#I don’t even have the barest hints of a plot about it

[the-cookie-of-doom]

I’ve been so focused on Dystocia lately, but today I woke up thinking of my story that’s the complete opposite. Instead of trans!Kim forced to have a baby and going through nightmare levels of dysphoria, it’s trans!Chay who specifically set out to have a baby because he’s always known he wants to start a family. And he’s going to do it ASAP so he can fully transition too, lol. In that one he gets knocked up as soon as he’s reasonably convinced Kim is ride-or-die, and it’s so cute. Kim is terrified of being a dad but they’re both also so excited about it 🥺

[minisugakoobies]

Confessions of a Dirty Mind | Bang Chan

Pairing: Bang Chan x Reader Genre: smut, and they were roommates!, porn with the barest of plots, a little fluff Rating: M (18+) Warnings: incredibly thirsty pining, reader’s a bit feral for her roommate, the giggles will be deployed as a weapon, reader drops the d word (daddy) in her dirty thoughts but never says it out loud, accidental texts, body worship (abs, thighs, breasts - everything gets praised), love bites/marking, grinding, chan is thick everywhere, chan throws reader around a little, hints at dom!chan, fingering, oral sex (m + f receiving), facefucking, cum eating, reader is kind of an idiot but that's okay!, I wrote this out of a dire need to s this man’s d Word Count: 6.5K Disclaimers: NSFW; obviously I don’t own SKZ - they just inspire me Summary: The absolute last thing you want is for your roommate to find out just how much you want him. Right?

A/N: Well, as threatened promised, I'm writing for Stray Kids now in addition to BTS! This came out of absolutely nowhere last week. I've just got Bang Chan brainrot 24/7 now, so that's cool. Thanks to @minttangerines @bangtanintotheroom @sugalaritae for their support (and amazing Aussie accents!!) 💕

Unbeta'd as usual. Please let me know what you think! Like if you'd like to see more skz fics from me… that would fuel me to keep writing. If everyone hates this I'm quitting writing and moving to the wild to live with the koalas ✌️

Being roommates with your crush is its own special type of torture. Always being so close to what you want but never being able to touch. To taste. To feel. 

You weren’t always this feral. Once upon a time, you were normal. Well-adjusted, even. Then you had to move for your job and needed to find a place to stay fast and your best friend Minho just happened to know someone looking for a roommate. 

Honestly, looking back, it was too easy. Should’ve known there’d be a catch. And that catch was your sanity. 

Because Minho’s friend Bang Chan turned out to be the hottest man you’ve ever seen in your life. 

Listen. A lot of people use phrases like that all the time, “the hottest man you’ve ever seen,”  some hyperbole they say for ridiculous effect, but you mean it. You have never seen anyone as beautiful as this man, with his chiseled cheekbones, thick lips, and those dimples. 

Fuck. Those dimples. Almost as maddening as the washboard abs he’s constantly showing off. You didn’t know a person could be allergic to shirts until you met Chan. 

And now you’re suffering. Every. Damn. Day. 

It’s not just that he’s the most gorgeous man on the planet. No, that would be hurtful enough, but he’s also kind. Smart. Silly as hell. You’re constantly plagued by his sweet smiles and unbelievably adorable giggles. 

The worst part, though, is the way he can flip between sexy and soft instantaneously. Like when the two of you argue over something stupid. All of your arguments are fundamentally stupid. The two of you get on so fucking well, the only things you argue over are opinions on pointless things. Like last night, when you’d joined him for a beer while he watched tv. 

“You’re out of your mind,” Chan had declared, twisting sideways on the couch to look at you. “There’s no way a koala could possibly defeat a kangaroo in a cage match!”

“Sure it could.” 

“No, it could not!” Chan let loose a flurry of high-pitched giggles. “Have you ever seen a kangaroo? Those things are ripped! One kick or punch, and the koala’s out.” He mimed a powerful punch.

You tipped back the remainder of your beer before pointing the bottle at him. “Yes it could! Think about it - what do koalas do?” When he just blinked, you continued. “They climb! And what do koalas usually have?” Again, a blank stare. “Syphilis! So… think about it! All that little guy has to do is climb up the kangaroo, give him some germs, and boom! Kangaroo goes down.” You grin smugly. “There’s a reason they call syphilis the silent killer.” 

Chan fixed you with his signature Look™, the one you think of as “stern dom daddy” - thick eyebrows drawn, bottom lip tucked between his teeth, dark eyes scanning your face - and you felt your knees go weak. Then he blinded you with the full sunshiny force of his smile, eyes closing, dimples popping. 

“That is an absolutely insane argument, not to mention completely incorrect. I don’t even know where to start explaining why you’re wrong.” He paused. “No, actually, let’s start with the fact that it’s chlamydia, not syphilis, that koalas get, and go from there.” By the time he’d finished  and you’d finally conceded that a kangaroo would probably win, the two of you were nearly in tears from laughing.

His duality is whiplash-inducing. And always leaves you in ruins. 

So when your feelings overwhelm you, when you feel like you’re absolutely bursting at the seams with need, you do what you always do. Torture Minho. 

Your bff is used to you venting to him about your crippling inability to make a move. On anyone. Ever. Over the years, he’s weathered dozens of crushes that never went anywhere because while you’re definitely a total treasure, you lack the confidence to make any of your (usually horny) dreams come true. He’s come to expect the endless text messages you send. 

Except that now, “messages” might not be the right word for them. “Unhinged ravings” might be more accurate. 

Ughhhh he’s so damn fine Today he came home from the gym all sweaty and I nearly offered to give him a bath With my tongue. My TONGUE Minho!

Like he’s always done, Minho bears it all in stride with his usual unwavering compassion.

You’re a lunatic

He doesn’t even try to convince you to say something to Chan about your feelings anymore. Now he just waits for you to exhaust yourself and then he changes the subject. Usually by sending photos of his cats. 

It’s an odd friendship, but neither of you would trade it for anything. 

At the moment, you’re ignoring your pain by lying on your bed, in a tee and sweats, watching a movie on your laptop. You can hear your roommate rummaging around his room. Your apartment features a Jack and Jill bathroom, so it’s easy for you to hear what’s going on next door through the adjoining space.

“Channie, why are you pacing around?” you call out. 

Your phone buzzes. 

Trying to find my shirt  

“Are you seriously texting me from the next room?” Pausing your movie, you trudge through the bathroom. The door to Chan’s room is open so you don’t bother to knock, flopping down on his bed as he digs through his closet. He’s shirtless as usual, blond curls shaking with the force of his rummaging.

“Yeah, sorry, ‘m in a hurry and didn’t want to stop looking,” Chan admits sheepishly, throwing a grin over his shoulder at you. You ignore the fluttering in your stomach and get comfortable, resting your head on your arms.

“You could’ve just said it out loud. I can hear you all over this apartment.” It’s not a big space. Which only amplifies your angst, as it’s hard to escape from your desires when the source of it is just constantly right there. Sprawling out on the tiny couch in the living room. Making himself a midnight snack in the kitchen. Lounging on your bed while you sit at your desk, trying not to stare at his reflection on your screen. “What shirt are you looking for?” 

“My tiger tank.” 

You know the shirt he’s speaking of - his white tank top with an embroidered tiger’s head on the chest. It’s a favorite of yours, cut low enough on the sides and in the front to show off his biceps and pecs at the same time. The first time you’d seen Chan in it, Minho had accused you of being a vampire because you couldn’t stop talking about how much you wanted to nibble on his collarbones. 

“Ah! Found it!” Chan raises the shirt over his head victoriously before yanking it on. He takes a moment to inspect himself in his mirror and you wonder if he truly recognizes just how stunning he is. He catches your eye in the reflection. “What are you up to tonight? Wanna come out with me, ‘Lix, & ‘Bin? We’re gonna get some drinks.”

Sure, you’d love to hang out at the bar with Chan and his friends. They’re always a good time. Except when closing time arrives and once again you’re forced to bear witness to your roommate getting hit on by basically every woman in the bar. Not that you can blame them. But it’s especially awful on the nights when he leaves with someone else. You’d rather not deal with that tonight.

“Nah, I’m just gonna relax. But thanks.” 

“Come on,” he wheedles, plopping down on the bed, hard enough to make you bounce a little. “You haven’t been out with us in ages. Is it the guys? Did one of them say something stupid?” 

“They always say stupid shit. That’s all they ever say,” you crack, smiling when Chan laughs. “But no, it’s nothing like that. I’m just tired.” 

Chan doesn’t say anything, just looks at you for a moment. The silence makes you inexplicably nervous, and you fiddle with his comforter for want of something to do with your hands. But then he just nods. “‘Kay. But if you change your mind, we’ll be down at Back Door.” 

“Thanks.” 

Chan heads into the bathroom to play with his hair. You slip past him, back into your room, throwing yourself dramatically onto your bed and burying your face in a plush pillow. How much longer can you stand this? 

You grab your phone. 

I’m losing my mind

You can practically hear the sigh in Minho’s voice as you read his response. 

What did Chan do now?

He’s getting ready to go out with Felix and Changbin He looks so fucking good in those tight jeans

Minho doesn’t reply. He knows to just let you get it out of your system before responding.

My mouth is literally watering It’s a Pavlovian response at this point I see denim and I start salivating

A text alert pops up in the middle of your thirsty ranting. 

Hey do you mind if I borrow your eyeliner?

“Stop texting me when you’re 10 feet away!” you yell, laughing. Chan pops his head out of the bathroom and flashes you that grin, the one that turns your insides to goo, and you sigh. “Of course you can borrow it, you know you can.” 

Thanks

“Chan!” 

His giggles float through the door and your thumbs fly.

Seriously If Chan doesn’t let me s his d one of these days I will die I will be the first person to die from ineedtosuckadick-itis

There’s a loud clattering in the bathroom, like someone’s knocked half the contents of the crowded sink counter onto the floor. Your makeup isn't cheap, so you hop up off your bed. 

“You okay in there?” The first thing you notice is the pile of smashed cosmetics on the ground. The second thing is the way your roommate is staring at you, eyes wide, sharpened kohl liner still clutched in one hand, phone in the other. “What? What’s wrong?” 

Chan doesn’t speak, but raises his phone and kind of waves it limply. 

Oh god. You were in the wrong chat. You were in the wrong chat and now Chan knows you want to suck his dick. You’ve been texting for most of your life and this is the moment your brain decides to fuck up?!

As Chan continues to stare, you realize you have two choices: fess up and own it, or play dumb.

It’s no choice.

“What, uhhhhhhh, what’s up?” 

Chan gestures to his phone. “You want to suck my dick?” He says the words as if they’re unfamiliar to him, like he’s trying them out for the first time. 

Well, shit, how are you supposed to play dumb if he’s just going to call you right out? 

“Guess the cat’s out of the horny bag now,” you mutter under your breath.

Chan cocks his head. “What?”

“Nothing,” you cough, looking at your own phone. “I mean, uh, noooo, what? Minho and I were just, um, talking about how I want to, uh, sssssss…” you glance wildly around the cramped room, hissing like a frantic snake as you fail to come up with another word that starts with s, before your eyes land on an empty glass sitting by the sink. “…Share a drink with you? Because I’m… thirsty?”

“You’re thirsty?”

Fucking understatement.

You can’t quite read the expression on Chan’s face as he glances between you and his phone. There’s a flash of dom daddy in there and then it’s gone. 

“YN. I know what ‘s his d’ means. Also, you said you had - what did you call it? Ineedtosuckadickitis.” You think Chan’s lips quirk slightly as he reminds you of your textual idiocy, but you’re too busy trying to psychically rip a hole in the floor so you can disappear forever to be certain. “Where do you get your medical info, by the way? I’m starting to worry.” 

He’s making light of the situation, which you would appreciate more if you weren’t sure you’re about to die from embarrassment. Your mind is reeling. There’s no way to get out of this. Any second now, he’s gonna realize how you feel. Then he’s gonna let you down. Gently, you hope. Then you’re gonna need to find a new place to live, because there’s no recovering from this.

“Fine.” You take a deep breath. “Yes, I said it.” Unable to look him in the eye, you focus on your phone as you speak. “I was telling Minho how much I want to suck your dick, because I’m a disgusting horny monster who can’t stop thinking about it. I’m sorry. I’m gonna go pack up my room now.” Shoulders slumping, you slink away, hoping he won’t follow. 

He does. “Wait, what?” 

You don’t answer, heading directly for your closet, tugging at your suitcase where it lies on a shelf, and he crowds into your space, arms reaching out to stop you. 

“Oi, slow down! What are you doing?” 

“I’ll try to be out quickly, so you can find a new roommate right away.” You keep pulling on the suitcase, but it’s futile. He barely has to exert any strength to push it back, so you give up. 

“YN.” Chan places his hands on your shoulders, turning you around. It’s probably the closest you’ve ever been, standing face to face like this, and the nearness of him is a little dizzying. “Back up. You don’t have to go anywhere. Just talk to me.” He lightly guides you over to your bed, taking a seat next to you. “Why do you think I’d want you to leave?” 

“Because I'm a gross little gremlin who can’t stop objectifying you?” you answer honestly. 

Chan’s eyes widen before he bursts into laughter. “You know, you’ve said a lot of bonkers things in the months you’ve been living here, but… how does wanting to suck my dick make you a ‘gross little gremlin?’” 

Oh no. You can feel it bubbling up inside you, all the things you’ve felt. All the things you’ve said. Oh, you’re going to tell him, aren’t you? 

“It’s not just sucking your dick.” Grabbing your phone, you open your chat with Minho again, and begin to read. “‘I need Chan to destroy me. Fully. Like I’m a piece of wood and he’s a lumberjack. Just split me in half. With his hands or his dick, I’m not picky.’” Your entire body radiates with humiliation. You’re a tiny sun made of molecules of mortification, on the verge of going supernova. “Um. That’s one example. And there’s more. A lot more.” 

And then you hand him your phone, looking away as he starts to scroll. 

You stare at the wall, not wanting to see the expression on his face. Until the quiet gets to you, and you give in, peering at him, expecting to find him frozen again, or worse, looking sickened by your words. 

Instead you find him smiling. And then he starts to giggle. 

“‘I’m going feral,” he reads. “‘He’s wearing that beanie again. I- ’” His laughing gets louder as he struggles to finish the thought. “‘I want him to wear me instead.’” He glances up at you, eyes glimmering with way too much amusement. “What does that even mean?!”

You groan, yanking your shirt up to cover your face. “Chan, stop!” He merely laughs harder. How can he be enjoying this? You’ve never known him to be cruel. “I get it, I’m awful, you don’t have to laugh!”

But he keeps chuckling, and then you feel his hands on your hips. Like a bewildered turtle, you poke your head out of your shirt, and he just smiles. 

“C’mere.” He keeps tugging at you until you scoot closer, swinging your legs over his lap, and pulls you in for a hug. 

It’s better than you ever imagined. His strong arms lock around your waist, keeping you in place as his chest continues to rumble with his apparently endless mirth. Tentatively, you let your hands rest on his broad shoulders, afraid that if you cling too tightly, he’ll let go. 

Chan leans back to grin at you. “You’re so fucking cute.” 

You’re so fucking confused. “I am?” 

“Yeah.” His fingers rub light circles into your lower back. The sensation is somehow both soothing and invigorating, sending sparks directly to the heat already simmering in your gut. “Just adorable.” 

You’re not adorable, you’re a dirty little freak whose mind is constantly churning out trash, but if that’s what he wants to believe, you’ll take it.  

“You’re not disturbed by all the things I’ve said?” 

“Disturbed? Nah. I’m used to the crazy shit you say.” He’s got a point. You do say a lot of crazy shit. Just not usually about him to him. “Besides, d’you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to say something?” 

“About your dick??”

Chan tosses his head back, jostling you with his laughter. “No, you maniac, just something in general! Something to tell me that you like me.” When he meets your gaze again, you’re met with that Look™, and this time those sparks head straight for your cunt. “That you want me. Because…” 

He trails off, hands gripping your sides, shifting you. Until you feel it. Poking directly into your thigh. 

“Oh!”

“Yeah. Oh.” Chan licks his lips. When did his eyes get so dark? “Because I want you too, you absolute fruit loop. Took me a minute to get my bearings, wasn’t expecting you to confess it in a text like that, or with those exact words, but…” He smirks. “I’m good now.” 

His thumb traces your jawline before he cups your chin. The gentle touch sends shivers rippling through you. His eyes drop to your lips. 

“You good?” 

Funnily enough, somehow, you are. 

“Yeah. I’m good,” you whisper, tipping forward to close the space between you. 

Amazingly, despite the unyielding need to just yeet yourself onto him, you manage to hold back, simply leaning in to the kiss instead. Those plush lips that you’ve raved about feel unbelievable as they caress yours. So soft and tender, like the warmth spreading through you as he tightens his hold. Then he sucks your bottom lip into his mouth, and you moan, loud and wanton, unable to control the sound, and he drops his hands to your hips again, gripping insistently. 

“C’mere,” he commands again, voice husky as his fingers hook into your sweats. “Come closer.” He exhales heavily. “Please.” 

Please? He has no idea how little he needs to beg right now. As if you’re not dying to get as close as you can! In the blink of an eye, you throw your leg over his, straddling him. His hands wrap around you again, like he can’t stand not having them on you for a second. You understand the feeling. 

You’re bolder now with your kisses, nipping and licking eagerly. A particularly sharp bite on his pouty lip makes him gasp in surprise, and you press your tongue into his mouth, eyes fluttering shut in sheer ecstasy when he sucks in response. The incessant throbbing of your clit is slightly relieved when Chan’s hips buck upwards, pushing his erection against you more firmly. He swallows your whines, breathes them back out in the form of his own groans.

The need for air eventually overwhelms you after a few minutes, and you begrudgingly tear yourself away from his face. 

“Aren’t you going to be late?” you pant, marveling at how red and swollen Chan’s lips are from kissing. The urge to dive back in before you’ve gotten enough oxygen into your system to keep from passing out is strong. “To meet the guys?”

“You really think I’m gonna leave now?” Chan huffs a laugh as he gazes at you from beneath lowered eyelids, looking as dazed as you feel, and you realize, shit, Minho’s right, you are a vampire, and you’re about to eat this man alive. “Fuck no. Besides, what kind of terrible roommate would I be if I left you at death’s door?” 

“If you - what?” 

More high-pitched giggles fill the room. How can he be so cute while actively grinding his cock against you like this? “Your disease. Remember? Ineedadickitis.” 

“I need to suck a dick,” you correct him.

“Oh, do you? Well, go on then.” He cracks up completely, bouncing you with the force of his laughter as you sit there dumbly for half a second before snapping to. 

“You’re so stupid, oh my god!” With a howl, you push him away. He goes easily, until he’s lying on his back on your bed, still cackling while he swats away your fake punches. “I hate you.” 

“No, you don’t.” His fingers lock around your wrists and with a gentle jerk you’re lying on top of him, your arms pinned between you. Before you can try to pretend that he’s wrong, try to mount yet another one of your dumb arguments, despite knowing full well that he's right, he kisses you again. 

As soon as he releases your hands, you tangle them in his hair. His hands trace down your back to grab the swell of your ass, crushing you flat against him, chest to chest. He suddenly breaks off the kiss.

“Are you not wearing a bra?” 

You shake your head and he groans, sitting up, taking you with him. His fingers curl in the hem of your top, twisting it upwards.

“Shirt off. Now.” His voice drops an octave and you shudder, quickly obeying his order. Then you grip his tank top.

“You too.” 

He reaches behind his head to peel the fabric off, tossing it on the floor. Then he lays back, propping himself up on his elbows as you openly gawk at his stomach. 

“Fuck.” He’s transfixed by your chest. 

“Jesus.” You’re mesmerized. From this close, you can see a faint trail of fine hair that runs down, cutting through the carved lines of his abs, like an arrow pointing to your desired destination. “Unreal.” 

“You can touch, if you’d like,” Chan grins up at you, obviously enjoying your reaction. 

You roll your eyes but do anyway, dragging your fingertips over his abs. His stomach twitches beneath your touch. Before you can get too far, he wiggles his hips, playfully jostling you out of your concentration.

“Can I touch, too?” 

“Jesus, yes, of course!” Grabbing his hands, you place one on each breast. “Touch me already!” 

He doesn’t waste any time, rolling your nipples between his fingers, waking the buds. You arch into him, his abs forgotten as he leans forward to take your left breast in his mouth. 

“Shit, Channie,” you whimper, combing his hair out of his face so you can watch him suckle away. He hums into you, swirling his tongue over your nipple, around and around, before dragging his tongue across to the other breast. 

“You like that, baby?” he asks, covering your chest with kisses. 

Baby? Did he really just call you baby? Is this really happening, or did you slip into one of your daydreams again? 

Nope, the hard dick rolling into the apex of your thighs as you grind down on him feels pretty real. You can’t help but moan, wondering what he looks like under those tight jeans. Is he as thick as you imagine? 

Wait, why are you still trying to imagine anything? He’s literally underneath you right now.

