#i knew she had her own secrets but it was for her and human survival

[bamboozledbird]

IGNITE: A Teen Wolf S1 AU (Reader's Version) // Prev. / Chapter 5

Characters: Stiles Stilinski, fem!reader, Scott McCall, Lydia Martin, ofc, omc Pairing: Eventual Stiles x Reader, but man are we talking slow burn Word Count: 10.2k Warnings: Canon typical gore/violence, parental death (rip to your fake mom), depictions of depression (apathy, dissociation, 'numb little bug' vibes), depictions of a panic attack, animal death Tags: Canon has been lovingly scrapped for parts, author is a chaotic bi and it shows, prolific overuse of the em dash, the slowest of burns i fear

Summary: You can always smell ash long after the fire is gone. Perhaps, that’s why you still can’t breathe without choking on the past. It’s been four years since your mom died. Four years since she burned alive. Four years since you didn’t. You survived, but they must have buried your heart with her because most days you feel like a shadow, some horrifically sad creature caught halfway between a ghost and a lamb for slaughter. 

You can’t scrub the bitter smell of hospital from your memories, not even with denial. Maybe, that’s why death and disease follows Stiles wherever he goes now. It’s been eight years since his mom died. Eight years since he didn’t. Eight years since he decided that he wouldn’t let anyone he loved die ever again. He survived, but Beacon Hills’ bloody underbelly is making it pretty damn hard for him to keep his promise.

Time never stops turning. The grief never dissipates. Children soldier on—but in a town where all the monsters under the bed are real, and old family secrets rattle in every closet, how long can two fragile, breakable humans survive?

Maybe, the real question is: How long will they want to?

Chapter Summary: You start to unravel some of the secrets hidden in Beacon Hill's other world, and Stiles manages to worm his way into discovering some of your own. 

A/N: this took a minute, so i hope the length makes up for it! comments and reblogs are love, and i am tinkerbell. also check me out on ao3 (dork_knight) for the full lore version!

Tag list: @eaterof-concrete

Your anger fizzled with every mile you drove. By the time you finished your third loop around the Preserve, it was just a light simmer of irritation. The void was quickly filled with a different emotion: curiosity. There was a little dread in there too, perhaps also a touch of nausea, but the concoction was still potent enough to distract you from your...whatever that was with Lydia. Now that you were alone, trees blurring together in a ribbon of yellowing-green through your dash, all you could think about was the fire Derek’s family died in. Well, that, and another fire that was always lurking somewhere in your mind, hiding in the shadows, just waiting for the chance to jump out and strangle your heart. 

Beacon Hills was a small town. A town where, until very recently, bad things hardly ever happened. What were the chances of two houses going up in flames four years apart? Of two houses burning down to the foundation in the blink of an eye? Of two homes becoming charred rubble and chilling memorials to the lives lost inside? As far as you knew, they were the only unnatural fires that’d occurred in Beacon Hills in the last century. 

It could all be a coincidence, of course. Nothing. Just a delusional, grief-driven conspiracy. It would be best if you accepted that now before you fell too far down this rabbit hole. It’d taken you two years to finally realize that the police were never going to figure out what really happened to your mom, and those two years had been filled with a series of devastating misdirections, hundreds of dashed hopes and unanswered prayers to a god you no longer believed in. You knew better than this. You did. You knew better than to hope. 

But…maybe. Maybe there was something there. If there was an elaborate plot afoot, you knew just the right conspiracy nut to turn to.

The last time you believed in magic, you were six. You had run the entire mile-and-a-half to Maggie’s dad’s store, hands bloody and cupped into a small nest. You had almost choked on your quiet, congested whimpers, but after a few minutes of blubbering, you’d finally managed to spit out a few words, “You know how to fix him, right? You know everything.” There had to be a spell, you’d thought, with all the wisdom of a first-grade education. There had to be some magic flower or special potion that could make everything better. 

You hadn’t noticed the look on Maggie’s face when you finally opened your fingers, but Maggie had to have been panicking once she saw exactly what needed to be fixed—cradled in your palms, was a tiny, twitching field mouse you’d found on your way home from school. His little chest had heaved so slowly as he laid limply in your hands, as if he’d already accepted his fate. You’d been so young then, too young to realize that Maggie was only nineteen and faked her confidence more often than she felt it. Nineteen seemed so old at six, and now it was only three years away. 

Maggie had known, of course, that the poor little guy probably wouldn’t live long enough to see nightfall, but she’d made the fatal mistake of looking into your big wet eyes: still so full of hope and belief in the impossible. Instead of telling you the truth, she’d just said, “I got this," and took the mouse to the backroom—where all the magic happened. You never ended up seeing the mouse again. You realized now that probably meant he died, but you appreciated Maggie letting you live in the land of make-believe for just a little while longer. 

But that was ten years ago. Today, you knew that Mags was only mortal and Willowbark couldn’t actually heal fatal rodent wounds—but you were still hoping, against all hopes, that Maggie actually had the answers this time. 

“Mags?” your brow crinkled as you searched for Maggie and her wild curls. Mags often got lost in the midst of all the chaos, just a small blip in a collection of odd, Victorian-esque relics. You could usually spot at least a glimpse of whatever loud color Maggie was sporting that day. The yellows and pinks were always stark against the dingy backdrop, but today all you could see from the front door was varying shades of sage, oxblood, and charcoal. “Maggie?”

A muffled cry sounded from the storeroom, “Back here.” The door to the room was slightly ajar, and the purple lighting from the mini-greenhouse inside spilled through the crack. It cast a mesmerizing strip of dayglow lavender over the dangly earrings and mood rings for sale next to the register. “Bring me the shears, will you? The pink ones by Giz.”

You dropped your backpack behind the glass counter and drifted towards the sounds of Gizmo’s trumpeting snores. The stretch for the pruning scissors was a bit precarious; the little prince was batting his paws at something in the depths of dreamland and had no presence of mind for your fragile skin. You snagged the shears with minimal carnage and ran your finger along the cool edge, staring at the gleaming surface, “You’re into all local history, right? Not just the made-up stuff?”

Maggie took the shears from your lax hands and squatted next to the potted yew tree on the floor. It was just starting to blossom, red berries dotted sparsely around the spiky leaves—ripe for whatever ridiculous offering Maggie had planned. Maggie blew a ringlet out of her face and fixed you with a stern frown, “My ancestors were witches, and Dragons absolutely did exist. Just look at ‘dinosaur’ fossils from the—”

“Do you know anything about the fire the Hale family died in?” you looked down at your hands so that you didn’t have to see Maggie’s reaction. 

You traced circles around a rosy stain on Maggie’s workbench, likely from ground flower petals or dripping pomegranate seeds, shoulders hunching towards your ears as you continued, “I mean, you’re around the same age as the older sister, right?” Laura. You couldn’t bring yourself to say her name, and the hypocrisy was stifling. You hated when people tiptoed around death, when they used pretty euphemisms like that could make what actually happened any less brutal. Less evil. Less unfair. But there was no softening grief. Death. Murder. There was no candy coat sweet enough to cloak the taste of rotting—and yet, you still couldn’t say her name.

Maggie went still briefly and then continued clipping branches, ignoring or not noticing the couple of leaves stuck to her fuzzy sweater. “Why?”

You gritted your teeth and stared a burl in the wood underneath your fingers, “Why do you think?”

Sighing, Maggie spread her clippings across the maple worktop and picked at a few yellowing leaves, “Where is this coming from, babe? I mean, that was a long time ago. I’m almost thirty, you know—ancient by most standards.”

You didn’t smile. Couldn’t. “Do you know anything or not?”

“No,” Maggie sounded genuine, but she kept her eyes on the red stains underneath her fingernails, “nothing more than what was on the news.”

The fact that Maggie didn’t make a quip or a stupid pun was even more telling than her refusal to look in your direction. You folded your arms over your chest and leaned your hip against the doorframe, “Sure.”

“Are you okay, babe?” Maggie wiped the berry residue off on her skirt, and the long hem swished around her ankles as she crept towards you. Her hand was cautious when she placed it on your rigid shoulder, “You aren’t skipping your meds again, are—”

Your eyes flashed as you shook off Maggie’s light touch with a jerk of your shoulder, “Is it possible for me to have a single feeling without everyone jumping down my throat about my meds.”

“I just worry,” Maggie said softly, and she reached for you again, waiting for you to pull away. She tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear when you didn’t. Your limbs were still stiff, and your face was still stony, but you let Maggie grab your hand. It was slightly sweaty, probably from all the indoor-gardening, but there was some comfort in the circles she smoothed over your knuckles. “You know I’m a worrier. Comes with the conspiracy theorist in me.”

You looked down at your feet and dug your toes into the concrete floor, “And my mom’s dying wish—I know.”

A bit of hurt quivered in the corners of Maggie’s reassuring smile, even though she tried her best to hide it, “That’s not the reason I do it.”

Your entire frame slumped with guilt, “I know.” And you did; you did know. You made Maggie drive you to the library every weekend before you got your license, and in return Maggie stole about a dozen of your sweaters once she realized you were finally the same size—Mags wasn’t just your mom’s weird friend from the neighborhood; she was family. She taught you how to make pie crust and scones, and she always read ‘happily ever after’ in the lines of your palms when you needed something to smile about. Maggie did a million little things for you without any appreciation, and you tried to remember every single one as you sat on the floor in front of the ‘Local Culture’ shelf.

Your nose scrunched as you looked over the titles on the spines, searching for anything that sounded even remotely real. Maggie knelt next to you, patch-work skirt billowing around her knees, and watched your fingers drum against the floor. 

“Anything in particular you’re looking for?” Maggie bumped your shoulder with her own, and you grunted a little response.

“Nothing you can help me with.” Evidently, you thought with only a bit of bitterness. 

Maggie didn’t say anything for a long time. You almost forgot she was there, and then her bracelets clacked together as she shifted. “Here,” Maggie pulled a thick journal out of the depths of her baggy cardigan and held it out with a complicated expression on her face—something halfway between a frown and a smile, “I think you’ll find this one particularly interesting.”

You looked down at the title and rubbed your thumb over the engraved font, “‘A History and Detailed Account of Beacon Hills Bloodlines’?” 

Maggie nodded and shoved her hands into her skirt pockets, “Goes back all the way to the beginning—not literally, obviously. I don’t think they wanted to get into the whole ‘God vs. Big Bang’ debate, but it dates back to when the town was founded.”

“That’s…interesting, I guess,” you flipped through the pages and bit down on your tongue to squash the sneer curling across your lips. It was a nice gesture. You knew that—but what else were you supposed to do when the ‘History’ and ‘Detailed Account’ fell open to an artistic diagram of 'local werewolf packs’ genealogy lines. You were a little interested to see if the names were entirely fictional, or if the journal was an accurate record of Beacon Hill’s very own Werewolf Trials. Probably the first, you’d remember learning about extra hairy men and women being burned at the stake in social studies. 

Maggie huffed out a little laugh and pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. “I know you won’t believe everything in there, but who knows,” she shrugged and held out a hand for you to grab onto, “maybe you’ll finally be enlightened.”

You took her hand and hummed, “While you’re feeling so generous and bad for me ‘cause I’m functionally an orphan, could I get some more of that wolfsbane gunk?” You batted your lashes over the edge of the leather cover and grinned your most adorable smile—the one that dusted off a rare view of your dimples, “It can be my birthday present.”

It was an obvious ploy, but Maggie just laughed and poked one of your dimples, “Your birthday is months away.”

You picked up the speed of your blinking, approaching butterfly-wing territory, and rocked onto your tiptoes, “An early birthday present is still a birthday present.” 

Mags watched you through narrowed eyes for a moment, “You don’t even believe in werewolves.”

You shrugged and smirked, “It works on humans too.” 

“Please, please don’t make me an accessory to murder.” Maggie gripped your shoulders and shook you a little, fighting a smile, “I would not fare well in prison. They limit your internet privileges there—no Wi-Fi, babe. No Wi-Fi. I would be completely alone with my thoughts.”

“The horror,” your eyes glittered with your grin, and for a sweet moment you forgot about the journal in your hands and all the questions it wouldn’t answer. “It’s not for me,” you admitted, grimacing as Maggie’s lips puckered. The pursing of her lips, the hollowing of her cheeks—that always came before a very long and arduous inquisition. Maggie could be relentless when she wanted to be. 

“And whom would you be giving such a precious gift to?” The thickness of her brows only magnified the suspicion in Maggie’s tapered expression, “A gift you called—what was it? ‘Useless’ and ‘stupid’ less than 24-hours ago?”  

“Just because I think it’s stupid, doesn’t mean it’s a bad gift for someone else. I thought the Sonic Chia Pet I gave you was stupid, and you loved it.” You knew you won when Maggie started walking away from you towards the storeroom. You still had no idea how Curio Killed the Cat stayed in business when Maggie handed out inventory like candy, but presently its troubling business model was a blessing in disguise.

“Don’t disparage him,” Maggie crooned over her shoulder, “it’s bad luck.”

“If everything is sacred, nothing is,” you sniped, doing your best Vulcan impression.

Maggie smiled brightly as she hopped over the counter, sticking out her tongue, “I don’t think everything is sacred—just all the things I like.”

Speaking of things Maggie liked—you tucked your first gift under your armpit and held out your hands, palms cupped together. Your mouth curved into a cheesy grin as you said, “Trick-or-Treat.”

Maggie rolled her eyes, but her puckish spark dwindled when she looked at the vile of wolfsbane. It was balanced between her thumb and forefinger, glass reflecting the light, and you felt a bit like you were accepting the One Ring and a quest you weren't prepared for. “Be careful, okay?” Maggie hesitated before dropping the vile into your waiting hands, “I know you love Buffy, but resurrection isn’t so easy off-screen.”

You were a little startled by the concern wrinkling the corners of Maggie’s eyes. She looked almost more worried now than she did when you asked her about the Hale fire. “Like I said,” you carefully eased the wolfsbane into your corduroy skirt, “it’s not for me.”

Maggie's eyes combed over your face, searching for something, and then she sighed, “Just…don’t let anyone drag you into something stupid. I don’t care how cute he is; no boy is worth the risk of ruining your gorgeous face. It’s your money-maker, babe.” 

There was a lot to unpack in those three sentences; you didn’t even know where to begin. There was, of course, the implication that you were going to join some kind of Scooby-Doo gang that dealt wolfsbane on the side. While the thought of going ghost hunting with a pair of boys who couldn’t make it to class without tripping over their feet was, in fact, asinine…that wasn’t the part twisting stubborn knots around your ear canal. 

Your face was dragged down by a broody pout, “For your information, I’m not giving it to Stiles; it’s actually for a guy who isn’t the leading cause of pulmonary embolisms in Beacon County—and I don’t think either of them are cute.” 

That wasn’t strictly true. You did think that Scott was cute, just like you thought Gizmo was cute when he pleaded for treats. You could see the appeal of Scott McCall, why Allison liked him, but you hadn’t thought someone was cute like that in a very long time. A person generally had to actually look at people to think they were cute, and you hadn’t looked beyond forcing one foot in front of the other and your nubby nails in years. 

And as far as Stiles went…honestly, you hadn’t really considered the concept of Stiles as an actual person until Maggie had to go and imply it. You supposed, now that you were thinking about it, he had an objectively nice face: big eyes, button nose, nice jaw—but when you saw him in person, it was almost always covered with an infuriating smirk or making obnoxious sounds. You usually just wanted to shove it away from you. Sometimes, when Stiles was being particularly difficult, you even thought about flicking him right in his long-lashed, honeycomb eyes. You wondered if the Sheriff would arrest you if you— 

That’s right, your eyes rounded with the thought, Stiles is the Sheriff's son.

The recollection rang through every single one of your thoughts and echoed along the caverns of your skull, sparing you from ruminating on something far, far scarier. You were much more comfortable with deduction. 

Your brow furrowed as you pushed yourself over the counter to grab your backpack—sure that Maggie would misinterpret your impromptu exit, but too lost in through to really care—Stiles is the Sheriff's son. You forgot that sometimes. They were so different, after all, and you were certain that Stiles had broken the law at least a few times in his life, but he was. Stiles was the Sheriff's son, and he probably knew things that he shouldn’t. Things that were only kept in confidential files. Fortunately, you didn’t need to think that someone was cute to use them for information. 

“Methinks the Lady doth protest too much,” Maggie chirped. She was fiddling with her branches in the back again, picking the berries and dropping them into a little stone bowl. 

You scowled at the berries like it was their fault you were in this predicament, “Gertrude sucks.

“And yet she was correct,” Maggie tossed a berry at your forehead, and it landed dead-center on the tip of your nose, dripping a small trail of crimson juice onto your cupid’s bow. Maggie laughed until a burst of snorts consumed her giggles, and you scowled deeper as you wiped your nose clean with your sleeve.

“And yet, she’s the prime example of doing something stupid for a boy.” You made a point of flipping Maggie off before trudging towards the door.

You pushed the exit open with your shoulder—rushing to get home to your notebook and pens. Ideas had a way of slipping away from you; you liked to make them real. Tangible. Inked lines and loops that couldn’t be erased. 

Maggie cupped your cheeks before you could slither away to your car, startling you out of your head. “Don’t be Gertrude. Don’t be stupid,” Maggie said, incredibly solemn, but the twinkle of mischief in her eye ruined the 'Yoda effect'. 

You pursed your lips as your eyes flitted towards the side, “I’ll do my best to not marry my dead husband’s brother-killer.” The door swung shut behind you, cutting off the trill of Maggie’s laughter. 

You spent the rest of the night on your bed, sitting cross-legged with your notebook spread open across your lap. You tapped your pen against your knee and watched the blades on your ceiling fan spin into a fuzzy Saturn ring until your eyes watered. You were trying, and failing, to think of a way to ask Stiles for help without him making a big deal about it—contemplating if it was truly worth all the aggravation.

Sighing, you sketched random swirling lines in purple ink. They interconnected in a pretty pattern that eventually took the shape of the maze on your pendant. There was no way out of the labyrinth without breaking down a wall; it was hopeless, a path that never ended. People who entered the maze would be doomed to walk in circles until they littered the ground with their decomposing skeletons—and oh how you envied them. 

Stiles would never let it go; you were pretty damn sure of that. He would poke, and prod, and stick his upturned nose into your business until he'd thoroughly invaded your privacy and got all the answers to his meddlesome questions. He could never ju—

The sound of paper tearing dragged you out of your pitiful brooding, and you sighed. Your pen had ripped through the center of the maze. You held the page up to the light, and it shone through the hole, blinding you momentarily. 

There was no escaping the labyrinth—there was only pushing straight though. 

You spent a lot of your time observing people lately. It wasn’t as creepy as it sounded, at least you hoped it wasn’t as creepy as it sounded. It was just…ever since Stiles dragged you back into the present—kicking, screaming, and bitching the entire way—you had been…overwhelmed by how alive everything was. It felt like so much had happened in the last four years. Everyone had gone on living while you’d hidden away in your mind and rotted in your room. 

You couldn’t put a name to the strange feeling twisting in your chest. You were angry, of course, so angry that people had the audacity to just… live, like there wasn’t a gigantic, bleeding void in the world that had yet to scar over—that might never truly close—but there was something else mixed in with the bitterness, something sweeter.

There was a certain kind of beauty, you mused, in the way they enjoyed such silly things. There was just something about the way they found joy in sparkly nail polish, and their favorite song, and a boy looking in their general direction that had you choking on a foreign warmth. Everyone had something, and it was beautiful to see people grow their worlds around the ugliness while you weren't so consumed with shrinking yours. 

Leaning back against your locker, you watched two freshmen girls walk side-by-side until a flock of tropical-scented, lip-gloss-coated sophomore girls passed them. The taller of the two trailed after them, linking arms with a blonde in the back of the pack. The shorter one watched their hair swish over their shoulders until they walked around the corner, absently tugging at a beaded bracelet on her wrist the entire time. 

In three weeks, she’d start eating lunch alone in the library, hiding in the dark book closet with outdated textbooks as her only companions. In five, they wouldn’t speak unless they had to. You gave the girl a weak smile when she accidentally made eye-contact. Sorry, babe, I read your future. You didn’t even need to see the girl’s palm. 

You pushed yourself off of your locker and shook your head a little, regrouping your thoughts as you slid into your seat next to Stiles. He looked tired. He was slumped over his desk, chin propped on his folded arms, and his eyelids hung heavily over the exhaustion coating his directionless gaze. He barely acknowledged your presence, grunting a little and nudging your foot with his. 

You hid your smile behind your English binder and turned in your seat to face him. “Hey,” you paused, bundling the meager bits and pieces of courage in your chest, and then said, “your perpetual nosiness—that extends to your dad too, right?”

Stiles’s head lulled to the side, cheek pressed against his folded arms, evidently too drained to sit-up. He trailed his squinted gaze over your face, eyes hooded and unblinking, “Why?”

“No reason.” You drummed your pencil against your desk and watched the long red arrow tick forward on the clock above the whiteboard. Stiles watched you fidget with a little sleepy smirk eased into the corners of his mouth, patient and still for the first time since you’d met. It was a shame you couldn’t revel in it. 

You lost the stalemate after your desperation became too thick to swallow, “I need to see a case file. There’s like…nothing on the internet or in Maggie’s local history sagas.” 

That got his attention. Stiles leaned forward, glimmering with intrigue and ill-intent, and said, “Which case?”

“None of your business,” you retorted reflexively. Stiles gave you an amused look and cupped his cheek in his palm, waiting for the inevitable apology. You withered against your chair and muttered, “Does it matter?”

He snorted and lifted a shoulder, “I have a right to know what I’m potentially putting my life on the line for; breaking and entering is a very serious crime, y’know.”

You huffed and glared a little at your clasped hands, “Somehow I know you’ve done worse.”

Stiles didn’t deny it. He just grinned proudly and scooted closer to you, “Seriously, what’s so important you’re willing to steal something from the police?”

“Not steal,” you corrected, a bit too petulantly for your liking, “just…borrow indefinitely.” 

“Uh huh,” Stiles pursed his lips and almost went cross-eyed scrutinizing your face, “so what’s so important you’re willing to ‘borrow’ classified information from the police ‘indefinitely’?”

You paused, not entirely sure how to answer his question without spilling over the edges and ruining everything. “I don’t know,” you admitted quietly, bowing your head a little. You picked at a hangnail until it was tender and inflamed, “Just a hunch, really. It’s probably nothing.”

Stiles tapped his fingers against his desk, fast and furious, and let out a dramatic puff of air, “I could help you if you’d, y’know, tell me literally one single thing about it.”

“I don’t need your help,” you scoffed, feet sliding out in front of you as you sunk into your chair. 

He cocked his head and hummed, looking far too smug for 7:45 in the morning, “Besides the whole ‘stealing my dad’s keycard and making it actually possible for you to read it’ thing, right?”

“You’re enjoying this way too much,” you mumbled, stalling the inevitable. It felt a little too much like losing to admit that you needed him—even though…you definitely needed him. It was a rather unfortunate fact you were fruitlessly still trying to deny.

Stiles rolled his eyes, neck too, and grabbed his backpack from the floor, “Forgive me for having a hobby.”

He opened his backpack, and you imagined, just for a moment, the zipper latching onto his mouth like a singularly-tentacled alien. It would solve all your problems; you could zip and unzip him whenever you wanted. If only. Sighing, you dropped your head against your knuckles, “Which is…irritating me?”

“Putting the pieces together,” Stiles dropped his coffee-warped, dogeared copy of Metamorphosis onto his desk and flipped to the assigned chapter. His eyes flicked from right to left, pace ridiculously fast, as he scanned through the pages. If it were anyone else, you would’ve assumed it was all for show. “I was a jigsaw kid,” he murmured, nose still stuck in his book.

Your lip stung as you gnawed on the cracking center, “If I tell you what I’m looking for, you’ll help me?”

“That,” Stiles punctuated his statement with a dramatic page flip, “and I might need a tiny favor from you.” He held his pointer finger and thumb together, almost touching, and flashed a toothy smile over the bent cover of his book, “Just an itty-bitty, very small, totally not a big deal favor.”

Your face turned thoroughly sour, “Oh god.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, like he didn’t just intentionally plant the seeds of dead bodies and false alibis in your mind two seconds ago, and huffed, “I just want to check on Lydia, okay? I think I’ll have a better chance of getting in through the front door with you.”

Your smirk flattened, “Why?”

His mouth hung open for a second, and then he shook his head firmly, peering at you through pinched lids, “You first.”

You fixed your gaze on your shoes, shifting your foot from left to the right, watching the fluorescent lights bounce off of the burgundy leather. The extra shine only made the scuffs on the toes more pronounced. “I want to look into the Hale fire, okay?” Your voice got trapped in your throat, so your tone wasn’t as biting as you wanted it to be, “Happy?”

