#cielo's writing!

[rush-the-stars]

AFFECTION'S EDGE: PART I

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|| alpha!suguru getou x omega!afab reader || E/18+ || wc: 6.5k || ao3 || Part II -> coming soon! || masterlist ||

minors and ageless blogs do not interact, 18+ only

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“You’ve got it all wrong,” he murmurs, “but what am I to expect from a stray like you? You’ve lived off scraps and abuse your whole life; of course you don’t know what to do now that I’ve given you food and shelter.” Suguru’s fingers ease up towards your neck as he continues, “a warm bed to lie in. Toys to play with. A collar—so you’ll never be lost again. No one’s ever given you this before, hm?”

***

Suguru tries to tame you.

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✧ SPRING FEVER collab masterlist ✧

cw: omegaverse, brat taming, mind games, toxic behavior, yandere suguru getou, yandere reader if you squint, biting, blood, marking, eventual forced bathing in later parts, eventual forced feeding in later parts, eventual smut in later parts; masturbation, voyeurism, a blurring of boundaries, consent as punishment?

a/n: this is for @lorelune 's SPRING FEVER collab!! i have been working on this for awhile now and i am excited to share it! this should be about 3 parts...i am very close to finishing the whole thing so i should be releasing a part a week for the next two weeks!

thank you for reading!! i would love to hear your thoughts <333

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“I think you’d be perfect.” 

Suguru’s voice is a caress, low and soft, as he sits across from you. 

Somehow, he always makes you feel like he is just beneath the surface of your skin, even if there is a respectable distance between you. He always makes you feel as if he is lurking somewhere in the lowest parts of you, pulling at strings you once thought hidden to yourself. 

You’ve kept your distance for this reason.

You swallow hard. 

And then you manage to get your voice to unstick, to find it somewhere inside of you and bring it to life. It’s firmer than you’re anticipating and you’re proud;

“I don’t think I would be.” 

Suguru looks at you in a way that makes you feel as if he’s seeing through you, pulling you open slowly to gaze at all the inner workings of you. His dark eyes are keen, so sharp, even if they’re shaded by half-lidded lashes. 

He smiles pleasantly and indulges you, but you know he believes very firmly that he is, in fact, right, “why not?” 

“I told you when I agreed to join you—all I wanted in exchange for helping you, was to be an unbound Omega.” You force yourself to meet his eyes and to not get sucked into the dark tide of them. 

“You asked for my protection.” He reminds you. 

Your eyes flash this time, heated, a little spark that skitters to life inside of you.

“I didn’t—“ 

“Is that not what you’d call it?” Suguru asks, “when I interfered, every time, to be sure no other Alpha got to you? Or when I scented you to keep them away?”

Prickling warmth dots your cheeks, can feel at the back of your neck, too, the tips of your ears. You try a different tactic. 

“I’m not a homemaker.” 

His smile is soft, “I don’t want a homemaker.” 

“I’m not obedient.” You counter again, as if you could dissuade Suguru Getou once he’s made up his mind.

“You’ve been quite good for me.” Suguru says smugly and this time, a little noise of embarrassment or frustration eeks out of you. A short, sharp little growl from your throat, almost a groan of irritation.  

“I—I’m doing your dirty work. That’s our agreement! You give me assignments that I complete and in return, I get my freedom.” 

“I don’t know why you’re so opposed to this. Is it not similar already to what we have now?” He asks simply, “I’d still let you roam, if that’s what you’re so scared of.” 

“No it’s that—that power and mentality that I don’t want you to have over me.” You snap. 

“I already have it,” he says and it isn’t intended to be cruel, but certainly is, “how long do you think you’d last, without the protection of an Alpha?” 

“I didn’t have any before you.” 

“You were starving, injured, and constantly on the run before me.” You open your mouth to protest, but he cuts you off, “it would still give you what you want.” 

“I don’t want to be yours.” You say frankly, perhaps to be cruel yourself. And then you show teeth a little, flash them in warning, “I don’t want your mark.”

Suguru looks amused, if anything, by your display. 

His smile is knowing and insufferable. It makes your anger ratchet up inside of you, hackles rising. You feel a little growl working its way out of your throat. It tears out of you in annoyance, when he says, “I don’t believe you.” 

You slam the door so hard on its hinges that it rattles the entire wall. You wish it would rattle all the world. 

***

Your cursed technique rips to life like a star exploding outwards. 

Beast that you are, it overtakes you, transforms you until you are all claws and dripping, little fangs. Your body elongates, elegant, and built for speed, viciousness. The horns atop your head are sharp, too, curled the slightest into a crescent shape. The beast in you stretches and pulls at your bones, fits your skin to it in a way that you have come to know well. 

(“Cursed technique: Cursed Creature,” Suguru hums, “allows you to turn into a cursed version of yourself, a sort of,” he pauses, looking you over, “monster?” 

“That’s right.” You tell him, body trembling all over, in dire need of food. Care. Sleep. 

He places a large hand on top of your head, strokes gently, until his hand nudges your cheek, beneath your chin so you are forced to look up into his eyes. Depthless violet. 

“You have a deal.”)

The sorcerer is cast backward with the force of your transformation. In this form, everything heightens, sharpening into brilliance. So much brighter, clearer. So much more overwhelming. 

You are a flash of darkness when you move, a mass of lethality. 

The sorcerer doesn’t stand a chance, the moment you dash past him with a deep swipe of your claws, you know this will be an easy match. You chitter in this form, excited, warbly little sound erupting from you before you careen towards him again. 

This time, he is warped away. 

But you are fast, changing your trajectory mid-step to catch up to where he was warped. 

Except, this time, a white haired sorcerer takes his place. 

Your claws meet air. 

A growling hiss erupts from your throat. 

Satoru Gojo. 

Suguru told you to stay away from him. At all costs.

And speak of the devil, your name is called, whistled almost. Your head turns to find Suguru appearing, too. 

Faintly, the more human part of you wonders what the occasion is. 

For a moment, all you can see is threat. Your hackles rise as your growling gets lower, more sinister, your form moving behind Gojo as if you might circle him, unable to let down your guard. 

“Call off your pet,” Gojo says. 

Suguru calls your name again and there’s something else in his tone now, a little sharper. 

(Fear, you wonder faintly, in some far away part of your mind. Is he worried Gojo would hurt you?)

You come to heel at Suguru’s side, remaining in this form, making a low, threatening sound still. Warning. Your claws still drip with the blood of that sorcerer. 

“Go,” Suguru says to you. 

Your head snaps to look at him, eyes narrowing. “I’m not leaving,” you snap and the words have a bite to it, around the curves of your fangs. You look back at Gojo. If this comes to blows, you don’t want Suguru facing Gojo alone–you don’t want to leave his back suddenly unguarded. 

It’s counterintuitive to you, goes against all of your instincts. You don’t leave him, you don’t leave his side, his back. 

“Go,” Suguru says, harsher this time and the command seeps into you. You waver. And then, “I won’t tell you again.” 

When you hiss at him in that warbling way of curses, he smiles faintly, almost fondly, as your teeth drip with venom. But you do listen to him this time.

And with your heightened hearing, you hear Gojo underneath his breath as you slink away;

“How interesting.” 

***

When Suguru returns to you, he is unharmed. 

You’d paced the length of the hallway outside of his room in the compound until you could have worn a hole into it. 

Few would be brave enough to wait for Suguru outside his door. 

When he arrives, he is mildly surprised to see you, before his expression melts into a sort of—smugness. A knowing glint to his eyes. 

“Why would you send me away?” You snap.

“You could’ve gone in, you know, if it would’ve soothed you.” Suguru says instead, head nodding towards the door to his suite. “Would you like a key?” 

You blanche, taking a half step back, “I don’t—“

It allows him to get to his door and open it. You’ve been here before, in the privacy of his suite, but now it feels strange. A little different. He holds the door open for you. 

You glance at the threshold and feel as if you’re making an important decision. 

“Come on,” he says smoothly and before you can think twice about it, you are being led inside, his hand drifting somewhere near your lower back. He never touches you, the feeling is a phantom one, the impression of it. You shiver a little. 

But you round on him again, “why would you send me away?”

He doesn’t acknowledge you, instead he goes rifling in a drawer, digging around a little. 

His suite is larger than others. The living room is open and attached is the kitchen. It’s all light wood, with tall windows that overlook the courtyard. You know, despite never being inside, that his bedroom is down the hall and to the left. The bathroom is across from it. You’ve sat many times on the floor of his living room with him, going over assignments, plans that he has, and what he’d like you to do. 

When he finds what he’s looking for, he makes a soft noise, before turning to you with a small, gold key. 

“I don’t want a key!” You snap. 

“It’s a spare, take it just in case.” He replies and when you don’t move to grab it from him, he takes your hand in his much larger one, and opens your palm to him. 

He places the key in your hand. 

And then his eyes catch yours, “you were worried.” 

“No-!” you get out, “I don’t like being—I’m supposed to protect you.” 

Suguru smiles, hand still swallowing yours, “isn’t that sweet?” he remarks, “an Omega attempting to protect an Alpha.”

Immediately, you jerk away from him.

The key is still in your shaking fist. 

“Don’t start,” you snarl, low and vicious and hurt, “I’ve always been the one at your side.” 

“Yes,” he agrees, hand falling back down to his side listlessly. “I already told you that.” 

You’ve always been at my side, he’d said, when he was trying to convince you to–

“That’s not what I meant!” Your voice rises without your consent and you feel an embarrassed, angry flush through your face for being so worked up. The room is thick with your worry and anger and frustration, all of your pent up energy like a knot in your chest, in your voice. It’s in your heart and the way you look at him. 

“It doesn’t matter what you meant,” Suguru says easily, “it’s still the truth.” 

When you slam the door this time, you hear something fall from the wall. 

But the key is still in your trembling hand, digging indents into your palm, and your heart is still a beast in your chest.

And behind the closed door, Suguru Getou smiles fondly, and retrieves the fallen, shattered frame from the floor. 

***

For a while, you avoid Suguru. 

You stuff the key he gave you in your nightstand drawer, far in the back, in an attempt to keep it out of sight and out of your mind. 

And at first, you think he is respecting your boundaries; you receive assignments through others from him. You see him only in passing and he never speaks directly to you. He hardly acknowledges you. 

But after a week and a half, it begins to feel like punishment. 

And the key is starting to burn and itch in your mind. You think about it at night, tossing over in your bed; you think about unlocking his door at this hour. What would you find? Would he be asleep? Awake? Alone? Fully dressed? 

You think of him half bare and lounging, hair slipping over his shoulders, and the scent of sandalwood and fig. Tonka or something woodsy, maybe. You know it well and it lingers long after he leaves you. 

You suddenly miss it, crave it. 

Him. 

You twist beneath your sheets. 

Why did he have to–

You make a soft noise of frustration, turning over again. 

You’re restless. 

Something beneath your skin begins to itch and squirm. 

Previously, Suguru had hardly mentioned your status as an Omega. He rarely acknowledged it; you were too brilliant of a sorcerer for him to care, you thought. You were too powerful. The only instance he brought it up was to scent you, a form of caution in a particular instance, for a particular mission. The memory still simmers in your mind, the way he’d rubbed the gland on your wrist with a careful thumb. He’d given you clothes of his to wear. He’d had you sit in his quarters for long hours, until it seemed as if you were his, in some way. 

But now that he’s actually brought it up, offered you his bite, to be his, it paints him in an entirely different light. 

Had he always…wanted you? 

Was he always planning this? 

The naive, desperate parts of you want to believe this is a recent thought of his. Previous to this, he only ever saw you as another sorcerer, a powerful one that aided him. You had always been one of the closer ones to him, at his heel, his beck and call. 

You’d be lying if you said you’d never thought of Suguru this way; as an Alpha. An unmated one, who kept your company. 

And he does, no matter how badly it burns to admit it, protect you.

You know he wards off Alphas. 

You know he perhaps does more than even that. 

But you don’t want—

You don’t want to be mated. 

You don’t want to suddenly be coddled by him, held back, don’t want to be the little thing that keeps his bed warm.

Your face heats with the thought. 

Images flash through your mind, flickering, melting together like film that bleeds and runs, of him overtop you. Shrouding you. His hair on your shoulders and back. You think of his mouth on your throat, teeth in your neck. 

You rub at your eyes suddenly as if to clear them.

You know he leaves on a mission for a week in two days. 

You assume, at some point, he’ll speak to you. And break this strange silence. 

You’ll both return to normal then.

And then perhaps you won’t lose any more sleep over him.

***

Suguru never says goodbye to you. 

It shouldn’t bother you as much as it does—you just figured he’d finally drop this silly little silence game.

You suppose he must’ve thought the same of you.

Besides, what were you expecting from him? An apology? It’s foolish to even entertain. You knew you weren’t going to apologize either. The least you’ll do, when he returns, is  act as if all is normal again. Perhaps it’s better that way, not to address what he’s put in his head recently. 

The more you speak of it, or think of it, the worse it unravels in your mind. 

On the second day that he is gone, you realize you miss his scent. 

You realize it has become such a staple in your everyday life that its sudden disappearance  is almost alarming. It makes you more irritable, more vicious. You snap at the others faster, bite out insults and brutalities. 

You—

Well, you miss it. 

Him, maybe. 

The admittance is a hard one to swallow around. It burns going down. 

On the third day, you’re genuinely craving his scent in a way that makes your teeth ache. You had no idea you could even miss a scent like this, need it so bad that your body would betray you with a physical pain in your chest. Somewhere in your mouth, under your tongue. 

You try to ignore it. 

You go on with your life. 

But by the fifth day, you are agitated and aggressive. Everyone knows something is wrong with you. You know something is wrong with you. You can feel it beneath your skin, crawling, squirming. It makes you want to tear out your hair, rip at your nails, or sink your teeth into something. You’re restless.

You can’t sleep. 

You can hardly eat or think. 

And as you lay awake in your bed, kicking at sheets, sweating and twisting, you know what it is you need. 

You’ve known the whole week. 

You throw back the covers and wrench open your bedside drawer. 

The key rattles, hot, like it knows it’s finally about to be used. It’s musical sound a siren song, it’s been burning away in there the whole week. 

You swipe it and turn sharply from your bedroom. From your own apartment. 

It’s the middle of the night; not a soul sees you in the compound. 

Like a person possessed, you walk. Your back is straight. Your steps are quick. Your mind is set, on fire.

Suguru’s door has haunted you the whole week.

The key in your hand digs into the flesh, carving it’s divots there like your hand might be the lock itself. 

You try not to think about it–you unlock the door. You throw it open. 

You shut it behind you, slide the lock back into place. 

Darkness greets you.

You wander in like you know the place (you do, you do–)

You wander in like it’s yours to wander in. 

Instantly, something loosens inside of you. 

You exhale hard. 

Inhale sharp. 

The smell of him, fainter because he’s been gone, assaults your senses, sweeps over them. You take in a lungful like gasping for air, you smell faint traces of fig and sandalwood. Notes of tonka that you long for, that urge you to move deeper into his space. 

In the dark, you make your way down the hall, towards his bedroom.

You haunt the arch for a moment.

Guilt or regret or embarrassment almost seize you. They make you pause. 

Some sane part of you is clawing at your insides, wailing to turn around and leave. Leave now. 

But he gave you a key.

He gave you a key, you think in circles, again and again. He gave me a key. 

You cross the threshold.

You sink down into his bed and his scent is strongest here, even still, after several days it’s his. 

You turn over the covers to get beneath them, cool sheets against your legs, sliding and smooth. You turn your face into his pillow and inhale. 

A soft little groan works it’s way out of you.

Instantly, your muscles slacken. 

Everything leeches from you; your anger and irritation and restlessness. 

It soothes you so deeply and so swiftly it makes your head spin. 

You curl beneath his blankets and take deep pulls of breath, squirming a moment if only to bring his scent tighter around you. You envelope yourself in it.You shroud yourself in it. 

And finally, after five days of restless nights, you fall asleep almost instantly. 

Not a single dream. Not one moment where you wake or stir. 

You sleep deeply. 

In the morning, the sun warms you through the broad windows like a content cat. 

You stretch lazily like one, too.

Suguru will be home tomorrow. 

You know you need to leave his bed, hope that your scent dissipates by the time he returns. 

You didn’t do anything wrong, you know—he gave you a key. 

He gave you a key. 

But rather, you know he would never let you live it down. He would use it instantly, as ammunition for his argument, the debate that the two of you keep circling.

You don’t quite leave as quickly as you should still, though: 

You linger.

You’re comfortable.

Calmed for the first time all week.

And when you do slip out, it’s silently, locking the door behind you.

Like maybe you won’t ever let yourself back in there, trying to shut it like it was a one time indulgence and gone now from your mind and body. 

But his scent clings to you. 

And little do you know, your scent clings to his sheets—and to Suguru, it’s sweet as can be and unmistakable—irreplaceable.

He collapses in his own bed when he returns and knows you’ve been all over it. He can smell the crush of dark berries, jasmine, the soothing note of vanilla that clings to you, that he’s come to adore. 

He grins to himself and knows then, he’s got you right where he wants you.

***

For a moment, you think Suguru is going to make you be the bigger person and apologize upon his return. 

Instead, he finds you. 

And he doesn’t say he’s sorry for his recent behavior, but he does say;

“I’d prefer if you didn’t avoid me in the future.”

It feels like sorry enough. 

And for some time, things return to a state of normal.

A version of it.

It isn’t quite like it was before—in fact, you seem to spend more time around him than previously. He calls on you more. He brings you into his space more frequently, often urging you to eat with him, beside him, at his table.

This is ideal for you. Close but not too close.

Although, he begins to ask, don’t you have your key? Can’t you let yourself in? 

You say you haven’t used it.

He hums like he knows differently, but doesn’t press you.

Until finally he asks you to retrieve a notebook in his study and bring it to him.

Fetch, he says.

“It’s locked, isn’t it?”

“You have your key.” He answers simply, not looking up from the book he is reading. 

For a moment, you almost protest, but something stops you. Maybe the twitch in his brow.

It’s a useless argument to pick, anyways.

You do have a key.

It would be fastest, easiest, to just use it.

So you do. 

And you hand him the notebook he asked for, fingers brushing against his as he takes it from you with gentle hands.

“Thank you,” he adds, voice so smooth and low, almost tempting.

You swallow a little.

Then you quickly avert your gaze. 

“Whatever,” you grouse, but he smiles fondly, amused.

And it opens another door, more than just the one to his suite.

***

Tentatively, you begin to come and go.

The first (second)  time you use your key to enter without his order, he is careful not to react to you any differently than how he usually does. 

His eyes brighten a little, though, like a leopard that’s caught something interesting in its sights and is waiting to see what it’ll do. 

Still, you grow more comfortable entering his space on your own. 

You claim portions of it; a corner of the couch. A particular cushion around his low table. All of the sunny patches in his suite become yours, scented with you, indented with you. More than that, some horrible, hidden part of you adores that your scent is all over his space. 

It’s comforting to find it beside his scent. 

It soothes a part of you that you don’t wish to admit to. 

His hands grow bolder. 

Now they’re always hovering at the small of your back, the nape of your neck. He tucks strands of your hair away from your face and though you jerk away from him, it’s often half-hearted. You snip at him and he only smiles.

Pleased. Smug. Knowing. 

His hands guide you as you walk beside him.

You grow accustomed to his touch in some way—he makes sure of it.

Then, as if to prove something—

Another cult member begins to cause trouble with you; he is another Omega. He begins with snide comments and remarks that test your patience. He doesn’t stop until you are growling and bristled and ready for a fight. 

And all it takes to stop you is Suguru’s large hand coming down on the nape of your neck. 

His thumb rests atop one scent gland at your throat, fingertips pressing delicately into the one on the other side. Hand wrapped around the back of your neck.

“Easy,” he murmurs and just like that, you can feel some of your aggression slip from you, deflate like a balloon.

It’s involuntary, the energy and anger unspooling from your body in an instant. In the back of your mind, you’re alarmed; how easily it was for him to effect you. It’s terrifying.

You swat his hand away, lurching from him, another little growl in your throat.

But you don’t fight him or the look in his eyes, the way he tilts his chin up in the barest hint of dominance. 

You storm off.

Instances as such continue to happen, though, where he’s able to sooth or quell your temperament with a touch. A word. A look. 

It comes to a head while you’re eating dinner with him. 

“You’re so wound up,” Suguru comments lightly, “your scent is so sharp with it. What’s bothering you?” 

Reflexively, you snap, “you are.” 

And it’s meant to be some sort of insult but Suguru’s lips twist into this hitched little smile. “It’s my fault you’re wound up?” He asks lightly. 

“Don’t twist my words.” You respond, fixing him with a glare, “you bother me.” 

He’s still deeply amused by this, you can tell by the twinkle in his eyes. The smug way he holds himself. 

“Would you like me to help you?” He asks. 

“No,” you say reflexively. 

A beat of silence before he says, “come here. I’ll help you.” 

There’s a command in his voice, laced there, and doing something strange to your head. 

You hesitate.

He pounces, “just a massage.” He soothes, “I can tell your shoulders are knotted up and tense. I can see it.”

His voice has dropped into that soothing lull.

Warily, “away from my glands?” 

He smiles, “of course.” And then, “come here.”

Your body moves easily now and he murmurs, “sit in front of me. Back to me—there, that’s it.” 

It feels more vulnerable than it should to show your back to him, to sit in front of him like a child to their mother. You try to keep your posture straight and careful. 

But then he sets large, warm hands to your shoulders. His fingers dig into the meat of them gently, pressing into your muscles which spasm and twitch in pain. You yelp, jerking away. 

Suguru tsks, “see how tense you are? You’re in pain.” He scolds softly and you feel heat smart across your face, “sit still for me. I’ll be gentler.”

True to his word, he eases up, fingers careful as they run into your tense muscles.

He finds bundles of twisted up tension in your back and shoulders, pressing into them until a noise springs from you—a groan, a whimper, a little growl. He works the sounds out of you. You swear he’s doing it deliberately and you wouldn’t be surprised if it was all just to humiliate you a little. 

But you finally loosen and slacken for him. 

When you finally sink into his hands, he murmurs, “I don’t know why you fight this so badly.”

You let go of a heavy sigh, “you do know why. Don’t play dumb, it doesn’t suit you.” 

“Because you’re stubborn?” Suguru asks lightly and you snort, despite yourself, “because you don’t know what’s good for you?”

“You’re no good for me.” You respond.

Suguru’s turn to sigh and if he digs his fingers in to make you yip in pain, he’d never say it was purposeful. 

“You’ve got it all wrong,” he murmurs, “but what am I to expect from a stray like you? You’ve lived off scraps and abuse your whole life; of course you don’t know what to do now that I’ve given you food and shelter.” Suguru’s fingers ease up towards your neck as he continues, “a warm bed to lie in. Toys to play with. A collar—so you’ll never be lost again. No one’s ever given you this before, hm?”

Reflexively, you jerk away from his touch, you turn to look at him over your shoulder with a sneer. 

“I’m not a pet.” 

Suguru does not heed your warning and instead gently pulls you back towards him by your waist. 

“No?” He asks lightly, fingers resuming their steady massage. You go completely still like prey, unsure, wary. Angry. Humiliated. “It’s not a bad thing to be a pet. You’re thinking about it all wrong.” 

