#it frustrates me MORE for having been so close to perfect in my estimation if that makes sense

[incandescentlysomething]

Lady of the Ashes: Chapter 2 P.1

House of the Dragon Season 1

Aemond x TargaryenOC

Chapter Word Count: 7390 (both parts)

She was his everything… For her…he would do anything.

From the moment of her birth, Aemond Targaryen swore himself to the protection of his niece Aelinor Velaryon. As the two grew up inseparable, they find themselves entangled in the Dance of Dragons, battling to stay together even as their families try to pull them apart.

A/N: Canon compliant but things change around. Currently cross-posting on A03. Will be approximately 12 chapters aligning with season 1.

Let me know what you think!

Masterlist A03

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 P.1 P.2

124 AC

Princess Aelinor loved the Dragon Pit. If she had been permitted to, she might have spent all day there, hiding from the world, perhaps with a book under her arm, in the company of the creatures she loved above all else. Even if she were sleeping on the straw, it still would have been perfect.

Well, Aemond would have to be there for it to truly be perfect.

She did love the dragons though, it was true, nearly as much as Aemond did. Her own dragon egg had hatched when she was only small, but had grown at a rate that surpassed even the dragon keepers estimations. She now had the largest of all her family’s young dragons. Darrax had outgrown Sunfyre, and based on his wing size the dragonkeepers expected he would grow even larger still. Aelinor had yet to fly on Darrax, though she had mounted him on several occasions.

Aegon said it was a pity that such a beast of war had been tamed by a little mouse, but Aelinor did not mind her meekness. She would much rather spend her days learning about and spoiling her dragon than riding him into battle. She was quite content to decorate Darrax’s pen with pretty wildflowers rather than battle insignia. Aemond was usually with her, though he focused more on the dragon than the decorations. Darrax, as an extension of her own heart, allowed Aemond into his company, even permitting the older boy to stroke his scales on occasion. Her dragon was fiercely protective, but he had good taste in character. She knew it meant a great deal for Aemond to be so close to her dragon, when he did not have one of his own.

“The Dragon Keeper said they shall soon have a saddle ready for you,” Aemond said. He was sitting on a rock in Darrax’s cave, studying the dragon with a careful gaze. “Perhaps this one will work better.”

“It is not the saddle that is the problem,” Aelinor reminded him. “But the reins. And I fail to see what can be done about it.”

Darrax gave a huff, as if in sympathy, and Aelinor reached up to pat his black scales. In the torchlight they glowed dimly, but she knew that if she were to take him up into the daylight they would shine a thousand shades of green and deep blue. It always reminded her of the heavy blue pendant that had not left her throat since she was four years old.

“Don’t say that, Lina,” Aemond protested. “You have a chance to fly, and you must give everything to take it.”

Aelinor shook her head, “Aemond, it is true that Darrax could bear me as a rider, but I will never be able to command him as a dragon rider should. My hand is—”

“Damn your hand!” Aemond shouted, jumping to his feet. Darrax let out a hiss in warning. “You’ll never be able to if you don’t try.”

She knew why it frustrated him so. Despite his best efforts, her uncle had never been able to claim a dragon, and his own egg had never hatched.The other boys teased him relentlessly, often driving him to riskier actions as he sought to have a dragon of his own. Aelinor could not bare to tease him over it, her heart being void of such cruelty, but she could see why it was hard for him to watch her settle for less.

Lifting her hand close to the torchlight, Aelinor sighed. “I can’t hold the reins, Aemond.”

“Then we’ll find another way,” he insisted. “Darrax will learn to respond to different commands, or I will—”

“Or what? You’ll ride with me? And you shall hold the reins while I give commands?” She was teasing slightly now.

“We’ll find a way,” was all he said, though his gaze had settled on her hand.

In the five years since her accident, Aelinor’s hand had never really improved. The wounds had closed, and she had spent many days on bedrest as the maesters tended to her. Throughout all of that, Aemond had stayed right by her side, and it had often seemed as if it pained him more than it pained her. She sometimes thought that he might even blame himself for her injury, though she never would.

“You know what I think?” She said, changing the subject.

“What is that, Lina?” 

Aelinor smiled. “It is time for Jace’s lesson. Come we can go watch him fumble over his High Valyrian again.” She did not often tease her brothers, but their inability to master the tongue of their ancestors did make her chuckle. And she knew it made Aemond happy, if only slightly.

“Very well,” Aemond offered a curt bow to her dragon. “Until we meet again, Darrax. Come, Lina.”

She grabbed her leather glove from where she had left it, and carefully pulled it over the curled fingers of her left hand. The glove was itchy and uncomfortable, but she had only been able to handle a few months of mutterings about how unpleasant her hand was to look at before she gave in to Queen Alicent’s suggestion and began to wear a glove. Any chance she got to take if off, she did.

The two linked arms as they made their way up from the tunnels and toward the center of the Dragon Pit, Aelinor cheerfully greeting each of the keeps as they passed. In the past few years, the nine-year-old princess and the twelve-year-old prince had become a familiar sight to the keeps, more often than not attached at the hip. It was common knowledge that if Aemond Targaryen was sulking around the Dragon Pit, one just needed to guide him to the princess to drastically improve his mood. There was some hope among the more concerned dragon keepers that her influence might calm him from his relentless and reckless determination to claim a dragon.

“My mother should have had her baby by now,” Aelinor commented.

“And you did not wish to be there?”

“She said it would frighten me,” Aelinor wrinkled her nose. “But how should I know what frightens me unless I have seen it?”

Aemond could not claim to have seen the horrors of childbirth, but he could vividly remember that day in Princess Rhaenyra’s chambers all those years ago, when he had seen a silver-haired babe while servants mopped blood off the floors. No, he did not think Aelinor should have to see all that.

“Do you know what I’ve heard?” He decided to distract her.

“What?”

He nodded toward her good hand, which was playing with the sapphire that hung on a gold chain around her neck. “I heard that it is the fashion for ladies to wear matching rings and earrings and all the like. Now, I don’t know much about jewels, but I worry you are falling out of fashion.”

Aelinor gasped. “Aemond!”

He gave an exaggerated shrug. “I shall have no choice but to remedy the situation on your next nameday.”

She shook her head. “Don’t you dare. You already give me too much. Besides, I don’t like jewelry. I just like this.”

Aemond felt his heart warm a little at that. “Alright, Princess. Then let’s go watch our brothers make fools of themselves.”

“Yes, let’s!”

An hour later found Aemond still in the Dragon Put, watching as Jace tried and failed to tame Vermax. The princes’ arrival had brought the news of a new little brother for the Velaryons, and Aelinor had been excused for the day to go and greet the new arrival.

Aemond tried not to mope, but being left in the company of his nephews and brother, all of whom had dragons, was less than ideal. Not when he knew that he would be so much better at this than all of them. Aelinor was the only one other than him who truly understood what it meant to be a dragon rider, but because of her damn brothers, she would never be able to reach her full potential. And he would never get to fly at all.

“We have a gift for you, uncle,” Luc called out to him.

Aemond looked up, disbelief etched on his face. “You? A gift?”

“From all of us,” Aegon wrapped an arm around Jace, who still looked a bit dejected by his pathetic failures. “Found, in a cave off of the Narrow Sea, and brought here especially for you.”

He knew better, or he should have, but he still felt something like hope stirring in his gut. Was this his chance? Was he finally going to have a dragon of his own?

“Behold,” Luc walked backward, and Aemond followed him like a hopeful idiot. “The Pink Dread!”

Aemond’s hopes crashed to the ground when they leapt to the side, revealing a fat pig with wings strapped to its back.

“How could you? You—” the word bastards hung in the back of his throat, but he didn’t say it. Instead, he just returned to his corner to sulk, bitter at the world. Of course Aegon, his own brother, had to join in with them. It wasn’t fair, none of it was.

After her mother had retired to her chambers, Aelinor had set up at the large writing desk in front of the window. The only other source of light in the room was the blazing hearth, which was currently going at full strength to keep her mother and the baby warm. But as it was the very same hearth that had horrifically scarred her hand, she did not like to sit by it unless she had to.

Aelinor did not have the dexterity needed for needlework, or many of the other ladylike pursuits, though she was very fond of dancing, but she had always been an extraordinary patient child. Her grandfather, the King, had in the weeks after her injury taken the time to show her how to paint his figurines with one hand. He carved them himself, very carefully as he too had only one good hand (now he was missing an arm entirely), and so he had set his youngest granddaughter to the task of painting them. His model of Old Valyria grew increasingly colorful with each of her contributions.

Currently she was applying silver paint to a statue of the Valyrian god Vhagar, taking care to apply each stroke of paint in very thin layers.

“Did you see his face?” Her brothers came bursting through the doors, and she quickly moved to secure her painting. It had happened on more than one occasion that their rowdy behaviour ruined one of her projects.

“Be quiet, you two,” she hissed. “Mother and the baby are sleeping.” The baby, Joffrey, had been wholly uninteresting to Aelinor, but her mother was exhausted, and she was determined to preserve that peace.

“You should have stayed, Lina,” Luc came up to her side. Of her two brothers he was the more mischievous, having latched onto Aemond’s nickname for her as a way to poke fun. She loved him, of course, but gods he could be irritating. “Our trick worked perfectly.”

“Trick? What trick?” She wiped her hands on her apron.

“On Aemond,” Luc laughed. “We had a pig, with wings on it! I thought he was going to cry.”

Aelinor saw red. “You did what? Why can’t you both just leave him alone?”

“It was Aegon’s idea,” Jace said quickly, probably just because his sister was upset, not because he genuinely felt sorry for Aemond. “And we didn’t ask him to go down into the pit. That was all him.”

She felt a twinge of worry. “Is he alright?”

“A bit singed, and embarrassed. But alright.” Jace assured her.

Aelinor frowned, turning back to her painting. She hated that their families could not just get along, and she hated that the boys teased Aemond over something she knew hurt him so deeply. This wasn’t the first time it had happened, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. The knowledge of that was the only reason she did not run to Aemond immediately, as she knew he would have done for her. He would be embarrassed, and he did not like for her to witness his humiliation.

Tomorrow she would go to him, and everything would be alright.

Aelinor spent the next morning sitting on the floor of Helaena’s room, listening to her aunt’s description of a centipede that crawled through her hands. Her aunt was harmless, but Aelinor was certainly not a fan of the bugs.

“Running, running through the dark.” Helaena let the centipede twirl around her wrist. “But never fast enough.”

Aelinor was bored. More than that, she was worried. She had not had a chance to speak with Aemond that morning, and now she knew he would be out in the training yard with Aegon and her brothers. She wanted to make sure he was alright, but she couldn’t do that from in here.

“You may go,” Helaena said.

“What?” Aelinor was started to find her aunt staring directly at her.

“I won’t keep you apart. Others will, but not me.”

Aelinor blinked. “Uh, thank you?” Her aunt was very strange.

Helaena didn’t look up as Aelinor stood and brushed out the lavender velvet of her dress. “Blood and bars and iron.” Helaena sang.

Aelinor was a little embarrassed at how quickly she fled the room. She never quite got used to Helaena’s oddness, and her words always left a chill on Aelinor’s skin. Something about it was just…wrong.

When she emerged into the training yard, she stepped into a chaotic scene. Ser Harwin Strong, her mother’s Kingsguard, was being restrained by three other guards, while Ser Criston Cole taunted him. The boys lay scattered through the mud. She went to JAce first, who had blood running from his nose. “What on earth has happened?”

Jace just shook his head. “Things you wouldn’t understand.”

That answer annoyed Aelinor. Why couldn’t she understand? Just because she was younger than him? It wasn’t fair, and she gave him a shove. “You’re so mean, Jace.”

“What’s wrong?” Aemond appeared beside her, having seen her grow angry at her brother.

“Of course you’re here,” Jace scoffed.

“You were….” Aelinor looked between them, confused. “You were all training together. Why do you look like you’ve been fighting?”

“Just go play with your stupid prince, Aelinor. Since you don’t care about your real family.” Jace gave her a dirty look, before grabbing Luc around the arm and pulling him away.

Aelinor was at a loss. “What did I do wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything,” Aemond promised. He still didn’t fully understand what had happened here either, between Ser Criston and Ser Harwin, but he knew it had been serious. “Everyone is just angry today.”

“And you!” Aelinor whirled to face him, remembering why she had sought him out. “Are you angry? Because I heard you went into the Dragon Pit by yourself again.”

Aemond floundered for a response. “I…they had a pig and it…”

“You can’t, Aemond! Just because you don’t have a dragon doesn’t mean you can be stupid.”

For the first time in his life, Aemond felt himself growing angry at Aelinor. What did she know of his suffering? She had always had a dragon, and she would never have to fight for her place. Everything was just handed to her, often by him, and yet she thought she could tell him what to do with his own life. It was absurd.

“Just shut up, Aelinor. You’re too little to get it.”

Aemond gaped at him, hurt etched across her face. “Aemond…”

He stormed away, leaving her standing alone in the training yard.

Aelinor liked to think that she was too old to be weeping at every little thing, but the thought of fighting with Aemond, of him being angry with her, was enough to have her sobbing all the way back to her family’s chambers. She hadn’t meant to make him angry, only she was so very worried about him. Why couldn’t he understand how important he was to her?

When she stepped into the parlor, her mother looked up from her seat by the fire. The baby was nowhere to be seen, but several maids were bustling around, packing things in wooden crates.

“Oh, my sweet,” Rhaenyra reached for her, and she went easily into her mother’s embrace. “They’ve already told you?”

“Told me what?” Aelinor’s voice was muffled by her mother’s shoulder.

“That we’re leaving, darling,” Rhaenyra tried to wipe her tears. “On the morrow, we leave for Dragonstone.”

Aelinor gasped. “What? Why?” She had never been to Dragonstone, but it sounded very far away from King’s Landing.

“It is for the best,” is all her mother said. “We’ll be leaving before sun-up so that we have most of the day to settle in.”

“Before sun up?” Aelinor shook her head. “Mother, can I stay here? With Darrax and Aemond and Helaena.” She might think her aunt odd, but she was her closest female friend, and Aelinor found she did not want to be without her.

“No,” Rhaenyra’s voice was harsh. “Darrax will come with us, but it is time that our family was left alone, and I know Aemond and Helaena’s mother will want the same.”

Aelinor didn’t much care what their mothers wanted. All she could think about was that she would be leaving tomorrow, without Aemond. “Can I go and say goodbye?”

“It’s late, darling. “You must sleep, for we have an early day and much preparations to do.”

“But—”

“No arguments, Aelinor. Go to your chambers and help the maids pack your things.”

Had Aelinor been stronger, or had she not been in some kind of shock, she might have argued more. But she was a tired little girl after a very trying day, and so she obeyed her mother. And when the sun was barely peeking over the horizon, she let her father bundle her in her cloak and carry her to their ship. It wasn’t until King’s Landing was a speck in the distance that she began to cry, for she hadn’t been able to say goodbye.

Aemond woke early, with a heart filled with regret. The sun was shining through his window, heralding a new day, though he could not find any joy in it. He had been cruel to Aelinor, when she had done nothing to deserve it, and he must make it up to her. Remembering her refusal to accept more jewels, he resolved to collect some fresh flowers from the gardens. She often liked to braid them into her hair (and sometimes his as well), and today he would allow it. If he groveled enough, he could probably retrieve some lemon tarts from the kitchens as well.

His mother was pacing in front of her window when he entered, planning to inform her of his intentions for the day.

“Is something the matter, mother?” He asked, noting the tension in her mouth.

“Oh, everything’s a mess, Aemond,” she sighed, giving him a sad look. “The Princess Rhaenyra and her family are to remove themselves to Dragonstone at once.”

Aemond froze, horror flooding through him. “They can’t!” He couldn’t bear for Aelinor to be all the way on Dragonstone. It was only a short flight by Dragon, but he did not have one, and Aelinor could not fly. “I shall go stop them!”

“It’s too late, sweet boy,” Alicent sighed. “They have already left.”

Aemond shook his head, tearing from the room, but he only needed to reach the base of Maegor’s tower to see that it was true. Tapestries and carpets and trunks were being carried down the steps, to be packed onto the next ship to Dragonstone.

And Aelinor was already gone.

Some Time Later

Daemon Targaryen was her father.

The moment Aelinor first set eyes on him, standing across from her Aunt Laena’s casket, she knew it to be true. She could tell from the set of his mouth, which seemed so similar to her’s, as it had never been to her mother of…Ser Laenor’s. She knew it from the violet of his eyes, which shone with the same brightness as her own, so much more wildly than her mother’s.

And most of all, she knew it from how he stared at her. She could not tell if he was attempting to mask his grief with boredom, but his gaze had been leveled on her since the moment Ser Vaemond began the eulogy. 

It wasn’t as though no one was looking their way. Especially as Ser Vaemond took the opportunity of the funeral, and the immunity it provided, to cast thinly-veiled insults at her family. They had all but fled King’s Landing for reasons she still did not understand, so it was not a surprise that they were an object of fascination. But Prince Daemon’s gaze was not one of curiosity. It was….more. She wasn’t quite sure why it unsettled her so.

Aelinor was almost embarrassed to admit that she had ben excited to go to Driftmark. Not to mourn her Aunt, who she had admired deeply despite having never met, but because Aemond, Helaena and her grandfather would be there. She had longed to see them all in the months since they had departed King’s Landing, and she had so much to share.

And now…she needed to speak to Aemond.

But he wouldn’t look at her. There had been no chance to talk upon arrival, and she had not been able to catch his gaze throughout the service. He just stood next to Aegon, who was looking predictably bored, and kept a serious expression on his face. 

The first chance she had, she would pull him aside.

Aemond couldn’t look at her.

She was so close, so much closer than she had been in months, just standing on the other side of the casket, and he couldn’t work up the courage to look at her. He could feel her eyes on him, but he couldn’t do it. He didn’t deserve it.

Not when she stood there, wearing a dress of black velvet and a matching cloak, her silver hair in a neat plait down her back, and her sapphire pendant hanging at her throat. She was still wearing it. By some miracle, Aelinor was still wearing the sapphire he had given her, even when the last thing he had said to her before she had left had been cruel and harsh.

The past months had been an agony to him. Without Aelinor around, there was little to lessen the overwhelming feeling of being an outsider in his own family. He had thrown himself into his training, but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. No matter how many times he let himself get walloped with a practice sword, or the few times where he managed to strike back with any skill, it was never enough to distract him from the fact that at the end of the day, he was alone. And any time he had asked his mother or his grandfather for permission to write to her, he had been turned away. Their reasons changed constantly, from wanting to give the Princess Rhaenyra her space, to more snide comments about keeping their distance.

He knew the real reason, of course. After the Princess’ family had left, rumors had abounded about the parentage of her three children, and his mother had not hesitated to capitalize on them. He did not mind so much when people criticized Jacaerys and Lucerys, not when they so obviously looked like Strongs, but Aelinor was…Aelinor. She might not have been her father’s daughter, but she was still a Targaryen, as much as the rest of them. As much as…him. She wasn’t like the rest of her family, overrun with scandal. She was just Aelinor.

She was just….his. 

Aelinor had meant to find Aemond as soon as the funeral service was over, but as soon as she emerged into the courtyard, having left her cloak with one of the maids, her gaze landed on a long figure overlooking the ocean. She saw her mother out of the corner of her eye, met her gaze and saw Rhaenyra shake her head, but ultimately she was helpless to stop herself as her legs carried her toward Prince Daemon.

“Which one are you?” Daemon didn’t turn to look at her.

He was quite tall, with broad shoulders and a serious profile. He was not as pretty as Ser Laenor, but she supposed there was something appealing about the harsh lines in his face. That was not enough to keep the rest of the guests from avoiding him as if he were the plague.

“I am Aelinor,” she declared. “And you are my father.”

He didn’t look startled by her declaration. “You put that together, did you? Perhaps there is some hope for you after all.”

Aelinor didn’t quite know how to take that. Instead, she said, “Your wife died.”

“She did,” his jaw clenched.

“Then if you are sad, I am sorry,” she offered a small smile, even though he was not looking at her. “And I hope I shall come to know you, and your daughters.”

Bobbing a curtsy, and feeling as though she had satisfied whatever insane urge had demanded she speak to him, she moved to leave.

“Aelinor, was it?” She froze.

Daemon spun to look at her, and she was once again struck by the startling resemblance between them. She thought she might have seen the slightest softening in his eyes, and if he saw some of himself in her as well. “Do you have a dragon?”

“I do,” she lifted her chin defiantly. “He is called Darrax, and I can ride him now, but not for long.”

This seemed to satisfy him, for he jerked his head in a nod. Taking that as a dismissal, Aelinor moved around the edge of the party. Her brothers stood with their cousins, Baela and Rhaena. She wanted to go and talk to the girls, offer her condolences and welcome them into the family, but she had been somewhat at odds with her brothers since they moved to Dragonstone. She knew they were mourning Ser Harwin Strong, differently than she was. He had always been a comforting presence for her, closer to an uncle than a guard, but she knew that he represented a lot more to her brothers, and she was not without sympathy. But she could not escape the feeling that it was somehow their fault that she had been forced to leave everything behind. This sentiment was wrong of course, but as she was only nine, it was easiest to point fingers at things she understood.

Her brothers and cousins would have to wait, however, for she spotted the person she had been most anxious to see waiting by the stairs.

The urge to run to him was strong, but she managed to contain herself, nodding politely to her grandfather as she hurried toward him.

“Aemond,” she breathed as soon as she was next to him. “You’re here.”

She was close enough to touch. Aelinro was standing right there, a warm smile on her face, though her happy expression faded with every second he didn’t return her joy.

“Aelinor,” he nodded. “It’s good to see you.”

She deflated. “It’s good to see me? We haven’t seen each other in months. Darrax has grown and I—”

The urge to interrupt her, to spit that he didn’t care about her dragon nearly overcame him. He had been conditioned from the months of fending off his brother’s taunts, of feigning indifference in order to get by.

But this was Lina, and the truth was, he did care. He cared too much.

“Why don’t you hate me?” he asked. “I was cruel to you.”

Aelinor blinked at him for a moment, before an easy smile settled across her face. “No silly. You were mean to me. And you were mean because you were sad. You could never be cruel to me, you’re Aemond.” She said it like it was enough, as if being Aemond was some sort of testament to his character. But she was only nine, and he was twelve and so things seemed much simpler than they were.

“No, Aelinor. I should never have been mean to you, and then you were gone and I—”

“But I’m back now,” she grabbed his hand. “And I don’t want to waste any time, alright?”

There were a thousand other things he wanted to say, most of all that he agreed. He didn’t want to waste any time because who knew when they would next get to see each other. The sun was already setting, and he had wasted most of the day being sullen and bitter.

A dragon roared in the distance, and they both turned their heads.

“Vhagar,” Aelinor said sadly. “She must be lonely.”

The idea struck Aemond like a thunderbolt, and once it was in his mind, he could not forget it. He knew what he must do. It was clear as day in front of him, clearer than anything had ever been in his whole life.

“Lina,” he said quietly, watching as she beamed at his nickname for her. “Can we go for a walk? I need to ask you something.”

“You don’t need to ask,” she giggled, looking behind her. “Come, no one notice that we’ve gone.”

No one looked up as the two children slipped away, their hands intertwined, For Aelinor, it felt almost like hold times, with her and Aemond in a world of their own, She didn’t know where they were going, or have any idea of what might happen next, but she was happy.

But the boy next to her, even as he helped her down the last step and they moved out onto the beach, couldn’t help but be consumed with something between ecstasy and dread. Like it or not, he was about to decide his fate.

And Aelinor would be with him, every step of the way.

Aelinor could tell that something was wrong. Aemond wasn’t speaking, not a single word had escaped his lips since they slipped away from the party, and she was starting to suspect that it was more than his usually sullen self. She longed to tell him about Darrax, about how they had finally figured out a way for her to hold the reins and that she had gone flying for the first time, but he just seemed so…distant.

“Where are we going?” She asked, as they approached the sand dunes. “It’s very late.” Only the light of the moon kept it from being pitch black, and still Aemond moved forward. Her feet slipped in the sand, the silk shoes she had worn for the funeral not suited to climbing through tidal pools and mucky sand.

Aemond stopped suddenly, pausing to listen for something. “Do you hear that?”

A little perturbed that he had ignored her question, Aelinor huffed and tried to listen. At first she couldn’t hear much other than the sound of the wind and the waves crashing in the distance, but soon another sound broke through. It was a low, rhythmic rumble, that she recognized to be the breathing of a very, very large dragon.

“Vhagar?” She gasped. “Aemond, we should go back. This is dangerous.”

“It is,” he agreed. “Which is why I shouldn’t have brought you here.” He pointed toward the cliff face a short distance away, where a dim orange glow could be seen from one of the tunnels. “Go hide over there, I’ll be right back.”

“What are you doing?” She grabbed his arm. “Don’t leave me out here!”

“You’ll be safe, and I’ll be right back.” 

He considered lying to her about his motivations. It would be easier to lie, for him to surprise her with his triumphant return, and not have to face her if he failed. But he could not be dishonest with her, especially about this. No one — no one — understood him better than Aelinor.

“I’m going to claim Vhagar,” he told her. “Or I’m going to die trying.”

These were very frightening words for a nine year old, and for Aelinor they were even more terrifying. She had just gotten Aemond back, and she couldn’t imagine ever losing him. But she knew he wanted a dragon more than anything else in the world, and she knew how hard it had been for him.

“Shouldn’t…” she fumbled for an argument. “Shouldn’t Baela have first claim? Vhagar was her mother’s dragon.”

“And she was Visenya’s before that. She belongs to the Targaryens, and we should all have equal claim,” Aemond saw that she wasn’t convinced. “Please, Lina. If I fail then the chance is Baela’s, but I have my chance, perhaps my only chance, right here. Please let me take it.”

Let me. Like he truly wouldn’t do it if she refused him.

“You could get hurt,” she whispered.

Aemond nodded. “Please.”

This was an impossible thing to ask of her. She was only nine years old, and things like life and death still seemed so far away from her. She didn’t want to risk losing Aemond, but she had also never been denied something that she had wanted. He had always made sure that she wanted for nothing. How could she now stand in his way, when he was all but begging her to stand aside.

Aelinor sighed, a shaky breath that was part fear and part exasperation. “You paid attention in our lessons, you have as good a chance as anyone. But please be careful.”

Aemond breathed a sigh of relief.

“I will,” he promised. “Can you just…keep watch? In case the others wake up?” He wasn’t sure what others he was expecting, but he knew it would cause a commotion if he were to claim — or be eaten — by Vhagar.

