#edge him until his aggression evaporates

[azurexsnake]

Just fuck me up at this point

Need to make Taiju’s knees buckle so bad. Need to afflict physical, involuntary weakness on this man. Need him feeling so good it’s distressing.

[howaboutcastiel]

Care and Comfort (Steven Grant x GN!Reader)

Summary: Reader has night terrors that they struggle to calm from after waking. Steven, who is in an established relationship with you, does what he can to ease the pain. 

Author’s Note: Do not come for me, this is my first time writing fanfiction in like four years. When I watched Ep. 5 for the first time I thought that Steven was created to be a protector (An alter in a DID system who assumes the role of protecting the body and sometimes protecting the emotional health of other alters), but someone who is actually part of a system explained to me that Steven likely assumes the role of caretaker (taking care of the body’s needs when other alters may not be able to mentally or otherwise). A caretaker is a kind of protector, but the term “protector” usually applies to more assertive or  aggressive alters. This fic is based off of the characterization of Steven as a caretaker of the body and that his caretaking personality would apply to other important people in his life. :)

Content Warning: Nightmares, mentions of trauma, lots of fluff, poorly written British dialect (Maybe not G-rated but generally pretty mild)

~~~~~~

It was the first time that Steven had heard you wake up screaming. He knew about your nightmares, but since you had started dating, you had always felt safe enough falling asleep by his side to keep the night terrors at bay. This morning was different. 

You hadn’t exactly gone to bed angry, but an argument with Steven last night had resulted in a silent agreement for him to sleep on the couch. Neither of you were particularly mad when you turned in for the night, but the disagreement had left an awkwardness that made you unable to look Steven in the eye. You had missed his familiar warmth as you drifted out of consciousness, alone in your normally shared bed, but you’d reminded yourself that you’d been sleeping alone your whole life before Steven came along. Still, his absence left an empty hole in your subconscious, and for the first time in months, you had experienced a night terror capable of shaking your mind and body for the whole day. 

Your shrieking didn’t even register in your ears until you had run out of breath. As soon as you realized that you were awake, Steven was bursting through your bedroom door, scrambling to find the light switch as the sun hadn’t risen far enough to illuminate your room. 

“My god, what is it?” he said breathlessly, reaching out to cup your face in his hand. He surveyed the room for potential threats and searched your body for any indication of an injury. You avoided his gaze, ashamed that you had woken him at such an ungodly hour, but still shaken from the fresh horrors that had held you captive in your slumber. It took Steven all of two seconds to put the pieces together in his mind—being the crazy smart man that he is—and he let out a rough sigh as he gingerly crawled under the sheets beside you. “Oh, love. It’s alright. It was just a bad dream.”

“Bad doesn’t cover it,” you mumbled, your aversion to his gaze evaporating as he nestled your head into his chest. “Sorry I woke you. ‘S just a stupid nightmare.”

As much as you trusted Steven, you couldn’t bring yourself to admit to him just how shaken you were by your dream. Usually, your nightmares would linger in your mind for the entire day after you had them. Sometimes you would be so on edge that you couldn’t fall asleep the next night, wary of the world that would great you when you closed your eyes. You didn’t want to worry Steven over a stupid nightmare. You knew it wasn’t real, anyway, but you couldn’t slow the beating of your heart as the vile imagery refused to leave your mind, secure as you knew you were in Steven’s grasp. 

“Don’t apologize. Really, don’t. It’s not like you can control all the shit that your mind conjures up.” He shuffled slightly further under the sheets, uncomfortable from the harsh overhead light, but not wanting to let go of you either. “Sweet Jesus, love! You’re trembling like a leaf. What on earth was that nightmare about?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” you huffed, shifting your weight so that you could see his whole face. He nodded, rubbing circles on your back, but you still felt on edge despite his efforts to calm you. Steven was obviously concerned for you, not knowing what to do about the nightmares he had never witnessed before. Disgruntled, you separated yourself from Steven’s grasp after a few minutes in his sturdy arms had failed to steady your pulse. You headed for the bathroom, hoping that a nice, scalding shower would distract you from the fight-or-flight response that your body couldn’t shake. You instructed Steven not to follow you as you closed the bathroom door behind you, avoiding your reflection in the mirror and tensely shedding your sleep shirt and underwear. 

You knew before the water even started running that the shower would do nothing to ease your stress. Truthfully, you were more intent on getting away from Steven than anything. It was embarrassing, being so shaken by a dream and not being able to hide it or control it. For god’s sake, you had probably woken the neighbors with your screaming and you felt absolutely pathetic. Even so, flashes of last night’s gruesome sleep terror continued to invade your mind, and you found yourself rubbing your eyes until they ached under your knuckles, trying to force your thoughts elsewhere. 

When you stepped out of the shower, you figured that Steven had gone back to bed. It was well before sun-up, after all, and you estimated that he wouldn’t need to be ready for work for at least another few hours. He wasn’t still in your bed, though, when you returned to your room. Perhaps he had returned to the couch in an effort not to bother you. You examined your closet for some comfortable clothes to put on, intent on reading a book or something to keep you occupied until he awoke, but your search was cut short by some rustling coming from the kitchen. You emerged from your room, your body concealed only by a loosely-wrapped towel, to find Steven clumsily rummaging through the cupboard. He turned to look at you when you cleared your throat to get his attention. His eyes lingered on the towel concealing your body, but he tried not to be impolite in ogling you after your traumatic awakening just a half-hour earlier. He met your gaze with an uneven smile, gesturing at the various items on the counter in front of him.

“Sorry about the noise.” he said, “didn’t mean to disturb you. Just thought you might want a nice breakfast to calm your nerves. Have any suggestions for me? Waffles? Omelets? I can fry you some bacon if you want.”

Your sweet Steven. Always eager to please, even willing to buy you eggs and bacon despite his devout veganism. A flicker of warmth emerged in your chest at the special attention you were receiving. Maybe being vulnerable with Steven about your nightmares wasn’t so embarrassing after all. He raised his eyebrows as an indication that he was awaiting your breakfast directions. Instead of answering him, you approached him behind the kitchen counter and enveloped him in your embrace, elated by his thoughtfulness. 

“Thank you,” you mumbled into his chest. He reciprocated your tenderness by placing his arms around your back, his right hand stroking your hair while he still held the cooking utensil in his left. “I feel safe when I’m with you. The nightmares don’t come when you’re there.”

He was silent, and his hand stopped stroking your hair while he took in your words. You wondered if you shouldn’t have said anything, as if your words might somehow make him feel responsible for last night’s dreams. You quickly rerouted, “I’m not hungry, honey. You should go get some more sleep. Really, you can’t have slept well on the couch anyway.”

“You sure, love? I can make you whatever you want. I’d be happy to, really. I’ll make us some waffles while you go get dressed.”

“I’m okay, Steven. Really I am. I was going to just read a book or something until the sun comes up. I don’t want anything to eat. You should just go back to bed, okay? You’ll need your energy for work. I bet Donna would know you’re sleep deprived; she’d take the opportunity to torture you your whole shift.” You coaxed the spatula out of his hand, reaching out to place it on the counter top. Just as your hand made contact with the granite, another flash of last night’s nightmare sent a shiver up your spine, causing you to drop the utensil. It wasn’t heavy, but the sound that it made as it collided with the floor was loud enough to make you jump, still in Steven’s grasp. You were shaking, still in fight-or-flight despite having been awake for nearly an hour now. Steven backed away from you, moving his arms from behind your back to cupping your face in his hands. He looked nearly a startled as you, able to feel the stress that still refused to leave your body, but there was also an epiphany behind his eyes. He lowered his hands with a tempered breath of determination. 

“Donna can piss off.”

In one swift motion, Steven scooped you into his arms, carrying you bridal-style back toward the bedroom. You protested his sudden assertion of force, especially since you weren’t sure exactly what he was doing, but you also felt butterflies in your stomach. Most people in your life reacted to your night terrors with apathy or even irritation. It was an inconvenience to be around someone who’s worst enemy was most often their own mind. You supposed it didn’t take much to understand why Steven felt differently about it. About you. 

“I know you don’t want to talk about your dream. I’m not even going to ask. But I will be damned if I let you sit here all morning, scared and miserable, because you want me to have a good night’s sleep.” Steven sat you down on the bed, rummaging through the still-open closet for something for you to wear. He tossed you one of his t-shirts and turned on the lamp at your bedside. You motioned to unwrap your towel.

“I’m calling out of work today. I can’t leave you here like this, you look like you’ve seen a bloody ghost or something! You probably have, I guess, but I promised I wouldn’t ask.”

“I think you’re overreacting, baby. I’ve been dealing with this all my life. You don’t need to call off work for me.”

“Like hell I don’t! You lay down here. I’ll make you a cuppa, love, and we’ll stay here until you feel better. I don’t care if it takes all day.”

“What if I don’t?” You pressed, pulling his shift over your chest as he dialed the number to the museum. He stopped to look at you, puzzled. “What if I don’t feel better? Sometimes night comes ‘round again, and I still feel like I’m gonna die. What if I’m like this all day, and I have to fight it all off again tonight?”

He sighed and pressed a kiss to your forehead. The look in his eyes was one you had seen time and time again. When you’d come back from a mission with cuts and bruises. When you’d forgotten to eat all day. Even when Steven himself would wake up, not knowing what Marc or Jake had done with the body while he was away. It was a look of warmth, of love, and of determination. It was a look of purpose. 

“Then you won’t have to do it alone.”

[llamagoddessofficial]

Thank you @eldritch-and-tired for commissioning this lil’ /Reader piece of @megalommi‘s Sans, Baggs. I will ALWAYS be a simp for this sexyman. Enjoy!!

Tw: injections, unwilling hypnosis/mind control

...

You giggled.

The light was so pretty. Swirling, undulating, cyan and magenta warping and shifting in and out of one another in an endless hypnotising rhythm. It made you think of a funfair... spirals everywhere, from the tops of the stalls to the decorations on the rides, to the signs leading you around to those huge lollipops that tasted tooth-meltingly sweet. Happy memories, carefree, far away and non-solid but still wonderful. What were you doing? You couldn’t remember anything. You liked blue and purple, they were everywhere, all around you, such pretty colours. 

Pretty, pretty...

“... there we go. easy now.”

... You didn’t realise he was even there until he (somewhat cautiously?) spoke. Your senses were just colours. The voice was odd and a bit disembodied at first but slowly, slowly, you became aware of its source- a face hovering just over you. The awareness spread to your body, too... you were bent at an odd angle with your feet just barely lifted off the floor, your back flat on a rather uncomfortable table, gravity pulling your hair and cheeks. And he... he was just a few inches over you, pinning you by one of your wrists.

...

A tight and tense, cutting smile, clear signs of stress around his face and shoulders making it obvious that this was the smile of a man on the edge and not one of any particular joy. Deep sockets, so wide they looked borderline painful, glaring down at you with so much intensity...

... You could feel his body heat. And his breath against your face. Your heartbeat, your slightly itchy nose, how tight he was holding your wrist.

“... Mh... Huh?” You said, ever-so articulately, vision spinning in the same direction as the swirls emanating from his left socket. A similar way to how the world rocked when you were dizzy... except for you, it never righted itself. It just kept spinning and spinning and spinning. Everything was so bright, as you fell under a pleasant fuzzy sensation burrowed into your chest and mind, blanketing your thoughts as if you were just in the middle of a nice dream where nothing much mattered.

“shh...” 

When he gently closed his gloved fingers around something you had gripped in your pinned hand, you put up no fuss, loosening your hold and allowing him to take it... when did you pick up a scalpel? What an odd thing to have. The back of your head hurt and your knuckles felt the telltale aches of having been tense a few moments ago, even though they were now just an unwound coil like the rest of you.

... Dr. Baggs let out a long slow, breath. You could feel it against your nose and neck, he was that close... his mouth open barely a crack, the magenta hue of his tongue glinting against his fangs. 

“... alright.” He said, voice silky, gentle on your thrumming ears and head, sockets easing around the edges as he calmed down. The bluish shadows of sleep deprivation under them became more apparent as the tension in the room, face and posture waned. “that’s better.”

... Yeah. You thought, relaxed and calm. It is.

... He gave you the bare minimum of personal space, leaning back and helping you to sit, lifting you with the perfect combination of gentle but firm as if he knew you’d immediately feel so dizzy when you became upright. Your hands moved up and held onto his shoulders to steady yourself- the fabric of his lab coat was surprisingly soft, it was very nice to touch. 

... He was so close. Supportive but strict hands on your elbows, your knees on either side of him, he smelled like... the artificial flavouring they added candy that just wasn’t quite natural. And a specific, scented brand of antiseptic; clean and sterile and prepared.

“... well.” He hummed, reaching out of sight for something with one hand. Your forehead would bump his collarbone if you leant forward any more. His voice was so soothing and calming, especially since you were only a few inches from his clavicle... you were getting pretty close to shutting your eyes at this point, but a prick in your arm kept you from completely nodding off- you barely noticed it, too busy studying the aesthetically pleasing purple trim to his coat and enjoying the funny fuzzy sensation in your chest and temples. Oh, he suddenly had a full syringe in his hand that he was putting a cap on... where did he get that? 

“i knew from the start you’d be uncooperative, but... not that kind of uncooperative.”

He held something up to your face. You opened your mouth, (wait, why am I opening my mouth...) and he quickly placed it on your tongue. You swallowed, again, without knowing why... it was like your body was following a list of instructions that you couldn’t see or hear. Someone else had taken the wheel; tugging the right strings to make the right parts of you move when they were needed. 

... You didn’t think about it much. No panic, no confusion, no considering the implications. The thoughts were disconnected... just ships in the night, sailing by your muffled brain. All you could really think about was how whatever he’d given you was very strange and bitter and ew, you cringed, an odd acrid taste lingering in the back of your throat.

... Another prick in your arm. That’s weird, he keeps pricking me. Oh well. This time, you looked just in time to see him removing a now-empty syringe; he wiped where he’d poked your forearm with something very cold, then placed a little circular red band-aid over it.

...

There were six other band-aids on that forearm. Two green, three navy, one black... and now the red one.

Hm... I feel like I should be alarmed by that...

Again, all you could think about was how nice you felt right now. Dizzy, warm, safe. Like you’d had a little too much to drink, but now you were laying out in the sun with your friends... I miss the sun...

“most of my ‘patients’ are at least... consistent.” Baggs hummed, continuining to hold you carefully by the elbows, predicting your post-jab swaying. He didn’t seem to realise he was talking aloud, just a scientist observing his experiment, and you weren’t really paying enough attention to what he was actually saying- too many words to process, boooring. “uncooperative awake, uncooperative under. you’re always displaying aggression toward me... and yet as soon as you have no control, there’s an obediency so immediate it’s borderline subconscious. rather fascinating.”

Instead, you...

“... Sexy voice.”

...

...

“... what?” 

Apparently, that was enough to finally break him out of his thoughts. You glanced up at Baggs’ face, still only a few inches away, you kept forgetting where things were around you... the cushion around your soul never wavered but for a moment there was a little blip in the swirls. A slight interruption.

“Mmmhm.”

...

... His expression sort of... well, ‘melted’ was the wrong word. It was more akin to the sun peeking out from between two clouds. The detached, observational, scientific air to him thinned and began to evaporate... revealing something a little more warm.

The razor and unfriendly edges of his smile were rounding into something organic. Perhaps even, daresay, resembling forward. 

“my.” He purred. “how forward of you.”

“S’very nice. Very smooth...” Your tongue felt... eh. And your arm, where he’d poked you, was starting to itch. “And you have a nice face too... handsome man. I think so.”

...

His smile started growing even more, and he leaned back an inch or two as if to look at all of you and make sure you were really the same person he’d brought into this examination room less than an hour ago. “... oh really?”

“Yeah...” ... Your hands had been just holding onto his coat... but, spurred on by your sudden drunken confidence, you properly looped them around his neck.

... He blinked, but he only let himself appear taken aback for a moment or two. Despite how ominously his magenta eyelights glowed in his dark, shadowed sockets... you could tell he was enjoying himself, and this sudden turn of events. “i’m flattered.”

You laid your head on his chest. It was getting kinda hard to stay upright. 

... Your nose scrunched.

“Funky smell, though.”

That was enough to get an actual laugh out of him- albeit shortlived, his skull cocking like a curious mirthful bird. “are you... genuinely telling me that i smell, darling?”

“Yeah. Because it’s true. You’re gremlin.”

 “i’m... gremlin?”

“Mhm.”

“stars. i wish i could tell pap about this.”

Your body shifted, enough to make you lightly squeak- things were spinning so much that it took you a minute to realise Baggs had picked you up, an arm hooked under your legs and another around your back.

“you’re all done for the day, pet.” His eyelights had become a thrumming, almost amethyst colour as he looked at you, a far gentler shade of purple than his previous headache-inducing magenta. You weren’t sure what’d caused that but you weren’t complaining. You weren’t sure what’d caused him to carry you either, considering he usually just brought someone to collect his ‘patients’ for him... but, again, not complaining. “it’s time to get back to your room.”

“I feel funny.” You mumbled.

“that’s normal.”

He started walking. The halls all looked the same, as he moved through them, blending into one another... white and sterile, a few doors dotted inbetween if you were lucky but mostly just the exact same tiles and patterns and lack of anything that would clue you into the fact that people had actually (at some point) existed in this area. 

“Hm... is this where you work...?”

A little chuckle. He was sounding further and further away. “yes. this is my job, dear.”

“It’s so g... ug-ly.”

“oh? you think so?” Baggs’ tone had become... light? Perhaps a little teasing. 

“Jus... put up some nice posters, or something.” Your head was so heavy. Since when was it this heavy? You had to rest it against his chest, feeling that nice fabric against your cheek, hearing an equally nice humming sound from inside his ribcage. “Paint the walls. It’s so... white. Clini... ...clinicic... Calic...” 

“clinical?”

“... Yeah.Tthat.”

A gloved phalange touched your arm. It was probably an attempt at a comforting gesture- stroking the skin. “good to know. i’ll make sure to pass that eloquent advice along to the decorating team.”

“Good.”

He brought you to a cell-like room. It was... vaguely familiar? A bed with one pillow, thin white sheets... some strange posters and a window with bars over it. You felt like you’d spent a long time in there, but it was impossible to think straight enough to actually muster up any memories.

Baggs laid you down on the bed, slowly, handling you like you’d fall apart at any moment. You made a little noise- it wasn’t a very soft bed... but it was good enough. And your body felt so strange and tired that any soft surface honestly was nice enough to lay down on forever.

“comfy?” He asked. Since when did he inquire if you were comfy?

“M... no. S’whatever.”

...

You peeked at him, crouched by your bed... and you reached out, pressing your inexplicably heavy finger against the top of his nasal cavity in a booping motion. You mumbled a little victorious “Silly skeleton.” 

...

He took your hand in his gloved one, gently, before it could go limp and flop down. You couldn’t really make out his expression at this point.

“don’t tell the other subjects...” He murmured... he sounded amused, at least. “but i think you’ve become my favourite.”

“Course.” You shut your eyes. “I’m... m’amazing.”

“... yes. course.” 

A feeling, like a kiss on your hand, before he placed it by your side.

“... go to sleep.”

...

And just like that, your body obeyed him before your head could even process what he’d said, and you were asleep.

[rizubaby]

You're My Toy | Kokichi Ouma.

genre ; nsfw oneshot.

request ; Kokichi Ouma with a sweet and submissive s/o whom he just wants to break.

summary ; you've been studying all day, trying to prepare for a big test. Kokichi is not a fan of someone or something taking your attention away from him, so he decides to punish you for it.

tags ; fem!reader, boyfriend experience, rough sex, degradation, corruption and mindbreak, cum play, usage of sex toys, vulgar language.

wc ; 1,7k.

note ; this was such a blast to write! I was on a roll while writing this so I managed to finish it quicker than I initially thought. I hope you like it! ♡

This is an 18+ post. Minors dni.

It's almost 11 pm. You've been behind your desk all day, studying for a big test you have coming up in a couple days. Even though everyone around you has no doubt you'll ace the test, you can't help but feel like you need to study so much your brain'll start to hurt. You lower your head onto the desk, letting out a tired sigh.

A moment passes and suddenly, you hear your boyfriend Kokichi enter your study. You don't even bother to look up since you're so exhausted. He's probably here just to annoy you again or to try and keep you from your work.

"S/o."

Just as you slowly lift your head from your desk, you notice Kokichi is looking rather serious. He has his hands balled into fists, seemingly frustrated about something. "K-kokichi? what's wrong?" you ask, not expecting him to look at you the way that he did. Did something happen? Was he mad at you?

Without warning, he steps towards you and turns your desk chair around, now facing him directly. He brings his face closer to yours and aggressively presses his lips against yours. You're surprised, but lean into the passionate kiss nonetheless. You feel your cheeks burn up a bit, one of his hands on your thigh as the other suddenly pulls on your hair. Your head is yanked back a bit, breaking up the kiss instantly. He looks mad.

"You... You've been neglecting me all. day. It's driving me insane, you know that?" he whispers into your ear, biting at your neck with a slightly aggressive undertone. You flinch, not expecting him to behave like this. You fumble with your words, not knowing exactly how to properly respond to him while he's doing all these things to you.

Kokichi suddenly pulls away, leaving you blushing bright red and shaken up in your chair. He gives you one last glance before turning around and leaving the room, closing the door behind him.

Not able to fully comprehend what just happened, you let your face fall into the palms of your hands. What was that about?

Concerned about having hurt Kokichi's feelings, you stand up from your chair and decide to pull yourself together and head towards the bedroom. You slowly make your way down the hall and open the door to you guys' bedroom. He's...not there?

"K...Kokichi? where are yo--" you're suddenly cut off by the sound of the bedroom door closing behind you, him standing right behind you. Right as you're turning around to look at him, he grabs you by the collar of your blouse and harshly pulls you towards him. A smirk appears on his face, yet you're not sure what it means.

You never know what that look means.

"Get on the bed. Now." he orders, his devilish smirk making you worry just a little bit. Doing as he says, you slowly walk backwards towards the bed until you feel the edge bump against your legs, not breaking the eye contact. You slowly sit down onto the edge of the bed, your cheeks burning up again.

"Like I said, you've been ignoring me all day and neglecting your duties as my girlfriend. What are you going to do to make it up to me, hm?" he walks towards you, lifting your chin up as he takes a good look at your flustered face. You're always so sweet and innocent, at times like this it makes him want to ruin and corrupt you even more.

"U-um... I can-" you mumble, not sure what you were even going to answer. "What was that? I can't hear you." he remarked, raising his eyebrow sadistically.

"I-I... I can be your toy?" you stutter, slightly embarrassed by what you had just said. He seemed to like it though, since his mischievous grin only seemed to grow larger.

"That's right. You're my toy."

Kokichi suddenly pushes you back onto the bed, aggressively spreading your legs apart. It all happened so fast, you didn't have time to fully wrap your head around what was happening. As you look down, you see Kokichi's face from between your legs, his purple eyes gazing right at you. He pulls your laced panties to the side and snickers devilishly. "Look at this, you're already so wet from that! You're so dirty s/o, I'm so ashamed to call you my girlfriend..." he spoke in a degrading tone, reaching inside the pocket of his jacket as he pulled out what looked like a pink vibrator.

He wasted no time, turning the toy on and holding it against your sensitive clit. You immediately arched your back in response to the sudden and intense feeling you got from it, gripping the sheets tightly. You hear Kokichi giggle from underneath you, clearly enjoying your reaction. "This is nothing. Let's see how much you can really take," he says before forcefully pushing the vibrator inside your pussy. You let out a surprised and pained moan, much to Kokichi's liking.

Shaking profusely from the intense pleasure, you feel your eyes tearing up, your grip on the bedsheets becoming so tight you feel like you're going to tear a hole in them with your nails. From your half closed blurry eyes, you see Kokichi stand up from underneath you, unbuckling his belt. "Get up."

You look at him with teary eyes, still trembling from the toy vibrating inside your hole. "I said: Get. Up." His eyes feeling like they're piercing right through you, you slowly get up, your face bright red as beads of sweat form on your forehead. Kokichi grins at your lewd expression, whipping his dick out from his pants. "Now suck me off, you dirty slut."

Blushing heavily, you get onto all fours and move to the edge of the bed where Kokichi is standing, bringing your face closer to his shaft. It's perfect in size, twitching slightly as you wrap your hand around it. You prepare yourself to take his shaft inside your mouth as you suddenly feel Kokichi's hand push your head down onto his length. You choke in surprise, but quickly adjust to the new feeling as you bob your head up and down his shaft.

