#he wants to see your eyes and all their pretty refractions

[naffeclipse]

Heya Naff!

You got me so curious--what kind of terrible man are you writing about 👀

I'm excited

The Worst. He's your shadow under the ice. He laid eyes on you and the universe sang that you're his. He was starving but then he found you—like a ravenous man given the most savory, juicest entrée, he's going to devour you.

[azrielhours]

Captured

Azriel x Reader

Word count: 2018

Synopsis: The camera has been invented and Azriel takes up a hobby of capturing reader, proving how pretty she can be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What is it?”

“An obscura camera, I think we called it.” You turned the device around for him to see the little hole to look through, let him hold it. “It means ‘dark room.’ Light travels in through here,” you pointed to the lens, “and an image is captured using refraction and shadows.”

Azriel frowned in disbelief, making you laugh.

“Watch,” you said, gently taking the Obscura from his hands.

“What do I have to do?”

“Nothing,” you smiled, positioning it before your face. “Smile for me.”

He gave a small, tentative smile. The distrust in his eyes had you laughing again, which made Azriel chuckle genuinely.

You clicked something. A shutter sounded, light flashed, and Azriel’s eyes widened. You pulled the obscura away as it rattled, producing a thin strip of rectangular film. Azriel’s frown returned. “It’s black.”

“It has to develop,” you plucked it away and placed it facedown. “You’ll see in a few minutes.”

“This is what you’d been working on with Nuan?” he asked, referring to the alchemist who’d been in town for a few weeks.

You nodded. “It’s an early prototype, but it mimics the way light enters the eye.” A mixture of her trinketry, your crafty impulses, and some magic. “All this work so we can finally capture your pretty face,” you teased, enjoying the pink dusting his cheeks. You turned the piece of film to him, relishing Azriel’s shock upon peering down at the photograph.

That sincere smile you’d managed to capture was how you often caught him looking at you. A sweet, receptive earnestness lighting his normally cold face. Eyes that beheld you like he missed you even when you hadn’t gone anywhere. Now etched permanently into a photograph for you to cherish.

It was your turn to blush. Playful words aside, this truly did catch his beauty.

He met your gaze. “Teach me how to use it.” You demonstrated, pointing to shoot the nearby bookshelf, but Azriel shook his head. “I want one like that,” he nodded to his headshot.

Your nose crinkled. “I don’t photograph well, Az.”

He scoffed. “Why wouldn’t you?” He positioned the obscura over his eyes like you had.

You covered your face with your hands, hiding. “I don’t like the posing.”

 “Come on,” he cooed, laughing. He reached to move your hair where it fell forward as you ducked your head, then gently held your wrists beneath your chin, broad hand easily cradling them between a thumb and two fingers. He tilted your face up with his hold. You peered at him through your fingers, rosy cheeks peeking through digits. Still holding your wrists, he took the photo effortlessly.

You uncovered your face, still blushing. He wondered how you didn’t see what a perfect subject you’d be. How you could invent the obscura and deprive him of its most obvious benefit.

Azriel studied you, and you saw the gears turn in his head. “Can I borrow it for a while?"

You laughed. “Okay, Az.”

~

It started off rather clumsy, and it took a few tries for Azriel to figure out that lighting mattered. That snapping photos with light in the immediate background ruined the film. He tested his hypothesis by capturing a bewildered Cassian, the confusion frozen making Azriel chuckle. He understood why you’d been laughing at him before. Next, he found that distance was important; that he could shift the angle of his photography. A practice shot of Feyre losing herself in a painting, so focused that she didn’t turn to wonder about the shuttering sound. Rhys landing on a balcony after training. Nesta reading ferociously by the fire.

He got the hang of it and was ready to really begin.

I don’t like the posing, you’d told him. He had no issues with that whatsoever.

The first one happened in the kitchen. The early morning hours were typically shared by the both of you on the grounds of a close friendship. You’d been sipping on coffee like it was medicinal, the light of the sun softening everything. Eyes closed, hair still slightly undone from sleep. He loved seeing you in your fancy dresses, your fighting leathers, but something about seeing you in soft, utterly personal nightwear—linen pants, knit cardigans, slippers—it spread warmth through his chest brighter than your revered sunrise. Today he'd even caught you in his t-shirt you must’ve swiped. Carefully positioning the Obscura over his face where he stood at the doorway, he snapped his photo before inconspicuously joining you, inquiring about the theft he quietly adored. Adoring your answering smile even more.

The next shot was on the rooftop. He’d caught Cassian bandaging you up after sparring. You were sat on the bench, smiling bloody and beautiful. Laughing as Cassian cracked jokes, allowing him to tend to you. He was kneeling on the ground before you, cleaning the cuts on your brow, wrapping your bruised knuckles. The sheer glee in your laugh, the way you sat so comfortably with his brother had Azriel reaching into the pocket realm for the Obscura, capturing the sight of his favourite people bantering fresh out of the ring.

One night after Rita’s, Rhys had offered to fly you home after winning a drinking game against Azriel. He’d winked at the bested Shadowsinger, taking you into his arms and shooting to the sky. Azriel grumbled at first until he’d realized the opportunity he had mid-flight with Rhys ahead. You reached to the skies above, stretching like you could grab the very moon, safe in the High Lord’s arms. He wished the Obscura had the power to capture the sound of your laughter as well, but he’d gladly settle for your silhouette marked by the Night Court stars, their beauty dimmed in the face of your exquisite joy.

The next photo was stolen after a Hewn City mission. You’d been in a billowing dark gown, face so ethereal, so striking and utterly beautiful that he’d struggled to look at you face-on. Everyone had taken to sprawling on the couches after coming home, still in formal attire, helping themselves to drinks as they winded down. You’d fallen asleep at some point, stretched comfortably across the sofa with your head nearly hanging off, hair cascading around you like a halo and down the sofa to the ground. Feyre mentioned wishing she could paint the sight of you, sleeping like some spite or nymph, some woodland creature of beauty, your dress ballooning around you like a nightshade flower. Azriel silently pulled out the Obscura, taking his time levelling the device so the light of the hearth illuminated your face.

“What is that thing you keep doing?” Cassian asked lowly.

Azriel focused, capturing the shot. Taking another one just for good measure. “Nothing.”

His favourite photo was of you and Nyx. You’d been playing with the boy on the balcony, blowing bubbles as he tried dutifully to pop them. They’d land and settle in his hair, making you laugh boisterously, head tipping back as Nyx laughed with you unwittingly. It was like the sun loved you, how it always shone upon you, doing the work for Azriel. He took the photo, falling into the easy routine. Once that photo developed, his heart skipped a beat at its sight. At the promise it captured that he wished was his.

He was a lucky bastard to have this gift—a device that finally allowed him to freeze the light that you were in his life, to etch the sights he so sincerely loved. God, you were special. Azriel had to walk away from the balcony, still staring at the little strip of film, more invaluable than precious jewel. How lucky he was to witness you. Luckier still to capture you in still frames, while you unknowingly captured his heart.

~

Azriel found you in your room, sitting at your vanity. He handed the obscura to you. “There’s no more film.”

You laughed. “Wow. How many photos did you take?”

He shrugged, smiling roguishly. “A handful.”

“Can I see?”

He handed a few.

You rifled through them, gasping at the quality. “These are amazing.” He’d captured Feyre descending the stairs in her regalia, beautiful like a divinity of legend. Nesta pouting playfully, glaring right at the camera. Mor putting earrings in before an outing. “Their mates would love these,” you murmured.

“They would,” he agreed.

You shook your head, stunned. “God, they’re beautiful.” Azriel didn’t know if you meant the photos or who he captured in them. “I wish I photographed this good.”

He would’ve laughed at the absurdity if he could resist his scoff of disbelief. “You do.”

You just shook your head, sneaking a quick glance at yourself in the mirror before eyeing the photos again.

Azriel’s heart stuttered. “You do,” he repeated. “I—” he reached into the pocket realm. “I took some of you as well.” Handing over a few photos, he watched closely as your eyes widened. You took your time studying each photo, brows pinched. He didn’t know if it was in dislike, or—

“Wow,” you breathed. You met his gaze. The fragility in them told him it was awe. “Azriel,” you breathed again, assessing the shots. “Wow. You make me look…”

You faded to silence. “What,” he gently nudged you.

“Pretty.”

He tried to speak. A breath puffed out of him. “Y/n,” he couldn’t stop the reverence in his tone. “You’re beautiful. What do you mean?” He didn’t care how it came off, how saying it warmed his cheeks.

He’d only pulled out a few of the tamer photos. The ones of you with his family or in mundane solitude. He immediately pulled out the rest, laying them before you. The pinch deepened between your brows, looking at the one of you after Hewn City. “Oh my god,” you breathed. You had no idea you could look so… “beautiful.”

“Yes,” Azriel nodded. “Beautiful.” He pointed to the one of you in the kitchen, freshly woken up. “Here as well.” Always.

You took your time studying them, unable to find it in you to care about how stupidly vulnerable this struck you. Too busy grappling with the comfort of feeling this seen. You finally met his gaze, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d have thought that look in his eyes was…

If you were well and truly self-indulgent, you may have called it how you felt inside.

Azriel wished he had just one more piece of film to capture the look on your face. The depth of fondness in your eyes, like he was worth seeing. His heart stuttered again, holding that stare like he could pour his affection directly from his eyes to yours.

“Will you be keeping these?” you asked about the photos.

Azriel chuckled. “Yes. Try taking even one away.”

Oh.

You blushed, breaking his stare. A fine line to toe with your friend indeed.

But Azriel enjoyed that conviction on your face when you saw yourself as he did. “Okay,” he let up, exhaling in mock annoyance. “You can have a few.” He took most of the photos back, making sure to leave you with a copy of the Hewn City one. “I mean, I can always take more.”

You laughed, standing to retrieve your satchel, pulling out spare film. You showed Azriel how to load it in, but before handing the Obscura back, you eyed the first photo he’d taken, with his hands holding your wrists. “I want one like that,” you said, reaching for his face.

He laughed but didn’t bat your hand away, to your pleasant surprise. Only standing firm, albeit leaving his face uncovered. You cradled his face gently by the chin in one hand, resting your fingers on his cheeks, barely pressing. He smiled warmly at you, looking right through the camera at you. You captured him.

“There,” you handed back the obscura. “Now I got you,” you held up his matching photo.

He liked the sound of that. “I have you too,” he raised his collection of your photos in his hand in reminder. “And I’ll be keeping you with me.”

~

taglist:

@iimisty-a @feyretopia @riddlesb1tch @cullenswife @reiincarnatiion @sfhsgrad-blog @answer-the-sirens @mrstangerinejohnson @marigold-morelli @courtofjurdan @azriels-mate123 @emotionless-lover @marina468 @slvtherinseeker @owllover123 @banasheefan56 @nyotamalfoy @starswholistenanddreamsanswered @lilah-asteria @bakananya @deep-forest-creature @itsswritten

[wonryllis]

★ ᵎᵎ ENHYPEN AS KDRAMA LEADS AND THEIR LOVES.

╰ 𝖺𝗅𝗍𝖾𝗋𝗇𝖺𝗍𝗂𝗏𝖾𝗅𝗒, 𝗐𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾 𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗒 𝖿𝗂𝗇𝖽 𝖺 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝗂𝗇 𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗂𝗋 𝖼𝗈𝗆𝗉𝗅𝗂𝖼𝖺𝗍𝖾𝖽 𝗌𝗍𝗈𝗋𝗒.

𝒏o𝓉ℯs. enhypen on the screen with you 𖥔 ݁ fluff, suggestive LIB? fem!reader requested word count `1715 PLS REBLOG!!!

𝐋𝐄𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐆 ❝ they tried to take what was mine, so i will show them what i have. ❞ jang uk, alchemy of souls.

the forlorn hero cursed by fate to bear the weight of being the most powerful person in the world. and for one that withstands death and destiny; you are the light that embraces his shadows of darkness when he embarks on the path to save the world.

"you look pretty," heeseung eyes glance over your dolled up figure as he enters the room. "well no one's going to notice me anyway, they're all interested in your past lover," you scowl in an adorable pout that tingles heeseung's inner desires to eat you up. "that's why sit where everyone can see you, show them who my actual bride is," his fingers reach out to hold the side of your face in a gentle caress, gaze locked with yours, the atmosphere heaving with tension. "then i'm going to wear the family ornament," he hums inching closer,"then i'm going to tell them we get get along very well," he hums again, nose brushing against yours,"then i'm going to brag that you light up the path for me at nigh-" this time heeseung's lips find yours in a tender kiss, sucking softly almost in a nibble as he pulls away in a moment,"show me off however you want, i'm all yours," because he's sure you are his light in the dark.

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐉𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐆 ❝ even if other people say it is not, if you say it is love, then it is love. ❞ lee jun ho, extraordinary attorney woo young woo.

the secure and dependable soul who is left navigating through a love that confronts the pitifully vile sides of society. and for who wishes to be the one for you; you help his muddled worries come to the ultimate realization, to love and to fight for it till the end.

"jay, can i.. touch you?" jay is dumbfounded at your words, frozen at his spot for a momentary instance," he looks at you trying to avoid to his gaze,"i want to check whether i like you in that way," you clarify and jay curses his tainted mind for going places they absolutely should not be going. "oh, i see," it takes a few seconds for it all to sink in, and as soon as he does he's approaching you in a confident stride. "can you only check by touching me?" one step forward, one step back. "i need to see if my heart races—" caging you with your back against the couch, hands on each side,"so your heart doesn't race if we're not touching?" jay whispers, grinning at your eyes looking everywhere but him. "even when you're with me, doesn't your heart race?" his own heart pounds hard in his chest, just being with you has him weak,"that's disappointing," breathing fast as he leans in. you test him against all that he has ever known.

𝐒𝐈𝐌 𝐉𝐀𝐄𝐘𝐔𝐍 ❝ does my dream have to be success? can't it be a person? ❞ nam do san, start up.

the ridiculously gifted and capable protagonist on his journey of growth, struggling between reality and dreams. and for one whom love, self worth and truth is conflicting; you provide an elysian abode of validation and acceptance of who he can be despite everything.

"a rainbow doesn't make your wish come true," jake smiles to himself, fiddling around with the pebbles at his feet,"it's just light reflecting and refracting," looking up he finds you staring at him in a sulk. "so you're not going to pray? because you don't believe in it?" your words are one of sorrow albeit you hardly sound upset and more in spirit of challenge. "there's no objective evidence," though he'll admit he'd take every chance he could to make a wish about you, even if it's superstitious. "let me show you then, evidence," you pull him by his collar into a messy, sloppy kiss, one that takes his breath away,"see, i prayed i'd kiss you and i did," his cheeks warm up at your bluntness,"you're the one who kissed me, the rainbow has nothing to do with it," "just the way liking you has nothing to do with reasons to like you, i like you because you're you, you're my reason" you make it so easy to fall in love.

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐍 ❝ even if my feelings for you make me insignificant and weak, you are my fate that i cannot defy. ❞ jung gu won, my demon.

the immortal infernal superbeing caught in a web of events that go against his very existence, piercing through the root of his beliefs. and for one whose emotions have been shut for the longest time; you open the doors of his hell, where his throne shines for you.

"is this what you're trying to get?" sunghoon's figure presses into your back as he reaches above you to bring down the book from the shelf,"my demon guide, really?" moving to the side he leans against the tall furniture, waving the heavy book in your face. your eyes fall to the exposed skin of his torso, toned chest and glistening abs, staying there a second too long,"ay ay ay, you pervert!" sunghoon immediately pulls his loose dress shirt together buttoning it up in a hurry as you look away. "why are you here anyway?" for once you have been the first to come to him. he feels something is wrong with him to be so elated over a mere thing like this,"i was just worried," you make him feel human, you make him feel vulnerable, you make him want to rewrite the stars with you. "about you," it is scary yet it feels like a kind of freedom that relieves him of a load he never knew he carried.

𝐊𝐈𝐌 𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐖𝐎𝐎 ❝ if you really want to express something you will find a way. ❞ ha yi chan, twinkling watermelon.

the ever merry fellow, overflowing with a shinning soul and a sparkling heart, choosing to see only the bright side of everything. and for whom shortfalls have been a sign of misery; you show him a new world where flaws exist to give meaning to what you have.

"here, i got you a cat," sunoo gestures to the cat snuggling in his arms, getting closer to let you pet it. "i was worried you'd be bored alone," he speaks slow, moving his fingers just the way he practiced as you take the little fluffball from him,"i made sure to pick out a kitty that looked like me," he points and when your eyes crinkling into an adorable smile, sunoo feels all his efforts of learning to communicate with you to be fruitful. "a name based on your face?" he questions when you talk about naming the cat,"do you have a name like that too?" he never thought there'd be a time when he'd sit with you in the woods like this, talking in a language of your own as you taught him how to call out to you in a way only you two would understand. there was so much beauty in silence and he only realized it now,"that's a pretty name, i will call you by that from now," the simplicity of life he forget, you remind him.

𝐘𝐀𝐍𝐆 𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐖𝐎𝐍 ❝ i'm a terrible liar and i don't have the ability to fool the one i love. ❞ kim do ha, my lovely liar.

the honest yet constantly condemned guy doing his best to fall back into the rhythm of life, having lost the last hopes of happiness. and for one who has always been doubted and criticised; you bring reason, to survive the dark into victory.

"lie to me," jungwon looks up from his bowl of soup, bewildered at what you ask of him,"what?" he mumbles slowly, trying to make sure he heard you right."just once please? try telling me i'm pretty," the insistent tone of your voice persuades docile jungwon to give in, brown eyes gazing at you in a dazed stare. one that lasts a little longer than a moment necessary,"you're pretty," and it's not a lie, you are so much more than just pretty in his eyes, it could never be a lie,"of course, i would say you're pretty," when jungwon looks at you he sees love in a new light, he sees all these positive emotions in a new light. in a light that gives him hope of escaping the hideous cage his mind has him trapped in. "because you really are pretty," he returns back to eating, trying to avoid the flush of butterflies he feels in just that one acknowledgement. it had been years since he felt them, such a normal emotion of love.

𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐌𝐔𝐑𝐀 𝐑𝐈𝐊𝐈 ❝ when you miss me, you can go to a bookstore and see me in a comic book. ❞ kang chul, w two worlds.

the tragic struck, defined by his past character thriving into a position of power and influence to uncover the truths of his comical life. and for one that battles against injustice, fictional between dimensions; you are the key to his long awaited peace.

"this one looks good on you, you should get it—" your hand slaps across riki's cheek in a snap making everyone in the room gasp in horror. to be hit like that out of the blue, riki should have been outraged, instead all he felt was confusion but not so much as to end the chapter. "what, is it?" he asks, his brows raised in question. "why am i getting slapped for buying you clothes?" stepping closer to you,"t-that, i'm sorry—"your lips crash against his for a fleeting moment before you rush off into the fitting rooms leaving everyone in shock. riki's fingers linger over the spot you kissed, feeling his heart skip multiple beats for some reason. you are pretty for sure, but you're also idiotic in way that attracts him out of pure amusement. he knows you don't belong here, and he knows it'll be reckless to try and find your world, but you make him feel there is a way out despite all obstacles and absurdities.

taglist ( open. ) @kangseulgithegreat @s00buwu @luvyev @pockyyasii @nctislifue @ashtxrie @miniature-tragedy @jayujus @brachives @thoughtsmeander2tumblingblindly @eeunoia @nxzz-skz

[thisblogisaboutabook]

Jealous Rhysand

Headcanon

Mean!Rhysand x Reader - Angst - Smut

Rhys wants you but you want Az and that won’t do.

