#at the same time though I still recognize and on a deeper level continue to follow my internal sense of what’s right and wrong

[maggi-cube]

I Understand now what people were saying all that time ago now when they said that empathy is unsustainable you have to have self discipline and a moral backbone

[ninja-librarian]

I don't know if this will be revealed, but how did Boyd and Louie decide to adopt Sylvie? How did Sylvie decide to choose them as her dads?

First, I want to emphasize how much Louie and Sylvie hated each other when they first went on this adventure that ended with Sylvie's adoption. Louie was mad at Sylvie for conning him when they first met, and he lashed out at her, and she lashed right back. All Sylvie knew about Louie when she first met him was that he was the great-nephew of the richest duck in the world and heir to his company, so she just assumed it was all nepotism at its finest and Louie was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, making a lot of judgements about him as a person, basically.

Once they're on the adventure, Louie gets more frustrated when Sylvie easily bonded immediately with Boyd, because... he's Boyd, he's got that way with people. Sylvie tries to hate Boyd on principle, because he's yet another adult and he's married to Louie, but finds that she can't, not when he's so genuinely nice to her and caring. Plus, he trusts her and encourages others--namely, Louie--to trust her. Sylvie tries to still keep some distance, because she's never had an adult in her life stay for very long and she's not going to get disappointed and have her heart broken again.

Sylvie and Louie each separately said something to Boyd along the lines of "I don't know how you can stand him/her." and Boyd's response is basically "He/She reminds me a lot of you." Which they both initially take offense at. Boyd tells Sylvie that there's a deeper level to Louie than she can see, and tells Louie that there must be some reason why Sylvie steals and cons--and that he thinks Louie knows deep down what that might be.

While they're on this adventure and camping out, Louie finds Sylvie is still awake near the campfire and goes to join her. He tells her about how, when he was a little kid, he didn't know that his great-uncle was Scrooge McDuck. The only family he ever had was his brothers and Uncle Donald. He tells Sylvie about growing up financially insecure, with Donald unable to hold down a job for very long and money being tight with three kids and one income when Donald did have steady employment; Donald outright owning the houseboat was the only way they kept a roof over their heads the entire time the boys were growing up. Louie saw how hard and honestly Donald worked and realized that it never amounted to anything, not when it often led to Donald being disrespected by bosses and customers, or fired over just about anything, even if something wasn't entirely Donald's fault. He figured out pretty quickly that the difference was power, and figured out that the way to get power was to have money. Working hard and honestly for it didn't seem to work for his uncle, so why should Louie bother doing the same when he could get money by being dishonest and lazy? It wasn't until he was in his teens that he realized this and could articulate how he felt and unbury some of those feelings of powerlessness as a kid, and ended up going to therapy.

Louie fully admits to Sylvie that he's done things that, looking back, he wasn't proud of, but he's glad that he was able to move past that point in his life and grow. And he apologizes to her, because he should have recognized those feelings of powerlessness and trying to change her situation in Sylvie. Sylvie is taken aback by the apology, having never had an adult apologize to her before, and though Louie gives her an opening to talk about her situation, she lies and tells him that she has a family, they're just really poor. Louie tells her that, when they get back, he'll do what he can to help her, and, knowing she'd get caught in the lie, tells him that she doesn't want his help and that she's not some charity case before storming away and going back to her sleeping bag.

Adventure continues, and Sylvie inadvertently shows off her Sharpie skills, which Louie takes note of, and when there's a big battle, Louie and Sylvie end up working together to create a plan after Louie tells her that she is sharper than the sharpies and that he knows she can figure this out, and that he's right there to help her see the angles she can't. Sylvie takes comfort in this and together they work out a plan, and save the day.

After that, things are infinitely better between Louie and Sylvie; Louie, who had been a big ball of stress for days, feels relaxed around her, and he offers Sylvie an internship of sorts upon returning to Duckburg--so long as her parents are fine with it. At which point Sylvie knows that her lie is going to get found out so she deflects and says "Thanks, but no thanks". But Sylvie feels very comfortable around Boyd and Louie, and wishes it could last forever, but doesn't tell either of them that.

When they get back to Duckburg, Sylvie tries to sneak away during the reunions. What she didn't know was that Boyd had been in contact with Daisy, asking her to find Sylvie's parents to let them know that she was safe. What Daisy found instead was Sylvie's social worker, who was not happy with Sylvie's disappearing act. Louie and Boyd see that Sylvie's being yelled at by an angry woman and rush over to defend her, and the truth comes out: Sylvie has no family, she's been in foster care pretty much her entire life, and is a repeat runaway and thief. Louie, who had told Sylvie before that she was nothing but trouble only to have her say "Yeah, I've heard that before", realizes why she's heard that before... Sylvie was told that this was the last straw, she's going to get shipped away to a boarding school for troubled kids. Sylvie says that the adventure was worth it, and thanks Louie and Boyd for taking a chance on her.

Boyd and Louie are absolutely gutted over Sylvie's situation, have some debate over whether or not they could possibly adopt her or if they should, then their parents and Drake gives them some advice and they make the decision: they can't live without Sylvie any longer, and they're going to bring her home.

Sylvie didn't know she wanted Boyd and Louie to be her dads until the moment they came for her, saying they wanted to adopt her. She who was nothing but trouble, who needed to be taught how to properly get into and out of trouble, was wanted and loved as a daughter. It was not something she'd let herself dream of having, but when the offer came, she knew it was right and said "Yes, I want to be your daughter."

And that's how the Duck-Gearloose family came to be.

[cafeleningrad]

Headsplitting cold keeping me in it's vice grip so I started Makeine: Too many losing heroines.

It has no business being this good but boy the animators and writers really gave their all in a romance-slice-of-life piece. The animation is straightup on pre-your-name Makoto Shinkai level of quality and atmospheric story telling. The team created 3 variations of their first ending with mixed techniques of realshot rotorscoping. then they made a second in a sci-fi setting with coloured lines, and an entire dance choreography. What studio does that after only 5 episodes? (Okay yeah, I know Chainsaw Man but boy do I hope to not hear any bad news from A1 Pictures productions...) The entire background design recreates the Aichi prefecture, with solistic cable cars- Which so far away from a generic city of all and the same architecture. Never have seen such a pleasing school ground in the entire medium of anime, and yet that includes details like rust on metal or how messy shoe lockers are.

The fun thing is, the show plays a bit with the viewer's expectation that this is going to be a harem anime but this time with romance left overs. Yet already in the pilot the animation quality accentuating emotions, and taking Anna's heartbreak seriously already strongly hint that this won't be what we expected. Already in the pilot, and later on, I wouldn't say the characters are all totally realistic - but for all the times I endured female characters who're adorable in different flavours of recognizable quirks just to be appealing to a male viewership and sell-able figmas... I would say this is pretty good character writing here. Not just in comparison. To say, everyone is pretty grounded. Whereas main character Nukumizu delivers some fun meta commentary on the romance genre, and writing in general, the story and characters gently push back against his mindset of seeing the world, and especially the girls through story conventions or tropes. Anna might fit the bracket of female childhood friend but only if framed through the perspective of her being in a romance story. She's irritable, tries to weasel herself out of debts, and not necessarily in endearing or cute way, lacks a bit in reserve, jumps through loops with her diets, and generally is well rounded. That's not to talk how much I adore the rest of the cast. The funniest bit is Chika maybe, potentially fitting the shy-loner-girl archtype but with a deeper look it turns out she's a bit too comfortable in passivity, and self-deprecation whereas secretly hoping to be seen. I mean she's a girl glued to her phone writing fantasy and her yaoi-fanfics, discussing shamelessly smut tropes with her club superior. To say, even though the girls go through heartbreak, the girls also have a life and personality far larger and wider than just "love interest". Their feelings about a break-up are taken seriously though. Whereas in regular harem stories, the rejected ones quietly fade into the background: "Oh, I'm sad but your happiness matters the most to me.", not to ever perturb the male MC again. The story, in recognizing the depth and vastness of the characters, actually shows how difficult it actually is continuing to interact with someone who dumped them and yet they've to interact with them on a daily basis. The rival girl might have been a friend, actually she still is but it's also hard seeing the couple be happy together, and actually move on. And two other thins I really like: Nukumizu risking to loose his friendship to Anna being given the same dramatic flair as any love confession in other titles is really amazing in this medium. It's rare enough to see genuine friendship between men and women, even less so in anime, even less so without teasing that maybe there could be something more. It is a friendship which is significant for both of them. Second, the girls are also friends with each other. Lemon gets to prank Anna, Chika and Koto discuss their favourite yaoi trope like expert fanfic writers do. Koto initiates looking after Lemon, Anna and Chihaya tease Nukumizu over his fanservice wallscroll.

Okay, last thing about the animation because not only could it rival Mappa's Chainsaw Man in style and fluidity, the animation elevates the story. The feelings are elevated by the ambience of lemon pondering upon her feelings in the sunset. Lemon's physicality is stressed by the smearing panels, the overwhelming emotion when the girls get dumped is given grace by the vivid animation of Anna's hair, a 360 degree shot of lemon running tracks, Chika's more quiet nature getting stressed by her contemplation being literally illuminated by sparklers. Or something as mundane as Kazuhiko's satisfaction in good water quality is translated with water that looks clear and fresh. His sellf-ascribed perception of himself as "background character" translated himself in a fairly generic bedroom, yet his interest come through his visit at the light novel aisle or embarrassing wandscrolls. It's not only high class animation for the sense of luxuriousness, it's high class animation knowing what exactly it wants to convey.

So, the show is still running but so far I feel pretty confident in saying that apart from the two fanservice-y moments, it is overall one of much more remarkable stories about romance and first highschool crushes.

[shammah8]

🕊️🌺Wendy🌺🕊️:

“RESIDUE” AND DEMONIC ATTRACTION Like the woman in the previous story, many people are unaware of the activity of insidious familiar spirits working in their lives. I often tell people to take inventory of what is “pulling” or attracting them.

This can help them recognize the presence of an evil spirit. Ask yourself the following: “What’s pulling me?” “Who do I gravitate toward?” “What is a common characteristic of people in my circle?”

I have been a pastor for a number of years, and I have noticed that many people tend to gravitate toward others based on the spirit that is operating in them. For instance, I have noticed that when people are offended, they tend to gravitate toward other people in the church who are offended. If you pay very close attention, you will see that the offended individual never brings their initial grievance to some random person in the church. They always bring the offense to someone they believe shares the same sentiment.

Most of us will have at least some relationships with friends that are based on healthy interests. But we need to evaluate the full range of our relationships. For example, do you find yourself sometimes gravitating toward people who gossip? Or do you experience the same negative or abusive experiences at every church you attend? This could be an indicator that a familiar spirit is at work.

As we talked about in chapter 6, “Healing the Wounded Soul,” sometimes there is a “residue” of hurts or negative attitudes left over in our lives because we have not completely surrendered our pasts to God or been fully healed emotionally. This residue can attract familiar spirits seeking an opportunity to legally enter our lives. Have you ever thought you were delivered from something, but then the issue reared its ugly head again? This doesn’t mean that God didn’t do a work in you, but it may mean that there is still more work to be done in certain areas of your soul.

I clearly remember a season in my life in which God delivered me from a spirit of lust. I was going through a time of great testing and temptation, being attacked in my mind with lustful thoughts. I went to God in prayer, and while I was saying a prayer of deliverance and breakthrough, it felt like a bird flew off of my head and went off into the distance. Something literally broke. I had experienced deliverance in that area before, but the Holy Spirit was now doing a deeper work in my soul that would ultimately liberate me from the power of that spirit. Additionally, although I was supernaturally delivered from the influence of that demonic spirit, in order to maintain a pure mind, I needed—and still need—to make a conscious, daily decision to obey God’s Word and “flee youthful lusts”:

Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. (2 Timothy 2:22) After we receive God’s deliverance from a certain issue, even though we need to daily commit to following God’s ways, we should not continue to experience a raging struggle with that issue every day. When this happens, it can mean that there is indeed some residue that needs to be addressed. If it is not dealt with, that residue can pull us toward sin and ultimately lead to deeper levels of bondage. This is why many leaders struggle in their walks with the Lord. They love God, but they need to do some spiritual housecleaning in order to address the various areas of sin and bondage in their lives. Contrary to popular belief, demons do not just “go away” with time; if we do not confront them, they actually become stronger. I believe that God is taking the church through a deeper level of cleansing and sanctification that will enable His people to function in His glory in the way He intends. For the next great move of the Spirit of God, we need “clean hands, and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:4).

We see the effects of such personal “residue” in the life of Moses.

Moses fled Egypt because he had murdered a man in anger. (See Exodus 2:11–15.) Note that, years later, the same issue of anger kept him from entering the promised land. Moses became angry at the Israelites and struck the rock that God had only told him to speak to (an act that might seem to pale in comparison to murdering someone), and because of his disobedience, he was unable to enter into the land with the rest of the Israelites. Why? The same spirit had motivated both actions: it was a spirit of anger! Of course, Moses was operating under the old covenant; he was not born again, and he didn’t have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside him. But we have the advantage of the cleansing blood of Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit as our Guide and Comforter to overcome any such residue in our lives.

If you are trapped in a cycle of sin or defeat, declare that the blood of Jesus breaks the power and the pull of that demonic spirit. ☕️Kynan Bridges

[falling-pages]

Bend the Knee: Kyoya x Reader

Thanks @ouranbound for the idea <3

-

“I fear I’ve been so busy planning our future that I did not give time to notice how they were exploiting your present."

-

Sometimes Kyoya's betrothed needs help adjusting from their commoner life to one of splendor.

-

Kyoya Ootori x gn! Reader

Genre: Fluff, established relationship, arranged marriage, Commoner! Reader

Warnings: None

-

“Quit.”

“What?”

“Quit. You complain about that job every night, so just resign.”

You sit up on the couch, gasping to even begin to make the young heir understand how preposterous his words were. He barely even noticed, just kept his eyes glued to his novel as you were having a crisis. Just another normal Tuesday in this household. “I can’t quit just like that, without two weeks’ notice.”

“The other employees did.”

“But I’m their best,” you scramble, “I can’t bail while they’re still looking for two more people.”

Kyoya scoffed, licking his fingertip and turning a page. “Is that how they treat their best? Overworked and underpaid? They don’t sound like very good bosses to me.”

“It’s not that, it’s…”

It was that. It was exactly that, which made his smug smile all the more frustrating, igniting that fire under your nails to just punch his lights out. But then you’d have to admit it’s bothering you, and he would win, and even though you were engaged to marry this man, you just couldn’t have that.

You ran your hands through your hair, dropping back down onto the couch. His office futon wasn’t comfortable in the slightest, perhaps to discourage relaxation during work hours, but it’s what you dealt with in order to spend time with him in the evenings, a change you would certainly implement once your name was on the deed and in the will--a revamp of his working space was imperative.

But you supposed you couldn’t complain. It was your little life together, where he manages a multi-billion dollar empire and you whine about your job, where he pretends to not pay attention while you spill your guts. What was the sense in commenting when he knew you wouldn’t take his advice?

“I’ve worked hard for this position,” you settle on, closing your eyes and letting your brain do the work. “I’ve climbed the ladder and gotten promotions and I used to feel so important, and it isn’t my dream job, sure, but I’ve enjoyed the process.”

“Then it’s time to move on to something different,” he suggests, and his tone is softer than usual, though still careful to sound detached. “You know I have more than enough money to provide for you and our family someday. Is that not enough?”

You open your eyes when the voice sounds closer, right above you, and you see him kneeling down beside you on the couch. You start to sit up, but he pushes you back down, helping you stretch out your spine, shake out the stresses in your limbs. And when he takes your hand, drawing his long fingers over the arch of your wrist and against your palm, you were startled to see him at eye-level.

Kyoya Ootori bent his knee to no one except you, and only once, when he slipped that pretty gold ring on your finger. But here where you lay, your faces were on the same level, and you felt like an equal.

“The world I come from isn’t black and white, Kyoya,” you say, as he strokes the back of your knuckles. Such tenderness was seldom seen from him, but you revel in it, grasp onto it with dirty fists and brazen recklessness. To have him so attentive to your needs and listening to you was rare. It was a privilege, a standard you would soon be held to, as well. “To be just...launched into fame because my dad won the lottery is hard, I still need to adjust. It can all be gone in a second, so I can’t just drop something. I can’t...sever the safety net. They need me to keep the place afloat, and even as tough as it has been, I can’t leave on such bad terms. They need me. Just for a little bit longer.”

He sighs your name like the afterthought of a prayer, settling his other hand beside you on the couch. His fingers dig into every indentation, as if joining your discovery of its stiff cushions. The sheen in his glasses signaled he’d look into it, but there were more pressing matters to attend to at the moment.

He remained silent, odd for a man with all the answers, but he continued to look at you, not like he was trying to drill a hole through your head, but like you were a puzzle he was just beginning to figure out.

“Have I really been so absent, my love?” he whispered, raising his hand to your face. One finger stroked along your cheek, slowly, lulling you into peace. “I fear I’ve been so busy planning our future that I did not give time to notice how they were exploiting your present. Please, forgive me.”

All of the air was knocked out of your chest as his gentle words, so soft that you almost didn’t recognize him. When your parents betrothed you, and when you fell in love with him, agreed to marry him, even, you knew that he would always be an Ootori, with every string attached. You were ready for the challenge, ready to be with this man no matter what--but his sudden kindness was unexpected, the poetic words unfamiliar in your ears.

“Kyo, you think I wouldn’t forgive you?” you ask, taking off his glasses.

He let you, and when you set them on the nearby stand, his dark eyes glittered with something you had never seen before. Deeper than love, deeper than compassion, a feral protectiveness mixed with sadness skating across his face. It was so rare you saw him without this shield of his, you had almost forgotten how his eyes were like galaxies, like the murky night sky, expansive, swallowing everything in its path.

“If I had been suffering so, I wouldn’t forgive my partner had they not noticed,” he said.

“I’m not suffering...”

“Mmm-mm.” He shuttered your lips closed with his finger, and you couldn’t help but return the affection and press a kiss to it. He smiled, softly, and you thought about how long it had been since you had seen that smile, and how long it had been since he’s seen yours, too.

“I know I’m not the best at expressing my feelings,” he said, and when you snorted, he rolled his eyes and leaned away. “See, this is exactly why.”

You leaned up and kissed his cheek, giggling. The feeling was foreign in the pit of your chest, drumming near your spine. “I’m sorry. Please, continue.”

“Thank you.” He cleared his throat, softly wiping where you had kissed him, a repetitive, soothing motion. “I’m not the best at expressing my feelings. I’ve been raised to think that if you throw money at something, it will go away. It’s a powerful position to hold, knowing you can change everyone’s fates on a whim, but…” he swallowed, breaking eye contact, and you felt his energy shift into something vulnerable. “But you changed that. You make me feel...you make me feel. And at first I didn’t like it. I loved you, but I didn’t like what you did to me. I didn’t like how you made my world shift off-balance, until I realized my world was no longer my family’s company or stocks or what other stiffs thought of me. It was you.”

You tried to lean up and kiss him, but he grabbed your hands and held them in his own. “Please, let me finish, I want...I want you to know. We’ve been betrothed for so long, but I’d like to think we were only truly engaged when I bowed to you with that ring.”

“Okay,” you breathed, shallowly, taking it in, squeezing his hands to help him along.

“Because that took everything in me,” he continued, and his voice shook, his hands shook, and all you wanted was to gather him in your arms and hold him till he relaxed. “I was raised as a superior, but I’m not. Not with you. You are my equal, and I love you, and there’s no future with us if I can’t look beyond my own problems to see yours.”

Your stomach quelled in light of his confession. The life of luxury and fame you had so recently come to know was a blur compared to his childhood swathed in privilege. Only six years ago you were waiting tables to save up for college when your dad bought a lottery ticket for the hell of it. Now you were attending charity balls and engaged to the son of the richest man on earth.

He took a shaky breath and kissed your forehead, seeming to only find the courage once his lips met your skin.

“I notice. I swear I do,” he said. “I tried to act disinterested when you vent to me because it was a protection, it was a way to stay cold, because that was all I ever saw from my mother and father. They were separate people who happened to live in the same house. That’s not us. I’m not my father. I swear I notice. I notice your tired eyes and your tense shoulders and your fake smile and I want to fix it, but I don’t know how, so I clam up. I shut down. And I’m sorry. I truly am, my darling. I don’t know how you put up with me.”

It was an absolute miracle that you could even breathe at the end of his speech, panting almost as heavily as he was. And when you leaned forward to kiss him, this time he didn’t object, but pulled you even closer, shrouding your body with his, his sharp scent overwhelming your senses, clouding the air around you, even when there was no distance between you. His mouth was hot with passion, yet reserved, and though it wasn’t the first time you kissed, it was the first time you thought he meant it when he told you he loved you.

“Kyoya, I love you,” you whisper against his lips. “I have for so long. I wouldn’t have stayed with you if I didn’t, no matter what our parents said.” He laughed, nipping your bottom lip lightly. “And I don’t want you to change for me. You’re under so much pressure, I understand why you act like you do. But our home isn’t Wall Street. My heart isn’t some business bargaining chip. You don’t need to fight your nature to love me. It’s one and the same.” One of his tears splashes down onto your face. “So just see me. Love me. Choose to be vulnerable. I promise it won’t scare me off.”

“I will. I promise.”

He kissed you again, burning his brand against your tongue, hard like a handshake to know he meant it. You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him even closer, like you were breathing the same air, using the same lungs, the same heart beating in tandem.

When you let go, his forehead remained pressed against yours. His eyes were slightly open, watching you, eyelashes fluttering against your skin. He was so soft, like this. You wanted to hold him forever.

“Come to bed with me,” you whisper, trailing a hand through his hair. “I just want to spend time with you.”

He kissed your forehead, rubbing his nose against yours in compliance. “I’ll spend all the time in the world with you, beloved,” he sighed, capturing your lips once more. “For as long as you’ll have me.”

-

Kofi

[sukirichi]

reckless [01.]

With a lackadaisical playboy as your boss, being reckless wasn’t an option. But on the one time you let loose and made mistakes, your life is shattered, and now you’re playing house with your insufferable boss who is the father of your baby.

✘ cw. explicit smut, accidental pregnancy, playboy! gojo, slight angst

✘ note. dedicated to wifey @7tsumurai​ who also made the banner and always supports me and showers me with love aaaa i love you baby <3 also this fic is mostly romance and fluff so i hope you enjoy this as much as i did writing it! thank you to @chosonore​ for pr-ing UWU. and we get like...10-15 chapters of this?!

one  ✘  two  ✘  three

You shouldn’t be doing this.

The night was young; streaks of gold flashing with the shimmering jewellery collared on your neck, the romantic humming of the violins pairing perfectly with the champagne that fizzed in your hand. It was supposed to be another day at work where you accompanied your boss to one of his events, considering the Casanova refused to bring his girlfriends in fear they might get the wrong idea he liked them outside the bed. It should be just another day at work; you’ve accompanied him hundreds of times before. Today wasn’t any different.

And yet it was.

You blamed it on the alcohol. On the slow dancing. On the fact he hadn’t stopped complimenting you all night and you’d been so stressed, the amount of planning and sleepless nights sacrificed in exchange of preparing for this event made you grab for three more flutes, the touch of your undeniable attractive boss permanent on your waist.

Satoru was equally aggravated. You’d worked him long enough to recognize even the smallest of cues, and the fact you’d spend nearly every hour of the day working with him for weeks straight in the office let you know he needed to let off some steam.

And what better way to relieve both of your tensions if not to give in to the cloud of lust?

The sultry gazes, the clashing perfumes between rose and musk, and the alcohol – the fucking alcohol – that gave way to you succumbing to your desire just this once.

There were no more thoughts – or if there were, they were muddled – as you kissed him back just as passionately, forgetting the fact his stylist spent an hour gelling his hair back to perfection as your eager fingers traced over his scalp. How you ended up in the back of limousine was beyond you, and neither was it your biggest concern when Satoru insisted you kept your heels on; his large hands caressing all the way from the ankle pressed beside his waist up to your waist.