You would’ve been content to keep staring at your boots until class ended, but your attention snapped back to Stiles when he inhaled sharply. He looked baffled, and maybe even a little green in the face, and you were starting to feel a little queasy yourself—nerves tended to turn your stomach upside-down and inside-out all in the same excruciatingly slow flip. His mouth was already ajar, but it took him several red-hand ticks to finally speak, “Why?” 

“Nuh uh,” you crossed your arms and sat upright, rolling your shoulders back, “you go now.”

Stiles was still looking at you with an odd expression on his face, a little too distracted to be difficult. He answered you without any inflection in his voice, “She didn’t show up for homeroom.”

Your intestines unspun with your faint inhale and then immediately dropped to the floor along with your heart as you let out a weak, trembling exhale, “...and?”

Stiles recovered from his momentary lapse in vexation and leaned onto his forearms, "And it’s your turn again.”

You wished you had a simple answer for him, and, even more so, you wished you were a better liar. “There’s kinda no way to answer that without trauma dumping all over you,” you mumbled, intensively examining the fine ridges in your nails. 

“I can handle a little trauma.” Stiles rapped his knuckles against the top of his head and smiled a little, “I’ve got nothin’ but space up here.” 

People always said that—that they’d be there for you no matter what, that they could handle anything—and then they got a real good look at the ugly of it all, at the dirty hair and rotting kitchen, at the prolonged silences and self-absorbed isolation. People usually took off running pretty quickly after that. At least, Lydia had.

“There haven’t been that many residential fire fatalities here. Just two cases, actually.” You chewed on your thumbnail and shrugged, “I know they said the Hale fire was an accident, but…maybe there’s a connection.” You swallowed, and your boot squeaked against the floor when you kicked at the ground, “Or maybe I’m just a dumbass with too much spare time.”

Stiles stared at you, and you could see the exact moment he connected the pieces. You were expecting the usual nauseating sympathy, the well-intentioned kindness that always flirted with the edge of pity, oftentimes landing smack-dab in the middle of it—but there wasn’t a drip of pity in his eyes. They were filled with grief; for you or for someone else, you didn’t know. Maybe it didn’t matter. More importantly, perhaps, his eyes were shining with…relief, pure and simple relief that nothing else needed to be said. 

“I’ll get you into the file room,” Stiles said, low and soft in his throat, and he didn’t look away from you until Scott slid in-between your desks. They did a complicated series of high-fives and hand-shakes with a few ‘knucks’ thrown in here and there for good measure. 

Before Scott sat down behind Stiles, he smiled in your direction. You looked past him, assuming Allison was behind you, and watched a red-breasted robin flit around a tree through the window. You saw Scott’s hand move in your peripheral vision, and when you tore your eyes away from the streak of scarlet feathers and blue sky, your lips tipped into a timid smile. Scott was waving at you; he was smiling at you. You didn’t know when your world went from no friends to two, but it felt oddly…normal. Smiling back at Scott, dodging Stiles’s kicks at your feet, trying not to laugh at their goofy faces. It felt like it was part of your routine, exactly the same as organizing your pens and pencils on top of your desk at the start of class, and just like that: normal twisted into terrifying. 

You chewed on the end of your pen when you felt Stiles’s gaze on the side of your face, “So…why do you want to see Lydia—besides your typical stalker behavior, obviously.” 

“You’re gonna feel like such an asshole,” Stiles grinned a little and nudged your toes, but there was something strange tucked in the corners of his mouth, something a bit grim, a bit afraid. Whatever it was, his cheeks didn’t dimple with his smile, and you gnawed on your lip once you realized that you not only noticed their absence but you missed them. 

You peeked at him from under your lashes and frowned when you saw that the crinkles at the corners of his eyes were gone too. Stiles’s grin eroded away to little more than a flat line once he started speaking again, “Jackson was attacked by…something last night—they’re saying mountain lion, but you and I both know that’s bullshit—anyway, she was pretty freaked out when my dad got there.”

You stiffened, spinal column drawing into a taut line from the crown of your skull to your tailbone, and your blood went cold. You already knew Lydia hadn't shown up for school today. You always knew—you felt Lydia’s absence just as fiercely as her presence. The air was just different somehow. You didn’t even have to look for her anymore; an innate rabbit-sense always reared its head when Lydia was too far away…when she was too close. Your instincts couldn’t agree on anything. They couldn’t decide if Lydia was a rabbit or a fox, and it was exhausting—but at the moment all you wanted, all you needed, was to make sure that Lydia hadn’t been torn apart by a monster with sharp claws and serrated teeth. 

“And she isn’t here,” you finally said, barely above a whisper.

“And she isn’t here,” Stiles echoed, just as quiet. 

“Okay,” your head bobbed with a decisive nod, knees moving before your mind had the chance to scold them, “let’s go.”

Stiles’s jaw unhinged alarmingly fast and comically wide, “Wha—now?”

You pushed everything on your desk into your backpack with a broad sweep of your arm and jerked your head towards the door, “Come on, before class starts.”

Stiles blinked at you for a few moments and then floundered for his things when you started walking out of the room without him. He stumbled into a desk in his rapid, ever-so clumsy efforts to catch up with you and twisted around to salute Scott’s empty chair. Apparently, neither of you had noticed his exit. It seemed it was a perfect morning for ditching class, but you didn’t dwell on the consequences for long. Your focus was single-minded and unwavering, and Stiles had to jog to keep up with your stalwart stride. 

“Since when are you so helpful,” he muttered, slightly out of breath. 

“I told you,” you gave him a wry smile and shoved the exit door open with your back, holding it for Stiles until he was halfway through the frame—and then you promptly stepped out of the way and watched the door swing shut on his backpack. Your lips twitched with a grin, “I’m a nice girl.”

Stiles yelped a little and looked over his shoulder, ensuring all his limbs were intact before yanking on his straps. His backpack smacked into his shoulders, and the heavy textbooks inside slammed together with a satisfying thump. You snickered and dodged his attempts to kick the back of your knees.

Glowering, Stiles switched tactics and tried to step on your nimble feet. Tragically for him, all the fire in his indignation was lost to his plush pout, “Since when?”

You rolled your eyes and waited next to his jeep, anxiously tracing little swirls in the dirt caked onto the passenger door, “Since I met you.” 

You missed the look on Stiles’s face, but that was for the best. His honeyed smile would’ve changed your mind, and you had an ex-best friend to attend to.

****************************

The jeep was quiet for the first few minutes of the drive—at least, it was as quiet as a decrepit clunker could be. There were various clangs and squeals in-between the engine’s low rumble, and a soft indie song filled the silences in-between, but the air felt still. Stiles was intently focused on the road ahead, thumbs drumming against the steering wheel to a beat of his own making, while you picked at your cuticles, cycling between anxiety and denial. It was a subliminal game of chicken that Stiles eventually lost. 

After a few false starts, Stiles blurted out, “You ever gonna tell me what happened?”

You stared straight ahead, through the bug-splattered windshield and down the winding street, “Nope.”

“Fine. That’s fine.” Stiles flexed his fingers against the steering wheel, straightening them to their impressive full-length, and then wrapped them around the wheel again. His grip was as tight as the grit of his teeth, “I don’t even want to know anyway.” You lulled your head to the side to smirk at him, but you kept your mouth thoroughly closed. Stiles’s gaze flicked in your direction briefly, and then he directed his eye roll towards the road, “I don’t. Keep your boring secret.”

You settled further into the passenger seat and propped your feet on the dash, grin warm with satisfaction, “I will.”

The beat of Stiles’s thumbs sped up, thundering against ‘9’ and ‘3’ while you hummed along to the trickle of piano and acoustic guitar strumming through the cracked speakers. The time on the dash display flickered from 8:15 to 8:16, and Stiles let out a long, drawn-out groan, “Will you just tell me! It’s killing me. Seriously, I’m going to credit you in my epitaph. ‘Here lies Stiles Stilinski: Another Victim of Gaslighting, Gatekeeping, and Girlbossing.’”

“They say you always remember your first,” you sighed dreamily, battering your butterfly lashes. The mole on the hinge of his jaw jumped with a harsh swallow, and you grinned. 

Stiles snorted and then immediately grimaced like he was irritated with his mouth for having the audacity to laugh in the midst of his despair. “Good to know I’m just part of a pattern.”

“I don’t know about that,” you hummed, resting your temple against the window. The morning sun warmed your skin and washed your face with a glimmer of gold that glittered with the devilry in your eyes. You smirked at Stiles and poked the mole just below his earlobe, “I have yet to meet anyone as homicidally inspiring as you.”

He pulled a face to hide his smile as the jeep puttered to a stop against the curb, and you looked over his shoulder, blinking slowly. You hadn’t realized you were so close to Lydia’s house until you were parked in front of it. 

The colonial estate loomed largely through the window. The long white pillars stood oppressively alongside the double entrance, and the meticulously manicured lawn screamed ‘keep off’ louder than any sign or barbed-wire fence. Lydia’s house had always been more like a monument than a home: an art installation, an antique, something to be admired not loved.

Tilting your head, you squinted at the familiar windows and counted along the second floor until you found Lydia’s room. The heavy purple curtains were drawn closed, and you were a little surprised that Lydia hadn’t redecorated in the last couple years. It was probably different on the inside; sixteen was a little old for dollhouses and princess crowns.

Growing up, Lydia’s room had been stocked with every Barbie accessory on the market, and yet you'd always played Barbies at your house. Every single time. When her dad was home, Lydia’s house had teetered between too quiet and too loud. A constant vague unease hung heavily in the air, even with the volume on her CD player turned all the way up. No boy band could drowned out all the screaming and icy silences, but you'd tried. Oh how you'd tried. It happened so often, you’d eventually gotten used to the noise, but you could tell it’d bothered Lydia, no matter how unbothered she’d tried to seem. 

In comparison, your house was a Dreamhouse. It had been so warm before it became empty. Your mom always had something baking in the oven, and Lydia had never looked more at home than when she was tucked on your window seat, plate of brownies by her side, with your mom’s gentle hands braiding her hair out of her face. You hadn’t ever minded sharing; Lydia had needed the attention more than you did. She was so much softer than people gave her credit for, far more fragile than they’d ever know. 

In spite of her current taste in boys, Lydia used to be a steadfast romantic. She'd always wanted to reenact the romance novels stacked on her nightstand, a little heartbreak before the inevitable happily ever after. She read so voraciously there was a new plot to perform every day. You were also a bookworm, but your tastes had inspired morbid hits such as Black Widow Barbie and Dreamhouse Zombie Outbreak. You usually took turns, or Barbie ended up falling in love with zombie Ken until he chomped on her arm. 

“Not her brains,” Lydia had always insisted, “Barbie is the brains of the relationship.” 

Lydia, you would argue, Lydia was the brain. The only one that mattered.

Warm skin on your knuckles gently drew you back into the present. Stiles’s brow was pinched with concern, and his hand lingered on yours until you brushed him off with a shake of your head—but, as you’d come to learn the last couple weeks, Stiles Stilinski was nothing if not relentless. He leaned into your side as you walked along the lengthy driveway, sending you stumbling a few paces to the right. You glared at him, but it was watered down with stubborn affection. His mouth curled into a lopsided grin, and you forgot about the nerves wriggling up your esophagus until Stiles rang the doorbell. They came back full force when you heard a pair of high heels clicking towards them. 

Lydia’s mom peered out the door. She looked confused as she took in Stiles’s smile, stretched far too wide to look even remotely casual. Then, her gaze landed on you and her face broke out into a bright grin, “Y/N?”

You’d almost forgotten how beautiful she was; beauty ran just as deeply as old money in the Martin family. Lydia was born with her mom’s golden-red hair and hazel eyes, and they had the same dimpled smile. It was always difficult to see anything beyond the brilliance of their perfect teeth and incandescent skin. 

“Come here,” Mrs. Martin pulled you into a tight hug and cupped the back of your head with a steady hand. Your arms remained stiff by your sides, voice sticky in your throat. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d been hugged like this; the realization hurt more than you thought it would.

After a moment, your shoulders slumped, and you turned your face into Mrs. Martin’s shoulder. She still smelled the same, like patchouli and luxury, “Hi.”

She held you out at arm's-length, hands on your shoulders, and shook her head, “There’s no way that this beautiful young woman is the same little girl who tried to keep a frog colony in my guest bathroom. I can’t be that old.”

“You literally look exactly the same,” you smiled a little and rubbed your bicep.

“It has been far, far too long.” She smoothed out the wrinkles in your sleeves and then stepped back into the doorframe, “What can I do for you?”

“I…” your mouth went dry, and you looked everywhere except Mrs. Martin’s face. Your eyes flashed between the silver door knockers, the winding ivy, the sculpted shrubs. Everything was exactly the same. Nothing, not even the house, had noticed your absence. 

“We came to check on Lydia,” Stiles nudged your shoulder, and you blinked a few times. Mrs. Martin was watching you with big emphatic eyes—and you hated it. 

You swallowed and nodded, “Yeah…we brought her homework.”

“Come in.” She paused and pinched the bridge of her nose with freshly manicured nails, “She took a little something to relax herself, so please excuse…well, just be prepared.” Mrs. Martin sighed, and for the first time it looked like the last four years had actually aged her. She attempted a smile, but it was shriveled at the corners, “You remember the way, don’t you?”

A nod rolled up your neck to your head. You couldn’t find the words to tell Mrs. Martin that you weren’t the same girl anymore. You almost felt like her in this house: small, wild, still full of dreams. You crept up the curved staircase slowly, delaying the inevitable, and ran your fingers along the iron railing. You broke your arm falling off of it nine years ago. It was a nasty fracture that put you in a cast all summer, but it’d seemed worth it at the time. At least, you’d thought so. Your mom and Mrs. Martin hadn’t agreed with your assessment at the hospital.

You felt a twinging urge to run to the top of the stairs and slide down the railing until you became dizzy—and just like that, you were seven years old again, and you weren't scared of death or ending up alone. 

“You coming?” Stiles called from the top of the stairs. 

You nodded stiffly and pushed past him to the last door on the left. You held your hand on the doorknob and pressed your tongue against the roof of your mouth, scowling at the anxiety crawling under your skin. You were being ridiculous. It wasn’t like you were the one who ended up in an ambulance last night.

You rapped your knuckles against the door a few times, even though it was already cracked open wide enough to catch a glimpse of the raspberry walls and flower chandelier. “Lyds–ia. Lydia,” you cleared your throat and peeked into Lydia’s room, “it’s me. I mean, it’s Y/N.” Stiles nudged you in the ribs, and you sighed, “And Stiles.”

Lydia was face-down on her four-poster bed, slowly combing her fingers through her unbrushed hair. She smacked her lips together a few times, and then her head popped up from her mountain of throw pillows, “You still haven’t explained what the hell a Stiles is.”

You snorted and shot Stiles a pointed look. He pursed his lips and glanced around the room until he spotted a little bottle of pills on top of her vanity. He read the lengthy label and let out a low whistle, “Bet you can’t say, ‘I saw Sally sell seashells by the seashore.’”

Lydia swung her legs over the foot of her bed and leaned forward, eyes sparking with bullheaded determination. “I saw….I saw…” The light in her eyes faded as she drifted off to a place no one else could see.

You sat down next to her and grabbed her hand. You didn’t have to tell your body to move; it knew before you did. Finding Lydia when she was lost, it was like…swimming to the surface, shivering in a storm, bracing for a fall. It was an instinct so deeply rooted in your soul you couldn’t rip it out without rupturing an artery. You watched Lydia’s eyes focus on your face, felt her fingers lace with yours, and all you knew was the slow thump of Lydia’s pulse against your thumb.

Lydia squeezed your hand and swiveled to face you. Her eyes were still cloudy, but something warm dawned behind the fog. You felt the pit in your stomach roll. Lydia sighed happily, “There you are. I was looking for you.”

“Well,” you almost choked on the lump in your throat and struggled to support Lydia’s weight as she went boneless against your side, “here I am.” You searched for some assistance with Lydia’s rapidly sinking frame, but Stiles was busy poking around every nook and cranny in the room. “Stiles,” you snapped. 

He wrenched his hand away from Lydia’s bottle of Dior perfume, purple just like the rest of the room, and clasped it behind his back. “What?” 

You gestured violently towards Lydia's wilting spine and rolled your eyes when he tripped over a discarded boot in his, frankly pathetic, haste to get to Lydia’s other side. You gently maneuvered her until she was propped up against her pillows. 

“Don’t go away again, okay?” Lydia licked her lips and looked like she was about to cry—so much like a scared little girl, your heart clenched. “I keep losing you.”

“I,” you stared at her with wide eyes, and the bottle of pills enveloped your peripheral vision, “I just wanted to see if you were alright…after last night.”

“Last night,” Lydia slurred, nuzzling back against her pillows.

“Yeah, last night,” Stiles folded his arms over his chest and arched his brow, “remember anything about it?”

“I remember…” Lydia looked like she was going to cry again, eyes glassy and round, but the chemical high quickly swept over the tide, “I remember a mountain lion.”

Stiles’s head tipped back between his shoulder blades, and his cheeks slowly puffed into pink little domes as he held his breath. Apparently, there was one thing more powerful than Stiles Stilinski’s obsession with Lydia Martin: his impatience. Stiles’s lips puckered as a loud sigh whooshed through his teeth. He crouched down to Lydia’s eye-level, “You remember seeing a mountain lion, or you remember them telling you it was a mountain lion?”

Lydia hummed and nodded until her hair fell in front of her face, “Mountain lion.”

“Jesus Christ,” Stiles reached for a stuffed giraffe next to her shoulder and shook it in her face, “what’s this?”

“Mountain lion,” Lydia’s head bobbed sharply. 

You snatched the stuffed animal out of Stiles’s hand, scowling as you bludgeoned his arm with the giraffe’s head. “Leave her alone. She’s doped out of her mind.” 

“Clearly,” Stiles snorted, watching Lydia curl a strand of her hair around her finger, completely entranced by the frizzy strands. 

“What did you want her to say?” You smoothed a few stray hairs sticking up from the crown of Lydia’s head back into place and met Stiles’s gaze, face impassive, “Werewolf?”

He opened his mouth and gaped like a particularly brainless fish. Before he could come up with a coherent answer—or any kind of answer, actually—Lydia’s text-tone chimed. Stiles dove across the bed for her phone, but you smacked his hand with the giraffe before he could touch it. “You are so not reading her texts, lonely boy.”

“I was just trying to help.” Stiles flopped onto her vanity chair and crossed his arms, squirming sullenly, “She can barely string two words together, let alone an actual thought.”

“I’m sure whatever it is can wait until she’s good and hungover tomorrow.” You glanced down at Lydia’s phone and paused. It was a video file. From an unknown number. 

“Hey,” Lydia poked her head up and pointed at Stiles until the weight of her arm became too much to bear. It fell on top of her stomach like a limp noodle, “You.”

“Me,” Stiles squeaked. 

You muted the video and made sure Stiles was sufficiently distracted by the curl of Lydia’s finger before you pressed play. Nothing happened at first. The video was shot in a strange, almost voyeuristic style, and the lighting was terrible, so dim you could barely tell that the camera was facing a large window. You squinted and made out the video store’s sign flickering above the door. So, this was from last night. Weird—but at least it wasn’t revenge porn; that had been your first guess. 

You’d almost given up on finishing the video, and then the camera angle moved. Two red eyes flashed in the darkness, a large…something smashed through the glass, and you bit down on your thumbnail so hard blood welled through the sidewalls. 

It was a goof, obviously. Some kind of poorly edited creepypasta. A cruel prank someone sent Lydia after they heard what happened last night. Had to be. Your hands shook as you sent yourself the video, and then you deleted it from Lydia’s phone. Your number, you realized once you stopped seeing red, was still saved as ☀️✨Babe!!!!✨☀️ in Lydia’s contacts. It took you longer than it should have to delete the sent message.

“If you’re done fighting your erection, we should get going.” Your voice sounded remarkably even, considering how scattered your mind was. It was certainly more composed than the babble spewing from Stiles’s mouth.

“I do not have—it’s not like—I wasn’t—she thought I was someone else.”

“Ah,” your phone felt heavy in your pocket, “real boner killer.”

Stiles sighed through his nose, “New rule, you can't make fun of anything I do or say when Lydia's in my fuckin' lap. Starting now."

He must’ve known something was wrong when you didn’t argue. That, and the way you practically sprinted out of the house to avoid seeing anyone else. Your hands were still shaking when you crawled into the jeep, and Stiles shot about a dozen little furious, concerned glances in your direction, but you couldn’t seem to move your tongue. 

Your bottom lip quivered. Your chest tightened until your ribs corseted your lungs. The screech of your ground teeth sent an unpleasant chill down your spine, but you’d rather choke on a chipped tooth than let the beast howling in your throat escape—the last thing you needed was to cry in the passenger seat next to Stiles Stilinski.

You were clearly losing your mind; everyone said it was only a matter of time—watching a loved one burn to death tended to have that effect on a person. Not that you remembered much, but you were clearly off your rocker if you were having vivid, day-time hallucinations of red-eyed monsters roaming the streets of Beacon Hills. 

You wiped your sweat-damp palms on your dress and bounced your leg up and down, driving your heel into the floor over and over again—and then you felt a solid warmth over your knee. Your eyes were a little wild when you followed the trail of Stiles’s arm to his face, and the divot between his brows deepened when he met your gaze, “Hey, she’s going to be okay. You know that, right?”

Your head jerked with a quick nod, and you sucked in a few shallow breaths, “I know.” The air got stuck in your chest, and your heart flapped erratically as the back of your eyelids played reruns of a familiar film starring your narrowing trachea. You dug your toes into the dusty floor mat, scrambling for any kind of grasp on reality, and choked on your words, “Her mom always…had…the good shit.”

Stiles kept his hand on your knee and then shook his head, pulling over against the curb and putting the jeep in park. “You don’t have to talk, but you gotta breathe.”

It took you a moment to realize that he was squeezing your kneecap in even intervals. You inhaled and exhaled with the flex of his joints until the panic receded enough for embarrassment to heat your cheeks. You slammed your head back against the seat and stared at the steel roof. You hoped that if you ignored the tears bubbling along your lash line, they’d instantaneously evaporate before they could spill onto your cheeks, “Fuck. I’m sorry. I don’t usually…this hasn’t happened in a long time.”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before.” Stiles chewed on his cheek and pulled his hand back into his lap. He drummed his fingers against his kneecap and then spoke softly, “I used to get ‘em too. Sucked.” Stiles stared out the dashboard, watching but not really seeing dead leaves swirl in little circles over the asphalt, “Happened a lot after my mom died.”

You froze for a moment, and you couldn’t stop yourself from staring. You realized, belatedly, that you hadn’t ever heard the Sheriff talk about his wife, not even once in the last four years, even though he wore a gold band on his left ring finger. It hadn’t even occurred to you to ask. 

You never had the right words to explain it. For a long time, you spoke in ripples at therapy, incomprehensible circles that skirted the point in an endless loop—but you realized, as you got stuck on the honey in Stiles’s eyes, you didn’t need the right words here. With him. In fact, you didn’t really need any words at all. “Me too.”

Stiles watched your eyes steadily, and his fingers stilled against his legs, “Yeah?”

You nodded and swallowed a little, “Yeah.”

A smile tugged on his mouth, tangled with too many paradoxes to parse in the soft, short moment humming between you. You smiled back at him, far more timidly, but that wasn’t a surprise. He was brave, you decided, much braver than you. It was contagious. 

Your tongue darted out, licking your chapped lips, and you clung to the fragile current of courage lapping against the back of your teeth. “We just stopped talking.” 

Stiles glanced at you, clearly confused. 

“Lydia and I.” You knotted your fingers in the hem of your dress and tugged on it every time you felt the stopper in your throat start to swell, “We just stopped being friends after my mom died. That’s why I didn’t…I mean, there’s not really a story to tell. We were close, and then I woke up one day, and we weren’t anymore.”

Stiles turned until he was facing you, leaning against the door and struggling to find a comfortable angle for his long legs. “Most people…they’re okay with the funeral part ‘cause it’s pretty simple—y’know: hold hands, bring food, pretend no one’s crying. And then after comes, and they can’t figure out what to do because it’s over but it’s not.”

“Limbo,” you mirrored his position and pulled your knees to your chest, rocking the soles of your boots from heel to toe like small patent leather boats adrift on a sea of faded nylon, “it’s limbo, and everyone else is so incredibly, hideously alive.” 

The relief was back in Stiles’s eyes, and you were swimming in it. He nodded and bent his knees, scooching his feet until the toes of his sneakers were pressed against yours. “Yeah," he exhaled, and the moment felt important, like something you were supposed to remember on your deathbed. You tried to memorize the look on Stiles's face, but you didn't know where to start. How could you etch infinity?  

“It wasn’t just her,” you admitted out loud for the first time. 

“Yeah,” Stiles shrugged a little and gave you a grin that brought the dimples back to his cheeks, and you couldn’t help but smile at their reappearance, “but we can pretend it was, just for today.” 

