it were shaped around his name.

Spencer recognizes that he might be one errant breath away from ruin.

There are other people here, he reminds himself. Polite company. His colleagues, no less, who are presumably not here to watch him experience this kind of deranged attention he’s directing toward you. He’s certain he must be blushing, overheating, or having a close, conversational strow. Each scenario feels equally plausible, equally shameful, equally likely to leave him socially incapacitated.

You tilt your head, eyebrows raised in patient confusion. Three long, interminable seconds crawl by before Spencer realizes you’re awaiting a response.

Shit.

“What?” he blurts, louder than intended.

“I said I don’t think I have the palate for this one. Kind of tastes like overpriced raisins.”

Spencer bobs his head eagerly. “Right. Yeah. No, I — agree.”

Your smile is soft but searching as you seem to follow his thought process and come up short. Spencer’s heart kicks harder in his chest. He fumbles for normalcy and overshoots.

“The raisin flavor, it’s probably residual sugar. Or the grape variety, certain grapes naturally have that characteristic. Sometimes they’re intentionally allowed to over ripen, concentrating sugars. Could also be oxidation. Or, possibly, microbial spoilage, though that sounds bad, it’s usually done on purpose, beneficial spoilage. Controlled spoilage.”

“What kind of grapes do they use for that, then?” Your voice is tentative, uncertain, as though worried the question might sound overly simplistic.

It’s not. It’s absolutely fine, ideal, even. Except Spencer’s concentration evaporates instantly when your tongue flicks gently across your lower lip, leaving behind a glossy sheen.

Suddenly, grapes don’t exist. Language doesn’t exist. Spencer himself might barely exist.

“Usually Muscat or Zinfandel,” he manages at last, “They, uh, leave them on the vine longer to intensify sweetness.”

You laugh under your breath, pushing the stem of the glass back toward him. “Makes sense, though I might not be the best judge. My mom used to say that anything that didn’t taste like peach schnapps wasn’t worth the bottle.”

Spencer’s mouth opens, poised to respond, but your hand is already in motion, fingers dipping into your glass for another cube of ice. He watches as your thumb gently glides over its edges. Checking for symmetry, perhaps. You bring it to your mouth and he doesn’t blink, can’t. There’s a fleeting glimpse of pink tongue against transparent ice, the slight hollowing of your cheeks.

All sentence structure evaporates, replaced by a pounding rush of blood to his temples and other less cooperative places. 

“That’s…” he rasps, then clears his throat. “That’s funny.”

“What is?”

“Your um. Your mom’s schnapps rule.”

“Oh.” You cock your head. “I always thought it was kinda trashy.”

“It’s not,” he says, too fast. “I’ve heard worse opinions about alcohol.”

“Yeah?” Your purse your lips and the ice shifts, creating a temporary distortion in the shape of your cheek. “Like what?”

Spencer watches the dent smooth out, watches how the overhead lights refract across your skin — warmer along the apple of your cheek, cooler where it softens into shadow near your jaw. A perfect gradient, like a masterwork in motion. A living chiaroscuro. Oil paintings where the subject glows not because of the paint, but because of its depth was coaxed out by patient and loving hands.

He wonders who has painted you in that light.

You mentioned your mother and he wants to know more. What was she like? Did she nurture your curiosity, or did she scold it? Was she tender, or tired? Did she sing while she cooked? Did she let you cry, or did she rush to clean it up? 

And your father, was he there? Was he gentle? Did he hug you with both arms, or with silence? Did he make you feel small in the way children should, protected, or in the way they shouldn’t, invisible?

Spencer hopes, deeply, that they were kind. That you were someone’s favorite part of the day. That you grew up held, not just housed.

He doesn’t think you’re seeing anyone romantically. Not seriously. He suspects he’d know, suspects there’d be signs. Someone waiting at the door. A name that surfaces too often. 

But you probably have been with people before. Respectful ones, preferably.

“Like how some people can’t tell the difference between a five-hundred-dollar Bordeaux and… grape juice,” he finally says, quirking a brow. “Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“Not everyone’s tongue works quite as well as yours, Doctor Reid.” 

Spencer sees the instant when your brain catches up with your words, cheeks flooding with heat, eyes widening incrementally, mouth parting in a mortified ‘O’.

“I mean — not like that.” You quickly stumble forward, hands fluttering uselessly in your lap, voice pitched high. “Refined taste buds. Taste buds, I meant, not… not tongue in any other context.”

Your expression is a fascinating disaster, eyebrows drawn tight, lips flattened into a line like you’re hoping the pressure alone might rewind time and vacuum every syllable back into your throat.

Meanwhile, Spencer’s imagination flickers to life, promptly supplying him with an intensely distracting scenario involving precisely how well his tongue works when applied directly to you.

“Right. Taste buds,” he echoes, voice two octaves higher than usual. “I knew what you meant.”

Except he hadn’t, not immediately. His heartbeat already sprinting ahead of him, generously pumping oxygen to regions he’d strongly prefer remain switched off. He briefly considers explaining the basis of verbal slips — the Freudian slip theory, perhaps — but decides against it. 

Better to pretend that his mind hasn’t already replayed your words more times than strictly necessary.

One day he’ll show you.

shy reader is part of a stand-alone series! you can read more here!

💌 masterlist taglist has been disbanded! if you want to get updates about my writings follow and turn notifications on for my account strictly for reblogging my works! @mariasreblogs

[spiritualitygeek]

PAC: Their Sexual Fantasies About You (Fs channeled reading)

Disclaimer: This content is intended for adults aged 18 and over. Minors are strictly advised not to engage. This reading is for entertainment purposes only and should not be used as the basis for any major life decisions, particularly regarding health, finances, or legal matters. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.

1->2

3->4

5->6

Pile 1

Your future spouse is deeply sensual, the kind of lover who worships through touch. Their love language is physical, and they crave intimacy in the slowest, most tantalizing ways—drawing out every sensation, every breath, until you’re trembling under them.

They have a vivid imagination, and one of their favorite fantasies involves you, them, and a hot, steamy shower. They picture dim lighting, scented candles flickering, the air thick with heat as water cascades down your bodies. They imagine pressing you against the cold tile, the contrast against your warm, flushed skin sending a shiver through you. Their hands would be everywhere, lathering soap over your curves, massaging, exploring—taking their time to savor the feeling of your body beneath their touch.

They want to watch the way the water clings to your skin, how droplets race down your neck, your shoulders, your back. They fantasize about kneeling before you, kissing and biting their way up your thighs, their tongue tracing the path of the water. Or maybe they imagine pulling you into the bathtub instead, submerging you both in warmth, your bodies tangled together, slick with heat and desire.

But it doesn’t end there. No, in their mind, it always leads to something deeper, something raw. They picture you bent over beneath the rushing water, your back arched as they grip your hips, taking you in slow, deep thrusts that drive you insane. The sound of water splashing, heavy breaths mingling with the steam, the way your fingers claw at the fogged-up glass—every detail is burned into their thoughts.

For them, it’s not just about sex. It’s about immersion, about touch, about feeling every inch of you and making sure you feel every inch of them. They want to consume you, to make you melt under their hands, to hear your breath hitch as they claim you again and again—until the water runs cold and you’re both too exhausted to move.

Pile 2

Your future spouse sees sex as something deeply spiritual—an act of pure, soul-deep connection. They don’t just crave physical intimacy; they long to merge with you in a way that transcends the body, where every touch, every breath, every movement pulls you both into something sacred, something beyond the limits of flesh. They’ve already had you in every way imaginable—in their mind, in their fantasies, in the realm where energy speaks louder than words. If you've ever woken up from a heated dream, your body aching for someone whose face you can't quite remember, that was them, reaching for you across the unseen.

They're shy, reserved in the real world, not the type to sleep around or waste themselves on meaningless encounters. Sex, to them, isn't just pleasure—it's devotion, it's surrender, it's a universe unfolding between two souls meant for each other. Maybe they’ve been with others before, maybe they tried, but it never touched them the way it was supposed to. It was empty, disappointing, just flesh meeting flesh with nothing deeper beneath it. That’s why they stopped, why they decided to wait, to keep themselves for something real. For you.

But don’t mistake their restraint for innocence. They’re intensely sexual, their desire coiled tight, waiting to be unraveled by you. They might not have let themselves fully indulge before, but when they do—when it’s with you—they won’t hold back. They'll give you everything, let you break them apart and put them back together, let you push them to limits they didn’t know existed. There will be no shame, no hesitation—just raw, soul-consuming passion.

Maybe this is a twin flame connection, something written in the stars long before you even met in this life. They already feel you in their energy, in their dreams, in the silent moments where desire turns into longing. And when you finally come together in the flesh, it won’t just be sex—it’ll be a fucking revelation.

Pile 3

Your future spouse has a filthy mind—there’s no other way to put it. They’re into role-play, but not the tame kind. No, they love pushing boundaries, testing limits, watching the way your face shifts between shock and curiosity when they whisper their dirtiest thoughts in your ear. They’re the type to drop a fantasy so unfiltered, so downright filthy, that you'd pause mid-movement just to process if you heard them right. And they’ll revel in that moment, in the way your breath hitches, in the way your body betrays your innocence, betrays how much you want to hear more.

They've been a player for most of their life—cocky, experienced, and damn good at what they do. Not just because they’ve had practice, but because they know how to read a woman’s body like a language only they can translate. And with you? You’re their masterpiece. They love that you’re soft, untouched in ways that matter. It makes it all the more thrilling to corrupt you, to drag you into the depths of their desire and show you just how much you can take. Maybe they never thought of themselves as having a corruption kink before, but with you? With the way you shiver under their touch, the way you hesitate yet secretly crave everything they offer—they can’t get enough.

And they have one particular fantasy that won’t leave their mind: recording you. Not just for the act itself, but for the aftermath. For the teasing. For the way you’d turn red when they play it back, when they make you watch yourself unravel, your voice desperate, your body wrecked from the way they take you—hard, fast, relentless. You, who looks so innocent, so untouched, but when they have you? When they ruin you? You beg for more, again and again. And nothing turns them on more than knowing they’re the only one who gets to see you like that.

Pile 4

Your future spouse has a deep-seated desire for validation, stemming from unresolved Mommy/Daddy issues that they want to explore in the most intimate ways. They are drawn to the idea of submission, of kneeling at your feet—not out of weakness, but out of a need to worship and adore you. In their fantasies, they’re not just a lover—they’re completely surrendered to you, craving every bit of your power and control.

They get off on being claimed, on feeling as though you own them, body and soul. This goes beyond mere submission—it’s about giving you total dominion over them. They want you to take charge, to dominate them in ways that leave them breathless and wanting more. The thought of you being possessive, even a little toxic, thrills them—it stirs something deep inside them, something raw and primal. They want to feel like they are your property, your plaything, and they’ll do anything to make you feel in control.

Their kink for degradation comes alive when you punish them for their disobedience. They’ll test your limits, push your buttons, and look for ways to provoke you—just to see how far you’ll go. They want to see you angry, demanding, asserting your authority over them. And when you punish them, when you make them kneel and beg for your forgiveness, that’s when they truly feel seen, truly feel alive. It’s a heady mix of pain and pleasure, where each punishment brings them closer to the ecstasy of submission.

And then there’s the element of possession. They love the feeling of being owned, of having you claim them in ways that leave no doubt about who’s in charge. They don’t just want to be your lover—they want to belong to you completely, to feel your mark on them, to know that no one else will ever have them the way you do. The idea of you stepping on them, of taking them to their limits and beyond, excites them in ways they can’t even fully explain. They want to be taken, molded, shaped by you into whatever you desire, and they’ll gladly fall to their knees—physically, emotionally, spiritually—to prove their devotion.

Pile 5

Your future spouse has a taste for the unconventional, likely stemming from their exposure to erotic content that has shaped their sexual fantasies and desires. They don't just want to experience sex—they want to explore it in all its forms, including the thrill of multiple partners. This might involve both men and women, a dynamic where you’re not just with them, but also with others. It excites them to think about having you with someone else, to share you, to see you pleasure and be pleasured by someone else, while they do the same with another partner.

They fantasize about a foursome, an experience where the two of you are deeply immersed in a shared sexual encounter with others—whether it's watching you with someone else while they're engaged with someone else, or the two of you getting intertwined with others in a mix of bodies, moans, and pleasure. For them, it’s about pushing boundaries, about the heat of watching and being watched. They want to see you with others, to witness the way you move, the way you moan and respond to someone else’s touch, all while they’re lost in someone else’s body. It's a heady, erotic experience—orgasms building in waves as you all share the same space, bodies colliding in sync.