You felt his daft fingers move the lacy thong you wore especially for tonight (not because you expected something, but the boost in confidence felt necessary) before he slides inside almost too easily.

Both your gasps and moans are swallowed in the stuffy compartment, windows fogged saved for the handprint you’d left when he hit a sensitive spot. He was moaning in your neck, skin slippery and sweaty as you slid from one another, seemingly never staying from one place as your hands treaded through his hair down to rake your nails on his back; his touch angry on your hips before his thumb found home in your clit.

As much as you hated him, hated his reputation, you couldn’t deny he really earned his title for being an absolute god in sex. You were no virgin, but you’d never felt this good, never felt this alive as bruises began to form in your skin and his lips hungrily sought out yours.

“S-Sir...”

“Satoru,” he corrected through your lips, the kiss barely even one when you were too busy moaning left and right. Satoru hitched your leg up to fold it right beside your waist, allowing him to explore deeper territories that not even you could mark.

His stare on you is perverted; openly wanton as he lets his empyrean gaze snake down to where your bodies connected. It was embarrassing to be this spread wide open for him, though it didn’t matter much, not when you clutched onto his bicep for dear life and panted breathlessly. He was kissing you everywhere – smearing your lipstick all over your lips and his, a stain of red on his hard, white collar and love bites marked deep into your collarbones and under your breasts. You tightened around him once he changed his rhythm into a more sensual one; the quick pace replaced with him pulling out slowly – inch by delicious inch until you felt empty with each growing second – before slamming back inside with fervidity that he never quite possessed behind his desk.

He groaned at your walls clenching down on him, his hips stuttering in the process. “Call me Satoru.”

“Satoru,” you moaned out, and his next sounds were pained. Pained because you sounded too gorgeous, felt too good, and with you following his hips thrust by thrust, neither of you would last any longer. Not even as you shake your head, lips swollen as you remind him, “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“We shouldn’t,” he agreed with a curled lip, sweat beading from the streaks of his white hair. “But I want you – god, you’re so beautiful tonight. Need to fuck you good—”

Gojo Satoru, one of the most eligible bachelors in the entire South East Asia and ranked as the second richest man in his early twenties, was a man of his word despite his reputation. Just as he was praised and fawned over for his beauty, charisma, and power, he was equally hated for breaking the hearts of women and treating his past ‘lovers’ like they were objects. The news were so confident of it; that he fooled them, played around with them, but behind the scenes, you knew Satoru wouldn’t do such a thing – from the first time he laid his eyes on someone, he made it extremely clear they were not to be attached. Everything with him was physical and sensual – anything beyond that would simply be out of character.

You weren’t surprised that he really did keep his word and fuck you good, because you couldn’t feel your legs the next morning and even though it had been hours, you still very much felt the shape of him carve through you.

The bastard wouldn’t stop laughing, of course, snickering under his breath every now and then each time he saw you grimace from doing simple things such as standing up and giving him the files he asked for. Perhaps it was because your dislike for him was apparent that Satoru quickly went back to fooling around, pretending you didn’t exist and only approaching you when need be. There were still moments you had to clean his mess up for him; taking his drunken phone calls at 3am because he got wasted in a bar, or doing the same for his current sex buddy who he didn’t want to stay in his home.

He was terrible, terribly awful that you despised this part of him.

You were only grateful enough that neither of you brought that night up ever again, for no matter how immensely hellish of an experience it had been, it was also something you’d really rather not be reminded of.

But now, there was no more running away from it. The truth stared at you blatantly in the form of two white lines that had appeared four times already from previous tests.

You were pregnant.

The world had never been that heavy on you. You had a rough upbringing, but it was a household filled with love and patience that it was innate in your nature to keep strong, be levelled, continue moving forward even during the times it felt like everyone and everything was going against you. You’d been through so much worse and you can do this, but you still couldn’t stop the tears that pushed from your eyes, your heart shattering the same time you dropped the stick.

“No, we won’t cry, it’s okay. I can handle this – I’m strong,” you repeated to yourself like a mantra, taking deep breaths to stabilize yourself. Clearly, this was unexpected, but you wanted to do your best, had to do your best. You didn’t have time to lose your composure, so you quickly fished your phone out your purse to dial the person you trusted the most.

“Rei...?”

Your best friend picked up on the second dial. “Sweetheart, where have you been?! I’ve been calling you for like hours now and you’re not picking up, I heard you called in sick for work and you never do that even when you’re about to pass out!” Some shuffling could be heard from the background before she spoke again, her tone a lot more gentle in response to your muted sniffles. “Is there something going on? Do you need me to drop by there right now? Tell me what you need; I’ll be there right away.”

“No, no, Rei, it’s fine, I just...”

“Sweetie,” she sighed, “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

You nodded even though she couldn’t see it. Rei had been there for you in everything, starting from when you newly arrived in the city; fresh-eyed and hopeful for new opportunities. She’d been there when you first complained your boss was a creepy flirt, all the way until you’d made peace with said boss and remained firm in your boundaries. But those boundaries had clearly been crossed – no, rather, you erased those boundaries. You were drunk enough to give in to the need to be touched, but sober enough to consent to everything that happened. You couldn’t place this all on him.

“I’m pregnant,” you said eventually, voice barely above a whisper as you added, “And Satoru’s the father.”

Rei stopped munching on her – you assume – bagel.

“Satoru? Gojo Satoru, your boss, bonafide casanova, the face on billboards and one of the most “eligible” bachelors in the country, billionaire Gojo Satoru?” she let out in one breath, the image of her flipping her hand out in the air in disbelief as clear as day. “Am I really hearing this right? I’m not going crazy, am I?”

You sighed.

“We were drunk. I slept with him.”

“Did that bastard force himself on you?”

“No, gosh, never,” you defended with widened eyes, sitting back down on the toilet with the lid now closed. You couldn’t look at the tests even if you dared yourself to, the plastic bag concealed in the garbage or else you’d feel sick all over again. “I-I wanted it too...we just got carried away and the night was just...I don’t know. I don’t know what came over me and why I did that, but there’s no point in fretting about it because I’m carrying his baby now.”

“Well,” she started unsurely, “What are you going to do?”

“I’m keeping it. There’s no way I would even consider abortion.”

“But what about him?”

The back of your head throbbed in pain. Just thinking about his stupidly handsome face made you want to throw up once more. “I don’t really want to tell him, but he has a right to know that he’s going to be a father.”

“Will he even take responsibility for it?”

You swallowed nervously, nibbling on your thumbnails before snatching your hand away. Composure was something you didn’t struggle with; you were the more reliable one in the duo of you and Satoru, but you had a bad habit of picking on your nails whenever you were anxious. Had it not been for Satoru flicking your nails away from your mouth each time you dazed out a little bit, you would’ve never gotten rid of the habit, but it all came crashing back down on you in an instant.

A heavy knot formed in your belly.

“Most likely not, I know how he’s like. He loves his single life so much that he’d never allow to be tied down like this. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he tells me he doesn’t want it.”

“What an asshole!”

“Yeah, he is, but I don’t need him in my life,” you reinstated, finally feeling more confident the longer you talked to Rei. She was your instant hype machine in more ways than one; her presence itself gave you the reassurance you could handle everything your way. With hope blooming in your chest, you picked yourself of the toilet and wiped away your tears. You could do this – you can handle this. Not just for you, but this baby growing in you as well.

“In our life. I’m more than capable of taking care of the baby myself,” you told her, gaze hard and determined as your sunken reflection stared back at you in the mirror. Sighing, you shook your head and pictured Satoru’s face, already picturing a thousand ways this could go wrong. Only one way to find out.

“I have to go now. He needs to hear about this and then I’ll resign. Probably move back home – anywhere that’s away from him.”

“Doesn’t the baby deserve to meet their dad?”

“Their dad doesn’t even want to be one,” you muttered bitterly and threw your sweater back on, refusing to kick yourself around any harder. Now wasn’t the time to be illogical; you were now a mother and had to be responsible now more than ever. But first, you needed some well-deserved rest after endless agonizing of missing your period, along with the baby drop that until now, had shook you to your core. “I’ll call you back, Rei. I’m very tired.”

“You let me know if you need anything, okay?” Humming in response, you ended the call and crawled back to bed.

It wasn’t that you felt lonely, but you didn’t feel particularly belonging anywhere. You were far from home in a city that felt like the future, and each day you come home, it was mostly just a place to rest before you went back to work the next day. It was a dull, empty routine that you’d gotten used to, but never had it sunk deep into you that you did felt completely hollow.

But not anymore.

You were with your baby now, and as much as it scared you shitless to be a mother with zero preparation and knowledge, you were confident things were going to be okay.

Wrapping an arm around your belly, you had the best sleep you’d had in years.

You’d just have to worry about tomorrow. Hopefully, and you quite prayed harder than you ever did before, Satoru would let you go and keep things less complicated than it already was.

“No,” Satoru shook his head, his words dropping like a heavy boulder in the middle of nowhere. You stood in front of him shock still, hands wrung solid beneath your belly. Satoru merely shook his head, brushing back his gelled hair with a dry laugh. “No, what are you even thinking? You’re not resigning.”

You pursed your lips. “I wasn’t really asking for permission, Sir.”

Truth be told, you expected this sort of reaction from him. It may be true that you and Satoru never got along in personal levels since he was too crass and you much stiff, but it couldn’t be denied you worked well together. You balanced each other’s flaws and brought out the best in one another. If someone had asked you years ago prior to you being employed by the heir if you could even tame the renowned free spirited man, you would’ve said probably not, but after sharing struggles and quite literally forcing one another to do better, you both reached highs neither expected to achieve.

It was an experience and a whole lot lessons learned working with him.

Unfortunately, all things must come to an end, and you had to leave even if Satoru negated to it.

“We’ve been working together for years. Do you know how many people I fired and have resigned all because they’re not equipped for the job?” he plopped down atop his desk, loosening his tie out of frustration. The simple gesture made you swallow and look away – it felt impossible to look at him any other way than a boss now that you had his baby inside you. Thankfully, Satoru was mouthy as usual that he pulled you back from your train of thoughts as he gestured between the both of you. “You and I are perfectly compatible – I can’t let you go like that. I’m sorry, but I need you. There’s no one else I can work with this functionally. No one else is as willing to tolerate my bullshit except you and...I need you to stay.”

You clenched your teeth at the desperation in his voice.

Satoru admitting he needed people was one thing. But him asking others to stay? It may have just been for your value as the only person who had put up with him in both his best and worst times that made him feel that way, but you had to keep your foot down on the ground.

You wouldn’t let him sway you like this.

Taking a deep breath, you closed your eyes and willed all your energy to spring forth. “Sir...I’m more than thankful for all the opportunities, it truly was a pleasure working with you but—”

“Is this because we slept together?” he cut you off, your shoulders tensing. Upon your silence, Satoru heaved himself away from the desk and took cautious step towards you, stopping a foot away when you stepped back defensively.

You almost wished you didn’t know him so well. His eyes shone with a flicker of hurt before he masked it just as quick as it had came – for Gojo Satoru was a master of many things, and a great actor was one of them. Cautious, you had to be cautious, and you clenched your fists behind your pencil skirt as you tore your gaze away from his pleading ones. “It is, isn’t it?” he affirmed with a clear of his throat, looking just as lost as you did. Satoru stuttered for a minute before he eventually composed himself, but even then, he didn’t sound half as sure as he wanted to be.

“Listen, whatever happened that night, we can forget about it if you want. We’re both adults and professionals – we can put this aside us and just go back to normal. You don’t have feelings for me, right? So then it shouldn’t be a big deal.”

“Satoru...it’s not like that.”

“Then what is it?” he demanded, aggravated. Satoru began to round his desk and pulling out little white envelopes, stacking them before you in a haste. “Do you want a pay raise? A new car so you could get to work easily? O-or perhaps a bigger house where you can work more comfortably, somewhere nearer to the office? All you have to do is tell me and I’ll give you what you want. There’s no need for you to resign, this company has given you everything and we’ve got so much offer just as you could still be great—”

“I’m pregnant.”

Satoru’s slender fingers halted around the pen hovering over a cheque slip. “What?”

“I said I’m pregnant,” you exhaled, biting down on your bottom lip to prevent yourself from quivering. A quick sweep from your face to gather sincerity trailed down to your belly, staring at you hard enough as if he had the ability to look through your soul. “And you’re the father.”

“Is that true? Is...is it really mine?”

“Yes sir,” you nodded, “I’m not telling you this because I expect that you’ll be responsible for it. No offense, sir, but I’d really rather raise the baby alone. Plus, I understand that you’ll never settle down or suddenly abandon your old ways just to—”

“Stop right there,” he raised a palm, “You mean to tell me you’re resigning because you thought I wouldn’t take responsibility for it? For you?”

The hurt in his voice and expressions were evident, lip curled in disgust; not for you, but rather of himself. Satoru was the type of man that couldn’t be withered down even with the harshest of rumours; you’d never seen him be affected before by tabloids and nasty ex-girlfriends who only slept with him for money or fame, only to talk smack about him afterwards. But now, he was crumbling before you, and you didn’t know quite what to say or feel over the vulnerability present in his cerulean eyes. It almost pained you know that you caused this – for the comforting, blue sky to be tainted with a thunderstorm that hinted of anger, of disappointment, of betrayal.

But could he blame you for not thinking the best of him?

“I’ve worked with you for years, sir, I know you.”

“Clearly not well enough,” he chuckled sarcastically, “Admittedly, I’m surprised, but not upset. The only thing that I’m upset about is that you actually believed it would be better to raise the baby – our baby – alone like I don’t even have a right to be in their life. Sure, it was an accident, but we made that. That’s our child and I’m going to take care of you and be a great father, even if you don’t think I’m capable of it.”

“Sir, I didn’t mean—”

“That’s the first time you said something stupid. That’s our baby. We’re a family now,” Satoru’s hesitance had vanished into thin air as he was on you the next instant, hands shaky before they landed on your shoulders. It was meant to be a comforting gesture; a reassuring one, yet you couldn’t help but flinch and falter under his gaze. As if getting the message, he quickly retracted his hands and shoved them deep inside his pockets with a sigh. “You don’t need to resign or worry about anything else. I promise I’ll give you both the life you deserve, just...just please don’t go. Now that I know we have a baby, there’s just no way I can let go of this and pretend I never heard of this at all.”

You swallowed, rubbing your sweaty palms on your skirt.

Out of all the different scenarios you stayed up late at night to turning your head in one by one, none of them included this. Undeniably, he was an asshole to most, but maybe he was right.

He hadn’t done anything wrong to you and he was still the father of your baby; he deserved a chance. Satoru had the right to be the father he was willing to be. You could already tell this might completely turn into one big mess, but his eyes were so hopeful, his smile so nervous yet expectant that you couldn’t help but say –

“Okay,” you relented.

His reaction was instantaneous. Satoru beamed and lounged at you, arms wide open for an embrace before realizing at the last second you could stab him with a pen and not regret it. One warning glare sent his way and he was retracing his arm behind his head, pretending to stretch with an off-tune whistle.

The sudden switch between pained and enthusiastic gave you whiplash, but you really shouldn’t be surprised. This was Gojo Satoru in the first place – he was as unpredictable as nothing was permanent and lasting to him.

It could be both a blessing and a curse.

For the sake of your baby, you genuinely hoped it was the former.

Not wanting him to get too ahead of himself since you still didn’t trust him enough, you raised a finger to poke him in the chest. Right now, you were no longer his secretary that openly despised him but added six sugar cubes in his coffee just as he liked anyway, but rather a woman who shared this mess with him, and as the mother of his child. You had to be strong. Being with Satoru felt like playing with fire, and you had far too much at stake – both of you did – but you weren’t privileged and fortunate like Satoru. One bad thing thrown his way could be brushed off, but for you? Everything you worked hard for could disappear just like that.

If you really chose now to play with fire, you had to be careful not to be the gasoline that ignited things to burn down into ashes.

“Satoru,” you stressed with your lips pressed into a thin line, “The only thing I expect from you is to be is a good father to our child. I know that it would be difficult for you to be a new person in a day and that your old habits won’t die right away, so please do what you can to be a good parent, and I’ll be with you every step of the way. I promise you don’t have to worry about me getting in the way of your life as well.”

His smile slowly vanished.

“Is that how low you really think of me?” he echoed rather sadly, “That I would still sleep around knowing I’ve got a family now?”

“We’re not a family, Sir. I have no intentions of marrying you nor would I ever want it. I’m just staying for the baby.”

“Fine. For the baby, let’s both do our best,” he crossed his arms on his chest, pumping out the hard muscles from how tight his shirt was. You were stuck between wanting to slap him or be closer to him; the hormones too much of a mess that you had to grip your thigh for restraint. “But tomorrow, you’re moving in with me. I’m going to take care of you from now on – I’ll get you whatever you need so whatever it is, just tell me. My credit card is yours to use as well.”

Move in with him? You wanted to laugh. That was the last thing you would want to happen.

“Sir, it’s fine, I’m capable of taking care of myself.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t, but I want to take care of you both,” he reiterated, growing slightly annoyed from your rigidness. You professed that you were being difficult right now, but it was much better than being easy around someone like him.

“We don’t have to be friends or lovers, alright? I know you don’t see me that way and I’m probably repulsive in your eyes – which is understandable since you always clean my mess up for me – but as a father, at least, let me do my job. There doesn’t have to be anything between us other than a mutual want to be good parents. Is that alright with you?”

You mulled the thought over in your head. So he was capable of being sensible sometimes, and after a few moments of silence, you narrowed your eyes at him.

Still suspicious and your guard was most definitely still up, but he was right. You both had a mutual want to be good parents and that was the most important thing right now. Everything else that complicated matters would be handled afterwards.

“I’m okay with that, but I would have to set down lots of boundaries if I’m living with you.”

“So you’ll really stay with me then?” You regretted nodding in response because Satoru was now fishing his phone out, a goofy smile on his face.

He took the news...surprisingly well, and you didn’t know what to make of it.

“Perfect! I’ll have your room prepared!” You tried to grab his arm to stop him from going overboard; knowing full well Satoru always had rushes in which he impulsively overdoes things. He might turn your room into some sort of grand suite that you wouldn’t really like, but he was far too excited and lost in his own thoughts that your words went from one ear and out the other. “Fuck,” he laughed to himself, “I’m going to be a dad.”

Whether it was relief or anxiety that bubbled through you, you had no idea.

It was definitely anxiety.

Satoru felt like a hyper child to be around, and as much as you were grateful that he was happy about this, you also wished he would calm down. You didn’t even have enough chance to settle in before he’s shoving you inside room by room, announcing that what was his was also yours and he would have a baby room set up next week.

You followed him around like a puppy as he marched into the kitchen, mumbling incoherently to himself about baby proofing furniture.

“Sir,” you called out, “Sir, listen to me. We need to talk about boundaries.”

Satoru blinked owlishly at your tired eyes, sheepishly smiling at you. It must’ve dawned on him that his speed tour of his penthouse felt a lot more overwhelming than welcoming, and he sat you down on the island stools before drumming his fingers impatiently on the cool marble. “Sorry, you were saying? I kind of got carried away.”

Carried away was far an understatement.

“I said, we need to talk about boundaries.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” he paused with a furrow in his brow. “Also can you just call me Satoru? We’re going to be parents anyway and it’s awkward if you keep uh, calling me Sir.”

“Fine,” you rolled your eyes, not really in the mood to argue with him right now. You had to keep intact with him while you still had his full attention. Taking out a little notepad you prepared the night before, you slid it over Satoru who tilted his head to the side rather cutely to read it. “So here are my boundaries. One, I don’t want this pregnancy to be announced in the media unless I’m ready. I understand that we can’t keep this a secret forever but I need time to process this. Two, just because we’re living in the same roof together doesn’t mean that I get to go anywhere and everywhere with you. I’m going to work by myself—”

“No.”

“What do you mean no?”

“I said no,” he repeated more firmly this time. “You’re pregnant and I want to make sure you’re safe at all times. I’m driving you to work.”

“Didn’t you just hear what I said? I don’t want to be seen with you.”

“You’re my secretary. People see us together all the time.”

“But you never drove me to work! I live far from the office and I most definitely don’t drive an Audi.”

“Things change, that’s your life now,” Satoru shrugged nonchalantly, stealing the pen you twirled in your hands. The sudden contact sent jolts of electricity from your knuckles, one that had you recanting your hands back to yourself. Satoru didn’t seem to notice as he crosses out the second rule, “Sorry not sorry but I don’t want to let you go places like that. Fine by me if you don’t want me to drive you, but at least have one of the chauffeurs take you somewhere if you really don’t wanna be seen with me.”

“Fine,” you gritted your teeth. Compromise, compromise, meet in the middle – you repeated to yourself to keep your sanity. “Rule number three: I don’t want you changing your attitude around me. We may have a baby on the way, but you’re still my boss and I want to keep our relationship professional.”

“You’re saying I’m not allowed to fall in love with you?”

You flicked his forehead, effectively erasing the teasing grin he wore. “That’s not going to happen,” you interjected irritably, although your heart skip a beat. That was a massive red flag already; you could never be too comfortable with him. For Satoru, his little comments here and there may come naturally and probably meant nothing to him, but there was a chance you could receive it with different interpretations. Shaking your head at him, you ignored his grumblings on how ‘mean’ you were. “We’re never going to be a couple. We’re just raising a child together. I don’t want you acting weird or too comfortable with me.”

Satoru scratched the side of his head as he mulled about it, “Are we allowed to be friends, at least? I understand the professional part, but I can’t imagine the both of us getting along for nine months and more when we act like boss and employee even alone at home,” before you could say anything, Satoru raised his hands in surrender. “I promise I won’t do anything weird to you. No offense, but you’re not really my type, so same as you, I view you platonically.”

Right. The heart surely was stupid and confusing.

You didn’t want him getting any ideas that this could lead to something more, but at the same time, it hurt a little to know you weren’t his type.

Hiding that pang of hurt behind a tight lipped smile, you forced yourself to agree with him. “I view you professionally, Sir.”

“Satoru.”

“Whatever,” you grumbled. “Rule number four: don’t bring home any of your fuck buddies or flavour of the night. I really don’t care if you sleep around, but respect my privacy and my standing as the mother of your childIf you’re really desperate to get your dick wet, go fuck them somewhere else.”

“You’ve never been this vulgar with me.”

He wasn’t wrong about that. Despite countless of times that he tried being friendly with you to ease your stiffness in the office, you always shot him down.

You came to the city to work and provide for your family, not to be friends with your annoyingly hot boss who enjoyed his life way too much. Unlike him, you were more work than play, and eventually Satoru respected the fact you would never speak or treat him casually.

Until now.

“Try being in my shoes and see if you’d still have the patience of a saint,” you mumbled under your breath, sighing when Satoru’s smile got more awkward. “Listen, Satoru, I don’t mean to be difficult, okay? It’s just...this is a lot. This isn’t just us about anymore – we’re going to be parents and that’s a huge responsibility. It’s not only our lives changing here, a child will be relying on us in the future and I simply want to be a good mother, but I also don’t trust you very well to be comfortable enough to act like we’re suddenly friends.”

“I understand that.”

“Good.”

“Do you have rule number five?”

“No, not really, but I can add more as we go.”

“I have a rule number five,” he piped in, flipping the notepad his way as he scribbled something down. “And it’s that if you need help – and I mean with anything – you would let me help you. I’ve worked with you for a long time and I’m not dumb enough to not notice you like to do things by yourself. Like you said, things are different now, and especially with this pregnancy, you’re not alone in this. You need to let me take over the wheel sometimes. I can’t be just a passenger in the car – you and I are both in this together.”

“Just keep your hands to yourself.”

“That’s easy,” he chirped, and there was that uncomfortable knot in your chest again. However, it didn’t sink in too deep because Satoru was blatantly staring at your belly, a small smile tugging at his lips. “So do we have a name for them already?”

