#ive been watching the good place and even that one sets me off sometimes

[fallenandproud]

fun fact, the breaking point that led me to finally cave and make this sideblog was watching youtube shorts and the algorithm decied to throw a TON of hazbin hotel / helluva boss stuff at me and one came up with Lucifer Charlie's dad just as like. one of those edits and THEN i scroll and THE NEXT ONE IS SOMEONE DRAWING THE FALL FROM HEAVEN and i decided right then and there that on top of my demon fixation coping mechanism i now am going to project heavily onto LUCIFER HIMSELF.

[kaicubus]

A Trip to the Hot Springs | Mitsuri K.

₊˚⊹♡ ∘₊ ───────────── ₊˚⊹♡ ∘₊ ─────────────── ₊˚⊹♡ ∘₊

warnings ✩° : 18+ NSFW, wlw, fingering!recieving, scissoring, semi exposed sex, fluffy sex, confession sex, mutual feelings, consensual sex, cursing from reader (and me...maybe?), implied sub!mitsuri but also reader has sub moments.

pairing ✩° : mitsuri kanroji x fem!reader

premise ✩° : you’ve always like mitsuri kanroji, in all ways. frankly, it’s been giving you a little stress, but it’s a good thing there’s nothing a good trip to the hot springs can’t fix, right?

word count ✩° : 4.7k

authors note ✩° : im so sorry this literally took forever ive been putting it off and coming back to it only to add a sentence...but its FINISHED!!!

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They say the water found in a hot spring has the ability to cure all ailments of the body. The water of a hot spring easily heals the body, nourishes the mind, and soothes the soul. While anyone would enjoy the trip to heaven itself, you found yourself stuck, being the only one hesitant to soak their body in liquid gold. Why?

Mitsuri Kanroji.

As a fellow demon slayer, a hashira at that, Mitsuri  was kind to everyone she met. Including you. Everyone had warned you before that the love hashira was known for her overly friendly attitude and dream to fall in love, which was why she joined the demon corps in the first place. Mitsuri was anything but shy, especially when it came to people she didn’t know. It didn’t matter their status or their backstory, it seemed like she just loved them all unconditionally.

Mostly everyone in the demon corps had feelings for her, maybe with a few exceptions, but you certainly didn’t escape her warm, fuzzy aura. Very quickly did she become an acquaintance, a friend, a close friend, and eventually won a front row seat in your heart. In more ways than one, Mitsuri was impossible not to have feelings for. Naturally, you were drawn to her, like a moth to a flame knowing that Mitsuri was way too out of your league, saddened by the idea that she would never pay attention to anyone other than one of her fellow hashiras. In fact, the idea quickly became a heavy burden on your shoulders, damaged your self esteem and on multiple occasions caused you to slip up and make a fool out of yourself, sometimes in front of her.

You didn’t want to think about a silly crush any more, so you decided it’d be best for you and people around you to calm your mind and take a break.

Now was your day to relax. Here at the hot springs so generously paid for all demon corps members, there was no constant worry of fighting or being killed by demons, rather a nice time soaking in medicated, green tinted water guaranteed to reach deep in your being and pull out your truest self to enjoy as well. What’s even better was that you knew no one really visited the hot springs towards the end of the day, as they were busy cleaning up or getting ready to sleep. The sunset only adds to the full experience, in your opinion, and gives you a nice scenic setting to look at as you’re basking.

As a mandatory rule for hot springs, you slide off your silk robe and lay it resting on a vacant bench in the resting area and walk past the middle of the red curtains guarding the woman’s side, smiling to yourself as soon as you step into the luxurious heaven. Just as you pictured it, the hot springs is beautiful. Although there’s a small film of steam clouding around you and everything else, the vibrant shrubbery and smooth, wet rocks are still visible.

Just as it is beautiful, the hot springs is silent, which was good since you never cared for a busy hot spring. It wasn’t because you didn’t like your body, but the mere idea of ten people watching your exposed body in a see through bath made you just the slightest bit uncomfortable.

You clench your towel meant to cover your hair in your arms and step forward, comfortably striding past the wooden arch of the building itself and stepping into the main area where there’s a few separate areas. The second you step into the water is the second all your worries are said to wash away, and what they said was true. The water inside is hot, but not scalding, and yet soothing to all of your aches and pains just inside of your feet alone. You can only imagine what it’ll feel like once your entire body is under. You let out a much needed sigh and close your eyes to fully enjoy the experience.

Just as you’re about to fully submerge your body into the medicated, green tea bath, you nearly slip on the stones below but manage to catch yourself before anything bad happened. Your noise, however, was even less graceful and was quickly followed by a splash just further down in the bath. Your legs almost give out in fright.

That’s when you hear it.

“Oh! Is someone there?” An unnaturally springy voice calls, followed by a splash, then small swishes of water rippling expanding circles your way. Like an arrow to your heart, you knew exactly who it is, who’s voice is sickeningly sweet like warm drops of honey, no one else’s voice can even hit that frequency like hers can. You feel the world begin to shake under you.

Within seconds, the familiar sight of her hair reveals itself to you, sakura pink dipped in spring time green, as well as a delicate, yet sturdy frame, curved to perfection. There’s no denying who it was.

The figure gasps loudly and splashes around, “No way!” it shrieks, “Y/n~! I’m so glad you’re here! No one told me they were coming and I was so sad that I was going to be here alone! Though it wouldn't be an entire loss because I’d still be here in the hot springs! But, now that I have a friend it’ll be even better!” You watch as the familiar face claps her hands together and brings them to her face happily.

“M-Mitsuri!” You say, hands instantly flying to cover yourself, “Hi! Hello! It’s so nice to see you! I-I didn’t even know anyone else was here at this time of day...” An awkward laugh escapes from your shaky lips.

“I thought so too, but I guess it’s just the two of us!” She smiles wider, “Care to join me? There’s no one else here and I’m so lonely~ gah~!” Mitsuri pouts, pushing her peachy lips out at you in an irresistibly cute face of desperation, “Not even Shinobu wanted to be here with me...” Her words only make your heart squeeze more. She looked so sad, so miserable, or maybe she just really wanted you to stay with her.

Either way, you can’t resist.

Unable to even find the words, you find yourself nodding, your heart pounding inside your chest, ticking like hands on a clock, suddenly becoming louder and louder as Mitsuri draws near. The sound of your heart beat only grows as she wades closer to you, hands drifting at her sides, well sunken into the green tinted water. The steam is unbearably thick and barrier-like, and yet it fails to conceal the sheer redness that invades your cheeks like liquid lava pooling directly in the center of your face.

Surely, this can’t be happening. How is she already so close? When did she get so comfortable being this exposed out in the open? Your mind spirals with all sorts of questions, avoiding as much eye contact as possible as she waits for your answer, patiently.

“I-uh. Sure! Yeah, I-I’ll join.” If there was any chance at you maintaining your compsure, it was long gone. With Mitsuri’s pure intentions and happy go lucky personality, she was determined to make you stay anyways.

“Then it’s settled. Here, I have an extra seat next to me!” Mitsuri giggles and extends her hand from her side under the water, bringing it up to you with an open palm dripping in the sparkling liquid. Without thinking, you accept her hand and she pulls you behind the steam barrier and steps down, sinking deeper into the hot spring so that her entire waist down is submerged, yours shortly doing the same. She’s right in front of you, but you look away, trying desperately not to seem inappropriate in any way, especially to such a supreme leader and powerful fighter.

Before you know it, Mitsuri guides you to a calmer, more secluded area where fronds and bamboo guard all the walls surrounding a smaller pond. It feels intimate and closed off, private almost.

“Mitsuri are you sure this is for everyone to use? It seems like it’s private.” You point out and let go of her hand, covering your bits with your hands and arms as best as possible.

The love hashira turns towards you and backs up into the water, squinting her eyes into a warm smile, “Of course! This is the lovers area, but I use it as a private area just for me! Isn’t it cute?”

“The l-lovers area?”

She hums and holds her hands out again, “Y/n, come here! The water’s great closer to the edge. There’s a nice seating area too!” You take her word for it and make your way over next to her, letting your body float in the still water. When Mitsuri closes her eyes, you finally feel like you’re able to relax, so you close your eyes as well and let out a deep exhale followed by a small giggle from Mitsuri.

“A lot on your mind?” She peeks and steals a glance from the side.

“You can say that...” You do the same.

“I was thinking, Y/n. What do you use to make your body so smooth?” Mitsuri asks and opens her eyes fully, clearly not caring to relax or not, “Is it a body butter, maybe a full body massage? Moisturizer? Your skin is so supple!”

You want to give her an answer, but even you don’t know the answer to that. “It’s probably just the water making me look healthier than I actually am.” You let out a soft chuckle, “Your skin is far much better than mine, you have all those fancy elixirs, don’t you?”

“Nope, just cold water, really.” You can feel her eyes still fixated onto your body, “Y/n, I don’t mean to stare

At first, that’s all it is, a woman admiring another woman’s body. As she continues, you can feel her confidence completely block out any rational thought of hers when her hands start gliding up your sides to cupping your breasts in her hands, moving in wide, circular motions. The sound of a gasp being sucked into your chest causes Mitsuri to glance up at you through her thick, beautifully sooty lashes, smiling to herself as she locks eyes with your breasts again. She takes it upon herself to slide her fingers down your cleavage and pull your tits apart, watching the recoil and buoyancy of them bounce back together as soon as she lets go. Now more than ever, your heart doubles in pace, ridding your mind of anything, becoming similar to that of a husk, watching your soul leave your body as she fondles you so comfortably.

“Y/n, your skin is so smooth, I’m so jealous~ You have to tell me how you get it to be so pretty...” Her pale cheeks dust a soft pink, “Your body is so beautiful, I didn’t know. I rarely ever see anyone’s skin since our uniforms cover us right up! But, I’m glad I can see yours today.” Mitsuri’s pale green eyes catch the way your chest rises at her touch as she makes her way to your rib cage, resting her palms on either side of your body. There’s a moment of hesitance, as well as silence, that she uses to check to see if you’re alright, and for a moment she’s caught in her own web of seduction, halting as all the gears turn in her head.

“Ah! Oh my! I’m so sorry! I really shouldn’t have gotten ahead of myself!” She quickly retracts her hands and instead rushes to hide her own embarrassment.

“I-It’s alright! Mitsuri, I’m ok...I promise!” Your mouth was betraying your own sanity, and soon, so were your hands. You lurch forward and catch her dainty wrist and hold it to your chest, hitting yourself in the center of your torso with a small sounding, ‘slap!’

All of a sudden, your confidence drains from you and leaves you breathless. Once you realize what you’d done, you remove your hand from hers, but her palm stays on your chest, looking into your teary eyes with her sparkling ones.

“T-This is weird...Mitsuri, I can’t look at you here without wanting to die on the spot...” You can feel her eyes flutter with curiosity, “Ever since I’ve known you, I’ve liked you and even wanted to be with you, but you’re you and I am just...not on that level. So please, It’d be better for the both of us if I just go away so I don’t have to think about this.”

Just as you’re about to leave, Mitsuri shakes her head—rather quickly—and refuses to let go. Instead, she pulls you closer with a determined look on her face and brings her hand to your face, “Y/n, who ever told you you’re ‘not on my level?’ What kind of mess is that?!” She pounces forward, “You and me! We’re the same! Don’t you see? Y/n, your feelings towards me aren’t weird, and I’m glad you told me because...I feel the same towards you. So if you’re calling yourself weird, you might as well call me weird too!”

The urge to cry and wallow in nothing but sorrow and agony dissipated in a matter of seconds, now flourishing into blooming flowers of delight and pure happiness. That’s just what she was known for, and that’s the whole reason you fell face first for her. As much as you’d like for a better setting to be confessed to, you didn’t care. All you wanted to look at right now is her.

You look down at your body and notice she’s still holding onto you, now shying away from your eyes. If there was anything more to be said, you couldn’t say, you can only laugh at the circumstances and hold her hand, sitting back down into the springs. As she does the same, a few minutes go by, talking about your feelings and realizing you had a lot more in common than you thought, and that Mitsuri had actually liked you longer than you did her. It was all so mind boggling realizing that all it took was an encounter in one of the most intimate places you could imagine. But neither of you had forgotten where you were, in fact, when silence was all there was between you, Mitsuri’s face had become visibly nervous.

You always knew she had little ticks that made it painfully obvious when she liked someone; from what you’d observed in the past, she scratched her cheek, bit her lip, and her eyes would become shifty. You hadn’t noticed the signs until you catch her staring directly at your chest through the tinted water, captivated at the sight of the way the top half of your chest glistened in the setting sun.

You had to admit, you were deliberately looking away from Mitsuri to avoid any suspicion, but here she was, full on staring at you with her eyes widened owlishly to their full extent, then shyly biting her lip away to hide her very obvious hints.

Mitsuri parts her lips with her rose wet tongue, tilting her head down to view the water instead as her tone softens significantly from before, “Uhm...Y-Y/n? Forgive my boldness but, is there any possible way you think of me, inappropriately?” Once the words leave her lips, Mitsuri quickly raises her hands to her defense, “I’m sorry! That didn’t come out how I wanted it to! I-I’m just nervous...that’s all.” She lowers herself into the water, “It’s just that...when I was touching your chest...it felt really good and I want...to feel more, if that’s alright with you of course. You totally don’t even have to, I’m just curious!”

You nod your head, a little too eagerly. “I-I mean, I haven’t...not thought about it. You know, being here is kind of intimate, don’t you think? It feels like we’re already on our first date. Even though I’ve never been on one of those.”

“Me neither.” The love hashira smiles and scoots closer to you, just enough so that her shoulder bumps into yours, “But I’d be more than happy to figure it out with you, Y/n.” Just like that, your heart skips a beat, leaping into your throat and takes over your body as you both lean closer, gently closing the space between you. With her lips on yours, you can’t help but think of just how much you’ve yearned for this moment, and now that it’s finally here it feels better than you could’ve ever imagined.

Just as they appeared, Mitsuri’s lips were full, plump, almost like kissing the surface of a skinned peach. Almost instantly, her shoulders drop as do her brows, becoming more vulnerable and pliant to your touch the longer you stay connected to her mouth. Sucking gently on her bottom lip, you quickly get lost in her sweet, silky taste, almost losing yourself and your balance if it weren’t for her hands suddenly latching onto your waist, pulling you closer to her. It could have very well just been a reaction to your grip loosening, or it could’ve been her way of telling her she already wants more.

Just as you get used to kissing the girl of your dreams, Mitsuri makes a point to soften her mouth on yours as her hand makes its way down your neck to your chest, where she seems to have the most fun. You weren’t sure what to anticipate when her silky touch reminds you how real she is in this moment; it’s all new, uncharted territory that neither of you knew how to navigate.

Her fingers move to your nipples as do her eyes to your face, watching closely as her thumb grazes over the sensitive nubs, instantly hardening from the slight pressure. Mitsuri has never seen your body, and according to rumors, she’s a virgin and has never had a boyfriend or girlfriend, so why was she so good at  this? There was no certain way of telling, so you let her take full control over your body and allow her hands to roam all over you, rubbing your skin and fondling your tits as a whole, not leaving out any attention to your most sensitive places.

