#i hope I tagged his name right in some capacity

[oaklores]

I’m feeling love, confusion, betrayal, sadness, and deep anger

[goingsunnythousandmerry]

Sanji- A Moment Alone @ the Whole Cake Chateau

Now I’ll be honest, I haven’t read much Sanji as he’s not one of my mains. However, Whole Cake inspired me to give writing him a go. Thoughts are welcome.

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI, NSFW, Spoilers for Zou/Whole Cake, vaginal sex, blowjob, deep throating, pet names, fingering, oral female/male, female riding, breeding, one night stand, I don’t own these characters. A bit fluffy at times.

Summary: Sanji leaves the crew to go to Whole Cake Island, due to a scheme cooked up by Big Mom and his dad. You realize when he’s gone, you may have feelings for him and decide to go after him with the help of Luffy and your crewmates. Once you find Sanji, well, he can’t leave, but you get one night together…

Sanji-Whole Cake

You’d never thought much about Sanji and his advances before, that was until he was gone. When he left Zou suddenly, and to get married of all things, something clicked inside you. Sanji was your friend, but maybe you felt more for him than just friendship?

You’d been with the Strawhats for a while now. Decent fighter, devil fruit ability, and always willing to help with the cooking and cleaning on the ship. Your upbringing was rocky and you thought there was no beauty left in the world. That was until the Strawhats saved you and told you about their adventures. That’s when you realized your dream, to find the beauty in the world from end to end and document it.

Sanji and you were close. You realized preparing food for a crew with a big eater like Luffy, was no easy feet, so you started offering your assistance early on. Though, he rarely took it, as he would rather a pretty lady like you, sit and relax, so he could serve you. However, after much insisting and some teasing that resulted in nose bleeds threatening to ruin his food, he eventually came around.

When he left you were speechless. You just thought he was off in the kitchen again, insisting on no one helping him. Then, a day went by and there was no swooning at your feet or the smell of his cigarettes on the breeze. You missed the way he’d put his arms around you to help teach you to chop things properly. You missed how he’d drop everything to help you or any female if they were in any sort of trouble. You missed how he puffed on his cigarettes in the heat of battle. You missed his advice and his fights with Zoro. Most of all, you missed staying up late and looking at the stars with him. On those nights, you’d discuss what you thought would be at the end of the line, the end of the new world, laughtale. You’d talk about your pasts and your hopes for the future. You never thought your future would be without Sanji. You didn’t know in what capacity, but you knew he’d always be there.

He said he’d be back, he smiled when he said it, but something didn’t feel right. Something in your heart ached. Something funny or sad would happen and he was the first person you’d want to tell, but he was gone. How’d you let him go?

You sat alone outside staring up through the forest at the stars. Nami came out and found you. She sat next to you before you realized she was there. You glanced at her and gave her a half smile.

“Y/N, what’s wrong? You haven’t been yourself since Sanji left.” Nami asked.

You glance at her then look back at the stars and sigh. You stare forward blankly a moment and before you can speak she opens her mouth again.

“We all miss him, Y/N, but he will be back. Luffy won’t let him go.”

“Yeah.” You say softly. “And this time I won’t let him go... Nami, I think…”

“You have feelings for Sanji? Yeah we all already know, took you long enough to realize.”

You gasp and stare at her in despair.

“What? Does he..?”

“He has no idea, but the man is head over heels for you. As soon as Luffy gets here… let’s go get him.” She says looking at you with a large smile.

When Luffy got to Zou and found you all, he agreed he needed to go after him. You were the first person to say you were tagging along. After a few days on Zou helping the minks and making plans, you head to Whole Cake Island in the hopes of bringing Sanji home to the Sunny. Once on Whole Cake island you, Luffy, Nami, Chopper, and Carrot got lost in the seducing woods. Big Moms daughter, Brûlée, managed to trap you in her Mirror World with Chopper and Carrot. While Luffy and Nami set off to find Sanji. Later using a shard of mirror you find a chance to contact Luffy and Nami for an update on their progress. While you were trapped in the mirror world you learn they had found Sanji, and he had beaten Luffy in a fight. He ultimately, refused to come back. You couldn’t believe your ears at the news. That wasn’t the Sanji you knew.

Luffy’s new plan was to wait for Sanji to come to him. You, Carrot, and Chopper continued to work on finding a way out of the mirror world, so you could reconnect with him and Nami.

In a moment of selfishness as your thoughts went only to Sanji, you make a plan to escape alone from the Mirrorworld. You had seen a reflection of Sanji in a nearby mirror and decided to use Brûlée to get back to the real world, through that same Mirror. While tied up, you managed to trip one of her guards causing them to tumble and almost knock over her stew pot. While Brulee was yelling at them for this, you managed to inch your way up to grab something sharp to cut through your rope bonds from a nearby counter. Once freed, you waited for Brûlée to head towards the mirror where you had earlier seen Sanji’s reflection. You looked at Chopper and Carrot and threw the sharp object behind your back for them to begin working on their ties. You inched closer to them.

“I’m going to go find Sanji. Can you two find Luffy and Nami?” You whisper.

“You want to split up? Why don’t we go together?” Chopper whispered urgently.

“If Luffy couldn’t get through to Sanji, I’m the only one who still has a chance. You and Carrot get out of here. Besides, if Big Mom’s family is as big as they say, I’m better off going in alone, less likely to be detected. I’ll take a piece of mirror for updates. Good luck.” You say softly as you eye Brûlée walking towards the mirror you need.

The rabit and train man suddenly turn their backs to you, distracted by the smell of the stew. You hop to your feet and run towards the mirror where Sanji’s reflection used to be. She screams as you grab her wrist and pull her towards the mirror with you. You cross through the mirror, and as you exit, you drop her wrist. Once out of the mirror, you turn around and watch as she stares at you, stunned. The creatures working with her begin to run towards the mirror. As they do so, you grab the mirror from the wall and smash it on the ground.

“Well that may have been a bit loud.” You whisper to yourself.

You turn about the room and notice you’re in a bedroom. No one was inside. Inside the room there was a dresser, a bed, a small table, a few chairs, a kitchenette, and a now shattered mirror. It must be where they were keeping Sanji in the Whole Cake Chateau, you thought.

You find a nearby door of a closet and jumped inside. You wait a few minutes, but no one enters after the crash of the mirror. You exit the closet and re-examine the room.

You weren’t sure where Sanji was or when he would come back. You decided your best bet was to hide behind where the door swung open, just in case an enemy entered. About 30 minutes later Sanji entered the room, alone. Upon entering the room he stared at the storm brewing out the window by his bed. You let the guards that escorted Sanji to his room exit and shut the door fully before you acted.

“Sanji.” You whispered.

He gasped nearly dropping his cigarette as you called to him. He turned around and there you were. You were wearing a short sleeved white ruffled dress, the top of which, emphasized your breasts and showed some cleavage. The bottom of the dress cut just below your ass and had a pink apron over it. It was a bit tattered after your fights in the seducing woods and in the mirror world.

You stepped forward towards Sanji and his body tensed. You continued towards him and buried your face in his chest. You gripped at his shirt and began to sob. He immediately clamped back down on his cigarette and wrapped his arms around you. He pulled you in for a deep embrace and paused to smell your hair. His breath caught in his throat as he pulled you arms length away from him. He stared down at you in disbelief, but you weren’t ready to look at him.

“Y/N. What are you doing here? I told Luffy I wasn’t coming back.”

You finally looked away from his chest and stared up at him with tear filled eyes.

“Sanji. I won’t let you go. I… I need you.”

“Wha..” He stuttered out.

As he did so, his cigarette hit the ground below him. Sanji quickly realized this and stamped it out before the carpet got set alight. He never let go of your waist as he did so. Once that situation was handled his gaze returned to you. Your eyes glistened with tears and you took a deep breath.

“I didn’t believe Luffy. I had to hear you say it yourself.” You said as you move your hands to his arms.

He stared at you a moment with his teeth clenched. He looked down at the floor where his cigarette laid, burnt out.

“Y/N. Im sorry I lied to you all about who I was. I’m sorry you came all this way for me, but I’m marrying Pudding tomorrow. She wants to marry me and I think I’ll be happy with her. There is nothing Luffy or… you… can do to stop me”

Your hands dropped down from his upper arms to rest on his forearms and your head falls.

“Even if I told you..”

Sanji’s body tensed against your hands. He stared down at you intently.

“Even if I told you I loved you.” You reply as you stared intently at his chest, taking a moment to get the words out before you glanced up at him.

He grunted in surprise and stared at you blankly. He then closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Y/N. I love you too…”

He looked down at you and you raised your head to look up at him. He tucked a piece of hair behind your ear and smiled.

“You’re incredible Y/N-swan and you’re unbelievably beautiful… but…” He said as he closed his eyes and sighed again. “Hours ago I would’ve done anything to hear those words… but now… I can’t… I can’t leave. I have to see this through.”

“Why?” You said as you griped his shirt sleeves tighter.

“For your safety!” He said as he pulled you tighter to him.

“I can protect myself!”

“Not against this… you, Luffy, Nami, Zeff, everyone. None of you are safe. My staying keeps you safe.”

“I don’t care. We are strong, we don’t need you to save us!” You yell as you looked deeper into his eyes.

“You’re strong, but not enough for this…. Y/N you have to go.” He said as he pulled you into a tight embrace.

He planted a kiss on your forehead and held you tight against his chest a moment. You wrapped your arms around his neck and hugged him back.

“If you really love me, you’ll let me go. You’ll help Luffy become King of the Pirates and make sure he and the crew stay fed.”

You nod your head against his chest. You squeezed him tight one more time, then pulled back. You placed your hands on his chest and lifted your head to look him in the eye one last time.

“Sa…Sanji… if this is really it. Then…”

He looked at you, and softly smiled. He caressed your check a moment and slipped his fingers under your chin. He tilted your chin up and kissed you. His lips were soft and tasted of cigarettes and vanilla. He was gentle at first, but his passion quickly grew as both of remembered this would be your first and only kiss.

You moved your hands behind his neck and curled your fingers in his hair, pulling him deeper into you. His tongue began to stroke your lips and you opened wider, allowing your tongues to dance together. Next, You pulled a hand from his hair and began to slide it down his chest, pausing at his peck to push him away from you. You looked down at where you and his feet meet and slowly trailed your eyes up his body to meet his gaze. You stared at each other in silence a moment before you began to speak.

“Sanji… just once… I need you.”

Your gaze darted to his lips, then back to his eyes. A small drop of blood came out of his nose as he stared at you, wide eyed. You chuckled and step away from him to grab a tissue off the table. You returned and wiped his nose, setting it on the table beside you. Once you had, Sanji grabbed you by your wrist and pulled you back into his chest, placing his lips back against yours.

He kissed you more intensely than the first time. You began unbuttoning the buttons on his dress shirt as he started kissing and biting down your neck. Once his shirt was unbuttoned, you began licking and kissing down his chest and abdomen. At the same time, your hands slowly traced their way down his abs to the hardened bulge forming in his pants. His head fell back and he moaned as you clawed at the fabric of his pants.

“No princess, I should take care of you.” He said as he reached down to pull your lips back up to his.

You shook him off and began unzipping and unbuttoning his pants. You paused during this, to kiss and lick right above his waistband before you tugged his pants down. You watched as his erect length flopped out and slapped your chest. His pants fell to his feet and you looked up at him with a smile.

“And I want you to drip down my throat first.” You say with an eyebrow raise as Sanji swooned.

You dropped to your knees in front of him and his erect length. As you did he pulled his shirt off his shoulders and looked down at you with a loving smile.

You gently placed your hands on his knees and kissed up his legs to his length, slowly moving your hands up as you went. You leaned back and wrapped your hands around his length. One hand wasn’t enough to hold it all. You raise your eyebrows with a smirk and look at him when you realize this, placing a second hand around him. He grunted as you began to lick his pink tip with your tongue. You moved one of your hands to play with his balls while you teased his tip a few times. He began to moan and claw at your hair and neck. You smiled against him, then moved your hand from his balls back to his length.

You dropped your tongue back into your mouth and allowed your lips to spread wider. You gently pushed your mouth forward allowing your lips to swallow his length. He moaned as it slide fully into your mouth. You began bobbing your head against his length, gradually taking more and more in your mouth with each entrance.

Sanji couldn’t take it anymore, his hand moved to grip the back of your head and his hips began to undulate against your face. You smiled against his hard member and shifted your hands to his ass. You moaned as took control the pace and amount being shoved down your throat.

“Taking me beautifully, Princess. Going to cum..”

You smiled and tried to nod, but his pace was too quick. Your eyes started to water. You felt his length begin to twitch as he slammed his member against the back of your throat. You moaned as he repeated this once more. His seed shot down the back of your throat and he began to pant. He pulled his cock from between your lips and you swallowed. You stick out your tongue and showed him it was clean.

“Fuck, Y/N. You’ve never been as beautiful as when you were just taking me. You’re a goddess.” He replied looking at you as you got back to your feet.

You smiled, then turn your back to him and pointed to your zipper. His eyes widened as he reached for it. He unzipped it slowly, taking the time to kiss down your shoulders and back as unzipped. He pushed the sleeves off your shoulders and let the dress fall to the floor in front of you. He embraced you from behind and began playing with your breasts. He squeezed at your hard buds with one hand and trailed his other down to your underwear. He carefully pushed your panties to the side and started feeling between your slick folds.

“This wet for me already, princess? What’s daddy to do?” He asked as he continued rubbing your folds and squeezing at your nipples.

You moaned and pushed your back and ass harder against his chest and exposed member. He stopped playing with you a moment to push down your underwear. You take that moment to turn around and let him see you from the front. He gulped hard and clearly stopped breathing as he stared.

“Well daddy, do you like what you see?”

Sanji’s eyes went wide and his nose began to bleed again. His arms dropped from your waist and he fumbled to reach for a tissue to clean his nose up. As he did, you sensually sauntered over to the bed and laid back, spreading your legs wide.

“You got one night Sanji.” You said as you flip your hair and sat up on your elbows. “Come show me cooks know how to eat too.” You said with a devilish smirk.

Sanji drooled as he ran towards you and jumped on the bed. He paused in front of your core and stared at it a few moments with delight. He then began to kiss up your thighs towards your core. Once at your core he looked up at you and smiled.

“You’re beautiful, my love. Daddy can’t wait to show you how a goddess deserves to be treated.”

He kissed and licked your Clit. As he did, you laid your head back on the pillows behind you and reached for the bed beneath you. He moved his tongue down to lick at your entrance. Your feet lifted and dropped against the bed at the anticipation of his tongue entering you.

“Sanji.” You called with a desperate moan as your right hand ruffled his hair.

You felt his tongue moving in the shape of what you guessed to be letters at your entrance. His left hand moved and started to slowly rub your clit, the action of which made your body shudder. You felt Sanji’s mouth form a smile and his tongue begin to lap at your insides. Your knees bent inward towards him and he moaned at your taste. He continued circling your clit with his left hand and curled his tongue to hit your spot. He started slow then bobbed his tongue out of you quicker and quicker. You begin to feel heat build in your core.

“Sa—-nnn-ji.”

He smiled again, then moved 2 fingers on his right hand to push in and out of you. His tongue curled at your spot faster and faster. Your hips buckled against his hands and face.

“Sanji!” You moan as your juices squirt on his tongue and fingers.

He began licking your juices with his tongue, but continued pushing his fingers in and out of you as he did.

You moved your hands to your sensitive nipples and began rubbing them as Sanji cleaned you up. Your hips still moved softly against him. You moaned at the touch of his tongue and of your hands against yourself.

“Sanji…. I- need you.” You pulled him up by his hair and looked at him with raised eyebrows.

He nodes and moved his chest up to rest above yours. He placed his arms above yours and began to kiss you. His once again, hardened member flopped on your stomach. You moved your hands to pump it a few times. He moved a hand to meet yours on his length. You let him take over and run your hands up his chest to rest around his neck. As you did, he moved his length to your folds and began to rub it up and down.

You moaned against his lips. He chuckled and began kissing down your neck and chest to your breasts. At your breasts he bit and sucked at your hardened buds.

“Can’t wait anymore, need you inside.” You called as your fingers fumbled through his hair.

“As you wish, princess.” He said as he stopped sucking on your hardened nipples and returned to look into your eyes.

He moved his length to your entrance and kissed you softly as he slowly and gently entered you. He gave you a few moments to adjust to his length before he started to push in and out. He pulled away from your lips and admired the bounce of your breasts for a few seconds.

“My princess, my goddess, is so tight for me.” He moaned as he continued to buck his hips against yours causing his member to go deeper towards your cervix.

“Now that you’re adjusted, how about riding me, princess? I want a better view of those perfect tits bouncing.”

You nodded. He grabbed your waist and your back and you held on to his shoulders. In one fluid motion, he flipped on his back and you were on top of him without him ever leaving your core. You moved your hands to his chest and began rolling your hips, your core tightened around him as you did. He played with your breasts and admired you atop him.

“So pretty. I’m the luckiest man in the world. I could die happy.” He swooned while you got your bearings atop him.

Once you got your bearings you began to bounce on him, moving your arms to his legs for balance. You bounced, slow at first, but quickly picking up the pace. He moaned as he watched you roll your hips against him with your bounces. As his climax began to build he moved a hand to rub your clit, causing the heat in your belly to start to rise.

“Sanji going to cum.” You muttered.

“Me too princess, where would you like me too?”

“Innnsideee.” You begged as your eyes crossed.

You leaned forward on him and quickened the pace of your bouncing, while he pushed on and twirled his thumb over your clit. Your tits bounced in his face, awakening something in him. He moved his hands around your waist and thighs and took over control of the pace. He slammed his length into your cervix a few times and you moan as his length twitched in you. His juices spilled from your core and you moaned at the feeling of wetness on your thighs. You continued to rock against him as he moaned. As you did, he moved his hand back to your clit, rubbing two fingers over it. Your core tightened at the touch, his length twitched a bit more, and your heat burst atop his member.