"Wow s/o, you're soooo naughty... Listen to those dirty sounds you're making! You're so disgusting." He remarks, snickering maliciously as he looks at you taking his entire length inside your mouth. "Let's really make you my dirty little bitch, shall we?" he says as he grabs a small remote from his back pocket. He holds it up proudly and presses a small button on the tiny device.

You immediately feel the vibrator that's still inside your hole start to vibrate more intensely. You stop for a second, moaning onto his cock as you feel your legs shake uncontrollably in response. You hear Kokichi laugh in amusement, pushing your head even further onto his shaft. You sputter, finally feeling your orgasm wash over you as you feel the tip of his shaft touch the back of your throat. Your eyes roll back into your skull, feeling Kokichi's hot cum shoot into the back of your throat simultaneously. You let out a weak moan, still not completely done riding out your climax.

Kokichi slowly pulls his dick out of your mouth, some drops of cum rolling down your chin as you take a moment to catch your breath. Your eyes are still blurry and your face feels burning hot, bringing your hand up to your face as you catch the remaining droplets of cum with your finger. Kokichi looks at you with a faint blush now apparent on his cheeks. You let your fingers run against the tip of his dick once more, gathering the last bits of his cum and bringing it to your mouth.

"Look at you, such a dirty cum slut... Who's my little cum princess, hm?" he asks degradingly. "I-I am," you reply, now feeling like any type of dignity and self-respect you had left has completely evaporated. "That's right, nyehehe..."

Having had enough of your mouth, Kokichi orders you to turn around once more, pulling the vibrator out of your soaking pussy. You gasp softly at the sudden feeling of emptiness, looking over your shoulder to meet your eyes with his. "K-Kokichi, please... I-I want--" you mumble, suddenly feeling his cold fingers stroke against your entrace. You shiver, letting out a surprised moan.

"Let's finish you off, hehehe..." Kokichi giggles, positioning the tip of his dick in between your folds, pushing into you painfully slow. Now having his entire length inside you, he doesn't move an inch. You turn around and look at him, his devilish grin staring back at you. You feel like you're going insane, wanting to move your hips against him to have at least some type of friction. He stops you though, not allowing you to move.

"Ah, ah ah... not yet. I want to hear you beg for me, you little slut." Kokichi says, his expression turning stoic. Feeling like you're losing your grip on reality, desperate begs and moans flow out of your mouth, begging for him to move and to fuck you senseless. Kokichi laughs. "I never expected you to say such dirty words s/o, I will have to punish you for that."

You immediately feel him start to move, picking up the pace rather quickly as he thrusts into you with full force. He grips your sides tightly with one hand, the other slapping your ass aggressively. Loud moans spill out of you, thick tears rolling down your cheeks. He grabs your wrists, keeping them placed on your back as your face buries itself into the mattress. You didn't imagine Kokichi to be this rough and degrading, but you were slipping into a state of pure bliss, not caring about anything anymore. The only thing you could think about was Kokichi ramming into you, your tongue rolling out of your mouth from the intense pleasure.

You hear soft grunts and giggles coming from behind you, indicating that Kokichi was getting close to his climax once again. His pace speeding up even more makes your eyes roll into the back of your head, letting out a loud scream as you feel his hot load fill you up again.

Trembling uncontrollably, you feel yourself cumming as well, feeling the mix of your juices trickle down your legs. Kokichi snickers, giving you one last spank before pulling out of you.

He takes a step back and admires the pretty sight of your demolished hole trembling before him, running his finger along your hole and bringing his cum soaked finger to his mouth. He licks it off, a satisfied grin forming on his face.

"That'll teach you, my little sex freak."

[touyasdoll]

Every Single Piece

Request from @negative2b: dabi comforting and showering reader with cuddles 💕💕

Pairing: Dabi x reader

Word count: 1.4k

Warnings: anxiety, depression, panic attacks, mental health warning in general

——————————

“Babe, I’m home.”

The familiar sound of Dabi’s wallet and keys thudding on the kitchen countertops stirred you from your thoughts for a moment.

Sniffling, you crawled across the floor of your shared bedroom and grabbed a handful of tissues, frantically blowing your nose and wiping at your eyes with the sleeve of the oversized hoodie you borrowed from his side of the closet.

“I’ll be right down!”

You tried to make your voice sound as normal as you could, but he must have heard through your attempted deception, because you could hear his footsteps rushing up the stairs immediately.

Tossing the tissues in the trash, you brought yourself to your feet and scampered into the bathroom to splash some cool water on your face.

You were patting your cheeks dry, observing your swollen, puffy eyes in the mirror when Dabi appeared behind you.

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

The concern was so evident on his face and in his calm, soothing tone. It broke the dam all over again.

Tears sprung from your eyes, and the overwhelming feeling that you would never be okay overtook you for seemingly the millionth time that day.

Your knees suddenly felt like they couldn’t support you. Your chest ached like there was a void there that nothing could ever fill. The strange sensation of feeling both so heavy and so empty hit you in violent waves yet again.

You were so tired of this. Of feeling this way for seemingly no reason. Of being tricked by your own fucking brain. Of feeling so awful you couldn’t even put it into words, though you had tried.

It’s something that’s hard to explain. It’s a feeling that you don’t really know until you’ve felt it yourself. Unfortunately, Dabi knew the feeling well. He knew what it was like to look off the edge of that cliff and to feel like you couldn’t help it, but to spiral down into the unknown and sit there, drowning in the overwhelming nothingness of it all.

A sweat broke out over your entire body and it felt like someone had snatched your last breath from your lungs as you stumbled backwards, feeling as if you were falling off that cliff yet again. You shut your eyes tight, bracing for the next wave of sorrow to heave from your already oxygen-starved chest.

But Dabi was there to catch you this time. His strong arms wrapped around you from behind, resting his hands on your hips to steady you as he leaned you back against his chest.

The contact alone provided a sense of relief to your overstimulated body as you allowed yourself to fall into his embrace.

“Another bad day, baby? I’m so sorry that you have to go through this, sweetheart. You don’t deserve this pain..”

Mismatched lips placed a chaste kiss on your temple as Dabi bent his knees, carefully scooping you off of your feet and pulling you tight into his warm chest.

“Dabi..”

Barely more than a whisper escaped your lips, tears still streaming as you clutched to the loose collar of his shirt like he was the only thing keeping you alive, because, honestly, sometimes he was.

He was so always so kind and even more patient. It was something that you two had been able to bond over, because you knew how each other felt. Everyone else in the world knew Dabi as aggressive and heartless, but with you, he was anything but.

As gently as he could, he laid down in your bed and pulled you against his chest as he feathered kisses into your hair. His left arm began rubbing small, soothing circles across your back, as his right began delicately combing through your hair.

“I know, baby, I know. It’s gonna be okay, all right? You and I both know you’re gonna come through this. I’ll be right here with you until then. I promise, I’m not gonna let you go until you’re begging me to.”

You could feel his sympathetic smile against your forehead as he placed more kisses still along the side of your face.

A quiet laugh found its way past your lips as you smiled for the first time that day.

“I don’t think I’ll ever want you to let me go.”

Nuzzling into his chest, you closed your eyes and basked in the ambiance of his proximity to you. His scent. His warmth. The beating of his heart thumping in your ears.

The world was finally quieting down. You finally felt safe again. Safe, warm, and happy.

His warm lips remained pressed to your temple as he spoke again, his voice low and reassuring.

“Well, then I guess we’ll be stuck like this for a while. That’s all right with me though, doll. There’s no place I’d rather be than right here with you.”

A tissue appeared in your peripheral vision. Dabi’s capable hand dabbed at the tears still lingering on your flushed cheeks before resting his palm on your cheek.

“Thank you, babe. I’m so sorry for all this, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I jus—“

His thumb ghosted over your lips as a gentle shushing noise left his own.

“Baby, nothing is wrong with you. You are perfect. We all have bad days. You’ve seen me through mine. This is the absolute least that I can do. You never have to apologize for being human around me, okay? I love you. Absolutely all of you. None of this makes me love you any less.”

You place your hand over his, giving it a gentle squeeze as you place a soft kiss on the inside of his palm and smile against his touch.

The last of your tears are swept away by his fingertips as he looks down into your eyes with nothing but love and sympathy shining through his cerulean orbs.

“I love you, Y/n. I love every single piece of you.”

Tangling the fingers of your other hand absently in his hair, you examine his features. The eyes that have shed tears both with you and for you. The nose that has wrinkled through the countless tickle fights that you’ve subjected him to. The lips that have only ever poured love, support, and adoration out for you.

“I love you too, Dabi. I love every single piece of you too.”

Your eyes flutter shut as he closes the distance between you, pressing his lips against yours.

Sighing through your nose, you feel the tension of the day begin to melt off of your back as you lean in to his delicate kisses.

“Did I mention how I much I love you already?”

His lips curled into a smile, continuing to connect with your in a series of the sweetest kisses you’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting.

“Once or twice.”

A giggle vibrates off of your grin and his heart soars.

Dabi hated seeing you in pain and he took great pride in being the one who was able to elicit that beautiful noise from your lips after an episode like this.

Hearing your laugh was music to his ears and he didn’t give a damn about just how cliché that may sound.

Seeing you smile gave him the strength he needed to carry in each day.

Being given the opportunity to love you was a blessing to him and it wasn’t something that he took lightly. He wanted to love you with everything he had and he would never offer you anything less than that.

Both of his arms wound around you once more, holding your to his chest as if you were the most precious thing in the world, because to him, you were.

The warmth of his lips nestled against the shell of your ear, whispering now as he resumed playing with your hair and rubbing those wonderfully soothing circles into your back.

“Well, I hope you aren’t sick of hearing about it yet, because there’s plenty more where that came from.”

Your shoulders became slack as the remainder of the day’s tensions evaporated from your body, allowing you to fully sink into your lover’s welcoming grasp, where you blissfully spent the rest of your evening.

The stress of the day had taken a toll on you. It wasn’t long before you had fallen asleep on Dabi’s chest, but he didn’t mind. Feeling you up against him, safe and sound asleep in his arms brought him his own sense of comfort.

He stayed right there, curled up with you, lips still pressed against your temple as he drifted off to sleep himself.

[just-here-for-the-moment]

Consequences

Word count: 2100+

Rating: explicit, 18+ only

Outline: Javier Pena x “You” (cis/het female reader; “blank canvas”/no physical description/no name/no use of “Y/N”)

Warnings: slightly scary angry Javi; fingering/F receiving; oral/M receiving; messing around in Javier’s office with the possibility of getting caught

@deberiaestarescribiendo and @spacedilf - This is for y'all! :)

---

You tapped lightly on Javier’s office door and heard him call out a gruff, “Come.”

You opened the door to see him seated at his desk, papers and folders spread out like a hurricane had hit. “You wanted to see me?”

“You’re late.” Javier fixed his dark brown eyes on you, no hint of a smile or underlying humor to lighten his words.

“I’m sorry, I-”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it. I told you to come see me in my office immediately after the morning staff meeting.” He stood from behind the desk and walked quickly toward you, then threw one arm out over your shoulder to push the heavy wooden door closed with a quick bang. It made you jump.

He took another step closer, hands on his hips, arms splayed out to the sides, and your back hit the door. You were cornered. You fixed your eyes on the floor and saw that his toes were nearly touching yours. You smoothed your hands down your thighs, then your nervous fingers twisted the fabric of your skirt, pinching and pressing it between your knuckles.

Your voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “I got delayed.”

He answered you roughly, hot words hitting the top of your bent head. He smelled of contradictions: his morning coffee and cigarettes; his spiced, woodsy cologne; and the breath mint he had aggressively crunched during the last few minutes of the morning meeting. “Maybe you should learn not to get delayed.”

You waited, feeling the silence descend heavily in his office. The only thing you could hear through Javier's solid door was the muffled sounds of office routines: hurried footsteps in the hall, phones ringing, and typewriters chattering. You wondered if anyone could hear Javier over the mix; if he ever yelled loud enough to stop the world that was spinning just a few feet outside his door.

You kept your eyes on his feet and meekly moved your arms behind your hips, palms flat against the door, buttocks pressing against the backs of your hands to keep them from nervously tapping. The cool, flat wood against your skin grounded you, and you took in a shaky breath to try to steady yourself.

Javier took the opportunity to step forward, boxing you in even closer, both of his large legs caging yours in. He braced one hand flat against the door near your head, and used his other to grasp your chin firmly but not painfully in his large fingers. He tilted your chin up so that you couldn't avoid him, couldn't keep staring at the shiny tips of his shoes.

When your eyes met his, you felt your last breath leave your body. A volcano of uncertainty and embarrassment heated you from within, strangling you from ribs to eyebrows. You wondered if he could feel the heat, the sudden rise in your internal temperature.

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

You couldn't think. One heartbeat passed, then two. Your blood rushed through your ears so quickly that you could no longer hear the world outside of his door. There was only you and Javier, and you felt like a part of yourself was close to disappearing the longer you spent in close contact with him. Maybe when he was done with you, it would just be him, and you would have evaporated.

You gulped and opened your mouth to try to answer, but only a strangled squeak came out. Javier was still gripping your chin between his thumb and first knuckle, but it wasn't painful, your airway wasn't restricted, and all of your parts should have worked fine... but the only part of you that seemed to be functioning was your beating heart and the burning ball of desire that was starting to spin in your gut.

"Anything? You have nothing to say about this?" Javier's brows knitted together, and the look of disappointment he gave you was hell. You would do anything, say anything to erase it.

"I- I'm-" You gagged on your own words, then swallowed and tried again, concentrating as hard as you could on getting language from your brain to your lips to his ears. Finally a whispered rush of words tumbled out. "I'm sorry. I don't know what happened, but I'm here now. I'm here like you asked."

You bit your lip and hoped that would be enough. He still scowled at you like you had wounded him, but he dropped his hand from your chin. You felt the warmth in your face start to recede, until you realized what he was doing with his hand.

Javier skimmed the backs of his knuckles down your collarbone, over one breast, down your ribs, over your hip, and down... down... down the front of your thigh. He didn't stop until he reached the hem of your pencil skirt. He toyed with the fabric for a moment, teasing the edge of it with the back of his index finger, before he suddenly hooked his fingers underneath and pulled it up quickly. The front of one thigh was exposed as the fabric bunched around your hip. The surprise of it and the sudden feeling of cool air on your upper leg made you squeak. You gasped for air as you felt his thick fingers start to trace their way up the inside of your leg. The heat came rushing back up tenfold.

Javier still had his eyes fixed on yours, keeping you in place with his look as he slowly made his way up your thigh. When his thick fingers reached your panties, he hesitated for only a moment before hooking the leg band at the top of your thigh and pressing the pads of his index and middle finger to your slit. You were hot and soft and wet already, and you wanted him to keep pushing those fingers against you, make you open up for him like a flower.

"Do you want this?" He spoke the words in a low tone, trying to capture your attention, trying to grate through your haze.

His gaze was so intense that you closed your eyes and nodded vigorously. "Yes," you breathed. "Yes, I want this." You threw your head back and rested it against the door, exposing your throat to him like a sacrifice.

He responded by diving into your neck, abrading your soft skin with his mustache, planting kisses and small bites up one side of your throat and down the other. He kept his fingers right where they were, just at the entrance of you, and you desperately wanted to shift and wiggle and force his fingers inside where they belonged. A rush of wetness built and you could feel it soaking his fingers as they stayed maddeningly still, just out of reach of your greedy slit.

“Javi, I- Javier, please-” You couldn’t form the words, the thoughts that would make him move his hand. He just kept kissing your neck, biting his way up to your ear, your jaw, your chin, and then back down again to your collarbone. Then he tilted his head to the other side and did it again. How many times had he chewed up one side of your neck and down the other? Eight? Twelve? Twenty? You had lost count, feeling the heat and the desire rise in your chest.

You were still pinned against his door, palms flat behind you and trapped by the pressure of your own hips, head thrown back and fixed in place by Javier’s open-mouthed assault on your senses. You could barely breathe, let alone tell him the words that would convey how much you needed his fingers inside of you now. Just as you started to feel faint, he suddenly plunged his thick index and middle fingers inside as deep as he could, stopping only when the curled knuckles of his ring and pinky fingers hit resistance.

You gasped out a strangled cry, and he moved his hand from the door to cup it gently over your mouth. “No noise,” he growled against your ear. His voice was low and gravelly, serious and calm. How was he so calm while he was doing this to you? While he was tearing you apart at your jugular? While he was working his broad fingers inside of you and building up your waves of pleasure?

You shuddered and moaned a soft “Mmm-hmm…” against his fingers, indicating your compliance.

Suddenly there was space around you and a rush of cold against your crotch, and you blinked stupidly at the bright light and the change in temperature. Javier was gone, moving away from you to sit on the little leather sofa in the corner of his office.

He settled in, leaning back to open his belt and zipper. He looked at you with a hint of irritation. “Are you coming?” He jerked his head to call you over.

You gathered your wits and tried to blink away the haze he had left you in. You pushed up off the door and walked shakily over to him.

“Kneel down for me,” he grunted. You stepped around one long leg and kneeled in front of the sofa, settling your arms over his thighs. He pulled his erection out of his fly and pumped himself a few times to get ready.

“Don’t you want me to lock your door?” You looked at him with concern.

He froze and fixed his coffee-brown eyes on yours. You suddenly felt like you had done something wrong, upset him in some way.

“If you had been on time we wouldn’t have to lock the door. I would have taken you somewhere private and fucked you like a good girl. But you were late, and now you don’t get to come. You better get me off quickly before somebody needs me for something.”

You nodded and felt a little petulant. Now you would have to try to find time to go to the ladies room later, to work out your frustrations on your own fingers in silence so that nobody would hear you. You wouldn’t get to cry Javier’s name as you climaxed. But there was no sense in feeling wounded, being late had its consequences.

You got to work quickly, wrapping one hand around his base and bobbing up and down on the length of him, swirling your tongue over the head before plunging back down to take him as far back in your throat as you could.

You tried to move rapidly without sacrificing all of the little markers of attention that you loved to lavish on him. He was always so sensitive when you kitten-licked his slit, always groaned and shifted his hips just so when you ran the tip of your tongue firmly up the frenulum and switched to a flat, open-mouthed lick around his head. You also had to keep it clean, somehow keep things moist without letting excess saliva drip and dribble onto his pants. This whole thing was difficult and felt unfair, but then again, maybe next time you would be on time.

You pulled out all the stops, giving Javier every ounce of energy that you had, trying to bring him closer without rushing, fearful of getting caught and fired. Or worse yet, keeping your job and hearing all of the secondhand rumors that always seemed to swirl around Javier and his conquests. You kept your hand and mouth working, humming in frustration as your thoughts occupied you.

Suddenly Javi placed one large hand on your shoulder and grunted a low, “I’m coming.” You gave one last long suck as he released into your mouth, letting the salty fluid slip down your throat. You stayed attached to him at the head until you felt the eruption stop, then you pulled off, closing your lips around him to catch every last drop of liquid.

He didn’t look at you as he tucked himself back into his pants and rearranged his clothing. “You can go now.”

You wanted to pout and tell him how unfair it was, but you also knew the rules you had agreed to, the game that you were playing together. You stood up and brushed your skirt down, grazing your hands over your knees to make sure there was no dust on them. You crossed to the door and turned the handle. It was locked.

You looked back over your shoulder to Javier with surprise. He grinned, “I locked it behind your back while I was kissing your neck. I knew you wouldn’t notice.”

You laughed, grateful for his gesture of respect. You had been playing with a safety net under you after all. “Thank you,” you said wryly. “I’m glad it was locked after all.”

“Oh, no problem, babe.” Javier arched an eyebrow at you. “But next time you’re late? It won’t be.”

--- Just-here-for-the-moment’s masterlist

My "all fics" tag list: Please DM me if you would like to be removed!

@anaaaispunk @justanotherblonde23 @gracie7209 @nicolethered @honestly-shite @driedgreentomatoes @dihra-vesa @1800-fight-me @the-queen-of-fools @juletheghoul

@kesskirata @honeymandos @silverwolf319 @mourningbirds1 @greeneyedblondie44 @spacedilf @maxwell--lord @anxiousandboujee @cevvie @quica-quica-quica @sherala007 @writeforfandoms

[femmefiction]

Nico Experiments with V (DMC 5 fluff/tickle fanfic)

TL; DR, V thinks he can be a big man and tease Nico, but she's not the type for that kind of foreplay. Some would say she's impatient, some say she knows how to find what she wants.

This'll get more explicit later, for now it's just d!ck/$ex jokes.

Nico’s week had been dragging like hell. While Nero and V were out dishing dirt, she was stuck inside the van, and hadn’t even caught a sight of her newest weapons and upgrades in use. What puzzled her was Nero’s recent insistence that she stay away while V, who always returned walking like a newborn horse, was allowed to go. Granted, he was more aggressive about going forward, insisting he could, where Nico was fine with missing a battle or two, but she’d affectively been barred from watching the past few times.

There were two things she needed to do: secure V’s safety like she’d done Nero’s, and use him to take an edge off. It’d been her hope that he’d want something from her too. Securing V’s safety would be a quick project at her workbench, but her eyes were so strained, she needed a break, and waited until Nero was gone before trying anything.

“I’m headed out, anything else I need to get?” Nero zipped his jacket, the day as cold as their fridge was empty.

“Nope.” Nico answered.

“V?”

The young man shook his head as he kept his eyes in his book.

“Alright, I’ll see ya.” Nero bid farewell to his friends before leaving the RV, only rocking it slightly from the weight shift.

Nico wasted no time in approaching him. “V, I gotta ask ya somethin’.” She sat beside him on the couch, catching his attention instantly. “Well, first of all, I wanna know that we’re alone, and have no possibility of being interrupted.” Her eyes glared at Griffon.

“Awe, crud. I know what’s going on here.” Griffon chattered. “You know what to do if you need me.” He glided from his perch and evaporated back into V’s skin.

With a glowing smirk, Nico studied as the ashes in the air funneled into his tattoos. “Heh, that’s so cool. It never gets old.” She hovered her finger over the lines in his arm. “Can I trace the lines? I’ll stay on your arm, I promise.”

Eyebrows raising in surprise, V grinned towards Nico, his irises glowing like shamrock in the sunlight, rising to graze over her figure. “Go ahead, it won’t hurt you.”

Nico clinched her body, her fists pumping as she thought oh, hell yeah! “It’s real satsifyin’ to trace over swirls like you got.” She was mesmerized, and enjoyed watching as the tension in V’s muscles lifted away as her fingertips danced along his skin.

V, nodding his head, glanced back to his book and over to Nico, unsure where to keep his attention. “You wanted to ask me something?”

“Oh, yeah,” Nico was lost in the ink, but needing to respond brought her back. “So, we’ve all been stressed out with the demons, one way or another, and I was wonderin’ if you would like to work some of that stress off with me while Nero was gone.”

“Why not wait for him to get back?” V had a smirk like the cat that ate the canary. “We can all relieve our stress together.”

“No, stop.” Nico bapped his arm, gentle but stern. “He’s like a brother to me.”

“Well, I’m in no intense need to fool around, I merely want it. It is quite draining, taking down all of these demons, just for another to pop up. Had it not been exterminated, of course; it’d be quite a noticeable problem, but as for reward beyond a shred of normalcy, I’ve found none. And I’ve had quite little intimacy recently, with the war we’re fighting, but there’s hardly any satisfaction in and enemy falling to you with no struggle, as much as when a partner falls to you.”

“Alright.” Nico nodded. “So, we gonna do anythin’ or?”

“I think I’ll have a run of this power dynamic.” V closed his book and set it to the side.

“Really, V?” Nico groaned. “We ain’t got a lot of time.”

“We’ll have other times.” V’s voice was like smoothed gravel as he played with her.

“You tryin’ to tease me?”

“If that’s what you would call it, then yes.”

“I ain’t got the patience for that.” Nico folded her arms and sank into the couch as she faced V.

“Then perhaps, another time, one more suitable for the both of us.” His hand had slipped between him and the cushion, where his book was pressed along his hip and the couch’s arm, and within seconds his eyes were removed from Nico and back to the text.

Rolling her eyes, she couldn’t help but let them wander over his costume as she admired V’s beauty and the building of his jacket. Ooooooooooo, it’s so tempting! Nico caught a flash of pale skin through the webbing along the seam of his coat, ribs showing, calling to her to grab. “You like teasing? That your thing?” she reached out again, but now aiming for his side. Threading the needle, Nico was able to wriggle her fingertips against V’s flesh.

Eyes shot open, book haphazardly tossed across the space, and a yelp, yes, there was no denying that their escapades would’ve only began. Nico had found something, and the distress in V’s muse reflected his correct prediction in her intentions.

