#but the terrible world outside of the blankets awaits

[catboybiologist]

I like my coffee like I like my women- bold, bitter, and strong enough to kill me

[nichenarratives]

Frozen Hearts

An Obscure Miniseries

In an attempt to raise Viktor for a job without freezing his tail off, Mordecai decides to drive in the thick winter snow, only to have an accident. Irritated his young triggerman continues to be reckless, Atlas orders him out of the speakeasy and into Viktor's apartment to recover, leading to some awkward conversations, situations and a whole lot of bonding.

1. Bad Idea

Winter takes Missouri in its icy grip early in 1922, suffocating foliage and freezing pipes with extreme prejudice. Even the evergreens seem to struggle, the ground frozen and barren around their roots refusing nourishment or water. Firs lining the streets begin to brown beneath the weight of snow and frost, only the most resilient trees retaining their green pine needles as February approaches, the felines of St Louis all desperately awaiting the thaw and arrival of spring buds.

Being temperate, the natives would say Missouri benefits from milder seasons than neighbouring states, yet Mordecai Heller would call it unfortunate to experience both. A native of New York, known for harsher winters and mild summers, most assume he would suffer more in heat. Unfortunately, equally affected by minor deviations from innate comfortable temperature thresholds, the shorthaired tom finds both to be unbearable in their own specific ways, especially the cold.

In the winter, he can't seem to wear enough layers to keep warm, not when conforming to his own strict requirements for propriety. There's only so many long sleeve vests and long johns one can squeeze beneath a suit before it starts to look awful, and Mordecai won't sacrifice appearance for comfort. His three piece, fleeced undergarments and a coat are all he will permit, but even with a scarf and hat, he feels the chill permeate his bones as soon as he steps outside.

Given the choice, the tuxedo would hibernate through the winter; woolen pajamas, thick blankets and copious cups of tea all take the edge off, as does attending a roaring fire in the hearth. Mordecai would wile the months away, reading through texts and classic literature until the snow and frosts were replaced with spring grasses.. if only he could.

A cup of tea and a blanket sound like heaven, he thinks as, with his collar turned up against the cold, Mordecai trudges through an inch of snow to the car. Unfortunately, the world at large doesn't share his hibernation sentiments and with the Lackadaisy Speakeasy blossoming in the years since prohibition, its liquor stores constantly need resupplying. Tes would be far more warming than that awful liquor…

An often hours-long round trip to trusted importers in a cold, metal death trap, Mordecai isn't fond of resupply runs. He'd much rather be burning storehouses to the ground, covering Viktor in raids or even the god-awful task of interrogations. Excessively long, silent road trips aren't exactly enjoyable, especially when his partner is crime has made it obvious he prefers the silence; and now, to top it off, he's going to be teeth-chatteringly cold while they're at it. 

Jamming the key into the car door, Mordecai unlocks the driver's side and slides behind the wheel, before taking a moment to blow into his gloves palms. He'd normally walk to Viktor's apartment a few blocks from the speakeasy and let Viktor walk back to get the car, but it's too cold; even inside the vehicle, he can't stop shivering, ears folded back to his head in an attempt to warm their icy tips and shoulders hunched against the frigid air.

When his breath seems to do very little to warm his hands, Mordecai gives up and guns the engine, hoping running the thing will create some warmth in the cabin. 

A terrible driver - having only ever been shown the basics in an emergency by Viktor, when he was too injured to drive and needed medical assistance - he grits his teeth when the gears grind as he forces the car into drive. A quick pause to check his mirrors, he steps a little too heavy on the gas and gasps when the car lurches forwards in his unskilled hands, squealing tires throwing up filthy snow as he careens out into the icy street.

It takes minutes to get to three blocks at one in the morning. Mordecai somehow manages to avoid hitting anything right up until he tries to stop. With no experience driving on ice or snow, he jams on the brakes and exudes a strangled murr of concern as the wheels lock and the car continues skating down the road at thirty miles an hour. When another attempt to brake fails and he rapidly overshoots his intended mark, the tom makes a final mistake; he swiftly turns the wheel.

The rear of the car swings wildly forwards, dispelling much of the forward momentum but carrying the vehicle onto its two passenger side wheels. For a brief moment, Mordecai is flying; clinging to the wheel as his feet are carried off of the pedals, eyes wide and mouth open in a silent scream while both gravity and basic physics seem to tip the car in slow motion, hat and pince nez in flight within the cabin.

Gravity wins; the Cadillac overbalances and with a distinct crunch, the wing mirror crushes against the asphalt, the entire right hand side of the car impacting on the road a millisecond after. Mordecai is haplessly thrown to the other side of the cab, wrenching his arms off the wheel and slamming his face, shoulder and right arm into the somehow still intact passenger window so hard, it shatters on impact.

The contraption skids across the cobbles, ten entire seconds of screeching metal and crushed glass piercing in an otherwise silent road until finally, it comes to a halt thirty feet away when it hits a light pole. Silence falls again; the light pole flickers and dies as if the sound were swallowed by the same darkness enveloping the scratched up, overturned car. Snow continues to flutter down around it, filling the skid tracks anew, coating the tragedy in white.

Mordecai daren't move; his head hurts, his face stings like a raw wound and he's seeing double, hazy vision swaying as if rocked by a non-existent breeze exacerbating his inherited myopia. Bracing a gloved palm on the broken glass beneath his face, the tom tries to lever himself up, but with his lower body wedged between the gear stick and dashboard and a leg bent against the cracked windscreen, his attempts are a futile waste of rapidly draining energy.

An overwhelming exhaustion turns Mordedai's sight black at the edges, dragging him away from consciousness. His arm dives way and he falls back to his burning shoulder with a weak whimper. Vaguely aware he can't feel his fingers and a weak attempt to move them, warm blood drips into an eye from an open wound on his forehead, turning his world an unnerving red just a moment before it fades to black.

~.~.~

The bobcat is attempting to fix a leaky faucet when he hears it; skidding tires, an ear-splitting screech of metal on tarmac, and a final crunch as two metallic objects collide outside. He pauses his work and looks towards the window, cracked just a smidgen for the luxury of fresh air despite the oppressive chill, contemplating going outside. 

With a palm splayed on the underside of the sink and his other clutching the wrench still in place on the leaking nut, it would be easy to go back to work like nothing happened. Having the window cracked might be the only reason Viktor heard it though, which means he may be the only bystander aware of an accident taking place. Normally, he wouldn't be so bothered; with the speed limitation on public vehicles - a limitation he'd effectively removed from the company car for illicit purposes - most people walked away from a crash with minor wounds, making bystander intervention pointless.

Unfortunately, he's also aware of the sub zero temperatures outside. Even as a bobcat, fully fleeced with a thick double coat for optimal heat management, Viktor can feel the cold seeping into his apartment through the window. If knocked unconscious or trapped within the vehicle, it wouldn't matter if the driver's injuries were minor; he could freeze to death in a quarter of an hour in this kind of weather.

Viktor closes his eye and sighing heavily, abandons the still leaking faucet, using the nearby armchair to rise to his feet with a grunt when his stiff knee complains. The cold is bad for his old joint, no matter how warm he seems to dress; his long johns, vest and woolen pajamas keep him adequately warm alongside his fur indoors, even with the window open.

He grabs a sweater off the sofa, then pulls on an overcoat and thick, leather boots, picking up a lantern along the way for good measure before he steps outside his first floor apartment and heads out into the icy night. The falling snow, expanse of white and empty streets momentarily stop him on the step, a litany of nostalgic memories of home assaulting his senses, but he shakes them off and treads carefully into the snow, lantern raised as he searches for the accident.

If no one is dying, he's going to be so pissed.

It takes a few minutes and a short walk to find it; a divot in the snow already filling up with fresh powder flecks, roughly the length of a car and extending beyond the range of his lantern. With a frown, Viktor steps into the divot and follows it back to an extinguished light pole, a Cadillac bent around the base almost exactly at the halfway mark. With the roof dented in the vehicle is almost comically banana shaped.

"Hello?" The Slovak calls into the darkness, holding out the lantern and turning up the gas, the yellowish hue making it hard to discern the car's actual colour. There's no reply, but he steps closer, walking around the back of the car for any sign of a hasty exit - a busted window, open door, blood on the frame - but finds nothing; if someone was inside the car when it crashed, they're still there. 

He treds through the snow towards the front of the car and sees a dark shadow crumpled against the passenger side of the vehicle, unmoving and not unresponsive. "Anyvone hear me?" Viktor tries again, but with no response, a bad feeling begins to swirl on his stomach. He almost doesn't want to step closer, but he does so, resting a palm on the upturned hood to shine his light on the crumpled figure. "Van't hel-?"

The bobcat's question dies in his throat when he's met not with a stranger, but the twisted, bleeding body of a familiar face; he assigned partner and coworker, Mordecai Heller. The snow around the broken passenger window is turning pink, while his contorted body is jammed between the gear stick and mahogany console, foot awkwardly braced against the windshield and arms in disarray around his head.

Viktor drops the lanturn to the snow, unaware of it toppling over, glass case protecting the flame within. Of all the things he'd expected to find - of the tragedies he could have borne witness to, attending this accident - the unconscious body of someone he cares about wasn't one of them. The feeling in his gut swiftly evolves part fear, conflicting emotions masked by a military-drilled compulsion to act quickly.

It takes a single strike for the compromised glass to shatter under his heavy boot. Glistening shards scatter, invisible in the snow except for the lantern's dancing reflections. Viktor pays it no mind and crouching down, reaches into the car to extract the smaller tom with as much care as he can, while still moving swiftly, well aware that stronger men have died of exposure after less time in blizzards back home.

Despite being manhandled in ways that would usually make him squirm, Mordecai remains limp and unresponsive as the bobcat pulls him from the wreckage. Glass clinks and falls from the tuxedo in shimmering, sparkling flakes, more still glistening in dark facial fur as Viktor draws him close to a broad chest and presses two fingers to his throat, holding his breath without meaning to.

Ba-bum... Ba-bum.

It's sluggish beneath chill skin, but there's a pulse. Viktor isn't sure if he's relieved or afraid, looking up at the empty street shrouded in white, not another soul to be seen. With no clear idea what to do beyond warming the tuxedo up and finding medical assistance, the bobcat shrugs off his coat to bundle Mordecai up, disconcerted that he doesn't complain or even flinch when obvious injuries are manipulated.

His best friend on the verge of death and swaddled like a newborn, Viktor draws the tom close to us chest and begins the three block walk back to lackadaisy. The nearest place he knows who have a phone to call a doctor, or a car he can use to drive out to Elsa, because he's not sure blankets and a warm fire will be enough on a freezing February morning.

[scarasun]

"etched onto my heart." ~

{ pairing } zhongli x gn!reader

{ word count } 1.3k

{ genre/warnings } hurt/comfort. lots and lots of depressing thoughts. zhongli being soft for his s/o

{ summary } in the midst of an emotional rough patch, you find yourself standing on your balcony in the middle of the night, alone with your thoughts. that is, until your husband joins you with a reminder that the world could be crumbling, and he would still love you with everything he has to offer.

{ a/n } this is purely self-indulgent :,) if you find yourself relating to this, just know that you're not the only one who feels this way. you're not alone!

The feeling of being invisible was something that had followed you around for as long as you remembered. You would be living your life normally, and then after a minor trigger, your mood would take a turn for the worse. These bouts of sadness usually lasted for a few days, but that didn’t lessen the impact it left on you, and you often felt weak and powerless when it was over. You wished the world would stop to join in with your hurt, but it never stopped spinning, highlighting the bitter loneliness that came with your invisibility. On your worst days, the negative thoughts whirling through your head were more prominent, like red wine spilt on a clean, white carpet. 

Why was I never good enough?  

Why does everyone treat me like I don’t mean anything to them?  

Why does it feel like no one sees me for who I am? 

You tried desperately to combat these thoughts by reassuring yourself that you were surrounded by a handful of lovely people who would be at your side in a heartbeat, if anything was wrong. But this thought alone was never enough to chase away your fears. Your depression tightened around your chest with each second, weighing on your heart and sometimes making it difficult to breathe. Although you knew confessing to feeling this way would make you feel terribly ashamed, a part of you wanted someone to notice that something was very wrong. 

This was how you found yourself on the balcony right outside the bedroom you shared with Zhongli. You needed to feel the cold wind on your face, tousling your hair lightly and drying your eyes. You needed to see the twinkling stars and the melancholic moon, reflecting your own sadness. You needed to feel the comforting warmth of your husband’s arms around you…but he was heavily asleep, and you didn’t want to rouse him. 

Gazing out at the city of Liyue beneath your feet, you found yourself distracted momentarily by the way it stood illuminated against the night sky, a testament to how far the citizens of Liyue had come without its archon. Lost in your thoughts, you didn’t hear the footsteps padding behind you. 

You became aware of Zhongli’s presence when you felt a warm, cozy blanket cover your bare shoulders, the intoxicating scent of osmanthus wine and cedarwood invading your senses. Surprised, you staggered away from the balcony railing and fell into his arms, your back flush against his warm chest. The pads of his fingers graced your shoulders gently, as if he were handling a delicate flower, and his wedding band glimmered under the moonlight. Silence thickened the air, and you heard him sigh.

“My love, do you mind telling me what you’re doing out here in the middle of such a cold night?” he whispered gently, his warm breath tickling the shell of your ear.   

A paralyzing pressure began to build in your heart, and you felt tears sting the corners of your eyes. Taking a deep, steadying breath, you turned around, gazing at your husband’s tired face. His hair was a bit tousled, but his eyes stood at attention, golden irises shining in the city lights. You knew he was silently awaiting your answer. Opening your mouth to reassure him that you just needed some fresh air, you found that your voice had stopped working. There was a lump in your throat, and you weren’t sure how to talk without bursting into tears. 

“Something’s been bothering you for a long time, y/n. We can talk about it if you want,” you didn’t realize that your eyes had sunken to the floor, and he tilted your chin up, making you meet his worried gaze. 

You desperately wanted to tell your husband about what had been troubling you, but to your horror, you found that you had never told anyone about the way you felt, and you weren’t sure how to begin. 

As empathetic as he was, you didn’t think Zhongli would understand your woes anyways. He was the damn Geo Archon – he probably never knew what it was like to feel unloved or unappreciated. With his status, he had worked for thousands of years to shape Liyue into the budding city it was now, his people strong and independent citizens. Although they didn’t need him anymore, there was no denying that he was technically the backbone of Liyue’s history.

But even though this might’ve been the case…you couldn’t keep feeling like shit alone. He was your husband, and you didn’t want to risk hurting him by making him believe that there was something you were keeping from him. He was a patient man, but everyone had their limits. Clearing your throat, you told him about the way you felt, the words falling from your dry lips in incomprehensible lumps. Zhongli listened attentively, hanging on to every word.  

Finding nothing else to say, you lapsed into silence, suddenly feeling more naked and exposed than ever. You refused to meet his eyes, afraid that you would only find judgment in them. Your mind raced, trying to find a way to compensate for your outburst, when you felt his hands on your face. His thumbs brushed away the tears you didn’t realize were falling, and you couldn’t help but look at his face. 

His eyes were filled with an intense warmth and gentleness, and despite your blurry vision, you sensed that his determination to understand your problem was burning brightly. You reached out to him like a lost child who had finally found their parents, and he enveloped you in a hug. You felt your knees buckle, but his strong arms held you upright, a silent reassurance that he would be your pillar of strength. Feeling your tears stain his shirt, he rubbed your back in small, soothing circles, hoping that the simple action would help mend your broken heart. 

His lips pressed into your hair, he murmured, “My love, don’t you know you mean the world to me? I might not look like it, but I would be so lost without you.”

He chuckled lightly, the sound reverberating through his chest, and you found a small smile gracing your lips as you sobbed.  

“From the moment I met you, you’ve been etched onto my heart, forever. I don’t want you to ever think for a minute that you’re not enough. You’re perfect, darling, and I will devote the rest of my long life to making sure you always remember this.” 

He kissed your hair once more, and you buried your face deeper into his chest. You had no idea how long the both of you stayed like that, your ear pressed against his chest as you listened to the steady thumping of his heartbeat, but he never let go. Your tears subsided, and you leaned back to look him in the eyes, unable to fight the delirious laugh climbing up your throat. It felt so good to know that even though you had exposed the ugliest parts of yourself, he still loved you earnestly.  

“I take it I’ve successfully managed to cheer you up?” he asked lightly, brushing your hair out of your face. 

Wordlessly, you took his face into your hands, meeting his soft lips with yours. He stiffened for a moment – still cautious about your feelings – before melting into the kiss, his arms encircling you once again. You could only think about how much you wanted to remain like that for the rest of eternity, relishing his warmth and using it to steady yourself. 

He broke away from the kiss first, leaning his forehead against yours. “I love you so much, my love. Never forget that.” 

In the haze of your sudden euphoria, a single thought crossed your mind: why did you ever run from his arms in your darkest times? You couldn’t seem to remember the reason, but his honey eyes were a reminder that his comfort was a home you could return to whenever you needed a place to rest. 

[hellofeanor]

Fëanorian Quenya

Hey friends! Do you like elves? Do you like the Silmarillion? Do you like Fëanor and co? And most of all, do you like spending hours thinking about minor details pertaining to made-up languages??? If so, boy do I have a treat for you! Let’s delve into the weird world of Fëanorian Quenya and explore some history and mechanics of why they talk Like That.

I’ve seen a lot of posts joking about the Fëanorian lisp, which is about as funny as a joke about a speech impediment can be. 👍 It’s important to understand, though, that this IS a joke. No, they didn’t really speak with a lisp. Yes, they did pronounce some S sounds as TH. That’s the critical disclaimer here: SOME. It’s not a blanket pronunciation. There’s a lot of background research that goes into determining which words would be pronounced with S and which would be TH, and that’s what we’re going to look at.

So if this is something you’ve come across in fandom and you’re not totally sure on the details, or if you ARE sure and just want some more in-depth info, read on.

The stuff probably everybody knows already

For anyone who’s been hanging around the Fëanorian corner of the Silm fandom for more than three minutes, there’s about a 100% chance you’ve heard of Fëanor’s penchant for retaining an archaic TH pronunciation after the majority of the Noldor went ahead and started pronouncing this sound as S instead. You may also know that this sound is represented by the letter thorn (Þ) in HoME, but since thorn doesn’t exist in modern English orthography and it’s a pain to keep typing the ALT code, I’m sticking to TH here. Anyway, all this was due to the fact that Fëanor was a huge mama’s boy, and his mom Míriel Therindë (later called Serindë, which made Fëanor want to punch walls and possibly also fellow elves) was an outlier who retained the TH after it fell out of use. Her son Fëanor, in turn, kept this up to honor her. Now, whether or not he would have bothered if this sound hadn’t literally been a critical part of her name is debatable, but that debate is outside the scope of this essay.

Fëanor continued to use the TH pronunciation until his death, and required his sons to use it as well. Finwë, however, switched over to S after the death of Míriel and before his marriage to Indis. Fëanor, reasonable and level-headed as he was, took this as a personal insult and decided that anybody who rejected TH likewise rejected him. So presumably, his loyal followers would have obeyed his totally reasonable demands not to give in to the seductive S-shift.

Why tho

Why did the Noldor decide to alter their pronunciation from TH to S? Great question. Nobody really knows. For the hell of it? IDK. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But the important thing to understand is that elves, and especially Noldor, were really committed to making sure their language sounds cool. This is why it changed so much and so comparatively quickly for an immortal population: they were actively invested in changing it. They liked inventing new words and exploring new sounds and messing around with grammar.

So at some point some influential Noldo might have been like, hey y’all, let’s stop saying TH and say S instead! And everyone (except Míriel I guess, who was known for her elegant manner of speech and didn’t want to muck that up by changing pronunciation of a whole letter) was like, whoa, capital idea my good egg. And they went with it. Previous ideas along these lines included ‘hey y’all, let’s stop saying KH and say H instead’ and ‘hey y’all, let’s stop saying Z and say R instead’, and those went over swimmingly. Nobody could have foreseen the problem this TH to S business would cause.

Now here’s a fun fact. There was another change to Noldorin pronunciation that happened AFTER Fëanor’s birth, that he himself was involved in. This one was all about bilabial to labiodental F. And those sure are some words, so if you don’t know what I’m talking about (I don’t blame you), BILABIAL is a more whispery sound that happens when you say F using only air passing through your pursed lips, and LABIODENTAL is when you say F with your top teeth touching your bottom lip. Going forward I’m going to use PH to represent the bilabial sound, and F for the labiodental.

So F got on the radar of the Noldor via the Teleri, who used this sound in their language. And ol’ Fëanor figured it would be awesome to incorporate it into Quenya because he thought the PH sounded too close to HW, and the two were getting confused by lazy speakers. Why did he care? Because of his dad’s name and his own, of course. If people started to get lazy in their pronunciation, we’d end up with Hwinwë and Hwëanáro, which would be terrible and stupid and unacceptable. He accused the Vanyar of leaning down that road, and he wanted to stop that kind of shift before it happened to the Noldor. How to do that? Why, by instigating a different shift from traditional Noldorin PH to Telerin F!

“Hey y’all, let’s stop saying PH and say F instead!”

“Whoa, capital idea my good egg.”

Moral of the story: Fëanor is only concerned with Quenya pronunciation insofar as it affects his own name and the names of family members he likes. He does not care whether it’s staying the same or moving to a new sound so long as it personally makes him feel good and his name sound cool. Therefore the true way to piss him off would be to call him Curuhwinwë Hwëanáro, son of Serindë.