You let out a breath that felt like a laugh and lifted your toes, dropping them on top of his and pressing until they were pinned beneath the tread of your boots. He narrowed his eyes and wriggled his feet free, fighting your scurrying ankles with his tongue trapped between his teeth. His triumphant cry when he finally caught the tip of your laces was just enthusiastic enough to coerce another laugh through your clamped lips. 

The soft smile Stiles gave you while you laughed made his body go lax and the back of your neck warm. You quickly bent over to retie your laces, and he turned to restart the engine. 

“I should probably get us back to school,” Stiles ran his hand over his head. “My dad'll kill me if I get marked truant again.”

“It’s parent teacher conferences tonight,” you recalled as the words left your mouth. You slunk down in your seat, chin catching on the seatbelt, “I’ve never skipped school before. I have no idea what my dad’s gonna say.”

Stiles’s attention shifted from the road to your profile, “Really?”

“What?” you crossed your arms over your chest and blew your hair out of your eyes.

“Nothing,” Stiles tried to hide his smirk, but it was too sharp to cover with a cough, “it’s just…hasn’t everyone skipped at least once?”

“What would I even do?” The corner of your mouth tugged into a dry smile, “Visit my catatonic ex-best friend?”

Stiles nodded agreeably, and then his head danced from side to side, rolling over other options, “Or bowling. Bowling is fun.”

You grumbled a little in your throat and sunk further into the cradle of your hips, “I hate bowling.”

Stiles grinned, “Yeah, me too.”

Pausing, your bottom lip wormed its way between your teeth, “I’d play D&D with you, though.” 

“Really?”

“Mhm,” you watched the sun disappear behind the tree line over the hill and ignored the feeling of being examined like a bacterial petri dish.

“See, we are friends. The best of friends, actually. Two peas in the proverbial pod.”

And, well, you couldn’t really disagree.

[itsdeanwinchester]

it's not surprising to me that some people didn't warm up to Mae, but it surprised me that people could dislike her so much. Mae's personality and actions made complete sense even if it was frustrating and hurtful. And because I understood where she was coming from, I couldn't hate her. She lied to Noa again and again even though she was feeling more and more guilty about it because she prioritized duty. She couldn't let her brief time with Noa and Raka undermine a critical mission to help the survival of humans. She chose her safety for her greater mission. (My favorite line was when she said she was taught silence for safety.) It was painful to watch, but also sad because it was obvious that she was having second thoughts, she was hesitating, she was growing attached. But her attachments mean nothing when the human race was relying on her. That weight and burden were immense. Because we follow Noa's journey and have seen what he lost, we empathize with him more. We can only imagine what Mae has gone through, but just the few hints we've gotten is enough to know she has endured much.

[hinalatte]

An Attempt at Analyzing David Chiem’s Motivations

and a bunch of other stuff that got in there somehow

Ch2 Ep12 spoilers ahead! (And spoilers for the Literature Girl Insane MV picture if you haven’t seen it already)

So, Ch2 Ep12 changed some things about my perception of David. I was under the impression that the way he was acting in the trial was because of a self destructive breakdown, but the latest episode reveals that he’s making an attempt at altruism.

But I still think he’s having a self destructive breakdown. The end result is still the same—he dies, he ruins his public image. This is still, objectively, self destructive behavior. He just has a motivation to make it “worth it” now.

I believe David wants to be a good person. He just doesn’t know how to be one. He feels like he may never be one. Xander is that good person David wishes he was, so he’s dedicating himself to following what Xander would do. If Xander was good, he can also be good by following his example. (I made a theory about something like this a while back, go read my David Chiem and colors analysis if you’re curious)

So let’s return to that picture of David holding Xander’s jacket, with the context of this episode.

First of all, the “you” in these quotes is most definitely Xander.

1. I became a villain in pursuit of your dream.

We know what this means. David acted up during the trials to look guiltier so that the trial would end up with a misvote. He’s actively trying to end the lives of everyone there because of what Xander tried and failed to do in Chapter 1. But what I’m curious about is what Xander’s “dream” really was. He never said anything about wanting to end the killing game by dying. The only thing he tried to do was kill Teruko.

David pauses before stating that his motive was to end the killing game by eliminating the entertainment value. His expression is also pretty suspicious. It sounds like something he made up on the spot. And if he wanted to end the killing game by not being entertaining, why did he go against everyone’s plan of doing nothing and killing no one? Why did he fan the flames by telling everyone to admit their secrets? The conflict that stemmed from his actions was what made the second chapter entertaining to begin with. So I don’t think this truly was his motive for trying to get everyone killed. I think he was following in Xander’s footsteps. He’s trying to kill Teruko.

We all remember the secret David got, right?

I think most of us agree that him saying this was Xander’s secret was a lie. He waited until everyone was done talking so he could make sure no one had Xander’s actual secret, and then he pinned it on him. He also has an extremely high opinion of Xander and gets upset when people slander him, so I don’t think there’s any way he would admit to this being Xander’s secret unless it wasn’t actually Xander’s secret. I think he’s saying it’s Xander because he feels comfortable using his name for his goals, since they’re “partners in crime” in his mind. That secret is definitely Teruko’s.

I think when Xander initially attempted to kill Teruko, David was conflicted about how to feel. But once he got Teruko’s secret, it made sense. Xander was a hero and Teruko was a villain, and David had to do what Xander couldn’t. His ploy to get everyone killed is so Teruko has to be killed alongside them.

That’s my theory, anyway. I could be wrong, especially considering David could’ve tried to kill Teruko with his own hands if he really did want her dead. But it’s also possible he didn’t do that because he knew she would have survived it somehow.

2. I threw away my humanity for an ideal that I couldn’t understand.

What’s interesting to me here is the use of the word “couldn’t”. It’s not that he “didn’t” understand Xander’s ideals. It’s that he “couldn’t”, because he doesn’t understand Xander’s altruism. Every time he talks about his motivations in this episode, it’s about Xander. He even frames the moral dilemma of killing everyone there for the greater good from Xander’s perspective—16 lives, which was how many there were when Xander attempted murder, rather than 13, which is how many there are as David is saying this.

David doesn’t know how to be a good person. He believes Xander is the only good person he’s ever known, so he’s blindly following what “Xander would do” in hopes of doing something good.

This is especially interesting to me because becoming a good person has been a theme this whole chapter. Arei used Eden as a reference for what a good person looked like as well. But that’s an essay for another time!

3. But I don’t regret it. To “regret” is to imply that I could have done anything else.

I’m pretty sure the only thing keeping David going is Xander’s legacy. He doesn’t have much faith in himself as a person, so it’s either give up or give everything to the ideals of the man he believed in.

This line makes it pretty evident to me that even though he’s acting like he knows what he’s doing, he still feels lost. But at the same time, when you’re lost in a maze, the only thing you can do is follow the path ahead of you.

4. I never told you, but the truth is, I wasn’t capable of ever becoming human in the first place.

The idea of being human is present in a lot of things relating to David’s character. This 4th quote in particular seems to be a response to this line by Xander, from their “role models” conversation.

David is also associated with the book No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai through the Literature Girl Insane MV. No Longer Human is about a man that feels so detached from other people that it’s like he’s not even one of them. To fit in, he pretends to be what they expect him to be, but he never truly feels connected to them.

“Mine has been a life of much shame. I can’t even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.”

I think it’s safe to guess that David feels a similar way.

David is disoriented by normal human interaction. The ways in which he interacts with people are entirely based on their perception of him. He’s an upstanding role model when that’s what they expect, and a callous villain once they accuse him of murder. He acts that way to further his goals, sure, but it’s still isolating. As he says, his relationships are fake, because he himself is a fake person.

He feels like he fundamentally lacks what other humans have. This could mean a whole slew of things, but I think the most relevant one right now is ideals. David doesn’t have ideals of his own in the way Xander does. Xander believes in fighting for what’s right. David is so disconnected from other people that he doesn’t even know what “right” is.

The line where Xander calls David “human” is in the context that David isn’t a perfect role model. It’s interesting that he seems to be arguing against that. Not because he’s perfect. It seems to me like he’s saying “I am not, and never will be, like you.”

And of course, the “I never told you” is because Xander is dead. He never got to know David’s true self.

5. So in the end, you are always—

I genuinely have no idea what this means. If somebody has even the smallest clue…my ask box is open. Please.

Conclusion

Is killing the entire cast really something Xander would do? Who knows! But David sure seems to think so, and he’s apparently the one who knows Xander the best. Nevertheless, it’s leading to a lot of interesting conflict.

I also want to note that I might be making it sound like David has low self esteem. I don’t mean that. Very little has been confirmed about David’s inner psyche. But here’s my interpretation, for fun’s sake:

David has a low opinion of himself, but he also has an ego. When you think of yourself as fundamentally different from other people, that can lead to you developing a sense of superiority over it. Like you’re the only one in the world with some knowledge others don’t have. This is a mindset people with depression can easily develop. Teruko acts this way as well, a little bit. She literally calls herself a main character. David also calls himself a main character in his MV, alongside Xander.

He also doesn’t seem to respect Hu’s opinion, judging by this sprite. It’s like him and Xander are the only ones who know what has to be done, and everyone else just doesn’t understand.

But he still has low self esteem. He sees Xander as someone who is just better than him, and thinks he’s too bad of a person to improve. People can think they’re worse and better than others at the same time. It’s very interesting. But again, that’s just my interpretation, going off of vibes more than anything else.

I’ll also mention here that I think David knew Xander from news articles before the killing game started. Xander was an activist. David might’ve seen some of the things he did, like the Chariton case, on the news at some point. He might have admired him for it.

That’s all for today. They are very intriguing to me. I will be back later about non-Xanvid things.

[jinbugs]

VIVERE

“Do you think you deserve it? To be punished?” “I think so, yes.”

A Pathfinder 2e Campaign Introduction Post!

MEET THE PARTY:

REVUN (@dovelydraws)

26 years old

he/they/she

A duel-wielding tiefling fighter. Easy-going freelance mercenary from Alephia, looking for a job that pays well and a little company.

FERRA (@artpepkin)

87 years old

she/her

A beastkin elven rogue from Chiei Thya. Playful vagabond who finds herself wherever the wind takes her. She's maybe gotten herself in a little over her head.

POLITES (@mossy-garden)

17 years old

he/him

A tiefling champion. Proud kingdom guard of Crimyria under the goddess Vildeas, who is willing and anxious to prove himself.

KWAN (@jinbugs)

39 years old

he/they/she

A human investigator. Cunning Po Lian scholar-official informant who is in pursuit of a dangerous secret, the centurion pearl. At any cost.

Glitch (@eternalglitch), our game master, weaves all our loose threads into one coherent story.

One fun rule we’ve incorporated into this campaign: players CANNOT share their character backstories with each other outside of gameplay.

It gives more mystery fun! It’s also driving us insane. Pray for us.

(Map created by @dovelydraws, summary also written by Dove)

A lot has gone into the cultures and politics of each of the countries our characters come from. Enough so that it doesn't make sense to get into all of it on an introductory post! But perhaps later in a reblog.

THE STORY SO FAR…

As of the writing of this post, we have now played 5 sessions of the campaign.

Our party all met each other in the small seaside town of Plumeport, Crimyria. We were all brought together in pursuit of the same thing: a legendary man-eating boar, said to hold the power of immortality.

It is believed that consuming the flesh of this boar would grant eternal life, and even just a bit of its fur or blood can extend a person's life, for a time. The King of Crimyria himself has offered whoever can take down this boar a large sum of wealth and a small offering of its blood for personal consumption. He wants the job to be done in time for the Crimyrian Festival of Flight, in a couple months time.

The bounty on the boar's head has drawn adventurers from all over the continent, but none so far have been able to take it down. Many have lost their lives. While each of our party members have their own reasons for wanting to take on this job, Kwan has a very personal stake in their success.

He has, reluctantly, revealed that he once knew the boar before it obtained the power it has today. He has reason to believe it has swallowed something once known as a centurion pearl: a powerful artifact that caused the fall of a once great kingdom, and threw the continent into tumultuous conflict. Kwan is adamant that this power should not be handed over to any king. Once it is killed, they want to extract the pearl from its body to make sure it can never fall into the wrong hands.

So far, Kwan has only revealed this to Revun. Polites, meanwhile, works directly under the king and wants to succeed on this mission to make him proud. Ferra seems to only be interested in the money and adventure. Revun has also said they were in this for the money, but vaguely admitted to Kwan that they also had their own personal reasons to go after the boar, and if he truly believes its power is too dangerous, they will follow his lead.

Once faced with the boar, however, the party was unprepared and outmatched. It was massive, its eyes as large as their heads, emanating a golden glow. It moved unlike a normal animal, and seemingly bore a higher level of intelligence than it should.

After a deceptively strong start, Polites went down in battle, and they were all forced to run to ensure everyone's survival. Before retreating though, Kwan shot the boar with a strange arrow, claiming they would be able to track it again later.

The party camped outside of the marsh, unable to sleep while waiting for Polites to wake up. They discussed next steps- going back to the city to regroup, get proper healing, and perhaps find a sponsor to help them in their next try. They still have a few weeks to get things figured out.

And that's all, so far! We're all pretty stoked and making tons of art and written works, so keep a look out, we might publish a zine when the sessions start wrapping up. Bye-bye, for now!

[erenjaegerwifee]

Slave boy

Survive the night: Day 5

Paring: Lo’ak x Fem!Na’vi!Reader

Warnings: MDNI 18+, master/slave kink, mommy kink, slight boyxboy, some parts are NON-CON but not the entire fic, mentions of blood and killing, subby lo’ak, soft dom reader, explicit language, titty fucking, slight oral fixation, cum eating, spitting,

Word count:

Disclaimer: All my characters are AGED-UP! If you are uncomfortable, I do not recommend you read, if you do however. Any negative feedback will be blocked off my account.

Event Masterlist

You come from a very aggressive forest clan, you are very secretive and known to kill first and ask questions later. It is not an odd thing for your family to enter other forest clans successfully enslaving the people. Your armies are large, larger than any other forest clan on pandora, it does not which clan the na’vi are from, they have ultimately heard of you.  

During the first human war on pandora, your clan was one Jake Sully sort out for help, on the condition his second born child, when it is born will be enslaved to your clan when the time comes, lucky for you it was a boy. Without your father’s help, Jake Sully would have never lived to see his family grow and ultimate agreed.  

The entire Sully family knew well that one day they would have to give up Lo’ak to your clan, to your family. As much as he protested over the years, it is a debt he must pay. And that day is today. You jump off your ikran excitedly waiting to meet your new little slave, your father always made it a big deal that he got you one of Toruk Makto’s sons as a give to his first and only daughter.  

He was proud of himself for the deal he struck and he will be happier to see his little girl’s wishes comes true. She is finally getting her own slave like the rest of her family. It is tradition for members born into your leading family to have their very own slaves, since the time of the first songs. As awful as it sounds, these people that you trade for at the mate with you for the rest of your life, but they remain slaves until the day they die. Their only real purpose is to provide you with heirs. 

Your mother is a slave because of this tradition and so are the wives of your two brothers. They are not always treated badly but they know their place well enough to not step out of line. You make your way to your father’s side; your mother and brothers stand a bit behind you both and you come face to face with the infamous Toruk Makto. 

His eyes are somber, it doesn’t appear he wants to hold up his end of the deal, but you know your father will not disappoint you. You look beyond him to his two sons that stand tall behind him, ‘one of them has to be yours’  

You just turned 23 and you were told your slave would be turning 21 by the time you got him, so he must be the shorter one. You smile brightly seeing him, he doesn’t look like he wants to leave him family, but he has no choice. Truthfully, you feel like of bad for him, everyone who mated into your family has had to leave their own, but you don’t feel that bad about it.  

“Lo’ak step forward” Jake says to his son, you look towards the rest of his family who stand in tears, while Lo’ak walks forward for you to get a closer look at him. You giggle at their silly actions, “do not cry Sullys your son will always be well taken care off, by me of course. Maybe if he is a good slave, I can bring him to visit” you say in a sweet tone. 

Lo’ak’s ears pinned down by your words as he looks to the floor, “Lo’ak eyes up, look at me, you are going to spend the rest of your life with me the least you can do is get used to the view” you walk in front of him letting his tall broad frame dwarf you. Having this much power over someone feels amazing, you can understand why your brothers like it so much. His eyes meet your face without uttering a single word. 

 “Can you let gather his things and say goodbye to us” his older brother spoke up to you. You turn your head from your slave to his brother, “no need everything he needs is with me there is nothing he must take from here” your voice was heavy with attitude as you look around you judging the surroundings they live in. You sigh, “but, I guess you can say goodbye”  

You take a step back waiting for Lo’ak to turn and hug his family, after a few minutes of their women crying for him, you yank on his arm, “I’m ready, let’s go” you wave obnoxiously at them, “I’ll let you grab a few things to keep quickly if you want” you raise your hand gesturing for him to hurry up while you are standing in front of his family hut.  

When he walks back out you smile and wave goodbye to his weeping family as if everything is dandy and you take him to your ikran, you get on the rest of your family following and Lo’ak gets on behind you. When you fly up starting your journey home, Lo’ak still has yet to speak to you.  

“So, your name is Lo’ak, it is a lovely name” you say, not looking at him, and he doesn’t respond, he doesn’t even touch you. You think it’s quite disrespectful, has he any idea how much men want the honor of being your slave? And he sits here, unappreciative of the opportunity that he has.  

You can offer his family and that entire god-awful clan all the protection from the sky people they could ever want, and he wants to sit in silence? “Lo’ak.” you say sternly, “don’t be disrespectful now, your life is now in my hands, I’d hate for you to lose it so soon”  

“Sorry ma’am, Lo’ak is my name yes, Lo’ak te Suli Tsyeyk’itan” he says softly, his voice sounds scratchy, must be from all that crying. The thought makes you roll your eyes but you still respond to him nicely by telling him your name. “Now before we arrive home, I would just like to make a few things clear, I’m in charge, I always will be, anything you do, or want to do has to go through me first, you will sleep where I tell you too, you will eat whatever I give you when I say, and you will fuck me whenever I see fit, are we at an understanding?”  

Lo’ak sniffles behind you and answers a small ‘yes ma’am.’ you don’t say anything about what he calls you, you let it be because you quite like it. You believe that Lo’ak will thoroughly enjoy living with as your property, you can be quite soft something when it comes to the slaves, you sometimes feel for them, which your father and brothers do not like. But whatever they don’t get to tell you how to control your new little toy.  

When you arrive home you jump off your ikran hurriedly, you want to show him your hut, his new home. You walk hand in hand with him, ignoring whatever your father was saying to you pulling him towards the out skirts of the built-up village towards your grand hut. Lo’ak looks around letting your lead him, something he knows he has to get used to. 

He observes the beautiful markings carved into the wood of the strong huts and the beautiful clothing the other na’vi in the village wear, he feels under dress even if he is a slave now. The people pay him no mind, they know better than to stare at what is yours, your wrath is known for that sort of thing, you are very possessive. Lo’ak knows better than to misbehave, he’s father told him much about what he should expect in this position, but he does not see any reason to not like this clan, despite the fact that he might never see his family again, everyone at this clan lives happily and in harmony, he just can’t see how a place so beautiful can he filled with cold-hearted, aggressive people.  

When you make it to the front of your hut, you push open the big doors that serves your only entrance and exit to the inside. You are just bubbling with excitement you cannot wait to see what he looks like in the collar you make him. “We live here, you will not leave without my permission ok, not that you could” you mumble the last part as he walks in and you light the candles around the hut and shaking up the jars with glowing flies that is used as extra light so he can see better. 

You watch him look around what is now his home and you dig around your stuff to find the collar, when your pull him towards the bed to take a seat. You push him down onto the bouncy, soft mattress and take the knife that was on his hip and toss it aside. “You won’t be needing that anymore” you hold the collar up securing it around his neck hooking your finger in the little D shaped ring that you would attach the leash too.  

“This is your side of the bed; you will be responsible for cleaning and keeping yourself neat. I’m not doing that for you, and I don’t care much for complaining so, don’t do that. This is long enough for you to move around the entire hut without taking it off, you have no reason to do that unless I say so” Lo’ak watches you grab an ankle cuff attached to a big chain that sits on the side of the bed. You bend down and attach it to his ankle tightly,  

“ow” he whimpers, “oh, sorry, I actually wasn’t trying to hurt you yet” you smile cheekily. “Now I must go hunt us some dinner, there is a guard stationed at the door, so if you try to leave, he will kill you, not that you can” you joke. You give him a quick kiss on the lips and grab your bow to move outside.

Lo’ak finally let his tears fall, he grabbed the bag he brought from home going through all the things he took from his family to remember them by. He took Neteyam’s necklace, one of Kiri’s crystals, a toy of Tuk’s, His mother’s crafted bracelet and his father’s arm band. These are things they use every day, along with some cherished family photos of all of them. Lo’ak missed them dearly but there is not going back now.  

He feels like this is unfair, how could his parents agree for him to become someone’s slave. Granted you are very pretty with your soft, loose hair that falls mid-way down your back and your doe eyes, your strong body with soft curves that is still smaller than his if this were a different situation, he might have agreed easier but he didn’t have a choice this time.  

His head raised to a sound by the door, did you come back already? He thought. But no, he was wrong, the guard that was stationed outside came in to take a peek, something about him gave Lo’ak a bad vibe so he quickly put away his things and stuffed them under the bed. “You are the slave boy huh, I knew you were coming from a forest clan but I had no idea you were so pretty”  

The man was taller than Lo’ak, more muscular it made him feel small. It had been a little over 30 minutes since you’ve been gone. Lo’ak looked around for anything he could use to get out of this situation but his knife was tossed on the floor a little way from him, if he lunched towards it, he is sure the man would become defensive. “Um, yea that’s me” he said softly, he doesn’t want to accidently be disrespectful. His eyes dart to the floor as the man got closer to him.  

Lo’ak hopped up in his feet and jumped to the other side of the bed creating distance between them, “shouldn’t you be by the door?” Lo’ak said, shaking his leg with the ankle cuff on it, he’s not used to the feeling. “Do not sass me slave” the man quickens his movements getting closer to Lo’ak.  

He tried to dodge the giant but he tripped on the chain and fell backwards onto the floor. He started scooting backwards until he hit a wall and the man came up right in his face and held his arms over his head, Lo’ak tried to fight him but he wasn’t strong enough. Lo’ak kicked and screamed but no one came to his aid, he tried so hard to get the man off him but he couldn’t. When the man slotted his face in his neck biting on the skin, Lo’ak whimpered, blushing at the feeling, his body was betraying him even though he was screaming for help. When you walk in happily ready to feed your little slave, the sight before you makes you see red.  

You drop the meat you hunted to the floor and rip the man off of Lo’ak standing between them. “What the FUCK is going on here?!” your body feels hot with anger as you look between them, “He asked me in here he wants me to fuck him.” I turn my head to Lo’ak and see him shaking his head ‘no’ with a scared look on his face. Fortunately for him, you believe him, “This man is my slave, mine! You have over stepped your boundaries and I will not have this” you hiss out furiously, you tail swished from side to side. 

 You walk up to Lo’ak’s knife on the floor and pick it up charging straight at the man, he tried to run but it was so late for him, Lo’ak watches as you stab him repeatedly in the chest and abdomen, blood sprays out messing up your floors and clothes. Lo’ak is terrified, he’s never seen a woman with such aggressiveness in them, now he understands why you, why your clan is so feared. 

When you are satisfied with yourself, you drag his dead body out your door leaving him to the predators of the forest and walk back in seeing Lo’ak in the same spot you left him, “ma fil, are you ok?’ you ask him while he walk up to him. Lo’ak quivers under you, he was skilled warrior but never in his life has he had to deal with anything like this.  

He nodded his head at you explaining the man didn’t get a chance to do much before you came in. “Do me a favor slave, clean that up” you gesture to the blood on the floor as you walk over to your indoor shower area to clean yourself up. When you are both done with your respective task Lo’ak politely asked to clean himself up and you allowed him to while you fixed dinner for you both. 

“You are a good cook ma’am...the food is great” you roll your eyes and smile at his comment, “You do not have to suck up Lo’ak, I already own you and I’m not mean unless you do something to upset me, which I trust you won’t,” Lo’ak quickly shook his head ‘no’ “I meant it” he said with his mouth full.  

You smile once more before a question popped in your mind, “Slave, when I came in here and pulled that man off you, you were blushing like a little girl with a crush” your words make his face heat up, “My question is, did you like it? Having a big strong man on you like that? You answer will not upset me, please be truthful” your tone is motherly, as if you actually care what he would prefer. 

“It was scary, I didn’t like the way he held me down, but I guess it felt nice when he kissed me” you voice raised almost immediately. “He kissed you? WHERE?!” Lo’ak’s ears pinned down to his head at your tone, “NO- no not like that, he didn’t kiss my lips he kissed here” his fingers touched the part of his neck the man kissed him and showed you.  