Warnings: sexual content, unsolicited sexual images, immature Rhys using his powers irresponsibly, language, alcohol.

-Jealous, young Illyrian warrior, Rhys who can’t stand seeing you fawn over Azriel.

-He wants you so bad but you only have eyes for his brother.

-And yet, you just watch the Shadowsinger from afar. Never taking the friendship to the next level.

-Jealous Rhys who is kind of mean to you.

-They say boys are mean to girls they like but you think he truly hates you.

-Jealous Rhys who interfered when he read your thoughts, the plan you had to finally make your move on Azriel at a party in Windhaven.

-You should really work on those shields, darling. Rhys could train you in his bedroom preferably

- Violet eyes find yours across a crowd, “Hey Y/N, Azriel had to bail tonight. He was sent to spy on a rival camp.”

-Fuck, you’d dressed so pretty for him too. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the way your dress hugged your curves, refracting sparkles onto the black of your wings like a starry night sky.

-Rhys almost felt guilty for his lie when he saw the sadness that flashed in your eyes.

-“Are you cold, darling? That dress is lovely but it’s rather chilly. Here, take my jacket and we can go somewhere warmer.”

-He just wanted to spend time with you.

-“I should really go home. I had just hoped to see Azriel.”

-Rhys just wanted you to see him.

-Jealous Rhys who had too much to drink. Who knew Azriel wasn’t busy and would be at the fire.

-Azriel who was so fucking oblivious to your affections and took another female home.

-Jealous Rhys who sent you memories of Azriel fucking the female into the couch, her pretty moans, the breathy cries of his name.

-He could fuck you better than that, certainly some place better than a couch.

-You who were heartbroken by the images, that Rhys would be so cruel.

-You who dreamed of being taken by Azriel the way he’d taken that female.

-You who would never have the nerve to make your move now.

-Jealous Rhys who ruined everything.

-Sweet, sexy, Cassian who kissed away all your hurt and got a taste of just what his brothers missed out on - and left flowers on your nightstand.

————————————-

A/N: I refuse to believe that even at a young age, Rhys would have done this, but it came to mind and I wrote it anyway.

General ACOTAR tag list: @lilah-asteria

[vixensbrainrotts]

Tr headcanons (volume ||)

Content: headcanons

Warnings: none, lmk if I’m wrong

Vixen’s two cents: this is the part two I sorta promised. Do you agree with some of my headcanons? Please do tell me some of your own I would love to hear about them!! Let me know if you enjoy this, I love hearing about it!!! Now enjoy! I’ll link the part one once I figure out how to change the link

VOLUME I

Rindou who went through a long stage of denial about having to wear glasses before he finally admitted that he can’t see jackshit without them.

Mikey who genuinely stops and stares at every rainbow he sees. No matter where, no matter what situation, if the refraction hits his eye all pretty and colorful he‘s going to take a moment to appreciate it.

Kakucho who is a bitch for crystals. Diagnose him with a clear lack of Rose-quartz and push some shiny rocks in his hands and he's happy. He melts when he's presented with personalized crystal pouches and pretty rocks that he can caress in his pockets. He doesn't really buy the whole rocks as remedies thing but he likes the stones that come with it.

Izana who has a whole Ecosystem figured out for his aquarium. He takes it super seriously and makes sure that every tropic level is sufficiently cared for. The plants are non-invasive and regenerative, he has a moss-ball for natural filtration and the algae that he does allow is probiotic. He makes sure to have a predator fish to control the exessive baby-making his Guppies do, and has shrimp as decomposers. He specifically cares to make sure he has the correct school-size for each type of fish and makes sure that there is no stress between species.

also Izana who has a log book for his aquarium where he enters all the plants and fish he's gotten, how many times he's done a water change, and whenever a creature dies. It's the most controlled part of his life.

Emma who has a single Orchid flower in her room that Shinichiro gave her for her Birthday one year. She's read books on how to care for it properly and nurtures it like a mother. She cried once when it lost its blossoms, thinking it would whither and die, but later figured out that it was just the change of seasons.

Baji who unintentionally mean-mugs people when he spaces out and stares. It's real bad because his eyebrows furrow deep and his lips fall into a frown. He doesn't mean it at all, and is kind of upset that he keeps scaring people away.

Takemichi who has really bad allergies against seasonal greens. You can't catch him outside during spring without a puffy, snotty, swollen face. Its bad-bad.

Ran who sort of lived for the buzzcut he had in juvie, and thinks about just buzzing off everything again every once in a while.

Mitsuya who has both his eyebrows pierced right where the slits are. They are (by some miracle) aligned perfectly and suit him sooo well.

German/Russian Hanma who gets frustrated whenever he forgets a word, because he doesn't only forget it in one language, but all languages he speaks. Its not like he could translate it cause he knows it in another language, no! He straight up forgets the word in every language he speaks

Hakkai who wants to be good at baking so bad but created poison whenever he tries. They aren’t even salvageable by sugar coatings, fruits or sprinkles- they’re dry and crumbly and sometimes salty. It’s sort of a shame because he tries really hard.

[eoieopda]

menace (pjm) — pt. vi

Pairing: Park Jimin x Kim!Reader Type: 6/6 (Mini Series) ⇢ Previous Chapter | Masterlist Genre: Smut + Fluff Rating: M (18+) Word Count: 6k+ Summary: This Valentine’s Day looks a lot different than the last one. AUs: Older brother’s best friend, fuck buddies that hate(d) each other CW: Reader is AFAB & queer, Jimin is so soft omg, ✨vulnerability✨, so much kissing wtf who am i?, nipple play, fingering (v), unprotected sex (p in v), DID I SAY SOFTNESS? A/N: Thank youuuuuu to everyone that stuck with me and these two idiots until the very end 💕 If you get lonely now that this is over, check out the rest of my masterlist. ⚠️ 18+ only ⚠️ minors and ageless blogs will be blocked. my content is not for you. i do not want to interact with you. please respect my boundaries.

It was odd, starting over with someone you’d known longer than nearly everyone else in your life. Jimin wasn’t a stranger by any means; he’d always been present, life running parallel to yours, but you’d never truly seen him up close. 

Not accurately, anyway.

When you were younger, the pedestal you put him on kept the sun in your eyes. You’d have to squint to see his shortcomings, but you never did. Maybe that was one of yours, willful blindness. As far as you knew then — or, rather, as far as you bothered to look — Jimin had none. All he had was a bright, white light.

After that pedestal crumbled and Icarus took a swan-dive to the sub-basement of your expectations, the shadows down there warped the flaws you finally recognized. A trick of the light, they exaggerated every shitty thing you thought you saw and made them all worse. Scarier, even. Worth hating.

Once you finally allowed him to exist on equal footing, you realized that Jimin wasn’t made to be viewed in such high contrast. He wasn’t the monochromatic figure you’d mythologized, not two-dimensional. In reality, he was a prism refracting a thousand different, complicated colors that you hadn’t been giving him due credit for.

The first shade you discovered was the one that broke your brain the most.  Jimin — the only person you knew that never responded to anyone’s calls or texts — wasn’t actually as solitary as he seemed. Really, the only thing he hated more than being by himself was having to admit that fact to anyone, especially you. 

So, instead of calling to invite you along on his errand runs, he started showing up at your door to ask, “You’re not busy right now, are you?”

And just like that, without meaning to, you learned his routine. Another shade.

Every other Sunday, you’d wake up a little earlier than usual. No matter how tired or hungover you were, you would crawl out of your bed, into your well-functioning shower, and make yourself presentable. Then, when you no longer looked like a hobgoblin, you’d sit on your couch with your tea.

None of it was a conscious decision — waiting in the nearest seat to your front door, angling yourself so you could keep an eye on the driveway — at least, not at first. In fact, you didn’t even notice what you were doing until your newly-acquired therapist pointed it out.

“It sounds like you’re making space in your life for him, brick by brick.”

You laughed it off when she said it, but as weeks flew by, you finally had to concede that she was right. She was right about something else, too: you hadn’t been viewing yourself fairly, either. 

“Cellophane can be iridescent, too, if you hold it right.”

Whatever shades of your own that you uncovered, you gradually learned to let Jimin see, too. He picked up on all of your intricacies much faster than you did — because of course he did — and unlike you, he didn’t stumble upon revelations by surprise. He didn’t muddle through your less-pretty shades by trial and error, like you did. To the contrary, he had an unexpected knack for anticipating your reactions, and he planned accordingly.

Everything he did was purposeful, from his choice of words to his actions. Like exhuming his phone from his pocket — “only because it’s you” — to let you know if he was running late to plans you’d made. It was rare that he didn’t show up on time, but whenever he couldn’t, he’d call to promise that he really was on his way. And he always was, no matter how shitty the weather was, or how much he might’ve wanted an extra hour of sleep.

Jimin and all his shades showed up for you.

On Christmas, when Seokjin’s part-time girlfriend threw a dinner party without knowing what the fuck she’d signed up for. You were three-quarters through a bottle of wine before you were pulled in to take over meal preparations with Seokjin; and although Jimin was mostly useless in front of a stove, he was good at fetching whatever you’d need next without you having to point to it. He was even better at keeping your respective glasses full, which felt even more important. Washing dishes after the fact wasn’t all that bad with him there, also drunk off his face, drying them.

On New Years’ Eve, when Jimin was too sick to join the bar crawl but still set an alarm to wake up and call you — right at midnight. You stepped out onto a snow-slicked sidewalk in order to hear him, disappointing the hell out of the girl whose lips wanted to kiss you into the new year. You ignored her pout, ignored the chill in the air, and focused on the way Jimin’s raspy voice had dropped an octave. He was asleep when you swung by shortly after with a box of tissues and a bottle of decongestants, but that didn’t matter; his spare key wasn’t well hidden, either.

And again — now — on Valentine’s Day, when you both decided to blow off Seokjin’s deranged, annual Parent Trap scenario.

Sprawled out on his couch like you owned the place, you scrolled idly through Netflix’s home page with your face scrunched. The hand not holding the remote dipped down into the bag of kkokalcorn chips resting on your chest.

“You’ve got an identity crisis in your watch history, Jimin,” you yelled out to him, hoping he’d hear your teasing clearly from where he stood in his kitchen. “I’m having trouble believing that you’re not actually a middle-aged white woman.”

At this, he stopped rummaging through his refrigerator and stood straight up to glare at you. His eyes and mouth all flattened into matching, straight lines.

You rattled off your findings, nudging him further. “The Notebook, Sleepless in Seattle —”

With every title you dropped, so did one of Jimin’s heavy footfalls. He was halfway to you, scowl growing, in the blink of an eye.

“10 Things I Hate About You?” You snorted. “Little too on the nose, don’t you think?”

Standing at the other side of his coffee table, he parked his hands on his hips and scoffed. “My choices are being criticized by an entire adult with corn-chip witch fingers? Are you kidding?”

Sheepishly, you pulled your hand from the kkokalcorn bag. He was correct; you had stuck your fingertips in the openings of the funnel-shaped chips. You wiggled them at him with a coy smile that made him roll his eyes. Satisfied, your mouth claimed the chip perched on the tip of your index finger.

If you didn’t know better, you’d say that the flash in his eyes just then was fondness.

You held the bag out to him, careful not to disrupt the rest of your manicure, and smiled to yourself when he accepted your offer. He tilted the bag and dumped a few of the chips into his open palm. With a small smile, he mused, “Haven’t had these since we were kids.”

That wave of nostalgia must have caught him in a riptide because he went quiet in a way that made you pause. You were about to speak up — to say what, you weren’t sure — but you promptly shut your mouth. Index and middle fingers now extended, he held out his hand to make a peace sign. Each fingertip had a small cone sitting crooked on top.

Jimin laughed unexpectedly, which almost made his already-crinkled eyes disappear completely. “Kinda look like little wizards.”

If you didn’t know better, you’d say that the thumping in your chest just then was fondness.

After shaking your head to clear those thoughts, you realized that the little wizards weren’t holding the glass of hard cider he’d gone to his kitchen to refill. You pushed yourself to your feet with one hand and a playfully exaggerated groan, popping the remaining chips from your fingers into your mouth at once.

“Leaving already?”

He should’ve known better than to ask you a question while your mouth was full, but he didn’t. The explanation he received was therefore unintelligible. Head cocked curiously to the side, lips slightly parted, he tried to connect the dots. Just as soon as he started, he gave up and trailed after you.

Jimin didn’t stop until you did, right in front of his refrigerator. He was so close, in fact, that you accidentally hit him with the door as you pulled it open.

“Oh, shit!” You muttered, shutting the door again quickly.

Wincing, your gaze flitted over to assess the damage you’d done to the outside of his bicep with the metal corner of the door. On instinct, you reached out to run the pads of your fingers over the faint red mark blooming there. Goosebumps spread in the wake of your touch, but you didn’t feel that same phantom chill. Just something electric that sparked against your fingertips.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He said gently. “I don’t bruise like you do.”

In the moment of silence that followed, you felt compelled to lift your eyes but not your hand. Unless you were imagining things, he leaned into your touch, just slightly. Not enough to see, but enough to feel.

It’d crossed your mind a thousand times since you walked through his front door. With that throwaway statement, Jimin confirmed he’d been thinking about it, too — about who you both were on this date last year. About the way you’d only ever let him treat you roughly because anything sweeter threatened the distance you were trying to keep. About the bruises given with no chance to kiss them better.

You weren’t that person anymore, and neither was he.

“Jimin,” you started.

It was the farthest along in your sentence that your voice would let you go. 

After the million baby steps you’d taken in his direction and the healing you’d allow yourself to do, you were still scared to show your cards. Now, you’d seen him in technicolor. Now, if you fucked things up, you’d never be able to go back to black and white.

What if you fuck things up again?

Jimin sensed your hesitation, but he didn’t accept it. Instead, he closed the distance so slowly that your hand wasn’t disrupted from where it rested on his bicep. His hands found you just as easily. One made its home at the small of your back while the other cupped the side of your face. 

With a whisper lighter than air, he asked, “If I kiss you, will you let me?”

His eyes flitted from yours, to your lips, then back again.

“Or will you kamikaze dive into my kitchen table?”

Your reply was even softer than the question posed. “Only one way to find out.”

If the uptick at the corner of his lips told you anything, it was that he intended to.

Cautiously, as if sudden moves would startle you, he pulled your body flush against his. His other hand tilted your face upwards, thumb gently tucked under your chin while the rest of his fingers rested in the space just below your ear. His touch kept your body present even when the sensation of his kiss threatened to sweep your feet out from underneath you.

Plush pink and delicate, his lips molded to yours like they were specially designed to do just that. Like cracks giving way to let the light in, you opened yourself up for him. Licked into his mouth, eager to learn the parts of him you’d missed in all the time you’d shut him out.

And if you listened — really listened, over the moan he swallowed from you — you could’ve sworn you heard all the silly pages of your childhood diary flipping furiously. Scribbled to hell and back with a glitter gel pen, each one noting that this is what you wanted, this is what you wanted, this is everything you wanted.

The eternity in that kiss wasn’t long enough. Eventually, he broke the contact, pulling a disagreeing gasp from you when he pulled away. Your lips buzzed from the sudden loss of pressure — that, or they trembled without the warmth of his mouth. Either way, he was gone too soon. 

The hand you had resting against his bicep slipped down to the center of his chest to tug at the fabric of his t-shirt. Unable to nip that growing neediness in the bud, you frowned. 

“Jimin,” you sighed. You had nothing to follow-up with. His name was the totality of that thought.

Several moments of silence came next. His brow furrowed, like he was trying and failing to find something less vulnerable to say. He couldn’t. When it slipped out, his eyes searched your face for a reaction.

“I want to be soft with you.”

Any time you’d been together before, it was carnal, dripping with unarticulated hurt. He didn’t want that, not this time. You didn’t have to guess why.

Though the level of desperation you both felt now was familiar, the underscore had changed. Jimin wanted to touch you carefully because he felt fragile — so did you. If either of you moved too quickly, too roughly, you ran the risk of upending the balance you’d found. Like you, Jimin seemed to know that this was delicate.

You lifted your hand from his shirt and placed it on top of his where it sat above your jaw. Gently, your fingers wrapped around his and lowered them so you could intertwine them properly. Then, without a word and without letting go, you led him out of the kitchen into the small hallway.

This was the first time you’d crossed his house without sprinting and violently shedding your clothes as you went. It felt like you were seeing it all for the first time because, in a way, you were. 

You’d never noticed the framed photos lining the walls of the hallway, or the subtle notes of grey in the white paint behind them. In all the time you’d spent there before, it’d never clicked that this house was a home. Everywhere, there were hints of him — his interests, his achievements, the friends you’d never met — sitting so blatantly in places you’d previously ignored. 

Jimin apologized when you stepped over the threshold into his bedroom. “My plan was to clean it tomorrow.”

He smiled sheepishly as his free hand carded through the hair at the base of his neck.

“Doesn’t do you any good today, though.”

“I don’t mind,” you hummed in reply, shutting the door slowly behind him. “My plan was to do laundry today, and — well, you’ll see how that worked out for me.”

You kept your fingers interlocked with his while you surveyed his room. Like the rest of the house, you’d been in there countless times before without truly seeing any of it. Apart from the bare minimum clutter he’d needlessly apologized for, every surface was thoughtfully decorated. Even the absence of some keepsake or trinket on his shelf was purposeful. 

He keeps space.

Propped on a stand near his dresser was his guitar, which you didn’t even know he still played. Of course he does, you thought, he’d have been an idiot to throw that talent away. 

You were smiling long before you noticed you were doing it, even more so when you clocked where it sat. Just like it did in his childhood home, the guitar was positioned directly across the room from his doorway — the first and last thing he’d see when he came and left. 

Carefully, you reached out and trailed one finger over the tuning pegs. It all felt forbidden, but stupidly, you felt compelled. You spent a lifetime aching to touch him. For reasons you couldn’t explain, his guitar was no different.

Watching you caress his guitar made his pulse race harder; you could feel it where your wrist aligned with his. If nothing else had changed, you suspected that he still didn’t let anyone lay a finger on it. Jimin always insisted that he did all the maintenance himself because he didn’t trust the technician at the local music shop to be careful enough. 

To your surprise, it didn’t appear to be anxiety spinning circles in his stomach as he watched you. He spun you around, and it was clear from the look in his eye — the unshakeable desire he felt to touch you that same way.

You wondered what he was thinking while he studied your face in silence — if the months he’d spent trying to teach himself to hate it had blurred your features; and if he saw them clearly now.

The smattering of freckles across the bridge of your nose which swept over the tops of your cheekbones — even though it was winter, and you hadn’t seen much of the sun for weeks. 

The small scar interrupting your eyebrow, which you’d gotten when both of your families went camping together a million years ago. He’d sprinted across tide pools to help you back to your feet, reaching you long before Seokjin could catch up.

You didn’t know if it was a conscious decision now, but he leaned down and placed a kiss there the way you wished he had back then. 

“This isn’t still illegal, is it?” He murmured against your skin.

Unable to breathe, let alone speak, you shook your head so subtly that it couldn’t reasonably be counted as movement. Your next move was bolder, though: You unzipped your sweatshirt, shrugged your way out of it, and let it fall at your feet. 

With a quick glance down, you remembered what you were wearing and cringed with your whole body.