“Sanji!”

You fell on top of him and both of you panted. Once you’d both caught your breath, you rolled off him and moved to lay against his side. He kissed you softly at first, then he pulled you closer and it became deeper and more fervent. Then, suddenly he pushed you away. He moved to sit on the side of the bed and reached for something to clean himself up with. He then sat there and sighed. You sat up and wrapped your arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. He placed his hands over yours around his neck.

“I’m sorry princess, funs over.” He said as he kissed your hand and removed your arms from his neck.

He got up and began to get dressed, stopping only to bring you your clothes and something to clean up with. You stared at him a moment then sighed and join him in getting dressed. Once dressed you headed to the door. Tears formed in your eyes as you reached for the handle. A hand grabbed yours and turned you to look back at him.

“Thank you for everything, Y/N. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more for you. For the crew. I’m sorry I failed you all.” He said with his head tilted down.

You leaned up and kissed his cheek, then headed out the door. He followed you a few steps out the door to give an excuse to eggplant (the guard on his detail). He watched you go and his eyes began to water.

[bellarkeselection]

His Compass of Harrenhal part 4

Part 3

- do y'all want one more part to this mini series???

Tag list - @only4thefics @superintenseart @universallyrascaldreamercookie @uniquecroissant @vavafaure1994

Daemon and I silently stood there just staring at the old caretaker of the crumbling castle.  The weight of the words that had just come from his mouth was very clear in the forefront of our minds.  I knew that this day would come, but I never imagined that it would be as sudden as this.  This visitor was not simply us meeting a friend for a chat. No, this was the Dragon Queen Rhaeynra Targareyon.

She is a fierce dragon and I am simply a fish out of water.  She could kill me probably without even blinking and walk away if she wished to.

She is also Daemon's former wife or maybe in her eyes they are still together.  There's no possible way that she knows about me.

"Daemon, what do you think she's going to do to me?" I mumbled lifting my head up slightly with a very nervous expression crossing my features.

He squeezed his fingers into my hips where his hands were resting on my body. "I don't know.  But you shouldn't worry your head about it."

"But she's your wife."

His bright purple eyes meet my gaze. "Y/n, don't worry about it because I will make sure she doesn't touch you or the baby in any capacity."

"Daemon! She's your wife. She needs you to get the support of the lords of the realm. I don't help give her any assistance-"

He covered my mouth with his right hand closing most of the gap that was still between us.  His voice went deeper yet remained in the gentle side that he only showed around me.  "Listen to me, little fish.  You are important to me.  I wouldn't have the support of the Riverlands if it wasn't for you.  So I never want to hear you say she doesn't owe you anything when she does owe you some grattitude."

"I'm still afraid, Daemon." I whispered to him under my breath.  The dragon prince nodded his head wrapping his strong arms gently around my waist, bringing me in closer.

Simon, who was standing in the doorway spoke up once before announcing his presence.  "My king, my lady, we should address the princess before she wastes anymore time."

"You should go.  I'll stay back-"

"You won't dare do any such thought.  We're in this together you and I.  I want you by my side."

"I wasn't expecting you."

Rhaenyra eyed her husband then the crowd of men behind him. "Seems rather a lapse in foresight.  I see you have done well here."

"They are sworn to me and not a moment too soon." Daemon admitted to her proudly, knowing she needed this army to have any chance of getting the Iron Throne.

Rhaenyra lifted her head up slightly to send him a deep glare asking the question.  "And to whom are you sworn?"

"The world is not what we thought it was.  This war is just the beginning.  Winter is Coming with darkness and doom.  ( Se vys iksos daor skoros īlon thought ziry istan. Bisa vīlībāzma iksos sepār se beginning. Sōnar māzis rūsīr darkness se vējes.)"

Rhaenyra made a confused expression.  "You sound like my father. ( Ao sound raqagon issa kepa.)"

"I saw that we cannot withstand it..and yet, somehow we must. ( Nyke ūndan bona īlon daor withstand ziry. Se yet, somehow īlon līs.)" Daemon clicks his tongue glancing over his shoulder at me for a brief second before looking back at her.  He lowered himself down onto one knee catching her by slight surprise. "The realm's only hope is a leader who can unite it.  And my brother chose you.  You are the true Queen.  Rhaenyra, the first of her name, Protector of the Realm.  I am meant to serve you and all of these with me until death or the end of our story."

Slowly every single lord around me bent down on one knee to address her properly as their Queen.  I placed one hand on my swollen stomach and did the best I could to be down on one knee like the others. Squinting my eyes I was still trying to understand what they were saying in High Valyrian, I was still learning the language from Daemon. "Leave me again at your peril. ( Henujagon issa arlī rȳ aōha peril.)"

"I could not. I tried. ( Nyke could daor. Nyke sylutan.)" Daemon rose from the stone ground addressing her before her dragon made a noise.  "My Queen."

"For every one of us who falls a hundred of them.  There will be no mercy." Daemon put his back to the two of us, drawing his sword out and declaring to the massive crowd of men.  "We fight for our Queen!"

The crowd drew their swords and cheered alongside him till Rhaenyra noticed me standing at the front of the crowd with my hands resting on my stomach and I was only really looking at her husband.  "Daemon, who in the realm is the pregnant woman standing before me?"

"You're grace..." I nervously bowed my head down to address the dragon queen before me.

The queen slowly walked forward scanning her eyes down my body and held her eyes solely on my pregnant belly.  "What is your name, my lady?"

"Y/n Tully, your grace." I simply responded to her.

She questioned back softly.  "Who is the father of the babe in your belly, Lady Tully?"

"Um.  I must admit I am not comfortable sharing that information, your grace." I lowered my gaze from hers and accidentally took a few steps away from her showing I was afraid of her next response.

Rhaenyra bites her lip in a tight line.  "Daemon, I demand to know what else you have been doing here while working to secure me an army of Riverlands men and I demand to know now!" 

"Rhaenyra, she's my - the baby growing in her womb belongs to me." Daemon placed his sword back inside its holder coming over to the two of us.

The dragon queen clicked her tongue.  "There's more you're leaving out.  Tell me now."

"She's my wife." Daemon finally mutters under his breath.  This caused everyone else in the crowd to gasp and take large steps backwards in utter shock.

Rhaenyra whipped her head around glaring at me and I shut my eyes thinking she would lay a hand on me.  Yet when I heard a harsh smack where I peaked one eye opened seeing Daemon holding his cheek with one hand.  "You promised me you'd be loyal to me.  You led me on when I was a child and I believed you and yet you still do this.  You betray my trust by marrying and bedding another woman!"

"I now see what my brother saw in you when he named you heir.  I see that you will be the realm's protector even if you no longer are the object of my desire." Daemon made his way past his former wife stopping directly in front of me.  He cupped my face in his hands resting his forehead against his.  "I've never thought that a woman would change me, make me truly care about her safety, want to bear her children and not simply to further my house.  She brings out the best version of me."

"And where does your loyalty stand, Y/n Tully?" The black Queen questioned me after we had broken away and I was standing beside my dragon husband.

"My loyalty will be to your cause, my Queen." I gave her the best curtsy I could, sending her a weak smile.

Rhaenyra glared at me and her former husband but bravery pushed her jealousy aside knowing we had bigger problems if she wished to take her throne back from her half brothers.  "Our focus needs to be on getting my throne back from the Greens.  But don't think for a moment that this conversation is over between the three of us." She spun on her heels being escorted into a separate room by Simon leaving me, Daemon and the lords behind us all thrown for a loop by how she ended the conversation.

Comments really appreciated ❤️

[jetii]

Heeeeey if your taking request could you do a headcanon list of Tech x y/n who was a former Jedi (post order 66) please and thank u 🙏

Hi there! I've never done a headcanon list before so I hope this is along the lines of what you're looking for. 💙

Send me your Tech requests!

HCs: Tech x Jedi!Reader Post Order 66

Words: 1,977

Tags/Warnings: none really, very vague description of sex but nothing explicit

Tech always knows where you are.

When you’re with the squad, your presence is like a physical thing he’s attuned to. When you’re not, he’s tracking your missions.

Most of the time you can’t tell him where you’re going, but that’s fine with him. He’ll find out anyway, and he’ll send you some information that you might find useful while he’s at it.

It’s how he knows something is very wrong as soon as he’s left Kaller.

Tech knows your last mission was on an Outer Rim planet with a small unit, and he reaches out to you immediately. When there’s no response, he keeps trying.

He tries everything he can think of, including hacking into Republic servers and even the Bounty Hunter’s Guild, to figure out what’s happened to you.

Someone, likely Wrecker, has to force him to stop. They know what Tech won’t admit to himself, and it’s not easy watching their brother become more and more unhinged with worry.

It’s not grief, not yet, because you’re alive. You’re strong, and smart, and resourceful, and the possibility of you actually perishing is unfathomably low.

Still, the notion starts to creep into his thoughts. If you were alive, you would’ve found a way to contact them. It’s not like you to stay away for so long. He should try messaging again, just to be sure.

Eventually, they learn more about the chips, and Tech is forced to confront the emotions he’s compartmentalized since the day the Order fell. It’s been weeks without a sign.

He’s honestly not okay, and the worst part by far is not knowing. It takes a lot of sleepless nights for him to come to terms with the fact that you were dead. It's obvious that he's taking it hard, but he resists any attempts from the others to comfort him. He can't admit it out loud, not yet.

When you’re finally reunited, maybe at Cid's arcade or on a mission to a backwater planet where you're hiding, he immediately rushes into an explanation of the chips and shows you the scans.

He's exceedingly patient as you process, giving you space, and when you finally let down your guard, he folds you into a tight hug.

And then, whether you’re already together or friends that are maybe something more, Tech kisses you.

You’re stunned, and so is everyone else. But he’s so overwhelmed with emotions he can’t even start to name, and it’s the only thing he can think to do.

Tech comes up with several plans to add to the roster specific to you that night. Some of them are more complex than others, but all are specific to situations where you're risking discovery by the Empire. His brothers and Omega could be captured, but you could be executed on sight, and he won’t let that happen.

He spends so much time ruminating over these plans in fact that you (or Omega or any of his brothers, really, maybe all of the above) have to pull him aside and remind him that you’re here now.

It takes some time, but he gets it. He starts to appreciate the things that he didn't before. The way you look in certain lighting, the sound of your laugh, the feeling he gets when your arm brushes his.

You don’t take things further for a while, because neither of you can quite believe that you're allowed to, but you can feel it happening.

And when it does happen, it's a little awkward, because he's not quite used to having you, or anyone really, in this capacity. But you both learn each other's quirks and boundaries pretty quickly, and he loves getting the chance to explore you and learn your body.

His favorite is the way you say his name when you're close, or how your voice hitches and breath catches when he moves just right.

He becomes clingy in a way you don’t expect. Not necessarily in a physical sense, but he’s always paying attention to your moods, always ready to offer his support, always staying as close as possible when you’re out in public.

You spend a lot of time together just doing your own thing. He likes having you near him while he’s working on the Marauder or another project. It’s helpful to have someone to talk through problems with, and you have enough knowledge about mechanics that you’re genuinely helpful on occasion.

You’re usually meditating or reading, and you’re happy to hand him tools or listen to him ramble about a project he's working on. You've always listened, even before you were together, and you're both happy to keep the same dynamic going.

He also likes listening to you talk. You have an interesting way of looking at the world, and sometimes you tell stories about the more research-oriented missions you went on as a Padawan.

In the downtime, the two of you have some interesting debates, but the conversation never turns heated. The most it ever comes to is you teasing him for his opinions or him being a little exasperated by the things you say.

When he's feeling playful, he'll lean into the banter and play right back. Sometimes he'll make a sarcastic comment or a dry joke just to make you smile.

When it comes to his projects, he's not shy about asking for help or your opinion. He likes working with you, and you like working with him.

One time he’d needed to reach a panel on the ceiling and you lifted him with the Force. It was so effortless to you, you didn’t think about it, but his face had been a hilarious combination of awed and scandalized.

Tech likes seeing your power first hand. The way you can hold him suspended is just the tip of the iceberg, and it makes him wonder what else you could do if you wanted.

Sometimes he asks about the Force, and you're more than happy to explain the theory and practical applications. It's not the same as being able to experience it yourself, but he's fascinated, and he's more than a little impressed by your strength and control.

The Force is understudied from a scientific perspective, in Tech's opinion. He’d never been able to get his hands on Jedi research on the subject, and it wasn’t until you came along that it started to genuinely interest him. You soon find yourself the subject of dozens of his experiments.

It’s flattering to be the focus of Tech’s attention, so you let him test you. You let him catalog how far you can leap, how much you can lift, and how precise you can be.

And then one day he asks if you can read his mind. The answer is yes, but you've never tried.

Tech is curious and a little excited by the possibility, so he asks you to give it a try. He stands perfectly still and tells you what to focus on.

The mental barriers aren't too difficult to break down, and you find yourself inside his thoughts. It's not anything specific, just his stream of consciousness, and it's very organized. You can hear him thinking about the project he's working on and how the repairs are almost done.

Then his thoughts shift to you, and his affection for you is the clearest thing. It's a little overwhelming, because the intensity of his feelings is staggering. You can't quite describe the feeling, but you know he loves you.

When you pull away, he's looking at you with a soft expression and a faint blush. You're both a little embarrassed, but you tell him what you felt, and he kisses you.

He does eventually find out, in a rather roundabout way, that you can manipulate his emotions, too.

It's not the first time you've used the Force to calm someone down. You'd done it with his brothers plenty of times, but they never know what's happening. Tech notices, and when he brings it up, you sheepishly explain that you could tell he was overstimulated and needed a break.

And he's a little annoyed, but mostly amused, and it makes him wonder if there are other things you could do.

So the next time the two of you are alone, and you're not busy with a project, he asks you to try it. You're more than happy to, and you're curious to see what it feels like for him.

At first, he doesn't notice anything. You're both sitting on the bunk, and he's working on his datapad. But then his shoulders relax and his eyes start to droop.

The datapad falls into his lap and his breathing slows. He leans his head against the wall and closes his eyes. He can feel you leaning over to put the datapad on the floor, and when you settle back into place, you pull his head onto your lap and run your fingers through his hair.

He's half-asleep, but he can feel the contentment and safety radiating from you, and it makes him feel like he's floating. He lets his body go lax, and he's asleep within minutes. It's one of the best nights of sleep he's ever had, and he wakes up feeling refreshed.

It's an interesting discovery, and it doesn't happen often, but when the Marauder is a little too crowded, or his head is just too full, he'll ask. And you're always happy to help him get some rest.

He does the same for you. Not with the Force, but with his touch. He can't manipulate your emotions, but his presence is a comfort, and it's enough. He insists on you getting the appropriate amount of sleep, and if holding you to keep the nightmares at bay is what it takes, then so be it.

With a solid framework of your abilities, Tech is more comfortable with you taking risks on missions. He trusts you, and he trusts your instincts. He still feels his heart seize whenever he watches you do something dangerous, but he can keep it under control until you’re alone.

But he never really gets used to the danger you put yourself in. He doesn't stop worrying, and he'll always be glad when missions are over and the two of you are back on the ship. And he can show you just how relieved he is, and just how much he needs you.

And if he's the one taking risks, you're the one fretting. But, just like him, you try to keep your cool. You can't let your feelings overwhelm him, and it wouldn't be productive anyway.

After missions, though, the two of you can find the right balance. You'll take care of each other, and the closeness and tenderness that come with those moments are a reminder of the good in the galaxy, and of each other.

He loves you, and you love him. It's the only thing he knows with absolute certainty, and the knowledge keeps him grounded.

He'll always be there, and you'll always have him. And no matter what happens, nothing will change that.

And obviously Tech lives because you’re able to pull everyone to safety on Eriadu.

After, the two of you try to settle on Pabu, but you’re both truly terrible at staying still. You can't stay away from the action, and Tech can't sit idly by when there are problems to solve.

So the two of you end up helping people in whatever ways you can. You're not actively trying to fight the Empire, but if the opportunity arises, you won't hesitate. I imagine this involves helping Echo and Rex, and doing what you can to search for Crosshair.

And the two of you have plenty of time to figure out your relationship and the logistics of a long-term arrangement. The main point is that the two of you are alive, and that's what matters.

[lilhealthybean]

Inferno

"This is how it always had to end"

Tags: Sukuna, jjk, heian era :)

Note: i'm free again, hope you enjoy it.

Sukuna stared out the window each morning, his gaze shifting from the passing carriages and people. He narrowed his eyes at the sight of you, as you silently walked by with your hands full of bags. As always, in the afternoon, he went downstairs to wait for you.

"Long time no see, when was it? A day ago?" Sukuna said with a smile as you approached him.

You giggled, unknowing that your giggles had prevented the village from being destroyed by him months ago.

"Too much, right? Maybe I should tell my family to move near you," you said with a laugh.

Sukuna leaned towards you with a smirk.

“You shouldn't call them family; if they were, they wouldn't make you walk through the most dangerous paths of the village every single day," he said with a serious expression as he started walking next to you.

It had become a routine. He couldn't remember the day he stopped staring at you and decided to walk beside you to ensure your safety. You remained silent, gazing at the floor.

Sukuna stared at you and noticed a fresh burn on your arm. He clenched his teeth, hesitant to speak, remembering when he had arrived in the village with Uraume.

The pink-haired man had been searching for cursed objects or something interesting. After several days, he had decided that the place was not worth his time.

Just as Sukuna was about to set fire to the town, you appeared on the path. You were softly singing a song and had scars all over the visible parts of your body. You saw him and smiled at him before continuing on your way.

How could someone look so miserable yet seem so happy?

After the incident, he asked Uraume to gather all the information about you. Within two days, he knew every single detail about you. You were born into a significant branch of the Sugawara clan, a family that values its members solely based on their cursed energy capacity and power. Unfortunately, you were born with little cursed energy capacity, which led your family to mistreat you whenever they had the chance.