“They’ll be angry,” Aelinor shook her head. “Aemond, never mind Baela and Rhaena, my brothers will—”

“You’ll just be keeping watch, Lina. and you don’t have to. You can go to bed, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

They both knew that that wasn’t really an option. She would never be able to sleep without knowing if he was alright, and it was unlikely that he would be able to pull this off without someone keeping watch.

“I’ll do it,” she said quietly. “Please, please be careful, Aemond. I can’t lose you.”

He wanted to wrap her in a hug, but he knew that if he did he would probably lose his nerve. “I’ll come back to you Lina, I swear it.”

Knowing that he had never broken a promise to her, she took a deep breath and nodded. “Go. I’ll be by the tunnel when you get back.”

Aemond forced a smile, not letting it slide from his face until she had disappeared into the shadows at the base of the cliff.

And then he started his climb.

Aelinor thought she might faint. She had no idea how much time had passed since Aemond had disappeared over the sand dune, and she was fighting every instinct to run after him and stop him from being so foolish. Her fingernails had cut into her palms from the nerves, and she felt like she was close to tears.

Nestled just outside the mouth of the tunnel, she was sheltered from the worst of the night wind. She was fairly sure that the chill seeping into her skin had nothing to do with the temperature, and everything to do with the terror flooding her veins.

All of a sudden, she heard a great stirring of wind. Peeking out into the moonlight, her mouth dropped open as she watched Vhagar take to the skies, Aemond on her back.

And then she was sobbing.

He had done it! He was really flying!

Clasping both hands to her mouth to keep from crying out, Aelinor jumped up and down. He was doing it! Soon they would be able to fly their dragons together, and everything would be perfect.

She could hear Aemond yelling, hopefully from joy, before Vhagar circled back down.

[fideidefenswhore]

i don’t want to be pedantic, but all they had to do was omit two choice words from this and i probably would have been fine with it:

[lady-divine-writes]

Good Omens - “Dangerous Waters” (Rated PG13)

Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley's honeymoon gets waylaid by an amorous dolphin named Zafar.

And it's all Crowley's fault. (954 words)

Notes: Written for @summerofspock's Ineffably Sweet (and Spicy) February prompt 'love languages'. Yeah, I know it's late XD

Read on AO3.

"Really, dear?" Aziraphale sighs as he surveys the commotion, a smile shadowing the corner of his mouth in spite of himself. Of all the asinine situations he imagined himself ending up in now that he had officially married Crowley, this was definitely not one of them. 

"This is more Mother Nature's fault than mine!" Crowley crosses his arms over his chest, jutting out his lower lip like a petulant child and not a powerful demon. From the stories Crowley tells, a great many demons pout when they don't get their way. Only their tantrums are accompanied by death and mayhem.

In Crowley's case, shredded flora, open drunkenness, and animal possession.

The latter being the case here.

A wail of alarm rings out, pulling Aziraphale's focus. He spots the instrument of havoc instantly: a bottlenose dolphin cutting through the water, making like a bullet straight for a lone kayaker. Aziraphale knows he really should do something to stop this, but it's much like watching a train accident unfold.

It can be entertaining in a morbid way... 

...as long as it's not your train.

"But you do claim some responsibility for this mess?" Aziraphale asks.

"Well, yeah. Naturally," Crowley says with infuriating smugness. What he has done would be considered quite the accomplishment by any mischief-loving demon. Aziraphale accepts that. It's what he married into.

Just not on their honeymoon.

Despite the kayaker's valiant effort to paddle away, the dolphin catches up with him and overturns his boat. Aziraphale flinches on the man's behalf. 

"How at fault would you say you are? Give me a rough estimate."

"Ten, maybe twelve percent?"

"Fine." Aziraphale snaps his fingers, sending the kayaker and his vessel far away before the inevitable. No one is safe in the water at the moment. Crowley made certain of that. "I am blaming you for approximately thirteen percent of this kerfuffle."

"Thirteen! Why thirteen? I put the cap at twelve!"

"Because, ultimately, you're the reason I get to play audience to this particular blasphemy when I could have happily spent the rest of my existence not!" But Aziraphale's argument loses steam when he snorts out the last word. He hadn't intended to. He has been trying to play up his frustration. 

It isn't difficult. 

After knowing Crowley for 6000 years, he's had plenty of practice. 

But he puts a hand over his mouth, coughing to cover a laugh when a passing tour guide explains to a troupe of disgruntled tourists that no, they won’t be allowed to bathe in the crystal blue waters off the shore of Landevennec today. 

The shoreline has been closed off, thanks to Zafar. 

Zafar is a local dolphin popular with tourists and residents alike for his friendliness and easygoing nature. He accompanies swimmers during their morning laps, lets bathers grab his dorsal fin to give them rides, eats fish out of their hands, that sort of thing.

But not today.

Today the pesky critter is in heat.

"I thought you admired dolphins," Crowley tries.

"Admire is one thing. Watching this randy porpoise assault bathers is quite another!"

"Actually, dolphins and porpoises are not the same..." Crowley bites his tongue when Aziraphale's blistering gaze snaps his way and latches on. Crowley clears his throat repentantly. "Sorry, sorry. But you were the one lamenting the throngs of tourists quote/unquote ruining our honeymoon. You said you wanted peace and quiet. An idyllic getaway from the burden that is worrying about the needs of humans. Those were your exact words. And I wanted you to have the perfect holiday. So..." A scream cuts through Crowley's excuse, stopping it cold. He clears his throat again, but his voice still cracks. 

No. It squeaks. "I took care of it."

"By setting loose a horny dolphin?"

"Twelve percent at fault, remember?"

"Why don't you call him off then?"

Crowley glances away - to the sky, his feet, the shimmering waters, vacant except for a few foolhardy souls. "I...can't control him."

Aziraphale raises an accusing brow while his stomach aches from a need to laugh. "You can't?"

“Uh, ngk, no. No, I can’t.”

“Why the Heaven not?”

Crowley loosens his collar, tugging till the buttons come close to popping. “He, uh, refuses to do wot I say."

At that, Aziraphale nearly loses it altogether. Another scream and a forboding splash signal how serious things have gotten, how quickly the chaos has progressed, but Aziraphale can't help a snicker. 

It's too ridiculous to think about. 

And in the center of it all, his poor husband, who tried so hard to give Aziraphale the quaint afternoon he wanted: a picnic on the beach and several hours of uninterrupted reading set against a backdrop of soothing waves and singing shorebirds. He should scold Crowley about interfering with the mating habits of innocent animals. But he doesn’t want to see his husband suffer. 

Not on their honeymoon.

Not yet, at least. 

Crowley's love language is Acts of Service.

Aziraphale intends on putting that to the test in other, more intimate ways.

As soon as they sort out this mess.

"I see." Aziraphale weeds his arm through his husband’s and starts leading him away from the beach. His perfect picnic can wait for another day. 

One with less terror incited. 

He snaps his fingers behind his back to set the hormonal dolphin and the traumatized bathers back to right. “Good thing I know a much better spot for quiet reflection."

"Yeah?" Crowley sniffs, disappointed at what a disaster the afternoon has been. His heart was in the right place. It's his execution that needs a little work. "And where's that?"

Aziraphale rests his head on his husband's shoulder as they stroll away from the crowded beach sans amorous animal. "Our hotel room."

[forcefulkitten]

bare my burden

[illumi zoldyck x fem! reader]

summary: feeling powerless and out of control due to his mission not going as planned, Illumi makes you feel the same way.

warnings: 18+, nsfw, rough sex, deepthroating, face-fucking

word count: 1,956

It had been a week since your husband, Illumi Zoldyck, left the estate to complete a mission. He said he’d be back two days ago, and he wasn’t back yet. Punctual as he is, he normally arrived before he estimated. You liked to lie to yourself by thinking he did this to surprise you by his early arrival, but you know that he actually used his timeframes as a deadline and made sure to complete things before then. 

The weather out was gloomy on this evening.. Storm clouds filled the sky and heavy rain fell right onto the buds of the beautiful flowers in the Zoldyck Estate. It was always such a sight to see. You had just finished taking a relaxing bath, enjoying a cup of tea and were laying down under your warm comforter when you heard a familiar knock at the door. This knock was Illumi for sure, his signature way to let you know it was him and not one of the butlers. As unapologetic as he was, he always made sure to knock before entering. Two days after his predicted arrival, you were thrilled to finally have him back after missing him and being so worried that things had gone awry.

“Illumi~.” You sang in a tired voice when you heard your door open. Turning around to face him while laying in your bed, your eyes followed his muscular build walk straight into the bathroom as he closed the door behind himself. You thought nothing of this since Illumi loved to jump straight into the shower after he returned from a mission. As you lifted the comforter off your legs, you heard the bathroom door lock. ‘That’s weird’ you thought to yourself. Illumi never locked the bathroom door, since you two always showered together upon his return from a mission. It was routine that you’d jump in and help him clean off and unwind. You then heard the shower water start, and decided to lay back down. He was 2 days late and locked the door behind him, perhaps he needed some time alone. The sound of heavy rain hitting the windows, the warm comforter over you and the subconscious protected feeling of having Illumi back home quickly lulled you to sleep.

“Get up, Y/N.” 

“Wake up. It’s too early to fall asleep for the night right now.”

“Y/N.”

You were woken up after hearing Illumi speaking sternly beside you and feeling his grip on your arm shaking you back into reality. You sat up rubbing your eyes and looking over at the time. It had only been an hour since you’d fell asleep and were grumbling that Illumi wouldn’t allow you some rest especially since he needed some as well.

“Illu.. I missed you. You were gone longer than you predicted. Did everything go as planned?” Finally opening your eyes completely and meeting Illumi’s glare, you took note of the scowl on his face. His glare was colder than normal, and if looks could kill then you’d be dead. This could’ve meant a million different things but you assumed it was regarding his mission and attempted to slice the tension in the room by leaning over to kiss Illumi. He leaned back and grabbed you by your chin. “No. It didn’t. But you already knew that, didn’t you?” Illumi’s tone was sharp and full of annoyance. He knew that you could pick up on his moods and were always analyzing him to figure things out because the nature of his personality. It was going to be a long, merciless night. Illumi rarely became stressed out about his job. Years of torture masked as “training” subjected him to so many different scenarios that the man could quite possibly survive and endure anything. But when he felt powerless or out of control, you were the one person who felt that wrath while things were temporarily out of his reach. Illumi would always be sure to complete the job even if he has to restrategize, but not before subjecting you to the same feeling he has at the moment.

Illumi leaned back against the headboard and sighed. You crawled over and onto his lap, looking into his eyes that could burn a hole in hell if he wanted to. You wished he would melt into your touch but his frustration engulfed his tense body just like your desire to help him feel better. You fell into his hands so easily all the time, making it your number one responsibility to always ease Illumi into feeling like the human he never got a chance to be. You began to straddle his waist and wrapped your arms around Illumi’s shoulders, leaning your breasts against his chiseled chest. Threading your fingers through his hair while kissing and licking his neck, Illumi didn't give in to your ministrations. “Y/N,” Illumi spoke out, voice void of any emotion like usual and you leaned off of him to meet his gaze. He grabbed the back of your neck and pulled your lips into a harsh, needy kiss which made you moan out at the unexpected force. His tongue delved into your mouth aggressively, tongues dancing and heavy breaths eliciting from you that filled the previously strained room with lust. Illumi’s free hands grabbed your ass, playing with your cheeks before spreading them and bringing his hand to your already soaked pussy. He swiped at your wetness and brought his deft fingers to play with your clit. His fingers swirling perfectly, the coil in your stomach began to build while you moaned his name out desperately. Your hips grinded harder against his hand and you leaned in to make out with him, needing something to ground you from your growing orgasm. A few more ruts onto his hardened cock, swollen lips fighting each other and his fingers precisely rubbing your swollen bud made your orgasm hit quicker than you hoped and you rode out your high as much as Illumi allowed.

Your face was flushed, mind clouded and full of desperation for him to make love to you but you were snapped back into reality when he wrapped his arms around you and picked you up while scooting himself off the bed. He took his briefs off, long slender cock springing out while you positioned yourself on your knees. When he looked down at you it was with dangerous eyes. You knew the pleasure you felt previously was only a build up for whatever merciless fuck he wanted to put you through right after he used your throat.

You began swirling your tongue around the tip of his length before attempting to take him in fully. Illumi’s cock is big, and you always had to focus on not hitting the back of your throat too quick. Before you could even bring Illumi’s sex fully into your mouth, he weaved his fingers in your hair and began bucking his hips into your mouth. Drool spilled out the sides while you’re focusing your breathing through your nose & bobbing your head back and forth. Low grunts left his lips and hearing his husky, lust filled noises made your entire body feel warm. You didn’t understand how gagging on his cock could bring you such euphoria. Bracing yourself to deepthroat him, you repositioned yourself to get the best angle and began slipping your mouth further onto his cock. You wanted to send him over the edge. This was a dangerous game to play with Illumi. His fingers that were laced in your hair found their way to your scalp and he then moved one hand to the back of your neck before slamming his cock all the way into your throat, your nose touching his body. Illumi’s quite literally fucking your face at this point, and you’re trying so hard not to pass out, squeezing his thighs with your fingers in hopes that he’ll notice you’re nearly past your limit. He continued his ministrations, bucking into your mouth hard just to chase his release. Black is starting to encompass your vision and you think you’re going to pass out before he pulls you off his cock. A slick line of spit from your mouth to his penis breaks and falls onto your chest and you finally bring air back into your lungs. Illumi looks at you with a dangerous, cold look, before grabbing your soaked chin and making you look at him. “Up, now.”

Illumi began kissing you while guiding you backwards onto your comfortable bed. Pushing your shoulders down once you fell seated onto the bed, he crawled above you, caging you between his arms. You leaned up, sucking and biting Illumi’s neck, trying to mark him up. Much to your surprise, he wasn't complaining or resisting even though he always verbalized how much he hated the look of hickies. Humping you slowly, you feel his aroused length prodding your inner thigh and shudder. You want him so badly. He can see that you’re practically begging him to have his way with you, release some tension, you want to feel close with him, you want him to know that he can let go of his frustration with you.

Illumi lined his cock up with your wet slick, rubbing the tip against your clit deliciously before inching himself all the way into your cunt. The stretch always so pleasantly painful. He began thrusting at a slower pace, lifting one of your legs over his shoulder and hitting the perfect spot that made you moan out his name incoherently. Illumi leaned towards you, kissing and biting your neck, repaying you for leaving marks on him. You can hear his breathing hitch in your ear and it sent more arousal to your core. “Fuck.” Illumi moaned while continuing to thrust into you with perfect precision. Physically you were there with him, mentally you were on cloud 9. “You’re, squeezing me, so tight.” Illumi emphasized every word with a hard slam into your pussy, all of which threw you back into reality.

Grabbing both of your legs and folding them onto your body as far as they would go, Illumi brought you into a mating press. Using your ankles as leverage, he slammed into your abused cunt with all of his body weight. Each thrust forced a whimper out of your mouth and Illumi loved the helpless look on your face as he overpowered you. You could do nothing but enjoy the onslaught in this position. The room was filled with your wanton moans, his heavy breathing and it felt like everytime his cock hit your cervix that you were about to be sent over the edge. A few more heavy and hard thrusts caused the coil to break again, your orgasm coating your inner walls and spilling all over Illumi’s cock. He continued fucking into you as you came down from your high, so overstimulated at this point. His orgasm hit soon after, and his grip on you became even tighter. Desperate to ride out his orgasm, he continued plunging into you, slower and gentler while he filled your core with every drop of his seed. The feeling of his dick twitching in your cunt was amazing. Pulling out of your cunt, you missed the feeling of him inside you already. He released your legs from his hold, your legs falling onto the bed as he looked at you all fucked out and beautiful for him. Chest heaving, heavy lidded eyes, you stared back at him with adoration. “Feeling better, Illu?” Your words sounded desperate, almost sorry, and definitely vulnerable. Illumi leaned forward and kissed your forehead, rubbing your cheek with his thumb. “A little, but I’m not done with you yet.”

[winterscaptain]

pretty/drunk

Aaron Hotchner x Fem!Reader a joyful future fic

a/n: this doesn’t have any gendered pronouns, but some of the content was fairly fem-coded and i didn’t want anyone to experience anything triggering/unpleasant, so i tagged it fem. all my gals, gays, hes, and theys can be pretty and wear fancy underwear!! (i can always adapt a super super gender neutral version if anyone wants it! or hell, even male-coded. we’re inclusive in this house!) also my smut taglist is...not updated. yikes.

words: 2.5k warnings: alcohol use, drunk!aaron, smut (oral w/reader receiving, penetrative sex, creampie)

summary: “compliments cost nothing, yet many pay dear for them.” - thomas fuller

masterlist | a joyful future masterlist | ajf faq | requests closed!

“You’re so pretty,” Aaron says, his words only slurring a little. He’s followed you into the bathroom at Will and JJ’s like a lost puppy and can’t keep his hands to himself. 

You laugh, pulling his arms further around you. “Aaron, honey, you’re really drunk.”

His brow crinkles. You can see it in the mirror. “Do I… not tell you you’re pretty when I’m not drunk? Because I should do that.”

“No,” you assure him with a pat to the back of his hand. “You do, but you have less of an agenda when you’re sober.”

He laughs in that delightful little way he does when he’s drunk and he knows he’s been caught. “That’s not true. I always have an agenda.”

As if to make his point, his mouth drops to your neck, finding that spot that makes you sigh. You can feel your heartbeat in your bits at this point, but you won’t give him the satisfaction. 

You turn, holding his face in your hands. His eyes are only a little glassy - he’s playing it up because he knows it makes you laugh. “You’re not very subtle, sweetheart.”

“But you’re so pretty,” he grumbles, tucking his face into your neck again. 

“Okay, love. Let’s go. C’mon.”

You eventually get him back down the hallway and into the living room. 

Emily smirks at you, but you only roll your eyes and shake your head. 

Don’t be ridiculous. 

She shrugs. Not the first time it woulda happened. 

Fair point, your eyebrows say. She laughs. 

Jack’s running soccer drills with Henry in the backyard - still full of energy despite the ridiculously late hour - and JJ’s offered to have the boys over at her place tonight. 

“You’re sure?” 

“Pfft, absolutely. What’s one more? Jack’s easy.” 

You laugh lightly. “Can’t argue with that.” 

“And,” she adds, “I figure you guys could use the night. You know, sober up and stuff.” 

Squinting at her, you say, “I’m not drinking tonight.” 

“Just sayin’.”

With a roll of your eyes, you take Aaron by the elbow and lead him out the door and into the car. He’s terribly floppy when he’s just passed buzzed, but you know he’d never get drunk enough to actually make you babysit him. 

He’d explained it to you once. 

“Sweetheart, I’m not in my twenties anymore so wicked hangovers are an inevitability. And it’s inconsiderate.” 

+++

He’s particularly handsy as you walk up to the apartment, impeding your forward momentum as he drags you back against him, grinding playfully against you at every opportunity. 

“Aaron, quit!” You whisper-shout at him, mindful of your neighbors. It’s much later than your usual arrival time and you’re actually aware of the sleepy nature of the suburban apartment complex on a Saturday night. 

You finally let yourself into the apartment and lock the door behind you, setting the alarm as soon as you take your shoes off. 

Aaron’s leisure is apparent - he’s taking his time with his winter trappings (though you’re pretty sure he’d trip if he went at his normal pace). You watch him methodically place his shoes into the rack and hang his coat, brushing imagined debris off the sleeve. 

When he’s done, he turns back to you with a look he might think is smooth. Really, he just looks rather undone. 

Delightfully undone. 

You sigh and cross the room, pulling his lips to yours and winding your fingers in his hair. He moans into your mouth and you’re violently reminded of the other perk of an inebriated Aaron: while already vocal, his lowered inhibitions increase his volume in… almost every situation. 

“Come to bed, baby,” you whisper against him. 

You can feel his smile. “Okay.” 

Taking him by the hand, you drag him to your bedroom and close the door behind you out of habit. 

He presses you against the wall, his hands wandering down your ribs, your hips, your ass, up your shirt as his searing kisses poke holes in your desire to sleep. 

You pull back, your head against the wall. “I have something for you. Wanna see?” 

His eyes are firmly stuck on your mouth, but he nods. 

“Wait for me. I’ll be right back.” 

With a wolfish grin, he steps back (carefully) and starts to undo his belt buckle. As nice a visual as that is, you know you have a limited window before he crashes. 

Drunk Aaron often means Sleepy Aaron. If your estimation is right - you have about ten minutes. 

Slipping into the bathroom, you dig around in your side of the cabinet until you find the little bag you’ve been hiding. It’s lingerie you bought last year on his birthday, but hadn’t had the occasion to show him - between cases and Jack, there was never an opportune time. 

You change somewhat leisurely, giving yourself the time to get really worked up, thinking about the way Aaron’s hands and mouth feel on every square inch of your skin. When you’re well and truly warm, you open the door -

And find Aaron completely zonked, naked, halfway-under the turned-down covers. 

Looks like it was more like five minutes. 

You can’t help but smile at the sight. He’s adorable with his face all squished into the pillow, curled toward your side of the bed. 

You strip, leaving the treats back under the cabinet, and slip under the covers wearing nothing at all. 

+++

You’re sure you’re having the best sex dream of your life. Getting all worked up before bed often had its own consequences, but you find yourself waking before you can really grab onto the feeling. 

A bit frustrated, you rouse yourself and realize Aaron grinding against you isn’t part of your dream. You reach back, tangling your fingers in his hair - not enough to pull, but enough to let him know you’re awake. 

“Aaron?” 

“Hmm?” 

You let out a shaky breath and arch your back, sending your ass right into him. He groans and you feel his hand wander from your abdomen to your center, aching and soaked all the way to your thighs. 

His talented fingers wander over your heated skin, circling your clit and dipping into you but not enough. You wiggle against him impatiently, but he shushes you, laving your neck and shoulder with languid, wet kisses that leave you squirming. 

Your eyes flutter shut as he ducks under the covers, his kisses traveling down the curve of your spine, to your waist. You squeak when his teeth sink into the soft skin above your hip, immediately soothed with his tongue. Letting him lead, you wait until his fingers wrap around your knee before you swing your leg over his head. 

His pleased hum is audible and it sends a shiver down your spine. 

Your heel slides up his shoulder in your attempt to get him where you want him, but you can feel the muscles of his back ripple as he resists you, pillowing his head on your thigh. 

Aaron presses kisses to the crease of your thigh until you’re well and truly squirming. 

He lets out a drawn-out moan as his tongue makes contact with your slit and you swear he drinks from you before sloppily licking and mouthing his way to your clit, rolling the little nub on his tongue. 

“Perfect,” he whispers against you, wrapping his lips around you and sucking for a moment before taking one long pass from stem to stern with the flat of his tongue. 

You whimper, pressing the back of one hand to your mouth while the other tangles in his hair, holding him in place. 

He lifts, even against the pressure of your hand, and looks up at you, his nose, mouth, and chin glistening in the low light. “Nobody’s home, baby.” He drops a kiss to your clit. “Let me hear you.” 

You keep your eyes on his as he positively devours you. After what seems like forever, he drops his gaze, giving you a breathtaking view of his long eyelashes resting against his cheekbone. 

His arms slide over your lower back, wrapping around you to hold you steady as he rocks his face into you. It’s sloppy, loud, and immaculate. 

Closing your eyes and relaxing everything you can, you focus entirely on the sensation of his tongue against your clit, the way the whole lower half of his face burrows as far into you as he can get, ever seeking something more, somewhere closer. 

Your walls flutter on their own, pushed to the brink by his ministrations. Your hips buck a little and you let out the breath you didn’t know you were holding in a huff. 

“Fuck, Aaron. You’re so good.” 

“Mhmm.” His hum doesn’t leave your skin, but he still sounds way too full of himself. When you yank on his hair in light admonishment for his own self-awareness, he lets out another groan from deep in his chest. 

It rumbles through you, all the way to your bones. You can’t help but shudder again and his arms tighten around you.  

You can feel his muscles pull and flex under your calf as he chases friction, grinding into the sheets. His expression belies none of it - there’s not a grain of tension in his forehead, his eyebrows sit relaxed when they’re not pulled together in surprise or pleasure. 

One of his arms slides out from under you, running his fingers over your thigh before lifting his mouth from you. He wets his fingers, pulling them slowly from his lips and dropping them to tease your entrance. 

He raises his eyebrows expectantly, meeting your eyes. 

You give in. 

“Please.” 

With a smirk, he runs his fingers from your bundle of nerves to your slit, slipping them inside you with unbearable lack of haste. You wiggle against him and he relents, diving back into you with more than enthusiasm. 

Your voice is somewhere between a gasp and a whine. “Aaron, you’re gonna make me come.” You twist, but his arms hold you fast as you curl into your pillow. 

He doesn’t falter for a second, going down on you like it’s his favorite thing to do (it is, actually) until you’re overcome, shaking and overwrought with pleasure. His gentle guidance through your peak only prolongs it, sweetening the pleasure until it hums through your body. 

Finding his way back to you, he takes the same route he took on his way down, kissing his way to your knee, taking your leg back over his head, and wandering up your back with his lips and tongue. 

He settles behind you again and wraps you in his arms, pressing kisses to your neck. 

You turn your head and he meets your lips with his own. It’s an awkward angle, sure, but sex by definition is awkward - what’s one more element? 

You kiss the taste of yourself off of him, his little pleased noises only egging you on. Impatiently, you reach behind you and wrap your hand around his cock, stroking just the way he likes it (with a twist of your wrist at the tip) until he stops you with a hand over yours. 

“Either I come inside you or not at all.” 

With a little laugh, you release him. “By all means, darling. Be my guest.” 

Aaron’s got a stupid little smile on his face you can only see half of, but you make it clear you have no intention of moving, arching your back again to give him more access. 

Positioning himself between your thighs, he runs his cock over your heated flesh, between your lips, still sensitive from your orgasm. You relax into him with a shaky exhale, rocking back and seeking friction. 

His breath is hot at your ear as he eases into you, the angle from this position new and tight. You move with him, meeting him inch for inch as he slowly gives you more and more with each thrust. 

He brings his hand to your waist and you can feel him trembling. You bring your knees closer to your chest and he shifts so the top of his thighs are flush with the back of yours. 

You whimper as he finds that place inside you, and hits it over and over and over with alarming consistency. He’s bottoming out with every thrust and you’re seeing stars. 

The arm underneath him snakes under your pillow and around your shoulders, his fingers splayed over your chest. The arm at your waist sneaks down to your clit and you do him a favor - lifting your knee as close to your shoulder as you can get it. 

He loops his arm around your thigh, holding you open for him, while he drowns his fingers in his handiwork from before. It’s been almost two years and he's mastered that angle on your clit - the one that has you nearly in tears within seconds, gasping little sobs leaving you as you’re once again pushed to the breaking point. 

