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#infinite resignation
funeral · 8 months
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Eugene Thacker, Infinite Resignation
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mobydyke · 1 month
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nothing hurts more than watching a mutual who doesn't use the tagging system get really into a piece of media you don't like
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teamhawkeye · 11 months
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“boohoo, why isn’t LauraxMax more popular than LauraxTravis, Laura and Max are canon after all-”
Max is fucking boring. He exists to be bitten to kickstart the game’s events and propel Laura’s story forward, and then remains unhelpful and moping for the majority of the rest of his screentime, which is only about 20 minutes in total of a 10+ hour game.
you get to play as him for literally a minute and a half, where he can be instantly killed off or just stands on a dock and waits...and that’s the end of his story. you can only get an ending where he and Laura reunite that involves Ryan dying for literally no reason and Laura murdering Travis, when he hasn’t shown her any aggression and was trying to deescalate everything happening in chapter 9. and that also leaves the curse still intact and potentially several counselors infected and doomed with no knowledge how to cure themselves and no one left to actively try and hunt Silas to free them all. such a great, happy ending... 
also, if you want content for a ship, nothing is stopping you from making your own or commissioning someone else to do it for you. that sounds like a You problem if you’re not finding enough content for the “canon couple” that you think should be more recognized and is so much more interesting in your eyes...
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ibrokeeverything · 9 months
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Do you ever just get so sick of straight ships being the norm???
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sapphire-weapon · 11 months
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Hi, I just wanted to tell you I really enjoy all your meta and explanations about Leon, Ashley, RE4make and the franchise in general. I am a very new fan, so this is all very intimidating!
Hello new friend! I'm glad you're here.
Resident Evil is a giant clusterfuck, and there's a lot of bad information being spread around the fandom right now, so don't be afraid to ask questions if you need help navigating.
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doctorweebmd · 3 months
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I want to write but dry January just ended and I have video games to play. My life is hard.
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deadsetobsessions · 5 months
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Summonings
Ever since Danny Phantom became the Ghost King, he’s had to deal with an endless amount of crap. An eternity of it, actually, and it was constantly causing him unending amount of existential crises and stress.
First, there was the paperwork. Pariah Dark, the incompetent asshole, had left him decades worth of bureaucracy to painfully sift through. He ended up hiring some ghosts with paperwork obsessions to sort some of that out. Who knew ruling the infinite realms would require this much paperwork? He’s lucky each section of the underworld had their own systems to report to their own rulers who, in turn, report to him.
Secondly, there were the Observers. And other ghosts, like his own rogues, but they were the main issues. Eyeball menaces. They protested his appointment, something he actually agreed with. Putting a fifteen year old on the throne is rarely a smart decision. But the Infinite Realm values strength, the only type of currency that matters in the land of the gods and the dead. Danny? Phantom? He’s got strength in spades. With only a few months of being a ghost, Danny had managed to defeat Pariah Dark, who had cowered gods and struck fear into the hearts of ghost heroes.
But Danny hasn’t quite realized the significance of that yet, too focused on the realization that he was about to be in charge of the infinite realms. The Observants, since his reluctant and extremely limited coronation, has been up his ass about doing things the “proper way.”
Danny’s main problem lies with the ridiculous amount of paperwork though. It’s fine. Tedious. But fine.
But if he gets one more fifteen page essay style complaint form about some guy named Constantine, Danny might seriously reconsider donning Dan’s ruthlessness and offing the guy himself. Perhaps grab the man by his shoulders and shake him like a rag doll and ask who the fuck told him it was a good idea to sell his soul out like that? Danny eventually just sent out Skulker to hunt down the contracts and trade minor services for them. He owns most of the soul now, and perhaps he’ll hunt this guy down and force him to do paperwork.
Regardless, paperwork was just often tedious. He’s worked out a system for himself. The halfa, true to his teenage form, had better things to be doing. His homework, for one. Hanging out with his friends and logging in hours for Doomed 2 would be another. But no, he’s here, twirling a pen as he glared down at a stack of forms for a zone expansion. What the fuck does Zeus want to expand his zone for? The current share space of the sky domain is literally a perfect balance with respect towards the other gods. For the love of- Danny slams down a red ‘REJECTED’ stamp on top of the stack. His hair flickers wildly in annoyance, the iced over Crown floating above his head emitting concerning levels of frost. To anyone else but himself, of course.
He then feels a soft tug on his core.
Right. The third most annoying thing about becoming King: the fucking summoning. Danny taps his pen against his lips, clicking it against his fangs, as he considers the summoning circle that calls him. Huh. Desperation. Mildly bloody. Fear. Resignation- ah, fuck it, it’s not like he’s too enthusiastic about staying to do work with the Observers poking around. He takes the summoning, allowing his regalia to overtake his normal hazmat-clad form, and approves the summoning.
Oh hey, Danny thinks he recognizes that ugly ass trenchcoat.
—-
John Constantine has had more than enough practice summoning things that would give people nightmares. But there are things he normally refuses to touch, refuses to even entertain the idea of trying. As usual, desperation made John its bitch and the Justice League’s battered and bruised faces tugged on his shriveled heart.
He’s going to summon something from the Infinite Realms. Oh, but he wasn’t just summoning any old ghost. No, he thought, I’m just going to summon the one being that’s guaranteed to be able to crush our universe without breaking a sweat. Bollocks.
“Is it ready?”
“Untwist your pants, spooky,” John snaps, wishing he had a crate of whiskey he could down. “We’re trying to summon the Ghost King, not your average demon.”
“What do we know about him?” Batman’s gravelly voice demanded.
“Powerful enough to take us all out without even breaking a sweat. Defeated the bloody tyrant who ruled over the Realms last I heard.”
“That’s it?”
“You could ask Deadman, but I heard he’s on the outs with the Infinite Realms on the fact that he’s made of pure magic, not ectoplasm.”
“There’s no guarantee the king will work with us.” Zatanna says, pressing her fingertips together tiredly. She had been at the forefront of the battle and had paid the price for it. “But he’s supposedly more benevolent than his predecessor… and we’re out of options.”
“Hm.”
“Just make sure to shut up and let me do the talking.”
“Hn.”
John rolls his eyes and takes a fortifying breath, something that does not go unnoticed by the League. They all tense up, preparing themselves for a battle. Another one, seeing as they all got their ass kicked by a ghost only ten hours ago. The League is spread thin, running interference to distract the ghost in question and evacuating civilians.
John Constantine started chanting, the glow of his magic lighting up the circle as he spills his blood into the circle.
He waits, heart in his throat, for the summoning to work.
“Is it supposed to take-” Red Robin asks, only to cut himself off as the circle flares once more. Power pulsates outwards from the circle. Frost crackles on the frost resistant floors, spreading outwards as a green portal rips open the fabric of time and space. Long, spindly imitations of a hand grabs the edges of space and pulls, heaving the rest of his celestial body out of the tear in reality. John does not look away. He can not look away, not from the eerie green pallor of the King, not from his torrential white wisps of hair, not from the black-hole like material of his outfit, not from the nebulas and beginnings and endings tailored onto the King’s cape. John could not look away from the ice crown that floated like a bastion of power above the king’s head.
His mouth is dry. What price will he have to pay to save the world? What price will this being demand of him, of the Justice League, to save the world?
John desperately needs that drink.
—-
Oh! He’s in his home dimension! His core purrs at coming home, at the close proximity to his first haunt.
He was expecting cultists, or even the Winchesters again, but this is nice.
The Justice League- summoning him. Sam and Tucker are going to flip when they hear about this.
They’ve been staring at him in silence for a bit now. It was getting awkward.
“Why have you summoned me?” He asks, softening his tone. By their winces, he didn’t get it as well as he thought. Danny grimaces. At the first sign of discomfort though, the man in the trenchcoat- is that fucking Constantine?!- launches into a nerve filled tirade.
“Your, uh, Majesty.” He starts. “One of… One of your subjects is wreaking havoc on the world. We would be extremely grateful if… if you could reign him in?”
Danny’s face sours, only to quickly clear his expression as he realized how much even a small hint of displeasure causes the jumpiness in Constantine and the others.
“To do that, I will have to make a contract with you, seeing as you’ve summoned me.” Danny drawls, letting his overly long digits wave at the summoning circle in question. He could break it, of course, but Danny’s bored and trying to draw this out. He’s not saying he’d take a batch of cookies as payment but that’s exactly what he’s saying.
“The price… you could always have my soul?”
Danny pauses. “Your… soul?”
Oh, he did not say what he just said.
“Yes. My soul.”
Oh, he did.
Fuck it. Danny’s flashbacks of suffering through the reports pushes green into his irises and urgency to his action.
He breaks out of the circle, hands lunging and gripping Constantine’s jaw tightly. Danny ignores the shouts of alarm as he allows the thrown weapons to pass through him.
John Constantine is panicking now, struggling in the air as Danny lifts him an inch off the floor in agitation.
Good.
“Your soul, little wizard? The one you’ve split eight ways till the thirtieth of February? The one that caused,” he tightens his grip, no doubt bruising the man. “An insane amount of paperwork that I’ve had to suffer through. Your soul, John Constantine?”
Danny hisses his name. The man makes a warbling noise that Danny takes as acknowledgement. Danny bats away the weak spell Zatanna sends at him with a hand.
“You’ll find that I am in the possession of most of your soul contracts. To simply put,” he grins, teeth made of dying stars on display. “I own your soul. My soul, now.”
He drops the wizard who collapses onto his knees to stare up at him in horror, eyes flicking between the circle that was meant to contain him and Danny, who is very much not contained. He crouches down- something necessary but disjointed as he’s not used to this taller form- and speaks to Constantine in a slow, dead serious, drawl.
“If you ever sell your soul again, you and I are going to have issues. Is that clear, John Constantine?”
“Uh- yeah, yes, yes, your majesty.”
Patting his cheek condescendingly, Danny gets up and sighs, stress relieved. He’s starting to feel bad, though, so he allows his form to ripple back to his normal teenage Phantom self.
“Well, it’s not like anyone will buy it, since they know they’ll have to go against me.” He chirps, flipping 180 from his terror inducing eldritch voice. “So, what’ll you pay me to get rid of whatever ghost you’ve got?”
“…. Nothing?”
Red Robin holds out a bag, eyebags betraying his exhaustion. “I’ve got fifty dollars and a bag of cookies.”
Phantom beams at him. “Throw in a couple of autographs and you’ve got a deal.”
“That’s- yeah, okay.” Red Robin says, inching forward cautiously to hand him the bag.
“Great. I’ll be back for them later. You can call me Phantom. ‘Your Majesty’ gets annoying after a while.”
“Thank- thank you for your mercy, Your- Phantom.” Wonder Woman says.
“Sure. Make sure this idiot doesn’t make any more deals with demons while I’m out, yeah?”
With that, Danny Phantom grabs the bag of cookies and fifty dollars and flies through the wall to do his job.
John slams his head onto the space station floor.
“Fuck.”
—-
Danny: lol I’ll do it for the shits and giggles
Constantine and the League: he’s terrifying, a bastion of pure power and authority
Red Robin, Young “we commit war crimes bc it gets shit done” Justice leader and fellow gremlin: he’d probably do it for cookies. I would.
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beescake · 4 months
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i am in love with your sollux i think
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sollux love party :]
if you’re interested heres some of my personal fondness thoughts on him.. big warning for the mega long read ahead aye
as we alr know sollux's rejection of participation somewhat mirrors dave's rejection of heroism, but even without getting cooked to completion i still find sollux's character v compelling beyond the fourth wall
as someone who doesnt get a pinch of that Protagonist Sparkle to begin with, he can openly say he wants to leave anytime…. and unlike dave, he actually Can leave the scene anytime. but he can never be truly Free from the story via permanent character death like the other trolls.
his irrelevancy is indeed relevant - he’s there so u can point him out.
while his image is intended to be a relic of past internet subculture, his role is not only about hehehaha being a Chad or a 2000s cyberforum 2²chan haxxor ragequit gamebro.
his continued existence also happens to add a Bit to the overarching themes of homestuck! a Bit that gives him longer-lasting thematic relevance compared to the trolls who could’ve had more character potential but didnt get to survive beyond the main story.
the Bit in question:
his defiance contributes to the illusion of agency (treating characters = people with autonomy). he’s “aware” of it, and that recognition is worth noting enough to forcibly keep him alive as both reward and punishment.
considering how his personality & classpect is designed its definitely a very haha thing for hussie to do LOL. he’s made to be op asf so he's resigned to doing dirty work, gradually deteriorating along the way but never truly dying. as fans have mentioned before, him openly rejecting involvement after a while of grim tolerance is like if the sim u were controlling suddenly stopped, looked up and gave u the finger while u were step six into the walkthrough for Every Possible Sim Death Animation.
but since he’s just a sim… the more he hates it, the more you keep him around. if ur sim started complaining abt your whimsical household storyline you’d definitely keep that little fuck.
but yeah i like that sollux is just idling. the significance of his presence being that one dude who's always reliably Somewhere, root core Unchanged, no individual ambitions (possibly due to fear of consequence?), and design-wise: a staple representative product of his time.
compared to dirk's character, who has aged phenomenally well into the present (themes of control + AR + artificial intelligence, clearer exploration around navigating relationships/sexuality, infinite possibilities of self-splinterhood and trait inheritance), sollux's potential is really... contained. bitter. defeatist. limiting and frustrating in the way old tech is.
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the world continues moving on to shinier, brighter, more advanced automated things - minimalist and metaverse or whatever but sollux is still here 🧍‍♂️ going woohoo redblue 3d. (tho personally i imagine his vibe similar to what the kids call cassette futurism on pinterest mixed w more grimy grunge insectoid influences eheh)
conceptually-speaking,
at the foundation of it all, the rapid pace of modern development was built off the understanding of ppl like sollux in the past, who were There actively at work while the dough was still beginning to rise
thats one of the cool things abt the idea of trolls preceding humans! the idea that trolls like sollux excelled back when lots of basic shit still needed to be discovered, building structures like networks and codes from scratch, and humans will eventually inherit and reinvent that knowledge in ways that become so optimized it makes the old manual effort seem archaic, slow, and labour-intensive.
but despite information/resources/shortcuts being more accessible now, much of the new highly-anticipated stuff released on trend still end up unfinished, inefficient, or expiring quickly due to cutting corners under severe capitalistic pressures
meanwhile, some of the old stuff frm past generations of thorough, exploratory and perfectionistic development still remains working, complete, and ever so sturdy.
those things continue to exist, just outside our periphery with either:
zero purpose left for modern needs (outdated/obsolete)
or
far too important to replace or destroy, bcs of its surprisingly essential and circumstantial usefulness in one niche specific area.
which are honestly? both points that sum up sollux pree well.