For the first time as a cursed object, he felt compassion. He felt it for you.

"Thanks again for walking me home, I am sorry for being a burden"

Sukuna could feel warmth invading his chest, your gratitude was enough for him.

"I have heavier burdens. So… I’ll see you again tomorrow?"

You nodded at his comment and smiled before leaving him.

The next day you didn't appear.

The pink-haired man didn't realize he would miss you so much; but there he was, staring for the whole week through the window, waiting for you to appear.

You didn't.

It was as if you vanished.

Frustrated, Sukuna decided to look out for you. He and Uraume went down to town and decided to ask everyone. No one knew where were you. He knew everyone was lying.

Sukuna started to hate all that sorcerers and that town.

Days later he finally found you. Sukuna found you in the common grave, all your body covered in burns.

He knew he wasn't anyone to judge, in the end, he was a curse user who was keen on sadism. However, staring at your abused body and your lifeless eyes; Sukuna realized he and the sorcerers weren't that similar.

They were worse than him.

"I see… These filthy sorcerers are into the fire..." his eyes were still staring at you, still unsure of his next move "Uraume, leave me alone, I have some things to take care of"

The named one obeyed Sukuna’s orders. Meanwhile, the cursed object keeps his eyes on you to leave a brief kiss on your forehead.

That night the characteristic serenity of the town turned into shouting and painful voices, which were mostly hidden due to the intense fire.

The next morning, the town which was known for its beauty and calmness disappeared. There were just ashes.

Sukuna and Uraume presenced that event from his house. The pink-haired man didn't move from his place until he realized there were no more sorcerers alive in the town.

"Are you okay?" Uraume asked while he was staring at his lord

"Why wouldn't I be? This is how it always had to end" Sukuna's deadpan expression made Uraume get goosebumps.

Despite Sukuna didn't express his feelings externally, Uraume never felt that much wrath in him

"I already told you Uraume, when the town lost its interest I would destroy it"

[lesbianboyfriend]

tell me about this btvs sexual violence thesis…..

okayyy i’ve been talking around this on my blog forever bc i haven’t had the mental capacity to make a coherent post about it but let me try now!!! i have some older posts that touch on some of these ideas too—i’ve linked a couple of them where relevant but honestly i could not find a bunch of them…but they are somewhere in my btvs lb tag. also note: i’m definitely still workshopping these ideas so id love to hear thoughts/rebuttals/expansions/whatever !!! it’s also all right now mostly working off my own thoughts/observations so i definitely want to do some research….i hope to one day write an actual essay about this

basically the summation of the buffyverse sexual violence thesis is that there is a narrative of sexual violence that is haunting the story. it goes pretty much unaddressed by the narrative at large, but it’s the crux of almost everything that happens.

i think there are two very obvious standout moments in btvs that highlight this sexual violence (the theory at large also encompasses angel but as i’m not entirely done watching it yet im gonna focus on buffy here, though i did touch on it briefly in a recent post about cordy’s death) which are the first slayer story and the spike attempted rape scene. going to talk about the first slayer first cause i think it’s kind of the framework for everything but important to note in terms of info that we get we + the characters aren’t aware of the first slayer story until after the rape scene.

imo the story of the first slayer is deeply deeply coded as a story of sexual violence. it’s about a woman being violated by a group of men who literally chain her down and force something into her. already, we’ve seen how being the slayer has isolated and harmed buffy, kendra, faith….its treated as almost a desirable, enviable position of honor (somewhat similar to how being a victim of sexual assault is sometimes painted as meaning the victim was “desirable”) but particularly once given this context, it’s hard to view being chosen as the slayer as anything but an act of violence against these women.

this is important to note because in a sense, it’s the slayer who upholds the moral binary of the buffyverse where good=soul, human and bad=no soul, demon. now this binary pretty much falls apart upon the slightest examination, because the story would not be as interesting if it was that simple. so there are multiple demon or otherwise characters who straddle this moral boundary—INCLUDING the slayer who not only straddles but enforces it. the outlier characters are presented as just that, outliers to this system, not indicators of its flaws. they are only good insofar as their goodness is directed towards maintaining the system. assimilation, not liberation.

okay, so, the spike rape scene. what’s notable about this scene is that it is, to my knowledge (?), the only moment of sexual violence that is explicitly named as an act of sexual violence. even in angel, which i feel has more overt moments of sexual violence, it’s not actually usually named as such. but what happens in this scene is explicitly named as a rape attempt. it is by far the most significant moment of sexual violence in btvs. so what exactly is going on with this scene?

now, there’s a lot that could be said and discussed about like, spike as a character, his motivations, etc (currently cooking up some thoughts about this myself), but for the purpose of this analysis i want to look strictly at what role spike is playing narratively in season 6. so, looking at this on a doylist level but NOT to be conflated with me excusing his actions on a watsonian level. anyways if we think about it season six is kind of a rejection of the larger moral order previously presented by btvs…i’ve talked about this vis-à-vis the demon/human evil/good binary and how season 6 really troubles those binaries. a lot of the season is about buffy grappling with these notions that perhaps her moral worldview is not correct—which leads to her spike. she’s previously made allowances for spike in this worldview, so she uses him as a sort of vehicle for exploring alternate theories. unlike the other demons we’ve seen allowances made for, spike is not “good” in the sense that btvs posits goodness for demons. he has done “good” things and he can’t hurt humans, but he is pretty explicitly still doing a lot of evil stuff. so spike gets to exist in the greyest area of any btvs character—his chip troubles the binary of who is and is not good/evil, not to mention who is morally killable under this worldview.

through her relationship with spike, buffy joins him there in that grey area. HER humanity (goodness) is questioned, which is not something that’s previously been up for serious debate. i talked before about how the slayer inherently straddles that binary, but as i said, both the characters and the viewers aren’t aware of that at this point. all of a sudden, there’s a total moral upheaval that creates lots of conflict….and this rejection of the prior moral order and exploration of what lies beyond it is what makes season 6 so compelling.

BUT season 6 isn’t the last season. and as we all know, season 7 kind of sucked!!! and went seriously hard on reifying that good/evil binary. so how did we get that wild shift between seasons? the rape scene.

as we know, “real evil” is only done by demons despite the countless terrible things we’ve seen human characters do. when spike tries to rape buffy, it cements him firmly back into the realm of monstrosity. violence, evil, whatever, they’re all signifiers of a monstrosity that removes the character of their humanity. we see this argument time and time again irl when people argue that people who do bad things are no longer human, thus rejecting the idea that they themselves are also capable of those bad things. this is why it’s so important that this moment is named as rape, as sexual violence, unlike the other instances. with the attempted rape, spike is ousted out of his grey area, back into “evilness”. buffy, as his victim this time, necessarily returns to the opposite side of the binary as him. buffy stops fighting against her role as slayer—she stops questioning the veracity of the system. in fact, she goes on to expand it, violating even more women in the name of “good.” spike realizes he has to conform to this moral order in order to “have” buffy (much to be said about that another time lollll) and regains a soul, the necessary signifier of his “goodness” and willingness to support the system he once troubled so severely. thus, the moral order is restored through an act of sexual violence, highlighting exactly how it predicated on the very sexual violence it claims to abhor.

some loose notes on other working parts of the thesis:

-general historical connection of vampire stories to sexuality (carmilla, dracula, etc)

-vampirism as sexual predation (penetration, vampires picking victims by seducing women at clubs)

-mystical pregnancy (in angel especially: cordelia, cordelia again, darla, cordelia…..) as a violation in and of itself and also a vehicle towards death

-angel and buffy in general. him being attracted to her since she was. 14

-sex with buffy returning angel to evil? not sure exactly how this would fit in yet but. there’s something there

-spike’s entire attitude for women

-xander’s whole deal

-as a matter of fact the way that pretty much every male character is misogynist

-episodes ted and billy (angel) -> presenting violence against women as stemming from an inherent monstrosity (billy somewhat contradicting this? but also reifying it. it’s left unclear tbh)

-darla in angel season 2 as a parallel to buffy in season 6…need to think more on this one as well

-dana….

[system-architect]

no one tagged me in it but i rlly wanted to do a character tag meme like ive seen ppl on my dash doing so,,, :"") here's the one that's been going around, for plex!

personally obsessed with the fact that his ingame visage is extremely babied boy and then when i draw him it reveals the fact like oh this is a very tired, awkwardly built, angular guy who's nearing 30. ok anyways, stuff below the cut!

-- B A S I C S

Name: Plex (fully titled: Infotechnist Plex)

Nicknames: (none. his handle on various console software is pl3x tho)

Age: 28

Birthday: 63 Scion 1308

Race: Asura

Gender: trans dude of some kind, he/him

Orientation: gay

Profession: he is an Inquest Technician very literally! minus the wiki bit mentioning magic since the stock npc is an ele lmao. ingame he's an engi, but as a character he has no combat skills whatsoever other than basic required training on how to use a firearm (which he hopes to never have to use)

-- P H Y S I C A L A S P E C T S

Hair: white (technically very very platinum blonde, natural)

Eyes: they're technically black with permanent yellow nightshine going on in his pupils. or irises. whatever the yellow dots are. don't worry about it.

Skin: albino (w/ light cream-tan stripe markings)

Tattoos/Scars: he's got a Y-shaped scar across his chest, and a couple of metal ports embedded on the right (viewer's left) side of his chest near his sternum, which have scarring around them

-- F A M I L Y

This section of the report has been obscured from view by the Inquest Legal Bureau at the behest of Redactor Trejj. Please contact your krewe's Overseer to initiate the proper clearance check measures if you believe this was in error. If you do not believe that it was in error, and instead that your ability to access this report whatsoever was unintended, please close the report at your earliest convenience and report to your facility's Inquisitor to be disciplined for reading this far.

-- S K I L L S

Abilities: Adept programmer with an eye for detail, and a photographic memory for numbers/strings of code specifically. Excels at combining complex pieces of information.

Hobbies: Gaming, movies/animations/shows, putting together model kits. Gets in a lot of arguments on programming and golemancy forums.

-- T R A I T S

Most positive generally helpful traits: Hard working (....usually), fast + thorough at things he puts his mind to, prefers to stay out of other people's business, good at keeping secrets, relatively open minded, has a pretty big capacity for empathy (even if he doesn't always show/use it)

Most negative generally unhelpful traits: Has a big mouth/isn't able to suppress his opinions about certain things, picky/fussy/whiny, socially awkward, tends to make interactions tense quickly, deep insecurity that bleeds over into how he acts around others, wants to 'win' things constantly, easily gets an inflated ego from said 'wins' that leads him to bite off more than he can chew after that

-- L I K E S

Colors: black LOL. also yellow (matches him!)

Smells: fresh coffee, cool rain on concrete, lemon, pine, canned air

Textures: leather and suede, soft fabrics (but not 'plush')

Drinks: coffee of course... also novelty flavor energy drinks even though they make his stomach feel like it's caving in on itself every time

-- O T H E R D E T A I L S

Smokes: lord no he'd start coughing on it

Drinks: his alcohol tolerance is about -2 so this is also a no. the man's veins and stomach lining are made of like.. tissue paper

Drugs: what do u think

Been arrested: no.. aside from being in the inquest (Which Is In Itself Literally Not A Crime) he's a fairly law abiding mild-mannered citizen lmfao. i mean he probably torrents things under a vpn but that's very low on the list of concerns for the peacemakers,

[koladelight]

Like the sea - Silvio x MC (Ikemen Prince)

Title: Like the sea

Pairing: Silvio x MC (named Emma in this)

Tags: Fluff, drama, angst. No smut. Suitable for minors.

Summary: The first time Silvio is away for a longer time after they settled in Benitoite. Silvio's POV.

Let me know if you want more Silvio, Clavis, Chevalier or Gilbert fics.

It had been far too long since Silvio had seen Emma. He had been away from the palace for three weeks while Emma stayed behind. Life aboard the ship kept him largely busy, but the upcoming storm had worried him. He knew Emma was idiotic enough to spend the entire day frantic over him once she would learn about the bad weather approaching the ship. Spending the day with the ship rocking back and forth on the waves and getting soaked from the rain wasn't anything unusual for Silvio, but this was the first time he had ever been away from home for so long with someone actually missing him while waiting for his return. The feeling often left him speechless. Never before had he wished to reach his homeland as quickly as he found himself wanting to now.

The storm arrived with slight change in the air at first. Everything was eerily quiet, quite fitting for the phrase ''calm before the storm''. Silvio had never hoped for easy sailing or the winds to be kind as such things rarely came to pass on these waters. The skies were turning grey ever so slowly and the sails fluttered with the gusts of air trembling around the creaking structures of their land on sea. It didn't take long for the rain to start pouring down and the entire crew was sliding on the slippery deck within minutes. Silvio felt his muscles working far over their normal capacity and his senses were entirely maxed out as he rode the beast that was the anger of the turbulent seas.

Before Emma, sea had been his only love and mistress worth mentioning. As the blue haired man clung to the wooden railings, splinters digging into his hands, he considered the possibility that sea was the reason he had fallen for Emma in the first place. The sea was free and fiery despite it's element, and such was Emma. Hard to predict and sometimes whimsical, the waters did as they wanted. Silvio's gaze had been drawn to Emma from the start as if he was gazing at the coast after a month long journey. It invited the eye to see, rather than just look. And he had really seen her. If he were to die because of unnatural causes, Silvio had always imagined the sea eventually taking him. The cradle of water, eternal grave in the ocean, would have been a fitting end for a sailor like himself. But now he hoped that if such misfortune were to appear in his future, he could die to protect his lover. He would gladly bare his heart for Emma, to let her be the ward of his body and soul.

When the ship finally reached the shore, the whole crew safe but spent, Silvio could hardly drag his feet to the carriage. First light of dawn had pierced the sky, but the golden light of lanterns still glimmered around him. Silvio could hardly wait for the comforting blanket that was Emma's love. Nothing would ever feel more like returning home than her tiny body wrapping around him as she welcomed him back to the safety net of her warmth. What a sensation of heart it was to be returning to something so sweet.

The door let out a slight grinding noise when Silvio entered the bedroom he shared with Emma. It was no surprise to him to see her awake on the bed, absent-mindedly reading a novel. Her soft gaze moved to inspect her lover's face immediately. Couple of frustrated tears formed in the corners of her eyes and the morning light made them sparkle. Silvio flashed her a cocky grin, as if to say ''see, I told you I would be home safe''. In a couple of long steps, he was right beside her. Still not quite used to being held, Silvio let out an alarmed yelp when Emma drew his face to her chest and wrapped her arms around his cold shoulders. There are different types of hugs. Some are gentle with plenty of room to breathe and some are strong ones that are meant to show how much you'll never want to part. This one was of the latter quality. Silvio felt Emma around him as if she was trying to melt the very core of her soul into him, to be one with him forever.

''I hate you,'' she whispered, but pressed a firm kiss in his hair. Red blush the shade of roses and pink champagne stained Silvio's ears and face, slowly warming his neck as well. Gently he pried himself free from her hold and answered, ''I ain't buyin' that.''

One cocky smile after he pressed a passionate kiss on her lips as he cradled her tear stained cheeks. The faintest colour of rose never left his features.

[kastlequill]

ii. for you my love i kill

pairing: miguel o'hara x f!reader word count: 6.5k synopsis: miguel visits the hospital to tie up some loose ends then makes sure you got home safe tags: whump/angst, protective/dark miguel o’hara, black cat!reader warnings: reference of past canonical sexual assault, some torture, broken bones, miguel kills a guy ao3: read here ← prev | next [soon] →

After Miguel left you crying in that alley, he had expected his night to end there.

The plan had originally been for him to head back to his apartment and get as much sleep as possible; no detours, no distractions. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d rested for more than three consecutive hours, but if the Spider-Man wanted to continue starting his days at the crack of dawn, then Miguel O’Hara needed some good ol’ shut-eye. This should’ve been an easy-to-follow, hard-to-fuck-up plan.

Except, he hadn’t gone home and was instead currently perched outside the window of a hospital room four stories high.

Because the thing was, Miguel had lied to you—the man you had tried to kill tonight wasn’t dead. A few feet away, the target in question was bedridden but very alive, receiving medical attention for the damage you’d inflicted onto him.

When Miguel stumbled upon you relentlessly clawing at a noncombative man who laid prone in the street, his instincts had compelled him to act first and ask questions later. Every second wasted brought the man closer to death as you’d shown no sign of stopping your flurry of attacks anytime soon. So, Spider-Man had snuck up from behind and put you in a chokehold, compressing your carotid artery just enough to render you unconscious.

While you were passed out, the apparent victim had departed from the scene in a flying ambulance, which left Spider-Man alone to handle the apparent perpetrator: you.

You weren’t what he had expected.

As witness to your capacity for violence, there were certain adjectives Miguel would have thought applied to you, like unfeeling and inhuman. But you’d surprised him by being the opposite: fervent and compassionate.

Which made it irritatingly difficult to figure you out.

Not that he wanted to—he didn’t.

It was just that you had seemed so lost at the chance that this man, who you’d attempted to rid from society, might have survived. Miguel intimately understood the single-minded pursuit of a goal that had become the axis upon which your whole world now hinged. He knew what it meant to latch onto the mere hope that achieving a certain goal might suffice as enough of a sacrifice to stain the door to your heart with lamb’s blood and convince the Angel of Death sent by your best-forgotten past to leave you be, to pass over you.

And because he (unfortunately) had ample experience in this regard, all it had taken was hearing the desperation in your voice and seeing the begrudgingly-pleading look in your eyes to pull the following words right out of his mouth:

You got him, he’d assured you. Already dead when I arrived.

Miguel was a lot of things, but a liar wasn’t one of them; among his plethora of epithets, prevaricator was notably absent. He spoke the truth as he understood it, even if it pained him to do so. Even if he wanted to tell himself a lie.

