#i nEED WINGS I've just been on this all day like i need to fly man

[fatesundress]

⭑ for the love that used to be here. tom riddle x reader

summary. you and tom are the only muggle-borns in slytherin, until one day he isn’t.

tags. angst, afab reader who is referred to as a witch a few times and rooms with girls but i don't think i ever use she/her pronouns or say the word girl/woman, biggest warning is that this is SO long (idk what compelled me to write a year 1 – post-hogwarts fic but here we are twenty thousand damn words later), blood purity and bigotry, dumbledore is greatly offended by the bonding of two orphans until he can capitalise on it, frequent wwii mentions (specifically the blitz), book clerk tom, MURDERER TOM… ministry reader, kissing, smut once they’re 21/22 May all the minors in the room exit at once, more angst, sad ending kinda, me spreading a very personal and very nefarious tom riddle agenda that is canon to ME but probably only like two other people

note. i need a shower and an exorcism after writing this shit. i'm exhausted. i don't even remember half of it. but i'm also SO stoked, this is my little (very large, frankly) 100 followers celebration! i've only been on here for about a month and the love has been so crazy so thank you mwah mwah mwah ♡

word count. 21.8k (i know... i KNOW)

You learn quickly that your shade of green is not the same as theirs. The rest of them are emeralds, even at that age — they glitter with their parent’s polish. You are flotsam, sea-sick, envy green; the putrid boiling stuff that brews in your cauldron when you look away for a second too long, and, really, it’s more of a stain than a colour at all. There is a fraction of a second where you find something powerful in that. You are not an easy thing to remove. And then it’s gone, because they want to so badly.

You learn, with a bit less tact, that you doesn’t actually mean just you; that it’s you and him whether you like it or not.

He evidently does not.

“It has to be completely fine,” Tom says to you in Potions, his voice small then but just as practised.

You narrow your eyes. “‘Scuse me?”

“I said the powder has to be completely fine.”

“I heard you completely fine. I know how to read.”

He stares blankly at you before returning to his own station, and that’s that.

It isn’t unheard of for muggle-borns to be sorted into Slytherin, so you’ve been told, but one glance around your common room and you can see it’s pretty damn rare.

There’s Tom Riddle, there’s you, and there’s a seventh-year girl whose knuckles are always white like she’s spent so long with her hands balled into fists that they don’t know how to do anything else. Tom Riddle is a prat, the girl is too old and unapproachable even if she wasn’t, and you are very good at being alone.

That decides it. Flotsam still floats.

Everything is — fine. It’s fine for months; you have no one and need no one and sometimes you catch a jinx in the back of Charms that zips your mouth shut or bends a foot the wrong way (a cruel reminder of how much more these people know than you) and your broom occasionally pivots so sharply the Flying professor has to stop you from careening into a wall and breaking enough bones for a week’s worth of Skele-Gro, but it’s fine. 

…It’s just that he’s insufferable.

The boy is eleven years old and he speaks like he’s stealing glances at an invisible lexicon between every word, more refined than any of the orphans you grew up with which makes you wonder which sort he’s surrounded by, and you take it upon yourself to theorise in passing if you could ever scare him badly enough his real voice would slip and he might just appear human for once.

Only it becomes clear when you’re stirring awake in the Hospital Wing after a mysterious bout of dragon pox (conveniently, all the pureblood children developed an immunity after catching it young) has rendered you bed-ridden and pockmarked, that you don’t think anything can scare Tom Riddle. He’s suffering just as well in the bed beside yours to keep the contagion to the two of you, and he’s all cold, eddied rage under sallow skin and beetling bones. 

“They’re going to kill you,” he says after three days of silence, when the room is dusted in moonlight so thin it’s like squinting through cinema noise or mohair fluff to try to see him.

You blink at the vague shape of him. “What?”

“If you don’t hurt them back, eventually, they’ll just kill you.”

In hindsight, it’s an assumption so hastily bleak only a scared child could make it.

I want to hurt them, you try to say, but for what follows you cannot: I want to hurt them but I’m not good enough to do it.

You roll over and pretend to sleep, and in the morning, you hurt them anyway.

It’s Avery who’s unlucky enough to be the first to test you when you’re three assignments behind in Transfiguration, still a bit groggy from your last dose of Gorsemoor Elixir, and actually, physically green. He tugs your hair and stings your cheek with the promise of “bringing a bit of colour back to your face” and it’s sort of funny how banal it is compared to the other transgressions you’ve been dealt — that this is the thing that makes you bare your teeth, grip your wand in a hand that still can’t hold half of it, and send Avery flying across the room with a Knockback Jinx.

Tom sits with you in the Great Hall for dinner that night, and he never really stops.

You practise spells by the Black Lake between classes and he’s anything but kind about the ordeal, but you teach each other. You end your days with singe prints and sore wrists and you often take more damage than he does, but sometimes, as spring settles in with warm tones (apple and jade and moss — all the greens you’d never imagined), you leave with less bruises than he does. It hardly feels like friendship. It feels much more like purpose.

When summer comes you don’t write to him, and you don’t expect he will either. You don’t suppose you’ve actually written a letter in your life. Instead you try new wand movements under your quilt every night and wait for August’s departure on a big red train.

You sit together when the day does come. He asks you if you’ve been practising. You frown and tell him you’re not allowed to use magic outside of school.

Second year is nothing but monotonous, antiquated theoretics. Most everyone complains. You don’t see why they should — they’re already aeons ahead of you — but that means you finally have a chance to catch up in your less-than-school-sanctioned meetings with Tom while the rest remain practically stationary. 

Deputy Headmaster and Transfiguration professor Albus Dumbledore is imperceptibly less soft with you than he was last year when you make the apparently poor decision to sit beside Tom on the first day, and you file the subtle shift in demeanour into some mental cabinet to review later.

You find workarounds with the librarian, Madam Palles, inclined to sympathy for the poor, orphaned muggle-borns to grant relatively unfettered daytime access to the Restricted Section so long as you keep it tidy and none of the books leave the library. That’s where things get a bit more interesting.

For a month you remain innocuous as can be. You browse through rare historical tombs and foreign biographies that would charge more galleons than you can conceptualise, and you never leave so much as a tea stain on the parchment. You smile at the Madam when you return the key each night, and walk back to the dungeons with your hands behind your back. It is, of course, totally unrelated that a month is what it takes for Tom to master the third-year curriculum’s Doubling Charm. An entirely separate affair when you meet him in the most secluded alcove of the library, slip him the key, and stifle your grin as he duplicates it perfectly. 

You discover Christmas break is your favourite time of the year. Nearly all the purebloods go home. The Slytherin dormitories are effectively halved.

It’s two weeks of earnest, uninterrupted work and sleep without fear of waking up with jelly legs or whiskers.

Madam Palles, most nights, makes a slight, drowsy effort of searching the library for leftover students before she casts the lights out and closes the door. Then, it belongs to you and Tom.

You’re splayed rather ridiculously over one of the big reading chairs on Christmas Eve, Lore of Godelot in hand, enthralled by a chapter detailing his controlled use of Fiendfyre through the power of the Elder Wand.

Tom is cross-legged and sat straight, his brows furrowed in concentration.

“What’ve you got?” you ask, leaning over to answer your own question.

Tom as good as rolls his eyes, holding up the book to give you an easier look.

“Magick Moste Evile?” You scrunch your nose. “Bit much, don’t you think?”

“It’s the stuff they’ll never teach us.”

“I wonder why.”

He steals a glance at your own book and smiles in that smug way that makes you want to slap him.

“What, Tom?”

He shrugs. “You might want to know you’re reading stories about the author.”

You look down. Lore of — Godelot wrote Magick Moste Evile? 

It shouldn’t really be surprising. Three chapters ago your book was recounting his months in Yugoslavia grave-robbing magical burial sites.

“Whatever,” you mumble, “It’s just a biography. Least I’m not reading the words out of his mouth.”

“Well, they’d be out of his quill.”

“Oh my God, Tom, shut up.”

All good things must come to an end. Term resumes and your hackles are back up. 

Abraxas Malfoy, Antonin Dolohov, Walburga Black and the best of the worst of your house have returned, sleek-haired and insatiable and deranged, truly, in such a manner that you don’t think you can be blamed for the instinct you feel every time you pass them to lunge like a wild predator or run like wild prey. All Tom does, though (and so you follow, because he’s standing with you and who has ever done that?) is meet their gazes with equal assuredness. He never seems bothered. He never seems animal. You are still all hammering heart and heavy lungs, and you are learning not to see the world through the eyes of someone who’s only ever had their fists to fight. You have magic, you remember. You’re good at it. You could hurt them, if you really wanted.

Not much is different that summer than the last. The war is hard. The food is hard to chew. You chip a tooth. You’re too afraid to fix it with the Trace on you, but you still smile because you will, and everyone seems put off by that. What is there to smile about? 

You suppose, for them, it’s a question with few answers. 

For you — you’re back on a big red train musing about the functions of muggle warfare with Tom Riddle, chucking a useless card from a chocolate frog out the window and moaning about how you wasted the sickle you found under your seat.

He’s gotten very good at ignoring your theatrics and going right back to whatever it was he was talking about. And you note, unrelatedly, he almost looks like he’s learned how to open the windows at Wool’s. (You dare not suggest he’s doing something so ludicrous as sitting in the sun too, but this is a start.)

Dippet, or the Minister, or whoever it is that’s in charge of the practicality of the curriculum, has become fractionally less stupid in the last three months.

You don’t have to rely on nights in the Restricted Section or weekends at the Black Lake to actually learn something anymore. Of course, without the assistance of those illicit extracurriculars, you wouldn’t be able to match up to your peers the way you are this year, but it’s nice to duel with dummies instead of motioning your wand vaguely over a desk, and you and Tom still climb the notice boards in rapid succession. 

They hate you for it. One of your roommates makes a pointed effort each night to glare at you from her bed like those jelly legs are back on the table, Orion Black (two years younger but just as nasty as his cousin) nearly trips you on your way to Divination, Abraxas Malfoy develops what you think borders on obsession with Tom, and for once it feels almost offhand to not care about any of it.

You’re beginning to think even at its best, Hogwarts is remarkably insufficient. This leads you to books mercifully unrestricted so you can read about a few of the other magical schools for comparison. Beauxbatons is renowned for providing most of the worlds alchemical developments, Uagadou’s early propensity for wandless magic makes it unfathomably more practical than Hogwarts, Durmstrang (though you scoff at their violent anti-muggle sentiment) teaches the Dark Arts as something beneficial rather than unforgivable, and — what do you learn here? Even with the hair’s-breadth of magical leniency you’ve been allowed this year, it’s no surprise so few recognizable names in wizarding history are Hogwarts alumni.

“Let me have a look at that,” you say to Tom one evening, when he’s peering once more over the pages of Magick Moste Evile. He’s a purveyor of knowledge in all forms, but he always seems to come back to Godelot in the end.

He raises a brow, handing it to you like your intrigue doubles his. “No more reservations?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’m only curious.”

“Curiosity—”

“Killed the damn cat, I know.” You glare at him through the pages. “I think that’s you, in this case though, since you’re the one in love with the bloody thing.”

He shakes his head as he reclines in the low light of the Restricted Section, muttering something that sounds like “ridiculous,” or “querulous,” or something else unimaginably fucking annoying.

You might be wrong. Retract your last quip and expunge it. If Tom’s in love with any book, it’s the behemoth dictionary he’s been spitting stupid adjectives out of since he was eleven.

But Godelot’s musings on the Dark Arts are fascinating enough that you can understand the appeal. He’s no wordsmith, and you appreciate that in a way you’re sure Tom deems regrettable, but his points are straightforward but thoughtful in such a way you can read in them how he was guided by the Elder Wand through everything he did. There’s a stream-of-consciousness to them. Something doctrinal you’re surprised to enjoy for all the obligatory English creed they washed your mouth with at the orphanage.

“Find what you’re looking for?” Tom asks, combing with little interest through the tomb you’d put down in favour of his.

“I’m not looking for anything. I’m just…” You sigh. It’s almost painful to say. “I think you were right, and — oh, shut up, don’t look at me like that — I don’t think we’re learning anything here. Not really; not as much as they do at other schools.”

“Of course,” he says blankly. “Hence this.”

This — restricted books and furtive duels — should not be necessary. 

“You know that’s not gonna be enough. For the rest of them, maybe, but not us.”

He tenses how he always does at the reminder of his difference. And you get it. Sometimes in moments like these you forget the reason you’re here in the first place. It isn’t just the rebellious divertissement of two academically eager students, it’s… survival. What future do you have as a penniless orphan in wartorn London? What future do you have as a muggle-born Slytherin who’s apt with a wand when there are a thousand more your age, just as skilled and twice as pure? 

It isn’t enough to be as good as them. You have to best them, and you have to do it forever.

The night stumbles into an exhaustive silence because you both know it’s true and it’s a bit too heavy right now. The answer isn’t in this room. Just you. Just him. So you sit in the dark and you stare through that muffled nighttime noise playing tricks on your eyes. The worst of the world can wait until morning. 

The worst of the world has impeccable timing.

A fault of both sides of the coin; the muggle world is a travesty and the wizarding world is just a bit fucking late, really.

So there’s the newspaper. It’s October first and the date reads September tenth. School owls are a joke and you can’t afford anything better.

And it’s a dirty, ashen grey. It smudges your green if you ever had it at all. You were born to this and you will return to it always.

BOMB’S HAVOC IN CROWDED PUBLIC SHELTER

MOTHERS AND CHILDREN AMONG THE CASUALTIES

DAMAGE CONSIDERABLE, BUT SPIRITS UNBROKEN

All you can hope to do is pass the paper to Tom and wonder without words what you’ll go home to.

The answer is very little when the summer clouds your vision with dust and you stand dumbly with your suitcase in front of nothing at all. You’d tried your best until your departure to keep up with muggle news, but it had remained, routinely, a month behind with the owls. By the time June arrived you were still holding your breath through May. Tom had attempted to reason with Dippet for summer lodgings at the school but you were both denied in light of the exquisite mercy — the bombs have stopped! The Blitz has ended! Go back to the aftermath and make do with the craters.

It’s a bit ironic that Tom’s orphanage survived and yours didn’t. At least you can finally see what all the fuss is about.

In truth, it’s more strange than anything. You feel unreasonably like you’re impeding on a part of him that has never belonged to you (if any of him does); that place where you intersect but never draw attention to. You remind yourself you had no choice in the matter. The system puts you where it wants to, and these days the options are slim. But it’s — the walls are amber-black tile and plaster, lined with sanitary-smelling hospital beds and a cupboard per room. Per room, you think; you’ve got one of those now, and with only one girl to share it with. 

You figure the reason for the extra space is probably not one you want to know.

Anyway, you don’t actually see Tom for two days. The caretakers bring you a tray of dinner that’s vaguely warm and a bit too salty and you sleep off the debris you think you breathed in that morning, half-sated and sun-tired.

But then you do see him, and he’s in these funny uniform shorts and a thick blazer and your greeting is an offhand joke about the scandal of his knees that he doesn’t seem to appreciate. He eyes your muggle clothes while you wait for your own set and you know you really don’t have any room to judge. 

He doesn’t, or at least doesn’t say he minds your relocation.

You spend half the summer waking up in the middle of the night to acquaint yourselves with the London tube stations, and the other half in whatever crevices of the orphanage you aren’t harangued by Mrs Cole every five seconds, which are far and few between. She seems to have decided fourteen is old enough an age to worry about your intentions unchaperoned, like it’s the bloody 1800’s, and admonishes you and Tom relentlessly despite only ever finding you quietly buried in useless books. 

You begin to miss Madam Palles and her invaluable pity. Everyone’s an orphan here. No one’s sorry.

“What’s his deal?” you ask one stuffy afternoon, reclining in your creaking seat to prop your legs on the desk.

Tom knocks them off (he’s so well-mannered that you sometimes push these little gestures of impropriety just to bother him) and glances at the target of your question. Some broad, blond boy who skitters down the corridor a shade paler than he arrived. You’ve yet to properly introduce yourself to anyone you don’t have to, so names are muddy when you try to apply them to faces.

He shrugs, but there’s a flash of something in his expression you’re fascinated to realise is unfamiliar. “He’s an imbecile.”

“...Riiiiight, but that isn’t a proper answer.”

You smile. Legs return to table. Timeworn Oxfords muddy the surface. Tom scowls. 

“There was an altercation last year,” he says tersely, “he’s rather fixated on the matter.”

“An altercation.”

“Very good, that is what I said.”

You narrow your eyes and he sweeps your legs off the desk again, gaze catching the unmistakable ribbon of an old bullied scar on your shin. 

“And I suppose you’re above such incidents,” he muses.

You cross your arms and huff. He always wins games like these.

You’re grateful when you return to Hogwarts in one piece after your final night of summer is spent underground, and the certainty of knowing where you’ll rest your head for the next ten months cannot be understated. 

But the worst thing has happened, and you blame it on the flicker of a moment where you missed Madam Palles like it was some jubilant, accidental curse to ever miss anyone. A foreign thing you remind yourself never to do again. 

She’s only gone and jinxed the locks to the Restricted Section so they cry like newborn Mandrakes when Tom’s replica key clicks in place.

For a second you both stand there looking stupidly at each other. Getting caught was a fear two years ago; you’d almost forgotten it was still possible.

Tom is quicker to collect himself. He grabs you by the arm and casts a Disillusionment Charm, and you don’t burst running out of the library like two blurry suncatchers reflecting the candlelight as your instinct heeds; you cling to the shelves and you slither silently to the door. (You’ll make a joke about it when you can breathe.)

Madam Palles the Traitor comes heaving into the library in her nightgown, a blinding blue light baubled at the end of her wand, and it’s really just theatrical at this point to use Lumos bloody Maxima when the basic spell would do the job just fine.

“Has she suspected us the whole time?” you say on gasp once you’ve made it to the dungeons.

“Perhaps someone else has,” Tom suggests.

“What? Malfoy?”

You think it’s a good first guess. It could have been any of the Slytherins, upon consideration, but Malfoy seemed most fixated on Tom last year and it wouldn’t surprise you to learn he’d been observant enough to follow you to the library and notice you don’t leave with the other students.

But Tom quashes the idea. “I’m doubtful. Malfoy is attentive, but Madam Palles is hardly partial to him.” (He had, in second year, set one of her books on fire while studying offensive spells.) “I suspect it was someone with more influence.”

Only no one has more influence than Abraxas Malfoy. The rest of the Slytherins follow him like lost pups. But then Tom might mean —

“A professor?”

“It may be.” He says it like he’s already decided his suspect.

He is, as always, and ever-infuriatingly, correct.

It’s that file you tucked away for later, reoccurring when you return to Transfiguration in the morning like a second epiphany: Dumbledore.

He assigns the term’s seating arrangements, which he’s never done before, and there’s something in his tone when he pairs you with Rosier that feels intentionally like not pairing you with Tom. You don’t think it’s paranoia clouding your better judgement, and by the way Tom’s gaze hardens as he takes his seat beside Malfoy, neither does he.

Dumbledore is suspicious for a number of reasons. He disappears for weeks at a time. The Prophet writes articles on his sightings in Austria and France like he’s an endling beast. He’s being sighted in Austria and France — two notable countries in Grindelwald’s ongoing war. Perhaps ancillary, you’ve decided the charmed glass repositories he uses to hold his old artefacts are the same ones encasing the least permissible books in the Restricted Section. And if that isn’t paranoia (which, you’re willing to admit, it may be) then you assume he has them so proudly on display because he wants you to know.

You consider it a warning.

Tom does not.

“Just give it up,” you hiss over a game of wizard’s chess, “I bet we’ve read every book in there twice already anyway.”

His jaw ticks as the sole indicator of his annoyance, and he takes your rook. You scowl.

“Tom, that man thinks you’re devil-spawn. You know he’s just waiting for an opportunity to catch you doing something wrong.”

“So?”

It sounds so petulant you think he’s been possessed by his eleven-year-old self. Then you think he was a lot wiser at eleven.

“So?” You make an aggressive move with your knight. “So don’t give him one!”

He stares at the board and his breath is just a trace sharper and you hate that you know him like this and no one else. You wonder if he knows you like that too, but resolve with ease that he does not. You’re hard frowns and lewd jokes and trousers torn at the knee to bare scars with stories you wish you could forget. There’s no mystery there. Tom is nothing but — gordian knots and fixed expressions and little patterns to learn like the rules of this stupid game between you. You must know Tom Riddle by every atom or not at all. And that isn’t a choice, really. You’ve never known anyone else.

“Are you stupid, Tom?”

You glance at the board. He’s got Check. A terrible, true answer.

“No,” you finish. “Then don’t act like it.”

Your king glances at you and you nod. He falls. The game is resigned.

Tom acts stupid.

Dumbledore knows.

It all happens very fast.

You strike Tom harder in the arm with Confringo than is likely necessary that night, and he returns the favour with a Knockback Jinx that thrusts you into the shallows of the Black Lake.

You gasp. The cold water feels like it’s swallowing you whole when it strikes, an envelope sealed around you and licked shut for good measure. Everything holds to you, and it’s fucking November. Your senses are so overwhelmed that you forget to murder Tom the instant you sink in. You forget to do much of anything.

You wade trembling out of the lake when sense returns and Tom huffs, peeling off his robe to treat the burn on his arm.

“You—idi—iot,” you mutter, trying to find the incantation for a warming charm but the words get stuck between your chattering teeth. “You stole a re… stricted book.”

Tom glares daggers at you between his poor healing job and you scowl, mincing through the grass and grabbing his arm. “Fucking imbec-cile…”

You’ve done enough damage that if he were anyone else you’d be proud of yourself, and somehow, simultaneously, if he were anyone else you’d be able to manage a pinch of guilt. But he’s Tom, and you know him by every atom, so you cannot be proud, and he’s Tom — he retaliated by tossing you in freezing water and now your clothes are clinging sodden and heavy to every inch of you, so you certainly can’t be guilty either.

“I borrowed it,” he says tightly. As if that means anything at all. And then he takes his robe and drapes it spiritlessly over your shoulders. “You could attempt communication before curses.”

“I could attempt communication,” you scoff, uttering a charm to partially close the gash on Tom’s arm, “Fucking h-hypocrite. I did communicate. You lied.”

“I —”

“Omitted information? Withheld the truth? Watch your mouth or I’ll steal your fucking dictionary, Riddle.”

You swear a great deal when you’re cold and mad, apparently.

“I won’t be caught.” His calm is infuriating. “It would hardly earn expulsion regardless.”

“It doesn’t matter! He knows it’s you! He was staring at you all class!”

“So nothing novel then.”

“D’you want me to blast you again?”

His lips form a flat line. No. That’s what you thought.

You sigh, clutching his robes in your fists to quell your trembling. “What’d you take, anyway? We never touch the encased stuff.”

That is, you assume, why Dumbledore was vexed enough about the whole thing to mention it in class today. A highly valuable book has gone missing, from a repository you dare conclude belongs to him, and he has to pretend all the while not to know it’s Tom who took it. You are out of the question. Theirs is some delicate vendetta you can’t begin to unfurl.

“Nothing anyone should miss,” Tom says, a complete non-answer as he stops to murmur a warming charm you could probably manage yourself by now.

“Tom.”

“It was an encyclopaedia. It’s entirely in Runes. I suspect it will take months for me to decipher.”

“God’s sake,” you groan. He really is exhausting. “I think Dumbledore’l take his chances and loot your dorm before that happens.”

Tom wipes a stray droplet of water from your cheek. His fingers are soft. “We should return. You look half-drowned.”

“I am half-drowned, dickhead.”

And you accost him in hushed tones the whole walk back. Runes, Tom, really? Threw me in the damn lake over a Runic Encyclopaedia? He accosts you just the same; You burned me first.

It does, in fact, take Tom months to decipher the Runes, and he’s quite secretive about it. He won’t let you see the book, won’t tell you what it’s about, won’t indulge your queries on how far he’s gotten or if it’s worth the way Dumbledore bores his eyes into the pair of you in the Great Hall with nothing but the glass of his spectacles to soften his censure. You consider — well — you consider taking your chances and looting his dormitory.

The day everything changes starts the same as any. 

You muse over breakfast about muggle news and how the way Tom holds his wand when he casts defensive spells is too sharp when it should be circular. He argues. You soften the criticism by telling him his offensive magic is stellar but you’ll always beat him in defence if he doesn’t swallow his damn pride and listen to you for once. (So, really, you soften it very little.) He doesn’t take Divination so you don’t see him until Herbology that afternoon and he’s silent enough during the hour you share with your wormwood plant that you know he’s done it sometime between breakfast and now. 

Tom has cracked the book.

It’s late spring and the night takes longer to settle than it did in the winter. Errant sunbeams still sparkle on the water when you meet him by the lake, and it’s warm enough to forgo a coat.

“Are you going to tell me what it’s about now?” you ask without preamble, arms crossed over your chest as he approaches.

He hands you the book like it’s worth something to you without his explanation, but you’re intelligent enough to gather something from the illustrations of two twined snakes embroidering the cover.

“I should have suspected it sooner,” Tom says before you can comment. “By the way Dumbledore acted when I told him… I should have known he would have wanted to keep it from me.”

“Tom, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s an Encyclopaedia on Parseltongue and its known speakers.”

You flip through the pages and none of it means anything. “Parseltongue?”