You let out a sigh at your over reaction, you couldn’t expect everyone to keep their eyes away from him even though you try to make sure they do. But you will continue to kill people that touch what is yours, does not matter who they are.  

You walk over to him slowly, kneeling down on the floor next to him looking at the spot on his neck the man touched. “What if I did it?” you look up at him, “kissed me? You want to kiss me?” he said softly. His words make you laugh aloud, his ears pin back to him head at the sudden noise. “Awe pet, you are mine, I can and will do whatever I want with you, I own you Lo’ak” you voice was unwavering with a grin to match. “So, tell me, what are you?”  

You wait for his response then you hear a small voice whisper out, “your slave, yours.” you grin widely at his answer, “good boy” you lean in closer and kiss the same spot on his neck, softly but you know he felt it. Then you did it again this time you lightly sucked on the skin drawing a little moan from his mouth.  

You press up your body against his huge bicep. It’s funny, he is so much larger than you, he could over power you, but he doesn’t Lo’ak knows his place and it turns you on so much, you feel like you want to mate him now. “Rutxe” (please) Lo’ak whispers, when you pull away, his eyes are shut as he takes in the feeling of your body close to his. He wants you, it’s evident from the bulge under his loincloth. 

“Rutxe pehrr?” (Please what). His eyes travel to yours, “rutxe, ‘ampi oe” (touch me) his voice is gentle, “Peseng?” (where) your tone matches his, “fitseng...” (here) his hand moves yours gently to his bulge. The action makes you grin wickedly thinking about all the things you will do with him.  

You stand up distancing yourself from him walking to the bed, “come.” You word commands him quickly, he stands and walks behind you, the chain around his ankle drags as he makes his way to you waiting for you next instruction. His tail twitches in anticipation as he waits. “Lay down” you say once more he follows immediately. 

When he is situated, you start to undress yourself, untying your loincloth and pulling your beaded top over your head. Lo’ak watches you with his lip trapped between his teeth, his cock straining in his loincloth making his squeeze his bulge to give himself some relief. When you take in his moments you smack his hand away from it untying his loincloth before straddling his thighs, “Rule number 1, you do not touch yourself, you want relief you ask me and wait until I decide to give it to you. Do you understand?” 

You took his cock in your hand making him whimper out, “yes ma’am sorry” in a sweet voice, you spit on the head as you stroke him making it all wet, “Rule number 2, when you want to cum, you beg. If you don’t you will be punished with whatever I see fit.” he mumbled out another ‘yes ma’am.’ 

Lo’ak is so turned on by this attitude, he has never had anything treat him this way, and as mean as it sounds, he loves it, he can’t wait to see what else you are going to do to him, to make him do. “Such a good boy for him” you smile at him and let go if his cock, “You do not touch anything unless you have permission do you understand?” 

Lo’ak exhales with a breathy ‘yes ma’am’ before you move up to his face spinning around until you at hovering above his face, his body below you is in your full view, you see the way his cock jumps at the sight of your tight hole, making you giggle. “Eat” you instruct him and sit yourself down on his face, but you don’t put your whole weight. 

Lo’ak immediately forgets your last sentence and his hand shoots up to wrap around both of your thighs pulling your weight down on him. You almost let it slide when you felt his warm tongue tease you hole but what kind of master would that make you?  

“Lo’ak fuck- I just told you don’t touch” you rip his hands off your body and raise off him feeling his head chase after your cunt. Your hand reached behind you and grip his hair pushing his head down making his whine in protest, “slave, listen carefully, if I have to correct you again am going to end your life, do you get it” you voice comes out stern but you don’t miss the way his cock jumps again, you let go of his hair when he mumbled another ‘yes ma’am’ and sit back down on his face.  

Lo’ak’s tongue works heavenly, you have never felt someone eat pussy do desperately, you grind your hips on his face feeling the way his tongue slides over your clit amazingly, “fuck slave, you’re doing such a good job” you throw you head back taking in the feeling, your words make him moan sending vibrations through your cunt.  

You reach forward, grabbing huge cock in your hands, you used the pearls of precum dripping from the tip and rub it all over making his entire length wet. Lo’ak moans and groans under you, his hands grip the sheets as he isn’t allowed to touch you, his toes curl up and his tail thumbs on the bed next to you. He is losing it, he wants to cum. “Please, please I want to cum”  

His words are muffled in your pussy, you raise off him again and his eyes dart down to your hand stroking him, “please!” Lo’ak begs quite easily, makes you wonder how far he’ll go before he is in tears. “Please what slave?”  

“Please mate let me cum pleaseee.” he calls you his mate, his eyes are shut tightly opening to dart his eyes at his cock. Calling you his mate makes your heart speed up just a little bit, he’s such a loyal little slave because you both are not mated yet. You smile wickedly at him, “no” making loak whimper in protest, “Please, please” he begs again. “Not yet prrnen” (baby) you say making him whine louder, you know he is close and he is trying his best not to burst, it is absolutely adorable seeing him like this.  

The tears start to fall from his eyes as he babbles nonsensical pleads, but one of those words catch your attention, “Please ma..” he begs, ma? That is one you’ve never heard, “mama-mommy please” fuck. 

Your feel your cunt pulse when you hear it, your brain fogs up almost as much as his, “mommy? You want mommy to make you cum slave?” he immediately responds with a long chain of yeses begging you to let him release. “Cum for mommy prrnen” your smile is wicked; you bring your face down to his neck sucking on his skin leaving sweet marks. You stroke faster brining him closer to his release until his cum shoots up onto his abdomen, some even ooze out on your fingers.  

He comes with a very pretty moan of your new nickname and tilts his head towards you a bit. His eyes are shut when you raise up from his neck, you call out his name watching his eyes pop open as you suck on your cum-covered fingers. The sight makes him stiff once more, he moves his hands up to touch you but he suddenly remembers your rules. “Mommy can I touch you?” his little voice makes you giggle; you can’t help but give him permission.  

His hands move up to your perky tits and he squeezes the flesh and tugs on your nipples, he sits up bringing his mouth close to them before he looks up at you waiting for permission to suck. When you give him a nod he instantly goes down, your hands come around his head holding him close to your chest as he bites and sucks at the flesh. “You are such a giving slave you know that? Such a good sluttly boy for me” you smile hearing him moan to your words, you don’t miss the way his cock twitches when you call him your slave. He likes it. 

“Fuck slave yea suck in my tits just like that, you are doing so good for me” his cock twitches again making you giggle a bit at his desperation. “Can I fuck them?” he pulls away and ask you. His request makes you smile and you lay down for him to come on top of you, straddling your chest right under your tits. 

You press them together letting him thrust his slick cock between them watching his face as he loses himself. Lo’ak thrust begin to speed up and he leans over you, hands placed above your head on the bed as he watches the way his cock disappears between your tits. You stick your tongue out letting it graze the tip of his cock every time he thrust. Lo’ak quickly loses his self-restraint when he feels your wet tongue on him, he fucks faster dropping his head down lower ready to come, “Coming slave?” you say up to him, “yes yes please-ma" his words come out so fast as he looks at you desperately for you to say yes. 

It appears you have a soft spot for your slave when you grant him another yes, his cum shoots over your tongue and chest making a big mess on you. It surprises you how much he had in him after how much he came the first time, “oh baby you made a mess on me” you let out a fake gasp.  

Lo’ak doesn’t wait this time for you to tell him clean it up, his hazy mind brings his head lower down to your chest and licks up his own cum, “don’t swallow it slave I want it.” he doesn’t respond just raises his head over yours and line up your mouth with his. When you open, he sticks his tongue out lazily letting his cum fall into your mouth. 

When you swallow all his delicious cum you bring both your hands to the side of his face, “Kiss me slave” you pull his head down to your, slotting your lips on his for the first time ever. You taste a mixture of yours, and his cum on his tongue when you shove yours into his mouth, his lips are so soft against yours. He does not even fight for control Lo’ak lets you take everything, he syncs the kiss perfectly, pulling away for air at the right moment before tilting his head giving you more access to his mouth.  

His obedience makes you shiver, you feel your stomach flutter with butterflies. You love the feeling of his body towering you and you being in charge. But there is nothing you love more than a well-trained slut listening to your every command. 

When you push him away from your mouth you observe his tired eyes, your slave wants to sleep now, but you aren’t finished with him. You push him onto his back watching his eyes flutter a bit, you quickly straddle him over his thighs and raise yourself over his cock, “You can touch me Lo’ak” you tell him as you sit yourself down on his cock.  

Lo’ak’s eyes widen feeling you sit on his cock without warning, his hands fly up to your hips as you lower yourself on his massive cock. Your lips part as you take him in you, Lo’ak mewls under you in overstimulation. You swear his cute sounds alone could make you cum. You start off slow bouncing on hos length and progressively get faster. 

Lo’ak squeezes your fleshy hips and squirms under you, he begs and begs for you to cum faster so he can. He moans in the overstimulation he feels whimpering at all your encouraging words. He feels so good, he’s gonna cum so hard inside you but first he has to ask. Lo’ak begs for you to make him cum, he whimpers and cries for his release.  

Tears fall down his cheeks and he babble out pleads for you, “Please, please, pleaseeee mom-myy, let me cum in-inside you. Want it so bad” you throw your head back at his sounds coming hard on his cock before giving him permission to fuck himself to a release, your hands fall on his chest feeling week from the riding and he ruts up into you looking for his release.  

When Lo’ak cums he wails. Man forgets other people lives in this village with that wail, people might think you’re hurting him on the first day. You feel his cum shoot up into you and his cock twitches until his balls are empty and he lays limp on your bed. You crawl off him and lay beside him over his under that hugs you around your hip.  

“So baby, ready to go again?” with a cheeky grin. Lo’ak knows he is in for a long night.  

✨I hope everyone enjoyed reading! Feedback is always appreciated. Be sure to like, comment and repost☺️

✨please do not repost my work on any other platform.

Taglist:

@strongheartneteyam @xylianasblog @rivatar @delusionalwh6re @nilahsstuff @xrollingmyeyesx @quicktosimp

[dinneronvenus]

Doesn’t Matter Now

⭑ Gojo x fem reader

⭑ inspired by the song “doesn’t matter now” by flyingfish (listen to that while you read for max effect)

⭑ tags: ANGST ON 100, description of a jujutsu technique that forfeits the sorcerer’s life, death, a funeral, a hopeless and depressed Gojo goes to a medium, hinted reincarnation

⭑ synopsis: Gojo already lost his only true friend, so he never thought losing a woman could hurt him so badly

“There’s nothing you could’ve done, Gojo. You didn’t even know.” Utahime spoke softly, her own pain wanting to break through in her voice. “Nobody did.”

Gojo remained silent, eyes glazed over, a cocktail of negative emotions mixing in his mind. He couldn’t even look at Utahime, whose outfit would remind him of you. They stood in the ruins of the shrine your family had built and ran for generations. It had come under attack by many cursed spirits and you had fulfilled your duty to protect the people who lived and worked there, as well as its secrets. With everyone else safe, it would be rebuilt and restored to its original glory, something that should have been a silver lining.

“It is not uncommon for a high priestess to give her life for her people.” Utahime said, voice breaking at the end. This brought Gojo even less comfort.

“You think I don’t know that? You think I hadn’t heard her say those exact words to me before?!” He snapped, still not able to take his eyes off the scene in front of him. It was Utahime’s turn to stay silent.

In the middle of the leveled temple, there was the evidence of your bravery. A set of heavy stone doors bearing an ancient inscription, left open by whatever you had summoned to walk through them, loomed over the two sorcerers. Gojo already knew they’d be used as a gate to honor your memory and remember your sacrifice. His eyes begged to see any scrap of you in the rubble. Maybe this was just a trick, and you were hiding behind one of the doors.

“What could her technique have been to have killed her in the process?” He whispered to the open air, not thinking anyone could’ve heard him.

“Gehenna Gate, it is a technique with the highest of costs,” A raspy voice broke the unbearable quiet. It was your mother, who despite everything, managed to keep a small smile on her face for your surviving friends. “I am sorry she never told you that properly. She wanted to protect you, in her own way.” Her hand came down on Gojo’s shoulder and the kindness in her touch almost burned him alive.

“I didn’t… I wish she…” Gojo stuttered out, hot tears stinging his eyes. Your mother pulled him into a hug, shushing him like a child.

Five days later, your funeral was to be held at your family cemetery in the mountains overlooking the temple. Gojo had no idea how he would survive that. He spent the time until your funeral looking for someone who could communicate with the dead. Thanks to his power and connections, he found one the night before and prepared himself to have one last conversation with you.

“Welcome, sir. I assume you’re here to see Mistress Takemi?” The young man spoke just loud enough to be heard over the jingle of the bell from the door shutting behind him.

“Yeah, and she knows already so I’m just gonna head back there,” Gojo sauntered through the foyer and down the hall to the back room where a woman in black and purple robes standing over a large glass table was waiting on him.

“Welcome Satoru,” she spoke cheerfully with a deep voice that echoed her years of life.

“Don’t call me that. Can we get started?” The overly familiar attitude irked him. The woman cleared her throat and dropped her cheerful act.

“I suppose we can get right to it then.”

The woman had a technique that essentially made her into a human ouija board. Her hands rested on the glass table and it began to glow a soft greenish-blue. Gojo could see the dark circles and puffiness of his eyes in the reflection, suddenly feeling ashamed of himself for being this unable to accept that you were gone.

“Satoru?” His name again, but this time he could hear your voice mixing with Takemi’s voice. He said your name in disbelief, tears of joy in his eyes.

“Yes, yes! It’s me, I wa—”

“You can’t do this, Satoru. It’s against the laws.”

“Please, don’t tell me that right now. You hid so much from me, please just let me ask you one thing.”

Silence. Fearing he’d miss his chance, he went ahead with his question.

“Did you ever really love me?” The depth of sadness and desperation in his voice was unbearable to you, even in your disembodied state. “Why couldn’t you have told me? I could’ve helped you, I would’ve done anything to have saved you.”

“In the mountains where they’ll bury me, follow a trail that begins with pink and white flowers. You’ll find everything you want to know at the end. Goodbye, Satoru.”

“No, no, no,” He wiped the tears from his face and gripped both of Takemi’s shoulders, shouting. “Please come back! I can’t do this again!”

Regaining full control of herself, Takemi pushed Gojo off her and had him escorted out of her shop. The whole world was one hideous shade of grey. He walked for a while with no destination in mind but the grave. He wanted to go find that trail right now but he didn’t have anything else left in him. He wanted to sleep for the rest of his life. Returning home, he set his alarm and went to bed with your instructions in mind.

Utahime and Gojo walked with each other up the mountain to the funeral site. Utahime thought it was odd but refreshing to see him dressed in more traditional clothing. Just one more thing that only you could get him to do.

Everyone took their places, and your father stepped up to the podium. “We are gathered here to send our beloved high priestess to her place of final rest with her ancestors…”

Once the funeral was complete, no one but Gojo, Utahime and your mother lingered too long.

“I’m sorry again for your loss, ma’am.” Utahime said, bowing deeply. Your mother gave her another one of those wise, otherworldly smiles.

“I don’t think I’ve really lost her.” She said before taking a last look around the cemetery and turning to leave. “Why don’t we give him some space?” She motioned to Gojo and Utahime followed her.

Now alone with your memory and your ghost, Gojo began to look for this trail you had mentioned. It took him a while to find it but when he did, his path to the end was quick. It led to a small clearing where the grass was lush, and he was consumed by the smell of many different kinds of flowers and plants. The sight of the small garden was as beautiful as you were to him.

Looking around for anything that could be the answer you spoke of, he saw a faint bit of energy coming from inside a tree. When he got close to the tree, he found it had a hollow spot in it where you’d left a diary. He fished it out and walked to a shaded place in the clearing to begin reading it. Every page was an entry about the two of you together. All of your private feelings from when he was just a crush, and once you had gotten closer, you even glued in pictures you’d taken together.

Gojo couldn’t control his tears or hide his sobs. His body shook against the tree as he held the diary close to his chest. He calmed down enough to continue reading it, with the last entry being dated a week ago.

She knew she was going to die… He thought. You had written about the rise of cursed spirits in the area of increasing numbers and strength and how you felt like it was time for you to fulfill your duty to your people. More than that though, you wrote about how you wished you could have told Gojo. How you wanted to stay with him forever, how he was the only thing you’d ever loved as much as you loved the Gods, and how because of that you wanted to make sure he was safe and didn’t have to fight for once.

It was all too much, Gojo swore he would drown in his own tears right there. The wind picked up and blew the diary’s pages, landing on entry from before you two had met.

6.25 — Training Notes: after a long session of training and studying my technique’s history in my family. I have learned of a way I might be able to circumvent its cost. If I summon a deity of destruction that has the ability to reincarnate, then I will reincarnate too! One of my ancestors did that long ago, although it took 59 days for them to come back.

Gojo couldn’t believe what he was reading. He wiped his eyes on his sleeves furiously and scrambled to his feet. He stored your diary in an inner pocket of his kimono and made his way down the mountains to the temple ruins.

He inspected the gate and found exactly what he needed to be able to accept the loss of the only woman he’s ever loved. Utahime was strolling the grounds when she noticed him in the air, getting a close look at the doors.

“Gojo, what do you think you’re doing? Get down here!” Utahime found his behavior so disgraceful. He chuckled on his way back to earth.

“I was just checking on something. Had to be sure that I wasn’t seeing things.”

His eyes were red and puffy, but his annoyingly cheerful attitude was starting to return. Utahime couldn’t tell if she was relieved or annoyed.

“Checking on what?”

“Eh,” Gojo put a hand over the diary in his pocket.

“Doesn’t matter now.”

[save-the-villainous-cat]

Okay so how about a delirious or gravely injured hero / villain who starts telling the other details about their secret identity because they’re so sure they’re not going to make it while the other is like don’t even think about dying on me ?

"Look," the villain hissed. They pressed their hand into the wound the supervillain had stabbed into them. Flesh had ripped open and blood had been mercilessly dropping to the ground for the last few minutes. It was fair to say that the hero had...overdone it. The villain knew they could forget their own strength every now and then but they hadn't expected them to kill the supervillain that brutally. "I am dying."

The villain leaned their head back but the headache would not die. They dared to peek at the supervillain's body and somehow allowed themselves to relax. Years of anger and anxiety were gone now. Some peace was a good thing. Ignoring the tears and the pain, their eyes found the hero.

"Don't be ridiculous," the hero said but still, the villain could hear their voice shake. Whenever the hero's wall which they had built around their heart crumbled like this, the villain felt some weird sense of accomplishment. Wasn't this their job? Changing the hero? Even if the villain wasn't a good person, was this a good deed?

"No," the villain said. They grabbed the hero's wrist. Their nemesis was panicking, staring at the villain's wound in shock. "I am dying, love."

The hero shook their head and the villain wasn't sure if the pain made them hallucinate the tears in the hero's eyes or if those were actually real. They had never seen the hero this emotional.

"My parents aren't buried in the city," the villain said. "But I wouldn't mind if you chose a cemetery here."

"No."

"I have a cat, also. You need to take care of her. She's only five months old. I found her on the streets a while ago." The villain's hand crawled up the hero's arm until they found their hand and squeezed. "God, I thought I'd have some more time."

They couldn't even stop the tears. Couldn't control anything. Their vision spun and they felt bad for forcing the hero to watch them die. It was a little selfish, wasn't it? But wasn't it also a human desire?

Not to die alone?

"I have a sister, too. She lives far away, though. Maybe you'll find her phone number in my apartment? Could you take care of that? I know it's a lot to ask..."

"Don't you dare. I didn't murder someone for you to die now. I didn't protect you all these months for you to..." The hero swallowed and wiped thick tears away. For a second, the villain seriously thought they were dead already. I didn't protect you... "You cannot die now. I won't let you. You're too important to me."

"It's fine, I..." The hero pulled out their phone and dialed 911 with shaky fingers. The villain's eyes widened but they were too weak to protest. The hero tried to breathe but it was clear that it was quite troubling for them to take normal breaths. They were fighting just as much as the villain.

The villain had given up already, though.

"Yes, hello. I would like to report a murder. I killed someone. I also need an ambulance...I injured someone else, too," the hero said. "Locate my position."

They hung up.

"Fuck, what are you...?" The villain's heart was beating faster than ever. They couldn't believe what the hero had just told the authorities. Confessing a murder like this...asking for an ambulance? The villain wouldn't make it in time and the hero would go to jail either way.

This couldn't be happening. The villain had wanted them to live a quiet life, not dying young in prison. The amount of villain's the hero had already sent to jail was impressive and if the hero joined them, they wouldn't survive the first night.

The villain moaned when they moved. Pain was taking over and they weren't sure if they wanted to throw up or pass out.

"They won't put you in jail when you're injured like this. Especially not when I am the one who's responsible. They've been hunting you for quite a while now but in this case I am the criminal. This buys you time and they can actually save you at the hospital." The hero took in a greedy breath and closed their eyes. More tears.

"You're insane, you're-" The hero took their hand.

"It's the only way to save you. Your blood type is A+, right?" Perhaps? The villain wanted to throw up. This wasn't happening, the hero hadn't just pulled their Go to Jail Card intentionally.

"I think so?" The villain started to sweat and suddenly, it felt as if the world wanted to push them into the afterlife. They refused to die, now that the hero had confessed to a crime. But they feared they had no control over that either.

"Mine is A-, so I can donate. I'll try to stay on the ambulance, if they let me." The hero seemed to be back in their cold self. Always calculating, always thinking. Their poor hero. Always fighting.

"You'll go to prison," the villain whispered.

"And I will find a way to crawl back to you," the hero said. "I always will."

[myfavoritesstuff]

We can have Andrew and Ashley (separately) dating reader who is a singer/guitarist in a Punk rock band, who has a somewhat cynical, indifferent personality but is quite kind when you get to know her.

But there is a problem, she is possessed by a demon and needs to kill or drink human blood to survive (just like that movie Jennifer Body feat. Megan Fox)

Possession from Within

Pairing(s): Andrew Graves x Reader, Ashley Graves x Reader

Note: I didn’t exactly know where to go with this, but I hope this is what you wanted. I also didn’t go into as much detail or story with Ashley’s part, and I decided to take a different route with her. Sorry if this isn't what you meant. NOT PROOFREAD

Andrew

If the saying one person fell first but the other fell harder is true, then that would definitely apply to Andrew Graves.

He first saw you when he escaped the apartment with his sister Ashley. You were playing down the street with the rest of your band.

As you seemingly looked through the crowd on stage, your eyes met his. You could call it love at first sight, for him at least.

While Ashley was dozing off on the bus, he snuck his way out to see you again. You were backstage, along with the rest of the band, just finished with your performance when you saw him.

He introduced himself and complimented your performance. He then asked if you would like to go out to a cafe together before you headed home. You looked at him up and down, almost in a judging way, but nonetheless you agreed.

That was about a month ago, now you and Andrew were a couple. At first you came off as a very cynical person, but as days passed he got to see you under a new light. He fell first, you fell harder.

You guys spent countless days and nights together, for you invited him along with his sister to come and live with you. While Andrew was excited, Ashley wasn’t too thrilled.

She didn’t like you. Not just because you were taking all her brother's attention and time away, but it was something more. There was something off about you.

And she was right. From a young age, you had been possessed by a demon. It’s the reason why you're living on your own, away from your parents. The demon hasn’t fully taken over, at least not yet. But it certainly had its moments where it did.

Ever since that day, it changed your life. You were no longer able to eat regular food without throwing up. That’s why in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep, you snuck out only to kill and drink the blood of other humans.

That all changed when you met Andrew, sort of. While he didn’t know of the possession, he did always calm down the demonic side. However, you could tell that the demon wasn’t going to give up so easily. In fact it seemed to thrive more when you were around Andrew. Almost like it could tell what he has done in the past, not that you knew any of it. And he intended to keep it that way. You both intended to keep your pasts a secret.

Thai was not so easy. As the days turned to weeks Ashley became all the more suspicious. And since her brother was too blinded by love to see that something was wrong, she decided to take measures into her own hands. One night she pretended to be asleep, and after you left, she woke up her brother.

“Andy! Come on, there’s something you got to witness.”

While Andrew wasn’t too thrilled to be awake at such an ungodly hour, if it was about you, then he didn’t mind.

Shortly after he and Ashley found you in an alleyway. You were hunched over a dead body, and the second they took a step closer, you noticed their presence.

He took a moment to look at you, your pupils were dilated into slits and were really small, almost invisible to the naked eye, leaving your eyes white.

It was then he realized that you were possessed. Without thinking he rushed over to you, pulling you into a hug, ignoring the way you thrashed around in his hold. He spoke, his voice gentle as he looked over at his sister.

Ashley, seemingly knowing what to do, pulled out the trinket that she got back in the apartment.