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dramatic ending sorry. anw are u still on the fence or are u Sick abt him like me </3
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moss-on-trees · 1 year
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dp x dc prompt: our stepmom from hell au
danny meets bruce wayne as an adult. bruce had only just started out as batman, and he just finished his degree in space engineering.
both have family to grieve, bruce his parents and danny his entire town who was poisoned by the giw in the name of purging the world of ghosts.
they see each other's pain and become friends, fall in love and later get married. (you decide whether they know of each other's identity). a few months after that, danny disappeared with a hastily written apology written on a sticky note, promising he'll be back as soon as possible. bruce searched for him in vain, and only stopped when he met dick - since the boy needed his full attention.
danny's in the infinite realms stabilising the timeframe since clockwork was poisoned by the giw, who attempted to destroy the ghost zone by corrupting its ectoplasm with the same airborne virus they used in amity.
as the ancient of space, he's the only one who can replace his counterpart even temporarily and as such he cannot leave until the ancient of time has recovered. that also means he doesn't have his fine control over how much time has passed and knows it's unlikely that he'll be able to go back to bruce's timeline any time soon (especially considering how much the flash and his family have made a mess of that timeline, he wants to strangle them). he's resigned to it and watches his husband's life from a screen in his brief moments of respite from his grueling task.
clockwork is almost healed when jason todd is resurrected. danny cheats and uses his own abilities as the ancient of space to steal him from the league and heal him from the lazarus pits' corruption. this sets back his return but he thinks it's worth it to save his stepson.
two years later, he and jason show up on wayne manor's doorstep. it's time for the rest of the kids to meet their stepmom.
(because of jason's disappearance, talia brought damian to bruce earlier.)
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percheduphere · 6 months
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The entire series is a love story in every sense of the word. It is a love story, and it is both triumphant and tragic.
The finale was gorgeously executed. It answers every point in Loki's development poetically.
1. He never wanted the throne. It was not about power but loneliness and the need to belong.
2. To have purpose is to choose your burden.
3. Love does not make one soft, it transforms us to be unimaginably strong.
S1 focused primarily on 2 things: 1. a second chance, and 2. Self-love.
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The 3 main characters have a relationship in which love cascades. While Mobius loves Loki for who he is outright, his friendship and support allows Loki to have compassion for himself. Sylvie represents all of Loki's trauma and flaws. In loving her, Loki grants her a second chance expecting nothing in return. The second chance Mobius extended to Loki, thus extends to her.
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S2 focused primarily on the love between friends, which I do believe turned into unrequited love for Mobius in S1E4 (manifesting as rage and jealousy).
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That love turns resigned, and the jealousy reemerges in S2E2 albeit in a constrained, milder form.
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Unbeknownst to Mobius, his romantic love is finally returned in S2E5, after Loki experiences enough platonic love for Mobius that the nature of affection shifts upon losing Mobius a second time.
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The timing of this realization is profoundly tragic. When they are finally on the same page, the finale sets the stage for Loki to engage with the fourth, most powerful form of love:
AGAPE
A selfless love for everyone. Loki could not have reached this point without first experiencing self-love, platonic love, and yes, romantic love. All forms of love are demonstrated in the series, which gives Loki the strength of sacrifice, confronting his worst fear: being alone.
I find it deeply poignant that Loki uses his magical life force to create Yggdrasil, the tree of life, replacing the cold force of HWR's technology with his own heart, allowing everything and everyone to grow infinitely through space and time. There cannot be a more powerful ending for Loki's character, and the tragedy is the point.
But Loki embraces this burden willingly, lovingly, for all of them, most especially Mobius.
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ON MOBIUS
It is only Mobius that senses something is deeply wrong. The first time, he asks, "Are you okay?" The second time, he notes Loki's odd comment, "This time?" The third time, (first for Mobius since he didn't remember each reset) instinctively, he becomes desperate. He grabs Loki by the lapels, "What the shit are you doing?" He tries to stop Loki, but Loki won't let him.
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The fourth time, he simply says, "Loki?"
Throughout S2, it is Mobius that Loki turns to when he is afraid, doesn't know what to do, or seeks comfort. He returns what Mobius provides him in S2E2 in the pie automat. In S2E4, he defends Mobius's character to Sylvie and compares where he is now, as a person, with Thor's experience with Jane, a mere Midgardian mortal.
In S2E5, it is Mobius Loki timeslips to the most and the first person his heart seeks out once OB provides him with an answer to his fiction problem.
That Loki seeks Mobius's wisdom one last time and holds onto Mobius's hand as long as he can in the finale is significant. Mobius's words about choosing your burden are devastatingly true. These words propel Loki to make his choice.
And Loki walking out onto the platform in the finale is a direct reciprocation of this (S2E1):
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This is an all-encompassing love story. Let noone tell you otherwise.
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funeral · 8 months
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Eugene Thacker, Infinite Resignation
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aemxnd · 1 year
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the fire king | aegon ii targaryen x velaryon wife!reader
Aegon needs to have his own way for once. 
Inspired by a filthy anon request for Aegon with absolutely no limits…
WARNINGS: consensual non-consent/dub-con, basically p0rn with very little plot, canon typical incest, v fingering, squirting, physical force, p in v, language, praise, degrading, mention of virginity loss, overstimulation, aegon going from cute to angry to cute again, slightly fluffy if you squint, absolutely not proofread sorry not sorry
WORDS: 5.5k
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the House of The Dragon/Fire & Blood characters nor do I claim to own them. I do not own any of the images used nor do I claim to own them.
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Fuck this. 
Aegon’s mind rattled through the infinite curses that could spill from his tongue in that moment, yet his immutable standing as King of the realms forbade him, an invisible gag clutching at his lips.
Fuck. This. 
The council meeting had dragged on with no tangible progress, supporters whining about Rhaenyra’s uprising from her Dragonstone seat, hapless solutions to an impending battle floating in the stagnant air and looming like a stormcloud in the room. Although he’d resigned himself to his fate as their chosen heir to the Iron Throne, it brought Aegon no joy to bear witness to the endless bickering in his name. No matter how hard he protested, his mother or grandsire would soon interject with an alternative, alluding that they knew best and it would be wise to follow their instruction. A king in nothing but name, Aegon had no true command over his own destiny. Compliance came first, contentment came second. 
Fuck all this. 
Aegon’s fingers danced over the glass orb perched before him, the pad of his thumb gliding over its cool, smooth surface his only distraction from the banality of his position. Like his idly occupied digits, memories swirled of a more peaceful time spent in the bowels of the Street of Silk, when a simple cloak could conceal his identity yet the mere mention of his name would open doors closed to all but the onetime prince of the realm. Although such heady freedoms had been snatched from him with the placing of the crown upon his silver curls, there was only one thing such halcyon days of his life lacked: his Queen.
Betrothed to the youngest of Corlys Velaryon and Rhaenys Targaryen’s heirs since the Driftmark succession, the pairing sought to publicly immortalise the union between High Tide and the Red Keep, or at least in the eyes of the slowly perishing King Viserys who longed for peace between his Targaryen offshoots before he departed his mortal body. Little did the two factions expect the couple forced together for political appearances would fall so deeply in love as Aegon and the Lady Velaryon. From the moment their eyes first met over the grand banquet at the succession, every interaction between them seemed as natural as breathing. From chaste brushes of fingers as they clanked goblets in toasts to Aegon’s uncharacteristic soft giggles as his gaze dropped comfortably to his chest before snapping back to lose himself in her lilac eyes.
The Lady Velaryon brought out the best in the drunken prince in the blink of an eye. He swore off cups and promiscuity that same night, resolving that no amount of bitter wine and fleeting company could rival the ecstasy coursing through his veins when his betrothed looked upon him as if he were the only man in the known world. 
The star-crossed lovers were wed the next day, saving their first kiss for the moment they were announced man and wife. Aegon stepped nervously toward her, reaching a hand to cup her cheek and capturing her lips, two jigsaw pieces slotting into place. In the years that followed, his lady wife guided Aegon through his father’s demise, his council’s enforcement of his claim to the Iron Throne against his father’s final wishes, and the ensuing rise of incurable ill will between House Targaryen’s fiery branches. Throughout the rumbles of conflict that would surely melt down the Iron Throne, the only constant in his life would be the Queen at his side, hands clasped at her front and a comforting grin dancing across her lips. Whatever troubled waters he faced in the day, he could always retire to his chambers to the calming brook of his wife’s arms. Although the therapeutic steady stream would soon burst into a fierce waterfall once Aegon’s hands fell upon her irresistible frame, their tidal waves colliding together among the sheets and crafting a devastating tsunami in their wake.
“Your Grace?” The distant voice of the Hand called through Aegon’s dream-like stupor, snapping his consciousness back to the dimly-lit council meeting hall. Vision focusing slowly on the Hand’s figure standing bolt upright across the table, his countenance expectant yet determined all at once. “What do you suggest, your Grace?”
“I… uh…,” Aegon stuttered, gaze darting around the table for a signal of the conversation he missed, meeting only blank faces eagerly awaiting his response. “I… think we should all… uh… retire for the evening. It is late, we have spent hours debating our next move and now the hour of the owl is almost upon us, our judgement is clouded. I order you all to return to your chambers to consider the situation anew on the morrow.”
Aegon slammed his fists on the table insistently, rising to his feet with their aid as the eyes of the room bore into him bewildered. 
“Your Grace, I strongly suggest we—.”
“Yes, grandsire, I am certain you have a veritably long-winded suggestion to raise to keep us here until daybreak,” Aegon seethed through gritted teeth, fists tightening beneath him against the ageing wood. “But I, on the other hand, have a wife I must attend to. I trust you remember what that feels like.”
A stony silence fell amongst the present number, Otto’s brows knitted together.
“But your Grace, I must protest—.”
“I dare you to protest against me once more, ser!” Aegon’s tightly coiled temper snapped into a booming roar, his bark still echoing around the chamber seconds after his last syllable left his tongue. “And I will have your head on a spike for defying the King’s orders!”
The tension in the hall was so palpable, Aegon could swear the very air hanging over the council table pulsed and swelled, taking on a deep crimson hue. His own laboured breaths from his outburst burst through the uncomfortable silence, taking deep inhales as he scanned each face to ensure compliance had fell upon them all. 
“Good, I can see we have all come to an agreement,” Aegon kicked his chair aside and bounded across to the door, bellowing on his exit: “On the fucking morrow.”
The doors on Aegon’s furious journey back to his chambers bowed out of his path in the same manner he would wish from the council, days wasted trying and failing to persuade his own trusted advisors to acquiesce to his will when he could be laying with his lady wife, or rather hammering her very skeleton into the mattress beneath him. As he meandered around identical flagstoned corridors, Aegon wrung his hands before him, pressing his thumbs into the flesh until it turned a white hot beneath the pressure. His plan of action lay before him as straight as the horizon, arriving at the door to his marital chambers sooner than he expected. A deep sigh escaped him as he laid his hand on the wood that came between him and his final destination, squeezing his eyes shut before plunging through the portal without a care for what he would find on the other side. 
Spinning to close the door against his back, Aegon discovered you surrounded by maids clutching at your heavy gown, the weight of its deep green velvet making the fabric plummet to pool at your feet as they disrobed you to your smallclothes. You spun on your heels to face your husband, your maids hurriedly curtsying in their arranged circle around you. 
“Good evening, your Grace,” you chimed sweetly, a warm smile spreading across your cheeks as your gaze fell upon the man who held your heart from the moment you first met. 
“Leave us, ladies,” he sighed gently, not expecting to be heard. 
“Yes, your Grace,” each lady chirped, gathering the fabric from the floor and dutifully scurrying from the room. 
Aegon cast a confused glance at the flurry of ladies sweeping past him, heads bowed to avoid his vision. “Well, that was alarmingly easy.”
“Has the council finally set you free, dear husband?” You cooed, pacing gently toward him. 
“It would appear so,” he stated matter-of-factly, battling his own better judgement to revive the anger he felt before he opened the door and found the beauty of his lady wife.
“I was just trying on a new gown for Aemond’s return from Storm’s End. Gods be good you just missed the full show, I was hoping to keep it a secret for the grand occasion.”
Upon your arrival before him, you raised the back of your hand to graze against his cheek. His alabaster skin was searing hot with pent-up rage, the young king closing his eyes and dipping gently into the sensation of your cool skin melting his resolve. 
When his eyes opened again, however, his lilac gaze darkened to a pitch black.
“Get on the bed,” he demanded through gritted teeth, his jaw tensed as he spat each syllable with a sinister venom. “Now.”
“Y… yes, your Grace?” You half-questioned, scanning his face for confirmation yet finding nothing but a half-shaken resolve before treading tentatively away toward the four-poster. Two half-hearted steps later, Aegon lunged forward and briskly grasped your arms, his nimble fingers blazing a trail downwards to lock your hands behind your back, pulling you flush to his chest.
“Resist me with all your might and I shall reward you with every peak you desire,” Aegon purred into the shell of your ear, planting a kiss where his words left behind goosepimples. “What word will you say to cease my advances should you feel unsafe, issa jorrāelagon?” My love. 
You choked lightly as you composed your thoughts, thoughts swirling back to the previous occasion where Aegon insisted on proclaiming a word which would enable each of you an instant escape if either of you had taken your bedroom escapades too far. In the moment those two words hung in the air between you, you were to release one another without question or complaint, untie any restraints and salve any wounds or pain that might be caused.
“S… Sunfyre, ñuha perzys dārys,” you stuttered, hardly able to hear your own words over his deafening quickened breaths behind your ear, every second of holding you to his will driving his restrained fury to the surface. My fire king.
“Good girl,” he hummed into your ear, planting another confirming kiss on your ear before stepping you carefully forward. “Let’s get you on the bed.”
Aegon’s loose clasp of your hands and gentle treads forward betrayed his demands, his careful handling of his delicate wife ensuring your safety. The sole cause of the cold dread flooding through your veins as you approached the edge of the bed was when the kindnesses would cease and the ruthless Aegon would arrive. He had only made a handful of appearances in the bedroom before, but he had always been introduced well in advance. Tonight, you had no preparation, no introduction, only fear of where his limits lay this night. 
Your knees nudged to the wooden bed frame and you instinctively swallowed hard, squeezing your eyes together in prayer for your husband’s mercy once he had fucked his frustrations into you. 