“Satoru, I’ve only been a few weeks pregnant, I don’t—”

Conflicting his previous statement that he’d keep his hands to himself, Satoru suddenly dropped to his knees. You watched with wide eyes, too flabbergasted to move as he places his ear on your belly.

“Hi there, little one,” he spoke in a soft tone, large hands caressing the tiny bump beginning to form. You couldn’t move; hell, you could barely breathe from how comforting his touch seemed in contrast to your mind ringing warning bells above. His voice quickly pulled you back to reality as he flattened his palm, white lashes fluttering against the cotton of your shirt. “I’m your daddy; I can’t wait to meet you. Daddy promises to take good care of you and make you the happiest kid ever, alright? You don’t have to worry about anything as long as I’m here.”

“D-don’t spoil them too much, Satoru.”

“I’ll try not to,” he chuckled. Satisfied with that small moment he had, he straightened up and trudged over the dining table that was far too big for a man who lived alone. In that moment, an image flashed in your mind – that someday that table would no longer look empty as you and your child shared meals with him. You could already imagine how heavenly the sun would shine on the glass windows behind it, the flowers gathered in the middle of the table blooming to life.

Out of nowhere, it struck you.

Could it be that this was why he loved this baby so much after only knowing about it for a few days? Could it be that Satoru really was alone?

“Okay, we should probably have a welcoming dinner! The chefs left me something tonight. I forgot what it’s called but I think you’ll like it. Grab some wine on the cellar for me?”

“Satoru, I’m pregnant.”

“Oh, right! My bad,” he clapped his hands together before pulling out ceramics and a cold pitcher, “Just water for mommy then,” Satoru said absentmindedly, completely oblivious to how your mind short-circuited a few feet away from him. He went about his way ignorant to it all and gently tugged you to sit with him, eagerly digging into the heated meals as you realized both of you hadn’t eaten.

For a guy who talked a lot, dinner with him was surprisingly quiet. Other than the occasional clinking of utensils against the plate, you enjoyed the silence with him.

You wouldn’t have believed it to be possible since Satoru made it his daily business to always fill in the gaps. Peace and comfort stretched before you the whole time, however, that for a moment, just a short moment, you found yourself letting your guard down. Even when you both caught each other’s in the middle of a bite, you found no tension or awkwardness in it. Perhaps it was the familiarity of being beside each other for years now that this should feel natural, or maybe it was because you both mutually agreed on wanting the best for your baby. Whatever it was, you didn’t want to overcomplicate it right now.

“You know, I’m really excited about this. I can’t believe I’m actually going to be a father,” he mused through a bite, swirling his red wine through his glass. Satoru gazed at his reflection almost dreamily, seemingly too deep in thought that he felt far from reach.

Or maybe you were the one who was detached, the one who kept pushing him away, because you could offer him nothing but a lame nod. “I’m glad to hear that...”

“What about you? You don’t look too happy.”

Your eyes widened at his worry. “No, I-I’m happy, of course. It’s just...it’s unplanned, and I’ve had my whole life planned out that I’m not really sure how this will all fall into place together.”

“Hey,” he laced his fingers with yours, squeezing warmth back into your skin that you hadn’t noticed turned cold from the nerves. Unlike his usual self with eyes brimming with glee, you could only see tenderness in him now, some sort of silent vow through a private smile shared only between the two of you in that moment in the solace of his home. Your home. “I promise I’ll be there for you and the baby every step of the way. I know that I haven’t had the best reputation and I have zero idea on parenting, but you’re not alone in this. You can trust me on this one, just like how we always trusted each other during work. Being a parent and running a business are both responsibilities right?”

“Yeah...”

“Well then you already know we work well together. We’re great partners!” he cheered, patting your shoulder way too bro-like. You resisted the urge to cringe. “We’ll be great parents, Y/N. I’m sure of that.”

Unsure of what else to do, you squeezed his hand back. He was right, you would be great parents as long as both of you never gave up. The thought of eating meals with him again with another addition to the table made you smile, and you hadn’t noticed you were spacing out, thumb running over his knuckles that were smooth for a man who never knew a day of hard labour. It wasn’t until you felt something prodding at you metaphorically, and you chuckled nervously as you saw Satoru smiling mysteriously at you.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Nothing,” he grinned, “I’ve just never seen you this close before; not so much that I paid attention anyway. But this is nice – having you here, I mean. It gets lonely here sometimes.”

“Don’t you bring your girlfriends around?”

“I never make them stay,” was all he said, and just like that, whatever thread that was beginning to form snapped. Satoru released his hold on you and gestured to your plate, carrying the dishes in his hand before leaving you alone on the table. Like always – a whiplash. “I’ll clean up, you can rest in your room now. I’ll take care of the dishes.”

“Do you even know how to do them?”

“Yeah, my mother forced me to wash dishes because she didn’t want me to rely on the house help too much,” he informed, the new information shocking you right to the core as he put on dishwashing gloves and started scrubbing. From this angle, he sure looked damn nice and domestic in just a white shirt, hair ruffled down to bangs.  “I’ll be right there with you,” Satoru announces casually, spinning on his heel with red cheeks once he realized what he said. “For just a goodnight, I mean! We’re not sharing rooms!”

“Yeah, no,” you coughed out, “We’re definitely not.”

It felt…surreal, to wake up in a room much grandiose than yours yet felt like home even for the first night. Satoru handled your moving in rather happily; you found him singing to himself this morning as he brewed his own coffee before realizing you were right behind him, sleepy as you lazily made waffles for the both of you. Everything flowed nicely and normally, like this had always been a normal thing that for a moment, you questioned once more what would happen next.

You were now getting ready for work, hands tugging at his tie because he was such a man-child who couldn’t even properly knot his own tie. His suit was custom tailored and he looked effortlessly gorgeous – beauty ripped straight from magazines he was constantly a front page of, but his tie was skewered and loose that it irritated you.

“You’re such a mess without me.”

Satoru bent down to wiggle his brows at you, thought you didn’t notice because he wouldn’t stay still for you to fix his tie fast enough. “Isn’t this sweet; you fixing my tie for me as we both get ready for work?” he teased, “We’re like a married couple already.”

“If you don’t shut up, I’m kicking you in the nuts.”

“Then how can I give you more babies?” picking up the newspaper on the coffee table beside you, you rolled it and started whacking him, a string of profanities colorfully painting his otherwise monochrome and sleek walls. Satoru’s laughter boomed all over the room even as he wiggled away from you, clutching his bicep that had been the victim of your abuse. “Ow, ow, I was joking! Jeez, woman, you are strong. Fight men a lot like this?”

“I work with you. My fighting instincts are always activated.”

His laugh really was annoying. But it did help ease your nerves – though you’d never tell him that – as you sat beside him in his car, the expensive leather seats no longer strange to you. It would’ve felt like any other day where you accompanied him somewhere, except the reason was different now, and it came crashing down on you of your current situation that things were undeniably different from now on.

You immediately stepped away from him the moment you got out of the car, clutching your clipboard to your tummy when Satoru bumped his shoulder with yours. “Come closer, it’s fine. No one will suspect a thing,” he points to the crowded building with people bumping and walking past each other, everyone too occupied in their own heads to even notice you.

It wasn’t much, but hearing his voice and reassurances relaxed you, even for just a little bit. Maybe your first day at work after the baby news wouldn’t be so bad, after all, but it seemed you had spoken too early.

Satoru heavily insisted that you worked inside his office from now on.

Your desk was located right outside his office, the phone line always within reach in case you needed to pass calls to him or if he needed you to come. Satoru preferred the privacy of his own space – or so he said; he actually just didn’t want you to witness him slacking around and experience your wrath – but now he was dragging you inside his office, pushing your shoulders down until you were ‘settled in.’

You didn’t even want to ask where he got a new desk from, or why it had to be right across from him. His desk remained elevated on a few levels, the welcoming lobby of the room filled with couches and stacks of coffee with a rich amount of sugar cubes.

Safe to say, most of the morning was spent (or rather, wasted) on you telling Satoru off. The man was too persistent, coming in on the office at random times of the hour with either snacks or heaps of biscuits on his arms. He always greeted you with a wide grin on his face, only to be kicked out of his own office because you had his hellish schedule and events to deal with. That was around three hours ago when you’d asked him to shut up and go bother someone else. You were halfway around finishing your workload for today when the door swung open, a tuft of white hair and mischievous eyes peeking through.

“Hey! Just checking in on mommy—”

“Satoru!”

“What? It’s just you and I,” he defended with a shrug, welcoming himself inside. Surprisingly, he was empty handed, though the pout on his lips told you it was against his will. “Seriously though, do you need anything? Do you want snacks? Tea? Do you need help going to the bathroom? You haven’t moved in your desk for an hour now.”

“Satoru, I’m pregnant, not disabled,” you ignored him for a while, resuming to working back on his schedule for the month. There were a bunch of e-mails you still had to respond to, which normally wouldn’t be such a daunting task if Satoru wasn’t shifting his weight from one foot to another, the sounds of his shoes hitting the tiles in an annoying click-clack rhythm getting to you. “Will you stop fidgeting! Your anxiety gives me anxiety, stop that!”

“I’m sorry, I can’t help it, I just feel like there’s something I should be doing.”

“Shutting up and letting me work in peace would be great, thank you.”

“You really don’t need anything?” Sending him a warning glare, Satoru sucked in his cheeks and ran back to his desk where he hid behind the safety of his large monitor. “Nope, yeah, I got the message: leave you alone. Good luck with that then, I’ll need those archives to pull up for our meeting with the directors later at five.”

Muttering a sarcastic finally under your breath, you resumed working.

The routine was per usual – answer the calls professionally with a welcoming and sweet voice, a pen always in one hand to jot down notes in reminders, adjust his schedules, work out his plans, go to him whenever he needed to sign something before responding back to e-mails. You were focused as you always were, but someone wasn’t, and it was getting harder and harder to keep being placated.

It didn’t help that he made no effort to hide the fact he was slacking off, the tip-taps of him randomly pressing keys on the keyboard similar to a fork dragging down a plate.

“I can feel you burning holes at the back of my head,” you twittered, “What do you need?”

“Nothing at all. I’m just realizing how beautiful you are right now.”

You paused. Unable to deny your curiosity over how serious he sounded, you spun around in your swivel chair. Satoru had his chin on his hands as he stared right back at you, his face devoid of expression that you couldn’t pick up on a single clue. “Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

You rolled your eyes at him. Of course the bastard would be teasing you, his loud chuckles a painful reminder of that. It was best to ignore him, so you went back to reading e-mails and forced yourself to focus on the task at hand. “We’re at work. Please stop distracting me; I can’t focus when you’re staring at me like a creep.”

“Sorry, babe, I’ll try to be less distracting next time, though I can’t control my charisma, you know!”

You jotted your thumb to your desk outside, “I can walk back to my desk where you can’t see me. That’d be a great for both of us.”

“Stay right there, I was joking!”

“Do you promise to be quiet and actually do your job if I stay?”

“With you disciplining and ordering me around like that, why not?” Mouth open for another heated retort, Satoru stopped you before you could say anything, his aura more serious this time. He was always like this; fooling around and maturing the next second, only for the cycle to repeat and test your patience. “I’m just teasing you, Y/N, I’ll shut up now. You’re free to end work as soon as you’re tired though; the driver is waiting in the parking lot whenever you want to go home.”

“I’ll go home with you.” Home. It felt weird to say that, but also…natural.

“You’ll stay with me at work today?” He sounded genuinely surprised, and you responded with a one-shoulder shrug. That seemed to be enough for him, however, and it wasn’t long before Satoru found the oh so rare and fleeting motivation to work hard.

Once he was settled, sleeves rolled up to expose his veiny forearms and brows furrowed as he centered all his attention on the pile of paperwork before him, there was no stopping him.

Roles reversed and positions switched, you were now the one unable to take your eyes off him.

In this light, in this moment, Gojo Satoru had never looked more beautiful. He was much the same as you in the manner you never really noticed each other this way before; not romantically, but even just person to person. In your eyes, he was nothing but your irritating boss whose boisterous self always crowded over your peace, and in his eyes, you were nothing but his secretary who he knew always silently hoped would leave you alone.

But things were different now. You were different now.

Boundaries there may be, you couldn’t help that fluttering forming in your stomach. Contentment, happiness, relief, nervousness – all of them jumbled into one big mess. Out of them all, however, there was most definitely adoration, either out of respect for his unexpected kindness, or simply because it felt nice to feel for once.

Turning away from him until your back was the only thing he could see, you hid your smile as you secretly held your belly.

You’d never been reckless before, but what was to be a good story when there wasn’t a mistake or two made?

[ddarker-dreams]

Saturnine. Yan Chrollo x Reader [SMUT]

Tags/warnings: Dubcon, oral sex, creampie, my brain melting, condescending ???, Chrollo always has smth to say Word count: 2.2k. Note: it is finally done .

When gazing into the mirror, it should be easy to recognize the reflection staring back as your own. It’s the sight you’ve seen your entire life. Maybe the light in your eyes is less noticeable and your smiles no longer appear genuine, but in the end, it still physically bears your image.

You shiver at the chilly air kissing your bare skin, goosebumps erupting at the lack of clothing. Thin fabric clings tightly around your body, sheer and intricate in its lace design, yet astonishingly soft to the touch. It accentuates the swell of your chest, the black as midnight fabric stopping just shy above your midriff. A matching thong connects to sheer thigh highs through a garter belt to complete the set. Never in your life can you recall wearing such a lascivious outfit. Nor did you think you’d ever wear one for him.

Covering your exposed cleavage with your arms, you lower your head, fingernails pressing so harshly against your skin that it hurts. The pain serves to ground you in reality, proof that this is happening and not a dream.

“Did I… do this right?” You murmur, not used to how Chrollo is wordlessly assessing your trembling figure. Normally the air is full of conversation, equal parts rigid and provocative, a verbal game you’ve been forced to navigate. You still prefer the mind games over this maddening silence. You’re convinced he can hear the way your heart pounds viciously as if it was attempting to free itself from your body altogether, the current stress it’s under too much to withstand.

Chrollo moves a step closer and you take a deep, shaky breath. Grey eyes rake over your body, like a predator monitoring its prey, inspecting every inch of you. He spreads his fingers against your stomach, coarse fingers gliding over your skin, gradually moving upwards.

“Mm. You did perfectly.” His voice is rich and husky against your ear, spoken lowly so that only you may hear it. When his fingers reach their intended target, he cups your chest and lays his head on your shoulder. You watch his actions in the reflection of the mirror, glossy lips parting but no words managing to form on your tongue. Emotions swirl within you like an unrelenting vortex. Repulsion. Frustration. Shame. That it came to this, lowering yourself to a level you never wanted to be reduced to.

While you ruminate in your misery, Chrollo presses featherlight kisses from the crook of your neck to your jaw. His lips are soft and well taken care of, curling into a smile at how your pulse quickens. There are numerous mysterious surrounding Chrollo, but you do not doubt that he’s enjoying himself now. Your attention is brought back to his hands on your chest and how he kneads them. A blush ignites when you feel something hard press brush your ass, already guessing what it is.

“S-so you’re going to,” you struggle to get out, releasing a gasp when he suddenly pinches your nipple, “Keep… keep your promise, right?”

The clarification is for your peace of mind. An internal justification is necessary to continue with this illicit act, doubts plaguing your mind. You feel his chest rumble against your back, a deep chuckle leaving him. Regret comes swiftly, knowing that anytime you speak to Chrollo his responses sting deep, piercing your skin and festering.

One of his hands comes to your jaw, tilting your head back to look at him. The proximity has your eyes wide as a doe, his warm breath fanning against your face, dark tresses of hair tickling your face. His grip is tight but not painful. A not so subtle reminder of the Phantom Troupe leader’s innate strength, that goes beyond any measurement your mind could conjure up. Your squeeze your eyes shut when he leans forward, pressing a chaste kiss to the edge of your lips.

“What if I don’t?” Chrollo’s question has you frowning, eyelids fluttering open so you can shoot him a glare. He stares back unfazed, amusement visible from his closed mouth smile and relaxed posture, clearly not feeling intimidated by your little show. You decide to give it some thought, knowing he’ll scrutinize your response if not chosen carefully. Though, it’s admittedly difficult to concentrate when your face is burning up and his hand is still groping your chest.

Swallowing thickly, you arrive at a half-decent comeback. “I’ll… I’ll hate you.”

It sounded far better in your head.

Chrollo raises an eyebrow at your rebuttal but decides to entertain it. “Don’t you already?”

“I’ll hate you even more,” comes your reply, stumbling out before you could think it over. Luckily, or maybe unluckily, he doesn’t take visible offense. Instead, the bastard laughs again. Affectionately, Chrollo brushes his knuckles over your cheek, mirth dancing in his eyes.

“Even more, huh,” he hums, your nonsensical ramblings sounding worse when repeated back. “If that’s the threat I’m contending with, then I’ll be sure to stick to my word.”

You’re not exactly reassured by this, but decide to leave it for now. Suddenly, Chrollo steps back, freeing you from his grip. Before you can ask about what he’s doing, his hands start loosening his belt. Ah. So the time for negotiating is over. His dress pants fall, revealing a prominent bulge pushing against his briefs.

“Now get on your knees for me.”

It wasn’t a request. You do as he says, hyper-aware of how he’s staring at you, the tile from your shared master bedroom cold against your shins. To save what little modesty you have remaining, you readjust your bra so your chest no longer threatens to spill out. Heartbeat picking up in pace, you lift a shaky hand, palming his crotch through the fabric. 

The muscles in his thighs tighten, yet every other aspect of him remains thoroughly composed. Playing with the waistband, you slowly pull it down, revealing Chrollo’s half-hard member. It’s long, around six inches when erect, with a prominent vein that you’ve learned is rather sensitive. Precum is already leaking from the head, a sight that worsens the blush on your face.

Chrollo runs his hands through your hair, a quiet sigh leaving his lips. You pick up on the unspoken encouragement to not keep him waiting. Readjusting yourself into a more comfortable position, you take his dick fully into your hands, giving it a tentative stroke to test the waters. No verbal response. He’s excellent at maintaining his composure, creepy as it may be. Pumping his cock from the base, you bow your head down, eyelids fluttering shut as you kiss and lick the tip. That earns you a sharp inhale and a tightened grip but nothing else. Wetting your lips with your tongue, you continue licking the tip while jerking him off, noting that his cum has a slight salty taste to it.

Now that your confidence has somewhat been built up, you part your lips to take more of him in, getting adjusted to his size. Chrollo lets out a shaky exhale, fingers curling deeper into your hair. It’s difficult to get into a solid rhythm as your anxiety is unrelenting. Being so vulnerable in front of a person whose hands, which are now intertwined with your hair, have slaughtered countless people. 

He could do the same to you at any time, you think, despite his insistence for not wanting to. Hollowing out your cheeks, you manage to take more of him in, stopping just shy as not to activate your gag reflex. It makes your stomach churn when he lovingly strokes your cheek, looking down at you with eyes glazed over with crazed lust. Of course, he wouldn’t make this easy on you and act different — he continues with the delusion that this is love.

“Eager, now are we?” Chrollo laughs breathlessly. You decide to ignore the comment, too focused on having him finish so you can move on with your night. The low groans and whispers of your name are starting to affect you, a factor that only adds to your shame.. Pangs of heat are building up in between your legs, which you subconsciously rub together in a feeble attempt to relieve yourself. Chrollo quietly groans, content at the sight, dick twitching in your mouth. You wish he hadn’t noticed just how turned on you’re growing — not that you’re surprised with how unfairly observant he is — fully prepared for more scathing comments.

“I’m glad you stopped being so stubborn,” he pushes himself deeper into your mouth, gripping your head tightly enough not to let you move away, “So I can finally have my way with you.”

You wince at how he forces his dick down your throat, tears stinging the corners of your eyes and lungs screaming for air. Chrollo drinks in the sight, shuddering, bucking his hips, and pulling your face as tight against him as he can. You figure his release is getting closer from how erratic his movements are growing. At least it’ll be over soon. This line of thought is interrupted as he pulls away, saliva and cum connecting your mouth to his dick in a thin line, which has you frowning. Relishing the opportunity to regain yourself, your lungs greedily gulp in air, and you cough from his previous actions.

Chrollo extends a hand out to you which you hesitantly accept. The more human side is starting to show, his skin sheening with sweat, bare chest heaving for air much like yours, and black tresses sticking to the sides of his face. Your lips part, intending to ask why he stopped. He places both his just hands below your ass, hoisting you up as if you weighed nothing. Yelping, you struggle and cling to him as not to fall, eyes wide with confusion.

“W-what—”

“Wrap your legs around me,” he presses a chaste kiss to your forehead and you do as he says, scared that you’ll fall otherwise. “Mm. Good girl.”

Chrollo carries you over to the wall, your back pressing against the hard surface and feeling its coolness on your bare skin. After thinking about it for a moment, you understand what it is he intends to do next, tightening your grip around him. He positions the head of his cock against your opening, smiling at how wet you are. At least he’s too focused to comment on your current state. You look to the side, not wanting to see the pleased expression you know is on his face.

“I’ll take care of you after,” Chrollo promises, slowly pushing himself inside you. You take a deep breath, gripping his shoulders tightly, fingernails digging into his skin. At least he’s allowing you to adjust. You yelp when he grabs a fistful of your hair, tugging it so that you look him dead in the eye. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Hm?”

A half-choked out moan leaves your lips as he fills you, feeling his sizeable length stretching you out.

“Y-yes,” You pant, carnal desire outweighing any solid reasoning at the moment. Chrollo continues to pound relentlessly into your cunt, burying his face in your neck. He’s coming undone, fucking you with a strength that has you breathless. You catch occasional guttural groans of your name and don’t want to admit how nice it sounds.

“I always knew you’d come around.” 

The sound of skin on skin fills the room, mixed in with his grunts and your moans. Squeezing your ass, his thrusts grow erratic, before he finally stills. Chrollo releases deep inside you, pulling you down onto him, hot ropes of cum filling you and seeping out.

He grits his teeth, shuddering at his release. All is still for a moment aside from your heavy chests. Chrollo gathers himself before you do, slowly pulling himself out. You feel his cum as it drips out of you and bite your lip at the possible implications. Everything is so warm and your body feels terribly sore, having to clutch onto him for stability when he puts you back down. Chrollo doesn’t seem to mind this, laughing as he runs his hands through your mousled hair.

“How precious.”

You yelp when he picks you up, bridal style this time, your face pressing against his chest.

“It looks like you needed some help there, dear.” Chrollo hums, placing you down onto the bed with a gentleness you weren’t used to. There’s no way any normal human could be this collected already. Taking deep breaths, you attempt to calm yourself, not wanting to be completely undone before him. Chrollo watches with intrigue while you do so, his eyes piercing through your trembling body. When you finally manage to get your breathing steady, he gently pushes your shoulders down and spreads your legs.

“Now, about that promise of mine,” he presses open-mouthed kisses from your ankle to your thighs, “I intend to keep it. We’ll keep going until you’re no longer able to stand.”

[no-droids]

The Secret

Pairing: Anakin Skywalker/Reader

Word Count: 4.2K

Rating: Explicit

Summary: On a dark and dreary night, Anakin tries to see if he can influence your dreams.

A/N: idk what in the hell this even is tbh I just started writing it two days ago idk what happened this is some inception shit but not the crazy ass mind bending plot twist part at the very end of inception but like just the cool middle part where you kinda get what’s sorta going on but not really okay anyways I gotta go

Warnings: There are DUBCON/NONCON ELEMENTS to this, smut/oral sex, a splash of m/m (sorta?), dark Anakin uses the force to mess with your dreams without your knowledge or consent so please read at your own discretion

***

Anakin knows it’s wrong.

It’s the middle of the night on a moon he never bothered learning the name of and Anakin knows it’s wrong when his eyes shift over to you for the fifth time in the past minute.  Curled up with your back to him and the crackling firelight illuminating this tiny little cave, breathing soft and quiet through your nose as you sleep, the wind roaring monstrously outside.  Anakin acknowledges it—the moral impropriety of even sitting here thinking about things he shouldn’t be with you so close by.  It’s wrong, no getting around it.