“Mr. Demon! I am offering you something. This time take this demon away from my brother’s girlfriend!”

It was then that the whole area was black and red. The demon appeared just as quickly as it disappeared.

It worked.

When you awoke, Andrew simply pulled you into a tight embrace you started to tear up.

“Everything is alright,” he spoke and you knew that it would be.

Ashley

When she met you it had also been recently after they escaped from the apartment. When she saw you she thought you were beautiful, even with the punk looking appearance.

She demanded to her brother that they go and see you.

After having gotten the chance to speak with you, she was surprised by the attitude you gave her. But nonetheless she kept trying to speak to you.

After some time, she was finally able to break down the facade that you put up.

Underneath that tough exterior lied a kind and thoughtful person. Maybe that’s why she asked you to be a couple.

While she thought she had figured you out, you threw in a twist.

You see, you had been possessed by the very demon that she had been offering souls too.

It was no wonder why whenever she called out to the demon, she would only be met with silence.

But this demon possession took its toll on you. It forced you to go out “hunting” every night, killing and eating human flesh and drinking human blood.

You didn’t know what to do. So, you went to your girlfriend Ashley.

By the look on her face, you could tell that she was surprised and seemed extremely pissed off that you were targeted by the demon that she originally summoned. Luckily she had the grimoire still tucked away with her. She found exactly the ritual she was looking for, and with the help of her brother, she set it up.

However, right as she started the ritual, the demon started to take over. You were thrashing around, with your head banging against the floorboards. While worried for your sake, she could only continue the ritual, eyes however tearing up at the sight of your pain.

When the ritual was over, you became silent.

She rushed over to you, and started rambling about how she was so worried for you and how she was sorry that you had to go through all that.

You put your finger to her lips, successfully silencing her.

“Don’t worry, I’m okay now.” you softly spoke, “I’m okay.”

[strong-with-the-sarcasm]

Part 10- keep me from my grave

"Well, don't sing me praise. Just keep me from my grave." -Me Against the Devil by The Relentless

Main Masterlist Regent Series Part 9

They met at a bookstore. 

It had been almost two full months since the Joker had met his end, his head mounted and strangely not decomposed, with Jason returned to the Batfamily Gotham had settled into a lull. Not a quiet one, but a lull nonetheless. 

Jason was taking a break from sorting through cases with Dick, head throbbing from the lack of sleep and patience for annoying siblings wearing thin. 

The bookstore, tucked away in a quiet part of Old Gotham, was often empty of people during the day. Despite its large bay windows, comfy seating and welcoming atmosphere, the Page-Turner would remain a hidden gem to the city dwellers. For Jason, it was a haven he could never feel bad about keeping to himself. 

He’d branched out from classics some time ago, deciding to try other genres he’d long since ignored for the Bard, meandering around the shelves to find a title that caught his eye. 

It was between the mysteries and thrillers that he found her. 

Her. 

She was sitting on the ground with her back pressed against the thriller shelves, slender jean-clad legs tucked towards her chest to cradle a book, eyes never straying from the pages, red hair tied into a low ponytail with what looked like a small braid tucked behind one ear. Jason couldn’t tear his eyes away from her soft features, desperately wanting her eyes to meet his, her lips to offer him a smile and her hands to cradle his own.

 For the first time in his life, Jason finally understood what the regency novels meant by love at first sight… because the man was halfway there already. 

The Page Turner was a haven admist the chaos that was Jazz’s life, especially once she finally admitted to herself and Danny that she needed help to manage her depression. Her little brother was concerned, but also relieved when she confronted the elephant in the room first. He’d been weary of bringing it up himself, not wanting to worry her more. 

(Silly brother.)

(It was her job to worry.)

Nonetheless, Jazz asked around among the living and dead for a therapist recommendation, which she was correct about it being difficult in Gotham, but Jazz didn’t want to branch out just yet. A toss up between disbelief and enthusiasm awaited her, but she didn’t let it deter her from contacting the recommended psychologist- Harleen Quinzel. 

A bit awkward to be in a session with the reformed rogue, dutifully ignoring whatever lingering shades wanted her attention. Harley was a great listener, more importantly she cared about Jazz as a patient, as a human being. Whatever Bozo the Clown had done to her, what she had survived, had given Harley a new lease on life with his death (ironically). 

“It sounds like ya never been allowed to simply be, Jazz.” Harley spoke plainly and evenly, her brooklyn accent barely clipping her words. The redhead had spoken of her childhood, her brother’s death, the neglect.

Opened up about the nightmares, how Danny’s destroyed grave haunted her. Let the truth spill from her lips, free to simply exist in the space between the two women. Sure, Jazz would never spill secrets about the Realms, but where it concerned her guilt, or lack thereof, about the blood on her hands- yes, Jazz knew Harley wouldn’t judge her. 

And it was true, Jazz had no childhood. She was Danny’s caretaker, his first memory, his first steps towards, the first to have his back. There had never been just Jazz, only Jazz and Danny. Every dream she’d once had, broken and scattered in the ashes of Danny’s grave. 

(Danny had no hope of reaching the stars, of being an astronaut, with his death.)

“Sweetie, Danny sounds like he is capable of taking care of himself for a while. Have you considered finding a hobby?” Harley questioned, sincere in her wish to help. 

Jazz sighed, “I wouldn’t know where to begin.” What did she have outside her little brother and work as Regency? 

“Do ya like to read?” 

Jazz huffed, finding amusement with that question. Of course she liked, no, loved to read. It had been her one escape from the nightmares so long ago, but she hadn’t found the time since taking regency to lose herself in a good book. 

Harley didn’t need her to respond, offering a sincere smile in response to Jazz’s lack of reply. 

“There’s a bookstore in Old Gotham, the Page Turner, ya could check out? There’s no pressure to pick up a book, but it would be enough to just get through the door, yeah?” 

“I’ll try.” 

“That’s a good start.” 

As it was, Jazz wasn’t able to find time between Realms Work and patrol to do anything other than sleeping, eating, and various other tasks that filled her days (and nights). The more it itched at her, to listen to the therapist she liked, the more Jazz wanted to read a book. To get lost in a good story, just like she used to. 

Patrols were harder with Hood back, his haunt under his command once more and streets protected by a vigilante in red. Only twice in the few weeks since Jason had been moved from her side to the batcave had the Regent caught a glimpse of him, both as his nighttime persona, and from a distance Jazz hadn’t been able to sense him as clearly as previous. He did seem healthier with the pure ecto and his Proto-Core, though Jazz was in no mood to test her luck by crossing into his Haunt. 

The girls were sad to see the Regent less, even though Jazz remained firmly in the Phantom haunt and was barely a few minutes away at any given time, but it was the principle of the thing. The Regent was one of the good ones and a woman at that. A woman who could kick ass wasn’t rare, but it was rare that they would take up a vigilante role for the occupants of the Alley. 

Red Hood, while awesome and respected by his people, was a man. 

Some of the girls were gradually drifting into the Phantom haunt, or a shitty part of Old Gotham that bordered on the Alley. Regardless of it’s quality it belonged to the Phantom Fraid… and Phantom was a Protector Spirit. 

(With the Regent and the Phantom, crime was all but extinct in their haunt.)

With the decrease in crime, Jazz was finally able to dematrilize her armor, set down her sword and enter the Page Turner. 

A distinct mix of old books, ink, and some kind of body spray welcomed the redhead once she stepped inside, intrigued by the sense of calm that greeted her in place of a human. 

Which was fine, Jazz preferred to browse in peace. 

Grateful for the shelves being categorized, Jazz found herself enthralled by a thriller (They Never Learn by Layne Fargo) and didn’t notice another person in the aisle until they were within arm’s reach. 

Jazz flinched back, embarrassed by her lack of focus and attention to her surroundings, dangerous when one is a vigilante in Gotham. She greeted the man in front of her after a few moments of awkward silence, his stare making the redhead even more embarrassed, but now by her appearance. She'd been too tired to fuss with her hair or clothes beyond ensuring the orange-red strands were brushed into a semblance of order and her clothes were somewhat decent. 

(Jazz was more concerned with her bracelets being concealed under glamour and sleeves.)

(The metal, eternally cool against her warm skin, offered some comfort in times like these.)

(She was the Lady of the Acropolis, once student of Pandora, the Ancient of Peace.) 

(There is nothing that can make her feel lesser without her consent.) 

“Uh, hi.” 

(Oh how eloquent, Jasmine.) 

“Hi.” The deep voice, smooth and accented like a native Gotham, made Jazz finally move her gaze from his chest- nice chest as it was, it was his eyes that made her breath rush from her lungs. 

Jason. 

.....Jason!

(Oh yes, Jazz picked a good day to walk into the Page Turner.) 

(She was finally able to talk to her dream man.)

(She wasn’t disappointed.) 

(And by the smiles they had as walked away, neither was Jason.) 

A/N:

This isn't the best, I know. Hey, they finally meet! Keep an eye for the updated masterlist, because I'll be putting the link up and changing some of the chapter titles. Thanks for reading!

Update: “They Never Learn” by Layne Fargo is an actual book, with a female Anti-Hero who kills bad men. I don’t want to say more because I’ll spoil something, but it’s a great book.

[sadesluvr]

Parting Gift

You love Mike, but he's jaded.

Mike Schmidt x GN! Reader

A/N: Something for my FNAF fans! I’ve been watching too much HBO and wanted to write angst, so this fic features a realistic Mike Schmidt. This features hints of Vanessa x Mike, but also his emotional problems in general. We love him, but I don’t think its controversial to say that being in a relationship with him would be difficult... 

Please read my other Mike works if this isn’t your kind of thing! 

Set post movie. 

Word count: 1.6K 

Tags: ANGST / SMUT / Gender Neutral Reader / Reader is human as has weird emotions / Breakups / Hints of jealousy + rage / Hints of fluff / Bittersweet stuff, really 

You never went inside. 

As a detective, you weren’t oblivious to the irony of it all. You’d been to hospitals thousands of times; speaking to suspects, injured colleagues or even to address the dreaded ‘call’, and yet the thought of watching Mike and Abby leave handmade cards at Vanessa “Shelly’s” bedside made you violently ill.  

You knew everything that had gone down at the defunct Freddy Fazbear’s, and it had plagued you to no end. Though Abby and Mike’s relationship had certainly turned for the better, you were angry, frustrated at the fact that he’d been hurt, not only from being physically punted across the room, but the fact he’d had to stare his brother’s killer in the eye, virtually powerless to it all. Even more so, you were pissed that Vanessa had become a factor in your lives. 

You’d only been dating Mike for just under a year, meeting him in a rather cliched manner at a donut stand in the mall. An exchange of numbers turned into casual check-ins, which soon evolved into a relationship – or at least parts of one. It was no secret that Mike was guarded; letting you in, but not too close enough to get overly attached. At first, it felt like you were made for each other – you felt a similar way about you line of work, and how you operated with people because of it – but closer towards those crucial few months of the new year it had begun to grow tedious. 

You weren’t expecting a whirlwind, all-consuming romance, but it certainly wasn’t supposed to feel like this; with days of missed calls, unexplained outbursts and erectile dysfunction making being with him feel like a chore. Some days, you wondered why you’d even bothered asking for his number. Most days, you wondered why he’d responded at all. 

Deep down, you knew none of this was his fault. He'd been fighting to survive since he was a teenager, and it was only inevitable that he’d develop issues. Being a detective meant you were all the more receptive to them, understanding the nuances of why people became the way that they were, and it was painfully clear to you why Mike had changed since the incident. 

He and Vanessa were both conjoined, victims of William Afton in their own ways, yet both bound by blood. You’d been there when he’d stopped on the way home to visit her, listening from the outside as you supervised Abby. Why couldn’t you all go in? It wasn’t as if it were a particularly gory scene; it merely looked like she was sleeping. Why had he made you all wait? 

“Vanessa, I don’t know if… you can hear any of this, but, um… I’m having a hard time just processing everything that happened. 

But you were there for me and Abby when it mattered the most. 

And I don’t think that either of us would be here today if it weren’t for you. 

So… So get better. And we’ll be here when you wake up.” 

The words were as clear as day. Hadn’t you been there for them? Tried to give Abby a sense of a stable life? Tried to help with bills? Offering to send him to counselling? Why had it taken a near fatal murder attempt for Mike to wake up? 

Now, with all the fallout, you were all left with far more questions than answers…and this time you didn’t have the energy to try and solve them. 

“Abby’s sleeping,” you announced, poking your head through the door. Mike was rummaging around his room, trying to prepare himself for work in the morning – a menial task for some, but strangely methodical to him in the moment. He didn’t answer. 

“Abby’s sleeping,” you repeated, and he perked up, a flustered smile tugging at the corner of his lips.  

“Oh...” he said, clearing his throat. “Thanks. I guess I lost track of time…” 

“Yeah.” you mumbled, leaning against the doorframe, clearly waiting for something…you just didn’t know what. 

“Thanks —“ he said after a moment of silence, his soft brown eyes gazing into your own. You could see him nervously gnawing on the inside of of his cheek. “—For helping. I really do appreciate it. I’m not trying to seem like a douche, there’s just been a lot on my mind recently.” 

“I’m not surprised,” you hummed, strolling into the room. “But it’s been bugging you for a while now. Don’t you want to…you know…talk to someone?” 

Mike paused and cocked his head. 

“Like a therapist?” 

“That would be a good option,” you hummed, trying not to dance around the subject. “Or you can speak to me. I won’t even psychoanalyse you, I could just listen, y’know?” 

He bit his lip again, this time glancing down at the floor before back at you. You couldn’t quite make out what he was thinking, but he was certainly showing signs of restraint. Restraint. It seemed to be the defining word in your relationship.  

“…I don’t think you’d understand.” 

“Oh, but Vanessa would, right?” 

He flinched at your raised voice, and glanced nervously down the hall. 

“That’s not what I meant —“ 

“Then what do you mean, Mike?” you huffed, crossing your arms. “You met her a month ago, whilst I’ve known you for a year! You’ve never once given me as much grace as you have her. Ever!” 

“I had a lot on my plate, okay? It wasn’t easy.” 

“I know that! But I was there for you. I watched you pick up those prescriptions, I tried to be a role model to Abby, to help take the load off all those payments, and I got nothing!” you yelled. “I wasn’t asking for a mile, but you didn’t even give me an inch.” 

Mike didn’t respond, instead he ran a hand through his hair, pushing the stray strands away from his face before he rubbed his eyes. 

“How is it that you can mend every relationship you have except the one you willingly chose to be in?” You said, voice wavering as you watched him sink into the bed. It was his natural response; life was crushing and had done so many times, but his lack of fight was extremely telling. He could stand off with a serial killer and haunted animatronics, but not muster a few words to  reassure his partner? 

He was just too complicated for you to understand. 

“I’m sorry…” he mumbled, shaking his head absentmindedly before looking up at you. “Maybe I didn’t think this through…” 

You knew what that meant, and even though you’d been anticipating it – even manifesting it yourself – it didn’t make the blow any easier. Sighing, you steadied your week knees by sitting on the bed next to Mike, grasping at the bedsheets as you stared blankly around the room. For once, it felt like you were both in the same page. 

“I love you,” he said, breaking the tension. You glanced at him, taking in the fact that his eyes were welling with tears and jaw clenched, and you could tell that he meant it. “I really did, y’know? I tried.” 

You nodded, rubbing at your cheeks anxiously before kissing him. His lips were slightly chapped, but you didn’t mind, losing yourself in the way he drew you into his body with you hands, clinging onto you as he made a desperate plea to attempt to reach out to you for a final time.  

Before you knew it, you back was against the mattress, and Mike was on-top of you, hurriedly pulling down his sweatpants before doing the same to you. As your lower torso lay exposed, he pressed a kiss to your stomach, making his way around your belly button and down towards your privates. Shutting your eyes, you wondered what your relationship could’ve been if every time felt like this; electric and passionate…with intent. 

Once he’d slipped his boxers to the side, you gave his erect cock a few languid strokes before inserting him into you, letting out a broken moan as he adjusted to being inside of you. Mike’s eyes fluttered shut as he sighed, and you remembered just how beautiful he looked in his (rare) moments of bliss.  

He stabilised himself on his forearms as he watched you, rolling his hips as he explored your hole, searching for that all-important sweet spot. The room may have been dimly lit; the darkness of night encroaching upon the walls, but he could see you all too clearly. It pained him that he hadn’t before – no, he had, but he didn’t know how to express it – and wondered just how much different things would’ve been had he not met Vanessa, hell, had he not attacked that man that fateful day. He knew some things had changed for the better, some for the worst, and some that only time would tell – and he had a sneaking suspicion that you fell into the latter. 

His mind was hell, but it felt like heaven to be inside you.  

Leaning down, he placed a sloppy kiss to your lips before moving to your neck, groaning as you ran your fingers through his hair and whispered sweet nothings into his ear. 

“Mike...” you moaned. “You’re so good to me...” 

‘For me’ was left unuttered.  

“Please...” you begged; your words almost inaudible over the creaking of his bedframe, and his heavy thighs slapping against your own as he rutted into you. “Cum for me. I need it...” 

Mike nodded, damp strands of his fringe glued to his forehead as he pushed into you a final time, his legs trembling as he came. It was unfathomable that in the heat of his pleasure – the best orgasm you’d had together – he wanted to cry. Breathlessly, you held him as he rode off his high, so tightly that you thought you might’ve pierced his skin, before you spoke your final words into the night. 

“I love you too...” you whispered. “I’m sorry...for everything.” 

You were gone before sunrise.  

[heavenlytouches]

Hi

The Walking Dead x Rick's Sister Reader please?

Y/N was in a special unit but she was bitten so they tried an experimental treatment on her, the virus was stopped but she had bloodshot eyes, black veins all over her body and increased aggression and less ability to talk more growls but the infected don't notice her when she's around. She runs away from her brother, but he convinces her to come with him.

Hello love!! Thank you so much for this great request! I really love your idea, it's great. I hope you'll like this one ^^ El <3

Rick Grimes- find a way

•𓇼°🐚·☾.

FEM reader

<3 (SFW)

TW- none

BROTHER! Rick Grimes

Post-infected reader

Rick Grimes

The moon hung low in the night sky, its pale light filtering through the twisted branches of the barren trees. You could hear the faint rustling of leaves, each sound amplified in the heavy silence of the world that surrounded you.

You had once been part of a special unit, proud and trained, but the bite had changed everything. It was a nightmare—once human, now straddling the line between survival and something monstrous.

The experimental treatment had saved your life, but it had left you more beast than person. Bloodshot eyes, black veins like gnarled roots spiraling across your pale skin, and an unsettling growl that replaced words.

Tonight, you were running away from your brother Rick, who had cared for you with an intensity that made your heart ache. You could feel him close behind as you darted through the remnants of what used to be civilization, but you didn’t want to see him. You didn’t want to hurt him, and you couldn’t bear to have him look at you with those eyes full of worry and love.

With each step you took, anger and fear coiled tighter in your chest. You glanced back briefly, catching a glimpse of his familiar figure shadowed by the moonlight- a pillar of strength, always brave, always careful.

“Stop!”

He called, voice thick with desperation, breaking the stillness of the night.

But you didn’t stop. You kept running, the weight of his concern trailing behind you like a haunting whisper.

You had become something else. Something dangerous. You brushed past the remnants of a crumbled street, the echoes of the past whispering secrets you no longer understood.

Rick wasn’t like the others, the ones who had succumbed to the virus. He could always see you- his sister, the one he fought for. The thought made your pulse race, a painful reminder of the love you wanted to reject for both of your sakes.

As the infection spread through the world, Rick’s world, you had become an unwanted weapon, a living danger lurking within the shadows.

“Please! You... don’t understand!”

You felt the words bubbling up, but in this wretched state, all that escaped your lips was a low, deep growl. It sent shivers down your spine, and you clenched your jaw shut, refusing to acknowledge the truth- you were losing yourself.

Rick's footsteps grew louder, and it lit a fire of panic within you. You didn’t want him to catch you. The thought of him seeing you in this state made your insides twist with a primal urge to hide.

But even as you ran, you could hear his comforting voice cutting through darkness.

“I won’t leave you! You’re still my sister! We’ll find a way!”

The relentless pounding of your heart echoed with every growl that reverberated in your throat. Instinctively, you knew that the infected didn’t see you as one of their own.

They passed by, oblivious, but only because you controlled the monstrous side of yourself, the side that wanted to rend and tear. If Rick were to come close, if he were to truly see the horror that was now you, there would be no way to reassure him.

You hurtled through the void, branches clawing at your arms. The truth flooded your mind- the experimental treatment hadn’t eradicated the virus; it had transformed it, refined it into something that twisted your very humanity.

You hadn’t asked for this battle; you hadn’t chosen this path. The growls emerged, and as you reached the edge of a dilapidated building, you heard Rick bark your name again, filled with both fear and determination.

“Please! Just let me help you!”

Your feet slowed, the instinct to flee stalling as his voice wrapped around you like a familiar embrace. Torn between the ferocity growing within and the warmth of familial love, you gasped, the remnants of your humanity surfacing.

In that very moment, you turned to face him.

Shoulders squared, chest heaving, bloodshot eyes locked onto his, you growled again- a low, instinctual response to the fear that clawed at you. But beneath that growl, the fragmented pieces of you screamed for help, for understanding.

Rick took a cautious step forward, his jaw tight but his eyes unwavering.

“You’re not a monster...”

He said, voice steady, holding your gaze like a lifeline.

“You’re my sister. Whatever happened, we can face it together.”

You felt the weight of his words, the truth they carried. And yet, the tears that you couldn’t allow to surface burned from within. Rick drew nearer, a beacon of hope shining through the murky fog of your existence, and it began to crack the hardness pooling around your heart.

With a sudden rush of energy, you fell to your knees, the growl subsiding as anguish rippled through you. Your vision blurred, the black veins pulsing like dark rivers beneath your skin.

“I-I don’t want to hurt you..” You finally managed to whisper, your voice raw and quivering, a faint echo of the sister he remembered.

Rick knelt before you, the distance between you closing like a bridge forming across an abyss.

“You won’t hurt me. We’re in this together. I swear it.”

The deep-rooted instinct that had driven you into isolation began to ease. You felt the layers of fear start to peel away.

Yes, you were different, yes, there was darkness creeping inside you, but there was still a flicker of light- a bond forged through love and resilience.

As you looked up at him, your heart full of conflicting emotions, you understood that if you were going to fight against what the world had made you become, you wouldn’t do it alone.

“Okay. I’ll… I’ll come with you.”

You managed to say before another growl ripped it's way out of your chest. Rick didn't back out. He just stood there, looking at you.

Rick smiled, a mixture of relief and pride lighting up his face.

“Let’s find a way to make it through this. Together.”

And as you stood to face the chaos ahead, the shadows breathing around you, they faded just a little, replaced by the bond of family. The last remnant of hope in a world gone dark. It was time to reclaim who you were, and with Rick by your side, you would find a way.

I hope you liked this one!! I really adored this theme, it's so unique and cool. Remember guys, I write for a lot of characters/fandoms and requests are always open!

El <3

(all images were made by: El via canva & paint)

[afternoonsociety]

*ೃ༄ The Sound of Two Different Hearts - Part One - Neteyam x Human!Fem!Reader

warnings: injuries, blood, mentions the word suicide mission but nothing more on that topic, fluff, neteyam slowly falling for the reader (if you find my more triggers/ warnings pls let me know)

This is based of a dream I had, so some things are probably not canon. Also I got carried away with this, idk if the next parts will be as long as this one. English is not my first language.

word count: 4.9k

synopsis: Y/N grew up with her foster brother Miles in Pandora, in the remains of Hell's Gate. Since Norm and the other scientists can't fully prepare them for life on the other planet, he asked his old friend Jake Sully for a favor. Jake took them in to teach them how to survive in the woods. Quickly a friendship developed between the kids. Especially between Jake's oldest son Neteyam and Y/N. Over the years, the bond between the two grew stronger and stronger. Until the time when the two wondered where their friendship would lead them. Because they both have the same secret. Their feelings for each other. Which developed to the point where they didn't know if they'd rather be more than friends, even though they were two different species.

— Part One — Part Two — Part Three — Part Four —

Read it also on: ao3 // wattpad

Earth was dying and the only solution to save humanity was to relocate the inhabitants. They found a planet similar to Earth, which was „only“ five years away and had the name Pandora. However, not everything went as initially hoped. As the people have always been, they did everything in their power to take over the planet and did not stop at doing so with violence. Thus it came to a war between the humans, who were also called sky people, and the natives of Pandora, the Na'vi. Many living beings had to die during the conflict. There were many losses on both sides. Still, the humans did not understand that they were the ones in the wrong.