“Well, well, well,” Nico’s grin was toothy and wicked. “V, are you ticklish?”

“It’s been so long since someone’s touched me like that.” He’d been trapped within himself for the second, causing lag in his response to Nico’s question. Upon him recognizing it, he stuttered as he continued to process the tingling that caused his muscles to twitch, bringing laughter when it hit his lungs. Rather than give a verbal answer, he took his cane from the corner beside him. Resorting to the metal rod was an expectation of Nico’s after his stammering.

“Nuh-uh!” Nico disciplined, pointing her finger at him like a gun. “We’re doing this weapons-free, Mister!”

“You know this would be an unfair fight, Nico.” V scolded her, returning her sentiment.

“Ask me if I care.” She yanked the cane from him and tossed it behind her into her workshop. “Been wanting to upgrade that thing anyway.” Still sitting on the couch, she launched her fingertips to slip under the vest of his coat.

V fumbled, not only because of Nico’s distraction, but his own analysis of the sensation, and whether or not he liked it. His instincts rang, screaming like he had originally, and continued to as he embarrassingly tried to hide the forced laughter, but the soft caresses, like the aftertaste of mead, was sweet, and warmed his stomach. Squirming to break free, he was locked up by Nico’s rigid hands, but dragged her onto the floor with him. Bringing her down didn’t help V, but it could help when he regained strength, whenever that would be. Knocking the wind from him upon impact uncorked his lungs, forcing him to start cackling.

“There we are! Awe, you’re so adorable.” Nico teased.

“W-wait!” the breathlessness of V’s overactive lungs weakened his muscles and made his chest and stomach sore. I don’t know what to make of this. His voice was stollen when Nico planted herself against his hips, pinning his body while his legs kicked haphazardly behind her.

“How has no one in your life done this to you yet?” Nico chanted over the thudding of V’s flailing body and his tightened giggling.

“I had few people in my life, until recently.” He choked on his own breath.

“Well, now you do,” Nico skittered her fingers over his sides and stomach, switching between them when what little ability he possessed rebelled against her hands, “and that means we got a lot of time to make up for, don’t we?” she arched her back forward, looming over him as her fingers vibrated against his ribs, sending his stomach against her as his spine convulsed.

God! They’re like worms under my skin, but it doesn’t hurt! What is this? “I—I c-can’t—” even as Nico caught herself, giving him the ability to speak, V fell silent.

“You can’t what, V? Use your words.” She ordered.

Before he could answer, Nico’s flesh pressed against his pants, sending a flutter up to his stomach and brushing over his heart. “I can’t decide if—I want this to bother me as much as it does.”

“The hell does that mean?” Nico groaned. “Stop padding the time, tormenting you was fun.” Her wandering fingers discovered that he squealed louder when she squeezed his flesh and shook her hands, especially over his bones like his ribs and hips. She was so engrossed in every flinch and squawk V made, she’d carelessly grinded herself against him, which didn’t help in his confusion as his pants became tighter.

V finally got it. He hated the embarrassment of his reactions, as the anxiety of what his cock was doing had been similar to when he’d reached for his cane earlier. Unfortunately, though he had the answer both him and Nico were seeking, he still couldn’t relay it to her, not on his own.

“Heh, this reminds me of my neighbor’s dog when I was younger: he always liked his belly rubbed and squirmed around just like you, but that was because of his balance being bad. You just ain’t a fan of it.” She snorted as her fingers worked around his beltline, but drawing her attention lower intensified her awareness of his anatomy. “Oh, jeez.” She paused, not sure what she wanted to do.

Given time to regain himself, V was quick with his response. “Where your hips were placed, and how you kept yourself against me as I writhed here, didn’t help matters.”

“Alright, I just wish I hadn’t made that connection from my childhood right when I noticed that.” She lifted herself, V plummeting into a recovering state before she clamped his thighs with hers. “Don’t mean I’m stoppin’ though. I ain’t ever seen you like this.” The following sensations caused V whiplash as he was caught from his abys, where he could finally breathe freely.

Hiccupping through his breathing, V tried to beg for a break, to have a full deep breath or two, but even if he could relay his bizarre level of suffering, Nico wouldn’t be so kind. Not for sensations that weren’t harming him, especially if he hesitated to say “no” as much as he had.

“S-stop!” he finally squandered.

“Do you mean that, V? I have reason to believe otherwise.”

“I don’t know what else to say!” V folded, joyful in being so close to someone, and having their hands on him, even if he was embarrassed and his muscles were aching, there was a charm to the tingling under his skin, but that didn’t stop his instincts. His voice returned to boyish giggles right as Nero entered the van.

“Oh my God—wait, okay you guys are still clothed.” He held his chest. “Don’t scare me like that, or at least get a room.”

“V’s ticklish, Nero!”

“Shush.” V growled, covering her mouth before her tongue slipped across his palm like a slug. He audibly gagged before rolling out from under her, Nico untangling herself from him as well, returning to her position in the driver’s seat.

“If you want to do that, maybe use the gloved one, V.” Nero advised as he filled the fridge.

“Thank you, Nero, I’ll remember that.” V huffed, exhausted, but warm, and fuzzy, like he’d been told people feel when they’re close to someone who brings them comfort. He’d only needed a second to rest before raising himself from the ground, melting into the couch, relaxed, and far away from Nico’s experimenting.

[tenacityreturns]

five times kissed with aokaga

i. new to their relationship, but eager, this kiss is exactly as you’d expect it to be. aomine is an annoying little shit, which is a surprise to no one. and kagami loves it.

ii. kagami’s dad calls him at 2am and leaves him feeling bad. if he’d been by himself, he would’ve let it worry him and probably wouldn’t have been able to get back to sleep. good thing he isn’t alone.

iii. aomine’s really good at ghosting him. he had done it before, but now they’re in a relationship, kagami tries his best to help make him feel better. he feels like an idiot but momoi’s there to help. this is the longest because depression, big mood

iv. the vorpal swords reunite, but things are not as kagami would like them to be. this is my fav one because i love kise so much and he’s HERE so that’s all i care about. also you can tell i care about him more than the others bc he has speaking lines.

v. they’ve graduated, and kagami has been in the states for six months. aomine comes to visit.

i) it’s not their first kiss, but it’s still new. instincts tell kagami to push aomine away when he comes close because it’s dangerous to let someone else hold your heart. and his hands are rough, his eyes are cold, and his temper is short, but kagami trusts him. in this moment, they’re both sitting on the edge of their emotional barriers, waiting for the signal that it was safe to fall. he believes that one of them will go first. their personal insecurities are too great to just rush into it wholeheartedly.

     this kiss has a slower build-up than their first. they’re sitting on aomine’s bed, which is dangerous enough territory in itself because kagami is both completely inexperienced and eager to try. as if he could keep his hands off the hottest guy he knows! they inch closer. does aomine know the effect he has? does he feel the same? kagami understands that they both like each other, and want to make out right in this moment, but could he ever affect someone’s pulse like aomine does his? could kagami ever make him speechless? be the only thing he’d want to look at in a room? aomine’s eyes dance across kagami’s face. what’s he looking at? they make eye contact and it sparks a smirk.

     “ah, you’re looking at me with the intensity of a game,” but before kagami can get embarrassed and tell him to fuck off, aomine ducks in close. in a whisper, he continues: “you should loosen up.”

     “you should shut up,” kagami puts his hand on aomine’s chest and pushes him backwards. he climbs on top to straddle him, and it’s the look in widened blue eyes that’s telling him this was the right thing to do. in an instant, the wit returns and he’s smirking again.

     “make me.”

    maybe he would growl, say something like you’re a smartass who always wants to have the last laugh, you know that, right? but kagami is preoccupied. his tense jaw relaxes, and the anger evaporates. the judgement calls between calling out and making out with aomine daiki are often very close. maybe next time, kagami will pretend to be annoyed. ( hint: it won’t be the next time. )

♥

ii) kagami’s ringtone shatters the dark peace of his bedroom. his groggy, half-asleep arm drops heavily to his right, where, usually, it would connect with the bed-side table ( painfully ) and he’d find his phone. this time, he isn’t sleeping alone, and he accidentally hits his barely sleeping boyfriend.

     “hey,” aomine complains as he pushes himself up, “what is it? your phone?”

     kagami doesn’t give a linguistically clear response, but it’s enough of a grunt that aomine gets it. he holds his hand out, and aomine passes it over. it’s dad. it’s 2am. “shit,” kagami presses answer and holds it to his ear. when he speaks, it’s in english. “dad, it’s so early.”

     “good! can we talk?”

     “no, i mean it’s late. can you call me tomorrow?”

     “i’m on a business trip tomorrow, but i won’t be long! it’s friday night, taiga, don’t young people normally stay up ‘til the early hours anyway?”

     “how should i know?” kagami reaches over to squeeze aomine’s arm. it’s a sorry i woke you gesture, which gets a don’t worry about it shrug. as kagami’s father tells him not to be so snappy, he’s just checking in, his son is whispering away from the phone that he’ll be back in a minute. then he’s swinging his legs over the bed and going into the living room.

     “anyway,” asao continues distractedly, and kagami can tell that he’s multi-tasking. “do you want to go to europe with me this winter?”

    “huh?”

     “my business trip! it’s in france, but i was thinking we could take a tour.”

     kagami thought of the winter cup, of getting to have rematches against the generation of miracles. he thought of school ( last, of course ). “what? no, i can’t. i’ve got stuff going on here.”

     “they’ll survive without you for a month! or two weeks, i don’t know, whatever school break is. and you know what they say about french girls?”

    kagami groans. “i don’t care about french girls. i have a boyfriend, remember?”

     silence.

     “go by yourself. or why don’t you grab someone random off the street and tell them to ditch all their plans last minute like this?”

   silence.

    “sorry,” it’s instinctual, second-nature to apologise like this. he isn’t sorry, but he’ll say it anyway for some paternal approval. “people are counting on me and i can’t let them down. --- are you not coming here for christmas?”

    “business trip. alright, taiga. i’ll let you get back to sleep.”

    “bye, dad.”

    dial tone. ah, fuck, he’d hurt his dad’s feelings. he texts thanks anyway, and waits for a reply. it’s a smiley face almost instantly, but that doesn’t put him at ease. it’s not passive aggressive, but at least they weren’t arguing again like last time. when kagami returns to his room, aomine is sitting up on the bed with his arm draped over his legs.

     “everything... okay?” aomine asks quietly. kagami shrugs and plugs in his phone. tentatively as characteristically possible, he continues: “was your dad being a dick again?”

     “he called me in the middle of the night,” kagami climbs across the bed to get back to his side. “what do you think?”

     silence. the urge to apologise bubbles to the surface immediately, leftover from his phone call, but aomine moves and interrupts it. he lowers to one elbow, but it’s the other hand that provides distraction: tenderly brushing kagami’s persistent fringe from his forehead. he never knows what to say in the face of aomine being gentle like this. it’s not uncommon, just surprising, and kagami isn’t particularly good at returning the favour.

     “he asked me to go to europe with him,” kagami says instead, shuffling in a little closer so that his head on aomine’s pillow. his boyfriend is silent again, which is fair, because what the fuck? kagami knows, he gets it. “i’m not going, obviously.”

     “rich people are so fucked,” aomine watches his fingers glide across kagami’s hairline. “he knows you can’t just up and leave, and offers anyway. shit.”

     “right? i have basketball and school.”

     “sounds like it could have been nice, though.”

     “he wants to hook me up with french girls.”

     “never mind. you shouldn’t go.”

     kagami smiles, closing his eyes. “maybe i’ll go.”

     “man, shut up,” aomine pushes kagami’s head into the pillow.

     “hey!” kagami shoves his hand against aomine’s face. they let go. 

     “tch,” as if the last few seconds never happened, aomine tucks himself in close. his head fits just right nestled beneath kagami’s chin. “why couldn’t he call you back in the morning, anyway?”

     “he’s leaving then, or something.”

     “hm. go back to sleep.”

     kagami sighs. usually he can, but sometimes the call disturbs him too much and he’ll lie awake for hours. this is one of those times, he can already tell. ugh. his eyes are open again, blankly surveying the other side of the room. after a few minutes, he can feel aomine’s breathing start to level out and the arm around his body goes limp. red eyes close. please go back to sleep. who cares if his dad disregards all of kagami’s hobbies and relationships in one simple they’ll survive without you for a month? not him! kagami doesn’t care.

     “are you still awake?” aomine makes him jump, which makes a very sleepy sounding aomine jump too. “oiiiii.”

     “sorry! i thought you were asleep.”

     “no, you’re too tense, it’s not relaxing.”

     “daiki,”

     “shhhh,” aomine lifts his head enough to kiss kagami’s jaw. ahhhh!!!! that’s really cute!!!! it gets WORSE. aomine rolls forward, pushing kagami onto his back and lying half on top of him. he holds a hot, red face in his hands and plants three kisses on chin, nose, then forehead. “do you feel a little better?”

    “d--daiki, that’s so cute...”

     “answer the question.”

     “yes?”

     “okay.” he makes kagami’s muscular chest his new pillow. “if you’d have said no, i might have done that again.”

     “huh!!! don’t say that! do it anyway!”

     “shhhh, i’m sleeping.”

     kagami hugs him, but also gives aomine a good shake. a blue head raises with a stern look. “you think you’re getting kissed for that?”

     but kagami’s smiling widely, unable to hold it in. “i wish you were here every time my dad called me.”

     such a statement softens whatever faux grudge had been starting to root itself into the conversation. suffice to say, kagami gets his kisses. brief though they are, because aomine’s half-asleep as it is, it means the world. and it means kagami’s sufficiently distracted to fall asleep again.

♥

iii) aomine hadn’t gone to school that day. of course, kagami wasn’t to know that until after practise when kuroko gets a phone call from momoi asking if he was with them. no, he’s not. they’d been supposed to meet up, but aomine cancelled at lunch time without much explanation. he does that sometimes. at first, it used to annoy kagami, but aomine told him that sometimes he has days when he can’t bring himself to talk to anyone. he’s fine, he doesn’t want pity or anything, just space on days when it happens. i don’t like who i am when i get like that, he’d said. kagami had come to the conversation ill-prepared and hadn’t said anything in reply. he regrets that. so he assumes that this is what today had turned into, one of those days.

     the thing is, momoi also knows when he’s not feeling well. kagami had asked her once if there was anything they could do to make him feel better, somehow, and she said that there wasn’t. she usually takes a box of nice things around to his house for when he comes home. those sexy magazines he likes, a couple of cartons of banana milk, some snacks. kagami thinks of this suddenly as kuroko is ending the call. the words form on his tongue at the same rate as forming in his mind.

     “momoi,” he pulls kuroko’s phone to his ear, holding onto his friend’s wrist. “have you been ‘round to his house yet?”

     “hi kagamin,” she coos, then sighs, “no, i haven’t.”

     “let me do it,” his eyes cannot lift from the floor in his embarrassment ( there are so many of his teammates around, and kuroko’s right there! ). “i can be there in an hour. --------please.”

     “o-okay! i think dai-chan would like that.”

     “i hope so.”

     “i’m in town anyway, why don’t you meet me? bring tetsu-kun and we’ll call it a double date!”

     “how does that work if daiki’s not there? and ain’t the point of this to look out for him, anyway?”

     “ah. yes, i suppose. is tetsu-kun still there?”

     “yes, momoi-san.”

     “ah, tetsu-kun! were you listening? i’m sorry if we left you out! may i steal kagamin for a little while?”

     “i don’t need his permission!” kagami defends hotly, but evens out immediately, letting go of kuroko’s wrist. “i’ll go get changed and see you at that grocery store you mentioned.”

     “grocery... store?”

     “yeah, the one with the, uh,” kagami presses his finger and thumb together and rotates his wrist. like a... key? “the, uh-- popsicle stick? with kuroko, back in middle school?”

     she all but screams a huh down the phone. “why do you remember that!”

     “i don’t know!” because aomine and the others used their basketball ability to take down a bag snatcher, obviously! how fucking cool is that? aomine chasing after a guy on a moped and catching up? kagami’s blushing at the thought.

     momoi sounds like she’s blushing too, and she tumbles into the steep slope of gushing over kuroko and her own, self-described shyness. kagami grimaces. kuroko stares at him. yes, alright, this one is absolutely kagami’s fault for starting. he’ll take responsibility for that one. kuroko finds a nice, polite way to hang up without making her feel bad. damn, if only kagami had an ounce of the tact this guy has!

     but he’ll make do with what he has, and excuses himself from hanging out after practise to attend to something. everyone must have heard that phone-call, but he’s blocking those thoughts from his mind as he speed walks to that fateful store. walking isn’t fast enough. he types out five different texts to aomine that express that he hopes he’s alright, but all of them feel wrong. it’s almost a private joke with himself but as he’s sliding into a taxi to get him there faster, he finds the tiger emoji and the heart emoji. then clicks send by accident. oops. that was... kind of stupid. really stupid. fuck.

     momoi is standing outside with her phone to her ear as he arrives in the car. he pays the fare and gets out. is she on the phone to him? but she doesn’t say goodbye before pushing her phone into her purse, nor does it look like she hung up, so the image is a mystery lost on him. they’re quick inside the store. momoi chooses everything first, starting with the magazine he likes ( ah, thank goodness, mai-chan features a lot in this issue. yes, i’m sure he’ll be fine. but isn’t this strange for you, kagamin? // no, i don’t care. he can like what he likes. // huh! dreamy... ), but then kagami will pick up two others beside it and put it in the basket. she’ll pick up a three-pack of banana milks, and he’ll pick up another. she finds his favourite sweet snack of the week and he grabs five. same with the savoury option. kagami insists on paying, since it had been his idea to quadruple the purchases. on their way over to aomine’s house, they pass a toy shop. kagami only half-glanced, but a little, cuddly crayfish catches his eye.

     “do you think he’d like that?” kagami stops, and presses his index finger against the glass.

     “you want to buy him a toy lobster?” she repeats like it’s insane. he sighs. he has no idea what a good boyfriend would--- “he used to keep crayfish as pets sometimes. you knew that?”

     kagami nods. he doesn’t know how, but he does know that.

     she squeaks. her twinkling eyes and fingers held delicately against her face are making this into way more of an embarrassing ordeal than he’d wanted it to be, so he’s grumbling as he leaves her outside to go and buy it. the little creature is red like a lobster, and speckled, with big plastic eyes and a smiley face. maybe it’s a lobster. what’s the difference? it goes into the little gift bag and momoi has recovered by the time he’s back. she’s all smiles herself, but at least she isn’t saying anything.

     he’s glad she decides to walk him all the way there. kagami couldn’t remember the way. there’s no way of knowing if he’s in, she tells him as they walk up the path. his mother says he’s out, but he could have faked leaving and gone back to bed. he does that sometimes, apparently. it’s cold and wet today, kagami hopes aomine’s in bed. and it’s aomine’s mother who answers the door. she’s working from home today, about to enter a meeting, so she can’t stay and chat, but it’s lovely to see them both. momoi decides to leave kagami to go upstairs by himself. makes sense. she’ll wait in the living room. he takes a deep breath and carries the big bag of nice things up a dark set of stairs. into a dark hallway ( where is the light switch? ). 

     despite the darkness, he knows where aomine’s room is. and there’s a little window near it to bring in the light of a grey day. it’s like the sky sympathises. there cannot be sun when it is not warm inside aomine’s own chest. kagami knocks on the door but there’s no answer. he’s silent as he walks inside. the curtains are drawn, no lights are on. the bed looks empty. damn. he’s not in, after all. something buzzes on the desk and-- it’s his phone. why the hell wouldn’t he take that, what if something happened? kagami sighs. worry gnaws away at his heart. has something happened?

     the decision is made after some deliberation that the best place for the bag is by the desk. the little lobster toy, however, should go on the bed. it’s such a stupid little gift, isn’t it? maybe he should say that momoi chose it. throw her under the bus now, and then when she denies it later, kagami will be long gone and far from the reaches of embarrassment. he snaps the tags off and shoves them into his pocket, carrying it in both hands like a scared offering to a shrine. 

     aomine must have kicked off the duvet in a sulk, because it’s bunched up on one side of the double bed in a long pile. he must be imagining things when he sits and it shifts. the toy looks out of place on the dark pillow-case of a brooding teenaged boy. maybe that’s not fair, but the longer it sits there, the more out of character it feels and he snatches it away. into his hoodie pocket it goes! the blanket shifts again. shit. is--- is someone under there? an apprehensive hand reaches out to where the shoulder would be, connects with something hard. a shoulder.

     “go away, satsuki,” the duvet grumbles.

     kagami doesn’t know what to say. why has he frozen! the hand stays put. is aomine really saying he thinks that kagami’s hands are the same size as the petite girl’s? why is that so offensive all of a sudden... he exhales. the best thing to say is nothing, or so he decides, and instead he pulls the top of the cover down. aomine is facing the other way. kagami runs his fingertips gently through blue hair and still receives no reaction. does momoi do this? he feels as though he should feel jealous, but can’t find it in himself to. aomine should be loved, touched gently and often by those who adore him. whether that’s platonically or otherwise, it’s good if she does stroke his hair gently, and if aomine doesn’t mind, then who is kagami to interrupt?

     “i blew off tetsu and taiga today,” it sounds like a guilty confession. kagami feels like he shouldn’t have heard it, feels like he’s trespassing. “i’m such a fuck up, man.”

     “no, you’re not,” of course kagami knew that once he spoke in his deep voice, and not momoi’s high pitched one, that aomine would roll onto his back and stare in shock. he does, and the heavy gaze makes kagami feel even more like he shouldn’t be here. but he wants to help, if he can. kagami pulls his hand back and reaches into his hoodie pocket for the hidden lobster toy. he produces it. aomine stares at that instead. then back at kagami.

     “what are you doing here?”

     “i got you a crayfish-- thing. ‘cuz you said you liked them, but not to eat.”

     silence.

     “it’s stupid, i know,” kagami’s smile is weak, guilty, and he sets it atop the pillow like before. why he thought this would help is lost on him. “i hope you’re not mad that i came over, uninvited and all. i won’t do it again if you don’t like it.”

    silence. aomine cranes his neck to find the toy, and lifts his arm out of the cover to pick it up. he’s looking at it like he can’t believe it’s right there in his hand. he’s frowning. ah! but there are other things! kagami leaves the bed and grabs the bag from the desk. it’s the magazines he’s after. he pulls out all three of them at once.

     “momoi helped choose, ‘cuz you know i’d be useless.” the magazines are spread where kagami had been sitting. 

     aomine still isn’t saying anything, which is fine, and he can’t expect him to if he’s feeling like shit! but he doesn’t know what to say to fill the silence, and he doesn’t know if he should just leave! maybe that would be best! however, in his panic, he’s disregarding the point of a gift bag and taking everything out instead. snacks of all sorts crinkle in their packaging. to get a better picture of kagami derailing, aomine has shifted up to sit with his back against the headboard. watching. he opens up one of the packets of banana milk cartons to give to him in an act of that panic.

     “well, that’s it,” kagami says in defeat as he meets the end of the bag. “sorry for making a mess. i can go now, if you like. momoi’s just downstairs so i can get her if you wanna talk to her about anything.”

     he shook his head. but... to which part?

     “you-- you don’t need to worry about cancelling on us, you know. we can always meet another day.”

    “or you could come to my house.”

     “yeah, sorry. i wanted to help, but i hadn’t thought about what i was gonna say, i guess.”

     “come here,” he gestures with his head, but kagami looks instead at the pile of dumb gifts on the mattress where he would have sat. so he starts putting things back in the bag. aomine huffs ( but it sounds almost like it could have been a chuckle had the circumstances been different ), and pushes everything, including the magazines, off the side of the bed.

     “careful! what about mai-chan?”

     “come here,” aomine demands, reaching over and tugging his sleeve closer. is this good? kagami has no idea. he just does what he’s told and climbs over to sit beside his boyfriend. “you didn’t have to do all of this.”

     “yeah, i know that. i hoped it might help.”

     “were you mad at me when i cancelled earlier?”

     “no, i understood you weren’t doing great today. i-- i dunno, i just wanna say i don’t, like, expect anything from you when we meet up. we don’t have to do anything. if you wanna be alone, i get it, but i just-- i wanted to say you don’t have to be alone either. ‘cuz i wanna be there for you, if you’re okay with that too. i’m not trying to------”

    kagami’s sincere, if lengthy, statement is interrupted by a kiss to his moving lips. it’s short, but shuts him up nonetheless. aomine stays close afterwards, leaning on the hand resting just behind kagami’s folded legs.

     “do you wanna do nothing with me?”