Neither of your socks matched; your sweatpants had a hole near the crotch; and your sweatshirt’s sole task had been to hide the ratty, old MapleStory t-shirt that you stole from Seokjin when he went off to college.

A certifiable mess in a self-imposed dry spell.

Jesus Christ.

“Laundry day,” you blurted out in explanation, though he hadn’t asked. He wasn’t laughing, either — not reacting in any way to roast you the way you expected him to. Still, the tips of your nose and ears burned with embarrassment. “I didn’t plan for… this.”

His index finger dipped under the hem of your t-shirt and his thumb mirrored the way it traced the stitching. 

“I kind of forgot that you own shit like this.” He replied softly, looking more pensive than usual. “Never see you in sweats.”

It was a fair point.

Jimin had slept next to you on three occasions — when the rules permitted — and you always woke up the same way you’d fallen asleep: completely naked. Somehow, it felt even more intimate for him to see what you wore when you went to bed without him. The silly, branded t-shirt probably said more about you than your bare chest did.

You realized that you’d never seen him in his current state before, either, with black joggers hanging low on his hips. His fluffy, air-dried hair didn’t sit smoothly the way it normally did. You wanted so badly to run your fingers through it, but there was a stronger compulsion to reckon with:

His shirt was ripped at the hem, not quite covering the lower inches of his torso.

Unthinkingly, your hand reached out so your fingers could rest against the skin there, midway down faint the trail of hair that dipped under the waistband of his pants. So much warmer than you, he shivered at your touch. You paused, self-conscious, then glanced up at him with eyebrows raised.

Is this okay?

You didn’t have to ask out loud to get an answer. It came as a whisper — “cold hands” — and it was accompanied by a smile that made your knees weak.

He nodded towards the other side of his room and said, “C’mere.” 

The hand that previously held yours found it again. Fingers slipping easily into the spaces between yours, he led and you followed. 

The crisply folded sheets contrasted completely with the effortless coziness of the rest of the space, but they didn’t stay that way for long. With his free hand, Jimin gripped the comforter and tugged it loose. It fluttered and fell freely back down over the bed.

Sighing reflexively, you slipped into the opening he’d created within the blankets. Every fiber smelled like him — clementine flower, orange blossom, water lily and orris — and now, so would you.

Jimin waited for you to scoot over before filling the space next to you, tilting his body inward to keep his eyes on you. His bent knee pressed against your outer thigh. It was chaste, especially when you considered the thousand other ways he’d touched you, but it had you vibrating in place, nonetheless. He probably felt it when he leaned in and kissed you for the third time, fingers sliding into your hair.

Tangled in him, your intrusive thought won out. Loose, it flew like a ping-pong ball around the inside of your skull: He can probably feel all that dry-shampoo, too. 

Like he was begging you to focus, the tip of his tongue flicked across your bottom lip and stole a whimper. Your lips parted eagerly against his to accommodate him; both of you starving for every bit of tenderness you’d refused to let him give before. 

As he poured more of himself into that kiss, the hand in your hair ran slowly down the length of your neck, over the slope of your shoulder, and down the curve of your torso. It stopped on the top of your thigh, warming you through to your bones. For the first time, his fingers didn’t dig harshly into the doughy flesh he found there. Now, his feather-light touch left you buzzing instead of bruised.

With every second that passed, your tingling spine struggled more and more to hold you upright. Noting the slight shift in your posture, Jimin guided you — still lip-locked — to rest your head on his pillows. It wasn’t until you tilted your head slightly to the side that his lips left yours; dipped down below your jaw to pepper the exposed skin there with unbearably soft kisses.

Each one made your pulse race harder than the last, pulled needy little breaths out of your mouth.

“Sound so pretty when you sigh like that,” he hummed against your throat. “Might have to kiss you like this forever if this is what it gets me.”

You’d been underneath him more times than you could presently recall, but never like this. Until now, you never understood how a person could say they loved you without any words at all, but you heard it. More than anything, you felt it in every brush of his lips — in the static crackling around you, charged with every little, languid line his tongue left behind.

The only thing distracting from your swelling heart was the wetness pooling in the bikini bottoms you’d hastily thrown on in the absence of clean underwear.

Fucking laundry day.

The sole consolation was the fact that the blend of polyester and elastane was better suited for a flood than any lace you would’ve consciously selected.

The breath behind his words tickled and surprised you, derailing your train of thought.

“Is it against the rules to tell you how beautiful I think you are?”

The circles he drew against the fabric of your sweatpants had you hypnotized, but you still managed to reply, “No more rules. Except — Oh, fuck.”

You mewled at the sensation of him suckling at the spot where your neck joined your shoulder. 

“Except that you can’t ever stop.”

His lips curled into a smile against the love bite he’d so carefully crafted. 

“I won’t,” he murmured before placing a kiss in the same spot he’d marked. “But I may need an intermission to get these incredibly chic clothes off your body. Kind of feels sacrilegious, though, I’ve gotta say.”

Your eyes flickered over to him, eyebrows raised. He pursed his lips to keep from smiling, forced the straightest face he could muster, then traced his fingertip over the rip in the crotch of your sweatpants. Sounding downright reverent, he explained, “They’re holey.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ.” You dropped your head back against the pillows with a groan that didn’t outgun your laughter. “Straight to jail for that. Seriously, that’s a federal crime.”

When your eyes stopped rolling and settled on him, Jimin was already looking down at you with amusement sparkling in the deep brown of his irises. He said nothing, opting instead to kiss you — for the fourth time — as a farewell before pulling away entirely. 

The spot next to you went cold as soon as he sat up, but — bravely — you didn’t complain. You watched with your bottom lip pinched between your teeth. He grabbed the end of his haphazardly, perfectly cropped t-shirt and pulled it off over his head. 

Your only instinct was to reach up to his bare chest and trace every plane of it. To your dismay, Jimin intervened. Fingers at the hem of your top now, he stared expectantly at you until you stretched your arms above your head. That stupid, stolen shirt was guided up and off before it was discarded somewhere unseen.

Jimin’s pupils dilated immediately, gaze sweeping over your bare chest like he was beyond grateful that all your bras were at home, drowning in your washing machine. Uninhibited, he leaned forward. The delicate, cuban-link chain of necklace tickled the skin of your stomach while he placed an open-mouthed kiss in the space between your breasts. Cool to the touch, you shivered for more reasons than one.

When his tongue flicked out over one erect nipple, all you could offer was a breathy sigh, brain scrambled to hell and back. He seemed to draw inspiration from this — him and his goddamn mouth promptly switched tactics. Mimicking you, he looked up at you from under his lashes and blew a warm stream of air over your other nipple.

You were full-out whimpering underneath him. “Shit.”

“Yeah?” He smirked before taking the pebbled bud into his mouth and sucking softly, eyes still locked on yours. 

Can I cum from this?

Oh god, I really might cum from this.

His mouth’s ministrations continued while his hands swept gently down the curves of your waist. That is, until they reached the elastic waistband of your sweatpants. Abruptly, Jimin stopped and sat back onto his calves.

You didn’t have to ask. Jimin’s eyes widened in tandem with the grin on his face; and you knew what he’d discovered. Smiling now with all his teeth, he tugged playfully at the knotted tie sitting above your right hip, keeping your bikini bottoms in place.

He snorted incredulously, “Be fucking for real.”

“Stop.” The word was elongated as you whined. It was useless, but you swatted at his arm. “I told you — ”

“I know, I know. It’s laundry day.” Fuck, his affection for you was written all over his face. “Incredible — truly, I have no notes.”

You buried your face in your hands to hide from him, but he didn’t let you. Just like he did that time on your couch, Jimin pulled your hands away from your face and held them in his own. This time, when he kissed you, you didn’t tear yourself away from him. Instead, you did the opposite. You grabbed the sides of his face in your hands and leaned into him.

With his hands now free, he was able to push your sweatpants down the rest of the way without extricating his lips from yours. Those fucking bikini bottoms went with them when he slipped the fabric over your ankles and tossed them blindly over his shoulder.

Mouth moving hungrily against yours, his hand hovered over your cunt, radiating warmth. You fought to keep your last shred of patience but lost, shifting underneath him to beg wordlessly for his touch. He obliged. His middle finger dipped between your sopping folds until it found the swollen bead of your clit and spiraled over it.

“Fuck,” you moaned into his mouth. He swallowed it, kissed you so deep your mind went blank.

The slow pace he’d chosen normally would have driven you mad, but instead of coming across as a taunt — or a punishment — you got the impression that he was basking in your arousal. That he was taking his time, savoring you and the million ways your body craved his.

When you pulled back, your lips were kiss-bitten and palpably swollen. He must have felt your quickened breath against his own lips. They autonomously curved into the tiniest sliver of a smile. 

Watching him watch you, it was clear that Jimin loved you like this — wide-eyed, unguarded, inviting. He loved you generally. You knew that much for certain as he gazed down at you, and you were so fucking thankful that neither of you had to keep pretending otherwise.

Whatever trance he’d fallen into ended when you whispered, “Please.”

Though your plea wasn’t much more than an exhale, he didn’t need to be told twice. Momentarily, he stood; and as he did, your own hand dipped down between your legs. He stepped out of his joggers with his focus trained on you, staring spellbound while you touched yourself in his absence. Wet enough to drip.

If you had to wager on it, you’d bet that he could’ve stood there all night observing, listening to the way you moaned as you slicked your own fingers, but the darkened tip of his cock was weeping like he wanted you badly enough to ache. Completely incapable of spending any more time as a bystander, he fell to his knees between your legs. There, he guided them further apart with his hands.

Desperately, you grabbed one of his hands from where it sat on your knee and pulled him so that he was leaning over you once again. You wanted to feel the way his breath caught as he entered you, bare chest pressing into yours while he filled you. Needed him — just him — all the time.

Forearms now pressed to the mattress and fingers in your hair, he caged you in. His forehead came to rest against yours when you reached into the space between your bodies and dragged his tip through the mess he’d made of you. That faint squelch was obscene enough in the quiet of his room. It couldn’t hold a candle to the groan that escaped his chest when he finally entered you.

“Holy shit.” He exhaled sharply through gritted teeth. Your walls enveloped him, squeezing tight enough that no question remained about where he belonged. “Fucking missed you.”

That initial, perfect ache threatened to blind you, but it wouldn’t have mattered with the way your eyes screwed shut — too overcome with want to do much more than breathe. Slowly, inch by inch, his cock stretched you until he bottomed out. It was the closest thing you’d ever had to an out-of-body experience.

“Missed you,” you mumbled.

Well beyond fuck drunk, you bordered on incoherent. A kiss on your forehead lassoed you, brought you crashing back down. It was redundant, but he murmured, “Come back to me.”

You blinked up at him in a haze.

“Want you to look at me.” 

He sounded shy, more vulnerable than you’d ever heard him, and you didn’t need any further explanation.

Eye contact had never been on the table before, deemed early on to be far too fucking intimate. If this is what he wanted, you decided, you’d never take your eyes off him again. Especially not when he looked at you the way he did then, like you hung the fucking stars in the sky.

You countered, “Kiss me.”

And he did, like he might never get the chance again.

No amount of closeness could’ve been enough, but you settled for wrapping your legs around him. With his range of motion now limited, he grinded against you; the curve of his cock rubbed against that secret spot behind your pubic bone. 

Bones? Do you still have any of those?

Every tantalizing, slow thrust made it harder for you to remember why you’d ever required harshness when his gentleness now was infinitely more intense. It was so much better — being loved by him rather than hated.

Desperate fingers left half-moon imprints on his back, which was beginning to slick with sweat. The spaces between your whimpers lessened while the pressure in your abdomen began to build. Jimin had you teetering at the edge of the world, and you told him so with your lips at his ear, “Please — I’m so close.”

His forehead creased, and you watched in real time as determination etched itself into his features. He was perfect — beautiful — and he was close, too. You clenched; he cursed, “Fuck.”

You looked up at him through fluttering lashes, silently begging him not to stop. Not now, not ever. Stay.

“You’re all I’ve ever wanted,” Jimin murmured, burying himself deeper with every thrust. “You know that, right? How much you mean to me?”

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

He watched your face as you came — when your eyes rolled back, and your head tilted against his pillows. Your legs loosened their binds around him as they shook, gasping moans tumbling out of your open mouth. His pace didn’t falter; his presence deep inside of you only elongated your orgasm.

Bliss.

You were still fluttering around his length when your eyes finally drifted open again. Not even through your first aftershocks, his panting breaths alone could’ve pushed you headfirst into a second orgasm.

His gaze had dropped at some point to see the way your cunt clung to him with every backstroke. He must’ve felt you staring, though; he looked back up at you, pupils blown wide. That was all it took to dot stars along the edges of your vision.

Back arching up off the mattress, you gushed around him once again. Mindless babbling — consisting only of his name and expletives — fell clumsily off your tongue. It caught both of you off-guard when your shaky voice managed to plead, “Wanna feel you cum — please. Want you to let go for me.”

Only after you begged him did his thrusts become desperate, reckless. There was the unmistakable sound of your wetness and skin colliding with skin, and then there was the low moan that built in the seat of his chest and broke free. Face buried in the crook of your neck as he came, the heat of his breath on your skin was rivaled only by the dizzying warmth of his release spilling into you.

He struggled to hold himself up while his spent cock still twitched inside of you. If you were being honest, you adored the way his weight pinned you against his mattress. Maybe, you thought, you could stay there forever.

Eventually, an exhausted voice came from the curve of your shoulder, almost too muffled to hear.

“How is it —” Jimin panted. “— That in the hundred times we’ve had sex, it never felt like that?”

You chewed on the inside of your cheek. Tingling fingertips ran lightly and lazily across his shoulder blades. The hint of hesitation bubbling in the pit of your stomach cautioned you not to speak your thoughts out loud, so you stared at the ceiling above you and willed yourself to be brave.

Your voice threatened to give up on its way out.

“Nobody’s ever fucked me like they love me before.”

He mustered all the energy he still had to turn his head and look at you. At first, you couldn’t tear your eyes off the ceiling to look back. Make space, you begged yourself; and so, you did.

With his chest resting heavily on yours, you wondered if he could feel the way your heart skipped a beat at that eye contact alone. The glimmer in his eye informed you that, yes, he could. 

“Better get used to it, then.” He punctuated his thought by pressing his lips to your temple. “‘Cause that’s what you signed up for.”

You smirked, “Oh? Was there a contract?”

You might’ve kept teasing him if he didn’t tilt your head to kiss you properly — and fuck, you were melting all over again.

“Sealed with a kiss, no less.” He leaned down to nip affectionately at your earlobe. Mouth at the shell of your ear, he purred. “Like any deal with the devil should be.”

“Goddamn.” You whistled. “Promoted from menace to devil already. Congratulations.”

With a roll of his eyes, he pulled out of you and forced himself upright to his feet. Before you could even ask him to, Jimin leaned down to kiss the lips you’d poked out into a pout. Your voice was uncharacteristically needy as your question slipped out.

“You are coming back, right?”

“Nope,” he hummed against your lips. You leaned away from him with your jaw dropped incredulously. “I’m taking a shower and I’m taking you with me.”

That was the only warning you got before one of Jimin’s arms slipped under the hinge of your knees, and the other disappeared behind your back. You screamed. Instead of flailing — a one-way ticket to the floor, you imagined — you threaded your arms around his neck and clung to him as if your life depended on it.

“Pardon me,” you sputtered. “But what the fuck is happening right now?”

“Shhh — pipe down. I’m keeping a promise.”

You stared at him expectantly. For a moment, he ignored you and continued quietly on his way towards the bathroom. It wasn’t until he reached the threshold that he paused with a sigh.

The look he shot you then was far more earnest than you could’ve expected under the circumstances. One that said he saw you, not through you, and he wasn’t going to look away.

Jimin said it breezily, like it cost him even less than the air it took to vocalize it: “I am not letting you down again.”

A pinprick of tears stung the corners of your eyes. You fought like hell to keep them where they belonged. It was such a stupid joke — made so lightly — and it still held more weight than anything you’d ever heard.

Eyes swimming despite your resistance, you sniffled and laughed. “Not, like, literally, though — right?”

“Aw, baby.” He kissed your temple again, cooing. Part of you hated it, but the rest of you swooned. “Don’t test me.”

likes are always appreciated, but it's feedback that means the most — whether that's in a comment below, PM, reblog, tags, etc. tysm for reading ✨

tagging: @i-purple-buff-bunni @pamzn @myimaginationsrunningwild @nonbinary-demonbrat @jihopesjoint @cyanide-mustard @xjoonchildx @bbyorchid @persphonesorchid @quarter-life-crisis2 @zelchena @withluvjm @firesighgirl @whatthefsposts @iadelicacy @chimmisbae @cowboylikeyoongi @sailoryooons @axialitae @ugh-yoongi @minholykingofkorea @kookstempo @gimmethatagustd @Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhintothevoid @mgthecat @taegeum @purplebeebs

want to be on my permanent bts taglist? sign up here.

[forlorn-crows]

Pull Me In Your Waters

aka, @iamthecomet's birthday fic! i asked her what she wanted me to write for her birthday and she said "mist/dew . . . i'd love to see them together. [i dont know how, but] you know i gotta ask for that little fucker". enjoy 🖤

Pairing: Dewdrop/Mist

Rating: E for Explicit. W for Wet

Tags: first times, outdoor sex, inexperienced (but eager) dewdrop, hand jobs, frotting, topping from the bottom, anal fingering, anal sex, dick riding, water ghouls are wet, dirty talk. dont have sex on the beach kids, you will get sand in all your holes.

intersex!Mist, w/cock, cunt, folds, dick to refer to her anatomy

Words: 4,879

Summary: He’s such an innocent, carefree creature—one that has Mist’s fingers itching to touch, to ruin, to defile. Like he’s a mere mortal waiting to be drawn in by her hellish siren’s call. But there’s a budding affection underneath that, too. Call it kin, call it an elemental draw to each other, call it even a mentor-like protection over the fledgling ghoul. Beyond the lust there’s respect, admiration. An urge to simply get to know and raise the ghoul who’s set to take her place. She can’t deny there’s some weird, mothering nature buried deep within the confines of her stoney nature. But it is deep, and right now it’s very much shrouded behind a curtain of curiosity, of hunger.

Read on AO3 or below the cut 🖤

You’re a pretty fishy, aren’t you? Mist coos at Dew. Their native Infernal feels comfortable on her tongue, if not a little rusty from disuse. But the new water ghoul provides a perfect time for her to use the language as he adjusts to topside life. 

Dew chirps from across the lake, offering her a toothy smile. He preens under her gaze and puffs up his gill fins, which are a curly and opaque milky-white. The water ghoul dives back under the surface. His equally fluffy-finned tail curves over the water, flinging droplets of water into Mist’s direction.

It’s a boyish display he does each time they swim. It’s partially why she named him Dewdrop—well, droplet for his nickname. 

In a handful of seconds he surfaces next to Mist on the sandy embankment, squirting water at her through his front teeth.

Don’t go asking for trouble, little one, she chides playfully, shaking the water off her arm.

‘Little one,’ he snorts. As if you’re so much bigger than me.

Why don’t you come here and find out, droplet, she goads. She stretches out her lithe body in the sand, bearing her naked chest to the sun high in the sky above them. 

Dew chirps again and pulls himself out of the lake. Water flies off him in a whirlwind as he shakes out his fins. Mist watches him fondly out of the corner of her eye, snickering when he hiccups as the last of the water bubbles out of his gills. 