Your lips tremble at the thought of just how wet you could be from all of this, there was no way you weren’t, but Mitsuri was eager to find out, and in some other word you were too. Mitsuri’s hand trails down your hips and catches in between your inner thighs, opening your otherwise clamped legs with ease and revealing your drenched, reddened pussy already dripping with slick. “Wow, Y/n~! You’re so cute~ I can’t believe it! I’ve always liked you and thought dirty thoughts like this, but I never expected them to come true...” You watch as she bites down on the corner of her soft, pink lips.

“You’ve thought of me, like this?” Your hips buck on their own, wanting to feel her fingers inside of you already. Mitsuri nods and listens to your silent pleas, sliding two of her slender fingers down the middle of your slit, parting past your folds and rubbing up and down, just to get familiar with you. Instead of responding with words, she hums with a small smile, focused on your lower half, rubbing and prodding your sensitivity, occasionally looking up to see your face. Nothing is said until you feel a knot start to tighten deep inside your pelvis, already knowing what’s soon to follow after. So you stop her.

Through hazy delirium, you manage to catch Mitsuri’s hand and gently stop her fingers from becoming dangerously close to making you climax, looking up at her, your whole body trembling with embarrassment and over stimulation.

“Hm? Does this not feel good?” She asks curiously, batting her eyes at you, “You’re shaking quite a bit, so I expect it to feel a little bit nice?”

“Mitsuri, I want to make you feel good. It feels amazing, almost too amazing. So please, let me do something to you as well. Don’t focus entirely on me.” Your voice hushes hers into a whisper and soon enough, silence. Not wanting to wait any longer, you pull Mitsuri close and fill the gap of unwanted silence with your lips on hers. The kiss is gentle at first, creating the same tingling sensation in your stomach as before, only amounting to the indescribable feelings bursting at the seems inside of you.

Mitsuri’s hands glide up your back, eyes closed and neck limp as your tongue slides into her mouth. She tilts her head to deepen the kiss, which only makes your head spin more.

You reposition yourself so that your thighs cage hers, allowing you to pull her chest onto yours, now giving you full leverage to hoist her entire body with your arms alone. She was still standing, but in the heat of the moment, you manage to pull her up slightly so that her entire body was on yours, with no space in between you. Mitsuri gasps at your strengths and stares in shock, seeing as no one is able to carry her so easily, let alone in a bath with no further enhancements; but when it came to her, you’d do anything, so picking her up was out of the question.

With a gentle squeeze on her ass, you lower Mitsuri to fully sit on your thigh, all while your face sears with heat feeling her soaked pussy finally rub up against yours. Whether it was intentional at first was anyone’s guess. The water in the bath, however, makes it easier to handle her and her body, causing the love pillar to slide perfectly into your hold but eventually start to slip. As soon as she realizes she’s falling, Mitsuri scoots in closer, arms falling around your neck, right into your throbbing entrance again.

You manage one last gasp of air before the space in between your legs is overwhelmed with the warm, slick flesh of Mitsuri’s pussy. Within seconds, the hot springs fills with one, collective sigh and light sounds of water splashing. Mitsuri’s eyes fall closed as she bites down on her pink lip, sinking her teeth down in an attempt to collect herself from losing composure, but failing once you grind into her.

“Y/n, your pussy’s so wet and warm...I can hardly focus.” Mitsuri exhales softly, cocking her head to the side and grazing her hands up your back to hold your shoulders, “I-It feels so good, you were right.”

Small sweat beads start to appear on your forehead as you bite down on your lip, watching the way her body falls against yours perfectly, fitting and filling each space of your hips and waist, and you knew she was already intoxicated by you. Just by feeling your arousal against her fluttering cunt, Mitsuri’s eyes squeeze shut, her hips now moving on their own, searching to get even closer than before.

Her hands grip at your waist, pulling you in to her and giving you the perfect view of her pale breasts spilling onto yours along with the sight of her pink braids parting around the rest of the body. You couldn’t help but wonder if Mitsuri does these things on purpose, if she—especially now—knew that everything she did made you lose your mind. At this point, Mitsuri’s movements weren’t her own. With her knuckles tightly clenching around your wrists, she rubs her puffy entrance against yours, using her slick to easily glide up and down, bucking her hips into yours, and she can’t help but whine, tilting her head into your chest, battling the feelings that overcame her senses she grew to know as pleasure running all throughout her body.

The sudden pleasure heats your body till the point you feared how red your face was from the way Mitsuri’s body loosens in your arms. She rubs back and forth against your pussy, swaying her hips and pushing herself into you further, trying to chase the fleeting feeling of the tingling sensation.

A soft moan flows past your lips. You had already fantasized about this moment for weeks, even months, but now that it was actually happening, you realize that Mitsuri was doing most of the work. You wanted to hold her back and grapple onto his hips and grind yourself onto her just to feel the surging heat of her throbbing cunt against yours, but you could hardly do so when Mitsuri was doing it already, all while complementing your body through hushed groans.

“F-Fuck, Mitsuri, if you keep doing that I—haa!” You hold onto her out of desperation and cling against her back, digging your nails into her pale skin.

She whines, moving her hips in circles, lathering in your combined juices before gently stuffing her head into your shoulder, trying desperately to speed up. Her olive colored eyes are laced with tears brimming her lashes, nearly spilling out before you can calm her with a small kiss on her lips, hips still stuttering at all the attention. 

“D-Do you know how long I’ve waited for this?” Mitsuri moans shamelessly into your ear, leaving a small kiss on the shell of it, “Wanting to kiss you, and touch you? Y/n, I’m so happy!”

You rock against her thighs and gasp out, “Shit, oh my God Mitsuri,” you inch your body closer again and press into her folds, taking in all her delicious sounds of irrevocable rapture.

“Y-You’re making me s’good, Y/n. Your wet pussy feels so good on mine, please don’t ever stop. Don’t stop, don’t stop!” She pleads, grinding circles with her sopping slit against your cunt. If anyone were to walk in at any moment, there was no way of prying you off of her. From her supple flesh to her strangely sweet taste, you were addicted to every part of her.

As much as you wanted to savor the moment, you could already feel the growing knot in your stomach start to unravel which could only mean one thing.

You're about to tip over the edge. You already guessed that this would happen, due to built up tension or purely because it was her, you didn't know, but it came as a shock to you that you were quickly feeling yourself crossing the edge so quickly. You wanted it to last for longer, and you were embarrassed to say that you were going to cum already, but by the looks of her reddened face and faster pace, Mitsuri was too.

“So good, Mitsuri, y-you’re so fucking cute. Just like that, yeah?” a subtle smirk spreads across your lips, “You’re making such a mess, baby.”

The love pillar’s pillowy thighs straddle against your thigh, hurrying her rutting up until the point where her she can’t even move anymore but still continues at an only accelerating rate.

“I wanna c-cum with you, Y/n, just please don’t stop!” She sputters incoherently and suddenly pants into your ear, her voice practically singing your name as she chants it over and over again, “Y/n! Y/n! Y/n!” and finishes it off with a strained moan escaping from her swollen, pink lips.

You cry out as well, the knot completely unraveling, which sends Mitsuri over the edge at the same time hearing your messy and tangled moans. She lets her body fall limp against yours as she shakes uncontrollably, stuffing her face into your dewy chest, squeezing your torso so tight you fear you can pop right then and there. Instead, you hold her as well and feel amounts of slick and arousal spilling out of you, dripping all the way down past your inner thighs and onto Mitsuri’s as well. One look told you that Mitsuri was much more messier than how you looked, with her blushed pussy still leaking after when you thought you’d finished entirely.

The pillar looks up at you, legs still trembling, with teary eyes and an overjoyed smile, unable to say anything but hold you. You give her a flushed smile as well and pet the top of her head, soaking it with some bath water and flicking her braids off of her damp skin.

“Let’s finish our bath?”

[janesociety]

daddy issues, pt ii

tony stark x teen!reader

type: angst, hurt/comfort (?)

summary: you aren’t getting better- tony knows it, you know it, and so does everyone else.

word count: 2.5k

warnings: mentions of death and dying. reader is very sick. medical procedures like surgery and an iv.

pt i

marvel masterlist

✩ ✩ ✩

You were getting better. That’s what Tony had kept telling you, at least.

You weren’t all that convinced.

You woke up almost a whole day later with Tony’s hand in yours. He was always softer with you than other people, but not like this. He rarely left your side the entire time you were out, and once you woke up, he still seemed to check in on you regularly- sometimes for hours at a time.

Bruce eventually took you off the oxygen, but the IV remained in your arm- much to your dismay. He kept running tests, everything he tried coming up blank, but he wasn’t going to stop until you were better.

“You don’t have to sit in here all day and watch me sleep,” you spoke up one day as you groggily rolled onto your side. Tony set the book he was reading off to the side. “I won’t wither away just because you’re not here.”

“Oh, please, we all know you’d burn the place down if we left you alone long enough,” Tony said, adjusting his position in the plastic chair he was sitting in. “That’s why we had to put your room next to Steve’s- popsicles don’t burn, they melt.” You couldn’t help the laugh that flowed from your lips at the lame joke. Even if it was followed by a small coughing fit. “Take it easy, kiddo,” Tony said, scooting closer to your bed. “Don’t wear yourself out.”

You gave a small head nod in response, suddenly feeling weaker than before. Tony leaned back in his seat, picking his book back up.

“Tony?” you asked. He hummed in response. “Am I dying?”

“No, of course not,” he said, a little too quickly in your opinion.

“I’d want you to be honest with me if I was,” you said, playing with your fingers. The small act was making your hands ache, so you stopped, resting them over your stomach.

Tony reached over, careful to avoid the wires sticking out of you, taking your hand in his.

“You’re not dying, Y/N,” he said firmly.

You still knew he was lying.

Within the next two days, things only seemed to get worse. All the Avengers were now taking shifts by your side- usually with a lot of overlap as each lasted hours at a time. You’d been put back on oxygen when you began complaining of being so tired that it hurt to breathe.

You tried to put on a brave face for the rest of them, even if you could read all their faces and knew that they knew something you didn’t. You never cried or complained. You didn’t question anyone about you dying again, simply accepting it as a fact. Of course it was going to happen one day, but you couldn’t help that you were sad it was so soon.

“Please tell me you have something,” Tony said as he entered the lab adjacent to the med bay.

“I might,” he said, putting some scam results he took up on a board. “I think it’s connected to her powers. You see, she got them from HYDRA, right? Now that’s not easy- it takes advanced biotechnology to be able to give someone powers without killing them. You already know that, I suppose.” Tony resisted the urge to snap at Bruce for taking so long with his explanation. “Well, I think they installed some kind of self destruct along with. Like a biological timer to keep their ‘goods’ from being kept in the wrong hands.” Tony kept harsh eye contact with Bruce. “It’s causing her body to shut down.”

“But you can fix it, right?” Tony said, staring at the black and white images that meant nothing to him.

“We’re running out of time,” Bruce said, clearing his throat. “Once it gets past a certain point, it may… it may just be better to let her go.”

“No, we’re not doing that,” Tony said, barely letting Bruce finish and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Tony-“

“I promised her she wasn’t dying and I will not be made into a liar,” he said, harshly. Bruce looked away from him, the monitor on his desk displaying your vitals in the next room. Tony sighed. “Just tell me what you need. Doctors, staff, medical equipment- I can get you anything you need in the next two hours.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

You were pretty out of it for the next few days. When you were conscious, you were in pain, and when you slept, you were restless and often had nightmares. In the times you were awake, you were aware enough to know there was now a team of medical professionals checking in on you at all times. You felt like a guinea pig with how many people were constantly examining, touching, and prodding at you at all times.

Tony still stayed close, albeit a bit farther back after being snapped at by a doctor one too many times for being in the way.

Even if your eyes hardly opened for more than ten minutes at a time, you were always acutely aware of the number of people around you. Most of the Avengers sat with Tony around your bed and you kept hearing things along the lines of “go to bed, Nat,” and “we’ll come get you if anything changes, Steve,” and “if I fall asleep, wake me up when she does.”

You could hear the hushed whispers of doctors talking to Tony or Bruce over your head. You could hardly focus long enough to catch any of what they were saying, but when you heard a doctor say “Let’s step into the hall,” you knew it wasn’t good.

“Unless we can figure out what’s killing her,” Dr. Klein, an older woman and one of the best immunologists in the Northern Hemisphere, said, “we’re going to just be barely keeping her alive. Her quality of life is rapidly deteriorating and I believe she may be taking a turn for the worse.” Tony watched you through the window, surrounded by machines, doctors, and superheroes. “I thought I should let you know that it may be time to discuss hospice options in the event there’s nothing else we can do.”

Tony didn’t answer her. He just stood, watching you. He shut down any time anyone brought up you dying. He couldn’t help it. Imagining a world without you just seemed so impossible he couldn’t even fathom the reality he was being faced with.

Dr. Klein’s pager beeped and she excused herself, leaving Tony alone.

“Steve?” you said, your mouth dry from how long it’d been since you spoke. The others around the bed, including Steve, collectively stood and walked closer to you. You could tell Wanda, Bucky, and Sam were there and were somewhat surprised that Tony wasn’t.

“I’m here,” Steve said, taking one of your hands and leaning closer to you to hear your weak sounding voice.

“What’s going on?” you asked, not actually wanting to know what was going on, but rather wanting to have a conversation with someone. You hadn’t had much of a chance to speak to any of them and it was starting to get quite boring only being stuck with your thoughts and nightmares.

“You’re in the hospital still,” he said, stroking your hair back.

“Oh,” was all you could muster, mentally kicking yourself for sounding more confused than you were. You had to take a moment, the small sentences winding you. “Can you talk to me?” you croaked, your voice sounding scratchy. “All of you?”

“‘Course, doll,” Bucky answered, grabbing his chair and moving it forward. You mustered up a small smile, but it disappeared the moment it was there. The thought crossed his mind that he preferred it when you were screaming and thrashing, because then at least you could move. He mentally kicked himself for even comparing the two.

“Anything you want to hear about?” Steve asked. You wanted to say yes and list off all the things you wanted to talk about since you got sick, but your throat was already so sore from talking. You shook your head no.

Sam leaned forward in his seat. “Why don’t I tell you about mine and Bucky’s training session the other day?” You couldn’t help but crack a smile, seeing Bucky immediately turn red.

“Hey now-“

“C’mon, Buck,” Sam said, feigning offense, “you’re going to deny the girl this funny story just because she wasn’t there to experience it?” Bucky just shook his head. “Anyway, as I was saying…”

You tried to stay awake. You really did. But you kept nodding off anyway, jumping awake every few minutes to tell him to keep going.

“I can finish the story later, Y/N,” he said after the eighth time you’d fallen asleep.

“No, no,” you said, coughing slightly. “Just keep going. I want to hear your voice.” You took notice of Wanda’s silence, reaching out suddenly for her hand. She took it, squeezing it a few times as she tried to keep tears from her eyes. She’d already lost one sibling. She couldn’t lose another, even if you weren’t blood.

“So Bucky decided it was a good idea to get up again-“

“Excuse me,” a doctor said, rushing up to your bed with what seemed to be a whole medical team and a few other doctors you recognized behind him. “I’m sorry, I need you all to step back.” He was being quite rude with his tone, you thought. Everyone did as they were told, but you kept your feeble grip on Wanda’s hand.