“Harder,” you tell him. “More.” 

His lips glued to the slope between your neck and shoulder, he pounds into you faster, harder, the sound of his hips snapping to yours filling the bedroom. 

Your orgasm crests over you all at once and you can’t even thrash as your vision whites out and your legs violently shake - his hold on you is tight and all-consuming. He well-and-truly fucks you, chasing his pleasure while riding you through yours. 

He gasps and you know he’s close. You bring your hand behind you to his hair again and hold him to you, the softness of his ungelled hair grounding you as the rest of your body continues to alight with sensation. 

“Fuck, I’m -” His brief warning is rough, breathless, and relentlessly hot. You look in front of you, seemingly for the first time, and realize your mirrored closet doors are right there. 

Your mouth drops open as you watch Aaron drive into you, deep, and unlatch from your neck, his eyes squeezing shut and mouth open, a groan leaving him. You can feel him inside you, warm and full, as he releases, his hips barely leaving yours as he shallowly ruts into you. 

You can’t tear your eyes from his reflection. He’s beautiful - perfectly undone and entirely blissed out. You clench and flex, milking everything you can from him until his body seems to melt into yours, the tension drawing out of his fingers, arms, then finally his brow. 

He hooks his chin over your shoulder, laying his cheek against yours. A low hum leaves him and a content smile curls at his lips. 

Yours matches, and you lace your fingers through his, pulling his arms tighter around you. “Did you tick off all your agenda items?” 

His eyes remain close as he answers with a little nod. “Mhmm.” 

“Are you still a little drunk?” 

“Hmm…” He actually thinks about his answer for a second. “Only a little. Mostly wanted to make you laugh.” 

You’ll have to go clean up eventually, but he snuggles impossibly closer, still inside you as he softens, and kisses your cheek, sweet and chaste. 

“You’re so pretty.”

tagging:  @quillvine @stxrrywildflower @ughitsbaby @rousethemouse @criminalsmarts @shrimpyblog @genevievedarcygranger @ssaic-jareau @angelsbabey @writefasttalkevenfaster @venusbarnes @ogmilkis @marvels-agents100 @hotchslatte @risenfox @mrs-dr-reid @captain-christopher-pike @dwellingsofrosie @pinkdiamond1016 @aaronhotchnerr @violentvulgarvolatile @mooneylupinblack @ssareidbby @ssa-morgan @violet-amxthyst @capricorngf @pan-pride-12 @mandylove1000 @joanofarkansass  @cevanswhre @infinity1321 @zizzlekwum @popped-weasels @mandylove1000 @jeor @capricorngf @missdowntonabbey @nuvoleincielo @ssahotchnerr @bwbatta @roses-and-grasses @winqhster @the-falling-in-the-danger @iconicc @mangoberry43 @crazyshannonigans @ceceguajardo-blog @deagibs

[sukorakurai]

@snarkyship is a true genius. I commission this Stark Family Portrait and I couldn’t be happier. I wrote a little fic to accompany this fabulous Picture. hope you all enjoy.

Stark Family Picture Day

 By Sukora Kurai

  Tony sighed over the counter in the communal kitchen. He had been there since dawn when he asked Jarvis what day it was. Then his trusty AI informed him of an importance of this month. Now he was stuck with what to do now.

 “Hey Tony what’s got you down?”

 “Hey Capsicle, I’m doomed.”

 “Oh come on Tony, it can’t be that bad you are an Avenger.” Steve smiled as he got out food to make omelets for the Team, and greeted the in coming members. “Morning Nat, morning Bruce.”

 “Morning Steve, what’s wrong with Tony?” Bruce greeted heading to the stove to put the kettle on for his morning tea.

 “Not sure I found him like this.” Steve stated cracking some eggs into a bowl.

 “His and Loki’s anniversary is this month and he has no idea what to get him.” Nat answered pouring a large mug of coffee.

 Tony shot up in his seat and stared slack jawed. “How could you possibly know that?”

 “It’s my job as a shield Agent and Pepper’s PA to keep tabs on you. So it is well documented when you clumsily asked Loki to be your boyfriend during the Lord of the Rings Marathon where you bought out the AMC Theater for the day.” The Spy shrugged ignoring the fact that all her team mates stared at her in horror. All were now wondering what she had on them in those SHIELD files.

 “So Tony, you have and anniversary coming up? Have you though about what Loki might like?” Steve coughed drawing the conversation back to the main topic.

 “No, I don’t. What does one give a god especially one that has magic and can make anything appear out of thin air?” Tony waved his arms in frustration.

 “That is a tough one but I’m sure anything you get him will be fine. Loki loves you Tony.” Bruce tried to be supportive.

 “I hope you will be putting more thought into the gift you give me next month for our anniversary.” Nat gave the Gamma Doctor a pointed before wandering out of the room to start her routine before heading out to work.

 “Ha, I’m not the only one in hot water now!” Tony crowed at the look of devastation in his science-bro’s face.

 “Tony, knock it off. Now in my day it was the thought that counted most. You should find what Loki cherishes the most. You find that then you can present to him in a meaningful way. It’s true he’s a prince and probably has had his other lovers throw jewels and meaningless expensive trinkets at him to win his affections. You know Loki better because you love him and he loves you.” Steve pointed out.

 “Yeah, Lokes complains a lot about his life in Asgard and that there were many who wooed him just to get to Thor. At night when it’s just the two of us and RC snuggled between us he sighs soft and says what a perfect night it is. He never elaborates but I think it means that he likes just the quiet nights with us.” The genius eyes went glazed as he recalled the many nights he cuddled with his god. Then the idea hit him. “Hey Spangles, can you paint or do you just draw?”

 “Huh,” Steve was caught off guard and almost dropped the omelet he was flipping. “I paint from time to time.”

 “Don’t lie babe you are in your studio whenever can get the chance.” Bucky laughed entering the kitchen. “All the paintings in our apartment Stevie did.”

 “Great! Can you do a portrait if I get you a picture?” Tony asked digging in to the ham and cheese omelet.

 “Yeah, it might take two weeks maybe less depends on if we get called out or if SHIELD needs me.” The captain estimated placing another plate in front of his boyfriend.

 “As long as it’s done before the end of the month we’re good.  Jarvis start looking through my photos and pull out any possible portraits.”

 “Yes, sir.”

 “Delicious breakfast as usual Capsicle. I’ll get you the photo as soon as I find one.” Tony dumped his empty plate in sink and ran off to his lab.

 Two hours later…

 “None of these are good enough J.”

 “Sir, might I suggest you take a new photo of you and Prince Loki.”

 “Yeah and RC too, because she’s our baby. We can’t have a Family Portrait without all the family members. Where’s are RC now?”

 “She is currently with Alpine in his play room.”

 “Cool, I think I got the perfect outfit in mind.” Tony grinned as he ran to his emergency closet in the lab. Tony had put in the closet when he realized he destroyed a lot of his clothes during his inventing and building phases. Also there was a suit or two for the days he forgot he was supposed to be in a meeting and had to make a rush to the board room.

  In the penthouse…

  It had been a quiet morning with no call outs, no calls to Asgard and no need to go anywhere. Loki decided to enjoy the peace and quite lounging in his soft Asgardian casual clothes on the couch reading his mother’s spell journal.

 “Hey there, Bambi! It’s Picture Day!”

 “Anthony, what are you on about?” The prince looked up from his book to see his lover carrying their cat into the living room.

 “Well Picture Day refers to the day school kids take pictures for the yearbook and photos are bought for family distribution. Anyways I want to have a family picture that was honest. I never had that growing up because Howard was an asshole and Maria, my mother, was frail. She loved me but she couldn’t express it because she was always ill. Now we have our own little family and I want a picture to put in the lab.”

 “You want to take this picture now? Anthony, I look a mess and how did you get the bow on the cat?”

 “Aww, you look gorgeous, love, as always. Anyways, I put a bow on our baby because RC loves to look pretty for her daddies. Don’t you sweetie.” Tony scratched under the kitty’s chin as they sat on couch next to the god.

 “Mew,” RC purred.

 “Fine, you win, where would you like to take the picture? Also what are you wearing? I don’t believe I’ve seen that outfit before, and what is on your feet?” Loki set his book aside and took in his lover’s appearance.

 “Oh you like? I dressed in red and gold to match my shoes. I had these shoes made based on my Iron Man suit. I thought maybe putting them on the market for kids but I liked them too much to share. So I have a life time supply in the lab. If you want I can have a pair made for you.”

 “No thank you. They clash with my outfit. Now let’s take your picture.” Loki said taking the cat in his arms.

 “Okay, okay. Let me get out my phone.” Tony fished his Stark Phone out of his back pocket and held it out to make them all fit in the frame. “Okay say cheese!”

 “Click”

 “Okay let’s see how that one turned out.” Tony looked at the photo to see him smiling a black blur and a bland look on Loki’s face. “Nope we got try again. This time smile Loki and RC you need to stay still so we can see you.”

 And it went picture by picture they have yet to take a family portrait.

 “Shit I only got half your face.”

 “Anthony your thumb is on the lens.”

 “RC Stay still!”

 “Achoo! Ow! I dropped on my foot!”

 “Do not eat my hair you Retched Creature!”

 “Okay I set it up on a tripod. Now say cheese.”

 “CHEESE BROTHER!” Thor popped up between the two men who stared at shock at the blond god.

 “Next!” Tony rolled his eyes as Loki vanished his brother to where ever. Tony didn’t ask where the Loki sent Thunder god. He rather liked staying in the tower and wanted to keep it that way.

 “Meow!”

 “No RC! Don’t chase the bunny!”

 Three Hours Later…

 “Okay, this is it I can feel it. Now Jarvis is going to take the picture the bunnies are secure in their room. The penthouse is locked down, so no unexpected guest and RC is filled of milk to keep her calm and relaxed. And I promise after we get this picture I will have Jarvis order you favorite meal from the Thai Palace down the street and I’ll rub your feet, while we watch you favorite Harry Potter movies.”

 “Oh Anthony you spoil me. I love you.” Loki sighed as a soft smile graced his face and he leaned into his lover as Tony joined their hands together. RC who was seated now on the god’s shoulder leaned in and purred soaking up the love of her people. The genius couldn’t be happier in that moment as he had his to precious family members with him and the grin on his face was wide and bright.

 “Click.”

 Two Weeks Later…

 “Sir Prince Loki and Mr. Odinson have returned from Asgard.”

 “Great, I got everything ready. Tell Loki that I have dinner ready and waiting.”

 “Yes, sir.” Tony had the table set with Loki’s Favorite food from the five star steak house, they go to. He paid extra to have the chef come over and cook for their anniversary.

 “Ding.”

 “Thank you, Jarvis. Evening Anthony, never in my life had been so glad to leave Asgard. He talked for hours at the council over stagnant topics. What’s all this?”

 “Well my hard working God of Mischief, today is our one year Anniversary and I have planned the perfect evening. Dinner, a bath and I installed a movie screen in our bathroom so we can enjoy the movie of your choice during the bath and then I plan on us making love until dawn.” Tony pulled Loki over to the dinner table, watching as the god’s magic removed the armor and replaced it with comfortable Asgardian wear.

 “You lovely little man, you spoil me so; I don’t deserve it or you.” The Raven pulled the billionaire into his arms and planting kisses all over the man’s face.

 “Yes you do, because I love you and I got you something, well I got Cap to make it, but it was my idea.”

 “You didn’t have to, dinner is more than enough.”

 “No, I wanted to. Now close your eyes and I’ll get your present.” As Loki closed his eyes Tony ran out of the room and grabbed the portrait from where he hid it. He placed it on the wall then Jarvis turned on the lights illuminating the painting. “Okay open them.”

 “Oh Anthony! It’s wonderful.” Loki’s eyes became all misty seeing their little family together and there was so much love radiating from painting. “It’s perfect.”

 “Happy Anniversary Reindeer Games.”

 “Happy Anniversary, my Man of Iron.” Loki whispered pulling Tony in to the sweetest kiss they ever shared. They didn’t hear the click sound of Jarvis capturing the moment with the sunset background. Another memory to save for another day.

 The End.

[asterroidd]

cotton sweatshirt

↬  College AU

↬  Pairing: Levi Ackerman/Reader

↬  Word count: 2.6k

↬  Synopsis:  Fatigue was slowly consuming you, luckily your roommate is there to save the day

↬  Notes: Thank you so much for the request anon! I apologize it took so long before I wrote it. Anw, I hope you enjoy it!

↬  no proofread whatsoever, capn’

5th and 12th prompts: “Give me back my keys! I’m fine!” and “Did you know that you talk in your sleep?”

    It was too much. All too much; the endless tasks, the studying, and numerous all-nighters that you had pulled by now.

    It was so taxing that your body couldn't keep up; eyes blood shot red from restless staring at the laptop screen, sunken cheeks due to the insufficient meal you are getting, and dark bags under your eyes that are evidently visible even from afar. If one would see you in such a state, one would assume you are a zombie or the living dead.

    Chewing your bottom lip, fingers anxiously taped against the wooden desk. Drained yes boring into the laptop screen as you tried your best to understand the text displayed in it. Your professor just had to be missing in action that week due to health reasons and as such couldn't attend most of the classroom session to teach. The replacement is just as worse—having no mastery over the lesson at hand that it only made it more confusing than before. So, you had to self-study for the sole sake of having a passing grade this semester. Finals weeks is looming around the corner and it's best that you understands the lessons beforehand so that you wouldn't have difficulty in studying once again later on.

    Your study session was supposed to be done before noon, yet here you are still hunched over the desk. A pencil at hand in attempt to take notes in the filler notebook. Your other hand curled up a fist full of hair, then ever so often tugging it in frustration. True, you did try to search online for other readings and videos that could potentially help you in your dilemma. Alas, you find yourself scratching your scalp and pulling your hair in frustration as you failed, yet again, to grasp the concept of the topic.

    Perhaps a book, you thought to yourself. There is a local library nearby—suppose a ten minute walk, could be even seven if you walked fast enough. For sure there are a handful of books there that could finally help you in understanding the lesson. And so with a drained sigh, you closed the lid of the laptop and stood up.

    You took in your surroundings; which was an utter mess. Eraser shards littered on top of your desk that some even fell to the floor due to you hastily sweeping them off. Mountains of books scattered around—some opened with a random item on top to act as a makeshift paper weight. Sticky notes plastered all over the walls and stacks upon stacks of paper everywhere. In short, your room looks like a battleground.

     Which it is; an academic battleground, that is.

    That said, you swiftly stuffed a handful of notebooks and pens into a small backpack so you could continue the study session at the library. Perhaps a change in environment would ease you off and clear your mind. When you exited from your room, you were surprised to see Levi lounging off the living room. A bowl of popcorn on his lap whilst lazily popping one in his mouth every so often. His eyes glued to the TV screen as it played a series, The Confession Tapes you presumed. Ever since you showed him the first episode a few days ago, he was so intrigued and thus became so hook with the story line.

    Oh, to have freedom and time for leisure activities like Levi. You would willingly kill just to have that.

    "I'll be heading off to the library for a while," you uttered under your breath. Levi turned his head towards your direction, slowly munching on the popcorn. "I might come home late so I'll bring the keys with me."

    He paused the movie momentarily to narrow his eyes at you. Levi looked at you from top to bottom, assessing and processing the current state you are in. Which was hell. You looked like a vampire that crawled out of your coffin after decades of isolation. Of all the years he and you had been roommate, Levi had practically memorised most of your mannerism and behaviour so much. And at the moment, he knew all to well that you would be, yet again, working yourself to the grave.

    With a sigh, Levi placed the bowl of popcorn on top of the coffee table before approaching you. "Can't you see yourself, idiot?"

    You scrunched up your nose in confusion. What does he mean by that?

    "When was the last time you ate?"

    You racked your brain for answers. When was it truly that last time you had a proper meal besides energy bars that you bought from the convenience store. You went silent for a moment, eyes cascading down.

    "I had instant noodles I think? Last night," you answered after a pregnant pause.

    "Then that means you have not eaten anything since this morning?"

    You only nodded in response, all too tired to argue back with him. All you wanted to do was to finally leave the apartment and resume your study session in the library. Where, in hopes, you could finally progress in.

    Levi clicked his tongue. No wonder you look like a living dead. You are barely getting any nutrition in your body at all! Being studious is a great thing—but being all too unforgiving and torturing one's body too much is an unacceptable habit.

    As swift as a fox, he snagged the keys from your hands. You, in your drained state, reacted poorly and sluggishly. Though, you gave him one ferocious glare.

    "Give it back, Levi." You held out your hand.

    "No. You should rest. You look like shit."

    "Give me back my keys. I'm fine!"

    Levi, much to your surprise, had a hint of worry in his eyes. Silence fell between you and him, eyes focused on each other. You thought of kicking him on the shin, then took the chance to grab the keys. But you find yourself unable to as your body slowly slumped over.

    You let out one tired sigh, eyes closing every now and then in drowsiness, but you can't give in. Not now. Not at least you'd finally understand and finish writing your notes. Still, exams is a couple of weeks away. Surely a brief break wouldn't hurt?

   You groaned, the floor beneath your feet swaying as you struggled to keep yourself upright. It was only then did you notice the ever growing itch in your throat which signifies tonsillitis, mucus flooding your nasal passages, and increased body temperature.

     "I'm fine. . ." you inhaled sharply. "Just—" you continued but was caught short when your knees buckled under your weight, causing you to lean forward. Luckily enough, Levi caught you just in the nick of time before you fell face first into the wooden floor.

     "Tch. Look at what you got yourself into," he huffed, palm pressing against your forehead. "You also have a fever, dumbass."

    Did you now? You let your head rest into his touch, relishing his cool touch against your flushed ones. Maybe you really need a rest.

   "How about you take a seat on the couch while I brew you a cup of tea?"

    "Sounds good. . ." you uttered under your breath.

    That said, Levi practically dragged your body towards the couch and helped you settle on it. Making sure that you are comfortable enough by placing pillows behind your head. The male crouched down to your level, bringing a hand up once again to your forehead to properly estimate your temperature this time.

    "Looks like a bad one. . ." he muttered.

    "You tell me. I feel like shit," you've managed to crack a joke despite your conditions. Levi rose his brow at you, shaking his head at your idiocy. Then you watched him as he removed his cotton sweatshirt that hung loosely on his figure. Suffice to say, you were beyond perplexed when Levi placed the article of clothing on top of your lap.

    "You're cold aren't you?" he shrugged his shoulders. "Wear that for the time being to keep you warm."

    That said, he soon disappeared inside the kitchen to perhaps brew you a cup of tea much to your delight. It is practically known that the male had an immense skill in brewing and perfecting the art of tea. And as his roommate, Levi practically forced you to learn how to brew yourself; mainly because he doesn't want you wasting precious tea leaves that are far too expensive to be wasted. You recalled the time spent with him, hours upon hours inside the kitchen while trying your best to not burn your hands as you, yet again, try to perfect boiling tea. Levi stood beside you, a scowl present on his face as he frowned at your blend.

    Do it again, he snarled. The temperature is not right.

    It was little moments such as those reminds you of how much of a stuck up bitch Levi is. Nonetheless, the male still have a special place in your heart as your roommate and perhaps crush.

    Gingerly holding his sweater in your hands, you took one deep whiff of his scent—despite mucus flooding your nose—relishing the soft floral scent of the detergent that he bought about a week ago. Yet, Levi's natural aroma gradually overflows your nasal cavity; refreshing and clean with a hint of musky scent. It was pure heaven.

    Blood rushed to your cheeks as you let his sweatshirt hug your body, encompassing you more with his scent. Truth to be told, it was your long time dream to wear one of Levi's clothing. Suppose it was the thought of you in his clothes that brings butterflies to your stomachs, or the pure concept of his smell flooding your senses. Either way, you liked it.

    "Hey. . ." Levi's voice boomed which slightly startled you. The male placed a mug full of tea on the coffee table before kneeling down and opening a pack of fever patch.

    "What flavor did you brew?" you mumbled.

    "Chamomile," Levi replied, brushing your hair away from your forehead. For a brief moment, he stopped to stare at your glossy eyes due to the fever. Small patches of sweat that peppered your skin that glistened slightly under the light. Not to mention your lips that he oh so long to get a taste of for months—but he wouldn't tell you that out loud. Red dusted his cheeks ever so lightly that you would've missed if it weren't for your keen attention to detail.

    Levi bit the insides of his cheeks, slapping himself internally to focus at the task at hand which it to place a fever patch on your forehead. That said, he carefully set it against your temples. Making sure that it is adhered on firmly as to not fall in case you tossed and turn in your sleep. A smile adorned your features as soon as the cool hydrogel rested against your skin. You mumbled a quick gratitude towards the male before snuggling deep into his sweatshirt.

    "Levi. . ." you started to which he hummed in response, helping you sit up. Then, the male gave you the mug with hot tea. Its heavenly aroma making you sigh in relax. "Come sit with me?" you asked, patting the space next to you.

    The male opened his mouth to argue; to refuse your request because he doesn't want to catch your germs and be sick himself. Though, with one look at your puppy-dog eyes and pouting lips, Levi knew that he wouldn't be able to resist you. "Fine. . ." he begrudgingly replied.

    You let out a small cheer of victory. Placing your head on top of his shoulder the minute he sat beside you. Even for just a moment—just for this day—you want to delve into your fantasies and revel in the company of the male. Levi looked at you from the corner of his eye, admiring how his sweatshirt that embraces your form. Due to him being quite short in stature, his clothes were not too big. So, naturally, most of his wardrobe would probably fit you. Which he has no complaints about.

    "Can we watch Kitchen nightmares?" you asked, taking one small sip of tea as to not burn your tongue.

    Levi shrugged, "Why not?" That said, he adhered to your request. Playing that one episode in the series that he knew you enjoyed watching despite the countless times you've already seen it.

    You relaxed back into the couch, letting more of your weight press against Levi as your hands cupped the warm mug in between. The brutal and fierce howls of criticism of Gordon Ramsey brings a small smile to your lips, and oddly enough, as well as Levi's. Watching Kitchen's Nightmares (as well as other shows that the iconic chef starred in) was a guilty pleasure, so to say, of both yours and the male's. There is just something so satisfying how the chef makes people humble down and admit their mistakes.

    One great thing that comes from watching his series was that Levi could learn a thing or two in cooking. Even though he was already great from the start. The male picks up a recipe or two just by watching the series, much to your satisfaction. Between you and Levi, he is the mother of the household, if you will. While you're just one lazy couch potato who would receive an ear full of scolding every now and then.

    Soon enough, you felt your eyelids closing involuntarily, yet you fought to keep them open. It was getting into the good part—the climax—of the episode and you didn't want to sleep through it. Though, you find yourself giving in and finally letting your eyes rest for once. You exhaled, rubbing your cheeks against Levi's shoulder blades in attempts to get more comfortable. The male shifted on the couch, allowing you to be cozy and warm with him beside you.

    In your dazed state, you swore that Levi slowly rest his head on top of yours. Nevertheless, you couldn't conclude if it was true since the sweet embrace of sleep consumed you. For the first time in that week, you finally had a good night's rest.

    Levi relaxed under your touch, finally relieved that you gave in and let your body get the rest it deserves after days upon days of continuous work. He contemplated whether to turn off the television so that the noise wouldn't bother you in your sleep, or keep it open since a part of him wants to finish the episode. Though, his thoughts were caught short when you murmured.

    "Levi. . ." you mumbled in your sleep, hands gripping his sweatshirt.

    "What?" he humored, despite knowing that you are in deep slumber and is probably sleep-talking.

    Then to his surprise, you whispered a phrase that he never anticipated would slip past your lips.

    "I love you. . ."

    He was taken a back, eyes wide while his mouth slightly hung open. Levi blinked once, then twice, trying to process if what he heard was real or was his imagination deceiving him.

    "Did you know you talk in your sleep?" Levi said, testing to see if you were truly asleep or was just toying with him. When he concluded that you were—in fact—knocked out and catching some Z's, he breathed lowly the three words he oh so wanted to tell you for months.

    "I love you, too. Brat." He snaked his hand around yours, intertwining his fingers around your hand.

    Little did Levi know, you were half-awake during his confession.

[beauty-and-passion]

Logan’s playlist: an essay of frustration and acceptance (part 1)

Logan has been a constant surprise.

I expected a deeply organized playlist: songs with a very clear thread from start to end - or even just a collection of interesting, nerdy facts, with chill sounds and some sparks of liveliness.

How naive I was.

Logan's playlist reminded me a lot of Remus': the first half of the playlist is dominated by two macro-themes, while the second half follows a very precise thread. But while Remus' playlist was chaotic and disorganized, the chaos of Logan's playlist is less about the themes scattered everywhere and more about the difficulty of the songs themselves, that may seem senseless and random. I'm talking about you, Medicine.

But why? Because these songs are poems. Again, we have another side who is a poet expert. And, just like Virgil, he canonically admitted it: 

[Logan]: I have an appreciation for poetry. (Am I Original?)

Having said that, do you know what Logan had the nerve to say, in his playlist’s description?

“I was impelled to compile this selection of songs. I don't entirely understand some of the lyrics, but I still found them compelling.”

Oh, so I should BELIEVE that the embodiment of Logic, the one who openly admitted to have an appreciation for poetry, isn’t able to understand the meaning behind the lyrics he himself chose? Sure, Logan, of course I believe you.

Except that I don’t believe a single word and there’s more than meets the eye in every single song. And that explains wh I’ve been stuck on this goddamn playlist for almost a whole month.

Since there's too much to say, this analysis will be divided into two parts. This is the first one and we will explore the two macro-themes in the first nine songs.

This will be a long ride, believe me.

(As always, I will talk about everything+1 in my analysis, so read at your own risk)

_______________________________

SECTION 1: KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

We all know how much Logan praises knowledge above everything else. His solution for every problem? Seek knowledge. And he’s not wrong: knowledge is fundamental for us humans, it’s what made us the most dominant species on our planet.

So I wasn’t surprised to find songs in which Logan displays his knowledge. And he chose to talk about the most “sciencey” themes too! Chemistry and astronomy? The nerd has good taste.

This first section includes four songs: two of them are purely thematic, while the other two shows us how proud Logan is of his intelligence - while still bragging about how many things he knows.

Let’s start with the thematic songs:

Chemistry - The Element

First song of the playlist, so you know what to expect. This song lists all the elements of the periodic table, it’s very nice I am 100% sure Logan raps it every night before going to bed.

Note: I would like to inform you that there is this other song I’ve known for years, that is also about the periodic table. So yes, we live in a world in which we made TWO whole songs about the periodic table.