But there’s also something inside him that… wants the wrongness.

He likes it.  Anakin likes having secrets, he likes breaking rules even when nobody is consciously here to witness it.  It makes him feel alive in a way that battlefields just can’t anymore, not after two years of constant conflict where the only enemies to feel his wrath have been comprised of nuts and bolts, their robotic cries never leaving him with any satisfaction anymore.  At the start of the Clone Wars, sure, it was a thrill to slice through voice boxes and body parts, even if they were mechanical.  But the droids aren’t afraid of death, they’re just programmed to stay alive.  It’s like killing large, dumb swarms of bugs—it needs to be done for the common good but there’s never any true fulfillment in it anymore, it just feels like a task to be completed instead of an earnest, hard-earned goal.

He’s also been given direct permission to do it.  He’s even been ordered to carry out enormous droid massacres on behalf of the Republic, but that’s the thing.  Anakin isn’t looking for permission, see, it takes away half the thrill.

No, he wants to feel wrong.  He wants to wonder if he shouldn’t have.  He wants the quiet guilt, the sparkle of holding a secret he’ll never breathe a word about, the addictive power trip from having real influence over something, something equally as real.

Technically, Anakin is supposed to be on lookout right now.  He’s meant to stay awake and patrol the perimeter of the cave for enemy combatants, but he doesn’t even bother pretending to be diligent when it’s just you two here.  It’s not necessary.  He’d be able to sense another lifeform miles away in this secluded, barren wasteland; there’s no threat to be found right now.  He can keep warm by the crackling firelight in this cave, sheltered from the dust storm that spontaneously broke out a few hours ago.  He can stay awake without moving a muscle and listen to your slow breathing all night long, letting it fill him with shameful desires he spends the daylight hours fighting and suppressing.

He silently flicks his gaze over to you once more, blinking as he studies you.  He can sense your mind becoming creative in its slumber, beginning to swirl into dreamlike possibilities around yourself, about to choose a path for your consciousness to follow tonight.  Yes, this is what he’s waiting for.  He can’t force you to dream—that’s beyond his expertise as a Jedi.  But if he finds himself in the right place at the right time, he can certainly try his best to… give you a suggestion.

The wind whistles outside and the fire pops quietly and you continue to breathe.  In, and out.  In, and out.

Anakin closes his eyes, and begins.

He first maps your body with the Force, trying to understand it on a deeper level.  Gauge it—its proportions, its ambience, the thrumming lifeforce flowing through your veins even as you sleep.  He has to be careful—as a fellow Knight, there’s no guarantee you won’t immediately be able to spot him exploring your energy in this way, there’s nothing to stop you from suddenly rolling over and asking just what exactly he thinks he’s doing.

But Anakin is patient.  It’s one of the only times he can remember truly exercising that untapped potential inside him, perfectly content to allow you to drift while he works to find his bearings with you.  Minds are complex, especially when they’re unconscious.  They’re finicky and never stay in the same spot for long—it’s not like they evade, necessarily, but instead, they just… float around.  Pulsing.  In and out of existence, hiding behind and under immovable things, no rhyme or reason for it, vanishing into uncertainty and nothingness as soon as he thinks he’s found it.  Like trying to find a microscopic air pocket in the depths of a pitch black ocean.  He’s not losing any oxygen by existing right at the edges of your sleep, but it takes hard concentration to stay here, hidden, not allowing himself to slip.  He’s looking, he’s looking… but he soon realizes he just needs to wait longer.  He needs to wait until you float your way back around to him, until you present the opening yourself.

So Anakin waits.

And waits…

And then suddenly—

—There.  He locks onto a flicker in the Force and holds, finally isolating and breaching the surface of your inner subconscious.  Anakin smiles softly, a bead of sweat slowly dripping down his temple at the effort it took to locate you without alerting you of his presence.  There you are.  Maker, it sure is pretty in here, isn't it?  He has you, he’s cradling the buried, hidden, most fragile part of your soul as you slumber, not knowing any better.

His heart thumps with excitement even though he’s barely done anything yet.  To someone without sensitivity to the Force, they might just think the both of you are asleep right now.  Just the two of you sitting still in this relatively small space, eyes closed, neither of you are touching, nobody has said anything or made any substantial movements in hours, nothing has changed in this world.  All of it is existing in another plane, a place most people wouldn’t be able to recognize unless someone informed them of its existence, and even then, it would be beyond understanding.

But he has you now.  He’s there, and he’s not going anywhere.  He can allow his focus to dip just slightly, knowing your mind will pull him along through the comatose current.  He senses you already working through the beginning whispers of dreams, but they’re not the kind people can ever remember.  These aren’t formed, there’s no substance to them—it’s just pure, abstract dreamspace for your mind to drift through while you slumber.

Finding your true consciousness through all the murky, shapeless slumber was the test in skill.  Now comes the luck.

Very carefully, without arousing any suspicion or drawing undue attention to himself, Anakin begins to drag the tip of his tongue against the back of his teeth.  He doesn’t open his mouth, he doesn’t move a single muscle outwardly—he just lets his tongue begin to flitter around slowly in its enclosed cavern as he breathes, making the movements as soft and hypnotic as he can, matching the aimless way you’re carrying your mind and his shadow through the darkness.

He’s tried this before.  Once or twice, with a pretty Ambassador he was tasked with protecting for a few months at the start of the Clone Wars, but the results were always less than ideal.  He could never seamlessly transfer his desires through her consciousness before she awoke, perhaps because she wasn’t Force sensitive.  The dream would either never happen, or he would push too hard and it’d turn into a rabid nightmare that fractured her thoughts and made her terrified to close her eyes for weeks.  Not this time, though, Anakin isn’t going to allow it.  Not with you, not after all the unprecedented effort it took to even just get himself here.

He finds a bit more passion to put into his movements, his jaw beginning to work with more purpose.  Stars, he wants this to work, and while it’s probable that there’s an easier way to accomplish it, this isn’t something the Academy trains for.  There’s only so much he can do except just be patient and giving with his soft, muted thoughts, urging you to make use of them without ever saying them aloud.

And suddenly, like the dark waves of your sleep decide to illuminate for him all on their own, your subconscious mind responds to the gentle stimulus.  It carefully reaches out and studies the suggestion he’s silently offering, having spent what feels like an eternity trying to entice your rawest, most fundamental being into going somewhere it normally wouldn’t go, all without letting you know he’s even there.

His tongue is still moving.  With purpose, with a specific intent in mind, Anakin allows his head to slowly fall back as he lifts his chin up towards it, wanting it more and more the longer you take to consider it, as if your mind is actively trying to tease him by playing hard to get.  He can feel you right there, feel you thinking about it, and the whole thing is almost like some elaborate courting ritual while he waits with bated breath for you to decide whether or not to humor him.

But then, just when Anakin fears you may be too strong to be swayed, too powerful in the Force to be tempted by an outside source, you abruptly snatch the idea from him and start to run with it.

Suddenly parts of your spirit begin illuminating that should be dormant right now, and Anakin follows you, wherever you’re leading him.  He knows none of this is necessarily intentional on your behalf—nobody can consciously pick and choose their dreams, not even Jedi.  But this endeavor proves that it’s absolutely possible to subtly inspire them in each other, regardless of the morality behind it.

The wind continues to howl outside the cave and remind him that an entire universe still exists beyond your beautifully soporose mind, but the dreamscape gradually begins unfolding around him without any further prompting, requiring nothing more than what he’s already provided.  Anakin’s tongue continues to simulate and suggest regardless, only now he feels the ghost of it beginning to materialize somewhere else besides the roof of his mouth, the sensations appearing before the images can be conjured to fill in the gaps.  His hands suddenly tighten on his thighs at the soft, enticing feeling beginning to take root in you.

And oh.  It’s… good.  It feels different when his own body isn’t really the target of the stimulation, when he’s doing nothing more than simply experiencing it vicariously.  Anakin supposes he could’ve bypassed all this effort, just aimed the pleasure more directly from the very beginning instead of working to inspire and coax it out of your own consciousness, but that was never his intention and it misses the point entirely.  Where’s the challenge in it?  The finesse is lost, it doesn’t appeal to him.  It’s brash and brutish and not his style.  No, this is what he wanted.  He wanted to get just close enough to plant the most basic, fundamental idea in your head and then witness the rest of it all play out as a phantom passenger.  Step back, strap in, and see how you kindle and manipulate the desire yourself, exactly the way you want it.

Anakin starts to breathe a little heavier through his nose, shoulders tense as he works to ride the slow swelling of your own prolonged pleasure with you, not knowing if or when it’s going to peak.  He’s never made it this far before, he has no idea what to expect.  Your consciousness does all the heavy lifting for him, your floor muscles move and contract without him needing to do anything to encourage it, the dream he seeded now completely taking over and whisking you both away.

But then… then suddenly Anakin doesn’t understand.  Because yes, your mind works exactly the way he hoped it would—everything goes the incredibly precise direction he intended, and yet the destination is somehow… here?  Back at the very beginning?

You dream of a cave.  It’s exactly the same as the one you’re both silently holed up in for the night, and no new faces have appeared.  If Anakin fluttered his eyes open at this specific moment, absolutely nothing around him would change.  Except, perhaps, the subtle glow around everything—the watery way the air seems to be moving, as if it can’t decide whether it wants to exist or not so it strangely succeeds in doing both at the same time.  He’s not really here—at least, he doesn’t think he is, he’s just seated on the dirt floor, appearing as nothing more than an invisible witness to it.

No.  No, actually, he takes that back, he… is here.  It takes him a moment to see the full picture as you’re still putting the puzzle pieces together, but… that’s him.  A projection of himself at least, looking only slightly different but recognizable enough.  Dark robes, robotic right arm, steady gaze.

But where are you?  Anakin looks around the empty cave, still trying to understand how you’re painting this, his conscious mind moving much more rapidly than your own abstract one and yet also somehow taking so much longer to catch up to you.  You’re not here.  Why aren’t you here?  He’s getting stuck on the details, he knows he’s lagging behind.

It takes a moment longer.  Just one, before Anakin suddenly realizes that… he’s not just an invisible witness, is he?

He looks back down to see his own head now buried between his thighs.

But they’re not his thighs, not really.  They’re yours.  He’s just seeing everything from your point of view, feeling everything you’re feeling from the small little space he’s occupying in your mind.

At this point, Anakin needs to anchor.  He feels himself—his real self, the one currently stuck in a cave in the midst of an unexpected dust storm—curl inwards and clamp his legs together.  This will work.  If he focuses enough to pinpoint the way his knees feel pressed tight together, he can have a tether to separate himself from your dream, the way yours are currently… wide open.  This is all too similar to your true surroundings—he didn’t expect this, he doesn’t want to get lost.

And yet… Maker, it feels good.  His long curls feel so soft in your hands, his tongue drags slow magic between your legs.  When Anakin first suggested the idea to you, he didn’t think you’d assign the role back to him.  He assumed you had someone else in mind, somewhere else you wished to be besides this dull, dreary setting.  He gave you just an inkling of a prompt, and this is what the most creative part of your mind created.  Something he could be doing at this exact moment, if only he’d known you’d be interested.

Then again, Anakin thinks, you may have just recognized him subconsciously.  You may have attached him to the idea already, if only because he was the truest originator of it.  But it doesn’t matter now, he can’t process such complex thoughts while maintaining the suspended mental state he’s in—he feels like he’ll either completely fall into it or out of it if he tries.

But as your muscles continue to work and your pleasure continues to build, it becomes harder and harder to separate where he is in relation to you.  Anakin clenches his legs tighter together as you open yours wider apart, the dream gaining more strength as it develops.  Stars, it’s—it’s—

Anakin starts to lose it and he needs to tug on that tether to his surroundings again, but it’s way more difficult than it should be to recognize himself.  His calloused fingers on his left hand tremble as he reaches up and uses them to cover his face, biting his tongue to stop the low rumbles of ecstasy that want to claw their way out of his throat.  Maker, this feels so… different from the build he knows.  He thought—if he was successful—that he’d be able to handle it as silently and stoically as he’s able to handle his own pleasure, but this is something else entirely.  Why does it feel so… so spectacular?  Maker, he never realized the sensation was all that different on the inside, much less that he was actually missing out by having a dick between his legs.

But then suddenly there’s a pause, a break in the way you’ve been rhythmically squeezing and flexing your body for him.

The dream adapts to it.  Anakin looks down between your open thighs just in time to see himself pulling away from your warmth, putting two fingers in his mouth, before slowly easing his hand back down between them.

No, he thinks, a bright flare of panic sparking inside him as he immediately snatches and yanks the tether to reality, popping his eyes open and pulling away from your mind entirely, oh no—wait, that’s not what I—

But see.  That’s the thing about being so meticulous about conjuring something that doesn’t actually exist.  Once his brilliant creation decides to backfire on him—a fool-proof way to escape it doesn’t actually exist either.

He… he can’t wake up.  No matter how much his body struggles backwards on the dirt floor of the cave, how wide he can feel his eyes are right now, how excruciatingly aware he is that none of this is real, none of this is actually happening to him, he’s caught in the dream he planted and you’re hauling him along for the ride.  The closest he can describe it is like having footage play in one eye while the other can see perfectly fine.  He knows where the line that separates reality is, but he can’t escape your consciousness’s crushing gravitational pull; it’s too massive and overwhelming now, he can’t gain enough velocity to get home.  Real life exists but only through a window, and being stuck on the other side like this—knowing he’s dreaming but not being able to jolt awake when he’s very ready to leave—is suddenly more terrifying than any nightmare Anakin has ever experienced.

It also has unintended consequences.  Clinging so desperately to his own body has made him completely aware of it in the purgatory he’s now trapped himself in, but the pleasure is still there so the source of the stimulation is still there.  They’re not your thighs anymore, they’re his thighs again.  But that’s also still him between his legs, continuing to ease his fingers forwards.

He keeps retreating back and away from them no matter what, but there’s nothing more he can do.

Anakin helplessly watches on as his own fingers slowly disappear up inside himself, and his eyes instantly lose focus and his jaw goes slack as he feels it the way you would.  They’re not real, so there’s no pain, no true pressure or stretch, just… hard, unadulterated stimulation starting to burn up inside him.

He doesn’t realize his body kept moving until he suddenly feels the wall of the cave slam into his back and he has to brace himself against it, frantically shoving himself back into it as far as he can with his legs and digging his nails into dirt at the base, scrabbling for breath and stability.  Anakin tightens up wickedly as you both bear down on the phantom intrusion, sweat beading at his hairline as he works to process the foreign sensation and you whimper quietly in your sleep.  His cock is rock hard between his legs and he shudders to think that his mind will compensate for the difference and his alter ego will actually take it into his mouth—but no, the projection doesn’t change because it’s still coming from you, still being led by your own desires.  Dream-Anakin’s mouth drops and his tongue comes out to keep licking your slit but to the real Anakin, it just looks like his mouth disappears somewhere near his balls, and then a magnificent swell of bliss suddenly kicks in before he can fight as savagely against it as he wants.  He’d normally be repulsed, and maybe he currently is to some extent, but because your pleasure spikes so dangerously with it, his hips stutter into the sensation just as desperately.

He’s making noise, he knows he is—he can feel his throat working too hard for just air to be moving through.  No, he’s whimpering, or moaning, or doing something but he can’t hear himself at all.  His instinct is to yell as loudly as he can, to try and wake you up manually, but it doesn’t seem to work, you’re way too far gone now.  He listens for the dust storm that should be screaming outside, the popping of the fire somewhere in this cave, but they’re suddenly nowhere to be found.  He’s being dragged under by your enormous current that’s somehow still continuing to build in strength, losing oxygen by the second.  He’s not ready for it, he doesn’t want it, he’s terrified, he needs to wake up—

Anakin slams his head back against the wall hard enough to make himself bleed and gasps raggedly as he loses his grip on everything, shutting his eyes tight with his fist shoved up against his teeth.  Nothing exists at all anymore but the swirling typhoon that continues raging forth.  Beyond purgatory, and then beyond heaven.

When you finally do manage to find the absolute peak of your climb, he’s sure he all but blacks out with it.

It’s pure, blinding rapture on all levels—physical, metaphysical, whatever else exists after that.  It surges up with razor-sharp claws of merciless ecstasy and he’s just not equipped to experience anything anywhere close to it.  The connection between your minds thrums and sparks violently; Anakin feels the way your body practically soars over top of the pleasure while his is just being ruthlessly pummeled into the ground by it.  He’s not meant to handle this, he literally wasn’t made to survive the devastating anomaly—it’s as wicked and excruciating as it is dazzling, and he wonders if he’ll ever truly be able to come back from it.

Eventually, Anakin manages to find his way back to himself.  Eventually.

His cock is throbbing, that’s the first thing he‘s able to notice.  The dirt floor beneath him that somehow feels slightly different than before, the fetal position he’s assuming on top of it, the once sturdy wall now crumbling to dust against his back.

The next thing he notices is the utter, complete mess he made.  Blood slowly drips in a line down his neck and more cum than he’s ever felt himself produce before drenches the front of his pants.  Anakin slowly blinks his eyes open, trying to fight the vertigo and wondering if he might have a concussion right now.  There are cracks and fractures in the ground that branch out from the small crater at his back, and the fire is completely extinguished now, charred logs splintered and strewn about like somebody detonated a bomb in here.

At some point, his gaze drags over towards you, and remarkably, you haven’t moved.  Still curled up on your side with your back to him, still breathing slow and steady and undisturbed.

Anakin pants in exhaustion and waits for you to turn over to address him and what he did.  There’s no way you’re still asleep, not after what just happened.  Anakin couldn’t get through it without sending a giant shockwave through the entire cave and quite literally rupturing the ground beneath him, he’s surprised you even managed to stay in one spot the entire time.  He doesn’t know if you feel violated right now and are refusing to acknowledge him, or if it’s just taking as long as he is for your brain to catch up and start functioning again.

That is, until he hears a small snore come from your unmoving body once more.

Anakin blinks.

No.  You have to be awake, he figures, moving to prop himself upright and wipe the blood from his neck with the dark sleeve of his robe.  There’s no possible way that the orgasm you both shared is actually… normal, no, the sheer power of it had to be influenced by his presence somehow.  He must have… increased it, or something.  Anakin doesn’t know how, but he knows he must be directly responsible, this had to have been the strongest you’ve ever cum in your life and you just don’t know how to confront him about it right now, so you’re pretending to sleep.  Yes, that’s what it is, that’s what it has to be.

He’s not going to check, though.  He’s not going to find any lingering energy left within himself to summon and look for the thick darkness of sleep still enveloping you, he’s not going anywhere near your signature right now.  No, Anakin is fine just like this, exactly where he is.  Instead of verifying or confirming his own understanding, he’ll just be extra confident in it, that’s always worked well for him.

So he just sits back and takes a deep, shuddering breath, feeling like his whole body is weak and trembling with fatigue.  Maybe you are asleep, he shrugs.  Maybe he’s wrong, and selfish, and an idiot.  Or maybe.

Maybe you just like keeping secrets, too.

[skellebonez]

Why Worry At All?

I had so much trouble writing certain parts of this out for some reason, which makes no sense to me because I chose to write this on my own without a prompt. But I finally nailed out the in between parts that were giving me trouble! So... Billy Kametz can sing, huh?

Xiaotian knew what they were hearing. They knew it!

They'd heard Xiaojiao before and she wasn't that deep. They'd never heard Sandy but he had to sound much deeper if he could. Tang and Pigsy were out of the question, Tang couldn’t hold a tune to save his life and Pigsy never did more than hum at a much different octave. It couldn't have been Wukong, he'd still been asleep from overexerting himself in their last fight.

So that only left Macaque as the one who could have been singing outside the med bay door.

“But then I guess we know there’s blame to share... and none of it seems to matter anymore...”

It was such a soft tune, something that Xiaotian barely recognized from a video online he watched long ago. Maybe something Xiaojiao had shown him. Something soft and gentle, which made no sense given the possible culprit. Or the fact he heard it being sing just outside his mentor’s room while he was checking on him. But he was hearing it through the door nonetheless. Almost whisper like in how soft it was, it was too weak to have been heard belted from a distance, and muttered almost a bit off tune. That only left it being from someone right outside the door. But why not just come inside?

Unless the singer, who again Xiaotian was certain was Macaque, didn’t want anyone- even Sun Wukong- to know it was them who was singing and they didn’t realize that anyone was in the room with the power drained immortal.

So, like anyone who heard a mysterious singing voice would do, they pulled out their phone and started recording.

The song only lasted for another few seconds before silence, and then the almost deafening in comparison sound of running footsteps.

And as Xiaotian looked down at the recording on the phone, less than even 20 seconds in length, they were struck by a realization.

“... I can use this.”

~

“Well well well,” Macaque said with a chuckle, turning to face the person who joined him on the deck of the self piloting drone ship. Just where they knew he would be at this hour of the morning. “Didn’t take you for a morning person, kid.”

“I’m not,” Xiaotian grumbled, hair down and unkempt and clearly barely brushed just to keep it out of their face. "But I wanted to check on Wukong after what happened yesterday.”

This made the other’s fur stand up and his tail tense, though whether this was because he realized what Xiaotian meant or of it brought his mind back to the fight of the day prior they couldn’t tell. The fight that, for some reason, Macaque left himself vulnerable during. That left him wiped out and barely able to move out of the way of an oncoming attack. That make Sun Wukong rush in and save him much to the surprise of everyone involved, Macaque himself included.

The fight that Xiaotian was beginning to think was going to change a lot more than just knowing the de-powered duo’s limits.

“You’re going to be honest with me for once.” they proposed, joining the immortal monkey at the guard railing he casually leaned against.

“What makes you think I’m going tell you anything?” Macaque asked, chuckling boastfully and smirking that damn smug smirk he’d been wearing almost every minute since he had been taken onto the ship.

The longer Xiaotian saw it the faker it seemed to be.

“Oh, I dunno... maybe this?” They rebutted, pulling out their phone and hitting play on the open audio file they had pulled up long before the conversation, and they watched with their own smirk as a look of surprise and then horror and then something akin to “resigned but impressed” flashed on the ancient demon’s face.

After hearing the other speak there was no doubt that the two voices were identical now.

“Qi Xiaotian,” Macaque said, an almost cat like smirk gracing his face. This one seemed slightly more honest than the last one. “I didn’t take you for a blackmailer. Maybe I did have an influence on you after all.”

“Why were you singing this outside Wukong’s room?” Xiaotian asked, not in the mood for playing the other’s games this early in the morning. “Why were you trying to hide it? Why did you not realize I was in there? And...” He gestured to his phone, the soft gentle sounds of an almost uncharacteristically sweet song playing through his speakers. “What the hell is this song!?”

“Alright alright,” Macaque said, holding up his hands before he leaned forward on the railing. “No need to give the the third degree, great hero. It’s just a song I heard online.”

“You know how to use the internet?”

Turning his head, Macaque leveled the other with a very over exaggerated wilting gaze of disbelief. “I am honestly offended you’d think I wouldn’t learn how to.”

The tone of voice he had did not give the impression that Macaque even gave a shit, but Xiaotian muttered an apology regardless, to which the other simply laughed at.

“There’s this guy... Bill something? Kinds sounds like me, you know. Found him by chance one day and just kinda looked for all his songs and memorized them a long time ago out of boredom.” He shrugged, a distant far off look on his face. “Almost considered just being a copy cat voice for him once, way before I found out where our great King was, but I never followed through with that. Shame, though, knowing I’m on par with Broadway. Probably could have snagged a pretty decent amount of yuan from desperate fans. Don’t really have much use for money, though so eh.”

He shrugged, and for once he sounded... honest. Just honest.

“I wasn’t really trying to hide it, not from you anyway. Just... didn’t wanna deal with Wukong waking up and hearing me sing for the first time after. Ya know.” He waved his hand with another shrug. “History and all that. It was just a moment I had with myself, nothing more.”