Jake Sully a former human and now Na'vi led the natives of the planet as the Toruk Makto to victory and forced the humans to return to their home planet. Only a few humans were allowed to stay. They were the peaceful ones among the monsters. They only wanted to explore further the nature and the ways of life and not to destroy. Furthermore, those who were still too young or too weak to return to Earth were allowed to stay. Among these people were Spider and Y/N. They were both too young at the time. The chances of survival to send them back to earth were very low. So they were allowed to stay, but only under the condition to live peacefully with the inhabitants of Pandora and to take only what they needed to survive and no more.

Y/N grew up together with Spider, whose real name was Miles, in the remains of Hell's Gate. The scientists still living there, like Norm, then took on the parental role of the two and taught them everything - at least what they had already researched. It was exhausting for everyone on site, since no one was prepared to babysit for life and they were actually here for a completely different reason. Nonetheless, they all took loving care of the two children and made it possible for them to have a reasonably safe childhood. Everything was safe in the lab, but what happened outside in the wilds of Pandora they were not able to prepare them for, which is why Norm asked his old friend Jake for help.

Jake now had a family of his own, and the children he had with Neytiri were the same age as the two human children. And to do a favor to his friend, Jake allowed the children to stay with him to teach them how to survive in the woods. He kept referring to them as stray cats that would drop by every now and then and then wander off again. They played and romped with the young Sully's and a friendship quickly developed between all of them. Neytiri was not amused by the whole situation, she wanted the humans to finally leave their home planet, because they knew nothing but greed and destruction. Jake tried to calm her down by telling her that he would make sure that this would never happen again and that he would make sure that the bond between them would not be too strong.

Over the years, however, the bond between the two species grew closer and closer, and Y/N and Spider became something like "pseudo Na'vi," as Mary, another scientist, called them. They learned some of the customs of the Omatikaya, how to hunt and defend themselves, how to make weapons and jewelry, and also what herbs could be made into medicine. The young Y/N's favorite topic, however, was the flora and fauna of Pandora's forests. She also enjoyed adventures with the Sully children and Miles, but preferred the quiet of the forest. She is the complete opposite of Spider, while she roamed inquisitively, he preferred to create chaos together with Lo'ak.

Kiri and Y/N had a special friendship. They would often talk for hours about whatever was on their minds. About things from the human world, which Kiri wanted to know more about because of her mother Grace and about the Na'vi world, if Y/N wanted to know more about the All-Mother Eywa or had problems with the language again. The other Omatikaya also became more open to her over time. They trusted each other because she had proven that she was not like the other Sky People and was respectful of their culture.

Another favorite activity of hers is to do a little something with Tuk. She was like a little sister to her, even though they were both the same height. No matter if they played together or were looking for beautiful stones and crystals in the rivers to make beads out of them later. It was always fun.

The young woman was of a relaxed nature and loved to listen to what other people had to tell her. But today she had once again been persuaded to go on another suicide mission with Lo'ak and Spider. For pure safety reasons, Neteyam, Jake's oldest son, also came along today, so that no one would get into trouble and no one would really die.

Spider and her both put on their masks and turned on their exopacks at their hips. They told Norm goodbye and that they would both be home for dinner. She gave her foster father one last hug goodbye and said, "I'll watch Spider. Don't worry he'll be back home in one piece." Norm could only laugh at this comment and looked at the boy in the doorway, who already had a slightly impatient expression on his face. He patted them both affectionately on the back and then flipped the switch to the gate to the outside.

Today's plan was to go to the Hallelujah Mountains to fly with the Ikrans to an old Sky People base. This place was off limits according to Jake, of course, but as Lo'ak used to say, "He's just exaggerating," and who wanted to listen to Jake anyway? Lo'ak and Spider at least didn't, but Neteyam did, which is why he decided to come along.

It took a while for the two to fight their way through the embankment and arrive at the Omatikaya's hometree. There Lo'ak already welcomed them. " Well there you are at last. I've been waiting for you guys for ages" He pushed his way between the two as they walked and put his arms around their shoulders. "Neteyam, the buzzkill is already waiting at the other end. Come!" With that, he let go of the two of them and ran ahead to his older brother. When Nete appeared in their field of vision, she waved at him and called his name. "Nete, hey!" He turned in the direction from where the voice rang out and started smiling right away, running towards her to wrap her in his arms. The two of them had a special relationship too.She pressed her head against his stomach as they hugged. Nete then understood her gesture and hugged her tighter. "I missed you too, even though we just saw each other yesterday," he murmured softly so his other friends wouldn't hear what he said to her. However, the scene was not spared from the comments of the two skxawngs. "Find a hut!" "No one can stand to watch this!"

Y/N shot back in response. "At least I have something going on and don't stare at the people I like from afar because I'm too shy to approach them" The statement went straight to the ego of the two. Miles pressed his lips together in a thin line and Lo'ak stood with his eyes lowered to the ground, stroking the back of his head with his hand in shame. Even though the comment wasn't directly aimed at Neteyam, his body still stiffened and his ears automatically laid back. He suddenly felt warm as Y/N let go of him and looked up at him with a sly smile. He also let out a small laugh and asked the others, "Do you want to go now? Or are you guys just going to stand here stupid all day?"

The boys regained their composure and set off to finally get going. On the way to the mountains, they passed a river that they had to cross. The river itself was relatively deep but there were enough stones in the water to cross it safely. Nevertheless, Neteyam was worried about Y/N. And offered her to carry her. She reassured him, however, and instead took his finger in her hand to signal to him that she took his concern for her seriously. Because of the size difference, his hand was at least twotimes bigger than hers and she could barely get her hand around it to really hold on, so she always closed her hand around one of his long fingers. He liked the size difference, he thought it was almost cute that he could just carry her around all the time like Tuktirey. She's almost as tall as a small Na'vi child. Lo'ak also liked to take advantage of this difference, abusing Y/N's head as an arm rest when they stood side by side. Nete, on the other hand, did not like this at all and whenever he noticed his little brother resting his arm on her again, he said that it was humiliating and that he should stop. However, Lo'ak did not listen to his brother and he had to experience the consequence on his own body, when Neteyam hit him on the back of the head.

Since it was the first time for her to go to the Hallelujah Mountains, she was often distracted by new plants she had never seen before. She stopped one more time to observe a huge flower that had large pinkish purple leaves and in its center, what looked like small turquoise feelers that moved on their own. The feelers also seemed to sense her presence and were now moving in her direction. Y/N knelt on the ground and the first thought that crossed her mind was to reach out to the plant. The small antennae-like formations immediately wrapped themselves around her hand. It tickled and she began to giggle. She was mesmerized again, for what she had heard from Norm, there were no such plants on earth that seemed to have a mind of their own. She pulled her hand back to herself and reached directly into her satchel and pulled out a small black notebook in which she entered all of her new discoveries. It was a birthday present from Max for her last birthday.

As if in her own world, she didn't even notice that the others had already run ahead and were almost out of sight. Spider and Lo'ak had already reached the end of the forest and the cliffs where the roots grew that served as a connection to the mountains. Only Neteyam noticed that one person from the small group was missing. He stopped abruptly when he noticed this and turned in all directions to catch sight of the small human somewhere. When he saw the bordeaux shirt among the flowers, he immediately knew what was going on. Y/N had once again been distracted by her curiosity. He walked back a little bit. She didn't notice him until his huge shadow fell in over her. "Why did I know I'd probably find you here?" he said, crossing his arms over his chest. She turned to face him, squinting her eyes as the sun blinded her. "You know me all too well, don't you? You can go on back to the others. I'll be done here in a minute, you don't have to wait."

The young Na'vi refused to be talked into it, because after all, Y/N was important to him, and besides, his father would skin him alive if he didn't bring her back to Norm. Nete knew she was a strong fighter for a human, but still she is a human and weaker and smaller than most animals in the woods. And if he is honest with himself, he is in a way interested in what she wrote down in her little book and what else she had to say about her new discovery. He liked to watch her eyes grow and sparkle when she learned something new or when he and his siblings told her a story.

And her smile, which always danced on her lips, was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Even more breathtaking than the sky mountains, even more beautiful than the luminous plants at night, and even more enchanting than Vitraya Ramunong, the tree of souls he had once seen at a ceremony.

Sometimes he wondered if she found him as fascinating. He was, after all, a Na'vi, an inhabitant of Pandora. Exactly what she loved to learn about. Moreover, she also saw him as his own person. Not, like all the others as Neteyam, the son of the great Toruk Makto, the next Olo'eyktan of the Omatikaya, the oldest Sully boy, the great warrior who killed a sturmbeest with one shot during his first great hunt. No, she saw in him the loyal, cautious and thoughtful young man who always put his own feelings and needs second, preferring to take care of his family. Not like his father, who saw him as a soldier, as the golden, perfect son. The way Jake wanted him to be. She was the first person to ask him how he was doing when he was having a bad day and if he wanted to talk about it. She was always so accommodating to him. He didn't know why such a wonderful person would bother to make time for him. Y/N was a perfect creature in his eyes. How could anyone not like her? When he laid in his bed at night, he thanked Eywa over and over again for letting him get to know her. And when he thought about her in his sleepless nights, sometimes the thought crossed his mind if he liked her more than just a friend. But he always banished this thought quickly. Y/N was not a Na'vi like him and he was not human, that would never be a good match. Spider was a human, her and him would fit together perfectly.

His own thought alone made him angry, almost jealous. Just like now, when he was just thinking about it again. His face contorted and he furrowed his eyebrows. Only Y/N's voice and her waving hand in front of his body pulled him out of his imaginations. "What's the matter with you? Is everything okay?" There it was again. The little questions about how he was doing. He just shook his head to get out of the trance and reached out his hand to help her up.

"Come on, let's go," he replied as the human girl pulled herself together. She didn't understand why he suddenly radiated such a strange aura. Just a few seconds before everything was fine and now he was acting like he was possessed by something. Y/N thought that maybe he was just annoyed, after all he had surely imagined his day differently. Neteyam walked with long steps in front of Y/N, so that she could hardly follow and had to walk three steps faster to keep up. Arriving at the roots, they continued on their way. While Miles and Lo'ak jumped like small children from root to root and hardly paid attention to the fact that they could possibly fall several miles into the depth or into their death.

Y/N, on the other hand, hesitated for a moment to even set foot on the moss-covered root. Maybe it was not such a good idea to come along. Would it have been better to stay with the clan? And rather to help Kiri with whatever she was doing? What would happen if she slipped? She would hardly survive it and dying was clearly not an option for her at her young age. Y/N didn't know what else to think, but a big hand on her shoulder grounded her back into the here and now.

"I'm going to stay behind you. You don't have to be afraid. Go real slow" Nete reassured her. "Thank you, thank you for alwasy helping me" Y/N cheeks were blushing now too just like Neteyam earlier when they hugged. The Na'vi in front of her interpreted this as just a sign of nervousness and excitement, it was her first time balancing at such a height without a ground under her. Slowly but surely she put her foot down. She took few steps and quickly realized that she didn't need to be afraid. The moss was relatively dry, as it hadn't rained in days. In addition, the wooden root seemed larger than she first thought.

She turned to her friend and smiled at him. "It's not as bad as I thought!" The other two boys stopped from a distance and called over. " Come on, now. The Ikrans are already waiting for us!" Neteyam walked right behind her, for once taking small steps to make sure she put one foot in front of the other safely. He was sure that she would make it without him, but the red discoloration on her face and the beads of sweat that slowly formed under her mask made him kinda worry.

Arrived at the mountains now began another hurdle. The climbing. She was not a newcomer to the subject but the path just now had already taken some of her strength. Lo'ak and his big brother jumped up with ease and grabbed hold of the stone outcroppings. Miles was still waiting below with Y/N. "Come on I'll help you up" he said, crouching down and carefully stretching his arms out in front of him with his hands on top of each other. He helped her with the robber ladder to get a good head start. She put her foot in his hand and with momentum Miles went up from his knees and Y/N grabbed hold of the nearest rock.

Finally reaching the top, the small group was already a little out of breath. This didn't last long because the Irkans started to screech when they noticed the presence in their territory. Y/N was startled, it was not new for her to see Ikrans up close, but so many at once and then in their territory? That was a little scary at first. She didn't know how they would react if she kept moving, but as she looked to her foster brother who kept walking in a crouched state, Y/N did too. If Miles didn't need to be afraid as a human, neither did she. Rising to her feet, she only now noticed the remarkable view.

It was a totally different perspective of Pandora. From here, you could see the whole planet. You could even see one end of the forest and the beginning of the sea. It was simply breathtaking and she regretted not taking her camera with her. The Ikrans themselves were a stunning view from up close. It was colorful and noisy. A completely different world.

The two brothers called for their Ikrans with a very specific call that has been used by the natives for centuries. The brightly colored animals flew towards them at full speed, slowing down only when their claws began to touch the ground. Lo'ak was the first to walk up to his Ikran and stroke it over its head. He connected with his braid to the Ikran and straddled it. Spider followed as the boy with the shorter braids extended his hand to him. Neteyam followed next and greeted it as well with a touch to its neck. Then he mounted his beastly companion and petted him one more time.

Y/N followed him and climbed on the huge winged creature. They flew over the vast expanses of nature for some time until an a tiny building could be spotted from far away. It was an old camp of the Sky People, which had already fallen down over the years and due to the war. The group landed and immediately jumped off to explore the area. Miles and Y/N now saw another extent of the greed and destruction of their own species. The young woman's stomach churned at the sight and she felt like she was about to throw up. She could never have imagined what this place must have looked like a decade ago. She was ashamed of her kind. Was it so hard not to destroy what was not theirs? Couldn't they have approached the matter more diplomatically? Most of all, she felt sorry for the natives - what terrible things they had to endure. They lived here in peace and then came the horrors in spaceships. A tear ran down her cheek at the thought.

`Teyam went into the old shattered metal building first, through a broken window, to make sure there were no dangers inside. He then burst open the door from the inside and let the three others in. Lo'ak and the human boy were intrigued in the things left here. In the building there were still old plans left by the humans, strategically showing how it was simplest to drive out the natives and cut down the forests to get to the precious goods under the soil. Theses things were probably lying around there just as they had been 15 years ago. The older Na'vi was not interested in that, so he stood at the door and watched the scenery in front of him. Y/N only got worse the rest of the time. She felt the pure pain. The pain of the fallen and breathing even under the mask was difficult for her. "I-I have to get out of here," she said in an irritated tone and sped forward to the entrance. Miles turned to her and looked at her with a confused look, but she didn't notice and continued to run outside. Nete watched her come out of the building. "Are you all right?" He raised his hand to try to touch her, but she just turned away from him. "Yeah yeah, I just need to get out of here for a minute, this is all too much for me."

He noticed that she didn't let herself be diverted from her plans, and he let her off on her own. "Don't run so far away, though, will you? We don't know if there are any dangerous animals around.“ Her head went on autopilot and she ran and ran and ran. Y/N didn't even pay attention to how far away she was from the abandoned camp. She decided to stop after another two minutes of running. She put her hands together behind her head and let out a long tearful sigh. She couldn't believe it. She didn't want to believe it. She wanted to deny it, but the evidence was right in front of her. It was just like the stories Norm and Jake told her, but personally seeing the aftermath only made the tales worse. When she came back down, she decided to go back, but something was different. She didn't even know exactly where she was at first. She just went into the depths of the forest without paying attention to anything.

And then there was this loud cracking sound. Her whole body froze. She hoped it was just the others checking on her. But her hope was quickly shattered when she saw that it was not her friends, but a large black creature. A thanator. One of the most dangerous predators in the Pandoran wilderness. She wanted to scream, but couldn't and her body decided to flee. Y/N started running through the embankment, over rocks and roots sticking out of the ground. Fortunately, she did not fall, so she only ran faster. As far as her feet could carry her. In her life-and-death run, she spotted a hollowed-out tree trunk that offered a possible hiding place. She changed direction and ran to it, crawling into one of the openings.

Her heart was beating like crazy in her chest. Supposedly safe in her hiding place, she tried to catch her breath and regulate it so she wouldn't give herself away to the Predator. She heard the loud footsteps circling her and prayed to Eywa to spare her, but it was probably too late for that. She clearly should have stayed home.

The footsteps grew quieter to the point where they could no longer be heard at all. Y/N thought the thanator had lost her trail and was now looking for a new victim. But this was not the case, as she thought the area was clear, she crawled to the opening and stuck her head out to make sure. Suddenly a claw came at her from above with and almost caught her. In the last second she could pull her head back. Now she was trapped. No one else was near her and calling for help would probably only make the animal more aggressive. The claw now struck another time and broke through the tree trunk. Splinters fell in all directions and Y/N didn't know what to do. She had to look death in the eye. On all fours she now scrambled in the other direction to escape as fast as possible. Just when she managed to flee from her prison and was standing on her two feet again, the thanator lunged again and caught her with its claws on her back. She cried out loudly in pain and fell to the ground with a jolt. Something in her body, in her head, however, told her that it wasn't time to give up yet. Despite the pain and the blood running down her back, she ran. The most important thing was to get out of here.

She ran, hoping to arrive at the old base. After some time, she spotted the building and screamed for her life. Neteyam saw Y/N sprinting in his direction and the next thing he noticed was a Thanator chasing her. "Inside, Nete run inside and hide!" she screamed one more time. As she crossed the threshold, her legs gave way as well and she crawled under a table with the others. Neteyam quickly locked the door, but forgot about the broken window through which he entered in the first place. The thanator struggled to squeeze through the pane and cut themself several times on the sharp shards of glass. This did not stop it from trying further, however. "You're hurt," Lo'ak stated, touching the fresh wound on Y/N's back. She hissed in pain and he quickly withdrew his hand. Neteyam in the meantime had drawn his bow from his back and did the only thing he could think of at the moment. He reached for an arrow from his quiver and aimed with precision at the head of the beast. Since the first arrow alone didn't reach through the animal's thick skull, he tried another time and, with a hiss and flattened ears, this time aimed for the neck. With a swing, he pulled the arrow back and let it go. This time he had managed to successfully eliminate the danger. The black beast slumped in on itself and then hung motionless between the window. Neteyam breathed heavily, adrenaline surged through his veins and his facial expression settled down. His ears perked up when he heard Y/N's painful whimpering.

He rushed towards her and crouched down on eyelevel. She was sweating heavily and cried. "What happened?" `Teyam could only ask. Miles had panicked himself and was already imagining the telling off he would receive when they got back home. "I-I just wanted to get out of here for a minute b-because everything was getting to be too much for me a-and then all of a sudden this thing came. I tried to hide, but it didn't work, and then-n I was attacked," she let out through her tears, clinging to Neteyam. He wanted to hug her tightly, but the wound prevented him from doing so. "I told you it was a stupid idea to come here, Lo'ak."

"How could I have known that a thanator would show up here and attack us?"

"Dad, told you this area was off limits. Can't you listen for once?"

"That's as much your fault as it is mine and Miles. You could have tried to stop us from coming here or at least stopped Y/N from running away."

Both brothers started arguing and it looked like it wouldn't stop for a long time. Spider interrupted them both worried about his foster sister. " I don't give a shit who's to blame for this whole thing right now. Y/N is hurt and needs help right now. Get over yourselves, you two thick heads." Neteyam turned away from his younger brother with a snarl and shook his head. He took the still crying Y/N into his arms and tried to calm her down. "It's okay, it's going to be okay. We'll take you to my grandmother Mo'at now and I'm sure she'll help you. I promise."

"I just want to go home, `Teyam" she replied, stroking his cheek. They did not hesitate to immediately make their way to the Ikrans. The older Na'vi first put Y/N on and then connected himself. The Ikran took off with a screech and they went on their way home, as he had promised her.

[blouisparadise]

Today we have the fifth part of our short fic rec list! All of the fics on this list are a nice quick read that is less than 10k. If you missed the other parts to this rec list, you can find part one here, part two here, part three here, and part four here. Happy reading!

1) Shut Your Mouth, Baby | Explicit | 3,028 words

While fooling around in a closet at a New Year’s Eve party, Louis can’t seem to keep quiet. All he needs to do is hold off until midnight, when Harry will finally uncover his mouth and let him come at full volume.

2) Heaven In These Sheets | Explicit | 3,557 words

Bunny Hybrid Louis has it out for his boyfriend’s phone.

3) Tide’s Deathless Death | Explicit | 4,350 words

The Red Serpent gleamed in all of her marvellous glory from where she was anchored a meagre few miles away from the land. Her flag waving proudly in the afternoon sun. The image was certainly memorable, of the flag, that is; a serpent coiled viciously around a human heart, fangs sunken into the organ and blood oozing from the very spot. If not for the ship herself, the flag had its own repute of conveying the message that the captain was not to be trifled with. There was no single man who had survived after taking up arms against the captain. Well, there was one man, but including him amongst the hoard of common faces would be a foolishness on the feared-by-all captain’s part. That man currently stood silently staring after the captain, palm curled around the handle of his blade, and teeth clenched in anger. He was certainly going to relieve all the navies of their plight by taking down the captain. At least then, in his relatively newfound life of piracy, he would have done one good deed.

4) Always Tell The Truth | Not Rated | 5,027 words

Harry is Louis’ dentist and getting a wisdom tooth removed shouldn’t be the end of the world.

5) I Knew It From The Start | Explicit | 5,233 words

Louis starts calling Harry ‘daddy’. Consequently, Harry discovers that he has a daddy kink.

6) Spaces Between Us, Hold All Our Secrets | Not Rated | 6,441 words

The thing about Harry is, is that he is the most wonderful guy you´ll ever meet. He is kind, compliments you on things you are usually insecure about, which shows he truly pays attention to who you are as a person. And he befriends everyone. Except Louis.

7) Outline Of My Sins | Explicit | 6,551 words

Prompt 453: AU where alpha Harry is an art student who is taking a figure drawing class and omega Louis is the nude model. In the many years that Harry has taken art classes, he has never been more hot and bothered than now, having to stare at a beautiful nude omega model for hours.

8) Shouldn’t Cry (But I Love It) | Explicit | 6,586 words

They're roommates. They're quarantined. There's a small problem coming up.

9) Your Name Is Tattooed To The Bottom Of My Heart | Explicit | 6,613 words

Prompt 114: a PWP where Louis gets an arse tattoo with Harry’s name for his birthday.

10) Leave Like The Summer Breeze | Explicit | 6,551 words

When Louis and Zayn are stranded in Alabama, a farmer offers them shelter. He just asks for one thing in return.

11) Smile for the Camera for It Knows Everything, Hollywood Star| Mature | 6,676 words

Prompt 132- The story of Nancy Reagan being called the blowjob queen of Hollywood but it’s Louis.

12) The Writing On the Wall | Explicit | 6,705 words

When BookToker Louis receives a gift basket filled with all his favorite sweets, wines, and stuffed animals alongside the new Harry Styles book, he’s shocked at the story he finds in the pages.

13) Muffins & Cigarettes| Mature | 7,591 words

Louis pouts. “You can’t pout your way into this, Louis”, Harry said as he was fixing his tie, watch and rings glinting against the soft sunlight filtering through the window. “Of course, I can. Watch me.”

14) The Knothead Neighbor| Mature | 8,058 words

Prompt 3: Neighbors AU, preferably ABO! Harry works evenings/nights (maybe like a surgeon something that requires him to be gone for long hours) and has a cat. The cat has a little kitty door at the back so that it can explore and such. Louis just moved next door and the cat seems to always end up at his door. Eventually, Louis lets the cat in, as he’s new and he’s feeling quite lonely. They become fast friends, so much so that the cat prefers to stay with Louis rather than go home. Harry gets concerned that the cat starts to stay out all day/night so he eventually leaves a note attached to the cat’s collar with its name and phone number. Louis texts him telling him he’s his neighbor and not to worry, the cat just likes to hang with him as it might be lonely. Harry gets pissed that this stranger is stealing his cat so he goes to confront Louis and tell him to stop stealing his cat. Of course, as soon as he sees Louis, he falls in love with him and the rest is history. (If ABO could be cute that both Harry and Louis like to cuddle with the cat because it holds the other’s scent)

15) Kiss It Better | Explicit | 8,080 words

Harry shakes his head with a light laugh and leans down to kiss him again which Louis happily accepts even if he is a little confused by the reaction. "Baby, not a night has gone by that I haven't thought about you in my bed, naked, and begging for my cock." Blinking up at him with wide eyes, Louis opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out. While they did flirt a lot over the last few weeks, Harry had never said anything like that. It shocks him as much as it turns him on. "News to me." "I won't lie and say I like random hookups or casual sex, but to me this isn't what that is." Louis swallows thickly, unsure of what to say to that but once again Harry gives him an out. "So, If you want we can stay up here and I can show you all the things I've thought about doing to you." Another kiss, quick and sweet. "Or, we can go back downstairs and we'll dance all night."

16) Could Start A Cult | Explicit | 8,750 words

He lowers down the top that Louis is wearing, successfully unclasping his nursing bra as well, letting Louis’ tits bounce at the sudden movement. Harry massages both breasts to stimulate the milk flow, and he can feel his cock hardening inside his pants.