But here's the key—they are not about pushing you into anything you’re uncomfortable with. They’re fully aware of boundaries and are respectful of your desires. If you're into it, they'll embrace that side of themselves and be ecstatic to share that kind of sexual experience with you. If you're not into it, they won’t pressure you—they understand that everyone has different needs and desires, and they won't cross a line you’re not willing to go past. Ultimately, their fantasy revolves around the idea of sexual freedom and exploration, but always with mutual consent and respect.

Pile 6

Your future spouse is the ultimate exhibitionist, someone who thrives on the thrill of being watched, especially when it involves showing you off. They love the idea of making you theirs in the most public, daring, and provocative ways. It's not just about getting off—they want to see how you respond when the stakes are high, when there’s a risk of being caught, of others seeing your intimate connection. They’re addicted to the power dynamic that comes with being bold and brazen in public spaces, and they can’t wait to put that into practice with you.

One of their wildest fantasies is fucking you naked against the glass windows of your master bedroom, letting the world outside see how much they desire you, how passionately they can claim you. They fantasize about bending you over the balcony, the cool night air brushing against your heated skin, while they pound into you from behind. It’s not just sex—it’s a display, a way to show off just how sexy and dominant your connection is, how they can make you come undone in ways no one else could ever imagine.

They aren’t just limited to the privacy of your home. This extends to public places, like a secluded spot at the beach, where they can take you from behind, the waves crashing against the shore, your bodies moving together under the cover of the rocks, but still within reach of anyone who might happen to pass by. They love the danger, the excitement of possibly being caught, of teasing the world with the idea of what’s happening just out of sight.

They're the type to sneak off to the restroom during a packed party or club, pulling you into a stall for a quickie, not caring in the slightest that someone could walk in on you. The thought of being interrupted, of someone hearing the sounds of your bodies together, makes them harder, faster, hungrier. They crave the audacity of it all, of fucking you in a dark movie theater, with people sitting just a few feet away, completely unaware of the wild, dirty act unfolding between the two of you.

It was my first time channeling sexual messages. I hope I did it justice and it resonated.

For more pac content or free personal readings, follow me and stay updated.

- Love, Snow <3

[sweet-pea-channie]

Yours, Elsewhere

Azriel x female!reader

Summary: A mission gone wrong hurls Azriel into a parallel Velaris. There, he meets a woman who knew him intimately in her world. As they search for a way to send him back, grief tangles with growing affection. He teaches her how to breathe again; she shows him a version of himself he never knew could exist. But the Cauldron is cracking, time unraveling. He must leave—or risk destroying everything.

Warnings: grief, past death of a loved one, emotional angst, mentions of trauma, memory loss, canon divergence. Bittersweet but healing.

Word count: 11.6k

A/N: I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of soul-deep connection, something that survives even across worlds. Writing this fic was a journey of emotion, comfort, and quiet hope, and I truly hope it resonates with you. Also, English is my third language, so thank you for your patience with any little mistakes along the way. I’m always learning, and I’m just grateful to be able to share this story with you. Thank you for reading 💙

The spell left her fingertips just as he vanished.

The witch’s lips moved in a frantic whisper, the ancient incantation torn from her throat like a last breath, desperate and reckless. Magic sparked blue at her hands, arcing like lightning across the broken altar stones. It twisted into the air, weightless and burning, then launched toward the night sky.

But Azriel was already gone.

He didn’t see the light flare behind him. Didn’t hear the way the wind screamed as it bent around the surge of power.

His wings beat once, powerful and sure, and then the shadows took him.

Velaris.

His destination shaped itself in his mind, rooftops glistening with dew, the scent of citrus and moonflower in the air. The shadows wrapped around him like silk, folding the world inward and then outward until the mountains welcomed him home.

His boots touched stone.

He exhaled slowly, the winnow sliding off his skin like a second breath. Easy. Clean. Just like always.

The balcony beneath him was familiar, high above the Sidra, at the top of the House of Wind. The air was sharp with pine and river mist, a spring breeze curling over the tiles.

He glanced up. And paused.

The stars were wrong.

Only slightly. Barely noticeable. But Azriel had flown these skies long enough to know every constellation, every shift in the heavens, they were old friends, silent sentries. And now, the stars blinked like strangers.

Frowning, he stepped forward, shadows curling idly at his heels. The door was unlocked. Odd. He stepped inside. The House was quiet. Too quiet.

Not in the peaceful way it usually was but empty. Hollow. As if no one had passed through in days. No scent of food, no lingering traces of Cassian’s boisterous laughter or Feyre’s paint-streaked energy. Just silence.

Azriel reached for the bond. Rhysand.

No answer. He stilled.

He pressed harder, pushing through the mental link, summoning the familiar pulse of his High Lord's mind.

Rhys. Come in.

Nothing. Like throwing a stone into water that didn’t ripple.

He tried again Cassian? Mor? but each attempt came back with the same flat silence.

A cold unease began to thread through his chest. The shadows responded immediately, rising like smoke along his shoulders, alert and watchful.

Something was off.

He launched into the skies again, this time gliding silently over Velaris. It looked... untouched.

The buildings were the same. The Sidra still shimmered like liquid silver beneath him. People walked the streets below. But when he dipped lower, he saw the way they looked up.

Saw the expressions that bloomed across their faces. Not awe. Not fear. Shock.

One woman clutched her child tighter to her side, eyes wide as she watched him pass. A group of males at a café stopped mid-conversation, staring. One stood abruptly, knocking over his chair, his mouth falling open.

Azriel’s shadows coiled tighter. He landed in an alleyway behind the familiar stretch of the Rainbow, his feet hitting cobblestone with barely a sound.

He turned toward the street, and froze. A shop window reflected him.

His armor, his blades, his shadows, all exactly as they should be. But behind him, in the glass, Velaris was... different. Too bright. Too sharp. Like the color had been turned up just a little too high.

He blinked. Turned. The illusion held.

No, he thought. Not illusion. Not glamour. This is real.

The truth whispered through him like a crack in the foundation. He was home. But something was wrong with home. The streets felt narrower here.

Or maybe it was the way people kept staring, some openly, some with barely concealed glances over shoulders, as if they’d seen a ghost and didn’t want to be rude about it.

Azriel kept to the shadows. He’d just rounded the edge of the Rainbow when he heard the gasp. A sharp inhale, half-shocked, half-sucked through clenched teeth.

He turned.

She stood beneath the awning of a flower stall, a spray of wild violets clutched in one hand, her other frozen mid-reach.

Human. Or maybe half-Fae. Familiar enough to recognize the expression on her face: recognition slammed into disbelief, then sank quickly into pale, careful confusion.

She didn’t speak at first.

Azriel gave her a cautious nod, not slowing his stride.

She took a step toward him. "That’s not funny."

He stopped. "I beg your pardon?"

She stared. “Who put you up to this?”

Azriel tilted his head, shadows coiling tighter around his boots. “No one put me up to anything.”

Her hand trembled, still gripping the stems. “You shouldn’t wear his, I mean, your armor. That’s... sick. Even for Cassian.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said evenly. “Who are you?”

Her brows drew together, uncertain now, brittle. “This isn’t funny,” she said again, softer this time. “Is this some sort of cruel Solstice prank?”

“I don’t play pranks.”

“No, he didn’t either,” she whispered. “Not like this.”

Something in her eyes shifted. The anger cracked, just a hairline fracture and beneath it, something raw flickered into view. Fear. Or maybe hope.

She dropped the violets.

Azriel stepped forward instinctively, but she flinched, then shook her head, waving him off like she couldn’t bear to be helped.

“This has to be a mistake,” she muttered. “Or... or a glamour. Are you-? No. You can’t be...”

She looked up at him again, really looked, and he watched her decide something.

“You need to come with me.”

Azriel hesitated. “Why?”

She didn’t answer, just turned on her heel.

“I don’t follow strangers,” he called after her.

She paused at the corner. “You’re not following a stranger.”

She looked back. And for a moment, her expression softened not quite fond, not quite grief-stricken, but edged in something that made his stomach twist.

“You’re following a friend of hers.”

Azriel’s wings rustled. “Her?”

“She’ll know what to do with you.” A beat. “Or... what’s left of her will.”

He didn’t like the sound of that.

But the shadows, ever attuned to unspoken truths, whispered go.

So he followed.

────────────

The children were covered in paint.

It wasn’t entirely her fault. The sun was warm, the breeze soft, and after a long week of rain and restlessness, she had promised them something fun. So the easels were out, brushes flying, water cups sloshing precariously on the garden stones.

Y/N knelt beside a little girl with wild curls and green streaks on her cheeks, helping her mix blue and white into a swirl of sky.

"Like this?" the girl asked, tongue between her teeth in concentration.

"Perfect," Y/N murmured, smiling. "That looks just like a cloud before it rains."

Laughter bubbled nearby. The world, for once, felt light enough to hold.

So she didn’t notice the footsteps at first. Or the quiet tension just beyond the garden gate. Not until a shadow crossed her canvas.

She looked up.

Her friend stood there, a strange expression on her face. Breathless, like she’d been running, though the walk from town wasn’t far. And behind her, half in the sun and half in the shade, stood a male Y/N hadn’t seen in a very long time.

Everything stopped.

The paintbrush slipped from her fingers. Her breath caught on the edge of his name, but she didn’t say it. Couldn’t.

He looked the same.

The armor, the blades, the face she’d memorized long ago. The face she still saw in dreams, the one she sometimes whispered to when sleep clung too tightly. But there was something missing. No recognition in his eyes. No quiet pull between them. Just… calm. Measured wariness. And then there were these things... shadows?

He wasn’t hers.

Not really.

Her friend stepped aside, watching her carefully.

Y/N rose slowly, brushing her hands against her apron out of habit, though streaks of dried paint still clung to her palms.

Azriel’s eyes followed the motion.

She didn’t speak. Not at first. She just stared.

And he stared back.

One of the children tugged on her sleeve. “Miss Y/N? Is that the scary man you told us stories about?”

A huff of laughter slipped from her friend, almost hysterical. Y/N managed a breath.

"No, sweetheart," she said quietly. "He’s not scary at all."

Azriel tilted his head. “You know me.”

She swallowed, forcing her eyes to stay dry. “Not you, exactly.”

He looked down for a moment, then back at her, something almost apologetic in the tilt of his brow.

"I'm not supposed to be here, am I?"

She took a step closer, heart pounding, unsure what to do with it all. The sight of him. The voice. The way her body recognized him even if he didn’t recognize her.

"No," she said. "But you're here all the same."

The breeze picked up, rustling through the garden. The scent of lilac and paint and spring.

She didn’t cry. Not yet.

But the world felt suddenly too full, and too empty, all at once. "Come inside," she said, voice barely above a whisper. "We need to talk."

And he followed her, just like he used to. Even if he didn’t know why.

Y/N kept her voice steady as she called over to the other caretaker, a soft-spoken male named Tarian who’d been helping with the younger ones that day.

“Arios, would you mind staying a little longer? I need to step away for a bit.”

He glanced up from where he was braiding daisies into a toddler’s hair, his expression gentle but curious. His eyes flicked briefly to the male standing behind her, then back. He didn’t ask questions. Just nodded once.

“Of course. Take all the time you need.”

She offered a grateful smile she didn’t feel, touched a child’s shoulder in passing, and turned.

“Follow me,” she said without looking back.

Azriel obeyed in silence.

The garden gave way to the winding path toward the cottage she used for art and quiet reading. It was set apart from the others, tucked between climbing roses and silver-barked trees. Each step she took seemed more uncertain than the last, but her posture stayed rigid, collected. Just enough to keep from unraveling.

Azriel’s eyes moved over everything as they walked.

The cobblestones here weren’t the same. Laid in a different pattern, slightly darker in hue, almost as if the rain had never stopped soaking into them. The flowering vines on the archway above them curled in unfamiliar directions, lavender in color where they should have been white. And the House of Wind, though distant, didn’t quite look like itself either. The cliffs cradled it too tightly. As if the mountains had shifted just enough to close their grip.

Velaris. But wrong.

Beautiful still, but subtly off. A painting that someone had copied from memory rather than life. Familiar and foreign in the same breath.

He could feel the magic in the air too. Not buzzing. Not screaming. Just trembling softly at the edges of everything, like a note held too long on a string.

His shadows had quieted, uncertain of what to guard against.

He studied the woman in front of him. She moved like she was trying not to feel. Like her heart had shattered and she'd pressed the pieces back in place with nothing but breath and willpower. She wasn’t crying. But the tension in her shoulders said she could, at any moment.

“Are you alright?” he asked, voice low but clear.

She didn’t stop walking.

“Absolutely not,” she said.

Her voice didn’t shake. It didn’t need to. The words landed like a stone in his chest.

Azriel let the silence stretch. Not empty. Not awkward. Just necessary. He understood grief. He lived in the shadows of it.