He’s such an innocent, carefree creature—one that has Mist’s fingers itching to touch, to ruin, to defile. Like he’s a mere mortal waiting to be drawn in by her hellish siren’s call. 

But there’s a budding affection underneath that, too. Call it kin, call it an elemental draw to each other, call it even a mentor-like protection over the fledgling ghoul. Beyond the lust there’s respect, admiration. An urge to simply get to know and raise the ghoul who’s set to take her place. 

She can’t deny there’s some weird, mothering nature buried deep within the confines of her stoney nature. But it is deep, and right now it’s very much shrouded behind a curtain of curiosity, of hunger. 

He flings himself onto the towel spread out beside her with a contented sigh. Lake water still clings to his skin, accenting it with freckles of refracted light. He pushes wet hair off his forehead and leaves a streak of muck straight across it. Some remnant of something he found in a crevice somewhere, no doubt. 

He’s bare like her, preferring to connect with their element without any barrier. The weather’s good for it too, toasty and warm right down to the bone. But where she’s donned a pair of faded swim trunks with the waistband rolled over, content simply to sunbathe and share his company, he’s naked—and notably half-hard. 

Mist’s eyes linger on his crotch where his cock rests underneath his taut belly, the little head tinged a dusty lilac. A droplet of water clings to the ridge of it, dangling. Mist watches it give way when Dew shifts, rolling down, down, down . . .

Dew mrrp’s at her, questioning. The sound is yet another damned cute thing Mist can’t get enough of. She meets his blue eyes with an easy smile. 

What’s that, droplet? she asks, tipping her head towards his lower half. There’s truly no teasing to it, just a lazy question to see what kind of answer it will earn her. 

Huh? Dew glances down at himself, eyes growing round at the sight of his chubby dick. Truly oblivious to the state of it. I . . . um . . .

You know it’s nothing to be ashamed of, Mist reminds him. But it’s intriguing of you not to notice.

Guess I was . .  distracted, he says at length. He doesn’t elaborate what he was distracted by. Mist gets a feeling it’s a double entendre, that he’s hiding behind the relatively simple explanation. 

She hums noncommittally, and his cock perks up fully, springing up to lie between the v of his hips. His mouth falls open, eyebrows twitching upward as the blood rushing south starts to make him throb. 

Excited, guppy? Mist teases, licking over a sharp fang.

Dew gasps. A pearl of pre leakes out into his sparse happy trail. A little, he admits, looking back to her with big, round eyes. 

Mist tilts her head at him then, icy-white braids falling off her shoulder. He seems so small. Fragile. Innocent. 

But she hears him pulling at himself late at night through the thin walls, hears his halted moans and stifled whines into his pillow when he thinks the others are asleep. Dew is anything but pure, and he’s certainly not naive. 

How she’s wanted to slip into his room unannounced, catch him with a blush on his cheeks and a hand on his wet dick. How she’d take that hand and wrap it around herself and capture his lips in a bruising kiss that makes his eyes roll. The raw sound he’d make as she slips inside his tight body would be worth it. He’d let her do it, let her in—she knows he would.

But it’s a stunt better suited to someone like Ifrit or Aether, big ghouls with unabashed, impulsive decisions regarding their desires. Strong personalities that rival Mist’s own. Cliche would say that their statures mirror their confidence. That Dew’s small, agile body lends something to his more reserved nature. 

To Mist, he just hasn’t seemed interested in propositioning anyone. Lucifer, how she’s thought about it, though.

Could help you with that, if you’d like, she suggests, eyes darting down to watch his dick twitch in response. She meets his eyes again just as quickly, narrowing them coyly. 

With you? he asks softly. 

Mists snorts. Yes, me, you silly ghoul, she laughs, rolling her eyes. Why not? You’re already quite smitten with me, aren’t you?

Dew bites the inside of his cheek to hide a smile. Maybe. His fingers twitch against his sides, stopping short of actually reaching for her. 

You are. But luckily, I am quite fond of you, droplet. Mist rolls onto her side, shimmying her way onto the edge of the towel. They’re only a few inches apart now, separated only by humid summer air and the almost palpable sexual tension. She places her hand on his sternum, spreading her fingers. No pressure, just resting it there.

Do you want me? she asks simply. 

Dew looks down at her hand and bites his lip. He nods fervently. Yeah.

Her hand drifts down an inch or two. Have you been with anyone yet?

N . . . no, he whispers. Shakes his head a little. He looks at her with pleading eyes, and she just about jumps him right then and there. But she resists the urge. It’s not her current intentions.

Her current intentions are to get her hand wrapped around his little cock and drink down every last moan he gives her like ceremonial wine. 

Then perhaps we should change that, she says huskily. She quirks an eyebrow at him in a silent question, giving him every opportunity to say no, to back out. To—Satan forbid—save himself for someone else. 

Dew groans, cock kicking against his stomach again. Please, he agrees. Want to. With you. 

Mist smiles wide, genuine but absolutely predatory. She drags her hand down his chest, stopping just above the tiny puddle of precum already pooled on his belly. It jumps under her fingers, and another breathy sound bubbles out of Dew’s throat. 

The ghoulette closes the distance between them, pressing her lips to his jaw. Mouth just above the highest slit of the gills on his neck, so close that she can feel the fins fluff up and tickle her chin. 

Mist, he groans, head falling back to expose his throat further, Adam’s apple jumping as he swallows. 

Yes, Dew.

His hands ball up at his sides. Fingers no doubt digging into his own palms. He leans his cheek into the touch of her lips, silently asking for more. Touch me? It comes out like a question when his breath hitches at the end of it. 

With pleasure, she purrs. Mist trails her hand the rest of the way down, lithe fingers grazing over the sticky head of his cock and wrapping around the shaft. 

The combined noise they make when Mist squeezes is far too indecent to have been made out in the open. 

Oh, Dew groans, squeezing his eyes shut. His thighs jump like they might do the same, especially when Mist kisses lower down his neck, over the delicate fins of his gills. 

So hard, guppy, Mist coos. Does that feel good?

Uh huh, he whines. 

Different from your hand, I bet. How do you do it? Fast and hard? Or do you like to make yourself writhe with how slow you take it? 

Dew’s cock kicks hard in her hand at that. Fuck, he huffs. F-fast. Feels too good. 

Well then, she lilts, squeezing firmly from base to tip, milking out another blurt of precum. She smears it around with her thumb, biting back a noise as her own cock starts to fill out in her shorts. Why don’t we draw it out a little?

Mist lets him go and sits up, motioning for him to do the same. Come here, she encourages, scooting onto the towel and spreading out her legs a bit. Sit on my lap. 

Dew does as he’s told, swinging his skinny thighs over hers and huffing a moan when his balls squish against her. He grips her bare shoulders and puts all of his weight on her, whining when the head of his cock brushes against the smattering of hair on her stomach. 

Now I can see that pretty face better when I touch you, Mist says. She smooths her hands along his sides, admiring the fins that start at the top of his hips and go all the way down. 

He truly is pretty like this; stunning, really. Has been since Mist helped drag him out of the summoning pool. Perched above her, his head eclipses the sun, casting him in a bright halo of light. His silvery hair is plastered to his head, curling slightly in the middle of the strands as it dries. The skin on his narrow chest is almost translucent, dark purple and cerulean veins shining through, offsetting the bright milky-white of his fins. 

And, of course, his cock, standing hard and flushed and wet. A nice little sensitive handful. 

Mist, he whispers. Will you—hah—will you kiss me? He looks almost bashful asking. The innocence of it all makes Mist throb. 

She pulls her hands back up to cup his angular cheeks. His eyes are as big and round as the lake, flitting everywhere over her face as she pulls him closer. Mist smiles when he swallows hard.

Pucker up, pretty fishy, she mumbles, pressing their lips together. He opens up for her instantly, letting her agile tongue dip inside and lick along his teeth. Dew whines into her mouth, wrapping his arms around her neck and rutting against her lap. 

Eager, aren’t you? Mist teases. She gives him a playful nip when she pulls away, wrapping her hand around his cock once more. She starts to feel the slick spread across her folds, the tip of her dick equally as wet. Dew tosses his head back with a moan, and she tucks her face back into his neck. 

Mist strokes him loosley with the tips of her fingers, his little cock spitting pre over her chipped baby blue nail polish. Dew looks down at her hand with lidded eyes and a slack mouth. Letting soft noises fall from his lips unbidden as she touches him sweetly.

There you go, she lilts. Excited little thing, aren’t you? Just can’t help it.

Feels s’ good, he groans. Fuck, that feels really good. 

Sensitive, she breathes. Not gonna blow on me already, are you? She grinds her hips up experimentally, breath fanning over Dew’s gills in a huff. 

Dew bites back a yelp. If you do that, I might. 

Tempting, she teases, doing it again. But I’d quite like to do something else, if you’re keen.

The ghoul chirps in interest—though he seems quite keen to continue bucking up into MIst’s hand until he spills all over her knuckles and stomach. But Mist puts her hand on his back, smoothing along the ruffly fin that runs down his spine. All the way down to the small of his back, pulling him even closer. The angle makes his back curve just so, just enough to lift his ass off her thighs. 

Mist dips her hand lower, putting it squarely on his tiny ass and grabbing a handful of it. Her pointer finger creeps close to his hole. Dew nearly yelps when she presses the pad of her finger to it, the wet rim fluttering as he bucks against her. 

Ever touch yourself here? She asks, as nonchalantly as asking for the time. In private, does it make you wet to think about being filled?

Sometimes, he whispers, nodding with quick little movements of his head. Hard to . . . hard to reach, though. 

Mist hums, pressing her finger in a little. Dew clenches around her, head dropping down to her shoulder. Even with those long fingers, droplet?

Ah fuck, he groans. He rocks back and forth between the hand on his cock and the finger up his ass, so wet at both ends. Can’t—can’t get ‘em the way I want.

I’ll get mine just the way you want, if you’re up for it, Mist purrs. She matches his thrusts with rolls of her hips, getting more breathless the longer they go at it. At least let me feel you against me, she mutters against the shell of his ear. Feel your cock against mine. Get each other nice and wet.

Oh, Lucifer, Mist, Dew gasps. Please let me feel you. Want that so bad. 

Yeah? Gonna pull me out, droplet? Mist removes her hands from his body, bracing them on the ground so she can lift her hips. Go on. 

Dew does so clumsily, head still lolled onto her shoulder. Reluctant to actually move his dick—or any part of his body—away from her. He fumbles for a moment despite the simple elastic and tie. Panting against her skin and grunting under his breath. 

Mist is about to tease him when he laughs, breaking the heated moment. It’s one of the most beautiful, breathy laughs Mist thinks she’s ever heard, every time she hears it. And giggling about not being able to get her pants off is perhaps almost too endearing for her to handle. 

Dew shakes his head against her shoulder, little chest jumping with that continued laughter. Mist, gotta help me here, he smiles, totally helpless. Think my hands forgot how to fucking work. 

Mist huffs a laugh of her own, sliding her hands down next to his and easing them off her hips. There you go, droplet. 

Her cock finally bounces free and reveals how wet she’s gotten, the entirety of her groin wet with pre, folds shiny with slick. Dew settles back into her lap and groans at the sight. 

That’s better, isn’t it? Mist says, guiding him to sit nice and close. Their cocks press flush together with Dew’s balls nestling between her folds. He throbs against her, and she can’t help but groan. 

Fuck, Dew swears. He all but melts into her, silently inviting that hand to drift back around to his hole. Lucifer, you feel so good. He ruts their dicks together, the both of them completely slicked from tip to base. 

Mist hums, nosing along Dew’s jaw and placing her mouth next to his. She wraps both arms around him, settling one just at the base of his tail and the other between his cheeks. He whines, pressing an open-mouthed and sloppy kiss to the corner of her lips. 

Thought about having you for so long, guppy, she breathes. Will you make all those pretty sounds you make in your bedroom for me, too? Mist nips at his bottom lip and presses against his hole at the same time, and she swears Dew drools a little when he whines against her cheek. 

Yeah, he groans. 

Good. That’s very good. Mist rolls her hips against his, setting a lazy rhythm while she presses that first finger past his slick rim. The other hand grips the base of his tail and pulls upward, just enough to expose him to the balmy air.

Fuck, unholy shiiiit, Dew whines. It sounds just like it does in the middle of the night, albeit less muffled. Those same noises come pouring out of him the more she wriggles her finger. Rubbing against soft walls and making him clench and gasp. 

Little different than your own, isn’t it? Mist mutters. She dips her head to lick along his gills, tonguing against his soft fins. Slow, purposefully wet. When she pumps her finger in and out, just a small thrust, Dew jerks his head back with a feminine moan. 

Better, he chokes out. Different. Just—fuck, just keep doing it.

Think you can take another?

Dew’s eyes roll back into his head as he nods. Yeah. Yeah, another.

So Mist obliges, pulling the one digit out so she can snuggle a second alongside it. She presses the tip of it against his fluttering rim, teasing a stretch. What’s the magick word? 

Dew’s chest rumbles with laughter once more. He puts his back into an exaggerated arch, flicking his tail. He whimpers when her fingers push against him. Please? he breathes, half teasing, half actually desperate. 

What a good little water ghoul you are, Mist purrs, letting him have the two. He takes her so easily, sucking her in like she was meant to be there all along. Like being pet here, don’t you?

So much. Wanna—oh, Dew bites back the rest of his sentence.

Mist pulls him close, pressing her lips to his ear. What do you want?

The timbre of her voice makes him shiver. You. Want—fuck, Mist, want you inside me. 

That was the plan, droplet, she sing-songs, crooking her fingers. Press the head of my cock right here, ruin you for everyone else. 

Dew keens, and Mist can feel the thick glob of precum dribble from his slit down both of their lengths. And once it starts, it doesn’t stop, pre bubbling out like a leaky tap as Mist rubs that one spot over and over. He’s soft and slick there, pleasantly warm despite being a water ghoul. Tight, too, and if Mist thinks about it too much she might just flip him over, press his chest in the sand, and claim him for herself. 

Mist, he whines. Dunno if I’m gonna last—gonna—oh fuck, you gotta—

She shoves another finger in before he can say anything else, hissing along with him when his nails dig into her back. Just a little more, guppy. You can do it for me, can’t you?

Dew swallows. Pants slack-jawed into the shaved side of her hair. Then he nods, body tensing as he staves off his impending release. It’s tempting to let him just come apart. Let him suck her fingers in, clench around them. To groan as his balls draw up against her cunt and he paints her belly white. 

But she’s been waiting patiently to get her hands on him, and by some unholy miracle she gets to be the first one to have him. Mist wants to savor, at least for a moment, the feeling of being sheathed inside him, caressed by his quivering body until the tension takes them both over. 

Think you’re ready to try? she asks, splaying out her fingers to spread him wide. He stretches so easily, so willingly for her. 

Lucifer, please, he groans. 

A line of slick connects her fingers to his body as she pulls out, more of the wetness seeping out when the digits are removed. Mist wipes the excess on her thigh, shelving the urge to work those same fingers past Dew’s lips to make him taste himself. 

Lift your hips, droplet. She lies flat underneath him, scooting down a bit lower. There you go, spread those thighs. Mist rubs her hands up and down his hips, attempting to soothe but wanting so badly to grip him tight and sink in. His cock jumps between his legs, wagging in front of him and leaking drops of pre onto Mist’s stomach. 

Fuck, she grunts, pulling at herself a few times until she’s nice and hard. 

Dew reaches back to spread his own cheeks, blushing a little as he lowers down. He gasps when the tip of her cock kisses his hole. Digs his own nails into his skin. 

Let me in, she coos. Don’t clench. Just like that. The tip slips in, his rim gripping her nice and tight. Fuck yes, like that.

Yeah, he breathes, sinking lower. He bites his lip and fights his eyes from rolling. Unholy shit, Mist. 

He sucks her in, centimeter by aching centimeter, until his balls rest on her pubic mound and his taint sits flush to the place where her sex splits. He lets out a soft oh, sagging fully onto her with trembling thighs. Everything between them is wet—from the water still dripping from his hair to the slick coating insides of Mist’s thighs. 

Dew gives an experimental roll of his hips, keening when the head of her cock drags against the deepest parts of him. He looks down at her with blown pupils and clenches. Hard. 

Shit. Mist’s head thuds against the towel-covered sand. She grinds up against him, making him gasp again. Keep squeezing it like that. 

Dew balls his hands into fists at his sides, opening and closing again like he doesn’t know where to put them. Like he wants to touch himself but he’s visibly resisting—poorly resisting at that, considering how his left hand twitches towards his dick. 

Held out for me so well, guppy, Mist breathes, a little strained. Her cock kicks, dragging a groan from both of them. Let go for me. Let me feel you come apart.

It’s like a dam breaks inside him somewhere, that last little resolve cracking as he whisper-cries out thank you. His hand wraps around his dick, a tight vice that flies over his length and squelches with every stroke. Mist watches him fold in on himself, like he must when he’s alone, grinding his hips in tight circles. 

The ghoulette grips his knees, planting her feet so she can get a better angle to match his movements. The shift causes him to tip forward, free hand coming to grab at her side. 

Little uh uh uh’s tumble from Dew’s lips. He’s already racing towards the edge, if the upturned eyebrows, slack mouth, and splatters of precum flying from his dick are anything to go by. Mist doesn’t dare look away, no matter how little he’s actually moving on her. The visual—and the way his ass clamps over her dick every other breath—is more than enough to get her breathing ragged. 

Satanas, Mist, I—hah, oh oh fuuuck. He whines a slew of other syllables that don’t make sense, legs shaking against her hips as he tries in vain to keep some semblance of rhythm. He alternates between aborted thrusts of his hips and quick jerks of his dick. Like he can’t possibly do both simultaneously anymore. 

Fuck, you’re cute when you’re about to bust, Mist groans. Gonna give it to me? She bites her lip, tiny fangs poking out. Her hands migrate up to his hips, thumbs pressing above the jutting bones and just under the line of curly fins. Holding with an unyielding grip. 

Dew tosses his head back, the look on his face pure ecstasy. Mist watches his brow furrow even more, his eyes roll behind closed eyelids, and his neck crane to an almost unnatural angle. His tail goes rigid behind him, curling up at the end. His mouth falls open with a low groan, one that keeps going until his voice cracks, hand jerking fast over the flushed tip. 

Fuck. Gonna. He moans, high-pitched and thoroughly wrecked, balls going taught against his body.  ‘S gonna come out. Mist, I—

That’s it, cum on me, Cum on my cock, Mist growls, hips already poised to snap up against him. 

Dew whines when he cums, shooting ropes over her stomach and ribs, even reaching as far as her tits. He pulses around her cock, clenching and unclenching so rapidly her knuckles almost blanch where she’s digging her fingers into his hips. 

It’s only a few more spasms before Mist can’t take it anymore, forcing Dew to flop against her, chest to chest. He goes down without a fight, and before he can so much as huff another groan, Mist is wrapping her arms around him like a snake sizing up its prey, pistoning her hips up and into him as fast as she can manage. 

O-o-oh, Mi-i-ist, he groans, voice jumping with each thrust. 

Yeah, gonna cum in this pretty little ass, Dewdrop, she hisses. So good for me, taking me so fucking well.

His legs twitch against the towel, overwhelmed. A fantasy flashes through her mind of working him into overstimulation, tears running down those sharp cheekbones, little dick still leaking into the crease of his hip as she folds his legs up to his ears. How he’d whine and writhe. 

