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#it’s like with school. it’s not learning that I’m opposed to
writerfae · 2 years
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I’m a firm believer that duty kills passion, at least for me personally. So I could never be a professional writer or photographer or something, even though I love to do those things.
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xbomboi · 5 months
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i’ve got a question to ask out of curiosity about the eah community’s general consensus
since the books and the show have different continuities and also within the world of the supplementary Ever After High media, the books themselves differ in continuity depending on series/author, i have a feeling this answer could vary depending on one’s bias…
i’m not adding an “other” option because you’re crazy if you think they met in infancy/as toddlers or if you genuinely believe the beginning of canon in the show (start of legacy year) is legitimately when they first meet.
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blkkizzat · 8 months
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please write nerd geto ! i’m sure you’ll write something amazinggg
Of course doll! Sorry this took a while I was sick most of December and January whooped my ass with classes starting again but I love love the idea of Nerd!Geto especially a Nerd!Geto with glasses so had to write a whole fic. Hope you like it :3 ♡
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Lessons in Anatomy
“Shall I give you a lesson, Y/N? Do you want me to teach you how to squirt?”
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summary: thanks to some bad choices and party girl ways you're on academic probation and can't afford to fail another test. fortunately your longtime friend nerd!geto is there to give you lessons in both economics and anatomy.
cw: college AU. fingering, squirting, dirty talk, edging, mentions of satosugu, rich party kid shit, incestuous friendships, mentions of reader x other jjk men, mentions of casual sex/hookups, mentions of drinking/drug use, reader is a dumb (and I mean dumb) bimbo, a little bit of a brat too, slight coercion, slight dubcon, virgin!suguru, soft dom!sugu, sex ed!sugu, roleplay as sugu is pre med major, some minor fluff, pet names: slut, bunny etc. a bit of a crack fic too haha. slightly black fem coded, no descriptors. a/n: LOL how this became an 8.2k fic about squirting idk chile... but special shout out to @littlemochabunni who talked me off a ledge when I was being emo and I wanted to scrap the entire thing and start over. w/c: 8.2k
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“I can’t believe I’m here and missing the biggest party of the year!”
You groaned as you scrolled through your stories to see all the pics and vids of your friends living their best drunken lives and happily binge drinking on frat row to celebrate your school’s football league championship win.
Toru just did unassisted keg stand pushups and you missed it! 
You, on the other hand, were stuck studying with Suguru in his dorm room. 
100% sober and being forced to learn 5 weeks of econ, that you never took a single note for, in one weekend. 
Well not forced exactly. 
You and Satoru had practically begged Suguru to help you study this weekend. If you failed this class you would flunk out as you were already on academic probation.
“Well I for one can’t believe you’re dumb enough to attempt to cheat off Toji and Sukuna of all people.” 
Suguru quipped back while pushing up his glasses. He snatched your phone away from you and placed it on the other side of his desk, away from you.
Not that he took offense to the remark, but he too had better things to do on a Friday night than tutoring you. Keggers definitely weren't his scene though and Suguru wouldn’t be caught dead at a party celebrating with those frat monkeys. Even if said monkeys included his childhood friends. 
However, as a pre-med student he’d much rather stay in to write his essay for the clinical research internship he was trying to get. 
“Hey! I didn’t cheat off them for the record! Toji and Sukuna said they had the hookup for the answers!”
You pouted grumbling as you tried to reach for your phone on the other side of the table only for Suguru to take it again. This time he slid it into his pockets, keeping it away from you for good.
“Urgh, it’s not my fault they got the test for ECON 230A and 230B mixed up. I didn’t even know there was a second section!”
Suguru had to resist the urge to roll his eyes at you again. The pilfered test definitely had ‘ECON 230B’ printed in big bold letters at the top. 
You all were idiots. 
Unfortunately for you, you were just a cheerleader idiot. 
The other idiots, Toji and Sukuna, dubbed the ‘The Boom Bros’, were the reason your team even won the championships in the first place. The best defensive backs your college or any college in your division have seen, ever. Not letting an opposing team score more than 10 points the entire season, there was no way in hell they were going down for that right before the championships.
That left you as the scapegoat, which was something Suguru noted that you happily took the fall for.  Although there is a very good possibility of you being a soon-to-be college dropout, your social clout was skyrocketing. 
Word spread among the popular social circles fast on how you ‘saved the big game’. 
Suguru couldn’t care less about football, though he was getting annoyed at all the texts, DMs and messages you received asking where you were. They were making you completely lose the little focus you were capable of, which is what made him confiscate your phone in the first place. 
Sighing, Suguru was pretty sure you would be competent enough to pass if you just applied yourself more to anything other than drinking and parties.
“Y/N, just try to focus on studying, please.”
You pouted, turning back to the textbook in front of you.
How did Suguru’s nerdy ass enjoy studying so much?
Studying, especially anything to do with math, gives you an ick. In fact, you were sure the only reason you graduated from high school and even got into this university was because you played 7-minutes-in-heaven with Choso at the start of senior year. 
It had been a secret double dare from Gojo but you sucked the soul out of that boy in Gojo’s closet that night. From then on, Choso pretty much did anything you wanted that year, including all your homework. Hell, he even wrote your college admissions essays and in turn you gave him some sloppy toppy here and there.
Choso was always eager to feel your soft lips on his cock, so you’re sure he could have thought of a better way for you to cheat so you didn't have to study at all and could be out partying right now. It’s just your bad luck that he was studying abroad this semester with his little brother Yuuji.
Although, even if you did flunk out you weren’t that worried. Worst case scenario if you couldn’t find a career or a husband you could always be one of Gojo’s three mistresses he said he would keep once he was older, married and had taken over his family’s company. 
He had pinky-pie-promised he would take care of you if you needed it and as one of your best friends you knew he was good for that promise. Even if he did make it while you both were partying, tripping balls off acid so hard that Satoru convinced himself your cunt could produce cotton candy. He chewed on your pussy for 2 hours straight one wild night on your group’s graduation trip where he then asked if you would be his future mistress.
But that didn’t necessarily mean you wanted that life for yourself. You liked your independence and Satoru would be alot to deal with, even with 2 other mistresses and a wife. 
Therefore, unless you wanted to resign yourself to that fate, you were stuck with Suguru as your tutor.
It’s not like you didn’t get along with Suguru, he’d been one of your closest friends since you were young along with Satoru. But as you got older your interests kind of drifted apart and you saw him less and less, especially as you got to college. 
You wanted to party and Suguru prioritized studying.
You had missed him. You wanted to have fun with him again.
And this was definitely not fun. 
Reading the same paragraph for the fifth time and retaining shit all of whatever the passage had said about ‘demand curve fluctuations’, you were ready to climb up the walls. 
You began to fidget, still in your cheer uniform from the game earlier. The material of your skirt rode up to your upper thighs when you splayed your knees out and leaned forward to lay your head on the desk face down with an exasperated yawn. 
Suguru shared in your exasperation but directed his towards you with another sigh, looking you over. His weariness at you from your inability to study causes his eyes to linger on your form longer than they should. 
Resting against his desk, your back had molded into a nice natural little arch as your tits pushed forward . Adjusting his glasses Suguru found it difficult to pull his eyes away once they landed on your thighs. Practically leering, Suguru is transfixed by the way the fabric bunched at your hips digs into your soft skin. 
He curses your university’s school colors as the next thing that caught his eye was the bright yellow cheer panties you wore that were tight enough to show the full shape of your cunt. Your panties are so skinforming that they don’t fail to give you camel toe. The indent of the slit between your fat pussy lips is on full display.
You’ve always been attractive, Suguru muses as he feels his pants slightly tighten. But it’s no mystery why you were such a slut now if these were the positions you found yourself in when alone with guys.
“Seeing something you like, Sugu baby?”
Suguru snaps his head up at your teasing to see you looking straight at him, your head still resting on his desk but has since turned to face him. The wink along with the lazy yet knowing smile forming on your cherry stained lips lets him know you know he was staring at your cunt. 
Caught red handed, Suguru rolls his eyes and scoffs as he returns back to the textbooks in front of him while you laugh. Dismissing your question entirely he changes the subject back to studying but can’t resist throwing in a little dig to take the heat off himself. 
“Y/N, can’t you just focus? You’ve barely made any progress… Or is it that you want to flunk out and be reduced to Toru’s mistress or something?”
Fuck, you forgot Suguru knew about that too. (Duh, of course he did. He was the sober one who found you both, taking care of you once your come downs had hit).
Not letting him get away with that shade, the brat in you clapped back as you returned his sarcasm back at him.
“Okay, well high school was one thing but do you want to go through college without getting any play too? Or are you satisfied just from peeking up a skirt?”
Annoyance flashes in Suguru’s eyes. He thought you had some audacity seeing as you were the one who was casually flaunting your pussy for him in the first place. Nevertheless, you continued, using Suguru as a punching bag for your current academic frustrations.
“Your pocket pussy and getting head from Toru behind the bleachers at prom doesn’t count by the way!”
Suguru pinched the bridge of his nose as his tolerance of the situation had officially bubbled over. He was tired of everyone thinking he was missing out on something just because he didn’t want to kill off brain cells partying every weekend or play STD Roulette with casual hookups. 
You bringing up prom was a low blow. It was the first time he’d ever had a drink and Toru had practically begged him. Satoru wanted to know if his head was just as good for guys as it was for girls (spoiler alert: it was).
Also, what you thought just because you fucked around alot it was actually any good?
“Yeah and getting railed by a bunch of banana brained monkey jocks, that counts Y/N? They wouldn’t know what to do with your clit even if it was an actual football.”
Suguru retorted and he watched as your eyes widened with shock then seethed with anger as you finally sat upright in the seat. 
Ding Ding! He had hit a nerve. 
“Oh and you would know what to do, cherry boy?”
Suguru knows he probably shouldn’t push it further. But like Satoru, you always knew what buttons to push to get under his skin. Suguru can’t help but to want to get under your skin as well, especially since he was never one of the ones getting under your clothes. 
“Well I can actually spell clitoris, so that already puts me at an advantage over those ball chasing monkeys. Have you ever even had a real orgasm before, Y/N?”
You started to speak but Suguru cut you off before you could.
“—and I mean one that didn’t come from tripping with Satoru or a toy? I bet you’ve never even squirted before.”
Damn. 
You resisted the urge to chew on your lip, not wanting him to know just how right he was but your immediate silence was telling. Racking your brain, you tried to find a way to get your lick back but found yourself at a loss. 
It was mostly true to be honest. 
A hot and heavy make-out session at a party would typically lead to mostly underwhelming sex and you would have to return to your dorm or wait for them to leave to finish yourself off with your rose or dildo… or both. 
Okay and sure, maybe the one and only time you did really have an intense body orgasm was the time you dropped acid with Satoru but… fuck –Wait…squirting?! Wasn’t that just pee? Gross! 
Satisfied with your small ammunition, after a pause you bit back again.
“Alright, so frat boys aren’t sex gods, tell me something I don’t know. It’s still sex Suguru—” 
You flipped your hair and crossed your legs arrogantly as you continued.
“— sex that you aren’t having, which, duh, is obvious if you think squirting is an actual thing. Because Eww nasty, I’m so not into piss-play, Sugu!”
You waited for his reply, assuring your win but Suguru just blinked at you, dumbfounded. 
The thought of you having won shatters when Suguru erupts into a fit of laughter. Hitting the table for emphasis Suguru was near howling as the glasses fell off his face and he had to clutch his sides for support, keeling over in his chair. 
Suguru couldn’t actually believe that you believed squirting was the same as urinating! 
On second thought, knowing you, this kind of checked out…
Watching Suguru in a fit of hysterics had your face burning with embarrassment as waves of self-consciousness came over you. 
To be honest, you weren’t even sure why you were feeling insecure as this was supposed to be your victory!  This was not the reaction you expected from him at all to say the least!
Just what made this so funny!? Because you didn’t want to piss yourself during sex?! 
“Sugu…”
“Sugu…”
“Hey, Suguru!!!”
Frustrated with him ignoring you and still laughing after failing to get his attention, you jumped up from your seat and marched directly in front of Suguru. Angrily you yanked his head up by his man bun. 
You were so ready to tell Suguru to go to hell for laughing at you. Even if you weren’t too sure exactly what he was laughing at you for, he was still being a jerk right now. 
However the words caught in your throat as soon as you saw his face.
Suguru’s wide grin easily illuminated the dimly lit dorm room. Tears gathered in the crinkle around his eyes and pulled into an expression of such warmth that you were reminded of all the fun times you had together goofing off over the years. You nearly forgot what it was like to see him laugh like this.
So nostalgic you almost forgot he was still laughing at your expense — almost.
“Don’t be an asshole Sugu…” 
Your voice was low, lacking any real bite as all your fire fizzled and was replaced by a pout.
Defeated, you let go of your stiff grip on his silky bun causing it to unravel and frame his face with thick black strands that flowed down past his shoulders. Although it wasn’t the first time you had seen Suguru with his hair down and no glasses, you couldn’t help but stare at him now. 
He had grown much more into his features since high school. 
College Suguru had sharper eyes, a slimmer face with a strong jawline and hair that flowed down to his chest. Not to mention his lanky boyish frame had filled out. The muscles underneath were prominent now even if he was wearing a baggy band tee and sweats. Suguru didn’t go to parties but from the looks of him he certainly didn’t miss going to the gym. 
He didn’t look much like the nerd you knew him to be right now at all.
Granted, you were still a bit salty with Suguru but didn’t want to fight with him anymore. Especially given the way his dark eyes sparkled as he gazed up at you, your heart nearly skipping a beat as if you were really only noticing him now for the first time. 
Sniffling, a cocktail of emotions swirls in you. Moisture pricks in the corners of your eyes despite yourself.
Suguru, who was also staring at you, took notice right away.
“Hey Bunny, I’m sorry...” 
You relaxed a bit hearing the old nickname he and Satoru gave to you back in middle school, you couldn’t remember the last time he called you that. 
Grabbing your hand in his much larger one, Suguru gave your palm a gentle rub with his thumb. His hand was surprisingly soft. 
Despite his sweet gesture, your brow twitched slightly at Suguru’s soft chuckles, still continuing albeit less frequently, at your expense.
“It’s just that… I dunno, I guess I would have expected you to have experienced it at least once before Y/N, it’s definitely not pee.” 
You huffed. You still weren’t convinced it wasn’t pee but now you were more curious than anything.
“And how do you know that Suguru? You’ve made a girl squirt before?” 
There was no sarcasm in your tone this time, just doubt since he would have told Toru and Toru definitely would have told you if Suguru was getting play from someone. 
Suguru to his credit wasn't discouraged though. 
If anything, he seemed to gain confidence on the matter now that you weren’t fighting him, rather looking to him for knowledge, for the first time tonight.
“Well, no, but I did get a 4.0 out of Anatomy last semester and unlike you I actually paid attention in Sex Ed. Also, just because I’m a virgin, doesn’t mean I’m completely clueless. There is a little thing called the internet, Y/N.”
You mouthed an ‘O’— a bit ashamed that you actually thought because he was a virgin who didn’t party he was merely just sitting around clueless to everything about sex.
But what could just reading textbooks and the internet teach him over actual experience? 
Then again, Suguru was practically a genius, if he was saying something was possible you could be sure it was. Still you couldn’t stop your mind racing as you considered his previous words.
You were the one with all the experience so you should have experienced it before, right? 
Maybe the guys you hooked up with weren’t the problem then? Maybe you were. 
“What if– w-what if I’m the problem Suguru? What if I just can’t?”
Tugging you closer, his fingers now interlacing with yours, Suguru’s other hand settled on your hip giving you a warm squeeze. You were so close to him now that his chin almost rested on your belly and Suguru was craning his head up to you with a small sly grin still on his face.
“It’s not a matter of can or can’t Bunny, you just don’t know how. Shall I give you a lesson, Y/N?” 
“Do you want me to teach you how to squirt?”
You felt a bit lightheaded as you considered the words that just came out of Suguru’s mouth. You weren’t shy at all when it came to matters of sex and you had the reputation to prove it. Yet your stomach still did a little flip at Suguru propositioning you. 
Sure you were a bit of a slut and had at least made out with almost every guy in your group of friends, but not Suguru. Not for lack of attraction though, you had teased Suguru in the past but he had always been the responsible one, like an older brother or protector. 
Besides, Satoru was always so needy for his attention. There weren’t often times you were with Suguru alone and he never seemed all too interested in sex either, at least when directly compared to a horn dog like Satoru. 
You didn’t actually know if he was serious though so you decided to make light of it, giggling.
“If you wanted me to pop your cherry Sugu, all ya had to do was ask.”
Suguru smiled back at you, he shook his head chuckling. 
“I’ll only need to use my fingers, Y/N. Besides, this is about you. What I really want is for you to not flunk out, I would miss you, ya know?” 
You try to keep a poker face but you couldn’t help feeling giddy at the fact you were extremely happy to hear Suguru would miss you. You had already missed him and combined with the inkling of new feelings stirring in your chest from seeing your old friend in a new light you feel adrenaline begin to pump through you as you brim with nervous energy. 
“Let’s think of this as a study break from Economics. You had to miss the party but we can still have some fun. You might even learn something for once, eh?”
His hand left your hip in order to push the books and papers on his desk aside and patted the wooden surface. The hand still intertwined with yours guided you over.
“Hop on up, Bunny. It’s time for your anatomy lesson.”
You look at the desk and pause as if you are unsure, biting your lip. 
Thoughts of finally hooking up with Suguru excited and the fact you were nervous whether you would disappoint him if you couldn’t actually squirt flood your mind at once. However when you meet Suguru’s eyes and feel gentle reassuring pressure on your hand your body is already moving towards the desk, making the decision for you.
Your heart is already thudding in your eardrums by the time you settle on top of Suguru’s study desk. Suguru immediately shifts into instructor mode, picking his glasses up off the floor and adjusting them back on his face. 
He directs you to lean back and relax and soon your shoulders are against the wall behind the desk as you are propped up on your elbows. 
You yelp as Suguru startles you by grabbing your hips with a firm squeeze and scooches you flush to his pelvis. Feet propped up to the edge as well all you needed were the stirrups and you could have been at the gyno's office, giggling now at the thought.
“Sugu, you can’t be serious. I feel like you’re about to give me a pap, not an orgasm.”
Suguru’s mouth twitches up into a smirk.
“There’s a reason they have you lie in this position, makes for easier access. If you’re going to squirt I’m going to need to find that slutty lil’ gland of yours and I don’t mean your clit, Bunny.” 
You huffed but you were otherwise agreeable. 
You couldn’t deny you were a slut especially not now with your legs spread open wide exposing your bright yellow cheer-panty clad cunt to Suguru. Laid out like this, the thin layer of spandex is stretched to its absolute limits causing your chubby pussy lips to poke out of the sides. This does not go unnoticed by Suguru who hadn’t taken his eyes off your lower half since you initially spread your legs. 
His Adam's apple bobbed heavily as he swallowed and breathed deeply at the sight of you.
Suguru can barely believe he’s really about to do this. 
If anything he is overconfident in his abilities, despite his lack of actual on-the-job experience so to speak. From all his studying as a pre-med student, books, health articles and yes even porn, Suguru could say he had an in-depth understanding of human anatomy and bodily functions. 
But that didn’t mean he didn’t need to calm himself enough to stop his balmy palms from sweating further at the reality of finally being allowed to actually touch you.
“I’ll be in your care then, Doctor Geto.”
You make a lighthearted joke with a nervous laugh to ease your own anticipation. However the joke has the opposite effect for Suguru and he snaps his head up as if you had activated something in him. 
Suguru’s fiery expression sends shivers down your back. Although as quickly as it appeared it was gone again, replaced by his trademark comforting grin. Even so your fingers pressed a bit deeper into the wood beneath you, steadying your frazzling nerves.
“Well aren’t you a lucky one then, being my first patient ever. You’ll be a good little pussy and listen to me, won't you?”
Suguru is looking down again, speaking directly to your cunt who is tingling in response to his voice. It’s fucking lewd. But then again so is the studious scrutiny of Suguru’s eyes so single-mindedly transfixed to your cunt you wonder if his leer alone could dissolve the cheer panties right off of you. 
You let go of the breath you didn’t realize you were holding once Suguru finally starts touching you. 
But not your pussy just yet. 
His long thick fingers are surprisingly cool on your skin as they press into your warmth, ghosting just above your knee on both sides. 
Gentle strokes travel down along your inner thighs and up again to lightly tickle the backs of your legs. You tense and squirm beneath him when your eyes meet Suguru’s own.
“Sugu–”
“Patience, Bunny. It’s no wonder you never cum if you’re so used to diving right in. You need to relax first. This won’t happen if you aren’t relaxed, can you try to do that for me?”
You nodded back at him, yet the goosebumps left in the wake of Suguru’s soft caresses had you trembling. So used to rushed thrusts and hurried grasps, you don’t know how to just take it in the moment. 
You had never been touched this delicately before.
Already oversensitive, if anything you felt like the one who was the virgin in this situation.
If Suguru notices, he says nothing. His touches are progressively firmer, the light pets morphing into soft squeezes and circular strokes of the hand once he traverses closer to your core.
“You know Bunny, the inner thigh area is an erogenous zone? Can you say that, Y/N? Ero-gen-ous?
Suguru pronounces the word out for you as his heavy muscular hands make their way to the crease of your inner thighs, his hands once more perilously close to your pussy as he pauses looking up at you again expectantly.
“Say it, Y/N.”
Your cunt clenches at his command and it leaves you stuttering. Heat blossoms across your cheeks from how needy you sound choking out the word. 
“Er-Ero-gennn-ous.”
Suguru rewards you by moving his hands again but to your dismay they pass your core to dig into your hips, his thumbs swirling over your hip bones. He leans his body in closer to you and you break eye contact to turn your head away lest you really start falling apart in his hands.
“Good girl. Ya know, you’re quite bright with the right motivation, Bunny.”
Puffs of moist heat glide over the tip of your ear as his lips are only millimeters away from your skin. His words stimulate a deep in your gut reaching all the way down to your toes, trying to resist how much he’s affecting you. 
Suguru chuckles at your bashfulness.
“Are you always this shy, Bunny? Or does that honor just belong to me?”
You whimpered. You aren’t sure how you got here. 
How was Suguru, a nerdy virgin, making you come undone like this? You didn’t know where the darkness that crept up on the edges of his eyes was coming from either, yet you squirm in anticipation despite yourself. 
You loved it. 
Always a know-it-all, so you would hate to admit it outloud, but Suguru was already making you feel more excitement than any frat boy you had been with. Lack of hands-on experience be damned. You’re losing it as his lips sensually flutter against your collarbone. 
“Y-you s-said only fingers, S-Sugu!”
Your voice lacks any real reprimand as you are arching up into his touches and quivering for more. Suguru obliges as he alternates between delicate nips and open mouth kisses sinfully marking you. Groaning into the crook of your neck Suguru savors the lingering taste of your perfume and the natural saltiness of your skin. 
Returning his attention back to your ear Suguru’s breath trails over your skin until your lobe is once again trapped between his moist lips. He lightly tugs it between his teeth before giving it a sharp bite.
“AHH!”
The sting sends a jolt of electricity shooting straight into your cunt and a strangled noise escapes your lips. Your knees are starting to buckle but Suguru’s quick reflexes stopped your legs from clamping together all the way, bracing you. 
Taking your hands and leading them to the backs of your thighs, Suguru is making you steady yourself back into a spread position for him and gives you strict instructions not to move.
“Good girl… This should be more than obvious now Bunny, but there are erogenous zones all over your body that connect to the pleasure nerve endings here.”
Suguru’s voice is silky as his index finger tows long strokes over the slit of your clothed cunt and applies pressure on your clit for emphasis. Whines fumble out of you when Suguru switches from steady swipes to idle flicks with pads of his fingers and your legs twitch again once more.
“It's important to simulate multiple areas simultaneously and I only have two hands, don’t I? You don’t mind Y/N do you?”
You still can’t bear to look Suguru in the eyes, much less respond vocally so you just shake your head. 
“Feeling good, Bunny? Which do you like better, the strokes or the flicks?”
Your eyes squeeze shut from Suguru demonstrating both over your covered cunt. You try not to tear up but the amount of autonomy you had in this situation was new to you. Embarrassed and vulnerable you’re realizing that in spite of all your sexual experiences you still don’t feel comfortable expressing your needs.
“Hey, Y/N–”
Suguru clutches your face in his massive grip, squishing both your cheeks with a single hand and forcing your glassy eyes back on him. It was hard to focus on what he was saying anyway while you cooed from the feather-like circles he had been drawing on your clit.
“–you have to talk to me. This and sex in general, is just another form of communication. It won't work well and you definitely won’t squirt unless you can express to your partner what feels good and what doesn’t.”  
You are sure he can feel the heat gathering in your cheeks radiating off your skin.
“Stop t-teasing S-Sugu… I-I know you can tell it’s good.”
Suguru eases his hold on you, his smirk deepening at your complaint.
“Oh I can, tell Bunny. Believe me. Your pussy, she’s so sensitive no matter how much you try to hide it from me. But I still need to hear it from your mouth regardless.”
The hand playing with your cunt splays out and Suguru fully cups you in his hands. The pulsing of your clit vibrates against his palm even through your panties.
“If you’re going to be a slut Bunny, at least be a vocal one. Be a slut for your own pleasure...this fat n’pretty cunt of yours deserves it.” 
Suguru’s mouth is mere millimeters above yours, floating suspended both your lips are parted as you’re sharing the same air. The dizzying effect of breathing him in only intensifies with his words.
“Or perhaps you just get off on the idea of being free use?”
Suguru chuckles but doesn’t make you answer that question in favor of pulling back from you to inspect the large wet spot you soaked through your cheer panties from all of his taunting.