“The language of serpents,” Tom supplies, and the two of you walk along the edge of the forest. “It’s almost exclusively hereditary.”

“Okay, so, what — you’re trying to learn it anyway?”

“I have no need.”

You frown. “You… you already know it.”

“I always have,” he says, and there’s something almost unrestrained in his voice. He’s proud in a new light, and it takes you a moment to understand and you’re not sure why exactly it makes your heart sink, but —

“You’re not muggle-born.”

“No, I’m not. And Dumbledore knows.”

“So, he —” You try not to sound crushed because why should you be? Why should it matter that he isn’t some exact reflection of you? He’s at your side, he’s still there, he’ll always be there — “How does he know?”

“When he came to Wool’s to inform me I'd been accepted at Hogwarts. I hadn’t known anything, certainly not that speaking to snakes is emphatically rare, so I asked him. He said it was ‘not a peculiar gift.’ Perhaps to keep my interest at a minimum.”

“Why would he lie?”

“Because it isn’t just that I’m of magical blood. I’m a descendant of Salazar Slytherin.”

You can’t be faulted for laughing. It’s not often Tom makes jokes, let alone funny ones.

“That’s good, Tom. Morgana used to have tea with my great-great-hundredth-great-grandmother, so that works out nice.”

He sighs, taking your hand and leading you further into the woods.

“Are you trying to murder me?”

“I might.”

“You’d be the first suspect.”

“No, I wouldn’t. You’ve far too many enemies.”

Not by choice, you start to scold, and then he stops, not so far into the Forbidden Forest that you’re afraid, but far enough you understand this is not something he’d chance showing you in the open.

He closes his eyes and whispers, and it’s — decidedly not English. And you know the sound of a few other languages, at least; this doesn’t sound like words at all. His consonants are pointed, his S’s stretched, the syllables repetitive but separated by a difference in cadence someone less perceptive might not notice. 

It shouldn’t be surprising; it’s exactly what he told you, but it startles you how much it reminds you of a snake.

“Tom?” you murmur, unsure at the prospect of speaking some ancient, unknown language into the air of the Forbidden Forest, and, underneath that, still reeling with the knowledge that this is real at all.  You’ve pinched yourself a few times to make sure.

There’s a low susurration in the grass, wet with dew that catches the moonlight, and you gasp, clinging to Tom’s arm when you see the blades part in helices for the space of an adder.

“It’s all right,” Tom says softly, almost elsewhere, his eyes zeroed in on the snake. “It won’t hurt you.”

You’re still by the balance of his arm and some petrifying awe as he extends a hand to the grass and the adder coils around it, weaving upward to his shoulder.

“Oh my God. Oh my God, Tom.”

The adder points its beady gaze at you, and Tom whispers something else in that strange language before it retreats in agreement or compliance or whatever could come close to expression on the face of a fucking snake, and maybe you’re dreaming this despite your pinching. Maybe you’ve lost your mind.

“Hope you didn’t just tell it to bite me,” you try, and it comes out half-choked.

He smiles. It’s partly for you and partly for this venomous little thing on his shoulder, and that’s a bit startling. Tom Riddle smiles for adders and you and not much else. 

“Should I?”

And all you manage, for whatever reason, is, “Don’t be like them now that you’re not like me.”

It’s out before you can stop it, welling from a small, scared place that embarrasses you to return to. A hospital bed when you were eleven. The walls of a bedroom ravaged by bombs.

Tom’s smile fades. “We’re nothing like them.”

The thing is, neither of you know that’s the day that changes everything.

You celebrate your fifteenth birthday in the Deathday ballroom with Tom, a stolen dinner pastry, a green candle, and a few sad ghosts. You try to learn how to dance. Tom thinks it’s silly. You tell him that’s only because he’s upset he keeps stepping on your toes.

Summer blisters when it comes.

Some of the children take jobs as mail-sorters and steelworkers and you clasp for whatever you’re (one) allowed and (two) capable of, which isn’t much. You’re both old enough at the end of the day to explore London on your own, opting to spend as much time away from the orphanage as Mrs Cole allots, but you only have knuts and pennies and you warn Tom it would be unwise to swindle muggles and risk a letter from the Ministry. So you work where you’re needed and you eat the rationed nonsense you always do and you miss Hogwarts terribly. It’s much the same: you’re together, you’re hungry, and you’re nothing like them. 

And then it’s different: Tom makes Slytherin Prefect, is suddenly tall, and you wonder in fleeting moments if his face has always suited him this well.

A stupid remark. You fervently ignore it.

Fifth year begins and you have almost the same number of electives as you do core classes, Tom has duties in his new role that take much of his spare time, and despite popular belief, you and him are not a mitotic entity, so this splits you up more often than it had in previous years. Which is fine. You still have plenty of things to talk about during meals and between duels, and you reckon you’ll share DADA until you graduate.

But in his absence, your attentions are forced elsewhere, and you should be grateful they land on something potentially promising.

It’s like Transfiguration just clicks for you this year. You’ve never been the greatest at Transformation (importantly though, you’ve also remained far from the worst), but fifth year launches you into Vanishment and something about that feels like a perfect equation. There are no complicated half-numerals and objects stuck between inanimacy and being — just unmaking the made. Nothing or not. You’re fucking excellent at it. You glean the theoretics fast and then the practise comes like breathing. Even the purebloods struggle as you Vanish Dumbledore’s Conjured garden snakes in brilliant tendrils of light. You exult unabashedly when you brush past them on the way out of class — who was it that didn’t belong in Slytherin?

You say the same to Tom and he rolls his eyes, but the amusement is there.

“Think you can talk to my snakes for me?” you tease, nudging him on the path to Hogsmeade.

“If they’re yours, I doubt they have anything worth discussing.”

And Dumbledore is… a hue nearer to the man you remember from first year. He praises your improvement and smiles when you can’t hide your giddiness as if equally impressed.

He doesn’t shelve people the way Slughorn does (you’re dismayed to find Tom has been invited to join the Slug Club and you have not) but you think if he did you’d be rapidly climbing your way to the top. Maybe get put in one of those neat little repositories he keeps all his best treasures in.

Dumbledore does, however, offer additional assignments for those who are interested, and tasks you with a few if you’re up to the challenge.

You always are.

The Tom-Dumbledore-Encyclopaedia debacle is apparently either resolved, or your part in it forgotten. 

Tom humours you when you’re both singed at the fingers from duelling, yours dipped in the lake while he buries his in the cold moss, about how Abraxas takes the seat beside him at every Slug Club dinner. He tells you he pretends to be very interested in the Malfoy’s business affairs and their stock in the Bulgarian Quidditch team’s win this coming spring. He tells you he finds it amusing to let Abraxas think he can make Tom his pet. Tom says he considers searching for Salazar Slytherin’s fabled Chamber of Secrets and showing Abraxas what a real pet looks like. You smack him in the arm.

He’s had an ego forever. He just has a few too many reasons for it now.

And maybe that’s why you push harder in Transfiguration, dedicate the majority of your studies to it, spend your Saturday nights scrutinising advanced techniques while Tom makes nice with Potions experts and politics with people who don’t even know what he is but like him anyway. It’s patronising, of course — borderline fetishistic; not a real like — but it scares you. Tom Riddle would not allow himself to be anyone’s pretty mudblood show pony if he didn’t have an ulterior motive.

Everything changes but the observable truth that he is still insufferable.

You’re lucky to see him twice a week if it isn’t in class, and the way it starts is so slow you don’t even fully understand what’s happening until Christmas break when Abraxas stays a few extra days and leaves by Dippet’s Floo instead of the train.

You don’t dare ask where Tom has vanished to in that time or why the hell Abraxas Malfoy would willingly subject himself to unnecessarily extended time at school with all his lackeys gone, and it isn’t because you don’t want to. It’s because he won’t tell you himself. It’s because you’re terrified the answer will feel like a broken promise, and you’ve come to realise (it’s been there for so long; such an obvious, tiny thing that you’ve never stopped to really dissect it) that it’s quite difficult to know someone at every atom and not love them a little bit.

You’re suddenly aware of the risk of it: you love him like an inextricable piece of yourself, and, well, you’ve seen war. You know what amputation looks like. You’ve seen the remains of structures designed to stand forever, and you’re strong like them — casts and gauze in all the weak spots because you remember the pain of breaking them — but those were blows dealt without the complication of loving the bombs behind them.

Tom is the green on your robes, the dragon pox tinge you sometimes think never truly faded when you look in the mirror too long, and all the shades you never imagined. Apple, jade, moss. The beginnings of emerald. (No, he couldn’t be that.) 

You wonder what the world would look like if he stole those colours back, and it’s much worse than some brutal decimation; it would leave you with too much. You would just be you without him.

So you love him into June like you always do, and you pluck his Prefect badge off on the last day of school and tell him it makes you jealous like a joke when it’s half-true. 

It’s raining when you walk to the train together, miserable for what should be summer but not at all remarkable in Scotland. Tom wipes it from your cheek. Your wrists are sore from vanishing bits and bobbles all night while you still can, never truly prepared for three months without magic, and you curl into your seat as soon as you’re in it. Tom wakes you up when you arrive back in London, startling you to find that you fell asleep at all.

It rains a lot that summer. There’s nothing much to see in the city and you can’t get anywhere else (you note: the Trace cares little about broomsticks but you can’t afford one of your own and flying might be the only thing Tom is bad at) so you’re stuck to the library again with a noseful of old paper and a certain prose that magical literature cannot replicate. You theorise a lifetime of reckoning with the mundane forces one to be more creative.

Perhaps it’s the cold that makes you sick. Perhaps it’s the state of your meals. Either way, your final weeks before sixth year are hell. Biblical, blazing hell.

The nurses aren’t sure what it is — another influenza epidemic you’re the first in the orphanage to catch — but they isolate you immediately and there’s not much care they can offer. 

You hear Tom arguing with one of them outside your door but can’t make out the words. Everything is dizzy, sweaty, halfway to unconsciousness but without its relief. You’d take dragon pox over this.

Some days later (though you can’t be sure because it feels like bloody centuries), he’s at your bedside, and you think even if you were lucid enough to ask what horrible thing he’d done to change the nurses’ minds, you wouldn’t. 

But you know he’s not beyond breaking wizarding law, because he’s muttering healing spells with a hand to your damp forehead, and you hazily find yourself reaching for him, trying to shake your head no.

“Not allowed,” you mumble. Your throat is sore and your nose is stuffy. You sound terrible and you probably look worse.

Tom is slightly blurry but you think he’s staring at you. You know if he is it’s with the utmost incredulity.

“Not allowed,” he repeats slowly. It’s very easy to picture him clenching his jaw. “I wonder, if the Trace is so exact that it can detect all forms of magic, it can’t also detect malady. You’re burning — and I’m to consider whether saving your life might be illegal?”

He’s angry. He’s angrier than you’ve seen in a long time; and you can actually see it now. His magic courses through you and your vision clears, bit by bit, until your depth perception steadies and you realise he’s closer than you thought. His jaw is, in fact, clenched.

You move to catch his wrist and manage it this time. “Tom.”

“Don’t argue,” he says thinly.

“You’ll get sick.”

His face is far too neutral for the way his fingers stroke your damp cheek. “Hm. Then it’s a good thing you’d break the law for me too.”

Of course he’s right — you love him. Which makes it a good thing he doesn’t get sick.

Some of the younger children do. The fever comes overnight for a girl who wasn’t in the orphanage last year, and it takes her by the next.

When you get back on the train to Hogwarts, the virus is circulating Britain and you’re livid. 

What Tom said is true; you consider the Trace’s precision and the details of the laws on underage magic — how one of the technicalities is that a young witch or wizard may be absolved of the consequences if the circumstances are life-threatening. You think about how it supposedly doesn’t care about broom-riding or Portkeys or Floo travel, and if the Trace is that complex, surely it understands sickness.

You only wonder if the Ministry would understand it. There haven’t been any epidemics in the wizarding world since Gorsemoor cured dragon pox in the sixteenth century, and when there isn’t healing magic there are antidotes and Pepper-Ups and herbs that muggles simply don’t have. The fatality of a fever of all things is not something you imagine could be comprehended by the sort of people who sent you and Tom back to London in the wake of the Blitz.

Of course, the Ministry hasn't written to you, you haven’t been forced in front of a representative from the Improper Use office, and you have no real reason to be upset.

You are regardless. 

It shouldn’t even be a thought: you immolating into oblivion protesting rescue because one of you might get in trouble for it.

A world you’ve never much cared for is blanketed in ash and its people are dying and you can’t help them. A girl is dead. You’ll return next summer and there will certainly be more.

Life is for the magical, you find. The muggles can burn.

It’s what makes you start to panic this year, knowing you’ve only got one more after it. You have no idea what you’re going to do after school, and it doesn’t help that Tom doesn’t appear to share the sentiment. He’s got Head Boy in the bag and when he isn’t with you he’s with Abraxas, who can surely provide him connections if whatever game Tom is playing at works (and you have no doubt it will), but it’s like you said in third year: that isn’t enough for you.

You remember with a small ache that you no longer means you and him.

And then — it makes sense. You feel incredibly stupid.

“You told him, didn’t you?” you ask Tom the first opportunity you can get him alone, in the glum blue light of the Deathday ballroom on your way back from supper.

He sighs like it’s a conversation he’d hoped to put off for longer. “You’re referring to Abraxas, I presume?”

“You’re referring to — yes, you prick, I’m referring to Abraxas. Of course I’m referring to Abraxas, or are there others? Dolohov and Nott seem unusually enthralled by you, now that I think about it.”

“And for a reason I’m supposed to be aware of, this is an error on my part. Should I be apologising?”

“Why did you tell him, Tom?!”

“Why?” he deadpans.

You throw your hands up. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“Shall I provide you with my itinerary as well? Would you accompany me as I tour the third-years around Hogsmeade? Or can you do me the favour of trusting me to make my own decisions with the nature of my ancestry?”

“You’re keeping something from me and there’s a reason,” you say, stepping closer to him, “and forgive me if I want to know what it is when you were willing to tell me you’re the Heir of Slytherin and you can talk to snakes. What — what could possibly be bigger than that?”

Tom returns your approach with one of his own. His eyes are steady, dark, thick with lashes and you can’t reminisce on the details of the rest of him because that would be strange for a friend to do. Stranger to do it now, when you’re angry with him and there’s two sleeping ghosts in the corner and he’s framed by deep indigoes like the ripples in the Black Lake and — you’re doing it anyway.

To be short, he’s close, he’s very beautiful, and sometimes you despise him.

“Trust me,” he says again, without the derision of the last time. “This will change things for us.”

You frown, but it’s a weak upset in contrast to the explosion you came in here willing to make. There were at least twenty questions you meant to ask and you only managed one.

You are not his keeper. You know that. 

“Change them for the better, Tom,” you say on a sigh.

He blinks, and you think he’ll respond with a nod or a slightly offended ‘of course’ but he does not. He blinks and he just keeps looking at you. It’s disarming. It probably resembles the way you often look at him. There’s a rationale somewhere; you never see each other anymore, life is so incredibly busy, maybe he’s forgotten what you look like.

And he does nod, finally, but he does it with his thumb brushing the corner of your lip.

What? Sorry. What’s going on?

He pulls it away like he’s heard you. “You had something.”

You’re almost positive you did not.

Transfiguration this year brings Conjuration, which is an advanced and welcome distraction, and even more exciting when you consider no longer having to Vanish things you have no idea how to bring back. Dumbledore’s is one of three N.E.W.T classes you’re taking — Defence Against the Dark Arts and Alchemy besides. It’s easily your favourite.

You share it with eleven other Slytherins and twelve Ravenclaws. Four of them are muggle-born, and it’s hard to describe the ease you feel among them because you don’t think you’ve ever had anything resembling ease with anyone but Tom.

Your schedule is more crammed than it’s ever been, but it’s good. Two of the Ravenclaw girls invite you to Hogsmeade every other weekend, you share butterbeers when you can afford one, you study until you collapse, you take Dumbledore’s extra assignments and consider trying out for Chaser on one of your more restless evenings before waking up in the morning and resolving there is such as thing as too much of a good thing. Best not to get ahead of yourself.

Your contentment is remedied quickly.

Someone is found unresponsive in the dungeons. Dippet makes an announcement at breakfast that the boy isn’t dead, rather, petrified. No one is quite sure the cause, but the Headmaster warns a few minor precautions, suggests a buddy system, and says that after dinner studying should remain in everyone’s respective common rooms rather than the courtyards or library.

You know next to nothing about petrification, but the victim is muggle-born, and you suspect it was the result of a poorly performed statue curse by one of the many blood zealots in your house. The whole thing makes you hold onto your wand a smidge tighter, but you’re adamant not to let it drive you to paranoia like it would have a few years ago.

Tom nods at your theory when you manage to escape to the Black Lake together in November.

“That isn’t unreasonable,” he says. High praise.

You sink into the moss, sighing. “Do you think there’ll be more?”

He looks out onto the lake, the lapping waves, the crystalline beads that furrow them, midnight algae and flotsam you don’t think you belong to anymore.

You peer up at his silhouette in the dark. “Do you think whoever did it will do it again, I mean?”

“I don’t know,” he says finally, and after another pause: “but I don’t think it would be you.”

“How’s that?”

“No one would be senseless enough to try.”

And he sinks beside you with that, breath shaping the cold in steady, rhythmic clouds while yours are scattered. His robes brush yours and you take his arm with a sleepy hum, tracing patterns in the stars until your eyes feel heavy and he insists on taking you back to your dormitories.

One of the Ravenclaw girls, Marigold Wright, distracts you with a spare blue scarf and an invitation to her next Quidditch match. You watch from the stands and cheer as she catches the snitch to beat Gryffindor.

It’s a bit strange — having a distraction — having a friend. Mari is kind, smart, a good study partner who’s as keen on stepping into the advanced theoretics of Human Transfiguration a year early as you are. She’s funny in a vulgar way, introduces you to all her friends, shows you the best way to sneak into the kitchens, and you sometimes wonder if she was sorted wrong, but — her methods are creative, and she’s definitely intelligent. She’s also definitely not Tom.

You see less and less of him and more of her, Dumbledore, the Ravenclaw common room and the pages of progressive Transfiguration methodologies. He sees less of you and more of Abraxas, Dolohov and Nott and all the other purebloods, Slughorn’s soirées and Prefect meetings that cut into meals.

It happens again.

Second floor lavatory. A girl called Myrtle Warren. She isn’t petrified.

There’s a vigil the following week and her parents are there, two muggles whose sobs wrack the Great Hall even as the students clear out. Flowers descend from the charmed ceiling, little bluebells and white chrysanthemums.

You cry that night. You can’t remember the last time you cried.

This time, you don’t have to seek Tom out. He catches you on your way back from Alchemy and brings you to the Deathday ballroom with a melancholy glance in your direction that you don't hesitate to follow. You realise it’s an odd place to continue to end up in, but no one else goes there and you suppose that makes it yours.

You’ve seen Tom skinny and sickly and olive green, but today his eyes are circled with veined violets and the lack of summer sun this year has whittled him grey once more. He’s still beautiful. He’ll always be beautiful. But he’s tired and — sad — and for the six years you’ve known him you aren’t quite sure what to do with that.

You don’t spend too long pondering it. You just hug him with the dawning newness of a thing like that; a thing you’ve never done, and never really thought to do. (You ask yourself in bewilderment how you’ve never thought to do it before.)

He’s warm. He’s uncertain. He doesn’t reciprocate immediately. 

And then he does, and you understand without caveats or concerns that you stopped having a choice in your destruction the moment you chose him. He’s home, and that’s going to ruin you one day.

Your arms tighten around him and his around you, the rhythm of his breath holding you to earth when you begin to float away. Nothing makes sense in this moment but the mercy that in all the death you’ve seen, you swear to God you’ll never see his. As long as you’re alive, he must be too.

And there’s something to be said about the innate self-slaughter of loving a person (of loving Tom Riddle, especially): that it’ll cleave you in two, that you’ll say feeble things in his embrace that you should be above saying, like ‘I’m scared’, that his hand will find the back of your head and he'll tell you he knows, that that should not feel like enough but it will be. You’ll clasp your hands under black robes and hold this singular embrace together by the faulty adhesive of your fingers. Maybe you’ll cry again, like your body can suddenly comprehend its capacity for it and is making up for lost time.

The first sign that something is wrong, more than the obvious grievance of the death itself, is the Ministry’s happy acceptance of Rubeus Hagrid as the culprit.

The boy is maybe fourteen years old, half-blood — half human, mind — and no one has a bad word to say about him other than he likes to keep eccentric pets. Which leads you to wonder what pet he possessed with the ability to petrify one student and kill another and what cause he’d have for it in the first place besides two terrible, miraculous accidents.

That question draws an even stranger path. Mari says over butterbeers (on her, bless her soul) that she read somewhere years ago that Gorgons can induce petrification, but that she doesn’t remember much else.

One of the boys in DADA says that his father’s an auror, and heard from him that Hagrid’s pet was some sort of arachnid. Tom deducts five points from his house after class with a scowl on his pale face, muttering about conspiracy.

The second sign that something is wrong is that only one of those things would need to be true for the entire case on Hagrid to be called into question. If Mari’s memory serves right, how the hell did Hagrid come into ownership of a Gorgon? (Could Gorgons even be owned?) If the auror’s son is worth your credence, then what species of arachnid is capable of petrification?

You take to the library.

Unsure of where to begin and hesitant to draw attention, your research lingers into Christmas break and stalls some of your extracurriculars in Transfiguration. Tom is busy enough not to notice the new step in your routine, and you’re grateful not to have him breathing down your back, telling you you’re looking in the wrong places or you shouldn’t be looking at all.

The third sign is the end. 

You wish to retract it all. There are time-turners and memory charms and potions that could dizzy you enough to manipulate the truth; there is anything but this. You’d suffer the consequences for the bliss of loving him with one more day before the ruin — you’d write it down to remember through the fog: look at him, duel him without wanting to hurt him, kiss him to know that you did it at least once, have him, be had. You never will again.

He’d shown you the adder. He’d joked about the Chamber of Secrets. He’d spent months disappearing with Abraxas, earning the trust of the sons of the Sacred Twenty Eight. 

And he’d killed Myrtle Warren.

So it’s statue curses and Gorgons and Tom — speaking to serpents when no one else can, buttressed by pureblood boys who want people like you dead.

Don’t become like them now that you’re not like me.

He’s something else entirely.

What do you do in a moment like this? Panting into an empty library at a revelation you wish you could unknow, fingers digging into the hickory of your desk — another memory carved among the initials and hearts; how do you stand from your chair and leave like the world outside this room is the same as it was when you entered? There’s nothing to orbit. You are cosmic debris, tea dregs in a barren cup, flotsam.

You stand; and you tell no one. Not even Tom.

His presence in your life is so infrequent that you don’t even have to come up with excuses for your distance until three weeks after your discovery when you’re paired together in DADA to practise stretching jinxes. 

You almost laugh. He’s standing beside you, tall (lanky like he was when he was a boy if you look long enough) and serious, and you love him without knowing who he is anymore. You’ve skirted corners to avoid him and sat with Mari during lunch and breakfast like he’s some scorned lover to escape confrontation from and not someone who held you through a grief inflicted by his hand. 

“You look tired,” he says, inspecting the daisy you’d been tasked to elongate.

You glance at him. You are tired. It’s exhaustive, bone-deep, aching like nothing you’ve ever known, and maybe that’s why you can look at him and smile sadly instead of thrashing against his chest screaming for what he did. You suppose it happens enough in your head to satisfy. When you can sleep, you sleep to the thought of it. The waking moments are just blank.

“Mhm,” you hum, transfiguring the daisy stem back to its regular length.

Tom observes it with curious eyes. “You’re getting good at that.”

“I’ve been good at it.”

His lips turn, a small frown before he puts it away. You make the observation that he’s tired too; there are still bags under his eyes and his hands tremble ever-so-slightly with his wand when he loosens his grip on it.

His own doing and still you flicker with some relentless hope that he's drowning in regret.

“Sorry,” you say. A ridiculous thing. Do you intend to slowly push him from your life with weak disinterest and diverging academic avenues? As if he were something extricable. He’d never let you.

You’ll have to confront him, and that’s a revelation that holds its weight on your chest until you think you'll suffocate under it.

You’re in the blue light of the Deathday ballroom with a face you've never worn before when it happens, deep into spring, and you know then that you were wrong all those years ago.

He sees all of you.

Takes you in in the flash of a second and maybe it’s your quivering jaw that reveals you or the flint of betrayal in your eyes waiting to be struck and lit. Yes, you were wrong — Tom Riddle knows you at every atom too.

“Are you going to let me explain?" he asks before any hello. His jaw is tight but there’s nothing else to go on to judge his disposition. He's settling into impassivity like an animal drawing its shell. You will not be allowed in if you're going to make it hurt, and you might be the only one who can.

“Explain," you copy with a hard exhale, “Just tell me it wasn’t you. That’s all there is to say."

He stares at you. There’s nothing there.

“Tell me, Tom.”

Your breath catches on an automatic please but you don’t want to offer him that.

“I cannot.”

Then make me forget, you want to scream. Let it be summer. Let us work for pennies and breadcrumbs and be no one together.

It’s late winter and it’s too cold.

“You killed her,” you say quietly.

“If I told you I did not wish for it, would you even believe me?”

“What are you… so it was an accident?”

“There was — an opportunity presented itself that may never have come again; that does not mean I don’t find the nature of it regrettable.”