“Ma’am-“

“Please,” you spoke up, staring weakly at him. He glared down at you.

“Alright,” he muttered under his breath. Nurses moved all around you, messing with the machines, your IV, one even shining a light in your eyes. You’d gotten somewhat used to people randomly walking up to you and poking at you or shoving things in your face, but with so many people it quickly became overwhelming. You squeezed Wanda’s hand tighter, beginning to shake a little.

Finally a familiar face appeared over you.

“Y/N,” Bruce said, leaning over your bed. “We’re gonna take you back to surgery, okay? Everything’s gonna be alright.” You began to shake more and Wanda put a hand over yours in a weak attempt to comfort you.

Tears were forming in your eyes, suddenly feeling the most scared you had been since you got sick.

“No,” you cried out weakly. “Please.” Tears streamed sideways down your face, either hitting the oxygen tube around your ears or your hair. Even if you were barely conscious most of the time, you wanted to be aware before you died. You didn’t want to go out on a metal table. The idea of not being able to feel yourself slipping terrified you.

“It’s going to be alright, you’re in good hands,” Bruce said as your bed began moving. Wanda’s hand slipped out of yours and you waved it around frantically trying to find hers again.

“No, please, no,” you whispered, barely processing where you were going. All you could see were the lights overhead as they rolled you down the hall. Everything else took too much effort to focus on. You came to a sudden stop in a dark room. Your cries became louder.

“Y/N, listen to me, sweetheart,” Bruce said, appearing in front of you again, “everything’s going to be alright. You’re going to be okay.” As he was speaking, someone removed your oxygen tube and put an oxygen mask over your face. “You’re alright.”

“You’re okay.”

“Everything’s alright.”

That was the last thing you remember.

Fortunately for you, the Avengers, and, by extension, Earth (because who knows what would’ve happened if they’d really lost you), you woke up a little over a day later.

You still felt sore- all the muscles in your body burning even as you laid flat on a bed. You were still exhausted. Beyond exhausted, even. Your eyelids and limbs are so heavy you could barely move. You could feel the now familiar feeling of an oxygen tube under your nose. It calmed you in some way.

The only real difference you could identify is you didn’t feel like you were being drained. Like the life was no longer being sucked out of you.

When you finally got your eyes opened, it took a minute for everything to come into focus. The overhead lights that had been on almost the entire time you were sick before were now dimmed, which you were thankful for considering being blinded was not the first thing you wanted to experience once you woke up. You turned your head slightly, still unsure of moving your body. The only person next to your bed now was Tony, just like the first time you woke up there.

He was holding your hand again, which you had to look down to realize because you were still trying to regain meaningful feeling in most of your body. He was asleep, slumped forward with his head resting on his arm against your bed. Slowly, you moved each of your fingers, eventually resulting in you squeezing his hand. It took him a minute to wake up- using his free hand to rub his eyes and check the time before he finally looked up and saw you staring back at him.

“Hey,” he said, leaning forward so he was closer to your head. He held your hand now in both of his so that it was next to his face. “How are you feeling?” You cleared your throat, not feeling the ache in your lungs you’d grown accustomed to over the long week.

“Amazing,” you said, cracking a smile. Your voice was weak and hoarse, but all Tony could focus on was the fact that your eyes were actually focusing on him- not in the distance, not nodding off, at him. He laughed at the absurdity of your response, and so did you, but you stopped once you realized his had turned to sobs. You didn’t know what to do at first. For one, Tony Stark was crying in front of you. Not only that, he was crying about you. And secondly, you were still feeling a bit drowsy from anesthesia and processing everything was taking just a bit longer.

“Tony,” you said, haphazardly moving your other hand to sit on top of his that were still around your other hand. “Please don’t cry.” He smiled, tears still running down his face as he rested his forehead on the stack of hands you’d both created.

“We thought we’d lost you,” he said, his shoulders still shaking as he squeezed your hand tighter. He looked up at you, his face red. You grinned at him.

“You didn’t really think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?”

[byrdblood]

I read your entire rant about how the fandom snases in the fandom and how they treat nm and killer and the others and how they treats dust and his obvious schizophrenia and as a fellow psychologically nerd I salute you and I am SO SICK OF PEOPLE IN THIS GODFORSAKEN FANDOM DEMONIZING CHARACTERS WITH 9BVIOUS NEURODIVERGENCY AND MENTAL HALTH ISSUES OR JUST COMPLETELY IGNORING THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE LIKE AHHHHHHHHHH 5HANK YOU FOR CALLIMG THEM OUT like okayokayokay. I have to chill 4 a moment but THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. I love digging apart the mind of undertale aus snases and figuring out how they tic but sometimes the stories make me so pissed off because their is SO so much potential like i have written quite A few analysis analysis and hypotheticals on them and argh the way people just ignore and dismiss the Canon and what's right in front of them them feels like the dismissal of their characters. I understand theirs fanon and it exist but wish I saw more Canon. Just... it a breath of fresh air to see someone like this.

here's the thing - i genuinely, most of the time, do not dislike fanon.

in fact, i think it's fantastic that there's so many flavors of interpretations, not just because it's a sign of a healthy fandom, but because it offers accessibility. there are people who cannot handle morally grey (or outright evil) characters even with sympathetic narratives, or who come home from a long day of work-hell and can only stomach something soft & easily-digestible - and that's not bad! earlier in my fandom days when i was recovering from living in an abusive household where i had no privacy (and where my bitch-ass cult-wannabe father explicitly preyed on my ocd by telling me god was watching my thoughts at all times), exploring some of these grey moralities through a christian-washed lens was the only way i could consume them; anything else would have been too much. so it's only because of fanon being so vanilla-cookie that i really got to be introduced to the fandom in the first place; i can't hate it for that!

my problem, several years later, is with canons that have fantastic, agonizingly interesting premises, but whose executions end up being lackluster, and the fact that the fandom's response has been, historically, to take that premise and shove it into the little block-shape toy box they already had even when it doesn't really fit - and i especially find that frustrating when either phenomena are clearly borne of fear, either because of the weird puritanical bullshit that's been rabbit-breeding in this fandom since the early internet shipping wars, the fear of portraying something "incorrectly" and being dogpiled for it (often by the aforementioned group), or even due to misinformation and an unwillingness to do the bare minimum of research. (maybe im a fucking nerd for loving wikipedia so much, i don't know. i watched Annihilation for the first time last night and had to pause the movie 37 minutes in to send my boyfriend voice messages - which he described as "would be fun to animate" - ranting about how the main character - supposedly a biologist - clearly had never entered a science classroom in her entire fucking life. (otherwise loved the movie! last 3/4s were - wow! horrifying!!))

i don't know. for a long time i bit my tongue on shit like this because i felt silly about it, but i don't know, man. i really like utmv; it's the one fandom i always find myself coming back to when other interests get put on the trophy shelf to lovingly stare at from afar. there's just so many good, interesting ideas in this fandom. the universe that it sets up is so wide and full of so much potential. but ive never seen a story that really... gripped that potential the way i wanted. (some that came very close! and many that didn't, but that i loved regardless!) i don't even think my OWN stories could reach my expectations, because i'm very much an amateur writer and the vast majority of my energy is taken up by work (and generally the stress of poverty/unmedicated ADHD), but i don't want to let that stop me from enjoying my hobby!

and as long as i'm making things, i'm gonna at least try my best to make them cool - and a part of that, for me, has always been trying to make them make sense, without losing their fantastical charm.

[akwolfgrl]

I'm a great fuck but better lover part 7

Sanji steps out of his pantry after making room for the jars of tomato sauce, only to see his boyfriend dipping his finger into the sauce and sucking it off his finger.

“What are you doing!?” Sanji hurried over to the stove. “Please tell me you at least washed your hands first!” Sanji was panicking who knows what could have gotten into the suace! Maybe it was just sweat, but it could be sword oil!

“Yah I don't have a death wish,” Zoro grumbled, leaning against the counter. “Besides its already ruined its bland shit cook,”

“Well of course it is,” Sanji gave him a weird look as he turned the burner off and took out the hot cans from the large canner pot. “It's tomato sauce. It's a bace product. I add the seasoning to it when I cook,” Sanji didn't have to argue as he began to open the lids to jars. He placed a funnel atop a jar and began to fill.

“Oh…” Sanji continued to work as he glanced over at his boyfriend, who was definitely pouting. The swordsmen would deny fervently, but it was the truth.

“Were you trying to start a fight?” Sanji asked him, he could put him to work.

“Yah. We haven't had a fight since before Loguetown. You haven't been put for your morning stretches, ethior,”

“Ive been busy trying to get some things done, but if you give me some time, who's on the deck…other than Luffy?” He would not trust Luffy to watch his timer. Their captain would lose it.

“The w…Nami,”

“Great, let me make her some tanghulu and a quick cocktail, get the tomato sauce in the canner, set the timer, and ask her to watch my timer, then we can fight till it goes off. What I need from you is to get me, strawberries and grapes from the fridge, a minka from the pantry, the candy thermometer from the third draw, sugar in the middle canister in the cupboard to left of you, a small pot, and little Sophie,”

“Who the fuck is Sophie?” Zoro asked before compling.

“Yah, shit, she's the smallest knife a paring knife, I'll introduce you to my ladies sometime later,” Sanji wiped the rim of all jars with vinegar before seeling them finger tight. He then placed them on the rack and in the pot. When he turned to Zoro, he had managed to gather everything he had asked for. “OK one last thing. Grab a handful of the jerky and give it to Luffy it's his snack time. I'll meet you on the deck when I'm done,”

“You better or i'll drag you out,” Zoro grabbed handful of jerky as he walked out the door.

Sanji got to work, he quickly made the tanghulu and a cosmopolitan for his Nami-swan and headed out the door sliver tray in hand.

Nami was purning her trees when Sanji showed up. His cat was draped across the canvas bag she kept her tools in. She wiped the sweat from her brow and looked up at him. Even with a smuge of dirt on her face and a few straw leaves in her hair, Nami was as stunning as ever, her smile as radiant as the sun reflecting across the water.

“Good timing Sanji! I was just about to take a break,”

“Ah I'm so happy to serve you, my dear…however I am afraid I have a small favor to ask of you. The walking cactus I call a boyfriend is asking for a fight. However, I have cans of tomato suace in the canner that needs to come out at some point. I fear that I won't have time later on to fight him. I am only asking you to watch my timer and let me know when it goes off. Of course, I have a special treat for you as payment. It's tanghulu it's simply furit coated in a sugar glaze that it is clear and crisp, a cosmopolitan to go along with,”

“Sure I can do that,” Nami gave him a smile before nudging his cat off the bag and putting her stuff away before taking the tray from his hands.

Sanji made his way back down to where Zoro was waiting.

[stellar-constellations]

ive got 0 idea if you takes reqs, but i recently finished your yuri briar x reader AND IM IN LOVE

so.

we got a slightly sick yuri, but what about an extremely ill y/n that yuri has to take care of ? with his stubborness theres sure to be some aruging

of course, if youre not feelig up to oneshots, some cute headcannons for them whould be awesome !!

youre such a great writer mwah i hope you have a good day !! :3

        Sick! Fem! (Y/N) x Yuri Briar

        This can be read with or without reading my Yuri Briar x Fem! Spy! (Y/N) series: An Alliance (part 1).

Beware! This fic DOES contain SPOILERS for the manga and for the Yuri Briar x Fem! (Y/N) series: An Alliance!

        Setting is AFTER the reader rejoined WISE (so Yuri and (Y/N) are married and [Y/N] becomes an official double-spy).

        I rarely get sick. I think part of that is because of all the viruses and infectious pathogens I've been exposed to growing up. Growing up in the poor side of Luwen, Westalis. Joining the Westalis military and watching as doctors with not enough medical experience or knowledge bullshit their way through life-threatening procedures or even unknown viruses from Ostania get tons of syringes jabbed in their shoulders. Traveling through countries and hiding in sometimes very unhygienic places as a spy. All of those factors has probably helped with my strong immune systems.

        There's been times where I've been sick that it's completely left me bedridden for days, sometimes even a week or two, at a time. Every once in a blue moon, I'd get a common cold or sore throat, but if I can walk, then I can work.

        I figured today must've been one of small common cold days when I woke up with a foul taste in my mouth. You know when you're sick and you have that awful taste when you cough? It's taste like that sour, off-putting taste.

        I ignored the system and buried my head back into my pillow, hearing the annoying alarm shut off thanks to Yuri.

        "(Y/N), it's time to get up." Yuri spoke.

        We've both grown used to this routine now. Yuri spends a good ten minutes trying to drag me out of bed while I lay motionless, purposely ignoring him as I try to go back to bed.

        Today, however, I feel even more tired than usual. It feels awfully hot under these covers and my body feels really sore, almost numb.

        "Come on. Don't start this today! You know we have an important meeting with the Director!" Yuri groaned, getting back on the bed to crawl over to my side and grabbing my arm.

        Right, the meeting with the Director. I'm supposed to go over there and discuss any new information on WISE in correlation to the chase with Winston Wheeler (and Twilight).

        Me and Yuri finally healed up enough to where we can be sent back to work. I was getting real sick of that liquid diet, I never want to have soup for breakfast, lunch, and dinner ever again (Yuri can agree with me on this). My broken nose is also healed too so now I can stop wearing that stupid bandage.

        Apparently, there's been a security breach in the SSS's latest website and I'm supposed to narrow down a list of potential suspects that could've caused the breach. I contacted The Handler last night and had her conduct a list of unfortunate Ostanian civilians to place blame on. I don't like having to bring innocent people into such matters, but I don't really have a choice. If the SSS finds out I'm still working with WISE, I'm royally screwed. The work the agents in WISE are given is far too important to sacrifice, so unfortunately I'm going to have to trade in unsuspecting civilians in order to keep the peace between Ostania and Westalis.

        I already know the true perpetuator of who caused that security breach; it was me. I needed information on Winston Wheeler so I hacked into the SSS's security files and emails and got information, then I snuck into city hall and got some public files of Ostanian citizens with the information I learned and was able to identify WISE's mole with just a tad bit of luck. The whole operation almost costed me my head with how I almost got exposed as a WISE agent to Yuri in the sewers along with almost dying to Winston (I'll never say this to her face, but thank God that Nightfall came when she did).

        "Fine, fine..." I groaned, moving my hair out of my eyes and slowly sitting up from my bed.

        I stood up from the bed and felt lightheaded, whiteish-black dots appearing in my vision as my body temperature raised and a nauseous feeling came over me, my ears ringing as I felt the dull thud of myself collapsing onto the carpet.

        I saw nothing for a long time, but a short time as well. I was able to regain my vision and found myself on the floor with Yuri hovering over me.

        Damn, I fainted.

        I've fainted a lot in my lifetime to the point it's probably unhealthy now. Exhaustion, extreme sickness when I'm bedridden, and sometimes even just from changing position too fast or standing in the same position for too long. By now I'm very aware of the symptoms, I just usually believe I can fight through it and continue on (the amount of times I coaxed myself into believing this then fainting afterwards is absolutely foolish of me by now).