Pleased he gives your clothed pussy a smack, the moisture underneath the flimsy fabric evident in the soft squelchy sound that fills the room.
Smack, another moist sound echoes from your cunt.
“Oh, looks like she’s ready. This mouth down here is so much more talkative, Bunny.”
Hooking his fingers in the fabric Suguru peels your soaked cheer panties to the side, whistling at the thick strings of your essence that lingered between your cunt and your panties.
“So fucking wet, the prettiest most obedient lil’ pussy, aren’t you?”
A fleeting thought of sassing Suguru since yours is the first real pussy he has actually even seen up close dissipates as soon as your entrance flutters against his two thick fingers that rub over your uncovered opening. 
Involuntary bucking your hips, the burning urge to feel him inside you is all you care about now, pride be damned. 
You want him.
“Sugu–”
“–Shhh!”
Suguru cuts your pleas short.
“Don’t interrupt Doctor Geto when he’s speaking with his favorite patient, Bunny… Your nasty lil’ cunt is really begging for her treatment, isn’t she?”
You pout at him, quieting down while Suguru rewards your submission by slipping into your folds once more, entering fully past your entrance and into your gummy walls. It’s only a single digit inside you but your pussy is hungrily sucking him in deeper, trying to devour his middle finger whole. 
Suguru murmurs intelligible obscenities from how warm and tight you are. He needs to find that spot. 
Your hands struggle to keep your legs from quaking when you feel his finger, longer, thicker and far more pointed than your own, bottom out before languidly dragging delicious pressure back through you, exploring your walls in search of–
“Found her.”
Your ass jerks up and nearly off the desk entirely when his finger roughly prods into the firm spongy spot within your cunt you didn’t even know existed until now. 
“FAH-FAH-FUHHCKKKKKKKKK–”
Your voice cracks and your vision blurs with tears that finally are cascading down your face smudging your mascara. Your reaction has you missing the wide-eyed look of amazement Suguru gives you utterly entranced by the way your entire body quivered from just a solid tap to the gland. 
Suguru had expected an intense reaction. He’d seen and read about how temporary control of muscles and spasms were common when abusing this spot in women. But the one thing textbooks, articles, nor porn could prepare him for was how fucking sexy you’d be while he was doing it. 
The ache in his pants has him groaning as he has to lean nearly his entire weight into you in order to get your lower half to settle back down on the desk. Pausing his movements inside of you, Suguru allows you to catch your breath.
Still the heavy pad of his finger is weighing down on you with enough force you still need to suck in your breaths, barely able to squeak out words.
“W-Wh-What is th-that S-Suguuu?!”
Suguru tells you not to worry about the actual name. It’s not very sexy, so you won’t remember it and it’s important that you do, so eventually he tells you to just call it the g-spot. 
You groan at the loss of pressure on your g-spot when Suguru removes himself from you entirely in order to bring the finger that had been inside you to his lips. Watching him savoring the essence of your sweet cunt on his tongue, you couldn’t take any longer, finding your voice. 
“Su-Surugu, N-Need–N-need more. P���please!”
Suguru obliges, slapping the fat of your ass teetering off the desk and lifts you as his knee slides under your hip. Leaning into you further, Suguru throws one of your shapely legs over his shoulder. 
“Oh, you found your voice Bunny? Then tell me what my patient wants. Where does Doctor Geto need to touch you?”
“M-my pussy– fuck– p-please Sugu, wanna feel good there. She’ll be so good for you!”
Suguru’s pleased smile is your only warning before two of his large fingers plunge-in and bottom out inside your cunt, knocking against your cervix. Your jaw completely slacks as you groan at the sudden intrusion, allowing Suguru the perfect invitation to your mouth. 
Wasting no time, Suguru crashes his lips into yours. The kiss is sloppy, hot and needy as any cries that attempted to leave you were drowned out in the wet cavern of Suguru’s mouth. 
Fuck, you’re greedy as hell. 
The kiss makes Suguru’s head spin and he loses himself in your sinful hunger as you wrap your arms around his neck and begin to dominate the kiss, sucking on his tongue. Soon Suguru finds himself groaning against your lips and slowly rocking his cock into the back of your thigh. Fuck, your body was too responsive, too eager for him to slut you out on his fingers. 
Suguru couldn’t lose sight of the goal though, you needed to squirt so he needed to take back control.
Catching you off guard, he bullies a third finger– his ring finger, into your cunt as well. Breathless you break the kiss, your eyes sinking back into your head as you meet the thrusts of his fingers with the roll of your hips.  
You aren’t able to control the way your body convulses as you writhe against Suguru. His massive body weighed over you as his hair fell in front of his face, hiding his crazed expression from you. 
Suguru is also panting as he vigorously pumps the appendages into you. In and out, swirling them Suguru’s fingers take special care to zigzag sweet torment over your g-spot. 
You’ve only felt the slight ghostings of this feeling before, nothing so pointed and focused on attacking this spot, while stretching your pussy so well in the process. You want– no need, to feel Suguru’s cock inside you next. 
You could tell he must be huge. Heat was radiating off his girthy bulge as it twitched up against your ass cheek even through Suguru’s joggers. The thought causes the hot iron coil in your stomach to tense to its breaking point, begging for release.
Suguru notices.
“A-Are you gonna squirt for me, Y/N?”
For the first time his own voice is ragged, set on keeping his promise to you.
“S-Sugu, I-I– I want to but I–” 
Your words catch in your throat as tears that are salty to the taste freely flow past your lips down your chin. You are unsure of what exactly to beg Suguru for even if you could do more than unintelligible babbles at the moment. 
It’s coming– you panic— this feeling!
“W-w-ait! Nooo, S–Su–Sugu… I’m g-gonna pee. S-stop, p-puhleaseee!
Your hands slip against Suguru’s shoulders as you try in vain to push him away. So fearful that Suguru was wrong and you may actually piss all over him and his desk. 
Suguru isn’t having it though, backhanding your clit with a harsh smack, his knuckle bullying into your bud. 
The slap was followed by two more in quick succession, his other hand never slowing inside of you. Disregarding your pleas Suguru ventures even deeper into your guts while pressing down on your lower belly.
“I told you it’s not pee, Bunny. You don’t listen very well, do you?”
Suguru hiss at you, the stress of holding himself back as you fall apart on his fingers was nearly too much, he needed you to lay back, be good for him and take it.
“I-I’m s-sowy, Dr. Geto but– I– wanna–.”
You sniffle back more tears, which has Suguru calming himself in order to soothe you again.
“Shh Bunny, it’s okay– now ask your doctor nicely for what you need. Go on.” 
At this point cuming, squirting, whatever Suguru you requires of you in order to release the feral sensations building within you is an essential need to live as much as taking your next breath.
“Doctor Geto, please let me cum! Sugu please! G-gonna s-squirt, gonna squirt s-so g-good for you!!”
“That’s right baby you will… Now squirt on me Bunny, make a pretty mess all over my fucking fingers.”
Timing a particularly hard jolt to your g-spot with simultaneous pressure from over your belly, has you tipping over the edge. Back arching you feel the gratifying release as you squirt hard, fluids spurting all over Suguru’s fingers and spilling down his forearms. The saccharine pleasure of it all is buzzing throughout every cell in your body as your eyes flutter back into your skull. 
Your entire body feels like an extension of your pussy, pulsing in tune with your cunt and you don’t realize you are even screaming until Suguru’s mouth is on top of yours once again. 
Suguru is tongue fucking your wails all the way back into the depths of your throat until they are mere raspy gurgles.
Riding out your orgasm you protest with choked cries as Suguru's hand abruptly leaves your cunt. Yet before you can process what’s happening you’re mewling loudly again once you feel his lips attacking your cunt. Sucking your clit between his lips, his own groans vibrate into your core making you all the more sensitive. 
Your hands fly to him again, tangling up in his long raven locks and trying to push his head away. 
Too much! You were far too sensitive right now for him to be lapping at your over stimmed cunt like a mad man.
“Stawwp–”
Your slurs fall on deaf ears as Suguru continues, only pulling back briefly to shush you.
“Haven’t got it all out. This pretty pussy is so fucking nasty she can give a little more, can’t you baby? I know she can.”
Suguru is speaking to you but he sounds a million miles away, focused only on your cunt as he returns to suckling on your clit, his teeth scraping lightly. He knows your pussy will give him the answer he is looking for soon enough. 
The iron grip his arms have around your thighs holds you down allowing Suguru unimpeded access to dribble globs of his spit into your folds. His tongue flattens over your clit and his eyes smolder into yours before diving back into your pussy. 
So close to cumming yet again your thick thighs clench around him as you unintentionally smother his face deeper into your core. Suguru ignores any need to take breaths, your cunt being the only sustenance needed as he rams his tongue further into your convulsing hole. 
Shaking his head around sloppily, Suguru is goading your cunt into giving him more and more. His tongue is a mere worshiper in the temple between your thighs, begging your leaking pussy to give him the last morsels of your squirt. 
Not having the willpower to deny him, your pussy gushes out more onto his tongue and shamelessly he swallows all of it as you cum all over again.
By the time Suguru detaches himself from your cunt he looks almost as wrecked as you: hair is matting to the sides of his face, his glasses are clouded with slick and your juices are dripping down his chin. 
Although, now that Suguru has had a taste of you he is left craving more. Not letting a single drop of your juices go to waste Suguru is ferally slurping the drippings off your thighs and lowering his head to even zamboni the overflow of your essence off the desk beneath you. Ravenous with thirst for you Suguru is even using his mouth to squeeze out any droplets he could retrieve from your soaked cheer panties. 
You on the other hand could only heave as you gasped for breath. Your legs are still twitching in the after shock of your intense orgasm and squirt session. Dizzy and dazed you feel yourself fading out, unsure of how much time has passed or what Suguru was still doing between your legs until the familiar ring of your phone slowly guides you back into the present. 
Wiping his face with the back of his hand Suguru stands up and pulls your phone out of his pocket.
The phone is still ringing as he looks down at it and snickers. 
“It’s Toru, Y/N. Answer it.”
You give Suguru a frowny pout. You were barely conscious right now, you couldn't handle a drunkenly energetic Satoru. 
Seeing you making no attempts to move, Suguru answers it for you and Satoru’s voice overflows through the speakerphone.
“Y/N! Y/N! Where are ya at!? We need the beer pong queen to make her appearance, I need a partner! Nanamin is too good to beat without you!”
Suguru held the phone out to you but you could respond in labored puffs.
“Y/N is taking a study break, a bit tired after her lesson.”
“–Oh it's you Suguru!”
You end up tuning Satoru out as he’s begging Suguru to come to the party with you which you already knew wasn’t going to happen even if he didn’t just make you squirt all over him. 
Willing yourself to sit up, your body is  immediately revitalized when your eye is drawn to how bricked Suguru currently is in his dark gray sweats. 
Suguru arches his brow in amusement as you pull him forward by the band of his joggers. You hurriedly fumble to untie them, pushing them and his boxers down to reveal his hard cock. 
The sight of it nearly has you squeeing.
You practically have hearts in your eyes as you gawk at Suguru’s cock, it’s the prettiest you’ve ever seen. The way his girth swayed in front of you as pre marbles on the tip has you openly salivating. To say his length and thickness is above average, was a massive understatement. 
You can’t estimate a size but you know he is huge as you eye the a large vein on the underside of his cock that seemed to weigh him down even though fully erect. You squirmed at the thought of that vein scraping inside your pussy as Suguru pounded you.
You need to feel it. Now.
Nevertheless, it isn’t until Suguru snaps his fingers in front of your face did you realize Gojo was now addressing you again through the phone.
“Y/N! You there?! I failed with Sugu! He’s lame! But you’ll be here soon right???”
A sharp contrast to just 30 mins earlier but partying was the last thing on your mind now. You needed to get Satoru off the phone and Suguru’s cock inside you expeditiously. 
“Mhm-nh, Toru sorry, I–I really need to get a good grade. I need Sugu to tutor me a bit more. C-Can’t afford to flunk out!”
Although you had teased Suguru earlier about popping his cherry, you didn’t care if he was a virgin now. He had more than proved himself despite his lack of hands-on sexual experience. 
You weren’t really paying attention to Satoru any longer as Suguru motions for you to lay back again. Readily, you get in position returning your legs to a stirrup pose. 
Suguru rewards your obedience with his cock slapping against your clit.
“Mmmm…FUHH-CK-AH!”
You don’t care that Satoru is still on the line as Suguru is slipping his cock under your cheer panties, rubbing his fat tip along your folds. His cock sandwiched between your messy cunt and the soaked fabric has Suguru groaning at the crazy sensation, he could bust like this for sure.
“Huh? Oh.. OHHHHHH! Haha, I see, I see! Suguru’s lessons are the best, aren’t they Y/N?”
You’re openly moaning now. Barely registering Toru’s words as Suguru grunts, increasing the pace he’s bullying his cockhead across your clit.
“Y-yeah, the besssst-ahhh!” 
Satoru, feeling more than a bit left out, starts pouting over the phone.
“Hey, no fair playing with Bunny without me Sugu! Let me join ne–” 
Suguru abruptly cuts Satoru’s complaints short, hanging up on him while still rutting his tip over your pussy. His pre leaking out in globs and mixing with your own cum still dripping from you.
He wanted you all to himself, for now at least.
Satoru could fuck off.
“Gawwd Sugu–just fuck m–”
You abruptly stop as your face falls in realization when you feel his warm cum pour over your mound and into your cheer panties. 
Suguru is spilling so much of his thick load into you it's even coming out the sides of your cheer panties and running down into the crack of your ass. A few more jerks of his cock through your folds and he is quickly pulling back to tuck his softening length back into his sweats.
“N-no,no no no S-Sugu! Suguru! I-t’s okay you came fast but please— fuck me. I’ll even let you raw me and cum inside puhleaseeee Sugu– need to squirt again all over your cock!”
You don’t know the kind of willpower it takes Suguru to refuse you. 
Probably one of the hardest things he’s done in his life, especially as fresh tears trickle from your eyes and he knows you’d be crying just as adorably on his cock. You were too sexy, too perfect and he wanted to fuck you just as badly as he knew you wanted him to.
BUT– more importantly he wanted to enjoy you more than for a quick fuck and if he indulged you now, he couldn’t promise he wouldn’t be relentlessly tearing up your sweet slutty pussy all night. 
If you didn’t start studying for real you were definitely going to get kicked out of school and he can’t have that, especially not now after this. 
Masking his own lust with a stern instructor voice Suguru chastises you as he ties his hair back onto a bun and begins to give his glasses a proper cleaning before adjusting the books and papers on his desks around you back into their correct piles.
“Absolutely out of the question. Now be a good girl and pull up your panties, Y/N. We have a lot of ground to cover tonight.”
Sticky with Suguru’s cum, frustrated and still horny you groaned loudly but obeyed. You knew Suguru meant business. 
You hoped if you listened to him well enough you’d get what you wanted by the end of the night. It would suck for you to suffer through studying but it was the best motivation you had in literal years. 
Unfortunately for you, Suguru, focused on the bigger picture, had a larger goal in mind.
“Only smart sluts get dick, Bunny. You’d better get an A on that exam Monday if you really want this cock.”
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© ʙʟᴋᴋɪᴢᴢᴀᴛ 2024. ᴀʟʟ ʀɪɢʜᴛꜱ ʀᴇꜱᴇʀᴠᴇᴅ. ᴘʟᴇᴀꜱᴇ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ꜱᴛᴇᴀʟ, ᴛʀᴀɴꜱʟᴀᴛᴇ, ᴄᴏᴘʏ ᴏʀ ᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇ ᴀɴʏ ᴏꜰ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋꜱ.
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a/n: I would be willing to write a part 2 (some time in the future) of y/n popping Sugu cherry or even y/n getting double teamed by 'The Boom Bros' as a 'thank you' for taking the fall for them if there was interest. I'm kind of fond of this little college AU.
Reblog for an anatomy lesson from Nerd!Geto but likes and comments are also appreciated as always!
NEXT is back to my own ficcys! Upcoming: The Nursery - Yakuza!Toji x Y/N - teaser/taglist: ╰┈➤here. Delays cause I've been without my adhd meds and getting the first part of the fic beta'd for once but I FINALLY got them today and was able to finish this fic so hopefully I can get back on track! send me good vibes y'all!
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lola-writes · 2 months
Text
A Dragon's Lullaby
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Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x wife!reader
Word Count: 7.1k
Synopsis: Aemond’s fury is a challenge to contain, but it withers beneath the touch of his wife.
Themes & Warnings: 18+ (MDNI), pov first person (reader), foul language, hotd s2 spoilers, s2x06 inspired, dark/soft Aemond, SMUT, titty sucking, angst, fingering, fluff, feet, p in v, bath sex, oral (fem receiving), orgasms, slight voyeurism
Song: Made of Gold - Ibeyi, Pa Salieu
a/n: Inspired by this. His expression in this scene is everythiiing
Masterlist | Add yourself to my taglist | Playlist
Likes, reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated ❤️
Enjoy the read!
[gif @hoosbandewan]
[divider @targaryen-dynasty]
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The chamber doors slammed shut, jarring me from my needlework.
Aemond erupted into the room, his voice a venomous hiss that chilled me to the bone.
“Cravens. Lickspittles.” The words ripped from his throat with a guttural growl, filling the apartment with lethal fury, instilling a deep sense of unease in my gut, as he paced the room like a caged beast, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “A nest of fucking vipers.” His features were warped with hatred, his eye sparking rage and his scar appeared to burn hot red in his skin. 
I set my needlework aside, bracing myself for the inevitable storm. 
My husband had grown increasingly volatile of late. Temperamental. Volcanic, ever at the brink of eruption. Long convinced that his knowledge of history, swordsmanship, and his ancestral ties to Valyria of old – that was his dragon – destined him for the crown, he chafed under the regency. Yet, with the weight of governance upon him, I’d realized these qualities hardly made for a wise ruler. 
Aemond was tyrannical, impulsive, and possessed a relentless thirst for vengeance I’d thought long sated, but now burned fiercer than ever.
I’d learned to tread carefully, supporting him rather than opposing him. Questions were rare, acquiescence plentiful, regardless of my true feelings.
“The Lannisters,” he snarled, hurling a crumpled piece of parchment into the fire. “Balls deep in their lions and their gold that they believe they can command me.” His eye blazed with ire. “Me!” His voice was a startling growl, and I schooled my racing heart.
Adopting my role as the submissive, doting wife, I folded my hands in my lap and eased reverence into my gaze, “That was their first mistake,” I offered, feigning confidence, as though I had the briefest idea of what they had done.
Crossing Aemond was a path none would willingly tread, though the Lannisters were hardly known to be the brightest of the noble houses in the realm.
“They mock me,” he snapped. “My word is law.”
“And they’d be wise to abide by them,” I replied. 
“I tire of being compared with my father,” he spat. “The man was weak. Pliable.”
“You are his opposite, Your Grace.”
“Mother believes she can mind me like a puppet, as she did Aegon. She clings to what little power remains to her.” He stilled, his fingers fidgeting at his sides. “I sense her heart still lies with Rhaenyra.” All of his thoughts materialized into words like a surging flood. “I can no longer trust her counsel,” he said. “So, I dismissed her.”
A mistake, I feared. “I’m sure it was a wise decision, Your Grace.”
“Cole addles me,” Aemond proceeded. “The man, once so commanding and fierce, now carved out into a pitiful husk.” He started through the room again. “Aegon was a fool to name him Hand.”
“You are the Prince Regent, Your Grace,” I voiced softly. “You may name a new one as you wish.”
With his rant, his tempest began to subside. The honeyed tone I knew so well sank back into his voice and replaced his rage. His pacing ceased, and his anxious fingers relaxed at his sides, before he sank into his chair beside me.
“The Lannister coward wish me to fly out to the Tooth to secure their safe passage to Harrenhal,” he spat, his fingers twisting together, venom seeping back into his voice, “’With haste’, he says!”
I stood, my voice steady. “Your regency is green, Your Grace, and your subjects forgetful of their places.” 
Aemond’s hands gripped the arm rests, his whole body contracting beneath his leathers in readied ambush. 
“It is your duty to remind them,” I continued, rounding his chair, my hands settling on his shoulders. He was rigid beneath my touch, his muscles bulging with tension. 
He glanced over his shoulder, his eye a mix of softness and lethal intent. “You are correct,” he said, his fingers tightening around the hilt of Blackfyre. “A public execution would persuade them.”
My heart hammered against my ribs, and my grip on his shoulders tightened instinctively. 
“Perhaps a less bloodied approach, my love,” I suggested, coating my words in honey. “Escalating the mislike of the smallfolk would be unwise,” I said, willing my touch to send a calming current into his bones. “We cannot risk provoking the hungry masses.”
“I do not wish to be liked,” he hissed, his voice laced with malice. “I wish to be feared.”
Yet, when I leaned down over him, wrapping my arms over his chest, nuzzling my face into his cheek, he unraveled in my embrace, melting like wax exposed to flame. 
A deep exhale of relief escaped his lips, as though my touch pulled the string of tension from his muscles like cloth, a deep satisfied hum reverberating in his chest. All of his anger disintegrated into dust, and he leaned into me, closing his eye, his face pressing against mine, his delicious heat seeping into my skin.
I breathed in the scent of him. 
Musk and leather. 
I filled my senses with it, a heady intoxication.
“Husband…?” I whispered against his skin.
“Wife,” he sighed with rapture, his arm reaching up, his fingers tangling into my hair, pulling me closer. He buried his nose in my neck and inhaled. He sighed once more with entrance, his breath warm against my ear. “You smell divine,” he whispered.
His fury was a tempest, his tenderness a balm. Once crossed, he was a force to be reckoned with. 
But when he was soft… he was so very soft. 
“Thank you, husband,” I smiled. The matter of the Lannister’s defiance was as good as wind. “My maids put lavender and rose in my bath earlier.” 
“Hmm,” he hummed appreciatively. “I commend them.”
My heart swelled in my chest. In these moments, I felt a love that transcended fear. I could endure his tirades for hours if they always ended like this, with him so vulnerable, and soft, his fury crumbling under my touch, like a fortress breached. 
His complexity was a bottomless well, an endless enigma, each layer revealing a new facet of his being. A mystery I could not begin to fathom, only sit back and enjoy. I was utterly captivated, desperate to remain in his favor. His trust in me was profound, and I knew the weight of my words carried uncommon power. My devotion and loyalty were absolute. Anything he’d ask of me would be his, a fact he understood completely. 
My hair cascaded down his chest, mingling with his silver, a cosmic tapestry against the leather. I burrowed deeper into his skin, making him softer, my kisses trailing across his cheek until they met his lips, to which he groaned softly, deepening the union, his grip tightening around the back of my neck. 
The kiss was a consuming inferno, leaving me breathless and light-headed. 
“Hmm,” he hummed with delight. “Your lips alone could end this war.”
He possessed my whole heart in the palm of his hand. 
“They are your servants, Your Grace,” I whispered against his cheek. 
He chuckled low, a comforting melody, the muscles in his face plumping, his lips pursing to his contented smile. 
But the looming threat of Rhaenyra’s forces intruded on my thoughts. Despite my misgivings about the way the succession had been handled, my husband’s victory was paramount. Many believed him consumed by darkness, a prisoner of his own demons. His mother, among others, shared this bleak view. Yet, here in my arms, I held undeniable proof to the contrary. I knew in my heart that he did not need to be feared, when he was capable of such profound love. So much more than he probably knew himself. 
“Aemond,” I began, feeling his attention shift to me. “These weeks past I’ve been witnessing the plight of the smallfolk from our window-”
“You should not submit your eyes to such vile scenes,” he interrupted, snarling.
“Nevertheless,” I countered gently. “It has been impossible to turn a blind eye. Famine stalks the city. Sickness is surging. Blame is placed on those who rule over them.” His head rested heavier against me as he listened, his gaze flickering with thought. “Do not underestimate the influence of the common people,” I said.
His jaw clenched. 
“Their numbers far outstrip ours. Capable of turning the tide if discontented,” I pressed on.
A silence filled our chambers, and I sent a silent prayer to the Mother that he would be malleable enough to receive my words in the way they were intended. 
“What do you suggest?” he said finally.
I exhaled a silent breath. 
“Open the gates. Spare them imprisonment,” I replied.
“They will spread their slanders across the Crownlands,” he countered, his voice like liquid.
“But you cannot control them. A good King does not earn the love of his people through fear. Neither does he command loyalty. He must earn it. Fear breeds nothing but resentment.”
He seemed to consider my words, his expression unreadable. 
Then, he inhaled deeply, and took my hand, guiding me around his chair, pulling me into his lap.
“My wise counsellor,” he purred, his arms tightening around my waist. “You would make a formidable queen.” His lips brushed against my ear as his fingers began to trail a path down my neck, hooking into the laces of my dress, which he undid with expert grace, his arm pulling with long strokes as the laces fell out, and opened my bosom. A shiver ran down my spine and desire ignited in my blood. My breasts fell heavy, and he caught them in his hands, humming with delight. I shuddered beneath his touch, a pulse starting between my thighs. 
“Aemond,” I whispered, my voice barely a breath.
“Hm?” he murmured absently, his fingers already slipping beneath the delicate fabric. 
“Did you hear what I said?” I uttered, trembling.
He leaned in, his eye dark with desire. “Yes,” he rasped, his voice husky, his tongue darting out to taste the peak of my breast, softly grazing across my nipple in a hot, wet motion. 
Fog infiltrated my mind faster than I dared to acknowledge. 
He retreated slightly, and watched as my peak hardened under his subtle provocation. With practiced ease, he repeated the torment on the other breast, his gaze appraising, his eye a dark blue.