“Regrettable.” You’re laughing or crying or both, and you must look unwell. Halfway out of your mind.

He’s so composed in the face of it that it only makes you more incensed.

“You told me to change things —”

“You killed someone! Can you understand that?”

“You nearly died,” he hisses, “and if I am to apologise for recognizing it only as the first of many times, I will not. If I am to apologise for doing whatever is necessary to prevent it, I will not. The hand we were dealt will not be the hand we die to — so yes, I understand it. And one day so will you.”

“Don't," you spit, and your anger must look pathetic under your welling tears. “Don't you dare tell me that this was for me.”

“Do you want me to lie?”

“What could her death possibly bring me, Tom?”

“Her death is the first step to —”

“God, stop dancing around the fucking question!” Both hands have wound their way to your head, clutching at your skull like the brain matter might spill through one of the cracks he’s wearing down. “Just… tell me.”

“You recall Godelot's work," he says stiffly. The question of it takes you by surprise, peels the moment back like the rim of a fruit and you're left uncertain.

All you can do is nod, arms falling to cross over your chest.

“There was one form of magic he refused quite concisely to impart. I searched the Restricted Section for days, and under Dumbledore's watch that was not an easy thing to do."

You stole from him, you're urged to remind him, but it's something you'd say with a nudge of annoyance and a roll of your eyes. Such admonishment is small and far away.

“I found it at last in one of the repositories," he goes on, “Secrets of the Darkest Art."

“...What?"

“It's called a Horcrux,” he says. “Murder, by nature, splits the soul. The Horcrux simply makes use of the act; puts the soul fragment into something imperishable so that it is protected, rather than abandoned. In turn, your life cannot be taken. By malady, by magic, by sword — the vessel is destroyed but the soul lives on.”

You blink, feeling dizzy. “Myrtle was the sacrifice.”

“Myrtle was there,” Tom remedies.

“How lucky for you.”

“The circumstances could be ameliorated if one were to be made for you. I would have preferred it be someone who deserves it.”

“For — you’d do it again? Again, Tom?”

His brows crease, and even his upset seems contrived. There’s this barricade he’s placed that you, in all your infallible knowing of him, cannot puncture. It’s agony to begin to question what he could possibly be keeping from you in a confession like this.

“You killed someone, Tom. You — I would never ask you to do that. I would never live at the cost of someone else."

“No, you would not,” he agrees, though he shakes his head like it’s incredulous of you. “Do you think, even if I knew it were certain,  a summons from the Ministry would have stopped me from saving you this summer? Do you suppose the threat of punishment would cause me to waver at that moment? I know it would not hinder you. So, you have your lines and I have mine — you never needed to ask.”

And now it hurts. The emptiness clears and you can't stand yourself for crying, but you do. It comes out in ragged, breathless sobs, clasped behind your palm as you turn away from him. 

You've loved him since you were eleven. It's always been you two — it was always supposed to be you two. What is there to say to him? He's blurring in your periphery like in the midst of your sickness, and there's nothing he can do to heal you this time. Your vision will clear and Myrtle Warren will still be dead. He'll still be a stranger in the face of the boy you love. 

“Why," you whine, a wet, hollow stain in your voice you've never cried enough to hear before. “Myrtle was — wasn't — uh —" You swallow, hysterics severing your words. You can't really think right now. Your body wobbles and your head feels puffy and hot. This might be shock. 

Tom scowls like it irritates him to watch you push yourself, like this is just the unfortunate effect of you depleting your energy in a duel, not eating correctly, treating yourself carelessly. 

Of course you can't stand or talk or think. You're you, contemplating a life without him.

“Sit," he says in frustration. You smack his hand away when he reaches for you, but the world has turned a shade darker and you're slipping into it. 

He tugs a chair towards you with a silent charge and a reprimand, and your body doesn’t possess the wherewithal not to collapse into it the second it’s under you.

After a moment you can speak again, shaking hands steadied by your knees. “Did you… did you think I wouldn't find out? You know, the only thing that can petrify someone besides a serpent is a Gorgon. And — where would Rubeus Hagrid have found one of those?"

“I thought I would have time.”

“To come up with a good lie? Something I’d sympathise with?”

He bites his cheek. “Evidently the particulars matter little to you.”

Fuck him. “Fuck you.”

“Very cogent.”

“No, fuck you, Tom. We could have — we only had a year left and then we could — we could've done anything we wanted." You're crying again. You don't have the energy to be embarrassed. “And you chose this."

He’s indignant as he steps closer. “With what money? For what life? We are better than all of them and it’s never mattered. It never will; you know that. You told me that. You’re angry now, but you must know the truth of it. I would not forsake you. I would not lose you.”

You blink up at him, mouth stuck with some cottony feeling and cheeks stiff from crying.

“You have lost me, Tom."

He stills as if suspended. Some maceration must follow but it doesn’t.

You stand on weak legs to look him in the eyes. You wonder if he can see the love in yours. You wonder if he knows you will walk away despite it. (Of course he does. You’ve never lied to him.) 

You think about how his fingers seem to always find their way to your cheek and you put yours to his. The bone there is sharp, but the skin is soft. Boyish. 

There isn't a word for a goodbye like this. It shouldn't exist and so it doesn't. You just leave.

You fail your N.E.W.T courses. Quite spectacularly.

Mari sits beside you on the train with a soothing hand on your shoulder, and doesn’t ask what’s rendered you into a comatose husk since March. There’s no crying. You chew numbly on soft caramels from the trolley and stare out the window onto the hills.

That summer is spent in your bedroom unless you’re forced elsewhere. A new girl with skin so white it’s nearly translucent sleeps in the bed beside yours, taking meals on trays like you did in your first days here, tracing the cracks in the tiles, humming to herself in the dark. She makes you feel less pathetic for doing much the same. 

You’d been right in your assumption that there would be more dead upon your return, and wrong that there would be more empty rooms. There are always more orphans being made.

And then you receive a letter. It isn’t delivered by owl (only for secrecy, you assume, because there are no muggles who’d be writing to you) but it’s stamped with a vaguely familiar crest. Not Hogwarts’ waxen seal, but something undoubtedly magical. A cockroach and a cup, you think, squinting. Transfiguration.

You tear the envelope open and pull the letter out.

It’s from Dumbledore. Some of it melds together, but the key words stand out.

Spoken to Dippet… Exceptional promise… N.E.W.Ts… May be reconsidered… Upon dispensation… Be well.

Be well.

You are not. You are something half-drowned and half-burned, never enough of one to quell the effects of the other. Sunlight is sparse through your side of the orphanage. On the radio, they warn a pattern of one bomb every second hour. The only other warning is the sound when they fly overhead, and if you can’t run fast enough —

You write your answer in a crowded tube station with a spotty ballpoint pen. Tom is there, looking between you, the dust, and your shaking hands as if to say: tell me I was wrong.

Some of your letter melds together but the key words stand out.

Thank you, Sir. Whatever you need.

It’s a shock that you live to seventh year. It’s a shock that you do it without him — though he watches, and in his gaze you feel regressed. You’re alive, yes, but there’s something there… his dead weight, death-grip; his haunting. They always speak of the dead as something heavy. Something that holds onto you even after it’s gone.

You find that to be true.

Dippet’s condition that you remain in Dumbledore’s N.E.W.T class is that you achieve more than the standard requirement. Essentially, your final exam will be much harder than everyone else's: Human Transfiguration, mastery of petty Transformation (through the means of Wizard’s Chess pieces), Conjuration and Vanishment of various delicate objects — all done nonverbally.

Even Dumbledore seems sceptical, but it translates to more rigorous practise rather than resignation, assignments he doesn’t even task to Mari, though she’s just as good, and you can’t begin to understand why he cares so much. 

“I’ll entrust you with these while I’m away,” he says before Christmas break, sliding a sheet of parchment your way with a flick of his wand.

You frown, unfolding it. His instructions are always short now — you’ve learned to decode his meaning well enough without much exposition. 

Teacup to gerbil — to cat, and inverse.

Inanimatus Conjurus spell (cockroach and cup, as instructed) to be Vanished when perfected.

Study Antar’s Doctrine. Miss Wright will act as your partner.

Due February.

It’s far too much to be done in that time. “Sir?”

Dumbledore lugs a messenger bag over his shoulder that appears small, but he carries it in such a way you suspect it’s magically extended. He smiles wistfully, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “You know, I often regret how much this war asks of me. A consequence of my own doing.”

Right — Grindelwald. Sometimes you forget between awaiting the next muggle paper. War is everywhere.

You nod. “I hope… Good luck, Sir.”

Another half-smile as he twists open a jar of Floo Powder, and then he shakes his head with something you almost decipher as amusement. A brittle sort. Tired. “Good luck to you.”

And then he’s gone, in a swath of green flames that do nothing to inspire any desire for Floo travel in you.

Antar’s Doctrine is simultaneously prosaic and grandiose. They read like excerpts of a journal and you yawn into them over your morning tea, stirring amongst the first-years, who are the only people at the Slytherin table you can stand to sit with. Your blood status is apparently nullified by your age, and the worst they do is look at you funny. You aren’t sure what Abraxas’s — Tom’s (the new hierarchy never fails to stagger you) — lackeys would do if you sat with the other seventh-years instead. A part of you longs to know. They certainly don’t bother you in class the way they used to, you aren’t tripped in the corridors, but you wonder how far Tom’s influence can stretch. He is the Heir of Slytherin, and he’s earned them. But you are nothing.

You’d like it if he would let them hurt you. You think the incentive would be enough to hurt him back. And God — God, you want to. You want to hurt him almost as much as you want him.

You practise through the doctrine with Mari, as Dumbledore directed. When you’re able to sever Antar’s egotism from his abilities, you can see why Dumbledore would recommend his book to you. It feels like slipping through a crack in glass without shattering the whole thing. You weave in and back out, and Mari grins when she returns from the shape of a teapot to her body without you needing to utter a word to do it.

In the back of your mind, you’re aware what you’re doing is nearly unprecedented. It’s spring, you’re months away from eighteen, muggle-born, and mastering nonverbal Human Transfiguration like it’s a Softening Charm. Mari tells you you’re the smartest person she’s ever met. It makes your cheeks go hot to hear such open praise, worse when you snap out of the thought that you believe her.

Grindelwald falls. The school celebrates in whispers until the evidence is in front of them — Dumbledore, returned without a scar, a new wand in his hand — and then they’re cheers. The feast that night is a great one, and he toasts to you from the end of the staff table, a discreet tilt of his cup before he takes a sip and returns to converse with Professor Merrythought.

You take from your own, and your eyes land on Tom, spine of his goblet tight in his hand. He’s looking at you like you’ve affronted him somehow. You could laugh — by choosing Dumbledore. Of course. As if it was a choice at all.

But if it bothers him… if it feels anything at all like the betrayal you felt, then — good.

You drink, and don’t look away.

By the time your N.E.W.T.s arrive you have a renewed confidence that you’ll succeed, even with the obstacle of performing each exam wordlessly.

There are only twelve students who came out of your sixth year class, so to divide resources for the tests is no grand task. You’re given a Wizard’s Chess set, a desk with assorted vases and goblets, an intricate epergne (you had to whisper to Mari to learn its name), and a Ministry worker borrowed like some laboratory mouse. You suppose it makes sense, though — you’re all capable enough of Human Transfiguration not to mutilate anyone, and performing on a classmate could obfuscate the results. It’s far easier to Transfigure someone you know than someone you don’t.

You start with the chess set, Dumbledore and the Ministry worker observing you as you turn pawns to knights and rooks to kings, the minutiae of the pieces drawing sweat to your brow. They change, and change, and change, and you don’t mutter an incantation once. The Ministry worker puts the set away and directs you to the glass. You Switch the vases with the goblets, Vanish them, and Conjure them again. The Ministry worker takes notes. Dumbledore nods affirmatively at you and you can exhale. The epergne is the hardest; so kitschy and elaborate you don’t know where to start when you’re tasked to Transform it into an animal. 

An animal — like that isn’t the vaguest instruction you’ve ever received.

You look at it on the desk, mirrors and glass and gold on protracted arms, and you go for the first thing you think of because the Ministry worker is staring at you like you’re inept and you see it in his eyes — this is the muggle-born one, this one can’t do it. 

You’re better than them. You can do it forever.

The epergne spins at the dip of your wand, and emerges more than an animal. A big glass tank appears in its place, round and gold-rimmed, water lapping at the sides. Inside it is a jellyfish. Emerald green, bobbing, tentacles and oral arms coiling against the glass like the limbs of the epergne had spanned its centre.

The Ministry worker swallows. Dumbledore smiles.

“And — and back?” the worker says, like that will be the thing that stops you.

You point again, mouth tight with irritation, and reverse the Transformation. A droplet of water smacks your face and you’re lucky to be so hot you can disguise it as sweat. You suspect even an error that small would cost you a mark.

You wipe it away. A strange thing happens; you imagine Tom brushing the water from your cheek at the Black Lake. You imagine his fingers in the rain.

The Ministry worker steps closer with a shameless frown. He tells you to turn his hair red. You do. He regards himself in the mirror and scribbles something down. He tells you to turn it back. You do. To grow him a beard, to change his clothes, to make him taller, shorter, this and that — all read from a list he does not appear enthused to recite. You do it all.

He shakes Dumbledore’s hand when it’s done, duplicates his notes for him to keep, and follows the other Ministry workers through the fireplace when everyone’s exams are finished.

You find out you’ve passed with an Outstanding on your birthday.

Mari drags you to the Three Broomsticks to celebrate, butterbeers on her. (They always are.)

“Can’t believe we’re about to graduate,” she says into her cup, froth on her upper lip.

You sigh into your own, partially giddy and mostly nervous.

Mari squeezes your face between her thumb and finger so your frown is puckered. “Chin up, genius. You’ll be excellent.”

You push her hand away but can’t help a small smile. “Outstanding,” you correct.

“Outstanding!” She bursts out laughing. “Bloody ego on you now…”

“Well, I am the smartest person you know.”

“I take that back.”

She pushes out of her chair with a slightly inebriated wobble. “Going to the loo. Don’t touch my chips.”

Your hands raise in surrender, and you steal only one when she’s gone.

You aren’t the only ones here to celebrate. (Your birthday and your mutual achievement, yes, but the Three Broomsticks is filled wall-to-wall with seventh years drinking their final nights at school away.) There’s music charmed to reach every corner, even yours at the little alcove hidden from plain sight. It’s nice to watch from here — the stumbling, the kisses meant for mouths that land drunkenly on cheeks and noses, the barkeeps that roll their eyes as soon as they turn away from all the newly adult customers, not yet learned or careless in their drinking manners.

It is not nice to be occluded from plain sight in such a way that you don’t notice Tom Riddle until he’s inches away from your table. It is not nice that no one else notices either.

On instinct you don’t make any impressive exit. He slides into the booth next to you and your brain short circuits for a moment at the warm familiarity of his presence beside you. Then it occurs that it’s been more than a year since this was remotely commonplace — that you cannot forget the reason why.

There’s not much time to decide whether you want to be vicious or indifferent or to debate on past precedent which would bother him more. You haven’t attacked him despite being concealed enough to do it unnoticed, and you haven’t shoved furiously out of the other side of the booth.

Indifferent it is. 

“Can I help you?”

“You’re causing quite the stir,” he says, taking one of Mari’s chips.

You’re allowed. It’s infuriating when he does it.

“Am I?”

“It’s enough to fail a N.E.W.T level class and be expressly petitioned back, but to have a special criteria set for your exams and manage an O on top of it all…” He inclines his head as if to appreciate your face so close after so long. You should not let him. “You are incomprehensible. It terrifies them.”

“They’re afraid of the wrong mudblood, then, aren’t they?”

Indifference effaced. You’re angry.

He seems to have come prepared, and shrugs your scorn off like a scarf you would have forced him to wear winters ago. “Of course, they have no reason to suspect Dumbledore might have ulterior motives.”

Ulterior — you certainly hope he isn’t suggesting this is based on anything but your merit, but then — you couldn’t begin to understand why Dumbledore cared so much, could you? You’d made brief inspections of his disdain for Tom in second year, his waning shades of kindness and the matter of his stolen encyclopaedia, but you hadn’t… you hadn’t thought at all about how his dedication to your progress only begun after you’d stopped sharing a class with Tom, how it had developed as you began to drift from one another in fifth year and accelerated in sixth after the first petrification and Myrtle’s death. How Tom had worn you down with a weighted glare at Dumbledore’s little toast.

It wasn’t because you had chosen Dumbledore, you realise. It was because Dumbledore had chosen you.

“Why don’t you worry about your pets, Riddle?” you snarl, “I’m sure there are bigger problems with your lot than my exam results.”

Something in his face shifts at the name. You swell with distorted pride.

He mends the reaction by looking you over in more detail, his features schooled into something he must know you can’t deduce. You try not to squirm under the intensity of it.

He reaches almost mindlessly for your collar (there is nothing mindless about it, you’re sure) and smooths the fabric gently with his fingers. “I always liked you in this colour.”

You blink. His thumb just barely brushes against the skin of your neck before retreating, and your mouth falls open.

“Don’t do that,” you say. Truly a sad attempt. Your repulsion is more with yourself than him, and that’s not at all right.

Where is Mari?

“Your friend was at the bar, last I saw her.”

You stare at him with wild eyes. How the hell — ?

“You were always easy to read,” he supplies, and leans in so you can follow his line of sight to the tiniest sliver of the bar visible between two columns, where Mari looks deeply engaged in conversation with Leo Ndiaye, one of the Gryffindor Chasers.

You take a sharp, exasperated breath at her antics. She might be more in love with the competition than the boy himself. They’d never last without Quidditch to bind them, but you can’t fault her for wanting a bit of fun.

“Well then —” 

Right. Tom hasn’t actually moved away. You turn and his face is just there.

His eyes dart forthwith to your mouth, and — no. No, he won’t be doing that and neither will you.

“...I’m off to bed.” Stop talking to him like he’s your friend, you think miserably. Stop looking at him like he’s your —

“That would be wise.”

He’s still looking at your lips.

No one else is looking at you at all.

It could exist in just this moment, you deliberate; separate from everything else.

Except nothing about Tom exists in its own moment. He’s all over you all the time, skin and bone and soul. You hope you still have a place in the broken fragments of his.

“So I’ll be going now,” you say again.

“I haven’t protested.”

But he’s leaning in, and he has to know that’s impedance enough.

“But you will.”

His lips touch yours. “Yes, I will.”

You grab him by his shirt and you’re kissing him. You’re kissing each other like either of you know what the hell it means to kiss anyone, but you’ve learned the rest together, haven’t you? Your noses bump and you don’t care. You just need to kiss him, and — God, you make some noise against his mouth and the hand cupping your face spreads to capture more of you, greedy and wayward — he needs to kiss you too. It’s a horrible thing to know. It leads you to pose too many questions.

The need must have begun as want, and when did the want begin? How long has he looked at you and wondered what you’d feel like to kiss, touch, mark? (He’ll never have the latter. You swear that.)

You’re pulling away in intervals. “You don’t have me, you know.”

“I know,” he responds, lips on the corner of yours.

“You still lost me.”

“I know.”

“I hate you.”

He pauses for a moment. “I know.”

You kiss him again. Long and soft, memorising his cupid’s bow and the tip of his tongue, and when one of his hands moves to your waist you part from him like you’ve been burned.

“I —” You resist the urge to touch a finger to your lips, standing abruptly from the table and adjusting your shirt. Your body feels like an evolutionarily faulty vessel, too easy to please, though you can’t imagine it responding to anyone else this way. Or perhaps your mind is the problem. Not wired well enough to resist an evidently bad thing. “Goodnight, Tom.”

You thought there wasn’t a word for your goodbye, but that’s it. So simple it sinks you. Goodnight, Tom. I’ll dream of a morning where I wake up beside you, but you won’t be there.

He grabs your hand before you can go, licking his lips and it haunts you to think he’s savouring you. It stings a place deep in your chest you’d spent all year trying to heal.

“My door is always open,” he says.

He lets you go.

You graduate with Mari’s hand in yours, and you aren’t afraid.

Dumbledore requests that you stay for the summer to help him prepare for the first year’s curriculum in the fall. It’s a ridiculous opportunity for someone your age — free lodgings and a stellar impression on your resume, and — you can only accept it with an ire you haven’t felt since the spread of influenza in muggle Britain.

If he’s offering you lodgings now, he could have done it all along.

It sends you down a horrible train of thought while you move your things from the Slytherin dormitories to a little chamber a few doors down from the staff room; Tom will be removed from Wool’s this year. Will he stay at Malfoy Manor? But Tom is still publicly muggle-born — Abraxas’s parents would never allow it. Will he find a job, a flat? Will he swindle muggles once he turns eighteen and the Trace is no longer an obstruction?

You think of him often. You think of his offer.

My door is always open.

Plenty of doors are open to you now. Why should you want to go back to his?

Still, the Second World War ends in November and you feel like you can breathe at a depth you never could before. The school doesn’t celebrate like it did with Grindelwald. No one but you seems to care at all.

It’s a tempting door.

The year passes in a blur of graded papers and lessons Dumbledore sometimes involves you in and sometimes does not. Most of the first-years care little for you, but there are two Slytherin muggle-borns who look at you like a new sun to orbit. Everything is worth it for that.

You see Mari when you can, and find she’s training with the Italian Quidditch team, who apparently are smart enough to care more about skill than blood. She says she misses the complexities of Transfiguration, but any career in it was always going to be yours. Smartest person she knows, she reiterates. Biggest ego too.

The next summer Dumbledore informs you of a posting at the Ministry. Something small with a smaller wage. He emphasises the weight of his personal recommendation, but that you won’t be respected unless you claw tooth and nail for it. You don’t take long to consider a chance to make an actual income with an actual career doing something muggle-borns simply don’t do before you’re nodding assuredly and asking him what you need.

Better clothes are first, and all you can afford until further notice. You take to Gladrags with intent to purchase for the first time in your five years of wandering in the shop with eyes bigger than your wallet, and the owner looks at you with distrust when you slide her your sickles.

The Ministry job is truly, infinitesimally, insignificant. 

It’s far down in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. You’re a glorified secretary, and you recall the few times you’d worked as a mail-sorter during the war. It’s some sick irony that you’ve landed yourself in a pile of paper once more.

But the money, though offensively scant to someone with better options (and it’s infuriating the options you deserve), is more than you’ve ever had, and within the next year you’re able to leave the castle and take a cheap room at an inn in Hogsmeade. You’re close enough to Dumbledore to aid him when he needs you, but far enough to feel like your school days are departed, and you need not worry about memories lurching unexpectedly at every corridor. 

A sick part of you still reaches for your mouth sometimes to remember what it felt like to be kissed. That part of you wishes for Tom. You could kiss him into oblivion. You could find a way to make it hurt him back.

My door is always open.

Then you’ll slam it bloody closed.

Mari invites you to her first professional game and you cheer for her in the stands, a green, white, and red scarf around your neck in place of her old blue.

She wins and you get drinks in a muggle pub. You kiss a man at the bar. You go home with him. His hair is dark, but not dark enough. His lips are soft, but the shape is wrong. He makes you feel good, but you wonder if in another life, the dream is true; you roll over in the morning to Tom beside you, and he makes you feel better.

When you can find time between the monotonous demands of your job, you’re in the Transfiguration classroom, staying behind to help the Slytherin muggle-borns with their Switching spells.

It’s one stupid accident the next fall that changes things.

A muggle bank has been robbed, and whatever idiotic, panicked witch or wizard was behind it apparently found themselves incapable of getting the deed done with a simple Imperius Curse (you can’t imagine, based on the scene, that they’re above Unforgivables), and somehow ended up leaving the building half-charred and teeming with at least six bank tellers Transformed into birds, two chirping into the floor tiles with broken wings.

“Renauld’s on it, though,” your coworker says when the news finds your department.

“Renauld?”

He’s a year older than you, a pureblood with parents in high places, and endlessly fucking hopeless.

“Well, yeah —”

You push out from your desk, files fluttering behind you. “Renauld will expose the whole damn wizarding world if he touches that building.”

“But McCormack sent him.”

“Where is it?”

“I… McCormack said that —”

“Where is it, Flack?”

“Um. Um, near King William, I think. Moorgate or, um —”

That’s good enough. You toss the Floo Powder into the fireplace and go.

The place is a mess. You don’t even have to look for it. There’s some ward around the street, bouncing muggles away like an invisible end to a map they don’t even register is there. At least that’s handled right.

But you slip through it and curse under your breath at the muggles trapped inside the wards. They’re like fish prodding at the dome of their bowl, and some run up to you demanding explanations when they see you unaffected by it. You brush them off — Obliviation is not your strong-suit — though you do shout at a pair of DMAC wizards uselessly standing guard outside the bank.

“What the hell are you doing?” you ask on approach. “Renauld’s supposed to handle the inside, yeah? You deal with fixing them.”

You point toward the frantic muggles, and the officials just regard you with vague confusion at your presence. “Renauld said —”

“Oh my God! Fix. The muggles.”

You afford nothing else before pushing past them to enter the bank.

It’s quite impressive, actually; Renauld, the result of generations of foolproof breeding, is waving his wand around like he’s just stepped out of Olivanders for the first time.

“Heal their wings,” you say without greeting.

Renauld jumps. “What? What are you doing here?”

