#and i wish somebody had been looking out for you instead of selectively focusing on your skills and assuming they'd be enough

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

if one of your proudest accomplishments growing up was being deemed ‘the youngest to ever do x' then congratulations! you’re now a burned out adult with mental health issues and low self-esteem

[sugar-petals]

♡ physical affection; levi

↳ NOTE. characterizing boyfriend levi, my passion project lmao! with some sexy moments included 👀

WORDS. ⇢ 7k

tags / warnings. ⚠️ smut, fluff, soft sub!levi x female reader, hurt/comfort hc, angst, shower sex, blowjobs + handjobs + boobjobs (yep. spoiling the captain), face-sitting, protected sex, soap kink, season 3-4 setting, no manga spoilers

Ready for a surprise? It’s not really about what kind of skinship he’s extremely selective about and what not. This is only something people would perceive about him at first glance. Instead, it comes down to how emotionally sheltered he feels. Because of his experiences, that predicates everything else. Which is why Levi’s sexuality is as complex as it is.

But also, in its sudden perfect expression once a person gives him a different perspective: That’s the time when he is touchier. The more in private, the better. The lights down low, with only a candle or two shining from another room. Broad daylight brings the harsh truths and the shaking ground. Nighttime is when Levi feels more intimate and open to caress, down his back and arms, the shoulders, the side of his neck. Done with extreme gentleness, and all of your deep respect.

If you offer him an environment of trust, Levi is open to almost anything and would even magically doze off in your arms for a little while. Breathing softly, resting for the first time in weeks, the brows becoming less tense the deeper he sleeps. You asking if you can stroke his hair (carefully, not messing it up or anything) is something he can’t say no to. The closet romantic in him will fulfill you any reasonable wish as soon as you’d ask anyway.

We know how receptive the captain is to a request, and how much there can be a soft spot for somebody in his heart. If you’re forward enough to just ask, Levi sets himself that goal and opens up. He is diligent with it just as you’d expect. That especially includes the things he says are „absolute horseshit nonsense“ and „disgusting, useless activities“ when reacting to newly formed couples kissing in the survey corps at the other end of the room. Is he a hypocrite and a hater? Actually— not at all.

Levi is a raised rather than born skeptic. Between courage and care, he is always gonna be torn. Both didn’t work in his favor at some point. But at the end of the day, he fears recklessness more than being cautious. Looking at these couples, he knows that they could lose each other the very next day. Or hell, the next hour. Not everybody has 200 titan kills. 

Not everybody is a physically indestructible Ackerman destined and designed to escape death and outlive others whether they want it or not. And showing themselves this vulnerable out in the open is even more dangerous considering all the political intrigues, chaos, attacks, and espionage going on.

When he’s scoffing at skinship in the survey corps, it’s not his intent to ruin the couples and their little happiness in the present moment (nothing he sees as more tragically precious), or say only he can have a relationship because he’s strong enough to make it survive. If anything, Levi is the prime example of how all his connections were doomed exactly because of his status pulling in all the danger. He very well and painfully knows.

What I mean is: He sees the brutality of consequences that can create more misery than if two people would just go about their business. Levi already dreads that the same might happen to him. But after all, the behavior of others is easier to rectify than his own undeniable feelings for you. Which he cannot control in any way, which is why he reacts to others instead. Looking at other people holding hands, he’s also afraid how dabbling in love is a distraction from threats that can even backfire on uninvolved others if someone is suddenly in harm’s way.

Levi does associate physical touch with something that takes an otherwise observing mind off when it shouldn’t be. To him, it creates something so valuable that can become an unintended burden through all kinds of circumstances, he’s seen it all, it’s terrible he had to. And the reason why he has such a torn relationship with it. You really have to know your stuff to build a resilient little bubble where Levi is not constantly hypervigilant and either past- or future-focused.

Which is pretty damn hardwired into him. It’s almost impossible to bring on that kind of atmosphere spontaneously. It has to be ritualized. His intelligence comes with the downside of overthinking and having problems with spontaneous romance, it’s good to direct his thought into something that’s always done in a specific, structured way. You sit down with tea, put the candles on, Levi finishes cleaning his weapons, makes everything combat-ready and usable in seconds, and you carefully lay down on his impeccably made bed together.

Which he never uses, Levi sleeps in chairs. Or on the ground, so he can feel any titan steps in the distance with his whole body, using the cleanest possible mat or towel as a mattress and nothing else. The bed he basically just makes to have it neat, and for you, and to have a spot to lay together. 

But yeah. He will never remove his harness. Not even when you’re sleeping with each other. He’s not once gonna risk having to put it on in a hurry. The only time you will be skin to skin with him is for not even five minutes under the shower. It’s when his cleanliness beats his anxiety around being always ready, which is why that’s a time to fully cherish.

And then, he really has no qualms about you wrapping your hands around his soap-covered torso in the shower anyway. It’s the only time his inner default germaphobe is not vehemently screaming inside his already heavy heart. It doesn’t have anything to do with you, this is about his demons only, confronted with the immense relief you give him. If the latter wins over his mind’s struggle, Levi might draw out the shower time sometimes.

The other voice that tells him ‚don’t make it end so soon’ is now finally convincing him. He will dial down the water stream so he can hear what’s going on outside better to compensate, to know if there’s any ruckus or approaching hazards. Levi has instructed a fast runner among the cadets to bang on the front door under any critical circumstances immediately in the first place.

Levi says he wants to save water, too. He won’t admit it, but he also turns the showerhead to a medium pressure to hear your calm, almost-quiet moans — the barracks have terribly thin walls — better when you’re sucking him off. Slowly, smoothly, not too much spit. Folded towel under your knees because Levi insists, and he is right. The showers in the survey corps have uncomfortable floor tiles. 

He makes sure you won’t get soap in your mouth as well, I don’t have to tell you that he is very circumspect. Levi isn’t usually feeling overly heated in moments like this, but he gets hard and releases fast. You swear his cum tastes like afternoon tea with milk but you won’t tell him that. And who doesn’t like tea and Levi’s homemade milk, no complaints alright.

What’s still a shame is that Levi, always being in such a constant hurry and alertness, puts too much stress on his body for him to become horny all the way. In fact, he often forgets it. He feels numb, and can’t fully take in the sensations. Levi has not been able to feel a lot of genuine pleasure in his life. 

A racing mind is an absolute sex killer, and his adrenaline spikes are so high in combat that most normal things don’t do anything for him. Which is why he brews his tea extra strong. But seriously: It’s a concerning thing. And it tells you to take your time. With his whole body, doing the things he loves the most. And what else could that be? It’s straightforward: Keepin’ it clean.

You make sure that Levi feels extra comfortable by thoroughly massaging his loins and thighs with a sponge during foreplay. Yes, you’re gently working him up. All in circles and light brushing motions. Lots of soap. Suave and bubbly, like silk on his skin. It’s handmade, with oat milk, lavender, and honey. For your honey. You regularly gift a new one to him to try out scents and have supply. You can guess how much Levi appreciates it, to the moon and back in fact. The present box is neatly stored on his office table where he can always see it.

Sending out its balmy fragrance throughout the day, making the room smell amazingly aromatic to him. His nose will never grow tired or accustomed to it. Levi puts the soapbox in a drawer within literal split seconds when someone who isn’t you enters the room. „Tsk, announce yourself when you knock…“ That could even be the newest recruit who doesn’t know anything at all about the place and people. But this is just a you and him thing.

Levi doesn’t want nosy questions from the squad even though nobody would probably even notice the soap laying there in its case, much less ask him about it or the fresh scent in the air because duh, it’s Levi’s office. But it feels absolutely personal for him — so he reacts sensitively about it. This man would probably protect your lavender soap with his blades if he had to. 

The captain is very secretive about your relationship in general. Who on earth would go as far as buy him a new scented bar of joy bi-weekly? At this point, he would crawl on hot coals, needles, lava, ice shards, desert sand, and a mile-long straight of legos (laid out by a maniacally laughing Zeke personally) for you.

Although you wouldn’t allow any of it. Nothing should ever hurt those kitty paws, I mean captain hands and captain feet. You’d put Zeke on blast on your own, luring him with a banana to confuse his senses and then, whack, homerun the monkey into the ocean with Levi’s bristle broom. Problem solved. Anyway.

 Levi wouldn’t hurt himself willingly that way either, the ice shards don’t stand a chance. He has sworn to protect his own life out of self-respect, to honor those passed by living on bravely toward the goal they worked for and being the one always coming home to you. You can rely on him.

So enough about gleaming hot coals and Zeke’s evil legos, back to the point — you already get what I mean. Levi might seem totally grumpy on the outside, but for sure is a devoted man, a caliber as always. He takes all of your presents to heart and is unbelieving as to why he’d be deserving of so much. You prove a point using the gifts as regularly as possible on his body. Where he can feel every bit of your fondness of him. And remember it with muscle memory. Oh shit, this soap does smell so good. As anything on him, who are we kidding.

Dousing Levi with all your attention is the best thing ever. He feels great relaxing with you, and his face softens up. He’s looking at you with a tiny smile in response to you whispering sweet things to him, all while you’re using the sponge on his legs, the chest, and ever-tense back that can definitely use some alleviation. „Thank you for cleaning me“ has got to be the best thing ever to hear from Levi Ackerman. It means the entire world to him. Captain, your mommy kink is showing. His arousal increasing is a natural side effect in no time.

Recently, you’ve been slipping his cock between your breasts as well, and it’s been slowing him down a lot after an eventful mission. While at the same time making him more in the moment, he really enjoys you gradually lathering him up like that. The feeling of skin on skin is amazing. It might be something that… often crosses his mind when he trains during the day, but he can blend it out for the important things. Until you do it all over again, and he ruminates about how much you turn him on until the sun rises.

You also never do a blowjob hands-free. Why would you, anyway? His body is amazingly buff and compact, you want to hold onto those gorgeous lil’ hips and his own hands that need a fair share of holding after carrying the world. You feel him twitching on your tongue when you run either hand over his ass and abs, making sure to trace across all his most erogenous spots there. What’s more: Levi feels really protected and soothed when he feels your palms on him under the streaming water, he can’t explain it.

That's why you like doing shower handjobs just as much. I don’t have to tell you that Levi really delights in them as well and his poker face regularly cracks a bit. His eyes fixate on you, you can tell the connection and involvement. He thinks your fingertips are heavenly, a welcome change to his rugged days. 

He loves how softly they tease and stimulate him with the smallest movements and subtle presses. Yes, Levi doesn’t like rough action, those are vulnerable moments. He has enough brutality elsewhere, violently jerking him off and insulting him would be entirely inappropriate and even scare him.

He’d probably brush your wrists off right away, it’d be so uncomfortable in the silence of the evening. A tender chain of kisses on the nose tip, chin, collar bone, and especially forehead gets him going a lot more. The more chaste and doting the kiss, the more he melts on the inside. 

His anxiety baseline goes down, and he feels like he can let you in. However you guide him and however you choose to indulge him with your lips, Levi is on board, quietly enjoying. Since it’s something that he’s still feeling so new to, leaving you the active role comes naturally.

Stroking him with a deep pace, carefully brushing your lips against his to give him goosebumps — Levi definitely grows into that. In those moments, he really feels taken care of, in safe hands, hands that will stay with him. He’s gonna be surprised just how good something like this feels many times. And be overwhelmed by pleasure to the point where it almost frightens him, he didn’t have that a lot until now.

The satisfaction of a spotless table simply does not compare. Just so you know: He will either be dead silent or mumble under his breath nonstop. That he is okay with you touching him below the belt and even take him in your mouth tells you how much Levi trusts you, how much he knows you love him, and how meticulously he’s already scrubbed and shaved himself beforehand. Yes, the sheer preparation. He puts a lot of work into his body. He couldn’t stand you becoming dirty.

That’s also why the shower is the place oral goes down. And even there, he uses like ten cleaning products to double rinse the stall and himself before and after. Mind you. He sees you eating healthy, brushing your teeth well. Your lips are very beautiful and a masterpiece of nature to him. So it’s not you who he thinks is dirty. Levi is pretty damn paranoid about his own skin and hygiene. If only he would think about himself the way he thinks of your body.

He feels like he has to earn it, be acceptable, and prepare himself endlessly to enjoy touch. Even then, he thinks he must be ugly and revolting. You have to respect him fussing about it rather than forcing him to cut down on his routines. You don’t criticize his perfectionism and see the motivation behind it. So instead, you reassure Levi your own way.

The more he sees you having fun and enjoying his body, the more accepted, confident, and clean he feels. Most people would like to see their partner play up the enthusiasm obviously (unless you have a ‚hiding his amazement’ emo boy kink, which is exactly why you like Levi don’t cha), but it’s particularly meaningful to Levi. Guess why he looks up to Armin’s mentality, and Hange is one of the few people who truly vibe with Levi.

She’s easily amused, dedicated, swooning, excited, and constantly eager. Levi does appreciate a bit of zeal in someone. If you’re a little ardent about touching him, it’ll give his esteem a boost he’s long needed, oh god. Nobody has the guts to praise this guy like that, even if he’s so extremely good-looking. Don’t let him off the hook there. Give him feedback, you’ll be surprised how much it resonates.

It’s already apparent to yourself how keen you are being touchy with him, hell, you’re so in love. Still, it’s a good idea to give him an idea how stoked you are. He doesn’t like it fast and brutally raw without a second thought, but passionate is a whole other debate. A simple „Levi, stay like this, let me do it“ or „Levi, you smell so good“ works wonders. Say what you think and his ease will set in. And I don’t have to tell you that you won’t look like sex is a chore anyway. With Levi, that’s an honor and a pleasure.

That he puts his faith in you and gives you his time is already a massive deal and goes against everything we know of him, what he’s used to, and how his avoidant personality works, being so ridden with losses. And it’s all because of how much you desire and approach him. That’s what it comes down to. 

Even if he’d suffer decades from yearning, he’d not go out of his way to kickstart something, never ever. He’d feel like he’d cause you so much trouble. You wanting him so badly and treating his body like a treasure on the other hand changes his mind.

It proves him wrong all the way. There is still time to enjoy love, the chance is now. Anything else would plague Levi with solitude and self-pity all over again. And the feeling of missing you around in his rooms. Two teacups on the table until he grows old and grey are his ideal of a good life, after all. He will open himself to your emotional and physical presence, realizing how touch-starved he is, and how much it improves his life to have someone to kiss and lay down next to at night.

The even breath at the back of his neck gives him a sense of finally someone sticking around with him side by side, even if he’s gone during the day. It feels good and right to be wanted by you, and nuzzling his face into your cotton dress. Your commitment gives him the little smiles and the silver lining he’s been searching for. He can’t label that feeling, but it’s joy of life and humankind, more than just a willingness for it. He would stay forever pained and bitter if he wouldn’t invite it in now, and you won’t waste that chance with being silent.

You’re attracted to everything about him, tell him, make him aware. The voice, the hair, the mannerisms, his height, his abilities, his mind, his care for others, the posture, how soft his cheeks are, the list is endless. Levi won’t miss how much he’s your type at some point. Which gives him a lot of ease, comfort. You show him that his inferiority complex was an entire smokescreen in his mind. 

He fucking deserves to be called handsome. And by the way — you can lust over him as much as you want when he’s made that time window for your couple stuff. It’s good if you make it as obvious as possible for him. Which is hard to hide anyway. You’ve been masturbating over Levi just sitting there sternly writing something. And he’s like why, and you’re like, it’s you! Look at you!

Levi does want you to touch his skin all over but it’s always sore. And he remains insecure on many days. So he only has particular comfortable spots in the first place. Since hardly anybody dares to touch him, and even if he pats someone’s shoulder nobody would ever be courageous enough to reciprocate, you would feel a bit like a lab scientist. Silently theorizing over him at first even if you really don’t have to. Other people say they’d rather run towards a titan than expose themselves to Levi’s moods, swords, and barking tone after trying to caress him in any way.

News flash, Levi has had such terrible moods since forever because there’s no affection coming to him from anywhere just because people decided he might not need it. And no, he won’t yell at you for touching. He finds it very sweet of you instead. Touching Levi always creates an occasion that will float around in his head for the entire day, that’s guaranteed. He sees how someone goes out of their way and cares for his well-being. He might not like it like standing in the middle of the whole corps, but anywhere else is fair game, at home anyway.

The pressure of dealing with threats he can manage to a degree, and he has lord how many coping strategies. The lack of love he cannot. Big difference that everybody seems to confuse. On top of how he has to be unrelenting in his position because battlefield and the Yeagers being a pain. Most people — except maybe Armin — see that as a closedness to touching altogether. 

The whole world seemingly can't intuit Levi’s craving of gentleness behind the arguably pretty convincing armor, but still. It seems like only a few souls ever think about the Levi that sits down on his bed in the evening completely depleted. You have to make it clear to yourself and him that it’s obviously a one-dimensional way of looking at Levi Ackerman and not good for him.

Which has covertly shaped how he interacts with others in return like a vicious spiral, which is why he blames solely himself for his depravation. And, how severe and untouchable the circumstances made his character. Yes, Levi despises himself for being inaccessible and unable to change it on top, added to how it happened to him over the years. 

Which he had pretty much zero influence on being basically at the gunpoint of life. It’s what you hate seeing the most and comfort him about with brewing tea. It definitely comes back tenfold, Levi won’t take it for granted when you brush out his hair and speak soothingly to him in the evening. „I don’t care, those are all reasons why you’re the apple of my eye“ seems to be what makes Levi’s heart a little mushy in particular.

He is very preoccupied with blame at the start of your relationship. Levi is torn apart by daily guilt and a constantly looming perception of failure to show an opening to his heart. He also crumbles under how the majority of people don’t take him seriously, overreact, or fear he snaps back into soldier mode — he doesn’t — when he does show affection. 

That you gaze behind his reputation and touch him without prejudice is the most important thing to him. You can ignore his mad and gloomy expression, Paradis has carved it into his face for half an eternity (the other half is for you and him when this is over). It doesn’t mean he’s angry on the inside about you. The causes for his madness are way elsewhere, knowing his early story it goes without saying. What made Levi callous and broken-hearted are things very opposite to you.

Those who only see and enjoy his fighting personality probably want him as their poster boy, people who are reflected enough to bother with the idea of a private, cuddling Levi are the only truly caring ones. Because private Levi needs that physical and emotional connection the most. Patting his cadets on their heads is only a little, albeit meaningful moment. The teacup is still half-empty regardless if you wanna think of it in those terms.

Because he can only do so much in terms of initiative — which already shocks people to the point of paralysis, which ruins the moment since he assumes it’s not appreciated then — and it’s only one-sided. Giving isn’t fully making him happy even if it’s his only option given how most people perceive him. 

The teacup only fills to the brim if Levi can let go for like half an hour getting some good ole kitty on your lap treatment. He silently lays there and enjoys your hand rubbing at the back of his neck. He looks genuinely peaceful that way. His hand palms gently at your thigh and knee, and rests there all tranquil while he ruminates about his day and how lucky he is to have you.

The whole ‚theorzing rather than going for it‘ thing stems from you listening to those people a bit too much at the beginning. Instead of asking Levi directly about touch, and to be fair: Not a single human being has done that yet, you try to figure him out at a distance. Which is also a good thing though. 

You learn about many Levi habits others would overlook, misinterpret, or don’t think have any meaning. The more you learn about him, the more understanding you become, the more protective you will be, the less he will avoid intimacy. Because Levi really doesn’t want to shy away, but often his body has too much memory in it to be instantly receptive. So it rather starts with the mind, then.

The irony is. Levi rejecting bonds with others as not to have them weigh heavy on his mind when fighting will only make it worse. You make a statement to him that if he fully immerses himself in what you have, he can fight better and actually be without those godforsaken regrets he’s always talking about. That’s why when you’re having sex, you make him look in your eyes and kiss their lids, and wrap your legs around him very firmly because Levi has to know he’s deeply yours. 

Hugs, the same thing. You squeeze the last curse out of him every time and tell him to hold you tight as well. You do have to tell him twice. Just because Levi is the strongest man in history, doesn’t mean he embraces very roughly. In fact, Levi is not used to this at all. Even more irony. Paradis’ ever-swearing, most badass titan killer with the physical excellence of a hundred acrobats can’t execute the simple act of putting his arms around you in a normal, casual way.

The why is the harder thing to talk about. Last time he got proper, truly loving hugs was way over 20 years ago. From Kuchel, during a time where he was too young to remember these things long-term. Let that sink in. It confuses him when he does it and even more so when others do. Kissing Historia’s hand even as a light official gesture was already completely unusual for him and a first time. 

Levi doesn’t go beyond what he sees others doing in that regard. No extra miles, just imitating. Now think of him with something as big a deal as embracing his lover for minutes. He lets his arms just hang there and you gotta make him learn how to intertwine fingers or how to press his palms on your back. You’re the one holding him tight there, while Levi’s mind and stare go blank, he’s even more speechless and perplexed after confronting his uncle back then.

I’m not kidding. You have to ask Levi to be forthcoming with those things as well, it simply does not occur to him, and he’s unsure about everything there is to it. What a loveless world this guy is in. If it already frustrates you to see him struggle, imagine how deprived he must be. One of his inner blocks is, Levi has major jealousy of guys who are what he thinks a better hugging height. It’s obviously the other way around to anybody who’d be in love with Levi. 

Of course he has the best hugging height by far. What’s not to like? He’s ideal. But in his perspective, imagine all these people above him wrapping around each other in moments of enthusiasm, shoulder-level on shoulder-level, or only with slight differences. And when it comes to him, it feels awkward because they feel strange bending down only for him and Armin.

And that’s probably the issue. Because it’s much better not to bend and try and intertwine, but just have Levi bury his face into your winter coat without a hassle. You don’t have to be perfectly chest to chest to make it work. Besides… romantic hugs are always a bit different. And, you invite Levi to do exactly that with you. Since Levi’s pet peeve is politeness, you’ll also have to show him the difference between mere courtesy and love, he hasn’t fully learned it either. 

But just so you know. Levi is not a naive baby or raging bull in a china shop once he has given his love to someone. He observes well, adapts well. When it’s heartfelt, when it’s the right moment, it comes out almost by surprise, he’s feeling it and he will respond to you. With serenity and intent.

If there’s someone who can be unpretentious with physicality, that’s him. He just has to transfer that to romantic gestures and Levi will be the perfect lover after some time. He’ll end up like, „Eh, so what. We do this hugging thing!“ — Hilarious. Levi, knowing his battle tactics, does have a sort of innate courage to approach bodies: This time, it’s about someone he wants to give pleasure and gratitude to, though. Which will feel very different. 

And you’re a lady he’s all whipped for, that changes everything. He might sort of try to lean at the wall next to you, to murmur about you kissing him after eating cake so he’s full of crumbs „and now I have to dust it all off again, hmph“, but he is not prepared for another kiss and you tickling him pinned against the wall (he’s not ticklish, but you still love it, and Levi has a thing for you being all over him despite his stoic face).

So yeah, Levi will be super grumpy and do the „Oi oi!“ thing, but also turn around so you won’t see the blush. Man, is he embarrassed. He will try to waddle away awkwardly to do paperwork, but no chance if you tug him back by the sleeve, dust off his shirt from crumbs, and squeeze his cheeks into a perfect Levi snoot. I’m telling you, he has a nice pouty face. 

He might assume that you’re out of your mind because nobody has done that with him yet, but once you tell him that you just wanna look at him because every day might be the last, he sees the point of your antics. Merely saying you kiss him just because won’t make sense to the captain, it’s gotta have a purpose for the future.  

So, you will tell him to always remember what your soothing lips do on him before he draws the blade tomorrow, and that he has plenty of filthy crumbs to come home to. „I think that’s right by what we’ve seen today“ is what he’ll admit, and carries you off to the bed to get grinding because all that stuff made him kinda turned on. Or rather, you grind, Levi on the other hand gets flustered. He complains about you being a tease at length since he’s having a huge she-pinned-me-to-the-wall boner. 

You sit on his face to take it even further and as his favorite treat, end of discussion, your goddess is here mister. Geez, you’ll make him a hot mess. That dick won’t go soft anytime soon. You’ll talk to him about when his face is already ruined with cake crumbs, he has nothing to lose, gotta clean up anyway. The grumbling noise from below tells you that the argument is a good one. For good measure, you palm at his trousers to see his legs react and his voice suddenly hitch. Ah, it’s a wonderful day.

Levi knows a thing or two about holding his breath correctly, but what he likes the most is that he feels perfectly sandwiched between thigh Rose and thigh Maria. Yeah, he does consider them his personal comfort walls and hopes they’ll always be there. Congruently, Levi wraps his arms around them, in fact it’s locking rather than wrapping, and you’re like I see wow he’s serious. 

On goes his tongue lapping away between your labia pretty much incessantly. The arousal is so intense, you have to breathe in yourself. Oh shit, Levi is gonna try to finish you off, shots fired. Not fast, but insisting. He does not bother with you panting pretty damn hard whatsoever. He’s calling people like that, but Levi might be the real brat all along.

Fair enough, he currently doesn’t hear anything, which he also loves the idea of. All day, people everywhere are talking nonsense, and now he gets to enjoy perfect silence. His ears are small, they’re easy to cover with thighs. He just goes on and on and gets you past lord how many brinks with a heated buildup. 

There are a lot of evil things Mister Zeke has said and committed, but by far the most offending thing he has yet insinuated is that Levi is not popular with the ladies. Blasphemy, treason, outrage, éclat, trickery, criminal offense, international slander, the most grueling case of fake news since the horse left the building, and no, Jean is not meant. With those oral skills, any lady interested in him would get a permanently bleeding nose and something else permanently wet as you can personally attest to.

If Paradis would even remotely know what he can do in bed (and they would if Connie told them, he lives next door), even more people would run down his house than they already do to get a piece of him. Jesus Christ, the Ackerstamina. But I mean. People are probably suspecting it. 

How can you not move like a god in bed if you can bend yourself into any Pythagorean shape mid-air. Him being a fighter also gives him experience with managing energy when you have sex, I’m not kidding. Levi can even handle you thrusting right back on his tongue, and even your jokes about how he’s getting the cream to his tea now.

