#I watched him the first couple days because nobody had new game content

[anidharker]

One thing I struggle with is remembering how much I care or don't care about things, which when you say it like that sounds like a very weird thing to not remember.

It's like this: you start reading a book because one specific aspect of it made you curious, but then you realise the style of the prose is not to your taste. Do you skim until you reach the interesting scene? Do you stop reading altogether? Do you keep reading with increasing annoyance? How big was that initial curiosity and how much weight does it have now that you know you don't like the style?

I start watching a show, I'm very lukewarm about it. Do I keep going or do I skip to the second season where the actor I'm actually interested in shows up? How much do I care about having to piece together bits of plot if I skip half the season?

And so on. It's hard to tell sometimes.

[thehelpenchantingfig]

FIG will you tell me more about your friends techno-inspired film?

Yes

“Basically I would so love to do a biopic about Technoblade but we have to pitch an original idea so it’s based off him and the main character has the same type of cancer. His name is Archie (gamer tag Anarchie) and he is a streamer of a game called Bliss, which was basically invented as a safe, comforting space for anyone wanting to escape from the real world. It has many different realms so there is something for everyone. There is battling, farming, building, roleplaying etc. (very Minecrafty but imagine the style of Ready Player One). This means that streamers have comfort characters in the lives of their viewers; just because you can’t see them in real life doesn’t mean they’re not your friends.

There is a nice group of streamers that make content together despite their differences and Archie is a part of it. He is generally considered one of the best players of Bliss as he is pretty insane at PVP. He does have a rival, however, called Hunter (we never learn if this is his real-world name, it’s sort of a running joke trying to figure out what he’s actually called). There is also Cam, think American Tommyinnit. He is young, really into role-playing and has the biggest audience of all of them. Then there are Maeve and Ella. They are in their late twenties and are a couple irl, despite being very different. Maeve is very cottagecore and has relaxing streams of building and farming, whereas Ella is a hardcore goth archer, but they are perfect for one another. Maeve has an adorable pet sheep in-game that is always with them. They are currently going through IVF irl.

At the start of the film Archie has already gone through chemo and is waiting for his follow up appointment. It isn’t good news, and he must decide between amputation and surgery. Clinging onto hope of still being able to game, he chooses surgery. He is devastated and begins to isolate himself. He stops streaming and is spending his days being a lonely lil farmer in Maeve’s realm, chilling with her sheep. His friends eventually find him and make him tell them what’s going on. When they discover he has cancer they know they have to cheer him up. They figure that if there’s a chance Archie does indeed lose his skill after the surgery, they need to prove once and for all that he is the best gamer on Bliss.

There is one realm left on Bliss that nobody has managed to survive. It is generally considered the final stage of the game: the mountain that overlooks spawn, containing challenges from across Bliss. Archie isn’t convinced he will succeed, but after reading some comments from his viewers about they ways he has helped them over the past few years, he knows he can’t give up on them. So that’s it, they have just two weeks before the surgery to complete the adventure. Eventually he has to swallow his pride and bring Hunter along for the mission. This is the main plot of the film and I’m giving a very vague summary but in the end they get to the top of the mountain the day before the surgery and can see the treasure beyond the finish line (along with a Technoblade crown).

They cross the line and-

Game over.

They have no idea what they did wrong and are defeated. They know they’ve lost and it’s time for Archie’s surgery. The end of the film follows him in real life in hospital. All of his streamer friends visit and spend the next couple months with him. The surgery was unfortunately not a success, and this is the end of his life. Despite this, he is experiencing peace for his first time irl. His friends read to him, play him at one-handed Mario Kart, and he gets to meet Maeve and Ella’s baby. He hasn’t touched Bliss in months.

One night once everyone has left he starts a stream of his face. Meanwhile we watch him playing by himself. He tells his viewers he has cancer and he loves them. He is going to die, but they shouldn’t worry. He is with his friends. If he had the choice of living any other life, he would always choose this one. He will never know whether amputating will have saved him, but he doesn’t want to dwell on it. He is happy living in the moment for the first time ever. In the game he makes it past the final battle but he doesn’t cross the line. He has been watching his friends and enjoying life in the real world and knows what to do. He just logs out. He is sent to spawn and the crown sits on his avatar’s head. He smiles and logs off. By having the strength to leave Bliss, he has completed the game.

Back in the stream, he tells his viewers he is proud of how far they have all come and it is time to say goodbye. If they are ever lonely and in need of a comfort zone, they can always watch his old videos. He will always be there. But he must go, and he thinks it’s time they do too. Therapy is over and the real world is waiting for them. He finishes by asking them to subscribe to him lol.

The stream ends, he shuts his laptop and dies in his sleep that.

That’s sad but you should know he is wearing Maeve’s cottagecore sheep merch. Also please note a technodad character is a big part of Archie’s real-world plot.

I’m open to feedback. Especially if you have title ideas because I’m currently just calling it Anarchie!”

[deviltoys]

— ‘𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗼𝘆.’

sakusa kiyoomi x top!male reader. (wc; 1.7k)

#a/n: lolol self-indulgent sakusa fic because i wanna breed him so bad. this is painfully horrible and short but hopefully enough to feed everyone for the time being!

warnings. NSFW CONTENT, MINORS DNI, blindfold, overstimulation, breeding k., frat!au, gangbang, dubcon turned con, belly bulge, cum inflation, no aftercare, manipulation, sex slavery, implied somnophila.

joining the most prominent fraternity on campus was the last thing on his mind. sakusa struggled immensly when it came to social interaction, he even took extra precautions to avoid having to exchange any dialogue between peers. especially a bunch of guild boys who could barely keep their heads attached to their shoulders; but atsumu had somehow convinced him to give it a shot.

according to the miya twin, he needed to push past this boundaries and explore his comfort threshold a little more. the perfect place to do just that? a frat house. who's more loud and rowdy than a couple of douchebag adults trying to assert their alpha-ness by hosting a copious amount of house parties.

as much as he beseeched and argued against it, the frat scene had him hook, line and sinker. and soon, the unbearable pull of charming guys passing around pamphlets for recruitment day had caught up to him.

the hall of residence was a lot more alluring that media would lead on. he was pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness and charm of the home; the parade of shirtless guys crowding around the hobby room only added a sense of authenticity to the whole ordeal.

after he was plucked into the roster of other men trying their hand at slipping a way into the frat life of their dreams. the initiation was on the horizon, and sakusa’s overwhelming social anxiety from the day prior came flooding right back into his system. he had forgotten the most important rule about a brotherhood, proving your worth and loyalty to your new family.

the two paths you could choose to go down were no bed of roses— the first opportunity was to streak and sprint down the length of the campus yard. or a play special game, in which your fellow brothers would surprise you with.

no way in hell would he sacrifice his dignity by stripping down bare and humiliating himself in front of the entire university. his education was on the line, he had a reputation to uphold; the only option was to partake in whatever the sorority had waiting for him.

that's where you came in, merely handing the dark-haired male a piece of cloth to don around his eyes. the last thing he could recall about his surroundings was the eeriely warm yet sadistic expression you gave him— his vision melting into a blur of black when the blindfold made contact his skin.

“just find a place to sit on one of the couches, my brothers’ll be with you soon.” your tone was low and gravely, the remainder of his senses were heightened due to his loss of vision. his ears exploding with your voice and your voice only, he felt the flesh on his cheeks bleed from pink to red; praying you wouldn't notice his shift in attitude.

“ye- yeah.. okay, thanks.”

your footsteps faded into the backdrop, signalling him to begin his search for the couch. he'd rather die than have you watch him scramble around the room like a headless chicken. he stumbled around a little, as predicted— bumping into furniture here and there before his hips knocked into a pool table frequently used for beer pong.

his hands feel around the object in an attempt to slip past it, amongst all the chaos he's experiencing he's dimly aware of the presence of a group of people. the scuffling of shoes against the hardwood floors only solidify his suspicions, but before he's able to call out to you; or anyone. heavy pressure is placed atop his shoulder blades— the curve of hips lace into the divit of his ass until he's pressed against the table.

the silence drifting around the open space between your bodies isn't broken, nobody dare mumbles a sound. your broad palms slink up the underside of his shirt, keeping a painfully slow pace up his chest until your fingers pinch the first nipple they come in contact with. your free hand snakes around his hip and dips into the hem of his jeans before making it's way into the waistband of his boxers.

his body shudders desperately, thighs bucking forward as your fist pumps around the length of his twitching cock. by the time he can gasp out a flurry of winces, two fingers that weren't there previously, poke and prod around his rim. devilishly forcing his walls to mold around them and shape room for a few more.

both of your hands now find a home around his hips. your groin, which is positioned at his rear, ruts the outline of your erect bulge against his ass— plowing the multitude of fingers already planted inside of him, deeper. this only entails that the fingers now wrapped around his cock, teasing his chest, and sinking into the depths of his rectum all belong to a different set of people.

he once more unclamps his jaw to sputter out more nonsense, only moaning once the warm, wet agitation of lips suck a dark mark into the curve of his collarbone. he's overcome with bliss, marveling in the way each frat member simultaneously toys with his sensitive body.

an abundance of hands fumble with his zipper, unbuckling the leather around his waist— unlooping the material before tossing it aside. you shove his pants down past his calves, releasing your grip on him so that you're able to abandon your own set of clothes. there's more rustling of clothes and clinking of belt buckles and your hands return to him once more, binding his arms and shoulders while gently bending him onto the table.

bracing for impact, he's pleasantly astonished when his chin and shoulders sink into something soft and pillowy. you were kind enough to replace the hard surface beneath him with one of the sofa cushions, strengthening his trust in you.

with his body now calm and relaxed with aura around the six of you, you take a few moments to prepare your cock to breed your good little fuck toy.

hot breath teases the meek, male’s ear; your monstrous cock pressing into puckered hole only making the lewd torture of the situation worse.

“miya told us you'd like to become our little breeder sakusa, we've had our eye on you for awhile. is this true? do you want us to pump your little womb full of our children?”

atsumu? he was the one who had him in this position, such a trusted friend making him seem special enough to catch the attention of these compassionate boys? maybe he was born to be a slave for cock. atsumu wouldn't lie to him, would he?

oh poor kiyoomi, if only he saw right through that twisted facade.

you growl into the shell of his ear, he figures that you're the one who's bending over his back; threatening to breach his fertile hole. being the head of the frat, you got first dibs on all the fresh meat brought in, it's sad you'd have to share this one with your brothers.

there's nothing sakusa has to resist with, he whimpers out a few noises before you're rewarded with a barade of nods. a rise of chuckles and quiet exclamations from the group feed through his brain— apparently all of your peers are patiently waiting for their own couple of minutes with him. silent vulgarites phase past your teeth as you impatiently card a hand through his thick curls. plunging into the boy with one fluid motion, your cock vanishes from sight, disappearing inside of his stomach.

his ebony iris’ screw shut behind the blindfold. you can feel the way his womb parts just for your cock, the slimey g-spot of his is completely ignored as you push past it; the fat head of your cock mercilessly drilling into his belly. your cock is on full display, the layers of flesh seperating you from the outside world bend and jiggle around the outline of your shaft.

“i sure do hope you have enough room for all of our cum in there.” your thrusts don't falter, not daring to give his poor, ruined prostate a breather. “because we're not stopping until every single one of us has had a chance to knock you up!”

with those final words rolling off your tongue, your hips snapped long and harsh strokes into his twitching hole— cum bursting at the seams of your slit, balls tightening and enlarging as the pent up pleasure and lust readied the fat sacks for release. sakusa feels his tummy bloom with the first batch of warmth, sticky ropes of seed shoot right inside. perfectly filling him up in preparation for the next cock eager to breed his tight ass!

so wonderful, his womb feels so full and claimed! a bright and hot flush pools across his face; without warning the next cock sinks even deeper than the last. more of the groups genes passing through him, mating the frat’s new bitch over and over again. he's hit by a wave of orgasms after the second brother slams himself nice and deep, pumping his seed inside him once more. his asshole greedily opening and closing to filter as much thick cum as humanly possible into his intestines. before he's able to come to his senses, he's already chubby with semen; happily inviting the next member to come and breed his stupid body.

the entire night is flooded with sounds of hiccuping, skin on skin contact, and the leaking of cum being deposited right back into sakusa. the incredible feeling of his frat brothers groping and touching him up have him cumming time after time— all night he's shuddering as another orgasm passes through his frame.

once he's positively gushing with cum and reduced to nothing but an overstimulated puddle of arousal— you scoop up his limp, bloated body, collecting the rest of your buddies before carrying him to his very own dorm. labeling his room, the ‘breeding room’. the sorority didn't let him waste a dime of time rejuvenating his body with sleep. they didn't want their new play thing to go to waste; he was awoken multiple times during the wee hours of the night. cock fitted tightly between his lavish cheeks.

he was certainly going to love it here, nothing but a obedient puppet.

[wither-rose-circus]

To me its not about phil & scott being good builders its about how no one but them and sneeg have the dedication to like even be on the server for fun, like dsmp is the lore focused one and they barely show for that at all and dont really plan for that at all either (see: ranboos death, wilburs death, november 16th where techno had to push for everything to do with him) like i just have no faith that theyd do anything (like ranboo doesnt upload, wilbur barely uploads, phil rarely uploads, tommy doesnt do series etc)

I think that’s a pretty defeatist mentality honestly

Servers lose steam, projects die out. The Dream SMP has been running for over a year and a half now. That’s pretty long for a server all things considered. SMP Live lasted less than a year, SMP Earth lasted less than a year, Hermitcraft seasons don’t last much longer than a year, hell Mindcrack (the original SMP YouTube series) had seasons that only lasted about a year each.

The problem with comparing the possibility of new servers to the Dream SMP is the fact that you’re comparing it to a server that’s been running for over a year now. That’s not really fair. Like, if you’ve ever watched a Hermitcraft season in full, you’ll see that things just sort of slowly die off until all CCs have agreed they’re finished, or bored, and want to move on. It’s not fair to say the CCs won’t be committed to a new series because they’ve been letting this old one die off when it’s already been active for a perfectly acceptable amount of time. Most open ended Minecraft series don’t have neat or tidy endings, even ones with plots. The progression of the Dream SMP isn’t unnatural, hell, it’s not even unusual. It was created to fill the void made by covid, and now that things have started opening up again, the CCs got busy with other things they couldn’t do before. Right now they’re clearly figuring out how to balance that with content on the server, but in its initial heyday? (I’d say from about August 2020 to February or March 2021, but particularly spiking between September and December 2020) The Dream SMP was very active from most Origins members. The fact that it has plans to continue that are being processed at all is a decent feat for a YouTube SMP series. It’s not well planned, mind you, but I admire the fact that so many general members are still keeping the server itself alive this far into it, especially given the fact that nobody started out with any goals.

Ranboo, Wilbur, and Phil don’t upload much youtube content because they’re primarily streamers. That’s their focus. If Wilbur wants to get back into producing YouTube content with this new series then good for him! I wish him luck! But none of them are inactive with content, just inactive on YouTube. The fact that Wilbur said he wants to make Origins a YouTube series doesn’t even mean anyone else does.

Anyway, all this to say: I don’t agree with the idea that the DSMP members can’t commit to series. A decent amount of them spent like 8 months doing almost nothing but the Dream SMP, I can’t blame any of them for falling out with it. Outside of that and the first Origins, I tend to see people cite Cogchamp and 30 Days as examples of the members lacking dedication, but that’s really only two examples (I’ll give you three if you want to include Tubbo’s Big Dig SMP). I don’t think any of them lack the drive to commit to a series, I think they just lacked a plan of action for those few servers (something they had for the Dream SMP and will have for Origins) and didn’t know where else to go with them.

(I personally don’t even think you can properly count 30 Days as an example. It was a hardcore series and like half of the members just died a couple days in, those were the rules of the game. It was discontinued because basically everyone in the already very small cast weren’t allowed to play anymore after dying.)

[thedevilsdom]

snake girlfriend

contains: F!Reader/Leviathan, pegging, feminization, cross dressing, taking your snake gf out on a date

i wanted to see feminization with Leviathan, to nobody’s surprise

word count: ~6.5k

You were surprised by how little convincing it took to have Leviathan agree to this.

You were just hanging out with him in his room one day, doing what you usually do there, which is go on your D.D.D or on a handheld console while he played something on his computer and you two just enjoyed doing your own thing in the company of each other. Suddenly, you were struck with a brilliant idea, and decided why not bring it up to your boyfriend?

“Levi,” You called, grabbing his attention away from his game. He pulled his headphones down to around his neck, played for a second or two more so that he could get somewhere he could pause, and spun his chair around to face you in his bathtub. You look up at him casually, turning your phone screen to show him what you were looking at. On your social media feed, you’d gotten a post from someone about an outfit of the day they were wearing. It was simple, a cute white blouse and a dusty pink skirt, with thigh high white socks and cute brown leather shoes. He squinted at your screen for a moment then looks past it to you,

“Y-yeah, you’d look cute in that.” He stated, thinking that that’s what you were asking, before putting his headphones back on. Before he could turn back to his computer, you giggled,

“Not on me, baby.”

And he froze.

“I was thinking about… You know how you put on cute little things for me, sometimes?” You said, referring to his cosplay, costumes, and lingerie that you’ve either seen or had him wear. “I was thinking about how maybe we could get you all pretties up and I could take you out for a day on the town.” By this point you’d stepped out of the tub and walked over to him, one hand on one arm rest of his chair, and the other gently holding his chin to make him look up at you. His face was flaming red. “I could take you out as my pretty little girlfriend.”

“Y-yes! Of course!” He yelped, voice high. You tried to not let the shock show on your face, surprised at how very little you had to say before he was agreeing to your idea. Instead, you give him a pleased smile and a short, soft kiss.

“Good. I’ll get everything ready, you don’t have to worry about a thing.” You started scrolling through your phone in preparation. “I’ll tell you once I figure out when we’re doing this.” You knew that Leviathan likes to know things ahead of time, so nothing gets sprung on him, though of course telling him also gives him the opportunity to start getting anxious ahead of time, but you figured that that’s better than him going into a fit and refusing to leave the house because he doesn’t feel prepared enough.

Over the course of the next couple of days, you figured out the perfect day that you could use for this. Lucifer was going to be at meetings with Diavolo, Mammon had to catch up on RAD work, Satan had a debate, and so on and so forth. Everyone was going to be busy, save for you and Leviathan, and that meant that there wouldn’t be any chance for any of them to spot you two outside. You didn’t really care if they saw you, but you knew that Leviathan would rather anything other than his brothers seeing him dolled up like that.

During that time, you’d also managed to get your hands on something that Leviathan could wear. With your preparations out of the way, you’re ready for your date with your beautiful girlfriend.

--

The day finally rolls around and you get up, immediately sending a message to Leviathan.

MC: >> Do you want to eat something here and then go out? That way we could have tea at a nice little café while we’re out

Levi: >> Sounds good to me

MC: > I’ll grab something for us from the kitchen and head up

You swing by the kitchen, whipping up some ‘breakfast ramen’, that Leviathan had told you how to make. Really it was just instant noodles with an egg, but it was something familiar that he liked, and you figure that he’s probably feeling a little anxious and this should settle his nerves at least a little. Once that’s ready, you take that and the other stuff you’d need up to his room.

By the time you get there, Leviathan’s been up for a little bit, kind of just puttering about his room, keeping himself occupied with little things until you arrive. When you open the door, his eyes go wide for a second before he spots the tray in your hands and rushes over, taking it from you and setting it down at his desk. He pulls up his gaming chair and the second seat in his room that you’d made him buy, setting them up and putting a bowl in front of each of the chairs. Once organized, he immediately starts chowing down.

“So,” You say, taking a bite of some of your own noodles, “I was thinking that we could go shopping for a little bit, then maybe go grab a bite and head home a little after?” Watching him nod tentatively, you push the bag you’d brought to him, “You can look at your outfit, if you want.”

He finishes his meal quickly and unzips the bag, looking into it and pulling each item out one by one. The first thing out is a long sleeved, white blouse, with little cuffs at the wrists that make the sleeve bell out just a little bit. The next thing he takes out is the pair of white thigh high stockings, they have tiny white bows at the top cuff. Then the shoes, they’re simple and leather with a little bit of a heel, something he could comfortably walk in for a while, while not looking too masculine. Next out is a wig, soft and comfortable, and similar to his own hair color, already styled by you into a style that’s vaguely reminiscent of Ruri-Chan’s twin ponytails. Finally, he pulls out the skirt. It’s baby pink and pleated, reminiscent of a school girl’s uniform.

“There’s more stuff in there.” You say through a mouthful of noodles, gesturing with your chopsticks. He sets the clothing aside and peers into the bag, curious. Inside he spots some basic make up, and under it-

“I- I can’t wear that!” He gasps, shoving the bag and its contents back at you. You catch the bag effortlessly and pull out the little lingerie set.

“Nobody will see it but me, and I think your boxers would show past the hem of your skirt.” You state, setting the bag down on the floor next to your seat. “But if you wouldn’t be comfortable in them, we can figure something else out.” Leaning forward, you give him a kiss on the forehead, “I want you to have a good time today.” Extending the hand that holds the lingerie set out to him, you leave the option open for his consideration.

Timid hands with painted nails delicately take the lingerie as Leviathan looks it over. He feels the texture of the fabric between his finger tips. Its smooth, soft, and it feels like it’d actually be more comfortable than his current briefs. Along with a pair of white, simple panties, is a bralette. It’s sheer and white, with no cups or any real form, it would hug against his chest. He knows that this won’t serve any real purpose besides you knowing that he’s wearing it. A shiver races down his spine at that.

“I-I’ll wear it!” He yelps, more loudly than he intended, his hand immediately flying to his mouth and covering it. You giggle, a sound that makes his heart flutter.

“I’m glad, Levi.” You take his hand and press a kiss to his knuckles. “Should I help you get dressed, or can you manage?” He looks at you, then looks away, then back at you as he mulls over the options.

“I-I’ll get myself ready.”

With that, you give him a gentle smile and gather up the dishes from your breakfast.

“I’ll be back in a little bit to do your make up, then.” You pick up the tray and walk out of the room.

While you’re out washing the dishes and changing into something else yourself, Leviathan is putting his new outfit on.

One he takes everything off, he starts with the lingerie set. He pulls the panties on. With his cocks hidden behind his reptilian vent, they fit well, hugging his form. He can’t help but step in front of his mirror, admiring how they look on him. He struggles a little bit with the bralette before he manages to clip it closed properly, glancing at the mirror again.

Usually Leviathan can’t stand to see himself in the mirror. He usually feels like a slob, someone who doesn’t take care of himself, someone who nobody could possibly think is attractive. Now as he puts his outfit on piece by piece, the outfit that you got for him, the one that you wanted him to wear, the one that you specifically requested he wear because you wanted to see him in it, he can’t take his eyes off his reflection. As his fingers do the final button on his blouse, everything else already on, he feels wanted. He feels loved.

You knock on the door.

You’ve put on the clothes that you plan on wearing out, and you rock back and forth on your heels as you wait for Leviathan to give you the all clear.

“MC? Y-you can come in!” He calls out from the inside of the room. You turn the doorknob and push it open stepping in. The second your eyes land on Leviathan, you can’t help yourself from dropping your bag at the door and approaching him, your arms wrapping around his waist while you admire him.

“You’re so pretty, Levi,” Your voice is an awestruck whisper that makes his face red. You press a kiss to his lips, “Beautiful,” Then one to his jaw, then one on his neck.

“S-s-stop! We- don’t we still- uhm!” He stammers out, head spinning. You smile against his neck, your warm breath making him tremble.

