#and when he'd had enough he'd politely wait by the gate to be let out

[the-best-bagel]

free roaming outdoor dogs a la cats are not a good idea and are just asking for injuries and conflict but unfortunately i've only ever had great experiences growing up in a neighborhood with a handful of those dogs and i miss themmmmm

[hibiscuslovecandles]

ᯓᡣ𐭩 LOVER BOYᯓᡣ𐭩|Twst First Years

Genre:Fluff,crack,AU, GN!Reader Warnings: Smoking weed,Alcohol consumption,Might be ooc this was the first thing i wrote, not proofread, Let me know if there's any warning I missed! Note: I wrote this some time ago lol I'm just trying to get this out my notes

❤️Summer of 2003. The three months where you were sent to the Rose Kingdom to stay with your grandma and aunt because you didn't give them enough calls.

❤️So there you were following around your aunt, grandma, and your grandma's boyfriend around a barbecue because you literally didn't know anybody there due to not having visited since you were like what 11?You're pretty sure the entire neighborhood is present considering the amount of people here.

❤️The same 4 people were going in and out of the gate to the backyard they looked about your age, you could socialize with them but that'd be more work than it's worth, they've probably known eachother for years and have dynamics already so it's probably best not to intrude

❤️Absorbing in the atmosphere of this place filled you with a sense of nostalgia the smell of hotdogs, the fairylights hanging from the porch,the worn down paint of the fence, the chatter of neighborhood drama that you don't understand, the kids around with pixie sticks, the styrofoam cup of cold knock off Coca Cola in your hand, the famous foldable chairs, the fact that you know when you wake up the next day you'll be covered in mosquito bites, all these things brought a warm feeling to your chest. Maybe this summer won't be so bad you thought as you lay in the hammock.

❤️You were so in peace that you didn't hear the sound of the house next doors dog barking.

❤️Almost in a snap of a finger you fell off the hammock hitting the ground when a group of boys jumped over the fence and into the barbecue.One of the boys having knocked you off the hammock during his escape. You only saw the back of the head of the guy who threw you on the grass without even apologizing as you got up. Orange hair.

❤️Two red heads, A young man and a middle aged woman, yelled “ACE” at the orange haired boy but he didn't hear either or them because of adrenaline or he didn't care because he just hopped into the next backyard with his friends following.

❤️The two red heads along with your aunt,granny,and granny's boyfriend hurried over to you and asked if you were alright which you were, No concussion or anything still they were apologetic, The ginger man in the sense that he was trying to be polite and the ginger woman in the sense she was cussing out this Ace kid

❤️The next day while you were in your aunt's office updating your MySpace blog on her computer your grandma called you downstairs where the the three gingers were waiting in the living room with the middle aged woman grumbling, the ginger man looking tired, and the boy that knocked you over looking annoyed that he was being forced by his mom to apologize to you.

❤️And thats how you met your boyfriend.

❤️Not how you got with him though…

❤️You two actually became pretty good acquaintances after that, no real hostility towards eachother, the reason why he was hopping fences was because he was running away from his friends house after his friends dad walked in on them drinking beer….it wasn't even cold beer.

❤️Whenever your grandma would send you to the convenient store to get her some ointment you'd always pass the basketball court on your skateboard and wave to Ace and depending on what he was doing he'd notice and wave back

❤️On your way back to granny after getting her ointment with the money she gave you Ace stopped you and asked you about your skateboard and if you could teach him how to skateboard, considering the fact you had really nothing else to do other than play a singular game on your phone, Update your blog, Listen to your Grandma's weird ass lore, Watch your trash reality television, Deal with your aunt's bitchy complaining, and sit in awkward silence with your grandma's boyfriend,you agreed resulting in you two swapping emails, numbers and MySpace's.

❤️You both made arrangements to meet on Saturdays at the skatepark since he only stays with his mom and brother on the weekends, trying to help him balance on your skateboard but his stubborn ass being persistent that he could do it and didn't need you to hold his hand like a baby... he ate fucking dirt without using you as a rail he was dickhead but in a boyish dirtbag way where it was entertaining enough you didn't completely wanna murder him and still went back to your place and tossed a band aid at him whenever he'd scrap his knee.

❤️Because you're such a excellent teacher he actually got pretty decent at skateboarding and the two of you managed to convince his mom after alot of begging to buy him a skateboard. You helped him decorate the skateboard at his place almost immediately after it was bought and helped him paint and put a punch of stickers on it.

❤️A skateboard with a swirling black and white checkered stair case pattern, a heart at the center with “TRAPPOLA” across it in ransim letters and a bunch of stickers from childhood shows like Scooby-Doo,Rugrats,Pink Panther,etc. It was a fun thing! So fun infact you two still hung out even after he got the handle of skateboarding

❤️You’d let your Granny and aunt know that you were going to the basketball court they knew you were just going there to hang out with Ace since you've never shown any interest in basketball in the past,Your aunt was far more hesitant on letting you hang out with Ace than your Granny considering your first encounter with Ace, while your Grandma just didn't want you to grow up to be a old lonely hag and to be like her so she actively supported the idea of you hanging out with him and for you to stop being single like she used to. You'd just sit on the bench at the basketball court cheering him on and dodge the occasional basketball flung at you.

❤️“This ones for you!" Ace shouted as he pointed at you, going to shoot,….he missed completely causing you laugh your ass off and him flipping you off, just usual banter between the two you, you made it up to him by buying him some Cheetos with your own money at the local convince store. You had a crush on this guy…You don't know if you had a crush on a loser or if you were the loser for having a crush on him all you know is that you liked spending time with him to the point you spent the entire day with him doing dumb shit around the neighborhood. You two had to book it back home once the street lights were on since that meant you two were gonna get fucking yelled at for being out that late

❤️You ended up getting dropped off first and as you hurriedly pulled out the key to your Grandma's baby blue house you felt a pair of lips press against your cheek before running noises you whipped your head to see Ace rushing away. You call out to him “Date on Saturday?” “If I'm not grounded!”

❤️And that's how you got your boyfriend.

❤️When you found out he'd be attending Night Raven College in the fall you were nervous since you two already lived pretty far away from eachother with him being from the Rose Kingdom and you being from Port Jubilee and knowing how things ended with his ex but Ace reassured you that he likes you enough that he'll message you everyday after classes end and that he'll try to get permission to go to your town to go on proper dates.

❤️And he does message you! He updates you on how his school life is going, sends pictures of his friends and a weird cat monster thing, and complains about his housewarden to you.

❤️You managed to get into contact to his friends Deuce and Yuu on MySpace!They were suprised that Ace of all people had someone i mean look at you!You're a beauty then theres just some guy :/ but hey you guys would exchange school drama letting eachother know what was happening at eachothers schools and they'd update you on dumb shit Ace did that he left out of his story on how his housewarden was being “unreasonable”

❤️Missing Ace has got you scrolling through your blog and Ace's looking at photos taken at dates from over the summer and just hitting you with nostalgia like your first date at the arcade and desperately trying to best eachother at DDR, that one date where he tried teaching you basketball, the date at where you swam in the river where your aunt,granny, granny's boyfriend and his mom and brother were present, Oh! Then there was the date where you two just laying on his mom's couch sipping on cold beers his mom forgot to lock up watching COPS on her TV, then that's the photo of the date where the two of you were being a inconvenience to the 7/11 employee by making slushies and filling them up with candy and overall just dicking around that the two of you eventually calmed down from by just laying on your backs on the abandoned train tracks in the woods.God you need this again.

❤️You actually like this guy enough that you have polaroids of him and you not even on dates just doing regular shit like cooking,walking, him playing basketball, skateboarding, flipping eachother off, holding hands, kissing,etc. All of these polaroids you decided to post on your blog in a messy pile resulting in Ace jokingly calling you obsessed with him despite him having taken some of those polaroids, Yuu complimenting the photos and thinking they look cute, Deuce still being confused Ace managed to bag ya know YOU, and some of other Ace's friends like Epel, Jack, and Cater finding you through Ace's friend list on MySpace and seeing your blog post and asking you ALOT of questions

❤️When he visited your place during winter break for a date it was the first time your parents met Ace, the only way they knew about him was through you showing them pictures of him and your aunt and grandma telling them about him. He tried to make a good impression while also trying to add a bit of his own personality mixed in there causing you to cringe and your parents to be even more wary about him. You told Ace to go upstairs while you tried to explain to your parents that Ace is a good guy you swear!

❤️Maybe your parents had a right to be worried…You two smoked weed in the locked bathroom while Ace helped you dye your hair a pretty color with the new Eminem album that Ace brought in his baggy pants playing from your CD player on the toilet lid. You two kept updating eachother on eachothers lives despite you two already knowing what was going on due to the daily messages it was just nice to talk to eachother face to face again that you two were just saying things the other already knew.

❤️It was nice to just hold and kiss eachother on the now wet bathroom floor with Ace simply playing with your hair lovingly staring at you admiring the new color. The open bathroom window not helping with the weed smell, you know damn well your parents are gonna flip at the two of you so you just lean your head against his chest and ask him to stay with you in the bathroom and he agrees, the two of you just dozing off in the tiny cramped bathroom.

❤️You got grounded for the weed and your parents took away your stash and your parents didn't want you to be with Ace anymore…That didn't stop you from sneaking out with Granny as your alibi to continue seeing Ace.

❤️Thats your bitchass boyfriend Ace Trappola.

♠️Middle school in 2001. Your dad is stingy and sends you to a public schools even though he 100% could afford to send you to a private schools but you couldn't care too much since if you went to a private school you wouldn't have your elementary school crush Deuce!You've had a crush on him since first grade but you were too shy to tell him or have your friend send him flowers you picked on the playground during recess!You've never spoken to him but It's the first day of middle school you can't wait to finally talk to him and see him aga-

♠️Hes blond now? Is all you think as you saw him near a group of delinquents at the start of the year assembly staring at him strangely trying to get used to seeing him with blond hair now, this must be a new development since you lived across the street from him and didn't see him with blond hair until now, you didn't know he hung out with that crowd?Maybe it happened over the summer he just didn't seem like the type to hang out either these kind of kids hell he even had a customized jacket so he was in deep.

♠️This was all you and your friend could talk about the first few weeks into middle school, Deuce always seemed like a good kid with his little rabbit lunch box and Spiderman sketchers but now he's in a tween gang, It just was a suprise is all didn't stop you over swooning over him.

♠️Your friend not showing up to school was also new development, you did ask them if something was going on at home or if they were being bullied which they evidently denied and told you not to press them on the topic if you still wanted to be friends so you didn't push for details just letting them know you're there for them….and you may or may not have voiced your concerns to the school counselor. The next day your friend showed up covered in bruises some of which look infected yelling their head off at you in the school hallway you weren't raised to take this so naturally you yell right back at them causing a screaming match between the two of you making the teachers split you two up.

♠️During 3rd period you glanced out the window in the door and see your friend walk into the bathroom with a group of delinquents following behind them, this immediately caught your attention and asked the teacher to head to the bathroom, you walked into the bathroom and saw your friend being pushed head first into one of the bathrom sinks. You immediately stood between your friend and the person who pushed your friend…it was Deuce. You spat hurtful words at him and his eyes softened in guilt for a second before his hands became fists and he punched you in the face with his delinquent buddies behind him cheering but sadly for him your dad didn't raise no bitch and always told you to aim for the throat.

♠️This landed you both in the principal’s office covered in bruises with a snarl painted on your face and a pout on Deuce's with your dad and his mom. His mom trying to apologize to your dad and the principal for the trouble but your dad was still hyping you up and giving you advice for your next fight with someone. Deuce still got 2 weeks suspension and you didn't face any real consequences other than detention so you basically won the fight.

♠️You and Deuce were not allowed to be in the same clasees and the school factually made sure that the two of you didn't run into eachother but since the two of you lived across from eachother glares were exchanged between the two of you but not fights happened after school. Luckily Deuce and his gang stopped picking on your friend after the situation and if they did start doing to again they know damn well you are not afraid to swing.

♠️To say the least you hold grudges. You didn't have a crush on him after the situation.

♠️Not the best first impression from your boyfriend not how you got with him though:/

♠️2004 White Rabbit Festival, You and your friends decided to attend I mean you guys have nothing better to do so might as well go and have fun right?

♠️You greeted Deela,Deuce's mom, at the White Rabbit Delivery booth when you got there despite her asshole son she's a very kind woman you can't believe such a delinquent came from her must've been from his dad's side

♠️You and your friends ran off to dick around other places in the park before deciding to head on over to the folk museum and inside you run into none other than Deuce Spade in full Rabbit get up something you hadn't seen since elementary school,with some people that were presumably friends of him also wearing rabbit themed outfits. It wasn't Deuce's usual delinquent friends you've gotten used to seeing it was a whole new group of friends probably friends he made while at Night Raven College. You noticed that he wasn't blond anymore and went back to his natural hair color of dark navy blue. Your friends all know you hold grudges so when their eyes landed on Deuce they immediately looked at you worried that hands were gonna be flown, their worry elevated when you moved past them and towards Deuce who still hasn't noticed you yet.

♠️What suprised them is that instead of you tackling him to the ground you placed a firm hand on Deuce's shoulder with a bright smile “Hey Deuce buddy it's been awhile!” catching Deuce's attention and his friends. Deuce seemed suprised by your friendliness towards him but replied politely. You were still pissed at him absolutely but you thought it'd be way funnier to mess with him by being overly nice than just side eye him. Which is why your two friend groups ended up spending the entire festival together.

♠️Deela seemed ecstatic that you and Deuce seemed to be getting along which made you feel bad since now that you two spent almost the entire festival together. he seemed pretty decent compared to his middle school years, he's grown and changed and he's trying to be a honors student that's weirdly sweet, you paid close attention to Deuce and paid little attention to Deela,Deuce's friends, or even your friends! You'd only pay attention to Deuce's friends and Deela whenever they'd mention Deuce's name and would genuinely defend him whenever Grim would make a joke at Deuce's expense which would make Deuce flustered and he'd reassure you that everything was fine…Everyone was exchanging knowing glances even Ortho, a robot who can't experience crushes, knew. You even helped Silver with his alarm clock why? Maybe Deuce was rubbing off on you. Your friends were annoyed that you guys were basically hanging out with strangers now but you insisted that it was just to mess with Deuce's head little bit and totally not because you enjoyed spending time with him and like getting to know him as a person

♠️Even though most people don't eat with someone they've had beef with since middle school or share stories from elementary school to his friends and mom that Deuce doesn't even remember and refuse to explain how you knew those things despite only interacting with him in middle school. Epel decided to help Deuce out and nudge him closer to you and try to get Deuce to let some compliments about you slip but Deuce either got confused or flushed which annoyed your friends and Deuce's who know there's some sort of romantic tension going on its just that you two were in denial and your friendgroups were frustrated.

♠️Then a group of delinquents kicked Deela's booth and a bet was placed.

♠️You remember standing next to Deela with your friendgroup being antsy since if Deuce and his friends won the race. the delinquents would have to apologize to Deela if they won or theyd gave to give the delinquents money. You were genuinely worried not for Deuce but for those delinquents! Cauldron Deuce is what they called him in middle school he took on 100 armed guys completely unarmed. Those delinquents don't realize who their messing with. Just as you thought Deuce and his friends managed to run out the maze and won and the delinquents were fearfully forced to apologize.

♠️The sun setting and you said bye to Deela,Your friends,Deuce's friends,and Deuce. You were about to leave until Deuce hugged you…Deuce realizing what he just did leapt off of you and apologized for hugging you….and punching you in 6th grade. He says that he had a crush on you since 3rd grade and that because he became a delinquent he had to fit the mold and that he's sorry and if you two could start over. You hand him your phone and tell him to add his number and ask him if he wants to go on a date some time.

♠️Thats how you got with your boyfriend Deuce

♠️You two would call frequently, mostly from your end since he'd forget due to school work or hanging out with friends. You let Deuce plan your first date over a phone call, You'd come onto his campus and you guys would watch movies together,it was something really simple for a first date!So you didn't dress up too much just a simple outfit.

♠️Deuce was waiting for you by the mirror in a just as casual outfit and the two of you got told what you can and can't do on campus before being allowed to leave the mirror chamber. You kept asking Deuce where he was taking you as the two of you got further and further away from the main building, there's no way they put the dorms this far away from the actual school building right?Your confusion only enhanced when you and Deuce ended up infront of this beat up looking mansion…When the two of you went inside you realize the inside was pretty well furnished didn't mean you weren't worried about falling through the wooden floor. Deuce seemed nervous as he showed you the DVD's you could pick to watch, most of which were Adam Sandler films, you made sure to let Deuce know this was a completely first date and that whatever movie would be nice.

♠️The two of you sat on the beat up black and white striped couch watching a Adam Sandler movie on the dusty old TV, you try to make small talk by commenting on the movie and making jokes but Deuce only laughed and kept his eyes glued forwards, Deuce has been really tense this entire date. Slinging your arm over his shoulders you tell Deuce to loosen up and that the date is going perfectly. Deuce is just blushing at you before nodding firmly and letting his muscles relax. Deuce is engaging with you more now and is opening up more!Who knew Adam Sandler movies were the key to a great date!The two of you are cuddled up together making fun of the characters and their choices as if he wasn't just nervous seconds ago! Nothing can mess this up!

♠️“Deuce what are you doing?” is what comes immediately after the front door creaked open showing Yuu and Grim two people you haven't seen in a hot second. Upon hearing the voice all the color in Deuce's face drained as his turned to look at Yuu and he immediately began to apologize profusely to Yuu leaving you,Grim, and Yuu in confusion in two different ways. You in the sense of “Why are they here?” And them in the “Why are you guys in our home?”. Deuce sensing the confusion from both of you explained that he thought Ramshackle would be the perfect place to hold for the date since compared to the other dorms there wasn't exactly alot of people in Ramshackle to interrupt or disturb your date….still got interrupted. Deuce apologized to all of you and said he understood if you didn't want to continue going out with him after this. You hugged him and just said “This was perfect. Let me pick the next date.”

♠️The second date was also a casual one, you picked a simple mall date, You waited for Deuce at the entrance of the mall for about ten minutes before he came rushing in panting his sweat leading through hisshirt, his hands on his pants trying to catch his breath, Turns out the mirror was further away from the mall than both of you thought and he ran all the way here so you didn't think he flaked on you. That's actually really sweet. For his effort you treated him to some Wendy's in the food court and he insisted on getting you ice cream for you.

♠️You had to initiate hand holding as you guys were walking since Deuce was too scared to hold yours first. When you grabbed his hand everything disappeared for him all his eyes could focus on was your two hands conjoined. He holds your hand a bit tighter as a light blush covers his face a sense of joy washes over him as he stares at the two hands holding eachother.

♠️This date helped the two of you get to know eachother better! When going into FYE the two of you made fun of eachother for the CD’s you guys bought and mocking eachother for the others taste in music sure Britney Spears might be basic but Nelly isn't any less basic Deuce. Deuce was suprised that you wanted to take to your dad's country club for the second date but settled for the mall I mean wouldn't that had been alot for a second date?He's grateful you picked mall.

♠️Deuce and you laughing your asses off in the Yankee Candle at the stupid ass candle names. Who tf wants a bacon candle?You and Deuce apparently because now you this have matching bacon candles.

♠️By the end of the date you walked him back to the mirror and have him a little kiss on the cheek if this was a cartoon his eyes would be hearts and he'd have a comically wobbly smile and you both agreed you'd take turns planning dates and the third date would be his job.

♠️You’re boyfriend is a loser<3

🐺Winter break in 03 visiting your stepmother's family…Kinda sucked when your merfolk visiting a cold place during the coldest time of the year.

🐺Your stepmom practically begged your dad to visit her family during winter break, you and your dad were pretty okay with the idea having visited the place before during the summer, neither of you were ready for how cold it was during winter

🐺It was almost comical how bundled up you and your dad were compared to your stepmother. Sure she was dressed warmly but you and your dad looked like cartoons with the amount of layers you two had on. Sure it was still cold even in the summer but it was more a sweater and windbreaker cold not wearing two winter coats and five sweaters cold!

🐺The moment you guys stepped inside the ski lodge your step family owned you and your dad rushed to the fire place getting a good laugh from the family of deer beastmen.

🐺While you were unpacking in the room that your step family gave you one of them walked into the room and told you since you were family if you wanted to during winter break you could work at the family ski lodge.

🐺The only reason you agreed was because you were broke.

🐺That's how you ended up at the front desk with a gold yellow name tag pinned onto your red work vest.

🐺A older member of the family helped you with the ropes and stayed with you at the front desk the whole day to make sure you got the hang of things. It was pretty simple all you did was check people in, hand them their room key, sell tickets,and answering people questions. It did help that the older member of the family did take care of the more bitchy guests though.

🐺Not the most fun way to spend your winter break but it's better than being broke….and being chased by dolphins…..

🐺Whenever you could you pull out your phone and just mess around by letting your friends know what's up but the older family memeber eventually took your phone away. You would've put up a fight if there wasn't a chance that a guest could walk in at any moment.

🐺While your parents were doing God knows what you were putting on a fake cheery attitude towards every person that would walk towards the desk. Soon you finally got your break.

🐺Instead of doing what people usually do when they get a break, you grabbed a snack, set a timer, and practically booked it to your room to get any amount of sleep at all.

🐺A dream about a fish willingly being eaten by a wolf…Not the weirdest dream you've had.

🐺But that dream was cut short by the alarm piercing your ears letting you know that those 30 minutes of nap time was over!

🐺You rushed out of your room to make it to the desk in time and you made it on time!You just ended up running directly into a guest….

🐺Your older step family member just watched wide eyed as you and the guest you ran into collide eachother, with you being the only one to fall on the ground due to the person you ran into being way more built.

🐺You profusely apologized for ramming into the person before even looking at their face…A wolf beastmen around your age with beautiful brown skin and yellow eyes…

🐺Stop being down bad you're on the job.

🐺He was silent, almost stunned, just silently nodding his head as a way to say he acepted your apology

🐺You insisted on checking in the boy and his family and they agreed just laughing off your little run in with their oldest son though during the check in process you could feel your older step family member practically burning holes into the side of your head. You were gonna get a earful later this for sure.

🐺When the family of five walked off with their room key to the elevator you swear you could've sworn that guests tail wagging.

🐺And that's how you met your boyfriend

🐺Not how you ended up with him though…

🐺You've noticed that this guest after that incident would always stay a little longer than necessary in the lobby before heading out with his little sister and little brother.

🐺Hell you've even noticed his parents glance at you before giggling between themselves. Like damn you bumped into a guy once and his parents already are taking about you.

🐺Though you learned why when one day during a mini conversation you were having with a step family member/co-worker when a little girls voice shouted “Jack that's the worker you have a crush on right?” causing both you and family member to turn your heads and seeing the little beastmen girl, covered in snow from just having came inside, pointing her finger at you with her older brother laughing and the guy you bumped into ‘Jack’ looking frozen.

🐺Jack grabbed both his siblings hands and dragged both of his siblings to the elevator with his head down low and disappeared with shame before you could even crack a smile from this.

🐺He's cute. Why not lean into the whole crush thing?

🐺You tried to ask your friends in the sea on LiveJournal to ask what you should do but they were less than useful with suggesting things that most definitely wouldn't pass on land. Looks like you were on your own.

🐺He practically avoided you after this, you only know this because family members would tell you that he'd go through the lobby only when he knew he could avoid you, like when you weren't on your shift or that you were on your on break. He was just so embarrassed.

🐺Now being staff you couldn't exactly just walk up to him and start talking, you hypothetically could but like it'd just come off as being strange ya know? and it'd look pretty creepy if a staff member on ff their shift just walked up to you despite not knowing who they are plus whenever you were off your shift your stepmom and dad would want to spend time with you

🐺You had to wait for him to approach you but you knew that wasn't going to happen.

🐺The ski lodge stayed open during new years eve for a new year's party luckily for you they decided to give you the day off so that you could enjoy the party

🐺You spent your time in the lobby, filled with people entering and leaving, standing around talking to eachother, etc. Sitting by yourself on the couch near the fireplace was probably the best place to be right now.

🐺No wonder why in the confusion of the hustle and bustle that Jack accidentally found himself sitting right next to you.