Your hand splays on his torso as you guide him onto his back again. Slowly, you lower yourself over him, and drag your mouth down his neck. Clearly, you’d interrupted his going out routine earlier, because he’s not wearing his normal cologne right now. Instead, the heady scent you inhale as you stick your nose into the hollow of his clavicles is pure Chan, musky and comforting. 

“Ah, that tickles!” he hisses. 

“Sorry.” You press a heavy kiss to his collarbone. “Is that better?” He nods, right before you sink your teeth in.

“Nnngh!” He lets out a throaty groan as you happily suck a love bite into his delicate skin. God, the noises this man makes! You want to record them and play them on a loop. 

You slip further down, dragging your fingernails over one of Chan’s nipples, watching his face for his reaction. A tiny “oh!” escapes him, and you repeat the motion, grinning when his back lifts off the bed. Sensitive. This is going to be fun. 

Chan raises his head when you start to kiss his abs, taking the time to lick along the ridges as you go, the salty tang of his sweat lingering on your lips. When your hands play with the skin above his waistband, he clears his throat. “You know, you don’t have to do this, just because of that text.” 

“Are you kidding me?” You pause with your fingers on the button of his fly. “You want me to stop now?” 

“I just don’t want you to think I expect anything.” Although his voice is a little shaky, like he’s trying to calm himself down, you hear the sincerity in his words. The sweetness. That warmth inside you roars into a flame. 

“Channie. I want this. Do you want this?” 

He nods. “Yeah.”

“Thank god,” you sigh, unzipping his fly.  He helps you peel off his tight jeans and you make quick work of his silk boxers beneath. Nudging his legs apart, you kneel between them 

For a moment just you stare at the sight in front of you. You were right. He’s thick. Maybe a little longer than most of the dicks you’ve been happy to be acquainted with, maybe not, but definitely thicker. 

You want to sit on him so bad. But first you want to please him, want to taste him. So much want. 

While you’re dicknotized, Chan stuffs your pillows under his head so he can have a better angle. You glance at his face and find him biting his lip, eyes looking a little desperate. He doesn’t say anything, just watches you. 

Might as well put him out of his misery. With a lick of your palm, you wrap your hand around him, and pump a few shallow strokes. He grunts at the sudden slickness, abdomen jumping slightly. 

“Ah, baby, just like that,” he says, eyes closing when you roll your thumb over the tip a few times. “Shit.” 

Your tongue darts out to follow, dipping around the head and back over, before you take it into your mouth. Just the tip, bobbing off, then a little more, then again. Each time you sink lower, he sighs. 

“Fuck, that feels so good. Keep going, take it all in.” 

Oh god, is he a talker? You’re already impossibly wet. You can’t possibly handle getting any more aroused. 

While your mouth is occupied, you lift your leg so you’re straddling one of Chan’s, resting a palm on his big thigh. You have obsessed over his thighs since the day you moved in. You refer to them as “the thunder from down under” in your texts to Minho. And here they are now, so strong and sturdy beneath you. Wild. 

Chan hisses when you deepthroat him, brushing your nose against his pelvis. Even though you pride yourself on your dick-sucking skills, you can’t help but choke slightly. More saliva floods into your mouth, and you swallow around him. 

“Oh, shit!” His hips rise up a little. You use both hands, one trying to hold him down by his hip while the other strokes in tandem with your mouth. There’s drool everywhere, and the sounds the wetness makes sounds lewd even for porn. “Baby, this mouth of yours! Feels better than I ever imagined.”

Air rushes into your lungs as you pull off, replacing your mouth with your other hand. “You thought about this?” He fantasized about you, too?

“Oh fuck yeah,” he growls. “All the time. Thought those pretty lips would look so good choking on me, and I was right.” He thrusts a little, rocking his dick up into your slippery grip. “Used to dream about fucking it.”

You moan so brokenly, he looks at you in concern. 

“Please,” you lick his darkened head almost frantically, “do it.” 

Chan studies you for a moment, brows knitting together, before he pushes your head down. 

“That’s it, go down for me,” he directs you, and you listen. “Just stay there. Let me do the work now.” 

He starts slowly, tilting his pelvis a little, fucking up into your waiting mouth. Then he cants his hips a little faster. His breathing gets heavier the harder he thrusts. Once he finds a steady rhythm, he lays his hand on the back of your head keeping you exactly where he wants you. 

You squirm restlessly as Chan fucks your throat. Having your roommate use your mouth as a sex toy is incredibly hot. Finally, you slide your hand into your sweats to give yourself some relief. Your clit is engorged, practically beating like a heart between your fingers. You let out a pleased moan, vibrating down Chan’s cock. 

“Do that again, baby.” 

You’re not denying this man anything. Again and again, you make him curse as your hums resonate across his sensitive skin. He trembles a little, and it’s intoxicating to think that you might be breaking down this big, strong roommate of yours, reducing him to a quivering mess.

At the very least, it’s something to aim for. 

Chan praises you again. “God damn it, that’s good. Gonna make me cum with that pretty mouth.” 

You suck and swallow and moan and rub yourself, feeling Chan’s thigh flex beneath you, and it hits you what he said, that you’re about to get Chan off, you, so you reach out, raking your hand up the inside of his thigh until you find his balls, squeezing gently.

“I’m gonna cum, shit, ’m gonna cum,” he moans, words slurring together. “Where, baby?” 

You stop touching yourself so you can grip the hand of his that rests on your head. He gets the point, pace not slowing, and with a few more powerful pumps, and some stuttered exhalations, he fills your mouth. You take it all, swallowing noisily and gasping for breath once he pulls out. 

“Fuckin’ hell.” 

He laughs as he says it. Your shoulders shake as you half-laugh, half-wheeze, slumping over on Chan’s thigh.

“Is that a compliment?”

“Fuck yeah,” he grins. “And I’m guessing from the sounds you were making, you enjoyed that as well? Just maybe not quite as much as me?”

You shrug. “I got what I wanted.”  

“Yeah, okay, maybe, but I bet you’d like more, hmm?” Without waiting for a response, he swiftly flips you onto your back. Just hauls you right over like you’re made of feathers. A rash of ridiculously giddy giggles burst past your lips, but they die away when he crawls up your body, the power of his gaze pinning you in place, and drops hungry lips onto yours.

Immediately, you surge up into him, pressing as close as you can. Both of you are glistening with sweat, his hair sticking to his face and yours as he licks into your mouth, hot and wet. You’re drowning in him. It’s everything you ever wanted. How the fuck can you possibly want more? But you do, and this feeling makes itself known as you start to whimper needily.

Chan’s hand quickly locates your breast, tenderly cupping your flesh. “Have I told you how fucking gorgeous you are? So pretty.”

You preen at his words, humming contentedly. Fuck. Do you have a praise kink, or is it just that Chan’s the one saying these words that is getting you more worked up? You roll your hips, seeking friction, and Chan’s hand slides downward until he reaches where you need him.

“Oh, baby, so wet,” he says, voice hushed, almost reverent. “Just dying to be touched, yeah? Let me help you.”

With sure movements, lithe fingers stroke along your lips, opening you up. Fingertips squeeze your clit, playing with the aching pearl, causing you to squeal, and you could die, having made such a sound, except you’ve clearly already died and gone to heaven.

Even as his hand rubs, his lips never leave yours. You thrash in his grip when he slides a finger inside you, finding your g-spot with surprising quickness and pressing the fuck out of it, and he still chases your mouth, covering your chin in kisses. Your legs kick out as he alternates between fondling your clit and stroking your walls, until he suddenly stops, pulling his fingers out so he can rid you of your sweats. 

“You still with me?” he asks, kneeling between your legs, and you wonder if you look as wrecked as you feel, sucking in air like a fish. You must be a mess, if your appearance matches how you feel. But you’re also excruciatingly aroused and frustrated, so close to coming that you’re ready to blow.

“Yes. I’m here, I’m good.” 

“Good.” The Look™️ is back. He grabs your legs and bends them, pushing your thighs into your torso. “Here. Be a good girl and hold these.”

Yes, daddy. You bite your tongue to keep from screaming the words, and grasp your legs behind your knees, pulling them to the side as much as you can, opening you up wide.

“Yes, Channie.”

He smiles at that, eyes so dark you can almost see yourself. “So good for me. Hold tight, baby.” 

He sticks out his tongue, eyebrows cocking as he dives down, tracing your folds lightly before flattening the pink muscle and dragging it heavily upwards. You keen as his hot mouth suctions onto your clit. He rolls your clit around with his tongue before flicking it in a quick motion, over and over. 

“Jesus!” You’re a live wire, muscles jolting and twitching. As he continues working over the tiny bundle of nerves, his fingers slip inside you again, two this time, scissoring you apart, making room for his tongue. 

You gasp as he plunges inside, tracing your inner walls. He’s so loud, the noises his mouth makes as he sucks and laps, and messy, too, slick dripping from his chin when he lifts his face, making sure you’re watching him. Of fucking course you’re watching him. There’s literally nothing else in the world you’d rather be looking at right now than Bang Chan, the hottest man in the galaxy, devouring your pussy like it’s his last meal. 

“Tastes so good,” he rasps, turning his face to press sloppy kisses to your inner thigh. “Think you can hold out a little longer? Let me enjoy, yeah?” 

At this point, you’re a fucking tinderbox, one spark and you’ll explode, but sure, why not let the man enjoy himself a little more? 

“O-okay,” you stutter weakly. “I’ll… try.” You bite your lip. “But maybe…” 

Chan brushes his lips over your slit. With a shaky hand, you let your left leg go so you can reach out, brushing some damp locks off his forehead, and he looks at you. 

“Maybe a little slower?” you ask. 

He smiles, nodding a little. “Got ya.” 

Instead of pulling your hand back, you thread your fingers into his hair, and he hums, burying his face again. Only now, his tongue rolls slowly over your cunt, languidly, each pass taking longer and longer. He still keeps the pressure up, makes sure he’s pushing just as firmly against your sensitive folds, still fucks his tongue into you just as deeply as he was before, but now his movements aren’t so frenzied. They feel purposeful, like he’s intent on savoring the moment. 

And you realize you should, too. So you barely blink as you observe everything he does - every kiss, every groan, every time his eyes close. You try to commit it all to memory, so you can relive this moment over and over again. In case this is it.

Chan keeps humming, not so much a melody as just wordless sounds, getting louder when your thighs start to squeeze a little. Your hand grips the roots of his hair, not so much guiding him as hanging on. Until he takes your clit in his mouth again, and you cry out, holding him in place. 

“Right there, Channie, please!” Your voice breaks as you beg him not to stop. He doesn’t let up, not even when you release your death grip on your right leg, letting it fall over his shoulder like the other one. You dig your fingers into the blanket beneath you, fisting the material. “Fuck, just like that!” 

Your hips rise off the bed as you start to hump his face, grinding harder and harder. Chan slides his fingers back into your already clenching hole and finds your g-spot again. You wail helplessly, mind already going, body not far behind, as your muscles start to contract, everything tightening - 

“Fuuuuck!” 

With a loud groan, you come all over Chan’s face. He keeps tonguing your clit through your orgasm, but has to use his hands to hold your thighs open so he doesn’t asphyxiate. You tug at his hair, riding out the waves of bliss on his mouth. 

When you finally relinquish your grasp on his head, he stops. He slides your legs from his arms, then sits back on his heels to examine his handiwork.

You’re a limp noodle. No bones. No muscles. Couldn’t move if you tried. Your climax completely wiped you out, leaving nothing behind. But you’re a very happy noodle, practically purring as you smile at the ceiling. 

Chan, on the other hand. Chan appears to be ready for the next round. A point made obvious by the massive erection he’s again sporting. You blink at him a few times. 

“I’m going to need a minute.”

He laughs, draping himself over you, arm slung over your stomach, head on your shoulder. “Nah mate, you’re done.” 

A rather petulant whine bubbles up from deep within you. “Nooo, I’m good, I’m good!” 

You try to reach for his dick, but he catches your hand, lacing his fingers through yours. Which is a surprisingly sweet move, but not what you want right now. It’s not that you don’t want to cuddle with him - if he asked, you’d wrap yourself like a blanket around him and snuggle him for hours.

It’s that you’re not ready for this moment to be over. 

“Relax,” he laughs. “Plenty of time for that later. Just rest for a bit.” 

“Later?" There’s gonna be a later?

Chan kisses your neck lightly. “Yeah, later. Not done with you yet, baby.” 

You sigh, bringing a hand up to stroke his back. Okay. Maybe a little nap is fine. If there’s going to be a later. 

Fuck, you can’t wait to text Minho. 

Masterlist 💜 Find me on AO3 💜 

© 2023 by minisugakoobies. Crossposted to AO3. Please do not copy or repost.

I don't feel right tagging my usual tl since that was for my BTS writing, so I'm just gonna tag some moots that I think might like this:

@moni-logues @yoongimingyu @borahae-k @nabiolive @jikooknoona @sowoozoo-7 @eoieopda @here4btsfics @candlewaxandp0lar0ids @ballelino @starlostjimin @augustbutwinter @blueversaillesdreams @hobivore @hobi-gif @seokjinger-ale @hannahbee12719 feel free to tell me if I'm way off base, no pressure to actually read! 💕

[luminousbeings-crudematter]

Hey!! So I had an idea floating around my head and I had to share it, feel free to use it or scrap it if it doesn’t fit with your story but, what if reader is having like bomb ass morning sex with Ghost and they’re so happy and in love and then reader wakes up and realizes it was alll just a dream and they realize Ghost is gone and everything that happened last night was still true 💔

Can’t wait to see how the story progresses! Thanks for listening 💕

PAIRING: Simon “Ghost” Riley x Chef F!Reader 

WARNINGS: fluff, angst, the usual brand of melancholy, “bomb ass” sex (or an attempt at it) and the tiniest hint of a plot but only if you squint. 18+ only.

LENGTH: 1.2k

A/N:  I changed the prompt a little as I wanted it to fit neatly into the timeline but I hope you enjoy it, lovely 🖤  

(More Situationship Simon here.)

____

The first time Simon takes the mask off is when you’re panting underneath him, eyes squeezed tightly shut and hands fisting the covers as he opens you up on his tongue and on his fingers.  

You’re overwhelmed and almost close to tears when he suddenly stops, your orgasm so close that you feel it building in the pit of your stomach.  But he has other plans. Because it’s not good enough for him that you come in his mouth, he’d like to feel you shatter around him.  So in a rare show of vulnerability, he takes his mask off and he makes you come apart at the seams. 

You catch only the barest hint of colour on his cheeks before you’re unable to keep your eyes open anymore, coming for him hard.   His mouth doesn’t stop moving on you, though, and you’re whining, your voice sounding delirious at this point.   It’s the most peculiar feeling you’ve known–your mind’s trying to tell you to squirm away from his mouth even as you fist the covers under you to give you just enough leverage to push your cunt into him.  

The dichotomy isn’t lost on you—though, in the throes of your pleasure, any nuance to appreciate it is. 

That evening, he makes you ride his face, and you swear, you swear, it changes your life. 

____

The last time Simon takes his mask off in front of you is when he comes to your house on that day.  

You only have to hear the sound of the key turning in the lock for a smile to break on your face, almost involuntarily.  It’s been about two months since you’ve seen him.  You’ve both gone longer without seeing each other, of course,  but this one’s special.  This time he says he’s on leave for three months.  This time, it’s the middle of December and bitterly cold outside.

This time you’re going to pluck the courage to ask him to spend Christmas with you.

So when you hear the door open, you’re up and sprinting. Simon only gets a split second of a warning before he’s dropping whatever’s in his hands and opens his arms for you.  And when you crash into his arms, he lifts you off of your feet with a small oof.  He takes a step back—it’s only later that you see the bandages at his side and note that he seems to be favouring one knee over the other—but you bury your face in his neck, trying to crawl inside him. It’s nothing short of bliss.  In any case,  it’s not like he seems to mind—his arms tighten around you in silent understanding.  You both don’t say a word for a few moments, choosing to languish in the calm, the sweet silence, the welcome quiet of his homecoming.  

You’re the first to break contact, and he takes a deep breath—inhaling the scent of your hair?—and puts you down on your feet.  You’re astonished at the reminder of how big he is compared to you.  He towers over you—large and broad and fucking gorgeous, and if you could see yourself right now, you’d see your eyes shining up at him, your affection and your love and your attraction trying to make themselves known to him in your glassy stare.  

You stand on your toes to kiss his cheek, but it seems he’s not done making you moon over him yet.  He tugs his face covering off— a simple black surgical mask today—and shakes his hair at you, spraying you with cold water, making you giggle.  He’s not done though—he leans forward, a whispered hi at your ear, and presses cold lips to your cheek, making you squeal and squirm from him, before he’s kicking your door entirely shut, and dragging you to your bedroom.

He seems like he wants to savour you, but you’re overcome with sudden desperation, feeling feral for this man.  Please, you beg.  What you don’t say is that you want him to take his time with you, give you all of him, demand that you give yourself to him in return. 

But what you need right now, more than anything, is for him to put his hands on you, remind you of what you’ve both been deprived of for weeks.

But Simon is nothing if not intuitive, and he’s always been entirely in tune with your body.  He knows what you need, and he’s more than happy to oblige. 

He kisses you like it’s an art form, his tongue soft but moving deliberately.   His hands are on the sides of your face, and if that wasn’t enough to make you completely melt into him, he moans when you grind into him, the soft noise sounding almost involuntary.   

There’s barely any time wasted after that, and in a matter of moments, he’s pressed deep inside you.  He hasn’t even bothered removing his clothes, you note, nor yours.  Your panties are quickly slid to the side, and he’s pile-driving his hips into yours.  The deep rocking motion has you sliding upward, and in a moment of desperation you’re throwing your arms up, hands wrapping tightly around the posts of your bed so you don’t slide away from him.  

But the image of you in that moment— your arms above your head, breasts bouncing in time with his thrusts and your silk top pooled around your waist, head thrown back and your mouth slack from the exquisite pleasure—is too much for Simon, who bends over in half to stoop down to you to kiss you.  Fuck, love, he whispers against your mouth, and your eyes almost roll back into your head at the accompanying thrust.  His hands come to your hips and hold tight, the way he knows you like, and you just know that you’ve got the most glazed-over look in your eyes, but he doesn’t care, holding you still and making you take it.  

Makin’ a mess on my cock, pet, he says, and you look up to see him watching where you’re joined and it’s almost in slow motion that you see his hand leave your hip and make its way to your clit when—

You’re jolted out of the dream by a blaring alarm.  Fuck.  

You can taste the evidence of brackish water on your skin and your head pounds behind your eyes from lack of any meaningful sleep.    

It’s the morning after you were the architect of your own doom, but the world hasn’t shifted from its axis—though yours certainly has—and you’ve got work and responsibilities, but still no Simon.  You glance at your phone quickly, checking for a missed call, a message, anything to show that he’d wanted to fix things and talk to you with the same insane desperation you did.  

There’s nothing.

You get dressed idly, wondering if you’ll see him waiting for you outside your flat, or at the restaurant, or at the supermarket.  In the days that follow, you even wonder if you’ll see him in your flat one day after work.

(That line of thought dies a gruesome death when you wake up one morning to see an envelope with your keys, sitting on the floor inside your flat.  You cry yourself to sleep that night.)      

You wait for him for a whole three months before you finally stop.

[lying-hyperion-jackass]

the odyssey of recollection

the dark urge x enver gortash

rating: mature | word count: 1701

warnings: durge typical violent thoughts

notes: i am not immune to durgetash. this has been rattling around my brain since my first dark urge run. hope you enjoy <3

You can rarely sleep these days. 

The darkness inside you roils and pulses the moment you lay down, in sweet anticipation of the nightmares that will overtake you.

Despite the assurances of your companions that they would prevent any further tragedy, the terror that you will lose control of yourself again hangs heavy over your head.

But tonight you find something else is keeping you awake. An itch in your mind demanding to be scratched.

So you creep from your bedroll and out into the darkness of Baldur’s Gate. Without much thought, your feet carry you to Wyrm’s Rock. The fort feels even more imposing shrouded in shadow, towering over both Rivington and the lower city beyond. 

The guards allow you to pass without so much as a glance, a fully staffed crew despite the hour. You marvel at the level of trust that has been placed in you. It only makes you more curious. 

You find him seated in his office, behind an almost comically large wooden desk, perhaps meant to make him look more official, more imposing.

He looks small. Weak. 

When he looks up at you, there is no change in his expression. “I must say I am impressed with your speed and efficiency as always.”

You raise an eyebrow.

“I told you not to come here until you had dealt with Orin and acquired her Netherstone. And here you stand, mere hours later.” He sits back in his chair, eyes traveling the length of you in a way that makes something inside of you shiver. 

“You know me,” you say simply in response, frozen in place halfway between his desk and the door. You can’t bring yourself to move closer. 

Gortash’s mouth turns up into the barest hint of a smile. “I do. I thought I made that quite clear in our earlier conversation.” His clawed gauntlet clicks on the desktop where his hand rests. “That does not explain why you are here. And without your compatriots this time.”