“Heal their damn wings. They’re easier than human limbs and healing magic’s the only thing you aren’t completely shit at.”

“Who authorised you?” he hisses.

“I did.”

In hindsight, it should have gone horrifically wrong. Your wand could have been taken and your life might have been over in all ways that matter, flung back into the muggle world where you’ve always been told you belong.

But Renauld vouches for you. You Transform the walls, you fix the burns, you mend the bank to something presentable. A muggle robbery — dangerous, financially tragic, but believable. And your suggestion to heal the injured bank tellers in their animal forms might be the thing that saved them. When Renauld mends their wings and regenerates their blood, you Untransfigure them, and the other DMAC officials alter their memories with haste.

You were completely out of line and utterly right.

It isn’t something people like you are allotted.

Your probation period is dreadful. You hide in your room at the inn most days, Vanishing little stained panes on your window to feel the warm breeze of air before you Conjure them again. You help grade papers, though Dumbledore is displeased with you and the night is a silent one. He assures you curtly that he’s doing his best with the Ministry to amend this.

And… he does.

With Renauld’s help and the corroboration of the other DMAC officials, you’re back at work by the start of the school year.

It’s a slow process — almost eight months of meaningless paperwork — before the next incident occurs and you’re hectically ushered to the scene like a belated understudy. And then it happens again. And again. And again.

There’s really no choice but to promote you.

Your heroics are torn from a Gryffindor cloth, so says Flack. You urge him never to say such a thing again.

By your twenty-first birthday, you think about Tom almost exclusively in your sleep. You’re much too busy to think about him anywhere else.

The summer is warm and Hogsmeade is lively. You’ve vacated your room at the inn for a little house on the outskirts of the village, decorating it how you like — discovering what you like. You’d never had a chance to find out before.

Mari visits when she can once you have your fireplace connected to the Floo Network (you yourself prefer Apparating) but her name is slowly working its way from the Italian papers to the British ones, and she has so much to tell you there isn’t possibly enough time in her days to tell it. There’s also the matter of Leo Ndiaye, who has, recently, gotten on one knee and proposed to her. If there had been a bet on them ending up together, you would have been out enough galleons to put you in debt.

After especially gruesome days at work, you and a few colleagues make a habit of getting sherries at the Siren’s Tail, complaining that sometimes the nature of your work is akin to an auror’s but without the notoriety and pay.

“Oh, please,” says Emilia Alves, twirling her straw, “have you seen the shit the aurors are up to lately? I’d rather be a blimmin’ Unspeakable.”

“You’d have to be able to keep your mouth shut for that, Alves.”

Emilia punches Renauld in the arm.

“What are the aurors up to?” Flack asks.

“I dunno much. There was a murder all the way in Albania, s’posedly. Reeked of dark magic.”

“Nothing new,” you join, and then frown. “Why’s our Ministry dealing with it though?”

“I dunno. I got word from Hillicker that the Albanians didn’t know what to make of the mess. They’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Hillicker’s not a source,” Renauld scoffs.

“Yeah? Why don’t you ask your daddy for something better?”

“Alves, I’ll have you know —”

You lean in over the counter. “What do you mean they’ve never seen anything like it?”

She grins. “Why? Storming a bank robbery wasn’t exciting enough for you?”

You roll your eyes, taking a drink.

That ought to be the end of it. One extraordinarily lucky incident to push you up the career ladder was rare enough — there is absolutely no way digging around a case that has nothing to do with you or your department could ever end well.

But something about it itches.

You make nice with Hillicker. She’s a year younger than you and far too kind for her own good, and she gushes freely about her husband’s work as an auror (they must be a perfect match for him to gush freely about it with her). It’s a bit manipulative. You have no excellent excuse for it, but… ambition, and all that, you suppose. Flack’s Gryffindor theory is studded with holes.

You are green, through and through.

Emilia’s updates are meaningless when you garner so much information that you’ve already heard everything she has to say over drinks, and at this point her and Hillicker might be a step behind you. Emilia still only knows about Albania; peppery little details of half a story. Hillicker discusses an assortment of murders with no real string between them, and Dumbledore regards you with cool heeding when you bring up the matter with him.

You see him little nowadays but you’ve never been close in any true sense, traces of resentment budding over the years like rainwater collects on glass until the stream finally slips.

You visit Hogwarts mostly for your Slytherins, fourteen or fifteen now, unafraid of the distinction of their blood.

And then there’s one night after you turn twenty-two where drinks take place at yours for a change, Mari and Leo included and happily wed. You have no sherries but your ale is just as well, and it’s only you and Renauld who are sober by the time everyone else is vanishing into the fireplace and going home.

That makes it much worse when you sleep together. 

There’s no excuse of having had a glass too many — so sorry, I’ll be on my way then, and him stumbling over his trousers to get out of your hair. Of course, he does that anyway, scratching the nape of his neck when he reaches your doorway in the morning.

“Thanks for the — well, you have a nice home — I do think I should —”

“Yes.”

“Right.”

“Oh!” He turns around at the last second. “Er — I know you’ve become a tad obsessed with… Hillicker mentioned another, anyway. Hepzibah something. Killed by her own elf, the aurors suspect.”

“Oh,” you echo, sheets pulled up to your shoulders. “Thanks, Renauld.”

“I thought you might like to know. Don’t be daft about it.”

You’re incredibly daft about it.

There’s something reminiscent about Albania in this case that wasn’t there with the others. The tide of dark magic ebbing across the scene, the cherry-picked information released in the Prophet, the claim of an old, dumb House Elf who poisoned her mistress like the Albanian peasant killed in some insoluble accident. 

The itch exacerbates.

You see him in your dreams again. He peers over Runes in a stolen encyclopaedia, he whispers to an adder on his shoulder, he kisses the corner of your mouth and it isn’t enough. He kills you, again and again. You kill him too.

You wake up and he isn’t there.

It’s a new low when you’re invited to the Hillicker’s anniversary dinner and you end up digging through the drawers of their study halfway through the night.

The Albania file offers nearly nothing. There was the charred residue of dark magic imprinted on a hollow tree in the fields of the peasant’s hamlet, but nothing detailing more than a blank imprint of the Killing Curse in his eyes. Still, you tuck the knowledge away for the file of one Hebzibah Smith, whose tea did indeed have traces of poison, but whose den was also ripe with a layer of darkness that didn’t line up with the Ministry’s tale of senile elf.

And then there’s the forgotten matter of her being a purveyor of ancestral artefacts. The file doesn’t recount whether any are missing, since the woman was wise enough not to proclaim all her possessions to the world, but it’s something. A scratch.

You travel to Albania that Christmas. The neighbours in the peasant’s hamlet have skewed memories, so they provide little help, but the man’s house was left almost untouched.

You tear the place apart and Transfigure it back together when you’re done.

All you find, in the end, is a scrap of an old envelope in a suitcase.

R.R

It could be that it’s old. The cursive seems ancient enough. But you swear the letters have the distinct shape of quill ink — too artful for any pen — and maybe that wouldn’t matter if it weren’t for half a wax seal stuck to the torn edge of the envelope. Stained but silver, the barest hint of two ribbons, a crest, and the letter H.

You return to Hogwarts posthaste.

It’s snowing in the courtyards and you waddle with a duotang under one arm to pretend you’re here for something scholarly, an array of excuses prepared in case you run into Dumbledore, but you don’t.

The Grey Lady is as beautiful as she’s rumoured to be. 

You ask her about her mother, and she’s silent, an expression on her face like you’ve struck her.

“Is it found?” she whispers. The snow floats through her.

Your heart hammers as you consider how to approach this. She thinks you know more than you do, which means there’s something to know.

“Yes,” you say. And you dare further with the context you know, “In Albania.”

“Oh,” she hums. “Oh…”

And if she means to say more she doesn’t seem able, washing away through the balusters, then the walls. You think of your house ghost and what he did to her, and you feel sorry for a second.

Madam Palles expels you from the library the moment you find what you’re looking for, and you rush past a throng of staring students to the staff room fireplace. It’s too far a walk to the border of the castle wards to Apparate. You bite back the preemptive sickness, get swallowed by the flames, and go home.

There are blanks to fill in but you do it easily. Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem. Hepzibah Smith and her assortment of unregistered artefacts. The stain of dark magic. Something so rare not even the aurors recognized it.

But you do, because he told you.

You wonder on your search to find him what object he used when he killed Myrtle Warren. Nothing special, you think — maybe even the closest thing he could find. These murders involved more preparation. He got to mark them however he wanted.

It’s almost disappointing to find him here. In a little flat over Knockturn Alley with a view of charmed coalsmoke and the brick wall of another shop. 

It’s as tidy as his room at Wool’s, the only dirt the irremediable age of the building itself. The whole place looks almost slanted, large enough only for the bare necessities; a kitchen, a toilet, a bedroom that looks more like a closet, and a study/dining room/den you can’t imagine he hosts many gatherings in. You rescind the mere thought. Whatever gatherings Tom Riddle is having these days, you’re sure you can’t begin to imagine at all.

You wait, legs crossed on an old loveseat, fiddling with your wand.

The door clicks open when the snow has turned to hail and there’s no light but the few scattered candles you’d lit on the mantelpiece. 

It strikes you only when he’s standing before you that it’s his birthday.

You’re in Tom Riddle’s flat, on his birthday, adorned by the orange glow of half-melted candles, and you know everything.

He eyes you carefully, a hint of surprise at the sight of you after four years that even he needs a second to recover from. And then he's even, inscrutable Riddle again, and you dare to think, come back.

“I placed wards," he says, hanging his bag on a rack by the wall.

“I thought your door was always open.”

You see his posture change from just his silhouette.

“Wards never work in Knockturn,” you offer additionally, “not really. There's too much conflicting magic; one border cuts into another; leaves a little sliver behind if you’re smart enough to find it. You should know that." 

He turns to you. You take in a moment to acknowledge how he's changed. It's hard to see in the curtained moonlight, and it seems unreasonable to imagine he’s grown, but you think he has. An inch taller, perhaps. Two. Maybe the dress shoes. His arms are bigger under his button-down, but not enough to consider him muscular. His black hair isn't as perfect as you remember, and you suspect a long day of work undoes his curls. You always liked him better that way in school, after a night duel at the Black Lake, his robes askew and his hair a mess. Evidence that you were the only one to dishevel him. Now you were — what? Did he even think of you anymore? Yes. You'd always think of each other.

“Duly noted. What are you here for?” He tries your surname like a foreign language.

You cross your arms, and you're acutely aware that he's observing your changes too. You're not the matchstick witch he once knew. Your emotions are cultured now, taut to mirror his. You wear dull, formal grey, and that glowing green tinge that should be gleaming on you is under a thick carapace. That’s for Mari, Flack, Emilia — even Renauld. Not for Tom.

You wonder if he knows it was Dumbledore who put in the word that got you this uniform. You wonder if he resents you for it.

“There’s been talk at the Ministry," you say finally, “A string of murders. Whispers of something — some dark magic they don’t understand. And you know they're careful about things like that after Grindelwald."

“A string of murders... Hm. That might imply you understand a connective thread. Is there some sort of accusation being made?”

“Oh, I'm sure you'd be flattered by accusations. There’s not enough there, as it stands. Just whispers." You sink more comfortably in the seat and the springs make a concerning sound. “But I know you."

His hard, sharp gaze falters for a moment. You watch the flames dance behind him, the firelight playing against the lines of his shoulders, and feel your heart skip a beat. “Who else is speculating?"

“No one." Your fingers brush over the book spines on the coffee table. “I guess their attention hasn't been drawn to a book clerk yet, even if you have taken residency... here." You say it with no shortage of disapproval. 

Knockturn was never where Tom belonged. You'd once imagined a flat together in muggle London, taking the telephone booth to the Ministry together, changing the world together. It's a wish that's a lifetime away now.

“Is this a warning? I assure you, I don’t need the condescension.”

“I'm not warning you," you scoff, “I — I'm seeing you. God knows I'll probably never get the chance to do that again once you get yourself locked up in Azkaban, which you will." 

You sound exasperated. You sound half-pleading. “What are you doing, Tom? Is this — this is really what you want?"

“Yes."

You shake your head. “I don't believe that." And then some of that fiery spit returns to you, and you feel like a child again, stuck in the London tube stations holding his hand at every plane that flew overhead, scowling that you needed his reassurance. Scowling that you were afraid.

“Well, your conjecture is ever-appreciated. Shall I lend you mine? Shall I congratulate you on your revolutionary position at the Ministry? Or is it Dumbledore I should afford my thanks?”

“I earned this,” you hiss.

“You deserve it,” he amends. “But do not lie to yourself and pretend that’s why you have it.”

“Fuck you.”

He smiles. “There you are.”

“I don’t need your congratulations, Riddle. Dumbledore doesn’t need your damn thanks. But,” you say, biting back the snarl that wants out, “you could thank me. After all, I could turn to the Ministry any minute with the truth of your heritage. I could tell them about Myrtle, the Horcrux — Horcruxes.”

The humour dissolves from his face and you despise the immense glee it brings you.

“Oh, did you think I didn’t know? Didn’t understand the connective thread? You are sentimental under all that… fucking posturing, you know. I’m sure it’s all very romantic to you — making Horcruxes out of Hogwarts artefacts. Shame it’s such an insult to your intelligence.”

“Very good,” he says after a long, terse silence. You’re sure he’s thinking just the opposite.

You hum, meddling with your nails. “So what’s your plan?”

“I’d need a Vow for that.”

You laugh. “I’m not that desperate.”

“You’re also not an auror, are you?” He tilts his head appraisingly. “And yet you’ve found your way here.”

“How many do you plan to make? How many people do you plan to kill?”

“A Vow.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Tea, then? Biscuits?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t. I read in the paper the other day about a poor old woman who had her tea poisoned.”

“Hm. Terrible shame.”

Your fist clenches around your wand. “Is it paying off well, Riddle? It must be a good life if you’re willing to split your soul to hell and back to have more of it.”

He smiles at the barb in your words. “You never were good with subtlety.”

“I wasn’t trying to be subtle. This place is horrific.”

“I was referring to your inability to see more than what’s directly in front of you.”

“Oh, really? And what more should I see than a boy who’s very good at getting weak men to bow and do very little else? I’d try to see the bigger picture, but I reckon it wouldn’t fit in here.”

Tom regards you colourlessly. You are slate, Ministry-grey, impermeable like palace portcullis. 

“I suppose I should have killed you.” He says it with the nonchalance of a forgotten chore. He says it like you’re a stain. 

He doesn’t say it like he feels any terrible urgency to remove you; and you think, this time, you’d feel more powerful if he did. You think it’s far more debilitating to sit here and be looked at like he regrets wanting you alive more than he wants you dead.

“Yes,” you concur, “I suppose you should have.” 

You place your wand down on the table and scoot your chair away for good measure. “It’s never too late to rectify your mistakes.”

Tom, for a moment, looks surprised. That makes you feel powerful. You’d take more of that.

“You have wandless magic,” he tries. A weak recovery.

“Scout’s honour, Riddle.”

He doesn’t move for a moment, then fixes his wand in his hand and rises, doused in the same inscrutable calm that always used to drive you mad. Now something in you gleams with the knowledge that he only ever looks like this when he’s trying not to look like anything at all.

He steps closer and it gleams brighter. It trembles inside you and you know, distantly, that this is insane. You’re weighing your life on a childhood trust that was shattered years ago, and you don’t think you’ve ever been that good at faith, but he’s approaching you and that gleam you feel is reflected in his eyes and you just… know. Your spilled blood once crawled with his. There’s no undoing that. Half of you is made of the other.

“I should have killed you,” he repeats.

It’s a murmur. Stilted. Angry, even. Angry that you made him this and there’s no fucking rectifying it — what a joke that is. What an immensely you thing to suggest.

“Yes,” you agree.

It’s a breath. Low. Proud, even. Proud that you’re his only mistake and he’s going to make it again.

Tom kisses you. It’s a murder of its own kind. You kiss him back, and — you were always going to kill each other like this, weren’t you? It’s you and him whether you like it or not.

There should be no love in it. You know that. Love is far behind the both of you, stifled in a gasp at the back of your throat on your eighteenth birthday and the soft, selfish hands of a seventeen year old boy. This is mutual destruction. Spite and teeth and skin that’s cold under your fingers.

He was your first in everything but this.

You push back at him and feel the hunger, the need in him, like a flame as he kisses you deeper and harder, and you find yourself losing yourself to it all over again, like you're back in the dark alcove of a pub where you told him goodbye, pushing to extend the juncture. And then he lets out a hitched, gravelly sound; not a moan but enough to make you shudder.

You pull him onto the sofa and crawl onto his lap.

“How long?” he asks thickly.

You don’t have to ask what he means. You bite against his neck, nails under his shirt as you struggle to pop the buttons open. There must be a violence in all your want for him because if there isn't it's just loss. It's just another thing you'll give him without taking anything back. 

“Sixth year," you pant, “in the Deathday ballroom when we fought for the first time. You — ah — you put your thumb on my mouth. Since then."

You hear a sharp intake of breath, and his hand moves up your back to pull you impossibly closer. His voice is ragged. “Should I tell you how long I’ve wanted you?"

You shudder a breath. “Since —" And it's a bit hard to talk with the way he's rolling your hips — “Since when?"

His lips twitch into a mirthless smile, hands spanning your thighs as you start to rock against him. “When you burned me, and I sent you into the lake." 

You swallow, agonised by the slow pace his grip forces you to keep when all you want to do is go faster. 

“Your uniform was terribly wet,” he says, mouth tracing your jaw. “Did I ever apologise for that?"

“N-no.”

He tuts, the hushed sound warm and deadly on your neck. “Bad manners. I must have been distracted."

Oh. Oh, you think. It seems pointless to flush in the position you're in now, but the knowledge that he wanted you then and you hadn't even known is... all the more devastating. 

But you shiver at the question of how he’d wanted you, in what amount of detail, in what precise way. You almost want to ask. See it for yourself. 

You don't think you'd manage the words. He’s hard underneath you and your head wants to lull toward his shoulder but a big hand holds you from one side of your jaw down the length of your neck, his tongue laving up the other. Instead you’re balanced only by his hands and his mouth, rolling against him because it’s all you can do like this.

He’s marking you, you realise with a gasp, and your fingers bury in his hair to remove his mouth from its descending assault on your collar. Not that. You’d sworn against that.

Your fingers return to his buttons and he copies you by finding yours, pulling at the fabric tucked into your trousers until it’s discarded entirely. You press your hands to the planes of his chest and watch him, your mouth agape as his eyes linger on your chest.

His heart is pounding and he must know you’re about to comment on it because his lips are on yours again and he adjusts his position and your fingers dig into his shoulders at the delicious new feeling of him pressing into your thigh. 

You move for his belt. He moves for your zipper. It’s some sort of race, whatever you’re doing, and you’re at an unfair advantage when you’re still fumbling with his buckle when his hand is already carving a slow path to the band of your underwear. You're scalding under the journey of it, little stars pricking you under every new inch he explores.

He dips in and your eyes wrench shut, grasping frantically for his wrist.

“Shh,” he says softly, caressing your cheek with his spare hand, thumb finding your mouth how it did all those years ago and you want to curse him. The fucker knows exactly what he’s doing.

You shake your head, chest rising with heavy breaths as you return to his belt and scrabble to unbuckle it.

“So tense,” he murmurs. The hand at your cheek draws over your lower lip before it falls to your back to hold you closer. “Rest now.”

And his fingers trace you where you want him most, brushing past your clit as he pulls his face back to watch you.

You sink into the feeling, still swaying on his lap, a half-efforted attempt at finding friction in the hardness between his legs that feels fruitless because it won't be enough until he's inside. Your hand just grips onto the fabric of his unzipped trousers and stays there. It’s a pause. An obstacle on your path to him that you need just a moment to recover from before you’ll make him feel just like this. Better. Worse. It’s hard to tell which is which.

He’s stroking at you now, pleased by the way you lurch against him with every touch.

You have to recover, you have to make it even, you have to… you…

A finger presses inside and you moan.

“You came back to me,” he whispers, close enough to be kissing you but there’s just the stutter of his breath. It's a fucking religious thing to say, the way he does it.

“Doesn’t make me yours,” you breathe.

He shakes his head. “I know. You’ll still take it though, won’t you?”

Oh, fuck.

He makes a sound of approval. “Good.”

Good. Fine. Your hands slip from his zipper to the meat of his thighs, pushing yourself forward so the shape of him is firmer against you, and Tom slips another finger in.

You’ll take it, won’t you? Yes. 

Maybe you don’t need to tear him at the seams (though you want to) to make it even. Maybe this is punishment enough. That he can have you like this and it still won’t make you his, that he’ll give you everything and you’ll lap at it with half the greed he possesses.

You ride his hand, clutching his shoulders, rocking your hips. You take all of it, and it builds something delirious inside you, that it’s him doing this, his perfect fingers, the shape of his lips, the soft dark of his hair when you find your hands in it again. The feeling makes you stutter, and he has to move you by the waist himself to keep the momentum when you can't do it yourself.

He’s painfully stiff, pushing up against you with a degree of self-control that feels like it can only end disastrously for the both of you, and you start smattering kisses down his cheek. You tilt his head back and lick a stripe down his neck. Rest now, you'd say if you could.

But he adds a third finger and your head falls, a cry planted in his collar when you come, and you don't think you say anything.

Tom holds your legs steady, guiding you through it like this is just another one of his studies. You are what he knows better than anything else, and still he wants to learn more.

“Look at you,” he mutters, dipping you back to press his lips down your chest, unclasping your bra while you’re still breaking, the sensation swelling again when he takes a nipple into his mouth.

“Tom,” you try to say. Your mouth is the sticky sort of dry that words refuse to come out of.

“Will you give me more?”

Give, not take. You fuss into a stolen kiss, grappling again with his trousers, pulling them down until you can palm him through his boxers.

He hisses, gripping your wrist like he hadn’t just done the same to you, and then he’s pulling you up and off the couch, trousers discarded with what must be magic because you blink and they’re gone. Greedy boy. (You have no room to judge.) Your back is to the wall an instant before his fingers are on you again, pushing your underwear down your thighs until it falls at your feet like they despised to ever part from you.

You arch to feel him press against your stomach, pushing off the wall so that you can meld to him but he just closes in on you to do it himself.

He goads the heat from you when his fingers push in again, still wet, coiling how you like, where you like —

“Want you,” you protest shakily, hand on his abdomen.

That must kill him a little, because he curses under his breath (a thing he never does) and the immediate absence of his touch is cruel when he goes to free himself from his boxers. You reach for him without thinking as he does, and he pins your hand beside you when your fingers so much as graze the length of him.

You sound frail, but you have to ask. “Is this how you wanted me?”

A cruder version of you would go on. Is this how you pictured it? Taking me against a wall? Have you waited for it all this time?

And you don’t belong to him but you’re so incomprehensibly, contradictorily his. You’ll want him forever. He could do anything, and you’d be his. You could haunt him into his lonely eternity, and he’d be yours. Then, you suppose — haunting him makes him yours by principle.

Maybe you already do.

Tom practically growls into your mouth, pressing against you and — God, it’s skin on skin. He's right there. You could push forward and —

He slides in. You cry out at the feel of him inside you, the angle of it like this.

“I wanted you,” he says lowly, your legs wrapped around him, “everywhere.”

You’re gripping him so tight you think he’ll bleed under your nails and somehow you still feel on the brink of collapse when he thrusts deeper.

“I thought mostly of your mouth,” he rasps. “It felt depraved to imagine it wrapped around me, but then I thought of you splayed out before me instead. That maybe you’d like it if it was my mouth on you.”

You whimper.

“Would you like that?” he asks, hands spanning your hips to snap them into his, like you are a piece removed from him he seeks to reattach.

If you wanted to answer you couldn’t. You’re clinging to him and the rising surge inside you, carved between your legs like something sweltering and unfixable. It rushes in and he pulls out of you. He pushes in and you cry for the release of it, the moment the wave lurches over the edge, but he won’t let you have it.

“But,” he says, and your eyes want to roll back at how heavy his restraint is, callous in the tone of his voice, some leash at his neck he must tug himself lest you take it from him — “If I knew how well you’d take me like this, I would have thought of it much more.”

Taking him, again — you don’t feel at all like that’s what’s happening. You feel possessed. You are buoyant in his arms: his and his and his.

“You can — uh — you can — ”

"Hm?" He brushes down the slope of your brow, your cheek, back to the edge of your mouth, wiping a trail of saliva from your chin. “Poor thing.”

And he slams into you again, drawing a mewl from you that slices your unfinished thought.

You clench around him, flames wild and fluttering at every contact of his skin on yours, and there are too many to count. Too many points where they intersect, just some blend of bodies connected at every curve.

“You’re going to give me more,” he says, like it’s an epiphany when you already told him you would.

You remember then. What you meant to say. “You can take me too.”

You feel him twitch inside you, his pace stilling for a moment, and the thumb on your lip slips into your mouth. Your lips close around him and he curses again.

He fucks you with a finger in your mouth and his teeth clamped over your shoulder, soothing the sting with his tongue. His pace is too slow when he drags his free hand between your legs, but you understand its purpose well enough that the mere recognition almost destroys you. 

He’s patient in bringing you to the edge because there's time here. A slow agony that severs you from the rest of the world until it splits you down the middle. And he may not ever have it again.

You have to promise yourself he’ll never have it again.