“Right, we still have a date to go on, don’t we?” You pull back. “Go sit, let’s get your make up on.”

Putting make up on Leviathan isn’t too difficult, especially since you’re doing a very simple look. Just a little lipgloss, some mascara, blush, hardly much else but it does leagues to make him look more feminine. He already has a somewhat round face and long lashes, so it truly wasn’t difficult.

“You’re so beautiful,” You sigh, putting away the make up and brushes to take care of later, when you come back. “I get to take my beautiful girlfriend on a nice date!” You sing. Leviathan’s still coming to terms with the fact that you actually want to go out and do something like this with him. You take his hand and lead him out of the room, making your way towards your first destination.

The first place you go to is the main shopping street just a little bit away from the House of Lamentation. You keep Leviathan’s hand in yours the whole time, glancing up at him whenever you can. His expression is nervous, anticipatory, but excited. He looks happy to be here, out with you. As you get to be a couple blocks away from the House, and nearing the shopping street, you stroke your thumb across his hand.

“How are you feeling?” You ask.

“Good,” He says. “It’s c-comfy… And I like- it- it’s nice, knowing that you think I look good.” The longer he speaks, the quieter he gets, his free hand fiddling with the hem of his skirt.

“Baby, I always think you look good.” You press a kiss to his hand. “You don’t have to worry about a thing today, okay? Just have a good time. I’ll do the talking for you, if you want.” He gives an eager little nod, letting you lead the way.

You make your way to the shopping street easily. You hear Leviathan’s heels clicking on the stone path as you lead him into a little new comic shop that he’d been meaning to stop at for some time now, but had never gotten out of the house to do it. His eyes light up when he steps inside, immediately dragging you around the store to point out the different things he sees, from the décor reminiscent of some of his favorite series, to the new issues of the comics and manga he’s been reading. He finds himself at one of the bins of comics, walking his fingers across the tops of each issue in the bin, examining them to see if there’s anything in there that he doesn’t own yet.

While he’s doing that, you notice a trio of demons enter the comic shop and you immediately notice one of them looking at Leviathan, whose back is to them. You glance at Levi, put together easily that with his natural height plus the heels, he has to be bending over to look through the comic books, and you’re sure that neither him nor you want some random demon seeing up his skirt. You step between the demon and Levi, crossing your arms and just giving them a glare.

When the demon steps forward, you do to, intending to be far enough from Levi that he can’t hear what you say. The demon thankfully doesn’t try to sidestep you to get to him. When you both meet in the middle of your paths, they point past you at Levi.

“That your friend?” They say. They look like they’re about to talk more when you cut them off,

“My girlfriend, actually.” You school your expression into something stern. You’re not looking for a fight or an argument, but you want to put a stop to this right here. Luckily, the demon gets what you’re saying, mumbles an apology, and stumbles back off to meet back up with their friends somewhere else in the shop. By the time you spin back around, Leviathan has picked a book and is leaned back against the table with the bins, holding the book to his chest and looking like a girl straight out of an anime.

With a couple easy strides to him, you lean up and kiss him on the cheek.

“Is this all you want?” Your hands carefully take the comic from him, looking at the cover. For a second, you’re worried that having seen that interaction between you and the demon could have soured the mood and made him uncomfortable, but instead, he responds,

“Heheh… You protected me from that guy like I’m some kind of love interest~” He sang with a shy, dopey kind of smile.

“You are my love interest, silly.” You chuckle, walking with him over to the counter and buying the comic for him, handing him the little shopping bag once you’re done.

Once you’re outside the store, you’re holding Leviathan’s free hand in your own. You spend a little longer mostly popping in and out of different comic shops, manga stores, and game stores and letting Leviathan wander around. In the last game store you stop in, another group of demons is eyeing Leviathan up, but you just give them a stern look and it’s enough to shoo them off, thankfully. When you walk over to Leviathan, he’s found a game he wants, and he’s staring down at it in his hands, but you can’t help but notice that he’s a little spacey. His eyes are half lidded with his pupils blown, his bottom lip caught between his teeth, and his cheeks tinted pink.

“Levi? Baby girl?” You hum, tugging on his sleeve. He shivers at the name.

“Ah,” He looks at you, and you easily recognize exactly what he’s feeling. “I- Their envy, they’re so jealous, I can feel their envy.” He purrs. “They wanna be you, they wanna be me, but- but we’re us and-“ He drops his head against your shoulder, “And I’m yours and only yours.”

You can hear the smile in his voice. Lifting your hand, you pet the back of his head.

“You’re mine, baby,” You keep your voice low, so only you and him can hear it, “But if you get hard, your skirt won’t do a good job of hiding it.”

That has him yelping and pulling away from you straightening back up to his full height with a burning blush across his cheeks.  He only flushes redder at your mischievous smile.

“Or would you like that?” You ask. He fervently shakes his head, not trusting his mouth to speak. “Aw, what, you don’t want to show everybody what a good girl you are? How needy you are for me?”

“Nnno! No, MC, come on,” His hands grab the edge of his skirt’s hem at the front, holding and pulling it down. “Don’t make me think about- about that, please, don’t make me think about that!” Levi’s voice is hardly a whisper as he’s hunched over, looking up at you through teary eyes. He looks absolutely desperate.

“Alright, baby girl,” You give him a quick kiss and go and buy the game, leaving him standing there for a minute and hoping that he’ll manage to calm himself down a little, before returning slipping the game into his bag with his comic book. “You want to go grab something to eat?”

“U-uh, yeah, yeah sure.” He takes your hand again- his hand is so warm- and lets you lead him around to your next stop.

Getting a table at the café is fairly easy. It isn’t too crowded, but there are certainly enough people there to make the atmosphere nice and lively. Once you’re seated, you look up at Levi. Oddly enough, he looks a lot less anxious than he has on past outings. Though, every time he spots you looking at him, he blushes and looks away with a cute little smile on his face. You take his hand above the table and press a kiss to his knuckles, your lips soft against his skin,

“I have the prettiest girlfriend,” You sing. Levi’s cheeks take on a deep pink, and he looks around the café. As the seconds pass, you note that he’s slipping back into that turned on, spaced out kind of look again. “Oh? Levi,” Your thumb strokes across his knuckles, “You feeling how much all those demons wish they were in my spot? How much they want you?”

As you speak in a low voice, you stroke the inside of his calf with the toe of your shoe and he jumps so hard his knees bang against the underside of the table. You notice his free hand drift down between his legs and you give him a knowing smile.

“Y-you- you have to stop talking about that! I won’t, hnn, I won’t be able to stop myself from getting hard in my-“ His voice drops to a muted whisper, “in my panties…”

“Oh, so you do remember what I said earlier.” You smirk at Levi, who looks like he’s about to pass out. Luckily for him, by the time the waitress comes around to get your order, Leviathan’s managed to get himself under control, and both his hands have returned to rest on top of the table, one in yours.

“Hi! What can I get the two of you?” The waitress gives a sunny smile and you look up at her,

“I’ll take the short cake and…” Glancing at Levi, he’s giving you a docile, submissive smile so you go ahead, “And she’ll have the crepe.”

“Alright, one shortcake and one crepe, coming right up,” The waitress heads off to the kitchen and you turn back to Levi who’s got hearts in his eyes. You know that if he were in his demon form, his tail would be doing that cute little wiggle that it’s prone to do when he’s happy.

“I saw you looking at the picture, looks like something right out of a manga so I knew you’d like it.” You say, an innocent smile on your face as your foot resumes its teasing and he lets out a petulant whine, his hand reaching down to bat your foot away, and with a chuckle you resign to his wishes.

While you wait for the food to come out, you ask him about the new things he got, and let him explain them. His face is lit up the whole time, a big smile across his lips and eagerness in his eyes. He almost doesn’t notice when the waitress sets the food in front of you until you look at his crepe and nudge it closer to him. With a little ‘oh!’ he slips his game back into its bag and pulls the stand closer to him. It’s a Japanese style crepe, one that’s rolled into a cone and filled with cute little fruits and toppings. As he’s marveling at it, you can’t help but take out your D.D.D,

“Hey, baby girl,” You call softly, getting his attention and showing him that you want to take a photo. He gives you a peace sign and an adorable grin, and you snap the photo, immediately putting it into your password locked folder. Immediately after, you take your fork and scoop off a little piece of shortcake, extending your arm and offering to Levi.

The fingertips of his free hand loosely rests against your wrist for stability as he takes the fork past his sharp teeth and onto his forked tongue.

“Mm! That’s good!” He grins, pushing his crepe to you so you can try a little bit. You both continue that way, essentially splitting the desserts until you’re done. Once you are, you pay the check and head out.

“I’ve got one more place I wanna stop.” You say, checking the time. Even including the place you’re thinking of, you should be able to get through there and back to the House before any of Leviathan’s brothers are out and about. The thought of being caught doesn’t even cross his mind. He’s put all his trust into your planning and ideas, and he just nods, ready to go along with your plan. You turn off the main street, going onto one of the side ones. It’s still populated with shops, though it’s a little less crowded.

Leviathan allows himself to be pulled along with you, slowly swinging his arm back and forth as he holds your hand. He’s so preoccupied with the euphoria of being your pretty date and being out and about without being anxious and holding your hand-

He doesn’t notice where you’ve wound up until you tug his arm a little, telling him to look up.

His eyes first catch on the mannequins in the front of the store, in a display behind the glass. Then he notices what they’re wearing. Cute, frilly, lacy lingerie decorates each of the mannequins, draping and hugging across their bodies. His whole face goes red and you giggle.

“I wanna buy my baby girl something pretty,” You step in front of him and loosely wrap your hands around his waist, “But if you’re not comfortable we don’t have to go in.”

Again, just as when you’d given him the lingerie, he mulls it over in his head, rolling his words around in his mouth over his tongue and seeing how they feel, eyes scouring across the display mannequins before finally giving a shy little nod and squeezing your hand a little. With a pleased smile, you slowly lead him into the store.

The inside of the store is pretty dark, and it’s reasonably high end, but not so much so that employees would bombard the two of you to try to get your sizes or overwhelm Levi or anything of the sort. The workers who do come to help, you easily dismiss with a “we’re fine, thank you,” and you let Leviathan explore the store, with you tagging along behind him.

He skims past a lot of the more reveling lingerie, walking through the shop before eventually landing on a display filled with babydolls. The top is lacy and white, then sheer panels of fabric cover the midsection of the mannequin, with the bottoms being a lacy pair of panties. The one that’s caught Leviathan’s eye seems to be one of the more simple ones. Your arm rests gently across the small of his back as you observe what he’s looking at.

“That one seem good?” You ask. “I think you’d look so good in that.” You look and take up one that would fit him, holding it up to his body. “It’s so nice and light, all the hickeys and bites I leave on you would show up so nicely underneath it.”

Leviathan gives a heavy shiver at your purring, voice nodding,

“Y- yes, this one.” The idea of being marked up by you has him using every inch of his willpower to not get hard in his panties. “I wanna wear this one for you.”

“Wonderful, I’ll get this one for you, then!” You say with a grin that looks far too innocent for Leviathan’s liking. You skip over to the check out counter. While you’re handling that, Leviathan is looking around the store. Contrary to what he’d expected, nobody is giving him any strange looks or anything, mostly just going about their own business without so much as a glance in his direction. You return and- for the sake of Leviathan’s dignity- slide the new lingerie into his bag with the other things he got, rather than using one of the pretty, recognizable bags from the store.

You finally start to make your way towards the House, timing it so that you’ll make it there before anyone else is moving about the house. The second Leve crosses the boundary of the House’s entryway, you can visibly see his nervousness start to creep back into his body. Ushering him quickly into your room, you shut the door behind you and see him relax with a deep sigh.

“Hah, we made it,” He says, relieved. Looking around the room, he delicately takes the wig off and sets it on the desk you have. “I was getting a little warm in that but the rest of this is surprisingly comfortable!” He gives you a cute little twirl. “I was worried I’d start to hate it halfway through.”

The way your eyes track his hips- dipping under his skirt to catch a glimpse of his ass covered by his panties when he gives a twirl- does not go unnoticed by him. The second his eyes follow to see where yours are looking, his hands fly down to hold the hem of his skirt down with a scandalized gasp.

“You’re such a perv!” He barks, though you can hear the amused tones of his laughter underneath his words. His face is a heated pink, but he’s still got a shy smile on his lips. You set your own bag down and approach Leviathan, grabbing onto his hips and pulling him close to you.

“I’m sure I’m allowed to be a bit pervy when I’ve got such a cute girl on my hands.” One of your hands slips back and gives his ass a squeeze, eliciting a sharp yelp from him.

“W-we’re back home, you don’t, y’know, you don’t have to keep calling me that.” His brow is creased and he looks away as he speaks. You tilt your head, putting on a false face of innocent confusion.

“Hm? But I thought you liked it?” You say sweetly, then dropping your voice back down to a knowing, teasing purr, “I know you liked it an awful lot when we were outside, and now that we’re in private, I wanna see you get hard in your pretty little panties.” You smooth your hand over the round curve of his ass, giving it another squeeze. Your hand slips under his skirt, coming to his front and down to his panties. You stroke the pads of your fingers against his vent, just slowly stroking across the slit.

“Aahn-“ Levi offers up a shivery and a shaky moan as you feel his cocks emerge against your hand. You push your into his panties, slipping your middle finger against one side of his vent and your ring finger against the other so you can feel every ridge of his cocks being slipped out of his slit. You also feel the extreme amounts of the slick fluid that comes with, it’s absolutely soaking his panties and he gasps and squeezes his legs together as he feels the lubricant drip down along the inside of his thighs.

“Here,” You take the hem of his skirt and push it into his hands, “Hold this.” Before he can get a word in, you step back and snap a photo of him holding up his skirt, his upper cock tenting his panties while the other hangs out through one of the leg holes. You immediately put that photo into your password locked folder with the other picture you’d taken today.

“Pervert!” He yelps once he realizes, immediately pushing his skirt down and making the tent in it obvious.

“Aw, Levi,” You step back forward and kiss his neck softly, hardly just a press of your lips to the sensitive, heated skin, “I’m the only one who will ever see it, this lovely view is only for me. But if you really want, I’ll delete it.”

“Nnn-“ He squirms underneath your adoring touch, “No, you- uh, you can keep it.” He feels you smile against his neck.

“Good,” You kiss there, “My good girl,” A little nip makes him jolt, “My beautiful baby girl.” Your hand dips back down to his cocks. You go past his lengths, just beneath them, your middle finger nudging at the bottom of his vent. He jumps a bit.

You’ve experimented with this little place before. Event after he’s become erect and his cocks have come out of his vent, you’ve found that you can put your finger into his vent. It’s sensitive, and it always brings Leviathan to his climax incredibly quickly and it always humiliated Leviathan. Even so, he tilts his hips forward to allow your access to that little channel.

You slide your middle finger past the lips of his vent, into his channel and he immediately whines, legs shaking and knees threatening to buckle. His hands immediately fly up to grab onto your arms, burying his face in your shoulder. His entire body quivers with the effort of keeping himself standing and still as you ease in your finger to the second knuckle, stroking along his slick inner walls.

“S-So much! Ahhh!” He sobs into your shoulder as you push your finger in to the last knuckle. You feel him start to shakily mouth at and kiss your neck, desperate for something to keep his mouth occupied and prevent him from saying thing that would embarrass himself. “Close, so close,” He murmurs between kisses. Your hand strokes the back of his head and your finger inside him gently rubs his channel’s walls. He shudders, his grip on you tightening as he sobs into your skin. You suddenly feel his teeth against your skin as he bites down on you, his channel quivering around you while his cocks throb and absolutely soak the inside of his skirt with cum. He moans again and again, his sounds eventually petering off into whining cries before you finally allow him some respite and withdraw your hand.

“So cute, my good girl,” You let him pull back from you, big eyes filled with tears that have ruined his make up. He gives a little sniffle, looking away and then down at his skirt, so saturated with his cum that it’s sticking to his still erect cocks. “Do you want something in your pussy?” You ask as you slip your clean hand back to his ass and grope it. Leviathan yelps and jumps a bit, looking at you past his smudged mascara and eyeliner, giving you a shaky nod and sigh.

Fiddling with his hands, he approaches the bed and bends over, presenting his ass to you and reaching behind him to lift his skirt. Under his skirt, you see his ass hidden by the panties spread across him. Between his legs you see his cocks, both by now having slipped out through the leg hole of the flimsy underwear, cum dribbling down the inside of his thighs and dirtying the tops of his thigh high socks.  His skin is flushed, and past his hips you can see him turned to look over his shoulder at you, his eyes brimming with tears still and his face a bright, shameful red. You rush to remove your pants and underwear and put on your strap on, wanting nothing more than to see him screaming under you.

“H-Hurry up and- uh- come fill my pussy! Please?” He says, unsure of what he’s really even saying. You hide your amused smile as you secure the large, girthy toy on your strap on and approach him. You roughly grab a handful of his ass the second you’re within range to do so. Your fingers and nails dig into the soft flesh and he cries out.

“You want me to fill up your pussy? What a cute little thing,” You tug his panties down, “I didn’t think a pretty little girl would be making such slutty requests.” His pink little hole tightens around nothing and his cocks throb untouched between his legs at your words. He sobs and more tears roll down his cheeks.

“F-fuck me, Mistress! I need you to fuck me, please,” His voice trembles with his request, “I’ve been so- so needy all day, all day when I was out with you, I kept just thinking of this, please!”

“All day?” You purr, slicking your strap up with lubricant and lining it up with his fluttering hole, “You want it like this? No stretching? I’m sure your depraved little hole could take it, hm?” He just nods, lips drawn tightly shut but moans and whines still leaving his throat as he gently pushes his hips back, feeling the round head of your strap nudge at his hole but never quite breach it.

“All day, Mistress,” He mewls, “Every time some- somebody was jealous of us- I almost couldn’t stop the f-feeling. Even just thinking about it, I- hhhnn,” With a heavy shudder, his demon form overtakes him and his tail wraps possessively around your waist. Neediness and lust roil inside him as he rocks his hips back in the most lewd display you’ve ever seen him put on.

“Take it like the slut you are, then.”

With that, you surge your hips forward and sheath your strap inside him with a single shove. The reaction you get from your beautiful baby is priceless.

Leviathan screams a sound like he’s dying as his back arches like it’ll break and he throws his head back. His tail squeezes around you and his cocks throb, cum pouring out of him again as he hits his second orgasm for the night, hole spasming around the sudden intrusion and the pain of the stretch. One of his hands grabs the bed sheets while the other flies back to grab the wrist of your hand on his hip, squeezing tightly to ground himself to you. Your other hand reaches under him to stroke him through his orgasm.

“Pretty baby girl, your pussy’s so tight around me.” You hum, not even sure if he can hear you over his own yowling. Your hips give slow grinds as you work him through his climax, until he finally slumps down, limbless on the bed and panting hard.

“M-more,” His worn voice croaks. “Need more, Mistress, I have- have more to give, still need to cum more.” Despite his tired state, he still tries to hump back against you, body still jolting against his will in the aftershocks and sensitivity of his last climax. You press your hips flush against his before pulling back and beginning to fuck him in earnest.

“Maybe I should get a toy to plug that slutty mouth up,” You grab onto a horn and pull his head back while you lean forward and nuzzle into his neck, feeling him tense, “Maybe I’ll shove a nice, long toy down your throat? Watch it bulge. What a slut.” With that, your hand slips from his horn down to around his neck, gently holding it against his throat. You feel him swallow, and the vibrations of his voice as he groans hotly at the idea.

“N-not a slut,” He whimpers, looking down at the mattress as more tears fall from his eyes, “’M only yours, just yours.” His head is spinning with the pleasure he’s feeling, and you know that he’s past the point of overtly trying to say anything sexy, that he’s now just broken into speaking whatever comes across his mind.

“Oh, oh, baby.” Your hand releases his throat and strokes down the soft length of his back, coming to grab his ass again, “You are just mine.” A shiver runs through his body at that declaration.

“Just yours, just yours, only yours,” He chants, babbling whatever crosses his fucked out brain. “Filling up my pussy so- so good!” His words are interrupted by hitching breaths and sobs. You know exactly what he wants, you decide to humor him. You lean down and press your front to his back, one of your arms looping around his chest and holding you to him. The contact of his heated skin against yours make him whine.

“My good girl, such a pretty thing, your pussy’s so tight around me. You wanna cum again?” Your other hand jerks him off, “Cum again for me, baby girl, you deserve it, you did so well today.” He nods fervently.

Levi’s body shudders before tensing against you and wailing a garbled version of your name as he cums for the third time, body oversensitive and every nerve feeling like a livewire, but he wants nothing more than to please you and feel that same pleasure coursing through his own body. He’s long since run out of energy, body now just twitching involuntarily with each spurt of cum onto the bed. When he’s finally done, his whole frame goes limp and once you pull out and let go of him, he flops over onto his side.

“So good for me,” You kiss his jaw, then his cheek as you take off your strap, “Beautiful, you make such nice sounds and I love you so much.” You allow whatever you’re thinking to fall from your lips while your hands idly, slowly pet Leviathan’s body, just to make sure he knows- even through his blissed out mind- that you’re there. He can only make himself whine in response, just a soft pitiful noise to alert you that he’d heard you.

“When you’re good and ready we can get you cleaned up.” You refer to his messed up make up and cum soaked clothes. “I’m so happy that you enjoyed this, baby, I love you so much, I really hope I made this good for you.”

“So good.” He squeaks. You smile against his skin. Cleaning his skin and clothes and the bed sheets would come later. For now, all that matters is keeping Leviathan happy, and easing him back down. For now, you hold him against you until he comes back to his body enough to wrap his arms around you and purr, that lovely little sound that you’re so enamored by.

When he’s a tad more coherent, you start removing his clothes and setting them aside, immediately noting that with his coherency returning, his self consciousness does as well. You plant a little kiss to his bare shoulder,

“You’re beautiful even without the clothes and make up, Levi.” You say. He can’t quite wrangle the words to say, instead looking away from you with flushed cheeks. “I’ll make sure you know that.”

“…Promise?” His big orange eyes look up at you. You smile down at him,

“Promise, baby.”

[amortentiaparker]

be enough ⇒ p. parker

“Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?”

summary: peter tries to break it off when spiderman gets in between your relationship.

pairing: peter parker x fem!reader

word count: 3.4k

warnings: just one f bomb and a few swear swords sprinkled in

A/N: my first peter oneshot <3 likes and reblogs are appreciated! also, please do not repost anywhere— even if you’ll give credit.

inspired by peace - taylor swift

High school is finally over and New York was surprisingly good to you. The weather reflects the warmth in your heart whenever you think about the days of freedom ahead. You weren’t worrying too much about college, in fact you were excited for the new journey that you were going to take. With Peter attending MIT, thanks to Tony Stark’s so called pull, and you attending Boston University in the fall, you two agreed to make the most out of New York during the summer; despite already having grown up in the city.

Today, you two were set to go to Coney Island. You and Peter prided in the fact that you were New York locals, knowing every nook and cranny of the often romanticized city.

But after watching a certain Olsen twins movie during the time when he forgot his Star Wars DVDs, you two decided that it would be fun to go exploring New York through the eyes of tourists. Just last week, he purchased matching I love NYC shirts for you and him from a vendor across Delmar’s, which earned him odd looks since the residents knew that he was definitely a kid of the city. 

The sky was clear and you couldn’t help but close your eyes, smile to yourself, and bask in the sunshine. You were waiting for Peter by your fire escape, knowing that he will still climb up even without his Spiderman suit. But you knew that he had it on him, no matter where he is or who he was with. 