“You suggest I please the smallfolk,” he said, his voice low and sultry, lifting my heavy breast in his hand. “Though I’d much rather please my wife,” he groaned, and a sharp intake of breath escaped my lips as he took my nipple into the delicious heat of his mouth, a fierce pleasure igniting within me. I gasped, my hands instinctively cradling his head as I arched into him, keeping him latched. He released me with a wet pop, his eye gleaming with satisfaction at the pink swelling. He captured the other nipple in his mouth. A feverish heat pulsed through me, an insatiable craving consuming me. 
This nightly ritual was a torment and a salvation. He could have his hands and mouth on me for hours, days, until I was raw and throbbing, and I would still yearn for his touch, his taste, his complete possession. 
He was a poison and a cure, a fire that consumed me entirely. An addictive draught, coursing through my veins, blurring my reason. 
His hands, the weapons of a killer, ravaged my body and tore at my dress, twisting it down until my torso was exposed to his predatory gaze. They delved beneath the fabric, their touch a fiery brand igniting my skin. Hungry fingers tore at me, exploring up my thighs, setting my nerves ablaze. With a swift movement, he claimed me, switching me in his lap until my back pressed against his hard chest, my legs propped up on the edge of his seat, cradled on either side of him. His hands swept the inner curve of my thighs, a path of fire, a delicate torment reaching higher, until they found the tender juncture. His face pressed against mine, ragged breaths fanning my face. A shiver coursed through me, a strange blend of warmth and dread from the volatile energy emanating from him. His hands remained right where they were, squeezing softly, tickling gently. My gown bunched around my hips, my exposed core throbbing for his touch, pulsing with eager longing, my body yearning for the release his touch promised. 
My mind was immersed in an impossible fog, and I clawed for clarity. “Will you do me this one favor?” I panted, my breath mingling with his. 
“What is this favor?” His growl was a low rumble as his tongue wet his fingers, a slow, erotic swipe as he held my gaze, a prelude to torment, setting my blood aflame. They found my clit, dampening it in a circular dance of fire. I whined and shuddered beneath his touch, and his eye sparked with gratification. My body bucked, a helpless rhythm to his masterful control.
Senses blurred. Words tangled. Yet, I clung to the fading remnants of reason, forcing myself while he was still open to receive counsel. 
“To open the gates,” I pleaded, my voice trembling. “If we cannot feed them, let them leave.”
“Hmm.” His throaty hum, a low, primal sound, vibrated through me, promising both ecstasy and torment. Goosebumps erupted down my skin. I gasped as his fingers slid downward, parting my slick lips, until they delved into me, the invasion equal agony and pleasure. I gasped, my head tilting back. 
He wrapped an arm around my chest, steadying me. “I’ll think on it,” he growled into the flesh of my neck, his teeth a fleeting brushfire on my skin. 
“Name a-,” my words dissolved as he curled his fingers up into my sweet spot. “-new Hand.” I gripped the armrests, desperately anchoring myself to reality amidst the tempest of his touch, his fingers pumping me slowly. “He was never suited,” I managed between ragged breaths.
“No more politics, my love,” he groaned, salacious noises of my pleasure filling the room. His focus, a burning intensity, was solely on me, on the spectacle of my pleasure.
And with a ragged, throaty breath, he uttered, “I want to watch you come.”
_
Water cascaded into the tub, steam licking across the water’s surface. The intoxicating blend of lavender and rose filled the apartment, a scent I’d commissioned for my husband’s return from the morning’s small council meeting. As I inhaled the sweet, warming air, my mind sought tranquility amidst the looming war. Yet, the illusion of peace shattered with the abrupt crash of heavy footsteps and a violent wrenching of the chamber door. 
Aemond stormed in, a frenzied tempest. 
“Fucking eunuch,” he hissed, raging past me, barely acknowledging my presence.  
The allure of the bath, once a soothing sanctuary, evaporated. 
Once more, his turmoil was a tempest I yearned to calm.
My mind raced as I strained to decipher the subject of his rage.
“That toad, Larys Strong,” he growled.
That was all the confirmation I needed.
“Did he truly believe I would bestow the title of Hand upon a Strong cripple such as himself?” he spat, his eye ablaze with malice. “I didn’t like the way he fucking looked at me. I’ll have his eyes out.”
“Come, Your Grace, join me,” I invited softly, swishing my hand through the water.
Aemond snarled, as if the water was poison. “I have no time for such indulgences,” he said, and with a dismissive gesture, turned to his books, his one eye scanning the pages with fierce concentration.
“It’s still warm,” I coaxed, but he paid me no mind, his focus remaining on the text.
I was not foolish enough to press his boundaries. Even though he was susceptible to my words and counsel, I understood when his wall had grown impenetrable. 
I left him to his studies, a certain comfort arising at the thought that perhaps this bath would be mine after all. I loosened my robe, letting it puddle at my feet before stepping into the inviting water. As I submerged myself, the heat seeped into my blood, tranquilizing my tense bones, and a soft sigh of pleasure escaped my lips. I tipped my head back and allowed the water to filter into my hair, prickling my scalp with its alluring fingers. As I straightened, coiling the water out of my hair, I stole a glance at Aemond, who devoured the pages with predatory intensity, my nakedness seeming to hold no allure at present.
I sat up, my breasts rising above the water’s surface. I grabbed the soapy sponge and began painting my body in foam. I moved slowly, the rich lather coating my arms, my collar bones, my neck, my chest, my breasts… They became slick with it, my nipples tightening under the stimulation. 
Aemond’s gaze flickered.
As I cradled one breast, kneading and pinching the soft flesh, his nostrils flared and his eye narrowed, a predatory glint darkening its depths as if though I was his next kill, watching my cleansing ritual. Yet, he continued to feign indifference, his fingers turning the pages absently. 
A surge of triumph coursed through me and nerves danced beneath my skin. I’d captured his attention, a prize hard won. 
“Do you find something of interest?” I asked coyly, nodding towards his books. 
His jaw ticked. “More than you can imagine,” he drawled, his gaze burning me, and I knew he was not referring to the histories.
I continued my provocative play, flicking my nipples, lathering them, until they ached with longing for his mouth. 
His fingers twitched, a silent confession of his growing need. “Are you in need of assistance, my lady?” His voice, low and husky, was an enticing promise.
“I believe so,” I purred.
He shut the book and sauntered over, his approach slow and deliberate, sending the anticipation boiling within me. Kneeling behind me, he claimed the sponge, his touch a masterful blend of tenderness and command as he assumed his duties of cleansing me. Water beaded on the cloth before he inched it towards me, a cascade of soapy liquid descending upon my breasts at the clench of his delicate fingers. His hand followed, a caress that ignited a wildfire within. 
A throaty sigh escaped him, which sent heat lower.
“What of your Hand?” I purred, my voice laced with invitation. “Who will assume the duties?”
“I need someone steadfast to advance my cause,” he murmured, his gaze dark and distant. “Someone unyielding in the face of dragonfire. Someone fiercely loyal,” he drawled, his voice drifting with shifted focus. His hand came up around my throat, squeezing gently, a playful threat that sent shivers prickling my spine. It descended then, down over my collarbones, tracing a fiery trail to my breasts, and a flick of his thumb over my hardened nipple sent me into orbit. A low whimper escaped my lips. His frame loomed over me, his scent, a heady mix of leather and desire, filled my senses, intoxicating me. 
“Perhaps the candidate of choice is closer than we think,” he continued, his voice a low rumble. 
I perked up through the fog. “Enlighten me,” I murmured, my voice barely a whisper. His lips came down to my ear, his hot breath setting my blood on fire. His hand slipped beneath the water until his leather sleeve was submerged above his elbow. 
“You, wife,” he breathed, his voice a charged current that ignited my every nerve, further elevated by the caress of his fingers over my core. 
I scoffed, the absurdity of the notion hitting me like a cold wave. 
“Why do you laugh?” he asked, his voice velvet and steel.
“A woman as Hand?” I ridiculed. “Unheard of.”
“You are no ordinary woman,” he countered, his words a molten caress. “You are my wife. And you guide me better than anyone.”
His words washed over me, dissolving my resistance in a tide of desire. 
“Perhaps in our chambers,” I said, a hint of amusement coloring my voice. “But around a council table? Holding the second most powerful position in the realm? It is laughable.”
A dangerous silence stretched between us as he considered my words. “Nothing about you is laughable,” he finally said, his voice low and intense.  
I turned to face him, the water rippling around me. I stacked my arms on the edge of the tub, my head tilting as I studied his sharp features. 
His fingers traced patterns along my jaw, his eye filling with shimmering emotion. I smiled, reveling in the raw intensity he displayed only around me. 
“Won’t you join me, husband?” I invited. 
A dangerous glint sparked in his eye, and without a word, he stood, unclasping his doublet from his center with slow, deliberate motions of his fingers. Heat rose within me with each layer that he shed. His body was a masterpiece of muscle and sinew.
He was all smooth lines and clean edges, that anything remotely carnal felt so much more unchaste with him.
His muscles rippled beneath taut skin, a living sculpture of power. Every part of him was so incredibly hard and defined, shadows playing around each tissue.
He sank into the water opposite me, his silver hair melting in the water like liquid moonlight. 
I walked my feet up his taut stomach, up his chest, and wiggled my toes in his face playfully. He retaliated with mock ferocity, snapping at them with his teeth, his predatory gaze fixed on me, his eye alight with rare mischief. I giggled and retreated, but he captured one foot, his lips trailing soft kisses up my sole to my toes, sending a strangely pleasurable feeling through my core.
I scrunched my nose at him. “You’re filthy,” I complained with feigned revolt. 
“Indeed,” he drawled, his fingers kneading tension from my foot. A wave of pleasure washed over me, and I leaned back, sighing in contentment. His gaze was intense, his eye a fathomless blue. He knew, as always, how to soothe my soul. 
“If I asked it of you,” he began, and my breath grew shallow. “Would you take on the responsibility?”
The responsibility as Hand? 
A wave of incredulity washed over me and I wanted to laugh again, though his features were etched with such seriousness that I felt as though I would be lynched if I as much as quirked the corners of my mouth.
Anything he’d ask of me, I would do with pleasure, though a sudden reservation coiled in my gut this time. 
He had meant it in earnest. Dread sought its way around my throat.
I swallowed; my mind unable to even contemplate the weight of this looming task. I opened my mouth to respond, but no words formed.
He hummed with understanding, his eye softening and his mouth drawing up into a tender smile. “You needn’t give an answer now,” he said, placing a kiss to the bottom of my toe. “Consider it.” 
Then, he tugged on me until I straddled his lap, the water splashing onto the floors from our shifting bodies. I steadied myself on his firm chest as his hand snaked around my back, the other around my neck, pulling me into him. His desire, already throbbing and insistent, was pressing eagerly against my opening. 
“Imagining you,” he whispered against my lips. “Around the council table… At my side.” A shiver ran through me as I felt his dick pulse beneath me, and his breath shuddered on my skin. “It’s making me hard at the mere thought.” His grip tightened around the back of my neck, his fingers delving into my wet hair before he claimed my mouth, forcing my lips onto his in a clash of teeth and mess. I whimpered at the sudden collide, at the urgency of it, my body molding to his, while a heavy blend of lavender, rose, and dragon consumed my senses.
His hands came down and grabbed two handfuls of my ass and guided me onto his length. The water resisted our movements, making the intrusion slow and straining, and I sawed my bottom lip between my teeth. He filled me slowly, a throaty groan rumbling in his chest as I sank onto him, his eye locked onto the union, his lips parted in admiration. 
He seized my hips, setting a relentless pace. His muscles rippled with exertion in the most attractive way imaginable, as he forced me to fuck him, the water spraying around us. The apartment echoed with the sounds of our passion, a lascivious ambiance of violent splashes, our breathless moans, and the primal growl in his throat. 
The small council had convened hours hence when I was called upon from my chambers by the King’s Guard, my breakfast still steaming on the table. 
“The Prince Regent requests an audience, my lady,” they announced.
The lords sat huddled around the council table upon my entry, engrossed in earnest discussion. My gaze flickered briefly over Alicent’s and Cole’s empty seats. 
Aemond occupied the head of the table, his gaze distant and hostile, his fingers steepled beneath his chin.
“You called on me, Your Grace?” I inquired.
 “Be seated,” he commanded, his voice carrying an unfamiliar chill that sent unease coursing through me.
I moved towards the table’s end with the intention to seat myself opposite him, but halted at his disapproving hum. 
“Closer,” he insisted. 
I hesitated, confusion washing through me and the rest of the council. A tense air descended, and I swallowed, before smoothing my dress and circumnavigated the table, the empty seats beside Aemond my only two options. His eye fixed me with a venomous intensity, as though I were a mere adversary, and not his good wife whom he was buried deep inside only last night. 
Reluctantly, I claimed his mother’s old seat. 
His displeasure was palpable, but unvoiced. 
A tense silence filled the room before he broke it. “Lord Larys,” he began, with a challenging tilt to his head as his gaze ripped from me and pinned the crippled man at my side. “What has come of the summons of my grandsire back to court?”
Larys Strong shifted uneasily in his chair, the action of a man on the verge of delivering some bad tidings, and I noted that his eyes remained in their sockets. 
“My messages have been to no avail, Your Grace,” he mumbled. “Ser Otto seems preoccupied in Old Town for the time being.”
A low, contemplative “hmm,” reverberated in Aemond’s chest. “Well then,” he mused. “It seems I must consider…” His visage softened into a strangely content expression, “…other candidates.” He leaned back, propping his foot up on the edge of his chair, idly turning the king’s marble between his fingers. His gaze flickered to me, carrying a weight of unspoken intent.
“Do you have someone in mind, Your Grace?” Jasper Wylde inquired, his voice laced with curiosity.
A slow, predatory smile crept across Aemond’s features. “As it happens, I do,” he lulled as he observed me. 
Dread pulsed through me, and I shook my head at him; a silent plea for him to abandon this reckless idea died unspoken on my lips. Instead, a spark ignited in his eye, a dangerous glint promising a storm, his head nodding gently. 
“There is only one here whose counsel I trust implicitly,” he declared, his voice carrying a conviction that both warmed and terrified me in equal measure.
Lord Larys, ever the opportunist, perked up beside me. “And who might that be, Your Grace?” 
A flicker of annoyance crossed Aemond’s face. He sat up straight in his chair and pinned Lord Larys with such venom that the cripple must have abandoned all hope before Aemond even spoke. “My wife,” he pronounced, his tone final. 
A stunned silence descended upon the council as the weight of his words sunk in, and an ominous shudder coiled up my spine.
“Go on,” Aemond urged, ice in his voice. “Voice your disputes.” He dared them, his fingers resting adroitly atop the hilt of the catspaw dagger at his waist.
“Your Grace is free to choose his Hand as he sees fit,” Maester Orwyle offered, his voice carefully neutral.
“There has never been a female Hand,” Lord Larys ventured, his tone hesitant and laced with poison.
“Then it’s high time there was one,” Aemond countered, leaning closer, his voice a velvet threat.
“In these times of war and turmoil, you need a strong Hand at your side, Your Grace.”
A venomous glint sparked in Aemond’s eye. “Like you?” he sneered. “Lord Strong.”
Larys recoiled. “I would never presume, Your Grace,” he stammered. “But if duty called, I would serve you without question.”
“Lady Y/N,” Aemond’s voice, cold and deliberate, jolted me from my thoughts, sending a gnawing chill up my spine. “Should I make Lord Strong my Hand in your stead?” 
The question was a seismic shift, leaving me teetering on the precipice of disaster. 
To deny Larys was to accept the mantle of Hand myself, a role I was woefully unprepared for to be sure. To elevate Larys was to gamble the stability of the realm on a man whose loyalty was as fickle as the tide. 
The latter choice was a chasm of peril. 
I straightened in the chair, meeting my husband’s gaze. “Lord Larys is a man of expedient measures, his loyalty as fleeting as the wind,” I declared, my eyes locking with cripple’s next to me. “To name him Hand would be to plunge the realm deeper into chaos.” 
Larys returned my gaze with a venomous glare, and I understood the depth of Aemond’s earlier words. 
The way he looked upon you when crossed demanded his eyes out.
A pleased smile curved Aemond’s lips. “Then it is decided,” he said, rising from his seat. He crossed the chamber to a central plinth and selected one of the smooth marbles. Returning to me, he placed it reverently in the hollow before me, his air lingering briefly. When he sat back down, he fixed Lord Larys with an unwavering glare, his eye narrowing and his nostrils flaring with contempt. 
“You heard her, Lord Strong,” he hissed. “Off you limp.”
The cripple offered no further protest, rising with evident reluctance despite the provocation. He leaned heavily on his cane and hobbled from the room, as commanded.
“Now,” said Aemond, splaying his hands on top of the table. “Where were we?”
Remaining to Aemond’s small council were now Jasper Wylde, Maester Orwyle, and myself. This apparent oversight did not seem to trouble my husband. If given the choice, he would likely rule alone, with me as his sole companion, a prospect I would swiftly dispute. 
Lord Wylde reported that Ser Criston had finally departed for Harrenhal with the Hightower army. Intelligence suggested Daemon’s position at Harrenhal appeared weakened, presenting a prime opportunity to strike. Moreover, Daeron, along with his dragon, was expected to join the fighting soon, and the Lannister fleet was closing in. 
“King Aegon makes slow but steady progress, Your Grace,” Maester Orwyle reported. “He grows stronger each day. He even managed to stand up for a shirt time this morn’.”
Aemond hummed thoughtfully. “A long recovery lies ahead, Grand Maester.”
Maester Orwyle dipped his head in agreement. 
“If there is nothing further, we will reconvene on the morrow, my Lords,” Aemond declared. “You are dismissed.”
We rose from our seats.
“Not you,” he said, halting me, knowing he was addressing me without having to look at him. Maester Orwyle and Lord Wylde placed their marbles back onto the platform before filing out, the heavy doors closing behind them.
I turned to him, his air exuding incontrovertible autocracy. There was something so unfamiliar about this man. He wasn’t my husband, but someone else entirely. A stranger inhabited his body, a man of iron will and cold fury. Someone that would let the world burn beneath the rage of his dragon and find it a triviality. 
I wished to pacify him. To quell the fire and take my soft husband from the ashes. If this man in black leather and silver edges would deign to let me near him.
“I understand now the burdens you carry,” I said cautiously, making my careful approach. “Surrounded as you are by a council of deceitful lords with a reluctance to serve you fully.”
His jaw ticked, a tempest of emotions raging within his eye, fury and vulnerability warring with each other. 
His father was dead, his mother ridden with guilt and misplaced allegiances, his brother burnt and broken, and his sister consumed by grief. 
He was a Targaryen, left to face the horrors of this war alone. A most terrible fate. The weight of his house rested solely on his shoulders, and violence had become his banner.
“I have it under control,” he growled, though his dancing fingers upon the stone betrayed his words. The burden upon him was a festering wound, threatening to consume him. 
“I’m sure you do,” I replied, looming over him. “But that does not mean you must stand alone.”
His eye pinned me with pure venom, sending a sharp chill coursing through my veins. But I willed myself to touch him, as I had so many times before to quiet his rage. My hand instinctively came up to his cheek, my thumb tracing the familiar scar on his cheek, and as I’d thought – this time were no different. He surrendered to my touch like a storm subsiding, his eye a deep pool, welling with the shimmer of unspoken emotion. 
“I’m always at your side,” I promised, and his hand came up to cup mine, squeezing lightly with subtle desperation, a silent acceptance of my solace. “Whatever happens,” I assured him. 
He averted his gaze, as if holding mine would cause the pool to flood.
“Sometimes,” he began, pursing his lips to the side, considering his next words for a moment. “It feels like you’re the only one who is.”
“I don’t believe that’s true,” I said.
“Even so,” he said. “It would be enough for me.”
A smile crept up the corners of my lips 
My sweet Aemond.
I straddled him in his chair, and he took me into his arms, burying his chin in the crook of my neck. Once weapons of war, his hands now cradled me with a desperate tenderness. That’s how we remained for a while, his hands splaying across my back, gripping me with a possessive ferocity, as if he’d never known touch. 
He yearned to be seen, accepted, loved, flaws and all.
I returned his embrace with equal fervor, our bodies igniting in a conflagration of warmth and desire. I held him so tightly that my arms began to ache, and the heat radiating from our fusion made me perspire. 
But it was more than his body which heated me. A potent warmth radiated from him, igniting a fire deep within me. The desperation in his embrace had softened into something gentler. His hands rubbed me tenderly, his breath grew shallower, and his lips began to place soft kisses along my neck, which sent want pulsing through me.
He had solidified beneath me, his arousal pressing against my groin, demanding adjustment. Meeting his gaze, his features were no longer etched with heartbreaking peril, but had instead darkened with lust. 
I pressed myself against his erection, and he let out a rough breath, watching me with languid appreciation as my hands roamed his chest, ran up his neck, into his thick hair, and then delved into the rich fabric of his doublet. I was infatuated with every inch of him. A heady warmth emanated from him, and I was utterly consumed.
A slick heat pooled between my thighs. The insistent pressure of his arousal against my dampened undergarment, a wave of lust blurring my vision. I couldn’t resist the urge to grind against him. Our eyes met, hazy, heavy-lidded, urgent. His thumb traced my lower lip, and I didn’t hesitate to press my mouth to his. I surrendered to him, his kiss, sweet and lazy at first, then deepened into a demanding exploration of my mouth. His hand searched beneath the pool of my dress. It fisted the fabric of my undergarment and I gasped as he tore it from my hip, revealing my wetness. A low growl rumbled in his chest as he deepened the kiss, his tongue plundering my mouth. 
My palm caressed his arousal, a reckless abandon consumed me as I stroked him. He drew in a sharp breath, his gaze fixed on my ministrations as I moved my hand up and down his length. His body throbbed beneath my hand, his breathing growing shallow and ragged.
“Perhaps we should retire to our chambers?” I whispered, a shiver of apprehension running through me as the precariousness of our position struck me with a chilling clarity.  
I was sitting astride him in the council chambers where anyone could enter. 
“What for?” he demanded, his voice a rough growl. His hands claimed my body, swiping up my abdomen, kneading and bruising with a primal force. They squeezed my breasts, his eye admiring them nearly bulging out of my dress. His mouth devoured the valley between them, his tongue and teeth an exhilarating assault. 
My breath shuddered as I watched him devour my skin with hungry kisses. Words suddenly failed me, and I was unable to articulate a reason. 
“I am the prince regent,” he growled, his words muffled against my skin. “I will fuck my wife wherever I please.” With that, he rose, sweeping his hands beneath my thighs to place me on top of the council table. 
“Spread your legs,” he commanded, his tone icy and menacing.
Lust constricted my breath as I obeyed.
His palms caressed my legs upward, his thumbs pressing into my inner thighs with a brutal intensity that unraveled me. As my legs parted, a cold draft swept across my core, and I became acutely aware of my dampness. His gaze lingered there, a mix of heat and corruption that electrified me.
He yanked me closer, his grip on the back of my neck forcing my breasts against his chest as his lips grazed my ear. 
“The Hand is dripping all over the council table,” he growled and nipped my neck. 
The sharp pain lanced my neck as his teeth grazed it. I gasped, but the discomfort transformed into a moan when his thumb found my clit. His hold tightened in my hair, pulling my head back as he lowered my dress, exposing my breasts. His mouth closed over my nipple, sucking on it, igniting a wildfire of desire that consumed me. 
His thumb traced delicate patterns over my clit, a cadent dance that sent shivers through me. His grip on my hair tightened. A deep groan reverberated in his chest and his attention shifted to my other breast, his tongue and teeth teasing and tormenting me. 
I leaned back on my hands and arched into his touch, my hips involuntarily bucking under the dance of his fingers. His mouth was a fiery brand on my skin, and I felt as though I were drowning in sensation. 
When his hands left me, I was left aching for their return. 
His gaze, dark and intense, held me captive as he grabbed my hips and jerked me to the edge of the table. My legs parted instinctively, and I was lost in a world of heightened senses. His eye followed the curve of my body, falling between my thighs, my core completely exposed to him, and he shook his head in disbelief, running his hands down my calves. 
“Fuck,” the single word, uttered with raw desire, escaped his lips. His strong arms cradled my thighs, before his mouth descended between them. 
The first hot, wet swipe of his tongue sent a violent shiver through me. A storm of sensation erupted within me as his tongue explored every inch of my damp folds. I was consumed by a primal urge, a reckless abandon that clouded my judgement. A rush of pleasure flooded me, the waves rolling stronger and stronger at every slow lap of his tongue.
My fingers tangled in his thick hair as he licked me from entrance to clit. “Oh, Gods,” I moaned, digging my hands into his silver, my blunt nails tugging at his scalp. 
My gaze skittered toward the chamber doors and my mind surged with anxiety at the prospect of someone coming through them, but I found the thought slipping from my mind when Aemond swirled his tongue over my clit before sucking gently. My eyes rolled back in my head and my hips wound beneath his mouth.
The introduction of his fingers was a spark that ignited a conflagration, a feeling of fullness descending a hazy veil over my mind and body, oil torching through my bloodstream. 
A tremor convulsed and a shuddering gasp escaped me as his tongue flicked my clit, a cadenced dance foregrounded by the insistent thrust of his fingers. Each of his strokes were a calculated torment, deep, guttural noises of satisfaction escaping him as the sweet nectar of my pleasure ran down his chin. He teased the precipice, slowing when the pressure built, igniting a desperate plea within me. 
“Please,” I breathed desperately. His fingers deepened their invasion, intensifying the fire within me. When he slowed again, panic seized me, and I clawed at his hair. Words failed me, reduced to a desperate repetition of a single syllable. “Please, please, please,” I begged. 