But the movement of his fingers against the same spot he’s hitting inside you is too much at once, and you won’t last. You drool around his thumb. You let him mark you. You can see on his neck you’ve marked him too. And you hope impossibly there’s a scar. You hope the little death you coax from him claims him as yours for eternity, keeps him even when you're gone. You tighten, lurch for the edge, and make him mortal once more.

Tom holds you there, your cries reverberating as he sinks another finger in your mouth, and then he’s gasping at your neck, peeling back to look you in the eyes when he spills into you. Your eyes screw together and he releases the sounds you make by holding you by the jaw instead.

“Look at me,” he says, and for the strained need in it you do.

You come down to earth and you kiss him, wetness dripping down your thighs as he pins you to this moment. You love him. You’ll always love him.

He’s still inside you when he’s secure enough to bring you to his bed, only removing himself from you when you’re safely in his sheets, legs surrendering their grip on his waist as you pull apart. You pant into the cold linen of his pillow. Everything smells like him. There’s something empty now; the reason you came today; the reason you left four years ago.

You love him and it isn’t enough. Not even to look at him, the sleepy hint of the boy you knew in his eyes, and know that he loves you too.

“Goodnight, Tom,” you say, finding home in the warmth of his chest.

You’ll dream of a morning where you wake up beside him, but you won’t be there.

[libraford]

Okay so here's what's going on with the bird crimes.

On thursday I was going to Powers Park when I saw what I thought were 2 chickens hanging out in the parking lot, and a lady watching them from the fence. I thought... they could belong to the lady, but chickens aren't the kind of pet that you just let hang out loose.

I approach.

Lady: "These aren't mine."

I look closer. Its actually 2 roosters, one of which is a very small breed and is missing his tail feathers. Both of them have an injury to their backside- like its been plucked.

So we talk about what to do, I end up calling Animal Control. The actual Animal Control officer doesn't get there until noon, I get a police dispatcher. She says she can send one of the cops to grab them until the actual professional gets there.

I tell her that the roosters are being kept by the woman I met, she's coaxing them into her house.

I post about it on the facebook group in case someone knows who they belong to. The comments are full of jokes, obviously. But no leads. Eventually the big rooster gets caught by someone running a sanctuary for abandoned and abused livestock, but they're still looking for the little black one. Evidently they got out of the lady's backyard and were loose again.

I figure he's going to be a coyote snack and don't think about it for the rest of the week.

So now it is Sunday and I'm opening up the bathrooms. I'm at Summit Grove park and as I'm about to reserve the shelter for a birthday party I see...

A black pigeon.

Pigeons are not a common animal in this area- you're more likely to see house sparrows, crows, and mourning doves. So that's odd. What's more, she doesn't seem to be skittish and is definitely accustomed to humans. And she keeps trying to bite my fingers, so she associates hands with food and she's skinny as a rail so she's been abandoned for a minute.

Why does this keep happening to me? Is this the Morrigan come to teach me a lesson in pigeon form?

So I remember the number of the woman running the sanctuary and I give her a call. I tell her I've got a pigeon here that can't fly, is super hungry, and doesn't seem to have any issues biting fingers. She says she can't take her, but she can find a home for her because pigeons have specific needs. But she won't be able to get there until 12:30. We (my work partner and I) have to deal with the bird in the meantime.

We absolutely cannot take this bird with us on our route because we are in a tiny truck cab and don't have a cat carrier to put her in. So our solution is to lock her in the janitor's closet until the rep can get here.

Around 12:15, we head back to the shelter to make sure she's still there and hasn't been disturbed... and I realize that the reason I even saw her in the first place...

...was because there was supposed to be a birthday party at the shelter at noon.

The party is strongly underway and they have shoved a table against the door of the closet.

The sanctuary lady comes by and waves, we ask the party people politely to move the table slightly because we're trying to rehome a pigeon that's inside that closet.

They move the table, but not all guests see this interaction- because it looks like a bunch of maintenance people are just here to boss folks around during a little girl's birthday party and this draws a crowd.

The sanctuary rep arrives and we open the door just a little bit to let the bird out. She bobbles towards us, hoping for food, when one of the older ladies at the party exclaims:

"Does that ANIMAL just LIVE in there?!"

I mean... sure. For the past few hours, she did live in there.

"Do you have any IDEA how many DISEASES pigeons carry?"

The rep scoops the pigeon into her arms and takes her out of the shelter area to inspect her wings, feet, and back. She shows us her breastbone and explains that its been several days since the bird ate anything, which was why it was going for fingers.

Meanwhile, Aunt Ornithophobia over here: "I can't BELIEVE you would just TOUCH a BIRD like that in front of CHILDREN!"

We take the bird away to the van so the rep can thank us and explain what likely happened- which is that someone abandoned the bird when they couldn't take care of her anymore they just let her loose.

"I understand you got one of the roosters," I said.

"Yes, the big one. But the little bantam rooster is very fast- he darted into someone's backyard and I never found him again. If you see him, give me a call."

"I've been told that chickens are legal to own here, but roosters are not."

She gets an exasperated look on her face. "If you're going to allow backyard chickens, you're going to have to allow roosters. It's impossible to sex an avian chick and they don't get their dimorphic traits until they've reached the young adult stage and chick sellers don't care about whether they're a hen or a rooster. They care about the sale. We get roosters more often than egg-layers because someone sold them a male as a female and they don't want to pay the fine. I'd rather have the laws allow both, or neither. But disallowing roosters is patently stupid."

"Hm. Well. Note to self."

"Anyways, you're heroes to this little rock dove and I want you two to know that. She's going on a trip to a bird sanctuary in Toledo where she'll have lots and lots of snacks to eat that aren't fingers."

[inkskinned]

im having a particularly terrible night with urges and imagery that i dont know how to handle. i gave in to some things. held back on some others. but im barely holding on, dear internet stranger.

you do not owe me your time or your words.. but if you could write some hope into existence for me.. i would be unendingly grateful to you.

please. tell me how you do it. tell me how you survive. because im not so sure i can get through the fifteen days it'll take to get to my seventeenth birthday.

could you please give me something to place my faith in? i dont think the universe is watching out for me anymore.

i don't usually answer these, because i am not a professional, and you deserve professional help. when i was 17 i was terrified of the idea of professional help, because my household was extremely unsafe, and made it clear that if i ever chose to get help, i would be punished for it.

i hope this is not your case. i hope that you can call someone, and they can take you where you should go.

but i will give you the advice that i wish i got, when i couldn't get help at 17, when i was so bad that years later, i literally don't-know-how-i-survived it: what you want is peace, not death. your brain is sick. it has romanticized an ending where there are no consequences. where effort isn't necessary. where you can just... forget.

you want peace. that is a normal, human thing to want. maybe it feels more like you want quiet. or just... to take a break for a second.

here is what i will say: to end yourself means you never get to experience what it's like to actually be happy. i thought i knew what it was like, and i was bitter about it. i'd say - i've been happy, it's not worth it, because i didn't know what i was missing. i thought that happiness meant having a partner or having a job or money or a college degree. it sounded like effort. it sounded like something that had to happen to me.

for the first time in my life, just this week, i was able to go to a concert and just-enjoy-it. no liquor, no drugs. just stomping my feet and getting caught up in it. i didn't feel nervous or self-conscious or overwhelmed. i just had a good time. these days have a lot of these firsts for me - it is the first time i can eat cake without crying. it is the first time i can be around an exacto blade without supervision. it is the first time i have too many people to call when i am crying.

i can't tell you where you'll run into happiness, only that, for me, it started once i was out of that fucking house. it started once i figured out where the pain was coming from. once i figured out that i was not possessed, something medical was wrong with me. that i am not stupid or lazy, i have depression and adhd. the first few years were difficult. at 19, during my efforts to recover, i actually got worse by a considerable margin. and then, with time and patience - i got better.

happiness doesn't feel like what you think it will. in movies it's so golden and all-encompassing. but it doesn't fly into your hands when you buy your first car nor does it arrive in the arms of a partner nor does it require passing your classes. happiness came to me on a tuesday in the form of a red-winged blackbird, and i looked at her, and she looked at me, and i said - oh. the whole world suddenly filled itself in with color. like i had been forever-asleep. like every corner of every room was suddenly glistening.

it ended quickly, back then. it just stopped in to check in on me. but it was enough - this thing i had never experienced, but that i knew (logically) could happen. before that, i was only staying because it would make my mom sad if i died. that was my only reason. and then the happiness came, so strange and brilliant and lovely that for years i couldn't even look at it directly.

these days, things are so different. life is so much easier. i don't wish for death because so much of what i have is already at peace. my boss understands when i need a mental health day. people in general are less prone to high school drama. entire communities hold my hand and have my number. i have a car and a dog and a little apartment garden and candles on all available surfaces and today i bought myself a little cake just-to-celebrate-nothing. my body is my own and we are both dancing.

there are so many things i've gotten to taste in the last 10 years. i know, for you, that is an eon, because it's more than half of your life. but if it helps? in the 5 years between 17-21: i filled myself with laughter and love. i got to be a lead in a ballet and got my first tattoo and then my second and pierced my ears the way i'd wanted to (one of them professionally the other over a hot stove with a potato) and i discovered hozier is my favorite singer (i know. he was new back then) and i got my first real job and my first real paycheck and i hadn't ever been seen as smart but then i started to actually treat my adhd as a condition rather than a burden and people started saying you're like the smartest person in the room and my best friend met her husband who i will one day stand next to as maid of honor when he is her groom and i got to help people and make a stupid blog called "inkskinned" and find out that writing is actually my passion and that maybe i'm actually kind of good at it if i just practice and i got to meet my parents' dog (his name is kaiju) and i slept on couches and kissed people and tried new things and learned how to breathe without feeling my chest tighten and that peace is here, on this planet, that peace echoes everywhere, it is in my hair and my homework and my houseplants, it is quiet and divine and mine because i fought for it and i built it and yes i lost hair over it but holy shit the whole world feels like it is shifted through a sunbeam

recently someone asked me if i could go back in time to 6th grade, with all the knowledge i have now, would i? and without thinking, i barked absolutely not. i know i should say it's because i wouldn't want to risk losing any of this stuff - but really it's because i would never survive being a teenager again. it sounds incredibly lame and impossible, fake - but being a teenager was the hardest thing i ever did. i had no voice, no control, only fear and hatred.

but i did survive it. nothing about me is special. nothing about me is stronger than you or better prepared or more efficient. i didn't survive it perfectly. i made a lot of mistakes and lost a lot of friends and harmed myself in ways that i'm still recovering from. but i did survive it. and there is a part of me looking at you in the past and saying - i'm you in the future.

and holy shit. every day. every goddamn day i'm glad we survived to see the rest of it. because you hit 18 and everything changes. like, everything. and holy shit, it is infinitely worth it.

[vikkirosko]

I saw that your request box is open and I've been wanting to ask

can I request platonic! Charlie, Vaggie, Angel Dust, Alastor and Lucifer coming across a child fem! reader after she bumped into them and falling onto the sidewalk and start profusely apologizing for accidentally into them while looking incredibly scared and frightened just then they realized that the child had black wings and seeing that they are wearing a white dress that only angels would wear and fairly realized the reader was a fallen angel soon when taken to the hotel and ask how did she ended up in hell, the reader first looked very hesitant to explain but slowly open up about how they were casted out of heaven for not following the strict rules properly and that the higher upside expected angels to be perfect and flawless that no mistakes should be made even minor ones and child fem! reader felt incredibly pressured and anxious about the needs to be perfect that when she accidentally fall out of line for making a minor mistake, she was unfairly casted out into hell and why her once white wings turned black no longer able to fly to heaven's gates and aimlessly wondering the streets of pentagram city lost and scared not knowing what to do or where to go now as well as avoiding sinners and overlords alike

Platonic headcanons Not perfect

🌈 Charlie Morningstar x child fem!Reader 🎶

After Charlie visited Heaven, she began to look at angels differently. She understood that not all of them were sinless and just. That's why she was surprised when she came across a child, a girl dressed in a white dress similar to those worn on Heaven and you had wings, but the feathers were not white but black. You immediately started apologizing to her, but Charlie hastened to calm you down. You looked tired, so she suggested that you go with her to her hotel, where you could relax and where you would be safe

At the hotel, you were able to eat properly and calm down. It was only after that that Charlie asked you about how you ended up in Hell. At first you didn't dare to start the story, but Charlie gently took your hands and told you that you had nothing to fear and that she just wanted to help you. You got a little bolder and told her that, despite the external ideality and happiness, there were many strict rules and requirements for angels like you in Heaven. You all had to follow these rules implicitly, as if you had no will of your own. For you, such a life has been one huge source of stress and anxiety

In the end, you made a mistake. One minor mistake cost you everything. You were banished from Heaven and your wings turned black and you couldn't come back. All this time you've been wandering the streets aimlessly, trying not to attract attention to yourself. Charlie couldn't believe that you could be treated so cruelly, but she remembered her father's story. She understood that your story was the real truth

Since you had nowhere to go, Charlie suggested that you stay at the hotel. You were an angel and now you could help sinners atone for their sins. Charlie hoped that then Emily could bring you back to Heaven, because you were sent to Hell unfairly. In the meantime, Charlie could give you a new home and a life where you didn't have to try your best to make no mistakes every day

❌ Vaggie x child fem!Reader 🎀

Vaggie didn't feel happy when she lived on Heaven. A huge number of rules, many of which were far from morally fair, and, as it turned out, severe punishments for what was considered a misdemeanor. She didn't know any other angels besides Lucifer and her who ended up in Hell until she ran into you on the street. You were a little girl in a white dress, with a scared expression on your face and black wings that clearly used to be white. You were an angel, a fallen angel

You started to apologize for bumping into her, but Vaggie tried to calm you down, saying that everything was fine. She asked how you got here, but you didn't say anything, just looked down. Your embarrassment only got worse when your stomach rumbled. Vaggie suggested that you go to the hotel where she lived, telling you that you could eat and relax there. She assured me that it would be safe there, so you went to the hotel with her

It was only back at the hotel, after you were able to eat properly, that you told her that you had been expelled from Heaven for a minor mistake. Vaggie remembered what the rules were there. She saw the sadness in your eyes, and told you that she, too, was, in a sense, banished. The fact that she was an angel made you happy, because now there was a chance that you wouldn't be alone anymore

You stayed at the hotel, under the care of Vaggie. She and Charlie took care of you and helped you start a new life. For you, Vaggie has become a living example of the fact that life does not end after exile. She was sure that you would be able to find your happiness, even though you were in Hell, and she would be there to keep you safe

🕷 Angel Dust x child fem!Reader 💖

Angel did not often see children in Hell, which is why when he ran into you on the street, he was surprised. You were a girl in a white dress and, strangely, with wings. The feathers of your wings were black, although according to Charlie, the angels had white wings, and there was a scared expression on your face. You immediately started apologizing to him. You were obviously afraid, and Angel hastened to calm you down. He wasn't mad at you and didn't know how to calm you down, so he offered to treat you to something delicious. It was so that you could eat that you went to the hotel

At the hotel, you were able to calm down and eat, after which Angel asked you how you ended up in Hell. He said that you didn't look like a sinner, but rather like an angel who happened to be in Hell. When you lowered your head, he realized that he was right. At first you were silent, but then quietly, uncertainly told him that you really were an angel, but life was hard for you in Heaven. The angels had to follow a huge number of rules. You were required to be perfect and set an example for souls to strive for the light. However, it has become a huge stress for you. Your whole life was full of worries, and in the end you made a small, insignificant mistake, for which you were severely punished

You were banished from Heaven, sent to Hell. Your wings turned black, and no matter how hard you tried to get back in, you couldn't do it. You just fell painfully, unable to return home. Angel listened to your story, feeling how sorry he was for you. You were just a child who was unfairly punished, especially so severely. He also understood that it would be difficult for you to survive in Hell, so he suggested that you stay at the hotel, telling you what kind of place it was and that he himself lived here

Angel has taken on the role of someone who will look out for you. Charlie was glad that Angel was getting better, and even more so she didn't mind you staying at the hotel. Angel may not have been the perfect person, but he was real, alive, and ready to help you stop trying to adjust to the ideal that was imposed on you, too. He wanted to help you start living freely

📻 Alastor x child fem!Reader 🎙

Alastor periodically strolled through the streets of the city. Many people were afraid of him and tried not to approach him, and so when a child crashed into him, Alastor was surprised by this. That child was you. You, dressed in a white dress and with black wings on your back, started hurriedly apologizing to him without raising your head. Alastor was in no hurry to say anything. He saw what was obvious. You were an angel, maybe a fallen angel, and it could have done him some good, so he asked if you were hungry, and then took you to the hotel

You were able to eat at the hotel, and only after that Alastor, who was looking at you carefully, asked how you ended up in Hell. At that moment, you froze, lowering your head and slowly starting to speak. It was only after a few minutes that you finally told me what happened. You told me that Heaven had a huge number of rules for angels. You were required to be perfect, but it was hard for you emotionally and eventually you made a mistake. A mistake that you paid very seriously for

You were banished to Hell and your wings turned black. You couldn't go back no matter how hard you tried. All you have to do is wander the streets of the city, hiding from sinners and demons. Alastor listened to you carefully and realized that it could benefit him. He did not voice his thoughts and offered to stay with you at the hotel. He introduced you to Charlie and soon you really became one of those who lived in the hotel

Alastor saw how pleased you were to meet Charlie and find yourself in a comfortable environment. The princess helped you and learned from you about what Heaven really was. Alastor understood that when you get stronger, your strength can help him gain freedom

🍎 Lucifer Morningstar x child fem!Reader 🐍

Lucifer rarely walked around the city, but after he started living in his daughter's hotel, he began to go out into the world more. It was during one of these walks that he met you. You were the kid who bumped into him. You immediately started apologizing and Lucifer tried to calm you down at first, but then realized that you weren't a sinner or a demon. He would have recognized the white dress and wings anywhere. You were an angel, but the feathers of your wings were black, which made it clear to him that you were a fallen angel, just like him. It caused him a lot of emotions. He couldn't leave you, knowing full well how you were feeling right now

He brought you to the hotel, realizing that you had nowhere to go. So that you wouldn't worry even more, he took you away from the others to his room and already there told you who he was. Lucifer saw how surprised you were, but it seemed to really calm you down. When he asked how you ended up in Hell, you briefly fell silent, lowering your head, but then hesitantly told him that after he was thrown into Hell, the requirements for angels became very strict. You, like other angels, were required to be perfect and follow what the seraphims said. It was hard for you to be perfect. Every day, within strict limits, almost drove you crazy

Due to severe stress, it was difficult for you to follow strict rules, and eventually you made a minor mistake, for which you were so severely punished by being banished to Hell. Your wings turned black and you couldn't fly to Heaven. It seemed that if you tried to do this, at some point your wings could burst into flames, causing you unbearable pain. You didn't have a home anymore. You didn't have anyone to help you. All you could do was wander aimlessly through the streets, doing your best to hide from sinners and demons

Lucifer listened attentively to your story and by the time it ended, he was sure that you had been unfairly sent to Hell. You didn't have the power that he had, and therefore you could easily get hurt. Lucifer didn't want you, a child who was so cruelly abandoned, to get hurt. He decided to take you under his care. He knew that you could become stronger and wanted to help you. Maybe in Hell, you can be happier than you were in Heaven

[attic-club-sandwich]

How They are Handling your Disappearance Pt. 3

MC Returns

Ahh you guys i'm so glad you are enjoying this little series! I wasn't expecting so many of you to like it! But as requested by many, here is part 3 where MC returns to the present day timeline and reunites with the 7 brothers. This is a bit of a lengthy one because like... we are home! It's a little less angsty, a little more happy this time haha. Anyways, please enjoy! Reblogs and feedback are appreciated as usual!

Read Part 1: Brothers

Read Part 2: Side Characters

Word count: 3,057

Rating: T, slightly suggestive.

Taglist: @amberrskiies @obey-me-posts @sassykattery @delphi-dreamin @bite-sized-devil @flemmingbamse @a-hidden-gem @otomefoxystar @siofrantic @todothedodo @ihatecorns @exrellian @vernith @sus0daddy

Fill out this form if you want to be tagged in my work!

rose divider by @/firefly-graphics

It feels like it has been forever since the day that you went missing, but the brothers never gave up their search. How could they when you were out there somewhere, possibly alone and scared? The thought of their little human wandering around the unknown gave them the motivation they needed to keep going. But after a long day of once again searching the Devildom up and down with no results, the brothers are settling down for the evening.

Lucifer

The Avatar of Pride is in his room getting ready for bed after a long day of searching for you. 

His wings are terribly sore from flying all day, so he lays on his bed sprawled out on his stomach, allowing his feathery wings to stretch out behind him.  

He rests his head in his arms, and sighs.

Yet another day of searching, but no results. 

Suddenly, he begins to feel a familiar tingling sensation of magic in the air that brings goosebumps to his bare arms. 

Before he had time to process what was happening, a flash of light filled his room, practically blinding him. 

After a few seconds, the light dissipates and there you are, standing in its place. 

Lucifer forgets all about his aching wings, and jumps up from the bed. 

At first, he hesitates, terrified that you’ll disappear again at any moment. 

“M-MC…? Is it really you…?”

His crimson eyes are wide as he takes in your appearance. 

You appear the same, but he's confused by the horns that now rest on your head, as well as a few other demonic attributes.

Just where did you disappear to?

Your face scrunches up and your eyes fill with tears. “L-Luci… yes, it’s really me.” 

Suddenly, his arms are around you, a million questions in his throat but unable to speak.

You whimper, taking in his scent. He smells freshly showered, the smell of his soap sending a wave of comfort crashing over you. 

“Luci… I missed you so much…I’m so sorry…”

His shoulders begin to tremble and he tucks his face into the crook of your neck. 

You feel wetness on your skin as he begins to cry. 

Have you ever seen him cry before?

Just how much have they all suffered while I was gone?

Your arms wrap themselves around his neck and you squeeze your eyes shut. 

You stand there in his arms, his wings wrapping themselves around the two of you protectively. 

He will never let you go again. 

After a few moments, he pulls away, staring into your eyes.

“MC, the days I've spent searching for you were endless… but never once did I give up. I’m very glad that I didn’t. Every second was worth my time.”

Suddenly his lips are on yours and you accept his kiss greedily. 

Kissing him was the confirmation you needed that you were home. 

“MC, please forgive me. You can tell me the details later, but right now I just need you. I need to know you are here and…real.” 

He spins you around, guiding you to his bed so the back of your legs hit the edge, causing you to fall back. 

He hovers over top of you, his crimson eyes full of love, adoration, and desire. 

You giggle through your tears, placing a hand on his cheek. “I love you so much, Luci.”

He smiles, tucking a stray hair behind your ear.

“Words alone cannot express my love for you, little one.”

You give him a peck on the lips again. “We have a lot of time to make up for you know… where should we start?”

Lucifer gives you a mischievous grin. “I have just the thing in mind, darling. Something that has been long overdue.”

Mammon

Mammon returned to his bedroom shortly after arriving home. 

He had to check on his ravens who were also out searching for you while they were gone. 

His wings were sore as shit, and all he wanted to do was shower and go to bed. 

But you are more important. 

Throwing open his window, one of his ravens glides down to greet him. 

“Damn, ya didn’t find anything did ya?”

The raven hangs its head sadly, and Mammon sighs.

“Thanks anyways, I appreciate the help.”

Suddenly the raven begins to flap its wings wildly, cawing at something behind him. 

Mammon spins around, and his golden eyes widen in shock when he sees just who is appearing in the middle of his bedroom. 

It was you, clear as day. 

He’s speechless, unable to find the right words even though he’s been playing them on repeat in his head since the day you left. 

“Mammon!” you shout with tears in your eyes. You begin to run towards him, but he meets you halfway, scooping you up into his arms and spinning you around.

He sets you down again, and hugs you snugly to his chest. 

“MC…I… Shit. I-I missed ya so damn much…” he says with a shaky voice. 

You inhale his scent as he hugs you, which smells of sweat and leather. 

You’re home. He’s your Mammon. Finally…

“Mams, I’m so so sorry… I’ll explain everything I promise…”

He pulls you away from him, his golden blue gaze staring intensely at you.

“Damn right ya will! But for now…I don’t care..I just… I need ya so bad… I mean this can’t be real, right?”

You give him a small smile, taking his hand in yours. 

“I’m real, Mammon. I promise.”

His tanned skin is flushed as he pulls you with him to sit on his bed, hoisting you up onto his lap. 

He can’t hold back anymore as he plants a firm kiss to your lips. 

You accept it eagerly. 

Your tongues intertwine briefly before he pulls away, breathless. 

“I love ya MC, I’m so sorry I couldn’t do a damn thing…” 

You silence him with a kiss to the forehead. 

“It’s not your fault, Mammon. Please don’t cry…”

He notices your own lip quivering, and let’s out an amused snort through his tears.

“Don’t you go cryin’ on me either!”

His long, slender fingers run through your hair and you sigh.

His lips are on yours once more, a low growl rumbling in his chest. 

You can sense his overwhelming desire threatening to take over.

“Mammon’s got ya now, treasure. You’re safe with me. I’m never letting you go again.”

Leviathan

Throughout the search, Levi has been exploring every inch of the Devildom waters. 

From seas to lakes, he still could find no trace of you. 

Levi heads back to his room, a towel around his waist after Lucifer forced him to strip in the hallway so he didn’t track water through the house. 