You found out about his secret identity during junior year, even when you two weren’t together yet. You felt bad that you found out accidentally, through Ned who accidentally showed you a selfie of him and Peter wearing the suit sans the mask. You remembered how red Peter’s face turned and how Ned gave him a sheepish, apologetic smile. Turns out, Peter let it slip to his best friend that he was starting to develop feelings for you which lead to Ned playing wingman.

You felt bad that the discovery happened without it going according to Peter’s terms. His shocked face and stuttering left you wanting to pinch his adorable cheeks and assure him that nothing will change. But of course things did change- but for the better.

The two of you got even closer than before during junior year. By the end of the school year, you were sure that something was definitely there, so it was disheartening when you learned that you were off to some Mediterranean country for the first month of summer break. 

But even after everything, you treasured the summer time because it was when you came back from vacation with your family that Peter asked you to go on a date with him. 

And now here you were, nearly a year later, wearing a blue sundress similar to the one you wore on your first date with your favorite brown-eyed boy. The window to your bedroom was open, ABBA playing softly in the background, and the summer breeze gently blowing your hair to the side. It was serene. 

A ping! rang through the air.

Peter <3: you ready, pretty girl???

And within a second later, your boyfriend was already standing at your fire escape. You smiled at him and Peter returned the loving gaze. His eyes scanned you up and down which made heat rush to your cheeks. 

After grabbing your belongings from a nearby desk chair, you double checked if everything in your room was in place before taking Peter’s outstretched hand to help you out the window. When you two got off the stairs, you took it as the time to check Peter out, just as he did to you.

He looked very handsome in his white button up shirt, levi’s, and blue satin jacket. You smirked when it was his turn to blush and you tugged at his jacket to give him a small kiss on the lips. You intentionally opted to leave your jacket behind so he can give you his for when the summer night breeze settles in later. Peter nudged his nose with yours once your lips have separated. 

“You wore that on purpose.” You whispered teasingly as you tugged at the sleeve of his jacket; the shade similar to your dress.

“You wore that on purpose.” Peter repeated as his hand slightly pushed up the hem of your dress with the palm of his hand. 

You felt that familiar heat on your face return, so you decided to place your head against the crook of his neck and left a kiss by his sweet spot. Giggling, you pulled away when he groaned. 

“We’re gonna be late, pretty boy.” You grabbed his hand and proceeded to tug him along as you skipped down the pavement. 

Luckily, it was a weekday, meaning that even though it was a nice summer day, there weren’t many children around to wreak havoc on the amusement area. There were old couples, but there were also teenagers hanging out with their friends. You and Peter giggled to each other like children when you two recognized some younger students in Midtown that were obviously on their awkward first date.

“Ice cream or cotton candy?” He asks as he snakes an arm around your waist and places a chaste kiss on your shoulder. 

The two of you eventually got some ice cream on waffle cones, but that was after you spent your energy playing games and riding the attractions. You argued that Peter might throw up if you two got the ice cream right before getting on the cyclone. 

The sun has set by now, and the night sky is illuminated by the stars up above. Bright lights overpower the darkness, creating a glow on everybody’s faces. And as you expected, Peter’s jacket was now around your shoulders. It didn’t take a lot of convincing anyways, his heightened senses immediately noticing the goosebumps that littered your skin. 

You two walked hand in hand by the boardwalk, with his thumb occasionally rubbing circles on your knuckles- which the butterflies in your stomach went frantic for.

You two shared a giddy smile, as if an unspoken inside joke had just occurred, but you knew it was just Peter sensing the flips your heart is currently doing. In the back of your mind, there was a voice saying that he’d still know either way if he didn’t have his spidey senses. You found yourself giggling out loud at how adorably ridiculous “spidey senses” sounded. 

“Whatcha laughing at?” Peter playfully squinted his eyes at you. 

“Nothing.” You laughed even harder which caused your boyfriend to tug you closer to him. 

Peter raised his ice cream closer to your face and you squealed and tried to get free from his grasp. He was eating triple chocolate for god's sake! 

“Tell me,” He chuckled and brought the cone closer. “Or else.”

“Is that a threat, Spiderman?” You whispered the last bit. 

The grin on your boyfriend’s face widened and next thing you knew, you felt the cold touch your cheek. You gasped, but didn’t pull away. All you wanted was to listen to Peter’s contagious laugh forever.

The laughter died down, but a look of content washed over both your faces, a faint smile still painted on your mouth. 

Peter brought a thumb to wipe away the ice cream smudge on your cheek. It was as if time slowed down and he was the only thing on your mind.

He has consumed your thoughts and there’s not a day that goes by in which you don’t think about him. You can see that his hand still hovered over the side of your face and his eyes held a sparkle that not even the fireworks that were bound to go off later could match. I’m so in love with Peter, you thought to yourself. 

Pink blossomed across Peter’s freckled face and you knew that you had accidentally broadcasted your thoughts aloud. 

“I’m so in love with you too.” He said, voice soft- but you could hear it clearly above all the noise.

“We should go to the park.” You suggested. Peter knew exactly what you were referring to as he admired the dreamy gaze on your face. 

He nodded and laced your hands together once more. He placed a kiss on your forehead and you sighed in contentment. Life was good, peaceful even. 

The walk was filled with laughter and stories exchanged between you two. Whether it was a memory already told or one that was dug up from the back of your minds.

You quickly spotted the familiar wooden bench and the two of you made your way towards it. It was perched next to a tree which gave the perfect amount of shade, not that you needed it tonight though. 

You ran your fingers over the wood and smiled wistfully, “This is where you first kissed me.”

“Yeah,” Peter nodded before chuckling. “I was so nervous.”

“I know,” You teased. “But you’re big, ol’ strong Spiderman.”

“Spiderman doesn’t kiss,” Peter rolled his eyes playfully. “But so did I, so I didn’t know what to do.”

You couldn’t help but smile at your boyfriend’s sudden shyness. Looking around, you noticed that the park was mostly empty save for the vendors and a few women in business attire. But nevertheless, nobody was paying attention to each other.

You swung your legs over Peter’s, you sitting on his lap as you faced him. His arms found place on your hips on instinct and for a moment, the two of you sat there, eyes flickering from the other’s eyes and lips. 

You only got one kiss in when Peter gently pushed you away from him and he stood up from the bench, alertness and caution evident on his face. 

“I’m so sorry, baby.” He pleaded, guilt dripping from his voice.

“What-”

He quickly pulled you to the side and unzipped his backpack. A frown settled on your face as you saw the teddy bear he had won you earlier next to the familiar spandex suit. Settling behind the large tree, Peter started to undress and got into his suit, frantically looking around to see if anyone was watching. You did the same and made sure there was no onlooker. 

As you were about to express your concern, a sudden explosion filled your ears, causing you to scream. 

“Shit!” Peter exclaimed. His gloved hands pulled you to him. “Are you okay?”

All you could do was nod as the two of you looked over to where black smoke was rising into the already polluted air. An orange glow started to show, but it was not calming like the one back in the amusement park. Unable to speak, you listened to Peter and heard him talking to Karen about the commotion. 

“Y/N,” He pulled you from your thoughts. “Stay here, okay? Don’t go anywhere, not until I’m back.” 

“But, Pete--”

“Baby, please,” You could hear the desperation in your boyfriend’s voice. “Karen already predicts it won’t spread here so just stay, please.”

“Okay,” You frantically nodded. “I love you, be safe. Please, please be safe.”

Tears were starting to blur your vision and the last thing you could properly comprehend was Peter slightly lifting his mask to press a kiss to your forehead before he swung away with his webs. 

An hour has passed, and you were still shaking in fear by the bench. You had clutched Peter’s backpack to your chest and tried to calm yourself down by taking in his scent that lingered on the jacket. A faint scent of smoke filled your nostrils, but you clung to the smell of cinnamon mixed with fresh linen.

You received multiple texts from friends and family, but only gave them a short reply reassuring them that you’re fine. Physically, you were, but your mind was going into dark places. Your thoughts couldn’t stop from conjuring up negative ones. As much as you wanted to check on Peter, you knew that it would not benefit anybody because it would distract him from doing his job. 

“We gotta go!” Peter suddenly appeared in front of you. He didn’t wait for an answer before he pulled you into him, right arm secured around your torso.

You squealed as you two ascended into the New York skyline. You just hoped that your nails weren’t digging holes into Peter’s suit because of how hard you were clinging onto him.

“Peter!” You cried out. You heard him mutter an apology under his breath as he continued to shoot webs from building to building.

You kept your head tucked under his neck throughout the entire journey. You didn’t even know where you two were going but the fear mixing in with the adrenaline held you back from asking questions.

You felt Peter’s momentum slow down and you noticed that it was brighter and louder now. Honks from taxi cabs clashed with sirens from fire trucks. He helped you settle on your feet, and kept you steady when your legs went all wobbly.

You were at your fire escape.

Taking a few deep breaths, your heartbeat eventually calmed down and you took in Peter’s shaking form. You heard him let out a sob and panic rose in your chest again.

“Baby, hey, what’s wrong?” You asked with a soft tone, and started to gently lift up the bottom part of his mask.

His breathing was frantic and you continued to completely take off the mask that clung to his skin. Peter wasn’t meeting your eye and you knew that his senses were still going haywire. You cupped his face in your hands.

“Hey, Pete..” You cooed. “Breathe with me, yeah?”

You two started to synchronize your breathing pattern and you felt his jaw starting to relax underneath your touch. He finally looked you in the eyes and the tears forming in his waterline broke your heart.

“Are you hurt?” You asked, starting to open your bedroom window with one hand while the other remained on his cheek.

“I—” Peter started but eventually let out a sigh. He started helping you lift up the window and helped you crawl inside your room.

You were confused when Peter was still by the stairs and wasn’t budging.

“Come on in, it’s okay.” You reassured him. You knew by the look on his face that he was blaming himself for how your night turned from peaceful to one involving you inhaling in smoke.

“Come here, it’s okay,” You stretched out your arms and started to pull him into your room. You knew that he was complying since you wouldn’t be able to move him by an inch if he wasn’t.

Your arms didn’t let go, but rather tightened around Peter’s figure when he set foot into your bedroom. You rested your head against his chest and let the faint sound of his heartbeat calm you down. A small smile crept on your face his hand rested on your waist and the other started caressing your hair softly.

“I’m sorry.” He let out. You only hummed in return, letting him know that you were genuinely fine with the events of tonight. “We should—”

You kept quiet, waiting for him to finish his sentence. You pulled away when he didn’t.

“We should what, Pete?” You whispered as your hand came up to cup his cheek again. To be honest, you didn’t know why the two of you were whispering. The apartment was empty and you wouldn’t be bothering anyone.

“We should..” Peter trailed off once again. You could hear him swallow because of how quiet it was in your room. “We should break up.”

You immediately retracted your hand, “What?”

“I’m so sorry, Y/N,” Tears were fully streaming down his face now. “But it’s for the best.”

You could not comprehend what he was saying. Something definitely happened earlier by the fire that was causing him to say such things. You never pushed Peter to tell you about things going on with his life as a superhero.

Of course, you ask him to share fun stories and what it’s like, but never have you pushed him to share the horrors that he has seen. You know Peter well enough that he will tell you about it whenever he was ready. And you respect that. But this time was different.

“Peter, what happened?” You asked firmly.

“It’s– it’s me, okay? You being with me is dangerous and I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you.”

“Peter, what happened?” You repeated, crossing your arms. “At the fire. You know that I am perfectly capable of handling myself.”

He lets out a frustrated groan and buries his face in his hands, “I know that! Don’t you think I know that? But.. but out there, there are seriously messed up people that won’t go down from a pepper spray to the face.”

You softly gasped as he started to raise his voice, but you stood your ground, “Peter, what—”

“He said your name!”

The room was quiet now. Silence between you and Peter had always been comfortable, the kind that only two people that truly understood each other rejoiced in. But you didn’t like the silence that followed after Peter’s words. His eyes bloodshot, and the lips you absolutely adored wobbling.

“He said your name, Y/N..” Peter continued with his shaky voice. “Said he knew you.. that you were my weakness.. and then I was filled with so much rage I lost control and he still got away.”

“Oh, Peter.” You cried. Tears were now falling down your face too as you cradled Peter in your arms. He was bigger than you, but right now, a scared boy shivered in your embrace.

You could never be mad at him. Not truly. And you understood where he was coming from. You would find yourself doing the same thing if you two switched places.

The two of you continued to hug each other in the dark, with silent tears running down your faces. But by the time you felt each other’s breathing to calm down, you two got up from the carpeted floor and you helped Peter get dressed.

It was quiet when you helped him out of his suit that smelled like smoke and into some fresh pairs of sweatpants and corny graphic t-shirt that he left by your place.

Eventually, you two settled on your bed, with Peter resting his head on your chest and you running your fingers through his chocolate curls. The silence was better this time around. But still, words need to be said and this was not some argument you two could just set aside for another day.

“Please don’t leave me.” You whispered and you felt Peter tense up.

“Never.” He found himself saying. But it was true. Peter could never leave you, no matter the circumstance.

“I love you so much, Pete..” You started. “And the guy from earlier was probably just some lowlife loser who starts fires with cheap hardware store gas.”

Peter’s contagious laugh rang softly in your ears and you continued your little speech. “So who the fuck cares about what he says? You’re a goddamn Avenger.”

Peter lifted his head and rested his chin by your stomach, “Yeah, but..”

“No buts, Parker,” You tutted. “I can kick some ass myself, ya know?”

Your boyfriend laughed once again and Peter found himself hovering over you. He placed a kiss on your nose as he laced one of your hands together.

“And I can teach you some sweet Spiderman moves.” Peter smiled against your lips and you found yourself mirroring his expression.

“I’m sorry. I’m an idiot for trying to break up with you.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for, Pete.” You reassured him, squeezing his hand that was holding yours for extra measure.

You two fell asleep in each other’s arms after mindless talking and soft lingering kisses on each other’s lips. It was a cold summer night but Peter was right there, keeping your brittle heart warm.

[jaskiersvalley]

🌼~BEAUTIFUL PERSON AWARD! Once you are given this award you’re supposed to paste it in the asks of 8 people who deserve it. If you break the chain nothing happens, but it's sweet to know someone thinks you’re beautiful inside and out.~🌼 xoxo toss a coin to your bard

You are far too sweet to send this, and my apologies for sitting on this so long without replying! I will definitely be continuing the game and appearing as a loving anon in ask boxes soon. In the meantime, here's a little ficlet of thank you.

As a bit of background, I've been watching Centaurworld recently and this song (Rider's Lullaby) has been stuck in my head for days. So I thought I'd give it a bit of a twist and let the horses of Kaer Morhen have it.

Lullaby of the Wolf

Winters weren't a time of rest for just Witchers. Their trusted companions on the perilous Path were also granted some much needed rest. Roach and Scorpion went years back, familiar enough with each other that Roach's disdain and Scorpion's less desirable personality traits no longer caused problems. They could even be housed in neighbouring stalls which was a major breakthrough on an especially cold winter. All the same, it was a welcome surprise when a bay gelding separated them.

"You're not the prickly bastard's," Roach sniffed daintily.

"My rider travels with him. They call me Nettle. Because I'm a pain in the butt."

There was a snort from Roach and Scorpion laughed heartily at that.

"Bossman called me Scorpion because I stung his pride. He really hoped for a nice juicy steak as his surprise."

Roach dryly cut in, "He should have eaten you anyway, probably would if he could understand you."

Nettle, rather wisely, decided not to comment on that. Or the colourful swearing Scorpion went off on about how a full blooded stallion like him was...actually, Nettle tuned it out in favour of watching a goat trot into the stable and give him a hard stare.

"Prickly's mate is staying, teach him."

Which was how Nettle spent the rest of winter learning the way of a Wolf Witcher's horse. Though he was a Cat Witcher's steed, he was deemed worthy of being brought into the fold. Namely, the lullaby. While horses' singing wasn't audible to humans, Witcher or not, it still seemed to help. Not only did it seem to soothe the Witchers, it helped the horses too, gave them something to focus on outside the wild panic of the situation at hand.

Despite none of them being exceptionally gifted in the way of singing, they all joined in, their soft voices joining to make a chorus.

"Where did the song come from?"

"The old one's mule taught us. Who was taught by the mule before," Roach explained.

The goat, Lil Bleater, chipped in. "It's been passed down generations. Sometimes the old one still hums it. Especially when he's been left by his pups each spring."

That wasn't something Nettle ever heard. But he dutifully memorised the song and even sang it softly under his breath on the way down the mountain, where his human and his mate were tense, as worried as they were on the way up. The others had been right, though they couldn't hear the song, they both relaxed whenever Nettle sang.

It was pure luck that the prickly one's payment for a contract was a horse. She was black, had a tendency to be lame when she didn't want to do something and was, inevitably, named Bitch. Even if she was the nicest horse Nettle had ever met.

"You're a Wolf Witcher's horse now," he told her in the evening as they were left to graze on the sparse grass. "There's some things you need to learn."

Travelling together, Nettle taught Bitch the song. She was definitely suspicious at first.

"Just go lame, they won't pull you in the direction of danger. It's much easier."

Nettle laughed at that. "Their job is to go into danger. And ours is to follow. This is what we can do for them. Carry them, be there for them when nobody else wants to be. It's not much but sometimes we're the only thing they have. It's an honour."

So together they sang and Bitch learned to be brave. She appreciated not being coerced into things, no forceful shoving, no smacks. A lot of cursing and name calling, even a threat of being eaten if she didn't get with the programme but it was all empty words. The underlying impression she got from her prickly owner was that he cared and that was his problem. Because his fragile heart couldn't bear the idea of more senseless loss. Everyone knew the fate of those who got close to a Witcher, human, horse, goat, they all eventually died. But Bitch grew fond of him, she sang the song Nettle had taught her the first night they were alone. Nettle and his Witcher had to head off, she didn't pay much attention to the reason, her main concern was her prickly one and his sudden sullen coldness. It seemed Nettle had been right, Witcher sometimes only had their horses.

They'd been alone together for weeks. Human settlements came and went, monsters too. Her job was to make sure her human got from one place to the next and, sometimes, she kicked up a fuss still, limping in an effort to get him to rest. Despite her best efforts he was still miserable, obviously missing the company of his mate even when he vehemently denied the need for anything but solitude.

Trust was an easy thing to earn. Bitch was content to follow her new owner, following after him obediently. Though his job was as odds with her nature, he had yet to lead her wrong. And she no longer gave him grief either, only insisting on breaks when he needed them too. At least, that was what she told herself until she heard a soft baritone shakily singing.

"You're okay, you're alright, I'll never ever leave your side."

The voice buckled, a soft "I'm sorry" that most certainly wasn't part of the song whispered before continuing, "I will stay and I will fight with you."

Stomping her feet, Bitch pulled at her reins. It had her prickly owner cursing and pulling back, trying to get her to follow along. However, they weren't moving towards the song and Bitch wasn't going to let this go. Rearing up, the yanked her reins free and started off at a canter towards the voice. She ignored the cursing and yelling from behind, trusting her Witcher to follow. Off the path, she crashed into a clearing where a dark horse was curled around a large body. As she clattered to a halt, the horse snorted defensively, ears pinned back.

"If you know what's good for you, you fuck off right now," he snarled. The smell of blood made Bitch shift uncomfortably.

"The song! I know it!" As she approached, the other horse snorted in warning and slowly got to his feet, standing protectively over the barely conscious Witcher.

Though Bitch tried to sing the song, the other horse pawed at the ground. He would have no trouble running her down, they both knew it. Before he could charge though, Bitch's Witcher tumbled into the clearing and blinked once.

"Fucking hell Eskel, what the bloody tits have you done?" There was no hesitation as he barged up to the body and gave the large horse a two handed shove with a growled "move it".

"He's mine," Bitch said, plain and simple. "I've not had him long but he's a good man."

"I know, Prickly is part of Bossman's herd. Didn't think Prickly ever really wanted a steed."

"He didn't. But he got me anyway. Calls me Bitch."

"Nice. I go by Scorpion." The dark horse trotted closer, turning to look at his human with sadness. "I wouldn't do anything to help. I'm glad you brought Prickly here."

They watched together as a camp was quickly set up, potions poured in the fallen Witcher's mouth and wounds tended to with gruff efficiency.

"We might as well settle in," Scorpion announced. "It'll be a couple of days at least before we get moving. And knowing these two, we'll stay in close quarters for a while yet. Welcome to the herd."

[awanderingdeal]

An unfair race

I finally finished this! This fic is kind of a follow on to Endless Nights. Note: That fic is rated M and contains some sexual content, but you do not need to read it for this to make sense. I wanted to combine Finn talking with Heather, and an aspect of the discussion after that fic, where we talked about athletes in particular using exercise as a coping mechanism, and how this can sometimes turn unhealthy.

Some content warnings for this one: over exercise (if you'd like to skip the explicit description of this, skip to after the first stars, although there are a couple of mentions throughout), food mentions, self-depreciation and mentions of coming out/being outed.

Rating: T

If you feel I missed any content warnings or need to change the rating, please drop me a message!

The characters in this fic are from the sweater weather universe and belong to @lumosinlove

Finn’s entire body ached as his feet pounded against the path once more. His form was sloppy now, shoulders too hunched over and his strides falling without any real control. He forced himself onwards, breaths coming in fast pants, the straining muscles of his quads screaming desperately for more oxygen. And yet, his brain still whirred, obnoxiously loud thoughts pushing their way back to the forefront each time Finn managed to grasp a few blissful quiet seconds. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d passed the statue of the girl and her ducks, the smile on her face that he normally found so comforting becoming more and more irritating with each meeting. As he came to the gates of the park, Finn contemplated going home, but even just the reduced speed had brought the taunting thoughts back with a vengeance. One more go.

***

"H, has her jacket on. Has everybody got their game faces ready, boys?" It had been at least 30 minutes since James had made the joke as they all tumbled from the locker room, yet the sound of bright laughter still rang in Finn's ears.

He watched as Heather tugged her suit jacket more tightly around her, their eyes meeting for the third time in short succession. Fuck. Finn pushed his tongue against his mouthguard, sinking his teeth into the hard plastic. Later, self-inflicted as the need would be, he would complain about the new one he’d have moulded, each guard always feeling slightly different. For now, the rhythmic clench of his jaw was soothing.

Finn forced a breath through his nose, trying not to react too visibly as Heather dipped her head once more to add another scribbled note to the small, black book she carried everywhere. He forced himself to look away, knowing his constant glances were giving away his unease. Whilst Heather didn’t come to every training session, not even most, it wasn’t that uncommon to see her hovering around the edges of the ice, and ordinarily, only the very newest of the team paid any attention to her beyond an initial greeting.

“Earth to O’Hara!”

Finn held up his hand in apology, shaking himself back to the training session. Kasey’s eyes bored into him. It wasn't his usual intense stare, but something more concerned and Finn waited for the inevitable question. After a long few seconds, Kasey's eyes dropped to the puck, passing it back to Finn to take another shot.

The numbers on the clock inched forwards, slow and heavy like the sweet sticky molasses Leo was so fond of. Still, when Coach finally dismissed them for the day, Finn found himself wanting to take another lap. If he could get his thighs to burn enough then his head would race a little less, and it wouldn’t be too suspicious; Finn’s record of being last on the ice was surpassed only by Sirius. Before Finn could really consider it, Leo was next to him, knocking their shoulders together.