“Do not be afraid, ñuha embar dāria,” he soothed, planting another reassuring kiss into the nape of your neck. My sea queen. “I do not intend to hurt you.”
Releasing your hands from behind your back, his own traversed your frame to unbutton your smallclothes until the linen pooled at your feet, the cold air of the chamber pricking your skin as you instinctively wrapped your arms around yourself. Aegon gripped your forearm and spun you on your heels to face him, his eyes now blackened and menacing as they consumed the sight of you. 
“I only intend to break you.”
With a forceful palm pressed into your chest, Aegon pushed you down to the sheets, tumbling onto the soft mattress beneath you. His reckless silver curls framed his face as he towered at the foot of the bed, your thighs clenching together before him. 
“Tell me to stop,” he commanded, frantically battling to decimate his own black clothing from his frame, the three-headed dragon cast to the floor to remove all semblance of ceremony between you. “Order me to cease and I will force you to take what I give you.”
His words alone sent you gently writhing among the sheets as he kneeled on the edge of the mattress, the mere thought of Aegon not taking no for an answer had never really crossed your mind before. His lovemaking was always a level playing field, constant hushed queries of your current state spilling whenever you had fallen too silent for his liking. This new relentless version of your husband intrigued you, but also paralysed you to the spot with anxiety where this new facade would draw the line with you, if indeed such a line existed. 
“You look so beautiful like this,” he gloated, groaning hungrily deep in his throat as he consumed the sight before him, your anticipation of his next move utterly palpable. “So fragile, so delicate… so submissive.”
The predatory tone in his voice hitched your breaths in your lungs, coming out as ragged exhales as he crawled onto the bed, sharply nudging his knees between yours and forcefully parting your thighs, both hands braced on either side of your head and caging you to the spot. Gazing down at you through tumbling silver waves, Aegon tutted and skewed the corner of his lip in disapproval. 
“I don’t see you fighting me, dear wife. Do you perhaps need reminding that I will not continue if you do not obey my orders?”
You gulped so loud, the thrum of your throat could well have echoed around the deathly silence of the chamber. Aegon leaned to hover his lips over yours, towering over you with a menacing grin as he watched you feign a squirm beneath him. His mouth drew nearer, breaths fanning your face and you pressed your eyes closed, jerking your face to one side away from him as if your life depended on swerving his kiss.
“That’s my girl,” Aegon growled, one hand fired to grab your jaw and yanked you to face him, crashing his lips against yours and fervently pressing into you. Your false grunts of resistance vibrated into his mouth and drove him to consume you further, greedily smashing into you and nibbling at your bottom lip. “I knew you could do it.”
His fingertips digging hard into your cheeks, your jaw constricted in his grasp and your soft flesh paled to a searing hot white beneath his grip. 
“Get off me,” you snapped through gritted teeth, testing your ability to resist him by squirming and thrashing your head in his hold. “You’re power mad, Aegon, you can’t just take me when you feel like it.”
“You think so?” Aegon half-roared deep in his throat, eyes narrowing to a sinister sneer looming down over you. “I’ve spent all fucking day in that council being told what to do, I have no say in my own destiny so for once, just this once, do as I say.”
Releasing his grip on your face, his seizing hand fired down to your thigh, clutching at the soft flesh spread before him and earning a gentle buck of your hips in response. Your sensitivity prickled all Aegon’s senses, lurching his hand to your center to discover just how much your body truly craved him, only to find your sodden folds aching for his next move. 
“How is it your cunt knows you belong to me, but your tongue does not?” Aegon snapped, tracing a light fingertip over the outline of your entrance and fluttering his eyelids as you keened into the sensation. “Look at you, you’ve always wanted me to take you by force, haven’t you sweetling?”
“Fuck off, Aegon,” you scowled through ragged breaths, squirming beneath him in a vain escape attempt. “I’m only wet because I can’t remember the last time you fucked me properly.”
His eyes bulged, a cold wave of shock washing over him as a newfound venom spilled from your acid tongue. This character was so unlike you, he could swear his wife was possessed by an unearthly force. Were you being truthful? Was he not satisfying his wife for your entire marriage? Was this part of the act? 
For a brief moment, the King froze to the spot, gathering his thoughts and putting all his bets on the outcome he’d prefer. Settling for the latter result with all the hope he had mustered, he took your cutting words and buried two fingers inside your waiting heat, stealing the breath from your lungs with each knuckle breaching your folds as his finger curled fervently inside your core. 
“You’re going to regret that, my insolent little Queen,” he seethed, nestling his fingers deep inside you and filling you to the hilt. He stilled as he reached up to his knuckle, not pumping in and out as he normally would. Instead, his forefinger and little finger rested at the meeting of your thighs, stroking outside your core as he slowly started drawing his hand up and down from the sheets to the sky and plunging his fingertips into your walls, stroking the spongy surface before pulling back and slamming upwards again. Settling at an alarming pace, your body betrayed you as your hips grinded up into his touch, your thighs quaking beneath him. 
“S—stop, Aegon,” you ordered half-heartedly, voice cracking with the intensity of the building tension in your cunt. “You repulse me.”
“Tell that to your body, dear wife,” he rasped, ramping up his thrusts so that the rhythmic lewd splashes of pleasure from your core filled the chamber. “I can feel your cunt bowing to its King.”
Your weak efforts to restrain your hips to the sheets waned with every eager plunge of his fingertips into your walls, instead trying to disguise your pathetic writhing underneath him as an attempt to escape his clutches, but the more you struggled the more he chased your approval. 
“S… stop,” your feeble plea stuttered on your tongue with the building pressure inside your walls rising to a searing heat, your head sinking back into the pillows with your eyes journeying to the ceiling. The sooner you distracted yourself from watching your silver King claim you in the filthiest manner, the more convincing your rejections would sound and the less it would seem like you were nearing a faux-reluctant climax. “Let me go, Aegon, fuck!”
“Not until you let go for me,” Aegon snarled, perching on his knees and hooking a hand behind your head to force your gaze down to the action between your thighs, his fingers thrumming into your walls with his palm cupping over your bundle of nerves only increasing the pressure inside you. His ragged breaths from his exertion blended into your own stammering rhythm, battling to maintain your guise of composure as Aegon destroyed you from within. “Go on, let go all over my fingers. Soak the sheets I deflowered you on, show me how much you need me.”
His words alone sent you careering over the edge of your peak, screaming out in frustration and lurching your back up to meet him in mid-air as a tight band snapped in your core. A wave of ecstasy suddenly flooded within you and poured free from your cunt in a violent spray, following Aegon’s orders to the letter as warmth pooled into the sheets beneath you, withdrawing his fingers to watch your climax unfold. Your eyelids clenched shut with shame, drawing your bottom lip between gritted teeth and willing the ground to swallow you whole. So caught up in your own embarrassment, you could not see the accomplished grin beaming across Aegon’s plush lips or his pupils blown pitch black with lust, his expression a combination of sultry desire, predatory domination and pride over your staggering obedience.
A silence fell between you as you both calculated the event in very different ways — while you held onto a ridiculous hope that Aegon would forget this ever happened, Aegon was consumed with wonder when, or indeed if, he could make you reach that high again. 
“Do that again,” he declared, thrusting his fingers back into your dripping folds and caressing your slippery walls inside, dragging his fingers in the same beckoning manner that made your spine flex both away from and into him simultaneously. “Don’t make me wait, issa jorrāelagon.”
“G… get off me, Aegon,” you whimpered with all the strength you could muster, your mask of protest slowly slipping as you jerked beneath his vice grip on your heat, tension already rising inside you. “Y… you make me sick.”
“Now now, that’s no way to talk to the husband who can make your cunt flow like a waterfall,” his domineering sarcasm dripped like honey from his tongue, concentrating his strength on hammering inside you so hard the muscles on his forearm protruded with exertion. “You can give me another, there’s a good girl.”
“Stop, now!” You cried out with a spurt of faux-disobedient energy, desperately praying to the Seven that he could not draw another humiliating scene from you, obstinately clenching your thighs around his waist to offset the uncomfortably familiar pressure rising inside. “You can’t do this to me, Aegon!”
“Have you forgotten already, little one? I own you, you and this pretty wet cunt that’s already shaking around my fingers.” His filthy sneer accompanied a new move to a punishing pace slamming into your walls, stroking at the spongy interior as if to beckon your peak forward once more. “Just give me what I want and shut that disobedient mouth before I shut it for you.”
“Try me,” you spat without even thinking about the consequences of such a temptation, half-closing your eyes as if you would catch a glimpse of the eye of the storm in your husband’s gaze.
Sure enough, Aegon’s grip on the back of your neck released as he fired his hand to meet the valley of your hips, planting his palm in the plane of your pelvis and pressing down until he could feel his fingers plunging within you. Your strangled gasp in response suggested his new angle was working its charm immediately, your spine curving into mid-air to throw your hips up into his touch.
“That’s it,” he growled lowly, pushing deeper and pistoning his fingers faster to race you to the edge once more. “Can’t come up with a quick insult now, can you?”
“F… fuck you, Aegon!” You screamed out as your second wave consumed you, another clear fountain breaching your entrance and spilling over his waiting fingers, which he chose to run through your folds to spray your release even further over the sheets. Wails of frustration and overstimulation poured from your lips, your thighs quivering and writhing uncontrollably as the aftershocks took hold of your body.
“Soon, my love,” he cooed in a break from his dominant streak, too wrapped up in the power rushing to his head after eliciting two floods from you in quick succession. “Just give me one more.”
“N… no, please,” you begged as his fingers dipped inside your sensitive walls once more, your hips keening frantically into the sheets to desperately avoid another sensory onslaught. Your protests up until then had been false, tempting and almost goading, but that time, your senses could not withstand any more. Your folds puffy and abused, your forehead dripping with sweat, your breaths laboured and jagged. You were sure you could not produce another wave, let alone withstand his fingers punishing your core. “Please, no more…”
“Come on, little one,” his honeyed encouragement came through a softer voice than before, almost registering your overstimulation but craving one more chance at claiming you more than he ever had before. “Just one more for me, I know you can do it.”
His fingers slipped into your dripping heat with ease, gently caressing that sensitive spot inside you for a few moments before returning to his relentless pace hammering back and forth inside you. 
“Stop, Aegon, please…,” your pleas far more convincing as you began to mean the words you spilled, your voice cracking weakly as his ministrations inside your cunt stole the air from your lungs. 
“Just one more, that’s my good Queen,” he pressed, his one palm stroking the valley of your hips while the other rubbed your mound eagerly in time with his fingers curving inside your pulsing heat. “One more for me, soak the sheets again for your King.”
Your third wave arrived with a scream of his name that made no sound as it left your tongue, too exhausted to produce an audible syllable as you gushed another flood over his fingers still buried inside you, downright explicit splashing sounds echoing through the chamber in place of your voiceless cries. 
“Good girl, good girl,” Aegon praised with wonder as he consumed the sight of his digits dripping with your release as he finally withdrew from you, the sheets sodden to translucency beneath you, glimmering droplets of your climax splattered over both your thighs and his own. Your legs refused to still, quaking uncontrollably in the aftermath of the sensory onslaught brought upon you by your husband’s desperate clamour for power in his life. 
At last, he had power over one thing. But at what cost?
Brushing a tumbling silver curl from his face with a soaking hand, he reached to pay you the same kindness only for you to whip your face away from his touch. His brows knitted together tightly, a piece of his heart breaking to see you flinch from your husband so eagerly. Had he gone too far?
“Issa jorrāelagon,” he purred softly, a flush of dread cracking his voice. “Are you… are you well?”
You shot a stern gaze back at his terrified countenance, his pallor flushing to a sheer white as if the blood had drained from his face. His fingers ventured to touch your cheek again only to find you wincing away from him once more. Another piece of the King’s heart shattered. 
“My Queen, did…,” his fragile stammer signing the validity to his concern. “Did I hurt you? I… I never meant to hurt you.”
He scanned your face for a response, any response that would shatter the glass of suspense between you. Your eyes betrayed nothing, your cheeks gave away no sign, yet as his gaze journeyed to your mouth, Aegon discovered your lips ever so slightly curling into a childlike mocking grin. 
It was an act all along.
He let out a sigh of defeat and clicked his tongue in sharp disapproval. 
“You have played your hand well, dear wife,” Aegon admitted, running his still-dripping hand through his wavy locks once more before rolling onto his knees, pressing one palm to spread your thighs beneath him while the other gripped his length, palming it lightly and surging the tip toward your swollen entrance. “But you underestimate your opponent.”
In one smooth flick of his hips, his cock slipped into your heat to the hilt, earning her another strangled gasp from the bottom of your lungs. The overwhelmingly full sensation of his length finally fitting inside you like the missing piece of your jigsaw left you battling the urge to throw your arms around his neck and capture his lips with yours. For the sake of the wicked game to which you had committed yourself, your surge of energy was spent on planting your palms on his bare chest and pushing him away from you with all your might. Unsurprisingly, his body weight was immovable and your fight was futile, eliciting a sinister chuckle from your dominant husband as he picked up a rampant pace, drawing his hips back and slamming down into you with a brute force. 
“I don’t want this, Aegon,” you lied, your faux-protest delivered through a clenched jaw at the same time your thighs gave up their battle and spread wide for his languid thrusts to reach you easier. “I don’t fucking want you!”
“If you truly don’t want me, why is your cunt singing my name?” Aegon played his hand so eloquently for a man whose eyes were gently roving skyward at the feeling of your walls welcoming him so warmly, wrapping around him and choking his every piston deep into your heat. “Say the word and I will set you free, but until then I will not take ‘no’ for an answer.”
You swallowed thickly, his menacing nature such a contrast from the doting husband who only moments before had feared his own strength on your body, the man who had broken before your very eyes at the mere sight of your seemingly authentic rejection. He revelled in your wilful resistance, but each time he doubted whether you truly meant the sentiments behind your actions, Aegon Targaryen crumbled. 
“No!” You cried out, gently writhing your hips in a false attempt to escape him but only succeeding in grinding up into Aegon and slipping his cock even deeper inside your heat. “Please, no!” 
“As you wish, my sea queen,” Aegon confirmed with an accomplished grin, rearing his hips to deliver a punishing thrust that stole the breath from your lungs. “Think you can give me one more?”
Your gentle shake of your head acted as both truth and a lie at the same time — your resistant facade suggested you didn’t want to reach your peak a fourth time, your overstimulated cunt certainly did not feel as if it could deliver another flood of fluids, yet you somehow craved another chase of that ecstasy with Aegon splitting you open so perfectly. 