🐺You were surprised that he sat near you so you tapped his shoulder to catch his attention when he turned his head to look at you his ears immediately went up into the air in alert. He didn't even notice that he sat next to you. That makes more sense.

🐺You kept the conversation light failing to mention how his little sister outed him and you actually get him to ease up to where the two of you were having a actual conversation with one another learning about eachother, he was suprised to find out you were merfolk you were suprised to find out he had magic, just two people getting to know eachother.

🐺It progressively got closer to the new year the longer you two kept talking.

🐺 "I promised I'd catch up to my family for when the clock hits twelve. I'm sorry.” Jack explained before standing up about to leave until you grab his hand and kiss the back of it.

🐺“How about a date next year?”

🐺And that's how you got your boyfriend yes jack made it back to his family in time

🐺Jack has a strict schedule so you know the exact time he texts you and are ready for the “I love you” text

🐺Jack does worry everytime you mention a run in with a whale or the such but you assure him that if you made it this far that he has no need to worry for you

🐺He always found it surreal whenever he'd vieit you under the sea using a potion and seeing how different life as merfolk is compared to life on land your stepmother assured him he'd get used to it, you took him out to a local restaurant to let him try merfolk cuisine! He mainly ate the fruit and you were both fascinated by eachother when you saw how the other ate. Jack had to explain that fruit on land is meant to be eaten without the peel…you've been eating land fruit the wrong way-

🐺Whenever Jack gets the chance he'll let you know just how much he loves your merfolk form not just verbally but by playing with your hair and caressing your skin

🐺Formally meeting his little siblings when he took you to his place, you gave his little sister a thank you for introducing the two of you making Jack flustered and he practically pushed you up to his room out of embarrassment, the embarrassment didn't end when his dad told him to leave the door to his room open. You two just rented movies from Blockbuster to watch in his room nothing happened😭

🐺When you visited him at his dorm his dormmates were surprised by this being the way they find out Jack is dating someone

🐺Word got out fast and suddenly you had a bunch of his friends and track teammates reaching out to you.

🐺Jack is not living this down.

🐺The picnic on the beach where you and Jack brought foods from your respective cultures. He set the blanket on the shoreline where he sat on the blanket with his food and your lower body still being in the water as you place your food on the blanket is the best date you've ever had with him.

🐺You two were there until sunset where you both had to leave and kissed goodbye.

🐺You love this dork.

🍎Imagine being a city kid. Too bad you don't have to imagine it because you are a city kid. Every weekend your mom sent you to stay with your grandpa's in Harvenston while she relaxed, this isn't a arrangement you're exactly mad about I mean not only because it's more quiet compared to the city but also you've been doing this childhood, you understood that since your mom had you during college and that she was single mom that she didn't have her shit together and still doesn't so at a young age you knew your family situation

🍎You're mom never really liked leaving you with grandpa but she doesn't trust strangers watching over you, something about him being misogynistic, something you didn't really get growing up but now completely understand looking back on it, He'd never let you outside the house and always grumble about sluts on the streets….Grandpa there's only elderly people in this town. What sluts?Ms.Smith?😀.

🍎To say the least you understood your mom's choice to not interact with grandpa much and you followed suit too when you were finally old enough to take care of yourself and didn't need your grandpa watching over you, you cut him off not wanting to hear…his thoughts on things, hell you take care of your baby brother on the weekends so mom can rest even just for Saturday. The call about your grandpa's death was conflicting to say the least, for both you and your mom, your mom was sobbing hysterically on the kitchen floor when she got the initial call you didn't find out why she was sobbing until the day after, you felt sad when you found out sure your grandpa hated your mom for her life choices for her moving to the city, for her getting pregnant before marriage, for her dropping out to raise you,etc. but he played a significant part of your childhood that you felt sad, you didn't cry but you felt sad. You took your baby brother with you to pick up his ashes mom probably isn't ready to go back to her childhood home but you are.

🍎You marched up the path that led up to Harvenston with your baby brother in the back carrier and a bag of baby supplies just in case in your right hand. You had a few of the elderly people in town stop and stare at you and a few of them stopped you to ask “Are you [———] ‘s child?” where they would tell you stories about your mom when she was younger growing up in Harvenston and ask about her…it'd also end with a “Sorry for your loss.” no matter who you were talking to

🍎You walked past your grandpa's old house and just stood there for awhile. It was strange not seeing him smoking a cigar on the porch swing. A singular tear ran down your cheek. You sighed and kept walking to the next house that made the call to your mother.

🍎You hesitate before knocking on the door to which a elderly woman opens the door and seems suprised to see you before her suprise disappears and is replaced with by a smile that warms you despite all the snow. She hands you a grey urn with a rose gold apple blossom on the lid. She invites you inside to which you delay your response before stepping in, You sit down on her couch and place the urn on the coffee table so you could take the opportunity to give your baby brother a bottle of milk while the old woman you learned was Ms.Felmier went to make to make tea, as you fed your baby brother almost one after another a new person walked into the living room. Two women and two men around your moms age sit in the living room and repeat questions you've already been asked. Yes, I'm [——-]’s child. No, I didn't grow up like my mom I'm not a teen parent. Yes, My mom is waiting at home. Turns out these four went to school with your mom and just wanted to know how their friend has been since she left for the city, huh sorry for assuming you're all just nosey pricks, Ms.Felmier finally walks in with the tea for you and takes your baby brother so that you can drink your tea. Turns out it was one of men that found out about your grandpa's death, when he went to check on the old man since he hadn't opened his flower shop for the day like usual he was worried about the wretched stench that came from your grandpa's home and he looked through his bedroom window and…

🍎That's why he's ashes now. Your tea was finished and you put your brother in the baby carrier before picking up the urn ready to leave. But one of the woman insisted that she have her son walk you back to the mirror you said no but she persisted until you relented to letting her son walk you to which she called him down from upstairs. You waited at the door before a boy with purple hair emerged in your line of sight to which he blinked at you before smirking

🍎“Why hello” oh this'll just be soooo fun of a walk back.

🍎And that's how you met your boyfriend.

🍎Not how you got with him though he was a misogynistic shit when you first met him.

🍎When your mom finally built the courage, you and your mom finally went to Grandpa’s house to collect his things and empty the house the Felmier family helped you guys especially when it got too much for your mom and she had to sit outside. Epel and Epel's mom, dad, aunt, uncle,and cousin helped you take alot of the things out of the house while his grandma and great grandma sat on the porch swing and would comfort your mom whenever she had to walk out crying. Epel during this always stayed firm on being near you, you asked him about this and he said he was the only kid in Harvenston so he's never interacted with someone his own age to which you tell him that you practically grew up in Harvenston just that your grandpa kept you locked up. He was suprised by this since apparently your grandpa never came off like that and that you two could've been friends.

🍎Over the days of clearing out the house you and Epel actually spoke alot and you congratulated him for getting into Night Raven College and dropped the news that you were also going to a magic academy too! Yeah…you didn't tell him you even had magic. Oops.

🍎The two of you exchanged a few spells when you weren't carrying your grandpa's bed, that he died in, out the house. Epel hesitantly asked how you felt and you just shrugged as if your eyes weren't watering from having to carry the bed that you slept in with your grandpa whenever you were scared of lightening. Epel told you not to cry or else your grandpa would haunt your ass which gave you a good chuckle. Because he's right, your grandpa would be fucking mocking you right now for crying.

🍎After the house was left bare and empty Epel gave you his phone number with a cheeky smile, you let him know that you don't have your own phone but you will call him over your home phone, he was a nice guy when he wasn't being fucking annoying, Not a guy you'd date or anything.

🍎When you had to go to your new school your mom made sure to give you your first phone! It wasn't the most fancy but it worked and it was fun whenever it flipped open so you weren't mad. You kept in touch with Epel giving him occasional calls and messages throughout the school year just to check in and him checking in on you due to your whole grandpa dying thing but then Song Dance Championship.

🍎A dance group from your school participated in the event so you got to attend! Never did you think you'd see Epel doing half moves he did on stage with his whole toxic masculinity shit. You're glad to see that he improved on that front, you might actually consider being friends with him after this, still though when you caught up to him after his performance you let it be known that you weren't gonna let him live down his toxic alpha male mindset to dancing prettily on stage transformation.

🍎Being the sly bastard that he is he said “You make fun of me or give me reward for the change in behavior you oh so complained about.” he said to be cheeky but he didn't actually expect you to kiss him on the lips and wave at him while walking away from doing a hand gesture to say ‘call me’ as a way to wipe that smug look off his face

🍎He was left red in the face watching you walk off, the sound of his friends hollering behind him fading away in the background

🍎Thats how you got your boyfriend?Lame corny🙄

🍎On his blastcycle late at night for the first date, half awake, just driving around with no destination in mind. Everything looked better under the moonlight, Epel looked better, the blastcycle looked better, the streetlights were brighter, the streets looked better, you looked better. The two of you shared a kiss after the date, this is a sweet high school romance you like.

🍎Getting a shitty movie from the bottom of the Walmart clearance bin, heading back to your dorm sitting under a pillow fort while eating some pizza your dorm mates made for you two,You kicked all them out of the living room letting them know that yeah they helped but please he doesn't need to know,As if your doormates weren't secretly watching the date happen and clowned on you afterwards.

🍎While messaging you found out that Epel never planned to have you visit his dorm since his vice housewarden would watch you guys and his housewarden is very nitpicky. Weird.

🍎You didn't get to go to his dorm but he did let you go over to his school to watch him during his spelldrive practice. Alot of his clubmates surrounded you with questions but Epel pushed them out of way and held your hand with a firm grip as he dragged you out annoyed. You made your way into school kitchen and sat down on the floor backs to the fridge while waiting for the brownies you guys made to finished baking in the oven while holding hands.

🍎Note to self. Don't take Epel bowling he will get competitive but hey it's fun to watch Epel grind his teeth together whenever he got pissed especially when he'd look at you and try to look a good this.

🍎The two of you chilling in your room showing eachother the spells you guys learned while at your two separate schools!The two of you were so hyped when you him showed your unique magic that the two of you celebrated; You two fell asleep in eachothers arms that night all cuddled up though when you woke up he was gone, he left a sticky note on your nightstand letting you know why “Vil will beat my ass if he finds out I snuck out to visit you,I'll call you in the morning!” And your flip phone started ringing

🍎Playing poker with him in his empty school cafeteria, trying to ignore his friends peaking into the cafeteria giving him thumbs-up, you found it more funny than anything but he seemed embarrassed, his embarrassment heightened when you turn towards his friends and wave at them letting them know you know their watching.

🍎Walking on the beach during a festival towards the end of the school year in May while holding chili fries he bought the two of you. The two you just talked and talked…You guys went to the beach at 4pm and are there at 11pm. Vil had spam called Epel but his flip phone was discarded on your beach towel and the ringing drowned out at the two of you splashing eachother.

🍎A nice little wholesome high school romance.

⚡️Summer of 04. The best and worst summer you've ever had.

⚡️Getting kicked out of your grandparents for coming home late house during spring fucking sucked. Towards the end of the freshmen year too?Yikes.

⚡️You thought it was just a temporary thing and they were just threatening this like usual and won't actually do anything but turns out your grandparents were genuinely actually kicking you out and selling all your stuff for a hot tub!

⚡️You managed to gather some of your things before staying at your friends house,then another friends, then another…..

⚡️Your friends would let you use their shower and give you food but that arrangement would usually only last for two days at minimum and a week at max before their parents would want you out the house

⚡️You couldn't get a real job due to the whole no stable home thing so whenever you needed money you'd just babysit,dogwalk,or mow lawns for a quick buck to buy yourself some things for basic survival

⚡️A solid few months of you couch surfing has passed and when you went to a friend's place to crash the night without alerting them before hand which is how you accidentally came across a party.

⚡️Your friend agreed to let you stay the night and let you put your bag of things in their attic where you'd be sleeping since the basement was filled with people,the living room is too crowded, and god forbid whatever is going on in the locked bedrooms.

⚡️So there you are leaning against the kitchen counter with a juice in your red cup, just soaking in the summer party energy going on but not participating in any of the dancing, the gossip, the smoking,the sex, or the drinking. You came to freeload off your friend not all this shit but when in Rome do what the Roman's do.

⚡️Get Busy blasting from the speakers, the disco ball bouncing light off of it, glitter that you know you'll still be finding on you months from now, confetti on the wet ground that's soaked in spilled drinks, water dragged inside from the pool, teenage tears, blood from a fight that took place before you got here, and only God knows what else is on the ground.

⚡️Weed,Cigarette smoke,Pizza,Candy,Beer,Sweat,Perfume,Cheap colone,chlorine, and popcorn. Those are the smells that attack your nostrils. A weird mixture of smells.

⚡️You were so tuned out of the party and your surroundings that you didn't notice a green haired boy your age stiffly march to your side and stand there with a firm grip on his red cup of…water.

⚡️You didn't notice the guy till he loudly said “Human!” to get your attention, which worked, and asked if you knew anything about Briar Valley with a smug look. He then proceeded to explain the entire history of Briar Valley to you. This is the weirdest way a guy has hit on you.

⚡️After he finished his mini history lesson he just stared at you before “Is this what flirting is?” Getting a good laugh from you actually being interested to see where the conversation between you and this guy will go with such a opener

⚡️You and this Sebek guy spoke exchanging your own personal history, nothing too personal that it'd make the other uncomfortable but open enough that you too could get closer, you did fail to mention to him though your living situation. He seemed really proud of his half fae-half human orgins!

⚡️His friends stood stunned that holy shit his history lesson actually pulled you

⚡️He flat out told you that he was dragged here against his will by his friends Ace and Epel and that he hated every second of the party but he knew he had to court you at first sight. Now this is the flirting you were used to!Not the whole courting thing most guys are more vulgar with it but close enough.

⚡️This is how you met him. Not how you got with him though.

⚡️You two have started writing letters nightly since Briar Valley doesn't really have phones or computers. He did question you about why your address would change on each letter but you just told you move around alot which isn't technically wrong.

⚡️You did receive a letter from… his mom!? She was happy for her son and told you she will hide your body if you break her son's heart. That letter was followed by one from Sebek telling you that his mom won't actually murder you

⚡️You flew on your broom to head over to Briar Valley to see Sebek and he was shocked to find out you had magic but he was upset you came to see him. He's supposed to he courting you know not the other way around! You just let him know that every relationship needs effort on both ends.

⚡️He taught you how to sword fight in his backyard and he did not hold back giving you a proper lesson in sword fighting that resulted with you on the grass with the tip of his sword at your chest and him on one knee and using his right hand on the back of your neck holding you up from falling on the ground. He dropped the sword on the ground blade first when you cupped his face and kissed him.

⚡️You ended up staying with him and his family for dinner and participate with his mom,dad,Sebek, and his older siblings with making preparing dinner. During dinner his parents and his siblings had all their focus on you and your relationship with Sebek confidentially answering for you, you didn't like that he was speaking for you instead of just letting you speak but the firm hold he had on your hand under the table tells you that he was just as nervous as you were.

⚡️His parents allowed you to stay over for the night. You and Sebek spoke back and forth about who got to sleep on his bed. He didn't want to hear you insisting on sleeping on the floor so he just picked you up, threw on his bed, and tucked you in with a goodnight kiss…You have to ignore the photo of Malleus Draconia on the foot of his bed to enjoy this moment

⚡️Waking up before the sun is up tired and barely alive, groggly dragging yourself downstairs and getting yourself a cup of water, once finishing your nice cool drink you waddled back up to Sebek’s. In your tired state you just stared at the sleeping Sebek on the floor with pillows and blankets snoring away and in your sleepy head you ended up laying down next to your not-really-boyfriend on the floor instead of sleeping on the bed that he demanded you slept in.

⚡️When he woke up to see your face next to his he lept back startled at the sight, immediately waking him up, but seeing your face next to him sound asleep with the sunlight peeking through the curtains hitting your facial features warmed his heart to see.

⚡️ “What are we?”

⚡️Your relationship with Sebek is….

⚡️With the fact that Sebek was a second year at night raven college meant that you couldn't spend too much time together but he still made sure to setup as many dates as possible with you, not like you had anything better to do, you got no job,no home,and definitely no education.

⚡️Being allowed onto his school campus and him teaching you how to ride a horse, he even introduced you to his horse Goldie, it was a fun yet messy date. Did you and Sebek get covered in mud?Yes. Did the two of you wash the mud out of eachothers hair?Also yes.

⚡️And even when he couldn't set up a date be it for school or knight duties he'd always sends you roses, well send them to your friends place since he still wasn't aware of your living situation.

⚡️He only found out when he wanted to suprise visit you and stood outside your friends house only to be told by your friend that you didn't live there. When he approached you about it and you told him the truth about being homeless and your grandparents he was determined to help you even if he didn't tell you.

⚡️While the two of you were slow dancing in a field with eachother you had no idea that he was sending letters to your older cousin to make arrangements for you stay with her

⚡️So imagine the shock you had when you took off the blindfold Sebek put on you for you to see a room with a bed and your cousin holding a sign saying “Welcome”

⚡️That night instead of going back to school Sebek spent the night with you and instead of sleeping on the floor you both slept in your new bed in eachothers arms

⚡️The warmth, the comfort, you could rest like this forever. Sebek loved having his face in your neck, inhaling your scent, being able to give you intimate kisses, being able to wake up in the arms of your lover.

⚡️You weren't sure if you were wanted to keep your relationship a open ended question anymore. After all this, after all he did for you, you knew what you two were. You two were dating

⚡️Your relationship with Sebek is dating.

I'll probably post my BSD x DDLC au here too since I need that out of my notes too

[baldursgate3tempobsessed]

Hey!

Just read „Mirror Mirror“ and I saw that you‘re still taking requests so here’s something! :))

I saw a fanart of Ascended Astarion smoking and blowing the smoke seductively into Tavs mouth, who’s sitting in his lap and I swear, that’s some hot stuff!

So I‘ve been thinking about Astarion sitting in his study, still all dressed up in a fancy outfit, doing some important paperwork (he is such an important politician now after all) and smoking a cigarette or cigar with a nice glass of whiskey, looking so powerful and then Tav comes in and sees him, finding all of this incredibly hot and takes her rightful place in his lap…. ;)

I see your vision and I respect it. One small change is his outfit is fancyish but a lil on the casual side since he's at home. But still scary prettyman!

TW: Graphic smut, spoilers for the game with embellishments, ascended astarion acting like himself, though in a mild form since this is mostly just banging and fluff.

~

Astarion sighed as he set the paper down, rubbing at his temples as he considered his options. The letter from Mizora was tempting, to say the least. A personal assassin that could materialize out of thin air obviously had its perks. But... the terms were concerning, solely for the fact that they were too simple. A year of her services in exchange for a place to stay in Baldur's Gate, at his home.

He was tempted. But the thought of that devil having such clear access to you was non-negotiable. Especially when he had no insight on her motivations. No, he'd have to find another way to get rid of his political rivals, preferably without getting personally involved. He did so love the heroic image he had cultivated amongst the common folk, one that would be hard to maintain if he was caught with his fangs digging in the nape of the Captain of the Guard.

What a headache.

He leaned back in his chair, thoughtful as he took another drag of his cigarette, his drink in his other hand. No one said that regional domination would be easy. He just wished it wasn't so irritating. Maybe they shouldn't have gotten rid of Gortesh after all, he was a backstabbing little weasel but at least then Astarion wouldn't have to deal with pesky things like ethics. But that was too little too late. It's not like he could un-decapitate the man.

Astarion paused his musings when something started to tickle at the back of his mind. A presence, lurking in the darkness. Astarion smiled to himself as he set his whiskey down, calling out into the black hallway, "I see you over there pet."

Astarion grinned as you came into view, already relaxing at the mere sight of you. You leaned against the doorway, clad in nothing but a thin nightdress. Thin enough for him to nearly be able to see through it, your feet bare. You looked delicious, the perfect distraction from his troubled thoughts.

"Am I disturbing you?" You asked coyly, fully aware that you never could. There you were, the most amazing thing that had ever happened to him. His favorite pet, his most precious treasure. How could you ever disturb him?

Astarion chuckled as he leaned back in his chair, "Would you care?"

"Not particularly," You sighed as you waltzed into the room, "Especially considering how I'm the one who has been kept waiting."

Astarion rolled his eyes, ignoring the little dig as he patted his lap, "Come here my love, let me get a better look at you."

You went easily, settling into his lap with a happy sigh. 

"Such a pretty thing," Astarion murmured as he looked you over, his dick already twitching at the sight of you; your nipples pebbling in the cold air, completely visible through the light cloth. You looked divine. 

Astarion let his hand creep up your thigh, playing with the hem of your short slip as he took another drag. One that he decided to share. Astarion gripped you by the chin, a soft order escaping his lips, “Open up darling.”

You popped your mouth right open, so obedient it made his heart sing. He breathed the smoke into your lungs, pressing a barely there kiss against your lips before he pulled back; happy to see the way your pupils were already dilated. 

"What are you doing out of bed my sweet?" Astarion asked, only a touch of discontentment coloring his voice. You knew how he felt about you wandering around at night, even in your own home. He liked to know where you were at all times, no ifs, ands, or buts. Though… looking over you once more, he supposed he could make an exception.

"No reason in particular," You said, an obvious lie. One that Astarion would be able to parse out even if he didn't have full access to your mind. It wasn't helping that you were already squirming in his lap, seemingly trying your best to discreetly arouse him even more.

Astarion set his cigarette down on the ashtray, moving to run his free hand through your hair before gripping it harshly, chuckling at the way it made you gasp.

"We talked about lying pet," Astarion murmured, the hand in your hair tightening, "Unless you're looking for a punishment?"

"Maybe I just missed you," You tried again, your breath already quickening. Astarion wouldn't be surprised if you were already dripping into your panties. You did love it when he got rough.

Besides, at least that was closer to the truth.

Astarion's hand crept further up your leg, caressing your inner thigh as you shuddered, "Have I been neglecting you pet? How inconsiderate of me. But I did warn you that it would be a busy week."

"But you seem tired," You mumbled, leaning in to start kissing up the line of his throat, your hands running up and down his chest, "You've been working so hard lately. Don't you think you've earned a break?"

"Kingdoms don't build themselves darling," Astarion shot back half-heartedly. But you both knew he was already sold. You had won the second you came into view, "But perhaps I could be convinced. Did you have something in mind?"

"Mm, I'm not sure," You said, like you weren't the one grinding your perfect ass against him like a whore, "But I'm sure we can think of something."

That was enough of the coy act. Astraion wretched your head back without warning, sinking his fangs into your neck. Perhaps you could have done with a warning, not that it would have mattered. He had earned the right to do with you as he pleased. You yelped at the unexpected pain but he could taste your arousal on his tongue, spiked through your blood. To this day it continued to be the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted.

Astarion popped off of you with a smirk, near giddy at seeing that hazy look already in your eyes. He trailed bloody kisses up your throat, "Good girls ask for what they want, don't they? Unless you're looking for a punishment."

You were nearly panting as you writhed in his lap, frustrated desperation seeping into your voice when you begged, "Fuck me? Please?"

It was a good start, but Astarion knew that you could do better. He laughed, his voice rough as his fangs scraped against your delicate skin, "I think you can try harder than that, darling."

You were gripping at his shoulders, your nails digging into his skin as you whimpered, "Please my love? I’ve missed you all day. Don’t make me wait any longer."

“Have I been neglecting you, my treasure?” Astarion murmured, his hand trailing down from your hair, moving to slip the thin straps of your dress off of your shoulders. 

“You have,” You whined as he tugged on your dress, watching with rapt attention as he let it fall. He wasted no time in leaning forward to wrap his lips around your nipple; tasting you as you whimpered, “I-please Astarion. I need you inside me. It aches without you, I can’t take it. Please.”

Perfect words from perfect lips. That was the end of his manufactured patience. Astarion was already tearing your nightgown off completely, rendering it to tatters as he feasted on you with his eyes. He could buy you another, one in every color if you wished. But for now it was just in the way. 

He lifted you up onto the desk, ignoring your surprised gasp as you set you on the edge. His eyes were already narrowing downward, your cunt bare and glistening before him. 

Astarion ran his finger up the seam of it, grinning when he realized you were already dripping, “No panties tonight darling? Naughty girl."