What a great species we are.

Astronomy - The Galaxy Song

Not only this song is pretty cool because astronomy IS cool, but also because it’s very accurate. The song was released in 1983: 37 years passed, but the astronomical quantities and measures are still largely correct.

Yes, there are a few statements wrong - for example the one about Earth's rotation "at nine hundred miles an hour": the current estimate for the rotational speed (at the equator) is 1040 miles an hour. But considering how old the song is, it’s still very close to the real value!

I also would like to point out the last two lines of the song:

And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space 'Cause there's bugger-all down here on Earth!

“Bugger-all” is a slang term that means “nothing at all”. So, after talking about how wondrous our galaxy is, we come back to earth with a more cynical message: let’s hope there’s intelligent life somewhere else, because here people are all stupid.

Well, that’s very Logan. Maybe even too Logan.

Celebrating himself - White & Nerdy

This song is a parody of Ridin’ and it lists all activities and stereotypes associated with nerd culture (buying action figures/comic books, playing D&D, references to Star Trek and so on) in order to satirize and celebrate it.

And this second aspect shines through every line of the song. Just like the singer, Logan may be “too white and nerdy” to play with the gangster or to be considered cool. But that doesn't mean he will change who he is in order to fit in. He enjoys being a nerd, he's proud to be so smart. And he canonically said it in Fitting In:

[Logan]: Well, I don't think I'm smarter than everyone else... I KNOW I'm smarter than everyone else.

So the line about being “too white and nerdy” doesn’t sound like a flaw from his side, but more like a mock towards his oppositors. They think he’s too nerdy to play with them... so what? He doesn’t care. Just like in canon: did he ever care about Roman calling him names? He is clever and smart, so why should he be ashamed of who he is?

Winning all the way - Letter C

Puns. Puns and coolness everywhere. Heck, even the Warby Parkers are a reference to Growing Up!

[Logan]: Ah, but you aren't peering through a styling -dabs- pair of Warby Parkers.

Once again, Logan demonstrates a pretty high consideration of himself. Along with a very vivid imagination. Read the lyric: the whole song builds a scene, with moments of suspense and even an audience ready to cheer him, just to blast the dude who tried to beef with him. (And guess what, this isn't the only song that builds a whole scene. It may seem strange to say it, but Logic has a pretty nice imagination)

So Logan has definitely a good self-esteem. He doesn't just want to have the last word, he wants to completely silence his oppositor. Because he's right, period.

And you know who that huge self-esteem reminds me? Some other sides, who have a pretty high consideration of themselves, aren't ashamed of their work and fully embrace who they are.

_______________________________

SECTION 2: DARKER THAN A DARK SIDE

I imagined Logan to be more “aware” of the world around him, like Virgil told him in the Q&A (“Logic, you understand reality better than the other two”), but I definitely wasn’t expecting this.

The following songs are dark. Very dark. Some are even darker than Virgil’s - and Virgil’s playlist wasn’t exactly an hymn to optimism. We will find themes we already saw in the dark sides’ playlists, cynicism, heavy poetry and references to the dark sides themselves. Definitely NOT what I expected from Logan, but I was very intrigued anyway.

All the themes a dark side embraces - Algorhythm

THIS SONG.

MY GOD THIS SONG.

Algorhythm is amazing, but explaining it took away years of my life. Because this isn’t just a song. This is a poem disguised as a song. And an extremely hermetic one, that refers to incredibly huge and complex themes by using a few selected words. I will try my best to keep the explanations short as well, but can't assure you anything.

Let’s start with the first lines, where we already find the biggest theme shared by the dark sides: the criticism of our society - with great emphasis on the contemporary world.

Everyone is an addict, stumbling concrete What was the motivation? Constant communication

Two sentences and twelve words are enough to portray a perfect picture of the current state of our society and give us an explanation about how we reached this point.

Let's analyze the first line: people are seen as drug addicts, desperately craving something, stumbling along life just like a drug addict may stumble on the pavement of a city street. And the use of the term "concrete" hints to a very precise vision of society as something cold, impersonal, hard. Something that doesn't help people, but let them "stumble", while trying to satisfy their needs.

The second line explains why the situation is like this and does it with just two words: “Constant communication”.

These words refer to the whole historical period we’re currently living, from technological development, to globalization, to the influence of mass media, to the current digitalization. A process that led to huge changes we experienced and we’re still experiencing every day: distances are shorter, communications are faster, information is everywhere around us.

And this information shapes our minds, influences our interests. Mass media bombard us every day with products, trends, status symbols. We’re encouraged to follow, buy and get invested because if we follow this or buy that, then we’ll be famous, accepted and loved.

And these things become the drugs we crave, that give us a small moment of pleasure. But, as soon as it fades away, we want more and the cycle starts all over again.

Everybody wanna get chose like Moses

Just after society, here it comes a strong reference to religion. Moses was a hero, chosen by God to free Israelites from under the egyptian’s rule: just like him, people believe they are the chosen ones, that a great destiny is waiting for them and that they're much worthier than others.

Came out Mother Earth smelling like roses Summon the new edition, made it way too efficient

Another small reference to religion. Just like Adam and Eve were made from dust, so we’re born from Mother Earth “smelling like roses”: like beautiful, pure creatures, blessed with the precious gift of life.

But, thanks to technology, we upgraded our lives to a “new edition”. We’re a lot faster and efficient now, compared to the past. And this efficiency should’ve made our life better. Instead, it took control of us. We’re running faster than before, in order to be more and more efficient. And we’re forgetting to enjoy the gift we have: this single, precious life we’ve been blessed with.

Made us the guinea pig and did it with no permission

We created the world like this, we made our life this efficient and we’re also the ones facing the consequences of our choices. We became the guinea pigs, the testing subjects of our own creation.

And this happened “with no permission”: no one of us signed up for this experiment, we just became part of it without realizing it.

Humans don't understand, humans gon' sell a lie

And the most tragic thing is that we don’t understand our mistakes. We don’t realize what we're losing, by partaking in this experiment. We keep selling ourselves the same lie: that we’re happy and everything is good, because that’s what we want to believe.

Humans gotta survive, we know we gon' die Nothing can live forever, you know we gon' try

And so, after society and religion, here comes the third theme the dark sides like so much: death.

Just like Virgil and Remus, Logan is aware of death and its inevitability. We humans know we're going to die. We try to forget it, to escape death by prolonging our lives, to forget about its existence, but death is always around us. Memento mori.

Life, is it really worth it? The algorhythm is perfect, mmh

We live in a world where we’re addicts, we suffer through life just to get the next thing or follow the next trend. We changed our life in the name of technology and lost our humanity. We are test subjects of an experiment we started ourselves and we didn’t even want to take part in it.

So, is this kind of life really worth it? Why don’t we change things?

Because we can’t. The system is perfect, the algorhythm is perfect. A perfect cage that trapped us in.

Pressure is to evolve, take a bite of the apple

Religion strikes back, with a reference to the biblical apple. Adam and Eve were tempted by the snake to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, because they would’ve gained knowledge. Just like them, we are pressured the same way by society to “take a bite of the apple”: to acquire knowledge, to evolve, to make our scientific progress faster.

We crush it into the sauce, how do we know the cost? How do we know the truth without feeling what could be false?

But we're not just taking a bite of the apple, we're "crushing it into sauce": we're assaulting knowledge, we're using it like a weapon, to dig further and further into every little thing, progressing faster and faster, trying to find answers for everything.

But do we know the cost of this search for knowledge? We're tearing down every barrier made by nature, because we want to see beyond and understand everything. There should be a line to draw somewhere, we know we cannot play God with everything, but do we even know where the line is? The more we move forward, the more the line we set by ourselves recedes: how can we be so sure we’re still in the right and we’ve not pushed it too far already?

Freedom of being wrong, freedom of being lost

There’s freedom in ignorance. It’s not necessary to know everything, to “attack” the world because we want to have all the answers. Some things will always remain unexplained.

Wait a minute, wait a minute (Wait a minute, wait a minute) Feelin' like the devil did it (Devil did it, ooh) Lord willing, I'ma step to it (Step to it) You gon' fall behind if you can't do it (Ooh, yeah)

But no, being ignorant goes against the algorhythm, the “pressure to evolve”. It’s wrong, it’s the work of the devil (and here it comes another religious reference) and we cannot follow it. We should follow the predetermined path society made for us and keep being faster, otherwise we will fall behind and be left.

Human ain't the move, do I care now? (No) Looking for something worth it, the algorhythm is perfect, mmh

“Human ain't the move”: the world we built isn’t made for us. Society treats us like an experiment, makes us lose our humanity, is cold and unforgiving, will leave us behind if we don’t conform.

There’s nothing worthy in this kind of life, but we keep looking, trying to find “something worth it”. And we can’t, because the algorhythm is just too perfect. It took away everything good, to lock us in this big cage.

But that’s here that the song ends and it does by destroying the rhythm. Metric, tempo, flow, words, everything shatters in a senseless cacophony. Once we've reached the awareness of what kind of life we're living, the next step is breaking the cage and being free.

So, what did we learn from this song? That Logan has a freakin’ dark view of society as a perfect algorhythm, a cage we built for ourselves that deprived us of our own humanity, by making us testing subjects of this paradoxical experiment.

Damn Logan, that’s some Janus level of criticism of society. But we can still be more cynical, with the next song.

Let’s get darker - Fitter Happier

Fitter Happier follows the path Algorhythm started and does it in the same dark way.

The song itself is basically a list of goals, possessions and achievements we are supposed to pursue to have a happy and successful life. In order to be “Fitter, happier, more productive”.

But soon enough, we start to notice how cold these advice are and how they’re actually based on stereotypical pre-conceptions of what a “good life” consists of.

I’ll quote just a few lines as examples:

A patient, better driver / A safer car (baby smiling in back seat)

It doesn’t say “have a baby out of love”. The baby is merely an accessory, in order to complete the perfect picture of the happy family: a good smiling driver on the front, a good smiling baby in the back.

Will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in wall)

The association between morality and the banking system suggests a colder, more calculated approach to morals. We don’t have to do something because our heart tells us to do so: we have to think about what we might gain first.

Fond but not in love

Being “fond” of each other makes people more productive, while love is unpredictable, unstable, produces favoritism, alters the productivity and, therefore, isn’t accepted as well.

Charity standing orders

Charity is something we do, driven by empathy towards another human being. But a charity standing order is a more impersonal, mechanical way to do good. So this makes the human act of charity more like a “duty”, rather than a moral action.

Concerned (but powerless) / An empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism)

We should be concerned about the current news, politics, economics. But that’s all we can do. We don’t have any power. Society holds the power, society decides what to do. Don’t be an idealist, don’t dream. Be practical and pragmatic.

No chance of escape Now self-employed

Just like in Algorhythm, we can’t escape this perfect life set for us by society. We can’t break the cage. We’re “self-employed”, so we’re trapped into our work and life forever.

No longer empty and frantic Like a cat tied to a stick That's driven into frozen winter shit

The strong metaphor makes the message stand up even more: by following these advice, people will be calm, pacified, and unable to react. Just like a cat tied to a stick, buried into a pile of frozen feces. What a nice way to represent our life into society.

Also, frozen feces don’t stink as much as fresh ones, so they’re not so repulsive. And the same can be said for a life spent conforming, never dreaming, just being productive: it doesn’t sound so bad, when presented with pretty advice that wants you to be "fitter and happier", right?

Calm Fitter, healthier and more productive

This line is similar to the first one, except the word ‘happier’ is now replaced with ‘healthier’. It’s crystal clear that society doesn’t give a damn about people’s happiness and these advice are just focused on making people more productive.

A pig In a cage On antibiotics

And so, that’s what we are: pigs trapped in a cage (society), that are only surviving through medications (antibiotics) and not true freedom. Just like them, we are forced to stay in line and conform.

The critique is as limpid as it was in Algorhythm. People should be able to step outside the line, to leave the prescribed path society paved for them. These advice that seemed so nice and caring are actually unrealistic, no human being can meet these expectations.

And even if they sounded like something Logan could suggest to Thomas, the last lines make it clear that these shouldn’t be taken as real advice, but as proof of how dark and wrong society is.

Breaking the fourth wall - Medicine

THIS DAMN SONG.

I spent DAYS trying to understand this song. Why were the spoken parts so strange? Why didn't they connect? Why did the conclusion say something completely different from the other parts? WHY?

I searched about Buddhism, Hinduism and how they connected to Shopenhauer and the Veil of Maya and still didn’t make any sense. What was I missing? There was something missing.

And then, I found out what it was.

Those parts didn’t make sense, because they were taken FROM A BOOK. "The Way of Liberation: Essays & Lectures on the Transformation of the Self", written by Alan Watts. These parts are the start and the end of one of his essays. So of course they were different and didn’t make any sense, because they were the friggin’ beginning and end of a whole essay!

So I read the essay (it’s very interesting, by the way. You can find it here if you want to read it too) and, of course, it explains a lot more. I will summarize it in the shortest way possible:

Eastern philosophies can’t be called “philosophies”, because they lack the scientific aspect Western philosophies have.

Eastern philosophies are often called “religions”, but they lack the aspects of it too (those aspects are very interesting, btw).

Eastern philosophies are focused instead on the individual's own consciousness and how to change it. How to find out who you actually are. So they can be considered philosophies, but only in the ancient sense of basic curiosity, used to describe the first western philosophies.

And now, I would like to quote this part from the essay:

These Asian ways of life are focused on certain problems peculiar to every individual. On the understanding. (...) That the average human being has a delusive sense of his own existence. (...) To awaken from the illusion is then to undergo a radical change of consciousness with regard to one’s own existence. It is to cease being under the impression that you would just poor little me. To find out who you really are, or what you really are, behind the Mask.

Now, doesn’t that remind you anything? I don’t know, the whole concept of Sanders Sides, perhaps?

Thomas has a delusive sense of his own existence: he THINKS he knows himself, he thinks he is a 100% good person, that he has just Creativity, Logic, Morality and that big bad guy called Anxiety.

But then, he awakes from the illusion. He learns he’s not a 100% good person. And, by learning that, he undergoes a radical change of consciousness.

Guys, that’s it. That’s the whole series, hidden in an essay that was hidden in a song. With every episode, Thomas is learning more about himself, he’s learning who he really is behind the mask.

And so the “medicine” from the song takes a whole new meaning. By “taking his medicine”, Thomas learns who he is. He always does the same “ritual” (standing in the middle of his living room, turning the camera on and talking to his Sides) that has a specific purpose: helping himself. It’s a “purely experimental approach to life”, that helps him deal with life’s issues, by experimenting through internal discussions, puppets, videogames and everything else we saw.

That’s an absurd level of meta awareness that I definitely wasn’t expecting from any of the Sides. Not only Logan is aware of being in a show, but he’s aware of the purpose of the show. He knows Thomas isn’t just recording an episode just because he feels like that and, casually, he solves some issues along the way. Logan can see the bigger picture and the final result Thomas will achieve: growing up, knowing himself better. And, in order to achieve that, Thomas has to know the parts of him he hid from himself. The Others.

And if we remember “Can Lying Be Good”, when Roman asked Thomas:

[Roman]: In other words, would you like to learn something new about yourself, Thomas?

Logan nodded. Logan wanted Thomas to know more. He wanted to tell Thomas Deceit was there. Because realizing there were hidden parts of himself would have served the purpose of the show. Realizing Deceit’s existence would’ve been a big step towards the final result of Thomas knowing his true self.

Speaking of Janus - The Watchtower

From the watchtower We can see things coming Good or bad At least we see things coming From the watchtower We can read the future Whatever it says At least we know what's up

If we think about the ability to foresee, there are a whole lot of events and situations we can predict, by using just a bit of logic. If we throw a ball at someone, we can be quite sure that person will get angry. If we rob a bank, there’s a very high chance police will chase us and we will get arrested.

So, by being the embodiment of logic, Logan should be able to foresee a lot of stuff. Thus “the watchtower” is a metaphor for the ability itself, his privileged position (as embodiment of logic), that helps him see these things. It’s only thanks to who he is, that he’s able to “see things coming”.

And the things he can see aren’t just good or bad. They can be both and there’s no difference for him: the most important thing is knowing what it is and preparing himselves to face it. A true expression of neutrality.

But the most interesting thing about this part is the subject: the chorus isn’t “I can see things coming”, it’s “we”. “We can see things coming”. And that’s particularly evident, because “we” is used only in the chorus, while the rest of the song is in first person (check it, if you don’t believe me).

Logan isn’t just talking about himself, but he’s also referring to another side, who has a good foresight ability, just like him. And thanks to their ability, they are the ones able to see things coming.

Who this side must be? Well, what about the one named after the freakin’ god who looks into the past and into the future?

And that’s very, very interesting, because “we” implies a connection between Logan and Janus. A mutual understanding: we’re the only ones able to foresee this far, farther than any other Side.

But if Logan knows that Janus has his same ability, that means they had time to talk to each other. And if they had time to talk to each other, that means Logan has been able to spend some time with the dark sides.

And that would explain why the dark side’s themes are so prominent in Logan’s playlist. It would explain why Logan already knew everything about Remus, since the first moment he showed up in DWIT, while Patton and Virgil were clueless about his functions.

And, above all, it would explain Medicine. If Logan talked to the dark sides and learned about their functions, that means Logan has always known the Others aren’t dangerous. Thus, it would make sense that he wants Thomas to know about them, in order to know himself better and fulfill the purpose of the series.

And all of that might have a canon confirmation, in the way Logan dealt with the dark sides.

If we think about it, Logan never had nothing against Virgil, as he showed in My Negative Thinking:

[Anxiety]: I gotta say, I—don't really know how to react to you complimenting me, kind of thought you didn't like me. Especially after last time when you called me a defeatist. [Logan]: Well, you are wrong about a lot of things, but I don't necessarily mind your company, the other two can bring in a whole lot of sunshine and that can be unbearable, and I can't imagine having a debate with either one of them. [Anxiety]: I guess I just kind of assumed that— [Logan]: You jumped to a conclusion.

He has never been afraid of Remus - on the contrary, he defended him and his existence as something fundamental for Thomas:

[Logan]: Thomas, like it or not, the Duke does encompass a portion of your imagination.

And, despite being impersonated two times and put in the back during SvS, Logan still helped Janus, at the end of POF, with the explanation about effective altruism. In that moment, he wasn’t forced to help: he could’ve just said something passive-aggressive and left. But instead he chose to deliver that last information and help Janus, by giving a push towards his acceptance.

I'm breaking I need another start Far away From the city lights

For some people, these lines may hint at Logan leaving the other core sides and becoming a dark side. But I don’t think Logan will ever “become a dark side”, just because the dark sides don’t exist. Unless you’re talking about the dress code: then Logan is already a dark side, since he wears black + his color.

But, as we saw, Logan also shares a lot of other things in common with them: two whole songs about how bad society is, references to religion, death and now even foresight. What might come next?

Orange – The Breach

I might be totally wrong with this one. Maybe I didn’t understand a single thing about his playlist at all or about Logan himself and his groupies will kill me as soon as I post this analysis (in that case, please remember me for my love for bad puns and snek bois). But this song is a colossal reference to something and the more I listen to it, the more I can clearly picture this scene and this scene is about Orange.

Some obligatory background information: The Breach is part of the album Splendor & Misery, that tells us a story about a spaceship full of human slaves, who will try to escape and be free again. In this song, one of the human slaves shipped as cargo, suddenly tries to break out of the cargo hold. Everything is seen from the computer’s perspective, that briefs us on the situation and advises the crew on what to do.

This is all a metaphor. Logan is the narrator, the computer who tells us the story. The crew members are the sides, the ship/system is Thomas, while the sleeping member of the cargo is one of the dark sides - Orange.

Why Orange? It will be clear later.

A small anomaly has become evident And probably should be noted There is spiking in the pulse of a member of the cargo And the crew and other passengers have not begun to notice The docility you certainly have taken steps to cultivate For all intents and purposes would totally accept it

Please note that the ship crew have taken measures to ensure that the human cargo remains calm during the voyage "For all intents and purposes would totally accept it". That's exactly what Thomas himself did: he allowed Janus to hide some sides from him, keeping them docile and far from his sight, for intents and purposes all sides accepted: trying to be a good person at all costs, by denying parts of himself Thomas didn't like.

But something is going on: one of the members of the cargo, this hidden dark side, appears to have woken up and is trying to break free.

First: the recommended course of action should be to Administer a sedative to all the cargo via ventilation The ship is fully capable of automating this But requires an approval code from the administration

The first solution proposed by the computer/Logan is a sedative, to calm the side. The “sedative” might be some breathing exercise or even a full intervention of the sides, who will calm Thomas down, by directing his attention somewhere else (thus taking power away from the hidden side) - just like Patton and Virgil tried at the beginning of DWIT, by diverting Thomas’ attention on Just like Heaven.

Again, it cannot easily be overstated the importance of alacrity In acting out the task commanded The pulses of the cargo are still rising in endorphins That are often linked to violence are too critical to manage

There’s something interesting going on here, because the computer/Logan is hurrying the other sides to act. And this is already strange enough: is Logan afraid of this side? But he has never been afraid of Remus, Virgil, or Janus.

You know when Logan has ever shown a hint of fear? In “Learning New Things About Ourselves”, just after he hit puppet!Roman with the piece of paper:

Look at this expression, look at how heavily hints that there’s something going on.

Now, I’m not saying that Orange is wrath/rage or whatever, but this reaction and this song both heavily hint the same.

Logan isn’t afraid of any of the dark sides we saw, but if Orange is rage, Logan’s fear can make sense. Rage is something that slips out of logic’s control. Something he isn’t able to deal with.

Something that can easily make the situation go worse.

If we assume this is right, the last two lines might be another reference: “The pulses of the cargo are still rising in endorphins / That are often linked to violence are too critical to manage”.

They’re about violence. This side is full of anger, on the run and is taking control of Thomas. Logan can’t do anything to stop him, so he urges others to take control, before the situation gets worse. He knows it will: after all, he has a very good foresight ability.

Now: one specifically is up and moving to the door He has found the access panel situated in the floor He is entering the codes and overriding has begun Reading rage in the nervous system, nothing can be done It seems to circumvent necessity of physical restraints

Orange is on the run, he’s doing everything he can to be listened to, he’s taking full control of Thomas, by “hacking” him. Again, you know what kind of emotion can be so powerful to take full control of yourself? Rage.

Heck, there’s even a reference in the next line: “Reading rage in the nervous system, nothing can be done”. And, in this case, the meaning is clear: Orange/rage is damn angry. Angry enough to be a danger to Thomas. Angry enough to push Logan to ask for physical restraint to stop him.

Send security immediately over to the gate And remember that these beings were selected for their strength You should arm yourself accordingly in order to be safe

Security is clearly Janus, the one responsible to hide the dark sides away from Thomas. But Logan’s suggestion also hints something else, something very intriguing.

“These beings were selected for their strength” implies that the “beings” are the Sides themselves, “selected” by Thomas.

Do you remember the Q&A? The first question for Virgil was “Are you the same for everyone?”. And Virgil’s answer was:

[Anxiety]: No, I'm not the same for everybody. I'm Thomas' anxiety. Everyone's works differently.

That confirms everyone can choose their own sides. Virgil has been subconsciously selected by Thomas, because he was stronger than other possible sides, like Caution, Fear, Alarm or whatever.

And this justifies the following line too: “You should arm yourself accordingly in order to be safe”.

Like the other sides, Orange is also one of the strongest, one of the main seven. And he’s so dangerous that Logan suggests Janus to be prepared to fight him, if necessary. Unlike Remus and Virgil, Logan sees this side as a real threat, someone powerful and dangerous enough to be contained by force, because if he breaks free, he can cause real danger.

After that, the song ends with static, gunfire, and alarms. To me, that sounds like an implied battle. An internal struggle to regain control, that led to Orange being locked away.

Again, it may be all wrong. But the more I listen to it, the more the scenes become clear in my mind. Also, according to the color theory, Orange should be the side “opposing” Patton and Logan - and both of them have a song about Orange in their own playlists. So I’m not saying that everything is connected, but maaaaaybe...

And, with that, we end the first part of Logan’s analysis. It took me an eternity to finish it - but, at least, I made good progress with the second part too, so that should come pretty soon. Get ready for that, because we will explore more about Logan and especially about his relationship with someone who has been missing here for the entire time: Thomas Sanders himself.

You can find part 2 here

_______________________________

PS. If someone wants to be added to the taglists, just ask and I’ll add you :)

TAGLIST:

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[yurimother]

LGBTQ Comic Review - Amongst Us Book 1

A masterful combination of comedy, subtle romance, and incredible sensuality

I make no attempts to hide my complete admiration and infatuation with Shilin Huang's Yuri webcomic Amongst Us. The slice of life AU featuring reimagined versions of the lead characters from fantasy series Carciphona as a lesbian couple has held a special place in my heart for a long time. I named the series one of the best Yuri works of the past one-hundred years, can frequently be found lurking in the author's Twitch streams, and even have a wall in my office dedicated to the artwork of the main couple (or I did before my office became a remote classroom). So, when a Kickstarter by Shilin and Hiveworks Comics launched promising a print version of the work, I was eager to support it financially and promote it with my humble platform. The Kickstarter took place in March, and books were initially estimated for release in May of 2020. However, as you have probably realized by the dates alone, the world went very South around this time. A combination of disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, a healthy amount of bad luck, and what I am inclined to believe, for various reasons, was some awful mismanagement by Hiveworks led to numerous delays. Indeed, by the time the book finally shipped, I had moved, so my copy arrived a little later as it had to be forwarded. But, at the end of this frustrating and anticipation-building event, I finally have the volume in my hands, and it was worth the wait. While I adore the webcomic, this gorgeous print volume completely enthralls me. The book is absolutely the preferred way to read this spectacular comic.

Before getting into the exquisite details of Amongst Us Book 1: Soulmates, I need to take a minute to praise how well this book is put together. The paperback binding is thick and features amazing spot glass that sparkles in the light. This feature only accentuates the fantastic and bright the cover illustration of main characters Veloce and Blackbird loving holding each other is. The back cover has a simpler but more imaginative illustration of the two flying through the sky, and the character's expressions tell you everything you need to know about this fantastic, odd couple. There are a few things you will notice upon opening the volume. The first is how well Amongst Us made the challenging transition from vertical webcomic to the page. The assembly and paneling are fantastic and clear, and chapters feature stylized illustrations and title cards. You will then see the inside cover, a powerful display that perfectly contrasts the front's glowing and tender love. Finally, there is Shilin's presents moving forward and dedication, where she lovingly dedicates the book to her partner, Kristen.