“Hey,” Leo cocked his head slightly, hair ruffled from the mask he’d recently pulled off and his pale skin glistening with sweat. He looked as beautiful as ever. Illogical as it was, it somehow made the dull ache in Finn's chest worse. "Everything good?"

"Yeah," Finn tried for a smile. "Busy brain today, that's all." There was no point brushing the question off completely; Leo was scarily observant. He and Logan often joked that he had eyes in the back of his head. Finn had no doubt he had caught the many pucks he had missed over the last hour.

"That sucks," Leo said, scepticism leaking into his voice. "Is there anything I can do to help?" Finn followed his glance behind them to where Logan was tussling with Jackson, loud rumblings of French intertwined with their laughter. "Or Lo, perhaps?"

"I like it when he looks like that,” Finn sighed.

"Mmm, me too” Leo hummed, his features softening. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that change of subject though, Sir. You don’t have to talk to me about it, but please don’t bottle it all."

Finn slumped into his stall, smiling as Leo lifted his hand to press a kiss to the knuckles. “I’m dealing with it.”

“Baby,” Leo started, his next word morphing into a stunted exhalation of air. His eyes closed briefly, his shoulders squaring before he relaxed them. He opened his mouth again, the sentence uttered clearly not what he’d originally planned on saying. "I'm going to take my padding off and head to see Lars. I think Loops is sticking around so I can get a ride with him if you two want to go home?"

Finn thought back to the quiet look of concern on Logan's face after he'd got home from his run the previous evening, and to the creased lines of worry at the corners of Leo's eyes earlier. "I think I might go and see Heather," he shrugged.

"Thank God," Logan appeared, wrapping his arms around Finn's waist. "Your runs were getting ridiculous."

"You didn't say anything?" Finn turned in Logan's arms, to rest his chin on top of his head.

"We were going to give you one more day. Leo wanted to speak to you this evening, only I had faith.”

"Oh, fuck off," Leo laughed. "You were just avoiding the conversation."

“I’m offended that you would even suggest that,” Logan burrowed into Finn’s chest. The sweat soaked gear they wore didn’t smell great, but neither of them seemed to care.

Moody huffed as he veered around them, his arms filled with tape. “No canoodling in the locker room.”

***

“As lovely as this chat has been Finn, if you really did just come in to catch up then I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’ve got a couple of sessions this afternoon, and a mound of paperwork to complete,” Heather shifted in the forest green bucket chair. They were new since Finn had last been in here, replacing an ugly leather thing that Heather had always complained was too stereotypical. She’d removed her jacket now that she was back in her heated office, the item hung on the back of the door where it rightfully belonged.

Finn, freshly showered and changed, sat cross legged in the chair opposite. He reached forward to grab more pretzel sticks from the bowl on the table between them, puckering his lips as his tongue protested another injection of salt. “You know there is something I could do with your opinion on.”

Despite the reaction being minute, Finn saw the tiny upwards quirk of Heather’s lips. “Go on,” she encouraged.

“It’s dumb,” Finn muttered, drumming his fingers against the arm of the chair.

“Thoughts don’t have moral value Finn, it’s what we do with that’s important.” Heather pulled a handful of tissues from a box on the table, holding them out. “Tap away, but please spare the upholstery.”

“Sorry,” Finn grimaced, cleaning his hands of the salty residue.

“No need to apologise, I’m just still a bit precious about the new furniture.” Heather smiled. “Why do you think your issue is dumb?”

“It’s -” Finn tugged at his sleeve. “I can just never be happy with what I’ve got can I? I spent 8 years saying that if Logan could just love me back then I’d never complain again. And now I’ve got Logan and Leo and I’m still not happy.”

“What’s making you unhappy?

Finn breathed in deeply, scrunching his eyes shut. He’d spent weeks stuffing the pain into the tiniest box he could in his brain, and now here Heather was asking him to just - talk about it?

“Finn, look at me?” Finn did as he was asked, lifting his head to find Heather’s kind eyes. “I’m going to reiterate something I’ve said before. You can say anything you want here. It doesn’t matter if it’s selfish or unkind or if you think it’s stupid. Unless I think you’re a danger to yourself or anybody else, then nobody is going to hear about it.”

Finn bit his lip, wiggling his toes beneath his legs. “I get jealous,” he rushed out. “I get jealous of Cap and Loops and Potts and Lily and all those other couples who just get to hug and kiss and tell the cameras how stupidly in love they are.” He paused, the panic of having told somebody matching the relief, but now the words had started tumbling out he couldn’t stop. “I get so angry about it. Sometimes, for the tiniest second, I hate them. All of them.” he whispered, barely able to admit it. “And then I just feel worse. Because I love them too and it’s not their fault. Cap and Loops didn’t even get a choice in the matter. How messed up is it to be jealous of somebody that got outed?”

“Emotions are complex. It is possible for you to have sympathy for Sirius and Remus, whilst still feeling jealous that they now can be more open about their relationship.”

'I don't like it," Finn huffed. The sentence had come out mimicking a toddler having a tantrum. Finn wanted to act like one too, to throw himself on the floor and scream.

“Have you spoken to Leo or Logan about it?”

“No,” Finn frowned. “It would just make them sad and I don’t want them to pressure them. I don’t want them to know I think such horrible things.”

“Okay,” Heather nodded. “Imagine one of them came to you and told you everything you’d just told me. What would you say to them?”

“Wait.” A distressed noise fell from Finn’s lips. “Do they talk to you about this too? Both of them make a comment here or there, but we talked about it not long ago and we agreed that we weren’t ready.”

“Finn, you know I can’t tell you about what I discuss with Leo or Logan.”

“It was worth a shot,” Finn shrugged.

“So, what would you say?”

“I’d say they are entitled to be jealous. I'd say it’s not fair we don’t get to do everything the others do just because the world is homophobic and close minded and can’t imagine the three of us could love each other exactly the same as every other more traditional couple. I’d say that I know they don’t hate Cap or Loops or Potts or Lily, they hate the situation and that’s completely understandable. It fucking sucks and they can be angry about it." Finn drew in a hulking breath, Heather's outline a little blurred through his wet eyes. Each word had sent an aching pain through his body, similar to when he ran, only now he felt like was chasing something cathartic rather than running away.

"Earlier you said what you had to tell me was dumb," Heather said. "Can you explain why you think that it's dumb for you to feel that way, horrible even, but if it were Leo or Logan their feelings are valid."

"Maybe it's not dumb," Finn looked down at his hands, tracing over the freckles there. "But that doesn't change the fact I don't like having those thoughts. Especially when I don't want to act on them. I’m okay with waiting to tell people about us, if we ever do. They're not ready. I'm not ready."

"That’s something we can work on. Helping you to reframe those thoughts, I mean.” Heather slipped her notebook from where it had been tucked beside her and made a note. Finn leaned his elbow on his leg, tucking his chin onto his fist, trying to make his attempts to see the page surreptitious. Capping her pen, she gave a small chuckle, “I’m just leaving myself a reminder of what we’ve discussed. You can always ask what I’m writing, I’m not trying to keep secrets from you.”

Finn sat back, the book no longer quite so interesting now that it wasn’t forbidden. “So? That’s it?”

Heather hummed. “For today. I think you’ve got a lot to think about already. I’ll schedule some more sessions with you over the next few days, okay? It’ll give me a chance to get some new pretzels.”

"Thanks," Finn laughed, then gestured at the empty bowl. "For the pretzels. And the talk."

“That’s what I’m here for,” Heather said. “I’m just going to ask one thing of you before I see you next. Please try to keep your evening runs to a reason-”

“Who snitched?”

“There was no snitching, as you call it. We’ve just known each other for a while now, Finn. And as an employee of the Lions whose job it is to make sure you’re at top playing ability, I don’t want you to injure yourself. As your psychologist, I want you to have healthy coping mechanisms and exercising to that extent is not healthy.”

“I know,” Finn unfolded his legs, stretching them out. They’d gone stiff after being sat on for so long, the sensation coming back with an uncomfortable tingle. “I’ll try to keep the runs in check, promise.” His gaze fell on the closed door, steeling himself to leave. He stood, sending Heather one last smile. It was safe in here, but his boys were out there.

“See you soon, Finn.”

Stepping out of the office, Finn closed his eyes, giving himself a second to compose himself. A rustle of movement to his left caught his attention, startling a little at the sight of Leo and Logan. They sat on the floor, Leo’s hand resting on Logan’s knee where they were hunched to his chest.

“Sorry,” Leo scrambled to his feet, his arm outstretched to let Logan pull himself upright too. “We didn’t want to wait too far away. In case, well, I don’t know, you needed us.”

Finn joined them, immediately finding Logan attached to his side, his familiar warmth exactly what he wanted right now. “I’m okay,” he assured. “I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it with you guys just yet. I need a bit of time to process, but just you being here makes things better. I’m going to see Heather a bit more too.”

“Proud of you.” Leo flanked him on the other side, taking his hand. Finn didn’t get to be in the middle often, Logan usually claiming the spot, and he felt like he had a kind of shield. “We just want you to be happy. And safe.”

“Can we go home, please?”

“Ouais, home,” Logan agreed.

[muertawrites]

Fireside (Zuko x Reader)

Word Count: 1,775

Author’s Note: I am so deeply sorry this took so long to post. I don’t know what happened but after Thanksgiving the creative part of my brain completely shut down and all I could do was lay in bed and play video games. But it’s back now so 🎉🎉🎉 happy new year to all of us! 

I got this request a WHILE ago and had written something else for it but after reconsidering, I totally hated it, so this is the rewrite for some cozy, wintery goodness. I also love this idea because I’m constantly cold - my feet and hands are always freezing and even in summer I’ll wear sweaters and hoodies because aircon can get pretty chilly when you have the body temp of your average vampire. 

Now for a little update: in the new year, I’ll be focusing more on original works than fanfiction. I’m still going to finish Two Halves, and I’ll still write fanfiction (because it’s still super fun) but I have so many ideas for original works that are taking over my brain that it seems only fitting to shift that direction. If you’re on my subscriber list and would like to only receive alerts for fanfic, let me know and I’ll add you to a separate list. 

I hope you’re all having a wonderful holiday, taking time to relax and spend time with loved ones, and generally just glad to have survived this shithole of a year. Here’s hoping that 2021 goes better - 2020 set the bar pretty low so it shouldn’t be too hard. 🥂

Snow was a rare occurrence in the Fire Nation. Summers typically scorched, followed by peaceful autumns and mild winters; a little rainfall was all one typically expected during the colder months in the Imperial City. 

This year, however, was much different. The mountains that bordered the villages and towns throughout the island were white capped under gray skies; streets were slickened by thick layers of ice that settled between cobblestones and creased the panes of windows; bracing breezes swept through landscapes unaccustomed to such unforgiving weather, carrying flurries of snow that bit at cheeks and cloaked the world in a dull ivory veil. Winter came to the Fire Nation seeking a cruel, unwarranted vengeance.

You woke in the middle of the night to find the fire beside your bed had died, leaving your borrowed room in a state of bitter, slicing cold. It wasn't the first time the Firelord’s palace had left you uncomfortably chilled since your arrival for his New Year’s celebrations, as the building was never meant to withstand this type of climate - sweeping ceilings, open breezeways, and tall windows with thin shutters ensured that the cold had its way. Being from the Northern Earth Kingdom, used to sturdy wooden lodges with massive fire pits that could burn an entire tree trunk with one lighting, this strange change of the typical season made you ache for home. 

Knowing there were no matches beside the hearth (given the sheer amount of fire benders that resided in the palace), you gathered up your courage and begrudgingly rolled from your mattress, taking the blankets with and wrapping them tightly around yourself. The walls around you creaked, shifting under the push of moaning winds, as you slipped into the hallway in search of your host. 

You were thankful that Zuko decided to keep his personal wing of the palace confined to a space that was mostly enclosed; the only breezeways in this part of the sprawling estate surrounded its courtyards and gardens, and were blocked by sets of heavy wood doors that shielded the inner parts of the building from being overcome by the elements. As you walked, traipsing through the corridor under your mound of blankets like some sort of shadowy, death-bringing phantom, you passed one of the windows that overlooked the gardens, and found it frosted under heavy white tufts of snow; puffy, clumped flakes whirled down from the sky, falling haphazardly as they escaped the grip of the whipping wind. Even in the relative warmth of the palace, your body shivered thinking of how frigid the air outside must be. 

Because of the abnormal cold, Zuko moved his mattress out of his bedroom and into his sitting room, where a large, decorative fireplace stood nestled into the far wall. You approached his sleeping form with gentle, quiet steps, being careful not to startle him; you lay a hand on his shoulder and he jolted awake, drawing a sharp breath in as he twisted to face you, blinking blearily to make out your features in the dark. 

“What are you doing?” he muttered. 

“I'm cold,” you whispered in response. “My fire went out.” 

Zuko sighed, fixing you with an irked, exhausted expression. 

“Seriously?” he groaned. “This is the third time this week.” 

“It's not my fault nobody has any friggin matches in this place,” you quipped. “And besides, why bring a servant all the way up here when I have one of the world’s greatest fire benders down the hall?”

Zuko huffed, then rolled back over in an attempt to shove you off. 

“There should be more blankets in your closet,” he grumbled. 

“I'm wearing all of them,” you retorted. 

You stood above him, waiting, but got no response. Shivering, and with an exasperated sigh, you pulled back the blankets around him, shuffling between them and nestling into his back; he snapped his head around once more, eyeing you suspiciously. 

“... Isn’t this a little uncomfortable?” he wondered. 

“Not really,” you replied. “We used to do this all the time when we were teenagers.” 

“We haven't done this since we were teenagers.”

You hummed, recalling your time together during the war. Even on the hottest days, your body was cold, your fingers always reasonably corpselike to anyone who happened to touch them - Zuko was one of those unfortunate people, and the lack of circulation in your limbs came as quite a worry to him. Throughout the day, he would take one of your hands in his, heating his palm until your skin took on a more lively temperature. When he noticed how much you layered at night when the air became cooler, he started sleeping nearer to you, eventually curling up around you to keep you warm. After the war, when he got into the habit of visiting you around the winter holidays, you still found yourself seeking him for warmth, tucking your hands into the sleeves of his robes or curling his palm around your icy fingers, finding sanctuary in the way he heated his skin to appease you. While it was true you hadn't slept together since you were younger, you hadn't ever needed to - desperate times called for desperate measures. 

“I should have remembered that you get so grumpy when you're tired,” you teased him, rubbing your feet against his; he hissed, but didn't pull away. 

“You're freezing,” he commented. “I should have remembered you're dead on the inside.” 

You giggled, sighing happily as the familiar heat of his skin warming like a furnace chased the chill from your toes. You slid your feet up along his ankles, causing him to shiver; his body tensed for a moment, then eased into your touch, quickly finding comfort in its familiarity. 

“Aang used to assume we were a couple because of this,” Zuko mumbled. “He still does.” 

“You're just a good friend,” you replied. You nuzzled your face into the broad, solid expanse of his back, breathing in his scent of scorched wood and sea salt. He felt like home. “Good friends don't let their friends freeze to death.” 

Zuko chuckled, taking hold of your hands that lay on his waist and cupping them within his own; he held your knuckles up to his mouth and huffed warm, smokey air onto them, heating them until they no longer felt cold. He tucked them beneath the fabric of his tunic, keeping them tepid between the fabric of his undershirt. 

“Uncle says the same thing,” he mused. “He says we treat each other like lovers, whether we realize it or not.” 

“My neighbors have asked me what my husband does that takes him away for so long out of the year...” you commented, eliciting another breathy laugh from your companion. “But I think I'd know if you were in love with me.” 

Zuko rolled over, turning to face you; his arm latched at your waist, his chest almost pressed to you and your noses grazing each other in the small space of his mattress. You blushed, the color blending with the soft, balmy glow of the low hearth behind him. 

“What makes you think I'm not in love with you?” he wondered. 

You paused, watching the flames flicker over the angular features of his face. Though he was silhouetted, and so close he seemed to envelop all of you, you could make out a tender gleam in his eye; could feel the flutter in his chest as he split it open, tentatively revealing his heart to you. 

“... I'd like to think you would have mentioned it,” you answered after a moment, “but I know you better than that.” 

Zuko grinned; you watched the curve of his cheek as it swelled with the action. 

“I might have mentioned it,” he murmured, his voice lilting with a gentle mirth. “Just not to you.”

“Of course not,” you teased. You mirrored his smile, easing into him as his foot began to stroke against your ankle once more. “Either way, I know you don't love me.” 

“And why is that?” Zuko whispered. 

“Well… you never write to me about anything exciting,” you replied. “You always seem so content to write to me about your thoughts, or what plays you've seen recently, or your conversations with Iroh. You never tell me about the impressive, world-altering Firelord stuff or your incredible exploits as a warrior.” 

Zuko smirked, raising a hand to brush some hair away from your face. His fingers were calloused and lukewarm, tracing over your temple with consideration and care. 

“Why else?” 

“You've never tried to kiss me,” you noted, “or touch me like a lover. You never try to push our boundaries past anything that's comfortable for us. Even right now - I'm laying in your bed, but you refuse to touch me in a way you're unsure of.” 

“Then you don't love me, either,” Zuko added. His body had gravitated flush to yours, your legs braided together under the pile of blankets you'd buried him in. “You only want to sleep with me when you're cold. You could just as easily call a servant for help.” 

“And you only want to keep me warm out of obligation,” you agreed. “It wouldn’t make you look very good if I died of hypothermia on your watch.” 

For a long moment, Zuko gazed at you. You basked in his silence, the easiness of his form so close to yours, the native feeling of his arm around your waist and his breath tickling your cheeks. The fire snapped quietly in its hearth, its flames rising and falling in time with his inhales and exhales. 

“I’ve missed this,” Zuko admitted in a whisper. “Laying with you. I wish we could do it more often.” 

“I’ve missed it, too,” you affirm. “I always used to sleep better with you.” 

“And that’s it?” Zuko teased. 

“That’s it,” you giggled back. 

He chanced a kiss to your forehead, pressing his lips between your brows and letting them linger there, savoring the coolness of your skin. You shut your eyes, giving yourself entirely to his touch. 

“In the new year… do you think we could be lovers?” he asked as he pulled away. 

“... I think your uncle is right,” you murmured. “I think we already are.” 

With a faint, bashful smile, Zuko pulled you closer (if the act were even possible), hugging you tightly to him; you held him close, pressing the whole of your body to his and soaking in his steady, comforting warmth. As the wind howled outside, shaking the flimsy wooden eaves of the feeble shelter around you, you fell asleep in the heat of his fireside, safe in the knowledge that his arms held you. 

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[fickleminder]

the years start coming and they don’t stop coming

In which Lilith’s return distorts her brothers’ perception of time.

Part 2 here

You’ve never seen the demon prince look so embarrassed.

“I can call for —”

“No, it’s okay. They deserve this.”

But you don’t, goes unspoken. You can see the pity in his eyes, feel the palpable disappointment in the air. Even Simeon and Luke make sure to hug you extra tight before stepping through the portal to the Celestial Realm, and Solomon promises to check up on you after you’ve returned home.

Thanking Lord Diavolo and Barbatos for their hospitality, you turn towards the final demon in the council room and put on the biggest grin your breaking heart can muster. “Hey, c’mere.”

Satan doesn’t hesitate to throw his arms around you. It’s almost like he’s trying to make up for his brothers’ absence, the way he crushes you to his chest and cradles the back of your head.

You can’t find it in yourself to blame them. As far as miracles go, this is a pretty big one. Lilith coming back to life is an unprecedented event, one not even Barbatos had seen coming. Nobody has any answers either. She’s definitely not a demon, not an angel, not human; just an immortal who knocked on the front door of the House of Lamentation three days ago.

Her brothers haven’t left her alone since. You’re happy for them, you really are, but a bitter part of you can’t help but wish her return had waited until after the exchange program ended. At least Lucifer had the courtesy to pull you aside and thank you on his family’s behalf (though you’re quite certain you had nothing to do with your ancestor’s sudden revival), in addition to making a pact with you as a token of his gratitude.

With that, you could have summoned all of them to send you off just as effectively as Lord Diavolo giving the order, but it won’t be the same and you know it. Your only saving grace is Satan, the one brother who’d kept his head and anchored you in the sea of loneliness you’d been set adrift in over the last few days.

“I’m gonna miss you, cat boy.”

“I miss you already,” Satan laughs softly, pulling back with a warm smile. “I’ll stay in touch, I promise.”

You squeeze his arms affectionately and glance past his shoulders at the closed doors. There’s the smallest shred of hope in you that thinks the others will come bursting through any moment now, scrambling for one final chance to see you. You give yourself five seconds, silently counting down to a pipe dream, before pressing a kiss to Satan’s cheek and releasing him.

“It might not seem like it now, but the Devildom will always be here for you,” Lord Diavolo says as the world around you fades to white. “Farewell.”

.

.

.

“Did you lose track of time at the library again? You missed dinner last night LOL.”

“Levi, be nice!”

Satan only hums quietly in response. He can’t be bothered to correct the assumption; it’s a convenient excuse for when his brothers actually notice he’s missing anyway.

The irony of Levi calling him out isn’t lost on him. While the otaku is still obsessed with his games and shows, he’s no longer as shut-in as he used to be, venturing outside the comforts of his sanctuary more often. Satan has passed by the common room on many occasions to find him and Lilith gaming or binging anime together, and the content expression on Levi’s face proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the void from his Henry’s departure has long been filled.

“Oh, but speaking of,” Lilith sets her cutlery down and smiles shyly at the fourth-born, “I haven’t had the chance to explore the libraries here yet. If it’s not too much trouble, can you show me around and recommend a few books?”

Shrugging non-committedly, Satan continues with his meal, not once looking her in the eye.

.

.

.

You’ve always wondered how someone with the Avatar of Lust for a brother can have such terrible fashion sense. It should be impossible to go wrong with dressing for a funeral, but you guess life (along with a certain eyesore of a tie) just loves to disappoint you. Still, you’re too glad to have Satan with you right now to care.

“Thanks for coming.”

“Anytime.”

You lean into the demon’s side as he holds an umbrella over both of you. Your eyes are drawn to the flowers he’d placed on your mother’s grave, the only splash of color against the dull tombstone. For the longest time, all you can process is the pitter-patter of the afternoon rain on the plastic wrap of the bouquet, and the comforting weight of Satan’s arm across your shoulders.

“She was in a lot of pain,” you admit after a while, your voice slightly hoarse. “The doctors had to sedate her. She went in her sleep.”

“I’m sorry.” Satan fidgets awkwardly, not quite sure what to say. He’s no stranger to death, but the loss of someone dear is unfamiliar to him. “Perhaps Simeon can find out if —”

“No, no it’s fine. I just — I need to —”

The umbrella is forgotten as Satan catches you, lowering you gently to the ground when your knees give way. You cling to him desperately, and it’s all he can do to draw you close as you start to wail.

.

.

.

Satan barely makes it three steps into the house before getting pounced on.

“How was it? Where did you go? Ooh you lucky demon, I want to hear all the details!”

“Oi, oi! What are you babbling on about?”

“Don’t act coy with me! Lilith saw you at the florist’s yesterday with the most gorgeous bouquet of flowers!”

“Yesterday? But —”

“How come you never told me someone caught your eye? I would have dolled you up, lent you some of my clothes —” Asmo gasps dramatically. “You didn’t wear that horrid jacket to your date, did you?”

Wrestling a hand free, Satan musses his younger brother’s hair. “None of your business,” he growls, walking away with a smirk when Asmo immediately releases him to fix his appearance. “Who do you take me for, anyway?”