His fingers ease up towards your neck and you stiffen again. 

“Suguru,” you say in warning as he nears your scent glands. Perhaps to what he’s said.

“You’re my pet now,” he continues, “though you don’t like to admit it. It’s not so bad, is it?” 

Stubbornly, you don’t answer him.

But after a moment, you say, “if I’m already yours, why do you need this last bit of me? If you already see me as your pet, why do you want me so terribly, in this way—“

Suguru suddenly pulls you back deeper, into his lap, against his chest. 

You squirm, but he holds you tight, hooks his chin over your shoulder.

Alarm bells ring frantically in your head now that he’s so close to the glands in your throat. 

“Don’t play dumb,” Suguru muses, half-mocking, “it doesn’t suit you.” 

“Let me go,” you snarl low and hot.

“What are you scared of?” Suguru responds, “that I’d trap you? If you’d take my Bite, I’d let you roam further than I do now. You’d be safe.” 

“Liar,” you hiss, “I’m not dumb.” 

“I’m not trying to stifle you, I’m trying to set you free.” Suguru almost purrs and his voice is warm and low and creeping up over your spine and trying to find its way inside you. 

You begin to squirm this time, thrashing in his hold until you manage to wriggle free, falling forward onto your hands and knees. 

Instinctively, you turn to keep your back protected, scrambling away from him. You bare your teeth at him. 

“I don’t believe you.” 

He watches this show of aggression with amusement, tilting his head slightly. And then he sighs, “I don’t think anything I say will convince you at this point.” 

You narrow your eyes at the tone. Your hackles rise. 

In an instant, he has grabbed you by the ankle and pulled you back to him. 

Underneath him.

You shove hard at him, twisting and fighting as he settles himself over you. 

You realize how solid he is, how strong, and large. He doesn’t budge. He doesn’t even flinch. 

“Suguru,” you hiss at him, pushing as hard as you can on his chest.

“See how easy it was for me to subdue you?” He says then, voice smooth and low. “If I wanted to take you, I simply would’ve already. You’re no challenge to me; if I wanted to trap you, I would’ve.”

“Get off me!” 

You thrash hard beneath him and in an instant, he has your hands uselessly pinned above your head, stretching you out beneath him.

His nose dips, near the scent gland at your throat. You squirm.

He squeezes your wrists, “stop squirming.” He murmurs low, “or my instinct will be to bite.”

Your stomach does a horrible flip, a flutter of—fear, excitement. 

“Just—get off—leave me alone!” You get out, voice high and tight. You try not to arch away from the way he lets his face fall to the crook of your neck. 

“Hush,” Suguru hisses, nudging his nose beneath your ear.

He’s scenting you. 

He’s done this before and despite everything in you, you finally go slack. You force yourself not to tilt your head or offer up more, rather let him urge you into the way that he prefers. 

He nudges his cheek and nose against your jaw. He lets out a relieved breath, fitting more of his body to you and you feel the push of chest into yours, his hips.

You squirm a little and a growl erupts from his throat.

You fight back the sound that almost works its way out of you now, swallow around it.

When he’s finished, he asks, “would you like to scent me?” And instinctively, you want to say yes, but you temper yourself. Then he adds, “I’m sending you away on a mission alone. I’ll be scenting you until the day you leave now.” 

You catch his eyes, glinting.

“So, I thought it only fair if you’d like to scent me, too.” 

You don’t know why, but something squirms inside of you, something a little hurt. 

“You’re sending me away?”

Suguru hums softly, “I need you to take care of something for me. I only trust you to do it.” 

You flex your hands a little in his hold, but he doesn’t budge. 

He nudges at your jaw again, gentle, and murmurs, “this would be easier if you’d take my mark.” 

You turn your head then to shield your throat, and face him. His nose nearly brushes yours and you look up at him through your lashes. You bite your tongue from any further complaints, dipping down to the crux of his throat now. 

Easily, perhaps eagerly, he bares his throat for you.

Satisfaction erupts beneath your skin as his scent washes over you, dark fig and oud, sandalwood and musk. Carefully, your nose runs along the column of his throat. 

“I’m not even—“ you huff, retry, “I haven’t had a Heat in—it wouldn’t take, anyways.” 

“Ah,” Suguru says and you wish you hadn’t told him at all. Realization dawns over his features the way a cat might realize it’s caught its mouse beneath its paws. “Is this what you’re so scared of?” 

“No—I prefer it this way. It’s another reason that you can’t. It wouldn’t work.” You say stubbornly and perhaps in your irritation, you burrow further down into the crook of his neck, tuck your cheek to his skin to nudge. 

“I could give you a temporary one,” he murmurs, “I’d let you do the same in return, of course.” 

You go quiet, brushing your lips against his skin, hesitating. 

“I don’t need it.” You finally decide, even as you let the blunt side of a tooth nick gently against his neck. “I can protect myself.” You pull away to look at him again, “am I not one of your strongest?” 

“You are my strongest.” He agrees, he praises. “But am I not also strong?” He asks, “and yet you still insist on protecting me.” 

You open your mouth to protest, but he takes your chin in hand suddenly, words dying before they can escape. 

“You are my strongest.” He says, “I would like the world to be aware of it.” 

“I told you, I don’t want to be yours–” 

“Then stop protecting me. Flee. Run away and never return.” Suddenly, his touch, his body, all of him is gone. He rolls off of you and onto his back beside you. Cold air sweeps in. You can feel his touch like burning imprints on your skin. 

You turn your head to the side to look at him. 

“You would hunt me down if I ran.” 

A flicker of a smile ghosts his face. 

“And if I ran from you?” He asks, “if I discarded you?” 

Something twists so viciously and sharply in your chest that your eyes sting with it. You lock your jaw tight. You stare up at the ceiling. 

“You refuse to speak but your scent is spiced with distress, sour with despair.” He turns to look at you, “not so easy to hear, is it?” 

“I can’t stand you or your games.” You get out. 

“There are no games.” He says evenly, “only the one you’re playing with yourself.” 

You scoff, “which is?” 

He sits up slightly, over you, looking down at you, the inky silk of his dark hair sliding over one shoulder. 

“Seeing how long you can outrun what you want.” 

You exhale roughly, in exasperation, and then you ask dryly, “and what do I want, Suguru?” 

“To be taken care of.” 

“I don’t need–”

He cuts off your growl before it can start, taking your chin in hand to turn your head towards him once more. “You never have, but it doesn’t mean you can’t want it.” 

“I don’t want it either.” You snap. “You have some grand delusion of me in your mind that I am some weak, submissive creature in need of your care.” 

“I’ve said none of that, have I?” He hums. “Now you’re twisting my words, being purposefully churlish–in hopes of, what? To scare me off?” 

His palm opens up against your jaw, your cheek. His thumb touches your bottom lip. 

“You snap and you snarl and posture as some ferocious, independent creature to scare everyone off. I don’t blame you–I am certain you protected yourself many times this way from lesser people.” His voice is soft, almost a lull, you allow his palm to open against your lips, to turn your face into the cup of his hands. “You don’t believe anyone can handle you and you hope if you bite hard enough, tear into them, they’ll run off. And then you’ll feel vindicated; you were right, you are too much to handle. You were right, you are a monster. You’re unworthy of care or companionship or protection.” 

His hand moves upward, baring his wrist to your mouth now, “go on,” he encourages, “bite me. As hard as you like. Scream and cry and tear into me. Loathe me and scorn me.” He leans closer, over you, as he hushes like a mother to their child, “I’ll still be here, with the rings of your teeth marks littered in my skin. I’ll be the only one, bruised and bloody, still taking care of you–no matter how badly you fight me.” 

Out of anger or frustration or something else entirely, tears prick your eyes. As if to hide them, you open your mouth against his wrist, gentle first–warm and soft lips and tongue. He looks enraptured. He looks starving. 

You sink your teeth into his skin viciously. 

He hisses in pain, sharp, but doesn’t pull away. “There,” he coos, leaning over you, sinking into the pain, “is that what you wanted?” 

Blood bursts into your mouth in a way that is almost startling, sharp and metallic. It should be gross and horrible and–you whine a little, somewhere in the back of your throat and bear down harder. 

If that’s what he promises, you’ll make him prove it. 

If he wants to be the one beside you, you’ll make him pay. 

He leans down to kiss at your cheeks, gentle, humming. You realize there are tears. Your jaw aches. 

But you don’t let go and he doesn’t even flinch. 

“Does that feel better? To get your teeth into someone who isn’t scared of you?” He murmurs, nudging at your tense jaw, kissing there. “Shall I do the same to you?” 

You release his wrist and shove him off, hard enough that he gives and he goes. 

You stand up and storm out of his chambers, slamming the door on its hinges as hard as you can. You hope it knocks over every painting on his walls. You hope the entire compound somehow hears it. You hope it breaks something in the same way that something has been broken open inside of you.

You wipe his blood from your mouth with the back of your hand.

Suguru doesn’t even bandage the wound. And he wears his sleeves high, so that all the world might see it.

[firein-thesky]

|| zhongli x afab!reader || E/18+ || smut/a touch of angst/comfort || wc: 7k || ao3 ||

minors and ageless blogs do not interact, 18+ only

You have never been patient enough for worship. Sometimes, he thinks you always expect to be scorned or feared or hated. As a god of hunger, you are not beloved or worshiped by many, if any at all.

You’ve never known the sort of worship that he gives you. 

✧ meet fruit collab masterlist ✧

a/n: this is apart of @willowser 's house server summer collab, meet fruit!! i took plums as my prompt!! this really got away from me and i had a lot of fun with this dynamic and i WILL be writing more of godly wife!reader and zhongli. i have a whole backstory. a huge massive fic i shouldn't work on but will fjdkslfdk i also need to give a special thanks to @itoshisoup , @lorelune , and @petrichorium for helping me with brainstorming and riffing earlier! also finding some godly names for the reader! in particular, mao came up with the name Tanai Zhenjun, which i will leave a note at the end about!! i hope you enjoy this sweet taste!! thank you for reading and let me know your thoughts <333

tags: afab!reader referred to as wife, and has several godly titles that mortals have called her, etc., a complicated relationship between zhongli and reader, mentions of past fights/canon typical violence, erotic fruit eating and feeding, finger sucking, biting, oral sex (f!recieving), some over stimulation, praise, maybe a little sex pollen because the reader causes feelings of hunger/lust/etc. but its consensual and zhongli can withstand it if he wanted, scratching, unhealthy godly dynamics, let me know if i missed anything!

In the shadows of his home, he would know you anywhere. 

(He would know you even if you didn’t appear to him like this, fully formed, and in the visage of mortals. He’d know you in the thunder and the wolves’ howl. He’d know you in autumn’s bitter wind and the fox’s cry. Across all of time, he’d know you.) 

You slip, serpentine, slow and with the easy grace of a predator into the last falling light of the sun; bronzed, honeyed, and appearing before him like you did decades ago, perhaps a hundred of years ago. 

Has it been so long already? 

The sight of you–perhaps simply you, yourself, spark an ache in his chest. Fierce. Hunger pains. 

And after all these years, he welcomes it, savors the pit in his stomach like a sweet fruit. 

You, his god of hunger. 

You, his divine wife. 

He tips his head back, leaning further into the chair at his deep, mahogany desk, as if he could fix his eyes to better see you. As if he could take in more of you, somehow, greedily, hungirly. 

“Hello, my Morax.” You hum and the sun catches in your eye as you step into his life again, after so long without. 

“Hello, my love.” He responds, as if it could’ve just been yesterday.

As if you are his wife and you’ve come home to greet him. As if he is your husband and he’s been working all day without you. 

“It’s been a long time,” he says then, “you’ve been away a long time.” 

You meander closer, on the other side of his desk, peering at the scrolls and papers there. His hands are stained in ink. He catches the downturn of your lips, the small quirking of them in displeasure. Such mortal things, he can hear your voice, the little hiss you get when you dislike something. 

But then your eyes roam to the bowl of fruit, now untouched, that had been brought to him in hopes of eating;

Slices of plum, gold and orange and tender on the inside, their moon-dark skins still curved to them. One still has the pit attached to it, carefully nestled within its flesh. 

Plums always remind him of you. 

(In truth, anything with pits, with bones, with something that can be picked clean and left behind reminds him of you.) 

In an instant, your fingers, nimble–adorned with his jewels, the jewels of his earth, snag a slice.

He watches as you sink your teeth into it, juice bursting, caught on your lip. 

You chew only a moment, swallow slowly as you watch him. 

“I thought I wasn’t allowed around Liyue Harbor,” you begin, “I thought I wasn’t allowed around your precious mortals.” 

His voice, low and soft, rumbles in affirmation. “Yes, that is true.” 

“And yet you speak to me like I’m welcome.” You hold the last bite of your slice to your lips, speaking against it, “like I should’ve visited sooner.” 

You bear down into the fruit again. 

“You’ve come to pick a fight?” He asks, “I can feel you’re trying to stir trouble.” 

And it's true; your ability as a god of hunger, to spark it in others. To sharpen and change it from starvation to bloodlust to desire to despair to greed–to any form of hunger. 

You caused whole towns to be decimated, driven mad with just the residuals of you, the feeling of you too near, like a wraith haunting their doorway. You turned tides in the Archon war for him and against him. You have always been one of the biggest threats to Liyue’s peace—to the world. Perhaps even beyond.

You perch on the corner of his desk prettily. 

“I can’t visit my husband?” You purr.

He quirks a brow, “you only ever call me husband when you’re trying to kill me.”

Your grin is a wild slip of excitement, a fissure of heat in the clash of your gazes.

“I am trying to kill you,” you agree, but perhaps you have always been trying to kill him. The battles between you two carved the very land of Liyue and at the end of them, no matter what had transpired, he was still your husband. And you, his wife. “But I don’t feel like fighting tonight.” 

You pluck another slice of plum from the bowl and bring it to your mouth. He watches your lips part to take the fruit in again. 

He thinks of replacing your hand with his own. He thinks of the sticky sweet taste he would find if he licked into your mouth, he thinks of being between your teeth again like the little piece of plum.  

Something inside of him yawns open. 

You’re toying with him. 

“You’re in rare form, then.” he hums and does not deny your draw. He has long since stopped trying not to be swept up in you–he realized it was inevitable at some point. You would always pull at parts of him none of the world had, and like a puppeteer did you play with those strings. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

You gaze down at him, almost lovingly, if he didn’t know better. 

Then you shift slightly, adjust yourself. 

And the first touch he has of you in decades, perhaps a century, is just a brushing of your calf against his forearm from where you sit atop his desk. Your bare skin beneath the pooling silks of your skirts. 

Heat rips through him like a tearing wound. 

His gaze flicks up to yours. 

“Did you know I was in Liyue?” You ask. 

“I always know the moment you enter my land again.” 

I always know the moment you come home. 

You shift your leg again, this time, a steadier press to his arm. 

He can’t help himself–he shifts his arm, opens his palm up against the curve of your bare calf to fully feel you, to hold you, in any minute way you might let him. Rough calluses scrape up  against the soft skin of your leg, the silk of your dress pooling around his arm, cool and like spun moonlight. 

You let him hold you like this, curl against the contour of you. His hand moves, dips down almost to your ankle, and back up to the bend of your knee. 

“You missed me,” you accuse, your voice a teasing lilt. 

Perhaps it’s you and the heady rush you cast on a room, on him, “yes,” he agrees honestly, “I always do.” 

“So sentimental in your old age. You’ve spent too long around these mortals.” You tell him, looking away so all you give him is the profile of your lovely face. The upward tilt of your chin, the haughty way you look down your nose. 

“Did you miss me?” He asks and he isn’t looking for you to placate him, but his hand is broad and inching up the back of your thigh. He pulls at you, urges you to the edge of the desk, where his other hand fits around the curve of your waist. 

“Don’t get greedy,” you chastise gently, but you still go with the pull of his hold. 

You slip into his lap like you were always meant to be there, fitting to him the way the moon fits into the sky, or the land against the sea. It’s an ancient feeling, bone deep, soul-cut. 

You let your arms fall around his neck loosely and to have you again in his embrace, after so long, does in fact, make him feel greedy. 

“I can feel it,” he says instead, perhaps just to spite you a little–to move another piece in this eternal chess game with you. “I can feel how you ache. I can feel the way you missed me.” 

“I always feel like that,” you snip, deft fingers slipping the band in his hair out so that it all falls free, loose and flowing over his shoulders in a wave of inky black. “I am always hungry like that.” 

“No,” he says and his voice is low like a wolf’s growling, a tiger’s purr, “I know your hunger. And I know this hunger of yours. You missed me.” 

“If you’re looking for a heartfelt confession, you won’t find it in me.” You tell him, proud little god that you’ve always been, “perhaps you’ll find it in your precious mortals.” 

Your voice takes on an edge, just shy of a sneer.

He laughs, a low rumble from his chest, amused, and pleased.

“Oh, that jealousy of yours. I missed that, too.” 

“Don’t get full of yourself,” you hiss like an asp and now, he worries you’ll bring your claws out. Your eyes glint in the last rays of light, like a bolt of lightning, like a spark of flame in a cold night.

He reaches up to touch your face, thumb sweeping over the arc of your jaw bone in a possessive hold. He forces you to look at him. “Come now, I thought you said you weren’t in the mood for a fight.”

“Then don’t test me.” You snap.

He fights back another fond smile in order to not test you further than he already has. 

He leans closer, his nose almost nudging against yours, “if you’re not here to fight. What are you here for?” 

“To eat through all your land until it is barren again.” You murmur and he knows it is just to pester him. Your fingers are winding in his long, silky hair and your eyes have gone half-lidded, so he knows you are not nearly as waspish as you’re pretending to be.

“If I could satiate your hunger, I would.” He murmurs darkly, lips brushing against yours as you carefully hold yourself back, a dog on a strained leash. At your best, you have always been a caged beast, pacing and desperate for escape. At your worst, you have been nothing short of desolation, teeth upon the earth in a vicious grasp, shaking hard, tearing it to shreds. Your bite never compared to your bark. You’d threaten destruction and deliver devastation; even you, surprised with your own vitriol, your own capability for demolition. 

He threatened to muzzle you once, long ago. 

You rear back slightly to look at him, “no, you wouldn’t. What would you have me be? Content?” 

He laughs softly again, low and warm, terribly fond of you despite it all, “yes,” he says very frankly, and then, “soothed, for once in your life.” 

“I won’t ever be soothed while you walk this earth.” You tell him and he cannot tell if you mean it with vengeance or with love. Are you being romantic? Or threatening him? Sometimes, he felt that your violence was supposed to be more like a kiss, and your kiss the type of violence that leaves him ruined for decades after. 

“And you would be after?” He asks, “I don’t think you’d know what to do if you finally managed to kill me in a meaningful capacity. You’d be bored.” 

You move to pull away from him with a snarl but he fastens his hold onto you tighter to get you to stay, he touches your face again, coaxing. “I only tease you.” 

“I said don’t test me.” You respond, but again, there is nothing nearly so vicious in you tonight. 

No, he knows the hunger in you tonight is a soft creature, a warbling, tender one. He’ll be kind to it, he will feed it and tend to it, even if he knows it will only grow larger still. Like caring for a tiger cub, only for it to grow into all those teeth and muscles, to bite the hand that fed it. 

“Forgive me,” he rumbles, and this time, he angles your head so that he can skim the strong line of his nose against your jaw, “let me make it up to you.” 

“You will not be able to,” you say indignantly and his own smile now feels sharper with the challenge, with your throat so near. He settles himself into a burning kiss against your pulse. Inside of him, something catches and sparks. Your hands curl around the muscles of his shoulders. 

“I know,” he coos, low and soft, almost sympathetic. “Then at least indulge the hunger you’ve caused in me.” 

This, in the least, you settle into. 

He pulls away barely to sit back, to look at you fully in all of your glory a moment. 

You look back at him, perhaps taking him in as well. 

The smoldering turns into a flame. 

The decades of years unspool inside of him and give way to a racing mind, images of what he wants, how he wants you. 

It is always like this, he thinks, eternally, desiring you, and never getting enough.

He thinks he must know how you feel. 

And then he gives into one of several of his desires that are rearing their large, horned heads inside of him. The beasts of his desire are all chained to you, he thinks. He reaches for the bowl of fruit. 

Perhaps it's your turn to be amused as he brings a slice of plum to your lips. You must know how he was looking at you earlier, you must know his desires if you are the one to stoke them. 

Still, you accept the fruit easily, minding your teeth as his finger slips against your lips. Sticky and soft and warm. You draw his finger into your mouth briefly, closing around it. He can feel the edges of your teeth as he pulls it out. 

The moment you swallow around the piece, he surges up to kiss you. 

To finally kiss you. 

He wishes he could call it something of a greeting or reunion, but it is too desperate and too vicious for that. Your teeth click together, coming up against one another, like an old key coming up against a lock. 

He tastes the plum in your mouth, sweet and a little tart, and can’t help the groan that rumbles out of him. 

Your hands disappear into his hair, tangle in the strands so that he can feel the press of your nails against his scalp. He feels the way you arch into the slide of his hands along your torso, bending to them, as if he is a sculptor. It pulls you closer, opens your hips wider in his lap in a way that makes heat rip through him.

When he pulls away, you’re already hazy-eyed, heady with the quick-burn of this sort of hunger, this lust. 

It pulls at him like the tide on the shore to drag him under. 

This time, when he places his lips to your throat, he sinks into a bite at the tender flesh there. 

Sometimes, he wishes he’d treat you more tenderly. As if that might be all you ever needed; more gentleness, and less teeth at your throat. 

But you arch and from your mouth spills your own moan finally, fingers tightening in his hair as if to hold him there. He feels your hips twitch forward, into him, an aborted rock of them, perhaps unknowingly or subconscious.

He wishes you inspired patience in him. 

(Usually, he claims to have a great deal. Unfortunately, he cannot claim the same with you in his arms again. Forgive me, he thinks again, but I haven’t seen you in nearly a century.) 

He stands suddenly with you still wrapped around his waist, hands fit beneath your thighs to lift you and place you on the broad expanse of his desk. Papers get pushed aside, some topple onto the floor in a fluttering mess. You laugh when the bowl of plums rattle precariously, but his mouth covers yours again, and he swallows the sound eagerly. 

He kisses you hard again, hitching your hips up to fit snugly to his, fitting his broad hands over the curves of your waist. You respond in kind, though, and twine your leg around his waist to pull him closer, arch your back to press your chest up to his.

When he pulls away this time, he takes you in, splayed out beneath him. 

“I did miss you,” he gets out roughly.

“Then show me,” you respond, stretching out beneath him, as if to tempt him. 

His hands move over the silk of your dress, bunching parts of it, tangling it. He decides in an instant that he doesn’t actually wish to deal with it, so he sets his hands on the bust and simply pulls. It tears like paper beneath him. And again, you laugh, amused with him now, with what you do to him.

“So impatient.” 

“It’s been a long time, my love.” 

And this time when he kisses you, perhaps you give into him more, feed what he wants. You mewl into his mouth, arch against him, drag your nails down his covered back. 

“Touch me,” you get out, demanding, a little fussy. 

“So impatient.” He mocks dryly. 

For his trouble, you pull harshly on the hair at the nape of his neck, baring his throat to you. 