“Good, I knew you could take it for me,” Aegon growled, curling his hips to plunge inside you so deep that his cockhead nudged impatiently at your cervix, leaving a hollow tension in your stomach in his wake. “Gods, your cunt is still so tight around me, you feel like the heavens.”
You whispered his name like a secret sacrament, inaudible over the wet slapping of skin and Aegon’s eager groans as he impaled you. Unfortunately for you, Aegon had read your lips. 
“That’s it, little one,” he gloated gleefully, pouring every inch of his length within you in devastating curled motions. “Your King has you now.”
“F—fuck,” your broken stammer betrayed the tight coil of searing heat building in your core and constricting your walls around his cock in the same way your thighs clamped around his waist. “Fuck, I’m…”
“My dear sweet submissive Queen,” he cooed softly, pummelling into you with a newfound energy and leaving you both gasping for air. “Chase that high again, I know you can give me one more.”
With his next merciless plunge into your cervix, you instinctively flung your arms around his neck and pulled him down to capture his lips, screaming into his mouth you toppled over your peak and flooded over his cock, the clear jet of your ecstasy spilling from your folds and soaking his length until his sack of stones dripped with your release. A hungry growl rumbled on his lips as his hand travelled to where your bodies joined, splashing his fingers through the fountain of your climax feverishly spilling over him as he continued to pummel inside you. 
“That’s it,” he drawled lazily into your mouth, his syllables catching on his tongue and rolling slowly onto yours. The veins traversing his length protruded and prickled as his own release neared, jolting and twitching inside you as he continued plunging into you. “Now take everything I give you like a good girl.”
His last sound signalled a stutter of his hips, his own climax flooding inside you and pouring his seed as far in your cunt as he could reach. Aegon deepened your kiss to disguise his own explicit moans, lazy growls echoing into your mouth as he jerked softly into you, his peak flooding your insides with a familiar warmth you knew so well, but this time, the sensation was unrivalled. 
“I… I love you,” Aegon’s fragment whisper against your lips sounded fragile once more, his dominant alter ego well and truly buried with his seed inside you. Refusing to withdraw his length as if the action of leaving your folds would draw a close to the moment between you, Aegon continued kissing you as feverishly as the night you first met. “I love you so much.”
“I love you,” you whispered back, hands trailing into his silver waves and tugging gently, clamouring for contact after refusing to touch him ever since he laid you on the sheets, now sodden and cold beneath you. “Always.”
Aegon’s kiss came to a sudden halt, his eyes firing open as a realisation swept over him. Tearing his lips from yours, his eyes frantically searched your lips for a response before his enquiry even left his.
“Did you mean what you said?” His fearful query came from beneath furrowed brows and puppy-like pleading eyes. “Do I truly not fuck you properly, my sea queen?”
“My fire king,” you sighed contentedly, tightening your thighs around his waist and drawing his softening length deeper inside you. “If that is what I have to say to get you to do that, you can expect to hear it every night.”
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penny00dreadful · 7 months
Text
STWG Prompt: star
Steve blinked, the cogs finally sliding into place.
"You're the star! You're the star?"
"Yes! Obviously." The star rolled his eyes. 
He was all idiosyncrasies. Gorgeous but downright snippy. A shock of long dark hair and dark eyes to go with his pale skin. Black tattoos up and down his arms and a heavy silvery cloak shrouding his lithe body.
Steve frowned. "You don't look like a star."
The star scoffed. “Heard that one before.” He muttered before scowling back at Steve. “Well why don’t you tell me then, in your infinite human wisdom, what stars are supposed to look like?”
“I don’t know! Like,” he waved his hand up towards the sky, “like a big clump of burning rock or something. I’m not a fucking astronomer. Why do you look so… human?”
“Why do you look so celestial?” The star raised his wrist to his mouth, trying to chew through the tether Steve had managed to secure him with while he was still getting his bearings, feeling that strange pull, telling him that this human shaped lump at the bottom of this crater was what he was looking for. "Can you take this fucking thing off me?"
"Uh… sorry, no. I can't do that."
"Why the hell not?"
"Because… well because I promised Nancy I'd bring her back the star as a show of… love?" He sounded more unsure the more he spoke. Back when the star was just a meteor or some dust, this was all so simple but now…
"Some girl has demanded you go out and bring back a fucking captive as a show of love?"
"No, that's- she didn't ask me to do anything!"
Actually thinking about it, Nancy had looked almost resigned when he'd suggested it. And a little sad. Like that wasn't really where she had wanted the conversation to go.
Fuck.
Had she been trying to break up with him?
“So you just decided to go into slavery on your own?”
“No! I- I have a way to send you home after… when I show Nancy what I’ve done for her. When I prove it to her. She won’t want to keep you after… she doesn’t abide by slavery.”
The star huffed, crossing his arms and pulling Steve forward a little with the restraint. He didn’t even seem to notice. “And what if I don’t want to go home?”
“Why wouldn’t you-” Steve stopped. He supposed it wasn’t really his place to ask. “Then I’ll free you, you can do whatever the hell it is you came down here to do.”
The star looked at him, thinking, turning it over in his head with a little side to side motion. "Okay, how about this? We help each other out. You let me go and I promise to come with you back to Nancy and then you help me find what I came down here to find.”
Steve frowned again. He wasn’t sure. The star could be lying to him but Robin always told him he was a great judge of character. And it didn’t seem like this star was going to run away. He wanted something down here, on earth.
“What are you trying to find?”
The star’s face went a little pink at that.
Interesting. 
“I… I’ve been watching humans for hundreds of years, your wars, your hate for each other, your petty differences, the natural disasters that devastate your people. But through all that there always seems to be a thread of love. Even if it’s just one person plucking her sister out of the floodwaters or two lovers on opposite sides of the fight meeting in secret… love is always there and I… I want… that.”
“You came down here to find love?”
The star turned his back on him, embarrassment radiating off of his body in waves. “Yeah. So what if I did?”
How could Steve ever say no to that?
He pulled at the lash around the star’s wrist, allowing it to slip free and dragged it back towards himself.
“Okay.”
The star turned around, his big brown eyes wide in shock. “Okay? Just like that?”
“Yeah. Just like that.”  He held his hand out. “I’m Steve. Do you have a name? I’m sorry I didn’t ask before now.”
The star looked down at his hand as he took three steps closer, looking back up at Steve’s face then down again, extending his own hand, slim fingers and all.
“Eddie.”
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Nancy had wanted to break up with him as it turned out and hadn’t known how to do it after Steve had adamantly told her he'd travel outside of Hawkins to find her the star.
When he came back to her to tell her he’d found his own love in Eddie on his travels she beamed at him, placing a kiss against his cheek.
“I’m glad." She said. "You deserve it.”
Eddie, who had never come across a ring or necklace at a market stall that he didn’t like, always drawn to the shine. Eddie who had shed the bright almost white silvery cloak for blackened leathers and heavy boots, as dark as the night sky. Eddie, who had gifted Steve a single lock of hair to bring back to Nancy, promising to meet up with him in a few hours, once he’d finished spending all of Steve’s money at the closest bookshop beyond the Gate that separated Faeria from Steve’s world.
Eddie’s lock of hair that Steve now handed over to Nancy who looked into the handkerchief with confusion.
“Steve?”
He looked down.
Eddie’s hair had turned to stardust.
“He can’t cross the Gate.” Steve whispered to himself, horrified before turning and running with everything he had back the way he came, Nancy’s shouts fading out behind him.
He wasn’t sure how long it took him to run through the old cobbled streets, out into the field but just as the Gate came into sight, he saw Eddie on the opposite side round the corner and start walking towards it.
He could do it, he could make it, he could-
“Eddie!” He shouted, stopping Eddie dead in his tracks before his boot could cross the border.
“Ste-?” 
His words were cut off as Steve bodily slammed into him, throwing them both into the grass and away from the Gate.
“Fucking hell, sweetheart.” Eddie groaned, rubbing the back of his head. “That excited to see me?”
“You.” Steve panted, clinging on as tight as he could. “Can’t cross. Gate. Hair. Turned. To. Lump of rock.”
“Oh shit, really?” Eddie ran a hand up and down his back, settling into the grass. “That would have been awkward. And you came to save me?” Eddie sighed, fluttering his eyelashes. Steve could feel it against his cheek. “My hero.”
He pushed himself up onto his elbows, looking at Eddie spread out below him, dark curls fanning out around his head and a cheeky grin on his face. He lowered himself down for a kiss, muttering into his mouth “You’re damn right I came to save you. Can’t have anything taking my star away.”
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haggishlyhagging · 9 months
Text
I was standing before the desk of my doctoral dissertation adviser who was angrily telling me that I was not going about my dissertation in a way that suited him. He shouted at me, from his intimidating height, that my master's thesis adviser had told him I had pressured him unmercifully too and hadn't asked his advice either all along as I should have. I asked my fuming educator, as calmly as I could, why my master's adviser had never indicated this to me. I suggested that if he hadn't approved of the way I was proceeding, he should have said something to me at the time. And that since he always signed everything I took to him to sign, and since he had not stood in the way of my receiving my master's degree, I had simply assumed he approved.
Even as I asked the question, however, I knew the answer. I hadn't behaved femininely. I hadn't asked their advice. I hadn't acted as if I weren't capable of doing all this without their help. Hadn't, in short, acted incompetent, helpless, childish, and infinitely grateful for every little scrap of attention or advice they, as superior beings, had given me. I was twenty-eight years old when I began my master's research. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and how to go about doing it. I proposed it to my adviser. He agreed. I did it. That was that—I thought.
Oh, but not so. I didn't lean on him. To me he was just part of the red tape. I cut through him as quickly as possible. And I had no time to linger. Already we had one child and were ready to conceive another. I had to move faster almost than humanly possible, and I did.
Now my doctoral adviser had heard from my previous master that I had not been sufficiently humble and impressed (did not respect the priesthood enough, meaning the men). But this one wasn't going to make the same mistake. He'd show me who was boss. I understood this as women understand it, not intellectually, just in the flesh of my face as he scowled at it, just in the resignation of my weary-with-watching-male-ego-signs flesh. And I knew exactly what to do about it, without thinking, without strategizing—cry. So he would know I wasn't trying to show I was as smart as he was and didn't need him to tell me what to do next. Cry—so he would realize I was just another weak little woman and he had no cause for alarm. Cry—so he would feel bigger and more rational, and still, above all else, still blessedly in control.
So I cried on purpose that day, and because I did I became Dr. Johnson a year later, moving with great speed through a system designed to slow doctoral candidates down. Because I cried.
If men hate to be thus manipulated, then they must allow us to be real, they must not force us to manipulate their egos in order to live a full human life. I hate such machinations. I despise them with all my heart. But women are forced to resort to them because men won't otherwise allow us to exist. And we have a right to life.
-Sonia Johnson, From Housewife to Heretic
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peachdues · 9 months
Text
Phantasmagoria (Part I)
Tell Me to Stop (Sanemi’s Version)
Sanemi x F!Reader, Modern AU
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A/N: it's time. This one is very personal to me, and I've drawn a lot upon my own life/experiences to write this. I hope it lives up to expectations, but in case it doesn't, remember there is still a part two and a part three (so more smut/angst/feelings).
Massive TW: grief, loss of parent to cancer, canon character death (in non-canon way), drug and alcohol abuse, anger, unhealthy coping mechanisms galore.
CW: 10.5k words; explicit sexual content. Unprotected sex/oral (F!receiving), mildly dubious consent (Reader doesn't tell Sanemi it's her first time, and there's a question whether he would've done it); both Sanemi and Reader are under the influence. Creampie, lots of cursing, angst.
For the playlist, listen here.
Without further ado!
Speak in tongues / I don't even recognize your face / mirror on the wall / tell me all the ways to stay away
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phan·tas·ma·go·ri·a – an exhibition of optical effects and illusions; a constantly shifting complex succession of things seen or imagined.
Once upon a time, as a little girl, she’d believed love was pretty; she imagined it would be soft, pink, and shiny and make her feel warm and pretty in return.
As an adult, she’d come to realize that love wasn’t pretty at all; it was cold, lonely, and painful.
Love was dull and harsh and all-consuming.
Love was black.
For Y/N, loving Sanemi Shinazugawa was like falling into one of the black holes she’d learned about in science class as a child. It was infinite and empty and there was no space for anything but the all-consuming void that promised to rip her apart and condemn her to oblivion.
This love had taken her naïve, romantic heart to chew up and spit back out, leaving her only with a misshapen lump held together by the leftover sinew of her hopes and dreams.
Y/N believed her love for Sanemi would be the death of her. It was a poison that had seeped into her veins and was slowly rotting her from the inside out. She knew it was stupid to love someone who would not and could not love her back, but she hadn’t yet figured out a way to stop.
And since she could not stop loving him, she could only resign herself to its toxicity until it killed her for good.
—————————————————————————
Summer had ended, and Y/N was dreading having to return to Ubayashiki University. Dreading it because she’d spent the entirety of the summer back in her – their – hometown, caring for her ailing mother, and that isolation had meant she didn’t have to wake up every day with a pit in her stomach at the thought of running into him. But then her mother had finally succumbed to her illness a week prior, and Y/N was now forced to carry on in the world as though hers had not just been blown apart.
Looking back, Genya’s death had marked the end for a lot of things, including the once-irreverent trio that had been Y/N, Kyojuro, and Sanemi.
They had been friends – the best of friends, really, since pre-school, in large part because of their parents. Kyojuro, as warm and as vibrant as the sun, had been their grounding force, always wise beyond his years but quick to laugh. Then there was Sanemi, and though he could be prone to his episodes of anger, he was a staunch, loyal defender of his friends and would do anything if it meant making them smile. Last, there had been Y/N, and she’d been so happy to just love her boys and be loved by them. She’d always felt invincible with them by her side, ready to take on the world, together.
And for a while, they did.
Their friendship withstood even the toughest of trials. It lasted through the death of Kyojuro’s mother and the subsequent decline of his father, so unable to cope that he could not function without the bitter sting of alcohol to soothe the pain of Rukka’s absence. Their friendship had even endured the deaths of both Sanemi’s and Genya’s parents at the hands of a drunk driver, the shrapnel from the crash permanently scarring both of the boys’ faces, though Sanemi had born the worst of it.