Levi is already kind of dripping in juice. His fingers are sweaty, this time it’s something on his face and hands he prefers though. He won’t wipe it off just yet. So you take on the task to put a condom on him — kind of expensive, mysteriously imported, gotta make every one count my friend — and have Levi take you from behind to soil the bedsheets completely at this point. 

Levi lets all the leaking happen, of course he notices, and yet he’s too focused on you gripping his cock hard all the way. So much for walls. Levi has to surrender to the thought of you squeezing him in any way you fancy at this point. That doesn’t just include the face, that much he learned. His cock is gonna fall off, you tighten up so much and make him squirm, Levi’s all blissed out.

He can’t handle your ass either. He just stares like the Founding Titan invented a brand new method to hypnotize the Ackermans or something. Although. Why’d you need to come up with something, though? People they love completely enthrall them already. 

If we know something by now, it's that every Ackerman gets completely fucked in the head out of the blue and sent to another dimension when they’re with the love of their life, no hypnotizing device needed. Levi is clasping his teeth for his dear life back there. People asking him if he’s gone mad he’d answer ‚maybe‘, but if you asked him if this made him lose it he would admit it.

Since he doesn’t know what to do with his hands again, you ask him to place them at your waist. „Properly, now slide in, Levi.“ — He takes his time for the first few thrusts, grunts, but gets the hang of it, in fact he’s a pro in the making. All that vertical maneuvering can turn into horizontal maneuvering very quickly. Levi feels so strange and so good at the same time, it’s overwhelming. How can something he thought would be so dirty be this amazing? 

And since this position allows him to penetrate you even deeper, Levi gets the full experience of being inside of you times two. The wet noise already turns him on, his body feels so warmed up, and he feels really shocked he’s doing this. Although his face won’t show, it’ll be concentrated as before. On the inside, Levi is losing it.

He can’t get enough of your body and how you tell him what to do, Levi will be driving it home in no time. You’re gonna have your jaw dropped by how lusty he can get yourself, but also love how he’s really breaking a sweat just because of your hard grip. Who would have thought. 14-meter class titans got nothing on you. Levi’s entire neck and chest is glazed over. You call him out on it, all you’re gonna get is a little ‚tch, that’s your fault, woman‘. I mean of course it is. He’s literally at your mercy. I told you he’s hilarious.

Little did you know that Levi will straight-up ignore his sweatiness and just continue, one heartbeat at a time, to really fill you out and make you feel good. Can you imagine. Levi dedicating like 20 minutes to make sweet love to you doggystyle. 

He has a good feeling for keeping you just on the verge of cumming. He even reaches around to press two fingers into your clit after five minutes of figuring out his angles. You didn’t expect this at all. It’s as if Levi can read your mind going „but his hands are gonna get really messy, why?“ — he just goes on rubbing and says, deadpan: „Miss, do I look like I care.“

Some dirty things in the world are just there to annoy him. They’re not existing to make his life easier. And toilet humor-related things: We know Levi’s stance on that. Wet pussy on the other hand: Surprise. He thinks of it very differently. Levi is pretty caught off guard by the fact that you loving and adoring him is the reason you’re leaking so much. 

It sinks in (um, literally) that you’re all drippy because you really want him inside. Not to mention that he constantly realizes just how attracted to him you are. Your desire for him, that’s Ackerman kryptonite. Levi doesn’t miss your eyes, nope. That motherfucker is a damn good face reader.

And— How warmed up your body feels in his hands, how you’re breathing. How you’re telling him exactly how to tilt to hit the good spots. How you’re sucking in air when he does just that. How you sound, grip the pillow, the sheets. Your goosebumps all over your legs. How your lips part. How you wait for every thrust. The way you tell him how good it is. Your pulse. Your own sweaty back, letting his hands on your waist slip and slide a little with the rhythm. 

How he’s struggling not to moan his soul out and chokes back. How you’re softly moving to glide off, he’s gonna lose his mind. How much you’re enjoying him and how cute you tell him he is. Whatever you’d ask of him, he’s so ready to fulfill it. You having the absolute hots for Levi is probably gonna preoccupy him for the whole night while you’re sleeping and he sits in the chair.

He’s been shooting grumpy cat level eye daggers with extra Ackerpoison at the corps couples for walking around showing any signs of this. Making all those lovey-dovey faces or going to the back of the barn together. Levi has chased them with his favored broom to whoop-diddly-doop those horndog soldiers back on track, swirling his weapon of choice around to send a sweeping cloud of dust after them.

Whereas now… he has to deal with the fact that he really loves all that horny stuff. Cognitive dissonance 101 is striking him out of nowhere. I mean he’d not fuck in the barn, that one is truly disgustingly shittily bastardly filthy or however he’d word it, but you get the gist. He caught feelings and caught pleasure — and that’s such a good thing.

His problem is, Levi wouldn’t know how to fawn right back at you. Except saying „good job“ like he’d praise a cadet, but he decides that’s not something to say during sex. He’s very right about that indeed. So instead: He will always reply to you accordingly and with Levi-typical honesty. 

If you say you love how he kisses your neck from behind, he will tell you he’s enjoying it as well because damn he loves that spot indeed (titans can tell you a story about it… Levi has such a neck fixation, that fucker). And: Letting actions speak the loudest with him. He’s a practical guy. Levi’s hands can to the most complicated reverse grips and all that crazy human Beyblade shit. Getting you off at his fingertips is gonna be his easiest exercise ever once he gets into it.

He doesn’t even do it to show off at this point. Levi is just that kind of a sex machine and eager to please, not to mention god, is he obedient and a giver in disguise. If Levi were offered the most luxurious, expensive tea available versus your breasts to suck on for a week given he’s free of titan duty… that cup is gonna turn cold. He loves the skinship and he loves giving you a fuckton of orgasms, as many as you like and as many he has time for.

Self-explanatory, this is something he will not feel one bit of regret about. Hours touching you is the farthest from wasting time to Levi. The less he holds back with his love, the more secure things become. He doesn’t feel the misery he thought he’d run into, nor does it feel like a reckless act that’s only something feeble. 

The new soap every other week on his table alone reminds him you’re here to stay and like his every quirk, and make this a private thing rather than something to parade around. You never lied saying „Levi, you’re mine.“ He does wrap his head around the fact that all of this is happening with time.

Levi finds your relationship meaningful because it gives him feelings and exactly that emotional harbor he never had before, and he gifts you the reverence of your lifetime since Levi doesn’t half-ass anything. You reassured and guided him so much, he looks up to that, it breaks down his prejudice against loving more and more. That’s how you’ll feel intimate in all kinds of ways for very intense hours he can spare to make the most out of it. 

From the light touch at his arm to making out until the candles burn down. And if you tell Levi to sell the deal and dedicate his heart, how can he not take that as a serious order. He has to be guarded to put his guard down, and that’s what you can offer him, and he will create something lasting out of it. Promise is promise to him, we all know.

RELATED:  sub!levi hc (tea shop au) | life after war (levi’s happy end)

multifandom mlist | levi writings on ao3

© 2017-2021 submissive-bangtan. all rights reserved. no reposts and translations allowed.

[theladyofmanyfandomsfanfiction]

Festive Fuelstop

Pairing: Mando x Reader

Warnings: None.

Summary: You, Mando and the Child end up in a small town and get pulled into their traditions.

A/n: Happy Holidays, my loves!

You walked out of the Crest and took a breath of fresh air after a week of being trapped inside the flying metal. Despite having to make an emergency landing, you were thankful that the fuel line had started leaking just to stretch your legs. You and Mando had landed on the outskirts of a charming village where the mechanic actually refused the credits that the Mandalorian offered to repair his ship.

“Oh, golly. I can’t take payment now - I haven’t made any repairs.” The man chuckled heartily and whistled for his best workers to get on the job. The repairman then focused back on the new arrivals. “Why don’t you hold on to those credits and take your family down to the markets in the meantime?”

Mando appeared to have frozen so you leaned forward and pulled his hand back, flashing a smile to the kind man.

“The markets sound wonderful - could you point us in the right direction?”

You were given instruction to follow the wooden path down the hill until you reached a clearing into the central part of town which you, Mando and the Child followed.

When you reached the bottom, the townsfolk were in a buzz carrying boxes of shiny strings and coloured balls from one part of town to the next. Homes were decorated with lights strewn across the fences and roofs, some even had a green wreaths on the front door. Adults met up with one another with a grin as they walked in the same direction while children chased each other in tow.

You and Mando exchanged curious glances. This wasn’t something either of you had come across and your confused expression caught the attention of a passerby. The man stopped before the two of you and pointed.

“Visitors?” He guessed with a smile on his face that highlighted a hidden dimple.

You returned the smile and Mando nodded, “Our ship is being repaired uphill.”

“Well then it’s in safe hands. Please, feel free to join us in the Square while you wait.” The man invited and then walked away in the same direction as everyone else. It seemed like the whole town was headed that way.

Folding your arms, you turned to the bounty hunter, “Is it bad that I want to know what’s happening in the Square?”

“We have to keep moving.” Mando reminded as he looked around the buildings. “Maybe find a diner of some sort.”

You watched as more of the townsfolk left their homes and bit your lower lip as you thought - then you heard the child croon and idea came to mind.

“If everyone’s in the same place then none of their lodgings, food or otherwise, will be open. We’ll have a better chance to blend in alongside everyone else while seeing what has everyone so excited.” You said. “And the kid might never experience this again.”

The Mandalorian cocked his head to the side when he heard you.

“Are those reasons for the kid or for you?”

You shot him a side-eye and shook your head. Without hearing his argument against the plan, you followed the crowd and - in a few minutes - his beskar arm braces were bumping beside you.

It was a short walk to the heart of the town where a large green tree gleaming with lights and decoration sat in the middle. Your jaw dropped, eyes mesmerised with the sight that you almost knocked into the woman in front of you had it not been for Mando pulling you back. As the last few people joined, you realised that it was getting too close-for-comfort for the child so you moved to a more open space a little further from the festivities.

You returned to staring in awe at the magnificence of the tree and couldn’t help but smile, “What are they celebrating?” You wondered just as a little boy zoomed past with his friends, hearing your question. He stopped before you and Mando and placed his hands on his hips.

“You must be travellers! Tonight begins the First Ice of Holly Day. We gather around the tree just before the snow begins to fall - which should be starting soon!” The young boy explained and then ran off leaving the baby to lean over his cradle and coo.

Soon? You looked up to the skies and noticed that they had now been filled with frosty grey clouds. The sun began to fade away which illuminated the lights around the entire town making everything glow. As it darkened just a touch more excitable voices began talking quickly, most of it inaudible. You were so caught up in the moment that you hadn’t realised Mando tensing up beside you until you turned to him. He looked like he was ready to be jumped. You opened you mouth to chide him when there was a joyful cry from the far side of the tree.

“Look - look! It’s snowing! Holly Day has begun!”

You , Mando and the Child looked up once more and, sure enough, small snowflakes descended upon the happy town. A chilled breeze set in and you remembered that you weren’t properly clothed from when you exited the ship a while ago. You were about to suggest finding some coats when Mando turned his head toward the clearing.

“We should head back. I don’t want to be caught in a snow storm at the base of a hill.” He told you. You glanced at the baby trying to catch the snow in his mouth and sighed. Mando was right.

You shivered slightly, dusting the snow from your shoulders. “Point made. But before we head back, I need to stop at a vegetable stall.”

“Why?”

You pursed your lips and squinted at the green womp rat in the cradle, “Because somebody keeps ‘force-flinging’ the celonslay into the refresher.” you leaned down to the baby and used the tip of your index finger to lightly press on his button nose. “Vegetables are what’s going to make you big and strong.”

You straightened back up and noticed the crowd the beginning to disperse as you looked around them to find some place that sold healthy greens.

Mando pointed over your shoulder quietly and you followed his hand to where a row of merchants stood with their goods just past the tree. You thanked him and requested that he and child stay put until you returned. The bounty hunter didn’t argue and so you ventured off to the markets. As you passed the tree you smiled once more at its beauty. A part of you wondered if Mando would oppose to having a small one in the ship. But then you thought better of it because if Mando didn’t oppose then the kid might tear it apart or worse, jam it into the refresher.

You passed the first stall which happened to be filled with florals and ‘Holly Berry Seed Pots’ and over to the second one where rows and rows of fruits and vegetables sat. Scanning the items, you spotted the celonslay and decided against purchasing it again. The Child clearly didn’t like it. As you browsed, a head popped up from behind the stall - it belonged to the man you first met upon reaching the town.

“It’s you.” You realised.

He chuckled and quirked a brow. “Twice in one day? I’m beginning to think that you’re following me.” He teased lightly and tapped his hands on the wooden counter top. “I’m glad you decided to come to the Square.”

The man inquired about how you felt about experiencing the First Ice and you told him the truth of how you adored the way it was celebrated. You both then returned to the task at hand and you asked for his suggestion on a vegetable that a baby would enjoy.

“Children are tricky to pick for.” The Merchant hummed as he looked over the available selection. “But I do have some gimer canes. If the kid is teething, he can chew on this to get important nutrients with a sweet taste. He might even do a happy dance.”

Your eyes lit up along with your smile, “That’s perfect, I’ll take four.”

“Gimer canes are fairly rare so...”

“I’ll pay you double.” You offered instantly, not bothering to discuss it with the Mandalorian.

You expected the Merchant to take the credits right away but he laughed admirably at you. “I was actually hoping that you’d come with me to the Holly Seed Planting tomorrow instead.”

As much as you wanted to stay, you and Mando were due to leave the planet in under an hour. Your shoulders visibly slackened and the Merchant seemed to have understood. He reached beneath the counter and lifted up a paper bag, handing it over to you.

“Here, consider it an early Holly Day gift.”

Slightly confused, you looked inside and saw four pieces of the rare cane. You didn’t know how to express thanks besides repeating the word in the hopes that it would be enough.

“It’s okay, really.” The Merchant said softly. “Times are strange, we may meet again.”

You flashed a smile and thanked him once more before turning to leave.

You returned to the Child and the Mandalorian shortly after and noticed the mechanic of your ship walking away from the beskar-plated man with a spring in his step and humming a tune.

“Was that...?”

“It was.” Mando sighed. “Apparently, the repairs won’t be ready until tomorrow afternoon because the mechanic doesn’t want to miss out on the ‘festivities’.”

You couldn’t really blame the creature for halting work and you looked over at the hill pathway that led to the ship. “Old fashioned camp out in the broken cargo hold?” You suggested.

“It’s getting dark and you’re exhausted. We’ll stay in town until the repairs are complete.”

This meant that you could repay the Merchant in full.

“Why are you smiling?”

You wiped the escaped emotion from your face and cleared your throat. Balancing the bag against your hip, you looked around the well-lit town, deflecting the question, “I’m sure that there’s a good lodging around here.”

And you were right, a short walk down the road landed the three of you at a comfortable inn for travellers. But as luck would have it, finding a decent sized room in the towns busiest time proved to be difficult and so, you, Mando and cradled baby were placed in a smaller, single bed compartment with extra blankets to compensate. While it was quaint, a part of you wished that you were back on the Razor Crest.

As Mando settled into the temporary sleeping quarters by checking the perimeters, you helped the kid out of his cot and onto the soft mattress. This hadn’t been the first time that there was only one bed between three individuals so you and Mando decided to take one side each to make sure that you were both well rested. And, to be involved, the Child would walk across the surface before sitting on the side that he wanted Mando to be. 

The kid cooed and then smacked his lips which reminded you that he had not been fed the since lunch. You walked over to the table by the door and dug into the paper bag retrieving a stick of the gimer cane before carefully handing it to the baby to taste.

Mando joined your side as the pair of watched the child chew on the cane with a happy squeal.

“He likes it.” Mando noted, relatively surprised. Your mouth hung open as you watched the green womp rat do a little seated ‘happy dance’.

The Merchant was right.

Speaking of the man, you remembered to tell the bounty hunter of your plans the next day, explaining - once again - that it would be a good way for the kid to learn and enjoy other customs. His sigh told you that he wasn’t thrilled but, ultimately, he resigned. “Fine but we’re leaving the moment the Crest is fixed.”

You tried to contain your smile but it slipped out which led to the Mandalorian shaking his head and heading for the bed to get some decent rest. He picked up the child and moved him to the centre before laying down on the sheets. As you watched the baby find a comfortable sleeping position against his chosen-father, you realised that you were fairly exhausted from the day. You took up the blankets that the lodging provided and laid along the empty bed space, covering yourself and the kid just before falling asleep to the burning candlelight.

When you woke to birdsong, you found that the child had switched sleeping allegiances and was now snuggled in your arms. Mando stepped out of the refresher and helped you to get ready for the day by removing the womp rat from your hold which led the child waking up with a small wail until Mando pacified him with a gimer cane.

Once all affairs were in order, you paid the lodging owner in full and left for the Merchant’s stall where the man had just farewelled a customer.

“Can I have four more gimer canes?” You wondered and the moment the Merchant saw you, he abandoned his job, rushing to the front with a smile.

“You- you’re still here.”

Nodding, you gestured to where Mando stood with the child, “Our repairs will be done this afternoon which means we can go to the Holly Seed Planting.”

The Merchant nodded and boldly took your hands when he spoke. “The Planting is in a few hours but there are things we can do before that!” He looked over your shoulder to Mando, “Tell me, friend. Have you ever gone sledding through fields of freshly lain snow under trees of light?”

Mando stared back through his visor, “Only to capture my bounty.”

The Merchant didn’t know what to make of the statement and you chuckled to lighten the air, “Sledding sounds wonderful!”

And that’s what you did. The Merchant took the three of you to a sledding field and you almost forgot about your mission to find the child’s people. Mando took the green womp rat for a ride after caving to his pleading coos while you rode with the Merchant. 

Once the snow-filled fun had run its course, you all ventured back into town for a hot meal at the local cantina and a short rest before learning that enough time had passed for the Holly Seed Planting. You and Mando followed the Merchant over to the large tree where, at its base, several plots were dug in long rows along the white frost.

“What’s so special about this event?” You asked as curiosity enveloped when you noticed people gathering in pairs.

The Merchant took your hand and pointed across, “Holly Seeds are special, they bloom fast with emotion and identical where love is pure. It’s a rare sight to see but it doesn’t make it any less fun to plant.”

“What happens to these seeds after?”

“We nurture them through the year, their roots and leaves merge until they form the Town’s next tree for Holly Day.”

If you had left the day before, you never would have learnt about something so amazing.

“Oh - I think it’s starting. Let’s go get a seed.” The Merchant told you excitably.

Mando made no effort to move quickly, instead he held onto the child and stepped back. “I think the kid and I will wait this one out.”

A part of you wished he wouldn’t remove himself but once the Mandalorian made up his mind, he often stuck to it. You focused on the Merchant once more, painting the snow with your footprints until you both collected a Holly Seed Pot each and kneeled by two empty plots.

“Okay,” The Merchant said, nestling a little closer, “so all we need to do is hold these next to each other and if everything is right, they’ll bloom.”

You held out your pot until it clinked against the Merchant’s. Almost instantly, a bud peered through the Merchant’s soil and it quickly grew into a stem ... then leaves sprang forth ... and finally, a white-petaled flower emerged, tilting forward like a bell.

You looked down at the pot in your hands and there was nothing - not even a hint of green.

You gave a dry chuckle to hide the way your heart sank, “I can’t imagine it’s good news if nothing happens, right?”

The Merchant shook his head to not worry you but you could see in his eyes that this came as a surprise to him too. Clearing your throat, you flashed him a smile and looked around the place where bursts of colourful flowers came to life. “So, what happens next?”

“Usually, we walk around and see if there are identical flowers before we plant them into the ground but...”

You noticed his eyes flicker to the various pots, clearly trying to spot his match, and placed an gentle hand over his shoulder.

“Go ahead, it’s okay.” You told him as he once told you. The Merchant hesitated briefly until you repeated yourself.

You got to your feet as he thanked you and then you watched him walk through the crowd. Glancing at your sad-looking pot, you remembered something and looked up to find your travel associates.

No green or beskar could be seen. You did, however, see the mechanic once again. He had just arrived and was talking to a friend about how he had just finished a job.

The Razor Crest must have been ready. You intended to give a farewell to the Merchant but when you saw him standing by a young woman with an identical white flower, you decided against it.

Let him have this moment. Taking the plant, you decided to blend out of the crowd and back to somewhere familiar.

—

The Merchant was kind but Mando felt his dislike for the local grow every time you were present. He blamed the whimsical nature of the town but Mando felt something envious surge in him whenever you talked about the Merchant with a smile. Then he had to spend the day watching the pair of you laugh and joke and... hold hands - Mando seriously feared that you may have been falling in love. When the Seed Planting came around, he tried to ignore the way you and the Merchant had grown fond of one other so he stood to the back of the crowd. He was blending in quite well until a sweet old lady spotted him and the child and handed him a Holly Seed Pot of his own. He tried to give it back but the woman ignored him and moved on. The Child cooed and Mando turned to see you kneeling by the snow and holding your pot against that of the Merchants.

He heard the baby croon and attempt to speak.

“I know buddy...”

The child started tapping his hands over Mando’s gloves and pulled his attention from the Jedi over to the pot in his hands.

A red flower had sprouted almost instantly while was distracted. The edges of the petals ran gold like ink.

His mind flew to what the Merchant had said about quick blooming flowers and the Mandalorian felt his heart race.

‘Fast with emotion.’ He had said.

Turning around, Mando made a quick getaway just as the townsfolk gathered to ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ around the flowers. Thinking fast, he decided to head back to the ship, almost bursting into a sprint. The child had fallen asleep during the trip so when Mando finally got to the Crest, he laid the infant down before getting to work. He took the pot plant over to the carbonite chamber and shut it inside with a hiss.

—

The walk uphill was long and exhausting. There were multiple times when you considered throwing the pot behind you but something always made you rethink and forget the option. When you finally reached the Crest, you spotted Mando fiddling by the carbonite chamber and the kid asleep in his cradle. You dumped the pot on the side bench and headed past the Mandalorian for the cockpit.

“I’m ready to get out of here.” You said, climbing up the ladder. Without missing a beat, you sat in the pilots seat and prepared for take off, closing the doors of the cargo bay. You were a fast flyer so you had the ship up in lightspeed in no time only dropping out when you were several systems away. As you prepped the ship for autopilot, you heard the familiar armour behind you.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out.” He said gently. “The Jedi Order and the Mandalorian Way don’t give much room for romance.”

You leaned forward and flicked on two switches. A disappointed sigh escaping over the console. “I know. Sometimes, I hope for a sign that will lead me down a different path - one where I don’t walk alone. But it’s always a fools hope.”

The Crest’s engine sputtered, shaking loose a pipe above your head which made you frown when it bumped your head. “Dank farrik.” You muttered. “Can you get me something to fix this?”

The beskar helmet nodded and Mando turned down the narrow corridor. He went down the stairs to grab a wrench from his tools cabinet when a flicker of gold caught his attention.

Sitting on the bench was your Holly Seed Pot, a green stem had rose from the mud, blooming a red Holly Flower with gold trimming - just like his.

Masterlist here

[sinisterlyhan]

01. lee minho / 9486 words

fwb!minho, oral (f & m receiving), unprotexted sex, female reader, slight angst and fluff, romance, lots of kissing, mc being kind of a brat, minho being kinda dominant 

a/n: ahh, i finally wrote for minho! i hope this is good ;;

the thee bags of sugar you poured into your cup of hot coffee have probably been completely dissolved by now, considering the obsessive way you kept stirring the liquid with your teaspoon and not actually drinking it.

keeping your eyes out the glass window by the coffee booth, you allowed your mind to drift off to a familiarly foreign place as you mindlessly watched the passersby.

your lashes fluttered along with each shift of your eyes, your gaze jumping from one insignificant person to another as you accessed the idea that people are literally everywhere around you—annoying kids, depressed students, tired parents, and the slow folks.

the concept, more than often, flies past you on a daily. therefore, when you sit down and truly acknowledge the number of people you brush past every day, it is quite a staggering fact.

but what’s more bewildering than that, though, was the fact that out of all these people you could meet and think about, the only person who has ever really been on your mind was lee minho—a nice classmate, a good friend, and a few quick fucks.

a few. you heaved a lonesome sigh and replaced it with a bitter huff of laughter.

you wished it was only a few quick fucks. you should have stopped after a few of them and you should have never picked your hand up and sealed his ‘fuck buddy?’ deal with a firm handshake. but you were lonely back then, dry and lonely.

you had wanted love, genuine or not, and minho’s seductive kisses down your body were the closest thing you could get to feeling appreciated, so you made the biggest mistake of agreeing to be friends with benefits with him.

it has been half a year since you two established the relationship; the sex was frequent during the first few weeks, and then the passionate nights started to space out a little until you two spent more time with plans to hang out than to fuck each other.

your immature mind hadn’t been smart enough to fathom the idea of you ever falling in love with somebody like minho, because you knew you weren’t the type to blatantly fall for someone out of your league. it was the kick that got your to seal the contract.

but alas, minho has been more than irresistible the past few months.

he wasn’t just a fuck buddy, he has never been just that from the start of it all. nothing about your new relationship was awkward despite you two being silent classmates for so long until a house party came and messed it all up. and unlike what you expected, he never tried to distance himself to keep that sole status.

he wasn’t aloof, nor did he act like a stranger. minho was a good friend, a good classmate, and a good fuck if you may say so.

he has helped you with your classes numerous times; printing assignments last minute for you in the library because you were too sleepy to do so last night, scanning his thorough notes for you unprompted because he noticed you struggling during class, reading through your materials out of his class time just so he could further explain something to you.

he’s also been the best emotional support you’ve had; he has never complained when you unreasonably snapped at him because of too much stress, he puts up with your constant overthinking and temper tantrums, and he gets you snacks on his own grocery run because he thought you might get some cravings sometime during the day.

and, of course, the sex has never once been dull ever since you met him, but it was in a lot of the little things he does that makes your heart ache the most; it was him always making sure you’re okay, and him constantly giving you praises. how he loves to make eye contact and hold your hands. how he knows exactly when to be soft and when to be hard.

when did he stop being just minho to you, you haven’t the faintest idea. but your feelings for him have changed drastically over these amazing months, and it became your downfall because he has not contacted you for weeks.

just complete radio silence, nothing, gone.

