#also i promise i don’t have my tumblr display like this i just set it like that for a second to screenshot this

[elliesbelle]

part 2 to “while i die” is in the works, my loves 🤍

lmk if you’d like to be added to the taglist, but it’d be better for us both if you follow my blog where i reblog all my works @belleloves! be sure to turn notifications on to get notified when i update! 🤍

[once-in-a-blood-moon]

MC Having a Death like Chiaki Nanami

AN: Hi! This is my first time posting on tumblr, or anywhere really. I plan on posting this to AO3 as well, so you can read it there under thrice_in_a_void_moon. I'm excited to share this with anyone who is interested, and I'm not really into danganronpa anymore, but the thought of this has been in my head so here we are. Please let me know if there are any mistakes that I missed or if there's anything that I should change. Also, this fic is meant to be read altogether, but you can just read the characters separately, but there is an intro and a conclusion, so do with that as you will. Anyways I hope you enjoy! :)

TW: Gore, blood, mentions of abuse/torture, mentions of death, character death, slight spoiler in Belphie’s??

MC is gender neutral :)

The room lights up suddenly, and the boys have to quickly adjust their eyesight. Taking in their surroundings and noticing that they had been transported to a different location than where they were moments ago. Everyone checks on each other, making sure that no one has been harmed, when they realize that they are one person short. The multiple TVs that are displayed on the walls of the room suddenly come to life. There you are, in a daze, unsure of what’s happening, taking in your surroundings to find cold, gray flooring and walls that stretch and constrict in different directions, something of a maze. Matching abstract patterns surround you from every angle. Everyone’s attention is set on you. Fear, anger, confusion in the futile shouts to get your attention. A loud booming voice, one that Lucifer, his brothers, and Simeon know all too well, overpowers the twelve and announces the start of a game. A game of one. A game of life and death. And you are the star. 

All Lucifer sees is red. In a flash, he is in his demon form and immediately begins to tear at the nearest exit, he will not stop until you are safely in his arms. He will take any pain, any punishment to get to you. The first blood curdling scream causes his attention to falter at the task at hand. Whipping his head towards the nearest TV, Lucifer sees you with such a pained expression. Looking towards what might have caused you to cry out like that, he notices a metal rod lodged into your arm, your opposite hand cradling the wound, and fixing up the courage to yank it out. He forces himself to look away, as another cry escapes your lips. He begins once again, trying desperately to get to you, though nothing he does seems to be working.

Several minutes have passed since the start of the game, and Mammon has been trying his hand at what looks to be another exit. His muscles are burning, his breathing erratic, and his throat has become dry and hoarse. He was determined to make the first scream the last one you made. He was going to get you out of there. He made a promise to you, and he would be damned if he broke it. He’s your first man, and he’s going to be the first one to reach you. Gearing up to start his pounding again, he uses your desperate cries as his motivation, ignoring his pain in hopes of reaching you in time. 

As much as Leviathan wants to, he can’t seem to move a muscle. His feet stay planted as he watches the TV screen closest to him. The first scream gutted him. He knew he should be trying to find a way to save you. Tears form in his eyes as he silently cheers for you every time you dodge the obstacles that are thrown at you, and they fall when you don’t move in time. He feels useless. The Lord of Shadows would never let his friend Henry go through such trials, he would have fought til the bitter end to get to his friend. And yet Leviathan doesn’t move. He watches in silence as you get beat up, beating himself up as well. 

Satan was in a blind rage from the start. You were the only one to see past his wrath and see him as an individual. You saw him for who he truly was. If only if you could see him now as he darted from exit to exit in hopes he could cause enough damage to one of them for him to be able to get through. He channeled all of his pent up anger into getting to you. His throat became scratchy as he bellowed for the mastermind to end this mess and let you go. Another loud scream ripped from your throat as a spike tore through your shoe and impaled your foot. Satan’s eyes darted to the screen and his wrath flared up again seeing your face distorted in pain. He starts again, ignoring the growing pain in his knuckles and the blood they left behind on the exit in front of him. 

Tears ran down Asmodeus’s perfect face. If he could see himself right now, he would be ashamed of how red and puffy his eyes had gotten. But in this moment, he wasn’t concerned for himself. He noticed Leviathan standing alone, so he quickly ran to him, wrapping both of his arms around one of Levi’s and watched the carnage on the screen. Leviathan made no move to shake him off, both finding comfort in each other’s presence. Every scream and cry that came from you, made Asmo tighten his grip on Leviathan, sobbing harder each time you got hurt. At some point he started begging whoever was behind this to stop, wailing as he wondered why they were doing this, and never getting a response back. He wanted his MC to be back in his arms, he wanted to take the pain away from you. He wanted to save you, but he knew there was nothing he could do. 

Beelzebub being the strongest demon in the room, had hope that he could get through to you. He put all of his strength, energy, and training into every move he made. He kicked, punched, he head-butted, he tore, he screamed and shouted as nothing seemed to work. Sweat poured off his face, his bottom lip red and swollen from him worrying it as he worked. Beel knew that it was useless, that these exits were unbreakable. He turned to look at the others who tried their hands at breaking through, with no better luck than him. His eyes gazed up at a screen and watched as you dodged the saw blades that jutted out from the patterns in the walls. He saw the blood that trailed behind you, and just hoped that you would make it out. 

Belphegor watched on in anger, teeth clenched as his fingernails left harsh moon shaped crescents into his palms. He had finally gotten close to you, like his brothers had. He came to care about you. He knew he had harmed you before, but with time you had forgiven him and given him your trust. And he knew he didn’t deserve it. But now he watched as someone else hurt you, and knew that the attempts the others were making were futile. If Beel, Satan, or Lucifer, as much as he hated to admit it, couldn’t break through, then there was no way to get to you. Belphie knew that you were a strong human, he just hoped you were strong enough to endure this torture. 

As prince of the Devildom, Diavolo had demanded that whoever was behind this monstrosity to end it. He had taken his demon form, just like the others who battered and fought for a way out. A way to you. He hoped it would make whoever was causing harm to you to stop, as he only transformed into his demon form for formal events. It was rare that he had to transform for serious offenses. And this certainly is one of those times. This was treason. When that didn’t stop the offender, he began assisting Lucifer, teaming up to find a weak spot in the room. Each time a scream bounced off the walls, Diavolo grimaced. Why were you the only one being tormented like such? He wasn’t trying to be a pessimist. At first, he believed that if not him, one of the others would get through an exit and get you to safety. But now he wasn’t sure anyone was going to get to you in time. 

Barbatos stood in the center of the room and watched the screens around him. His face was emotionless, and his eyes stayed glued to your now beaten and ragged figure. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to get to you. No, he would’ve loved nothing more than to rescue you and bring you back to the castle and see to your injuries himself. But as a demon who has inflicted his own sadistic torture on others for centuries, he knew that there was no way to get to you. The walls that surrounded the group, were not unlike the walls in his own torture room. They were made to be impenetrable. The beings that were taken to the torture room were there for a reason, to receive punishment for their crimes and wrong doings. Barbatos knew all too well that the efforts the others made were futile, but said nothing to stop them. He knew this was a lost battle before it began, but who was he to crush what remaining hope everyone had left. 

Luke has his face hidden in Simeon’s torso, gloved hands cover the younger angel’s ears. Luke had witnessed the first hit, and Simeon had been right to hide him from the gruesome scenes to come. Though, hands could only do so much to block out the blood curdling screams and occasional blood splatter that came from you. Tear stains left on the older angel’s shirt had only gotten bigger as time went on, and Luke startled each time he heard a noise. All Simeon could do was hold the smaller angel closer to him, in hopes of bringing him comfort. Simeon watched everyone work around him. It kept him occupied from looking at your wellbeing. Which he knew was no longer well. Simeon did all he could to hold his emotions together. He needed to be strong for Luke. He wanted to be strong for you. 

As calm as Solomon usually kept himself, it would have been a shock to anyone that witnessed him as he unleashed his true power. After today, no one would ever question why he was considered the most powerful sorcerer. He cast spell after spell, racking his brain of ancient incantations that he had learned so long ago. Explosions went off countless times, but only leaving scorch marks in their wake. Solomon heard yet another cry from you, and he fell to his knees, eyes fixed to the floor. He was exhausted. He had used so much of his energy, giving more than he actually had. You were the first human in centuries he let his walls down for. He showed you sides of him he’s never shown anyone before, confided in you, and he was about to lose it all. About to lose you. Solomon’s vision had become blurry as he glanced up to the screen and watched as you approached a door. A hope sparked within him, a hope that you would be safe. 

The mastermind’s voice suddenly interrupted everyone’s thoughts and ministrations, signaling that you had reached the end of the maze. Everyone watched with bated breath as you reached a bloodied hand towards the door knob. Slowly turning it, you looked inside and smiled widely, although the other’s could not see what was on the other side. Tears filled with relief began to stream down your face as you stepped forward, your arm stretched out as if to reach for something. Something you never grab as a spear launches itself from the other side of the door and through your chest. Gasps, shouts, and screams erupt the silence that had fallen around the boys. As you fall backwards, your body becomes suspended by dozens of spikes that impale you from every angle. No one dares say a word upon witnessing your body in such a state. The spikes retract, releasing you as you fall to the floor lifeless. 

Luke is the first to break the silence, as he lets out a wail. Simeon immediately pulls Luke into him once more, as tears he had been holding back stream down his face. Asmo hides his face into Leviathan’s shoulder as he sobs. Levi’s lip quivers, tears well up in his eyes, as more leave trails down his face. Satan’s chest constricts in fury and sorrow, unable to tear his gaze away from the blood that pools around your body. Beel and Belphie are both abnormally still. Neither one knowing how to process what just happened. Diavolo's eyes well up with tears, as only a few shed, he questions the next best step to take for everyone's sake. Barbatos shows up beside Diavolo to provide some comfort for the young prince. A sharp ache reverberates in his chest. Solomon who hasn’t moved from his position from the floor, looks at your lifeless form. Mouth open slightly in shock as the tears that had been collecting in his eyes begin to fall to the floor below him. Mammon has his back turned towards the others, a hand over his mouth as he desperately hides the cries and screams that he feels bubbling up inside. Lucifer’s breathing is erratic, as his gaze hardens. He glances around the room taking note of the heartbreak that is written across the faces he can see, and watching as others shudder from the cries they let out. Lucifer locks eyes with Diavolo’s. An unspoken conversation held between them. From watching the one they all loved perish in such a way, oh, there will be hell to pay. 

[ollieofthebeholder]

to find promise of peace (and the solace of rest): a TMA fanfic

Read from the beginning on Tumblr || AO3 || My Website

Chapter 100: February 2018

“…Statement ends.” Martin let the last page fall into his lap and sighed. It wasn’t exactly satisfaction or delight, but he felt…full, in a way he hadn’t in a while. Weak as the thing that had once been half of a whole and was now the sole remnant of a near conquering army was, it was still old and it hadn’t survived that long not being powerful. He’d be able to live off this one for a bit.

“It’s probably a bad sign that I’ve started thinking of these statements in terms of flavor,” he mused into the recorder, which buzzed comfortingly in his hand. “It’s definitely a bad sign that statements from other avatars and servitors—Jude Perry, Breekon, my fucking mother—the people and things that cause fear more than anything—literally seem to leave a bad or bitter taste in my mouth, but ones from actual victims are…almost sweet. The written ones we’ve got out in the Archives don’t really have much flavor to them, but they satiate the hunger, even if I do have to, uh, consume more of them to do that. Still, I think I’m going to stick with that for a while. That’s not something I want to start getting a taste for, especially after this statement. And I can really do without any more nightmares.” He paused, thinking it over. “I wonder if Breekon dreams.”

A few feet away, Melanie shifted on the cot and groaned softly. That wasn’t all that unusual; she’d been doing it off and on since Martin had come in, and he’d mostly tuned it out while he was recording. This time, however, she came awake with a gasp. “Oh, fu—”

“Melanie?” Martin straightened up and set the recorder on the top of the file cabinet as he scooted closer. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, you’re safe.”

“Ma—Mar’in?” Melanie blinked at him, looking disorientated and lost. “Why’s m’ leg hur’?”

Martin had really hoped that wouldn’t be the first question she asked when she came round, but of course Melanie couldn’t go for the clichéed Where am I query. He tried to speak as gently as possible. “There was a bullet in your leg. We had to take it out.”

“I got shot? ‘Gain?” Melanie frowned and patted vaguely at her leg. “Why ‘m I…pants?”

“Hang on.” Martin picked up the cup of tea Jon had made him and pressed it gently into Melanie’s hands. On second thought, he cupped his own hands under hers and guided it to her mouth. “Here. Take a drink, okay? You’re probably dehydrated.” He was stalling, and he knew it, but he also knew that if he explained it to her while she was still groggy and couldn’t process properly just so she would accept without argument, things would be way worse later on. Anyway, she was probably dehydrated.

Melanie took several slow, careful sips. After about the third one, a funny look crossed her face; it took two more before she looked at Martin, her eyebrows knitting together but her eyes looking a bit clearer—emphasis on a bit. “Why did you put milk in my tea?”

“I didn’t. Jon put milk in my tea, but that was all I had on hand.” Martin reached out for the mug, and Melanie let him have it. “How are you feeling?”

Melanie considered the question seriously from all angles. “Like shit.”

Martin couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s…probably fair.”

He took a sip of the tea—cold, but it still tasted just fine—and watched Melanie for a moment as she studied herself. Sasha hadn’t thrown a blanket over her when she laid her down, so her legs were fully on display. She touched the bare skin exposed by the torn pant leg lightly. “Did something…get me?”

There was a temptation, a very, very small temptation, to let her believe that, but even the possibility of lying about something like this sent a sticky swirl of guilt through Martin’s chest, and he knew he’d never be able to do it. He’d never been anything but honest with Melanie and he definitely wasn’t going to start with something like what he’d done. “I told you, we had to take a bullet out of your leg.”

“Right. Right.” Melanie took a deep breath and looked up at him suspiciously. “How’d it get there?”

“India. Or so we assume. The whole damn thing was soaked in the Slaughter, and it was…infecting you.” Martin swallowed hard, well aware that the slowly spreading striations of red spreading from that spot on her thigh like a glowing map of the London Underground was going to haunt his every waking moment for a while yet—there wasn’t room for it in his nightmares anymore. “We—I got it all, but…Jesus, Neens, I’m sorry. I should have…I should have Looked sooner.”

“I wouldn’t have let you,” Melanie admitted candidly. She ran her fingers around the butterflies. “You did this?”

Martin hummed in the affirmative. “Might have to get you down to the clinic in a bit to get proper stitches in there and make sure I didn’t, you know, cause a regular infection. But I did what I could with what I had.”

“Mmm.” Melanie scraped her tongue against her teeth. “What’d you knock me out with? Feels like that time I tried to be helpful and clean the bathroom.”

“That’s…not a bad comparison, actually. It was chloroform.”

“Chloroform?” Weak as she was, a flare of anger rose in Melanie’s eyes, and she sat up straighter. “Where the fuck did you get chloroform?”

Martin held up both his hands. The temptation to let her believe that was even stronger, but he knew nobody would forgive him if he did. “I didn’t. Sasha had it. She wouldn’t tell me why, just said not to ask questions I didn’t want to know the answers to, but…”

“But you asked anyway?”

“I didn’t. Swear on Dad’s crypt. I’m guessing it wasn’t for you, but I haven’t asked, o-or tried Looking. I had other things to worry about.” Martin risked reaching for one of Melanie’s hands. “Like getting that bullet out of your leg before it took you over completely. Or reassuring Jon I wasn’t going to bleed to death.”

“You weren’t going to bleed to death?” Melanie said incredulously.

Martin winced. “Um. Well. You sort of…stabbed me?”

“I what?” Melanie shrieked, at a decibel level that definitely tested the room’s soundproofing. What little color there was in her face drained out of it. She lurched forward and started to swing her legs towards the edge of the cot.

“Easy, easy, Neenie, I’m okay!” Martin blocked her shoulder as gently as he could with one hand to forestall her. With the other, he tugged at the tear he’d made in his shirt, widening it so she could see the knitted pink ridge of flesh on his chest. “See? I’m okay. Bleeding stopped easily enough.”

He hoped she would assume it hadn’t been a deep cut. She didn’t. “That’s not any better, Martin! Jesus, I—I remember now. I was so angry with everything—Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday, and Basira being gone and Jon being so upset about the anniversary of Leitner’s murder, and the Chinese New Year is t-tomorrow and that’s the same day it was the year Mama died—and then you told me you were going to Look for me—fucking hell, you didn’t even actually do it! And I just got so mad and—and then I—what is that, ten Marks you’ve got now?”

Martin hesitated. “Twelve, I think. But it’s—honestly, Melanie, it’s okay. Just one more scar for the collection, I guess.” He tried for a laugh. “Not the end of the world, you know?”

Melanie didn’t seem particularly convinced of that; at the very least, she looked as though it might be the end of the world for her. “But I gave it to you.”

“And I forgive you for that.” Martin tried to go in for a hug, but Melanie leaned away and he sat back, willing to not push things. Instead, he tapped the side of his head. He’d discovered, the first time he actually looked in a mirror after getting home from America, that the lock of hair there had turned white as snow. “Papa gave me this one. I don’t blame him for it. Half the other Marks I have are from protecting people I love—”

“But they aren’t scars.”

“I was trying to protect Jon from the worms when I got, well…” Martin gestured at the faint scars still dotting his face. “Trevor only stabbed me because I wouldn’t tell him where to find Gerry.”

“That’s different and you know it. So is your father kissing you, that’s not—” Melanie reached out like she wanted to touch the stab wound, but drew back. “Jesus, I could have killed you. I—I tried to kill you.”

“Maybe,” Martin conceded. “But you didn’t kill me.” He took her hand and placed it over the scar—placed it, too, over his heart, so she could feel that it was still beating strongly in his chest. “More important, you didn’t want to kill me. I’m okay, Neens. I promise. It’s going to be okay.”

“I hate you,” Melanie grumbled, but she pressed her hand a bit closer to his chest before sliding it away. “And I’m still angry.”

Martin shrugged. “I didn’t cut all of the Slaughter out of you, just the bullet. You were still Marked by it before that.”

“I still don’t get how just watching Sarah Baldwin talk to…whatever it was was enough to Mark me,” Melanie mumbled. “I was fascinated by it, but I wasn’t afraid of it like I was of Sarah.”

Another lance of horrible, almost crippling guilt pierced Martin through the heart. God, how had he not thought of that himself, way back when he first Looked to see their Marks? “You…I think you were Marked way earlier than that, Neenie. Talking of when your mother died—do, do you remember the lion dance?”

“I mean, there’s always a…” Melanie trailed off, frowning as she obviously tried to remember. Suddenly her eyes widened. “Oh. Oh, my God. It—there was a lion I didn’t recognize and it was chasing the musicians—it killed one and—Lau Pei, one of the real lions, the regular ones, he asked me for help and…oh, God, I’d forgotten about that. I thought I dreamed it.” Her gaze suddenly sharpened, and she turned a scowl on Martin. “Get out of my head.”

“I didn’t look in your head,” Martin insisted. “Tim told me. Apparently Gerry had a flashback about it—a flashback where he was you, like the one he had before Christmas where he was Mum. Tim didn’t have a lot of details, but Gerry’s on his way, in theory, so you can ask him about it.”

Melanie swung her good leg off the cot. “Well. Let’s go do that, then.”

She swung the second leg off to meet the first and winced as it—evidently—pulled at the cut, but she swatted away Martin’s concerned hand. She did, at least, accept his assistance in standing up, and leaned heavily on his arm as they limped out the door and into the Archives.

Tim and Sasha were apparently mid-argument; they stopped when they heard Martin and Melanie coming towards them and turned. Sasha smiled, a bit tentatively, but her eyes were still worried. “Melanie—how are you feeling?”

“Sore, but I’ll live.” Melanie’s tone of voice implied she wasn’t altogether sure if that was a good thing or not, and possibly that she intended to make that Sasha’s problem. “Martin told me what happened. Where’s Gerry, and why did you have chloroform?”

“Gerry’s on his way,” Tim said, in a gentle voice that was probably meant to be soothing and that even a few hours ago would probably have had Melanie throwing things. “He had an appointment with someone about a book, probably not a Leitner, but he said he’d be here as soon as he could.”

Melanie turned back to Sasha, but before either of them could say anything, the exterior door to the Archives opened, followed by hurrying footsteps. A second later, Gerry appeared, looking out of breath and worried. Whoever he’d been meeting with had obviously been important; far from his usual band shirts and baggy jeans, he was dressed in a cream-colored turtleneck and pressed trousers, an old and faded green corduroy jacket with leather patches at the elbows, and brown loafers. He’d even tied his hair back in a low ponytail, so he looked more like a professor or an academic than a goth painter. The thing that startled Martin most about his appearance was the white streak on the side of his head, despite the rest of his hair being freshly dyed a shiny, even black that would, given past evidence, start fading in random streaks and patches in a day or two.

“Is everyone okay?” he asked breathlessly. “What happened?”

Tim, Sasha, and—surprisingly—Melanie all turned to look at Martin, who sighed. “We’re fine. Mostly. Melanie still had a bullet in her leg from when she got shot in India and it was infecting her with the Slaughter—”

“What?” Gerry’s face turned, if anything, even paler than usual. “Jesus, Melanie, I’m so sorry, I should have—”

“Should have what? You don’t have freaky Eye powers,” Melanie snapped, then added grudgingly, “And I wouldn’t have let Martin Look if he’d asked, so it’s not anyone’s fault but mine. I stabbed Martin over it.” Before Gerry could react to that, she turned to Sasha and added, “And you didn’t answer my question. Why did you have chloroform?”

“I think Gertrude had some, but I’m pretty sure she used it all,” Gerry said, a bit uncertainly. “Wait, you knocked her out with chloroform?”

“I…yes,” Sasha admitted. “Just a little, though. I mean, it was just enough for her body weight to knock her out, and not so much that it would do permanent damage—”

“And why did you have it, Sasha?” Melanie demanded.

“Melanie,” Martin murmured. He was burning with curiosity, too, but if Sasha had said he didn’t want to know, he probably didn’t want to know.

“No, fuck that, that’s not something you just have. Let alone know how much to use.” Melanie folded her arms over her chest and glared at Sasha. “How long have you been planning to knock me out?”

“I haven’t, I swear,” Sasha insisted. She glanced up at Martin, a bit guiltily, then sighed and said in a low voice, “It was for you. Just—you know, just in case.”

“WHAT?” Melanie’s yell rattled the shelves around them.

“Melanie, stop.” Martin grabbed her by the shoulder and gave her a warning squeeze. “I’ve been demonstrating more and more dangerous powers. Why wouldn’t she have some way to take me out if they got out of hand? I’m not entirely sure chloroform’s the best choice, though. I mean, under the best of circumstances, it takes too long to kick in and I’m taller and heavier than you are, I’d probably be able to fight you off. And in an…avatar state, I guess, I’d likely be way too drunk on my own power to respond well to that. You probably need something closer to a tranquilizer dart.”

“Jesus.” Tim pinched the bridge of his nose briefly. “Don’t let Jon hear you saying things like that.”

Martin looked around, his anxiety suddenly spiking for no real reason he could think of. “Where is Jon?”

“Running an errand. He’ll be back,” Sasha answered. She turned to Gerry. “Tim said you’ve been having flashbacks where you’re other people?”

“Not often, but yeah,” Gerry said slowly. “Did we…not tell you about that? It’s how I knew to tell Martin to call Aunt Lily before Christmas, I’d had a flashback where I was her.”

“And you had one where you were Melanie? What did you—”

“No, wait,” Melanie interrupted, letting go of Martin’s arm and leaning on the desk in front of her. Her eyes were fixed, not on Gerry, but on Sasha. “What’s Jon up to? What kind of errand could he be running? He wouldn’t have gone off without telling Martin, unless he was just going to the break room to get tea—and if he was doing that, you’d have said so from the off. What’s he doing?”

“It’s fine,” Sasha said. “He won’t be long, I’m sure.”

“You’re not answering the question,” Melanie said suspiciously.