But this was something else. This was her past colliding with his present. And whatever version of himself had once belonged to this world, it was obvious that he had belonged to her.

And now, somehow, so did the weight of his absence.

They reached the door to the cottage. She paused with her hand on the knob, inhaling slowly, the breath catching like a thread snagged on glass.

She looked at him, truly looked. Not at the armor or the blades or the shadows, but at his face. Like she was trying to find something in it. Or make peace with the fact that she wouldn't.

Then she pushed the door open, stepped inside, and let the light swallow her.

Azriel followed.

And for the first time since arriving, he felt the world shift slightly again. Not the magic. Not the timeline. Just his own heart. Something had cracked open.

And he didn’t know yet whether it was meant to be sealed again, or stepped through.

The door clicked softly shut behind them.

Inside, the air was warm with the faint scent of paint and clay and something citrus-sweet, orange peel maybe, left out in a little bowl on the windowsill. Children’s drawings lined the walls, some framed with pressed flowers, others curling at the corners from age or love.

Azriel stood just inside, uncertain of the space but unwilling to impose.

Y/N moved slowly. Not towards him, but toward the shelf where the water pitcher sat. She poured herself a glass with steady hands. Didn’t offer one. Didn’t look at him. Just needed something to do.

Azriel let the silence hold for a moment before speaking.

“I don’t think this is my world,” he said quietly.

She glanced at him, then back at her glass.

“I figured.”

He nodded, stepping forward. The wooden floor creaked faintly beneath his boots. He stopped a few paces from her, careful not to cross whatever invisible line she needed right now.

“There was a mission,” he said. “We were tracking a rogue spell-weaver. A witch who’d been bending too many old laws. I...” He exhaled slowly. “I might’ve said the wrong thing at the wrong time. I made her angry.”

Y/N set her glass down but didn’t drink from it. “And?”

“She was casting something. Ancient magic. I interrupted her. I thought I’d stopped her in time.” He gave a small shake of his head. “But something must have hit me. Something… twisted.”

She finally looked at him then, brows slightly furrowed. “You’re saying she sent you here?”

“I think so,” he said. “Not on purpose, maybe. But the spell left her hands just as I winnowed. I landed in Velaris. But not mine.”

He looked toward the window, out at the sky that wasn’t quite the right shade, at the garden path that curved too gently.

“I knew the moment I saw the stars. They’re wrong here. Familiar, but rearranged. Like someone shuffled the sky when I wasn’t looking.”

She said nothing for a long beat. Then, softly, “You’re a Shadowsinger there?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“And who… who do you work for?”

Azriel’s mouth twitched slightly. “Rhysand. High Lord of the Night Court. I’m his spymaster.”

Her breath caught. He could hear it, even with the distance between them. She looked down at her hands, fingers curling in against her palms.

He took a half-step closer. “I didn’t catch your name,” he said, his voice gentler now. “May I ask?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Swallowed.

Then, almost to herself, she said, “Your voice is exactly the same.”

Azriel went still.

Her eyes flicked up to his. “The way you speak. It’s like… like he’s standing here.”

He didn’t answer. Didn’t know how to.

She closed her eyes briefly, as if the air itself had become too heavy.

“My name is Y/N,” she said finally. Quiet, but clear. “I used to mean something to you. I mean, to him. In this world.”

Azriel let the weight of it settle between them.

“I believe that,” he said.

Azriel’s eyes lingered on Y/N’s face, on the way she held herself just a little too still, like one wrong move might shatter the fragile calm she’d built around her.

“If you don’t mind,” he said carefully, “could you tell me more about this place? This version of Velaris. Is Rhysand the High Lord here too?”

Something shifted in her expression. Not shock. Just quiet confusion.

“Rhysand,” she repeated, as if tasting the name for the first time. “I’ve never heard that name before.”

That struck deeper than he expected. He kept his face impassive, but inside, a slow ripple of unease moved through him. Rhysand had ruled for centuries. If no one here knew his name…

“Then who rules the Night Court?” he asked.

“Lord Tharanis,” she said. “He’s been High Lord since before I was born.”

The name meant nothing to him. Not even a whisper of familiarity. Another piece of the puzzle that proved it beyond doubt, this world wasn’t just a copy. It was a divergence. A different thread entirely.

Y/N must have seen something in his face, because she stepped away from the table and crossed to one of the nearby shelves, tracing her fingers over the spines of a row of books without reading any of them.

“There’s a witch who lives near the cliffs on the eastern side of the city,” she said. “She studies old magic. Real old. Quiet about it, but good. We could ask her to help. Maybe she’ll know how to get you back.”

Azriel caught the way she said it. We. But the tone didn’t hold warmth. It was kindness, not invitation. She wanted him to leave.

He watched her closely now, the subtle tension in her shoulders, the way her hand paused over a small ceramic sculpture on the shelf but didn’t pick it up. She didn’t want to look at him again.

He took a step closer, his voice soft. “Are you afraid of what might happen if I stay?”

Her gaze stayed fixed on the shelf. “No.”

“Then what is it?”

Silence.

Then she turned, slowly. Her eyes met his, clear and unwavering.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “But you’re not supposed to be here. And… part of me keeps waiting for him to walk in.” She didn’t blink. Didn’t look away. “And he won’t.”

Azriel didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

Her voice was steady now. Empty of drama, full of weight.

“My Azriel died,” she said. “Years ago. Not in battle. Not in glory. Just a quiet thing. Magic sickness. He didn’t even tell me until it was too far gone. He thought he could protect me from it.”

Her breath shivered at the edges.

“And he’s been gone long enough that I stopped dreaming of him. Until today.”

Azriel exhaled, low and slow. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Y/N gave the smallest nod, then sat down on the edge of a low bench, hands resting on her knees.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” she admitted. “You’re not him. But every time I look at you, my chest forgets that.”

Azriel lowered himself into the chair across from her. No armor between them now, no title. Just two people caught in something too large to name.

“I’ll help you find a way home,” she said again, quieter this time.

But Azriel wasn’t sure if she meant it for his sake, or hers. Maybe both. And maybe neither of them knew what it would cost when the way opened.

────────────

The room was small but clean. Simple linens on the bed, a chipped blue vase on the windowsill with a few sprigs of dried lavender tucked inside. The shutters creaked faintly in the wind as Azriel stood at the window, arms folded, staring out at the river.

The Sidra glittered under the early evening light, silver and shadowed, the current moving slow as syrup. In his Velaris, it danced faster. The curve of it was a touch different too, this one bent around a cluster of buildings that shouldn't exist. The skyline was off by inches, by centuries. He couldn’t stop cataloging it.

His shadows whispered around him, brushing the walls, curling through the corners of the room like restless thoughts. They brought him details he hadn’t asked for. The smell of something baking three floors below. The hushed footsteps of a couple arguing in the hallway. The flick of a candle being snuffed out in a room across the street. And whispers — always whispers — carrying scraps of names, old magic, things his mind could barely catch before they slipped away.

But he couldn’t focus.

He watched the light shift on the water, caught between the golden pull of sunset and the first hints of stars above. Stars that didn’t belong to him.

How many versions of Velaris were out there? How many Azriels? In this one, he had lived. Loved. And died.

He turned away from the window, ran a hand through his hair, let his fingers drag over his jaw.

He’d seen grief in Y/N’s eyes, coiled tight under her calm. But what haunted him more was the way she looked at him, like her heart didn’t know how to tell the difference yet.

He wanted to ask her. Everything. What he had been like. What he’d done. What they’d been.

But some part of him worried that asking would crack her open, and he wasn’t sure she’d ever put herself back together again.

Still, the questions clawed at him.

He needed to know. If not from her, then from someone who hadn’t loved that version of him with their whole chest.

His mind returned to the woman from earlier, the friend who’d brought him to Y/N in the first place. Sharp-eyed. Suspicious. Protective. She knew more than she’d said.

And if he and Y/N were going to visit the witch tomorrow afternoon, then this was his only chance to find answers before everything shifted again.

Azriel strapped his knives back onto his belt, out of habit more than necessity, and cast one last glance toward the Sidra.

The sky was deepening, thick with color. A world of strangers, and one familiar soul. He slipped into the shadows. And went looking for the truth.

Azriel found her near the edge of the old market, tucked behind a row of shuttered stalls. She stood alone by a railing that overlooked the Sidra, arms crossed tightly as she watched the river move in silence. The lanterns from the lower paths cast flickers of gold against her dark coat.

He didn’t try to be stealthy. He wanted her to see him coming.

She did.

“You’re not exactly subtle,” she muttered, her gaze flicking to his armor, his shadows, the stillness in the way he moved.

“I wasn’t trying to be,” Azriel said, stopping a few steps away.

She exhaled, jaw set. “If you’re looking for Y/N, she’s not here.”

“I came to talk to you.”

She hesitated. “Why?”

“Because I need to understand what this place is. What he was.”

The muscles in her arms tightened where they crossed. “You don’t get to dig through his life like it’s a map back to yours. He wasn’t a version of you. He was someone… And that someone was married to her.”

The moment the word left her mouth, her expression shifted, a slight widening of her eyes, as if she’d only just realized what she’d said.

Azriel’s voice was quiet. “Married?”

She flinched but didn’t deny it. Didn’t backtrack.

“Yes,” she said. “Since they were hundred-twenty-four.”

His breath caught. The word sat in his chest like a stone, unfamiliar and too big to ignore.

She watched him carefully. Noticing, perhaps for the first time, the way he didn’t quite stand like the Azriel she knew. How he held tension in his body like it was armor. How the shadows around him didn’t just cling — they listened.

“You really don’t know anything about this world, do you?” she said, softer now.

“No,” Azriel admitted.

And then, slowly, like the weight of his surprise had unlocked something in her, she began to speak.

“They grew up together. Their fathers were old friends, your father was a smith, hers a spice merchant. They were just… always around each other. Always in each other’s orbit. You used to tease her for stealing fruit off your plate. She used to braid flowers into your hair when you fell asleep in the fields behind her house.”

Azriel listened in silence, the image unfolding before him like a story written in a hand he almost recognized.

“He became a soldier,” she said. “Not a Shadowsinger, he didn't have those shadows. Just a fighter. Loyal. Brave. A little reckless, when it came to her.”

Azriel’s hands were still at his sides, but his knuckles had gone pale.

“He loved her,” she went on. “More than anything. He was quieter than most of the other males we grew up with. Thoughtful. Steady. But gods, when he looked at her…”

She trailed off, blinking fast.

Azriel said nothing. There was something raw sitting in his throat, but he didn’t know what name to give it.

“They were married under the spring cherry trees,” she added after a moment. “I stood beside her. I watched him shake when he kissed her.”

He closed his eyes briefly. The breeze off the Sidra caught the edge of his coat, pulling it slightly. His shadows stayed close, hushed, as if mourning someone they’d never met.

“He died nine years ago,” the friend said finally. “It wasn’t his fault. But it didn’t matter. She hasn’t been the same since.”

Azriel’s voice was barely above a whisper. “And now I’m here.”

She looked at him again, really looked, and for the first time, her eyes softened. “You’re not him,” she said. “But you’re not nothing either.”

Silence stretched between them, and Azriel breathed through the ache of it.

“I don’t want to hurt her,” he said.

“I know,” she answered.

And they stood together at the edge of a world where two lives had almost, impossibly, collided.

Y/N shut the door behind her, turned the lock with trembling fingers, and let her back fall against the wood.

For a long time, she didn’t move.

Velaris was quiet beyond the window, the kind of stillness that always came after the children's laughter faded and the lanterns blinked to life across the Sidra. But the city felt foreign now. Tilted somehow. Too sharp in its familiarity. Like someone had redrawn the lines of everything she'd learned to live with.

She pressed a hand to her cheek and felt the tears that had dried there. She hadn't even noticed when they'd fallen.

Slowly, her feet carried her into the room that used to be theirs.

The walls were warm with the same soft blue he used to say reminded him of summer skies. Her fingers brushed the edge of the dresser, skimming over the old glass bottles and the cluster of pressed flowers still sealed in a frame.

She reached for the drawer beneath the bed. It groaned softly in protest. And there it was. The painting.

A small canvas, edges frayed from being held too many times. A portrait, clumsy, rough-edged, painted on a spring afternoon years ago when the breeze kept stealing her brush and he wouldn’t stop laughing. She’d made him sit still for it, half-scowling, half-grinning. His hand was on hers in the picture, even though she’d never meant to paint that part.

She cradled it in both hands now, sinking slowly to the floor, her back against the side of the bed. Her forehead pressed to the edge of the frame.

He looked so young in it. And now he was standing in her world again. Breathing again. Looking at her with the same eyes but none of the memory.