     a little dazed, kagami can only nod. aomine piles the two pillows together and sorts the blanket out. he pushes kagami’s chest to lie down against the pillows, and aomine slides himself under his arm, head on chest. they lie like this quite comfortably. it’s warm-- no, it’s cosy. this feels just right. after a few minutes of steady breathing, with kagami smoothing blue hair ever so gently, aomine is asleep. kagami texts momoi a quick update, and she tells him that she’ll let herself out.

     maybe doing nothing isn’t half bad.

♥

iv) they’re at a vorpal swords reunion. it’s more of a meet-up than practise, because the hall they were going to use to practise had flooded and they weren’t able to go inside, and it’s too cold outside to play. so they’re standing with hot drinks in the park. ( kagami isn’t, he’d finished his and aomine’s ages ago. aomine will just have to turn up first. ) akashi managed to get a reservation at this nice, not too pricey restaurant, so they’re waiting a few minutes for noon when they can head over. it takes a little more planning than usual to seat, what? a dozen or so people? 

     kagami’s talking with kise and kuroko, waiting for his cocoa. to be clear, he’s standing with them, and kise is going off about something. then kuroko says something to shut him down and it makes kagami laugh. he’s so abrupt! and people say kagami’s blunt! kise pulls a tragic face, asks why kagami’s laughing, and kagami calls him lame. it’s fun everyone hanging out together!

     “taiga,” it’s a half-assed shout from a little way off, but he knows who it is without looking.

     kise’s saying something to him, but kagami’s attention is immediately drawn to the boy in the big puffer jacket, followed inevitably by his pink-haired friend. kagami glares at him. “you’re so late! what’s up with that?”

     “i was sleepy,” still shouting.

     “don’t say sleepy like you’re cute!” kagami is, unsurprisingly, still shouting.

     aomine stops walking and breathes a deep sigh into the air, dissipating in a cloud. “come here then.”

     the redhead turns, balling his hands into fists. his cheeks are heating up already, because he accidentally yelled that aomine sounded kind of cute just now... and in his stupid fucking beanie, he looks it too. they have a silent stand off, but aomine wins. kagami can’t resist going over to see what the hell he wants. can’t resist being near.

     “come here.”

     so he does, and he stalks over like it’s a great effort, or he’s about to end a fight. he’s not, of course, and the balled fists show discomfort and not aggression. he’s still embarrassed. it’s about to get worse. as soon as he’s near, aomine reaches forward with gloved hands and grabs onto the fluffy hood of kagami’s red parka.

     “what the hell do you mean looking so cute today?” he said like it’s an insult, kagami yelps and grabs his wrists. “you dress up just for me?”

     “it’s cold, how else am i gonna dress!”

     “what are you wearing under it?”

     “like, three layers,” he grunts, “get off my hood, asshole!”

     “aw, your face looks cold, though,” aomine is completely ignoring kagami, except that he decided, probably separately, to put his hands on kagami’s face. that’s actually super nice, and if there weren’t, what, a dozen or so people around that he wanted to look cool for, he’d have just stood still.

      “daiki!” he is shouting, once again. their best and only method of communication is to make as much noise as possible. kagami gnashes his teeth, threatening to bite. maybe he just will and teach aomine to: “quit being a pain!”

     “quit making it fun, then.”

     and quit looking like that so close! kagami isn’t about to kiss him, but he really would if they were in private. it’s the twinkling playfulness in those blue eyes that show kagami that he’s really the only thing on aomine’s mind right now. ugh, shut up, stupid idiot! aomine knows what he’s doing, too. you can tell by the shit-eating smile on his stupid, beautiful face. red eyes, as they often do, roll. he wraps his arms around his boyfriend’s waist and squeezes. it’s not a hug, it’s an attack.

     aomine’s turn to yelp. his hands move so that he’s hugging around kagami’s head, which is obviously enough to get him to loosen his grip.

     “careful, my hat!” kagami exclaims, as if that’s more important than the structural integrity of his skull. they’re still hugging, and nothing else exists, and god is aomine warm. so warm. “hi, anyway. how come you’re late?” 

     “satsuki slept in,” aomine nestles his cold nose into kagami’s bare neck. it’s fine if he does this, he doesn’t mind sharing body heat either. and who’s to see if aomine kissed him in that moment? nobody. but everyone will see the wide grin on kagami’s face, worlds away from the irritation he’d displayed seconds ago. 

     “sure,”

     their embrace ended, but aomine still kept an arm slung around kagami’s shoulders. he glances around for aforementioned girl, but she’s already fawning over kuroko. aomine sends his own form of greeting to his other friends and all but drags kagami over to see kuroko and kise. nods over to akashi who stands with midorima, probably talking about how much space there is in the universe, or some other brainy thing nerds discuss.

     “i wanna play ball,” kagami groans now they’re standing together. “it’s not that cold, right?”

     “kagamicchi, it’s icy! i’m not risking my neck for a one-on-one.”

     “i’m getting food then i’m going home.” (kagami’s home, mind you.)

     “yes, it is, kagami-kun.”

     somehow, being turned down by all three of them at once was less fun than he could possibly have dreaded. kagami deadpans and takes to sulking.

     “you’re all just chicken i’d beat you.”

     “big words for the guy who lost our last game.”

     “winter’s a hard season for you, isn’t it?” kuroko! traitor!

     kise puts his hand on his hip, looking at kagami like there’s something WRONG with wanting to play his favourite sport! “he’s really a guy with a one track mind, huh?”

     “shut the hell up! don’t gang up against me! we all met to play ball, didn’t we? i got excited about it, alright! winter sucks for everyone, that’s normal!”

     poor kagami. if the others have any sympathy for his plight, they’re pretty good at hiding it.

♥

v) six months, is it? kagami spends perhaps too long trying to figure it out. he came over to the states after graduation in march, and it’s september now... but then, daiki came over to visit in may, only staying for a fortnight because that’s all his job would allow. so really it’s only been four months. but those have been hard. lots of facetime, and phone calls at awkward times. but kagami always thinks to check what time it was in tokyo before he called, and it seemed that aomine has been similarly considerate. all the same, kagami has missed his boyfriend more than anything. it’s only after high school is behind him that he’s really appreciating that his youth ( as he thought of it ) is now over. he’s in the nba now. well, it’s kind of complicated, but he’s on his way!

     basketball is at the back of his mind now, though. aomine’s plane was due to land at 2am, but was delayed by half an hour on both ends. then there was an issue with the bags which aomine called and raged about. they’re so close. in the same building, even! but despite this, and kagami’s irrepressible nerves bouncing his legs and tearing at his heart, the fatigue gets to him and he falls asleep on an uncomfortable chair opposite the waiting area for arrivals. an unopened can of iced coffee sits loosely in his hands. to make an excuse, kagami hadn’t slept a wink the night before in all of his excitement. he’s fully and completely asleep. 

     he won’t hear his phone as it rings several times through. he won’t hear the suitcase roll and come to a stop beside his leg. he doesn’t feel the can get plucked from his fingers. the vague sensation of someone touching his hair doesn’t even bother him, but in the depths of his dreamless sleep, he hears a voice:

     “taaaiiigaaa,”

and it’s enough. crimson lashes flutter open sleepily, slowly. eyes focus on the dark face before him with the delay that only the deepest slumbers could provide. his head spins. is he still asleep? before he can question it any longer, he jerks forwards and wraps his arms around aomine in the tightest hug. kagami buries his face into his boyfriend’s warm neck, feeling the embrace returned. 

     it’s a desperate cling. the kind of hug that says more than words could. i missed you so much, i love you so much, please do not let go - i’ve been thinking about this since you got on the plane to fly back to japan. just in case this is a dream and he’s about to wake up. kagami inhales deeply. aomine. right here. in his arms.

     “don’t do that,” he says, “i smell bad.”

     “no, you don’t,” it’s mumbled, inaudible.

     “what was that?”

     “i said,” kagami pulls his head back so that he can see his boyfriend’s beautiful, gorgeous, perfect face. it mirrors his own. both hold the teary, tender expressions of lovers parted for too long. his words are long lost. he couldn’t remember what he’d said, what aomine had asked, what day it is. all he has to ground him in reality is a pair of blue eyes staring deep into his, and the arms wrapped tightly around his body.

     they move in unison. the kiss is soft, and sweet, and everything he could have hoped it would be. one of kagami’s hands leaves its place on aomine’s back to hold his face. is--- is that stubble he can feel under gentle fingertips? in six months? man! that’s so cool. and hot. god! his boyfriend is so beautiful! the kiss ends as kagami breaks into a wide grin. aomine chuckles. they press their foreheads together.

     “tell me what you were thinkin’ about just now,”

     “you, daiki,” he holds aomine’s face in both hands, now, smiling so much that it hurts, “i’ve been thinking about you ever since you left.”

[lackingspace]

Incensed (Bo Sinclair x Reader)

Rated: Explicit 

Word Count: 2.5K

Summary: Bo is having a shit morning and you’re not making it any better. When some tourist wander in his irritation spikes exponentially. Why the fuck would you think flirting with one of them would be ok? 

Warnings: Bo being an irate ass, Possible offensive language, Punishment, Degradation, Spanking, Dirty talk

A/N: Ok, not my typical content, but its House of Wax day and I’m thirst af  I love those boys, so I wanted to celebrate. Angry Bo just came out, so that’s what y’all get (╯°□°）╯ ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ

AO3 Link: Incensed

You were goddamn doing it again. Bo was so fucking fed up. It’d been a shitty morning of waking up to a blaring hangover. Breakfast had Lester and you chattering like incessant little birds while Vincent's mute ass self was somehow still being too damn loud. 

He’d snapped when you laughed in the high twinkling pitch that usually hit him somewhere uncomfortable in his chest but now split his brain in two. “Jesus Christ, shut the fuck up!” Everyone stopped to stare over at him, even Vincent mid-bite, turned to stare him down. 

You had a disgusted and offended look on your face that almost made him want to feel bad, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t when his head was splitting and only getting worse. You spat at him in annoyance, “What the hell, Bo?” 

He grabbed his coffee cup and grunted, “Can a man drink his fucking coffee in peace? Y’all are being so fucking loud with your bullshit.” You crossed your arms and leaned forward against the table, “No, not when a ‘man’ is gonna be a dick before 9 am.” You’d said, ‘man’, so venomously he felt a tiny spark of pride because that surely was something you’d picked up from him. Regardless, he ignored it because his temper took precedence. White-knuckling his cup he took a sip before hissing at you, “The fuck did you say?” 

Vincent and Lester were both looking at you now. Vinny's gaze concerned, worried, while Lester put a hand on your shoulder saying your name. You looked away from the ass at the counter and back to your friend, “Just don’t, s’not worth it.” You looked at Vincent and he shook his head, so after pursing your lips you sighed out, “Nothing.” 

Bo took another sip as his anger simmered down, “S’what I fuckin thought.” He saw your jaw clench. And that felt fucking good. So when you’d followed him out to his truck after breakfast he was surprised. You walked to his passenger side and let yourself in before he could say anything. Getting in himself he turned to you, “Can I fuckin help you, princess?”

The look you gave him was like a mocking taunt, “Nah, but I could probably help you.” Bo wasn’t in the mood to play games, so he just cranked the engine and shifted gears with an eye roll, “Suit your fuckin self.”

You’d been so fucking annoying too. Following him around, commenting just enough to get under his skin, but not enough to make him want to glue your mouth shut. But God, was he contemplating it...be a waste of your pretty lips though. You’d started questioning him on mechanic things and fuck was it annoying, but they seemed like genuine questions and damn if it didn’t feel nice to have someone admire his skill for once. 

But when some jock ass pricks rolled up asking for some car help, well, the side-eye you’d given him, screamed trouble. The little asshats had thought you were the receptionist, that made Bo laugh as he thought to himself, ‘receptionist my ass’. But you’d been nice and accommodating to the boys. Leaning on the counter showing them some ample cleavage that made Bo ready to say fuck his brother's art and gouge out their eyes himself for looking. 

But you kept it up and he was about ready to strangle someone when you decided it was a good idea to start flirting with one of the fucks. He fucking hated when you got in a mood- you were stubborn as all get out and it never worked out in Bo’s favor when you got like this. He knew he’d been an ass earlier, but any small amount of guilt he’d had quickly evaporated. Not when he could tell you actually fucking thought one of em was cute. It wasn’t just a fake blush you were giving the twink.

Bo groaned in disgust when you laughed at something stupid that’d been said. He caught your gaze and gave you a glowering look that said ‘fuckin cut it out he wasn't in the mood.’ but the smug little smirk you returned said something different. 

His mood darkened quickly when the asshole actually put a hand on you. Fucking touching you wasn’t gonna fly. Not with the morning he’d had. The little prick was on the top of Bo's shit list in an instant with your name right under it. If the little twit moved his hand any lower on your back Bo would have reached over and broke it. Instead, he didn’t and just left it so you’d realize how absolutely fucked you were. 

Wiggling out from under the tourist's arm you giggled an excuse and walked back over to where Bo was. Inside you were sweating because he hadn’t stepped in like you’d thought and that spoke to how pissed he was. How fucked you were. It wasn't like you didn’t know he was mad. And, sure, you’d known what you were doing. Stopping way earlier was probably smarter, but you never claimed to be a genius, so when flirting presented itself, well, it had seemed perfect. 

You’d been annoyed at him this morning, and maybe had wanted some payback. Wanted to annoy him because he’d been such an ass not only this morning but all damn week. It wasn’t fair for Lester and Vinny to constantly have to walk on eggshells when Bo was just fucking ornery.

And ok, you'd admit that you’d pushed a little too far here though. Especially with how possessive Bo was. He’d even get pissed when you tried to drink some of his coffee. So some random guy, not his brother, putting their arm around you was like a death wish. And God, was he standing beside you deathly silent-- it had you fucking sweating for real. It wasn’t the guy you were worried about, he was dead either way, but you'd maybe just fucked yourself royally. Bo's punishments were unpredictable- very good or very bad. You’d consider yourself lucky if he just ignored you or bitched for a few weeks until you were finally privileged enough for a spanking. God, there was something sick in you though because you still wanted it even if he edged you for a month before forgiving you. 

He gave some excuse to the group through clenched teeth that he'd be able to work on their vehicle, but needed to take care of something downstairs first, and that they should go out and find something to do. They'd accepted his answer and left the shop none the wiser. 

You'd never felt his hand grip the back of your neck faster in your life. In a deep growl, “You little bitch.” He tightened his grip, “ You’re fucking coming with me and don't even think about making a fucking peep. If you wanna be a slut I'll show you what sluts get." he kept to a slow walk until the both of you were out of view, then he all but pushed you down the stairs leading to his playroom. 

He didn't even bother opening the door, just pushed you against the wall next to it-- your cheek smashed against it he invaded your space, "Think you're real slick trying to play with that little bitch in front of me?" you whined out an "I'm sorr-" but he cut you off, "What’d I fucking say?” 

You cut your whine instantly, “And see, you're not sorry. You'da stopped when I fucking told you to if you were." He leaned in closer and you could hear the growl- the anger in his voice directly in your ear, "You were too busy bein a filthy fucking attention whore. Good thing you didn’t let him grab that ass otherwise I don't give a fuck how sweet that pussy is, you'd be out too. Vincent can have a hissy fit later." 

Shit, you knew he was pissed, but damn this was pissed. You tried to actually apologize, "Bo, I'm s-" But his hand came up to lift your face off the wall to grip your cheeks tightly, "Nuh-uh, Don't you fucking Bo me. You're gonna shut the fuck up while I give you something to be sorry for." He pushed against your ass as he leaned over to open the door and God, he was half hard already.

Dragging your through, he made it to the edge of the bed “You're gonna sit that little ass over my lap and I'm gonna make it so Vinny’s gonna have to fucking ice it for a week." You groaned because fuck, you knew this was supposed to be a punishment and it was definitely going to hurt, but damned if you didn't need it. Him being actually pissed was hot as hell and even if you couldn’t sit for a week you really couldn’t find it in you to be mad about that. The man didn't know the power he had over you when he was pushing you around like this.  

He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled you roughly over his lap. His hand on the back of your neck slid up to grip a tight fist of your hair pushing your face into the mattress. His other ripped off your skirt and panties all in one go, "You’re gonna fuckin count them you cunt and thank me for each one." You tried to nod but the fist didn't allow any movement so you let out a muffled, "Ok, yes sir." His fist tightened in preparation as your breath hitched and delivered the first rough smack to your bare ass. Your muscles tightened at the sting, "One, Thank you, sir!" he grunted and gave another just as rough-- you winced and jolted up, "Two! Thank you, sir!" 

On it went until you were sobbing in his lap from the pain and how much your clit ached. “Twenty! Thank you, sir!” He hadn't gone easy, wasn’t about that. Not even a little. Taking all his aggression out on your ass and you really couldn't say you were mad about it. Sure it hurt and would probably leave some bruising, but damn it really was a good hurt. 

Even when he soothingly ran a hand over the area your ass stung, "Don't give me that crying, I can tell from your sloppy pussy how much you liked this." he slid a finger through your drenched folds, "It's like Niagara falls down here. You're a little slut for this, aren't ya?" You shook your head in denial, not wanting to give him that if he was gonna be an ass about it. He slid a finger back through your folds and your hips lifted off he lap in want, "Look at that. Can't even fucking help yourself."

A swift smack shocked your system back into pain, "Don't fuckin try to take what I'm not giving, whore." You rubbed your face into the mattress trying to get yourself under control as you squeezed your thighs together. With a deep breath, “I'm sorry, sir” He laughed, "You’re really fuckin not. But I'll let it slide because I'm feelin generous.” He slid a finger into your pussy and you instantly clenched around it, but tried to stay as still as possible, “This just want you wanted, huh? My fingers in this whore cunt of yours? Think I deserve a fuckin apology after all your shit today.” 

You could tell he was calmer now, but that meant dangerous. Too bad dangerous also meant sexy. And you’d give this asshole whatever he wanted as long as he’d keep sliding his fingers in and out of you, “I'm waiting, Princess.” and he slipped a second finger in scissoring them, you groaned, "I'm sorry! Ok, Bo?! I'm so fucking sorry! I shouldn't have! I knew what I was doing and that you weren't in a good mood, but I did it anyways. God, I'm sorry Daddy, please don't be mad!" you were shaking in his lap and fuck, wait...oh fuck you'd never let that slip before. Shit, you felt yourself tense up just as his cock twitched under you. Fist still in your hair pulled your face up, "What was that?!" You stayed silent and he gave a hard jerk, winching in pain, "I'm sorry....Daddy" he groaned, "Too fucking right, baby girl."

He’d started his fingers back up, roughly pushing them in and out of you, “Bein a bad girl pushing Daddy’s buttons like that. But you did so good taking that spanking.” with a twist of his hand you felt him brush up against that spongy area inside that had your hips jerk up into his hand and sobbing out a moan, “Daddy’s gonna be real sweet to you and fuck this cunt open.” you moaned again at the idea. He was so hard against you and damn did you want it inside you more than anything. You didn’t have to wait long because after another twist of his wrist he pulled his fingers out, swiped them through your folds, and gave a circle to your clit before pulling away completely. You whined, but felt him move the two of you, “Keep that fucking face in the mattress and ass up.”

Pulling your legs underneath to prop yourself up in the position he wanted, “That's right, baby. Now spread yourself open for me. Show me that pussy.” Your face burned, god he could be so nasty, but you loved it and did as he asked. Reaching both hands back to spread yourself open for him. 

You heard him shuffling before you felt a hand settle on your lower back. “Look at that red ass and wet little hole.” He smoothed a hand down a cheek before he gave it a much lighter smack. You groaned and felt yourself pulse around nothing, “Look at that slutty pussy clench.” He ran a finger from the start of your ass down through your folds, coming to a stop at your clit and gave a few circles to it. 

“Don't worry, sunshine, Daddy’s got somethin to fill it up with.” His hand moved away and then you felt the length of him slide up through your folds. You couldn’t stop the moan that fell from your lips as he smacked it against your pussy a few times, “Feel that? I’m gonna stretch you open real good, darlin’.” Sliding his cock back down to press the tip against your clit he brushed it back up to rest at your opening, “You gonna be a good girl and take it like a whore for me?” 

Drool had steadily been falling from your lips but you couldn’t find it in you to care. Your hair was a mess and face felt on fire, but the only thing your existence came down to at that moment was the way his cock was just breaching into you- just teasingly stretching you. Slowly his words filtered through your brain to which you rapidly nodded and whined out a “Please!” 

He slid in slowly before the last syllable left your mouth. 

[hardkinkbardkink]

My dude I am having the worst morning. I was getting take out for breakfast when I misstepped and sprained my ankle, so now I’m sitting in the urgent care waiting to make sure it isn’t broken. And I dropped my food :( But! From my disaster comes an idea! Jaskier injured himself, and took something to help with the pain. It makes him all loose limbed and easy,,, and Geralt can’t help but take advantage of his drugged state. I feel like I’ve submitted this before tho >_> ignore me if I have-🐼

i am. So Fucking Sorry it took so long to get a prompt fill up, and even more sorry it took so bloody long to answer an ask from my very favourite anon. honestly love it's been so long im sure you're fine now, fuck im awful

anyway i absolutely hate every word of this (just what i'd written, the prompt was lovely) but i invested so much time in it i ought to post it anyway oof

what's the opposite of aftercare? would it be called beforecare, if geralt takes care of jaskier and then proceeds to ride him hard and put him away wet? we'll go with that x

***

"Bard."

Jaskier turns to face him with an easy smile, though his eyes look somewhere beyond Geralt, fixed on a spot above his shoulder.

"Geralt," he says softly.

It's the little things that make Geralt frown in--worry worry worry--confusion. How Jaskier sits on the bed, slumped against the headboard as if he's a ragdoll thrown carelessly to the side, his usually immaculate posture forgone. How his eyes are only half-open, dull and unfocused. How Geralt's name on his lips doesn't sound quite right.

Geralt's nose itches at the faint, metallic scent of blood. It isn't as aggressive as it should be, had it been spilled on clothes or smeared over skin, but rather--

"What did you do."

He watches Jaskier's head roll from side to side against the wall before he sways forward, chin tucked to his chest. A muscle twitches in Geralt's jaw.

"Jaskier," he says sternly, barely masking his concern. Annoyance, that is.

"Got--got in a fight," Jaskier tells him, lips barely moving. "Think I--I'm broken? But you're here. Now. Geralt."

He smiles again, weak and unconvincing.

Broken. The word echos in Geralt's ears, bouncing around his brain, until he almost sees it spelled out, dripping red.

"Can I--hm. Can I see?" He gets his voice softer, now. Clearly Jaskier is in some sort of peril. Anger would be counterproductive, no matter how badly Geralt wants to put a fist through every one of the drunks downstairs, part their flesh with his blade.

"Y'don't--you. Don't have to." The way Jaskier grits his teeth and focuses on keeping the slur out of his speech is anything but reassuring. "Seen the--uh, the healer. Got me some--something. For pain."

This time, when Jaskier sways, he tips all the way to lay on his side, nearly hitting his head on a sharp edge of the low table pushed close to the bed. Geralt is next to him in a flash, leaning over his limp body, focusing for a moment on nothing but the steady, if somewhat slow, thud of his heart.

Geralt finds himself frantically undoing Jaskier's doublet before he can think about it. He doesn't like the way Jaskier winces when he pulls the thing off, so he keeps his touch gentle for the chemise underneath.

"Fuck. Fuck."

He didn't think--but then he did, maybe, because Jaskier always insists he doesn't need the healer, doesn't need help, doesn't need anything just so Geralt won't think he's weak. So he knew it had to be bad, this, but--

The sight of Jaskier's chest and abdomen stained ink-black with large, brooding bruises still makes his blood run cold. He touches one, finds it swollen and tender.

"Least they haven't--kicked in my teeth," Jaskier jokes, carrying the silly tune over his words.

One of the bruises seems to run low over Jaskier's hip, so Geralt unbuttons his breeches, too, slides them off revealing more injuries than he would ever think could fit on his bard.

He nearly reaches for his sword, ready to cut down every filthy bastard he can find in the inn.

Instead, he closes his eyes and gets a fucking grip.

Geralt's kit is stocked full with potions that could kill Jaskier if he as much as sniffed them, and an equal amount of mild to potent healing herbs that Geralt wouldn't admit he keeps just for Jaskier. He works quickly, picking the right ones, crushing them between his fingers rather than bother with a pestle. It feels good to crush something, frankly.

He overheats the water in his haste, makes it evaporate entirely and the clay mug shatter when he blasts it with too much Igni.

"Witcher magic," Jaskier slurs, moving slowly to lay flat on the bed.