Martin could feel the static building on his tongue and behind his eyes—the urge to compel Sasha to tell him exactly where Jon had gone and what he was doing—which meant it was something she, or Jon, or both, didn’t want him to know. It could be that it was a nice surprise for Valentine’s Day, which they didn’t celebrate, but no way was his luck that good. And the fact that his anxiety was coalescing into pure fear told him that was probably not what it was anyway.

He swallowed hard to force the Eye back and said, softly and with a great effort to keep it neutral, “Sasha?”

“I told you this was a bad idea,” Tim hissed.

“Well, it’s not going to do any good otherwise,” Sasha hissed back.

And that was it. Martin knew, deep in his bones, without the Eye providing him any additional help. He knew where Jon had gone, what he’d done, what he was risking, what was going to happen to him.

“No,” he whispered, turning towards the door to the Archivist’s office.

“Look, if he hadn’t, someone else would have,” Sasha said desperately. “Eventually. You wouldn’t have been able to leave it alone and Melanie would have been trying to atone or, or whatever, and Gerry would have been trying to protect all of us, and he made the argument that he had the best chance of finding her and getting out safely…”

“I’m sorry, what are we talking about?” Melanie demanded.

“The coffin is in there,” Tim blurted out. “The one that Breekon and Hope were toting around, only there’s only one of them left. It delivered it not long before I got here, and it’s in Martin’s office. Daisy is in there and Jon says she’s still alive. He went in to try and get her out.”

“What?” Gerry and Melanie cried in unison.

“No, no, no.” Martin would not panic, damn it all, that wouldn’t help. He had to be calm and rational and—and screw that, the man he loved more than life itself, the man he loved so much it hurt, had climbed into a box that led directly to the Buried. He had every reason to panic. Clutching the recorder he’d forgotten he still held, he started for the office.

“Whoa!” Tim grabbed his arm.

“Let go of me, Tim.” Martin yanked his arm free, making Tim stumble back a step.

“No, don’t!” Melanie cried out, lunging towards him and managing to grab his sleeve, at least.

Gerry rushed around the desks and stood between him and the door, arms outspread. “Martin, you can’t, you’ve already been Marked, it—it won’t let you go.”

“I’m not leaving Jon down there alone!” Martin wasn’t crying, but it was taking a lot of effort not to, and also not to call on the Beholding and Know where Jon was, compel the others to leave him alone, force them to let him in…even if that wasn’t really in his purview. “Someone has to go in after him, and it might as well be me!”

“No.” Gerry’s voice echoed with the strange, resonant quality it had taken on in the warehouse when he Reaped the waxwork that had turned out to be Danny, at Rosewood Forest when he’d proclaimed Liliana Blackwood’s death. The air in the Archives seemed to drop several degrees, and Gerry’s eyes lost all their color—pupils, iris, even the blood vessels turning white, like a pencil sketch. His hair, too, suddenly turned white, coming loose from its tie to stand on end in a flowing, undulating halo around his head like he’d just received a jolt of static electricity.

“Shit.” Tim pushed himself straight and lunged forward. He ran around behind Gerry and wrapped his arms around his torso from behind. “Got you. I’m here. I’m here.”

Martin had never, in his entire life, been afraid of his brother, but he was afraid now. The recorder clattered to the desk, miraculously not breaking or popping open, as he grabbed Melanie and Sasha on instinct to try and protect them. “What’s going on?”

Tim’s face was ashen. “Just wait. You’ll see.”

Gerry lifted his head, seeming to stare at a point somewhere over Martin’s shoulder, but also seeming to stare at something that wasn’t there…or at the very least wasn’t then. The temperature continued to drop…and drop…and drop…until Martin, clasping Sasha and Melanie as close to himself as he could, swore he could hear ice crystals forming in the air. He found himself instinctively gathering the static, gearing himself up to compel Gerry to stop…if he could even compel him in this state. If it was even Gerry to be compelled and not the End itself.

And then…Gerry began to speak.

[beepborpdoodledorp]

Hey all, I've returned from my Tumblr break. Was honestly planning on staying off for a couple more days, but the break wasn't exactly having the effect I was hoping it was (being that I'd be able to stop focusing on all my personal issues with the CRK fanbase but instead it just gave me more time to stew over them). And depending on when I'm posting this the new update with Stardust Cookie (my beloved) is either just about to come out or has already come out, so I'd figure it would be a good time to jump back into action. And in my couple days off, I've had some time to think some things over.

First off, I need to admit I made a really big mistake. I really want to start posting to Instagram, and even before putting the poll up I was already gravitating towards doing so. It's completely on me for posting a poll for something I could've just resolved by myself, and apologize for putting the poll up in the first place. I really appreciate everyone's input, but for the meantime I do want to go forward with setting up Instagram and see where it goes.

Secondly, I've been putting more thought into doing commissions - I even set up a PayPal account in case I actually get the idea lifted up off the ground. I might've said it before on this blog, I can't really remember if I did or not, but around June of last year I got laid off from my job and have been struggling to find a replacement ever since - ergo, my income has been completely halted. The idea of commissions has appealed to me for years now and something I hoped I could eventually get around to. But also, the idea of commissions kind of…terrifies me? I'm terrible in social situations with people I already know, let alone strangers on the Internet. I'd be scared of messing something up or saying something wrong or asking for too much or too little guidance on the piece and have the customer end up dissatisfied. I want so badly to set up commissions but I'm not sure if I'm in the right headspace to do it now. Maybe I'd be able to set them up by late spring, but I can't make any promises.

2023 is…kind of shaping up to be a shitty year for me. A bunch of my mental health issues bubbled back up around mid-January and haven't really mellowed out yet, and I really think it's starting to affect my feelings on the CRK fanbase, which is my main priority for fanmade content. I mean, I made like four entire rant posts within the span of three weeks about CRK shipping - for most of my time in the fanbase you wouldn't catch me touching that topic with a ten-foot pole. Maybe coming back to social media will actually be able to help me, or at least give me something to distract myself with - since leaving it for a bit hardly helped.

As for other things I didn't post about? Well, uh…I made some fanart that I'm hoping to post soon? Beat a couple Dark Mode stages I was stuck on only to get stuck on yet another one? I didn't even get in the Top 50% in Big Run? Yeah, guess my hazard level just wasn't high enough, though I'm sure losing half the shifts I joined didn't help either. Oh well, I don't have any room in my locker to display any not-obnoxiously-green Horrorboros statue anyway.

[devandahlcourte-work-in-progress]

I am reposting these first eighty-two chapters (in 22 sections) plus the prologue and the preface.

These posts will be the updated versions from my DeviantArt account, and since Tumblr may not display all the text correctly (it destroys anything I had in italics or underlined) I would still recommend reading everything there, on DeviantArt. They will also include internal links that navigate between the chapters on DeviantArt and will take the reader off Tumblr if clicked.

This came about because I noticed search engines were finding random sections of my book and displaying them along with some other people’s blog posts.

Okay, so that’s why I installed those internal links in each one… so that if anyone gets to a random section by way of a search engine and would like to read the story from the beginning, they can.

Only then did I realize that it wasn’t getting it’s search results from DeviantArt, but from old Tumblr.

There’s another problem at work here besides unrefined searches…

There is a new species of virus on the internet that likes to eat ancient Tumblr posts and barf them back up infested with adware - spyware - malware etc. The virus goes by names like TumGIR, TumBIG, TumPIK, or Tum(anything else but ‘blr’). The caps were added by me for emphasis so that maybe you can double check in case you’re not looking at an actual Tumblr post right now but one of these so-called “mirror” sites.

If you’re looking at this text through one of the counterfeit Tumblrs that I mentioned, then no link you click (assuming it even copies it with my links intact) will take you out; it will redirect you and show you all of the spam ads it wants to. So read carefully what url is showing on your browser right now.

If it is one of the untrustworthy ones I would suggest closing your browser window and doing whatever else you normally would in order to reset settings.

As far as my science fiction novel entitled “If And Only If,” the safest way to find it is by going to my Instagram:

@michelle.de.vandahlcourte

From there you can click on the link in my bio. It will take you to the beginning of the story on DeviantArt… the safe one! No malware.

P.S. None of this is Tumblr’s fault! It’s the malware/adware/spyware developers who are stealing people’s tumblr posts.

The actual content of this page appears below here👇

Preface

If And Only If: Time Tear

Click on link here 👆to just go directly to the story.

If And Only If: The Time Loop

If And Only If: Ripped Space

If And Only If: Citizens Of Time

If And Only If: Out Of Body

Returning again to the subject of Stalko-Taco:

This is another update, as I prepare to upload about 70 to 80 chapters in the form of 22 posts, which I am including merely to aid my anterograde amnesia-impaired mind (see second journal entry for more detail) and so I don’t have to scroll quite so much to review my old thoughts. The original text appears below:

I posted on this yesterday and promised myself to write more, for the usual reasons, i.e. as a safeguard against my anterograde amnesia mostly; this is still background and none of the actual story yet.

In the summer of 2014 Cloe had still not decided to go dairy-free and was eating occasional ice cream snacks. One of them which she discovered at a Dollar General or Family Dollar store in Austin in the small snack freezer was an ice cream confection called a Choco Taco. As we hit the road for California that summer, and stopped frequently for snack foods, she looked out for Choco Taco to see if they had it. And oddly enough most places did. By the time we got to El Paso I looked up the history of the snack food. It goes back to the mid-80s. Originally from Philadelphia. But it didn’t appear nationwide until about ‘96; three years before my daughter was born. So it had literally existed for her whole life, and more than half of mine. Perhaps because I was vegan I never noticed the thing before. But it seemed odd to her that she went her whole life – a person who very much likes ice cream and snack foods – and never saw it once. Anywhere. Then all of a sudden, after spotting it at that one place in Austin, it was everywhere. A trend that continued all the way to LA.

It was at a place called Mel’s Drive In, in Hollywood where we had the conversation in which she said that she was “being stalked by Choco Taco.” It was just that moment that her cousin walked up and overheard and asked, smiling “did you say you were being stalked by a taco?” We laughed at that a little, explained the Choco Taco thing, and she agreed that it sounded delicious but also said she’d never heard of it before.

Well, my daughter was already into creepypasta stories at fifteen, and although she had a crush on Jeff The Killer she found the sillier ones to be entertaining. It was a couple of weeks later that she asked me, during one of our creative writing sessions as I homeschooled her, if a “giant taco” could come to life.

Not that she was literally asking the question, scientifically, like: do platypuses exist, or can sheep be cloned... but in the context of fiction or science fiction, is there a way that it could possibly happen? I took it on as a thought experiment / creative-writing moment of my own. We often bounce ideas back and forth during creative writing.

Within less than a minute this is what I came up with:

Since she was talking about the actual food product and not a person in a taco costume –but scaled up, larger than life, maybe 10 feet tall or more, and wanted the thing to be stalking somebody in her creepypasta story...

The first thing to pop into my head was a Star Trek episode from the original series called “Shore Leave“ and a lesser known movie with pretty much the same technology-plot called “Sphere.” The unknown movie had a pretty good cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah (whom they wasted too early-on IMO), and Sharon Stone among others. It just didn’t evoke the same kind of fun mood as the Star Trek episode. Most people I’ve talked to can’t remember ever having seen it or heard of it- Sphere. Probably because it didn’t have Alice In Wonderland + the white rabbit, female crew members dressed as damsels and knights in armor killing crew members with lances, Sulu getting attacked by a samurai, etc.

Anyway, the technology works the same way:

Some advanced beings who have figured out how to do matter transmutation and read minds have combined the two tricks, and can take whatever thoughts a particular being is having and turn them into reality. But of course the hapless inferior humans who stumble upon the thing won’t know what’s going on until some weird stuff starts happening.

The format is

A. Humans find alien tech that does this stuff,

B. a bunch of freaky shit happens,

C. the light bulb goes on and someone says “hey, I was just thinking about ______,” resulting in:

D. They figure out what’s going on. And then I suppose,

E. they must make a decision about what to do with the alien technology.

In Star Trek: Shore Leave they agree with the friendly alien that it’s okay for humans to come back and use the place as an amusement park again as long as they observe some precautions. Since having to travel back to the Delta Omicron system each time they wanted to have some fun… would have been tedious, i suppose? They incorporated the idea, as The Holodeck, into the Enterprise for the animated Star Trek cartoon series in the 1970s and then again for The Next Generation in the 1980s and in others perhaps. In ‘Sphere’ they simply agree to modify their minds with the technology so as to make themselves forget everything. Because it’s presumably too much power for humans to be trusted with. Then the sphere flies off into space when it realizes it’s services are no longer needed.

So the question then became: why would someone want to make a giant taco that comes to life and stalks people?

Drugs? Someone who was really stoned when they encountered this alien device? Maybe that’s not what they really wanted. So we have our “step B” in the generic formula which I listed above. So someone is wasted enough to be hallucinating a taco coming to life and thinks it’s funny? I suddenly flashed back to most of the underground raves I went to in the early 1990s.

The novel series entitled: If And Only If which I listed at the top of this post, will follow in these posts eventually. The standard copyright disclaimer below is pertaining to that novel series. It also applies to the portions of the preceding paragraphs that describe my ideas and obviously not to Star Trek or the Sphere movie, which I cited and are not my creations.

If And Only If: Time Tear

(this link is the same as the one from the beginning of this post. It will take you to the prologue plus the first twenty-two sections of the story, which should appear in order.)

If And Only If

Copyright 2015

by Michelle Viviénne de Vandahlcourte

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

First Edition. © December 16, 2015.

[thefallenbibliophilequote]

What If?

Bucky x Reader

Summary: You think back on your relationship with Bucky, with questions of 'What if' surrounding you, four questions stood out to you, so you wonder- which one will come true?

Word count: 4,179

Warnings: melancholy angst, character death of sorts (not real deaths), some fluff, the winter soldier, mentions of violence, civil war Bucky, language, me referencing poems.

A/N: Civil War timeline with some modifications. Italics are daydreams. The question What If? Is my favourite question- it is so hopeful and yet so destructive. Besides the Taylor song, I also based this on the song 'What If?' From the musical If/Then

A/N2: this is based on the song The 1 by Taylor Swift for @captain-kelli Don't Call It A Comeback Tour challenge! When I signed up for it this entire story just came to my mind all at once and I could see it all from start to finish. However when I finally sat down with my outline to write it… something possessed it. I have mixed feelings about this but oh well, I hope you will like it! Thank you @lookiamtrying for beta reading this!

No one is allowed to repost my writing or steal or copy my work! Reblog on tumblr is fine.

Masterlist

--

It always came back to your head in flashes; he came back in glances at objects around your apartment, but he never came back to you- not in your reality. You remembered the last night you saw him next to you, you remembered his cold voice that you read so well past. You mostly remembered the look in his blue eyes- they were soft and sad, contrasting his tone just like how his words contrasted their true meaning.

You had found your little piece of heaven in this small apartment, Bucky found his peace with you. He was always cautious, ever since he pulled Steve out of the river and started to remember his old life he run away from hydra, using all of his training to disappear from both sides that were looking for him. And then he found you and everything changed. You didn't know who he was at first, but by the time he opened up and told you who he was he held a part of your heart. It took some time but by the time you earned his full trust you took space in his heart, and when you didn't run away after you found out about him- your place in his heart grew and he kept you there safe. Logically he knew he should never stay for too long, and he shouldn't stay with you, but you were the first friend he had in decades- you helped him through nightmares, and you gave him a diary to keep track of the memories that started to come back. So he risked everything, and took every precaution to make sure he could stay there with you and dissipate his past from his potential future with you. And slowly but surely your relationship together evolved. You were proud of every progress he made- when the nightmares became rare, when you had to buy him another notebook, when he talked to you about it and you saw him forgive himself for something that was not his choice- you were proud when he started smiling and touching you more freely even with his left arm. You were proud of him when he showed his emotions more and told you those three little words with a bright look in his eye that caused you to smile and reply those same three words.

Then he came home to you one night with a heavy look that you haven't seen in a long time- you remember it from the time you were only friends, when he came to your door after a nightmare, panicked, saying he should run away.

He didn't talk that night, but you felt him change again, you felt him being more reserved again, like the Bucky you first met.

Then he came home to you one night a week later with the same look but now you saw his eyes- they weren't cold, they were emotional.

"They found me." No they didn't.

"Bucky," he was never one to lie. "What are you saying?"

You left the mug you held on the counter and walked to him in the living room. When he didn't answer you went to sit on the couch, patting the spot next to you.

"Talk to me, please." Bucky went towards you but he bent down and you knew what he was about to do. He moved the rug away and pulled at the wooden floor until you could both see the hidden space there where he told you an emergency bag will be necessary. He pulled it out.

"I need to go, you can't come with me."

"No, Bucky look at me," you stood up in front of him, "you don't have to run away! I can come with you-"

"It's too dangerous! You can't date the Winter Soldier!" He finally said. You knew he was trying to scare you with his cold tone, but you didn't let him.

"And yet, I am still here! I am not going to leave you Bucky- no one found you, stay with me- please don't run away."

"Doll," his eyes always gave him away. "I need to go, they are close. I need to leave."

"Bucky," tears welled up in your eyes. "Will you-"

"I am not going to come back."

Yes, you remember that night well. You played it in your head over and over again. You remembered your tears, the slamming door, and mostly the quiet.

You felt it when you woke up alone again every day after that. You saw him on the TV a few weeks after he left you- he stood next to Captain America- at least he found Steve. You had a million things you wished you could have said, questions you wished to know. You never know, though, when it will all go away, but you know the greatest loves of all time are over now, they always end. But you could never let it go, he plagued your mind.

It was the constant question of: Would he have stayed for you? If things were different? If he didn't have an excuse to leave?

You knew the answer could kill you, but your mind couldn't help but wonder- What if?

•

What if he stayed?

"I'm not coming back." Bucky closed the door behind him, it slammed harder than he intended to. He took the time to rest against the door, gathering his thoughts as he softly whispered to the air-

"I love you."

You brought life to his grey world, you helped him find himself- is he scared more of hydra finding you, or of you? Everything good seemed to be taken from him, and you were the sunshine for him- the moonlight comfort of the midnight nightmares.

Bucky spent so long running, what if he just let himself have this- you? What if he didn't use his past as an excuse to run away from his possible future?

He didn't think further when he opened the door again and shut it behind him. His eyes were just as soft and glassy as yours, filled with unshed tears. He came to you and you got up from the couch- without missing a beat he pulled you to him, holding you tight.

"I'm sorry, doll, I love you, and I don't want to leave you."

"Then stay, please. We are safe." You held him tighter and let out a shaking breath when you realized he didn't walk away, he stayed for you.

"I'll stay." He promised you that night, both of you refused to let go.

It was a few months after that and Bucky passed a jewelry shop, he watched as couples inside looked at all the shiny items and picked a few to take to their home. You were his home.

When he came back to you, the house smelled like his favourite pie that you made. He wanted to stay forever here with you, you didn't have much, but you had enough to get by and it was everything he could wish for right now.

But at night he laid wide awake, his metal arm surrounding you securely, drawing senseless patterns on your skin as you slept.

He couldn't give you a future like all the other normal couples have, but he could try to do his best, you always told him that trying was enough.

Bucky went to the museum the next night, when the old guard fell asleep he snuck in and searched for his treasure- in the area that displayed his stuff from the 40s- he found it. His ma's engagement ring, it was silver with two blue stones on either side the small diamond- you will look so perfect wearing it.

He was walking home with a smile, hoping to be home before you wake up- he left you a note but he knew you would only worry.

On the way, he decided to purchase some plums and then he saw the newspaper- the assassination of King T'Chaka, blamed on the Winter Soldier. He knew he had to get home fast. The smile dropped from his face and he ran to you.

"Doll!" He yelled to you when he closed the apartment shut, he panicked when you didn't answer. Checking the windows were closed, he saw no sign of forced entry, so he moved to the bedroom you shared."Doll,"

You were still asleep peacefully in your bed, only opening your eyes when you heard him call you again.

"Good morning, Bucky." You smiled at him and went to pull him down for a kiss which he gladly returned, letting himself relax when he knew you were safe. "What are you doing all dressed up-"

You stopped when you saw his nervous eyes.

"What happened?" you sat up on the bed and held Bucky's hand as he told you about the news.

"But, they don't know where we are, so we will be fine… right?" you were trying to stay hopeful, you didn't want anything to get in the way of your happiness, but life finds a way.

"We can't be certain… doll I think we need to go."

"Go where?" you didn't want to leave this house, you shared so many moments here with him, "This is our home."

"You are my home, we can find a place for us wherever we go- but I have to keep you safe with me. So, we need to go."

You only nodded to him, solemnly getting out of bed and packing the essentials he told you to take.

Soon enough, you were ready to go, but he stopped you before you reached for the door handle.

"Wait," his throat suddenly went dry, but he had to do this- he had to do this here. "I just need to tell you something, before we go."

"What is it?"

"We shared so many memories here, you helped me find myself and never gave up on me. And then I fell in love with you and I was so happy when I first kissed you and you admitted to loving me as well- and you let me set the pace. You were always there for me, doll, and I always want you to be."

"Bucky, what are you-"

"My ma always told me to give this to someone special, someone who managed to see the real me, and I have no clue how you did it, doll, but you did." He got down on one knee, "So, I want to do my ma proud, do this properly."

And then he went down on one knee, and then you said yes.

You smiled, you would have been so happy, and he never would have gotten caught, not if he had you. You've only seen the ring before in pictures but… it would have been fun, if he would've been the one.

You really were something together, so you let your mind wonder again.

-

Little did you know that all that time ago, Bucky had wondered the exact same thing. What if he stayed?

Bucky burst through the door, shutting it behind him as he went to envelop you in his arms.

"I'm not leaving you, not ever." He held you tight- and he promised he won't let you go no matter what happened. He couldn't handle not being with you.

Months passed with you sleeping soundly next to him.

Another day started like any other- right before he heard the explosion coming from the living room, awakening both you and Bucky in freight.

"Bucky, what's happening?" You whispered to him as you saw him get up and grab the gun that was taped under the bed.

"Stay here, I'll keep you safe, they found me but I promise- I won't let them get to you." He told you, and then Bucky went, opening the door and seeing the Hydra agents that stormed his house- his home.

Bucky sprung to action and shot the ones that came near him, protecting himself from the bullets with his metal arm. As soon as he took care of the agents in his home, he heard voices coming up the stairs- he had to get you out of here.

"Doll, come on, we have to go." He urgently told you, seeing you were already dressed and took the emergency bag he kept under your bed- you always knew.

"Where to, Bucky?" your shaky voice didn't escape him as he escorted you through the bodies on the floor, but he didn't have time to comfort you right now- his only mission was to get you to safety. That was all he wished for. That was all he wished for when you went to the roof to look at the stars, when you passed by a fountain and he remembered his ma telling him to toss pennies in the pool and make a wish.

He helped you down the fire escape and held you tight as he jumped onto another roof. Then he simply told you to run as he seeked temporary cover to think of an exit for you. They were shooting at you now, and he ushered you in front of him, having his body as a shield for you.

He found a place behind a vent as soon as you gained some speed and put space between you and the Hydra agents.

"Bucky-" your soft voice called to him, bringing him back to you. He looked at you when you just looked at your stomach, where blood was now seeping through your shirt.

"No, no doll stay with me-" your eyes began to flutter as the dizziness took you. "We will fix it, you'll be okay- I'll fix it."

"Bucky- it's okay." Your hand caressed his cheek; you winced when he put pressure on the wound.

"No, it's not! I can't lose you doll, this is all my fault, please stay with me." You felt his tears on your hand, even when you felt things go dark, you didn't break his gaze.

"This isn't your fault, Bucky. I love you, please promise me you'll stay yourself- don't let them convince you you're anything but a good man."

"No, doll, stay- please." His voice broke. "I love you."

The lights went out in your eyes, and he felt all the light in his life go with you, he sobbed over you, not caring about the hydra agents getting close. No one will take you away from him. He didn't let you go, he couldn't handle being without you.

If only his wishes came true, it would've been you that was alive instead of him, and you would've been safe.

•

What if you had gone after him?

It took you months, but you knew you had to go after him and fight for the two of you. You finally found him- they had taken him to the Avengers facility like you saw on the news. He was captured with Captain America- his former friend, you hoped Steve was taking care of your Bucky.