Just as he does now, really, panting into her neck, still fluttering around her as she fucks into him. 

Please, Dew begs, want you to cum in me. His lips graze against her own gills. The soft and delicate way in which he avoids smothering them affects her more than it ought to, and her belly curls with such an intense spike of arousal that she tumbles over the edge right then and there.

Oh, Lucifer, she moans, shoving her dick in as far as it’ll go, spilling deep inside. Legs shaking as she hovers off the ground, and no doubt leaving nail marks in her own forearms. Her cunt, too, spills in its own way. Slick seeping out, trailing down the cleft of her ass and dripping onto the towel. 

Dew makes some unintelligible gurgling noise, going completely lax against her as his body milks her for all she’s worth. It only takes a few more haphazard twitches before Mist sprawls out too, limbs heavy and starfishing out beneath him. 

Mist sighs heavily, content. The sand is warm on her arms, pleasantly so. Dew’s weight too, like a sleepy kitten—well, closer to a sopping wet, but still amicable, kitten. 

Hmm, Mist, Dew mutters sweetly. 

Mist gives him a scritch behind his horns. Yes, droplet?

That was really hot.

Mist barks a laugh. Dew giggles in return, inadvertently clenching around her and turning her laugh into a groan. 

Guppy, you’re going to have to let go of my cock if you’re going to be silly, she chides, pinching the tip of his ear. 

Dew picks his head up, wearing the poutiest look on his pretty face. The pout, though, is vastly diminished by the residual blush across most of his face, pleasure betraying his token protest—not to mention the smirk also tugging at the corner of his mouth, that signature mischief poking through. 

Cute, Mist teases. Come on, up.

Dew wriggles, Mist’s cock slipping from his body as he shimmies upward and rolls off of her. Grains of sand stick to the residual water and sweat on his skin immediately and coat the back of his body in sediment. She sits up and looks at him, flushed body and sticky cock, and just has to smirk at the state of him. 

You certainly looked like you enjoyed yourself. 

Dew closes his eyes to the sun, grinning wide and goofy. Absolutely. 

It’s quiet between them for a moment, only the lapping of the lake waves and the squawking of nearby grackles breaking the silence. Then: You wanna go again? 

Mist snorts, pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers. I’ve awoken an insatiable monster, haven’t I? 

He chirps happily, smugly, before springing off the sand with a gleeful smile. The boyish charm is back when he asks Mist: If I beat you to the other side of the lake, we get to go again. He points at the far side of the lake, just visible if they squint. 

Mist looks down at herself, covered in slick and Dew’s drying spend. She wrinkles her nose. Suppose I could go for a swim. She stands up, tossing her braids behind her shoulders, off her face. She glances at Dew, who may as well be a cat ready to pounce after the tastiest mouse it’s ever seen. 

Mist smiles, all teeth. 

Before he can even blink, she takes off, fast as anything. Dew can only scramble after her, laugh ringing across the water before he dives in after her. 

[wri0thesley]

mark of ownership - childe x reader (6.3k)

you and childe have unfinished business.

cw: not sfw. reader is afab, but no gendered pronouns are used. reader is chubby/bigger than average and expresses a very small amount of insecurity about it. both reader and childe are sadomasochist switches but reader is in charge in this particular interaction. restraints, face sitting, riding, blades and marking with blades, bloodplay. pet names including 'sweetheart'. a sequel to this work.

this was a commissioned work.

It is your duty to rail against the Fatui. That is what your organisation expects of you; that you will meet with Fatui soldiers doubting their loyalty in secret, convince them to defect and join your operations, that you will tell them all of the horrible things that the Fatui do and make them see that they are being used as pawns in somebody else’s games. You will bring up the bloodshed, the inhumanity of raising children from the Home of the Hearth to be nothing more than machines for the Tsaritsa’s use, the fact that every occupied seat on the council of the Fatui Harbingers is occupied by someone who cannot be trusted an inch--

Inevitably, that last part of your impassioned conversation brings memories flashing to the forefront of your mind.

You hope that when these Fatui soldiers hear your voice crack, they’re mistaking it as the crack of emotion of someone who is impassioned to their cause. You hope when you speak of the Harbingers, the way that you sometimes stutter over your explanation of the battle-crazed eleventh is misread as disgust and not some kind of longing. 

But late nights in safehouses with your hands between your legs, you have to admit that is not the case at all. 

You are practically haunted by the reminder of what transpired between you and Childe - although this is a haunting in only the most pleasurable way. You are constantly thinking and daydreaming of the way his breath hitched when he kissed you like he was fighting you, the strange refraction of light in his empty eyes when you’d used your mouth on him and his pretty boyish face hadn’t held back an ounce of the pleasure you were bringing to him. The way the air had crackled with electricity between you both as you’d bit and bled and played a strange game of ‘fighting or fucking’ . . .

Oh, the emotion that licks at your voice when you talk about Childe is certainly not disgust. 

You hate yourself, sometimes, for how much you want to see him again. The lingering memory of your last promise to him - that next time your paths crossed, he would be the one at your mercy - hangs in the air, waiting for you to make good on it. You daydream about it when you should be thinking about other things; imagine scratching your nails down his cheekbone, biting the soft flesh of his neck until he groaned, running a blade slowly slowly across his chest--

Giving him a little scar, to twin the faded one on your thigh that reads “A” for “Ajax”. A mark of belonging, perhaps - you think that Childe deserves to have something you carved into his skin somewhere on him, too. 

For the sake of fairness, naturally. 

Despite what you might want and fantasise about, though, you are actually rather devoted to the organisation that you work for - you want to help in their work, and you wouldn’t be much help at the mercy of a Fatui Harbinger that you might not escape from quite as unscathed the second time you met him. You also value the work you do over your own pleasure and sex drive - mostly - and so you push those thoughts to the side and you get on with things. Your own base of operations is closest to Liyue, because of all of the Fatui delegates who get sent to work in the Northland Bank . . . and recently, the tide has rather turned against them. Liyue citizens remember that the Fatui were an integral part of them almost losing their lovely city - and so, Fatui members have begun to wonder if they’re really on the right side after all. 

You still keep your head down and your alibi - a shop assistant, nothing more, of course there aren’t codebreaking tools in your pocket and a dagger, sheathed on your thigh beneath your clothes - but you don’t worry quite as much as you once did, because you don’t need to. 

Life, though, has a way of giving a person what they want in the strangest of ways. 

For you, that strange way manifests in the middle of Liyue Harbour on a hot summer’s day, as you stand and chat to Granny Shan about some new plush that she’s selling for a craftsman in one of the little valleys - a cutesy replica of Rex Lapis’s Exuvia, with paws curled beneath its chin and huge sparkling eyes. As you’re talking about it, a gloved hand reaches over to pick one up. 

“Oh!” says a familiar voice, bright and boyish, “My little brother would love this.”

You turn, and there he is. Granny Shen stiffens a little, but Childe doesn’t seem to notice at all - he’s far too busy tipping the plush this way and that way, looking at the little paws and claws and the tail with the wire inside of it so that the child can pose it in all different ways. He’s smiling down at it, and your heart bangs against your ribcage at the sight of him. Your insides clench at the sight of his leather-gloved fingers, at the long limbs. You remember how it felt to have those fingers run over you; to have them pry your mouth open so he could kiss you deeper and deeper and deeper. 

Your cheeks are hot. Childe rustles in his pocket for Mora, still clutching the Exuvia plush. You wonder if you should slip away whilst you can, but your feet are rooted to the spot you’re already in, Childe’s magnetism (and the reminder of all of your fantasies) making it impossible for you to resist. 

Whilst he is passing Mora over to Granny Shen - who you’re certain is overcharging him - he turns his head, and then . . . he finally sees you. 

It takes a minute for him to remember where he knows you from - you see it in the way his eyes flash and his mouth curls quizzically - but then, the memories come back to him too. His cheeks flush pink beneath the freckles and he smiles, wide and bright and more than a little hungry. 

“It’s you!” He says. “Hmm . . . if I remember correctly . . . this is not supposed to be the way we meet again.”

He tucks his plush under elbow, and forcibly takes your arm with the other - his fingers strong like iron as he steers you away. You let it happen, still so surprised to see him that you don’t have it in you to spit out anything clever or witty. 

“I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again,” he says, a grin still on his face, frenetic energy buzzing beneath his skin. “Let’s go find somewhere a little more private!” He leans in closer to you, ostensibly to whisper into your ear in front of the very proper citizens of Liyue. His breath is hot; his teeth nip at your earlobe as he lowly intones, anticipation dripping from every syllable; “I’ve been thinking about what you said you’d do to me next time for months.”

---

Childe brings you back to the little room that he’s currently renting in an inn; the proprietor looks at you and then hides a smile behind his hand - it’s clear to him the reason you’re there. Childe doesn’t make much of a show of hiding it either; excitement seems to come off of him in great waves as he moves, anticipation making his nerves fizz and his smile sharper and brighter than ever before. Your own stomach is jumping as though frogs have made their home there. You’re looking forward to this, too. 

The room itself is fairly plain; good quality, but plain. Childe’s Fatui salary is obviously more than adequate, but you suppose he doesn’t seem the kind of man who puts much stock in velvet curtains and silken sheets. And, too, you suppose that with the current climate with regards to the Fatui in Liyue, he prefers something a little more restrained anyway. This has all of the hallmarks of an inn that won’t ask too many questions. 

That’s better for you too. You take stock of the furnishings; the bed, a desk, a single chair. Childe’s bags, all on one side of the room, some spare clothes strewn over a dresser--

“Well, my Lord Harbinger,” you say to him, when you’ve finished your inspection. “I’ll assume you didn’t bring me here to kill me. That would be dreadfully inconvenient for the poor inn owner.” 

He laughs, that wild, free laugh that makes you feel like someone is kissing down your spine. 

“I missed your mouth,” he says to you, brightly. “You’ve got just as much of a spark as you did before, then?” His tongue darts out, wetting his lips. “That’s good. I’d hate for you to disappoint me.” 

“What about you disappointing me?” You shoot back at him. Childe grins at you, and reaches behind his back. 

You tense, expecting him to draw out a weapon. You really didn’t think he’d make a scene in his own rooms, but it appears Childe doesn’t really think about such things when the excitement of battle is on the table. Your hand is halfway to your dagger when he produces what he was reaching for - and the sight of the coiled rope in his hands makes you pause. 

“I’ve been thinking,” he says. “It really wasn’t very honourable of me to knock you out and tie you to a chair before you could defend yourself, right? Put you at a disadvantage before we even got to have any fun! Not very gentlemanly of me, and definitely not all that fair a fight because of it. So . . .”

It takes you a moment to catch up. He seems to have pulled the rope from his pocket rather than from anywhere else, and your mouth speaks before your mind.

“Do you always carry rope with you?”

His eyes glitter wickedly and strangely. 

“Of course I do,” he says, assuredly. “For fun and for . . . other reasons.”

Right. The murder and the other uncomfortable parts of being a pawn of the Tsaritsa’s militaria. You shove those thoughts to the side of your brain; if you think too much about such logic like who Childe really is, it will taint the fun experience you’re hoping to have with him. The pounding between your thighs is far louder than the voice of reason in your head (a voice that is, actually, getting quieter and quieter the longer you stand in the same room as him). 

“And you’re going to put yourself at my mercy this time?” You ask him, scarcely believing it. You’d said plenty of things about it not being a fair fight last time the two of you had met, but you’d never expected Childe to actually try and rectify the situation. The rope he’s holding is thick; it looks plenty good quality. More than suitable for tying a man to a chair. 

“Mmhmm!” He wiggles the rope at you lasciviously. “Come and get it. I’ll let you get me tied up nice and tight and at your mercy . . .” His voice drops a semitone.  “And then we’ll have another round of our little game.”

Or more than suitable for tying a man to a bed. 

It’s a good bed for such things, too. The bedposts are sturdy solid wood, protruding high enough from the frame that Childe probably wouldn’t be able to wiggle out of his bonds upwards. You step sweetly towards him and grab the rope. 

“Why don’t you lie on the bed for me, then?” You ask him. 

He does seem a touch surprised - but that surprise very quickly fades once more into hunger. He eyes the bed for only a moment - clearly mapping out the escape routes so he can turn the tables on you - before he saunters towards it and lets his body hit the coverlets with a soft whoomph. 

“So forward!” He says. “You haven’t even bought me dinner, sweetheart.” 

“Spread-eagled,” you order him - and to your immense surprise, he takes a juddering breath, and then quickly obeys. 

“I hope you know,” he says conversationally, as you walk over to the bed too and clamber atop of him. His cock is already tenting the tight pants he wears as you straddle him, nudging against your own clothed sex when you lean over to tie your knots around his first wrist. “This is the most obedient I’m going to be. Once I’m secured . . . ooh, then it’s whoever’s stronger’s game.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you say to him sweetly, and you tighten the knots around that wrist hard enough to make him groan aloud. 

His groan is partly pain, but it’s edged in anticipatory pleasure too. Your body throbs in excitement. This . . . this is exactly what you’ve needed. You’re about to have some of the most fun you’ve had in your life. 

His other wrist, and then slowly, carefully, his ankles. You want him to feel as at your mercy as you’d felt at his, when you’d come back around and found your legs and arms bound to a chair in the middle of nowhere. There’s something to be said, too, by the way his breath hitches when you tighten the knots and check them to make sure that there's absolutely no give in them. Childe watches you through every single one of your checks, eyes dark with desire. 

“Now I’ve got you all trussed up,” you say to him, with a sharp smile of your very own - he looks so very good like that, laid out beneath you at your mercy. “Are you going to try and get out of it? You’re welcome to struggle. I’m very confident in my knots.”

“They’re good knots,” Childe rasps, and with that he begins to struggle in his bonds. He’s growling as he does it, all animal - used to his raw strength, honed in battle, being enough to get him out of things like this. He didn’t reckon on you. You stay astride him, your hands neatly curled upon his chest, as he struggles and twists and turns beneath you. His hard groin keeps rubbing pleasantly against the hot space between your thighs, sending frissons of electricity up your spine. Childe’s cheeks flush wildly. “Fuck!” 

“Aww, baby,” you simper down at him, and Childe breathes in hard through gritted teeth. “Stronger than you thought they’d be?”

“J-just give me a couple of seconds,” he growls, his canines shining. You think idly about when he’d kissed you; the way he’d tugged at your mouth with his teeth, explored every crevice with his tongue like a conqueror during an invasion. You’ll kiss Childe later, you think. 

You’re very satisfied with the knots. You don’t think he’ll be getting out of them any time soon; you feel confident enough, in fact, that you allow yourself to dismount him and stand next to the bed. Childe’s eyes follow you even as he continues to attempt to thrash. 

“Hey,” he says. “Wh-where are you going? We’ve barely gotten started!”

You give him a sweet smile. 

“I’m just starting to feel a little . . .” You rub at your own wrists, sighing. “Constricted. I thought I’d get a little more comfortable.”

Your hands reach for the hem of your shirt - Childe’s throat bobs as he swallows, his eyes going wide. He doesn’t cease his movements, but you’ve captured his attention. You’ve been a little insecure, before, about the curves of your body and the places you pudge out a little more than you’d like to . . . but under Childe’s gaze, you feel transformed. Like a statue of an archon, as you slowly strip your clothing to reveal your flesh and Childe keeps staring at you like you’re the most beautiful thing that he’s ever seen and like he wants to devour you all at once. 

Every garment you’re wearing joins the pile on the floor - at the sight of your dagger, strapped to your thigh, Childe has to pause to get his bearings back. A soft whine of desire escapes his mouth, and that noise makes you feel yourself clench around the nothingness inside of you.

“Let’s make things fair, shall we?” You ask him, with a smile on your face as you unsheathe the blade. Childe takes a deep shuddering breath as you approach him - as you get back on the bed, and tip his chin up with the flat of your weapon. “Let’s get your clothes off, now.”

“Please do,” he rasps in return - and he even helpfully arches his back (as much as he can) so that you have better access to the shirt he’s wearing. The fabrics are fine - the Fatui don’t seem to skimp on this kind of thing - but Childe does not seem to care about that as you slit said fabric open and reveal his body to you. 

His pale torso is littered with scars and freckles. You take a moment to admire them before you switch to his trousers - pressing the sharp tip just a little too close to his crotch than you think he’d like. Childe, once again, surprises you - at the touch of danger, he growls, and you swear you feel his cock jump against his underwear. 

You leave the underwear on for now. There’s already a sizable bulge pressing against the placket, a wet spot where the head of his cock is leaking and drooling precome onto the material. It’s almost cute. 

You’d expected Childe to be running his mouth by now - you’d had some vague thoughts in the back of your mind about gagging him with your underwear, all wet with your own slick (and had indeed left said underwear in an easy to get to place) - but he’s surprisingly quiet, only grunting and groaning and rasping. You’re really getting to him, and the thought gives you a power rush that leaves you heady, intoxicated. 

“You’re quiet,” you coo at him, running your fingers from his scarred, muscular shoulders and down to his chest - brushing your thumbs over his nipples and watching how he shudders. “Are you all out of clever things to say, my Lord Harbinger?” 

“N-no,” Childe insists, his voice shaking. “I’m just . . . enjoying knowing I’m going to wipe that smug look off of your pretty face.” 

“Aww!” You lean over him, your lips ghosting across his cheeks and hovering above his own mouth. He’s panting - he makes an effort to pull you into a biting kiss, but the ropes you tied earlier do a fine job keeping him constrained. “That’s cute. Keep talking for me.” 

“I-- I’m going to show you . . . why I win all of my battles,” Childe says, trying to overlay bravado over the shuddering want in his voice. “Have you at my mercy--!”

“You’re trying,” you tell him, and you pinch his cheek. “But I think there’s something better you can do with your mouth. Don’t you?”

He pauses - and then, his eyes take on a gleam that makes your toes curl. It’s enthusiasm in its very purest form - a wild excitement as he rasps out;

“Oh, I’ll show you just how good I can be with my tongue.” 

In the past, you’ve been a little nervous when it comes to this particular act with partners; aware that you’re probably not the lightest load to bear. You have no such qualms with Childe, knowing how he boasts of his strength and his skills and how he has the title of ‘eleventh Harbinger’ to back it up. You feel especially soothed by just how excited he is at the very idea. 

“What a good boy,” you say to him - and you’re surprised to feel his cock twitch again, as you move yourself up his body until your thighs pillow either side of his cheeks. You reach for the headboard to keep yourself steady, and to make sure you can angle yourself off of his face a little if you need to let him breathe. You feel a bead of your own slick roll down your thigh; your heart beats wildly in your chest, your own desire making you feel dizzy with the power of it. “I’m so excited for you to prove it.” 

You lower yourself down onto his face. 

To be honest with yourself, you’re expecting Childe to be hesitant about it - after all, sitting on the face of a tied up man is not something you have much experience with, and you’re not sure that Childe has any experience with having it happen to him either - but you should have known from the way he’d kissed you way back then (all tongue and teeth and needy inexperience) that Childe does absolutely nothing by halves. The moment your sex is anywhere near his face, Childe is rearing up in his bonds, desperate to taste you as thoroughly as he tasted your mouth during his kisses. 

It takes you a moment to regain your composure, his mouth hungrily licking through your folds with the intensity of someone who has been starved for some time. You’re grateful that he can’t see the way your mouth falls open or the way your eyelids flutter, the way that your fists tense on the bed frame where you grip it tight enough for it to splinter into pieces. 