"You don't like it?" You coyly asked as you worked to undo his belt, making quick work of getting his cock out, “I figured it was more economical to not let you tear apart everything I own.”

Astarion laughed as he spread your legs further apart, clever fingers working over your clit as you moaned, “Perhaps we should forget about clothing entirely then for you. It certainly would be more convenient.”

A complete bluff, one obvious enough to make you giggle. Though, it was a fun thought, one that Astarion would actually consider entertaining if he wasn’t so self-aware. No, it would take less than a day for him to rip out the eyes of the entire staff for seeing you like this, gorgeous, bare, and his. 

Your hands were shaking as you rubbed the head of him over your folds, your head thrown back as you moaned. He pushed into you hard and fast, groaning at how wonderfully soaked and tight you felt. There truly was nothing better. He gripped your hips, hard enough to bruise as you pulled you on and off his cock; your eyes rolling back into your head at the impressive display of strength. 

“T-Thank you, thank you,” You mewled as you wrapped your arms around his neck, tugging him down closer, “Feels good. So good. Love you so much.”

Astarion couldn’t help but smile at that, feeling just as lovesick and obsessed as the day he made you his. There really was nothing better than this, making love to the brightest part of his soul. You clinging onto him for dear life as he fucked into you, completely uncaring for the books and papers he was spilling onto the floor. Whispering sweet nothings into his ear, your legs wrapped around him; always trying to pull him closer.  

He wasn’t going to last long like this. But he’d be damned if you didn’t reach your peak first. He snaked a hand between the two of you, roughly rubbing circles onto your clit before capturing your lips in a deep kiss. 

You gasped as he played with you, your pussy clenching around him as you came. It felt divine, the perfect sensation to tip him right over the edge, coming deeply inside you while he panted into your mouth.

"I love you," You whispered against his lips, your voice still slurring as your body twitched from the aftershocks, “Love you so much.”

You were running your fingers through his hair as you lazily kissed each other, holding him so closely that it made his heart sing. 

“I love you too pet,” Astarion murmured back, meaning every word, “More than you’ll ever know.”

"Tired now,” You sighed as your nails pleasantly scratched his scalp, “Carry me upstairs?"

Astarion was already hefting you into his arms before you could finish the question, tucking himself back into his pants before lifting you up completely, "Of course my love."

As he walked you upstairs, Astarion was struck with the realization that he could barely remember what he had been worried about in the first place. He smiled to himself as you cuddled against his chest, leaning in to press a light kiss to your hair. 

You always knew just what he needed.

[littleplasticrat]

Provocation and Planning (Gortash x Tav)

Tav thinks she's charging into Gortash's palace to seduce him, but he's been waiting for her. She still manages to surprise him.

Rating: Explicit

Tags: PIV sex, sex toys, anal fingering, come eating

Thanks to @bearhugsandshrugs for beta reading. You're cool ❤️

-

The first time Tav and Gortash had kissed, she'd bitten his tongue hard enough to draw blood. He'd instantly retaliated, setting the precedent for things to come.

After the ragtag group had clawed their way onto the docks from the Chionthar, Tav had looked at the archduke and really seen him for the first time. He was bloody and victorious, encased in his golden mechanical armour that did nothing to obscure the length of his limbs. He slicked his wet hair back out of his face and began unbuckling his breastplate when he noticed her looking, and gave her a slow, suggestive smile. His shirt hung open to reveal his hairy chest; he was steaming like a racehorse in the morning sun. Tav knew that she was going to have to fuck him as soon as possible . He must have seen it in her face, and pulled her into a kiss, first sucking her lower lip and then pressing his tongue into her mouth. That was when she'd bitten him.

Whatever it was - the adrenaline, the relief, or the strangely warm memory of the shin kick he'd delivered after she'd punched him in the morphic pool - the effect had been immediate. Gortash had inhaled sharply, then pulled back to dropping butterfly kisses on her mouth. Tav felt the curve of his smile, and then suddenly his quick hands had found a tear in her leather armour and he'd pinched her nipple through her undershirt, hard enough that she let out a strangled moan. Gale, who'd been standing next to them on the dock with a polite if strained smile, had gone bright red and practically sprinted off to Wyll and Karlach.

Read more below the cut or on Ao3. Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear from you.

Under normal circumstances, if a man kissed Tav like that, she knew she was likely about to get dragged away and fucked shortly thereafter. However, as the heroes slowly made their way back to the city centre, Gortash had withdrawn to his palace to launch the cleanup campaign. It became clear to Tav over the course of the day that the emergency measures for Baldur's Gate had been made in meticulous detail and were set up to be ready to implement at a moment's notice. Case in point: as she made her way to the Elfsong Tavern that evening for the celebrations, she saw Steel Watchers with rescue tools instead of their usual heavy weaponry digging through rubble alongside the Fists. Gortash must have been manufacturing the extra parts in secret. She wondered what else he'd prepared.

In anticipation of seeing him, she'd left her underwear in her pack and applied a few dabs of rosemary oil where her blood ran close to the skin. At the tavern, it didn't escape her that gazes lingered upon her, the light touches of her companions' hands guiding her through the smoke and the crowds. When Halsin lent past her to pick up a round of drinks from the bar, she felt him inhale a deep breath of her as his muscles flexed against her back. One huge hand had covered her hip briefly. She thought it might have been the case that the druid, a little drunk and made giddy by all the people, was just trying to steady himself against a reliable friend. But then his hand squeezed and Tav nearly pushed her ass back against him, stopping herself just in time. Later, she went out onto a balcony with Rugan to smoke and laugh with him. The Zhentarim stole glances at her nipples peaking against her blouse when he thought she wasn't paying attention, which made goosebumps ripple across her skin. When she looked back to his face, he would rest his lip against the rim of his tankard and give her a look that was half-innocent, half-debauched. I wonder if being a hero is going to be like this all the time? she thought to herself. It seemed exhausting.

Adding to the slow decline of her mood was the fact that the one smug, handsome bastard she wanted, that she spent the evening scanning the crowds for, did not appear. Hadn’t he felt the sparks of that kiss shoot through his body the way they shot through hers? Or, perhaps, was his duty to the city keeping him in the office? That seemed strangely absurd. As it neared midnight, it became obvious that Lord Gortash definitely wasn't coming. Tav slipped away from the party and made her way to the Palace with efficiency, weaving through the crowds of revellers. At the gates, she'd been expecting to have to explain who she was, or perhaps even break in, but every set of guards let her pass without comment. The ones outside Gortash's chambers even saluted her.

When she entered, she saw a lavish bedroom through double doors which lay ajar at the end of the corridor. The bed was very neat. On either side of the hallway leading to it were a small library, a bathroom, and a combined workshop and office. Gortash was sunk in a battered armchair at a small circular table in the latter room. Looking around the room, Tav saw that his desk, placed so that he could sit with his back to a corner, was piled high with paperwork. Occupying the centre of the freshly-swept floor was a thick, expensive-looking rug. There was a whole wall of drawers and shelves of various sizes, with each labelled in his precise handwriting. On that side of the office were two large workbenches; one was a tidy wooden trestle and one had seemingly been improvised from a sheet of metal and stacks of old documentation. Half-hidden beneath a pile of clothes and rubbish in the corner was a low camp bed, the kind that military recruits would start their careers in. The whole place smelled like pine, with an undertone of male musk, milled steel and oil. Through a nearby window, she could see the city stretching into the distance, half-ruined but surviving another day. Sounds of revelry were carried into the room on the wind. 

When Tav came to the door they made eye contact immediately and he showed no surprise; she knew then that he'd been waiting for her. With a lazy hand, Gortash plucked a grape from the dish in front of him and slowly slipped it into his mouth. Tav's eyes followed the movement of his fingers and she had to try hard to keep her face blank as a tingle flitted down her neck. As he leaned back, she noticed he was wearing a raw silk shirt and tight leather trousers, but the lacing on both was slovenly, as usual.

They stared at each other, and Tav felt herself start to blush under the archduke's open gaze. To hide her reaction, she stepped over to his table and picked up the bunch of grapes. She saw Gortash's strong fingers twitch as she swiped the fruit, but he did nothing.

"You missed the party at the Elfsong," Tav said, moving across the room to lean against the windowsill. "Didn't fancy being celebrated with the other heroes of Baldur's Gate? I'm surprised you'd pass on a chance to be fawned over."

Gortash scoffed and crossed his long legs.

"Yes, I had reports you were carousing in that rat hole with your little friends - and I can smell it on you now,” he said, inhaling. “I'll be holding my own celebration here in my palace . You should join me. See how it feels to wield power against the nobility of this city rather than its enemies." He looked her up and down, his eyes half-lidded. "I've been thinking about jewellery designs for you. Something to show off how magnificent you are."

It was Tav's turn to snort. "What about me has given you the impression I want to become some bejewelled whore on your arm?"

"Bejewelled whore… Ha. My dear, no one is immune to the pleasure of being draped in gold and gemstones," Gortash told her as he stood. "Especially not those of us who started life clad in rags." He approached Tav with slow steps and she reclined further against the window frame, holding the grapes out of his reach. "As for the second part... That wasn't a one-sided kiss this morning. Maybe I just want you by my side to keep an eye on you now the city is safe. A woman of your talents - What's the saying?" he asked, maintaining eye contact as he moved into her space, pressing his broad chest against her breasts to reach for the fruit. "Ah, yes. Devils make work for idle hands." She felt his fingers slip the grapes out of her loose grasp. "And-" Gortash's steady, sonorous voice suddenly wobbled off into a groan, and he snaked his other arm around her waist to crush her body against his. "Sweltering hells, Tav, have you come into my office without undergarments?"

She gasped and he rested his forehead against hers, their gazes meeting. She nodded, a blush creeping into her cheeks. The raw lust that pooled in his dark eyes in response made her back prickle with sweat as her nipples hardened against his chest.

"What are you doing to me, Tav? Gods, I need to see you. Take off your clothes. Let me see your body."

Gortash was almost snarling with arousal as he commanded her. Tav sighed at the slow melt of wetness in her cunt and pushed him gently backwards to give herself more space. Expression hungry, he watched her as she slowly undressed. She thought he might seize her when she bared her breasts to the moonlight, but he just swayed, eyes roving over her eagerly. His breathing stopped when she unlaced her trousers and let them slide down; something about his boyish thirst gave her a sudden vision of herself as a noblewoman being seduced by a young Gortash, grateful lordling and ardent worshipper of the powerful. But - there was nothing for him to gain from this, was there? All she had to give him was her body, which was now nearly bare under his glittering eyes. Kicking off her boots completed her strip, and then she was nude, standing there expectantly as she took in his reaction. She could see that there was a bulge in his leathers. Gortash was trying hard to modulate his breathing.

"I'm glad you came here tonight," he said. His voice was gravelly and low. "Tell me, Tav. What do you want?"

Tav felt another knot of insecurity inside her as she recognised her desire for him. What if he just saw this as a minor distraction? She decided to fall back and hide behind her old tricks. "I think you know," she replied in her best sultry tone, trailing a hand down between her breasts. “I want you to have sex with me.”

He moved into her space again, leaning one hand against the window frame above her. “If you wanted to fuck, you could have stayed in Elfsong Tavern. I saw the way some of them were looking at you this morning. And I’ve had several grateful and eager members of the aristocracy calling on me throughout the day, but I’ll be damned: all I could think about was you.” With the other hand, he lifted the bunch of grapes to his face and nuzzled his nose amongst the sweet, purple beads of the fruit. "So, I’ll ask again. What do you want?" Eyes boring into hers, he plucked a grape from its stalk with his teeth.

It was ridiculous, but also the horniest thing Tav had ever seen. Something about his confession and the boldness of his flirting opened something within her heart: In a breathy voice, almost a moan and nothing like the falsely seductive tone she’d just used, she said, "I want to have you and I want you to know me. I want to teach you what it sounds like when I come wrapped around your cock." Gortash pressed his eyes shut at this, and she heard a squelch as he crushed the entire bunch of grapes in his broad fist, their juices weeping to the floor. And then his lips were on hers.

They were both soon gasping into each other's mouths, their kisses wet and lavish. Gortash was clasping her face in his hands, pulling her hair, digging his fingers into her hips and squeezing her ass, almost in a frenzy. Under his onslaught, she was barely able to pull his shirt laces open. He broke their kiss to bite her neck and take fistfuls of her tits and inhale deeply from her cleavage, groaning as he did so.

"I thought - ah! I thought I stunk of carousing and revelry?" Tav said, trying to strike a mocking tone in her voice as her head fell back; Gortash had just begun to swirl her nipple in his mouth, his tongue firm and hot.

In response, he picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Carrying her over to his wooden workbench, he perched her on the pitted but clean surface. "While you do smell like a tavern whore, I never said I didn't like it," he groaned, then slowly licked a stripe up her neck and to the side of her face. He finished the trail with a kiss that was almost affectionate, punctuating this with a thrust of his hips so the bulge in his trousers pressed against her clit.

They looked at each other in open admiration. But the moment was cut short when he reached past her and picked up a small metal cylinder, about the width of his thumb, from the bench. Holding it up, she could see a small piece of leather attached to it – a strap. Gortash used it to slip the strange device onto her index finger.

"I made this for you today," he said softly.

She tried to hide her confusion then. Was he - was he proposing to her? With a weird leather ring?

She was soon proven wrong when, with one hand, Gortash pushed one of her thighs to the side to expose her folds. With the other, he took her hand and guided it downwards, placing her finger so it rested on her clit. His hand flowered briefly with magic and he muttered something. Tav yelped as the item began vibrating against her, a noise which morphed into a moan.

Gortash dropped kisses to her lips and whispered encouragement as he pushed against her hand, pressing the vibrator further into her folds. The sensations were unusual at first, but it began to feel incredible. She felt her cunt throb, get more slick.

Tav whimpered when he stepped out of her arms, giving her one more kiss before pulling out a chair so he was sitting in front of her. His eyes lingered on her face, although he observed the movements of her hand against her clit with a mixture of hunger and cold calculation.

In between gasps, Tav said, "I think it's... It's only fair that you show - me how you find your own pleasure."

Gortash smirked at her and began unlacing his trousers. His cock jumped free quickly - it seemed she hadn't been the only one to skip putting on underwear that evening - and he began stroking himself, leaning back in the chair. His cock curved enough to arch against his stomach and Tav couldn't help but admire the girth of it. She propped one foot up on the workbench to expose herself further. The sensation of dipping the vibrator into her slickness and bringing it back to her clit drew a new sound of pleasure from her that had Gortash moaning in response and speeding his hand up. She felt her juices begin to dribble down to her asshole. The archduke noticed too.

"I knew you were going to act like a slut for me," he told her, his voice hoarse. "But you've got the wettest cunt I've ever seen. Are you going to come on my desk? If you do, I'll make you lick it clean."

The filth of Gortash's idle threat made Tav flutter against her fingers. She was nearing the edge. Instead of pursuing her climax, she stretched her leg out to push Gortash's cock out of his hand with her foot. He gave her a grin as she pressed his shaft against his stomach.

"C'mere," she said. "I want to come on your mouth."

He closed his eyes delightedly and slid off the chair to kneel in front of her. She started moving her finger again as he parted her folds and thrust his tongue into her body. One of Gortash's hands was busy out of sight; he was touching himself as he ate her out. Tav felt the heat creep up then, her body tensing, quivering, vision going white or- or-

Her orgasm rippled through her and she cried out. Gortash dug his fingers into her thighs and pushed his face against her center. She felt him shuddering and he groaned into her cunt as his climax followed hers.

They stayed like that for a peaceful moment as their heart rates returned to normal. Tav had lifted the vibrator away from herself and Gortash uttered the word that made it stop running. She removed it from her hand and then stroked his hair as he nuzzled at her folds slowly, still enjoying the wetness her body had made for him. After some time, Tav pulled the man off her and stood up on shaky legs.

On the floor beneath where the archduke had been kneeling, she saw a wet gleam. Had she done that? Bending over to look closer, she saw that it was Gortash's spend. She turned to him and saw the heat still roiling behind his eyes as he looked back at her.

"My Lord," she said sweetly. "It appears one of us did make a mess. It wasn't me, though, was it?"

He shook his head.

"And what did you say should happen if I came on your desk?"

Gortash remained silent. Tav slid her fingers into his hair and gripped gently. "Say it."

"I said I would make you lick it clean."

Tav smiled then, and leaned closer. "When we first met, you said we would be equals, my Lord. My understanding was that if I joined you in an alliance, we would have parity in all things... Including what we're expected to follow through on. L ick ."

With that, she pushed his head towards the floor. He gave her a furtive look of adoration as he went down, filling her with a new flush of nameless excitement. His face neared the paving stone beneath the bench and she watched, her heart flickering with shock, as he used the tip of his tongue to daintily taste his mess. Her fingers remained in his thick hair as he bent lower to take a bolder lick, leaving a trail of spit on the stone. His eyes slid to hers, and he cleaned another stripe of cum off the floor. Something about his expression told her that she was in trouble, but it was too late; he'd already surged up and driven her to her knees. Squeezing her chin in one hand, he gave her a brief, searching look. He must have seen the excitement fizzling within her, because he nodded briefly, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards, and straightened. His cock, soft but slowly hardening, was at her eye level. 

"Here's a lesson I'd like to share about co-leadership then. It's all about coming to an agreement. I put it to you that you've been trying to provoke me to fuck you like a whore." As he spoke, Gortash was wrapping Tav's hair around his fist. "Tonight, I would have made love to you so tenderly - until you swooned. But I think we can both agree that that's not what you want, is it? Is it, you slut?" With his last question, he gave her a little shake.

"It's not what I want, my Lord."

"Do you want the privilege of coming on my cock?"

The thrill, the sheer smuttiness of him, left Tav gasping. She had to swallow hard and get control of herself before she could reply, "Yes, my Lord."

With that, he pulled her by her hair to the centre of the room and threw her down on the extravagant rug. She moaned as she hit the floor. His cock bobbed hard as he stripped off his clothes, revealing a lean, muscular body, dark hair foresting his chest and his taut stomach.

"On your hands and knees," he ordered, and Tav scrambled to comply. She felt him kneel behind her, then slowly begin to rub the head of his cock between her folds. She wiggled her hips in frustration, trying to tempt him into taking her.

"You're still so wet," Gortash muttered, pressing the end of the tip in, then pulling it back out before it brought Tav any stimulation.

She looked over her shoulder at him. "I'm so turned on for you. Please - "

His smirk caught her gaze before he pushed her down roughly, her face turned flat against the rug.

"Touch yourself, but don't come until I tell you to."

She sighed as he began to bully his thick cock inside her, the press of it against her walls driving her to moan and then howl as he pushed himself in to the hilt. It was so deep . In this position, with his size - 

Any marvelling thought she had was cut off by the electric snap of her nerves as he pulled out and thrust in again. She heard her name on his lips as he reached down and gathered a fistful of her hair. It was amazing how he groaned for her. He began fucking into her in a steady rhythm, her hips rolling back to meet him as they both made unabandoned noises of pleasure, losing themselves in it. Tav's nipples grazed the rug every time his thrusts pushed her forwards, making the nerve endings in her upper body sing. Her fingers rubbed her clit in a frantic motion that made her whole cunt quiver.

"Your ass - It's perfect," she heard Gortash gasp. "In fact-"

Tav was in no state to understand. She felt Gortash's thumb against the seam between his cock and her cunt as he ran it through her folds, gathering up the juices of their sex. Then, the pad of his thumb was rubbing against her asshole and then slipping in. The blunt pleasurepain of her ring being breached made her moan loudly, her core beginning to tense. With one hand on her hip and the other splayed across her flank, he pumped his thumb in and out of her. The steady roll of his cock drove her to hoarse cries; feeling her cunt tighten as she neared her climax, Gortash gave a triumphant laugh that turned into a moan of his own ecstasy.

"Come for me," he commanded. Tav bucked beneath him, pressing her face into the carpet to muffle her scream as she rode the waves of wet pleasure that seared through her, white-hot lightning wrapped in the velvet of her veins, turning her inside out from the soles of her feet to her scalp. She felt Gortash's cock throbbing inside her as he followed.

As she tried to slow down her breathing, Tav felt a strong arm wrap around her waist. Gortash pulled her upwards so her back was against his chest, then rolled them both onto their sides on the rug - which Tav distantly realised was spotless and smelled freshly cleaned. In her blissed out state, she decided not to worry about it. The archduke tucked his other arm under her head. His cock lingered inside her, and lying on her side squeezed it within her, making her twitch slowly. Her fires were calm for now, but the sensation of this intimacy would surely start to heat her up again. The evening wasn't finished, of course - and who said she had to go back to the Elfsong the moment the sun rose?

They lay still for a while. Tav enjoyed the sound of Gortash breathing steadily against her neck. Eventually, her leg twitched and she realised she'd been falling asleep. Nuzzling her, he brought his lips to her ear.

"Shall we move to the bedroom, my dear?"

She nodded and they helped each other stand up. Taking her by the hand, he led her into the lavish bedroom she'd seen when she'd entered. He pulled the bedsheets back for her and tucked her in; a gesture that was surprisingly sweet - or was it really that surprising? Beginning to drift, she counted the ways he’d prepared for her arrival that evening. The guards had even saluted her...

"What do you want to eat for breakfast?" he asked, stroking her sweaty hair off her forehead.

"Your cock," she mumbled. Gortash chuckled and Tav smiled sleepily.

"That's a deal."

Tav was already drifting off again as Gortash climbed into bed next to her and pulled her to his chest.

[manicpixie-tieflingboyfriend]

I bet Astarion went crazy the first time Halsin ever got his cycle

like imagine you're desperately trying to keep your vampirism under wraps and then you rescue a druid the size of a bear and he'd huge, he's stacked, he's probably so fucking big—

He had his stereotypical Oh. Oh. Moment when he picks up the Slight shift in Halsin's scent. Maybe it's thicker, more heady, less sweet. He approaches Halsin, who is an absolute pro at dealing with his own problems, who is showing Zero signs of even being on his cycle, just offering to help because they're allies now! Astarion just so happened to catch sight of a little blood (lie), he is Just being helpful (lie), he has zero to gain (Lie!)

Halsin knows, because of course he does, he knows a vampire spawn when he sees one. He's been alive long enough to tell. He tries to be cordial about it, polite, his mind is busy of course with all his guilt and such.

Astarion had to finally cut to the chase and do his whole "I just need a little bit" shtick to whit he adds "why not just let me help you while helping me?"

Halsin folds, because it is a little inconvenient to deal with alone, especially now that he's traveling abroad again.

They find that nice quiet place Astarion had planned for his botched seduction plot, and they are both very pleasantly surprised at how well it goes.

Halsin is surprised how gentle Astarion actually is (so is Astarion) and how even tempered he is, how deliberate every lick and nibble is and how it really does just melt all the discomfort away.

Astarion is surprised at how good Halsin tastes, like he had a feeling he would be holy hells it's addictive. Even when Halsin is mostly cleaned up and the blood is just slowly trickling out he keeps going because he can hear how far gone Halsin is by now, he's getting warmer from all the blood, gods does he want to do more.

Do they? I don't think so. Not until later on. Around Baldur's Gate when Halsin is so uncomfortable with the city and Astarion finally feels comfortable with reinventing himself in his freedom.

Astarion takes Halsin to his grave and they have a really sweet moment about long life and restarting because Halsin has to have a new goal too after lifting the Shadow Curse so they start over. Right there.

Did Astarion wait until Halsin was on his cycle again? Maybe so. Maybe they redo that very first night they were together all over again, Astarion's vigor fully renewed and this time when he's full and warm Halsin begs him to, begs Astarion to fuck him properly so he does and Astarion gets lost in it, ravenous and determined to make Halsin as full as he is.