Geralt steeps the herbs in some fresh water, keeps his calm even when he has to force it down Jaskier's throat. He exhales sharply, sitting down at the edge of the straw-stuffed mattress.

He should put Jaskier to sleep. It'd make the healing faster, entirely eliminate the pain that's merely dulled by whatever drug he'd taken.

Yet Geralt hesitates. It's a lot of bruising. A lot of internal bleeding. Some bone fractures, he wagers, though he'd have to feel to check. Privately, selfishly, Geralt thinks he doesn't want to forfeit the time with his bard if somehow this is the last of it.

It isn't.

It isn't.

Still, Jaskier's quiet humming is reassuring. Grounding.

Geralt spots a small pouch on the floor nearby, half-full of a fine, blonde powder. He sniffs it carefully, nods to himself, and dissolves some of it in more warm water. It won't mend broken bones, but perhaps they can get through most of the healing process without Jaskier feeling the brunt of it. This time, his bard drinks eagerly.

"Oh," he sighs after a minute. "Oh, 's nice."

Geralt almost huffs out a laugh. Of course it's nice when he's high out of his mind.

"Does it still hurt?"

Jaskier closes his eyes. Shakes his head.

"'s nice," he repeats.

Belatedly, Geralt realises it'd be the decent thing to do if he protected Jaskier's modesty in some way, no matter how little of it his bard possesses in the first place.

He reaches for a blanket, but his hand only hovers above it.

Seeing Jaskier's body like this still makes rage bubble hot and viscous in his chest, and yet--

Geralt breathes calmly, steadily, like he does when he meditates. Jaskier will be fine, because he has to be. Because Geralt's already failed him once, letting any harm come to him, and he won't do it again by letting the little bastard die. He'll be fine, and the brief, inexcusable panic retracts its claws from around Geralt's throat. Strangely, it leaves him with anything but the clarity he'd expect.

He blinks, and suddenly the bruises, the marks of violence seep away from Jaskier's skin. Suddenly, it's just Jaskier there, his bard; bare and pliant and so out of it he wouldn't notice anything amiss if Geralt were to--

There's a charge in the air that pops, crackles, fizzles. Grows and grows and thunders.

Geralt's palm rests gently on Jaskier's thigh, where the skin is still pale and unblemished.

Jaskier moans.

"Feels good."

It does feel good, is the thing. Something dark and shameful crawls up to the very back of Geralt's tongue, threatens to steal his voice and make it its own. Geralt stifles it, but only barely. He slides his hand up, in morbid curiosity, and presses his fingers into a bruise at Jaskier's hip. It gets him another moan, a happy sigh.

"Geralt."

And it's like a siren song when Jaskier calls for him, like he'd gripped Geralt's soul and torn it out to have for himself. It isn't as though he can't easily overpower the bard on any given day, hunt him and pin him down and take whatever pleases him in spite of any struggle. But there's something different about this, about the sheer helplessness that Jaskier's fallen into. About the lack of consequence if Geralt were to ravish him, ruin him. If he were to press his own marks into Jaskier's battered skin, fuck him as roughly as he'd ever wanted, not hold back--

Geralt lunges forward, hands roaming over soft, hot skin, lips messily against Jaskier's. It's barely a kiss, more a slide of wet, needy lips, but Geralt nearly goes mad even at that, at the feeling of Jaskier's open mouth letting him in.

"Does it hurt?" Geralt asks again dumbly, already knowing the answer. The beast inside him roars.

Jaskier keens, a faint smile never leaving his parted lips.

Geralt doesn't know, suddenly, how he finds himself holding Jaskier's legs spread, though perhaps it doesn't matter. He looks down at Jaskier's soft prick and lower, lower, lower, until he finds his slack, relaxed hole. Feverishly, he considers the fact that Jaskier doesn't seem to feel any pain, like this. He could--but he could--

When he lets go of Jaskier's thighs, they fall heavily on the bed, still apart enough for Geralt to see all of him, all of the hidden, filthy parts that Geralt aches to claim.

He wraps a hand tightly around Jaskier's prick and Jaskier whines long and high, his eyes half-open and unseeing. Geralt leans down, suddenly hungry for it, and puts his mouth on his bard with a need that borders on desperation. His cock stays soft and delicious on Geralt's tongue, and it's a sensation much more heady than he ever would've expected. Distantly, Geralt wonders if he could get Jaskier to come like this, without getting hard at all.

He massages the flesh with his tongue, stuffs himself silly as he can. Jaskier mumbles something when Geralt moans around him, feeling far too needy.

There's saliva pooling in Jaskier's lap, drying on Geralt's chin. He bobs his head faster, sneaks his hand down to rub circles behind Jaskier's delicate balls, until he feels him twitch and pulse and finally, blissfully, drool thick seed at the back of Geralt's throat.

Geralt pulls away swiftly so he can watch it spill, sticky-white on Jaskier's soft, bruised-black belly. It keeps throbbing in his hand for a long time, moans and whimpers falling from Jaskier's parted lips without restraint. Geralt presses his nose to the underside of Jaskier's jaw, catching his breath and catching his bard's scent. He drags his fingers through the spend slipping over Jaskier's skin, pooling in his navel, and he--

"Guh--G'ralt?"

And there isn't a hint of hurt in his voice, in his face, in his scent, and Geralt groans as he pushes two come-slick fingers into Jaskier's pliant body with no resistance.

Geralt's composure snaps in twain like a particularly fragile twig.

Later, Geralt won't recognise himself in the tremor that sets into his hands as he paws at Jaskier's skin, or the undignified way he pries open his own trousers, or the roar that rumbles in his chest when he presses forward, in, sinks into Jaskier deeper than he has any right to be.

It's a heady sensation, the way Jaskier's body parts around him, loose and relaxed and so very open. Geralt nearly comes on the spot, has to grit his teeth and suck in a harsh breath and even that stands barely a chance when Jaskier moans so prettily.

But a mad thought comes to him unbidden; that he doesn't need to slow, or hold back. Because it's hours before Jaskier becomes lucid; days, perhaps, and until then--

Well, until then he's nothing more than a warm body for Geralt to drain his balls into.

With a roar springing forth from his throat, Geralt snaps his hips forward, ruts into Jaskier with a single-minded fervour, his one purpose to fuck, come, breed. Stake his claim and have it stay.

"G--Geralt, Geralt--" Jaskier whimpers on a weak breath, though his eyes stay cloudy and unfocused. Geralt sees his hand twitch at his side, like he's trying to lift it but finds the weight too cumbersome.

Geralt bares his teeth and sets them in Jaskier's shoulder, harsher than he ever would normally. The skin gives beneath the sharp points of his canines.

It's less fucking and more a deep, desperate grind when Geralt doesn't want to leave the intoxicating heat of Jaskier's body even for a moment. He mouths at the stubble on Jaskier's jaw, hastens his pace and whines like a wounded pup when he spills so very deep inside his bard he's sure it could catch.

His cock doesn't get a chance to grow soft, though a delicious pain edges into his pleasure. Geralt sits back on his haunches, pulls Jaskier's hips into his lap with a strong grip. Keeps him spread open and filled to the brim and when he pounds his delicious little hole again, Geralt revels in the way his seed gets fucked even deeper. He wants to pump Jaskier so full he wakes up swollen and heavy with it, wants to watch the bruises fade from his taut stomach and see it rounded with Geralt's ownership.

Jaskier keeps mumbling quietly, every one of Geralt's thrusts knocking a moan, a sigh, a slurred word out of his chest. It's maddening, to finally have the thing he'd quietly, privately ached for without ever fully acknowledging it--and to have it so wholly, so--

"Fuck."

Realisation seems to come over him in waves, and suddenly Geralt wants. Wants so much, wants things he'd never given mind to before. Wants to have Jaskier and keep him, do horrible, unspeakable things to his bard. Beat him black and blue and nurse him tenderly back to health.

"Fuck."

Geralt strokes Jaskier's limp prick almost reverently, thinks about wrapping it up in ribbons and ropes and having Jaskier beg to come.

Another time.

Another time, because Geralt's had a taste of something beautiful and sick and forbidden, and he'll never let it slips through his fingers.

His pace grows erratic once more, and once more he finds his teeth wandering. They settle snugly at the side of Jaskier's throat, clamped so tightly he can feel the sluggish thud of his bard's subdued heartbeat.

Jaskier moans weakly and Geralt sees red when he spills again, his balls slapping heavily against Jaskier's body in a final thrust. He strips Jaskier's prick viciously, then, until his bard comes, his spasming hole milking Geralt's oversensitive cock in a raw shock of ecstasy.

There's blood on his teeth and a thrumming in his ears and Geralt collapses on top of Jaskier, still buried in him. He lays a gentle kiss to the top of Jaskier's head, but by then his bard is unconscious.

All the better, really.

[innaminitus]

Good girl

Pairing: Loki x reader

Request:  y)n and her friend go to a Christmas party(maybe by tony?) where she herself, her friend are talking about something and y/n says something on the lines of "idk i am bad" and loki who was listening naerby whispers in y/n ear, "i think you can be a very good girl if motivated properly" and some mischief ensues??? idk it's a shell of an idea. Maybe you'd like to do something with this? (from anon)

and

Hi for holiday requests, do u think u can do a Loki x reader smut where they do some Santa play w the reader being on the “naughty list”? Also some light bdsm as well? (from @fan-girly-girl​)

Warnings: smut, smut, smut, bondage with christmas lights??? 

Word count: 2004

A/N: i like this one. i hope you’ll like it, too

Tony’s parties were legendary. People drowning in alcohol and expensive dishes, stars, superheroes, journalists and regular folks, joined by music and booze. This time’s theme? Christmas, of course.

It took you maybe… Three, no, four shots of vodka to find yourself wrapped in string of white lights, with a furry chain around your neck like a boa, giggling with Nat next to the bar.

“It’s just… that I’m not necessarily into all that romantic things,” you said, playing with your glass. You drank a little too much and was speaking probably a little too loud.

“So you’re into more hard-core stuff?” She raised her eyebrow, slowly sipping a pink liquid from a tall glass. She snorted suddenly. “Do you know what Steve calls it?” She was laughing now. “The bad stuff.”

You laughed as well. Steve surely looked like somebody who would call it that way.

“Well, I guess I’m bad, then.”

“I think you can be a very good girl if motivated properly,” somebody whispered to your ear, sudden warmth surrounded your ear and neck.

Nat evaporated, or at least you didn’t notice her walking away. You turned to Loki, only to see him barely an inch away from you. His lips were so close to your skin…

“Are you… ehm… willing to motivate me?” You tilted your head to be even closer to him, to his mischievous smile.

“Always. We don’t want you on the naughty list this Christmas, do we?” His lips were almost on yours.

“I must warn you, it won’t be an easy task.”

You’ve been dancing around each other for weeks, if not months, now, but none of you ever took thing further than just flirting. You were frustrated, and your fingers couldn’t satisfy you when you knew how long were his…

“I’ll take this risk.” Your lips ghosted over his as he spoke, the warmth of them set fire to your body. He grabbed the chain on your neck and pulled it, but missed your mouth and licked the edge of your ear. “Come.”

He used the chain to guide you, as if he was holding a leash. You were pulled into the elevator and pushed onto the wall. Loki’s hands touched your face, his thumb harshly caressed your jawline, chin and bottom lip. You arched to kiss him, but he backed away with a smirk.

“Not so fast, pet…” A string of black hair fell on his forehead when he leaned to you. “You have to earn it first.”

The elevator stopped and the door opened, not giving you a chance to try again. He pulled the chain again and you obediently left the elevator, following him to his bedroom. When the door shut behind you, for a second you were in complete darkness, that is until Loki touched the string of lights you were wrapped in and somehow turned them on without connecting them with the electricity.

“I like those magic tricks of yours,” you said, watching the white glow on his face move as he came closer to you.

You thought he was finally going to kiss you, but he just walked around you, his sight so intensive you could almost feel it as if he was touching you. He slowly unwrapped you from the lights and they fell on the floor, shining on your bodies like an aura.

Loki stood behind you once more, this time his fingers hooked on the zipper of your black dress, sliding it down your spine, his knuckle caressed your skin as he was doing so. His fingers slid under the material on your shoulders, and with one move the dress pooled on your ankles, next to the lights.

“What are these?” He asked, caressing your shoulder. For a second you didn’t know what he meant, but harsh touch on quite fresh marks acknowledged you.

“These… cigarette burns.” You smiled at the thought of the last week’s sex session with certain soldier.

“Who made them?” He circled one with his finger, his voice giving his discontent away.

“Barnes.” You shivered. Would he be displeased? Would he… punish you? That thought excited you.

“Why?”

“We were playing. I played against the rules, so he punished me.” Your pussy was throbbing, lacy panties were surely soaked.

Loki’s finger fell on the hooks of your bra. He undo one after another.

“It bodes well that you enjoy being punished.” He backed away, leaving you still with your bra and panties on. He sat on the bed. “Tell me, pet, what he did to you, as you undress.”

“You want me to tell you how he fucked me?” You raised your eyebrow.

“Did I stutter?”

There was nothing warm in his eyes as he watched you take the furry chain off your neck.

“He spanked me first. Hard.” You flicked your hair to your back. “My ass was red for days.” One strap of the bra was off. “Then he fingered me, stretching me for his cock…” Another strap was off. “But before he fucked my pussy he fucked my face.” You could see Loki’s hard length twitching in his trousers. “My eyes were tearing and I was gagging and it was so good.” The bra fell on the floor, your nipples were hard and pointing. “I wanted him to cum in my mouth, but he pulled out and threw me on the bed.” You hooked your fingers on the panties and slid them down your butt. “Then he fucked me into the mattress. Oh, Loki, he fucked me so hard my pussy hurt, and he held my hips so hard I still have bruises. I almost fainted when I came around his cock.” You wiggled your knees, so the panties fell next to the rest of your clothes. Loki almost ripped his shirt off, veins on his hands pulsing with anger as he listened. “His metal fingers were rubbing my clit, he made me come again.” You stepped out of the lights and your clothes. Loki stood up, his trousers were off. “He fucked me until he came. His cum filled me whole, and then dripped down my thighs.”

Loki grabbed your head in his hand and pulled you to his face, smashing your lips with his. Your stomach twirled, it was all you were waiting for. You sunk into that kiss, opened your mouth and welcomed his tongue.

“Kneel,” he ordered, his lips still on yours. You weren’t the one to disobey him. You did as he asked, your eyes never left his face. He took the underwear off, freeing his thick shaft. “And suck.”

You straightened, your fingers touched the velvety skin, traced along the vein. You knew it was no time to play, though. You stuck out your tongue and licked a stripe along the length, swiped the tip through the slit, collecting salty precum. He was impatient; he bucked his hips, forcing his whole length down your throat. You gagged and leaned away, but he held the back of your head and pushed your face to his abdomen, your nose pressed onto his body. He held you this way firmly, his dick twitching deep in your throat, not allowing you to breathe. Tears were flowing down your cheeks, ruining your makeup as you hopelessly tried to catch a tiniest bit of air.

After a few seconds he set you free and you fell on the floor, fighting for air to travel through your lungs again. You almost didn’t notice him grabbing the lights from the floor. He took your arm and lifted you up before circling you like a predator. He stopped behind you and lights shone on your breasts when he wrapped the string around you firmly, the delicate bulbs sunk into the skin and pinched your nipples. He didn’t stop there; he wrapped the string around your arms, tying them securely on your back. He lifted the furry red chain as well and wrapped it around your neck. You were on his mercy now.

“Such a pretty decoration,” he sighed, pulling the chain and biting your neck.

Your pussy was aching for touch, soaking so much your juices wet your thighs. You arched to capture Loki’s lips in yours and he let you, his lips fitted perfectly on yours. He used the moment of distraction to throw you on the bed, one of his hands grabbed your hip to force your ass up, the other held your leashes. Sweet pain of the string he pulled sinking into your breasts made you squirm.

With his foot he parted your legs, exposing your wet pussy. The hand left your hip and he smacked your ass once before sliding lower, to smear the juices all over your womanhood. You moaned, begging for him to stop playing and fuck you already.

He listened, dear gods, he listened.

He lined his cock with your entrance, collected the slick with his tip and slowly, painfully slowly slid inside of you.

“I will fuck,” he pulled away and thrusted back hard, “James Barnes,” he thrusted again, “out of your head.”

With each thrust he was faster and more aggressive, pulling on both chains, pinching your nipples with the sting and choking you with fur. The sound of one body smacking another echoed in your head as you moaned his name to the sky.

He was like an animal in its mating season, relentlessly pounding into you. Tears were wetting your cheeks as you were struggling to breathe, the shameless pleasure not allowing you to stop to catch more air.

Loki was groaning as he pulled you up, dropped the chains and grabbed your chin, pressing his cheek onto yours. You felt his hot breath on your skin. Your pussy clenched on him harder when he kissed you, the feeling of new angle and his tongue in your mouth made you come hard, leaving you a moaning mess, holding itself together only with the string of lights and Loki’s hand.

He smirked.

He didn’t plan to stop yet.

He threw your front onto the sheets and pressed your spine with his hand, not bothering to slow down the pounding. His other hand grabbed your ass harshly, massaging the cheeks and slapping them hard before his thumb slid down to collect juices from your soaking pussy and smear them on your other entrance. You only managed to squirm when he pushed the thumb in, additional sensation making you scream his name when pleasure once more built in your stomach. Your body was overstimulated, you didn’t know if you even existed anymore, the only real thing was his cock wrecking your pussy and his thumb pushed in your ass.

Tears of pleasure wet the sheets as you came again, moaning to heavens, begging for mercy. Loki’s thrusts were almost uncontrollable as he came as well, your orgasms mixing in the air, your legs shaking and his fingers sinking into your flesh, leaving bruises and nail marks. His cum shot deep inside of you, the warmth of it releasing from you one last moan.

He stayed this way for a second, calming himself down. When he pulled out you felt almost obscenely empty.

You licked the sweat from your cupid’s bow, hoping he would untie you, but he only slid the thumb down, to the semen flowing out of you. His long fingers flicked through your folds and suddenly were pushed inside your hot, hurting pussy. He moved them inside before pulling out and turning you with the other hand.

“Look what mess you’ve done.” He showed you his fingers, sticking with white substance. “Lick them clean.”

Your muscles were against it, but you forced yourself to straighten and opened your mouth to let Loki put his digits into it. Your warm lips closed around his skin, your tongue swirled and collected the cum, you swallowed the saltiness with pleasure. He took the fingers out and smeared your saliva on your cheek.

“Looks like you can be a good girl, after all.”

Looks like you can.

___

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[supermanshield]

Finding this is hard

~~~

Yet despite his best efforts tonight, Clark smiles at him, and even through the screen and slightly distorted feed he feels the warmth. Tingling suppressed because it’s nothing like the real deal. The one he’s seen directed at Lois, or when Clark talks about Lana.

Bruce has accepted that Clark will never be interested in him. Until finally, Clark takes a chance.

~~~ 

Words: 5,242

A/N: This only started because I was thinking about the layout of Wayne Manor, and for some reason considered Tim’s room next to Bruce’s. It grew into something much bigger from there, became much too serious and I completely lost track of the humorous angle I wanted to go for at first. Yay angst.

Also, another one in Bruce’s POV, which I always considered harder than Clark’s POV, but I am also working on two+ things with POV Clark.

Read on AO3

 ______________________________________________

“Quiet night?” Soft thud of Clark’s boots on the rooftop behind him and footsteps walking over to where Bruce sits crouched at the edge. An affirmative grunt is all he gives Clark in return, eyes trained on the building across the street and listening to shards of conversation being fed to him by the cowl from the bugs he has planted earlier.

“Stakeout.”  

Minute flicker, Clark shifting in and out of focus, and he sits down next to Batman. “Turned the security camera on the corner over to the building with your guys in it.”

“Hnn. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Don’t use your superspeed though. Don’t need suspects scrambling because they see red and blue.”

He chances a look over at Clark. Squatting down on a grimy rooftop in Gotham, back against the half wall running around the perimeter – good, anyone on the street can only maybe see his black hair and Batman’s cowl blends into the dark of the night anyway –, and hair and cape wet from the rain is not a good look on Superman. He stands out like a sore thumb next to Batman, doesn’t belong here. Yet, it has been a long time since Bruce has sent him out of his city because of all that, his presence now a comfort that has crept up on Bruce. And Clark has learnt, too. Hiding in the shadows just like him and helpful to a level that used to be annoying. It’s not that Bruce is dependent on him for this kind of stuff, he really isn’t. He can just… welcome the company sometime. That’s okay.

“Did you have something to discuss?”

Clark shrugs, one corner of his mouth goes up. “Just thought I’d check up on you.”

“You can use the communicator for that.”

“Right.”

After a while of sitting like this, Clark’s hearing clearly focused on the same conversation as Bruce, they both perk up at the same time. Silently following the suspects is a job for Batman. He sends Superman away, tells him through his comm to go back to Metropolis and silently thanks him for the company.

Much later, after a meet-up with Robin at the docks and on their drive to the Cave, Red Robin behind them on his bike, Bruce considers his relationship with Clark. Damian stays silent in the seat beside him – lets him brood - , and when they get back to the cave, he and Tim (even Tim), both tired, disappear up to the house for a snack and sleep.

Maybe he has let Clark get too close. Got too comfortable around him and let down those meticulously crafted walls. Yet being around Clark isn’t painful anymore, feelings born out of curiosity evaporated a long time ago. A mere physical attraction shoved into the depths of his being when reciprocation turned out impossible. He’s accepted that, Clark is a friend, and Bruce is content with his family, as far as that is possible with two teenagers and an aggressive prepubescent son in the house, and more scattered across the city and the east-coast (he is). It was a necessity to keep Clark at arm’s length, before. Protect them, put yourself last, don’t be selfish, don’t let yourself fall (don’t pull Clark down).

He has even chased Selina for a bit in an attempt to settle down as expected of a man his age and his status, his name, but it ultimately wasn’t worth it. Selina obviously not the right person for settling down and his interest faked, a game of cat and mouse (bat).

So yes, he can be close to Clark. They are friends, after all.

----------

Clark’s brain is a super-computer and more human than Bruce’s at that. It comes in handy when filtering through recordings or data and Bruce can’t think of a better reason to invite him over for dinner and a joint case-study in the cave.

He doesn’t remember the last time Clark has been up in the house and not just in the cave. It’s ridiculous really, they’ve been friends for years, only Bruce hasn’t been acting like one while Clark has put in 100% effort (and only sporadically to the point of annoyance).

Friendship leads to bad things and more, like with Harvey. But Clark is not Harvey.

“Thanks for inviting me for dinner,” Clark says when they walk back down into the cave. “You didn’t have to, I mean. But it’s nice to talk about non-cape stuff for once and see you interact with your kids.”

“I didn’t invite you because I had to, Clark. We’re friends.” Fact, not question and (obviously) obvious to Clark.

“Of course.” But a dazzling smile in his direction (he finds he wants that, more, and that’s exactly why he can’t) and Bruce decides that now is as good a time as any to go on patrol and leave Clark with the brunt of the work that they started on earlier. A few quick commands and suits up, utility-belts packed, and Robin, Red Robin, Batgirl, and Batman speed out of the cave to go on patrol.

----------

A steaming cup of coffee appears on the desk in front of him and Clark sits down in the other chair and swivels towards him. It always goes like this; Bruce will come up early, ready for monitor duty whatever time of the day it is. Clark walks in almost a clockwork five minutes later, coffee or tea in both hands, a quick silent rush of his cape and he reappears with snacks, sometimes dinner (leftovers from Martha’s cooking, and Bruce hears his stomach growl in betrayal at the first waft of chicken, cooked vegetables, goulash). They often get paired up, being in the same time-zone and no one else wants to spend time with Batman much. Except maybe Diana, or J’onn. (But Diana pries too much, seeking out the truth. J’onn doesn’t pry at all, even though he could. With him it is hyper-focus and silence for most of 6 hours.)  

So, it’s fine with Clark, nothing’s expected and there is familiarity in their conversation. The time passes faster and he gladly chooses this over any board meeting where nothing ever gets done anyway. But today monitor duty is during his patrol, and Tim and Damian are out on their own. Together. Dick in Blüdhaven and Cassandra out of commission in bed. One of Bruce’s screens is continuously focused on Gotham, two small figures in capes and chasing bad guys and each other. They do their job and Bruce watches his other screens, listens to Clark and nods appropriately, goes over some new schematics for a suit improvement.