Okay so here’s how it works

Now that history is out of the way, let’s get back to how TH was used by the Fëanorians. As I mentioned earlier, TH wasn’t a blanket pronunciation. It all depended on the original form of the word, and whether the root had a TH or an S. And some very similar-sounding words come from different roots, so this can get tricky. A great resource that’ll give you this information is Eldamo: Quenya words where the S was originally TH are marked out with the Þ (thorn) symbol in the wordlist.

Some examples:

Súlë (spirit, breath) comes from the root THŪ, which means it would be pronounced with a TH. Silma (white crystal) comes from the root SIL, so it and related words like Silmaril would be pronounced with an S. No Fëanorian would say Thilmaril. Isil (moon), however, is a similar-sounding word that comes from a different root: THIL. Olos (mass of flowers) comes from the word LOTH, but: Olos (dream) comes from the root LOS. Fëanorian pronunciation would immediately differentiate between these two words.

While Fëanorians may have retained the distinct pronunciation of TH vs S, other Noldor can still differentiate between original S and S-that-used-to-be-TH in their writing. There are specific tengwar to use depending on the word’s original form. Silmë (the one that looks like a 6) is used for original S, while súlë (or thúlë, the one that looks like an h) is used for original TH.

Which other elves used this sound in their speech?

Fandom has really latched on to this TH as a Fëanorian thing, but it wasn’t that exclusively. The TH sound was actually ubiquitous in other elven languages, and in Valinor, only the Noldor dropped it. It was still used in Telerin and in Vanyarin Quendya. The Vanyar retained the TH not because of anything to do with Míriel, but just because they were a little more conservative and their language didn’t pick up on all the changes that the Noldor made. They also noped out of the Z to R shift the Noldor initiated, opting to keep the Z around.

When Indis married Finwë, she stopped using the normal Vanyarin TH and switched over to S as a gesture of loyalty to him and his people. Finarfin, however, out of love for the Vanyar and Teleri, switched BACK to TH. I like to think about how much it would have annoyed Fëanor that his snot-nosed kid brother was speaking correctly, but for the wrong reason. Go down one more generation, and Galadriel very specifically did not use TH. But this time it was absolutely a choice made as a glaring middle finger to Fëanor.

What this means for your fanfic or whatever

The big takeaway here: you can’t just have Fëanorians replace every S with TH and call it a day.

If you’re inventing names for your Fëanorian OCs or coming up with phrases for them to say, it’s important to look into the history of all Quenya S-words you end up using to determine if they should be S or TH. If Fëanor got mad about somebody saying Serindë instead of Therindë, he’d get equally mad about somebody saying Thilmaril instead of Silmaril and assume they were mocking him. Remember: this is a dude with no chill. (On the other hand, if you WANT somebody to be mocking Fëanor, Galadriel would 100% do this because she has an equally negligible amount of chill.)

It’s also important to note that the TH isn’t a true shibboleth, since pretty much all elves EXCEPT the non-Fëanorian Noldor use it. And even the S-preferring Noldor would still be able to pronounce the TH. Those who went into exile would go on to use it commonly in Sindarin, and those who remained in Valinor would still encounter it among the Vanyar and Teleri. So if you’re writing a scene where somebody has to pronounce a TH word to prove their loyalty… yeah, everyone can pass this test. And in the opposite direction, you can’t use TH to prove somebody’s an evil Fëanorian, either. They might just be Vanyarin or something. Or, like. Really Old.

Would the sons (and followers) of Fëanor keep using TH after his death? Oh hell yeah. This is an entire family unfamiliar with the concept of not dying on hills. They will keep using it unto the ending of the world. Actually, with Sindarin becoming the common language of Middle-earth from the First Age, probably not a lot of change happened in exilic Quenya. It became a lore language: a piece of living history. It would have been preserved as it was when the original speakers left Valinor.

(And then, thousands of years later, Galadriel finally returns home to Tirion like, Long have mine eyes awaited this most blissful of sights, and ne’er hath my sprit soared with such grace, for I am returned! And all the Amanyar Noldor stare at her like, whatchu bangin on bout, eh? Because they had nothing better to do in the peace of Valinor than push Quenya to brave and frankly questionable new horizons.)

Anyway, there you go: a somewhat brief history of Fëanorian Quenya. I hope you found this informative and useful, or at the very least not boring. Obvs this is super condensed and, uh, not particularly scholarly, but I promise I know what I’m talking about. I have a university degree! (Not in anything even remotely related to what’s written above, but I hardly see how that’s relevant. It’s still a DEGREE.)

Questions? Need clarification or want more info? My asks are always open!

[saturnsstufff]

Epolouge: The Empress

Warnings: slight NSFW

"Thena, sweetie, you can't play with that-" Techno warned to his child, moving the wrapped sword away from her tiny hands.

"But Daddy- you said you'd teach me!"

As Athena got older it was obvious she shown sides of taking after her father. Her curiosity in weaponry, speech, and body language told you that much. But, to be honest, you didn't mind.

You would admit, after being away from the toxicity of the empire, and the people it entailed, life was much simpler, and way more humble. It was homey, something far more than the large palace was. Instead of large marble floors, tall lengthy walls, and perfect matching fabrics, the cozy cottage home Techno and you built was made of warm, strong logs, wooden floors that gave off a warm glow, mismatched blankets and curtains that hung with care, showing they were frequently opened and closed. It was perfect for your small family. You adored it.

After the fall of your kingdom and the near escape you all had, life was hard to adjust to. Techno was distant, scared he would lash out at you again like he did in the library. You wanted to tell him it was ok, that it was a terrible misunderstanding between the communication, and the people holding the letters. Yet, the way he grabbed you still had you hesitant. You could still remember the first few months within the tundra.

Your eyes watched the brute cut more logs. The way he moved the axe, you wouldn't have expected him to be a once prestigious emperor. Instead he looked like a boy far past his years- someone overly exhausted.

The baby in your arms was easily fast asleep. Warm and cozy from the near fireplace, and if that wasn't enough, her mothers arms and chest opted as a warm cushioned resting place.

The past month was hard, both mentally and physically. Between the tension techno and you had, and the fear of Athena getting too cold from no true shelter, you both were at your wit's end. Thankfully Techno and Phil worked to built a small shelter. Something you could rest Thena in, well the three of you worked to build a more suitable home for a family.

The rocking chair you were seated in offered a soothing place to think back on it, of course your thought's were disrupted when Tech walked back inside the home. Logs over his shoulder for the fire, not wanting it to die out and bring the tundra chill into the home.

"Did she fall asleep finally?..." he asked softly, setting the logs down. Although he walked over to the two of you, he didn't rub his finger on her cheek like he normally would, he probably had sap on his hands from the wood. Something that was now normal.

Your smile came easy to his tone "yeah, she zoned out pretty quickly after she ate. You were right about rice cereal, she's not as hungry anymore" your eyes went up to meet with his. His smile was just as gentle as yours. "Where did you even hear about it?"

"I was curious if it would... I was trading in the village and I herd it from a elderly woman" he explained, moving to the sink to wash his hands off.

Your curiosity perked at this.

"You did?"

He hummed and wondered back, sitting on the couch, still respecting the space you wished. Just because you two were married didn't mean it was all sunshine and rainbows. Things were still healing, you still got weary around his touch after the library incident, and he was still blaming himself for the years you were alone. He didn't feel like you could forgive him so easily- he knew you shouldn't.

"Mhm. She saw me looking at a small plush and rattle. She asked if I had any children or if they were for a friend... I explained I had a fussy infant... she kind of laughed and told me a few ways to avoid it..." his cheeks went pink as he glanced away.

It was easy to believe Sarah tampered with the letters, the tech in the letters was cold and distant about children. Where the one you laid with every night cooed, and played with his daughter, eager to show her the world. One thing he did for her almost made you break down in tears.

Due to fleeing for your lives, Athena no longer had toys, blankets, or anything she needed. She even lost her plush, the one she slept with every night. When she was particularly fussy one night, you explained to techno why. Of course he was saddened too, he didn't wanna hear his little girl cry, no parent did. So the next day he found some scrap fabric and sewed together a small Pig for her. You would always remember how eagerly she pulled it into her arms.

In the end. It was easy to see Technoblade was a family man.

When night time rolled around, you were thinking back on all the nights techno held you close. After his return you both slept with a bit of distance between you. The first night you both were tightly within each other's arms, too scared to loose each other again. But after that something about laying tightly like everything was ok didn't feel right. So the two of you kept a bit of distance, easily a hands reach away if needed.

Tonight however, you wanted tech to hold you. You wanted old times back, the endless giggles, the warm arms, slight smirks, his nose in your neck content with life. You missed it so much.

So when Techno crawled into bed, you fallowed in suit, but instead of crossing over him for your place by the wall, you sat atop straddling his waist. The action alone was enough to make him pink, and curious. His hands didn't rest on your hips, rather you guided them to rest there yourself, showing it was ok for him to touch you.

You could feel how hesitant he was. He didn't want to scare you, drive you away farther than you already were.

"Princess... what are you doing?" He asked softly, admiring your form above him, dearly missing the sight deep down.

"Tech I miss you... I miss you holding me, making love to me, whispering how much you love me... I miss how close we were..." you said slightly pained.

He drew a slight breath, the air coming out shaky. "Darlin'- Princess... look... I miss it too... But I hurt you... I accused you of sleeping with Orion, i also assumed you hated me... It made me draw my sword to you... it made me Grab you-" he was cut off by you.

"And I forgive you... it's in the past... we can move forward... I mean... I'm assuming you wouldn't do it again..." you said slowly, watching him discard your hips for your hands.

"Ill never raise a hand, or blade to you again... never again... God's I love you too much to even think of hurting you like I could have... Your all I have..." he said softly, tearing up slowly. Thinking back on it, he hated how he acted, he was hurt and took it out in rage, he took it out on the one person who endlessly loved him.

After talking out how you two truly felt, you tried to make love again, the action felt odd, yet long awaited, Both of you desperate to feel one another after so long without each other, but sadly when Tech moved you under him, you watched his eyes well with tears before he fully broke down in tears.

Their may have not been physical intimacy shared, yet the wounds of words, and actions began to slowly heal, and it all started with techno burring his face into your chest, his sobs drowned out by the wild wind outside the cabin.

Your thoughts were shaken from your mind as you watched your daughter try to charm tech into teaching her sword play.

"You promised!" She said, hoping it would budge the stubborn Brute.

"Yeah, well I promised your mother a new ring too and all she got was another one of you-" he said scooping Thena up into his arms, holding her upside down to get her to laugh.

"Yeah well she can take Ares back! I don't want a brother!" Thena said, sounding like she meant it. "He’s annoying and he always cries at night" she explained, finding her reasoning good enough.

"It sounds like you when you were his size" you said with a smile, stepping up beside your husband, almost eye level with your child. "Ares is young, he'll grow up and get quite darling. Crying is his only way of communicating he needs something" you explained, moving your head so you were somewhat looking her in the eyes.

When tech started to tickle her, it brought smiles to you both. Over the years her giggle, and laugh had become your shared favorite sound. Athena was so innocent and pure, she was the only hope that had survived the darkness of the empire. Luckily out of that darkness came a stronger relationship between you and Tech, even if it took time to develop again.

Without the empire down his throat, he had become much more relaxed. Even his voices seemed to dull down quite a bit. Not only that, but with his son born he felt more at home than he ever had.

This was, and always will be better than what you suffered. This was the life you and Technoblade deserved, after every tooth and nail fought for normality, this was rewarding. This was home.

[revengeisourlullaby]

Everything Happens For a Reason

Warnings: 18+, smut, Cheating/mentions of cheating, “revenge” sex, arguing, dealings of breaking up, ex-partner being shitty, dom themes, hair pulling, dumbification, degradation, feelings of worthlessness, Thor being an asshole, Loki being an asshole sexually, sensual themes, some angst, some softness but mostly tough love vibes, this will take place around the time of Ragnarok for visual reference, kinda domestic but not really 

a/n: This is my first time writing for marvel characters! I previously was writing for mha, which I still do if you’re interested. Apologies to the Thor lovers, he’s an ass in this. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it and that I do a good job of representing characters that we all enjoy. :)  

Word count: 6.7k

Main: Loki x female!Reader Ex: Thor x female!Reader

You were on your way back home after ending a grueling shift at work. Everything around you left you in a sensory overload. The sound of your feet pattering on the sidewalk, the aggressive car horns of New York’s taxis, conversations you passed by all created a stinging buzz that roared in your head. Finally reaching the station, you walked down a flight of stairs, the horrific New York air filling your nose. A stench that made you feel at home but somehow could never get used to. Sighing you thought to yourself.

I just wanna get home.

The idea of having to mush yourself into the train in desperate hopes of not only being able to find a seat but to not be bombarded with the evening nonsense made the buzz in your head turn into an unfortunate headache. Waiting for the train to rush through the tunnel, you grabbed your phone and frowned, seeing that your boyfriend had yet to answer the text you sent earlier. He said he was free from any heroic duties for the next month so it was peculiar to not hear from him. You began to grow worried. 

Picking at your nails, you were thinking about all the possible “what ifs” that could have happened with Thor. You guys had been dating for some time now, almost two years. It had become common to be met with all the craziness that his job title of hero held. Truly anything could happen. So, of course, your brain was constructing all of the terrible things that could’ve possibly happened with him. 

You couldn’t fuss about it too long, the train came bustling through the tunnel, the air from up underneath it blasting you in the face with the trademarked scent of burnt rubber tires and gasoline smoke. You trudged your way into the train, squeezing your way to a spot closest to the door so you could make your way out quickly. Holding on to the railing beside you, you popped your AirPods in and dissociated. Trying your best to drown out the noise and the perpetual thoughts of what was going on with your boyfriend. You couldn’t help the aggressiveness of your worries so you pulled out your phone and gave Thor’s phone a ring.

You waited, and waited, and waited and the line went to voicemail. Your mind was running a mile a minute. It felt like you couldn’t breathe. You tried composing yourself, you were almost at your stop. When the PA system announced your stop, you rushed through the automatic doors and ran to your apartment. The sky, now overcast, and the slight smell of rain tainting the air, only adding to the tension. Running up the outside set of stairs, you headed to the elevator preparing yourself for the worst. Once the elevator dinged, you rushed down the hallway to your apartment. 

Fumbling with your keys at the door, you began to hear a slew of moans. Stopping in your tracks, you moved your head closer to the door to make sure that you were hearing the moans slip from the other side of your apartment door. Placing your ear against the door your suspicions were confirmed with a groan that seemed to billow from none other than Thor’s throat. Your heart began to shatter and become blanketed with the bitterness of winter, you slowly turned the key into your apartment. 

Conscious of your steps you tried your best to not cause creaks to squeak from the floorboards. The air wreaked of sex and was starting to become seasoned with rotten jealousy. Turning the corner to head down to your shared bedroom, you were acquainted with Thor pile driving into your best friend. 

She caught you in the doorway and to your dismay, she called out

“Y/N! Oh my god. Thor stop!”

With the mention of your name, Thor whipped his head around but you were already making your way towards the front door. He threw on his pants that were thrown on the floor and rushed his way over to you.

“Y/N!”

You turned around with a quickness and landed your hand right across his cheek. Leaving him with a scarlet mark to brand his betrayal upon him. You looked up at him through your eyebrows because you didn't have the strength to look at him in the eyes for the tears that were welling up would threaten to spill over. 

“Thor...why don’t you go finish your business with her. Since clearly, she’s the priority.”

“Y/N, it’s not what you think it is. She brought herself upon me.”

“Oh! And you just couldn’t resist right. Cause she was just so overbearing against yourself?”

His silence solidified your suspicions and you wanted nothing more than to just get out of that apartment. Not waiting for him to come up with another response you grabbed your bag that you dropped on the floor and turned on your heel to leave.

   “And when you release yourself of whatever leftovers you’re straining to hold, I want you to get your shit and leave. There’s nothing here to be salvaged and honestly, the last thing I wanna do is attempt to fix this.”

You slammed your apartment door and took the stair exit, not wanting to chance to have to confront him again while waiting for the elevator. Coming up on the last flight of stairs you held yourself up against the railing and felt the emotion in your throat bubble up and release itself. 

It hurt. A strangled whine erupted from your throat and you hid your face in your hands. Hoping that it would muffle your cries enough so that no one would hear you in the stairwell. All of your insecurities began to settle in and resurface. Why weren’t you good enough for him? What made your best friend better? It's not like she was otherworldly or something. You could maybe understand if it was Valkyrie, but this was some regular bitch. This was someone you knew and felt undeniably close with. It felt sour, like residual vomit on the tongue. 

You pushed yourself up from the stairs and slowly walked to the main door of your building. You were brought out of your haze with cold droplets of water that began to roll down your face.

“This is just comedic now.” 

You laughed to yourself. Not only did you just spoil your eyes by seeing your now ex-boyfriend inside of your best friend but now you're stuck out in the exordium of New York rain with no real place to settle. Not at least until Thor packed his things and left. You put your bag over your head and searched for the nearest station to just catch a ride on. Walking down the steps, you again waited in the queue for the next train. Leaning on the wall you were suddenly overwhelmed with the stench of your wet outside clothes and wanted nothing more than to curl up and go to sleep.

With the roar of the train coming through the tunnel, you got on. Unaware of where you were going just desperately wanting to get away from the drama currently suffocating your mind. Trying to forget about the world around you, were brought back into reality by the buzzing of your phone in your pocket.

Of course, you had a list of missed calls from Thor as well as your best friend. Lists of texts from Thor, but the notification that stood out the most was a text message from Loki. It was unlikely for you to hear from him and coupled with today’s events it felt like salt being rubbed in a wound. 

It can’t get any worse, honestly. Just open it. Fuck it.

Going against your brain and entrusting your gut, you opened his message.

Would you happen to be in the Manhattan area? 

You looked up at the sign above the train doors, flashing the streets of the next stop. Luckily for you, you were getting ready to be dropped off right in the heart of Manhattan. Sighing you swallowed the lump in your throat and straightened your shoulders. Replacing your previous weight of mourning with now a sudden spark of pride and revenge running through your veins.

Yeah, I’m actually on my way there now, why?

You rolled your head back and bounced your leg, sudden nervousness striking your body. You didn’t fear Loki, it was nothing like that. But rather you were intimidated by him. His presence demanded attention and you were one to give it to him. You couldn’t deny that he was incredibly handsome. Despite his condescending nature, you found him all too alluring. Yet, here you were awaiting a response from him to come through. 

Interested in some company while visiting your planet for personal business. Care to be that company? 

Your heart started to thump behind its ribcage, beating a rhythm that you hadn’t been familiar with. You were excited. Quickly you typed back, not wanting to wait too long. 

Sounds like a plan. The train is getting ready to stop, probably will be in central Manhattan in about 10. Where should I meet you?

I’ll be waiting outside the Baccarat.

The train doors dinged and you rose from your seat and maneuvered your way through the 5th Avenue-53 St. station. Climbing the stairs, you were met with the unfortunate luck of it still raining and now with nightfall completely draped over the sky, you were beginning to regret accepting the invitation of meeting Loki. Looking ahead you noticed a store on the corner. You bolted in there, desperate to find something to change your soaking top out for. You walked in and saw yourself in the mirror. Your hair was still okay somehow, not too damaged by the wetness in the air. Just a tad more frizz. Fluffing your hair, you walked away from the mirror and searched for the men's section. 

Wanting an oversized hoodie you felt you had your best chance to find what you wanted there. Coming across a graphic hoodie, you pulled it off the rack and walked to the checkout. 

You got into a fitting room before you left, taking off your soaked shirt and now bra, and slipped into the hoodie. Stuffing your hair under the hood, you placed your clothes into your bag, sprayed some perfume on, and walked back outside to head to the hotel. The rain had let up some but you weren’t trying to risk it considering today had been littered with bad luck. You quickly walked up the street and finally made it out to the front of the hotel. 

You went to pull out your phone from your pocket, but when you did you were tapped on the shoulder. You whipped your head around, an instant attitude flooding your body. You were about to mouth off until you looked up and realized it was Loki who had grabbed your attention.

“Tense, are we?”

You rolled your eyes, wondering why you showed up. His tone worming through your ear and rattling your brain with contempt. He seemed to be a bitter reminder of his brother and you questioned why you thought this was a good idea. Looking up towards his face, you remembered why you came. His features, absolutely tantalizing, and the cadence of his speech almost always put you in a trance. The suit he was in only added to your inner desire. This was a moment of revenge, a moment of sheer pride that you needed to take advantage of. Finally, you opened your mouth and looked up at him. 

“A little, the day has been quite rough, but I don’t think you’d want to hear about all that.”

You looked toward the entrance of the hotel silently wondering why you two were still waiting outside. 

“Shall we go in? Standing in the rain like this is quite puerile.”

You looked up at him incredulously, 

“I swear you can read minds.”

You both shared a chuckle while he guided you in the hotel, his hand resting upon your lower back. Once you were in, you were struck in awe of the decor of the building you were in. It’s not that you had never been anywhere nice before but compared to your day-to-day lifestyle this was something very unexpected. You soaked it all in, not wanting to ever leave the luxury. 

“Y/N? You in there?”

You finally came to and gingerly shook your head to settle back in your body realizing you were now standing in front of the elevators.

“Yeah, I just got distracted, my bad.”

The door dinged and you two stepped into the elevator. He pressed the last set of numbers on the pad and you waited to be dropped on the floor of what you assumed where his room was. Your stomach dropped when the elevator arrived on the floor, almost adding to the anxiety you were feeling being so close to Loki. Walking down the hallway you reached his room and he pulled out his room key. Wanting to cut through the silence you broke the ice by asking Loki a question. 

“So what are you doing back on Earth? Here to cause some trouble or just for leisure.”

“Leisure, more or less. I came back for my brother but he has yet to inform me of his whereabouts.”