Even if he’d rather use his bare hands to carve a shelter out of Utopian falsehoods and reside in purposefully-ignorant bliss

Moreover, Miguel was unlike the vast majority of Spider-People in that he did not adhere to a strict no-kill rule, either. So the moment those two short sentences left his lips, the fate of the man on the other side of this window pane had been sealed.

“John Doe” was as good as dead.

John Doe; the name presiding medical staff had assigned to the patient of unknown origin. He’d been admitted without an ID card, and his disfigured face didn’t do identification efforts any favors either. You had carved out chunks of flesh from his cheeks, and no patch of skin had been spared the deep, inflamed gashes imparted by your claws.

In the wake of your vengeance, he had become more thing than person.

Luckily, Miguel had Lyla. The AI had pinpointed the man in question by extracting his DNA from remnant blood on the Spider-Man suit and running a cross-comparison with the hundreds of thousands of DNA profiles stored in the city’s database. If he had any prior involvements with the law, there would be a match.

And there was.

John Doe was actually Trent Michaels.

A recent college graduate, son of his school’s dean. Star athlete, doted on by his professors and peers. Squeaky-clean record.

It’d been all too easy to learn your identity thereafter, to then find unsealed court records for a case marked dead on arrival, old images of you smiling, carefree and trusting. Reconciling the life-hardened woman who he’d confronted in the alley and that bright-eyed girl as being one and the same was a challenge, but not impossible. There was still much of her in you, even if she only appeared during the brief moments your guard was down.

As a mechanism for survival, you had been forced to construct walls around yourself of such height and of such thickness that they were too insurmountable for most to scale and too impenetrable for the rest to infiltrate. A man’s wretchedness had been the catalyst for these defensive measures which, while successful in keeping others out, also kept you locked in, trapping you with the demons that weren’t so easily deterred.

Feelings of self-loathing and helplessness; thoughts of self-blame and fruitless what-if scenarios. You were resigned to dealing with it all alone. Though he similarly shared that sentiment, Miguel’s concern was that you’d gladly destroy yourself just to catch all that haunted you within the blast range of your implosion.

Mutually assured destruction.

He refused to stand idly by while you became collateral damage in your own quest for vengeance. The longer Miguel ruminated on the matter, the more his anger toward Michaels grew. His ire tempted him to detonate this ticking time bomb of a human so that there’d be no chance of it exploding around you. But his logic commanded him to suppress the urge to unsheathe his talons and refrain from tearing the man limb from limb.

Sé paciente, sé paciente, sé paciente. Miguel recited the words like a mantra meant to tether himself to the present then pinched the bridge of his nose to assuage an impending migraine. There’ll be plenty of time for that later.

To set the record straight, showing up to the hospital had not been a premeditated decision. One minute Miguel was swinging through Nueva York, taking the usual route that led to his apartment, and the next he was here, preparing to break into a facility for the sick and injured.

Since he had arrived, however, his mind had begun concocting a plan, officially converting this would-be crime of passion into an act of murder. Except—

—killing that maggot piece of shit isn’t murder. It’s what I’m owed.

Not murder. Retribution.

From the shadows, Miguel observed the medical staff’s next three rounds and soundly concluded that they were spaced fifteen minutes apart. That gave him fifteen minutes to do what he needed to do.

With sufficient information on both the premises and the target, operation take-out-the-trash was a go. He dug his fingers under the bottom edge of the double-hung window and slowly pushed upward, sliding it open just enough to allow him to step through and into the room.

Inside, it was quiet save for the steady beeping of a heart monitor and the faint whistling of air entering and exiting through the nostrils of a recently-broken nose. Everything tied back to the bastard who was laying on the hospital bed as if it were an altar and he was its sacrificial offering to the gods.

But there were no gods here; only Spider-Man.

This ritual wasn’t to bring plentiful rain or a bountiful harvest; it was to cage a monster’s soul in the confines of Hell and set free yours from the clutches of all that which sought to do you harm. It was to cleanse the revolting sight that was a supine Michaels sleeping peacefully, oblivious to or uncaring of the pain he’d caused you.

That those scum can walk among us freely, can go about the rest of their lives without consequence—

Try as he might, Miguel couldn’t unhear the break in your voice as you choked on all the things you could not say. The years-long wounds you carried within were clearly still raw; healing them had thus far been a feat unconquered since the root of the injury was still alive and well, preventing definitive closure.

Until now.

The room was larger than average, and a tray of gourmet food on the overbed table indicated the patient’s VIP status. This fancy, non-hospital cafeteria dinner had undoubtedly been provided at the behest of the Public Eye, who wanted Michaels pliable and cooperative during their inevitable one-on-one interrogation. He was, after all, their key witness to not just his mysterious assailant, but also his elusive savior. They’d been clamoring to get whatever information they could on The Spider-Man so that they could then charge him with vigilantism, and Trent Michaels had the potential to be a big lead.

Despite the only light source being a meager nearby computer screen, the combination of white tiled flooring and white stucco walls made the room appear well lit in contrast to the night’s pitch black. The moisture in the air reeked of sterility, which told him that this area was cleaned frequently and thoroughly.

No spilling blood, then. There was no hiding that unmistakable crimson red, nor was there time to properly erase the traces of evidence that would surely stain the pristine-white fitted bedsheets and seep into the slender crevices between each slab of tile.

When Miguel dragged his attention back to the bed, he discovered that Michaels had awoken at some point and was now sitting upright, eyes wary and muscles twitchy. The bruised and scratched-up man looked nervous in the presence of the masked hero.

Soon, he’d be more than just nervous. And by the time Miguel was done with him, he would be nothing at all.

Soon.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” Spider-Man stated the obvious, stalking closer, both hands on his hips, before coming to a stop in front of the several machines that were hooked up to the target’s frail body. The movement held a striking resemblance to that of a predator circling its prey. It was an assessment of strength differential, an evaluation of the energy investment required to subdue. “That makes my job easier.”

As Miguel casually pulled up a chair and sat at his bedside, Michaels donned a look of bewilderment, confused why he had a visitor but showing no sign of fear. Not yet. At present, Spider-Man was still the masked hero who saved his life in that alleyway and not a harbinger of Death who had come here to cast him into the pits of Tartarus.

The man rubbed at his sockets once, twice, affirming and reaffirming that the mythified vigilante was indeed standing inside his hospital room at the dead of night. “Spider-Man? The hell’re you doin’ here?”

Miguel elected to ignore that question, not trusting his ability to maintain an unaffected vocal inflection if he were to discuss anything other than the strict script in his head. He got straight to the point, projecting into the space between him and Michaels a holographic image of you. The you of a few years ago, the you with a cheesy grin spread wide across your lips, ear to ear.

The you who hadn’t yet been made to walk this road of unsatiated vengeance.

“This girl,” Miguel started to say then stopped to assess the man’s face. Though most of it was swollen and scabbing, Michaels could still reconfigure his features into discernible expressions, and Miguel would be damned if he didn’t take note of every single change. “You know her?”

A beat of silence. Michaels flicked his gaze toward the hologram, and the sickly hue of his current complexion paled even further than Miguel had thought was possible. The heart monitor blared to warn that an abnormal spike had been detected in the patient’s heart rate, betraying the truth before an answer could even be given.

He knew you alright.

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t,” was his response, tone a bit defensive as he shifted in unease. “What’s it to you?”

What’s it to him?

To him, it was rectifying a wrong. If he’d known this man’s sin, he would have gladly stayed put on the roof to watch from above as you killed him yourself. Not everyone deserved the helping hand of Spider-Man, or, at least, not that of this dimension’s Spider-Man. Perhaps simultaneously filling the roles of judge, jury, and executioner was a sin in its own right, but Miguel wasn’t stupid; he knew the courts were conditional in how and when they chose to enforce law, sparing the rich and powerful from the consequences of their actions. Death, however, was not so inclined to do the same.

To him, it was honoring his word. He had reassured you that you’d successfully scourged the streets of this vermin, and he wasn’t about to let that become a lie. No, Miguel was going to strip the brute who’d dared to hurt you of the privilege to feel the warmth of tomorrow’s sunrise. Trent Michaels didn’t have permission to look upon the breaking of dawn, to see how the sun warred against darkness and emerged victorious, setting the sky ablaze with its golden rays.

Ultimately, it was very simple: paramount to everything else, you had wanted the man dead, and Miguel wanted to actualize that wish. For you, yes, but also for the sake of every soul who might someday cross paths with Michaels if he were to leave here alive.

This was what came to mind when he reflected on why he’d rerouted to the hospital rather than his own damn apartment. His thoughts demanded to be acknowledged by their maker, and their obnoxious loudness lulled Miguel into a state of reticence.

At the eerie, prolonged silence, Michaels cleared his throat and began to speak.

“She’s nobody. A girl I hung out with freshman year. Things got a little heated one night,” he said with a nonchalant shrug. “It was just some fun. Harmless, really. Then she had to go and make a big deal out of nothing. I’m sure you know what I mean, man.”

During this spiel of utter bullshit, Miguel had slowly begun to fiddle with the pulse oximeter attached to the tip of Michaels’ index finger. The minute fidgeting could be interpreted as absentminded and unmotivated, but that didn’t account for his purposeful and intentional way of doing things.

Miguel clipped it onto his own left finger when Michaels was preoccupied with picking at the peeling edge of a bandage on his brow bone. The heart monitor synced with the well-regulated and steady heart rate of Spider-Man.

That had been Step 1. The second step was a bit more. . . hands-on.

Rolling his shoulders back, Miguel stood up from his chair and gave a short, noncommittal hum. “Can’t say that I do.”

His free hand curled into a tight fist and launched itself at the man’s already-battered face, catching him on the nose, and a satisfying crack pierced the air. The sheer power behind the punch was such that it sent Michaels reeling backward, and his concussed head (your handiwork) ricocheted off the bed frame, temporarily dazing him.

When he came to his senses, shock morphed into contempt. “Y’broke my goddamn nose. That’s the second fuckin’ time tonight!”

Unfazed by the assault, the heart monitor continued to beep, raising no alarms since it hadn’t detected any abnormalities in heart rate. It was a metronome that kept time, but the maestro after whom it modeled its cadence had switched from Michaels to Miguel. Its consistent pattern thus left the medical personnel on duty none the wiser about what had just transpired, nor about what was yet to come.

Beep. Beep.

Beep.

“What the fuck, dude? I thought you were s’posed to be the good guy!” the man cried out, indignant and genuinely baffled as to what he could've possibly done to warrant this assault. He tipped his head back, desperately trying to stop his compromised nose from dripping blood all over.

The small blotches of red that now stained his patient gown weren’t ideal, but no one would think to question a spontaneous nosebleed when said nose was confirmed to have been broken earlier in the night. Punching him had been worth the risk; even Spider-Man wasn’t exempt from the universal human desire to absolutely deck an asshole who deserved considerably worse. Still, the plan had been to keep all blood inside all bodies, so that was what he was going to do moving forward.

Miguel allowed himself the momentary indulgence of basking in the melodic, steady stream of agonized groans. It was music to his ears, an unconventional symphony of which he was the conductor.

A prelude to his magnum opus, a crescendo to its climax.

Leaning forward to block every possible escape route with his broad frame, Miguel grabbed the sniveling coward by the neck and squeezed.

“I am.”

Driven by his instinct to fight or flight, Michaels clawed at the hand around his throat, but his efforts at either of the two courses of action were in vain. The hold was ironclad, immovable, whereas the force he tried to exert on it was nowhere near unstoppable; thus, it did not budge.

In no rush to relent, Miguel relished the way his prey squirmed and writhed, and only when the man’s eyes began to flutter shut did Spider-Man relax his grip with an exasperated sigh.

To die by strangulation was an end too merciful for the likes of this scum. It was over too quick, a brief burst of pain liberated by the peaceful promise of eternal nothingness. No, Miguel wouldn’t bestow the gift of a swift, clean death; rather, he sought to make the final moments of the man’s miserable existence torturous, to send him off to Hell kicking and screaming.

As he struggled to catch his breath, Michaels splayed his hands atop the overbed table to support his heaving body. The shift drew Miguel’s attention, and he glared at the offending appendages because those weren’t gentle hands that delivered care, nor were they hands that offered protection. They were hands that had hurt innocents.

Hands that had hurt you.

Hands that needed to reflect their sins, that needed to be as equally marred in flesh as the man who wielded them was in conscience. Each and every digit would pay penance for his transgressions since all ten had partaken in the atrocity.

The right middle finger was first. Breaking a bone was neither difficult nor complicated, regardless of whether it was his own or that of someone else. Miguel settled on his fists to be his weapon of choice, classic and old-fashioned, close and personal, then he restrained his target with shackles made of webs, then—

Snap.

Before a howl of pain could echo through the halls for all to hear, Miguel shot a wad of his organic webbing at Michaels’ mouth to muffle any potentially-incriminating screams.

“Quiet now, don’t worry,” he cooed in mock sympathy. “You won’t be needing these where you’re going.”

In a state of pain-induced delirium, Michaels extended his trembling left hand for the bedside remote to signal for aid, a Hail Mary that would go unanswered, deemed unworthy of her saintly supervision. Before he could press down on the call button, the device was snatched from his grasp altogether by another string of web.

“Too slow,” chided Spider-Man, a cruel smirk hidden underneath his mask as he moved the remote far from reach. “What are you making such a big deal for, we’re just having some fun. Isn’t that right?”

No reply. Just two beady blue eyes glistening with poorly-concealed terror, hoping to appeal to the hero’s better nature. Unfortunately for Michaels, Miguel reserved his compassion for the billions of innocent people who comprised the Arachnoid Humanoid Poly-Multiverse, not a sorry excuse for a man who couldn’t understand that no meant no.

“What was it you said, hm? Harmless?” Knowing the context in which the word had been used five minutes before, it tasted foul on Miguel’s tongue and sounded vile to his ears. “I think this is pretty harmless, no?”

That question, though rhetorical, elicited a vigorous shaking of the head, the man’s intended message fully-transparent and frantic: no, no, no.

Miguel released an exaggerated, disappointed sigh. “That’s fine—we can agree to disagree.”

It continued like this for the remaining four fingers on his right hand. One after the other, Miguel fractured bone with nothing but his enhanced strength and unbridled rage. Each additional crushed digit was accompanied by the further splintering of Michaels’ spirit, dismantling him piece by piece.

By the time Miguel had finished rendering the hand free of functioning fingers, it appeared as though Michaels had given up on trying to weasel out of this nightmare scenario, the pain so severe and unyielding that he had seemingly become numb to it. His joints were rapidly swelling, and angry patches of dark purples and reds bloomed on his skin as blood rushed to the site of the blunt force trauma. It was his body’s attempt at salvaging a sinking ship and relieving its captain of his burden.

But there would be no such reprieve, for Miguel was wholly unsatisfied so long as this man, who had touched and taken without permission, still had operational extensions of his body.

Michaels mumbled something unintelligible through the webbing that was still plastered over his mouth, and, wanting to hear what he had to say for himself, Miguel tore it off. When no words followed, he prepared to resume his onslaught, readying his arm for the swing.

A single syllable stopped him just short of making contact with the left pinky finger.

“Stop,” croaked Michaels, his voice scratchy from the strain of repressed screams. “Please.”

Spider-Man’s fist halted mid-slam and hovered over his chosen target. The plea transported him back to the events that had transpired earlier in the night. All throughout his interrogation, you had maintained a commendable degree of composure despite the clear imbalance in power between the two of you. You had been hung by your feet from the neck of a streetlight and then immediately re-tied to that same pole after being freed of your webbed restraints.

And yet, you’d never begged. Not until your vengeance outweighed your pride did you plead with the vigilante to—

—tell me I got him. Please, tell me I killed him

Your begging had been on behalf of the girl who’d been betrayed by someone she had trusted, on behalf of the many survivors who spent the rest of their lives carrying the knowledge that justice hadn’t been served and that it never would. Even while physically and emotionally under duress, you had thought of them. Because at your core, you represented all that was good and right about the world.

Conversely, no such redeemable qualities could be detected within Trent Michaels. His pleas served only himself, a sick piece of shit who, at his core, embodied all that bastardized the world from its ideal vision.

The man of the hour gulped several breaths of air, eyes closing in gratitude at the perceived fact that this torture session had run its course, mistaking the brief hesitation as a sign of reconsideration.

It wasn’t.

“Stop? I’m just getting started.” Spider-Man flexed his hand then clenched it once again. “We’ve still got five more to go.”

He unfroze and brought his fist-turned-hammer down hard, crushing another distal phalanx beneath the weight of his own fury as well as that which he channeled from you, grinding his knuckles into the new injury for good measure.

“Did I say five? I meant four.”

His assault on the left hand was a blur. He laid waste to the digits faster than he did the right hand, brain on autopilot. The clock on the wall ticked incessantly; fifteen minutes were almost up.

An agonized groan from Michaels eventually snapped Miguel out of his anger-induced stupor, and he blinked down to find that the last four fingers were severely mangled compared to the others, having been subjected to repetitive pummeling in excess. Though he resented losing control, the important thing was that he had neutralized these hands of vice and malevolence.

Now that there were no more fingers left for Spider-Man to break, a nearly-unconscious Michaels slackened his muscles, curling into himself. He probably thought the worst of the night was over.

Not a chance.

“Oh, I wouldn’t look too relieved if I were you, Trent. The show’s not over yet,” Miguel spat, saying the name like it was dirty. Which it was. “We still have the finale.”

The finale entailed grabbing a syringe from a nearby cabinet and pulling its plunger all the way back so that the entire apparatus filled with air. He had briefly entertained the idea of sinking his teeth into Michaels’ jugular and pumping him full of venom but had ultimately decided against it since that would surely get flagged on the autopsy report. Bit hard to explain that one.

Once the syringe was full, Miguel fastened a needle to the tip, and it reflected blue light from the computer when he raised it higher to get a better look.

As he did so, fear at last settled on Michaels’ face. During the obliteration of his ten fingers, he had writhed in pain, his eyes pinched shut and his veins protruding in exertion. Before that, there had been confusion and shock. But until this very instant, fear had remained notably absent, too consumed with surviving the encounter to imagine that Death might still await him in spite of his best efforts.