“i’m telling you he likes you, okay?”

you rolled your eyes as you snapped out of your trance. turning your head to look at jisung, you pursed your lips and shrugged in bland disbelief. “shut up.“

“no, you shut up and listen to me,” he leaned forward on his seat, his eyes glaring because he was sick and tired of being ignored by both of his friends. but now he’s got a fifty-fifty chance of being a matchmaker, so he planned to go all out. “i have known minho for as long as my fat baby legs can waddle to the sandbox in the park, okay. and not once have i seen him run away like this.”

“this, this thing that he is doing?” his finger excitedly jammed against the surface of the table as he stared at you pointedly, emphasizing his words with each jut of his jaw. “this is serious, and what serious thing can he be afraid of?“

you waited for him to speak, but the silence he purposefully left out was urging to be filled in. you looked away, baffled, and you scrambled your mind to think of something to say.

“i don’t know? faili–“

“wrong!”

“a dise–“

“terrible answer!”

“ma–“

“zero points for yo–ow!”

“knock it off, jisung!” you scolded with annoyance after you flicked his forehead with your fingers, shoving his head back to the cushion of the booth seat. “i know what you want me to say… i just won’t say it.”

“he loves you, (name),” jisung said, hiding every bit of uncertainty behind his persuasive facade—his presentation face, as he calls it. “i really think he does.”

and he wasn’t lying. jisung gave the situation a fair share of analyzing, and he concluded with the fact that minho might just have fallen in love with you. because one thing he knew about minho was that while he is kind, he is not nice.

there is a distinctive difference; kindness is selective, it is earned, it is given by choice. nice is blind, it is a mindless thought, a moral conscious.

anything that goes between minho and his goal, or his dignity, or some dramatic factors as such, minho will not hesitate to lash out. he is kind, not nice.

and you—you’ve been plucking the kindness out of him like he was a river that could never run dry.

disrupting his study schedule to tutor you? ditching his long-term friends to keep you company? apologizing first and being the bigger person in petty arguments?

minho was good to you when he didn’t have to, and he still was kind to you when he didn’t want to. he wanted to keep you happy, he gets the thrill of being able to take care of you, and you can feel comfortable around him.

jisung would even go so far to say minho was head over heels for you now, with his heart bleeding dry for your sake. and he’s running away from it because the concept, the feeling was foreign to him.

“just go to his house, find him. he probably misses you like crazy,” he urged tentatively. “talk it out, or fuck it out if that’s what you guys are used to.”

“do you think it’s that easy? like i can just go up to his home and kiss him?“ you asked, exasperated that jisung didn’t seem to understand the limitation of your tolerance for humiliation and appearing desperate to other people.

“sure, why not! i’d totally do that if i were you!” he boasted, clapping his fist to his chest as he huffed through his nose. “it’s not like he isn’t jerking off to the thought of you anyway! it’s either that or he’s crying himself to sleep at night!”

“that’s…” your voice awkwardly trailed off.

“too much?”

“no, no, just…” you hummed with a slight shake of your head, unable to break through his innocent gaze and not sure how to tell him you missed seeing minho in his naked glory. so instead, you chose to back down. “nothing.”

you blinked, still processing his previous words in your head as you finally brought your coffee up to your mouth to take a short sip.

the sugary taste was barely seeping into the bitterness of your coffee, the last three bags of sugar you added having done nothing to help you savor the taste. and you thought about how minho would probably switch his drink with you or offer to order you a new one if he was here.

jisung watched as you put down your cup and reached for another bag of sugar. he laughed, shifting his legs and leaning against the back of the booth. “the sugar is bad for you.”

“i know,” you muttered as you shook the bag and let the content spill all over your drink.

jisung watched with nonchalance as you picked up your metal spoon and started stirring your coffee again. and he didn’t say a single word.

minho pushed his glasses perched upon the bridge of his nose, and he continued with his note-taking as his eyes focused on the massive text displayed on his laptop screen.

it was all he has done this day. right after morning classes, he headed out for lunch by himself and simply went home. he tried to ignore the stubborn unfamiliarity of spending most of his time alone, hoping the ghost of your voice would eventually stop haunting his heavy steps into the local boba shop, or even just to the edge of his bed when he decided to take a short nap.

he woke up alone, dazed and annoyed. but he was mostly tired; tired of being alone when he knew you were a call away, tired of drowning in chosen solidarity because he wasn’t brave enough to confront his feelings, tired of being scared that you wouldn’t return the affection his heart discreetly held for you.

it was very unlike him, and the change was frustrating. minho never thought himself to succumb to romance yet here he was, making bad decisions and pushing you away when all he wanted was to hold your body close.

the uneven grip on his pen caused him a sudden scrape across the lined-paper. he glanced down the rogue tweak of the letter 'r’ and he clicked his tongue. dropping the pen, he rummaged through his crowded pencil case for a white-out, just in time as the doorbell to his apartment rang.

he furrowed his brows as he perked up, his head turning to look behind his shoulder at the door. discarding the matter at hand, he stood up and made his way to the front door, where he sung the door open and immediately revealed you standing before him.

“hi,” you breathed out when you met eyes with him, your gaze hardening slightly in sudden timidity.

minho gave you a quick scan before he nodded. he, too, feeling rather awkward at what felt like a confrontation to him. “hey.“

“can i come in, or are you going to keep shutting me out?” you laughed meekly, pointing into his apartment and letting your eyes move away from him briefly before returning to his face. “i’m already here anyway, you might as well.”

“i… yeah, sure, come in,” he said, taking a step aside as he opened the door for you. he watched you head inside, kicking your shoes off and shoving them to the side. he eyed the plastic cup in your hand, and he attempted to make light conversation out of it. “you got coffee?”

“oh, yeah. i was hanging out with jisung just then,” you said, turning to face him. you stuck your hand out, giving him the cup. “do you wanna try some?”

“no, i’m good.” he waved his hand.

you looked at him, a faint pout forming on your face before you shrugged and brought the straw up to your mouth. “okay then, it’s probably better for you anyway,” you sipped the coffee, “i dumped like… six bags of sugar in it.”

the change of facial expressions on his face was priceless. he went from processing your words in confusion, then his eyes widened in surprise, and at last his brows furrowed in dismay that you were still sipping the drink like you didn’t just turn it into a liquefied candy cane.

“okay, no, i’m confiscating it,” he said after allowing you a few more obnoxious sip. he grabbed the cup away from you and held it out of your reach, ignoring your continuous protest. “do you know how unhealthy that is?”

“yes, but it’s sweet!“ you complained.

“it’s sweet until you get type-two diabetes.” He rolled his eyes, turning around and heading over to the fridge located in the open area where the kitchen was. “especially when you don’t just drink one cup of coffee every other week, you drink it several times a week, which can toll up to a lot of sugar intake and i am not about to let you run around self-sabotaging your health–”

he stopped talking when he turned away from the fridge and immediately saw you standing before him. the proximity of your faces was a little too close for his liking—not his subconscious, just his stubbornness—and he didn’t know what to do when he was confronted with it so abruptly.

he hasn’t seen you in some time, which gave him no opportunity to create such intimacy. and even though he had missed being able to feel comfortable with you being close, he suddenly didn’t know what to do. he would love to keep his emotions in check, and he would love to not spill secrets he had no intention to tell.

you glanced down to his lips and automatically huffed. jisung’s words flew back into your mind then, telling you to just kiss him now that you’ve made a mistake of stepping into his personal bubble. it wasn’t like minho was actively pushing you out anyway. you could just try, and if it doesn’t work out in your favor, you could just play it off.

a gasp left his chest when you suddenly leaned in and kissed him. your hands went up to cup his jaw, bringing him closer to you when you felt him starting to reciprocate the kiss. you have longed to do this for so long, sometimes it felt like you’d forget the way his lips feel if you go without it for one more day.

the nervousness within was slowly started to vanish, but part of your brain registered how minho wasn’t kissing you with the same vigor he used to whenever you two share a kiss. it felt out of place to feel his mouth move so slowly against your own, and it was not in a harmonious way.

his lips slacked against yours because his brain wasn’t functioning well. minho has missed you more than ever and this—this was practically a dream come true! he was finally kissing you again, and he wanted nothing more than to keep going, to put roam his hands all over you again.

but he couldn’t. he couldn’t allow himself more depths to fall for you, he couldn’t keep digging his own grave with uncertainty and doubt.

he would rather guarantee he can still be friends with you after sorting out his feelings, than risk you not returning his affection and jeopardizing your comfortable relationship.

“w–wait, (name)–stop–” he pulled away from you, taking in a breath of fresh air when his lips detached from yours. the air was eerily cold, he didn’t like it at all.

your hands dropped from his face, your heart sinking to your stomach the same way. that was enough indication—him pushing you off pretty much told you everything you needed to know about how he felt, and god, you felt so conflicted at the discovery.

you were mad at yourself for letting him allow so much control over you. the sheer anger that bubbled in your chest when you felt tears brimming at the back of your eyes was immeasurable. you warned yourself about this, you warned yourself about him, yet you still fell. and now you felt weak and hopeless because he didn’t love you back.

you also felt wronged somehow. the fact that minho has been such a kind friend to you has given you the false assumption that he would at least give you an explanation. if he didn’t want to keep the sexual relationship, he should have just been truthful to you instead of trying to ghost you for weeks and leaving you to your lonely thoughts.

but you wouldn’t have cared if you didn’t like him. him ignoring you wouldn’t have been a problem if you didn’t fall for him.

“what is your fucking problem, minho?” you asked, your anger boiling up. but despite that, your voice was more leveled than ever, as if you were exhausted. it was all being suppressed in your chest, burning and rotting away.

you smiled at him a little, the forced kind of smile, and you sarcastically laughed when you spoke, “if you got bored of me, you could have just said so.”

minho opened his mouth, surprised. but the light glimmer behind your eyes created a new kind of chaos in his head. he has seen you cry before, and this time it was all him.

“i–no, that wasn’t the problem, i just–”

“did i do something then? are you mad at me, or something like that?“ you cut him off with a scoff, shaking your head slightly as you frowned at him. “because you left me alone for weeks. you were a terrible friend to me, and i had no idea if it was me or you.”

“i’m not bored of you, (name). neither am i mad at you,” he replied quickly, sighing as he looked at you with softened eyes. “it's—something personal happened, nothing was your fault.”

you pursed your lips together, feeling slightly less agitated as your questions slowly got resolved one by one. “what is it, then? what happened to you?“

“i…” i fell in love with you.

you waited for seconds for him to talk but all minho could do was look down at the floor, fearing for what would happen to you and him if he ever told the truth. a sigh left your lips at his silence, disappointed that he couldn’t give you a proper answer.

“fine, don’t tell me,” you said, turning around to leave the kitchen area.

“hey, wait, where are you going?” he followed suit, panic flooding into his eyes.

“away from you,” you muttered as you put on your shoes. “don’t worry about seeing me again, i won’t bother you anymore.”

minho hasn’t realized he was unintentionally ruining the relationship until this point. in his attempt to keep his feelings secured and hidden, all to prevent the breakage of your friendship, he failed to notice the damage all the avoiding did to it.

now you were planning to leave him forever, to walk out and completely cut him out of your life. and oh, he was scared. he could not bear to never seeing you again, or even just to stomach the thought of you hating him because of his stupidity.

“wait, no, hold on–” he grabbed ahold of your hand when you grabbed the doorknob. before you could fling him away, he turned you around to face him and, impulsively, grabbed your face to crash his lips against yours.

yes, crash. with the amount of force he was using, the word crash would deem fit. you tried to push him away from you, but your little fists were futile to his broad chest, and soon enough he had you weak at the weeks with the exasperating way he was kissing you.

you could taste this one, his emotions were vivid at the tip of his tongue as he finally learned to surrender himself into you. he was desperate, he was lustful, he was burning at the tips of his skin just to kiss you like there is nothing else he could mean more than this exact moment.

when he pulled away, he leaned his forehead against yours and looked into your eyes. it was intimidating and confrontational, everything he thought he couldn’t handle now being pierced through his action so he could prove a point.

“i didn’t…” he shook his head. “i’m so sorry for ignoring you, i did it because i… i didn’t want to ruin our friendship… because i realize i won’t be able to fall out of love with you if we keep being friends, if we keep sleeping together.”

that took such a drastic turn. you never thought things would turn out this way for you, but here minho was, looking so deeply into your eyes and telling you he avoided you because he was scared his love would ruin your friendship. what a damned miracle!

“you… you coward, stupid, dumb, annoying–” you lightly punched him across the chest, feeling such staggering relief that you felt like crying. “you didn’t even give me a fighting chance, you just assumed i won’t like you back.”

“i know, i’m sorry.”

“you didn’t even try to drop hints, how was i suppose to let you know i love you back?”

“i know, baby girl, i’m sorry.”

the shock within him vanished quickly. he didn’t have the time to express his delight the way he would want to. you were standing before him in all your glory—beautiful, genuine, emotional.

and he wanted you with him in a way that was much closer than this.

nudging his nose against yours, minho let his lips meet yours at a slower pace this time. he was gentle with you, his arms holding at the side of your waist to pull you closer as you two kissed.

your hands flew to circle his neck as you stumbled out of your untied shoes and into his chest. minho let himself linger on your lips for a while before he started to trail his kisses down your jaw.

your neck was a territory he has marked many times before, and he never fails to make sure he adds something new every time his lips touch the skin. his teeth grazed past your neck before he met at the crook of it, and he obnoxiously sucked a dark bruise on your skin just so you would whimper in surprise.

sigh—how he missed that whimsical little sound. it was always so heavenly to hear, even when the action that caused it was more than devilish.

he marked his way back up to your lips when his fingers toyed with the hem of your shirt. he slipped his hand under it, his palm touching your bare skin for a brief second before he retreated them to clutch at the fabric of your shirt.

“can i take your shirt off, baby?” he mumbled into your mouth, his hand already raising slightly in anticipation.

you nodded, raising your arms as he complied and pulled your shirt up. you two broke apart to allow it to go through before leaning back toward each again. minho discarded your shirt off to the ground, his hands couldn’t wait to finally meet with your torso.

he kissed you fervently, his fingers holding the same amount of enthusiasm as they glided past the small curve of your waist. up and down, a faint squeeze to hold you in place, and then he pushed you forward so your back hit the door.

putting a hand between the back of your head and the hard surface, minho reluctantly pulled away from you, this time with no intention to dive back to your lips again because of all the other access to your body you’ve given him.

he breathed heavily, his voice growing raspy. “i’m gonna make it up to you.”

“i expect you to,” you replied boldly, causing him to raise his brow.

that was not something you would otherwise say in a situation like this. minho would have put you in your place if you ever attempted to give him an attitude. but he planned to let it slide this time, after all, he did hurt your feelings and he was at fault here.

“good.” was all he said before he started to move down your body.

his lips met at your collarbones, then to your chest where he skipped over your bra and went straight down to your stomach. he planted light kisses all over your skin, his tongue occasionally swiping across to wet up your body a little more.

he was kneeling before you by the time his hands met the waist of your pants, and he looked up with brows raising teasingly at you as his hands circled to the front. his fingers carefully popped open the button before they hooked through the belt loops and slowly pulled them down to your ankle.

your knees trembled at the touch of his hands, gliding up and down the back of your thighs and ever so slightly tugging you toward him. your breath hitched in your throat when he leaned up to kiss your clothed core, the sudden touch sending a surprise jolt across your mind.

foreign but familiar—it just came too sudden. you hadn’t realized this was actually happening until your panties were dragged past your thighs, the cold air a stinging proof that you’re with minho right now, and his lips were getting dangerously close to where you’ve been aching to have him these past weeks.

his hands curled around your legs, gripping your flesh firmly to keep them apart as he liked it. he moved up your inner-thighs. he continued to send tingly sensations all over your body until he stopped for a second, as if waiting for a dramatic effect, for a lingering thought to vanish before he latched his lips to your pussy.

his tongue darted out to lick between your folds, feeling the wetness gathering at your entrance upon the pleasuring stimulation. your moan went straight into ears, lighting up the delight inside him, and he continued to lather himself all over your cunt, wasting no time to poke his tongue in and out of you rhythmically.

you grabbed a messy chunk of his hair, pulling at it as you desperately tried to rust against his face, taunting him to shove his tongue deeper inside your heat. the position made your legs feel sore, and the mere attempt to grind down on him was just difficult, but you could take none of those into mind that when his mouth mercilessly sucked at your clit until it was red and swollen.

he was luxuriating himself in you—in your taste, in your voice, in your movement. your essence dripping past his tongue in a slurpy motion, your walls clenching at the digits he had graciously slipped into your heat, and ecstasy took your voice up into a milky whine when his teeth barely grazed past your clit as he sucked at you.

the heat in your chest expanded and engulfed itself all over your body. without yourself even realizing, your legs have moved apart to give minho more access to touch you even more.

“fuck, minho, please!” you exclaimed, your head hitting against the door.

ahh, you still know how to beg. perhaps not as profusely as he would have wanted you to but you were polite nonetheless. not to mention, your fingers scratching through his soft locks was enough indication that he was doing a splendid job. and he couldn’t wait to hear more of you, to feel more of you.

moving his face down to your heat, he drove his tongue inside you once again while his thumb went to press circles on your throbbing clit. you let out a choked moan, the sudden change of stimulation a very pleasant surprise, and he has your climax pinned at his mouth in no time.

gathering up your juices into his mouth, minho finally pulled away from you and stood up. he didn’t bother to wipe your essence off his lips, he just went straight for your mouth as he pressed his lips against yours. and you were in too big of a haze to distinguish the taste of yourself and his saliva, still trying to come down from the orgasm you’ve missed having from him.

minho brought his hand up to your face, caressing your cheek with his thumb carefully as he contemplated his next move. perhaps he was putting a little pressure on himself to make sure this encounter would be perfect, because he thought it somehow needed to be after hurting your feelings.

but part of him also ached for a good fuck after so long. not just with anybody but with you. the scorching desire in his chest would ultimately fuel his instincts today, and maybe he’d not be able to keep his cool when he could finally be inside you.

just the thought of it made his insides burst. he should have never distanced himself from you. it was such a stupid idea.

“up,” minho commanded as he leaned down to tug at your thighs. and you listened to him, jumping up so he could catch you around his waist, your arms going around his neck as your lips moved past his face to run freely down his neck.

you were enjoying the feeling of his skin, kissing him all over in ways you wished you had been able to. your teeth bit down harder when you heard his tiny giggle at your almost amateur attempt on leaving him a hickey, a frown appearing on your face at the fact that he wasn’t taking you seriously.

he brought both of you over to the couch and he dropped you down on the surface, his body quickly hovering over yours as he got onto the couch as well. you looked up at him, your eyes smiling funnily in a way that made him pause his movement. 

this was supposed to be a heated moment, yet somehow a single quirk of your lips was able to make his walls crumble.

“what’s so funny?” he asked, pinching your waist and causing you to squeal at the itch.

“nothing! it’s just…” you reached down for his hand and brought it up to your face, kissing his rough knuckles as you smiled at him. “i’ve missed you, that’s all.”

minho wavered, the glint behind his eyes dimming with a sense of being completely enamored. at the way your lips would smile, at the way your gaze held all of him, even just at how your smaller hand gripped his own. he was so infatuated, he could see no end to it.

“i’m sorry for suddenly leaving you,” he said, leaning down by dropping onto his forearm. your fingers still clung into his palm when he moved it up to your chin, his thumb tracing the tip of it before it moved up to your lips. “i promise i won’t do it again.”

his thumb traced your lower lip, a movement so sensual that you couldn’t think about much of anything else. just the mere fact that you got him back, and that he too has fallen in love with you, was enough to make you drop every ounce of your sanity.

you felt like you’ve got all you need already.

“kiss me, minho,” you pleaded quietly, opening your mouth more so his thumb would shift across your teeth.

he felt your legs move underneath his body, pressing together in a squirm. and he knew you wanted him between them, he knew you were waiting for him to pull them apart instead of doing it on your own. because everything needs to be done by his hands, that has always been the way you two worked, and you would obey him with ease.

flashes of your naked body came before his face. flashes he imagined when he was alone at night, trying miserably to replace you with a toy, or sometimes even himself. his lids dropped as he shifted to look down at your body, soft and awaiting his instructions, and he lightly growled to himself.

impatience suddenly took over him then, the previous moment gone in a blink of an eye. he leaned down to capture your lips, his hands going to your knees to spread them apart so he could place himself right in the middle.

you complied with him, kissing him back and tugging at his shirt as a signal that you wanted it off his body. minho huffed through his nose, slightly annoyed that he has to break away from you but he quickly yanked the collar of the shirt and pulled it over his head.

the flex of his arms was visible as he did so, and your eyes widened shyly without looking away. god, you’ve always loved the way he was built—just muscular enough to ogle at and not too much that they become uncomfortably distracting.

having second thoughts after seeing his toned chest, you decided to sit up from your spot and pushed your hands against him. minho frowned at you, his voice silent but his head-tilt asking a thousand questions. he was going to kiss you, why have you stopped him!

you grinned as you pushed him back, using your body weight to make him fall to the other side of the couch until he was under you this time. you laid on top of him, your small frame trapped between his legs as your head right at the crook of his neck.

minho was about to verbally ask you for your intention, but his eyes rolled up into a close when you kissed his neck. your hands roamed across his chest, your nails dragging ghostly against his skin in an unrecognized pattern as you peppered your kisses and kitten licks all over him.

he sighed in content, feeling your lips on every inch of his body, hot and loving. and he loved being treated this way, like he was being worshipped, like he was a god and you some mere peasant who had to rely on him for a living.

“(name),” he said, his voice sharp as he opened his eyes.

you perked up at him from the waist of his pants, your hands teasingly located near the middle. they had been scattered all over his abdomen, touch here and rubbing there, but never once did they meet at the middle where the obvious bulge of his pants was.

looking at his unsatisfied expression, you could only feel a sense of amusement as you pouted. your lashes fluttered up at him as you scooted back a little for better access. your smile was unfading when you leaned the lower side of your cheek right on top of his clothed member.

“what?” you asked, your smile widening at the hiss he let out.

“stop teasing me,” he said.

“hmm…” you pursed your lips, your finger dragging past his thigh to your face, then you palmed down on the shape of his member. “but it’s so fun.”

for someone with a waterfall dripping past your lips, you sure could find some time to be bratty like this.

rolling his eyes, his tongue poked at his inner-cheek as he turned away for a brief moment. when he looked at you again, his gaze was less hooded than it was amused. but it wasn’t your kind of amused. it wasn’t playful but degrading, the glimmer of it making you shiver.

“you want to say that again, baby?” he asked, his hand moving down to your head. he gently ran his fingers through your hair before he tugged at your scalp, his action light but not without harshness in it.

you whimpered under your breath, your brows furrowing helplessly as your head tilted to the side. “no.”

“good girl.” he released your hair then, gesturing toward himself. he nodded at you, smirking, “keep going.”

you didn’t mess around this time. your hand reached to the rubber waistband and easily pulled his sweats down to his thighs. you scooted your body up, your mouth salivating at the mere sight of his clothed member. you quickly tugged down his boxers, letting his cock spring out before you carefully grabbed its base.

minho sucked in a deep breath at your touch, your small hand covering around the base of his shaft. he closed his eyes with a blissful sigh when your lips finally touched his tip, giving him a little kiss before pressing them against him to dart your tongue over his slit.

licking past his red tip, you trailed your tongue over his shaft once before you went back up to his tip. then you finally took him in your mouth, your head bobbing up and down at regular speed as your hand rubbed the uncovered area.

minho groaned, his hand quickly flying down to your head. he let it lay there, only wanting something for him to hold onto as you sucked him off. great pleasure released from his abdomen, spreading all across his body as you hollowed your cheeks and licked him up as your head moved.

he opened his eyes to look down at you. for a second, you were focused on keeping him in your mouth, but you seemed to have felt his eyes on you so you glanced up at him.

he cursed at your wide-eyed, innocent—well, as innocent as you could look with his dick in your mouth, at least—expression then. his chest doing a flip as you slowly dragged your lips up to his tip to add stimulation to it, the smooching sounds you let out deafening to his ears.

there was something about your facade. it was the way he knew you were just putting up a naive front to rile him up, looking as pure as possible as your lips printed a smile on the top of his shaft, your tongue still poking out to lick him irregularly as if you get to be in control here.

(and, yes, to a certain level you do have control. to a maximum level, you have his utmost attention and all of his heart.)

holding onto the base of his cock, you tilted your head to the side and squinted your eyes mischievously at him. dragging the side of his tip against your cheek slowly, you let out a lewd hum, something like a relieved moan but it didn’t lack a tinge of questioning noise in it, and you watched him as if waiting for his patience to crack, waiting for his tough walls to fall beneath your feet.

he was falling. his face didn’t much show it, and either did his muscles tense under your body weight. but minho was completely surrendered to you; how could he not? you’re such a pretty thing, your warm mouth feeling heavenly as they moved up and down his shaft in an agonizingly slow pace.

his breathing was elevated now, he could feel his chest suffocating with deep arousal, and he wanted nothing more to have your walls wrapped around him now. forget your lips, he needed the tightness around him.