Xiaotian took particular note that he avoided one particular question.

“You’re awful open about all this stuff,” the Monkie Kid mused, the two of them watching the horizon slowly move under the drone ship as the sun rise continued. Everyone else would be getting up soon enough. “Even for blackmail.”

“It’s not really effective blackmail,” Macaque admitted after a moment, tail lazily swishing behind him. “Not content wise, anyway. I was bound to be heard eventually no matter how much I hid. Think of this as more a... reward for you being able to catch me unaware. Take a lot of skill to do that with my ears.”

“I know most of your powers are gone too,” Xiaotian said bluntly, dropping the real piece of information he was here to hold over the other’s head out in the open, and that got Macaque to freeze instantly. “Not like ours are but... I dunno. I didn’t really think that far ahead. But if you still had most of them we wouldn’t be talking right now. You ran away instead of just whooshing into the shadows I know were in the hall. You’ve been wearing earplugs since we let you stay, I saw Sandy give them to you and you’re even wearing them right now, but even with your hearing dulled you would have been able to know I was in that room. You’ve been walking through doors instead of just vanishing. I don’t think I’d seem you walk through one except for at the shadow play before last week, and that was obviously to get my attention. I don’t think I’ve seen you make a clone or transform either, or manipulate a single shadow. Why not flaunt your powers over us, knowing we don’t have ours since you’ve made a point to annoy us about our lost abilities, unless you don’t have yours too?”

The elder said nothing, only growled and glowered out at the horizon before letting out a deep sigh.

“You really are a good kid,” he said with a humorless chuckle. “Smart, too, when actually you put your mind to stuff. But you’re only half right.”

“What do you mean?” Xiaotian asked in shock, amazed that the other was even still admitting to anything point blank at this point.

“I still have all my powers, it’s just... Not a good idea for me to use them too much,” he said vaguely, shrugging his shoulders and turning to walk away from the young man in a way that clearly indicated this line of conversation was over with. “I know you can keep a secret, kid, so do me a favor. Keep quiet about this.”

That same humorless chuckle, the one the young man now realized was more common from the demon’s mouth than not, sounded as he stepped into the forming shadows of the driver’s post from the rising sun and seemed to fall and melt into the floor in an instant.

Xiaotian couldn’t help the flinch that ran through their body at the implications of that final sentence. His training of Xiaotian. The second meeting. The Calabash.

The White Bone Spirit...

“Asshole,” Xiaotian muttered under their breathe, taking the door instead.

~

The very first thing Xiaotian was greeted with when they entered the communal kitchen was low and muttered but still the less than whispered tune of a song by a pop punk bank from overseas.

“Why do we worry at aaaaall,” Macaque sang just loud enough for everyone around him to hear, the baffled and in some cased impressed faces of everyone (barring the presumably still resting Wukong) looking in his direction as he seemingly ignored them to prepare his own fruit based breakfast. “Why, just tell me why do we worry? When worries never happen tell me why, why worry at all?”

When Macaque turned to look at Xiaotian he smirked almost playfully, winking at him.

And the only thing that ran through Xiaotian’s head was “there goes half of my blackmail... asshole.”

Though... when he looked closer...

Macaque seemed oddly tired.

Did he have the dark bags under his eyes during their conversation before?

[moonbaby26]

Title: The Man from the Sky

Pairing: Loki x Goddess!Reader

Summary: You were a Greek sea goddess, just enjoying a typical day of nothing when a strange new god dropped into your land.

Warnings: None yet. There is smut in future chapters already written. Will post more soon.

Notes: I’m aware that what we’d think of as ancient Greece well predates who we’d call the vikings and their like cruising around the seas. This doesn’t take place at the height of the Greek pantheon worship, but old enough in human history that some men still believed in both sets of deities.

Chapters: Next Chapter Here

My Masterlist

—————————

You dipped your feet a little deeper into the warm water as it lapped the edges of the rock you sat upon. The sea was calm today, and the wind gentle as the nymphs chatted around you about the usual things. A bit of gossip one had heard from a local river nymph, a new shipwreck one had found, status of a fish migration from another.

You wouldn’t exactly call it boring though, you specifically chose these more remote areas when you came ashore for this very reason. It was so much more unlikely for you to run afoul of mortals here, or even others of your own kind that you may not feel like putting on airs with at this very moment.

It was so quiet in fact, that you were considering getting up to go lay in the sand on the beach in a few minutes and enjoy a nice nap in the sunlight.

That was before the boom which echoed through the air all around you. Somewhat like thunder, but not quite as all the nymphs fell silent.

When nothing came after, you felt all their eyes then turning to you. Their voices piped back up soon enough, though the tones in them changed to all nerves now.

“Do you wish to leave, milady?”

“Could it be Zeus?”

“But it didn’t sound like him.”

“Is there a volcano nearby?”

“What else could it be?”

“I don’t know what it was, I’ve never heard that sound.” You finally said, though now looking inward to the land. You were at least sure that the sound was not of the sea. But you refused to give in to the nymphs’ skittishness too quickly. And without real reason to leave, eventually you all did start to relax again.

Yet then came the cries. “Goddess, mistress please!” That cry absolutely was from the land as you looked in time to see the river nymph you’d met earlier in the day now running from the tree line and down onto the sands. She stumbled slightly, just before reaching you where the sea met the rocks.

She was panting, clearly having run some distance as she continued. “I’m so glad to still find you here,” She bowed slightly, only because she didn’t know you well enough to realize you didn’t require this.

“What is it?” You asked simply, honestly more curious now than anything else. What could she have seen that would strike her so alarming? Any nymph worth their ilk would know every creature, every natural occurrence, all that existed within their lands.

“There is a man in the forest, he came from the sky!” Yet she continued quickly, sure you would only think of Olympus. “But I do not recognize him as one of your own family. And his clothing, he is not of our territory. This I am sure, my goddess. I watched him only long enough to see that he was very angry. I am afraid of his intentions here.”

A man? But not truly a man. Mortals did not come from the sky.

“An angry god?” You said, now standing as you then stepped down from the rocks. The forest belonged to Artemis truthfully. But being this close to the sea, you thought that the older goddess would forgive you this if it came down to it. She would rather the nymphs be protected you were sure from any childish acts of a god’s wrath that may now come into play here.

You had brought no armor, the possibility of battle so far from your mind when you’d come ashore today. But that didn’t mean you travelled completely defenseless. “Bring me my spear please.” You requested of the sea nymphs.

Though they were still anxious, they responded dutifully, one sinking beneath the waves before reappearing with the glinting weapon in hand. It shone a brilliant silver, sea foam still running off its blue spear tip as she handed it to you out of the water.

“Show me the way, and I will investigate this stranger.” You spoke plainly, hopping down onto the sands as you strode barefoot towards the forest, spear in hand. “We will keep our distance as best we can, we don’t seek conflict, understood?”

“Yes, milady.” You heard, the sea nymphs staying behind you as the river nymph moved in front to lead you upward, the sand transitioning to rocky soil and the sparse vegetation and trees beginning to increase as you climbed the hillside.

For the sea nymphs, you could hear them losing their footing here and there in the loose soil, themselves of course far more adapted to swimming the ocean’s depths at your side rather than hiking up into the forests.

You did hope you were not putting any of them in danger. But if you felt they truly were in harm’s way, you would have no qualms in telling them to retreat back to the water at once.

“Up ahead,” The river nymph whispered to you, pointing towards a clearing you could now see leveling off in the distance. But the opening looked so strange with the density of the other trees now around you.

“Was that always there?” You asked her, knowing something unnatural when you saw it, even when this far from the water.

“No,” She confirmed. “When the sky opened up, it carved out the land as well. He appeared when that force receded.”

“Understood.” You replied, though in truth not really understanding at all as you motioned for all the others to proceed no further. You’d never seen something like this. “I will go alone. If he should attack me, please return to the sea to seek help.”

They fidgeted, looking unhappy but not arguing your choice. “Please be careful, goddess.”

You nodded, but kept on slowly. You tried to remember what you’d been taught as a little girl about stalking and hunting on land. So many moons ago, running through the forests with Artemis and at times Pan, being mentored before returning to the sea to your father, mother, and so many siblings.

But the closer you came, the more you realized that the stranger would likely not notice any sound of light footsteps approaching or ground shifting. As you neared, you saw his form pacing back and forth in the clearing, seemingly cursing to himself in a language that was not your own.

Yet it still sounded familiar. Abruptly you knew where you had heard a dialect like this before. It sounded so much like those voyagers from the northern seas. The ones with their longboats and course beards, sometimes with hair as red as fire as they fished and sang and fought.

And he did look as pale as them as well. But with hair like black of night, and a frame far more slender than the burly mortals you’d seen rowing those northern boats along. And just as the river nymph had warned, his clothing confused you as well. Rich green robe, but with black and gold as well. It was wholly foreign and exotic to you in its styling, as was he.

When she’d said a strange man had arrived, honestly you had also expected someone older in appearance. He looked quite youthful to be honest, even as his brow remained furrowed and his fists clenched at his sides.

And just when you thought his feet may actually cut a path in the earth from his agitated pacing, he finally slowed, then stopped all together.

This is when you froze as well, knowing you now had a decision to make. Should you keep to your hiding, just to hope he should eventually leave in whatever fashion he came? Or should you reveal yourself to question his identity and purpose here?

“Done spying yet, or do you intend to actually do something with that spear?” A cutting voice spoke abruptly to your side, so suddenly that you almost lost your footing, shocked as the same man emerged from behind other trees only feet from you.

But you still saw him in the clearing as well, at least you did momentarily before the image of him there dissolved, leaving only the form now nearest you.

“You speak my language?” Was all you questioned instead of answer him though, as he had said those last words only in your tongue. You also kept focusing on backing away as you chose to keep a safer distance. He was some sort of illusionist at least then, which could escalate the danger here very quickly if he made you lose your bearings.

And he was starting to circle you a bit you realized as he began to walk again. But you willed yourself to keep your spear at a neutral position, rather than aim at him, still not intending to provoke attack if it could be prevented. You had no idea what other strengths he might have, and your primary goal was still to keep the nymphs from getting caught in any crossfire.

“Not all of us are so uneducated,” He snapped back at you, still in your language, though you could detect that foreign accent underneath.

You were not wholly unused to rudeness though, yet it had been a very long time since you could recall being spoken to directly in such a manner. It was more the bickering between others in the palace that you were sometimes forced to be party to. Which was only another reason you often favored the relative isolation of the mortal world.

“You need not be so offended, stranger. I only came to see who had entered our land, and to protect my friends if need be.” You answered as reserved in tone as you could.

“Then you have done your duty, girl, and can now be gone. I came here to be alone. If I was actually intending to plunder this wasteland of nothingness, your little cohort never would have made it back to you to begin with.”

You stared, a little coldness entering your eyes then. So that was what had given you away. He’d already been aware of the river nymph to begin with, and had been waiting for someone to return the entire time while leaving that illusion of himself still in the clearing as distraction.

And he’d actually referred to you as ‘girl’. Did he really think you just one of the nymphs then? It was hard to say if he was intentionally trying to goad you, or if he really was so unfamiliar to not realize you for what you actually were.

You straightened a bit, replying, “Insults to our homeland aside, I will leave you to this quiet then, if you should at least tell me your name. You are clearly not of Olympus, and we still have right to know who it is who traverses into this particular land of mortals which we hold sovereignty over.”

He scoffed, clearly wishing to not speak to you even a moment longer. But in the way his chest puffed slightly, you thought it was only pride then that made him physically incapable of denying his identity.

He actually moved closer to you as well, that agitation still rising further in his voice. “Little fool, you stand before Loki! Son of Odin the Allfather. I am god of mischief, prince of Asgard. Your witless mortals should count their blessings that an Asgardian should ever see fit to even set foot here!”

You didn’t know if you’d been quick enough to mask the true surprise from your face. You had already assumed him a god. But never...never had you actually laid eyes on an Asgardian. They never came to this part of the world as far as you knew. And was he telling the truth? Was he really a son of Odin?

This stranger’s arrogance aside, if he were a child of Odin, you knew your own father would be furious with you if you were intentionally insulting now. Asgard and Olympus had never had the closest ties, but you were not enemies either. Asgard was honored by the mortals of the north, and Olympus still honored by those of the south, though perhaps not quite as much as the true olden days.

It took real will, but you bowed graciously to him in return. “It is an honor to meet you then, Loki, son of Odin.” As you straightened up, in his eyes you could see he was trying to judge you as sincere or not. But you just continued smoothly. “As promised, I shall leave you to your thoughts then. But I would be unmannered to not offer my assistance should you need a hostess in your time here as a guest in our land. My name is (Y/N), daughter of-”

You hesitated only the briefest moment, “of the sea,” is what you decided on though. Unlike Loki, you preferred a little anonymity with strangers. You didn’t wish to be targeted just for your lineage.

And with that, you turned, beginning to walk back towards the beach, even as you finished talking. “If you should need me, you need only find the sea’s edge and call for me. One of our creatures will hear you soon enough and seek me out.”

But some odd part of you regretted not being able to see his expression as you left. You wondered if you only would have seen more disdain and condescension at your offer.

Regardless, he said nothing else and soon enough you were back on the sand, the nymphs chittering in a mix of horror and awe around you.

“Who does he think he is, speaking to you that way!?”

“Do you really think he’s of Asgard? Shouldn’t we alert your father?”

“Why would he even come here? He seemed so bitter. Do you think they cast him out?”

“I’d cast him out, with a dirty attitude like that!”

You looked to the horizon, just taking a breath. “I don’t think we need to rush and tell my father just yet. But I do know where I want to go now.” You looked to the river nymph briefly though, “Please have those in the forest keep a distant eye on him. Should he leave or do anything else of note, please let us know.”

You glanced back to the sea nymphs then. “The rest of you return to the oceans. I’m going to Olympus, to the libraries there. I want to find out more about Asgard, to see if he is who he says he is. I’ll return to the water soon.”

They all nodded, “Yes, milady. Please let us know what you find!”

“I will,” you agreed, just watching them dissolve back into the waves.

Were you excited perhaps? Or just very curious? Nothing interesting in this way had happened in ages. You were determined to learn all you could on this new arrival.

—————————

The Olympians had been a little surprised to see you gracing the halls there. So many of your cousins had dropped in time and again to say hello, curious themselves of why you were out of the water this long and seemingly such a bookworm all of the sudden.

And you did read for days. All you could find on Asgard, on Odin, the Norse mortals, and their language. You found record that Odin had born two sons, honestly an oddly low number you thought in comparison to the many children of your own kings.

But there in these tomes, were those two names, Thor and Loki. Thor, god of thunder, amusing of course in comparison to Zeus, king of all, including lightning. But also Loki, god of mischief, just as he’d said.

You were surprised, but enthralled as you actually found a drawing of Loki within the book. Though not completely accurate you thought, you still recognized that type of clothing. The green and gold, and the pale skin and black hair with his icy blue eyes. You tilted your head a little, looking at the gold helmet he wore in the artist’s depiction, with long horns curving from it like those of a great beast.

Was he really a beast? Or just a too arrogant manchild? And why did you increasingly wish to find out?

—————————

(Continued in next chapter here)

[is-it-art-tho]

Excerpt: When Jason turned back, he found two steady streams of tears running down Damian’s face, dripping from his chin. He had never seen the kid cry before.

As Jason slipped in through the window, a shadow moving through the night, a chill swept in behind him, and the form in the bed groaned and shifted in response.

He cringed, closing the window and navigating his way to a chair. And he'd all but sat down when a low voice from just behind him said, “Taken.”

Jason choked back a full-throated scream, wrangling it into a string of curses as he staggered backwards and squinted into the low light.

Bruce leaned forward in the chair so that his face was illuminated beside the window, his eyes as tired as ever, hair mussed and flattened on one side in a way that made Jason suspect he’d been sleeping he might’ve just been sleeping.

“Didn’t know you were here,” the younger man, hating how he felt himself shrinking, making himself smaller in Bruce’s presence. He made a conscious effort to lift his chin, square his shoulders. “I’ll just go.”

“Wait. Don’t.” Bruce rose, so stiff Jason could practically hear his joints creaking. “I’ve been here for”—he checked his watch—“I don’t even know how long.”

“Better things to do?”

Though Bruce’s face was once again in shadow, Jason could still feel his resignation and frustration rippling in the silence and heightened by sheer exhaustion.

“If you can’t or won’t stay,” Bruce said flatly, “it’s fine. I can figure something else out.”

“I’m sure you could. But don’t even worry about it.” Jason marched to the chair, forcing Bruce to sidestep out of his way as he practically threw himself into the seat. “Unlike you, I tend to find a way to squeeze family into my schedule.”

In the darkness, only the whites of Bruce’s eyes were visible, peering down at Jason and looking strikingly like the lenses of the cowl. To anyone else, this might have felt eerie, almost menacing.

To Jason, it felt like a Tuesday.

“Go. Run along to wherever it is you go at times like these," Jason said, wagging his fingers in a shoo motion. "We’ll be here when you decide to start caring again.”

Bruce left without another word, closing the door behind him just a tad softer than necessary. It was an overcorrection, a conscious effort not to slam it. And that’s how Jason knew he had gotten to him.

He always got to him.

Several minutes after Jason had begun scrolling through his phone, halfway between sleep and consciousness, the trill of a heart monitor caught his attention.

He looked up. Damian was still asleep, but the machine he was attached to was going crazy, spiking as if he were in a dead sprint. Jason rose to get a closer look and found Damian drenched in sweat and panting, his face contorted in terror.

“Hey,” Jason whispered, placing a hand on his narrow chest and shaking him. “Hey, whoa. Damian. Damian, calm down.”

The kid gasped, his eyes flying open and darting around the room as if still seeing the ghost of whatever nightmare he had been trapped in.

Jason waited for his gaze to finally find him before asking, “They gone?”

Damian looked around the room again, a quick check of all the shadows and dark corners, before offering a quick nod.

“Good.”

Damian sucked in a shaky breath as he adjusted himself on the pillows so that he was sitting mostly upright, and Jason couldn’t help but notice how small he looked with his massive t-shirt hanging like drapes from his shoulders. It must have been one of Bruce’s.

“If you need more sedatives—" Jason began, reaching for the pill bottle, but Damian stopped him with a curt,

“Don’t.” His voice was somewhat frail despite how hard Jason knew he was likely working to sound indifferent. ”Where is Father?”

“Had some stuff to take care of,” Jason answered, finding a closer chair to pull up to the side of the bed.

“Hm.” Damian wasn’t looking at him, instead restlessly adjusting the sheets on the bed. The heart monitor’s incessant trilling was the ultimate betrayal of his forced calm—a canary in the coal mine.

“I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” the older boy added a little lamely.

“Only if he’s as idiotic as all the others.” At Jason’s confused frown, Damian continued, “I’m not some child who needs to be looked after at all hours. And it’s an insult for them to act as if I am. Not to mention a waste of time and resources.”

Jason leaned back in the plush seat, already exhausted by the direction of the conversation. “Time and resources?”

“If they’re babysitting me here that means they’re not out there doing something useful. The world doesn’t stop needing Batman and all the others simply because I’m temporarily incapacitated.”

“Right,” Jason sighed. “But here’s the thing: I get the whole ‘I don’t need help from anyone’ thing. I practically invented it. But I’ve also been on the receiving end of fear toxin, and that stuff is no joke. Especially if you have to deal with it solo. There’s no shame in needing a little backup.”

“Perhaps it is difficult for you, but I’m fine. I’ve trained for this.”

“You’ve trained to be trapped alone with your worst nightmares? What the hell kind of training—”

Damian leveled an outright bone-chilling stare on him, and the following silence was as much an explanation as it was a warning.

Jason cleared his throat. “Well, then let me put it this way: just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you have to. Gotham won’t fall just because a couple bats take a few days off to look after one of their own.”

“You—” And whatever Damian was about to say—and Jason was sure it was going to be insulting—shriveled in a quick gasp as the boy’s eyes flicked just over Jason’s shoulder. The heart monitor picked back up again, and Jason watched as Damian struggled to control his breathing, trembling hands clutching at the sheets.

“Where?” Jason asked quietly.

“By the door…”

The older boy turned to scan the dark walls, the corner, the dresser. He saw nothing.

“Make it go away,” Damian begged. “Please…”

When Jason turned back, he found two steady streams of tears running down Damian’s face, dripping from his chin. He had never seen the kid cry before.

“Damian,” he began, but the younger boy was screaming now, railing against whatever specter was lurking in shadows.

“You’re lying!” he wailed, starting to get up. Jason leapt out of his chair and pinned Damian’s small shoulders to the bed as the kid continued to scream at something—or someone—over Jason’s shoulder. “You’re lying! You’re lying! I’ll kill you!”

“It’s not real!” Jason shouted back, knowing that this wouldn’t work. It never did. “There’s nothing there! Just look at me! Look at me!”

But even as Jason forced himself directly into Damian’s eye-line, he could see that the kid was looking through him, seeing and unseeing at the same time. The boy was inconsolable now, weeping and screaming at the top of his lungs in a language Jason didn’t even recognize.

He continued to thrash against the older boy’s grip, much stronger than the average kid his age but still no match for Jason’s mass, until slowly he started to come back down. Whether the episode was passing, or he had simply exhausted himself, Jason couldn’t be sure, but after a few minutes the heart monitor started to settle back into a less agitated rhythm, and Damian managed to find and focus on Jason’s eyes again.

“They gone?” Jason asked, his hands still gripping Damian’s shoulders.

“Please,” he whispered, his eyes never straying from the older boy’s, “don’t make me look.”

“I won’t. You don’t have to look anywhere but this handsome mug, alright? I’m right here. All night if you want.”

Damian nodded, and Jason could see how hard he was trying not to look anywhere else in the room. He could see how petrified this kid was and how tired he was and God since when was this little brat so young?

“Move over,” Jason ordered softly, and to his surprise Damian obeyed and watched without protest as the older boy shed his boots and jacket and climbed into the massive bed with him.

Jason lifted his arm and pulled Damian into his side, gently guiding his face so that it was buried in his shirt to physically block out the rest of the world. He felt Damian shove his face even deeper into Jason’s ribs, and a moment later he felt Damian’s shoulders quivering again, little hiccupping breaths against his side.

“I can still see it,” he whispered.

“I know.” Jason squeezed him harder, glaring around the room and wishing for something to beat the crap out of. He would suck up a couple lungfuls of fear toxin himself right now if it meant he’d be able to stand between Damian and whatever it was that was tormenting him. “But I’ve got you.”

“Thank you, Father,” Damian mumbled, sounding already mostly asleep.

Jason tensed, but forced himself to breathe through it. And when the door finally cracked open nearly an hour later, spilling light into the room, they were in much the same position, Jason having been too scared to move a muscle even after his shoulder had begun to cramp up.

Bruce poked his head in and hesitated.

“It’s alright,” Jason assured him. “You won’t wake him up.”

The older man entered, a silhouette gliding noiselessly across the floor. “I’m sorry for being away for so long. There were some…complications. But we’ve got a promising lead on a new anti-toxin formula. It should help.”

Jason nodded. “I figured Scarecrow must have cooked up something new. I’ve never seen it linger like this before.”

“Hn.” He leaned across Jason to glide his fingers along Damian’s brow and gently cup his cheek. Jason wondered if Bruce could see the dried tear tracks there. “How was he?”

“About how you’d expect. He’s strong, though. Maybe too strong for his own good.”

Bruce chuckled, a quick exhale through his nose, before pulling away. “I can take over from here if you want to go.”

Jason looked at Damian still curled into his side then back at Bruce. Suddenly, he was grateful not to be the one hooked up to the heart monitor. “Actually, think I might hang around for a little while longer. If you’re okay with that.”

Bruce blinked. “Of course. Absolutely.” And taking the seat Jason had moved near the bed, he added, “I always have time for you, by the way. All of you. There’s never anything more important.”

“I know.” And though there were many memories Jason could use to poke holes in this notion, for now at least, he decided not to. Because deep down, he knew how desperately they both wanted it to be true.