“I know that I am…” you begin, but the words turn to ash in your mouth. Monster. Murderer. Bhaalspawn. “I know what I am. But I don’t know who I am.”

He nods. “And you would trust me to fill in the gaps for you?”

The black pit inside you twists. Look how sure of himself. How smug. He thinks he has the upper hand. Remind him of who you are.

You swallow it down. “I don’t have a lot of other options.”

There’s a beat as you stare each other down, but eventually, Gortash rises, circling his desk and coming to lean on the other side, just a few feet closer to where you stand. “You are as I said. A companion in this little plot of ours. A reliable teammate, dedicated to the cause.”

Your mind wanders back to the letters you’d found in the Oubliette, letters you now recognized must have been written in your own hand. You had admired this man in front of you. Spoke of him with a strange kind of fondness. 

“Was I like Orin?” You ask instead. Wondering if you were the mindless, chaotic, cruel follower of your Father everyone expected you to be.

Gortash winces. “Gods no. I would never have willingly entered into this with someone like her. You were different. You understood strategy, timing. The importance of control,” he says, the strange fondness you heard in your writing creeping into his voice as well. “I like to think you appreciated those same things in me.”

“How long had we known each other?”

“Ten years.”

“How did we meet?”

“I sought you out. You had quite the reputation.”

You think carefully about what else would be useful to know. “Why does Orin want you dead?”

“I imagine for the same reason I want to be rid of her. Our visions of the future of Baldur’s Gate do not align,” he says, before inclining his head to you. “Not the way that ours once did.” 

You search his features. Just as it was before his coronation, you see no trace of deception. No reason not to believe what he’s telling you. You imagine that future. The Tyrant Lord and his Assassin. 

The urge inside you recoils again. Before you can realize you’ve done it, you’ve crossed the space. He’s taller than you, but that doesn’t stop your hand from gripping his throat and shoving him back against his own gaudy desk. 

“I do not share anything with you. I will be the one whose sword carves bloody the whole of the coast. I will be the one left standing,” you find yourself snarling at him. 

You’re disappointed to see no fear in his eyes. He does not shrink back from you as he should. Instead he takes one clawed finger and touches it to your chin. “There you are,” he says softly.

Your heart is racing and you blink, moving to step away from him, but he catches your wrist and holds you in place. “You seemed so different now. So righteous,” he says. “You and your little band of heroes. All along hiding away the deepest parts of you. How does it feel to be seen?”

Swallowing hard, you yank your hand away and this time he lets you. 

As if he could let you do anything. You could destroy him. His blood would paint the walls so beautifully.

Looking at him, something else turns inside you, pooling low in your belly. The question on the tip of your tongue feels like one that has already been answered but you have to ask. You have to know. “We were…” you trail off.

“Perhaps I know you more intimately than you anticipated,” he says, still relaxed against the edge of his desk. Before you can ask another question he continues. “Neither of us expected it. But it was a boon for our partnership, even if others disagreed.”

“Orin was terribly jealous of you. Of the power you held. The favor with Bhaal.” He looks down, almost contrite. “I fear that our relationship may have been what drove her over the edge.”

You narrow your eyes at him. “If we were so close, why didn’t you come after me?” 

The muscle in his jaw twitches slightly. “She told me you were dead. I had little reason to doubt her abilities.” 

Liar. Weakling. Coward.

You take a tentative step towards him again. “No. You knew.” The knowledge comes to you with absolute clarity. “But coming for me would jeopardize your position.”

The blackness inside of you writhes joyously, calling the violence to the surface again. This time you embrace it, you imagine ripping his throat out with your teeth, finally quieting his constant lies. “So you left me there. To. Rot,” you spit. 

“As if you would not have done the same to me,” he growls back, standing up to his full height. 

Your mouth splits into a wide, feral grin. Your body sings in his presence, free in a way you have not been since you awoke aboard the Nautaloid. Your companions, your lovers, they all hoped for you to be something else. Something new. The leader, the hero, the unflinching ally. 

It was exhausting. Constant rebellion against your nature.

Isn’t it easier to embrace what you really are?

His eyes search your face, frozen in anticipation of what you might do next. 

“Why aren’t you afraid of me,” you ask, staring up at him.

He doesn’t answer you. Instead he leans down and presses his lips to yours. It's a searing, violent kiss. His golden clawed fingers dig into your skin through your thin camp clothes. You’re pressed so tightly together that you can feel his rabbit heart pounding in his chest.

Prey so eager to be devoured by predator. 

You part your lips to bite into his and copper floods your mouth. He groans, but he doesn’t pull away. Instead he leans in, pulling you impossibly closer.

The urge screams at you to force him to his knees, slit his throat and bathe in his ichor. But some other part of you, tangled in memories that were stolen, aches for a different kind of submission from him. 

He reaches beneath you and lifts, turning to set you roughly on his desk, crowding between your thighs and pulling you into another kiss. Your fingers thread through his hair, tugging hard, earning you another pitiful moan.

“Gods I missed this,” he says against your lips, hands wandering underneath your tunic. The scent of him surrounds you, some kind of expensive, spiced perfume, and memories flash through your shattered consciousness. 

The two of you, tangled up in every conceivable way. The feeling of him around you, on top of you, inside you, Reverence and malice in equal parts every time he looked at you from his knees. The taste of his sweat, his blood, It’s overwhelming, intoxicating, the most you’ve been able to remember of your life before.

Before. Before Orin cast you aside like a broken toy to be tormented at the hands of Balthazar’s sadistic lackeys. Before this tadpole squirmed into your brain. Before the iron grip of your devotion to your father had slackened enough for you to taste freedom. 

You don’t need freedom. Kill the Lordling. Take his stone. Then claim your throne. 

Your eyes snap open and you shove him back, hard enough to send him stumbling. He looks at you with blood on his mouth. He doesn’t look upset, just curious. Mind working five steps ahead of whatever it is you might do next.

Pushing down the squirming darkness inside you takes considerably more effort than it did a few minutes ago, but you manage. You stand, and move carefully around him towards the door.

“I’ll take care of Orin. But after that we’re done,” you say sharply, turning on your heel and leaving the office before he can say anything else. 

Back in your bedroll you find sleep is no more within reach than it was before you went. Only now instead of your bloody visions, you find yourself plagued by hazy memories of yourself, and a desperate desire you know you cannot sate.

[indeedcaptain]

Regulatory Relations, chapter 2: Man with a Plan

Okay, I'm going full steam ahead with Fake Married!! I actually hit par for Nano for the first time since this weekend last night, so I think this is the project my brain wants to work on most. HERE WE GO, I HOPE YOU ENJOY :)

Also posted on AO3 here!

☆☆☆

Between his ready room and Spock’s door, Kirk had changed his mind four times. This was an insane idea. He couldn’t possibly marry Spock. 

But the idea of Spock serving elsewhere, for them to send padd messages back and forth every once in a while until they never spoke again, filled him with a grief that he couldn’t even put a name to. 

But this entire plot hinged on the idea that his favorite marble column impersonator would agree to marry him publicly. 

But if they got married, he would never be able to marry someone else.

He came to a halt in the middle of the hallway, forcing an annoyed ensign to swerve around him, stack of padds wobbling precariously in her arms. He stared down the familiar corridor of the Enterprise as the sheer imbalance of his feelings hit him. When he thought about Spock leaving the Enterprise to be the captain of some science ship across the galaxy from him, the barbed-wire edges of panic started to circle every thought. His chest physically ached. When he thought about giving up the possibility of marrying for love later in life, he felt nothing at all. 

Kirk started walking again. If he was being honest with himself, beneath the nothingness, he felt the barest hint of relief. Every person he had ever dated had hated playing second fiddle to his ship and his career, and it had driven every one of them away in the end. He would never have to worry about that again, because his and Spock’s priorities had, for years, been exactly in line. He spent more time with Spock than with anyone else on the ship. Honestly, him and Spock getting married almost made a certain sort of sense. 

He was wearing the treads of his shoes down in front of Spock’s door, trying to place his thoughts in order and figure out the most logical way to structure his proposition, when the door slid open. Spock in his meditation robes appeared before him, and his mouth went dry. Was he really about to propose to his best friend? 

“Captain,” Spock said. “I could hear you. Why are you pacing in front of my door in such a manner?” 

“Can I talk to you?” 

Spock’s room was warm and musky, familiar and comforting. Kirk looked around at the evidence that Spock — son of two worlds, claimed by neither — had settled in here in a way he never had anywhere else, and he squared his shoulders. When he turned back to Spock, the Vulcan was watching him with one eyebrow raised. 

“You don’t want to leave, right?”

That eyebrow arched impossibly higher. “No, captain,” Spock said eventually, and despite his flat affect Kirk could read the unhappiness beneath. “I do not want to leave.” 

“I have an idea,” he said. “It’s a little bit illogical--- maybe a lot illogical--- and it might require some acting on both of our parts. And you can say no if you don’t want to, of course. But I want you to stay, and I think it might work.” 

“I am amenable to all suggestions that would allow me to maintain my current posting,” Spock said, and the slight stress on the word ‘all’ revealed how much he meant it. 

“We’re friends, right? And we serve well together. You don’t want to leave. I don’t want you to leave.” Kirk paused to catch his breath. His heart pounded in his chest. Why was he so nervous? 

“Those are factual statements,” Spock said quietly. 

“Starfleet regulations prohibit the separation of legally married couples.” The words burst from him and hung in the smoky air between them. Spock’s eyes widened slightly. He could practically hear the hum of Spock’s brain as he processed the implications of what Kirk had said. What he was suggesting. 

“Captain,” Spock said, his voice low and guarded. “You would offer this to me?” 

“I don’t want you to go,” he repeated. 

“You would not be able to marry another unless we divorced,” Spock said. 

Kirk scoffed, only a little. “I don’t know if you noticed, Mr. Spock, but folks aren’t exactly jumping in line to marry a man who’s never home.” 

“But you would sacrifice ever having the option? To keep me here?” 

Kirk turned back to Spock’s shelves, unable to bear the weight of his burning gaze. It had seemed so simple in the hallway. Nothing had to change between them; in fact, their getting married was the only way he could ensure that things wouldn’t change between them. Spock’s intensity surprised him. He ran a finger over the smooth wood of Spock’s lyre, just to have something to do with his hands. 

“I find that I don’t really care about having the option,” he said. “If it ever comes up, we can talk about it. For you, too, if you wanted it. But right now, what matters most to me is keeping you on the Enterprise.” 

“After T’Pring and the kal-if-fee, a union of that kind will not be available to me. I am hesitant to subject you to the same condition, even if it means securing my position here.” 

Kirk turned back at the quiet desolation in his voice. Across the room from him, Spock stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his shoulder slumped as much as they ever were beneath his robes. His face was impassive, but his eyes were pinned to the ground. 

“Spock, you can’t really believe I value you less than some hypothetical partner in a future that might never happen.”

Spock’s eyes flashed up to meet his. “Do not think that I would ever doubt our friendship, captain. I simply doubt that you will not miss romantic companionship as the years pass.”

Sometimes Kirk really fucking hated his younger self for the recklessness with which he had loved and left. “If that happens, and that’s a pretty big if, we can talk about it then. But for now, and for the rest of my career if we’re being honest, you being around means more to me than any fling ever could.” His stomach sank as he reconsidered Spock’s opposition. “Spock, if you don’t think this is a good idea, or you don’t want to, we just won’t. It’ll be fine.” He wiped a hand across his mouth and turned his head back to the shelves so he wouldn’t have to watch Spock say that he would rather leave than agree to marry him. But Spock unclasped his hands from behind himself and approached him slowly, with a look on his face akin to curiosity. 

He stood at Kirk's shoulder and considered the contents of his shelves with him. Then he said quietly, “You always surprise me, Jim.” The sound of his own name shocked Kirk into turning to look back at him. 

“I did not mean to imply that I was ungrateful for the offer, or that I did not want to attempt this… ruse. But I also needed to know that it would not cause you immediate distress.” 

“Honestly, the prospect of you leaving causes me more distress than the consequences of getting fake-married do.” Kirk leaned slightly sideways to bump his shoulder against Spock’s. Spock hummed slightly, deep in thought.

“If you are certain, captain, I would be deeply grateful. I have found that I very much do not wish to leave.” Spock touched one long finger to a sculpture that Uhura had given him previously.

“Then don’t,” Kirk said. “Let’s get married.” 

Spock walked him to the door, but held his gaze as he turned to leave. “Thank you, captain,” he said. “I do not take this lightly.” 

“You’re welcome, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said, and he couldn’t help but smile at him. “Breakfast in the morning? I believe we have a lot to discuss.” Spock agreed, and said goodnight, and when he disappeared behind the turbodoor Kirk pressed his hands to his face and leaned against the bulkhead until he could wrangle his cheek-splitting smile into something a little more dignified.

Then he walked the ten steps to his quarters, mind whirling, and sat at his desk with a padd for the next three hours, planning how exactly they were going to convince the rest of the crew that they were a couple.

☆☆☆

Spock was waiting next to Kirk’s door when he opened it the next morning, dressed sharply in his science blues. They fell into lockstep as they walked to the mess. 

“Changed your mind, Mr. Spock?”

“No, captain.” 

���Good. I’ve got plans to share with you.” 

Over two cups of tea for Spock, three of coffee for Kirk, and a disjointed breakfast spread of replicated options, Kirk laid out his strategy for how they were going to convince the rest of the crew, and from there the admiralty, that they were wedded partners. Step one was physical contact. 

“You already frequently touch my person,” Spock said, sipping his tea. Kirk grinned. 

“Great! I already have a reputation for being in your space more than other people. Now we can just do it on purpose.” 

“Are you implying that your current level of physical contact with me is unintentional?” 

Ignoring Spock’s pointed and disbelieving eyebrow raise, Kirk continued. Step two was pet names. 

“We do not have pets.” 

“Not yet, anyway. And it’s a human expression. A pet name is a term of endearment. What does your mother call your father?” 

“Sarek,” Spock said bluntly. “We cannot have pets on the ship.” 

“Come on, a cat or something would be cute. Really? She never calls him honey or sweetheart or something?” 

“I urge you to remember the tribbles, captain.” But then Spock pursed his lips before saying, “Ashayam.” Kirk did his best to type it phonetically on his padd. 

“And what does that mean?” 

“Beloved,” Spock said after a beat, so gently that Kirk looked up at him in surprise. Spock looked away from him to stab a piece of fruit with a fork. 

“I had a hunch that Vulcans were secret romantics,” Kirk said, and underlined the word. “Do you have a preference for what I’ll call you?”

“No,” Spock said. 

“Careful. If you don’t choose something I’ll choose it for you.” 

“As you wish, captain,” Spock said. 

“That’s another thing. You’re going to have to call me Jim sometimes.” 

“I do call you Jim.” 

“In public.” 

Kirk laughed out loud at Spock’s expression of dismay. Step three was allowing the crew to see how much time they actually spent together. 

“I do not understand. We share most meals, work together, and frequently play chess in each others’ quarters. What else is necessary to convince the crew?” Spock’s second cup of tea was cooling on the table in front of him, and he rotated it in his hands.

“They know it, but they don’t see it.” 

“Clarify.” 

“Sure, they see us spend time together, but they just assume we’re friends. And we are, of course, but now we need to draw their attention to it so that they think something else is going on.” 

“You intend to intentionally provoke the human propensity for gossip.” 

“I sure do,” Jim said cheerfully. “As bridge crew, we’re hot topics most of the time. If two of us were to accidentally let it slip that we’d been secretly dating for years, it would spread like wildfire.” 

If Spock were less controlled, Kirk thought that he’d be rolling his eyes at him. As it was, he sighed quietly through his nose and took a sip of tea. Kirk drained his own coffee and slid it to the side.

“Then, after the groundwork is laid, we’ll announce our wedding.” 

“You desire an official wedding?” 

“Yes,” Kirk said, affronted. “We’re going to have to submit the paperwork regardless. At least if we have a wedding we’ll have a reason to throw a party.” 

“Fascinating,” Spock said, in a tone that implied that he would rather walk out an airlock. 

“It’ll be fun, it will be good for morale and therefore performance, and it will ensure that the whole crew bears witness to us being genuinely married. Perfectly logical.” 

“As you say, captain,” Spock said. Then he paused, brown eyes scanning Kirk, before saying, “I understand that human beings do not like to keep secrets from their closest friends.” 

“There are caveats, but that’s mostly true,” Kirk said. “Why do you bring it up?” 

“I believe it would be beneficial to you to inform Dr. McCoy of the truth,” Spock said. He watched Kirk over the rim of his teacup. A little knot of worry that Kirk had been ignoring resolved in his stomach. 

“It would be,” Kirk said immediately. “I do want to tell Bones. Do you want someone to tell?” 

Spock considered, as Kirk continued to type ideas on his padd, before saying, “I would like to tell Nyota the truth.” 

“Oh, that’s perfect!”

“Indeed?”

“She knows everything that goes on on this ship,” Kirk said. “She can help us keep track of if people are convinced or not.” 

“It seems you have considered every strategic angle,” Spock said, and held his hand out. Kirk stared at it--- the smooth, dry palm with its faint green lines, the long fingers--- and then back up at Spock. 

“I thought holding hands was highly intimate for Vulcans,” he said, a little shocked. 

“Your padd, captain.” 

Immediately relieved and slightly embarrassed, he handed it over. Spock flipped it around to look at his charts and notes, and Kirk was gratified by the impressed eyebrow twitch. 

“You would have made a formidable politician, captain. Or perhaps a novelist.” 

“Then it’s settled,” Kirk said, and with his padd out of the way pulled a now-cold breakfast sandwich towards him. “We’ll tell Uhura and Bones, we’ll start to flirt and be a couple in public, and then we’ll get married.” 

“And then we will submit the paperwork.” 

“Sure, baby, whatever you want.” 

Spock’s indignant expression at being called ‘baby’ was worth almost choking on his breakfast.

[ursulaismymiddlename]

Untitled Document | Dream of the Endless x Reader

A/N: This is what happens when you have a million ideas and no idea what to do with him

Rated M for Morpheus is hot as fuck, but also there's a bit of naughtiness dotted in there

Special thanks to @captainpoopweinersoldier for encouraging this little idea and perusing it before posting to make sure it makes some semblance of sense haha

************************************************************************

“You’d seen entirely too many horror films to be perfectly at ease with the pale man draped in darkness at the corner of the room.  More concerning still was the overwhelming urge not to feel concerned at all.  A blanket of calmness as still as the night that seemed to hamper any tinge of fear without fully quelling it…”

The cursor blinks at you from the page and you nearly decide to scrub the whole thing.  But… well, it’s not a bad idea.  You just don’t know what to do with it.  None of the ideas have been bad, per se.  Some may be more inspired than others, but that’s the shape of things really.  Yet it all feels like you’re scattering seeds to the wind and nothing wants to take.

Maybe gardening isn’t the best metaphor.  You know actual gardening takes patience and care and hard work to achieve something beautiful.  But at this point, you’d settle for weeds in the crack of a sidewalk just to have something.  You also know that weeds can be beautiful too.

Instead of deleting the three measly sentences, you decide to… repurpose the document.  If you can’t make a whole story just yet, you can at least throw these fic ideas into a Google Doc and maybe try plucking something up later.

Let’s see…

- Your cat gets the drop on a raven, but you save it and decide to take it home and patch it back up. Unbeknownst to you, the raven belongs to the King of Dreams, who comes looking for his companion

Hmmm… not terrible. But really, how would your lazy chonk of a cat manage to capture some mystical bird?  The little tubbers can’t even capture flies worth a damn.  Maybe the cat is magical too somehow?  Are you a witch and the cat your Familiar?  That’s worth exploring later maybe.

- You’ve trained as a dancer since childhood, but after years of chronic illness (chronic pain and fatigue syndrome? fibromyalgia?) the only place you can still dance is in your dreams, and it’s there that Morpheus becomes enamored of you

That has some potential.  Write what you know, right?  But while you know chronic illness, you don’t really know any dancing.  This is the sorta shit that happens when you hear songs like “Tiny Dancer” while on your drive to work in the early morning.  How would you even write about dancing convincingly? Like are you going to have to Google dance terms to try sounding legit?

But the thought of even his slightest of smiles, even the barest hint of adoration makes your tummy flutter

- Cockworship.  Him splayed out on your bed (or his bed?) chiseled from the finest marble, adoring him this god, this endless being, this personification of dreams itself… and his breathless rasp of “Only you may worship me this way.”

Okay, that one has your cheeks heating up and you’re tummy flipping.  What a lovely image.  And certainly a mutual or two would absolutely love it as well. But… well, smut’s been a little difficult for you lately. Plus, you hardly ever write good smut.  There’s always more feeling than you intend because you love a good backstory.  Maybe you could try a Porn with Plot sometime, but today doesn’t feel like that day.  Perhaps if you get a weekend alone with a bottle of wine one day…

- You dream-walk into a library, expansive and filled to the brim with every book and story ever written or ever going to be written, every life story, every flitting thought, more knowledge than you can ever dream of… What is this place? The Library of Alexandria?