Corner of his eye, peripheral vision is dedicated to the two small figures in Gotham. The screen shows the top of Wayne Tower and Red Robin pacing up and down, clearly talking, unhappy, Robin has crossed his arms. Bruce can interrupt them over the comms, give them a good scare, but they’d never learn. The need for them to work together more poignant as Bruce becomes older and Damian almost ready to join the Teen Titans if it wasn’t for Tim. His heart skips a beat when Damian’s hand goes for his katana, but Tim holds up his in surrender, holding him off and it is fine, they’re okay.

Bruce turns back to his other screens only to find Clark looking at him, one eyebrow raised.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” Clark takes another bite of his Mars bar, feigning oblivion.

“Listen.”

“It’s my hearing, B. I can’t just turn it off.”

“Then focus on something else.” Clark turns back to his side of the monitor bank and Bruce goes back to his work, but he’s lost his focus. Gotham not just in his peripheral vision anymore and of course, Clark notices.

“Want me to go down there? I’ll keep an eye on them. Or you go and I’ll stay here.”

“No, we have a job to do. So do they.”

Clark doesn’t look convinced and something in the back of Bruce’s mind screams of Superman’s disapproving scowl at a brightly coloured child next to Batman’s black cape. But that is a long time ago and Clark looks at him now with a crease between his raised eyebrows and a hand on his shoulder. Worry, a question.

“No,” he says again. “They need to do this together. I trained them. I trust them.”

That hand lingers on his shoulder a moment longer, and Bruce doesn’t shake it off, doesn’t want to. The weight behind Clark’s touch and his gaze ground him, get him out of his thoughts and back to focus on work.

----------

It’s a couple weeks later and they’re all in the cave, Tim and Cass on the matts, sparring, Damian off by the workbench quietly cleaning his gear. Bruce has a video feed open to the Fortress of Solitude, where Superman and Supergirl are looking into the Kryptonian database for the origins of an abandoned alien ship found on Mars. Or at least, Superman is. Kara is playing with newly acquired Krypto, two streaks of red and a blur in the background from time to time. Clark’s family is expanding, too.

Their conversation is all business, small talk quickly waved off by Bruce and he keeps them on track. He has other stuff to do and if Clark can’t find anything about the ship in the Kryptonian data, he’ll contact Oa and let the Lanterns handle it. Yet despite his best efforts tonight, Clark smiles at him, and even through the screen and slightly distorted feed he feels the warmth. Tingling suppressed because it’s nothing like the real deal. The one he’s seen directed at Lois, or when Clark talks about Lana.

“I could uhh… come over?” The uncertainty in Clark’s voice surprises Bruce, but Clark quickly picks up again. “Got everything we need here. I’ll send it to you and we can come up with a plan.”

“The Lanterns can handle it from here,” Bruce says resolutely, pauses. “OK, come over. Bring Kara. I want to have Tim teach her some things about tracking and deduction.” At the mention of her name, Kara appears, now fully visible and Krypto at her side, looking up expectantly at the ball in her hand.

“Hi, guys,” she waves, and Bruce finds Tim and Cass behind him, and even Damian has come much closer. She pretends to hold a magnifier in front of her face. “Detective Kara on the case.” Cass smiles and waves. Tim greets back and says something about listening to detective Tim, smug voice and all smiles. Bruce looks back at Clark to find him still staring at him, holds onto that and Clark’s blue eyes, until Kara speaks again. “Sooo, sleepover at the manor tonight? It’s getting a little boring up here. No offence, Kal.”

Clark holds up his hands. “None taken.”

Bruce cuts in quickly. “No. Tonight’s training and then back home. Damian and I will go on patrol. Clark can stay here with you guys.”

Clark chuckles. “Bruce, it’s fine. You’ve got room enough and I’ll just go back to Metropolis tonight.”

Bruce’s stare turns into a scowl, and Clark folds his arms. Tim lets out an uncharacteristic groan, Cass rolls her eyes. Clark breaks first, unfolds his arms but it’s not without a smug smile when he says, “We’ll be right there.”

 -

They all have supper together, it’s an odd sight at the table with Clark and Kara in their super suits, capes left folded on one of the benches in the cave. Damian is already in the under-suit of his Robin costume, the rest of them still in training sweats, but Alfred only scoffs mildly as he joins them at the table, impeccable as ever. Bruce gets lost in conversation with Clark while the children have their own thing going on. So lost, in fact, that he forgets about patrol time until Damian gives an incessant tug on his sleeve and tells him to ‘get ready, father. I cannot believe you let the alien distract you like that.’

On top of that, in the cave Clark somehow convinces him to let Cass, Tim, and Kara have their sleepover. It’s good for Kara, he says, she needs to spend more time with people her age. Of course Tim then asks if Kon can come too, and Clark happily says yes, at which point Bruce has to remind him that it’s his home, his room is right next to Tim’s and everyone needs their sleep, and thinks it’s a good thing they’re not raising these kids together. They’re opposites, he would be the strict parent, and everyone would go to Clark to ask things (evidently, they already do, or at least Tim does, and Bruce wonders again if he’s let Clark let too close).

That night on patrol though, he can’t shake the feeling that something about tonight felt absolutely right. He chalks it up to the manor, it’s large, it’s supposed to be that full, and his age. He’s not weak, he’s just becoming a sentimental old sap.

----------

On Tuesday afternoon he runs into Tim in the hallway adjoining both their bedrooms where Tim tells him about a recent board meeting at WE, some adjustments he wants to make to their financing plans, coffee cup in hand and stack of papers in the other. Mature, he looks mature.

“How old are you again?” He asks after Tim finishes talking.

Exasperated sigh and waving the stack of papers. “Did you even hear anything I said?”

Bruce just glares at him in answer, raises an eyebrow.

“Right,” Tim says. He hums. Tim is going to fly out soon and Bruce is not quite ready to acknowledge how that makes him feel, but he’ll do his damn best to make sure it’s a good experience for him. To not push him away. To not lose him. “You know I’ll be out of here as soon as soon as I’m eighteen.”

“And finish school.”

“Fine, and finish school. Then I’ll get my own apartment. Might get quiet here.”

Bruce shrugs. “It won’t be quiet with Damian around. I could always call Clark to come over if it gets boring.”

“Clark?”

“Or-”

“No, no, invite Clark. Good for you.” He elbows Bruce and steps into his room. Tim’s grin is just a little unsettling, worth a second thought, but the only possible answer is simple enough. Clark slips into his conversations and his thoughts like he’s supposed to be there (he is). Being around him is more than comfortable, it’s normal. Much better than back in the day when he was always with Lois and Bruce is completely over his feelings.

---------

A mild injury (twisted ankle, he landed wrong and feels it up in his knee), and Clark insists on going back to the cave with Bruce after patrol. He sends Damian to the showers and to bed, slides into the chair in front of the computer and takes off his cowl. Clark hovers around, it’s annoying, he offers to get an ice pack, but that’s Alfred’s job and he’s there as soon as Bruce sinks down. Tim’s at the other end of the large bank of monitors, tracking shipments of something. Bruce should really be more interested and know what Tim is up to, but he’s tired, sore all over, just wants a nice warm shower and sleep. Work first.

Maybe it’ll go faster with Clark around. At least, if he would just stop worrying about Bruce and actually help him. They’re looking into some recovered DNA when Bruce reaches up, rubs at his neck subconsciously.

“You okay?” Clark’s question startles him, both their eyes still trained on the screen. Listening again.

“I’m fine, just sore.”

“Go to bed. I’ll do this.”

“No, I still need to write tonight’s report.” Rubs at his shoulder and rolls.

“Ok. Then here, let me.” Clark walks closer to him, behind the chair, makes a motion with his hands. It takes just a bit too long for Bruce to catch on, but he leans forward slightly. Clark deftly removes the cape and cowl - and it should really worry Bruce that he knows how to, but he forgoes an angry comment as soon as Clark’s hands touch his shoulder. They’re warm along his shoulders and neck, large, gentle despite their incredible strength. Of course, Clark easily finds all the knots and twists and kneads in just the right places. Bruce tries to refocus on his work, tries to be annoyed with Clark for knowing exactly what to do, but the smooth slide of Clark’s thumbs on his trapezius muscles makes it hard. Friends can do this.

It’s somehow much too soon when all the tension is gone and Clark pulls back his hands, but he pushes the thought away. Clears his throat. “Hnn. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

He hasn’t noticed Tim leave, but his spot is empty now, hears him rumbling around in a different part of the cave and the rest of their work gets done quickly in silence.

“I think we should wrap things up here,” Bruce says after finishing his report. He pushes himself up out of the chair, has to hold onto the backrest for support. Clark, automatically, reaches out to him to help.

“Report all done?”

Bruce nods.

“Ok, then. Need any help getting upstairs?”

“No.”

Clark hasn’t let go. In fact, he’s come closer, every colour blue visible in his eyes and his breath ghosting over Bruce’s face.

“Bruce, I-“

“Yes.” The grip on his arm becomes tighter, slow tug. Lips on his, impossibly soft and a hand gently supporting his back. But his own hand stings and the next second Clark stands in front of him, shocked and appropriate distance between them again. Bruce swears in pain. His hand throbs.

“What the fuck, Clark.”

“Crap! Sorry, Bruce, I…” Bruce clenches his jaw, there’s a sigh, then only a gust of wind, Clark’s speed too high for Bruce to even see the streak of red flying out of the cave.

“Bruce.” He whirls around at the sound of his name, heart racing. Tim’s stopped on his way to the stairs, towel around his neck and Bruce ignores the pain in his ankle as he makes his way over. “Fuck, why did you try to hit him?”

“Bed, now.”

Tim groans overdramatically and walks past him into the house. Slowly, Bruce makes it up the stairs and to his bedroom, where he collapses into bed and a restless sleep.

---------

The next day it’s glowers from Tim, no hugs or any words from Cass, and Damian isn’t much better off. Alfred gives him more than a few pointed looks, no sassy raised eyebrow and all scowls. Bruce ignores them as much as they ignore him and the house is quieter than it’s been in a long time. He needs to deal with this himself, he just doesn’t know how to yet. It all lasts until evening, when everyone is in the cave quietly getting ready, where Tim finally speaks to him.

“You lead him on.”

“What?”

“Clark. You lead him on.”

“I heard you, Tim. I did not.”

“You get too close to the alien, father.”

“Clark is a friend. I am close to him.”

“No, you let him get close. You lower your defences, and your body language is all… open.” The last word sounds like a reach within Damian’s vocabulary, chosen carefully.

“Exactly,” Tim joins in. “You lean into him; he moves towards you. You make googly eyes at him; he makes googly eyes at you. When you’re not looking of course.”

“I don’t make googly eyes.”

Tim sighs. “You get the point. Hell, I’ve seen you having coffee with him in the kitchen after patrol more than a few times. I thought that-”

“Tim.”

One of his trademark teenage sighs again, all frustration and no patience. “For a so-called billionaire playboy, you’re really bad at telling when someone is actually interested in you.”

“I’m done talking about this. Suit up. All of you.”

“Had me believe you were in love with him…” A mumble and it dies down as Tim puts on his helmet. The roar of his bike engine drowns out Bruce’s words. “Clark isn’t… that’s just me.”

By the time the cave is quiet again, Damian is waiting for him in the batmobile, arms crossed over his fastened seatbelt. Bruce pulls the cowl over his head and doesn’t notice Cass behind him until she tugs on his cape, puts a hand on his shoulder. “You… love.” She touches his chest. “Clark. Loves you… too.”

 -

On patrol that night, Bruce’s mind wanders. If Damian notices he doesn’t comment on it. They intercept a weapons shipment by the docks, take down the thugs. Standard night in Gotham.

Clark isn’t gay. Straight? Bruce has never outright asked him, always assumed. Lana and Lois all he has to go on and he simply came to a logical conclusion. Though it’s a flawed one, and contradicted by himself on top of that. CEO of a billion-dollar company and he has women hanging of his arms at every society event he goes to because it’s expected. To be straight. He can’t imagine Clark having to do that – maybe it was his rural upbringing, though the Kents are not like that.

And of course, Clark brings Bruce’s whole world, the lies he tells himself, down with one simple kiss. After eleven goddamn years, and all he can feel is loss, lost time, frustration and anger as his fists connect with ribs, jaws, elbows on the street. He needs Clark to explain. He needs himself to understand.

---------

“Bruce.” Clark opens the door, still dressed in a blue button-up and off-the-rack slacks. It’s clear he hasn’t been expecting him; a single plate with a half-finished dinner sits on the table, next to a laptop.

“Why now.”

“What?” Clark clears his throat, swallows a remnant of his dinner. “I’m sorry for what happened.” He steps aside to let Bruce into the apartment, follows him towards the small living room. “I didn’t mean to… I just thought- “

“That’s just it. You didn’t think, you just-” Bruce stops himself, groans. He isn’t here to fight with Clark, but it is just so goddamn easy. Toe to toe and head to head despite half the room separating them. Clark’s jaw sets in that all too familiar way and his expression drops from astonishment and curiosity to calm and collected.

“Are you just here to yell at me? Because I’m really not in the mood. I’m sorry. I thought you were interested in… that. Clearly, I misread the signs, so it won’t happen again. Can we just forget about this whole thing… and move on or something?”

“No.” To Bruce, moving on is impossible.

“Right. Why are you even mad at me? If anything, I should be the one being angry with you. And it doesn’t sound like you came here to apologize for hitting me.”

“No, I didn’t. I’m here so you can explain one thing to me, Clark. Why did you kiss me?”

An eternity packed into the second it took Clark to find his reply, and his answer anything but satisfying. “I don’t know. Maybe we’ve just been spending too much time together.”

“We’re friends. Friends spend time together.”

“Yes. Ok,” Clark sighs, averts his eyes. “I’m attracted to you… and I thought it was mutual. I mean, you let me give you a massage. You’ve never let me done that! So really, I’m sorry if I misread the situation.” Clark holds up his hands, palms up in explanation, excuse. All of it seems much too easy for him, something to brush off.  

“I didn’t think my behaviour would cause such a complication.”

“A complication.”

“I didn’t know, or I would have done things differently. Ergo, a complication.”

Clark breaths in and out, pinches the bridge of his nose under his glasses. “Ok, do you have a problem with me being the way I am? Because that’s what it sounds like. It was just a kiss. Get over it.”

“You jump to conclusions, Clark. As always.”

“Cryptic and you leave me two steps behind, Bruce. As always.”

He looks around Clark’s apartment. The couch is small, but he sits down anyway, motions for Clark to sit on the armchair. Ikea. It puts him across from Bruce and level. “I didn’t know you were…” he has to strain for the right word. “Not straight. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Clark runs a hand through his hair, closes his eyes and takes of his glasses. “I thought you were supposed to be good at reading people. I thought you knew.”

“All evidence pointed to the contrary.”

“Bisexuality is a thing you know. And I don’t have to tell you everything about my love interests.”

“Right. Feels like you do, though.”

“So then,” Clark tries. “You’re just here to confirm my sexuality.”

“Not just that.”

“Oh. So, you are… You’re not out, are you?”

“Neither are you, apparently.”

“It’s complicated. And it’s not like I actively hide it,” he says accusingly. Evidently, conditioned bias can really be a bitch sometimes. There’s a whole other conversation to be uncovered behind Clark’s complicated. One they should have. Maybe later. Bruce swallows.

“Why I hit you. I overreacted. I taught myself to… not want that, and-”

“Rao, Bruce, stop. You don’t have to deny who you are. Not around me.” There’s that comforting hand on his again. So much of Clark's communication is rooted in touch. He's held back, Bruce realises now, and finds he desperately wants a lot more of it. Hand on the armrest of the couch, he doesn’t pull away.

“Will you let me apologise. I didn’t mean to hit you and I’m sorry. You know I would never, and it’s stupid.” He looks at where Clark’s thumb touches his bruised knuckles. “Clearly,” Clark agrees.

“The thing is. I was finally content. Happy with what I could have. My family. You as a friend. And then you go and ruin it all with a stupid little kiss.” He has to avert his eyes, look up at the ceiling to consider the absurdity of it all. Biggest miscalculation of his life. The feeling of loss washes over him again like a tidal wave of his own making, and he can’t help but wonder if it feels the same for Clark. “Eleven goddamn years, Clark. Took you long enough.”

Clark’s chuckle does things to his stomach that he hasn’t allowed himself to experience in a long time. He joins Bruce on the couch. “Hey. At least I had the courage to do something.”

“Okay. So you suck a little bit less at this than me.”  Some of the tension finally leaves his body, and Clark visibly relaxes next to him. He turns towards Bruce, like on the watchtower, like at dinner. Bruce thinks of what Tim had said, how they lean towards each other, always, and it feels right, fits. Opposites attract, or something.

“Can I kiss you?”

“God, yes. Didn’t really get the full experience last time.”

“Wonder whose fault that was.” Clark’s face has come much too close for Bruce to see his smile, but he can hear it, feel it in the way there is just a little bit of teeth when their lips meet. This time, the kiss is much better. The feel of Clark’s lips under his own, his hands on Bruce’s thigh, his chest, so warm. Clark’s curls and incredibly strong pulse. He commits it all to memory. Just in case.

“And he says I jump to conclusions,” Clark states to the room, and Bruce has to close his eyes to keep from laughing.

------------

Epilogue

------------

It’s been over a month since the incident with Bruce and Clark in the cave, and honestly, Tim thinks he would be seeing more of Clark. He felt a little disappointed at first, didn’t talk much to Bruce. Because of course, leave it to him to just shut everyone out again and pretend nothing had happened. Damian – annoyingly so – takes after his dad, works hard and just a tad too victorious.

Tim considers himself a pretty good detective.

However. It takes him a couple days to notice, too long, Bruce would say, that Bruce is calm. More relaxed. If that’s even possible for Batman. Well, not out on patrol of course, but at home. Tim’s doing homework in the ground floor study one day when Bruce walks in, looking at his phone. Smiling. Distracted and he hasn’t noticed Tim on time, clearly, when he quickly pockets his phone and asks Tim what he’s working on. The smile lingers.

There’s a league meeting but when batman returns to the zeta platform in the cave, the usually present proverbial protruding vein is not there, and Bruce doesn’t stomp to his computer right away. Instead, he takes a whole five minutes to remove the constricting parts of his uniform, eat one of Alfred’s sandwiches, and comfortably installs himself in front of the large monitor. It’s as un-Bruce and healthy as Batman can get and it doesn’t go unnoticed. No one comments.

And then. Bruce comes home late one night – on time for patrol – from the office. Or so he claims. But his tie is loosened, shirt not perfectly pressed anymore, and he smells like Pakistani curry. He could have got the food delivered of course, but it’s the windswept hair that betrays exactly who brought him back to Gotham after a dinner in Metropolis.

All of it culminates, there’s more little things and it’s the kind of behaviour that stands out when you spend a lifetime practicing every possible degree of a scowl and a faked interest in small-time fun.

Tim’s suspicions are finally confirmed in a much too unsubtle way when he’s in his room late one night – or maybe early morning –, under the covers and ready to go to sleep. There’s stumbling, bumping into the wall outside his room. His first thought is a threat, but then he hears Bruce’s voice. And another. Creak of the master bedroom door and footsteps shuffling on carpet.

“Take that off.” Straightforward as ever, Bruce.

“This too?” And yep, that’s Clark. Where are his noise cancelling headphones?

Constrained. “Yes.”

Tim clicks on his bedside light, stumbles around his room extra loud, hoping Clark will hear him. Notice he’s awake. At the very least, Superman should be considerate.

“I thought you had superspeed.”

“Patience, B.”

“Waited for you all week.” The rest was muffled, a creaking sound.

Under the safety of his covers and the protection of his headphones, Tim thinks about texting Stephanie. Or Kon. Or Dick. He groans and decides to put on some music instead. Why couldn’t Bruce just come out to them like a normal person? Why didn’t he spend an all-nighter in the cave tonight? Why did he ever choose the bedroom next to Bruce? At least Damian won’t be able to hear them. Right? He makes the mistake of lifting up one side of his headphones to check, only to hear a rhythmic thump, thump, thump, and drops it right back down. Okay. He can probably do some more work on the Two-face case down in the cave. It’s not like he needs sleep, anyway.

He just needs to have a very stern talk with Batman and Superman come morning. And move to a different bedroom.

[birdwithavendetta]

A New Creature Named Link

Hello! I am here to project onto Wild until it int Wild anymore! This is a self indulgent fic born from the fact that i feel like i can't share my interests with my friends without them making fun of me or getting bored, and my mother not really letting me stim...... this should be fun!

I'm changing wild’s age because I'm 15, and I want to, so he's 15 now. 

expect some fluffy angst(eventually), cuz that's what I'm good at.

1

 When he awoke, first awoke, he felt nothing, remembered nothing, heard nothing but the voice speaking to him, much too loud in his head. It was calling a name, a name he suspected was his name, repeating it over and over again. 

"Link"

Feeling came to 'link' in a rush. He hated it. It was cold, and in a bad way. The room buzzed and hummed and echoed, despite the fact that he was under what felt almost like water. But it wasn't water, the strange water around him was too thick and too smooth at the same time. It felt wrong against his skin. 

The voice that woke him was still too loud inside his head. He recognized it, but had no idea why. He could tell it was a woman, he felt like he should know her.

But he didn't. 

She was begging him to open his eyes. Begging him to wake up. 

No matter how much he wanted it to, his body refused to move. Even as the strange water slid against his skin, draining down tubes somewhere above his head, he couldn't grit his teeth like he wanted to, he couldn't throw himself away from it trying to wipe it off his arms. 

Only once most of it was gone, and the rest of it was evaporating all too fast on his skin, making the horrid cold worse,  could he open his eyes.  

Link shot up, stumbling out of the black stone basin, trying to shake off the feeling of the not-water. An ache in his chest made itself known....... An ache that link realised was from not being able to breathe, but he was breathing, the echo of links panicked breaths hissed in his ears. Strange, and not at all how breathing should sound. He was breathing, why did it feel like he wasn't, why did it ache like that if there was air moving through his lungs, he shouldn't feel like he wasn't breathing at all. 

Wrapping his arms around himself, in a vain attempt to keep the air in his lungs. Link closed his eyes tapping his fingers rhythmically against his ribcage.  Till the quick hissed breting, evened out. He wasn't sure where he learned the tactic, or even why he knew it in the first place, but he was grateful.  

The way the room echoed was not bad. Link decided that he honestly really liked the echo. The ambient hum in the room was nice too, it was very quiet, he could barley feel it rumbling under his bare feet. 

Keeping his arms wrapped around himself, Link let his eyes roam around the room. The blue tint that everything had was...... eerie, but soothing, in its own way. The room was mostly empty, filled only with the now dry basin that held the not-water, glowing blue tubes attached to a flower shape above the basin, and a pedestal that sat in the corner of the room. The same blue emanated from carved lines on its surface. 

Deciding the pedestal to be the more interesting artifact, Link unwrapped his arms and trotted over to it. reaching out to touch it. Link almost yelped when the clicking and whirring of machinery spilled into the stagnant air.  

The voice was back again, calling the glowing orange thin box thing that had risen from the pedestal, a sheikah slate. The orange glow on it grew and reseeded with every breath, but the blue weeping eye kept on staring at him. 

Reaching out a hesitant hand Link took it. jumping a little when it came to life. There was a belt on his hip with a convenient hold for the slate, reasoning that it was probably for this express purpose, a link attached to his hip. 

More mechanical whirring and clicking as the pedestal righted itself, the humm of the room grew, energy moving from one place to the next. The scrape and grinding growl of stone sliding across stone filled the air, the segments of the wall sliding up to make a doorway. stepping out into the new room, Link found it to be rather a lot different from the one he just came from. 

Same strange black stone walls, but different glowing orange constellations. Same rough gold stone wrapped around all the edges, but larger and almost completely empty, save some crates, and two cheats. He took the old worn clothes in the chests. 

Warily he walked over to the opposite wall; it looked quite a bit like the stone door behind him.  Another pedestal, and more words from the woman, telling him what to do. Hold the sheikah slate up to the pedestal. it wasn't the same as the pedestal in the other room, it was smooth excusing the same weeping eye carved on it. 

Slowly, he held the slate up to it, not quite sure if that is what the girl meant. Blue light bursts from the carved lines, more energy hummed and rumbled under foot, moving toward the door. 

The grumble of the stone was stronger with this door, Link had a feeling that this one led out. He was very quickly proven right when an unbelievable amount of light shone under the rising stone slabs. The cool green air from outside the cave rushed over him, filling his lungs. 

The voice echoed in his mind as the light shone, too bright, in his eyes. She seemed to like speaking in her metaphors. Metaphors he did not understand. 

Making his way through the tunnel, toward the bright daylight on the other side. The air full of green life, the bright sun warm on his skin, the grass whispered and murmured with the trees. 