Once he’s dried off and dressed again, he sinks down in his gaming chair, sighing as his aching limbs are finally able to rest. 

Tears welled up in his eyes, disappointed that he let everyone down again. 

Especially you.

I’m so useless, he thinks. 

A stray tear rolls down his cheek, and he wipes it away with his arm. 

A flash of light appears before him, and it sends a tingling sensation up his body. 

Wait a minute…that’s…!

His eyes are wide and his mouth gapes open as he looks up to see you standing there right in front of him.

“M-MC, I-Is it really y-you?!” Of course he’s a stuttering mess, but he can’t believe it.

He doesn’t know when he stood up, but suddenly you are slamming into him, wrapping your arms around his torso. 

“Yes, Levi. It’s me.” you sob, burying your face into his chest.

Your voice has him melting in your grip. 

He finally fully embraces you, burning his face into your hair. 

Your scent is slightly different,  and he can smell other demons on you. 

This sends a wave of envy over him, but he ignores it. All he cares about is that you’re home.

He, however, smells of the sea. 

“Levi, I'm so sorry… I promise I’ll explain. I just really need you right now. I’ve missed you so much…”

Leviathan only nods, his shoulders trembling from the sobs that are escaping him. 

You stay standing there wrapped in his arms, gently rubbing circles on his back. 

After some time, he calms down. 

His eyes are red and puffy and his face is swollen. Your heart aches for him. 

Suddenly, he grabs your hand, leading you over with him to his bathtub. 

You climb in together, and you sit in his lap. His tail curls around you, holding you in place. 

“M-MC…can I um, k-kiss you?” he asks, his tear stained cheeks becoming flushed. 

You nod eagerly, and he places a soft, gentle kiss to your lips. 

Your lips are the same as ever, soft and sweet. 

Levi is overwhelmed with affection for you. 

“I love you, I love you, I love you…” he mutters, rocking you gently in his lap. 

He peppers your face with kisses and you giggle, wrapping your arms around his neck. 

“I love you so much too, Levi. I’m so glad to be home…” 

He rests his head on your shoulder, purple strands of his hair tickling your cheek. 

“Please don’t leave me like that again, MC. I-I was so scared…”

The tremor in his voice causes fresh tears to form in the corner of your eyes. 

“Never again, I’m staying right here with you.”

Satan

Satan steps over the pile of books on his floor before flopping down onto his bed. 

His bedroom is in quite the disarray due to his last tantrum. 

He can’t help that he’s just so damn frustrated!

They’ve practically searched the Devildom inside out, and still… nothing. 

He huffs, crossing his arms over his chest as he stares out the window, tears threatening to spill down his cheeks. 

He almost doesn’t notice the burst of light filling his bedroom. 

The air was practically vibrating with magic when he spun his head around to see the silhouette of a figure in the blinding light. 

He squints, trying his best to make out the form. Once the light dissipates, an unfamiliar feeling washes over him. 

Satan thought he’s finally experienced every emotion in his lifetime of being in the Devildom. 

But what he feels when he sees you standing there in his bedroom is indescribable. 

He gasps, immediately jumping up from his bed and hurrying over to you. 

Your eyes are locked on him, and he thought he noticed you flinch the moment he approached you. 

“MC… are… you okay? Where in the Devildom have you been?”

His voice is soft, but it trembles slightly.

He doesn’t expect answers right away, of course. 

Not when you are standing here in front of him for the first time in what feels like an eternity.  

You nod, trying to wipe away your tears. “Satan… It’s me. I-I’m home.”

The sound of his name leaving your lips after so long pushes him over the edge. 

He pulls you into his arms and he squeezes you tight, finally allowing his tears to fall. 

“M-MC… I'm so glad you’re home safe… I was so worried about you…”

You relax against his chest, finally processing the fact that this wasn’t the past version of himself.

After a few moments, you sniff, pulling away from him to gaze into his eyes. You notice a scar on his cheek, still healing from a recent fight he must have had. 

You gently trace your fingers over it, and he winces. 

“I’m so sorry Satan…the pain that I must have caused you all…” 

He shakes his head, glancing away. 

“I’m just so relieved you are home, MC. I don’t believe that whatever happened was your fault.” 

His fingers run through your hair and he kisses your forehead. 

“Can I…kiss you?” you ask, your cheeks flushing slightly. Normally you wouldn’t ask, but it’s been awhile. 

“Of course, kitten. But just know if you do, I may not be able to hold myself back from you much longer.”

You give him a smirk, and press your lips firmly to his. 

To finally kiss your Satan once more. 

He slips his tongue past your lips, and you groan. 

When you pull away, his emerald eyes are shining with passion. 

“Every book I read told me how to find you, but they never mentioned how to handle your return.” 

He moves you to his bed with him so you are straddling his lap.

“But I don’t believe I need any instruction as to what comes next. I love you, MC. Please allow me to express the longing I’ve felt for you all this time.”

Asmodeus

Asmo had made his way to his room for the evening with the overwhelming urge to climb into his silk bed sheets. 

But first he really wanted a bath. The thought of the warm water soothing his aching joints was very pleasant to him right now. 

He had made his way into the bathroom to start the water, the noise of the faucet drowning out the sound coming from his bedroom. 

Asmo thought he heard something, and he lifted his head to the door that connects from the bathroom to his room. 

He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. 

Was that a flash of light just now? Is it storming?

He furrowed his brow in confusion, and stepped slowly over to peek through the door. 

Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw. 

There you were, standing right there in his bedroom. 

Your eyes were wide and looking around, still processing where you had appeared. 

Asmo gasps, forgetting about the bath and hurries over to you. 

“M-MC?!” he shrieks, pulling you into the tightest hug he’s sure he’s ever given. 

You begin to cry, tears falling down your cheeks and onto his shoulder.

“Shhh, MC. Don’t cry now, darling…” he coos, but his own tears are escaping him. 

He holds you close as you cry together. 

“Asmodeus…is… it really you? My Asmo?” you whimper. 

He’s confused by what you mean, but he doesn’t question it for now. 

“Of course my little lamb, it’s me. You’re home now…”

You sniff, pulling away from him slightly. “I’m so sorry Asmo, I swear I didn’t mean to leave you guys like that…”

Taking your hands in his, he shakes his head. “No no, hon, don’t blame yourself for this. I know there’s a very good reason, but you can explain later to all of us, okay?” 

You nod, wiping your eyes. 

“I was just about to get a bath. Would you care to join me, MC?”

The thought of taking a bath with Asmo right now feels…unreal. 

You couldn’t believe you were finally home with him. 

Smiling, he leads you into the bathroom. 

First, he steps out of his robe, and your face flushes. 

You’ll never get over how beautiful he is. 

Then it’s your turn.

You shiver as he begins to undress you, his fingers brushing over your skin. 

He smiles softly as he notices the goosebumps that begin to form on your body. 

“I’ve missed this so much. Let me get a good look at you, darling.”

His eyes tear up again as his eyes travel over your body, still in disbelief that you were standing right there with him again after so long.

“I need all the time I can get with you right now before my brothers find out you’re home.”

He takes your hand and helps guide you into the bathtub. 

You sigh as the warm water envelops you and he places you in between his legs with your back to him. 

You feel his arms wrap themselves around you and you blush.“I’ve only been dreaming of this moment with you, MC.” Asmo murmurs, attaching his lips to your shoulder. 

You whine as he continues to kiss up your neck. 

“I love you so much, Asmo…”

He smiles into the crook of your neck as he holds you close. 

“My dear, if anything came out of your disappearance, it’s how much I realized that I love you. Please, allow me to show you…”

Beelzebub and Belphegor

The twins were always together nowadays. 

They were both getting ready for bed in their room after their long day, neither of them wanting to speak about the disappointing results of the search. 

Belphie hugged his pillow to his chest as he climbed into bed beside Beel. 

He was struggling to stay awake, but he had a peculiar feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Of course, being his twin, Beel felt it too. It wasn’t hunger, or anything like that… It was…

“Belphie do you feel…”

Before he could finish, a burst of light filled the room, temporarily blinding them both.

The sensation of magic through the air sent shivers down their spines. 

Once the light dulled, they glanced up through squinted eyes to see… you. 

Wait, is that really…?

Despite the dull ache in their bodies, they both jump up.

“MC!” their violet eyes are wide as they gape at you, still trying to decide if this was real or a cruel hallucination.

But you seem just as surprised as they are. 

Suddenly, you feel yourself being pulled into a strong embrace. 

Belphie is squeezed into the hug next to you, and you both glance up to see Beel with tears streaming down his cheeks. 

“B-Beel… Belphie…I’ve missed you both so much…”

You sob, burying your face into Beel’s chest.

Belphie finally allows his tears to fall. I’m so lame, he thinks.

How dare you make him cry like this?

But he’s so happy. So relieved. 

Beel begins to move you both towards his bed, placing you right between him and his brother. 

You whimper as you feel their arms wrap around you. 

The thought of being able to do this again with them never even crossed your mind. 

You feel Beel nuzzle his face into your hair. 

You smelled…different. But there was no denying your familiar scent and it made his mouth water.

Belphie yawned, burying his face into your shoulder. 

“Beel and I had each other, but MC… you are our missing piece.”

His twin nodded, placing a soft kiss to your forehead. 

“Belphie is right. It feels right again with you here in between us.”

Your heart was so full. 

You smiled wide as you kissed both of their foreheads. 

“My boys…I love you so much.”

As you laid together, they took turns littering you with kisses and whispering sweet nothings into your ear. 

The feeling of their lips and their hands on your body has your head spinning, and you whisper their names between breathless gasps. 

After sometime, Beel turned towards you, a glint of mischief in his eyes. 

“I’m feeling a bit hungry…but for something different. How about you Belphie?”

Belphie immediately sensed where his twin was going and flashed him a smile back.

“I’m all of a sudden wide awake. What do you say you join us, MC? We want you to ourselves before we have to go back to sharing you.”

[mrsshabana]

“𝐈’𝐦 𝐬𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐛𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮..."

𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟒: 𝐒𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞

꒦꒷‧₊ Summary A relationship between a fairy and a demon is strictly forbidden, so sneaking away in the middle of the night is the only way you get to spend time together. But tonight, you decide to take things further. However, being much larger than you, Gyutaro worries his size may be too much for you to handle. ꒦꒷‧₊ Content Gyutaro x female!reader, 18+ MDNI, fantasy au, fairy reader, vaginal sex, creampie, overstimulation. ꒦꒷‧₊ Note 2.1k words. This is definitely my favorite entry so far! It's unique compared to the other ones I've written, so I hope you enjoy it!

✧:･ﾟ→ Kinktober Masterlist

Once again you find yourself trudging through the forest for another secret meeting with your lover. Unfortunately, this is how things must be. A relationship between a fairy and a demon from the forbidden city is strictly unheard of. 

You had never met a demon before until you saw Gyutaro. Demons have always been described as terrifying creatures, but his appearance still surprised you. His curved horns, pointed tail, and large dragon-like wings. Not to mention how much bigger he was than you, when standing beside him the top of your head only goes up to his waist. 

But his appearance didn’t stop you from helping him when you saw him in need. He had been exploring through the forest on the outskirts of your village in search of a magical berry. This berry was rumored to rid oneself of their ugliness. But, not being used to traversing dense forests, he had quickly found himself stuck in a patch of enchanted vines. 

Luckily you came along when you did, using your magic to free him from the vines. When Gyutaro first laid eyes on you, he was entranced by your beauty. Your sparkling wings and the delicate flowers laced through your hair captivated him. 

After that day, you two were inseparable. And it didn’t take long for Gyutaro to confess his feelings for you, and the two of you became a couple. Neither of you were bothered by dating someone of a different species, if anything, your differences brought you closer. You learned that demons weren’t as terrifying and vicious as everyone had claimed. Gyutaro was a sweetheart and he always went out of his way to protect you and make you feel special. Something about the glimmer of his fangs and the glow around his slit pupils made your heart skip a beat. You loved that he was different from anyone you’d ever met before. 

Trekking through the forest you finally spot a familiar bush with blue leaves and pink flowers. Parting the leaves and stepping through, you see him. Gyutaro sitting under a large glowing mushroom, the landmark of your nighttime rendezvous.

“Gyutaro!” You shout excitedly.

He immediately perks up and looks behind his shoulder. “Y/N! My Love!” He smiles wide and stands up - coming towards you with open arms. 

Using your wings, you fly into his embrace. Gyutaro hugs you tightly, spinning you around in his arms. 

“Mmmmwa!!” You exaggerate as you kiss him on the lips. Causing a blush to quickly spread across his cheeks. 

“C’mon,” he kisses you back and carries you over to the glowing mushroom. He sits down on the lush grass and places you on his lap. “So tell me,” he says as he picks a flower and places it behind your ear, “How was your day?”

“It was good! I helped the elders prepare for the Autumn feast,” you get excited as you remember something, “Oh! They even let me enchant the lily berries to ripen them!”

“Wow, you did that with your magic?” he smiles, “You never cease to amaze me.”

“What about you, my love? How was your day?”

“It was fine,” he sighs, “Spent most the day collecting debts. The only thing that got me through it was thinking about you. I’ve missed you all day…”

“I’ve missed you too,” you caress his cheek and lean forward, touching your lips to his. He puts a clawed hand around your waist and deepens the kiss. It’s obvious just how much he’s been craving you. A soft whimper escapes your lips as he slides his forked tongue into your mouth. Exploring your mouth, and savoring the sweetness of your lips. 

Things are getting heated, and you can feel something harden beneath you. This isn’t an uncommon occurrence, but things usually never go further than this as you’ve both been avoiding the elephant in the room. 

But tonight is different, you don’t want to ignore it anymore.

“Mm, Gyutaro?” you hum as you pull away from the kiss.

His cheeks are red and his pupils are dilated as he looks at you, “Something the matter, darling?”

“I… I want to try being intimate with you,” you say shyly, blushing and looking away.

He’s silent for a moment, clearly taken aback by your statement. “B-but,” he starts, but pauses. Taking a moment to collect his thoughts and build the courage to finally address the one thing he’d been avoiding. “I don’t want to hurt you… I-I’m so much bigger than you… and well, you know…”

“I know,” you mumble, “But I still want to try. I really love you and I feel safe with you. I know you’re a lot bigger than me, but I trust you.”

His lips curl into a shy smile. He can’t help but feel excited, even despite his nervousness. “Ok, we can try. But please tell me if it’s too much, ok? I won’t be upset if we need to stop.”

You nod excitedly, “I promise! I’ll tell you if it’s too much. Besides, there’s always other things we can do if it doesn’t work.”

He nods and starts kissing your neck. “You’re right,” he whispers between kisses, “But I won’t lie. I’ve been wanting to try this with you for a long time.” 

“Ah,” you gasp, “Me too.” 

He gently picks you up and moves you to lay on your back before crawling on top of you. Looking down at you lying beneath him makes him even more nervous. You look so small, like he could easily break you. 

Sensing your boyfriend’s hesitation, you slip off your dress to give him some encouragement. His eyes widen, seeing your lacy panties and your bare chest. He can’t take his eyes off of you, staring intently at your body. You notice his erection twitch under his pants just from the sight of you. 

You break him out of his trance by tugging on the hem of his shirt, “Your turn.” 

“O-oh! Right,” his voice is shaky as he removes his shirt - revealing his scarred but heavily muscled chest. His waist is thin and his hip bones jut out, but he has large muscles on his arms and abs too. His body is quite unique, but you love that about him. 

“So handsome,” you say, running your fingers along the birthmark on his hip. His tail sways side to side in excitement. 

Your kind words give him the courage he needs to continue. He leans forward and kisses your breast. Opening his mouth and playing with your nipple between the fork of his tongue. Gently pulling and pinching. 

“Gyutaro~” You moan. Rubbing your thighs together as you feel your panties getting soaked. “I want you.”

“Fuck,” he curses under his breath, “I want you too.”

He sits up and removes his pants. His massive cock springing free. Seeing the sheer size of it almost makes you regret suggesting this. But you can’t say it wasn’t expected, it’s only proportionate to his size so it makes sense. It’s still quite intimidating though. 

He collects the precum that was dripping down his shaft and strokes his length. His hand gliding over the large veins and birthmarks that cover his cock. 

Placing his body back on top of yours and looking down at you, he hooks a clawed finger under your panties and slides them off. Your slick sticking to your thighs as he does so. 

Holding your legs open, Gyutaro stares in awe at your pretty little pussy. So wet and inviting for him, he can’t help but grab the base of his cock and align it with your entrance. But seeing the hefty size difference brings him back to reality and makes him second-guess this. 

“I-I don’t know if this is possible, my love,” his voice is laced with a hint of sadness and disappointment.

Looking down at his long, girthy member, you can’t help but feel really nervous too. But you still want to try so you plead, “Please Gyutaro~ I want you so bad. Let’s at least try.”

He can’t deny you when you say such sweet things to him, “Alright. I’ll go slow, ok?”

You nod, “Ok. I just want to feel you inside me~” 

He bites his lip and pushes his hips forward, the head of his cock nudging at your entrance. You spread your legs as wide as you can, and it takes a bit of force for him to finally stretch you enough to breach your entrance. 

“Fuuuuck,” he groans, “S-so tight.” He pants and gasps, already feeling overwhelmed by the way you squeeze him so tightly. 

You take deep breaths and hold onto him in an attempt to distract yourself from the pain of him quite literally splitting you apart. It hurts like hell but you can’t deny the sensation of pleasure intertwined with the pain. 

He places his hands on your thighs, pushing them further apart as he slides further into you. A clear bulge appears in your stomach as more of his cock fills your insides. 

Once he’s finally seated fully inside of you, your body starts quivering from the sensation of being filled past your limit. 

It’s overwhelming for Gyutaro too, but he manages to speak through his panting, “Are you ok, my love?”

“Mm hm,” you nod, “F-feels good. Feel so-so full~”

With your affirmation, he slowly starts thrusting. The tightness of your walls pulling him in, only allow him to slide his cock out ever so slowly before plunging back in again. The bulge in your stomach moves along with his thrusts. 

He gently slides his hands under you, picking you up as he sits up on his knees. Grabbing your waist with both hands and fucking you like you’re his own personal fleshlight. 

Your body begins to shake uncontrollably and you’re left moaning and hollering as he fucks you silly. Your eyes roll back and drool drips from your open mouth as he continues fucking you, quickly bringing you to your climax. The way his cock stretches you apart, constantly putting pressure on your sweet spot, causes you to cum all over him. You’re left screaming his name and squirming as your juices drench his pelvis. 

Not to mention how the tightening of your already impossibly tight cunt brings him to euphoria. He can’t help himself as he picks up the pace and fucks you harder through your orgasm. 

You mumble incoherent words that have some semblance to his name, “Gyu-tah-ah-ah-roooo!”

“F-feel good, darling?” he grunts, “Feel so fuckin’ tight ~ah~ Gonna-gonna fill you up.”

Your wings flutter rapidly as your body becomes overly sensitive, drowned by the pleasure of his massive cock. Your body involuntarily twitching and squirming as your walls tremble - tightening around him once again. 

“That’s it, my love, that’s it,” he moans, keeping a firm grip around your waist as he continues using you like a little toy. His claws dig into your soft flesh and his cock twitches. 

Finally, you climax once again, this time more intense than the last. Squeezing, tightening, and milking him. Your back arches as your entire body spasms. 

Feeling you orgasm around him brings him to his peak as well. His cock convulses inside of you, visibly able to see the bulge in your stomach twitching as he pumps your little hole full of cum. His wings span open and his tail shudders. 

“Ngh! Y-Y/N!! Ah Aahhh!” He moans loudly. 

His hands firmly hold you flush against his hips, making sure he’s as deep within you as possible as he shoots thick ropes of hot cum. Pumping so much into you, that as he slowly pulls out, your belly deflates as it pours out of you. Collecting in a puddle on the grass, a collection of both of your releases. 

Both of you are left panting and at a loss for words, still trying to catch your breath and recover from the intense love making. 

Gyutaro lays on his back and gently moves you to lie on top of him. He wraps his wings around you and whispers, “I love you.”

“I-I love you too,” you whimper, body still shaking. 

He holds you close to him and caresses your body under the light of the glowing mushroom. After all of that, he knows you’re going to need some intense after care. But he doesn’t mind, he gladly stays with you all night. Giving you soft kisses and gentle touches, showing you how much he loves and appreciates his little fairy. 

Gyutaro really is a gentle giant. And you wouldn’t have it any other way.

[spqcebunsforever]

What we have in common

Pairings: Hazbin Hotel Adam x Angel reader, a Little bit of Lucifer x Angel Y/n at the start

Summary: Angel Y/n realizes that she and the first man Adam might have a little more in common than she thought.

Y/n's Pov (Before Lucifer fell)

(FLASHBACK)

I believed that when I had met him I had met the one. Me and Lucifer had met when I had bumped into him while we were both flying around. I was immediately charmed by his laugh his smile his way with words it was like speaking to someone who you knew was going to stick around and love you forever. Everything felt like it was going my way and I couldn't be happier he had told me that he loved me and that we were made to be together. I had never felt like I belonged more than I did at that moment believing every word that Lucifer had said like it was holy text but everything started turning sour when Lucifer started going down to the Garden of Eden. He had told me that he wanted to go down and just see how the humans were getting along and how different they were from us. And at the start, it was okay he would come back and tell me all about the humans and how fascinating they were and how much they looked like us just without wings, and how at this stage they were so pure and innocent.

But the more he went down the more I suddenly felt him drift away from me. He would come back and refuse to talk to me or just tell me he was too tired to talk it was hurting me and I started believing that I had done something to push him away. So one night after he had come back from Eden I decided that I wasn't going to leave him alone until I got an answer on what was going on. "Have I done something to anger you, Luci?" He just looked at me then he looked at the ground "No why would you think that" He tried to move past me but I stood my ground "Because you've changed we used to do stuff me and you but now we barely see each other your always down at Eden looking at those humans and when you come back you refuse to talk or look at me". He again looked at the floor but this time he took a deep breath and finally looked me in the eyes. "I can't lie to you anymore Y/n I've fallen for the human Lilith she just...completes me and I truly believe that we are soulmates". I didn't know what I was expecting to hear but that wasn't it. I felt tears well up in my eyes "But...you said we were soulmates, you said you loved me. you... you can't just leave me for this...other woman Lucifer we are supposed to be the ones truly in love".

Lucifer again took a deep breath clearly trying to stay as calm and collected as possible. "Y/n why can't you understand you are the other woman... I don't love you anymore please forgive me Y/n I... I never meant to hurt you but..." I let my tears fall down my cheeks out of anyone that he could have fallen for it had to be the human. "So what all the I love yous before you left every morning just meant nothing to you they were just empty lies and every morning after saying you loved me you would go see her and love her!". He again looked at the ground not saying anything I had loved this man more than anything and I thought he had loved me back. "Just go Lucifer please just...go". He tried to again apologize but I shut him down just telling him to leave I didn't even want to see him anymore I was too hurt. After a few seconds, he flew off and the minute that he had left my view I fell to my knees and sobbed I couldn't believe that in his eyes I had just been the woman that he needed to escape so he could be with the one he really wanted. I felt nothing but complete heartbreak.

(PRESENT DAY)

It had been a couple of months since Lucifer had left me for Lilith and to say I wasn't still heartbroken would be a lie but I had tried my best to move on. But I had heard through some Angels that Lucifer and Lilith had both been thrown down to a place called hell because they had convinced a human named Eve to eat a forbidden apple or something like that giving humans free will. I knew that the human Adam had recently passed away and had joined us up here in heaven but I hadn't seen him. But I wasn't sure what had happened to Eve lots of angels believed because she took the forbidden apple she was to be sent to hell but we were never really sure.

I had been sitting on a ledge in heaven that I normally sit on when I want to be alone and watch the sunset because not many people knew about it but that peace and quiet when I heard someone behind me clearly having some sort of trouble by the number of curse words they were using so I turned around to see what was happening and that's when I saw him. It was the first man who was clearly having trouble getting used to his wings but then I didn't blame him all of this stuff must be very new and confusing to him.

"Are you okay over there?". He jumped a little clearly he hadn't noticed me but he then put on an overconfident smile. "Yup I'm a natural at this babe so I'm completely fine just a little wind you know completely threw me off so technically wind fault that I mucked up". I couldn't help but smile at his explanation clearly trying to show off but I didn't mind. "Hmm yeah, I guess you're right the wind has been a little heavier recently" We both knew I was lying heaven has the perfect weather every day but he must have liked that I had played along because he started walking closer to me. "Yeah sucks but hey my name is Adam I'm actually the.." before he could continue I finished off his sentence for him "The first man yes I know I've heard lots of angels talk about you and how you got into heaven". He looked at me a little shocked but then sat down next to me. "It's so weird having people already know me before they've met me I feel like everyone is talking about me right now and it's kinda making me nervous you know like I just got here and people are bombarding me with questions and stuff".

"Well to be fair Adam you were the first man ever created you are special God created you so no wonder everyone is talking about you and until now we hadn't realized that human souls can get into heaven so now you are also the first human soul to enter heaven". He just sat there looking forward at the sunset muttering the words "Special" and "First man" but then he suddenly looked at me and gave me a small smile. "So what's your deal why are you sitting here all alone would think angels would be hanging out with each other and all that crap". I just shrugged my shoulder "I normally do but I come out here when I want to think and reminisce". He looked at me a little confused "reminisce about what?" I looked forward to the sunset not wanting to make eye contact with him "I had a love I believed that he was the one you know perfect fit but I soon found out that he loved a human and left me for her they got what they deserved but what can I say it hurt Lucifer his name was". Then that's when I remembered who I was talking to another human who knew Lilith and was also her husband but before I could turn around and apologize he stared talking.