But because they’d had one another, they’d made it through. Y/N’s own mother, though a single parent, took in both Shinazugawa boys until the state placed them in a home, though that rarely stopped Sanemi from frequenting Y/N’s house after school. Even Kyojuro grew to be a constant fixture around her house, drawn to the warmth and love her mother showed both boys as if they were her own.
And then they all grew up, and they were set to begin their first year of university at Ubaya-U come the fall. The three of them had been eager to set out into the world, to grab at any and all opportunities that arose, and for each of them to become great in their own right.
But not two weeks into the fall semester, Sanemi received the phone call that had brought his world crashing down around him. Genya, his beloved, cherished younger brother, had been shot dead outside of their foster home, killed by some kid in retaliation for some fight Genya hadn’t picked.
Y/N hadn’t been with him when he received the news, instead only getting a text from Kyojuro to getthefuckoverhereNOW. She’d bolted from her class and ran to the boys’ dorm across campus. She’d found Sanemi, curled into a ball on the floor beneath a hole he’d punched into the drywall, sobbing, and she hadn’t known what else to do but hold him along with Kyojuro while her own tears threatened to blind her.
Hours later, when Sanemi realized he would have to return to their hometown to make final arrangements, he’d asked Y/N to accompany him to the train station. Kyojuro would have gone as well, but he’d been unable to call off from work, and so the three had planned for Y/N to return with him the next day, as she was the only one between the three of them with a car on campus.
Of course, Y/N agreed to drive Sanemi to the train station, because she couldn’t possibly imagine leaving him alone. He’d looked so lost, so broken, and she would’ve done anything, anything at all, to lessen the weight on his shoulders.
Because she loved him, and she’d loved him for years, and love meant giving everything you had, everything you were to the other, especially in times of need. So she agreed, and though he’d been unable to speak, Sanemi had rested his head on her shoulder in silent gratitude.
She’d not known that, in her efforts to love and support him at his lowest, she would doom their group’s entire dynamic.
In retrospect, she shouldn’t have said anything. It was the wrong time, the wrong way to tell him what was in her heart, and she’d known that; but she hadn’t been able to stop herself. She’d been unable to stop the way her heart clenched as she walked him towards the platform at Amane Station, his head hung low and his eyes rimmed red from hours of crying. It hurt her to see him in such pain, hurt so badly that she’d been desperate to alleviate it in any way she could. She’d thought it would have been enough to hug him, to give him a reassuring squeeze and a promise that she and Kyo would be back home the following morning and that he wouldn’t be alone.
But then, before she could stop them, those cursed words had fallen from her lips and ruined her, ruined everything.
I love you, Sanemi. With all my heart.
As soon as she’d heard herself say it, she’d known she’d fucked up. She knew, as Sanemi stiffened in her embrace and pulled away from her, that she’d indelibly altered things between them, and that she could never take those words back. And she’d known, the moment she saw the cold, bewildered look in his eyes, so angry it made her stomach drop, that he neither returned nor wanted her love.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?” He snapped, stepping back from her, creating a chasm between them that could not be bridged.
His train had finally arrived, and he’d stormed away from her, turned his back to her, and refused to look back as he boarded the car. She’d stayed behind, standing there amidst a throng of travelers and their families, for a long while, tears slipping hot and fast down her cheeks until the salt burned permanent tracks into her skin.
It hadn’t mattered that Kyojuro had called her later, Sanemi having filled him in on what happened, what she’d done, to tell her not to worry; that Sanemi had just been frustrated and overwhelmed, and that all would be well between them after the funeral.
Kyojuro lied. Sanemi hadn’t so much as looked her way the entire time she and Kyo were with him during his brother’s funeral and had refused to even acknowledge her small greeting. Y/N understood he was going through the worst pain imaginable, and she’d known he was angry because she’d dumped her feelings on him when he’d been in no place to receive them, but his rejection still fucking hurt.
Worse than his rejection had been his total ignorance of her, his obstinate refusal to so much as acknowledge her existence. Y/N hadn’t been able to understand how he could be so angry with her to not even treat her like a person, to pretend as though they hadn’t been friends – best friends – since they were in diapers.
Y/N had wanted to give him space, however, and wanted herself to stop loving him so things could one day go back to how they’d been, so she started to distance herself from Sanemi, believing she would still have Kyojuro, her sun, to lean on if she needed it.
But she’d been wrong, so very wrong. Because Kyojuro had defended Sanemi with a not-so-gentle reminder that ‘he’s dealing with a lot right now,’ which only fractured her heart even more because Kyojuro had taken a side and it hadn’t been hers.
Thus, Y/N was left to love them both at a distance, and she was forced to watch them carry on their friendship without her, even though they’d all come to Ubaya-U together and even though her exile from the group meant that Y/N had no friends at all.
So, her first semester at university, the semester she’d dreamed would be life-changing and exciting, became a cacophony of sobs smothered into her pillow at night so her roommate wouldn’t hear her winking out like a dying star. And she had no friends, because her best friend didn’t think she was his, and she couldn’t stop loving a boy who didn’t want to love her back.
—————————————————————————
Her mom got sick in the spring of her first year. Initially, it had been a good prognosis. Y/N somehow managed to balance her busy, pre-law class load with her mother’s care, fluidly alternating between office hours and hospital appointments. But no friends meant she’d had no one to talk to, no one to lean on in those moments when her legs gave out and sobs wracked her body because she’d been so fucking scared of losing her mom. But she’d been kept busy enough to be able to squash that loneliness down and ignore it like her boys had ignored her, and so, she’d pushed through.
By the time summer had come, however, things had grown exponentially worse. Several nights ended in Y/N having to call an ambulance to rush to her home, because her mom had fallen and Y/N wasn’t strong enough to lift her by herself, and there hadn’t been anyone else she could call.
There had been a few times – maybe two or three – when she’d passed Kyojuro on the street, home briefly to check on his little brother, and the fiery blonde would make a face like he wanted to say something like he wanted to talk to her or care about her, but Y/N would turn and run before he had the chance.
She never saw Sanemi, though that hadn’t surprised her. She hadn’t expected him to be able to stomach being back home so soon after Genya.
Her mother’s condition yo-yoed throughout the summer and into the early fall of her second year of university. Just when it finally seemed as though things were looking up for her mother, when she was just days from her last treatment, she died.
No one had been there to hold her – to comfort her – when Y/N began wailing as her mother’s chest rose for the last time and did not go back down.
Her mother had died, and Y/N had been left utterly and completely alone.
Her mother’s funeral had taken place on a sunny October day, the autumn air cool and crisp as an apple. She’d stood beside her mother’s casket as stranger after stranger passed, offering their condolences and personal anecdotes of her mother’s kindness.
Not once had she seen a familiar face. Not once had either of her boys made an appearance, not even for the woman who had loved them as her own.
She’d returned to campus a few days later, and because the universe had decided she’d not suffered nearly enough for some unknown crime, she ran into him. By the cruelest twist of fate, Sanemi decided to cross the street opposite her at the same time, and what was left of her heart skipped several beats.
For all her efforts to put distance between them, she still loved him, and it was a realization so bitter she thought she would start dry heaving right there on the pavement. She tried to duck her head, to avoid catching his attention, but the crosswalk light changed, and he was suddenly walking towards her, and she couldn’t help but chance a glance up.
Lilac eyes collided with her own, and Y/N thought the world was about to open beneath her and swallow her whole.
His gaze lingered for a touch longer than normal for a stranger, and Y/N feared he’d be able to see the scars from her tears on her face or see how her heart still bore the tattoo of his name. But then he blinked, and she took the chance to vanish among the throng of students, dashing back to her dorm before the tears could spill down her cheeks once more.
She barely made it to her room before her legs gave out from under her, her sobs choking from her throat.
She wished her mother had taken her with her.
—————————————————————————
It was fitting that Y/N met the personification of spring at the start of the spring semester.
Her name was Mitsuri, and Y/N sat next to her in her 8:00 AM class. The girl was so bubbly and bright that it was difficult, even for the drab Y/N to resist striking up a conversation with her. Mitsuri was a streak of color that bloomed across Y/N’s eternal gray sky, with her exotic pink and green hair and permanent blush. It took only a few weeks, but Mitsuri and Y/N became the best of friends, and Y/N could not get over how good it felt to have one of those again.
Mitsuri and Y/N began to do everything together, and bit by bit, Y/N felt herself smiling more, laughing as her friend flirted with every him, her, and them who crossed their path. They figured out they shared nearly every class together, and when they weren’t furiously taking notes during their lectures, they were studying together in small corners around campus, dreaming of what was to come after exams and graduation in a year and a half.
Her pink-haired friend helped Y/N feel confident again, like a person. Mitsuri helped bring Y/N back out of the shell she’d so carefully crafted in the wake of her abandonment, and she began to feel a little lighter, a little more buoyant thanks to the happy, beautiful girl at her side.
That wasn’t to say Mitsuri didn’t have her own demons – she very much did. At night, Mitsuri and Y/N push their beds together in the latter’s dorm (Y/N’s first roommate had long since moved out). There, huddled together under the mess of blankets and pillows, they would whisper the names of their heartache with one another – Sanemi and Obanai – and they comforted each other, wiping their tears away with soft promises that as long as they had one another, they would be okay.
By March, Mitsuri convinced Y/N to go clubbing with her. Y/N was hesitant until she looked in the mirror after her friend had spent the evening primping her and turning her into a woman Y/N scarcely recognized in the mirror. Her friend had dressed her in a short, emerald green dress that hugged every curve just right, a teasing slit going high up on her left thigh. Y/N’s hair had been slicked back into a high ponytail that swung tantalizingly between her shoulder blades. Her cleavage was a bit more exposed in the pinkette’s dress than Y/N was accustomed to, but damn if she didn’t look downright sumptuous.
Y/N was determined to let loose, to not think about the black stain on her heart that was him, and so she greedily accepted Mitsuri’s hand as the two braved the chilly, early spring air. Mitsuri pulled her through the doors of the club -- the Kizuki Moon Lounge -- and for the first time in a year and a half, she felt alive.
Beneath the strobe of multi-colored lights, amidst the pulsing bass of the techno-music threatening to rupture her eardrums, Y/N had found herself anew; no longer was she the sad, morose girl who barely existed. Under Mitsuri’s care, Y/N transformed into a raving princess, who owned the sticky floor of the Kizuki’s club each time she and her friend traipsed onto it in their too-high heels, wearing too-short dresses and clutching too-strong drinks in their greedy hands.
In April, Mitsuri introduced her to Shinobu, a wisp of a pharmacology student who was every bit as beautiful as she was terrifying, though Y/N could not exactly place why the petite girl could scare off any ill-intentioned man that tried to swagger over to them, given her ever-present, sugary-sweet smile.
She also met three girls – Hinatsuru, Makio, and Suma – who were beautiful and fun-loving and rounded out the newly-formed friend group with their fire-and-ice personalities.
First, there was Hinatsuru – quieter, but still capable of throwing it back and having a grand old time, especially once her drink of choice (rum and Coke) had the opportunity to work its way through her blood. A pretty blush was always the telltale sign that Hina was ready to jump up on a table and captivate anyone who had the pleasure of watching her dance.
Next, there was Makio, brash and bold, but fiercely loyal. Some asshole had made the mistake of snapping the thong-like top of Mitsuri’s skirt once and found his head shoved down on the table, his arm pulled back in a self-defense maneuver as the dark-haired beauty threatened to wrench the man’s offending arm from its socket.
Finally, there was Suma, who often clung to the other two like a lost child, but once she gained her confidence, would flirt with absolutely anything and everything that moved, with a sultry giggle and a bat of her pretty eyes. Within only twenty minutes of knowing her, Suma had convinced Y/N to make out with her, the beautiful girl tasting like cotton candy and summertime as their tongues lazily danced together beneath the throb of the club lights.
With her new group of girlfriends, Y/N began to lose herself to the alluring beck and call of Ubayashiki’s local rave scene, her nights quickly becoming defined by sticky drinks and jeweled makeup, and the skimpy outfits Mitsuri always shoved her into. But she could not find it in her heart to care, because for once, her mind was on something else that didn’t involve the smell of pine, or lavender eyes, or the feeling of a home that no longer existed.
But even though the sour drinks made her feel so warm and vibrant while she danced, there were still moments when clarity hit and she missed them.
She missed the way Kyojuro’s strong arm would drape around her shoulders, heavy and warm, and how his embrace always felt like home, his deep laugh infectious.
She missed the way Sanemi would pretend to hug her unwillingly but would leave his hands lingering on her back or her waist once she moved to pull away, a small smirk tugging on the corners of his tantalizing mouth. She missed the smell of his cologne, woodsy and clean, as he would lean in close to her face to tease her until she blushed.
She missed them so much that the sharp sting of alcohol eventually stopped dulling the pulsing ache in the cavity where her heart once beat. No matter how many shots, no matter how many sticky acid drinks she tossed back, that gnawing in her chest would not cease.
Then, one night, Shinobu pressed a small, lilac pill into her hand, and everything changed.
Initially, Y/N was apprehensive, because the pill perfectly matched the hue of the eyes of the person she wanted to forget most. But Shinobu promised her that this pill she’d created in a lab for school – Wisteria – will have her feeling like a kid on Christmas, and that promise, coupled with a flutter of Shinobu’s pretty eyelashes made Y/N cave.
At first, she felt nothing, no impact beyond the slight buzz provided by the round of shots she’d done upon first arriving at the Kizuki. But then, as Mitsuri twirled her beneath the flashing lights of pink and yellow, Y/N’s world exploded with a vibrance she’d neither seen nor felt in nearly two years. Everything, all at once, became magical; effervescent; infinite.
The Wisteria seeped into her veins and made her feel like Christmas lights had been implanted under her skin. Y/N felt shiny and beautiful and sparkly under the combined effect of Shinobu’s magical concoction and the balancing burn of her tequila, and with her new group of girlfriends flanking her side as they bumped to and ground against one another to the beat of the music, Y/N felt almost like she did when it was just her and her boys. Only now, Y/N felt even better, because, with her girls, she could ignore the way the black in her heart was slowly beginning to fester, even if that meant Y/N was beginning to feel more and more numb with each passing rendezvous at the club.
Because that numbness meant that at least she couldn’t feel the acrid bite of her unrequited love for him, and that was what she wanted all along, right?
—————————————————————————
(May)
Of course, Y/N should’ve known she couldn’t stay light and resplendent and numb in her neon and black light paradise forever. Because unfortunately, despite the large student body at Ubaya-U, her new friend group just has to intermingle with them.