“okay, no,” minho spoke after a moment of thought. he attempted to sit up, his hands moving out to grab at your elbows. “you, get up, now.”

you listened to him, sitting up from your spot while he pulled at your arm. you followed his lead, letting him bring you onto his lap where you heat met with his hardened member. The confusion that once lingered in your head immediately faded away when you felt his girth snug between your folds, a whimper leaving your lips excitedly as you grind down on his member, wanting more friction out of a mere touch.

minho huffed, a tingly sensation fixated at his abdomen. his movements were beginning to get hasty but he has a general direction of what he wanted to do. he wanted you, that was all he knew. and with you sitting prettily on top of him, his mind knew exactly what he had to do despite the pitter-pattering of his heart.

although clumsy, he was precise when he gabbed you by your waist and hoisted you up with your help. he moved his hand down to hold up his dick, angling it right at your entrance before he glanced up at you through his tousled hair.

his eyes were striking, dazzling you as he waited for permission to handle you. you weren’t able to say much, a knot present at the back of your throat that could only be released when you could finally feel full again, full of him. so instead of talking, you brought your hands to your sides where his laid, and you lightly spread your knees further apart to drop onto his cock.

minho moaned lowly, feeling the warmth of your entrance as his tip got lathered up with your essence. he took that as a green light, and with a tightened grip on your skin, he guided you to sink on his length by pushing your body lower and lower until you were sat with him stuck within your walls.

your eyes shut when you felt his stretch, opening you up so deliciously that you needed a moment to breathe. you took all of him in you, his length a pleasantly erotic sensation inside your cunt that even a small scratch of friction could get your head all fuzzed up in a dream.

you felt full, oh so very full, in the most delightful way possible. you felt like smiling when you adoringly looked at him, because you loved him so and you didn’t think you could get this back again. your walls unconsciously clenched around him when you felt like shifting your position a little, and the little breathy sounds he let out a kind of music you adored.

he stared back at you after the sudden commotion and his heart melted. your faint smile was an undeserved treasure you somehow decided to grant him on a daily, and the fact that you always made him feel so snug and good, both chastely and sexually, was nothing short of a miracle.

his hand slipped from your waist to lace through yours, holding you softly as lust blossomed in his eyes.

it has always been the two of you who could make each other feel this way. the thrill of first love, the nostalgia of being intimate, the fear of losing one another—no wonder you two fell in love, it was a match made in heaven.

he brought you down to kiss him, and your arms instinctively flew around his neck. you allowed him a second of solace before pulling away just enough to speak, your voice small with praise. “fuck, you feel so good.”

he laughed, biting at your jaw where his face got draped over by the falling of your hair. “good, but i’m about to feel even better,” he whispered before reattaching his lips to yours. between the tangled lips, you could hear a needy whine sounding from the back of his threat, and you giggled into his mouth. he wanted you to move.

you carefully brought yourself up, your walls scraping past his cock in the process and catching up a burn. then, slowly but still at a non-torturous pace, you lowered yourself back down on him. you kept up with the speed, going up and down on his lap and moaning with every new stretch of your walls.

minho’s hands slipped from yours to caress all over your body, touching you gingerly as if you were his pretty porcelain doll. when his hands met your chest, he gave a small frown at the bra that was still attached to your body, and he quickly unhooked it to expose you completely.

your thighs stuttered when you felt him clamp his palm over your breast, the sudden jolt of pleasure hitting your head. his hands moved to cup your side, his thumbs reaching to press against your nipples and twirling circles with it. then he leaned forward to take your perky bud into his mouth after kissing around the bouncy area, licking your milky smooth skin before his tongue swiped across your nipple.

he kissed across your chest, his lips unable to remove from your skin as you relentlessly moved up and down on him. the plethora of pleasure, the immeasurable amount of enjoyment manifesting into this electrifying sensation all across your veins. it was all from the way minho felt so good inside you, and the passionate touch of his mouth on your everywhere.

“ahh–min–” you hugged him close with a sudden scream, only able to utter his name halfway. the jolt had knocked the air out of your lungs when his cock brushed against your sweet spot, making your knees buckle weakly and your movement halting to a messy rhythm.

minho raised a brow, feeling playful upon seeing your drastic reaction. he pulled away from your face, his eyes searching for your face. “hmm? min–what?”

you furrowed your brows then, a blush escaping to your cheeks at his seductive voice. as you struggled to keep up with the thrusts, you pursed your lips together and flashed minho a soft grimace before you squeezed your eyes shut again at the sensation. you didn’t plan on finishing your cut off sentence and you just wanted to keep hitting the sweet spot over and over again, because god, it made you feel so, so good.

but minho wanted otherwise. unfortunately, he has the upper hand here. he wasn’t the one who’s been moving rigorously the past minutes, he still got lots of stamina stored up for him to hold you in place. you whined when he did, his hands pushing down on your hips to prevent you from sliding up his dick.

you looked at him, your eyes wide as sweat glistened on your forehead, sticking the hair to your pretty skin. the arousal was dripping inside you, aching to be moved around, longing to be penetrated.

hoping to gain an ounce of sympathy, you pouted with a slump of your shoulders and pleaded, “minho, please.”

“hmm,” he squinted his eyes, lightly snapping his hips deeper into you. “please…? please what, baby.”

you clenched your fists, feeling the annoying pain of his slow, slow thrusts. part of you wanted to see how long he could keep up with this, this burningly slow pace. but hellish ache at your pussy overshadowed your tendency to be bratty and childish. all you wanted was to feel the pleasure again, so you begged as he wanted you to.

“please fuck me, minho,” you asked, desperation pumping out of your mouth like gold, “please fuck me–your cock feels good, i–i want more!”

minho laughed lowly, the moany sound hiding under the edge of his voice when he saw how you struggled to speak. the heat on your cheeks adding to the overall flair of his sight, your bare appearance the greatest art he’s ever laid his eyes on. and your words made him soar off the moon, you needy little thing! you’d break yourself with embarrassment to keep feeling the euphoric feeling only he could make you feel, wouldn’t you?

how pathetically adorable. maybe he should help you out a little, the moment a silent fulfillment to his own desire to pound himself quicker into you.

he gripped your hips tighter by digging his nails into your skin and he helped you up on his length. he waited for a moment before he forced your fragile body down on his cock, earning a chocked strangled whimper from you. he continued in a regular rhythm. occasionally, he would push his hips up to meet with your pussy, adding to the strength of the pound and making your moan louder with the strike.

you let loose of your muscles when you felt that you’ve lost the control, and you pressed yourself closer to him in hopes to regain the previous position. the magnified gratification came unknowingly like a ghost, his dick finally able to find your g-spot again, and this time stayed haunting you with every slick thrust.

as your pussy started to salivate more with each snap of your hips, the squelching noise was also becoming harder to ignore. it mixed in with your heavy breaths, the sound of sex reverberating around you both, and you could feel your orgasm approaching inch by inch, threatening your release.

minho was watching you carefully, his eyes fixated on your face as he observed every little movement. your jaw hung open at the constant moaning, your eyes barely able to open clearly because of the overwhelming sensation—everything about you made him feel confident, possibly even narcissistic at some point.

but he really enjoyed the fact that you succumb to him so easily, and you shamelessly showed it through your body without even knowing.

he wondered if you knew you were clenching incredibly tightly around his cock. it didn’t seem to be a conscious action, considering how you could barely string a coherent sentence together. judging by that, though, minho knew your climax was approaching close, and he planned to get you to it with as much care as possible.

pulling you off him suddenly, he sat up quickly and pushed you on your back. he hovered over your body, only laying on top of you after he re-inserted himself inside of you. your legs went around his hips, bringing him closer by the back while he leaned his head down to briefly kiss your neck.

“hey,” he smiled, his hand caressing through your hair as he looked down at you with soft eyes.

you raised your brows at him, silent breathes huffing in and out of your nose as he started to thrust into you again. you touched his face, squeezing his cheeks with a smile. “what?”

minho was right. he does feel closer to you like this.

his eyes shifted down to your lips and back up into your eyes. affection engulfed him quickly, it does every time he stares into your eyes. he gets reminded of the way he fell in love with you again and again whenever he does.

and he never minded the constant reminder. he enjoyed the process. it was a lot of emotional talks, playful banter, and a lot of good sex. all of which he felt like he could have with you for the rest of his life, he wanted to have with you for the remaining of his stupid lifetime.

he unconsciously pounded deeper into you then, his mind wanting you to feel all of him to the rawest sense. you moaned at the sudden change of force but you welcomed it by opening your legs a little more for him.

your toes were curling after a few more hard thrusts, your stomach churning impossibly at the way his cock felt sliding in and out of you. when you felt the tightening feeling in your chest, you looked up at minho and grabbed his hand, huffing out hastily, “min–minho, i’m close.”

“i know,” he hummed loving at you, picking up his pace to bring you over the edge.

you arched your back at the feeling, a silent scream leaving your mouth. he pinned your hands to the side of your head, his hands hugging your small ones, and when your head moved back down to face him, he wasted no time to put his lips on yours again.

god, it was like he literally cannot keep himself off you.

your mind was getting foggy. you weren’t sure whether it was from the passionately way he kissed or from the burn between your legs, but you felt like you couldn’t quite process anything clearly anymore. well, anything except for one thing.

when minho pulled away, he kept himself close. his lips were grazing against yours but he wasn’t close enough to kiss you. and you could feel his lips move against yours ghostly when he whispered, “i love you.”

you processed that one. the words hit you really strongly too, your heart practically sunk up to your throat at them. you wanted to say it back, you planned to say it back, but you only sucked in a strong breath when minho rammed against the sweet spot in you. your eyes rolled back at the unprecedented attack and your back lifted off the couch once again.

“oh fuck–minho, please, please–ahh!”

he continued with a few more harsh thrusts before you released around his cock with a whine, your hands tightening around his at the pleasure. he had his head buried at the crook of your neck, his hips continued to move as he drowned himself in the scent of your body. he was chasing his own high now, his cock twitching inside your warm hold as he pounded into you.

your walls slurped him up, tightening around him to add stimulation. and when he felt like he was about to come undone, he quickly pulled out of you and sat up. his hand moved to his cock, quickly pumping along his length as his eyes trained on your sweaty, delicate body.

you looked at him before slowly sitting up, you went on all fours and crawled closer to him before positioning your face before his cock. minho shakily breathed out a sigh when you nudged your face against his tip, then you stopped at your opened mouth, waiting for him to pour himself over your tongue.

“ugh, you’re gonna swallow me, baby girl?” he hissed out, and he bit his lower lip when you nodded, widening your eyes naively at him.

he groaned, his abdomen tightening at the mere sight of you, hot cum sprouting out of his slit and landing on your stuck-out tongue. you held your breath, feeling the liquid dripping past your tongue before taking it back into your mouth and rolling it around. when you looked back up at minho, you grinned a little and stuck your tongue out at him.

his lips twitted at the sticky substance lingered on the tip, little lines stretching from your lips to your tongue. fuck, you filthy thing! how dare you make his heart all disheveled and gone.

“fuck, you’re so hot,” he muttered under his breath as you sat back on your heels.

you laughed, wiping your mouth and swallowing the last of him. “thank you, you’re not so bad yourself.”

he rolled his eyes then, the corner of his lips turning up into a graceful smile. he tackled you to the couch then, your hot body pressed against yours, but the atmosphere was more romantically chaste than sexual this time. you two were just two lovers naked in each others’ arms, putting complete and utter faith in each other that you would be held safe.

you two went quiet, basking in the silence. but you could hear him, his heart and his skin, pumping and brushing along yours.

would you have thought of this months ago when you first met minho? no. you have dreamt of it, but you never thought it could be true. and the dream was shattered when he suddenly decided to ghost you weeks ago.

but it didn’t matter now. you were here with him, he was holding you tightly like it was the only thing he knew to do.

“i meant to say it back,” you broke the silence first, “i love you too.”

despite knowing the answer already, minho still breathed out a sigh of relief anyway. he pressed a kiss to your head, his eyes closing calmly as he nodded. “i know.”

you smiled. minho has been a lot of things—a nice classmate, a good friend, and a few quick fucks. but you never indulged in the idea of you and him together. the idea that minho could be you and him together, that he could be a partner, a boyfriend.

the idea that minho could be an ‘us.’

[dialovers-translations]

Diabolik Lovers VANDEAD CARNIVAL ;; Laito Route ー Chapter 3

ー The scene starts on the Carnival’s venue

Yui: Haah, haah...Huh?

I feel like I passed by here earlier as well? Could I be lost...?

ー The crowd grows restless

Yui: ...

( Everyone’s looking at me... )

( I guess they can tell I’m human right away after all. They’re giving me these really strange looks. )

( What should I do? I’ve grown anxious again. )

( But I’m the one who came running here. I can’t just go back now, can I? )

( A-Anyway, instead of one of the big, main roads, I suppose it would be better to move to a less crowded place for now? )

ー The scene shifts to a side street

Yui: Haah...It should be fine now that I’ve come this far...

( My body feels hot...I run out of breath after just a  short run as well... )

( Guess I’ll rest up a little. )

*Rustle rustle*

Yui: ( This is because the effects of the drug Laito-kun gave me earlier are still lingering, right? )

ー Somebody walks up to her

???: ...Is something the matter, Miss?

Yui: ! 

( T-That startled me! Who is this person...? )

???: My apologies for suddenly reaching out.

However, you seemed to be feeling really unwell...

Yui: Oh no, please don’t say that...Thank you very much! However, I’m okay!

( I guess she was worried about me, seeing me crouched down by the road like this. )

???: Oh...? Now that I get a better look at you...

Yui: ( ...! Did she realize I’m human...? )

???: Fufu. Please do not be so scared.

Are you perhaps the young human lady who was chosen to be the Queen of the Carnival?

You are the talk of the Demon World right now, so I can imagine you attract a lot of attention everywhere you go?

Yui: Well, yes...

???: But why are you here all by yourself?

Yui: ...Uhm...I actually got lost on my way to the castle...

???: Oh dear...That must have been rough.

I am actually a maid employed at the castle.

Maid A: I just so happen to be on my way back after running an errand, so why don’t we return to the castle together?

Yui: Eh!? You don’t mind!?

Maid A: Fufu, of course not! Well then, can you stand?

Yui: Yes, somehow...!

*Rustle*

Yui: ...Woah there.

( I’m a little shaky in my step, but I should manage. )

( That being said, I’m so glad I ran into such a nice lady...! )

( I should be able to make it to the castle without Laito-kun now! )

???: Hold it right there! It’s my duty to escort her, you know?

Yui: ( Eh...? )

¨Rustle*

Yui: Kyaah!

( Someone pulled me their way and suddenly it went pitch black in front of my eyes...What’s going on out of the blue!? )

*Rustle rustle*

Yui: ...!

Laito: Haah...Bitch-chan! It’s me! Don’t put up such a fight!

Yui: ( This voice, Laito-kun...!? )

ー When Yui opens her eyes again, she finds herself inside goodies store Reine de Saba

Yui: L-Laito-kun!?

Laito: Nfu~ Correct! Geez...I looked all over for you, Bitch-chan?

How could you leave me behind and run off on your own?

ー Laito corners her against the wall

*Thud*

Laito: Did I not tell you to stay by my side? This is the Demon World after all.

Should I punish this naughty girl who won’t listen to what I say...?

*Rustle rustle*

Yui: ...! I-I’m sorry...

ー He steps back

Laito: Fufu. Just kidding. That was a joke. ...However, I was genuinely worried about you.

I wouldn’t have known what to do if my precious Queen Bitch had been assaulted by someone.

That being said, that maid...I wonder what she was planning, reaching out to you like that...?

Yui: ...Eh?

( Why does he talk about her like that? Could she be one of Laito-kun’s acquaintances, perhaps? )

Laito: ...Aah, no no! I’m just talking to myself! More importantly...

I truly am relieved. That I was able to find you safe and sound.

 ー Laito embraces her

*Rustle*

Yui: ( ...! He pulled me in his arms! )

Laito: Haah...I don’t get the opportunity to go on a date with you in the Demon World like this every day.

I wanted to show off a little, so that nobody would try and make a move on you even if I left your side for a while...

However, it seems like the stimulation was just a tad bit too strong for you, huh?

Say, Bitch-chan? I’m sorry for what I did earlier?

Yui: ( ...! Laito-kun apologized... )

Selection

→ No, I am sorry too. (☾)

Yui: No, I suddenly ran off as well...I’m sorry for making you worry.

Laito: Oh dear? What has gotten into you? You’re being quite honest today?

Yui: I mean, I didn’t think you’d apologize...

But it was still mean of you to drug my dessert!

Laito: That’s why I said sorry~!

Hmー I guess I got a little ahead of myself because you chose me? But...

→ I won’t forgive you.

Yui: ( I haven’t fully forgiven him yet but... )

You said sorry, so it’s okay...?

Laito: Say, what do I need to do to lift your spirits, my Queen? Nn...

*Smooch*

Yui: ...

*Rustle*

Laito: I do feel sorry in my own regard, you know~?

Yui: ...Geez, I’m not actually upset.

Laito: Really? You’ll forgive me?

Yui: Yeah. I mean, I’m the one who chose you. Furthermore...

Laito: ...Furthermore?

Yui: ...

( Furthermore...I just can’t bring myself to dislike him... )

Laito: ...Bitch-chan?

Yui: ...L-Laito-kun, you properly apologized this time, right? So!

Laito: ...

I see! Thank you, Bitch-chan!

But, you know, Bitch-chan? The way you put that as if you had no other choice but to forgive me...

It really reminded me of a Queen, you got me a little excited...!

Yui: Eeh...!?

Laito: You might actually be more suited to be a Queen than we all thought. ...Nfufu~

Yui: ...

( Haah...He really never changes, does he...? )

*Creaaak*

???: Hey, you two...What do you think you’re doing in my store?

Yui: Kyah! What?

Laito: ...! Oh, Reine de Saba...

Yui: ( Someone suddenly appeared from the shadows of the shelf...! I didn’t sense any presence at all! )

Reine de Saba: The one and only. I am the owner of this shop, Reine de Saba.

Oh dear, and who might you be...?

Haah, no wonder it reeked of human inside of here...A young human lady, huh?

And you’re the little pervert from the Sakamaki’s, aren’t you?

I was wondering why I hadn’t seen you as of late, but you scored yourself a human female?

Laito: How rude! We’re very busy with the Carnival, you know? We’ve barely got any free time on our hands.

Reine de Saba: I guess that gives you even more of a reason to leave this store at once. This human stench is unbearable. (1)

Aah, I can’t stand this. Hurry up and go before you ruin my goods.

Laito: Uwaah~ Talk about bad vibes~

Reine de Saba: ...I see. The vision I had this morning must have been about you two.

It said disaster would strike today. (2)

Yui: Disaster will strike...? Because of us?

Laito: ...Bitch-chan, don’t sweat it. You don’t need to listen to what this weirdo says...

I was so focused on catching you, I completely forgot about this annoying grandma.

She is infamous for her eerie fortune telling, you see.

This store is no different. Just take a look, it’s just a bunch of creepy goods for people with ill tastes, see?

Yui: Uu...

( Now that he mentions it... )

( They look like old gemstones or lamps on first glance...But all of them give off this strange aura, I’d rather not touch them very much... )

( Not to be rude, but this definitely is not the kind of place I’d want to stick around at for long... )

L-Laito-kun. It seems like we’re in the way, so we should probably take our leave soon...

Laito: Roger~ As you wish, Queen Bitch...There~

ー They walk towards the exit

Reine de Saba: ...Hold it!

Laito: Haah...What do you want? Didn’t you just order us to leave?

Reine de Saba: You didn’t just call me a ‘grandma’, did you...?

Laito: That’s what you’re upset about?

What’s the problem with calling an old lady a ‘grandma’?

Yui: ...! Wait, Laito-kun...!

( He’s going too far, no matter how you look at it! )

*Thud thud*

Reine de Saba: Aah!? You little pervert! I’d love to seal that foul mouth of yours with a spell right here, right now!

Laito: I’m obviously gonna pass on that? Come on, Bitch-chan. Let’s g...Uwah!?

ー A large hole opens in the floor

Yui: Ah! Laito-kun! Kyaah!

( What!? The floor suddenly...!? )

*THUD*

Laito: ...Ow...Bitch-chan!? Where are you!?

Yui: Laito-kun! I’m right here!

Laito: Haah, thank godー Are you okay? You aren’t injured, right?

Yui: I-I’m fine but...It’s pitch black so I can’t see anything. Where are we...?

Laito: ...Good question? Where could this be?

ー The lights suddenly go on as they find themselves in the penalty room

Yui: H-Huh...!? Suddenly the room...!?

Laito: Hmm...Good grief. The hospitality at this store is off the charts, it seems...

???: ...Hehe. Welcome to Reine de Saba’s penalty room.

Yui: ( Huh...? This voice, I’ve heard it somewhere before... )

???: Oi, you guys! Where are you looking? Yours Truly is standing right here!

ー A chibi Ayato appears

Laito: What do we have here~? Well if it isn’t Ayato-kun! ...Wait, why do you look like that!?

Yui: ( !? What...? There’s a teeny tiny Ayato-kun!? )

Laito: Haha~n~ I get the picture now. In short, you pulled some sort of trick on that grandma as well...

I guess she put a weird spell on you?

That being said...Nfufu~ You’re quite adorable when shrunken down to a small size.

Yui: ( Fufu, he does have a point... )

Ayato: Haah!? Look at you makin’ fun of me...Fuck off!

Laito: ...! Aah! Ow! My lower leg!

Ayato: Hah! You two won’t be laughing for long, you know?

Shuu: Well...I guess so.

Reiji: Good grief. I am surprised you lot can remain so carefree when we’ve been imprisoned like this.

Subaru: Oi, you two. Apparently we can’t get out unless we find the key to that door over there?

Yui: ( ...!? Everyone’s small! )

Laito: A key? And where should we look for it?

Laito (chibi): ...That’s easy. One of us has the key. You just have to guess who it is~

Yui: There’s...two Laito-kun’s...!?

Kou: Ahー Geez! You’re confusing M-neko-chan!

Ruki: Haah...This is exactly why I said we shouldn’t leave it up to those Sakamaki’s.

Ayato: Aah!? Shut up! Imma do the explainin’ so back off!

Azusa: In short, this is Reine de Saba’s penalty...Come on, Eve...Do your best...

Yui: Eh!? I have to do this!?

Yuma: Aah? Well duh!? Who else’s gonna do it!?

Laito: Heeh. Break a leg, Bitch-chan! I’m rooting for you~ ...Nn.

*Smooch*

Ayato: Aahー!? Oi, Laito! What the fuck do you think you’re doin’!?

Kanato: ...How about you get started instead of fooling around like that?

Laito: Ow! Like I said, stop kicking my legs! Like if Bitch-chan was doing the kicking it would still be okay at least!

Ruki: Oi, perverted triplet. It seems like you think you can just watch the scene unfold from afar but...

If that woman were to fail, there is a severe punishment waiting for you. Brace yourself.

Kou: There you have it! Well then, M-neko-chan, here we go! Am I perhaps the one...holding the key?

Kanato: It’s obviously me.

Azusa: Eve...It’s me...

Yui: Ehー! No way...

Reiji: Haah, do not let yourself be deceived by other people’s words...Seems like you still have a lot to learn as well.

Ayato: Hehe...Come on, hurry up, Chichinashi!

Explanation: The player tries and find the characters hiding behind the items. Touch them as soon as they pop out their heads.

You can play this game in EASY, NORMAL or HARD mode.

Yui: Laito-kun! I found the key!

Laito: Way to go, Queen Bitch~ You did a fine job~

There you have it...So I suppose I’ll have you little ones behave as well...Heavy-hoh!

*Rustle*

Laito: There, like this, not even Ayato-kun and Kanato-kun can do as they please. Nfu~

Ayato: ...! Shit! Oi, Laito! The fuck you doing!? Let me go!

Kanato: Exactly! What gives you the right to do this to me!?

Laito: Eeh~? But you two are the ones who kicked my leg first, right?

I’m actually the type of guy to hold grudges, you know? Nfu~

Shuu: ...Zz...

Reiji: Haah...Look at this good-for-nothing...Even at a time like this, he’s asleep. The Demon World is doomed as well... (3)

Laito: Well then, Bitch-chan. Let’s go~

ー They open the door

*Creaaaak*

Laito: Haah...We finally made it out. I don’t really know what that was about, but that was quite the pickle.

Yui: But...It might have been a little fun.

Laito: Eeh~? You think so...? Anyway, we better be careful to stay away from that store from now on, okay?

Well then, shall we head for the castle for real this time?

Yui: Yeah!

ー They walk off

ーー TO BE CONTINUED ーー

Translation notes

(1) ったらありゃしない or ‘ttara aryashinai’ is a more colloquial variant of ‘to ittara ari ha shinai’ which is used to emphasize whatever in put in front of it. For example かわいいったらあらしない or ‘kawaii ttara arya shinai’ would mean ‘very cute’. 

(2) Literally she says ‘the seed of calamity will visit’. 

(3) 世も末です or ‘yo mo sue desu’ means that there that world is beyond saving. Since Shuu is the eldest son, he is therefore the person who is most likely to inherit the throne, so I assume Reiji means that if a guy like him were to become King, it would be over for everyone.

← RETURN TO CHAPTER 2

→ PROCEED WITH MAIN STORY [CHAPTER 4]

→ SUB-SCENARIO #1 [W/ SHUU]

→ SUB-SCENARIO #2 [W/ KANATO]

→ SUB-SCENARIO #3 [W/ RUKI]

[mybeautifulbeautifuleternal]

Tea Party

rating: fluffy

warning: canon typical hargreeves family shenanigans. five is a little murdery - its fine

words: 1.7K

AO3

summary: Five has a plan. It does not survive contact with his niece.

Five was absolutely going to blame Klaus for everything. It could only be his fault that Five found himself dressed in a fairy princess dress with matching nails and makeup, attending a tea party.

That morning, Allison had picked up Claire from the airport — Patrick was apparently shooting some sort of documentary in Africa over the summer and didn’t want to leave Claire with somebody in LA or take her with him. Thus Allison got temporary custody while Patrick was away.

Mom was over the moon, loving the chance to meet her granddaughter. Klaus and Ben were almost as excited and Five knew that Vanya and Diego were quietly eager as well, all of them counting down the day until they met their niece. Luther had flown out with Allison earlier in the year for Allison’s court hearing and got to meet Claire in California.

Five was mostly indifferent. He had never interacted with kids before and didn’t really care to now. He remembered what absolute brats his siblings were at that age — even Vanya  — and he didn’t want to get mixed up in that nonsense again. He figured he’d be there to greet Allison and meet Claire and then find ways to not be at the Mansion for most of the summer.

It was a solid plan. He just didn’t account for the rest of his siblings. He was working in Dad’s old office — the seven of them had gone to town on the room, breaking everything in sight, even starting some small fires (Klaus) that were very quickly put out. Afterward, they had given Five the room and told him to do things dad wouldn’t be proud of. Five ignored what Klaus was implying with that statement (that was paired with a pair of waggling eyebrows) and gladly moved into the study.