“No, far more than that.” “Will I remember when I wake up.”

“Only you of the Waking World knows that.”

An awed, hushed whisper “I hope I remember…”

The dialogue could use a bit of work, but it’s a start at least.  Maybe this one?  You’ve always dreamed of seeing the Library of Alexandria, of knowing every story, of knowing everything.  What a draw!  Anyone who reads or writes would feel that in their bones.  But why would a mortal walking through such a fantastical library garner the attention of the Dream Lord?  Like, what is so special about You?  I mean, yes, in real life people fall in love randomly all the time.  Who knows what attracts people to other people? But still, you have to be able to convince yourself before you can convince others.  What could a mortal possibly give a divine being?

- You’re a mortal, with Lord Morpheus, but he decides that it’s too dangerous/not good for either of you to continue being together (is this too much like that Twilight book? anyway) Not only does he abruptly break things off with you, but he also banishes you from the dream world, worried that it would be too tempting for either of you, but this leaves you with terrible sleep and in a depression, so much so, you turn to a full bottle of sleeping pills

“Am I so cruel?”

Your heart stops, plummeting into your stomach so fast you’re surprised you don’t hear it whistle and crash like a cartoon character going over a cliff.  Looking up from your laptop, you see him. Your dream -er, The Dream.  Those first three sentences feel right, somehow.  It’s not dark like in your imagination, but the same effect seems to wash over you.  Even as you look at your laptop again, you find the words and letters a jumbled mess.  The hastily crafted sentences strewn about haphazard and incoherent.  Has all this just been a dream?

Something pulls your attention back to him, to Dream.  That pale brow clouded by the pinch of curiosity between them.  He’s waiting for your answer, and while there is patience now, you feel it will not last forever.  And somehow, you know exactly what he’s asking.

“Not cruel, but…” You lick the dryness from your lips.  His words are always so measured, so calculated in your head, that you feel he deserves the same from you.  “Reserved? Aloof, maybe.  Like sometimes you don’t know how to feel so it’s easier just… not to.”

His glossy eyes go distant a moment, and then without a sound he moves, closing the distance between you until he can perch on the end of your bed, one long leg hitched up on the mattress with the dark fabric of his coat pooling around him. “You see me as cold. Uncaring.  You think I would condemn a lover to such torment for the mere crime of being mortal.”

“Haven’t you before?”

You’re not exactly sure where those words come from.  But they’re right, just the same.  Even if some latent part of you didn’t know for sure, the look that crosses his face proves the truth of it.  The way his eyes avert, jaw working beneath the cold marble of his skin.  There’s a ripple of anger in whatever blanket covers this dream of yours, but there’s shame in it too.  Self-doubt.  But your heart breaks from it of its own volition.

“You save them. In the end.”  The admission brings his gaze back to yours, the sharp lines of his face softened somehow, hopeful.  “Despair or Death - or both - warn you what’s happening and you show up to stop them before it’s too late.”

He nods slightly, knowing, the almost imperceptible quirk at the corner of his lips nearly wistful.  “You will not find my realm with these.  Only the Sunless Lands await you at the bottom of this bottle.”

His words steal the breath from your lungs.  His words… they’re yours.  The ones that came to you while thinking up with this angsty little fic idea.  Hearing him actually say them was all you’d imagined and more.  “You read my mind?”

“I read your stories,” he corrects.  “Every story finds its way to my library.  Written or unwritten.”

“And you read them all?”

Some of his regal posture returns as he regards you.  “I am eons old, The Dreaming and its library are extensions of my being.  And yet, even I could not fix my eyes on every work conceived of by all of consciousness.  Only one of my siblings could.”

“Destiny.”  Your understanding seems to please him.  And that serves to embolden you.  “Then why read mine?”

The Dream Lord’s head tilts slightly, considering.  “It is not often I see myself written about so plainly.  With truth.  And hope.”

That heat creeps across your cheeks again and you snort a laugh at yourself.  “There’s no way I could have captured you that well.”

“Closer than you realize.”  There’s something else in the glistening of his eyes, distant stars dancing in an ocean of blue with something akin to mischief.

It’s only then the thought occurs to you. “Have you read… every story I’ve ever written?”

He gives a curt nod.  “All you have ever written and all you have never written.”

You swallow hard, thoughts harkening back to the lewd image you had of him sprawled across a bed beneath you.  Though this time it is more solidified, silky sheets the color of the midnight sky with his skin a glowing moon amongst the stars…  

Your lips part to speak, but he is already rising to his feet.  And he knows.  You can feel it.  He knows exactly what you’re thinking and that amuses him too.  “You’ll awaken soon.  And I have duties I must attend.”

“But…” But what? But then he’s standing before you, the distance closed in a blink the way only dreams can move.  You crane your neck to meet his gaze only to find him descending towards you.

Cool knuckles whisper across the curve of your cheek, making your eyes flutter closed just as the feel of soft lips meets your forehead…

You jolt awake in your bed, limbs as warm and heavy as the laptop across your stomach.  The dream lingers in your mind even as you rub the sleep from your eyes.  How fucking weird.  How fucking Meta.

Ah well. You were up now and it didn’t seem like too much of the afternoon had passed.  A little nap never hurt anyone.  But now it was time to get down to business, that erratic urge to create buzzing through you like it hadn’t done in years.  You only hope this time you can buckle down and get something done for a chance.

Opening your laptop, you see the cursor flash on the page.

“You’d seen entirely too many horror films to be perfectly at ease with the pale man draped in darkness at the corner of the room.  More concerning still was the overwhelming urge not to feel concerned at all.  A blanket of calmness as still as the night that seemed to hamper any tinge of fear without fully quelling it…”

[popjunkie42]

You're such a doll. 🥹❤️

🚀🏷️🎁

I was traveling this weekend so just catching up with fic asks!!

🚀Do you like to outline your fic first or create as you go?

Lol I was just discussing this on Sunday! I absolutely outline but I am definitely a lazy, create-as-I-go pantser with a lot of writing. I'll generally get a big burst of creativity when I come up with a new story I'm excited about and I know the broad strokes of everything as well as a few scenes that come to me. I might write it down, I might just remember it. I like the story to unfold as I'm writing it, and a lot of times I'm solving plot problems and discovering emotional through lines as I write as well. It's a messy process and I love it. :) I will say Psyche-Eros is going to be 60k+ words for part one, and I just did a bonkers detailed chapter-by-chapter outline to keep me on track, so I definitely need it for longer works...

🏷️Is there a tag you like to search when looking for fanfics to read?

Honestly the only thing I search is for new Feyre/Rhysand fics! I'm lucky to be tapped in here and get a lot of recommendations from people. And I've found so many good pieces and writers just by searching for new Feysand fics on AO3!

🎁Have a piece of a WIP you want to share?

Ok I shared this a bit elsewhere but I think I've already posted a lot of my fave bits from Psyche-Eros so you get something new :) This is an Azris meeting UTM...be gentle, it is my first Azris.

“And how is your dear circle? Is The Morrigan in hiding from her father? He looks at me strangely every time I mention how much I miss her glowing countenance.”

Azriel was still, a dark storm brewing.

Eris knew. Only in seeing Azriel, in the hard iron bars of his mental shield, had he been able to dredge up their names, bits of their faces, like pulling memories out of sticky tar. Their names felt heavy on his tongue.

“I’m not speaking about them.”

“Won’t you? And don’t you want to know what your illustrious High Lord has been up to? Just this evening I watched him make a low fae dance for hours until his feet were bleeding, and then knock him unconscious so quickly his face cracked on the marble floor. Apparently Amarantha thought he had sneered at her in the hall.” No reaction. “We all knew Rhysand was a bit of a monster, but he truly seems to have found his calling in this place. Who knew he would take to servitude so well.”

The lilt of his voice was a taunt, a plea for reaction. He wouldn’t stand for stoic silences today. “Does he even know you’re here?”

The barest hint of a smile, the corner of Azriels’ lips twitching. His eyes like dark coals. “I came to see you.”

Eris huffed a laugh. “How flattering, that you came Under the Mountain just to needle me for information. You’re like a hungry cat. I should never have fed you. Now you won’t stop coming back.”

A smile, a flash of sharp teeth. Menace glistening in shadow. His dark wings rustled as he pushed off of the table where he had been leaning. His steps indeed like a stalking cat. Until he stood in front of him, his wings casting a shadow over the high lord’s son, the fire crackling and looming behind him.

“I wasn’t hungry. But you fed me anyway.” His leg closer, parting Eris’s knees on the couch. Azriel leans down, his eyes going to Eris’s lips. “Says more about you than me, I would think.”

[waffle-bubbles]

So I went to a Rocky Horror screening tonight with a shadow cast. I have a theater assignment where I’m supposed to watch one live performance, but my town doesn’t have a single theater company and this was the only thing close to that I could access with a lack of a driver’s license. I expect to fail.

Anyway. Here are my notes on the show and on the brief voyage back to my dorm:

- For the viewing experience, I did not enjoy it. It was crowded and noisy. Not sensory friendly. I got a headache from the clashing smells of alcohol and food which weirdly smelled like crayons. I liked the lighting. It was similar’s to my dorms, which I keep low.

- My social anxiety was really high, which makes it less enjoyable. Especially since it was interactive. I’d prefer watching it in the safety of my room with a few close friends.

- Where I was positioned, I couldn’t see well. People crowded the screen; some were standing in front of me while I was sitting. Everyone was at the same level as the screen.

- Virgin cherry pop (setting up promiscuous themes)

- Time warp dancing

- Couldn’t hear a thing. At one point they turned on the captions (to which there was a cheer), but I couldn’t read among the heads blocking the view. I wore my earbuds the whole time to block some of the noise out. I brought up the script to read along.

- Would have been more fun if I had friends. But you know. I’m a loser.

- Time warp was fun. So was Sweet Transvestite. (At least I can hear the songs. That’s the most important part.)

- The performers have an air of drag to them. Obviously.

- Crush on Brad and Tim Curry. What’s new.

- Sitting between middle aged women, teenage girls, and an obnoxious straight couple.

- Costumes exact replicas of movie’s costumes. (Couldn’t see actors well at all; just hints of their head.)

- Statue of David?? (I can’t escape it) (I like that his nails are painted.) (What is with all the Greek references?? Atlas, Medusa)

- I look too straight to be here.

- If I was a cis man, I’d 100% dress as Dr. Frank n’ Furter. But alas, dysphoria. I think trans people latch onto him because of how confident he is in his body and how it defuse gender.

- This is about sexualizing men and woman, and I love it. (Especially the men.)

- Brad real actor is played by an older gentleman.

- If I hadn’t watched this before, I would be so confused right now (again, can’t hear shit)

- Get that bussy, Janet (and she’s in the bi colors)

- I always feel bad for Rocky. His whole purpose is to be used.

- Pretending not to notice my classmate

- Apparently I was watching the obnoxious dude’s drinks. At least he gendered me correctly. (“He’s not even twenty-one.”)

- “But he’s a lesbian” (I don’t know what the context of this is, but a dude named Chief said it.)

- Craning my neck to see the other screens when I can’t see (there is a bowling alley here)

- I’m so gay (Brad) (he’s so hot)

- The two actors walked in front of my during orgy to foreshadow Frank n’ Gutter’s overthrow

- Frankenstein motif

- Using flashlights as spotlights

- Actors have just been mimicking what’s on screen (from what I could see)

- Frank n’ Futer’s real actor looks so sad (“I’m going home”)

- How can people spend their weekends like this. I’m tired and it’s not even 9:00 yet.

- Bro I can actually hear Riff Raff (still can’t understand him) (crowd thinned the barest amount)

- I forgot how bad the laser effects were (kind of cartoonish)

- a lot of seemingly unrelated scenes of a plot

- I like to think Brad and Janet become a power poly couple

- Classmate said hi anyway. I said hi back.

- I have way too much anxiety for this shit.

- It’s freezing cold and I can’t see the stars

- I enjoy listening to the soundtrack more than that experience

- Oh there are the stars. Very few.

- Bus driver told me I should have a flashlight. Good idea.

- Fuck this stop. I hate it. I am overwhelmed, and I want to be in my warm bed. (Switched drivers)

- This lesbian bus driver has good taste in music (she was listening to Girl in Red. Only lesbians listen to Girl in Red and Lana Del Ray. Obviously.)

- I think I made this gay couple uncomfortable. They stopped cuddling when I looked at them. Like no dude you’re good. I was just admiring your fashion.

- I can see my breath. This should not be happening. I’m not ready for winter.

[inhuman-obey-me]

A Peaceful Day in the Devildom

Written for the Barbatos Birthday Collaboration 2022, with the theme "Enforcer"! See the corresponding art for this piece here Word count: 4.2k Description: Barbatos has absolute loyalty to the Demon Prince. He believes absolutely in Diavolo's goals, and does everything he can to support them. That includes keeping nobles in line and would-be rebels in their place. Or: Rodents aren't the only kind of rat Barbatos despises. But he has quite a bit more fun disposing of the treasonous kind. Can also be read on Ao3 here

[cw: blood, violence, torture, body horror]

The room is dingy and dark, the weak light of the lamp left burning at the center of the room hardly stretching beyond the table on which it sits.

"One would think that in the Devildom, of all places, they would know better than to think that darkness means anything is hidden," Barbatos muses, the barest hint of a smirk crossing his lips. But, he supposes, it makes just as much sense that demons would find a sense of safety and reassurance in the shadows. Even if it's a false safety.

The mess they've left, on the other hand, disturbs him. As his infernal eyes adjust almost immediately to the low light, the scattered papers, maps, notes, and other materials strewn about the room come into clear focus, along with a layer of grime and dust that seems to sit upon every shelf and dresser around the room.

It's always like this. Truly, he wishes that for once, the demons plotting assassination against his master would have the sense to clean up a bit. If they're so careless that they can't be bothered with wiping down the shelves every once in a while, it's no wonder they're always so careless about leaving evidence lying around everywhere as well.

But it does make his job easier, in any case.

His fingers brush lightly over each item on the table, memorizing the exact position of each one atop another as he scans their contents. A shoddy attempt at a schedule on one -- do they not understand that someone as busy as the Crown Prince of the Devildom wouldn't keep to a consistent schedule from week to week? Barbatos, of course, is the one who composes his daily agenda for him, delicately slotting meetings and work time together like intricate puzzle pieces to allow Diavolo the most efficient use of his time. On another sheet, he finds notes about various poisons, as though the butler would ever be careless enough to allow the prince to consume a poison he has not already been inoculated against. Lucifer, ever a connoisseur of deadly substances, is far better informed about such matters than these fools.

At last, he comes to the shelf containing books upon books of meeting notes -- they've been plotting against Diavolo for a long time now, though their attempts rarely amount to any kind of solid plan. He checks in on this group every once in a while, though they wouldn't know it by how impeccably he always returns everything to exactly its prior state. A simple task, for a demon who can simply restore a past state to the present.

Skimming through the most recent set of notes, however, a particularly concerning tidbit catches his eye. A soft tutting clicks from his mouth, his frown growing deeper as he reads the notes in more detail. Details which include, well, far more detail than he would like. And further down the page, a name he recognizes all too well. One that hasn't appeared in this group's notes before, on any of his prior covert check-ins to this place.

Well, that won't do. That won't do at all.

--

The demon feels Barbatos before he sees him -- specifically, twin tail ends wrapped around his throat, slick and smooth against his skin, and threatening to snap the bones of his neck cleanly apart.

"It appears you have been spending time in places where you don't belong lately, now haven't you?" the butler hisses into his ear from the shadows behind him.

"Where I don't belong?" the other scoffs haughtily, staring straight ahead to avoid the piercingly cold gaze beside him.

He trains his eyes instead on the extravagant golden gleaming of gilded furniture shimmering softly in the waving light of the room's aquarium. Beautiful riches, emblematic of his power and status in the Devildom -- and with his mind firmly focused on that power, he calmly raises the teacup in his hand to his lips. "Whatever could you mean? I go wherever I please, whenever I please, and I belong anywhere that I go. That is my right, as a member of this proud house, is it not?"

A twitch of Barbatos's tail squeezes abruptly against its prey, cutting short both his words and his airflow, as he snaps, "Lord Zayme, I am not here to play games." There is an uncharacteristic fury in his snarl, unexpected anger from the refined butler who has always appeared perfectly composed at Diavolo's side, though the noble demon dismisses it. "If you believe nobility allows you to do whatever you please, it seems you have forgotten your place."

Around the handle of the teacup, Zayme's fingers tremble slightly with surprise, but he keeps his voice determinedly unconcerned as he sneers back against the strain on his neck, "Why yes, I am a noble. That is my rightful place. And you are no more than a butler, as I recall. It seems to me that you are the one who has forgotten his place, if a servant believes he has the right to threaten a member of the aristocracy. Or is our little princeling so soft-hearted that he cannot keep his own retainer in line?"

The room takes on a dark tinge at the comment, as though each light is being sucked into the shadows, and a sharp chill flickers through the space. Barbatos pinches the noble's chin harshly, forcing his eyes to meet his own dark emerald gaze.

"Nobility or otherwise, do not dare forget -- your station is still below that of royalty."

The hot fury of a moment ago has disappeared from him in an instant, replaced by a cool air of matter-of-fact dignity. Poison drips from his words, and the air in the room feels tighter with each syllable.

"You will show respect to your prince."

The sudden change in demeanor, however, only serves to aggravate the arrogant noble.

"Or what? The little prince has been left in charge, but we all can see that his father did not even deign to crown him before he departed to his slumber. One might conclude that the King saw what we all can -- that your lord is too weak and soft-hearted to ever truly rule over our realm of demons. An exchange program to get along with those snobbish angels and weak little humans -- ha! Am I really to sit by and respect a princeling that doesn't even care to act on his most devilish urges?"

"Oh? Devilish urges, you say? Is that what you were looking for when you used those eyes to go peeking into our home, Lord Zayme?" A whisper of cruelty slithers across Barbatos's face in a smile, as slick and dangerous as the two-pronged tail still wrapped around the other's neck. Darkness envelops the room, leaving only electric patterns in teal flashes to illuminate the space between them. "Not to worry, we do have plenty of those at the Demon Lord's Castle. Please, if you are so concerned about whether my master is demonic enough to rule, then come. Let me show you."

--

The first thing Zayme sees when he stirs is the grit of rough-hewn stones.

As his eyes begin to focus against the flickering candlelight around the room, he notices the coarse surface of the wall, mere inches from his face, a stark contrast from the gilded adornments of his polished home.

The second thing Zayme sees, which breaks him abruptly from his daze, is blood. Blood, in deep red stains, scattered across those same stones. Blood, in thin traces whispering threats of drips along the walls -- and in that moment, he startles from his stupor.

"Not a fan of my decor?" Barbatos muses to his side with a sly smile.

The noble does his best to suppress his surprise, unwilling to give the butler the satisfaction. In an unimpressed drawl, he simply remarks back, "Blood ought to be either cleaned or embraced, not half wiped away with stains left to mark the walls."

Though not entirely pleased with his target's critique, Barbatos merely hums in response. He does take some pride, normally, in this room, this sanctuary of torment he keeps -- but it's true enough that the Little D.'s aren't entirely consistent amongst themselves with how thoroughly they wash the walls, and in any case, the noble's opinion won't matter for much longer. It will just make his decline that much sweeter, Barbatos reminds himself.

As if by instinct, heavy chains dangling from the walls clatter noisily around them both, seemingly sensing their master's malcontent nonetheless and shooting forth to wrap their prey in thick metal coils. Warning sparks of magic flicker from Zayme's fingers in response, but before either demon can even say anything, the cool metal simply tightens itself around his arms, cutting off the circulation of his power and blood alike.

"You should refrain from any sudden magic," Barbatos chuckles softly, "though I suppose you're hardly the first to fall back upon magic when restrained. But you'll find there's a hex upon those chains that only tightens each time they detect magical energy from anyone aside from myself, so I don't advise it."

"That's only if I am to believe their magic is stronger than my own," Zayme snaps back. Still, despite his bluster, he can indeed feel the pressure upon his wrists and decides not to test his pride just yet. Instead, he takes a moment to calm himself, observing his surroundings properly for the first time since they arrived.

The room he's found himself in isn't terribly large, though he can feel the limitations of his own size as the chains that have encircled his frame have him pressed against a single point of one wall. Thin candles lean at diagonals from the wall, giving sparse light as wax drips lazily down below. From the opposite side, he can see a wooden door, scorched and scarred in layers and yet entirely intact. Various carts and tables litter the space in between, and the pristine glint of surgical tools gleams at him from upon one in particular.

"I believe you'll find their magic plenty strong."

The polite, reserved smile doesn't leave Barbatos's face, and Zayme at last begins to feel his stomach drop. There is something undeniably sinister in the butler's blithe expression, and for the first time, the noble is realizing that he is well and truly in the grasp of the crown's punishment. Even if the butler has not spoken his crimes out loud in full, it's clear enough that both of them know what he did. And treason is not a light offense.

Well, no reason for pretense anymore then.