Really, it was all Shinobu’s fault. Towards the end of the semester, Shinobu began dating a quiet, withdrawn boy named Giyuu, who happened to be good friends with the man that Hinatsuru, Makio, and Suma all have a thing for – Tengen.
Tengen was a recent graduate of Ubaya-U, and an even more recent hire at the local police department, his imposing size and discerning ears a coveted asset amongst the group of detectives who’d scouted him out. Having someone affiliated with the local police be part of their group ended up being a huge advantage to them, however, given the general inclination for people to look the other way whenever Shinobu began dealing her Wisteria in the secluded corners of the Kizuki’s lounge.
What was not an advantage, however, were Tengen’s friends, because Tengen, apparently, had become best fucking friends with Kyojuro, and by default, him.
Y/N stood awkwardly between Mitsuri and Shinobu as the latter presented her group of girlfriends to the new, rag-tag medley of boys that now included the very two Y/N had gone to great lengths to avoid. She tried to ignore the burning weight of both boys’ stares as Y/N finally introduced herself to Shinobu’s new boy toy. Only when she could not possibly avoid them any longer, not without raising questions, did Y/N finally allow herself to turn to them.
“Y/N!” Kyojuro looked so surprised to see her and yet, so overjoyed that it didn’t feel fair.
Y/N could tell by the jerky way the blonde’s arms twitched towards her that he’d been about to envelop her in one of his signature bear hugs, but he’d hesitated, apparently uncertain whether he was still permitted to do so.
Ultimately, Kyojuro’s elation at seeing her once again won over his doubt, and he pulled her in tightly against his chest, his arms squeezing her with a security she hadn’t realized she’d been missing. For the briefest moment, Y/N’s eyes fluttered shut as she allowed herself to thaw, ever so slightly, in the fierce warmth of her friend’s embrace.
It was a mistake; the moment she’d allowed herself to relax, she’d felt the damning prickle of tears behind her eyelids, and an uncomfortable lump had begun to take form in her throat. So with more reluctance than Y/N wanted to acknowledge she felt, she stepped away from Kyojuro, hoping that the dim lights of the club concealed the mist clouding her eyes.
Unfortunately, the end of Y/N’s reunion with her former, fiery friend meant there were no more obstacles, no more distractions, between her and the white-haired, scar-speckled man who gazed at her with an intensity that, to her annoyance, still made her want to squirm.
And as his eyes bore into her, she chanted over and over in her mind for him not to say it, to not let her name fall from his lips, because she could not bear to hear it. It would’ve been easier, so much easier, if he simply pretended like she didn’t exist, because then she could go on pretending like she wasn’t walking around without a heart; like he hadn’t been carrying it with him even all these months later.
His eyes did not match the smirk he had as he said her name, but it still took everything Y/N had not to fold right there.
But she couldn’t, she wouldn’t let him know that he still held any power over her, and so she merely raised an eyebrow at him and smirked back, challenging him.
“Sanemi.”
—————————————————————————
“’Sanemi’ is your name when I’m mad at you,” Y/N warned him, tapping his knuckles with the spoon she used to stir the cake batter. “Otherwise, you’re just ‘Nemi.’”
Sanemi smirked at her, sticking his finger back into the bowl to swipe another glob of cake batter as Y/N mixed Kyojuro’s birthday cake together. “And what about when I’m being annoying?”
Y/N flicked a bit of batter at him, nailing him perfectly on his nose with the chocolate mixture. “Asshole seems the most appropriate.” She squatted down to pull a baking pan out from below her mother’s stove. “Did you remember to get the candles?”
The grocery bag crinkled as her white-haired best friend shook it, the box of candles within jostling. “Sixty-one candles for the sixty-one-year-old man,” Sanemi said proudly.
“Haha,” Y/N mocked, though she swiped the bag from his hand to check to ensure he’d actually bought sixteen and not, as he claimed, sixty-one candles. “I’m impressed. It seems you are capable of following directions.”
Sanemi leaned across the counter and peered up into her face, that damn smirk of his widening as he saw the faint blush creep across her cheeks. “I always follow your directions, Y/N.” He said lowly, raising a finger to wipe a speck of cake batter from her cheek.
“Hardly,” Y/N scoffed, using the need to get Kyojuro’s cake in the oven as an excuse to turn away from him and hide her warming face. “I think you prefer malicious compliance.”
“You wound me!” Sanemi protested, splaying across her mother’s counter in mock-injury. “When have I ever not followed your instructions with a smile on my face?”
Y/N turned back to him with a teasing grin. “’Nemi, since when do you ever smile?”
—————————————————————————
Shinobu’s eyes flickered back and forth between them, a smile forming on her face even as Mitsuri tugged pleadingly at her hand. “Do you two know each other?”
Sanemi said “yes” at the same time Y/N said “no,” and the former’s head snapped to Y/N’s face, who fought to keep her features neutral and cool. “Not anymore, anyways.” She clarified though she refused to acknowledge the way Sanemi flinched in response.
Shinobu looked between them again, her smile fading to something more pensive. Kyojuro only continued to watch Y/N, his expression sad and so very out of place in this castle of infinite pleasure and fun, and Y/N found herself desperate to escape it – to escape them.
Suma, the gods’ gift to the universe, interrupted the tense moment with her arrival, and she produced a small baggie of those lilac pills that promised Y/N’s escape. Y/N could feel both Kyojuro and Sanemi gawking at her as Suma pulled her in close, the little lilac pill already dissolving on her tongue, and kissed her, as they’d done so many times before.
When the raven-haired girl pulled away with a giggle on her lips, Y/N looked back to her former friends and held her tongue out, Suma’s pill now almost completely dissolved in her mouth, and she winked at them. Let them realize that their Y/N was long-gone, buried alongside the mother whose death they refused to acknowledge.
Suma offered the newcomers a pill each, and Y/N was surprised that both accepted. Kyojuro hesitated more than the ivory-haired man next to him, who held Y/N’s eyes as he placed the little tablet on his own wicked tongue, an answer to her earlier challenge. Y/N grimaced at the idea that Sanemi was willing to play along in this little game, willing to impose upon her paradise if it meant torturing her a little more.
So Y/N tossed her hair over her shoulders and turned her back to him, letting Suma and then Makio, tug her back into the crush of people on the dance floor to twirl and grind to the music, as both boys stared after her and she let herself be lost to them once more.
—————————————————————————
He found her the following Friday, as she waited against the bar for her drink.
“And where have you been hidin’ all this time?” Y/N fought the shiver that threatened to lick up her spine at the sound of that cursed, gravelly voice that had always made her weak at the knees.
But Y/N hadn’t spent the last twenty months learning how to keep off of Sanemi Shinazugawa’s radar for nothing, hadn’t learned to keep her grief and rage and pain locked deep inside the empty cavern of her chest, just to crumble under the intensity of that lilac stare.
Y/N threw her head back to swallow the shot of tequila the bartender had placed in front of her before turning to face him. Sanemi looked every bit the simpering, cocky asshole she’d always known him to be, leaning up against the sticky wood of the bar, one fist resting idly under his cheek as he watched her.
She met his gaze evenly, shoulders loose with a relaxedness that she didn’t feel. “I’ve been right here,” she replied smoothly.
Sanemi shook his head, clicking his tongue disapprovingly at her. “Nah, you haven’t,” he downed his own shot of vodka before returning his eyes to her, looking her over in consideration. “Though, I guess it would’ve been hard to know it was you anyways.”
Y/N bristled at the comment but kept her voice light. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
Sanemi watched her carefully for a moment, though his eyebrows furrowed, as though he was struggling to choose his words. “I just wouldn’t have expected to see you in a place like this.” He decided, after a moment, a frown tugging at the corners of his sinful mouth.
It was Y/N’s turn to smirk. “That would assume you knew me at all to begin with,” she challenged, motioning to the bartender for another shot.
Something tightened in Sanemi’s eyes as he held her gaze, and it clenched the knot of unease that had balled in her stomach. “I did, once.”
Y/N kept her face impassive. “Maybe, as a girl.” She accepted her second shot from the bartender and brought it to her lips, biting down on a wince as the sharp burn of the cheap liquid slid down her throat. “But not as a woman.”
Though she did not show it, his words struck a wound deep within her that she’d not realized still festered; because, as hard as she tried to pretend that the man beside her was a mere stranger, his words reminded her of the harsh truth.
She was still in love with him; had been, ever since she’d learned what love meant.
A shadow flashed across his face before disappearing, that insufferable smirk sliding onto his face once more. “I guess you’re right; a girl doesn’t wear a dress like that.” Sanemi purred.
Y/N fluttered her eyelashes at him, a foreign boldness taking over her mind even as the echo of her heart begged her to flee. “Do you like what you see, Sanemi?”
Her former friend’s answering grin was wolfish. “I’ve always liked what I’ve seen of you, Y/N,” he grabbed her last shot from her hand, ignoring the protest in her eyes as he tipped the tequila back easily down his throat. “You just always seem to disappear before I have a chance to properly appreciate you.”
Y/N knew she should run away from him, and fast, but her hand betrayed her as it reached up to brush a bit of confetti from his hair that lingered from earlier. She nearly hummed in satisfaction at the way Sanemi’s breath hitched in his throat as she drew close, her fingers just barely grazing the skin of his forehead.
“Guess you’ll have to catch me.” Was her only response, before Y/N departed for the dance floor and her friends once more.
Sanemi’s eyes remained locked on her the entire night.
————————————————————————
The days blurred into weeks, as Y/N and Sanemi’s new relationship took form.
The convergence of their friend groups was inevitable, though Y/N resented it; but now, they all went out as a unit, rather than as two separate groups which just so happened to run into one another, and it annoyed Y/N to no end.
More annoying was the fact that Sanemi seemed as willing to partake in the sacred ritual of taking Shinobu’s precious Wisteria with them, though he seemed to do it less out of a desire to feel like the flashing strobe lights of the club and more so because he wanted to get on Y/N’s nerves.
“Drugs are bad for your health, y’know,” that damnable gravelly voice snapped her attention away from the Wisteria that sat in Shinobu’s palm.
Sanemi’s shoulder bumped into hers as he came to stand beside her in a darkened corner of the Kizuki’s seating lounge, out of sight from prying eyes as Shinobu dispersed her latest batch of tiny purple pills, a smirk on his lips and a challenge in his eyes.
Y/N scoffed, reaching to take the small offering from her friend’s hand. “And so is that vodka you keep slugging back.” Y/N’s fingers were about to close around the Wisteria when Sanemi plucked it from the dark-haired girl’s hand, a cry of indignation squeaking past Y/N’s lips.
Sanemi held the pill teasingly in front of her mouth as Y/N glowered up at him. “Open up,” he ordered, pinching her key to paradise between his thumb and index finger.
Eyes locked with his, Y/N slowly let her lips part and held out her tongue. Sanemi leaned forward, taking her jaw in his free hand as he placed the small tablet on her tongue with the other.
 “Good girl,” he murmured, eyes lowering to her mouth as he watched her, hungrily.
As she accepted the Wisteria from him, Y/N let her tongue flick out and graze against his skin, dragging it lightly up the calloused edge of his index finger before she closed her mouth, letting the tablet dissolve on her tongue. Sanemi exhaled harshly through his nose, his hand gripping her chin possessively as he stared down at her mouth, and Y/N thought for a moment that he was about to give in right there and kiss her.
At the last moment, Kyojuro clapped him on the shoulder as he returned from the bar, and the spell was broken. Y/N blushed slightly as she turned back to Shinobu who made no secret of her raised eyebrow at the exchange between the two former friends.
Later, as she broke away from her friends dancing on the floor, she’d noticed Sanemi for once, was not looking at her, but at the hand he’d used to slip her the Wisteria, an unreadable heat in his eyes.
————————————————————————-
Sanemi liked to watch her while she danced.
At first, it had been unsettling to feel a pair of eyes boring into her back as she bumped and ground against Mitsuri or Suma, head tossed back as she let Shinobu’s pills work their magic, but she’d grown accustomed to it. Now, she craved the knowledge that he was thoroughly transfixed by her, because that meant at the very least, she was filling his thoughts while they were out almost as much as he filled hers every moment of the day, despite her efforts to numb him out of her life.
She’d confided her secret joy in Mitsuri, who’d conspiratorially promised her they would do anything and everything to drive the lilac-eyed man wild with desperation so that he might feel an ounce of the pining he’d shackled Y/N to feeling every time he so much as looked her way.
One night, a gaggle of them had gathered over in one of the Kizuki’s seated lounge areas as Shinobu pressed her Wisteria into their greedy, waiting palms. Sanemi’s eyes were locked on Y/N, as they usually were, as she’d exchanged a knowing glance with her pink-haired best friend and placed her pill beneath the heavy glass of her discarded drink and ground the violet pill into magic dust.
Eyes on Sanemi, Y/N delicately cupped the powder in one hand and brought her free fingers to the low bodice of her corseted top, tugging lightly on the strings to loosen it, inching it down lower to reveal the tops of the twin swells of her breasts, though stopping before she could be accused of exposing herself in public. She then turned her attention back to Mitsuri, her pink-and-green friend watching her with a sugary deviousness that made her stomach bubble with excitement.
Wordlessly, Y/N leaned back on the table, to the cheers and cat-calls of her friends, and she sprinkled some of the violet dust along the exposed top of her cleavage. Mitsuri leaned over her body, all vanilla perfume and pink hair tickling Y/N’s delicate skin as her friend held one nostril closed and inhaled every speck of the amethyst powder with the other. Y/N’s eyes rolled back into her head, and she let out a wanton moan beneath the black lights of the Kizuki, as her best friend kissed her collarbone in thanks.
Sanemi had gruffly excused himself for the bathroom and did not return for another five minutes. In his absence, Mitsuri had slyly let Y/N know that his eyes hadn’t once left her face throughout the entire vulgar exchange, much to her secret delight.
Y/N knew she was dancing closer and closer to the fire.
She knew that Sanemi wasn’t far from snapping, from losing whatever restraint he thought he had when it came to her, as she deliberately pressed each one of his buttons every time their group ventured out.
The next time he came close to breaking was when he saw another put his hands on her.
A hand gripped her ass, and Y/N turned and saw a man with long white hair and odd-colored eyes give her a wink. He was attractive, that was certain, but there was something predatory in his eyes that made her feel gross, so she moved closer to her circle of friends, keeping an eye over her shoulder.
Eventually, the strange man wandered off, and Y/N felt as though she could relax once more as she swung her hips to the beat thumping over the stereo strongly enough to make the dance floor vibrate. Shinobu held out a hand that Y/N eagerly grabbed, her friend twirling her as she laughed, carefree and alive beneath the resplendent rainbow of lights.