He had to be safe now, right? From what you heard of Steve… he won't let anything happen to him- so you hoped that maybe you could tell him who you were to Bucky and they will let you see him.

You walked into the facility with your cover, standing idly in the corner of the room as you watched Bucky being locked in a cage. It hurt your heart and you wished you could walk up to Steve but he was with government officials- and those were never good.

Then everything went dark. You were freaking out like the rest of them when you heard a girl talking to Steve-

"Sublevel 5, east wing." She had said and you quickly exited from the room, hoping to get to Bucky. Remembering the schematics of the building you memorized, you rushed to him. Was it dangerous? Maybe. Did you care? Not even a bit.

You ran down the stairs when you heard a commotion.

You entered the floor to see Tony Stark aiming a weapon against Bucky. You've never seen him this way, as the Winter Soldier- but he was still your Bucky.

"No!" you shouted when a loud blast echoed in the room. Tony went to attack him and you stood there helpless, not knowing what to do. You knew in your heart that he will recognize you- he has to. He is your Bucky- he said he will never forget you.

Two girls went to attack him after he pushed Tony Stark away and you rushed forward, getting to him before the others, you grabbed his arm.

"Civilians aren't allowed here, get out of the way!" The Black Widow called to you, but you ignored her as Bucky turned to you. You couldn't see him in the Winter Soldier's eyes but you knew he was there. The Winter Soldier grabbed you by the throat with his metal arm and pinned you to the wall, but you tried to stop him.

"Bucky- Bucky it's me, please come back to me." You said to him and dared to reach out to hold his cheek. "Bucky I'm here, I know you can break out of this- you won't hurt me."

His hard eyes were now confused instead and he did nothing for a couple of moments before you knew you had him.

"Doll?" he whispered to you, before he pulled away from you, realizing what happened. You didn't let him get far.

"I'm here Bucky, you didn't hurt me." You took his flesh hand, shooting a daring glance at the two girls who stood there on edge. "Please don't hurt him."

You brought Bucky closer, seeing the hesitation in his eyes, you assured him.

"I've got you, you didn't hurt me. Bucky, let me keep you safe for once." You brought him closer and he sent a shaky look at the agents, eyes falling to their guns and weapons that stood ready. "Look at me."

He did, and your eyes brought him ever so closer until you could hug him properly. You held him closely, keeping a tight hold around his neck. His arms soon surrounded you, and you knew he had his eyes sharp and open, protecting you all the time, checking for potential threats.

"We need to go." He told you. You turned around when you heard footsteps approaching, and Natasha yelling at them to stand down.

"Buck?" You heard Steve's voice, but with the new people with guns, Bucky immediately pulled you back so he could stand in front of you to protect you.

"Why are you just standing there?" One of the government officials came into the room and ordered around. "Take him down!"

"No!" Both you and Steve yelled. You saw red- no one will hurt him again.

"Listen," you ignored Bucky who was adamant on keeping you behind him and you stepped forward, his hand was still on your waist. "He will do whatever it takes to keep me safe, whoever points a gun at me will be viewed as a threat that he will take out- so I suggest you move out of the room."

Steve looked puzzled between his friend and Natasha, who just shook her head at his silent question.

"Do you think I will leave a dangerous hydra asset- the Winter Soldier- alone by the hands of some girl?" Bucky's hand tightened around you.

"His name is James Bucky Barnes, not an asset- just a man." You spat out at him, "Only these five can stay- I think three avengers are more capable than you or your team to deal with this. So unless you want to lose your life because you insulted some girl- move out, now."

"Listen to the girl, Ross" Tony held his hands up and the other man walked out until it was only the two of you, Steve, Tony, Natasha, the blonde agent and Prince T'Challa. You looked at Bucky behind you before you looked at Steve.

"It's nice to finally meet you, Steve." He nodded to you, "I have heard a lot about you. And I hope you didn't change from who you used to be."

"And why is that?" Natasha spoke up.

"Because all I want is for Bucky to be safe. He hasn't been triggered in two years, not since the Triskelion. He did nothing wrong- he is just Bucky now." You interlaced your fingers with his and you felt him relax behind you.

"He killed my father." The king said and you shook your head.

"I didn't kill your father." Bucky said quietly.

"He was with me the entire time, at a different country too." You hoped they will listen to you.

"Ross will not be happy… but let's take my jet and get out of here. How does that sound?" Tony offered, "And then we can talk."

You looked back at Bucky and nodded, he smiled softly at you, and you knew you will be okay.

Yes, you would have been okay. If you were there you would have talked sense into everyone. He would have been okay if you went after him- you wouldn't have let anything happen to him. It played all out in your head like a film, but you knew the greatest films of all time were never made- all because of a single choice.

-

Little did you know, that when Bucky sat in his cell as the guy in front of him started reading the words- all he thought about was you. He was so glad you weren't there, he couldn't even imagine what would have happened if you had gone after him.

Bucky felt the words take over him, he shook his head trying to fight it.

"No."

But it was too late, and Bucky was stuck inside his own mind. He tried to fight him, but The Winter Soldier was in control.

It was all a blur to him, but then he saw you- he heard your voice, and suddenly all he could do was fight, trying to break free from all those years of torture just to save you- if only he could save you, he could forgive himself- he could fight.

He hoped you could still see him there, he heard you call out his name.

"Bucky- Bucky it's me, please come back to me." You said to him and dared to reach out to hold his cheek- he could feel you. "Bucky I'm here, I know you can break out of this- you won't hurt me."

He tried- he tried to break free for you and he almost did.

"Bucky-" he heard you call out to him and he was forced to watch as the spark in your eyes, that you reserved just for him, died out. He was caged- and you died because of him, because he wasn't strong enough.

Bucky tried to shake the mental image of your lifeless body from his head. He sat in that chair as the Winter Soldier took over him, you didn't know it but all he thought about back then was you and the only relief he had is that you weren't around for him to hurt.

•

But What if the story ends here?

You pulled yourself out of the memories you could have had and brought yourself back to the present, if only you had done something- anything. You looked around your apartment as you sat on the couch, your tea long forgotten. You rose up with a sigh, and you pondered how long were you going to wonder about the road not taken? He haunted all of your What Ifs. Four years ago you chose to let two blue eyes into your life- and that has made all the difference. Two years ago those blue eyes left your life- and that had changed everything.

You went to close the old bag you found, with the shiny object still in its box- you shut it and delicately put it in the bag and closed it.

You still mused over it though- if one thing had been different, would everything be different today? With each choice that you make you lose roads you won't get to take, with each coin that you toss you lose choices you won't get to make. You choose and then everything changes, and you know there is no turning back... so you wonder- What if?

If only your wishes came true, Bucky would have come back to you.

But timing is a funny thing.

You almost missed the knock on the door. Putting the mug on the table, you went to the door.

If your wishes came true, he would have chosen you.

You opened the door, coming face to face with a man you only saw on TV, with his hair now short, his left arm black and gold- so much changed but his eyes were still the same. He was still Bucky- was he still yours? You couldn't help but wonder…

"Bucky?"

"Hi, doll."

What if it began again?

•

Taglist: : @callmeluna @sstanbarnes @buckys-other-punk @drabblewithfrannybarnes @easygoingtheatre @that-one-person @justab-eautifulmess @onceupona-happilyeverafter @wipplogg @supraveng @samwilsons-pillowpecs @ayybtch @kitkatd7 @chrissquares @make-me-imagine @jessalyn-jpeg @buckybarneschokeme

[wiypt-writes]

Murder, He Wrote

Part 7

Summary: Ransom makes good on his promise and your parents arrive for dinner. But then, you discover something that brings your entire world shattering down around you once more…

Warnings: Bad language words. MATURE (NSFW 18+) NON-CON situation, kidnap and violence. DO NOT READ IF ANY OF THOSE TRIGGER… READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!

Pairing: DARK! Ransom Drysdale x Reader

A/N:  So here it is, the last chapter to this series! I can’t believe all this spun from @jtargaryen18​‘s Halloween challenge last year, and here we are 6 months later! Of course, I’d love to thank my writing partner from the earlier chapters, but sadly she’s no longer on Tumblr. Without her none of this would have been possible. I love you SG wherever you are. Thank you to everyone who has read and engaged so far and I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing. The Epilogue will follow next week and trust me, you do NOT want to miss that!!

In this, the reader has a sister, however feel free to interpret the Y/S/N element as sibling instead, if that appeals to you.

Word Count: 8.5k (I’m sorry I don’t do short fics, really I am!!)

READ THE WARNINGS!!!! This is a DARK Series… don’t @ me if you can’t follow simple instructions and end up with butt-hurt. And if you’re under 18…get off my blog.

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and by writing it does NOT mean I agree with or condone the acts contained within. This fiction is classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters in this series bar reader and any other OCs that may or may not be mentioned. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Murder, He Wrote Masterlist // Main Masterlist.

Part 6

 “Will you relax?” Ransom drawled from where he sat, sprawled back on the sofa in the main lounge of the house, his denim clad legs crossed at the ankles, his black cashmere sweater torso melting against the cushions. “It’s just your parents, what’s the big deal?” You weighed your reply but instead smiled, he couldn't possibly understand. He wouldn't. "Let me just have this moment, please." He looked at you, his eyebrow arched before he scoffed, “whatever, Sweetheart. But if you’re gonna keep pacing up and down, can you do it in the hallway? The wood flooring is a lot more hardwearing.” With a roll of your eyes you left the lounge, wringing your hands together. This was the first time in months you'd be seeing your parents and it wasn't lost on you the charade you'd have to keep up despite wanting to somehow plea for a rescue. It was also worrying how they were going to react. Especially following the call you’d made a week or so ago, just before New Year’s Eve.

When you’d dialled the number you knew off by heart, your mother had answered. And upon hearing your voice she had shrieked and then the line had gone quiet until your father had spoken your name with a trembling voice. You’d been unable to answer straight away, your own voice catching, before a sob had burst from your throat and the tears had poured down your face. You’d managed a few, choked words of apologies until Ransom had pushed himself up from the seat he had been perched in, silently observing. He curled his arm over your shoulder, giving you a squeeze as you composed yourself. Eventually, you’d managed to calm yourself down and thankfully your dad hadn’t asked too many questions but had accepted your invite to dinner.

And now, here you were, nervously awaiting their arrival.

It wasn’t lost on you that, in their eyes, the fact you had cut them off was your decision, not forced on you by the man you were now sharing a bed with. And that was your other worry, you had no idea how he was going to behave. If Ransom showed your family the same contempt he displayed to his own, your dad wasn’t the type of man who would stand for it. And then what? But you had zero time to think on it as the doorbell rang. Your heart leapt to your throat and your stomach turned acidic. Ransom poked his head out of the lounge and looked at you expectantly, like you were to answer. Adjusting your sweater dress for the millionth time, you walked to the front door and reached for the knob with a shaky hand. You steeled your nerves and blinked hard to dissipate the tears, and opened the door. For the first time in months you looked back into the familiar eyes of your parents. Your mom’s face was pinched, as if she was chewing the inside of her cheeks and as you glanced to your dad you already noticed the daggers he was shooting at the man behind you. To anyone else it would be enough to make them quake in their shoes, but not Ransom. “Mom, Dad.” Your voice sounded alien as you spoke quietly, your fingers grabbing at the bottom of your sleeves as one of Ransom’s hands curled over your shoulder. "Y/N," your dad replied, and the awkwardness officially set in.

"Aren't you going to invite them in, Sweetheart?" Ransom's voice made you jump a bit.

"Yes, please, come in," you stepped aside for them to enter. "Welcome to, erm, our home."

Calling it that felt all sorts of wrong, but you didn’t have time to dwell on it. Besides, it wasn’t like you could call it what it was, your prison. Your father stepped inside followed by your mother, the foyer now feeling a little crowded. Your mother was quick to pull you in for a hug. But it was brief and not the way she used to hug you, no, this hug felt like it came from a stranger. Your dad’s embrace, however, was everything you remembered. Safety, strength and love and you felt yourself melt into his arms, choking back a sob as you pressed your face into his chest. "We appreciate you coming to dinner," Ransom spoke, breaking the embrace you shared with your father. "It's nice to finally meet you both. I'm Ransom." Your dad looked at you as you nodded, wiping the tears from your eyes as he looked to Ransom. “We know who you are. With the news, the papers and Y/N's article, we've probably become more acquainted than you're aware.” He spoke calmly but cooly, gripping Ransom’s outstretched hand with a less than friendly shake, one that would make a lesser man wince. Instead, you saw what you thought was a flicker of amusement on Ransom's face before your dad released his hand and you introduced your mother. She didn’t offer her hand. Instead she gave a sniff and took a deep breath, getting straight to the point as she always did. “Well, this is all very nice and everything but what the hell do you think you’re playing at, Y/N? You disappeared with no trace, we thought you were dead, and then we find out you're not. Instead you’re, with him, choosing not to contact us or speak to us? Forgive me for the brash and abrupt approach, but before we sit down for dinner, we deserve some answers.” Her voice gathered pace and volume as she continued to rail at you, telling you how worried and sick the entire family had been, how thanksgiving and Christmas without you had been awful and whatever else she had on her mind as she spewed her words at you, her face an eyes blazing with anger. You felt sick, never had you meant for any of this to happen, clearly. And you'd secretly hoped Ransom would have seen the devastation he'd caused by his actions, however you knew that was an ill-fated hope just as well. You struggled to speak, the words jumbling around in your head and your mouth bone dry. "I'm so sorry," Ransom sighed. "Why don't we come into the lounge and have a drink or two and we can talk all about it? I know that Y/N was looking forward to your visit and clearing the air."

He looked at you as he ushered towards the lounge, a hidden smugness to his face that only you could detect. He thought he'd just played the hero, the prince saving his distressed princess. “Good idea,” your dad nodded, his hand gently on the base of your mother’s spine, “come on, Honey.” “Straight down, second on your right.” Ransom informed as your parents headed off a little ahead of you.

“Now, remember, what you tell them has to match what you said to Blanc.” Ransom took your hand in his and spoke quietly as you both began to follow your parents. “I. Know.” You grit though your teeth and jerked your hand free of his. He stopped dead and turned to face you, and for the first time ever you saw something akin to fear on his face, you were resisting that much anger. “Y/N...” he started but you shook your head. “You have no idea how much you’ve hurt them or me do you? That or you simply still don’t care.” You hissed before you took a deep breath and drew yourself up tall. “But, we’ll just go in there, spin a load of more lies and that’s it, all done isn’t it?” He blinked before his jaw set and he shook his head. “I’m warning you...” “What else is new?” You sighed. “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything and I’ll still be here when they leave.” You stepped a pace or two in front of him and entered the lounge. Your parents were sitting on the couch you'd become very familiar with while Ransom moved straight for the drink cart. "Mr. Y/L/N, can I interest you in a top shelf scotch?" "Mom," you said softly as the conversation between your dad and Ransom faded out, "Ransom and I have a great white wine if you'd like or..." "Scotch is fine," she interrupted you, a stone cold look to her disappointed face. Ransom served the drinks, handing you your preferred wine with a kiss to your head. You watched how your parents interacted with him, the way your father watched every calculated step, the way your mother shot daggers in the two of you as you sat opposite them on the love seat. You leaned forward so as to move a bit away from Ransom, however, he was quick to put his arm over the back of the love seat, his hand able to still touch you. “So, erm, how’s....” “Your sister? Nanna? Granddad? Who would you like to start with?” Your mom took a sip of her drink and you dropped your eyes, your gaze focussed on your hands as they rubbed together. 

"I'm sorry, okay?” You stuttered, shaking your head. “I know you’re angry and upset and you have every right to be but... I didn’t do any of this on purpose.” “That detective man, Blanc, and the police... they said you didn’t want us to know where you were...” “I didn’t.” You choked on the lie a little. “My head was a mess and...” you sniffed as you felt Ransom’s fingers graze the skin on the back of your neck as you looked at your mom. “Mom, please, please don't make tonight continue with vicious jabs and vile glares. I'm sorry, to you, to everyone. I was...." you stopped and centred yourself. "I was lost and I didn't know what to do." "Why don't we just get this out of the way then maybe we can move on with our evening?" Ransom suggested and your father nodded in shocking agreement. "Let's let her explain, Dear. She said she made a mistake and there were good reasons she couldn't come to us, I'm sure. Let's just hear her out." Your father was always the more sensible one. You mother took a shaky breath and looked at you and you swallowed before you started to talk, the lie you had rehearsed in your head slipping from your lips. “I erm, I was having a bit of trouble at work and everything just got too much and... well, I don’t know what happened, a breakdown or whatever,” you took a deep breath, “I just needed to get away, from everything.” “Including us?” Your mom asked and you shook your head. “I wasn’t thinking straight, I just...” "You know, it doesn’t matter what you say to explain because frankly, I won't understand but I do hope that you never have to experience what we went through. Ever." She deadpanned. "I do believe that is my fault, Mrs. Y/L/N. I encouraged her approach and didn't discourage the fact that she wasn't contacting you or anyone she was close with." Ransom sighed, feigning concern for your parents.

You knew what he was doing, the Master Manipulator was coming out in him and you knew there was no going back, no. It was as if Ransom said 'challenge accepted' in winning your parents over. Just, so you assumed, the night would end and you'd be happy in his arms and they'd never think twice about your brief disappearance again. “We hadn’t been seeing each other that long, and my reputation isn’t the greatest. But I should have put my own concerns aside and seen that the way we were going about things was wrong and I should have insisted she reached out. You see, me and my family aren’t close and I sometimes forget that we’re the ones that aren’t normal.” "We hadn't known she was seeing anyone," your mum stated. She was out with her claws, not going to let Ransom nor you off so easily.

"Well, I'm not like Y/S/N, Mom. I don't just bring home whomever I'm taking to bed that month." You'd said it before you could stop it. Never had you said something like that before about your sister, nor spoken to your mother like that. And you didn't miss the twitch of a smirk to the corner of Ransom's lips, telling you he was a bit proud. Surely, you didn't want him to be rubbing off on you in that way. "I'm sorry, that wasn't how I meant it. I just knew I had to be more careful in sharing everything. Like he said, he's not got the best rap, but, after my interview on him, well I guess I just found him intriguing and-“ “Ah, yes," your father now spoke up, cutting you off, “the smear and redact. Believe me, Ransom, we're very familiar with your reputation and our daughter's initial thoughts on you. Which is why you can see how we were a little surprised, once the initial shock of her supposed death wore off, that the two of you were... together." “I understand.” Ransom nodded. “And I would feel the same in your shoes. But, well, I guess after the interview things just kind of spiralled from there. I don’t really know how it happened myself, to be honest, I’m just glad it did.” As if he was sealing the deal, he leaned toward you and pressed his lips to your temple. You sighed and gave him a smile. This bastard was smug enough to start shifting the tone in the room with a metaphorical snap of his fucking fingers and you watched it work on your parents. The ice slowly melting away, the glacial peak softening around your mother. And then the metaphorical snap became a real one as he moved his arm from round you, clicked the fingers of both hands and then slapped his left palm with the underside of his right fist with a flourish as he flashed a smile round the room. “Okay, so....who’s hungry?”

Your parents both raised their eyebrows and as your mom looked at your dad, you saw him shake his head ever so slightly and she took a deep breath, before she turned back to Ransom and you, a small smile on her face. “Dinner sounds great.” "Sweetheart, after you," Ransom politely shifted to the side so you could rise and lead the way. He turned back to your parents, "we wanted to make sure we were able to spend as much time together without the chore of preparing and cleaning up after so we had dinner brought in. Y/N had it all set just before you arrived." You shot him a glare as you moved by him, your mother and father behind you, Ransom pulling up the rear. Sure enough, still warm and catered were four place settings at the table in the large dining room across and down a bit from the lounge. Your parents sat down across the table from where you and Ransom stood, silver dome lids obscuring your eyeline as you sat. Oddly, you'd never eaten in the dining room before. It was your room in the basement, the kitchen table or the coffee table in the lounge. Red wine and cutlery were already set along with water. Your parents and Ransom set their scotch glasses near the wine. Your dad arched an eyebrow at the ostentatious nature of it all and you caught his gaze as he gave you a kneeling smirk. With a laugh, you realized that someone should at least remove the lids, and since you were the host, you rose from your chair and bent over the table a little, reaching for the knobs of their domes. You stacked them together and sat back down, pulling yours and Ransom's as you went.

As you settled down to eat, your parents both complimented the food before a little silence fell as you all ate, the occasional clanking of cutlery against the porcelain plates ringing out across the large room. Ransom made a few comments here and there about the food from the company you’d ordered from being good, as usual, your parents agreeing before a light conversation struck up about the holidays and various other mundane topics, all as if you were close and the conversation prior hadn't happened. Like it was a regular Sunday family dinner. All the time, you spotted your parents growing more and more comfortable with the situation, and you felt yourself relax a little, hoping and praying that things would keep amicable.

And then, after another spell of silence you heard your mother clear her throat. "So, Ransom, what is you do? I never gathered that from…well, from…” she trailed off and Ransom took a dep breath. “To be honest with you, Mrs. Y/L/N, not a great deal until recently. Just another way Y/N managed to help me change my life around." He looked at you with appreciation. "She made me see that living my life riding off people’s coat tails wasn’t really anything to be proud of.” He paused to take a sip of his scotch before he cut another piece of his steak. “Now I’m writing. I have a couple of things on the go and a few from my grandfather that he never finished so, hopefully, they’ll take off.” This bastard! You could not believe the bullshit that so easily sprang from his mouth. It was fascinating and yet absolutely disgusting at once. You found yourself convinced, and not for the first time, that he actually believed the shit he talked. "What's your book about, if you don’t mind me asking?" You father queried, after swallowing down his steak with his wine, saving his scotch for after. “Not at all,” Ransom swallowed his food. “Another area I’ve taken inspiration from, it’s based on a private detective.” He gave a chuckle. “I’ll be handing out a lot of royalties and dedications at this rate.” "Just a private detective?" You pressed, having wondered yourself as he'd told you once before you were an inspiration. He looked at you, smirking a little. “I’ve told you, Princess, I’ll let you read it when the first draft is done.”

Your father eyed you as Ransom spoke of pet names and inspirations. Your eyes flitted away from his gaze, entertaining Ransom's portion of the conversation but you found them quickly fluttering back to those kind eyes that matched yours. At that point, your dad shot you a sweet father-like wink before clearing his throat and speaking.  "So, let's not beat around the obvious, this is awkward." He paused to emphasize his point. "I'll just come right out with it. What could your future intentions be with my daughter?"

"Jesus Christ, Dad!" You surely hadn't seen that coming.  Ransom blinked a little before he cleared his throat. “I’ll keep her as long as I can, Sir.”

At that, his hand curled over your knee, giving a gentle squeeze and you took a deep breath, drawing your back up straight as his hand gently started to trail further up towards your thigh, fingers still hot on your skin through the layer of your thick tights. You cleared your throat, and moved a little, and Ransom removed his hand, a smirk blatantly evident on his face.

“Good to know.” Your dad reached for his wine again, a teasing smile on his face. “I mean the lease has gone on her apartment now and we turned her room into a gym the moment she moved out.”

“Oh purlease!” Your mom scoffed, “a gym. By that he means he has a rowing machine and a bunch of weights that serve as nothing more than expensive door stops.”

At that Ransom gave a full belly laugh, his head tipping back with just the right amount of humour. Not too much to appear fake, but enough to seem like the exchange had genuinely amused him. He almost had you fooled too.

Bastard.

The rest of the dinner past with fairly amicable chat, the ice well and truly broken. Ransom and your father struck up a pleasant conversation about football and then baseball, Ransom confessing that he hadn’t been following either sport much recently but also nodding when your dad suggested that perhaps they could catch a game sometime soon, in a bar. At that you had smirked into your glass, as you knew the thought of going to a place surrounded by a load of loud, drunken members of the public would be Ransom’s idea of hell. The idea that he might just have to follow through on your promise amused you, a lot.

Eventually, your parents both announced that they should be going, and the warmth and happiness that had descended on you began to slowly seep away as you hugged them both good bye. As they headed down to their car, you stifled down a sob as you waved them away, realising you had no idea when you’d be seeing them again. That was on Ransom, for him to decide when and if you deserved it.