Dropping your bag down at the door you felt your body become heavy. Like someone had just dumped an anvil on your shoulders and expected you to be fully prepared. It stung. You couldn’t escape the sour taste that lingered from the day's earlier events. You sat down on the bed and had become unusually short. You had spit back at Loki.

“Yeah, he failed to let me know as well. Had to stumble in on him.”

“What do you mean “stumble in on him”? Where was he?”

Expelling air, you puffed out your cheeks slightly. Silently expressing your disdain for the question asked. You suddenly became aware of your hair still being tucked under your hood when you went to trail your hands across the top of your head. Removing the hood and fluffing your hair, you stood and walked up to the mirror to fix yourself before sighing again. Tears of frustration began to well in the corners of your eyes. You pursed your lips into a tight pucker and had to look up toward the ceiling to prevent them from spilling. 

“I’d prefer to skip over the antics, darling-”

“-Your wonderful brother was fucking somebody I was once close with, but now that relationship is undoubtedly severed, and quite honestly thinking about the event makes me want to cry and vomit.”

You finally let your voice shake and a fat tear rolled down the left side of your cheek. Hot and stinging your lash line before it fell. Exhaling more air, you shook your hands in a feeble attempt to calm yourself down. You heard the springs of the bed squeak as Loki situated himself on the bed.

“No one ever listens to me about that brute. He may be my brother but he lacks the capacity of decent intelligence.”

Turning around to face Loki, your eyebrows furrowed wondering how in the hell you thought sitting in a room with the smuggest piece of shit to ever exist would be a good idea after being cheated on by none other than his brother. Sniffling you brought yourself together and smiled at him.

“You know, for someone to be baggin on someone else about decent intelligence, you sure are lacking in the emotional department.”

“Never said I was perfect sweetheart, just alluded to being better.” 

You laughed. You had to. It was all too much to bear. Your ex-boyfriend sleeping with your ex-best friend and now you’re stuck in a hotel room with his shit-eating brother. You wanted to peel off your skin and remove your brain from its confinements. You needed to leave, you could find somewhere else to loiter around until tomorrow. 

“Ya know, I’m still trying to figure out why I thought having you for some company would be a good idea. Think I’m gonna leave you and your better than average intelligence to fuck off together.”

You couldn’t even look at Loki because inside you didn’t really wanna walk away. You were just projecting because all day everything that could go wrong, went wrong. It felt like your legs and heart were going to buckle at any moment and it was becoming too much to lug around silently. You wanted to scream for hours on end. Walking towards the door, you picked up your bag. Too engrossed in your thoughts to hear the bed creek signaling Loki’s movement. 

“Y/N, wait.”

Loki grabbed your wrist and your heart stopped beating for a moment, almost forgetting what it was you were upset about because you had someone else’s warmth heating your tainted soul. You looked up at Loki, creases in between your eyebrows beginning to form from you trying to hold back the tears that were welling up once again. 

“What? Look, Loki. I don’t want to be the downer of the evening and I’ve surely already done that. The last thing I want to do is burden you fully with what’s going on. I’m not gonna dump it all on you.”

“Will you sit down, please. Don’t leave.”

Sighing you dropped your bag and flopped onto the bed. Leaning over and burying your face in your hands. 

“Let me apologize. I was not thinking about the severity of what you were dealing with, that was foolish of me.”

He sat next to you on the bed and once again placed his hand on your back but this time it was rubbing back and forth. An action that seemed to calm you down instantly. Taking a deep breath you looked at him and couldn't help but feel an overwhelming amount of lust pool in the pit of your stomach. It felt wrong but, so right. You hoped he wasn't looking too deep into your eyes because you could almost predict how blown your pupils must’ve looked. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap and be so dramatic.”

Loki chuckled to himself, a small smile dancing across his face as he unbuttoned his suit jacket and laid it on the bed.

“No need for an apology, I was being insensitive. As for your dramatics, I’ve grown used to them.”

Your face folded and your lips pursed, annoyance clear on your face. 

“Yeah, you would be used to dramatics, Mr. “I need to rule over Earth cause I can’t back home.”.”

Your eyes lidded, you had your lips rolled around your teeth trying your best to hold a snicker in. 

“You Midgardians never know how to let things go, do you?”

“Well considering you were demolishing half of New York with an alien army it’s kinda hard to forget....I forgive you though.”

“Do you now?” Loki raised his eyebrow smirking at your remark.

“Yup, kinda hard to stay mad at someone so easy on the eyes.”

It wasn’t until after you said your words, did you realize what just rolled off your tongue. Your eyes grew wide and heat rushed to your face. You breathed heavily out your nose and brought your gaze to his. 

“Easy on the eyes huh?”

“I-” you couldn't even get any words out you were so embarrassed. All you could do was laugh to yourself and decide to be a little bit bold. 

“There’s no reason for me to be shy about it. You’re obviously the more attractive one.” 

Grazing your hand across his knee, you trailed your hand up to the meatier portion of his thigh.

“Are you planning on plowing through every Asgardian you meet?” 

Mouth agape you couldn’t believe what he just said to you. But you realized quickly this was your time to go in and plant the seed.

  “Not exactly. You’re the one I really want. Your brother just happened to fall in my lap first. It’s always been you though. Honestly, I was just too afraid to say anything. I couldn’t fathom the thought that you’d look my way.”

In the moment of your ramble, you hadn’t realized Loki rolling up his sleeves, using his nimble fingers to expose his veiny forearms. Once you had looked down you noticed his now exposed arms and your eyes met Loki’s again, the tension between you two becoming so thick it created a fog. 

“Honestly, I have yet to meet someone as dense as you are. The verity of my liking for you I thought was terribly noticeable. Yet you still somehow ended up with my oaf of a brother. It’s quite amazing actually.”

You were astonished, to say the least. While Loki was sarcastic with you, he had confessed his liking for you. Not just an inkling for you but a liking for you in a romantic aspect. You were over the moon. You stood up not being able to contain your excitement. Walking towards the desk you stared in the mirror and composed yourself. Looking in the bottom right-hand side of the mirror you caught Loki’s blue eyes in the corner. He stood up and walked behind you, almost stalking you like a predator does prey. 

“Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“Truly I thought you were happy darling, it wasn’t my business to interfere. Although, if I knew your deepest feelings sooner, I would’ve acted with more haste.”

Hearing “darling” come from his mouth so freely made butterflies fly hoops in your stomach. It did something to you that you had yet to describe outwardly. Turning around to face him, you hooked your fingers into the loops of his pants and pulled him closer to you, all so nonchalant. 

“Shall we make up for lost time then, Loki?”

Lust dripped off your tongue when saying his name. Your tone penetrating through the fog of sexual tension and your eyes undressing him before the affair would begin. You heard his breath hitch while you looked back up at him, his blue eyes were now almost black. His breath heavy and waiting for the go-ahead to indulge in each other's desires. For a moment you saw his eyes flicker to portray something of uncertainty. Dare you say something of insecurity.

“Only if it’s true. I want you to want me in the purest form of carnal desire. Not as a pawn to veil what you want to erase from your mind.” 

You moved your hands from his belt loops and traced your hands up his arms and planted them upon his neck, playing with the hair at the nape. 

“ Don’t stop now, we’ve already started. I’m begging for you Loki. Always have, always will.”

With the quick reassurance, his lips found yours in a heartbeat. Intertwining with each other like flies in a spider’s web. It was intoxicating you couldn’t breathe properly and still you pressed yourself closer against his body. Your leg inching up on his side and grinding into his now hardening dick. Your hand that was resting at the nape of his neck, crawled its way into his hair and grabbed a fistful of it, fully giving into the moment of you and Loki getting lost in each other. Your fistful of his hair would soon be gone, being replaced with his hand buried in your mass of hair and craning your neck back to look up at him.

“I control things around here, Pet. Don’t forget your place.”

His voice seemed to drop in pitch. Your eyes glossed over fully with lust and the sheer need to be ruined. Dominance enveloped his being which instantly quelled the brat in you. The reality of sleeping with Loki made you dive headfirst into a subservient space. You wanted him, you needed him. In being completely lost in submissive thought you almost forgot who was in front of you. That was until he spoke again.

“Understand?” 

He grabbed your hips and pressed your body against his, eliciting a slight whimper from you while nodding your head.

“Yes, Loki, I understand.”

Your voice was so meager, a complete 180 from your previous behavior in the night. You wanted as much of him as you could get so you shoved your lips against his again. A fiery kiss that made you dizzy and warm all at once. He moved with such fluidity, it made you feel like you were floating. His hands snaked down your back and his large hands landed on the cush platform of your ass. Squeezing, you moaned into his mouth and he picked you up. Turning around and laying you down on the bed. Your lips dislodged from one another and you felt empty and needy without him on you. He preyed over you, his stygian locks falling down his face.

“If you don’t want this, tell me now and we’ll never speak of this aga-” 

“-Loki, there has been nothing I want more than you…I need you. Please.”

With that, Loki attacked your lips again, his hands wandering up your hoodie. You had forgotten you ditched your bra earlier until Loki’s hands found your pert nipples. 

“Expecting this, weren’t you.”

You went to respond, but Loki rolled them between his fingers and a breathy moan was all you could muster up. Your hips rolled upwards, aching for some type of friction to your core that was more than soaked. 

“Maybe I was. Have to be prepared for anything.”

To emphasize your tease you moved your hand down to the tent in his black pants and applied a bit of pressure. Loki sucked in air through his teeth and released a light laugh. 

“Careful, Pet. Make sure you can hold up this front you’re putting on for me. Not sure you can handle it all.”

It was a challenge and a challenge you’d be more than happy to oblige in. Smirking up at him you began fiddling with his belt and undid his pants. Fishing your hand into them you lightly stroked his cock. 

“Try me.”

The restraint in him broke and a sardonic smile adorned his face. You knew you were in for it and were entirely ready for everything he had to offer.

“Darling I hope you’re ready to feel what it’s like to be fucked by a real god.”

Your hoodie came off with one swift motion of his hand and they wandered over your body egregiously. He was taking his time with you and was determined on making you fall apart. You messed with his dress shirt buttons but couldn’t get them off fast enough for your liking. Catching onto your frustration Loki mocked you,

“Aw, look at you, Little one. Having some trouble there?”

You huffed, the attitude in you not wanting to fully give in just yet. You finally got the top button undone and slid your hand back down to his pants in a feeble attempt to take the heat off of you.

“Ah ah, it doesn’t work like that. Let me help you out since you’re in such need of relief.” 

Finishing off the rest of his buttons, he pulled off his shirt and threw it somewhere in the room. Snaking his way down your body he undid your jeans button and peeled off the zipper with his teeth. Looking down at him you shuddered, excitement coursing through your veins.

“Easy now Y/N, I’ve barely even started.”

Removing your pants and underwear completely, you were now fully exposed to him and almost felt a bit of shyness envelop you. And of course, he noticed your legs attempt to cover yourself,

“Don’t hide from me darling, I want to see every bit of you crumble before me and show you how it feels to have your concupiscence satiated.” 

You let your anxieties fade away once his tongue placed a swipe across your aching cunt. A moan louder than you expected emitted from your throat, catching you off guard and a chuckle to release from Loki. The vibrations only added to the pleasure you were already feeling. Losing yourself in the silver tongue of the god between your legs, your hand found itself in his stark black locks. Your moans became more frequent and you were beginning to feel the coil tighten in the bottom of your stomach, heat spreading to your core. 

“Loki, please I-”

You hadn’t enough time to finish your sentence for Loki had wrapped his arms around your hips pulling you closer to him and making your back arch off the bed. Your moans becoming higher in pitch you could feel yourself coming to the precipice of your orgasm. Lifting his head for a moment he caught your eyes as you moved your head to look down at him.

“Cum for me Y/N, I can feel that you’re there.”

As Loki went back to devouring your pussy, you threw your head back into the pillow behind you, your orgasm finally washing over you. It was like none other you had before. Your legs caved in around his head and your body began to shake. Coming down from your high you reached for his neck to guide him up to your face, sharing a sloppy yet intimate kiss. The taste of yourself evident on his tongue and glistening on his chin. You felt the need to return the favor. Turning you two over you were now on top and you slid your way down to his basal regions. Undoing his pants you felt his hand upon your wrist.

“Not tonight, this is about you Y/N”

You shook your head, surprised by his actions. But, it wasn’t in your nature yet to fully comply. You went back to the hem of his slacks and went to pull them down. While Loki let you slip them off with ease, egging you on with a few hitched breaths, it wasn’t until you came back up and lined your mouth up with the head of his painfully erect cock that he took control again. You placed a kitten lick on the tip of his head, looking up at him while doing so. Loki then grabbed a fistful of hair, forcing you to stay stuck on his face and giving him full leverage of where he wanted you.

You crawled up his body because you had no other choice unless you wanted to continue to feel the slightly painful pull on your hair. Obeying his silent command you were brought face to face with him once again.

“You just don’t know how to listen, do you?” he chided

“Neither do you, but you don’t see me complaining.”

In an instant you were flipped over again, being towered by Loki’s body. Your breath quickened and you watched his blue eyes dilate once again. A lascivious smirk and energy cast across his body. Wanting nothing more than to feel him, you raked your hands down his back and dragged them across the sides of his ribs, only to let one of them begin stroking him again. 

“Ah~ Y/N”

It was at this moment that the last bit of power you had completely dissipated. Loki’s hand moved with such a quickness that it took you a moment to realize that his hand was now wrapped around your throat. Sending your eyes to roll to the back of your head in absolute euphoria.

“Such a dumb little girl you are. Can’t follow simple instructions yet here you are begging, for me to ruin you. Fortunately, you’re pretty. Otherwise this would be quite pathetic of you.”

Your walls clenched around nothing. It was becoming painful to not have some form of release. You just kept being pushed towards your edge with his words bringing you closer every time he spoke. He was dragging it out on purpose, you could see the sadism glint behind his eyes. Strangled you spoke, tears of desperation falling lightly from the side of your eyes.

“L-Loki, please. I need you so bad. I can’t take it anymore, please.”

“You may need me, but do you deserve it is the question at hand.”

“I promise no more games, I’ll be good for you” 

Removing his hand from your neck, he traveled them down the valley between your breasts bringing one hand to massage one while the other traveled further, landing on your soaking clit. 

“All this, from a little degradation...I expected more from you, darling”

Jutting your hips toward the hand currently nestled between your folds you begged,

“Loki, please I need you inside me, I need to feel you.”

He finally lined himself up with your entrance, teasing you with just his cockhead, reveling in your juices. You couldn’t help but whine the teasing was getting to a point of something almost unbearable. Your voice breathy and hot you whimpered one last plea,

“Please~”

When he fully sheathed himself inside you, your head rolled back, moans coming out of you at a pace you couldn’t control. He made you feel so full. You had yet to feel something so reminiscent of rapture. It almost made you dizzy. When you looked up at him there was a softness in his eyes that contrasted his tone of dominance a moment ago. It caught you off guard, but you were soon brought back to reality when his head brushed against the inflamed spongy spot within. 

“Oh! My god”

“Yes darling, I am your god-”

You couldn't help but roll your eyes at his comment. His cockiness always finding a way to rear its head. But in your moment of ecstasy, you didn’t think he’d be able to catch it. Wrong. In a second, his length left you, flipped you on your hands and knees, and slipped back into your drenching cunt. You settled into the position, propping your ass out even more so to give him better access. You heard him growl behind you, his hand coming across your ass check and without a doubt leaving a mark. You yelped, startled by the sudden action. His pace became unrelenting, pounding into you with a ferocity that would make angels weep. His hand slid down your back and rested and the bottom of your hairline, once again grabbing your hair and pulling you back so your back met his chest. Directing your head to the side to face his own, he got in your ear,

“Roll your eyes at me again and there will be more than just a simple punishment awaiting you.”

Your walls clenched around his cock, eliciting a loud groan to come from Loki. You couldn’t help it, the noises he made were beyond divine and each one had you one contraction away from being sent over the edge one more time. 

“Fuck, Loki, you feel, so good~fuck, please.”

You weren’t quite sure what you were pleading for; it just felt right leaving your mouth. 

“Yeah, you like it when I fuck you like this. Like the little whore you are.”

“Fuck! Loki, oh my god~”

You were in so much pleasure you couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down your face. It felt so good to have this instinctual release. Loki released his grip from your hair and pressed your face down into the mattress. Unable to truly control the noises that flew from your mouth, you were now whimpering in the mattress. The ravaging of your body sending you into a full-blown frenzy that you never wanted to be free from. Loki’s thrusts became more erratic and his moans and groans flew more freely from his mouth. Enjoying the moment of approaching his climax.

“You’re going to cum with me and I’m going to paint your pretty little insides my color. Wanna know why?”

You tried your best to be attentive, flipping your hair out from your face, you looked behind you facing the god above you.

“Why, L-Loki?”

Bringing his hand around your body to massage your clit, he gave you an answer that you weren’t prepared for. 

“Because you’re mine now. There’s no leaving after this. You belong to me.”

With one final clench, you tightened around his cock. Both of you reaching your peak at the same time, milking him of his seed. Both of your breathing was heavy, bodies sticky with sweat. Loki pulled out of you, his seed spilling out of you like donut filling. You rolled over on your back as he did the same and there was a comfortable silence that filled the room. 

With the distraction of reaching a climax now faded, you felt violently vulnerable under his gaze. You found your courage and looked back at him, his eyes still dilated but now with a different emotion swimming through them. Adoration? Wonder? Regret perhaps? Before you could let one more intrusive thought in Loki brought you out of your head.

“Stop worrying, you’ll make the wrinkle between your brow permanent.” 

Your mouth opened slowly in disbelief, slightly offended by his comment but also at a loss for words for him figuring you out so quickly.

“Is it that easy to figure me out.” you chuckled.

“Yes, in fact, you wear every single emotion on your sleeve. You couldn’t hide what you feel even if you wanted to.” 

You sighed, a smile stretching across your face as you exhaled. 

“Can’t fool you, can I?”

“It’s quite hard to fool someone who is the master of fooling others. I’m the creator of the ins and outs of mischief.”

You shared a light laugh but you couldn’t ignore the overwhelming feeling of guilt and disquiet swirl in your head. Did he honestly feel for you, or did he perhaps just indulge your desires because he had wants of his own. You were in the perfect state to be taken advantage of, heartbroken and needing something else to fill the hole in your heart. You rolled on your side, your hand resting on his chest, beginning to draw feather-light patterns on his skin. Your hand created a path up to his neck, your fingers guiding his face forcing him to have nothing else to focus on but you. You needed to quell the noise in your head, you didn’t want this to eat you alive as well. 

Worst he can say is no and we just move on Y/N. That’s all that can be done. Just ask him.

“I know you’re not one for sentiment, but did you mean what you said to me? About your liking for me.”

Moving a few coils of your hair away from your face he gazed into your eyes with an intensity you were unsure how to read.

“One thing about me darling is that through all my moments of deception, dealing with such intimacy is not something I take lightly. While not sentimental, I meant every word. I assure you of that. Now, dry your eyes.”

You hadn’t even realized the petal-soft tears slowly rolling down your cheek. You were too engrossed in Loki’s words of affirmation that you felt you left your physical body for a moment. Loki’s hand came up and wiped the tear streaks away from the bridge of your nose and under your eye. He made you feel at home. Warm and comforted even if he had his instances of sharpness, you didn’t want this moment to end. 

“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”

You chuckled and the light was restored in your face.

“I don’t care what you say to me, you can read minds. Now stop reading mine, you’re freaking me out.”

Your laughs echoed through the room, any remnant of tension long gone from the space. You stared at the ceiling thinking about how the rest of your days would pan out. You felt the waters would be rocky but they would calm eventually. The thrashing of emotional waves turning into gentle swells. You felt at peace for the first time in a while. Pulling you once again from your thoughts, Loki’s voice filled your ears. 

“Now, I am aware that we have done this quite backward, but would you care to join me for dinner tomorrow night? And do this the right way?”

Rolling back over onto his chest you smiled against him

“I’d love to”

Amiable silence fell over the room as your body began to rest. The beating of Loki’s heart created a rhythm that seemed tailored specifically to put you to sleep. Eyes growing heavy, you fell asleep, ultimately feeling secure within his arms. 

[thedamageofherdays]

This week's [23-08-2021 - 29-08-2021] reading log is here! I read a lot again this week and I feel like it's a lovely variety of fics. Most fics are Stucky like usual, but there's at least one other ship. I am constantly amazed by the talent people have in this fandom! There was one fic I read on Tumblr that I can't seem to find unfortunately, but when I do I'll make sure to reblog and rec it 💕

Favourites are marked with a 🌻

When life gives you lemons by moonthejedi394 @moonythejedi394 [Stucky, 40k words, Mature] (12/15 chapters available)

Or 13 Terrible Things to Do With Lemons Other Than Making Lemonade

Steve Rogers is a home health nurse. He works for an agency, which assigned him to the aging Winifred Barnes, the one and only Silent Era Hollywood darling. As her needs increased, she requested the agency assign Steve to her full-time. She could pay for it, so she got it. Steve then moved in with her, becoming her caregiver; he cooked, he cleaned, he managed her medications, he made sure she was comfortable.

Winifred's children treated him less than ideally. He was the help, after all. And then Steve had the audacity to go and turn out to be eldest son James Barnes's soulmate. No one saw that coming.

The Masseur and the Assassin by buckybarnesdeservestobehappy @buckybarnesdeservestobehappy [Stucky, 17k words, Explicit]

Bucky Barnes needed a vacation from his job. What he found was a happy ending.

The Words Breathe by buckbarnesdeservestobehappy [Stucky, 1k words, Mature]

All Steve has to do is keep his promise. When he doesn’t, Bucky gets mouthy.