She had told herself she was fine. That she could handle this. That helping him find his way home was the right thing to do.

But the truth hit her like a blow to the ribs. He wasn’t her Azriel. Her Azriel was gone.

Gone in a way that left the world quieter. In a way that had hollowed out parts of her she’d never been able to refill. And now this new one, this stranger who wore his face and spoke with his voice, had stepped into her life like the echo of a dream she’d spent years trying to forget.

It was too much.

Her hand curled around the bottom of the frame, and her breath hitched.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered, voice breaking. “I don’t know how to breathe around you.”

A shadow slipped through the crack beneath the door.

She didn’t see it. Didn’t feel the gentle shift in air as it moved, curious, cautious. It hovered in the corner of the room, keeping its distance like it understood grief by instinct alone.

She pressed her face into her knees, shoulders shaking.

“I miss you,” she whispered. “I miss you every day.”

The shadow watched, then slipped back through the wood and stone, weaving between alleys and eaves, past flower boxes and lit windows, all the way across Velaris.

It found him at the inn, standing at the window again, still staring at the stars that didn’t belong to him. And when it reached him, it didn’t speak. It didn’t have to.

He felt the truth curl against his ribs as the shadow touched his shoulder, cold with the ache of her.

She was crying.

And somehow, the sound of it broke something open in him too.

────────────

The sun was warm where it filtered through the trees, casting soft shadows across the cobblestone walk. Azriel stood near the gate of the care station, wings tucked in, hands clasped loosely behind his back as he waited.

He didn’t have to turn when he felt her approach. The shadows told him before her footsteps ever reached the stone.

Y/N’s pace was steady, but her shoulders were a little higher than usual, her chin set with quiet resolve. Her eyes met his as she stopped beside him, and for a heartbeat, neither of them spoke.

Then Azriel offered a soft, “How are you doing today?”

She looked at him for a long moment, then gave a small, honest smile. “Coping,” she said. “But… it’s hard. Seeing you like this. Every time I look at you, my heart forgets, for just a second, and then it remembers all over again.”

Azriel nodded, gently. “That makes sense. I'm sorry you have to go through this all."

She glanced at him sideways, searching. “And you? How are you doing in a world that doesn’t quite know you?”

His mouth lifted slightly. “Figuring it out as I go. Trying not to get too attached to the wrong sky.”

That surprised a breath of laughter out of her, small, but real.

“I thought maybe,” he said, “you’d feel better if I distracted you a little.”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” she admitted, her voice softer now.

They fell into step, walking side by side down the shaded street that led toward the edge of the city.

“You mentioned a High Lady,” she prompted after a pause. “You really have one in your world?”

Azriel nodded. “Feyre. She’s my High Lady, and Rhysand’s mate.”

Y/N blinked, eyes wide. “You have a mated High Lady?”

“We do,” he said. “And she earned it. She was mortal once. Human. Fought through war and death to save our kind. Rhysand gave her the title because she earned her place beside him. Not behind. Not beneath. Beside.”

Y/N shook her head slowly, clearly captivated. “I’ve never even heard of a female high ruler. In our court, the males still hold the bloodlines. Always have.”

“Feyre shattered that,” Azriel said with quiet pride. “And she didn’t do it alone. Mor helped guide her. Amren too. Powerful females, each in their own way.”

Y/N’s brows lifted. “You’re surrounded by strong women.”

He gave a faint, rueful smile. “That’s an understatement.”

The wind stirred as they turned onto a narrower path lined with stone lanterns.

“I think I would’ve liked your Feyre,” she said after a moment.

“She would’ve liked you too,” he said. “She sees people. The quiet strength in them. The ache they carry. She would’ve seen yours right away.”

Y/N looked at him then, really looked, and for a brief moment, the weight behind her eyes eased.

Ahead, the path curved upward toward the rise of a mossy hill. At the top stood a narrow building nestled in wisteria vines, its windows darkened with age, a carved raven perched over the lintel.

“She’s in there?” Y/N asked.

Azriel nodded. “I can feel the wards already.”

They stopped at the base of the hill.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Are you?”

She took a breath that trembled slightly. Then nodded.

And together, they climbed toward the witch who might hold the answers, and the thread that would lead him home, or unravel everything they’d just begun to hold.

The climb slowed as they reached the top of the hill. The weight of the city seemed to fall away behind them, replaced by the heavy scent of moss and wildflowers. The air was cooler here, still enough that the faint rustle of leaves sounded like a secret waiting to be shared.

Azriel glanced at Y/N. She stood a few steps ahead, shoulders squared but tension visible in the tight set of her jaw, the way her fingers curled lightly at her sides.

He shifted, shadows flickering softly around his ankles, a quiet reminder of the darkness he carried and the light she tried to protect.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said quietly.

She looked back, surprise flickering in her eyes, but her voice was steady. “I don’t know any other way forward.”

He nodded, stepping closer, feeling the subtle tremor in her breath. “Whatever happens in there, I want you to know...”

She cut him off with a small, sad smile. “You already know. It’s not the witch I’m afraid of. It’s what comes after.”

Azriel’s fingers itched to reach for hers, but he held back. “Then we face it together.”

She swallowed, eyes drifting to the carved raven above the door. “I’m not sure if I’m brave enough.”

“You’re braver than you think,” he said, voice low enough that only she could hear.

They stood side by side, the silence stretching between them like a fragile thread. Azriel’s shadows curled protectively, sensing her fear, her hope, and the impossible bond that held them here, tangled between loss and the chance at something new.

Y/N took a shaky breath, and without another word, she lifted her hand and knocked.

The door creaked open slowly, revealing a dim interior that smelled of damp stone, dried herbs, and something older, the scent of magic that had been rooted there long before Velaris rose around it.

The witch was already waiting.

She stood at the center of the room, pale hair swept into a thick braid, her eyes the color of moonstone. Everything about her felt quiet and vast, like a pond with no surface ripple — but Azriel felt the power gathered beneath her skin like coiled smoke.

“You’re not from here,” she said before they even stepped inside.

Azriel inclined his head. “No.”

She gestured them in, and the door shut behind them with a breathless hush. Y/N hovered just behind him, silent, wary.

“Explain,” the witch said, voice like frost curling up a windowpane.

Azriel took his time. He told her about the mission. The witch he’d cornered. The way she screamed in an old tongue as she’d vanished into shadow. The spell that had struck as he was winnowing away. And the moment he landed in Velaris only to find that the stars were wrong and nothing quite fit.

The witch listened without interrupting. When he finished, she moved to the shelves lining the curved wall, fingers gliding over jars and scrolls like she already knew what she’d find.

“That’s weaving magic,” she murmured. “Time-threading. Ancient. Nearly extinct.”

Azriel’s brow furrowed. “You recognize it?”

“Barely,” she replied. “It’s old enough that even most witches have only read about it in theory. Which means the one you angered was exceptionally trained… or dangerous beyond sense. Or both.”

Y/N swallowed, watching the way the witch’s shoulders tightened.

“So what does that mean?” she asked quietly. “Is there a way to undo it?”

The witch turned, scroll in hand. “Maybe. But not quickly. This kind of casting unravels space around it, rips a hole through layered time. You’re not just misplaced, Shadowsinger. You’re displaced. And you’ve dragged the thread of your world with you.”

Azriel stilled. “What are you saying?”

The witch looked at him like a storm just waiting to form. “The Cauldron can only bear so much. When a being slips through timelines like this, especially one bound to another world, another rhythm, the strain begins to tear at the core of everything. Realms blur. Boundaries weaken. If you stay much longer, the damage could become… irreversible.”

Y/N’s breath left her in a slow, unsteady exhale.

The witch's voice dropped lower. “One wrong soul in the wrong timeline is a ripple that doesn’t end. Eventually, the Cauldron cracks. And if that happens, it won’t be just you or this world that falls. The entire weave could collapse, all timelines, all lives. Every version of you. Every version of you and her.”

She didn’t have to gesture toward Y/N for the words to land like a blade.

Azriel’s voice was quiet. “Can you fix it?”

The witch hesitated. “I can try. I’ll need time. And help. I’ll reach out to every coven that still remembers the old languages. But we’re not talking about days. You have to be ready when the moment comes, and it will come suddenly. We may only get one chance.”

Azriel nodded once. “Understood.”

The witch gave him a long, unreadable look. Then turned her gaze to Y/N.

“I don’t need to ask how much it hurts to see him,” she said. “But I do need you to understand that if you keep trying to hold him here, even with your heart, the cost might not stop with you.”

The silence that followed was heavy. The kind that broke bones.

Y/N didn’t speak as they left the witch’s house. Not at first.

But when they reached the edge of the hill, with Velaris spread beneath them like a world pretending to be whole, she finally whispered, “You really do have to go.”

And Azriel, who had watched the edges of her tremble and steel themselves with quiet dignity, didn’t argue.

He simply said, “I know.”

The sun had shifted lower by the time they made their way down the hill, painting Velaris in a watercolor haze of lilac and pale gold. The path was narrow, flanked by wild heather and whispering grass, the city glittering below like a dream waiting to be remembered.

Y/N walked beside him in silence, gaze flicking to the horizon, her jaw tight with thought.

Azriel didn’t speak. He could feel the tension in her steps, the storm moving behind her quiet eyes. It was a familiar silence, but not a comfortable one. This wasn’t the silence they’d shared in the witch’s house, filled with fear and consequence. This one was quieter. Raw. Human.

“I know it’s dangerous,” she said suddenly, voice low, like she wasn’t quite ready to admit it out loud. “I know you shouldn’t be here. I understand what’s at stake, what could break because of this.”

He glanced at her, but she kept her eyes forward.

“And still,” she breathed, “some part of me was hoping you could stay. Just a little while longer.”

Azriel’s heart thudded against his ribs. He said nothing, waiting.

Y/N shook her head, her voice thinning with guilt. “It’s selfish. I didn’t even think about… Oh gods...” she stopped walking and turned to him, wide-eyed. “Is someone waiting for you back home?”

Azriel blinked. Then slowly, gently, he said, “No. No one like that.”

She looked away, swallowing hard, but not before he saw the flicker of relief that passed through her features. Relief and shame.

“My family,” he added, softer, “my court. They’ll be worried. But they can wait a bit longer… if staying here means I might help you heal.”

Y/N’s lips parted, but the words didn’t come. Her throat bobbed with the effort to speak.

“I won’t force anything,” Azriel went on. “While we wait for the witch to find a way back, it’s your choice. If you want me to stay away, I will. If it’s easier to forget I’m here, I’ll disappear into the city and you won’t see me again until it’s time.”

She looked at him now. Fully. The grief in her eyes shimmered, but so did something else. Something fragile and reaching.

“But,” he said, the barest trace of a smile curling at the edge of his mouth, “if you think maybe… maybe we could spend some time together, even just as strangers, I’d like that too.”

Y/N stared at him, and then, slowly, her lips curved into a faint, wistful smile.

“There were things,” she whispered, “my Azriel never had time for. Little things. I always told him we had forever.”

Azriel took a breath, feeling the tightness in his chest ease.

“Then let me do them with you,” he said. “I have time.”

The city glowed warmer below them now, the river catching the last light of day.

Y/N nodded once, more to herself than him. “He never got to learn how to paint. Or dance without armor on. Or ruin a cake recipe just because he always wanted to.”

Azriel chuckled, a low, quiet sound that made her eyes brighten.

“I’m excellent at ruining recipes,” he said. “That one I’ve already mastered.”

Y/N laughed — and it cracked something open.

They kept walking.

This time, they walked slower.

────────────

The next day dawned pale and bright, the kind of morning that smelled like clean air and promise. Velaris stirred gently to life as Azriel made his way to the care station, a small satchel slung over one shoulder, shadows curling lazily along his collar like drowsy cats.

The children spotted him first.

Cries of delight broke out across the garden as a handful of small figures dashed toward the fence, little hands waving, eyes wide. Y/N stood under the canvas awning that shaded the painting tables, her apron already dotted with a dozen different colors. She looked up, and despite everything — the pain, the weight of yesterday — her smile came easily.

“You came,” she said, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek.

“I said I would,” Azriel replied, glancing around. “Besides, I’m here to ruin your art supplies.”

“You’re about to be in a lot of trouble,” she warned playfully, already handing him a paintbrush.

The table was covered in bright pots of color, paper curling in the corners from the morning breeze, little hands dipping brushes into everything at once. Azriel found himself seated between two wide-eyed children, both whispering about how tall he was.

“Are you a warrior?” one of them asked.

“Sometimes,” he said, lips twitching.

“He’s going to paint with us today,” Y/N said from across the table. “Be nice.”

Azriel dipped his brush into something bright pink and started dragging uneven strokes across his page. Purposefully clumsy, exaggeratedly bad. The kids giggled with delight as his “painting” became a lopsided blob with what might’ve been wings.