He had planned on working on his equations to get his adult body back— he had hoped to get them done before the new year but as he sat squished into a child’s chair, sipping at imaginary tea he saw those plans go up in smoke. Five knew — to the bottom of his soul — that he wasn’t going to be able to avoid his family this summer.

“Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to stay. I have work to be doing and this is not going to help.” Five was dead set on leaving this ridiculous thing.

“Oh, what are you working on Uncle Five?”

“I need to finish my quantum equation so that I may return to my adult body. It’s work that’s far beyond the intelligence of anyone currently living in this house.”

“That sounds amazing!” Claire’s voice was appropriately amazed.

Claire was absolutely brilliant and he couldn’t let his dumbass siblings mess that up. Obviously that meant he’d have to be more involved in her plans during the summer to run interference against his brothers. He knew, he just knew, that their idiocy would spread and he couldn’t have that.

Klaus was muttering about princesses and dragons and magic...Five narrowed his eyes and quietly began to make plans on how to limit Claire’s exposure to him. That sort of nonsense was ok — barely — in small doses but Klaus was not a small dose and with him not working...Klaus was going to be a problem.

There was a loud crash followed by yelling and cursing and Five frowned. It was Luther and Diego in the foyer and he didn’t even want to begin imagining what kind of bad habits they could impart on Claire, the fools. He distinctly remembered a phone call threatening a defenseless old woman because those morons thought she had killed Elliot. Which reminded him, he needed to figure out what languages Claire spoke so he could help fill it out with more practical languages. Five guessed she might have Spanish and French, but he had a list of languages that would be more useful to know.

Ben’s laughter grew as Luther and Diego’s cursing did and Five mentally crossed him off his list. Ben had spent too long with only Klaus to talk to — he couldn’t be trusted to make good choices. He might be a good partner on some trips though, isolate him from their brothers.

A selection from the Phantom of the Opera grew louder in response to the nonsense happening in the foyer and Five grinned. He’d have to get Vanya on board with his plans — musical ability was high on the list of things Claire should know and it would be helpful to have an ally in his fight. Claire might even ask for lessons herself if he talked about it in the right way.

Allison...might be an issue. Five was planning on hogging her daughter — but he remembers the fights for the bathroom and the sharp pains of Allison’s elbows. He didn’t need a reminder from her this summer. Nor was he going to allow that sort of senseless violence to come from Claire. Instead, he wanted to nurture a more targeted violence. Claire looked like she had inherited Allison’s pointed elbows and Five had plans for those things. Plans.

Five dove deeper into his thoughts, all but ignoring every happening around him.  

*

“Do you think he knows we can hear him?” Diego didn’t know whether to be insulted or amused. He had rushed home as soon as he could to meet Claire but had run into Luther right in the foyer. It has set off one of their common fights which Allison had to break up. Afterward, she dragged him up to Claire’s new room where they were greeted with prime blackmail material — Five playing dress-up and having a tea party with their brother and niece.

“You think we’d still be alive if we saw this?” Allison did have a good point but on the other hand-

“He hasn’t hurt Klaus, yet.”

“Klaus is probably the reason he’s in the dress.”

“Not Claire?”

“She doesn’t really care for tea parties but she does like messing with people.” Allison sounded smug and proud, a tone that had Diego instinctively shuddering.

“Really?”

“Remind me to tell you the story about the third babysitter.”

Diego gave her a harsh side-eye at that and made the silent decision to never do that. He looked again at Five and Klaus playing pretty princesses and happened to see the glint in Claire’s eyes and knew that Claire was more like Allison then he thought. He remembers the Fight for the Bathroom and wanted no part in a round two.

“Is...is he planning on weaponizing my daughter?” Allison’s voice broke his train of thought and he focused on what Five saying more then what he was wearing and it...concerned him slightly.

“Yes. He is planning on weaponizing her. And I think he might be planning on killing me and Luther.”

“Well, that’s understandable.”

“What’s understand...able?” Luther and Ben’s echoed question slowly trailed off as they spotted the same thing that stopped Diego and Allison earlier. Diego was only slightly wary of Ben’s smile, reminding himself that Ben had spent several years with only Klaus for company.

“Five is planning our murder.” Diego threw Five under the bus with no shame.

“Why?” Luther sounded confused.

“Do you really think he needs a specific reason?”

“Well, I’d hope he’d have at least one.”

“...he grew up with us.” Allison’s tone was dry.

“He realizes that we also grew up with him right?” Diego muttered under his breath as he tried to remember where Mom left the camera. He wanted physical proof that this party was happening.

“Oh, he probably conveniently forgot that side of the story. Is he planning on using Claire and her el-elbows?!” Ben sounded mildly impressed but Diego saw Luther shuddered and finally had some proof that Luther had a brain somewhere in his giant head.

“From the sounds of it, he doesn’t want our idiocy to infect Claire.”

“Soooo...he’s planning on killing us?” Diego had to sound incredulous. Five was skipping like seven different steps that should happen before murder.

“Oh, he’s been at it for a while. Murder is just the latest step of his master plan,” Klaus finally piped up from his seat in the room, proving that the three of them could actually hear them.

“Yeah, but he’s not going to do anything but plan. Right, Uncle Five?” Claire’s voice was sweet on the surface but Diego knew better. The males present in the room all froze and paled several shades. That tone was all pre-teen Allison and the terror they felt was ingrained.

Only Five was brave enough to start talking, “Claire, I don’t think you-”

Claire only raised an eyebrow at him and he shut his mouth quickly and violently. Diego laughed a little under his breath but the way that Claire slowly turned to look at him muted his laughter.

“Why don’t you all come join us!”

*

Grace hummed under her breath a little, stacking the cookies she had just finished baking. Her darling granddaughter had asked for some chocolate chip cookies made with love and Grace was hopeless to refuse. She finished with the cookies and moved to take them to Claire’s room. She met Vanya on the landing, Vanya coming from her music room, and Grace offered her a cookie.

“Thanks, Mom. But why?”

“Oh! Claire was telling me she was planning on having a tea party with everyone and wanted some cookies for it.”

“They’re having a tea party?” Vanya sounded both ignored and delighted.

“Well, I believe that your brothers were pressed into it but I'm sure they’ll be glad to have you join them.” Grace hummed a little, wanting to make her youngest daughter happy again.

She got her wish when they came to Claire’s room and Vanya’s laughter rang out over the conversation happening at Claire’s kid-sized table. Grace smothered a smile, not wanting to hurt anybody’s pride but helpless all the same to prevent the smile from forming in the first place. She agreed with Vanya’s laughter. Her boys did look somewhat ridiculous, dressed in badly fitting princess dresses as they were.

“Not. A. Word.” Her lovely Diego uttered what he thought was a threat but Grace knew that nobody was going to take him seriously — not with his tiara falling off and his make-up smudged.

“Auntie Vanya! Gramma! Join us?”

Grace and Vanya shared smiles and went to get changed — they were attending a royal tea party. They couldn’t wear just anything after all.

[amoralto]

In your recent post from Gloria Steinem’s “Beatle with a future,” do you know the “she” that Derek Taylor is referring to? Or is that supposed to be apple or the Beatles themselves or something? Who Paul didn’t officially say goodbye to? It seems revealing how John would say “nothing’s going to change Paul.” There’s so much there. Oh and one last thing, who was Ringo saying “always worrying about people” ? Idk why but it’s hard for me to tell who was talking to who here.

Re: the “friend from Philly” Derek Taylor refers to, it’s not specified. Somebody better-versed in fan/groupie/Beatlemania-era dalliance stories may be able to connect the dots, but as far as Steinem describes it she was merely one of a few girls who’d met the band while they were in Philadelphia (September 2nd) and had now followed the band to their engagement in New York (September 20th) holding a charity concert for the United Cerebral Palsy Fund at the Paramount, their last gig on the US tour before returning to England to record Beatles For Sale. Here’s all the appearances she and the other girls from Philadelphia make in Steinem’s article:

It was time for The Beatles’ performance. Everyone crowded into the hall, looking expectantly at the room in which The Beatles had been “incommunicado” and “resting,” the same room into which I had seen Ed Sullivan disappear. Paul McCartney came out first, looking soft-faced and vulnerable as a choirboy. George Harrison and Ringo Starr followed animated and laughing. John Lennon moved quickly behind them, but his face was stoic and aloof behind his dark glasses (the face that inspired a London journalist to write, “It has the fear-neither-God-nor-man quality of a Renaissance painter’s aristocrat”). Behind Lennon came three chic young girls, two brunettes and a blonde, in their late teens or early twenties. McCartney jerked his head toward them as he got in the elevator and told some of his staff members to “look after the birds now, won’t ya.”

[...]

The Beatles’ entourage crowded together in the wings, and I talked to the birds. Were they working for The Beatles or interviewing them? No, they were just friends. “We met The Beatles at a press conference in Philadelphia,” said the pretty blonde, “that’s where we’re from.” Two of them wore wool suits with short culotte skirts. They all looked as if they had stepped from the pages of a teenage fashion magazine, and one carried a met them,” corrected the friendly blonde, “and this time we brought along a friend.”

The girls were simply left to sit in an adjoining room apart from Steinem, John, and Ringo, with both Paul and George in their own rooms presumably sleeping: 

The Beatles were leaving for London early the next morning. That, plus the fact that several Manhattan hotels had turned them down, brought them to the Riviera Motor Inn at Kennedy Airport. The rooms were small, barely big enough for a bureau, twin beds and a television set but they had commandeered a whole floor and there were policemen guarding the halls. Our room was jammed with carts of Scotch and Coca-Cola, trays of sandwiches and two photographers, the young ladies from Philadelphia, a tall girl who had followed The Beatles from San Francisco, several journalists who had been on the Beatle tour, a pretty airline stewardess in a very lowcut dress who was acting as hostess, and, occasionally, Neil Aspinall and Derek Taylor. Two of The Beatles were in other rooms, but Ringo Starr and Lennon were in the one adjoining us with the door locked. It was opened only to admit Aspinall, Taylor, one or two other selected young men and liquor.

And at the end of the article: 

I thanked Lennon, who looked worried, and said, “I hope you’re as true as you seem.” I said goodbye to the three birds who still sat in the adjoining room. Two were stretched out on the bed and a third was applying eye shadow. (“Women,” Lennon had once told a reporter, “should be obscene and not heard.”) They smiled their Mona Lisa smiles.

The “charity” concert itself was a point of consternation for the band (think Embassy-level feelings of exploitation, with the audience made up entirely of high society folk who could afford the exorbitant ticket prices and John saying they were treated “like animals”), and yet another thing in a cumulation of things they’d incurred over the past several months that had the band feeling exhausted and frustrated and even disillusioned with the unrelenting scrutiny and tabloid headlines and general mania surrounding them. Which may be why there’s a sense of distrust and weariness from John and Ringo that comes through in the article. 

Add to that Derek Taylor ultimately resigning from his position as Brian Epstein’s assistant (a position he’d only held for about a year) from the stress and that triggering argument with Brian he’s confiding with Neil Aspinall and John about (which Brian would try to backtrack on, asking him to stay, to no avail), and just the random and curious fact that Bob Dylan and Albert Grossman were there in the room as well (which Steinem only gives a passing mention to; sleepless!John and Bob would later have breakfast together), it would seem Gloria Steinem had (albeit entirely unwittingly) caught the Beatles at a very intriguing point in time. 

(I could go on more about Derek Taylor and how his emotional sensitivity/ego and issues with Brian Epstein (his management, his overprotectiveness of the boys leading to possible misattribution of blame, etc.) seems to prefigure his later issues with Paul and later serve as a bonding agent for him and John in mid-late-1968 (although John would still eventually cry betrayal, in typical gang leader fashion, when John interpreted Derek wanting to keep the Beatles together as “siding” with Paul against John), but I have another earlier ask I have to yet to reply to where that would be more pertinent for me to discuss it.)

Re: “nothing’s going to change Paul”, there’s definitely a lot to deconstruct and pick apart there, even if to the uneducated observer (Steinem) it comes across as just another “desultory” aside to pacify Derek, just as he tries to pacify Derek with the Brian issue (“He’s all right, but he doesn’t understand people having a few laughs, not even me laughs with me wife.”). Insert essay here. 

Re: Ringo, I read it as him making a rueful comment on the situation in general, and therefore referring to both Derek and John. I could be wrong, though! The mileage varies. 

I checked through @amoralto to see if I had posted/transcribed any interviews and such from around this time, and it turns out I have! Larry Kane’s with John and Ringo from Philadelphia (as it happens), with Ringo’s matter-of-factness with the tabloid trap they’re in (“I’ll have it on tape, I’ve been called a queer”) and John and Ringo talking about being the band being alone together (“One gets reliant on the others”). 

Also, I’d be willing to post the entire Steinem article if anybody’s interested! Like I said, it’s an intriguing glimpse into the trauma of living through Beatlemania, something which still gets underplayed in the Beatles historiography - and also something I wish Ron Howard’s film could have focused on, instead of just shallow anecdotes by famous fans who went to see them in concert - and a worthwhile read, even if Steinem sometimes comes across as naive and even judgmental. She also unfortunately skews towards (if not wholly believes in) the popular, nigh-deleterious stereotypes of the Beatles (i.e. John as the Most Talented and Most Intelligent and Most Versatile - indeed, she sought out the Beatles specifically to talk to John in the first place) typical of many features/articles from the time (and which still unfortunately continues to this day). 

[system76]

Archiving Satellite Imagery: A Chat About the Lemur Pro with NSIDC

The National Snow and Ice Data Center at CU Boulder is one of 12 data centers across the country in charge of archiving NASA’s satellite imagery. This week, we had a nice chat with Chris Torrence (Software Development Manager) and Matt Fisher (Software Developer) on their work and their experience with the System76 Lemur Pro.

Tell us about what goes on at the NSIDC.

Chris: NSIDC is part of an organization called CIRES, which stands for the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. Our team is kind of a suborganization within that, which is a software development group made up of 14 people. Most of our funding comes from NASA. Our primary mission is to archive all of NASA’s satellite imagery for the Arctic and the Antarctic.

Matt: Part of our mandate is we don’t just have to store the data, we have to make it available openly and freely to our users. Some of our data is a little more restrictive because it’s provisional and we’re still working on it, but it’s important that we service anybody who wants to use our data. So to do that, we wrote a JavaScript application that allows you to go to our website and select exactly what data you’re interested in—without having to write code to filter out the rest.

What kinds of users do you generally see on the site?

Matt: Our User Services office deals with a wide variety of use cases. Even developers like us at NSIDC will go to our User Services office and ask them questions for help using our own data. So they’re servicing developers, scientists, students, teachers, politicians, newspapers—we make products for newspapers and the military as well.

What sort of software does your work entail?

Chris: There’s two main aspects of what we do: Data storage and data distribution. Our web development team builds web applications so that scientists and the general public can come to our website to browse, download, and analyze our data. A lot of our applications are a combination of a front end, which would typically be written in JavaScript, and a back end written in Python which ties the front end into our database. We do also have some legacy code which we have to maintain as well, but those are the two main languages we use. We house most of our data on CU’s campus, though now we’re starting to move some of our data up into the cloud. That’s our next big project. 

Matt: To add to that, we’re also building tools for generating visualizations on our website. ASINA (Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis) provides recent news on what’s happening in the Arctic and the Antarctic. Then there’s IceBridge, which shows flights of aircraft that have flown over the Arctic and taken photographs and measurements of the ice. You can scroll through all the data that’s available, choose what you want, zoom into areas, look at the thumbnails of the images, and then download the data.

Matt: I’m also working on a project called QGreenland. We’re building a data package for commercial off-the-shelf QGIS, which is an open source tool for visualizing geographic data. The data package is focused on the geographic region around Greenland, so people who are going out there to do field work can take along this pre-downloaded data package that covers all kinds of disciplines, including atmospheric data, oceanographic data, human activity data, human health data, and animal migration data. 

Matt: Another data package we built contains different categories of data focusing on Greenland. It shows scientific data such as vegetation biomass, ice streams, glacial termini positions, ice sheet velocity, bathymetric data, and locations of bird colonies. It’s aimed at all kinds of scientists, as opposed to our other work which is focused on cryospheric science.

How did you first hear about System76?

Matt: We had just started buying Linux laptops when I first started at NSIDC. I’ve always been a Linux user, and there were other Linux users here who had been asking for this for a while. I was part of the first test group that did that. We had laptops from another vendor at first that we were having trouble with, and we felt that we needed somebody to provide us laptops that had Linux expertise. That was one of the primary reasons we looked at System76. It also helped that you were local to us and that your systems had Ethernet ports for fast Internet access.

What led you to decide on the Lemur Pro?

Matt: Battery life was one of the largest reasons we chose the Lemur Pro. It had a very modern CPU in it, and we liked that they had a very high memory limit that you could configure it with. I personally appreciate the repairability of this style of laptop. Being able to just remove the bottom plate and replace the RAM is a great thing to be able to do without having to send it in or have a technician show up on-site.

Chris: We had some cases where people were installing Linux on a generic laptop, which was taking a fair amount of effort for them to maintain and keep up to date. That was another benefit of having Ubuntu come pre-installed, so you’re 75 percent of the way to a system that’s ready to go instead of starting from 0.

What distro are you using?

Matt: A few of us are on Ubuntu 20.04. One of us got their laptop a little earlier with Pop!_OS 18.04 installed. He’s since upgraded, and as far as I can tell he really likes it. At this point my experience with Ubuntu 20.04 has me wishing I went with Pop!_OS 20.04 as well because of snaps. I don’t really like snaps, so I had to go through a good amount of effort to disable them and block them from my system.

How has System76 improved your workplace? Contact myriah@system76.com for more information on how to get your company featured in our next case study!

[darlinrogue]

His chest aches, his cheekbone throbs with the imminent development of a bruise. (How? He doesn't remember, as faint as he is. Adam had fought, and he fought hard.) But Kenny is the one victorious. Victorious, but all he's able to do is kneel, half collapsed, his hands against the canvas for support. He doesn't know why. He doesn't know why, but he kisses him, lips to the forehead of the man he—. He kisses him. He walks away. He touches the bruise on his cheekbone, and he smiles. It still hurts.

Kenny Fucking Omega 

w/ the sad yeehaw man

He didn’t hook the leg. 

Adam rolled through the snapdragon and countered with a firm elbow to Kenny’s jaw. He put Kenny on his feet and then lifted the other man by the thighs, over his shoulders. Deadeye, right to the back of the head, a knock-out for a lesser man. Except Kenny Omega was Kenny Fucking Omega, and he kicked-out. The match rolled on, Adam lost, he’d seen the ending twenty-thousand times. The One-Wing Angel was a punctuation point at the end of a statement. Yet, each time he watched through the recording he paused on that one pin after the Deadeye. Adam had Kenny stacked, his full weight on his shoulders. The bell should’ve rung. Except Adam only hooked the left leg. He only hooked the left leg on Kenny Omega. He only hooked the left leg on Kenny Fucking Omega. The best pin he got the whole match. Right after Omega ate: a half-dozen elbows, too many chops to count, a starching power bomb on the ramp, three boots to the face, and got dropped on his head from four feet in the air. The planets aligned, the Scorpio was in Aquarius or whatever, and Adam only hooked one leg. 

“It was the-- it was the right leg!” 

Tony’s voice shuttered through the phone in Adam’s lap. The screen paused on the collapsed forms of the combatants in the ring. Adam face down in the fore-ground and Kenny clutching his leg not far behind. In that moment he hadn’t thought about the right leg. Kenny had kicked out by some miracle but it wasn’t sheer luck. Kenny exploited Adam’s error.  Of course, unbeknownst to Adam the comms were carefully picking-apart Adam’s critical mistake. The legs weren’t neutralized. Kenny could swing his right leg and leverage his weight-out. If Adam had hooked both legs the match would be over, he’d be facing Mox. Instead, he made a stupid mistake so obvious even Tony Schiavone, who would break his hand before he could throw a good punch, pointed it out. 

A headache formed behind Adam’s eyes. He tore his gaze from the screen and glanced-out the window. The dark night streaked black, reflecting back his hotel room and his bedraggled body propped-up in bed. A limp hand fluttered out to find his bourbon on the night stand. He lifted the glass to his lips and found no relief for his parched throat. Adam scowled and returned the glass to where he found it. The bottle was empty too. He couldn’t tell if he was buzzed, drunk, or hungover. Just a dullness, settling in with the ache and exhaustion. Adam used the tip of his finger to edge the glass away from him. A final statement that he was done for the night. He slid down from his upright position against the pillows and sprawled out the bed covers The fan swirled in lazy circles above him. After months of blistering heat Florida had cooled to a tolerable temperature but this room was cooking him alive. His hair was still damp from the shower. He glanced at the clock, 1:43. No phone calls, no texts, no twitter updates, he put his phone on airplane mode hours ago. It was just him, the recording of his life’s greatest failure, and an empty bottle of bourbon. 

Adam lifted his phone from his side. He turned onto his cheek to glance at it again. He hit the play button and the recording rolled. The two men recovered, Adam was up first. He set-up for the buckshot but Kenny anticipated it and rolled him into a crucifix. He was so fucking predictable. Adam used a boot between the ropes to stuff Kenny’s charge three times that night. No wonder he had his leg well scouted. That twisting move on his knee obliterated his chance in the match. Can’t stand, can’t fight. Oh, Adam had a couple more signs of life in him but two knees to the face, well. He was up on Kenny’s shoulders now. Kenny caught the head and Humpty Dumpty took a great fall. The leg hook was a formality. Adam wasn’t even sure he was conscious for this part.  One, two, three, and Adam paused the video again. He haphazardly tossed the phone and it clattered off the edge of the bed. Adam had a life proof case for a reason. 

There was no point in watching any further. 

For a head-spinning minute, Hangman Adam Page was somebody. He was the tag team champion, alongside Kenny Fucking Omega. He was on top of the world. It was all so good. Training with Kenny, fighting with Kenny, sometimes, fighting with Kenny. Getting distracted by another tag-team-- No, Kenny literally dropping Adam like a sack of potatoes was inevitable. He had held Kenny back, made stupid fucking mistakes, hit his partner on accident, got drunk and wandered around arenas like a moron. Bickering with the bucks and ruining his friendships. Adam was an arsonist, he only burned down bridges and never built them. Now he was alone on his Island, just like he always wanted. And he had a lost tournament to prove how ‘accomplished’ Adam Page truly is. Matt and Nick were right about him. For all his bluster, all his big talk, believing in himself when no one else would. Empty words, Adam could talk the talk, but he couldn’t walk the walk. Because he ran-up against someone like Kenny Fucking Omega. 

And he forgot to hook the left leg. 

He didn’t need the video for the next part. Kenny’s head and hand lifted high. Kenny, haloed like an angel of death by the Dally Place lights. Kenny, knelt above him like a prayer at the altar. Cheeks blushed in rose, breath spilling from his chapped, pink lips. Curls like spun gold, framing his sculptured features. Like something out of a renaissance art painting. Out of a great tragedy, Lucifer, Achilles, Gabriel. His lips against his forehead in a kiss as delicate as a flower petal. Paul Turner helping Adam limp out of the arena. Fuck Hangman, and then taking the Uber back to his hotel alone, in utter silence with the guy working the graveyard shift. Alcohol, shower, alcohol, video self-pity marathon, alcohol. He wished his dog was here. Wait, what was that last bit?

Adam lunged across the bed. Kicked into action as if bitten by a Hell Hound. Belly against the comforter his hands searched the floor until he found his phone lodged by the head board. Half-his chest off the bed he hit the play button. Adam slammed against the ring mat. The fall-out, the replay, the play-by-play, the comms chattering, (”Kenny came out the better man”), blah, blah, blah. Paul Turner helped Kenny up. Then he was back down, knelt over Adam, and with great reverence, Kenny stooped to kiss Adam’s forehead. The he rolled out of the ring. Adam paused the video. Then he played it back. Then he paused the video and then he played it back. he paused the video, he played it back. Inch-by-inch Adam slid off the mattress until he was slumped against the floor, legs hooked on the bed above him. He watched that little end sequence on loop until it was emblazoned against his memory. It was so quick the comms didn’t even mention it. 

 A kiss. Kenny kissed him. Kenny Fucking Omega kissed him. Adam laid his hand over his sternum. His heart shuttered in his chest, pounding, tight, and agonizing. Pure pain, looking at the blurred pixels on his phone screen. It wasn’t near enough, the taste of it was like a morsel of food for a starving man. Kenny lingered over Adam in nothing but obscure pixels. What was his expression like? What did he do with his hands? And most important, something the phone could never tell him, why? 

Adam and Kenny were out. Now that his obligations to the tag title were done, Kenny returned to the single arena. Tired of dragging dead weight, tired of the noose around his throat. Kenny walked out on the tag team Adam prayed to stay in. Adam screwed over the Bucks. He spitefully entered a tournament to prove he didn’t need Kenny anyway. Adam didn’t even shake his hand at the start of the match. Not just because he was angry --Adam was pissed in that unshakable focused way-- but because he was afraid. Taking Kenny’s hand, never letting go, too tempting a possibility. The longer he stared at the screen the longer this shameless act of devotion eluded him. 

For the first time in hours Adam turned his phone off airplane mode. He shuffled through the deluge of notifications by dismissing all of them without reading any. He pulled-up Kenny’s contact, drafted a text message.

“Hey, man, good fight today-- well, yesterday, I guess. I just wanted to ask, out of curiosity, did you kiss me at the end? I mean, it’s no big deal. I was just wondering is all like i thought it was a little odd is all. Are you ok? You know you can always count on me, no matter what. I’m sorry i’ve been such an ass. I need to start drinking less, much less. It’s just that everything, the tournament, the belts, it’s been getting to me, I only wanted to prove to you guys I could keep up. I want you to know, I feel the same.”

Adam paused, his thumb hovering over the send button. The last line stained in black font against his vision. He then selected the entire text, cut it, and pasted it into a note’s app. Adam sighed and turned off his phone. His arm slung over his eyes. Five minutes later he was passed-out cold, still on the floor, snoring, and with the lights on. 