Soft by this_wayward_life @wayward-lives [Stucky, 2k words, Explicit]

The last time he'd seen Bucky he'd looked unhealthy, with pallid skin and greasy, lanky hair. Now, Bucky shone; his hair was thick and silky, his skin a deep bronze from spending so much time outside. He was softer, too; the hard muscle that used to cover him was now replaced by soft fat, his body still strong, but in a more mundane way. His thighs were thicker, his ass plumper, and when he'd pulled Steve into the river Steve had noticed the pudge on his stomach.

Seeing Bucky so happy, well-fed and shining, was a bit of a kick in the face. For all the years they'd known each other, he'd never seen Bucky so... care-free. Now that Bucky was putting on weight, his middle soft and his body malleable, it sent a bolt of arousal through Steve every time he noticed the curves of Bucky's body.

Or: Bucky put on a bit of weight in Wakanda, and Steve is Not Coping.

🌻 Revive Another Side of Me by dontcallmebree @iamthe-wo-manwhocan [Stucky, 1k words, Mature]

Steve’s never lived in a world without Bucky, and he’s not living now. It takes them a while, much too long, to get that awaited rest, a little slice of peace after the dust has settled.Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes are inseparable, history remembers. But they’re not men of the past quite yet.

🌻 imagine being loved by me by spacebuck @spacebuck [Stucky, 20k words, Explicit]

Just after 1am - a few hours after he posted today’s photo - he hears the tell-tale sound of a twitter message. Bucky grabs his phone, not checking who it’s from as he opens it because it’s probably one of his mutuals yelling at him as per usual. When he actually looks at his phone, though, it’s not Natasha

The ‘verified’ check stares back at him for a long moment before he can even bring himself to process the name on his screen. Steve Rogers is messaging him. Or, he reasons, a very good fake. The handle looks right though, not that Bucky knows. Not that Bucky has Captain’s America’s tweets set up as notifications, or that Bucky’s own display name is set to captain america’s bitch. Not at all.

Hey, the first message says. It’s Steve.

🌻 JB’s Complete Lube Services by dixons_mama @dixons-mama [Stucky, 3k words, Explicit]

People just didn’t approach Captain America and proposition him. Although, sometimes Steve wished they would; even the pinnacle of virtue and justice needed to get dicked down from time to time.

Or, the one where Steve has the hots for a mechanic and decides to be proactive in getting that dick.

If it had to be someone by rainbow_nerds [Stucky, 1k words, Mature]

Bucky had known since he was a child that he didn’t have a choice in who he married, but he’d thought he had more time before the day arrived.

Miscalculations by christywantspizza @christywantspizza [Ransom Drysdale/Reader, 6k words, Explicit]

Ransom tries to get you to sleep with him by less than honorable means. You give him what he wants, just not how he wants it.

How to Seduce a Writer by obsessivereader [Stucky, 2k words, Teen]

What's a determined master strategist going to do when the oblivious writer he's trying to woo keeps missing all the clues?

He doesn’t think it’s because he hadn’t signaled his own interest to Bucky. He’s pretty much done everything short of hitting Bucky over the head with semaphore flags by this point. There’s no way Bucky could’ve missed them. Unless… There’d been that one link he’d stumbled upon when he’d googled ‘how to talk to a writer’. It’d been written by a writer, who’d been candid about how oblivious writers could be, and how someone could go about seducing one. An idea starts to form. It’s ridiculous, but at this point, he’s willing to go with ridiculous, since subtle wasn’t getting him anywhere.

🌻 Pod Bless America by Deisderium @deisderium [Stucky, 6k words, Teen]

Bucky can't believe his favorite podficcer recorded his newest fanfic AU of the show Commandos. He's even more surprised when the customer who busts him listening to fic while he's working in the office supply store turns out to be that podficcer.

* The guy—maybe bi_shield?—took his phone, looked down at the screen, and smiled. "Yeah, that one's mine," he said with no evidence of embarrassment. "It was a good one." He handed the phone back to Bucky.

"I wrote it," Bucky croaked.

take a bite by wearing_tearing [Stucky, 7k words, Mature]

"I’d never let anyone freeze to death.” Steve gives a big sigh and flutters his lashes. “All that blood gone to waste.”

Bucky’s lips turn down and his nose scrunches up a little. “I want to be grossed out, but…”

“But you get it.” Steve gives him a pointed look. “Vampires aren’t the only ones who can appreciate how juicy blood is.”

*

Or: Vampire Steve saves newly-turned werewolf Bucky from a snowstorm.

Leaving the Shield Behind by BuckyAboveEverything [Stucky, 6k words, Teen]

“So, on one hand, we have Steve Rogers - hunk, genius, animal lover. Buys you waffles and overpriced coffee. 100% wholesome all-American boy.”

“And, on the other hand, we have Capsicle – twink, smart-ass, fanboy. Reads your stories and sends you fanart. Possibly a pervert or a serial killer.”

Bucky groaned.

“I am 100% certain I am 0% sure of what to do."

Bucky Barnes, full-time copywriter and free-time fanfic writer, struggles to choose between two equally-attractive suitors, only to find that he doesn’t have to after all.

* Based on a true story *

Cap's Book Corner by Neche [Stucky, 2k words, Teen]

Recluse Author Bucky Barns stumbles into fanboy Steve Rogers bookstore one day...

Cat Nap by galwednesday @galwednesday [Stucky, 8k words, Teen]

Objectively, losing the Bucharest safehouse and its contents was the least of Bucky’s problems. The balding agent he’d seen directing the raid was apparently affiliated with SHIELD, which was a shadowy government agency that made representatives from other shadowy government agencies suddenly remember urgent appointments when Bucky tried to bribe, threaten, and otherwise shake them down for information on what the hell SHIELD might want with a former brainwashed assassin. Dodging SHIELD should be his number one priority.

Subjectively, he wanted his fucking cat back.

at any given moment by honeypuffed [Stucky, 1k words, Teen]

Steve and Bucky find out that everyone thinks they're sleeping together.

Brought to Brightness by eyres [Stucky, 10k words, Teen]

Army veteran Bucky Barnes has fallen in love with Steve, a guy he met online a few months after he returned from Afghanistan. Only problem is, he doesn't know Steve's last name or even what he looks like.

When his sister helps him send his story into MTV's Catfish, he's hoping they can help him meet Steve or, at least, let him move on with his life if Steve isn't real. Little does he know, Steve and Captain America have more in common than just a first name.

🌻 Nokken Wood by leveragehunters @leveragehunters [Stucky, 10k words, Teen]

When Sam's friend needs a house-sitter for his place in the country, Steve jumps at the chance. Six months rent-free to do nothing but draw and paint and wander the countryside, looking for inspiration? It was like a dream. But when he gets lost in a storm and nearly falls into a pond he starts to rethink the whole like a dream aspect of life in the country. And when a red-eyed, sharp-clawed, silver-fanged creature rises out of the darkness, Steve is one hundred percent certain the dream's morphed into a nightmare.

...until it gives him a cup of tea.

(Inspired partly by this prompt a supernatural creature is supposed to scare you but instead it gives you a cup of tea and a blanket because you're having a bad day and you keep coming back and partly by this painting.)

Professional Pride by galwednesday [Stucky, 700 words, Teen]

Bucky is having a very good day, until he turns around and finds himself face-to-face with Captain America.

“Oh shit,” he blurts before he can stop himself, and Captain America blinks at him. “Hey, hi, I didn’t expect to see you here.” Here, at New York’s Pride parade, surrounded by thousands of happy screaming people wearing rainbows and sometimes not much else. What is he doing here? Is he on guard duty or something? Was he just on a mission and happened to be passing by on his way back?

He’s in uniform but with the cowl loose around his neck, so when he rubs the back of his head it fluffs up his matted hair. “I, uh. I saw one of your–temporary tattoos?” Captain fucking America says, like it’s a question.

The A-bridged Guide to Trolling by galwednesday [Stucky, 1k words, Teen]

“I don’t have any money.”

Oh no, now the girl looked upset. Her eyes were huge and her lip was wobbling. Bucky tried to think fast despite the oh shit oh shit oh shit looping through his head.

“That’s okay,” Bucky said gently. “I don’t need money. We can figure out another kind of toll.”

The girl frowned at him. “Like what?”

Bucky scratched his head, trying to think of something a kid was certain to have on hand. “Do you know any jokes?”

(Fantasy AU in which Steve is a hedge witch with a green thumb, Bucky is a bridge troll who's new in town, and knock-knock jokes are a viable form of currency.)

It's a bittersweet ending (if you know what I mean) by relenafanel [Stucky, 1k words, Teen]

“I’ll see you around, Steve,” Bucky answers with a smirk, moving away from the counter with a wink.

Steve watches him go. Bucky’s wearing a pair of skinny jeans coated in something to give the appearance of leather. It’s impossible to not watch him go.

stuck on you by wearing_tearing [Stucky, 5k words, Teen]

“Bucky? You don’t look so hot.”

Bucky makes a tiny little sound in the back of his throat, only to start coughing. Of course he doesn’t look hot. He’s sick and he’s dying and Steve obviously isn’t attracted to him.

Decision-Making in Relationships (Paid Research Opportunity!) by castiowl [Stucky, 8k words, Teen]

Clint looked thoughtfully at the flyer. “I guess your actual roommate wouldn’t be down with it?”

Bucky frowned. “Have you met Steve Rogers?”

no way out but through by hollimichele [Stucky, 9k words, Teen]

Steve never sees it coming.

you got blood on your hands (and i know it's mine) by nighimpossible [Stucky, 3k words, Teen]

Bucky refuses to see Steve after his deprogramming.

Like What You See by daisymondays [Stucky, 8k words, Teen]

For all the time Bucky’s spent fantasizing about meeting Captain America, he’d never imagined it would be while posing nude in front of a drawing class.

🌻 A Real Boy by itsnotbleak [Stucky, 5k words, Teen]

It took the Winter Soldier three weeks to remember that human beings needed to sleep and eat.

It took Steve far too long to realise the Winter Soldier was sleeping in his bed.

Amapola by chaya [Stucky, 830 words, Teen]

Total fluff. Bucky's recovering nicely. Steve's oblivious. Sometimes it's best to set aside subtlety for action.

Knocking Boots With Sugar by buckybarnesdeservestobehappy [Stucky, 4k words, Explicit]

In between summers at college, Steve Rogers wants a new adventure beyond his lonely life in Brooklyn. He ends up in West Texas working on a dude ranch where Bucky Barnes is a long-time employee. When Bucky offers to buy Steve a drink, they end up drunk on tequila and making out in public. For the rest of the summer, they're inseparable. As the summer draws to a close, Steve realizes he doesn't want to leave.

Rogers and Associate by roe87 @jro616 [Stucky, 7k words, Teen]

When they first meet, Bucky is a hooker and Steve is a cop. She's been arrested, but Steve lets her off.

Years pass and they maintain a casual friendship, seeing each other out on the streets most nights.

Though he later makes detective, Steve loses faith in the system and quits his job.

He wants to set up as a private investigator, and he asks Bucky if she'd be his assistant.

Just in time by rainbow_nerds [Stucky, 1k words, Mature]

Bucky knew the apartment he was renting was old fashioned, but walking in the front door and finding himself transported back to 1938 was not on the list of things he had prepared himself for.

🌻 You Like What's in My Head by dontcallmebree [Stucky, 15k words, Explicit] (with art by @kocuria)

Bucky can’t decide if Steve’s a tough nut to crack or incredibly easy. The timbre of his voice, a low and almost amused, “Sure, kid,” when Bucky asks for a drink feels like something gripping him on the back of his neck.

He thinks this might be one of those moments in life he’ll pinpoint in the future and either curse at for dooming himself, or remember fondly with pride.

He’s right. Bucky Barnes blunders through falling in love with Commander Rogers and tries to find a deeper meaning behind the expensive gifts and thorough fucking.

Can I Sit Here? by BuckyFrickenBarnes [Stucky, 962 words, General]

Bucky has unusual methods for getting rid of his writer's block.

Or, Bucky needs that table.

Workplace Romance by BuckyFricken Barnes [Stucky, 1k words, General]

Bucky is under the impression that his boss hates him.

Or,

Steve needs to get better at dealing with his feelings.

🌻 1-800-MAYTAG by Miss Plum @misspluckyplum [Stucky, 1k words, Explicit]

Bucky just wants to get some housework done. It gets out of hand fast. Silly little fluff and smut romp with snarky stucky boys.

Eyes of the Forest by Lordelannette [Stucky, 7k words, Explicit] (2/8 chapters available)

When Omega Bucky Barnes comes to Eagle Lake, it was in search of wolves, a creature that had not been seen in the area for decades.

What he finds instead is Steve Rogers, a handsome, though quiet Alpha who seems to be everywhere in the forest.

[chironshorseass]

hello yes i’m OBSESSED with your writing so if you’re still taking prompts maybe “please look at me” bc i also have an unhealthy relationship with pre-tlo percabeth angst and live for pining percy

SYD U GAVE ME THIS AND I JUST HAD TO PUT ALL MY PROMPTS ASIDE!!! because how could i not!!!

for what i wrote, i kind of mention this clarisse one-shot.

anyway enjoy <3, since I sort of went crazy with percy being powerful :) like i always do :) and of course, pre-tlo percabeth :)

read on ao3

The waves had grown restless these past few days. Violent, brutal. The night was quiet, the moon hidden beneath darkened clouds, drenching the camp in heavy ink. Percy knew many demigods proclaimed it as the quiet before the storm. They couldn’t have been more wrong.

All he heard was noise.

He’d been like this—unsteady, overwhelmed—for some time, now. Everywhere he went, he felt like a ship sailing into giant waves, water crashing against his deck, threatening to bring him under.

Grover would’ve understood, maybe. But Grover, like the moon, had vanished. That only left a few of his other friends—and of course—Annabeth.

Percy couldn’t avoid her gaze, no matter how much he wanted to. She was always there, watching. Maybe she awaited the day when he’d sink to the power of those waves that plagued the beach, that plagued him. Maybe she anticipated with bated breath on the day when he’d turn sixteen and he’d have to make one decision that would change everything.

Nevertheless, she’d drift away from him. Then come back, again and again.

It drove him crazy, how much their relationship had changed with the times and circumstances. Only now, Annabeth wasn’t what bothered him.

His gut was.

It tightened and loosened, the same way the currents flowed to the rhythm of his rushing blood. He could hear that now, too.

His blood. The sea. The clashes against rock.

Everything was beating to a powerful symphony of drums.

But worst of all was his gut.

Something had gone terribly wrong.

Percy knew there was a war. He had nightmares about it, in fact. Nightmares leading to frantic waking-ups from the feeling of lava burning into his skin. But he hadn’t sensed the war’s presence so strongly in all his three years of attending camp as he did now—and he felt it, because the source of conflict had to do with the sea.

The shadows of cabin three clung to his skin in a comfortable blanket, but he couldn’t ignore this dread. It had trickled patiently into his system for a week now, culminating to this exact moment. He couldn’t sit still. He had to leave. Now.

Not long after stumbling outside while shoving his armor on did he hear the conch horn ringing as a warning. The lookouts had seen something. His legs moved faster.

Doors of other cabins began to smash open, and with it came the spilling of panicked campers. He was already way ahead of them, though.

“To the beach!” someone cried.

Percy arrived just in time to see Chiron assemble with Michael Yew and Austin Lake. The sons of Apollo. They’d apparently been the ones on night duty. The centaur saw Percy before the others made out his heavy footfalls.

“Percy,” Chiron said. “Thank the gods you’re here.”

“There’s something,” he gasped, doubling over once he’d reached them. “There’s something out there,” he finally managed to say, gulping mouthfuls of air. “The sea.”

They already knew, however. The conchorns were signal enough. But what was more obvious was the glimpse of the giant tail, jutting out of the water like a spear cutting through flesh.

The breath he’d managed to find from his mad dash was stolen away at the sight of the monster.

“Yeah,” Austin said, swallowing. “There’s something out there, alright.”

Chiron eyed Percy warily. “My boy. We are dealing here with something I fear that you are only capable of stopping.”

“Yeah, well...it looks like a pretty big fish. I—”

A howl punctured the atmosphere—probably the same sea monster he’d seen earlier. Percy gasped, feeling a stabbing jolt in his stomach. He didn’t know why this sudden change of the sea was affecting him so, but he had to stay strong. So he stood up straight and concentrated on his breathing.

“Are you alright?” Austin asked, studying him.

Percy looked at Chiron, who met his eyes as well. You have to be, his teacher seemed to say.

“I...I think so.”

Michael chose the moment to turn his back on the sea, blowing the conchorn once more. He shouted at the incoming campers, “Greek fire! We need Greek fire!”

The rest of the multitude showed up right away, Hephaestus kids priming canons while others exchanged weaponry. Through all of it, Percy’s gut became a pressure cooker, a fist closing around glass, about to break. He cried out in agony just as a tidal wave shook the world. Falling to his knees, his arms encircled his middle, muffling that pain. He wanted nothing but to make it stop.

He vaguely heard a sound of surprise, coming from someone nearby, then the rush of hands holding onto his shoulders. They helped somewhat, a comfort to the madness.

The hands were warm and soothing. The voice of the person became clearer. He knew that voice. He knew those hands.

Annabeth appeared in his vision, all worry lines and pinched eyebrows. She said something to him again, but the words might’ve been ghosts; the stampeding blood behind his ears was too thunderous to make out anything else.

He closed his eyes and concentrated like he had earlier.

Sharp as a blade, his senses switched to the outside world.

“Are—are you okay?” Annabeth was saying. “You doubled over, and I…”

“No.” He opened his eyes to meet hers. They matched the storm that raged across the sea. “I—I’m not okay. I need to stop this, I need—”

“We were just discussing strategy,” she said. He was glad for the distraction she’d offered. “The Scolopendra isn’t just any ordinary sea monster.”

“The Scolo what?”

She helped him stand up, steadying him with her arms.

“The Scolopendra,” she repeated. “A child of Keto. It’s one of the biggest sea monsters in existence, and it won’t leave the camp border.”

“No shit.”

Annabeth ignored him, glancing backwards at where the monster had last been seen. “There’s no telling what it can do. There’s barely any recordings of it.” She swiveled back to him. “Chiron says that it can control the tide. It might be capable of drowning the camp if we don’t kill it.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“I told Chiron that we needed to try my strategy first. As in, bombing it with Greek fire before we go with the last approach.”

“And what would that last approach be?”

He had some idea, but before Annabeth could speak, the creature shot out of the water, faster than lightning. He only caught a glimpse of the crayfish-like tail and rows of webbed feet before it disappeared again.

“That looks like a giant shrimp,” he declared.

A giant shrimp that was probably capable of crushing a decently-sized trireme. Shrimpzilla, he was about to call it, as a way to lighten the mood. But he thought better of it, once he saw the hard line of Annabeth’s lips as she watched the campers rev up the Greek fire.

The Scolopendra dared to peek out of the waves for the third time, giving the chance for Beckendorf to yell out an order. Instantly, canyons discharged the green substance directly towards the monster.

It roared defiantly, maybe in pain, maybe in anger. No one was sure, because as soon as the night sky lit up with green flames, the Scolopendra crashed against the water like a wrecking ball. For a moment, all was silent.

No one dared breathe.

Annabeth squeezed Percy’s shoulder. She looked hopeful, as if relieved that she didn’t have to go with the second plan.

Chiron’s tail twitched. Beckendorf held out a hand, urging the campers to wait. Some stood anticipatedly, swords ready. He saw Clarisse in the front line, her electric spear aimed at the sea and crackling with energy.

Percy sensed what was about to happen next before he heard it.

“Annabeth,” he said frantically. “Annabeth, we have to go. Now.”

“What? But—”

“NOW!”

He’d already separated himself from her, yelling at the rest of the campers to leave. They didn’t have the chance; milliseconds later, the Scolopendra appeared. It bellowed with the power of a thousand hurricanes. Many campers covered their ears.

To everyone’s horror, it had closed in on the shore, its back legs likely reaching the sand floor as it rose to its full, terrifying height. Lightning crackled, and with it, came another roar.

“No,” he muttered. “No, everyone get out!”

Too late. The monster had already spit out a million gallons’ worth of salt water.

Instinctively, Percy let out a yell and threw his hands out.

The water halted in midair, rippling like a broken mirror. It was as if time had slowed down, as if Kronos himself had been the one to interfere. But Kronos wasn’t interfering. It was all Percy—with nothing but his willpower. A bead of sweat rolled down from his temple.

Annabeth reached him just as he cried out and threw the water back to the sea with everything he had, forcing the giant shrimp to hide as well.

He caught his breath while Annabeth looked back and forth. From him to the sea, from the sea to him.

She shook her head at no one in particular. “The plan didn’t work.”

“No shit.”

Then she gazed at him again. “Thank you for doing that, Perce.”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “No problem.”

“About the second plan...”

“I have to kill it, don’t I?”

“I...maybe. But we can help—”

“It isn’t a maybe. It is a certainty,” a voice said, strong and firm.

They both turned around.

“Chiron,” Annabeth said. “How can he possibly—”

“He’s the only one capable,” the horseman said. “You know that better than most.”

Her eyes flicked to Percy. Memories flashed through his mind. A quick, burning kiss. A promise. Then, the way fire engulfed him. The call of the sea. An explosion, strong enough to wake one of the most dangerous monsters of all.

When the bombard was over, he understood. He had to face this monster alone, like he had with the telkhines.

“Okay,” he finally said.

“Okay, what?”

Chiron nodded at him, ignoring Annabeth’s question. Without glancing back, he retreated to where the rest of the demigods were watching by the sand dunes as a precaution.

“I need to face him alone,” Percy told her, once Chiron was gone.