This was how it was supposed to be. 

--<>-----<>-----<>--  

Link knew he was strange. 

Everyone thought so, they were usually kind about it, if someone saved you from a bokoblin you werent gonna be rude to em'. But it was evident that they thought him a strange sort. 

He did a lot of things that he had never seen other people do. These were the things that people stared at him for. But he really didn't try to pay attention, if they had a problem, that was for them to decide. If anything, Link felt that most people were weirder than he was. 

Other travelers and warriors understood. 

Once he had been sitting with two other travelers at a fire for the night. Coming together as strangers, for safety as they slept, and parenting as friends with the sunrize. They had spoken about all the weird things they had come across in their travels. 

Link was glad that most people knew sign language, because he couldn't force words out of his mouth. Every time he tried it felt like something was wrapping a hand around his throat and squeezing. All the stable masters knew sign, and so did most of the warriors he came in contact with. They  would use it to talk to each other without alerting monsters to their presence. 

When he spent too much time around people, everything would get too loud, he would flinch at the feeling of his clothes, people would get mad at him, and he'd find himself on the brink of tears. So he'd wrap his arms around himself, and find a quiet place to sit, away from any travelers or any monsters, and just be. 

some people were rude about all of it,

But Kass was always happy when Link got excited for each of his songs, and every time link caught a beetle for....Beetle, the man would give an excited shout. The stable owners never complained when he opted to sleep outside, children liked Link, playing with or around him. Sidon would smile and talk with him despite the fact that link could only bring himself to sign.

so he didn't let the other peoples reaction bother him. 

 Then Link defeated Ganon, and rescued Zelda, he was ecstatic, she was almost hysterical with joy. they both were tired, dirty, and just so happy. 

Zelda knew she had to rebuild hyrule. She had to connect the fragmented bits of the now broken land. explaining to them that she was zelda, and she had held back the calamity for 100 years. There were mixed reactions. But most people were glad that the kingdom was going to be put back together, some seemed to think that Zelda and Link had failed them, they were wrong about Zelda, she had fought so hard. But Link had failed them, failed them and gotten to take a one hundred year break, while Zelda held back the calamity, Alone. 

Link hadn't really spoken before the calamity, had not spoken at all after he woke up in the shrine, so it was difficult at first because Zelda had never learned sign language, and Link's voice was so broken with disuse that he could barely choke out a single word. But slowly, Zelda helped Link speak. Now he could carry a short conversation, very short, and very quiet, but he could do it.

The calamities hold on Hyrule had left its mark, blood moons still happened, if irregularly, travel was dangerous, as monsters still plagued the land. Some of the monsters were even getting infected with something, their blood turned black, some of them got smarter, they all got more aggressive, they all were stronger. 

They would seek out the smell of blood, so Link told all the warriors he spoke to, to cover the scent if they got hurt, so they had a better chance of getting back to safety. Tt was already common to stash and hide weapons so that monsters don't get their hands on them after blood moons, now you just had to hide the smell of blood on them too. 

Bundles of flowers work, so do most spices, but spice hurts when you put it on an open wound, much more than a silent princess paste. 

Link and Zelda  traveled around finding capable warriors to help rebuild the army, the shika trained them, it wasn't much, but it was enough to keep those working on rebuilding the castle town safe. 

It was fun at first, traveling across Hyrule, like he had before he had defeated Ganon, but not crushingly alone this time, connecting hyrule. But Zelda kept giving him rules. Like, 

"Stop wrapping your knuckles against the sheikah slate"

"Don't rocking back and forth when talking to someone it's rude"

"You need to quiet down, your talking to loud,"

He kept getting comments on how he acted, so he started correcting himself, and started doing things he saw other people do. After the first week of doing this he ran into the woods next to the riverside stable, he stayed there, crying silently, until Zelda found him, several hours later.

"You need to stop fidgeting so much,"

"Look at people when your talking to them,"

"Quit humming like that,"

The words meant a lot more coming from Zelda, he had heard them before, from other people, more detached from him, less personal. And what's worse, now he had to listen to them, she was the queen after all. 

"Stop snapping your fingers it's distracting"

"I know you like to run off but were busy now,"

"The inn is not too loud, your overreacting, come on,"

He was getting tired, Zelda had shika warriors to guard her, Link was just a sort of trophy, since he was the one who dealt the final blow to the calamity. He was just sort of there. Most people still had no idea that link was the chosen hero from all those years ago. They still thought of him as a boy playing hero, carrying the name of a man that died in battle.

Soon his voice was lost under anxiety, each time someone ignored, spoke over or got mad at him, his words he got quieter, no one really seemed to notice. Zelda did, she never remarked on it, but he caught her looking when he signed with sidon rather than speaking like the last time they were in Zora's domain together. 

One night, while staying at the South Akkala Stable, Link decided to leave. unceremoniously, quite honestly not sure why he had decided to, he got up. It was the middle of the night,Link was tired, but he continued, completely silent. 

he asked for a piece of paper and something to write with from the stable owner. making a simple note for Zelda. It may be a bit rude, especially to give to the queen of Hyrule, but Link had made his decision. Tucking a dried and pressed silent princess into the fold of the paper, Link stepped away from Zeldas sleeping form. 

"If you don't mind me asking, what might you be doing?" Dmitri, the stable owner, asked. Quiet, carefully mindful of the other residents of the stable. Link smiled, only just visible under the shadow cast by his hood, lifting his hands to sign.

"Running away,"  that pulled a snort from Dmitri, 

"From what boy, if it's your job, i think your too young to have one anyway" A playfully exasperated tone seeped into his words as he leaned forward, "Of course it must be tied to that slumbering princess over there" 

Link only gave a hum in response,

"Right," Dmitri grinned as he stood up straight. "So let the other stables know that the hooligan is back on the loose, got it." he said, chucking. Link's smile grew, he liked it when other people laughed. 

Link's eyes flicked over to the moonswept fields that he was about to find himself immersed in again. The whisper of the long grass was so close. He missed it all. Somehow even the crushing loneliness.

"Do you want to take a horse or are you leaving on foot?" Link faltered, it would be faster to ride but there was more of a chance of someone waking up and ruining his chances for today. he couldn't warp using the shrine, every time he did that Zelda could see where he went on her own slate. 

"Walk"  was safest, and the fastest way out, if he chose to ride he would have to wait for all the paperwork.....And he'd have to saddle up his horse, which could make way too much noise. Dmitri hummed in affirmation, putting away the papers he had started to get out. 

"Well safe travels boy," he leaned back against the side of the counter. "Hope to see you soon," Link smiled in return, and silently trotted out into the field. immediately lost to the untrained eye. 

This was how it was supposed to be. 

  ( I got my own issues that I plan on projecting onto wild, but this ended up being a bit more like a sloppy prologue. writing a character for the first time is hard, especially when you imagine everything in move/animation format,)

[meggannn]

i would also like to see post sidonis + backstory wip info

the backstory fic: this was an attempt to write my shepard's life pre-enlistment, explaining her relationship with the gang and the girl she took under her wing who was eventually killed in a gang war. but trust me that it was really bad and that's why i abandoned it a long time ago! lmfao

the post-sidonis thing: this is a rewrite of the conversation with garrus following the sidonis quest, where garrus is pissed that shepard prevented him from taking the shot. but the reason that’s sat on the backburner is because i eventually realized (as you and i have discussed lol) that i hate garrus’s loyalty quest and i’ve rewritten it in my head, so any attempt to write a post-sidonis fic will have to come after i’ve written my actual sidonis quest rewrite, and i just have too much going on to think about that at the moment lol.

it’s not very long, so here is the entirety of the document, from back when this was just about garrus being angry. be warned this is old and unedited, gdrive tells me that the last time i looked at this was in 2017:

Garrus storms into the battery, jams the lock, and activates the privacy shields. He narrowly avoids driving his fist into the wall, but -- after a split-second of consideration — doesn’t feel assured he wouldn’t break a bone against Cerberus’s bloody top-of-the-line warship. Instead, he slams his hands against the console, ignoring the flashing lights as the screen awakens from sleep, grips the edges, and sighs.

What the hell had she been thinking?

The thing that gets him — the thing that bloody gets him is that it had come down to the line, to the second he’d seen the pinpricks of his dark eyes, a single trigger keeping him from putting the ghosts of his team to rest --

No. Suddenly there was Shepard, too, and she was harder to budge than his own conscience.

Even in his own mind, he struggles to find the line between the commander, the friend he knows her to be, and the help -- the accomplice he nearly made of her. He knows that Shepard has always, always trusted the evidence and her gut in tandem. And the facts are that he asked her to take him at his word, without proof. The detective in him knows it isn’t for lack of trust that drove her to step into his shot, it was out of necessity: to question the suspect personally, to hear it straight from the source without bias or filter. Knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.

If he asked her why, Shepard would certainly explain. She would spin him some bullshit about taking the high road, or about revenge not being the answer. What he’s worried of, what he’s terrified of, is that she would explain, and he would let her, and that she would convince him it was for the best. He didn’t want to be convinced -- he wanted to be right on his own terms, he wanted her help with this one fucking thing --

A faint beep from the other side of the door snaps him back into the present.

“Override,” comes Shepard’s voice from the other side. A swish of the lock and a rush of air at his back.

Garrus clenches his teeth.

There’s a tense sort of silence for -- he counts -- about a minute and a half. She cracks first.

“It wasn’t because I didn’t trust you,” she says finally.

“Shepard -- ” He pushes off the console and turns around. He vaguely registers that the door is closed again behind her; good. No reason for any of the crew to hear this. “Don’t feed me any crap on revenge getting the better of me. You waited until the moment I had him in my scope to toss it all out the window to satisfy your conscience. I asked you for help. You agreed.”

Even as he says it, he knows it’s not entirely fair. She hadn’t kept her disapproval secret; it had weighed on him through the scuffles in the warehouse, like a weight around his neck, knowing this was his mission and Shepard had disapproved -- and he can’t rightfully claim he had given her room to argue her case.

“I didn’t wake up this morning planning on putting myself in between a sniper and his target,” Shepard snaps back. She scrubs a hand over her face; Garrus has the presence of mind enough to notice she looks exhausted, like she’s been wrestling with the decision herself. “It happened in the moment. I stood there. I listened. I’d heard the story from you, but I needed to hear it from him.”

“And what, exactly, did that piece of filth say to change your mind?” Garrus snarls. He feels full to bursting with some unnamed energy and stalks the length of the corridor in two quick strides.

Shepard is still staring at him, so infuriatingly calm. “You know exactly what he said. If you still think I blocked your shot out of kindness for him, then you haven’t been paying attention.”

“Right,” he spits, and he needs to nip this pseudo-moral bullshit at the root before the conversation gets sanctimonious again. “It was for my benefit. That explains why I feel so much better, you know, now that he’s still alive.”

“Don’t turn this into a joke. You know why I didn’t move. The galaxy wouldn’t have lost a decent man if you’d pulled the trigger.” She pauses for a moment, assess him, and something goes cold in his chest as he wonders if she finds what she sees lacking. “Then again, maybe it would have.”

He takes a step closer to her. He didn’t intend the move to be intimidating, but he realizes just how much he towers over her in this moment, with his neck bent down. Her eyes close, in a tense sort of irritation. “I’ve killed before, Commander,” he says, not aggressively. “We wiped out a few dozen mercenaries between the two of us just today. And you draw the line at a degenerate bastard that cost my men and half my face?”

“To tell you the truth,” she runs fingers through her hair and laughs in the sort of half-hearted way that says nothing about this is funny at all, “I’m still not entirely sure I do, Garrus.”

“Do not,” he says lowly, “tell me you’re regretting it.”

Shepard drops her hand and stares at him. He’s never seen her attention fixed on him with such hard, determined purpose. It’s the look she normally gives mercenaries they’re shaking for information, criminals they’re convincing. Something about it makes clench his jaw further, a pool of shame and anger mixing equally in his chest.

“Vakarian,” she says his name slowly. “I could stand here and give you a laundry list of reasons why you shouldn’t have committed cold-blooded murder in the middle of a public square.” Shepard stares at him, all five feet of her, and despite himself he feels like a fresh recruit again, fifteen years of age with markings fresh-painted across his face, staring up at a livid drill sergeant. “But you’re not interested in listening and I’m not interested in fighting with a wall. Come talk to me when you know who you’re really angry at.”

She turns and moves to open the door.

“I took him on my team,” Garrus growls. “I put my faith in that asshole. He let me down. He let his team down. It cost their lives.”

“You imagine you’re the only one who’s been betrayed in the galaxy?” Shepard looks at him over her shoulder but doesn’t turn around. “The only one who’s seen their entire team dead on a commanding officer’s mistake?”

Garrus has a flash of remembrance that Shepard has seen two of her crews slaughtered; once at Akuze, and again over the blistering snow and wind of Alchera. He grapples with another sinking feeling at the knowledge that she is heading a team through the Omega-4 relay against odds so impossible that most of the ground team had taken to jokingly calling it a “suicide mission.” Garrus has used the phrase himself more than once in conversation with the crew, in that half-serious tone he seems to have adopted after Omega when joking about the probability of his own demise.

Looking at the mission’s leading officer now, it suddenly doesn’t seem so amusing.

“You know it’s not the same,” he says around a dry mouth.

“No, it’s not,” she sighs and rests her forearm against the door, forehead leaning against her wrist. “…And if my CO on Akuze had survived, I can’t promise I wouldn’t’ve wanted to put a bullet in his head myself.”

“Then why, Shepard?” He’s tired of arguing. The burst of adrenaline from earlier is gone, anger fading into the kind of bone-weary exhaustion that he’s only known to follow a failed mission. He can't help but think that is exactly what this is, the disconcerting feeling that the justice hasn’t been seen to, that the responsible party got away, and it stings something else in him that he’s feeling it with Shepard for the first time.

Some tension in her body seems to evaporate. Shepard slowly looks up at him. “I don’t know, Garrus,” she says calmly. “You tell me.”

And that’s the part he can’t understand, and he hates himself for not understanding.

Shepard had stood aside, in that last second. It hadn’t been an accident. The gap between her skull and Sidonis’s had extended about a meter. Garrus is a good enough sniper that Lantar’s brains would have smeared the floor without Shepard feeling the whistle of the bullet pass by her forehead. She’d said her piece, woven her magic, and then stepped aside, and damn her for making him feel guilty in that moment for wanting what he’d needed. What closure could come from letting him go? What benefit could come from letting a murderer, a betrayer free to roam the galaxy? What good could it do his own conscience?

And yet --

He could’ve pulled the trigger anyway, and he didn’t.

He could’ve moved position. He didn’t.

“Go. Just -- tell him to get the hell out of here.”

Fuck it. Just -- fuck.

[arandompostarchive]

SALEM - Ch. 8

SAVED WORK

Summary: In all the centuries of your existence, you had never been dragged out of hiding by another god, put in a superhero team and forced to save the universe. But it seems your luck has run out.

_______________

“So he’s gone? Again? Sorry, is this a bad time to say I told you so? Cause it seems appropriate right about now.” Tony said.

Bruce had found out you were missing, and he had only talked to you about three hours ago. He had found a small note saying that if you were gone longer than two weeks he should open it. Of course, he wanted to open it then and there, but he wouldn’t be surprised if you put some sort of magic timer or something on it to make sure he didn’t open it. You probably didn’t… but you definitely would.

Either way, you were gone and one of his ships was stolen. Granted, it wasn’t any of the ones he actually cared about, but still. It was more about principle.

Everyone had gathered in the common room, sitting on different pieces of furniture, doing their best to not only figure out what happened, but how to deal with it.

“Tony, now isn’t the time.” Steve said. “But, to be fair, we did tell you so.”

Thor thought for a second, deciding what to say. He knew the two of you didn’t just vanish. “They didn’t just disappear. My brother asked if I wanted to help take out Ker, I said yes, but with the team’s help. He left pretty quickly after that. I think they’re just trying to help.”

Tony scoffed, “Okay, well this isn’t very helpful. What would have been helpful is to have the two people who know anything about Ker here with us. That would’ve been nice. And as I’ve heard Y/n point out, myths aren’t always accurate, so all we know is that she’s a weird teleporting sorta-goddess. That’s basically nothing. We don’t know where she’s from or where she’s going. Or, more importantly, what the plan is here.”

He was right of course. You could tell them everything they needed to know, but you left almost nothing behind. A small part of Tony thought that might be the point. That maybe you didn’t want anyone else hurt, it was something you would do. Find some way to prove you’re the hero.

As far as he was concerned, you had proved that a long time ago.

But Loki was with you, and Tony didn’t trust him as far as he could throw him.

You had taken all of your weapons, from guns to spears. Part of him was terrified. If you really thought you would need all of that, what were you getting yourself into? Everyone else in the common room seemed to have the same thought. Steve stood from his seat, pacing a bit.

Your letter was on a table nearby. Every so often he’d glance at it, trying to figure out what you were doing that would take two weeks.

“Do you think it’s possible Loki forced her to go? I mean, it’s not like he hasn’t done it before?” Clint asked a very unamused expression was plastered all over his face.

Tony laughed a bit, looking back at Clint. “Yeah, I really don’t think he could force Y/n to do anything, and even if he did, she’d put up a fight. Maybe she dragged him into it?”

Natasha looked up at Tony and Steve, nodding her head. “That’s possible, but Thor said Loki talked to him. I think they both left willingly. They’re the two people in this tower that we still don’t trust.”

Tony scoffed, “No, Capsicle, I think that’s just you.”

Steve glared a bit, “Well, you can’t tell me you trust Loki.”

Tony grumbled a ‘fair enough’ before looking around the room. Steve started speaking again. “What we need to do now is try to figure out where they are and what they’re doing. They’ve got a lot more info than we do. Tony, she left you a note right? It says two weeks but we should open it now. It might tell us what’s happening.

Tony shook his head, “Yeah, it’s a no-go Cap, I tried that. She did something to it, but there’s no getting that thing open.”

Tony had 13 days until he opened your note. He wasn’t sure whether he hoped he would never read it, or if he hoped 13 days would go by and he could have an explanation already. Either way, he knew something was wrong.

***

13 Days Left

Shapeshifting was the perfect ability when it came to sneaking around. Turning a completely different person hell— a completely different species— made hiding in plain sight easy.

It was too bad you didn’t have that advantage. So now, you were stuck with Loki, who was disguised as a human with short hair, granted being human was definitely out of place, but with all the species you saw, you didn’t think people would care that much.

Luckily, sneaking in wasn’t insanely hard. All you had to do was insist you were there to join the army, something that no general would turn down, extra hands. You carried your weapon on your back, a small strap made it much easier than carrying it behind you. Loki had a few daggers at his side, even though you thought there were much more useful weapons, he didn’t seem to care. So, now you were infiltrating an alien army to find a glowing blue cube. Admittedly, this isn’t how you thought you were going to spend your Tuesday.

The army’s base was dirtier than you would’ve liked, not that you were expecting it to be perfect. Dirt covered the floors and the mud people tracked around certainly wasn’t helping. Loki didn’t seem any more comfortable than you were. He held on loosely to your forearm, leading you down a hallway. There weren’t many people around, hopefully, something else was going on.

“Alright, Y/n. We need to split up. It will be easier for us to talk with more people that way. Find someone who knows something or someone—anyone who knows anything. Then meet me back here when everyone goes to sleep, whenever that is. Hopefully, someone here saw it.” You nodded. Loki left in one direction and you went to the other.

As you walked down the hall, you could hear shouting in the distance. The hallways smelled metallic, you were confused before you took a close look at the walls. You were certain the red staining the walls was blood, but there was no way in the universe you were going to test that. The blood dripped from deep scratches that littered the wall, almost certainly the result of some brawl that had broken out recently. It was clearer now that most of the ‘mud’ was likely blood, make you all the more uncomfortable. The shouts got louder and louder and you approached a room full of aggressive-looking soldiers.

One of the larger ones, who reminded you of an oversized lizard, was slamming another against the wall, cracking it behind the soldier. The room erupted in cheers, and you decided to avoid them. Not that you couldn’t take them, but they didn’t seem like the type who would keep tabs on relevant information. Lucky for you, you eventually found some sort of computer room. Just a few guards there, chatting about something or other. Loud thuds from other rooms echoed in the hall, screams bounced around, but it all fell on deaf ears. They barely acknowledged that anything, even laughing at some of the more painful sounding ones. It only made you sad, people dying— likely being torn apart— and people laughing at the thought.

Part of you was slightly okay with taking the more violent option here, but you weren’t going to do that again. So, you went the sneaky way. Seemed Loki had really rubbed off on you. Of course, there was the chance that they didn’t know anything, but hey, worth a shot, right?

You took a deep breath, gripping your necklace tightly. Shadows rose from the hall, swirling in front of you. Pure darkness, the complete absence of light and heat. If you weren’t used to it, you would’ve spent hours looking into it. They swirled into a vague outline of a person. The edges melted into the scenery behind it, and you could feel the hair of your arm stand up at the cold. It slid past you, and into the room. The conversation immediately ended. You could hear the chairs they sat on slid back across the floor, probably scraping up dirt. One of them started yelling about attacking before you just heard muffled screaming. No, you weren’t going to kill him. Of course not, but he’d be much easier to deal with unconscious. The two others started making the same noise before it all went silent. The shadow drifted back out of the room before completely evaporating, sliding back into its place on the floor.

You walked in easily, a slew of weapons were scattered on the floor, admittedly a lot more than you expected three men to have. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t shut off the computers, so accessing information was easy. Right now, you were thankful for allspeak, but the computer gibberish still didn’t make much sense. You closed the door behind you once you heard people in the hall. Guess it still wasn’t lights out, or whatever their version of that was.

From what you could make out, something that sounded like the Tesseract was recovered. “A glowing box” was all it said. Apparently, a soldier had found it and was encouraged to use it “to benefit the empire”, and honestly it was extremely unclear what that meant. After a while, you determined that was about all you were getting. But it did say that the soldier had turned a small amount of money over to authorities, so it was safe to say he sold it. Although he might’ve gone off-world, the easier option would’ve been to sell it to the bounty hunters. So I guess that’s where you need to look. Next to the soldier’s name, there was a picture of him. He looked smaller than you expected. Significantly smaller than any of the other soldiers you had seen, and a bit more human-looking too. If you were being honest, he could almost pass for human, if it weren’t for the small, pointed ears. There was a small section in his profile that said “Room Unit”, and across from it was a “13-A”, but considering you had just gotten there and barely know anything about the Empire, you thought it best to just ask around with bounty hunters, make a few empty threats, and leave with whatever info you needed.

You swung the door open quietly, making sure to close out of the soldier’s profile. The halls had emptied and the shouts had since died down. You weren’t certain what to attribute this to, but you decided to meet back up with Loki.

Lucky for you, it really wasn’t that hard to find your way back to the hallway you started in. You just made sure not to stop and stare at the fresh blood. You were thankful you didn’t go far in your search. There was a small room in the hall, it was empty and it was comparable to one of Tony’s break rooms he had in the old tower.

When you got back into the hall Loki looked like he had just arrived. He had a hand against his side, and you could see a dark stain against the fabric of his tunic.

“What the hell happened to you?”

He sighed, “If I am honest, I think it would be easier to say what didn’t happen.”

You stared at him for a second. It couldn’t have been more than two hours and he was already bleeding?

“You’ve gotta be kidding me. What did you do, start a fight?” You went to move his hand a bit, at least to examine what kind of wound you were dealing with. It was deep, there was no doubt about that. Loki could heal, but nothing miraculous, and he didn’t seem to be in a good enough state to even attempt healing. Your abilities really only gave you resilience, unless he just wanted you to cover the wound, you were pretty useless outside of skills you learned from Dr. Cho when she was willing to let you listen in.

“Actually, yes. I did start a fight and I’m sure you’ll be happy to know I won.” You rolled your eyes.

“My hero.” He put his hand back over the wound and you started speaking. “So, did you manage to find anything? Or did you spend the whole time getting stabbed?”

He laughed a bit but stopped and winced at the action. He held his hand tighter, holding his hand tighter against his side. “Yes, I ran into a soldier who sold it. It seems I underestimated him.” You were a bit surprised.

“That guy? I saw him, didn’t look like warrior material.” Loki nodded with you, pushing on the door of the nearby room you had open. He took a seat on the first chair he saw and took a moment to breathe. He was clearly in a lot of pain, and you weren’t certain how to help.

“Well, it seems he’s still in this army for a reason. Impressive magic, I will say that. If it weren’t for his friends it would’ve gone a lot smoother though.” He removed his hand from the wound, examining the state of his clothes. “Shame, I really did like this outfit.” You smiled a bit. Well, he can’t be too hurt if he’s making jokes, right?