17) Should Be, Meant To Be | Explicit | 9,174 words

Prompt #65: Louis signs up for a Sugar Daddy dating website on a drunken dare. He forgets for a while, until one night he gets a notification for a message request from none other than his really hot (really rich) boss, Harry Styles.

18) Into It | Explicit | 9,197 words

Louis meets Harry. They hit it off.

19) Something To Prove | Explicit | 9,425 words

Louis is the first and only omega to work at Red Valley Medical Center. Despite being more than qualified, he still faces prejudice for his career choice everyday. From patients refusing his treatment to condescending alpha doctors intervening with his work, practicing medicine in Boston is more challenging than Louis had ever thought it would be.

20) Sugar Water | Explicit | 9,454 words

When his most familiar begins to feel all too unfamiliar, Harry finds out what it means to love like real people do.

21) Hook You Up (Charm You Down) | Explicit | 9,600 words

Swiftly, Harry raises his right hand to his head. Bringing two ringed fingers up, he touches the brown hat sitting on his head, tipping it with a raise of eyebrows in the direction of Peter Pan. He punctuates the whole action with his signature smirk. The reaction is almost immediate. Like Harry hoped it’d be. Though he expected the grin he received, he can’t say he directly expected the man to come forward his way. But he surely isn’t going to complain. “Captain! Fancy seeing you there,” Peter Pan says when he reaches Harry’s space. And wow. Seeing it from up close, Niall was right. Face of an angel, totally Harry’s type and all that. 

22) Poppies In May | Mature | 9,603 words

And maybe he deserves it, Louis thinks bitterly. His hand curls around the fence tightly, and he feels like if he lets go he’ll slid onto the cold ground and never fucking get up again. Maybe standing here, staring at Harry’s hunched over, retreating back is what he deserves.

23) Wanna Do Nothing With You | Explicit | 9,606 words

The accident happens in the stupidest way possible. One minute Louis is demonstrating a skateboard trick he’d just learned for Lottie, the next he’s waking up in a hospital. He’s told that he wasn’t unconscious the entire ride, but he has absolutely no recollection of it. One second he’s fucking around in his own garden and the next he’s being assaulted with the strong sterile scent of a hospital. So. There’s that.

24) Hello, My Name is Louis | Explicit | 9,686 words

Louis hurried to hang up the phone and take off his headset, throwing it away as if it was burning hot. He hugged himself by the shoulders and hid his face in his knees, sitting in his desk chair like a swimmer ready to dip into a pool, a pool of embarrassment. Not many people got past "Hello, my name is… " and even fewer engaged in a full conversation with him. And if they did, it usually went better than this.

25) Got It Right Such A Long Time Ago | Explicit | 9,699 words

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users.

There are a lot of people Harry might expect to find on his doorstep at three o’clock in the afternoon these days. It could be the delivery man, come to drop off the pair of boots Harry impulsively ordered online last week. It could be one of his neighbors, dropping by to complain about how a party he’d thrown weeks ago had clogged up the street. It could also be any number of his friends in L.A., who stop by unannounced most days to mooch off Harry’s food or whisk him away to try some new yogurt shop.    As a rule, it definitely cannot be Louis Tomlinson, although Harry’s blinked at least three times now, and it’s still Louis standing there, a backpack slung over his shoulder and a duffel bag at his feet.

Check out our other fic rec lists by category here and by title here.

[aphroditesmoon]

♡-;meadowlarks (I)

gwen stacy x fem!spidergirl!queen!reader (medievel au)

summary: when miguel accidentally sends gwen into a medievel timeline instead of her own after revoking her watch privileges, she sees it as a curse, but you, currently facing multiple challenges after the death of your father, the king, and the escape of a wild beast, finds that you'd appreciate the help.

warnings: hurt/comtort ,fluff, typical medieval sexism, trauma, kissing/makeout(INCOMING CHAPTERS), gore, grief, hesitant partners to friends to lovers, reader has fire powers, tiny bit internal homophobia, reader needs a nap, reader is touch starved, death, mutilation, witchcraft.

taglist; @kamaluhkhan @rissslays-parttwo @marytargaryen @darkstreaks @gwenisasilly @asher-kaden @macncheesemonster @miikshook @marianeski @reeags @goosetheluce @4cepink @yuennie

@primaviva

wordcount; 6.5k

a/n: testing out the waters w this one! 100 notes and I'll do a part 2 <33

▪︎ “AS THE WINTER TURNS THE MEADOW BROWN, YOU GO WHEREVER YOU GO TODAY” ▪︎

°°°°°

THERE ARE THREE thing anyone who’s lived in Old York Meadowlarks for at least a year would notice. The first, is that there had not been any Meadowlarks for nearly two centuries. The specific bird had been declared extinct. The second thing is that it never snows here. There are colder seasons sure, seasons where the winds could freeze you. But no one existing in the realm knew what snow even was. And finally, the third one is, there are no beasts in Meadowlarks.

The people survived through their fair share of thieves and criminals, and wild animals too. But monstrous beasts had remained a folklore. Bedtime stories to scare the children into doing their chores and stay off the woods past 8 O’clock.

And yet, here you are. Not a week after your father’s death, his only heir, now queen, and of course, the secret but very much known Lady Spider, standing inside a layered forest, currently covered in thick white flakes and ice-cold snow , meeting your fate against a minotaur.

Unlike the folktales, this minotaur doesn’t speak. He only growls and chases you to your death with incredible speed. “What the fuck?” was the only thing you’ve been asking yourself for the past 8 hours. You’ve caught mutants before, deformed humans, a consequence of their own black magic curse, but nothing completely inhuman as such.

What’s next? A unicorn?

The beast claws at the tree you’re currently hanging on, climbing up quickly despite his heavy weight, forcing you to latch on other trees faster. It wasn’t that you were incompetent, but merely confused. You wonder if you’ll just swing yourself at him if you tried to fight one on one. You weren’t taking the risk. Making sure he stayed chasing you, the path you were leading him on was into a bear trap. Something to keep him still for a while. Your fingers ache as they clench and unclench with your jumping from tree to tree.

Bold and dim as you expected the beast followed and fell into the hole with a roar, the net set immediately tying themselves around him. “Silly bull, should’ve stayed on all fours.” You muttered to yourself. It grumbles incoherently. Not a second of peace after, peasants from the further parts of the wood scrambles to view the dangerous state you were in. The bear trap being set off, including the terrible sounds the minotaur made, had called for attention. “Armageddon is coming!” An older woman shouted, shielding her son. The crowd makes a circle around you and the monster. Clutching their crosses in fear yet remaining like they're enjoying a circus show.

“Please, everyone. Unless you’d like it eat you first once it breaks free, run.” You yelled out, only gathering more people in. “Gods above, help me.” The minotaur growls again, tearing itself through the net. The people flinched and took steps backwards as the beast tosses and turned. “Move away or get burned.” You shouted, warning them for no less than a minute before blasting fire towards it. Smoke flew all around you as the children and their parents screamed while running off. That’ll do it, you thought as the air began to clear.

But gods no, the unconscious beast jolted, and your heart dropped. It’s fur and skin were already burnt off, but it’s still moving. You swung yourself on a tree above it, sword sliding off your hips into your hands. You hesitated at first, but once the creature’s eyes snapped open, You jumped. Your sword pushed through its right eyeball, earning a screech from it as blood flowed out from the now empty socket.

You pull your sword back out and flung your webs around him, tightening the trap.

The monster clawed at you then, from his restraints. The aggressiveness making you flinch and drop your sword to the ground. “Fuck.”  Its arm stretches out against your web, and shoved you hardly off the net. Your balance fails and you a screamed a rare scream as gravity wins. Flinging your arms around, you panic when you found no stable source to swing yourself on. As quick as a flash, your heart lept when instead of banging your head on hard and now apparently cold snow, You’re swung hard to your left, making you scream louder before your hands make quick to wrap themselves around the body that just saved you.

“I’d love to just be fighting minotaurs all day, we don’t have that much in New york.” It was a girl.

And that wasn’t the most bizarre fact. She was wearing an apparel like no other, and she was swinging with you attached to her like a monkey, the same way you could. “Oh my god this is a dream.” It had to be. You must be hallucinating. The priests had told you it could happen. Grieve often leads to hysterics, especially for women.

But what the church and council didn’t know, is that you do not grieve your father or the man that he was. The man he could’ve been, maybe. But that was a different story.

You feel the wind howl harsher, the cold feels like a bitter sting at your skin. "This is not a dream, unfortunately for us both.” The girl spoke before she loosen her grip for you to swing yourself again. “This doesn’t make sense. Who are you?” You countered. Too many questions to ask. “I’m spider-girl, like you.” She answers simply, retangling the creature. “You’ve got any idea how to fix this?" Rationalizing enough remaining stabilty, you nodded. “Yeah.” You let her try to maintain the grip while you snatch your sword back up and move towards it, aim sharp.

 “Back down.” You warned before slicing it through it’s neck, cutting off the minotaur’s head.

You land on your feet the same time the head falls. Your toes are freezing as it steps on the ground. The blood from the bull's decapitated head spreads all over the snow. It's body still inside the worn out net. That is a problem for the townsfolk to handle today.

The girl lands behind you, footsteps gentle when she moves. “A sword, pretty cool. Pretty heavy too huh?” You turn around to meet her. She wears a skin fitting white suit with a hood over her head, the type of clothing that would’ve had her burned as a witch a few hundred years ago. “If you’re not careful with your next words, you’ll feel just how heavy.”

She backtracks immediately, putting her hands up in defense. “Woah-hey, I just helped you kill that thing.” She reasons with you, hesitating to come closer. “That thing, came out of nowhere, and so do you. For the past 5 years, I’ve been the only Lady-spider here, how do I know that everything going on has nothing to do with you?”

 You were fiercer than usual, maybe. But you would take no chances with the amounts of passings and tragedies your kingdom has gone through this past week. “Lady-Spider? That sounds old, no offense.” You frowned. “Look around, you’re in Old York!” Her shoulder drops. “Oh, yeah. That makes sense.” You realized then that she’s probably not a threat to you. But it does not mean she’s not the cause of all this.

Sighing tiredly, you cracked your knuckles and rubbed them together to ease the sharp winter it’s feeling. “Why are you here?” You demanded again as you begin to walk back out the forests, eyes tracking the dead beast's footprints againts the snow, now beginning to fade. Following from behind, You hear her talk distantly. “I’m…from a different universe. I wish I could give a better explanation, but that’s it. There’s a whole spider society of other spidermen like us in other universes, and I kind of accidentally got thrown here.” You stop in your tracks, turning to her again.

“Other Spidermen?” She nods. “So, you’re me?’ Her eyes widen through her mask as she shakes her head. “Oh no, not at all. I mean sometimes there’s a version of you somewhere else that is also Spiderman, but I’m pretty sure you’re not me.” You take a moment staring at her, trying to process the most insane thing to happen today.

“Take off your mask?” She cocks her head. “Take off your mask, and tell me your name. Only then I’ll believe you.” She scoffs at your words. “I don’t owe you anything, and what would I need you trust for anyways?” It was your turn to be amused now, smiling under your mask. “There is nowhere in this place you could roam freely, without my permission. And no, I’m not exaggerating.” You notice her hesitancy and waited for an answer. “My name is Gwen. Gwen Stacy.”

She would not take her mask off yet, but so far, her name would do. Giving the sky a quick glance, the sun burns a bright reminder for lunch. You wondered how much chastise you’d get from Alistair. “You’re coming with me, Gwen.”

^^^

You had made sure you’d be left alone after your coronation for grieving’s cause. The ceremony was a gloomy one for both you and the council. Dislike was etched all over their faces as the crown was fitted on your head. A 17 year old girl was not their idea of a good ruler. But everyone who knew the game of politics would also know well that the worst kind of law breakers are the ones who made the laws in the first place. They'd rather a corrupt man for their own advantages than a queen of peace.

Slinging back into your room with Gwen, you decided that grieve had to wait, for the worst part of all this was yet to come. She takes a seat on the edge of your purple sheeted king bed, eyes roaming around the rest of the large bedroom. Soon, you noticed how she focuses on the large painting of your late mother. Your hand instinctively went the long necklace with a single pearl on your neck that she had worn for the painting. “Maybe, this is your canon event.” You hear Gwen suggest as you change into a black dress with silver lines drawn by the waist. Your hood and leather jacket is tossed into your closet after you stuck your mask under a drawer.

Giving yourself a glance at the mirror, running your fingers through your dishevelled hair and hoping everyone else would excuse the red rims under your eyes for a state of mourning.

“Your father died, and not a week after, things you claimed to be impossible here, happened.” You trusted her words easily, though the terrible anxiety you’re feeling in the pit of your stomach worsens with the thought of something even worse was to come.

“Maybe you’re right. But that would still mean that there’s a cause for all of this, a starting point.” You could feel her stare as you fix your hair. Her existence was both nerve-wrecking and comforting. To play two roles in one life, is the kind of tiring not every person could understand. “So, are you like, a princess?” She asks finally. “Was” You clarified. “Oh…wait-“

You cut her off impatiently. “I’ve been queen for less than a week, and the worst weather phenomenon just happened, a non-existent mythical appeared, and there’s two spider women. Do you realize just how bad that looks for me, in the eyes of the people, the council?” You challenged brazenly, hands holding your waist as you stared at her. Gwen turns silent again, though her eyes held the same old sympathy that you hated.

“If…” You began, eyes moving from her back to the floor again. She raises a brow. “If I dared to ask for your help..” Her gaze brightens in understanding as she fiddles her fingers. “I would help you. At least until I figure out how to leave here.” Your body relaxes at that, finally seeing the shape of your plan. “I need you to pretend to be me.”

“What?” her voice was incredulous. “If I am to fix this situation, then I’ll need to be both the queen, and Lady-spider, which is impossible. So, I’ll need you to be me.” Gwen stared at you in confusion, “And what exactly will you and Lady-spider be up to?”

“That, will be explained in the meeting.”

The meeting was set that afternoon. The letter was sent the morning you woke up. An emergency meeting with the councils of the state from all over Old York. The men were easy to read. They had attended the meeting with the expectation of the queen’s begging for help and guidance. But you’ve already seen more than you should at a young age to consider yourself a lamb given to the slaughter. You could hear them from behind the doors before you entered.

She’s 17, and unmarried. What will the kingdom be with a child as a queen?

Her ruling is already cursed, It’s a fucking blizzard out there. Have you seen anything so white and cold?

 A minotaur was killed by Lady-spider this morning. I would’ve thought it a lie if Jim himself didn’t see it with his own two eyes. A minotaur! What insanity-

The door pushes open with a loud creak as your guard, Alistair, announces your present loudly, stealing away the mayor and minister's attention from their gossiping. The room is silenced as they move to stand in honor of your entrance. Taking your seat at the end of the table, you meet their false smiles with your own. "Please, sit." 7 men are sat around the long table while a thick white candle is lits in the middle of it with the carvings of ’WITH GREAT POWER, COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY.’ written.

Till this day, you refuse to read upon the lines with any devotion or loyalty. You had carried the responsibility since you were born. What has it done for you in return?

Ignoring the changing glances shared right in front of you, you intertwine your fingers together, placing your fists on the table.

“I apologize for the late notice, and I thank you for being able to attend.” You said, with a pretense of gratefulness. They nod their heads in a respectful manner. “As you all can see, dark days are upon us.” Murmurs of agreements spread around the dark room. “If I was superstitious, I’d call it god’s wrath. But the falling out of this kingdom is happening too strategically, too clean. I’m aware I might not have seen this kingdom in it’s worst a thousand years ago, but I’ve been quite lucky to live long enough to know that only black magic could be the answer to this.” The table becomes a dash of confused expressions along with agreeable ones. You notice how some of them have taken to leaning on their wooden chairs with irritable expressions.

There's one thing men do not like than being told what to do by a woman, is being told what to do by a little girl.

“Magic is powerful, but it would take a terrifying level of sorcery for one to be able to summon impossible weather, and, mythical creatures.” Lord Jameson interjects with a raised brow. You could hear the tapping of the heel of his shoes on the stone hard floor amidst the eerily quiet room. It was like a small sign of defiance. "How are you so sure in something that's not even fully investigated yet?" You slowly spin your head at him, a glare embedded in your expression. “-Your majesty,” He adds too slowly.

 ”Yes, well, a powerful witch, given our kingdom’s track record, is much more believable than one of the gods purposely turning your bulls into beasts. And i'm sure if the gods were to punish us for our sins, they would have done it ages ago, it's not like we've been angels these past few years." You responded, reminding him of his slave trading scandal that happened two years ago. Snickers were heard from the other seats.

Glances were exchanged at your words and his, a gist of hesitance and cowardice amongst other things. “Word from my men is that this drastic weather change first started in the east, where most of our plantations are done in. Half of this year’s profit from it is gone, ruined. The people there will eat nothing but last month’s stock, and hunt their own animals, if they’re even lucky to find any in this weather. But afterwards it all went down like dominoes, snow, everywhere. And yet, the minotaur was found here, in town, 2 casualties, only because Lady-spider was quick enough.”

Lord Haycinter acts as the first to actually ask the question you yourself have been. “And what’s the correlation of those two?” The secret glances and talking stops, and all eyes are on you.

“Significantly? Nothing. But if you pay attention, both the town here and in the city have one similarity, their massive population.”You give the old men a few seconds to understand what you mean, the light switch in their brains finally clicking.

“Whoever is causing this, is trying to cause a purge.”

••••

Hours passed after the meeting, you’ve found yourself soaking in the tub for at least an hour now. Your fingers were wrinkly and the water had turned lukewarm. The rose colored walls of the bathing room were bringing back old memories, memories you can’t afford to remember.

So, you closed your eyes and think of the white snow again, and the blood the minotaur had splattered when his head fell off.

Tomorrow a scout of your men, alongside you and Lady-spider will be heading east. Food stock would be divided before an investigation started running. Lord Haycinter and a few others had triedbto persuade you to stay in the castle, let them and the given guard handle the investigation. But you needed the people to see their queen strong and contributing. You needed them to know thate whether they liked you as their ruler or not, you would not abandon them. The good and the bad, they are all under your responsibility.

The last time a deformed beast was made, it was by a witch who managed to create an group of brain eaters, solely to end her rival family’s bloodline. Aethella, old, wicked and spiteful. A long time witch of Meadowlark. Those were the stories spread of her. But you had met her, right before she was executed in your father’s order. She looked 60 in age, white hair clashing with faded black, a single gold tooth that made her look demonic when you see the whole mix of the look.

What would you do if all 8 daughters of yours were murdered with their hearts ripped out and hair shaved off for another man’s magic spells and joke. For another man’s ego and amusement, she has asked you at the ripe age of 15. So she killed his sons back in return. A punishment he deserved, but your father never gave. And she brought them back as the living dead and made them feast off of their father’s living body until he too, ceased to exist.

“But she’s dead now.”

How many witches are there in this town anyways? None as powerful to turn animals into mythical beings.

 Your eyes are closed. The tiredness forcing it shut. What you would you would give to not have to carry the realm’s fate on your shoulders for a week. You flinch at a touch against your shoulder, slipping from unconsciousness to consciousness again. “Gwen.” You could tell. “You’ve been in here for 2 hours, I got worried.” Has it been 2 hours? It only felt like 1. Gwen kneels by the tub, palms remaining on your shoulder. You say nothing in response, too tired to speak. She wears one of your long dresses that you had given earlier. It was becoming of her, despite the clashing of the style with her odd hair.

Seeing how your knees buckle as you try to stand she slips an arm under yours and helped pull you out. Her eyes are trained on your neck until she could grab a hold of your robe and passed it to you. Tying it up in a ribbon, you give her a light push when she tries to help you into your bedroom, refusing it.  You revel in the comfort of your dimly lighted room and it’s warmth, the candle by your bedside as the only source of light for you to get dressed. Feeling Gwen near, you say nothing until she’s walked over to your side.

“We need to go over the plan.” You stated in a matter of factly tone. “Alright.” She agrees. “Tomorrow, before 9 possibly, we’ll ride to the east side of Old York, Fullmar. My people there are made of farmers, hunters, you get the gist."

"They’re the most independent of us. They live near the crops and mountains, so every year, their supply of food are always checked off first. But with the unexpected snow, a lot of the folks are not sure how to maintain healthy crops and plants, they’ve never gone through the extremes like this. So first things first, we’ll divide 10% of Meadowlark’s fruits and vegetables spring stock for them, and then afterwards, I’ll have half of my unit guards search the seaforest for any signs of wild animals or witchcraft.” Gwen listens carefully, her gaze never leaving yours as you continue to explain.

“I thought you said the beast thing only happened once this morning?” She asks in confusion. You shook yourself and gave her a sarcastic smile. “I thought so too."

Rubbing your hands on the back of your neck, you fought the urge to pass out. “An official letter was sent to me from the minister of Fullmar from three hours ago, who unfortunately could not attend today’s meeting, that apparently two girls who had gone missing 3 days ago have been found dead in the woods, their flesh chewed and bitten off.” Gwen grimaced, “fucking hell.” You pursed your lips tiredly. “You’ve got that right.”

You muster up the courage to sit on your own bed next to her, the soft cotton sheets calling you to sleep. Eyeing up Gwen as subtly as possible, you feel guilt crawling it’s way into your moral consciousness when you realized how tired she looked too. Her eyes were slightly red, as if she had been crying. You wondered if she noticed that you have too. “I’m going to figure out how to send you home.” You said aloud, making her laugh slightly. “That’ll be great,”

There was an unspoken bond made when the two of you met eachother. Something along the lines of, 'never actually mention your fathers, even though his name lies on the tip of your tongues.' She missed him, you could tell, despite her only mentioning him once that day.

You have not missed yours. In fact, you suffer in every second that you can't forget him.

“You mentioned something about a watch this morning, my Queensguard, Alistair is quite the technician. Perhaps he could help?” The blonde smiled sadly. And at that moment, all you wanted to do was wipe it off in any way you could.

“Thank you, but I don’t think your timeline’s technology are the same as Miguel’s or mine.” You hummed in understanding, deciding that you’d ask Alistair of it anyways. A sudden realization makes you jump as you quickly move to grab a pillow from your bed. “We should sleep. I forgot to tell you, you’ll be sleeping here for a while. I can’t risk the servant’s gossip of Spider-girl sleeping here, you can have the bed.”

Gwen makes a noise of disagreement, making you halt. “You do realize your bed is a bigger than an elephant, right? We could share, princess.” You feel your face physically heats up and frowned at her. “That is indecent, if we were to be seen even sitting on the same bed, the punishment is worse than tangling with a man.” Gwen’s eyes widen and her mouth hug open. “But that’s bullshit! What kind of man feeding patriarchy system is this?”

You shrug at the obviousness. “The kind that is a man feeding patrhiarchy.”  She tilts her head and accepts the answer after considering it for a few seconds. 

“Yes well, either way I’m not letting you sleep on the carpet. So we share, or I’ll sleep on the ground.” Her persistence was annoying. You can’t understand how she fails to see the problem in this. Women have been killed for far lesser sins. This was as if you’re asking to get tied to a stake. But her eyebags are deep and her back is hunched. So you put your pillows back down, and slipped under the covers next to her before turning the opposite side.

”You love your people.” She whispers out in the dark once you’ve blown off the candle. You could feel the slow rhythm of her breathing next to you.

“Someone has to. God knows my father and his father didn’t.” The both of you let the silence lingers between the space you make, concluding the conversations. “Goodnight.” She wishes, her voice caressed you like the soft winds that pushed through your lilac collored window curtains. “Goodnight."

You could feel sweat rolling down your forehead in an excruciatingly slow motion. The ice was beginning to melt as you ride to the east side with Gwen. The sun now had taken over in the case of extreme weathers. You fixed the shawl covering your head and face and presses your horse to move faster. It’s been at least an hour and a half since you started your journey. You made sure all royal sigils were hidden for now, not wanting to catch any unwanted attentions until the stock arrives.

Despite Alistair’s insistence on you riding in the royal carriage, you stuck through your horse, Merry anyways.

You decided to ride for an hour earlier than the food stock carriages to get some privacy with the investigation. And although you do not regret your choice, a 5 minute break in a carriage doesn’t sound that horrible now. The road was wet with melting ice and it stank of cow shit, but the fogginess from the cold had disappeared and the road seemed clearer. Gwen, who apparently has not rode on a horse for years, ended up behind you on Merry so you could save more time.

You could hear the amusing jokes the rest of the guards made about Lady Spider not knowing how to ride a horse and internally curses her for embarrassing your name.

Your loyal guard rides closer to you until he is side by side, and you could see him giving sideway glances to the girl behind you, judging her. He eyes her up and down. You raise a brow when he turns to you instead. “You know, I’ve been wondering since this morning when you announced that the infamous lone ranger Lady spider would join us, how did you two meet?” He asks, cocking his head at Gwen who’s currently holding onto your waist like her life depends on it as the horse gallops harder. “That’s none of your business, is it Ali?” He hums quietly, looking back on the path in front of me. “Forgive me for questioning you, your majesty. I just worry you trust easily.” You hear Gwen scoff as she sits up straighter. You would punch him in the face for saying those words, if you could. Being treated as a child by someone you trust was worse than being treated that way by a council of slagging, sexist old men.