His broad palm roams up the expanse of your side, your bare stomach, and to your chest. He cups your breast, thumb brushing against the peak in a way that makes you hum and squirm beneath him eagerly. 

You bury your face in his now exposed neck, nudge your nose there, which turns into your warm, open mouth. 

For a moment, surprisingly gentle, until he feels the quick flash of pain from your teeth. He rolls your nipple between thumb and forefinger with a little more pressure than necessary, just to hear the little noise of pain you make. 

He drops his face to the crux of your chest, lips dragging along the skin there, above your beating heart. And for all your bite and bark, you still offer yourself up to him for the taking. You still draw your hands over his shoulders, pushing at the clothes still on him. He doesn’t indulge you, but draws lower, hair spilling over your chest as his mouth opens against your breast. 

He nips and marks, sets his teeth against the tender flesh and sucks a bruise into you. 

“I miss your sharp teeth,” you admit.

He huffs, breath fanning against your skin. He raises his eyes, molten gold, to meet your own, “there’s no pleasing you.” 

And then he captures the bud of your breast in his mouth and at least manages to pull another sound from you, meandering, growing in your own desire. You squirm beneath him again but something inside of him (old and draconic) blinks its eyes open and he seizes your waist to still you the way a predator subdues their prey, sharply, and with a slow rolling of muscle, a flex of their strength. A serpent squeezing down around a mouse. A tiger bearing down on the deer. 

You don’t go easily, though. 

And the moment you feel his resistance, you squirm and push harder, straining. Arching and impatient. 

He nips, he fights back the more base urge to growl, and readjusts his hold on you.

“Stop squirming,” he commands.

“Stop teasing,” you reply, stubborn, and disobedient. 

“Let me enjoy you.” Zhongli responds, watching his own hand sweep over your breast, cover it, and toy with you. 

“Enjoy me later.” You snip, fastening your legs tighter to his waist, hitching him closer. 

And he feels a head rush of your ability pour through him, the tightening of your desire and lust, of your hunger spilling from you. It’s purposeful. He feels the dull thud of his heart kick upwards, the warmth that simmers beneath his skin. He blinks hard with it, but does not succumb. 

“You’re so insolent.” He finally gets out, just shy of a growl, “now hold still for me.” 

His lips skim the top of your stomach as he lowers himself to his knees in front of you. 

You sit up onto your elbows, eyeing him, inching your hips to the edge of the desk eagerly. 

“I’ve always liked you best on your knees, Morax.” 

He sinks his teeth into your inner thigh in a more ruthless bite, forcing your legs open even as they threaten to close with the sudden jolt of pain. Hard enough that you hiss through your teeth, twitching towards or away from him, he can’t tell. 

(Images of days long past flash hotly in his mind, in another form, with those sharper teeth you’d said you missed.) 

He feels your hunger burst open like a ripe fruit, like the plum between your teeth. 

He soothes the bite with a slow, lingering pass of his tongue. 

His eyes flick upwards towards you. 

You look a little shaken finally, eyes glassy, teeth stuck in your bottom lip. 

He drags you closer, pulls you flush so that your hips are almost off the edge. You fall back with the movement and he doesn’t give you a moment. He isn’t feeling generous or very kind anymore. 

His mouth opens against you in a crush of heat, eager, perhaps impatient himself. 

A groan, low, from the back of his throat, works out of him at the first taste of you. 

Again, you try to squirm, and something ancient and vicious in him squeezes hard enough on your waist that if you were a mortal, he might sincerely hurt you. He doesn’t care if you’re trying to squirm closer or away, he realizes, he doesn’t care if it hurts a little, as long as he can have you like this. Open. His. 

Ah, he realizes, perhaps he isn’t ignoring your sway as well as he thought he was. 

He delves between soft folds, already slick, but he’ll make it worse still. 

(Perhaps, at one point, he had ideas of being a gentleman of some kind with you. Perhaps, at some point, he thought he would carefully work you open with mouth and soft tongue. He’d be loving and gentle with you. But you’ve always done something horrible to him, something he can’t tame, something he wishes he feared more.) 

You whine a little and the sound pools straight into his own desire for you. 

He fits himself closer, keeps your legs wider apart with his shoulders. 

“Morax,” you gasp and it’s with more heat and desperation than he is anticipating.

His eyes, heavy and gold, flick up towards your face, looking up at you beneath the dark fan of his lashes. 

Oh, you’re closer than he thought, he realizes. 

He doesn’t slow or stop or lessen himself, groans a little, and fits himself tighter to you. He digs his fingers into your skin and keeps you close. 

To his surprise, that is all it takes. 

Your gasp is strangled, perhaps a little surprised, as you arch off the desk in a bow-curve, poised to snap.

You fall to pieces as a cry loosens from your throat. 

He feels you pulse against his tongue and without thinking, he growls a little, a pleased rumble, and doesn’t stop.

He tastes you, savors it, and doesn’t let you hide or pull away from him.

Your hips twist and he follows the movement, wrestling you still, so that he can still enjoy you. 

You’re out of breath, hiccuping a little, trying to squirm away from him but there’s nowhere to go.

He won’t let you go.

He pulls away to rest his head on your inner thigh a moment, “so quick.” He teases, “you must’ve been pent up for it to be that easy.” 

He thinks, I wasn’t even doing that for you yet—I was still enjoying myself. I was being greedy. Hungry in my own way, in the way that you inspire.

“I should leave you now.” You huff, picking yourself up on your elbows to gaze down at him, but your eyes are simmering.

He squeezes at your thighs, “you’re not going anywhere tonight.”

And before he can hear your protests, he dips forward again and flattens his tongue against your folds. Slow, broad licks that make you twist and twitch. 

“Morax—“ 

“I’m not finished with you yet, my love.” He says lowly, somewhere against where you’re most tender and sensitive. 

He takes his time teasing now. 

Enjoy me later, you’d said, and he doesn’t think this is what you meant. 

You have never been patient enough for teasing–for worship. Sometimes he thinks you always expect to be scorned or feared. You were always Deus Inanis, Tanai Zhenjun, and later, Rapax Regina to the people. You have many names from them, none particularly kind or cherished. You were always the ghoulish god, the bad omen, the drooling maw of a starved predator. Your myth is not a beloved one by most. 

And some dare not even speak your name at all, for fear of inviting you. 

You are not a welcome god in the home and hearth, you are not for protection or courage. You are feared and warded off. You are, at best, used as a condemnation. 

(To him you were always softened with affection, even at your worst; little god, my curse, my love, keeper of my heart.) 

You’ve never known the sort of worship he gives you. 

You struggle with it, keen sharp and broken when he gives it to you. 

Sometimes you have all-out tried to refuse him or hasten him, poured your lust and impatience into him to get your way, to sway him to your own will. He can feel it again now but it never manifests in him the way you’d like it to. You assume his desire is one of his own pleasure. But it has always been this; 

You, belly-up and vulnerable, only for him, delicate in a way the rest of the world will never know. Pleasure-drunk and hazy. Lost to what he can give you–he wants to gorge you. He wishes he could fill the empty place inside of you. 

He’s spent an eternity trying. He’ll spend an eternity more. 

He focuses his intentions, strengthens the pass of his tongue with what he wants. He wants your pleasure. He wants it again and again. 

You curse a little, an ancient word, from when the land was Archon-less and free. 

He lifts his mouth from you briefly, “you are already cursing like that? This will be a long night for you then.” 

He opens his mouth again to taste you, to suck gently, your legs twitching over his shoulders as your breath hitches. 

This time you curse him, hissing through clenched teeth.  

He laughs against you in amusement, low and dark, and smooths a broad hand over the soft plain of your tensing stomach. As if he might soothe you, or perhaps because he wants to feel all of you, have you in his palms, in his arms. Against his mouth.

The next time you fall apart, he doesn’t let up once. His eyes have gone half-lidded and burning, a flint-strike of amber. You try to fight him again, wrestle out of his hold, but he strengthens himself. He steels himself, even, to your pulling of his hair, to your fussing and snapping–all of that melts to whining, to near-crying, as he continues. 

You’re too stubborn to cry for him now–there have been only a handful of times he’s broken you down that much. 

Perhaps if he were feeling crueler, he would try. 

(These instances have always come in the wake of something worse; your largest fights, or worst transgressions where he felt the need to punish. To strip you bare. These are saved, not for his desires, but for your catharsis after all your grief.) 

But your voice has gone higher with desperation, more broken, and he is pleased with that. 

Pleased enough that when you burst on his tongue again, your nails digging into the back of his hand as he holds you, he finally rises. 

Instantly, you twine yourself around him, legs around his waist, arms pulling at the front of his clothes to drag him down into your arms. You are always more desperate for affection like this, softened by pleasure, hungry for more. 

He goes down easily for you.

 Kisses you hard and open, so that you’ll taste yourself from his mouth, the way he tasted the plum from yours. 

You groan weakly and manage to gasp when he pulls away, “please–more. I need more. Need–” 

Always need, you say, when you get like this. Never want. 

“Need you.” 

He hums, the noise lumbering from his chest in a pleased, dark sound. 

“You have me,” he soothes, even as he feels dizzy with your own desire, a headrush of desperation–of need that rushes from you to him. 

Feed me, need me, fill me, possess me, take, take, take me. Fill. Aching–so empty, I’m so empty. Please, please, it hurts– please, I need more, need, need, need–

He lets out a harsh breath. It aches, almost sharply, almost on the wrong side of pain and pleasure. 

He does not torment you any longer. He does not torment himself, either. 

With fingers far more nimble than he feels, he loosens his slacks, he pushes his clothes out of the way just enough, enough to take himself in hand and hiss through his teeth as the head of his cock touches your slick folds. 

Molten. Fluttering still with sensitivity, with desperation. 

Your hips roll, eager, trying to urge him closer, inside–

“Morax–” you cry and the sound twists something in his chest, blooms like a bruise being pressed on. 

 He presses inside you and fills you in one, deep thrust. 

You gasp sharply, you pull at him, force him to collapse over you nearly, cover you completely. You cling to him, you wrap yourself around him like a serpent, now constricting him–

(He’s never been able to tell who is the serpent and who is the mouse, anyways. Who is the tiger or the deer? Was he capturing you? Or were you always capturing him?)

You hold him so tightly, calves flexing around his back, that he can hardly pull out from you to thrust.

He groans, almost in frustration, or maybe some form of defeat. 

“Darling,” he gets out roughly, “my love. My little god.”

The old, affectionate nickname burns through you and he can feel the desire like a knife’s blade in his own stomach. You moan– a soft, warbling sound. 

He manages to move his hips, barely leaving the hot clutch of you, to push back in deeper, harder. 

“Please–” you gasp, “more–kiss me. Touch me.”

“So demanding,” he scolds, but he kisses you hard, with too much teeth and roughness, and fits his palms over the sides of your body. He takes handfuls of curves, of your waist and your breasts, rough hands bending over the lines of you the way the light of the moon bends over the hills and valleys of his land. 

His next thrust is harder, a little rougher. You turn your face into his throat after you break the kiss and your teeth sink down into him hard. 

You always draw blood. You always have to leave your mark on him, on all that you’ve touched. 

But then you draw your tongue over the wound, licking softly, perhaps in apology. Perhaps to satiate another need that winds around inside you. 

Your hand tangles in his hair again and he bites back another raw groan as he thrusts, in and out, on a slow, rough drag. You’re clinging to him, tight and so wet that it’s making his thoughts bleary and clouded. Your lust shadows any rationality; your hunger possesses him. 

“Harder,” you gasp, you beg, you plead. 

And he thinks who am I to deny you? Who am I to deny the god of my hunger? 

His hand slips over your arm, your free one clawing at his clothed back still. He knows you will mourn not getting your nails into his skin after, but he will let you satiate the need all you like later. He’ll savor the way you try to tear him apart, like he always does. 

(And sometimes, he swears, you’re just trying to tear down his skin to be closer. Deeper in him. Scratching at his ribs and his sides like you want in, in, in. A bad dog at his door. A wraith that claws at his soul.)      

As he pulls at your forearm, flattening it out against the desk beneath you to pin you beneath him, he knocks into the bowl of fruit. 

The last of the plum slices tip out onto the desk and the remaining juice at the bottom of the bowl pools in a sticky mess over the wood, some over your forearm and wrist, over his own, too. 

He thinks you move without thinking, bringing his wrist up to your lips where you lick up a stripe up into his palm, against his thumb. 

You take his thumb into your mouth with ease and he cups your cheek in a possessive hold as he lets you suckle, tongue soft and warm and gentle against the pad of it. You groan, lashes fluttering, and this seems to please some part of you. 

His thumb in your mouth, cock lodged deep inside you. 

He pushes himself deeper on his next thrust, enough that you whine a little, eyes going glassy, cheeks hollowing around his thumb. 

He can feel the spit pooling in your mouth, wet and slick, can feel the way your walls squeeze and flutter around him desperately. 

He presses on your tongue, thrust growing a little faster, but still hard, deep–a little ruthless. 

But it’s what you need–so it’s what he gives you. 

You hold his wrist, little nails digging into his skin, desperate to keep his thumb between your lips. He can feel the press of your teeth in the meat of his hand. 

He readjusts, tries to draw his thumb out barely, only for you to latch down tighter on his wrist, and slide it back into your mouth with a noise of protest. Saliva spills a little, slick and messy against your bottom lip, against his hand. 

He coos, but it’s too dark to sound reassuring, and sounds more like a rough purr, just shy of a pleased growl. 

“I won’t go anywhere,” he soothes lowly, but it sounds like less of a comfort from a husband, and more of a promise from the beast you shouldn’t have let in in the first place. It’s loving in the same way a possession is. “My little god, I have you now.” 

Your peak this time makes something inside of him roar open. He feels your inner muscles bear down on him, fluttering desperately. 

Your eyes tip behind your eyelids, hiccuped breath against his hand as it twists into a guttural sound that he feels against his palm. 

“That’s it,” he murmurs, turning your face so that he can press open mouthed kisses against your throat, suck a bruise there, turn the flesh tender, “I’ve got you. Good girl–that’s it.” 

Perhaps he draws blood when he bites you this time, too. Tastes it sharp on his tongue, the blood of a god. He lifts his head from your neck and finally draws his thumb from your mouth, spit slick as he traces your bottom lip. He pulls himself up from you to gaze down at you, slack jawed and messy, near feverish with your lust. 

His hips quicken, harder, and you reach out to splay your hand out against his tensing stomach, to push at him a little. 

But he doesn’t stop, feels you nip at his thumb, still making a mess of your lips and chin. 

Your legs are still hitched tight around him, drawing him in, keeping him close. 

He squeezes your hip with his free hand, he loses his rhythm when you draw his thumb back into your mouth, suckling softly on it. 

He groans, feels his own pleasure in a rush down his spine, a burst of heat that unfurls like a supernova. Collapses inward. Expands outwards. He buries himself inside of you, as deep as he can manage, deep enough that you make a little noise of pain maybe, but you hold him tight to you. Again, you constrict around him, dragging him back down by his clothes to slot your mouth against his as he fills you. 

It’s your turn to hum, pleased, almost purring, tightening your hold around him, locking him against you.

The kiss this time is slower, but dirtier, all tongue, open and messy. He groans into it, holding your jaw, feeling himself twitch inside of you, his own eyes fluttering with pleasure, lashes against your cheek. 

When you both pull away, you’re out of breath. Chests rising and falling against each other. 

You seem subdued now, heavy-lidded, but your lips drag to his cheek, down to the curve of his jaw. 

You roll your hips a little.

“More–” You murmur, “I want more.” 

His laugh tapers into a moan. He flexes his hips a little, heat simmering beneath his own skin. 

Your hands pull at his clothes finally, tugging at them, pulling at buttons until they snap and burst beneath your fingers, until you reveal bare skin. Instantly, your hands are on him, nails scratching into his chest gently, over his shoulders. 

(He’s going to take you to bed after this and he’ll rid you of the scraps of your clothes and the rest of his. He'll get rid of anything between you.) 

The ache in him builds again and suddenly he’s rocking into you again, deep and slow, watching the way he disappears inside of you. The mess he’s already made of you, the way he wants to make it all worse. He feels feverish himself now, a little lost to the sight– his desire suddenly feels inhuman. Monstrous. Too big for his own skin. 

You always seem to remind him of his divinity. 

“Hold me,” you demand now and as if commanded, he goes to you. 

He gets his arms around you and he tucks his face into the crook of your neck. His desire unwinds. Time unspools from him. He loses himself in the pull of you, in the undertow of desire and hunger. He tries to satiate the ache you have carved in him. The ache you always have nestled inside of you. 

You beg him of more–more pain and more pleasure and more of him–until he feels near mindless with it. Gone with it. 

Shuddering with sensitivity and feeling you tremble with it, too. 

He doesn’t regain himself until another peak has been reached and fallen from, until he realizes the hour; the moon hanging in the window of his study like a copper penny. He forces himself to slow. To lodge himself deep and go still inside of you and let his head fall to your chest.

You cradle his skull, fingers slipping into his hair, catching your breath as the haze fades for a moment. 

He picks his head up barely, shifts only so he can catch your gaze. 

“Stay for a while.” He demands now. 

 You let go of a sigh, deep, perhaps tired. 

“I thought I wasn’t allowed.” You hum softly. 

“Will you behave?” He asks and you lean down to kiss him–sweeter now. Perhaps apologizing. He accepts your affection with warmth, though. 

“You know how I get restless.” You respond, fingers tracing along the nape of his neck, one of them trailing down the bend of his jaw. 

You are softest now, like this. It’s a rare sight; one he savors, one he will stay hungry for his whole life, he thinks. 

“Yes,” he agrees, perhaps fondly, perhaps sadly. “If you could keep mortals out of it, I wouldn’t mind.” 

“Even if I tried to kill you again?” You ask, finger tracing the bow of his upper lip. 

He smiles faintly and you touch the corner of his mouth, “yes,” he agrees, “even then.” 

“Or tried to steal your Gnosis again?” 

He snorts softly, picking himself up further to hover over you, to gaze down at you with more love than you have ever known what to do with. “You can certainly try again.” 

“Perhaps I should try harder this time.” The threat is fangless this time and you are at least soothed somewhat for now. He knows it won’t last long. 

But for now, he takes advantage of it. He cups your cheek, brushes his thumb along your jaw affectionately, and for once, you nuzzle into the touch. You rub your cheek into his palm like a cat. 

A flash of your teeth. You bite down into his hand. 

He laughs softly, but pulls his hand from you, dislodges your teeth from his flesh. 

Slowly, he tries to detangle himself from you. You are reluctant, but he appeases you with promises of more, of his bedroom. Of a bath and whatever you want. 

“More plums,” you say, letting him carry you to his bedroom like a young bride, cradled in his arms. “I’ve always loved plums.” 

He smiles, “I know. They remind me of you.” 

The admittance is a tender one, one that he has held for centuries that has finally loosened from his mouth like a bird taking to flight. 

In the morning, when you have slipped from him and his bed and his life once more, all that’s left are the marks you left on him, the deep scratches and latches of your teeth on tan skin–

And the pits of plums you devoured before you left. Not one is spared and he thinks his heart never has been, either. 

Not from you, his wife, his curse, his love–not from his god of hunger. 

***

a/n part ii: thank you for reading!! here are those notes on the reader's godly names:

There are three titles the reader is referred to. Two of them are latin, similar to Rex Lapis, and the third is from @itoshisoup, and is Tanai Zhenjun, which mao explained as such: "贪爱 (tanai) is a Buddhist term that is often translated as "craving", and refers to desire for both physical and mental things. From my understanding, tanai is sometimes considered a cause of suffering (苦 or ku), but is sometimes considered closely related to suffering in other ways. Given the motif of hunger, I would name the god Tanai, and additionally give them the honorific "Zhenjun" (a title associated with Taoist gods - much like "Dijun", which is the honorific in Zhongli's Chinese title, Yanwang Dijun; however, it is a lesser title than Dijun). Tanai Zhenjun is therefore what I'd call them."

The other two are Deus Inanis and Rapax Regina, which mean "empty god" and "rapacious/ravenous queen" in Latin.

i plan to write more of this reader and use these godly names again soon &lt;3

[shinene]

Finished!!!!!! 😌 once again this is beloved Fool who belongs to @venomous-qwille

YOU🫵 go read Ghost In The Machine, is good 😊 👍

[goatwithaplan]

[lorelune]

a collaboration between @firein-thesky and @lorelune

my heart, your song for you are the world (as i am in pieces)

A/N: :3c here it is. the fun little kinda secret me and lovely cielo have been cooking up this year (!!!). this collab is two pieces, set in the same world (a mostly canon compliant AU). we've spent the last months pouring over and riffing out together. we're so excited to share these stories 💕!!

✧ my heart, your song by @firein-thesky ✧

⟡ kaeya alberich x reader ⟡

act i — part I + part II act ii act iii — posting september 7

✧ for you are the world (as i am in pieces) by @lorelune ✧

⟡ diluc ragnvindr x reader ⟡

part o - iii part iv part vii - xi: posting tbd

[rae-gar-targaryen]

this is a lil thot here but excuse you the breeding kink and baby fever go brrr.. anyways imagine mickey like finding out you want kids and then going FERAL. i just- that image in my head is one i am PROUD of creating

But it is an IMPORTANT thot. This awakened something, I think. A lil nsfwish so 18+, and there's a cut. (Reference to their conversation about what they'd name their kids from "swallow you like sunshine") ahoy, ahoy this became a whole thing --

--

so deep in love with you (baby love) [mickey “fanboy” garcia x fem!civilian!reader, aka “cielo”]

Word Count: 1.3k (always a nerd, never a blurb) of nerves, honey-sweetness, and the eternity of love’s promise

Warnings: hints of smut, fingering, breeding kink (obvi) and comeplay. mildest of mild hints of choking. 18+, please.

Why were you so nervous?

No, seriously, why were you nervous? You and Mickey had had this conversation before. There was no reason for you to be this anxious, sitting silently during the dinner he had made for you, twirling spaghetti around your fork endlessly.

If Mickey found your silence disquieting, he had the good grace not to say anything, eyeing you with those bourbon-honey swirled eyes of his that drove you absolutely crazy.

You could do this. This is Mickey you were talking to. Mickey, who had stood in front of the censor so the sliding door at the grocery store stayed open while you tried not to slip in a puddle on your way in. Mickey, who wraps his hands around you and puts them in the pouch pocket of your hoodie while you wait for movie tickets. Mickey, who brought you coffee in bed this morning. Mickey, who plays with Bob's kids, talks to them like they're adults, and excitedly talks too fast when he spills to you all the new facts he's learned about cuttlefish after spending an afternoon with them.

You could tell him this.

"Ehm," you cleared your throat, putting down your fork that had a veritable hive of spaghetti twirled to the end of it by now. "M?" You ventured, waiting for his eyes to meet yours across the table before continuing.

"Yeah, Cielo?" He must sense your nerves. He put his fork down, too, waiting patiently for you to continue.

You cast your eyes down the smear of red sauce across your plate that looked vaguely like a bloated bear before, murmuring,

"Ithinkimreadytotry," you rushed.

Mickey cocked his head to the side, eyes swimming with questions, "Sorry?" He asked.