I assure you, as good as the book's presentation and assembly is, the contents within are even better. Amongst Us follows Veloce and Blackbird's bombastic relationship. The two women are eccentric and striking musicians in their early twenties, and I swear you will never forget them. The slice of life storylines are, per the genre's definition, mundane and include events like shopping at the mall, riding the train, and having lunch with a friend. The charming simplicity of the story serves well to the reactions of the characters. Shilin effortlessly transitions from adorable moments of affection to explosive and hilarious comedy and irresistible and delightful moments of sexual tension; Veloce's neck and jawline alone could topple a monarchy. Often, slice of life works can become dull or repetitive, but these stories and the frequent changes in tone help the reader stay engaged and excited.

Putting slice of life aside for a moment, it is also important to note that Amongst Us is also has an interesting place within the Yuri genre, or "Girl's Love/GL" as it is often called in webcomic circles (originally an analogous term of Boy's Love). Webcomics have often been a bit more adventurous with their storylines and styles than Japanese manga. While the genre rose to popularity in the space thanks to digital manhwa and manhua, some (not all) of the Yuri tropes did not carry over between the similar mediums. Many modern webcomics and webtoons take their inspiration more from manhwa and manhua GL, which has developed its own canon and tropes over the years. However, even for a webcomic, Shilin's work feels somewhat divorced from most other worlds of Yuri. This first volume exists mainly against the Yuri genre's expectations. However, the next book, which flashes back to the couple's origin, undoubtedly is more in line with convention, for better or worse. It feels like the author decided to screw the norms and write a work that she would enjoy, and I am so glad that she did. Veloce and Blackbird are young adults, out of school in an established relationship with no drama. This (sadly) unconventional setting is made all the more irregular because of just how distinctive, and unwonted Blackbird and Veloce are.

Blackbird and Veloce, originally from the fantasy world of Carciphona, take on a new life, literally, in this wonderful modern reimagining and homage. You do not need to be a fan of the original work to enjoy their bizarre and larger-than-life personalities. Indeed, when I read Amongst Us online for the first time, I had not ever even heard of Carciphona. Veloce is the quieter and more stoic of the two, although she is not afraid of showing a more relatable and human side as she reacts to Blackbirds wild antics. Veloce's (not)straight man approach is hilariously sobering. But, her best moments are in those when she lets loose a little bit, like when she is rendered drooling by the promise of her favorite smoothie or in her stoic yet alluring flirtations with Blackbird, only to get close enough to steal a healthy chomp of ice cream.

Blackbird, on her part, is completely insane. She continuously pulls of wild antics like jumping on Veloce to surprise her or singing an especially threatening song after a glorious battle over lunch. However, she is perfectly capable of showing her love and admiration for Veloce in her own cheeky way. However, true to form, each softer or more personal moment between the two is often immediately and perfectly juxtaposed with comedy, with the apparent exception of the book's touching and thoughtful finale. Veloce and Blackbird will both more than please readers individually, but you will fall in love with them as a couple. I must have read this at least a few dozen times between the webtoon and the book, and I am just as enchanted as ever by their loud and unapologetic love.

The ordinary misadventures of Blackbird and Veloce are accompanied by genuinely astounding artwork. No, that statement does not do Shilin's illustrations justice. Veloce and Blackbird lead from the page thanks to stunning, full-color illustrations that detail every moment of hilarity. Every movement from the slightest smirk to the over-the-top dramatizations of regular events thoughtfully and beautifully sprawl across the pages and invite you to stare for hours. Shilin is the only person possible who could make something as simple as someone softly singing Happy Birthday so epic and sultry. Speaking of which, my goddess of Yuri is this work titillating. No, there are no gratuitous scenes, but just the characters leaning over each other or touching the other's chin makes my hands shake. My only small complaint is that some early chapters show their age slightly with noticeably lower quality linework and flatter colors than the dazzling and dynamic work demonstrated towards the end. Still, even on its worst day, Amongst Us looks better than most of its peers and the entirety of its many inferiors.

Amongst Us is nearly the perfect work. It has a uniquely compelling and mirth-inducing way of displaying a young yet very unordinary couple's everyday life. Its characters, from design to personality, are instantly memorable and striking. Despite being ready to rip each other's heads off at the drop of a hat, or rather because of it, Blackbird and Veloce feel the perfect and natural couple we so rarely witness. Shilin's masterful combination of comedy, subtle romance, and incredible sensuality is astounding. This book is worth it for the outstanding and vibrant artwork alone, but its combination with excellent writing create a sonorous and majestic modern romance unlike any other. I believe that Shilin has created something genuinely special here, and I can confidently say that out of the hundreds of webcomics I have read, this one is the pinnacle of its kind and my absolute favorite.

You can purchase Amongst Us book 1: Soulmates exclusively on Shilin's online shop and read the webcomic now for free on Twitter, Webtoon and Tumblr​ @okolnir​.

Ratings: Story – 9 Characters – 10 Art – 10 LGBTQ – 8 Sexual Content – 5 Final – 10

[becausethathappens]

Will you please write a super angsty fic where Link is freaking out because he thinks the wedding vows he has written aren't good enough and Rhett helps him go over them and make corrections and says they're perfect but also, just says the vows he would say for Link if it was them like it should've been because he's heartbroken and Link can tell but their hands are tied and they don't know what to do so they soldier on without saying a word, but wordlessly communicating lifelong love and misery and everything, maybe comfort as well?

i'm really really sad and i can't shake it off and i really want some good angst and hurt/comfort and i really love you, maura, you're awesome

I don't do unhappy endings, anon. I'm confident you don't either. In fiction or otherwise. So, pardon this if it’s not what you expected.

Please enjoy? This was done a little hastily to share it with you (and I should be writing other things per usual) but I've had a rough week and I want to hopefully make someone smile. (I have way angstier stuff in the drafts and I will be sure to get those out eventually, too.) You’ll feel better soon.  🤞  Thank you! 💞

-———————-

now or forever

4k - Rhett writes Link vows.

If you were my boy, Blue

I’d bathe you in honeys (sp?)

I’d sing write you a love song

I’d shoot you a star**

If you were my boy, Blue

There ain’t nothing in this life I wouldn’t give

From my heart, to my toes, to my fingers, my nose (**)

Whatever it takes just to watch you live 

continue to ‘ ’ grow with you like a vine ‘round a rose 

If you were my boy, Bue

I wouldn’t want you all for myself

There’s no star bright enough to match your lightin’

In sickness, blue, so certainly while we have health

Hand in hand, no longer fightin’

What’s destiny (**)

You and & me

If you were my boy, Blue

I'd marry you

&

Thank God for Rhett. Giving him, delivering him, blessing him with Rhett.

Link is in the middle of a spiral (what he’ll later recognize as a panic attack) when Rhett arrives, the eve of his wedding. Bailing him out of this with pen, paper, and a smile.

Link has always been good at improv.

Though Rhett tended to find the words to start. These were his own vows and Link has been putting time to sit and start them off for weeks. Now that he has to, he’s dumbfounded, despite being deeply in love.

Amidst all the planning and chaos, writing his vows was such a given that Link left it as priority sixty-seven on a list of many more.

Unfortunately, even as busy as they’ve been, that list was shredded with the “who gifted what” tracking sheet (both literally, accidentally, and figuratively) back around the bridal shower and it’s been anarchy ever since.

So he thanks God for Rhett, who’s here, to stop another needless disaster from happening.

That same generous God, however, watches him plagued with thoughts of utter devotion at Rhett’s willingness to drop everything on a weeknight and rush over to help Link find his words.

His lyrics, really, is what Link has in mind. Since they used to write songs together and this felt much the same. He’s been floundering all night and now that Rhett’s here, he knows he’ll at least get what he needs done. Even if it’s not all he wants, right now.

That same God seeks judgment on his every decision or flinch against His will, for any reason, to spite him.

For this reason.

He wants to smush Rhett’s face and kiss him. Deeply. He doesn’t.

Even if there were sometime in the past that he could get away with a platonic smooch, now he can’t. He simply could not prevent that from escalating.

So, he merely tightens his grip on the wrinkled scrap paper in his hand and scrunches his eyes.

“Why can’t it be you up there…” Link bemoans, loudly, in his frustration.

Rhett’s eyes widen, in horror, and Link slams his other hand at his mouth, rolling his eyes. “Not like - I mean - why can’t you go say my lines for me. You’re so much better at this kinda thing.”

“Let me read what you’ve got,” Rhett says.

After some review, Rhett sighs, not unkindly and sits down next to Link. “Let’s just talk through what you’re trying to say because, yeah, this reads like liturgy.”

“Ain’t is supposed to? It’s in a chapel!”

“What do you like about her?” Rhett asks, ignoring his nitpicking. “Christy?” Rhett stares at him, waiting, too upset for Link to chastise but clearly wanting to.

“She’s patient,” Link says, reminded by the similar. Rhett folds over the book to an open page and clicks the pen in his hand, writing that down. “A-And she’s kind. Like considerate, ‘specially with babies and little animals. Sh-She does this thing where she immediately drops to their eye-level to make sure they don’t feel unheard or seen. Probably ‘cause she’s always been so tall…”

Rhett’s still writing.

“Then when I’m sick, she forces me to rest. You know I hate that,” Link says, voice rising a little, at the memory. “But you know I need that. You won’t be the last to make me stop and smell the roses or take a break, once in a while.”

“Her hair, write, her hair - the way it looks in the sunshine. Like warm caramel with flecks of gold. She’s a vision, an angel. Especially when she’s wearing all white, like,” Link says, pausing to point to Rhett’s undershirt and pale grey sweats. “Makes blondes look ethereal-like, always has.”

“Oh, and her voice. Sometimes, the way her accent catches, well, you know she don’t like to sing like us, never has, but when she says certain things, asks a question the right way - it’s music. The way it harmonizes with my answer, reminds me of singing, reminds me of us.”

Rhett keeps writing, quiet, and focused.

After a short time, Link can’t stop and wants to crane over to see what he’s come up with. Rhett hands it over after crossing a final “t” somewhere on the page.

“Those’re good, Link, but I think you need to keep closer to what I wrote, leave out the stuff about me.”

“Stuff about you?” Link asks, having spoken in a stream-of-conscious style, Link forgets most of what he even said

Rhett looks away, shakes his head.

Distracted by the desire to read the rest, Link abandons the lingering questions he has about Rhett’s suggestion and response.

“These are great, man, thanks,” Links says, pushing a soft hand into Rhett’s side.

His eyes scan to the bottom where Rhett’s added a few lines about the journey, the marriage, all the ceremonial aspects of the day for him to close with, but then something more.

Something about him.

Rhett catches him catch it and looks further away. “I know Christy pretty well, too, y’know. Y’all are just alike, in that way. She might need some back-up vows, to have and hold.”

Link reads them.

“You know, just in case.”

Link looks up and tries to laugh.

He doesn’t laugh.

He goes back to reading them.

Rhett shifts uncomfortably, touches the back of his neck, and shuts his eyes.

“Rhett, these ’re…”

“I know, bo, you can forget ‘em,” Rhett excuses, still not meeting Link’s gaze. “You want me to… I can rewrite the others on a different - I can turn the page and write ‘em there so you can just…”

“Hey, hey,” Link interrupts him, mad at Rhett putting down his best friend, and eager to explain his actual thoughts. “Rhett, these are perfect. These are… I’m sad I can’t say anything as nice in return to you.”

Rhett finally looks up to acknowledge that and their gaze heats and lingers.

“Not that I…” Link stutters to clarify. “Y-You’d have to be a - if that’s something that was gonna - you know - if that was gonna work…”

His mind does it’s usual jump to a visual for the worst case scenario depicting the implication he stumbled across. Him out eight grand on the wedding. Not to mention a wife, a family, a future, a faith -

a friend -

Link gulps, pushing that back away, pushing them both forward, in his estimation.

It’s too much to bear to think about for another second. When he glances at Rhett, he can’t get a read on his face what he thinks about it, and that’s scary enough for him to want to abandon the concept altogether.

“Christy’s gonna love them.”

It’s enough, saying his fiancée's name, to ground him again. Enough to make it okay for him to grab Rhett’s palm and squeeze it in thanks, between them.

Rhett’s made his choice to give up on film school.

Link’s made his choice to give up on whatever schoolboy obsession he has with monopolizing all of Rhett’s days and nights. 

He’ll stick to the days or every other weekend, however they can still fit time together, is fine by him. This ceremony, tomorrow, feels as much about his graduation from friend to husband, and all that that entails.

They’re adults.

They both know there’s a lot of sacrifices to be made and this feels like the first time he’s really acknowledging how hard they’re going to be to make. He hopes they’ll still see each other.

He hopes their kids will get along.

He has a lot of hopes.

All of them involve Rhett.

There’s a lot he should write down for when Rhett finds his own bride to wed.

Link notices, suddenly, that Rhett is crying. The same part of him that's nearly broken the headwind of these conflicting emotions turns back to comfort him.

“Hey, don’t cry,” Link soothes, realizing he’s also still holding Rhett’s hand.

“‘M sorry,” Rhett intones, the words bubble up and out of him simultaneously, sounding like water draining in a filled sink. “And the night before your wedding, good Heavens.”

“Hey, I’ve been crying all week,” Link says, waving a hand at the stress that planning a wedding has kept put on him. “Nothing I haven’t seen in the mirror.”

Rhett laughs, rubbing a thumb over his own thigh in a way that brushes upwards against the place Link’s clasping his hand. Link nearly pulls his hand back, thinking Rhett’s trying to get him to sense his want for space, but when he meets his eye it’s clear he’d like nothing less.

“I think I’m just -” Rhett starts to say, trailing off. The light from the lamp on the far coffee table is the only thing on in the room. Link drops his gaze a few inches to try and see more of Rhett’s downturned eyes as he hems and haws. He squeezes their hands together, again, this time clasping it more firmly, still pressing Rhett’s large palm down from above. “I think I’m just a li’l jealous, is all.”

It’s the quietest admission he’s heard from Rhett since he told him he failed their chemistry mid-term in eleventh grade.

Link is also so lost at the innocence of the admission that he can only think of follow-up questions. “Of me?”

Rhett looks at him for a long, long minute and finally, when Link’s gaze remains confused for the whole length of the pause, he shakes his head, no.

Then he waits. 

He waits for Link to realize what he means.

But he’s still waiting when Link, oblivious, moves onward trying to comfort Rhett, instead of understanding him fully.

The tension in the room is palpable as Link talks, but only to Rhett, it seems. Only Rhett pictures air bags being deployed in a car safety video as metal hits cinder block. Only Rhett moves his hand, though it’s all it takes to dislodge them from each other completely.

“I know you’re gonna make an amazing husband some day.” Link is saying.

Rhett’s hand aches where cool air now surrounds it.

“I know your wife is gonna get to hear you say such wonderful things about her.”

Rhett wipes his hand of the misunderstanding on the cotton of his pants.

“I know she’s gonna say the same kind of things about you, when it’s your turn up there.”

Rhett mourns the idea that this would ever be requited.

“I know she’s gonna love you, just as much as I do, so she’ll have plenty to say.”

Rhett looks away, wiping the last of his tears from his eyes. 

 “I’ll make sure she has plenty of ideas where to start.”

Rhett pats Link’s leg, in camaraderie, and nods.

And that’s it. They shoot the shit, they make a plan to meet up at a donut place for the groomsmen’s breakfast to thank them for their help, before the ceremony, and they’ll talk things through if Link’s feeling jittery still. Then Rhett’s gone.

It’s not until the next day at eleven on the dot (everyone has an agenda to follow and every moment is accounted for) that Link understands Rhett’s pain.

His mother straightens his tie and flattens the edges of his suit. “You’ll wanna know I heard Christy looks like an angel in her dress, from the girls upstairs.”

“Those actual angels you been talkin’ to, Sue?” Rhett jokes, where he’s twisting his cummerbund around every so often, bored.

“Very funny, honey,” Sue ribs back. “From the cousins, Beth and Hailee Sue. Remember they’re friends with the hairstylist you got to do the curls for Christy’s hair, today? She was over last night getting Christy ready for bed with how to wash and dry it a special kind of way. They were there, too.”

Link starts to tune her out, since there’s a lot on his mind, but then she says more.

“She says the hairstylist was talking about how jealous she was of Christy, all night, getting to marry you,” Sue relays.

“Oh, mama, please,” Link dismisses. The compliments he’s been getting have felt faker than the toupee on his uncle Bruce. That girl has never even met him. “I’m the only person here people should be jealous of, who would be jealous of Christy,” he says, trailing off, muttering his reasoning as he did. “Marrying a trainwreck like me.”

Link looks up in the mirror where some of his friends continue to mingle in various states of undress. Rhett is already dressed, however, and staring straight at Link like he’s been caught with a hand in a cookie jar.

Link’s about to ask what’s wrong when he remembers his words. Then looks again over the planes of Rhett’s face.

Last night’s words slam back into his mind and Link’s mouth drops open.

The church organ belts out an opening flurry of notes before Canon in D begins playing loudly through the sound system built into the rafters above them. Link looks up to see one of the church staff at the door instructing them to join the bridal party to line-up.

Link’s mom dashes off to where she’s paired with her nephew, Link’s favorite cousin, to be escorted down the aisle.

Rhett sees Link’s face rushing through a wash of emotions from a distance, he nods to the staffer in silent understanding that he’ll handle it, and then they’re alone.

He walks up to Link and takes his hand. He squeezes it.

“Hey, you gotta go. We gotta go. It’s showtime,” Rhett insists.

Link looks around like a bomb went off, since in some ways it did, and he doesn’t know what to do.

Rhett seems to pick up on that. He squeezes Link’s hand again.

“I’ll get over it, Link, it’s okay,” Rhett whispers, on the verge of desperation.

That confirmation is enough to fully shatter Link.

Only for a moment. 

The music continues and Rhett keeps his hand hold.

They are adults. They are in love. They have to marry. 

None of these things can be helped.

“I’m gonna be so jealous of Her, too,” Link whispers back. He squeezes Rhett’s hand one last time, as they part.

They leave.

They walk straight.

They part again.

Until later.

They move houses and cities and states.

They move mountains, inside and out.

They move together.

Much later.

They join again.

They run crooked.

They return.

To one another.

Link has spent years worrying a ring that means too much to too few people.

In the beginning, when he cries himself to sleep at what he thinks has been the mistake of a lifetime, it’s His talisman. It reminds him of the expectations upon this life he’s made.

As the years pass, however, the adherence to the bogeymen of their childhood’s rules wears thin. It starts to strictly represent love and patience.

Sacrifice.

It begins to feel like a burden. A representation of what’s been lost, not what’s been found.

He contemplates taking it off, but believes that to be a betrayal of all that it stands for to the people he stands for. 

Then, one day, (surely mid-spin) he hears Rhett tell a story about wanting to change his ring.

He watches the silver twirl as Rhett explains.

He believes he was rushed into a certain type of marriage and a certain type of life by a certain type of person.

It’s a life that he’s grown to love but the ring represents a union forced by custom and not one that’s grown through devotion. 

His ring reminds him of that too often to be good for him.

Link twists his again at the admission.

So, Rhett’s thinking about replacing the ring.

Link returns home that night in a stupor. He’s sure he said one too many things to Rhett to emphasize how wild it felt to hear him talk about changing rings.

Any memories of that day, their wedding, bring up a rush of emotions that he’s never been good at sorting through.

Today’s admission makes him feel the same spur to make use of idle, betrothed hands he feels when he cleans the fridge.

He wants to clean the slate.

He finds an old DVD copy of their wedding ceremony that he paid to have converted from miniDV some years ago. Now he struggles to find a place to watch that DVD. How quickly time has flown by.

Eventually, he ends up in his son’s room - no one’s home for the remainder of the night but he and Christy - now, he’s sitting on a bean bag, squinting at the game console’s controller trying to get the joysticks to move to “play” on screen.

The ceremony bursts to life and, like it was yesterday, Link’s nerves fizzle awake.

About halfway through the video, Christy finds him like that and sits down next to him in a thwump absorbed mostly by the stuffing of the chair.

They watch themselves smile happily at each other and Christy takes his hand.

“Should I be happy or scared to find you alone watching this on a Saturday night?” she asks, wryly, squeezing his palm.

Link doesn’t know what to say. He’s caught up in Rhett’s bygone script being spoken on screen. Words about Christy and about Link that were not their own, declared loudly in front of the congregation.

“I don’t know,” Link admits, shrugging. He doesn’t. He squeezes her hand back.

“You wanna tell me what’s eating you?”

Link hesitates, but relents. He wants that clean slate, after all. “Rhett’s getting his wedding ring replaced.”

“Replaced?” Christy asks, balking.

“Replaced, yeah,” Link responds, sure he didn’t misspeak.

“With what?” she asks.

“Oh, some new one. Fancy thing, very cool, made of trees or something. Honestly he wears the other one, the slick black one more than his wedding band half the time. He says it feels like the old one? It’s the kind of ring you get in a bauble at a vending machine crank. So, he wants a new one.”

“Jeesh,” Christy says, making a face at the screen. The camera catches Rhett stealing glances at the couple, then at the crowd, beaming at all with unbridled pride.

“Wouldn’t you be mad if I did that?” Link inquires, still baffled at the idea.

“Well, no, but don’t you love your ring? Heirloom and all that,” she says.

Link cringes. “Yeah, yeah. Honestly, I do.”

“So?”

“So, I still kind of want to and I’m not sure what that means.”

They watch the screen together.

“Do you wanna stay married?” she asks, in a small voice.

“Yes,” he breathes out.

There’s a long pause.

“To me?” she asks, her voice even smaller.

“Yes,” he breathes in.

She squeezes his hand, her confidence built back up. She begs him to join her.

“And him?” Christy whispers.

They both look the screen, the lens centered on the two of them, but their gaze is mutually torn to where Rhett stands wiping a tear from his eye at Christy reciting the last of the vows that he wrote her. Wrote him. Wrote them both.

She squeezes his hand again.

“Yes,” he breathes out.

She leans her head on his shoulder.

“You should probably get another ring, then,” she jests. “We shouldn’t have to share everything.”

The slate is clean.

There’s a lot he wants to say to Rhett about it, but just as before, he’s relied on Rhett to give him the right words to say. So, instead of words, he starts wearing Rhett’s ring.

Then, a new one, when he realizes he can match him separate from the other, all told. Have something of Rhett’s, all to himself.

In his unspoken push towards something more, their hands now match along with their steps, as they walk forward.

On the last week in July, they get ice cream at the fifth place that month to mistake them for husbands, but the first one he hears Link crow an affirmative in response.

Rhett waits for him while he triple-tips the cashier (for the guess) and pays for their cones.

“Bad joke,” Rhett says, softly, but firm.

“Who’s kidding?” Link parries back, a smirk dancing it’s way across his lips.

Rhett watches him with a wistful look of disbelief.

“Link, we’re married,” Rhett warns him.

Link shrugs. “I know. I’m just waiting for you to figure that out and minding my ice cream here, all right?”

He’s got a mouthful of vanilla bean and extra cookie crumble, the next second, so his vow ends there.

Later, at home, Rhett startles Jessie awake when he fully realizes Link’s words.

He shakes her awake. He shakes them both awake.

“I’m in love with Link,” he says, like it’s a confession.

She kisses him because so is she. So are most people.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

Rhett repeats himself.

So does she.

They stare at each other under the cover of silk and moonlight.

“We’re married,” Rhett whispers, touching his hand to hers. Their rings clink, new and shiny.

“Yeah, and so are we,” she whispers back.

They fall asleep smiling.

The next day, Rhett sneaks up behind Link while he’s working and causes him to spill his cup of coffee. He gets the stink eye for only a minute because it’s the same length of time he can stand Link’s grumpy mug before he has to swoop down and kiss him on the lips.

“You figured it out,” Link says, grinning.

“I did,” Rhett chirps as he kisses Link more.

They take a car to their house. It’s filled with their love and the history of it; before, during, and after.

“What’s this?” Link asks, dazed in their post-sex glow, naked and alive.

He spots an old chord book of theirs from last time they wrote music.

“Oh,” Rhett says, bashful. “I came looking for you here this morning, hoping you slept over again, but, uh,” Rhett stalls, looks away and tries to take the songbook from Link’s hand. Link pulls it far enough he can’t reach. “You were already at the job.”

“And?” Link asks, using his spry, sinewy body as an advantage to slink away from the bed out of Rhett’s grip. He still has the book in hand.

“Those are your vows,” Rhett explains.

Link looks down and squints, confused. These aren’t the vows that Christy read at their wedding. He’s seen that video only a few months back and is sure of it.

“Our vows,” Rhett whispers, explaining further, at Link’s puzzled look.

“It’s a love song,” Link notes, marveling at the gesture. What it means to a young version of himself that once felt like they had surely cut out and mourned the possibility of this - all of this - ever happening. To have that thought coexist with the image of a nude, hulking tree trunk of a husband laid before him smiling up adoringly felt panoptic.

“So are you.”

Link begins to cry.

“Play it for me.”

Rhett wipes his cheek.

“Get my guitar.”

They sing twice more that night, always in harmony (not always in lyric), then spend the rest of their lives together doing much the same.

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 129

Despite the last couple weeks of work being profoundly exhausting (think 60 hours, easily), I am proud that I’ve been able to keep writing and stay ahead! I literally could not have done that without @baelpenrose, @charlylimph-blog, @the-raven-fae, and @anotherusrname. Y’all are my real-world rocks when everything gets crazy.

***Shameless Plug: @the-raven-fae has the first episode of the podcast up now! you can find it here!! ***

The other thing that has been keeping me going is each and every one of you who has found this story and binged it from start to finish as a speed-run. I can’t even name all of you at this point, but I want you all to know that I see it, and it makes me smile so hard my face hurts.

Now, who is ready for some Charly shenanigans?

A few days later, I had just enough time to sweep dinner off the table in my quarters before Charly unceremoniously dropped a long something in the midst of us with a dull thud.  Immediately, a rusty red cloud rose up and set us all into a fit of tears and coughing.

Out in the hallway, I was eventually able to convince my lungs to at least try to breathe long enough to wheeze out, “Geezus, Charly, what the hell was that?”

“Soooo….” Uh oh. “ItmayneedsomecalibrationthecloudwasntsupposedtobethatbigandIdidntmeanforittogooffbut - “

I shook my head and typed a quick message on my datapad. “Please breathe because right now I don’t think the rest of us can and I would love to know why.”

She stopped rushing out what I think were words long enough to read the message and try again. “Chili powder arrows. I think I need to recalibrate them, though, because it shouldn’t have gone off at less than one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour, and there’s no way I set it down that hard.”

“Why?” I rasped, still swallowing as hard as I could and mentally begging Noah to bring us some water or a medical transport.