“Aww come on, just give me a hint! Do I know them? Is it someone from RAD? Ooh, did you meet them at the library or —”

Ducking into the safety of his room, Satan shuts the door in Asmo’s face.

.

.

.

“Thank fuck. Who picked your outfit this time?”

“Barbatos. And shut up.”

You grab Satan’s arm with a laugh and lead him towards your table, politely introducing him as ‘Stan from work’ to any relatives who ask about the handsome young man accompanying you. Satan’s usual mask is in place, but there’s no mistaking the gleam of wonder in his eyes as he takes in his surroundings.

“Finally,” you sigh, sinking into your seat and grinning sheepishly at the blond. “Sorry about them. It’s just that they’ve never seen me with anyone, so they’re really curious about you.”

“Well, I’m glad you invited me along. I’ve never been to a wedding before.” The romantic in Satan is openly basking in the ambience of the reception. “You mentioned that your niece had gotten married?”

“Technically my first cousin once removed, but yeah.”

“And you’ve not been seeing anyone?”

“You would have been the first to know if I have,” you tease, nudging him playfully. “Apparently a lot of people are put off by the way I dress. Too modest, they say.”

But not without good reason. The pact marks on your body may be slightly faded from disuse, but they’re still discernable if stared at hard enough: Lucifer’s at the back of your neck; Mammon’s over your heart; Levi’s curled around your right calf; Satan’s circling your left arm; Asmo’s dangerously close to tramp stamp territory; Beel’s just under your navel; and Belphie’s on your ribs at the side you like to sleep on.

Passing them off as tattoos without attracting the wrong kind of attention is a little tricky, so you’d rather take a page from Solomon’s book and cover them up. Being called a prude is easier than dealing with cultists.

(It also helps you to keep your mind off of them, because some wounds continue to hurt even after they heal, so there’s that.)

Sensing the drop in your mood, Satan clears his throat to get your attention. It’s only then that you realize there’s music playing in the background, and couples moving from their tables to the floor.

Your companion stands up and offers you his hand, this time with a genuine smile on his face. “May I have this dance?”

.

.

.

Lucifer’s tone books no room for argument. “This will be a family event, so I expect your attendance. Don’t think I haven’t noticed your little escapades over the past few months.”

“Tch.”

“Do I make myself clear?”

“Whatever. I’ll be there.”

Satan has to resist the urge to hurl his hardcover at the back of Lucifer’s head when he takes his leave. That’s no way to treat a book, after all.

Beel’s Fangol team has an upcoming match and it’ll be Lilith’s first time watching him play. She’s been hyped up for weeks, so it comes as no surprise that Lucifer would use the opportunity to turn it into a family outing. He’s been doing that a lot lately.

Gone is the stuffy first-born who can spend days in his office if left unchecked. Lucifer is still as strict as ever, still fulfills his duties to Lord Diavolo diligently, but it’s like he’s managed to master balancing work and play overnight. He makes more time for his siblings now, even if it’s to dole out punishments for their endless shenanigans, punishments that vary in severity depending on how cutely Lilith pleads on their behalf.

Lucifer has always doted on her, and she has him wrapped around her little finger. Belphie has even gone as far as corrupting her into pranking him, and she need only bat her eyelashes to get off scot-free.

Lilith was the catalyst for the Fall, her descendent the glue that brought her siblings back together, and her return the final piece in making their family whole again.

But you were family too, Satan thinks sourly, pulling out his D.D.D. to mark the date in his calendar.

.

.

.

When you invite Satan over to your apartment for tea, he never expected to be introduced to your new housemate: a handsome fellow with chestnut brown hair, sharp jade eyes, a runner’s body, and the softest-looking toe beans he has ever seen in his immortal life.

“Satan, meet Satan!” You hold out the tabby towards him with a shit-eating grin.

Both demon and cat blink owlishly at each other. The blond doesn’t know whether to feel endeared by the feline sharing his name or insulted that you would replace him so easily, but all it takes is a single bop on the nose with a curious paw for him to melt.

Satan the tabby, who normally prefers to scale your shelves and nap between your books, spends the entire day a purring puddle in Satan the demon’s arms, shamelessly relishing in pets and massages to the extent that at some point, you have a very real fear they might just end up absconding back to the Devildom together. Thankfully, some kibble and freshly baked treats help you separate the two for a while, at least long enough for you to get some decent conversation in.

You brew a pot of Earl Grey with the beautifully crafted tea set Barbatos gifted you when you had first moved in, and serve the scones you made earlier in the morning using the baking tools blessed by Luke during your housewarming. You don’t know if the little angel had actually imbued them with Celestial magic, but everything you cook somehow always lifts your spirits when consumed.

Satan has to catch himself in the middle of regaling you with Mammon’s latest half-baked scheme. The wistful look on your face is new; you’re usually eager to hear what his brothers have been up to, but something feels off today. He pours you more tea, slides another scone onto your plate, and waits.

“…Are they happy?” You ask after a while.

The demon knows better than to lie, even if it’s to spare you from the truth he suspects you’re already aware of. “Yes,” he admits grudgingly.

“I’m glad.”

Your smile doesn’t reach your eyes.

.

.

.

Lilith stands outside his room, holding a tray of tea and cakes.

“Hey, um, may I come in?” Her smile is both hopeful and uncertain. It’s a gamble, ambushing the fourth-born when he obviously has no interest in her. At best, he’ll make up an excuse to turn her away or just ignore her completely; at worst, well… she doesn’t really want to think about that. To her visible relief, he opens the door wider and steps aside.

Satan clears a space for her to set the tray down. There’s the briefest moment of hesitation before he drags your favorite armchair over and offers her a seat as well. He looks guarded but not openly hostile, a promising sign so far.

“You’ve been in and out of the house lately, so I haven’t had the chance to catch you. I thought we might sit down and talk,” Lilith says, pouring two cups of the hot beverage as she chooses her next words carefully. “The others told me about how you were born, but I understand that you are your own person. I’d like to get to know that person.”

A part of Satan is acutely aware of their one-sided relationship; he is familiar with her through Lucifer, but she has never met him. It makes sense for her to be curious about him, though Satan isn’t so sure he wants to return the favor. She reminds him too much of you in the way she prepares her tea, how she sits on your chair, her shy lopsided smile —

But she’s not you, and you’re not her, Satan has to remind himself lest he commits the same mistake his brothers nearly did after your lineage had been revealed. Now in a convoluted turn of events, it’s you who’s gone and Lilith here, and there’s no reason why he can’t give her a chance and treat her like the sister she could be to him.

It’s what you would have wanted.

Lilith tries not to let her shoulders slump too much when Satan quietly stands up and heads towards his door. She’s prepared to pack up and leave until she spots him grabbing several books from a nearby shelf.

“Have you ever read Mid-Fall Murders?” He asks, handing her a hardcover with a shy smile of his own.

.

.

.

“What’s it like?”

Satan’s grip on your hand tightens. “I don’t actually know,” he confesses, shuffling closer so that your shoulder and arm are pressed against his. It’s a strange sight, the two of you lying side by side on your bed, staring aimlessly at the ceiling.

“Will it hurt?”

“No.”

You’ve never heard a single word hold so much promise, but you have no reason to doubt the demon’s sincerity. Satan wouldn’t take pity on you just because you’re —

A light knock on the door, and in pokes Simeon’s head. “Ah, little lamb! I’m glad we made it in time.”

“Not so little anymore, Simeon.” You laugh softly, greeting Luke and Solomon as they trail in behind him. Satan brushes his lips over your forehead before getting up to receive your guests.

The day is as ordinary as it can be. You talk and catch up with your friends, trading stories and laughter over cups of tea that neither grow cold nor go empty. When the session turns into a mini book club gathering halfway through, Luke helpfully retrieves the debated titles from the massive shelf in the living room. He takes a while to find them; you’ve accumulated plenty of works over the years: recommendations by Satan, literature published under Simeon’s pseudonym, and handwritten tomes from Solomon to keep you in touch with your magic. The shelf is practically jam-packed with books, the only exception being a corner on the topmost tier, housing a little space that’s empty save for a worn green collar with a rusted bell.

Come sundown the five of you are still neck-deep in discussion, but as with all good things, the get together eventually reaches an end.

“Thanks everyone, it’s been fun,” you say, reclining back in your bed as Satan wordlessly cleans up. You squeeze his hand when he returns to your side and bid the others goodbye. “Hopefully I’ll see you guys soon?”

“About that…” Solomon clears his throat, wearing the smug look that usually accompanies a trick being pulled out of his sleeve, but this time it’s tinged more with excitement than mischief. “Simeon has a little present for you first.”

The guileless smile on the angel’s face betrays nothing as he steps forward and reaches into a small pouch at his hip. “Solomon, Diavolo and I have a theory. Now, keep in mind that this is all very experimental, but if it works, you’ll have more options to choose from, should you so wish.”

And then he brings out a ring.

.

.

.

“Are you, uh, are you okay?”

“Not in the mood, Mammon.”

“Oi, I’m trying to be nice here! Who do you think covered for your sorry ass when you came back past curfew the other day, huh?”

“What the hell do you want?”

“You may think you’re all stealthy and shit, but your eyes were pretty red that night. I thought you were at a book club meeting. Did something happen?”

“None of your business.”

“Argh, fine then! This is the last time I try to be a good big brother.”

“…Mammon?”

“?”

“...”

“...”

“I’m sorry.”

“Eh, what are you — you can’t just say that and then run off! Get back here!”

.

.

.

“Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…”

Lilith’s countdown echoes along the deserted hallway, prompting Beel to nudge the deadweight on his back. “Belphie, go get your own hiding place.”

“Mmngh… zzz…”

“Come on, or she’ll win this round with a two for one. Again.”

“…Just dump me somewhere she won’t find me then.”

A tall order, especially since Lilith can easily track them down by listening out for Beel’s stomach and/or Belphie’s snores. Still, the sixth-born lumbers through the house as quietly as he can, doing a one-eighty whenever he hears Lilith’s cheerful hums coming from the opposite direction. Technically they can avoid being caught if they keep moving, but that would be cheating. They hid in the attic previously so that’s a no go, their room’s too obvious, the kitchen too tempting, the common room too exposed…

Maybe Levi’s room? The otaku had sound-proofed his walls to avoid distractions from the outside world when he’s gaming, so it’s an ideal location to hide. He can stash Belphie in the bathtub and run interference until time’s up.

Backtracking, Beel breaks into a light jog towards the other wing, keeping his ears open for their seeker. It’s only because of his heightened senses that he’s able to pick up the faintest traces of magic on one of the walls, causing him to pause in his steps.

“Hmm? Why’d you stop?” Slightly more awake now, Belphie rubs his eyes and slides off his twin, who’s studying the blank space intently. “What’s wrong, Beel?”

“There’s something here, something…”

“It’s just a wall —”

“No, don’t you feel it? I know you weren’t around then, but it’s the same glamor as that time Luke went missing and we —”

Beel goes white. He whispers a name, a name not spoken in the house for years, and a door flickers into view. One hand grabs Belphie’s in a death grip as the other twists the knob and pushes the door open, revealing an old yet familiar room.

The place is devoid of life. Most of the furniture are covered by sheets, resting under thick layers of dust. In the middle sits a tree, sagging with age and soft with rot. Sunken footprints mark the demons’ furtive venture into decrepit memory, and the creaking of floorboards with every step only tethers the growing nightmare closer to reality.

A photo frame crashes to the ground.

.

.

.

They deserve this.

Satan feels it the moment the spell concealing your room was broken. It had been his way of protecting your memory, ensuring that your sanctuary would only be accessible to those who made the effort to remember you. He cast it about a year after you had left the Devildom, after he realized that leaving your door in plain sight wasn’t doing you any favors.

Hidden away in an alcove at the back of the garden, curled up with a blanket and a thermos of hot tea, Satan slides a bookmark between the pages of his latest novel and leans his head back, closing his eyes with a heavy sigh.

Even this far away from the house, he can hear the cacophony of screams and shouts, objects being flung and shattered into pieces, a muted bang suggesting that a wall has just collapsed. The fallout comes as no surprise; waking up after living the past hundred years or so in a daze will do that to a person – or in this case, demons.

Although the sounds of fighting call to the rage bubbling within him, the vindictive thoughts of his brothers getting their just desserts cool it to a simmer. He knows he’ll have to face them eventually, but he’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

“Meow?”

Emerald eyes blink open. There’s a faint rustle from the nearby bushes as a tiny Calico wanders out of the foliage, peering around the garden curiously. Upon spotting the blond demon, it perks up and makes a beeline for him.

“Hm? You’re not Callie. Are you new here, little one?” His mood considerably improved, Satan extends a hand towards the kitten. It skips the finger sniffing step and goes straight to headbutting his palm, begging for attention.

“You’re an affectionate one, aren’t you?” Satan caves immediately and scritches away with a delighted chuckle. He examines the markings on its tri-colored fur, wanting to recognize the friendly feline if it comes back in the future. The Calico is mostly white with patches of brown and black splashed over the back of its neck, near the base of its tail, just under the side of its ribs, and several other spots that seem to collectively resemble a familiar pattern…

Satan’s hand stills. He whispers your name, trembling with hope, and the kitten practically leaps into his arms, nuzzling his chin with a happy purr.

[feralaot]

thanksgiving dinner but with the aot characters

Thanksgiving with the AOT characters

mention of alcohol

modern

every year, it seems that the jaeger brothers show up without fail, despite both rarely ever being invited. they sort of just let themselves in and nobody says anything about it but quietly acknowledges their presences. eren will gorge himself on food then lay on the couch with his phone for a few hours before leaving. on the other hand, however, zeke comes prepared with plastic bags. he eats as much as he can then stashes whatever leftovers he can in plastic bags in his coat and leaves, rarely saying a word.

mikasa and armin are just... quiet. mikasa in particular probably has like, one slice of turkey, then groans about how full she is. armin however is a bottomless pit and never puts on any weight no matter how much he eats at thanksgiving and jean is irritated by him because of it. annie is there too, but she has a poultry allergy, so she usually just inhales the mashed potatoes

now that I mention jean, I want to point out that he’s kind of the ego stroker. he turns every conversation at thanksgiving into an intellect measuring contest by showing off his vast knowledge of pop culture, world news, and basically anything else he thinks makes him better than other people

connie’s the adult at the kids’ table. that’s it that’s the headcanon

sasha brings niccolo along for his first thanksgiving with her family (family as in her friends). she’s super enthusiastic introducing him to everyone and talking about how great he is, and he’s the poor sod in the limelight that doesn’t know how to talk to anyone and just smiles awkwardly when people look at him. bless his heart

erwin is the overachieving host that wants everything to go perfectly and employs his housemates levi and hange to help make that happen. levi, however, doesn’t care much for holidays, and hange cares too much. fill in the blanks and you can imagine how disorganized things are once everyone arrives

erwin’s also always trying to propose toasts, and he has become known as The Chronic Toaster. levi never gets his own plate and instead gradually picks at erwin’s food, and somehow, hange always has an announcement to make. maybe they had a grand new experiment they wanted to declare, or maybe they just got off probation, anything. hange always has something to say

historia and ymir always show up late, usually right when dinner hits the table, and they leave early because by god if historia doesn’t manage to snag some black friday deals.... anyway, ymir is sometimes left at the house instead of leaving with historia because she sneaks a couple glasses of (usually white) wine and gets embarrassingly sloshed and passes out on the couch. in this case historia usually comes to pick her up the next day

pieck is what I call the “it” talker. you see, every family has an “it” that, when uttered at the dinner table, collapses the entire conversation into disarray. yet of course she is the anarchistic entity that delights in the fallout caused by vocalizing the forbidden “it”.

though physically at the table, reiner’s mind is at the couch, watching The Game. only by the time The Game is over do you realize that he doesn’t even care about The Game or sports at all, on no other days does he watch football, but on this one (1) day The Game seems to entice him like he’s under some kind of spell.

we all have different kinds of aunts, but bertholdt is the cool breed of aunt. everyone seems to be content and at ease when he’s talking and telling stories of the interesting and apparently endless life he lives but is still, for some reason, more interested in the boring lives of the people around him rather than his own. no matter how divided the family is after the uttering of the “it” everyone can still equally enjoy and appreciate bertholdt.

you knew this was coming. it had to be someone. and it’s porco. he’s the political commentator. it’s usually only jean, reiner, bert, and maybe pieck that listen to him, but porco goes on long rants to whoever will listen about how we need to do more to help the environment and other stuff of the sort that I won’t go into because this is not a political blog. have a good day

[regrettablewritings]

Slapped By Legal (Matt Murdock x Reader)

@locke-writes​ S u f f e r

‘Twas four weeks before Christmas, in a Hell’s Kitchen home, where you sat in the kitchen, feeling downtrodden and boned. Your laptop was open, the window filled with tabs Of all the potential gifts you could feasibly nab. But this was three hours into searching and nary a perfect gift could be found As your brain began contemplating just burning the building to the ground —

Okay, maybe don’t do that. But you would’ve been lying if you’d claimed you weren’t tempted to at least fling your laptop out the window. Buying gifts for one’s boyfriend was usually a point if glee for most couples. You had coworkers who would gush about what they’d gotten their partners, eagerly asking you if you wanted to see it. Even without you courteously saying yes, they would shove their phone into your face, forcing you to not only pretend to be interested, but also to remember that the clock was ticking — and you still didn’t have anything for your own partner.

At face value, Matt would presumably be a relatively easy man to but for. He lived well within his means, both to regard his disability but also because he was just simply a humble person. Most people like that would’ve been satisfied with, like, a bottle of wine.

But not your Matt: Your Matt was Matthew Michael Murdock, a man both blessed and cursed with sensitivities that made his tastes particular — literally. You had to sit on the side of caution when it came to nearly everything: Certain materials felt scratchy on his skin; certain foods and drinks tasted like every step of the factory that had contributed to their production; cologne bothered his nose; and he didn’t much listen to music anyway, so a radio or stereo would’ve been mostly pointless.

You released a loud, aggravated groan as you flopped in your seat. You were pretty positive that no matter where Matt was at this point in time, he probably heard you. Even if it was from Queens.

Fuck this, you thought as you grumpily scrolled further along your current tab. That bastard is getting a gift card. Or a wine-stopper. Or —

And that’s when you saw it. In an instant, your posture turned upright alongside your sense of hope.

— Or that!

Everything about it was perfect: The price, the content, the opportunity -- you simply had to have Matt have it!

Christmas tended to be a rather small affair for the Nelson & Murdock crew. With nobody having any real family to speak of (or, at the very least, any family worth visiting), the four of you were more than happy to make do with your own little traditions: Ordering Thai from down the street, drinking yourselves silly without the guilt, and just plain enjoying one another’s company. Oh, and opening presents together, of course.

And the entire while Foggy and Karen expressed excitement over their gifts, you sat there with a slight hint of smugness just barely nestled inside of you. When they gave Matt his own gift, you couldn’t help but feel some relief: A mug and a paperweight in the shape of an apple. Sure signs that even after all this time, they, too, struggled with what the hell to give the guy who generally wants for nothing.

You didn’t want to silently toot your own horn, but you already knew you had them beat. Hence why you saved the best for last. And although you weren’t quite certain as to how his innate lie detection worked, you couldn’t help but suspect that he was on to you. It was subtle, but it was like it was hidden in the crook of his brow every time he happened to face your direction. Not that he said anything, of course. He wasn’t new to your breed of mischief, after all.

Two could play at this game. All he needed to do was wait patiently until your dramatic self became too overwhelmed with eagerness to bear it.

The gusto with which you presented the parcel was met with further brow-cocking on Matt’s part.

“Matthew,” you spoke, enforcing an exaggeratory accent befitting of an American’s idea of a British butler, “your Yuletide endowment.”

Matt huffed with amusement. “‘Endowment’? What, are we living fancy now?” You made no response, perfectly content to simply watch him rip apart the colorful paper with anticipation. To be perfectly honest, Matt wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from you. Normally, he could tell what something was at a distance. But once boxes and further packaging got involved whatever his senses reported back to him got all fuzzy and muddled.

But surely whatever you’d gotten was something you were proud of. After all, he’d spent the entire gift-unwrapping listening to the small, telltale signs of your excitement.

“It’s a . . .” He lifted it from the ruins of tissue paper. “. . . T-shirt?”

“Uh-huuhhh!” you chriped. He could hear you practically vibrating. Matt wasn’t averse to t-shirts. But he had to admit, it was a bit of a strange thing for you to get so excited about. Though, feeling about the cotton, he could sense some roughness. Ink. Was there a design on this? Was it a graphic t-shirt?

“Put it on, put it on!” you cheered. He did so, not able to think of a reason why he shouldn’t. Besides, well, the fact that he knew you were being highly suspicious. The brief moment it took for him to pop his head through the neck hole, he could hear rustling coming from your part of the little circle. He also heard Foggy snort before weakly attempting to stifle his obvious laugh. He heard Karen’s breath hitch as well, though not in any way that denoted discomfort. In fact, he heard heartbeats quicken and lungs practically spasming.

What the hell had you done.

“Okay, I give up, what does it say?” Matt demanded.

“Nothing!” Foggy squeaked.

Matt’s lips pressed into a thing, unimpressed line. “Yeah, that’s bullshit. I don’t even need to hear for a lie, what is it? What does it say?”

“It, um,” Karen offered fruitlessly, “It says ‘World’s Best Boyfriend’, that’s all.”

“Seriously?” Matt sighed, though not without cracking a hint of a smile. “You’re going to lie to a blind guy? And to me of all blind guys?” He heard you shuffling towards him, walking on your knees. 

“Don’t worry about it, Babe,” you insisted, pressing a kiss to his scruffy cheek. In the moment you leaned towards him, he could smell a new smell on you: It wasn’t unlike the one that belonged to his brand-new shirt.

But before he could demand the truth any further, Foggy cut in with a giggle-wobbled, “Time for Christmas photos! Say cheese, Lovebirds!”

Matt could only give in; there was no point in trying to wedge the truth out of any of you. All he knew was that he knew you three were lying about . . . something.

Ah, well, he decided as he heard the click of Foggy’s camera phone going off. Perhaps there was a way to get the truth out of you . . .

It didn’t work. In spite of his best efforts (and damn, were they his best), he couldn’t get it out of you. However, that wasn’t to say that he didn’t get anything he wanted out of you. And as he began to fall prey to his exhaustion, the events of the day finally catching up to him, he snuggled his naked form loser to yours. Perhaps the truth would have to wait for another day . . .

For your part, you were proud of yourself. Admittedly, part of the pride’s source came from the fact that you were able to hold your ground in the end (Matt was just too giving of a lover to be good at torturing you). But for the most part, it came from the fact that you were able to execute your plan as you intended it. In a way, it was also like a little bit of revenge: Revenge on Matt for being one of the absolute worst people to shop for. And for that, maybe you’d hold on to your not-so-secret secret. Just for a little while longer . . .

But first, one last relishing in your success before you succumbed to sleep.

You carefully and slowly made your way to your side of the bed. Not enough to properly wake up your sleeping boyfriend, but just so that you could reach your phone from its resting place on the nightstand. Once acquired, you pressed the home button and set your sights aglow with the image you had last had your phone on before your and Matt’s little session.

It was the picture Foggy had taken earlier of you and Matt, dressed in the matching T-shirts you had acquired for yourselves. You grinned cheekily at the camera, making sure that the bubbly white writing on the black fabric was perfectly legible: “My Ass Got Slapped By Legal.”

And next to you was Matt, a smile planted on his handsome face but altogether tainted with confusion and growing insanity over what the hell you had him wearing -- an equally black t-shirt with equally bubbly white writing: “I Am Legal.”