"I think," you exhaled, tilting your jaw to boldly (in your opinion) meet your husband's eye. "I think I'm ready? To start, you know, trying? Only if you are, I mean, I know you leave again soon, so we don't have a ton of time, and it doesn't have to be now, but I'm ready if you're ready and I just wanna have a baby with you, if that's cool--" you rambled, cutting yourself off when you saw Mickey's eyes widen, his hand reaching over the table to press his finger gently over your lips, rendering you silent.

"Baby," he chuckled. "A baby?"

You nodded, slumping back in your seat, deflated, at the toll your rant had taken on your body.

Mickey eyed you again, seemingly not eager to respond.

He nods, pushing his chair back and standing up, making his way around the table and over to you.

"So," he reaches for you, beckoning you up from your seat with the gentle tug of his warm arm around your waist. "Which one do we try for first, hm?" He asks as he nuzzles his face into the crook of your neck, lips trailing the thrumming pulse along the column of your throat. "Vero or Valencia, boy or girl?"

Without giving you a chance to respond, Mickey hoists you over his shoulder, carrying you through the threshold to the living room, gently depositing you on the couch. You gasped at the feel of his fingers tugging at the waistband of your leggings, seemingly perpetually warm, something that emanates from him, tried and true.

And Mickey barely lets you get a word in edgewise, as you open your mouth to respond, he fuses his lips to yours, sliding his tongue into your mouth as his fingers continue to tug your leggings down your legs.

Like a heatwave on a summer's day, Mickey had overwhelmed you, sunshine and molten gold, his hips now rolling into yours on the couch.

"W-wait," you pushed his shoulders, his lips separating from yours, flushed, kiss-bitten, and honeyed. "Now?!"

"You just gave this whole spiel about how we don't have a ton of time," Mickey reasoned, his fingers trailing to your waist as he rolled his hips into yours again, causing you to buck at the feel of him through his sweatpants. "Why not now?"

"M!" You swatted his bicep lightly with the back of your hand, "I haven't showered today. I'm wearing ratty old leggings, for god's sake. I look a mess!"

Mickey hmm'd, a purring little hum of dissent lodged in his throat, like a perpetually displeased jungle cat.

"Agree to disagree, amor," he eyed you as though you were the meal he had been enjoying moments ago.

"First of all," he presses a kiss to your throat, one hand coming up to follow it, fingers lightly wrapping their way around your neck as he feels the effect he has on you in the blood rushing through your veins, beneath his fingers, heated and heady. "You aren't wearing your leggings ... Anymore."

He presses a kiss to your lips, following the gentle gesture with an intentional scraping of teeth, a little bite to his bark.

"Second of all," his other hand at your waist now slips between you to feel the now-soaked lace at the very center of you, plucking it aside to allow him to stroke the seam of your cunt, his touch causing your lips to part in a gasp, your eyes to flutter closed. "You look hot as fuck. Always do."

With that, Mickey slips a finger inside of you, pleased at the feel of your heated walls around him as he plays you to an unheard rhythm, rolling his thumb over your clit. Eagerly swallowing your breathy little moans as he kisses you through his attentions.

"M'gonna fuck you, Cielo," he murmurs, the heat of his body leaving yours as he rocks back on the couch to shuck his sweatpants down. "Gonna give you a baby. Gonna make you come first, though..."

"I want that," you sigh, twining your fingers through the curls you know will be shorn once he leaves, eager to tug, eager to capitalize. Eager to make him yours. "Want everything with you."

...

Later in the night, Mickey takes in the serenity of your features bathed in the white-blue glow of the television as you two take in "The Empire Strikes Back" with unseeing eyes, exhausted and high off of each other. He had put on the movie and grabbed you a chocolate bar after round ... Three, was it?

And he didn't know if it would take right away, really. But he was hell-bent on trying, having fucked you into the couch until you'd forgotten your own name, pushing his release back into you when he had withdrawn, fingers gently sweeping along your opening to urge you through another orgasm, while keeping his spend inside of you.

Now, he's admiring you, the curve of your waist. Imagining the way your stomach will swell someday, the genesis of your collective devotion.

So, really, he doesn't know what compels him to tell you, but he says it anyway --

"You know," your eyes meet his at his words, lips curled in a sweet, sleepy smile, encouraging him to continue. "If you get pregnant this year, Javy owes Payback twenty bucks."

"Excuse me, what?!" You cock an eyebrow at him, seated on your elbows the better to take in what your husband had just said.

"Ehm, yeah," Mickey was sheepish now, scrubbing the back of his neck with his hand. "They were teasing, you know how they are... And, well, I know that I've got it in me, so really, I don't know what they were trying to imply. Just giving me shit, I think."

You put your hand up to silence your husband, biting back a chuckle as you clarify,

"M, do you mean to tell me you wagered with your co-workers about how soon you could knock me up?"

And Mickey, expert at reading you though be was, was grasping to tell whether you were amused or upset. It's a fine line to walk, sometimes, truly...

"Uh, yeah, I guess I did..." He trailed off, glancing at you with apologetic doe eyes.

A laugh bubbled from your lips, a tipsy little thing, telling champagne bubbles as you laughed at your husband's ridiculous antics, tugging him toward you, and pressing your lips to his.

"Claro. C'mon then, daddy," you murmur, kissing him with each word. "We've gotta get Reuben that money."

--

tagging some fanboy girlies (so sorry): @joaquinwhorres @withahappyrefrain @thegirlwhowritesfics  @clints-lucky-arrow @inklore @phoenixhalliwell @ohmagawd-life @moonlight-prose  @levylovegood @thatredheadwriter @zombieaurora @shadeds-library @writercole @ijustwantedplums @justalonelyslytherin @gretagerwigsmuse @fanboysfangirl @siriusfahey @the-navistar-carol @jadore-andor @fanboygarcia @lavenderluna10 @thedaredevilsgirl @fluffyprettykitty @mickeyluvs @mothdruid  @maxmayfield @eagerforthesky @callmemana @mxgyver  @andrewrussgarfield @bioodforbiood  @the-purity-pen @luxuryberzatto @liz-allyn

[virtie333]

A 6K smutty one-shot for Christmas anyone!

I think I'm done!

[chicacielogris]

2- Una historia que comience con "había una vez..."

4- Escribe sobre lo primero que viste al despertar

6- Escribe sobre algo que extrañes

8- Encuentra algo que escribiste hace mucho

10- Crea un personaje basado en tu signo zodiacal

12- Un recuerdo de tu niñez

14- Escribe sobre tu estación favorita

16- Elige una canción y escribe una historia al respecto

18- Escribe sobre una lección que hayas aprendido

20- Una historia que comience con "Estoy parada en la ventana de mi cocina..."

22- Abre un libro, elige una línea al azar y úsala para comenzar una historia

24- Escríbele una carta a tu Musa

26- Escribe una historia inspirada en tu libro favorito

28- Escribe desde la perspectiva de un objeto

30- Escribe sobre algún sueño que recuerdes

[kedsandtubesocks]

like yes i have ship lore with Gojo and he’s unfortunately always going to be my husband (derogatory) but the toxic lore i have with Shoko???

that shit brings me to my knees

[esuemmanuel]

Qué días tan grises me acechan y, aunque he amado el gris desde mi nacimiento, lo siento tan pesado sobre mí… Todo lo que queda es agua, un río trágico de amargura que se revuelve en mis mejillas mientras atraviesa de tajo a mi corazón, y yo, que necesito tanto de llorar, hoy las lágrimas me saben a nada.

What gray days lie in wait for me, and though I have loved gray since birth, I feel it so heavy upon me... All that is left is water, a tragic river of bitterness that churns in my cheeks as it slices through my heart, and I, who need so much to cry, today tears taste like nothing.

[rush-the-stars]

new tricks

pairing: yandere abyss prince kaeya x gender neutral reader

cw: dark content, kidnapping/capture, the reader is treated physically well but is still captured/being held against their will, mentions of a punishment, strange and toxic dynamic, mildly suggestive.

wc: 2.1k

a/n: dividers by @/cafekitsune!

this is just a tiny drabble. don't squint at worldbuilding or plot lol. i had this idea prattling around my head and wanted it out. one day i will write the dark long fic of my dreams but today is not the day. thank you to @/lorelune for taking a peek beforehand and assuring me <33

on the back of your neck, goosebumps ripple to life. a chill races down your spine. you know it well—as intimately as you know the brag of your own heart.

sensing him, you cast your eyes up in the reflection of your mirror to catch the shape of him behind you.

you didn’t even hear him enter your chambers. but you’d felt him somehow, known his presence. maybe known his gaze on you.

(it burns deep and vicious to know his gaze. to become accustomed and attuned to him.)

prince kaeya smiles knowingly.

the dark glint to his eye lets you know he’s in strange ways.

“you’re getting quite perceptive.” he muses. “if only you’d been so sharp when i first took you, maybe you wouldn’t be here.”

you were just a naive artist from mondstadt then. a child who knew the sound of the wind in the trees and the birdsong that rose into the sky early in the morning. you knew the golden hills and the valley and a sort of freedom that made you sing like those birds in the morning, too.

(in the dark, he asks you to sing. sing like you used to, he says. and when you open your mouth, you’re always terrified of what will come out.)

now you sit tucked away in the gilded cage he’s made for you in a land far from your home skies. in a castle where the eyes of gods cannot reach you.

“you’re lucky i wasn’t.” you reply sharply, trying to keep your bite around him.

it grows harder and harder to.

every day the edge you’ve tried so desperately to keep begins to whittle away. it’s hard to always be angry. it’s miserable to always be vicious.

(and he’s never harmed you. not physically—just in stranger, worse ways. emotionally. mentally. you wish he’d just break a bone or make a scar, so that when it heals, you know you’re okay again.

it’s worse that he spoils you. it’s worse that he cherishes you. it’s its own form of torment. he knows it.)

he smiles lazily, on the edges are amusement. fondness. he is endlessly entertained by your contempt.

he approaches where you sit in front of your ornate vanity. it’s too beautiful. it’s too grand.

he’s a dark shadow of blue behind you in the mirror. you watch his reflection carefully. he watches you back as he approaches.

something thrills inside you, wild and dark and sudden.

he reaches out, touches your cheek.

you watch his knuckle brush against your face in the mirror.

he’s testing you.

the last time you bit him.

the moment you turn your face towards his hand, it slips away, dancing out of your reach.

he smiles again knowingly.

it’s insufferable.

sensing your ire, he says, “let’s play our game.”

you breathe hard through your nose.

you turn to face him so you’re not caught in his endless reflection. you glare up at him with all the vitriol you can muster.

(it isn’t much anymore.)

“don’t you have more important things to do?”

“nothing so important as you, darling.”

your teeth grind together. but you get out;

“i’d try to escape from the balcony.”

he tsks.

“the guards would spot you.”

“i’d poison the guards.”

he laughs outright at this, “with what poison?”

you feel heat in your face, but you press on, “the hemlock i’ve been growing in the garden.”

he pauses at that. tilts his head.

“my, you’ve gotten good. i can’t tell if you’re lying.”

“go and check.” you dare.

“maybe later.” he agrees, “say i destroyed it. i froze it.”

“you’re not playing fair.” you accuse.

he laughs warmly, reaching out again to tousle your hair. you swat and push at him, but it only excites him, it only makes his hands catch your wrists and come down to your level. kneeling beside you. he holds your wrists tight, presses them down into your own lap. in another world, he could be a lover on his knees for you, his hands clasped over yours.

he fits himself between your legs. he presses himself too close.

but it isn’t another world. and his eye is like the endless night sky in this one. so dark, so terrifying.

“fine,” he agrees pleasantly, “the guards are poisoned. you slip out from the balcony. i’m a light sleeper—i hear you jump to the ground.”

“i try to run.” you breathe.

“where would you run?” he asks, nose nudging yours. you can feel the sharp cut of his foxish smile.

“past the fountain.”

“come now, you’re cleverer than that. i’d find you and drag you back.”

“i’d kick and scream. i’d make you bleed.”

“you’ve done that all before, it doesn’t stop me anymore.”

your nails bite into his shoulders as he lifts you from your place in front of the vanity. you hang around his neck like a child. instinctively, you wrap your legs around his waist.

you tuck your face into his shoulder so you don’t see the pleased look in his eye.

you know where he’ll take you.

“you need new tricks.” he hums as he sits on the edge of the bed with you in his lap.

“maybe i already have them—if it’s a good trick, you wouldn’t know.” you mumble into his shoulder. you hide there.

his hand creeps up to the back of your neck. goosebumps prickle. his fingers slip into your hair and then curl into a loose fist. he tugs gently to dislodge you from his shoulder, to pull you away so that he may see your face again.

he looks at you as if he’s trying to find the trick you speak of. perhaps it’s in your eyes or the set of your mouth.

“i always know.” he warns.

“let’s play again.” you say.

and this time, you use your weight to push him down onto the bed.

he goes down willingly, too easily.

you capture his wrists the way he did to you earlier. you pin them by his head. languidly, he stretches beneath you, amused with this show of sudden power or interest.

“okay, you begin.” he says and his smile is the curve of a laughing, crescent moon.

“i grow to trust you.”

he tilts his head, uncertain or intrigued, you can’t tell. but you can tell you’ve surprised him. his smile falters.

“i’m pleased—you know it’s all i want.” he says and though it’s softened, it’s guarded. you can feel the way he tenses beneath you, waiting, searching.

“and i grow to—to want you, too.” you say and your voice sounds strange to your own ears. far off. maybe too near. not your own, or else, horrifyingly, only yours.

perhaps there is truth there in a way you cannot even begin to untangle.

he’s silent. watching.

“what do you do?” you prompt, breath hitching, almost beg him to speak. “play the game. it’s your turn.”

you feel his wrists flex, the tendons and muscles moving, encircled in your fingers.

“i—cherish you. i foster your desires. i give you whatever you want.” his voice is bedroom soft. his lashes flutter.

“freedom?”

he releases a slow breath of frustration. you feel it against your cheek.

“a form of it.” he answers. and then, carefully, you feel the shifting of his hand beneath yours. his thumb sweeps over your wrist, into your palm. “more and more as i grow to trust you, too.”

you let your hand open up to his, feel it bloom to the touch.

“being alone in the garden.” you press, “i ask you one day to tend to it by myself, when i please.”

he laces his fingers with yours.

“in time.” he agrees, “and you can tend to your garden alone. you can walk on the grounds, wherever you please. you can take dinner in the atrium or the greenhouse or by the lake. it could all be yours.”

you squeeze his hand, “say i earn your trust—let’s finish the game.”

“i give you the world.” he breathes it and you feel it against your lips, feel it somewhere deep inside of you. on the other, soft side of your chest, where your heart thrums.

you know he is telling the truth.

but it rings discordant inside of you. just as softly, you murmur;

“and then i disappear with it. you wait for me to come in from the garden one day—and i never do.”

the tender hold of your hand turns vicious, biting.

you bare your teeth and hiss, “i steal your world and your trust and the love you gave me and i run and run and run. until you can’t find me—until you can’t catch me. i do it when you least expect it—when i love you too much.”

he pushes and twists you under him. he presses you down hard like he could keep you from disappearing, like you’re slipping from him already. but you press on;

“and you’ll see my face everywhere—in the windows of the atrium and the corners of the greenhouse. in the hemlock i grew in the garden and the wind that howls while you stand on the balcony. but i’ll be gone—“

“you’ll never earn my trust now.” he warns, “and you’ll never know the garden alone, or the world i could give you.”

“but i’ll know the one you took from me.”

his eye flashes dangerously, the flicker of frigid, dark waters beneath ice.

but then he’s gone. off of you. the warmth of him leaves you in a rush.

he grabs for a coat of his, throwing it over his shoulders in a flare of dark fabric.

“where are you going? i thought you wanted to play.” you sneer.

“and i thought you didn’t?” he heads for the door anyways, “i’m going to the garden. alone.”

“scared you’ll find hemlock?” you ask.

“are you scared i’ll find hemlock?” he retorts and then lowers his voice, almost to a caress, “i would punish you.”

“you’ve done that all before, it doesn’t stop me anymore.” you tilt your head, “maybe you need new tricks.”

the door slams behind him. you don’t even flinch.

and in a moment, you watch his figure, a dark smudge against the gray fog, trudge out towards the garden.

you watch from the balcony.

there is no hemlock in the garden.

and he is gentler again when he returns that night. but he locks the door to the balcony and he keeps the key tethered around his neck, pressed to you as he holds you; so close and yet so far.

you can feel it’s cool metal against your bare back. you can feel his skin to yours, the way he holds you like you’re going to slip away.

there is no hemlock in the garden, but there is nightshade.

“let’s play our game.” he whispers that night, pressing scattered kisses like falling stars along your shoulder, your jaw.

“i steal the key around your throat. i unlock the balcony door—“

“i hear you. i let you go, anyways.”

you go perfectly still.

“i—i climb down the balcony and i run—“

“past the fountain?”

you nod slowly. you feel your heart kick into an unsteady rhythm.

“i let you go. i let you get far.”

“you’d let me—“

your throat constricts; a ball of emotion wedged there suddenly. you feel your eyes prick with—with shock. is he really—?

something terrified stirs inside you at even the thought of your real freedom; of the thing you want most.

“and then i hunt you.”

he kisses beneath your ear, like a lover.

your blood goes cold.

“i chase you across the world i gave you and the one i took from you. and every time, i find you. i’d find you. and i’d drag you back.”

“i’d—i’d kick and scream. i’d make you bleed.” you manage to get out.

he props himself up, if only to catch your chin, to force you to look back at him.

he kisses you. slowly. sweetly.

“there’s no hemlock in the garden. you need new tricks.”

but the nightshade opens its flowers to the moon, just outside the locked door of your balcony, in the garden that you can’t tend to alone.

you melt into the kiss, open mouthed and tender. soft and deep like lovers.

when you pull away, you have the key dangling in your hand;

“and this isn’t the key to the balcony. so do you.”

when he kisses you again, brutal and dreadful, and with too much heat for someone so, so cold, you feel the sharp cut of his foxish smile.

and maybe even some sick curve of your own.

[firein-thesky]

Act I, Part I

|| kaeya alberich x afab!reader || E/18+ || hurt/comfort/fluff || wc: 13k || ao3 || masterlist || Act I, Part II -> ||

When you, a beloved artist and performer of Mondstadt, attract the attention of the Fatui, there is only one person you seek out for help; the infamous Cavalry Captain of the Ordo Favonius, Mondstadt's beloved bastard.

minors and ageless blogs dni, 18+ only

❀ for you are the world (as i am in pieces) - @lorelune ❀

a/n: it is finally here!!! this is apart of a lovely collab with my buddy @lorelune that you should check out!! i've linked their fic above!! thank you so much to @acerathia for beta reading this!!! this is the first act of three that will be posted but this act has been broken into two parts because tumblr hates long posts so i will link that shortly as well! everything will also be on ao3!! thank you so much and i'd love to hear your thoughts!! <33

tags: afab reader (she/her pronouns but is rather gender fluid/binds her chest sometimes and presents both femme and masc), alcohol use, mentions of kidnapping, mentions of stalking/full on stalking from the fatui to the reader, eventual smut (not in this chapter), mentions of heartbreak/abandonment issues, bodyguard au technically, fake dating au technically

SCENE I

Our story begins first in the open night, beneath torchlight and on an ancient, well-loved stage in Springvale. And then our world should open up to the wilderness, to the Mondstadt streets, until we end up in Kaeya’s home; it’s as mysterious and stylish as he is. Everything could or couldn’t tell you everything about him, everything might or might not mean something to the Cavalry Captain. 

The night sky shudders into shades of endless plum blue, kissed with silver-burnt stars and the gentle curve of a sweet moon. 

Kaeya’s eye catches its brilliance, reflects it back like it was made from the very same moonbeam, the very same starshine. 

You roar to life in the darkness.

Fire bursts from your mouth in a red-gold crush of heat, swinging in an arc around your head to illuminate you. 

The audience cheers, hollering and clapping, murmuring excitedly at the way you leap from your pedestal above the stage into a crouch. 

Your costume twinkles, shimmery and scale-like, jangling like mora in the pocket. It’s slinky, baring midriff and thigh, the curve of your bare feet, ankles and wrists adorned in jingling, scale-like jewelry. Your hair is wild, horns twisting out from your head. 

It’s cute, Kaeya thinks, watching with an amused, little smile. 

“The dragon careened from the sky and bore down on the knight!” Your narrator exclaims and with a flash of movement, you and the other actor clash in the darkness. Your fire lights up the stage only briefly, to catch another flash of movement, before plunging back into darkness. And then again, a burst of flames in another sharp picture;

The knight’s sword raised above his head to strike you down. 

Darkness. 

Before your fire explodes out in a plume to make the knight stagger back. The audience gasps. 

You twist and turn and move serpentine, fluid like water, or the licks of your flames. 

Kaeya hasn’t seen you perform in awhile, perhaps years, but it brings back memories of childhood. 

The way you’d light up a room and perform whether it was to sing or dance or entertain.

As a child, you were bursting with it, with freedom and joy. He remembers nights in Ragnvindr manor, tucked away in smoky parlors with adults who cooed to you, who encouraged you to sing for them, to play the piano or violin. He remembers candlelight and the way it seemed to glow brighter for you as you opened your mouth and let all of that wonder out of you. 

Your audience adores you here, too, out here in Springville, at this little outdoor theater which is perhaps just a couple half-hazard pieces of wood nailed together. Nonetheless, you make it feel like the rocky terrain of Dragonspine. 

And by the end, your audience is hooting and hollering, on their feet, perhaps a little drunk, but adoring nonetheless. 

Though it’s nice to see you perform, that isn’t exactly why he’s here tonight. 

He sips at the mug of ale in front of him, leaning back in his chair. 

He waits until you appear again in plain clothes, changed from your pretty costume, fresh faced. 

And my, my are you popular. Everyone stops to talk to you, to snag you, to hug and hold you and laugh with you. He can tell, though, that you’re making your way to him as the night grows later and longer.

He waits.

Until you are in front of him once more, moon a halo above your head. 

“Riveting performance.” He purrs. 

“Captain Kaeya,” you say his name like it bursts sweet and sharp on your tongue. 

He says your name in return, honeyed and slow, taking you in all your glory. 

Then you say, “you came,”  and your smile is an infectious little twist of lips. 

“Of course I did.” He responds easily, looking up at where you’re standing in front of him, and then as if it was innate, only natural of him, “you asked me to.” 

Your eyes flicker just behind him, catch someone in the darkness, before settling back on him. 

Call it instinct, but he feels his hackles rise, hair on the back of his neck stand up. Kaeya knows danger well and can feel it now, the way you can smell a storm that is approaching. 

You offer him your hand, palm up, and in the firelight of the torches around you, it shimmers in his vision, dancing with shadows. 

He quirks a brow at you.

“Your place or mine?” He asks.

“You’re not even going to get me a drink first?” You ask, feigning scandal. 

Kaeya feels the corner of his mouth tick up, “call me impatient.” He says, but he finally puts his hand in yours, envelopes it in his and realizes he has not taken your hand in many years. Perhaps not since you were children together. Your hands have grown, but so have his. Calluses rough up against your smooth, soft palm.

So untouched. So unscarred. Soft as–

“Yours.” You say decisively.