        "(Y/N)? Are you okay?" Yuri questioned, a concerned expression on his face.

        "I tripped over my feet." I lied.

        "You sure stayed on the ground for a while. You weren't responding to me." Yuri responded, a bit suspicious.

        "I was hoping you'd leave me alone so I could go back to bed." I lied, again.

        "Seriously? Come on, we've got work to do." Yuri sighed, grabbing my nightgown's sleeve.

        Luckily my sleeve was covering my arm so he wouldn't come into direct-contact with my skin and feel how hot it is.

        "Do we want to cook breakfast or go grab some?" Yuri questioned, lifting me up from the ground with ease, placing me on my feet as I mumbled a "thanks".

        "Let's go out. I don't feel like cooking. I'm still sleepy." I responded, watching as Yuri walked to his closet and grabbed a pair of mundane office clothes.

        "I was thinking the same thing. It'd be quicker too." Yuri commented.

        I inhaled deeply, feeling as though I couldn't breathe through my nose. I still felt light-headed and I feel like I'll topple right over if I take a step forward.

        "Can you choose my clothes today? I don't wanna." I breathed out, crawling back into bed and staying above the covers since it felt too hot to get under them.

        "Don't plan on falling back to sleep. I will drag you into the car with you still in your nightgown if I have to." Yuri grumbled, shooting me a glare but walking to my closet nonetheless.

        He looked through the hanging clothes before grabbing a green sweatshirt and finding a pair of blue jeans on a shelf. He threw the clothes at me as I worked up the energy to get today started.

        "You better be dressed by the time I'm done changing." Yuri emptily-threatened, grabbing his own clothes and walking into the bathroom.

        I huffed, wanting to do anything but get out of bed, yet I decided to listen to him. He's right, today is an important day. It'll help me prove my innocence to the SSS (and I have to make sure I keep Donnie's little trap shut in case he decides to put his two-bits in and expose that I was gone during the whole mole hunt.

        I stood up from the bed, ignoring my wobbly head and aching head as I changed into the clothes Yuri picked out for me. It's funny that even though we're both basically married now (just without throwing a real wedding), we still change in separate rooms. I'm completely fine with that though, it's nice to take things slow.

        I grabbed sock and brown boots and slipped them on, then immediately fell back onto the bed to get at least an extra minute or two of rest.

        Yuri came out and looked at me, crossing his arms as he stared at me with his laser eyes.

        "Are you sure you're okay? Your throat sounds sore. Do you want a cough drop?" Yuri questioned.

        "I'm just really tired." I spoke, adverting eye contact.

        "Should we get coffee too?" Yuri asked, tying his boots on.

        "Yeah, that's a good idea." I nodded, raising my hand up in the air for Yuri to grab.

        He grabbed my hand without question and lifted me off our bed, allowing me to plant my feet back on the ground. I reached for my glasses on the dresser (if you wear any) and grabbed my wallet, shoving it into my pocket.

        "You're really hot." Yuri commented.

        "Thanks." I smiled, still having some energy to mess with Yuri.

        "I meant your skin is hot. Are you really sure you're feeling okay?" Yuri questioned, his concerned expression appearing.

        "I'm fine! I'd tell you if I feel off, so don't worry about it, love." I spoke, giving him a smile in hopes to reassure him.

        His shoulders released some tension, but they still weren't fully relaxed, so he doesn't believe me just yet.

        "I just have a small cold, nothing I can't handle. Now let's go, we still have work to do." I spoke, grabbing his hand and leading him to the door through blurry vision.

        I bumped into the door and huffed, feeling around for the handle.

        "(Y/N), that's a wall. The door is behind us." Yuri pointed out.

        On normal days, he'd chuckle about how much of a dumbass I am, but today he seems really in-tune with my physical state.

        "My vision is still blurry 'cause I'm tired." I spoke, coming up with that stupid excuse on spot.

        "Here, let me help you." Yuri spoke, guiding me over to the bedroom door as he opened it, pushing me through before walking out and closing it behind him.

        "I got the rest." I reassured, taking a few steps forward to go to the front door.

        I stopped once I felt my stomach start to turn and my vision start to blur once more. My ears started ringing and it felt like I was swaying from side to side.

        I took silent deep breaths to calm myself down and hopefully settle my immune system, all while Yuri stood behind me, closely observing me.

        "Are you sick?" he finally questioned.

        "No." I huffed stubbornly, gathering my energy to take another step.

        It was a terrible idea as I immediately fell forward, my body going limp as I couldn't control my feet or hands or anything any longer. Even though I was unconscious, I felt pressure under my head and on my wrist. I saw darkness again and waited for it to pass, before finally regaining my vision once more.

        Yuri had his hand under my head, checking my pulse before making eye contact with me as the waves of blurriness started to fade from my sight. He gave me a look I'd never think I'd get shot my way for fainting, he gave me a scowl.

        "I'm not sick." He taunted in a high-pitched voice.

        "Oi! I don't sound like that!" I huffed.

        "You told me you weren't sick. You said you'd tell me if you were feeling off, you little lying brat." Yuri huffed, moving his hand from under my head and allowing it to hit the ground with a thud!

        "Ow..." I groaned, reaching up and grabbing my head as my head ached, probably a headache forming. "Jerk! I didn't treat you like this when you got sick!"

        "I didn't lie when I got sick!" Yuri retorted.

        "Y-yeah... but..." I paused, thinking of something to say. "Just shut up and help me!" I huffed.

        "You're lucky I'm a nice guy." Yuri muttered, grabbing my hand and picking me up, throwing me over his shoulder.

        He opened our bedroom door and placed me back down on our bed, making sure to keep the covers off me. He walked up to his separate nightstand and picked up the phone, sliding the rotary wheel to his desired digits until he raised the phone up to his ear.

        "Hello, Director? This is Yuri Briar speaking. Me and (Y/N) Briar are going to take the day off, she's terribly sick and I don't trust her to be by herself. We can reschedule the meeting another day?" Yuri spoke

        "Oi! I hear you!" I huffed, throwing a pillow at him (albeit weakly).

        "Yes, that was her. She sounds terrible, huh?" Yuri spoke, now just taunting me.

        "You're a horrible man..." I grumbled.

        "Yes, sir. Thank you so much." Yuri spoke before hanging up the phone. "Looks like you're going to get your shut-eye after all."

        "Thanks, Yuri!" I smiled.

        "Do you think you can stomach anything? Do you want some soup?" he questioned.        

        "Yeah, I guess." I sighed.

        "I'll go make you some. Now, you change into some more lighter clothes so you won't be as hot, then you can go back to sleep." Yuri ordered.

        It really wasn't something I'd fight him on as I nodded, taking the pajamas I was wearing earlier from Yuri's hands. Yuri left the room as I changed, then got back into bed. I closed my eyes (taking off my glasses if needed) and listening to Yuri's command on some shut-eye.

        Yuri woke me up sometime later, gently shaking me awake.

        "Hey, wake up." Yuri spoke, coaxing me to waking up.

        I opened my eyes to see Yuri's face. He picked me up from the bed and took me out and into the dining room, sitting me down on my dining table seat. A bowl of simple broth sat in front of me, something simple that I wouldn't throw up.

        "You can eat on your own, right?" Yuri questioned.

        "Nope." I smiled.

        "Of course..." Yuri grumbled.

        He grabbed his chair and pulled it up close to me, our knees touching as he lifted my chin up and grabbed the spoon.

        "You should keep your distance if you don't want to get sick." I spoke.

        "Don't worry about it. The only time I get sick is when Yor is out of town." Yuri spoke.

        Right, I remember having to take care of him when Yor left a few days for her job at city hall. He's surprisingly easy to take care of since he doesn't talk as much when he's sick due to his aching throat. I thought.

        "Open up." Yuri commanded.

        I didn't put up a fight as I opened my mouth, taking a sip from the spoon.

        "It's pretty good, Yuri." I complimented, opening my mouth for another spoonful.

        "I got the recipe from a cookbook." Yuri admitted, scooping up some more and putting it in my mouth.

        I finished the bowl and thanked him as he picked me up and carried me back to our room, placing me down on the bed.

        "I'll be back. You just hang on a second." Yuri spoke, walking out of the room.

        He came back with a towel and some medication in hand.

        "Do you like medicine?" Yuri questioned.

        "No, who does?" I questioned, looking at him funny.

        "I mean, will you put up a fight?" he questioned.

        "...I mean, I guess not since it's for my health?" I muttered.

        "Good." Yuri smiled, twisting open the cap and pouring the dark red liquid into a small medicine cup.

        He raised the spoon to my mouth as I sighed and opened my mouth, drinking the liquid. It tasted disgusting and I hated every drop of it, but I understood it was for my health.

        "Thank you for taking care of me, Yuri. You didn't have to take the day off too to take care of me, but you did anyways. I appreciate it greatly." I smiled.

        "It's the decent thing to do." Yuri muttered, not taking the gratitude.

        "Don't underestimate your kindness, Yuri. I was just messing with you when I said you're horrible." I admitted.

        "I know that much, dummy." Yuri huffed, flicking my forehead with his finger.

        He pushed my chest for me to lean back on my pillow, then grabbed the cold wet towel and placed it on top of my forehead.

        "Now get some more rest, I'll come check up on you in a bit." Yuri spoke.

        "Thanks again, Yuri. I love you." I smiled, watching as his face started to match his eyes as he covered his mouth with his arm to hide his smile.

        "Whatever... I love you too." He muttered softly, but I could still hear him.

        The whole day Yuri tended to my needs as I got my well-deserved rest. It's nice to finally be able to sleep all day again, the last time I did that was years ago.

        I can't remember the last time I was cared for when being sick. Before the war when I was a kid, I remember being bedridden for three days and being unable to do nothing. My dad was out working and my mom was sleeping because she worked night shifts as a nurse (she was able to find a hospital that allowed married women to work there), so she slept during the day and went to work at night.

        My younger siblings couldn't take care of me because they were too young to have any medical knowledge. My older sister was out collecting rocks and my older brother was out with his friends. Even if they weren't busy, they still wouldn't be able to help me since they've never gotten sick (or at least didn't remember it).

        Even after joining the military and ending up getting the Spanish Flu I wasn't care for. It was actually a miracle I survived it because of my age and size. I must've found a lucky penny or something around that time because I luckily didn't have any severe symptoms, but after seeing all the people dying around me from the illness, I took absolutely no chances to being transported in the crowded nursing tent. I stole a small tent and ran far out into the woods along with a bottle of medicine, eight water bottles, four cans of tomato soup, and a blanket, spending five nights out there before I finally felt better.

        Because I didn't allow myself around any others to worsen my sickness, my Memory T-cells were able to identify and grow an immunity to the disease and I was able to overcome it.

        Even when I became a spy, the first few missions I got sick pretty often because of all the traveling and sight-changes I had to endure, but I soon grew accustomed to the constant change in scenery all around Westalis and Ostania that my immune system was eventually able to get used to it.

        But even then, it's nice to be cared for and pampered. The last time I got fed by someone was when I was two. The last time someone tucked me in for bed was when I was three. I never did have someone make me soup for when I'm sick, or give me a wet towel to place on my head, or even just give me a bottle of medicine.

        Even those the gestures might be small and "what a decent human being does" as Yuri said—it means the world to me. To be swaddled in the warmth of protection and love, something I was once sure I'd never be able to experience again until I met Yuri Briar.

        The ring on my finger isn't just a ring; it's an everlasting vow between two lives now connected through life and death, sickness and health, wealth and poverty. It's a pledge of undying adoration, sincerity, unwavering loyalty, and shelter; all of this for Mr. and Mrs. Briar to share with one another.

        BONUS: Headcannons about Yuri and (Y/N):

        Yuri and (Y/N) have their own seats at the dining table they silently assigned to themselves. Yuri's seat is the closest to the front door, he chose this seat in case (Y/N) ever does try to run away to go back to WISE (in actuality, it's so he can protect her if an intruder ever breaks in from there).

        Believe it or not, Yuri and (Y/N) aren't much of physical lovers. The love languages in their relationship is quality time, acts of service, and (shockingly) words of affirmation.

        (Y/N) can't detect sarcasm despite being sarcastic herself at times.

        (Y/N) used sleeping as a coping mechanism growing up. She used it to escape from reality; the hardships of money and war, deception and betrayal. She slept so much she learned how to lucid dream on her own. Now she sleeps because she's tired often due to work.

        (Y/N)'s always tired no matter how much sleep she gets; 30 minutes to a day. She once slept for 22 hours once and woke up feeling miserable. She slept for twenty minutes while waiting for a target during a mission and still felt like total shit; so no amount of sleep can truly make her feel 100% awake.

        (Y/N) has problems with memorizing people and their names so she focuses on a certain attribute that helps her recognize a person (ex. someone's hair color, the shape of their eyes, their jacket).

        (Y/N)'s memory isn't good either, she'll be in the act of cooking then forget she's cooking and walk away. Yuri now supervises (Y/N) to make sure she doesn't wander off and let the smoke alarm go off again.

        If (Y/N) had the option to go to the past, future, or stay in the present, she would choose staying in the present in a heartbeat. She believes if she goes to the past she might mess something up that would make it so Yuri and (Y/N) never met, and she doesn't want to go to the future in case she discovers something then accidentally messes up the future by going to the present and changes actions that would've led her to something happy in the future to something disastrous instead.

        Yuri's side mission in life is to try to discreetly find out (Y/N)'s favorite flower without being caught. He wants to surprise her but refuses to ask her for the answer. So far it's been a month of trying.

        (Y/N) has absolutely no idea when she's being flirted with by someone other than Yuri because she doesn't believe it's possible that someone could actually have interest in her (she still secretly questions if Yuri's proposal was true or if it was a gig to gain trust for their contract).

        Yuri has memorized every speckle of color in (Y/N)'s eyes because of how often he stares into them. He is a firm believer of giving someone his attention when they're talking with him.

        Yuri does, indeed, like to mess with (Y/N) because he thinks it's cute when she gets frustrated.

        When (Y/N) gave Yuri's mother brownies as an offering he cried in his car the entire time that (Y/N) talked to Yuri's mother. That day was the day Yuri started to lower his guard without even realizing it.

        Even though Yuri and (Y/N) bicker a lot, they're very aware of their true feelings since they always look at each other's eyes when talking (the eye is the window to the soul after all).

        It's a known fact that Yuri and (Y/N) always work with each other at the SSS. They help each other with listening to bugged rooms, Yuri listens and (Y/N) writes. Whenever they do interrogations, they're always in the room with each other in case one of the interrogators decide to get hostile. During raids, (Y/N) prefers to be lookout while Yuri heads into action. Even though (Y/N) doesn't like Yuri fighting with the possibility of getting injured or possibly even killed, (Y/N) doesn't like fighting up close due to the hostility she experienced in the military (the same applies with guns due to this).

        Yuri learned about (Y/N)'s dislikes towards guns and does his best to get them both out of raids or missions that involve them. He doesn't want to have her forced into a situation that makes her uncomfortable or feel threatened.

        Yuri and (Y/N) have come to the comprise that Yuri cleans and (Y/N) cooks after Yuri complained a lot about (Y/N) doing all the housework. Yuri doesn't like the thought of using (Y/N) like that, even if they live in the 1950's.