[m1d-45]

kaeya having his mandela catalogue moment seeing the copy of his brother… can’t wait for him to meet shade! that definitely won’t fuck him up at all! - teddy anon

oh he’ll totally leave that interaction 100% sane (lying)

brief note, diluc and shade would be over in .2 seconds. putting aside the impossibility of shade leaving your side willingly, diluc has long since memorized the microexpressions on kaeya’s face, and knows that he isn’t him.

brief note two, shade is much better at passing as kaeya than red is diluc. aside from the very obvious detail of red borderline growling at people all the time, red carries himself differently. diluc, while often awkward and sometimes unintentionally cold, is still approachable, a trait that red could never manage. shade, however…

shade is a bandit. a master of disguise mixed with kaeya's already clever personality, able to mask himself as kaeya—and has, on occasion, to lead a patrol away or to snatch some medical supplies from the city for you or nikki. the difference is that he has a diluc to fall back on, one that he can trust with his entire self. kaeya can't let himself be honest with diluc and vice versa, but shade and red can. who better to tell your homicidal urges to than your fellow reflection?

imagine with me. post hunt. you're entering mondstat, without red at nikki's request. you, nikki, momo, and shade, making your way toward the gates. everyone knew about the old copy of diluc you had made, about the mirrors your friend taught you to use to summon the archons of old. even night, elusive as she was, was known throughout the knights.

but shade was new. shade was quick on his feet, always swift to pull you through the impossible tangles of forest, into thickets that would knit behind you so the patrols couldn't follow. shade was a well kept secret, only glimpsed in rumors throughout the city that the cavalry captain was occasionally seen in a new set of formal wear.

kaeya had heard these rumors. he'd also known that your 'diluc' was your closest guard, and had himself witnessed him going into the city. he'd thought nothing of it, assuming the people had simply seen someone that looked like him. they hadn't.

once youre close enough for him to actually recognize shade, its like his whole world falls apart.

"divine one..." jean, at his side, likely also recalling the rumors. "your company..."

"this is momo and nikki," you introduce, "and this is shade."

shade. some part of that feels ironic.

hes not surprised by the talking cat, barely registering nikki's polite hello as he locks eyes with shade. same height, same hair, same patch over the eye and sharp smile when he knows he's won.

"shade, say hello."

shade blinks, then flashes a fake smile. "greetings."

the meeting is a blur for kaeya. all he can see is shade, shade and how clearly you and him are attached. his hand held in yours, the adoring look in his eyes as he watches you speak-

he'd passed as kaeya. his mask was so paper thin someone he's never even met could imitate it flawlessly, putting on his identity like a costume on the world's stage and doing it better.

shade was the one at your side. shade led you away with a polite smile—you didn't see the way it dropped so he could shoot kaeya a glare—and a hand around your waist. shade was the one that believed you, that kept you safe.

kaeya had invented the frostwind swordsman. he'd crafted his persona by hand, making a shield out of his words and behavior, and yet it was somehow shade that had perfected it.

[science-lings]

If you’re still doing the prompt thing, how about pre calamity Urbosa realizing that Zelda might not be the only one suffering from self worth issues ( she’s such a good mom, I can’t resist)

Ever since Link had assisted Zelda up from the sand after the Yiga incident, she was glued to side. The fright of her near assassination left her quiet and in shock, gripping his arm with a strength he could only compare to that of a moblin.

The whole trek from Kara Kara Bazaar to Gerudo Town was filled with her muttering apologies, saying sorry for avoiding him, for running away from him, for yelling at him. It seemed to finally click for her why he was even there in the first place.

While he was glad that she had made the realization, he hated that it had happened this way, that the outspoken brave girl he had come to know was hidden behind a shaking weak voice. She could barely manage the facade of normality, forcing her face to rest in a polite expression but no matter what she did, he could see how she failed to tame her rapid breaths and feel her racing heartbeat through how tightly she held onto him.

Urbosa was waiting just outside the walls of the town, after the hero had confided in her that his charge had left and went to search the desert for her. She could tell something was wrong the moment she could identify their silhouettes on the horizon.

"What happened?" The chieftain worried after a quick speedwalk two the duo.

"Yiga, She's okay," Link replied simply, but it provided enough information for now.

Even with Urbosa's hand on her back, Zelda's hold on her guard refused to lessen. For some reason, she suddenly took more comfort in his presence than she took even with her godmother.

Link hesitated when they reached the gates of the town, hyperaware of the spear-wielding guards within impaling distance. He wasn't allowed in town, at least not without some nonmalicious disguising. But when he attempted to hand off his traumatized charge to Urbosa, the princess's grip only got tighter. Her wide eyes frantically looked at him with a sudden fresh wave of fear.

"I'm not allowed in, your highness," He reasoned in the same tone of voice that he used when soothing his steed, though that part was a little accidental. Through Zelda's silence, she easily conveyed her discontent with the arrangement, sending a near-tearful pleading look to Urbosa.

"Well... It wouldn't be the first time we've made an exception to the rule for the hero," She considered before turning to the guards of the town, "Let it be known that the princess's personal knight be allowed in, so long as he doesn't cause any problems."

"Of course Lady Urbosa." the nearest one nodded, though she wasn't too worried as it wasn't Link's first time in Gerudo Town, even disguised he kept the master sword on his back which made him easy to identify.

"Come, let's get you two inside."

******

The princess rested her head against his shoulder, her iron hold finally relaxing for the first time since the incident. Even now when he could easily slip out of her grasp, but he decided not to, even if it would be far more comfortable to do so.

If he was truly honest with himself, it wasn't out of obligation that he stayed, or even the slight worry that she would wake if he moved.

Though he couldn't show it, the event had left him shaken too. The Yiga's blade had gotten far too close and he was nearly too late. If he had decided to check a different set of ruins first, if he had not recovered from nearly tripping in the sand, if he'd even struggled to weave through the merchants at the bazaar, the princess, Zelda, would've bled out onto the sand.

Now that it was all over and he'd had some time to process what had happened, it really started to hit him just how lucky he had been. How close he was to failing his most important responsibility, to dooming the entire kingdom, and proving everyone who doubted him right.

It shouldn't have been so hard to keep track of one person and keep them safe, he should've been better. He had to be better. It shouldn't be so easy for fools like the Yiga to take them by surprise.

He wondered if it had been a close enough call to warrant some kind of punishment, or if he had been successful enough to be given some hollow congratulations as if everyone wasn't just waiting for him to mess up.

He was the chosen hero, he had to be perfect at all times. Everyone depended on him being perfect and the pressure constantly threatened to suffocate him.

Worst of all, no one seemed to care, or even notice. Perhaps that was a testament to how strong his mask was, or how isolated he was from everyone he spent time with. He was cursed to remain that way, alone and silent and even if the princess were to warm up to him, he wouldn't dare get his hopes up in the thought that she might become someone he could confide in. She already had more than enough on her plate.

"Kid? You okay?" Urbosa's voice nearly startled him from his thoughts, he hadn't even noticed her in the doorway. What if she had been a Yiga? He had to be more vigilant.

Then he registered the question, it immidiately confused him. He wasn't the one that got attacked, he was clearly unhurt, why would he not be okay?

With this logic in mind, he nodded. The chief raised an unbelieving scarlet eyebrow.

"You two are very similar you know, I was surprised to find out that you didn't get along, but I guess I should've expected it. Instead of seeing your place being alongside hers, she could only see how her failures compared to your successes, but you never blamed her for that, did you?" Urbosa sat on Zelda's bed, looking at the sleeping princess with a certain fondness in her eyes.

"She has it worse than I do," Link muttered.

"That doesn't mean your problems don't matter. Even if you were right, it's ridiculous to compare the two as if you aren't two different people who deal with the stressors that come with carrying the weight of the fate of the kingdom on your collective shoulders differently. We're all fighting the same battle, so why are you so convinced that you must fight it alone?"

"I don't know, I guess... if people realize that I'm not as brave and strong and as perfect as they think, they'll lose hope. I don't... take pride in how important and heroic I am, I think I grew out of it." He didn't know why it was so easy to release the thoughts that have spiraled in his mind for years to the first person who seemed to acknowledge them.

Even though Urbosa was the strong terrifying leader of her people and a thundering presence, he had seen how she treated Zelda. He had stuffed away a foreign kind of jealousy at the sight of their closeness, knowing that it was too late for him to forge anything similar.

Maybe he was desperate, he wanted to be heard, he wanted to be understood, he wanted to be given a grain of sympathy after being consumed by the expectations of every single person who knew his name for so long. He just wanted someone to care.

"You're more than your destiny little knight. Your life will not end when the calamity is defeated, and you will have a whole new horizon of opportunity at your fingertips. You will be able to disappear into the woods if that's what you would like, though I would like to extend an offering. You will always have a home here, if you decide you can handle the dessert," She smiled as her words passed through him.

He had never really considered what would happen after, if he expected there would even be an after. His whole life had been centered around the calamity for so long that he forgot that there was an entire world outside of that.

He didn't have to be a knight when the greatest monster had fallen. He wasn't chained to a legacy in the same way that Zelda was. And if he was able to conquer the king of demons, why would he let any other King choose his path?

"Thanks, I'll consider it." He managed a slight upturn at the corners of his lips.

"Get some sleep, don't worry, I won't tell the King." She stood, eyeing the completely unnecessary contact between him and the slumbering princess. Suddenly the evidence of a smile disappeared from his cheeks and was replaced with a distinct dusting of pink.

At least his expression made Urbosa laugh because the insinuation was certainly not something he was enjoying unless he was truly honest with himself.

For a minute he stayed, enjoying the reminder that he wasn't alone, but eventually, he snuck out of her grasp. It was too early on to push his luck.

Send me prompts?

[terrence-silver]

How would Terry react if beloved was sick one day after eating some bad eggs and threw up on the Persian rug?

Inspired by the fact that I got sick the other day and wrote myself (and @atmostories) a funny little self-care fic on Discord. 🐔🥚🍳

---

On route 101, there's a farm just outside of Santa Monica. Terry Silver has a trip.

And it is a matter of zeal that takes him there --- a place he handpicked, personally, after much pondering, vetting and deliberation, having disqualified several other spots and smaller family establishments once it turned out they were inadequate to what he was looking for. For the particular stock he had in mind. For the quality of produce he needed. Could've hired a driver. Could've been chauffeured there. Could've even driven there himself, but no, it is a helicopter or nothing at all that has him lowered out into the open plain field just outside the wide, spacious fencing enclosing around the homestead. His people let these people know he was coming, announcing his presence in advance purely so he'd ensure they were present to negotiate and do honest business with him personally. He buttons his corporate blazer up as he looks around, though the gold rimmed shades of his glasses, concealing the intent his gaze as he steps off the helicopter, polished leather shoes landing in a grassy patch of dirt, a small measure of discontentment interrupted by the elderly couple, stocky and homely, ironically seeming like they could be his own age even though they appeared older, peer at him huddled near the front gate, waiting to approach. Barbara and Herbert. He looked into their files. They seemed like they belonged in a rustic Norman Rockwell painting. The five stars they had on Yelp for admirable hospitality and favorably reviewed products as only a bonus.

Good.

-"Mr. Silver!"- The husband steps forth first with an air of hospitality laced with nervousness.

Holding unto his cap to avoid it being blown off of his head by the intensity of the spinning propellers overhead. They shake hands. Adequate squeeze. Terry Silver has to quirk up his mouth into a smile. He's merciful. He tries not to apply too much strength seeing as how the guy already seemed daunted enough by the mode of transportation he arrived in. It was only the most practical way to get here so quickly. And he needed to get here extra quick. -"How nice of you to visit us on such a short notice! We've got what you ordered."- The man fidgets with a polite, albeit awkward smile and his wife nods in approval as they lead the way forward, directing him, kindly, not to step here and there, to avoid the mud. -"I've seen my share of mud."- He reassures them, somewhat more cryptically than he would've liked, slipping off his shades to look at them and really take them in, passing through the gate and the decorative style wooden arch with a sign that promptly said 'Barb and Herb's Fresh Farm Eggs!'. Well now. -"Are they as fresh as the advertising claims?"- He has to ask, pointing a bejeweled hand at the welcoming plaque, making a joke that was anything but. Terry really needed to know with certainty, otherwise he wouldn't waste his time with this shit when he could import, from literally anywhere in the world.

-"Fresher, sir!"- The man reassures eagerly, rubbing his hands together, red in the face with excitement and work. -"For all I mind, you can watch the hen pop them out and take them home still warm!"-

-"Herb."- His wife chastises him softly, quenching his abundance of enthusiasm, it appears, lest he oversteps a certain boundary of comfort with Terry, not realizing how amused he was with all of this as he's led through fenced off portions housing cows, sheep and as marketing promised; chickens galore. Workers shoveling and feeding the animals hay looking up from their duties to inspect the newcomer from afar. One of them even slips out his phone to snap a photo, promptly frightened back into place by one of the managers who whispers something discreet into his ears. Terry didn't mind being recognized either, in fact, he relished in it quietly. For once, he actually wasn't doing anything illicit. Being immortalized here, for all places, could only add to his image, not subtract from it. He was thinking well ahead. -"No, that is quite alright."- Terry interjects with the wife softly, amused, who appeared like she was continuously trying not to look at him like he was an alien from another planet, only her kindness holding her back from it, a sentiment that Terry appreciated. -"I actually wouldn't mind buying them right from the source."- He tries not to sound hyperintense about it, but he is intense about it as a barn comes into sight; newly built. Fresh paint. A facility in its own right. Neon, white bright lights emanating from inside, alongside the cacophony of clucking and thousands of hens, neatly categorized, each into it's fenced off portion. It is warm enough inside for Terry tilt his head, cracking his neck.

Game on.

-"Mr. Anderson."- He almost sounds like a Matrix villain as he utters the farmer's surname, standing speculative at the doorway of the state of the art yard barn. He realizes that. Even as the man was so enthusiastic to show him around immediately, wife in tow. -"Who would you say is your champion among these?"- Terry inquires speculatively, in vague terms, lifting his hand to discreetly, in circularly elegant motions wave at the scene, looking around, twirling his pinkie ring, unsure how to else to phrase 'So, which hen among all of these has the eggs of the most favorably high quality worthy of my home's plate?' Understanding, once more, that he was sounding oddly like a Sensei picking a prize fighter for the ring and the mat, the professional bleeding into the private, luckily, the guy understands his intent. Funny that. Funny how they weren't quite so different, ironically. Appearantly, the man won the annual competition for 'The Best Chicken of the Valley' five times in a row, accolades and all. Herbert Anderson knew a thing or two about champions and victory too. That's why Terry Silver picked him, precisely, out of every home grown farmer in a hundred miles vicinity. Not that distance would ever stop Terry. He'd go to the ends of the world. Get on a jet. An airplane. On an overseas cruiser. Extreme circumstances, turns out, required extreme measures. Yet, it was preferable if he had his product now, today, as late as this very evening, making travelling long distances, or having someone travel it for him the less favorable option, for once.

Wherever it took, to buy some eggs. Literally whatever, no matter how…absurd.

-"Noah! Get Helga!"- The old farmer alerts one of his workers manning the chicken coops. And the boy is immediately underway, practically running, down the elaborate, colossal hangar. They follow suit, the three of them, through the expansive maze of feathered birds. There she is, finally; the titular, plump, well-fed Helga. In an accommodation entirely of her own. Coop 787900. A highlighted notice next to her coop, listing all the prizes and medals she's won. The animal was appearantly a more accomplished chicken than most fighters were fighters.

-"She's a fine, pedigreed Buff Orpington, isn't she? One of a kind."-

Herbert beams up at Terry, talking about her like he was talking about a superior, keeping a respectful distance from Helga, tuckered into her nest made out of clean, shiny straw, all puffed and puckered. Terry could swear that that chicken looked at him in a challenging manner he could appreciate. -"And her eggs are as pale as an angel's feather from the outside, and as yellow as a burning ember from the inside."- Her owner describes, but no, Terry learned a long time ago, that whenever you intended to invest in a product, you'd have to sample it first. Be it a car, coke or a suit. Pale as an angel's feather, though? Yellow as a burning ember? Waxing poetically, surely, but that marketing tactic description sounded apt to what he was searching. -"How about taste?"- He inquires just that, maintaining firm eye contact with the hen. He wouldn't leave here until the bird's eggs were to his specific liking, and no, he couldn't leave the choice up to his some random intern, secretary, or chef's assistant he'd send over here in his stead. He had to make the decision. Only he. And immediately, the famer perches up, waving the assistant over, who, as if this was somehow anticipated was by Terry's side, opening and showcasing an antiseptic, clinically neat, small crate labeled 'Helga'. Eggs inside pale, still warm, demonstrating their shape, consistency, coloring and texture. Within another second, the boy rushes over to what seemed like a lab table in the middle of the barn, and there amidst of it, bottles, flasks, containers and a…stove. He was frying an egg, in front of him, in the flesh, in a white pan, making a showcasing in the flesh. These guys really wanted to make a buck badly, huh? Were willing to put up a whole elaborate show for it too. Not bad at all. Men of business, truly. Within less than a minute, it served and handed to Terry for a test. -"You be the judge of that."-

The silent assistant holds the plate and the farmer encourages. Fork in hand, Terry tries. The egg yolk golden covered with a thin crust that breaks, leaking a solidified liquid.

Rich.

Savory.

It's whites chewy, appropriately balanced and salty. Rushing down his tongue like an elixir, taking only a couple of mouthfuls for him to feel sated. Terry closes his eyes for a second, measuring the taste like it was a fine, rare Whiskey. Deciding whether he approved of it or not, as everyone watched him, bated breaths. He did want to torture them a little, admittedly.

-"What do you need the eggs for anyway?"- A voice interrupts his careful, slightly sadistic, deliberately drawn out reverie of anticipation and Terry can't help but take a sharp intake of breath he immediately attempts masking. The young farmhand with somewhat vexed eyes. Ah, yes. Impertinent youth. Didn't realize the gravitas of all of this. -"Noah! Don't be inappropriate with the gentleman! Mr. Silver is a very important guest and we're honored for him to test our product!"- The wife shoots in, feeling like she has to de-escalate. Feeling she might lose a customer over this. She wouldn't. Terry Silver's already made his decision. He just enjoyed dragging things out to poke at people a little. Gage their reactions. Watch them squirm in an elaborate 'Will we or won't we'. -"No, that's quite alright."- He manages a chuckle, sounding low and hushed, even to his own ears, taking out his silken monogrammed handkerchief to wipe his mouth once nobody offers him one (Takes everything within him to forgive that misstep, reminding himself not everyone was raised a Silver) and hand the boy back the plate, fork and all. -"You see,"- Terry waves his hand in vague circles with a smile, trying to explain himself. -"I have someone back home who recently got sick off one of these."- He begins, nose pointing at the container of eggs on the clinically clean working surface, trying not to crinkle his nostrils too much, lest it seems like he actually feels a certain distaste towards eggs as a concept starting as of yesterday. -"And in maintaining a fulfilling diet, I need to her to intake an appropriate amount of vitamin B2, B12 and Selenium."- Terry reaches out, plucking one of Helga's prized eggs out of it's special box, holding it up for emphasis. Investigating it. Not a single blemish. Immaculately pristine crust. Admirable shape. Good curvature. Polished. It even smelled nice. Healthy.

Perfect.

-"From the right source, of course. Only the best."- He grins into his chin at his hosts. Throwing them crumbs of flattery.

-"And yours, of course, I found, is the best. Homegrown too."- He brightens up, spreading his arms, feeling a bit like a TV-evangelist about to sell the masses snake poison. Herbert Anderson has to smile along with him, perking up. Turns out, talking about investing into local economy and local entrepreneurs always served to oil up people's gears the right way, especially when dealing with these working class types hungry for acknowledgement amidst a budding, competitive market. Practically starved for it. -"Why, sir, I'm so happy that…"- But, no, Terry hasn't the time for pleasant small talk and empty exchanges --- not now when he's hit a bingo. You vomited all over the Persian Carpet last night as was due courtesy thanks to the rare eggs Rene prepared and now, Terry was on the hunt to fix the quality of his own kitchen's products. Feed you better than before. Take care of you. Take care of you in every way conceivable, with any resource he had. Nothing was too stupid or too much. -"I'm buying the eggs."- He pushes in, stepping forward, towards the farmer, looming over him. -"And I'm buying Helga too."- He adds, slowly, and this time, he finds Barbara crossing her arms over her chest and the farm boy looking perplexed. Herbert's color drains from his sun-kissed face. He doesn't have time to formulate words. His wife doesn't have the time to nag either. Terry doesn't let them. -"Of course, I'll pay you handsomely. More than anyone else ever will. You'll find she'll have a good home with me at Sierra retreat. You'll find I have an appreciation for champions."- Terry amps up the heat, flaunting his postal code --- one of several --- in case it wasn't obvious enough by the helicopter, his suit and the secretary that contacted Herbert Anderson of Herb and Barb's Fresh Farm Eggs that Terry Silver wasn't coming here on a budget. -"A champion like that,"- He clicks his tongue, pointing at Helga clucking from her coop. -"Deserves to live comfortably."-

Spotting hesitation in the couple's collective expressions, he reaches inside his blazer.

-"Cash or card?"- He suggests, raised chin, opening his ultra slim, black crocodile Stefano Ricci wallet purely so they'd spot the vague hint of green inside. They immediately relent. Just as he thought --- their disposition visibly changing, body languages shifting. Money talks, even though these people were far from economically impaired. They seemed to be doing good for themselves out here. -"What do you need Helga for, if I can ask. I mean, sir, I'd feel awfully sorry if she was bound for a Sunday roast, if you know what I mean. I groomed her from an incubator egg."- There's something pathetic about Herbert's pleading and prolonging, stretching out these negotiations for far longer than Terry intended them go on, but he found he couldn't be as irritated as he wished to be, coming prepared to do business however long it took. Something peculiarly peculiar about a man's devotion to his bird, paired with his fear that Terry might order his cooks to prepare eggs and meat tonight. Oh, but the loyalty of all of this. It was funny. Maybe even touching. -"I want my wife to have a steady income of high quality eggs back home, which Helga can provide."- Terry confesses, bluntly and they all seem…surprised. Like it wasn't the answer they expected to hear out of him. They undoubtedly supposed the man from LA needed a chicken to devise an anti-aging crème concocted from its boiled liver or whatever new age bullshit these people thought of him, but no, his response has them lost. So, he briefly clarifies, saying nothing but the truth. When you got sick, briefly, it is like Terry's gotten sick with worry too, infected by it all, against all better judgement, control and logic, imaging you dying way before your time, even though he knew how ridiculous and downright mad the notion was. He couldn't help but think about you lurching over and heaving your own heart out. Leaving him. Being stolen from him over another stupid mistake that was his fault. He was so afraid.

Haunted over everything, every mundane nonsense, ever since he's met you.

-"I am very meticulous about what she puts in her mouth."-

Barbara Anderson's expression softens and only then does Terry know this is a done deal.

He's won.

----

On the ride back home, Terry has Helga sitting in his lap. Surrounded by a collection of accolades fastened and strapped into place, to avoid them accidentally thumbing 12.000 above ground, into the nearby fields, golden trophies sliding into the sliding chopper door. Last thing he needed was being responsible for the death or severe injury of some passerby, fisherman or hikers smacked square across the scalp with a 'California's Prize Hen Queen of 2018' award conveniently shaped like a golden chicken perched up proudly on one foot, bearing a crown --- he has to chuckle at that one. He understood how downright absurd this was. Love and the things one did because of it, perhaps, had inherently absurd elements. Devotion too.

A container of eggs neatly airlocked, by his side --- the bird takes to helicopter flying surprisingly well.

The pilot has him face to face with the skyline of Los Angeles well within the hour, the veil of clouds and smog clearing to reveal the network of streets, houses and buildings down below as his hand smooths the bird's golden feathers --- he could be home with you and you wouldn't even wake yet from him instructing --- no --- ordering you to rest and stay put. You would have your allotted meal, all the food groups involved, all the medications, vitamins and proteins due on your plate. All greenery he had ordered over to the mansion, the tender meat prepared by a Michelin star chef, cheeses imported over from France --- an intensity amplified by the fact you landed yourself with something uncontrollably unexpected; food poisoning. The sole bad egg that, for some reason, didn't agree with you. Even the doctor he flew in for a mandatory check up said you were entirely fine, but he wouldn't leave it at that. He couldn't. He flew in another one, and he just about said the same thing and it is like these payroll medical practitioners were out to deliberately rile him and prod at his thinning patience. He wasn't young anymore. He was an old man not to be trifled with. Truth was, Terry was on a tirade as of late, going to great lengths to ensure your biorhythm was running to perfection and that you were fed the way he felt you deserved to be fed. Clothed. Bathed. Taken care of. These eggs, well, happened to be the last agenda on his scheduled list. Now, he had the one producing it too. Helga clucks as he pets her. He was more prone to snakes, Anacondas, Boas and Cobras himself, but a domesticated bird would do, even though his father always tended to say a chicken was a poor man's dish, refusing to ever eat the damn thing and anything lower than a Bourbon Red Heritage Turkey. Yet, Terry would have a coop erected for her. Acquire a worthy Rooster. Hire a couple of workers to tend to her. Manage her. -"Helga," - Terry purrs at his newly acquired friend.