[feynavaley]

Submitted by @lotuslol:

Hi Feyna! How are you? I hope you are doing nice! 😊

Reading your miraculous au made me look forward to seeing 2 things out of your stories

1. Villain Marianne. (Sounds like a very fancy villain )

2. Dorky Mathew. (Which will be too cute)

Just wanted to tell you. :)

It also made me interested in how you view the dynamic of Russia’s family in terms of canon and au.

I don’t want to tire you on writing them 😅

I’m just saying that I’m looking forward to your ideas on this family whenever you feel like writing them 😀 because it looks like you have some ideas on them (more than the ones you already shared with us.)

Hope you had an awesome day!

———

Thank you so much for this sweet message, and your interest is very appreciated! 😍

I also have to admit that I have no real plans to ever write that fic, though… 😅 It was just a bit of brainstorming. The truth is, I have never watched Miraculous Ladybug so my knowledge about it is very limited, I would have to watch it for real before writing a fic. And I really don’t have time for that. Still glad you enjoyed the idea, though! And I can certainly talk a bit more about the points you mentioned.

1) Marianne certainly is a fancy villain, haha. I enjoy toying with her. I don’t know if I have already mentioned this, but in my head, I have two different concepts of Nyo!France: Marianne and Francine. While Francine is basically a female version of Francis, with a personality very similar to his own (and his colour scheme, too – ash blonde hair and periwinkle blue eyes), Marianne is based on the comments Himaruya made on his Nyo design – that was supposed to be snobbier than Francis. (And she also has light golden brown hair and lilac eyes, instead.) There wasn’t much more said, but I built her personality from there. She does share some characteristics with Francis, but she’s snobbier, more capricious, and also egocentric to the point of narcissism. Everything she does is self-serving – even loving other people. She does care for others other than herself and is even very protective (or even borderline possessive) of those people she’s fond of, but she is always at the centre of her world and treats everybody else like props, basically. With the people she loves, she doesn’t consider their wishes/needs but tries to shape them to fulfil the role she wants for them. She doesn’t even realize it’s bad, in part.

Now, all this doesn’t necessarily make her a villain. She could also, with time, learn to curb a bit her egocentrism and become more mature. This part of her personality wouldn’t vanish, but she would learn to control it and instead boost her protective side into becoming compassionate and supportive instead of controlling. It could go either way, depending on her life experience. For example, I have already used this figure of Marianne (as Francis’s mother) in both Chrysalis and AKGtBaBB/BtBP, and while she wouldn’t win a mother-of-the-year (or person-of-the-year in general) award any time soon, she isn’t such an awful person, either.

I also do think she’s the kind of person who could turn into a proper ‘villain’ if the right conditions are met, however. And this is what happens into that MLB AU. She finds a lot of power in her hands – more than she can handle – and lets it go over her head. Moreover, her relationship with Arthur doesn’t help. She got him completely wrapped around her finger so he doesn’t question her behaviour or her motivations, he only supports her – while, to grow into a better person, Marianne would need somebody opposing her and calling out her actions.

2) Dorky Matthew is adorable, haha. I mean, he’s a dork in canon, too, but this is overshadowed and hindered by his being so shy and insecure. But behind a mask and being a superhero? The effect would be destructive, haha. On one hand, he feels freer to express himself since nobody knows who he is. (Which, as a 14/15-year-old and an anime fan, means a quite embarrassing behaviour, haha. Corny lines, poses, and all that.) Then, there’s the fact he feels like he has to show his opponents he doesn’t fear them. (To show they won’t win and break his spirit, basically. And to be supportive of Ladybug, too, whom he does realize doubts of herself, at times. So, he has to be a rock for her, too.) And what’s better than laughing in their face instead of being intimidated? …This is where all the puns come from. He really doesn’t realize he tends to go a bit overboard and look like he isn’t taking things seriously instead of simply confident, lol.

3) About Natalya… to be honest, I just used her to fill that role because I was told Kagami is some sort of ice queen who, over time, starts loosening up and trying make friends. And I thought Natalya could be a good fit for a similar role. The rest of her family… Ivan is a businessman. A ruthless one, who looks after his family and provides for them but doesn’t hesitate to destroy people who are in his way. (He doesn’t resort to illegal activities, but he certainly isn’t compassionate or open to compromises.) Family is everything for him, and doing well in his business – no matter what happens to others – is the best way to ensure their well-being. 

Iryna cares a lot for family, too, but in a different way. She’s sweet, compassionate, and believes in caring about people emotional well-being before the economic one. She never had what would be conventionally called ‘big ambitions’ – she wanted a normal job and to take care of her family first. She never focused too much on her career, she even stopped working once she got pregnant with Natalya – she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom for the first years of her daughter’s life. Her husband’s salary would have granted them a comfortable life. But her husband died, and Iryna would have been in a very tight spot if it hadn’t been for Ivan, who basically took her and Natalya in. Now, Iryna works for Ivan as some sort of personal assistant – she knows she can’t change his ways and grim outlook on life, but she wants to lighten his workload a bit, if she can. 

But Natalya (who is still very young, too) has never understood this. Growing up, while she has always loved her mother, she got to almost despise Iryna’s lifestyle. Natalya sees her as a person without ambitions, since she’s just working for Ivan and not trying to make a name for herself. She doesn’t understand that for Iryna, the job isn’t a priority – her priority is her family. Iryna’s happy doing whatever as long as it grants her family a comfortable life – and, more importantly, it leaves her some spare time to spend with the people she loves. This is her most important goal. So, she’d still rather earn less than have to sacrifice the time spent with her family for it. Natalya is still too young to see this as worthwhile. All she sees is that her mother didn’t have a prestigious job and, without Ivan, she would have been in a very tough spot after her husband’s death. Natalya doesn’t want that to happen to her – she wants to be like her Uncle Ivan, instead. With a job so prestigious that it will always make her able to provide for herself and her family, no matter what happens. (And she kind of hero-worships her uncle, too – seeing him always so confident and determined, never backing off from everything. She wants to become just like him.) So, she tries to imitate his work ethics and general outlook – and doesn’t indulge in social interactions because they’re useless and a distraction, unless they are with selected people who could give her something back. Being lonely is inconsequential – the price to pay to be at the top. She doesn’t really need anybody but her family. (Or so she tries to convince herself, at least… Also because by now, even if she starts having the wish/impulse to interact with other teens around her age, she’s clueless as to how to do it because she never worked on her social interactions skills. She ends up feeling awkward and self-conscious, not in control of the situation as, for once, she can’t tell what the ‘right way’ to behave is. For somebody as used to excellence and perfection as she is, it’s very uncomfortable and hard to overcome.)

…

Well, this was quite a bit of rambling. 😅 I hope it can all make sense! I really haven’t fleshed out this story, after all, it was just some random ideas. Anyways, thanks for listening! 💖

Stay awesome 😘

[creampuffqueen]

Worlds of Fire and Darkness | Chapter Eleven (Nysa)

Read this on Ao3! (Here) Comments and asks are always appreciated <3

Nysa comes to the realization that things are very different in Orynth compared to in the Wastes.

The sunlight filtering in through the sheer curtains of my suite was what woke me. For a moment I just laid there, under the crisp sheets with sun in my eyes, trying to remember what exactly was going on. This was not my bed, that much was obvious. My bed didn't have an obnoxiously green duvet or more down-filled pillows than one knew what to do with. This bed, it smelled not of the Wastes, but-

Ah. That was what was different. In my own bed, in my own home, I did not wake up with the scent of Caeda lingering in my nostrils. I shifted slightly, and sure enough, my skin brushed against his beneath the silk sheets. His warmth had me gravitating towards him, and I curled against him with my head on his chest. The movement must have awoken him, as he shifted beneath my hands with a sharp breath.

I listened to his heart beat as he stretched next to me, letting the rhythm of it lull me into a little doze. It only lasted for a moment, because I felt warm hands on my back and my eyes fluttered open again.

"Morning." Caeda's rough voice had me burying my face in his chest to hide my grin. I never understood what it was about his voice in the morning that had me grinning like a little girl, but it was embarrassing enough to have me hiding my face.

I glanced up, into his dark eyes that still looked a little bleary. "Morning." I chirped back.

Instead of speaking he just threaded his fingers through my hair, gently, almost reverently. I let him stroke my head as I listened to his soft breaths, his heart thumping in his chest. I could have laid there forever, and I would have. However, Caeda slowly sat up against the plush pillows and glanced down at me.

"What time is it?" I asked, not wanting to look away from his face to see the clock against the wall. It was almost as if he could sense what I was thinking, and a smirk appeared on his face. I wish I could say it marred his handsome features, but it only served to make him look better. It was like he could sense that thought, too.

"You'd think with it only being springtime the sun would be out later," Caeda mused. "But it's just barely seven o' clock and it looks like it's nearly noon out there."

"Waking up early is good for you." I snorted, finally sitting myself up. I didn't bother pulling the blankets over my naked body, and it was my turn to smirk as a flash of ravenous hunger danced across his normally placid features.

"And," I breathed, crawling over a few inches to rest my hands on his knees, "If it's so early there may be some time for... other activities."

Caeda took my hand and kissed it, pupils dilating as he took in the sight before him. If my head had still been against his chest I knew I would hear his heart thumping erratically and his breath rattling his lungs. It was a thought that had me crawling closer, so my hands were resting by his hips and his chin was at my head. I was close enough to scent myself on him, from the night before.

"You make a compelling argument, don't you." He chuckled. I titled my head, suddenly very aware of my own heart beating frantically inside my chest.

"It's because I'm right." I breathed. Caeda chuckled, the sound reverberating in my bones. He tugged me the rest of the way forward, my knees coming to sit outside his hips and my hands finding purchase on his shoulders. I was hovering above his lap, and it would be so easy to just drop down and-