“Defensive measures,” she insisted. “Scent navigation is really common in the Galactic community, and so is sensitivity to capsaicin, so…”

“Makes sense,” Conor managed to get out as he tried to gasp for air. “Even Noah.”

“Bit much.” I pinched my fingers as closely as I could without touching - which was more difficult than expected considering that I was shaking.

Maverick was the first to get up off the floor of the corridor, just as the medical transport arrived.  He and Charly helped us on before distributing bottles of water to rinse our mouths and eyes. “It was… a good idea…” he panted once we were all seated. “Just… bit overkill…”

“The range of the cloud is only supposed to be five feet,” she insisted fretfully. “And I swear the pressure sensor is supposed to be calibrated to only go off if it’s fired from a bow or swung really, really hard.”

“Who...want...swing?”  I was honestly starting to get dizzy fighting my airways to breathe.

Once we arrived at a medbay, Charly helped a couple of Miys’ bodies get us out of the transport and lying down in berths. In a glitch-like transition, suddenly I could breathe easily and she was joined by Arthur and Coffey in sitting with us.

“Wait… when did… I’m so confused,” I admitted, my voice only slightly strained.

“Lethe field, apparently,” Arthur shrugged. “You didn’t want to be awake for that.”

Conor sat up and rubbed his sternum. “I remember chili pepper arrows - Charly, love, that was brilliant except the, you know, going off bit - and getting off the transport.”

“Respiratory lavage,” Charly winced. “You know, war crime if done incorrectly?”

I shuddered and nodded. “Yep. Didn’t want to be awake for that, thanks.  Glad I can’t remember, don’t ever want to, would rather remember the pepper bomb you set off. At point blank range?”

She snuggled further down in Coffey’s lap as he gently rubbed her scalp with his fingertips.  Arthur spoke in her defense, instead. “She’s sending the schematics to Zach and Derek to find out what went wrong.  Tactically, they were a brilliant idea - she’s right about the large amount of species who would react even worse than you did if hit with one.”

“I only inhale spices figuratively.  I would prefer not to do it literally - like, ever again.”

Maverick sat up and gave Charly a curious look. “You said they can be swung… Unless I saw something wrong, the arrow was only two feet long.  Who would want to swing something like that?”

Coffey and Arthur both held up gas masks and wiggled them. “Between my arm reach and the length of one of those, I could do it, no problem.”

“We aren’t all so fortunate,” Arthur intoned drily. “Plus, that doesn’t mean someone closer isn’t getting hit.”

Conor raised his hand politely before pointing out a potential flaw. “What if they have gas masks?”

“Noah has a topical reaction,” I answered, my mind racing. “And I assume we have other measures in the works?”

“Multiple types of sonic weaponry are being tested,” Coffey intoned with a nod. “Sub- and ultrasonics, infrasound, and just loud music.”

Still in full Devil’s Advocate mode, Conor persisted. “And if they are covered, head to toe, and none of that works?”

A deafening silence filled the medbay. The prospect of being forcibly boarded had only been a known issue for a week, and apparently this prospect hadn’t been covered yet in the defensive planning.

Finally, it was Maverick who spoke up. Had anyone else been talking, we couldn’t have heard him, but in the quiet his whisper echoed like a gunshot. “The interior hull is organic, not magnetic.”

“Mav, we know that. It doesn’t help us.” Conor’s voice was confused.

Arthur, however, looked like he had just seen a travesty occur in front him, unable to stop it. “You’re talking about blowing the airlocks.”

I scrambled to sit up, clawing at the blanket that covered my legs. “What!? Maverick, he’s wrong, right? You aren’t talking about that, right?”

“It makes logical sense,” Charly added, still laying her head against Coffey’s chest. “If someone boards the Ark by force, and they have enough gear that no amount of defense we mount even bothers them, they would be wearing enough gear to survive being blown into space.”

“And they can’t magnetize to the hull,” Maverick confirmed. “Maybe the outside, but not inside.”

“What about Noah?” I demanded. “They are a non-combatant.”

“Noah evolved in vacuum,” Charly pointed out.

“You’re talking a war strategy!” I nearly shouted. “What about Arthur? Coffey? Or Ivan? Are you seriously going to tell me they won’t be the first people charging to defend the Ark?” I pointed at the previously brandished gas masks with a damning glare.

“We are talking about a last-ditch defense to save as many people on this ship as possible,” she whispered.  “I don’t make the decisions, I just make the tools they are going to use. You know, you know I don’t want us to use any of this. And I plan to booby-trap everything within an inch of all our lives to keep us from having to use as much of it as possible.  Hence, arrows. As many kinds as I can make up.”

I started taking deep breaths, trying to calm down. At my heart of hearts, I knew she was sincere - Charly was almost as much of a pacifist as I was, at the end of the day. Even Arthur wasn’t necessarily a warmonger, just… uninhibited in what he defined as ‘the best defense is a good offense’.

Frustrated, I swung my legs over the side of the berth. “I need to go home. I want dinner, and a nap.  Probably a drink.”

Charly reached out and pushed my legs back on to the bed. “You’re under observation for another hour. Dry-drowning risk.”

I groaned and gave her a pleading look. “I’m hungry, and this isn’t my bed.  It’s honestly half the reason I’m in such a bad mood. You and Arthur probably make absolute perfect sense to less-sleepy, fed Sophia, but right now, not so much.”

“Your limey assistant is bringing a change of clothes, your sister, and some food,” Arthur smirked. “So you get to stay right there,  not die, and get some sleep.”

“But Mac…”

“Is at Derek and Sam’s, but very nice try,” he confessed.

“I wanna go home,” I grumbled sullenly.

Maverick nodded, and gulped down some water Charly handed him. “Did someone turn on the scrubbers in there yet?”

Conor and I turned wide eyes to him. The thought apparently never occurred to either of us. “Charly love,” Conor started hesitantly. “How much bigger was the cloud than you thought?”

“I’m not sure,” she confessed, sheepish. “It was pretty big.”

Rubbing my face briskly, I suppressed the urge to sob. “My blankets… the furniture… our clothes…”

“Else is working on it.”

I glanced at Coffey, confused. “Else is? They eat iron.”

Noah’s voice broke in from the ceiling. “Correction. When still a bacterium, Else fed on iron. However, as they have evolved, their needs have expanded to include a more diverse diet.”

“Are you telling me that there are faceless baby chickens flooding our quarters, eating the chili powder?”

“They do show a preference for foods more toxic to the general Galaxy.  We estimate that this is due to their origin within human beings, who share the same marked trait.”

“At least someone is appreciating my hard work,” Charly grumbled.

I strained to suppress a smile. “I’ll make you whatever you want for dinner, for a week, to make up for being ungrateful?”

“Maybe just tell Alistair it was an accident?  He gets upset when you almost die.”

“Both?”

“Both. Both is good.”

<< Prev   Masterlist  Next >>

[aperrywilliams]

New blurbs-series: 10 days to my birthday!! (Day 4)

(Not my gif)

Author Masterlist - Series Masterlist

My birthday will be in 4 days from now. So I’m going to celebrate myself with 10 Spencer Reid’s blurbs. Enjoy! (This one is longer too)

Day 10 | Day 09 | Day 08 | Day 07 | Day 06 | Day 05 | Day 04 | Day 03 | Day 02 | Day 01

Day 04: Spencer Reid kiss you for the first time.

Tiredness washed over your body after recently finishing a grueling case. Apparently the serial killers were having a feast across the country, and it had the team working overtime for several weeks now.

You accepted the fact job was like this sometimes. The whole team knew and accepted it too. But at this point, all of you just wanted was to get home and sleep until next year.

You were getting on the elevator when you saw Spencer jog to catch up with you.

“(Y/N)! Wait !,” the young doctor told you before the door closed. You managed to stop it and he managed to get on.

“Sorry Spencer, I didn't see you coming,” you apologized.

“Don't worry, I didn't mean to scare you,” he muttered.

“It’s okay. I guess sleepiness has us all drained.” Spencer nodded.

With Spencer things were going well, although it was a strange thing. Until that day you had two ‘pseudo dates’. The term ‘pseudo’ applies because none of the two could reach term as you both had been originally planned.

The first date was dinner at a fancy restaurant that Spencer insisted on taking you. Despite the fancy of the place, you guys managed to relax and have a good time. That, combined with the adoring looks you both exchanged from time to time. Everything was going smoothly until your phones began to ring. A new case forced you guys to finish the lovely evening and rush to the BAU.

The second date was a week and a half after the first. You suggested something more relaxed to Spencer: go see a movie and then eat something at a nearby restaurant. Everything was going well during the movie, you both even held hands at times. As you guys were leaving the theater, Spencer's phone began to ring insistently. It was a call from the sanitarium where his mother was in Vegas, where they required him to contact her as soon as possible. It wasn't anything serious, but it was important, which is why Spencer apologized to you for ending the date early. You understood and tried not to make him feel bad about it.

The elevator reached the floor where the parking lots were. The doors opened and you both got out of the elevator.

“(Y/N)... I was thinking. I know we're both very tired now, but... maybe tonight we could have our third date... and... maybe now we can finish it?”. You smirked at the statement. Clearly Spencer looked as frustrated as you that you both couldn't have had a proper date so far. Although it was strange to think of it that way: what was an appropriate date after all?

“Sure we can. Tonight is okay for me. What do you want to do?”. You asked Spencer. He blushed a little and cleared his throat before speaking.

“Ehm, I thought it might be a surprise?... if that's okay with you”. You could feel your heart race after hearing his words.

“Oh. Ehm, that's fine. If you want it to be a surprise, that's fine with me,” you replied.

“Great! Can I pick you up at 8 pm?”. He asked happily.

“Yeah. Perfect. At 8 pm I'll be ready,” you replied with a big grin.

It was around 2 pm when you arrived at your place. That left you plenty of time for a little nap and getting ready for your date with Spencer. Almost out of inertia you dropped into bed and quickly fell asleep. You woke up around 6 in the afternoon. You took a shower and started getting ready. You didn't know if you should go for very fancy clothes, since you didn't even know where Spencer would take you, so you chose something that could fit different scenarios.

When you were ready, you looked in the mirror and were satisfied with the result. You went to the kitchen for a soda when your phone started ringing. You looked at the time and it was 7:30 pm. You frowned when you saw that the caller was Hotch.

“Hotch?,” you answered.

“(Y/L/N), sorry to call at this time, but we have an urgent case in Tucson, Arizona. See you on the tarmac in 30 minutes”.

More than one expletive came out of your mouth in record time once you finished the call with Hotch. The minute you got a message from Spencer. ‘I guess Hotch already called you. I'm sorry. SR’.

Defeated you went to your room and changed into your work clothes. You took your bag and left the apartment.

You just exchanged a few glances with Spencer on the jet. You didn't even want to sit next to him this time. You knew you were being unfair to him, after all it wasn't his fault. But you didn't know how to channel your frustration, so you preferred to isolate yourself from the rest during the entire flight.

Spencer knew you were upset and didn't know what to do to make amends for the situation. It wasn't his or your fault, but he felt responsible anyway. While studying the case file, Spencer couldn't help but look where you were sitting and see how your gaze was lost in the clouds the jet caressed with its wings.

The case had you all four days in the search for an elusive unsub. But finally, you managed to locate his hiding place and make the arrest with no more victims to regret.

It was around 7 pm when you finished the paperwork at the police station. According to your estimate, that would allow you all to be on the jet at 8 pm and travel at night. You could at least sleep a few hours during the flight. But if things had not turned out the way you wanted for weeks, this was no exception: Hotch approached to the team in the meeting room and announced that the jet had a malfunction, so you would have to stay one more day in Tucson and fly the next day. You couldn't help a weary sigh and grab your things by quickly leaving the room. The whole team stared at you curiously, but you no longer cared. You just wanted to go home and sink into your mattress, cover yourself up to your head and disappear the world for at least a week.

Spencer came out looking for you and found you before you got into one of the SUVs to go to the hotel.

“Wait!”. He said to make you stop. “I'm going with you. And... let me drive, I don't think it's a good idea for you to drive while being so upset”. You thought about it for two seconds and yes, he was right. You handed him the keys and climbed into the passenger seat.

“I'm sorry Spencer, maybe I made a scene in there, but I'm just tired. I just want to get out of here...,” you trailed off.

“I know. And I'm sorry our third date was ruined too”. He tried to apologize. Your eyes softened.

“Don't apologize Spencer, things just haven't worked out, but it's not your fault. Maybe it's a sign?...”. You tried to joke. Spencer frowned.

“Don't say that. I'm not going to stop insisting until it works!”. You both started laughing.

When you saw that Spencer turned right instead of left on one of the avenues on the way to the hotel, you thought he was confused.

“Spencer... the hotel is on the other side, you turned right instead of left...,” you corrected him.

“Oh...,” was all he said, but he made no move to change the route. What's more, you were surprised to see that he took Highway 86 to the west.

“We're not going to the hotel, are we?”. You asked. You could see a small smirk on Spencer's face.

“Nope. Maybe I might have a surprise for you?,” he said making a brief eye contact with you before turning his gaze back to the road.

“Oh”. It was the only thing you said. Your heart began to pound in anticipation. What was going on in Spencer's head at the time? You asked yourself.

After almost an hour of travel, with the sun already disappearing and many curves in the road, you saw a sign that said "Kitt Peak National Observatory". Spencer began to speak.

“Well, I may have had to change some of the original plans I had for our third date, I hope you don't mind,” he said simply, as he parked the SUV.

Once out of the car, Spencer took your hand and led you towards one of the buildings where there was a guard at the entrance.

“Good evening, I’m Dr. Spencer Reid, I spoke with Dr. Hammond this afternoon for a visit...”. The guard looked at his tablet and nodded, smiling, opening the door letting you and Spencer in, and leading them up the stairs to a terrace.

“Dr. Hammond apologizes for not being able to be with you tonight, but is certain that you can have a good evening here. Whatever you need I will be at the entrance.”

You were stunned, the terrace was an open space that allowed you to see the sky in all its splendor. In the center was a small folding table with two chairs, a makeshift tablecloth, two glasses, a jug of fresh water, a small bottle of wine, and two sandwiches. Looking at Spencer he smiled at you.

“I guess this area is not open to the public at night and less with the possibility of an improvised dinner...,” you told him.

“Well, my friend Dr. Hammond may have made a slight exception. But say ‘dinner’, however, I think would be an exaggeration,” Spencer said, pointing to the two sandwiches.

“This is better than what I expected to eat at the hotel, so it does qualify as dinner for me,” you said taking his hand and squeezing it gently. He looked at you with adoring eyes without letting go of your hand.

“I'm sorry that our previous dates were ruined (Y/N), I've wished they were perfect so much and seeing you as frustrated as I am makes me sad”.

“Don't say that. In the end the idea is to spend time together and although our previous dates have not gone as planned, every minute that I can be with you counts for me”. You could see how his eyes shone in the light of the stars that seemed so close. Spencer never stopped looking at you and with his free hand began to caress one of your cheeks.

“I like you so much (Y/N), I don't know how I could go so long without being able to tell you, just like I don't know how I could last so long without doing this...,” he whispered to you.

“'This' what?”. You asked without even wanting to blink.

“This...,” Spencer repeated in a whisper barely audible to you, as he leaned in slowly until his lips brushed yours. You could feel how your whole body was electrified by the sensation. Spencer's soft, warm lips barely parted from yours. He expected to see your reaction, begging you not to reject him or feel uncomfortable. To prove otherwise, you let go of his hand and wrapped your arms around his neck to draw him closer to you. 

That was the invitation Spencer needed to now kiss you properly. You both got lost in that moment you waited for so long. It was perfect. You realized that this kiss could have been anywhere and it would have been just as perfect. The stars above your heads only made it more magical than it already was. But it was not the important thing. The important thing was that Spencer kissed you for the first time and you kissed him back. And that fortunately this time nothing would break the moment because on that terrace, the cell phones signals weren’t working.

——

Permanent Taglist: @dreatine​​ @andiebeaword​​ @paulaern​

[haliyam]

No matter what

eren x historia; yeager bro moments (or zeke wishes lol)

Summary: The time has come for Marley to choose its new Warriors, and Eren has a decision to make. (Also, "some things never change.") Warriors AU for erehisu day.

AO3 link if you prefer to read there

--

Happy erehisu day! I saw this amazing erehisu art by beforelightsout on twitter where Eren and Historia are Warrior candidates + Eren became a shifter. Since it's erehisu day and everyone has come out with such wonderful stuff, I wanted to contribute somehow and write something for that AU. I've been dying of work and a covid scare so I was running on the fumes of my love for this ship and everyone else's stuff and also VIBES while writing this in the last hour, so, it's barely edited, if it even makes sense. Sorry in advance. I hope you enjoy though! 

Also, for this AU (or really for the fic to work lol), my headcanon is that the war keeping the previous Warriors dragged on, so Reiner's generation don't get selected until they're this age (Historia and Eren are 17). As for Zeke... idk. Maybe Mr. Ksaver had more time too. Anyway who cares about Zeke here!!! (me I still do)

No matter what

“You know this counts as cheating.”

Eren shoots Zeke a look. They’re standing at the courtyard in HQ, watching the younger candidates wheeze through their training while Magath and his assistant instructors bark orders in the background. Days before selection, and with Zeke already holding the Beast Titan and Colt preparing to inherit, their generation doesn’t need to be put through their paces as often anymore—or maybe Commander Bruning is just letting them off the hook for the week.

They both doubt that. 

Up ahead, Falco trips over an unseen pebble, and Zeke sighs. 

“You don’t have to do this, you know?” he says, out of misplaced brotherly affection. Eren appreciates it, but that’s not what he needs right now. “You already have the armband.”

“This isn’t about me.”

“I know,” Zeke raises his hands in surrender, but the playful gesture doesn’t take away the scrutiny in his gaze. For all his levity, he doesn’t once glance away. Eren knows he’s seeing their father in him, trying to decide whether that’s a positive or a negative. 

“So?”

Zeke scratches the back of his ear. “You already know you’re in the running for the Attack Titan and the Armored Titan. Porco and Reiner are on your heels for the Armor. As for the Attack Titan…”

Zeke tilts his head in a shrug. Eren exhales, and then nods. “Thanks.”

His brother peers at him, a small smile curling at the corners of his mouth. “Thanks what?”

Eren is grateful, reassured, but not that grateful. “What am I, ten? I’m not calling you big bro.”

Zeke lets out a long-suffering sigh this time, the kind he uses to guilt trip the others into helping him with paperwork at his age. “You used to be such a cute kid.” He’s quick enough to reach over and ruffle Eren’s hair, and then withdraw before he can smack his hand away. “Now you’re all grown up.”

Eren rolls his eyes, but claps a hand to his brother’s arm in earnest. “Thanks, Zeke.”

The man gives him a thumbs up, and Eren belatedly catches a sliver of gold pass one of the windows behind the courtyard ahead of the other girls. His feet take him forward before he can bid his brother goodbye.

“Go on,” Zeke says, right as Eren catches himself almost sheepishly. He goes to her without another thought.

--

There’s no big to-do when it comes to the selection process. Apart from their generation of candidates, there’s only Zeke, standing to the side with the other instructors who assist the captain, while Magath and Commander Bruning themselves stand together, as imposing as the day they first met.

Maybe a little less now that they’ve earned their stripes, training for a decade with the extension of the war in the South, but Eren can feel the pressure of this moment bearing down on him. 

The others have been chosen. They stand at the other side of the room, putting on their most dignified expressions and trying to contain their shock at their commander’s question. 

“There remain two Titans, Eren Yeager,” said Commander Bruning seconds, maybe a minute ago. Eren’s mind is still reeling. “Which of them, in your estimation, best suits you?”

“Me, sir?” he had asked dumbly in response. Bruning had only nodded.

It isn’t supposed to happen like this. From the group ready to receive their red armbands, he feels Marcel’s eyes burning into his side. Marcel, who was pulled aside by Magath and Bruning earlier today. Eren expected the same treatment—not this. Is this a test? 

Porco and Reiner stand to his left, behind him because he’s stepped forward, and he feels hazel daggers ready to strike at his back. He doesn’t care about them right now. It’s the blue to his right that envelops his all. The air is replete with Historia’s expectation, drowning out all the others in the room. He feels weightless in it, a drop in the ocean that is her existence to him. 

Eren knows he could be more. If he gives the right answer, she might just see him as more.

But Historia isn’t the ocean to these people. She’s a tool, or she could be, and he cannot let that happen. Eren remembers the ground under his feet and peers into the commander’s eyes.

“If I may, sir, I believe Braun has always had the most endurance among the candidates,” he says clearly, just like he’s rehearsed with Marcel. He tries not to imagine the way Historia’s stomach drops. “Nowadays he takes Leonhart’s hits like they’re almost nothing. And for myself—I’ve come to specialize in close quarters combat. The Attack Titan would suit me best.”

Reiner sighs in relief not far from him. Porco and Historia are utterly silent. He can’t even hear them breathing.

Bruning and Magath seem not to notice. They only exchange glances, and if they think anything of Eren answering more than what was asked of him, they say nothing. 

After a few nods, Bruning turns toward them with pride. “It’s as we thought. I see no reason why we should delay for pointless suspense or further deliberation.” With a small motion of the commander’s hand, Reiner steps forward. “Congratulations, Yeager. Braun. You have earned the honor of becoming the new sword and shield of our great motherland Marley.”

--

The room erupts with excitement as soon as the Marleyans are surely gone from the hallway. Eren is already headed for the door when Porco tries to grab him by the shoulder.

“Eren, what the hell? You know this asshole isn’t better than me!”

Reiner sneers at him from behind before Eren can even shrug him off. “Apparently the brass knew different, Pock. Don’t take it out on Eren—he only affirmed what they were already thinking.”

Porco growls, turning on Reiner instead, which means it’s going to be one of those afternoons. Eren is happy to turn back for the door—he feels bright blue trained on him now, and it’s all he can do not to scamper for the exit.

Clutching the cigarette pack in his uniform pocket, he manages to get as far as two floors down before Historia catches up. She’s been calling out to him since she gave chase.

“Hey!” she yells. He was stupid to head for their usual spot. There’s a corridor in this building that’s gone unused for a while that they found, once, when it was their turn for cleaning duty. It’s been theirs since then, and one of the windows has the best view of the city right outside the internment zone’s walls—and the zone entrance itself. So they don’t forget what they’re supposed to do. 

“Eren!”

She’s starting to lose her breath, unable to match his longer strides. His footsteps start to slow, right as they reach that window. He turns around when hers stop too.

Hands still in his pockets, he stares down at her. “What is it?”

Historia glares at him, dignified even as she tries to catch her breath. “What the hell are you doing?”

Eren fishes out the cigarette pack from his pocket and shows her. It’s really Zeke’s, but he figured he’d need it after today. He isn’t wrong. 

She scoffs. “Since when do you smoke?”

“I’m going to be a shifter,” he shrugs. “It doesn’t matter much now, right?”

Historia shakes her head, smart enough to ignore the diversion. “Eren, what the hell was that? I thought… I thought we understood each other.” Always to the point. “I thought you and I would become Warriors together. Change things from the inside and convince the others to do the same.”

The truth of her confusion, her frustration and growing anger pulls at him. She’s everything she didn’t used to be, back when she was still playing the perfect little Warrior who unnerved him so much. It’s exactly why he needs to keep a straight face. 

“Ah… yeah. Sorry about that,” he murmurs, his tone completely level, fingers pinching at the cigarette pack in his fist. “I just gave it some thought, and… I think Reiner would be better as the Armor, not me. So—that left me as the Attack Titan.”

The pain in her eyes is almost too much for him. If only they were cold, just like she’d been the moment he saw her true self for the first time. That way he could crystallize himself in them and shatter instead of having to face her like this. But she hasn’t been cold for a long while, and the warmth in her gaze even after his betrayal does him in. 

“You’re lying,” she realizes the moment his gaze flickers away from hers. Eren curses himself for it. “You once said you could always tell when I was being fake. You think, after everything we’ve been through, that I wouldn’t know it with you either?”

Eren bites his tongue and forces himself to meet those eyes again. He reminds himself why he did it. It’s all that keeps his hands steady as he carelessly flicks the cigarette pack open and reaches for a stick. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Historia swipes her hand at his, knocking the pack from his grasp. It hits the ground with a pathetic smack. “Don’t lie to me, Eren!” she says, pleads even when she’s angry, because they’re friends, aren’t they? If only that were all she is. “You know I deserve more than that. Why are you doing this!? We were going to become Warriors together. We were supposed to have thirteen years together!”

She’s free to vent her frustrations in the hallway like they always have with each other, voice shaky and shakier still as the grief escapes her. By the time she mentions that number, Historia is on the verge of tears, but she blinks them away with the fury that remains. How unlike him, who wants to fold more than anything, feeling like the slightest breeze, the slightest word from her can knock him over. He can only stare at the ground as he swallows down the emotion rising in his throat, and that’s when he realizes it. She’s right, like she always is. He can’t stand lying to her. 

The prospect of having to utter his next words terrifies him more than the idea of paradise. But he manages it, because she deserves to know the truth.

“You know why,” he says, trembling only at the last word. Shamefully, face red with self-disgust, he lifts his eyes to hers, fearing the worst. 

She catches his meaning. Of course she does—she knows him best. He expects her to leap at him, punch him, anything that will make the guilt of his selfishness ebb even just a little, but she only stands there. Shocked, and then her cheeks flush in only the most beautiful way. He already knows he’ll never forget how the light from the windows illuminates her face like this.

But then her brows furrow, shoulders raising angrily, and she stomps her foot on the ground. “Am I supposed to be grateful for that?” she snaps. “Should I say thank you for making this decision without me? What about what I wanted?”

“No!” Eren stammers, hands up in submission as if that will placate her. “Of course not! I didn’t do this for your gratitude!” 

“Then why did you do it?” Her voice is still raised, but her tone is resigned. Historia knows that even if she gets the answer, Marley’s decision is set in stone.

That’s the thought Eren takes comfort in. The tears that dampen his eyes are tears of relief, no matter his shame, no matter his remorse. And here he thought he’d grown out of this when he turned sixteen. 

Pressing his lips into his teeth in an attempt to maintain his composure, Eren lets his gaze drop again. “I want you to live,” he admits, so quietly she almost misses it. “I want you to grow up and have a family like you wished you could, if you weren’t pushed into this when we were children. Get married, have children you’re free to love the way…”

He trails off. The last thing he wants to do is mention her mother. He knows she understands when she doesn’t press him to finish.

“I want you to grow old,” he continues. “Live past thirty. Get to fifty, seventy… Then you can be as grumpy as you want to be without anyone saying it doesn’t suit you. I want you to be happy.”