But, you’d played his game. You’d behaved. He said he wanted you to trust him, to be content with him. Surely, he would realise that this was the happiest you’d been since he snatched you, and if you continued to behave then he would have no reason to keep you from seeing them for so long again.

With a sigh you turn away from the door and step back inside, Ransom just behind you. You stopped and waited for him to close the door and lock it. He gave you a little twitch of a smile. 

“Well, that wasn’t as painful as I expected.”

You rolled your eyes.

"You were great, Sweetheart."

"Yeah, well, you won them over. I doubt they suspected anything by the time they left." Your words didn't cut him, they cut you. You cleared your throat and shook your head, "anyway, I'm going to go clean up. I'll meet you upstairs."

"What, no 'thank you'?" He piqued.

You turned back to him, "Thank you, Ransom. For allowing my parents to come over."

“That wouldn’t be sarcasm, now would it?” He arched a brow, his arms folding across his chest.

"Oh, no, not at all," you overly pouted, stepping up to him, running your hands over his chest to seal your own sarcastic ploy.

His hands were quick to grab your wrists and oddly there was an air of excitement to your eyes.

“What on earth is there to possibly be sarcastic about?” You continued and he scoffed.

“It’s a good thing I kinda like your sass.”

You simply quirk your eyebrows and give a small shrug before attempting to turn away. However, Ransom still had a hold of your wrists and he kept you rooted near by.

“Ransom, what...”

“Leave the dishes, the maid comes tomorrow. I pay her enough, she can deal with it.”

You scoffed, “you’re such an asshole.”

"Come to bed with me," he asked more than suggested.

Since your little tryst in his precious car a week ago, he'd been far more touchy-feely, needy even. And in your eyes, Ransom Drysdale didn't do needy. However, this neediness served a purpose. You were able to keep him soft in all but one place, manipulating his needs for your own.

“You want me to come to bed with you?” You playfully quipped, cocking your head to one side.

“You want me to beg or something, Y/N?” His voice lowered as he narrowed his eyes. “Because I can make it a demand not a request.”

“Not beg, no.” You ignored his threat. “But a please wouldn’t go amiss.”

His controlling hands moved your arms around his neck before they fell away to your waist. His forehead bent into yours and his nose brushed against the tip of your own. "Please, come to bed with me, baby," he whispered against you.

You were smirking inside as his lips met yours in a deep kiss, his tongue gently flicking through your lips and sliding against yours. 

“Since you asked so nicely.”

It was a quick swoop, one that completely caught you off guard as he pulled you off your feet, his arm around your back while the other was hooked under your legs. His lips were on yours as he carried you to the staircase, not ever missing a beat or step, his tongue gliding over yours as he walked.

You didn't know how the two of you had made it up to your bedroom, and without incident but, the next thing you knew, you were led flat over your bed, his body caging you in.

“You said I did well.” You looked at him and he blinked, his brow furrowing a little. “How well?”

Silently as you waited, hoping he would take the bait.

And he did.

“Very well.” his eyes searched yours and you bit your lip.

“Well enough for me to see them again?”

"If you want, maybe lunch with your mother," he answered, kissing over your jaw and down your neck between each phrase.

You stilled, shock hitting your system and just how easily he had offered that up, you hadn’t even had to try. Noticing your change in body language Ransom paused and looked at you. “What? Don’t you want to?”

“No, I mean yes, of course I do. I just wasn’t expecting you to say that. I mean...” you stopped yourself short of saying what you had been about to, that you were his damned prisoner and until a week or so ago hadn’t left the grounds at all in months. You swallowed as Ransom sighed.

"Trust, remember, baby," he leaned back on his knees between your legs. "Call her in a couple of days, set up lunch."

“And you trust me to do that?” You swallowed. “No stupid tricks or mind games?”

"I won't be far behind." There it was, the stipulation. That silent warning heeding a tone left unsaid. “That said, I’m kinda hoping we’re past the point of me having to remind you about certain things to make you come back.”

"I understand."

Ransom shook his head, licking his lips. “No, I don’t think you do.” 

There was a tone of sadness almost to his voice and you watched him, his eyes locked onto yours and then you understood.

This went right back to the core of all this. He wanted you to want to come back. Not to simply do it because you have to. It was the ever present chink in his armour, the one thing you’d been able to exploit.

And, if you were being totally honest, could more than likely learn to live with the situation if you could have some kind of grasp and control, because that’s what this was about. That ever present power struggle and desperation he has within him to be more than people simply assumed him to be.

In a twisted way, you were almost proud to see the difference in his behaviour over the last few months was insurmountable. Whether that was directly down to you or not, you couldn’t be sure, but something had made him tap into that part of himself that could show reasonableness, rationality and, dare you suggest it, compassion.

Whilst you knew you’d never forget how he had taken you, against your will, or the pain and violence he had inflicted upon your body, maybe, in time, you could forgive. 

Because he simply hadn’t known any better.

"I'm not going anywhere," you spoke softly, sitting up to caress his cheek. His evening stubble scratched at your palm.

His eyes squinted shut, holding back an emotional response to her promise. There was so much he wanted to say but he couldn't. He physically could not bring the words out from his throat. So he did what he had always done, or thought he could, and that was to show her. Show her what he wanted to say. His lips pressed into the palm of her hand and as her fingers rubbed along his ear and behind his head, his lips travelled the length of the soft skin of her forearm until he pressed a delicate kiss to the crook of her elbow.

Turning his head, he caught her lips in a soft kiss which grew deeper as he pressed his body into hers, grinding his hardness against her groin. He felt the exhale from her nose against his cheek as his tongue muted the groan from her throat. His free hand skated up her thigh, to the hem of her sweater dress, bunching it in his fist. At that point, her hand gently wrapped around his wrist and he stopped, pulling away to look at her, his brow creased in puzzlement.

“Let me.” She whispered.

He swallowed hard and gave a short nod. She sat up and he leant back as she did, her hand against his chest, guiding him how she wanted him. As her hands fiddled with his flies, his eyes never left hers. When she tugged on the waistband of his jeans, he raised his hips slightly to allow her to pull them down, taking his boxers with them and he gave a slight sigh at the relief his rock hard dick was now free from it’s constraints.

“Feel good?” She smirked at the sound he made.

He nodded, “yes”, his voice gruff and gravelly.

No sooner had she said it, she’d taken him in her mouth. Instinctively, he bucked upwards, his hands settling in her hair, head falling back against the pillow as he hissed.

When his hips rutted upwards a second time, she moved back, releasing him with a pop and he glanced down at her, his face full of frustration but she simply smirked at him.

“Stop moving." 

The control of the situation wasn't his, it was hers and he was fully aware of it as she changed her pace, quick-quick-slow and if he squirmed she stopped.

A roll of his balls between her hand made him shudder. “Jesus Christ,” he groaned, “fuck, Y/N!”

She responded by taking him to the back of her throat, and the noise that came from his was halfway between a growl and a whimper as it stumbled from his mouth.

On and on this went, and every time she brought him to the edge and he couldn’t control his movements she stopped. It was a delicious torture, but one he was fast reaching his limit with.

“Fuck, baby, I…” his hands raked through her hair as she bobbed up and down on his shaft, her tongue pressing against the thick vein on the underside of his cock. He moaned loudly, “I gotta…”

"No," she purred, kitten licking the slit in his head, the precum dripping onto her tongue. Her lips enclosed over him again, short bobs until she was making long strides at deep throating him. 

She squealed as his hands tightened around her hair, squeezing at the strands to pull her back but she kept her pace, his hips giving way to a violent thrust to the back of her throat as he came hard, his spend shooting deep, coating her inside. His chest heaved as he came down from his high, not letting up on his grip until he was done trembling in euphoria. 

Then in a beat he flipped her to her back and hand his hands over the waistband of her tights, "that wasn't smart, Sweetheart," he growled. 

His eyes flashed in challenge as she giggled and whispered, "I thought it was." 

The force of him tearing her tights as he pulled them away from her legs bothered neither of them, her thin panties soaked and leaving a wet trail down her leg as he removed them, had him salivating. 

"You think it's funny? I'm gonna see how you like it," he challenged. 

Ransom wasted no time in taking a fast swipe at her leaking cunt with his tongue and Y/N cried out as he flicked the tip of his tongue over her swollen and throbbing clit. Her hands went straight to his hair, her knees practically boxing his ears as she curled her body towards his ample assault. 

His long arm slid up her body, over her tummy between her beasts as his splayed his fingers open across her skin, trying to press her back into the mattress. As she complied, she gave a gripping tug to his longer locks and Ransom emitted an elicit growl against her pussy. 

"Jesus Christ," she cried out, the sound sweet in his ears. 

"You taste so fucking good, baby," he spoke against just above her mounded flesh, whilst his fingers sought a wet refuge. He wasted no time in sliding two in, middle and ring fingers, slipping in a first, then second knuckle deep then scissoring inside her until they were all the way in. 

His lips curled around her clit as hers had done to his head, humming over the bud of pleasure, a pressure she nearly exploded over. 

"Oh, no, you don't get to do that yet," he stated firmly. The command made her twitch under him, her breath audibly hitching in her chest. "You're gonna cum on my cock as I fill that pussy up."

"Fuck, Ransom, please," she begged. 

"It's not funny now is it?" He slipped away from her body, sitting back on his heels and removed his own sweater. "Get naked, Princess."

He watched as she struggled to strip of the heavy sweater dress she wore, a stark difference to the fearful prize he had to himself months ago. Now she was his and he loved every single moment of it. From her sassy, smart mouth to the way she took his dick on demand. Ransom slipped his pants away, the two of them both naked and awaiting what was next. He wanted to flip her onto her tummy, rail her from behind while she took it on her hands and knees, keening at him as he thrust into her. 

But instead, he spread her legs wide and slotted his thick cock between her legs, her ankles locking around his narrow hips as he thrust in and gave a naughty twist of his hips. Slow, deep, nasty ruts into her core bounced her tits just a little and he found the wanton cries of her need to be enticing enough to lap at her nipples and breasts, licking and nipping at her skin. Grinding into her as he licked and kissed his way up her neck to that spot that made her cave in at the base of her jaw, jointed just below her ear. 

Her hands wound their way into his hair again and she gripped the strands, giving a pull back, restraining his neck a bit before she let up, allowing his head to drop a pinch. 

Chills covered his sweat sheened skin as she whispered, "harder" into his ear. His body quivered and his stomach fluttered. 

"Fuck, yes." He pulled out and flipped her to her tummy, like he'd wanted to do before. "On your knees, baby. Let me see that pussy."

She positioned like he demanded, a little sway of her hips telling him she was ready. A swift spank to her rounded ass and she cried out as he slammed home. 

"Oh, baby," she mewled as he filled her from behind, bruising fingertips pressing into her hips. 

Her lips praising him, using his nickname for her on him ignited a fire in his belly, his hips snapping harshly against her, his balls slapping against her clit. But it wasn't his pace and the pressure building in his body that was causing him to bury deep inside her, his head rubbing that g-spot that was making her moan filthy words. No, it was the look she gave as she turned her head to just peer over her should the same minute he was throbbing to cum inside her. 

"I'm...fuck, fucking cum, baby girl," he whimpered, desperately holding back so she could cream over his cock. 

And cum she did, her pulsating walls gripping him in a tight squeeze as she pulled him in with a force, literally crying out his name as she came. Her body practically convulsing in pleasure as he filled her up with his seed. The two of them collapsing against the expensive sheets, his body led over hers, still sheathed inside her as they both sagged and panted. 

As if high on the throws of their ecstasy, Ransom kissed along her back with heavy lips and hooded eyes. He could taste the saltiness of her skin, the dampness of sweet sweat a leaving a wet coating over his lips. And when he could feel the blood return to his extremities, he ever so gently pulled out of her, his body sore and tired. She whined at the feeling of his weight escaping her body, but he was quick to fill that void, replacing it with the heat of his frame as he pulled her close, allowing her head to rest against his bare and sculpted chest. He pressed his lips onto the crown of her head. 

"Sleep, baby," he whispered. "Just relax and sleep."

***** For weeks things were good, maybe even really good. Ransom was giving you more freedom, not yet unattended, but you weren't locked away. He'd made do on his promise. 

You had a great lunch with your mother, at the Country Club, in which he'd set up. He'd driven you there, waited in the bar but could easily keep an eye on you. Whilst he might have had ulterior motives that were slightly more sinister than merely being there to keep an eye on you in case you had a panic attack (the excuse you gave to your mother), all in all you didn’t mind. You, too, didn't doubt he paid the waiter a hefty tip to stay nearby as he'd checked on your table more often than most or necessary, again, you didn't mind. 

But despite his hovering, a point you'd made when you'd returned, he promised he trusted you so to save the pains of an argument, you let it go. You'd kept your own promise, never to drop a hint to your mother or anyone else that you weren't less than a free woman.

As the days neared Valentine's Day, Ransom seemed to be more touchy than usual and more than once you'd caught him softly staring at you. His eyes conveying more emotion than they did. Not unlike the first few nights when things had drastically changed between you in November. And when the day arrived, you both exchanged gifts after an early morning wakeup call that you most certainly did not mind. Ransom seemed genuinely pleased with the new silk scarf you’d ordered, having thought it would be a nice replacement for the one he had left at the mansion and point blank refused to return to collect.

For your gift, he handed you a small white envelope. Giving him a puzzled look, you opened it and pulled out a small card.

‘In our favourite room you'll find, your gift my beautiful Valentine.’

Instantly you felt an uncomfortable cold feeling in the pit of your stomach and you swallowed a little. It was a clue, exactly like the ones he had set for you all that time ago on Halloween the previous year. But, as you blinked and looked at him, you saw the expectation on his face and had to remind yourself that this was different.

This was not the same man.

"Is it at least wrapped in a bow, so I know it's mine?" You asked and he smirked a little, leaning back against the headboard of the bed.

 "Trust me, you'll know when you see it."

With a final look at him, you climbed out of bed and pulled on your silk slip before you headed down the stairs. As soon as you’d read the clue, you knew he meant the study. But, when you opened the door, you started to wonder if you’d made a mistake as there was nothing there jumping out at you, at all.

You started rummaging through the stack of things on the desk, looking for anything that resembled a gift. In your haste, you accidentally knocked small stack of notebooks over the edge of the desk. You rushed to get them and straighten them up, hoping not to mess up the order of things he'd had piled together. The moment the leather-bound journal like book touched your fingers, a jolt of curiosity ran through you. 

You opened the cover and ran your fingertips over the dried ink that sat engraved on the pages, a bold and all capitalized print to the handwriting. Not a surprise from a man who's harsh overture played constantly on the surface. Your eyes scanned and scanned the scroll, a frown creased your brow as you registered the meaning of all his notes.

These weren't just any sort of notes, these were his footnotes for his book. And that now disorganized stack of papers that moments ago littered the floor, you looked at them again and realized there among the typed and printed pieces of paper, was his manuscript. 

Hesitating, you picked it up. The front page was plain bar the words. ‘Murder, He Wrote’ and you scoffed at the fact that was the title of the article that had gotten you into this situation in the first place. Mind you, he had said you were a muse of sorts so maybe that was his way of tribute.

You flipped through, skimming the pages, finding yourself strangely proud if you will, that he’d actually finished it, well what appeared to be the first draft anyway. It was indeed about a private detective, by the name of Arnie Bronze, who was hot on the tale of a missing woman called Lucy Roberts who had vanished in mysterious circumstances.

You skipped on a few pages, the narrative shifted to that of focussing on the so called killer, a man named Riley, and you realised that Lucy wasn’t dead as anticipated, she was being held captive. 

In Riley’s basement.

You felt your stomach clench as you focussed in on a small snippet of dialogue, one that was extremely familiar.

 ‘I like this,’ Riley toyed with the straps to the bra Lucy was wearing, his middle finger tracing the outline of the strap against her skin before his lips followed the same path.

‘You should, you chose it,’ her voice was quiet, but still there it was, that unmistakable undercurrent of disdain she carried for him visibly present, as always.

Riley merely chuckled, ‘like I chose you, huh.’ At that, she blinked and looked at him, and he flashed her a smile. Oh, if only she understood exactly why…

What. The. Fuck?

Was he writing about you? Or had he already written this and was merely acting out his sick fucking fantasy. The answer to that became apparent when you tossed the manuscript down and reached for his book of notes.

It was littered with note after note, graphic accounts of the things he’d done to you, along with little questions and observations, how he could turn that into passages for his book. Your breath began to quicken and you turned the pages faster and faster, not needing to read his notes in the slightest as you could remember every sordid little detail for yourself.

Eventually you found the last page. This one contained two simple lines, the first from the night of Harlan’s memorial when he’d arrived home completely soaked.

Memorial was a shit show, as anything is when the fucking Thrombey’s are involved. Y/N made hot chocolate. Held a conversation I actually enjoyed.

This contained no side note as to how this could be used within his book, almost as if it was simply a journal entry, but you didn’t really have time to dwell on that, as your eyes flicked to the line underneath which carried no date.

Original plan changed, no longer going to get rid of when purpose served. Storyline of book will diverge at this point.

'When purpose served'. Well, it didn’t take a genius to work that out.

You threw the book down onto the desk, the room swimming around you as both your hands covered your mouth in shock and horror. You were sick to your stomach, the bile acid in your stomach turning acrid, and you wanted to wretch. 

He’d meant to kill you.

“So, do you like my gift?”

The voice made you scream and you jumped, turning to face the doorway where Ransom was stood, his sweats hung low on his hips, arms folded over his bare chest as he leaned against the frame.

“What?” you blinked, swallowing, the word nothing more than a trembling whisper. “You mean you wanted me to find this?”

“You asked me about being my muse.” He shrugged. “As you can see, you were much more than that. Happy Valentine’s Day, Sweetheart.”

You couldn't hold back the gag in your throat and you quickly turned into the waste bin by the desk, spewing your empty stomach into it. The bile burned your throat as it came up. With a shaky back of your hand, you wiped away the remnants of your episode and leaned forward on the desk, your free hand palm flat against the mahogany.

You were disgusted, that much was painfully true, but you were now terribly afraid for your life. A feeling that hadn't come over you in four months. You felt just as you had that very night, terrified, alone, and fighting a sense of chill that crept through your body and deep into your bones. Your eyes, big and brimming with tears looked up at him and your mind went numb in processing the situation. No quicker than you had just vomited, you felt a pang of hurt, your heart ripping from your chest as everything settled within you. You had accepted this, this fate that had been laid out for you. You were accepting him and the life you were being forced to live. You accepted the beast that had begun to care. But he was merely a wolf in sheep's clothing, the true monster you'd always known to lie in wait just under the surface. 

Your brows creased and your heart raced. You felt the bubbling of a scream start deep in your churning belly, your own monster vying to climb its up your chest and out of your throat. You were angrily screaming on the inside long before your voice sounded to the outside, piercing the room in a shattering, blood-curdling banshee cry of anger. 

“This…” you picked up the notebook in your right hand, throwing it at him violently, “this is the reason you took me?”

“Yes.” He didn't even dodge the thickly bound object as it hit him square in the chest before falling to the ground. 

“You...fucking asshole.” You spat, angrily swiping your arm across the desk. The neatly stacked piles of papers scattered like leaves falling from a tree as they fluttered to the floor. “And to think, I actually started to believe myself that there was more to you than everyone said, that underneath all of that bravado and narcissistic, downright nasty bastard exterior there was something or someone that maybe, just maybe was worthy of caring for! ” Your voice was loud, echoing off the wall of his study as you screamed at him. “But you kidnapped and raped and hurt me in ways I never thought possible for what? So you could write a goddamned book?”

Hot tears coursed down your face as you trembled, staring back at the utter monster who stood before you, his face stony as you wiped at your eyes with the back of your hand. “And then you planned to kill me once I no longer served a purpose? Well, tell me, how long have I got?”

“It’s not like that anymore.” Ransom took a deep breath as he stepped forward. He was calm, too calm and instantly you took a step back. “That was my initial plan, yeah, but what I wasn’t banking on was how being around you would make me feel.” He swallowed as he licked his lips. “I couldn’t get rid of you like I originally planned once you served your purpose. Because I love you.” Your mouth dropped open at his confession, utter horror coursing through your veins as you realised what he was saying. The chances of you getting out of this were depleting by the second. He really was completely fucked in the head. “No, no you don’t!” You shook your head, “this...is not love, Ransom, this is obsession, it’s...” He cut you off as he surged forward, his lips pressing to yours. You placed your hands on his chest, shoving hard as you turned your face away, screaming loudly at him to leave you alone. In an easy movement he spun you round, his arms clamping around yours pulling them behind you as he held you in place, your back pressed to his chest as he pressed his lips to your neck. “I know deep down you love me too...” his breath was hot on your neck, voice still eerily calm as his hips pushed forward and you could feel his erection digging into the curve of your spine. “Fuck, this is what you’ve done to me, feel that, Sweetheart? You wrecked me, and now I need you. It’s that simple.” At that he pushed you forward, harshly bending you over his desk, one large hand securing both of yours being your back, your body twisted in a warped recreation of that time he’d used your sweater to restrain you all those months ago. You struggled but he simply twisted your arm further, causing you to cry out in pain and desperation as his other hand roughly hoisted up your night-dress. “You’ll say it eventually.” He stated calmly as you heard that tell-tale rustle of fabric as he pushed down his sweats. “It might take another spell in the basement to make you realise, but you’ll come round.” “It doesn’t work like that.” You sobbed, your voice cracking as his hand let go of your arms and slid up to your neck, reaching round your throat. His fingers curled round your neck as he pulled your head back, his mouth nipping at your neck before he pulled back, his face inches from yours as his icy blues stared locked onto your eyes. They were cold, dangerous and you shook your head, tears pouring down your face.  Your lip trembled as you closer your eyes, taking a deep breath before you opened them again, resigning yourself to the fact that this next line might just seal your fate and wind up with you losing your life. But right now, that would be a blessed way out.  “I can’t love you simply because that’s what you want.” “Oh Sweetheart,” he chuckled, his lips ghosting over yours, “I know that. I know I can’t force you to feel something you don’t, but the only person you’re fooling is yourself. I just want you to admit it.”

“I won’t.” You stuttered, “never, Ransom.”

“Oh, Y/N. Haven’t you learned by now? I always get what I want, including this, you’ll see.” With a harsh thrust forward he pushed inside you, making you scream at the burn thanks to the fact you weren’t ready for him, at all. He gave a groan as he grabbed at your hips, your pelvis jolting painfully into the edge of the hard wooden desk you were bent over. “As my granddad used to quote,” he pulled back before delivering another deep thrust harshly into you, his fingers digging into your flesh as you closed your eyes, scrunching them shut as your cheek rest against the desk, tears leaking from your eyes, “we all become stories in the end.” 

He gave another deep rut forward as he ground into you, his breathing deep.

“Now it’s time to rewrite ours, Princess.”

*****

Epilogue

[lovelyspencers]

Both Sides Like Chanel

“I see both sides like chanel,

see on both sides like chanel.”

Synopsis: Spencer and fem!Reader have been dating for a while now and there is something that Spencer hasn’t trusted anyone else with that he wants to share with her

Content Warning: mentions of drug addiction, allusions to sex, brief mention of internalized homophobia

Word Count: 3.3k

A/N: this is my first fanfiction and I’m not entirely sure how tumblr works yet but it is my mission to do something about the lack of bi!Spencer representation

Compared to his colleagues and friends, Spencer was a fairly private person. He liked to keep things to himself because his life centered around repetitious disappointments. So, he was content that his private life was not set on a stage, his misery displayed for everyone to see.

But then he fell in love with you the minute you walked into the bullpen and bumped into him, leaving your belongings all scattered on the marble floor. Spencer was never one for touch but when he took your hand to sweep you off the ground, butterflies filled his stomach like the air on a humid summer’s day.

After a few years of friendship, his adoration for you grew as easily as ivy on an abandoned house and it was on New Year’s Day that the team celebrated in Rossi’s mansion that his slightly intoxicated self decided that he was not able to hold it in any longer.