Before I could act he moved forward, pinning me gently to the bed with a smirk all over his face. I didn't even have time to make a snide remark before he captured me in a kiss and what I was going to say flew completely from my mind.

~~~~

A good morning tumble in the sheets was the best way to wake up, I concluded about an hour later. I was laying atop the sheets, most of which had been nearly ripped off the bed. Caeda was beside me, trailing lazy fingers through my hair again. I absolutely could have fallen asleep again, had the clock on the wall not chimed eight. Had I been in the Wastes I would have already been up for hours, but I couldn't help but wish for more time to just... lay there.

With a sigh, I pulled myself upright and crawled off the bed, not bothering to even stand up straight as I trudged to the bathing room. While the water ran in the bathtub I fished around in one of my suitcases, looking for something suitable to wear. And I sensed, rather than saw or heard, Caeda getting off the bed himself and coming to peer over my shoulder at all my various clothes.

"You should get yourself ready." I said, still looking through my belongings. "When I get out of the bath you should be dressed."

"You're not my mother." Caeda protested. He'd do it, though. Out of all his siblings, he was the most responsible. And of course, he just so happened to do most everything I asked him to, despite his objections.

I hummed in response, not deigning to answer. I selected a comfortable tunic and leggings, deciding to save the nicer clothes for the evening. I laid the garments out on the bed and made to walk back into the bathroom. But, before I did, I pulled Caeda in for one last, lingering kiss. When I pulled away he was grinning without abandon, his pointed canines near gleaming in the morning light. His smile was like a physical blow to my chest, but in a good way, making me not bother to hide my own returning grin.

"Go get dressed." I murmured, before his tender kiss had me pulling him back under the sheets for the second time this morning. Seeming to sense that, he just smirked at me and went to fetch his clothes. I turned away and hurried into the bathing room.

I laid in the tub for a while, just relaxing in the warm water and scrubbing my hair until it was shining like the moon. I pulled myself out when I saw my fingers getting wrinkled, and combed out my hair while it continued to drip-drip-drip onto the tile floor. I toweled the rest of the way off and went back to the bedroom. Sure enough, Caeda was gone, the only proof he'd been there his lingering scent. I got dressed and decided to spare whatever poor maid had to clean up the mess Caeda and I'd made by stripping the bedsheets then and there.

My stomach was starting to growl, but I finished my task and even tidied up some more before I finally gave in and walked out of my suite in search of breakfast. The palace of Orynth was mighty during the night, but in the daytime it was downright glorious. The entire place gleamed, unlike the usual stone castles I was used to. The shimmering made me wonder what the Rifthold palace would have been like if it still had a glass castle atop it.

The problem of this palace, though: It was so massive I had absolutely no clue how to navigate it. All the rooms beside mine seemed to have nobody in them, so there was no one to ask for directions. I didn't know where Caeda's room was because we'd gone directly back to mine from the drawing room. The events from last night were hazy at best, and I couldn't remember exactly where I'd gone. This had me wandering around aimlessly for a good amount of time, trying to find any kind of mark that I recalled from the night before.

I thanked all the gods that I finally stumbled upon a maid, a little slip of a woman with blazing red hair tied in a knot above her head. The poor girl looked terrified to be approached by a witch, though I couldn't blame her. I was pretty scary, even in simple clothes with my hair still wet from my bath. She gave me the directions I needed to the dining hall, where she said breakfast was kept hot until ten o' clock.

With her instructions I felt a little less lost, and even found the dining room with minimal cursing over dead-end passages. Strangely enough, the hall was abandoned save for the platters of food waiting on a side table. Perhaps everyone was still asleep. Or maybe everyone was already up. Whatever the case, I was alone with my breakfast as I sat down with a plate filled high with a sample of nearly everything. In the Witch Kingdom, most meals were usually some sort of cooked game. In Terrasen, it seemed breakfast was made up of all foods from the grains category. There were about five different types of toasted bread available.

I found myself enjoying the silence as I ate, so at odds with what I was used to back home. In fact, nearly everything in Orynth was at odds with what I was used to. It was strange, yet nice, in a way. I contemplated this as I popped various berries in my mouth.

The door creaked open, catching me unaware with a whole sausage link stuffed in my mouth. I looked up, praying it wasn't somebody I would feel the need to fight. As it happens, it was someone I often felt the need to fight: My older sister.

Aris padded into the dining room quietly, her dark hair dry and luscious and plaited back expertly. Her thick-rimmed glasses were resting at the end of her nose, looking as if they'd fall off when she next moved her head. And as usual, she was completely and utterly engrossed in a book.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy reading. But sometimes I wondered if it was an addiction my sister was suffering from. Because no one in their right mind would read enough to ruin their eyesight, and then deny healing so they could wear glasses. Sometimes I wondered if my sister was insane.

She didn't bother with talking to me, not that I was bothered by it. It was honestly in our best interests to avoid conversation as much as possible, especially after spending way too much time in close quarters with each other. She put her book down (a miracle) and served herself some tea and biscuits before sitting down herself. And then she started reading again.

I focused on finishing my food quickly, so I wouldn't end up saying something I would regret. Already I was biting my tongue to not comment on her not being able to even put her book down to eat breakfast. I polished off my eggs and the other sausage I'd taken, (much more lady-like, might I add) and was draining the last of my tea when the door opened again. I didn't even have to look up to see who it was, because their scent gave it away almost instantly- Princess Lyria.

Lyria looked like a living flame as she flounced inside the room, her golden hair as glittering as the palace she lived in. She wove around the table laden with food, plucking bits up here and there and depositing them on her plate. And with a final dramatic twirl she plopped her plate down right next to mine and sank into the plush chair with a girly sigh.

"Are you always this perky in the mornings?" I asked dryly. Even after my morning pick-me-up in bed with Caeda, I was still slightly drowsy, and I knew I would be for likely the rest of the morning. But the Crown Princess of Terrasen seemed as though she'd been awake for hours, being productive or something.

"I am a delight in the mornings." Lyria declared, tossing a strawberry in the air and catching it in her mouth just for emphasis. Her pointed canines cut the berry completely in half, and I couldn't help but grin with wicked amusement.

"Watch this." I demanded, snapping my iron teeth down with a crook of my jaw. Now it was Lyria's turn to grin. I grabbed a handful of blueberries off her plate and threw them at the ceiling, then letting them all fall perfectly at my open mouth before slicing them all perfectly with my new additions. Five blueberries found a new home in my gut. Lyria gave a small applaud to my show.

Before I knew it, we were tossing berries and other pieces of food into each other's mouths just for the fun of it, seeing who could make it further. I couldn't keep the smile off my face; I hadn't had this much fun at breakfast in years.

But of course, Aris had to ruin the fun.

"Could you two stop?" She snapped after removing a bit of eggs from the tablecloth in front of her. "Aren't you supposed to be, like, princesses or something?"

"Who said princesses couldn't have some fun with each other?" Lyria joked. Aris shot her a glare, and Lyria shrugged it off. I sighed dramatically before draping myself over Aris's chair with a pout on my face.

"Why don't you ever have fun, sister dear. Why do you just sit around and be boring all day?"

Aris snarled, glowering at me over the rims of her glasses. Before she could raise a hand to smack me, or send some random object to hit me across the face, I danced out of the way with a flourish, which only served to make her more angry.

She snapped her book shut, something she hardly ever did. And she stood up. I cheered and clapped at her, egging her on. I didn't really understand what made pissing Aris off so fun, but I wasn't about to question it. I caught Lyria leaning against another chair out of the corner of my eye, ready to watch the show unfold.

I flashed my iron teeth at my older sister, who just snapped hers down in return. I circled her slightly, curling and uncurling my fists as I imagined smashing her stupid glasses into her face.

But, our blood-spilling was interrupted by the door opening again. Rygan stood in the entrance of the dining room, looking mildly concerned with the state he saw everyone in. His wavy hair was frizzy and he had dark circles under his eyes, like he had hardly slept. Aris relaxed when she saw him, going as far as to retract her iron teeth back into the slits in her gums. After a few moments, I begrudgingly did the same.

"That's right, it would be rude to spill blood in a dining room that isn't your own." Rygan snorted. He made his way over to the food, diffusing the tension in the room with every step he took. I knew Rygan didn't often think very highly of himself, especially when it came to healing and all the like, but he was one of the best peace-makers I knew. Because not even Amelie, Aris's best friend, could calm her down when she wanted a go at me, but Rygan always could. It was like his own special magic that wasn't truly magic but just as powerful. Powerful enough that Aris and I sat down.

Rygan made his way to an empty seat, and Lyria sat across from him. I watched as Aris opened her book back up.

"Ry, do you know if Sam's up yet?" Lyria asked. At the question, Rygan's head snapped up from looking at his plate, and though it was hard to tell with his darker skin, I almost could have sworn I saw a blush.

"Why would I know?" He yelped.

"Uh, because you're his friend and you probably passed his room on the way here. What did you think I meant?" Lyria snorted.

"Oh, yeah, uh-"

"Take your time." I drawled.

"He's not up. I don't think. No. Not sure." He finally spat out. Lyria rolled her eyes at his strange display, but didn't say anything else. The princess instead stretched her arms above her head and popped some of her joints.

"Well, that was a good breakfast, Aris you should learn to lighten up a bit, and I'm off to train. Do you want to come, Nysa?"

"I cannot deny someone who sees my sister as I do. Of course I'm going to train with you." If Aris heard our comments she pretended she didn't; or perhaps she was too engrossed in her book to even hear. Either way, she didn't react, not even when I stuck my tongue out at her on my way out of the dining room.

Lyria strode quickly through the castle, with the confidence of someone who has had years to master the confusing twists and turns of Orynth Palace. I stopped trying to remember which passages she took after about five minutes and instead just followed her out to one of the courtyards.

The yard was surrounded by trees and stone walls, and I couldn't help but notice the amount of singed grass and burn marks across the trees. Against one of the less-burned trees was a weapons rack, mostly filled with swords and the occasional spear or knife. Lyria made her way over to the weapons and selected a sword of simple make, the iron gleaming slightly when she angled it at the sun.

"Take what you want." She said. "I've never sparred with a witch before, you know. Or a raw-magic wielder."

"Well, if you've never battled a witch, that explains why you didn't know: I don't need a weapon. My own body is weapon enough."

"We'll see." Lyria purred, shifting into a fighting stance. I grinned and positioned myself as well.

I had only just gotten my feet underneath me when the princess charged, Fae speed sending her hurtling towards me. I deftly leaped out of the way, but Lyria only pivoted and came at me again. I dodged, snapping out my teeth and flicking out my nails as I did so. The princess managed to get behind me enough to shove me with her shoulder, but I turned and slashed at her before the shove could take me out. My nails didn't connect with her, that I made sure of, but the princess barely stifled a yelp as she jumped back to avoid the blow.

I grinned, the wild song of combat singing in my blood, heightening every sense as I skillfully dodged and slashed and ducked, leaping and rolling and swiping to my heart's content. From the feral gleam in Lyria's pine-green eyes I could tell she felt the same. The princess was incredible, masterful simply with a sword and her fists, and neither of us had used a drop of magic yet.

That thought sent a surge of energy coursing through my veins, excitement running rampant through my whole body. Magic. I could use it. I sidestepped a sword jab from Lyria and sent my nails flying for her, but she darted out of the way.

"There they are!" A sudden voice nearly got my arm chopped off, had the sword not been capped and I hadn't had the same witch senses I did. I whirled around to see who the hell was trying to distract me-

Of course. Of damn course it would be a Lochan. Folas stood by the edge of the courtyard, with Caeda and Dalias standing near by. Lyria turned to see what the commotion was, and she nearly dropped her sword with surprise. I was amazed she didn't boil herself up with the force of her blush, the kind that turned even the tips of her ears and her neck bright red.

"Don't stop because of us, you two were doing great." Folas said. I caught Caeda's eye and he gave an almost imperceptible nod and grin. On one hand I was appalled he thought I needed his approval, but another part of me glowed with the praise. I leaned against the nearest tree while Lyria looked like she was about to combust on the spot. It was a miracle nothing had caught fire yet.

"If you're going to spend the rest of the day sputtering over a pretty male, then you should at least have the decency to do it from the sidelines so the rest of use can use the yard." I drawled. Lyria whipped her head around so fast I nearly got whiplash from just watching her and shot me a look of pure flame. I just grinned and nodded.

"I'll spar with you, Nysa." Caeda offered, ever the gentleman. He strolled over and selected a weapon, a training sword similar to Lyria's. Gods, Fae and their weapons. I wondered if they ever realized that they themselves were weapons. Oh well.

I adjusted my stance again, watching as Lyria was dragged off the training ground by Folas. Caeda paced in front of me, his Fae stillness making it so his footfalls hardly made a sound. I shifted from one foot to the other, testing my weight on each side. I wasn't injured, nor was I tired in the slightest. This would be fun.

I made the first move this time, lunging for Caeda with my hands outstretched and my teeth bared. He shifted to the side, but I had anticipated that and pivoted right before I reached him so I was aimed again at his throat. This time he ducked low and came up to my side, sword held steady in his broad hands. I kicked out at his feet, nearly barreling into him, making him stumble as he avoided my claws. I rolled and came up behind him, tackling him to the ground and shoving his sword out of his hands.

Caeda rolled atop me deftly, pinning me to the grassy floor. I was able to move my foot enough to step on his toes, and his cry of pain was enough for me to shove him upwards and off of me, and I surged to my feet. Caeda was back up almost as quickly, hands curled into fists and his dark hair messy. I feinted left and struck out right, but ended up tripping on my own feet. I caught myself on him before I could eat dirt and shoved him away before he grabbed me.

Kick. Slash. Duck. Roll. The moves repeated themselves as we circled the yard over and over again, never allowing the other to take the upper hand for long. I was quicker than him, but only barely, only because I was smaller, but it was enough for me to utilize. I slipped out of his grip again with a well-placed push, and he stumbled right into my arms, where I pushed him again to the ground.

I leaped on top of him, pinning his feet with my own and his hands with my own. I realized I didn't have enough limbs to hold a weapon to his throat, but that was quickly resolved by simply opening my mouth and showing off my iron teeth.

"You win." He coughed from beneath me. I sat up, releasing his arms and legs. Both of us were breathing raggedly, and I could feel my hair frizzing up from the sweat and heat as I sat there. But despite this, I couldn't help but think just how handsome Caeda Lochan looked, with dirt on his face and his hair mussed, sitting beneath me. I didn't think twice as I leaned in and kissed him.

It only took him a moment to melt against my mouth, and we both pretended to ignore Lyria's "Ewww" and Folas's "Get a room".

Yes, I decided. Orynth was very much different from the Witch Kingdom. And this case, it was most definitely not a bad thing.

[leatherlaceandblades]

First Meetings

( Taken from a transcript of an RP with @onidephor. Forgive me missing any of our writing booboos! XD )

The beginnings of the project were underway. The next round of conscripts had shuffled into their lines and eventually into their operating rooms. The Colossus project, only an infant idea, marched on. Overseen by the current Tribune, Lillium sas Sylvanius, she had separated out the children from the adults and lead them into other areas. Several had gone into the wings ahead of the current group from a previous raid. A ship from Gridania and other distant lands bore decent fruit. Beyond the Castrum‘ s operating wards rested the newest of the rebirths. These were all people who had freshly implanted augmentations red and raw, swollen in their skin where limb and flesh had been excised. They had no separation, and of the hundred or so, they crowded together in containment cells awaiting the next procedures. Along with the current crowd, a small Elezen youth no older than ten had tucked himself into a distant corner clutching the sore section of his face. Prongs and pliers had stretched and bruised the skin around his eye socket and left his eyelid swollen. When tears welled up naturally from the ache, they came free of the eye in a mix of yellow-red humours from the fresh wound within the socket. He had come here from Gridania. Born with only a single working eye, he had been selected to receive an eye augmentation. The tumor-ridden left eye no longer resided in his skull. The scientists cut it out and implanted the new device with the hope that in a few days the nerves might connect. For now, he was just as blind as he always was, and in far greater pain.

For Viina, it was like a blurring nightmare. One place to the next, not wanting to think ahead, but not wanting to dwell in the past either. Shuffling along always; do what you were told. Eat and sleep on schedule. She kept apart from the others, half by choice, half because she was the only one of her kind - so far at least. No part of her was selfless enough to be truly grateful of that fact; she was terrified and wanting a familiar face somewhere, any where, for some kind of comfort. Her body hurt beneath the thin clothing she had been given; pokes and prods and blood drawing leaving more than a few tender places that even the softest brush of the finest silk would've aggravated. A sniffle was snuffed through her nose, forcing back tears...barely twelve herself, she didn't know how to cope with it. Mutely desperate, she looked around again for something...anything...any-one-...that didn't look scary or beyond approach that would ignore her or shove her aside. That was when she saw him; apart from the others too, little hand cupped to his face and stretch of shadows obscuring most else. It was hard to tell his age, but he couldn't have been far off from her either. Hesitation wiggled in her gut like restless worms before she forced herself to turn and move that way, keeping clear to not run in to someone she aught not. Her shadow would be the first to reach him, for what that was worth. As far back in to his own darkness as he was, it probably did little to add to it. 

And what should she say? 

So she sat down next to him without invitation, bony legs that looked almost too long for her to draw up to her chest.

From the Elezen boy’s point of view, having legs coming and going, dragging by and sitting at random became quickly commonplace in the bunched up spaces they would be moved between. The static sound of constant moaning or crying among other children gave the air no silent moment. The youth had pulled into his own world, shocked, confused, wishing to just go home. Someone had promised him something better than the caves below the dirt, and before he could nod in agreement, his world was black and red. When he realized that the legs were not going to move away from him, he passed a glance, and instantly winced, because the muscles that now tied the device to his skull still had a white-hot ache to them. He tried to keep his eye forward as much as possible, which in itself, was torture.

Viina was passing quick glances at him - flitting little things that made her look incredible nervous and VERY obvious, even though her young child brain was telling her otherwise. At the tautness of his features pulling with the wince though, she felt a huge rush of guilt swell up from her middle, lodging uncomfortably in her chest. She rolled to her side, reaching out a hand with long, delicate fingers that didn’t quite reach him yet - it was just a silent plea for a chance. Her voice was hoarse...maybe from crying or making any a number of other sounds for so long. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. Please don't go."

The young one couldn’t go and couldn’t stay. What was he going to do if he left? What was she going to do? He couldn’t even look back at her because his eye shocked him when he tried. With a cupped hand over his face he could only speak at her. “We can’t go. No one can go. I just wanted to help people. They told me that and then hurt my eye.”

The Viera girl exhaled. She had only meant she didn’t want him to move somewhere else; she hadn’t expected such a hopeless response. No...maybe part of her - a smarter part - had. But on the heels of that came the want to step up...finally speaking out loud to someone. To sound confident -for- them even if she didn’t know them. "Those people, huh." It wasn't a question; they all knew who did the hurting around there. Her hand slowly lowered to balance herself, scooting an ilm or two nearer his side. "What did they..." Trailing off, biting in to her bottom lip. Viina couldn’t be so bold as to ask him what they had done to him. Not when he was still in so much pain from it. "You wanted to help people?" Thinking it was safer. 

His face twisted for a moment when tears welled up again, and instantly burned his whole one side. He couldn't even argue that there was nothing wrong with that eye. "I do. They said I could help people if I went with them. Did they tell you the same thing?"

Brows constricted - another tug of guilt. It might have been so much a safe topic afterall if it only made him cry more. "N-no. It wasn't...like that. I sort of..." A breath in, a breath out. She was a warrior! Warriors could admit they were wrong! That was...that was the right way. So she lifted her chin held high and forced the stammer aside. "I went somewhere I wasn't supposed to. They found me there, but they didn’t ask me anything." Unpuffing herself, head tilting in and down so that she could try and peer at his. She didn't bother to hide this time - nor did she seem to hold on to that common sense that was telling her to mind her words and curiosities "Can I...May I see?"

In a show of trust in this unsure time, he lowered his hand and revealed his face, but his hands shook and he raise his gaze to meet her own. He was devoting all mental energy to not moving his eyes. An ashy complexion and the bruises made it seem like someone had blotted him with black ink here and there. Since the device that had been placed in his hollowed socked could not yet see in its fresh state, his eyelid remained open, yet swollen, around an orb of glassy black.

With her head down, there wasn’t much a need to demand that he look at her. Shock trickled down her spine like icy fingers, thinking at first ‘How cruel!’ before reminding herself of the other horrors they had done. To that, the feeling of wanting to protect surfaced a second time, letting her hold on to focusing on just this one boy rather than the masses; with that focus, she let herself study it...remember it...the dark on only slightly lighter skin tone, the way the skin rose up, angry and inflamed. She wasn't around boys much at all so far in her life. But right then, treating him any way differently than a sister of her own kind would have been wrong. A second time her hand came up setting down touched to the top of his head. "I'm sorry they lied to you." She couldn't say it didn't look bad - it did. She couldn't say it would get better - she didn't know. But she did offer him a tiny little smile. "But...maybe...", a shyness touching her face. "You can help me, if you still want to help somebody?"

When the hand set itself onto his crown, with hair grown long and haphazard, only tossed around more by recent events. Likely, in a few days, it would all be shaved off like the rest of the boys who had come in with longer styles. His hair was white, as all duskwights tended to be. It had an ivory cotton tone. “I-I want to help. What is wrong?”, he asked with a failed attempted to look at her thwarted immediately by a pinch in his skull. Peachy-hued tears welled up in that eye again.

"I'm just - " Viina realized she should have thought it out better, been ready with an answer. It had just popped in to her mind and sounded good at the time! But right then, hearing his voice sad but still willing, the knot got tighter - she couldn’t blunder here! Her smile stretched thin, until a trembling lip was bit between her teeth a second time; harder than the first, turning the skin white. No - she did have an answer afterall and the whole reason she had approached him in the first place. Eyes shut themselves as she did her best to wrestle the expression to look as happy as she could even though she was just a scared lost child too. "I don't know anyone here. Can we be friends?" It was something a naive baby would say...and she wasn’t a baby! But that's what she wanted, honestly. Just one face in the crowd.

A look of surprise wrote itself plainly on his face. He hadn’t seen that response coming - he also wasn’t going to question it. At his age, making friendships was easy and without the bias of adulthood. Without the bias that kept him underground instead of wandering the forest open of Gridania proper watching the healers perform their miraculous spells. “O-okay. Yeah. I don’t know anyone here either. So that’s okay, right?”

"R-right. Yeah, of course!" Her smile turned genuine again even as a prickling started in the corners of her eyes. Relief. That’s what it was...and everything that had before it now just made it almost exhausting. She took her hand from his head, moving it at a slant across her chest to fist at the opposite shoulder in a very sloppy soldier solute. "My name is Viina. Whats yours?"

Somehow, he found a way to make himself tuck in even more so on himself. He seemed hesitant but it would eventually come out. “C-... Clario. S-Sarmantoix. You don’t have to use the last name part. No one else in my family does.” Knobby knees came up to his chest, slender arms wrapping tight around them and hugging them firmly in to place.

"Clario Sar-man-t-..." She wasn’t sure her tongue could wrap around the surname...she had a few unusual ones, but his accent made it all the more a challenge. She wet her lips, a little flushed for the inability to get it out. "Sorry, I may have to skip it after all." In contrast to his drawing in, she opened up; physically and otherwise as words tumbled out. "You're an Elezen, aren’t you? I've seen some before at a distance...I mean, before here. There's quite a few here too. And Hyur and the Roe..Roga-people." Apparently that word was a challenge too. The next moment, she had scooted herself directly at his side, sharing that tiny tucked away place.

“Y-Yeah. We live under the ground, though. You have really long ears for a Miqo’te”, he commented having never known of a Viera in his life. He couldn’t think of any other race that could even come close to having anything similar to the long tuffed ears that poked out from her own mop of messy hair.

"Underground? Why? I bet it smells good - all earthy and fresh! - but so dark! I think the treetops are the best!" There was no missing the longing, if only fleeting as the memory. Looking back at him with twin brown eyes. "Miqo'te? The ones that look like wild cats and hunt too much food?" It came out with a snort. With a shaking of her head to deny his comment, she brushed her ears back as best she could. She’d always been a touch self-conscious about them; even amongst her own kind they were considered far larger than normal for her age, covered in thick dark fur that stuck out every which way as much as her hair did. "I'm a Viera, not a Miqo'te. We live away from your cities, but above ground, in the trees. Every thing we have is a part of them. And it’s a secret." Her eyes got bigger still, dropping her voice to an urgent whisper. "So you cant tell anybody, okay? That's a secret just for us."

Clario’s face scrunched slightly as he tried to take all of that in. “O-okay. I won’t tell anyone. I don’t want to mess anything up”, he said hurriedly not really expecting some demands of this friendship but he would accept anything at this point. He felt comfortable enough knowing he wasn’t alone in this room full of people right now. Talking was distracting him from the ache in his face. “I promise not to tell anyone.”

Her shoulders relaxed...but her ears drooped, this time of their own accord. Though he had readily given his word, he seemed a little confused by it, not to mention that they were -officially- friends now. "I'm sorry. We're not really supposed to talk about it. All the Elders say its really important, because that’s how we stay safe." Following right on that thought, her smile came back. "But I told you and you made it a promise, so I bet once we're out of here, I can take you there too."

Clario looked at her despite the pain it would cause. His young face, wide eye, only one with a gray hue and dark circle pupil stared at her. The glassy eye on the other side showed her reflection, but no life. “You... you think we are going to get out of here?”

Seeing the eye the first time was enough that, now, she didn’t feel so afraid of it. He certainly couldn’t help it, and really, it was almost just like a polished stone from the bottom of a pond. He was just Clario, and one oddity certainly wasn’t going to hurt them or her. Viina’s smile widened even as a hard glint came to her eye. "Of course. Help will come - we wont be abandoned. You can come with me, of you want to, until we can get you home too."

“I’m okay going with you”, he admitted. He curled up again and looked at the ground or any feet that happened to be passing by at the time. “Home is just dirt. And it really doesn’t smell all that great, like you think. I don’t really want to go back. That’s why I told the man that I would help him. It was better than sitting around and doing nothing.”

Ears lifted slightly - an odd half arch. "You mentioned that before...that Those People actually asked you - spoke to you. Wasn’t that scary?" Looking ahead - mostly just grown up legs in various repair of pant types milling around. "What about your dad?" Her own assumptions being that his people would be like her’s...The daughters with their mothers, sons with their fathers.

Clario’s answer came with barely any emotion at all. “I don’t have one” with a shrug of his shoulders. “A lot of us don’t. Or we don’t know who they are.”

"Oh." So very wrong. "What about your mom? Who took care of you?"

Her answer was a long stretch of silence. He only kept his gaze down and didn’t answer directly “She’s not dead”, he said instead.

That drew her attention back, eyebrows up and asking in that childlike blunt way: "What does that mean?"

The defensiveness was immediate when he shrugged again and said with a rushed tone, “I don’t know, okay?” He buried his head in his knees. “Mom said I was an accident and she didn’t want to be my mom. So, she lives near all of us but she doesn’t act like a mom.” He lifted his head up to wipe away a dribbling of tears from his good eye. “Sometimes, the matrons in the forest will give me a cookie if I find them and ask nicely. They are good moms.”

Viina opened her mouth, then closed it. She couldn't..imagine. There were children without parents...but never unwanted. Never treated like an outsider. She ilmed closer, then cautiously put her shoulder against his in a very faint bumping weight. "She missed out. It wasn’t much of an offer, but it was still there. Lots of older people made mistakes, but this one seemed to top them all.

“What do you know”, he muttered. His head dipped down into his knees again, a bony little chin wedged between the thin fabric covering them. “I can’t do anything cool or good. I can’t hunt, I can’t color, I can’t sing. I can’t do anything.”

She thought about it. "I can’t shoot a bow. I can’t run fast as my sisters cause I'm so short. I tried to weave a basket once and it was so bad that it broke as soon as they put an apple inside of it. Everybody laughed. But...I'm good at being me. And some time I'll find something else I'm good at. I bet we could find something you're good at too.", peeking at him from the corner of her eye. "You helped me, after all. I don't feel lonely any more now. That’s something.”

“At least I helped someone”, Clario said quietly. “I want to help more people. When the men said I could help, I said I wanted to help heal people. They said I could so... when I can heal lots of people, and you can shoot arrows and run fast, I can help you, too. Okay?”

Broke the grin, twisting at her middle to rest on her hip, facing torso towards him. "Deal." She held her arm up in front of her, bent at the elbow, hand opened as if waiting for him to clasp it. "We'll be the best team ever and then nobody can say we cant do anything again!"

He smiled for the first time. Small, but there. He reached out carefully to grip her hand in agreement. "D-deal”, he affirmed.

Nodded once, firmly, giving his hand a little squeeze before releasing it. "We'll just have to hang tough until they get us. Or maybe we can do one better...bust ourselves out! Maybe everyone and then we can all be free again to do what we want."

He smiled fully now. With a hardy nod, he agreed to this. “Okay, I promise I’ll help as much as I can.”

"I trust you." As much as any child could with a friend...which was pretty much immediate and heartfelt. She returned to her settled in place next to him, though he could note that her shoulder still remained touched to his. "How...how long ago did that man come see you?"

He shrugged quietly. Time became a blur in here where the sun never reached them. “I don’t know...”, he began to try to answer but an announcement rang overhead. A woman spoke, gruff and stern, “Attention. All are to report to the lower hall. You will be showered and cleaned up for mealtime. That is all.”

Looked up at the voice rang out...then promptly stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry. "Oh boy...stinky water and bleh food. I wonder where they get the meat in there cause it tastes days spoiled." Her hand appeared next to him again - she had gotten to her feet but remained slightly hunched to offer him assistance up too.

“It is weird that they eat bad meat here. I usually just pick around it if the big men aren’t watching”, he said while getting up and staggering a bit from being weak-kneed from sitting. They would have to go to the mess hall now, as the disembodied voice had announced, but at least they did so as new friends.

For the moment, their biggest fear was the mystery of whatever the meat on their plates would be and how empty their bellies would be for skipping it.

[oghoneytryst]

soft skin.

where y/n feels insecure about her skin and wishes it was soft.

a/n: this is my first post and i didn’t mean for it to be so long but I tend to go and on and on. also it’s 1 am so I’ve been working on this for like six hours so I hope it’s good!

-

With Harry being at the height of his solo career, invitations to multiple social gatherings and parties would swarm his and y/n’s mailbox. The events weren’t particularly to y/n’s liking, evenings stuck in extravagantly decorated rooms with the rich and the famous. However, they were colleagues and friends of her boyfriend and she had to support him in every way that she could.

That included being forced to wear expensively lavishing garments to such events that y/n had no particular interest in. She didn’t belong anywhere near those occasions and the Met Gala was certainly no exception. Still, y/n found herself on the day dressed head-to-toe in custom made Gucci, the designer brand that Harry had decided to team up with that night. It almost made her laugh how the theme heavenly bodies would accept the outrageously scandalous piece that she had been tailored to fit in.

The dress was crafted to accentuate her bareness of her skin. Stitched together with a sheer fabric, parts of y/n’s body that she normally kept hidden in long-sleeve shirts and jeans were now exposed for the world to see. The attempt was to represent her as an angel, innocence woven in her soft, untouched skin.

Only that wasn’t exactly the case. From a young age, y/n had been aware of the rough patches of her skin. She noticed how different her arms and legs were from what she would see in the magazines, and though she quickly realized that none of it was real, she was still tortured by some of the kids at her school for how different her skin was.

As she grew up, the insecurity was constantly burning in the back of her mind. She made sure, however, to never express the problem to anybody. If other people didn’t know, they wouldn’t be able to use it against her to tear apart her self-esteem.

 She wondered now if she had told Harry about it, would he still have made her come to this godforsaken event. She had been nervous about it ever since the designer had first brought up the idea for her dress. Y/n insisted that she didn’t need to go all out if she wasn’t even a celebrity that people would be expecting to see. It was then made clear to her that she needed to make an outstanding impression that would give recognition to the designer’s work, as well as Harry.

The two sat in the back of a tinted car en route to the gala, along with a select few of Harry’s team. Harry himself had been styled to perfection, gold crosses and the sort elegantly embroidered onto his suit.

He noticed how y/n began to brush the palm of her hand against the seat in a frantically subtle manner. Taking in her whole demeanor, apart from the dress that cradled her lovingly, it was obvious that something about her was off.

“Are you alright?” Harry enveloped her right hand flat in his own two like a sandwich, feeling the slight moistness between them. “You’re sweatin’, baby.”

“No, yeah yeah, I’m good,” she assured him, continuing to wipe the sweat off of her other hand on the car’s leather seats. It wasn’t as if she could do so on her dress, although this option probably wasn’t any better. 

“Are you nervous?” 

“No, of course not! It’s just ... phew, is it hot in this car or what?”

Harry raised a curious eyebrow at her. The ac had been blasting throughout the entire ride which made the car actually feel quite cool, if not freezing. It also wasn’t as if y/n’s dress was what was making her feel hot. The dress was comprised more by a lack of fabric than an abundance of it.

Harry leaned closer to his girlfriend, speaking lowly to her so that the other people in the car wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop. “What’s really the matter?”

“What do you mean?” Y/n broke her hand away from his gentle gasp, fanning herself with it. “It’s just hot, is all.”

“C’mon. We’ve been together for how long and you still feel like you have to withhold the truth from me?”

“But I’m not withholding any--”

Y/n paused midsentence when she caught a glimpse of Harry’s knowing expression. She should’ve known by now that after all these years, Harry could read her like fine poetry.

“Alright, fine. Maybe I am a little nervous.”

“Is it because of the cameras? The people there?” 

Y/n bit her lip. Yes, the cameras and the people did contribute to the problem, but her nerves extended beyond that. She wouldn’t tell him the specifics of it all, though. Not when she was already dressed up and on her way to the event. Not when she needed to support him amid the insecurities that would surely cause her discomfort throughout the evening.

“I guess I’m just not used to all of this yet.” She shrugged, figuring that it was a good enough answer to divert him away from the real issue at hand.

“I understand that. ‘m sorry for dragging you along to these things. Just want to have the pleasure of escorting the most beautiful angel that anybody is ever going to see out to the world. Let them know how lucky I am.” 