The appearance of Death came in an infinite many forms. Death was both destroyer and creator, both decomposition and nourishment. Death was the car that did not stop at a red light, the cancerous cells born of mutated proto-oncogenes, the peaceful embrace after eighty years of life.

And when he raised the syringe to the IV line, Spider-Man too became Death.

No one could accurately speculate their reaction to the moments preceding their death. Many liked to believe that they would use their strength to persevere, but in the end, they were the ones who bargained and begged the most. Some were more honest in their assessment, admitting that their souls would be fetched and relocated elsewhere, but they too believed that they would depart this world with their head held high. Fewer still recognized that death was not to be feared or overpowered, but was to be met with open arms and a smile.

Michaels, being the cowardly and spineless man he was, belonged to that first category.

Typical.

“I’m sorry, okay, I fucked up, but I can be better, I swear. If you want money, name a price and it’s yours. I’ll donate to charity, I’ll apologize to h-her, I’ll—” His groveling was abruptly cut off by a sob, pathetic and ugly. “I’ll do anything. Just please don’t kill me. I’m begging you.”

Nothing. The pitiful speech inspired absolutely nothing in Miguel. No sympathy, no reflection, no anything. He was devoid of all but stone-cold hatred.

“Me vale madre.”

Spider-Man injected the pocketed air into the IV line and watched its resulting bubble travel down the tube, disappearing into the stuck vein. The estimated time it took for an air embolism to kill an adult male of this stature was approximately five minutes, maybe ten. But considering the sheer volume of air that had been put into circulation, Miguel presumed complications would arise much sooner.

His prediction proved true, the tell-tale symptoms presenting not even a full minute after the air bubble had entered the man’s bloodstream. The man tried to clutch at his chest but yelped when the motion jostled his fractured bones. Unable to assuage the tightening in his heart, he began to hyperventilate, panting, eyes bulging.

Then came death.

When Michaels’ squirming body went unnaturally stiff, Miguel removed the pulse oximeter from his own index finger and reattached it to that of the dead man. The heart monitor began to blare, both an alert to the night-shift nurses that a patient had flatlined and a cue to the Spider-Man that he should vacate the premises.

He exited the way he’d entered, slinking through the window before sliding it shut behind him. Nothing was out of place. The walls and tiled floor were still squeaky clean and white; the chair he had moved was back in its original place in the far corner; the gourmet dinner was still untouched and positioned on one side of the overbed table, where it would stay uneaten for all eternity.

The lone evidence of his presence was a fresh corpse with ten fingers smashed and bent out of shape.

They would soon declare their John Doe deceased after multiple failed attempts at restarting his heart, and then they would open an investigation to determine the cause of death. Frustrations would mount when the toxicology reports housed no answers, and stress levels would peak when the patient turned out to be the son of a very wealthy man who was threatening to sue the hospital for negligence.

Quite frankly, none of that mattered to Miguel—the job was done. Whatever bureaucratic shit came next was an addendum, an afterthought scribbled into the margins of tonight’s catalogue of events.

The mission had been accomplished: Trent Michaels was dead.

By all accounts, this kill was yours. You had been the one to drag him to the gates of Hell, whereas Miguel had only ensured that the scum would successfully reach his destination. You had been the one to gather the trash and make all the arrangements to discard him, tracking his location and beating him within an inch of his life, whereas Miguel had only dropped him off at the dumpster yard.

It struck him then that this was likely the first time you’d taken a life. And instead of offering you advice on how to navigate the toll that killing took on your conscience, he had left you in the alley to come to terms with it all by yourself.

He winced. Fuck.

Miguel needed to see you.

“Lyla,” he called. “Give me her address.”

The miniature AI materialized beside him, her tone light and teasing. “Lyla, give me her address what?”

Usually, there was no harm in entertaining the AI’s shenanigans. But tonight was different.

“Not in the mood,” he gritted out, irritation spiking abnormally quick, even for him, as the adrenaline from handling Michaels continued to set ablaze his systems. “Her address.”

Lyla handed the information over without further fuss, and Miguel leaped off the ledge just as a cluster of medical personnel filtered into the hospital room-turned-morgue.

Clearing the tops of buildings in a single bound, he traveled through the city in record time, aided by the strong winds that blew in the direction of your residence. When Miguel finally arrived, he took up position on the roof of the building directly across from yours. From this vantage point, it was almost concerningly easy to see through one of your windows.

You should really buy some blinds, was his immediate thought, grumbling to himself about how unsafe this setup was.

He squinted his eyes and conducted a quick sweep of your apartment, searching every gap, checking every corner once, twice, three times. The place was empty.

A knot formed in his gut at the realization that you hadn’t come home.

Where are you?

The longer the question went unanswered, the louder its echo reverberated, perpetuating itself as if in a chamber. He’d scanned you for injuries and hadn’t found a scratch. You had been coherent, conscious, and as composed as could be expected, but what if he had missed something?

What if you were still in the alleyway, incapacitated by an unattended injury?

The mental image of you agonizing over your wounds, both the visible and the invisible, was enough to will him to a decision. Just as he was about to turn around and swing his way to the opposite side of the city—

A light flickered on, illuminating your living room. It was fairly small, like most other studio apartments in the expensive rungs of Nueva York. His sharp vision instantly honed in on the two black cats that roused from their slumber to greet you at the front door, which had swung open with such force that it’d hit the wall and slammed back into your shoulder.

When Miguel finally laid his eyes on you, tension seeped out of his muscles, the frown line between his brows momentarily disappeared, and his shoulders slumped forward as he exhaled a nearly-inaudible sigh of relief.

You were okay.

Well, okay might not be the right word because you were evidently not okay. You were slightly hunched and limping, shifting your weight from foot to foot, dragging a hand against the wall for extra support should you careen over, which was becoming a more likely reality by the second. As you lugged your spent body to the clawed-up sofa at the center of the room, the legs that had thus far been supportive of your weight buckled with fatigue. All Miguel could do from here was watch you collapse onto the sofa, face-first.

Your shoulders began to convulse, and he stiffened, worried you were belatedly going into shock or having a seizure based on the way you jerked and jolted. Upon further inspection, however, Miguel determined that the culprit of the shaking was neither the former nor the latter.

Sobs wracked your frame. You lifted your head from the seat cushion to rip off the black domino mask with which you’d disguised yourself, revealing a steady stream of tears, black trails of mascara staining your cheeks. Next to go was your white-haired wig, yanked with equal force and chucked across the room.

Gone was the outwardly-confident woman who had managed to rile him up and get the upper hand whilst dangling from a lamppost. Left in her wake was the woman behind the persona. Here was the woman you were when the spotlight faded to darkness, when the curtains closed and the audience departed, when the performance came to an end. Uncensored, unrefined, undone—you.

An unbecoming.

The rational part of his brain told him that this was an invasion of your privacy, that he should leave you to your much-needed crying session and stop peeping through your windows when you were at your most vulnerable. You thought you were alone and had subsequently allowed yourself to shatter, but here he was, heightened senses privy to the whimpers that broke your voice, to the utter despair that furrowed your brows.

And yet he couldn’t avert his gaze.

Such a raw display of catharsis; it was sublime. How long had it been since he last cried more than a few silent tears?

He already knew the answer: Gabriella.

The multiverse couldn’t afford for the leader of the Spider Society to fall apart, not when he was the one keeping this whole operation together. Thousands of Spider-People played their part, sure, but he alone dedicated every waking second to preventing anomalies from destroying entire dimensions. And though he would never admit it, Miguel was at the end of his rope, akin to a powder keg about to explode at any given moment.

Maybe he was more like you than he’d thought. Maybe he should take a page from your book, let himself cry and cry until he had poured everything out from the cavity of his chest. Even Atlas had briefly passed the weight of the heavens off to Heracles, so perhaps the multiverse wouldn’t unravel if he were to open the floodgates, just this once.

The thought left as quickly as it had arrived. Logistically, it wasn’t viable. How could he ever jeopardize the fate of billions for one man? Regardless of whether that man was himself or a stranger, his decision was the same.

He would thus have to make do with a more vicarious manner of release. Your tears were both yours and his. The tears he could not bring himself to shed joined yours as you became a vessel of the emotions that had long since been repressed, both by you and by him.

Where Michaels’ sobs had grated on his nerves, yours made Miguel physically recoil not in revulsion, but in visceral need to comfort. The sight made him want to do something stupid, like jump down from the roof, knock on your door, and ask you if he could come inside

Go inside to do what, exactly? Hugs are a no-go, so that leaves. . . awkward shoulder patting? He slapped a hand to his forehead and ran it over his face with a groan.

This—going to the hospital to terminate your target, showing up to your apartment—was a dangerous chain of events that would further snowball into an unacceptable culmination of feelings. Unless, of course, he impeded it, uprooting this budding thing before it could blossom, terminating these strange thoughts in gestation before they could be spoken into existence.

In which case, the crisis would be averted.

He had fulfilled his heroic obligations as Spider-Man, had ensured your safe arrival, and had kept his word. All he needed to do now was put as much distance between you and him as was humanly possible.

Yes, that sounded like a plan. Excellent. Good.

Great.

As Miguel vaulted off the roof and shot a web at the nearest billboard, he decided that he would not be returning to your apartment ever again; this was the only time he’d let himself check up on you. When he stepped foot into his own apartment a good hour and a half later than he had initially intended, he recited the declaration to himself as he took a hot shower and again as he changed out of his suit. When he awoke the next morning, he fully believed that such would be the case because you’d been absent from his dreams, all memories of you already archived.

It wasn’t until he took the long way home three nights in a row that Miguel finally conceded otherwise. The first night was brushed off as an innocent coincidence, and the second night was justified as having simply found a better path home. But by the third night, he couldn’t deny it anymore:

The true reason this objectively-worse, inconvenient route seemed better was purely because it passed by your building complex and gave him the chance to see you.

tbc.

[rubitheracoon]

HEY PEOPLE IVE GOT A SILLY PROJECT THAT I WANT TO SHARE

I hope that got your attention :]

Anyway, Hi! My name is Rubi (not really) and I'm a young budding artist of many different flavours (some more developed than others).

I wanted to share a passion project of mine that I've been casually working on for the last year today (21st March 2024).

I've been trying really hard to get it out to more people, advertising it wherever I was allowed to do so. It still hasn't gained many follows. so since I have a larger following on tumblr, I thought this would be my next best option.

This project is a Spotify playlist by the name of "I'm all alone", which is inspired off of liminal spaces and how they make me feel.

From the moment I created the playlist I knew I wanted it to be a 'choose your own story' type deal, where the listener can infer from the songs listed to any capacity (specific or basic) and the playlist is just a base idea. I want to see other people draw their own creativity from my playlist. There is no right or wrong story.

Though, this playlist is far from finished. As of writing this, the furthest I've gotten to it being fully organised in a way I feel sounds right is down to the song "over population at the end of everything..." (I'm not writing the full title). If I continue treating it casually like I Currently am, it will be a long time from being a fully fledged playlist. But there's still information you can take from the unorganised songs!

This is the link to the playlist

PLEASE BE SURE TO READ THE TITLE ALONG WITH THE DESCRIPTION

ALSO DO NOT PUT IT ON SHUFFLE

I'd also like to add that for the people who want to get to the nitty gritty, I have accommodated titles, album covers and a certain song repeating to act as chapters, keep a look out! (All of these were entirely unintentional but very useful)

Please @ me when you talk about any theories, I want to hear all of it!

Lots of love,

- Rubi 🧡

The amount of likes I have as of when I'm writing this is 3. 2 of them are my other accounts

turns out my other 2 accounts didn't have this playlist liked after all this time so all 3 likes count. I'm now up to 7 as of 23rd May 2024 including those 2 accounts

Please reblog with all tags and if I missed any be sure to add them :)

[maladaptive-ninja-returns]

New World (5)

Itachi Uchiha x Reader Fluff

Summary: The world War has met its end and Itachi has returned to his village. He questions whether he should set down his roots here when he meets a stranger. Or rather, a stranger is forced upon him by fate.

Warnings: attempted murder, attempted flirtation, attempted insults, attempted threats of murder, attempted stealing of HEARTS

Word Count: Can someone send me pictures of their cats? I want to feel a little better before going back to work after the holidays

MASTERLIST in bio, darlings. Tags are open (check bio)

"Oof, Y/N! You look like you got smushed by one of the Oxen!" I wish I got smushed by one of the oxen. That would have been much easier to bear, you internally groan at yourself. Nami tries her best to comb the tangled mess that is your hair while forcing you to drink as much water as possible. She is visibly worried about the drowsiness still in your eyes as your steps wobble when you walk towards the courtyard to meet everyone else. The Bamboo villagers have already gathered there for the day. So has Naruto. Kakashi and Itachi are nowhere to be seen and Nami does not want to go look out for them while leaving you with people she does not trust much. "Where were you all night?" your friend whispers close to you, trying to comb out the stubborn knots before tying your hair in a braid. The pounding sensation in your brain has mercy on your sensory organs for a moment and lets Nami's worry slip in to let you form a sentence for a reply.

"I was-" you rub your eyes and crinkle your brows to think hard about last night- "I think I was behind the cottages somewhere." Your voice still croaks even after drinking all that water. There are nothing but judgmental glares coming from the Bamboo villagers; even Toge. "People should drink only till the point they can handle well," Izo announces to the group before helping the Chief get up on the ox. It takes you a minute to realise that comment is aimed at you. You want to hide behind Nami. The embarrassment is too much. "You are right, Izo-sama," Kakashi acknowledges the man, entering from the front gate of the rest house with a bag. Itachi follows him in, carrying a similar bag to Kakashi's. "People should only do so much as their capacity allows," former Anbu continues, "or they might find themselves drowning in embarrassment for being defeated by some small no-name...sake?" Izo averts his gaze and gets up on the ox. So does Fukaboshi. The rest of the caravan stares blankly at Kakashi. You want to feel offended but the heaviness in your head does not allow you to hold your frown for long. "Sumimasen," Kakashi chuckles, raising one hand in defeat and smiling at you till his eyes close, "would you like to rest a bit more?" You sigh and shake your head. "I'm fine. Let's go. Let me just go fill my bottle with more water." You do not wait for an answer and walk towards the corner that has a little earthen tank for drinking water. Everyone walks out of the front gate, save for Kakashi and Itachi. Kakashi nods at Itachi before following the rest of the group.  You notice him standing there alone, your pace slowing down as you remember waking up alone on the wooden settee, curled up under Itachi's cloak. Ah, the cloak. You take the cloak out from your backpack and bring it forward to hand it over to its owner. "Arigato, Itachi-san," you bow a little, "I hope I did not cause trouble last night." Itachi takes the cloak and hands you a bottle of a tea-like liquid. "Must have been hard," Itachi speculates, opening his cloak and wearing it right there, "having a nightmare like that." You find it hard to look away from his eyes. They seem sincere with the question. You bring the cold bottle to your cheeks to let the heat seep out from them faster. "Have it now." Itachi nods at the bottle, sending a little warm stir in your stomach, "It will help with the...hangover." You look at the bottle, then back at Itachi. A part of you swirls on the inside on seeing him patiently waiting there for you. Without another thought, you open the lid and chug the sweet, cold liquid down your throat, letting it absorb the heaviness and heat from your body. The relieved sigh after the last gulp brings a hint of smirk to Itachi's lips. Your head does tiny repeated nods, looking at the empty bottle before you smack your lips. "Good," you admit, looking up at Itachi, "does this come in orange flavour?" .

Today's journey goes the same way; through the forests and rocky lands. The adults are unbothered on their oxen. Kakashi and Itachi have taken their place as usual. Naruto is ahead of the caravan today, and so is Toge. Kozuki is right next to Kakashi, trying to start a conversation. And Kakashi indulges in it. Around noon the caravan passes through another forest with a low-hanging fog. You and Itachi are walking at the back of the caravan. You are glad not to be bothered by Toge today, but him not running up to you with a new piece of conversation seems to bother you a little. Something seems off. That little unsettling thought also melts away. Could also be your company. The thought makes you smile and steal a glance at the man next to you. And while doing so you do not realise Itachi has raised his hand to signal you to stop; running right into his arm. Kakashi has also signalled the caravan to stop. Naruto and Toge stand frozen in their paths on Kakashi's signal, looking for any signs out of the ordinary. Everyone can sense it. The silence of this forest is defeaning. A little too deafening. The birds that were chirping, the animals that were skittering along the forest floor, all have gone silent. Kozuki has already drawn her twin daggers. You have taken out a kunai but are not sure if you still remember how to use it. The elders are also on their guard, waiting for a movement in the silence. There is a snap of a twig somewhere in the forest. And before anyone can make sense of it, a shadow flies right past the Chief, leaving a scratch on his cheek. "Chief," Izo shouts, grabbing everyone's attention, except for Itachi's. Everyone rushes towards the Chief. Kakashi is slow, still overlooking his surroundings. Itachi on the other hand is grabbing your hand to stop you from running in the same direction as others. "Itachi wha-" You never get to finish your words. The hand that is grabbing yours, pulls you to him quicker than you can fathom, making you collide with his chest. What you do not see is the movement Itachi has already sensed from his left, right where you stood a second ago; and sensing the danger, he draws you closer to him with his hand on the small of your back, before summoning his crows. Six crows. Six assassins. Six daggers flying in the air with you as their mark. Itachi does not move. His eyes, on the other hand, are already swirling in that direction. "Mangekyo Sharingan." You hear the words reverberate through his chest for one second. And the next, all six assassins drop to the ground. .