Finally, he answered my silent demands. His digits quickened and curled, his laps ran steady and drenched my core, until a relentless, hot pressure built. 
His gaze locked onto mine, his blue eye transformed into a storm-laden ocean. As the world narrowed to a blinding white, I cried out my final plea, his name, obscenities; before the tempest of release engulfed me, my whole body clenching and shuddering beneath him. 
In its aftermath, a languorous warmth spread through me. I trembled against the table, a puppet on invisible strings as his fingers continued their soothing rhythm. 
My body, spent and quivering, collapsed onto the cold table, my chest heaving, my eyes closing as the last waves of ecstasy rolled through me.
As the fog began to lift, I opened my eyes to find Aemond reclined in his chair, his face flushed, his lips parted from exertion, his chin glistening from my slick desire. 
He was a sight, to be sure.
His gaze, dark and rapacious, held me captive. A flicker of hunger danced in his eye, as though he was ready to eat me whole. 
“Welcome to the small council, my love,” he smirked. 
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sadprose-auroras · 1 year
Text
Strings Attached - Hazel Callahan x reader
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Hey loves!! I think we're learning I'm incapable of writing anything that isn't friends to lovers lol. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated!
Content: smut, oral, fingering, awkwardness but cuteness, cursing. (18+ ONLY) - all characters are over 18.
Summary: Hazel grows jealous of PJ and Josie's sexual encounters since creating fight club. So the two of you decide to strike a deal. No strings attached. Word Count: 4.2k
By clicking 'read more,' you are confirming you are 18+.
“You know what? I’m kind of jealous.”
“Huh?” You looked up from the book you were reading, completely oblivious to your surroundings. You looked at your friend Hazel who was sitting next to you, scribbling in a notebook. She jutted her chin out, and you looked to see where she was indicating. On the football field in front of the bleachers you were sitting on, cheer practise was happening, and everybody had dispersed for a drink break. Your friends, Brittany and Isabel were cheerleaders, and their respective girlfriends, PJ and Josie, were down there too. Isabel and Josie were standing close together, talking and giggling, Isabel’s hand on Josie’s waist. Meanwhile, Brittany and PJ were off to the side of the group, full-on making out, tongues and all. You laughed to yourself at their lack of subtlety, but unable to stop yourself from blushing. You’d certainly never kissed anyone like that.
“You’re jealous cause you wanna make out with PJ? Or Brittany?” you teased. Hazel smiled and flushed, clicking her pen nervously.
“Absolutely not. I just mean…” she sighed. “I guess I’m jealous that they got what they wanted out of fight club. I know it was fucked, but they wanted sex with cheerleaders, you know? And they got it,” she shrugged.
“What are you saying, you want to have sex with a cheerleader? I mean, I’m sure somebody would want to, you’re gorgeous,” you remarked, putting your book down, crossing your legs and facing Hazel. She smiled shyly, shaking her head ever so slightly.
“Thank you,” she said earnestly. It was adorable. “But not necessarily. Just with anyone, would be nice. Don’t you feel like we’re missing out? We should be out there, dating, fucking-“ she stopped suddenly, going bright red. “I mean, not us, together, you and me, but like, separately, as individuals, with other people-“ she babbled, hands flailing around, and you couldn’t stop the next words out of your mouth, heart beating like crazy at Hazel’s words. You knew you were toeing the line of your completely platonic friendship, but you found yourself not caring. She was undeniably attractive, and you were incredibly horny.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to it. Having sex with you, that is. If that’s something that you’d be interested in.” You spoke quickly, then gnawed at your lip nervously. There was no turning back now. Your heart was in your throat.
“Oh. Oh,” was all Hazel managed to say, and you suddenly had an impending feeling. You shouldn’t have said anything, and you were mortified, and you were going to take it all back, no, say that you were joking, although, would she believe you, and-
“I wouldn’t be opposed either,” Hazel said, interrupting your train of thought. Your back straightened. Oh, shit.
“Wait, really? Because it was only a suggestion, I just think that- well- maybe we could get it over with, y’know? We’re both horny, and we’re friends, and we’re comfortable with each other. It could be like… no strings attached.” You shrugged.
“No strings attached,” Hazel agreed, holding her hand out for you to shake. You laughed softly, gripping her hand and giving it a gentle shake, trying to ignore how sweaty your hand was.
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Hazel was a serial organiser. Always had been. And this was no exception. So, she planned the whole thing out. It would be at your house, Friday night, because your parents were away for the weekend. That way, you could go back to yours after school Friday and sleep in Saturday morning. It was all very clinical, methodical, planned out. Which is the way that it should be… right? It’s not like this was real. You were just… practicing. Practicing for when the real thing came along for both of you. That’s all it was.
That Friday was the longest day of your life. First, the morning consisted of you getting changed about five times, before deciding on an outfit. A low-cut tank top and your favourite jeans that you knew made your ass look good. Once you got to school, the nerves didn’t subside, they only got worse. Especially when at lunchtime, you sat in your usual spot with PJ, Josie, Isabel, Brittany, and Hazel. You couldn’t stop blushing and fidgeting, and everything Hazel said that was remotely amusing made you giggle like a little kid. Act normal, you kept scolding yourself. But it was so hard when Hazel was looking so good and you just kept picturing how it might go later. It was one thing to fantasize but it was another entirely to know you were actually going to be having sex with the girl sitting next to you that very same day.
At the end of your final period, you practically ran out of the door as the bell was ringing, rushing to Hazel’s locker to meet her. She wasn’t there yet, and you stood awkwardly, fidgeting with the strap of your bag, nervously rocking back and forth on your feet. When you saw her walking towards you down the hallway amid the crowd, smiling at you, you couldn’t help but smile back.
“Hey,” she said as she approached you, and, surprisingly, your nerves subsided slightly. The way she bounded over to you was so endearing. You were almost tempted to just grab her and kiss her there and then.
“Hey, are you ready?” you asked, and she nodded, leading you out to the carpark to her car.
Neither of you spoke too much on the drive, unsure of what to say to each other. It wasn’t exactly like any other Friday night where you would hang out, watch movies on opposite ends of the couch with a big bowl of popcorn in between you, and part ways with a friendly fist bump. You were also not sure if it was one-sided, but you swore you could already feel the sexual tension in the air. Hazel occasionally glanced over in your direction, and you felt your breath catch in your throat. As nervous as you were, you were mostly excited.
“Here we are,” she said when you pulled up to her driveway. You unclicked your seatbelt, grabbed your bag, and followed her inside. She opened the door for you, holding it open while you walked in. You thanked her, chuckling at her cuteness.
“Do you want a snack? I have cookies,” she opened the pantry, holding up the box proudly. You grinned, nodding.
“Who would say no to that?” you laughed, following her up the stairs to her bedroom. You placed your bag down and kicked your shoes off, sitting on her bed cross-legged while she did the same. You both took a cookie, eating in silence. You could feel your heart beating in your ears.
“Sorry I’m being so awkward,” Hazel said, readjusting so she was a little closer to you. “I’m just nervous.” The tips of her ears were pink, and all you wanted to do was kiss them.
“Me too,” you reassured, reaching out to place your hand on top of hers, and she smiled gratefully. “Think of it this way, it would be weird if we weren’t a little nervous.” She nodded in agreement.
“That’s true,” she said, looking down at your hands, which you were basically holding at this stage. She looked up at you, and you fought the urge to swoon. “I’m more nervous because you’re, well-“ she gestured towards you vaguely.
“I’m what?” you laughed, completely unsure what she meant. She stood up, and you raised an eyebrow, following suit.
“You’re like-“ she used her hands to gesture again, as if she was mimicking curves. You flushed, mouth dropping open. “You’re really hot,” she finally said, and your tummy flipped.
“You think I’m hot?” you asked teasingly, crossing your arms.
“Yeah, are you kidding me?”
“Well, I think you’re really hot too. Like, so attractive.”
“Really?” she asked. As if she was genuinely surprised. As if she walked around all the time looking like that completely blissfully ignorant. It was kind of hard to believe.
“Um, absolutely,” you replied with certainty. “Now that we’ve established we’re attracted to each other…” you trailed off.
“Now what?” Hazel asked, chuckling nervously.
“Maybe we could just start with kissing?” you suggested, moving a step closer to Hazel. You placed your hands on her shoulders, giving them a gentle squeeze to reassure her.
“Yeah, that’s a good start,” she said breathlessly, placing her hands on your waist. You took a sharp intake of breath at the feeling, inwardly wondering how the hell you were going to keep it together later when even the slightest touch from Hazel made you feel dizzy with lust.
You both leaned in, shutting your eyes as your lips met. They slotted together, ever so softly at first, just testing the waters. You parted your lips slightly, kissing her a little deeper, and you were met with a positive response as Hazel wrapped her arms around you tighter, resting her hands in the small of your back and drawing circles with her thumbs. After a few moments, you both pulled away, breathless.
“Well done,” Hazel congratulated you, nodding thoughtfully. “You’re a great kisser.” You chuckled.
“You too. Really good. Can I kiss you again?” you asked, moving your hands up to gently cup the sides of her face. She nodded, leaning in yet again. It was deeper this time, as you both felt more confident. You gently introduced your tongue, and Hazel did the same, as she moaned instinctively into the kiss. This spurred you on; you had never heard a prettier sound. You ran a hand through her hair, as she moved her hands down to your ass, not squeezing, just resting there.
“Is this okay?” she asked against your lips.
“More than,” you murmured, kissing her again, already beginning to feel a throbbing between your thighs. Hazel gently squeezed, and you moaned into the kiss. You knew you were touch-starved, but this was insane. The way she was making you feel with every kiss, every touch, was ungodly.
“Hazel,” you breathed out, kissing her jaw.
“Mm?” she responded, voice catching in her throat. You smiled against her skin.
“Nothing, just like saying your name.”
“Say it again.” Her voice was dripping with need, and you decided then and there that you were going to do everything possible to get her to speak that way to you for as long as possible.
“Hazel,” you whispered, walking with her towards the bed. She sat down first, and you sat down on her lap, straddling her.
“Fuck,” she murmured, looking you up and down, hands resting on the swell of your ass. It was like she couldn’t decide where to look, trying to take everything in. And you were still fully clothed, only the strap of your tank top slipping off your shoulder to reveal your bra strap. She decided to take the opportunity to kiss your shoulder, and you tilted your head to the side, eyes fluttering with bliss. Her lips were so soft.
She fiddled with the bottom of your tank top rather awkwardly, leaving kisses at the base of your neck.
“Do you want to take it off?” you asked, biting your lip.
“Please,” she said breathlessly. You nodded, and she pulled the top over your head, tossing it aside, leaving you in the white lace bra you’d picked to wear specifically for this occasion. Your chest rose and fell in short breaths, and Hazel’s eyes glued to your tits weren’t helping. You decided to throw caution to the wind, and reached behind your back to undo your bra, sliding the straps off your shoulders. Hazel’s eyes widened, taking you all in.
“Fuck, you’re so gorgeous,” she furrowed her brows, as if she couldn’t believe it. Her eyes darted up and down you, and your sudden burst of confidence was gone again, her nerves making you more nervous. You suddenly felt very exposed.
“Haze, it’s okay,” you whispered, cupping the side of her face. “It’s just me.” She gave you a gentle kiss, and your heart burst in your chest.
“Thank you,” she said softly, looking at you with those beautiful doe eyes. “Do you want to take my top off?” she asked. It was so endearing, yet wildly sexy the way she asked. What was this girl doing to you?
“Fuck yes, I do,” you chuckled, as she lifted her arms up to help you pull of her t-shirt. You nibbled at your lip as you wordlessly reached behind her back to undo her bra, and she pushed it off her shoulders, then threw it aside, eyes never leaving yours. She was so beautiful, it almost hurt to look at her. It was like staring into the sun. But you couldn’t look away. Your bare chests pressing together only made the wetness pooling between your thighs more evident, and you briefly wondered if you had ever been so wet in your life.
“Can I?” Hazel asked, resting her lips just at the top of one of your tits. You nodded vigorously, running your fingers through her hair. She began leaving wet kisses, trailing down to your nipple. She took it in her mouth, and you gasped and arched your back. She swirled her tongue, before stopping way before you would have liked to show your other breast some attention. This time, she spent a little longer kissing, sucking, nibbling, paying attention to your reactions. She took your other breast in her hand, tweaking your nipple between two fingers.
“Hazel,” you groaned, shifting in her lap, grinding, trying to find some friction. She continued paying attention to your tits, as she began to attempt to undo your jeans. It was taking her a while, and you gave her a kiss on the top of her head, hoping to give her some reassurance.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” she whispered, voice dripping with need, hands trembling as she fumbled at undoing the buttons. You frowned, gently placing your fingers under her chin to look up at you. She blinked, eyes wide, bottom lip pouting out slightly. Her eyes were like a sad puppy dog’s, and all you wanted to do was scream because how could somebody be that cute?
“Hey,” you reassured softly, “me neither.” You gave her a soft kiss. “And we don’t have to if you don’t want to. It’s okay. Do you want to watch a movie instead?” Hazel immediately shook her head, hair falling in her eyes.
“No, no, no, I want to so badly, you have no idea,” she breathed out, hands moving to grip your waist. You inhaled sharply, instinctively shifting even closer. “I’m just worried I’m not gonna be any good.”
“If any of this has been an indication so far…” you trailed off, leaning down to pepper feather-light kisses from Hazel’s shoulder, up her neck, stopping at her ear. “You’ll be fucking amazing,” you whispered in her ear. Hazel gasped lightly, and you could feel the goosebumps rising on her skin. You smirked to yourself, her reactions giving you a major confidence boost.
“I want to taste you,” she whispered. “Is that okay?”
“Only if you want to,” you said, heart racing.
“I want to,” she reassured, affirming this by lifting you off your lap and laying you down. You grinned, her assertiveness in this action incredibly hot. You decided to help her out by pushing your pants off your legs, tossing them onto the floor. You were left in a plain pair of cotton panties, biting your lip when you noticed your wetness staining the front of them. Hazel’s eyes were wide, hands gripping your thighs.
“Shit, baby,” she muttered. You squirmed, heart exploding at the nickname. But you didn’t want to scare her, so you didn’t mention it. This was meant to be just friends helping each other out. At least that’s what you were telling yourself.
“Do you normally get this wet?” Hazel asked, genuinely curious. You shook your head vigorously, blushing.
“No, god no… this was all you,” you chuckled breathily. Hazel was a vision leaning over you, hands sliding to grip your hips, thumbs inching under the sides of your underwear making you inhale sharply. Her hair was mused, the chain necklace she was wearing swinging with every movement. She leant forward to kiss you, coming back to that safe space, and you happily accepted. You took the opportunity to move your hands to her tits, giving them a squeeze, then tweaking her nipples between your fingers. She moaned against your mouth, thumbs drawing circles right on that sensitive spot right at the crease of your thigh. She pulled away, moving down to kiss your stomach, stopping right at the top of your underwear for a moment.
She considered her next movements, before placing a feather-light kiss right on your clit through your soaked underwear. You inhaled sharply, instinctively bucking your hips. Hazel raised her eyebrows, as if she was surprised by your reaction. She began gently sucking and licking through your panties, and you couldn’t help the moans that escaped your lips. Hazel looked up at you the entire time, and you wanted to look away, but you couldn’t. There was so much sincerity and vulnerability in her eyes, and it terrified you.
“Haze, please,” you exhaled, fingers finding her hair; not gripping, just holding. She got the message, and pulled your panties down your legs. They went flying as she threw them across the room, not looking away from you for a moment.
“You’re perfect,” she muttered into your skin, kissing and sucking at your inner thighs, absolutely leaving marks. She had a way of giving compliments that forced you to believe them; she never said anything she didn’t mean. Your heart melted. You couldn’t have been fonder of her in that moment.
“Hang on,” you said sitting up slightly, causing her to quickly pull away, clearly flustered.
“Shit, what is it? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-“
“No,” you interrupted, not necessarily wanting her to finish that sentence. “No, I just meant hang on for a second, I’m just gonna…” you retrieved a pillow, lifting your hips up to place it under your lower back, then spread your legs apart a little wider than before. Hazel inhaled sharply at the sight of you all wet and spread out for her. It’s all for you, you wanted to say. Only you. But you didn’t.
“There you go, shouldn’t be too hard on your neck now,” you smiled at her, and she chuckled in relief.
“Always so good to me,” she murmured, before attaching her lips to your bare clit, flicking her tongue. You gasped, hand flying back to her hair and gripping this time. When she said she didn’t know what she was doing? Bullshit.
“You’re-you’re s-so good to me,” you barely managed to choke out. “Oh fuck, Haze, that feels so good.”
“Yeah?” she whispered, clearly enjoying herself, which only turned you on more. She began alternating between licking up and down your slit, swirling her tongue around your entrance, and paying attention to your clit. Every time you moaned a little louder, gripped her hair a little tighter, she made a mental note.
“Yeah, fuck, Hazel,” you groaned lowly. It was as if you couldn’t stop yourself from saying her name. She seemed to love it. As your breaths became shorter, her movements quickened, she hoisted your legs above her shoulders as you crossed your ankles, getting even closer. You gasped in surprise, then giggled.
“I could stay between these thighs forever, fuck,” she mused, giving them a rub. You bit your lip, heart fluttering at the implications of her comment. Did that mean she wanted to do this again? Before you could get too in your head, her lips reattached to your pussy and everything else faded away. You tossed your head side to side, suddenly very overwhelmed.
“Oh god, it feels too good, it’s too much, I can’t-“ you babbled, hands covering your face.
“It’s okay baby, it’s okay, take a deep breath, relax into it, feel it,” Hazel mumbled into your pussy, the vibrations only adding to the euphoria. You did as she said, taking a big, quivering inhale, then exhale. You tried to relax your muscles, focusing on the feeling of Hazel swirling her tongue on your clit.
“Good,” she praised into your pussy, blinking up at you. Looking into her eyes helped too; nothing else mattered when she was looking at you like that. You began playing with your own breasts, pinching and rolling your nipples between your fingers, kneading, and Hazel groaned at the sight.
“You’re so hot,” she murmured, as she pulled away for a moment, chest heaving.
“You are- you’re- I-“ you tried, before getting completely distracted at Hazel running two of her fingers up and down your slit, collecting some wetness on her fingers. You watched, completely enthralled as she took them into her mouth, sucking her fingers and closing her eyes, moaning. It was the sexiest thing you had ever witnessed with your own two eyes. You were rendered completely speechless.
“I-you’re- that was-“ you were cut off again by Hazel circling your entrance with those same fingers.
“Is this okay?” she asked, and you nodded.
“Yes, yes, yes, please.” She entered you with one swift movement, taking your breath away in the best way possible. You were so wet, so turned on, so ready for her. She tested the waters by pulling her fingers out halfway, then slipping them back in.
“That’s good, that’s-“ you moaned. “Try doing this with your fingers,” you mimicked a ‘come hither’ motion. She followed suit, the cutest look of concentration on her face as she watched for your reaction. You moaned even louder, nodding vigorously.
“That’s it, don’t stop,” you squeaked, throwing your head back in pleasure. She continued the same motion at the same pace, and you noticed how close you were getting. When Hazel reattached her lips to your clit and began sucking, you were done for.
“Yes, yes, yes,” you cried out, hand flying back into her hair, gripping probably a little too hard. But it only seemed to spur her on.
“Harder, more,” you instructed, and she began finger-fucking you with more force, going deeper, sucking your clit a little harder, kitten-licking at the same time.
“Haze, Haze, Haze,” you gasped, mouth hanging open as you took in the sight of her. She was looking at you with wide, lustful eyes, continuing the same pace.
“I-I’m gonna-“ you squeaked between sharp breaths. Hazel slid a third finger in, curling her fingers at a rapid pace, tongue swirling on your clit in the most delicious way. You could tell she was determined to make you cum. This sent you over the edge, and you cried out, making the most ungodly sound that you weren’t certain was even that sexy, but you didn’t care at this stage. You threw your head back, mouth hanging open as waves of pleasure wracked your body, all the way from your stomach, spreading to your entire body. You could feel how sweaty you had gotten, but you didn’t care.
“Hazel,” you moaned loudly, riding out your orgasm as she continued her movements, increasingly slowing down. It briefly crossed your mind again how ridiculous her statement about having no idea what she was doing was. This was way more mind-blowing than you could have ever imagined.
“Well done, that’s it,” she whispered as she slowed down, before ceasing her movements. Breathe, you internally reminded yourself, slowly coming back to reality. Hazel slipped her fingers out of you as gently as you could, and you gasped at the sudden emptiness. You removed your trembling legs off Hazel’s shoulders, pulling her down by her shoulders so she was cuddled up on top of you.
“Hazel,” you whispered again, heart still beating like crazy, mind foggy in the best way possible. She kissed you, and you could taste yourself on her tongue. It was surprisingly hot. When you pulled away, you both let out a breathless chuckle.
“Was that okay?” she asked, brushing some of your messed up hair out of your eyes. You laughed in disbelief.
“That was- that was the hottest thing that I could have ever imagined,” you replied.
“Oh,” Hazel laughed, flushing a deep red. As if she was getting shy now. “Hey, I have a question.”
“Yeah?” you asked, fiddling with the chain resting at her neck. Your eyes met, and your stomach exploded with butterflies.
“Can this be- can this be strings attached now? Please?” Hazel asked nervously. You giggled, crushing your lips together. She let out a noise of surprise, but then kissed you back passionately. When you pulled away, you kissed the top of her nose, and she scrunched up her face.
“God yes,” you said breathlessly. Hazel held her hand out for you to shake with a playful smile, and you both laughed as you took it and shook it.
“Deal,” she joked.
“Now that’s out of the way…” you said softly, and Hazel raised an eyebrow, wondering where this was going. You rolled over suddenly, so you were on top of her now, hands intertwined above her head. “Your turn.”
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rileyslibrary · 1 year
Text
Ghost is training you on interrogation techniques and thinks you’re a lost case. He’s wrong.
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He unfolds a case of what looks like surgical equipment on the wooden table.
“Are you going to check my teeth for cavities, Lt.?” You joke, but he doesn’t laugh. He never does.
He picks up something that looks like a wrench and shows it to you.
“What’s this for?” He asks, to which you reply, with the utmost confidence that it looks like that tool your grandfather used when you were a kid to break the bathroom door because you locked yourself in there.
He shuts his eyes and holds his breath.
“See, I didn’t want to eat my vegetables, and-”
“Enough.”
“That’s what I told them; no more veg-”
“Stop with the focken veggies.”
“You don’t like them either, huh?”
He lets out a long exhale and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“I don’t think you’re fit for this.” He finally says.
But you are. There's a reason why you are here, and it’s because you’re damn good at your job. Sure, you never learned how to conduct an interrogation the way Ghost understands—in a physical and rather brutal manner—but, you had your ways.
“I beg to differ, Lt.” You oppose him.
“You can beg as much as you want, soldier,” he replies, “but you’ll never be able to make someone beg for mercy.”
You look at the interrogation tools on the table and point at them. “These are unethical, by the way.”
“These,” he says, “serve a purpose for the job and are perfectly legal.”
“So is farting in an elevator,” you reply. “Totally legal to do, yet sorta sucks for everybody else.”
“You should have gone to law school if you’re so passionate about ethical matters,” he says, “but you’re definitely not fit to be here.”
“The captain thinks otherwise.”
“The captain is wrong.” He mumbles under his breath.
“What’s that?” You ask, cupping your palm over your ear, “Are you defying the captain now, Lieutenant Riley?”
“No, I’m jus-”
“That’s against the Army Leadership Code,” you state and shuffle through your bag to get the rulebook. You open it up and clear your throat. He looks at you with that tool in his hand, eager to start plucking your fingernails one by one. Instead, he chooses words.
“I know what the guide says-”
“PAGE 45, PARAGRAPH SIX,” you shout like you’re reporting for duty, “IF AN OFFICER DISOBEYS THE-”
“Stop this instance!” He cries, but you hear none of it. You carry on undisturbed by his roaring voice. You’ll recite the entire book if that’s what’s needed. He leaves the tool on the table and approaches you, posing as an authority figure and yelling in your face. You stop for a minute and turn to look at him, explaining that what he’s doing right now is also against the code, and continue reading out loud.
“FAILURE TO OBEY A MILITARY ORDER BY A HIGHER UP-”
He throws his head up, closes his eyes, and raises his hands up to his temples.
“For the love of god and all that is holy, soldier,” he cries, “please stop talking.”
You close the booklet and throw it on the table. There’s dead silence. You approach him with a smug face and lower your gaze—but not your head—to the ground.
“Well, guess what, Lt.” You ask, and he opens his eyes to look at you.
“You just begged,” you whisper, “and I didn’t have to use any of your,” you gesture with a sneer at the tools on the table, “cheap cutlery.”
He keeps looking at you, confused. You pick a scalpel from the case.
“I thought you didn’t like my tools, soldier.” He says.
“I don’t,” you reply and pull an apple out of your bag, “but I need to cut my fruit.”
He throws his hands to his sides and looks at you, defeated, as you peel the apple.
You stop midway.
“Is the scalpel sterilised?” You ask.
“Of course, it’s sterilised!” he shouts, “we always sterilise our tools as per the rulebook!”
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aziraphales-library · 10 months
Note
I remember a fair few fics where the premise is vaguely “Aziraphale does a blessing/miracle/other religious thing on Crowley and it’s strange/overwhelming/etc for all involved”. I just can’t… find any of them. I remember them being various ratings, pure fluff to pure smut
Your best bet is the divinity kink tag on AO3. Here are some to get you going...