You had sneaked off to Rossi’s backyard after Garcia had gotten a bit of too affectionate and randomly started kissing everyone.

Both of you were slightly buzzed, your head laid in his lap as he explained the constellations to you. He wished that the sky above you was the only thing that filled his mind, but when he looked at you with your skin slightly flustered from the alcohol and your lips pursed as in deep thought, all that he could think about was how much he wanted to kiss you.

It wasn’t the first time, the thought floated around in his mind. It had been so crucial in fact that the thought of your lips softly pressed on his played in his head like a film reel every night, unable to give him the sweet escape of sleep.

So, when the blank sky was filled with multicolored fireworks, the moonlight illuminated the complexion of your face and cheers erupted from the silence surrounding you without a second thought, he leaned in to kiss you.

You tasted like champagne and the strawberry lipstick you obsessively put on whenever you got anxious and to Spencer, he felt as if he had found the missing puzzle piece he’d been seeking for all his life.

And then like they always did, his thoughts began rushing through his mind like cars during rush hour and he instantly pulled back.

You were gonna hate him and then he would lose the only person he trusted with all his being and maybe you’d tell Penelope and everyone would laugh at him for believing that someone as amazing as you would ever-

But before his poisonous thoughts got the best of him, you grabbed the sides of his face and connected your lips with his again, filling the entirety of his body with pure bliss.

“I’ve been waiting so long for you to do that.” Your voice vibrated against his lips and he couldn’t help the smile that graced his face in the process.

The two of you could have kissed for only seconds or even hours because as he finally experienced what it felt like to be utterly yours, none of the things surrounding you mattered to him in the slightest.

All that mattered was that his biggest dream of your heart belonging to him entirely finally came true and he had no intention to ever let it go.

But even the most perfect moments couldn’t last forever and in this case, it was disturbed in the figment of the people the two of you considered family.

At first, you both didn't notice the footsteps on the grass, too caught up in trying to pour every stolen glance and hidden adoration in the simplicity of a kiss.

It wasn’t until cheers filled the silence around you that you hesitantly broke apart and were greeted with the sight of the team who all had smirks plastered on their faces.

To his delight, you didn’t entirely pull away from him like he thought you would instead you got off his lap to lazily wrap your arms around his torso. Subconsciously he pressed a kiss to your temple erupting even more amusement from the people watching you.

“About damn time.” Emily was the first to break out of her trance. Soon, congratulations were shared and the team tried to discreetly exchange money since they seemed to have some kind of bet going on. Even Hotch had a rare smile on his face and it was without a doubt the most beautiful start in the new year he could have ever wished for.

“I love you,” you muttered as you hid your face in his chest, and though there was no way the team could have heard what you told him, the smile on his face told them everything they needed to know.

“I love you too.”

He wished more than anything else that your love story could have ended that way and you lived happily ever after but this wasn’t a movie and the truth was that relationships were work. Work he was more than willing to put effort in but work nonetheless.

You loved each other dearly but you weren’t perfect and neither was he. Most of your fights revolved around his fear of vulnerability and even though he spent years building a wall around his heart so no one could ever shatter it again, he loved you far more than his self preservation so he tried his hardest.

And there was one particular thing, he always wanted to tell you or anyone who he felt earned his trust.

Throughout his life, his trust had been broken many times. So without even realizing it, there was a barrier between the two of you that prevented him from loving you to the fullest and he hated it.

But unlike Derek who immediately spread his problems around like it was just some gossip printed on the sixth page or JJ who kept Emily’s well-being to herself despite him coming to cry to her for months, you never betrayed his trust.

Even more so, you didn’t have that look of pity in your eyes that was equally as painful as daggers in his chest when he told you about his drug addiction or the schizophrenia of his mother.

You were easily the person on earth that he trusted the most but that didn’t mean that there weren’t some things that he still kept to himself.

But as he said, he wanted to change that and if one person was deserving of his honesty and vulnerability it was you.

Spencer had told you about his father leaving, the horrors he had to face that still haunted him in his dreams, his kidnapping from Tobias Hankel, and the cruelty of a childhood as a child prodigy.

While what he wanted to tell you wasn’t nearly as heavy it still felt like dead weight continuing to weigh him down.

Every time, he came close to telling you the truth, he got scared like a child in the dark and switched topics to something that didn’t matter at all.

Spencer also knew that you were aware that something was off. Before you started dating ten months ago, you had been best friends for years so he can positively say that you know him better than anybody else.

But today he had a plan.

You had been wanting to watch ‘Love, Simon’ with him for weeks and he had tried to avoid it for obvious reason but today he’d watch it with you and maybe then he’d gain the courage to talk to you.

He was aware of how illogical his fears were, after all, you had always been open about your bisexuality and had seen you beat up homophobes on various occasions (while Hotch hated it, it was on the long list of things that Spencer loved about you).

But he feared that maybe you wouldn’t want to be with someone who liked men and women or maybe that just didn’t fit with the type of man you were looking for or maybe-

Nope, he wasn’t doing this to himself. You were the kindest, most open hearted and loving person he knew and he had told you far more break up worthy thing than his sexuality.

When he had told you about his past drug addiction, you pulled up the sleeves of his shirt and kissed the fainting scars there and helped him get rid of the small stack of Dilaudid that he had kept hidden in his closet without any sign of judgment.

When he had told you about his mother, you pulled his head on your lap and started playing with his hair until the tears on his face dried and pinky promised him that you would stay with him even if he inhabited his mother’s illness because there was nothing that you would ever let drive a wedge between the two of you.

When he had told you about his childhood and confided in you for the relentless bullying he had to endure after you had found an invitation to a high school reunion in his mailbox, you had peppered him with kisses the entire night and showered him with compliments and love.

Not to mention that you convinced him to go to the high school reunion where everyone seemed equally as impressed by the beauty that his girlfriend possessed and the nature of his job. And every time, you sensed that he was uncomfortable you held his hand and wordlessly pulled him away, because you simply understood him like that.

The first night you slept over, he was more anxious over you sleeping next to him than the actual act of having sex with you (which said a lot because in a moment of desperation he had even asked Derek for sex advice) because he knew that the nightmares would jolt him awake again.

But it was so easy to be with you and when he pulled your body into his and showed you just how much he loved you in the most intimate act there was, all worries (and crappy advice that Derek had given him) left his mind and were quickly replaced by pure bliss and escasty.

And when he woke up shaking because some monsters don’t stay hidden in the dark, you were right there to comfort him until he was able to safely fall asleep with your arms wrapped around his waist.

Spencer was jolted back to reality when there was a knock on his door and he immediately wrapped you in a bone crushing hug before pouring all his worries and love into a kiss.

“We literally saw each other at work today. Did you really miss me that much already?” Your laughter that had become Spencer’s favorite sound ever since the first time he heard it filled the room, and he had to fight the urge to drop his plans and just worship you and your body for the entirety of the evening instead.

No, he was a man on a mission and he had repressed this conversation for way too long.

“I always miss you.”

And it was true, embarrassingly so. When you were on a case, Hotch decided against giving the two of you a shared hotel room, and every time, he had to fall asleep without your body heat next to him he felt as if there was some part of himself missing.

You gave him a peck on the cheek before you intertwined your fingers with Spencer’s and lead him to his couch where you rather ungracefully plumped down.

He joined you and your head immediately landed on his lap as a silent invitation for him to play with your hair which he happily obliged to.

“Can we watch ‘Love, Simon’ today?”

“Yes! I’ve only been begging you to watch it for years,” you laughed while grabbing the hand that wasn’t massaging your temple and holding it in yours.

He laughed too but it was filled with anxiety and you heard it because of course you did. Others might no be able to make out when he was uncomfortable but you always knew when to press him and when to leave him alone.

“We don’t have to watch that movie if you really don’t want to, babe,” you said as you propped yourself up to sit next to him again, all while never letting go of his hand.

“It’s not that. I just-”

Well, it’s now or never.

“I’m bisexual,” he blurted out, surprising himself with the sudden statement, and when he hesitantly locked eyes with yours there was none of the judgment or disgust he feared.

There was just love and understanding like there always was.

You were just about to say something before he gave you a look that clearly signaled to just let him talk for a bit and you answered the silent request with a soft smile and a gentle squeeze on his hand.

“I don’t know, I just used to have this crush on a boy when I was younger and I was confused because I only ever saw heterosexual couples, you know?” You nodded and that reassuring smile on your face never seemed to falter even a little bit, you looked almost proud of him.

“And then I got older and I started liking women too and I was even more confused because like who exactly do I like now?”

Sometimes during meetings in the briefing room or on the jet, you randomly held hands and squeezed them three time as a reminder that you loved each other without having to actually say it and that’s what you did during the brief amount of silence.

“When I was in high school liking boys was always associated with something bad so I just assumed that it was bad and tried my hardest to just suppress it.”

Spencer squeezed your hand three times too and took a deep breath. Seemed that even a genius like him could miscalculate and in this case it was the toll this secret had on him.

“But then I got older and realized that there was nothing wrong with being attracted to the same sex, and so I kind of accepted it even though I still had no idea what my sexuality was. It was just one of those I’ll deal with it later type of things.”

When he looked into your eyes again, you looked at him with so much tenderness that he felt as if his heart might burst out of his chest, even if that was biologically impossible.

“I had a boyfriend when I was in college, his name was Ethan and I loved him but it just didn’t work out. I never told anyone because I was afraid I think?”

He remembered the time of sneaking around and lying to his mother when she spotted a hickey on his neck during one of her visits, the frustration because all he wanted was to show the world the love they shared like every other ordinary couple.

But he also remembered the clandestine meetings, muttered I love you’s that were for no one else to hear and the feeling of falling in love for the first time.

“And then I was confused again because I still liked women too and then I met you and I fell in love with you the second I laid eyes on you honestly and then I thought that maybe it was just like a non-sexual thing but I am sexually attracted to you, I mean we have sex. I like having sex with you!”

You chuckled but it was not out of malice or disgust it was just there, floating in the air filling his body with a warmth that not even his thickest sweater could provide.

“Baby, breathe. It’s just me.”

You brought his knuckles up to your mouth to press a kiss to each of them and that simple gesture managed to calm Spencer’s nerve immensely.

“You were so open with your sexuality and I guess it just kind of made sense? And I know that some women have problems with men who like men and maybe you’re disgusted with me because I used to be with a man and I’m like not the manliest man and and sometimes I think about painting my nails because it seems kind of fun and-”

The thing about Spencer’s rambling was that he couldn’t stop. He wanted to especially when he saw the annoyance on everyone’s faces but you were always there to listen to him, even if you had no idea what he was talking about but as you felt his anxiety worsen with every word that left his lips, you interrupted him for the first time ever.

“I’m not disgusted at all. I love and accept everything about you and that includes your sexuality. Thank you for being open with me, I know hard that can be with for you. I’m very proud of you.”

You emphasized your statement by pulling him in for a kiss and that was the first time that Spencer noticed that he was crying, but you kissed him with all the tenderness in the world, wordlessly wiping away the tear that rolled down his cheek.

“You’re the most perfect man I know. I don’t care if you’re not the most manliest man to me you’re perfect and the love of my life,” you whispered against his lips and Spencer could only reply by deepening the kiss and trying to get you as close to him as humanly possible.

There was no rush or expectations, you were kissing as if you had every time in the world and the kiss was a silent promise that you still loved him no matter what.

And for the first time in what felt like ages, Spencer could finally breathe. Silence filled the room but it wasn’t uncomfortable by any means. You had placed Spencer’s head on your chest and played with his hair while occasionally peppering him with kisses, only a few reassurances and I love you’s accompanying the stirring DVD player.

“Did you mean what you said about wanting to paint your nails?” you asked after a few minutes passed and Spencer had wrapped his arms around your waist as if you were the anchor to a sinking ship.

Spencer chuckled not even remembering what he said during his ramble. “I guess so. Why?”

The thought did cross his mind from time to time, especially when he saw your impressive collection of various nail polish. He never cared much about other’s perception of his masculinity and Spencer realized that his fair of not being manly enough for you was nothing but utterly stupid.

“Do you want me to do it?”

He shyly nodded and a smile filled your face as you took his hand to examine it, probably debating in your head which colour would fit him most.

And as you left the room to search for the most beautiful purple you could find, Spencer sat in the living room, happiness spreading through every fiber of his being because for the first time he knew what it felt like to be unconditionally loved.

Both of you weren’t perfect but there were no more secrets left lurking in the shadows and he knew that as long as you wanted him, he’d always be yours.

You were the first person to truly accept and love him. All of him, and he never wanted to lose that.

As he sat in the living room, you sitting on his lap and looked at your fingers as you painted his in a dark shade of purple, he decided that it wouldn’t be long until the most beautiful ring he could find would adorn your ring finger.

[thechekhov]

Hi Chekhov! Really enjoying your white diamond au! I had a quick art question: How do you start comissions? I've been improving my drawing skills and thinking about drawing for others after having fun in artfight, but I don't know where to start? How much to charge, how to get paid, etc. Do you have any tips? Hope you're doing well! :)

Alright, since a few people have asked, I’ve decided to put together a few things about how to get started on commissions - what you need, what you should make, and how to keep things organized. 

This will get a little long, so I’ll divide it into 4 main sections:

1) Draw Art - Getting started

2) Get Commissioned - Making a commission sheet, Advertising

3) ??? - Communicating, Setting Limits, Running the Business

4) Profit - Pricing Yourself and Getting Paid

* Disclaimer: I’m an artist, so this How-To will be illustration-focused. I’m sure many of these tips can apply to ANY types of commissions, but I will be focusing on the type I know best. If you are proficient in other types of commissions for other types of art - music commissions, photography, etc - feel free to chime in and leave a comment or make your own tutorial!

1) Draw Art

I think this is probably the most obvious part, but it needs to be said:

Before you start making art for other people, you must first be comfortable making art in general.

I’m not saying your art has to be Disney-quality, or industry-level! Not at all. 

BUT! You must be comfortable creating what you sell. If you try to sell something you have little confidence in, you will stress yourself out and possibly end up losing time AND money.

Don’t shoot for the moon if you haven’t landed on it even once. Sell what you know you’re good at. Your commissions don’t HAVE to include full-body illustrations if you don’t know how to draw feet/solid stances. Limit yourself to what you can do.

Things you need to should probably have before starting commissions:

1. Access to art materials or a fully downloaded art program

DO NOT - Use a free tutorial version that will expire in a month and leave you without a way to draw! If you are having trouble finding a program, try free ones like MediBang Paint Pro. 

2. Free time to complete the amount of commissions you want to take.

DO NOT - Take on or offer commissions if you KNOW you’re going to be overwhelmed with school or personal life for the next 2+ months. Pace yourself, otherwise you’ll burn out, get stressed, and get discouraged.

3. A reliable way to communicate with your customers like a commissions-only email 

DO NOT - Use your friend/family/college email. It’s hard to keep track of things as it is, and creating new emails is easy and free. And keep it professional if you can! Not many people will reach out to dong-wiggles20434 to ask for a design. Ideally, your email should be close to your brand - however you want to brand yourself. Usernames are fine!)

DO NOT - Use Instagram/Twitter/Tumblr to collect commission info unless you are ready to do the organizing yourself. Some people make it work, but in my experience, if you use these SNS sites to communicate with friends and network... you’re going to be losing commission inquiries right and left and accidentally ignoring people. Email is much easier to organize and sort into folders.

4. A portfolio or at least 2-3 pieces of each type of art you’re planning to sell. 

DO NOT - Advertise commissions without having any examples of the art you plan to sell. People will find it difficult to trust you if you can’t even give them a vague idea of what sort of drawing they’ll be getting. 

Disclaimer: These are not hard ‘do not’s. If you have had a different experience, I respect that. I’m simplifying for the sake of streamlining this advice. 

.

2) Get Commissioned

So - you have your art, you have your art program, and you’ve got all the time in the world. That means.... that’s right! It’s time to let the world know you’re taking commissions.

One of the most common ways artists signal to their audience that they can do commissions is by creating a commissions sheet. There are MANY ways to make this - and they range from simple and doodly ones to VERY complex designs. For example, here’s mine! 

There are many ways to organize a commission sheet. At its core, a commission sheet should display the types of art you WANT to be commissioned to make. Let’s go over a few ways they can be done!

#1.... Body Portion Dividers!

This sheet is most common with those who want to capitalize on drawing people and characters. If you want to draw lots of characters, this is a great way to offer several tiers of pricing based on how much of their character your customers want to see. 

#2... Complexity Scale

If you’re open to drawing many things but want to base your pricing off of how complex something is, you can split your tiers into done-ness. This type of commission is popular with those that draw characters AND animals, furries, etc.

#3....  Style and Type

If you’re more on the design side of things, or if you have various niche art styles that you can’t quite lump together, display a variety of your skills alongside each other! It helps if all the ones you have can be organized under a common customer - like those looking to advance their own business and get logos, websites, or mascots made for them!

.

3) ???

You got your first commission... what happens now???

Well, ideally you have the time, tools and motivation to make things happen! Now all you have to do is... sit down and... draw.......

I’m going to say something that may be a little controversial: 

Commissions aren’t fun. 

No, no, hear me out: I have fun doing commissions! I genuinely enjoy drawing characters and coming up with designs. But even with all that said, commissions are, first and foremost: WORK

I’m not saying this to discourage you, I’m saying this to keep things realistic. When I first began commissions, I thought it would be just like any other type of drawing. I would sit down, imagine a thing, draw it... it would be fun! 

But then I realized that I couldn’t just draw what I wanted - another person had an idea in mind and had asked me to do it. I stressed over getting the design correct from descriptions. I stressed over not having the right reference for the pose the commissioner wanted. I stressed over not being able to draw the leg right in the way I had promised I would do. I stressed about billing. I stressed about digital money transfers. It was difficult, and time-consuming, and I did not enjoy it. At all. 

And a part of that is definitely on the commissioner - we, as artists, NEED to demand proper references or descriptions. We, as artists, NEED to limit the amount of changes we’re going to make at the flick of a finger. We NEED to demand clear instructions and set boundaries. That’s also super important. 

But also - don’t be discouraged if you find yourself exhausted drawing your first commission. MANY artists go through this. Adjust your rules, fix up your limits, practice putting your foot down on finicky commissioners who expect you to read their mind! It does get easier, but you have to communicate and put in the effort and act as your own manager AND your own customer service AND your own accountant. That’s what you’re looking at. 

Good limits and boundaries to set: 

Limit the amount of changes a person can ask to make. “I want blue hair.” Next email: “No wait, yeah, make it red.” Next email: “Actually I changed my mind, can I get the blue but like, lighter?” Next email: “No, not that light.” ... At some point, we have to stop. I personally allow 2-3 changes on the final stages of a commission before I start refusing or start asking for extra money.

Demand clear instructions and/or references. If something isn’t described, you have to take artistic liberty and design it, but that’s difficult! And if the customer is not happy with it but can’t tell you more? That’s not your problem - the burden of reference is on THEM. You cannot read their mind, and that’s not your fault.

Get at least half the payment up front! This is a good balance between the ‘pay before art’ and the ‘pay after art’ conundrum that will limit the amount of woes between artist and customer. (I’ll touch upon this a little more in the Profit section.)

Organization:

Where possible, create good habits! Tag your emails and organize your folders. I have a tag on my emails for active and finished commissions. I also keep my emails on Unread until I have time to sit down and properly look at/reply to them.

My Commissions in the folder are also organized chronologically and I mark down which ones are paid and which ones are not.

(I understand not everyone can do this, but if you want to give it a try, it does make things easier in the long run. Again, this advice is just what I have found personally helps.)

One last thing - I do not want to shame ANYONE for taking their time with commissions! Commissions are complex, and they take time and work. You can draw in 8 hours, but some things take research, materials, etc. Some illustrations realistically take up to half a year, or, depending on what’s involved, several years!!

THAT BEING SAID - it’s good manners to be upfront with your customers about how long you expect the commission to take. If you think you’re busy, just say that! Explain that you have a lot going on, and you will probably take (insert time period here).

And if your commissioners are worried, work out a system to keep them updated! I send my commissioners updates when I finish the lineart/flat colors/etc and I try to be clear about how long everything will take. I try to estimate with a +3-5 days buffer to give myself extra time... and recently I’ve been using it. Always say a bigger number than you think you’ll need. 

If someone wants a rushed commission... make them pay more. If ANYONE wants a commission done ‘by the end of the week’ - that’s an automatic rush-job for me because I’m juggling an irl job and several commissions at once. I WILL charge a rush fee and I won’t feel bad about it. 

If someone wants a commission within 24 hours...... Well, they better be paying you 3x your normal amount, or more. And remember - you CAN refuse! It’s perfectly reasonable to say ‘No, sorry, that sort of turnaround time is not realistic for me.’

Food For Thought - Invoicing

Many artists I’ve commissioned in the past have not used Invoicing, but I’ve recently begun to fill out invoices and file them in my Commissions folder just to keep track of things. It’s not necessary until you start getting into the Small Business side of Freelancing, but it’s not a bad idea to get into the habit early in case you might need to do it later for tax purposes. 

Here’s what my Invoice looks like, for example. 

I’ve optimized it to help me remember who, what, and how much is involved! It also contains important info for my customers like where to send the money.

Which brings us to...

.

4) Profit

One of the hardest things for artists is pricing themselves. I’m not going to tell you which way is BEST - there is no BEST way, only the best way for YOU. 

One of the options available to you is pricing by the hour. It includes averaging out how long it takes you to draw a specific type of art (whatever you’re offering as a commission) and multiplying that by an hourly wage you’ve decided on.

When you do this, I stress - do NOT price yourself below minimum wage if you can help it. When you first start out, aim for the $15/hour mark and adjust accordingly. 

Other ways to price your art:

- Per complexity: Portraits vs full body should be scaled based on how difficult you find one vs. the other. You can also easily decide on a price for a sketch and double it for lineart, triple it for full color, etc.

- Per type: Look up for industry prices for website design and logo design. They may surprise you! You don’t have to charge that much, but it helps to keep things in perspective. 

It’s okay to change your prices! Keep your commission sheet image handy so you can update the amounts as you grow. :)

Payment up front or after completion?

Some artist take full payment up front. Some only demand payment after they’ve finished and sent out the piece. I personally think these are both risky for everyone involved. 

I recommend doing at least HALF of the payment BEFORE you start the commission. Calculate your full price and ask for half before you start working on it in earnest, to make sure the person can actually pay you. Then, when they receive the full piece and are satisfied, they can complete the payment. 

I personally work in this structure:

> Someone emails me with their idea/reference

> I send back a rough draft sketch that shows the idea/pose (only takes me 10-20 minutes so not a huge loss if they ghost) and quote them a price

> They can pay the full thing upfront OR pay half

> I finish the commission and send updates when I do the lineart/colors to double check anything so they have multiple chances to spot any errors

> If the person paid only half on completion, I send them a low-res version of the finished thing, they finish up their payment and THEN I send them the full-res version plus any other filetypes/CYMK proofs, etc. 

Many of the people who commission me pay me up front even though I offer they pay half - and I’m really flattered that they trust me that much! Because of that, I feel encouraged to update them frequently and ask for their input as I work, so they have the peace of mind knowing I’m actually doing their commission. 

Great, but how do I get PAID????

There are NUMEROUS ways - these days money is relatively easy to transfer over digital means, and you have a few options. 

Paypal is perhaps one of the oldest digital wallets and is geared towards businesses. By setting up a PayPal and connecting it to your debit card of bank account, you can tunnel a pathway from your online business directly into your hands in a matter of days. 

Paypal also offers Invoicing - you make an invoice, price it and send it to the person’s email and they can pay whatever way they need! (It also allows partial payments.)

Pros: transfers from PayPal to bank account are free, and take a couple of business days. It also has no upper limit to the amount of money you can move in/out each month. It can force refunds due to the nature of its business-oriented payment system.

Cons: Because it’s used by businesses for larger transactions, PayPal may demand a more rigorous proof of your identity. It may also take longer to set up and be harder to get used to. I’ve also heard that they can be a hassle when it comes to closing your account. 