And you pull him up and into the fray of people, into the sweet night, turning away to guide him but with your hand still in his. He trails after you and if it looks suggestive, if there are some hollers and calls to you–

“The good captain, even?” A fellow actor of yours crows, ale sloshing in his mug, “is there no one in Mondstadt safe from your wiles?” 

“Not a soul,” you vow with a laugh and the group roars with cheers, drinks spilling. 

“Don’t tell me you two are leaving already!” Another says, “the night is still young!”

“All the more reason to leave now,” Kaeya sings and there is even more uproar, whistles and suggestive howls. 

You seize his hand tighter and pull him closer, pick up your pace as if to show your eagerness, leaving all their laughs and hollering behind. 

Your shadow persists, though, and Kaeya doubles his step to get closer, to sidle up next to your side. To guard your back. 

“Been awhile,” Kaeya hums, “you must be desperate to have reached out to me.” 

“Well, in all of Mondstadt, I could think of no one else I’d rather have.” You grin at him and the trouble is, you’re being honest. He can feel it, or perhaps he just wants to, that you would want his presence beyond this, beyond–

As you wander over trails and stones back to the city, hand always in his, he helps you along, or keeps after you like an eager dog. He lifts you off of a stone ridge you climbed, hands fitting along your waist like they belong there. He laughs when you dart away from him, chasing after you only to catch you around the middle, letting you yelp and twist in his hold, tossing your head back onto his shoulder to laugh up into the heavens. 

It feels like he’s a child again, a teenager, stepping through time and into another. Nostalgia rips at him, tugs at the seams of him. He wonders if you feel it, too, but doubts it. 

Not with the person loping not too far behind, keeping distance but not too much. Not enough. 

The gates of Mondstadt are alight with torches. 

You walk backwards to face him and for a moment, he really does almost lose his footing, because there is something so bewitching about you. He can’t stop looking, the curl of your smile, or the raise of your brow. It’s a natural sort of beauty, one born from within, he thinks, something in you that’s just so–

Wonderful. 

And then you turn back over your shoulder and take off, pulling him after you. Nimbly, he is your shadow. Footsteps on cobblestone, clattering together, until you yank him into a dark little alcove. You press your back up against the stone curve, pulling him by the front of his uniform so that he crowds you, shrouds over you. 

“Kaeya–” you say his name a little breathlessly and it echoes in Mondstadt stone streets, voice throwing so that someone could hear you. Will hear you. 

He’s quick to catch on, ducking his head into the crook of your neck, though not close enough to touch. 

Your follower has paused at the entrance of this alley. Kaeya  can see the shadow in the torchlight.

You suddenly pinch his ear hard enough to make him yelp a little. 

You laugh, but it’s warm and sultry, head falling back against the stone like you’ll give him more room. 

“Right here?” He asks, but his gaze glances past you, at your follower. 

You nod to his real question, but pitch your voice up in the charade, “please–” 

The sound makes him flush a little. 

And it makes your shadow scurry away when he realizes what you’re getting up to, clearly embarrassed, or in the least, shy about being a voyeur. Kaeya fights the urge to snort. 

He does realize your hand is still curled in the front of his uniform. And the column of your throat is exposed, pretty, and open for the taking. 

He focuses squarely ahead, listening closely to see where the footsteps have gone. 

He only catches the grin on your face out of the corner of his eye, before you suddenly let out a louder, lewder moan. 

He shushes you, almost reflexively, but he has to fight the urge suddenly to laugh. You do start to giggle this time and although it still sounds deeply intimate, he covers his hand over your mouth so you can laugh into his palm. So that you won’t blow your own ruse. 

You keep this up until he finally takes your hand and pulls you away from the wall. You stumble with him, until he’s got you tucked up under his arm. 

You’re still laughing a bit, clearly pleased with yourself, as he takes you a strange, meandering way to his own place. Your follower is gone, perhaps for the night off, assuming that you’ll be in Kaeya’s bed. He wonders if your shadow will find you again come morning or if he’ll scout out Kaeya’s own place for the night.

He leads you into his own apartment building, up the wooden stairs, and into his home. For an apartment, it’s rather spacious. Open. There’s a balcony off the bedroom, one that overlooks a great deal of Mondstadt’s streets. The bustling world below and the peaks of Mondstadt’s skyline above. It’s his favorite part. 

Once the door is shut and the lock nestled into place, you finally drop the act. 

His hand leaves yours, body leaves yours, for the first time that he’s seen you tonight and instantly, he can feel the rush of cold ease in. 

“Make yourself at home,” he says, slinging off his own coat, setting his boots to the side. 

He wanders in only to collapse on his sofa, eyeing you as you toe off your own shoes and carefully hang your own jacket beside his. 

He forgets sometimes, what it's like, to have someone else here. 

To have a coat beside his own, shoes kissing his. 

“I take it you figured out my letter?” You ask, padding deeper into his home. 

Kaeya smiles, “well, you can imagine my surprise when Jean handed it to me.” 

“Jean saw that?” You ask, eyes rounding out in horror. “Does she think–does she know we’re not actually–?”

“Sleeping together? Romantically entangled?” Kaeya asks, standing suddenly to move to his office. You follow tentatively after him, only to watch him rifle through his desk and produce the very letter in question.

The envelope is covered in lipstick marks. 

“You could’ve been a little more discreet.” He says, before inhaling a little sharply, “did you spray your perfume on this?” 

“Do you like it?” You ask in return, “it’s new.” 

He laughs, low and soft, “it’s nice. I think you traumatized Jean, though.” 

“I wanted people to be too embarrassed to look inside the letter.” You retort, “clearly, I succeeded.” 

“That you did.” He agrees, “and even if they did–”

An excited glow comes to your eyes, “did you figure it out?” 

“Well, I knew it was some sort of code since the content of the letter was—fabricated, to say the least.” 

“What? You don’t remember our clandestine trysts? I’m hurt—“ 

“You’re very clever.” Kaeya says then unabashedly and he thinks you melt a little at the praise. Or at least, you quiet down. “And it seems you’re in quite a bit of trouble.” 

When you speak this time, it’s hushed, like you’re worried someone is listening now somehow. 

“Can you help me? I had no idea who to turn to without tipping them off.” 

“Well, if it’s one thing I’m good at, it’s dealing with secrets.” He muses, but then he gazes at your letter again, perhaps scouring the contents of it once more. 

On the surface, it seems like a love letter, filled with winding, romantic phrases and memories of old; romps under star bright skies and hurried instances in the library. Nostalgic flashes of youth, when you danced the nights away with him. It details a sort of on and off again fling that neither of you can seem to quit. 

But beyond that, there are ciphers, a code to uncover. And Kaeya pulls a slip of paper from another drawer of his desk, lays it out on the surface. Your true message reads very clearly in his messy scrawl;

Help. Fatui watching. Must be careful. 

Kaeya gestures to the chair across from his large desk. You sink down into it with a nervous little breath. 

“How long has this been going on?” He asks and perhaps the air changes, or the way his shoulders settle back. It’s the voice he uses as captain, twinged with authority and coolness.

“I noticed them following me about a month ago. Maybe longer, though.” You answer. 

“Do you have any inclination as to why?” Kaeya asks now and he sets your letter aside. 

You take your bottom lip between your teeth for a moment and Kaeya watches the movement, before you release it. 

“It isn’t a secret that I’m not their biggest fan.” You finally answer. “I tend to toy with them if they get too close.” 

Much like Diluc, you harbor a deep loathing for the Fatui. 

You are a vocal and known defender of Mondstadt’s freedom from Fatui and their meddling hands. Notoriously, you’ve openly mocked them on stage and even worse, outwitted them in social entanglements. At every turn, when they tried to use your family’s name, coerce you financially, or corner you with social politics, you’ve managed to weasel by. They have tried endlessly to get you to bend to their whims, whatever they might be, and you have refused. 

For the past few years, they have tried desperately to get someone as loved and known in Mondstadt in their pockets. 

And for years, you’ve escaped them. 

You’ve done much to outwit them. You’ve caused all out personal brawls between underlings, made a fool of yourself at one of the largest balls between nations, led them on wild goose chases that amounted to nothing, and even gone so far as to reveal salacious scandals to get your way. 

Socially, in a battle of wits, you are a wicked opponent. 

But physically? You are a sitting duck. And as beautiful as those flames of yours are on stage, you’ve never once used them in battle. 

Kaeya remembers you as a child, trying to keep up with Jean and Diluc, well on their way to being knights, and all you did was cry and cry and cry.

It was so clear you were never meant for battle, always been more of a lover, in his mind. Crybaby that you were, you were meant for the arts; your sword a pen, your battle cry a song. 

“No,” Kaeya agrees, “but many people are not fans of the Fatui, to varying degrees of vocalness. I can’t imagine they’d be so foolish as to target the very Heart of Mondstadt for no other reason than your disapproval or mischief now.” 

The world has coined you Mondstadt’s Heart. It’s Light, it’s Shooting Star. You are as close to an adored princess (—and you’d scoff at the idea of royalty, like a true Mondstadtian—) as you can get in this nation and though you carry the bloodline of Imunlaukr, you have spent your days with the everyday man. You traveled and performed and dined and drank with those far from nobility. 

As soon as he and Jean and Diluc had joined the knights, you had already joined an acting troupe. You were already off, free as a bird, to compose and write and perform and sing and dance your way across Mondstadt. Across the world. 

But you always flew back home.

At one point, he’d been close to you perhaps, in his youth. You’d grown up alongside him and Diluc and Jean.

He always assumed, actually, that you and Diluc would—

Well, you’re both the beloved figures of Mondstadt. 

It’s light and dark, truthfully, blessed by the Pyro Archon.

But everything had fallen apart when—

Kaeya had assumed you’d sided with Diluc and never wished to see him again. Or, in the least, you had nothing good to say to him. You’d never been rude to him, but he’d kept his distance nonetheless. 

Perhaps for fear of your scorn. Perhaps he couldn’t face it. Of all the people who could scold him or reject him, yours felt particularly hard for him. He blames it on your otherwise playful and loving nature; to be despised by one of the sweetest of Mondstadt would be hard to stomach. 

You used to write to him, more than just coded letters when you were in grave danger. But slowly, the letters stopped, and he assumed Diluc must’ve said something or—

Your paths were easy to keep from crossing.

Kaeya deals in secrets and shadows and is busy with the knights.

And you deal in brilliant light and open-hearts, your whole life on a stage. 

Nonetheless, he’s surprised by your warmth.

“What are you thinking?” You ask softly and the way you’ve said it makes him think you could tell his mind was spiraling.

Kaeya sets down your letter, “that you’ll have to stay here for the night if you’d like your little shadow to believe your ruse.”

You open your mouth, perhaps to protest, to ask again—what are you really thinking about?

But you don’t.

“I suppose I’ll have to crash on your couch.” You answer, before a wry smile curls at your lips, “unless you’d like to stage a grand argument where I storm out.” 

“You’re still trouble.” Kaeya hums, eyeing you perhaps more fondly than he should.

“And you were my partner in crime once! Don’t tell me you wouldn’t now—“

“I would, if it benefited us.” He assures you, smiling himself, “but for now, I think keeping up a false relationship for the eyes of others may help us a great deal.” 

“Is this your way of asking me out?” You tease. 

“I think it would give me an excuse to be around you frequently to protect you. No one would think twice about two lovers recently rekindled.” 

“Surely, I don’t need—“

“In the least, I’d like to observe your observer.” Kaeya says smoothly, and then, “you’re not seeing anyone else, are you? We won’t have to worry about your real lover, do we?” 

The question hangs in the air for a moment, suspended.

“No,” you say then, something strange in your voice, a little shake of your head, “what about you?”

“I’m far too busy with the Knights of Favonius for a relationship.” Kaeya says flippantly, forcing his voice to remain even. “At least that makes things less complicated.” 

“Right,” you agree and there is a moment of silence as the situation settles around the two of you. There’s a shyness in the silence, a sudden uncertainty. Kaeya does not do well in it. And apparently neither do you, because at the same time, you both try to say;

“You can take my bed for–”

“I’m sorry to intrude on–”

You both laugh a little and try again;

“You’re not intru–” 

“I can’t take your–!” 

Silence again. 

Your eyes meet and there is a smile in the corners of them, laughing eyes, crinkled with their life.

He opens his mouth to speak again but this time, you lurch forward and beat him to it, “I can’t take your bed!” 

“I’ll change the sheets, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He says easily.

“No! It’s your bed and I’ve just–dropped in on your life!” You exclaim, voice pitching upwards. Dramatic little thing that you are.

But Kaeya can’t help but feel as if it’s a little true, not in any horrible way, rather in a way that is worse;

It feels poignant. 

Right, even. 

To have you fall back into his life the way you used to fall as a child, reckless and with wild laughter. 

“Not at all,” Kaeya says and he finds, surprisingly, that he means it, “besides, the couch is comfortable–”

“Then I can take it.” You counter. 

“No, I’m afraid it’s my home and I’ve already decided” 

“Kaeya.” You say, as if to scold him.

He says your name in return, in the same tone, as if to mock you.

Eyes locked again, Kaeya takes you in fully. 

After all these years, you have only grown all the more beautiful. Everyone knew you would be, but somehow you’re more than he remembers, a full bloom, a perfectly ripened fruit. A fledged angel. You’re more than he could ever fathom, somehow in his home, after years, and showing him a warmth and kindness he perhaps doesn’t deserve. 

Faintly, he wonders if he should work up the courage to apologize. 

For what exactly, he can’t name. 

(But for years now, he has felt the urge to apologize. To everyone. For everything. And yet it will never loosen from his throat, lodged there, down deep.)

“Would you like to borrow clothes to sleep in, too?” He asks and if his eye skips down to your body briefly, he is quick to avert it. 

Sheepishly, as sweet as ever, you smile and say, “if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Not at all,” he purrs and then he stands, stretches a little, hands raised above his head. “Shall we?” He asks and begins to move towards the door. 

You stand to follow him.

“Kaeya,” you say suddenly, his name flying from your mouth like a freed bird. 

He pauses in the doorway, the arch between two places; where you are and aren’t. One foot in and one foot out. 

He can tell by the look on your face, so painfully expressive, shuddering with several emotions, that you want to say much. You’re like an open book for him to plainly read, so vulnerable. 

He hopes you won’t say a thing, doesn’t think he can quite bear to hear it. 

“Thank you.” Is what you settle on and it’s soft, painfully earnest. 

Kaeya swallows, hides it all behind an easy, flippant smile, “of course.” 

And he turns away from you, turns his back on your seeking face because he can’t be what you find, doesn’t want you to pry. Your eyes are too searching and he has to be careful, so careful–

He gives you soft, worn clothes of his. He is careful not to look too long at how you fill their shape, or how you look with your hair undone or your face free of stage makeup. 

He is sure all the world wishes to know you this way. 

He tries not to make you laugh or smile and is certainly careful not to hold your gaze. 

He sleeps with his eyepatch on, shirt carefully buttoned and irritatingly twisted up over his body.

He stares up at the ceiling of his living room as you lay in his bed and he forces himself to think 0f anything but, to think of his duties in the morning, or the look on your face all those years ago. 

Why are you being so kind to him?

He turns the question over in his mind like a coin, over and over and over, as if it may land on a side and reveal to him an answer.

He hardly sleeps. 

And in the morning, the birds sing and so do you, humming under your breath as you dorn your clothes from the night before. 

“My great walk of shame,” you sing with a laugh. “Hopefully all of Mondstadt notices.” 

“Wait,” he says and the morning sun makes him lighter, your laugh brightens his whole home, and he disappears into his room momentarily to fetch his bottle of cologne. 

If he were a worse man, he would dab it onto your neck with his own fingers.

But instead, he hands you the bottle, “if you’d like them all to really talk.” 

You laugh again, full bellied and beautiful. So beautiful that you put the morning bells to shame.

You dab it on your neck, against your pulse points, the smell of sweet mint and amber, something boozy, almost like bourbon, hangs in the air and–and you smell like him. And your own perfume, the crush of vanilla and dark berries. 

They’d almost compliment each other.

And then you hang in his doorway like the light beams that linger as the morning turns to day and finally you say, “it was good to see you again.” 

“You’ll be seeing much more of me now,” he replies breezily. 

“And I’m glad for it.” You tell him, “at least something good has come of this.” 

He swallows hard. He averts his gaze from you and onto the Mondstadt streets beyond. The birds that flutter and coo as the day blossoms and grows. 

“Go,” he says gently, “and spread your rumors about us.”

You laugh again and promise to do just that, skip in your step, as you turn to take on the world as if not a thing could touch you. 

And he shuts the door quickly–to his apartment and home, and to his heart. 

He doesn’t dare think about it as he throws the lock into place.

But he’ll hum the tune you were singing this morning for the rest of the day and well into evening.

When he sleeps that night, it is with the thought of your form burning in his bed the night before and he thinks if he prayed much, he’d say oh Archons, what have I done? What have I gotten into? 

What does the world have in store for me now?  

***

SCENE II 

In Angel’s Share, warm and glowing, a love shared between the patrons. 

You— have the uncanny, incredible talent of prying open all that is around you, so that it bursts sweet like a ripe fruit into your waiting hands. You have known this since you were a child; if you listen, the world will reveal its secrets to you. If you sang, something sang back. And when you danced, all was moved with you. 

And now, all that world seems to hang on your every breath, the tavern hushed as your voice carries over the sounds of a lyre. All the patrons’ faces are relaxed, open for you, as you sing. 

Venti plays beside you, fingers plucking carefully, stroking into a fuller sound as your voice carries and rises. 

It’s a slinky little song, playful and flirtatious, heart-warming as the room coos and sighs. Not a soul is spared–and they never are, Venti always tells you with a laugh. You can feel it, the energy that simmers, that you manage to reach for and control. 

You’re singing about love. You don’t do it often. 

But the song is an old one, about young lovers, and petal blossoms. Spring fevers and moonshine. You trill and chirp like a bird, voice soaring and floating above the room. 

Until the last note blooms from your mouth and the patron’s of Angel’s Share erupt into applause. 

You hadn’t planned on singing tonight, only sitting with Venti and Diluc at the bar. But, as what often happens on lovely, slow-warming nights of spring, the tavern fills and the customers beg for a song as they grow drunker and louder. 

You know they will likely ask you for one more—a rowdier one that you will kick up your feet to and dance. You will clap and stomp and pull a drinking man into your arms briefly and everyone will hoot and cheer as you teach someone clumsier than you how to dance to your tune, for a moment so that he might see the world the way you do.

Or hear it with your ears.

They never quite can keep up, but it’s fun nonetheless.

And then, for Diluc’s sake, you will play a slow, soft tune with a violin perched on your shoulder. It will be an old drinking song that you have slowed and made into a minor chord so it rings with melancholy and not cheer. 

But it will lull the patrons and urge them to leave for the night, arm and arm, bumping shoulders.

You will help Diluc clean up and he will urge you to head home, too. Venti will linger, though hardly lift a finger.

For now, though, you retreat from your place of spotlight to take up your stool at the bar once more. Venti perched up beside you. 

“Another round, barkeep!” He announces.

Diluc looks flatly at you, before his eyes shift to Venti and drawl, “with what money?” 

“I’ll pay for it, Diluc.” You pipe up and he sighs and shakes his head like he always does. 

(He never charges you for them, anyways. You’ll still try to leave money for the both of you at the end of the night.) 

Instead, he says, “that was quite the song.” As he sets a glass of valberry wine in front of you; it is one of your favorites. 

For Venti, an ale.

“A love song!” Venti adds, waggling his brows as he loops his hand around the mug of ale. He takes a large sip, throat working, gulping it down far quicker than he should be. 

“I was in the mood,” you say breezily, lifting one of your shoulders in an easy shrug.

Diluc cocks an eyebrow but otherwise does not press you. He returns to wiping down the bar. 

Unlike Venti, who slams his mug back down onto the bar (sloshing some of the ale and Diluc, the poor man, sighs as he runs his rag over the splash) and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before saying, “you’re seeing someone!”

Now, technically, you are supposed to be sharing this little rumor in hopes of it spreading like wildfire.

But lying to Venti? To Diluc—

About Kaeya, no less. 

So instead, you say, “I wouldn’t say that, per se.” 

Venti pounces excitedly, “but there is someone! Who is it? Do we know them?” 

You swallow. Though you are an actor, you are hardly a liar and even now, it turns your stomach over itself to do it. You’ve never been good at lying; your heart has always been on your sleeve, emotions written so plainly across your face. Lying makes your skin itch, you can hardly ever do it, even rarer can you pull it off. 

“Well,” your voice goes high.

“We do, don’t we?” Venti asks, impish grin hooked onto his lips. .

He mistakes you for shyness or awkwardness over a crush, rather than nerves or guilt. You let him. 

Venti is a dear friend of yours and has been for several years now. It was a sort of instant connection with him; even stranger and more wonderful than that, once the world had given him to you, it had felt like he’d always been in your life, at your side. Your bard. Your drinking and dancing partner. Your confidant and mischievous accomplice. The games the two of you play are far beyond anyone else; you send each other all over Mondstadt with scavenger hunts and puzzles–for new sheet music he’s written for you to sing or exciting news you wish to tell him– tongue twisters and poems, cherished clues and inside jokes. Your letters are often in code or riddle. The two of you are always disappearing to secret places and hiding spots. 

He’s your dearest companion. 

Lying to him troubles you greatly. 

You’ll have to ask Kaeya if you can tell him, if you could explain to Diluc that–

Still, you swallow, “you do, yes.” 

“Let me guess!” Venti then says, tapping his chin in contemplation. And for a moment, you have half a mind to lead him down a riddle, instead of this guessing game. The wine is muddling your head, though. “Is it Franz?” Venti asks. 

You laugh, surprised, shaking your head quickly; Franz is a fellow actor. He’s great fun but—

“Franz is seeing Emil!” 

“It’s not Rosaria, is it?” Venti then asks, “I thought you said that was a one off sort of—“

“It’s not Rosaria!” You cut him off, cheeks suddenly blossoming into an embarrassed heat as you glance at Diluc. Venti had been the only one who knew about that. 

Until now, of course. 

You smile sheepishly.

“Rosaria?” Diluc questions, surprised as well.

“It was a one off sort of—“ You begin to repeat Venti, laughing nervously. 

“I just had to be sure!” Venti then cuts you off, before taking another long sip of ale. He makes a show of mulling over his thoughts. 

“Is it…” He trails off, before his eyes suddenly sharpen and pin you to your place. You swallow because you know him and you know that look. Sometimes, you think Venti knows too much. You don’t know if it’s intuition or–

“…Kaeya?” 

You freeze. 

“It is!” Venti crows.

“What?” 

You wince.

“It’s just—it’s nothing—really!” You squeak out. 

“I had heard you went home with Kaeya!” Venti continues, loud enough that, yes, this rumor will certainly spread now. 

And more importantly, you believe it’s loud enough to reach the ears of the man who has been following you all day; the undercover Fatui member sits not far off, keeping his eye on you. He pretends to drink alone. 

“You went home with Kaeya?” Diluc repeats and if he sounds as if he might scold you, you suppose you wouldn’t exactly blame him. 

You lean in towards them and instinctively, they do the same, the three of your heads ducking close to each other. 