"Yeah, she hurt me too I loved her I really did but yeah she left me for that fucker said that I wasn't good enough anymore and that she loved him more than I got Eve and then she cheated on me with him...it was like I couldn't win you know". For the first time, I had never really thought that Lilith would have had to leave Adam to be with Lucifer so I never had thought about how he would have felt about the whole thing but now seeing his face and the pain that was written on it I knew he was going through the exact thing I was going through. "It does hurt and I'm so sorry that happened to you, you never deserved that" We were now both looking at each other and I grabbed his hand wanting in some way to comfort him. "Meh well like you said they got what they deserved they are now both in a horrible place and it should stay that way what they both get for hurting us". I nodded agreeing with everything that he was saying. Continuing to hold each other's hand we sat and watched the sunset again in silence until I started talking. "You know if you would like I can help you get better at flying it will take a bit of practice but once you get the hang of it it's one of the best things to do". Adam nodded and smiled "Yeah I would like that just as long as you don't tell anyone because I don't want them to think that I can't fly". I put my hand on my heart and swore "I promise I won't tell a soul it stays between me and you"

Adam smiled "You know I think I get what you mean by sitting here by yourself it's nice and calming we should totally make it our special place". I just looked at him "Our special place?" He then sat up a bit straighter "Yeah you know only me and you can come here and we can tell each other stuff and if we feel shit we can talk to each other about it and look at the sunset with each other like our little getaway it would be so cool so what do you say me and you from now on no more sitting by yourself!" I just nodded while smiling he was definitely different but I liked that and it was nice to have someone who understood and wanted to spend time with me...I wasn't alone anymore and I felt happy.

But little did I know that later in the future I would be sitting alone on the ledge again but this time I would have a broken mask in my hands and I would again be sobbing.

[tibby-art]

I’m adoring the Hitman AU. Scar and Cub share a braincell and Grian just looks like she wants to go home and sleep.

I’m curious as to what powers ConVex has. Or what their motives are with Grian. (ConVex trying to corrupt her.)

I've been picturing Cub and Scar's vex powers as being able to transform into a vex form (pale blueish skin, white hair/eyes, wings, fangs, claws, the whole nine yards). The forms allow them to move at lightning speed and fly, making them perfect as silent killers in their roles as hitmen. They're super sneaky and fast.

I think the vex work with pacts as well - if you make a pact with a vex, they're unable to go against said pact. That's how they ended up working for the government as hitmen. I imagine that in their past they were very powerful and corrupt criminals at Concorp (standard protocol for convex in an au i'd say). One day the government catches up to them, and they're given a choice: Go to top-security prison for one bajillion years because you're a dangerous vex criminal OR make a pact with the government and work under them, using your powers for good. So, Cub and Scar are technically here by choice, but their choices were limited. They're bound by a fae contract that they must perform their given duties as hitmen - they bend the rules and find loopholes whenever possible, though. Vex are tricky like that. They'll get ordered to take out a dangerous crime boss, but because you didn't technically specify that you wanted that done today, they took the day off to go golfing. They'll get to it tomorrow :J (The government learns the hard way that when you order Cub and Scar to kill someone you must specify to them not to eat the person because that has happened and that will happen again and everything is terrible)

Grian is in a similar situation, but he was given less of a choice. While Cub and Scar made their own pacts with the vex to gain their powers, Grian's watcher powers are something she did not ask for at all. The Watchers are much more mysterious than the Vex, not a lot is known about them and they're considered almost a myth until Grian shows up. This makes her more dangerous and unpredictable, in the government's eyes. Grian isn't allowed to just walk away and go back to being a normal member of society - nobody knows what he's capable of (not even Grian knows) so the government needs to keep a close eye on her. When she's paired up with Cub and Scar for missions, the vex are ordered to keep an eye on Grian, and step in if things get too dangerous. Cub and Scar think this is BS and they almost pity Grian, deep down, since he's essentially in the same spot they're in but worse. When their pact says to keep Grian from getting too dangerous, they interpret it as, "Well, if we help her figure out her powers, she's more in control and that will make everything safer :J"

I don't think Convex is trying to corrupt her - I think the government is the one being manipulative here. Convex sees it. I think they genuinely want to help her grow and discover new abilities and how to use them. They're Convex, though, so they might not be the best role models lol. I think what they're trying to do is help her get more confidence and more control over her powers. Cub is a scientist who is very good at figuring out how Grian's abilities work, what he can and can't do, the limits of said abilities, etc. and Scar has the most creative and insane ideas on how to utilize watcher powers that it sometimes leads to discovering something brand new. I can picture him being like, ":J Hey have you ever tried using your watcher powers to spy on a specific location from like, fifty miles away" and Grian is like "Scar that's ridiculous that's not how it works" and then she tries it and is amazed when that actually does work. Scar's like ":J yeah I made that up I didnt think it would work Can you spy on Disneyland now"

[olderthannetfic]

Obvious Disclaimer that this is not about any specific anon in particular, not about OTNF themself, but that my following rant might *slightly* punch down on people who ARE, well, older than net fics are.

But my honest opinion is that I really don’t like it when us old heads tend to sorta…talk down to? “Adultsplain”, if that’s even a thing? To The Gen Zs, by being like “damn kids! back in my day we never used our real name or posted selfies or posted about our personal life at all!” Don’t get me wrong, I’m one of those people who never posted the real me — but not because I was anonymous and cared about online safety, because I was a liar 😂 That being said, there ARE older people who definitely over-shared or “doxxed” themselves and still do, and there’s younger people who don’t!

I also feel like being “ha, these stupid KIDS who post about their FANDOM LIFE on TIK TOCK under their REAL NAME AND FACE where IRLS CAN SEE THEM, how STUPID” is not doing anyone any favors. Is that, technically, a smart thing for kids to do? No. Has it become normalized? Yes. And does that suck for people who might be bullied or outed or whatever cuz they genuinely are dumb and don’t know better and then someone they don’t like sees their stuff? Yes.

We all talk about how there’s no more kids spaces on the internet and how that’s a shame, but then five seconds later we’ll reblog that one “At any time I’m at risk of seeing a 14 year olds opinion and that’s why I hate it here” post. There’s really so few kid spaces on the net now, that’s true. We should extend empathy and let the teens be obnoxious and pretentious in peace, rather than making it a point to “ratio” or “roast them.” Idk personally I’d be completely unbothered if some 14 year old insulted my fic or my ship or whatever. I’d just block and move on, no need to try to argue with them.

And also, not all kids are even pretentious or obnoxious! I’m not saying we all need to take the kids under our wings, but we should be careful about not hating them just for being in their teens years, you know?

Also… telling a teenager to not post PII or not get into discourse or not have social media or whatever will NOT work the way you want it to 😭 kids are by default a little bit oppositionally defiant so telling some rando teen to Get Off Your Lawn (blog) rather than just blocking them, will encourage said teen to Stay On Your Lawn.

I just hate how it’s become normal for adults to talk down to teens online. I was harassed by adults online as a kid, then years and years and years later i went through my own “Older Than You™️”phase where I myself was a shit to teenagers, and I truly regret that so much. To this day I still need to make an effort to be careful. I saw on Twitter where an adult posted a DM from a 13 year old, mocking them. The DM said “I’m 14 next year, can I follow you? Please don’t groom me.” And the adult OP was laughing at how stupid the dm was. A few years ago, I would’ve been one of the people retweeting that and rolling my eyes at the child. Now im disgusted by the people who WERE laughing at them.

And again I’m obviously not saying we should be “nice” to the teenagers who mock us for our ships or who virtue signal too hard. But we also don’t need to make fun of their CARRDS or call them Puri-teens or rag on them just for being 17 or younger, yk?

--

Teens aren't 'puriteens' just for being young, dude. They have to also be puritanical bullies.

I find the stuff about real names hilarious because, actually, if you're really Internet Old™, then you probably did use your real name... it was right there in your university e-mail address! Or your random early ISP address if your stepdad got it for you and thought the university format was the default. Thanks, stepdad.

I've done every single dumb thing from going to meet my internet pen pal at an Alice Cooper concert to flying to Ireland from Japan to stay with a fandom friend I'd never met without telling anyone where I was going and without a credit card or enough cash to flee if I had to. I remember sitting on the plane thinking "Man, this is such a CSI episode topic".

The really funny part was that despite what she'd said before I visited, we ran into each of her parents at different times and ended up going to a play courtesy of her uncle, and all of them were like "So how do you know each other?" and "But you'd met before, right? RIGHT?!"

The level of panopticon is horrifying now. Teens have my sympathy. That part really is worse, and I think it's driving an entire generation nuts and we're going to see even more shit about people wanting to run away and live in a cabin in the woods with no internet. But in general, I don't think we're so different.

[harmonysanreads]

Since you have requests open: I love the way you write Venti, but I don’t think I’ve seen a yan!venti written by you. I’d love you see your take with him!

Hiraeth

yandere!venti x reader

cw: yandere, venti needs therapy probably.

I've wanted to write Yandere Venti for the longest time actually! But the reason why I stalled on writing him is because I had the nagging feeling that Venti was different from the classic yandere, however, I just couldn't pinpoint what exactly. Thankfully, I had an epiphany prior to this ask and in its honor, here's a proper oneshot for everyone's favourite drunkard :)

Venti had let you go.

Morax and Beelzebul were baffled when the news reached them ; what went through the wind-wisp's archaic, intoxicated head were never apparent to the other archons to begin with, but this, this really might've been the most befuddling decision the anemo archon had made — by their logic, at least.

After all, they wouldn't be so careless, unclipping the wings of the object of their unbridled affections and letting them soar, watch as it pranced around the beautiful world and unto the cage of another even so — the other archons are not so rid of paranoia, they are not so selfless. Hardened by the passage of time, they merely know how to own and chain what they deem precious. Such was their simple rationale ; to hold onto the one thing keeping them sane and by doing so, rob them of their freedom.

But by what logicality, what justice, can Venti deprive you of the same freedom he preached? He might instead just steal away your ability to breathe. The anemo archon digresses, it's not like this was another one of his drunken whims, no, no. He'd already made peace with himself, as the patron of the winds, he understood the vitality of his decision and neither did he care for who it baffled or who put effort to understand.

After all, when you love a bird too much, you let it go.

Such was Venti's simple logic and when he came into terms with the same conflict that currently plagued the other archons, when the sight of your grateful and elated smile reflected on his cerulean orbs along with the unhesitant promise of returning to the City of Freedom soon — Venti knew he'd made the right choice.

For he knew this just as well, when an overly attached bird finally tastes true freedom, by its own gratitude to the owner, it'll one day fly back to its previous cage.

Therefore, the wind-wisp was worry-less ; further adding to this was the fact that despite not technically being within arms reach, you actually always are for him. Because, even the all grounding earth must stop to let the water take reigns, no thunder crackles forever, snow and fire extinguish each other and flora and fauna cannot grow in the air — but the wind, it flows to every crevice of the waking world, forever cradling it and keeping its pace to the marching of time. The winds are limitless, so there is not a single moment where Venti cannot feel your presence or hear your breath and voice. There is not a single instance where he has you out of his sight, not a single time where the same winds hadn't coerced those who'd meant you harm.

Though, it's also true that a chief characteristic of the wind is mischief. As it protects, so does it nudge towards danger. But the fun part is actually this : you'll never be able to accuse it because of its ever fleeting nature. So then, who else do you blame when everything in your life seems to go wrong in all the unfortunate times, when every turn and stride has you plunging deeper, deeper, deeper in failure and you're left beaten, broken and never having wished to leave your safe home — why, you blame the entire world and the heavens alongside it, of course.

But you can never blame the one who'd unclipped your wings, not when they'd already given their warnings but still allowed you to fly because they love you so. The blame can only be shifted to you, yourself for not listening, for being so desperate. Never to the one who'd opened the gates for you to fall victim to the world's cruelty, the same freedom's cruelty ; even if the person happened to be the patron of it.

Wandering the world, uncovering its secrets and witnessing all the events it had to offer was your wish. To not be bound to Mondstadt solely and to have the freedom of traversing the entirety of Teyvat was your one desire. The wish your ever so benevolent archon had granted you, chaining you with the shackles of gratitude. But when you finally see the world's true colours, would you wish for that same freedom again? Mondstadt is the sole nation capable of bestowing true freedom, this, Venti had told you before. But since you're so insistent, so curious, so suspecting of him — he wouldn't mind letting you see it for yourself. After all, time is something he never lacked.

Venti had let you go, yes. But it's also true that he wouldn't have done so, if he wasn't certain you'd crawl back to his arms in the first place.

[goldenrodchef]

So, you're turning into a Pokemon

A guide by Gen Taranz

This is a guide for people who are turning into, are going to turn into, or have already turned into Pokemon. I'm of the third category, and I've been stuck like this for almost a year now. So, uh. I think I might be able to give some pretty good advice. The guide itself is below the cut.

This is part 1 of...I'm not sure yet. I currently have 10 sections planned, but I might add more if need be.

Section 1: How do I know it's happening to me?

Generally, if your skin suddenly starts turning an odd color like blue, you're feeling really itchy and fuzzy all over, or you're feeling odd bumps in weird places (like on your head or tailbone), I'm sorry to say, but you're probably turning into a Pokemon.

Now, that's not always going to be the case. But that's the best I got for if you're being turned into a Pokemon non-instantly, or sleebied.

You might not experience any of these. You might just go to bed one day, and wake up as a Pokemon. That's what happened for me, after all. If that's what happened, feel free to skip section 8 of this guide.

Section 2: Fur, scales, and feathers

These are not fun to have, in my experience. I only have fur and scales, but I'll do my best to talk about feathers too.

Fur is going to need to be groomed a lot. Your tongue might be your best bet here, many furry Pokemon have tongues built for grooming their fur. Of course, obviously you might not want to do that, so it's a good idea to invest in a good furbrush that you can hold, or ask a trusted person to hold.

Scales are less of a pain to take care of, and are the most like skin out of these three things, but are still very weird. My scales are a bit squishy, which is. Something.

We don't know of many feathered eebies yet, but from what I've heard, they're a pain to take care of. There's the whole preening process that you'll have to start doing, not to mention molting.

Speaking of, let's talk about shedding. For me, shedding happens once every two months or so, and involves my tail scales getting progressively itchier and itchier until they peel off and reveal a new layer. For others, it might involve your fur getting really itchy as your summer or winter coat grows in, or something similar happening with feathers.

For fur or feather shedding, having a rough surface to rub your body against helps a lot with helping get fur loose. If you have a scaly friend, ask them if you can rub against them to help shed your fur.

For scale shedding, rough surfaces also help, but warm baths also help in loosening that top layer of scales. They also feel really good if you're a water-type.

Section 3: Paws, wings, talons, and tails

I'm sorry to say this, but your hands are likely going to drastically change. You'll probably lose most of their dexterity, and it'll be much more difficult to do stuff with them.

If your hands are changing or have changed into paws...there's not much to do. You'll just have to find other ways to do things. My little brother, Cobalt the Giratina eeby, uses xyr tail to do most stuff now, which might be a viable option for those with flexible tails, but I'll get to those in a bit.

You might keep your thumbs, or you might not. I'm sorry. I wish I could help more. All I can really do is recommend using styluses, and looking into disability aids.

For those of you that are becoming avian Pokemon, you're likely going to have your hands become wings. And for those of you becoming dragon-types, you might grow wings from scratch.

These are definitely no replacement for hands, but you can fly now, at least?

What is a replacement for hands, though, is talons. Talons, at least from what I've heard, are pretty dexterous, allowing you to do most things you could previously do with your hands! Though this will likely be a balancing act, since you also use these to stand.

And now, tails. I...honestly don't really know what to say here, since Pokemon have so many different varieties of tails. My cousin, Jayden the Brionne eeby, has a tail instead of legs. My best friend, Lily the Buizel eeby, has two tails that she can spin. And myself, I have a Sobble tail that's prehensile. It really depends on what species you end up as.

One thing I've consistently noticed, though, is that tails are very easy to lose track of, especially if they're the waggy sort. It's extremely easy to knock stuff over with your tail if you're not paying close attention to it. So...pay attention to it.

Also try not to sit on your tail. That really hurts.

And that's part 1 of this! I hope that this helps any eebies and sleebies who are struggling with their bodies.

[larluce]

Merlin as Arthur's familiar/Arthur's shapeshifter falcon AU

@dsabian , @theplatanitosqueal , @stressed-but-chill , @gregre369 , @chaosofbelievers , @thelordofabsolutelynothing , @another-tblr-fangirl , @aceauthorcatqueen , tagging you since you liked the other parts ^^

LINK TO THE OTHER PARTS: PART 1 , PART 2 , PART 3 , PART 4 , PART 5 , PART 6 (You're here) , PART 7

In Arthur's chambers.

Arthur: (sleeping peacefully)😴

Merlin: (flies above him, chirping and picking at him)

Arthur: (still half-asleep) Hmmm... Merlin, not now (covers himself with the blanket to go back to sleep)

Merlin: (changes to human form and falls on Arthur)

Arthur: (out of breath for a moment and shouts) What the-Merlin! 😠

Merlin: (very excited, jumping in Arthur's lap) It's happening! It's finally hapenning! 😄

Arthur: What is happening? (looks the sun isn't even up through the window) And so early? (rubs his eyes)

Merlin: The eggs! They're hatching! (gets off Arthur and runs to the window where the nest is)

Arthur: (getp up, drowsiness finally gone) What? Really? (runs to the nest too)

Merlin: (points at one egg) Look!

Chick 1: (gets out of his shell all damp with lots of bare, pink skin exposed)

Merlin: ...

Arthur: ...

Merlin: He... he is...

Arthur: Ugly?

Merlin: Was I like this when I was a chick?

Arthur: You are a magical entity, Merlin, you were never a chick.

Merlin: Oh, thank the gods!

Chick 2: (gets out of her shell)

Merlin: (smiles) Oh, this one is a female!😊

Arthur: How can you know so soon?

Merlin: Magical entity.

Arthur: Right. (waits a moment, but nothing happens) How long until the others hatch?

Merlin: It could take the entire day. (holds the eggs and the chicks carefully and puts them in Arthur's hands)

Arthur: (scared as fuck as he holds them) WOW! Wait! What are you doing?! 😨😱

Merlin: You have to keep them warm.

Arthur: (whisper yelling) I can't incubate them! I'm gonna crush them!

Merlin: You don't have to sit on them just hold them close to your body to keep them warm. Meanwhile (stretches his limbs and cracks his knuckles and neck) I'll stretch my wings for a bit. 😊

Arthur: You're leaving me with these little merlins just so you can take a fly?! 😠

Merlin: (suddenly serious) Yes, Arthur, I've been incubating them for a whole month without a single break and now I want to fly for a couple of hours. Is that too much to ask?

Arthur: ...

Merlin: (raises his voice) I said is that too much to ask?

Arthur: No, no, no, not at all. Go ahead.

Merlin: Awww, thank you 😄. I'll be back soon. (changes to bird form and flies away)

Arthur: ...

Arthur: (to the two chicks and the 3 eggs, holding them closely) Your mom is very scary, boys.

Chick 2: (chirps a little)

Arthur: And girl. Right, you're a girl. (walks to the bed very slowly, sits and yawns) There you go. Now I have to stay awake (yawns) until Merlin comes back.

3 hours later. Arthur is asleep again, the chicks and the eggs close to his bare chest.

Chick 1 and 2: (chirp loudly)

Arthur: (half asleep) Shut up, Merlin (about to move, but suddenly remembers) The chicks! (completely awake now, but doesn't dare to move and looks down fearfully, thinking) Please be alive, please be alive.

Chick 3: (comes out of his shell)

Arthur: (sighs in relief and smiles) Only two more left. (holds carefully the chicks and the eggs with his hands and sits slowly) Oh, you're fluffy now. (taps chick 1 and 2 on the head whose plumage now is white and downy) You're still ugly though. (Looks at the eggs closely, worried) Please tell me you made those cracks.

Merlin: (appears and lands on the nest holding a death bird with his beak)

Arthur: Oh, thank the gods you're back! (walks to him and puts the eggs and chicks back to the nest carefully) And you brought food.

Merlin: (sits on the eggs to keep incubating them and starts feeding the chicks)

Arthur: If you needed food you could've just told me. I would've sent my hunters for food.

Merlin: (chirps)

Arthur: But then I wouldn't let you take a fly. Very smart. (Yawns and looks through the window) Servants are going to bring my breakfast soon. You better use that invisible spell of yours before they do (yawns and goes back to bed)

3 days later, all five chicks are now out of their shell and are bigger. To Arthur, they look like fluffy little white balls with very angry faces. He takes turns with Merlin to keep them warm and to hunt for food. Today it was Arthur's turn to feed them while Merlin stretched his wings a bit.

Arthur: (scolds while he feeds the chicks raw meat using a tweezer) No! Don't steal your brother's food! Bad, bad! 😠 (someone knocks his chambers' doors and he hides the nest behind him quickly and demands) Who is it?

Morgana: (from outside) Morgana.

Arthur: (sighs relieved and relaxes) Come in.

Morgana: (enters, singing happily) Where are my favourite nephews! 🤗

Arthur: (blushes) They are not your...! or mine... I'm just helping Merlin look after them.

Morgana: (Looks at the tweezer in Arthur's hand) Is that Gaius' medical tweezer?

Arthur: They wouldn't stop pecking my fingers. Like this they won't take my fingers off when I feed them.

Morgana: (takes the tweezer) Let me help. (Starts feeding the chicks)

Arthur: Oh, not to 1. He already ate a lot.

Morgana: (confused) 1?

Arthur: Yeah, the one with a number 1 in his head.

Morgana: ...

Arthur: You know, because he came out of his shell first. And this one is 2 because she came out se-

Morgana: You named your children after numbers and put numbers on their heads with ink?! 😡

Arthur: They are not my children! 😠. They are not even 'children'! And how else was I supposed to identify them?!

Chicks: (chirp louder)

Morgana: Now you made them cry.

Arthur: They are crying because you are not feeding them. (Takes the tweezer and continues feeding them)

Morgana: I can't believe Merlin let you name them like that.

Arthur: He didn't want to name them at all.

Morgana: (Confused) What?

Arthur: He doesn't want to get too attached to them since they're gonna leave as soon as they learn how to fly. (Sighs, feeling guilty) And I guess he's afraid of getting attached again to any merlin since...

Morgana: Since you killed Claws?

Arthur: (looks at the window, frantic, and then back to Morgana) Shut up! Merlin could be back at any moment!

Morgana: Didn't it occurred to you that maybe Merlin doesn't want to get attached to them because he knows you don't want to get attached to them?

Arthur: What?

Morgana: He adopted those chicks, Arthur. For you they may be just birds but for Merlin they are more than that. How do you think a single parent feels when their current partner doesn't accept their children?

Arthur: I... didn't think of it that way.

Morgana: So you realize that if you want to be with Merlin you'll have to be their parent too, right?

Arthur: I guess... (looks at the chicks) Fuck.

Morgana: You despise the idea that much?

Arthur: Is not that. It's just... I'm barely 18! I didn't expect to be a father so soon. And I expected my children to be, you know, human.

Morgana: You also expected your one true love to be a beautiful princess and here we are. (sighs) So? Do you still want to be with Merlin?

Arthur: ...

Time skip. Merlin with Arthur in his chamabers.

Merlin: (in his human form, after trying a spell on the nest) I did it! (jumps happily)

Arthur: (gets closer, curious) What did you do?

Merlin: Oh, I improved the invisible spell on the nest, now no one who isn't us or Morgana can see the chicks while they are there.

Arthur: That's great!

Merlin: Yeah, I don't have to make the spell constantly anymore and you won't get caught by your father. They are even save from other raptors now. It took me a while to get it right. (his smile gets sad)

Arthur: (concerned) What is it?

Merlin: Nothing, it's just... They... they don't need incubation anymore, but I... I still want to embrace them. But I can't, there's no need anymore.

Arthur: Merlin-

Merlin: (his eyes tearing) I know I'm not supposed to love them, I'm not really his dad or anything. I'm not even a real falcon.

Arthur: Merlin-

Merlin: And I know you didn't want them here in the first place, but-

Arthur: (shouts) Merlin!

Merlin: (startles)

Arthur: (extends his hand to Merlin and says softly, smiling) Would you dance with me?

Merlin: (blushes, confused) Wha... what? 😳

Arthur: Would you give me the honor to share a flying dance with me?

Merlin: I... (still very red and confused) but you... you don't have-

Arthur: Humans can also dance, you know? It's true I have no wings, but I can make you fly if you let me.

Merlin: (smiles widely, eyes watering) I'd love to.

And they dance. Arthur discovers that, while Merlin is very agil with his bird wings, he's very clumsy with his human legs, but he lets himself be guided by Arthur all the time. There are stomps, there are laughs, but they soon find a comfortable pace and Merlin ends up with his arms around Arthur's neck, and Arthur with his hands on Merlin's hips, dancing slowly at the rhythm of the music of their hearts.

Merlin: (still dancing with Arthur, confused) Are we supposed to mate now?