Venmo is another type of digital wallet that acts much like paypal, except for a few key differences - it is NOT made for businesses (so depending on whether you’re officially registered as a freelancer, you may not be able to use it). I personally don’t use venmo, so I cannot speak to its usefulness, but I know a few people that use it for casual transactions. It’s easy and quick! :) 

Keep in mind that you cannot force a refund over venmo! The transactions are final.

There’s also CashApp, GooglePay (which could load gift cards but also allows peer-to-peer transactions) and I’ve heard good things about Due, though I’ve never personally used it.

Other ways to pay: I’ve had people pay me over Patreon by upping their pledge, and I’ve had people pay me over Ko-Fi by donating a specific amount. 

Many people even use Etsy - the website specialized for independent small businesses selling art - by listing their commission sheet and offering up several ‘slots’ of commissions, which allows you to track taxes AND allows your clients to pay using whatever they feel comfortable with.

If you’re in Canada, you can even pay by emailing money directly from bank account to bank account - check whether your country offers this type of service! There’s no shortage of ways to move money in the digital world.

Just like everything else, there’s no singular ‘Best’ way. It just depends on what works for you.

I think that just about wraps it up! I can’t quite think of what else to put here - but I’m sure other artists will chime in with their own advice. :) I’m very sorry this became so long but I hope it was helpful! 

Obligatory Disclaimer: I’m not qualified to give legal or accounting counsel. Please double-check the laws in your own country/state in regards to taxation of freelancing work and do your own research. If you are underage, DEFINITELY get an adult’s permission before you start doing commissions, and have the adult help you through the process.   

. . . . . . . . . . . . 

OTHER POSTS YOU MAY FIND USEFUL:

An Extended Post on Pricing Yourself for Commissions

Dealing with Imposter Syndrome/Feeling ‘Not Good Enough’

Growing Your Audience

Advice for Starting Digital Art

[sweetcathedral]

🕸Haikyuu! — The Butterfly’s Ripple Effect🕸

Note: Currently a developing short story as I’m trying to figure out how to format it on tumblr, so that it’s easy to read (might take me a few months for the rough draft). The plot and ending is solidified, just need to piece together the scenes. Of course all Haikyuu characters are post-timeskip, it’s easier for me to write them as adults. It doesn’t make sense, but it will when I have the whole story down!

⚠️: blowjob, raw, forceful (?), cheating, giving in to temptation

The warmth of the sun gently wakes you up, making you flutter your lashes and wince at the brightness of the room. Memories of last night play back in your head as you pull the covers over you, but you look around to see that there was no sign of Kuroo. You hesitate to go back to sleep or look around the house to see if the others were okay from last night, since it wasn’t as loud as it should be.

“G’morning,” Kenma was leaning at the doorway with a cup of tea in his hand and a plate of omelettes in the other. “May I?”

You nodded, rubbing your eyes to fully wake you up.

“It smells nice. How are the others?”

“Oh, Kuroo’s driving them back to Sendai. The others wanted you to tag along on their road trip, but I told them that you’re probably jetlagged and needed the rest. They helped unload your stuff at the entranceway though,” he settled the tea and omelettes on the nightstand before pulling out a bed tray table from one of the drawers.

“I didn’t know you were the type to have breakfast in bed.”

“I’m not. A friend left it here last year, forgot about it and told me to keep it in the end. I just thought you’d like breakfast in bed today,” as Kenma was about to unfold the table, he paused in hesitation. It looked like he wanted to say something, but instead he lowered his head onto your lap. Thinking nothing of it, you run your fingers through his soft hair,

“Tired?”

“. . . I guess . . . I don’t know . . .”

You started humming the tune Kenma used to sing to you back then, when the two of you were still normal. The familiar feeling began to cloud your judgement, letting your fingers trace down the nape of Kenma’s neck. He immediately grabs your wrist, startling you from your trance.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he lifts his head.

“I—, sorry, I didn't mean—”

“Your food’s getting cold,” he changes the subject and continues to set up the bed table, arranging the tea and omelette. Before he was able to leave the bed, you reach for his hand,

“Kenma, wait . . .” the words you’ve always wanted to tell him is caught in your throat, “. . . I’m sor—!”

His hands clamp over your mouth as he gently kisses your forehead, softly dragging his cold fingers down to your throat. Unable to shake off the way it made you feel, he left you in silence.

After closing the door, Kenma briskly walked towards the bathroom, turned the faucet on and locked himself in. He leans against the door, slowly sliding down to the floor and pulled his hoodie completely over his head,

“. . . what am I doing? . . .” he sighs, pressing his head into his folded hands.

A moment later, the sound of your footsteps makes him jolt back up to turn the faucet off. He opens the door to see you standing there, knees clasped together.

“Don’t just stand there, move!” you push through him to get to the toilet and quickly kicked your panties off, landing at Kenma’s feet. “Phew, okay, you can leave now.”

Just as you finished cleaning yourself up, he picks up your wet stained panties.

“Hey! Give me those!” you tried grabbing them back from him, while covering yourself.

Fuck it. Kenma decided to cross the line he drew for himself. At this point it didn’t matter to him anymore, nothing mattered to him anymore. Everything that’s been holding him back has reached its limit, and he was more than ready to risk it all.

“What, it’s not like this is my first time seeing you naked.”

“Kuroo can walk in at any moment,” you argued back.

“He left two hours ago. It takes a total of eight hours driving to and from Sendai, plus the amount of stops he probably took to settle them down,” he quietly closes the door. “Which means I’ve about six hours to have you all to myself.”

The weight of Kenma’s words dawned on you. The sound of your heartbeat echoes in your ears, racing at the pace things were moving in. It’s only been a day since you got back, but Kenma had been displaying signs of temptation. You knew he was selfish, but you didn't know he can be this selfish—to the point of sleeping with his best friend’s girlfriend. Maybe you should’ve set the boundaries right then and there when you and Kuroo told him about your relationship. But you’ve been sleeping around with Kenma for so long that you didn’t realize that these things weren’t normal for someone in a relationship. It wasn’t right at all, especially to Kuroo. It’s cheating, but—

“Don’t worry, it’ll just be between you and me. I promise,” Kenma cups your face so that your eyes meet with his and draws you into a kiss. You quickly pull away from him,

“Kenma, we can’t. You know we can’t, I’m dating Kuroo, and . . .this is cheating—”

“Only if we get caught,” his fingers trace up your thighs.

You grip his wrist with trembling hands.

“Kenma . . . please, I—I can only hold back so much,” your voice begins to break.

“Do you trust me?” he pauses, waiting for your reply.

With guilt, you shyly nodded.

“That’s my good girl,” he lifts you up onto the edge of the sink. Kissing you along your neck and collarbones.

“Not there, you’ll leave a mark,” you stop him.

“Right, . . . sorry,” he pouts. With how far you’ve already taken the situation, you decided to let go of all senses of your morals.

“Come here,” you reach for his face, pulling him back into a kiss. Shocked that you took the lead, but relieved, he places his hand on your wet spot. The feeling of his fingers brushing over your clit makes you throb inside.

“Look at how messy you’re getting and I haven’t even put my fingers in you yet,” he crosses his fingers. “I know you like it when I do this.”

The twisting motion inside you sends waves of pleasure throughout your body, making your toes curl. Hot breaths escape your wet lips, feeling yourself come closer to ecstasy. Before you could reach your climax, Kenma pulls his fingers out.

“No, no no,” you whined.

“What’s wrong?” he cocked his head, knowing damn well what he’s doing. “You know begging doesn’t work on me, you need to show that you want it.” He leans in closer to your blushing ear. “Now get on those pretty knees of yours.”

The glazed look in your eyes catches Kenma’s attention. A smirk tugs across his face, gently gripping your throat, embracing you into another wet kiss. His teeth softly grazes your bottom lip as he pulls away. Reluctantly, you get on your knees.

You work your tongue, stroking up and down his cock. “Fuck,” he grunts, giving you a sense of pride. Impatiently, you start to touch yourself to relieve that aching feeling,

“Ah, ah, ah,” Kenma pulls you by the hair to get you off his cock. He grabs both of your wrists and pins them over your head against the edge of the sink, preventing you from touching yourself. “I’m not gonna let you take that satisfaction away from me. Now open your mouth nice and wide, and stick your tongue out.”

Your hips squirm and tremble, doing as he says.

“Hrmph!” the impact of his cock thrusts to the back of your throat, his grip tightening around your wrists. Tears stream down your cheeks and saliva dribbles down your chin, taking in every thrust he gives you. You choke on his load, filling you so much that you can’t do anything but swallow.

“You think I’m done?” he pushes you to the floor and turns you over, pinning one leg to your chest. The glint in his eyes tells you how long he’s been waiting for this moment. A single, long, moment to put you in a sloppy daze. You can feel his thumb brushing over your slick folds before pressing it in. Although you’re already a soaking mess down there, he wants to make sure you're fully prepped before going in raw.

“Don’t forget, I have you all to myself for more than a few hours,” he says in your ear as he slowly penetrates you. The tip hits you in the right spot making your walls flutter. Only the sound of your panting and moaning escape your lips.

You forgot how rough Kenma gets when his stress builds up and he has nowhere to vent it off on, but that privilege was taken away from him when you and Kuroo started your relationship. Admittedly, you miss Kenma from before he knew about your relationship with his best friend. You didn’t know how he truly felt about it and didn’t want to ask. You avoided wanting to ask ‘cause you’re scared about knowing how he really feels. The day you confronted him about it was also when he started to become distant and detached from you. 

Slowly, your mind enters a daze, getting lost in the comfort you find from his guilty pleasure.

[toriwakes]

Pretty Boy 187 [s.r x reader]

summary: reader finds out that her new found tumblr crush is none other than her coworker.

content warnings: she/her!reader, mentions of alcohol

a/n: hi!! i’m so happy to be posting again. i’m really proud of this, so i hope you all like it! as always, let me know if you have any requests!

convincing spencer to get tumblr was tough. not only did he hate technology, he didn’t like social media either.

“it’s gonna be fun! c’mon, please?” you’ve been bugging him about it for about a week. “spencer, please just download it. if i have to hear (y/n) whine again i’m gonna loose it.” said derek, plopping is papers on his desk. “you like it when i whine.” you teased, causing derek to flash you a toothy grin. “alright! jeez.” you clapped of joy and jumped to help spencer, but he stopped you. “no way, i’m not letting you follow me.” he kept his phone facing away from you, your arms dropping to your sides in defeat. “fine. i’ll find your account somehow.” “we’ll see about that.”

♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥

over the next few weeks you acquired a few new followers, only one catching your eye. ‘prettyboy187’ followed you on a quiet friday afternoon. the username caught your attention at first, but when you checked is profile? that’s when you were hooked. half of his pictures were just aesthetically pleasing: outside of his window, his extreme sugary coffee, some books. but others...

it was an excerpt of a poem and his hand was holding back the pages. you doubt he meant to capture it so beautifully. just his hand was godly. you wasted no time dming him.

hey :)

how desperate did you look right now? he followed you barley an hour ago. you cant stop staring at that picture.

hello

he didn’t sound happy. well, he didn’t “sound” anything, you guys were texting. but you could feel his tone through the screen. where you overthinking this too much? you shuffled into your bed, wrapping yourself in the covers as you pondered what to say next.

i just wanted to tell you i really like your account. are you a photographer or something?

no, i’m not. my friend convinced me to get this app and i noticed people post aesthetically pleasing photos on here, so i’m just doing the same haha.

ok, well you don’t post nice pictures. at least, not that type. maybe you’d post a picture of the snow or your bed, but every now and then you’d bless the feed with a picture of you in a swimsuit. it was more for opinions on the suit than anything else.

ohh. maybe i should start doing that.

how do you mean?

oh.

that sounded like a very judge-y ‘oh’. your eyes scanned your own profile to see what he could’ve hated. there was you in your favorite red swimsuit, a picture of your computer with netflix on the screen. the rest of the posts were of the same type, so you couldn’t pinpoint what the problem was.

what is it?

no, nothing. your recent picture. that’s a nice swim suit.

oh. that’s what he meant. you practically threw your phone across the room and squealed. thank the universe that he didn’t dislike you already. you shot him another text. just like that, you had your first ever tumblr crush.

♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥

“what’s up with you pretty girl?” derek asked when you walked into work. you supposed you still had the blush on your face when pretty boy wished you a good morning and day at work. “nothing!” you said, obviously it being something. as if on cue, spencer walked in behind you also giddy. “what, you’re both sweet on someone now?” when neither of you responded, derek laughed. “what?” emily inquired, taking her seat. “spencer and (y/n) both have a crush.” emily’s jaw dropped. “spencer has a crush?” everyone broke into laughter, jj overhearing and almost dropping her files. “why is that so surprising?” spencer defended himself, derek giving him a ‘you know the answer to that’ look. “well?what’re their names?” he pushed. you bit your tongue. you didn’t even know his name. yikes. “let’s start.” aaron called. saved by hotch. thank goodness. “this ain’t over.” derek warned the two of you. yes it was. by the end of the day morgan would’ve forgotten all about this.

♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥

you were right like always. morgan didn’t ask anymore about it, instead offering to get drinks. you turned it down, desperate to get home and text your boy. and you did, only at 11pm.

hey, sorry it’s so late. had a long day at work.

no worries, so did i. listen, i have a question.

this boy only sent messages that would make your heart drop. with a pacing heart, you texted back.

yes?

his ‘online’ button flashes on. then he was typing. then he was deleting. it seemed like hours before he responded.

what’s your name?

godamnit. you didnt have a display name because you didn’t want anyone you knew finding your account. what’s a fake name you can use? maybe...

lila.

why did you pick spencer’s ex’s name? you don’t know. you remember being insanely jealous of her because she got to kiss spencer in the pool while you were posted outside. your crush on spencer was still very much alive, but not as much as it was with pretty boy.

that’s a pretty name.

thanks. now you have to tell me yours ;)

you’ve never been so nervous for a text conversation in your life. for some reason, the back of your head wondered what it would be like if you were texting spencer. it was just a thought, though. spencer would never say half of this stuff.

call me morgan.

oh NO. please no... you stalked his profile again, terrified that you’ve been flirting with your coworker this past month. alas, your eye caught another body picture- this time of his arm. no tattoos like derek. not to mention he was much smaller. not that that’s a bad thing. you don’t think you’d ever be able to handle derek...

♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥

you arrived at work yet again with a blushing face. “come on, you can’t keep hiding this from me! tell me something at least!” derek whined. “okay! his name is morgan. and i know what you’re thinking, and no, it’s not you, my boy is much more attractive.” derek’s mouth formed into an ‘O’ shape in fake offense. “that’s damn near impossible. ain’t nobody prettier than derek morgan.” spencer walked in now, again with a dorky smile on his face. “spencer. (y/n)’s got a crush on-“ you jumped to cover his mouth, the sound of your crush’s name muffled. “what- hey! no fair! derek gets to know but i cant?” spencer whined. derek held his hands up and sat back down, not wanting to get you mad. smart. “three can’t keep a secret.” was all you said before sitting down to clean your workspace.

♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥

the new highlight of your day was texting morgan. you learned several things about him; he has a job he can’t specify for personal reasons, he really wants a dog but he feels like animals hate him. you told him about your cat joel, and how they could absolutely love him. he appreciated that.

if i tell you something, do you promise not to freak out?

depends. are you about to tell me you’re a serial killer?

no!

you giggled to yourself at your humor.

i wanna meet you.

you promised not to freak out, but you were freaking out. it was just now setting in that you didn’t know this man at all. where he lived, how old he was, even what he looked like. you took a few deep breaths and asked a question.

where do you live?

quantico virginia.

no hesitation on that one. he lived in the same town as you? you didn’t know how you’d be able to turn this down...

shit, me too. let’s meet up then.

i’ll send you a good place to get drinks.

♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥

“every time you walk in here, you’re blushing. now so are your ears.” you beamed at derek, sitting at your desk before spilling. “i’m gonna meet him.” “wait what? are you sure that’s safe?” you rolled your eyes. “i’m an fbi agent. i’m not scared of a little danger.” you playfully winked and derek blew out a huff of air. “if anything happens, you know you can call me.” you pouted at your friend and nodded, appreciating his concern. spencer was spinning in his seat. “you happy too?” you asked. he only nodded and didn’t elaborate. you we’re going to press on, but hotch called you all in and you lost your chance.

♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥

on rare occasions, the bau got tough cases with very happy endings. this was one of those cases. the plane ride home was extremely joyous and derek offered to get drinks again. this time, everyone accepted (all except hotch). you texted morgan telling him you were going out tonight and you wouldn’t be back till late. you laughed to yourself. it was like he was your boyfriend.

♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥

the night was young and you were fairly tipsy. ok that’s generous, you were drunk. you were spending most of your time with penelope and it took you a minute to remember spencer. “ohmygosh! spence!” he was startled at your presence but he gave you that flat mouthed smile of his. “how are you! you’re my favorite scorpio.” you nodded as you said it, as if trying to convince him it was true. “thanks? i’m good. you’re drunk.” he pointed out. “no shit. hey!!! you never showed me your tumblr user! you gotta show me that girl you like, bet you she’s really sexy.” you didn’t even know what you were saying at this point, whipping out your phone and snapping a picture with spencer. “what are you doing?” he asked, watching you type. “posting this on tumblr! i want everyone to know you’re my favorite in the world.” he wanted to ask favorite what, but a ping on his phone distracted him. lila posted. he smiled and checked her page.

holy fuck.

♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥

“(y/n)?” he asked, not looking away from his phone. “yess?” you responded. “what’s your tumblr?” what is your tumblr? “uhhh..i don’t know, check.” you tossed him your open phone, and his eyes only grew wider. “you’re lila?” the words rang through your ears like a siren. “what?” the word was breathy, you couldn’t add stability to what you said. spencer showed you his phone, ‘prettyboy187’ on the screen. “you’re morgan?” still no confidence in your voice whatsoever. your feelings were supposed to change, you weren’t supposed to like that morgan was spencer. but they didn’t. you didn’t even think about the fact he saw your swimsuit photos. you loved that morgan was spencer, and you still wanted to see him on the weekend. “are you mad?” you asked, not being able to stop yourself from sipping from your glass. “no. should i be?” you smiled. “no. do you still wanna meet up this weekend?” “yes. but i don’t wanna get drinks.” he wasn’t even drinking, why is he complaining. “where should we go then?” “my house.”

[theepisceswriter]

bestie, idk but, brat tamer tsukiyama shuu, he's probably a little teasing shit yknykn 💋

Bestie....I think you might’ve done something with this one bestie 🙈 NS4W things underneath the tag, fembodied!reader (she/her pronouns)

Unlike Erwin, Tsukiyama is such a soft dom. One of those doms who spoil you a lot with affection and would much rather spend most of his time doing things that pleasured the both of you; keeping that healthy 50/50 dynamic between a dom and their sub. He’s is very overbearing at times and can fall on the possessive side very often and since you’re so accustomed to having attention on you 24/7 you crave it and seek it from others when you’re not around.

Which is how most of your brat taming sessions end off starting; him catching you “flirting” with someone else when he’s not around really gets his gears grinding, but of course he remains calm for your sake. All you’d get as a warning of the night ahead of you is a “Naughty, naughty.” Whispered in your ear by him with a tongue click and a grope of your ass of he’s feeling risqué like that out in public.

Before the two of you could even get out the car he’d give you directions to follow like, “I’m going to give you a 5 minute head start, by the time I get into the bedroom I want you sitting on the bed completely naked with your hands on your thighs facing the wall.” Um yes please, you don’t have to tell me twice !

He would take way longer then 5 minutes to come into the bedroom just to keep you on your toes and because he’s so light on his feet you don’t even know that he’s in the room until you feel his finger tips ghosting on your skin leaving you shivering in anticipation, but he’d retract them like two seconds later and move away from the bed completely to grab all what he needs for the night out of his closet.

“You know why I’m doing this right? Because you wanted to be a needy brat earlier,” he would just go on and on about how he’s so disappointed in you for acting out the way you did today and that’s enough to make you fold right off the bat, begging about how you’ll never do it again and you just want him so bad 🥺 mind you you haven’t even seen his face yet, only the glimpse of his hands as he sets a vibrator and rope down on the side of you.

You know that really pretty style of Japanese bondage that’s always making rounds here on tumblr every now and then. I forgot what it’s called but I just know he has it perfected and big side note, but in a modern AU I feel like he would go viral a lot for posting pictures of his significant other tied up in beautiful patterns he made. BUT BACK TO BRAT TAMER TSUKIYAMA; he would time your arms behind your back to keep you restricted and because he knows it’s torture alone just for you not to be able to touch on him like you want to. Also, he would tie it a little tighter than usual just to add to your punishment.

Another contrast between him and Erwin, he’s not as rough at him at all even in a punishing setting as such. There’s no choking or tying a belt around your neck, but he will put a ball gag in your mouth and might give your pussy a little tap that he knows will leave a sting every now and then. Especially farther on in your session when he has your knees weak like jelly and muscles tightening from how many times he’s made you orgasm. He’s also really big on praising you throughout the session instead of degrading you.

That vibrator he pulled out earlier? He’s going to use it like no tomorrow. He’s such a slut for overstimulation, especially when he’s the one doing it to someone else. The first three orgasms felt amazing even after being forced out back to back, his hands were all over you and Tsukiyama was vocally leading you to your orgasm, but it’s after the third one that he ups the vibrator up to its highest setting and leaves it sitting against you. His hands leave your body completely and he even relocates himself to a chair in the corner of the room that’s sitting in front of you. It’s the very first time you see him the whole night, chiseled chest on display along with everything on his body that can be bare and his cock standing erect in his hand as he strokes it to the sight of you bing overstimulated. Drool forming around your ball gag and falling onto your chest and face flushed a bright red.

It’s torture watching him so close but so far away not able to be the one to please him like you’d like. Not to mention the painful ache from between your legs as you near your fifth orgasm of the night. Your promises of being a good girl for the rest of the night are muffled by the gag in your mouth and though he can’t make out what you’re saying he still lets out a, “Brats don’t get what they want. Maybe the man you were flirting with earlier would’ve gave up his cock a lot easier, but too bad you had to come home with me, huh darling?”

It’s not until after your 7th orgasm that he comes to remove the vibrator from between your legs and it’s only because it died. You’re a mess; eyes & cheeks glossy with tears, drool dripping from your chin, and thighs clenched together right between the head of the vibrator. Tsukiyama even takes pity on you, letting out a small, “My poor baby, so worn out and tired.”

You think he’s finally going to untie you, let you free and snuggle up against his chest, but instead he comes up to you from behind to slip his cock into you and after 7 orgasms he doesn’t have to prep you at all because your cum did all the work for him.

“Come on angel, come on you can give me one more. Just give me one more one more orgasm. I want to see your pretty pussy cum around me.” But he’s lying, he’s going to make you give him at least two more tops before he himself is too tired from constantly orgasming.

The aftercare is top notch and amazing though.

[mlm-writer]

GOT Loads (Jackson Wang / GOT7 x Male!Reader)

Pairing: Jackson Wang/GOT7 x Cis!Male!Reader    Rating: Explicit  Words: 2016  Summary: Your boyfriend Jackson is a good lad and shares you with his fellow members.... it’s a GOT7 gangbang.  Note: Forgive me father fore I have sinned. Also this is 100% based on the headcanons I found on Tumblr, because I don’t actually know these guys, aside from that they make good music. This was a request and I aim to please.  Tags: Gangbang, breeding, multiple creampies, multiple orgasms, facefucking, praise, cum eating, edging, degradation, rough sex, voyeurism, fingering, oral, god this is filthy, no beta we die like men 

EDIT: There is now also a sequel

Three fingers grazed your insides, stretching your ass open for all the cock it would have to take later. You were on the bed, supported by pillows with a sight that some people would kill for. Wherever you looked, hard cocks were stroked right before your eyes, making your mouth water and your ass feel very empty. You let out a whine when your boyfriend removed his slick fingers, making your ass gape. 

“You’re ready, baby?” Jackson cooed as he rubbed the head of his cock over your open and exposed hole. You nodded, muttering pleads to be filled with your boyfriend’s cock while his co-members stroked theirs in front of you, waiting their turn. You did not know how he got them all to do this, but you didn’t care. Being stuffed full of cum had always been a fantasy of yours and tonight it was going to happen. 