"Chief, are you okay?" Fukaboshi shouts as he descends from the small hill he goes up to look for any other assassins. "I'm fine." "He's fine." The chief and Kakashi declare in unison. Izo comes down from his ox and glares at Kakashi. "Hatake Kakashi, you are lucky our Chief was not hurt or I would have personally slit your throat right here." Kakashi folds his arms over his chest. "What is stopping you from doing it right now, Izo-san?" You, Kozuki, Naruto and Toge turn to look at Kakashi, a little taken aback by the direction this is going in. You take a step to walk in Kakashi's direction but are stopped by Itachi once again. He shakes his head and slowly pulls you back to him. "Mind your tongue, Hatake," Fukaboshi growls at the White Fang. "I have been minding my tongue till now, Fukaboshi-sama. Because if I didn't, these comatose assassins would be dead by now and you would be taking home the bodies of six young kids who don't even know why they were trying to attack us." Silence. Kozuki looks at Izo before dashing towards the comatose assassins lying on the ground to remove their masks and gasp in disbelief. Toge follows. Both of them look back at Izo. "Izo-sensei, did you know about this?" Toge is the first to ask. You want to take a look at the assassins as well but do not move; partially because a voice inside you is gathering all the anxiety in your chest and telling you it has something to do with you. Partially because Itachi still holds your hand- loose enough to not hurt, tight enough to give you a sense of reassurance. And it hurts your heart to admit that his presence feels safe. The reason for that feeling is never discussed internally at that moment. Kozuki and Toge are now standing opposite Izo, even looking at Fukaboshi with questioning eyes. "This is not the time and place to argue amongst yourselves in front of other villages, Kozuki. Toge!" Chief orders. Toge relaxes his stance. Kozuki does not. "This is the only time and place to ask why the other 'villager' knows the identity of these assassins and why did our people attack our caravan?" Kozuki growls back. "KOZUKI!!!" Izo thunders, summoning fire in both hands. The sudden emergence of fireballs gives you a jumpscare, your instinct making you grab Itachi's arm with your free hand and wanting to hide behind him in his cloak. The Chief sends his favourite stick flying towards Izo to create a gust of wind so strong that the fire fizzles out before it returns to him like a boomerang. No one dares say a word. Kakashi does it out of respect. Naruto does it out of sheer surprise. Bamboo villagers do it out of fear of seeing their Chief in action. You and Itachi do not speak because both of you are busy gathering the thoughts suddenly scattered; due to your brains registering the warmth under each other's skin. "Answer the girl, Izo." Chief demands, "I do not like being kept in the shadows by my loyal hands." .

Naruto is rubbing his forehead a little too furiously. "So-" he pauses the rubbing to spread his fingers to signal a pause in the air- "to summarise, the bamboo village senseis raided our village's graveyard to find the legendary Whisperer or any clue that led to that legend but could not find any. So, they had intended on sending assassins to the village while taking away two of the strongest shinobis of Konoha, thinking that the assassins might have some luck getting it out of the Hokage. But then they found out the Whisperer was with us, they sent a message to the assassins to attack us and take the Whisperer. The plan failed because Kakashi-sensei and Itachi-aniki were too strong. And now Chief-sama is mad at Izo-sama and Fukaboshi-sama because he was kept in the dark." The caravan- which has now scattered in a five-meter radius- sits in silence. Izo and Fukaboshi sit together, at a respectable distance from their Chief. Kozuki stands over the six 'assassins' that have now woken up but dare not look at the woman for fear of being burned under her glare. Nami sits next to Naruto and Toge sulks while sitting and ripping the grass off the small hill Kakashi stands on. You and Itachi sit opposite Kakashi, the latter never letting go of his stoic manners while you are suddenly shuddering on the inside. Kakashi raises his shoulders and nods in affirmation, proud of his pupil for retaining so much of that heavy information. "So, the Whisperer is somewhere safe, Kakashi sensei? Or do we need to protect it still?" Naruto turns his head in question. Nami, who has been sitting next to Naruto, rolls her eyes and facepalms hard. Kakashi smiles. Naruto feels a smack land on the back of his head. "Ow! What?" He asks Nami, offended.

"The Whisperer is safe," Kakashi assures Naruto before he sends daggers in Izo's direction from the corner of his eyes, "but we plan to protect to the point of killing." "We never meant any harm to the chosen one, Chief," Izo finally speaks, never looking up towards the crowd, "we only wanted to do it right by the village." "The chosen one?" Naruto whispers the question in Nami's direction. Nami simply puts her index finger on her lips, quieting down the young ninja. "You could have simply asked for their help," the Chief grumbles, not wanting to look at his men. "Come on, Chief. No village will let an outsider know about their Whisperer, let alone let them help them out," Izo protests before he feels Fukaboshi's hand land on his arm to quiet him down. "Is that so, Kakashi?" the Chief is curious to know. Kakashi sighs. "I think that is up to the Whisperer to decide, right?" You are intently listening to Kakashi when you feel his gaze land on you. Basic instinct makes you avert your gaze, letting it land on Nami, who has the same question in her eyes as Kakashi. So do Izo, Fukaboshi and Toge. Even Kozuki. The cold that has seeped into your bones has suddenly grown intense. Your heartbeat is playing at a wild tempo. Your head turns to look at Itachi, craving for some kind of guidance. "Should we visit their village and see what the trouble is?" The birds seem to have started have started chirping again.

For you.

You want to melt into his affectionate voice and disappear from this place. Maybe into his equally considerate eyes? You nod at him before looking at the rest of the caravan. "Okay," you declare weakly. Fifteen minutes later, the caravan is back on track; this time a bit colder than before. The assassins have been sent home. Fukaboshi and Izo have been ordered to walk the rest of the way while Naruto, Nami and Kozuki have taken their places on the oxen. You and Itachi are still walking at the back. Itachi can sense a dark cloud surrounding you. It doesn't help when he sees you walk with furrowed brows and a heart rate akin to that of a rat. "Are you okay, Y/N-san?" Itachi asks in a whisper, bringing you out of your anxious thoughts. "Hmm? Yes....no. I don't know what to feel." "Y/N-san..." You look up at Itachi. "I know-" you are already interrupting him before he can speak- "you will keep me safe. So will everyone else. So will Konoha." Does not stop this dreadful feeling of being in the dark and having a target on your back. "Please know I will protect you. No matter what." His dark eyes seem to carry a resolve that stirs you to your core. And then his smile makes you forget what you were anxious about in the beginning. You smile back and nod. Itachi tries to rationalise why his chest suddenly feels lighter. Nami, on the other hand, wonders what all she would do to Itachi Uchiha if he ever dared to be anything but the reason for that smile on your face.

[skyderman]

Writblr Intro

hello everyone! i've just recently started interacting with writblr and it's time for an intro :)

feel free to interact with me! tag me, send me asks, etc. i'm friendly! i'll follow back if your writing looks interesting or it seems like we have a lot in common ♥

Who the heck are you? My name is Skye and I use they/them! I'm in my 20s and I'm going back to school this semester for English. I've always wanted to write books and I'm finally starting to realize those goals!

What do you like? For writing, I love fantasy. I love wonder and magic and beauty, especially in nature. I want people engaging with my work to feel like they are small things in a big, mysterious, beautiful, dangerous, impossible world. I'm also an optimist, and I hope those things come through in my work. I tend to have a lot of younger protagonists in my long form work. A lot of it comes from looking back on my childhood and not wanting young people to feel powerless the way I did. However, I can't resist some gritty dark fantasy every once in a while >:) Some of my influences include Neil Gaiman, Studio Ghibli, His Dark Materials, Ursula K. Le Guin, Into the Spider-Verse, Toby Fox, and my lovely D&D buddies. I might expand on this as I think of more! Beyond writing, I also enjoy video games (lots of em), drawing (@astrophysician), D&D of course, and chess (mutuals are welcome to challenge me! i'm not high rated in any capacity but i'm learning!) i also make music sometimes

Show me the WIPs! I have two main projects right now: Mothwing and Story of Magus (working title). More info in my pinned. Tag lists will be recorded on their intro posts. Going forward I will also be tagging all my writing and poetry with #skyewriting Mothwing is a graphic novel. Upon fleeing her mother’s home, a girl has a brush with Death, who gifts her a cursed cloak made of moth wings. In order to break the curse, she must travel to the Land of the Fae to seek the mysterious Silver Door, which is fabled to heal any and all curses and wounds. | Short intro (have to write a real one) Story of Magus is a middle grade novel. When a clever magic student and a trespassing Witch uncover the greatest secret of the floating city of Valerius, they must rescue the student's sister from Valerius’ clutches without bringing the city to the ground. | WIP Intro

thanks for reading this far! ur a real one ;) i'm excited to meet more people!

[theneighborhoodwatch]

ramble about wally & home's codependent swag. do it. you know you want to /lh

sorry for sitting so long on this one, anon. it's good to let thoughts Ferment sometimes. anyway - [pulls up a chair to sit down on it backwards, facing you]

so, the way i see it: it all comes back to home, yeah? home is not just the house - home is also the name of the town, it is very likely the town itself, and that town may be (as far as we know) the entire world. the very Concept of the home been discussed by clown as a central theme of welcome home a few times on his blog. when i say that home is everything, i do mean everything, and i don't think there's anyone for whom that rings more true than wally.

i know i link back to my older posts a lot, but i swear this one is relevant bc i wanna elaborate on a point that i make in the first half of it: the way i see it (as of the time of this writing) home, in all senses of the word, is wally's top priority. which is not to say that his devotion towards home supersedes everything else, but that everything else sort of feeds back into it by design. the neighbors? they are there to inhabit home. we, the audience? we are there to perceive home and round out its population. the WHRP*? they said it themselves - they're there to make that fucking house a home. home is everything, and in turn, everything is for the sake of preserving home. wally cares for his neighbors, and he cares for Us, but would either of those still be the case if there was no home to preserve? i'm not sure.

there is a catch to this, though. of course there is. wally's identity already seems tied pretty heavily to other people; he learns from his neighbors, and he does so on the audience's behalf. given everything i've written in the above paragraph, this can arguably be an extension of his devotion to home, however genuine those relationships may be in their own right. in other words, home (more specifically the restoration/preservation of home) is not only wally's chief motivation, but as far as he's concerned, the reason he exists at all. i think a lot about these tags that @pretty-in-possible (hope you don't mind the tag) left on a post of mine describing their image of wally:

and i had something very similar in mind. if wally's goal truly is the restoration/preservation of home - in this context, his raison d'être, the basis for his entire sense of self - then i can imagine why he would be willing to follow his original role as closely as he could even 50 years after the end of the original show. i can imagine that outgrowing that role in any capacity would feel like a sin. i can imagine that watching his friends outgrow theirs, or at least express a desire to do so, would seem extremely reckless to him, if not an outright betrayal.

("wait," you might say. "doesn't tampering with the site technically count as him adapting/evolving past his original role as audience surrogate?" "yes 8]" i would say. i would not elaborate, and then we would move on.)

i've mostly been talking about wally's side of things, and the reason for that is mostly that wally is just easier to speculate about. home is such a mystery that some people aren't even sure if they're the same being that was on the original show; i've seen people posit that whatever home is now, it is Not what they were originally, either that they're undead or that they've since become a husk for Something Else to inhabit, or some third thing i'm forgetting. either way, i think it's interesting that as attached as wally is to home, even he doesn't seem to be able to assess whatever their needs are with 100% accuracy - if the duet audio is to be believed, there's at least Some guesswork involved. who's to say that wally isn't just hearing what he wants to hear, at least some of the time?

i wonder - how does home feel about being an Embodiment, not of just the town, but of the very word "home?" are they frustrated with the fact that even wally, their own inhabitant, can never fully understand them, and has become resentful? do they appreciate the effort regardless, but feel a growing impatience gnawing at them day by day? are they apathetic at best towards wally, but need him to fulfill some goal or another, since they're an inanimate building? either way, i can't help but feel that home also relies on wally in some way; perhaps not as heavily as he relies on them, perhaps not in the same way or for the same reasons. but there is something Mutual there, i think.

tl;dr: these two are hurtling towards disaster and i, for one, cannot wait to see every last bit of it. here are two songs that remind me of them every time i hear them, the realization of which is often accompanied by guttural wailing.

* wally doesn't seem to have any strong feelings towards the WHRP team outside of maybe sharing the same motivation as them (i.e. restoration) but this may be because he's either hiding from them and also doesn't seem like the kind of guy to Express negative emotions, or he because he is the WHRP team - we'll see how things shake out.

[iholli]

👑 Holli / Rat • 24+ • any pronouns • ficto ace • artist, gamer, rat lover, selfshipper • so show me the sea, and I'll take you to Mars

🐀 heya! name's Holli but you can call me Rat, or whatever else you fancy :] I'm here to post about rats and the beach and cry about whatever fandom [or character] my singular braincell is currently most attached to. nice to meet you!

🎨 commissions are open! art tag: #ratkingdraws

⚠️ pro fiction / anti censorship space;

I'm personally uncomfortable with the majority of problematic content, but I believe people have the right to do whatever they want in fiction and I don't think they should be harassed for it. your ship is not my ship and that's okay. if you don't like something, block and move on, please. I'm an adult with better things to do. tag filter: #ratkingdiscourse

🌊 twice daily scheduled ocean posting;

#happy place 💙 / #oceancore • until the day they become my own posts.

💖 selfship posting;

#heart of mars • Rat King & J'onn J'onzz • DCAU / JLTAS / JLU • married

not comfortable sharing with canon but selfshippers are fine!

playlist 🌌🐀

×××

#PREDATOR/PREY • Wastelander Rat & Megalo Don • Fortnite • qpp

sharing okay, always looking for more friends who like him :]

playlist 🦈🐀 [cover photo]

💖 other selfships [sharing okay];

#💜💖💙 • Rat King, Donatello Hamato, & Leonardo Hamato • ROTTMNT

playlist 🐢🐀

#ratstatic • Rat King & Vox • Hazbin Hotel

playlist 📺👑

#king of hearts • Mutant!Rat & Remy "Gambit" LeBeau • X-Men '97

• Remy isn't a primary selfship & I more often ship him with Montague [Fortnite]; he may be removed from the list at some point, but I'm still very fond of him 💖

✨ most common fandoms;

DC: DCAU fanatic / GLTAS always / The Suicide Squad / MAWS / hopeful for the future of DC

Fortnite: joined C5S1 / Montague, Artemis, Hades, Megalo Don supremacy / more active on Twitter @ R47K1NGG4M3S / always looking for new friends, add me on Epic @ R47K1NGG4M3S :]

ROTTMNT: hi I love found family. and Leotello. but mostly found family. unpause ROTTMNT.

Marioverse / Luigi's Mansion: Luigi, King Boo, & Bowser fan / successfully played or own all the Luigi's Mansion games [including the arcade cabinet]!

Invader Zim: ZaDr my otp always / Almighty Tallest apologist / where the lore all started...

Hellaverse: Hazbin Hotel my beloved / RadioStatic / Helluva Boss is also cool. ily Queen Bee

MCU: less frequent here / forever a soft spot for Loki / Octogoblin / Spider-Verse / Team Cap

🌊 I don't bite, I'm just here to vibe & I like making friends :] please feel free to talk to me about anything! I love getting asks about my interests and selfships [or YOUR interests and selfships] or just to chat, and you can always ask for my Discord!

⚠️ AI & NFT will not be tolerated in any capacity; I spam report any accounts posting AI art, and I will block anyone using AI chat bots including ChatGPT & c.AI; I do not make exceptions. AI is art theft, including writing, full stop. block me now if that's an issue.

🚫 I don't care for NSFW content and will not post it. occasionally funny jokes will be reblogged but you can tag filter: #suggestive / #nsfw

🔪 I do like candygore though-- there may be the occasional bloody / gorey post though heavy realistic gore also makes me uncomfortable! tag filter: #blood tw or #gore tw

💖 that's all for now! thanks for stopping by :] don't forget to take some chill tunes with you!

[magicshopaholic]

Baby, It's Cold Outside (Taehyung x OC)

Summary: Something's up with Taehyung. Despite her best efforts, Dilara can't help but be curious.

Pairing: Taehyung x OC

Genre: Angst and something else

Word count: 6.5 K

Rating: 18+

Warnings: language, themes, mentions of heartbreak, infidelity, online hate

A/N: It's cold, and writing this made me feel just a little warmer. I wasn't planning on releasing this so soon but it's the end of the year and I'm feeling a lot of gratitude in general, including for my readers - so this one's for you lot. Hope you all have a lovely Christmas and a wonderful New Year :)

This fic begins a couple of days after The Reason.

Tagging: @bbl32 @quarter-life-crisis2 @meirkive @dreaming-with-happiness @kflixnet (drop a message if you want to be added)

Listen to: "ocean eyes" by billie eilish

taehyung masterlist | main masterlist

The subtle shift after Dilara’s confession is… well, subtle. She doesn’t notice it at first, mostly because Taehyung continues to keep his distance from her like she’d asked. She can’t tell if he’s told the others anything because they don’t act any differently around her. No, the change is in Dilara, in her behaviour. It doesn’t become clear to her until she hears him laugh one day in the kitchen and her heart skips a beat, and she realises that she’s stopped leaving the room the moment he comes in.

I don’t hate you. It’s not a huge insight, to be honest. If she’d hated him, truly hated him, she would’ve made sure he wouldn’t have the nerve to approach her at all, let alone stand all hauntingly and sexily right behind her as he murmured an apology in that deep, raspy voice that makes her feel some kind of way. It did look like news to him, if the confused look on his face was any indication. She remembers what Namjoon said: He was devastated about your break-up, of course, but seeing you so broken up about it changed everything. 

Thinking about it doesn’t help, though. His apology is just that - an apology. She still doesn’t know how he feels about him or how he feels about her, irrespective of what Jimin and Namjoon might say. She doesn’t know if she forgives him and she definitely doesn't know what she wants after that. Dilara becomes increasingly aware of the fact that this PR activity is only until Japan, which is another month away. After that, he goes back to his life and she goes back to hers, and they only interact in the limited capacity of Red Bull driver and Red Bull ambassador. She tries not to think of it as a deadline.