Arthur: (laughs softly) There's no rush for that. But I want you to be my partner. My mate if you want to call it that way. I love you, Merlin, and I want to be with you and have a family with you.

Merlin: Oh... (gets a little sad) But we're both male, we can't... (opens his eyes wide) Or can we? 😲

Arthur: No, two males can't.. procreate, but we don't need to worry about that. (Points at the nest with his head) We already have a family together.

Merlin: (Gets so happy he might cry and kisses Arthur on the lips in a fit of joy)

Arthur: (In shock for a moment, but soon kisses back and they kiss for a long time)

Merlin: (separates the kiss, but keeps their faces close, catching his breath) Did I... Did I do it correctly? I saw some humans do that with their mates.

Arthur: (smiles wide) You did it wonderfully.

Merlin: Arthur?

Arthur: Yeah?

Merlin: I think I love you romantically.

...

Just so you know, this is how the chicks look:

[azrielslightintheshadows]

Hello!! All good?

I would like to know if you could write something for Rhysand, something where the reader is needy and very clingy with Rhys, like, she wants to stay on his lap, always holding hands, and the reader even goes to sleep on Rhys' chest when he was everyone in the inner circle together? Rhys even has to walk around with the reader clinging to him, but obviously Rhys is cool with that, so maybe Cass says something about the reader because she's clingy and Rhys defends her??

Super cute!!!

Hold me.

Rhysand x f!Reader

Masterlist.

Warnings; Mentions of trauma, swearing and violence.

Hope this is what you had in mind. I've been enjoying your requests way too much. I had a rough week, and it ruined my whole mood and affected my writing so I'm sorry if you don't like it.

You used to be a very independent female, you always bickered with your mate Rhys over his overprotective character, you would spend hours explaining to him that you need some space to breathe and him shouting that he just wants to keep you safe. That was until he got trapped under the mountain, you yearned for him, and guilt burned in your blood, you couldn’t understand why you kept pushing him away. Then he came back and the trauma of losing him changed you completely, you couldn’t stand being away from him even for a minute, and even if you were in the same room, you would panic if you weren’t touching him. Rhys was enjoying your new clingy self way too much. Wherever he was sitting you would crawl on his lap, when you had dinner, you would sit next to him holding his hand and during the night you would climb on him and sleep, covering him like a blanket.

You were hanging with your family at the house of wind, Nesta and Feyre were bickering about something, Amren was watching them with a smirk on her face and Mor, Cassian, Azriel and Rhysand were lost deep into conversation about the court of nightmares. You were sitting on your mate’s lap, resting your head on his shoulder as you watched everything that was happening around. Rhys was playing with your fingers as he talked. You felt safe in his arms, his warmth and the beating of his heart making you feel sleepy and before you knew it your eyes closed, and you got lost in the darkness.

“I can fly there faster than you can winnow” Cassian boomed, and Mor snorted.

Rhysand stiffened and glared at his brother.

“Keep it down, y/n is sleeping” he hissed and his grip around you hardened.

Cassian frowned but didn’t say anything. Everyone watched with soft smiles on their faces as Rhysand got up with you in his arms and walked to the balcony nodding at them goodbye. He winnowed home and carried you to your shared room, after he removed your clothes and his own, he laid on the bed and placed you on top of him, sighing at the feeling and caressing your back. He fell asleep with a smile.

Morning came and you woke up crying. You had a nightmare of losing him again. He held you in his arms while you wept, kissing your head and murmuring sweet promises about never leaving you again. You spent the whole day clinging onto him like your life depended on it and whined when you had to get ready for dinner at the house of wind. Your whines broke Rhysand’s heart and he followed you around as you got ready, his hand never leaving yours.

“Winnow or fly?” he asked.

You thought about it for a bit and grinned as you said “Fly”.

He had already summoned his wings since he knew you would choose flying, you wouldn’t miss the opportunity to be in his arms.

When you landed on the balcony, he tried to place you on your feet, but you quickly manoeuvred yourself and wrapped your legs around his waist, nesting your face in his neck. He chuckled and his one hand moved beneath your bottom, he gave your butt a squeeze making you yelp, and his other hand went to your back, rubbing soothing circles.

“Are you comfortable pretty girl?” he asked and left a soft kiss on your head. You hummed and he smiled.

He walked inside and you heard Azriel chuckling.

“Look at her” he exclaimed “so cute” and with that he came and ruffled your hair making you giggle.

Rhysand quickly turned his back on Azriel muttering “mine” for only you to hear.

“Yours” you breathed and hugged him harder.

You spent the whole evening on Rhysand’s lap, peaking your head from his neck only when you wanted to participate in the conversation.

“So, I was thinking about going to Rita’s, it’s been a while since the three of us spent some time together” Cassian spoke and pointed to Azriel and Rhysand. Then his eyes fell on you, and he sighed “If dear y/n decides to stop acting like a baby of course”

You froze, your eyes filled with tears, and you got up, you moved so fast that Rhysand didn’t have time to grab you.

You mumbled “sorry” and ran out, jumping off the balcony and winnowing to the river house.

You slipped into bed and cried. You were so lost in your own trauma that you didn’t think if Rhys was okay with you clinging onto him. You didn’t know how long you stayed like that until your mate’s warmth filled your body and his arms wrapped around you.

“Don’t cry sweetheart, Cassian is an asshole” he murmured in your hair.

“He is right though I’ve been unbearable since you came back” you sniffled.

“No, you haven’t. I’ve been enjoying every second of it so much that I don’t think I will be able to live without you in my arms. Please don’t stop” his voice was breaking.

“But...”

“Shh” he cut you off and you felt the familiar talons caressing the shield around your mind. You let him in, and he planted his last memory there for you to see.

You saw yourself jumping off the balcony and then the gaze turned to Cassian, and a low growl left Rhysand. You felt his fury and the dark power that flowed from him into the room.

“What the fuck was that?” Rhysand yelled and moved closer to Cassian, he grabbed the collar of the general’s shirt and pushed him against the nearby wall. Cassian paled as he watched his brother’s fury.

“Did you even stop to think for a second before this bullshit left your mouth?” Rhysand snarled, his voice lethal and filled with painful promises.

“The female you just offended lost her mate, she had to spend 50 years of her life alone, worrying about her mate’s life… and when she finally got him back, she is considered clingy because she’s afraid of losing him again?” He pushed Cassian harder against the wall. You could feel his hands trembling as he used most of his power to keep himself from punching the warlord.

“Rhys I’m sorry I was just having a rough day, I didn’t mean it” Cassian’s voice was sincere, and you believed him, you knew he loved you and he would do anything to protect you.

“Tomorrow you will come at the river house, and you will apologize to her” Rhysand said and let go of him.

He stepped out of your head and tapped on your shield, you lifted it again and turned to look at him.

“Please don’t stop yearning for my touch.” He whispered.

“I don’t think that I’ll survive without you holding me” you whispered back and rested your forehead against his own.

Requests are open!

[cemoras27-but-writing-this-time]

Red's Robin. pt 1.

@im-totally-not-an-alien-2, hi I finished the first chapter :), spent way too long on it but Im happy at how it came out and fully intend on making more

@faeriekit since you were apart of that little conversation I assume you wanted to be tagged to, sorry if not!

Also the formatting may be off at the end, typing like texting is hard! I dont know how humans type other than me! And I've seen Tim typing like he doesn't know how to spell in fics before!

I hope you all Have a Great Day!!

Ao3:(to be added)

Tim sighs as he looks at his window sill. The small orange and gray bird that had perched on it stared at him through the closed window. Almost like it was asking him to let it in. But that's crazy! It's just a little bird, it probably just thinks he’ll feed it and that's why it's looking at him. But he’s not Damian and won’t adopt a wild animal the second he sees it.

It pecks at the window, and stares. Again it pecks.

Tap, tap, tap. It continues as if it's knocking. Tim turns back to his laptop, the Riddler is out of Arkham and has been suspiciously quiet. 

Tap, tap, tap. Tim doesn’t look. Tap, tap, pause. Taptaptaptap taptap tap. The noise doesn’t stop. Tim swings around and closes the curtains. And the noise persists, until it pauses. Breathing out a sigh Tim can finally make some progre-

BANG. The window shakes.

‘Did… did it just fly into the window? Can’t birds die like that?’ Tim peeks around the curtain to see the small robin-like bird shaking its head and turn to fly off. Only for it to slam body first into the window again. It takes a moment before it flies off. Tim opens the curtains and sees it quickly flying towards the closed reinforced window. He's able to open the window before it can kill itself and it rams into his chest instead. Which painfully sends him careening back onto his chair.

‘Ouch… it hits harder than expected…’ He looked down at the small bird that had moved down onto his lap, now that it's closer he notices that he has never seen a bird- robin(?) like this one. Its body is a light bluish-gray and slender with an orange head with little yellow markings next to its eyes, with tiny black legs with three talons. It stood barely a foot tall and its tail had odd white markings that vaguely resembled an arrow fletch. 

The bird adjusted itself and opened its wings, showing a white underwing, and flapped them until it was hovering next to Tim’s face. Small black eyes stare into blue.

“‘Chling!” it chirped and swooped up to land on his head, where it immediately started to peck at his hair. ‘Is it preening me? I thought birds need to trust a person to do that,’ Tim thought, his hair getting thrown into his eyes.

“Hey, stop that. Get off!” he gently batted at the bird trying to dislodge it from its roosting place, getting a stern peck in return. He looks at his laptop. He could just keep working but the bird would be a distraction. Damian might look at the bird, he had more information about animals than Tim did. But did he want to talk to Damian? Not really. He really needed to continue to track the Riddler, he's too much of a threat to be left unattende-

His stomach growls. The bird’s stomach growls. In a weird serenade the organs announce their mutual hunger. 

‘When was the last time I ate? When did the bird eat last?’ Tim thought, overwhelming hunger tearing at his abdomen and dizziness makes itself known. Ok snack then he can look into the bird and hopefully find the Riddler. His minifridge is empty, he knows that but still checks it -yep still empty, so he has to go to the kitchen. He grabs his phone from his desk and checks it.

9:49 -  Friday, June 2 - 26% battery

He still has about an hour and a half until he needs to get ready for patrol. He closes his bedroom door behind him quietly and pulls up the search bar.

‘What do robins eat?’

He's walking down the stairs, the search engine shows several articles, mostly about the most recent spotting of Nightwing, Red Robin, and Robin outside Batburger with pictures showing the three with the fast food bags. Cass was there too but nobody saw her.

He adds bird to the search

‘Mealworms, insects, and berries. Steph ate the last of the strawberries.’ Tim reaches the Kitchen, thankfully no one is in there. The bird finally flutters off of his head and onto the kitchen island and starts hopping around. There’s no other ‘berry’ fitting fruits either. “Sorry little guy, I don't think we have anything you're interested in. Alfie would kill us if we brought any bugs in.” He speaks to the room and grabs his preferred snack, an Alfred made orange-cranberry muffin, and turns to the island. 

The bird is pecking at the banana stand. Tim had forgotten about the bananas, Alfred only gets them to brown for banana bread. Everyone besides Dick hates the texture, and the rest of the kitchen is always stocked with something else to eat.

“Oh I guess there is something.” he sets his muffin down and rips one off the bunch and peels it as far as he’s willing. He wipes his hand against his pants and continues with his muffin. 

The bird hops onto the yellow fruit and sticks its beak into the soft insides. And they eat quietly together. Tim watches as the bird snips the sides of the peel to open it up more. He pulls up the camera app on his phone and takes a picture of it when it lifts its head up. He then goes to google. 

‘Orange and gray bird’

‘Orange and blue gray bird’

‘Robin species’

‘Robin BIRD species’

‘Small birds species’

‘Thrush bird species’

‘Finch species’

‘Bird with orange heads and gray bodies;

‘Birds with white underwings and orange heads’

‘Birds with white stripes on tail with orange heads’

Nothing he searches comes close to the bird in front of him. He sighs and pulls up his messages, and throws away the muffin wrapper.

Demon Child:

lol lokat tis thig

Would you type properly, Drake?

no u

[Image of fletchling]

Unlike you Drake I do type properly.

What kind of avian is that? I do not recognize it.

Idk im ak u

Drake is that our kitchen? Did you let a wild animal into our home?

It was hungy 🥺

Aldo no one eafs the babfas anyway

I am aware of our family’s dislike of bananas Drake.

That does not excuse nor explains why there is a wild animal in our kitchen!

It wan ted insid

Kept hittting my windo

What did you use as bait?

My Good Looks

Drake.

IDK man

It jst wanted in

I think it’s hurt

Didn want you bothefing B over a ded borb outdid

So i open d the window

An it flewa in and won t leab

I won’t be able to look it over until I get home.

And that will not be for another hour. Keep it inside. I will look at it before I go with Father for patrol.

K

At this point the bird had finished with it’s snack and Tim had thrown away it’s peel. It perched on his shoulder looking at his messages to Damian. Tim took another picture of the bird on his shoulder and sent it to Damian and went back to his room. 

If anything, the bird seemed to like him, and he could use that to annoy Damian until he got home.

[formulas-bitch]

Family above all - Daniel Ricciardo x sister/reader

The sky was a deep, cerulean blue, unmarred by a single cloud. The air was warm and gentle, caressing Daniel Ricciardo's cheeks as he stood on the edge of the pier. His little sister, Mia, skipped along beside him, her long, chestnut hair bouncing with each joyful stride. The waves lapped rhythmically against the wooden boards beneath their feet, creating a soothing melody that seemed to echo throughout their souls. Daniel turned to face her, the sunlight reflecting off his piercing green eyes. He could feel the weight of the world on his shoulders, the burden of responsibility that came with being the big brother. But in that moment, with her bright smile and infectious laughter, he couldn't help but feel a sense of peace.

"I'm sorry, Daniel," Mia said softly, her voice barely audible above the sound of the waves. "I didn't mean to make you feel that way."

Daniel looked at her, surprised by the sincerity in her eyes. "It's okay, Mia. I know you didn't mean any harm. It's just… things have been tough lately, you know?"

Their parents had been going through a rough patch, arguing more often and retreating into themselves. It was like a dark cloud had settled over their happy home, making it hard for anyone to find any joy. But standing here with Mia, Daniel felt a sense of hope begin to stir inside him. She was his little sister, his best friend, and he knew that together they could weather any storm.

"You know, Dan," Mia said, her voice growing stronger, "sometimes when things get tough, we just need to find a way to make each other laugh." She giggled, the sound echoing across the water. "Like that time you tried to teach me how to ride a bike and I fell over and scraped my knee. That was so funny!"

Daniel couldn't help but smile at the memory. "Yeah, that was pretty funny," he admitted, feeling a small twinge of guilt. He wished he could take back some of the things he had said earlier, but it was hard not to feel protective of his sister. She was only 24 years old, after all.

Mia's face lit up at the mention of the memory, and she giggled again. "You should have seen your face when I fell over!" she exclaimed, her brown eyes sparkling with mischief. "It was priceless!"

Daniel couldn't help but laugh too, feeling some of the tension ease from his shoulders. "Yeah, well, I guess I was just trying to be too protective," he admitted. "I didn't want you to get hurt or anything."

"I know, Dan," Mia replied, reaching out to squeeze his hand. "But I'm not a little kid anymore. I can handle myself." She paused, her expression growing more serious. "And even if I can't, I know you'll always be there for me."

The sincerity in her words made Daniel's heart swell with pride and affection. He looked into her eyes and saw not just his little sister, but a strong, independent woman who would one day make her own mark on the world. And as much as he wanted to protect her from everything, he knew that he had to let her spread her wings and fly.

"You're right, Mia," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "You're not a little kid anymore. You're growing up, and you're going to face your own challenges. And I'll be there for you, through everything. Just like I always have been, and always will be."

Their eyes met, and for a moment, they were lost in each other's gaze. The weight of the world seemed to lift from their shoulders, if only for a little while. They stood there, side by side, watching the waves crash against the pier, feeling the warmth of the sun on their skin.

"You know, Dan," Mia said thoughtfully, her voice barely above a whisper, "I've been thinking… about our parents. I know they're going through a rough patch, but I think we can help them. We can be there for them, you know? We can be their strength when they need it most."

Daniel nodded, considering her words. He knew that Mia was right; they could make a difference. They could be the ones to bring their parents back together, to help them remember why they had fallen in love in the first place.

"Yeah, you're right," he agreed. "We can do that. We can show them that we're here for them, that we'll always have their backs." He paused, looking at her with determination in his eyes. "And we can have some fun along the way, too. Just like we used to."

The two of them shared a knowing smile, remembering the countless happy memories they had made together. From building snowmen in the winter to camping trips in the summer, from watching movies under blankets on the couch to staying up late playing board games. Those were the times they cherished, the times that made them feel like they could take on anything.

And so, with renewed determination and a sense of purpose, they began to plan. They would start by spending more time with their parents, finding ways to include them in their daily lives. They would arrange family dinners, movie nights, even simple outings to the park. They would show their parents that they were still capable of enjoying each other's company, that there was still hope for their relationship.

The first step was to invite their parents over for a picnic at the beach. Daniel and Mia spent hours planning the perfect menu, making sure to include all of their favorite foods. They set up a beautiful spread on a blanket, complete with fresh-baked bread, cheese, fruit, and a selection of cold drinks. As the sun began to set over the horizon, casting a warm glow over the water, they eagerly awaited the arrival of their parents.

Their father was the first to arrive, looking slightly uncomfortable in his dress shirt and slacks. He took a seat next to Mia and offered her a small smile. "So, you two have something special planned?" he asked, his voice a bit strained.

"We sure do, Dad," Mia replied, returning his smile. "We just wanted to spend some quality time with you and Mom. You know, like the old days."

Their mother arrived a few minutes later, looking more apprehensive than their father. She glanced between them uncertainly before sitting down beside Daniel. He put an arm around her shoulders, offering her a reassuring squeeze. "Hey, Mom," he said, "we're just glad you could make it."

As they all sat there, the sun dipping lower in the sky, they talked about everything and nothing. They told stories about their childhood, laughed at old memories, and shared their hopes for the future. The food was delicious, and the sound of the waves crashing against the shore provided a soothing background to their conversation.

Their father seemed to relax a bit as the evening wore on, even cracking a joke or two. Their mother smiled more often, and her eyes lit up whenever she looked at them. Daniel could see the love they still had for each other, even if it was buried beneath years of hurt and resentment.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, they gathered their things and walked hand in hand along the beach, the warm glow of the setting sun painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. They stopped at a small rock formation jutting out into the ocean, and their parents leaned against it, watching the waves crash against the shore.

"This is beautiful," their mother said, her voice soft with wonder. "It's been so long since we've just been able to enjoy each other's company like this." Daniel and Mia exchanged glances, pleased with the progress they had made.

"Yeah," their father added, his voice gruff with emotion. "You two are something else. You know that?" He turned to face them, his eyes shining in the fading light. "I don't know what it is about you two, but you have this way of bringing people together. I'm not just talking about us, either. We've seen it with our friends, our family… You're like a little ray of sunshine in everyone's life."

Mia blushed at the praise, looking away shyly. Daniel, on the other hand, was beaming with pride. He placed a hand on his father's shoulder, feeling a newfound sense of closeness and understanding. "Thanks, Dad. We're just glad we could help in some way."

Their mother smiled, her eyes filling with tears. "You don't know how much it means to us, Daniel and you, Mia. You've given us hope. Hope that maybe…" She trailed off, searching for the right words. "Maybe things can go back to the way they used to be."

Daniel and Mia exchanged glances, their hearts swelling with affection for their parents. They didn't know what the future held, but for now, they were content just being together like this. As the stars began to twinkle in the sky, they stood up, taking turns helping their parents to their feet.

Hand in hand, they made their way back to the blanket, gathering up the last of their things. The cool breeze off the ocean tickled their skin, and the sound of the waves crashing against the shore was a soothing lullaby. As they walked, Daniel and Mia couldn't help but feel a sense of peace wash over them.

Their parents, too, seemed to have relaxed, their steps more steady and their conversations more animated. They laughed at old stories and shared memories, and for a brief moment, it was as if the years had never passed. They reached the car, and as they loaded the blanket and chairs into the trunk, their father glanced at Daniel and Mia.

"You know, I've been thinking," he said. "Maybe it's time we started planning some family vacations again. Just the four of us." There was an unspoken promise in his words, a vow to work on repairing their relationship and rediscovering the love they once shared.

Mia's heart swelled with hope as she looked at her parents, seeing them as they used to be: a strong, loving couple who could face anything together. Daniel, too, seemed to sense the shift in the air, a newfound sense of optimism that they hadn't felt in years.

Their mother spoke up, her voice tinged with excitement. "That sounds wonderful, dear. I've always loved spending time with all of you. It would be wonderful to make more memories together." She smiled at Daniel and Mia, her eyes shining with gratitude.

Their father nodded in agreement. "We'll find a place where we can all unplug from our phones and laptops and just be together. Someplace quiet and peaceful where we can reconnect." He turned to face them, his expression serious. "And I want you two to know that we're here for you, no matter what. If you ever need to talk, or just need some space, we'll be there."

Their mother reached out and took their hands in hers, squeezing them gently. "We love you both so much, and we're so proud of the people you've become. No matter what happens in life, we'll always be on your side." She glanced up at the stars, her voice filled with emotion. "I think this night has taught us all an important lesson. About love, and family, and the power of forgiveness."

Daniel and Mia exchanged another glance, their hearts swelling with love for their parents. They knew that the road ahead wouldn't be easy, but they felt a renewed sense of hope and determination. As they climbed into the car, Daniel slid into the front seat beside their father, while Mia nestled in next to their mother. The scent of the ocean lingered in the air, and the sound of the waves crashing against the shore faded into the distance.

Their parents continued to chat, sharing stories and laughter, the tension that had been so palpable in the past dissipating with each passing mile. Daniel and Mia listened, content to simply enjoy the company of their family. They couldn't help but feel that something had shifted, that a new chapter was beginning for all of them.

[bookns]

babes i need some good percabeth fic rex’s preferably not spicy lol i need some nighttime reading material 😭😭😭

I GOT YOU oh my god I love this ask

the anatomy of a hurricane: barbarianprincess (all of their fics are amazing but this is my favorite)

Of Heists and Home Economics: chellethewriter

building memories on things not said: ahecen

it's human (you can lay your hands on me): riverv (literally all their fics) (I had this labeled in my notes "Can't read without crying - so lonely" ENJOY)

there's still color: mypetersburg

the annabeth project: pjoseries (divineauthor)

Meeting Percy and Annabeth: foreverfangirlwrites (She's pretty popular (her series A Rose By Any Name is really good) but for this fic is a comfort fic so if its not here I be pretty sad)(and her fic Into A Moment of Time - made me cry so bad. Like full on sobs with hiccups so read that too)

spread your wings and learn how to fly: roomtempcupofjoe (PRINCESS DIAIRES)

Eighteen Years a Hero: romanitas

graduating class: loveliet (all their fics are good but this one hits hard)

when the sun came up (you were looking at me): TheWritingManiac (if you liked Wendy Mass as a kid, this fic IS IT)

The Blood of Olympus: MariaClaire (just trust me)

I Would (Literally) Die For You: AverageCanadian (this author haunts me and made me cry to the point where I lost count so ENJOY)

What The High Tides May Bring: myshipsaresunk

A Mere Collection of Words: sunburst_city (WARNING: its not spice but it is implied - I didn't think it was too bad but if you want just skip this fic)

A Semester Abroad: ScienceFantasy93 (shits so good your gonna love Reyna)

Post Tenebras Lux: husborth (listen to Taylors swift You are In Love you'll thank me later)

Forever Cursed: RainySteve (sad. thats it. your warning is just the word sad. good luck solider)

etched on skin: unsureavenge (also check their fic End Of The Line I've spoken about it before and ohgod its just a masterpiece)

Here I Go Again!: percabethica (a Mamma Mia AU that I read before watching Mamma Mia - yeah that was an experience)

building memories on things not said: ahecen

Witnesses: Roselightfairy (I LOVE THIS ONE - comfort fic)

Won't Leave Any Doubt: maydayparade8123 (orphan_account)

We Only Want To Help: Believer1991

i wanna tell you, but i don't know how: polypanpercyjackson (thecuspofsomething)

gravity in the words we write: percyj

dates, demigods, and other divine disasters: fuwaaa

Rite of Passage: hanpersands (self plug; I have a fic just like this too if you like - link in my bio)

we made a lot of music dancing (you and i): vll8586

Arizona Sky: husborth

I Bet You Think Your Honey Tastes Like Sugar: Lex42069

and you knew what it was: aceofdiamonds

Surprise Baby: iannageorge

Late Night Rescues: IllusionsOfInsanity

The Library Book: unsureavenger ( I have no idea if I did them already but all their fics but THIS ONE in particular - literal chefs kiss)

just practice: knuffled (bigscary)

Save the Date: oreoz314

first i love u: RainySteve

take me to your best friend's house: mcpicktwo (I laugh at this one so much)

If We Have Each Other: jasonsmclean

Days Apart: likoricke (orphan_account)

you belong with me: scrxbbler

Fireworks: katebishoop

and of course, me, Bookns has Pjo fics (you know Can I Be Him but expect another fic in a day or two)

I know its a lot but I hope you like them. Some of these are my favorite and they are really close to my heart. I've only been in this fandom for about three years so there's a lot I missed but I think I read a lot for my own good. I recommend Taylor swift entire discoraphy but especially you are in love - Enjoy Darling