Oh, yeah, you decided as you smiled to yourself. This was going on the Christmas cards next year.

[jentrevellan]

I'm so happy to finally share my fic for @dasmutquisition! I had so much fun with this one, it's unreal. I hope you enjoyed @sumiIong

Rating: Explicit

Category: F/M

Fandoms: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins

Relationship: Alistair/Female Cousland (Dragon Age)

Characters: Alistair (Dragon Age), Female Cousland (Dragon Age), Teagan Guerrin

Additional Tags: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Banter, Cuddling & Snuggling, Happy Ending, Making Love, trapped together (sort of), strong woman, anxious Alistair, generic Cousland, King Alistair and Queen Cousland, newlyweds, Morning Sex, D in the V, Porn With Plot, Dorks in Love

Language: English

Collections: Nobody Expects the Dragon Age Smutquisition

Summary: Alistair and the Warden spend the first night not only as husband and wife but as King and Queen.

Notes: Thank you @curiousthimble for being my beta!

Read on Ao3

Doin' the Fondue

The great hall in Denerim Castle was loud and filled to the rafters with people. Nobles, elves, dwarves and peasants alike were squeezed in, all clamouring to see the newly married couple. Up on the dais, overlooking the crowd that was slowly getting rowdier and rowdier with the ale and wine that continued to flow, Alistair - now King Alistair Theirin of Ferelden - slouched in his throne and took a gulp of wine.

He was terrified.

Oh, the ceremony had been a delight, and he had adored proclaiming his love in front of the Maker and the witnesses in the Chantry. But as soon as he had stepped into the hall for their wedding feast, his gut started churning. Because he knew what must come next after the merriment had ended.

He glanced at his wife beside him. His wife! Despite his anxiety, he couldn’t help but grin like a fool at the thought of his Grey Warden companion, Lady Cousland, now being his wife. It didn’t seem wholly real. Indeed, most of his life the past year hadn’t seemed real. So much had changed, and now he was married.

Alistair took another sip of wine from his goblet and his new wife glanced at him, a small frown on her brow. She already knows me so well, he thought. No one else would be able to tell that anything was amiss, but she had always seen straight through him and knew when even the smallest thing was bothering him. One of the many traits he loved about her. Although it did mean that it was impossible to keep any sort of secret from her. Even the good kind of secrets.

As he picked at his food, his new wife and Queen accepted many gracious gifts from guests. All curtsied or bowed and she was most eloquent in her response. Truly, she was more prepared for this life as a monarch than him. Her noble upbringing was a far cry from how he was raised. But wherever his trepidation lay about ruling, he knew that with this woman beside him as his Queen, that he could do anything.

She laughed heartily at a joke Teagan was telling her, and he watched as she wiped away a tear. Alistair glowered at his uncle and reached out for his wife’s hand. She turned to him, a wide smile on her face, her cheeks flushed and her lips rosy from the wine.

“Everything alright?” she asked.

He nodded his head to Teagan. “Just wondering what was so funny…?”

She blushed prettily, and a jealous hand gripped his gut. He would not easily forget his uncle’s flirtations when he had first met them in Redcliffe, and ever since, a fit of strange jealousy and need to claim her as he always came about when he was in the presence of both her and Tegan.

Waving a jewelled hand, she shook her head. “It was nothing. Rather crude, actually, so I told him off for lowering the tone of our conversation at our wedding feast,” she replied, taking a sip of wine. “Now what’s the matter with you?”

“Me?” he repeated. “Nothing. Nothing is the matter with me at all. Absolutely nought.”

“Alistair,” she said seriously, leaning in close. Her tone made him want to listen, but her golden gown with its tight bodice had pressed her breasts pleasantly together and were well within his eye line that he couldn’t help but glance down. A treacherous blaze of desire coursed through him, and with her puckered lips, her brow furrowed in concern, he wanted nothing more than to crush her to him and -

A chill went through him. He wanted her, oh yes, most desperately, but Tegan caught his eye and winked, and a shudder of repulsion went through him as he turned his head to see half of the court watching their interaction. He pulled away from his wife abruptly and reached for his goblet of wine, again and took a huge mouthful.

Ever the gracious lady, his wife smiled faintly and pretended that nothing had happened. But the look she quietly gave him as he peered at her over the rim of his goblet made his gut clench with guilt. There was a flash of hurt in her eyes, and he felt rotten about being the cause.

The dinner continued and as the servants were generous with topping up his wine, Alistair kept emptying his goblet. His wife, on the other hand, declined and stuck to watery lemonade and with dread, he realised that she was not drinking the same as him because it was expected that she needed to stay sober to conceive.

It was like a weight was pressing down on his chest, and he struggled to breathe, and it was getting worse as the evening wore on. Soon he stopped eating and drinking and just watched everybody that approached the dais to offer their congratulations or present gifts to the newlyweds. One item that was given to the new Queen was a selection of herbs which, as the kindly elderly noble had explained “would help the womb quicken”. Alistair had almost retched at her words, and instead began a small coughing fit, which required his wife to smack him firmly on the back a few times harder than she would’ve done normally.

At one point, a small child approached, dressed in a simple cotton tunic, as white as a cloud. Her hair was braided down her back and entwined with flowers. She stood before the queen who rose from her throne and leant over the table to adjust a flower in the girl’s hair. Alistair watched as his wife’s face lit up with warmth as she listened and spoke to the child. He wanted to give that to her. But… but…

“Let us bed them!” Tegan suddenly announced, and there was a scramble as the court got to their feet hurriedly, to be one of the select few to follow them to their chambers. The women reached the queen and she shot Alistair one swift look of alarm before resigning herself to their insistent tugs as they all but pushed her out of the room. Alistair followed with a group of noblemen, including his uncle.

“I bet you’re looking forward to this, m'boy,” Tegan grinned, falling into step beside Alistair, as they made their way through the halls of the castle.

“I don't know what you mean,” he replied flatly, his face feeling warm not just from the wine.

Tegan clapped him on the back. “You are one lucky man, my boy,” he said with a sigh, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’ve never seen you so quiet in all the time I’ve known you. Your mind has been elsewhere this evening - and I’m not the only one to notice.”

Dread tugged at him as he climbed the stairs. “Yes, you’re right and I’m sorry, but-”

“Sorry!” Tegan repeated with a snort. “You’ve no need to be sorry. Most men are as quiet as a mouse in anticipation of their wedding night. And one can’t certainly blame you: your wife is simply lovely.”

“Yes, thank you, Tegan,” Alistair ground out, shrugging his shoulder lose of his grip. But rather than be offended, the man laughed and Alistair clenched his fists. Never before had he been so tempted to knock his uncle around the head.

They arrived at his chamber door and inside more nobles awaited eagerly. The king’s bed had been arranged neatly, but there was no expectation for him to sleep there tonight. Instead, he eyed the connecting door where he knew his wife would be waiting for him, surrounded by the noblewomen.

“Are you going to leave?” he asked, looking around the room, but the men just laughed, and chatted, some making obscene gestures. He grimaced, hating the sheer manliness in the room. His manservant came forward to help him undress from his finery and removed his crown. Once he had been disrobed save for his smalls, he threw on his white cotton nightshirt and ran his hands through his hair, wiping the sweat from his brow.

There was a faint knock at the connecting door, and one of the servants hurried forward and exchanged whispers with the servant on the other side. Alistair paced anxiously and took a very keen interest in a loose thread on the sleeve of his shirt. The men around him were talking about absolute filth, and he squeezed his eye tight shut, in the vain hope that his ears would squeeze shut too.

Finally, the connecting door swung open and the servant stood aside. Alistair was rooted to the spot, fear coursing through him. Are these people… going to watch ? He thought with horror.

He was quite content with where he was until Tegan elbowed him in the ribs. “Nervous?” he said with a wink.

“Yes. No! I mean, no !” he said hurriedly, his face burning.

“There’s nothing to be scared about. She’s going to be a wonderful wife to you in so many ways…”

“Shut up,” Alistair groaned, rubbing his hand down his face. Honestly, he was this close to hurling Tegan out the window.

But before he could entertain that thought further, the men in his room were pressing him through the door and - oh Maker no - were also following him. He entered the queen's bed-chamber to find a gaggle of ladies with rosy cheeks flutter their lashes and lick their lips seductively at the men. But Alistair was anything but aroused when he finally turned to the large, four-poster bed, to see his wife and queen.

She was a perfect painting of innocence and virginity in crisp white sheets with a matching white nightdress. Her hair had been unbound and combed neatly and she sat as still as a statue, her back and posture absolutely perfect for a queen. The covers were pulled up to her lap, and her hands rested delicately entwined: her sparkling wedding ring the only jewellery that remained.

He refused to meet her eyes as he slowly walked around to the other side of the bed. He pulled the covers down amidst the chatting of the court and when he finally sat beside her, a good arms-length away from her, the court finally - finally - turned to leave. Several clapped, the women exchanged knowing looks with the queen, who smiled politely in return, and the men, now incredibly drunk, ambled from the room, wishing Alastair luck and reminding him of how lucky he was.

Finally, blessedly, the last person left the room and closed the door with a gentle click .

☆☆☆☆☆

To the new queen’s dismay, the first thing her new husband did as soon as the door had shut, was leap out of the bed as if he had been scalded. She frowned as he strode towards the door, and for an awful moment, she thought he was going to leave. But no: he reached to a small side table and found a key and locked the big oak door to her chambers, followed by locking the conjoining door from the king’s bedroom.

Still not saying anything, Alistar strode around the room, pulling open curtains and wardrobes, trunks and cabinets.

“What in the world are you doing?” she finally asked, her patience running thin. The man had barely spoken to her since their vows in the Chantry in the morning, and now he was examining every nook and cranny of her chambers?

He paused by her bookshelf and flicked her a glance over his shoulder. “Checking,” he replied, before shifting a few books.

“Whatever for?”

He sighed in exasperation. “To make sure that we are alone! Andraste’s arse, I thought they were going to stay at one point and watch to make sure we… we… erm…” he coughed and busied himself by peering under a chaise lounge.

She got out of bed and dropped to her hands and knees and looked under the bed. Thankfully, there was no one there, but she had to admit that the same fear had crossed her mind. Even though she knew that wasn’t the common practice, sometimes nobility did take things a bit too literally…

“We’re safe,” she sighed, placing her hands on her hips.”There’s no spy, no peephole, no nothing but us.”

Alistair finally stopped his fidgeting and turned to her from across the room. For the first time in a long time, they were utterly alone. Normally, they would’ve fallen into each other’s arms by now, but something was stopping her, and she could tell that something was also stopping him. They stood on opposite sides of her room, the bed imposing and glaring at them, whilst the distance between them felt as vast a chasm. And that was something neither of them had experienced before.

“Everything is different now, isn’t it?” she said quietly, looking down at her hands clasped before her.

Alistair also seemed to be studying his fingernails. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

She played with the hem of her pure white night-dress and frowned. Conversation with her now-husband had never been this stilted. So she switched tactic to one he would hopefully relax with: humour.

“You know, for a good ten minutes, I honestly thought they were all going to stay and watch,” she said with a wry smile. She knew they wouldn't - being brought up as a noble lady had earnt her some education in these things - but Alistair needed not to know that. For it worked:

“Maker! You did too?” he exclaimed, letting out a bark of laughter. “I didn’t think they would, but I began to doubt myself.”

She took a step towards him. “Hence your paranoia about spies?”

He nodded. “Yes, hence the… paranoia ,” he rolled his eyes at her choice of words, but there was a smirk on his lips, which made her heart soar.

The man she knew was peeking through, so she took another step closer. “It’s an archaic tradition anyway,” she said. “I know for a fact that they do not practice it in Orlais.”

Alistair snorted. “Perhaps the only redeeming factor of the Orlesians.”

“Hmm, that and the cheese,” she smiled and finally, finally , her new husband met her eyes.

They both burst into laughter and she saw his shoulders sag. She bit her lip and placed a hand on his cheek. “We don’t have to do anything if you don't want to,” she said earnestly.

His face reddened. “But I do! I do want to! With you, that is! I just… it’s just…” he trailed off, squeezing his eyes shut as he sought out the right words.

“The pressure of it all?” she supplied.

“Yes!” he gasped, relieved. “To know that we cannot come together unless it’s for a purpose. That purpose,” he mumbled, pointing to her stomach.

He was going inside himself again, so she took his hands in hers and gave a gentle squeeze. “Think of it this way… it’s for the good of the country that you fuck me senseless any time of day and night.”

Alistair spluttered at her bluntness but she just laughed as she slipped her hands from his and moved past him. There was a small table laden with food - to help keep up their energy for their excursions, no doubt - so she helped herself to a goblet of wine and poured one for her new husband. “You’re probably one of the only men in the world who can use that excuse,” she smiled, popping a grape in her mouth.

“You…” he grinned, walking over and taking the other goblet from her hand. “You are a minx.”

She pretended to be shocked. “You’ve only just realised? And here I thought you only married me because you knew I was.”

He put an arm around her shoulder and pulled him to her, kissing the top of her head. “One of many, many many reasons,” he replied.

They stood content in silence, their thoughts elsewhere when she finally spoke again. “I meant what I said. We don’t have to do anything we’re expected to do tonight.”

He gulped but nodded. “I… I know. And I appreciate that, but please don’t think it’s because I don’t want... need you,” he said quietly, his grip on her tightening.

“It’s not like we’ve not done it before,” she said, taking another sip of wine. “Even if this gown pretends to be evidence to the contrary.”

“Yes, and we have done it, many, many times…”

“And we will many more,” she confirmed, popping another grape in her mouth, the sweetness washing over her tongue. She turned to him: “but not tonight.”

“Thank the Maker I married you,” he murmured, downing the rest of his wine.

“But I do have a wicked idea…”

He glanced at her, eyebrows raised.

“We should take all of this food and eat it… in bed.”

He laughed, so genuine and delightful that her gut warmed pleasantly. Suddenly, in one swift motion, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, his other hand grabbing the cheese board and marched over to the bed. He threw her down, and she tried to not be too aroused by the action, but her pert nipples through her night-dress gave her away. Determined to make sure Alistair was as happy as could be, she reached forward and pulled him onto the bed and instead of kissing him, grabbed a handful of cheese and squashed it into his mouth.

The King of Ferelden snorted with laughter as he tried to eat the cheese, before doing the same back at his new queen. He pecked her on the nose and rose to collect more food and wine, and soon they were sitting leaning against the headboard, a delectable spread of food between them. And they gorged.

☆☆☆☆☆

The sun peered through the lattice windows of the queen’s chamber. The light was white and bright and brought Alistair blinking out of his deep slumber, momentarily confused at his location. He looked up at the canopy above him and duly noted the olive green drapes of the Queen’s bed. He’d never slept in here and was momentarily disoriented until he remembered the day before.

In his arms, still and sound asleep, was his wife. Her hair was splayed on the pillow and tickled his nose. He couldn’t see her face, but today it felt more real: this woman who had become his friend and companion, lover and hero of Ferelden, was now his wife… his queen . He gently propped himself onto his elbow, so as not to wake her, and gazed down at her face, noting the way the sunlight accentuated her high cheekbones. This wonderful, beautiful and exquisite woman is my wife , he thought with quiet awe. His chest flipped with uncontained joy and gone was the trepidation of the night before.

He studied her face as she slept, her nostrils flaring slightly as she sighed contently in her sleep. He lay back down and pulled her close to him, tightening his grip on her, and burying his face in her neck, inhaling her intoxicatingly sweet scent. The silk nightdress was so smooth and thin, and his hands couldn’t help but wander up and down, his fingers gently brushing the material over her skin, like water. Without realising it, he found himself rutting against her arse, which was tucked up cosily to his groin. He tried to still himself, she's still asleep ! But his wandering hands could not be stopped as one slowly crept up her torso and cupped a breast. The shift was so thin, that he felt her nipple harden with the barest of touches and that’s when he realised that her hips were moving too.

He pushed himself up to an elbow again, and her eyes, dark and hooded with desire stared back at him. Her lips parted with a hitched breath and he flicked her nipple with his thumb. Moving his hand downwards, he swallowed her breathy moan as his fingers teased the hem of her smalls, mouth crashing down on hers in simple, uncontained desire.

They had not so much as kissed since they had said their wedding vows in the Chantry, he realised. And as his tongue licked her upper lip, he swore to himself that he would never leave it so long to kiss her again. Her mouth opened with a sigh and their tongues danced as he continued to rut, and she squirmed against him as his hand finally slipped into her smalls in search of her bud.

He stifled a groan as he found her hand already there, gently touching herself. His fingers joined hers whilst they moved their hips and she guided him with her hand. He slipped a digit inside of her and she gasped, squirming against his erection, straining against his smalls, and he pictured feeling her growing wetness around his cock. With impatience, he slid her nightdress up so she was exposed and he pulled his cock out and rubbed it blissfully between her cheeks. Her soft skin was as smooth as silk as he rocked his hips, gaining pleasant friction with her arse.

“More…” she whispered, as her fingers joined his, pumping inside her. And with his control waning, he obliged eagerly.

Alistair rolled her onto her back and pulled her hands over her head as he pinned her down. Her legs fell open for him, and as much as he wanted - no needed - to be inside her, Alistair knew what his lady wife needed more was to be spoiled. If it were up to him, the king would love to stay buried between his wife’s legs for the rest of his days, as her taste was so sweet. He trailed kisses down her neck, and her hips lifted up to meet his, and his resolve almost broke as her core was teased against his cock. But being a Warden had one excellent perk: incomparable stamina.

He continued down, kissing her heaving breasts as they rose and fell erratically with her breathing. Playing with one in his hand, he took her other nipple in his mouth and sucked lightly, her perfect bud hard and round in his mouth. With his hand, he squeezed her other one tight, and had her gasping: but he was nowhere near done. He let go of her breast in his mouth with a pop and glanced up at her to see her mouth open and delicious, her tongue darting out to lick her lips. He grinned and kissed her stomach, then pulled back and positioned himself on his elbows, taking in the sight of her splayed out on the bed, rosy cheeks and breathy moans all for him. He pressed his lips to her knee, then with each kiss, his stubble tickled the inside of her thigh as he moved up her legs, finally reaching that gloriously warm and wet apex in between that was just begging for him to taste.

Desire surged through him and without wasting any more time, he pulled her legs over his shoulders and licked her dripping wet folds. She cried out in pleasure as he rolled his tongue over her, and her fingers grabbed his head, nails digging into his scalp as he worked his mouth. She tasted as good as she smelt, and her hips rose up to meet his mouth, jittering as she climbed higher to her peak. He wanted to spoil her because she deserved it and more. So he reached up with one hand and squeezed a breast and flicked a nipple again, loving the way her hips bucked in response. Her nails dug deeper into his scalp and raked his chestnut hair as his other hand kneaded her arse, lifting her up so he had the best angle to eat her out.

He teased and tortured her with his mouth, and finally sucked on her clit.

“Ah...ah...Alist-ah!” she cried out, her thighs clamping around his head as she came. He tasted her orgasm on his tongue and without missing a beat, rose and positioned himself at her entrance. Her eyes flicked open to look at him as she felt him move, and a tiny smile pulled at the corner of her exquisite mouth. That was all he needed.

So tormentingly slowly, Alistair finally entered her, the warmth and wetness so indescribably perfect that he couldn’t help but let out a moan. He fit her perfectly and when sheathed completely, he paused and stared into her eyes. Her breathing was still fast from her orgasm and he captured her mouth with his, letting her taste herself. Then he rolled his hips and started to slowly make love to her, not once tearing his gaze from her face. He noticed every single expression that flickered before him as he thrust and teased: a hand on her hip and another once more on her breasts.

She wrapped her legs around him and he plunged unbelievably deeper inside of her, making them gasp and moan in unison as they moved together in a rhythm as old as time. As they moved, the pleasure and pressure mounted, but Alistair had much more control than a boy still wet behind the ears - he wanted to give her so much more before he -

“Ah!” he gasped, as she took him by surprise. She had crossed her ankles behind his back and with her strong legs, twisted so that he was forced to roll and let her sit on top of him. Incredibly, they did not lose touch, and the angle was different but just as pleasurable. She smirked down at him as she pressed her hands to his chest and began to slowly roll her hips, her breasts rising and falling beautifully as she took him. Alistair was entranced as he watched his love move quicker with a growing need and he held her hips tightly to control her pace. But she didn’t need any assistance, as she moved faster and faster, his thrusts coming up to meet hers, flesh slapping flesh. Her moans crescendoed, and the erotic sight before him of his wife move above him with a wonton need to claim her pleasure...well he could feel his control slipping. He wanted to spill himself inside of her, and see his seed drip down her legs…

“Fuck!” she cried, reaching her second orgasm, as Alistair dug his fingers into her thighs to stop himself from joining her peak of pleasure. She fell back and Alistair seized his moment to regain control and topped her again.

Fully sheathed once more, he deliberately moved slowly, as he knew that if he picked up the pace then he wouldn't be able to hold on much longer. But she caught his eye and licked her lips.

“Please, Alistair,” she panted, her hands digging into his hips, urging him to move faster.

“Mmmm?” he replied, biting her earlobe and slipping out of her, making her whimper.

“What do you want?” he teased, stroking himself as she looked up at him with uncloaked desire.

“It’s more than what I want ...it’s what I need ,” she whispered, sitting up to meet her lips with his, her hand trailing down his chest and abdomen, making his muscles tense in anticipation.

They kissed delicately, fervently, noses touching, breath mingling. “And what do you need?”

She pulled away and lay back down on the bed, her legs falling open. She traced one finger down the length of her, and his eyes followed.

“Take me, my king,” she begged, touching herself in front of him.

Almost roughly, because he couldn't bear to not be in her again, he flipped her over, brought her to her knees and lined himself up to her entrance. He kissed her salty back, sleek with sweat and breathed in her ear. “As my queen commands.”

He thrusted inside, and she took all of him. She threw her head back and he grabbed her neck, pulling her up to him for a searing kiss, their tongues dancing as he thrusted fiercely, the globe of her ass bouncing against his abdomen. She moaned in his mouth as she touched herself; legs shaking as he pounded into her over and over; sweat mingling, with moans loud and needy, filling the chamber. He pumped with such animalistic need and she cried in pleasure and she gripped the bedsheets for support as he took her, unrelenting in his passion.

With a shaking arm, he reached around and touched her pearl and she cried out, her orgasm sudden and huge.

“Fill me!” she pleaded as she continued to come.

He snapped and finally, wonderfully, he reached his peak too and exploded inside of her, his vision blurred and black at the edges, as he emptied his seed inside of her - for the first time. And Maker, did it feel incredible to finish like this; in a union of bodies so perfect and natural.

Alistair, as breathless as if he had just swam the length of the Waking Sea, collapsed on top of her, laughing with joy.

“I...I love...you,” he panted, their legs entwined and he wasn't sure where his body ended and hers began.

They stayed like that for some time, and Alistair was tempted to fall asleep just like this, but she wiggled underneath him.

“Mmmm, as much as I love you inside of me,” she murmured;” you are crushing me somewhat.”

He reluctantly slipped out of her, trailing kisses all down her back and arse, making her hairs stand on end and her toes curl. He gathered her into his arms, the sheets around them a total mess, but he was loath to care as she lightly ran her fingers over him. His limbs felt like jelly, all loose and relaxed.

“Hey, Alistair?”

“Hmm?” he replied, barely opening his eyes.

“There’s some cheese leftover from last night.”

He sat up suddenly and looked over to where she pointed.

“Cheese for breakfast?” he asked.