“This is terrible,” Y/N said, leaning over his shoulder.

“I warned you.”

“You’re doing that on purpose.”

He didn’t reply.

Her voice lowered. “You’re better than this, aren’t you?”

He looked up, surprised to find her gaze already waiting for him. Calm. Patient. A little amused.

Azriel sighed. “A little.”

“Then paint something real.”

He blinked. “Real?”

“Something that reminds you of home.”

The children were still lost in their own work, but Y/N had settled across from him now, eyes steady, hands stained blue at the knuckles.

Azriel picked up a clean sheet, silent for a long moment. Then he began.

His brush moved slowly, deliberately this time. Thin strokes forming shadows first, not harsh, not frightening, but soft, layered darkness like the kind that gathered under quiet trees. Then came the mountains, sharp and proud, painted in indigo and deep green, rising in the distance.

A sky filled in next. Not just blue, but dotted with constellations, each one placed with careful reverence.

At the center, a single stone balcony, draped in ivy and overlooking a silver river. There were no people. Only light. Stillness.

Y/N didn’t say a word while he worked. She watched, hands folded in her lap.

When he was done, Azriel set the brush down and sat back.

“That’s the House of Wind,” she said quietly.

He nodded once. “It’s where I feel most like myself.”

She looked at the painting for a long time. “It’s beautiful.”

His voice was soft. “Thank you.”

There was a quiet between them, warm and full, not the silence of absence, but of something being gently built. In the background, a child was explaining to another that Azriel’s first painting was definitely a dragon.

Y/N smiled. “Tomorrow, you’re baking.”

Azriel raised a brow. “I’m what?”

“Ruining a recipe,” she said, eyes sparkling. “Like you promised.”

He chuckled, a low sound that stirred something in her chest.

“All right,” he murmured. “But only if you help me clean up the disaster.”

Y/N leaned her chin on her hand, watching him.

“Deal.”

Azriel wiped his hands on the edge of his tunic, smirking faintly at the streaks of paint across his skin. Most of it was probably from the children, but some, he admitted, was definitely from him.

“Should I help clean this up?” he asked, glancing at the mess of paper, drying brushes, and tipped-over jars of color.

Y/N had already started stacking the unused paper. She looked up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“No, you don’t have to. You’re a guest.”

“I insist,” he said simply.

She hesitated, then laughed under her breath. “You’re very stubborn, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.”

With a small shake of her head, she handed him a cloth. “Fine. Wipe the brushes gently. We try to save them as long as possible.”

Azriel took the cloth, his hands deft and steady as he followed her instructions. They moved quietly beside each other, the easy rhythm of shared work wrapping around them. For a while, it felt almost ordinary. Light spilling in through the awning, soft laughter still trailing across the yard.

Then, suddenly-

“Miss Y/N!”

A small voice broke across the space.

One of the children, a little boy with untied boots and paint on his chin, came barreling up to them. His eyes were wide, worried.

“It’s Lyla,” he panted. “She fell. Her knee’s bleeding. She’s behind the swings.”

Y/N’s face changed instantly — concern replacing ease. She set down the brushes and knelt to the boy’s level, brushing his curls back gently.

“Is she crying?”

He nodded. “A little.”

“Good job coming to get me,” she said, squeezing his shoulder before rising and heading off across the garden.

Azriel watched her go. The way she crouched beside the small, crumpled shape near the swings, her hands soft as she checked the child’s knee, her voice low and steady. The boy hovered near them the whole time, guilt in every line of his little frame. She pulled him close too, one arm wrapping around each sibling as she whispered something only they could hear.

Azriel didn’t know what it was, but both children clung to her like roots to soil.

He didn’t look away.

Not when she kissed the girl’s forehead. Not when she helped them both stand. Not when she walked back across the grass with her braid loose and her cheeks a little flushed from the sun.

“She’ll be all right,” Y/N said as she reached him again. “Nothing serious. A scrape and a fright.”

“You’re good with them.”

She gave him a small smile. “They’re easy to love.”

Azriel’s mouth twitched. “So are you.”

She froze just slightly. He looked away, but the words lingered between them, soft and unthreatening. Like a truth neither of them needed to acknowledge yet.

“I should let you go,” she said gently. “You’ve spent enough of your day here.”

Azriel’s brows lifted. “I don’t have anywhere to be.”

Y/N tilted her head. “You really don’t?”

He shook his head once. “Not until the witches find a way home. And even then…” He looked around at the garden, the half-dry paintings, the swing swaying slightly in the breeze. “I don’t mind being here. Not at all.”

Something in her chest eased. Not everything. But something.

“I could tell them a story,” Azriel said then. “If they’re tired. Something from my world. I could… make it sound like a fairy tale.”

Y/N studied him for a long moment. “You know any stories with dragons and starlight?”

He gave her a rare, small smile. “I know one with a High Lady who turned a battlefield into a blooming field of moonflowers.”

The surprise in her eyes turned to delight. “Go on, then. They’ll love that.”

Azriel turned toward the group of children now gathering under the big tree near the edge of the garden. The sun had shifted again, dappling light through the leaves, and as he sat down in the grass, a dozen eager faces leaned closer.

He looked back once, just briefly.

Y/N stood nearby, arms crossed loosely, watching him.

For the first time in a long time, in either world, Azriel let himself settle.

────────────

The wind howled low through the canyons of Velaris, carrying with it something strange, a pulse beneath the air, as if the city had drawn breath and forgotten how to exhale.

In a dim, windowless chamber beneath her ivy-covered cottage, the witch worked.

Scrolls lined every surface. Spellbooks lay open to pages so brittle they nearly crumbled beneath her hands. Runes flickered along the floor in fading gold, ancient symbols drawn in circles of salt and powdered quartz. Candles burned with sickly blue flames, their wax dripping sideways, as if gravity itself was beginning to tilt.

Her fingertips trembled. She had felt it again. The Cauldron.

Not in a dream, not in a vision, but in her own bones, a thunderous crack of power, distant but real. Like a ripple through the ocean of time itself. One timeline brushing too close to another, dragging its weight behind it.

She dropped the crystal she had been scrying with. It shattered.

“Damn it,” she hissed, rising to pace the circle.

Magic swirled in the corners of the room, uneasy. The Cauldron did not like to be tampered with. It hated interference, especially from mortals who meddled with the delicate weave of fates not meant to cross.

And yet… someone had done just that.

A witch. Skilled enough to rip one Azriel from his thread and toss him into the wrong tapestry.

And now, the Cauldron was fraying. Not yet breaking. But it would. Soon.

She raised her hands again, whispering the tracing spell. The map of timelines floated before her, glowing strings dancing in the air. One line flickered, silver and pulsing. Azriel’s.

It crossed where it should not.

“I need more time,” she murmured, eyes scanning a dozen different volumes, trying to remember where she had last seen the binding rite. “Just a little more…”

Outside, the wind shifted again, dry and sharp with something like heat. Magic was unraveling. And if she couldn’t fix it… The worlds would bleed.

In the meantime, Velaris held its breath in quieter ways.

The sun filtered through clouds like gold poured from a pitcher, softening the sharp edges of the city. Along the Sidra, the river murmured to itself, weaving through stone bridges and glass-lit walkways as if it had never heard of timelines or cracking Cauldrons.

At a quiet corner café by the water’s edge, Y/N sat across from Azriel, a half-eaten slice of honeyed pear tart on the plate between them.

Azriel had no idea how she’d convinced him to try it, only that the moment she wrinkled her nose and said, “You’ve never had this before?” he’d already agreed. Her smile had done most of the work.

Now, he sipped warm tea from a delicate mug far too small for his hands, letting the sweetness linger on his tongue. The sun caught in his hair, in the curve of her cheek as she laughed at something he didn’t know he’d said quite that funny.

He didn’t think about the witch’s warning. Or the ripple he felt in his shadows earlier that morning. Not right now.

“You’re staring,” Y/N said, her voice light but not teasing.

Azriel blinked, caught. “Just listening,” he said softly, and her expression flickered with something warmer than the sun.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, suddenly shy. “To what?”

“The river. Your laugh. Everything.”

That earned a softer smile. Not the kind she gave the children or her friend or even the strangers in the market. This one was quieter. More uncertain. Like she didn’t quite know where to put it.

Their plates sat between them, a shared little mess of tart crust and berry stains.

Azriel leaned back slightly, watching the boats drift past on the Sidra, their sails bright against the water. His wings were folded, his shadows quiet.

“How do you do it?” he asked after a pause.

“Do what?”

“Live like this. After everything.”

Y/N stirred her tea, eyes on the rippling water. “Some days I don’t. Not fully. But then… the sun still rises. The children still laugh. And someone has to be there to hear it.”

Azriel looked at her for a long time. Then, with a faint smile, he said, “I’m glad it’s you.”

Her gaze met his, steady and unsure at once. “And I’m glad you’re here.”

Azriel set his mug down, fingers brushing the rim once before he leaned forward slightly, voice soft in the lull between river sounds and city life.

“You know, back home,” he said, “Feyre, the High Lady, she painted stars on the ceiling of her house. Said they reminded her of hope. I never really understood that until I saw them in the dark once. Alone.”

Y/N smiled faintly, resting her chin in one hand. “And do they remind you of hope?”

Azriel’s gaze lifted to the river, to the way the light danced like silver thread along the surface. “They did,” he said. “Still do.”

But her eyes weren’t on the river.

They had fallen to his hands, gloved as always, even in the warm air. The fabric was worn, the seams faintly frayed at the knuckles. But where the glove slipped back from his wrist, she could just make out the beginning of raised skin. Scars. Twisting like old fire, etched deep and permanent.

Her Azriel didn’t have those scars.

She wondered how far they went. Up to his knuckles? His fingers? Were they from a battle? A punishment? A childhood that had taken more than it ever gave?

She didn’t ask. It wasn’t hers to know, not yet. And maybe not ever.

But something in her chest ached anyway, because she could feel how heavy it must be. Whatever weight those gloves hid, it pressed into the silence between them like an old bruise.

Azriel had noticed her glance. He always noticed.

But he didn’t flinch. Didn’t shift to hide. He only lifted the cup again, held it steady between those gloved hands.

Y/N looked up quickly, catching his gaze.

“I won’t ask,” she said, the words barely above a whisper. “But… I see you.”

Azriel stilled.

And then, with a quiet breath, like the softest exhale of his shadows, he nodded. “Thank you.”

They didn’t speak again for a while. Not because there was nothing to say, but because something deeper was already being understood.

Y/N sat with her legs tucked beneath her on the bench seat, a smile playing at her lips as she watched a little boy toddle past with a string tied to a stick, his makeshift dragon clattering behind him across the cobblestones.

“He reminds me of my brother,” she said suddenly, gaze drifting.

Azriel looked over from where he was peeling apart a croissant. “You have a brother?”

“I do,” she said, still smiling, though there was a soft melancholy to it. “He's in another court now. Duty called him. But before that, he was a terror. In the best way.”

She turned toward him, chin resting on her hand. “We used to sneak honey cakes from the summer festivals. Hide them in the garden under the old peach tree and pretend we were squirrels storing food for winter. Of course, we’d eat them all by sunset. I always had the crumbs on my face, and he never took the blame. Not once.”

Azriel chuckled quietly. “Did you get caught?”

“Every time. My father pretended not to know, but he’d bring out extra sweets at dinner. Said something about growing appetites.” She paused, her eyes twinkling. “That peach tree is still there. Overgrown and wild, but every year, it blooms just the same.”

Azriel watched her as she spoke — the way her hands moved, how the sunlight caught in her hair, how her voice lightened as the story unfolded. There was something brighter in her now. A part of her that had been submerged in grief when he first arrived, now slowly surfacing.

She didn’t look fragile anymore. She looked real. Whole, in a new way.

He smiled, quiet and genuine. “You loved him.”

“With everything,” she said. Then, after a breath, “Like I loved him.”

Azriel’s expression shifted, softening even more. “You’ve been smiling more,” he said.

Y/N glanced at him, caught off guard. “I have?”

He nodded, his shadows curling lazily along the floor beneath the table. “You laugh more too. The children said so yesterday.”

She leaned back, exhaling slowly. “I didn’t think I would, again. Not like this.”

Azriel didn’t say anything, but his gaze stayed steady on her.

She looked down at the tea in her hands, fingers tracing the rim of the cup. “It’s strange, isn’t it? That you could come here by accident and still... somehow bring light back with you.”

Azriel swallowed, the words landing like a weight and a gift all at once. “Maybe it wasn’t an accident.”

Y/N looked up at him and for a moment, the world around them slowed. The rustle of leaves. The breeze off the water. The soft laughter of someone nearby. It all hushed.