And maybe tonight that could be enough.

[razorblade180]

Interdimensional Moms pt3

Part 2 right here! <-

Team RWBY continue their interesting chat about their respective worlds. After the emotional roller coaster that was Weiss’s, a bit of light hearted stories would be welcomed.

Yang:Okay, does anyone have some real feel good things to talk about for their world? Just run of the mill pleasant life?

Ruby:Guess I’m going last....

Yang:Oh no!

Weiss:We’ll circle back to you then. Blake, I guess you’re up.

Blake:Wouldn’t you want calmer stuff at the end?

Yang:Blake, I would very much like to go at least ten minutes without wanting to cry.

Blake:Hmmmm I can guarantee you like...six I think.

Yang:I’ll take it! Blake Belladonna, tell me about a world where you and Jaune Arc are happily married. How did such stars align?

Blake:You make it sound crazy?

Weiss:Blake, there’s list of people I could see you with. Now I’m not saying Jaune couldn’t be one of them, but he’d have to fight his way up that list.

Blake:You...that’s kinda fair. It’s a bit hard to explain really. It happened back at Beacon initially, or our bonding did. Some days his team was busy and I didn’t tag along for the crazy antics you three wanted to do all the time, so we occasionally bumped into each by circumstances. He’d go to the library for a book, I’d do training and he was there, or sometimes he’d knock on our door and not realize I was the only one around.

Weiss:Was he trying to sing to me?

Blake:That plan did show up at our a few times, yes. One of those times I asked him out of nowhere to sing the song anyways because I just had to know if it was any good. Hehe, it wasn’t sonically pleasing at times, but you could tell it was genuine. Eventually though...he just sort of gave up on you. It was actually a little sad to see, even you thought so. It was strange. Jaune was definitely stumbling through his flirting and it came off as childish, yet the day he gave up, it was easy to see his heart was breaking a bit. Like all his insecurities ate even the faux confidence away.

Yang:Ma’am, it has barely been three minutes and I’m getting sad about thinking of Jaune being sad.

Weiss:Yeah don’t tell me I broke his heart!

Blake:Whoops, sorry. It’s important though. Jaune kinda kept to himself a little more after that. He still chatted pretty regularly but it was easy to tell he dived more in studies as a way to keep his head clear, which lead to us being on a project together. I was the only person in our friend group that wouldn’t actively try to make him open up about how he feeling. At first I thought it was a bit rude when he told me that, but I didn’t room to talk when it comes to socializing.

Yang:One more time for the people in the back.

Ruby:I’m the back.

Blake:*smirks* I was very against socializing about my feelings at Beacon.

Ruby:Yeah you were.

Weiss:I couldn’t even ask if you slept well without a lukewarm answer sometimes.

Blake:I’m better now. That’s all that matters. Romance and feeling love is a personal thing and talking about it is uncomfortable. I think we both recognized that in each other during our project. Trouble is, there’s only so many conversation starters and small talk subjects. Talking only about the project was dry and eventually all the facts a person could say about themselves ran out. Favorite food, color, hobbies, etc. We eventually had to dig a little deeper into those topics. To our surprise, we actually more in common than we thought when it came to how we felt about certain pieces of literature and music.

Ruby:Awwww, bonding over smut.

Blake:*red* It wasn’t all adult literature! Some were poems and stuff. Even when the project ended, we began being less formal around each other and hanging out. We went to the bookstores we mentioned and he even got us tickets to bands I liked. It...it was nice. I never really got to have just a normal teenage experience before without it being political. He always felt bad about being average compared to everyone but average was so foreign to me that I welcomed it. I liked having a normal time out. It was a thing we all took for granted. Especially when Beacon fell.

Yang:Yeah, that probably put a real bind on your relationship.

Blake:Actually....we technically never officially started to date.

Ruby:What? You courted each other all of Beacon.

Weiss:Ruby, who the heck says courted? I’m a Schnee and even I have never used the word courted.

Ruby:Hush, I read a lot of bed time stories to a five year old.

Blake:We were a bit shaky on labels. Me for obvious reasons. As for Jaune, it’s really true about what they say about guys when they get heart broken.

Yang: “Never again.”

Blake:Hehehe, it’s funny to look back at it but he’ll tell you it’s a bit cringy. He was so on gaurd. I could tell all the time when he was mentally telling himself to not be excited whenever we hung out or I complimented him.

Ruby:Hey it takes guts to shift feelings to a teammate of your first crush. That could blow up in your face.

Blake:Yeah...about that. *looks at Yang* you...were another reason why nothing was official. You uhhh, we actually had some jumbled up emotions.

Weiss:*sarcastic gasp* You and Yang, liking each other? Who could’ve seen that coming?

Yang:Was it mutual or...

Blake:Very mutual. Also...intimate at times.

Yang:*red* Oh....yeah. Yeah that tracks.

Blake:That jumbled mess was only more confusing after you got hurt trying to rescue me from Adam. Meeting up with-

Ruby:Question, so was Sun just not on your radar?

Blake:Sun? We’re just friends. He’s cute and I’m glad he was there for me when I needed help but things between us were always pretty calm. I think he noticed how confused I was with other people in my life and chose to not add to it.

Ruby:Bless him. Please continue.

Blake:Learning about Salem and reconnecting with you all was a lot. I’d really been out of the loop and my Yang and I were on....shaky ground.

Yang:That’s what happens when you leave someone who’s been left their entire life.

Blake:Sigh...yeah. It was a trying time, but not with JNPR. It’s funny, Oscar and I also hit it off quite well from the jump. I think we were both glad to have each other learn on the craziness at once. Even with readjusting, Jaune and I fell back into a groove naturally. Instead of doing average things we day dreamed of the things we did. Once again we become this little slice of simple life in this crazy adventure. Still didn’t date.

Weiss:What is this, a slow burn!?

Yang:Weiss, you literally didn’t date your Jaune until Atlas.

Weiss:There’s a difference. I didn’t make any heart eyes at him until around Atlas. I say I may have been a little quick. These two were “courting” for over a year at this point.

Ruby:Stop making fun of me!

Blake:Well anyways, I wouldn’t say much was too eventful in terms of romance with world destroying things happening. Salem, she was way too much to deal with. Every move age did was calculated and unrelenting. Keeping our head above water wasn’t easy. In fact, it was boarder line impossible. Yang and I barely beat Adam after all.

Yang:How’d you two feel about that?

Blake:Relieved. Huge weight off my mind, and yet...a piece of me still wishes things never got so dire. At least now I know that in another world, things aren’t.

Ruby:Sounds like your world was put through their paces? You survived though.

Blake:Not conventionally. I gotta say, hearing the ages and how you beat Salem so far makes me feel more than a little embarrassed. To be frank, we didn’t have this grand battle that involved the entire world making a final stand. We had Atlas, and then we had Haven. With their might and a plan to gain more time, we managed to seal Salem in a vault.

Yang:*chokes on water* Y- cough what!?

Ruby:You put her in a vault!?

Weiss:Thah sounds harder than a last stand honestly.

Blake:No matter what way we looked at things, we just weren’t ready for her, so we locked her away until we were. Two years on constant defense from her followers and grimm until Ruby had trained enough to use her silver eyes and we were all strong enough.

Ruby:Two years!? How old was I then?

Blake:Twenty I believe.

Weiss:Hey, you beat mine by a year.

Yang:Not mine, I think we either tied or just narrowly beat yours by like a year. Honestly it hard to keep track of birthdays and stuff.

Ruby:Wow. No offense to myself, but that’s a little disappointing. I guess being the same person really doesn’t mean we were all at the same level.

Blake:Hey, my Ruby put everything she had into saving the world. There wasn’t a second she wasn’t trying her best to defend it!

Ruby:My point exactly. If that was her at her absolute best then by all accounts, she doesn’t hold a candle to me; at least back then anyways. But I have no reason to believe she would be at my level now.

Yang:Okay little miss prideful, care to tell us when you saved the-

Ruby:Seventeen.

The reaper took a long swig of coffee while the others processed that information. It took a her a couple of seconds to realize she may be acting just a tad bit arrogant.

Ruby:Uhh, sorry. I think I was tooting my own horn a bit there.

Weiss:Seventeen....why so soon?

Yang:Why? Don’t you mean how?

Blake:That’s....almost unbelievable.

Ruby:Really? I don’t think so. I’ll dive into it when it’s my turn but for now all I really gotta say is people needed help, and I was going to answer those cries. I bet your Ruby had a similar urgency in her, but for some reason or another just had different limitations. I got hurt a lot as a kid. Maybe an injury did more damage in one universe than another? Who can say?

Blake:I...wouldn’t know. Odd, I know if my Ruby heard this, then she’d probably be more than a little upset. Saving lives is still what she’s all about. I know when she put everything she had into fighting Salem when the day came. All that training paid off. Her skills were polished and her silver eyes eradicated the grimm essence in Salem.

Ruby:Wait, she’s not dead?

Blake:No. Salem roams Remnant with Oz keeping an eye on her until one day she can finally grasp the lesson the gods wanted her to have.

Yang:That uhhh sounds risky.

Weiss:Yet oddly okay?

Blake:Funny, my Weiss said that too. Those two get checked on in secret. Can’t be too careful. With Salem beaten though, Remnant entered a state of...let’s call it average chaos. All in all, it’s way more peaceful but you know, people will be people. Downside about a secret war is you don’t get the unity of the masses. Atlas and Haven working together was still a great step in the right direction though.

Yang:Woah, I’m a little jealous. My world felt like a race against the clock. The pressure either broke you or made you harder than diamond, with most people crushing under it.

Weiss:Yeah. The tension and meet of extremes I had on the frontlines was beyond imagination. The unity was great, but to feel it on the battlefield against the odds was feeling with way too much adrenaline and stress. Can’t say I enjoyed it. I simply lived through it.

Blake:Well it isn’t like I had a walk in the park. But I guess in comparison, my experience was a tad more mellow. Still, people were lost and hurt. Oscar isn’t himself anymore, don’t have Penny, former classmates and a few enemies turned allies fell in battle. Family.... it took a bunch to get the plan of containing, then it took a lot more to do it. In a way though, the two years of training is time I can’t regret. It tested bonds, strengthening and reestablishing others.

Ruby:I take it since love couldn’t bloom on the battlefield, it bloomed in the training yards?

Blake:*red* You can say that. That’s when Jaune and I got serious. *frowning* But.....

Yang:We fell apart?

Blake:Yeah. I didn’t learn my lesson well enough the first time about the potential problems of dating a partner. Only difference this time was I felt like I was the one being cruel. We had gotten into arguments and apologized more than once. Your fear of being left and my own insecurities just kept butting heads. I’d cry, you’d cry, our friends would be concerned. Then the day came where you put it all on the line. You confessed genuinely how much you loved me and how you felt a bit jealous when it came to Jaune. I had never seen you look so vulnerable; letting your gaurd completely down. And though a piece of me loved you and wanted you in my life for ever....this sense of genuine comfort Jaune gave was something I want-needed for so long. So I did the one thing I didn’t want to do. I broke your heart. I hurt you again.

Yang:Sigh....*leans back in chair* Okay, let’s see how well I know myself. My eyes went red automatically, followed by tears. I lashed out at you angrily out of pain and embarrassment until I was probably blue in the face. But to take make things worse, somebody probably overheard. No matter who it was, I yelled at them too for trying to calm me down and then I eventually run off leaving everyone unhappy. A good old meltdown. Sound about right?

Blake:To the letter. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so distraught.

Yang:Of course not, I’ve never been in love before meeting you. I....did a similar thing with my Blake over the stupid Adam shit. *covers face* of all the things to be similar, it had to be my temper. Please tell me our team didn’t suffer too harshly?

Blake:The good thing about two years of training was it didn’t have to be together all the time. Team RWBY didn’t fall apart, but it didn’t feel comfortable either. Outside of missions, the four of us didn’t hang out as much. It was three at the most. Nobody pinned blame on me or Yang for it but it was obvious.

Ruby:I mean how can you blame someone for feeling sad or not in love with someone? Pointing fingers doesn’t do anything. However, I bet missions were rough.

Blake:Bumblebee was shelved. We did any other team up we could. When push came to shove, Yang and I did put feelings aside. Neither of us wanted our feelings to get anyone killed. That’s probably what kept us connected for awhile, especially with Salem. I don’t think we questioned each other when it came to watching one another’s back. Slowly, our relationship got a bit better. Until....we stopped speaking to each other altogether about a couple years later.

Yang:Wait, why!?

Blake:I got pregnant.

The three listeners’ faces scrunched up and they let in a sharp breath like they just got cut. No one had considered that bombshell.

Blake:Marriage was rough enough. Having Jaune’s kid and starting a family just...cut deep I guess. You didn’t make a scene or anything if that’s what you’re worried about. One day you told me “I just can’t do this” and exited my life. I wanted to keep you close to me, but you wanted to be closer. That was a thing I couldn’t do. Hehe, I can’t tell you how weird it is talking to you like this again.

Yang:So that’s it!? We just don’t see each other at all!?

Blake:Certain events and celebrations have us in the same room, but that’s all. Ruby is the only thing that regularly links us, but she’s busy living life too.

Ruby:Is it a good life?

Blake:The best. You’re the huntress you always wanted to be and a hero to many.

Ruby:*smiles* Really? That’s good. May she ride that high for as long as she can. Though I bet she wished she had a special someone to share that with.

Blake:Huh? Oh, you married Weiss.

Weiss:*red* What!?

Ruby:Aye, nice.

Weiss:Weren’t you upset about thinking of other people with Jaune besides you!?

Ruby:Yeah, but I won’t deny if I am going to be with someone that isn’t him, I’m very happy it’s the other special person in my life. I mean come on, the only reason we don’t get weird in your universe is because I married your brother and you already invited my sister.

Weiss:I mean...it’s mainly the brother portion. The second part...

Ruby:Weiss, that’s weird.

Yang:Eh...

Ruby:IT’S WEIRD! YOU CANNOT TELL ME OTHERWISE!

Yang:*sips coffee* Eh.

Blake:Anyways, Weiss, you’re running your company. The Schnee Dust Company was scrubbed top to bottom to remove as much corruption as possible. No department was overlooked. In times of money, there’s a notable decrease in how much the company used to make.

Weiss:Gee, I wonder if that’s because the other me is doing oh let me guess, paying all their workers and not cutting corners in safety?

Blake:The SDC people approval has gone up considerably, just so you know that too. Turns out people like it when the company they buy from have good morals.

Weiss:Am I happy though? I make time for my social life and hu- I mean wife?

Blake:Yea, you’re happy. In a way I think we’re all happy, but....

Yang:We’d be happier if we were all happy together? Yeah, that’s how it works. You’re only as happy as the most miserable person in a family or group; if you all care about each other that is. Ugh, I wanna punch the other me. I get how she feels but it’s fucking immature to just ignore years of teamwork and family. At the end of the day, team RWBY is a family! Can’t believe I’d runaway from it instead of figuring out...I don’t know! Something!

Blake:*small smile* Well if you feel that way then there’s no reason to believe she doesn’t. My Yang just struggles with it more I guess, but I hope she can come around one day. Not really for my sake, but for her own peace of mind. As well as Lucas’s.

Ruby:Lucas? Your son I take it?

Blake:Mmhmm. My strong and lazy young man. He got his father’s hair but my eyes and ears. I can’t think of a person who warms my heart quite like him. He acts uninterested in a lot of things, but his heart is so big.

Weiss:Ah, so he’s just you?

Blake:More or less hehe. Though I’d say I was passionate about things all my life. Lucas will sleep all day if he could and doesn’t like going out without a reason.

Weiss:Still sounds like you if I’m being honest. Teenager?

Blake:Seventeen, almost eighteen.

Yang:You said he’s need peace of mind too? I’m not...hostile towards him am I?

Blake:No, not by a long shot. On the occasions you two have meant, you were polite. It’s just he knows why you don’t visit or talk to me. That’s rough, knowing your parent’s closest friend stopped being apart of their life because you were born. I think sometimes he believes it’s actually his fault.

Yang:I really, really want to meet this other me and have a few words. She needs to know she isn’t trying hard enough. I’m proof.

Ruby:Yeah, but you’re only well off because the person that helped you get over Blake, was Jaune. Yeah she still can find love, but who that person will be would be uncharted territory for everyone.

Blake:Also I’m not entirely sure exactly if my Yang is even bi like you.

Yang:Sigh....

Weiss:Love.

Blake:Huh?

Weiss:As long as a person shows your Yang genuine love and a place in their heart where she’ll remain forever, Yang would fall for them. They just have to make it a point to make her feel like they’ll stay. Yangs are softies like that.

Yang:Wow, you an expert on me and all the versions of me now?

Weiss:No, you’re just a bleeding heart that’s super emotional. Let me guess, you fell for Jaune the moment you realized just how relaxed and vulnerable you could allow yourself to be around him.

Yang:*red*.......he holds me when I’m overwhelmed.

RWB:Awwww

Yang:Shut up! Blake, take the heat off me.

Blake:Not too much more. Lucas is a smart kid who generally stays out of trouble. Unfortunately, trouble finds him. Mainly because of his semblance.

Ruby:Don’t tell me...

Blake:No no, it’s not bad luck like your uncle, but Lucas can’t always control it so their similar in that regard. Premonitions, that’s his semblance.

Weiss:Like...the future? You child can see the future?!

Blake:Yeah. *sips drink* it’s terrible.

Ruby:What? That sounds so handy! Man, if I could someone fighting me before it happened, I’d be a monster on the battlefield.

Blake:Lucas isn’t a fighter. Well, he’s not aspiring to fight. He can fight, pretty dang well in fact.; but randomly seeing the future is not a gift. Imagine picking up a book and you suddenly know the ending, or watching a movie and you start seeing the middle of it right after you press play?

Yang:Ahhh, that’s why he’s lazy and unmotivated. His semblance is massive spoiler alert. Half the fun of new things is not knowing what will happen.

Ruby:Oof, you have a point. I’d be paranoid to no end.

Blake:To a point, he was. Ever since he was ten. Disasters happen at the drop of a hat. Lucas isn’t the kind of person to watch bad things unfold, so whenever it was possible or even if it was risky, he’d do whatever he could to prevent said disaster. But.....there’s only so much anyone person can do. There’s only so much information he sees. The constant strain and guilt that came from failing ate him up. The. There’s the incidents he’s seen that didn’t show him how it began or how it will end. *rubbing her hands* It’s bad...

Weiss:Hey, I...I’ve noticed your hands and frankly even your face are a bit....slim. Your skin isn’t as colorful as I’m used to either. Almost like it’s regaining color.

Blake:Hehehe.......I guess you were bound to notice of all people.

Weiss:Of course. I may not run a a company in my world but I keep tabs on my brother and have had my fair share of visits to a doctor. Why wouldn’t I notice.

Yang:So can we talk as if there are people who have no clue what’s going on?

Weiss:Blake has had one of two things happen to her. She’s either worked way too hard to the point she’s not taking care of her health, or she’s fallen very ill and her body is still recovering.

Blake:Yeah, it’s more of the second one, but probably because of the first one as well. Forwarding equality, I was overzealous with it. One day Lucas just started shaking and crying when he was twelve and I couldn’t understand why. Turns out he kept seeing me bedridden and unconscious without a reason. Day in and day out he simply cried and tried his best to get another premonition to learn more, but couldn’t. A week later I started feeling a little dizzy, and then blacked out after vomiting. At first I thought maybe I had the flu or something. Nope, a tumor.

Weiss:What?

Ruby:Blake!?

Yang:Oh shit, are you-

Blake:Perfectly fine! *smiles* I’m fine. Liver cancer, but it was caught early. No more tumor what so ever, but the meds and the entire process was really draining. Got sicker a couple of times. Not once did I feel like I was dying necessarily, more like...slipping? I felt myself getting drained. The whole time Lucas was so scared; blaming himself for not preventing this or knowing how to fix it. Though simply knowing he saw me like was a warning most people wish they got. I know I said seeing the future is terrible, but the scariest part through all of this was not knowing how it ended. Choosing medicine, doctors, surgery possibilities, it made me crack under pressure a little. I think he noticed that. I wasn’t sure if I picking an option that lead me dying or getting better. The stress alone may have killed me. Ever since then Lucas hasn’t been so outgoing.

Ruby:....

Weiss:....

Yang....It was already said, but there was no way this wasn’t going to get sad was there?

Blake:Take it from me, there’s joy in pain. So many people came to visit me when I was recovering. Even Yang dropped by for a bit. After I got out, I don’t think Lucas ever hugged me so hard. Jaune tried to stay calm through the whole ordeal but it was rough for him too. He was all but spent emotionally when I came home.

Weiss:I’m surprised Lucas didn’t become an older brother.

Blake:The last thing a recovering patient needs is a pregnancy, but as far as missing me goes...

Ruby:You can stop right there with that tangent.

Yang:We’ll talk about that in private. I wouldn’t mind that story.

Blake:*playfully rolls eyes* These days I try not to over do things. I’ve only officially been deemed completely cured for about a year. I can feel that I’m still not entirely up to strength. It’s fine though. It gives me an excuse for Lucas to dote on me a little. He’s a mama’s boy at heart. My biggest worries these days is peeling him out of this shell his semblance had put him in. At the very least I want him to smile like he used to and find away to live in moment when possible. His entire life is ahead of him. Hopefully he doesn’t see all of it.

Ruby:I guess too much of anything really is bad. Knowledge included. I hope things work out.

Yang:Me too. A happy life is something you definitely earned.

Blake:Thanks. That seriously means a lot, which is why I made sure to not end this on a sour note.

The happy faunus pulled out her scroll to scroll through pictures and her friends eyes lit up. The first one was a beach photo. This Jaune was different from what they were used to. He let his hair grow a little bit longer and the back went down his neck, but it was definitely still him. This jaune was pretty toned and went for a lean look than bulky like Weiss’s, but a tad slimmer. On his shoulders was an adorable toddler with wide amber eyes and big blonde cat ears. Both men were enjoying the sunset on the waves.

The next photo was more recent with Blake right in the middle of hopping into Lucas’s arms. Weiss noticed the girl still had on the hospital bracelet. She must’ve just gotten cleared. Lucas had grown like a weed. He was now roughly Jaune’s height. His hair was messy and looked like Jaune’s in his younger years. Also like his father, Lucas was jacked! His sleeveless purple shirt should off his biceps as they wrapped around Blake’s torso for a hug. His baggy purple shorts had black and gold trim through the seams and the shorts stopped right below his knees; but showed of his well defined calves. A smile of pure joy and what could’ve been a few tears were visible as he looked lovingly at his mother. It warmed all of the ladies hearts. Still, the girls also could tell under his eyes were a little dark. Lucas must’ve been very tired.

The final picture had to be the most recent. It was Blake and Lucas sparring. Both looked at each other with excitement and ease as their wooden blades clashed. Their clothes mirrored one another by being black and white kimonos. They even wore the traditional shoes and everything.

Weiss:Yeah, that’s your kid.

Blake:Damn right. Unfortunately that makes him a little too stubborn. But I guess that’s okay. Without a doubt, someone’s gonna break through that shell of his.

Yang:Oh? It sounds like you already know who?

Blake:Well....I have a hunch.

xxxxx

RING! RING! RING! Lucas’s scroll chirped, in the middle of the night. The boy let out a long, agitated groan of sleepiness as he rolled over in bed; reaching for his scroll on the nightstand to answer.

Lucas:Hello?

???:Did you know you are mathematically more likely to choke on a hotdog than get attacked by a shark?

Lucas:....Serenity, who gave you my number?

Serenity:Your parents, and it’s Serendipity!

Lucas:Too many syllables. Also a bit ironic given who you are. With the way you act though, my name for you is better.

Serenity:Ooooo so we’re moving on to pet names? How forward of you.

Lucas:Five seconds before I hang up. Three...two-

Serenity:You’re late! You promised to guide me around the beach at twelve. That’s now.