A slight hiccup leaves his throat, one Historia misses only because she does the same. Eren swallows it down, but his nose is already stuffy. When he looks at her again, he’s the most serious he has ever been, and it’s no performance. He reaches for her hands. 

“I’m not prepared to sacrifice your life for our cause,” he confesses. Eren imagines he could bear never to look out that window and see the walls torn down, the way they’ve dreamt together for the past few years, if it means she will live to see it herself long after he’s gone. He’s not articulate enough to say it, his ears and his throat so full with everything he wants to tell her in this moment that he’s speechless. How can he be otherwise, when she’s looking at him like that? All he can blurt out is, “I’m sorry.”

A silence brews between them. Eren wonders if it’s time to step away, to leave her to her thoughts. Maybe he can still beg for forgiveness later.

He loosens his grip on her hands, meaning to wipe his eyes, and that’s when she seizes his. “You stupid crybaby,” she murmurs quietly, fondly, “do you really think I’d be happy knowing you sacrificed yourself for me? Why do you think I promised you that we’d complete our mission within the next thirteen years?”

Eren can only look dumbfounded. 

“I wanted to spend them with you, you idiot,” she gives him, even as her voice quivers with the same desperate longing he’s felt ache in his chest for as long as he can remember now. “I would have been happier spending thirteen years with you, fighting together, than sitting out the fight and living the rest of my life without you. Isn’t that what we agreed on? To work toward what we promised? Together? What did you think I meant by that?”

Eren opens his mouth, body drained of the cool facade he’s found solace in the last few weeks since he came to terms with his greed.

“Historia,” he breathes. Remembers to. “You—?”

She’s had enough of him, he can tell by the look on her face—but he’s wrong again, because Historia grabs him by the collar and pulls him down to her, meeting his mouth with hers in a bid to help him see the truth. His fingers find her face on instinct, lips parting as they kiss so he can partake of her further. 

A moment, a hum from her and something stirring deep inside him, and Historia pulls away as if in punishment. She’s flush again, glaring until those blue eyes soften at his stupid expression. 

“Get it yet?” she asks.

His thumbs slide across her cheek, a small grin pulling at his mouth. She really is the ocean, Eren thinks, and dives in again, drinking of those soft lips, drowning in the scent of her hair, the feeling of her hands sliding down his chest. She’s everything.

What feels like both a moment and an eon passes as they stand there, him bent down as he kisses her, her tiptoed to grant it to him, until they eventually part. Only a little, because they can’t bear the distance just yet. Just so their foreheads are pressed together.

“I’m sorry,” Eren murmurs, before he’s lost in her again. “I didn’t know.”

Historia’s lashes flutter as she blinks away her own tears. This doesn’t change the consequences of the decision he’s made on his own, but she knows she can’t give him up, either. When she opens her eyes, she’s more resolute than he’s ever felt in his life. “There has to be a way,” she tells him. “Go to Paradis. Retake the Founding Titan… and come back. Then we’ll do as we promised.”

“Change the curse,” he replies, like they’ve planned, looking out at the stars from his roof in the zone. “Free our people.”

Historia nods. “No matter what.”

“No matter what,” he agrees. 

She smiles, and he can’t help that the way her lips purse when she tries to stifle it moves him. Eren draws closer—

“There you are!”

—and nearly stumbles as he and Historia untangle their limbs from one another, practically standing at attention when they hear his brother’s voice and Marcel’s surprised ah.

Unfortunately, not even the most perfect posture can erase the affection still blooming in their cheeks, or the slight swell of their lips resulting from that affection. Or the smiles they just can’t help for one another.

Zeke squints. Also unfortunately, nothing gets past this asshole. “Oh, so it finally happened?”

Marcel glances between the two of them, coming closer. “Seriously?”

Zeke snorts, palm open to the new Jaw. “Pay up, Galliard.”

Marcel scoffs. “Come on. Is it really fair if you had inside information?”

“Are you kidding? My baby brother tells me squat.”

“Oh. Yeah, I mean I guess I understand that…”

Historia lets out a very audible sigh. “Can we help you?”

Marcel meets Eren’s gaze, gratitude and apology in his smile, while Zeke tries on his new Warchief role for size. He clears his throat.

“Now that Porco and Reiner have settled down, Bruning and Magath want to see us again. Discuss our steps going forward, run tests on the new Warriors… The works. Time to go.”

Marcel sighs. “Talk about eager.”

“All right,” Eren says, finally, because he prefers serious Zeke to his annoying brother right now. He feels vulnerable enough, and he doesn’t care to be that way in front of these two. Or anyone else but her, really. “Lead the way.”

Zeke and Marcel turn to leave, starting to argue the terms of their wager as they disappear around the corner.

Historia and Eren look to each other. A shy smile finds its way to his face as he offers her his hand. 

“By the way, Eren,” Zeke pokes his head into the corridor again, finger waving at the mess of sticks on the floor, “you owe me a new pack of cigarettes. And clean that up.”

Eren groans. “Shut up!”

“But that was my favorite brand! The things I do for love,” his brother whines, to Marcel’s quiet chuckling, and finally they leave for good. 

“Sorry about that,” Eren mutters. Not that Historia hasn’t seen him like this before.

She only laughs as she accepts his hand. When she shakes her head, smiling as she pulls him forward, he feels like they might actually do it. That they might be able to find a way past those thirteen years.

And even if they don’t, he can’t feel regret. As long as they’ve managed to accomplish their mission… No, as long as he can ensure that Historia lives on, he’ll pay any price.

No matter what.

//

I'll take any opportunity to give Marcel more screentime. Well, I actually debated with myself whether it would be Marcel or Bertholdt in the last scene, but Marcel made more sense so that Zeke could whine about being an older brother to someone who could relate. (And yes, Marcel and Eren made a deal to have Reiner become the Armor. I’M SORRY REINER)

Writing Eren's parts made me realize how much I'm in love with Historia??? Like I've always loved her but I guess I realized I'm IN love with her XD Also my hc is Eren here likes to think he's the strong one protecting them both or he at least likes to project that image to the others, but really he takes his cues from Historia who is much stronger emotionally and mentally imo. Idk, I just think she's the boss in this relationship (though of course they are able to be vulnerable with one another which is the biggest thing for me).

Anyway. Thank you for reading! Happy erehisu day!

P.S. I forgot to mention that 'Commander Bruning' in my hc is the guy who tells Magath that it's a good idea to use child soldiers as their Warriors. I imagine he was in charge of a certain number of Eldian soldiers, including the Warrior program, while Magath was the 'captain' who directly managed the kids until his and Bruning's eventual promotions when they were able to conquer nations with such success.

[spicymayo1983]

Hello. Been a little busy lately, but here is my latest story. Short, simple and to the point, lol.

You are a young officer for the rebellion who has led a sheltered life, protected from the outside world by your hovering parents.

You are on your own now, but there is one thing that is weighing heavily on your mind.

You are well into your 20's and still a virgin. You are aching for the touch of another person.

Your sexual frustration leads you into the arms of the dashing Poe Dameron, who is more than happy to be your first.

Warnings: Heavy smut, both genders oral sex, virginity loss, some language, age difference stuff (nothing illegal!) definitely not for anyone under 18.

You've seen him around and even spoken to him a few times. Poe Dameron. But you are notoriously socially awkward.

Your childhood on Tattooine was a sheltered one. Your parents wanted only the best for you but they never let you out of their sight.

As a result you never really developed your social skills and were painfully awkward.

But now you are on your own and have been for years, you are a young officer for the rebellion.

There's something you've been hanging onto for years that you just want to get rid of. Your virginity. You desperately want to let loose and have fun but you feel like your V card is getting in the way. Most of the men around you, especially the ones your age, want an experienced woman.

Poe is at least a decade older than you, you estimate.

His age and experience turn you on, a lot.

The two of you have developed a sort of playful friendship, you tease each other constantly with lame jokes.

It was hard not to notice how attractive he was, even for you. His dark curly hair, deep brown eyes and smooth olive skin made you feel things.

You were a virgin but you weren't dead.

It's a late night and everyone is getting ready to retreat to their quarters. You and Poe find yourselves the last people in the room.

He senses something is bothering you, Poe puts a strong yet gentle hand on your shoulder and asks,

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine". You reply quickly, your face turning a deep shade of red.

"I can sense something's bothering you". Poe presses on, a concerned look appearing on his gorgeous face.

"Tell me, I won't judge".

"Oh, I can't." You reply quickly, your face still feeling hot. "My problem is incredibly stupid, you wouldn't understand".

"Come on, you can trust me". Poe pressed on, his hand gently squeezing your shoulder. "Nothing is stupid or shocking to me".

"I'm a virgin". You blurt out, your face still red. "I've never had sex, not even once, never came close to it either".

Poe's eyes widen a little in surprise and he bites his lip in the most adorable manner. Your revelation has blown his mind a little, maybe even turned him on.

"Wow". He says, a look of surprise still on his face. "Can't really say that I saw that one coming".

"My parents ruled over me with iron fists". You explain with a deep sigh. "I was never out of their sight, not even for a minute".

"This is going to sound unbelievably crass of me but I would love to be your first". Poe tells you, his voice taking on a soft, sexy tone. "I can be as gentle as you need me to be, and I can teach you some things".

You think about his proposal for a moment. It doesn't take you long to reply,

"You've got a deal, teach me everything you know".

The two of you head back to his quarters. After a quick shower you nervously relax in his bed while Poe takes his.

You have only a towel flimsily wrapped around your body. You are nervous and excited but still uncertain whether you will go through with this or not.

But it is the closest you've ever been, so you silently congratulate yourself.

Poe comes out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his lower half.

With a slightly mischievous grin he sits down next to you on the bed, picking up on some silent cues you lower your towel a little, revealing your breasts.

"May I?" Poe asks, that devilish grin still on his face.

"Do what?" You reply, smiling a little.

"Touch those perfect tits of yours". He tells you, his voice taking on that smoky, sensual tone again.

You quickly nod yes, Poe begins to gently massage your hard nipples, he then leans down and takes one of them into his mouth and gives it a gentle suck, making you moan with delight.

He then reaches under your towel and with your blessing starts to tease your warm folds, he grazes his thumb on your clit, making you arch your back and moan yet again.

Things are happening quickly, just like you want. Poe's head wanders between your legs, moments later you feel his soft tongue gently lapping away at your silky wetness.

You feel the fireworks course through your body as you experience an incredible climax.

Afterwards Poe starts to kiss you all over your body, you can now clearly see his erect penis, and it's long, at least 8 inches, and thick with nice veins and a foreskin.

You giggle nervously, at your age you've never seen or handled one in person.

You lean down and surprise him by licking the tip a little.

Poe shows you how to stroke him, this becomes too much for you, the heat between your legs becomes unbearable.

So you roll over on your back, and offer yourself to him by spreading your legs a little.

"This might hurt a little, or a lot, just bear with me". Poe explains as he climbs on top of you. "Tell me to stop if the pain is too much".

He begins by gently inserting the tip, you beg him to go further, and he does, you wiggle around and moan in ecstasy as he slowly penetrates you, inch by inch.

Poe encounters your very much intact hymen, with one swift movement of his hips he breaks it, causing a moderate amount of blood to spill on his bedding and his thick cock.

"Does it hurt?" He asks again, briefly stopping his thrusts. "Tell me if I need to stop".

Poe is being a very gentle, caring lover, going out of his way to make sure you enjoy yourself.

"Not anymore". You moan.

He stops for a moment to enjoy your tightness, both of you are drenched in sweat.

The air is hot, humid and smells like sex. For a moment your eyes meet, there's a fiery lust in his dark eyes and his curly hair is a mess.

"Oh Poe, fuck, it feels so good!" You scream as as he speeds up his pace a little, your fingernails leaving deep scratch marks on his back.

He pulls out a little, teasingly, and then in one smooth movement Poe fills you again, he is stretching you out to the max, you feel full, you scream out in pleasure.

The brief discomfort turned into sheer excitement for you as Poe Dameron himself fucks you into a blissful, orgasmic state.

"Oh baby, you are so tight". Poe moans, his eyes rolling back into his head a little. "I can't hold back much longer, you feel too good."

He cums deep inside of you, the warm feeling of his large load coating your womb is in itself a huge turn on.

Luckily due to advanced birth control you can't get pregnant.

Afterwards you collapse in his arms and he cuddles you all night long, his strong arms are comforting and make you feel safe.

The end

[everythinggeeky]

Back To You | Javier Peña

Javier Peña x f! reader

Warnings: angsty, a tinge of fluff, alcohol, divorce/separation

Word Count: 1.8k

Request:  Okay but uhhh 🥺👉🏻👈🏻 Javier Peña where he has a kid back in Texas with his ex and he flies in to see them 🥺👉🏻👈🏻 and maybe they uhhhh get back ✨together✨(anon)

A/N: this is it. I’ve plummeted myself into the Javier wormhole. I’d appreciate feedback! Texas Javi is the reason I breathe.

masterlist

You had to keep reminding yourself that this was just a conventional meeting. A meeting to satisfy the requirements of the courts, fulfill the needs of the custody agreement. You rocked your daughter Sofia side to side in your arms, desperately trying to get her to soothe herself back to sleep. Perhaps she sensed your unease; this would’ve been the first time in three years that you’ve seen Javier since he ran off to become DEA and ignore all of his life’s problems that came along with being married to you. 

Something itched in the back of your mind; he had ignored the court’s previous attempts to get him to come home, but for some reason, in the thick of Escobar’s destruction on Columbia, Javier had decided that now was the best time to see his daughter for the first time since her birth.

As you watched the clock tick, your pulse elevated one point. There was less than an hour left until his estimated arrival. God help you if he was on time, or early. You quickly whisked the thought away. Javier Peña was never on time, let alone early. He always found something...or someone to occupy his time. 

There was a moment in both of your lives when that was each other. 

It was a photographic life of domesticity: you had a beautiful ranch on a piece of land that once was owned by Javier’s father, whom he was very close with. Papa would make loving visits to say hi, share a meal, or just to bug Javier about fixing the leaking faucet in the powder room. You would have dinner on the kitchen table by 5 pm, and Javier would drop his keys in the bowl on the credenza next to the front door. 

You had gotten married in the backyard of the ranch. It was a special ceremony; just for the two of you and your closest friends, family, and Javier’s coworkers. The ranch was your happy place; there were so many special memories that were kept there. 

It was the stereotypical American dream, and it felt like bliss….until it all came crashing down around you.

A year after you had gotten married, you found out you were pregnant in the bathroom of the Piggly Wiggly. You had been feeling sick for the last week and when you missed your period, you decided it would be best if you bought a test on your weekly outing for groceries. The anticipation was practically eating you alive, so you bit the bullet and took the test in the grocery store bathroom. You nervously bounced your feet against the faintly sticky floor and flashed your eyes to the test two minutes later.

You watched the two faint lines develop and before you could process it for yourself, your whole life had changed forever.

You brought the test home to Javier that afternoon, passing it over after dinner. 

“This is yours?” he met your eyes.

You nodded, smiling a toothy grin, “you’re gonna be a daddy, Javi.”

“Shit!” he stood, excitedly, a wide smile on his own face, pulling you into a tight embrace.

As happy as Javier was on that day, the fresh excitement dwindled and was replaced by the harsh reality of parenting. 

The months leading up to Sofia’s birth had been the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

Javier would come home from work, drop his keys in the bowl, but the drop became more half-hazard and louder with every passing day. He came to expect a perfectly cleaned house and a hot, well-balanced meal on the table, and when your health slowly deteriorated because of your pregnancy, things had gotten harder for you and it just wasn’t as easy as it was six months ago. Javier was frustrated with the little things, and in your naivety, had contributed it to the stress from work. Those two combined created the perfect scenario for life-altering meltdowns that ultimately ended your marriage.

The screaming fights were ugly, ending in one of you crying and breaking down, as Javier typically took a breather in his Jeep with a loop around the neighborhood. You pushed one another away, the distance eventually caused him to find an apartment in the next town over, file for divorce, and encouraged him to leave for Columbia before the divorce could even be finalized.

Javier had left your life just as easily as he had come into it. 

And suddenly, Javier has weaseled his way into your life once again. 

His invitation had come in a letter, and as unconventional as it was, was endearing. He admitted to his shortcomings, wanting to make up for them and make a consistent appearance in his daughter’s life. Perhaps foolishly, in a lapse of judgment, if you will, you accepted his offer and allowed him to make the visit.

He was due to arrive in just over half an hour, and you were dreading it, but you also couldn’t deny that a part of you had a grim curiosity about what his visit would entail. 

You heard the Jeep putter outside, and silence after Javier parked on the street. You inhaled a deep, cleansing breath, hoping to rid yourself of the anxiety you had been carrying for the last week. Sofia stirred once again on your hip, looking out the window and gawking for herself.

“That’s daddy, baby…” you hushed to her.

“Da-...?” she stumbled over the foreign words.

“Yeah, Dad,” you sighed, walking to the front door to greet Javier as he knocked.

“Javier,” you reacted plainly, swinging the door to the modest three-bedroom rancher you now kept to yourself, a town over from the ranch. 

“Y/N…” he sighed, looking to you first, and then Sofia, “Sofia…you’re so big.”

“Wanna show daddy how old you are, Soph?” you modeled three fingers, to which she mimicked with her childlike chubby fingers.

“Wow….” he sighed in a dreamlike tone, his absence suddenly becoming real. 

He had missed what every first time father hopes to see; the first birthday, the first tooth, the first peanut butter (Sofia had handled that one like a champ, scraping the residue off the roof of her mouth, immediately begging for more) and of course, the big ones; the first steps, first words, and so on. You had held those precious memories close to your heart. Sofia was your precious princess; and you had wanted her to blossom into an amazing girl, even if you had to do it on your own.

“Come on….we can go sit in the playroom…” you led Javier into the playroom which neighbored the kitchen.

You sat Sofia down for playtime, to which she immediately seized the opportunity and started playing with her favorite toys. You sat down on the couch, and Javier sat next to you, a comfortable distance between you two. Too close for friends, too far for partners who once shared the same bed.

“Y/N…”

“Listen, Javi….I know you’re here to make good...but I’m happy, and so is Sofie. And we’re doing just fine.”

“That the thing, Y/N, I’m not.”

“That’s not what you said before you left us to chase drug lords in Columbia….”

“I know.”

“Then what? Why are you here?”

“I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“Listen...I forgave you a long time ago, Javi….but I’m much better off now. And maybe that’s because you’re not here.” 

“I want to be here. For Sofia.”

“You don’t get to decide when just to come into her life and then leave again when it’s convenient for you.”

He sighed before starting again, looking down at the toddler playing with a stack of blocks on the rug, “I realized when I was down there how much I needed this….needed a family.”

“What? The War on Drugs is changing your heart? Just like that?”

“Y/N...let me. While I was down there I realized that I was bigger than myself, that I needed something else to live for. My career is about me and what is the best for me, and who knows...maybe someone else. But when I go home at the end of the night to my empty apartment and my empty bed….I can’t help but think back to you. I’ve been thinking about this a lot...and what it means to be a dad...and I want to be that again.”

You inhaled a deep breath, considering his proposal. If you were as naive as you were when you first met him, you might have believed him, but the two years where you were actually married to the man eventually dwindled into the most catastrophic two years of your life. 

The fights were incredibly violent when Javi was stressed; he would pour himself a heavy glass of bourbon and would suck it down before you could say anything. Of course, as you floated around him, tending to his every need, he poured another glass, and another, eventually rendering himself intoxicated in the pale light of the hood above the stove, long after you had decided to go to bed. He would stumble up the stairs, mumble something about how the ranch was “too damn big for him to manage like this” and you would roll over in bed and hope he wouldn’t try anything in his current state.

He never touched you when you said no. He was a respectful man. His father had raised him well like that. As a matter of fact, when things started to go downhill, Papa was one of the first people you reached out to, before your own parents. Papa mentioned something about “talking some sense into the boy”, knowing what was best for him; you.

Nevertheless, you fought with Javier. And it went beyond your average, everyday couple domestics. Your fights were brutal and dug deep, riddled with personal attacks and jabs that left a heavy scar in their wake. 

As Javier begged for his place back into your life, you couldn’t help but think of the lonely nights spent crying into the duvet of the queen sized bed, while he slept on the couch downstairs. You didn’t think you could bear anymore nights like that, and you staked your claim.

“Javi...I can’t just let you waltz back in here on the promise that you’ll become a better man. I just can’t do that to Sofia.”

“Y/N...I promise I’ve changed. I mean it. I’ve seen what happens to the world when men become too powerful...and I can’t raise my little girl in a world like that without a father.”

“I’m going to need you to prove that to me.”

“I promise. I’ll do anything. Absolutely anything. Once this is all over, and there’s a bullet in Escobar’s head...I’ll come back to you and Sofia and I’ll be the man I’ve always promised to be.”

“Javi?”

“Yes, mija?”

“You better not be lying to me.”

tagged: @smokahuntis​

[cyhyr]

Whumpmas In July: "Stop"

Fandom: Naruto

Rating: E

Pairing: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka

WC: ~6200

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Rape/Non-Con

Notes: Miscommunication, Dissociation, Relationship Problems, Captivity, Kidnapping, Hand Feeding, Master/Pet, Canon-Typical Violence, Hair-Pulling, Defiance, Begging, Asphyxiation, Oral Sex, Rope Bondage, Crying, Scars, Anal Fingering, Non-Consensual Spanking, Anal Sex, Gaslighting, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Hospital Stay

A/N: I think I got everything in the tags. If ANYONE sees anything that I missed that I should add a tag for, PLEASE let me know so I can add it on.

Read After "Warmth"

For @whumpmasinjuly prompt list

Read on The Archive

~

Iruka mops the floors of his apartment, looking desperately for the calm that cleaning usually gives him. He’s already washed all of the windows and reorganized the pantry. If mopping doesn’t work, he’ll have to try deep-cleaning the bathroom again, which he knows won’t work, actually, because he did that last night.

Last night was nice. Last night, he and Kakashi made out for well over an hour in training ground twenty-three, and he even had his back against a tree for much of it. And then…

And then Iruka went and ruined it by asking Kakashi to stop.

It worked! Kakashi is always so careful and perfect, and so stopped exactly when the word slipped out of Iruka’s mouth. But he hadn’t… he hadn’t been happy about it. Especially because Iruka couldn’t tell him what was wrong.

Because nothing’s wrong.

That’s why—

“Hello, Love.” The front door opens and closes, the crinkle of paper bags shifting alerting Iruka to fresh groceries and a potential truce meal. Iruka, in the hallway with the mop still in hand, feels queasy. He’s not ready for this conversation.

He might not ever be.

“I was thinking—oh, Love,” Kakashi cuts himself off, startled. “The apartment is… very clean. Is everything—?”

“I’m going to discuss it with Rikona-sensei in our next session,” Iruka says, finishing the mopping and dropping the dirty mop and bucket just inside the bathroom to take care of later. He comes back out and crosses the living room to Kakashi, still hovering just inside the genkan. “I want to get her opinion first, and then I’ll discuss it with you.”

“Nothing bad, I hope?”

Iruka shrugs. He changes the subject, “What’s for dinner?”

~

Afterwards, they lay side-by-side on the kotatsu and touch and make out like teenagers. Iruka’s enjoying it, he really is. He loves kissing Kakashi, loves touching him, and loves feeling him get worked up. He loves how Kakashi gets chattier the more turned on he gets.

He appreciates how Kakashi asks for every touch, every time he wants to get closer. He keeps their hips apart until Iruka’s ready for it, and is careful and gentle when he does eventually press a thigh between Iruka’s legs. And it’s wonderful feeling the bare skin of Kakashi’s chest against his own, the thrill of being turned on for the first time in so long.

But.

“S-st—oh, Kakashi—I. Oh, please, please. St-stop, stop, stop—”

Kakashi pulls away quickly and sits back. Iruka lays still, chest heaving, staring at the ceiling. He takes a moment, and then closes his eyes in relief.

He did—

“Am I doing something wrong?”

Iruka’s eyes snap back open and he looks up at Kakashi. He’s kneeling back, still between Iruka’s legs but not touching him anymore. His hands are clenched in tight fists on his thighs, and his mouth is a hard line. There’s a love bite on his collarbone, the skin red and irritated—Iruka put that there, just a little while ago.

“What—no, I—”

“Then why do you keep telling me to stop?” Kakashi holds up a hand to keep him from answering.

Oh, he knew this was going to bite him.

“Kakashi, please,” he tries anyway.

Kakashi is already standing up and looking for his clothes. “I don’t like being tugged around. If you don’t want this, just tell me, don’t—fuck, I told you I can’t hurt you like this, but apparently I’ve been getting close every time we’ve been making out for the last week!”

“It’s not like that,” Iruka says, reaching for his own shirt.

“Then what is it?” Kakashi pauses in the middle of pulling up his trousers. He’s clearly trying so hard not to glare, not to growl.

It doesn’t change the frustration in his tone. It doesn’t change that Iruka’s still too fucked up to tell the difference between frustration and anger. He’s too at risk for an episode.

He’s—

“When you get your shit together,” Kakashi, once he’s finished dressing, pulls on his mask. It feels strangely final. He moves to the genkan and slips into his sandals. “Come find me, and we’ll talk.”

Then he leaves.

Iruka lays back on the couch and presses his heels into his eyes. He tries to keep his breathing even, and fails. He tries to calm his pulse—and fails that, too.

The timbre of Kakashi’s frustration/anger/sex voice echoes in his head. Iruka loses feeling in his fingers, first, then his feet and legs; and then the ache settles in his chest and he knows for sure that he lost.

Nononono—

He slips.

~

Iruka tries to find Kakashi the next day, but he’s already gone on a mission. It’s telling enough that he left without saying goodbye to Iruka; that had been a recurring thing between them since before they started dating. Iruka holds himself together until the end of the school day, and then walks to his shift at the Mission Desk.

There’s a C-rank scroll delivery on the books waiting for either a genin team or a solo chūnin to sign for it. The clocking is estimated at a day and a half.

Iruka likely has the weekend to himself. He shrugs, signs for the mission, and tucks the details into his vest to peruse later. Sitting down at the Desk, he starts his shift, calling the next shinobi forward.

Some time away may do him good.

~

Iruka wakes up groggy and limp, and struggles to remember what happened. He attempts to activate his chakra-location technique, but nothing happens. Then, as he tries to lift his head, he feels the paper tag pressed against his neck. He stops moving immediately, not sure if it’s a paper bomb or something else without looking at it.

“You’re awake,” someone says. “That’s good. I was hoping I didn’t hit you too hard.”

Iruka clenches and unclenches his hands. They’re tied up above his head to the pole against his back. He almost lost feeling in them. How long has he been out?