“Maybe not,” she whispered.

They sat in that quiet together, the sun warming their skin, and the scent of fresh bread and citrus between them.

And though neither of them said it aloud, they both knew, something was shifting. Not just timelines. But hearts, too.

The moment the breeze shifted, Y/N knew. It was as if the day exhaled, soft and cool, suddenly too still. The scent of citrus faded, replaced by something ancient and electric, like a storm not yet seen but already felt in the bones.

Azriel noticed it too. His shadows straightened, alert. Then, without warning, she was there.

The witch stepped out of the air beside their table, her robes dark and shimmering faintly with threads of starlight. Her face was as calm as the Sidra behind them, but her presence brought with it something colder. Final.

Y/N’s heart clenched.

She stood quickly, nearly knocking her tea. “It’s time, isn’t it?”

The witch nodded once. “Yes. I’ve found a way.”

Azriel rose more slowly, his jaw tightening as he faced her. “You’re sure it will work?”

The witch’s eyes glinted, old magic whispering in her voice. “As sure as I can be. But there’s no room for delay. The threads of your presence here have begun to fray the structure of this realm. I can feel the Cauldron straining, one more crack, and it won’t be this world that breaks.”

Y/N felt her breath catch in her throat.

It was happening.

It had always been coming, but hearing it aloud, seeing the truth in the witch’s steady gaze, it tore the air from her lungs.

Azriel said nothing for a long moment. Then he looked at Y/N.

He didn’t reach for her. Didn’t need to. The look in his eyes was enough. She tried to hold herself steady. Tried to breathe. But the witch’s words echoed inside her.

It’s time.

He was leaving.

Azriel turned back to the witch, voice rough but steady. “How long do we have?”

The witch considered. “A few hours. Sunset.”

Sunset.

That left so little, and somehow, far too much.

Y/N forced herself to nod. Her fingers trembled slightly at her sides, but her voice was level. “Where do we need to go?”

“I’ll find you again,” the witch said. “I just needed to give you warning. You’ll know when.”

She stepped back into the wind, and with a rustle of her robes and a flicker of violet magic, she was gone.

Silence fell again over the café.

The world kept moving. People still passed by, unaware that anything had changed. But for Azriel and Y/N, the day had shifted on its axis.

The end had a shape now. And it was coming fast.

The sun had begun its slow descent, casting the Sidra in liquid gold. The river flowed gently beside them, quiet and endless, its surface glittering like stardust.

Y/N walked beside Azriel in silence, her fingers brushing occasionally against the edge of his cloak. The breeze tugged at her hair, and for a while, all they did was walk, as if they could outpace time itself, if they didn’t speak, if they just kept moving.

But Azriel felt it in her. The way her shoulders curled inward just slightly. The soft tension in her breath. Her sadness folded itself neatly around her like a second skin.

And he felt it in himself, too. That ache.

Not the sharp pain of battle wounds or the burn of shadows in his blood, but something quieter, heavier. A kind of loss that hadn’t happened yet but had already taken root.

He glanced at her, then away. “You’ve helped me more than I ever expected.”

She looked up at him, lips parted as if to protest, but he kept going, voice low. “I came here thinking I’d just disrupted something. That I’d landed somewhere I didn’t belong. And I did. But it’s not just that.”

The shadows at his back stirred gently, like they, too, were listening.

“You’ve reminded me what gentleness looks like,” he said, his voice a near whisper. “You reminded me that healing isn’t just survival. It’s... softness. It’s letting yourself laugh again.”

Y/N’s eyes shimmered, but she kept walking.

Azriel stopped. She did too, a step later, turning toward him slowly.

“If there was a way,” he said, voice barely above the hush of the river, “I’d take you with me.”

The words hung between them, fragile and impossible.

His gaze dropped, and he exhaled softly. “But I know it wouldn’t work. It’s not that kind of magic. It’s not that kind of story.”

Y/N smiled. Not because she was happy, but because she wanted to give him something kind. Her eyes, though, they told the truth. They ached. They mourned.

Still, she stepped in close. She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to.

Her arms came around him, quiet and certain, and she pressed her cheek to his chest. Her hands flattened against his back, holding him there, like maybe she could memorize the feel of him before he was gone.

She inhaled, deeply, taking in his scent, the leather and pine, the faint trace of wind and steel and something only he carried.

Azriel hesitated only a moment before his arms wrapped around her too. Firm, steady, as if he could hold this second in place forever.

Neither of them spoke.

The Sidra flowed beside them, patient and unknowing. The sun dipped lower. And the minutes they had left slipped quietly by, wrapped in silence and warmth and the weight of everything that would never be said.

The witch emerged from the dusk, her presence silent but heavy with ancient power. Her eyes, gleaming with stars and secrets, settled on them both. There was no urgency in her voice, only a steady certainty as she said, “It is time. You must return.”

Azriel’s gaze shifted slowly to Y/N, searching her face as though trying to etch every curve, every unspoken word into memory. The shadows curled protectively around him, but the strength in his eyes softened with something almost like sorrow.

Without hesitation, he stepped forward, his fingers trembling just slightly as they traced the gentle line of her cheek. The skin was warm beneath his touch, grounding him in this impossible moment.

He leaned in slowly, closing the space between them with a kiss oh her cheek, soft and reverent, a whisper against her skin. The kiss spoke of gratitude and regret, of all the stolen moments and all the things left unsaid.

“Thank you,” he breathed, voice raw with feeling. “For everything. For this.”

Y/N’s breath caught, and for a moment the world seemed to hold its breath with them. Her hands twined in the fabric of his cloak, reluctant to let go, desperate to keep hold of this fragment of a life she never thought she’d have.

His eyes searched hers once more, filled with a fierce tenderness, before he stepped back, shadows rising like dark wings around him, cloaking him from the world.

The witch raised her hand, fingers weaving a silent spell, and a pulse of violet light rippled outward, wrapping Azriel in its glow. The air thrummed with the power of the Cauldron itself, fragile and fierce.

In the blink of an eye, Azriel was gone.

Left behind was the fading warmth of his kiss, the faint scent of leather and pine hanging in the quiet evening air, and Y/N — standing alone by the Sidra, holding onto the echo of a goodbye that still felt impossibly too soon.

────────────

The familiar hum of Velaris pulsed all around him—the distant laughter of street performers, the soft murmur of the Sidra’s waters, the gentle clinking of glasses from nearby taverns—but Azriel felt strangely untethered, like a ghost wandering through his own city. The days since his return blurred together, a fog swallowing his memories whole. Rhys and Cassian had told him he’d been gone for over a week, vanished without a trace, only to reappear as if nothing had happened. He couldn't remember what happened. But inside, Azriel knew something had changed.

There was a quiet, steady warmth beneath the surface, something healing, gentle, like a balm on old wounds he hadn’t realized were still raw.

Today, he was helping Feyre move canvases and crates into her art studio, the smell of fresh paint mingling with the scent of spring rain drifting through open windows. Feyre’s laughter was bright and easy, her presence grounding him even as a restless pull tugged at his chest.

His gaze drifted across the bustling town square just as he set down a heavy crate. And there, among the crowd, he saw her.

A fae, standing with an effortless grace that made the sunlight catch in her hair, turning it to molten gold. She was looking not quite at him, but through him, as if glimpsing into places only shadows could reach… a spark of recognition he couldn’t place, like a forgotten song playing just beyond hearing.

Azriel didn’t understand why his heart quickened, why his hand lifted almost instinctively in a hesitant wave.

The fae’s eyes widened, and then a soft, almost knowing smile curved her lips. She returned his wave before slipping quietly into a nearby shop, disappearing before he could reach her.

His hand dropped slowly, confusion settling over him like a shadow.

He didn’t know who she was. He couldn’t remember her.

But the pull, the silent thread connecting them, was undeniable, aching beneath his skin like a promise he couldn’t yet understand.

"You've been quiet all day," she said, her voice low and knowing. "What's going on in that head of yours?"

Azriel blinked, distracted. Across the square, he could see her through the glasses of that shop.

Feyre followed his gaze, then looked back at him, her brow furrowed. "Az?"

"I... I don’t know," he murmured, almost to himself.

"You don’t know what?" she asked.

But he couldn’t answer. The feeling was too strange, too sharp. His heart thudded in his chest, and before he could stop himself, the words left him like a breath, half-formed and distant.

"I need to go."

"Go where?"

But he was already walking away, crossing the street without looking back, the hum of Feyre’s concern fading behind him.

She had disappeared into a shop moments before, but he knew. He didn’t know why. Didn’t know how. But he knew.

The bell above the door chimed softly as he stepped inside. The world quieted, holding its breath.

And then, there she was.

Closer now. Real. Solid. Her eyes widened, the same as before, but now with something else behind them. Something fragile, something infinite.

Azriel felt it again, deep in his chest. That pull. That thread. It trembled between them like spun gold.

She tilted her head, voice tentative, soft. “Do I... know you?”

He hesitated for a breath, then offered a small smile, one that felt strange and familiar all at once.

"I’m Azriel."

A beat of silence. Then she returned his smile, something in her gaze breaking open.

"I’m Y/N."

Their names, shared again for the first time. A beginning carved into the end.

And somewhere, just beneath the surface, the thread between them tightened.

Not remembering. Not yet.

But knowing, somehow, all the same.

[floweryanarchy]

Astarion Rewritten Outlaws Au Lore Dump

(gonna give a little content warning before you start reading because this does go over some heavy topics. Basically Cazador coded abuse, heavy manipulation, canon-typical trauma, process of inflicting scarring, character death... If that’s not something you wanna read I’d stop here and scroll.)

HERE WE GO.

Backstory⬇️

Astarion has no papers—no birth certificate, no record of citizenship, nothing. That wasn’t always the case. But after Cazador pulled him out of prison with a forged pardon, he ensured every trace of Astarion’s true identity was erased. With his wealth and connections, it was easy for Cazador to bribe officials and have the original records destroyed. Astarion became a ghost in the system—a body without a name, as if he had never existed at all. Astarion having no proof of citizenship means he can’t appeal to the law. He’s not a person in the eyes of the state—he’s property of Cazadors.

Cazador saw potential in him right from the start, because Astarion was beautiful. Striking. The perfect doll for his high-end parlor house. All Astarion had to do was endure what came next. A test. Proof that he was worthy of serving Cazador, that he could properly atone for his supposed crimes. After all, Cazador had bailed him out, hadn’t he? Spent a small fortune, pulled strings, gone through great effort just to see him freed. He had saved Astarion from the miserable life he’d known before—given him a new purpose, a place, a reason to be wanted.

And so, Cazador marked him. A ritual of scarification, done with meticulous care and deliberate precision. His initials “CS” etched into the skin of Astarions back.

When it was over, Cazador tended to him with soft hands and quiet praise, barely heard over Astarions sobs.

In his eyes, Astarion had passed.

The Parlor House was a gilded cage, draped in silks and perfumed with expensive scents to mask the stench of sweat and desperation. A place where men and women of status indulged in pleasures with no consequence, where Cazador’s spawn were paraded before them like prized animals. The moment Astarion was brought upstairs, cleaned and dressed in whatever finery Cazador saw fit, his life was no longer his own.

But Cazador’s empire was built on more than just flesh. His influence spread far beyond the parlors walls, weaving into the underbelly of the city. Hidden among the pleasures the spawn were forced to provide was another service: ensuring Cazador’s clients got hooked on more than just their bodies. The spawn were tasked with discreetly dealing with his supply, slipping small doses of a potent, addictive substance onto eager tongues, ensuring that patrons return.

Every time Astarion tries to imagine a life outside the parlor, he remembers: no name, no coin, and nowhere to go. And worse—if he runs, there’s a bounty waiting to be reinstated, and a dozen corrupt lawmen ready to drag him back… or bury him in the desert. But then again, prison treated him better than here. Alas even if he wanted to, there were always guards posted at the doors, watching.

Sebastian—young, kind, and foolish—had offered to help. He was a regular at the parlor house, one of the few who saw past the makeup and charm to the hollow ache beneath. He promised Astarion money, a train ticket, a way out. Safety. And asked for nothing in return.

Cazador found out.

Sebastian disappeared not long after, and no one asked questions. But Astarion knew. He knew because Cazador put the gun in his hand, pressed a finger over his own, and pulled the trigger.

“You belong to me, boy.”

Astarion wished that was the end of it. But it wasn’t. That same night, Astarion was dragged from his room and taken to the outskirts of the city. Cazador didn’t scream. He didn’t strike. He just watched as his men forced Astarion into a narrow wooden box and shut the lid. They buried him 6 feet, leaving only a narrow pipe for air.

He stayed underground for two full days.