The Agony And The Ecstasy by entanglednow (T)
A split second decision by Aziraphale to save them both from discovery leaves Crowley experiencing something he is unprepared for.
your love is sunlight by EveningStarcatcher (M)
“Why wait?” Crowley’s voice was faint, almost a whisper, but lined with the usual forced nonchalance. “What?” Aziraphale froze, brow slightly furrowed. “Just, I don’t have to wait.” Crowley’s cheeks flushed. “Could be all better right now. I mean. I-if you wanted.” “Are you asking me to heal you?” Aziraphale’s eyes flashed with something… divine.
A Negative Integer by racketghost (E)
“I’m the holy object,” Aziraphale says, and is also looking frantically around the room, the bookshop, the skylight filtering in the first glimpses of afternoon sun and holding dust particles suspended in their beams, dreamy and soft. “I can’t touch you.” “Yes you can,” he blurts out, and swallows down the cacophony of what are sure to be any number of embarrassing and hopeful ways in which the angel can touch him, really, whenever.
Bleak Without and Bare Within by Princip1914 (E)
Perhaps Crowley was right, Aziraphale thought. They were both working very hard in sometimes very awful places and for what? It was obvious that they couldn’t give up on temptations and blessings entirely--someone would notice, they had to surely--but combining forces here and there? What had Crowley called it, lending a hand, when necessary? It didn’t sound too bad. It didn’t sound like a good idea either, but Aziraphale supposed that was the whole point. It was a morally neutral proposition, and everything would still get done in the end. “I agree.” Aziraphale said finally. “As long as you accept that we’re going to have to teach one another.” Or, an angel learns to Tempt, a demon learns to Bless and things get a bit out of hand at the beginning of an unusual Arrangement.
Divine Hands by WanderingAlice (T)
After the end of the world didn’t come, Crowley had planned to spend a lot more time with Aziraphale, and Aziraphale didn’t seem opposed to the idea at all. Unfortunately there’s one glaring problem. Crowley has a strong, uncontrollable panic reaction to being touched by something divine. And Aziraphale cannot turn off his own divinity. A Good Omens Holiday Exchange fic written for the prompt: After the Notpocalypse, Crowley and Aziraphale start getting closer...but they find out together that Crowley has deep-seated trust issues triggered by something about Aziraphale that he can't help. They have to overcome it together.
sanctuary by moonyinpisces (T)
“You’re staring.” “Oh dear,” says Aziraphale, completely unapologetic. “How rude of me.” Crowley begins to smile something slow, bright, and lovely, but he schools it with a bite to his lower lip. Aziraphale thinks of the way he looked two millennia ago, pressed up against the wall with Aziraphale's blessing healing his wounds, the only demon to experience divine ecstasy and live to tell the tale. How Aziraphale's hands itch to do it again, and again, and again. Crowley opens his mouth as if to say something, but then stops and spins around instead to go back to stirring the curry. “Shut up,” he says to the stove, flustered.
- Mod D
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fatesundress · 1 year
Text
⭑ patience, please, and thank you. tom riddle x reader
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summary. you and tom have always sought to best one another in school. it doesn’t help that upon graduating, you work for opposing shops.
tags. rivals to … rivals with benefits? lovers? there’s no real animosity just #flirting so i don’t know, SMUTT minors begone, fluff that may be ooc to some but Not Me, reader literally learns archaic latin for this man, poor boy x rich girl trope if you squint, pureblood reader (and mentions of pureblood marriage politics), explicitly f!reader this time sorry!, fem anatomy, fingering, piv, tldr tom riddle would be turned on by the culminated tension of an eight-year-long academic rivalry.
note. i was 5k words into something else (that is probably better) before this came to me and would not go away so. here it is. don't know where all the smut is coming from. head empty
word count. 6.4k
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The bell to Borgin and Burkes knells low and hollow in your ear as you enter, and there he is. Prim waistcoat and perfect hair, tucking books away with a wave of his wand. Far too pretty a thing for a dusty place like this, you think, and you smile with your head held high, pretending to take in the inventory as if that's ever been your reason for coming here.
“You mightn't consider leaving at all," Tom says, regarding you briefly before returning to his books, “if you're going to return this often."
“Oh, Riddle, but then what would you do without my company? Talk to the bones?"
“A tempting offer when considering my alternative.”
He leans against the counter to watch you as you make your way down the aisle, fingers jolting as they brush the shelves of dark paraphernalia, preemptively casting a locking jinx on a particularly nasty skeletal hand that grabbed you once last year.
“Is there anything you're looking for?"
“Nothing in particular,” you hum as you peruse, “Curiosities of your friendly competitors.”
“Friendly,” he repeats, like he’s tasting a strange flavour.
You smile with just enough polished barb that you hope it bothers him. “Most cordial. And I am nothing if not the dutiful volunteer for the task." 
It is an objective truth that you are good at many things. Tom is good at all of them and perhaps one more: being pushed significantly and never showing symptoms of breaking. You'd like to be the one to change that.
“I presume you intend to leave with something?" There's a challenge in his voice, clear as day, as he stands straighter, but — not bothered. Not bothered, just intrigued. His hands fold behind his back and his chin comes up, daring you to say a single snarky thing that isn't true — that you're here to taunt him. Not to buy a thing, and not to enjoy his company.
It was such a boring day before this. If he only knew, he might have a tad more sympathy.
“Breathe, Riddle — if you can through all the dust in here — I've plenty of money to spare; there’s no need to fret about me leaving empty-handed." You select a book at random to prove your point, waltzing closer to hand Tom four sickles from your coin purse.
You're pleasantly surprised to see him actually smile, the corners of his mouth stretching with only the slightest degree of mirth. He reaches out and takes the coins, setting both upon the counter before turning up his nose at the book in your hands. “It must be an enthralling read to capture your attention."
You smooth the cover over with manicured hands and shrug at the indecipherable title. “Well, I’m remiss not to have a clue. I believe it's in Latin."
He runs his hand along the book, thumbing the pages with a raised brow. “It’s a history text. Ancient Roman institutes of magic.” His gaze returns to you. “Will that be all?”
You roll your eyes. He would know a dead language — it's such a remarkably Riddle thing to do — probably just for the sake of knowing it. 
“Yes, if that's satisfactory enough that I may be permitted to walk the premises without causing offence."
“Of course. Though I do expect a review of it soon," he adds, “to know whether my time hasn't been entirely wasted."
“A review?" You laugh. “And I suppose you ask that of all your customers? Mind the matter of it being in a language I don't know; it would take me a few months for a crude translation at best."
“Only my best customers," he says with a small shrug, as if that isn't a completely arbitrary standard he's just pulled out of nowhere. “In that case, you've the better part of a year to read it," he adds, and the smile on his face is less thin, less restrained, more cocky.
You raise a brow, scanning over the words on the first page as if hoping something will stick out. It's all gibberish. “I'm being timed now, am I? I don't recall accepting the task."
"Do you not?"
You scoff. "Of course I do."
“Or perhaps I could translate for you?" he suggests, “It's really no bother for me."
You should be offended — he's eternally eager to see you fail — but your stomach flips at the premise of a challenge you haven't felt since you were in school together, and most importantly, you never fail. “Give me a date, Riddle.”
“I think by Christmas would be fair. Does that give you enough time, or shall I set it a bit later?"
“Christmas," you agree, shaking his hand with all professionalism you can muster (this is, after all, a very professional exchange), turning away, and smiling to yourself as the shop bell tolls again.
It’s only weeks before Christmas when it occurs to you that this isn’t even for anything. There’s no prize should you win, no one else is aware of it, it’s a great waste of time when what began as a passable weekend hobby has now drowned you in English-Latin dictionaries and histories of Ancient Rome. The shop surpasses last year’s sales and you’re dozing off into your mother’s pastry dish during the family celebration. Even your father telling a rather pitiful tale of his Polyjuiced visit to Borgin and Burkes can’t keep your attention when he drones on about how easily he fooled Mr Borgin into remembering the details of some spat twenty years ago. Your brain is in a half-scattered language. It tugs you to what might be the most depressing December 25th of your life if you’re forced to give Tom the gift of your failure.
So you double-down. Your social life is nonexistent. You’re three quarters through the textbook and dreaming about duelling Tom under the Arch of Constantine, and he wins, and he wins, and he wins each time. It only propels you more. You’re downing Invigoration Draughts like a drunkard with a cradle of firewhisky. 
And you do it. 
You finish the damn book, you think you might have actually fucking learned Latin with how deep the words have rooted in your skull, and you win.
You win, in your prettiest dinner dress, snow clinging to your hair, wrapped in a brand new coat as the shop bell tolls and you step inside.
You’re grateful you don’t say as much (which you were planning on doing — planning on slamming the door shut behind you and carolling your bloody success) because it’s Mr Burke at the counter this Christmas evening, not Tom.
“...Miss?” He regards you with perplexity behind the counter.
You blink, recollecting yourself and stepping forward to shake his hand. “Mr Burke. My family wished to extend their best wishes for the new year.”
“Quite a gesture," comes a familiar voice from behind you as Tom steps out from the staircase, dressed in a dark suit and overcoat, like he’s just been out. He’s smiling. He looks disgustingly well.
You glance between the two men, and Burke bows curtly as if made aware of something he’d previously been warned of. “To yours as well, miss.” And then he’s off to assist the only other customer, an elderly woman in fur-lined green with so many glittering pins in her hair she resembles a Christmas tree.
“Riddle,” you say, facing him, unable to hide the triumphant grin that digs into your cheeks. You hand him the book, and atop it, your three pages of articulate, edited review.
“You made it. You read it," he acknowledges, though you doubt he’s surprised, and then nods to the stairs. “Come.”
You follow him up the narrow spiral into a short corridor, taking one look back at the old woman, now clasping a shrieking bauble you gladly turn away from. The door Tom opens is unlocked, presumably where he’d just come from, and — you feel a bit overwhelmed if you’re correct, but you have no idea what else it could be — presumably his flat.
When you enter, the door shuts behind you with an empty click of the latch. The room before you is rather sparse, a kitchenette in one corner, a cramped study in the other, with books upon books and scrolls stacked high on shelves along the dark walls. There's only the barest of seating, two armchairs beneath a dim desk lamp, a small table beside the fireplace, and… a bed, of all things, separated only by a thin divider and the courtesy of enough distance not to immediately draw the eye. You, of course, can't quite help it, gaze lingering on the tidy sheets and back to him.
It isn’t a thought you do well to dwell on. Too many directions for your imagination to roam.
“Well then," you say, hanging your coat at the door and trying not to display any overt anticipation as the parchment rustles in his hand, “Shall I just sit and await your evaluation?"
He raises a brow. “I was going to ask if you’d like tea. Do sit, though.”
Oh. Yes, right, you’re rushing things. Hospitality. Decorum. Consideration. You suppose Tom Riddle would extend those things for the sake of posterity if nothing else. “Something black, if you have any, please.”
The water comes to a boil quickly under the steady heat of his magic, and you’re sinking into a shockingly comfortable armchair taking in every shape and blemish of the room while you’re in it. You don’t have to guess that he doesn’t have many guests.
“Darjeeling,” Tom says as he offers you a steaming cup, “if that’s satisfactory.”
You resist a scowl at his mocking tone, placing the tea on a glass coaster and glancing purposefully at your work (your magnum opus, really) once more. “Perfectly.”
Tom notes your look with a smile, settling into the seat opposite yours. 
You take a sip of tea and lean back. “Do go on.”
“Eager,” he mutters, but begins.
He skims over the opening line before flipping the book open as if to be sure you haven’t made it all up, and then you think you probably could have made it all up if you wanted. Read one of the hundreds of magical histories of Rome that certainly existed — probably in your own shop, at that — and gathered much the same conclusion. But you did not. Tom must know you did not. 
The silence is thick as he reads, waned only by the crackle of the fireplace and the occasional turn of a page. His brows furrow the way you always remember catching in school, like he's concentrating on a particularly hard puzzle, and you have to busy yourself with a nearly empty cup of tea to pretend not to notice the way his beauty is something almost delicate. Framed by firelight and the indigo gloss of the night shining in through the window, you imagine his hair mussed, his long eyelashes speckled with snow, his cheeks pink from the cold. You wonder about him in a nicer suit than this. You could buy him one, if you liked.
And then, at last, he looks up over the parchment, expression carefully measured. “I'm impressed.”
You put your cup down and you can’t help it. You're smiling. You're proud. His approval is like bottling the tail of a rainbow (which you’ve been told is possible), and it's a feeling that’s been absent from you for so long, it's never come from him — Merlin, you've always wanted it to come from him, haven’t you?
“You’re impressed?” you ask, as you love nothing more than to push. “Is that all?”
He loves nothing more than to keep his face impassive, but there’s a twitch there. Something you’re aware you can only spot because of how much attention you pay him. 
“I enjoyed your perspective on the Romans’ utilisation of firedrakes. It was well-thought.”
“Well-thought?”
“Quite good, yes.”
“Good," you say, grinning in the bulk of your triumph, “I suppose that means I win."
Win. You’re not winning anything but the implication that Tom is somehow losing. Still he does not break, and you think at seventeen he would have. At nearly twenty his smile just grows. “Have you ever done anything less?”
Is he pushing too? That could be fun.
“Oh, first year tribulations. Nothing since — you wouldn’t remember.”
“Hm, I do recall an unfortunate lesson with a matagot in Beasts, and that must have been, what—” He tilts his head as though to ponder it— “fourth year?”
You narrow your eyes. “Paid an ever-close watch on me, did you, Riddle?”
“As close as anyone else.”
“And by that you mean to say—?”
“Only that it’s a most fascinating custom, the matter of pureblood marriage. It was hard to avoid your name in a common room full of your particular politics.”
“Ah,” you hum, summoning the teapot from the kitchenette to pour another cup, “so my potential marital affairs are what drew your attention. And here I was thinking it was because I was the only person who could ever best you.”
He stops your tea mid-motion, and you still as he sends both the pot and the cup to the table beside you. “Can it not have begun as one and have become the other?”
“Well, your curiosity knows no end; I should be flattered by such multifaceted interest.”
“So you won’t mind my inquiring.”
“Whatever you wish, Riddle.”
“Upon the current status of your betrothal.”
You blink, and then laugh. “There is no betrothal. At present.”
“At present. Is it subject to change?”
“There’s always talk,” you offer, and it offers impressively little.
“Elaborate...”
“I don’t know that you’re in any position to be making demands,” you gibe, “considering I paid four sickles to prove you wrong and I haven’t anything to show for it but my pride.”
He smiles. “Not enough to sate your desire to make me grovel, it seems.”
“You? Grovel?” You gasp, fingers circling your knee idly. “What a fascinating concept… Wait now, I’m trying to paint the picture.”
“Is that not what you came for?” he asks, and it’s odd to see him amused by the idea. You push and push and he just continues to take. “To prove me wrong? To puncture my pride?”
You shrug innocently, even though you’d just said as much. “I’m here to wish you a Merry Christmas.”
He laughs, a warm, quiet laugh — more of a breath than anything — but true if you can read him at all, and that’s a bit alarming. “Of course. Near nine months of exhaustive translation all to bid me a nice holiday. It sounds almost like grovelling, doesn’t it? Wait, now, I’m trying to paint the picture.”
You bite back your smile. Damn him. He’s never been funny before. That’s a problematic development.
“Fine.” Your legs are already crossed and now you’re crossing your arms too, and you look very reserved compared to his relaxed stature. “A match would, of course, need to be of good title.”
“Of course,” Tom says, without even an attempt at masking his amusement.
“And he would need to be rich.”
“Naturally.”
“It would help to be from one of the Sacred Houses.”
“I should not expect anything less.”
“And I suppose age is a factor,” you go on. You push, and push, and push. Tom is impervious. He takes.
“What age would do well?”
“Near enough to my own. For health, of course.”
“For health,” he agrees delightedly.
What the hell are you talking about?
“It would be preferable that he be handsome.”
“And of his character?”
“Most agreeable.”
“Docile?”
“Hm, docile, yes.”
“It is a long list.”
“I’ve been told I’m a difficult woman to sate. Far too prideful, apparently.”
Your fingers are drawing figure-eights on your thigh now, and Tom’s eyes flash briefly to the motion. You stop as though caught, and you aren’t sure why.
“A defamatory accusation,” he says quietly.
You wonder if his voice has always had that tinge to it: the gravel underlining his polish like the crack of the fire, and — that must be why it’s so warm in here, too. It has been that way since you arrived, hasn’t it? Such polarising temperatures between your walk in the snow to this, you must have only just adjusted… an hour after arriving. It’s completely logical.
“So there are talks,” you repeat, if only because you’ve blanked on all else.
“Well,” he says, eyes boring into yours in a way that makes you feel transparent, “I wish you all the best. If it at all helps, you can now add a moderate understanding of Latin to your list of virtues.”
You drape an arm across your chair to match his easy posture. (And how is it he manages to look regal and informal at the same time?) “My list of virtues? Elaborate.”
He shakes his head with a small smile and you point an accusatory finger at him. “Ah, ah, Riddle — I won, remember? And I indulged your inquiring regardless.”
His eyes narrow. “You do want me to grovel.”
“It’s Christmas.”
“I don’t believe that’s the purpose of the day.”
“And that matters to you?”
He leans forward, looking over you as if your supposed virtues will reveal themselves upon scrutiny. It’s a bit offensive, really. You’d hope he could find more than enough with one glance.
He settles, after a long moment where you feel almost bare, on, “Your pride is agonising.”
It’s — not exactly what you were hoping for. Not quite grovelling, by any definition, but then, what did you expect from him?
“Excuse me?”
“Your stockings are ripped at the calf.”
“Riddle—”
“Your lipstick may have stained my teacup. It is a shade I’m rather fond of, but I do not wish to see a trace of it left behind.”
“Quite good,” you say through gritted teeth.
“And I should not be agonised — incautious and unfettered at a sliver of skin or the gesture of your mouth —” You realise with horror that he’s speaking through something constrained too — “and yet I am.”
It’s — is that a confession? Have you broken him? Have you won again? Your stomach flips and it doesn’t feel at all like winning. He certainly doesn’t look like a man who’s lost. In fact, he’s watching you intently, and at your lack of response, the constraint forming a taut line on his lips seems to slip back into something deliberate. Curious.
You recover to the best of your ability. “It is a short list.”
“Shall I go on?” he asks, and it’s an answer, too: no, you have most definitely not broken him. He looks a bit like he’s found a neat pathway to breaking you instead.
“I’d hate to debase you further.”
He leans in, and he might be about to stand, and that might be an irreversible thing to do. “Are you sure? I can’t imagine you’ve painted the picture yet.”
Oh, you’ve painted the picture. You’ve painted a gallery.
“I find the image regrettable half-done. No point finishing it now.”
You do not.
“And besides,” you add, “I know my virtues.”
He smiles, and he’s half orange in the firelight and half blue in the night, green somewhere in the middle, and he should be condemned for being this beautiful. “Elaborate.”
You shouldn’t. “I’m intelligent.”
“Mhm.”
“I’m a quick learner.”
“So I’ve seen,” he agrees, still leaning in.
“I’m good at my job.”
And then he stands.
It is an irreversible thing. Your heart lurches like it knows he’s going to do something that cannot be undone. Your heart lurches because it is a thing you’ve anticipated, quietly, on late nights in scrolls of Latin so you might be able to pretend to mistranslate them — you know, in your first tongue and any other, that you do not want it to be undone.
“Anything else?” he asks. You aren’t sure if you’re resentful of the proximity of his seat to yours or grateful for it, because it takes no time at all for him to be standing before you.
“I’m well-mannered,” you say, and it comes out quieter than you mean for it to. “Lettered in etiquette.”
“Etiquette," he repeats slowly, in a voice dripping with sarcasm, and you don't quite know how he manages an intonation like that, but there it is, dripping with so much contempt you’re surprised he doesn’t fall over.
It wouldn’t be terrible if he did. He’d land right on top of you and put this little game to rest.
Instead he reaches a hand to your cheek — your hair — and brushes it like it’s an absolutely standard thing to do. He pulls away just the same. As if his hand is familiar with the shape of your face because it’s been there before. You'd definitely remember if it had.
“Of course,” you breathe, “patience and pleases and thank yous.”
“In all your manners, you might provide an example.”
Fine. If he’s going to be difficult. “I’d say I’m displaying great patience right now.”
“Hm.” His hands find yours where they sit on either arm of your chair, and his figure is blocking all light now. It shines on his shoulders, casts him like an aura. “That’s one.”
You look at his lips, and don’t bother to look away. You incline forward as much as you can when you’re caged in like this, until his breath is on yours and you can smell his cologne.
“Please,” you say, and for the challenge in it you don’t feel too humbled.
He is most obliging.
His lips just barely brush yours at first, and you did say you were patient — so you wait. The feather-light touch of them stills before it deepens, his hands pressing down on yours. Your open mouth. His tongue. You're kissing him, breathlessly and frantically and completely, and it is all you want.
Tom pulls back and you instinctively push forward. You will your eyes to open and he’s still right there — he hasn’t gone anywhere (what a deranged concern that is) — lips an inch from yours, and he’s smiling.
“That’s two.”
Oh. Oh, he’s an aberration in human variance. There’s something incredibly wrong with him.
There isn’t a way of turning gratitude into a challenge, you think. It doesn’t ask for anything. It appreciates. In this case it would more closely resemble worship. Thank you for your kiss, Riddle, I’d be nothing without it.
So you search to find a way around it that still gets you what you want.
“I’ll need a bit more than a lousy kiss if you want to see me grovel, Riddle." Your voice is a bit rough. You don’t know that your confidence lands the way it typically does.
But you came here to — what was it — puncture his pride? Push him until he breaks? You’ve already made it halfway, and you are, after all, very good at it.
And you suppose he wants to earn the third, because he scowls and then he’s kissing you again and this time his hands are on your face, and perhaps they are somehow familiar with the shape because they fit around you in some inexplicably whole way, like they were made for it. With your hands free, you’re carding your fingers through his hair, hoping for that vision of him you imagined earlier, with thick, messy waves and flushed cheeks.
Tom brings a hand to your waist and tugs you in, and you’re partly pulled from the chair by his insistence and overwhelmingly pushing to get out of it yourself, lips never leaving his as you stumble past the meagre divider to his bed.
The backs of your thighs hit the footboard and your knees buckle, gasping away from Tom’s mouth as you reach for the bedpost. His breath is heavy as his hand curves to the small of your back to keep you steady, your dress bunched in his fist, and there’s a heat in him pressed against you, like a match being held to kindling. And in the flash of fire when it finally strikes, everything in his eyes is clear, singularly focused, and he's pushing you to your back, splayed across his tidy sheets as he kisses you with bruising ferocity.
There's an urgency now to his movements that wasn't there before, and it's a stark contrast to his usual calculated demeanour, but that feels like winning. That feels like breaking Tom Riddle, whittling years of practised constraint to… this. That draws the third: makes you nice and grateful like he asked, because no part of you wants his careful fortitude here. You want to ruin him.
He appears to want the very same from you, which wrecks the whole thing.
Your legs move to wrap around him and he stops you, one hand pinning you by the hip and then down, past where you think he’ll go, as he finds the hem of your dress and lifts it from your calf to your knee. He draws circles over the thinly-clothed skin and you can do nothing but lie there, panting a little, staring at him with less patience than you’d proclaimed to have. And then his fingers move upwards, and they’re drawing figure-eights, and you understand that if this isn’t a taunt, nothing is. He copies your earlier motions. He does not kiss you. His fingers trail higher and higher and they’re soft like the shadows framing his face.
Finally he finds the waistband of your stockings and begins to tug them down your hips, stopping when he reaches that sliver of skin revealed by a tear in the fabric, taking your leg and hiking it up so he can look closely. He smiles, finger sliding down the tear in such a precise, meticulous fashion you can’t help but think he’s doing it on purpose. The moment does not linger when he pulls away, shuffling your stockings down the rest of the way so your legs are unclad before him, your heels already kicked off somewhere across the floor.
He watches your sharp exhale when he ducks down to kiss the skin of your thigh. A shiver runs through you at his softness, another when you see his face, see his eyes go dark with want of you.
His constraint is back, and it’s fucking detrimental. The only silver lining you can find in it, and you hope to be correct (haven’t you been so far?), is that maybe that means Tom Riddle can be broken in litany. Maybe he amends his ruination now but you can carve it out of him again later.
“Come here,” you say, your voice ragged.
Tom frowns, one hand pursuing a dangerous path up the inside of your thigh. “And here I was under the impression you wanted me to grovel.”
“Oh,” you huff, “is that what this is? Not some feeble attempt at winning after I —”
You grip his hair as his fingers curl under the lace of your underwear, as he smiles at the dampness there, the way your argument dissipates beneath his touch. “Winning?” he derides, breathy to match your tone in a way that feels cruel rather than considerate. You nod even as your breathing accelerates and he lifts the skirt of your dress to rest over your thighs, his eyes darting between your legs and your own heavy gaze as if he can't decide which is more intriguing. And then he slides a finger across your heat and you think he’s made his choice. "Is that what you think I want?"
You blink, feeling a bit lost. "What else is there?"
“Will you thank me after this?”
Right. That. You swallow, head falling back on his pillow. “Doubtful.”
“Hm,” he mumbles, some kind of consideration that can only be answered by the movement of his fingers against you, slow as they seek to learn you.
You arrest the moan that rises in your throat, teeth clenching together as Tom climbs over you once more, his body keeping you in place to watch the sustained details of your expression as one of his fingers dips inside you. You hiss, and his gaze burns into you, his mouth parted with a degree of awe and you think perhaps this is the picture he painted — you, under him, eyebrows pinched together as your hands scramble for purchase on his chest, fighting to remain intact.