“No! Percy, that thing is bigger than—”

“I’m the only one that can’t drown, Annabeth!” He grasped her shoulders so that she was looking directly at him. “If anyone can do it, it’s me.”

“Don’t think I can’t see what’s going on with you,” she said, voice bitter and rough. “You’re distant, like, like the ocean is—”

“We’re both growing distant, ‘Beth. That’s not the problem right now.”

She pushed his hands away. “And that’s not what I’m talking about, and you fucking know that!”

Before he could reply, the monster's call came again. A reminder that this night wasn’t over.

“Please. Just trust me on this, Annabeth. I have to try. It’s our last option. You said so yourself: it may be capable of drowning the entire camp.”

She said nothing, not even sparing him a glance.

“And—and I don’t know why I’m like this! Maybe it’s because I can feel the ocean getting agitated, or because the war is getting worse, or—”

He realized it, then. Annabeth's tears. They were silent rivers, flowing gently down her cheeks and into her mouth. Flowing down to where everything ended up, to the sea.

“Hey,” he said, approaching her slowly. He took both of her hands in his, but she repelled away from his touch. “Please, ‘Beth.”

This time, he cupped her damp cheek, moving it in his direction. “Please look at me.”

And when she finally obliged, her gaze was fractured with glistening tears, like diamonds.

“I can’t lose you again,” she whispered.

Percy had yearned for too long; he let go of that rope tugging him in the opposite direction and instead let Annabeth in. They melted into each other, both shamelessly giving away the little warmth they preserved. It was the kind of hug that felt like a lifeline, the kind that made them both sway like the tide.

“I missed you,” he mumbled into her curls.

She held him tighter. “I missed you, too.”

“But I have to fight this one myself.”

Annabeth pulled away slightly—and when he saw the look on her face—he knew that she knew.

-

“HEY, SHRIMPZILLA!”

The Scolopendra reared its head, even uglier up close. Its nostrils flared with hairs, beady eyes staring down at him. When he charged, the monster bellowed and threw itself in the water, sending sprays taller than a house.

But none of it touched Percy.

He didn’t stop running, a plan in mind. Meanwhile, the sea churned around him in one giant mass of power, but it parted with each step he took, forming a trail of now exposed ocean floor. Water collided with the sky, flying with the salt in the air.

Hello, friend, it seemed to say. Or rather, hum. The sea was a song, and he was just there to dance to its melody.

The Scolopendra had disappeared again.

He didn’t look back, though he knew the entire camp was there, watching—maybe in awe, but he didn’t care enough to find out. He kept walking, alone, surrounded by a pool of green and blue. Was this how Moses felt, In those stories he’d heard? Bricks of ocean water, flinging up into the sky, just so that Percy could pass. The feeling distracted him from the objective.

That’s what he’d argue later, because Percy can’t explain how the monster managed to sneak up to him that easily.

The pool of green seemed endless. There was a moment where nothing moved, not even the water. But then something did tug him violently, up, up into the sky.

For a second, he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t scream out, the breath stolen from his lungs and the icy rush of air when flung into the sky nauseating. The only feeling he knew was of the Scolopendra and its death grip on his entire body.

With each second, the roiling waters grew farther and farther away. The Scolopendra’s growl, however, couldn’t have sounded closer. Sharp claws sank into his chest and arms. If he didn’t react now, he’d be eaten before the next flash of lightning struck the sea.

Somehow, he managed to uncap Riptide.

And with a scream, he stabbed, as hard as he could.

-

“Hey. Want company?” A soft voice said.

He craned his neck around.

Annabeth subconsciously made the world easier to look at. Especially now, as she stood behind him in the pier with the last vestiges of harsh sun striking her back. Her stance was stiff, hesitant. He understood why.

So instead his eyes bored into his lap. He shrugged.

That was a sign enough for her. She crouched next to him, pulling her legs under herself and then flinging them out to where the wooden planks ended and the open air began, toes nearly kissing the placid lake.

She sat next to him, quiet as the wind. It took a few seconds or minutes or hours before she decided to speak.

“I’m sorry.”

From his peripheral vision, he could tell that she’d been studying him instead of watching the reflection of herons flying above the water. Something he’d thought she’d been doing. Apparently not.

It also took him seconds or minutes or hours before he could respond.

“What for?”

She exhaled, “Letting you go alone. Being a part of the campers who…”

She didn’t finish that sentence. He knew why.

Being a part of the campers who abandoned you alone after what you did.

“S’okay. I get it.”

A lie. He didn’t get it.

“Doesn’t make it right.”

He stared at his hands. “Guess not.”

The details of the fight were yet to go away. The memories were still fresh—like his mother’s batch of cookies whenever he came home from camp. Teeth were ever-present in his mind. And those webbed hands. Those twisted sounds as a monster choked on its own blood.

Afterward, everyone had taken a step back. Even Annabeth and Chiron seemed to contemplate him as though he were doomed. Maybe he was.

“I wish Grover were here.”

“Yeah,” Annabeth sighed. She kicked her leg up, swatting at some mosquitos. “Me too.”

“He’d pull our shit together, fix everything.” He found himself sounding wistful, longing for a missing piece of himself all of a sudden.

She didn’t reply to that. They both missed their best friend. Now, more than ever. Percy tried to not dwell too much on the fact that Grover hadn’t responded to his Iris Messages or to his calls from their shared empathy link.

“I’m sorry.”

“You already said that.”

“No, Percy. I’m serious.”

“I know.”

“Just look at me.”

He did the opposite, gazing at the trees to his left. They were a deep, mystical green. The colors looked like the ocean, where he’d displayed his powers for everyone to see. Worst mistake of his life. He realized that tears had begun to form in his eyes; he quickly blinked them away.

“Percy,” Annabeth insisted.

Her tone wasn’t hash or demanding—but rather, a light pink sky. A hand brushing his, sweet and tender. He noticed that it wasn’t just his imagination; glancing down, he found her fingers ghosting against his knuckles.

“Please look at me.”

This was eerily familiar. It hit him, then, that he’d said those exact words when she’d panicked about him going alone to fight the Scolopendra.

Hesitantly, his eyes focused on her face. Her freckles were there, golden like the rest of her. Only now, her eyes were rimmed with tears.

Something changed inside them both. She stared at him, he stared at her. Her face contorted, and the both broke down, crumbling like ruins with the slightest gust.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, clinging to his shirt.

“Me too,” he murmured back.

He held unto her as if she were a life force, breathing in her lemony scent. Tears were exchanged, mingling in the other’s hair. They held each other, an embrace that didn’t deserve to end. It only made him cry harder, while Annabeth held him closer.

“Why are you sorry?”

He couldn’t say it out loud.

I’m sorry for why we’re like this. I’m sorry for scaring you. I’m sorry for leaving.

Instead, he pulled away. He studied her, every single feature, from those grey eyes and that upturned nose to those curls that no longer appeared to look like a princess.’ They were just Annabeth’s.

“I scared you,” he said.

His arms loosened around her, just now realizing how long they’d hugged, but their hands stayed interlocked—like some sort of middle ground.

She regarded him, eyebrows furrowed. “I can’t ever be scared of you,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re my best friend, Perce.”

He looked away. “Everyone else was.”

“I should have gone to you after—I just...I thought you were angry at me.”

Their hands separated. “Why would I be angry at you?”

“Because I let you handle all of it alone. The monster, the campers—”

“‘Beth.” He took her hands again, cupping them with his. “I couldn’t ever be angry at you.”

“That’s not true,” she said wryly.

An observation, not an accusation. Still, that didn’t make it hurt any less. He recalled the shouting, the fights. The only thing they looked for in those moments was to hurt the other, twist and pull at any chink in the armor they could find.

She winced, remembering that, too. “Sorry.”

His mouth twitched. “You’ve said ‘sorry’ too many times. It’s getting repetitive.”

She hit his shoulder playfully. “Well, I mean it.”

He didn’t retort anything back. They found peace in this lake, once again gazing at the horizon.

“It’s not true what you said, either,” he said, his mind lingering on what she’d told him earlier. “You’re scared, as well.”

The sound of the incoming crickets carried on in Annabeth’s hesitation.

That is, until she said, “I am. Scared. I’m scared.” He glanced over. She was staring in his direction, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. She cleared her throat. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Neither did I.”

She laughed, breathless. “See that’s what scares me. What else can you do? Honestly?”

He shrugged, turning away from her.

“How’d you do that, anyway?”

“I defeated it, didn’t I?” It was better to deflect than to answer her question.

Defeating the monster should’ve been what mattered, anyway.

“Percy.”

“Annabeth,” he said, in the same condescending tone.

“All I’m saying is that you could hurt yourself. You don’t know what you’re capable of. And then when your birthday happens—”

“You think I’m going to destroy Olympus or something?” He shook his head. “I should’ve known that you’d side with the gods on that, too. You think that they should kill me?”

“What? Percy, I’d never—”

He whirled, facing her, and finally let go of all those pent-up thoughts that just like the sea, wouldn’t leave him alone.

“Just admit it, Annabeth! Admit that it freaked you out that I blood bended or whatever the fuck Chiron called it! Admit, that it freaked you out how I killed that monster! That I’m fucking cursed!”

“Percy Jackson, you are not—”

“Yes, I am. Why would my dad give me powers like that? Huh? Just say it with me: you’re scared—of me.”

Her eyes were red, face hard as stone. Just like her voice when she said, “Look. I just wanted to help. But if you want to sit in your self pity, then go for it! You clearly don’t need me.”

She made no move to leave, however.

Their eyes held, until the anger from both of them melted. He huffed out a breath, shoulders hunching. “We can’t ever stop fighting, can we?”

She sighed.

“Guess not.”

“I won’t do that again.”

She lifted her chin. “Why?”

“Like you said. Scared you.”

That made her purse her lips.

“You’re not cursed, Percy. You know that, right?”

She reached for his hand. It was becoming a strange routine. Finding comfort in hand holding and then dismantling it as if it never happened.

“You’re mostly right all the time, so.” He squeezed her hand. “I s’pose I’m not cursed, then.”

“I’m right most of the time?” she said, eyes twinkling.

“Okay, fine,” he conceded. “You’re right only sometimes.”

She opened her mouth in mock-offense. “Percy Jackson—”

He cut her off with his laugh, a laugh that fit with the music of the crickets. She rolled her eyes, something that he’d missed achingly, now that he saw her do it for the first time in what seemed like forever.

Scooting closer, she nudged him. “I could help you. Alongside Clarisse.”

His eyes widened. “You knew about that?”

“She’s my friend, too.”

“Of course she is,” he muttered.

Him and Clarisse...they might’ve had a rocky relationship when he’d first arrived at camp, but now, he didn’t know what he’d do without her help—without her friendship. They both understood the other in a bizzare, not very common way. She’d helped him hone in his powers, but it had yet to be something he’d wanted to admit to Annabeth. To everyone else, for that matter.

“I get why you didn’t want to tell me,” she said. “But...I do want to help. You’re my best friend, and, and I also want to spend time with you. If...that’s alright.”

“It’s alright by me.”

Annabeth gave him a look.

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” He tried for a smile. “I guess you could come along, then.”

His grin was shared with her, though her eyes were serious. “You’ll see. We’ll figure out your powers. What you can do, why you can do it, why the sea is affecting you…”

“All of it?”

She nodded. “All of it.”

They left it at that, though what they didn’t leave was the canoe pier. Not until the sun hid under the trees, spilling its ink of reds and oranges across the horizon.

The golden of the sun was replaced by the silver of the moon for the night, then it rose again for the day.

And in between, the waves lapped against the shore, constant and content. The ocean had calmed. For now.

[lambden]

mel darling!! can i humbly request some fluff or hurt/comfort with letho and ciri for my favouritest @endrega23? (or just generally sweet letho, my beloved hunk of a man.) thank you so much, i smooch you 🥰

— @witchersgoldenbard 💛

absolutely you can; this was my pleasure to write! since these two don't really meet in canon (and because jjay has quite a few marvel fics on ao3), i went with a secret agent AU! i hope you both enjoy this so much <33

G, 1600 words, Generic secret agent/spy AU. Content warnings for prior animal neglect, references to animal death, and Witcher training.

When Letho first notices the anomaly, he trips over himself for the first time outside of combat in decades. Despite appearances, he isn’t a clumsy person; his size makes him no less graceful, only more of a threat. Geralt’s trainee snorts as Letho struggles to regain his footing, and her bright eyes flash open wide with curious amusement. “What?”

He hardly wants to admit that this entire time he’s been standing in Ciri’s doorway, he has failed to notice the orange threat lying in her pile of similarly coloured blankets. In his defence, the girl’s room looks far less drab than anyone else’s quarters in this base. But maybe this isn’t even a new addition to the room; there’s no telling how long Ciri has kept this thing around. Letho answers her question with one of his own: “What is that?”

Ciri looks unimpressed. “I know most Witchers keep themselves pretty removed from the real world, but surely you’ve heard of cats.” She reaches for the beast, gripping under its soft, skinny belly and pulling it up into her lap. Aside from a nasty scar just beside its ear, the cat looks harmless enough. Letho bristles and it doesn’t help Ciri’s expression. “What’s the problem? Got an allergy?”

“You shouldn’t have something like that here,” he snarls. Ciri freezes and pulls the cat closer nearly protectively, but the guilt seeping through Letho’s cold heart isn’t nearly enough to stop him. “This is no place for a fucking pet.”

The ensuing beat of silence almost convinces him that he’s won, that she’ll throw this mangy animal back into the pound she no doubt rescued it from. For the first time, Ciri looks like a real girl and not a superhuman danger to international security— and she looks frightened too. Letho doesn’t back down, and even though it looks like she might, Ciri doesn’t either. The cat starts purring gently, and Letho knows he’s fucked. Scowling, Ciri protests, “But Lambert feeds the ducks down by the lake!”

“Can’t think of a worse role model than Lambert.”

“And Eskel keeps a goat out in the courtyard!”

And Geralt kept you, Letho very much does not retort, frowning just as bitterly as Ciri. Instead, he tells her, “Goats provide milk. Eskel’s smart enough to know that in an emergency, the goat would be the first to go. Pets are a distraction— you’re not keeping it. End of story.”

“You’re not my superior,” Ciri snaps. “Technically, I outrank you. So my cat is none of your business. End of story!”

The cat mewls quietly as if in agreement, and Letho turns on his heel and storms away from the girl’s room. He heads straight to the firing range, meaning to work out his frustration with some target practice, but when he tries to fasten the headset over his ears he finds his hands shaking unexpectedly.

He doesn’t even remember his mentor’s face now, after so many decades spent as far away from Gorthur Gvaed as he could get. But Letho remembers the one moment of kindness the cruel instructor had shown him, bookended by terrible memories that plagued his nightmares for years afterwards. In-between testing their poison immunity and forcing them through training courses too difficult to escape unscathed, the Viper instructor led Letho’s class into a small room. 

The gasps of the boys who entered before him made him nervous, but when Letho finally rounded the corner there was no horrific sight awaiting him. Instead he was surprised to see a pen with at least a dozen small kittens roaming around. The recruits were told that cats naturally distrusted Witchers so as a challenge, the Vipers would need to gain the trust of the fickle animals— or some story like that, anyway. Letho hadn’t questioned the reasoning too closely, blinded by his excitement at the first gift he’d ever been given.

The cat— his cat— had been a bright point during the following years of darkness. Letho, persuasive and almost too intelligent for his own good, had no problem getting the pet to trust him. The problem was that he grew too attached, so when it came time for the final test he would face, Letho failed to spot his own weakness.

He passed the test. The last piece he needed slid into place easily. Letho walked into that room as a tactical machine and walked out a killer, with a conscience wiped clear without any trouble. Or at least, he hadn’t thought there had been any trouble— not until decades later, when he saw Geralt’s apprentice holding a small orange tabby and was suddenly reminded of a loss he had nearly accepted.

Nobody bothers him until later in the evening, when Letho has abandoned the idea of shooting away his feelings. The kitchens are usually empty at this time of night so he’s surprised when the door swings open; he’s even more surprised when he turns and sees… no one.

Letho frowns. For a beat the room is ominously empty; then approaching tiny footfalls alert him to the identity of his visitor. Staring up at him is Ciri’s cat, because of course it fucking is. Letho stares right back, glaring at the creature with what he refuses to acknowledge as bitter, bitter jealousy.

After a moment of consideration, the cat moves closer and bumps its head against his leg. Letho sharply inhales before finally bending at the waist to give the creature some attention. He’s careful not to scratch near the scar on its head; even though the wound appears healed, Letho doesn’t want to aggravate it at all. The animal keens into his touch instantly, its soft, raspy purr an unexpected balm for his senses. 

Letho, to his absolute horror, feels tears pricking up in the corners of his eyes. This only spurs the cat to be even cuddlier, of course, and Letho clears his throat. “You’re a cute one,” he admits. “Wonder if she gave you a name yet. Used to call mine Furball. … Maybe let’s keep that between us.”

The cat turns away to peek back in the direction it came, ears perking as it listens. Sure enough Letho hears the same sound a moment later, as someone races towards the kitchen and practically kicks the doors back open. It’s Ciri, looking a little windswept. Her cat meows loudly and joyously, quickly abandoning Letho to return to its owner’s side. The creature’s loyal. Letho will give it that, at least.

“Sorry, sorry, I think he saw a mouse,” Ciri quickly stammers, picking up the cat. She clearly hasn’t spent much, if any, time around animals before this one; she has no idea how to hold it properly. The animal doesn’t seem to mind, just twisting in her grip until he’s comfortable. “I didn’t mean to bother you! I’ll keep it away, I promise— Vesemir told me cats don’t really like Witchers, and I’m sure you’ve got some deep-seated trauma thingy about this because almost everyone here’s got stuff about everything, but, um… I’m sorry, I’ll keep him in my room!”

Letho thinks about if it would be wise to tell her about his deep-seated trauma thingy. Then at least she wouldn’t be left wondering why he was such an asshole to her earlier, and maybe she’d even get rid of the cat and he wouldn’t have to deal with this newfound flood of emotion ever again. But Ciri looks nervous, cradling the animal close to her chest again like she’s nearly scared that Letho will do something to harm it. He takes a heavy breath in, then out. “It’s a boy?”

“Yeah,” Ciri nods. “I found him when I was doing a recon mission with Coën— someone left him tied up in this awful dark basement. So I had to bring him back, obviously.”

Obviously. Letho silently muses on this, then finally he asks, “Given him a name yet?” Taken aback by the question, Ciri silently shakes her head. Letho smirks at the scrawny cat. “How about Gaetan?”

-

The following week, an unfriendly and impatient civilian places an emergency call to Morhen HQ, demanding that the agency deploys its best men to search for his missing feline. Unluckily for him, Letho is the first responder, and he’s less than sympathetic to the man’s claims.

“I have pictures,” the man tells Letho, brandishing said pictures in his face. Yes, Letho has in fact Seen This Animal; in fact last night he yelled at that very animal when it jumped up onto the dinner table to try to steal his salmon, and then eventually caved and ate his dinner on the floor beside the cat, and then chased a certain Wolf around the building for an hour threatening murder if Lambert didn’t delete that fucking picture right fucking now. He shakes his head, smiling to himself— this enrages the stranger, who misinterprets his amusement as derision. “Don’t you even give a fuck? My property got stolen!”

“Not really,” Letho tells him, just to watch him splutter. “Maybe you treated the cat like shit. Animals don’t just up and leave. And anyway, this is below my paygrade.”

“Your paygrade?!” The man stares, eyes bugging out of his head. “I thought you Witchers were supposed to be heroes!”

“You thought wrong,” says Letho, still smiling faintly as he steps towards the man. Coën and Ciri will be so happy to hear that Letho gained more information about their failed reconnaissance mission; and if in some small way he feels like he’s getting vengeance for Furball… well. Nobody needs to know his motives here.

[teddyylou]

Monday: Klance Drabble - teddyylou

Keith woke to gentle kisses being pressed to the shell of his ear. Wrapped up under the warm covers of his bed, he pulled the strong arm that was hugged around his middle even tighter, pressing his boyfriend’s hand, which had crept up under his shirt as they slept, to his chest, kissing his knuckles. 

“Hmm, morning, baby,” Lance hummed, burying his nose snuggly into Keith’s mess of black hair. Keith felt him breathe out happily, the way their feet brushed together at the foot of the bed adding to the serene feeling that was swiftly taking over all of his senses. Every place on him that Lance touched tingled with a warmth that sent goosebumps all over his body, and every breath they took in unison as they snoozed well past Keith’s alarm made his heart swell and his smile grow exponentially. 

“Morning, Lance. Mmh, it’s so sunny and nice you could almost forget that it’s Monday,” he mumbled, rolling over so that he could face his boyfriend. “And your sleepy voice is just so sexy,” he giggled, pressing their foreheads together. 

Lance scrunched up his face, still yet to open his eyes, simply holding Keith closer to him to stop him from wriggling around so much. “Yeah, you can even hear the birds chirping,” he replied with a content sigh, purposefully skipping over Keith’s crass sentiment. 

“Aw, you also say really sappy, cliche things when you’re half asleep. Did you know that?” Keith’s aimed a toothy grin at Lance as he opened his eyes to lour, who merely pulled the pillow out from under Keith’s head and gently smack it back down over his face which a ‘whump’.

Keith tossed it aside, rolling over to share Lance’s pillow so that he could press a kiss to his lips. ‘The first one of the day’ he thought to himself, closed mouth to avoid Lance’s nasty morning breath.

“Hey Lance, you know you have terrible morn-”

Knock, knock.

“Keith, are you up? I heard your alarm go off. Breakfast will be on the table in five; don’t make me come and get you.” Keith and Lance froze as Keith’s mother spoke gently through the door from the hallway. Keith even heard Lance hold his breath.