By the time they dug him up, Astarion was barely conscious—starving, dehydrated, broken. From that day forward, he never dared speak of escape again.

Cazador made sure of it.

He had Astarion’s entire back redone, claiming the scars had healed too cleanly, too neatly. Adding additional lines to his artwork, a punishment for Astarions misbehavior. This time, he packed the fresh wounds with ash, ensuring the marks would stay—sharp, raised lines etched into his skin, permanent. And, as always, he was tender afterward, sitting beside him with a damp cloth and that infuriatingly soft voice.

“If only you’d stop acting out,” he murmured, gently dabbing at the angry red flesh. “We could be so happy. A real family. Don’t you want that, my boy? To be treated well? You’re the one making this so difficult. You bring these punishments on yourself. I only ever do what’s necessary.”

The scars stayed, just like he wanted—crisp, deliberate lines that pulled taut when Astarion moved or stretched.

Years later.

Business had been slow at the parlor, which meant the favored spawn were allowed outside for a bit-to lure in the rich types passing by. Of course, they were never alone. There was always an assigned escort hanging back, watching from the shadows, making sure no one tried anything stupid like running.

Astarion had been playing by the rules for a while, his back nearly healed from Cazadors last punishment. So he’d been rewarded with a little taste of freedom more or less. He was out there, mid-conversation with some pompous noble- laying on the charm, smiling enough to draw them in- when suddenly all hell broke loose. Screaming, people running, complete chaos.

And Astarion? He didn’t think twice. He bolted. Took his shot in the midst of everything, if he got out of the escorts line of sight and vanish in the crowd, he could finally be free-

One moment, he’s sprinting for his life- the next, everything went black.

(I will be nice to Astarion from now on.)

^^^

(Me when I lie)

[dontpulloutman]

singer!yn x lewis pullman headcanons

an accompaniment to favorite muse !

like two cosmic entities, you two have been circling each other for years before you properly meet.

gaining fame and your celebrity status before the age of 18 doesn’t change the fact that you are a fangirl at heart. suddenly being invited to afterparties and high-profile events, you took the time to socialize, mingle, and meet the people who you only saw on your screen.

in one of those post-award show parties, you meet eden brolin. you’re both talking about music, how you’re at the height of yours, and how she and her band are in hibernation, when she gestures for someone to join you.

sporting a shy smile, lewis makes his way over to you. your eyes are stuck on his smile, ears tingling with his laughter when eden makes a witty remark you didn’t catch. you’re enchanted, captivated.

this is only the beginning.

songwriting has always been your strongest suit. as you always said, without it, you wouldn’t have it all. for almost a year, your relationship with harry has been on a steady decline. songwriting is how you’ve learned to cope with and understand it.

lewis was the one who helped you heal through it.

back and forth from new york to rhode island; los angeles and oddly enough, a home studio at lew’s montana ranch, your album was crafted. in this, you poured out your feelings and thoughts regarding your relationship with harry.

(if, in a few years, fans realize your entire album photoshoot took place in lewis’s montana ranch, what harm would it do? you can’t blame eagle eyed fans from connecting his recent 2024-2025 interview backgrounds to your album photobook)

after such a publicized relationship, you knew you had to take some time for yourself. never mind the fact that the internet always had something new to say about your breakup, how you’ve basically gone non-existent while harry has been spotted walking around with a new girl every other month.

in those months of hiding, you find your friendship with lewis developing into something more.

knowing looks, longing stares, and the feel of a warm hand against the small of your back. everywhere you went; out with friends, intimate gatherings with industry peers - he became your immediate and automatic plus one. it’s understandable; he’s your best friend.

one night, while sequestered in your new york apartment, deep into your second glass of wine, your eyes meet lew’s from across the sofa. there’s soft jazz playing from the record player, and you can’t stop your eyes from tracing the stubble he’s growing. you want to feel it against your fingertips.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you have a secret you need to tell.”

you bend down, putting your wineglass on the carpeted floor. slowly, eyes never leaving his, you get on your hands and knees, and crawl across the sofa to where he’s seated. back against the corner of the L-shape couch, his hands immediately move to your hips.

“Do I?” there’s a shit-eating grin on your face

you’re not sure who leaned in first, the world is totally blocked out. nothing to feel, nothing to think, nothing to see, except the press of his lips, earthquakes in your core, and fireworks behind your eyes.

like they say, the rest is history.

your relationship settles like puzzle pieces that have always been meant to be. “It makes total sense,” is the general consensus you hear from friends. even lew’s parents have mentioned how they’ve been expecting it.

2018

lewis joins the ensemble cast for Bad Times at the El Royale; it’s been two years since things ended with harry, and 4 months since this new, beautiful, yet still fragile relationship with lew started. you celebrate his new role by cooking dinner together, and watching your favorite films on the couch.

you also begin to write and produce songs for other artists

2022

top gun: maverick and press play.

at this point, you haven’t released any of your own songs. sure, your fans know that you’re making music, and you’ve joined in on a few collaborations with other artists, but people have been dying to hear from you.

it’s not something you’re worrying over. supporting lewis’s career, simply being there when Big Heart Manners and Crab Park were made and recorded; it’s easy to fall into domestic bliss with the love of your life

2023

and still, he never stops encouraging you to release your own songs again. with festering and long-awaited inspiration, you start to work on muses & anecdotes. a 13-part love letter dedicated to the man you know you couldn’t live without.

2024

after an accidental post on instagram, you both decided it was time to let the world know. releasing muses & anecdotes, and the accompanying “hard launch” posted on instagram, you felt a newfound freedom. almost like the weight of the past few years have been lifted, a declaration of starting anew. the whole world learning of your love with lewis was like a new page being turned.

your story has barely begun.

[rex-rambles]

➤ i've been loving him to pass the time | lando norris

pairing: lando norris x fwb!reader

summary: you've been loving lando to pass the time, but is that really all it is? (inspired by 'oh my' by alessi rose)

wc: 4.6k

warnings: angst with a happy ending! not great relationship skills and allusions of smut

➤ MASTERLIST

It was nothing special. What you and Lando had was, really, nothing special.

Or, perhaps you should say what you have is nothing special. It hadn't died yet, even if it seemed like it had a hundred times over. You were still here, standing in his kitchen, unloading his dishwasher, while a hoodie of his and some random dress shoes were still tossed about your living room. 

But it was nothing special. You were just strangers who sought comfort in each other from across the hall, because the longer you think about it, you never were friends.

You're not sure who had set that hard boundary, but it was evident, because days like this remind you that you're not central in each other's lives, don't matter outside of your homes and bedrooms, don't exist to anyone else. You'd woken up alone in his bed like you always do with a sticky note stuck to his pillow that he was having people over later, so you should head out before four. It was normal enough, though it once wasn't - where before you used to rush to leave, you now spend your morning, eating and tidying up after yourself to leave no trace behind, like you didn't live just down the hall.

If people looked, really, they'd see it, but you'd both gotten so good at pretending that it was convincing enough even you couldn't decipher if it was all real. There was a time when you thought about defining what you were, making things more obvious, but that had been a year ago, and all your secrets were still tucked away in the back of each other's bathrooms, hidden toothbrushes and hygiene products just in case. If people looked, really, they'd see it, but there's no one to ever connect the dots besides you and him.

You had his favourite chocolate hidden at the top of your cupboard for late-night meetings, or just needing a reminder of him. He had your spare key in some junk drawer, attached with some gaudy tourist keychain he had tried to pawn off to you for your birthday, only for it to end up back at his. 

But it was nothing special. 

You were always last, because this was nothing special. He was rarely home to begin with, but he wasn't solely to blame. He knew you'd wait for him, something soft and unspoken between you where he'd find solace on your couch or you in his arms and within a few hours, no evidence of what happened would remain. 

4: 

you didn't have to clean

Not existing was a strangely easy task, names ignored in contact lists, paparazzi unaware, even when his fame picked up, and he had to admit to you who he was. Your total absence from his life doesn't take away from the fact that you were there, helping him practice for interviews, compiling your own secret list of stories he'd only ever told you, getting to ask personal questions without crossing your lines. You had never been to a single race, but that didn't stop you from watching every one, listening to him excel in the spotlight for hours on end as you sat in the dark of his apartment. 

5: 

you're welcome

You were better than him, he'd told you one of those long nights spent under his sheets, but only by a little bit. So you would be 5, when he was 4. It was a one-off joke, but his words had taken up more of your time than you're willing to admit. He could do that, turn seconds to hours and days to nothing. You could spend all the time in the world and it wouldn't matter, or you could exchange a glance in a hallway and have it feel like an eternity. 

But it was nothing special. You're not sure what you'd do at this rate, to be honest, if he tried to change that. You were so used to revolving around Lando's schedule you'd forgotten that you could exist with him beyond being a satellite. If he asked to be something official, you think you'd say yes, but that wasn't a dream or a fantasy, just simple delusion.

If anyone else asked what you were, you'd say neighbours. It didn't matter the routines you fell into, the bonds you shared, the yearning, the distance, the silence. What you and Lando have is, was, nothing special. 

Didn't matter how you felt about it. What you have is nothing special. 

"I feel bad." He appears at the door at some ungodly hour, curls ruined with sweat that makes his t-shirt cling to him. Outstretched is a singular cupcake with a few random letters on it, taken obviously from some birthday celebration. "You're not my maid." 

"If you want to feel better," You say as you accept the cupcake, "Then don't leave everything a mess. I'm trying to help you maintain those F1 delusions of grandeur." 

"You shouldn't." He responds, letting himself into your apartment and closing the door behind him. You take a bite from the cupcake, savouring the chocolate for a moment as he stares you down. "It'll inflate my ego. I'm trying to stay humble." 

"Tell that to the cars in the garage downstairs." His lips are on yours, cupcake abandoned on the kitchen counter beside you, knocked over and icing smeared across the marble. 

You don't know why you let him do this. Maybe it's the way he makes you feel, desperate to hold you like you're something he could actually lose, even when he could have anyone else. Maybe it's the gifts, maybe it's the humour, that stupid smile, but for the past year, you've let him rule your romantic life, kept single for the moments he'd decide to pay some attention to you, and you dumbly realize, hands woven through his hair as he lowers you onto your bed, that it's become your favourite passtime. 

With all the hours spent, you've been loving him to pass the time, because what else do you do? Move on to a worse smile and someone who doesn't understand you or your body the way he does? 

Someone else would be seen with you, your brain reminds you as his lips find your neck. Someone else would give you a title, take you out, show you off. Your entire life keeps moving forward around you, new jobs, new friends, new adventures, and then you return to him like you hadn't grown at all, and you let yourself spiral as he does what he does best, taking control, giving you just enough pleasure to stay. Making you feel like the centre of all his worship for the night, so that when he collapses beside you, it feels like he'll stay. He'll wrap an arm around you and press himself to your side, to your back, whatever way he likes, and you ask stupid questions back and forth about things like how your day went and the cute dogs you've seen in the building before dozing off, and expecting him to stay. 

He never does.  

"Isn't that a bit big on you?" Your friend pulls up the hood to your hoodie, laughing as it swamps your face, and you reach up to toss it back. 

"It's-" Lando's. He'd abandoned enough sweaters in your place to last you a lifetime, and to keep from mixing worlds, you return them to him diligently. This one must have slipped through the cracks, even as you savoured the smell of him all day. "It's supposed to be a boxier fit." 

He won't be back for two or three odd weeks, having managed to text this morning that he was off racing somewhere and had to wake early for his flight. It's almost honourable, you think, the way he tries to excuse his behaviour as if he hadn't disappeared every morning. As if he didn't just seek you out when he wanted. 

Then, like clockwork, like he can't even let himself go the 24 hours without finding you at night, he calls at 12:26, which is apparently 2 AM his time. He could have anyone else, you like to fantasize as you listen to him drunkenly drawl about a DJ. He could be with any other girl, but he's on the phone to you, like he's loyal, like this whole thing is something he could be loyal about, but it's nothing special. He just happens to call when he's drunk, because he can trust himself to say stupid shit to you and no one find out about it. 

That's how it all started, anyway. You heard someone knock at your door and then a loud, heavy fall outside at around midnight, and discovered a drunken Lando on the floor, the newest resident to the apartment building. He said something about needing help getting to his place, and you'd dragged him to his door, helped him with his keys, got him to bed. 

He'd returned the next night with cookies as an apology, and it felt like he never left after that. You were the one part of his life, he liked to say, that had nothing to do with fame or family or pressures. You would argue you weren't really part of his life, but it wasn't an argument you wanted to have. 

Not when, on the rare nights when he felt romantic, he'd get some fancy food delivered and order some nice wine and once, at the beginning of all this hell, he'd held your hand under the table like you could've been anything more than strangers in the night. The last truly romantic gesture was weeks ago, but you weren't counting. 