Nurburgring is as cold as ever. It’s also as small as every other European town they’ve lived in so far, so it isn’t surprising that even though the house they’ve got has a gigantic backyard with a lake beyond it, all eight of them stay huddled inside, constantly cradling a mug of something hot in their hands. Therefore, it’s to her surprise when she comes out of her room after a hot shower to see nearly all the guys huddled in the kitchen, surreptitiously peering out the window.

Dilara frowns as she sidles up behind Jungkook, who immediately steps aside to give her space. She spots him immediately, of course; Kim Taehyung, looking like a painting even in slippers and joggers, sitting in the grass, face unreadable from the distance as he stares out at the frozen lake.

“Is that -” But as usual, Dilara can’t say his name. “What is he doing out there? He’ll get hypothermia.” She looks up at Jungkook, practically demanding an answer.

“Um…” He looks conflicted, looking to the older members as though asking for permission. 

“Of course you can tell her,” says Jimin in an uncharacteristically low voice, continuing to look outside in worry.

Namjoon sighs. “His, uh, his sister graduated high school and - and he didn’t know,” he explains. “Then he called home and… well, I don’t know what happened after that.” He gestures to Taehyung outside. “He didn’t say anything. He’s been sitting out there ever since.”

This can’t be good. Even without knowing the whole story, Dilara feels her heart crack just a little bit. All through their short-lived relationship, he’d never really spoken much about his siblings. His parents, yes. His grandparents, a lot, with affection and sadness all put together. But the few times that he’d brought up his brother and sister at all, it mostly revolved around ancient childhood memories, pre-debut, because those were the only ones he said he had. When she’d once asked him what their relationship was like now, he’d taken a long time to answer before simply saying “Not much” and proceeding to shut down for the rest of the day.

Dilara had drawn basic conclusions of her own, resisting the urge to ask any of the others, but she’d never brought it up with him again. Now she remembers why. It’s familiar, this sort of worry spreading through her. 

“Is he…” No, he’s not. Of course he’s not okay. She bites her lip and tries again. “Does he want to be left alone?”

A little distance away, Yoongi scoffs, not unkindly. “Not by you,” he says, too knowingly for her liking.

The next thing she knows, she’s walking across the backyard, clenching her fists in the cold. There’s no wind, thankfully, but she can see her breath when she exhales, pearly white, as she approaches the lone figure. She stops a few feet away from him.

Taehyung doesn’t even look up. “Jeoligayo, Jimin-ah,” he snaps, and she flinches. She forces herself to stay, though.

“Wrong alcoholic,” she says steadily, keeping her eyes trained on him as his head snaps up to look at her in shock.

“What are you -” He swallows, pushing his thick black glasses up his nose. “Why are you here?”

Dilara shrugs. “No reason. Can I sit?”

His eyes narrow. “I don’t need your pity,” he mutters flatly.

She frowns. “I’m not pitying you. I’m not even sure what’s wrong with you.”

“Oh, sure,” he scoffs, rolling his eyes and looking back at the lake. “You just happen to want to sit with me right now after avoiding me for weeks.”

Dilara huffs and rolls her eyes, even as hope bubbles in her stomach. This bickering, snapping, the sarcasm - this Taehyung she knows how to handle. This is her Taehyung, she thinks, before she nearly blanches. When on earth did she start thinking of him as her anything?

“You’re still here,” he states.

“Well done. Now can I sit here or not?”

“No.”

She raises her eyebrows. “You really want me to leave? Because I’ll do it.”

He turns back up to look at her, face smoother and stonier than ever. “Fine. Do it. Go.” His voice cracks on the last word.

As Dilara watches him turn back around, she makes up her mind. She knows he isn’t going to budge, even if he feels differently. He’s stubborn, and he’ll sit here all night if it means keeping his pride, lashing out at everyone the more hurt he is. It was like living with the grinch. A mean, petty, heartbroken and very handsome grinch. It’s unfortunate but true, so she shifts to his right and, keeping a decent five foot distance between them, drops to the ground and folds her legs.

Taehyung turns to look at her incredulously. “Seriously? Why did you ask if you’re going to do what you want anyway?”

“You don’t own the backyard,” she reminds him. “I can sit where I want. Why don’t you leave?”

“Because I was here first.”

“Fine, then stay there. I’m all the way over here,” she points out, gesturing to the distance as if it were a trench and not a short distance from where she can still smell his cologne. “Just pretend I’m not here.”

He scoffs again but doesn’t say anything, folding his arms across his chest. The situation feels familiar, but also different. Taehyung and Dilara, suppressed sadness, misdirected anger, and patience. Endless patience. Her heart gives a feeble jolt when she realises this is Monza, where she knew she’d be missing an iconic race on the calendar, where she was injured, where Taehyung drove her, waited for her, fed her and sat through her endless bitching because he knew she was hurting.

She knows the circumstances aren’t exactly the same. She hasn’t cheated on him, she hasn’t hurt him. But no matter what he’s done to her, this… this situation with his siblings isn’t about them at all. Just like Monza wasn’t about them.

Bracing herself for another snappy reaction, she scoots over next to him so their shoulders brush. He doesn’t disappoint.

“What are you doing?” he asks, although this time she detects more surprise than annoyance.

“It’s freezing,” she tells him, exhaling shakily to prove her point, “and I need some bodily warmth.” She waits for him to disagree or make some sarcastic comment, but when he doesn’t, she leans back against the rock and they sit together awkwardly.

It’s still not enough, though. Dilara knows Taehyung, despite her best efforts at pretending otherwise. He’s been vulnerable with her before and she knows what he needs. She remembers a year ago, on her last day in California: a fight, followed by making up with hours of sex, a shower, and sleep. The entire time, he hadn’t let go of her once.

Even at night, when they’d barely exchanged two words, he’d held her close, forehead pressed to her hair, breath warm against her shoulder as they silently prepared to separate yet again. Skinship, it seemed, made him feel better, secure, loved.

Conversely, in Monza, she needed space. He’d given it to her, even though she’d seen his hand reach out for hers multiple times before he’d suddenly remembered that he couldn’t take those liberties anymore. She can, though. She doesn’t think she’s wrong, and right now her heart aches too much for him to not at least try.

So, before she can change her mind, Dilara reaches over and slips her hand into his, and drops her head onto his shoulder. The moment her fingers touch the back of his hand, though, he flinches. She realises her hands must be freezing; they always are, whereas his are always warmer than usual, like now. M-m, under the shirt, she remembers whispering to him more than once, feeling him grin silently against her skin, knowing he loved it when she asked.

“Sorry,” she mutters, going to release his hand but before she can, Taehyung’s fingers tighten and he gently tugs, resting their clasped hands on his lap. Her heart races, especially when he brings his left hand on his lap as well and covers the back of hers, warming it.

They haven’t been this close physically since he’d helped her walk in Monza. He feels warm, comforting; she has to resist the urge to turn her head and inhale his scent. The familiar lotion and cologne smells like a home she’s moved out of. She wonders if she should ask him what happened, but a part of her feels like it’s none of her business.

He’s letting you sit here, isn’t he? Even if Dilara assumes Jimin and Namjoon’s theory is correct, that he does still feel the same way about her, this isn’t a topic he’s super forthcoming about. Still, her mind goes back to how Jimin had said Jungkook could definitely tell her, or how Yoongi was sure Taehyung didn’t want to be left alone by her. But she also doesn’t want him to push her away again. For once, she’s able to think about him without letting her anger or hurt get in the way, and it feels too rare and precious to disturb. She considers asking him softly if he wants to talk about it when he speaks.

“She doesn’t want me to come.” Taehyung’s voice is hoarse and shaky. She gathers he’s talking about his sister, that she doesn’t want him to come to her graduation… Dilara wants to sigh, mostly because she has no idea what to say. From the limited information she has about this, she knows his siblings don’t have the best relationship with him, from harbouring resentment for being away, to having no room for him in their lives. 

He sniffles, and she feels lost, not knowing what to say or what comfort to offer. With her free hand, she grasps his arm and wraps her fingers around it, squeezing his lean bicep gently and rubbing her thumb on his sweater. Her heart hurts; she doesn’t like seeing him in pain. She never has. Even when they were together and he liked to be the one taking care of her, she started preferring it just because it was too hard the other way round. His bottom lip would quiver, his eyes would well up, the tip of his nose would go red and she’d be powerless to stop the pain.

They stay there for a while in the cold, sitting beside each other in the closest physical way in over half a year. Dilara’s mind drifts to their time in Japan; another cold weekend surrounded by the circus that was Formula 1 and BTS, while she and Taehyung shared their own private, intimate space, falling in love without even realising it. A cold breeze blows and she shivers.

“Are you cold?” Taehyung asks softly, turning his head slightly, probably to not disturb where hers is resting on his shoulder. 

Dilara lifts her head up, though, and takes her hand off his arm. “Um… no,” she lies, not wanting this to end.

“You have goosebumps,” he murmurs, turning their clasped hands around so hers is on top and pushing back her sleeve a few inches above her wrist, as if to show her proof. He’s right; as his long fingers brush her skin, the bumps become even more pronounced.

Quickly pulling her sleeve back down, Dilara turns their hands over and pushes his sleeve up. “You have goosebumps, too,” she points out, a bit more defensively than she intended. 

Taehyung chuckles quietly. “It’s not a competition.”

“Not a close one.” Her fingers touch something cold and when she moves her hands a bit, the dim moonlight brings a familiar ring into view, resting on his index finger. Her heart twists, and next to her, Taehyung stiffens. 

Dilara tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and looks up at him. Their faces are incredibly close. “Will you be okay?” she asks softly.

Taehyung nods, eyes flickering with emotion. “Why did you -” He breaks off, looking away for a moment. “Thanks for… for this.”

She bites her lip. “You know this doesn’t change anything.” As she says it, she hears the disappointment in her own voice.

“I know,” he nods. “But thanks anyway.”

She nods slowly and, involuntarily, her gaze flickers to his mouth before she immediately brings it back up to look at him. He’s looking at her too meaningfully, with far too much tenderness and regret. Dilara’s aware that at least some of it is an aftereffect of an emotionally heavy evening with his family, but as their breaths condense in the air and mingle with each other, she finds she’s afraid to find out how much of it is for her.

This time, Taehyung’s eyes fall to her mouth before coming up to meet hers, a lot slower than she did. A strand of blond hair has escaped his cap and she imagines brushing it back, maybe lightly touching his face, tracing the contours of his cheekbones...

They’re about to kiss. She knows it. His eyes are half-lidded and his face is closer than it was a moment ago. Butterflies erupt in her stomach and she suddenly feels shy as his lips slowly approach hers… and she doesn’t back away.

They’re interrupted by footsteps, loud ones that jerk them out of their trance. She snaps up to see Jin and Jimin approaching them. “Gwaenchanayo?” Jin asks tentatively.

Suddenly realising they’re still holding hands, Dilara immediately lets go of Taehyung’s and stands up, brushing herself off. “Yeah, everything’s fine. He’s all yours,” she tells them before hurrying back inside.

---

Dilara doesn’t want to know what Taehyung’s reaction was to being interrupted. If she knows him, it was a mixture of annoyance at his friends, regret at not acting faster with her, and some amount of apprehension at how she will react later.

She doesn’t stick around to find out, though. The next morning, Qualifying day, Mick Schumacher and Max Verstappen pick her up from the house to go to the paddock together. She sees Mick standing outside the car, blond and beautiful, looking like a Disney prince as he smiles and waves to her. Behind him, Max scowls at his phone as he types something, looking up only to politely nod his head at someone behind her.

“Good luck today,” says Namjoon to all of them when she turns around to see him emerge with a book in his hand. He gives her a momentary look that seems too meaningful to be a coincidence, before smiling and waving as they leave.

BTS don’t come to the paddock today. Dilara isn’t sure, but she suspects they’re filming a Run episode and irrespective of what their PR arrangement is and the fact that she doesn’t understand Korean anyway, the staff would rather not have her around.

She does get good luck texts from Jimin, Seokjin and Hoseok, the latter also adding an additional line about watching out for this episode when it airs just to be entertained by what a bad mood Taehyung is in. It’s exasperating how temperamental he gets, but there’s also a secret pride that she can’t help but feel at the suspicion that his mood could be this bad because of the kiss that almost happened… and the cold shower she suspects he needed to take after it.

Dilara needed to, if she’s being fully honest. She didn’t because it was freezing, but later that night under the covers with the lights off, for the first time in weeks, she’d brought out of her suitcase a most loyal of travel companions. In the brave hope that the thick blankets would be enough to mask the sound of the vibrations, Dilara, for the first time in months, pictured her ex-boyfriend with no guilt or shame, the memory of how her stomach had fluttered at the thought of kissing him overpowering everything.

In hindsight, Dilara doesn’t know how she would’ve responded if he had kissed her. For that reason alone, she’s relieved they were interrupted. But the momentary warmth she’d felt with his body so close to hers had been unbearably stirring, his voice deep and husky as he murmured in the dark, their fingers intertwined, his slender hand still on her wrist, how his jaw tightened just a bit as he looked down at her mouth…

As expected, Qualifying is tough. The temperature is unbearable and no matter how many blankets the pit crew covers the tyres in, they just aren’t hot enough. Two pairs of cars crash into each other, while the remaining drivers just try to hang on and wrap up the least productive Qualifying session ever.

It’s not a good Qualifying for Dilara - but not because of her result. Max snags P3 and she finishes P4, a good result considering, despite a frustrating hour of being able to get no heat into her stupid tyres. A racing incident ends up ruining fan favourite Lando Norris’s Q3, though, and while she doesn’t think it’s her fault, he’s still in P10. 

Dilara just knows her phone is going to blow up with hate from his fans. The post-Qualifying interview is terrible as well; she stutters and uses the wrong words that the anchor, Paul di Resta, immediately picks up on, and she overall ends up sounding rather defensive about the whole thing.

The debrief is shit, too, although not because of Christian or Helmut saying anything to her. They discuss her mistake but quickly move on to how they can spin it for tomorrow, with the constant question hanging over the team about how on earth they’re ever going to be able to race in such freezing conditions.

Mick and Max drop Dilara home after Quali, all three of them in relative silence which she’s thankful for. When she enters the house, it’s to the entire group in the living room and kitchen area, who conspicuously lower their voices at the sight of her. At first, she assumes they don’t want her to hear and she’s about to remind them that she doesn’t understand Korean. Then when she sees Jimin and Jungkook looking up at her from near the television with big, concerned eyes, it occurs to her that they might have seen Qualifying - and her interview after.

She doesn’t want to talk about it, though, with anyone. She silently waves in greeting and trudges to her room, shutting the door and heading straight for the shower. She turns the water to the hottest setting, welcoming the scalding water after a day of cold sweat and online hate.

It’s only after a long and elaborate moisturizing routine that Dilara realises she’s forgotten to pick up food from the track, meaning she has no dinner. Panic grips at her chest for a moment because she can’t not eat the night before a race, and the exhaustion makes her want to yell. Then, as if the universe has heard her and thrown her a bone, she smells something exquisite. She can’t tell what it is exactly, but it smells like soup and chicken curry, and her stomach rumbles in hunger.

Dilara puts her ear to the door, hearing nothing. It’s unheard of to have three or more members of BTS in a room and have this much silence, meaning it might just be safe to go out. Opening the door a crack and vaguely wondering why she’s being so dramatic, Dilara spots a lone Min Yoongi in the kitchen, quietly preparing dinner.

Her stomach rumbles again and she tries to count herself lucky that he, at least, will not probe her about today. The rest of her tries to gather the courage to actually step out of her room and open her mouth to ask him what she wants to. When she reaches the edge of the kitchen, she stops. If he’s seen her, he isn’t acknowledging it.

“Do you need some help?”

Yoongi looks up, hands still shaking some kind of powder into the pot on the stove. He frowns vaguely.

It’s not the reaction she was hoping for but it’s only then that she peers into the pot to see something vaguely orange bubbling away. Next to him, there’s a cutting board with two slabs of meat on it. “What are you making?” she asks curiously, frowning as she tries to place it.

He takes a moment before answering. “Dwaejigogi-jjigae.”

Dilara bites her lip. “Oh… I don’t - I don’t know what that is.”

He raises an eyebrow, now reaching for a cup of water. “You dated two Koreans and you don’t know what dwaejigogi-jjigae is?”

“Who’s the second? Chris?” she exclaims, thinking she might throw up. “God, no.”

“Not Chris,” says Yoongi calmly. “The other one, in Yeongam.”

Oh. Jaden. That’s even worse. “Oh,” she replies, not knowing what else to say. “How do you know about that?”

“The first one spotted you there,” he says wryly, a ghost of a smirk on his face.

So Taehyung had seen them snogging in the parking lot. She doesn’t know how to feel about that now. “Oh, yeah. Well… it didn’t really go anywhere,” she says vaguely. For some reason, she doesn’t want Yoongi to think she was at all serious about Jaden. She clears her throat. “So, do you need some help?”

Yoongi stares at her with narrowed eyes for a moment before turning his attention back to the pot. “Is this about what I said in Imola? Because it’s none of my business.”

“No, I know. I mean, it’s not - it’s not about that,” she says lamely, wishing she would stop stuttering. “I just… well, why don’t you want help?” she asks, changing tacks.

“It’s not that I don’t want it. It’s that apart from Jin hyung, you’re literally the first person in this house that’s ever offered to help out in the kitchen,” he explains, sounding fairly unbothered by the fact. “And I’ve been around these kids for too long not to get suspicious.”

Dilara isn’t sure how she feels about being lumped with the kids, although she guesses for Yoongi it’s only natural. It suddenly makes her feel like she'd rather tell him the truth. “I’m really hungry,” she blurts. “For - for home-cooked food.”

Yoongi raises his eyebrows. “You’re offering to help because you want food?”

She hesitates. “I mean, it’s not like an Oliver Twist kind of situation.”

“You didn’t think I’d give you food unless you helped?” He tilts his head as he looks back at her, looking curious. “Do you really think I’m that much of a dick?”