"Ah, so the idealistic and noble princeling does fall back on strength after all," he spits, literal venom dripping from his tongue. "Behaving for once as such a powerful demon should, yet he hides it like a shameful secret. I hope you enjoy what's coming to him and you both!"

Unfazed, Barbatos begins thumbing through the tools at the table beside him, before settling upon a thin pen with a curved quill-like point at one end and a small, empty ink jar upon the other.

"Lord Zayme," he says calmly, examining his chosen implement by a candle's light, "the Shadowed Feathers group has been active for seven hundred, thirty-two years. They meet weekly, almost without fail, and have done so for the entire duration of their existence. They gather those who are unsatisfied with His Majesty's ideals, they plot together, they recruit. Week after week, they make plans for removing Lord Diavolo from the throne. And yet, in seven centuries, not a single plan of theirs has amounted to even an inconvenience to His Majesty. Do you know why that is?"

"They simply lacked the knowledge necessary to go about it! A problem which I have now rectified." There's a hint of what sounds almost like pride beneath the demon's snarl. "Whatever you do to me, that is one thing you cannot take back from them."

To his surprise, however, he's met only with another chuckle, as Barbatos finally turns to him. "In seven hundred years, you truly believe you are the first demon to offer them knowledge, Lord Zayme?"

He clutches the noble's chin with unexpected strength, holding it in place with one hand as he lifts the pen's tip to his subject's forehead with the other, carving thin, delicate lines in perfectly precise strokes despite the squirming of the latter underneath through grimaces in pain. Dark red ichor drips from each one like ink in reverse, slinking down from the tip of the pen through the body and into the small well that sits at the other end. "But it is, after all, only fools who dare join a group like that in the first place, I suppose."

"You dare call me a fool?!" Zayme attempts to bark back, though he struggles to move his mouth much at all with the grip on his chin.

Barbatos wipes away the remaining droplets of blood still pooling atop the design, and takes a step back to admire his handiwork. The design is sharp and clear upon the demon's skin -- a delicate, wispy feather with a silhouette of a scythe hidden in the shadow of its core. The symbol of the rebel group known as the Shadowed Feathers.

"I certainly do see a fool before me," he answers coolly. "One who has now been marked appropriately, so all will be able to see your foolishness."

"It is not foolish to demand that a demon prince should have pride in being a demon!" The rage of the noble's protest is palpable in the air, energy almost crackling through his throat, and the chains binding him constrict a little tighter in warning. "Bad enough those arrogant angels have always looked down upon us, but now he wishes to invite them into our realm and play at tea parties and school life together? To play nice with the sorcerer who bound seventy-two of us to his service so we could build for him a shrine to everything we hate? It is not foolishness to object to that; it is foolishness to spit upon the graves of every demon who fell in war against them as the prince plays at ideals that even angels do not keep!"

"Wars end, Lord Zayme," he answers simply. "Whether you agree with it or not, Lord Diavolo is absolutely correct. The necessary path for all our realms is to find harmony."

The noble rebel suddenly finds a flat-edged blade inserted into the socket just below his left eye, as Barbatos continues, "You, however, thought to find a path into the Demon Lord's Castle instead. For that, I do believe you do not deserve these magical eyes the Three-Legged Crow has bestowed upon you. So let us rectify that, shall we?"

With a swift flick, the eyeball slips out of its socket with a pop, rolling upon the floor. It takes Zayme a moment, with his innate powers of sight still intact, to process exactly what his vision is absorbing -- Barbatos, simultaneously straight ahead, and yet also visible from behind, towering over as his tail flicks languidly back and forth.

The teal demon presses a gloved hand over the noble's howl of panic, suppressing it until his prey can hardly even breathe and his screams turn to a bare whimper. He gives him a coolly amused smile, fully understanding what the other is seeing. "Dizzying, isn't it? Strange, to see the world from another perspective? Not to worry, they'll be reunited soon enough." Releasing just enough to prevent the demon from passing out, he repeats the same to the other eye with surgical precision, letting it bounce away to just beyond the first one.

The chained prisoner thrashes frantically against his restraints as he feels blood dripping out of each eye socket, empty and strangely cold now that they are exposed to the dungeon air. The tight coils of the shackles around him, however, do not give way at all, only deepening his hysteria, until he feels a thin needle press into his neck. Immediately, his body stiffens, at last forcing his mind to quiet as well and adjust to his new angle of vision.

It is jarring to see himself for the first time again from afar -- a far cry from the proud, refined appearance he normally presents. His hair sticks dully to his face with the shine of blood and sweat, and the skin of his hands and chest beneath his shirt are flushed with fear. He can still feel his mouth moving familiarly upon his face, but the distant sight of himself makes it disconcerting somehow, as he struggles to reconcile where he feels it with what he sees.

As he regains his senses, however, he is determined not to surrender so easily. "None of this makes any difference, butler," he croaks, trying still to maintain a powerful voice though it comes out weakly. A strained grin makes its way to his lips, and there's a hint of desperation in his voice. "This may be the price I am paying, but Diavolo has one to pay as well for his treachery against our realm. Even if I have betrayed him, demonkind is on my side."

Unfortunately for Zayme, it is not the subject of his sneering criticism administering his punishment, but rather the prince's loyal manservant -- a demon with far fewer inclinations towards reconciliation and mercy.

"Demonkind can be swayed," Barbatos responds, unbothered. He scoops up the fallen eyeballs upon the ground, dropping them casually into a small beaker upon his little table.

In the next moment, Zayme's vision is abruptly flooded with a dark splash of liquid, as Barbatos dumps the contents of the earlier pen's ink well into the jar. It thins slightly as he adds a bit of water, and then the world is a dizzying blur of movement as the butler stirs the contents together. Blood-filled bile burbles up from his still-chained body upon the wall, spilling out of him before his mind can even catch up to what is happening.

When the liquid in the jar finally stills and he can somewhat see again, everything in his sight seems coated in a veil of red, except for the striking teal lights flickering up and down along the butler's twin tail ends.

"Demonkind will never accept such blind idealism," Zayme forces still through gritted teeth. It's getting hard to speak, but he is determined to remain defiant to the very end. "Demons know better...than to simply follow what is 'good' or 'right.' We have prey in our midst, and we will not be told to leave them untouched." He spits in his tormentor's face one final time, while he still has the strength to do so. "A real demon knows...it is in our nature to be ruthless."

"Ruthless, is it?" Barbatos gives him another deferential chuckle, before not so deferentially smashing a thick metal rod against the demon's knuckles. The satisfying crack of bones is instantly audible, and another scream of pain flies from Zayme's mouth. "A shame, when even demons themselves refuse to consider what more we can be than just ruthlessness. I rather prefer the recent peace of the Devildom, myself."

"If ruthlessness is what you desire, however," he adds with a thin smirk across his face, "then certainly you may have it."

Metal rod in hand, he strikes again and again, battering the traitor's face and ribs until bruises splotch every which way, and blood leaks from his lips with every cough and cry. Shiny black plumage of the demon's raven form pokes unbidden through his flesh, shedding away with each subsequent impact.

As his body groans in pain, the captive demon's eyes watch with horror, still floating helplessly in the jar, as the ends of the chains on him are hooked to a metal board. It consists of a complex set of wires, seemingly designed to randomly pass and hold electric currents. With a hum of enjoyment, a spark of lightning flicks from the butler's tail, setting the machine to action, and the first shock jolts instantly into the beaten demon's chest.

Though Zayme can no longer see quite directly what is going on, he nevertheless makes out a clear, vicious delight on Barbatos's face. And with that, it sinks in to the traitor at last. It was never that Diavolo did not approve of demonkind's inherent malice. There has been cruelty at his side all along.

As Barbatos turns to leave the demon to his electric punishment, he remarks dryly, "By the way, about that...knowledge you shared with the Shadowed Feathers. I do owe you my thanks for finding that flaw in our security. I've gone ahead and taken the liberty of sealing that particular passage, so it's no longer a concern. But I do hope your new friends will enjoy what they find there instead."

--

Barbatos allows the door to close behind him with a heavy thud.

A soft plink, plink can be heard from the far end of the corridor, as a steady trickle of blood dribbles thickly down a set of drains. Dark stray feathers litter the ground around it, occasionally riding the flow down a ways before getting caught on the stone flooring here and there. A few have piled up in places, catching larger globs of blood in their plumes as well to form grotesque little sticky lumps along the hallway.

For once, however, the normally tidy butler isn't especially bothered by the mess. He's in quite a good mood, actually, humming quietly to himself in satisfaction as he strolls back towards his room, careful to avoid stepping in any of the sticky mounds of plumage. Not that it makes a particular difference -- admittedly, he is himself quite drenched in far more blood than is on the floor, after his activities of the day. Splatters cling to his face and hair, and though they're hard to see against the dark fabric, large splotches stain his clothes as well.

A low groan rolls from behind him, which quickly escalates to a full shriek before rapidly quieting again. Another burst of dark ichor ripples along the stream past his feet, sloshing against his shoes before finding its way down the drain.

There will be more of that, both the screams and the blood, for a while still, he is sure. The thought brings an amused smile to his face. Honestly, he does wish he could have stuck around for a bit longer. But a butler's work is never done, and as much as he might enjoy watching the treasonous noble's expressions through the night, he has other tasks he must attend to.

When he reaches the steps at the end of the hall, Little D. No. 2 is waiting for him at the top with a warm, wet hand towel and a fresh pair of gloves.

"Thank you, No. 2. The room should be ready for cleanup and disposal in the morning, so please let the others know to head down after the young master's breakfast tomorrow. Ah, and do be careful not to leave any stains behind this time," he nods to the diminutive demon as he peels the sticky fabric from his hands. "Now, would you kindly go fetch some extra towels for the shower? I'll be headed over there shortly."

"Yes, sir, Mister Barbatos!" With a fang-filled smile and a quick salute, the little devil scurries off as instructed, leaving the butler to calmly continue wiping the coagulation from his fingers.

Another shriek bounces faintly from below, and Barbatos savors the sound for as long as he can, taking his time to clean himself up before heading off to shower. Though the usual inhabitants of the Demon Lord's Castle might have hardly blinked at the gruesome sight of him, he does feel a bit proud to present properly as a butler to Lord Diavolo, and besides, he's expecting Luke to arrive for another baking lesson any minute now. The young angel only began getting comfortable around demons quite recently, and Barbatos fears he might well faint and never wake up if he were to see his mentor so blood-soaked.

Careful to wash away every last drop of red from his hair, he's soon cleaned, dressed, and looking as pristine as ever. And, as he takes a look at the time, it seems he even has a few minutes to spare. Perfect.

When Luke walks into the kitchen to meet him, the boy's cheeks are flushed, and it's clear he must have run over to make it on time, though he himself doesn't seem to realize how obvious it is, as he nonetheless tries his best at an exaggerated leisurely stroll into the room. The facade is broken immediately when he notices the unusually bright expression on his mentor's face as the latter sets up various bowls and ingredients across the counters -- and is that humming he hears?

"Wow! Barbatos, you're in a really good mood today! Did something good happen?"

The butler just smiles back at him, undisturbed.

"Nothing special, Luke. I heard the lovely singing of a little devil raven earlier today, and I was just thinking about how wonderful it is to have such a peaceful day in the Devildom."

With that, he turns back to the ingredients upon the counter. "Now, shall we begin? Today, we'll be preparing a thirteen-layer devilberry medovik..."

[deanofcas]

this got so stupid long for no reason so no need to even read this but like........see THIS is why thee most powerful moment of supernatural for me personally is “you know what every other version of you did after gripping him tight and raising him from perdition? they did what they were told. but not you.” it’s the closest we get to explicit and loud confirmation that this is who castiel is: a bastion of free will that guarantees freedom of choice in this universe alone; a shining illustration of all that could be without the machinations of an ambivalent God. that speech, tucked away at the end of cas’s second to last episode, in the literal eleventh hour.... stands alone as nearly the only time in the latter half of supernatural where castiel’s singularity is acknowledged, that his power (just in being) is referenced, that his intrinsic connection with dean is woven into the narrative as something textually More Powerful Than God. it’s a rare return to form for his character, a single moment he’s an individual whose desires shape the narrative, and it only happens in the direct lead up to his ultimate demise (important in that it can only be Voiced when dean is about to be away from cas and thus safe). 

cas was introduced to us as a barely contained wave of cosmic intent, capable of raising dean from hell and throwing him back, a soldier unafraid to bloody himself and others in service to a cause (humanity, dean), a being with constrained desires so strong that even breathing the barest hint (doubt) was enough to catapult castiel (willingly) from the hold of heaven. he’s tactile, he’s forceful, he’s physical, he’s more powerful than any of the humans around him are capable of perceiving, and it’s all focused around one thing: want want want want want. dean. dean. dean. dean. from the moment he enters the narrative, castiel is bristling with energy, he’s a Threat, and it’s dean who is magnetized to him. it’s dean he allows to (sometimes) overpower him, and it’s dean he crowds. it’s dean who becomes the unknowing object of divine worship (and with that, divine desire). castiel was never meant to be a fixture on supernatural, simply because the things he Wanted were so Huge and so tenuously held back, that if allowed to continue on the trajectory they set him on, would have wholly consumed the entire narrative, or at least one of the two leads. 

so then we have the wife-ing of cas. we have his raw, sexual, worshipping, unavoidable, all-consuming, decidedly-actionable desires quieted into something more palatable, more neatly controlled. cas’s magnetized orbit around dean becomes subservient rather than consuming. cas’s masculine strength gets muted (he’s a damsel through a set of increasingly complicated plot contrivances). cas’s desire to serve (dean) is shifted to a safer outlet (fatherhood), and cas and dean’s connection is minimized, often through the only means strong enough - having cas literally offscreen. love becomes sacrifice rather than freedom, it becomes unassuming usefulness rather than worship. the power to act on desire, and nearly all trace of desire itself, is wiped away, and Having turns into Being. the i want i want i want i want that has been present for 12 years is only referred to as “The Thing”. 

but ultimately.......................... the soft, gentle, nonthreatening, platonic nerfed cas is still the castiel who raised dean from perdition, is still the castiel who wrote his own chapter and never went back on script, is still the castiel who knit dean’s bones back together and glimpsed his soul through his own grace, is still the castiel who built a new faith inside of a man who didn’t think he deserved to be saved. and the show, at the end of it all, had a cruel and petty God look his former angel in the face and say your love is the one thing that is different. they needed to make cas less of a threat so the show could continue on without being sucked into the vortex of unchecked (masculine, homosexual) desire, but that desire (love love love love love) STILL ended up being the single most important act of free will IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE. and they don’t bring it up again, they take cas away and they don’t allow dean to mourn or articulate or breathe more life into this Thing they’ve tried to squash. but cas remains the most powerful being in the entire show, after all of that, because of his unwavering, celestial love for dean. 

[hunxi-after-hours]

So this was gonna be a somewhat amusing discussion of if Yan Wushi was actually jealous or resentful towards his own personality (xie ling) for gaining Shen Qiao’s affections because I think it’s funny to think about and I never came to the conclusion of whether I think he was legit or if it was just for show and just to tease SQ. However, it got me thinking about deeper implications like about his past and perhaps him holding resentment towards that particular past when he was Xie Ling and whatever caused it. Maybe it could tie into SQ’s favoritism of that part of him like “I’m so superior to who I was in the past and yet he is the one you like?” It makes me wish we got some insight into when Yan Wushi was Xie Ling. But I am definitely overthinking this and dumping it all into your ask because I didn’t know who else to bother with this lol

anon you know exactly why you’re bothering me with this and it’s because this absolutely haunts me on a regular basis

I’ve mentioned off-hand before, buried somewhere in the absolute mess of my 《千秋》 tag, but I really do appreciate Meng Xishi’s decision to leave Yan Wushi’s backstory completely opaque and unknown, unknowable. we don’t know who Yan Wushi had been, what caused him to change, why he is like this--she just offers us the barest, tantalizing hints of who he might have been, who he might have become

(again, another reason why I thought Xie Xiang was going to be like. moderately relevant to the plot? and then he vanished and never showed up again)

what’s the first thing Yan Wushi says to Shen Qiao, when he’s delirious and nearly-dead from a head wound, before he remembers who Shen Qiao is, before he even remembers his own name?

don’t go.

which you can shrug off as something anyone would say if they had woken up, alone and hurting in an unfamiliar place, to the first person who shows them kindness. Shen Qiao certainly shrugs it off as Yan Wushi’s delirium, because he knows that the Yan Wushi he knows would scoff at weakness like that

don’t go. who left Yan Wushi, and why? who had they been to him?

what did their leaving do to him?

after I’d finished the book, I went back and re-read the little summary/hook/inside cover blurb for 《千秋》， and ended up spending way more time thinking about it than I’d expected to:

晏无师是从尸山血海里走过来的人。

他不相信人性本善，更不相信这世上会有大仁大义，不求回报为别人着想的人。

某日，有天下第一道门之称的玄都山掌教沈峤与人约战，却因故坠下山崖。

晏无师正好从下面路过。

看到重伤濒死的沈峤，他忽然生出一个绝妙的主意……

千秋之后，谁能不朽？

Yan Wushi was someone who had lived to today by walking across mountains of corpses and oceans of blood.

He did not believe in the inherent goodness of human nature, nor did he believe that there could truly be a person who lived by great benevolence or righteousness, who would care for others with no expectation of reward.

One day, Shen Qiao—the sect leader of Xuandu Mountain, the greatest Daoist sect in the world—dueled an opponent, but for some unknown reason, fell from the peak. Yan Wushi just happened to be passing by below.

Seeing the heavily-injured Shen Qiao near death, he suddenly had an extremely clever, exceedingly ironic idea…

After all, who could remain uncorrupted after a thousand autumns?

first of all, I was struck that this passage is written from Yan Wushi’s point of view.

let that sink in for a bit. narration in this novel veers into omniscient on occasion, but for the most part we are firmly anchored with Shen Qiao’s perspective, following his journey and experiences, his emotions and struggles. we don’t get a ton of Yan Wushi interiority (the story of the stone is a notable exception), and I remember reading the one of the extras from Yan Wushi’s point of view (set shortly after The Betrayal) and being rather disoriented at his starkly different perspective, the shift of voice and narration

in a sense, this inside-cover blurb before we even get to the story proper is Yan Wushi’s backstory, the essence of his character and experiences that led him to the beginning of the book. Meng Xishi may not have written out his tragic backstory in graphic detail, but she gave us the essence and characterization of Yan Wushi before she gave us anything else

(this story may be about Shen Qiao, but it starts with Yan Wushi)

secondly, I kept thinking about the the first two lines, specifically because Meng Xishi could have left the first line out.

she could have started this blurb with “Yan Wushi did not believe in the inherent goodness of human nature” and the rest of the passage would have flowed just fine--everything about Yan Wushi wanting to mess with a fallen Shen Qiao, everything about the themes of purity/corruption, the title drop of ‘a thousand autumns.’ she could have left it at that, gotten the crux of Yan Wushi’s character across just fine, but no--she adds the line before that:

Yan Wushi was someone who had lived to today by walking across mountains of corpses and oceans of blood.

which then, of course, implies causality. why doesn’t Yan Wushi believe in the inherent goodness of human nature? because he has walked across mountains of corpses and oceans of blood.

the prevailing rumor in the jianghu is that Yan Wushi, before he renamed himself the masterless (haughty, arrogant, overbearing), held the surname Xie. and who were the Xies? one of the greatest families of the time (this is actually a historical reference: the 谢 Xie family was one of the Four Great Families during the Eastern Jin period)

Yan Wushi was someone who had lived to today by walking across mountains of corpses and oceans of blood.

whose corpses? whose blood? where is Xie Ling’s family, and where does all of Huanyue Zong’s money come from?

who is Xie Ling?

Yan Wushi is single-mindedly obsessed with achievement, with attaining ever greater heights in his cultivation. he has no need for friends; the only people who deserve to speak to him on his level are rivals, are opponents, are people who can challenge him, maybe even defeat him

which is to say--Yan Wushi does not care for the inherent goodness of human nature, or the merit of benevolence, because both have failed him. the only true law is might, the only true directive is selfish self-preservation. Yan Wushi continually tests and mocks Shen Qiao saying that that the only reason why Shen Qiao hasn’t lost hope, hasn’t given in to corruption yet, is simply because Shen Qiao has not yet come face-to-face with the level of suffering that would shatter his faith in morality, his belief in goodness, and Shen Qiao reluctantly concedes, because he did grow up and come of age in a rather sheltered environment, and perhaps, maybe, somewhere out there in the world is a force great enough to torment him into evil. Shen Qiao doesn’t know, and he can’t know until it happens. it’s not an argument he can win through logic or experience, and both Shen Qiao and Yan Wushi know that

who doesn’t want to be a good person? who doesn’t want to be righteous and admired, venerated and exalted?

what makes you believe in the inherent goodness of humanity, and what makes you lose faith? what kind of experience, what sights and horrors and sorrows and agonies lead you to the only conclusion that all goodness and morality are nothing more than empty words in the face of the need to survive?