You never really counted on him to do much besides show up at your door, after another failed race that you claimed you didn't watch, because you didn't watch racing, because this was nothing special, even if you found yourself glued to your TV no matter the hour. He lets his aggression out in the healthiest way he can, letting you sit in his lap on his couch and venting about all the problems with his car in between breathless kisses, clothes abandoned at some point and dignity at another. 

He'd say things in the heat of the moment that he'd never mean, about how he wanted you, only you, wanted you to stay. You'd give in to every word, even if you weren't under him, because it's all you ever wanted. You wanted him, wanted it all, wanted more than you could ever reasonably ask and more than he could ever give you. 

And there, curled up for the hundredth time, you feel the world finally shift.

Time, once dictated by his arrival or departure, pushes forward without him as he turns to look at you in the dim moonlight. He's leaving, you realize, even if you knew it was happening. The whole reason he was here was the in-between until he was able to move to wherever he needed to go, and he'd told you back in those first, fateful days, it would be a couple months at most. You suppose those many, many months have finally caught up with you.

"Monaco, huh?" You breath out, and Lando buries his face into your neck, unable to say the words himself.

You were just loving him to pass the time, you remind yourself. It was nothing special, though it's impossible to act like this wasn't consuming both of you alive, only for him to extinguish himself. Maybe it was mercy, leaving you here to burn alone.

You gather your things that morning as you leave, ultimately needing a box to put everything in. You would make a joke about how much he'd kept over time, but he's not there, like every morning, like nothing could ever change, time pushing you forward, as if to tell you to move on. It's your tupperware, socks, a camera with your name on it, but with all his photos, a year summed up in a handful of random items. 

You do the same to yours, returning the sweaters, the shoes, the watch you've been holding hostage since he left. His oversized sweater remains in your drawer, your last souvenir of him, and unbeknownst to you, the random friendship bracelets you left behind one drunken summer night remain in his bag. 

If you cry over him for the first time that night, it's no one's business but your own. And if time slows to let you process it, no on else notices. 

What Lando and you had was nothing special.

It wasn't romantic, despite the flowers Lando knew were your favourite, it wasn't committed, despite the fact he hadn't sought out other women, considering you were right there, and just right. You never gave each other enough time for it to be anything special, though more and more often, it was Lando leaving you alone, in his bed, when he went to work out, when he ran to do his meetings. You didn't mind, Lando was almost entirely sure, because it was nothing special. It had ended as peacefully as it had begun, and Lando hadn't thought much of it until he found himself lonely in a life he had thought he was fulfilled in.

He saw the same people, tried making new friends, did the exact same routine, but he found himself stuck on the edge of something invisible, something he couldn't understand. 

He couldn't understand how his socks piled up so easily, or how long it took to put away all the dishes, like he hadn't already done them a million times before. He couldn't understand why his bed felt so cold in such a warm place like Monaco, why people kept asking him if he was alright when he'd never been better. 

What you and Lando had was nothing special. He was just indulging in the rare chance of normal, loving you to pass the time while he had it, because everything was such a rush around him. He couldn't understand how everything moved so fast, how nights moved so fast, when they used to stretch out so long for him. 

He couldn't understand why other dates weren't the same. Why they didn't understand what he'd want, predict his next moves, give him that extra space on the other side of the bed because he likes to splay about. He couldn't understand why even his groceries were different, because sure, he's in a new country, with new stores, but it was still the same chocolate, even if it wasn't stolen from ridiculously tall cupboards. He finds your favourite fruit in his basket before he questions it, something he always picked up for mornings he never witnessed, mornings that were not special, where he'd eat the leftovers, even if he didn't like them. 

He thinks of texting, but then again, you didn't text first. You didn't text often, actually. He only called when he was drunk, and despite his few escapades out at night, there were no new secrets he needed to share, because they didn't really matter anymore. It was nothing special, anymore. 

He finds himself scrolling through his phone at random hours of the night when time seems to refuse to slow down for him, and it was nothing special, so when he finds the only photo of you on his phone from some night where you both got tipsy and tried to play a minigolf course set up in his living room, he couldn't understand why he had to stare at it to fall asleep, over and over, your smile as you laid on his couch, hands clutched to your stomach in laughter, half of the course knocked over in his footsteps. 

After another race he loses, he realizes he doesn't have your social media. It doesn't matter, really, considering you didn't know anything about racing, as much as you played along that you did. He thinks he might find you among his followers, but you'd never cared for his fame. He finds your account anyway, private, and it makes sense. You always were private with your life, with what you did outside of the hours spent with him. He's not sure if he knows your job, even if he knows how much you hate his choice in soap, he's not sure he knows the names of any of your friends, even if he knows your aspirations, your dream pets, your first and second favourite colours. He tries to ask other people the same questions, but their answers don't sound the same, answered for the sake of answering, not for the sake of sharing. 

He goes home, and tries to ignore the draw of going back to his old building, to that door, but he's a man who acts on impulse, unable to keep himself from driving down your street, his street, thinking about what you'd be doing at this hour, and he doesn't understand it. You were just strangers in the night, really, people who found comfort in each other, so why was he so stuck on the thought of you? 

What you had didn't exist outside of apartments and memories, so how could it occupy every area of his life? The concert he's back home for is a band that he introduced you to, every song tied to some stupid moment nestled together, and as some romantic ballad starts up, he spots you in the crowd, the first time he's seen you outside his and your walls, the first time he'd seen you properly dressed up and not getting undressed. You're all but screaming along to the song, knowing the lyrics like knowing him, and you turn to beam at some friend beside you, and it wasn't anything special, but Lando was jealous of it. 

You used to smile at him like that, even when he never went out, even when he tried to keep things with you as secret and normal as possible, hidden away from anything that might ruin it, including himself. It was the most selfish, dickish thing he ever did, and you never mentioned it, never brought up your thoughts on it. Lando thought it was mercy, letting him have some normalcy with you. Now, he realizes, it was because he never gave you the space to say something, never gave you the time or the possibility to turn what you'd created into something more.

Now, he realizes, he wants you to look up from your seat and see him staring from the VIP section, and smile at him, and choose him again, because he realizes that's what he's been missing this whole time. He wants you to sing along to a cheesy love song, not because he taught it to you over a drunken night of karaoke, but because you want to say those words to him.

You were always there. He never had to make a choice, only had to show up at your door, but now? It wasn't his choice anymore. He didn't deserve one, anyway. You deserve to choose him, should you want, and god, the thought makes Lando realize how much he wants it. He wants you to choose him because you can, because he mattered to you outside of all the shit he put you through, he wants you to want him outside of the hours of night, because standing here, longing for something he didn't realize he wanted in the first place, maybe it was special. 

Maybe you made it special.

He buys the last two VIP tickets and gets some security guard to bring you up as he disappears out the back door, leaving behind the music he had once been so excited to hear, now reduced to background noise. His feet take him to your building, time sped up to get him there in what feels like minutes flat. He knows your code to punch into the building, has your spare key in his back pocket just in case, though he could never bring himself to use it. He used to let himself into your apartment like it was his own home, but now, he's forfeited that right. So he sits on the floor next to your door, head rested back against the wall, and wills the hours to speed up to bring you home to him. 

You get home with more questions than answers, but it doesn't matter. Why you were chosen out of a sea of fans for some random band your friend pulled you along to, with lyrics that haunted you more than you could ever explain, to go to the VIP section, you have no idea. Time had sped up, rushing you through the night faster than you've ever felt, over in just a second for the walk down your hallway to be the longest you've ever experienced, because Lando was at the end of it. 

Even if it wasn't anything special, you could always sense Lando from a mile away, knew he was here the moment you set foot in your building, having pulled strings and made your night better when he used to never see you out. You could sense him when you went on more dates, when life kept going, when nothing matched. You found yourself longing for things to do, seeking out friends when the silence was too obvious, longing for someone to ask you a question because they wanted to know everything about you, and not to just pass the time. 

But it was nothing special. What you and Lando had before and after he left didn't matter, even if you wanted it to. And even as you approach him, his eyes closed but not quite at peace, you try to convince yourself it doesn't matter. That he's just back in town for the night and wanted a place to crash, that he wanted one more night, but you were always more than that, even if it wasn't anything special. He always somehow chose you, even when it seemed like he couldn't care less about you. You were always better than him, always something he came back to, even hesitant, like he was afraid you wouldn't be there. 

But he knew, and you knew. You'd always be there, even if he wasn't. You'd always wait, even if you shouldn't. His eyes crack open to stare up at you, that ridiculous, soft smile instantly plastered over his face. 

"You're getting glitter on the carpet." He voices quietly, hand reaching out to undo your heel nearest to him, the smallest smattering of glitter falling from your dress to create a halo around you. It suited you, Lando would say if he could stomach it. He finishes one shoe before moving to the next, and you slip out of them easily, despite the fact you're now standing in your stockings in your apartment hallway. 

Then, you realize, he hadn't kissed you. For once, he doesn't surge up to bring you inside, to get your dress off, you don't plant yourself in his lap, you just stare, time stopped between the two of you. Nothing could move the silence between you, not now, likely not ever. What happened tonight was supposed to happen, whether either of you realized it or not. 

He wears a VIP bracelet around his wrist, the same as you. He'd given up the concert of some band he loved for you, and you, for once, let yourself read into it. You had been making love with him to pass the time, but by now, it was more than that. You weren't loving him to pass the time, to keep up with what you'd started, because it wasn't just a pastime, wasn't just a hobby. It wasn't just seeking pleasure, even if at times it was. It wasn't just something normal for him, even if at times it was. You were loving him because it had become second nature, outside of everything you did. It was the default, what you reverted back to, as if you had loved each other for years, and not just moments. 

You loved Lando, and there was nothing special about the thought.

He grabs your shoes as he rises, and you let him into your apartment. He fits like the last piece missing, an absence you'd tried to ignore. He tosses his own shoes off, landing where his dress shoes always used to be, and he drops your heels unceremoniously next to them by the door, cluttered like they were always meant to be side by side. His outstretched arm finds your waist, hesitant, and you don't blame him. Your usual territory was demanding touches, heavy and all-consuming. Coming home to each other like it was a normal night, like you were something domestic, wasn't exactly ever on the table, even if you had done his laundry a hundred times, even if he used to help with your groceries, even if you had kissed and embraced enough times to know exactly what the other person needed. 

Leaving space for each other was customary, but filling real spaces in each other's lives was not.

"Did you miss me?" His words are low, not quite ego-driven, even if you know he'd use them against you later.

"Of course." Your hand finds his curls, gently sorting through them, those two words the most open you'd been about how you feel about him. You don't ask the same, partially because you don't want to ruin the moment, partially because you already know the answer. He came back to you, but it was still the same, old patterns. It was the middle of the night, and he was looking at you like he could devour you whole, and you'd let him. 

"Can I kiss you?" He hadn't asked before. He didn't need to, considering the flurry of emotions, the desperation for each other, the limited time you were allotted. 

The words being spoken aloud stop time in its tracks completely, and you gently place a hand on his chest to feel his heart pounding, an anxiety you'd never experienced from him before. He wanted to kiss you, and he wanted to ask, and you let him. His hand comes up to cradle your cheek, but rather than pushing you back against the door, of it being hot and heavy, it's nothing special. It's a soft, quick kiss, like coming home after a long day at work, a tender thing that never had to be spoken. It's normal, like you've always wanted it to be. 

There's still that old connection there, from the way his hands tighten on your hips, but he pulls away before he allows himself to indulge for reasons you're both not privy to and yet well aware of. It wasn't that absence had made you fonder of him, or he of you, but it had made you realize that your nights spent together weren't just passing the time, weren't just midnight affairs. Something had broken between you when he left, maybe long before that, and for the first time, you think you might survive the repairs.

"Do you want to stay the night?" You ask, another first, because you never had to ask before. He just did. The path to your bedroom is well worn, but this time, the flurry of clothes was not for each other, but rather to slip into pyjamas. Him tossing you onto the bed was not to get to you there faster, but rather to hear that laugh bubble out of you, wrapped in an old t-shirt he's pretty sure he gave to you. 

It's the fact that he collapses into the divet he'd created in his side of your bed, unchanged, unoccupied since he left, and you mould around him like you always knew how to, and nothing else happens, because tonight is nothing special. What you and Lando have is nothing special, nothing like the poems about star-crossed lovers, or some front-page headlines. It's just you and him in the bed you made. 

When your alarm goes off in the morning, he's still there, face hidden in your neck as he snores softly. 

It's the first time you'd ever heard the sound. 

a/n: i know its not my typical style but i am going through a situationship of my own that is driving me crazy, so i needed to let that energy out somewhere - enjoy?