“No, of course not,” she replies hurriedly, realising what it must sound like. “I’m just… I’m not… I’m not really hanging out with you guys right now, so I guess I don’t think it’s fair if I… I mean, I should…” She trails off, now feeling truly embarrassed. It occurs to her that even if she does get food, she’ll probably have to sit with them while she eats it. “You know what? It’s - it’s fine, I’ll just order in.”

“From where?”

“From… wherever the other drivers are getting their food from,” she answers vaguely, knowing all of them have their trainers with them and suddenly missing Lexie more than ever.

Yoongi frowns, still looking more curious than anything else. “Why are you so nervous? Do I intimidate you?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

Dilara scoffs nervously. “Oh, that can’t be news to you.”

He cracks a smile. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

“Um, I don’t think I used the word afraid,” she clarifies before shrugging, looking down at her hands. “You’re like that older brother. The one you don’t want to disappoint.”

Yoongi chuckles quietly, without humour. “I don’t think you’re the one that disappointed me,” he admits wryly.

There’s an awkward silence. The idea that Yoongi could feel this strongly about her love life seems too foreign to consider. Dilara had never particularly got the impression that Yoongi really cared what she thought of him, but then again, he wouldn’t be the first member to surprise her.

Dilara remembers one of the few conversations they’ve ever had, just the two of them. He won’t hurt you. He’d more or less promised that, even though he had no business doing so. His response makes a little more sense when she thinks about that evening, sharing a taboo cigarette in Monterey and promising, to this day, to keep it between them.

“So do I really intimidate you, Lara?” Yoongi asks, gently pulling her out of her reverie.

Her heart skips a beat. “Oh… please don’t call me that,” she requests, shifting uncomfortably.

Yoongi looks amused. “Taehyung’s the only one who can call you that?”

The honest answer, she realises only now, is yes. “He doesn’t call me that anymore,” she says evasively.

“You can caramelise the onions,” he says after a moment, gesturing to another chopping board with a pile of sliced onions on it.

“Oh,” she sighs, deflating slightly.

“What?”

Dilara swallows. “I don’t - I mean… I really think it would be better if you gave me something that didn’t involve cooking, per se. Like chopping or - or cleaning…?” she suggests nervously, embarrassed at putting her incompetence on display like this. ”I’m a disaster in the kitchen,” she confesses.

Yoongi observes me for a moment. “Not to make things awkward, but sometimes you and Taehyung make so much sense, it’s crazy.”

It’s not the first time she’s heard this. “Yeah…” she agrees dryly, “until it isn’t.”

“What happened when you two tried cooking together?”

Dilara chuckles in spite of herself. “We never tried.”

“Just as well,” he replies. “Probably saved a kitchen somewhere from burning down.”

“Probably.” She pauses. “We never really got around to doing stuff like that,” she says after a moment, and she can hear the underlying regret in her own voice at how short a time they’d had together.

“Here,” says Yoongi after a moment. She looks up to see him push a bowl filled with carrots, leeks and colourful bell peppers. “You can chop this.”

---

Dilara should sleep. She really should. But sleep evades her for some strange reason and after a series of silly decisions, she finds herself walking outside like a goddamn zombie on an unbelievably freezing night in Germany. 

What she’s doing is ridiculously stupid. She could get hypothermia, her joints will be stiffer than ever, she could catch a cold or a fever, she will lose out on sleep, and being awake at this hour is guaranteed to stress her out even more than she already is. But her anxiety takes precedence over it tonight, and without Lexie, Chris and Fred to help her out of it, especially after a shitty Qualifying, she realises she’s rather badly equipped to handle it on her own.

Dilara is on the verge of opening her Twitter app and reading comments about her today. She does that sometimes; it’s sick, deliberately reading hate about oneself, especially from people who probably can’t even drive a goddamn stick, but she does it anyway so that, ironically, her anxiety reduces by turning into conviction that, yes, she is a terrible driver, she probably doesn’t deserve the Red Bull seat, that a little girl shouldn’t be racing with men, she probably is PMSing when she accidentally says the wrong thing on camera…

She wants to call Lexie. If she were to find out what Dilara is tempted to do, she would shut her down so quickly that she’d feel stupid for considering it in the first place. 

Dilara’s thumb hovers over her phone screen, frozen. Lexie had messaged herself right after Quali but Dilara hadn’t wanted to talk just then. It matters not, because the next second, the phone is at Dilara’s ear and she hears ringing. It rings and rings, but eventually goes to voicemail. She closes her eyes; even the sound of Lexie’s voice on the outgoing message helps a bit.

Dilara needs familiarity. Comfort.

Taehyung had tried to talk to her earlier in the night. The moment Yoongi had finished cooking, she’d inhaled a small bowl of food while he called the others inside and by the time they’d finally trudged in, she was already washing her bowl and stacking it back in the cabinet. She’d also quietly volunteered to wash the dishes after, feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude to Yoongi, not realising that somehow, Taehyung was also on dish duty.

It was fine for a bit, silently washing and rinsing and wiping dishes side by side. Dilara could see him giving her lingering looks, each glance making it clear that he wanted to ask about Quali, until she finally asked him to quit it. He asked, sincerely, if she was okay, if she wanted to talk and she knew it was because of last night, but… giving him comfort was one thing. Taking it from him had the potential to spiral, especially when her feelings for him were getting more and more confusing by the day, so she had no choice but to forcefully decline.

When Taehyung tried again and reached for her hand in the warm soapy water in a presumably comforting gesture, Dilara yanked it back without thinking and, wiping her hands on the dishcloth, stalked away without a word. She doesn’t regret it, exactly; she’s still angry and she’s still hurt, and the last thing she wants to do is let him forget it.

“This is stupid,” she mutters, seeing her breath condense before her. She turns back towards the house and starts walking towards the front door when it opens. Startled, she halts to see Min Yoongi standing in the doorway, the porch light like a halo above his ice blue hair.

“What - what are you doing up so late?” Dilara asks him, genuinely bewildered. “It’s almost one am.”

“I could say the same to you,” he mutters, rubbing his eyes and sounding slightly disgruntled. He walks down the steps and stops a couple feet away from her, shoving his hands in the pocket of his oversized coat and shivering. “You know it’s freezing, right?”

“I - yes.”

“So… what are you doing?”

“What are you doing?” she asks, thoroughly confused.

“I saw you from my window,” he says shortly. “I thought I was imagining it but then you tried to kick a rock and missed, so I knew it was you.” Ignoring her mortification, Yoongi looks around at the foggy front yard. “So what is it? Is it about Qualifying?”

Dilara’s immediate instinct is to deny but when she doesn’t answer, he seems to take it as confirmation.

“Do you want to talk about it, then?” He sounds only mildly concerned, giving her enough room to decline if she wants. “It’s okay if you don’t,” he adds after a moment, “but at least come inside before you freeze to death.”

So they talk about it. Or rather, Dilara talks and Yoongi patiently listens. They sit near where she and Taehyung were last night, but the distance between them is much more respectable. Yoongi is way easier to talk to than she’d ever thought; even if there are things she mentions that he doesn’t understand, he listens, asking questions and letting her vent thoroughly.

“Can we not talk about this anymore?” she asks after she finishes talking about the last time she’d received online hate, all the way back in Spain this year when she was going through her heartbreak-induced slump.

“Okay.” Yoongi exhales before speaking. “For what it’s worth, the hate will never stop.”

Dilara doesn't look up. “Gee, thanks.”

He shrugs. “There’s always going to be someone, somewhere who thinks what you’re doing is shit,” he says in a matter-of-fact way. “There’s absolutely nothing you can do to make everyone happy. Not a thing.”

“I don’t care about making them happy,” she mutters. “It’s just unfair because they have no idea what it’s like in the car.”

“Exactly. They don’t. So their opinion means nothing, especially when it’s a troll halfway across the world that’s mad because you’re way further fulfilling your dreams than he is. Or she,” he adds thoughtfully.

“You don’t sound like this affects you at all,” she remarks after a moment, referring to the magnitude of hate she’s sure BTS probably gets. “Is all the anger reserved for Agust D?” she quips.

Yoongi grins, gummy smile flashing. “Something like that.”

“Maybe I should take up rapping.”

“You drive cars at ridiculous speeds. What’s a better outlet for your anger than that?”

He’s right, of course. In fact, it’s exactly what Chris Park would say. Save it for the track, D. She doesn’t have her support system here, but it occurs to her that she’s also not completely alone. 

“Is he telling the truth?” Dilara asks suddenly, needing to find out.

“About what?” Yoongi doesn’t ask whom she’s referring to and for that she’s glad.

She shrugs. “Everything. Being sorry, making a mistake, the Jennie thing…” She trails off, swallowing. “How he feels…”

“I think so.” When she doesn’t respond, he sighs deeply, as if unable to believe he’s being dragged into this childish drama. “I mean, I’m sure he’s sorry and we know his thing with Jennie wasn’t real,” he elaborates, as though counting items off a shopping list. “She was nice but I don’t know who he was fooling trying to date her. As for how he feels…” He gives Dilara a sympathetic shrug. “That’s only upto you to decide.”

“But what do you think?” Dilara presses.

Yoongi looks slightly surprised that she wants his opinion this badly. “Well… I think he still cares about you. A lot, in fact. I think he’s still in love with you, although I think you’ll have to get him to admit that to you,” he continues, apparently not realising how her heart rams against her ribcage. “But I also didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to do what he did. Going by his actions today, though, I’d say he still really cares about you.”

Dilara says nothing, replaying his words. “Hang on,” she says slowly. “What actions today? Wait, Yoongi - did he ask you to talk to me tonight?” By the way he freezes momentarily, she knows she’s right. “You have got to be joking.”

“Why is that so bad?”

“It’s - it’s the principle of it.”

“What principle?”

“If I wanted to talk to him, I would’ve.”

“And you’re not. He knows that. He said it looked like you had a rough day and since you don’t have your friends here, you might need someone to talk to.” Yoongi shrugs. “Was he wrong?” When she doesn’t answer, he chuckles, gummy smile flashing once more. “Or was he totally right?”

“Shut up,” she mutters, making him snort. “And… no, he wasn’t wrong. But he wasn’t totally right either,” she adds, although she doesn’t know what to back that up with.

Yoongi doesn’t even ask. “So stubborn,” he remarks softly, his eyes on the frozen lake.

“Well, do I at least have your word that you won’t tell him what we talked about?”

“Tell who?” he asks innocently.

Dilara gives him a look. “Jungkook’s boyfriend. Can I trust you?” she asks, even as he laughs.

“Of course you can,” he says easily, standing up and offering her a hand. “And, seriously, it’s almost two am. You should sleep.”

She doesn’t argue and takes his hand, trying not to stomp behind him as they walk back to the house. “The grass is really slippery, by the way.”

“What’s that now?”

Dilara stops a few steps behind him as they reach the porch. “You said you saw me kicking a rock and missing. It’s because the grass is really slippery.” She pauses, somewhat conscious of what she must be sounding like. “I don’t miss.”

Yoongi stares at her, his mouth twitching. “Noted,” he says finally, reaching for the door handle and twisting it. “Okay, did you know this locks from the inside?”

She blinks. “Are you telling me we’re locked out here -” She glances at her phone “- twelve hours before the German Grand Prix?”

“Don’t worry,” he says calmly, typing on his phone. “I’m messaging on the group chat. Someone or the other will be awake.” He waits for a moment before chuckling, a little disbelievingly. “Okay, I was right.”

Dilara regards him suspiciously as she hears soft footsteps from inside. “Who is it?”

“Jungkook’s boyfriend, who else?”

“Perfect,” she mutters, as the door swings open to reveal the aforementioned boyfriend, a black beanie over his hair, black glasses and - she realises with a slight shock - the black hoodie she’d returned to him earlier this year. Contrary to what Yoongi made it sound like, Taehyung doesn’t look like he was on the verge of sleep at all.

He asks Yoongi something in Korean, his eyes on Dilara, to which Yoongi murmurs a reply before clapping her on the shoulder and heading inside.

“Thanks,” she mutters to Taehyung, moving to follow Yoongi, when Taehyung stops her by grabbing the edge of her sleeve.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly, eyes bigger than ever.

Dilara wants to roll her eyes and tell him that she knows he asked Yoongi to talk to her, but she doesn’t know what purpose that would serve. So after a moment’s hesitation, she nods, gently taking back her hand and going into her room.

—

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[lucius-the-sinful]

cold cold man [18+]

Rating: Explicit, M x M

Warnings: possible dubious consent

Pairing: Gale (original tiefling character)/Rarzal (original dark elf character)

Other tags: oral sex, dirty talk, worship

Summary: Gale plays Rarzal's game, he can't tell if he lost or won.

“Is that what you want to do? Beg for me?” The words passed through Rarzal’s lips nonchalantly, the same lips Gale had been watching this entire conversation. 

Gale considered the proposition, or what he hoped to be one. Rarzal was a tricky individual, able to hide his outward emotions with ease. The smile on those thin lips told Gale it was an advance, but his narrowed eyes suggested it was a test. The tiefling’s tail flicked in contemplation, a sultry smile settled on his lips. “That's a very delicious thought.” 

The devilish smile on the vampire’s lips reached his eyes, and Gale knew he played right. “How so?” 

Gale had plenty of time to fantasize, running through almost any scenario he could think of. He almost felt guilty, thinking of Rarzal in that way of any capacity, but half the time he couldn't help it. And now he couldn't stop himself from fantasizing aloud. He started at the beginning. “You wouldn't kiss me, not at first. You would rather put my mouth to use elsewhere. I would praise every fine inch, before taking all of it in. Only when you allow it, would I taste you. I promise not to lose myself if you guide me…” 

“Those are some very pretty words,” Rarzal tilted his head. 

Gale stood and wandered to the other side of Rarzal’s desk, he leaned on his palm and sat. His tail gently tapped against mahogany. He was just within reach. “They don't have to be just words.” 

Rarzal hummed. An ice cold hand met Gale’s thigh, even through the denim it sent chills down his spine. Rarzal gave his flesh a light squeeze. Gale moved again, sinking to his knees. He looked up at Rarzal, searching for any indication he shouldn't continue. There was only calculation, piercing through Gale’s barriers to his raw center. Rarzal gently lifted Gale’s chin. 

“You truly desire me?” His voice had that soft edge that drove Gale mad. He wanted to hear his name in that voice over and over again. 

“If you will have me,” Gale’s own voice wavered. “Please.”

Solace rested on his lips, and Rarzal gave a nod. Gale placed his hands on either side of Rarzal’s thighs. The dark elf expertly maneuvered his belt and pants to mid thigh, and leaned back again. Gale used the soft part of his palm to rub Rarzal’s bulge through black underwear, exciting him further with friction. Rarzal showed no desperation, or need to thrust himself further into Gale’s hand. However, Rarzal’s fingers feathered over Gale’s cheek. “You look cute when you focus.” 

Heat radiated through the tiefling’s body, familiar and welcome. Rarzal’s fingers ran through Gale’s ginger hair, while his pants were tugged further down until they hit the floor around his ankles. Gale continued to rub him through fabric, dipping his face between Rarzal’s thighs. He left black lipstick stains where he kissed. The dark elf let out a satisfactory sigh. The little bit of reaction sent Gale’s mind into a frenzy, he expertly tugged and teased. He nipped at the inside of Rarzal’s thigh and kissed each place his teeth marked. Finally, his claws hooked under Rarzal’s waistband. He looked up at the vampire lord. 

“Can I?” Gale asked. Rarzal gave a curt nod and allowed room for the underwear to slide past his thighs and to the floor. Rarzal’s hand wrapped around one of Gale’s horns, encouraging the tiefling. Gale hardly wasted time, breathing in Rarzal’s aroma. His tongue found the base of the dark elf’s cock, where he took a generous first taste; his forked tongue felt each vain as it traveled to the tip. Gale gave his head a kiss, appreciating Rarzal’s length and girth. He couldn't control the water pooling in his mouth, or his own excitement between his legs. His focus did not falter, as he took Rarzal in with grace worthy of recording. Rarzal’s grip tightened again, a pleased sound escaping his throat. 

Gale pulled every trick he knew while lavishing in every sense. His fingers pressed into dark, cold skin; his olfactory filled with whiskey and rosemary and a hint of death; and at the center, he tasted it all. 

“Gale,” The name rolled off Rarzal’s lips with only a minor amount of shakiness. The tiefling couldn't stop the vibration in his throat at the sound of his name, causing Rarzal to redirect his head to the side. This gave Gale an opportunistic angle to meet the vampires eyes, and see the extent of his damage. He saw a crack in Rarzal’s perfectly maintained posture; he was taking pleasure in fucking Gale’s pretty mouth. 

There was a strange twist in Gale’s gut as the excitement died down after Rarzal’s climax. He sat back on his knees, wiping at the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand. In the moments after, Gale’s perception numbed. The cost of security weighed heavy within him; he paid his price. There was a hand on his chin, lifting and forcing Gale’s mind back to the present. 

Rarzal now chose to peel back a layer, revealing concern in the downwards tilt of his mouth. Their eyes met, Gale tried to push past the veil; he saw nothing. The emptiness spread. All the fantasizing made sense in hindsight, it was practice for a performance--one that had not yet concluded. Gale put on a smile for the audience. Rarzal leaned back. “Interesting,” his voice had a hint of huskiness. “The things you will do to impress me.” 

Gale leaned into Rarzal’s touch to make himself more convincing. “It wasn’t just theatrics,” he purred. Rarzal arched his brow in disbelief. Not exactly a lie, but if it weren't for Rarzal’s power… 

The vampire lord hummed, letting go of Gale’s face to redress himself. The tiefling stood, straightening his clothes. “Regardless, I always look forward to our little chats,” Rarzal said. 

Gale nodded. “I’ll see you in a few days.” He made his exit. Out in the corridor now, the numbness didn’t fade. It settled, stealing away his senses again. Getting away from this city for a few days would help clear his head again, surely.