She smiled and nodded. “Cheese for breakfast,” she confirmed.

fin

[daveeddiggsit]

No Return

Note: so this is not a new fic. i actually posted it back in 2017 (but deleted all my smut from this blog about a year afterwards haha we love being impulsive). but i’m over myself now, so i’m reposting! a lot of you have been asking about it, so... here you go. posted for all of y’all to enjoy again.

Word Count: 4.7k

Pairing: Daveed Diggs x Reader

Warnings: smut. cursing.

Summary: Diggs loses a bet which results in him owing you a lap dance.

Parties at Rafa’s place were always the best; the drinks were great, the music was amazing, the atmosphere was never dull, but the best part about them were the incredible people that made up each one; you were never bored. There was always something to do whether you were talking to people, dancing, playing drinking games, or just drinking in general. And that’s why whenever you were told that there was going to be a party at Rafael Casal’s apartment, you never turned it down...even if you ended up showing up late.

“Well, look at who finally decided to show up.” You heard a familiar voice say as you walked through the door to Rafa’s place. Daveed grinned widely at you before he slid an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close to him as you walked deeper into the apartment. “My favorite!”

Daveed was one of your closest friends and if you were being honest, it would have been a lie if you said you didn’t want him to become something more than that. The two of you often flirted and were constantly together (these occurrences happened so often that there were many times people believed you were dating), but neither of you had made a real move. You knew how you felt toward him, and he was giving you signs that he felt the same way, but no true actions were made by either party. So that’s why it stayed the way it was between you two: just close friends who often flirted with each other.

“Aw, I’m your favorite?” You asked, raising your voice so he could hear you over the loud music that was pumping through Rafa’s speakers.

“Uh, yeah,” he stated as if it was obvious, “but don’t tell anyone else. It’s a secret between you and me.” He whispered in your ear as you entered the kitchen.

Yeah, he had definitely downed a few drinks before you got here.

“Diggs, I’m pretty sure everyone heard you when you shouted it.” You laughed as you plucked the cup half-full of alcohol from his grasp, draining it of its contents. He pouted at you once you handed him back an empty cup.

“Y/N, hey! It’s been forever since I’ve seen you!” Adrienne said from beside Rafa who was pouring out a few drinks.

“Hey!” You pulled away from Daveed’s grasp to give her a hug. She’d been away in Canada for the last few weeks shooting for a new project she was working on. “I’ve missed you! Why’d you have to leave me alone to deal with these boys for so long?”

Adrienne laughed while Rafael furrowed his eyebrows.

“Oh, so you didn’t miss me? I see how it is, Y/N, I see how it is.” He feigned hurt, before pushing a couple of newly filled cups towards you and Daveed.

You rolled your eyes at him. “We had lunch a few days ago, Cash, it hasn’t been that long since I’ve seen you.”

“But so much has changed since then.”

You chuckled before taking a sip. “Like what? Did you finally finish that song you’ve been working on?”

“No.” Rafael replied before he smiled at Adrienne beside him. “Unlike Diggs, I am no longer a single and lonely Bay Boy.”

Daveed’s eyebrows furrowed as he cocked his head. “Yo, who said I was lone—?”

“You guys are finally together? Oh my god, congrats!” You cut in with widened eyes.

They both grinned at each other before Rafa leaned down to kiss her forehead.

“Aww,” you gushed, “you two are couple goals already.”

A few seconds passed before you felt Daveed’s arm drape around your shoulders again.

“You know, we could be couple goals too.” He said, looking down at you with a smirk.

You rolled your eyes, pushing him away. “Ha, you wish, Diggs.”

You laughed it off because you knew he was too tipsy to be serious. He always flirted with you like this, but why did this time feel so different?

A few drinks later, you were beginning to feel the familiar light-hearted, buzzing feeling course throughout your body, giving you a boost of energy. You had drifted away from Daveed and Rafa to roam through the house and catch up with people you hadn’t seen since your Hamilton days. You were talking with Adrienne and Ari when you heard your name being called from behind you.

“Aye, Y/L/N!”

You turned your head to see Daveed standing next to a table a few feet away. 

“Diggs!” You responded in the same playful tone.

He grinned at you before waving you over. “Come play Flip Cup with me.”

“Really?” You quirked an eyebrow. “You lose every time you play against me, D.”

“I’m feeling confident today. I’ve been practicing.”

You tried not to laugh as you rose from your seat and approached him. “Practicing?”

“Bruh,” Rafa snickered at his friend from the other end of the table. “You played a few games before this and won two in a row. That ain’t practicing.”

You let a smug grin show up on your face as you glanced back up at your best friend. “Daveed, I am the queen of Flip Cup, okay? You can’t beat me. Nobody ever has, and nobody ever will. That’s a fact.”

“I’m pretty sure I can beat you today, Y/N.” He said bluntly. Wow, he was forward when he was drunk. “I have a good feeling about this.”

“Ha,” you huffed out a laugh, “wanna bet?"

“What do you propose, oh mighty Queen of Flip Cup?”

You thought for a second. What was something you knew would make him think twice about challenging you? Something that would make him step down from this newfound cockiness he embodied.

When the idea formed in your head, you sent him a sly grin. “Winner gets a lap dance from the loser.”

You distinctly remembered an earlier conversation with him where he stated that he couldn’t dance. You knew it was untrue due to the times you’d seen him dance at the club or during some of the numbers in Hamilton, but you also knew that the wager wasn’t something he’d necessarily jump on (despite the confidence boost the alcohol had supplied him).

Rafa led the mini crowd that had formed around you in a chorus of “ooo”s.

“Deal.”

You looked up at Daveed in surprise. You hadn’t expected him to agree to the terms so easily.

“Diggs, that means if you lose— sorry, when you lose, you have to give me a lap dance.”

“I know.” He said seriously.

“And you’re good with that?”

“If it happens, which it won’t because I’m gonna win, then yes.” He stated, his mouth forming into a confident smile. “I’m good with that.”

Fine, he wanted a challenge? You were going to give him one.

“Alright, then.” You said, narrowing your eyes at him. “Game on."

⋆﹥━━━━━━━   ♛   ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

Daveed lost. Badly.

So badly, in fact, that you actually felt bad for him. So you tweaked it so it was the best out of five games...and even then, he still lost.

Oh well, it’s not like you didn’t warn him.

When the third game ended and Daveed realized his defeat, he threw his head back and groaned.

“Aww, don’t be such a sore loser. You lost fair and square, Diggs. ” You teased with a smile, wrapping your arms around his torso to hug him from behind. “I warned you. I told you I was the queen of Flip Cup, but you didn’t listen.”

“Those cups were rigged, Y/N.” He stated, turning around in your grasp so he could hug you back.

You laughed, rolling your eyes. “Say whatever you want to make yourself feel better. Nothing’s gonna change the fact that you owe me a lap dance.”

He was quiet for a moment before he murmured something. “You know I can’t dance, right?”

“First of all, yes you can. And secondly, lap dances are different, Diggs.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Yes they are. And if you don’t think they’re different, you dance at parties all the fucking time. You should be able to handle an easy lap dance.”

He lifted his head back up from your shoulder to look down at you. “But Y/N...”

You let out a laugh before you patted his cheek lightly. “You dug yourself into this hole, loser. Guess you’re just gonna have to figure it out because you’re not getting out of this one.”

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The next day you woke up to someone knocking on your door. In sweats and an old t-shirt, you made your way over to unlock it, squinting your eyes to adjust to the bright light. The slight hangover you had wasn’t really helping you get out of your groggy state.

“Daveed?” You asked, realizing who your visitor was once your vision adjusted. “What are you doing here so early?”

He was dressed in a yellow Oaklandish tank top that showed off his toned arms/shoulders and dark blue jeans with a brown belt buckled just enough to let them sit loosely on his hips. You also noticed that he decided to rock his glasses today.

You snapped your eyes up to his and away from his figure that left you breathless. You totally had not just checked him out.

“If your definition of early is 2 o’clock in the afternoon, I think you may need to reevaluate some things and consider fixing that sleep schedule of yours.” He replied with his lips turning up into an amused grin.

“Shut up, I had a late night last night.” You mumbled, turning around to walk away, leaving the door open so he could let himself into your apartment. “And you did too. I’m surprised you’re not asleep right now.” You glanced back at him to see him shrug.

“I had to meet Bill and Jon at the studio at 10. I’ve been up since, like, 9:30.”

“Damn, Diggs, you’re gonna have to teach me your ways.”

“Caffeine.” He chuckled, putting on his signature grin. “It works miracles.”

You returned the smile, before sending him a curious look. “So, why are you here? Not that I mind or anything, it’s good to see you, but you haven’t been over in like a month and a half.”

“Exactly! It’s been awhile since we’ve hung out alone, so I thought it’d be dope if we chilled and watched movies or something.” He replied before he went to ramble on. “I mean— only if you want to. If you’re really tired, I can leave so you can get some more sl—”

“No, no, it’s fine! That sounds great.” You cut him off and placed a hand on one of his toned arms to reassure him. 

“You sure?”

“Yeah!” You responded. “Just let me take a quick shower and we can start in like 20ish minutes.”

“A 20 minute shower counts as a quick shower?” He questioned with a teasing look.

“Yes,” you said, “or would you rather it be 45ish minutes?”

“20ish minutes is good. Have fun with your quick shower. Though, I think it would be more fun if I joined.” A tiny but noticeable smirk made its way onto Daveed’s face.

You laughed when he sent you a playful wink, dropping your hand from his arm to walk towards your room. “You wish, Daveed Diggs.”

“You have no idea.” He mumbled under his breath (inaudible to your ears) before he let his eyes follow your retreating figure.

“Maybe you could set up the movie in the meantime? It’s your turn to choose. The remote’s on the coffee table and you know where the popcorn and shit is in the kitchen. I’ll be out soon. If you need anything, yell.” You said before closing the door to your room.

Daveed sent a thumbs up in your direction even though he knew you couldn’t see it before he made his way to your living room.

Little did you know, Daveed had something else planned.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━   ♛   ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

When you emerged from your shower, you quickly dried yourself and combed through your now damp hair. After that, you exited your room and entered your living room to see that it was completely dark. Confused, you surveyed the room to look for your best friend, but there was no sign of him at all.

Did he leave? If he did, he didn’t text you or anything to let you know.

“D?” You called out, walking further into the room.

With each step you took, the more you realized how this seemed like a scene from a horror film. You weren’t a fan of them, but a few months back Daveed and Rafael had pretty much forced you to have a scary movie marathon with them.

“Daveed Diggs, I swear to God. If you’re trying to scare me right now, I will—”

You squeaked when a pair of arms snaked their way around your waist from behind. Daveed’s voice had come seemingly from out of nowhere. “You’ll what?”

“Kick your ass.” You glared at him, quickly turning around to push him away. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

He laughed, smiling brightly. “I’m sorry, Y/N.”

“No, you’re not.” You grumbled, moving to sit on your couch. Daveed followed you.

“You right. It was so worth it.” He grinned at you, causing you to roll your eyes at him. You tried to stay mad at him, but it was damn near impossible when he was looking at you like that.

“We’re not friends anymore.” You stated, crossing your arms.

“What, why?” He asked, his grin dropping into a pout.

“You were mean to me, Diggs! How dare you scare me in my own home!” You were laughing internally.

“Okay, fine. I’m sorry for real this time. What can I do to make it up to you?”

When he asked, you contemplated it for a few moments before you looked up at him with a smirk.

“What?” He asked.

“Well, you still owe me that lap dance…”

He groaned, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back on the couch. “I thought you forgot about that.”

“Nope.” You said, your smirk forming into a smug grin. You had the upper hand now. “How could I forget you losing a bet against me, resulting in a lap dance from the great Daveed Diggs himself?”

After a couple of seconds, he sighed, opening his eyes and tilting his face towards you. “If I do this now, will I win back your friendship?”

“I’ll think about it.” You said, causing him to give you a deadpanned look. You laughed before you spoke again. “Yeah, I guess we could be friends again. But it has to be good.”

Daveed sighed again before he straightened himself up. “I don’t even know how to give a good lap dance, Y/N.”

“Improvise. C’mon, D, you’re great at improv. Treat it like you treat a freestyle. Just go with the flow.” You smiled widely at him.

“Fine.” He said, getting up from his spot next to you. “But I’m only pulling through with this because I like you.”

“Aww, you like me?” You asked teasingly to mask the actual feeling that was coursing through you. You continued to grin at him as he pulled out his phone to scroll through his music library. When he finally settled on a song by The Weeknd, he turned to you once he pressed play.

“Do I start now?”

“Yes,” you laughed. “C’mon, you know how a lap dance works. You’re not a novice when it comes to these things, stop fucking around.”

You could see him smile and rub his arm before he looked away for a second. When he started to slowly sway to the beat of the song, it was extremely hard for you to stifle your laugh. Your best friend was about to give you a lap dance and you could not take him seriously.

He continued to dance to the beat for a bit as he stared you down with a smirk. He was doing this shit on purpose. He was joking around until you couldn’t contain your laughter any longer.

“Diggs, I can’t take you seriously like this. I can—” You wheezed. “I just can’t.”

Your laughter and the slow, sexy beats of the music were the only audible things in your apartment until Daveed spoke again. 

“Are you ready for me, Y/N?” His smooth, low voice washed over you.

You let out yet another giggle. “Don’t make it sound so sexual.”

“It's supposed to sound sexual, Y/N, it’s a fucking lap dance.” He chuckled, now standing directly in front of you.

“Alright, show me what you got, Bay Boy.”

You continued to laugh at him as you watched him, but the moment he straddled your lap, you stopped. His arms were on each side of your head, using the couch to steady himself over you as his hips began to slowly grind against you. That’s when the atmosphere in the room completely changed.

Your eyes widened slightly when you saw him bite his bottom lip in concentration. When you envisioned Daveed giving you a lap dance the night prior, you didn’t think it would be like this...it was flustering you more than you thought it would. Before you knew it, you were struggling to control your movements. Your fists were clenching and unclenching as you so desperately tried to keep them anchored to your sides.

As if he had read your mind, Daveed murmured, “You can touch me, Y/N. Don’t be afraid.”

If you weren’t turned on before, you definitely were now. His gravelly voice paired with his hot breath right next to your ear caused you to shiver, making goosebumps appear across your entire body.

Then, you finally let your hands wander. They traveled up his chest to rest on his shoulders, then back down again to move under the hem of his tank top so you could feel his bare and strong torso. Sure it was a bold move, but the more and more Daveed grinded on you, the less and less you cared. When his tank top rode up to the point where you could see all of his abs, he paused to stand up and quickly get rid of the article of clothing before he came back to straddle you again. 

Your heart was beating wildly in your chest as you looked up at your best friend. He looked undeniably attractive when he was on top of you shirtless and with his glasses on. Every feeling you had ever felt for him came crashing down on you at that moment and that’s when you just about lost your self-control. Part of your brain was screaming at you, saying that you were about to cross a line that you could never cross again...but at the same time, all of your cares had disappeared.

You used your newfound courage to cup Daveed’s face in both of your hands and pull him into a deep kiss. He gasped softly, surprised at the sudden contact, but quickly eased into it. 

You had just passed the point of no return.

You didn’t know what to expect when you decided to kiss him, but it was better than you could have imagined. When you pulled back, his mouth was slightly dropped in awe and one of the sides slowly twitched up into a soft smile. (It was kind of adorable.)

“Daveed, I like you.” You blurted, short of breath.

His face broke out into a full grin. “I like you too, Y/N.” 

“No,” you shook your head, moving your hands from his cheeks down to his shoulders. “I mean like— like like you.”

“I know,” he chuckled. “I mean, I figured given what just happened a few seconds ago. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

You shrugged, breaking eye contact with him. You subconsciously traced one of your thumbs across his collarbone. “I was afraid of rejection, I guess.”

“Are you serious?”

“What?” You asked, sounding offended.

Daveed caught your gaze again, pushing a strand of your hair behind your ear. “Y/N, I’ve had like the biggest fuckin’ crush on you since Ari introduced us.”

“Wait, really?”

“Mhm,” he hummed. “I’m actually really surprised you didn’t notice.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about your crush earlier, Diggs?” You voiced, giving him a pointed look.

He gave you a shy smile when he moved off of you to sit beside you, still facing you. “Same reason as you.”

“You know what? I’m not even mad about not knowing sooner.” You said. “I’m glad we found out like this.”

“You’re just happy I gave you a lap dance with my amazing skills.” He teased with a laugh of his own.

You laughed again, and pushed at his chest so he could lay on his back and let you crawl on top of him to straddle his waist. “Not gonna lie, I didn’t think you had it in you, Diggs.”

His jaw dropped completely as he looked up at you. “But you said that I could do a lap dance when even I said I couldn’t!”

“That’s true, but to be fair, I never said you couldn’t do a lap dance. I just didn’t think you’d do as well as you did.”

Your response brought yet another smile to his face as you leaned closer to him. “I’mma take that as a compliment.” He said softly.

At this point, the song Daveed had chosen had ended a while ago and the lap dance was long over.

“Good.” You responded before you kissed him again.

This one was different from the first. It started off soft, but quickly turned passionate and heated. As your mouths moved against each other, Daveed’s hands moved from your hips up to the hem of your shirt, his fingertips grazing your bare sides, leaving goosebumps in their wake. The only word you could use to describe this feeling was just complete bliss.

When you reached down to Daveed’s belt buckle, he shivered, causing you to smile against his lips.

Then he pulled away, panting. “Y/N…” he breathed. “Are you sure about this? You don’t have to— fuck.” He cursed as you pulled back completely to unbuckle his pants. “I don’t wanna push y—” 

“Daveed,” You said, before pausing quickly to put a hand on his scruff, tenderly moving your thumb to caress his cheek. “I’m absolutely sure about this. Now please, shut the hell up so I can blow you.”

You smirked when you saw his eyes widen and when you crawled off of him to go in between his legs, you heard a quiet, “Okay.”

Wasting no more time, you removed his jeans and boxers to free his erection. You could see Daveed’s chest begin to rise and fall quicker when you took his length into your hand and pressed a kiss to the tip of it.

“Oh, shiiit.” He drawled softly when your mouth wrapped around him, slowly sucking your way down as far as you could. As you began to bob your head up and down, Daveed’s breathing increased with each suck and occasional flick of your tongue.

Now, he was fully panting. He lifted his head up to look down at you, causing him to groan. After a minute or two, he brought a hand down to move some strands of hair out of your face.

“Fuck, Y/N,” he babbled, “I...I shouldn’t...oh God, I shouldn’t be this fucking close.”

You slowly pulled off of him and he brought you back up to kiss him again.

“You,” Daveed breathed against your lips, “are way too fucking good at that.”

You grinned.

“And,” he continued, “this clothing situation is a bit unbalanced, don’t you think?” 

His thumbs grazed the waistband of your sweatpants. When you nodded, you pulled them down along with your underwear. You moved off of him to take them off completely and remove your shirt and bra, leaving you just as bare as he was.

You climbed back on top of him, straddling his washboard abs, when he ushered you to move up. You obeyed, moving forward an inch or two, but Daveed shook his head and grabbed your thighs, moving you himself.

“Daveed, what are you doing?”

“Returning the favor.” He said simply, bringing you over to his face.

“Oh,” you breathed when you felt his tongue lightly touch your clit.

The man’s mouth worked miracles from between your thighs. Daveed kept you still above his skilled tongue, occasionally giving your ass a squeeze.

“D-Daveed,” you gasped, your mouth forming a perfect ‘O’ as his tongue lightly circled your clit before he brought fully into his mouth to suck gently.

This was the best head you’d gotten...well ever, actually. He wanted you to feel the best you’d ever felt and he definitely achieved that.

Before you knew it, you were reaching your high, climaxing as you shouted Daveed’s name, not caring how loud it echoed throughout your apartment. When you crawled back down Daveed’s body, the two of you shared a sloppy kiss as you both breathed heavily.

Although you just came, you weren’t completely satisfied. You still wanted him... needed to feel him inside you.

You moved to position yourself above his cock, but he made you pause before you could do so.

“Y/N, stop,” Daveed panted. “Condom.”

“Don’t need it.” You replied quickly. “I’m on the pill.”

“Oh, fuck yes.” He replied, releasing you so you could resume what you were about to do.

You breathed out a laugh before you slowly sank down onto his length, making both you and him release a groan. 

“You are so fucking gorgeous,” he gasped. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this.”

Your fingers ghosted along his stubble-ridden jaw. “I think I have an idea.”

When you adjusted to his size, you began to bounce and he helped you, meeting each of your thrusts as he guided your hips onto him.

Your lips met Daveed’s yet again and you captured every moan that fell from his mouth, he did the same for you. As your pace quickened, so did each grunt, pant, and moan. You felt your pussy begin to clench again like it had when you came before.

“I’m gonna come,” Daveed said quickly against your mouth.

“Fuck.” You groaned. “Me too, D.”

“Come for me, sweetheart.” He breathed, bringing a hand up from your hip to cup your cheek. “You can do it.”

And you did.

Your walls clenched around him and you gasped, letting your orgasm wash over you in waves. Daveed came shortly after you, and continued to thrust, riding the both of you through your highs.

As you came down and pulled yourself off him, you collapsed, exhausted, halfway leaning on him and halfway laying on your couch. You moved a hand up to rest on his chest again, closing your eyes in bliss as you relaxed against him.

After a minute or two of silence, Daveed broke it.

“Wait, so...does this mean we’re friends again?” 

You looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. He was still on that? Wow, what a dork. “After this? Everything that just happened?” You asked bewildered. “God, I hope not.”

“Fine,” he said letting his signature bright smile show up on his face, still breathing heavily. “More than friends?”

Your heart fluttered in your chest and you grinned widely back at him. You leaned up to softly kiss his jaw before you gave him your answer.

“Way more than just friends, D.”

[blueskrugs]

Four Times Fate Brought You to Vince Dunn, and One Time You Found Him on Purpose

I wrote this simultaneously with another Vince 4+1 (coming tomorrow, hopefully!) and yelled to @captainpetty​ and Erin​ about them constantly. Sorry guys. 

length: 3k words

An Accident You met Vince Dunn for the first time in an emergency room in St. Louis. Normally you worked the pediatric floor, and not on the night shift, but sometimes you floated to the general emergency room for an extra shift because, well, money is money.

You liked pediatrics because dealing with kids was far easier than adults, in your opinion, even when parents could sometimes be just as difficult as a screaming toddler. But at least screaming toddlers could be calmed down with the promise of a sticker or a lollipop. 

“Hey, can you pick up the new guy that just came in?” one of the other nurses asked as she breezed past you to handle one of her patients. “I think they said something about him being important around here.”

“Being important” meant that, when you pulled the curtain back to face your newest patient, you came face-to-face with a very drunk Vince Dunn and a significantly less drunk Colton Parayko. You simply raised an eyebrow and moved over to the computer to start charting.

“I’m not really sure I want to know what happened here, but I think I have to ask,” you said, trying to ignore the fact that you were pretty sure Vince was whispering to Colton about you.

“Is there any way, like, our training staff-”

“And Petro!”

“God, yeah, and Petro, won’t find out about this? Because I wasn’t supposed to let anything happen to him, and we have a game tomorrow,” Colton finished. 

That really didn’t answer your question, and you weren’t sure how anything that brought the two of them into an ER after midnight was going to be easily hidden for a game the next night. You turned then, properly looked at the boys, took in Vince sitting on the bed with his feet swinging above the ground like a child. His shirt was a little wet with what was probably beer, and, when you looked closer, blood. His left hand was wrapped in a bar rag–that you really hoped had been clean when they got it–that was definitely blood-stained. 