But then his thumb brushes up against your clit and you let out a sound — half a moan, half a mewl. Tom doesn't give you a second to recover as his lips come down on yours again, hard, desperate, like he's trying to inhale you. And you let him, you take the little bit of ruin he surrenders in the great expanse of yours.
Even if you could quiet your noises you stand to think Tom would feel them, taste them, bite down on them like he does your lower lip, a second finger coiling into you. Your hand smacks at his wrist, clutching his arm with such intensity you can feel every sinew of his movement as he works away at you. Your legs are trembling, pressing around his waist an act of simultaneous resistance and desperation as you push upwards for friction and conquest.
You find both. Undeniable hunger — how he groans softly against your open mouth, how the imprint against your thigh is hard under his trousers, how he wants you.
His ministrations only intensify when your hand searches for the buckle of his belt, gripping your jaw like he needs to watch you fall apart before you can find parity in your desperation. It isn’t an impossible wish; your mind is hazy at the push and pull of his fingers, curving where his thumb draws ceaselessly on the other side, and you think, as much as you’re able right now, that he could succeed. But you force your eyes open to the space where your hand is wedged between your bodies, yanking hastily at his belt and sighing into his shoulder as it unfastens.
His trousers are unbuttoned, unzipped, and you’re arching into him with laboured pants even when your hand slips past them to find skin you've never travelled before.
Tom’s motions stagger when your fingers brush experimentally over his length, and you suddenly understand his ardent focus. You can’t help but stare at the way his jaw ticks, a hiss parting through gritted teeth, and the fact that you’re doing this to him is almost enough to push you over the edge. You grip him in one hand, and his fingers move again like some act of defiance, tightening his hold on your jaw. And then you’re pumping slowly, carefully, the only way you think to with the intention of pleasing him. Of weakening him.
He turns your head so you’re gasping into the pillow, neck exposed for him to press his mouth to. His teeth and tongue are on you and your hand slips from him for a moment as you shudder. Fuck him. This isn’t enough. You won't lose like this.
You tug at his waistcoat now, snapping open the buttons until the last few are clinging on by cheap threads. You’ll buy him that suit, you think. One that you can shrug off as fervently as you like without worrying about tearing the seams.
Your removal of his shirt is not aided by the swelling fire inside you, how the attention of his fingers has remained steady through your squirming and it feels like it’s culminating to something fatal. Your fingers grow shakier but don't stop their pursuit until every button is undone and you can soothe their trembling by pressing your palms against the warm expanse of his chest.
And then they’re back in his trousers, pushing them down his thighs as he continues to chip away at you. You bite back moans and blink through your dizziness.
Tom stops, and it might be more devastating than if he hadn’t. Your body is taut, a fine, thrumming wire spared a moment before snapping.
“More,” is all you say, tracing the shape of him through his briefs.
“More?” he asks. There’s a small mercy in the rasp within in his voice, the uncertainty despite himself. “I suppose that means I win.”
“Win?” 
His gall almost, almost pulls you back to reality. But he’s — he’s pulling his trousers further down and your body, like some separate entity to your mind, is flush against him when he’s finally free of all obstructions. 
“Mhm,” he hums, and almost-reality dwindles away into fucking nothing — disappears before your eyes when he brings his finger to his tongue and tastes you.
You tear him back to your mouth with a sound that so desperate your humility shouldn’t be able to take it but that's all gone now. His lips are wet and swollen and you’re adjusting yourself so his hips are lined with yours, and your head rolls back when he positions himself against your core and stays there.
“I win,” you breathe. “Everything else is just—”
He moves, hands on your waist as he presses ever-so-slightly inside you. You clutch wildly at his arms, your eyes wrenching shut.
“Look at me,” he says softly. His thumb caresses your cheek as if any act of his acts of tenderness are at all actually tender and not depraved requests for your resignation. 
You shake your head. “It’s ju-just—”
He sinks further, unhurried, and you feel like crying, your body clenching around him as the pressure deepens.
“Just what?” he asks, peppering kisses along your jaw.
“Just… um, just…”
“Hm?”
“I win... s’just… cheating…”
You feel him smiling against your neck, and then he detaches his lips to observe you, nodding with false sympathy. “You win.”
And he shifts himself forward so he’s pushed to the hilt. 
It’s a lie. It’s a lie as Tom holds you against him, carving kisses into your skin that burn, as you shudder a moan into the thick, hot air, as he begins to move rhythmically inside you, your fingers digging crescent moons into his spine and dragging.
You don't win.
If you are steel honed over years, it’s this moment that you melt, and you think if you were to be fused again it would be in a different shape.
And you mean that. You honestly feel liquified when he splits you slow like this, rolling his hips as you cling to him for strength like he isn’t the thing shattering you. 
You rock to meet him, you bury your nails in his back, you rest your moans with your teeth in his shoulder — whatever you can think to make this fair. Make true to your word. You are going to break, it's true, but you are going to break Tom Riddle too.
“Fingers,” you mutter, far too much of a demand for the way it almost stumbles into a sob, but Tom makes a strained sound in the back of his throat as if it gratifies him that you want it enough to ask.
“Thank me,” he answers on a harsh exhale.
You bite at his collar, shaking your head, but your legs are starting to shake and you wouldn’t ask if it was something you wanted — you mask it as an order because you need it. Because you imagine what he’s doing now combined with his thumb on your clit and it’s enough to make your abdomen clench just thinking about it.
Instead one of your hands forsakes the sweet curve of his muscles every time he thrusts into you so that it can snake between your own legs, and you mimic his earlier ministrations just long enough to drive a moan from your lips before Tom’s eyes dart from your lips, the rise and fall of your chest, to the hand missing from his back.
He grabs it with a scowl, pinning one wrist and then the other above your head.
“Stubborn,” he hisses, and he buries himself inside you like it's something personal, persistent in his strokes when his fingers finally rub over you how you wanted.
And you know you’ve done it when his head falls on your shoulder and you feel yourself tighten around him. His grip on your wrists is punishing. His mouth on your shoulder is stringent. He’s hard and full inside you and his fingers slide against you in delicate, torturous contrast. You know because it all stutters a bit when you pull him into a kiss, when you know you’re about to plummet into oblivion and he’s gripping you through it like you might steady him — like you aren’t the thing shattering him.
When you do, it’s something visceral. You think you might be spinning, or floating — screaming, maybe — spilling ill-mannered expletives in strings with his name because your hands are still trapped under his and your body can do nothing else. What you know, undoubtedly, is that you’re coming down from it for a long time, in a haze when you manage to breathe the words into his ear. “Thank you.”
Tom breaks. It’s the most beautiful you think he’s ever looked; eyebrows cinched and pink mouth parted, hair mussed like you wanted, neck tense as he stills inside you and you feel every part of him let go.
Your legs are too weak to cling to him through it, and you just pant under him, blinking languidly and in awe.
You stay like that for a long time.
He leans in when he finally pulls out of you, kissing you like one form of contact must be replaced with another. It's the same with his hands. He sinks into the space beside you and releases your wrists just to cup your face instead.
Yours come up instantly and shamelessly to his hair, craving nothing more than to curl your fingers through the dark mess of it. You trace the sharp shape of his cheeks, too, like his did to yours, like you need to memorize the lines of his expression and the heat of his skin before the world outside seeps in and it all goes cold.
But you pull away and you can't imagine it will.
There’s something in his eyes that feels new. Longing like he’s shed all pretence of acting like nine years of treading the lines of this rivalry has ever been anything but a pathetic display, like he knows you've shed it too. It makes you catch your breath to think this is what it feels like to be desired by Tom Riddle; that you desire him all the same; all this time.
“You know,” you say, and your voice sticks dry to your mouth, “I still win.”
He shakes his head. He smiles. You want terribly to kiss him again.
“I’ll just have to find something else to best you in, won’t I?”
You pretend like you’re considering it and not just staring at him. 
“I think by Christmas would be fair.”
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(Posting my threads on tumblr so I can talk to fellow Akane/Rankane enjoyers, part 3) (manga exclusive, I haven't seen the 80s anime)
One of the first things we learn about Akane is that she’s both violent and sweet. Both are true, and much can be said about her hair journey.
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Akane’s violent side is immediately obvious while her sweet side is more apparent along the journey. She’s trusting and caring, even with people who have done nothing but wrong her (a mf will try to kill her and she’ll still be like “I feel sorry for them/I want to help them”)
Her sweet side is also introduced when she meets Ranma. She sees someone uncomfortable in an uncertain/awkward situation, and she’s the first to reach out and be welcoming.
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Akane’s haircut is violent, brutal, and shocking. As shocking as Ranma entering her world. It happens during the first real fight Ranma has on page, and it's likely no coincidence. Something is off with long-haired Akane... with the cut, she enters Ranma’s world as her true self.
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Akane’s long hair is tied to Akane trying to be like Kasumi: modest, calm, quiet. It’s Akane trying to be someone she’s not, because she wants to feel loved and wanted. If she likes a boy, she wants to be liked back (as opposed to disliked because she’s too "boyish")
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When Akane crushes on the doc, that’s a girl used to being bothered and harassed by boys (boys who think “I can beat her into dating me”) fixating on a safe male figure because he makes her feel secure and cared for (literally treating her wounds)
(To contrast: Ranma being stronger isn’t “she must submit to me,” which is what was associated with a boy beating her... it's usually “I’m stronger so I want to look out for her/help her/protect her” and that part makes her feel secure and cared for)
Akane “changing herself” isn’t really about getting the doc to like her, but about Akane feeling judged and inadequate as her true "tomboy self," because even if she cuts her hair short she still likes being feminine… and she’s constantly told she’s not.
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Just look at how she dresses. Other female characters might often wear pants (outside of the school uniform, Nabiki usually wears jeans and shorts for example) but Akane is rarely not wearing a cute little skirt or a dress. Calling her uncute pokes at a sore spot.
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Changing herself doesn’t give her what she wants, it just reaffirms her insecurity (if you have to stop being yourself to feel accepted, are you really accepted?). When the doc says "short hair always did suit you better," it doesn’t make her happy because she doesn’t actually want him.
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Part of why he’s safe is because he knows her just as she is and still never judges when others do. “Short hair always did suit you better" is also “you didn’t need to change yourself to be accepted, you were always fine just as you are.”
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This is part of why she cries so hard and why afterward she’s immediately over him… she mourns what she felt and believed (and perhaps the effort it took, growing out a pixie is not for the weak lol) and is ready to turn the page. But the insecurity that sparked it all remains.
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That Ranma preferring her short hair makes her smile is an early sign that he stirs something in her. It also says something important: he can tease and insult her all he wants, but he likes Akane just as she is
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And that includes her violence. her anger and her fire. When Akane is upset and tries a cooler approach, Ranma won’t let her. he prefers Akane sending his ass flying than her ignoring him 100%
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I think Ranma also likes Akane’s "specific brand" of violence, because everyone and their mom is violent here (including Nabiki… psychological violence if you will lol) and outside of challenges/battles he only seeks hers by teasing her, knowing how she’s going to react.
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(everyone is a martial artist/violent but I think part of why Akane is clocked as more tomboy-ish is attitude. All the girls will use “their feminine charms,” even Ranma, but Akane will grab a fucker by the shirt, look at them in the eye and jut out her chin, and that's "masculine")
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Akane wants to feel normal, she wants to be liked by the one she likes. she associates “you’re not normal” as a negative thing, as “you will be disliked”... even if Ranma means it as “Akane is tougher than a regular girl” (positive) that's not what she hears.
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Kasumi means no harm, she knows Akane well and wants to look out for her. but that gives her words more impact, and Akane looks up to her as the ideal of femininity (she also only wears skirts and dresses) (Akane has likely heard this shit a lot too, she was cast as Romeo, etc)
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Ranma knows he can be a jerk, but he genuinely doesn’t realize he's saying insensitive shit just when Akane is at her most sensitive... when she snaps, that’s her armor coming up to protect her heart (just like being a jerk can be armor for Ranma)
So Ranma hurts Akane's feelings without realizing (being a jerk is armor because his feelings are too big, too much for him, and he’s not ready to deal with them) but takes Akane's angry response as her hurting his feelings.
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This causes the following pattern: Ranma “lifts Akane up,” telling her exactly what she needs to hear from him, soothing her insecurities… and then completely lets her down/disappoints her by telling her exactly what she doesn’t need to hear.
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Look at Akane’s face. she could’ve accepted Ranma's apology and moved on. Instead, she’s vulnerable and ready to admit fault too... she’s touched by the idea of Ranma wanting to make up because he wants to be with her (but then he downplays it lol a word-class fumbler fr)
And... he doesn't realize he’s doing this! he doesn’t want to hurt her. whenever he realizes he hurt her he always wants to fix it, even if he doesn’t fully get what he did wrong or why Akane is mad and/or how to make it better.
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But “lifting Akane up and then kicking her down” is the type of shit that makes Akane feel like she needs to protect her heart. In a way, Ranma’s armor (jerk) makes Akane’s come up and vice-versa, so neither can give in. It's part of why admitting feelings is very difficult
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There’s also Ranma throwing easy “I love you’s” when he thinks it's a challenge with people he has no feelings for, but completely combusts when he realizes he said to the person he’s in love with. It’s too much for him and he’s not ready to admit it, so “he takes it back”
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On Akane's side, she isn't unaffected by hearing the boy she loves confess and then "take it back"... even if she can be perceptive and understands Ranma’s shenanigans this sparks more insecurity (and then jealousy)
This contributes to Akane being quick to get angry & misunderstand certain situations, as she’s expecting Ranma to “let her down”/ has no confidence that he doesn’t want anyone else (besides Ranma being in “impossible not to misunderstand situations, for the bit”)
Akane being perceptive but her insecurities getting to her: she knows Ranma. She’s correct in her assessment that he fucked up and is hiding it. But doesn’t clock his deflection because damn, what if he actually wants someone else, what if they have something she doesn’t
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But Akane always goes back to believing in him. Because even if he disappoints her, she understands that he's just not thinking, it's his ego, he doesn't mean it, the situation is too much for him to handle etc. And he never stops trying to make sure they’re on good terms.
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Also, Ranma makes her feel safe and protected. She likes that he’s strong and never gives up. She knows she can count on him when it matters most (which is why she’s also his ride or die, goes both ways). It’s part of why when she’s jealous, she imagines Ranma protecting Nabiki.
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It’s not something she thinks about consciously, but being the one Ranma wants to protect above everyone and all else is part of how Ranma shows his feelings for her, and on some level, she can tell… one of the first moments ranma makes her heart speed up is this
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She likes that Ranma protects her and that she can count on him, but she never wants to be a burden or the reason he has to sacrifice something. just like how Ranma wants to protect her above all else, no one goes as far as she does for his sake (see also: the final arc)
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Adding on the crush on the doc: just like this scene, it's likely that whenever Akane went to see him, her wounds weren't just physical. "I hate boys" is not something she means as she never treats anyone with hatred, but it's coming from a place of frustration/exhaustion.
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Each daily challenge would be annoying by itself, but the repetitiveness of it all would wear her down. Note how she never goes "I hate boys" again after it stops. It's only just "I hate Ranma, specifically" because he hurt her... but she doesn't mean that either
Ranma's presence puts an end to those challenges, so he brings her peace in that sense. His world comes with craziness and dangers, but unlike the school challenges, this is something Akane chooses to face because she wants to support him.
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Fighting annoying boys because you don't want to date them and fighting to support a loved one are completely different things. The former wears Akane down, while she's passionate about the latter. Just like how she counts on Ranma to protect her, she always wants to have his back.
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As a Jew, I have felt completely alienated by the community that purports to represent me. In my earliest childhood memories, I recall  family members, Hebrew School teachers, and religious leaders telling me about the many promises of the state of Israel: a safe home for all Jews, a place – I was told – where we made the desert bloom. From as early as I can remember, I was taught by my family members and Hebrew School teachers that Jews need Israel because of the devastating losses during the Holocaust and enduring antisemitism. I went to Hebrew School three days a week, and remember feeling almost-constantly panicked about the potential for another Holocaust. The message was painfully clear: everyone hates Jews, and that’s why we need Israel. There was so much about Jewish history and culture I never learned in Hebrew School: our working-class roots and deep commitment to the labor and socialist movements both in Eastern Europe and in the U.S.; Sephardic and Mizrahi culture and customs; the history of Yiddish; even the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. And of course, left out of most American Jewish education are the violent origins of the Jewish state: Israel’s dispossession and mass slaughter of Palestinians in 1948. The land on which Israel was built was not a barren desert made fertile by Jewish refugees and immigrants, but the Palestinians’ homeland, inhabited for millennia. When I began to learn the truth – that Israel violently expelled almost 1 million Palestinians to create the state of Israel – I felt completely shocked, and deeply betrayed by the adults whom I had trusted. It seemed – and I now know with certainty that it is – antithetical to Jewish values. Since I first learned about the Nakba, I’ve regularly felt alone in my religious community. There’s an assumption – from both the Jewish community and society at-large – that because we are Jews, we are also Zionists. Yet, so much of my political compass – including my commitment to anti-Zionism, actually comes from what I’ve learned from being a Jew. The same Hebrew school teachers who instructed me to love Israel also taught me Jewish songs like Olam Chesed Yibaneh (we will build this world with love) and Lo Yisa Goy (nation shall not lift up sword against nation). Israel’s occupation of Palestine and its subjugation of Palestians contradicts these Jewish tenets, yet in a majority of American Jewish communities, those of us who oppose Israeli colonialism are treated as traitors. It’s been confusing to feel both deeply connected to Judaism and Jewish values, and to also be told repeatedly by Jews and Zionists that I’m a self-hating Jew. It often makes me feel like I have no safe religious home. The only times I’ve felt like I’m free to practice my religion as an anti-Zionist, and to proudly declare that I’m an anti-Zionist because I’m Jewish, are when I’ve taken action with Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist, Jewish organization that stands in solidarity with Palestinians. 
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anshelsgendercrisis · 5 months
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I just wanted to thank you for being so vocal and clear about the history of violence Jewish people have been facing for hundreds of years and how that's impacted events in the present. I've been doing my own research to learn more as a goy and it feels so purposeful that it's not really taught in schools, it just feeds into the antisemitism already rife in society. I'm so sorry you all have had to deal with this, constantly and through generation and generation.
thank you. i’m just…..so goddamn tired. i’m tired of people acting like acknowledging history or reality means we have to just shrug our shoulders and do nothing. acknowledging this history and how it’s contributed to the political climate in israel should inform how diplomatic proceedings are conducted but people are so opposed to the idea of seeing israelis, particularly israeli jews, as people that they’re willing to sacrifice the lives of both israelis and palestinians if it means they don’t have to acknowledge how the rest of the world contributed to the current crisis.
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starhvney · 1 month
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𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓 𝟑 | 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟏𝟎: 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐒 𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐓
𝐂𝐖: very crude language and shit talk from ivy, paranoia, threats of violence, reader nearly spirals into an anxiety attack, implications that reader has anxious attachment tendencies
𝐀/𝐍: hey guys! meant to get this chapter out earlier today but i had too much caffeine and made myself sick oopsies! anyways i hope you guys enjoy this one! we're getting back to that good old drama
𝐖𝐂: 6,000+
𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐎𝐑: @arienic (thank you nics!)
𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 ☆ 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 | 𝐀𝐎𝟑 | 𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 | 𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐒
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“this is so exciting!” teony grins, clapping her hands from where she stood next to you and katelyn. “i care more about academics than athletics, but i honestly love the sports festival! it’s so much fun!”
you hum happily in agreement, eyes drifting around at the school’s outdoor scenery. honestly, it's insane how beautiful of a spot it was placed in, with phoenix drop’s mountain range and tall forest trees spanning right from the school’s backyard. the whole student body is packed in the area from the soccer field all the way over to the baseball field, everyone in their athletic uniforms and the colorful wristbands that indicated which class they were in.
glancing behind you to check on aph and nana as the little freshman chat away, you catch a glimpse of ivy’s minions and aaron, who is a short way away, talking by the stairs. the tall junior seemed like trouble just from his looks alone—and you were pretty opposed to him already just from aphmau’s complaints of the boy all year—but his seeming compliance with lily’s flirtatious giggling set your opinion in stone.
your attention shifts back to your friends next to you, a sense of comfort relaxing the tenseness that had begun to build just from the glimpse of those people. after talking about everything with aphmau, you both had decided to come clean to all of your friends about the issues you’d had since day one with both ivy and gene.
you’d almost felt silly for hesitating so long to tell them, especially with how defensive and fired up they had gotten. lucinda’s reaction was definitely the funniest, the redhead immediately offering to slip a potion that would make someone throw up slugs into all of their lunches. you’d denied the offer through your laughter, as tempting as it was, and you have to stop yourself from giggling again at the thought of gene or ivy pale in the face and spitting out snail slime.
katelyn snorts, pausing in her warm-up of one-legged squats—an impressive feat you had unashamedly been staring at her do for the past five minutes—to look over to the academia queen herself.
“of course it’s fun!” she energetically hops in place with a fiery and determined look on her face. “i’m gonna own the juniors in volleyball this year.”
teony raises an eyebrow and tosses her hair over her shoulder as she looks at you, lips pursed in amusement. “our class lost to that class when they were sophomores last year.”
you nod in understanding, giggling when katelyn pumps her fist angrily into the air.
“and the only reason we lost to them was because i had won all the events prior,” she defends. “i was completely exhausted from the heat.”
teony’s hands are on her hips, eyebrows raised, and expression like a scolding mother. “so then i hope you learned your lesson for this year, right?”
she scoffs. “oh, i definitely have!”
“good, i’m glad. now you know—”
“i’ve been training all year to carry the team completely on my back.”
teony groans, leaning against you as she rolls her eyes. “kate, sweetie, that is not the lesson! it’s teamwork.”
“uh-huh, yeah that too, whatever,” katelyn responds, and from her distracted expression you’re not even sure she truly heard what had been said. instead, she grabs onto one of your arms and one of teony’s, dragging you both off into the track field. “now let’s go crush some classes!”
“wh-hold on!” teony laughs, turning back to wave at aphmau and nana as they stare at the three of you like abandoned puppies—or in nana’s place, a kitten. “good luck my darlings!”
“i’ll catch you both later! good luck!” you call after the two, sparing a wave as katelyn bulldozes her way through the grass.
she at least also spares one last look over her shoulder, though instead of a shout of encouragement, it’s a competitive laugh and grin. “pray you two don’t have us as an opponent this year. i won't go easy just cause we’re friends!”
teony sighs as the three of you make it closer to your classmates, lolling her head over to give kate an unimpressed stare. “i get your competitive and all, but i don’t think intimidating those two cuties was necessary.”
grabbing a stray volleyball from the ground, she scoffs and rolls her eyes, walking a ways from you both and tossing it up to start preparing. “oh, whatever. they know it’s tough love.”
teony looks to you with a disbelieved shake of her head, giggling at the blue haired girl’s antics.
“you know, you—woah!” she stumbles back, barely receiving the ball that kate had spiked down at her and sending it straight past her legs.
there’s a thunk of ball meeting shoulder and a familiar yelp of pain, before you see travis crumpling down to the grass and dante sprinting off while cackling. 
“what the—?! why were you sitting right behind me, dude?!” katelyn questions, seeming more bewildered than anything.
teony’s eyes drift from the scene ahead to you from the corner of her eye.
“were they…?”
“…i think so…”
“uh, sorry!” travis quickly stutters, stumbling up to his feet and waving his hands with an awkward braced smile. “i was just—dante, don’t leave me!" his voice comically cracks at the end as he sprints after his friend, the two looking like clowns as they run away.
“uh, what’s going on here?” a smooth voice breaks your stunned silence.
“oh, hey garroth. i don’t know, actually.”
the baseball captain is standing right next to you, blinking in confusion between the two boys as they run away and the three of you. he breaks out in an amused little grin at your deadpanned words, scratching the side of his head.
“well, okay then. are you excited to compete?”
you shrug with a nod, looking up at the boy. “sure! gets us out of class, so that’s enough for me. are you?”
“yeah… but i still can’t believe they haven’t set up a baseball portion for this competition.” he sighs. “like, we have kickball, but no baseball? not cool.”
you can’t help but giggle at the dejected look on his face, his love for the sport honestly endearing.
“well, baseball is a hard sport for normies like us to play, you know? gotta leave it up to the professionals like you,” you muse, nudging his side with your elbow.
a cheeky grin forms on his face, and you swear you see the tips of his ears turn a bit red in color. he opens his mouth to reply to your compliment before another loud thud–this time off in the distance–catches both of your attention. a soccer ball is rolling away from aaron, while aph seems to be telling him off with clenched fists. 
“hm?” garroth frowns, and you’re already walking over to the scene.
he catches up just a second after, tilting his head in concern as you both speed-walk over to the girl. you make it to nana first, raising an eyebrow in confusion to the pink-haired meif’wa who stood awkwardly distant from the two. she shrugs at the both of you with a pout on her face before you can even ask, golden irises darting at the taller boy as he seems to mockingly laugh at aphmau while walking away.
garroth shrugs at you before walking forward first, while aph continues to huff with clenched fists and muttering under her breath.
“how dare he just… ugh!”
“aphmau, are you okay?” the blonde asks in concern, and the girl whips herself around, eyes a bit wide in surprise.
“oh, it’s you two, hey,” she says, clearing her throat and fixing her hair with a flustered expression. “um, i’m fine, it’s just…”
“you should stay away from that guy,” garroth says suddenly. “i’ve heard he’s nothing but trouble.”
your eyes stay narrowly trained on the delinquent in question, as he walks through the field towards the concession stand with his hands shoved in his pockets. 
“oh trust me, you don’t need to tell me that twice.” aphmau crosses her arms with a scoff. “he’s in my werewolf class with me, and he’s nothing but a huge jerk.”
garroth nods with an understanding hum, before his eyebrows snot up on his forehead. “wait, you’re a werewolf?!”
aphmau and you glance over to him, before bursting out in giggles.