-"You'll serve my love very well, won't you?"- That evening, Rene fries you and him a pair of eggs each and you dine heartily, post-recovery. After some micromanaged consideration that you handled the meal favorably, Terry is pleased with his purchased investment. Come morning, seated on the leather arm chair in the lobby, he brings in Helga from the coop to pet her as a reward for a finely provided service.

[littlesparklight]

Have a snippet from the might-one-day-be Perseus fic:

A week. He'd been gone a week.

That wasn't enough time to have gotten anywhere if he hadn't had his divine helpers. He might have been able to get to Delphi to ask the god for advice and get back down to Athens in that span of time, but surely not to have gotten to the Gorgons' lair, even less time for Polydektes to assume he'd already died!

Glad he'd made Andromeda stay in the house, still unsettled by how empty it'd been, Perseus looked up at the palace gate, hands on his hips. Garlands were strewn about the gate as if there was a celebration going on, and he could hear music. His foster uncle had truly wasted no time at all! The men standing at the gate were staring at him, wide-eyed underneath the bronze rims of their helmets, pale-faced underneath their tans. Perseus touched the kibisis, then closed his hand around the hilt of the harpe sword Hermes had given him.

"Am I going to be let past?" he asked, trying for polite but vibrating with growing fury, like there was a monster in his chest. How dare they just go along with Polydektes, how dare Polydektes hurry up to force his mother into marriage before he even could be sure Perseus was dead, if only by waiting at least a year?

The guards - he recognized them, too - eyed each other, then him, and stretched the arms wielding their spears out wide while pulling their other hands up towards their chests, away from the swords at their hips. Smiling tightly, Perseus shifted on his feet, then glanced to the men again. "And where is my mother, and my foster father?"

"Th-the palace altar to Father Zeus," one of them said, waving a hand at the gate.

Perseus nodded sharply, for no matter how angry he now was his mother had raised him with expectations and it would've felt weird to dash off without thanking the man, however obliquely, for the information. Hurrying through the gate, Perseus ignored the people, women and men both, milling out on the central courtyard. Wished he could run, but with judicious use of elbows he jogged across the too-vast space. Aiming not for the megaron, but a building close next to it. Almost went for the kibisis, but there were no guards at the entrance to the shrine. Whirling around in the doorway, he glowered at the festive crowd, hands trembling and something ugly in his chest.

How dare they come here to celebrate Polydektes wedding when he shouldn't be holding it at all, and they all ought to know that.

"Leave!" Perseus bellowed, drawing his sword and then turning around, untying the strings to the kibisis as he stormed inside.

Shoved several men aside so he could cross the shrine in five leaping steps, coming in front of the small crowd of men Polydektes had brought with him into the shrine to one way or another convince Danaë and his brother to leave the protection of the altar.

"Perseus!" his mother cried, falling against his back, arms winding around his middle. Stretching up on tip-toe, Danaë could just barely kiss the bottom of his jaw.

"Perseus?" Polydektes and Diktys echoed each other, one voice replete with furious incredulity, the other equally surprised but ringing with relief.

"A week, Polydektes? A week!" Perseus spat, fighting for any number of words he couldn't find and settled for the ones that'd been ringing in his head since his foster father's housekeeper had told him of the struggle that'd led to Diktys and Danaë being led off towards the palace. Perseus could only be glad his mother and foster father had managed to escape in here. "And I'm pretty sure my mother isn't Hippodamia, daughter of Oinomaos of Pisa."

His foster father's brother had the stomach to laugh, slapping his knees. His eyes were still hot with fury in contrast to the laugh, though the twist to his lips were mocking and cruel, not warmly amused.

"And a week couldn't be enough to fulfil your obligation to me, oathed as it was, so I should say the lovely Danaë is now forfeit to me, and will have to step away from that altar willingly." He held his hand out, palm up in a gesture almost genteel.

Perseus almost ruined this opportunity by almost lunging forward, catching himself with a tense lurch and instead throwing his arm out, sword extended, so that his reach was long enough to cut off both his mother and Diktys from passing him, whatever each their reason to do so might be. His foster father didn't have any weapon at all, but he was tense enough to show the muscle in his arms, and his fists were large and rough from his many victories in boxing. He might have been about to do what Perseus had also almost done, in the hope that he might cause enough of a commotion for Danaë and Perseus to slip past.

"Close your eyes," Perseus whispered under the cover of the men drawing their swords - who had swords at a wedding, anyway? - catching Diktys' gaze first and then his mother's, wanting to just sink down into her embrace, bury his face against her hair, but he couldn't. Not yet. Fortunately, they both obeyed, Diktys pulling his mother close in an embrace, which also looked a little less suspicious. "And you---"

"It's one against twenty men, boy," Polydektes said, sneering. "Even if you are born of one of the deathless ones to Danaë, you're still mortal, and your flesh is soft. Unfortunately."

The smirk was toothy, the meaning plain. Perseus grit his teeth, tightening his grip on the harpe's hilt so his hand might stop trembling. There were people peering through the doorway into the shrine, despite that he'd told everyone to leave.

"Who says I didn't do what you asked of me?" Perseus shook his head, pulling the lip of the kibisis wide. "Anyone who would stand against this unwanted and unlawful marriage, leave, now. The rest of you, look upon the proof of my having fulfilled my uncle's demand."

Footsteps hurried away; several figures by the door left and one of the men lurched around, dashing for the doorway. Whether they agreed with him or simply understood what he'd said, didn't matter. Perseus stuck his hand into the divine knapsack, finding a limp snake to grab as he turned his head away, closing his eyes on the sight of Polydektes lunging forward, sword in hand.

There wasn't any proof of the dead Gorgon's dread gaze having done what it could still do, as little as there'd been when he'd held it up for Phineus and his men. The same sort of total, breathless silence bloomed out, however, filling the air in lieu of the other sounds that ought to be there. The sounds of many men breathing, the tiny little motions no one realized they were always picking up on until they weren't there any more; scrape of metal, the swish of swords being swung through the air, no footsteps. Perseus' breathing was loud in his ears, and so was the sound of his mother and Diktys breathing as well.

They were safe.

They were all safe.

Hands trembling again, Perseus managed to shove Medusa's head into the kibisis again without anything getting tangled up. Barely took the time to tie even a sloppy knot to the bag before he whirled around, dropping the adamant harpe.

"Mother!"

Danaë shuddered, twisting out of Diktys' arms to throw her own wide, and Perseus dropped to his knees as his legs gave up, relief like a punch right below-center of his chest, stealing all his strength and air. He buried his face against his mother's stomach, clutching at her fine dress, and let himself sob when her soft hand stroked his curls, her other arm steady around his shoulders, though her fingers dug in hard enough to reveal they'd be trembling if she wasn't clutching so tightly.

"My baby, my son, my eyes and heart, you're alive! And come back so soon!" Danaë's voice didn't break, but it trembled. "Come here, let me see---!"

Only reluctantly did Perseus let his mother pull him away from her enough she could clutch him by the cheeks, trembling thumbs stroking his cheeks and brushing away fat, hot tears. He smiled, and she did too, then sank down to her knees with him, throwing her arms around his shoulders, a hand in his hair to pull him close, cheek against his curls. Still whispering benedictions and relief. Perseus drew a shuddering breath and looked up at his foster father, who came up with no hesitation at all, though his hand trembled a little as he squeezed his shoulder. Perseus grimaced, glancing back over his shoulder to the statues now arrayed throughout the shrine, each caught in whatever motion the man the statue had once been had been doing as the Gorgon's gaze froze them.

One of those statues, the one at the front, sword raised and a terrible snarl on his face but a beginning pinch of understanding, of fear, in the corners of his eyes, was his foster uncle. Was his foster father's brother.

"I--- ah. Uh. Sorry about…"

"No." Diktys shook his head, the hand on Perseus' shoulder now steady as he looked down to his foster son, away from his brother by blood, if not, any longer, perhaps in years, in heart. "You did what you had to, son."

[evelynn-napier]

Story of the Shift

11/6/2022

Shift was only three hours long at GameStall but I managed to get enough done. I got the new, Top 50, preowned, and price changes all done for Switch, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X games.

For the first time since I started, we couldn't sell PlayStation 5's because of a console shortage but because we couldn't complete the mandatory bundle with it. We only had pink controllers, which no costumer was ecstatic about. One of them even asked me if it was 'too girly'.

My good sir. I had a third grade male classmate who'd rather have this controller than the white one.

We did manage to get more controllers by searching through the endless distro package list and the scanning the labels on the 15+ boxes in the backroom.

I did get to tell a coworker about a new customer story.

On the 31st, Halloween, I was closing the store at 6pm. Because of the holiday, we were closing about two hours earlier than we usually do. I was waiting for my grandparents to pick me up and figured they'd be right outside or try to call me to let me know they were here.

So when I noticed someone outside the glass windows, through the metal gates, I wasn't surprised. I just focused on my work so I could get out as fast as I could. When I heard a masculine voice say "I'm just going to call them", I wasn't surprised.

The store phone rang and because my grandparents don't use their cellphone often, I don't have their number memorized. I answered the phone, gave the mandatory spiel, but then paused.

No, it wasn't my grandparents outside but rather an angry customer. At this time, my grandfather had arrived and came to the store front to let the customer know that there were witnesses. The customer wanted me to let them inside so they could use their monthly $5 membership coupon.

The store had closed 25 minutes ago and I politely told the customer that, no, he could not come in but he could always use the coupon online. I also tried to explain to him that the store had closed early due to the holiday. He insisted that it was not a holiday, that if I didn't let him in that he would lose the coupon, but thankfully he left without too much trouble.

My grandfather did let me know he was outside because I did not feel safe enough to leave.

Believe it or not, that same customer, who because of this incident I will refer to now as 'Phoney', came back the next day. Phoney ended up buying a PS4 game and wanted to know if the Store Leader (my boss) or corporate had changed the hours. He took the answer I gave which was 'I'm afraid it doesn't matter' and informed him it had been a holiday. He did not agree. I am not sure if someone gave him raisins one time or if he never got a full sized candy bar, but Halloween is a holiday. May not be a federal holiday, but it is still a holiday.

I reminded him many places close early so children can trick-or-treat and their parents can be with them. He left without another word and I took a moment to wrap my mind around the fact a grown man became angry over a $5 coupon.

I mean, he spent the entire time he waited in line huffing, sighing, and making sure everyone who looked over knew he'd rather be anywhere else.

For a monthly $5 coupon.

[spaced-out-muses]

White clouds dot a clear sky overhead. Birds sing their tune within the palace's trees, flowers and grass alike rustling with the passing breeze. It's under this good weather that Edeline awaits, standing in front of the castle's stairs with Cadius by her side. There her servants wait with her, and as the great castle gates creak open, she steps forward to the approaching black limousine.

And when the door opens?

"Doctor Black Jack."

Platinum locks sway as the princess bows her head. Those under her follow suit, Cadius bending at the waist with his usual lazy smirk, while the servants bow and the maids curtsy at the man from behind her.

"Welcome to Pendragon Palace. I should hope that your trip here went smoothly. Now please," she starts, a gloved hand gesturing to the castle's open doors, "come inside—-there is much for us to discuss. My servants will carry any luggage you may have to your room, should you wish for it."

(@lcveblind)

The ride over to the castle, save for Pinoko's unending chatter and excitement, was relatively uneventful. Aside from the clear skylines and beautiful scenery that passed by through the tinted glass, there was nothing else to distract the good Doctor from his newest case:

The attempted assassination of a Monarch. Nothing surprising, all things considered. He'd dealt with plenty of assassinations by this point, all of them holding the exact same basis of someone wanting someone else dead. Perhaps this King had established a new law his subjects were unhappy with. That wasn't an uncommon occurrence. Or, maybe, it was the age old belief that the King simply did not do enough. That the kingdom needed newer, better leadership. Oh well, it wasn't his job to speculate. He was the doctor, the political intricacies of his clientele weren't something he should concern himself with.

There was no fanfare as the limo pulled up to the castle, just the creak of metal as the large gates swung open, though... ah. There was a welcoming committee.

His gaze narrowed at the lines of servants positioned near the entrance to the castle.

Kuroo supposed he shouldn't have expected anything less. Most of his richer clientele tended to make a show of their wealth and status, whether that be flaunting the amount of help that they had, their finery and riches, or their—often tacky—collections.

He never particularly cared for any of it.

The limo eventually came to a stop, and it is only once the engine cut out that the great Doctor Black Jack steps out of the vehicle, medical bag in hand.

A cool gaze drifts over the crowd, and after preventing his daughter from immediately bouncing up to them, he speaks.

"Indeed. Lets not waste anymore time." He states. "Lead me to the patient."

[luxmaeastra]

Anastasiya stiffened glancing to the gardens where Poppy and Genya were playing. Genya had shifted into a fox and Poppy was attempting to catch her.

She frowned back at Solmir trying to not lash out at the other. Solmir was Aleksander's uncle, born just 10 years before him.

She didn't know the details of how his paternal grandparents died but she knew the outcome. Sebastian had refused to raise his then 14 year old brother. Viren had taken the boy in and made him what he was now.

Solmir had been his Spymaster and had trained both Azriel and Narcissus in the Shadowsinger ways. Or at least in Azriel's case. She didn't think Narcissus had any claim to the shadow powers from his family.

She and Azriel had never been close by any means. But she remembered the one day he'd broken down. The one day he'd let in and whispered how it wasn't Nirtea's fires that scared him - but Solmir.

What had this male done to him back then?

But none of that mattered now. She didn't let him train her children without her or Aleksander present anyway. She was sure if either had asked Sebastian he would have told them to throw him out.

But Solmir was mated to one of Rhysand's older sisters. He was a good ally to have on their side. His mate's presence in their kingdom alone kept things civil.

It helped she was more witch than whatever unholy blood Rhysand hailed from.

Solmir leaned against the wall and simply waited for her to speak. His eyes occasionally going to her girls playing. So briefly she saw that softness. He must be missing his sons then even if he pretended he needed no one or nothing.

She'd seen how he doted on Rellia, how he nearly torn himself apart in that war for her.

How he'd fell to his knees before Sebastian begging for his aid. She didn't know the bargain he'd made between them but she could guess it was powerful. Changeling bargains were inked on their skin in the form of gems. Judging by the bluish gleam she could see it must be something about loyalty. Perhaps he was forced to be loyal to Aleksander and not Night. If that was true she'd heard nothing about it from either Rellia or Tisiphone.

Anastasiya sighed and looked to the gardens again. She bit at her lip hard enough to taste blood.

"Are you sure Autumn can't help? Aunt Zefera is -"

"Zefera is a Changeling yes. But she is...well the non polite word for it is domesticated. The lands of Erilea are not that. You want those girls to get the best education on their Changeling powers take them to Adarlan. If you don't trust my word as Sebastian. Wyrd's Gate, he may even insist on going with you."

Her frown deepened and she walked away from him.

That was the last thing she needed. She'd met Zefera's sister in passing. Georgina had always been friendly if a little haughty to her. It would be interesting to see her. Terresan had only fallen a decade ago and she hoped she was doing well.

She'd seen how Zefera had broken at hearing her homeland had been destoryed. It always did confuse her how anything in that land lasted as long as it did. The only place she'd been and seen first hand were the City of Ghezen. The city island had been harrowing for the 72 hours she'd been forced to stay there as a child waiting for her father's boat to be fixed.

The streets had been ruled by four different gangs and violence had been common. She remembered how her father hadn't seemed overly concerned either. It made her wonder just what he and Sebastian had gotten up to in their youth. Had they come to that city when they'd been her age then?

Was Aleksander's father as wild as one of those things? She mentally hit herself. She couldn't think that - she knew far too many Changelings now.

Narcissus, Azriel, Sebastian and Solmir. Her own daughters now. She found Aleksander in the gardens. She cupped his face pressing a soft kiss to his lips.

She exhaled moving to sit next to him. Her mind was growing quiet now. She smiled up at him lacing her hand with his.

"I missed you."

She repeated Solmir's advice. What did he think? Did he think this was a worthwhile endeavour?

"Do you worry for our magic in those lands? I know they made something to suppress it."

She thought again of Azriel and Hypaxia. They lived in those lands, maybe not under Adarlan banner. But they condoned his war. She claimed she was for the witches and let this atrocity continue.

Anastasiya watched the girls, picking at her cuticle absentmindedly. She didn't notice the trickle of blood forming.

"Our girls not withstanding - should we stop him? Should we - Hypaxia and Azriel won't like the idea of us so close. But they sit by while he snuffs more and more of the witches there."

The only crime those witches had been born with was being born Covenless! They deserved someone taking them in!

Aleksander smiled as he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close to his side. It felt almost like a day since she had been by him, since she had returned to him. He melted against her lips when she kissed him, he followed her when she broke it off - how he craved that kiss once more.

“I missed you too.” He responded. He gave her hand a squeeze, his head resting against her own as his eyes looked out towards the gardens. The peace it brought, not to be bombarded with questions or decisions.

“I have some,” he admitted. “Especially with the girls so young. I am concerned about it bleeding over, how it could disrupt everything we have built. I don’t know how my brother and his…whatever she is, will feel. They aren’t an ally though…”

Aleksander pulled her closer, he closed his eyes before he pressed a kiss against her temple.

[shig-a-shig-ah]

No one ever thinks or writes much for the best villain and best dad so I am going to say, Kiroguri + Daddy Kink

I agree this man doesn’t get enough attention, but I fear that I have done him dirty here, anon. 

» pairing: Kurogiri x fem!reader

» cw: alcohol, dubcon, fingering, daddy kink. 18+, minors DNI.

» a/n: Apparently now we can add Kurogiri getting dubconned to the list of things I thought I would never write. Anyway, enjoy another one from my 1k followers event! 

» wc: 1.1k

Kurogiri is only meant to be Shigaraki's caretaker, technically speaking, but he looks after the rest of the League, too. Whether it's because he considers that part of his duties, or because he simply can't help himself, you've never been sure.

You like it, though. Like the grounding presence the seeming unflappable man brings, and the soothing bass of his voice as he comforts you. And he comforts you often, thanks to your desire not to let the rest of the League see your vulnerable, and your tumultuous relationship with one of those members in particular.

If you can even call it a relationship. Dabi shows up when he wants to, all sweet words and wandering hands and empty promises, and the moment he's pumped you full to his satisfaction he's suddenly nothing but hedging and excuses and dismissive mumbles of 'no, no, no, you misunderstood, doll' before he disappears for another week or two.

And you fall for it every time, like the idiot you are.

Kurogiri doesn't judge, though, only plies you with the liquor needed to forget your distress, and politely passes you tissues while fat tears roll down your cheeks for the dozenth time. And tonight, when your legs are wobbly from the booze and you trip a little as you finally clamber off the barstool, he's quick to intervene and help you to bed.

He's never offered even so much as a casual touch before, and it isn't until he's hooking one arm under your shoulders to support you that you realize there's a physical body under all that mist. He smells good, too, the aroma of spicy, earthy cologne wafting into your nostrils as he guides you through a warp gate and into your bedroom.

You're surprisingly disappointed when he pulls away, moving back towards the warp gate to leave you alone.

And sober, you probably wouldn't even have entertained the thought that comes next. You certainly wouldn't have dared to act on it. But in your liquor-fueled, emotional haze, all you can really think about is how you don't want to be alone, and how Kurogiri's surprisingly solid form had felt sort of nice pressed against your own, even only for a moment.

Suddenly, you're squeezing your thighs together, thinking about how he always takes such good care of you. Wondering if he'd be just as good at taking care of you in other ways.

"Wait," you mumble, the word punctuated by a drunken hiccup, bleary eyes peering up at Kurogiri from behind your lashes as he turns to look at you. 

"Do you require something else?"

You nod. Shuffle closer, your chest pressing against his own. His yellows eyes furrow in confusion, then widen just as quickly when you reach out to find his hand beneath the layer of mist, and guide it to your thigh.

"Wanna feel good," you breathe, sliding his hand a little higher. You see the way he tenses in response, but it barely registers. The feel of cool fingertips trailing up the smooth skin of your leg has your center throbbing slightly, your need worsening. It'd be good, you know it would be.

"I— I do not think that is appropriate," he says firmly, but even that sudden commanding edge to his voice only has your stomach fluttering. His hand tries to pull away from yours, but you tighten your grip and he doesn't jerk away, whether because he doesn't want to hurt you or because he's unsure how to proceed, you don't know.

You don't really care, either, only guide his hand to cup where you need it most, holding against the apex of your thighs. "Please."

"I really don't—" he starts, but you interrupt with a whine.

"Please, daddy." The title just slips out, but it feels good, feels right when he always takes such good care of you and everyone else. You need him to take care of you now, too, and even though his arm is still tense, still resisting your guidance, you only shove your panties to the side and lead those fingers to your entrance, rocking your hips against cool fingertips until they find their way inside. It has you whimpering, grinding against them even as Kurogiri lets out an odd, choked sigh.

After a moment of fucking against his fingers, Kurogiri slowly starts to move, working them in and out of their own volition, the mist surrounding his hands tickling at your clit in a surprisingly tantalizing way.

"Yeah." Your teeth sink into your lower lip, eyes rolling back a little. "'S good." You were drunk before but this is a different kind of intoxication, Kurogiri touching you like this, and you whine again, rocking your hips faster. "You like how I feel, daddy?"

"It is...not unpleasant." You can hear a faint breathiness to his own voice now, alongside obvious ambivalence that you don't pay much attention too. There's heat building in your gut, distracting you from anything besides the headiness of his touch.  

Your head bows, hands clutching at the front of his vest as you rock your hips harder, breathing in the scent of him. "'M close. Wanna cum."

Kurogiri doesn't need you to ask for him to speed up—even as the rest of him remains stiff and still, his cool fingers start pumping into you more roughly, sending you gasping.

"Yeah, yeah like that." You nuzzle your face against his chest. "Fuck, tell me 'm a good girl."

"You're a good girl," he repeats immediately. He's only parroting back the words but it's easy to imagine you hear a warmth there, to believe he really has developed some fondness for you during all those other nights tending to your heartache. When he repeats those words unbidden, even flatly—"Such a good girl"—it's enough to send you spilling over the edge.

"Yes, yes, thank you. Thank you, daddy," you mewl as your thighs quake and your walls flutter, slick coating fingers you've never actually seen and probably never will. Kurogiri only continues working those digits in and out of you until you're far too sensitive, shoving his hand away with one last shudder.

When you glance up at him, he's staring down at you with an expression that's even harder to read than usual. Tight, you think, if vapor could be such a thing.

"It is my job to look after Shigaraki Tomura and his allies," Kurogiri says carefully, as he turns back towards the warp gate. He pauses just before passing through, glancing over his shoulder at you. "But please do not ask me to help you like this again."

[unprofessional-bard]

Don't Push It, Pt. 1

Unprofessional Bard's Masterlist

Part 2 (1/2)

Based on this request.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female!Reader

Warnings: Age gap (the reader is 26 and Joel is 53), a lot of teasing/sexual tension, implied romantic feelings.

Summary: It's been going on for years. They both know better than to act on their feelings, but patience starts running thin when a few boundaries are crossed.

Word Count: 5.280

Author's Note: Okay y'all so I am a whore for Joel with long hair and I unintentionally made this into a fix-it au where Joel is alive. Also, the reader is going to have some OC characteristics to fit the scenario better. Finally, this fic changes POV's a lot, so I'm gonna clear that up:

• ----R and below: The reader's POV.

• ----J and below: Joel's POV.

• ----B and below: Both POV's.

The fic starts off with Joel's POV.

Enjoy!

gif credits: nikolai-stavrogin

"Hey, Joel," Dina called over to the man sipping coffee on his porch.