“I know what I’m doing.” You silence him before giving your horse a light kick to move faster before it’s lunch time. 

Alistair was 5 years older than you. He was assigned to you as a personal guard since you were 12. He was more like a brother than a bodyguard. And seeing how most days, he would be the only one willing to risk the king’s rage to save your arse whenever you’d sneak out or disappear entirely to do your job as Lady spider, his worry and protectiveness was warranted. And yet, as much as cared for you, he was still older, stronger, and still a man. He could not understand you if he wanted to. He was not made as you were.  

Gwen eyes Alistair until he’s out of sight again, behind you. A glare embedded on her face. “Is he always like that?” You hummed positively. “He could use a smile and a less condescending tone.” She says sarcastically, making you smile.

“Don’t be offended, He’s like that with everyone I’m around. He’s just protective.” Gwen makes an ‘ooo’ sound and pushes you with more questions. “What, are you guys like, what’s the word?- Courting! Yes, see I know some slangs too. So are you guys courting?’ You were grateful that she’s behind you so she can’t see how wide your eyes are, hearing her question. “Heavens no.” You breathed out. “He’s like a brother to me, hell, I’ve once made him play tea party with me when I was 12.” Gwen laughs in surprise, eyes brightening. “Him? A tea party? What I would give to see that.” You hummed as an answer, trying to forget the insinuation she just made.

You were never comfortable with questions of courting or marriages. And it’s already terrible enough how much proposal letters you receive from many of the ministers and their sons, even the north King with already two wives had sent you a proposal. When it comes to marriage for politics, there was simply no one good enough or beneficial to help your kingdom so far. And in case of marriage for love, you just haven’t met any man you’re genuinely interested in.

The flat surface of the road was beginning to get bumpy, as are the short cut grass that’s mixing with overgrown weeds. If that wasn’t a sign that you have entered the borders of Fullmar, the broken and faded signboard that lays on the ground with the words ‘FUL M R’ is.

Your bend your neck and letting it stretch while you continue to ride on poor tired merry. “We’re here.” You tell Gwen who’s trying very hard not to fall asleep or fall of the horse. “Finally.” She mumbled back with a yawn. “Now, remember what I told you, no talking unless it’s completely necessary, no showing off your spider tricks, and no w-“ “No wandering off, yeah I got that.” She cuts you off in annoyance. “So do you guys talk like that all the time?” You frowned slowed down your horse. “Like what?”

“Like you’re in a Pride and Prejudice book?” You tilt your head up and try to remember a book with that title. “I don’t think I know what you’re talking about.” Gwen lets out a short laugh. “ Of course you son't."

You waited until the rest of the guards that came with you caught up. “what’s your call?” Alistair asked. “We’ll ride further east until we reach the seaforest, I’ll need at least two guard checking the waterfall area and the caves. Any prints of blood, any signs of hair or human body parts, you take it with you or you call me. Alistair, you search up the old church and the houses near there. Ask questions if necessary. Lady Spider, and the rest of you will be searching the rest of the forest with me.” A murmur of agreement and ‘yes, your majesties’ were said quickly before all 8 of you part ways as you’re told. You pull your horse into a left as you ride into the seaforest’s direction with 3 men behind you.

5 minutes more into riding, you finally reach the said forest. The seaforest was the most known forest of Old York, The trees there are a mix of greens and blue tints. It is known for growing rare fruits and plants mysteriously. Back during the age of witch burnings, is was rumoured that if you were to take anything without the forest’s permission, they would die before they could set foot outside the woods.

But you were sure that it was just an excuse to burn women who used the herbs they got for healing purposes from there without actual valid reasons. Still, you notice how your men quiver and flinch at any small noises of the birds and tree branches.

“Do not get cold feet now.” You attempt to motivate them weakly. “Oh wow, that’ll help them.” Gwen whispers as you help her off Merry after you. “Shut up.” The 5 of you spread ways, two of the guards headed to your right while the other one goes forward.

 You were quick to your left, checking the condition of the bushes and trees to see if the extreme weather had affected them. They hadn’t. “Well this is odd.” You said to yourself.

“What? What did you find?” Gwen asks, basically sprinting from your right. “Nothing. Everything is fine.” She makes a face of confusion. “Okay…?” You ignore her and move to call your men. The three guards came quick to the center. “So far, everything looks fine where you were, yeah?” you questioned them, receiving fast nods.

“And what about snow? Has any of you seen even a bit of melted snow or ice, even a hint of it? Water?” You can feel the tension filling the space between all five of you when you said that. “None…” One of them spoke, the others not disagreeing. “Alright then.” You sighed in frustration. “If all of you are sure there’s nothing, we head over to the waterfall. It's all too good to be true.” The dark skinned guard who spoke up earlier raises his hand to speak. “You don’t have to- just, you know what, just speak.”

“Oh, right, um. Well, we can’t really call it a clue that, everything, is normal, right?” He asks. You shrugged at that and pursed your lips. “Perhaps not, but the fact that the forest is too normal, while the whole realm was in a shitshow of a snowstorm yesterday, is in itself very odd, yes?” The men make a face, considering what you just said. “Uh, I guess?”

“Good. Now let’s see if the others are going through something just as weird.” You spare them no more explanation, walking off to Merry with Gwen to help her on the horse.

The ride was short as the waterfall area wasn’t that far and is still inside the seaforest. You keep a straight face despite your awe in the colorful grown trees. The leaves are almost turquoise and from a far, the whole forest, illuminated by the brightly shining sun, looked almost as blue as the waterfall.

The heat was starting to get to you, you wiped you’re your shawl across the beads of sweat on your hairline, feeling how warm your face is. “I don’t see any of them.” You stated out loud. “Wait let me-“ One of the guards gets off his horse and sprints closer to the caves near the waterfalls. “Tristen?” You heard him call out. But Tristen, hadn’t went alone, he had another one with him too.

“Who was the other one with Tristen?” You ask one of your own. “Fred.” You frowned and looked back. Fred was a shitty name, did not fit him at all.

You watch the guard, Emery, disappear into the cave in search of his friend. A few second later, he exits it alone. “I can’t find him, your honor!” He shouted. “It’s your majesty, dingus.” The guard next to you yell. “Oh.” You ignore their banter, heart sinking at Emery’s earlier words.

“What about Frank?” “Fred.” The guard corrects you in a whisper, “Fred! Yes, not even a sign of Fred?” You can see Emery tilting his head with his mouth hung open in confusion. “Who’s Fred?” Gwen chokes out a laugh, quickly hiding it with a loud cough. You groaned loudly, rubbing your face with your palms. Sweaty and annoyed, you called for Emery to come back before he too, disappears.

Gwen squeezes your shoulder once she realizes how worried you actually were. "Hey, I'm sure they're just with Alistair." You huffed. "I told them to be here, not with Alistair." She says nothing, eyeing you worriedly. "I hope for their sake, they are with him." You sighed out before you rode to the church.

•••••

They were not with Alistair. The concern he looked at you with when you yold him that you couldn't find them, haunts you still.

You made sure the stocks were divided quickly, asking your guard of the news spread around here of the forsests and homicide tragedy that recently occured.

"The twins, Alia and Ana, both had their organs taken off, and their hair shaved. It's textbook dark magic." He exclaimed. And you agreed with his words. Witchcraft wasn't hard to spot. it's the witch, that is. "Their skin looked like it was bitten and chewed off by dogs, beasts. And that's not the worst part." He speaks in a grave tone.

"Their corpes was hung for all to see." You felt a closh shiver running down your spine. Their blood is in your hand. As a rulerr, you've failed. And now your own guards goes missing. "The air here is haunted, Alistair." You had told him after the stock dividing was done.

"There is a stench so foul, only some could smell. And an ugliness only some can see behind the faux magical looks of the forest." And yet, many times have you been in Fullmar with your father, but this time, something sinizter hasve found it's home in the city. He knew what you meant, he felt it too. "We'll camp by the church tonight, alright? We'll wait for Tristen and Fred." He pulls you into an embrace, and you ket yourself relax slightly. Whatever was to happened, you're not leaving anyone behind.

The 6 of you make camp a bit further from the church in the woods, but not in the seaforest. You made sure the spot you chose was still near to the church and streets, in case of medical emergencies.

The moon was currently making it's appearance, in replacement to the sun. The men are talking amongst eachother as they finish their portion of porridge, a fire made in the middle of your circle.

Gwen watches as you stand still by a tree, gazing out at the empty darkness, searching. She places her finished bowl by her pack before slowly pushing herself up from her crossed legged position to walk towards you. She was worried for you. The way you held yourself and your position was respectable, but how yoy deny yourself personal satisfaction and joy is harmful.

You could drive yourself to madness. You cared for your people, too much, to the point where you thought that you'd do a much better job as a queen if you cared for yourself less.

You flinched when you feel her arm on your shoulder. Somehow missing the sound of her loud footsteps meeting the noisy sound of leaves crunching together. "Princess." Your cheeks warmed at the title despite the situation. "Are you trying to cause a scene, starving yourself like this?" She scolds softly, pulling you by your arm to turn around and face her. "I can't eat when I'm too worried." You defend yourself. She raises a brow before dragging you to the circle again.

You don't fight against her, knowing that she's right. You were punishing your body for the mistakes you didn't mean to make.

But it had been 9 hours since your two guards vanished. You wonder if you had sent them to their deaths.

Emery and Yusof is singing together, a soft melody on their tongue to fill the uncomfortable silence and elephant in the room. "I thought I was going to die." Emery serenades slowly, dragging the last word. "But you taught me how to fall, before you taught me anything at all." Both he and Yusof sang.

Gwen is nodding her head to their singinv as she scoops a spoon of your porridge. "Open up." She wiggles her brows as the soon moves in a wavy motion to your mouth. "No! You're not spoonfe-" The words die at the tip of your tongue when she shoves the spoon in your talking mouth, making you swallow it by force. She grins proudly at her victory, making it hard for you to be angry at her.

You glare at her as she continues to feed you a few more times, enjoying the act of embarassing you. The group of 4 men are gently clapping their hands now, making a beat of their song. "I'll take first watch." Alistair announced. "Emery can take after me." The younger whined at that, earning a slap on his shaved head.

He meets your eyes momentarily before looking away at the same emptiness you had just gazed upon before. They're not coming.

Your eyes shut closebin frustration and painful acceptance. Gwens fingers finds yours, intertwining your cold hands and her warm ones together as she leans closer to you. "It's not your fault." She whispers in your ear. You open your eyes to stare back at her, your back against a tree. "They went there on my order." You replied, evidently.

"You didn't know what would happened, no one did." Her gand tightens on yours. "Gwen." You called out tiredly, fighting the urge to cry. "Yes?" She leans her head on your shoulder, her breathing hot in the crook of your neck. "Don't let go, please." She squeezes your fingers. "I won't."

You notice just how blue her eyes are when she's sitting this close to you. And so you fell asleep with her eye color as the last thing you thought off.

You weren't sure how long you had slept for. But when you awoke, it was still dark. You were shaken by the cold wind, jolting you up. Gwen was stuck to your arm, your fingers still intertwined.

She snores slightly, mouth slightly open whem she's dozing off into a dream. You let yourself smile at the girl clinging onto you. Out of all the things you've done wrong, trusting her hasn't been one yet, so far.

Your daydream was shooked away when a sudden sound or rusting leaves makes you flinch. You turn to your front, seeing none other than Alistair. He has his back towarfdyou as he's staring far up front. "Ali?" You called.

He stands still, voice low when he finally speaks. "Do you hear that?" You frowned. "Hear what? And how long have you been up?" He turns his face to look at you. His expression was full of the deepest fears. His hands were trembling. "I've been hearing that for an hour now, but I can't find the source." You say nothing, trying to listen to what he mentioned of.

"Come here." He beckons you in a whisper. You shook your head. "You're scaring me Alistair." He sighs. "I'm sorry, I- look, I'm serious, I heard something, but you can only hear better here." Your fingers squeezes Gwen's arm, making her mumble in her sleep. "Come on." He repeats, stretching out a hand to you. You move from your position to slowly crouch betore standing up, taking his hand.

He walks slowly to where he stood, shielding you as he walks front first, a protective hand still holding yours. "Now, listen." He whispers. And so you follow.

You try to clear your mind as best as possible, searching for the sound he told you off. And right when you were about to tell him off, you heard it. A howl. You gasped and meets his eyes. "Wolves?" You asked. He shook his head. "That's not an animalz that's human. And it's too visible to be far in the seaforest."

You understood then what he meant. "We need to see." He takes a deep breath. "I know but-" you huffed aloud. "No but, I'm going." You push off his grip on you as you stride towards the deeper parts of the woods, with only your missing guards' condition in my mind.

"Damnit, wait!" You hear Alistair curses before foorsteps were hearf getting more far from you, he was waking the others.

"Tristen? Fred?" You whisper yelled. A howl of pain, alike to a scream was heard, louder. Oh my god. You called for them again. Your hands hold onto the tree barks like walls in the dark, the trees being too tall, limiting the moon's light. You curse yourself when you accidentally tripped on a stick, hands finding a tree bark immediately. "Gods sake- Tristen!" You yelled out once more.

"Princess." You jumped at Gwen's voice. Her eyes were droopy and hair messed up, and yet as she watches you longer, her eyes beginnto widen. "Princess. " she repeats, slower. "Gwen." You breathed out in relief. "You scared me." She says nothing, eyes moving up before it remains staring above your head. Her lips quiver as she stutters out incomprehensible strings of words. "I-I heard them." You explained plainly before following the arrow her eyes pointed at.

Your body detaches itself from the tree, and a hysterical scream escapes the deepest parts of your chest and throat.

On the stealthy branches of the tree you held onto just now, were two naked men, with the middle parts of tbeir body torn open, and hung on it. Their blood smears the leafs and bark, and it drips still, falling down onto the grass. Their faces stayed intact, and you recognizes the looks of Tristen and Fred easily.

[tossawary]

Posting about my reread like this in an attempt to help me remember some of these small details... I am quite bad at remembering things from the beginning of a book by the end of it, partially because small, easily overlooked details often become far more meaningful and therefore memorable on the reread.

Some quotes and thoughts on Binghe's birth + adoption, Tianlang-Jun, Su Xiyan, and the poor, unnamed washerwoman:

"Immediately after birth, Luo Binghe was abandoned by his parents, swaddled in white cloth, and put in a wooden basin that was lowered into the Luo River. This occurred on the coldest days of the year, and it was only thanks to fishermen pulling him out of the water that he didn't freeze to death as a baby. Because he'd been drifting along the Luo in the season when it was choked with thin ice, he was given the name Luo Binghe.

Luo Binghe spent his early years wandering the streets, hungry and cold - a dreary childhood. A washerwoman who worked for a wealthy family took pity on him, and since he had no children of her own, she adopted and raised him as her own. Mother and son were poor, and they suffered much humiliation at the hands of their rich patrons." - Chapter 1, pages 9-10

"As it turned out, Luo Binghe had been born to the Demon Realm's Saintly Ruler and a woman of the Human Realm; within his veins flowed the blood of the ancient, heaven-fallen demons as well as that of the human race. His father, Tianlang-Jun, had been sealed beneath a great mountain, trapped for all eternity. His birth mother had been a disciple from a righteous cultivation sect, but shortly following Tianlang-Jun's dealing, she had been expelled on suspicion of having secret ties to demons. She had died from a postpartum hemorrhage after giving birth to Luo Binghe, but prior to her death, she had set her son adrift from the lonely ship she'd birthed him on. It was the only way she had been able to give Luo Binghe a chance to survive." - Chapter 1, page 11

I view a lot of these small details as somewhat flexible, with the different levels of unreliable narration going on. We are being told these things by Shen Yuan, who may be misremembering these details (as any reader, myself definitely included, does), and who read them as told by Airplane, who may have retconned prior details as he came up with new ideas, forgotten small details as he wrote millions of words, or was just lying in the narration for later reveals that never came to fruition. Shen Yuan may have also been reading dialogue between characters who also didn't know what they were talking about or were lying to each other.

So, I can do what I want with a lot of this, I feel! Shen Yuan doesn't necessarily know what he's talking about here. (More details will be revealed later on, I remember, and I will be looking out for them.)

Interesting things to remember here! Tianlang-Jun was apparently probably sealed during the winter, maybe late autumn at the earliest, which was probably unpleasant for snake demon Zhuzhi-Lang. I'm currently imagining Tianlang-Jun leaving his nephew to essentially hibernate somewhere to avoid the weather, promising to stay out of trouble (actually planning to meet up with Su Xiyan), and then just not coming back.

Su Xiyan apparently gave birth to Binghe on a ship! That's interesting. I had forgotten that detail if I ever took note of it.

I knew that the book implies here that Binghe was found by the washerwoman a little later into his childhood, but I'd forgotten the fishermen detail. I usually intentionally ignore this and just go with the washerwoman finding Binghe (which is what the animated show did, I think), because if Binghe was honestly "immediately" abandoned by Su Xiyan, then he would have been a newborn! Someone HAD to have been looking after him. This is one of my pet peeves in fiction: Binghe HAD to have been breastfed by someone OR this world must have an equivalent to baby formula for him to survive. (This is the main reason I conceptualized Luo Jiahui in PINTWILF as a young woman who had recently had a stillbirth, just so she could breastfeed this newborn baby.)

It's possible that Binghe had a series of caretakers who fell through before his adoption, leading to brief periods on the streets as a young child, and/or he did a lot of "wandering the streets" begging and scavenging AFTER his adoption by an extremely poor woman (and the sentences there are just a little out of order). Even if demon baby Binghe COULD survive on other food somehow, newborns can't... walk... or crawl... or lift their heads.

If I have to stick to what's written here as closely as possible, then I would go with the following interpretation: newborn Binghe being found by fishermen, who take him to town to see if anyone has lost or abandoned a child, or if anyone is willing to take one in. The only person to agree is this washerwoman. People in town possibly donate some means (baby formula equivalent, kinky plot device plant that kickstarts lactation) to feed this baby or cruelly tell the washerwoman the baby will die. Possibly, the washerwoman goes deeply into debt asking these rich patrons for the means to feed this baby. As Binghe grows up, he spends a lot of time on the streets, begging and scavenging to help his extremely poor adoptive mother. End mostly canonical interpretation.

If we wanted to get a little wild, we could also go with the interpretation that Shen Yuan is incorrect when he uses the word "immediately". Either he misinterpreted something Airplane wrote, or a character relayed information incorrectly in PIDW, or the SVSSS just formed differently to Shen Yuan's impression based on very vague information that Airplane may not have been keeping consistent.

Maybe Su Xiyan actually lived for several months on this ship after giving birth, creating the seals and somehow managing to feed her newborn child (the poison that killed her is a problem with breastfeeding here, but idk, maybe heavenly demon babies can drink blood for all we know, which is something Su Xiyan would know but the washerwoman would not), before setting Binghe adrift. Binghe would be too young to remember this time with his birth mother. I'll have to see what Wu Chen from Zhao Hua Temple says when I get to his explanation of what happened to Su Xiyan in the third book.

[draconicsparkle]

So @snivyartjpeg shared their warmup doodles in the discord server of a kokolight vampire au. And I swear, as soon as I saw it, my brain instantly desired to make something based off of it. How could I not?

Not much to say on this honestly. I just wanted to write something fun based on the cute doodles! So enjoy!

Vampires existed. They lived and breathed in the same world as humans. That was an undeniable fact. Yakou knew this and accepted this.

But what he had not expected was for one of his own employees to be one.

His first clue had been a few bloody tissues left in the trash can. As far as he knew, no one had been having intense nosebleeds aside from possibly Desuhiko. But no clients had come to the agency and no… magazines were here. So the possibility of the disguise detective being the bleeder was minimal.

So at that point, he tried to subtly observe his employees a little more.

He instantly ruled Fubuki out as the one hiding their true status, as she couldn’t lie to save her life. Desuhiko was ruled out too, as he was not very good at convincing. So he surely wouldn’t have been able to talk someone into providing blood. And Yuma? Obviously not, as the small rookie detective couldn’t hurt a fly.

Which left two contenders. Halara and Vivia.

This was where the search got a little more difficult. Those two were incredibly guarded individuals, not letting much slip past their walls. They could keep secrets no problem, and their poker faces were solid.

But after some watching, Yakou thought he nailed it down.

Vivia Twilight.

It seemed obvious once he connected the dots. The man always appeared to be sleeping during the day, as vampires were typically nocturnal creatures. His skin was pale, like he didn’t have great blood circulation as vampires tended to suffer from. His ability to be incredibly stealthy when he needed to. And the constant insistence that he wanted to die someday. Perhaps a mindset he got from needing to drain people’s lifeblood to survive.

And in addition to figuring this out, he also discovered who Vivia must have been feeding off of. Yuma Kokohead.

The two of them had gotten close since they started working together. It was fairly common to see them next to each other, whether it be naps, talks, or eating regular food. So he was certainly easy to access as a food source. Yuma also was fairly agreeable and could be convinced easily. He always wore that navy blue scarf, concealing his neck and potentially hiding the bite marks.

It all fit in Yakou’s mind. Surely he had figured it out.

But he couldn’t put the thought to bed until he had concrete proof. So he devised a little scheme.

It had started with sending Halara, Fubuki and Desuhiko out to do some jobs. He also claimed that he had errands to run, so he gave instructions to the last two. “Stay here in the agency and keep watch over the place. If clients come in, entertain them until I return. Understood?”

Yuma nodded with a beaming smile. “We won’t let you down, Chief!” Vivia hummed his agreement from the fireplace.

“Okay then. I’ll be back in an hour,” he told them. Then he left the submarine.

To his credit, he did go do some errands to kill time. But he returned to the sub after half an hour. He knew that by giving them a time frame, they might try something while they believed themselves to be alone with no interruptions. So it was the best time to try and get his proof.

He carefully unlocked the hatch, descending into the hull and turning around. The lights had been turned off, but the sound of clothes rustling was audible. Vampires preferred darkness over light, so this was a good sign. But he needed more information. So he took some sneaky steps towards the room’s opening, until he was just barely hidden. Then he suddenly rounded the corner.

And what he found there had not been what he expected.

Oh, there was a vampire in his submarine alright, but the glowing red eyes and bloody fangs didn’t belong to who he had thought. Yuma’s eyes shone in the dark as they turned towards him while perched on Vivia’s lap. His tongue darted out to lap up a tiny trickle of blood that was dripping down his chin.

Meanwhile, Vivia had been sitting upright on the sofa, head tilted to the side and his neck exposed with several bite marks now on display with his coat off. The lazy detective opened his eyes upon feeling the vampire stop, then caught sight of the flabbergasted Yakou. “Oh, hey Chief,” he called out, acting as though nothing was wrong.

“Wha-? But… I thought… Yuma’s the vampire?!” he managed to exclaim, running a hand through his frazzled hair.

“Uh… sorry? I wasn’t really sure… how to tell you,” the rookie said with an embarrassed tone. “But it’s okay! Vivia helps me with my blood urges, so there’s nothing to fear!”

Yakou rubbed his temples, trying to not get overly upset that his theory had been the complete opposite. “It’s fine, it’s fine. If you got it under control, then I see no reason to worry.” He sighed, then reached for the light switch. “Turning on the lights now. Close your eyes.”

He waited until the red glow vanished from the room, then flipped the switch. He grabbed the grocery bag that he had left near the hatch and entered the room again, ready to discuss things with his employees.

But when he returned, Yuma had somehow vanished from sight. Only Vivia was in the room, busy with tying a dark bandage around his collection of bite marks. “Uh… where’s Yuma?” he asked, very confused on where the rookie had disappeared to.

Vivia smiled. “He gets sleepy after a meal. And… he insists on resting with me.”

Yakou was about to insist on a better explanation when he noticed a new shade of lilac on the taller detective’s hair. Walking closer revealed something quite endearing.

A small purple vampire bat with Yuma’s signature hair antenna was nestled into the green hair. He let out a yawn, then snapped his jaws closed and snuggled deeper into the locks. That, Yakou would admit, was adorable.

“I see. Well, I’ll leave you two to rest, I guess. I’ll try to be quiet,” he told them, then finishing the journey to the kitchen to put the groceries away. He did try to keep his promise, and worked as silently as possible.

Once everything was put away, he peeked into the lobby again. Vivia had retreated to the fireplace, the tiny bat still in his hair. Both looked dead to the world.

That was good, he supposed. Better to let them get some relaxation time while they could before the next big job. And the sight was enough to heal his wounded pride as a detective.

He turned his eyes away from the pair, settling down in his chair and opening the newspaper. Time to get back to business.