“oh! no, i’m not! i thought i told you what happened, garroth.”
“huh, laurance reacted just about the same, now that i remember,” you recall, covering your mouth as you recover from the small laughing fit. 
garroth sighs, his deep voice bordering on a whiny tone. “how come you guys always tell laurance everything but never me?” 
aphmau’s eyebrows raise, and she quickly waves her hands. “it’s not that i didn’t want to tell you! it just never came up!”
“yeah, garroth,” you coo, leaning over to wrap an arm around his side and pat him soothingly on the back. “laurance just knows more 'cause he yaps more and asks more questions.”
garroth snorts.
“…don’t tell him i said that.”
“oh, i definitely will.”
aphmau chuckles drily. “so to make a long story short, garroth, my registration was all messed up and i couldn’t change out of the werewolf class even though i didn’t sign up for it and i’m not a werewolf. and i’ve been stuck with sitting next to that aaron jerk all semester.”
he hums, eyebrows furrowed. “oh, i see. well i’m sorry you have to deal with tha—”
“garrith, there you are!” a high-pitched, nasally voice pierces right into your ear from behind you, making you flinch away from the friendly side hug you still had the blonde in.
aphmau stares at you with a tense half smile, eyes darting behind you before you turn yourself. carmine hair bounces against ivy’s shoulders as she tilts her head, giving an—in your opinion—eerily forced smile up at garroth. 
oh, nah. it is 9:30 in the morning.
garroth offers a smile in return, taking a small step back from how close she had bounded up to him. “oh, ivy! it’s good to see you.”
so laurance clearly has not told him yet. 
ivy tilts her head in seemingly innocent wonder. “what’re you doing talking to this freshman?”
and apparently you’re not here. cool.
garroth turns to the two of us, the unaware “prince” gesturing to the girl as she burns holes into our figures with her bright eyes. “have you two met ivy? she’s a friend of mine.”
she quickly latches onto his words, quickly adding on before you or aphmau can open your mouths. “yes, i’ve been his friend since we were freshmen.”
you resist the urge to side-eye aphmau, instead keeping your composure as she speaks up first.
“oh, i see… so you've been friends for a long time, then.”
“yes, we have,” she preens, her smile sharp as she looks between you two with a satisfied twinkle in her eyes.
garroth nods politely. “yeah, ivy’s really sweet.” he looks over to her while gesturing to you. “i’ve been friends with these two since we were little kids.”
it takes everything in you to not smile in your own satisfaction when her eyes just about bulge out of her head for a split second, her smile tensing. “oh, really…! that’s so… cute!”
garroth chuckles. “isn’t it?”
“yeah, isn’t it?” you can’t help but chime in, and ivy’s eyes flock to you with a flare of barely veiled annoyance.
“it sure… is…” she says through gritted teeth.
man, she’s losing it. you’d almost feel second hand embarrassment for her if you weren’t reeling in the satisfaction of it. 
“so! i meant to ask,” aphmau chirps, doing a very good job of ignoring her history with ivy’s wrath. “where’s laurance at?”
“he’s already playing a soccer match. his team went first against… the junior class, i think…”
she blows her bangs away from her face. “oh, so the competition has already started, huh?”
“speaking of which, garrith, we should go warm up! our team is next!” she glances over at you, eyes darting down your figure and back up to your face. “you’re not on our team… are you?”
“…nope.”
“ah, unfortunate. she’s pretty good at sports,” garroth says, throwing a small smile your way. 
“thanks, garroth. i’m sure you guys will do great.”
“okay, come on garrith!”
garroth’s smile falters as he awkwardly looks over to her. “oh, right. but, uh… ivy? it’s pronounced gar-roth.”
“i know, garrith, but we really should go!” she insists, grabbing onto his wrist and tugging him along with her.
he keeps his smile though it falters into an uncomfortable and slightly forced one. letting her guide him along, he looks back at you two with a wave.
“see you both later. good luck.”
“yep! you too!” aphmau grins, and you wave back with a smile yourself.
the two walk off toward the sophomore class’s flag football group.
you look at aphmau.
she looks at you.
“...a mess.”
“for real.” aphmau agrees, sighing and rolling her eyes.
“well, i’m gonna go to the restroom. you up to play?”
“yep, i’m on the team for soccer. what about you?”
“ooh, i bet you’ll crush it. kate’s having me play for the volleyball team. good luck!”
aphmau smiles, waving excitedly. “you too!”
thankfully the school has some restrooms outside, making your walk much shorter. by instinct you walk down to the furthest stall, clicking the door shut. before you could even turn around the door swings open again, ivy’s shrill voice bouncing off the concrete and tiled room.
“who the fuck do those two think they are?!” she snips, her tennis shoes clicking against the floor as she pushes on each stall door to check inside.
“they think they’re hot shit,” a more mellowed voice says. was that lily? or the alex girl that rarely talked…?
ivy’s feet stop just before your stall, spinning around to pace over to the sinks. “i thought i saw her come in here… whatever. i came in here to fix my hair anyways. ugh. i thought i told them to stay away from him! those… whores!”
you suppress the urge to scoff.
“well… you did tell them, and then she gave you a black eye.”
ivy makes a seething noise. “that bitch! she didn’t even show anything! i know i broke her nose!”
“whatever. if gene still has those pictures like he says he does then it doesn’t matter. we can ruin their reputation within a day.”
shit.
this seems to calm her rage. just slightly.
“yeah, that’ll get them away from him. plus if we circulate the other rumors around like we talked about then garrith won’t even want to be near them.”
“oh, yeah. that reminds me… i heard that those two were hanging out with garroth at the fall festival a couple of weekends ago.”
“what?! from who?!”
“gene.”
“there's no way! that's just gene trying to get under my skin! i thought he was on our side!”
“whatever. we just need him to be enough on our side to get those pictures out. and even if he doesn’t, we can still spread rumors.”
“yeah! yeah… i’m sure they sleep around anyways. with how they beg for garrith and that laurance’s attention it’s pretty obvious they want that kind of attention. they’re so pathetic, especially aphmau. that little cunt is just begging for one of them to—”
hell no.
your hand races forward to click open the lock, and you throw open the stall door against the wall. it clangs before creaking and wobbling in the now pin-dropping silence of the bathroom as you slowly walk out of the cubicle. the three girls are standing there, looking a bit shocked and surprised at your appearance.
well, ivy and lily, at least. alex looks as blank-faced as usual.
without a word you walk to the door, eyes glued to ivy’s while you resist the urge to punch out her other eye. cracking open the door you pause, looking back to the girl once again and taking in a rageful breath.
“you better fucking hope i don’t catch you alone, ivy.”
you turn out of the bathroom and slam the door shut, teeth clacking together and fists clenched as you walk towards the temporary volleyball court set up near the soccer field.
damn. you forgot you had to pee.
“woah, you look pissed.”
travis appears by your side, looking genuinely concerned with raised brows and curious eyes.
“kinda hot.” dante appears on your other side, biting his lip and waggling his brows.
the brace-faced boy sends a scorning glare to his friend. “dude, not her!”
“chill! i’m just messing around… sort of. besides, gene’s mentioned her a few times, so i know she’s cool. can’t blame me for shooting my shot.”
you sigh and shake your head, some of the tension leaving your shoulders as you fall victim to the goofy antics of the dorks next to you.
“gene’s mentioned me, huh?” you ask, glancing at dante. “i forgot he’s your brother.”
you press your lips together. that’s right, maria. guess she still thinks you’re “friends” with gene.
he grins. “yeah, he’s pretty cool. he talks about you to my mom sometimes. you both hang out often?”
your eyes dart to travis, who is looking at you nervously.
“…we haven’t lately.”
“oh, that’s too bad, i guess,” dante hums.
“you’re sure you’re not mad? it’s not at me from earlier, right?!” travis worries, cutting off the topic of gene to your relief. 
“huh? no, why would i be?”
he deflates in relief. “uh, nothing! never mind, never mind.”
“…alright. well, what sport are you two heading to?” you ask, rolling your shoulders back.
“well… we actually are the refs for the volleyball match.”
you raise an eyebrow. “both of you are? how’d you manage to get out of having to compete?”
“we both signed up as volunteers, just like some kids are doing the concessions,” dante says rather smugly, lifting up a candy bar and waving it in the air.
“great… you two wouldn’t have any ulterior motives here, would you?” you narrow your eyes, looking over to travis. “perhaps with a certain captain in mind?”
“what?” travis stutters. “you’re the second one to accuse me of that! i’d never purposefully screw up the scorecard to get her to yell at me!”
“…uh-huh…”
the principal’s voice cuts through the stadium speakers. “our 3rd round of events today is soccer and volleyball! for soccer, we’ll have the freshmen versus our juniors, and for volleyball, we have sophomores versus seniors! good luck out there!”
you spin on your heels, walking backward onto the sand court and motioning towards the two boys with your fingers in an 'i’m watching you' motion. katelyn—to no one's surprise—is already there and fired up, hyping up teony to do her best as she stretches her arms. her head whips to you when she catches your figure from the corner of her eye, rushing forward to grab you.
“dude, where were you? come on, the game’s gonna start. you’re the outside hitter, okay?” she says, and you simply nod along as your previous anger seems to bubble up and surface again.
this should be a good way to release some steam.
teony gives you a strange look before getting in position at the back of the court. you must not have been hiding your expression as well as you thought you were.
the match went pretty well, and once katelyn realized you were putting your full force into your spikes she consistently set the ball towards you, leaving your dominant arm sore and chest heaving.
“hey! good job!” laurance calls from the sidelines, grinning brightly. his face was sheened with a layer of sweat, strands of his caramel hair stuck to his cheeks and forehead.
garroth stands next to him, looking out of breath like he had just sprinted across the campus field. he grins, holding up two big thumbs up at your team.
“um, that wasn’t game point,” travis pipes up, making all of you turn your heads to the boy.
immediately he looks nervous, tapping his fingers together and waving the flimsy score board in his hand. oh, travis. that’s one way to get your crush’s attention… that’s for sure.
“what?! there’s no way! let me see that!”
deciding to stay out of…whatever was going to go down there, you jog over to the boys with a smile.
“hey! how’d you guys do?”
“decent. i’m not too into football, and my teammates didn’t seem as into the game, either.” garroth shrugs.
“not too bad for me, either. you know i love soccer, so it was just like a fun practice for me.” laurance says, glancing over to the field. “the game aphmau was playing just ended, she did pretty good too—especially against that aaron guy. it was kinda funny seeing her zip around him.”
you chuckle at the thought. “yeah, i bet.”
“what a close call for that soccer game! but the winner of the soccer match is the freshman class! the mvps of this match are aaron from the junior class and aphmau from the freshman class! man, i can't wait to see what else goes on in this tournament today! it is such a heated rivalry!”
you look over to the field, watching as little aph herself shoots a sassy look to aaron and walks off with attitude in her steps.
“there she goes!” garroth muses.
“baby’s first medal?” laurance adds, and you whip your head to him with a wide smile.
“baby’s first medal!”
“baby?” garroth questions, looking lost as ever as he looks between you two.
katelyn’s shout and a loud thud meets your ears.
“this judge is bogus! he’s clearly blind!”
“katelyn! you can’t just hit people with volleyballs when you’re upset! i’m pretty sure you’ve hit travis alone on three different occasions!”
“i don’t care, this is stupid!”
travis groans from the ground, and teony sighs as she helps him to his feet. “…i’ll take you to the nurse. kate, go… walk it off while they figure it out.”
“…that’s katelyn for you,” garroth murmurs as she stomps over to you three. “you alright?”
“yeah.” she puffs out her lips in annoyance. “i kinda feel bad for blowing up on him, but it’s like he was keeping the wrong score on purpose!”
“well, it’ll be fine. you did really good regardless, kate!” you say, very carefully choosing not to say a word about travis’s intentions.
“yeah, both of you did,” laurance chimes, eyebrows raised with an impressed stare. “i just kinda was able to catch the end of the game, but you didn't look like you were holding back on those spikes at all.”
katelyn nods, crossing her arms.
“yeah, i’m for sure forcing her to join the team next year. she’s good.” she glances over to you. “but you did seem a little off. you good?”
shrugging, you awkwardly cross your arms. “uh… about that…”
“did something happen?” garroth frowns.
“i had a run-in with ivy in the bathrooms.” you admit. “she was saying really nasty stuff about me and aph… and i think she’s planning on spreading some rumors around about us.”
“…what? are you sure?” his frown deepens. “ivy wouldn’t do that, would she?”
kate and laurance look over at him with blank stares.
“did you not tell him, laurance?” katelyn scoffs.
“tell me what?” garroth asks impatiently.
“not yet… ugh…” the brunet groans, grabbing onto garroth’s arm and beginning to drag him away. “let’s talk, man.”
“okay?” he stumbles along, the lost look in his eyes still highly apparent.
“great, now i’m even more mad!” kate seethes. “where is she?!”
“woah, woah!” you wave your hands before steadying them on her shoulders. “just chill for a second. i already threatened her today, let’s not get into any trouble.”
she sighs. “fine. but if i catch her by herself it’s not gonna be pretty.”
“that’s what i said.”
“oh!” she suddenly yanks your arm, pulling you along like a woman on a mission towards the track. “there’s lucinda! we’re telling her right now!”
“are you serious?” lucinda scoffs, legs crossed as you all sit at the top of the bleachers. “look, i know you rejected the potion in the food idea, but an overdose on laxatives is an option, too.”
you rub your eyes, glancing down to the track where aphmau was warming up for her race. “as tempting as it is, i want to let her destroy herself. she thinks because she’s more popular than we are that everyone will have to believe her. but as long as you guys and the rest of our friends know the truth, her rumors won’t mean anything and she’ll destroy her own reputation.”
“leaving it up to karma, huh? that’s fair.” lucinda sighs, leaning back on her arms. “i guess. still wanna make her shit her pants, but to each their own.”
“lucy!” you laugh, leaning into her shoulder.
“no, no, she has a good point,” katelyn says, before leaning forward. “oh, there’s prince charming.”
you glance down, garroth’s golden curls coming into view as he hops his way up the bleachers stairs to your direction. his eyebrows are pulled together as he keeps his eyes trained on the metal steps.
kate stands with a sigh, pulling lucinda up with her. “come on. i think they need to talk alone for a second. plus, i want some chips from the concessions before my next game.”
“fine, i could go for a snack, too.” the redhead sighs, waving her fingers at you and squeezing your hands. “bye, my love!”
you wave the two girls off, before shooting over and patting the seat next to you for garroth to sit. he slinks down into the spot, sighing and leaning forward on his elbows while staring out at the track.
“hi.”
“hey.”
he straightens up with a deep breath, turning to you with a troubled expression. “i didn’t mean to sound like i didn’t believe you earlier, i was just surprised.”
you smile at the genuine guilt in his eyes. sweet garroth.
“i know. sorry i didn’t tell you about everything sooner.”
“it’s… okay. laurance explained it all.” he frowns. “i just feel bad.”
you intake a breath to reply, but he cuts you off, raising his hands up.
“not because i think it’s my fault. trust me, laurance lectured my ear off about that.” he leans back, sighing. “just… i feel like i could’ve, like, protected you a bit from all of that if i had known.”
“garroth…”
“promise you’ll tell me if you’re having trouble from now on?” he grabs onto your wrist, looking pleadingly into your eyes with his own. “please promise me. you’re one of my best friends.”
“i promise.”
“good. i promise i’ll tell you everything, too.” he leans forward, pulling you into a hug. “i know we don’t remember much from our childhood, but we’ve been friends for a long time, right? i promise i care way more about you than whatever anyone else at this school has to say about you.”
“…thank you,” you whisper. something about his genuine care has you blinking back the urge to cry, gulping from the surge of emotions that gathered in the base of your throat.
you both pull back from the hug, and garroth smiles that stupidly dazzling smile. “of course.”
the track’s starter gun startles you from the heartfelt moment, making you both jump in place as you look down at the relay race below.
“wait… is aphmau going against aaron at the end? who the heck thought that was a good idea?” garroth blinks, staring at the two in bewilderment. “the guy’s over a foot taller than her!”
you hum in equal confusion, slowly standing and making your way to the stairs. “yeah, that is weird… c’mon. let’s get closer.”
the teams are already on their third hand off by the time you’re both at the bottom of the bleachers, the two runners making their way to aphmau and aaron before handing off the batons. instead of the taller boy completely leaning aph in the dust, he surprisingly keeps her pace before seeing to a stop in the middle of the track.
“huh?” garroth murmurs, and it seems aphmau carries the same sentiment as she slows, turning to aaron with a baffled look of her own.
they’re too far from you to hear what they were saying, but based on his smug look and her peeved expression, his act of stopping seemed more like a taunt than an act of sportsmanship.
aphmau sends a sassy remark to aaron and that seems to stop their strange standstill, as the six-foot-something junior takes off sprinting towards the finish line. she turns, amber eyes wide and mouth agape in shock as she stands in place and watches as he passes the finish line in seconds.
“i can’t believe you fell for that,” he snickers, seeming to deeply relish the look on her face before turning and waltzing away with a smug look on his face.
aphmau’s face contorts from one of bafflement to one of absolute infuriation, and she takes a few steps forward like she was about to go try and tackle the guy herself.
“wh—you! i’m gonna—!” she fumes, unable to even get a sentence out in her frustration.
“woah, aphmau! stop, it’s over!” garroth calls out, trying to calm her as he waves his hands while you both jog over to her.
“he tricked me!” she insists, nose wrinkled like she’d swallowed something bitter.
“...i'm not sure what happened there, but you both ran a good match.” he rubs the back of his neck, chuckling. “well, until the end, that is.”
aphmau deflates, tensely laughing away the rest of her frustration. “yeah… thanks garroth.”
he nods proudly, crossing his arms. “you’re welcome.”
the rest of the festival flies by, with thankfully not many more appearances from ivy’s group or even sightings of the shadow knights. after freshening up in the locker room, you’d waited thirty minutes on the bench, occasionally sending aph a few texts.
you: are you coming to the locker room before walking home?
delivered, 3:42
you: hello?
delivered, 3:55
you: are you okay??
delivered, 4:00
when ten more minutes had passed with no response, you’d felt the anxiety you’d been suppressing come in full force. with hands jittering and head a bit dizzy, you pushed through the girls locker room doors, beginning your search of the now empty school.
from each of the classrooms you knew she had classes in, to all of the bathrooms, and even the cafeteria, she wasn’t anywhere in any rooms of the school you searched. you even ran back outside, searching the outdoor bathrooms—and even briefly looking in the boy’s restroom in your desperation—to no avail.
calm down. you’re on campus, there’s no way something awful happened to her on campus.
hands shaking, you pull your phone out again, attempting to call her phone one last time. staring at a spot in the grass, you listen to the dial of the phone ringing while a faint buzzing in your ears blocked out any other ambient noise.
“your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system. at the tone, please recor—”
ripping the phone away from your face, you hang up and catch your breath that you didn’t realize you were holding.
it’s okay. it’s okay. she probably walked home and her phone died or something. you can walk to her house and check with sylvanna, and if she isn’t there… then you can panic.
quickly you find yourself super walking down the sidewalk to your house, eyes drifting to each black vehicle that passed on the road and steps stuttering anytime one of them seemed to slow.
you hate this feeling. the one you felt anytime you went anywhere back in your old town. the weak shakiness of prey stuck in a hunter's trap desperately trying to escape it but unable to find the strength, and unknowing of when the hunter was going to come find you. it was a sick, nearly paralyzing rush through your nervous system, crowding your head and making you both aware of everything and too dizzy to focus on one thing.
did they find you again?
were you risking your friends’ lives by being around them?
did they get aph?
did you kill her when you chose to be her friend?
“wait for me!”
you almost faint from how quickly you turn around, eyes wide as you focus in on aphmau clumsily running after you—face red and hair frazzled.
“o-m-g, that was so embarrassing!” she heaves, stopping in front of you. “sorry i didn’t respond to your text! you won’t believe what just happened to—oh—!”
you reach forward, pulling aphmau into a tight hug. suddenly you hear the birdsong in the trees again. the rushing of cars on the street next to you. your blood is suddenly swirling in your head.
“woah… are you okay? you’re shaking, like, really bad…”
a second passes before you pull away, taking in a gulp of air. “yeah, i’m fine.”
“and you’re really pale,” aphmau says, thin eyebrows pinched together before she gasps. “oh, did i worry you? i’m so, so sorry! i can explain what happened on the way, okay?”
her eyes are full of a worry you hadn’t quite seen before. did you look that upset?
“okay, yeah. i’m fine. i’m fine.” you reassure, wiping away the cold sweat from the back of your neck with a grimace.
aphmau hums, the noise shaky and unsure, before reaching out to take your free hand. “okay. maybe you can come have dinner with me and my mom tonight! i think she said she was going to make empanadas tonight. you know what those are, right?”
“yeah…”
“great! well, my mom’s empanadas are the best, so you can try them! oh yeah, i was gonna tell you what happened, right? so…”
you don’t mean to, but your focus drifts from aphmau’s actual words to just the sound of her voice, eyes drifting to the sidewalk ahead. the feeling of her smaller hand holding yours was somehow comforting despite how it gently and barely seemed to even squeeze yours.
you still feel high-strung, but as the initial adrenaline finally leaves your body you feel a wave of exhaustion and… a bit of embarrassment. it seems a bit dramatic, what you just did. after all, aph is perfectly fine right here. you were acting like an overly anxious parent or older sister, and the two of you aren’t even related to each other.
“…and she shoved me in the locker! can you believe that? what kind of girl fake cries in the boys' locker room and then traps another girl in there?! i thought she was really in trouble!”
“wait, what?” you blink, whipping your head over to her as you process her words. “who did?”
“ivy! she shoved me in the locker! and i didn’t have my phone 'cause it was still in my bag, so i just had to wait there until—guess who?!—aaron let me out! she stuck me in aaron lycan’s locker!”
a wave of anger resurfaces, sending black spots into your vision. once again, another problem caused by that insufferable prick.
“i’m gonna fucking kill her.”
“what!” aphmau laughs, squeezing your hand. “woah, your face is scaring me! calm down!”
she swerves you off the sidewalk and into her yard, pulling you closer to her front door. “let’s think about empanadas instead! mhm, mhm! and pepsi… and ice cream… and we can watch a movie or episode of something before we have a very calm and peaceful rest for school tomorrow.”
“…okay.” you sigh, pulling in a tense breath. “okay. that sounds nice… let’s do it.”
“yay!”
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©starhvney, 2024. please do not steal or repost my works as your own.
tag list: @orinlin @pain-in-the-ashe @youmake1mistake @arienic @wasting-away-on-the-internet @angelhyperfixates @remiechu
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unordinary-diary · 1 month
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Blyke and John: Parallel Characters
I’ve written multiple entries about this,
[x] [x] [x]
But I’m back to make a comprehensive analysis about the glaring similarities between these two. I’ll try not to repeat myself here.
‼️SPOILER WARNING for the whole series‼️ but this mostly focuses on the story before John’s suspension.
Firstly, this scene:
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ch. 121
This conversation takes place near the beginning of the Joker arc. It’s after John targets Zeke, after he targets Juni, and the day before he goes after Seraphina’s kidnappers. The timing is important.
“If someone hit your best friend, would you let it slide?”
That question is supposed to remind us what John does to people who hurt Seraphina: hunting them down and sending them to the hospital. Blyke shooting a destructive beam really close to John was an example of a trait they share: they both blow up violently when people mistreat their friends.
John’s downward spiral carries strong themes of hypocrisy. He’s angry at the world, he’s angry at himself, and as a coping mechanism, he chooses to believe that everyone else is as bad as he is. That means that most of the traits he hates others for are the same things he hates about himself. In this scene, Blyke is unintentionally calling out this hypocrisy: “What I did is no different from what you do”.
But Blyke’s just trying to connect with John here, he has no idea what John’s been doing. And John, of course, doesn’t give a shit about what Blyke has to say. This line was here for the audience to notice.
They’re both so similar, but their similarity immediately causes tension between them because, well, John was on the wrong end of Blyke’s protectiveness.
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I really love the way this was written— there are so many flashbacks to this scene, but they remember it differently. John remembers the part that hurt him— he’d describe it as “the time that jackass shot a beam at me”. Blyke remembers the part that hurt him, or rather, hurt Remi: “the time that jackass hit Remi for no reason”.
Blyke and John are both hotheaded characters with strong ideals. They’re similar enough that Seraphina points it out:
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(ch. 80)
As Blyke grows as a character, he becomes more like John: sticking up for low tiers and speaking out against the injustice in the world. But while Blyke is doing that more, John is going in the opposite direction, until they are fully opposed to each other.
Speaking of Blyke’s character arc, it took me a few rereads to actually understand what part of him changed. His kindness, selflessness, bravery— all of those things were there from the start. Blyke’s character arc was about becoming more aware of his surroundings, and how his carelessness can harm others. Blyke was never malicious, but after X-Rei and integrating more with the school, he becomes aware of people suffering around him and how he unintentionally contributes to it. He becomes less reckless, privy to the flaws in the system he grew up not questioning, and uses his power more responsibly. He even comes up with a more controlled way to wield his ability. The part of Blyke that changes is his maturity.
Part of John’s character arc is also about being careful. It’s not as close of a parallel as other things are, but one of the things that John works on during his redemption arc is holding back. Both of them learn self-control throughout the series, and for John, that means acting early before his emotions spiral out of hand.