The song slowed to something more sensual, and Y/N was about to take her cue and move toward the bar when a hand grazed her upper arm.
Though it had been nearly two years since she’d last felt his touch, Y/N knew only one person capable of bestowing such a warm and gentle caress, even in spite of his hardened appearance.
Sanemi, to her eternal surprise, had made an appearance on the dance floor – his first if she remembered correctly.
His eyebrow was raised in question at her, and Y/N couldn’t help but appreciate he was asking permission to dance with her, rather than just sidling up and grinding on her like any other man would.
Sanemi looked so god damn handsome in that printed short-sleeve shirt. His sleeves had been cuffed to further show off his considerable biceps, and he’d left the top three buttons open, revealing his scarred but downright divinely toned chest. As he leaned in slightly, waiting for her permission, Y/N caught a whiff of his cologne, and it smelled like home.
Fuck it, she thought, her lips curving up into a siren’s smile as he stepped closer to her, bringing one large hand up to hold her waist as they began rocking to the beat of the music. Their foreheads were nearly touching as their bodies pressed closer and closer together, Y/N’s hips completely flush against his as they danced. Their noses brushed, and Y/N realized how dangerously close their lips had come.
Sanemi brought his other hand up to press against the small of her back, the one on her waist tightening slightly. Y/N looped one arm around his neck, her other hand coming to rest against his chest as they ground, Sanemi setting the pace perfectly in time with the beat.
Through her eyelashes, Y/N could see Sanemi’s amethyst gaze drop to her lips.
She knew she should pull away; she knew if she let him close the distance between their lips, she would also be closing the distance she’d spent so much time carefully crafting between her, and him, and even Kyojuro.
But Y/N also knew she couldn’t pull away, either; she’d waited, for so damn long, to know what his lips would feel like, and she was drunk and a little high, so the inhibitions that would normally have sent her running had long since been overshadowed by her unbounded want for him.
She felt his breath against her lips, and she closed her eyes.
Before she could finally achieve her lifelong dream of kissing Sanemi Shinazugawa, the music changed from the slow, sensual beat that they had been grinding to, to something louder, faster, and more exciting.
A scream grew louder as Mitsuri returned from heaving her guts up in the bathroom, and grabbed Y/N’s wrist, wrenching her from Sanemi’s grip and hauling her deeper into the dance floor to rave alongside her.
By the time Y/N was able to emerge from the surging crush of people dancing and raving, Sanemi was already back at the bar, leaning against it with his beer in hand, watching her.
She’d half expected him to look angry, but he only raised his drink at her, in toast.
The smirk that tugged on the corners of his mouth was full of promise.
—————————————————————————
Y/N supposed it was inevitable that this game of cat-and-mouse they’d been playing would end, and end like this.
She’d known where the night was heading the moment she showed up at the club in Mitsuri’s emerald green dress – the one she’d worn her very first time there in that strobe light palace – and saw his eyes darken from lilac to eggplant. Y/N felt the blazing heat of his stare in her bones even as she danced with her girls, could feel his magnetic pull as he watched her like a predator eyeing its next meal.
The more sober part of her was nervous, knew that she was about to cross a line she couldn’t walk back from. She knew that what was about to happen – giving her first time to Sanemi – would do nothing but exacerbate the poisonous love in her heart, but that part of her was so small, so feeble against the fire she felt in her blood as she approached the bar where he stood.
She pretended not to notice that he watched every move she made as she leaned over the ledge to order another shot. Only after the bartender placed the little glass in front of her, only after she tipped her head back and let the acid liquid slide down her throat, did she turn to meet his punishing gaze.
“You really should try joining in on the fun, Sanemi,” she kept her voice at a normal volume, forcing him to lean in slightly to hear her over the pulsing beat of the club music. She resisted the urge to close her eyes as the familiar whiff of his cologne hit her nose, the smell of a home and of a time before he ripped her heart out and stomped it to dust.
Sanemi smirked, and her stomach dipped at just how beautiful he looked, standing there below the pulsing glow of the lights. “I’m havin’ fun watching from here.” His lips were close enough to her ear that she shivered, gooseflesh erupting over her bare arms.
She wouldn’t let him know how much he still got to her, but she also couldn’t resist teasing him a little further, curious to see how far she could push him until he broke. She lifted her hand to pat the part of his chest he’d left exposed, his skin burning under her touch, as she made to pass him.
Sanemi snapped.
He grabbed her hand before she could pull it away and tugged her closer to him, knocking Y/N’s breath from her as he whirled her around and pressed her up against the dirty club wall to kiss her like she’d never been kissed before. He pinned the hand she’d had on his chest against the wall, over her head, while the other burned its imprint onto her waist. His kiss was demanding and hard, but Y/N was addicted to him. She brought her free hand to his neck, digging her nails in slightly to the sensitive skin to elicit a growl from him as he nipped her bottom lip.
Sanemi released the arm he’d pinned to the greasy club wall to hold the side of her face, tilting her head to he could deepen their kiss, his tongue sliding into her mouth to dance with her own. Y/N couldn’t control her body as she pressed into him, desperate to feel him against her, to feel him fill every empty part of her until she felt whole again. She knew she was dooming herself further, knew she was only setting herself up to fall harder than she already had, but she couldn’t stop because it was Sanemi, and she loved him.
She felt his growing hardness against her thigh, and she couldn’t stop her hips from grinding against him, heat pooling in her belly. Sanemi moaned into her mouth as her hips undulated against his, and Y/N felt herself go molten at the sound. She wanted to make him do it again and again, but Sanemi tore his mouth from hers before she could.
His chest was heaving, and his eyes were wild and dark as he looked at her. His eyes fell on her reddened, kiss-swollen mouth, and even in the dim light of the club, Y/N could see his pupils explode. He grabbed her hand, and suddenly he was tugging her through the crowded dance floor, through the groups of people near the exit, until they were outside, the night air cool on their overheated skin.
Together, they stumbled down dark, empty streets, though Y/N could not find it in herself to feel afraid, because Sanemi was there, and while he may not have cared about her enough to love her, he was still a gentleman who wouldn’t let her be hurt by anyone but him. They walked as she laughed because he kept stopping and pulling on her hand to kiss her again and again, as though he too, could not get enough of her.
Y/N didn’t know where they were going, but eventually, they arrived at an apartment complex, and it dawned on her that he’d brought her to his home. His lips were on hers the whole walk to his door, never breaking even as he fumbled for his keys. Sanemi finally unlocked the door and pushed her inside his dark apartment, kicking the door shut behind him.
Sanemi’s hands shot for her waist as he crushed her against him, his tongue licking the roof of her mouth. Y/N was sweaty and slightly sticky from the club, but the way Sanemi held her to him made her feel so god damn pretty like he’d been set adrift in a starless sea and she was his only lifeline. Sanemi’s hands moved from her waist to cup her ass, kneading her flesh as he moaned into her mouth again. His hands slid lower, grabbing her thighs to lift her up so her legs could wrap around his waist.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she murmurs, her head tilted back as Sanemi’s lips laid claim to her neck, his hips pressing her harshly against the entryway wall of his apartment.
The snow-haired man groaned, his hands fondling the soft curve of her ass beneath her dress. “Then tell me to stop,” he whispered, his breath hot as his tongue teasingly traced across her collarbone.
Y/N whimpered as she tightened her legs around his hips, locking him closer to her. If he stopped then, she thought she would fall completely apart.
“Tch, just as I thought,” his teeth nipped harshly against her throat as Sanemi pulled back to look into her eyes. “You can’t.”
Sanemi set her down, but he did not pull away, instead kneeling before her to run his large, warm hands up the length of her calves before bringing them around to the back of her knees. He tapped each leg one at a time, signaling her to lift it slightly. With a jolt, Y/N was completely suspended in the air with both legs over his shoulders, as he buried his face into her cunt.
He did not even bother removing the flimsy, lacy thong she’d worn under her dress, choosing instead to bypass it entirely as his tongue dragged right up her slit. Y/N’s head smacked into the wall behind her as she moaned, and she couldn’t tell whether it was the Wisteria or Sanemi that had her seeing fractals of light behind her eyes. She found that she didn’t much care either way, however, because what Sanemi was doing to her felt fucking incredible.
Her fingers fisted in his hair as Sanemi fucked her with his tongue, his teeth grazing across her clit in time with his thrusts into her. He was groaning lewdly as he feasted upon her, eyes lifting every so often to meet hers, to ensure she was enjoying it as much as he was.
“I knew you’d taste fucking sweet,” he muttered as he broke for air, fingers digging firmly into her ass as he hauled her back onto his mouth. His tongue darted in and out of her folds, lapping up every drop of her essence that he coaxed out of her, before he dove right back into her entrance, forcing her to ride his tongue as she writhed above him. Y/N desperately sought to grab onto anything for purchase, so that she could grind harder against his face, but Sanemi had her pinned in the middle of the wall, rendering her helpless to let him tear her first orgasm from her, followed by another, and then another, never once lifting his mouth off her tender core.
Eventually, Sanemi decided he’d had enough, and he moved to carry her to his bedroom. Just after he tossed her onto his plush mattress, there was a moment before he pounced on her when Y/N could really look at him. The only source of light was from the full moon outside, casting everything in Sanemi’s bedroom in its silvery glow. The moonlight illuminated the soft platinum of his hair, made his lavender irises melt into precious gems of amethyst as he raked his eyes over her panting, blushing form. His gaze darkened at the sight of her dress strap, hanging off her shoulder, before dropping to the hem that has ridden up her legs.
Y/N barely had time to take another breath before he was on her again, almost ripping the fabric from her in his haste to get it off, to expose her.
“This fucking dress,” he growled in her ear, finally tugging the zipper all the way down and shoving it down her legs, chucking the flimsy material behind him.
She was almost bare to him, but he was still clothed, far too clothed. Y/N sat up and ripped his shirt, the buttons popping all over the bed while he smirked down at her. She couldn’t find it in herself to be embarrassed, however, because then his skin was touching hers, and it felt like heaven even if Y/N knew she was only descending deeper into hell.
Sanemi graced her lips with one more bruising kiss before beginning his descent down her body, and Y/N felt electrified under his touch.
His hot mouth first came to her bare breasts. “Fuck,” he whispered as he let his tongue trace the first of her mounds, swirling around her hardened nipple before letting his teeth nip gently at her. Y/N squirmed under his ministrations, the sensation foreign to her and yet somehow, it felt wholly right, that the first person to explore her body this way would be him.
Not that she would tell him, of course; she didn’t want him to hold back, she needed him to fuck her as though there was no tomorrow. If he knew it was her first time, he would slow, or perhaps insist on stopping altogether, given that they were both high, and she couldn’t have that.
Sanemi pressed his hips down against hers, pinning her against the mattress and stilling her movements as he took his time lavishing her breasts, covering her in small marks that he soothes with sweet kisses that were enough to get her utterly drunk on him. Y/N let out a high-pitched whine as she felt Sanemi grind against the mattress as he sucked on her other breast, his abdomen pressing deliciously against her aching cunt still covered by the lace of her thong, as she desperately swiveled her hips, eager for him to relieve her once more.  
Her desperation spurred his movement, as he detached himself from her breast with a low groan, resuming his descent down her body, pausing only to suck and nip at her stomach, before settling between her legs once more. Sanemi’s lips met the band of her thong and he growled, deep and guttural as he pressed his nose against her, inhaling deeply and letting his tongue flick out once more to lap at her wetness over the rough lace obscuring her from view.
Y/N was nearly sobbing from overstimulation, Sanemi having already ensured she’d finished on his tongue three times in the hallway. Now, she needed him to fill her, and quick, or else she thought she would combust.
“Sanemi,” she whined, and his eyes flicked back up to hers, dark with want. “Please, I need you.”
Her words had an instantaneous effect on the heaving man between her legs, because suddenly his body was covering her own, his weight pressing down on her, and his pants were gone, and he was slamming into her with a force that left her screaming and writhing against his soft sheets.
“Shit!” Sanemi snarled in her ear as his cock plunged into her dripping heat, so tight and so unaccustomed to the thick length now bullying in and out of her with abandon. “You’re so – ah – fuckin’ perfect.”
Y/N was sobbing on his mattress, but not from any discomfort. The combination of Sanemi’s body mixing with the Wisteria had utterly blurred out any pain or unease she felt at the intrusion of his rigid length into her core, and instead, Y/N felt herself shatter into a million pieces, only to be fucked back together again by Sanemi, who kept one bruising hand on her hip while the other ensnared itself in her hair as he thrust wildly in and out of her.
But she was not close enough for him. The silver-haired god above her pulled her legs over his forearms and braced his hands on her inner thighs to spread her wide as he pounded into her, leaning down into her face to make her blush, just like he used to do. Only now, instead of teasing her, he was whispering filth that had her turning scarlet and begging for more.
“Fuck, Y/N,” he grunted, his hips snapping in and out of her with a ferocity that left her breathless. "You've no idea –”
The speed with which he drilled into her propelled them up his bed, but Sanemi moved an arm to come between her head and the wrought iron of his bedframe, protecting her.
“You’re a fucking dream,” he snarled, sitting back on his knees as he began to bounce her against his groin, her breasts jolting with every forceful snap of his hips.
“Sanemi,” Y/N moaned, her back arching off his luxurious sheets as her legs tightened around his hips. Under his breath, Sanemi swore.
“Again,” he croaked, the sticky pap pap of his hips slapping against hers filling his room with the sweet music of their dance. “Say it again.”
Y/N could hardly process his demand over the sensual drag of his cock in and out of her needy walls, Sanemi’s movements chasing every breath from her and replacing it with him, as though there were some parts of her that remained untainted by him.
“Again,” Sanemi insisted, his groin pressing against hers as he ground against her, his rough base swirling over her aching clit demandingly, causing her legs to spasm around his hips.
“S-Sanemi!” Y/N howled as he lifted himself from the mattress by his knees, taking her hips with him as he suspended her half in mid-air and pounded relentlessly into her, rendering her incapable of making any other sound that wasn’t a devotional to him.
Through bleary eyes, Y/N looked to see Sanemi’s own gaze fixed on the way her mouth was frozen in a perfect “o” as he pulled moan after sigh from her throat with his hips, his fingers digging into the plush of her ass as he bounced her up and down his aching member again and again. Y/N arched her back even more, allowing him to hit deeper within her and she felt an unfamiliar pressure begin to build in her stomach.