“Yeah, uh, coming mum,” he called back. They waited for her footsteps to disappear down the hall before Keith could even tear his eyes away from the door, relaxing against his bed as Lance let out his breath with a disappointed sigh. He knew what was coming.

“Okay, Romeo, out you go.” Keith patted Lance’s thigh as he pulled back the covers. Lance, left only in his sweatpants, laid firmly on the mattress shaking his head.

“Nooo, I don’t want to go. Let me stay,” he whined, attempting to pull Keith back against his chest before he could reach for the hoodie he’d stolen from him about a week prior. 

“Mum would kill me if she knew you’d been sneaking in at night, you have to,” Keith pleaded, eyes wide as he tried to force Lance out of his bed. 

“Keith, I’ve been staying here about three nights a week for the last two months! You don’t think she knows?” He asked, leaning over the bed to put his socks back on, tying his converse with a huff. 

“Nope,” Keith said frankly, shaking his arms until his hands poked out of the ends of Lance’s hoodie. He climbed out of bed, catching one of Lance’s arms as he grabbed his shirt, pulling him to his feet. “And she isn’t going to find out. Now, window. Out.” Keith gave Lance a gentle push towards the second-storey window, an easily slidable roof just underneath it that would drop Lance in the front yard of Keith’s house. Lance held his hand up to his heart, scorned. 

“Nine whole months I’ve loved you and here you are, forcing your dear, sweet boyfriend out of a window to ride his bike the whole way home. How you wound me,” he feigned. Keith raised an unsympathetic brow, arms crossed over his chest.

“Forsooth,” he mused, causing Lance’s facade to crack with the upturn of the corner of his lip.

“Ah, so you finally did your English homework,” Lance said, one foot already standing on top of the garage. He straddled the window sill as he slid on his shirt.

“I may has't,” Keith smiled before dawdling over to Lance, handing him his phone. “See you at school.”

“Don’t be late,” Lance said, standing fully on the roof so that he could lean back in, hands supporting him on the sill. “I love you.”

Lance kissed Keith sweetly, clearly not caring as much about morning breath as Keith did. 

“I love you too,” Keith said before leaning in again, even if he knew that Lance did it on purpose, because Keith really just wanted to kiss his boyfriend. “Bye.”

“Bye,” they muttered to each other between short pecks before Lance pushed himself up, slid down the roof, and landed skilfully on the lawn. Keith watched him as he ran down to the street, pulling his bike out of the bush he had stowed it in, and rode off towards his own house. Keith watched until he’d disappeared over the crest of the hill that led to his street, actually enjoying the warm sun and the singing birds because Mondays were always good when he started them next to Lance. 

“Whatcha lookin’ at?” Keith was startled back to reality by his mother’s voice. He’d not even noticed she’d come back up to find him.

“Oh just… some birds,” Keith lied. Krolia stared at her son for a second. 

“Okay,” she replied. “Come get breakfast, we have to leave soon.”

“Cool, be down in a sec.”

***

Keith woke up tangled in sheets and all of the extra blankets he and Lance had thrown over themselves as they went to sleep the night before. His entire body was engulfed in the warmth of the strong arms holding him close, heat radiating off Lance’s chest that was pressed tight to Keith’s back. 

Lance groaned as they both stirred, instantly pulling Keith even closer as the raven wiggled around to face his boyfriend. Keith felt a sleepy kiss against his forehead as he tucked his face into Lance’s neck. It was warm there. No need or desire lingered to go anywhere else. 

Lance adjusted his feet to intertwine them with Keith’s. He, however, managed to pull the blankets with him as he did and for a brief moment, a gust of piercing cold air let itself into their safe cocoon. In unison, they gasped an indigent “Ah!” and huddled in together, giggling as they found themselves safe from the dreary Monday morning weather.

They laid in silence, sharing soft, lazy kisses as the rain poured on outside. The windows were fogged and if they tried just the slightest it was as if nothing else in the world existed outside Keith’s bedroom. 

Until they heard shuffling around in the kitchen below.

Keith let out a deep sigh, placing a few more kisses to Lance’s defined collar bone before patting his side solemnly. 

“Hhh, you should probably go now,” he weighed the unfortunate words on his tongue as he spoke. Lance merely groaned in response, snuggling deeper under the mountain of soft blankets where the sting of the outside couldn’t get him. 

“Keith, baby. You can’t possibly make me go out there. You wouldn’t make me ride home in the rain,” Lance begged, holding him and rocking him, like a half-hearted shakedown. Keith huffed, considering his options for a second. 

He peeked his head out of the covers, hair still a mess over his face. It looked so cold out there that his skin prickled just at the thought of it. But then he thought of his mother downstairs, catching them. Each rattle of a closing kitchen draw made his heart pound. It was a tough choice.

“Oh my god, you’re gonna make me ride home. I can’t believe my small, loving, sweet boyfriend is going to send me out like this. I could catch a cold Keith. Do you wanna be the one looking after this snotty-nosed bastard?” Lance persisted almost too loudly and pointed to himself. 

Keith snorted and placed his hand over Lance’s mouth to hush him. He thought about it for a second longer, eyes narrowed to a squint, shifting from the bedroom door to the window. Lance’s eyes remained wide as he awaited Keith’s verdict. 

“Fine,” Keith said after a second. Lance whispered an elated cheer before pulling the both of them back under the blanket pile to cuddle.

Keith didn’t know what his next move was, but while he was laying so comfortably and soundly in Lance’s arms he was sure of one thing. That move was not going to be for many, many minutes. He opened his eyes so that he was just staring blankly at Lance’s chest as the brunet carded a hand through Keith’s knotty hair​​—the pair simply pretending that it wasn’t as such due to Keith sleeping like the dead, and Lance’s fingers totally weren’t getting stuck and tugging on a knot every few strokes. 

Keith was almost completely lulled back to sleep when he heard a knock. 

“Keith, I called you already what are you up to?” His mother’s voice became increasingly clearer as the door opened ajar and without a second to lose he threw the blankets over Lance’s head, holding them tightly up to his chin. He hoped it looked like he was just really cold, and that their entangled bodies just looked like Keith under a mass of about four quilts. 

If Krolia knew anything, she wasn’t letting on; Keith thought he was safe.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Bit hard to get out of bed today. I have to plan my course wisely to get from here to the warm shower with as little time in the antarctic hallway as possible,” Keith explained, trying to appear nonchalant as Lance feathered kisses to anywhere he could reach on Keith’s chest without moving. Krolia nodded inconspicuously. 

“Okay, well, breakfast is on the table, get it while it’s hot,” she told him taking a step back out of the room. She stopped, however, just as she was about to close the door. “Oh, and there is a place set for Lance too,” she eyed Keith smugly, a faint smirk on her lips as she closed the door. 

Keith heard a quiet ‘oh fuck’ from under the covers and, well, yeah. That. 

[yandere-sins]

Yandere Diavolo from Obey Me kidnapping a princess for the human world. He thinks someone whos used to royal status and have their own citizens walk on egg shells around could relate to him.

Mhmmmm, I thought a while about what I want to do with this so I hope you enjoy a bit more ‘soft’ Diavolo!

»»———————— ♡ ————————««   

Of all the odd things Diavolo had done, giving you a room certainly was the weirdest. Not like he’d have you wandered outside of it alone or let you open the windows, but giving you some free space certainly wasn’t something you would have expected from him. Yet, if anyone knew your needs, then Diavolo.

Sure, there could have been better solutions than sweeping you away after a ball, taking you to the Devildom, unwilling to let you go. Diplomatic reasons. Valid reasons. But Diavolo wanted to hear none of it. Even if you tried to talk some sense back into his mind, he just smiled and ignored you since it was the easiest thing for him to do.

One day... you’d thank him.

Despite not being the King of the Devildom yet, Diavolo handled every affair and nuisance that fell over his lands on his own. He knew the future that would await you was just as grim as his own, and really, he saved you from it. As a human princess, you weren’t worth more than being the bearer of a new heir in the future. If you were unlucky, you’d get together with the scum of your royalty and have to live the pitiful life of never being truly loved or wanted in your own castle.

It would have been a waste to just let you rot by yourself like this, even though Diavolo was right there. At his side, you neither had to fear you weren’t welcome nor that you’d be reduced to nothing. You’d become a strong queen, one that would rule and not just sit still and be pretty at his side.

Pity that no one besides Diavolo recognized the chance you were given.

Your parents, future fiance, and most of your country were in distress after you disappeared, and despite not being with them, so were you. The first few days, you had been so agitated, angry, sad, and angry again, running around the endless corridors like a headless chicken, Diavolo always right behind you with leisure steps. He supposed you were worn out now and a little depressed, rather sticking to your room, the little bit of privacy he allowed you, but this would pass too.

At least, you had given up fighting the comforts of your own quarters. The bed was hellish soft, the pillows stuffed with feathers. The perfect place to find rest after a long day trying to resist the future King of the demons’ advances again. Perhaps, you even felt a little safe there now, as even Diavolo was reluctant to follow you when you made it clear you wanted your peace for him. After all, if anyone knew how stressful the royal life was, it was him, so he was glad to grant you some space if it meant you became more comfortable.

But then again, his chambers were just one room over, with a hidden door behind the bookshelf in yours, connecting the two. As he was drumming his fingers on the top of his stomach, laying awake for the better of the last hour now, Diavolo couldn’t help himself.

Just a look. A teeny tiny look.

The bookshelf opened up conveniently, yet not surprisingly to the Prince, giving away the darkness in your room. It was terribly quiet, but you had destroyed the big, loud grandfather clock in your room on the first day since it annoyed you, so now all that filled the space was the sound of your breathing. You were curled up into your blanket, head almost covered completely beneath the fabric with your back turned to him.

Climbing in from the other side of the bed, you didn’t stir as Diavolo tried to creep in. One hand of his gently tugged away the blanket to expose your face a bit more, puffy cheeks and a pouting mouth showing to him, bringing a smile to his lips. Even in your dream, you still seemed disgruntled with your situation, your brows furrowed in irritation. But to him, you were always pretty.

You had been the sweetest thing, back when he first met you after your parents invited various royals to celebrate your birth. He didn’t know back then what he knew now, but when you had turned 18, he could barely believe that it had been two decades since he last saw you. And even now, years later, you were still as fragile as the child he once knew and the young adult he fell in love with. Only now you were the princess he wanted to make his queen.

Oh, Diavolo shouldn’t have brushed back your hair or caressed your cheek. Touching you was like a drug that would keep him awake with it’s feeling against his hand for the next few centuries - even long after you died. You didn’t want him here, much less touch you. But sinning was a part of his job, which fit the description of this feeling to him much too well.

You were his sin, his little guilty pleasure he didn’t want to share with anyone.

Even if you didn’t like him - yet - and even if you despised him for just taking you when he did, Diavolo would take good care of you, he promised. He’d keep you gracefully, let you have your dignity. You didn’t need to agree with him ever, all you needed to do was stay by his side, and he’d be happy. If you could just give him the occasional affection, maybe hold his hand every once in a while, look at him and say his name, that would be all to enable him to live all these years after your life without you. Until the day he’d find your soul again, knowing you two are meant for each other in every one of your lives.

Once there had been a life where you accepted him. Where you kissed and hugged him and where you let him spoil you with all he could. In every other, he hoped he’d get that back, no matter what he had to do to bind you to him. Diavolo would never rest, especially not when some part of you must still have known about your feelings for him.

That’s the only reason why you’d occasionally press your cheek into his palm and sigh as you dreamed on, he believed. It was hard to tear away from you when you felt so real and warm under his touch, tears almost collecting in his eyes, knowing he had you back after so long. Diavolo pecked your forehead with his lips hurriedly before he rolled out, disappearing into the darkness again, only with a glance over his shoulder. It was just in time as you woke up, your hand touching where he had laid, an ice-cold sensation under your fingers.

One day, you’d understand and remember what you two had. No matter what was expected of him to do, he was sure that there would be a time that you could love him again. Even if he lost his way and become the worst demon haunting you, it was all just because he loved you. He’d endure it until then, try not to lash out in frustration like in the one life of yours before this one when you didn’t show him any love after years of spending time together.

This time, he wouldn’t kill you again, he promised.

[obeymeplz]

one of those days ll mammon x gn reader

LISTEN guys... I’ve peeled through every single fanfic and one shot of my boy boy that I can find.

I’m done, finished, kaput. And I need content. So I decided to make my own.

2k words, ft. Belphie my salty homie

Warnings: mean(ish) mammon (because I’m a hoe for angst, highly implicative of smut...?, cussing...?

Enjoy ig ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ sorry if I suck LOL

It was one of those days, and it all began when you dropped your plate of pickled pancakes (it’s an acquired Devildom taste) all over your crisp, white shoes. Beel involuntarily frowned at the waste of food, while the other demon boys snickered at your inherent clumsiness, Lucifer merely rolling his eyes before excusing himself from the table. But someone was missing that morning.

From that moment on, you knew nothing would be going your way.

Your bad luck followed you to second period, where you received a colossal “F” on your scrying test, and then to lunch where Satan and Asmo had to pull you out of a fight with a succubus who had thought it her business to label you a “suck up whore”. This was a name you were used to; from the moment you arrived, every demon and unthinkable hoard in the Devildom believed you to be sleeping with every brother in the House of Lamentation, playing through all of them with zero consequences. Despite the utter falsity of these accusations, they hurt no less every time you had to hear them.

And to top today’s cake with a juicy red cherry, the one single person who could make all your worries melt away with just a smile had been nowhere in your sights all day. Mammon was indeed the sunshine you needed on this dreary afternoon, with his dumb tinted glasses and cocky remarks, yet endearing eyes and wondrous grin.

Staring out the window of an empty chem room, waiting for someone to be available to walk you home, you realized that it was an odd day - such a new world you’d been thrown into, yet so quickly you had familiarized yourself with your new “normal”; and now that normal wasn’t there. There were certain things you knew, day in and day out.

The sun will (sort of) rise.

The sun will (kind of) set.

You live in Hell.

Mammon will always be there.

These things you counted on to be true, because if they weren’t, you weren’t entirely certain how you’d keep your sanity intact.

“For a human who’s supposed to be completely inferior to our kind, you sure do seem to think a lot”.

Belphie.

“Gee, Belphie, you know, “you sure do” have a way with words. Thank you! I just feel so much better”, you scoffed a retort as you swung your legs over the ledge of the window to face the cow-haired boy, clearly having just woken from sleeping through 7th period. He only smirked at you.

“I heard you need a warm body to walk next to, and I figured I could use the company. Home?”

You smiled smally as he helped you to your feet. “Yeah, home sounds nice”.

He reciprocated the smile.

“So, what really has you down in the dumps?”

You shrugged as you tried to formulate a thought that might make sense to him.

“Well… I guess I-”, you had to cut off mid sentence, because something familiar began to tickle your ears — a laugh, one you’d been aching to hear all day.

“Belphie, is that… is that Mammon? Where has he been all day?”, you were asking the question, but your legs were already moving you out the door away from the answer. He replied, but you could only piece together bits as you got further away from him, following the voice of the snow-haired boy instead. Argument, Mammon left, crashed with friends, all night, definitely in trouble. That’s what you processed.

“Mammon-” you rounded the corner, but halted in your tracks, backing behind it when you came near face-to-face with a group of demons much taller and much stronger than you, energies darker than the ones you were used to being surrounded by.

He hadn’t heard you.

“Bro, that was a riot. You gotta swing with us more often my man”.

“Ya know Lucifer wouldn’t even think ‘bout lettin’ me ride with you guys on the day-to-day. ‘Sides, I got things to do”.

“You mean a human to babysit?”, your breath caught in your throat. You heard Mammon scoff.

“No! I do what I want. They’re cool.”

Your heart pounded into your throat (but that’s something you’d never let him know). You were just friends, and you weren’t sure if you’d ever be more. Sure, he was terrible at hiding how much he cared about you, and sure, he was ridiculously possessive over you, but he’s also the Avatar of Greed, so how much of that is him needing you versus his sin needing you? The way you saw it, neither of those things amounted to relationship-worthy love.

The conversation was droning on, and you’d almost forgotten you were listening.

“So, you fuckin that then or what?”

Your head snapped back into full awareness, the tone of your feelings completely changing every second, anxiously awaiting your favorite demon’s reply. Why were you so nervous? He wouldn’t lie about you, he wouldn’t slander your name — not with what people already thought of you because you lived in a giant house with 7 painfully-attractive, desire-filled, and experienced, rulers of Hell.

“Yeah, the rumors true?”

Mammon’s voice came next at a grumble.

He stuttered it.

You almost didn’t catch it.

You must not have.

“Y-yeah. No, I mean absolutely. I mean, how could a human even turn down The Great Mammon? They couldn’t, and they don’t.”

You must not have heard it — but you did, and you almost wished you hadn’t

Before your thoughts could catch up with your limbs, you found yourself rounding the corner yet again. “Yeah, how could they not, Mammon?”, your voice cracking at the end, despite all your efforts to come across smooth and level-headed.

“MC..”, Mammon’s mouth instantly hung open, his chill facade easily melting away. He looked almost identical to a lost puppy within moments.

“Oh you can bet, Mammon fucks me every single night — no feelings involved, because that’s just the kind of big man he is. He’s even fucking me RIGHT NOW. Right, Mon?”, you seethed his nickname through your teeth. Tears were starting to puddle at the lids of your eyes, threatening to expose just how much you really cared for him, and just how unspeakably broken you felt in that moment.

“M-MC. Pl- please don’t —“, he was already approaching you, pushing past the group of boys. You turned on your heel, catching the watching eyes of Belphie at the end of the hall. You ran for him until you were in reach to yank on his arm, pulling him behind you, as fast and as far away from that school, and Mammon, as possible.

“MC!”

Mammon will always be there.

Mammon would not always be there. This was a new truth you heartbrokenly added to your list.

———————————————————-

Your room was icily cold, numbingly so.

You always kept it like that when you were sad, hoping maybe some of the lack of feeling in your body would translate to your heart.

Hoping you wouldn’t feel so shattered.

You trusted him. And he broke it. He broke you.

These are obvious statements, but as you laid solemnly tucked under a heap of blankets, you couldn’t help but run them, and the scene from today, over and over again through your brain.

Maybe you were overreacting?

Mammon had always been the brother, despite his tsundere attitude, who protected you. He never lost his cool with you, and he never treated you poorly. Maybe he made a few callous remarks here and there, but they were gentle underneath, and just his own way of showing you a glimpse of the angel wings he’d lost a long time ago.

Mammon had become your home.

“MC?”

The voice was muffled through the door, but it was undoubtedly him. You weren’t sure if you were shocked, happy, angry, or assured that he had come, but either way, you wouldn’t dare leave your covers to open the locked door. Not yet.

“MC. Please. Open the door. I-I just wanna talk to ya…”

You didn’t budge.

“I will kick this down, ya know”. You were both quiet until you heard some shuffling outside. Your eyes went wide, ready for a foot to come flying through shards of your door. You scrambled to your feet, stumbling over to the rusted knob.

You cracked it open.

“Please don’t. I don’t want to sleep in Beel’s room another week because my room needs renovating for the millionth time.”

Mammon smiled shyly at you, apologetically more than anything.

“Can I.. ya know, come in?”

You pulled out of the way, making just enough room for the tall, lean demon to slip through the crack in your door.

The moment he stepped in, he was engulfed in darkness, nothing but dim threads of moonlight that seeped in through your curtains to highlight the sharp features of his face and body. He’d shed his jacket since earlier, leaving him in his fitted black tee and jeans.

So beautiful.

You mentally slapped yourself for even thinking about it.

You were mad at him.

“So. Please talk. I’m exhausted and wasn’t planning on even looking at you tonight.” You were curt. But you had to be, or else you wouldn’t be able to hold anything back, whether that be anger, or adoration.

He looked taken back — hurt — too. He glanced at your bed and the candy wrappers strewn about the floor. Mammon wasn’t too bright, but he knew enough to know when someone had been crying for well over an hour.

On a normal occasion, he would’ve thrown himself onto your sheets, rolling until he found a comfortable position to scroll his D.D.D. and poke at you for hours.

But tonight, he awkwardly crossed his arms and shuffled his feet, clearly unsure of what to say first — or at all, for that matter.

“I-“

You raised a tired eye, cueing him to spit whatever excuse he could possibly say out.

“I get a bad rep sometimes.”

What?

“For liking ya.. Hanging with ya.”

If this was an apology, it was the worst one you’d ever heard in your life.

“Oh? Sorry. I didn’t mean to be a burden to your bravado. Let me continue to take myself out of the picture.” You pointed at the door for him to leave, ready to break down the moment he walked through.

“No! That- that’s not what I meant.” He made eye contact for a mere moment, silently begging for you to see his sincerity.

“Is anything ever what you mean, Mammon?” The use of his full name in a mix with that tone clearly set him back, but he shook it off hurriedly.

“Yes! I mean, I don’t care. Usually. I’d-I’d just had a rough day with Luci. Rough life, more like, and I was tired of feelin’ like shit ‘bout myself. Nazriel’s question jus’ threw me off. I-I wanted to seem cool, so I said what I knew would make me, and-“

“And you’re a piece of shit for it”.

You weren’t wrong. And he knew that.

“... and I’m a piece of shit for it.”

There was a pause before he hesitantly continued.

“I wound up bein’ exactly what I was tryin’ not to be. Scummy.”

He raised his eyes to meet yours, blue hues morphing into gold flecks like waves crashing on the beach. Your breath hitched and caught in your throat, only now realizing that the whole time you’d been arguing, you’d both been slowly edging together. Now, you were dangerously close.

“You aren’t scummy, Mammon…”, you began to tenderly look at him.