“It wasn’t like that,” you whisper to them, “but if anyone else asks, it was like that.” 

Diluc’s brows furrow and a frown settles onto his lips. Venti throws his head back and laughs. 

“What are you two up to?” Diluc asks scornfully, eyeing you.

“Nothing!” You chirp but it isn’t very convincing. 

“I knew you had feelings for him,” Venti continues, perhaps a little too loudly again, and somehow, it’s as if his voice could carry. Like he’s thrown it playfully, caught it on the breeze from the open window. 

Venti has always been rather magical to you. In the same way it feels as if you’ve always known him, it feels as if he could have always been here, in Mondstadt, even before he appeared. There is something in Venti that sings to you, the way the wind does on a beautiful day, rushing through your hair and into your heart. You couldn’t name it, but you know it as well as you know the streets of your home, as well as you know your favorite sonnet or song.

You make a show of shushing him and he laughs heartily again before he throws you a wink. 

You grin mischievously yourself this time. 

“Has Kaeya ever taken a lover?” Venti asks now, perhaps wondering out loud. 

“Too many.” Diluc grouses. 

“He’s strange that way, isn’t he?” You muse, taking a slow sip of your wine. You consider your next words. “He somehow has the reputation of taking countless lovers, but I couldn’t name you a single one.” 

Venti’s eyes twinkle, as if he knows something you don’t. Like a child, you sometimes wish to beg him to tell you what he seems to know, what the world has given him, but you know that is no way to learn.

“Diluc?” You question. 

Diluc gives you another flat look, “I am not privy to Kaeya’s romantic life.” He puts away a glass a little more forcefully than necessary, the glass twinkling, “and I have no wish to be.” 

“You can’t name a single paramour of your brother’s?” Venti presses and the two of you lean against the bar in intrigue now, excited, shining eyes turned to Diluc. 

“No, thank the Anemo Archon, I can’t.” 

Venti snorts at a joke you can’t seem to grasp. 

But then you and he share a look, and this time, you can read very plainly what is in his face. You wear twin smiles, impish, and all trouble. 

Diluc shakes his head, “don’t look like that in my bar. If you’re going to cause trouble, do so elsewhere.” 

“You’re such a grouch,” you snip back at Diluc, taking another sip of your wine, the sweet burn settling deep in your belly. Warmth blossoms. “You’re not curious at all?” 

“No,” Diluc says again quickly. 

You narrow your eyes, “liar. I know some part of you cares, no matter how badly you pretend not to.” 

Diluc huffs, “if I cared, I’d know.” 

Venti hums, “then you do know.” 

“I just said–” 

“I think it has more to do with Kaeya, don’t you?” Venti then says lightly, perhaps too lightly, “if Kaeya wanted you to know, you’d know. Kaeya keeps his cards close to his chest.” 

Another sip of wine has you feeling flushed. Open. 

“Well, I’m just going to ask him the next time I see him.” You declare to the two, to the bar, perhaps to the whole world. 

As if maybe it was you who asked for the truth, he’d answer. 

“Good luck with that.” Diluc says dryly. 

“Good luck to you!” Venti cheers, jerking his mug of ale out to you so that you may clink your glass of wine against his. You do so, just as he laughs;

“Good luck on your endeavor to capture our Captain’s heart! If anyone could, it would be you!” 

***

SCENE III

The Mondstadt streets, early morning; bustling and lively. A flourish of colors as people pass to and fro. Our lovers meander, as if in another time entirely. Kaeya is often shrouded, by people, by vendors, by the world. 

You walk beside Kaeya, shoulder to shoulder, past vendors of food and flowers and jewelry. Children yell and chase each other past you, mother’s hollering after them. The smell of fresh food and perfume floats on the breeze. 

Kaeya swaggers beside you, sword at his hip, in his full knight’s uniform. You, on the other hand, are in simple skirts; white ruffled fabric beneath an outer layer of peach. A corset of flowers, woven, but hardy and loved, with silk ribbons in the back all tied up and tangled in your hair. Despite the dress, you’ve decided today to bind your chest. Some days, you bind, some you don’t. Some days you are more masculine and others feminine.

And often, you live in between, perhaps around the two. Both and neither all at once. 

Heads turn as you pass but this is what Kaeya wanted. 

He ducks his head now to say, “your shadow is certainly persistent.” 

His voice is low and soft, kept hidden from prying ears. 

You look up at him, “they always are. I swear, one day, they’ll follow me into the bathroom–”

Kaeya snorts, casting his eyes back outwards at the moving streets. 

Now, he says, more obviously, “what have you got left on your list?” 

You look down into the basket on your arm; the loaf of bread that is still warm, the couple of fruits and vegetables that fill in with color around it like large jewels. 

“Milk and eggs,” you respond, “but I like to look at the flowers, too.” 

“As you wish,” Kaeya smiles and you feel his hand at the small of your back, leading you through the crush of people, towards where you will find your milk and eggs. 

“Kaeya,” you say, soft as the breeze. 

“Hm?” 

“I have questions.” 

He quirks a brow at you now, intrigued, perhaps even wary. It’s hardly a flicker of his expression. But still, he asks, “of what kind?” 

“Mostly the secretive kind.” You answer; you’d like to ask who you can share this false relationship with. You want to know if he’s informed Jean. 

You step up to the vendor for milk and eggs with Kaeya at your back. 

“You should save those for later, when you’re in my home.” 

“Oh?” You ask, head turning over your shoulder to look at him,“I’m coming over later?” 

Your eyes meet and if you didn’t know better, you’d think the tension is real, the little fissure of heat that kindles inside you makes you flush with warmth in the face. Along the tips of your ears. 

Kaeya really is handsome. A true knight in shining armor or–he looks like a prince from a fairytale, you think. The regal line of his nose and pretty dip of his cupid’s bow lip, the depth of his blue eye; you swear it could be a shade of blue you have never seen before. One that you could give a new name to. 

“If you’d like,” he says breezily, his smile sharp and handsome, “I’ll provide dinner.” 

“And wine?” You ask, a smile of your own tipping up into a mischievous curve.

“Always wine.” He agrees and this time, you think his smile is more sincere. 

You purchase your eggs and milk with twinkling coins that you press into the warm, wrinkled hand of the old farmer who sells them. And then you are on your way again, meandering the streets at Kaeya’s side. 

“I do have a question that can be asked now, though.” You return, cradling the basket on your arm filled with your goods, letting it rest against your hip. 

“By all means,” he replies, as if he’ll be that easy to give you an answer. He gazes back outwards, at the world around him. 

And before you can lose an ounce of courage, you look up at him and simply ask, “have you taken many lovers?” 

He laughs, surprised, and his head turns sharply to look at you again. “Is this a trick question?”

You laugh now yourself, “not at all! I’m being earnest.” You implore him with your eyes now, expectant, and honest.

 He laughs again, softer, shorter, as if he can’t believe you. He returns his gaze to the street in front of him. “I’ve had a few.” He answers simply.

“A few?” You prod.

“My, you’re nosy.” He teases. 

“I’m curious. I want to know!” You defend, nudging him a little, “I want to know more than just the elusive rumors about the casanova of the Knights of Favonoius.” 

“Is that what I am?” He purrs, “a casanova?” 

“Don’t change the subject!” You respond with another laugh and it’s almost a little dizzying, watching him work in real time to slip from your grasp. You feel heat in your cheeks, up along the nape of your neck. 

But you adjust your grip, you try again. 

“I’ve had quite a few.” He amends sheepishly, boyishly. “I hope you’re not the jealous type.” 

“I am.” You snip back playfully, honestly, but still, “were any of them serious?” 

You can tell he is weighing how to answer as he lapses into a brief silence and then, as if he’d manufactured it, he urges you suddenly to a vendor for flowers, with her large bushels of them, beautiful and bright and fragrant. He ducks behind a burst of them, appearing around the other side with one in hand, which he offers to you. 

His grin is lopsided, handsome. “For you, my lady.” 

It’s blue and beautiful, full of fragrant petals and blooming a deep purple at the center. 

You snatch the flower from his grasp, “you’re avoiding my question.” 

Still, you bring the flower up to your nose and inhale deeply. 

Kaeya meanders around the other bunches of them and you follow after him, keeping the one in your hand close to your face, by your nose. It’s sweet smelling, soft and mellow, and fresh. 

“What do you define as serious?” He returns your question with one of his own finally. 

“Have you been in love?” You ask now.

“Sure,” he answers with a secretive slip of a smile. 

You don’t know why, but you almost think he’s bluffing. 

“So it was serious?” You encourage, trying to ease more out of him. 

He shrugs gracefully now and gives you another, “sure.” 

“Did you think you would stay with them forever?” You pivot now, knowing you have to be specific. The question bubbles from you without thought, as if you are asking if the weather is alright, or if he’d prefer the red or gold flowers this morning. 

He stops up short. 

He looks at you very strangely for a moment. 

And perhaps it is one of the first straightforward and honest things he’s said to you, “nothing lasts forever.” 

“No, but you could promise your own forever to someone.” You respond, letting the petals of his flower brush up against your cheek, soft and silky. 

“Well, what about you?” He returns smoothly, carefully avoiding what you’d just said. 

You smile, because you know now, you can tell he is an expert of avoidance. You smile like you’ve caught him. 

And as if to teach him, you answer very honestly, “I have been in love many times, but I only promised forever once to someone.” 

Now it’s your turn to meander around the flowers, turn over your shoulder and wander away from him a little. 

He follows tentatively. 

“And what happened?” Kaeya asks carefully. 

You pull another flower out of the bunch to admire it next to the one he gave you, a wispy white one, twinged peach at the edges. 

“I got stood up,” you admit and pick your head up from your flower searching to look at him briefly, “we were going to elope.” 

The look in his eye is perhaps a little too delicate for your liking. 

You return to fiddling with the flowers, pulling another, and another, to create your own, small bouquet of them. It’s easier when your hands are busy to speak about this still, which even years later, feels raw and prickly. 

“It was while I was touring in Liyue–we were supposed to meet at some old ruins–an altar– and be married at dawn. I was going to leave the acting troupe, leave Mondstadt behind forever, and disappear with him.” You say, carefully arranging your flowers, delicately shifting and changing them. You offer a smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes, and try to joke, “it was all very romantic at the time.” 

You let out a breath, admiring your bouquet, “I waited all morning. And then all afternoon. All night. I thought something horrible happened to him but–”

You pick your head up again and this time Kaeya offers you another flower; one to match your bouquet. You accept it and it fits beautifully into the bunch of them, carefully placed at the center. It’s another blue one, soft and lovely and full to bursting. 

“It turns out he just got cold feet. He married a Liyue girl a year later.” 

“And what did you do?” He asks softly. 

“I went on to perform in Sumeru, Fontaine, Natlan, and Snezhnaya. And then I came home to Mondstadt, licking my wounds, and haunting poor Diluc and Venti at the bar. Singing too many heartbreak songs, drinking a little too much–you know, the whole spiel.” You say and this time, you do smile, because despite how hurt you were, memories of Venti trying to cheer you up, causing a ruckus, and poor Diluc trying his best to help you as well flood to you. 

Jean taking you out on girls’ nights and your fellow artists banding together to keep you afloat. Lisa finding beautiful copies of your favorite plays and stories. Good people who came back into your life and tried to put you together again. Good moments, despite it all. 

“Well, if it’s any consolation,” Kaeya begins smoothly, reaching out to smooth a petal a certain way, “I think that is perhaps the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of any man doing.” 

You snort and Kaeya continues, “I’m serious.” But you can’t tell if he means it or not, “Imagine losing the very Heart of Mondstadt.” 

He suddenly takes the bouquet from your willing hands and goes to pay for them with shimmering coins. He returns the flowers moments later, settles them into the crook of your arm, but not before stealing one and tucking it carefully behind your ear. 

“There,” he murmurs, eye flickering over your open face, unreadable as always, “perfect.” 

And with that, he saunters away and you are left staring after him, on his coat tails for a moment. 

But he pauses, he waits for your skip of a step to come back into place at his side. 

The flowers fill the space of your kitchen with the color of blue you can’t name, the one that is caught in his eye, and the one you dream about in Mondstadt skies. 

***

PRELUDE TO SCENE IV

Late afternoon. Outside the monumental Cathedral. Once inside, light pours from stained glass windows in a kaleidoscope of color. The way it touches you is almost a mystery, a vision. The audience should never fully see Kaeya’s face as he turns and moves, always partially shadowed. 

“I need to check on something before we see Jean.” You tell Kaeya and he hustles to keep up with your steps. 

“In the Cathedral?” Kaeya asks, brows rising over his face in surprise. 

“Sort of!” You chirp and then you glance over your shoulder, throw him a smile he knows means trouble, and say, “it’s a secret.” 

Kaeya masks his face well as he follows you around a sudden stone bend that veers away from the main room. He assumes it will go up, to the spires, but instead, it goes down. He stares at curled stone steps that lead into darkness. He glances around for a moment as if someone might stop the two of you, but no one does. 

You disappear into the shadows and Kaeya follows behind quickly. 

Now at a door, you turn, press your back to it and Kaeya comes up short. It’s a tight space, this narrow crook, and if Kaeya were to step away, he’d have to take another step up above you. 

“Will you guard the door?” You ask sweetly. 

Kaeya can’t help but laugh, a little surprised, “are you supposed to be doing this?” 

“I have a key.” You protest, fishing out a necklace from beneath your buttoned up shirt–today you are in trousers, with your chest bound, but a pair of heeled boots. You hold it up and a gold key shimmers in dull light. It looks old and perhaps once illustrious, with a whirling, intricate design. 

“Who gave that to you?” Kaeya asks. 

You look perfectly innocent, “I found it myself.” 

Kaeya can’t help the smile, “does anyone know you have it?”

You narrow your eyes, “you’re not going to tattle on me, are you?” 

His smile turns into a fond laugh, warm and softly echoing in this little hallway, the arch of the door. “No. Should I be worried?” 

“No,” you respond and he’s fit to believe you as you turn back to the door and fit the key into the lock. With a gentle, easy click, the door creaks open. “I’m just going to fetch my diary.” 

“Your diary?” 

Without an answer, Kaeya watches as you disappear behind the door, which leads to another, darker hallway. You lift your hand and light fills the space, a flame of yours licking to life. There is another door at the end of the hallway. He assumes you’ll go on, push through that one as well. 

But instead, you turn to the side to face a bookshelf lining one of the hallways. There’s plenty of them. You push on what appears to be a small statue fastened to the shelf and use it as leverage to begin sliding it over.

Your eyes flick to Kaeya only briefly and you lift your finger to your lips as if to ask him to keep your secret. 

The door shuts before he can stop it, sealing him away. 

Instantly, he frets. 

He pushes against the door but it’s locked now. And you have the key. 

He tries to remain calm. He feels suddenly foolish or tricked. He just thought–

Well, he assumed you were a goody-two-shoes. Mondstadt’s proper, most beloved girl. He thought you didn’t have a rebellious or secretive bone in your body. He assumed, for all intents and purposes, that you were something of a prude in this way. A rule follower. 

Huh. 

Kaeya glances back from the way he’d came, to the door. 

Perhaps he doesn’t know you as well as he thought. 

He tries not to worry the longer the minutes grow. 

He doesn’t want to call for you because he doesn’t want to attract attention but if you don’t return shortly–

The door suddenly creeks again and Kaeya has to step out of the way as you reappear behind it. 

And in your hand is a small, leather-bound notebook. 

You shut the door behind you, sealing your secrets away. 

“Diary found.” You tell him with a smile, holding it up. Then, you tuck into the crochet bag on your shoulder.

He stares at you, still rather surprised. 

“What?” You ask, brushing past him, to head back up towards the curved stairs. 

“What secrets do you have in that diary that warrant such a hiding place?” Kaeya asks, still astonished. 

You laugh, warm and bubbling, as you return to the main floor of the Cathedral. The colors of the stained glass in the afternoon sun shimmer on you, dancing over your skin in a wash of violets and peaches, blues and crimsons. Emerald colors your shoulders. Gold along your face. You look like a wonder. A fairy. Part god–

“Nothing so important–just my feelings. Songs I’ve written. Snippets of poetry.” You tell him and he wishes he could believe you. You say it so earnestly. “Secrets of the heart, I suppose.” You joke. 

Kaeya glances behind him, then back to you, “and where did you–find that place? How did you–?”

“I know many places in Mondstadt that others don’t. I’ve stumbled upon them ever since I was a child.” 

You catch his gaze over your shoulder, shimmering in his vision, and smile, “maybe I’ll show you more of them sometime.” 

The afternoon light almost blinds him as you swing the massive doors open once more. He dumbly follows after you, taken aback, enamored, in awe. 

“Come along, Captain!” You sing like a bird, “Jean is waiting!” 

***

SCENE IV 

Jean’s office. Golden hour. The light turns the wood of her desk and floor and the walls bronze. Papers are scattered around her desk, haphazardly organized. Her hair is a halo glow in the last rays of the sun. Kaeya’s back is turned, towards the bookshelves and away from the audience, like he might be searching for something. He is careful not to look at you. 

You sit across Jean’s desk as the afternoon wanes into evening, the sun dipping you in honey rays, soft and dreamlike. Kaeya busies himself with the rows of books, keeping his back carefully turned away from the two of you. He listens closely, though, even as he pretends he doesn’t. 

“So you’re not actually…seeing each other?” Jean asks. 

“No,” you laugh, “did I scare you with my letter?” 

“Yes.” Jean says seriously. 

Kaeya fights the urge to turn and offer her a cold look. Still, she continues, “I thought I was going to have to lecture one of you. Though, I’m not sure which one–”

You laugh now, fuller, warmer. 

It’s a lovely sound, it fills the space with warmth. 

“Who else knows? Kaeya, I don’t appreciate you withholding this from me at first.” Jean says and Kaeya can feel her eyes touching the back of his shoulders like the tip of a sword might. 

“You know I deal in secrets.” He responds flippantly. 

“This is different.” Jean responds and perhaps he does know that. 

You and Jean are childhood friends, he knows Jean cares a great deal for you. Or harbors some sort of over protective, sisterly feeling towards you. And even when you went away, even when you hardly saw each other, he knew the feelings didn’t wane. 

No, he knows how childhood bonds are. 

“It’s alright, Jean, we’ve had to be careful. We needed to establish a believable cover.” You are quick to mediate, perhaps defend him. “I started this, anyways.” 

Jean won’t get mad at you, nor will she blame you for much. 

“Currently, we’re the only three who know.” Kaeya pipes up, allowing his finger to trace over the spine of a book gracefully. 

“I’m trying to convince him to allow me to tell Diluc and Venti.” You quickly add and Kaeya knows now that he’s lost that battle. 

Jean will side with you.

“Diluc doesn’t know? Wouldn’t he be a useful ally now? She spends a lot of time at the tavern; he could keep an eye on her when you can’t.” Jean says. 

Kaeya takes a moment too long to respond, he knows it, senses his mistake, because Jean pounces–

“You two are a pain.” 

“Now, now,” Kaeya begins smoothly, “I just think the less people know, the better.” 

“You know you can trust Diluc.” Jean scolds. 

“Diluc is a terrible liar.” Kaeya snips and his head snaps to the side to glance at Jean over his shoulder. He quickly rights himself and shields his face once more, returning to his perusal of books. 

“I’m sure if he knows what’s at stake, he could keep it together.” Jean responds, tone firm and unmoving. 

Kaeya sighs heavily, but his next reply is cut off by your own voice, “I don’t like lying to him or Venti.” And then, because you’ve never been one to shy away from the truth, you add, “especially about you.” 

“I think both would readily help us. The more eyes on her, the safer she is.” Jean agrees. 

Kaeya can not explicitly express why this makes him bristle— or perhaps he simply doesn’t want to admit it. He knows it, somewhere inside of him, knows that the thing that claws and scratches looks a little too close to jealousy. It is perhaps just a little too green. Maybe, he wanted to keep you to himself just a little longer. 

But he knows, logically, Jean is right. And if it’s for your safety–

Kaeya finally turns to look at the two of  you. Which is foolish, because the sun is setting, and you are in its window. You are caught in its light, warm and relaxed, with your chin in your hand as you turn to look at him.

“As you wish, Acting Grand Master.” Kaeya says evenly and offers a (frankly) rude little bow. Jean will know he’s mocking her a little and that he doesn’t particularly like the decision made. And then he says to you, “shall we? I’d like to get you home before sundown.” 

You prick your head up, concern and surprise on your face, “am I staying with you for the night?” 

Kaeya is careful to let the tone of your voice roll off him and not take it or covet it. 

“No,” he muses, “I thought I’d stay with you for the night.” 

He pretends he doesn’t notice the way you brighten or the way you jump up from your seat to follow him. He doesn’t turn to look at you, but he hears your soft goodbye to Jean, and her murmuring something in return. Your sweet little laugh. And then your quick steps to catch up to him once more. 

When you exit the Knights of Favonius headquarters, taking the steps with a little skip, you suddenly sidle up to his side. 

Right underneath his arm, attaching yourself. 

He is careful to school his features, dropping his arms around your shoulders easily. Yes, he supposes it’s wise to look like a couple heading home together. 

“Sorry we ganged up on you,” you say and the way you peek up at him would be enough to send any foolish man’s heart into a tailspin. 

Kaeya is desperately lucky he’s never been a fool. 

“No,” he soothes, “Jean is right. And you shouldn’t have to lie to your friends.” 

He feels your fingers flex at the bend of his rib, in the fabric of his clothes like you’re tightening yourself to him. He walks in step with you, with your side pressed to his. 

Has he ever done this, he wonders, so openly with someone? Walked through the cobblestone streets with a lover under his arm? Or has he kept everyone in shadows and secrecy? 

It doesn’t matter. This is a secret, too. It isn’t real.

And still, the question flies from his mouth before he is prepared for it, “why didn’t you ask for Diluc’s help?” 

You stop walking and as he continues for a moment, you slip from his embrace. 

He turns to look at you. The sun is a crimson flare, catching on your ruby Vision, on the look in your eyes. 

You smile like a cat that’s caught a canary. 

“Kaeya,” you say his name like a melody, “are you the jealous type?” 

For a heartbeat, he almost feels harpooned, caught, suddenly struck in place. It’s frightening to be picked apart so effortlessly, with that smile on your face. Earnest. Horribly lovely. 

What a strange creature you are, he marvels. 

But then he laughs and lies, “not particularly.” 

You hum and begin to saunter towards him, walk on past him, and he is caught in your shadow. He follows. 

“It would’ve made sense to ask him.” Kaeya continues. 

“But I asked you,” you say simply, “you’re who I thought of.” 

Carefully, he reaches for your hand, the brushing of his pinky to yours. As if to ask, may I play pretend with you? As if to ask, may I take up the role of the one who gets your hand? 

You readily accept it and the part, too. And then you smile at him again, impish, filled with mirth;

“Besides–can you imagine how scandalized Diluc would’ve been if I’d given him the same letter I gave you?” 

Kaeya truly laughs now, deep from his belly, and you laugh with him as you pull at his hand, as you press up against his side. Your fit of giggles fills the sky. 

And the world must watch as you stroll through Mondstadt together and wander up to your home on the hill. He thinks the world must watch as he slips through your door, through your fingers, like a serpent in a garden. 