Footsteps—leather on stone—echo around him. Iruka blinks, his eyelids heavy. “I may have to get rid of some identifying marks if I end up keeping you,” the other person, a man, says. A hand grabs his chin and lifts his head for him (very likely not a paper bomb; he’s not being careful enough) and turns him left and right. “Though, I must say, your scar is particularly fetching. It’s what caught my eye in the first place, see.” He drops Iruka’s chin. He doesn’t have enough strength back yet to keep his neck upright. The man fingers his scar from cheek to cheek. “Beautiful.”

“I…” Iruka gasps, swallows hard. “I won’t talk.”

“Oh, that’s alright,” the man chuckles. “I know you’re shinobi, but I’m not here for secrets. I know that’s futile.”

“Then… what do you… why am I—?”

“You’re here because I need a new companion,” the man says. “My last one, hmm, expired, see. And I saw you walking into town just yesterday evening and, well. I had to have you.”

He places a hand on Iruka’s cheek and lifts his face again.

“Oh, you are even more beautiful when you’ve got terror in your eyes,” he grins. “That’s good.”

Iruka growls, shakes his head away, “Stop touching me.”

“You’ll be hungry in a little while,” the man says with a chuckle. “Don’t worry, pretty one, I don’t let my pets starve; unless they’re bad, of course.”

~

Kakashi flickers across the rooftops of Konoha, much more relaxed now that he’s had a few days to cool off. He’s glad he left when he did; he didn’t want to be angry around Iruka, but the pent-up frustration had been getting to him. He still needs to apologize for snapping, and he hopes that Iruka’s ready to talk about whatever’s been bothering him the last week or so.

He stops outside the apartment door and knocks. Iruka had keyed him into the wards last week, but after their fight—he’s hesitant to call it such, but, it really was, wasn’t it?—he wants to give Iruka the chance to open the door and let him in. Or they can go to Ichiraku’s; neutral ground. Or to Kakashi’s place.

He’s not picky. He just needs to…

To…

Hmm.

He knocks again. Waits.

It’s Sunday evening. There are no classes at the Academy, and the Mission Desk is closed by now for mission assignments, too. Iruka should be home.

He flashes around the side of the building, to the kitchen window. There’s no sound, no movement. The next window is the bathroom window, and he glances in—empty. The bedroom window is around another corner, and he checks in there, too. The bed is made and the room is spotless. More importantly, Iruka-less.

Kakashi flickers back to the Tower and lands outside of the Hokage’s open window.

“Iruka’s missing,” he says without preamble.

Tsunade pauses and turns in her chair, narrows her eyes. “Umino’s on a mission,” she says.

“A mission?”

“But,” she holds up a finger, and looks to Shizune, standing beside her, “I do believe the time estimate on that mission stated that he should have returned today.”

“I’ll retrieve his mission details, Tsunade-sama.” Shizune hurries out of the room.

“Come in and wait, brat.”

“I’ll stay here. The breeze is nice”

“He may just have been delayed.”

“But why did he leave anyway?” Kakashi hums, shifts to a more comfortable crouch. “Did you need him for seal-work?”

“No,” Tsunade says. She stops pretending like she’s going to try and get back to work. “I actually sent for him yesterday before realizing that he was out of the village. I had a few scrolls brought up from the archives that need unsealing, and I honestly don’t trust anyone else with them besides Umino or Jiraiya.”

“High praise,” Kakashi smiles behind his mask. Iruka deserves it.

“Kid should be tokujō, but wants to stay at the Academy,” Tsunade sighs.

Shizune comes back, scroll in hand and a thoughtful frown in her brow. “The mission parameters, Tsunade-sama,” she says, handing the scroll to the Hokage. “He should have returned early this afternoon. That it’s past sundown and he’s still not back is… concerning.”

“Umino is a capable shinobi,” Tsunade says. “Standard procedure is three days late before a scouting party is arranged to find out what happened.” She turns to Kakashi, “Can you wait until Wednesday before you lose all sanity?”

“Haven’t got much left to lose, Hokage-sama,” Kakashi says. “I’ll wait, but I demand to be in the scouting party.”

~

Iruka chews the rice the man feeds him. He won’t untie him, and so instead he brings small bites of food to Iruka’s lips every so often. Iruka takes the food and tries to think of how he’s going to get out of here, but with his chakra repressed somehow—Iruka suspects the tag—and his wrists tied as they are, it’s difficult to come up with a way to pull away from the pole at his back.

“What, um,” Iruka clears his throat between bites, “what can I call you?”

The man smiles; it sends a shiver down his spine and makes his throat close up because he knows that smile. Mizuki used to give him that same smile. Before.

“‘Master’ works,” he says. He offers a canteen of water. Iruka drinks slowly, but some liquid still slips out of the side of his mouth.

Iruka swallows; frowns. “I’m. I’m not calling you that.”

“We’ll see, pet.” He packs up the rest of the food and leaves the canteen on the ground, half a meter from Iruka’s knees. “If you’re good tonight, tomorrow I’ll move you to the futon. The canteen stays upright all night. You’ll get to drink more in the morning.”

“You—what?”

“If you’re going to keep talking,” he sighs, “I’ll have to gag you. And I really don’t want to have to gag you, pretty one. I don’t like gagging my pets, see. But I’m going to bed, and so I need you to be silent.”

Iruka ducks his head, snarling, but holding back heated words. He can’t be gagged. He can’t show this man the weakness he has, or he at least needs to hold out as long as possible.

~

Iruka wakes up to his stomach grumbling. The rice and water hadn’t been enough, but he’s been hungry before and he can take the discomfort. The man is already puttering around by a small fire, cooking his own breakfast it seems, and gives Iruka that same slimy smile when he notices that he’s awake.

“You left the canteen alone,” he says. “That’s very good. I had a feeling a pet shinobi would be able to follow instructions well.”

“I’m nobody’s pet,” Iruka seethes without thinking.

The man’s eyes darken. “Well, now that just won’t do,” he says. He stands up and takes the pan off the fire, douses it, and stalks over to Iruka. “See, boy, you are my pet. And every good pet’s gotta learn some manners, I suppose. So here’s your first lesson, see: I’m your Master, and you will address me as such.”

Iruka spits at the man. He gets him on his trouser leg.

“Alright, pretty one, but you asked for this.”

He reaches out and takes a handful of Iruka’s hair, holding the back of his head flush to the pole. The pain in his scalp drags him down, down, oh gods no, please not now stopstopstop!! Then the man’s boot connects with his stomach and the breath is literally kicked out of him.

Again.

And again.

Iruka holds back tears and grapples with his own mind to stay present because he doesn’t want to hurt anymore but he also doesn’t want to slip, please, he doesn’t want to go right now—

“Please,” he gasps.

“You can be good, pretty one,” the man coos. “You know how to make this stop, don’t you now?”

He pulls harder on Iruka’s hair and kicks him again.

The ache in his chest is settling. He can’t—He can’t.

Iruka sobs. “Please, please stop.”

“I don’t hear the magic word,” he sings, and pulls back for another kick.

Iruka cries, “Please, Master, I-I’ll be good!” Tears slip down his face and his stomach throbs—but the ache flutters away and he’s able to breathe.

The man releases his hair, and then cups his cheek.

“There, see. That wasn’t so bad.”

~

The man eventually moves him away from the pole—he’s not sure yet if this is a good thing, because while, yes, he can now at least feel his hands, tied now behind his back, he’s also closer to the futon. And the implications of that…

He was due back in Konoha yesterday—and that’s assuming he was unconscious for less than a day. They won’t send a search party for another two days. He needs to stay strong.

Gods, he hopes Kakashi’s mission is going well. He didn’t even check the rank before he left! What kind of partner is he…

“Pet?”

Iruka looks up begrudgingly.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. How’s your belly?”

“Fine,” he says.

“Fine…?”

“Fine, Master,” Iruka grits.

“Good. I think I’ll feed you again tonight.”

Iruka says nothing.

“Or, you can starve.”

“I prefer to feed myself,” Iruka says cooly.

The man’s eyes narrow dangerously. “I do so enjoy feeding my pets,” he says. “You eat by my hand, or you don’t eat at all.”

Iruka nods. “I understand.”

His lip curls. He crouches down and puts his hand around Iruka’s neck, crinkling the paper seal and squeezing just enough to threaten. “Listen here, pet—”

“You don’t scare me,” Iruka snaps. “I’m a Konoha shinobi. Your torture methods won’t break m—nng—”

“I’m not trying to torture you, pretty one,” the man says, tightening his grip around Iruka’s neck so he chokes. “I simply want the respect I’m owed. Give that to me and I won’t have to hurt you.”

“Fuck… you…”

The man purses his lips and mutters, “Now there’s an idea,” and then lets Iruka go.

He coughs, sputters, heaves deep gulps of air. He barely hears the clink of the man undoing his buckle, or the unmistakable sound of a zipper, but he gasps when his hair is pulled again and—

No, gods please

“Will you be good and keep your teeth to yourself?”

“Please, please, st-stop no I don’t—”

“Oh, you’ve had this done before?” He clicks his tongue and leaves his dick alone to stroke Iruka’s face. “My sweet, pretty pet. No one else is ever going to touch you like this again, see? Now. Open up for me.”

Iruka shakes his head. “I don’t. No. Stop.”

“You said it yourself. You don’t have to be scared of me, pet.” He presses his thumb into Iruka’s mouth and pulls down on his jaw, and then runs the pad along his molars. “Stay,” he says, and then puts his hand hack on his dick.

Iruka whimpers, but leaves his mouth open. He doesn’t want to think of what could happen if he closes his mouth now. His breath comes in stutters, through his nose.

This man smells nothing like Kakashi, thank the gods.

He jerks himself off quickly and efficiently, and is soon ejaculating across Iruka’s face and into the back of his mouth. It’s sour and thin and Iruka coughs—the man immediately grabs his mouth and pinches his nose closed. Iruka flails to the side, but the man grapples with him and gets behind him, keeping a hold on his nose and mouth.

“Swallow, pet.”

Iruka would rather pass out. He thrashes in the man’s grapple.

“Swallow, or you’ll run out of air.”

That’s the plan.

“Pet!”

Iruka slumps in the man’s arms.

~

Wednesday morning arrives and Kakashi is—twitchy. He’s already at the Hokage Tower, sitting outside the window to Tsunade’s office, when she arrives at seven o’clock.

“Kakashi, have you slept at all since Sunday?”

“I dozed here and there,” he shrugs

“The scouting party won’t be put together until after lunch,” she says. “Go get some more sleep until then.”

He turns to go back to the roof—he’ll doze for a bit up there waiting for Tsunade—but then a pigeon flies by his ear into the Hokage’s office and lands on her desk. No one uses pigeons anymore for carrying messages, do they?

Shizune picks the little bird up and says, “It has a message, Tsunade-sama.” She picks the message off of the bird’s leg and hands it to the Hokage, who unrolls it and reads silently.

“Brat.”

“Hokage-sama?”

She turns to him, eyes burning and mouth hard. “We’re going to release this pigeon, and you’ll follow it. The scouting party will be along as soon as I can get it together.”

Kakashi nods. Hesitantly, he asks, “Iruka?”

“Follow. The pigeon. If it doesn’t lead you to him, any means necessary. Bring him home, Kakashi.”

“What condition can I expect him in?”

“I’m sending you ahead, alone, because I believe you’ll be the only one he’ll trust to take him out of the situation he’s in,” she hands Kakashi the letter, rolled back up. Then, she nods to Shizune. “Go.”

The pigeon flies away. Kakashi follows.

~

“Quit struggling; you’re going to hurt yourself.”

Iruka flails and bucks against the ropes tightening around his wrists and neck. He’s naked, light-headed and dizzy but gods he can’t stop fighting.

“Pet, do I need to take your mouth again?”

“You do whatever makes you feel better,” Iruka growls.

“I’ve never had a pet who responded to pleasure as though it were pain,” the man muses behind him. “Though, it does make you that much more fascinating.”

The rope around his neck tightens as he’s lifted by the strand connecting his neck to his wrists along his spine. His back is brought to rest against the man’s chest, and he starts touching Iruka, all over his chest and bruised belly. He winces as the man pinches his nipple and sniffs his hair.

“Stop,” he mutters weakly.

“Hmm. You know how to ask properly, pretty one.”

He bites back a cry as the man pulls and pinches at his chest. Iruka starts losing feeling in his limbs and his breath stutters. It’s. It’s too much like Mizuki. He has to. Gods he has to stop it. He can’t—he must remain present. Even if it means kowtowing to this…

His breath hitches. He forces out, “Please, Master, stop,” and then hiccups on a loose sob.

“Oh, that’s pretty, see,” the man says. He stops pinching and starts caressing and fuck, that’s not what Iruka meant.

“No, no plea—ohh.”

He pulls Iruka’s hair and Iruka falls back on instinct. Mizuki used to like to pull, and he wanted Iruka to like it.

“Yes, that’s it, pet,” the man croons. “Now, bend forward—that’s it, very good. Oh, look at you. Look at this,” he places his palm over the fūma shuriken scar on Iruka’s back.

Iruka breathes heavily. His bare knees are cushioned by the futon mattress and his temple is against the pillow. It’s… it’s more than Mizuki ever gave him, when he tied him up like this. He closes his eyes against the tears.

Gods, he wants Kakashi.

“Your scars are beautiful, pet.” The sound of a jar lid being turned, metal on glass, is loud in the cavern. “Once you're trained, I’ll be the envy of all who see you. Perhaps I’ll lend you out to those I trust.”

Iruka chokes on another cry. Mizuki used to threaten him like this—

“Oh, pet, that’s sweet. You’d rather stay mine and mine alone, wouldn’t you?”

Iruka flinches at the first touch of a cold, slick finger to his hole.

Kakashi hasn’t yet—they haven’t—gods—

“Stay still, pretty one, or this could hurt.”

He loses the battle against his will of holding in his tears. The man’s finger breaches him. Iruka holds himself perfectly still.

“I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I don’t—stop, stop, please, I don’t want it…”

“Shh, pet. It’ll feel good soon.”

I know. That’s what I’m scared of.

~

Kakashi summons the pack three hours out of Konoha. The pigeon had clearly been a summon as well, because once it had gotten a fair distance from civilization it poofed away in a puff of smoke. Frustrated, Kakashi has the pack fan out to search for Iruka’s scent.

Just as he’s been keyed into Iruka’s impenetrable wards, Iruka’s scent has been memorized by every member of the pack. Kakashi imagines civilians would think those actions wouldn’t have much meaning, but to each other it meant everything.

Fuck he was such an idiot. How could he have left for a mission without saying goodbye? He was upset, and frustrated, but he wasn’t… shit, he needs to get his act together.

A howl comes from the north. Akino. He flickers from tree to tree, making the distance in ten minutes.

Akino frowns at him when he settles beside him. “That was stupid quick, Boss,” he says accusingly.

Kakashi ignores the comment. “You have Iruka’s scent?”

Akino nods and points with his nose. “He’d come from that way, a few days ago. There was a struggle. And then he and this other scent—male, middle-age, water chakra-nature—go off east.”

Kakashi nods. “I’m going to release the rest of the pack, for now. Keep on his trail.”

“You got it.”

~

Iruka comes back to himself with an indicative pain in his ass and a headache pounding behind his eyes. He hadn’t even felt himself start to slip; he’d just gone. Not good.

His clothes haven’t been returned to him. That’s… understandable. Easier access.

The man is asleep next to him. His snores are ugly and loud, it’s a wonder Iruka stayed under for as long as he did.

His stomach growls. It’s been days since the last time—first time—only time—the man fed him. He twists his wrists in the ropes and shifts his hips a little. A thin dribble of come slips out and drips down his thigh.

“Are you with me again, pet?”

Iruka gulps and sniffles. “I’m—”

“I don’t appreciate my pets zoning out during our couplings.” The man drapes a hand on Iruka’s ass and then spanks him hard, the slap pushing Iruka forward into the pillow a few inches.

“I didn’t—”

“I really don’t appreciate my pets lying to me,” the man growls, leaning up on his elbow. He spanks Iruka again, this time drawing a hiss of pain. “I know what I saw, and I know what happened.”

His fingers dance around Iruka’s rim, still stretched and slick from before. Iruka shuts his eyes tight and grits his teeth against the cry in his throat.

“Now. I’m going to have you again. And you’re going to enjoy it.”

“Stop touching me,” Iruka sobs through clenched teeth.

“No, I don’t think I will. Although,” he slides two fingers inside and hooks them, pulls so Iruka has to lift his hips more, spread his knees more, “you know how to properly ask for what you want, see.”

He moves to kneel behind Iruka and pulls his fingers out, and then wipes them off on his back. The man presses his dick inside and Iruka—

Iruka whimpers.

“That’s it, oh, very good, pet. So pretty, taking my cock.”

He’s not going to make it out of this without a new trigger word. Pet. Pretty. Hell, this fucker’s reinforcing his old trigger for Good, and he and Kakashi only just got to the point where they can say it under the right circumstances.

“Such pretty hair,” the man takes a handful and pulls, only barely lifting Iruka’s face off of the pillow. “When I found you, you had it tied up. What a crime. You’ll wear your hair down from now on, pretty one, so I can see it.”

He brushes Iruka’s prostate. He groans, bites his lip. No more. No. He can’t. Stop. Stop.

“Please stop,” he murmurs.

The man sighs and thrusts faster, harder.

Kakashi

Kakashi

“K-shi.”

“What’s that, pet?”

Iruka snaps his eyes open. Fuck.

“Nothing,” he says quickly.

“What is ‘k-shi’?” he asks, stilling his hips.

“No one.”

Fuck.

“Is that so?” He slowly starts thrusting again, picking up the pace bit by bit until his hips are slapping unrelentingly against Iruka’s ass. With one hand he holds onto the rope, taut from Iruka’s neck to his wrists at the small of his back, and with the other he presses his fingers into the flesh of his waist and pulls Iruka back onto his dick with each thrust.

“Who—is—k-shi?” he growls.

Iruka cries, “Stop, stop, please!”

The man spits. It lands on the back of his neck. Iruka shivers.

“Whoever it is, you’ll never see them again.” He stills, reaches around and fondles Iruka, and the grin is audible in his voice as he continues, “You’re mine, pretty one. No one’s coming. No one else cares.”

Iruka can’t pull back from the hand on his cock, it only shoves the man’s dick further inside. He can’t push forward, that would only make him think he’s enjoying the touch. His chest aches. His breath comes in fits and starts.

Kakashi… he’ll come… right?

If he can’t get himself out of here, Tsunade-sama will send a scouting party. Kakashi will volunteer to be on that mission, won’t he?

“You have only me, pet. I’m your Master, and I’ll take care of you, see. You just have to let me.”

He jerks Iruka off in the same rhythm as he thrusts into his ass. He braces himself on Iruka’s shoulder, pressing him into the futon. It hurts. It.

Oh he’s gonna—

“STOP, please!” he sobs one more time.

“No. Come for me, pretty one.”

He does. He sobs and comes and it hurts and it’s like the man’s kicked him again. Iruka hardly registers the flood of come in his ass as the man orgasms, too.

The man pulls out and walks away.

To the feeling of more come dribbling out of his hole, Iruka mutters into the pillow, “I’m sorry, love. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Kakashi, I’m so sorry…”

~

Iruka loses count of how many times the man comes inside him. It’s enough that after a while he stops fingering him first, then later stops bothering with oil. Eventually he’s led to the fireside, and then made to kneel again beside a large stone. The man sits upon the stone, above him, and feeds him bites of rice and small morsels of rabbit.

He keeps his head down between bites. Sometimes the man will leave his fingers on Iruka’s lips after he’s placed food on his tongue, and so after he’s finished chewing and swallowing, he lets the man explore his mouth with his fingertips. “Very good, pet,” he praises. Then he’ll give Iruka a sip of water.

It’s been days, hasn’t it? Even the worst trackers Konoha has would have found him by now—and Kakashi is by no means the worst. The pack knows him. If Kakashi was looking…

But he’s not. He’s not, is he?

He’s led back to the futon, laid out on his back, and then his neck is tied up to a stake the man’s placed near the pillows. His wrists, too, are taken and tied up above his head to the same rope, to the same stake.

“I think you’ll be ready to bring home in a few more days, pet,” he says. “You’re almost done.”

Almost broken, you mean

The man lifts Iruka’s legs over his shoulders and thumbs at his hole. “So pretty. I like this much better than taking you from behind. I get to see that beautiful scar, the play of your face. You can’t imagine how beautiful your eyes are, full of fear. But you don’t have to be afraid right now, pet. Your eyes are just as beautiful in the throes of ecstasy.”

At the sound of chirping electricity screeching in the cavern, Iruka snaps his eyes open—he didn’t realize they were closed—and feels his heart begin to race. The man is suddenly gone from his looming position over Iruka; he lowers his legs back down, bending his knees. The grunt and gurgle of death is sweet to his ears, but he holds back his tears for when he is sure this isn’t a hallucination.

Unruly silver hair comes into view first, and then the careful fingertips dipping to pick at the paper tag stuck to his neck. The mask, Konoha hitai-ate, the exposed sharingan and gentle gray eye beside it; Iruka hiccups a sob.

“You came,” he whispers.

~

Kakashi pulls the chakra repression seal off Iruka’s neck and tosses it away.

Iruka whispers something, he doesn’t catch it, but he nods anyway. “Let’s get you home, dear,” he says, and cuts the ropes keeping Iruka’s neck and wrists bound to the stake in the ground.

He looks around the cave, but Iruka’s clothes and gear are missing. Kakashi pops a scroll from his own vest and unseals a spare set of his own clothes; they’ll be a little tight, and a little long, but he can’t—can’t let anyone else…

Gods. Fuck.

What good is he, if he can’t even keep one person safe?!

He helps Iruka into his clothes. His heart warms to see Iruka lift the collar of the shirt and pull it up to his nose and take a deep breath, scenting it. “Can you walk?” he asks once Iruka’s clothed.

Iruka shudders. “Probably not,” he says. His voice is small, like it is when he comes out of a dissociation episode. Shit, how many did he have? “I can try, though,” he continues, and then he stupidly pushes himself up to standing and immediately sways to the side.

Kakashi jumps up to catch him, cradling his partner—will he still trust him after all this, shit, he fucked up so badly they might not make it through this without breaking up, no—and slipping his arms around Iruka’s knees and back. “Please don’t strain yourself, dear,” he grits. “Let me help.”

Iruka nods and wraps his arms around his neck. Kakashi begins flickering out of the cave. He has the rapist’s body in a scroll in his vest, so someone can autopsy it when they get home. Everything else he left. He can’t—

He can’t be in that cave another second.

Iruka burrows into the collar of his flak vest and is muttering again. This time, Kakashi focusses and listens; he wishes he hadn’t.

“You came. You came. You came.”

His heart breaks. Had their fight really unsettled Iruka enough that he thought…

He chokes, presses a kiss to Iruka’s hair and mutters back, “Always, love. Always.”

~

Kakashi doesn’t leave Iruka’s side throughout his admission into the hospital, various check-ups, blood tests, rape-trauma treatments, oral report; he has to leave the room for the standard psych evaluation, and then again when Rikona-sensei arrives for their own session. But he stands sentinel just outside and waits until he’s let back in, and the second he’s allowed he’s asking for Iruka’s hands and pressing kisses to rope-burned wrists.

He finds out that the pigeon had delivered a letter from one Sato Touma, declaring that the shinobi Umino Iruka, registration number 011850, had completed his latest mission, and to not come searching for him as he was now a pet of the Sato family, barring a training and testing period. Tsunade made the right call in sending her strongest shinobi after Touma—if she’d let it go, the Sato family could have assumed that any Konoha shinobi were free for the taking. Sending Kakashi was a show of force.

The Sato family won’t touch Konoha again. Not with Touma dead in their morgue.

This… doesn’t put Kakashi at ease. He can’t sleep. Can’t eat. Iruka’s supposed to be released from the hospital tomorrow. He’ll feel better once they’re behind Iruka’s wards. No one gets past those wards without Iruka’s permission.

“Kakashi?”

He realizes he’s been pacing, and collapses onto the chair beside Iruka. “What do you need?” he asks.

Iruka is… strangely calm. Actually, that’s not so strange if he thinks about it—and Kakashi really doesn’t want to think about why Iruka’s calm about having been brutally raped. Because if he thinks about it, he’ll remember Sato, and Mizuki, and then the Hate will start to fester again and this is not the time nor the place—

“I told him to stop,” he whispers. Louder, he continues, “I-I fought as hard as I could.”

Kakashi takes his hands and holds them between both of his own. “Iruka, dear, I’m sorry. I should have been faster. I—”

“Don’t you get it? I told him to stop. I fought him. Me. I fought him,” there’s a slight hint of hysteria in his voice, but Iruka’s smiling through the tears collecting at the corner of his eyes. “Maybe I wasn’t… I wasn’t strong enough to save myself. But I can do it now, Kakashi.” He sniffs, hiccups, and says, “I can—I can tell someone to stop.”

And suddenly, Kakashi understands. “You. Oh, love,” and Iruka pulls Kakashi into the embrace as Kakashi falls into it. He chuckles, his own brand of hysteria bubbling up out of his chest. “You were never—you—Gods all that before, it was never about me, was it?”

“I needed to know I could do it,” Iruka mutters. “If I’d told you what I was doing, the reaction wouldn’t have been real. I needed. I needed to be able to ask even though I knew it was going to disappoint you. To anger you.”

“I was never angry,” Kakashi assures him quickly. “Frustrated, annoyed; yes. Never angry. Fuck, I thought I’d lost your trust somewhere, somehow.”

“I could never have done it with anyone else,” Iruka nuzzles his hair. “I never doubted your ability to stop. It was never about that.”

“I’m. Still really frustrated about it all.” Iruka nods above him. Kakashi continues, “But I’m so happy for you, love, that you’ve found that strength.”

“I’ve found that strength thanks to you,” Iruka says, carding his fingers through Kakashi’s hair. “If this had happened two years ago, or more, I… I wouldn’t have. Shit, I would have been worse than a doll for him. And, yeah, I had a few dissociation episodes; but I resisted them. Before, I would have just gone down and-and never come back.”

Kakashi picks his head back up and drags his mask down with a finger. “Can I kiss you?”

Iruka’s smile brightens like the dawn. “Yes. Please.”

They keep it chaste—they’re still in the hospital, and Iruka could have new triggers neither of them know about yet. But the simple press of lips on lips is enough to make Kakashi’s chest pound and his fingertips tingle. Gods he almost lost this.

“He had me believing you wouldn’t come,” Iruka reveals into their kiss.

“My love,” Kakashi murmurs back, lips to lips, “I will always come for you.”