        As previously mentioned in this fic, (Y/N) got the Spanish Flu. She got the Spanish Flu by walking into the nursing tent to bring a sick comrade in. While she was in there, she saw someone have a terrible reaction to the vaccine they were given, foaming through their mouth and blood pouring out of their eyes and nose, that started her intense fear of needles (want to know how Yuri helps? Check out this fanfic along with the head cannons in it!)

        Yuri and (Y/N) like watching sci-fi movies and debating whether the events could one day be true or not. These debates get very heated, logical, and serious; some are still ongoing to this day.

        Yuri's ([Y/N]'s really) teddy bear (teddy bear is introduced in the Yuri Briar x Fem! Spy! Reader series, part 9) is named Graham Cracker because of the fur's color (Yes, [Y/N] named it).

        (Y/N) once had a dream of being an astronaut because she loved the stars so much. Now, she's not exactly sure what she wants to be career-wise, but she wants to be truly happy and have an ordinary life (which means ditching the SSS and WISE).

        Yuri once took (Y/N) out on a roadtrip to go to a space museum out of Ostania. In the middle of the night he stopped the car on a hill and prompted (Y/N) out of the car and pointed up at the stars. Yuri's mind has the image of her stargazing engraved in his mind. (Y/N) had never seen as much stars as she did then and she started crying hysterically because it was the most considerate and romantic thing anyone had ever done for her. Yuri now takes (Y/N) out to see the stars at the same hill at least once a month.

        Sometimes Yuri goes on complete rambles about Yor, specific adventures he had during missions, some biology facts he remembers from school, or even just Ostanian politics and (Y/N) would look at him with the world's brightest eyes and soft smile. Once he notices, his voice becomes softer and he stumbles over his wording a lot. (Y/N) will bring him back to with a soft "go on, love" despite hearing this subject hundreds of times before, and it'll officially explode Yuri's mind and heart.

        (Y/N) got Yuri into Frank Sinatra and Doris Day songs. Yuri's mood could be terrible but if he hears any one of their songs he'll immediately start cheering up because of the memories their songs bring. His favorite is "Fly Me to the Moon" from Frank Sinatra and "It's Magic" from Doris Day. (Y/N)'s favorites are "Blue Moon" from Frank Sinatra and "Dream a Little Dream of Me" from Doris Day.

        (Y/N) absolutely loves Christmas music. She loves decorating the apartment with festive lights and baking holiday foods. Yuri used to be indifferent about the holidays but now he can't wait for the next Christmas because of the first Christmas they spent with each other and the Forger family.

        (Y/N) was given the code name "Vixen" because of how she lured and deceived others. She stuck to using her looks as a form of deception since she had a hard time switching personalities due to her morals and how opinionated she is.

        (Y/N) hates receives gifts because it feels like she's indirectly using someone for money, being too needy, and now has a debt she needs to pay.

        (Y/N) and Yor meet up every weekend after work to talk about work, their family, and get to know each other better since they're in-laws. (Y/N) still finds Yor scary, but now she's determined to protect Yuri because of how kind-hearted and nurturing she is. (Y/N) makes sure to walk Yor home so Yor doesn't get into any danger (unbeknownst to [Y/N], Yor is the true danger).

        (Y/N) meets up with Camila and Yor once a month to teach Yor a new recipe. It's a really good bonding experience and it gives (Y/N) a healthy amount of social interaction without having to try and lie to anyone for ulterior motives. (Y/N) loves being able to call therm her friends since growing up she didn’t have any (that are still alive, that is. Twilight and Franky are like brothers).

Thank you so much for requesting! I love writing for Yuri, especially because of how dry the Yuri train is on Tumblr.

Want more Yuri content? Check out the Yuri Briar x Fem! Spy! reader series: An Alliance! Or perhaps something short and sweet? Check out another adored request WITH more head cannons!

        Have any other requests? Check my masterlist to see the characters I write for: Masterlist

[aemondslefteyeball]

In the Flat Field (1)

[Future!Aemond x Fem!Reader]

[Warnings: Spooky shit]

[Summary: The year is 2864, and mankind has spread to the stars. You and your partner are a part of the Exoarchaeologist's Guild, exploring the known universe on the USS Vhagar. When the two of you enter a new frontier you make a discovery that will either make or destroy both of your careers at the Guild. If you can make your way back to it, that is.]

Word Count: 4.3K

Chapter One

A gut pull drag on me

Into the chasm gaping, we.

Vhagar’s engines thrummed softly in the background while you set the plates down on the little table in the dining room. After they were arranged and the replicator was shut off, you expanded the hologram that sat confined in your watch. Pulling up the menu, you clicked on the ship’s comms and sent your best friend a ping that the food was ready. A few minutes later Aemond arrived in the kitchen, sweat coating his brow from where he had been overhauling the backup wiring in the lateral thrusters. “Hey, love.” A wide grin pulled across his face, his eyes widening at the Arrysian stir-fry before him. “This is why we’re partners.” His face softened for a second, and your heartbeat quickened in your chest. He went to the wash station, dipping his hands into the electrostatic fog before settling down at the table. 

“The reports on the Milner vase came back, it’s from approximately 2146, sometime in the spring but the carbon atoms aren’t stable enough to tell precisely when it was made.” Aemond nodded as you briefed him. The two of you had been hoping it was made in the 2060s when the Carythian empire had been in its golden era. Nonetheless, the guild would want it when you two returned to Valyretos so into the storage lockers it would go. “I was thinking maybe we could push further into Juliet Quadrant, I looked through the Guild database and couldn’t find many records of archaeologists coming here.” 

“I couldn’t agree more, Hotel Quadrant has been overrun since they found that temple.” Aemond had always leaned towards misanthropy, which was pretty funny considering he devoted his life to rummaging through dead peoples’ shit. As the two of you talked about your plans and input the vectors into Vhagar’s nav system, Aemond grabbed your plates and placed them back into the replicator, where it dematerialized them. 

You two fell into a comfortable silence as you thinned out the scrubbers. The plants had been growing a bit too thick, and it posed a risk of clogging up the dioxide filters. The pair of you dictated the report on the Milner vase together, bickering like an old married couple as to whether it portrayed Nienna or Valeich. Despite your back-and-forths, you two had always been two peas in a pod. You remembered when you first met Aemond back at the Academy. Long, silver hair draped over a handsome face. On the left side of it, a cybernetic implant sat. Valyrian steel laced into his cheek, a crystalline transceiver sitting where an eye normally would. His demeanor intimidated you back then, and you had the same classes for months before Aemond finally approached you and asked if you would study for the preliminaries with him. The more you got to know him the more shocked you became, as you had assumed his family pulled strings to get him into the academy. You had friends at Telmar IV and none of them had any good stories about his older brother, and even less about his father. Studying his face for a moment, you reflected on how the years had changed it. The minuscule amount of baby fat that had clung to his face as a fifteen-year-old had faded, and you couldn’t deny he was quite the handsome man. But Aemond was… well, Aemond. You couldn’t think of any time he seemed more interested in any one person over his work. That being said, it seemed it was the reason you two fit so well together. Both of you refused to ever stop pushing, and it led to you being valedictorian, and Aemond the salutatorian. It was a miracle you beat him out, but the final exam tripped him up just enough that you edged in a victory. To your surprise, he didn’t seem jealous at all. When your final GPAs were announced he just pulled you into a hug and tentatively asked if you two could be partners after graduation. Eight years later, the two of you were sailing off into Juliet Quadrant on the USS Vhagar. It was Aemond’s pride and joy, a smile dancing across your face at the memory of the hours spent in his hangar. He had never grown out of tinkering with her, you supposed.

“Something on your mind?” Aemond’s right eyebrow was quirked, amusement glimmering in his violet eyes. 

“Remember when you were building her?” 

An easy grin pulled across Aemond’s face as he pulled another plant from the wall. You swore you saw a blush on his cheeks for a second before he turned towards the compost bin. “I remember warbling on about her engine schematics for hours.” He turned back to you, something unidentifiable in the back of his eye. “I don’t think anybody had ever really sat and listened to me like that before.” There was a comfort to the admission, an easiness that only came with eleven years of companionship. When the two of you finished, the plant matter was deconstructed by the bin before being spread over the mycelium racks in a fine mist. 

Nebulas of magenta and sea-foam green spread out before your eyes, the viewscreen set to record the star system as you two settled into the cockpit. Aemond sunk into his crash couch with a groan, pausing for a moment before he followed your line of sight. “Gods that’s beautiful,” he muttered. 

“You’re beautiful.” When Aemond turned to look at you, he was met with your raised middle finger. 

He chuckled before shaking his head, looking down at the controls. “It remains a great mystery as to why you’re single.” 

“A great tragedy.” You teased, clasping your hands for dramatic effect. 

“Mmm,” Aemond replied, something shifting in his gaze as he leaned closer toward you. You smiled at him coyly, one leg crossed over the other. 

Suddenly the proximity klaxon sounded, the view screen flashing red. Vhagar’s point defense cannons were locked onto an asteroid 437 kilometers in diameter. You looked to Aemond, engaging the railguns and cutting minor paths through it before Aemond finally launched a PDC round into the asteroid that sent it shattering out into the frontier. The two of you breathed a sigh of relief. No pieces of the asteroid were large enough to cause actual damage to Vhagar. As soon as the two of you started to relax, the ship was hit by a small rumble. You looked to Aemond in confusion, and he looked to you in worry. Whatever jostled Vhagar had to be something particularly nasty, and it would be better to get the hell out of dodge time now. Sensors were reading that a nearby star had started a coronal mass ejection registering off the Gerardys Scale. As you engaged the joysticks, the ship was hit by a wave that sent it tumbling through the vacuum. Aemond’s arm snapped across your chest as if he was going to hold you in, and you shot him a strange look. You were both literally strapped into your couches. Despite the futility of the gesture, your heart rate increased. Another wave wracked the ship, and it froze suddenly. The system had entirely changed. Literally. You and Aemond looked at each other in confusion for a moment, pulling up your vitals. Both of you were sober and all was were clear, which only left the impossible. You two were somewhere else, in a dimensional freefall before your surroundings shifted again. 

The ship solidified in the goldilocks atmosphere of a thus unidentified planet. You braced yourself for another few minutes, expecting to find yourself in yet another strange new system. When no shift happened, you and Aemond stared at each other. “What the fuck?” You whispered as he let out an ‘Mmm’ of agreement. “Should we land?” 

Aemond’s brow furrowed for a minute, and you saw the light on the side of his implant flicker. Another thing you loved about Aemond, he ran almost every major decision through that implant of his. “Yes.” He stated simply, as you nodded. While Aemond had always been able to destroy you in engineering, you were the pilot. Autopilot was engaged until the stratosphere was breached, from there you set the controls to manual and landed Vhagar in a vegetated field. The two of you opened the comms before sending out an emergency message to the guild. When the ping sounded your heart dropped into your stomach. For the first time ever, Vhagar was unable to transmit. Your wary gaze met Aemonds again, and you shot him a smile you hoped was comforting. He had designed Vhagar so she synchronized with his implant, and the expression on his face told you he was just as lost. Environmental sensors showed nothing of note, while cobalt-blue vines spread out as far as the eye could see. No signs of sentient life read from the field, but the two of you had another hope in mind. Two klicks off into the distance stood the only artificially constructed building you had seen in this hemisphere. You and Aemond took another glance at each other. Periwinkle stucco rippled into basalt before it shifted to plastic siding. Wherever the two of you had landed, it was a far cry from anything you ever had seen before. Really read, heard, or thought about even. In short summary, you guys were up shit creek with no paddle. 

“Well,” Aemond said flatly, his voice revealing the slightest waver. “We’ve definitely found something new.” You nodded as your boots crunched into the vines beneath your feet. 

You let the silence hang for a second longer before it dawned on you. “The asteroid.” When your gaze turned to Aemond, his brow was knit together with the steel implant. You stopped for a moment, Aemond following in tandem. Pulling up the hologram screen from your watch, you expanded it into view mode. Aemond’s hand came to rest on your waist as he stepped closer towards you, eyes fixed on the screen. Clicking on the recording of the flight data, you pull the asteroid’s hologram out, setting it into a field of its own before programming Vhagar to run a simulation of its flight path. 

“What in the seven hells?” Aemond whispered, your mouth going dry as the two of you watched the path of the asteroid. It was moving as if on a track, with a constant velocity. The vector was straight, clear-cut, and too mathematically neat to be natural. Aemond reached into the hologram as well, overlaying the simulation onto the schematic of the system. When he pressed play, you brought your thumbnail to your mouth, resting it on your teeth for a moment. That was it, this was something nobody in the guild had ever discovered before. Your heart sank at the realization that the two of you had unknowingly destroyed a priceless artifact. 

“It’s a…” Aemond looked at you for a second, his lilac eye narrowing at you as he tried to follow your train of thought. “Aem, I think it’s a cosmic-scale Rube Goldberg machine.” 

“Who could have built it?” He murmured, talking more to himself than you. “And why?” His right fist clenched as the light flashed in Valyrian steel. “Implant’s got nothing.” He finally concluded. Nothing of this scale had ever been done before, though to be fair this was just a theory as of right now. Maybe there was some psychoactive chemical in the atmosphere that Vhagar’s sensors didn’t pick up. It would certainly make more sense than either a machine spanning an entire solar system or an asteroid that seemed to move in the weirdest orbit you had ever seen. 

“After we destroyed it, the ion storm started.” You reflected out loud, your finger tracing over the light blue flashes of the hologram as the world shifted around the two of you. Cerulean skies melted into emerald and rose, but the two of you quickly found the bigger mystery. “After that is when things started getting… weird.” You said simply, wishing there was a word that more accurately described stumbling across a space oddity.

“Before we were thrown into the singularity…” Aemond picked up. You nodded, fidgeting with your hands. Aemond’s thumb rubbed little circles into your waist before he gently massaged the spot that always bothered you. Worry dissipated, as your gaze shifted to your best friend. If nothing else, you were relieved he was here. You leaned into him, inhaling the scent of leather and pine. Aemond pressed a kiss to the top of your head. “It’s going to be alright, love.” He murmured. As he said that, your boots sank into bubblegum-colored sand. You pulled away and shot each other a look of mutual understanding. The environment was changing rapidly, but a building still stood. A queer patina shimmered over the roof tiles as they morphed into thatch, less than half a kilometer away now. You pulled your boot out of the sand, going to place it before you until a patch of ice rippled beneath your foot and you lost your balance. Aemond, thankfully, had quicker reflexes than most humans due to his implant. His arm snaked out to grab you before steadying you on your feet. 

“Thanks.” You prayed that you weren’t blushing. Aemond just wasn’t interested in you like that. Aemond wasn’t really interested in anybody like that. 

After a quarter-kilometer trek that thrust you into six different biomes, the two of you finally came to the ever-changing sight of the house before you. Grand French doors were adorned with stained glass that seemed to produce its own light. The images danced across the panes, but when Aemond scanned it he found no power source. Glass figurines revelled, read, and leaped as the glass changed colors. “I know this is probably a stupid question,” Aemond furrowed his brow, a gentle look in his eye as he glanced toward you. “But you’re recording all of this, right?”