Yan Wushi is single-mindedly obsessed with greater martial achievement--for pursuit of the martial way and actualization, sure, I think that’s what it becomes, but I don’t think that’s where it began. the simplest, saddest answer to that desire to become stronger, mightier, more powerful, is painfully, poignantly obvious--so no one else can hurt him

why doesn’t he need friends? because the only person who can stab you in the back is someone you trusted. why is he so dismissive of his disciples, harsh in his criticism and uncaring in his manner despite their resounding capability and inherent talent? because coddling Yu Shengyan and Bian Yanmei will do them no favors--only greater achievement, the amassing of power, resources, influence, skill can truly guarantee their survival and success

and then there’s Shen Qiao

when Shen Qiao comes back for Yan Wushi and saves his sorry corpse, Yan Wushi acknowledges that he had been wrong about Shen Qiao (about Shen Qiao specifically, not necessarily about human nature entirely) with surprising grace. admittedly, there are quite a lot of confounding factors (head injury, split personalities, hijinks and adventures in a deserted ghost city, further assassination attempts, etc etc), but once Shen Qiao defeats Yan Wushi’s ultimate test, Yan Wushi comes around surprisingly quickly, considering that Shen Qiao is a living, breathing, walking refutation of the laws Yan Wushi has lived his life by, built a bloodied reputation on. but Yan Wushi doesn’t go about re-shaping his understanding of the world or human nature; he simply opens a gap in those laws, large enough to fit Shen Qiao. Shen Qiao, to him, is the exception that proves the rule, and Shen Qiao, for that reason, is all the more precious

for decades, Yan Wushi didn’t believe that mythical creature, that legendary figure, that genuinely, purely good person who lived by great benevolence, who cared for others with no expectation of reward, truly existed, or even if they did, they died swiftly, foolishly, tragically, young

and here is Shen Qiao, doggedly hanging on to both his life and his silly, silly morals

of course Yan Wushi falls. of course Yan Wushi falls hard, chases, pursues, cherishes, protects. he hasn’t seen such light in years. he’s almost forgotten what it’s like to be warm, and here Shen Qiao comes, lit from inside with a flame that even Yan Wushi cannot douse

and so--who is Xie Ling, to Yan Wushi? someone young, and weak still; someone foolish enough to do things like trust a young man with a pretty face, needy enough to cling to a complete stranger who had shown him kindness, someone soft enough to go back for Shen Qiao when Yan Wushi himself has made it out of danger just fine. Xie Ling is who Yan Wushi had been, before he’d bettered himself, made himself stronger, more invulnerable to the injustices and assaults this world hurls at him

and Shen Qiao has the audacity to care about Xie Ling, even knowing that Xie Ling is a transient ghost, a wisp of a soul, a shadow of a self not long for this world? Shen Qiao has the absolute goddamn gall to mourn who Yan Wushi had been?

Yan Wushi is jealous, absolutely; resentful, even; and more than anything, I think, he is furiously, desperately angry, because here is Shen Qiao, thirty years too late, crying over a boy that Yan Wushi had buried with his own hands, with his old name

all of which is to say--Meng Xishi does a devastatingly masterful job of giving us just enough hints about Yan Wushi’s backstory to know what matters (trust and betrayal, kindness and pain), and how perfectly Shen Qiao upsets everything in Yan Wushi’s world with the force of his own pain and power, brokenness and brilliance

[some-kindofgnome]

tastes so bitter (tastes so sweet)

You’re driving back from an out-of-town mission with Hawks when your car breaks down on a very sparsely-populated highway. While you await relief, things get... personal. 

characters: takami keigo (hawks) x f!reader

word count: 7.1k

warnings: smut (18+ please!), car sex, pro hero!reader, angst, emotionally unavailable hawks

notes: ta-dah!!! the car sex fic! this turned out way longer and way more feelsy than I ever intended it to be. but I’m grateful for the chance to show you how I play with plot and emotion as well as some good porn. porn with feelings, y’know? 

EDIT: The supremely talented @la-saffron​ has created an absolutely spectacular piece of artwork for this fic! Please go and look at it right here, it’s really quite splendid

Masterlist

The shadowy trees on either side of the highway cast a chill across the pavement as the sky went dark.

It was far from sunset, but the woods were so tall and thick that the light had disappeared from the road a long time ago. The overpriced navigation system laid into the dashboard of Hawks’ luxurious car was no help at all; not when you were taking the only road for miles around.

The highway narrowly passed for two lanes, winding precariously down from the mountains. Dotted with reflective yellow signs- deer crossing, bear crossing, creatures-of-unimaginable-horror crossing. Bigfoot himself could have wandered into your headlights and you barely would’ve flinched.

But that was to be expected, given where you’d come from.

That day’s mission brought you both far, far away from the city. There was a national forest about three hours away- one of the biggest in the country- and you and Hawks had been called in at the crack of fucking dawn to drive all the way out to the woods and investigate some ‘strange reports,’ as the rangers cared to call them.

Most park rangers knew what they were seeing when guests came in from the woods reporting abnormal happenings. Nobody was truly immune to fear, though, when faced with the impossible.

Whether there were paranormal creatures lurking in those woods or not, you couldn’t have been sure. But after spending the day exhausting both your quirks combing every spare inch of those woods, you were relieved of your overnight duties by a group of other, more nature-savvy heroes.

Hawks had been miffed, but too exhausted to argue. He didn’t like to think he’d been overshadowed. You were just thankful to be going home to your own bed.

“Okay,” you sighed, nursing the last of a lukewarm soda from a burger joint at the edge of the only one-horse town you’d passed through. It was a pretty unassuming stop for dinner, but you and Hawks both agreed that the burgers were way too good to be sold to so few patrons.

Keigo was driving, with one palm splayed lazily across the bottom edge of the wheel. His scarlet wings stretched into the backseat, draping over the shoulders of his black leather backrest like some bizarre kind of seat cover.

The fact that his car was so luxurious was not lost on you- although you were more surprised to find out that he had one at all. Hawks seemed like the last person in the world to need a car, after living in a fantastic downtown penthouse. And owning a pair of wings, come to think of it.

He owned it because he could. And because he knew how good he looked in the driver’s seat.

“What?” He turned a curious eye toward you, though he never quite pulled his gaze from the road.

“I know we started this conversation on the way here,” you began, “but… we never exactly finished it.” You swirled what was left of the ice chips in the bottom of your cup, considering the best way to voice your thoughts.

“Alright.” He sounded vaguely amused, slouching a little further down and drawing an idle palm over his feathered hair. “Shoot.”

“Well…” You trailed off. “You’re kind of… a city guy.” You were already starting to talk with your hands. The racket coming from your half-drunk soda was proof enough.

“What makes you say that?”

“You are,” you defended. You let a playful edge creep into your tone. “And the agency’s kind of a city thing.”

“Am I really as one-note as you’re making me out to be?” He was chuckling. Your cheeks were going hot. You weren’t sure how this became a personal conversation, but you were determined to steer it in the proper direction. You course corrected.

“I just mean, we don’t take a lot of jobs outside the city. Like… ever. So, what’s with this one? Why this call?”

He didn’t answer right away. When you glanced across the car, he was licking his lips and appearing to be, very genuinely, thinking.

“Well,” he began. There was an immensely appealing depth that wore around the edges of his voice when he was deep in thought. You hung on tightly, trying your best to hide how intently you listened.

“I was just… bored, I guess.” He gave a lazy little shrug. His eyes were still trained on the windshield, but you could feel the weight of his urges. He wanted to look over. You turned your head, willing him to.

“Probably sounded like bullshit, now that I think about it,” he confessed, “but if there really was somethin’ freaky in those woods… I dunno. I wanted to see it.”

You resisted the urge to snort.

“Maybe you should start a ghost hunting branch at the agency.”

“Aw, c’mon,” he protested. This time, he really did drag his eyes away from the road for a second. They glinted playfully in the dark. You got a flash of pearly canine from the barest hint of a grin, but it was enough to put a stupid smile right across your face.

A sickening thud from beneath the hood zapped any false confidence you’d been building. There was a dull pop, then the engine died.

“What the- shit.” Hawks scrambled to put both hands on the wheel, navigating the car with what momentum remained over to the narrow shoulder. The tires hit gravel and soft mud, rolling pathetically to a stop and settling in damp silence.

“What the hell was that?” You leaned over the dashboard as your pulse came down from near-terminal velocity. There were half a dozen lights blinking away on the dashboard- symbols you couldn’t understand.

“Not sure.” Keigo was doing his best not to sound too perturbed. As a result, he was just perturbed enough.

You knew what those lights implied, though. Service due. Oil change due. Battery maintenance due.

“Jesus Christ,” you hissed, “when was the last time you took this car in for service? It’s a miracle you even made it out of the goddamn garage.”

Hawks was in the process of mashing the engine start button like an arcade game. When you spoke up, he pushed it down and held. The engine gave a dull, sad sort of sputter, but nothing roared to life.

“Look, look,” he dismissed, waving a hand in your direction as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “I don’t drive this thing that often, okay? I’m gonna go check under the hood.”

He climbed out of the driver’s side and slammed the door before giving you the chance to remind him to pop the hood. For a minute, you let him wallow in his mistake, watching gleefully as he pried at the seam of it. Finally, you unbuckled yourself and leaned over, flicking the release for him.

He gave an unamused glance toward the windshield and lifted the hood, obscuring all but the very tips of his drooping wings from view.

After about fifteen seconds, he ducked back into the car with a rush of cold air behind him. He rubbed his palms together as you watched, arms folded over your chest.

“So?” You prompted. He gave a sideways glance in your direction, blowing into his chilled hands.

“So what?”

“Oh my g- what’s wrong with the car?” You tried your best not to let panic set in.

“I don’t know. It’s just a bunch of pipes and wires under there. They didn’t exactly give me a map of the thing when I bought it.”

You’d seen Hawks pull people out of burning buildings before. You’d see him think on his feet, devise a plan and act on it in the blink of an eye. Usually, he was impulsive. Confident. Clever.

Tonight, on the other hand, he was demonstrating a very clear affinity for money over brains.

You flopped into your seat, scrubbing your hands over your face. You were not going to freak out. You refused to. It didn’t matter that Keigo had suddenly become useless in the face of disaster. You were heroes, even if you had to save your damned selves.

“Oh,” he quipped from beside you. “Still got bars. See?” As you peeked over at him through one cracked eyeball, he waved his illuminated phone screen at you. “It could be worse, kid. If this were a horror movie, this thing’d be dead.”

He tapped away on the screen, seeming very pleased with himself. Even his wings gave a little ruffle, draping themselves smoothly over the back of his seat again.

“I’ll call us a tow. We’ll be outta here in no time.”

A few minutes later, you had a map pulled up on your phone while Hawks’ brow creased deeper and deeper.

“Uh-huh.” His voice had taken on that irresistible deepness to it again, but this time it was sending pangs of dread through your gut.

“Right.” He brought a palm up to smooth over his jaw, fingertips bending and pressing idly against the patches of scruff that dusted it. “Y-yep, yeah, I understand. Fifty miles is a long way. I know it’s gonna be a lot to send a truck that far. But-“

As he was abruptly cut off by the other end of the line, those idle fingers slipped up to his temple, pressing inward and rubbing in stiff little circles.

“Okay. Alright. Yeah, I guess we’ll wait, ‘cause there’s not much else we can… I understand. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Okay, we’ll be here. Or within a ten-foot radius. Thanks. B-“

He blinked rapidly at the screen as he pulled it away from his ear. “Have an excellent night, sir,” he muttered under his breath. He let out a deep sigh, lifting a hip to tuck his phone away again.

“They said they would send someone,” he said, “but the depot is, like, fifty miles from here. Could be a couple of hours.”

“A couple hours?” That cold dread was settling into your chest again. So much for sleeping in your own bed.

“Yeah. C’mon, get out.”

“What?” You glanced past him at the frosted driver’s side window. “It looks freezing out there.”

“Well then, you’d better bundle up. C’mon. I’m gonna fly us back to the city.”

“No way. Hawks- Keigo.” You grabbed his arm and squeezed tightly as he made to get out of the car.

“What?” Exasperation was creeping into the edges of his voice. The sides of his gaze, too, as he landed against the seat back with a thud and turned his cheek to look at you.

“You’ve been flying all day. Your wings are shot. You’re not flying anywhere.”

“What? They’re fine.” He gave the appendages in question a defiant flutter and a cloud of expiring feathers floated into the backseat.

You folded your arms across your chest. Hawks gave a frustrated growl.

“What do you suggest, then?” He retorted in fierce opposition to your silence. “Just sit around and fucking… die of old age before the tow truck comes?”

“Oh my god, you’re the number two hero,” you snapped back. “When did you become such a drama queen? Yes, we’re going to wait. Like a normal person would have to.”

“I’m not being dramatic; I’m presenting you with a legitimate solution and you’re ignoring it!”

“If you try to fly us both out of here, you’re gonna hit the ground before we’re halfway home. And then we’ll be really stranded, with no water and no shelter. So, if you’d like to fly back all by yourself, I can’t stop you. But I’m not going to let you kill both of us.”

“Fine!” Hawks’ cheeks were flushed with temper as he kicked the door open and clambered out of the car. He kicked it shut again so hard the whole body rocked, and for a moment you were left, trapped in shocked silence.

He was really going to leave you out here. Alone.

Half a dozen heartbeats passed before his boots crunched on the shoulder and he wrenched the door open again, flopping back into the car with an immense sigh of irritated defeat.

“Fuckin’ freezing out there,” he muttered as quietly as possible.

You wanted to punch him.

“You ready to wait?”

His wings stiffened behind him, then drooped so lowly they seemed to disappear into the backseat. He looked at you from the corner of one tawny eye.

“Yeah.”

For the first hour, you honestly enjoyed yourself. As soon as Keigo accepted his fate, he got much closer to his usual mellow self. You finished off cold fries from dinner, listened to true crime podcasts on your phone, (you listened- he talked over the whole thing) and played a few ruthless games of hangman on a couple of napkins you found in the glove compartment.

You’d spent a lot of time with Hawks in a professional capacity. As partners, you took most of your missions together. You were well-versed in the way that he liked to think, the way he approached a job, a conversation. You worked well with each other and you were drawn to his quick wit and laid-back humour. Even if he was a piece of work at times, you made a strong team. But you didn’t do a whole lot of hanging out.

“Okay, that’s it,” he chided as you added an extravagant top hat to the completed, dressed hangman scrawled onto the inside fold of your last napkin. The word he’d failed to guess was ‘patience,’ and the irony of his struggling was not lost on you.

“Aw, c’mon,” you protested. “You’ve still got gloves and a bow tie left.”

“No, no, no.” He held up a palm, shaking his head. There was a good-natured grin curling his lip as he bowed toward the door. “I’m callin’ it. I gotta take a leak.”

You snatched your soda cup from the drink holder, clutching it protectively against your chest.

“You’re not going in here.”

Next, it was Hawks’ turn to shoot you a deadpan stare.

“How about in the woods? Is that allowed?”

Your cheeks went hot. “It’s pretty dark out there.”

“Aw.” Hawks shoved the door open. There was an unfamiliar glint to his eye as he tossed a mischievous look over his shoulder. “Guess you won’t be able to sneak a peek, then.”

You slammed your fist into his back. “Shut up and go take a piss.”  

As the car door clicked shut, you turned the other way out of sheer habit. All you could see in the opposite window was the reflection of your own face. Maybe it was just the dim light, but you looked exhausted. Keigo had seen you caked in blood, streaked by mud and soot before. But you’d both been awake since four o’clock that morning and there was a special kind of ugly feeling that came with overtiredness.

You were dreaming about the first thing you’d do when you got home again when Hawks climbed back into the car. He looked considerably brighter as he ducked inside, and he brought a flush of rich, earthy forest-smell along with him.

“Don’t tell me you couldn’t find it in the cold out there,” you quipped. Payback.

But Keigo just chuckled, shaking his head.

“Close the door,” you whined as the frigid air from outside finally reached your bare arms. “It’s already cold enough in here.”

“Aw,” he crooned, tugging the door shut behind him. “You scared of a little cold now, kid? It’s not so bad out there. Feel.”

He lunged at you, ducking rapidly to rub his frigid cheek against your shoulder. You let out a terse yelp and squirmed, trying to shove him back amid a sea of chilled giggles. He got a few passes of his icy skin on yours before you both realized how close you’d gotten.

Hawks cleared his throat and scooted away from you. In the bare light from the shitty overhead lamp, you were starting to see the outline of a flush creeping into his cheeks.

The light abruptly went out, leaving you in darkness again.

“Tell me something,” he mused, grabbing for the abandoned takeout bag and digging a hand into it. He produced a tiny wrapped square and tore it open with his teeth, removing the folded alcohol wipe from inside and gliding it with impossible grace over his fingertips. He eyed you sideways.

“How come we don’t hang out more?”

Your chest went cold. You’d been dreading that question all night. Longer than that, even.

“What d’you mean?” It was a gut response, but you instantly kicked yourself for even attempting to play dumb.

“You know,” he chided, dumping the wipe back into the paper bag once he was finished with it. “We work. We do interviews together. We do those bullshit PR functions together. I’ve known you- what, two years? And we’ve never even been for a drink. What gives, kid? Don’t tell me I grate on you.”

“I get plenty of you on company time,” you retorted. You were starting to panic. You weren’t ready for this conversation, but it didn’t seem like you were going to be rescued by the timely arrival of the tow truck.

“Okay, okay, I’d take that,” he laughed, “if you hadn’t agreed to take this mission with me. C’mon, this wasn’t exactly a nine-to-five gig.”

He paused. “Come out with me this weekend.” He nudged your shoulder with a bony elbow. You tried your best not to snap.

“Stop,” you pressed quietly. “You know why we don’t.”

The smirk slipped from Keigo’s face.

“What? Why?”

“Don’t make me say it.”

“Wait a second, there’s an actual reason? What the hell is it?”

The confusion was genuine on his face. Hawks could be a smarmy little shit when he wanted to be. But you could tell he wasn’t fucking with you.

“Oh my god.” The words slipped out like a deep breath. Your hand drifted to your mouth as cold shock ran over your skin. “You really don’t remember.”

“No.” His confusion was bordered with fear. He sat back a little, letting his eyes drift over your expression. “No, I really don’t.”

You swallowed hard. You should have known that you’d have to talk about this eventually. But he didn’t even remember the night that had been changing the way you acted around him for nearly a year.

“Last Christmas,” you began. Your breath was so short that it put a desperate hush to your voice that you absolutely hated. You revelled in your ability to act casual around him, but the more probing he got, the harder that composure was slipping.

“At the agency gala. You remember the party, right?”

Hawks rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, and I got trashed.” He paused. Realization dawned on his face, and he shot you the deepest, most sincere look of concern you’d ever seen. Even more sincere than the look that crossed his face when you got shot off the roof of a house and broke a rib.

He leaned forward.

“Did I do something?” He swept a palm over his mouth, fingertips dallying at his chin. You knew exactly how he felt in that moment. You’d been there before, too, realizing that you’d lost control. Blacked out. Understanding that you might have done something you were going to regret.

“You really don’t remember a thing?” It was your turn to be horrified. How could something that consumed your every thought stay so damned far from his?

His fingers were still curved around the point of his chin. He’d gone white, and he shook his head as his eyes cast down to his lap.

“You fucking kissed me, okay?” You snarled with a whip of frustration. “There was mistletoe and you kissed me under it and-and Christ, I can’t believe you.”

“What? What?” He demanded as his voice grew defensively sharp.

“I had no idea what you were gonna do. What you were gonna say, what was gonna change between us. I showed up to the agency the next morning and your hungover ass acted like nothing had ever happened.”

“Of course I did,” he defended, “I didn’t think anything did happen. Oh my God, did I really kiss you?” His wings were coming to life all of a sudden, bristling on either side of his seat. There was a dull whisp as one edge of them brushed against the window. They seemed to expand, along with his horror, to fill the entire car.

He pushed further. “Well, did you… did you want me to?”

You could see where his thoughts were taking him. The answer was an impossible dilemma. To lead him further down that path would not only be cruel, it would be untrue. But to tell him the truth- that you had wanted it- would be to shatter the fragile illusion of casual, platonic intimacy that you’d been building over the last two years.

You chewed your lower lip. Hard enough to hurt.

“Oh god, you didn’t,” he gasped. That was enough for you to lift your chin and shoot him a sudden, sad, pathetic little look.

“Jesus,” he gasped again, deeper this time. “You did.”

“Look,” you snapped. “I was never gonna say anything to you. I was never gonna push it. You didn’t feel that way and I knew that and I just wanted to work.”

He told you enough about his personal life as it was. Every date he swung in from on Monday morning, every Friday night he spent preening in the last hours of the workday hurt enough already. If you’d grown close, fallen harder, it would’ve become too much to bear.

“What do you mean, I didn’t feel that way? What way don’t I feel? How could you even know that?” He was beginning to raise his voice back at you and the adrenaline was pushing you way too far to listen.