“We should go Loki.”

He shook his head a bit, standing only to lose the door more. “He said he sold it, that’s it. I have no other information.”

That’s when you started speaking, “Loki I checked a computer file, he sold it to the bounty hunters. I mean, if he was going to sell it, why go far?” He nodded. “Now the only problem is making sure you don’t die on me.” He laughed.

“Believe me, darling, I’m not planning on it.” He stood, walking towards the door with you swiftly after him.

“We’re going to have to find your medical supplies, you know that.” You tried to keep your voice down. The screams and shouts from earlier had died down, leaving the hallway silent, save for the sound of your shoes hitting the floor. Loki headed for the door, mumbling something about having supplies on the ship. You were thankful he brought them because you definitely didn’t.

Unsurprisingly, the lack of people didn’t mean there weren’t any guards around, just that they were stationed outside now.

“Any ideas, Loki?” You said, looking at the guards in front of you. They were directly outside of the entrance you came in, chatting about something or other. Another guard walked by, nodding to them before continuing to walk towards the two of you. You pulled Loki to the side of the door, pushing your backs flush against the cold metal wall. He sighed a bit, probably in relief. “Well?” You said, looking over at him.

He took a second to think before turning into the guard that had just passed you, a rather tall man with purple-tinted skin. Loki stood up before offering you his hand and pulling you up. “Let’s see if we can get past them.” He said.

“Uh, I don’t like that lack of confidence.” You said, but he had started to walk around the door.

The second he walked out, the guards spotted the two of you immediately, although that wasn’t very surprising. They stopped talking and turned towards you two. They had the same purple tinted skin, and one was much shorter than the other. They looked a bit scruffy, to say the least. Unkempt beards and hair jutting out from all sides under their helmets.

“Mal?” The shorter one asked. “Why are you back out, didn’t someone take over for you?” The shorter one said. He looked more confused than suspicious, especially by you.

Loki nodded. “Yeah, new recruit. Doesn’t know her way around.” You smiled shyly, waving a bit. The guard nodded and turned away. You headed towards the outside of their compound, sneaking past most of the other guards and letting Loki improvise his way through the others.

Once you were out, you ran. Sure, they probably thought that was pretty damn suspicious, but it’s not like you were going back. You ran for a while, doing your best to subtly assist Loki. His hand went up to his side every once in a while, doing his best not to seem like he was hurt too badly. Eventually, you got to your ship. Loki looked like he was about to keel over, so you thought that was a good time to get some medical supplies. He sat outside the ship, hand close against his side. Gods can take hits, there’s no doubt about that. But he wasn’t healing, not even a little. He shifted back into himself while taking a deep, shaky, breath.

“What the hell did you get stabbed with?” You said, bringing over a bag of medical supplies.

Loki sighed, taking off his tunic. “I don’t know. I’ve been stabbed before, this was worse. It burned. It was like my skin was refusing to heal itself. I fear someone knew we were here.”

You nodded. It looked like a fairly normal wound, but when you looked closer you could see small burns around it, branch out from the one wound. You sighed. “I think you’ve got to heal the human way now.” Loki made some sound of disappointment, but let you continue cleaning and bandaging it. He hissed every once in a while in response to any cleaning solutions you used, but you were done quickly and he pulled his tunic back on, sitting with you on the soft grass.

“You know,” You started, “I think I’m gonna miss this grass. It’s like petting a really fluffy cat.” As much as you wanted to go home, you tried to look on the bright side. Night on a beautiful foreign planet? Not bad.

Loki smiled at you, “I’ll take your word for it.” He leaned back into the ground, looking up into the stars. You looked for a minute or two before you processed that this isn’t your sky, or your stars, or you planet. All new constellations. Part of you was thrilled at the thought, but the other part just wanted to go home even more now.

Your hand went through the grass, before you touched some sort of plant. A small thorn dug its way under your skin, and you jerked your hand away on instinct. The thorn tore a cut in your skin all the way down your finger and a few small drops of blood dripped from the cut, sliding down your arm and staining your skin. It only stung a bit, but the momentary pain took your attention away from the grass which made Loki turn to you.

“You’re bleeding?” He said, reaching for the first aid kit on your other side. The action made his side shift, and he hissed in pain when he finally grabbed it. You rolled your eyes and took it from him.

“Loki, I’m fine. You were stabbed, it’s just a cut.” He laughed a bit, he’s literally got a hole in his side and he’s worried about a thorn.

He nodded, “Yes, but you’re bleeding?”

“So are you! I’m fine, I’ll just grab a band-aid.” He looked over to the plant behind you, plucking it from its spot in the dirt. He avoided the thorns on the flower. There was no doubt it was pretty. It reminded you of a rose, but with a much darker purple than the grass. The thorns were larger too, looking more like spikes along the thick stem. He placed it down, checking to see if there were any more around you. He found two others, both smaller and not in bloom like the first one.

“They are pretty, as much as they hurt.” You said. He nodded, picking up the first one and examining it. It was beautiful, there was no doubt about that. “Loki, look at this.” You showed it to him, admiring how the moonlight seemed to bounce off the petals, making them look more iridescent. “They’re gorgeous.”

You pick up the other ones as well, make a small bundle and standing up to put them inside. “C’mon. At least I’ll be able to show Peter something cool from another planet.” You said. You walk into your ship, Loki close behind you as you found a nice place to sleep. Admittedly, you were worried. If you find the Tesseract, you might need to leave immediately. Bounty hunters usually don’t appreciate thieves. If you don’t, you’ll have to do things the hard way. The really hard way.

You found somewhere and curled up, slipping into a dark, dreamless sleep. You could swear you felt the soft ghost of a kiss on your forehead.

***

“Okay. So, where would you go to sell the Tesseract?” You asked, entering the bounty hunter’s town— if you could even call it that. It was more like a group of buildings. Poorly made and thrown together, although it was surprisingly cleaner than the soldier’s facility. There were certainly blood stains, but it seemed someone was nice enough to clean most of them off, although not all the stains were the same deep red you were used to with humans, even though yours was much darker.

Loki took the lead, poking his head into bars, something that could be found every five feet. Loki’s idea wasn’t a bad one. That soldier, whoever he may have been, sold the Tesseract recently. Apparently, one or two people had destroyed themselves grabbing it with their bare hands. Loki thought that a find like that had to be celebrated. Somewhere, in this whole town. There had to be someone excited about it.

Loki was looking around the next bar while you stayed outside. Crowds of loud, drunk, people really weren’t your thing. Until you saw a small light out of the corner of your eye. Someone with a hood over their head was holding something small, wrapped in fabrics. You could see the smallest amount of blue peeking out of the corner. The person waited a second, glancing around, so you looked away. Loki came out a second or two after, just as you had started to subtly follow the person, whoever they were.

“Everyone in there is too intoxicated to even answer me.” He said. You weren’t focused on that. You put a finger to your lips, pointing towards the person who was walking away. You followed, Loki with you. “They have it.” He said in realization, close behind you. You nodded and continued walking, doing your best to stay quiet, but not obviously follow them.

Loki’s theory was near right, since the person handed off the Tesseract to someone else who handed them a bag of something. Your new suspect immediately walked in a bar, either to celebrate like Loki guessed, or pawn it off to some drunk who would pay much more than necessary to get their hands on it.

You followed them in, Loki close behind. You straightened up, doing your best not to look out of place. No one blinked when you walked in, continuing on their drunk tirades about something or other. Your new suspect had taken off a coat, and you could clearly make out the face of a man, looking the Tesseract over.

Now, all you needed was a plan. “I’ll try to talk to him, you take it while he’s distracted. If I see a chance to grab it, then I’ll try. Then, we run.” You said, barely staying long enough to see Loki’s small nod.

You weren’t one for clever plans. Although you could come up with a well-thought-out prank, an actual battle plan was not something you were known for. Most of your best ideas could be boiled down to ‘punch it harder’, something that only worked about 70% of the time, much to Steve’s dismay.

You walked up to the man pretty easily, he had already chugged some kind of drink, and called for a second one at his table. The second you came into his peripheral, he smiled, calling over another drink.

He didn’t seem too bright, especially for someone literally holding an infinity stone, but all you had to do was play dumber than him, and he’d end up doing something stupid. Three drinks in, and he hadn’t really noticed how drunk you weren’t. A small glass of whatever it was he was chugging hardly made you tipsy. Most of the time, you were sure if this was a perk or a setback of being a god.

“Hey, you know, I just got a new item, worth a lot of cash.” This made you think for a second. Either, you’re dealing with the dumbest person in this universe, offering to show you an infinity stone because you laughed at his shitty jokes, or the smartest. Who’d pegged you for stupid and planned to get you to want this ‘new item’.

“Oh, yeah? What is it?” Honestly, part of you was just curious where he was going with this.

“Not sure honestly, wanna see?” Okay. Still the dumbest.

You nodded, watching as you took the fabric and uncovered it, the small swirling light beneath. You inwardly let out a sigh of relief when you saw it was the real thing. You faked a small gasp, seeming much more amazed than you really were, wrapped up in how pretty it was. You fiddled with the fabric as he chugged another drink. He was tipsy, that was for sure. The bartender kept refilling his glass, probably to rack up his tab more than anything. But it definitely served your purpose too. Until you noticed Loki missing, and the fact that the ‘bartender’ seemed to only be around your table. Sneaky bastard.

You took the opportunity to ask questions about the man, getting him to ramble on about his sister’s husband, or something like that, and Loki refilled his drink, taking the Tesseract and leaving behind a similar lump of fabric, something he seemed to have swiped off another patron. You laughed at some terrible joke he made and excused yourself, mumbling something about getting a drink. He smiled at you, finishing off another drink easily. Loki led you out, changing form back into himself the second you were outside.

You smiled, glancing over to Loki who spoke, “Well, that was much easier than expected. Honestly, I thought something was going to go wrong.”

You heard a crash from inside the bar. “Really. You really had to say something?” You said, rolling your eyes. You ducked into an ally nearby, watching the man stumble drunkenly out of the bar, shouting for “that pretty bitch”.

“I’m not sure if I should take that as a compliment.” You said, taking the Tesseract from Loki and unwrapping it. You gripped it in your hand, it felt odd against your hands. Cold, but hot. It was smooth, comparable to clean glass, but you didn’t have time to marvel in it. You turned to Loki, smirking.

“Ready to go to hell?” You said. He smiled in return.

“Born ready.”

In a flash of blue, you were gone, and the cool breeze of Kalan faded into hot, stagnant air all around you.

***

[mail-me-a-snail]

Stardust of a Song

Chapter 1:  Sero Maaviks tag list: @starl1ght-child​ tw: violence, swearing The first chapter of the mafia AU :3c 

On any given night in the Last City, the lounge that goes by the name Luna is packed full with patrons drinking their worries away and listening to the nightingale tone of the lounge’s singer.

No patron that dines or drinks there lives in the rich districts of the City; they all come from the back alleys, looking to make connections or strike up a deal. Any rich patron that comes comes with a posse of bodyguards and a poorly veiled aura of disgust. The lounge is nice--silver tiles, dark blue wallpaper, comfortable sofas, and mahogany shelves lined with spirits--but more often than not it’s the people that puts a damper on the ambiance. Rich folk like to mingle with their kind, because they have all the connections to more money.

Washed up gamblers with debts hanging over their heads have a reason to go to Luna, however, because it’s not just a lounge--it’s the Hive. Dredgen Yor, owner of the establishment and boss of said Hive, walks through the doors from his personal office. He surveys the room and catches the eye of several clients.

Some of these people will want someone dead; others just want a job. It’s not Yor’s place to question it. All he asks for is money, unwavering royalty, and a when and a how. No job is too bloody, no amount of cash too great. You want someone dead?

Done. Quick, clean, and best of all--entirely discreet.

Dredgen Yor is considered the golden standard of the back alleys. A gentleman who's all business and ambition, who's heart softens only for the love of his life--the lounge singer, an Exo by the name of Avidan-9. He sings something from the Golden Age, maybe even well before it, and Yor is entranced. He is enthralled, has been ever since they met. They are, as everyone knows, partners in crime.

--

The lounge is peaceful tonight. There are two, three patrons, none sitting together, drinking their worries away and shooting billowing clouds of smoke out of their parched lips. They’re waiting out the storm. The band play something appropriately soft; chimes of the piano, deep plucks of the bass, and soulful trumpet remind those lonely drinkers that they’re not so alone after all.

The owner of the lounge sits at the bar, swirling golden whiskey in his glass. He is not alone, unlike the midnight crew. The prettiest thing sits beside him, not drinking or smoking, in order to keep that nightingale voice of his in pristine condition. He has never heard an Exo sing more beautifully than this one. On the surface, he might not look like much to anyone but Yor; grey and what had once been white paint, now yellowed with age; green, almost blue optics; tall build, enough to rival even Yor’s stature; all tucked into one midnight blue suit. Always with the clean cut suits of muted colors.

“Yor, darling,” he says, laying the adoration on thick, accent emphasizing; dar-ling. He brushes Yor’s hair out of his face. “promise me you won’t get blood on the tiles tonight. You know how hard it is to get blood out of leather soles.”

It isn’t hard at all; take soap and dump it in some water, lukewarm, just right. Stir it until it’s sudsy and you take the foam with a sponge and gently wipe the leather. Easy as pie and just as clean. For his love’s sake, Yor indulges him.

“I know, dear,” Yor sympathizes, taking an amused sip, trying not to sigh as the Exo’s hands move through his hair. “I promise. Whatever business might go down--”

“--business always ‘goes down’ in this lounge--” The singer removes his hands from his hair and Yor tries not to groan. How can metal hands feel so good?

“--I will handle it,” Yor cuts him off. He cups the Exo’s cheek. “in the backroom. Will that suffice?”

He grins, takes the glass from Yor’s hand, and sips. One drop never hurt nobody. “If I say no, what would happen?” He challenges, “You’re the big, scary mob boss; what would you do to this buzzing bee of the Hive?” His hands, always moving, always gentle, tug at his tie. Black, tonight; Yor had gotten an earful about getting blood all over his green one.

“Always such a tease,” Yor tuts, his hand now holding the other’s chin, thumb stroking gently. He leans close, just close enough to smell the whiskey on his metal and hints of cologne here and there. “Honey, if I did what I wanted to you, what I have always wanted to do to you, you wouldn’t be able to sing. And we don’t want that, do we?”

The Exo visibly fidgets in his seat. He can dish it, but he can never take it. That’s what Yor has always loved about him. Even with limited expressions, he can tell he’s struggling not to overheat.

“Is that a threat?” He snorts and puts the whiskey glass down. “Besides, there’s nothing that can keep me quiet. You of all people should know that.”

“You’d be surprised.” The doors of the lounge swing open and in walks his clientele, all sharp suits, all business in black and white. Not an ounce of color. They’re just in time.

The one at the head of the posse is holding a shiny leather briefcase with gold clasps. He can smell the abundance of Glimmer from here. They’re not Guardians; no Light on any of them. Guns, maybe, tucked into their suit jackets or strapped to their legs. Their leader is Sero Maaviks, an Awoken man with light blue skin and white hair in a braid over his shoulder. He’s one of the few to come from old money, being Reefborn, however his status as a City dweller and the scorn of his fellow Reefborn has diminished that repertoire considerably.

All three patrons stir. They didn’t come in together, but they sure are leaving together; they know danger when they see it. Nevermind the hail outside. The band stands at attention.

Yor slides off his stool, as does his love. Before they separate, Yor grabs his hand, relishing the smooth metal grooves for just a moment. “You can start off gentle, if you’d like, but in ten minutes’ time,” he advises under his breath, “it’d be better if it’s big, loud, and extravagant. You know how these things go.” He raises his voice loud enough for the clientele to hear. “Remember, Avidan, you are the beauty of this Hive.”

Avidan grins, or as much as an Exo can. “Like me, it’s hard to forget.” Reluctantly, they part, and Avidan goes to the stage. He talks with the band for a moment. They nod along to his every word. Both know exactly what to do.

Avidan’s been in this business as long as Yor has--they had started this lounge together, after all, when he had first met the Exo in Spinam Gorge, those many, many years ago, when the Exo had been down on his luck. It hadn’t started out as love, but does it ever really start at the best part? It had taken a while (several proposals, in fact) until Avidan had said yes. The wedding had been private, of course. Yor takes off his ring and slips it into his pocket. Avidan keeps his on--he won’t be dealing in blood tonight.

“Gentlemen,” he addresses his clients at last, downing the whiskey in one go, and giving them the best smile he can. One of them shivers. They must be the replacement for the one who’s fingers got broken; he had had it coming, touching Avidan in a way that would’ve garnered all ten fingers broken, not just the five, had he had gone any farther. “Shall we?”

Yor gestures to the backroom. He always makes good on his promises. Avidan flashes him a wink from the stage. Yor resists grinning. The Exo steps up to the microphone and taps to test it. The piano player picks up a violin, as does everyone besides the bass player, and they begin. Their strums are gentle and sweeping, but they’re loud. They don’t call it big band music for nothing. Avidan reels the microphone stand in to waltz. He holds it close, as close as he had held Yor on their wedding night.

“And now the purple dusk of twilight time,” Avidan starts, soft, but not quiet. His mouth glows green, though not the sickly green of the Hive. A vibrant green, and it is easily the brightest thing in the lounge. The clientele stop to gape. His voice floats without a care in the world. It’s soothing--almost like a drug. It tells you everything will be just fine. “steals across the meadows of my heart. High up in the sky, the little stars climb...”

Yor feels sorry he won’t be able to hear the rest of the song as he leads the gentlemen into the backroom. It’s one of his favorites; the one they had played on that night years ago on a record they had found in the City archives dating back to long before the Golden Age. Avidan’s voice fades behind them as they go past the deserted kitchen and into his personal office.

It’s a lived in, yet professional office. One mahogany desk, leather chair behind it, and unimportant documents--bills, mostly, for the lounge--piled on top. A cart with his own personal whiskey stock sits under a painting. A bottle of that horrible swill vodka is next to it. Four pristine and polished glasses sit in a tray beside it. A couch sits across the room. Yor leans against the beautifully cut edge of the desk and crosses his arms.

“Care for a drink?” Yor gestures to the vodka. Unfortunately, it’s just the kind of drink for business. Poisonous for the liver and mouth, as all business in the backwaters is, and clinically impersonal enough with its clear white color.

“You know I don’t drink on the job,” Sero says, then adds, almost begrudgingly, “sir.”

“The only thing I know about you, Maaviks--” Yor reluctantly pours himself vodka. He doesn’t take a sip right away; a clear sign of his distaste of the drink-- “is your insufferable pride. Then again, I can’t blame you for keeping it so close. It seems to be the only thing you have to offer.”

Sero bristles and growls. He moves towards Yor, fangs bared. “If you would just accept my offer on the Vanguard job--”

It’s a shame to crumple such a nice tie but Yor grabs Sero’s tie anyway and pulls him forward, bearing his own fangs. The Awoken man gulps, aggression evaporating. “And if you would just hear sense,” Yor snaps, “you wouldn’t still be coming to me about that. I told you: I won’t do it. Tell your bodyguards to lower their guns.”

Sero waves them away and the guards holster their guns. They stand at attention. Yor releases him and the man stumbles. Sero fixes his tie, tucking it back into place and dusting off his suit.

“It isn’t as crazy as you make it out to be,” Sero argues, though with more caution, “I have the floor plans. I’ve got moles in the Praxic and the Vanguard. Nothing will go wrong.”

“Apparently, you’re a terrible gambler, too,” Yor snorts, then gestures to the couch. “Have a seat.” Sero does not and stays standing, as if he didn’t hear him. Yor rolls his eyes, rubbing his temple with his thumb--prideful and stubborn.

He goes around his desk and takes a seat. There’s no reason for him to stand when Sero is already doing plenty of it for the both of them. He sinks into the comfortable leather. He swirls his drink around in one hand while the other taps against the mahogany surface.

“I have all the winning cards. I think I’m more than inclined to play them. Don’t you want to share the winnings, Yor?” He sweetens his tongue with charisma. “I’m sure we can find something in that vault that could work for you.” Yor doesn’t appreciate the patronising tone, as if he’s a child being asked to pick out a toy. “There could be any number of items that might...interest you.”

“Maaviks. I already told you. There is nothing I want in that vault.” Guns and gadgets to sell, maybe, but there is nothing rare enough to risk so much. It would be so much easier if Sero had just been asking for an assassination, but a heist? “It’s a suicide mission. If either of us get caught, we’re done for. The Praxic vault is one thing, but the Vanguard vault? You must be more arrogant than I thought. It won’t succeed.”

They’ve been over this countless times. From the first day Sero proposed it, Yor has had no reason to say yes and he’s not seeing anything promising now. Every time he asks, Sero doesn’t have a convincing argument.

“I’m not so arrogant as to think I can do it alone.” Sero crosses his arms. “I’m putting aside my pride to ask for your help. You are the one and only Dredgen Yor...”

“The flattery won’t get you anywhere.”

“...and besides, if what’s in the vault doesn’t interest you now, it might look appealing in just a few moments; if you don’t accept my offer, that is.”

Yor puts his glass down and smiles at the nerve this little punk has. He stands, pushing his chair backwards, and laying his palms flat on the wood, leaning forward to look Sero right in the eye. His fingers go to the holster on his hip. The Thorn hums.

“Are you threatening me, boy?” He says quietly.

“Am I?”

Just as he whips the Thorn out, the band explodes with sound, rattling the walls with percussion and bass, Avidan’s voice commanding every listener’s attention.  The volume masks the gunshots; two for each of them. They fall, a dark red splatter blooming across their white shirts. It’s a good thing they wore black suits. Sero barely flinches, even as a graze on his ear bleeds and drips onto his shoulder.

“Are you threatening me,” He growls, louder now, “boy?!”

Sero pauses to look at the two corpses behind him. Puddles of blood grow under them, staining the soles of his shoes and the rug. He looks wholly uninterested. The man smirks.

“Not you,” He answers, “specifically.”

He turns, swings open the door, and runs down the hall. Yor takes a second to register these actions, then slides over the desk with a curse, hearing his glass shatter on the floor, and chases after Sero. He splashes the puddle of blood on his way out; there goes his promise to not get blood on the tiles.

The band has stopped playing when he rounds the corner. He only realizes why when he sees Sero behind Avidan, holding the Exo at gunpoint. The blood in Yor’s veins turns ice cold. He comes to a halt. Avidan stands statuesque, rigid with tension. Only the piano player remains of the band; the rest have hidden behind the bar. He sits on the stool, shaking hands poised over the keys.

“Blood on the tiles,” Avidan says, nightingale voice faintly warbling,  “I thought we talked about that.”

“No choice, darling,” Yor says through gritted teeth, then swings his glare around to Sero, who is still fucking smiling. “No choice.”

“Your answer, Yor: yes or no?” The gun clicks as it’s loaded.

“You’re fucking insane; you’re not going to walk out of this bar alive.”

“I’m not going to walk out of here alive?” Sero snorts, “That’s rich. Considering your boyfriend is at the end of my gun, you’re gonna wanna rethink that.”

“Husband,” Avidan corrects him tersely, “Didn’t you see the ring, asshole?” He wiggles his finger. The ring glints in the low light.

“It hardly matters.”

“So, this is your plan?” Yor keeps him distracted by talking as he inches closer to the stage. “Threaten me with my husband’s life to force me to work with you just to repair your goddamn reputation with the Reefborn?”

“It’s not about them,” Sero hisses, but it’s not very convincing. Yor can see right through him. He’s now inches away from the stage. “There is something in that vault I need, something that would benefit all of us, every gang, especially yours. So what’s it going to be, Yor?”

Yor remains silent. Just as he formulates a plan, Sero cuts across his thoughts.

“Yes or no? Come on, Dredgen, your boyfriend is waiting.”

He opens his mouth to speak, but Avidan interrupts him.

“For the last time,” the Exo growls, “he’s my husband.”

He swivels right around, catching both Yor and Sero off guard, and grabs the man’s wrist. They wrestle for the gun, Sero pushing back, struggling to keep his grip on the weapon. Avidan pulls his arm this way and that but the man won’t budge. Sero wrenches free. He strikes Avidan’s jaw with the gun. It knocks the Exo back and he stumbles. The microphone topples off the stage and the feedback disorients all. He nearly falls off the stage, but Sero grabs his arm, pulling Avidan towards him.

The gun slips under his chin, presses against his neck--there is no music or song to mask the gunshot now. There will never be any music or song, ever again. 

Yor climbs the stage but always, always he is too late.

In a way, this is all music. The click of the gun, the pulling of the trigger, the release, the... 

BANG!

The thud.

Then, the deafening silence.

part two coming soon :)