"Mornin' Dina," He replied as his daughter's girlfriend walked over to him. Her baby bump had grown a little more and it never failed to put a smile on Joel's face.

"There's a little trouble with the patrol today," She said. "Jesse won't be able to make it to patrol with (Y/N)."

Shit.

"And they're askin' me to fill in?" He sat up a little.

"Yup, Maria told me to ask you if-"

"No problem, sure, I'll do it." He spoke nonchalantly, then asked if Jesse was alright. Dina told him she wasn't sure, that it must be something important for him to miss patrol, which made Joel nod: "You told (Y/N) too, or...?"

"No, but she's gonna be there regardless. I doubt that she knows."

"Alright, thanks Dina," Joel got up and she smiled in return before walking over to Ellie's place.

It was wrong. By the lord it was wrong, but he couldn't help it. You were fierce, confident, determined and disciplined; qualities he came to appreciate in time, but a bit differently only when it came to you. He shouldn't want you, an unknown source in his mind kept telling himself, but he did. He didn't know why, he never found himself being attracted to a woman your age, yet you had him under your spell. Oh the things you did to him...

Worst part was, he couldn't have you, whether he liked it or not. Nevermind the fact that you were too young for him, you probably didn't want him anyways- despite the crystal clear signals he got from you. It was just how you were, though: A little physical and perhaps a little flirty, but he could just be confusing that with your confidence.

Or he could be overthinking everything.

Joel readied his backpack, but realised there was still a little more than an hour before the rendez-vous, so he decided to head over to your place to tell you about the news to kill some time. After he made it there and knocked on your door while calling your name a couple of times, which were left unanswered, your neighbour curiously looked over the fences and called over to Joel: "She left a while ago... For the gym, I think."

"Thank you," Joel smiled politely and earned a wave from the lady in return. He took his time as he walked over to the gym. After he arrived, he looked around for awhile to spot where you were, but when he found it, the sight almost made him choke.

There you were, ankles crossed as you pulled yourself up and chin over the barfix with closed eyes, a frown and a clenched jaw. Sweat laced the sides of your face and Joel's eyes wandered lower: You were wearing a sports bra and matching shorts which hugged your frame tightly and the sun was shining directly onto your muscles, which the lord himself carved out and were also sweaty, but Joel didn't care - it made you look more attractive, if anything. You let out a huff and lowered yourself down, while he tried to collect himself. He didn't want to disturb you so he decided to wait until you finished...

...but you didn't seem to be finishing any time soon. He didn't want to look like a creep as he stood there and waited, so after you did another pull up and let yourself down, he cleared his throat.

----R

"(Y/N), here you are."

Had you not been already hanging, you definitely would've fell when you heard Joel's voice reach your ears. You opened your eyes to see him slowly approach you, his stupid thumb stuck in behind his stupid belt.

You hated it: You hated finding this man attractive and you hated your guts for occasionally flirting with him - him, who probably would never look at you the way you looked at him. He liked you, of course, he enjoyed your company but not the way you wanted him to. You hated that you had a crush on this man, who became even more gorgeous as he let his hair grow over the last few years, you also hated how he neatly parted it to the left.

Patrol with him was both a treat and a curse at the same time. You got to spend time with him, which made it a treat, but when you watched him- saw him in action, how aggressive he was, heat started to pool between your thighs. He was so rough and precise as he was smart; he always knew what to do under any circumstance, so you almost never worried when you went out with him. He made you feel safe, praised you and played with your heart when he responded to your flirting and nothing came out of it.

You hated it because your little "crush" on him was pathetic, for someone as confident as you. Sure, you teased and flirted with him, but one praise as simple as you did well today and you'd be melting on spot. You even tried to get with other people to distract yourself, to no avail. They weren't Joel.

None of them could ever be Joel.

"Good morning!" You said with a high pitched voice, reflecting your struggle to keep yourself up.

"To you too," He chuckled at your state and watched as you pulled yourself up slowly. "Hey, listen. Jesse ain't gonna make it to patrol today so I'm fillin' in for him."

----B

The way you faltered a little didn't escape him: "Why? Is he okay?"

"I dunno, but I'm sure he is. Something important must've come up," Joel informed you, not wanting to worry you as you seemed to care about him. A lot. Ugh.

"Tsk," You breathed out and closed your eyes to focus on keeping your head above the metal bar.

Joel then spoke again: "Yeah, I was just here to let ya know."

"Okay, well-" You exhaled audibly and suddenly let yourself go. The force of the action sent you flying a little and it almost made you bump into him: "Woah, oh, sorry-"

"Woah there," You both chuckled at the same time. Joel held you by your elbows to help you balance yourself and your heart rate picked up pace when you realised how close your face was to his chest a moment ago - the chest you wanted to get your hands on: How muscular was he? How many scars did he have there? How would it feel to run your fingers through the hair as you ro-

"Uhm, yeah, as I was saying," You snapped yourself back to reality and took a small step back, disappointed by the way his fingers let go of your arms: "I'm done here, just need to do a couple of stretches, then head back and take shower."

"Right. Well, I'll see you at the gate, then?"

"Uh, sure, yeah."

You didn't know what else to say other than stay. You wanted him near you and around you, you wanted to show off to him and you wanted his attention, so you had to think quick.

Joel didn't want to leave either, even though you were going to spend the whole day together. He still nodded and turned around to leave. It was then, when a brilliant idea crossed your mind: "Actually, Joel?" He turned around, gave you a soft look that made you want to run up to him and kiss all over his face. "Could you help me with my stretches?"

If he'd been drinking or eating anything, he most definitely would've choked: "Help you?"

"Yeah," You flashed a smile at him. "It's simple, you just gotta press me down and keep me in place." The widening of his eyes, puzzled face and his tense posture made you shy. "Eh- Normally, Jesse helped me with them."

True. Some stretches required someone to push your body to its limits - when you worked out alone, you stuck to simpler stretches, but right now, you needed a reason to have him by your side.

Joel was torn between leaving, like a responsible person who knew when to walk away would. He was responsible, yes, but his moral compass was thrown out of the window whenever you joined the picture. So far, he wanted to think he was handling his emotions well- by not acting on them and not talking about them.

Now, however, it was as if he was facing the last straw. He had a few boundaries left to cross, and this was one of them.

"Plus, I'm a bit tired to do them. Will you help me?"

Lies. All lies.

You'd been doing these stretches for long enough, even though you'd worked hard, you weren't tired at all. Joel thought this to be the case, so he tried to go around it: "You sure? I mean, how're you tired?"

"I've been training like hell this morning," You settled on the mat. "I don't wanna do these stretches, but I have to. I'm not in the mood to pull a muscle today."

That was good enough for him really: "'Kay," He sighed. "What do you need me to do?"

Your eyes glowed in excitement before you faced forward and explained: "Im gonna lean forward, like this-" You extended your legs forward and lowered yourself down. "All you gotta do is press on my back and stop me from moving away for a few seconds."

A few seconds which felt like five minutes, truth be told.

As soon as he touched your bare back, you sighed, then forced it into a hiss. He immediately retreated his hands, thinking he hurt you, pushing the ludicrous idea that you might have moaned away immediately.

His hands were big and a little cold comparing to your skin which was on fire after the workout, but you'd be lying if you said you didn't do that on purpose. You straightened up and looked at him with an innocent smile: "Your hands are cold."

Not cold enough to make you react like that, obviously.

Joel offered an awkward chuckle from the back of his throat: "You're gonna have to deal with it, missy."

And deal with it you did- barely. Christ, that was a bad idea, your worst one yet. To have his hands on your bare skin, pressing you down made your cheeks burn and mouth hang open as he kept you in place. You almost didn't hear him when he spoke, too busy trying to comprehend the size of his hands and how they'd feel around your throa-

"How many of these do you gotta do?"

"Uh, dunno," You blurted out. "Not too many."

Joel was partly glad, it felt so wrong yet it was just a simple act of help you could've asked from anyone. After 20 seconds of staying like that, you straightened. You went into a head-to-knee position and gave him an okay to press you down again.

You switched to the other leg after half a minute, but you were running out of ideas. There weren't any positions left that you could use his help with, so you played one last card to ruin him: "More."

"W-What?"

Good riddance.

"Press a little harder," You pretended to focus and tried your best not to smirk, knowing you had him where you wanted.

"Oh- hm," He cleared his throat and pressed a little more down on your back. If your plan hadn't backfired and made you almost moan through your teeth, everything was going accordingly.

Joel went to pull back, but stopped when you added: "It's been a while since I did these..."

Christ.

"That enough?" He slowly retreated his hands and stood up, watching you lean up where you sat.

"Yup, that'll be it," You smiled and blinked a couple of times. If Joel had known better, he would've thought you were making him do that, then being all cute on purpose-

It was going to be a long day.

----R

Patrol with the older Miller went as normally as it always was. Part one usually went like this: Meet up at the gate, get your rifles and horses, ride out, reach checkpoint one and sign your names. The road to checkpoint one didn't have any trouble, it usually never did. It was more quiet between you two than usual though. Had you gone too far?

"So, uh," You said once the two of you mounted your horses again. "You coming to the dance tonight?"

"What?" He snapped his head in your direction, looking clueless. "What dance?"

"Well, not a dance exactly but- you know what I mean?" You started riding. "The adults only event?"

He looked really distracted, a bit tense even: "Oh, right. You know those ain't my thing."

"I know," You nodded with a soft smile. "But I haven't seen you in any event ever since you decked Seth."

"Decked?" Joel chuckled bitterly at the memory.

"He deserved it, and more, that prick," You rolled your eyes, making him chortle.

"And nobody managed to shut up about it for the whole month," He sighed with a gorgeous yet tired smile on his face which you managed to see just in time. "So, no thanks. I'll pass."

"Aw, come on," You whined. "You can't avoid coming to these events forever. Please?"

He gave you a confused look, his smile slowly disappearing but not in a bad way: "Why?"

A good question. Oh, no reason, just wanna try and make a move on you, quite possibly jump your bones if it all goes well.

"I wanna make sure you haven't lost your ability to socialise." You offered.

"Really? Why, you're my momma now?"

"Ew, no," You both laughed. "Can't I be sure my friend is alive and well occasionally?"

----J

Friend.

A word that made Joel stop and think.

You saw him as a friend, huh? Two people, with clear sexual tension and an obvious age gap between them- Friends was an awkward description for him, but it was better than nothing.

He opened his mouth to reply, to insist that he was indeed alive and well, but you stopped him: "You know what I mean."

The conversation was making him a little distracted, he noticed, so he decided to keep his mouth shut until you reached checkpoint two. You didn't press him on, which was also a delight. That's another thing he liked about you: You knew your bounds- in patrol anyways. Or maybe it was because you got to know him well over the time, knew what he liked or not.

Part two went quieter too- infected and conversation wise. Not even a single runner was on sight as you swept through the small cabins and houses. Except for the occasional clear's and nothing here's, you didn't say anything else. Joel itched to talk to you, about anything to break the silence, but he was too lost in thought.

When you finally made it back to Jackson, you finally spoke up: "So? You coming?" He chuckled, mostly out of relief, then you added: "I found a new outfit, I wanna know what you think."

That caught Joel's attention. With a curious smile, after handing over your horses, he asked: "What outfit?"

"You'll see... If you come." You smirked, your close proximity making Joel's heart race.

"Don't get your hopes up," He sighed with a small grin and tucked his thumb behind his belt, the other one gripping the strap of his rifle.

"You're the worst," You punched his shoulder with mock upset, making him chortle and stumble a little to the right. "Anyways, I'll see you tomorrow then."

Joel remained quiet, then you walked away with a soft smile gracing your lips. The words sunk deeper than he would've liked, a sudden wave of guilt soaking his guts with regret, even though you didn't sound disappointed or upset. Lips pursed, he watched you hand your rifle to Peter and sign off, then leave; his steps coming to a halt as you did.

He just might check out what was up at the dance tonight, if he could successfully move himself out of his comfort zone in the following few hours.

----R

"Well well, look who it is," Tommy grinned when you approached the doors of the pub. The night had settled across the sky by the time you stepped outside your place. The sound of music and chatter of the people from inside filled your ears.

"Yours truly," You smirked. "It's crowded in there huh?"

"It sure is," Tommy said as he turned around to lead you inside. "Adults only events tend to attract more people, as y'can guess. Don't you look pretty today."

"Why thank you." You smiled playfully: "For no one, but myself, at that."

You lied through your teeth. You had dressed up in the silly hope that Joel would actually show up. You had been planning on it ever since you came across the item wrapped around your hips in an abandoned clothes shop a few weeks ago, and this event was the perfect excuse for you to wear it. For him.

"I ain't sayin' nothing!" Tommy raised his hands up in defense. "Figured that much, haven't seen anyone catch your interest in a long time."

Ha. Nice.

The atmosphere was lively and the air was warm, full of energy. Chatter and dancing went about the packs of people scattered across the space, but you couldn't see Joel, much to your disappointment - you weren't surprised though. What surprised you was Jesse suddenly showing up.

"Where's Ellie and Dina?" You asked after a while of teasing him about missing patrol.

"They decided to stay behind, I guess." He shrugged.

"What can I get y'all?" Tommy smiled, suddenly appearing behind the counter. Without waiting for an answer, he filled two glasses and pushed them towards you. You and Jesse looked at each other for a brief moment, before knocking it back at one go. "Woah there..."

A round of laughter later, you felt someone's presence behind you, then they tapped you on the shoulder: "Hey, (Y/N)!"

Much to your disappointment, once more, it was a boy named Mark. He was a year older than you, had no features whatsoever matching Joel's prettier ones and he took an obvious liking to you, which in truth you didn't appreciate, even though he wasn't weird about it or anything. You faked a smile and turned to him a little: "Hi."

"Good to see you," Sure. "How, uh, how are you?"

"Busy, actually," You pointed at the glass Tommy was refilling for you.

"Mind if I join?" He made himself comfortable on the stool next to you.

"Yeah. I do." Your smile never faded but your words were laced with poison.

He looked between you, Tommy and Jesse, mortified at your answer: "W- Heh, well, would you wanna dance later, then-?"

"No, I don't." You spoke calmly and turned to face Jesse again, only for him to move to tap you on the shoulder, which Tommy stopped from happening.

"Why don't you go home, huh?" He grabbed his wrist firmly, but not hard enough to leave a bruise of course. "The lack of oxygen in your brain's clearly stoppin' you from understandin' a word as simple as no."

You looked over at the younger Miller, a stern look on his face which seemed to make Mark piss himself. Suddenly, an even deeper voice was heard behind the boy: "I advise you to listen to him, son."

You turned completely in your seat to see Joel grabbing Mark by the shoulders, making him jump, then remove him from the seat carefully. Mark's legs were quick to oblige, making him walk towards the exit, but Joel held him in place: "A-ah, what do you say to the lady?"

"I'm s-sorry, (Y/N)," He nodded quickly. "I'll never disturb you again, I promise."

"Good boy," Joel patted him on the back, which sent him running to the door. Your cheeks were suddenly burning and you couldn't help but smile shyly.

"Tsk, what a jackass," Tommy nodded disapprovingly as Joel took the now empty space next to you.

"You decided to show then, huh?" You smirked at Joel.

"Yeah, figured you'd break someone's wrists and make 'em eat it," He chuckled, tipping his head at his brother in a greeting -God he looked so handsome, was that a new shirt?- before he continued: "Decided it'd be a shame to miss it."

You giggled and lightly pushed at his arm, almost immediately feeling the muscles underneath the rolled up sleeve of his blue shirt: "I'll take that as a I came because you asked and I listened for once." The exchange, obviously, didn't go unnoticed by his brother and Jesse, which made you sit upright suddenly: "Tommy was the one who was gonna break his wrist anyways..."

"Nobody gets to disturb anyone here, especially right in front of me," He said and slid a glass to his brother.

Jesse joined in: "I doubt it, but should he ever-"

"Aw, you guys are spoiling me," You grinned and waved your hand down, pressing the other onto your chest.

----J

You looked beautiful. You were wearing a plain, dark green, mid-thigh, flare skirt; which could pass as a miniskirt, but Joel was no fashion expert. You always did come up with the rarest clothing items (like your sports set that morning), so he wasn't surprised that you happened across the skirt. You also had a simple, white, v-neck t-shirt on- which all in all was the reason you left Joel speechless: You could be wearing something as simple as these, but you'd still look so damn pretty.

A few minutes later, after Jesse and Tommy disappeared in different directions and you were finally left alone, Joel spoke up: "Is this the-"

"What made you-" You gave each other a brief look before chuckling: "You go first."

"Ah, I was gonna ask if this was the outfit you wanted me to see," He said, briefly looking down to point at your skirt.

He watched you run a hand through your hair and bite your bottom lip before answering: "Yeah..." You got up and stuffed your hands in your pockets, which made Joel's heart sizzle. "What do you think?"

He gave you a genuine smile: "I think you look beautiful."

The shock on your face made Joel panick a little, but when you offered a shy little smile, he relaxed: "You- Really?"

He gave you a single, slow nod in acknowledgement, his smile grew bigger when you beamed at him and offered him a quiet thank you, then sat back. You were staring hard at your glass, clearly avoiding his gaze and he found it rather cute, but didn't comment on it.

He was looking forward to chat with you, after all, you were the reason why he showed up, but you were unfortunately dragged away by a couple of friends, Jesse included...

To dance.

An upbeat song he didn't recognise started playing, putting you and another boy, Mick, to action. Everyone backed away to give you two space, then started off with what seemed to be something you'd been practicing for a while. You mirrored each other's moves, it was similar to some folk dance he'd watched way before the outbreak, but it most definitely wasn't a folk dance. Your arms linked occasionally, hands on your hips as you crossed each other's legs with fast movements and other types of moves Joel couldn't name if he tried, but it was organised and fun to watch. It wasn't intimate, too, just a silly little dance as you called it minutes later when you finished and walked to the bar for a drink. You didn't stay long, though, just downed your drink, winked at him and went back to the stage where you and Mick (but mostly you) stole the show.

It went on for two more rounds, to the point your t-shirts were absolutely soaked and your legs couldn't take it anymore. Joel had a particularly hard time in his seat, watching your skirt float around your thighs made him feel embarrassed with himself. Tommy even went as far as to tease him about his constant squirming, but a glare from his older brother was enough to shut him up.

The last dance finished off with you in Mick's arms, leaning back in his hold and closing your eyes with laughter. Everyone clapped you both, which earned you a kiss on the cheek from Mick- which you returned. Joel's jaw clenched unintentionally, even though you and him didn't appear to be more than friends.

Stop. Stop it, you idiot.

He couldn't care less about these types of things, drama about who's dating who and whatnot, but when it came to you he naturally grew curious.

He watched you, eyelids struggling to keep themselves open as Jesse led you and helped you onto the stool, next to Joel once more. You huffed and giggled, eyes closed with sweat droplets on your forehead. He couldn't help it when his smile grew wider at your tipsy state.

What he didn't see coming was the sudden hand on his thigh and your back against his arm, letting your head drop onto his shoulder as you let out a brief laugh: "Never let me dance and drink at the same time again."

Joel didn't know what to say, he quickly looked around for Jesse only to find him already gone and a couple of people staring at the both of you. With a rush of panic, he responded: "I don't think I'm the one you should say that to, darlin'."

Your hand and the rest of your body immediately retreated when you jumped at his voice: "Joel?!" You looked a little embarrassed and he couldn't help but smirk. "Uh, where's Jesse?"

The question almost made him scrunch up his face, but he patiently waited until the end of the conversation, which was after you've walked away to find the boy in question and he was alone with his own thoughts... Jealousies...

"He dropped you off and went over there, I think." Joel nodded to the direction he thought Jesse went off to - he didn't see though, he was too busy focusing on you when your fingertips had brushed somewhere dangerously near his crotch.

"Huh," You stared around to find him, but Joel figured you were too intoxicated to actually see that far. "You need to stop wearing the same clothes."

He raised a brow at that: "You tell him that."

"Oh I will," You grinned mischievously and suddenly grabbed Joel's glass of whiskey from his hand, then downed it at one go before he could intervene.

"Hey!" He tried to grab the glass from you but you leaned back. "I think you've had enough for the night."

"Says who-?" You pouted and at the very same time, lost your balance, realising that you leaned a little too back. However, Joel caught you; one hand on your arm, the other on your waist and he pulled you back - he didn't know if you did it purposefully, but you practically fell into his body: "Oh! I'm sorry-" You laughed, not looking sorry at all. "Thanks, Joel," You purred, extending the 's' and the 'l' at the end of each word as you grabbed onto his biceps. "You saved me."

"Pfft," Joel couldn't help but let his hand linger on your waist as he made sure you stood in place. Your eyes met when you lifted your head from his chest - the meaning behind his hazel gaze and your own was similar and it lasted for what felt like a whole minute, while in reality it was no longer than a few seconds.

You finally let his arms go and he took it as his cue to remove his hand from your waist (which, for a moment, felt like it had been glued there): "So... You enjoying yourself, old man?"

Joel sighed through his nose, amused at how the alcohol in your system was slowing your speech, then went back to how he had been sitting before you came. Just when you asked, the smooth, familiar tune of Ain't No Sunshine started playing. After all the excitement, a slower music felt nice: "Sure. You?"

"Oh I sure am," You nodded and leaned back against the counter with something of a triumphant smile.

"I can tell," Joel replied, then without turning his head, side eyed you. His stare later on moved down to your skirt. "Why'd you get all dressed up for, really?"

"Huh?" You blinked, not processing if he was asking what you thought he was.

"I, uh- just never took you for the skirt type."

"Is that so?" You asked, eyes widening. "Well, just trying on a new outfit..." You looked down and bit your lower lip, making Joel's heart skip a beat. He mentally kicked himself for not leaving right then and there and continuing to talk to you: "There's actually another reason."

"Hm?"

"There's this guy," You turned towards him, placed your arm paralleled across his on the counter and leaned forward a little, pretending to look around. His fingertips scratched against the wooden surface of the counter at the mention of this guy in question. "I don't know his name, but maybe you do?"

He just raised a brow when you looked at him innocently: "He's a bit old, around this tall," Your hand went back and forth in the air as you tried to size the man's height in your mind. "Has pretty, long, graying hair with an also graying beard... A little scar on his nose," You looked at him and leaned in a little more, invading his personal space but not touching him, then pointed at the exact spot on your nose and it was then, Joel realised, that you were indeed describing himself. "He's wearing this blue shirt and, honestly, it would look better on him if he opened another button or two."

I know, I know

Hey I oughta leave young thing alone

But ain't no sunshine when she's gone

He wanted to counter, tease you back, lean down and taste your lips, then place a kiss or two on your neck and bite it softly just to hear you moan quietly into his ear- he also needed to get his shit together, as much as he wanted to do all of that.

He couldn't quite believe his self control when he leaned away from you, especially since the tip of your noses almost touched and he felt your hot breath on his lips. He cleared his throat and quickly looked around to see if anyone was looking- no one had seen the rather intimate interaction so he spoke: "I don't know who that is."

The disappointment on your features was like a knife twisting up in his guts. You blinked a couple of times, but didn't lean back: "S- Sure you do..."

"I don't," Joel insisted, his voice stern. "Maybe you should look for someone else."

Your disappointment turned into embarrassment and anger, making you frown and lean back: "Excuse me."

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone

And this house just ain't no home

Anytime she goes away

And with that, you got up and stormed away, leaving Joel wanting, aching and ashamed.

Anytime she goes away

Anytime she goes away

Anytime she goes away

[mooniefics]

— the hands that beckon me

pairing : zeke jaeger / reader

word count : 1.9k

tags : emotional hurt / comfort, relationship discussion, pillow talk, insecure zeke :(

summary : zeke is finally home, on a brief layover from the war, and you both finally get around to having that tough discussion you've been putting off for far too long.

— originally posted 1 / 21 / 21 on ao3 —

"what do you do while i'm gone?"

your skin was still hot from being pressed over his when he asked, thrumming with a warmth you hadn't felt yet craved so deeply for months. you turned to face him from your place on your back in bed, pressing into his side, peering curiously at his profile. you'd missed seeing him like this, out of his ironed, pristine uniform, hair messy from your fingers running through it, sharp features warmed with the flush of passion, unobscured by his glasses, eyes and voice sleepy and relaxed rather than alert and tight with self-awareness.