“Because you never said a fucking word to me about that kiss! You pretended like it never even happened, Kei! What was I supposed to think!”

“If you’d asked me, you woulda known that I didn’t speak up ‘cause I didn’t remember a goddamn thing!” Keigo jammed a finger into his temple. His golden eyes flashed. He was so fucking hot when he was angry, but this was not a fight you ever wanted to have.

Luckily for you, he was having it without you.

“What do you want me to say to that?” He snarled. “Huh? What- you want me to tell you that I’m sorry for not having psychic powers? That I’m sorry I didn’t hire a mind-reader to tell me what the fuck was going on with you?”

He scrubbed his hands over his face. You were on the verge of tears.

“I-I never-“ you began, but Keigo beat you to the punch,

“You know, maybe I noticed that you were actin’ funny around me. And maybe I should’ve asked. But maybe if you ask yourself, and if you really, honestly give yourself the truest answer, you’d be able to admit that you knew how I felt about you. That you always knew.”

“Of course I knew!”

Your response echoed raw and deafening in the silence of the car. You’d lost your temper and shouted it at him with every decibel left in your breathless chest. Your fists were clenched atop your frigid thighs as you bent over in your seat, shivering. To your immense embarrassment, warm tears trickled down the sides of your nose.

He was right, after all. Every sideways smile he’d given you was just a little too broad to be friendly. Every time he caught you by the hand, he held it just a little too long. Every time he offered you the crook of his elbow at a stuffy charity gala and every time he poured you into a cab at the end of the night, he promised to take good care of you. Every time he looked at you at all it was with a depth that you had recognized, but never understood.

“But look at us, Kei. Look at what we do to each other.”

You sniffled, scrubbing tears off your cheeks with the heels of your hands. He reached for you, seeking to comfort, but his hands twitched midair and he drew back instead.

“Yeah,” he croaked. You tossed a glance in his direction. He looked more dejected than you’d seen him in a long time. He rested both hands on top of the wheel, the rest of his body sagging against the seat back.

“Except now I’ve told you,” you continued. “And now we both know, so everything’s fucked no matter what.”

You were met with silence. The truth was dawning on you. You hated to even consider it, but it felt like what needed to be done.

“When we get back to the city,” you started. Hawks interrupted you with a low rasp of your name.

“No, when we get back, I’m giving you my resignation.”

“Fuck, stop.”

Keigo lunged, grabbing you by the back of the neck and pulling you toward him. He rested his forehead against yours and closed his eyes. The warmth of his closeness weighed on you like a heavy quilt. You couldn’t even pretend not to be immensely comforted by affection from him.

“I’m not gonna let you do that, kid.”

You were both drawing deep breaths- slow, rolling gulps of air that matched over gradual time. You licked your lips, bracing your chilled palms on his shoulders. Your fingertips brushed the very edges of his feathered hair, dull and soft in the dark.

You’d talked each other down from bigger, badder edges before. But this one had sharp, jagged rocks waiting at the bottom. This one, you were going to have to jump from together.

“I can’t do this,” you pleaded. “I can’t keep myself away from you like this.”

“Don’t.” His voice was hushed and so achingly tender, like he couldn’t take the command himself.

“I can’t-“

“Then, don’t.”

He was firmer this time, and the pad of his thumb brushed the bottom of your lip. He pulled back just a hair, grazing the tip of his nose across yours. The heat of his breath puffed over your lips and his blonde eyelashes threatened to tickle your cheek.

He drew in a slow, calculated breath.

“Lemme kiss you. Lemme try again. I’m not gonna forget it this time, I swear.”

“Keigo, please.”

“Just lemme try. Just once. I’ll never ask you again, if you don’t want me to.” He pulled back the rest of the way and your body keened at the loss, but he looked deeply into your eyes. Deeply like he’d never been allowed to look before.

You licked your lips. Considered it for half a heartbeat. Then you gave a slow little nod.

“Okay.”

To your surprise, he didn’t lunge again. He took his time with you. He cupped your cheeks tenderly between his bare palms, memorizing the curve of your face. He stared, taking you in like this. At his mercy.

Finally, he leaned in and captured your mouth in a soft kiss, heartbreakingly loving. You responded eagerly, blossoming beneath his touch and bracing your hands on the broad plane of his chest. Your fingers curled in the fleece that lined his coat.

You kissed back with near-desperate urgency, shamelessly showing him how touch-starved you’d become. Dating was pointless when Keigo stole your whole heart every time you showed up to work.

The quiet press of his tongue had your jaw going slack in his hands. Your kiss went needy all at once, and he licked into your mouth with a hunger behind his movements that you never anticipated sensing from him.

You broke from him first, turning your cheek to him as your lungs burned. Your mouth was swollen, and you gasped greedily for whatever stale air lingered between you. He grabbed your chin and forced your eyes back to his.

His gaze was fearsome. Ravenous. You were powerless beneath it.

You combed your fingers through his hair like you’d always wanted to, settling your palm at the nape of his neck. Your own voice was nearly unrecognizable, nothing more than a feral growl.

“Get in the back.”

Hawks took one look at the narrow gap between his seat and yours and sat up, nudging the driver’s side door open. He climbed eagerly into the road and then back into the back seat, settling in the center with his legs and wings splayed wide.

Meanwhile, you took the opportunity to wiggle out of your boots and pants and slam dunk everything into the foothold of the passenger’s seat. You climbed over the center console in your underwear and settled into his lap.

Even though you had to bow your head against the cushioned ceiling, it was a holy sensation. Your thighs settled perfectly into the crooks of Keigo’s legs, and his hands slid so naturally over the curves of your hips. It was as if you’d done this before.

You kissed him again, using the weight of your newly boosted height to descend hard and loving against his lips. He grabbed you hard by the ass, drawing you smooth and tight against his hips.

“God,” he groaned eagerly into your mouth.

“You’re so. Fucking. Perfect,” you hissed back into his, and he squeezed you harder, breaking his lips from yours to trail a hungry path of kisses along the edge of your jaw. His scruff scratched at your chin just like you imagined it would. You loved him like this- trimmed, unshaven. The rougher, the better.

“Don’t say that,” he purred dangerously close to your ear. “You’ve seen me at my worst.”

You tried not to grin, remembering Keigo barfing over the balcony of the Plaza after one too many charity-benefit martinis. Keigo caked in ooze after cutting open that sludge villain from the inside. Keigo on the verge of tears, just a few minutes ago.

“I still think so,” you pressed, and he smiled against your cheek. His wings, tired and bruised but majestic as ever, stiffened proudly. They were capped firmly by the cramped space that surrounded you, but the feathers that spread across the back seat were sleek and graceful.

You dug your fingertips between his jacket and his t-shirt, feeling the warmth of his torso all over. He did his best to shrug it open, but the material was caught up on his wings- no getting it off now.

He wound his hands into the hem of his shirt and tugged it up for you. The skin you could feel by slipping your fingers underneath was all you were going to get.

Not that it mattered to you. It was far more than you’d let yourself so much as picture before. While you felt your way across his heated abdomen, he dipped his head to your pulse point. He scraped the points of his teeth across your tender flesh, making you sigh and shiver. He pressed a hand to the small of your back to keep you close and nibbled all the way down to your neckline, leaving a trail of tiny welts in his wake.

They would fade by morning. Tonight, the feeling was enough.

He glided smooth, tender fingers up your sides. You straightened, letting him wedge your long-sleeved t-shirt up around your shoulders. You had to bend even further and press your forehead awkwardly against his shoulder to wrench it off. Once he peeled the fabric over your head, you tossed it haphazardly toward the front seat. Keigo was already going to work on his fly.

The tender press of his erection had grown apparent by that point, stiff and needing down one thigh of his thick pants. You reached between your legs and palmed it indulgently. There was an answering throb of arousal in the pit of your belly as you felt the shape and thickness of it trapped against his body, and an even stronger one when his hips pressed into your touch and he gave a low rumble of approval.

“Don’t act so surprised,” he crooned. With his pants unfastened, and the bulk of his cock shifted to the stretchy pouch of his undershorts, he slid a fingertip down the plane of your belly and curled two graceful digits between your thighs.

“Are you wet for me yet?” He shot you a deep, lustful stare. You rocked your hips against his fingers, hopeless in resisting the pleasure he offered. Keigo nudged the crotch of your thong easily aside, dipping his middle finger against your slit.

He sucked a sharp breath through clenched teeth as you gave a simultaneous yelp of stimulation. When he looked up at you again, he bore a sly little grin. You’d seen it a thousand times before, but never with such desire. And never all for you.

“You’re drippin’, kid.” He arched his palm, slipping that finger slowly upward and easing it inside you. There was no stretch, but the sensation of intimacy- of being felt in such a way by those hands that you’d never dared to fantasize about- was intoxicating in its own right.

Keigo was, apparently, feeling it, too. His eyes were deeply lidded, glazed completely by his own desire. The tip of his cock had found its way over the waistband of his undershorts, weeping shiny precum against his stomach and the bottom of his shirt.

He curled a blunt fingertip inside you, massaging your tender front wall. The feeling rappelled up the column of your spine and brought deep trembles forward. It brought fresh handfuls of wet slick from your depths, gliding down his palm and between his fingers. He took the hints your body offered and rubbed faster, watching the way your expression morphed from desire to pleasure.

“Stop,” you hushed, leaning forward and pushing your lips to his. He drew his hand back from you immediately, settling it on your thigh. The wet little print it left against your skin wasn’t lost on you.

“Something wrong?”

“No,” you replied. “Just ready for you.”

He gave a low, loving little chuckle and shifted beneath you. “Can’t hold out any longer?”

You smiled into his hair. “Don’t want to.”

“Fair enough.” His smile was even, but the tug in his voice betrayed his fraying nerves. It thrilled you to know that you weren’t the only one putting way too much emotional stock in this. It was immensely validating to discover that he’d been anticipating it, too.

He wiggled and squirmed against the backseat, shucking his pants and underwear down over his thighs and letting his cock pop out. It bobbed against his stomach- thicker than you’d imagined- framed by a trimmed scruff of tawny hair that disappeared under his shirt.

“Fuck,” you sighed in spite of yourself.

“I know, right?” He rasped. He reached for you, cupping your jaw. He brought your forehead down to his, giving a weak laugh. “What the hell have we been waitin’ for?”

“We just needed the bottle episode to shove us together,” you giggled. “C’mon, we’re a walking trope right about now.”

“We’re about to become a different trope if you don’t let me fuck you.” It was his turn to play the desperate card. But the ache between your thighs had not dulled, even a little.

He wrapped his fingers around the base of his shaft and you lifted your hips. He gave the heated tip a playful little swipe along your slick slit, but his game backfired when both of you let out tight cries of sensation.

You rocked your hips forward, taking his tip eagerly inside. The sensation was toe-curling, made even better by the way he held you tightly against him, nosing at your ear and kissing any patch of skin he could reach.

He brought his free palm to your ass as soon as you were situated, helping you slide the rest of the way onto his cock. With your knees braced on either side of his lap and your feet pressed tightly against the front seat, you let him bottom out. And for a moment, you just sat there.

“Jesus,” Keigo sighed, lolling his head against the seat behind him. You still had your head deeply bowed, trapped in the space that seemed just an inch too tight.

“I…” Your thighs shuffled. Your hips gave a little squirm. It felt good, but it wasn’t enough. Keigo cracked an eye and lifted his chin, sensing a problem.

“What’s the matter?”

“I just…” Your cheeks went hot. You licked your lips. “I can’t move.”

His gaze cast downward, to the place where you were joined. He took in the press of your thighs, the curve of your neck. He snorted.

“No, you can’t. C’mere, kid, I gotcha.” He planted that palm on your ass again, drawing your hips forward and up, as far as you could take them. Your head and neck bowed with the rest of your back as he draped your upper body over his chest and held you tightly against him.

Then he planted his feet and gave one good, deep thrust. Your innards gave a jerk. Oh, fuck.

“That’s it,” you panted into his ear. He nodded tensely.

“Yeah?” He prompted. “That’s workin’ for ya? Alright, alright. We’ve got this, kid, c’mon. Lemme show you somethin’ good, okay?”

One thrust sent you spiralling. But the rhythm that he dove into- steady, tough, fluid- sent every nerve through your body into meltdown. You were entirely incapable of dealing with such pleasure, combined with the emotions that swirled through your lovestruck brain.

It felt as though you had been holding out needlessly for all this time. Like all the hurt and frustration and heartbreak you shed over him would be evaporated, now that you understood that he wanted you like this, too.

Like that was all there was. You, Hawks, and the free love you could now share.

“I’m n-not-“ Keigo stuttered, piping up after a series of breathless pants and airy groans, “n-not gonna last much longer, kid, you’re… really gonna make me feel it.”

“Yeah,” you breathed back. You looped your arms tightly around his neck, tilting your hips forward. You could feel the barest hint of stimulation when your clit brushed his belly, so you leaned into it- aching for your own release.

His rhythm doubled as the intensity of your pleasure spiked dangerously high, and when you gripped him hard and rocked your hips in time with his, there was a low, warning pull that echoed all the way up to your throat. You were close. Very close.

Your head dropped backward and Keigo leaned forward, drawing his mouth up the vulnerable column of your throat. He panted hard and heavy against your pulse point.

“That’s it, kid, that’s fuckin’ it, baby, oh, God, I’m g-gonna f-fucking… I- shit, I- can’t… fffuck!”

Keigo let a vicious roar tear from his throat as he reached his vibrant peak. His erratic thrusts brought you to a tight little climax, too, and you clung to him and whined and rode through the pleasure as he fucked madly up inside you, spurting messy shots of cum into your depths.

Gravity took hold of his pleasure, dripping it onto his shaft and pooling it in a sloppy mess between you. And when it was all finally over, you collapsed against his body and you both stayed, airless and spent, wrapped tightly around one another.

It was the bright flash of headlights on the back of his neck that brought you to the surface, moments later.

The inside of the car was warm and stuffy and damp. Had you just come in from outside, you might have realized that it reeked of sex. Sweat and breath and fluid and feeling. The windows were near-opaque, fogged by the dampness of your lovemaking.

It was a moment you might have loved to capture, if you weren’t about to be so rudely interrupted.

The light in your rear windshield was bright white and flashing orange. Unmistakable.

“The tow truck,” you wheezed, scrambling off of Keigo’s lap. “Oh, fuck.”

“Get dressed,” he muttered weakly, already scrambling to get himself cleaned up and decent. He was far more dressed than you were, so you did your best to climb back into the passenger’s seat and slide back into your own clothes. You banged your shin hard on the center console, and your head on the ceiling as your body flailed in retaliation. You crumpled into the front seat and nearly kneed yourself in the mouth trying to scramble back into your pants.

By the time you climbed out of the car, fully dressed, with a few additional bruises, Hawks was already standing on the shoulder, talking to the driver. The driver was wagering a few guesses on what might be wrong with the car. Hawks’ eyes had already glazed over.

“Hey,” he greeted, as he spotted you emerging over his shoulder. He introduced you quietly to the driver before the ballcap-wearing, bearded man spoke again.

“Yeah,” he gruffed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll give you a lift to garage nearby. It’s kinda late, but he keeps weird hours. I bet he’ll take a look for you, it’s prob’ly an easy fix.”

“That sounds great,” you gushed, clasping your palms together. There was a lot of stiffness settling in around your hips and thighs. You couldn’t be sure if it was a result of the compromising position you’d nearly been discovered in or the whole lot of not moving you’d done for hours before that.

Either way, it felt good to stretch your legs.

“You c’n go ahead and hop in the back,” the driver directed, waving the key that Keigo had apparently already given him in indication. “I’ll get you hooked up, no problem.”

Keigo opened the truck door for you, and you climbed over the passenger’s seat into the back. He followed closely behind you, tugging the door shut and slouching into the opposite side.

You sat in silence; hands clasped between your knees. A confusing air settled between you.

You felt vulnerable and raw and moony. You wanted to hold his hand and curl up to him in the back seat. Kiss his cheeks and tell him how good it was, tell him how much you felt.

For you, though, it could never be that simple. There was no free love for heroes like you.

Pay later, always.

Keigo felt the weight of your gaze. He turned to meet your eyes and shot you a thin smile. You’d seen the look that he’d turned to hide from you, though.

The truck driver climbed into the front seat before words could pass between you. But you didn’t need to hear them to know what they were going to be.

You didn’t need a warning to understand what Monday morning at the agency was going to look like.

[mayakern]

Bless you but I've been seeing this drama on my dash all day and tbth all you've posted about the book so far (for the several months I've followed you at least) really are either minimal bits (usually tiktoks) truly advertising it on the merit of diversity and your artwork alone (which is fine but not particularly helpful) or short essays full of plot spoilers that sound bad out of context. People are being really Phobic(tm) and annoying about it but like. I only learned TODAY that the book is a romance novel because all I've seen about it for months has been either hinting about other things driving the story or outright spoiling it in massive walls of text that are too long to read, spoilers or no. People are asking for a synopsis, not a novella--it's fine that the synopsis is "It's a romance novel", but for whatever reason it seems like you have a really difficult time leaving it like that and it makes it frustrating for people trying to know if they'd like the book without effectively reading the short version of it first.

Again, people are being really gross, but you don't have to add an asterisk after romance novel explaining that the romance drives the plot and is critical for--(etc, etc). That's literally just the definition of the term you just used. It's not that people don't know what that is, it's that you've been really vague about whether that's the case, or if you're just proud of the romance subplot.

i’m so confused because my pitch for spitfire is “queer polyamorous fantasy romance novel” or “queer polyamorous dragon shifter romance novel” so idk why it’s a surprise that it’s a romance novel 🤷‍♀️

this may be an issue with attention economy, which is the primary reason i have to make my pitches short and punchy to begin with and having a story that is queer and polyamorous is a lot less common than a story that has political intrigue and complex relationship dynamics so it stands out more in a quick pitch and is also more interesting/important to my primarily queer audience (and also to me as a reader).

i do my best to pitch spitfire as succinctly as possible but i’m not a professional writer and i don’t know what i’m doing. 😅 like i guess technically spitfire has had enough sales for me to be classified as a professional in the barest sense of the word, but this is the first time i’ve ever written a book and i don’t have an editor or publisher or anyone to help me market or teach me how to do this.

and i’ve talked about this! and about how i have trouble summarizing my own work. but the fleeting nature of social media means that y’all will almost never see that stuff.

i also… don’t lead with the over explaining. but when i get multiple asks about the same thing in a short span of time it really feels like i need to backtrack and explain terms because our definitions may be different, which might be the reason we’re seeing things differently.

also yeah this has been a little weird but i would not in any way shape or form classify this as drama lol. this is so low stakes and i’m not like even mildly angry or upset but i know that doesn’t communicate well over text.

[yandere-daydreams]

I neeeeeeeed more Hades and Persephone with their darling! Maybe a continuation of the last one, but it’s Hades’ turn with darling?

He’d have to steal his Darling away for that, wouldn’t he? Persephone is far from a demanding captor, but with how on-edge she is around Hades, it’s not hard to believe she’d be hesitant to leave the two of you alone. She deserves to be paranoid, at least. 

Part One.

TW: Minor Acts of Violence, Past Kidnapping, Current Captivity, Emotional Manipulation, and Mentions of Starvation.

~

Hades’ garden was the only place in the Underworld with sunlight. 

Well, ‘sunlight’ might’ve been the wrong word for it. There was no sun, no sky, no heat - there couldn’t be, not this far underground. But, there were slivers in the ground where rays of light spilled in, flowing down like sparkling streams of water and bouncing off of gemstones and smooth stone until the barest hints of their radiance reached the plot of land designated to buds that bloomed into thorns rather than petals, trees that’d bleed magma rather than sap, fruits of the dead that’d dye your fingertips red for days, even if you didn’t dare to pluck them off their stems. You couldn’t see it, but if you sat on the stone and closed your eyes, you could feel it, you could imagine the ghost of its warmth on your cold, frozen skin. You savored the garden. You relished the garden. You loved the garden, as much as you could love any part of your gilded cage.

You just wished you could enjoy it alone, for once. 

Hades was like a shadow. Persephone was easily dissuaded when you expressed an interest in venturing beyond the confines of her palace, but Hades was an aura, a chill, a pair of eyes you couldn’t shake or stop from prying into your skin more painstakingly than any dagger ever could. This was his domain, his kingdom, and yet, away from his throne and his crown and his mistress, he seemed more like one of the spirits he ruled over than a god cast off of Olympus. You’d long-since come to terms with it, hiding yourself away and holding your breath, limiting your movements, being as quiet and as still as possible in hopes of coaxing him out, as a hunter would for a timid fawn. Some days, it took a few minutes and others, a few hours. Today, he must’ve been feeling confident. Your lungs had only begun to ache by the time he gathered the courage to show himself. 