Y/n felt his large hand clasp around her exposed thigh, thanks to the dress’s cheeky leg slit. How does he not feel it? she wonders. The rough sensation is undoubtedly different to what he has experienced before. If he does notice it, he does a fantastic job of not mentioning it.

“Forgive me for being selfish,” he finished. He smirked lightly, admiring absolutely everything about her. The look he had on was capable of brining y/n’s heart to instant joy.

Y/n shook her head. Cupping the sides of his face with her still clammy hands, she brought him in for a loving kiss, lips pressed firmly together and noses softly brushing.

“Never,” she told him when they broke away. “Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. I’m sure it won’t be too bad.”

It was terrible, actually. As soon as they had stepped out of the car, y/n had been bombarded by the screaming photographers and their blinding flashes. She walked past many celebrities on the carpet who had no problem dealing with the attention. She probably could have been the same way given the many times paparazzi had disrupted her in public., but with her body exposed to the media like never before, she couldn’t stop the discomfort building inside of her.

She thought that after the interviews were over that focused solely on Harry (with the exception of y/n being asked about her appearance), the two of them would enter the building and she would have a moment of relief being away from the cameras. 

That wasn’t exactly the case, as there were still photographers on the inside. All of them taking pictures of her look for the night, which would surely be uploaded for the public on the internet to see. It wouldn’t be long before they nitpicked every little detail about her, right down to her most burning insecurity.

It was all getting a little too much for her. Y/n had found the perfect opportunity to slip away when she noticed Harry engrossed in a conversation with Chadwick Boseman.

The lobby wasn’t completely empty, but it was a drastic difference to the overwhelming crowd of celebrities in the main room. Better yet, no cameras. Y/n stumbled to a far corner completely absent of people. Facing the wall covered in portraits of art, she covered her arms with her bare hands, attempting to hide as much skin as she possibly could.

“Y/n?” she heard Harry calling her after a few minutes, his low voice echoing throughout the spacious room.

She didn’t respond. Instead, she was startled by his voice and quickly sniffled away the tears that managed to escape.

“Y/n, what are you doin’?”

“J-Just looking at some art.”

 “Why’d you leave? You missed Chadwick doing the Wakanda Forever thing that you always laugh at when it comes up on twitter. We can probably beg him to do it again if we--”

Harry’s sentence was cut off by the very faint sound of y/n’s sniffle. She still hadn’t turned around, which made him a little nervous. If he was being honest, her voice did sound a little strained when she spoke up.

“Baby,” Harry said in a cautious tone. He approached his girlfriend slowly, afraid of the heartbreaking sight that he might encounter. “Are you crying--”

“No,” she quickly stopped him, dismissing his question with a wave of her hand. “It’s just some allergies or something, I’m fine. Just go back, I’ll be there in a sec.” 

She knew better to think that Harry would ever leave his love in such a fragile state. After all, he could read her like fine poetry. 

Y/n tried to turn away when Harry approached her, but she was trapped when he kept steady hands on her shoulders. She looked down to the polished floor, though there was no use in pretending that she hadn’t just experienced a breakdown.

“My love,” Harry gently whispered, bringing her face up with his hand, cupping it ever so slightly.

He frowned immediately, feeling his own eyes gloss up at the sight of her so broken. To make matters worse, he didn’t even know why.

“Please tell me what’s wrong.” Harry wrapped an arm around her shoulders, bringing her shaking figure close to him. He didn’t care if her tears and makeup would stain his pricey attire.

Y/n stayed silent, wondering how absolutely tragic they must have looked in that lobby. The both of them dressed in elegant garments, wrapped up in each other’s comfort with tears running down their faces.

“I need to know what happened. Did somebody say something in there? Were one of those photographers rude to you? Y/n, you need to tell me what happened, please stop crying.”

Despite his plea, his pressing questions only made y/n cry even more. While his touch was helping a little bit, she still couldn’t push away what had made her so insecure.

“You look radiant tonight, alright? This dress looks fantastic on you and anybody who says otherwise--”

Y/n whined, slightly pushing herself away from her boyfriend who had now been confused as to why she seemed to be even more upset.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“That!” she cried, crossing her arms over her chest. “What you said!”

Harry blinked. “What I said? What, about how you look?”

“Yes! The stupid dress is—it’s just--”

“The dress? I thought you liked it. It looks lovely.”

“No, I mean--” Y/n sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she felt more tears come out. “I mean obviously the dress is gorgeous.”

 “Okay, but ... y/n, help me out here, I don’t understand what the problem is.”

“It’s not the dress that’s the problem,” Y/n said, attempting to even her breathing. “It’s more the way it looks on me.”

Harry still seemed utterly lost. He shook his head, reaching out to run his hands comfortingly up and down her arms.

“Baby, I already told you that--”

“How do you not notice it?”

“Notice what?”

Y/n brought her arms out, shoving his hands away without the intention of being so harsh. She displayed them in front of their eyes, practically shoving them in his face.

“This! How do you not notice how rough they are? My whole entire body, Harry, all of my skin, every time you touch it, how does it not bother you?” 

Harry was taken aback by her questions. His brow furrowed, staring down at her bare arms.

“I ... y/n, how could you even ask that?”

 Y/n stayed silent. With his eyes burning on her arms, she immediately felt self-conscious, hiding her arms with her hands once again.

 “Hey, no, none of that.” Harry tore her hands away, grabbing them in his own. He peered down at her, wondering how long she had been keeping this from her.

 “I do notice it,” he said, shaking his head when she tried to pull away. “Yes, your skin is ... different. That doesn’t make it any less beautiful to me, y/n. Why would you ever think that it would bother me?”

 Y/n shrugged, feeling helpless in her situation. “Sometimes people say awful things.” 

“And it hurts me that you would think I would be one of those disgusting people.”

“Well obviously you would never say anything out loud. But you probably thought about it. And other people, they’ve noticed it too.”

“Who they fuck cares about those other people? Look, I have never thought such vile thoughts about you, my love, I promise. I love everything about you. But you don’t need me for you to realize that the way you are is perfectly fine, soft skin or not.”

 Y/n nodded, although she didn’t quite believe it entirely. She looked down at their hands still wrapped up with each other, feeling a soft kiss lingering on her forehead.

“I should have made sure that you were comfortable tonight, but knowing you, you probably would have lied to support me. You don’t have to do that anymore, alright? We don’t have to be here. You’ve obviously been keeping that in for a long time and you probably have a lot more to say, so let’s go home.”

Y/n sighed. She knew she had a long night ahead of her that consisted of being honest with Harry about how she felt about herself. Though it would require her to dig up a lot from the past, she was relieved that he had turned out to be so understanding. The journey would be slow, but now that Harry knew, she was finally on the path to being comfortable in her own skin. She had no doubt that he would help her as much as he could along the way.

[belost-the-watcher]

@the-lost-lieutenant

Belost lift his head from thick fur, his back aching as he straightened himself up from hunching over the hospital bed. His entire body felt heavy. Numbness kept masked both the cold of the ship and the heat from the fur blanket he'd brought from Aryn's room. Or their room. He still insisted they call it that. Even if she fought him on it nearly every time.

He looked to the top of the bed and found her still sleeping. Sleeping. He wished he could call it that. Sleep implied she would wake up. The chance of Aryn waking up was something the doctors had told him was now 'statistically insignificant.' Yet it didn't stop him from tucking the edges of the blanket around her. His hand drifted over hers and took her by the forearm, giving it a squeeze to let her know he was there. If she could tell at all. If there was even a chance. He didn't care what the doctors said. She was an alien. Similar to galra. Not identical. There could still be something.

But there wasn't. He knew it.

A security guard patrolling the hallway heard the familiar combination of sharp breaths and mumbled reassurances as he passed by her room. It was well passed visiting hours. But they'd all learned well enough over the last couple of days that there was no point in trying to kick Belost out. Even if they managed, he'd find his way back in. Besides, most knew the situation. What could he really hurt?

Belost mulled over what the doctors said. He didn't want to. But there was no getting it out. 'There are no more tests we can do. No more treatments we can give her. You need to say your goodbyes.'

The fur under his eyes matted flat with tears, he focused his eyes on her. If nobody on the fleet would help him, he'd have to go off the fleet.

He drew his datapad from his hip and flicked through the pages of medical documents and procedures he'd scoured over for the last couple of days. Ones the doctors had tried, ones they said couldn't help. He flipped through to his contacts list and selected one he had not used in years.

Within a dim chamber, Silixus sat, cables connected directly from his command throne into his body. The bionics of his mostly reconstructed body monitored his own ship’s functions as well as his commander’s. A single communication request caught his attention. Just as he was aware of it, his voice played through an intercom. “Sir, incoming call I think you will want to take.”

The 6th fleet’s admiral looked to the alert by his console’s display. A priority call on his personal line. From his son. “Thank you, Silixus.” He rose from the command chair of the fleet’s flagship. “Monitor the ship for a few minutes. I’m stepping out.”

“Yes, sir.”

The ship was in good hands, already doors were opening in advance for the Fleet Admiral. Once Silixus was in a system, there was little he was unaware of. Even something as trivial as Theron walking down the hall to his quarters. The content of the call, however, he left alone.

A video feed soon opened on Belost’s datapad, showing the stern as always visage of his father.

“What is it, Belost?” Theron asked out of courtesy. He had a feeling he already knew. Information was something he was rarely short on.

Belost’s face reflected his father’s with a more tired wash painted over it. He looked as Theron expected. Belost looked in thought, trying to figure out what to say before, “It’s Aryn,” simply fell out. “She’s hurt and... the guys here.. they aren’t doing anything. I need some help.”

Theron sat in his room and took a breath. He’d known this moment would come. It was the exact reason his attitude toward the alien had been so sour. He’d done his best to discourage the two. But they’d insisted and now this is where they were. He just didn’t expect it to be quite so soon. “What do you think I can do?”

“Get somebody to do something, dad! She’s getting worse and they’re telling me they’re done trying!” Belost hushed his shouting as best he could, lest he convince the guards to stop turning a blind eye.

Theron looked to his son. “Belost. I know it’s not what you want to hear. But there isn’t anything else they can do.” Maybe it was a good thing she was going so soon. After all, it was less time for him to get attached. Ripping the band-aid off before it got too set. Even still, Theron readied himself for some sort of outburst, a spiteful ‘thanks for nothing’ or ‘I hate you’ before the call was closed prematurely.

Instead, Belost stared back at him. His brow furrowing, convincing Theron the line was coming. But instead, silence. He watched his son’s face twist, almost into a bemused expression for a moment, and then pull into a look of unfiltered pain. His lip quivered and he tried to speak, a tear dragging down his cheek as he spat a panged huff. He shrunk back, tears falling freely, holding his head, squeezing his hair in his claws. Even through the video call, Theron could hear the waves of huffs flushing the air from Belost, only to be sucked back in tightly.

Theron looked to the side, fighting to keep himself composed even as Belost’s hands came in to squeeze at the edges of his datapad, at the last hope he had. Theron could feel it just as if he was right there. He felt his son in his weakest moment, clinging to him, the childlike instinct to come to a parent for them to make everything be okay. He closed his eyes, the pain in his son’s voice tearing at him. He had come to him for help. Despite the years of their relationship falling apart. And now Theron was abandoning him.

There was one thing.

“Belost,” Theron took his pad in his hands. It was the closest to contact he could make given the distance. “I can’t promise anything.” He had already committed himself to his one option, despite how terrible it was. But he couldn’t let him down. “Stay with her and do what you can.” He took a deep breath, “I need to go now. But I’ll be there soon.” Theron stood.

“What are you-” Belost started before being cut off.

“I’ll explain when I get there.” He paused, letting his voice soften for the first time since he’d answered the call, “I love you, Belost.” Then he hung up.

He stood alone in his room for only a few moments before he spoke into his armor’s communication implant.

“Silixus. I need you to leave the ship’s systems for a few minutes.”

“I can do that, but is something wrong?”

“I can’t say.”

Theron sat on-board his personal transport, mind flooded with disbelief and the weight of what he was doing. It undermined his duty to the Empire and even the trust placed in him by the Emperor himself. But it was for his son. And despite the severity of the situation, it was one of the easiest decisions he had ever made.

His transport arrived and he stepped into the 3rd fleet’s flagship. It had taken less than a standard day to get there from his own fleet.The ordinary niceties of meeting and greeting were not there. He had arrived unannounced in an ordinary transport. He wanted to draw as little attention as possible.

So far, the only one who even knew he was there was the one freezing the security camera footage in Theron’s path, unknown to the fleet admiral.

Theron slipped into the medical room where Aryn lay, finding Belost curled around her on the bed.

Belost looked up from his spot beside her, surprised to see his father there so soon. He opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by a finger to the lips motion from Theron. The fleet admiral produced a canister from under the half-cloak around his arm. A purple light shone through the glass.

[spacebrick3]

Duo WHG: Anechoi and VALENTINA’s ‘Death’

A suspicious death from hypothermia, but is it really a death? Or is it one of those famous escapes the Capitol is claiming to support? This is that account, from @ratracechronicler‘s Writeblr Hunger Games!

Night 1:

It was only the first night, and already I wanted out. Before you make any comments, look: First of all, it was cold. I could see my breath in front of my face, and even if Val liked it, I didn’t. And second, there was really no reason for me to stick around. I’d get amnesty if I escaped, and there was no way in hell I was winning this contest. Why wait longer?

You’re trying to justify yourself, Val cut in. It’s ‘cause you’re scaaaaared, isn’t it? 

It was times like this I wished Val had an actual face, just so I could stare it dead in the eyes. Instead, I was reduced to an exasperated sigh. Says the AI, who doesn’t have organs they need to keep intact. Have you seen some of the weapons out there? I’m in no hurry to get stabbed.

Scaaaaaaaaaaaared, she said in a sing-song voice. Somebody’s sca-aaa-ared, aren’t they? Anechoi is sca-aaa-red!

Why do I even keep you around? I wondered as I trekked towards the edge of the Arena. I’d tried to persuade Mazda to just pull me out, but they seemed to be…busy. So I’d have to do it on my own.

My wonderful personality? 

Don’t push it. Alright. I didn’t want to run into the forcefield and get violently electrocuted-

Yeah, that’d probably be bad for me too, Val cut in. I mean, I think those fields would fry even my top-rated circuits.

I grimaced. Glad to see something you care about. I picked up a handful of pebbles and dirt from the ground - the Arena this year seemed to be some kind of forest, with grey trees blocking out the moonlight - and carefully tossed them ahead of me, waiting for the flash and wisp of smoke that would signal the field. None came, so I moved forwards and repeated my actions, stones bouncing away on the ground.

Except for one. Just before it hit, there was a small bright light and the rock bounced back, breaking into two clean halves as it did. I winced. Wow. That’s new. 

You have a plan? Val asked. Or will you just stand here and stare at it?

I’ve been here literally ten seconds. I moved down the length of the field, testing its ins and outs with more rocks. I didn’t know a lot about Arena design, but I did know my electronics. You sorta have to working with explosives, or you cross the wrong leads, get a spark, and then…Never mind. Only happened once.

But here’s the thing. Those forcefields were a massive amount of electricity, and it was being sent through the air. Which, you might guess from the fact wires even exist, is not the best conductor. Either they’d put their generators really close together, so that they didn’t have to push the current through as much air, or each generator was something like a nuclear reactor. I hoped it wasn’t the second one.

That left the question of where the generators were. At least part of the generator would have to be within the field, to complete the current, so I didn’t have to worry that they might be on the wrong side of the field. But I couldn’t see anything that looked like a massive metal generator - the only thing sticking into the field was grass, a few scattered rocks, and then the branches of trees.

Hold on. I picked up a twig from the ground and tossed it at the field. There was another flash and the acrid smell of smoke before the stick fell, half burned away. So…those weren’t tree branches then. Probably weren’t trees either, to be honest. Plan A was to just break one of them. I pulled out the bolt cutter, clicking in the fuel tank. Most things don’t work melted - probably a design flaw.

There was a low-hanging ‘branch’ a bit farther down, about seven feet off the ground. I thanked my genes that I was six feet and could reach it, even if it was a bit of a stretch. That’s your plan? Val asked. Melt it? 

When I’m working with you, I like to keep things simple. Keep your processor from overheating, I said as I flicked the cutter on to the highest setting. A bright red jet bathed the branch, almost vaporizing the bark there and revealing a dark metal beneath. I held the fire there, focusing it on a single spot until it should have been thousands of degrees hot.

And it might have been. But it wasn’t melting. Kick it, Val suggested. I might be able to figure out what it is.

Kick it? It’s seven feet up!

Fine then, she said grudgingly. Hit it. It might not be as good, but I should be able to get a general idea of what it is. I obliged and whacked the metal with one hand. Uh - wait, it’s still-

Yes. In hindsight, whacking a piece of metal that I had just heated to a few thousand degrees was not the best idea. In my defense, it was a stressful time. -hot, Val finished as I yanked it away with a shout of pain. OW ow oW ow ow ow dammit ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow OW OW OW

Well, I think I’ve figured out why you can’t melt it, Val said over my internal shouting. I’ve worked with this before, actually, until SOMEBODY stole me from the lab.

That’s great - ow holy HELL that hurts, I said, clutching my hand and hoping there was water nearby. There wasn’t. What IS it?

I think it’s hafnium tantalum carbide. Melts at about seven thousand degrees Fahrenheit.

Well, that was just great. My cutter was useless for that, so I’d have to go to Plan B. Fumbling with my non-burned hand in my backpack, I pulled out the two sai I’d managed to grab from the Cornucopia. Iron or steel, probably, but it didn’t really matter. Anything was more conductive than air.

The nearest ‘branch’ to this one was about fifteen feet up, but the tree-generator was on this side of the force field, so I didn’t have to use the branch. I picked the cutter off the ground, still glowing with its bright red flame, and melted some of the bark off the generator. It was the same dark metallic exterior, so melting through the generator wouldn’t work either.

The next step was to melt down the knives. They, at least, did what metal was supposed to do when faced with my plasma cutter and started to glow orange. I didn’t have to change much, really - I just had to do some impromptu welding between the two knives, making one long metal stick. It wouldn’t be any good in a fight, but it would work as a wire.

I melted one end to the ‘branch’ then, although I did worry about the connection. Since only the iron was melting, not the hafnium-whatever, I had to wait until it cooled completely before I could touch the other end to the generator. However, since I wasn’t a complete idiot, I took off my jacket and used that to hold onto the wire. That turned out to be a good idea, since as soon as I touched the two there was a blinding flash of electricity. There went that jacket. 

Touching the wire to the generator also cut off the field between the generator and the ‘branch’, though, just as I had guessed. If there was an easier path, then the electricity would take it, leaving the air free from the field. Still as carefully, I melted the other end of the wire to the generator. I tossed another pebble through the space between, just to check I wasn’t going to get electrocuted - it wasn’t flash-fried, which was good - then slipped through the space between them.

It didn’t seem any different, to be perfectly honest. More forest, more trees. But I was out. That was it. I had actually gotten out of the Arena. I didn’t have to compete in the Games anymore. I was out!

Don’t get too excited. We still have to figure out where the hell we are, Val said.

Sure, I replied, feeling more cheerful than I had since the start of the Games, but at least nobody’s trying to kill us now. 

Val sounded skeptical. You’re sure the Capitol isn’t coming after us? They might not appreciate us breaking their forcefield, she said as I started off into the woods. I wasn’t sure which way the Capitol was, but I could find it somehow. There were abandoned train tracks all over, and they all led one place. 

You worry too much, I told her. We’ll be fine.

Gamemaker’s Note: While it was stated we would allow tributes to escape, these escapes were intended to provide as more entertainment for viewers, not as tutorials for current or future tributes to escape. As such, the decision has been made to restrict information about the escape of District 9 tributes Anechoi and VALENTINA. Only Gamemakers and select few will know of their egress from the Games. A report, based on the freezing temperatures in the Arena the night of their escape, will inform the public that the two of them were killed by hypothermia.

[morsmordrehasbeensaved]

CONGRATULATIONS ASH, YOU HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED AS NADEZHDA BURKE WITH THE FACECLAIM OF SUMMER BISHIL!

Ash, this is in-freakin-credible. I didn't see this coming at all, but I'm so glad you applied as Nadezhda! We loved reading through this application and we're so excited to see another Grindie gal on the dashboard.

Check out our acceptance checklist right here on what to do next!

♔ OUT OF CHARACTER INFO ♔

NAME/ALIAS:

Ash (hoe junior)

AGE:

15 aka the granddaughter

PREFERRED PRONOUNS:

She/her

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY:

EST- Still a 7-8/10

TRIGGERS:

None

ANYTHING ELSE:

None

♔ IN CHARACTER INFO ♔

FULL NAME:

Nadezhda Valeria Burke

BIRTHDAY AND AGE:

January 9th 1960; 18

PRONOUNS:

She/her

SEXUALITY/ROMANTIC ORIENTATION:

Homoromantic/homosexual

EXTRACURRICULARS:

Dueling Club

PERSONALITY TRAITS:

+Ambitious: Nadezhda is unable to remember a time when she didn’t feel a strong need to succeed. Walking through her father’s shop, she’d run her hands over the dusty shelves and eavesdrop on the conversations of the many powerful families that visited, a desire to become just like them manifesting inside her. She’ll stop at nothing to reach her goals, including deceit and manipulation when necessary. Her fervent ambitions were a strong contributor to her placement in Slytherin, along with many other qualities she possesses.

  +Shrewd: Always observant of the world around her, Nadezhda is often astute in her judgement of both other people and any situations occurring. With a desire for dominance as strong as hers, she’s learned to pay attention to every single, little detail in front of her, using the information gained to turn whatever may be going on to her advantage. She hardly ever lets down her guard; it’s impossible when she’s so incredibly determined to get ahead. Nadezhda can’t afford to be careless, if she wants others to bow down to her that is.

  +Intelligent: Whether it pertains to her classes or examining others with a careful gaze, Nadezhda has an exceptional intelligence. It was never her first priority, but the need to perform well academically was always present, and she’s kept relatively good marks in most of her classes over the years. Despite this, she also has the tendency to not put much effort into her schoolwork, and leave it all to others when it’s a partner assignment. She finds many of the lessons to be useless, and would much rather use her intelligence for something productive. Therefore, she typically utilizes her smarts in her quest for power, striving to impress.

  +/-Assertive: The concept of sharing is foreign to a girl like Nadezhda. She grew up with no siblings, without the requirement of compromise except when it came to her parents’ orders. She’s always been used to taking charge, and once she made the decision to have the most control she could obtain, it became one of her top priorities. Nadezhda has used her forceful personality to gain what she wants when she wants it. However, her assertive nature also has the tendency to cause others to see her as arrogant and imperious. She wouldn’t mind how others see her, but after a particular incident, she has no desire for anything like it to repeat.

  +/-Independent: Nadezhda has never needed anybody to guide her through life. Her mother taught her poise and pride, and her father was the catalyst for her interest in the darkness, yes, but it is highly likely that she would’ve thrived on her own without their presence. Just as she doesn’t rely on her parents, who hardly pay much attention to her now anyway, she doesn’t depend on anybody. She would much rather get things done on her own, as someone else’s involvement could soil the intricate plans she weaves into each and every decision. Being so independent is a challenge when it comes to interacting with others she isn’t already close with, though. She mostly doesn’t have genuine interests in pursuing other friendships, but people are the best sources of information. She has to overpower her own independence to create the facade that gets people to trust her.

  +/-Secretive: While Nadezhda thrives on the secrets of others, she keeps her own locked away inside an impenetrable cage, steel bars around her mind and heart that only opens for a few select people. She, of course, knows the impact that one’s secrets can have, and if anyone ever got a hold of her vulnerabilities, they could easily use them against her. Nadezhda couldn’t risk that. By keeping personal information to herself, it makes it harder for others to overpower her. Although, to gain somebody’s trust, it’s important to feign interest in them. Nadezhda’s tendency to conceal the real her can often lead to others doing the same, which is the exact opposite of what she wants.

  -Cold: Most people would say Nadezhda was completely void of a heart. While it was true that hers was more grimy and cragged than most, she still had one after all. She simply did not reveal that side of herself, embracing the coldness that encompassed her instead. In an eat or be eaten world, Nadezhda has to be a predator not just to survive but to prosper as well. It’s necessary to crush and cover any vulnerabilities at the risk of them seeping out and others getting a hold of them, much like her secretiveness. As a result, her words often come out biting and harsh. Even while resting, there is a cold and calculating atmosphere present around her, causing many to feel wary by her mere presence. While Nadezhda thinks it exceptionally important to know about everyone around her, she loves the dread she’s able to instill in others.

  -Untrustworthy: If one wishes for someone to rely on for the truth, or to withhold any secrets, Nadezhda certainly isn’t the person they should look to. She’s not one to be loyal to many others, and is quick to use someone else and whatever information she knows about them to her own advantage. She finds forming real connections with most other people to be pointless. They have nothing to offer her besides essential knowledge she needs to rise up to the top. She’s skilled in the art of manipulating her speech and mannerisms into perfect sentences that get her where she wants to go. Whether they’re truthful or morally correct is simply irrelevant.

  -Fraudulent: Over her years at Hogwarts, and beforehand as well, Nadezhda has crafted an image for herself, one that’d lead her to the position she is so justly proud of today. The truth is that to be in power, one has to proficient in deceit. When she first arrived at school, Nadezhda immediately began to attempt to gain information from people, especially those who seemed to be the most domineering. She had no desire to be completely fake, but in order to gain what she needed, it was required to involve a good amount of deceiving. She wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without it.

  BIOGRAPHY:

Darkness. It was what the Burke family was notorious for. Throughout history, the Sacred Twenty-Eight family possessed an affinity for dark objects, magical items that were meant to be kept behind closed doors and used for horrific purposes that many couldn’t bare to picture. Although they were previously known to be owners of these commodities of the dark arts, a lasting name that wasn’t just being truly pureblood had yet to be made for them until Caractacus Burke came along. Similar to the rest of his relatives, he had a strong fascination for the darkness, but also carried a sharp wit, and cunning skills in persuasion. The decision to start a business seemed obvious to him from the beginning, and using his strong ambitions, he put a tremendous amount of hard work into the cause. Contrary to his immediate beliefs, the business did not immediately take off, and in fact did not for several years. Caractacus grew angry as time went on, but was too stubborn to quit on the shop and continued on with his pursuits, no matter how few people entered the store. Although he’d never admit it, he was starting to grow desperate, when a possibility emerged. Caractacus was skeptical of Mopsus Borgin’s offer at first; after all, their family had been tainted by a scandal in the past. However, he accepted, which eventually proved to be a sound decision. With the help of Mopsus, the shop grew vigorously and they eventually formed a partnership together, creating Borgin and Burke’s. Although it was infamous in its sales, and located on a dirty street in Knockturn Alley, it was a legacy.

Caractacus never had much time to spare for a personal life. He devoted all his time and effort to his store, and hardly ever focused on himself. As a determined man, that was the way he wished to live. However, he eventually married to Emersyn Yaxley, a woman he’d initially met a pureblood event. She was one of the few women who could match his cold and cunning demeanor and gave him full support in regards to his business endeavors. The couple was content without children, but they eventually decided to give it a try, and Emersyn soon fell pregnant.

Nadezhda Valeria Burke came into the world on a frigid night, the air cold and biting and the sky dark, almost a testament to the child being born. Her parents gave her the lavish life of a Sacred Twenty-Eight pureblood, a spacious, lush home, and teachings on how to be the perfect daughter from a young age. With Caractacus constantly busy with his business affairs, Emersyn took on the task of most of Nadezhda’s parenting. While her mother wasn’t the exact model of a pureblood princess, she gave Nadezhda lessons in how to be a proper lady. Nadezhda, however, had other plans in mind.

Never were the galas and dresses meant for a girl like her. Nadezhda mostly tolerated them, of course, and she didn’t mind an event every once in a while, especially since they often involved unity between powerful families. But her interests dug much deeper than dances and manners. As a young girl, she was intrigued by her father’s line of work, always doing anything she could to learn more. She treasured the times her father was at home, and often stuck close to him, listening to the stories he told her that her mother certainly wouldn’t approve of. It became evident that Caractacus saw Nadezhda’s potential, and the older she got, the more he told her. Occasionally, she was allowed to accompany her father to work. Not only did she learn about the trade of dark items there, but the trade of secrets as well. She’d roam her father’s emporium, studying the magical artifacts, but she was much more interested in the men in dark cloaks that would make their way into the store, leaving after an exchange of a precious pureblood heirloom and occasionally furtive whispers of power and darkness. Nadezhda felt a hunger for this power, a strong calling for as much as she could get. It was clear that the practices her mother was attempting to impose upon her would not get her anywhere in life. Instead, she’d turn to eavesdropping on family business as much as she was able, and crafting a fabricated exterior for herself in order to gain all the information required to rise above.

Come her time to arrive at Hogwarts, Nadezhda was prepared for her pursuit of sovereignty among a sea of impressionable students. Although she was young, she was ready to begin her ascension to the top, starting with the very moment she bid farewell to her parents and stepped onto the Hogwarts Express. When the sorting hat was placed on her head and shouted out, “Slytherin!” it came as no surprise to her, as both of her parents were members of the House of Serpents and she had a strong cunning and ambitious nature. Although she’d been sure of where she’d be placed, Nadezhda was pleased, as she believed Slytherin provided her with the best route to success. From the moment she reached her table, she began to assess her peers, soaking in each word that left their lips and returning with her own carefully crafted dialogue. She didn’t attempt to put up a facade of being completely kind, there was no point in such a lie, but she was just nice enough to gain the trust of others. Throughout the years, she latched onto a few people she regarded as her real friends, but everyone else? They were mere pawns in the game she had to play on the way to power. Some were more valuable than others, the ones in her own house being the most intriguing. Nadezhda didn’t waste her time with people of lesser status, as they weren’t the ones that were important to her. But the ones on the same journey as her, the people who, much to her displeasure, were above her. Oh, how she longed to gain their secrets. She put all of her efforts into feigning a trustworthy personality in order to get into the circle of information. After all, it was what she needed to use against those above her, and become the more powerful one herself.

Nadezhda thrived on the whispers. Except when they were about her.

It didn’t take much time for her to pick up on the words passed around that pertained to her, as she was already in the thick of the circle where rumors spread like wildfire. She never appreciated casual, mindless gossip, simply thinking of her endeavors as gaining information in order to help herself. But it was evident that some of her other peers didn’t share the same mindset, as they thought it a sound decision to attempt to strip Nadezhda of the position she’d built for herself. She grew aware of the lies being spread, anger rising in her bones and drumming along with her tattered heart. “Her family’s not truly pureblood. That’s why her father made a deal with a Borgin, both of them had scandals to cover.” “She acts like she’s true royalty.” “She’s just a dirty shop owner’s daughter.” “Arrogant and pretentious.” “She’s in over her head, and I heard she’ll hook up with just about any girl that asks.” When she caught a group of her three spreading rumors about her together, Nadezhda unleashed all the ice inside her as if she was opening her own Pandora’s box, letting out the rage that had been brewing escape with strong intensity. She began a fight with the three students in a fairly populated hallway, where all eyes were present to see her prove her worth. The scuffle ended with her successfully hexing each of them with the worst spells she could think of without receiving too horrible repercussions. She was still punished for it, serving time in painstakingly slow detentions, but it had been worth it. She’d shown everyone watching what she was made of, and the stories passed from student to student became not her faults, but retellings of her dominance. People feared to cross her, which was exactly what Nadezhda wanted. Fear meant she was in control, a marionette manipulating her puppets on strings. Nobody dared to try and take her down again, a twirl of her wand and a piercing glare being enough to make most cower.

Still, Nadezhda’s longing to be on top was still ever-present in her thoughts, which lead her to become intrigued by Grindelwald. She’d heard tales of the extraordinary wizard before, and her parents seemed to be in support of him as well. Nadezhda wasn’t one to bow down or succumb to someone else’s rule. Yet, if she were to willingly let someone else take the lead, it was him. As soon as she was able, Nadezhda joined Grindelwald’s Army and quickly began to work her way up through the ranks. If she wasn’t going to be on top, she’d better be damn close to it. Proving her loyalty and dedication to the cause, Grindelwald, just like her father when she was a small child, saw the potential and intensity coursing through her veins, and approved of her high position. Breaking through every barrier to rise up, Nadezhda’s hunger grew more satisfied. For Grindelwald.

Her seventh year at Hogwarts feels almost like a waste. Nadezhda would much rather be participating in the war full time, instead of being stuck with pathetic students. But each blow to the school in Grindelwald’s name invigorates her, and each counterattack leaves her thirsty for vengeance. She no longer idolizes the store or her father like she used to. Why tie her name to a shabby shop drenched in notoriety when she could be much more? She isn’t going to be known as a member of an infamously deceitful family, no. Nadezhda is the Burke that’s determined to be something much more.

ADDITIONAL INFO:

-Boggart: Nadezhda’s boggart reflects the time her power was tested, when people began to try and drag her down from the throne she’d built brick by brick. It is much more intensified, a hoard of whispers growing louder and louder, causing a rush of familiar rage, and much to her dismay, fear. She’s most afraid of being deprived of the power she’d worked so hard to obtain.  

-Wand: Fir (“…this wood….produces wands that demand staying power and strength of purpose in their true owners, and that they are poor tools in the hands of the changeable and indecisive. Fir wands are particularly suited to Transfiguration, and favour owners of focused, strong-minded and, occasionally, intimidating demeanour”), Dragon Heartstring, 11”, Brittle

-Nadezhda’s middle name, Valeria, means “to be strong.”

-While Nadezhda considers most of the people she interacts with as acquaintances at most, there are the people she really does enjoy being around. Two examples are Lucinda Talkalot, her best friend, and Zaccaria Borgin, the girl she’s known since her childhood, and the daughter of her father’s business partner. They are exceptions to her disloyalty and don’t see as much of her cold exterior.

-Nadezhda’s views on blood status have changed over the course of her time at Hogwarts. Her parents were blood supremacists, but never exactly constantly forced anything onto Nadezhda, as her personal views weren’t something they were very focused on. She followed their example, seeing people with a lower blood status as inferior and refraining from interacting with them, with the exception of Lucinda. However, although she’d never admit it, she began to see exceptional qualities from wizards and witches who weren’t purebloods, and came to the conclusion that muggles were the real ones that needed to be controlled. Grindelwald was also the catalyst in her slight shift in beliefs. Her interest in power that lead up to her pledging allegiance to him caused her mindset to adhere to his cause. She’s still not a fan of most people of a lower status, but she’s not against their existence either.

-Pinterest board