Lucas:.....P.M. Twelve P.M. Serenity. Why in the world would I mean midnight!?

Serenity:It’s romantic and personal. Nobody else is around. I thought you were trying to use that Belladonna magic on me by acting all cool and aloof in the moonlight.

Lucas:.....

Lucas:Please delete my number.

Serenity:Not on your life, my whiskered bodyguard!

Lucas:Don’t have whiskers-

Serenity:If you don’t wanna move that butt of yours to hang out with a pretty girl in a floppy hat and sundress with a bikini underneath, that’s your loss. I’m still going for a dip.

Lucas:Do not go in the water when nobody is around.

Serenity:Pfft, I’m a strong swimmer.

Lucas:Sharks.

Serenity:It’s more dangerous to eat a hotdog.

Lucas:Sharks feed at night.

Serenity:Are you trying to tell me the statistics aren’t as reliable just because it’s nighttime.

Lucas:That’s exactly what I’m saying.

Serenity:Then you better move your butt just in case. Either you get a snack or the sharks do. Either way, I get attention.

Lucas:Difference is one wants to eat you.

Serenity:My goodness Lucas, oh brazen of you.

Lucas:......

Lucas:Tell the sharks I said hi.

Serenity:Okay! Byyyyyyeeeee! *hangs up*

Lucas:(She’ll be fine.)

..........

Lucas:*putting on shoes* This is bullshit. Who thinks midnight!? *walking down stairs* Can’t have a peaceful day or night....

Jaune:*watching tv* Hey Lucas, going some-

Lucas:I’m giving out your phone number to a homeless man the first chance I get! *walks out door*

Jaune:.....(Whatever gets you outside more.)

It took about fifteen minutes of aggressive walking for Lucas to wrap around to the back of his house towards their section of the beach. Where Serenity walked around humming and collecting seashells without a care in the world.

Lucas:The next shell you grab will have a crab in it.

Serenity:Huh? Oh hey you’re finally-ahhhh! Ow ow ow ow ow ow!

Lucas:Should’ve listened.

Serenity:Have a better warning!!!! It won’t let go!

Lucas:Pull it off.

Serenity:That’s hurt!!! Lucas, help!

Lucas:Fine, if you delete my number.

Serenity:*sniffling* Stop being mean!!! This really hurts, it’s breaking the skin. Isn’t a young and pretty girl’s tears payment enough!? I thought you were getting paid to-

Lucas:Oh my goodness! Okay, just shush. I’m too sleepy for this.

Serenity:You’re mean when you’re sleepy. At least your waking up voice sounds handsome though.

Lucas:Please....stop. Stop everything. *removing crab* Happy?

Serenity:No, you’re not happy. Also my finger is bleeding.

Lucas:Yep, looks like you can’t go swimming now for real.

Serenity:Eh, I lied anyways. I’m not getting in that water. There are sharks in that watery grave.

Lucas:So. Why. Did. You. Wake. Me. Up?

Serenity:....*red* I...don’t really, have friends here. Besides you. Umm *points to pail and shovels* sandcastles?

Lucas:*inhales*......I’ll get the water.

Serenity:*smiles* Yes! I’ll delete your number later.

Lucas:*red* You....can keep it of you really want.

Serenity:....Kek, okay Mr. Tsundere

Lucas:You can remove the next crab alone.

Serenity:Don’t joke like that! That was a joke, right?

Lucas:Welp that pail isn’t gonna fill itself. *leaves*

Serenity:What!? Lucas!!! You were joking right!? Right!? *looking around the sand* you’re a lousy bodyguard!

Lucas:Good, fire me.

Serenity:I...you....ugh!

Lucas:Cheer up, I’m happy now after all. *smiles*

Serenity:*pouting* This is why I’m a dog person.

[ipuckwithhockey]

Earned- N. Patrick

a/n: This one gets angsty, oops. I’m on a NolPat thing right now, but when are we not? I’m honestly enjoying writing again, so I hope you guys enjoy this one!  

warnings: angst, mentions of sex/oral sex, swearing, divorced parents, drinking (i think that’s it)

------

Nolan loved his friends and family, hockey, and even on occasion Travis Konecny. This was enough for him. He had his close-knit group that he surrounded himself with and that was all he needed. It’s not that he avoided getting attached to people, he just hadn’t found anyone that he felt was worth getting attached to. He was young and focused on his career. Love would come eventually. He just didn’t realize how soon ‘eventually’ would be until he met you.

You met Nolan at a Post Malone concert. Your friend Grace had gotten tickets through her job and you couldn’t just say no to floor seats for Posty. Your seats just so happened to be right next to Nolan, Travis, and Kevin Hayes. You recognized the hockey players instantly, but your best friend just recognized that TK was hot and definitely checking her out. 

By the time Post was ending his show Grace was agreeing that the two of you would join the boys at a bar around the corner. You weren’t planning on going home with anyone that night, but Nolan Patrick was flirting with you and you were a woman of opportunity. So, you found yourself going home with a Flyers forward while your friend went home with another.

Grace was your polar opposite. She was an undying optimist, bubbly, and most notably a romantic. You on the other hand considered yourself a dedicated realist who was levelheaded and decisive. The thought of finding someone to spend the rest of your life with almost made you laugh.  You had no interest in settling for a mediocre relationship that would eventually combust or at best, just fizzled out.

The first night you went home with Nolan was supposed to be the only night you went home with Nolan, but just like the tale as old as time, it was far from a one time occurrence. Grace and TK kept seeing each other and their big personalities actually seemed to mesh well. Grace was happy and you were happy that she was happy. What you weren’t totally sure about was that their blossoming relationship meant you found yourself in the same room as Nolan more often than not. A couple of drunken nights together turned into a habit neither one of you seemed to mind.

Nolan was just as aloof as you when it came to romanticism. That was what you told yourself was the reason why you kept letting yourself fall into his bed every weekend. When he started texting you to come over out of the blue instead of your usual drunken hookups you decided it was time to lay down the law.

“Ok, so just to be clear, because I don’t want to be the reason for any broken hearts and more importantly, I don’t need any lost Flyers games weighing on me, this is just sex. Like we’re not going to be those stupid kids that say it’s just sex but then end up falling madly in love. I don’t do that, and from what I’ve gathered, you don’t do that either. So, if this is going to happen again, or keep happening, then it’s strictly business.”  You’re barely even looking at Nolan as you explain your position. He had quite aggressively ripped your clothes from your body when you arrived at his place tonight and you can’t seem to locate your second sock as you scour his room.

Nolan was still laying naked on his bed, catching his breath, as he watched you in your adopted routine of rushing out of his apartment. He had met girls who were okay with a quick hookup with a famous NHL player, but you were different. You were bold and definitive. You weren’t here because he’s famous, you were here because the sex was good, and that’s why Nolan was here too.

Nolan didn’t make a habit out of hooking up with the same girls more than a couple of times, max. If you hadn’t been so good in bed and so open to just having sex, he probably wouldn’t have entertained the idea at all. You couldn’t deny that having Nolan between your legs a few times a week wasn’t a good thing. In fact, it was a great thing.  Nolan might not spend much time talking, but he definitely knows how to use his mouth. You both left each other at the end of the night tired and satisfied, and that didn’t seem like a bad thing. 

“Mkay. I promise I won’t fall in love with you. My track record is pretty good, so if you need references, I can probably get you their numbers. They probably wouldn’t be thrilled about you calling to ask them about how I’m a heartless asshole, but you can give it a swing.” You can’t help but laugh as your brain deciphers the mumbles that just came from the half sleeping body in front of you.

The second or third time you hung out with the boys you were at a party. You were teasing Nolan about all the girls who were trying so hard to get his attention, and he replied that they probably wouldn’t try so hard if they knew how their short lived fling would end.  He had a bad habit of accidentally leading girls on, thinking they were on the same wavelength but then being met with a pissed off girl who thought “they had something special.”

“Perfect. And if you somehow end up falling for my stunning good looks and amazing personality, just do me a favor and let me know so I can run for the hills.” And with that you gave him a wink and were out the door. Nolan couldn’t hold in the laugh that fell from his lips as he continued to take in the personality you had begun to share with him.

—————

It’s been two months since the two of you settled your business deal and things were good. Grace and TK had made it official and she insisted on bringing you with her to team gatherings and games. You and Nolan went over to each other’s places when the other called or texted, and the sex was still as good as it was the first time.

The two of you developed a friendship and your post sex talks began to last a little longer on topics that were just a little deeper than the time before. Nolan would ask you about the douche that likes to hit on you at work and you would ask him how hockey was going.  Then he told you about his sisters and and eventually told you a little more about his migraines. When it felt right you would ask him questions that he always provided thoughtful answers to. Nolan Patrick was much more pensive than you initially thought. To be honest you hadn’t really given his personality much thought at all, but as you got to know him you realized his aloof exterior was maybe just misinterpreted.

To his surprise Nolan genuinely liked spending time with you. Unlike most people, you weren’t constantly urging him to be “more social” or outgoing, and even though you were using each other’s bodies for sex, you weren’t greedy. You didn’t ask too much of him or expect certain things because of who he was. He felt like he could breathe around you because he wasn’t constantly trying to satisfy any unattainable expectations.

Even when he talked to you about hockey, he felt like he was just talking about any old 9-5 job; zero pressure to perform for you. You would ask him how it was going even though you already watched the games, and you would let Nolan guide the conversation to where he was comfortable. In many ways Nolan did the same for you. He didn’t press about why you didn’t have a boyfriend or why you didn’t want one. He did query over why you gracefully steered the conversation away from your family. He didn’t pry into things that were too personal, that for some reason, so many people thought they were entitled to.

There was a level of respect present between you that neither of you had experienced with anyone else. In both of your past relationships people always wanted to go fast, immediately trying to see if you were compatible. You and Nolan were just friends having sex with no other expectation, and somehow that allowed the two of you to slowly peel back each other’s layers.

You were oblivious to all of this until one night when your post sex talk didn’t come after sex. It came before. Well, actually the conversation came but neither of you did that night. You were at Nolan’s after a game that hadn’t gone as well as they had hoped. He was tired and you could see it in his eyes. Instead of jumping each other’s bones as soon as he greeted you at the door, you cracked a bottle of wine and settled on the couch.

It was nice. It was two friends having conversation over a bottle of wine. You didn’t talk about hockey or work; it was just talking about nothing. You talked about the lady who gave you one of her extra coupons at the grocery the other day. He explained how he made a sweater once in home ec. ( You’re still not sure if you believe him.)

A couple of hours later, and halfway into your second bottle of wine, Nolan’s curiosity got the best of him.

“So, is there a reason you’re so anti relationship or are you just a serial heart breaker like me?”

Once he asked the question, he realized that he probably shouldn’t have. You hadn’t talked about it before and that probably meant you didn’t want to. You were surprised but his smug joke still made you laugh. Normally you would be a little annoyed by the question, but you felt like you knew Nolan. You knew he wasn’t just trying to get to the juicy part, he just genuinely wanted to know, so you told him.

“Well, if you must know, I am most definitely a serial heart breaker, but that’s just a result of why I’m not thrilled about relationships, not the actual why.”

You take a breath before going on, “My parent’s marriage was horrible. They fought constantly and I don’t think I ever saw them genuinely happy together. They insisted on staying together. Their families, my grandparents, were both pretty ‘well-to-do’ and I’m pretty sure my parents were just staying together to save face with them and their circle of rich friends. I’m not sure why, because none of their marriages seemed any different. They’re all divorced now, and remarried to even shittier people. But before that, it became more of a game than anything else. — it started getting bad when I was in middle school.”

You look out the window in front of you. Through it, you can see the city of Philadelphia. A city you came to for college, with the hopes of leaving your old life behind. 

“My mom started to go out to the country club and wherever else, and then she’d come home in the middle of the night, drunk, after doing god knows what or god knows who. My dad would go on business trips just to get away, and I’m pretty sure he was cheating on my mom too at that point. I never really saw them, and when I did they were always fighting. We didn’t have fun holidays and if my brother wasn’t there no one was in the stands cheering me on at my soccer games. Hell, by that point I preferred no holidays and no parents at my games. They didn’t care about me or my brother, and once Caleb went off to college I was on my own. I don’t blame him, I got out as fast as I could too. All we had was each other and we were always close. He’s in New York now, and we still talk pretty regularly, but being at home alone sucked, and being home alone with them sucked even more. I wasn’t always so pessimistic; I’ve dated a handful of guys but obviously they never worked out. Then I met a guy in college, and I thought wow this guy is unbelievable. He was perfect— Josh was his name. He was in grad school and he was smart and funny and said all the right things. I was young and naive, and I think I just wanted someone to love me, so I let him. And I let him take advantage of my time and energy. I let him lie to me and I let him cheat on me. And when I finally woke up from whatever trance I was in I realized that I had been looking at the world through rose colored glasses. I promised myself that I was never going to let myself do that again. I wasn’t going to rely on anyone but myself… I wasn’t going to give all of myself to someone just to wait for it to fall apart… The proof was in the pudding, relationships just don’t work, and that is why I’m so anti-relationship.”

You hadn’t looked Nolan in the eyes since you started in on your monologue, afraid that you may have just scared off your friend. Nolan was still taking it all in, reveling over the years of your life you had just laid out for him.

He had grown up in a loving family where his parents did everything they could to give him and his sisters the perfect childhood. They spent every weekend driving around Canada for hockey tournaments. He still talks to his sisters almost every day even though they’re thousands of miles away. His mom insists on carry out whatever holiday traditions she can even with Nolan in Philly. And here you were with a childhood that couldn’t have been more different than his. He didn’t want a relationship because he couldn’t find anyone he felt was worthy of his time and energy, but here you were, closed off to the world because you thought that unconditional love wasn’t real.

He didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything he could say, so instead he pulled you from your side of the couch to his, where he wrapped you up in his warm arms. You sat like that for a long time, not saying anything, not even moving, just letting him hold you. You didn’t even realize you had started crying until you felt Nolan’s hands wipe away the tears that were staining your face, and that small gently gesture was what made you snap. That’s when it boiled over, when it became too much too fast.

“I’m sorry... God. I shouldn’t have even said anything. And now I’m crying like a fucking idiot. It’s probably just the wine. It’s late, I should get going. Just forget I said anything, ok?”

And just like that you had grabbed your coat, faceted your shoes, and were out the door of his apartment. Nolan’s brain couldn’t keep up with yours and by the time he heard his door slam shut it was too late to tell you that everything was okay.

—————

Nolan tried calling you after that night, but he couldn’t get a hold of you. You couldn’t talk to him. You knew you couldn’t look him in the eyes, because for a couple of seconds you got too comfortable, you let go and let him in. It was a mistake, and Nolan would surely know that too. You had both decided this was just a transaction of sex, nothing more. You were the one who took it past that. You could have just brushed off the question that Nolan was surely regretting now.

Nolan was regretting asking that question, but not because he didn’t want to know. He regretted it because you were gone now, and he didn’t know how to get you back. You had both promised not to fall in love, not to affect each other’s lives, but that’s exactly what happened. Nolan was in love with you.

Kevin had to spell it out for Nolan as he sat on his couch explaining what had happened. Nolan knew he cared about you, but he hadn’t deciphered what that feeling in the pit of his stomach was when he saw you. He couldn’t explain why he had to constantly rub the back of his neck in nervousness when he caught you staring from across the room. He didn’t know what any of it meant.  

“Dude. I’m dumb. Like I’m big-Boston-hockey-dude dumb, but you’re an idiot. You’re in love with her man.”

“What? We’re friends, I’m just worried about her.”

“Well, she’s in love with you too.”

“It’s just sex.”

“If you were just friends, and if it was just sex, you guys would be fucking right now, and you wouldn’t be mopping here on Saturday night because she told you about her life and won’t talk to you now. She wouldn’t have told you that shit, and she wouldn’t be ignoring you now if she didn’t have feelings for you. You said it yourself, she doesn’t let people in, but she let you in.”

She let me in. That’s all Nolan could think. Maybe Kevin had a point. Maybe he did love her. Maybe you somehow loved him too. Nolan couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it. A couple days later he was getting more comfortable with all the reasons he loved you, but he still couldn’t figure out why you would love him.

He loved you because you were unwavering, absolute, and even a bit brazen. Over time Nolan had found that underneath that outside shell there was so much more. There was a girl who if you were patient and gentle, she might just let you in a little bit at a time. She unveiled her scars and her wounds, and Nolan was going to do anything he could to help them heal. He didn’t know that the feelings you were denying were nearly identical to the ones he was having right now. 

It’s been two weeks since you spoke to Nolan. You had also been ignoring Grace and Travis’ attempts to figure out what the hell was going on. You were telling yourself it was fine, and that everything would blow over. What you didn’t expect to see was a large body sitting in front of your apartment door when you got home from work.

“What are you doing here?” You didn’t meet his eyes as his towering frame rose from the floor. You kept your eyes fixed on your purse as you fished out the keys to your door, and as you stuck them into the door you weren’t sure if you should slam the door behind you or turn to listen to what he had to say.

“I know that you think I’m gonna be like every other guy, and I’m gonna use you or hurt you, and maybe I will, but if you let me try, I’ll try my hardest to never let that happen because it would break me to break you. I don’t need you to give me every piece of yourself right now, I don’t want it right now— “

You scoffed. For an apology or a speech or whatever it was you were listening to, it didn’t seem to be going too well.

“-I don’t want it right now, because I know I don’t deserve it. It has to be earned. Trust is earned and I just want you to give me the chance to earn it. I know what it’s like to feel like you can’t share yourself with people because you think they’ll be disappointed or throw it away because it’s not what they wanted. But that’s not what this is. I’m a huge idiot and I didn’t realize this until recently, but I trust you. I totally and completely trust you. I can’t say that about many people, but I can say that about you. You’ve earned it. I’ve let you into parts of my life and you’ve welcomed them. You brought me closer, and for the first time in a long time I didn’t want to run away. I’m not going to say it, because I know you need time, I know that if we do this, we have to take it slow, but I think you know how I feel about you because you feel the same way about me. Or at least I really really hope you do, because I’m totally falling for you amazing personality and stunning good looks.”

Nolan is practically out of breath after the word vomit that has escaped his mouth. You’re taking it all in. You’re taking him in, and you can’t help but let a smile creep onto your face.  Nolan somehow put everything you didn’t know you needed into words and you still didn’t know what to say, so you didn’t say anything.  Instead, you pulled him close to you and wrapped your short arms around his torso as you felt his own engulf your body. You both melted into each other and for the first time in weeks felt like you could breathe.

Neither of you were sure what was going to happen next, and how this would unfold, but you were willing to give him a chance. You were willing to let him show you what this could be, what you could be together, because you had both earned it. 

[touyasdoll]

Heya Babe! Here’s another NSFW pwp smut gift that just popped into mind~! 😉😏😏

Particular warning for Adult!Shinsou being rather big down there. 😳😳

- IR

————— EXPLICIT CONTENT BELOW —————

It was weird, she thought hazily, watching as her naked boyfriend commanded her equally naked body to move a certain way. It felt like an out of body experience, just overseeing everything that went on, but she could also view everything that was right in front of her eyes.

Surreal, she amended, listening as a moan came from her own mouth and yet didn’t as she was fingered open by her boyfriend. Another moan, breath picking up as the sensation of spreading fingers could be felt from within her body and yet not. A soft, whine escaped with the next breath her body breathed, her boyfriend having withdrawn his fingers fully.

She cocked an eyebrow in her overseeing, out of body experience form, wondering what his plan was next… Oh. He began to finger her ass open slowly, a sensation of odd, different, slightly uncomfortable penetrated her mind, as at the very same moment he penetrated her, with his fingers and she continued to watch.

She felt like she was essentially the live studio audience to her own sex tape, somehow feeling all the sensations yet making none of the movements or personal adjustments.

His fingers spread her open and another hitched breath, another moan escaped her own mouth and yet didn’t. Her boyfriend smirked, opening his own mouth to ask her a question;

“Feel good, Kitten? Use your words.”

‘Kitten.’ You were Kitten. And you definitely felt good. You were back in the front seat of your body fully, though still under Toshi— Master’s control. Master had asked a question.

“Master makes Kitten feel good,” you almost purred, the sound of your voice coming out a bit oddly as you spoke, emotion showing through despite the control and haze.

“Just good?” Master asked, teasingly. He didn’t put the command to answer behind it, but you were still able to and took the chance to elaborate.

“Kitten feels so good, more than good, Master. There was slight pain when you began to finger my pussy open, but Kitten was so wet already it did not last long. Kitten felt different when you began to finger my ass. It could be categorized as odd, different and slightly uncomfortable, but Master is amazing and always makes Kitten feel wonderful no matter what. Kitten feels anticipatory for what happens next. It is different than when Kitten was outside her body, more and deeper sensations,” you slightly babbled your oral report, unable to see how your boyfriend, your Master’s eyebrows raised and then eyes widen as you gave your answer.

‘Out of body?’, his brain wanted to stay on that point, because he hadn’t had that response to using his Quirk before, but there was more to what you had said that caught his interest, too. ‘I hurt her… Logically, it was unavoidable, but dammit! This isn’t one of those times for us.’

He brooded a bit as he continued to make sure you were well opened, even going so far as to add more lube and make sure your walls were well coated with each hand, one in your pussy, one in your ass. He slowly got up and went to the bathroom, water running as he washed his hands.

Left panting softly in your position, you tried to take stock of everything. It was hard as with the feeling of being spread open so well was so recent in your mind that it tried to keep its place as your central focus. If you hadn’t been willingly under your Master’s control, you wouldn’t of been able to keep from fucking yourself on his fingers. Your body was still working despite being empty, dripping from both holes and clenching around nothing, nothing but the remembered feeling of his warm digits.

You wondered what he was going to do next. He had opened you and so there was logically a reason for doing such.

Somewhere between your hyperfocused thoughts, you absently realized you were bound by Master’s scarf in such a way it looked as if you were in stocks. It held you up as the rest of your body was bent over a well cushioned sawhorse. The one you had begged Master to get so you could be good for him in even more ways. This was to be one of those ways, you assumed.

You heard your Master’s foot steps and the sound of wheels, he was obviously toting something along, but you couldn’t see it as you were stuck facing forward and whatever it was went directly behind you. The ‘clink-snap’ of four wheels being locked in place one-by-one sounded out through the room and upped the anticipation you had spoken of earlier.

“You’re probably curious, Kitten, like usual, over what I’m making all this noise with, huh?” Master teased and within your mind you felt a bit of embarrassment. Your thirst for figuring things out, for knowing was a source of much amusement for Master, as well as other positive words connected with it, he still teased you about it. You replied to the question, still. The same as you had last time.

“Yes, Master. Kitten is very curious and anticipation levels are high. Kitten is also feeling slight embarrassment,” you informed him in your report giving tone, feeling your pussy clench again on nothing.

“Sorry, Kitten,” he chuckled, giving you a playful smirk, his eyes roving over your body in inspection. “But you’re gonna have to be curious a bit longer. You can do that for me, can’t you? You can be a good kitty?”

“Kitten is good for Master!”, more emotion leaked through as your words came out in a whine. You had thought you were already being good? Why would you ever change that?

“Oh? I suppose you are, my Pretty. Little. Pet. My mostly well behaved Kitten,” his words elicited a groan from you, one that turned louder as you felt a hand stroke down your spine and all the way to the tip of your tail. You loved to be praised, to be complimented and Master usually tried to hold those tight until you earned them. “Hmm. One more thing, Kitten, and then you can join me again fully.”

Master moved around you, giving you views of his body as he searched his things. Internally you were pouting. His dick was right there, dammit, and you were right here. You wanted it. Craved. To feel it, to have a taste. You wanted to make Master feel good and couldn’t! You didn’t care that it looked too big for you to swallow just yet. You. Craved.

You whimpered softly just as Master lets lose a “Got it!”