Aemond smiled at you, ruffling your hair suddenly as you batted his hands away. “You don’t ask stupid questions, that’s why we’ve been together for so long.” Been together. Sometimes you wondered if he did it on purpose. If he knew and was just rubbing salt into the wound. But his eye held no indication of mockery, and an easy look rested across his chiseled features. Like when you two first met. The years had hardened his face, but the remnants of the dorky teenager reemerged. Your dork. After a moment, he reached to open the door, the knob shifting to a beautiful ivory as he opened it. While the house seemed to be more fixed than the outside was, a foyer flashed in and out of existence, staircases moving throughout the belly of the beast. Hair raised on your neck, animal instincts screaming at the uncanny nature of the morphing environment. The two of you stepped through doorways into rooms that flashed in and out of existence, often finding yourself in new parts of the house. Decor flashed in and out of different cultures, times, and places. One minute Veltruvian lamps cast their plum glow across the walls. Others, class candles burned into your retinas. Walls of ebony stretched out across the basement the two of you had stepped into, and you traced your fingers along it, taking in the sight. Aemond beelined towards a desk, his gaze focused. Picking up the piece of metal, he turned it over in his hands before his gaze panned over to you. Holding it up, he laughed. “A sextant!” Blue light flickered out of the implant as he ran his fingers over the bronze. “18th century Earth.” A happy grin overtook his features as he unzipped his backpack, placing it in. Technically it was supposed to go to the guild, but you could pretend you didn’t see it in his room. Ebony walls shifted into cherry as you two stepped into a bedroom. A large, soft bed took up most of the space, but your gaze flickered to the closet. 

“Jackpot.” You said, throwing the doors open before tutting disappointedly. All men’s clothes, and way too large for you from the looks of it. You flipped through the hangers, finding a long black trench coat. Pulling it off the rack, you held it up to Aemond’s shoulders, giving him a look. Aemond humored you, shrugging off his coat and tossing it onto the bed before pulling the trench coat over himself. The sleeves were a touch too short, but Aemond cut quite the strapping figure in it. You pulled your fingers up to your mouth and let out a wolf whistle. Raising your finger to spin it, Aemond shook his head as he chuckled. “C’mon CoverGirl.” You cheered. He pulled the coat off before tossing it over his shoulder and strutting across the room. When he reached you, he paused for a second, his face twisting as if he was thinking. When it continued on for another second, a nervous smile flashed across your face. “I’m starting to smell smoke.” You teased, taking the coat and putting it back on the hanger. You paused for a second after placing it back on the rack, shoving the coats off to one side and dropping to your knees. Before you, a small door stayed in place, the trim melting between shades of eggshell. You turned back to Aemond, and the blue light flickered before he nodded. Taking a deep breath, you opened the latch to Pandora’s door. The tiny door opened up to a full-length hallway and you started to poke your head in before Aemond lunged to grab you. 

His leather jacket was back on him, expression serious as he turned the light in his implant on. Brick and stone flashed across the walls, an oil spill of different materials swirling before your eyes. Stepping into it, he gestured for you to follow before putting an arm out in front of you protectively. While his arm unfortunately was not singularity-proof, the sweetness of the gesture was appreciated. Exposed pipes of different metals lined the ceiling, the ripples easing the further along you traveled. The two of you came to a halt before the large iron door and you swallowed harshly. There was no sign of a spindle on the door, but it was cracked. A glimpse of light peeked out. You wracked your brain trying to remember any time that you had seen a safe that didn’t close from the outside. “Stay behind me,” Aemond muttered, with you nodding and moving to the opposite side of the frame. Aemond pressed the door open, ancient hinges creaking in protest. You peeked in to see Aemond staring at the room in shock. Light shone in through a bowed window, dust floating through the sunbeams as it bounced off one of the mirrors and right into your eyes. Flinching and holding a hand up, you came to Aemond’s side. “There can’t be a window here.” He muttered. “There’s solid brick around the entire room.” His head shook in disbelief, staring out into the yellow sky. “We’re in the basement.” 

“Aemond.” He was pulled out of his train of thought before you gestured to the rest of the room. Dust stirred in the air, tickling at the back of your nostrils. Sunlight shone onto a neatly made, though clearly neglected bed. The walls were a solid beige color, with an armoire and a little kitchenette stacked into the small space. 

“Did you hear me? There cannot be a window here.” 

“I heard you.” You snapped. On the table, an old journal disappeared, and a radio appeared in its place. Aside from that, the room was still. The walls remained as they were, and whatever plagued the rest of the house seemed mitigated here. The eye of the singularity. Realization dawned on Aemond as he shot you a look. The emotion was unreadable for a second before you finally recognized it. Fear. You couldn’t remember the last time you had seen Aemond truly scared. You wondered if you ever had. Aemond paced around the room, stalking about with an anxious expression on his face. “I’m going to get a reading on that door.” Pulling at the straps of your backpack, you stepped out of the iron door, and into the largest room you had ever seen. 

Columns of shelves reached as high as you could see, the musk of the ancient room pervasive. Stepping down a row, you pressed yourself against a shelf and took a deep breath in. Okay. You and Aemond had been separated. It would be alright, you told yourself. Thus far you returned back to the same general area within the singularity itself. Your position in spacetime seemed fixed, but it shifted around you like a kaleidoscope. After you regained your head, you continued to creep down the rows. Strange bottles lined the walls, filled with different colored mists. You couldn’t articulate what it was, but every instinct screamed at you.

In the presence of something that was ancient when man was still fish, something stirred off in the distance. That’s when it sounded again. Heavy footfalls grew closer while you skirted around the wooden shelves, taking advantage of every blind spot around the bottles. A myriad of swirling colors spun within the glass, hypnotizing. You edged along the row slowly, checking your surroundings before making a dash to the next one. Upon getting there, you pinched your nose and exhaled through your mouth silently. When your heart rate slowed and your mind cleared, you snapped back to the task at hand. Escape. That’s when you caught sight of it through the reflection on the bottle. Ducking back behind the panel of wood, you looked at the bottles on the opposite shelf through the corner of your eye. Whatever it was, it was large. Stretched abnormally tall, the creature was broad, visual static flickering through the body. Ink seemed to stretch over the skin in a shifting calico pattern, blinking in and out as the creature let out a low wheeze. Two massive, gray pits swirling in what you could only assume were its eyes. A clicking rang out through the silent rows, and you took extra care to maintain your cover. Thuds fell onto stone floors at an uneasy tempo. Inhuman. An uncharacteristically long pause between one footfall and the next. Purples and greens spilled into the shifting skin pattern, your eyes intermittently flicking to the bottles. Something between a gurgle and a click emerged as the creature stalked about, dragging its spindly fingers along the dusty shelves. Suddenly it came to a pause, the colors in it shifting as it stopped to examine the shelf. The spot where you had braced yourself after first seeing the thing. Fuck. The speed of the clicking increased, and you felt a strange sort of joy radiating off of the being. It canvassed the room carefully, prowling towards the row you had previously been at. Your heart pounded in your chest as you pressed yourself against a new row, eyes trained on the bottles. Keeping your hands at your side so as to not leave another breadcrumb for whatever the fuck that thing was, you continued down the row. The creature ambled around as if it had all the time in the world, happy gurgles emerging from its abdomen. A soft peach glow shone around it, your eyes drawn in. It was strangely beautiful in contrast to the grotesque nature of the being. Something pure and celestial, mesmerizing. A dreamy smile passed across your face as you stumbled onto the shelf closest to you. Fuck. If the thud from your contact wasn’t enough, a bottle fell off the shelf and shattered before you had the chance to grab it. A flat voice emerged from the shattered glass as an ancient recitation sounded in a language you couldn’t identify. You slapped your watch, having it record a sample of the language to analyze later. A much, much bigger fish to fry had clambered over to the end of the row. The ecstatic clicking picked up in tempo, and your eyes widened in horror before you scrambled onto your feet to sprint as fast as humanly possible. The eerie gurgling emerged as the creature stalked behind you. You didn’t spare a look behind you, propelling your legs under you as quickly as you could. The dank room seemed to expand ever larger around you, but you weren’t sure if it was moving or whether it had always been this large. Rows tall as skyscrapers flickered in your field of vision for a second before bricks flashed through. Clicking sounded behind you until you were stumbling over smooth concrete on the outside of the bedroom. You fell to your knees and vomited on the cement. Your vision blurred and your head pounded. Each individual cell of your body felt as if it had been individually beaten, and you dry heaved after everything was out of your stomach. 

Aemond came to pull your hair back, worry pulled across his face as one arm patted you gently on the back. When you finally finished, you turned your bloodshot gaze to meet his. The fear was still palpable in Aemond’s eyes, but you could see relief dawning in them too as he pulled you in for a hug. “Nice to see you too, Y/N.” He teased. Your arms shook as you wrapped them around his midsection, inhaling the scent of leather and soap.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ahh! Second series starting!!!! Let me know what you all think, this one will probably be a bit sparser in updates than STGM but shouldn't be less frequent than every other week. Love y'all have a good weekend drink water

[freakkisser]

So I don't know much about any of your F/Os ;w; but if you want to, you can use this ask as a place to share about them/their source and/or their relationship with your S/I ^u^

- Dina

ahh thank you sm! ill talk about my haikyuu f/o’s because ive been thinking about haikyuu again!

so haikyuu is a anime, and it’s about a high school volleyball team! i adore the anime i watched it for the fist time when i was like 14 and have been a fan ever since. i fell in love with it (and volleyball as a sport to an extent) and i obviously fell in love with the characters. the main team you follow is the karasuno boys volleyball team but (especially in the manga) you get a look at all sorts of teams all across japan and you get to see them all fight to play the sport they love and hopefully go to nationals!

my favorite team is karasuno though, and honestly i love the whole team. theyre like family to me and i just adore them. there are two characters i fell in love with in a romantic sense though and thats tsukishima kei and yamaguchi tadashi! a middle blocker and a outside hitter for the team. theyre first years in the main duration of the story (but there’s also some glimpses of them in second and third year as well as a time skip) and theyre just so sweet.

kei is this grumpy tall blond, she initially thinks volleyball is just some dumb game, they have a natural advantage due to her height obviously, but she doesn’t try very hard at first.

tadashi is his best friend and he isnt really that good at volleyball at first, but he has a passion for the game and he wants to be good enough to play.

as the story goes on tadashi keeps training but kei is slacking, and after tadashi sees that he knockes some sense into tsuki. (it’s genuinely my fav scene in the whole show and i cry every time i watch it! thats my boy!!!)

tadashi becomes one of the teams pinch servers, which means he gets subbed in just to serve, his goal is to win points before the opposing team can even touch the ball. his signature move is the jump float serve and its where the ball looks like a normal serve but it floats in the air and falls right over the net so it catches the other team off guard.

kei stays as a pro middle blocker. she has the height but she also learns how to block all kinds of different hits. she is good at blocking them all not only thanks to his height but also thanks to their quick reflexes and ability to predict the other teams moves. she has an incredible eye for strategy and is the teams brains.

i also ship with the entire team platonically, although im very partial to the first years. two more members of the team, and the newest manager for the team.

hinata and kageyama are the two team members: they are the teams secret weapons. kageyama is an incredibly talented setter, which means its his job to get the ball to the hitters. he can pinpoint set so the ball goes directly into the hitters hand. he so so talented and hes also a little grumpy sometimes. hes one of my bestie. hinata is a middle blocker, he is very short which normally isnt ideal for a middle blocker, but he is the greatest decoy! he is quick and can jump extremely high. matching even stuki’s height with his jump. its hard for opposing teams to keep track of him when hes darting around the court. and he puts his all into every hit, even when the ball isnt coming to him, hence the decoy part. he is a good friend of mine and i adore him so much. we race each other sometimes (he usually wins)

yachi is the newest addition to the team and she is the new manager. yachi is so sweet and kind, and although she doesnt know much about volleyball she is ready to give it her all. she is the glue that holds the first years together, without her im not sure theyd get along. she is genuinely my best friend ever, we are wlw x mlm solidarity <3

this got so long but know i adore the whole team even if i cant talk about every member individually. the third and second years are like mentors and big siblings to me. i look up to them very much. and im not even a member of the team lmao.

its such a cool show though and i highly recommend watching it or reading the manga if you’re interested!

[emeritus-fuckers]

For the match-up event:

Your identity

I am a nonbinary (possibly bigender?) bisexual. My pronouns are she/her and he/him, though I prefer she/her pronouns. I identify more with the female experience, as that’s how I was raised. I think gender norms are stupid, so I embraced the gender spectrum with open arms!

Who do you like? (pick from Ghouls, Humans, Papas, Repugnant, or everyone)

I like Ghouls, Humans, and the Papas. If I had to choose from the three, I’d choose the Papas.

What do you look like?

At just five feet tall I’m a bit short, and I’m also chunky, I’d say pear-shaped. My hair is a little past my ears, and I recently dyed it black so I could dress as Terzo for Halloween. My taste in style is a bit eclectic, but 90% of my wardrobe is casual. I would love to add more gothic or pastel attire to my wardrobe.

Your personality? 

I’d say I am a pretty chill person, but I think part of that is because I’m used to constant internal panic. I have also been described as very kind, giving, considerate, outgoing, and chatty. While I like being nice, I don’t like being used, so I have firm boundaries. Whenever someone tries pushing my boundaries, I get frustrated and stern, but if they keep pushing I get pissed. Sometimes I have a short fuse and lose my cool, but I always feel like shit after.

Your interests? (What do you do in your free time? What are your hobbies? Your passions? Your music taste?)

In my free time I like to hang out with my friends, play video games, and listen to music. My favorite music genres are heavy metal, hard rock, and alternative. My favorite game is Dead by Daylight, but I also like playing Destiny 2, Rocket League, and Stardew Valley. Some of my hobbies are watching movies, reading fanfics, and learning about new things. I am passionate about film and psychology, and I hope to use both of them by one day working in the film industry.

Trivia time! (Here you can include everything that didn't fit in the previous category!)

I like to explore new places and try new things, even if it may seem a bit strange at first. I think it’s good to get out of your comfort zone every once in a while! I especially love exploring the natural world, and learning more about what exists around us. On a completely different note, I love haunted houses! The set design is so cool to me, and I’d love to work at one.

This post is part of the 1000 followers match up event. Entries for the event are now closed.

Your match is…Papa Emeritus IV

Copia is happy to travel and explore places with you. While you two are on tour, when he gets any free time, you sneek off to explore.

He is surprisingly chilled in a haunted house (you went to go see one while on tour), he did grow up in the Ministry after all. He is more surprised and shocked at how the other people in the tour group react to rats. He cannot understand why they all scream and run. He goes over and picks the rat up and starts saying how adorable he is. He adopts this rat and calls it Casper.

He loves films!!! Absolutly loves them so he is so happy to have someone who shares his passion. You set aside one evening a week (more if you can) to watch a film. You get popcorn, snuggle together under a duvet and watch the film. Copia will put his arm around your shoulders and hold you close to him.

He will do anything he can to support your career in the film industry.

Copia would never use you, not ever. He admires how you have firm boundaries, he is learning to have them as other people have tried to take advantage of his good nature. As Papa it's been easier for him and you can help him and give him advice.