Jackson eased you into it, cock slick and pumping as fast as it could with the resistance it met. Even after being stretched to three fingers, you still had a tight grip on Jackson’s dick, the girth sending you to a plane of pleasure. “That’s my good boy,” Jackson mused as he thrusted steadily into you, “remember you can cum whenever you want, but we will not stop until we all have cum into this pretty ass.” Jackson squeezed your bottom, his thrusts becoming more forceful, after he added more lube and found the glide to be easier. 

He worked you up to a fast pace, the sound of skin slapping joining the pants and slight moans of the men around you. You cried a little from the mixture of pain and pleasure, whining as he fucked you just right. “Please slow down, I’m gonna cum,” you whimpered, but he did not slow down. You came on the pillows, before he even finished. Jackson pistoned his hips into yours through your orgasm, bringing you more tears and more pleasure. He finished inside you, as promised. 

“Youngjae, come on, before it starts to drip out of him.” You had your eyes still closed as you felt your boyfriend pull out. You clenched around nothing to keep him cum in, but relaxed when you felt another man’s cock press against the ring of muscle. He was slick with lube and slipped right in, fucking you almost as hard as Jackson had not even a minute ago. You were overstimulated, moaning pathetically while feeling like you were being used and you loved that idea. 

“You’re gonna be a good cumdump for us, aren’t you?” You heard Youngjae speak into your ear. You hummed, not really able to form words. He lifted your head by pulling your hair. Jackson was right in front of you, cock semi-hard and smirking at you. “You’re such a good slut, agreeing on being used by your boyfriend’s friends while he watches. I’m impressed.”

Youngjae had slowed down enough for you to become painfully aware of what you must look like and what you agreed to. You had Jackson’s, your boyfriend’s, seed inside you, being fucked deeper inside by one of his friends, your friends. They all could hear you moan at whichever cock entered you, see you being turned on by being used and filled. Your cock jerked against the pillows, nothing coming out, but wanting to cum again. 

Youngjae filled you before you even realised he was close, your mind too occupied by the situation you were in. You only realised the switch when he pulled out and you desperately clenched your ass to keep all the cum inside. Whoever was next removed the pillows, easily slipped inside you and held your upper body up by your hair. His cock was a little smaller than the ones you had before, but fucked you a lot faster as well. “You don’t get to hide your face or your cock anymore,” BamBam hissed in your ear. You whined, feeling exposed. Your cock was still hard, twitching as it tried to cum again, without any stimulus. Not touching yourself had been a rule. If you wanted your cock to be touched, you needed to ask someone else to do it. 

Your sweaty body was on display, cock bouncing with each rough trust. “He’s drooling for cock in his mouth,” BamBam teasingly proclaimed as the hand in your hair found your chin, holding you there for leverage. 

“I can help with that.” You placed your hands on the bed when you were pulled down by your hair, Jaebum’s cock pressing against your lips. You opened your mouth, letting him in. The two men bounced your between them, one roughly fucking your ass, while you other forced his length further and further down your throat. You choked, but Jaebum didn’t seem to care, spreading the saliva over your face with his cock, before attempting to thrust deeper. 

“Look at yourself, both holes filled with dick. I think this is the best use of you, don’t you agree?” You tried to nod in response to BamBam, but Jaebum held your head in place, fucking your mouth in a similar way BamBam was fucking your ass. 

“Remember the rule is to cum in his ass,” your boyfriend oh-so helpfully reminded the man facefucking you. Jaebum reassured him that he would hold back until he could shoot his load into your ass. Your mouth watered at the promise, your face covered in your own saliva. BamBam granted you the third load of that night and was almost immediately shoved aside by Jaebum, who was incredibly close from throatfucking you and reached orgasm with just a few thrusts into your ass, filling it with both semen and your own saliva. Jaebum was the first to be unrestrainedly vocal about his orgasm. 

“Wish it could’ve been your throat, but maybe we make that the rule next time,” he chuckled as he slowly slipped out of you. You tilted your hips, clenching your ass to keep the seed inside until the next cock was circling your hole. You were too focused on keeping everything inside, that you forgot to unclench when you felt the pressure of another dick. 

A loud slap echoed through the room, leaving a sting on your ass. “Come on, let me in, pretty boy,” Jinyoung whispered in your ear. You took a deep breath, relaxing your muscles on the exhale. Jinyoung was gentle, very aware of the beating your hole had endured all night. His fingers dug into your ass, leaving bruises as he slowly dragged his length in and out of your heat. The sensual roll of his hips drove you crazy, but he kept you on your toes with the occasional spank. 

“That’s right, pretty, relax,” he whispered, his breath growing heavier as your ass got redder. You were always a fan of rougher sex, but somehow the slow pace brought you close to your second orgasm. You whined, tears falling from your eyes as your hard dick humped air. You were almost there, when Jinyoung came before you did and pulled out to the head. You begged for release, while he lazily milked his cock inside you. “You still got two more to go,” he cooed, before giving you one last hard slap on your cheeks, “so I would hold it in if I were you.” 

You begged to be touched, ass clenching automatically when Jinyoung pulled out. Your requests remained unanswered as you were flipped onto your sore and stinging ass, a slick cock entering you. Your eyes went wide at the sudden intrusion, locking with those of Yugyeom. “Aww are you a little sore?” He teased, setting a medium pace that felt like being hammered already, but you knew he was building up to it and you weren’t sure if you could handle it. 

You shook your head in reply. “No, very,” you groaned, your ass painful, but your insides feeling full and pleasured. He chuckled and took a hold of your cock. You cried out. It felt good; so, so good and you begged him to stroke you. He just held your hard dick in his grasp, hips rolling against yours and going faster. “Please, please, I just wanna cum,” you cried out, vision getting distorted from pleasure, your body jerking. 

“You will… eventually.” He smirked in your face, thrusting roughly into you, but not going too fast. The force of this thrusts moved his hand a little over your cock, but it wasn’t enough. You let your head fall, looking at your boyfriend, upside down with pleading eyes. 

“Aww he’s been such a good boy. Let him. It feels good when he comes and you’re inside him,” Jackson mused as he swatted Yugyeom’s hand away and took a hold of your cock. You moaned at the relief, thanking him through gritted teeth and loud moans. Jackson leaned down, giving your ear a lick. “Come on, baby, cum for me,” he spoke into your ear, voice a little raspy and oh so sexy. You screamed as you followed his command, staining your own chest and his hand. 

You could hear Yugyeom moan, but you weren’t focused on him, but the fingers Jackson pushed into your mouth. He fed you your own cum, praising you as your sore cock pushed out a little more. When you finally had swallowed all of your own cum, you realised it was no longer Yugyeom fucking you. When your eyes left your boyfriend’s handsome face, you locked eyes with Mark. He looked red in the face and was sweating a little. “You’ve done well, just one more,” he whispered for only you to hear. You were grateful for his slow pace, but by judging his face it was for himself as well. “I know you’re sore, but you can take it, right?” You nodded, relaxing in his embrace as he slow-fucked into you. His cock felt like it was on fire inside you, but it was no longer the stretch that caused the burning sensation. In fact, you were pretty certain that your ass was so open, Jackson and his massive cock would meet no resistance. 

“Please cum in me, Mark,” you whispered back, needing his load as much as you needed it to be over. You loved this, but you came twice and your ass was sore. Mark was gentle, praising you for how well you were holding up and how good you had been all night. Your head was swimming, you mouth opening on instinct when you felt another cock against it. You opened your eyes, moaning when you saw Jackson. He fucked your mouth, shallowly, the head of his cock pushing against your cheek. You tried to suck on it as much as you could, but it was hard to focus with the slow drag of Mark’s cock against your insides. 

Jackson pulled out, rubbing his cock right over your face. “The… rule…” You muttered, hoping he would get it. The wolfish grin on his face told you he did. He told Mark to speed it up, but as soon as he did, he came inside you. He stayed like that for a little, coming down from finally having an orgasm after edging himself all night. Jackson pushed the head of his cock in after Mark pulled out, giving you one last load for that night. 

While Jackson was taking some pictures of your ass for you to enjoy later, Mark put your head in his lap, stroking your hair. “Well done,” you sighed as you smiled at him, whimpering when Youngjae and Jinyeong spread your ass apart, so Jackson could record their cum dripping out of you. You pushed, putting your last strength into putting on a show for the camera. You could hear the liquid leave your ass, the pressure inside dissipating. 

The boys helped getting you and the bed all cleaned up. Being bathed and dressed went by in a blur and your eyes finally closed when you were back in bed, clean and resting in the arms of the man you loved. 

[muffinrecord]

Twitter Rant

God damn, no wonder everyone is so angry on twitter all of the time.

I feel like that site sets you up to see things that make you upset against your will.

I have two twitter accounts; a normal one (I barely use anymore) and a fandom only one. If I log on, I’ll see this sidebar to the right, which will share dumb unwanted shit with me without my wanting it to.

If you ever think to yourself “what the fuck” and click on something over there, you’re guaranteed to get the most batshit insane takes you’ve ever seen in your life.

Meanwhile I’m constantly having to mute + block users on there-- not because they’ve done anything wrong to me, but because it’s supposed to be a fandom-only account, but twitter really wants me to know that some fucknugget has done some fucked up thing and it’s like. m’am. This is a Magia Record account, not a fucked up news account. If I want to learn about horrible shit, I’ll go to a site specifically for it.

Fuck man.

Also, I HATE that people can see what you’ve liked, who you’ve followed, and it even interjects what a person who you follow’s has liked-- or content that hasn’t been liked or retweeted and is just from a person who follows another person

Granted, that hasn’t happened so much anymore since I’ve changed the way the tweets work (so that it’s most recent instead of “top tweets”) but like.

Okay.

There are a number of people I don’t follow on twitter because they might post, or might like, or might follow someone who posts nsfw content, and I don’t want that then being posted onto someone who follow’s me timeline. You get what I’m saying?

I feel like you can’t curate perfectly what content you view, but more importantly, you can’t curate the content that people who follow you view from you. Like goddamn, I promise I’m not a horny freak, I just like what this one person has to say about game lore. 

Like knock on wood but I’m so glad that I don’t need to worry about people seeing my likes or who I follow on tumblr. You can turn that shit off here. Maybe you can do that too on twitter and I’m just too stupid to know how. I don’t know.

But if twitter was my main social media, I’d feel angry all the time too, and I’d also feel like I need to constantly shout from the rooftops performative shit. It feels like too much of you is on display. 

[monstersandmaw]

Nonbinary incubus x reader (nsfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

"Keep the Tumblr stories to around 3k words, Ghosti."

"So how long is this one?"

"Oh... uh..." *shuffles* "...Five and a half thousand?"

Haha, yes, as much as I tried, this one is also a bit longer than I wanted, but, for the third story available for the $5 tier on early release this month, I give you 5.5k words of nb incubus x reader. We also have a new location to add to Starfall Springs, and it's not quite what you might expect for the sleepy little town...

Contents: our incubus would probably have been assigned male at birth but they use they/them pronouns, gender/body neutral reader, erotic dancing, and come-marking if you squint...

This has been up on my Patreon for a week now on early release so it’s time to put it up here on Tumblr.

“I’m sorry, what did you just say?” you asked, blinking at your friend in open-mouthed incredulity. “Starfall Springs has a… strip club?”

The gnoll grinned, the look absolutely feral for just a heartbeat. “Oh yes. The Silkfoot family tried to have it closed down, especially after their youngest son was seen frequenting it, but Sarrigan actually helped to fund it as one of his business ventures after he started up his antiques company… It’s doing really well…”

“Well… I don’t know what to say! I never would have thought that a sweet, sleepy little place like Starfall Springs would have something so…”

Mako’s brows rose - as much as a gnoll’s could, anyway - and he yipped softly in amusement and dug you in the ribs. “We’re definitely going there now for your birthday.”

“Mako, I’ve never… I… I don’t know if it’s my kind of place, you know?”

“Come on, it’s not as if it’s that wild. As you say, it is Starfall Springs after all…”

You swallowed, not entirely sure you believed him, but in the end, you agreed to go.

Your birthday dawned bright and warm, and before any of your friends or family could message or call, you took yourself off to the dinky little harbour in the town to treat yourself to a takeaway breakfast from the bakery, and a coffee from the tiny little cart that made the best damned coffee in the universe. It was something for yourself, and it had become a sacred ritual back in the city. Now, as you strolled through the quiet streets, with nothing but your own footsteps and the whispering promise of the sea at the end of the cobbled lane for company, you smiled. Moving to Starfall Springs had been one of the best ideas you’d ever had.

“Morning!” Khargrin smiled as you stepped into the bakery and inhaled blissfully, eyes fluttering closed for a moment at the sheer gorgeousness of the scent of bread and sugar in the air.

You returned the smile to the enormous orc, and placed your order for two of their fresh pastries.

“Still warm from the oven,” Khargrin chuckled as he slid them into a paper bag for you. “Here.” He frowned slightly. “Anything special about today? You’re earlier than usual,” he asked, still holding onto the bag as you went to take it.

Laughing, you admitted that it was your birthday, and he promptly refused to take any kind of payment.

“I didn’t tell you that so you’d give me free breakfast, Khar,” you groused.

He let go of the bag as if it had burned him and said with such melodramatic flare that a mummer would have been proud of the display, “You’ve touched it now! You have to take it! Get out of my shop, foul human! Begone! And have yourself a wonderful birthday while you’re at it!”

Shaking your head fondly at the big orc’s antics, you accepted but didn’t leave right away.

“Any plans for today?” he asked as he bustled about, stocking the display with goodies from the back.

“Quiet day, I think,” you said, “But Mako has plans for tonight… I’m wary.”

“Knowing that gnoll, it involves Midnight Aurora, doesn’t it?”

“Midnight Aurora?” The name wasn’t familiar to you. “You mean the club over on the north side of town?”

The orc nodded. “Yup. And before you say anything about it, my sister works there…” he added with a twinkle in his eye and a lopsided grin on his handsome face.

“I will think very carefully before I tell you about my reaction to my experiences there then,” you grinned. “Anyway, see you Khargrin.”

“Enjoy your day,” he said. “And your night. And if it involves my big sister at all, I don’t want to know.”

You snorted and headed out into the brightening day. The fresh wind hit you full in the face, bringing with it the sharp tang of iodine from the sea, and you watched two merfolk spiralling through the water like racing dolphins, breaching the surface and sending sparkling droplets spraying up against the side of a moored fishing boat before they cleared the boundary of the harbour and disappeared out into the wider ocean.

“Gorgeous, aren’t they?” a quiet voice said from beside you.

Tearing your eyes from the horizon, you turned to find someone tall and slim standing beside you. With lilac skin, long, silver-white hair, and elegantly-tapering ears, they might have been a tiefling, but you couldn’t see any horns, and something about the intensity of their ruby red eyes made you wonder.

“Mmm,” you hummed noncommittally.

Their gaze flickered to the pastries in your hand and their Cupid’s-bow lips curved into a smile that made your stomach flip over, revealing double canines, both top and bottom. “Khargrin makes the best almond croissants in the whole world,” they commented.

“Just needs one of Sophie’s coffees to go with, and I’m all set for my birthday breakfast,” you blurted unthinkingly.

At that, their eyebrows rose. “It’s your birthday? Happy birthday.”

“Thanks. I’m not sure how I feel about being another year older, but -” you shrugged. “It is what it is.”

“Well, not to be inappropriate, but you look wonderful. May I get you that coffee?”

Were they flirting with you? You weren’t exactly known for being able to read people all that well. You blinked. “You don’t have to do that,” you said, stepping back. “I mean… you don’t even know me.” People in Starfall Springs were just like that, you knew from first hand experience already, but still, it was… unnerving for someone like you from the city.

That blinding smile never flickered, but they did shift a little. Oh. They had a tail. Perhaps they were a tiefling after all. They also had hooves, dark and shiny, visible beneath the wide cuff of their loose, black linen trousers. Looking a little more closely at them, now that you were no longer distracted by that gorgeous, heart-flutteringly beautiful smile, you realised that they wore a sleeveless vest, white, and that their chest was flat and their stomach obviously toned. Their arms too were slim but muscular, and they bore tattoos in geometric patterns from their fingertips right the way up their arms and neck to their earlobes. You swallowed. You’d never met someone so alluring in your whole life and your skin began to tingle.

At that moment, their pupils dilated visibly and they swallowed, long, tapering ears drooping a little. “Never mind,” they said. “I’m being overbearing. I’ll… leave you in peace. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

Before you could call after them, or tell them they’d got the wrong idea, they turned around, their long white hair swinging in a thick plait right down their back to their tail, and hurried away. Halfway across the street, a swirl of dark, inky magic enveloped them, and they disappeared completely.

“What the…?” you hissed.

Even Sophie’s amazing coffee didn’t taste quite as good as it usually did, and for the rest of the day, as you picnicked with your friends on the sloping meadow above the Temple, lounging while music played through a little speaker and chocolate frosting melted in the sun, you kept recalling the way those garnet red eyes had turned from warm and playful to achingly sad.

“What’s up with you?” Mako asked, lolling over onto his back with his front paws bent, like a retriever begging for a belly rub.

Affectionately, you reached over and scratched his upper chest, which still made his hind leg kick. His powerful hyena jaws softened and he moaned. “Oh that’s so good,” he moaned. “You give the best scritches.”

“Hey!” came the disgruntled protests of his boyfriend from beside you. You didn’t stop, and he shook his head fondly. “Honestly, it’s probably true. Good job I can do other things to you, huh?”

Mako growled playfully, but left it at that. “What time shall we come by to pick you up for tonight?” he asked a while later, glancing up at you with his big, brown eyes.

You shrugged. “What time do we have to be there?”

“Nine?” he asked. “We could go for drinks somewhere else first? Or you could come to ours and we could have something to eat and drink there before? Up to you.”

With snacks and a few drinks in you, the three of you left Mako’s apartment that night and headed over to Midnight Aurora. You walked up a narrow, cobbled street to be met by Erin, Aemilius, and Florian - a satyr, vampire, and a cervitaur respectively - halfway down.

Aemilius heard your approach first, turning to face you to clap and cheer. “Happy Birthday!!” he practically sang at the top of his lungs, and you rolled your eyes, trying to hide your smile.

Together, the six of you headed up towards the top end of town, which looked magical that night, bathed in summer moonlight, with the bars and restaurants in the area now lively and bustling where they normally sat quietly during the day. Twinkling strings of fairy lights illuminated the way, and a shop sign swung in the slight breeze as you passed beneath it, showing a triple moon in glinting silver.

Midnight Aurora wasn’t as packed as you’d worried it would be, and honestly it was more of a theatre than a club, though beneath the stage was a dance space on the floor, currently full of tables. Tonight was obviously a more formal night. A bar filled the left hand side of the room, illuminated by LEDs beneath the counter in the shifting patterns and colours of the bar’s namesake, and a drow and a goblin worked seamlessly together to keep patrons happily topped up. Erin was apparently dating one of the bouncers, which was how you’d all been able to get tickets at short-ish notice. Normally they sold out weeks in advance.

Mako dug you in the ribs. “Not quite what you were expecting, huh?”

You had to admit that it wasn’t. It was classy but relaxed, buzzing but not overwhelming.

Currently onstage was a tall, powerful, muscular female orc and you tried not to look too hard at her, knowing that somehow Khargrin would know you’d been admiring his sister because… wow.

Swallowing, you looked away and croaked, “Drinks?”

“Thought you’d never suggest it,” Aemilius grinned. “First round is on me,” he said. “Take a seat and I’ll join you shortly.”

“Do we not get a say in what we have?” you laughed as Mako and his boyfriend steered you towards a table right in the middle of the floor while Aemilius strode away, lost in the low light and crush of people in seconds.

“Just let him have his way,” Erin said. “He probably knows what you want better than you do anyway.”

Deciding, not for the first time that night, just to go with it, you let the entertainment wash over you. It wasn’t all erotic dancing - there was a tap group that absolutely blew you away with their skill and synchrony, leaving you as breathless as had the bovitaur and his set of half-naked orcs that had preceded them.

“I think the variety is going to kill me,” you hissed at Mako and he snickered.

“Glad you’re enjoying yourself. They’re all really good, aren’t they?”

You had to nod. It wasn’t worth shouting over the appreciative audience’s wild applause. An octomer had just begun her set, involving a rope and a tank below, and you watched as she began and her coiling limbs hauled her effortlessly up out of the water by the rope.

Somewhere just shy of midnight, when the final act was announced, however, a strange and excited hush descended on the crowd, and you looked to Mako who just winked at you. “Wait for it,” he said. “Happy birthday.”

“O…kay?” you frowned warily.

The lights cut out without warning, and from the pitch black, two slender spotlights flashed on, illuminating a pair of dark hooves in the centre of the stage. The lights travelled slowly, teasingly, up over smooth purple skin, up a pair of slender, well-muscled legs, revealing a pair of glittering and very tiny silver hotpants, a lashing tail like a whip, a toned stomach with strangely familiar, geometric tattoos going up the dancer’s sides, over their ribs, and up their neck. A long, white ponytail dangled down the dancer’s back, and you gasped as red eyes blinked out at the crowd.

It couldn’t be? The meek and shy person you’d met earlier that morning was… here? Looking like that? They carried themselves with a quiet, contained dignity that drew you in and demanded your entire attention. Where this morning you’d found their bashful, flirtatious shyness alluring, now it was their stance that knocked you breathless as they stood with the self-assuredness of a tango dancer, waiting for the music to begin.  

The music started with the slow pulse of a sleeping heartbeat, and they swayed their hips from side to side, eyes now closed. Even from that distance, you could see the way their eyelids had been kohled, adding further length and depth to their already almond shaped eyes, and a shimmering powder had been applied to their high cheekbones to heighten the sculptural quality that their face naturally possessed.

As if they had no idea they were dancing before a crowd, the strange, alluring dancer swayed, sinuous as a banner in the breeze, twisting and turning slowly, caught up in the low, hypnotic beat. You could barely breathe as you stared, transfixed. The energy in the room picked up, thrumming, and everyone seemed to be sitting there with their mouths open and their eyes half-lidded.

The difference between earlier on the seafront and now was almost unbelievable. Gods, they had the most incredible figure, and with the same shimmering powder accentuating every highlight on their bare chest and stomach, their dark purple skin gleamed in the lights.

When the beat changed, becoming faster and more energetic, they finally opened their eyes but their gaze locked above the crowd, as if they were still pretending not to have noticed you all staring in wonder at them. It didn't take an expert to see that they’d been classically trained at some point, and the graceful arrangement of their wrists and hands over their head made you think of meadow grasses blowing in the wind before the tension returned with a snap and they evoked the sheer commanding power of a paso doble dancer. They were mesmeric, and it was easy to see why they’d been placed last in the order for the evening.

Erin leaned over to whisper in your ear, “They’re an incubus…”

“Oh,” you breathed. And suddenly your reaction to them earlier made sense. Your stomach dropped unpleasantly. “Oh,” you said again. Had your reaction just been an accident then? As far as you knew, incubi and succubi could control the way their influence worked on people, but if they’d simply sparked that lust in you, did that make it real? You felt a little sick at that.

The longer you thought about it, the less the show held your attention. They were undeniably exquisite, and an extremely talented dancer, but it lost its magic for you the moment you realised that your reaction probably wasn’t real. The incubus was feeding off the lust in the room, the crowd’s desire for them, and the action of feeding created more lust.

As the dance seemed to be working towards its finale, you found you could bear it no longer. Abruptly, you stood and turned away, heading for the bathroom. You were the only person moving in the room besides the incubus on stage, and no one even noticed you leaving. Mako tried to grab your wrist as you left, but you were gone before he could follow or stop you.

At the door to the bathroom, you glanced back and found that the incubus was looking straight at you while dancing without breaking step. Even at this distance, they were truly stunning. You smiled sadly, and ducked out, remaining there until their set finished.

When you emerged, the theatre was buzzing. The chairs and tables had been cleared as if by magic, and the space had been opened up for the patrons to dance now. Mako and his boyfriend were quietly making out in one corner, though they were being relatively subtle for them, Erin was nowhere to be seen, and, as you looked around, you spotted Florian with two dancers and… was that… underwear dangling from one antler? Well, he was certainly entertained at any rate.