He has far more important things to focus on right now. 

Like the taste of your slick as you feel it drip down his face, wetting his cheeks. He groans into you, the vibrations sending pleasure zapping up your spine. You grind into him a little, careful not to put too much weight on his face - but from the noise that Childe makes from that, you think he wouldn’t mind if he suffocated to death right there. It’s hard not to just let wild abandon take you; grind on him as desperately as he’s using his mouth. Ride his face to your completion, with any consequences being damned. 

You don’t think you’ll even last that long, though - so instead, you move one of your hands from the headboard to take a handful of his red hair, tugging him so that his attentions focus more on your clit than on simply trying to devour you whole. You win another groaning growling noise of pure enjoyment at your rough pull - you know, of course, that he likes having someone present a challenge to him, but the noises never fail to be gratifying. 

And he even takes the direction well!

As soon as he realises why you’re tugging on him in a particular direction, he turns his attention to your clit with only a muffled noise of pleasure; swirling his tongue around the swollen bud with artless but enthusiastic efficiency. You - having had this ache in your core since the very moment you laid eyes on him, an ache that has only been intensified as he laid out his plans for the evening - do not take long. 

Pleasure swells inside of you, battering against the bars of a cage that Childe is slowly unlocking with his tongue. You feel sweat roll down your brow; your hips begin to shift against him more intently, blind in the pursuit of your orgasm to anything else. Childe’s tongue is sloppy against you; desperately working you over and over, swirling and lapping and sucking. His face must be soaked, you think, not only from your slick but from the messy way his own mouth works against your skin--

And that’s the last thought you have, because your release flashes white hot behind your sinuses and you whimper out his name - the name he’d given you last time, like he was imparting a secret.

“A-Ajax--!” And you’re coming, coming, a hot ball of fire exploding inside of you and making your toes curl and your fingers shake. Your eyes squeeze shut, a single tear escaping from the intensity of the situation. You let the waves wash over you, pleasure envelop you . . . and then, gathering your bearings back, you manage to shift off of him with shaking legs until you’re once more straddling his waist and making a wet shining mess of his abdomen. 

As you suspected, his face is all shiny with stands of your own arousal, his cheeks flushed, his eyes so bright they’re like lamps. His gaze rakes over you hungrily. And then, they land quite squarely on your thigh, and the skin where he carved his initial into you. 

“You look good with my name on you,” he rasps. 

Your own dagger is still strapped to your thigh. It’s on the outside, so Childe didn’t reach the point of it whilst your thighs were pressing either side of his face - but the reminder of what he left on you last time gives you an idea. 

You unsheathe it, twirling the blade in the light. 

“You’ll want to remember this too, right?” You ask him, giving him your sweetest smile. You dance your fingers over his toned chest; the smattering of freckles, the old scars. You give one of his nipples a tug, which wins a groan from him and a slight arch of the back - not that you are seated close enough to his cock to provide any real friction there. “I should leave a mark on you too.” 

Slowly, deliberately, you slide further down so that you are instead straddling his hips. Wiggling yourself just so, until the lips of your sex part - and the hard stiff length of him is captured between them, with too much fabric in the way for him to do anything but part his lips and pant, teased almost to his breaking point. 

“Not an initial,” you say to him. “That’s just tawdry, don’t you think?” You bring the blade down over his left breast; slice into it just enough that crimson blood wells up. You wet your lips looking at it - somehow, the sight of the cut on him and the knowledge that you’re the one responsible for it make you feel all the more powerful and all the more turned on despite your recent orgasm. Your breath catches in your throat. 

You make enough slices to make a rudimentary, jagged heart. You, unlike certain Fatui members, do not have all that much experience carving names and initials and other such things into people’s skin. Through it all - through every cut, every careful repositioning of your knife, Childe whines and whimpers and his cock jumps and pulses against your spread cunt. 

You lean back to admire your handiwork. Childe looks up at you, breathless, panting, flushed . . . and so handsome that you want to cry, a strange feeling in the pit of your stomach. 

“I want,” Childe growls out, guttural and breathless at once. “Your. Your mark. Please.”

The feeling intensifies; a troubling emotion that gnaws at your senses and spells danger. Your eyes dart to the ‘A’ carved into your thigh. 

“You’re mine,” he insists, whining. “I want to be y-yours. Tell me. Do it. Please!”

Oh, no. You shouldn’t be doing this. You shouldn’t let that look on his face tug at your heartstrings and bury itself deep in your bones. 

He would look nice, marked as yours.

Your hand moves before your brain, urged on by your heart instead - and before you know it, you’re once more carving into the skin of the Fatui member before you. Slowly, inside of the heart you’ve already made on him, you trace the lines of your own initial - going just a little deeper than before.

His eyes close in ecstasy. 

“Tell me,” he asks again, sounding like he needs it. 

You realise you’ve started unconsciously grinding against his cock as you mark him, and any thoughts you might have had about how weird and fucked up Childe’s tastes are fall to the wayside. You two are kindred spirits. You feel exactly like that too. 

“You’re mine,” you tell him - and to prove your point, you lean over him and kiss the heart-and-initial cuts on his chest, smearing his blood on your lips. 

Childe lets out a strangled groan, a whimper, and his cock jumps against where you have it trapped between your thighs with the barrier of the fabric between you - and you feel a spreading hot wetness. 

Your face goes hot all over. Your body thrums in need again, as if you haven’t been allowed to reach your peak once today already. 

You made him come in his own underwear. 

For one moment, you think about leaving him there. The humiliation of being bound to a bed, bleeding, his come spattered against his own skin. Your calling card etched into his chest. You could rifle through his luggage; look for files, take them back to your organisation and be patted on the head and told how well you’d done (as you pointedly avoided telling them exactly how you got your hands on the information). 

But oh, he’s lovely. And he’s staring up at you like he hung the moon. There’s that feeling again, stirring in the pit of your chest - a feeling you don’t want to give a real name to, but you know what it is nonetheless. Childe is clearly encountering that same emotion. 

You lift yourself off him just enough that you can take the knife - still shining with his blood - and cut down the seam by his hip and thigh, to peel off the last garment. His cock is spent, laying against his stomach, ropes of pearly come splattered over his freckled skin . . . but as you look at it, it slowly stirs back to life. Childe is a young man, after all - and a young man fuelled by adrenaline and want, and his refractory period is clearly not that long. 

You give him a hand. A few strokes, far gentler than you’ve been before; coaxing him back to hardness. It does not take all that much effort. Some gentle pets with blood stained fingers (you got his blood on your hands, somehow - Childe does not complain about the mess you’re making of him), a few strokes of your thumb over his slit, tracing of the pulsing veins of his shaft . . . and through it all, Childe is panting, staring at you, an unspoken emotion passing between the two of you. 

He’s hard again. 

You’re a little slower and a little gentler this time, as you position yourself over him; as you carefully readjust your hips until you can feel the head of him pressing against your entrance. 

“I’m going to use you like a toy,” you tell him, your voice cracking just a little. “Try and struggle free i-if you can.” 

“Be my guest,” he says, in that same excited rasp, though there’s a breathless quality that wasn’t there before. Something fragile in the air between you both. “I’ll give you exactly as good as I get.” 

You lower yourself onto him for the second time that evening, but this time you welcome him inside of you. He’s big enough to stretch you out, but familiar - how many times have you replayed that safehouse-tied-to-a-chair memory like a fantasy, remembering how he’d felt inside of you? Cherishing it as you worked yourself into a frenzy?

Reality far outshines your fantasies. You’ve found, in the past, this generally isn’t so - but oh, does Childe make good on the promises of the daydreams you’d had about his cock. Childe feels good inside of you, bigger and thicker and better than you could have imagined. You let out a hiss through gritted teeth as he bottoms out, and you take him inside of you in his entirety. 

Childe lets out a groan of your name and arches his back as much as he can, trying to encourage you with the tilt of his hips to ride him with abandon. His earlier sensitivity from coming has already been forgotten. He wants you to make good on your promise of treating him like he’s nothing more than a toy to be ridden and used. 

And, honestly? 

Who are you to deny a Fatui Harbinger what they want? 

There is no easing into a rhythm. Childe has made clear what he wants, and you are more than willing to go along with it - already, the orgasm that he’d wrung from you with his tongue feels like a distant memory that occurred months ago, not minutes. You let your hips do the talking instead. 

You let yourself pull off of him until only the very head of his cock is inside of you, and work yourself back down onto him in one swift bounce. Childe’s head is thrown back, showing you the sensitive and vulnerable parts of his throat.

“Harder,” he manages to get out. 

You quite agree. 

This time, you lean forward. You let your lips clash against his - and once more you’re kissing him, kissing him, kissing him. His blood smears on both of your mouths; and with your tongue, you work it inside of his too. It’s tongue and teeth and raw need, a kiss that carries on even as you establish the bruising rhythm of your thrusts and the slapping noises of flesh on flesh fill the air. 

The landlord of the inn will certainly not be happy with the noises the two of you are making (or the blood that will end up all over the sheets, the mess of you and Childe fulfilling your desires), but you cannot bring yourself to care about all of that. The only thing that exists for you in that shining moment is the places where you and Childe are joined. 

Your mouths. Your teeth tugging at his lower lip, his tongue learning the shape of your mouth once more. His tongue tracing your canines and incisors, his teeth getting to know your tongue. It might not seem like it would be pleasant . . . but every new movement he makes sends shockwaves ricocheting through you, makes your channel constrict and clench around his cock inside of you. 

Your hands; sliding up and down his chest, getting to know the beat of his heart and the shape of every scar. Messing in the blood that you left when you carved your ownership into his skin. Childe occasionally hisses out when your nails scratch the fresh marks, but when you go to pull away and use the pillow or mattress as leverage instead of his body, he makes a whine of disappointment. 

“It’s a good hurt,” he tells you, in between slick kisses and pants. “Hurt me more. I’ll return the favour, I promise.”

So you carry on letting your hands stroke his torso as the final joining place of the two of you - cock in sex, him inside of you, your bodies entwined as one - continues to help you both barrel towards another orgasm. It’s hard to gauge how much time passes as you ride Childe like you promised. All there is for you is him, and you, and your breaths and your blood and your hands and the bed--

Your orgasm hits you like a punch to the gut, sharper and brighter and deeper than you’ve ever come before. You practically wail against his mouth as fireworks seem to go off inside of your head, your ears ringing with the force of it - and Childe joins you in the groaning, the vocalisation of pleasure, as it turns out that the squeezing and pulsating of your cunt as you come is enough to push him off the precipice of his own release. 

Hot ropes of him inside of you; a mark in its own right. The gush of you coming, soaking his pelvis - another mark. You have an intense urge, suddenly, to be able to put yourself inside of him. To be able to fuck him in the way he can fuck you; to get his body to learn the shape of yours.

You’ve heard about Fontaine inventions that will allow you to do just that, actually - allow yourself a brief moment of imagining bending him over and fucking him, instead. 

Next time, next time, next time. 

You’re breathless as you dismount. Your legs shake, come rolling down your thighs, as you work your clothes back on. You forgo some of the more complicated garments - why does fashion require you to have so many buckles anyway? - but you manage to pull yourself into some semblance of decency nonetheless. Through it all, Childe lies there panting on the bed, not even asking you to untie him. 

Your gaze flits over him. 

Now’s your chance. 

Childe is too out of it to notice for a few moments, but as you pull a couple of documents from his luggage - official looking, a Fatui wax insignia keeping them closed, jackpot - he stirs himself enough to mumble;

“What are you-- hey!”

“Thanks,” you tell him, as you take a few of them. “These will be really helpful.”

“Untie me and give me a fair fight--!” His voice isn’t as enraged as you’d expected it to be. There’s a note of fondness in there that makes your cheeks heat up despite yourself. Oh, he looks wrecked the way you’ve left him - blood on his chest, come all over his stomach, your pleasure still all over his face. It’s the kind of image you’ll come back to, in the nights without him.

“I’m so looking forward to seeing you next time,” you tell Childe, wiggling your fingers - still wet, still messy, still stained with his blood - at him. As you leave, you also tuck the Exuvia plush he bought for his brother beneath your arm. 

. . . You’re certain there will be a next time, from the twinge in your heart and the moments that have passed between you both - but it never hurts having an extra incentive.

You blow a kiss as the door slams shut behind you, and try to ignore that you wish that the kiss was pressed to his forehead as the two of you cuddle in bed. 

[wildfire317s-oc-box]

Demon slayer R.P Starter: Yukio

*Somewhere in the darkest parts of the forest, at some point about an hour or two after sundown Yukio was hidden, crouched like a tiger amongst the thick wild grasses and a few bushes, laying in wait for his latest hunt to fall asleep and for the one human who was sitting with his back to him to be the one left on guard for his moment to strike. Yukio had been tracking this group of escaped rapists and other perverts for a week now but every time he caught up to them after sleeping until sundown something would always go wrong and they would leave their camp before he get there which usually left him with less than an hour before sunrise for him to find or make somewhere to hide. But due to being able to stay right on their heels thanks to the trees and some damn near surgically precise timing on his part he managed to injure one of them in the leg just enough to heavily impede their traveling earlier that morning, though the scent of freshly spilled blood sent him into a feeding frenzy and nearly drove him to jumping into sunlight for just a taste. There were nine of them excluding a hostage they had taken at some-point when he had passed out for a bit (whom he was planning on letting go), just barely enough to make this hunt worth it and he knew for a fact that all but the one he was waiting on taking guard; snored once they were soundly asleep and what order they went in. He wouldn't have to wait to very long now especially since they had been drinking quite a bit... His tail quietly swished back and forth, As he waited to pounce he could feel himself starting to uncontrollably drool with hunger and could feel himself getting desperate and growing more impatient by the second..."maaan im starving... i wanna eat already...mmm they smell delicious and look so easy to scare heheh im gonna enjoy devouring them" he thought to himself with a hungry grin. He gnawed on one of his hands to prevent his hyena-like giggles from sneaking past his lips, but couldn't do much to stop his stomach from growling loudly or prevent his secondary mouth from gnashing its shark-like teeth with vicious hunger. He would make short work of them, with how hungry he was he knew there would be nothing more than their torn, slobber drenched clothing left once he was through with them and he would certainly have to go track down more prey to feel full, maybe even go on another raid.*

This is where you find him:

Humans (and others that don't eat humans): *as you are walking along a path, you happen to notice a group of rather drunk looking men camping around a small fire in a small clearing deeper into the trees and behind one of the sleeping men you think that for a moment you see what look like the large, light refracting eyes of some kind of predator looking at them. It could be a demon, it could be an animal but either way whatever it is looks hungry and you may want to warn them before it decides to make them it's next meal*

Humans (and others that dont eat human's) 2: *you had been taken hostage while the demon hiding behind one of your captors was napping earlier that day. You noticed him following the group not long after you had gotten taken, but had yet to say anything about him. You wondered if he knew you were a hostage or if he even cared. They were planning to do bad things to you before they left to keep moving and left you for dead in the middle of the woods for scavengers and it wasn't like you could escape since they hog-tied you. You were surprised the one on guard didn't hear him with how loud his growling stomach and gnashing fangs were, but they were all pretty drunk...and they were probably louder to you as you seemed to be the only one aware of them.*

Demons (and others that do eat humans): *as you are going about your nightly business you happen to find a group of human men camping around a fire in the forest. They were drunk enough that you could faintly smell the alcohol coming off of them. And from the looks of it you aren't the only one who may be eyeing these humans for a decently sized next meal. You get the sense that whoever that demon in the bushes is they are strong enough to rival most of the kizuki. They seemed to be waiting for something before attacking...maybe they spotted you and are waiting for you to make your move so they can see what you will do.*

[mytheoristavenue]

Day 11: Leo + Tree decorating

Summary: After Slinter agrees to let you teach the turtles about American Christmas traditions, you enlist the help of Leo to set up the tree.

Warnings: Pure fluff

"Is this really necessary?" Leo whined, hauling the tree you'd bought through the door. "It seems super excessive to go out, chop down a tree, bring it home and decorate it just to put presents under and watch it die."

"Why do you always have to make everything sound aweful?" You scolded lightly. "It's really your worst trait."

"Can you blame me? You dragged me out to the middle of nowhere, in the cold just for this. Turtles get cranky when they're cold."

"Stop whining," you sighed, momentarily pinching the bridge of your nose. "It'll be pretty when it's all finished."

-----

You delicately presented him with a box, handling it with the utmost care, and urging him to do the same. "These are really old, they were my Grandma's." You explained, flipping open the lid to reveal the most astonishing crystal clear glass ornament set to ever see the light of day. "Each piece was hand crafted by my Granddad specifically for her, now this set is a family heirloom." Gingerly, you set the box down, lifting a teardrop shaped bulb, decorated with glitter and held it to the light.

Leo couldn't help but marvel at the way the multicolored, refracted light danced around the corner, contrasting with the soft glow of the stringed lights on the tree. "It's so pretty..." He mumbled, before seemingly snapping out of the trance it put him under. "And it doesn't belong here. You know these will just get broken down here."

You sighed at his concern. "I know it's a bad idea," you confessed. "I know Mikey will probably bump the tree and break them, but..." You trailer with a soft smile. "Grandma always said these were meant to be shared, so she never would put them out unless she we're having family over for Christmas."

"What does that go to do with it?" He cocked a brow, hand on his hip. You wished he could understand the love put into these ornaments the way you did. Now that you were living at the lair, you felt the need to share these with your new family.

"Well...I just wanted you all to enjoy them. Since you're kind of like my family now."

His eyes softened as he gently wrapped you in his arms, remembering all you'd lost since meeting them. "You're right, I'm sorry (Y/N)."

Against his plastron, you smiled sadly. "We don't have to set them out." You sighed. "It'd be better not to."

"No, we're doing it." He smiled, pushing you away to hold you at arm's length. "We'll all just have to be careful."

You beamed, looking up at him happily. "Leo are you sure?"

"Positive." He answered, gently lifting on and hanging it on a branch securely to minimize the risk of it falling off.

"Thank you..." You gushed, doing the same.

"Of course. Merry Christmas (Y/N)."

"Merry Christmas, Leo."

Taglist: @thelaundrybitch @turtle-babe83 @witchofthenorthstar @sharpwindow @helpyaw @camillahorne26 @fyreball66

Note: sorry for not tagging everyone, I did this in 15 mins on my lunch break at work on my phone and didn't have access to my list!

[slowips]

002.

wanderer x reader

# verbal hostility, brief reference to ei's story quest 1 (no explicit spoilers), 500 words.

.　⁺ . 　 ˚　✦　.　　+ ⁺　 　 . ✦

you had to double take that you didn’t see him along the streets of inazuma.

you were exiled in exchange for freedom, and it came with a silent agreement of steering clear from the fatui. if it really was scaramouche, then you’ll have to find a new spot for your afternoon stroll.

not that you were afraid of him or anything. he just never gave you any reason to smile when you were collaborating with him for a mission.

“i’d rather save my mother from drowning than you.”

you hate how a mere refraction of him brought up memories of the worse fight. you hate how his voice is as clear as the sunny skies above you. his words don’t sting but they leave a scar.