However when it comes to you, if anyone upsets you/tries to use you, Copia is immediatly there to support you, no longer the shy Cardinal but full on Papa.

You also love to play video games together. "It's like you were made for me sì?" Copia says beaming at you while holding out the controller to you. "I am very lucky to have you amore."

~

Written by Nyx

[passerine-writes]

Silent Sparks - Volt 31

Warnings: Medical stuff and mentions of drug use Word count: 2712

Notes: Italics - Tsukare signing Bold italics - Family member/friend signing 'Italics with apostrophes' - Thoughts

Masterlist

Volt 30 | Volt 32

"I will have to ask that only the father comes into my office, per HIPAA regulations." We all glared at the doctor, unamused at her insinuation.

"We're married and he's our kid, so we'll both be in there, lady." The doctor stared at us in shock and slowly nodded, opening the door for all of us to go in and sit.

"Very well. Allow me to introduce myself, I'm Doctor Kurotani, I'm the one who performed your surgery yesterday." I nodded in acknowledgement, just wanting to be done with this hospital stay as soon as possible. "Yesterday, we had to performed emergency surgery upon your arrival. The throwing knife in your side punctured your stomach, it's a good thing you kept it in there or else you likely would have bled out. You also have some minor punctures and lacerations across your lower stomach and back from the Nomu picking you up. In total, we've given you over fifty stitches and have you on a slow drip of pain killers in your IV." I nodded, slowly absorbing the information. "I do have some questions for you, but do you have any questions for me first?" I picked at my fingertips nervously, not enjoying how close she was watching me.

How long am I on bed rest for?

"I'll leave that to Recovery Girl, I understand you are quite close with her so once you get home and see her I'll let her decide on that." I let out a breath and nodded, grateful that it wouldn't be a long time.

What pain killer do you have me on?

Her eyebrows furled together in curiosity.

"We've placed you on a slow drip of dilaudid." My parents and I sprung up at the news, Pops having to stop me from scrambling to get the IV out of my arm.

"We were told he was placed on high strength ibuprofen." I saw Dad say as he glowered at the doctor.

"Originally he was, yes. However after surgery, we saw that his body was still in distress, so we switched him to something stronger. I know there is some stigma with opioids, but I can assure you it's being safely administered and monitored." Dad used his quirk on Pops as he started yelling.

"You haven't even read his damn chart! He was born addicted to opioids! We've purposely never given him anything stronger than NSAID's or Acetaminophen!" The doctor paled at this and quickly rushed around to stop the IV.

"I am so sorry, I'll switch him back over to Naproxen immediately. Sometimes details get lost when files are switched from hospitals. Again, I am so sorry." I felt two seconds away from ripping the needle out of my arm.

Is there any special treatment or recovery plan after this? She raised an eyebrow, clearly not expecting a child to ask her that.

"Yes but it's fairly simple, it mostly comes down to you eating... and now, withdrawal. Until Recovery Girl gives you the go ahead, I would like for you to only be eating soft foods and liquids." I sighed and slumped a bit. I hated liquid diets. "Anything else?" I shook my head, moving to prop my head up on my fist with the arm that didn't have the IV in it. "Alright then, as I mentioned, I do have a few questions for you as well. I noticed that you have quite the array of scars on your body, are any-"

You already know from reading my file, please don't even start with those questions. I've been asked them too many times. You know what the latest ones are from, you know what the ones on my arms are from and you know what the rest are from. All of the information is accurate, so please don't ask. I'm not trying to come off as rude, but you should be able to understand why I'm tired of receiving those questions.

Dad interpreted for me the entire time, my parents looking at me sympathetically. The doctor however, was looking at me appalled.

"Very well, uh Mr. Aizawa and Mr. Yamada, is it? I would like to set up and appointment with our-"

"Not happening." Dad cut her off this time. "I don't care if you advise that we do, you can give us an AMA to sign if you'd like. He is not speaking to your psychiatrist or going there." She sighed again and shook her head, still in disbelief.

"Alright. Anything else today?" I nodded my head and she bit back a sigh, gesturing for me to speak.

When can I go home? And do you know why my hearing has been getting worse?

What do you mean it's been getting worse? Pops asked me, Dad telling Doctor Kurotani to wait a moment before turning back to me.

I thought it was just a temporary thing after the car crash so I didn't even really notice it. But when we were talking to Tsuragamae it sounded kinda faded. Even now.

"Doctor, we'd like to have a consultation with your audiologist. His hearing is getting worse." She nodded quickly at Pops' rushed words and grabbed the phone. Few words were exchanged before she hung up and a few minutes later, a man who looked to be in his mid thirties walked through the door.

"Hi, it's a pleasure to meet you all, I'm the audiologist on call. I'm Doctor Rikuta, would you like to come to my office?" His words sounded distant, my ability to read lips saving my ass. All I could do was stare in shock.

'I saved his son three days ago.'

Dad pushed my wheelchair this time, Pops slowly becoming more nervous. I didn't fault him for his concerns, he's had the same scare himself.

We entered an office with a few small pieces of equipment and plenty of decoration. It was a lot warmed than Doctor Kurotani's office, comfortable and welcoming.

"I hope you three don't mind the abrupt change of scenery. What's seems to be the issue today?" The doctor quieted for a moment, looking at my file before looking back at me. "Tsukare, also known as Sonus?" I slowly nodded, not expecting him to put it together so quick. "You.. you saved my son several days ago." He stood up and bowed, my parents and I watching in disbelief. "Thank you." I nodded once, still in shock at how small of a world it is. "Back to the matter at hand, when did this start?"

Can one of you interpret for me again? My throat is still sore. Dad nodded, briefly explaining to Doctor Rikuta before gesturing for me to explain. It started after the crash, the explosion knocked out my hearing and it's just been dull, like putting pillows over your ears. I didn't think much of it because it was a loud explosion, temporary noise induced hearing loss and tinnitus is normal. But it started getting worse today, I can't hear as much. If I don't really focus, then it's like having the TV on low, you can tell it's on but it's background noise. The main thing helping me is reading lips and sign language.

Doctor Rikuta stood up abruptly and asked us to follow him, we went down one door to what looked to be an examination room. Plenty of equipment sat strewn around inside the four walls.

"Okay, we're going to do a basic hearing test like you would get in elementary school. Raise your left hand if you hear the beep on the left and your right if you hear it on the right." I nodded and put the headphones on, taking a deep breath to ready myself for the results.

About a minute and a half in, I finally heard a low pitched beep on my right side. Almost a minute after I heard it on my left. After those two, I could consistently hear tiny, distant pitches of noise but I couldn't tell which side they were on, so I raised both hands.

After five minutes, Pops reached over and took the headphones off of me. A solemn look on everyone's faces.

Not good, huh?

My parents shook their heads and I looked back to the doctor.

"Okay, just a few more things to find the cause. Is it alright if I look in your ears really quick?" I nodded and held onto Pops hand, trying to settle my nerves about someone being in my blind spot but knowing my parents were here relaxed me some. He slowly guided his otoscope into my ear, the speculum feeling weird and making me scrunch my eyes.

After a minute of him closely looking, he went to my left ear before coming back around to the front of us.

What's the verdict? Not good?

Doctor Rikuta solemnly chuckled and looked at me.

"Tsukare, this isn't going to be easy to digest. Mr. Aizawa, Mr. Yamada, it won't be easy for either of you as well. Tsukare, you have noise induced hearing loss, but it is not temporary. You have scarring on your eardrum and permanent damage to your cochlea. Right now, my estimate is you have about forty percent of your hearing remaining. I worry that if you are exposed to even one or two more grand scale, close proximity explosions, you'll become completely deaf." I took a deep breath and slowly nodded. "The most common and effective option is hearing aids if you and your parents are open for that option. I'll give you a few minutes to discuss what you would like to do." He stood and bowed before walking out the door. I sat there in shock for a minute, the reality of it still setting it.

Little listener, what do you want to do?

I don't know. I knew I would gradually lose my hearing because of my quirk but now it happened a lot faster then I was prepared for.

You don't have to decide right now, Onryo. If you'd like, you can take a few days and we can meet with someone back at home if you decide to chose hearing aids.

I nodded at my Dads suggestion, agreeing with him on it. I knew I would go with them in the long run but right now everything was too much.

After letting Doctor Rikuta know that we decided to wait, my parents wheeled me back to my room, Todoroki, Midoriya and Iida all laughing about something.

"Welcome back, Tsukare. Mr. Aizawa, Present Mic, hello." Iida greeted us and I sent him a weak smile.

Onryo, Pops and I are going to go back to the hotel for the night. We'll call your brother and fill him in on what happened, he's staying with Nemuri currently. Just so you know, Iida and Todoroki know about Sunshine being your other father. It's okay, we decided they could be trusted with it.

Okay, I love you both. I'll call you later to say goodnight.

We love you too.

My parents soon left and I got as comfortable as I could under the blankets.

"Is everything okay, Tsukare?" Midoriya asked me and I nodded, chugging some of my water to help sooth my throat.

"I got my test results after meeting with the audiologist." Midoriya's eyebrows shot up and he looked worried. "After the car incident a few days ago and what I'm assuming as other outside factors like the nature of my quirk, I've lost about sixty percent of my hearing." The room fell silent but I couldn't tell if that was just me or not until I didn't see any lips moving. "Best option is hearing aids. I might get fitted for them when we get back home."

"I'm sorry to hear that Tsukare." I waved him off and settled back into my pillows some more.

"Don't apologize, it was bound to happen. I just wasn't expecting it to be so soon." I felt Midoriya's eyes on me and I turned to him.

It's okay, really.

Still, I'm worried about you. You've been worried about this for a while.

Midoriya, I'm alright. It was bound to happen.

I gave him a small smile and looked back to see Todoroki talking.

"Sorry, what'd you say?" He blinked once before the realization dawned on him.

"I'm sorry, it's quite an adjustment already. I was telling you that your hospital phone has been ringing for a moment now." I couldn't stifle my laughter at the irony of getting a phone call.

"Iida, would you mind answering it for me?" I paused for a moment before laughing even harder. "I'm so sorry, I forgot about your arms." I laughed even harder, clenching my stomach in pain. "'Roki?" He nodded and walked over to my bed, answering the phone.

"Hello, this is Todoroki, you've reached Tsukare's phone." His eyebrows cinched together before he looked at me. "You have a visitor, her name is Tsukare Shiroka." I frantically shook my head and he nodded once. "Tsukare isn't accepting visitors at the moment." He nodded once more and hung up the phone. "Are you alright?" I nodded and took a deep breath.

Midoriya? Can you call my dad and tell him Shiroka's trying to come up here?

He mumbled something I couldn't catch and took my phone that I outstretched to him. He stepped out into the hall and Todoroki offered me a glass of water which I gratefully accepted. I looked up fearfully when Midoriya came back in and handed me my phone.

Your dads are on their way, do you need anything?

Can you get a doctor in here for my meds? I'm a few hours late to taking them and my drip has to get switched.

He nodded and left to grab a nurse, a small nurse who reminded me of his mother trailing behind him and into the room.

"-ukare, what seems to be the issue?" I scratched my neck as I contemplated on telling her I need her to fully look at me but thankfully Todoroki beat me to the punch.

"Miss, you have to look in his direction when you talk so he can read your lips." She paused for a moment but nodded and turned to fully face me, repeating her question.

"I was supposed to take my medication a few hours ago but I haven't yet. I was wondering if I could get them now. And if my drip could get changed out to Naproxen like the doctor ordered." She pulled out my chart and looked through the pages.

"Would you mind telling me what you're on so I can check with the chart?" I sighed and nodded, rattling off my cocktail of prescriptions. Her eyes widened in shock again but she nodded and told me she would be back with them soon, which thankfully she was. I swallowed all the colorful tablets in one go, trying to ignore the twisting and turning in my stomach from the lack of food but I ignored it. "I'll be right back for your IV dear, I'm getting paged to the front desk for you." I nodded and fiddled with my fingers anxiously. I hated this feeling of helplessness. It felt suffocating.

A cold hand gently touched my forearm and I looked up at Todoroki.

"Are you alright, Tsukare?" I nodded once and bit back any tears.

"Yeah, I'm okay." He gave me a look of disbelief but didn't push for answers.

The nurse came back in shortly after and started opening the wheelchair again.

"Tsukare, your parents are signing you out early to receive care back at home. We've already given them your belongings. Are you ready to go home?" I nodded and said my goodbyes to my friends, content with going home and being with my family. Todoroki helped me into the chair and the nurse wheeled me down the hall to my parents who stood anxiously at the desk. Thankfully, Shiroka was nowhere in sight and my parents were ready to hightail it out of here.

Let's go home, little listener.

[semthegem]

nothing feels better than laying in bed after a shower after you’ve done your skin care your body care your hair & in your pajamas rubbing your feet together like a crickettttt NOTHING

i got a book i like i made a list for new reads & i’m excited i found a christian author that i just know i’ll enjoy :) i think reading is so nice because you literally escape & get lost in the literature it’s sometimes an out of body experience depending on what it is your reading maybe i’ll get into fiction some day (besides poems) i also got a workbook by somebody i like & maybe i’ll start it tomorrow if i finish what i’m reading but i take a day or 2 off & i still have like 90 pages i think maybe

so i be going on this app sometimes @ night when i can’t sleep & ive told everyone i was going to sleep & i hear discussions- why is everyone so caught up on race/nationality my goodness i never thought ppl were actually that simple minded; i usually date minority men like myself because it’s what i’m attracted to however if i found a man that wasn’t hispanic/black i wouldn’t be against it or think ima have to explain my culture to him i’ve dated opposite cultures/religions & as long as it’s respect there it is totally ok i wouldn’t think my bloodline is going to be weak or sacrificed or anything of that nature LOL plus as your connection grows so does the knowledge of your person you should know your person inside & out i don’t think ppls souls have a race but idk i could be wrong i just am grateful i am not that simple minded plus when it’s adversity is often when i bond with ppl i like to see their reactions to different topics see how they act when someone doesn’t agree that’s where i see if i could build with someone i don’t ever want to be with a arrogant man againnnnnn such wasted energy - i won’t date a man that doesn’t believe in Jesus again tho i want going to church to be a thing i be seeing the families in my church & it’s beautiful i want that for me i didn’t grow up in church besides special occasions & i want my kids to actually know God every early on & create their own connection with the Lord watching little kids pray is the cutestttttt 😭 it’s so pure they always just give thanks they may ask for like a toy or to go to a place but mostly it’s them being thankful

i still haven’t went try to start a fire

i always be telling myself what more i want to get done & what more i want to grow in certain aspects & i don’t ever give credit for how far i’ve come i started being grateful for my progress thus far & it’s made such a difference in how i treat others i’m less blunt (i still speak my mind but it’s kinder) you truly have to have patience with yourself & others always setting & achieving goals is great & you should want to be productive but don’t be so consumed with the next task you forget the one you’ve just completed plus being busy was never my goal idk how i started getting into that but i’m glad i’ve slowed down my break was very much needed & appreciated

also the world is ending idc what anyone says everyone calls me crazy or weird anyway but like i will witness it if not me my kids or their kids that’s how soon it will be just wait & see!

imagine the ppl that have been floating around waiting to go to their final destination i bet even they are more excited than me

i just pray none of my loved ones are drunk or high when the time comes. i wish ppl would just get serious about their spirituality already we too grown to be playing around still i know i had a ball already in that lifestyle it’s no need to keep doing the same stuff over & over i want more for the ppl i love & for ppl in general or at least keep it to like rare occasions or celebrations vices turned to habits that ppl don’t break are detrimental to your personal growth how haven’t ppl caught on? it doesn’t seem like rocket science different behavior will bring different results DUH

happy fridayyyyyy xoxo

ps am i champ for only having my ends blonde now? i’m going to get my roots done so if i am i won’t be much longer lolllllll

[spicy-tomato]

Can i pls req dream being reader's sugar daddy :O - 🌼

sorry this took a hot sec ive been working on this one for a while cause i really liked the idea, so here you go :)) it ended up being like 2k words so im sorry

You had it all, anything you could want and more. Wanted to go to rome? Done, your plane leaves tomorrow. Dream absolutely spoiled you and you couldnt be more happy about it. It started off as a thing to help you with rent, but the longer you did it the more you enjoyed being able to get what you wanted when you wanted. Today was your weekly lunch with dream, you had both agreed that at least once a week he would take time off to get lunch with you, it made you smile to see him take time for you. As the tease you were, you decided to wear something a little revealing to tease him since he had cancelled your shopping trip with him the day before. You put on a low cut crop top and some shorts that show a little too much before fixing your hair. You hear you phone ding, getting a text from dream,

Daddy dream <3

Hey baby, i'm out front whenever youre ready to go

You smile and put your phone in your pocket before walking out to his car and getting in. you kiss his cheek quickly “hi daddy” you giggle and smile at him

“Hi sweetheart” he looks you up and down before smirking “like the outfit, all for me?” you giggle and nod before he starts to drive to the restaurant, one hand on your thigh. “Do you know what you want? You know the rule, anything you want no matter the price. And after that we can go shopping to make up for my cancelling yesterday.” you smile at him

“I know, and we dont have to dream, we can just hang out. Its been a while since we did that. Maybe we can go somewhere for you to make it up to me instead” he smiles and squeezes your thigh as he pulls into the parking lot of the restaurant.