His eyes turned to look over your perfectly poised body again. What a good Kitten he had. He moved to in front of you, the height of your head, your mouth just perfectly equaled the height of his very blessed in size cock and heat flooded you as a small internal chant began. ‘Please, please, please…’

“Okay, Kitten.”, Master spoke up, his voice a little gentler, knowing you would probably feel a lot bit disappointed at the next part, but refusing to back down. “I know you want to get your hungry, slutty mouth on me and drink up whatever I give you into, putting it straight into that greedy little tummy of yours,but if I take you right now, Kitten…”

“Kitten, I’m gonna choke you or cause you to sprain something. Maybe even break. You haven’t had practice or been trained up to the level to take me, so I could really harm you. I don’t want that. So, you’re getting a new toy! Three of them. And a new accessory to use one. I know it’s not what you wanted, but baby, I promise you’ll enjoy this. You’ll enjoy it so much now and when you reach higher levels.”

If you could show your disappointment you would have, which is probably why he hadn’t released you from his Quirk. He may be your Master, but even he had a limit on how much “Kitten Eyes” he could withstand before giving in.

You didn’t mean to sound ungrateful, but you were tired of toys. You just wanted Master. So far all of your time with Master had been with him using toys on you, in you. He had let you lick up his cum from his fingers (usually mixed with your own juices), and shared many kisses of many types, he had even used his mouth all over you!, but you hadn’t gotten all of Master yet. You had’t got that D, but damn did you want it.

But if he said not yet, you knew he meant it. Especially when it came to your care. Despite his rougher moments and the times he had to discipline you, he made sure you weren’t harmed in a bad way.

Master crouched down in front of you with something blurry in his hand. “Open your mouth, Kitten. Wide as you can.”

You felt something latch onto a part of your mouth and another and another and another and so on as you were fitted with a Spider Gag, your mouth held open as wide as it could go and the device set firmly in place, attached to head properly. It was better than an O-Ring for holding you open and upsizing, but felt weird at first. You hoped that sensation went away soon.

So distracted with the gag that you didn’t hear another set of wheels roll forward and lock in place. You did notice when you head was held still as a very large dildo was placed at the opening of your mouth.

“Kitten,” Master’s voice sounded from behind you this time as you felt something else being placed at the entrance of each hole and a ‘squick’ sound that you recognized as lube being slathered on something. “At each of your gorgeous, slutty little holes is a sex machine. I’m going to turn them on and they’re going to take you. I’ll start off slow, watching you from over here on this chair, and then once you can take the whole thing they’ll start to speed up. Eventually they’ll be changed out for a bigger size until you can take one close to my size.”

He spoke clearly, voice deepening with lust and it hit you that all this training, all this playing and “leveling up” was probably just as hard on him as it was you. Your disappointment faded and frustration lowered to a bare simmer. You would be a good Kitten for Master now and eventually you would be the best Kitten later.

“Get ready,”he warned, falling back into his chair. He held a remote in one hand and the other was already on his dick. “You can cum as much as you want, Kitten, because these toys? They’re going to wreck you oh-so beautifully, baby.”

You suddenly felt his hold on you snap, ending and everything hit you at once. The sensations that were once distant were right up in your face, your emotions bold and there, a light returned to your eyes that you couldn’t see, but your Master could and it made something within him heat up. Your mouth watered around the gag, as you stared the machine head on. The dildos looked massive and you subconsciously gulped. But you were a good Kitten. You would take them in all of your slutty, wet and ready little holes until Master thought you ready. Because you were going to have that dick.

Breathing deeply, you let your tongue slip forward a little, ready to have your mouth fucked and be on shown for your Master.

“Hope your ready, Kitten, because these double as fleshlights and collect your partner’s cum to use at just the right moments.”

Your eyes quickly peered to the side in surprise, unable to move your head to do so. He was smirking devilishly. The one that made you feel weak in the knees and get wet instantly. Oh, Master was very good to you.

“3, 2, take them well and I’ll let you clean me up with that pretty little mouth of yours, 1!”

Very, very good to you.

— End.

Yeah? Idk either. I cut several pages if unnecessary bits but. Yeaaah. Not my best. IwI and they pronoun me in inner. I need a nap 💤😅

Ahhh I meant to post this ages ago when I got it, I'm sorry it took so long! But oh my goodness did this do something to me 😩

[serenheist]

What Jennie is like in a relationship/ Relationship with G-Dragon Tarot reading

I know the anon asked for just a love life reading on Jennie but I’m extra and did everything lmao

What is the true nature of Jennie’s relationship with gdragon? Gloominous doom reversed 56, ace of swords, the hanged man reversed, lady of masks, triumph of lies, the glanconer 62 reversed

Oh god lmao. I don’t know why but I get the feeling this “relationship” is just for GD to be back on good terms with the korean general public. He got flack for smoking weed before, seungri shit, abandoning his dog, dating kiko etc etc. I really feel like him dating Jennie is just so the public has a better opinion of him when he decides to have a comeback lmao. Anyway the true nature of this relationship is literally someone full of extreme self pity had an idea to do this because it will make them look better and vice versa. But now there’s a feeling of being trapped. I really think this is an orchestrated relationship that was rushed and not based on actual love but for a specific purpose. But I do think it’s legit in the sense that it’s not that they’re not dating at all. But since Yg didn’t deny anything we can tell it’s “real”. Yg always denies if it’s definitely not a real relationship and always stays vague when it’s real. It’s made to look real for the public to get them talking but the core itself isn’t real. Basically pr shit. idc even if they got married none of this is real lmao.

I pulled 2 more cards from 2 different decks for extra clarification and I got the lady of masks and triumph of lies. You can’t make this up lol. “She reshapes the physical appearance of the souls who seek her out but this change is pure vanity, changing nothing of who they are at the core” it basically reflects who you want to be. This relationship is to make both parties look better lol. I feel that this is also a double meaning geared towards Jennie only because later cards in this reading continuously mention her wearing a mask. Triumph of lies is about keeping up appearances. This relationship is about living up to the expectations that society wants from you. I feel like it’s not just what people in the company want but also could be friends and family who put pressure on making this relationship happen for both. I can really see that since GD has a past of dating mostly models and the public has always been negative about everyone he’s dated except Jennie since she has a better reputation and for her this relationship can boost her status even more dating the king of kpop and being a power couple. I pulled a last card just to ask why you would need to fake a whole relationship even though we already know at this point and it’s redundant but I wanted to see how many times I can get cards saying the same shit. The glanconer 62 reversed: basically AGAIN someone is pretending to be other than they really are. I think both of them even believe in their own lie at this point and idk there’s a level of thinking you’re better than others so it’s okay to fool them anyway. Whatever makes you look good.

Who is Jennie in this/ her shadow aspect: obsession 3, gd: today for tomorrow 32

Since the beginning cards were pretty negative I wanted to dive deeper into Jennie and GD’s shadow aspects. And just use these cards to differentiate between them. GD is today for tomorrow and for Jennie I got obsession. The biggest shadow aspect to Jennie is that she feels as if she needs something whether that be a person, an idea, an object etc to give meaning to her life. She can also become really fixated on things to the point where that is the entire focal point of her life. It numbs her attention to other things.

How does Jennie feel about gd and how does he feel about her? Solus 13, the high priestess, the hierophant, gd: the guardian at the gate 3, queen of wands reversed, the fool

Jennie: Jennie feels that GD is someone who when you don’t know who to turn to or what to do, he is the person who can help you out. He encourages you stand on your own feet and utilize your own wisdom. But he also recognizes that you can’t do everything on your own so he helps you make the right connections with the right people and basically like a mentor position. I feel like they both almost see this connection as something “divine” at least in the beginning they could’ve convinced themselves this was this big divine intervention. But the reality started to set in and Jennie saw a different side of someone who has lost touch and went from being someone to look up to to becoming more “corrupted”. He no longer practices what he preaches, there’s lies mixed in with truth and the lines between right and wrong became more blurred. He does what he can to stay in power.

GD: He feels that Jennie is a new opportunity for a huge change. She’ll help provide an opportunity for him to make a big shift in his life. But at the same time he feels like she’s guarding herself and not being authentic with him. “Wearing masks that do not fit you”. I think he’s seen her change moods often from not figuring out how to release her passion and creativity in a healthy way and become more jealous and wanting to tear down others when she’s feeling down. Cause the queen of wands would be stepping in your power not hiding behind anything and appearing exactly how you are. Reversed it can bring out bring dramatic and feeling out of control of your own life and lack of enthusiasm. I think he’s seen her lose her passion for even being in the industry itself. I think that’s he’s wanting to take a leap of faith into something new I don’t know if he would want to stay in this “relationship” but I’m seeing it more of him going off on his own and stop worrying about the fear of the unknown. Honestly both seem like a hot mess for each other there’s a lot of work they gotta do on themselves separately because this whole connection is weird and toxic.

How long does it take her to get into a relationship? Does she prefer long or short term relationships? Princess of pentacles, 3 of swords, queen of swords 5 of wands reversed, 2 of wands, temperance reversed

She’s always been observant and was careful before in the beginning of relationships but no amount of carefulness can’t prevent heartbreak. It kind of hardened her and she learned how to play the game so to speak. The fact that the queen of swords is holding a severed head tells you all you need to know what happens if you break her heart. She seems burnout with relationships but at the same time can’t stop herself from not being in one because then you’ll be alone with your demons. I think she does prefer long term relationships but Jennie seems to go from one extreme to another. She plans for the long term but she also can’t control her emotions because they’re so intense. She’ll sabotage it and rush into a relationship with someone because she’s already planning this whole future and the other person is like “uhhh we just met..?” I think she builds up a fantasy in her head and gets carried away at times. And that’s where a lot of conflict and arguments arise and the cycle continues.

Past and present relationships. past: firgun 10 magick of you oracle, 2 of pentacles, Present: Euphoria 9, 5 of cups

I hate this word but I feel like in her past relationships she felt like the person she was with was her “twin flame”. This person was her mirror basically, every little thing she was and did was mirrored back to her. It was about learning how to heal the anger and hurt and learn to be happy for others success. But the relationship itself was a constant act of balancing career and love and all the ups and downs. It seems like even in her present love life she is still lingering over past relationships and now hides her actual feelings. There’s a lot of mask imagery in this whole reading. And not seeing everything you already have but being consumed with the thoughts of what went wrong or why it isn’t this way. And no longer sharing your true self fully. Instead there’s an element of not her not taking care of herself physically. Sharing herself intimately with people who treat her like garbage, poor eating, dragging yourself through workouts, excess of toxic substances; these are examples.

What is she like in a relationship? Eternal servitor, 10 of pentacles reversed, the lady of the harvest 18 reversed, the singer of intuition 7

This imagery of a person with no face and a whole in its chest really stands out to me again. It seems that when Jennie is in a relationship she still hides her true self and is constantly on a never ending search to fill something in herself that she feels is lacking. I think she uses money, clothing, love itself as a way to distract herself from this emptiness she feels inside and each time she wants more and more. Like she has to upgrade to the next biggest thing and it traps her in an infinite loop of never being satisfied. Idk but I guess it’s her wanting the world to see her importance; if she has these things then she is now worthy and it gives her a feeling of purpose. It’s not just the pressure of herself needing the best “thing” but a loooot of pressure from family and others to find a “suitable” partner. They need to come from the right background, make this amount of money, etc so her family can show off how wonderful this partner is and how amazing Jennie is doing. Even the next card “the lady of the harvest” reversed speaks of this again. It’s crazy how almost all of the cards are just saying the same thing. It’s about staying in denial and refusing to accept a loss and cling onto pain instead. Jennie is the type of person who thinks “if I can’t have it, no one will”. When she sees something she wants and can’t get it she will go into destruction mode because she feels that it’s the only solution. She’s not a forgive and forget person. A line in this guidebook really stands out to me “if you love something, let it go. If it doesn’t come back, hunt it down and kill it.” Pretty much sums up her mentality. Even if she enters a new relationship her mind is consumed by the past and the present relationship is only to save face and show off the image she tries to create to please literally everyone except herself. I think she’s very perceptive and can know someone who she’s with inside and out. She’s also very aware of the image she needs to uphold. There’s pretty much nothing you can hide from her because her intuition is so strong.

What is her "type"? the piper 24, 8 of wands reversed, Ta’Om the poet 29, Arthur

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: she likes musicians. Also the fact that this is legit the only faerie in this 66 card deck playing an instrument so what are the odds. She appreciates someone who pays attention to the subtle expressions of feelings and ideas and can see into her soul basically. It’s communication without words and that makes music that can heal your sorrows and pains. Someone that listens to not just surface level words but to the deeper meaning that can only be heard with your heart. Seductive, someone who looks serious but is actually mischievous and fun.

He encourages you to unfold your wings and fly, do the things you’re afraid to do, stop being silent and speak up, have a youthful spirit and do the thing you’ve been putting off for so long. He has a lust for life, adventure, an excellent storyteller and writing skills and a huge imagination. He has the power to inspire action with just his words. He sees things as they really are and sees beauty in all things even in the darkness and difficulty of life. He doesn’t take life so seriously though he knows how to laugh at himself and knows how silly it is to be sad over hardships in life. He doesn’t care for society’s expectations he’s a free spirit. But at the same time he slows down and knows how to enjoy the journey and not rush by the seat of his pants. He’s someone that’ll stand the test of time and be by her side through thick and thin.

What is her love language? Myk the myomancer 42, the oak men 47, 10 of wands

Idk if this really fits into any of the “official”love languages but her love language is someone seeing the small details, seeing meaning in the little things. So maybe little gifts even that don’t have to be huge but just shows that you’ve paid attention to what she likes as long as it has meaning and is well thought out. When you can’t see the finish line and it looks like it’s impossible to keep going that person is there to have your back. Also someone that sees her for who she truly is in her heart and can look past the superficial hard exterior cause I’m pretty sure it’s just a defense mechanism mixed with the environment she grew up and past relationships and she’s not actually the Antichrist contrary to how negative this reading may seem.

Probably typos but whateves

[sagefzy]

PART ELEVEN: THE PERFORMANCE

perfectionism | prev | next

After sitting down for about ten minutes, Atsumu redirected his attention to the now dimming lights. The once lit up auditorium was now only being illuminated from the light appearing on the stage. There was almost an entrancing aura in the room, everyone gathered in the same room for the sole purpose of watching people showcase their musical talent. Though completely different activities, he couldn't help but be reminded of the similar feeling when watching a volleyball match.

Although Suna had mentioned to him many times that he and you had two very distinct and different personalities, he couldn't help but disagree. From the little he'd observed, you both had strong passions that you had dedicated your whole lives to. Even though you two may approach situations differently. You both have a mutual understanding of the thrill that comes with pushing yourself to the limit for something.

He had never really chosen to get to know another person on a deeper level. Of course, there was Osamu, but that didn't really count since that was his brother. Additionally, his friendship with Suna was only a byproduct of Osamu's friendship with him. Atsumu constantly had girls throwing themselves at him, and even though he enjoyed basking in their attention, he knew that they were only in love with the idea of him.

Outside of volleyball and his family, he never got the chance to have a close relationship with someone, but that was something he was willing to sacrifice for the sake of achieving his dreams. Not to mention, he always had the lingering fear that, in the end, people only hung out with him to get close to Osamu. He really hoped that you were an exception to that case.

The competition had to at least been going on for an hour now, Atsumu thought to himself. When he imagined attending a piano competition, he envisioned a relaxing show that he could attend for free, but that wasn't the case. Instead, he spent his time watching musicians attempt to play grand, complex pieces to perfection, but at most they only achieved mediocre performances. Just how long was it going to take for you to come on stage?

"Now presenting contestant 105, l/n y/n. Playing piano concerto number one in E minor, opus eleven: two. Romance larghetto."

His eyes were directed to your figure that now walked onto the stage. Your head held high, your footing confident. Atsumu grinned, noticing that you were sporting that perfect smile of yours. He watched as you took a deep breath while fixing your stool.

Before your hands touched the keys, he observed how, for a quick second, your eyes changed from confident to anxious when studying the crowd. Your eyes were glued in the same spot briefly, however they were quickly averted back to the instrument. Could it be that large crowds made you anxious? No, it couldn't be, you seemed way too confident walking out on stage. He wondered just what made you apprehensive.

He continued to watch you intently.

Your fingers graced the keys. They quickly found their tempo and danced to the rhythm. You didn't miss a single beat nor note as you played. Everything was played to perfection, just as it always was.

Your smile disappeared, only to be replaced with a face of precision and focus. Your hands produced a soft melody, making the sound glide into his ears. No previous performer enchanted the audience like you did. The notes danced and swayed in the air.

Your song had so much power to it. It was as if a mystical spell was casted in the room the minute that you started to play. Atsumu's eyes widened as he watched you get lost in the song. There was absolutely no hesitation as you played. Your body was completely in tune with the instrument.

Although you weren't saying anything, you were telling a story to everyone in the room, captivating them. It was all perfect. Your rhythm, notes, tempo, and tone- it was exactly as written on paper. You quite literally were playing the piece perfectly. However, the story you were telling with your music, wasn't quite your own, but rather the composer.

You were guaranteed a first place win since you were playing a technical piece perfectly, but it lacked the emotion. You played it exactly as the composer intended, nothing more, nothing less.

Atsumu recognized the seemingly stoic look on your face. It wasn't something he could decipher easily at first, but now hearing you play, he could understand it. You were so obsessed, so intent with playing it perfectly, something he often found himself partaking in when in an important match. You were perfect, but at what cost?

There was no denying that you were extremely talented, certainly more talented than himself, he thought. But, he could only imagine how much more captivating you could be when expressing your own emotions with your talent.

As your song neared its end, the whole room stood up in applause. You stood up, knowing you played it perfectly, but you still felt empty. You remember a time where you used to love savoring the gratification from an overwhelmed audience. Now, however, you stood in front of everyone clapping for your perfect performance, and you couldn't feel less accomplished. Perhaps you were being too hard on yourself. When did playing piano turn into a chore?

You glanced to the top of the audience, the same place you were looking before the performance, and locked eyes with your dad. The same unreadable expression was present on his face. He shook his head and walked out the exit door. Your chest grew heavy, trying its best to hold in your tears in front of the audience.

You bowed in front of the audience, trying your best to conceal the emotions running rampant in you. You swiftly paced yourself offstage, running past your mentor who was there for support and into the backstage bathroom.

Your back leaned on the heavy door, all of your bottled feelings washing out. You looked at your face in the mirror, placing two hands over your heated cheeks. Your eyes started to sting, but you still stared into the reflection. Anger, disappointment, humiliation, vulnerability, and most of all, loneliness. You let it all spill out at that moment.

There was so much more you wanted to do with your music, but at that moment no amount of praise could convince you that it was worth it. All in life you ever wanted to do was make your dad proud, show him that you are worthy enough to be your mother's daughter. Was anything you did ever going to be good enough for him?

"y/n, it's Haruka-sensei." A voice from the door knocked. "I thought you played the piece perfectly, I'll be in the lobby, so come out when you're ready."

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath. Your hands made their way to your face again, this time cleaning up the tears and smudged mascara. Looking up one last time, you smiled into the mirror. Over the years, you convinced yourself that if you faked being happy enough, eventually you will be. It's not like anyone could tell the difference from it anyways.

You opened the door slowly, trying to gain your composure again. You bumped into many kids roaming the halls backstage looking anxious to perform. The maze of people was something you were now used to navigating.

The lobby was empty with the exception of your sensei and dad, everyone else still in the auditorium watching the final stretch of the performances. Haruka-sensei and your dad didn't get along for the most part, which is why you weren't surprised when you saw them standing in completely opposite areas of the room.

Your dad was first to approach you. "What did you think that was?" His voice was laced with alcohol. Your gaze met his. His eyes filled with resentful judgement. "You think you can get away playing like shit and make your way to the top?"

Droplets of tears fell to the ground once more. "I asked you a question!"

You looked to the ground. "No, I know I'll never be good enough." You sniffed harshly, still trying to maintain your composure, but failing. You hated crying in front of your dad. It was arguably the worst feeling in the world, like you were being isolated in a dark void with nothing but disappointment.

He watched you cry. You could feel his gaze burning into the top of your head, which still faced the ground in fear. All of a sudden, you felt a harsh grip on your wrist that was sure to leave a bruise.

"And don't you ever forget that," He spat. "I bet your mother is even more repulsed by you than I am. It's a joke that you think you'll ever be anything great." He shook your arm firmly, forcing you to see the aggravation displayed on his expression.

"That's enough," Haruka yelled, shoving your dad to the side. She might've been a small lady, but she sure did know how to stand her ground. "I can't stand hearing you spread such bullshit hatred to your own daughter. You make me sick. Why don't you go and get yourself even more drunk. Maybe you'll wake up and find yourself passed out on a park bench."

He rolled his eyes and scoffed. He left the building, leaving just you and Haruka.

"Listen, y/n, I think you played beautifully. Your technique was perfect, and with just a few tweaks here and there, I'm sure you'll be more than ready to take the top spot at nationals." She praised. She gave you a genuine smile and pulled you into a hug.

Feeling overwhelmed, you started to cry for the third time that hour. "Shh- don't worry about your dad, he's just a loser-asshole that projects all his issues onto you." You felt comforted by her embrace. Although she'd only known you for about a month now, Haruka had quickly become one of your favorite piano mentors. She had the loving presence and embrace of a mother, something that was so foreign to you at first.

After your heavy tears and emotions subsided, you re-entered the backstage hallways. You sat in the corner of the hallway, directing your attention to a boy- who couldn't have been any older than twelve. He sat next to his mom, holding her hand as he kept on muttering about his nervousness.

You watched as the mom eased his nerves with a single statement. "My child, I love you now, and I'll still love you after you go out and perform." The words warmed your heart. The affection from a mother was a distant memory in your mind. You could never recall a moment you were sad around your mother. Why did she have to leave so soon?

Before the kid could respond, he was called out to perform. He hugged his mom quickly and scrambled to the stage. You sat there lost in your thoughts, imagining what life would be like if your mother didn't pass away so early on.

You sighed. There was no use in fantasizing about a false reality even if it brought you temporary peace from your discomfort. What only mattered now was the present moment.

You noticed that the boy was back, a giant grin plastered on his face as he met up with his mother, it'd only be a few minutes until the winners were announced. Soon enough, all of the competitors were asked to reconvene at the stage.

You looked out at the audience again, but this time it was different. Rather than feeling anxious when meeting the gaze of someone, you felt content. Atsumu flashed his famous smirk and displayed a thumbs up, only to be quickly smacked down by Osamu. The two seemed to get into an argument after that, making you look at Suna who was now a giggling mess. The whole event made you laugh, momentarily forgetting about the heavy reign of disappointment on your shoulder.

However, the three of them got their act together once the top three standings were being announced. This part always made you fidgety. The uncertainty of the outcome always twisted your stomach in knots. Once second and third place were announced you took a deep breath, hoping that you were to be crowned first.

"And-" Here it was, you thought. The moment that decided whether or not you'd go to nationals. "-first place for the Hyogo Regional piano competition goes to-" You could feel your heart beating out of your chest. Your nails dug into your arm, the tension eating away at you. "-l/n y/n."

You almost jumped to the front of the stage when they announced your name. You did it, despite what your dad said, you did it. And it didn't matter what hateful words of disappointment he spat at you because in that very moment, you were enough.

Atsumu watched as you were handed a certificate. A radiant smile now present on your face. This smile was different, though. The one he was used to seeing was the seemingly perfect one, the one so perfect it was almost fake. The one you wore right now was one of genuine, heartfelt joy. Was this the real you? Just what else were you hiding under that perfect smile?

Osamu tapped his shoulder. "Stop staring at yer little girlfriend and let's go to the lobby before it gets too crowded. Suna said we're going to go out for udon."

"Yeah, yeah 'm coming," He muttered, never once taking his eyes off of your smile.

fun facts !

Osamu and Atsumu are notorious for always being late for everything, whether it be 10 minutes to an hour.

Atsumu daydreams when he's bored, only paying attention to what he wants to.

Every time Osamu cooks, he always puts on music in the background and it always differs depending on his mood.

perfectionism ©

smau written by @sagefzy

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