“you don’t even have a mother, let alone a family!”

when you carefully observe the person who caught your attention, her striking purple hair answers everything yet nothing at the same time. it’s the exact hue. there are streaks of lighter purple playfully weaving in her long braid, just like the 2 strips behind his head he tries to hide with his hat.

there is an air of royalty to her. a domineering one. no wonder you sensed something related to the balladeer.

she beats scaramouche in height, however. you hate how you know this, but the person she’s with is around scaramouche’s height, and she stands 2 heads taller.

when she turns and catches your gaze, you would have thought it was him disguised as some taller, more refined lady. but her eyes glows with curiosity, something the balladeer lacked. all he had in him was rage.

oh no. she’s walking towards you. what do you do? what do you say?

“you’re really pretty,” you blurt out once she’s in front of you, the blonde that was beside her following behind. “sorry for staring.”

“what are you looking at?” scaramouche seethed. “want to die early?”

“there’s no need to apologise. i’m just curious about your choice of colours for your kimono. are you a local?”

“for someone so mesmerising you have a really ugly mouth,” you retorted, rolling your eyes. “maybe you should punch yourself in the morning to match your face to your cruel heart. or should i do the honours?”

white and purple with dashes of red. those were the colours you choose. it was what he said you looked good in, which meant something since he barely gave compliments.

“someone i used to work with said i looked good in these colours. i’m not a local. is there anything wrong with this?”

she seems to be reeling in her memories as you did. the blonde also has something to comment too, but the lady replies instead.

“nothing wrong. it just reminded me of… something.”

you gulped, unsure if you should confess.

you remind me of someone.

the blonde bows and is quick to drag the lady away with mention of sweets.

───・

colour scheme is inspired by pre-fatui scaramouche colour scheme / dumplingsjinson

Character A, after getting into a heated argument with Character B: “Might I remind you I’d rather save my brother from drowning than you.” (Character B responding with: “You don’t even have a brother, let alone siblings!”) 

[lillywillow]

Heart Heist

Summary: With a string of recent thefts by a figure the media has dubbed The Spectre, your father puts you in charge of finding security for the party he’s hosting to show off a priceless piece of jewellery. Little does he realise how close he is to the thief…

 Written for: @the-slumberparty‘s Week One: I Spy Challenge

 Words: 1801

 Prompt: A diamond necklace

 Pairing: Billy Russo x Female Reader  

 Warnings: Some action, minor injuries, flirting

Additional Tags: @budugu​ @dreamlandcreations​

 It was the dead of the night when a lone guard was conducting his patrol. A collection of rare Wakandan artefacts was on display at a local art gallery, on loan from a private collector. The guard was walking past the room when he noticed one of the most expensive pieces was missing. He did a double take and ran in but no one was there. The guard called for backup, catching a glimpse of a swish of fabric vanishing around the corner. He gave chase after them, shouting at them to halt. The figure ran towards dead-end with an open window, waiting for the guard to get closer.

 “Nowhere to run now, dirtbag,” he jeered.

 The masked figure saluted and jumped out the window. The guard ran over but the thief had vanished into the night.

…

 The theft of the Wakandan artefact was just another in a string by a thief the media had dubbed The Spectre because they left no trace of evidence behind. It had been months since this case captured the public’s imagination, stirring theories and taunting police. The Spectre had been targeting unique heirlooms of the wealthy. Knowing all this, your father still decided it would be a wise idea to host a party with one of his recently acquired purchases on display. He asked you to hire security for the occasion. That was how you ended up at Anvil Security.

 With a sigh, you entered the building and was soon directed to where you could make your inquiry. That’s where you first met him.

 “Nice to officially meet you, Miss L/N,” the man with dark, brooding eyes smiled, getting up from his desk to shake your hand and close the door.

 “Have we met before?” you asked.

 “I like to make it my business to investigate potential clients,” he explained, offering you a seat. “My name is Billy Russo. Now, what can I do for you?”

 “My father would like to hire your services for a party he’s throwing,” you sighed.

 “I take it you’re not on board with the idea…”

 “It’s nothing against you. It’s just… my father did not make his money from being stupid. He made his money from other people being stupid…”

 Billy quirked an eyebrow at your comment but said nothing. You cleared your throat and continued speaking.

 “Anyway, my father recently bought a historical diamond necklace from a museum and wants to show it off…”

 “Really? Even with this Spectre guy running around?” he asked.

 “I’ve voiced my concerns to him but he seems to think he’s above such petty theft…”

 “And what do you think?”

 “I think he’s being arrogant and the Spectre will come regardless of the security he has…”

 “You seem pretty confident,” Billy stated.

 “I’ve been following the case,” you shrugged.

 “I see…”

 “What? It’s a pretty interesting case. Drama, mystery, intrigue… all that’s missing is betrayal, and revenge…���

 “You don’t say,” Billy chuckled.

 “We’re getting off track here,” you stated, steering the conversation back to the task you came here for.

 After you had negotiated a price and date, you headed off. You were unable to stop thinking about Billy.

…

 Soon, the night of the party arrived. People were in awe of the diamond necklace that sparkled so perfectly under its showcase lighting. Each gemstone refracted a small rainbow which reflected against the glass it was trapped behind.

 You were standing in front of the case when you heard a voice speak behind you.

 “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

 You turned to see Billy standing there.

 “It is… Did you know that Napoleon Bonaparte had this piece made to celebrate his marriage to his second wife?”

 “Is that so?” Billy hummed.

 “This, and a diadem. They’re sisters. They should be together…”

 You noticed the way Billy was staring you and forced yourself to relax your tense stance.

 “May I have this dance?” he asked, extending his hand to you as a waltz began to play.

 The request caught you off guard but you accepted the offer. Billy guided you to the floor, gracefully moving with you to the music. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy being in such close proximity to him but it caused a major hitch in your plans.

 “You seem nervous,” he purred in your ear.

 “I’m not nervous,” you tried to assure him.

 “You keep looking around as if searching for someone… your heart rate has gone up…”

 Billy pulled you closer, keeping his thumb on the pulse point on your wrist.

 “Maybe you’re the reason for my fast pulse… you are rather handsome Mr. Russo and my father can be quite protective of me…”

 “It’s a possibility…”

 Billy spun you around so his arms were around you, caging you close to his body and his lips by your ear.

 “I think another possibility is that you’re in league with The Spectre,” he whispered.

 You tried to keep your voice even as you replied.

 “Whatever gives you that idea?”

 “Your line of questioning these last few weeks… Asking about how many staff we’re using, their positions…”

 “Maybe I want to know if you’re qualified for the job,” you shrugged, spinning yourself out of his arms.

 Billy caught your hand.

 “Again, plausible. There’s also your interest in The Spectre case… everything I’ve read about it indicates an inside job…”

 “Do you have anything that connects me to those thefts?”

 “Not yet…”

 “Then where’s the issue?”

 Before Billy could respond, the lights went out. People started panicking but it was short lived as the lights soon came back on. You and Billy stared at each other, as if locked in some silent dare.

 “I do hope you enjoy the rest of the party, Mr. Russo… and thank you for the dance,” you smiled, taking your leave.

 You could feel Billy’s eyes on you as you walked away. He was going to be problematic.

…

 Long after the party was over, you put your plans into action. Having memorised the guard rotation and tricked the cameras, you slipped into the room and silently taking the diamond necklace out of its case. You were about to make your grand escape when a guard walked in, sooner than you were expecting. Thinking back on your earlier conversation, you realised that Russo must have changed the timing to draw you out. Cursing to yourself, you ran out the back way as you were left with no other options. These people were highly trained and heavily armed professionals. They weren’t going to fall for the same cheap parlour tricks any of the other rubes fell for. Running as fast as you could, you made your way out of there.

 “Hold it!” a voice shouted.

 You ran faster as the guard started firing his gun, wincing as a bullet grazed your arm. Around the corner you ran to where you knew there would be a window you could climb through… only to run into Billy Russo himself. There was nowhere left to go.

 “Don’t even think about it,” he warned.

 You slowly raised your hands as the security force caught up.

 “Just surrender now, and nobody has to get hurt…”

 Your mind was racing. This couldn’t be how it ended. You couldn’t be caught like this. There was no way you could fight them. They were far more experienced in combat than you would ever be.

 Suddenly, you threw the necklace up into the air. Billy made a grab for it and that was when you set off a smoke bomb. The two men coughed and tried to clear the air, giving you a chance to get away. If you could make it to your room, you would be home free. You ran, dodging the guards until you finally made it to your room, hoping you didn’t leave a trail of blood from your wound. As you leant against your door, you felt a sense of relief and… exhilaration. You were right about Billy. He did complicate things… but he also made them that much more fun.

…

 The next day, you went to Anvil to pay for their services, being sure to keep your injury covered. Surprisingly, there was no news of your exploits of the previous night. Your father had slept through the whole thing, everything had been cleaned up and the Marie-Louise necklace had been put back in its case. You made pleasant conversation with Billy until your phone rang. Excusing yourself, you stepped out of the room to take it.

 “We have the shipment ready to go,” the person on the other end of the line informed you.

 “Excellent. How soon can you get it out of the country?”

 “It’ll be gone by tonight.”

 “Good. Keep me posted.”

 You turned to see Billy standing right behind you. He grabbed your arm around the spot you had been shot, causing you to cry out in pain.

 “Thought so…”

 “What are you going to do about it?”

 You were a little scared. This was as close as you had ever come to being exposed.

 “Nothing… yet. I’m only going to warn you once. From now on, you are to stay out of Anvil business.”

 You raised an eyebrow. Billy could easily go to the police with the information he had. Why was he letting you go?

 “I will ask this… why go through all the dramatics? You could easily buy all those things…”

 “I could… but where’s the fun in that?”

 Billy once again encouraged you to sit down and shut his office door for privacy.

 “I guess I got a little bored with the rich heiress lifestyle. The same people, the same dull conversations… besides, I’m working to get all the tings I stole back to their country of origin…”

 Billy smiled a little.

 “You’re an interesting woman, Y/N…”

 “You’re an interesting man, Mr. Russo,” you retorted.

 “Please, call me Billy,” he smiled.

 “Could I take you to lunch sometime, Billy? I really owe you for covering me with everything that happened…”

 “How about dinner tonight?” he asked.

 “I’ll see you at seven,” you smiled.

 “I’ll pick you up,” he smiled back.

 As you walked out, you felt a swarm of butterflies in your stomach. Dating the man who was onto your little game could be a lot of fun. How long could you keep on playing?

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Seeking Audience

https://www.patreon.com/empyreaniris?fan_landing=true

https://starr-fall-knight-rise.tumblr.com/post/182501791735/master-post

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jzEIdDAB4omdO2JcQVMObfrhLJ5kX4ONmSsLypM1ks0/edit?usp=sharing

A shadow passed slowly over the ship’s cockpit, a great monolithic structure of ice and dust towering into the great blackness of space. Light shattered, refracted and then was redirected in a gentle pattern of crystalline spots to dapple the front of their shuttle with glowing pinpoints of light. Passing out f the shadow, a shaft of blazing blue light butted up against the windscreen forcing Adam to manually dim the visor as they flew forward.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Adam wondered, “The last time we tried this….”

“The last time we tried this was almost a decade ago.” Conn said, long, thin hand gripping the back of Adam’s seat. Adam could see the leering face of the Starborn reflected back at him on the glass of the windscreen as he said, “Besides, I’ve met your extended family, it's only fair you should have to meet the inlaws.”

Adam huffed, “I’m not married to you Conn.”

“In certain cultures we are.”

“What cultures are those?”

“I don’t know, the cultures where having children together makes you married.” Adam sighed, rolling his eyes aggressively into the back of his head.

Beside him Sunny looked on in amusement. Adam wasn’t sure why she tolerated Conn, but for some reason, she seemed to find his antics amusing, “Conn, do you really think this is the best time to be annoying my battle partner?” She said, but he could hear the wry tone to her voice which would be more an invitation to the starborn than not 

“You mean OUR battle partner.”

Adam snorted, and tried not to imagine what it would be like to be in a thrupple with Conn as the third.

“Well you know, since you seem to be the communal husband.” Ramirez piped in, “WHy don’t we make this threesome a foursome and get it over with.”  Adam rolled his eyes again. Of course if there was flirting to be had Ramirez always had to join in.

Behind him, the marin’s voice was lighter than it had been in days, but having been best friends with the marine for over a decade now, he knew when something wasn’t right.

He still hadn’t gotten over losing Maverick.

None of them had 

“All very well and good of you to invite yourselves into my marriage.” Adam began, “But I’m actually attracted to only one person in this shuttle.”

“Me of course.” Both Conn and Ramirez said

Sunny was the only one who didn’t speak up, waiting for them to finish before leaning back in her seat, “Some of us don't feel the need to prove our place.”

Adam brought them around another monolith of ice and crystal, bathing their little shuttle in a diffused and dappled pool of intense blue light.

“It’s actually rather flattering to have the three of you fighting over me, but I mean, who could blame you. I am.” He motioned to himself with one hand, “pretty awesome.” 

“Interesting, I find you both  stomach churning and repulsive.” Adam turned to frown at Celex, who st in the seat behind Sunny smirking mildly past his technicolor beard.

“You just don’t have good taste.” Adam said

“Mmmmm, no, no I don’t think so. Your wife, on the other hand, could certainly do better.” Celex winked at Sunny from the back seat and she snorted loudly.

“Because all I really want is a technicolor war criminal.” she said dryly

“Taste the rainbow.” Celex shot back causing Ramirez to choke on his own spi 

The banter probably would have continued indefinitely were it not for the sudden fluttering at the edge of Adam’s conscious mind. As one, three of them turned their heads simultaneously, listening intently to the noise that was not a noise.

Ramirez sighed, “Let me guess, psychic waves or something.”

“Shhh.” Conn said

Adam slowed the ship looking around at the dense cluster of ice structures that surrounded them, and the distant blue star hunkered within their midst. For a moment he thought he had imagined the sensation, but the fluttering came again, brushing up against the very edge of his unconsciousness, like the tip of  a butterfly’s wing.

He tried to reach out, tentatively make contact with the sensation, but as soon as he tired, it rapidly withdrew. 

“Dammit.” He muttered.

He tried to extend himself a little further, to follow the sensation, but it did its best to keep just out of reach. It wasn’t until he was almost fully extended, his mind open and stretched to its limits did he hear.

“Mmmmm that’s not good.”

It was only then did he realize, the gentle pressure being applied to his mind from all sides. He hadn’t noticed it at first, having pressed into it himself by chasing the fluttering, but now he became acutely aware of their situation. Suddenly the vast wall beyond where his mind ended and nothingness began, coalesced into something that was far greater than nothingness.

He could feel them, the pressing weight of a thousand minds clustering in upon themselves, silent and waiting.

Ad he had opened himself up to them.

He did the equivalent of mentally freezing, drawing back slightly as they pressed in. outside the shuttle had come to a halt, drifting aimlessly in the space between the crystal and ice monoliths.

They were surrounded.

Despite being alone physically inside the shuttle, they were not alone mentally.

Only Ramirez remained obvious as to their precarious condition.

The starborn pressed further into their minds, preverbially pressing Sunny, Adam Conn and Celex up against each other, back to back to back to back their minds melding together in an uneasy sort of soup, oil, with water, with syrup with mercury, all pressing together but doing their best trying not to intermingle. The sensation was strange, all four of their minds distinct and separate alien entities. Even Sunny’s mind, who he knew and understood so well, was a vast alien network unfamiliar to his own human perception, Conn and Celex even more strange in comparison.

“What now.?” He wondered, the question echoing through both the shuttle and past his lips.

“Only one thing to be done.” Conn said.

The starborn stopped retreating then, holding his ground against the menacing press of minds around him. The starborn were making their position very clear. WIth their numbers they could crush the minds of interlopers without having to lift a physical finger.

There would be no remorse.

But still Conn stood against the tide of their minds extending himself outwards to flow like water  through his distant brethren. 

He did not communicate in words, instead choosing to speak in the way of his people: a mental  melding of tho impressions and memories and feelings. It was the most honest form of communication possible, incapable of holding lies or secrets.  Adam could sense Conn’s open discomfort with his own native tongue. After years of secrecy within his own mind, the master of his own secrets, he had become accustomed to being a merchant of information, buying and selling it only at a price.

After so many years, the starborn even thought in words.

This strangeness was not lost on the starborn.

Though this mode of communication was unfamiliar and alien to Adam, it was also the purest form of communication, and while he felt like he shouldn’t have been able to understand it, it was, in essence the most open, clear, concise and honest conversation he had ever heard or been a part of: the pure exchange of information.

It didn’t take long for Conn to explain himself, no more than a few seconds as the starborn absorbed his story all at once, like  a sponge, sifting through his thoughts and memories in one large collective of thought.

In a way they were like a hive mind, each individual acting as a cell to process a single packet of information and sharing that process between each other in the same instant.

It was impressive, but also terrifying.

The communication they took from Conn was honest, and the communications they gave back was honest in return. They did not trust outsiders, but Conn didn’t have thea ability to lie, none of them did, so they knew that Conn and his entourage meant them no harm.

“We wish to speak with your queen.” Conn said, or at least that was the gist of what he said. Adam couldn’t comprehend the conversation fully without putting it into words inside his own mind 

The starborn were unsure.

“Look into our minds.” Conn said, “You know we mean you no harm, and we harbor no ill feelings towards you if you refuse our offer, buy your people have been plagued by the corrupted ones, continually for the past few years. We can see it in your minds, in our memories. Your numbers are dwindling, and it is becoming unsafe to return to the old migration grounds.”

All of that was true enough, Adam could sense it in their thoughts, the welling of fear and unease, along with a memory, the sensation of pure evil.

He shivered.

“We want to help.” Conn said

Their deliberation was rapid, sharing their honest opinions in a matter of milliseconds.

Ramirez for his part remained oblivious, looking between them with a frown on his face, “I sense by your vacant expressions that we have made contact.”

The deliberation, Adam sensed, was a hard won thing. The starborn were not a trustworthy group and didn't enjoy the thoughts of outsiders, especially not ones who were capable of concealing thoughts from each other. To them, the idea was abhorrent, almost a form of heretical, but their hatred for the void was greater than their fear of secrets.

Come.

The urge was more of a sensation rather than a thought, but it was completely understandable as Adam adjusted the engines. Up ahead of them, a lone starborn appeared, ribbons billowing in a slow undulation. He had the same white skin as Conn, the same large, Dark eyes. Adam might have confused the two for each other were it not for their mental connection. Though this starborn was significantly shorter than Conn, with stumpier fingers and shorter legs . 

He waved them forward with a thought, and Adam followed as directed, following the starborn as it maneuvered them through the maze of crystal and ice.

They felt her before they saw her. 

The press of the starborn collective was still a constant sensation at the edge of their thoughts, but as soon as they came within range of her, the sensation changed. Where the starborn were water, she was a stone, breaking the flow of collective thoughts to think as her own individual self, ancient, and slow in her thinking. Adam got the distinct impression of something incomprehensibly large.

The closer they got the more it filled his mind, a massive presence that towered over him. 

They passed out of the ice field, sweeping low over a large dome of white stone…. Or was that ice?

He had to blink a few times to reconcile what he was seeing before he realized.

That wasn’t a dome of ice at all.

But the crown of the Sarborn Queen’s Skull, dwarfing them by a thousand times, one the same scale as the starborn.

With a single thought she shook Adam’s soul within its very foundation.

“Why have you come.” 

[chromes-corner]

Hi! Could you do sparkling cookie as a bartender flirting with an equally charismatic patron in the juice bar? Idk headcanons or short fic, whatever works best for you

YESSSSSSS I LOVE THIS YES YES YESSSSSSS sparkling needs to meet his match smh

wrote this one as a loose drabble, hope ya enjoy!