“Yeah.. I am. But that’s just me, I guess. I can’t mind it.”

He took one step, leaving you toe to toe. Though one of the shorter of the boys, he still towered over you.

“I jus’ can’t be scummy to you.”

You tilted your head, heart and body language softening as he spoke.

“I shouldn’t be, and I don’ wanna be”.

His hands cautiously made their way to your shoulders, and you shuddered at the feeling that made its way through your bones.

“Mammon?”

“Yeah?”

“That apology shouldn’t have worked.”

He chuckled, “you’re right.”

You smiled, a true smile. The first one all day. And what came next, you knew probably shouldn’t. But you also didn’t really care.

“Mammon?”

He hummed in response, and you stood as high as you could on your tip-toes to kiss his cheek. His face deeply rouged the moment your lips met his hot skin.

His eyes were wide as you lowered yourself down, leaving a hand lingering on his arm.

In that moment, his aura shifted, and everything was suspensefully still. Within seconds, his arms wrapped you in a crushing hug, his breath heavy and warm behind your ear.

You sunk your weight into his, relishing the relief from the chill of your room, as you snaked your arms behind his back.

You weren’t entirely sure how long you stood like that, but you knew it must’ve been a while, because his grip was starting to affect your breathing.

“Mon- air”,

He lightened up and pulled back from you.

“S-sorry!”

Your lips turned up at the sight of his cute embarrassment. He scowled at you, knowing what you were thinking, but slowly started to laugh.

He leaned his forehead against yours, the sudden proximity causing you to let out a slight squeak.

“Ya drive me nuts, ya know?”

You searched his eyes, trying to make sure he was saying what you really thought he was.

This was a bad idea. For so many reasons.

But truthfully, neither of you gave two shits.

So he ghosted his lips over yours, his left fang biting his bottom, waiting for the sign to move — the sign that you wanted him, the sign that he would be enough.

The second you tilted your nose to the side of his, he crashed his mouth into yours.

From all the “first kisses” with your “first man” that you’d imagined, this was like none of them.

It was so

so much better.

It was fast, it was hard, but it wasn’t rough. It wasn’t brutal. It wasn’t empty. It was a cataclysm of feelings — pent up tension, pent up love.

As he dragged his mouth over yours, he hooked his hands under your legs, lifting you to wrap around him in one, swift movement. Then, he was on the move, backing himself toward your bed until the back of his knees met the mattress, and he collapsed, pulling your legs to straddle his lap. You hadn’t disconnected from his lips the entire time, still fervently needing more of him. You knew he felt the same. The demon of greed would most certainly never have enough of you. He tasted sweet and smelled strongly of an expensive cologne you knew he probably couldn’t actually afford. One of his hands stayed splayed on the top of your thigh, while the other worked to bring you even closer to him (if that was possible), pressing underneath your shirt to the skin on your back, two fingers edging their way into the beltline of your shorts.

He was careful not to take himself too far, to not lose control, and you could tell, so you worked your tongue past his lips. He sucked in a breath as the complete access to your mouth made room for him to deepen his greed for you. Slipping his tongue to meet yours, he nipped at your bottom lip, working his entire mouth in a blissful harmony.

He pulled back, heaving air, seeping desire from every muscle, just enough to speak to you,

“MC… I-I can’t… I can’t handle this... well... for much longer. I don’ know what I’m gonna do to ya…”, he began to pepper wet kisses down your neck, unable to keep himself off you long enough to even hear your reply.

You weren’t sure what else you were expecting, or if you were expecting anything else at all.

You were making out with a demon, after all.

You moved a hand to rake your nails through his frosty hair, and he leaned into the palm of your touch.

“It’s okay. I want you. All of you...”, it was only a whisper, but you were afraid if you spoke too loud, you’d snap the moment in half.

He did nothing but growl before reattaching his lips to yours, bringing his slender fingers to tug up at the hem of your shirt.

“I’m gonna do my best not to hurt ya…” he mumbled on your lips. You simply nodded, running your hands against his abs. He shivered at the contact, before helping you remove his own shirt.

Somewhere in the midst of him sliding on top of you, and the complete sight of the demon boy you had always longed for filling your soul, you heard the faintest of three words. You almost tricked yourself into believing they never entered the air, that they’d never left his lips.

But they were impossible to ignore.

“I love you”.

The sun will (sort of) rise.

The sun will (kind of) set.

You live in Hell, with 7 boys you dearly love,

but one holds you in the palm of his hand.

Mammon will always be there.

That night, he proved that truth to you over, and over again.

fin.

[nativerse]

Letters From Mabe to Tabantha

​Hi everyone! I’m finally able to post the piece I wrote for @memorabiliazine​, as preorders have started shipping! It tells the story of a woman who has moved from Tabantha Village to Mabe Village, through letters she has written to her childhood friend. I wanted this story to focus on the life of an ordinary person living in Hyrule, years and years before the calamity started. We often think of the people in Hyrule in the context of the horrors that happened to them, and the ways in which they survived, but what about the times when they experienced life ordinarily, not defined by the calamity they were destined to live through?

I absolutely loved writing this— please enjoy!

My dear friend,

The air in Mabe is so different, but I’m becoming acquainted. Here it envelops every breathing thing, thick like honey, sunshine and expansive sky, but I am accustomed to the crispness and cold frost of Tabantha. I write to you now as I sit, at my window, as little spots of light flicker through the trees and onto the objects of my house, illuminating them strangely, as with everything else in this town that light touches. Life here is so different, and the softness of the air has yet to become a friend to me. Increasingly, I long to feel something familiar, anything recognizable, but only one thing has caught my eye—

To the north I can see the spires of Hyrule Castle. I remember fondly, in our youth, when we would sit and watch the sun rise in the east, silhouetting the castle beautifully. We dreamt of a life within those walls. Now, as the veil of distance and childhood is lifted, a life like that does not seem as inviting… But I still have caught myself staring at those tall, arched windows from time to time, looking to catch a glimpse of movement. I wonder if the princess wishes she was someone like us. Maybe a little bit of my younger self is still alive in me, deep down.

You would love it here, in the warm verdure. Beyond the boundaries of this village we are surrounded by fields for miles, and from here I can see the long grasses sway like the ocean. I know Tabantha lies past those fields, and I know you are there, too, somewhere on the horizon. I am not as far away as I feel. There are so many people here, more than there ever were at home… Even now, I hear my neighbors laughing in the streets below. But I still cannot dispense this feeling of isolation. It is clinging to me like my memories of Tabantha, and my memories of you.

I will see to it that this is sent to you, and I await your response. I think I will catch one of the merchants moving west and put this letter in their care, so it will arrive swiftly. It has only been a few nights, but loneliness is not something to be underestimated. I’m afraid I will forget your face by the time we meet again.

I am thinking of you, always.

With love

——————

My dear friend,

The seasons are truly changing in this part of Hyrule. This morning I awoke to quite an affirming blanket of snow on the ground, and I realized just how long it has been since I’ve seen a landscape like the one in Mabe today. It was a soft reminder of home, one I am already hesitant to let go of... No matter how life presented itself in Tabantha Village, there was certain reassurance found in that monotony of snow.

This may sound strange, but late at night, when I am on the edge of sleep, I can see those white, rolling hills of the village so vividly. I see the mountains and the icy rivers of Hebra, just as I did in childhood, I see my hands, my footprints in the snow, I see my mother’s face, whole and reflective like the moon. I see yours.

I dreamt last night I was sitting on that river bank above Hebra Plunge, staring down at myself in the water. It felt so real, but some bitter reason, no matter what I did, I could not recognize my own reflection. I was an outsider to my own body and mind, occupying a world I had no place in, looking down at someone I did not know. I continue to ask myself what this could mean, but I remain with only questions, and no answers...

I woke from sleep with a sort of residual homesickness, the kind that makes your whole body ache. As much as I wish I could dispense of that feeling for good, there was still something comforting about waking up to find that snow had fallen. The world greeted me at dawn as if it was an old friend.

Remember to stay warm.

With love

——————

My dear friend,

I was walking home the evening before last, watching birds circle high above me, and a memory surfaced, one I have not thought of in years—

Do you remember during those warmer months, when your father would let us accompany him on his trips towards the Tabantha frontier? Those were the days when we hadn’t travelled anywhere outside of the village, and every excursion past the boundaries of home felt like a lifetime to my childhood mind. I was too young at the time to remember what the occasions for these trips were, and as we grew older I never thought to ask, but the memories from such trips still linger… We would fall asleep as we left home and wake up as the highest tower of Rito Village came into view from behind the mountains. That feeling has stayed with me since then, along with the warm smell of pine and dust in the air. No matter how much time goes on, I don’t believe I’ll ever forget it.

I remember wanting to see everything, and touch everything I could. Life felt so big and overwhelming and unknown, and we had only just begun to explore it. I wonder, would you want to go back and experience that feeling again, if it were possible? Even for just a moment? The world feels much smaller now than it did years ago— Or maybe now, I simply take up more space in it. 

The passage of time recently has become obvious to me. It is hard to believe I’ve been in Mabe for almost two years. It has begun to feel like home here, but I believe part of my soul will always remain in Tabantha, buried somewhere deep in the snow… 

I’m sorry. You tell me to look towards the future, but I cannot help dwelling on these old memories. Time passes by so quickly, and the only choice we’re given is to continue along with it. We will never be children again, this I know. Isn’t it strange how something can be so beautiful, yet so heartbreaking, all at once?

It is difficult to put into words how all of this made me feel on my way home. I just kept walking, and kept watching the birds.

With love

——————

My dear friend,

Have I ever told you about the view from my bedroom window? When the air is clearest I am able to see all the way across Hyrule Field towards the Tabantha Hills from this spot on my bed. Years ago, on slower afternoons, I would go out into that big sea of billowing grasses and sit down, and watch wild horses graze in the distance, and imagine what the journey would be like if I walked all the way back to you. A fleeting, sunlit moment of peace in a life otherwise full of confusion... I do not have the time anymore for such excursions, but I do still think about it once every so often…

Time continues to pass quickly, to no one’s surprise. Last winter, my neighbors had a son. I see them daily, and it astounds me how fast he is growing. On the days when they need help looking after him, I bring him to Hylia River just east of here, to let him wade around in the shallow water and chase frogs. I love watching him experience the world with such perfect, fragile simplicity… I often imagine what kind of person he will be when he’s older, but for now it is enough just to watch him babble and laugh. One day he will be different, just as we all will be. More than anything, I want the world to nurture him gently as he lives in it. How beautiful it is, the ability to grow up.

I have a question to ask you, one that I have been considering for some time now. I know your birthday is quickly approaching, and in the past we have always settled for sending gifts back and forth… But, would you like it if I made a visit home this year, in time to celebrate with you? I feel terrible that I have not offered sooner, but the occasion to do so always seemed to pass me by without warning.

Please let me know. We have been apart for far too long.

With love

——————

My dear friend,

I can hardly wait to see you again. In packing up my things, I came across my old coat in the back of my wardrobe, the one your mother made for me. There has not been a need for it in this fair Mabe weather, but I never had it in me to give it away… It still holds that faint smell of charcoal I had forgotten about…

How much have you changed since I left all those years ago? I wonder, do you still have the first letter I wrote? As embarrassing as it is to say, I’ve kept all of yours. They serve as good medicine for when I find myself thinking of Tabantha. I try to imagine your voice speaking to me as I read them, but what a relief it will soon be to hear it from your own mouth instead.

I’m counting down the days. By the time you read this, I will most likely already be on my way... 

Sent with great anticipation and all of my love

[dreamlover31]

Broken Promises

Hello my dearies, thank you for all of your comments and support throughout this comeback of mine lol

And now here's the third and final installment of my mini drama...my apologies since this took me a while to post this

Tagging: @madpanda75 @dreila03 @laceybellerain @melsquared79 @southern-magnolia @glimmerglittergirl @xemopeachx @misssirenlove @tropes-and-tales @thatesqcrush @sweetsummertime99 @imjustreallynosy @amirightcounselor @rampantmuses​ @youreverycolor​

Two pink lines...what should have been caused for great joy, instead has brought upon nothing but anguish and despair. After the incident at the apartment, you had packed up your belongings and moved into your sister’s place in Soho; leaving behind the man who had all but decimated your heart. Though the time was brief, being held hostage by your fiance’s mistress was a real wake up call, the wool that had been pulled over your eyes that day; and it revealed a very ugly truth, that Rafael Barba was nothing more than a vile creature who had taken your love for granted and threw it back in your face, however, when you revealed the pregnancy it was merely a ploy to get Sophie to drop her guard so that he could take the opportunity to take her out of the equation.

A few days after the incident, you had started feeling nauseous and had some weird cravings for pickles and garlic knots, and that was when the gears turned in your head; so one day when your sister was at work, you trekked down to the bodega down the street from her apartment where you had purchased 3 different types of pregnancy tests. Upon your return, you anxiously awaited the results as you sat on the edge of the tub, after a few minutes, you peered down at the stick and your heart dropped.

Later that day, your sister Rebecca returned home from work where she found you on the couch curled up in a blanket; eyes shrink wrapped in tears. She set her things on the coffee table and wrapped an arm around you, she rubbed your shoulder soothingly until your tears had subsided and that was when you revealed the reason for your distress.

Meanwhile, Rafael painstakingly went about his life, despite protests from Liv and the others, in his mind it made sense to keep himself busy, that way he wouldn’t have to deal with the reality that he had lost the love of his life...and her confession of becoming an expectant mother. After the Sophie fiasco, Rafael was desperately trying to contact Charlotte, he had lost track of the many phone calls and text messages he sent her; although he couldn’t blame her...he had violated her trust in an unforgivable manner and as much as he wanted to just make everything that happened disappear, there was no way that he could reclaim the life he once had.

Rafael was sitting in his office reviewing one of his case files when his phone beeped, his emerald irises widened when he saw the message… it was the last person he expected to hear from...Charlotte.

We need to talk...meet me at the coffee shop down the street from my OB’s office

Alright...I’m on my way

Charlotte scheduled an appointment with her doctor once she had time to collect her thoughts, as she was sitting on top of the examination table, her mind drifted back to the conversation she had with Rebecca the night before...as hard as it would be, if it turned out that she was indeed pregnant, she would have to notify Rafael. At that moment, her doctor entered the room with the test results in hand, with a soft smile, she confirmed what Charlotte already knew and now it was time to have an unpleasant conversation with the man who betrayed her; as she exited the building, Charlotte texted Rafael and began making her way to the coffee shop. The front door chimed as Rafael stepped inside the establishment, his eyes scanned the enclosure for Charlotte until he saw her in the back corner, slowly, he padded towards the table where she had a coffee already waiting for him. They barely looked at one another as the world around them continued to function in its normal capacity, the tension surrounding them was so palpable you could cut it with a knife. Charlotte lightly tapped her fingers on the container housing her chamomile tea as she thought of the best way to approach the subject...finally, it was Rafael who ultimately broke the awkward silence.

“I would ask how you are doing but…”

“Then don’t” Charlotte snapped all the while maintaining her composure without breaking down into tears again, she breathed through her nose and exhaled a deep breath then blurted out:

“It’s official...I’m pregnant and your the father”

Rafael blinked as he took a moment to process the huge bombshell that was just dropped on him, although he had his suspicions, receiving actual confirmation made everything all the more real. While his first instincts were to reach out and hold Charlotte’s hand and comfort her, he knew that she would rebuff his advances, with a heavy sigh, he continued:

“Charlotte...I know there’s nothing I can say or do to make up for everything that has happened, but I just want you to know that whatever you decide...I will respect your wishes”

Charlotte replied, "Well look at you...the great Rafael Barba playing the martyr"

The venom in her voice caused Rafael to inwardly cringe while on the outside his face took on a wounded appearance.

Charlotte sighed, "I'm sorry Rafael...that was unfair of me"

"It was well deserved believe me"

She looked out the window for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts while Rafael looked on, carefully gauging her mood. Finally, she spoke:

“Look...I don’t know where we go from here...all I know is that I do want you to be a part of our child’s life and we’ll figure it out as we go along with regards to visitation and support”

Her words were like a dagger to Rafael’s heart, granted that she was willing to let him see their child, a part of him hoped that she would consider the possibility of raising their little bundle of joy together; and yet the more realistic side of him understood that once a trust has been breached, it could take a long time to rebuild or worst case scenario, one can never regain that trust. He frowned but nodded his head in agreement, upon exiting the coffee shop, they both decided that Charlotte would update Rafael on the baby’s development and went their separate ways.

6 months later…

Charlotte stares idly at the monitor as the doctor ran the ultrasound wand along her abdomen, waiting to catch a glimpse of the tiny life growing inside her, today was the day that she would find out the gender of her baby. The doctor adjusted the image on the screen to where a little grey jelly bean came into view, as she pointed out how the baby was developing on schedule, Charlotte became overwhelmed with emotion; tears began to prick in her eyes as she sniffled. 

“Charlotte..are you ready to know what you are having”

“Yes, please”

The doctor clicked a few more buttons and a more clearer picture came into focus

“Congratulations Charlotte...you’re having a healthy baby girl”

The floodgates opened as tears streamed down her face, the amount of joy and love that she felt for the tiny human being inside her was astounding; at that point the doctor excused herself so she could print out the ultrasound pictures. During this moment of solitude, Charlotte’s happiness was quickly foreshadowed by the fact that this beautiful child was created out of the love that she once shared with Rafael, the man that she was set to wed before it was revealed that he had been unfaithful to her but as much as she wanted to hate him for the rest of her life...there was a part of her that still loved him and missed him very much. She quickly wiped her eyes as the doctor re-entered the room, she was handed the ultrasound pictures before gathering her belongings and leaving the examination room. She was then escorted down the hall to the reception desk, as she was finishing up with the receptionist, a familiar figure was sitting patiently in the waiting room. Upon entering, Charlotte was greeted with a smiling tall, sandy haired gentleman.

“You ready to go Charlotte”

“Ready when you are Sonny”

Sonny smiled as the two of them made their way out of the building, he helped her into his car that was parked along the sidewalk and as soon as he was in the driver’s seat; he started the ignition and drove off. A few months prior, Sonny had ran into you while grocery shopping at the local market, the two of you exchanged pleasantries and even agreed to meet up for lunch later on that week and ever since then, Sonny was like a Godsend. Whenever you were feeling overwhelmed or you just needed someone to talk to, he would always be there. He even invited you over to his place a couple of times where he would share with you the many culinary delights from mama Carisi and cuddle up on the couch and binge watched on various movies involving tragic romances. Sonny meandered down the streets of downtown Manhattan while Charlotte looked out the passenger window watching the buildings pass by, her mind a jumbled mess with everything that has happened, she finds herself in one hell of a moral dilemma. It was almost as if Sonny could read her mind because when they came to traffic light, he looked over to her and asked:

“Is everything ok?”

With a heavy sigh, Charlotte replied, “I don’t know Sonny...how can you miss someone who dismantled everything you once knew to be true...who you gave your heart and soul to, only to have it torn apart…”

He frowned as he put the car in gear and continued driving towards her apartment, “I know what Barba did was inexcusable…but I’ve seen him in the office and he puts up a good front but deep down I know he misses you terribly and would give his soul to be with you again”

Charlotte smiled softly, knowing that Rafael still cared for her brought some comfort, but the underlying question was that if she reunited with Rafael...how does she know that she can trust him again. The car came to a stop outside her apartment building, and they began their ascent up the elevator then as they reached her floor, they strolled down the hall towards her door; Charlotte settled down on the couch while Carisi prepared dinner. The aroma of cooked pasta and oregano filled the room, after chowing down on their exquisite feast, Charlotte and Carisi planted themselves on the couch and browsed through Netflix until they decided on a romantic comedy with Jude Law and Julia Roberts. 

They were well into the movie when there was a knock at the door, Sonny got up and looked through the peephole and then opened the door a crack where in his line of sight he was welcomed by  his colleague in a three piece suit; the well rounded and sassy ADA known as Rafael Barba. The two men nodded at one another upon entry, Charlotte carefully sat up and stood in the middle of the living room, there was a moment of awkward silence before Sonny spoke:

“Well I’m going to run down to the store real quick, we ran out of milk”

And with that, Sonny grabbed his coat and left, Rafael and Charlotte looked at each other with weariness in each other’s eyes, not knowing what to say or do. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Rafael broke the ice:

“How are you feeling?”

“For the most part, I feel tired and gross”

Rafael snorted, “If you don’t mind me saying...I think you are still the most beautiful woman to ever walk this Earth”

Charlotte blushed at his words, she forgot that he could be pretty charming when he wanted to be, she fiddled with her fingers as she sat back down on the couch. Rafael soon joined her but kept his distance.

“Listen...the reason I came over was to tell you that I’m happy for you and Carisi”

Charlotte furrowed her brows, “Excuse me”

“He’s a good man...and I know that he’ll take care of you the way you deserve to be...and I think we can make this whole co-parenting situation work as long as there is an open communication with one another”

Charlotte grinned and began giggling, at the same time, Rafael looked on with puzzlement.

“Did I miss something?”

Once she sobered up, she replied, “Rafael...I’m not dating Sonny, we’re just friends”

“But everyone at the precinct has been saying how close you both have gotten and that it was only a matter of time before…”

“Look Rafael...these last six months have been hard and as much as I want to hate you with every fiber of my being, I’ve come to realize that I still love you and I miss you so much”

Rafael gazed upon Charlotte’s face, slowly he brought up his hand and cradled her face, his thumb caressed her cheek as she leaned into his touch. He pulled himself closer to her until their faces were inches apart, he gave her a hesitant kiss on her lips but from there it gained momentum. All those months apart, the longing and need spilled out into the fiery, passionate kisses but then they reluctantly broke the kiss in need for air; their eyes connected for a brief moment until Rafael spoke again:

“I love you Charlotte...and I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you...if you’ll have me”

Charlotte desperately wanted to believe him, and while she was unsure as to what the future held for them, all she knew was that she couldn't imagine a life without Rafael in it.