Colton explained to you, as you started an IV in Vince’s right arm and cleaned the gash in his palm that would definitely need stitches, that they had gone out in spite of their captain telling them it was a bad idea. Vince had had one beer too many and had ended up on a table, then fell off the table, catching his fall on someone’s pint of beer. By the way Vince winced when you moved his hand around to clean it, you were pretty sure his wrist sprained, too.

You hovered a bit as one of the ER doctors came in and checked out Vince’s hand and wrist. Vince was quiet, but you could feel him watching you as you fidgeted around the small room. By the time everything was ready for him to be sent home, he was definitely more sober himself, but that also meant he was lucid enough to be embarrassed about how he ended up in the ER. You watched as Colton led him out of the ER and to a waiting Uber, and you wondered just how the hell they were planning on hiding his hand from everyone the next day.

At a Bar The second time you met Vince Dunn was, somewhat ironically, in a bar. You had seen him as soon as you walked in, laughing with some of his teammates in the corner, but you diligently ignored him as you headed to the bar with your friend to get a drink. Why would he remember some random ER nurse from over a month ago, when he had been drunk? You shook your head, determined to ignore the loud hockey boys in the corner and have a good night yourself. 

You had been at the bar almost an hour and had done a pretty good job of ignoring and avoiding the hockey players in the corner. You headed over to the bar for a second drink, when you felt a hand press against your lower back. You tensed, twisting around as much as you could in the crowded bar to see who was behind you.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” Vince said, but he didn’t move his hand. He raised his left hand to get the attention of the bartender, and you saw the flash of a still-healing scar on his palm, pink even in the dim light of the bar. “You were that nurse from the ER, yeah? I never thanked you for taking care of my drunk ass that night.” He smiled, then, wide and genuine, hand still warm against the small of your back, and you relaxed a little bit. 

You were surprised that he recognized you. You’d heard stories of the younger players on the Blues wheeling multiple girls at once; you vaguely wondered how they kept track of them, much less a nobody nurse he’d met once. 

You didn’t say that, though, just smiled back at him as the bartender slid two beers in front of you. You reached into your pocket to pay but Vince grabbed your wrist.

“Nah, this one’s on me. Said I had to thank you, didn’t I?” he told you. You tried not to think about how green his eyes were up close. 

You shook yourself again; you didn’t need this. You didn’t need this. Besides, how many more times could you run into Vince Dunn?

In Enemy Territory It was in Pittsburgh, of all places, when you saw Vince Dunn again. One of your brothers had moved out there for work, and you were visiting him for a week, helping out with babysitting his kids, hanging with your sister-in-law. You hadn’t even thought to check the Blues’ schedule; you had no idea they were on a road trip to play the Penguins. 

You were standing in line at a Starbucks, your two-year-old nephew balanced on your hip, your sister-in-law still outside with the other kids.  You heard the door open behind you, and a loud group came in, but now you were focused on ordering before the toddler you were carrying decided he got bored and threw a tantrum. You were struggling to reach your card one handed when someone else reached past you.

“Add it to ours,” the voice belonging to the arm said. You spun, only to see Colton Parayko looking down at you with a smile. You looked over his shoulder to see several of his teammates shoving each other playfully in line. That would explain the loud group you’d heard come in. Colton was introducing himself to the two year old you were carrying, but you were still watching his teammates. Vince caught your eye from where he was trying to put Jordan Kyrou in a headlock and grinned, immediately letting go of Rouzy. You smiled back, a little caught off guard. 

You stepped to the side as you waited.  Before long, you were joined by Vince, both of you trying to ignore the catcalls from his other teammates. 

“And who’s this little guy?” Vince cooed, actually ignoring you aside from a quick smile. You raised an eyebrow a little bit at his baby-voice.

Your nephew tucked his face into your neck, suddenly shy. “Oh, come on now,” you said to him. “This is Jake, he’s my brother’s youngest,” you explained to Vince. Vince continued to talk to your nephew in that same high, gentle voice, until he was giggling and chattering right back. The barista called your name, and Jake picked that moment to decide he was done being patient and started fussing, very close to crying and screaming. You couldn’t balance two drinks and two sandwiches as well as a fidgeting toddler, and you groaned. 

“Here give him to me,” Vince said, reaching out to take him before you could protest. Jake settled immediately, and you glared at him a little. You could hear Vince talking to him more as you scrambled to pick up all of your order. He followed you outside, and you ignored the interested stares of the rest of the guys. 

He continued to hold Jake as you handed off your sister-in-law’s half of the order, stood there to chat with her and the other kids, long after Sammy came out with Vince’s drink. He used the same voice he had used to befriend Jake on the other two kids, but he talked and laughed with you and Sarah in the next breath, even teasing her for the Pens shirt she was wearing. 

You were doing your best not to think about how that voice was making you melt every time he used it. His teammates eventually dragged him away to get back to the hotel before the game, but not before Vince talked you into exchanging phone numbers. 

You tried telling yourself that you were never going to use it. 

In a Grocery Store You were pretty sure the universe was laughing at you at this point. Your mom had invited herself over for dinner, and you had nothing in your apartment to cook. Which meant you rushed to a grocery store on your lunch break, and you ended up at a different one than you usually went to because it was closer to work.

Why couldn’t all grocery stores be laid out the same? You were trying very hard to make it look like you weren’t turning in circles as you tried to find everything you were looking for when your phone buzzed. You pulled it out with a huff, fully expecting it to your mom again, but instead the name on your screen read, “Vince Dunn.” 

You paused. It had been nearly another month since Pittsburgh, and neither one of you had texted the other one. You were (mostly) perfectly content with leaving it that way, but clearly Vince had other ideas. The screen had gone dark, but it lit up again, reminding you it was there. You read the text, the simple words “you look a little lost.” With that you spun around, and, sure enough, Vince was standing a couple feet behind you, leaning against a shelf with a smirk on his face.

“I don’t have time for this,” you said, turning back around and starting to push your cart in a direction that hopefully ended in pasta. 

“Hey, wait,” Vince said, taking a couple annoyingly long steps to catch up to you and put a hand on your cart to stop you. “Lemme help. It’ll be faster. I’ve been watching you walk in circles for like ten minutes.” You blushed as he smirked again, but his eyes were soft. 

You wanted so badly to just push past Vince, forget you had ever met him, and then met him again and again, delete his number from your phone, but you also knew he was right; he would probably get you out of this damned grocery store a lot faster than you could probably manage on your own, and maybe you really wanted to spend a little time with him, too. 

So you sighed, handed Vince the list you had scribbled on the back of a gas receipt, and let him lead you around the grocery store. He let you rant about your mom, and then about work, only pausing to offer opinions on the food he was putting in your cart. After a while, you realized you had actually managed to get everything on your list, but now Vince was wandering aimlessly around the store, sneaking junk food into your cart. You raised an eyebrow as you watched him slip a package of cookie mix behind the box of pasta. He looked up at you as you leaned on the cart handle, sheepish now that he’d been caught.

“What?I like snickerdoodles,” he said in defense.

You shook your head and pulled the package out of the cart. “I can make better snickerdoodles from scratch, dude.” You looked closer at everything in your cart. “And I don’t like jalapeno Cheetos,” you said, throwing the bag at Vince.

“Is that a promise on the snickerdoodles?” Of course he focused on that.

“I don’t know, maybe. Now go put the damn Cheetos back.”

Vince laughed. You willed yourself to focus on getting out of the store and home to cook dinner, not just kissing Vince in the middle of the baking aisle. 

“Don’t knock ‘em until you try ‘em. Thommer’s gotten the whole team addicted at this point,” Vince told you over his shoulder as he went to put the Cheetos back from wherever he found them. You turned around and headed back in what you thought was the direction of checkout. Vince found you again as you stood in line. You had honestly thought the whole Cheetos thing would be the end of this interaction with him, but apparently not. 

“Don’t you have your own grocery shopping to do?” you asked, realizing just how much time Vince had spent with you in the store. “Instead of helping some random girl?” you added, allowing the insecurity you were suddenly feeling slip into your voice. 

Vince started putting your groceries on the conveyor belt. “Nah, Sammy just wanted some snacks, and he can wait.”

You let Vince load the rest of your stuff onto the belt, you didn’t let him pay–though he fought you on that one for several minutes–and you let him walk with you to your car and put all of your groceries in the trunk.

You were halfway home before you thought to wonder if he actually went back and got snacks for Sammy. 

At a Hockey Game When your best friend texted you and asked if you wanted to go to a Blues game with her, you didn’t hesitate to say yes. You had grown up a hockey fan, had found Hannah in high school, and there you two were, years later, still yelling about the Blues over texts and phone calls and in person. Your eagerness had absolutely nothing to do with Vince Dunn. 

You also didn’t hesitate to snap a picture of your ticket and send it to Vince after Hannah handed it to you. You didn’t really think he’d see it so close to puck drop, but you still regretted it as soon as the tiny little “sent” appeared underneath the picture. 

The game was exciting, and the Blues won, which helped distract you from the anxiety you were feeling over Vince. Mostly. Until he scored a goal, and his eyes swept the sea of blue in Enterprise Center, and, for a split second, you let yourself think he was looking for you. 

Until after the game, when you and Hannah were getting up to leave, and an usher appeared next to you, saying your name and telling you to follow her. Getting down below the arena was a blur of people and security, being given neon wristbands and convincing people that, “Yes, I was invited down here by a player, I belong down here,” even if you didn’t really believe that second part was true. 

You both hovered awkwardly in the doorway to the room where all of the WAGs and kids were waiting, and suddenly you regretted wearing your Parayko jersey just a little bit. You were thankful to have your friend next to you, though, and you explained the whole grocery store thing to her while you waited. You were starting to debate leaving, telling everyone that, yeah, actually, letting you down into the tunnels was a mistake, that you have no business being there, when you’re wrapped up in a hug suddenly, and there’s Vince, freshly-showered and back in his suit– and this is new, but it’s nice and you let yourself relax into the hug.

Vince pulled back, and he was smiling at you and introducing himself to Hannah, and Colton was standing behind him with a matching smile. You remembered the 55 sprawled across your back, and you knew Colton saw it, but then he was wrapping his arm around your shoulder and didn’t say anything about it.

You weren’t so lucky with Vince. “I’ve gotta get you a new jersey,” he said. You just rolled your eyes and shrugged. 

“I’ll sign that one for you,” Colton whispered. 

Vince and Colton started arguing over that, and you were starting to think that this is something you could get used to, since this was apparently your new normal, when Alex Pietrangelo comes over to your little group, and you were reminded a little just how not normal this was for you. 

“Is this the nurse Dunner won’t shut up about?” Petro asked Colton, who nodded over your head. “You really freaked him out when you texted him before the game,” Petro was talking again, this time to you. “We thought he was gonna go out into the stands to find you himself.”

You laughed, more at the bright blush that was spreading over Vince’s cheeks. “What happened to ‘Petro can’t find out about this?’” you asked.

“That went out the window pretty fast,” Colton told you.

“And I don’t know how you ever thought you could hide eight stitches in your hand and a sprained wrist from me,” Petro added.

“You should have heard him after we saw you in Pittsburgh. He kept looking for you at the game that night, too.” 

You smiled up at Vince, who was blushing all the way up his ears now, but he just wrapped his arm around your shoulders and buried his face in your hair. Yeah, you could definitely get used to that. You elbowed him in the ribs a little bit, but his arm just tightened around your shoulders. 

He and Colton walked you and Hannah back to your car outside the arena, Colton chirping Vince relentlessly the whole way.

Vince grabbed your hand before you could get in your car. “I’ll text you, yeah?” He looked unsure, which was probably the first time you’d ever seen him nervous around you. “Sammy won’t stop asking me when you’re baking us cookies.”

“I don’t remember saying anything about baking Sammy Blais cookies,” you laughed. “Text me when your next day off is, and we’ll see about those cookies.” And then, because apparently you couldn’t stop doing impulsive things tonight, you pushed up on your toes to kiss Vince on the cheek before climbing into the car.

Your phone vibrated in your cupholder less than five minutes later, and you knew without checking that it was Vince. 

[beewolfwrites]

An Iron Box - The Eternal Rocks

Apologies for the late update! My life has become a little hectic, so I haven’t been on Tumblr or AO3 as much. Hopefully I can make it up with new scenes that weren’t in AWIAF :) 

If you’re still following this fic, thank you for reading. It means the world <3

The AO3 link is here if you prefer reading it on there.

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

I had stumbled across the copy of Wuthering Heights shortly after becoming an executive member. When I first moved into my room, it was tucked away in a drawer, and judging by the curled pages coated with dust, it had been there a while. I’d never cared enough to discard it, nor had I cared enough to read it. Until now.

The noon sunshine filtered through the windows as I sat on my bed, legs stretched out and book in hand. So far, it was a trivial mess – a ditsy story of childhood friends turned teenage lovers. Of course, this was the kind of book she would read. And if she really did have a Masters degree in literature, chances are she had already read it.

Yesterday, when I was called to the meeting room, I had an inkling as to what the fuss was about. And sure enough, there she was, dragged in like a stray by Niragi of all people. What terrible luck.

Well, for her at least.

Things had panned out just as I expected. If only she had come with me when I’d asked, she wouldn’t have had to deal with Aguni’s militants. They had given me the whole rundown of her Eight of Hearts game... how she’d solved it a little too late... how she’d accidentally set herself up by mentioning my name.

And now, I finally knew her name.

After showing her to her new room yesterday, I’d rolled it over on my tongue, memorising the foreign feel of it, the way the vowels stretched and consonants collided. It suited her, in a way. However, it seemed it would be a while before I could call her by it. According to the grapevine, she had disappeared into her room and hadn’t been seen since.

This morning, when I went downstairs to get breakfast, my eyes had instinctively scanned the crowded room, hoping to catch a familiar doe-eyed stare. But she was nowhere to be found.

‘Who are you looking for?’

Kuina had appeared beside me, balancing a bowl of cereal in one hand.

‘Nobody,’ I told her.

She wagged her finger, and through a mouthful of cereal, insisted, ‘don’t even think about lying to me. I can read you pretty well by now.’

I tried to ignore her noisy chewing. ‘I met a girl in a game.’

Kuina had wiggled her eyebrows at this, and something inside me instantly turned cold. If she thought I was involved in a petty romance then she could think again. I had no interest, and besides, this was hardly the place.

‘I believe we can use her in the plan. Niragi brought her in after a game yesterday.’

‘And there I was thinking you actually had a heart, hm?’ Kuina paused, her spoon dangling between her fingers. ‘I did hear there was a new girl, but nobody’s spoken to her yet. Do you want me to try and talk to her?’

I had mulled it over, but there was no point in rushing things. There was every chance she would emerge in her own time. It was like tempting a frightened animal out of its den and straight into a snare.

‘Not just yet,’ I said. ‘Let her feel hungry.’

‘You think she’ll come down for lunch?’

I smiled. ‘Probably not. But she’ll be hungry enough that when you do pay her a visit, she’ll want to trust you.’ Surveying the busy room, I added. ‘Keep an eye on the rumours. If she doesn’t come down in a few hours, bring her some food.’

‘Why me?’ Kuina scowled. ‘Why can’t you do it?’

Surely the reason was obvious. ‘She’s here because of me. I’m the last person she wants to speak to.’

Kuina had looked uncertain. But she couldn’t argue against it; we both knew I was right.

Now, several hours later, the sun was sinking and Kuina was probably about to pay (name) a visit. But I would leave that up to her. If Kuina befriended her, she would be much more willing to join our plan. Stretching my legs, I focused on the page in front of me.

‘It’s about life and finding meaning and purpose in everything.’

Her words from the pharmacy. Even now, they still rang clearly, haunting every recess of my mind. I didn’t care about finding meaning in life. I didn’t care at all. But I was curious about her obsession with fiction and poetry. What was it that drew her to books?  

What meaning does she see that I can’t?

My eyes landed on the words before me.

“My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.”

How could love be necessary? It wasn’t food or water. It couldn’t be quantified, had little value in life, and if anything, it was a weakness in the games. I had never once needed it myself, and here I was, still alive and breathing. The whole story was trivial, melodramatic and utterly pointless. And yet, my gaze was drawn to the next line and the next.

I suppose I could read it, even if only to ease this perpetual boredom.

“He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being—”

A bang rattled the windows as the door to my room flew open. Kuina was standing breathlessly in the doorway, that fake cigarette of hers clenched between her teeth.

‘You,’ she said, inviting herself in and moving towards the chest of drawers. ‘I need to borrow one of your hoodies.’

I flipped over to the next page. ‘Why?’

She yanked open each drawer one by one, plundering through the contents before slamming them shut. ‘I need a spare hoodie for (name). Or, you know, anything that’s not a string bikini.’

‘I see, so that’s why she was hiding.’ I smiled, eyes drifting over the page of my book. ‘What a stupid reason.’

Kuina glowered and jabbed a finger at me. ‘Oi, just because you’re too confident for your own good it doesn’t mean everyone else is. Tell me where your hoodies are now.’

I nodded at the cupboard. ‘The grey one on the left-hand side.’

She opened it up and pulled out the grey hoodie. Out of the three I owned this was the smallest. It was also the newest, having never been soiled by blood in a game before. ‘Are you sure?’

I shrugged and turned back to my book. ‘She can keep it.’

It may be useful to create a debt.

I expected Kuina to simply take the hoodie and leave me to read in peace. But she didn’t. She clenched the fabric in her fists, staring at it. Her jaw tightened around her plastic cigarette.  

‘Chishiya, she’s nice. She’s really nice.’

‘Everyone’s nice until you pit them against each other.’

She grimaced, fingers gripping the hoodie. ‘I don’t think... she’s not like that. What did you have planned with her anyway?’

‘We need someone to find the safe where the cards are kept. A guinea pig, so to speak. I’m going to set her up and we’ll take advantage of the distraction.’

Kuina looked uncomfortable with the idea. ‘I’m just not sure about this.’

Sighing, I gave up trying to read and snapped the book shut. ‘If you’re not sure, then drop out. I’ll leave with the cards and you can stay right here.’

Of course, Kuina was smart enough to know what the Beach would descend into once it became apparent that the cards were missing. And if I went missing along with them, she would be the first person they’d turn to. Judging by the look on her face, she seemed to be thinking the same thing.

‘Fine,’ she agreed at last. ‘But of all the people to choose, she really doesn’t deserve this.’

I smiled, thinking back to Niragi’s overdramatic retelling of their game. Apparently, it was a game of laser tag with handguns. She had shot a teenage girl in the chest and emerged without a scratch.

‘Perhaps you’ll think differently if you see her in a Hearts game,’ I said. ‘It’s human nature to be selfish.’

It’s human nature to kill in order to survive.

With a small hiss of disapproval, Kuina trailed out of the room and left me alone, taking the grey hoodie with her.

Finally.

Picking up the book once more, I scanned over the words on the page. The entire plot made no sense. Cathy’s choice was obvious right from the beginning – Linton offered protection and financial security. It was everything she needed to live comfortably, so what was the issue? Why would a person be so caught up just because of a childhood sweetheart? Heathcliff was equally as ridiculous, running away like a brat just because she said a few words behind his back. This was a book for naïve idiots.

No wonder she likes it.

And yet, I read and read until the sun slunk behind the skyline, the darkness creeping in slowly through the curtains until it became too dark to read. I could have easily turned on the bedside lamp and continued, but perhaps it was time to see how things were going with Kuina and (name).

The sooner they were friends, the easier this would become.  

Getting up, I left my room and headed downstairs. It was right before the games began – the time when the Beach was at its most lively, and everyone was busy living in the moment just in case these turned out to be their final moments.

I passed by a couple furiously groping one another behind a pillar.

People are all the same.

Stepping outside onto the patio, I scanned the throngs of drunken idiots stumbling around in a haze of skin, sex and drugs. And then I caught a glimpse of that familiar face, standing by the bar and dressed in my hoodie. A man was beside her.

And you are just like them.

For a moment, I simply watched on as the man – one of Niragi’s troupe – tried to make conversation with her. Considering the sheer volume of the music and her self-taught Japanese, I wondered if she understood him. Taking her drink from the bartender, she smiled and said something undecipherable before taking a step away.

Bad move. A gun glinted, pressing into her side.

Oh?

The look on her face told me everything. She wasn’t flirting with him after all. And now it was all too clear what this man wanted from her.

Such an unpleasant welcome.

Perhaps I should have just left her to it, since this was the true face of the Beach, the drop of cold hard reality hidden behind the façade of a utopia. Perhaps I should have her deal with the situation on her own, for better or worse. But how could I? This was a perfect opportunity to regain her trust.

I sidled up to the bar, glancing between the half-drunken idiot and (name), who was standing there wavering like a ghost. Her expression was detached yet poised, like a rabbit on the verge of fleeing. But she couldn’t – not with the hand wrapped around her wrist and the pistol set just below her ribs.

‘What’s this?’ I leaned against the countertop. ‘I see you’ve met our newest member.’

(Name) blinked, only just noticing my presence. I glanced down at the pistol, the barrel half-hidden in the fabric of her hoodie. My hoodie.

‘You should probably put that thing away. Hatter won’t be too happy if you start messing with her. He’s got high expectations of her.’

The militant only pushed the gun further into her torso, standing up straighter in a useless attempt at intimidating me. ‘You know, Chishiya, I’m pretty sick of you interfering all the time. You should stay out of militant business.’

I almost smiled. This man wasn’t even an executive member. ‘Militant business,’ I said slowly. ‘It’s fascinating what you guys do. You take out the trash and dish out the sentence, but you never check the evidence.’

He bristled, his finger tightening over the trigger. ‘What the hell are you talking about? Just shut up and stay out of this.’

Typical. Do I have to spell things out to everyone?

‘What I’m saying,’ I replied, ‘is that you never bother checking to see if the ‘traitors’ are actually traitors. It’s surprisingly easy to slip a few cards into someone else’s room.’

I met his gaze pointedly, watching as he finally started to come to an understanding. He squeezed (name’s) wrist until her fingers blotched white and purple, before finally letting go.

Pushing his face close to mine, he whispered a slurred mess that sounded a lot like ‘threaten me again and I’ll end you’, before striding off into the crowd. It wasn’t much of a threat, coming from someone who couldn’t quite walk in a straight line. But no matter, I wasn’t here for him.

I was vaguely aware of (name) watching me as I turned back to the bar. The bartender was wiping glasses, unbothered by what had just happened. He saw worse every day.

‘お水をください,’ I said. Water, please.

A glass was placed in front of me, and I calmly sipped my water, waiting patiently for the inevitable. About now, she was probably itching to thank me, but wondering how best to do it. An over-thinker, that’s what she was.

When she finally spoke, it was so quiet I could have easily missed it, if only I hadn’t been expecting it. ‘Thanks... I’m guessing stuff like that’s pretty common around here.’

You catch on fast.

‘Well, there are only three rules,’ I said, assessing the grey hoodie. It had been slightly too small on me but was oversized on her. ‘Right now, you’re not allowed to go roaming the city alone because you’re still new, and that makes you a liability. But the next time you’re in a game, you’ll be paired with one of the executives, or someone else with a high rank. If you ask, they’ll go with you to find new clothes.’

She looked mildly surprised. Had Kuina not mentioned that it was mine? If so, I wonder how she would react once she found out. Perhaps this was a tidbit of information I should keep to myself for now.

Speaking of Kuina, I could see her now, watching me nervously through the crowds from a recliner on the other side of the patio.

‘Of all the people to choose, she really doesn’t deserve this.’

Perhaps not. But that’s what made her perfect for the job.