A movement to your right caught your eye, and you saw that Aemilius had found a partner to dance with, drawing the eyes of anyone nearby. With his sense of rhythm, he could probably have worked at Midnight Aurora himself.

“Flashy vampire,” you chuckled fondly as you watched the pair of them dance. The elf he’d found had glowing white skin, which complemented his own extremely dark skin beautifully, and you watched for a while before going over to the bar. Leaning against it, you waited alone for the glass of water you’d ordered to come your way.

To your surprise, when you turned around to pick it up, you found the incubus standing beside you. They were clothed now in a loose, white t-shirt that mostly hid the form of their beautiful body beneath, but anyone who had seen them dancing knew what lay under the shapeless top anyway. Their long legs were still on full display though, covered down to the mid thigh by the white t-shirt, and they wore a pair of platform heels that did obscene things to the muscles of their thighs and drew the attention of passers by.

“Hi,” you smiled, not wanting to be seen as prudish, especially after they’d witnessed your exit during their spectacular performance. “You dance beautifully…”

“Thanks,” they smiled. “Can I get you a drink since I didn’t manage to get you that coffee this morning?”

You tilted your head. “Why?”

Their smile broadened. “It’s your birthday, and I didn’t get to give you your actual present.”

Something anxious twisted inside you. “My actual present?”

“Mmm,” the incubus hummed. “Your friends were hoping I’d give you a private show.”

“They were?” you asked, turning to find Erin graining at you from the other end of the bar. “They already paid you?”

You watched with sinking dread as they nodded. When they saw your evident lack of enthusiasm, however, they said, “I don’t have to though. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“It’s not that,” you said. “And I don’t doubt your… uh… talents… I just… I’d rather have something… real, you know?”

“It’s just a lap dance,” they said, prickling slightly.

“I know,” you hastened to reassure them in case they thought you were thinking of other things they could be doing to you which the club definitely wouldn’t allow. “I’m not suggesting otherwise. I just mean… this isn’t really my thing, you know?”

That sad expression you’d seen earlier crept back into their red eyes and they nodded. “Not everyone is comfortable with being around an incubus. I understand. Let me use the money to get you a drink, and you can give the rest back to your friends.”

The congealing atmosphere between you suddenly made you want to choke. As they turned away, you reached for them and grabbed their forearm. The tattoos on their arm flared white hot and you gasped, reeling backwards as a short but intense blast of energy sent you staggering backwards. You hit the bar and wheezed as the air was knocked from your chest.

“Fuck,” the incubus gasped, darting over. “I’m sorry. Are you alright?”

This was not going the way you hoped at all. “What was that? I didn’t mean… I wasn’t going to hurt you…”

“They’re protection runes,” the incubus explained, touching you carefully at the elbow to steady you and get you to raise your head a little. “They stop people grabbing me while I’m working…”

“That happens a lot?” you asked, flexing and making sure nothing was bruised. You were fine. Surprised and winded, but fine.

With a wry look, they admitted, “It’s an… occupational hazard.”

A few people were watching the exchange now, tossing you dirty looks, and you wanted nothing more than to leave the place altogether. “Look, I didn’t mean any harm. I was just trying to get your attention before you went.”

“Well it worked,” they grinned, and you found yourself laughing. They glowered over their shoulder, and the small audience bustled off elsewhere.

“Guess it did.”

“Should we start over?”

You looked at them and nodded. “Sure.”

“I’m Ferren,” they said, extending their hand to you. When you eyed it warily, they laughed. “It won’t hurt you.”

Taking it, you saw the black, geometric shapes pulse white for a moment and let the tingling rush of sensation sweep through you at the contact. Then rather hoarsely, you grunted your own name. Their fingers tightened around yours and then they withdrew. “I’m sorry,” you said. “I… I get the feeling like I’ve insulted you, but I didn’t mean to, I promise.”

“Honestly, I understand,” they said. “Some people like the rush that being around an incubus gives them, and for others it feels… unnatural. I’ll be careful with my ‘influence’ around you.”

“Is that what happened earlier today?” you asked as you let them steer you towards the quieter end of the bar.

They shrugged. “I don’t normally have to be so active about controlling it. Normally I actively have to concentrate to turn it on, as it were, you know? To affect people I really have to try.”

“But not with me?”

“Apparently not,” they chuckled ruefully. “Now, please, for the love of all the gods, will you let me get you a drink?”

You nodded.

What began with one drink on your birthday turned into an hour spent at the bar talking with Ferren about everything, from how they began at dance school, and would have gone into the ballet if they hadn’t suffered with a suspensory ligament injury at sixteen, to how they lived in a small, traditional caravan on the edge of Starfall Springs and loved sour apple sweets almost more than anything.

Drinks that night turned into coffee the next morning - despite the late hour at which you’d returned home - and coffee the next morning turned into a long walk along the seafront, lunch, and then takeaway supper, eaten on a bench overlooking the cliffs just outside the small town.

“Ferren,” you sighed, setting your small container down on the ground beside the bench.

“Mmm?”

“How… How did this happen?”

“How did what happen?” they asked, “You mean ‘what geological forces created these cliffs?’ or ‘how does the tide go in and out?’ or —”

“— no,” you snorted and turned to face them. “How did I end up spending the entire day with you when it was only supposed to be coffee this morning? Is this that incubus charm of yours, or is it just… you?”

“It’s just me,” they said a little dazedly, staring into the depths of their own unfinished food box. “I promise I haven’t used even a scrap of my magic on you. I’ve been really careful.”

At that, you sat up and looked at them a little more closely. In the afternoon light, with the softly refracted light from the waves below casting a cool glow on their lilac face and dark red eyes, they looked like a sculpture or even a doll. Their skin was flawless, their lips full but without pout or pretence. They were just… themselves. Not a dancer, not even an incubus, just… Ferren. “You sound… You sound as if that’s not exactly common for you?”

They shrugged. “People expect us to be promiscuous. I’m used to one night stands and quick fumbles in out of the way corners. It’s been a long time since anyone’s just… listened to me like you have. I hope I haven’t bored you.”

“Bored me? Ferren, I’ve never had such a full day go by so quickly in my life! I still just thought that… maybe it wasn’t real somehow… that you’d just made me feel at ease around you…”

“So you’d fall into my arms and into my bed, you mean?” they asked with a bitterness that cut deep.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about your kind. I was wrong to assume…”

They shook their head and a few strands of their white hair wafted into their eyes. On a whim, you reached up and tucked them back behind the tapering line of their ear and they shuddered noticeably.

“Should I not have touched you again?” you asked, glancing at their tattoos which, mercifully, remained dull and dark.

“No,” they hissed, turning to face you fully. “Gods, no, I… I want your touch but… I don’t want to freak you out. I want it to be what you want…”

“Kiss me,” you breathed.

Their red eyes widened and their lips parted. “Are you sure?”

You were. They were beautiful and gentle and sweet, and you wanted nothing more than to kiss them. “Can you sense my energy?” you asked.

In return, you were met with a question of their own. “Are you asking me to use my magic on you?”

“If that means finding out how I feel, then yes.”

Raising their elegant, tattooed hand to your face, they traced the line of your eyebrow with the pad of their thumb, and then circled your temple. Their eyes glowed as if lit by the sunset from behind, and they opened their mouth, inhaling deeply. The light in their eyes flared bright and they gasped, letting go of you suddenly and smiling. Their hand hovered in the space between you like a butterfly caught in amber. That smile though, blinding as always, illuminated their whole face.

Their fingers then moved back and traced your jaw as they leaned in to kiss you, eyes locked on yours until you let them flutter shut against the rising tide of emotion inside you.

Ferren’s kiss began with breathtaking tenderness, but the moment you let slip a groan, it deepened and they let their tongue taste you. You were sure you tasted of the meal you’d just shared, but honestly, it didn’t matter. You reached for them and tugged them closer until they shifted and instead sat straddling you on the bench, their knees on the wood of the seat on either side of your thighs. Their hardness ground against you as they kissed you, and you gasped as they pushed you back against the bench.

The air shimmered around them like a dusty road in summer, and you stared in open wonder at them for a moment as they drew away and tipped their head back. Another shudder ran right through them and their tattoos began to glow again.

“Ferren?” you asked, cautiously trailing a fingertip over the white lines on their neck that had, only a moment before, been black.

“I haven’t felt like this since I was a teenager,” they panted. “Your energy is incredible. I feel… I feel drunk…”

“You need to stop?”

“We probably shouldn’t do this out here on a public bench,” they laughed, their voice breathless and rasping.

“Your place or mine?” you asked.

“Mine’s small,” they said, letting their head roll forward again to let them look at you, “But it’s up to you. You really want to do this?”

“Can’t you tell by now?” you smiled. If this was all ‘you’, it felt fantastic.

Their answer was a smirk, but they clambered off you, hooves clopping on the stone path beneath the bench, and you saw the obvious tent in their trousers. They raised their eyebrows at you and the smirk became a broad, amused grin. “What a state you've left me in, eh? How are you with teleportation?”

“Excuse me?” you asked, surprised by the conversational sidestep.

They held out their hand to you and that inky darkness began to swirl around them, beginning at their hand and working up their body.

“I have no idea,” you said taking the offered hand and standing. “Does it hurt?”

“Not at all,” they smiled as they pulled you close to their chest. “Ready?”

“I have no idea,” you said, “But I trust you.” And you did. Despite having only met them the previous day, you absolutely did trust them, which was rare for you.

The darkness billowed up around you and obliterated your vision, but when it cleared, you were standing in the centre of a small, cosy, colourful waggon, with an arching, painted wooden roof to create a cylindrical space. At one end was a bed that took up the width of the tiny waggon, and it was towards that that Ferren led you, still holding your hand. The whole thing felt extremely personal and intimate in a way you’d not been expecting. This was their home, their sanctuary, and they were sharing it with you.

They lay you down on your back and you rested on your elbows as they undressed you slowly, reverently, revealing your body inch by inch. “You’re stunning,” they whispered once you were completely naked. And, under the vehemence of that ruby red gaze, you actually believed that they meant it. They didn’t waste any time in divesting themselves either, and when they stood before you, you gasped. You’d seen most of them already on stage only recently, but somehow this felt entirely different here. This was just for you.

“I won’t feed on your energy unless you tell me to,” they assured you as they pressed kiss after kiss up your inner thigh until you were gasping and bucking beneath them, begging with your whole body for them to touch you where you truly needed it. “Look at what a mess you’re making of yourself,” they crooned when they finally deigned to turn their attention to your arousal. And it was true.

“Please…” you hissed, head thrown back into the pillow behind you while they still only teased. “Gods, please!”

At the feel of their mouth on you, you bucked, but they held you steady with surprisingly strong hands, and you were nearly tumbling over the edge into orgasm in moments.

“I want… I want you to…” You tried to speak but your mind kept being wiped repeatedly blank by the waves of pleasure that their wicked tongue and devilishly hot mouth sent rolling through you.

Pausing, they hummed their question against you and you yelped a broken cry at the vibration of it, fingers scrunching their sheets to a tangle beneath you.

“I want to feel what it’s like,” you managed, speaking more deliberately this time and trying to focus. It didn’t really work because they started circling their tongue while they stared questioningly up at you with those red eyes. “Oh gods… What it’s like when you… I want you to…”

They licked a long, teasing stripe and you arched again and swore. “You want me to feed on you?” they purred. “Truly? You’ll make me come just from that you know? You’ll make me spill untouched. I can already tell.”

“I want you to come on me,” you said, trailing your fingers up your stomach for emphasis and Ferren inhaled sharply, pupils blowing wide until their irises were little more than a slim halo of ruby, glowing like hot embers.

Without a word, they moved so that they could keep pleasuring you with one hand while lying beside you. They kissed at your neck, raking their twin set of double canines over your skin, slowing the pace until it was too slow for you to come just yet, but more intense than you’d ever experienced in your entire life. You felt like you were going to tear apart at the seams and burst with want. “Ready?” they whispered in your ear and you shivered inarticulately.

Their tattoos pulsed white, then faded, then flared bright again. They opened their mouth and you stared, amazed, as a coiling, shimmering mist began to float towards them from you. At the same time, your body ignited from within and you yelled with pleasure. White hot and searing, the sensations came from everywhere, not just where they touched you, and you convulsed as your orgasm tore through you with a blinding intensity.

You didn’t even notice that Ferren had shifted and was now lying atop you, cock in hand. They spilled over you a second later, forehead coming down to rest on your collarbone as they emptied themselves all over your stomach and halfway up your chest. That strange energy still twisted between you as they jerked and twitched, finally lying still atop you.

“Gods,” they hissed, a good few minutes later. “Gods, I’ve never ever come like that…”

You shifted and grunted softly beneath them, and they slithered off you to lie on the narrow sliver of bed beside you.

“You alight?” you heard them whisper.

“Are you?”

With a little chuckle, they said, “Ask me again in about ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?” you asked, feigning coy disappointment.

They shot you a sidelong look and laughed. “Alight, five. Tops.”

___

I really hope you folks enjoyed this one! Don’t forget to let me know if you did enjoy it by leaving a like and/or reblogging it!

For all early releases, character art and bios, upcoming story info, and much, much more, join me over on Patreon!

You’ll have access to stories before anyone else, and you’ll get instant access Patreon-only content as well, including polls and an exclusive monthly story for those on the Pixies and Goblins tier!

Currently I’m also running a CYOA for all tiers, with episodes releasing every Friday.

__

| Masterlist | Patreon | Ko-fi | Writing Commissions |

[haleigh-sloth]

you were talking about something a bit similar yesterday so I'm sorry for being late to the conversation, but I just do not understand people who are fans of the LOV and yet are so vehemently hateful towards Midoriya, and in turn most of the other kids. I understand the criticism that sometimes the kids get things handed to them by the story, but tbh that is just to be expected of the protagonist characters in a shonen manga like this one. even so however, it's not like Midoriya gets off free of everything that he does? his actions and his sacrifices and very actually very rarely ever truly appreciated within the story, just because he is successful in most of his feats doesn't mean that the people around him necessarily Notice (him only getting one internship request after the sports festival despite displaying amazing power and critical thinking skills, the Stain Hosu incident, even in the VERY BEGINNING of the series when he runs forward to save Bakugou he says himself that he was only reprimanded for being so careless in his actions).

I see so many people who are (so ironically) only seeing the story in black and white, when in reality these kids, and Midoriya especially, are being negatively impacted by hero society just as much as the villains are, they're just experiencing it from a different angle. (Which adds a whole other layer to the Midoriya becoming the greatest hero plotline, because the society that he is also fighting against is the one that was shaped that way by his predecessor- albeit unintentionally.) Midoriya is going to be the one to try to save Shigaraki, Midoriya has already become the greatest hero by actively looking past the actions of Shig and the League and wanting to help them.

- I didn't get to finish my thought from the FULL ESSAY I sent earlier (my bad about how long that ended up being lmao) but...yeah I was saying about how Midoriya is already a better hero at 16 than most other pros because he actively wants to help the League. Midoriya is exactly the kind of hero that the villains, and Shigaraki in particular, needs in order to have the happy ending that so many want for him. I agree that the manga has been a bit of a drag-along for the past few...months tbh, and I am absolutely Livid at the way that Bones has structured the story, and it's causing a lot of boredom and Tons of tension with people, but I feel like a lot of villain fans are taking that out on the integrity of the characters themselves, which is causing a lot of the mischaracterizaton of Midoriya in particular. n idk, I just find it sort of ironic, DEFINITELY annoying, and in general just.... :/ yknow. just :/

I think it's completely valid for people to just simply not like certain characters for whatever reason they might have, im not here to police people's opinions, but when people's opinions come at the expense of misunderstanding pretty key elements of the characters / story they're talking about, that's when I have a problem. FINAL MESSAGE I promise lmao sorry again for the 600 page essay

You're good lol. In fact, I've discussed some of this in-depth in private with a tumblr friend. Again, I feel like my DMs are being read 👀 anyway lol

So obviously this is going to be a long ass post so I'll add a cut toward the top. But I wanna start off with: there's a lot to unpack here and I'm going to preface with, I agree with you. But I also have to say that I see both sides, but when it comes to vehemently hating a character and letting that hate for that character lead to bad takes (which I see for Deku and another character that I'll get to under the cut) I feel like the overall point people are trying to make loses its grip because it starts to just turn into bashing, and doesn't actually hold water with what's actually in the story.

"I just do not understand people who are fans of the LOV and yet are so vehemently hateful towards Midoriya, and in turn most of the other kids. I understand the criticism that sometimes the kids get things handed to them by the story, but tbh that is just to be expected of the protagonist characters in a shonen manga like this one."

I'll be honest, I see a lot of people love on the UA kids. Especially ones like Kirishima, Kaminari, Mina, Tsuyu, basically any of the ones with personalities that are beyond "I have to get stronger! I have to catch up with my classmates and live up to everyone's expectations!" Which I personally feel like pretty much all of the UA kids have as personalities, save for the main five, and the few above that I listed. But for the hatred toward Midoriya....oy. Where do I begin.

Well, I actually don't see a lot of Deku hate on my dash. I follow a very small number of blogs, most of which are pretty in line with my POV of the story and therefore, I don't see a lot of bad takes.

A little baby rant inside of this monster post:

Yes, I have come across extremist villain-stan blogs that, while I agree with some of their opinions on the villains, I don't agree with their opinions on the hero characters. I've unfollowed blogs like that, because they started exhausting me and making me upset, tbqh. Like yes, the villains are the best characters in the story. But guess what? They aren't the only ones in the story. We have other characters that are important to the overall themes and messages. I, personally, really like the hero kid:villain set up. Others I've seen want the heroes and villains completely separated in the story and for the villains to save themselves without any help from the heroes?? Makes zero sense because the story is about these becoming true heroes, and in order to do that they need to challenge themselves by saving a villain. So...blogs that were spouting that nonsense, I've unfollowed and stopped engaging with.

But back to Midoriya. Okay, I genuinely, genuinely like Midoriya! I've liked him from the beginning. He's not favorite, he's not even my second favorite. He's in my top 5 though. But the only dislike I personally see toward Midoriya on my blog is for these problematic things that have occurred:

Telling Shouto he thinks he's going to forgive his father because he's kind, making Natsuo feel bad for not forgiving his abusive POS father.

Trying to "reach" Dabi the same way he reached Shouto, only to just cause more harm.

Saying Endeavor is a mentor who made him stronger??? TO Dabi??

Teaming up with the fucking top 3

So....basically...any time Midoriya has been interjected into the Todoroki plot line, he's been less than likable--AFTER what he did for Shouto during the sports festival. That was a positive thing, and it actually kicked off the Todoroki plot line really really well. It got us into Shouto's inner world and started his story off nicely I think.

And you can argue that Midoriya's flaw is being blinded by hero society and seeing the good in everybody, BUT--

This was LITERALLY THE FIRST INTERACTION between Midoriya and Endeavor. THIS set the tone for the Todoroki plot. So....all that stuff up there that people hate about Midoriya, is definitely valid. I mean...I don't think it's worth hating him for but people can like and dislike who they want. But this just reiterates my belief that so many things in BNHA come to a fucking halt for Endeavor's bitch ass. The main character included.

"it's not like Midoriya gets off free of everything that he does? his actions and his sacrifices and very actually very rarely ever truly appreciated within the story, just because he is successful in most of his feats doesn't mean that the people around him necessarily Notice (him only getting one internship request after the sports festival despite displaying amazing power and critical thinking skills, the Stain Hosu incident, even in the VERY BEGINNING of the series when he runs forward to save Bakugou he says himself that he was only reprimanded for being so careless in his actions)"

So, I don't entirely disagree but I do have to disagree to an extent. Midoriya's consequences have been a topic for a while now and everyone says the same thing. Nothing ever comes back to him, he doesn't ever actually fail at anything. His failures don't actually hold him back or push him to challenge his beliefs. Like...narrative consequences here is what I'm talking about. Midoriya only got one offer after the sports festival, yes that's a consequence of putting your body through ridiculous strain and self-destructing in front of everyone like that. But it ended up working in his favor because he went with Gran Torino who taught him his next big move, full cowling, which I think we can all agree was a major power-up for him. So...it wasn't much of a consequence in the long run. It wasn't a set back. And you're right, he was reprimanded for rushing in to save Bakugo in the beginning, which is coming into play now when we see that it's actually hard for people to step in and save others because everyone is so trained by society to just let heroes handle everything. Even though Bakugo would have died if not for Midoriya. BUT--what happened next? All Might gave him his power. That was a reward by the narrative. Granted that HAD to happen for our story to kick off, but I'm just trying to show how Midoriya doesn't ever actually have any set-backs.

"Midoriya is going to be the one to try to save Shigaraki, Midoriya has already become the greatest hero by actively looking past the actions of Shig and the League and wanting to help them."

"but...yeah I was saying about how Midoriya is already a better hero at 16 than most other pros because he actively wants to help the League. Midoriya is exactly the kind of hero that the villains, and Shigaraki in particular, needs in order to have the happy ending that so many want for him"

Fully agree here. I'll say that recently I've seen a lot of people making posts about how they don't think it'll be Midoriya doing the reaching and saving. How they think it'll be the LOV saving each other without the help of the heroes, how they'll reach each other's hearts?? Which...I don't even know what to say besides ask people who think that what they think the purpose of all these parallels and similarities drawn between him and Shigaraki are for, if not to bring them together in the end (and stay connected too--not just be yeeted from each other's lives), the two brothers who were separated from each other, and a teenage girl who was never accepted by her peers and basically forced to find family in a group of adult men lol. I'm not sure if you were responding to my rant yesterday with this ask lol, but if you are, I mean yeah I'm on board here. Midoriya is supposed to be that "true hero" that breaks through even the toughest, strongest walls, who in HIS case is Shigaraki. But not just him, Shouto, Ochacko, and Bakugo too. There's a kid:villain set up for a reason, so people who don't want that set up are either just....super super one-sided in how they're reading it, or it's just their preference and they're not actually caring about what the story itself is going to do. (Bakugo is kind of a seventh wheel....lol)

Again, I can't say I've seen too much irrational Deku hate on my dash. I avoid stupid shit for the most part. Most of the blogs I follow, while they may not like Midoriya, they still see the redeeming characteristics in him and still make valid takes on the story and take his actual character into account. But I have seen the irrational hate you're talking about, I've just successfully yeeted it from my dash.

Another character, and I know you didn't bring this character up but I feel this issue applies to them as well--is Hawks. Now...I do not like Hawks. I don't hate him, but I seriously just cannot bring myself to like him. I can't tell if it's his fans that have just ruined him for me, or just his overall vibe in the story. I don't even know at this point I've spent so long avoiding getting to know his character. But--I've seen villain-stan blogs hate him so much to a point where they completely forget that he is also a victim of society and has his own issues. And their takes on him come at the expense of....well, a clear understanding of the story. Now right now Hawks is being handled not-so-great, but even before this. Of course nobody has to like him, I mean I just said that I don't, but this irrational hate that comes at the expense of his actual character is annoying to me.

"I think it's completely valid for people to just simply not like certain characters for whatever reason they might have, im not here to police people's opinions, but when people's opinions come at the expense of misunderstanding pretty key elements of the characters / story they're talking about, that's when I have a problem"

Yep yep yep. I agree here too. So in a nutshell, no matter what character it is, if people irrationally hate them to a point where their takes on the story just stop making sense, yes I agree that it starts to wear away at the integrity of the character, and it also annoys me and I end up just unfollowing and I no longer take anything they say seriously. And there are a couple of blogs I follow that really don't like Midoriya at all, but they don't waste their time talking about how much they don't like him. They simply just...don't talk about him. That's what people should do because otherwise it fills EVERYONE'S dash with negativity that we didn't ask for. That's why I'm glad I've stopped getting so many asks about Hawks because I have never really had anything nice to say about him and after so many people sending me stuff asking to talk about him I started to feel like a shitty person for filling peoples' dashes up with that. I mean...I'm seriously mean to Hawks lol. I am. So yeah.

I don't particularly understand the extreme hatred either. I totally get not liking a character but that extreme hatred you're talking about I've made a successful effort to distance myself from. Thankfully.