“We have some work to do, but I am willing to give us another try”

[dorki-c]

You’ve got to be kidding me...

Relationship: Twice/Jin Bubaigawara X Fem.Reader

Author note: DOES ANYBODY KNOW HOW TO ADD A READ MORE ON TUMBLR APP XD

Sizzle...

Pop!

Sizzle...

Those were the only sounds that occupied your ears as your hands worked tiredly away at chopping up the rest of the spring onions that you had stacked up on the side of the wooden chopping board. Needless to say, you were busy. Ever since Jin had gone through multiple missions with his new crew, he has missed countless things that you considered important- like your 3rd year anniversary or (ironically enough) his own birthday- today however was a day where your going to treat yourself and not worry about him, like you have been doing for the last two and a half weeks.

Although the last few nights have been rough; the side of your bed that was once warmed up through the late nights and late afternoons, was now cold. No amount of blankets or layers of clothing could fulfil your clinginess for something to be warmed by your lover. At least you haven't resorted to using self-heating blankets...yet.

When taking a second to glance towards the door, your eyes scanned the entry way with an unknown attention before your hand was sliding closely to the stove's switch in order to take the frying spring onions with various of different vegetables off of the hob they were currently cooking on. Adding some paprika, basil, and oregano to the vegetables, you glanced towards the boiling pot of chicken as colorless bubbles burst and then form another bubble once more.

As (y/n) left her chicken to boil further, she resorted to changing her clothes into something more soft, more comfortable to her liking. As her feet padded against the cold summer floor, she paused. Opening her bathroom door, she turned on the light to see nobody in the clean and bleached room. Releasing a sigh of relief, she switched the light off and made forward for the bedroom. There's nothing to be afraid of, its probably your imagination.

Into the room of desolate dreams, (y/n) had changed out of her own clothes and into her lover's clothes, which is when you usually bunched up some of his sweaters and shirts and then slap your feet across the hardwood floor with the excess fabric of the sweatpants that keep sliding down your legs each time you fold them upwards.

When entering the living room to access the kitchen, there was a window opened with bloodstains coating the floor in a frenzied mess. Oh no. What if somebody broke into the house? Bubbly fear crackled in the midst of your stomach as you whipped your head around to spy if anybody is coming behind you with your fists readying to knock a bitch out. "Who's there?" Growled (y/n) as she side stepped to the side of wall in order to switch the living room light on.

Though what she saw...was unspeakable. Unspeakable, yes, but not surprising.

A black and grey color schemed outfit stood to attention whilst leaning on the old couch. To say you were disappointed was a freaking understatement. Fury coated your form when you saw a red liquid spilling down and very visible gashes scattered through his villain costume. "H-Hi baby! Oh no, she's angry." How very right the second voice was...

Breathing into your nose and out of your mouth, you pointed to the bathroom for Jin to haul his ass to. "I'll meet you there in a minute. Got it?" As his head fearfully nodded, he scampered past you like a child running from a terrible beast in the closet. You were normally very nice, but in rare coincidences, you can instantly instil fear into the deadliest of villains.

Like take for example, Jin's colleagues: At first, you remember your fiancé bringing over some of his 'friends' a little while ago, they were two people that he worked with; A little girl with adorable blonde buns and a tall patchwork guy. You don't particularly remember people's names, so you couldn't name them from the top of your head, however, you do remember that when you asked him to bring the laundry from the bathroom, one of his fairly rude voices shouted at you. 

On that particular day, your asshole of a boss decided to schedule an overtime shift for two hours on a Friday- a Friday out of all days- since the piece of shit decided to give extra work out to you.

So to top it all off, with the added stress that came with cooking chicken, you snapped at him quite easily resulting in the lights flickering 'a little bit' before exploding to make your point clear to the guests and Jin, that they shouldn't fuck with you.

Cracking the wooden bathroom door open, your eyes moved across the scene travelling slowly in front of you. A masked individual sat dejected as he mumbled under his breath about something you couldn't make out. "I need you to take off the suit, Jin." Bending over to grab the bandages from underneath the sink, the sound of a zipper echoed through the small room as you placed the bandages onto the pink stained tiles before grabbing out the rubbing alcohol. 

When you glanced upwards, he was still wearing his mask. Noting the slashes circled around his waist area to his arms, he may have been training with the short blonde girl or he ran into one of those heroes.

From next to the toilet seat he was sitting on, you grabbed the large bag of cotton balls to soak the rubbing alcohol in. Once you've placed a cotton ball atop the opening of the acidic solution, you tip the bottle over and then turned it onto the bottom of the bottle so it doesn't spill everywhere. Once applying the cotton ball to his skin, you managed to clean him up; the crisp brownish-red blood was instantly cleared as you inched closer and closer to his open wounds. After the third or so cotton balls were used, the fourth or so cotton ball started to clear through the sweat and mucus starting to surround the wound.

Once diving deeper into the gash, multiple hisses were heard through the mask. Once the pain was over with, your hands make quick work with unravelling the cloth that was slowly wrapping around his waist. "Are you still angry with me? La, la, la..." Your hold on the sterile dressings tightened as a shaky breath slipped through your lips. "Yes." Although your voice was still showing signs of frustration, maybe annoyance, the female couldn't hold herself to simply be 'angry'. Through all the hardships that she's faced in her life, Jin is one of the few people she can trust to understand how she feels in times like this.

(Y/n) isn't simply angry, she's simply feeling a lot of emotions. The reoccurring emotions that is choking her in her own salvia is the overwhelming regret of being a bad fiancée. It's always haunting her when each and every day that Jin steps foot into the outside world or when you fear that he's not coming back. The trepidation of unknowingness always slithers into her throat and blocks the security of JIn's arms wrapping around your waist and smothering each and every spot on your body whenever he wants.

For a small pocket of time, he paused. "Sorry I wasn't here for my present. I'm not-" Jin manages to cut off the run-along second comment. Awaiting a response, he flashes his eyes down to see you finishing the wrappings around his waist. You were tearing up. "Do you know how worried I was?" The waterworks had begun their journey by laying waste to the apples of her cheeks by scorching the way for them to make track quickly down the race course. The villain didn't bother to answer as it would probably upset you more when you were trying so hard to stop the stormy weather streaking across the plain hills of your skin.

"I thought you abandoned me..." Such simple words knew how to simply cut deep into a man's heart along the soft hiccups of your damaged soul that unknowingly peered at him from a traumatic childhood. Fuck, he didn't know what to do but hold you close to him as the wounds on his arms pricked at his nerves like a swarm of bee's stinging him. "I never intend to abandon you, okay (y/n)?" He's so grateful that nasty second voice, of his, didn't come to bite his ass.

As his large hands skimmed along your shoulders, up your neck; where the raw, but somehow smooth surface of veins and bone markings laid bare for the tips of his calloused fingers to trace religiously over, before meeting the upturned cliff your jawline; he never intended to leave the sensitive hiding surface of behind your ears alone when travelling through the straight road of your jaw that narrowed down to materialise your chin, that lead to Jin grasping the jutted out bone below your beautiful lips.

In the correct manner of duty, he shut his eyes and removed the mask covering his face. Jin set his forehead and locked his own lips against yours like the many times before. "Let's go eat, baby girl. Then you can give me a present." Murmured Jin when sneaking another sweet, small kiss. That sneaky bugger, really wanted to kiss your ego at the end of the day.

You might as well let him.

—————————

ANY FORM OF PLAGIARISM IS NOT TOLERATED!

Credits: Dorki-C

[coeurdastronaute]

Essays in Existentialism: Kiwi 12

Previously on Kiwi

For three days the world was rampant with news of Lexa and Costia. It was a hot topic for speculation and Lexa realized she hadn’t missed that aspect of dating, nor did she truly crave that kind of pressure or notice any longer. It was pure distraction, and it could not end soon enough. 

The reunion had its desired effect on the world. There were pictures that rolled all over the universe, or so it seemed, with headlines proclaiming all sorts of wild stories and theories as to the reason the bad girl model turned actress was seen paling around, post-show, with reformed and enjoying a successful third album world tour rock star. They hypothesized about the lost love and the rekindling, the cheating that might have happened, the whole entire thing. Two very distinct sections of the internet went bonkers for the pictures and news and fourth-hand accounts of their five minutes together in public since the break up. 

Lexa hated all of it, but bore it because she was now someone who did good things or at least tried to do good things, even if she didn’t like those things. Costia needed it, Indra asked her, and so Lexa stuck to the line that they were just friends and didn’t answer any other questions. It was easier that way. 

None of it mattered Lexa was too happy, feeling too good despite the normal trials and tribulations of the tour, and counting down the days until she would get unrestricted access to her girlfriend, her real girlfriend, her true and honest girlfriend who was currently squatting in her apartment back home. 

So she ignored the tabloids and tried to focus, ticking off the days and existing as far away from Costia as she humanly could. 

Even though there was a lot to get done for the show, even though there was a lot to run through and she should have hung around and helped her sister, Lexa was basically useless and dismissed relatively early in the day. She’d warned Clarke that she would have to send a car to get her, but there was suddenly free time. 

Practically vibrating, Lexa tugged her baseball cap lower and adjusted her glasses. Nervously, she looked around and tried to blend in as much as possible as she anxiously awaited her girlfriend’s arrival. As far as she was concerned, she was absolutely being an amazing girlfriend. The best perhaps. And everything was falling into place in a way that she hadn’t expected or ever truly experienced. 

Lexa saw Clarke before Clarke saw her, and she felt her heart sip a little. It wasn’t supposed to do things like that, and for an instant she was slightly annoyed that she was falling. It was a rare thing to have a moment to look at the girl with pretty lips without her knowing, but Lexa gave herself a few moments. And Clarke looked at her phone and smiled before Lexa felt her own vibrate. 

I made it! I’m going to see you soon! Prepare yourself.

From a reasonable distance, Lexa followed along as Clarke moved to pick up her luggage, carefully apologizing for pumping into someone, smiling warmly at someone else. 

And what should I prepare for?

It might have been slightly voyeuristic, but Lexa didn’t care. She was so used to being the one who was watched, that this felt rewarding in many ways. She would have never gotten to see the view of her girlfriend grinning at her phone and debating what to write, the casual glance around, as if someone was going to know or read it over her shoulder. 

Me, your exceptionally horny and understanding and downright magical girlfriend. 

When she got her bag and moved toward the exit, looking around for the ride that was promised, Lexa finally gave up her watching. 

Bring it on, Griffin. Look at the car rental place behind you.

It took a few seconds for it to register, but Clarke turned around and searched before meeting Lexa’s eyes, hidden as they were behind glasses and beneath a ball cap. And though she felt her, the pull and the need to close the gap as quickly as possible, Clarke stared at her girlfriend and smiled, relieved and surprised and happy. 

XXXXXXXXXX

“I missed you,” Lexa whispered. 

“Did you?” 

There wasn’t a wasted moment or movement. Lexa pushed forward until Clarke was pressed against the wall in the hotel room. She smiled, hovering near her lips, hesitating, teasing, waiting until she couldn’t wait again. Hands moved up from hips and Clarke moaned at the contact of lips on neck. 

It was the closeness that did it-- the unwavering feeling of another body and hands gripping into muscles despite already being closer than close. Lexa liked that Clarke clung, that she grabbed and dug her nails into skin and her legs wrapped around hips. She was unable to lie with her movements. She liked the feeling of being needed so innately. 

“You just popped into my life with a swipe and now I think about you a lot,” Lexa explained. “You made me someone who misses someone.” 

“I’m a terrible influence.” 

“You really are,” she agreed eagerly, kissing the girl in her arms once again before stumbling them toward the bed. 

With a flop, they landed and Lexa made quick work of pressing into Clarke’s hips, spreading her legs even more. 

“Can we do the slow and intimate after. I just--”

Hips canted and Lexa smiled down at the girl wiggling beneath her, cheeks flushed and hands gripping and pulling and tugging. 

“What do you need?” she murmured, dipping her head to kiss her jaw and neck again. 

“Lexa... “ It was somewhere between a whine and a command. 

“Tell me.” 

“Please.” 

“Since you asked so nicely.” 

XXXXXXXXXXX

Spent and sweaty, sprawled across the bed with arms wide and sheets tangled, Lexa sighed and ran her hand along her stomach. Clarke was in love with her knees and the point of her ankles. She was in love with the way her gangly limbs seemed to stretch and tangle themselves everywhere. And sometimes, without even meaning to, Clarke fell in love with all of those parts at one time and it was simultaneously soothing and overwhelming, leaving her startled and warm. 

All within one body, she saw so many contradictions and in that, an overwhelming kind of affection that Clarke hadn’t experienced before with anyone. From her spot between Lexa’s legs, her ear pressed against her thigh, Clarke thought about it more than she ever had before, because she was across the world and it’d been nearly a year, and there was nothing more terrifying than realizing you were in love with something like the wind. With a sigh, Clarke kissed Lexa’s thigh before lifting her head and slouching her way toward her hip. Lexa took a deep breath and held it as she shifted, stretching and adjusting, compensating for Clarke’s movement. The ink on her ribs moved and shifted on the skin there. Clarke kissed her stomach, kissed the giggle that came at the base of her rib cage an instant later. 

With a tiny smile, Clarke pressed her face into Lexa’s stomach and blanketed her hip. She ran her fingertips along the soft skin of her breast, over her nipple. Clarke fell in love with the sound of her lungs when she breathed and she fell in love with the piano keys of her ribs and she was surely in love with the slant of her wrist and elbow and shoulders. 

Not one thing existed-- the world was not at all composed at all of anything other than the bed and the night and the two bodies. Lexa’s fingers slowly tapped a rhythm on her own chest while her other hand swirled through Clarke’s messy hair. 

Sometimes it was too much; all of the feelings and such, and Clarke didn’t know how to explain or feel them or say anything. Words didn’t seem needed in the moment. And so she lifted herself once again and slithered lower until she could taste Lexa again, because she desperately needed to communicate and she needed to express, and she had no way to do it other than to make Lexa arch and grip the sheets and swear. It only made it worse, that Lexa gave all of herself over. But Clarke was in love with a live wire, and she knew that sometimes. 

When all tension that had been worked into her muscles left in an instant despite Clarke’s desire to prolong it, and the body in the sheets was once again pliant and spent, Clarke laid once more on her thigh and kissed her there before closing her eyes and listening to Lexa catch her breath. 

It was possible to fall in love with a moment, and it was possible to fall in love with a dream-- what Clarke wasn’t sure of, was if it was possible to fall in love with a person who navigated through those moments and those dreams. She wanted to reason her way out of whatever it was that was plaguing her, but deep down she knew that it wasn’t something she could do, and she was presently stuck with it. The only choices left were to nurture it and let it grow or ignore it and let it strangle her. 

“I missed you, too,” Clarke whispered. 

XXXXXXXXXX

“Wake up please. I want to go look at castles.” 

Clarke groaned in complaint before yawning into the pillow. A body settled near her, sitting on the edge of the bed as it rustled this way and that. The sleeping girl pushed the hair out of her face and watched as the rockstar typed on her phone before tossing it on the desk and pulling her shirt over her head. 

There was a tray of fruit, coffee, and scones on the table, and lit in the morning sun from the window, a shirtless girl ate a strawberry and surveyed the land outside before turning back toward the bed. 

Clarke just smiled and grabbed her phone before groaning once again at the time, enjoying the smile it garnered from her girlfriend. It was still early. Too early. 

“Did you already work out?” 

“Sure did. Ordered us breakfast, too. Already checked in with Anya and Indra for the day, and returned a few emails.” 

“Are you always like this?” 

“What?” Lexa asked, flexing slightly in the mirror before taking a sip of her coffee. 

“So perky in the morning?” 

“Honestly, just when you’re here. You’re a good reason to want to get stuff done. I want to waste a whole day with you.” 

“You left me alone in bed though.” 

“Yeah, or else I wouldn’t have gotten anything done. Can we go see some castles now? I’m very excited. I’ve been waiting til you got here.” 

“Can we shower first?” 

“I guess. If we must.” But Lexa didn’t move. She sat and began her breakfast. “I got your coffee ready, darling.”

Only then did Clarke find it incentive enough to heave herself out of bed. She wrapped the sheet around herself and moved toward the table, careful to lean down to kiss her girlfriend’s cheek then neck then shoulder as she did. 

“Are we going to grab dinner before your show tonight?” 

“Definitely. Anya has already picked out a spot. I thought tomorrow we could grab something just us. I mean… the weather is going to be nice. I found a place-- It’s already set. You’re fed for the next two days at least.” 

“Good. Because I broke down and bought very unhealthy food to contaminate your kitchen and I need proper sustenance.”

“You’re a growing girl.” 

“Exactly.” 

XXXXXXXXXX

“You really like castles.” 

“They’re so cool. I feel a bit like I’m in a Jane Austen book or something.” 

There was always a surprise with Lexa, and Clarke wished she could predict it, or at least figure out a way to be less blown over when Lexa said things like enjoying Jane Austen books and still, as a full adult, dreaming about owning a castle.

“I can barely fathom squatting in your loft let alone, so please don’t go buying a castle anytime soon.” 

Goofy and happy, Lexa smiled and shook her head, carefully slinging her arm over Clarke’s shoulder as they perused. 

“I try to read a book by an author from every country I visit. I made myself read Emma, and I’ve been a bit of a castle fan ever since. It was genuinely the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time.” 

“And what are you reading now?” Clarke asked as they walked along a rather drizzly path along the grounds with the other tourists. 

“I went with something called The Guts, about rock music and junk. I’m a cliché.” 

“You never told me you were a big reader.” 

“I don’t like to advertise it too much.” 

“God forbid people think you’re clever,” Clarke rolled her eyes and teased, earning a kiss on her temple. 

“I don’t know if you know this or not,” Lexa chuckled. “But I’m a high school drop out.” 

“You’re--”

Aimlessly walking and enjoying the mildly warm day despite the spitting rain, the pair was interrupted by the growing murmurs of people noticing. Clarke felt Lexa’s arm tighten slightly on her shoulders, guiding her away from someone else. 

“This is going to happen, huh?” Clarke sighed. “And we were having such a good time.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“If you weren’t so damn good looking and you know, sang those songs, and gyrated your hips a little less…” 

Lexa burst out into a laugh, unable to contain it. The cameras caught it, snapping pictures and documenting every move. For most of it, Clarke forgot to be too nervous. She couldn’t be completely distracted from the people following and stealing their moment, but Lexa did her best and it worked in its own way. 

On the way back to the hotel to get ready for dinner, Clarke scrolled through her phone while Lexa chatted with some friends on a scheduled call. She paused when she recognized herself and Lexa from just a few hours ago, paired with the picture Lexa posted of the two of them on her account. There were a lot of comments about them, speculation about who she was, linking to the previous pictures. 

For the moment, Clarke felt her heart race and her cheeks blush. She wasn’t sure what to say, or what to do or what to feel about it all. Suddenly, the privacy of a castle didn’t seem like a terrible life. 

XXXXXXXXX

There was something fantastic about a concert behind the scenes. There was something absolutely magical about watching Lexa onstage that simultaneously made the incident with the cameras seem better and worse. 

But for a while, it was gone and Clarke was infatuated with the girl on stage who had twenty thousand people hanging on her every word and song. During a song, Lexa looked over and winked and Clarke was certain that there was nothing better. 

Fingers moving up and down the guitar frets, Lexa leaned into the microphone and sang to her heart's content. She turned and looked at Anya and smiled. She moved and danced with the rest of the band. She chatted up the crowd, holding them in the palm of her hand, keeping them hooked. An entire stadium sang back her own words to her, and Clarke was in awe of the whole display. She wondered if the amazement would ever go away, or if she was doomed to be bowled over by Lexa every other night. 

Slightly sweaty and still high from her show, the lights went black and Lexa appeared close to Clarke, earning a hug. 

“You looked good out there, Woods.” 

“She never does this well,” Anya teased. “We should bring you along more often.” 

“I didn’t do anything special,” Lexa disagreed, enjoying the kisses she received. 

The crowd chanted and begged for more and Clarke knew what was going to happen. She saw Lexa soak it up a little bit more. She enjoyed the mood and the contagious feeling of it all. 

“I have to go back out there for a bit longer. You good?” 

Earnest and eager, Lexa waited for Clarke’s answer and nod. If Clarke would have said no, she knew that Lexa wouldn’t have gone back out, and that was something. So Clarke hugged her once more. 

“I guess I’ll chant your name later,” she whispered. 

She expected a smile or maybe a moan, or something inherently Lexa as a reaction to a comment like that-- something cocky and interested all at once. Instad, Clarke earned Lexa’s eyes and a very set jaw. 

“I need you to understand what I mean when I say this,” Lexa insisted, her forehead pressed against Clarke’s, the rest of the band already taking the stage for the encore. “I've come here to profess, now that I am at liberty to do so, that my heart is, and always will be, yours.”

She hadn’t meant to hear the words, and she certainly hadn’t expected such brutal honesty in such a sweaty and loud and public moment. Still pressed together tightly, Clarke felt a tear roll down her cheek because she was completely blindsided by such a confession. 

“I understand,” Clarke nodded. 

Lexa smiled and Clarke knew only because her cheeks crinkled near her eyes. The music started, but Lexa wouldn’t move. Clarke tapped her thumbs against her girlfriend’s chest. 

“You should go finish work.” 

“I should. Chanting my name, huh?” 

Lexa kissed Clarke quickly and disappeared back on stage before she could answer. 

NEXT