---

Bar None

Sparkling/Reader

Notes: fluff

Content Warnings: alcohol, suggestive flirting

A/N: idk how to flirt what do you want from me

Before you is a little stone building, nestled on the corner of the block. Tall, thin windows stretch upwards, underlining the bold, black sign with “GOLDEN HOUR” written in pale yellow italics. The letters glow softly under the deep gray overcast. Warm orange light leaks out from the pristine glass panels, refracting over the light drizzle of the outside world. The place screams modern-with-a-classic-flair, as evidenced by the sleek exterior with a cozy, wooden interior.

As two quenched patrons exit noisily through the door, you hold the door open and slip inside, tucking yourself away from the elements. 

You approach the bar and take an empty seat at the end, next to a man with kind eyes and a rounded face. He’s turned away from you, spinning his pink cocktail on the polished wood and laughing with a conversation to your right. The man next to him, hair neatly swished and cool demeanor front and center, raises his tumbler towards his friend to his right and cheers. You lean over the bar to peer at what’s gathering their attention.

At the end of the bar sits a slim, long-legged man with slender hands and long hair tied back. He’s tipping his wine glass heavenward, head thrown back and guzzling the red juice that it contains. When its contents are drained, he carefully places the cup on top of a glassware pyramid, then pulls away with shaking hands. The pyramid sways, and his friends hold their breath. When it stills and remains standing, the tall man turns back with a huge, open-mouthed smile toward his friends. His cheeks are flushed red and his eyes are glassed over. A couple of patrons cheer behind you. The man next to you claps, while the other takes a celebratory sip of his drink and slaps his friend on the back.

The bartender, who had been watching his glassware with a nervous eye, breathes a sigh of relief and gives the wine-drunk man a friendly shake on the shoulder. The two share some words before the man with the tumbler gets his attention and jabs his thumb in your direction. The bartender side-eyes you, then rolls up his already-rolled sleeves and steps your way. He pushes his cleanly-combed hair back and gives you a lopsided grin worth a million coins.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he says coolly. He pauses, then tilts his head and furrows his eyebrows. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you around?”

You lean your elbows on the bar and match his smile. “Yeah, I’m from a city west of here. Heard this town started to boom, so I thought I’d give it a visit. Why, do you know all your customers’ life stories or something?”

“Actually, I do.” The bartender laughs and places his hands on his hips. “Even if I didn’t, I know I’d never forget a pretty face like yours.”

“Right,” you say, already knowing you’re going to enjoy your night, “I knew it was a good idea coming here. My city’s sorely lacking in the cute service worker department.”

The bartender laughs again, giving you an exaggerated bow. “Then here I am, at your service. The name’s Sparkling, by the way. Now, what can I get ya?”

Behind him is a massive wall with bottles of every shape, size, and color displayed for all to see. You don’t even recognize some of the brand’s names, so you figure they might be local. After scanning the wall for a few seconds, you decide to let fate pick your hand for the night.

“Surprise me.”

Sparkling crosses his arms and purses his lips, then springs to collect his shaker. “I have just the thing,” he says.

His craft is mesmerizing to watch. Sparkling turns and skates his hand across the wall, then plucks a fat bottle from the shelf. He pops the cap off and pours some into his shaker, raising his arm high as it flows out. With an elegant spin, he sets the bottle down and swipes up a tall, fancy-looking bottle. He uncorks it and twirls it by its neck, pouring it into the shaker and setting it back. Finally, he grabs a small, plainly pink bottle of syrup. He wheels it through his fingers and dashes some into the cocktail.

For the final touch, he scoops some ice from behind the counter into it, then closes the shaker and begins to mix. Sparkling throws the shaker in a perfect arc over his head and catches it while throwing a wink in your direction. One of the guys beside you whistles. He continues to shake the drink with practiced ease, occasionally shooting glances in your direction to gauge your reactions.

You give him an impressed clap as he separates the halves of the shaker and pours it into a round glass. The liquid comes out as a pale, swirling red that smells distinctly of strawberries. He pushes the glass your way and leans an elbow against the bar.

“I call this one the Good-Looking Stranger,” he says, leaning towards you. “It’s on the house — newcomer’s special.”

You take a sip and, just like the smell, strawberries hit your senses. The drink is cold and sweet, making your jaw tingle as it goes smoothly down your throat. The tangy aftertaste that lingers in the back of your mouth makes you thirsty for more.

“Very impressive,” you say, taking another sip. “But when can I try the Good-Looking Regular?”

“That one,” Sparkling starts, leaning in closer, “requires a secret passcode.”

You innocently tilt your head. “And how would I find this passcode?”

“I’ll give you a hint.” Sparkling beckons you closer, and you lean in so he can whisper in your ear. “It’s just ten digits.”

Your voice lowers to a whisper as well. “I don’t give out my number to people I’ve just met, Mr. Bartender.”

“We don’t have to be strangers for much longer.” You can feel his breath on your skin. “Do you have a place to stay tonight?”

“First a free drink and now a free bed? You’re really going all in.”

He’s close. Close like you’re not surrounded by tipsy people in high spirits. So close that if you tilted your chin up, you could probably kiss him. Intense green eyes search yours and dart downwards, taking in the tiny distance between your faces. 

“I have been known to be very hospitable to my guests. Especially the ones with perfect smiles like your—”

“Hey, Sparky,” one of the men beside you slurs, grinning in amusement. “Stop making goo-goo eyes at that poor customer and get us a refill!”

Sparkling pulls away and glares at his friends, his face heating up and his shiny grin now pointing down in a counterfeit scowl. He crosses his arms and turns back to you with an apologetic glance.

“Vampire, they were having a moment!” The man next to you protests.

“Yeah, a weird moment that was uncomfortable for everyone,” the man in the middle snarks.

Sparkling rolls his eyes. “My friends are a real treat when they’re not filled with alcohol, I promise.”

You laugh and brush it off. “No worries. Your friends seem nice, even when they’re drunk. Not handsome like you, but nice.”

The lopsided grin makes a comeback. “You know, I’m free tomorrow if you want to meet up? I could show you around. Give you a proper tour.”

“Do I need to give you my “passcode” for that?”

“I’ll give you mine instead.”

[speakeasier]

interpretation may vary lore time!!

-it took a good while for me to come up with a title for the collective stories of all these mythology ocs/this whole project. i've had the ideas brewing for so long, but i don't think i gave it a name until a very good while after i got more into it thanks to buddos.

-i picked it as 'interpretation may vary' because it is true, everyone's take and experience on mythology is different. we're all going to see things differently. that was my first thought in trying to come up with a name. but the title itself was borrowed and came from that saying of 'your mileage may vary'.

-can't say if the title sounds cool, but definitely satisfied with it and stuck with it for many years now. not planning on changing it anytime soon. " x'DD " (this one is more of a tidbit not really a point). but i have had other names before i've settled. but that's lore for another day.

anyways. let's share some character stuff!!

-leto may have gave birth to the twins away from prying eyes on delos, but artemis and apollo's birth and coming was so intense that everyone at the time felt their connection and presence the moment they had their first breath out the womb.

-pretty much all of zeus' kids hate him in various degrees and would love to see the day he perishes. none are truly loyal to him except probably the muses because they owe their existence to him, as they came from his memories.

-to get onto this and clarify. athena and kids post athena, would want him to get desecrated. but anyone before athena probably don't viscously hate him as much. which are actually pretty much all lovely ladies. as they consist of the muses, the kharites, and the 'horae' that came from themis.

-speaking of themis. she smokes a pipe, and is often seen smoking if you manage to catch her. the stuff she smokes is basically what we consider incense and is probably toxic to humans. and depending on who you ask, some gods do think it smells abhorrent. it helps her see, in the sense of visions and prophecy.

-prophecy and sight works differently for every god that has it. one example being theia in that she sees stuff in the particles and droplets in the atmosphere that reflect aither's light. she's why the sky is blue, so she sees visions within that blue as it is reflected and refracted light that comes back to her. though, i suppose in her case it can help her see things afar in the present too.

i was going to explain how apollo's work, but i'll hold that off for a different post because i think that's more than bitesized. and i realized i had something in my drafts from long ago for that. LOLOL.

-despite zeus not being her father, as dite came from uranus/ouranos and on top of her being very much older than him. she actually calls him 'father' even to this present day, even treats him like a father figure to some extent. for reasons which i might drop later this month. but she is one of the few who doesn't outright call him 'zeus'.

-since the gods in general can be fickle and think highly of themselves, no matter in casual or formal setting. you will never really hear anyone say 'lord zeus' or 'lady hera' in respect to ranking or domain. especially the kids. save for the few exceptions like the lovely ladies born before athena, who would either say 'father' or 'lord zeus/lord hades, etc.' because they're just so respectfully kind and gracious like that.

-that prideful nature of not using titles for respect bleeds out to other gods outside the greek sphere for the most part too.

[van-iira]

(Spoilers for DL Ep6)

A sequel to my previous mini-fic, except now it's 2,000 words. Also on ao3.

They sit there for a long time, embracing on the precipice that separates their resting places. They stay there long into the night, when the stars glitter and the moon hangs over them like a reminder. A reminder that they are still dead, still in a place they should never have been able to return to.

Slowly, slowly, they detach themselves from each other. It is Grian who starts first, of course, when he gently pulls his wings back from where they were encompassing Scar. Scar, of course, catches on and lets go as well. It had been a long time since Grian had been so openly intimate with him, maybe since the first game, and he wasn’t about to destroy their progress just because he was feeling clingy.

They still don’t speak once they’re completely separate. Scar can’t help but watch the way that light refracts in Grian’s eyes, in his wings, in his whole unnatural form. Now that he’d noticed the differences, along with now being able to see them and not just sense them, Scar couldn’t help but stare. Stare at how even when in focus, any darkness twisted and turned in Grian’s presence, warping to accommodate a presence that wasn’t matched by his small frame, but instead by the wings that draped over his back like a blanket and his eyes that–

“Scar?” Grian asks, his voice small, unsure. It’s unlike Grian to be unsure, and it makes Scar uncomfortable, somehow more so than his understanding that Grian may be some kind of eldritch being.

“Yeah, G?” 

“You’re, uh, staring.” He squints somewhat, curling in on himself a little more. “Do you want me to put them away?”

Grian gestures slightly with one of his wings, lifting it such that the other two on its side move with it. Scar can’t help but focus on them again, watching in wonder as the unnatural darkness of them twists and morphs under the light of the stars. 

Scar is only stopped by the sharp call of his name, “Scar.”

Scar obediently snaps his head back up to face Grian, who is giving him an exasperated look. This is good, he thinks, this is comfortable.

“No, no, not at all.” Scar laughs a bit, because he’s trying to keep this comfortable. “I was just thinking that you look really pretty like this.”

“What?” Grian rasps, wings fluffed and face red. Scar can’t help but laugh more. It’s a genuine laugh that bubbles out of his chest and makes him glad that he still has a chest to laugh with.

“Come on, Grian, what’s a little compliment among friends?” Scar’s question comes out broken, littered with laughter and mirth.

Grian deflates a bit, wings dropping from where they had moved to cover his frame.

“Nothing, it’s just…” He’s quiet for a moment. “I’ve never really gotten complimented for something like that.” 

“Huh?!” Scar slams his hands down on the sand between them, jostling Jellie a little. “What do you mean?! You get plenty of compliments! Even from just me! People say stuff all the time about your skill with building and traps and- Wait maybe not traps… But I’m sure people have stuff to say about your appearance too!–”

It’s a hand in Scar’s face that cuts him off. Once brought back to focus, he sees Grian burying his face in his other hand, a quiet groan that he’s sure has been going for a while escaping through the fingers. 

“Scar.” Grian starts, voice more tired than before. “That’s not what I meant.”

Scar tilts his head in return, “Then what did you mean?” 

Grian drops his hands and seems to mull it over for a moment, casually drawing lines in the sand next to him.

“No one’s ever complimented me like this . With these wings and my whole… everything right now.”

Grian’s not looking at him again, so Scar takes another look at his friend’s(?) appearance. He still looks recognisable, with the same hair and face and red sweater, but everything else is a little off. Grian’s wings, now tripled, slip in and out of Scar’s perception - continuously giving him the feeling like he’s being looked at even when he can’t really see them. Grian’s exposed forearms, now littered with zombie bites and scratches, give him that same feeling of wrongness - like the indentations of mouths morph into eyes when in his peripheral. And Grian’s eyes, now doubled in number if only because non-death related scars heal once out of the game, are just… 

If Scar were to describe them, it would be like staring into the abyss. 

They’re dark in a way different to how they should be. The blacks deeper than those of any other, any colour almost fighting for dominance against them. But the more Scar looks at the downturned eyes, the more he fights turning away with the rising feeling of the darkness looking back, he sees purple. A contradictory purple, that goes against the newly built law that the darkness in those eyes is absolute. It’s that purple that he again sees when he glances at the arms and wings that twist Scar’s mind. 

Scar realises that he seems to keep zoning out staring at Grian just as the man in question seems to gather the will to look up again. He scrutinises Scar’s face in return, and because he knows he has no right to complain Scar just sits there and tries to keep his face as still as possible.

They stay like that for a long moment, Scar watching Grian watching Scar, until Grian relents and lets out a sigh. He breaks his gaze away and turns back to the edge they are sat on, the sky that has hung over them for the indefinite amount of time they’ve simply sat there.

“You’re weird,” Grian says to the air.

“You’re weird too,” Scar says back, still watching Grian.

And Grian laughs at that, not looking back at Scar. His laughter is still kind, still amused at Scar’s quips and dumb obsessions. It’s no different just because he is maybe-probably something far beyond his understanding. But even then, even with the warmth that washes over Scar at the idea that they can still be warm, Scar has to wonder.

“What are you?”

And Scar regrets the question immediately because Grian’s laughter is cut short and his smile disappears. He turns ridgid again (he hadn’t noticed how relaxed Grian had become, and grieves that he didn't appreciate it sooner) and his gaze into the abyss turns darker, somehow. Scar feels the need to retract his question, to laugh it off and keep joking about stupid things forever, but he recognises he shouldn’t. Because Grian had hidden this, because Grian needs to learn to be honest and because Scar knows deep in his heart that Grian needs this.

So Scar waits. He turns his head away from Grian, watches the same quiet scene of twinkling lights, and waits. 

Jellie stretches, stands, and crawls onto Grian's lap. It's an action Scar has seen before, but it never ceases to warm his heart to see two of his favourite individuals being so close. Despite this, Scar wills himself to keep looking forward, relying on the sounds of crunching sand to dictate when Jellie is moving, and his intuition to know when Grian lays a gentle, careful hand on her head.

"I…" Grian tries, voice suddenly hoarse. 

Scar keeps looking forward.

"I'm… a Watcher," Grian states, voice low. "Well, I haven't properly dictated a server yet, so I get called a baby a lot, but I am one. You… don't know what a Watcher is, right. Basically, they're these beings that watch over worlds and feed off their stories, gross I know. I, uh, wasn't supposed to be here. Not even supposed to associate with these worlds, since I have relations with the majority of people here. But I thought it would be interesting so I hopped in. Bad decision, in all honesty. The moment I was noticed I was ordered to leave, and once the game was starting and they couldn't get me out the Watcher in charge just wiped my memory to fit in more closely with you guys.

I probably would have saved us a lot of grief if I hadn't joined, huh? Anyway, my punishment for breaking in was being stuck in the rest of the games, along with keeping my memories of them. You probably noticed how you would have vague snippets of worlds you couldn't quite remember? Yeah, those were the ones I got to keep. Though, you probably remember now… That's why I, uh, wasn't too stoked to be partnered with you again… Not like it was really your fault or anything, it was because of me that we died in the end – and for such a stupid reason too! And, uh. I'm, uh, gonna stop talking now."

Grian, apparently done with his ramble, buries his face in his hands. It looked like he was going to try his knees instead, but a stubborn Jellie halted that attempt, so Grian instead settles for an imitation of the post he had when Scar had appeared.

There is silence for a long, long moment (they have a lot of silences, Scar notices). Scar keeps staring into the horizon because he's stubborn and knows Grian's more comfortable talking when Scar isn't looking at him. The stillness is only periodically interrupted by the ghost of a breeze or the light shift of Grian's feathers.

"Huh," is what Scar eventually says.

Grian raises his face from his hands and, if the corner of Scar's eye is to be believed, stares at him incredulously.

"'Huh'? Just 'Huh'?!" Grian snaps, voice and posture rising in indignation. "I told you I'm the same as the things that made us kill each other and your only response is 'Huh'?!"

Scar finally turns to look at the man next to him. "What? You thought I was going to blow up at you about that?"

" Yes? "

"That's stupid."

" You're stupid!"

"I thought we already had this discussion."

Jellie, apparently sick of their nonsense, hops off Grian's lap and walks off somewhere behind them. Scar is about to call out after her, but thinks better of it. There don't appear to be mobs in the weird space they've found themselves in, so she'll probably be fine. And so, Scar takes this opportunity to grab Grian by the waist and pull him so that they're seated directly next to each other. Grian, of course, squawks at this, but is quick to return to his near catatonic state borne of Scar's response.

"I think," Scar starts, leaning his head against Grian's. "That you being a Watcher doesn't matter. At least, not as much as you think. I'm not going to hunt you down or hate you forever just because you're the same, like, species of the things that put us in death games. You just said you had no hand in any of that."

Grian squirms a bit in Scar's grasp, but quickly decides to give up and falls limp against his side.

"So you don't hate me."

"Nope!"

"That's… good."

"But I'm still a little bitter about the Secret Soulmate thing," Scar mutters petulantly, which causes Grian to clear his throat awkwardly.

"You know why now! You should have your memories of the other games!" Grian's starting to laugh again, though more out of nervousness than amusement.

"Yeah, but you could've gone about it better." 

"...Better..?"

"Like at least be more secretive about it! I was suspicious before I even saw you, and what's 'I can talk to other people' anyway! Think of a better excuse! Or at least let me know so I could have a Secret Soulmate too! We could've shared the loot we got!" 

Scar is exaggerating his voice now, gesticulating wildly with his free hand. Grian, having caught on to the fact that Scar is at least not too upset, is near doubled over in laughter; his weight fully on Scar now as he tries to breathe through his amusement.

They do this for a long time, Scar making jabs at things he and Grian have done and making it clear in his own, inane, way that it doesn't bother him. Or at least, not as much as Grian seems to fear. Their laughter lasts long into the sunrise, long after Jellie has returned from whatever treck she went on and settled next to Scar's thigh.

By noon (is it really noon? Time had long lost meaning) they appear to have expended all they could talk about at present. And so they sit submerged in the remnants of laughter and gasping breaths. They do not separate, because of course they don't, because as much as they distance themselves and create protective shells, they always come back to each other.

And now there is a shell around both of them. Brittle from bites and explosions and falls and punches and sonic shrieks. But even then, it encompasses them both, and stretches and twists to accommodate for them regardless of how far astray they go. Because no matter what, they love and love and love regardless of how both the world and they themselves fight it. Because one accident lifetimes ago found the frayed edges of their strings and tied them together.

"You know, I'm still hung up on that Warden."

"Shut up."

And no matter the strife that their souls face. No matter the hate and regret and grief.

"I mean you banned me from going to the Deep Dark and yet –"

"Shut! up!"

Neither can really find it in themself to mind.