Like a sweet sinner, a non-believer, slipping into the back pew in the house of a love-spun god. 

***

SCENE V 

The trail from Springvale to the main city should feel familiar to us. Though lonelier now, shrouded in darkness that was easily chased off with two. Later, Kaeya’s apartment; a rapidly growing safe haven. 

After your rehearsal on the stage in Springvale, you meander back to the city. Kaeya said he would meet you halfway, but currently there is no sign of him. As the hush of night descends, a feeling of wariness overtakes you. You hear the owls begin to hoot and the distant, far off call of a wolf. The wind rustles the bushes. 

You turn to glance over your shoulders, again and again, half afraid that one of the times you may find someone staring back. 

You try to calm yourself. You swear you’re being paranoid; you have taken this road countless times. There is little to fear. 

And still, the feeling persists. It grows. 

You turn fully to look behind you, allow a burst of flame to erupt in your palm to illuminate your darkening world. 

“Is someone there?” You call out. 

With everything in you, you wish to hear Kaeya’s voice reply. Or Diluc’s. Maybe a fellow actor lollygagging behind? 

Your heart thuds hard in your chest, quickening. 

And even before you see the rush of a shadow, something instinctive, something ancient in you, tells you to run–

You take off as you plunge yourself into darkness, fleet-footed and desperate. 

You run hard and know certainly now that someone follows. You can hear it, feel it, the press of them behind you. The city lights of Mondstadt in the night sky are your beacon. 

If I can just get to the city, to the light, to my city of light–

You run harder, more wildly. Fear sharpens and quickens you. 

A flash of silver ahead of you. 

Your heart knows it before your mind;

“Kaeya!” 

You nearly collide with him but he’s got you, hands on your shoulders to steady you, eye flying over your face desperately. 

“What is it? Are you hurt?” He asks before looking past you. 

“There’s some–” you turn to look with him. 

But the forest behind you is quiet. The darkness is hushed. Almost unnaturally so. Goosebumps erupt over the nape of your neck. 

Your words die, dwindle in your mouth. 

You swore–

You try to catch your breath, try to quell your racing heart. “I thought there was something behind me.” 

Kaeya has gone inhumanly still, too, listening, watching. You think he senses something, too. He must know danger, know its call, no matter how silent. 

He’s got his hand on your lower back, corralling you closer to him protectively. He doesn’t stop eyeing a spot ahead, though, in the darkness. 

He hums. “Perhaps it was an animal.” But he seems to know differently. 

After a moment, when you have your breath under more of your control, you manage to get out, “must’ve been.” 

“Let’s go,” Kaeya turns you away, hand slipping around your waist for support. 

You lean into him. 

Belatedly, you realize you’re shivering. Hard. Trembling all over. 

He ushers you into his apartment above the city once more. The moment the door is shut and locked tight, he moves with more urgency to guide you to his couch. 

He disappears momentarily and you almost want to call him back, like a child, you want to reach for him. He returns with water and sets it on the coffee table. 

He kneels in front of you now, like the knight he is. 

“Are you okay?” He asks first and again, he searches you. “Are you hurt?” 

You shake your head, the movement jolted, unsteady. 

“I just feel–strange.” 

Kaeya’s eye softens fractionally, “probably an adrenaline crash. I’ll grab a blanket.” 

Again, he disappears and you want to stop him. You want to grab his wrist before he can slip from you, you want to sink into his arms. You want to be held. 

But you sit and you tremble. 

When Kaeya gently fixes the blanket to your shoulders from behind, you jolt, startled. 

“I’m sorry,” he says then, “it’s just me.” He comes around again to kneel in front of you. He pulls the blanket tighter around your shoulders, affixing it to you, bundling you in it. 

It smells like him. You try and take in a deep breath to still your trembling. 

After a moment, you say, “there was someone.” 

“I believe you,” Kaeya agrees softly, “someone was chasing you–I heard the second pair of footsteps and came running.” 

You inhale shakily. Tense silence fills the space. 

You can hardly speak, “do you think–do you think they were actually trying to–?”

Kaeya inadvertently answers your question, “I think we should be more careful from now on. I want eyes on you always from here on out.” 

“I thought it’d be fine–I always walk home from rehearsal and–”

“I know,” Kaeya soothes, “I thought I’d get to you sooner. I should’ve been. I’m–” 

“They’d just followed me around before.” You say uselessly, almost in disbelief, “why would they–?” 

“We’ll find out,” Kaeya says gently, “but for now, you should rest. How do you feel?” 

“Shaky,” you answer, “I’m not sure how I’m going to sleep tonight.” 

“I’ll be right out here,” Kaeya promises, “they won’t try anything now. It’s clear they’re waiting until you’re alone.” 

You want to beg him to allow you to stay on the couch with him, or for him to sleep in bed beside you. You feel needlessly clingy, like a scared child. How silly, he must think of you, to be so frightened of a little chase. You’re sure he’s seen so much worse, faced danger you can only conjure in storybooks. 

You bite your lip, catch between your teeth so it won’t wobble. You nod. 

Kaeya studies you for a long moment before you feel the careful press of his hand on your knee, the delicate swipe of his thumb in a soothing caress. 

“Would you like me to draw you a bath?” Kaeya asks softly. 

For a moment, you’re surprised by him or perhaps his attempts at soothing you. A bath does sound appealing though being alone doesn’t.

(Instantly, an image flashes hot in your mind, of you in the bath, and Kaeya leaning against the counter to chat idly with you. Or seated beside the basin, his sleeves rolled up, or–)

“No, I don’t need–” you’re quick to try and assure him. 

“It’s no trouble at all,” he stands with grace and ease and makes his way to his bathroom. In a moment, the water is running and steam is filling the small space. The scent of iris and eucalypts. 

You force yourself to stand on trembling legs, astonished with how thoroughly adrenaline has riddled your poor body. You’d think you’d be used to adrenaline in some way, the sharp plummet of your heart because of stage fright. 

But performing dangerous tales is significantly different from being a part of one. 

“Thank you,” you say gently, catching Kaeya’s hand to squeeze momentarily.

“It’s nothing,” he brushes you off and slips from you, allowing you to disappear behind the door to the bathroom. 

All alone you can hear the drum of your heart again. 

Your reflection looks strange to your own eyes in the mirror. Everything feels different; unreal, almost. You look away quickly, towards the running water, the filling bathtub. 

You try not to think, to strip yourself bare, and to leave the jitteriness on the floor with your clothes. 

You slip into the warm water. 

Kaeya left you clothes of his, a towel. 

You want to call for him. You want your heart to quiet. You want your fear to dissipate like the steam. 

You force yourself to take deep breaths. You force yourself to wash and scrub at your face and neck. You are okay. Kaeya is outside the bathroom and you are safe. 

Still, your feeling of unease doesn’t leave you. 

Even after you have donned Kaeya’s clothes and stepped from the warm bathroom. 

You linger in the archway of his bedroom. 

He looks like he’s about to speak but you beat him to it, “will you stay with me? In your room?” In your bed? 

You watch Kaeya’s brows raise in surprise before he quickly schools his features. “I don’t want to intrude.” 

“I’m asking you,” you respond and perhaps there is a note of vulnerability, perhaps there is a wobbling, small part of you that sounds a little too desperate to his ears. 

You find some form of embarrassment in the press of heat in your face. But you don’t retract it, let your honesty hang between the two of you like a pendulum. 

“I’ll sit on the armchair in there until you fall asleep,” Kaeya compromises, “how does that sound?” 

Relief is sweet and cool and winding around you. You let go of a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding tightly to. 

“I’d appreciate that.” You say and you turn to try and make yourself comfortable in his bed once more.

There has been several nights now where you have slept in his bed alone while he sleeps on the couch. Each night, you offer to take the sofa, and each night, he denies you. 

Tonight, he drapes himself over the lovechair in the corner of his room.

He settles deep, eye flickering over you as you turn the covers over and crawl into bed.

In the silence, you can hear your heart again, “I’m sorry for making you do this.”

“There’s no reason to apologize,” Kaeya says smoothly, waving away your concern, “I’m glad I could help.”

You wonder if he means that or if he’s saying it because it is the right thing to say. You don’t dare ask him. You don’t dare press; some truths you would rather not be revealed to. 

“You look like you’re about to tell an incredible bed time story in that arm chair.” You joke instead.

Kaeya snorts, head rolling a little onto his chest. He looks tired, too, disheveled a little in a way that he rarely is. 

But he’s still so buttoned up; you wish he’d show you the defenseless side of him. The one not in perfect ruffled blouses or knights’ coats. The one without the eye patch or the carefully charming smile. 

“Would you like me to tell you a story until you fall asleep?” He asks dryly.

But when you laugh a little and say, “yes, actually,” you mean it.

Kaeya’s brow quirks upwards. 

“I don’t have many bedtime stories.” He tells you. 

“That’s okay,” you reply, “I’m going to fall asleep soon, I’m sure.” 

Kaeya hums lightly, letting his head fall back against the back of the chair. He hangs there for a minute, revealing the lovely brown shade of his exposed throat.

Finally, he says, “I’ve got one.”

“Please share,” you encourage.

Kaeya draws in a slow breath, allowing the silence of the room to be sucked in, too. He holds it so the only thing you can do is wait, watching him in the near-dark.

Finally, he speaks and his voice is nothing like you’ve heard it before;

“Once, there was a prince from a far away, forgotten land…” 

The soft cadence of his story, hushed, and almost tentative, lulls you. It eases your heart and your mind. It reminds you of the wash of the waves against the shore or the wind as gentle as can be. 

In no time at all, you are drifting off into strange, plum-darkened dreams of lost princes and beasts in the night. 

And unknown to you, Kaeya gently pulls the covers of his own bed up over your shoulders. Gingerly, he tucks you into bed and watches your sleeping face for a moment. 

With a breath loosened, he finally leaves your side and finds his place on the couch. 

And in the morning, for once, you are awake before him and find him on the couch. 

Carefully, you tuck the blanket he’d thrown over himself up around his shoulders. You brush a strand of his long hair from his face. You let loose a quiet breath. 

He sighs in his sleep and turns towards your touch, chases it in his dreams. 

And though you linger, you don’t bother him again, but turn to begin making coffee for the two of you. 

You hum softly, an ancient little melody from a faraway land, and it stays in your head the entire day, with thoughts of a lost prince who, in your mind, surely looks like Kaeya; handsome and refined and beautiful. He must be noble and kind and charming like him, too. 

And more than anything, his eyes must be stars like his, too, and his hands must be calloused and gentle. 

And his voice must be like his, too, when he murmurs sleepily, rubbing at his eye, “where did you learn that song?” 

“I don’t remember,” you reply and you set a steaming mug of coffee on the table beside him, “I think from a traveler, a long time ago.” 

“I haven’t heard it since I was child.” He admits. 

“You know it?” You ask.

“Thank you,” he says softly, voice still rough with sleep, “for the coffee.” 

“Thank you,” you respond, “for staying beside me last night.” 

“It was nothing,” he assures gently. And then he finally answers you, perhaps in a way that you know is personal to him, “it’s a lullaby.” 

You smile behind the lip of your own mug, gentle and sweet, and say;

“Then the coffee is nothing, too.” 

***

Act I, Part II –>

[shinene]

PLS EXCUSE MY MESSY SKETCH this is honestly as clean as I can be. He is baby girl, to me

So. I am reading @venomous-qwille 's Ghost In The Machine and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA i love everyone. More dwawings to follow i just had to get Fool onto paper because he's been dancing around in my head all week. FIRSTLY I LOVE THE COSTUMING for like all the characters but especially Fool-!!!!!

Secondly, I want to ;_; kiss him and dance with him! Look at that outfit! It was made for dancing!!

thank you for this wonderful story i am so well fed 💖✨

[youssefguedira]

iron maiden joe prequel snippet for you all happy sunday (this takes place the morning immediately after nicky, andy and quynh find yusuf in the main fic)

At six twenty-five am – according to his watch, which runs two minutes slow, so it's probably more like six twenty-seven – Nicky gives up on the idea of trying to get more sleep. Yusuf has not stirred all night; or if he has, Nicky has not heard it. He's briefly worried about going too far, even though he knows, logically, there is no need for him to keep watch like this. But the kitchen is close enough to Yusuf's bedroom that Nicky will be able to hear it if he cries out, and if he is to get through today, he'll need something to eat, and probably coffee too. So it is with that in mind that he gets up and goes into the kitchen.

Nobody else is awake yet, and it is late enough in the year that the sun isn't quite up either, but the sky is beginning to grow light in anticipation of it. This safehouse is far enough from any other major settlement that the only sound outside is the wind, which hasn't let up all night, and the birds. Nicky turns the lights on and gets to work.

At seven thirty, Nile joins him in the kitchen. She doesn't ask how long he's been awake, and he doesn't volunteer the information. He offers her a cup of coffee, and she takes it, settling herself at the kitchen table.

At eight twenty-two, according to the clock above the kitchen counter, which is seemingly more reliable than Nicky's old watch, there are the first sounds of movement from Yusuf's bedroom. If Nile notices the way Nicky immediately looks up towards the sound, she doesn't say a word about it, nor does she give him the knowing look Andy or Quynh would have. There has been no sign of the two of them, yet.

To keep himself from straining to hear every single tiny sound coming from behind Yusuf's door, Nicky sets about making breakfast. There's not much in this safehouse – they'd come here in a rush after Copley had called – so he just makes oatmeal, adding sugar to Nile's and nothing to his own. Nile, normally, would make fun of him for this, but today she says nothing.

He reaches for the honey and cinnamon, setting it down on the counter next to the third bowl, but then pauses. He thinks that Yusuf has, or at least used to have, a sweet tooth to rival Andy's. He thinks that this is the way he would have made it a long time ago, when they had the luxury of being able to get the ingredients they needed. He thinks that he would not have thought twice before.

He does not remember any of this for certain. This is precious information that he has kept guarded in his memory for centuries, and yet at some point in the last four hundred and eighty two years, he has let it fade, and now he does not remember. He'd sworn to himself not to forget these things, small as they may be, out of desperate hope, and now he does not remember. It is such a tiny thing to forget. It feels like a monumental loss.

And who is he now to assume that things have not changed, when he knows that the man he'd found in that alleyway is not the same as the one they'd taken from him? How can anything be the same as it was, after so long? Nicky loves him still, so much he aches with it, but what if they are both too different, now? What if there is nothing left to repair?

He does not realise, until he goes to pass Nile her bowl, that his hands are trembling.

"Nicky," she says, but whatever would have followed is interrupted by the sound of the door opening.

Yusuf stands just in the doorway of the kitchen, not quite in, not quite out. This safehouse is not all that large; the distance between them is barely two meters, if that. It feels insurmountable.

"Are you-" Nicky begins and then reconsiders, clears his throat. "Will you eat something?" He'd barely eaten a thing at dinner last night, and Nicky is worried for him, though perhaps he'd just been too tired.

Yusuf doesn't say a word, just lingers there, lips slightly parted as if he'd wanted to say something but couldn't find the words. It does something funny to Nicky's brain, seeing him there in a hoodie and sweatpants that are just a little loose in the shoulders and thighs, a far cry from the clothes Nicky had last seen him in. His hair is shorter, too, though the cut isn't exactly neat. Nicky had done his best, but he'd gotten the sense Yusuf wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

Finally, after an eternity, Yusuf nods, shuffling forwards to sit at the table. His shoulders are hunched underneath the grey fabric of the hoodie. He looks – Nicky doesn't know. He looks tired.

Nicky offers him the bowl, and the honey and cinnamon with it, just in case. Yusuf doesn't look at him, or at Nile, while he eats, and that doesn't hurt. It doesn't.

It's slow, but at least he's eating something, even if he takes small bites and only finishes half the bowl. Nicky will take it.

Only when Yusuf finishes does he look at Nicky. "Thank you," he says quietly, still speaking the Arabic of his childhood, the version he'd taught Nicky painfully slowly, a hand offered in peace across the barrier between them, over the course of countless nights in the desert. This, at least, Nicky has not forgotten, making sure he spoke it at least with Andromache and Quynh, and with himself, too.

"Of course," Nicky responds, offering him a soft smile that he hopes looks more convincing than it feels. Yusuf doesn't quite smile back, but his eyes soften, and – it is small, perhaps.

It is enough to give Nicky hope, nonetheless.

[lorelune]

biggest L of lorelune is for sure the diluc fic 😔 oh beloved one day i'll work on you again

[rae-gar-targaryen]

mi media naranja [holiday!AU - mickey "fanboy" garcia x fem!reader, aka "cielo"]

A/N: For Fanboy’s fangirls - a holiday celebration with Fanboy y Cielo. Lots of callbacks to my original Fanboy HCs  – so if you’ve been following their journey thus far, there will be lots in here for you. Bonus points if you get the references! 

Pairing: Mickey ‘Fanboy’ Garcia x fem!civilian!reader (aka “Cielo;” as always no use of y/n – my readers are written ambiguous, but with a latina!reader in mind.)

Warnings: my writing is its own warning, smut, so 18+ ONLY – p in v sex, unprotected sex, v mild breeding kink, references to oral sex

Word Count: 5.8k of the warmth of a holiday spent together with your beloved, of chestnuts roasting on an open fire, of the cinnamon-orange passion of sharing half of yourself with someone else.

Summary: You spend your holidays with your sweet boyfriend. Mickey takes you home to visit his family, but of course, you make sure to indulge in the magic of the holiday, just the two of you [part of the Fanboy y Cielo ‘verse].

(moodboard courtesy of lovely @ouralcohol)

--

Divided holidays were a challenge. 

You and Mickey had opted to spend the few days preceding Christmas with his mother and his sisters, which meant, of course, holiday travel.

You'd left your beachside home in San Diego, packing gifts and luggage alike to make the trek to Mickey’s hometown. Artoo was set up with your friend for the few days you’d be gone. And it wasn’t as though you weren’t coming back in just a few days to celebrate Christmas with Mickey, just the two of you. It would go by in a flash. So why were you nervous?  

You had met his family before. And, of course, they’d never indicated anything other than that they’d liked you … Still, you’d felt the perpetual need to impress. To ensure that they still liked you, as though their opinion would have changed in the six months since you had seen them for the family’s summer beach weekend.

And the drive was pleasant enough, Mickey expressing to you ad nauseam that he was glad you were coming, 

“You don’t understand, cielo,” he urged. “Every time I talk to my tía it’s like – ‘¿Y tu novia? ¿Y tu novia?’” he parroted. “I swear, it’s like she’s convinced you don’t exist, even though my mom has literally met you.”

You patted his arm in comfort, offering him your coffee cup, which he eyed warily – all too familiar with your penchant for bitter brew. Politely shaking his head in refusal as he turned his eyes back to the road.

You shrugged.

“Oh, I’m familiar,” you assuaged. “My auntie is nosy, too, she does the same. Ever since I was in high school, always asking me where my boyfriend was, judging me if I didn’t bring anyone.”

“And?” Mickey’s eyes darted to you, drumming his hands on the steering wheel in time with the radio (and not at all nervously himself). 

You chuckled, quirking an eyebrow at your boyfriend’s a-little-too-curious tone.

“¿Estás celoso o algo así?” Are you jealous, or something? “Don’t worry, M, I don’t bring anyone around unless I think they’re worthwhile.”

You popped across the console on your elbows, enough to press a kiss to your boyfriend’s cheek, pleased at the blooming flush making its way across his finely-peaked, mole-dotted cheekbones. At his happy realization that you had brought him home to meet your family for nearly every Thanksgiving since you’d gotten together. 

That you had deemed him worthy.

And though Mickey had assured you that it would be a relatively quiet few days, a few meals and a gift exchange with his mom and his sisters, you couldn’t help but wonder – had Mickey deemed you worthy? Had the women in his life? 

So, yeah, you couldn’t help the little prickle of nerves that tingled their way through you as your playlist wound down, the dulcet tones of Sam Cooke’s “Any Day Now,” fading as Mickey turned into his driveway, his mother and sisters waiting to greet you with waving hands and identically-beaming faces. Their smiles were all-to familiar to you – a virtual carbon-copy of the one that regularly greeted you on the face of your beloved. 

And it was foolish to worry, really, you thought, as you were crushed with hugs and ushered inside by Mickey’s mother and his three shrieking, giggling sisters, all wearing variations of the same, slightly threadbare sweater (no doubt handmade and worn annually). Leaving Mickey to carry your bags and gifts into the home while his trio of sisters fawned over you,

“She looks gorgeous, no?” Said the eldest, Luci.

“I told you, she’s got that glow,” from Eiza, the youngest. 

And it was foolish to worry – when they had shoved a glass of ponche navideño in your hands and began filling you in on all the chisme as your boyfriend huffed his way up to his childhood bedroom, laden with bags. 

Hours later, you were packed into the hearth-warm kitchen, virtually up to your elbows in masa as you continued to knead, by hand, the sticky dough for enough tamales to feed an army under the approving (but ever-watchful eye) of your general – Mrs. Garcia. The way her lips had split into a smile when you’d refused the stand-mixer and opted to go manual was something you’d burn into your brain for eternity. 

Maybe approval wasn’t so far off. 

“Bien, mija,” she appraised, as Mickey sipped his punch from the corner he had been relegated to in the the kitchen, watching with honeymelt eyes as the women who shaped his past, his present, and – his eyes lingered over you – hopefully, his future, all worked in tandem to make homemade tamales. Gossipping away and giggling with each other as though you had been their friend for decades. 

“Ma,” Mickey piped up, “you’ve got her making all of this by hand? She’ll cramp up. She’ll have witch's hands by the time we leave. She’s an artist, you know, it’s how she makes her living. How many tamales do you need, anyway?” 

Mrs. Garcia whipped the dish towel that was draped over her shoulder at the back of her son’s head, effectively silencing him.

“Miguelito,” she hissed, “Tradicion. And your cousin Shawn says he’ll eat at least forty, and you know they’ll be here til New Year’s.” 

“Yeah? Well, cousin Shawn is full of shit.” 

Mickey’s sisters rolled their eyes at their brother’s antics, the middle sister, Olivia, bumping her hips against yours, her eyes full of playful mirth as she finished stirring the filling. 

And you could make out the living room through its swinging door to the kitchen, Vicente Fernández warbling away on the record player in the corner, as Eiza finished decorating their tree with a few of the ornaments that you and Mickey had brought – one, an orb with a photo of the two of you and Artoo on your couch at home, she displayed prominently at the center of the tree next to some that were clearly school projects from the kids’ elementary school years. 

It was nice, you thought – to be in a home that felt like a home for the holidays. To see these little pieces of your love’s life that had preceded you and that had shaped him. To let the magic of the season wash over your lives. 

After dinner, you helped Mickey’s sisters store the tamales for the long haul (and the arrival of the cousins) while Mickey did the dishes. 

Sliding on stockinged feet over the linoleum in their kitchen, you sheepishly produced a pink box tied in twine, with a tag that had a roughly-hewn, hand-drawn likeness of the Garcia household that you had seen in photographs, offering it to Mickey’s mother – a box stuffed full of pan dulce and Christmas cookies. 

“Mija, you made these?” She asked, hand hovering over the open flap, debating which to choose. “They all look so perfect.” 