"what do you mean?" your reply was soft, almost playful to counter his matter-of-fact delivery, reaching out to draw your fingers across his firm, bare chest.

"i mean what keeps you busy? what do you do for fun?"

>readmore<

the war with the mid-east allied forces had been dragging on for just about two years now, and there seemed to be no end in sight, but after the marleyan army managed to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat on foreign soil, the news came to your internment zone that the soldiers would be returning on a brief layover as the countries' political leaders decided whether or not they'd be willing to smooth things over in a more peaceful manner.

this afternoon you had been there at the gates with his grandparents, barely able to stand still beside them as all three of you waited wordlessly with baited breath, balancing up on your tiptoes, straining to peek over the crowd to catch a glimpse of him. while others were stood by with looks of unmasked dread���men with clenched jaws and stiff shoulders, women with tears brimming their eyes, children tugging at sleeves and already crying with impatience—you felt an uncontainable joy. it was humbling to look around at all the panicked faces, to remember that not every family had the luxury of your confidence, the almost guaranteed certainty that the one you loved would return. but you couldn't help the blinding smile that broke out across your face as he ambled through the crowd, tired, well-kept, but looking warmly down at you and his family.

you had let him to greet them first, they were his blood relatives after all, but only after he'd finished giving his grandmother a tight hug and exchanging affectionate words did you allow yourself to throw your arms around him, burying your face into his shoulder and breathing in his rich scent of gunpowder, pine, just a faint hint of cigarettes, melting easily into his strong embrace. you and zeke had wandered back alongside the older couple to their home, sharing a calm, easy dinner where zeke relayed what information he could to them about the status of the ongoing battle, but you were just itching to have some time to yourself with him.

you'd spent hours cleaning your quaint little home a few streets down, agonizing over every little detail despite how you knew he didn't mind whatever state it was in, just that you were there. and as soon as you'd both said your friendly goodbyes and made it through the door of your home, he was pulling you along to the bedroom, legs having memorized the path of weaving through the living room and kitchen and down the hall to the door on the left.

he was impatient, as he always was when he was tugging you out of your clothes, but sensual all in the same when he pressed his lips onto yours, murmured soft, longing words in your ear, hands squeezing and grabbing, reacquainting themselves with your soft figure. you both didn't last long—how could you when you were so eager—but felt satisfied all the time after everything was said and done, lowering back onto the mattress, flushed and panting, a faint sheen of sweat shimmering over your skin. his question just now had puzzled you. it was simple, but you knew it hid something deeper, he'd never asked something of that nature in all the time he'd been coming back and going away.

"well.. not much really. i go to work at the jewelry shop, have tea with your grandmother on thursdays, wander around the market if i feel up to it, help mary from down the street with her boys if she needs it."

you faltered at the mention of her, not remembering whether you'd seen her husband when you'd met with zeke at the entrance to the zone. you forced yourself not to frown. how selfish of you, you didn't even bother to check on her before you allowed yourself to be whisked away for the night.

he seemed to notice your sudden dismay, wrapping a comforting arm around you as he spoke, "you mean aksoy?" you nodded. "he made it back on the train alright. drunk off his ass, but alive."

you breathed a small sigh of relief, offering up a small smile at him. "good to hear."

and though his lips curled back in a similar expression, it didn't quite reach his eyes, and you only felt further perturbed by how his gaze briefly flickered elsewhere. "why do you ask?" you prompted, fingers trailing up his neck to rest at his jaw, gently turning him to face you again.

"just curious, is all.."

you could sense that he was lying, but about what you didn't quite know. "come on, zeke, we've known each other since we were kids. you don't think i know when you're hiding something?"

he hummed, the corners of his eyes creasing as an easy, genuine grin graced his features. "i apologize for underestimating your lie detecting skills."

you couldn't help but giggle softly at his words, thumb stroking over his warm cheek, body fitting perfectly against his. he was really here. finally, after all this waiting, he had come back to you, even if only for a few weeks that would surely fly past in an instant.

"i don't really know how to say this.." he seemed uncharacteristically sheepish, grey eyes traversing over your face, onto a far wall of the room, then up to the ceiling for a brief moment before it finally wandered back to you, "i guess you could say it started with me feeling a bit guilty, leaving you here all by yourself."

"i can bear the wait, you know that. as long as i know that i'll get to see you." for now, came the silent addendum.

he had three years left, barely a quarter remaining in his term, but you didn't broach the topic, and he seemed just as content putting off the discussion as you were. your relationship was easy, in a sense. there was never any squabbling over when the two of you would move in, or when he would retire from his position and settle down, milestones such as marriage and children were never issues. but there were days where you wished they were, though you'd never admit it.

just like how you'd never admit to the warm burn of envy that sparked to life when a man came into the shop you worked at searching for a ring for his partner, a spark that inevitably gave way to a cool emptiness settling deep into your chest, swallowing up your heart and balling an uncomfortable lump in your throat by the time you'd helped him choose out just the perfect jewel and sent him on his way.

"i know that, but," he swallowed, licking his lips, "sometimes i'm afraid that you're getting bored."

"bored?" the word felt strangely odd on your tongue, your own eyes blinking at him.

"bored." he reaffirmed, frowning slightly as he continued, "you see other people your age—our age—every day, don't you? when you go to the market, when you're at work, hell, even when you're spending time with your friends, you see people with lives, with structure." you knew the exact words that were coming next, but the impact of them hurt all the same. "people who don't have the thought of how time is running out hanging over their head."

it was you who turned away this time, feeling your lower lip tremble, eyes suddenly watering despite how you wished not to cry. all those complicated feelings you'd pushed down in favor of relishing in your feigned ignorance, of pretending that zeke was just a normal soldier with normal duties who was just lucky enough to come back each time. you'd always politely brushed your friends off when they'd pestered you of the absence of a ring on your finger, asking when you'd have children of your own rather than always being there to help them take care of theirs, you swept their concerns aside with a rehearsed smile because you didn't want to come to terms with the fact that you wanted those things for yourself.

the pill of zeke's looming mortality was hard enough to swallow on its own, all without mentioning how the love you shared was so rich yet so fleeting, fruitful yet futile all at once. you had no words to offer him, but your silence seemed to be enough of a reply, a forlorn, almost remorseful look settling over his handsome features.

"perhaps— perhaps you should search for someone else." you felt your stomach knot and twist, sorrow bubbling up like a geyser from below, biting at your cheek as to not let your shaky breaths spill from your mouth, "you're beautiful, it would really be no trouble at all for you to find someone—someone who can give you a good life. a fulfilling life."

"but.. there's still time left, isn't there?" your voice was quiet, thick with restrained tears, "there's still time for us."

"it isn't fair to you."

"it wouldn't be fair to you either if i left now." your brows knitting together, expression strained as you felt warmth trickle down your face, dripping down your chin onto his shoulder. "do you want me to leave?"

he looked away, hesitating just enough to make more droplets bead at your lashes before he shook his head, drawing a crooked finger across your cheek to catch a few stray tears. again, that disdain at your own selfishness came. he was worried for you, ruminating own his own impending death, trying to soften the blow of it for you at the expense of his own happiness, yet all you could do was cry at the thought of parting with him in any voluntary way.

"you're the one i want." you whispered, sniffling, "i knew what i was getting into at the start of all this, the things that i would miss, the things i would have to give up on, but they can wait. i can't be without you, not if i know that i can spend a single moment longer like this, loving you."

the sun had sank low in the sky, light abandoning the two of you in the dark of your room, alone with your shared, trembling breaths, his frown and distant eyes, your tears and imploring gaze. you felt weary in many ways as you allowed yourself to settle back onto his chest, closing your eyes at the feeling of his arm tightening its grasp around you, holding you close, a silent plea to stay just as you were.

he didn't speak, not another word of uncertainty exchanged, but you knew that he understood. he was here, and as long as that was the case you would always wait, keep turning down the hands that beckoned you, rescind your domestic desires for the sake of clinging to this one rare, importunate, lovely thing you had—clinging to him.

[lady-of-the-lotus]

“Had I had eyes, what do you think would have happened when I found you in that ditch?”

“Probably killed me.”

“I would not have killed you.”

Xue Yang laughs, a short harsh bark that's nothing like his usual manic giggle. “Why should I believe you?”

XueXiao - E - AO3! - Tumblr Chapter 1 Chapter 2

Chapter 3 - Blood

They travel for three days before they hit another village.

Villages and farms, they pass, but nothing with an inn.

“They’d take us in if we only asked,” Xiao Xingchen says as they pass the village. It’s nightfall, and foggy and almost chilly. Cheerful yellow lights shine through the fog, and he hears voices and the clatter of cookery.

“I’d rather not.”

“Is this one of the villages I wiped out?”

Xue Yang tightens his grip on Jiangzai. He’s had it out of his qiankun sleeve since leaving Yi City. “I knew you were going to throw that in my face. And no. Happy now?”

Xiao Xingchen looks at the lights. One flickers, goes out, is relit, and he imagines the person behind the candle.

A living, breathing person. Someone belonging to his world. Unlike—

He can’t face that person, he suddenly realizes. Can’t knock on the door, be offered a bed, when he knows the earth should be his bed, the soil his blanket.

Warm in the earth.

He banishes that thought, but it lingers.

Xue Yang smiles at him. It’s an oddly blank smile. “Another mile, so they can’t see our fire, and I’ll make camp.” And he turns and continues walking without waiting for Xiao Xingchen to agree.

He’s been in an odd mood ever since they left the Coffin House, Xiao Xingchen thinks as Xue Yang makes camp. He doesn’t know how to handle a sullen Xue Yang. Or any part of this post-resurrection version of Xue Yang.

Chengmei had never argued with Xiao Xingchen, never offered anything more than teasing chaff. Had that all been an act to win his trust? How much of Chengmei had been real, how much a ruse? Chengmei had been unflaggingly cheerful and helpful, talking almost non-stop, doing everything he could to amuse Xingchen and A-Qing.

And he had known Xue Yang before he’d known Chengmei. Not well, but he’d interacted with him during their game of cat and mouse that ended at the Chang Manor, and this new Xue Yang is darker than that old Xue Yang, moodier, his smile less bright.

Or perhaps Xiao Xingchen can now see through his smile.

He half welcomes it in, a strange way. Xue Yang is treating him how he'd treat anyone else, without any special reverence or politeness or worship, and much as he'd prefer a cheerful Xue Yang, it feels almost good.

“I’m afraid I’m not much help,” Xiao Xingchen says as they warm themselves at the fire. Despite sitting much closer than Xue Yang is, he can still only half feel it.

Xue Yang gazes at him intently through the flames. “So you really did just get welcomed into people’s homes? I never tried that when I was—” He stops. “You could have killed them in their sleep.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I’m just saying they had no way of knowing. I guess you and that meathead priest just looked so honorable and decent they had no choice but to give you their beds.”

Xiao Xingchen rubs his hands together and breaks eye contact. Best not to respond. He’s tired, anyway, worn out from walking all day, the most he’s exerted himself since waking.

But Xue Yang won’t let the subject drop. “I thought you were joking the other night. Have you really never made camp?”

“Not never. I’m just not very good at it. After I lost my eyes, I—”

“Not lost. He took them.” Xue Yang’s eyes blaze as brightly as the fire, compelling Xiao Xingchen to look at them again. “And she let him.”

This Xingchen can’t let slide. “Don’t speak about my master like that.”

“Because you know I’m right? She should have stopped it all. If she really cared about you, she wouldn’t have let it happen. It’s all her fault—” Xue Yang's white face flushes pink, and Xiao Xingchen reaches around the fire to lay a warning hand on his bracer.

“Don’t touch me!” Xue Yang snatches his arm away. “Why the fuck did you something so stupid?”

“You were agitated—”

Xue Yang is on his feet. “I meant the eyes, you fucking idiot! You self-righteous naive fuck—” He kicks at the fire, sending a log into a tree in a shower of sparks. “This is all their fault—”

“ ‘This’?”

“Everything!”

“Had I had eyes, what do you think would have happened when I found you in that ditch?”

“Probably killed me.”

“I would not have killed you.”

Xue Yang laughs, a short harsh bark that's nothing like his usual manic giggle. “Why should I believe you?”

“Because you know me.”

“You saved Chengmei.”

“I saved someone in need.”

“None of it was real. You thought I was someone else!”

“I thought it was someone in need.” Xingchen eyes him evenly. “And I was right.”

Xue Yang’s fists are clenched. “You know what?” he snaps. “Fuck you!”

He storms off into the trees.

Xiao Xingchen turns back to the fire. He’s not sure if he’s pleased at having riled Xue Yang or upset at his reaction.

This is his way of caring—he’s genuinely upset I lost my eyes—

And then, halfheartedly: I shouldn’t care what he thinks.

But pity outweighs disgust, and he’s half numb again, anyway, his mental malaise deadening all confusion.

His fingers are stiff and clumsy the next morning. Xue Yang notices him dropping the razor he uses to shave, but doesn’t say anything, or offer to give him blood.

Or the next day, or the day after that.

In fact, he barely talks at all.

Xiao Xingchen isn’t sure what to do with the silence.

“Where are we going, anyway?” Xue Yang asks finally, the first real thing he’s said all day. They’re night-hunting, or at least trying to. Shuanghua feels strangely unresponsive in his hand. He’s not sure if it’s constantly sensing him as a fierce corpse, blanking out all external demons and ghosts, or if he has lost the right to wield it properly.

"Where are we going?” Xue Yang repeats. “Off to save the world?”

“Something like that.”

“Like you did such a great job the first time.”

Xiao Xingchen stiffens.

Xue Yang smirks, wearing a nastier grin than Xingchen remembers him having ever worn before. “What?” he sneers. “Don’t like hearing the truth?”

“I accomplished more in a single year than you did your entire life,” Xiao Xingchen says quietly.

Xue Yang laughs. Unlike his usual laugh, it’s not a pleasant sound. “You’re right. Slaughtering all those peasants certainly was an accomplishment, all right.”

A stab of anger, but it’s distant, that old malaise having him fully in its grip, and he doesn’t rise to the bait. Too long without blood or yang, but Xue Yang hasn’t offered, and Xiao Xingchen refuses to ask.

“You know what I mean,” he says instead.

Xue Yang looks disappointed at the lack of ire in his voice. “And what does saving the world entail, exactly?”

“Helping people who need it.”

“That’s it?”

“Not murdering people. Doing good where you can. If you truly meant what you said about regretting the things you’ve done, that’s still not enough. You have to perform positive actions as well, not just regret your negative ones. Like what we’re doing now—night-hunting, protecting people.”

Xue Yang doesn’t seem to hear anything after Not murdering people. “Like you’ve never killed anyone? Song Lan was ready to kill me at Chang Manor, no trial, no nothing.”

“And I saved your life, ensured you a trial."

"A trial you knew would end in their gutting me like a pig and hanging my head on Jinlintai's gate as warning. Same as you probably still think I deserve."

"If you want to stop being treated like a monster, simply stop doing monstrous things," Xiao Xingchen says, still with no emotion in your voice. "Twice I saved your life.”

“And did your saving me make the world a better place?” Xue Yang’s voice is rising now. “You hate me. You think the world is worse because I’m alive. How do you know all those people you saved didn’t make the world worse too?”

“I never said I hate you.”

Xue Yang throws his hands up dramatically. Xiao Xingchen thinks he might be doing it intentionally, turning the conversation into something out of a story, a play, something less real, something not involving them as two real people but as two fictional characters.

“ ‘I never said I hate you’!” he mimics, doing a credible imitation of Xingchen’s voice. He was always good at doing the voices for the stories he used to tell nightly. “I suppose you stab people you like, then? You stabbed Song Lan out of affection?”

Xiao Xingchen is about to respond, despite the futility of trying to argue with Xue Yang, but instead he trips over what seems to be nothing, sprawling forward in the dirt as if the earth has reached up to drag him down, claim him, Shuanghua falling from his nerveless fingers.

Xue Yang watches him struggle to his feet, but doesn’t offer his help, and Xiao Xingchen doesn’t ask.

A queasy feeling creeps over him despite his numbness.

He can’t night-hunt. Can’t atone by protecting others.

Can barely stand up.

Useless. One more dead, useless thing.

They encounter a single ghost that night. Xue Yang dispatches it on his own, then turns to grin at Xingchen.

“Guess I’m ahead of you on the saving the world front,” he sneers.

Xingchen refuses to ask for help when he has trouble lying down to sleep that night, or the next morning, when it takes him fifteen minutes to get to his feet, or all that day as he stumbles down the road in an increasingly senseless haze.

They stop at an inn that night. Xue Yang makes all the arrangements while Xiao Xingchen, half-insensible, is propped up at a table.

A familiar huff and, “Do I have to carry you?." Something slipping under his arms, movement.

Something wet in his mouth, someone holding his head up. A finger on his tongue, the taste of copper.

“…most stubborn person I’ve ever met,” Xue Yang is saying as he dabs blood on Xingchen’s tongue. “You should have seen the looks the innkeeper gave me. Like I’d drugged and kidnapped you or something…but no, you couldn’t just ask me. You think I liked traveling around with you tripping over your own feet every two seconds goggling at me like a stunned fish?”

Xiao Xingchen opens his eyes. He’s lying cradled on his back in Xue Yang’s lap on a small bed in a small room. “Where are we?”

“Tanzhou. Here, drink.” He tightens his arm around Xiao Xingchen and holds his other arm up to his mouth. “Stubborn idiot.”

But there’s no venom in his voice. Seeing Xiao Xingchen so vulnerable seems to have induced another of his swift changes of mood. Xiao Xingchen drinks, feeling warmth flow back into his limbs as he greedily sucks at Xue Yang.

“Any better?” asks Xue Yang. He slides out from under Xiao Xingchen and off the bed. “I swear, you’re the most stubborn person I know.”

Xiao Xingchen flexes his fingers. “Do you know many people?”

Xue Yang grins suddenly. It’s his first sincere smile in days. “You have a point there. I’ll be back soon.”

Xiao Xingchen sits up as Xue Yang leaves. He feels stronger than he has in days, but the blood only seems to help nourish his body, not his mind.

He’s too numb to care much about that. He takes out his flute, sits cross-legged on the bed, and begins to play, taking advantage of the nimbleness in his fingers while he can.

He plays until Xue Yang returns. “Don’t stop on my account,” Xue Yang says, seating himself on the edge of the bed. He’s holding a tanghulu and a candle. He sets the candle on the rickety little table wedged beside the bed and starts taking his shoes off. “I mean, you could use more practice, but it’s not terrible.”

Hesitantly, Xiao Xingchen lifts the flute back to his lips. Too many good memories attached to the flute to want to sully them with Xue Yang’s presence. Being taught by Baoshan Sanren, playing for A-Qing and Chengmei—

But he’s still too numb to care much. Or to even enjoy playing, really. He does it anyway, mechanically fingering the holes and producing music without soul.

Xue Yang frowns, noticing, but again doesn’t say anything.

A flicker of thought: I’d rather him yell again.

But he doesn’t care enough to rile Xue Yang, and he’s not about to ask Xue Yang to give him yang or take his yin energy.

Let Xue Yang ask him.

But Xue Yang doesn’t speak, just sits there licking the tanghulu. Slides the whole thing in his mouth, sucking the long carrot-shaped candy with more noise than he absolutely has to, making sure it's audible over the gentle sound of the flute. Slides it out of his mouth, runs his tongue along the slick red length, flicks his tongue over the tip.

Xiao Xingchen feels something stir between his legs. Xue Yang must be doing this on purpose—

A banging on the door makes them both jump. “Shut up in there! It’s the middle of the night!”

Xue Yang opens the door. He’s grinning again, a grin full of sharp teeth.

“ ‘Middle of the night’?” he says to the man in the doorway. Burly, frowning, dressed in expensive-looking robes. “It’s barely nightfall.”

“People are trying to sleep! Shut your racket!”

“ ‘Racket’?” Without any seeming movement, Xue Yang’s knife is in his hand. He taps his chin with it, eyes bright. “Step inside, and we’ll discuss it.”

The man is pushing up his sleeves. “We’ll discuss it, all right—”

Xiao Xingchen gets off the bed and lays a hand on Xue Yang’s shoulder. Xue Yang is trembling with excitement beneath his palm, an alcoholic spotting wine. “Don’t.”

“Don’t discuss things like a rational human being?”

“Don’t kill him.”

“I’d like to see him try!” snaps the man. “Little punk upstart—”

Xue Yang starts forward with a little keening sound, but Xiao Xingchen snatches him back into the room and locks the door. “Remember what I said about not murdering people?”

Xue Yang appears to be almost aroused by the near-violence, nostrils flaring, cheeks pink. “The world would be better off without him! Look at him! We’d be doing everyone a favor!”

Xiao Xingchen gives him a little push towards the bed. “Just sit there quietly and finish sucking on your candy.”

He would wince had he not been so numb. Why had he chosen that word?

Xue Yang grins, pique gone. “I’d rather be sucking on something else, if I’m being honest.”

“A first, for you.”

Xue Yang laughs. “I love when you make jokes. Now come on, aren’t you going to offer me an incentive to stay here and not slit that man from dick to throat?”

Xiao Xingchen pinches his temples. He wants to, as badly as he can want anything in his current state—Xue Yang is licking that candy again, grinning at Xiao Xingchen, and Xingchen does want to push along his improved mood—reward good behavior—

He sits on the edge of the bed. “Fine.”

“ ‘Fine’?”

“You can do what you want.”

Xue Yang’s grin turns into a frown. “That’s all you’re going to say? And I’m not getting on my knees for you.”

Xiao Xingchen rises and undresses, taking off everything but his white inner robe. Despite everything, he’s still not comfortable being fully naked in front of Xue Yang, much as he hungers for his hands on his skin, craves sensation. Xue Yang just stands there, watching him undress, but doesn’t move, a smug look on his face.

“I’m not going to beg, if that’s what you’re implying,” Xingchen says, tilting his head.

Grinning again, Xue Yang takes off his clothes, stripping naked almost defiantly. “I can’t decide if I like you like this, or if it’s just annoying.”

Xiao Xingchen lies on the bed, bending his knees slightly. I truly don’t care what you think, he wants to say, but doesn’t want Xue Yang to pick up on the lie and rub his nose in it.

Xue Yang climbs into bed, kneeling between Xingchen’s legs.

“I thought you weren’t getting on your knees,” says Xiao Xingchen.

Xue Yang rolls his eyes. “I’m leaning towards ‘annoying.’ ”

Xingchen can’t hold in a smile. Xue Yang returns it. “First time you’ve smiled in days,” he says. “Just for that, I won’t make you ask for it.” He reaches down for Xiao Xingchen’s inner robe.

“So you’re just going to go for it?”

“What else do you want?”

It’s so…transactional, but Xiao Xingchen doesn’t know how to put that into words. It’s not like he wants to be seduced, but…

He changes the subject. “You want to take my yin energy?”

“It’s not like it’s poison,” says Xue Yang. Not quite the truth, given its tainted nature, but he seems to believe it in the moment. “Everyone has both. Well, not you, unless I give it to you, but—” He peels back Xiao Xingchen’s inner robe, and Xingchen would blush if he could feel shame. “What did you mean before? What else do you want?”

“Just do it.” Suddenly he wants nothing more than to feel the embarrassment he knows he should be feeling at the sight of Xue Yang pulling his cock out from inside his clothes, closing his mouth around it, licking it. Feel more than pleasure at how his tongue glides over the head. Feel the complicated jumble of emotions he knows should be churning through him, heightening everything, turning the act into more than a physical exchange.

He comes in Xue Yang’s mouth, and suddenly he’s very aware of the candlelight gleaming off his wet cock, of Xue Yang licking his lips and looking up at him, making full eye contact—

He winces and snuffs out the candle. Moonlight illuminates Xue Yang, but at least there’s some darkness to hide—hide whatever the hell this is—

“Feel any better?” Xue Yang whispers. He’s moved up beside Xiao Xingchen, nestled between him and the wall. “Want to yell at me now or something?”

Xiao Xingchen takes a deep breath and sits up. “You almost killed that man—”

“But I didn’t!”

“And you—you—” He squeezes his eyes shut. “You said some awful things to me.”

“You mean—that was days ago.”

“You said awful things,” Xiao Xingchen repeats. His heart is beating faster at the memory. “You said—you said—”

“And you to me. We’re even.”