You kept your attention centered on the flower in front of you, as he approached. A translucent rose, jagged shards of glass curling around a crystalline core and emerging from a base of emerald, the edge of each petal just starting to blacken and wilt. A thought played on your tongue as Hades came to a stop at your side, as he muttered an affectionate greeting under his breath. You meant to return the gesture, intent on keeping your relationship with your captors as civil as it had to be, but you were already asking before you could stop yourself, posing a question you weren’t sure you’d like the answer to. “Will it die?” 

That seemed to catch Hades off-guard. He hesitated before he answered, his hands twitching where they were folded behind his back as he fought the urge to scan over you. You were almost thankful he was the more concerned of the two. Persephone would’ve clicked her tongue, pulled you into her side, and told you that they would, but that you also shouldn’t ask after such morbid things. At least Hades wasn’t so patronizing. “They will,” He confirmed, finally, his tone steady. “Eventually. They last longer than plants in the mortal realm, but I made them to be living things.” A pause, a bite to the inside of his cheek. “That comes with a certain set of requirements, unfortunately.” 

You shouldn’t have been surprised. You’d had to step over half a dozen shattered flowers just to get to this part of the garden, and you knew he wouldn’t design something that went against the law of nature he worked so tirelessly to uphold. “I’m a living thing,” You mumbled, the words barely audible. “Does that mean I’ll have to conform to your requirements, one day?” 

Hades didn’t see fit to answer, this time. “You haven’t been eating.” 

Technically, you haven’t eaten at all, not since you’re arrival. Hades had tried his hand at locking you in your room, raising his voice, making threats of what would happen if you didn’t take your meals with gratitude, and Persephone had gone on about how torturous hunger could be for an hour or two before growing frustrated and leaving you to wallow in your pain, but neither seemed to understand the notion that you’d much rather face the pangs and the aches and the weaknesses that came with starvation than accept the fact that you’d be thoroughly, completely, utterly trapped here for the rest of your now-eternal life. Among the dead, you had no appetite, no desire, no will. Not when the consequences of submission were so unignorable.

You wanted to stay warm far more than you wanted to make them happy. 

You must’ve been silent for a moment too long. For the first time, Hades let out a sigh, the man shaking his head as he turned to face you. His lips were barely turned downward, his brow furrowed in something more akin to irritation than rage, but it was the angriest you’d seen him, the angriest at you he’d ever been. “There’s no point in putting it off.” He didn’t make excuses, didn’t make it sound like submitting would do you any good, but that almost made it worse. Unlike Persephone, he knew he was in the wrong. Unlike Persephone, he didn’t try to make it sound like he thought he wasn’t. “You’re here because there are two people in the Underworld who love you more than anyone in the mortal realm ever could. By behaving like this, you’re not just hurting yourself, you’re hurting us. That’s not the kind of action you should be able to take without guilt.” 

“Because my pain is the only kind that doesn’t matter,” You replied, tearing your eyes away from Hades and forcing yourself to direct your glare at the ground, at the dull, shriveled jewels that littered the ground because he wasn’t kind enough to share his immortality with the creatures who needed it. You hadn’t asked for this. You hadn’t prayed for it, or begged it, or needed it, as much as he’d like to pretend you did. You hadn’t wanted it, and you refused to act as if you had. “You might love me, but I don’t love you. As soon as I get my chance to leave, I don’t plan on sacrificing it for a slice of a pomegranate. If that hurts you, then maybe you should be--”

He didn’t hit you, he didn’t lash out, but he didn’t have to. The iron-clad, ice cold fingers soon wrapped around your wrist were enough to stop you, enough to remind you that Persephone wasn’t the only deity you had to be afraid of, here. Reflexively, you snapped toward him, but you couldn’t help but shrink into yourself as soon as your eyes met his, grey and metallic and so, so wrathful. “I don’t want to hear a word of what you just said get back to Persephone,” He growled, his grip tightening, his nails biting into your skin drawing fresh, hot blood. If he noticed, though, he didn’t care, only pulling you forward as he went on. “There won’t be a second warning. If you dare to say something so careless to my wife, it’ll be her mercy you’ll have to rely on. I can guarantee you mine will be out of your reach, by then.” 

He let you go, scowling as you pulled your injured arm to your chest, not caring how the pooling blood might stain your clothes. You could only nod and avert your stare, your throat dry and your mind so blank, you almost forgot you’d ever thought you were capable of thought. 

All you knew was that, quite suddenly, the garden felt just as frigid as the rest of the Underworld.

[tali-zorahs]

@shadowgast-week day 4: fake dating au // favor

“I cannot begin to understand how this is the best way to get the information you need,” Essek murmured, leaning in close to Caleb’s ear in an attempt to avoid eavesdroppers.

“Believe it or not, this was the most sensible plan floated,” Caleb responded in kind, pulling Essek forward as he walked, Essek’s hand wrapped over top his arm. Essek followed easily, flashing a bland smile at a passer-by who had turned to stare at the unlikely couple. The smile only served to raise the drow man’s eyebrow as they passed him.

“Knowing all of you as I do, I can only imagine,” Essek countered. Caleb smiled knowingly. “Who was it who suggested this version of the plan?”

“Ah. Beau did,” Caleb responded, a bit bashfully. Essek turned to give him a look.

“Beau did?” he repeated.

“But Jester very quickly picked it up and since it was the most restrained idea we came up with Fjord and Caduceus soon agreed,” Caleb elaborated.

“And why did Jester decide this was the best idea?” Essek pushed.

“Oh, well, you know Jester. She’s a fan of, uh,” Caleb coughed, seemingly attempting to cover up the rest of his statement, “romance novel plots.”

“Aha,” Essek responded, turning his head to hide the flush, “that does seem quite like Jester.”

There was a a pause between them as they both surveyed the room, looking for any of the people the Nein believed might have the information they needed.

“If I may ask,” Essek began, “why did they pick you to go in?” Before Caleb could respond he added, “Not that I’m complaining about the company but I’ve noticed that big events like this make you uncomfortable, even if you handle yourself very well in them.”

Caleb looked to be parsing through Essek’s statement as if trying to find what of that to respond to directly. Eventually he answered, “I have noticed your own discomfort in these sorts of situations as well. I imagine you are here for much the same reason I am. Because they asked me to do it.” Caleb made the briefest of eye contact with Essek, flashing a small smile. “For you, though, I suppose it is just another favor amongst the many you have already done us.”

“I believe we are well past the point of counting favors,” Essek interjected quietly, garnering a minute smile from Caleb. 

“As for why me, it just made the most sense. Jester and Veth have some…history with the Lady of the house—something about a prank gone wrong—and therefore couldn’t do it. Beau told me, and I quote, ‘I am too much of a fucking lesbian for that shit’ so we didn’t even consider her. Yasha’s not comfortable with people or parties, or particularly adept at mingling, so she was out. Fjord or Caduceus might have been able to, but they said I would be best suited for it,” Caleb explained as they circled around the party, not staying in any one spot for too long.

“I see,” Essek responded, “I imagine they believed you least likely to attempt to murder me during the evening.”

“Fjord or Caduceus wouldn’t have tried to kill you,” Caleb responded quickly but did not go on. Essek didn’t miss what was left unsaid—the others, perhaps, might have. “Besides, we have a decent relationship, despite certain issues.”

“And what might that relationship be?” Essek chanced, staring forward, face carefully neutral.

“Friends, as I’ve said before,” Caleb remarked, seemingly unphased by Essek’s question. “Unless you had other ideas on that?”

Oh.

“No I, I don’t think I do,” Essek forced out, doing his best to control the heat rushing to his face. One look at Caleb told him the other man was teasing him, if the smile was anything to go by. “Being your friend is much more than I deserve,” Essek continued; he knew that even now he was on thin ice with some of the Mighty Nein. The fact that they continued to associate with him at all is much more than he would have ever hoped for, before.

“That’s unfortunate, as I did believe you to be my date,” Caleb continued and this time Essek could pick up the teasing tone.

“Mhmm,” Essek hummed in response, following his gaze to a Lady the Nein had pinpointed as a potential source of information. She was looking their way with an amused smirk. Essek leaned into Caleb’s ear again, this time doing his best to appear flirtatious. It wasn’t something he had much experience with, unfortunately, so he hoped it would come off as he intended. Essek murmured in what he hoped looked more flirtatious than conspiratorial, “I take it you see her as well?”

“That I do,” Caleb responded, leaning in. With a flicker of his eyes in the direction of the Lady, Caleb leaned over to Essek and brushed his lips along Essek’s cheek, the barest hint of a touch. “It seems Jester wasn’t kidding about her being nosy, she hasn’t stopped staring since we turned the corner.”

Doing his best to recover from what Caleb was doing to him, Essek said, “yes, well, perhaps she’s just noticed how good you look in black.” Caleb let out a surprised laugh, the flush on his cheeks telling Essek that he’d managed to get to him at last.

Louder this time, Caleb said, “enough of that, Liebling, there are other people at this party.” Essek could follow that signal, at least, and inclined his head for Caleb to lead the way in their night of information gathering.

[beardrabbles]

rock solid bonds.       pt. two

characters: zhongli, female reader, gimel ( geo hypostasis )

warnings: none

word count: 2,520

notes: well, this took me too dang long to get to! got caught up writing other things, but i hope it was worth the wait. i’m fleshing out a plot for this along the way, and i’m hoping it makes sense in the end! but for now it’s just fluff. lottsa fluff and semi-slow burn. thank you for reading!! you’re a treasure.

Even if you hadn’t arrived at Wangsheng Funeral Parlor the night before and formally signed your name on the contract Zhongli had meticulously drawn out, you would have kept to your word and arrived at Gimel’s island the next morning as promised. You had little with you, since you were reminded with a rather stony voice that this was meant to be an exercise in understanding and not an opportunity for battle. All you had in your little bag was a tightly wrapped lunch, a book and another vial of the concoction you had brought the day before — just in case.

No weapons. No hostilities.

You felt odd keeping your hulking claymore out of sight, but it was for the best. You weren’t looking to actively sabotage yourself, after all, and the arrangement wasn’t an awful one. All Zhongli had asked of you was to be civil towards the hypostasis and to sincerely make up for the damage you had caused. No matter how unintentional it had been, you knew it was right thing to do.

“Gimel?” You had considered hiding behind one of the walls and calling out, but concealing yourself now seemed like a silly idea. Although, calling out the element’s name to the open air felt just as silly.

The ‘ arena ’ was empty, the domineering shadows of the surrounding outcroppings shifting away as the sun rose higher over the horizon. You couldn’t feel the usual vibrations through your feet, and that only added to your concern. Every hesitant step took you closer to the center of the circle that made up Gimel’s home.

Was it still afraid? Or had it fled knowing you would be visiting more frequently? You wondered if it were possible for it to take up residence elsewhere and if that would, somehow, spoil both of the contrats you had agreed to. Hot panic was on the verge of squeezing you hard around the chest when you heard a sign behind you.

Startled, you let out a little squawk and whipped around.

“Mr. Zhongli!” You were partially relieved to see him, partially irritated that he had approached so quietly. “I didn’t know you were there.”

“I apologize for the fright.” He sounded genuine, but the fact that his gaze was trained on the center of the circle didn’t elude you. “When did you arrive?”

“Not even five minutes ago.” You smiled sheepishly. “Had a rough morning, but I’m here.”

“I can see that.” A fleeting smirk flickered across his features before he pursed his lips and cast his eyes around the arena. “And our friend?”

“Hasn’t shown up.” You shifted uneasily but masked it as adjusting the shoulder straps of your pack. “Can’t really blame it.”

“Time and patience. Sincerity. The wounds you’ve left won’t be healed so soon.” Reminded your companion. You sighed and slipped your pack from your bag.

“I know. I just — I want this to go well.” You huffed and sat down heavily, pack beside you. When you looked up and found you were the only one seated, you patted at the ground beside you. Zhongli blinked once, processed the request, then came to join you. You weren’t sure why, but it was amusing watching a man so tall and proper folding his legs as he settled down. Yet he didn’t look the least bit out of place, his serene expression matching the gentle whisper of the wind. In the growing light of day, he seemed to glow, as if soaking in the blooming heat of the sun like light-starved soil and warming rocks.

“If that is your true desire, then I believe all will go according to plan.” He assured you. You were mesmerized for a moment — was that optimism or confidence? You couldn’t tell, but both were appreciated.

“You’re really sure?”

“I have been around for a long time, and I like to believe that I have become quite adept at reading people. Although.  .  .” He paused for a moment, lips turning down. You leaned in.

“Although?”

“Hu Tao says I can be quite oblivious at times.” Zhongli admitted. You snorted, drawing his attention.

“I wouldn’t have guessed it. Wait, Hu Tao. Isn’t she the director of the funeral parlor? Doesn’t that mean she’s your boss?” You asked. Zhongli nodded once, and you continued. “She doesn’t mind you slacking off and comin’ out here to see Gimel?”

“I am merely a consultant. My services are required only when they are needed. When I have no work to attend to, I tend to wander.”

You hummed and leaned back on your hands, eyes up towards the brightening sky. “Do you wander out here a lot?”

“I’ve found myself visiting Gimel more often as of late.” Zhongli said with a sideways glance. You frowned and refused to peek in his direction purely out of guilt. “I like to check on them every now and again, just to see if they’re recovering properly.”

“I didn’t think they needed to recover.” You grumbled.

“Our world is no different than our mortal forms,” started Zhongli, “it can and will hurt if people aren’t careful. We can leave wounds. Look around you — these islands are proof. Gimel is no exception. While it is acceptable to harvest from a hypostasis, harvesting too frequently can leave it permanently damaged. It needs time to rest, to regrow. Tell me, did you notice anything strange the last time you fought it?”

You thought back for a moment, trying to recall the last battle you engaged the hypostasis in. It had been two days ago, you remembered. It had rained heavily in the area, leaving the ground muddy, the stone slick and the sands clingy. It had been both a blessing as a curse, or you’d thought that then. Thinking back, you did think it strange that the basalt pillars it created weren’t as strong as usual. You wanted to blame the rain, but that had hardly been your first encounter with it in the middle of a drizzle.

 “I saw them crumbling. I thought it was the rain.” You finally answered.

“That is a logical assumption to make, but you are aware of the truth now.”

“Yeah, I am.” You slumped forward, elbows on your knees and chin held in your hands. “What about other people? What are we going to do if someone else comes here expecting to find Gimel?”

“We will give them the chance to change their mind.” Zhongli shut his eyes and took in a deep calming breath. “May I ask you something, Miss Y/N?”

“Sure. Go for it.” You shrugged and fell silent, allowing him the chance.

“Thank you. I hope I’m not being terribly invasive, but what were you doing before your contracts bound you?” The question was asked delicately, leaving you room to deny him an answer if it was one you were unwilling to give. And while it did surprise you, you weren’t sure that you had any reason not to answer.

“Honestly, nothing and everything. I didn’t have an actual job. I just sort of.  .  . did what people asked me to do. I ran errands, I lent a hand where it was needed, I’ve babysat.” You let out a small, bitter laugh. “Now I’m a servant for the damn——!”

You clamped your lips shut and shrank into yourself. Without looking, you knew Zhongli was staring sharply in your direction.

“For whom?”

“Does it matter?” You pulled your knees up and scowled into them. A moment quietly slid past, and you still felt his eyes on you. His piercing gaze bore a hole in the walls you had abruptly thrown up, and you found yourself squirming uncomfortably. “Fine, it’s the Treasure Hoarders.”

“I had ventured a guess, but I wanted to hear you say it.” Zhongli sighed through his nose. “Have they hurt you or your family?”

“No.” You shook your head. “Not yet.”

“You anticipate a change?” He wondered.

“I’ve never known them to be totally honest. They’re a small group with a dumb name, but they’re loyal to their leader. Well, both leaders. The guy in charge thinks that if he can get me to find all these treasures for him, he can present them to whoever’s above him in the ranks and get himself a lovely, safe position in the group.” You scoffed. Zhongli arched a brow.

“You seem to know an awful lot about this mans intentions.” He pursued carefully. At this, you allowed the barest hint of a simper appear.

“He’s an idiot. He talks loud because he thinks it makes him intimidating. It only makes him look like a moron when he tells everyone within hearing distance what his plans are.”

Zhongli couldn’t help but to chuckle. “Am I to assume he is.  .  . how have I heard it phrased before? Ah, right. All brawn and no brains.”

It was your turn to laugh now, but the sound was a surprise when it left you. Despite your first encounter with him being tense and awkward, you realized now just how at ease you were around him. He radiated peace and understanding, calmness and patience. Lately, those were all feelings you had seen a distinct lack of. Where the Treasure Hoarders were brusk and unforgiving, Zhongli aimed to educate and reshape.

You wouldn’t have assumed for a moment that you would find yourself casually talking to him after all that had happened the day before, but you were glad for it.

“He is.” But as you both fell into a comfortable silence, you began to grow curious about the man beside you. You didn’t want to shatter the quiet you two had created, but the realization that you wouldn’t have many days like this with him prompted you to turn towards him and devote all of your attention to him. “When did you meet Gimel?”

Zhongli was taken aback, and you couldn’t help but to wonder if he had become too comfortable simply sitting next to you. His amber eyes fluttered, then grew distant, as if peering at something in the far-flung distance.

“I don’t believe it’s an exaggeration to say I’ve known them my whole life.” He started. “I can’t seem to think of a time when I haven’t known them. The form has changed, but they’re still the same.”

“Sounds like you’ve always been connected. Guess that explains the Geo Vision.” You leaned back to glance at the crystal attached to his coat. He turned his head to look over his shoulder, but realized he couldn’t see it. Instead, he settled for admiring you and the way your eyes shone when you glimpsed his faux Vision.

“Do you have one?” He asked.

“No.” You sighed loudly and fell back, laying across the stone and resting your hands on your stomach. “Visionless! Not worthy. Haven’t done anything in my life that warrants the gods blessing me.”

“I don’t believe that.” Zhongli frowned, his stony expression marred momentarily by disapproval. “Lacking a Vision does not make a person unworthy.”

“But it does make the people that have one super special, right?”

“I.  .  .” Zhongli stopped, made a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat, then rerouted his thoughts. “You don’t believe you’re special?”

“Not at all. Do you?”

“Do I what? Believe I am special because I have a Vision, or do I believe that you are special?” His counter question was sudden and took you aback, like a sudden slap to the face. You gaped, and when you didn’t answer, he dared to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” You huffed.

“Your face. It turned the most interesting shade of red just then.” The smile he passed you was soft and kind with the faintest trace of amusement. You felt your cheeks burn hotter and quickly turned away to hide it, but it was too late. “Don’t be so quick to dismiss yourself. I sense potential in you.”

Your stomach knotted and your lungs were madly aflutter, all thanks to those words. Out of habit, you wanted to deny him, but the tender way he spoke was too reassuring not to latch onto.

“You’d be the first to.” You spared him a quick, embarrassed glance. “Thank you.”

“Think nothing of it. It costs nothing to build a person up.” He reminded. You frowned, but not out of unhappiness. There was now a solid, burning determination in your eyes that Zhongli barely glimpsed when you stood. “What are you up to?”

“You just said that it doesn’t cost anything to build a person up. It should be the same for elements, right?” You grinned broadly, then cupped your mouth with your hands. “Gimel! I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can, I want you to know that I’ve always thought you were really amazing looking!”

You paused, suddenly feeling embarrassed. Looking down your shoulder, you found Zhongli nodding approvingly.

“You, uh.  .  . Actually, if I’m being honest, I’ve seen a few hypostasis! I’ve seen the ones in Mondstadt, and the one in Dragonspine! You were always the one I was the most excited to see, even if it was to come fight you. You’ve been the toughest too. And I’m sorry!” You enthusiastic shouting was met with silence, but you thought for a moment that you felt the ground beginning to vibrate again.

As quickly as the sensation came, it left again, leaving the bottoms of your feet feeling numb. Had the hypostasis acknowledged you, or had you mistaken your quickly beating heart and rushing blood for the thrum of an elemental life force?

Your shoulders drooped, and your chest felt heavy.

“Don’t lose hope. I think what you said was lovely.” Zhongli encouraged. You sat down again and dragged your pack forward, drawstrings loosened.

“Thanks. I know you’re right. I know it’s going to take more than just saying nice things to fix what I did, but I’m going to do it. Even if we hadn’t made that contract, I’d be here.” You pulled out the lunch you had brought with you and carefully unwrapped it. “But all that shouting made me hungry, and we’ll be here for a little while longer. You want some? I made it myself.”

Zhongli made to shake his head, but you gave him a stern glare before he could.

“Don’t even. You need to eat too, you know.” You portioned out your food, placed it in his hand, then giddily began to scarf down your half. Zhongli felt an odd stirring in his chest as he glanced down at the food you’d prepared. You misunderstood the sudden admiration and gratitude for hesitation, so you nudged him gently. “I’m not the best cook in the world, but I’m not bad either! Trust me, it’s decent.”

“It smells wonderful.” Zhongli bowed his head. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it! Quick, eat it up before it gets cold.” You paused your chewed and pocketed the bite in your cheek. “I can bring something tomorrow too if you end up liking that. Sound good?”

Zhongli nodded, and the feeling in his chest grew more agitated. “I look forward to it.”