“You should, like, have a baking insta,” Eiza agreed, words muffled by a mouth full of fluffy pink pan dulce. 

“They aren’t alla that,” you huffed, waving your hand as though to wave away the compliments.

“She’s modest,” Mickey assured, taking the box from your hands and setting it on the oaken kitchen table before lacing your fingers with his. “She loves to bake. She makes cookies for everyone in the squad for Christmas and birthdays.” 

“Really?” Mrs. Garcia appraised. “What did you make this year?” 

Rooster was positively gleeful at the sight of the red tin bedecked with snowflakes. 

“Are those what I think they are?” He bent down to kiss your cheek as you pressed the box into his hands. “Our Marigold’s famous Christmas gifts?” 

You had come down to the base to deliver the baked goods in person, on a day the squad had all agreed to meet for a holiday lunch. A cardboard box full of tins, each with their own personalized tag, awaited each of the Daggers. Javy had taken his – with its tag featuring a little drawing of a howling coyote – and absconded with it, thanking you through a sprinkling mouthful of crumbs and peppermint icing. 

Bradley’s, with its tag adorned with a strutting cartoon rooster with its tail feathers made of flames, was full of iced shortbread. Something he had confided to you that his mother had made on holidays past. You hoped he’d like them, not that the recipe you had found online could ever touch Carole Bradshaw's.

Mav had winked, thanking you for the classic chocolate chip, chuckling at the cartoonish aviator sunglasses on the tag.

Chocolate-chili cookies for Phoenix. Peanut butter for Jake. Cinnamon swirl for Bob. Lemon-lavender for Halo. Sweet mochi cookies for Reuben… and so on.

“If he doesn’t marry you, Marigold,” Rooster not-so-quietly announced, gesturing at Mickey with a cookie in his hand, “I will.” 

It was then that Mickey had swooped in, looping an arm around your waist and pressing a kiss to your cheek, waving Rooster away with a, 

“Yeah, yeah… she’ll definitely call you, buddy." Waving at the squad as he spun you and made to take your leave. "Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.” 

–

Mickey's childhood room was, like the rest of his family home, like the man himself, warm. Belying a coziness you cherished in all spaces, replete with a checkered quilt on the bed that you were certain his mother had made. Posters bedecked the walls, shining with the grins of baseball and soccer players whose names you'd recognized from the backs of jerseys hanging in Mickey's side of your shared closet. Star Trek DVD sets on the bookshelf, nestled next to Tom Clancy novels. Model planes, jets, and Lego sets were intact and displayed – proudly, you were sure –  on the desk. It was all so overwhelmingly Mickey, you were certain you were falling in love all over again, more pieces of himself falling into place in your heart. The nature of him, ensconced by his childhood, filling the gaps in your heart. 

"It's, ehhh," Mickey scrubbed the back of his neck, placing your bag at the foot of the bed on the side he knew you'd preferred af home. "A little geeky, I know. Ma insists on not changing it."

"She shouldn't," you clarified. "It's perfect. It's you."

Mickey beamed at that, coming to your side and surveying the room from your perspective before shrugging his shoulders.

"It's more perfect seeing you here. Honestly, a pretty girl in my room? My sisters never thought they'd see the day," he chuckled, sweeping an arm around your waist and pressing a kiss to your shoulder before gazing up at you through his lashes. "And I gotta say, cielo, it's doing a number on me, you being in here."

You batted your lashes at your beloved before patting his cheek, 

“Easy tiger,” you breathed. “I’m not trying to disrespect your mother, or anything. We can wait til we're back home.” 

"Yeah, about that," Mickey said, extricating himself from you and readying himself for bed. "My mom is probably still laughing at you for offering to sleep on the couch. They know we've been together for a while, babe. It's fine."

"Still," you hissed, shimmying out of your jeans and into your joggers, sliding beneath the covers. "It's… awkward, no? To be in your boyfriend's house, them thinking we’re like … hooking up in here?" 

"If you feel that strongly about it," Mickey slid in beside you, leveling you with his best serious gaze, "you really should make more of an effort to keep your hands off me. Like, damn. Let a man sleep in peace."

You swatted his arm with the back of your hand, scoffing at him as he turned to turn out the bedside light. 

"You're unbelievable."

"Tell me something I don't know, baby."

And it had to be some kind of record, really. How quickly you’d gone back on your own word.

As soon as you and Mickey had turned the lights out, he had wrapped his arms around you, and pressed a goodnight kiss to your lips, you were a goner. The rustle of sheets met your ears through the blanket of darkness that had fallen in Mickey’s room, his fingertips meeting the skin of your waist where your t-shirt had ridden up, his lips meeting yours in kind – a clandestine, weighted feeling that you often felt yourself lost in. 

Mickey would often tell you that he felt a sort of gravitational pull near you – when you kissed him. That he was helpless to your gravitational pull, like the crashing tides. No choice but to worship you.

It was utter bullshit.

Utter nonsense. Because there was no way he could feel that way about you, when it was exactly how you felt about him, as he trailed his lips along the skin of your neck, feeling his way across your skin, through you, over you, the very heart of you. Rendering you slavish, devoted, insane. No choice but to heed to his beck and call, like the routine surrounding the permanence of a rising and setting sun. 

At the breaking little whine shattering its way through your throat, Mickey smiles against your skin, knowing he’s won. His mouth is warm, kisses like rich cocoa against your silken skin as he slips his way down your body, a trail of teasing touches and toying temptations – leading with lips and tongue.  

 He presses his way down your body, pleased at the heavy sigh that pours from your throat like water in the desert as he slides the soft fabric of your t-shirt up your torso, allowing his lips to chase the mapping progress of his fingers – a path he’s travelled many times, but never feels the same, and never renders the exact same reaction from you. 

“Fuck, cielo,” Mickey murmurs in reverence, his tongue swirling your nipple, the heat of his mouth and honey of his lips following. His hands slipping down your waist as he peppers kisses to the ridges of your ribs, the softness of your stomach. Shucking the quilt down to the foot of the bed as he makes his way between your now-parted legs. 

His palms skated the skin of your thighs, your calves, your ankles, mumbling muffled endearments against your skin as his lips traversed to your hips, inching closer, closer, closer to your center. Your chest heaved with ragged breaths, with honeyed sighs, lashes fluttering and fingers lacing through Mickey’s curls as you acquiesced, always, to the pull of him, the swelling ocean tide sure to wash you away into the depths of him.

“You should feel how warm you are, amor,” Mickey’s lips were wistful and wanton, cruel yet comforting, as he pressed  open-mouthed kisses heating the insides of your thighs. A perpetual tease, as tongue followed. “I bet you’re sweet, too.”

Mickey’s eyes met yours as he glanced up at you from between your thighs, glimmering with the dance of mischief and amorous intent. Pleased at the hitch of your breath evident in your chest, the fluttering of your lashes, the part of your lips.

God, you were well on your way to looking as wrecked as he felt. 

Mickey smiled then, a splitting peal of glimmering happiness, before he endeavoured to shatter you – cheeky as he inclined his head to lick a firm stripe along the seam of you, through the dampened cotton of your underwear.

You yelped at the feeling, slapping your hand over your mouth to muffle the too-loud noise that had shattered the relative silence of the room (save for your collectively heavy breaths), eyes wide at the sound that had spilled from you.

You tugged Mickey’s curls, beckoning him up as you hurried to close your legs – the moment shattering as you realized that once again, you had lost sense of yourself. And under his mother’s roof, no less.

“M!” you hissed, shuffling to readjust your clothing as you gently swatted at his pec, the small thwacking sound vindicating to your own traitorous ears as you attempted to recover from the embarrassment flooding through your body, heating your chest and cheeks. “Y-you … I can’t believe you. Zorro. Baboso.” 

“H-hey,” Mickey was cupping his own pec where you had swatted at it, eyeing your fluster and bluster with barely-concealed mirth. “You wound me, baby. I was just trying to kiss you goodnight. I just wanted you to know I love you.” 

“Sneaky little good-for-nothing,” you hissed, no malice in your voice as it spilled from lips that were trying, against your better senses, to tug into a smile. Shaking your head. “What would Ken Griffey Jr. think?” You tugged your shirt down, beckoning with pointed finger to the larger-than-life splashed likeness on the poster of the hall of fame ballplayer, staring down at the both of you, frozen smile ever-affixed. Not judgmental, but not-not judgmental. 

“He’d high-five me for a home run?” Mickey shrugged.

“You’re shameless, you know?” You readjusted yourself under the covers, making a show of pulling them up to your chin, obscuring your body from his view.

“Well, what do you suggest we do instead,” Mickey queried.

“Um, sleep?” 

“Baby,” Mickey’s voice was low, lilting – a slip of a tease in the wintery-darkness of his room. “I don’t, uhhh, think I can go to sleep right now.” 

You arched an eyebrow at him, “I want to go on record as saying that this is a self-created problem, but because I love you …” you sat up, allowing the covers to fall to your waist, bending forward and cupping Mickey’s jaw, urging him to you to press a chaste kiss to his lips. 

“Lie on your stomach,” you eased. “Let’s play the word game.” 

The word game. Something you had invented with your siblings when you were little. When you were too hyper to sleep, filled with the sugar from Christmas cookies and hot cocoa, waiting for Santa Claus, urging the morning to come … you’d come up with the game to pass the time. A game you had passed on to friends at sleepovers, graduating to giggling wine-drunk iterations in college. And now to your beloved. 

One of you would lie on your stomach, while the person that was “it” would pick a word or phrase, drawing each letter on the expanse of the other’s back. If the guesser chose the letter correctly, you would move on to the next letter, until they’ve spelled the word and identified it. Then you would switch 

Now, with the twinkling of stars outside of Mickey’s window and the luminescent glow of the moon to light your way, you rubbed your palms along the smooth skin of his muscled back, perusing your mental catalog for your word. Mickey groaned beneath you, pleased at the feeling of your hands working their way along his skin, his contended exhalations leaving his lips like a purr. 

“Ah,” you began, “I’ve got one. Okay.” 

You traced an “R,” the curving bow of the letter causing a shiver to wrack through Mickey at the featherlight touch of your fingertip, the gentle scrape of your nail.

“Cielo, this is supposed to relax me, not turn me on,” he turned his head to the side, allowing it to rest on his arms so he could glare, balefully, at you through cocoa-swirled eyes. 

“I can’t be breaking the rules if everything I do turns you on. Control yourself,” you replied primly, easing the sting of your jest with a sweet kiss pressed to his tanned shoulder. “I’ll draw again.” 

“It’s an ‘R,’” he supplied, huffing. “Stupid, sexy ‘R.’” 

You beamed, nodding so that he could see, before drawing the next. E. 

As Mickey guessed each letter, you proceeded. Giggling at some of his mistakes, signaling wrong answers with a wiping, swirling motion along his spine, not unlike the sweeping shake of your head, until – 

“Regalo,” Mickey guessed. Present. 

“Bien,” you smiled. Rewarding your beloved with a sweet kiss to his lips, breezy and sweet like honeysuckle in spring. 

“And what present did you get me, my love?” 

“You’ll have to wait to find out,” you eased down next to him, cuddling into his side. “Or maybe my presence is the present. Either way, you’ll have to be good, or you get nothing.” 

“Always,” Mickey murmured, the facile lovingness of your touch, the game, having lulled him some, easing into the routine of relaxing by your side.

Whether he was referring to you always being a gift, or that he was always good, you weren’t sure. And you didn’t ask, his evening-breathing suggesting that he was well on his way to drifting off – one step closer to dancing dreams of swirling ardor. 

–

As you sat around in the morning with Mickey’s sisters in their matching sweaters, waiting to exchange gifts, they eyed you with something like mischief. A look you were all too used to seeing in their brother’s eyes. 

Mickey was in the kitchen, chipperly helping his mother plate the pan dulce you had baked and pouring coffee. The sunshiney nature of early-birdedness seemed to be a Garcia family trait, you thought, as Mickey’s mother greeted you with a million-watt smile and a kiss to your cheek before ushering you to be comfortable by the tree. 

“I heard the strangest thing last night,” Luci began, her lips curling into a grin. “Did you hear it, Oli?” She looked to the middle sister.

“Oh, yeah,” Olivia continued, knowingly. “Some noise coming from down the hall, like a strangled little cat. Very strange.”

“We don’t have a cat,” Eiza piped up, helpfully-unhelpful. 

And if your face didn’t bely your embarrassment at Mickey’s sisters clearly having heard your little yelp from down the hall, you were sure that the heat rushing through your body might melt you, like a shameful wave of lava, bent on your destruction. 

“Ehm,” you began, plucking intently at the very apparent little loose thread at the hem of your joggers… 

“We’re teasing you,” Luci appeased. “Don’t worry. Quite honestly, the fact that you’d choose to be with that little nerd is astounding –” 

“You’re too cool for him,” Eiza finished from her end of the couch. 

“He’s, uhm,” you smiled weakly at each of his sisters, still recovering from the mortifying ordeal of having been put on the spot. “He’s pretty great.” 

“Yeah,” Olivia rolled her eyes. “If you think Star Trek Christmas sweaters and talking about jets and G’s is cool.” 

You shrugged. “I do.” 

Mrs. Garcia and Mickey entered, then, distributing the steaming cups of coffee and reheated sweet breads. Your beloved pressing his lips to your temple as he pressed the warm mug into your hands.

“Buenas días, mija,” Mrs. Garcia greeted you, easing next to you on the couch. 

“Good morning, señora.” 

She knocked her shoulder gently into yours, smiling between you and Mickey, as he began to distribute gifts.

“Oh, M, give out mine first, please?” You urged, the little prickle of nerves from yesterday tickling at your throat (or maybe that was just the warm swallow of bitterly-strong coffee, just the way you liked it) as you were eagerly-anxious to see if his family liked your gifts.

Mickey nodded, passing soft wrapped packages to each sister – their names calligraphed on each tag in elegant, looping letters. Urging each sister to tear into the paper, an extra smile for Eiza as he passed her a firmer, square box. 

Luci cooed over the hand-knitted scarf and hoop earrings, assuring you they were just the pair she wanted.

Olivia had beamed at the hand-painted mug, admiring the white oleander blooms you had painted. Thanking you for the book of poems. 

Eiza shrieked at the pink gamer headset as she unwrapped it, looking up at you with awestruck, eager eyes. 

“Now you can join M, Reuben and me on our Call of Duty nights,” you smiled. “You’ll need some face masks, though. We multitask our self-care.” You nodded at the box, urging her to check as she pulled out a pack of Korean sheet masks (the same that you had separately gifted Reuben). She swept you in a hug, promising to set up a time to play with you. 

Mickey passed his mother a large, flat package, urging her to tear into the paper.

She ripped away the shining green, revealing a canvas with a watercolored likeness of your beachside home. The cerulean of the swirling ocean and the grapefruit-pink of the sunset stippled into in the background. 

“She painted it, mama,” Mickey gestured to you, eyes swimming as he took in the pleased smile on his mother’s face.

“I just wanted you to have something, a piece of our home in yours, until you can come visit us,” you eased. “I hope you like it.”

Mrs. Garcia nodded, reaching to clasp your hand in hers. “It’s beautiful, my darling girl.” 

Mickey’s sisters had gifted you with a stocking full of puppy goodies for Artoo. A set of bath bombs and a new sketchpad for you. Gifting Mickey with some games he had his eye on.

Senora eased her way up from the couch, pulling a small wooden box from beneath the tree and handing it to you. 

You admired the hewn wood, popping the lid on the box to find a handful of recipe cards in what you recognized form letters and cards to be Mrs. Garcia’s handwriting.

“Just a few recipes for you – so the two of you can have them for your home. And start some of your own traditions.”

You thanked her, with teary eyes and a warm hug, all vestiges of worry set aside as you enmeshed yourself into the warm welcome of the Garcia home.

"You make him better, no?" Mrs. Garcia was sitting with you as Mickey packed up the car, his sisters twittering around him about taking leftovers (seriously, Shawn did not need that many tamales) and promising to FaceTime them after you and Mickey opened the rest of your gifts. The snippets of their conversations meeting your ears as you visited with his mother.

“-- I swear, Miguelito, you better marry her,” Luci’s voice caused your heart to lurch a little. 

You turned your attention back to Mrs. Garcia,

"He makes me my best."

–

Artoo was overjoyed at your reunion. He leapt at your feet before you’d even had the chance to exit the car, his tail moving a mile a minute as he bowled over Mickey, licking at his face and his ears.

The two of you had settled into a lazy morning together, Artoo contentedly tearing into the stocking of gifts from Mickey’s sisters from his perch on the couch as you gifted Mickey with a plate of cheesy scrambled eggs – a Christmas morning breakfast tradition in your home.

“I like the shirt,” you acknowledged, beaming at the Mickey Mouse shirt that had been your birthday gift to him the prior year – a tradition of his own making, to wear the shirts you’d gifted him on Christmas. Each year a surprise as to which one he’d pick. 

This year’s – a grinning Mickey hugging Pluto – a splash of color adorning Mickey’s torso. A welcome sight painting the picture of your holiday backdrop while you made chili-spiced hot cocoa as your father had taught you, the sweet tickle playing on your lips as you grinned at your boyfriend.

And it was a cosmic, karmic collision – something in the stars, you think. Watching him play with Artoo, watching him eat his breakfast, watching him pluck packages from beneath the tree, ready to give to you. And maybe it was the magic of the holidays – that tinges everything in evergreen romance, warm and sweet and cinnamon. But you think, perhaps, that it will always feel this way with Mickey – as though he was the sunshine in your wintery sky, iridescent and luminous.

“Here,” you passed a package to your beloved, waiting with bated breath and eager eyes as he set his cocoa cup aside and ripped into the paper, marveling at the bound graphic novel in his hands – 

A full, illustrated edition of “The Adventures of Fanboy and Payback,” their space-exploration adventures that you had invented and drawn now captured fully, rather than in the piecemeal etchings you would stick into care packages when Mickey was away.

“Baby,” Mickey breathed, “you did all of this?”

“Well,” you worried your lower lip between your teeth. “The binding isn’t the best, but I tried. Do you like it?”

“Ah-mor,” he swept you off the couch and into his arms, his lips meeting yours, full and flush. “You literally made me a sci-fi hero. This is the best ever.” 

“I’m so glad,” you murmured, wrapping your arms around his tapered waist and squeezing. “You’re definitely my hero, M. Callsign: Romeo.” 

Mickey chuckled, disentangling himself from you and pressing another kiss to your lips. Assuring you he loved it as he gently set aside the book as though it were made of glass, turning to pick up your gift.

Mickey gazed at you expectantly as you held the small, unexpectedly dense box in your palm, searching his face for any hint as to what could be in the box,

“Don’t –” Mickey started, trailing off as you gently shook the box, “shake it… Fine.” 

You smirked, peeling the paper off the box and peering into it, met with the fiery hue of —

“An orange?” You query, lifting the small fruit from the box, its stippled rind leaving the pleasing, citrusy smell on your fingertips as you examined it. The blazing blue sticker on the side of the rind boasting the phrase, “Sweet Valencia.”

“Por supuesto, cielo.” Of course. 

“Well, you know I love oranges,” you smiled at him. “Thank you, my love.”

“Cieloooo,” he snickered. “If we were to share it. To peel it in half, what do you have?” He pressed you.

You gazed at him, glancing between the orange in your hand and your beloved’s shimmering eyes, dark and luminescent as the night sky.

“A half of an orange. Is this a riddle? What am I missing?” 

“Si, cielo, my brilliant, beautiful girl.” Mickey kneeled before you know, cradling your hand that held the orange in his palms. “An orange half. Mi media naranja.”

Your breath caught in your throat. 

And it was one of your favorite things about the Spanish language, your favorite endearment.  Embodied by the gift your boyfriend was handing to you now, the fiery-hued orb in your palms, perfect. The sweet smell of citrus tickling your nose. 

Mi media naranja. His soulmate. Literally translated, mi media naranja – “my orange half,” in reference to you.

Mickey dropped your hand, turning to pick up the box you had gently set aside, plucking something from the bottom of the box before picking up one of your hands. 

The coolness of metal slid along the ring finger of your right hand.

You tore your gaze down in time to see the coppery rosiness of a simple rose-gold band against the skin of your hand.

“I’m going to marry you one day, mi naranjita,” Mickey assured, looking between the ring on your hand and your starshine eyes. “Until then, consider this my promise to you.” 

With your artist's eyes, you can appreciate the watercolor brushstrokes of the moment, the way in which you saw the world, textured and swirling. Rosy and perpetually-perfect as your lips met Mickey’s, tugging him toward you with a finger crooked in his silly shirt.

“You’re perfect, M,” you murmured into his mouth. “Impetuous … but perfect.” 

You dragged Mickey down the hall, toward your bedroom, your lips fused to his as you made to peel the cartoonish shirt from his torso as you went, reveling in the firm feel of him beneath your fingertips. 

When had the script flipped? You were beneath Mickey now, him rolling his hips into you, the sweet, heavy drag of him inside of you sinfully sweet as you tipped your head back to watch your beloved watching you. The tight heat of you squeezing around him, causing him to roll his eyes back, bucking his hips into you harder. 

“Baby,” Mickey groaned, “you're so pretty it hurts.” He dragged his teeth over the column of your throat, soothing the stinging scrape of teeth with a pretty little brushstroke of his lips over the canvas of your neck. "I'll give it all to you – give you more, more, more …" he murmured into your skin as his thrusts became sloppy.

And watching you come apart, to shatter in his embrace, was the gift you kept on giving. One he’d never tire of as he spilled inside of you as you urged him to, “Please, baby, come inside me,” urging, urging. “I want it.”

He never stood a chance.

You draw your finger repeatedly along the curve of his nose, pressing kisses into his neck and begging him not to move from inside of you as Mickey rests his head on your shoulder, puffing exhalations evening into the deep, easy breathing of the satisfied. 

And as you glanced down at the rose gold band on your hand – the simple little gift that held so much weight, you drifted to the afternoon you had spent with Mickey before leaving his mother’s home. The tour he’d given you around town, narrating the lives of the ghosts of his hometown as you drove past the movie theater where he’d had his first date; the park where he and some friends had gotten drunk as teens. Stopping to climb to the roof of the school building, to watch the late-afternoon wintery sunset. 

"I wish you knew what it feels like," you sighed, carding your fingers through Mickey's curls, his head in your lap as the two of you watched the blaze of orange sunset turn purple like tufted cotton candy.

"What what feels like?" He asked tilting his chin to allow his eyes to prove your form, appreciating the fiery hues of the sky splashed against your skin.

"To love you," you glanced down, meeting your beloved's eyes with a smile.

Mickey's million-watt grin beamed back in response.

And perhaps that's the reason for the setting sun, you thought. It has no choice but to retreat in the face of something so radiant as your beloved's smile, a second fiddle at its own game.

"Oh, I have a pretty good idea, cielito" Mickey sat up, warm hands coming to cradle either side of your face, to appreciate the curve of your jaw as you smile at him -- little reminders how every part of you, delights in every part of him.

At your arching eyebrow, he continued, "After all, I know what it feels like to love you."

His lips met yours, the feel of his kiss like night-blooming jasmine, like petals against your wistful mouth -- eternal against the evening dusk of his hometown's little skyline.

Perhaps traveling for the holidays wasn't so bad.

--

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