“We’re…” Xiao Xingchen digs his knuckles in his eyes. “How could we possibly ever—”

“Shh. You’ll bring that oaf back, and I can’t make any promises about not gutting him like a pig.”

"What is it with you and pigs?" And suddenly Xiao Xingchen is laughing. He doesn’t know why. But he is. He hates himself for laughing, and he relishes the disgust, the thousand emotions coursing through him, good and bad.

He feels something against his leg, realizes it’s Xue Yang, making no attempt to hide his arousal.

“What about you?” Xingchen moves his leg slightly against Xue Yang.

“I’m fine.”

“I could use yang energy, not just getting rid of the tainted yin…”

Xue Yang’s voice is suddenly teasing. “Ask nicely.”

“Oh, stop that already!”

Xue Yang laughs, vibrating against Xiao Xingchen’s body. “I don’t know, maybe I do like you like this, daozhang. Feisty.” He slides a hand around Xiao Xingchen, tracing the muscles of his chest. “What do you want to do?”

Xiao Xingchen blushes. He’s not sure why it’s more embarrassing to be asked what he wants than to simply have things done to him without discussion, but it is. This is how it’s supposed to be, he knows. But he still can’t bring himself to speak.

He bites his lip as Xue Yang’s hand drifts lower. He’s still sensitive, and he grabs Xue Yang’s hand before it can reach his cock. Xue Yang pulls away and begins tracing circles on his stomach, fingers soft through the silk.

“What do normal people do?” Xingchen asks.

Xue Yang laughs. He’s nuzzling Xiao Xingchen’s throat, and Xingchen, after days of numbness, enjoys the little puff of warm air on his skin. “How should I know?”

“What have you…what have you done before? With other people?”

Xue Yang’s hand stops moving. “You wouldn’t want to hear about that.”

“Because you did something terrible?”

“Am I the only one in the world who’s capable of terrible things?”

Xingchen feels a pang of pity. He savors the pity, savors the irritation at himself for feeling pity, then savors the annoyance at his own irritation, because he should feel pity, should feel mercy. “Why don’t you try the things you wanted them to have done?”

“I don’t want to stop.” The way I wanted them to stop.

Xingchen feels a chill, then turns and kisses Xue Yang softly on the lips. “How about that?” he murmurs. “Those other times I did that, did you want me to stop? That time in the stream, I…” I have no framework to work in, he wants to say. You were my first and only. You had something I needed, and I didn't care about hurting you, after everything you'd done to me. I should have known better, never should have done something like that—

“I could have stopped you if I wanted," says Xue Yang.

“I still…I still shouldn’t have—”

"I liked it. Stop talking about it." Xue Yang kisses him back, long and deep, hands tangled in Xiao Xingchen’s hair. He moves to straddle Xiao Xingchen, laying his full weight on him, gently exploring his mouth.

“You can do more if you want,” Xingchen whispers.

“You’re really after my cum, aren’t you.”

“Don’t say it like that. And no. I just feel like…well, it should be reciprocal. I don’t like the idea of you losing yang, not that I like the idea of giving you tainted yin, either—”

“I brought you back, you’re my responsibility now. Like owning a chicken.”

Xiao Xingchen laughs. “A chicken?”

“A tame dove. That better?”

“A crane, I would think.”

“A crane,” Xue Yang corrects himself. Xiao Xingchen wants to say something about how he wouldn’t trust Xue Yang to take care of any living thing but then remembers how tender he was taking care of him. Besides, he doesn’t want to hurt Xue Yang, not right now.

Selfish, most probably. Most definitely.

This is Xue Yang.

I have to do this, he reminds himself. I have no choice. My dying now would help nobody...

A flimsy excuse, and he knows it.

But perhaps he can afford to be selfish.

Just for a few minutes.

He traces the sharp ridges of Xue Yang’s collarbones, distinct in the blue moonlight. The same face that was the last thing countless people had ever seen.

The last thing Song Lan had ever seen.

“I have some oil in my sleeve,” Xue Yang says.

“Of course you do... What do you want to do?"

“I’m already in you. My blood, I mean. But I’d rather you be in me…” Xue Yang stops. “Fully, I mean, not like just now…”

“I can, if you want, but not tonight. You already took enough yin.”

“Whatever you want.” Xue Yang is stroking the skin on Xiao Xingchen’s inner thigh, hesitantly. “Can I…”

“Yes.”

Xue Yang’s finger brushes Xiao Xingchen’s entrance. “That alright?”

“It…” It feels nice, Xiao Xingchen wants to say, but is suddenly bashful. They’d done this before, but somehow this time feels different.

But Xue Yang hesitates again, as if he too feels that something has changed.

“Here.” Xiao Xingchen rolls him over on his back, looking down at him in the moonlight. Xue Yang seems more comfortable looking up at him, relaxing under him. “Better? Here…” He grips Xue Yang’s cock gently, sliding it inside him. “That feel alright? I forgot the oil—”

Xue Yang takes a deep breath. “It’s fine. You’re already kind of slippery. Must be from me earlier.”

Xiao Xingchen thinks about that for a fraction of a second. He’s been taking a sponge bath every night, ridding himself of the soft, sweet-smelling film he keeps finding on his skin, finds clinging to his razor after shaving.

What if that odd film is inside him too?

Xue Yang rocks his hips slightly, making a little keening noise, and Xiao Xingchen forgets about the film. Slowly he begins to move. It’s easier to angle himself properly when he’s on top, and this way he can lean forward and plant kisses along Xue Yang’s jaw, his throat, his collarbone, the sigil on his chest.

Xue Yang grips his arms, craning his neck, exposing it to Xingchen’s lips. He nips slightly at it, sucking bruises into his throat between the bandages covering the mostly healed bite mark on his neck, breaking the skin over his collarbone. A few red pearls of blood rise from the tiny bite marks, and he licks them without thinking—

Then jerks away. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have—”

Xue Yang’s eyes are closed. “Go ahead,” he murmurs.

“I should have asked first—”

Xue Yang opens his eyes. “I know you wouldn't hurt me.”

Wincing, Xiao Xingchen reaches down, touches the scar Shuanghua had left on Xue Yang’s stomach. “You’re not a jar of wine. Despite everything, you’re still a human being.”

“ ‘Despite everything.’ ” Xue Yang swallows hard, looking away. The sigil on his chest is glowing, casting an eerie light over his too-pale skin. “Just drink it.”

Xiao Xingchen is still moving, very slowly. He wants to stop, all lust gone, but is suddenly desperate for the yang energy. “Xue Yang, if I ever take too much, or hurt you, you need to tell me.”

If you die, I die, he wants to add. Just to hear the words aloud, make sure he, Xiao Xingchen, the bright moon and gentle breeze, remembers why he’s doing this.

Xue Yang twists under him. “Alright, I get it. Either fuck me, or get off.”

Xiao Xingchen stops. “Why do you have to put it like that?”

“What, are we making love? Fuck, I know that’s not how it works!” He grabs Xiao Xingchen’s shoulder, pulling him deeper onto him, and begins thrusting up into him, hard. “Don’t try to pret—”

“Stop!” Xiao Xingchen pins him back on the bed. It’s an effort, Xue Yang’s thrusting reaching the bundle of nerves deep inside him, and he suddenly craves the friction again. “Did you listen to a word I said? I—oh, just let me do this, all right?”

Xue Yang rolls his eyes, then closes them as if unwilling to look at Xiao Xingchen and bites his lip.

He draws blood.

Frowning, Xiao Xingchen leans forward to kiss Xue Yang, sucking on his lip, relishing the way the blood tingles on his tongue as Xue Yang rocks up into him.

Xue Yang reaches out, slides his fingers through his hair, and suddenly Xiao Xingchen is filled with heat, the world, already sharp, bursting into full color, and he comes again, splattering Xue Yang's stomach with blood.

He rolls over but stays locked together with Xue Yang, drawing his blood out through his lip. They remain like that, Xiao Xingchen lapping gently at the blood welling from his mouth, Xue Yang softening inside him, until Xue Yang’s breathing grows slow and steady. He feels a tendril of contentment that’s not fully his curl into him, soothing him.

“Xue Yang?” he murmurs. “Are you alright?”

He thrills at the sound of his own words. “Xue Yang? Are you alright?” He suddenly wants to have sex again, fully savor the conflicted emotions he can now fully feel—the disgust, the arousal, the pity, the mingled hatred and affection—but despite it all, he’d meant everything he had said before, and is gentle when he eases Xue Yang out of him and touches his shoulder. “Xue Yang?”

Xue Yang is asleep.

Xiao Xingchen lies there for what seems like hours, watching him sleep, that odd, almost external sense of contentment slipping away as his body absorbs Xue Yang’s blood. Again he’s struck by how young and innocent he looks despite him now being older than Xingchen, despite having the blood of countless people under his nails.

Xingchen wakes long before him the next morning. He lets him sleep.

“I took too much blood,” Xiao Xingchen says as they lie there. “You have to tell me when to stop.”

Xue Yang blinks, looking out the window. The sun is high in the sky. He sits up, lip puffy. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“You looked like you needed the rest," he says, and Xue Yang's eyes widen. He can't remember if he ever let Xue Yang sleep in during the old days in Yi City, that this should have such an impact now. "I told you. You can’t let me take so much blood.”

“I gave it to you.”

Xiao Xingchen sighs. “We should get moving.”

Xue Yang rolls out of bed. “I’ll go downstairs, get some food. Get you some water to wash with. Be back in a second.”

He’s only been gone a few minutes when the man from the other night opens the door Xue Yang hadn’t closed fully. He eyes the tousled bed clothes of the single bed, and grins.

“I thought so,” he said, sniffing the air. “Fucking perverts.”

Xiao Xingchen gets out of bed. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave, sir.”

The words sound alien. This is the first person he’s spoken to other than Xue Yang.

It feels...wrong.

The man laughs in his face. “That all you going to say?”

“Please leave, sir. I’m not here to pick a fight.”

“But I am,” says a voice behind the man, and suddenly the man is on his knees, clutching at his ankles with an agonized cry.

Xue Yang grins, gripping a knife. “He bothering you?”

Xiao Xingchen stares open-mouthed. “What did you do?”

“Just nicked his tendons.” Xue Yang rolls the whimpering man into the room with his foot and shuts the door, then bends down and cuts out his tongue with a quick flip of his wrist. “Good thing I forgot my coin purse.”

“You—you—” Xingchen eyes Xue Yang’s victim in horror. The man is gripping his throat, choking on the blood spurting from his mouth, horrific burbling sounds coming from his throat.

“Oh, please. Killing him would improve the world.”

“Killing him?”

Xue Yang’s eyes are bright, body trembling in excitement. “I thought you wanted to make the world better?”

“Not by killing him!”

“Kind of too late. He’ll bleed out soon. I mean, I can always pin a blood-clotting talisman to him, but it will probably cause a stroke.” He produces a blank yellow talisman. “Or I can fix it so you can absorb his yin before he dies.”

“No! That’s—would that work?”

Xue Yang shrugs. “It’s worth a shot, if you don’t want to take my blood.” He touches the sigil on his chest, as if to say, We’re already bound, but..., and Xiao Xingchen has a sudden flashback to him raising his bound hands after his capture at the Chang Manor: “Don’t forget about me…”

“He wasn’t part of our ritual,” Xue Yang shrugs, “but I can fix it so you can take what he has if you don’t want mine.”

“It’s not that I don’t want your blood, it’s that—what am I saying? This man is bleeding out on our floor! Try the talisman!”

“The yin talisman?”

“The blood-clotting talisman! Quickly!”

“Alright, alright.” Grinning, Xue Yang nudges the man’s throat with his foot. “What’s your name, my fat friend?”

“We don’t have time for this!”

“I need it for the talisman!”

"You’re stalling!”

“I’m not stalling! These are my own design! I need his name.” Xue Yang crouches before the man, who’s lying on his side, blood bubbling over the floor. He pats him cheerfully on the cheek with his knife and pulls him up by his hair. “What’s your name? Wang? Liu? Chen?” He looks up at Xiao Xingchen, innocent as as lamb. “He’s not cooperating.”

“You cut out his tongue!”

“He basically asked me to.” Xue Yang is laughing. He seems more… alive than Xiao Xingchen has seen him in a while. Beautiful, in fact...

Xiao Xingchen takes a second to enjoy the half-arousing feeling of revulsion he’s inspired in himself, then shakes his head. “This is not what we discussed.”

“This is exactly what we discussed!” Little spots of color spot Xue Yang's white cheeks. “I saw his wife downstairs. She has a black eye. Looked fresh. If you had let me kill him last night, that would never have happened!"

It’s too late to save the man, blood-clotting talisman or no blood-clotting talisman.

The man looks up at Xiao Xingchen pleadingly, skin ashen, shaking.

"Who knows when killing someone is wrong? Or right? Nobody can tell, so why bother trying?”

Xiao Xingchen takes the knife from Xue Yang and slits the man’s jugular.

The man bleeds out within seconds, sprawling forward on the floor when Xue Yang releases his hair.

Xue Yang looks up at Xingchen, eyes like stars. “I forgot how beautiful you are when you kill.”

“Why—why would you think that was something appropriate to say to me right now? I—all I want to do is help people, but you—you made me kill again—”

Xue Yang looks confused. “You helped his wife. And he deserved it.”

“You’ve done far worse than what he did! Does that mean I should kill you?”

Xue Yang shrugs. “We’ve already been over this. Are we all packed? Guess we’re leaving through the window. Unless—” He hooks a finger in the neck of Xiao Xingchen’s robe, grinning. “How about it?”

Xiao Xingchen shoves him away. “What is wrong with you?!”

Xue Yang’s grin disappears. “Oh, like you don’t want to!”

“I just killed a man!”

“Exactly. Get off your high horse.”

“It was a mercy killing because of what you did—”

“I guess you’re right. Better hoof it before they notice the blood dripping through these shoddy floorboards.”

Xiao Xingchen doesn’t look at the body as they fly down from the window and head down the road.

Again.

Xue Yang has made him kill again—

He can’t risk night-hunting again, not unless he does it immediately after sex and blood-drinking. Can’t save people like he used to.

Can’t atone.

And now, not only is he useless, he’s actively harming people—

“You should have seen his wife,” Xue Yang says. “Face all puffed up like A-Qing’s when she ate that walnut. Are you angry?”

“Of course I’m angry!”

“Like, angry in a fun way?”

Xiao Xingchen laughs. He doesn’t want to laugh, but he hasn’t had a proper handle on his emotions since coming back to life. Either he’s too numb, or his feelings are too intense, or they’re not fully his own. “No.”

“You laughed.”

Xiao Xingchen gets himself under control. “What you did was wrong.”

“You should have seen the wife—”

“How do I know there even was a wife?” He regrets the words the moment they leave his mouth and the smile disappears from Xue Yang’s face. “I mean—”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I…”

“I did what you asked! I improved the world! Had I killed him last night when I wanted to, his wife would have been spared. So who was really right? Not you. And besides, he called you a pervert. What was I supposed to do?”

“You mean, he called you a pervert. By extension.”

“He called you a pervert,” Xue Yang insists.

Xiao Xingchen rubs his temples. “From now on, if you’re going to kill someone, you get my approval first.”

“Technically, you killed—fine. I’ll be quiet.” Xue Yang walks a bit faster.

He’s back to himself by evening, rattling on as if nothing had happened. Xiao Xingchen doesn’t say another word about the dead man, either. What can he say? If Xue Yang was telling the truth, man’s death had made the world a better place.

He just wishes it hadn’t been him who had delivered that final blow.

Xingchen’s fault, the whole thing. No more letting Xue Yang out of his sight. No more letting him roam around on his own.

If we’re busy having sex, he won’t be off killing people.

Xiao Xingchen has a sudden vision of them having sex in the room with that dead body, drinking from the man's throat while thrusting into Xue Yang, and is confused by the mixture of lust and disgust tingling along his spine. Not at the emotions themselves—lust and disgust have been his constant companions since waking—but at how much the thought of drinking blood from anyone other than Xue Yang repulses him.

He rubs the sigil branded into his chest.

Xue Yang must have known it would repulse him. Must have simply been testing him with the idea of blood from that man—

Xue Yang turns to wave at him to walk faster, and Xiao Xingchen gives up. No point in trying to puzzle it all out, figure out what Xue Yang did not did not know or intend or want. He’s not sure Xue Yang himself knows half the time.

Which is…exciting, if he’s being honest. It was the same way with Chengmei.

Except then there was no perverted morals or internal turmoil. Just companionship tinged with slight confusion over how attached he had gotten to Chengmei, and how quickly.

It hadn’t been romantic, he tells himself. Nothing near it. They had shared a bed, but that was all. They’d had to huddle together for warmth, so waking up with Chengmei wrapped around him was simply out of habit, even in summer. He’d fixed Chengmei’s hair every morning, and Chengmei often touched his arm and waist and knee, but that meant nothing…

Nothing.

They stop for the night in the forest. There’s a village nearby, but Xue Yang, practiced at fleeing from crime scenes, votes not to attempt it, and Xiao Xingchen has no desire to approach people, and not just because of what had happened in the inn.

Xiao Xingchen glances at his hands as they settle down. For now they’re strong enough to grip a sword, but he still wouldn’t trust himself on a night-hunt, and he’s kept Shuanghua in his qiankun pouch.

He hopes Xue Yang doesn’t suggest one. Rub in the fact that Xingchen is near useless…

It’s warm that night, but Xue Yang sleeps in his full robes, with Jiangzai drawn beside him. He’s never quite at ease while sleeping outside, Xiao Xingchen notices. Hasn’t truly been relaxed since they left the Coffin House, except when he was bent over that man.

Lips parted. Eyes sparkling—

He dwells on that thought as he stares up at the stars, glimmering brightly through the treetops against the deep purple sky. How beautiful Xue Yang looked. How animated. The bringer of so much death, yet so alive—

He rolls over and kisses Xue Yang. Enjoys the softness of his lips, the heat of his tongue, the way Xue Yang melts into him.

Enjoys feeling like an ordinary human being, not like a cultivator or a corpse.

Xue Yang often makes him feel like that, he realizes as kisses him. Like an ordinary human being with regrets and wants and conflicting thoughts and feelings. Treats him like an imperfect being, at least in this new second life. Fights with him, yells at him, throws tantrums and argues with him.

He likes it more than he should. He shouldn't relish being seen for the imperfect being that he is—should want to be held to a higher standard—

He dwells on this thought, knows the sex will be made more potent by the disgust he feels at himself, until Xue Yang's tongue and hands drive all thought from his mind.

It’s slow and lazy, with Xiao Xingchen on top. He drinks from Xue Yang’s arm as he rocks into him, letting his lip and collarbone heal. He’s careful not to take too much blood, just enough to keep him balanced the next day.

"You can take more if you want," Xue Yang whispers. "Take whatever you need..."

He falls asleep curled up beside Xue Yang, boneless and relaxed, but Xue Yang still sleeps with one hand on Jiangzai.

They travel for two weeks like that, sleeping under the stars.

Night-hunting, a few times. Or what Xue Yang refers to as night-hunting. Xingchen is of little use, even directly after sex and blood. He can take care of himself, but as far as taking on direct threats, or protecting Xue Yang—

“We’ll get you back up to full strength,” promises Xue Yang after he kills a spirit beast entirely on his own. “We’ll have you laying waste to the local demons in no time.”

Xiao Xingchen nods. He wishes he had put it another way. Laying waste. Destroying things...

He’d never balked at killing creatures that needed killing. Relished it, if anything. Shifu had spoken to him about it a few times, tried to help him reconcile his merciless half with the half that was almost too compassionate.

But now, when he was closer to fierce corpse than a living thing himself—

He wants to give life. Not take it.

But they're both happy enough, for the most part.

The first shadow is cast when they stop by a village to replenish their supplies.

“Take two eggplants,” urges the old man at the produce stall. “You boys look pale.”

“I didn’t ask you,” Xue Yang snaps. Seconds before he had been smiling, looking around for a stall that sold candy, but now his knife is out. “Just give me the fucking eggplant!”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Xiao Xingchen says quickly, bowing. The words are heavy on his tongue. He hasn’t spoken to anyone other than Xue Yang since that terrible night in Tanzhou, and with Xue Yang there's no need to be artificially polite. He’s feeling jumpy surrounded by all these people, and his gait is unsteady, the world somewhat…not blurred, exactly, but distant. As if his knowing he does not belong where people live has created a physical barrier in the air, something preventing him from reaching out and touching the things around him. “He didn’t mean it.”

“ ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ ” Xue Yang mimics as they walk away from the stall.

“Why was that your reaction to kindness?”

“He was just trying to make a sale.”

“He was trying to give you one for free.”

“Oh?” Xue Yang glances over his shoulder. “You wait here. I’ll go get another.”

“I’ll come with you—”

Xue Yang forcibly seats him on a broken-down fence in an alley. “You look like you’re about to pass out. Stay here.”

Xiao Xingchen tries to follow him, but it’s so hot, and his legs heavy, as if they’re not attached properly at the joints—

He glances around the alley. The crowded buildings look almost—wobbly—

He closes his left eye. There. Slightly better…

Xue Yang returns, whistling, cheerful again. “All ready,” he says. “Let’s go.”

“What’s that sound?”

Xue Yang glances over his shoulder at the commotion rising from the marketplace. “Oh, just some bandits.”

“Just some bandits?”

Xue Yang hauls him to his feet. “There’s no real government in place around here, not since the war. Just a lot of squabbling little sects. Come on. We don’t want to get caught up in this. Well, you wouldn’t, anyway.”

Xiao Xingchen takes a few steps, but the heat is making it hard to move quickly.

A man appears at the end of the alley, holding a long thin knife.

“Don’t!” says Xiao Xingchen when Xue Yang draws Jiangzai.

Huffing in annoyance, Xue Yang grabs him by the hand and flies over the rooftops. As they fly over the town they have a full view of the bandits ransacking the marketplace—

So Xue Yang had been telling the truth. A part of Xingchen had assumed Xue Yang had done something to cause the commotion.

He takes a closer look as they fly past, squinting. The old man from before lies slumped over his produce stall, blood staining the flagstones.

“Stop!” Xiao Xingchen clutches at Xue Yang’s arm. "They need help!"

“Make up your mind, dammit!” Xue Yang drops him on a roof and remains balanced on Jiangzai. “Are you telling me I can do what I need to do?”

“There has to be a sect around here somewhere, go find them, they can arrest them—”

“Yeah, good luck with that.” Xue Yang dives down into the marketplace, laughing, both of Jiangzai’s blades extended.

Xiao Xingchen drags himself to the edge of the roof. The tiles are like a griddle, and all around him is that same sweet smell from the Coffin House courtyard.

Which is quickly overwhelmed by the scent of blood, thick on the humid air. It envelopes him as Jiangzai whirls around Xue Yang, slaughtering the bandits like he’s harvesting wheat.

Xiao Xingchen watches, left eye covered. He counts eighteen bandits total, rapidly reduced to seventeen, then sixteen, then fifteen—

He wants to cry out for Xue Yang to stop, but all he can do is watch as Xue Yang slaughters them all. Not efficiently. Nowhere near efficiently.

He’s enjoying himself.

This is what he looked like as he turned the Chang Clan and Baixue Temple into slaughterhouses, Xingchen thinks as he watches Xue Yang, Jiangzai spinning so fast his one good eye can’t follow it, deftly cutting and slashing and thrusting with a brutal elegance, lopping off an arm there, a leg there. A predator playing with its food.

This is Xue Yang in his element. Xiao Xingchen can pretend he domesticated him, but he knows it’s a lie.

Xue Yang laughs as he kills the last bandit, his half-hysterical giggle floating up on the scent of blood, wrapping around Xiao Xingchen, and all Xingchen can think of is the last time he heard him laugh like that. Of Xue Yang’s manic laughter as he taunted him: “ ‘Save the world’? What a joke! You can’t even save yourself! Xiao Xingchen, you achieved nothing! A complete failure. You brought this on yourself! You deserve it!”

He drags himself forward, needing to see Xue Yang’s face, see how he had looked as he watched Xiao Xingchen kill Song Lan—

The last thing he remembers is falling off the edge of the roof.

****

Enjoy? AO3!