It was similar to what she felt out in Sanemi’s hallway, beneath his tongue, but this time was different. Every push and drag of his cock into her syrupy wetness had her feeling electric like the lights of the Kizuki club were being strung beneath her skin and plugged in, and she was slowly becoming a beacon of light for the man chasing his own release above her. Her eyes rolled back into her head as that coil wound tightly, Sanemi’s name falling from her mouth like a plea as she begged him to let her fall apart in his arms.
Above her, Sanemi fared no better, as his hips began to jerk and press into her without the steady rhythym he’d so carefully built, a cacophony of snarls and moans pouring from his mouth along with the filth he muttered against her skin as he sucked harshly at her neck.
Sanemi readjusted his stance above her, his thighs pressing hers down into the mattress, and Y/N lost control.
“N-Nemi!” Y/N gasped as the unfamiliar coil in her belly suddenly unwound. She was far too overcome by her pleasure to recognize she’d accidentally used her old, affectionate nickname for him as she reached her peak.
But the slip did not go unnoticed by the snow-haired man rutting into her from above, as the moment the nickname fell from her lips in her haze, Sanemi’s own release followed, his seed barreling into her hot and fast as a pleasured cry of her name tore from his throat.
Sanemi’s hips rolled into hers for what felt like hours as he poured every ounce of himself into her greedy, demanding core, Y/N taking every drip of his cum. It felt exquisite, to have the man she’d so desperately loved for so long be reduced to such a mess by her body, and Y/N savored the way his warmth filled her, as though it were possible of bestowing life back upon her even though it was he who’d chased it away to begin with.
He collapsed atop her, finally spent and satisfied, an arm winding around her waist as he sleepily pressed a kiss into the juncture between her neck and shoulder. Sanemi rolled to his back, pulling her with him, and locking her against his chest as though they were lovers. But the combination of the night’s activities with the dwindling effects of the Wisteria had exhausted him, and it was not long before his chest began rising and falling in a steady pattern of sleep.
Y/N giggled quietly to herself, marveling over the fact that her tolerance for Shinobu’s Wisteria was apparently much higher than his. Under the moonlight, she found her dress puddled in a corner of his room and shrugged it back on, gathering her heels in one hand and locating her bag with the other. She turned back and looked at the sleeping face of the man who still held her heart and smiled slightly, before closing his bedroom door gently and taking off into the summer night.
There was a new ache between her legs, no doubt the product of having her virginity taken in such an enthusiastic way by the man she’d left sleeping in his apartment, though he was none the wiser. Y/N felt oddly satisfied, as though she’d achieved some lifelong goal, as the summer air caressed her face. As she stumbled down the night-warmed pavement back to her apartment, Y/N laughed, her chest feeling light and empty for the first time in a long while.
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Want more angst? Smut? Pain? Stick around for part two and see shit literally hit the fan.
Likes, reblogs, tags, and comments are always appreciated!!
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bitchimasnake-sss · 17 days
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i love reading your fics, they always give me 🦋🦋🦋 i love them so much, so, i want to make a request a angst-comfort where zoro and reader are dating but they got into a fight (*cough* zoro got jealous and starts to question reader's loyalty *cough*) but it ends happily because I don't want cry. n e way, continue writing stories, you write them so well... 😚
im so glad you like my work!! and thankyouu so much for sending in the request, let's get to itt <3
moss and towel ft. roronoa zoro!
set-up: in which, you and zoro have been dating for six months. but after one fight night and growing distances, he finds himself questioning everything you've built together.
warnings: (poor attempts at writing) angst, zoro acts like an idiot, profanities. yeah, that's about it.
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the winds were cruel tonight and even crueler were you. atleast there was some comfort in the cold gusts, some reason in the way they played against the swordsman's skin and left behind selfish goosebumps. atleast, he could attempt to understand it with nami's weather charts or whatnot.
but you. how could he attempt to understand you?
his eyebrows bunched as he stared up, fixing his gaze against the twinkling points. groaning, he put his hand over his eyes. maybe in a way, sure, it was his fault. he was never good with words or those fancy poems or haikus. he was never the one to resort to affection. but how was he supposed to fix this?
the first mate of the ship rested a fraction of his bodyweight against the wooden railing of the crow's nest. the wind tousled his unkempt hair and running a hand through his moss-green locks, he vaguely tried to remember how long it had been since nami dragged him into the bathroom and gave him a haircut again.
probably too long. he concluded with a sigh as the soft tresses caressed the mid-point of the back of his neck.
he was supposed to meet his girlfriend here. that's what had been decided. just you, him and the infinitely infinite night sky. the swordsman had even decided to talk about his feelings 'neath the dark abyss of the sky (even if he hated the mere idea of that).
but it had been 30 minutes and there were no signs of you anywhere.
life had been hectic for the both of you lately, whether it was because of the constant run-ins with the marines, zoro having to accompany luffy to side-quests or some other shit the sea sprouted every once in a while. either ways, it meant that you and him saw less and less of each-other as each day passed him by.
resigning himself to a tired sigh, zoro decided to climb downwards. you were not gonna come, that much was sure.
as his heavy feet planted against the wooden floor, he took a second to collect his thoughts. he started walking the stairs to go under the deck, to the common space where most of the crew lounged at the end of the day. descending, he thought of all possible explainations. maybe you had been caught by someone else and forced to listen to one of their anecdotes, maybe nami had asked you to help with the log pose calculations of the last island, or maybe chopper wanted you to help him grind some fresh medicine.
maybe-
he stepped inside the common place with heavy footsteps and a heavier heart and immediately saw you. you, ever so beautiful with you soft smiles and your lame jokes. you with your flowing hair and unruly habits. you, that was currently laughing along to something that shit-cook was talking about.
he must have caught your gaze cause you immediately looked away from sanji and to your boyfriend, giving him a soft smile. but he left the room without returning that gesture and you found yourself on your feet, walking after him and confused.
you trailed after him, calling his name out sweetly till you reached his room and he shut the door before you could get in.
"hey!" you laughed playfully, twisting the handle with ease and stepping inside. you closed the door behind you and tucked your arms around your chest, sporting a lively pout.
but he seemed to have to reaction to your antics, instead, deciding to carefully lay his three swords on the bed behind him as if he was courting the swords and not you.
"what's up with you?" you raised an eyebrow at him, amused by the way the man sat at the edge of the bed with an annoyed huff. when he said nothing, you pressed again, this time a bit more direct, "why are you grumbling now?"
he's been like this for the past few days and now that he refused to elaborate, you found your patience slipping off of you like a thin overcoat, leaving you behind in your ugly, impatient skin.
today had been hard, like any other day. and for some reason or the other, instead of inviting you into his arms, this man had swore to make your life even more difficult.
"zorooo," groaning, you asked again, "can you stop being so dramatic?"
his head snapped up, eyes finding yours with wicked ease. his jaw was clenched tight, face red as if he was burning up, "i am being dramatic? me?"
"yeah? you're being so fucking weird." you sighed, "why?"
"i dunno, go ask that fucking cook maybe?" he grumbled.
if the exasperation on your face wasn't obvious until now, after that comment, it was surely on full display.
"what?" you hissed, "what is up with you and all these weird accusations?"
"as i said, i dunno. ask that fuckin' waiter instead, why don't you? i'm sure he'd have some answers lined up."
"why are you dragging sanji into this?"
"why are you defending him?" he stood up, his face mirroring your exasperation tenfold. he crossed his arms similarly to yours and the muscles shifted impatiently under his shirt.
you threw you hands upwards, "im not defending him! i am aski—"
"—yes you are defending him, don't even."
you were tired.
god knew you every inch of your muscles were alight with exhaustion, your head was pounding and if he wanted to fight you, you wouldn't even have it in you to fight back. these past few days had been enough on their own. so, you sighed, taking on a resigned tone, "i am so tired, zoro. can't we do it another day?"
"yeah, right." he grumbled again, his eyebrows bunching together in a characteristic manner, "everything needs to be pushed back with you, right?"
"what is that supposed to mean?" you were sure smoke was rising from the top of your head and your pupils were comically blown out, "i was tired and wanted to take some time off, so, i had sat down. and sanji found me to make some ideal chit-chat. god forbid i be tired for once-"
"i was waiting at the crow's nest for the past 30 minutes, where were you?"
"huh—" fuck. your eyes widened as the terrible realization set in. almost on instinct, your fingers reached out to touch him so as to makeup for the terrible deed you had committed. but your boyfriend pulled himself back, dodging your careful grasp before rasping out, "don't."
"zoro, i'm sorry! really, i genuinely cannot believe i forgot—"
"so, you forgot me over that fucking cook?"
"no!" you repeated, slower, "no, of course not. i was just tired and—"
"—and you decided to go off with him instead?" he scoffed, "i thought we were dating and yet, i think we've barely had any time to just spend together. every time it's someone or the other you have to rely on, not me."
"zoro..." you started carefully but he cut off you off, "don't zoro me. it's either nami or sanji or luffy or someone or the other. i wouldn't be surprised if you're fucking blondie behind my back too."
you stared at him, shocked. the wretched feeling gnawed at your insides till you looked at him in pure, utter disgust. the corners of your eyes burned up and you spat out, "don't fucking talk to me."
and you left the room, slamming the door shut behind you.
zoro stared at the place you were standing at and then slowly dragged his eyes at the door that you had slammed shut.
fuck.
⋆⭒˚。⋆🪐⋆⭒˚。⋆
well into the night, when he finally had swallowed his pride and mentally beat himself enough, he walked out of his room.
his steps were slow, stride careful so to not panic the mostly sleeping crew. searching through the washroom and the kitchen, the supply closet and chopper's tiny, stashed-away office, he failed to find you. then, he stepped out onto the deck and in a clean sweep, found you at the port side. the wind blew ideally though your hair and you stood with your arms on the railing.
the swordsman silently walked up to you, choosing to stand beside you without saying much. and if he had hoped for you to start the conversation, he was in for a long, long night.
"hey" he finally started off.
"i think i told you to not talk to me."
your feet shifted and you balanced your bodyweight away from him and he pursed his lips. standing in silence, the sounds of waves crashing against the ship painted you both in a uncomfortable hues.
he tried again, "i- i am sorry, really."
"don't care, didn't ask."
roronoa zoro bit the inside of his cheek, savoring the taste of foul rejection in his mouth over and over. but he had never been the one to go out without a fight. hell, he was the king of hell.
"but i am sorry." he repeated and his calloused fingers inched closer to yours, a poor attempt to ghost his skimming touches over your hand. but you were quicker and you pulled your hands back to yourself and wrapped them around yourself.
he slowly withdrew his hand and his head hung low, "how long are you gonna be mad at me?"
"i don't know? probably till i want to."
"babe—"
"—don't babe me."
"i am sorry—"
"—to fuCKING HELL WITH YOUR SORRY!" your cool demeanor washed off and you bore daggers into his paper-like skin as you stared him down. your breath was laboured and you were sure your yells must have woken someone, if not the entire crew.
he stayed silent, ready to face the consequences of his actions. and although venom was a resident on your tongue, looking at his guilt-struck face, you were reduced to nothing but a dumbfounded, little girl.
whatever you had planned, whatever you had thought you'd call him, whatever accusations you had thrown you'd throw at him dissolved at the tip of your tongue. and instead, an ugly feeling stirred under your skin. the feeling sunk heavy in your chest and your stomach and your head and heart and every other crevice of you. bile crawled up your scratchy throat and the same waterworks made home on your lash line.
when you spoke, you were sure your voice sounded more like a desperate plea than a demand for apology.
"why? why did you say that? that was low."
he looked down at his feet, his fingers twiddling against the sword hilt of his wado ichimonji in an attempt to self-soothe, "i know it was wrong. i was just so angry."
"and that makes it okay for you to question my loyalty?" you sniffed, feeling the watery weight cascade down your cheeks.
"no!" he looked up, alarmed, "no! ofcourse it doesn't. i never was— i was just—" he paused, wincing, "—i was jealous of him."
"sanji?!"
he continued, agonized, "yes, the damn cook. and everyone else, i guess. you seemed to have time for everyone but me."
"zoro, why didn't you just say it out loud to me?" you whispered softly. inching closer to him, you rested your palm against his warm cheek. his growing stubble lightly tickled your skin. you hummed softly when he closed his eyes and leaned into your touch, pressing an easy kiss to your fingers. "because i- i just couldn't bring myself to. i'm sorry, i should have talked to you rather than being a prick, really."
"i am sorry too. i know we haven't spent any time for the past two weeks or so. i was so busy within myself that i didn't reach out to you." your fingers played gently against the scars on his face from years of training, "these past few days have been hard—"
"—they've been hell."
you laughed despite yourself, "yeah, i guess they've been hell."
his eyes swayed against yours in a guilt-ridden dance, "forgive me?"
you paused a beat, "do you trust me?"
his answer came more easily than breathing did, "more than i trust myself."
you hummed, "sure?"
and he just nodded. as moments passed you both by, he finally quipped up, "so, am i forgiven?"
"well..." you pondered for a second, "technically, i did fuck up too. so, yeah, you're forgiven." you glared at him, "just never say that kinda shit again."
he smiled and when he spoke, he offered a kind explaination, "i didn't actually mean you were fucking the cook. i just- just kinda said it."
"eh," you waved off his comment, "i don't wanna fuck blondes, anyways. to be honest, not really my type."
"huh?!" his eyes widened in play-pretend, "so his hair colour is holding you back?"
"i mean i'm more into idiots who grow slowly on me. like moss does on a wet towel."
roronoa zoro— bounty hunter, pirate, first mate to a terrifying crew, kind of hell, demon, whatever— looked appalled. "are you comparing me to moss?"
"i am comparing how you grew on me to the lowest form of moss that even grows on the stupidest surfaces."
"don't call yourself stupid, now."
you huffed and turned around, walking towards the stairways that led to the rooms, "i am gonna stop talking to you again!"
he laughed, taking in easy strides to walk after you, "just kidding. i promise. your moss, ever and forever more."
he met your pace, wrapping his arm around your shoulders. you gave him a wayward grin, "good."
he gave you one right back, "great."
"i'm tired."
"me too."
as you both disappeared back into your room, hand in hand, you made a comment about how much his hair grew and he responded with "like moss grows on a wet towel?". next morning you found yourself waking up to the swordsman's heavy snores and heavier body against you.
stupid moss-head.
a/n: i think i like how this turned out lol. hope it's okay @rkiveinmarvel and as always, thank you to anyone else who reads this <3
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