Adding onto my first point about the two of them wanting to protect their friends— the fact that they can’t do that makes them both angry and desperate. For most of the story, the “block” that prevents John from protecting Seraphina is in his head. It’s his own trauma that holds him back. The block that prevents Blyke from protecting his friends is, guess what? Also John’s trauma! Parallels abound.
Another thing I noticed in Episode 80 is this:
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Notice that when Seraphina says “I’d take that over strength any day,” John is looking at the camera. He’s avoiding Sera’s gaze. Seraphina is saying she prefers honesty over strength. John is very strong, and very dishonest, but Seraphina thinks the opposite because John is so dishonest. John appears to be reflecting on this disconnect.
In relation to this analysis, Seraphina is actually pointing out a major difference between Blyke and John. Beyond that, she’s praising Blyke’s traits, (less strong but very open) above John’s traits, (strong as fuck but a liar with his pants on fire). Furthermore, John really cares what Seraphina thinks of him. Knowing that she would think less of him is the main reason why he spent so much time and effort preventing her from catching his lies.
This leads into my main point here: Blyke is the “goody-two-shoes” version of John. Or, more accurately, the person that John wants to be. Blyke has a clean track record and doesn’t really get into trouble. He is respected and left alone by the school without being hated and feared, he de-escalates conflicts without taking things too far, he doesn’t lose control, he’s someone Seraphina thinks highly of, hell, even his grades are better! Blyke represents everything that John wants to be, and the person that he could have been if he’d gone down a different path.
But, crucially, John is also what Blyke wants to be. Well, not wholly, but his ability? His strength? It’s one of the things John hates about himself, but Blyke wants that strength so desperately that he risks his life for it over and over again.
They’re both desperate to be like each other, even when they hate each other the most. Neither of them have any idea how alike they already are.
I don’t know what Season 3 holds in store for us, but I do hope that John realizes that Blyke embodies who he wants to be, because mutual jealousy would be a very interesting dynamic to explore in my opinion. I also hope that it ends up being something they can bond over, by helping each other accomplish their personal goals. (Blyke being another helper in John’s character arc, and John helping Blyke train.)
A side note: John beat up Blyke four separate times. That’s more than any other character, which is interesting because John’s main rival is supposed to be Arlo. For reference, John has beaten Arlo twice, three times if you count the time when Seraphina intervened, and he only beat him unconscious once. But John beat Blyke to the point of passing out all four times, the worst of which being a shot clean through his chest. (shoulder? Unclear. S1 finale).
It’s odd, isn’t it? Out of everyone, Blyke is the one who John physically hurt the most. John’s only grudge against him is an old memory from episode 33, of an event that didn’t actually harm him. John’s grudge against Arlo is much more serious and again— that’s his main rival. So why is it that he’s so much more violent towards Blyke?
The problem here is that I’ve been thinking about these fights as “John picking on Blyke”. And that’s… kind of true? But while Blyke didn’t start any of these fights, they were all consensual in a way. He didn’t seek to fight John, nor was he ever happy about fighting John, but he was always a willing participant.
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(138, 153, 206, & 211)
In three out of these four fights, John didn’t even expect to be fighting Blyke going into it. This is significant because while Arlo is John’s main rival, John absolutely fills that role for Blyke. Blyke’s own agency is what leads to most of these events. The reason, narratively speaking, why they fight so much is not for John’s character, but for Blyke.
For John, his reason for fighting Blyke so much is not narrative but moreso symbolic. John is angry at everyone and everything, but ultimately the person he hates the most is himself. It’s only fitting that the character most like him would bear the brunt of his wrath.
As John is having his positive character arc (suspension and post-suspension), he is becoming more like Blyke, and the two of them reach a point where they’re even more similar than they were at the start of the series.
In the Rowden amusement park, John does start to realize how similar they are:
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(249)
Additionally, I want to draw your attention to the parallels between this scene:
Blyke and John’s argument in chapter 249
(which the image limit won’t let me add, scroll until you see red hair.)
And this scene:
Argument in ch. 121 (it’s at the beginning)
Two sides of the same coin.
Furthermore, in the S2 finale, Blyke is shown being taken to Keon. There is an implication that by Season 3, Blyke and John will share Keon-related trauma as well. Despite my pessimistic predictions, I do hope that this is a similarity that can bring them together rather than tear them apart.
#unordinary#I had another point that i had to cut#because it was about the john slaps remi scene#and how like blyke knew he wasn’t gonna miss and hit john by accident but john doesn’t necessarily know that#and that john assumes the worst (blyke was aiming for his head) bc he’s mad#and blyke also assumes the worst (that john hit remi for no reason). But when i was looking for screenshots to back it up#and i was looking for the one panel where john referred to blyke as “that idiotic redhead who tried to blow my brains out”#as proof of john assuming the worst#But then i found it and it doesn’t even say what i thought it said#it says “THREATENED to blow my brains out”#Smh john didn’t even assume the worst. He knew it was jyst a threatening shot even thogh he was mad#And then my whole thing kinda falls apart because blyke assuming the worst is actually just the logical conclusion since he can’t read mind#Like how was he gonna know john was having trauma issues#Yargh okay so i think i cut all the parts that don’t really make sense but it’s late so this is a low quality proofread#Gonna be honest this is NOT structured very well#Theres more to be said about john hating other people for the same reasons he hates himself#and I didn’t quite hit it#but it’s lateeeeeee#something about how Blyke is so similar to john but lacks most of what John hates about himself so John projects his insecurities—#back onto him anyway#Something about in ch 249 when he says something something “because I couldn’t cope with the fact that you guys weren’t actually bad people#Yeah idk im too tired to get into it#blyke unordinary#john unordinary#oh also has something to do with when john says “i may have deserved those classes but they sure as hell don’t” about keon#i think that’s significant#analysis#i have a bad feeling that someone in my notes is gonna purposely misinterpret my “goody two shoes” blyke statement ngl#”did you say that blyke is perfect and john is evil”#like something like that
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thewildsophia · 1 year
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3Below//Krel Tarron x Depressed!Reader
A/N: Re-watching 3Below has reignited my love for Krel. There also aren't any Krel x depression out there so fuck it ima do it myself. For these headcanons, I imagine the reader to have Major Depressive Disorder as opposed to any other kind of depression bc that's what I have. Enjoy!
TW: S//H, S//I, Adult Language
Another warning will be placed before sections containing the above.
Words: 2485
"Read More Link” placed due to length.
Krel Tarron x S/O w/Major Depressive Disorder
At first, Krel would not understand. That is, he wouldn’t pick up on the fact that you have depression. 
His knowledge of human sociology and behaviors is very limited when he and his sister first land on Earth. However, even after he’s spent months here he still struggles to understand and pick up on social cues. 
So even though you exhibit very obvious signs of depression — i.e. lack of energy/appetite, excessive sleeping, and loss of enjoyment in activities — Krel doesn’t suspect anything inherently wrong with you. He thinks that your personality is just different from your other human counterparts. 
And to be fair, for as long as he’s known you, you’ve always acted this way (because you were depressed-). 
You would definitely have to tell him you’re depressed because otherwise, he would never figure it out. You ended up telling him during a period of lucidity where you didn’t feel too bad and were conscious of his lack of understanding of your behavior. 
As you tell him, Krel stares at you intently, committing everything you're telling him to memory. 
Now he really doesn’t understand. 
This whole time he thought you just have a different temperament from the other humans at your school, but in reality, you were suffering from a serious illness that he had no idea you had.
Tbh, Krel’s not ok for a few days after you tell him. For a brief moment, he’s angry that you didn’t tell him sooner, but he quickly understands why and his anger dissolves into sadness. He feels so terrible about not picking up on the fact that you’re constantly in pain and that he’s done nothing to help you. 
Krel spends the next few days after you told him researching all about depression and other similar mental illnesses. He’s honestly a little fascinated by how many illnesses there are lmao. It’s just that on Akaridia-5, there aren’t illnesses like that, so he’s happy to learn something new (even if it’s not under more favorable conditions). 
Krel has a lot of questions about your flavor of depression for when you’re mentally ready to answer such questions. 
Tbh, he’s a little insensitive with some of his questions, but that’s just because he doesn’t know any better. Correct him (politely) and he’ll make sure to be nicer with his questions. 
Not much changes dynamic-wise; Krel’s still your loving boyfriend, the same way that you’re still his loving significant other. 
He does make it a habit to compliment you every time he sees you. Whether it be a compliment about your looks, your school work, or even something as small as “I’m happy to see you today,” he really tries to boost your confidence in hopes that you feel better about yourself. 
He also tries to be around you more often, both to make sure you’re ok and to show you that he’s there for you. 
Krel becomes better at predicting when you’re about to enter a depressive episode. Having been around you for so long and now knowing what the warning signs are, he’s very good at guessing when you’re entering certain episodes (sometimes even before you know. Scary, huh?)
When you enter depressive episodes, Krel does everything he can to make sure he’s there for you, both physically and mentally. He will hold you close to him with all four of his arms while he listens carefully to what is troubling you. 
Krel still doesn’t quite understand the emotions involved in depression. Like many other people, he believed that it was just constant sadness, but the more he read and spoke with you about the matter, the more complex it all became. Sadness, despair, emptiness, fear, anger, jealousy, all emotions that he’s never really felt in full. Not to mention other even more nuanced emotions such as paranoia and shame that he’s actually never felt at all. 
Krel is also very good at helping you through mood swings. He’s come to understand that all humans fluctuate between many different emotions, sometimes in a short period of time. He knows when you want him close to you and knows when you want space. 
If you are someone who is very mature with how you explain how you’re feeling, -- like telling someone you’re mad at them, why you’re mad, and that you want space to cool off/talk with them about it -- Krel has an easier time responding to you. He’s much less likely to misinterpret your feelings and what you want. 
Krel actually learned how to vocalize his own emotions from you whenever he’s distressed or upset which definitely opened you two up for a much more healthy form of communication.
He just struggles with emotions in general, but he makes the effort to understand for you :)
TW: S//H, S//I
If Krel ever gets even a hint that you’re hurting yourself, his mental walls would fall and he’d collapse in on himself.
If there is someone who is threatening or hurting you, he, his sister, and Varvatos can easily get rid of them. If you are sick, he can help treat you until you are better. Even if you do something as small as scraping your knee, he can be there to put a bandage over it.
But yourself? He can’t protect you from yourself. He doesn’t know what to do and that scares him so much.
After what happened with his parents, he is very grateful for the lives of those he loves as he understands just how easily they can be taken away from him. He is afraid that one day you will be gone and all that will remain is him.
Krel would have found out about your self-harm either on his own or someone tipping him off about it. You just didn’t have it in you to tell him yourself. 
Krel then begins to really try and learn human medicine. He would spend hours reading medical articles, watching first-aid videos, and taking copious notes about everything he learns, even if it grosses him out a bit (organic organisms were never really something he was interested in before).
He tries to come up with other things you can do when you feel like hurting yourself; Drawing/coloring, writing, reading, playing games, anything that will distract you. He’s always sending you ideas especially when he’s not with you and knows how you’re feeling. 
And to both of your credits, your self-harm does lessen in both severity and quantity. But unfortunately, it doesn’t always help since old habits die hard.
Krel is there in an instant to help you when you relapse assuming you tell him you need help. Even if you decide not to tell him immediately and care for yourself that day/night, Krel almost always finds out sometime after and worries over you about it. 
His hours spent learning first aid pay off when goes to treat your wounds; Cuts, burns, bruises, bites, you’re convinced that Krel can treat any minor injury. And you’re grateful for that. 
Krel is thorough about disinfecting any open wounds with hydrogen peroxide or Neosporin over burns and is incredibly gentle when wrapping them in gauze. He likes to check on them every few days as well to make sure they’re healing correctly.
He holds you close to him afterward -- all four arms wrapped around you and face pressed into your neck/shoulder -- and begs you not to leave him. At first, you’re confused thinking he meant, like, break up with him. It isn’t until you give it more thought that you realize that he doesn’t want to leave him through death.
If you ever express feelings of guilt -- whether verbal or through body language -- Krel quickly dismisses them from your mind by telling you how he wants to help you and how much he loves you. That he wouldn’t bother doing all of this if he didn’t see anything of substance in you.
If you ever express a desire to die, -- whether through suicide or some freak accident -- Krel will look cool on the outside but on the inside, he will be panicking. As hard as he may try, Krel could never understand why you want to die. 
Even if you explain it to Krel -- Everyone and everything that troubles you and the awful guilt you constantly feel by just being alive -- he believes that there is always a reasonable and achievable solution to your problems. It’s not that he’s trying to downplay your problems or your emotions, he’s just naturally more of a rational thinker even under stress.
But even though he doesn’t understand the emotions themselves, he does understand that human emotions can elicit other undesirable responses and thoughts.
Krel will constantly tell you how much he loves you and that he doesn’t know what he’d do with himself if you were dead. 
He does what he can to push those thoughts from your head.
As written earlier, Krel likes to spend time with you in person. Not just because he loves you sm but also because it makes it easier to keep an eye on you and intervene when necessary.
Def says something along the lines of, “I’m happy you’re alive.” And the first time he said that you cried so hard he thought he insulted you lmao. You had to explain to him that you weren’t insulted but relieved and overjoyed. 
Krel is not the most emotionally intelligent person out there, but he tries to be and is willing to understand them for you.
When you had shown up at school with a busted lip, bloody and bruised knuckles, and a dull gash on your cheek, Krel freaked the fuck out. The moment he spotted you walking to your locker from his own locker he was all over you. 
“What happened?” Krel cried while gently taking your face into one of his hands while the other went to grab your hand.
“It’s nothing,” You mutter, pulling your face out of his grasp and taking a step back. Krel scoffed, looking almost offended while saying,
“Nothing? Nothing did that to you?”
“I just-” You start, raising your hands up in defense before dropping them at your sides, “I got in a fight with Steve. It was over something stupid. We’ve known each other for most of our lives; I just worry about him.” You cross your arms to hold onto yourself and look anywhere Krel isn’t. Krel moved his head so that it was in your line of vision, forcing you to meet his eyes. 
“I take it you don’t want to talk about it?” He asked. You nod ‘yes,’ and Krel frowns.
“I won’t push you then, but I really want to get you treated,” He says, taking a step closer to you. You stay where you are and allow him to hold your hands.
“Later, I’ll be fine for now,” You say while bringing up one of his hands to kiss the top of it, “You can have Aja or even Mother patch me up after school.”
Krel looks at your knuckle hesitantly before agreeing, trusting that you truly would be fine until after the school day.
The moment the last bell rang he made a beeline to find you and ran you to his house as quickly as possible. The two of you were the only ones home when you got there, so Krel wasted no time in having one of the blanks retrieve a first aid kit. Once given to him, Krel attempts to treat your injuries but fails pretty miserably. 
You end up showing him how to clean and wrap different kinds of cuts and bruises. It’s when you’re in the middle of cleaning your knuckles in the sink that Krel says something that makes your stomach drop.
“Mother, can you scan Y/N for any more injuries, please?”
“Wha-Mother! You don’t have to do that!” You shout panicked and covered your arms in a vain attempt to conceal your other injuries. 
“Numerous other injuries found upon Y/N in the upper arm, forearm, and thigh regions. Approximately 27 cuts to the epidermis and 3, 1st-degree burns found.”
“What!?” Krel turned around so fast to face you, you swear you saw his electric blue hair whip from the air, “Where?! I demand you show me!”
“No!” You cry back panicked, hands gripping the side of the sink behind you. Krel scowls and grows before shouting, 
“Mother, show me a hologram of where the injuries are on Y/N!” 
“My King-in-waiting, It would seem that I have breached a highly sensitive topic on behalf of Y/N. I believe it best that they discuss it with you themself.” Mother responds. Krel sighs, his upper right hand running through his hair.
“Y/N,” He starts, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m really worried.” He carefully walks over to you but leaves a foot of space between the two of you.
“Will you please show me where you’re hurt?” He asks quietly. Your eyes begin to burn with tears and your mouth opens to explain yourself before shutting quickly with a ‘clank’ of your teeth. Unable to speak, you place your hands into his lower ones, palms up, and nod your head. Gently, Krel’s other hands push your long sleeves higher up your arms, and he’s baffled at the numerous cuts he sees littering your arms. There were many different colors, thicknesses, lengths, and stages of healing -- some were a day old while others were weeks old. He ran his thumb over one of the older ones.
“Wha…” Krel stutters, eyes dancing over your arms, “What are these? What-Who did this?” His eyes flicker up to yours. 
Your jaw twitches -- wanting to speak but unable to -- and you pull one of your hands away from his to point to yourself. Krel’s eyebrows furrow.
“I-I don’t understand,” He whispers, his own eyes beginning to water, “I want to understand.” 
“I did this,” You mumble out, pulling your other hand away from his, “I am…ashamed.” Tears begin to fall and you scrub gently at your eyes to dry them.
“You-You did this?” Krel asks, confused and stunned, “You willingly hurt yourself? Why?”
You heave out a few breaths trying to figure out how to relay your emotions to him. While difficult to say, you manage to squeeze out three words.
“I hate-” You stammer, “I hate myself.” 
And Krel is immediately embracing you.
“I love you,” He says, cupping your face in his upper hands and staring into your eyes with his other two around your waist, “I love you so much. Please don’t ever say you hate yourself.”
Gently, he kisses your forehead, your cheek, and then your lips.
The two of you are left a sobbing mess of tender skin and emotion in the kitchen for Varvatos and Aja to find later when they arrive home.
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yuurei20 · 10 months
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thanks for making the post on if the other characters are aware of yuu being from another world, but i’m curious about how the characters actually responded to that since the quote from the book says “inter-dimensional travel that no one understands” so it seems that is an unheard of concept… the characters in twst seemed to accept it so readily as opposed to real life where no one would believe someone if they made that claim, but in twst it’s not a big deal. since it’s a magical world, do you think that makes it easier for characters to accept?
Hello! Thank you for this question!
It does seem like the characters at NRC might not be particularly concerned by the inter-dimensional traveler in their midst, which is most interesting.
We have students in Yuuya's first class whispering together about how he broke the cafeteria chandelier, but they seem more interested in that than how someone from another world is now in their class.
The next day in the lunchroom he hears more whispering, but it is only disgust at how a non-magic-user has been admitted to the school, with no apparent mention about how he is essentially an alien.
My favorite is when we actually see the scene where Ace and Deuce learn that Yuuya has hopped dimensions to reach them, and Ace immediately changes the topic, asking what Yuuya's plan is if he gets kicked out of the school.
I think you might be correct and, when compared with princes, dragons, lions, ghosts, faeries, robots and mermaids, it's possible that inter-dimensional travel isn't very big news?
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Also, we might not yet know if this is a Twst-world quirk, or maybe something exclusive to NRC!
Since NRC is where "the weak obey the strong," people are antsy about Malleus, even though he's from their world. You'd think someone like Yuuya would be equally interesting, but he is comparatively powerless.
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The world of Twst has plenty magicless people of its own (with people like Ruggie and Epel surrounded by them until they came to NRC), but I'm not sure we've seen any of them being told about the prefect's situation (campus visitors during Books 2 and 5 and Halloween, for example).
So maybe because they're at a school where strength and power decide so much, the magicless prefect just doesn't register on anyone's radar?
The situation might be more interesting to equally magicless laypeople, or they might react the same way: when you live in a world where people can turn you to sand, control your mind and body and/or open the gate to the underworld, someone from another dimension who is otherwise just like you might be unusual, but may still pale in comparison to the person who can stop time 🐉 It is interesting to think about!
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ballblender · 1 year
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“One bed!?"
Kagami Taiga x Manager!Reader
(Saw a list of generic romance tropes and couldn’t help myself)
cw: sfw, fluff + comedy (except i’m not funny), timeskip match predictions, kagami being an awkward giant, the one bed trope, aged up (kagami and reader are both 18 after the interhigh), manga ending (kagami stays in japan in the manga, unlike the movie)
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The last two years were, a lot to say the least. Not only had the Vorpal Swords taken off shortly after the match against Jabberwock, but with the permanent addition of Kagetora as manager of the Seirin basketball team, Kagami had a lot on his plate.
It was difficult when the second, or should I say third, years graduated. The reliance and foundation built between them was one not easily replaced. Additionally, despite the newfound popularity of the team, it stayed relatively small. Inevitably, this led to Seirin’s defeat in the Interhigh.
With the Winter Cup in sight, he really just wanted to feel that glory again, winning with his old Serin teammates.
And he did, thanks to your help. As a younger friend of Riko, you had asked to be the manager for Seirin after hearing of their loss in the Interhigh, and given your friendship with their old coach, the team was in no position to refuse your offer.
And upon seeing the results that your suggestions produced, they were ready to keep you by any means possible.
By the time the Winter Cup came around, it was as if Seirin was a new team entirely; their coordination and plays were extremely effective against teams of any caliber, and the bonds between the members ensured their success.
It was also because of this display that Kagami found himself becoming increasingly drawn to you, for reasons made clear to him by Kuroko.
"You like her don't you?"
"WHAT? I DO NOT- i do."
"Yeah, I thought so."
And so the saga began. Kagami would start to grow more and more awkward around you. This caused a bit of a problem, as you began to think that he was getting sidetracked, and as the most powerful player on the team, causing the other players efforts to go to waste slightly.
It only got worse when you took him to the side to speak with him alone, and expressed your concern for his lack of concentration. He just stuttered and wasn't sure how to respond.
"Kagami, I seriously need you to listen to me..."
"I-i understand...I'll do m-my best for you and the team."
Out of nowhere, you hugged him tightly, which caught him completely off guard.
"I'm glad you understand..."
After practice that day, Kagami felt so light.
-
-
-
The night before the final against Rakuzan, the team, thanks to the school's newly increased budget (and a little pocket change from Riko), decided to stay at a nearby hotel with a gym so that they could get some morning training in before the big game.
However, upon arrival at the front desk, you ran into a problem.
"B-but I swear I booked 7 rooms..."
"I'm sorry, but there are only 6 listed here..."
You sigh.
"Are there any rooms available?"
"Yes, however there is only one bed opposed to the three in the other 6."
"...it's fine, i'll take it, sorry for the trouble, and thank you."
You walk over to the lobby, where the other members are waiting to get into their rooms.
"What took so long? Was there a problem with our rooms?" Kuroko asks.
"There was actually...so one of you will have to stay with me in a different roo-"
"Kagami will do it."
"K-Kuroko! Don't just say that!" Kagami whisper-yells, face turning redder each word.
The other members shrug in agreement, wanting to be in their own shared rooms to be able to freely discuss whatever they wanted without the eyes of their manager watching over them.
Kagami learns pretty quickly that trying to fight is useless. It's adorable, you think to yourself. The team heads up to their block of rooms, while you and Kagami take a different route to your room.
It looks like you forgot to tell him one detail though...
"One bed!?"
"Yeah, I hope that's okay... Unless any of the other guys let you sleep with them in their beds, we have to share."
Before you can even utter another word, Kagami is zooming across the hotel to the other players' rooms, knocking on each door.
Unfortunately for Kagami, with his size comes consequences. None of the other players wanted to share their already small beds with the biggest player on their team, even Kuroko.
"Y/N is smaller than me, sharing a bed should be no issue for the two of you." Kuroko states.
Kagami just lies on the floor, burying his red face in his hands.
"gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."
A knock on the door is heard by the others, and they open the door.
"Hey, have you guys seen Kaga- oh, there he is."
At the sound of your voice, Kagami springs up, wiping the dust and lint off of himself.
"Y-Y/N! I-i..."
Knowing that letting him resist and even just speak anymore would result in Kagami most likely passing out, Kuroko says,
"Kagami was just about to go back to your room, he just needed to borrow some deodorant. He's forgetful like that."
Kagami shoots Kuroko a death-glare, in a way that screams "Are you my wingman or what!?"
You nod in acknowledgement and turn to Kagami, smiling "That's okay, just get back soon!"
The moment you leave,
"Ow-ow-ow...what was that for...?" says Kuroko, Kagami's hands digging into his shoulders.
Kagami just stares at him with desperate eyes.
"Come on Kuroko...let me stay with you..."
"That's perfect, say that to Y/N and you guys will be dating in no time."
"...You're the worst..."
You lay on the bed, sprawled out, tapping through all of the outdated TV channels logged into the hotel's TV. (a/n needed to add this to rant: WHY ARE ALL HOTEL ROOM TV CHANNELS OLD AND PIXELATED IT DRIVES ME INSANE)
"...G-got any room for me...?"
You spring up in shock, and notice Kagami standing at the door, blushing like mad, avoiding eye contact.
You roll to the side and pat the other half meant for Kagami.
"I guess the others didn't let you sleep in their beds."
"...y-yeah..." Kagami squeaks, as he feels your shoulder touch his.
You, of course, are not oblivious to his feelings. It was bugging you that Kagami seemingly avoided you whenever you tried to talk to him, but the rosy cheeks and unintentional voice cracks whenever he'd try to talk to you.
May as well see where this goes...
You intentionally brush your thigh up against his under the guise of reaching for the remote on the other side.
"...ah..."
You giggle, noticing his tiny sounds. It's truly unbelievable that such a big player's demeanour can be reduced to a mouse's under the right circumstances.
"Hm? What's wrong?" you ask, though, you know exactly what you're doing to him.
"..."
You decide to let it go, especially since Kagami looks like he'd explode if you pestered him any longer.
As the time passes, you decide to ask Kagami, "Are you ready to sleep now?"
He was trying his best until this point, he was. But the thing he'd been...dreading? Anticipating? Whatever it was, he was not prepared.
The moment you switch off the lights, you're met with Kagami's arms hugging you tightly.
"K-Kagami what-"
"...please..."
It's warm. His embrace makes you feel safe. You decide not to speak again, and instead, you both fall asleep, comforted by each other's warmth.
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sorry this is out so late LOL
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