“Anywhere you want baby, only the best for you.” you look down and blush, moving over to lean your head on his shoulder as he moves a hand to pet your hair. “Ill take you anywhere anytime and get you anything you want.” you cant lie, at times you had thought about being more than just his sugar baby, having a real romantic relationship, but he was always so busy that it made it seem almost impossible. Sure he took time out to be with you but it was never a lot unless you were traveling. He didnt tell you a lot about his job either, just knew that he had a large following and that he didnt want anything serious and put his partner in a bad situation, but damn if you havent thought about him coming home to you and calling you his.

“Baby? You okay? You zoned out.” he waves a hand in front of your face and you blink back to reality.

“Yeah, sorry i just got a little distracted. Lets go get some food!” you pull away from him and he gets out, walking around to open your door for you and holds a hand out to help you. “Thank you” you smile and take his hand as you step out, he closes the door behind you and puts an arm around your waist, pulling you into his side as you both walk up to get a table. You get seated immediately and he pulls your chair out for you. “Is there a single flaw with you?” you ask genuinely, he just laughs and shakes his head.

“Theres a bunch you dont know about me, sweetheart.” you roll your eyes as the waitress comes back with your mimosa and his water, asking for your orders. He orders for you and him before she walks off to put them in. He always knows what you want and orders it for you. It makes you smile that he likes to take care of you. You shake that thought away and go back to mindlessly talking with him, waiting on the food. It comes shortly and you both start to eat. “Where do you want to go? Japan? Italy? Oh we havent been to paris in a while, maybe there.”

“I think paris would be great, its always so pretty this time of year, maybe we can have dinner on the eiffel tower again!” your eyes light up at the thought of going back to paris. Last time you went was last spring, you both walked around and had the most wonderful time people watching and shopping. You take another bite and he looks like hes about to say something before he stops himself and looks down. “What is it? Is something wrong?” you look at him concerned, scared you messed something up.

“Its nothing darling, dont worry.” you both finish up lunch and he pays before helping you up and leading you back to the car. “I have something id like to ask you when we get to paris if thats okay, its nothing bad i promise its just something ive been meaning to ask for a while is all.” you nod as he opens the door for you and helps you in. “now, a pretty girl like you needs pretty new clothes for the trip, lets go get you some.” he smiles at you as he gets in, resting a hand back on your thigh as he starts the car, leading you both to the mall.

You spend hours in there going to different stores and trying things on, him getting you whatever you wanted without any hesitation. You walk back to the car with armfulls of bags and a couple new suitcases. “Thank you so much daddy, youre the best.” you kiss his cheek and he turns a little red.

“Its no problem baby, why dont you stay over tonight and we can leave in the morning to head to the airport. I can help you pack and we can watch a movie.” you smiles and nod, putting your bags in the back of the car and your new suitcases in the trunk.

“Id like that…” you think for a second about how nice it would be to wake up next to him every day and how nice it is to fall asleep next to him when it happens, even if when you did wake up after he wasnt next to you. The cold bed always made you remember that you would never be more than this, not that this was bad in the least its just sometimes you wish you could be more. He drives you both back to his apartment building and helps you out, grabbing most of your bags, only leaving you to grab the suitcases as you enter the building. He lived on the top floor in the penthouse, expected for how much money he had. You set your stuff down in his room, your new clothes already laid out nicely thanks to him. He walks up behind you and hugs you from behind.

“Youll look so good in all of those baby, gonna be the prettiest one in paris.” he kisses your neck softly before pulling away and taking your hand, leading you to sit on the part of the bed not covered by clothes. “Let me go run you a bath and you can pick out a movie.” you nod and he walks to the bathroom, leaving you alone on the bed. You turn on the tv and start scrolling through netflix looking for a movie, finally deciding as he walks back in and picks you up. You giggle and wrap your arms around his neck, moving your head to rest on his chest as he carries you to the bathroom. He sets you on the counter and takes your shirt off carefully, leaving kisses down your neck and chest and he moves down to take your shorts off. You lift yourself gently to help him take your shorts off. He takes them off quickly before nipping and kissing your inner thighs, ghosting over your core. You whine and try to move closer to him before he presses your hips down into the counter.

“Stay still baby, dont wanna have to punish you. Daddy just wants his desert.” you nod quickly and stay still, his head diving to softly kiss your clit, causing you to whine. He chuckles and starts to slowly eat you out, almost at a teasing pace. You whine and grip the counter, trying to keep from pulling his hair. He pulls away and smiles, “good girl, being so good and not pulling my hair. Just letting daddy eat you up.” after he says that his hands move down to your thighs open as he starts to eat you out like a man starved. You let out a loud moan and throw your head back, your hands moving to his hair and tugging closer. At this point he didnt care about you pulling his hair, to blissed out by hearing your sweet moans and tasting you. Your cries became louder as he dragged you closer to the edge. as you were almost there he stopped, causing a loud whine from you as he moves up to face you. He looked like heaven like this, face covered in your slick with eyes dark from lust.

“Now my good little girl, i want you to get off the counter and bend over for daddy.” you quickly move off the counter and do as your told. “Such a perfect little girl, i want you to watch as i make you feel good, got it? You look away and i stop,” he chuckles and grabs your neck after you nod. His hand moves from your neck to your hair to hold you in place, making eye contact with him through the mirror.

“Such a precious little pet for me, arent you?” you whine as he lines up with your entrance, teasing you, causing you to press your hips back against him. He smacks your ass roughly and pulls you against his chest by your hair. “Thats not very nice bun, its almost like you want me to leave you all worked up.’’ he smirks at you before pulling you roughly back against him, ripping a scream from your throat. He sets a brutal pace, leaving no time for you to adjust to him. He keeps the pace, your legs starting to shake as he brings you back to the edge of your orgasm before quickly throwing you over it. You let out a cry of his name, trails of tears starting to run from your eyes as he keeps going.

“Pretty little bunny, always so good and tight for me. Gonna breed you so good. Fuck you until i know it takes.” he tugs your hair roughly and starts to bite and suck at your neck, leaving marks in his wake. You whine and cry, moving your hands to tug at his hair. “So close princess, gonna fill you up so good.” he moves a hand to your clit to punctuate his statement, causing a louder cry to come from you as you tip over the edge once again. His hips start to stutter as he fills you up, riding out his high with shallow thrusts letting out a few more quiet moans before pulling out of you carefully. You whine and tug at his hair as he does so. He picks you up carefully as he pulls away.

“i figured we could take a bath and then cuddle before we pack and figure out what time we should leave for the airport.” you nod and he carries you carefully over to the tub, setting you down carefully in it before getting and sitting behind you. He starts to wash your hair as you slowly drift off to sleep. You wake up briefly as he lifts you from the tub and carries you to the bed. He moves the blankets back and sets you down gently before crawling in next to you , pulling the blankets back over you.

“Be my partner,” he says as you turn towards him

“Only if we can still go to paris” you giggle and he nods, kissing the top of your head before you both drift off.

[ventiskies]

when he accidentally injures you | Xiao, Albedo, Bennett

a/n: hello anon!! im doing well, thank you!! hope you are too !! thank you for giving me the chance to add characters HHHH ive been DYING to write for Xiao, Albedo and Benny so i took the opportunity to! hope you like it !! also,,, this is probably my longest post !! i loved writing this <3

pairing: Xiao x gn! reader, Albedo x gn! reader Bennett x gn! reader

warnings: vague mentions of injury and blood

Xiao

★Xiao and you had been on a stroll, something you casually did together whenever Xiao was in a good mood. the adeptus wasn’t one to get out of the confines of Wangshuu Inn, so every time he does, you cherish it and spend it as if it was your last

★but this particular stroll didn’t go as planned, at all

★the two of you had left Wangshuu Inn in the morning, when the weather had seemed as if it would be sunny the whole morning, but it had betrayed you the moment you had set foot in Minlin, the skies had loomed with darkness and occasional rumbles of thunder

★Xiao could have easily teleported the two of you together, but a sudden attack with a ruin hunter had caused him to get distracted

★he could easily defeat the creation with a simple use of his elemental burst, but you were in the vicinity and he didn’t want you getting injured, despite the chances of hitting you were low, he wasn’t going to take the chance

★he had strictly told you to stay back and out of sight, making use of the terrain to jump and strike at the core with his polearm whenever the hunter was aiming to him, but he should have known you were stubborn

★the moment you had ran into the fight, arrow pointing to the ruin hunter, the said war machine had immediately turned towards you, all four of its arms aiming missiles towards you

★Xiao had been too slow, and when he had realized it was aiming towards you, you had already been sent back flying after the hit

★your name fell on his lips, his eyes widening in anger when he had seen what the creature had done, and without any hesitance Xiao summons his elemental burst and sends the creature falling to pieces

★“y/n,” Xiao mutters, worried that he would be met with the sight of you dead, “y/n, where are you?”

★you gave a weak groan, unable to raise your head after hitting it on the sharp rocks. Xiao made his way towards you, and the rain started pouting

★Xiao knelt down and cradled your head gently, seeing the gash on your head. you were most likely suffering from a concussion as well from the way you were unable to look at him in the eye, and your hands grabbing your forehead as if it had exploded

★his eyes showing evident worry, and this was the first time he had felt so scared

★he knew he was powerful, and he was beginning to regret even taking you out of the safety of the Inn. this shouldn't have happened, he was with you because he wanted to protect you,

★and here he was being the cause of your injury

★“y/n, can you hear me?” he asked, and when you hissed the moment he placed a gentle hand on your head, he curses lightly, unable to keep himself calm as he always had anymore, “hold on,”

★Xiao had lived for years and had suffered watching deaths and injuries of the people he had been close with since he had became the adeptus of Liyue, but for once, he had felt a different type of hurt when you had been injured this time

★because this was his fault; what if it had happened again?

★he had teleported the two of you back to Wangshuu Inn, and had asked Verr Goldet to help you just because he was afraid of hurting you further

★and she knew more than to question what happened, especially after Xiao had told her with the weakest voice she has ever heard him use, and pleading eyes to take care of you.

★when you had healed completely, you noticed Xiao had distanced himself from you more than when you had both met the first time, and it had worried you to no end

★it had came to a point where he would disappear whenever you tried to search for him at the balcony, and you were getting upset that he was running away from you because of the accident that was caused by your stubbornness; and the fact that you knew Xiao blamed himself had only made you more guilty

★”Xiao,” you gently said, walking outside with a bowl of his favorite almond tofu, “I miss you,”

★he had to contain himself to avoid disappearing on you again after he heard the words. Xiao wasn’t much of an emotional person, but the memories from the accident had left him afraid of getting close to you again, in fear that he would hurt you once more

★but when he had met your glossy eyes and saw the pained expression you held, he knew that it was only going to be worse is he had avoided you

★”y/n-” Xiao started, but you had only dropped the almond tofu and ran into his arms, hugging him tight as if you were afraid to let him go

★and (with reluctance), Xiao had hugged you back, twice as hard

★it would take time for him to get back to his usual self and trust himself to go out and adventure with you again, but for him, you would wait your lifetime.

Albedo

★An experiment going wrong was a part of alchemy. It was something Albedo would expect to happen fifty percent of the time he conducts something for the first time

★He has gotten a handful of injuries from it that he had sometimes forgotten that people outside of the realm of alchemy wouldn't know what it would be like to expect a burn or scars after the first test

★So of course, sometimes even the smartest people could be careless

★Albedo had brought you to his lab in Dragonspine, claiming that he had found a rare plant and wanted to see if it was able to withstand heat

★Putting it in a flask, he had placed it on a test tube holder and your curious eyes had caught sight of the glowing pink tube

★“What’s this?” you stepped closer to inspect the glowing flask, and Albedo wordlessly looks at you with a fond smile. your curious gaze at his work had always made him feel happy; you truly were endearing

★Albedo turns on the burner, and the moment the fire had hit the flask, the substance had instantly exploded, causing you to recoil back and grab at your face when the substance had burned your face

★instantly, Albedo had abandoned his failed test and attended to you, trying to pry your hands away from your face

★“My love, I’m so sorry,” he says gently, trying to see the damage that the explosion has gave you, “please look at me,”

★you felt tears well in your eyes, the burns on your cheeks combining with the coldness of the snow stinging your face

★when Albedo had successfully pried your hands away , he grabbed them gently and looked at you, “we- we need to see the deaconess,” he mutters to himself, feeling his heart ache seeing you holding back tears, never in his life had he regretted conducting an experiment so badly;

★he had wished he was able to take the pain away from you, he absolutely despised seeing you so hurt

★after you had healed, Albedo would make a rule that you weren’t ever allowed in the premises of his laboratory ever again, and that you were banned from joining him whenever he was conducting experiments

★it had hurt you when Albedo had adamantly decided on it, but you knew that it would only hurt him more if you tried to fight him about it

★he was still blaming himself for the incident; despite him knowing that errors were completely common in alchemy

★his greatest fear was hurting you, and if he was given a choice, he would rather have you far away as possible from anything that could lead to potential harm

★(and that especially meant that when the time comes and he loses control and destroys Mond, he hopes you would be far away from him as possible, too)

Bennett

★Bennett knew he was bad luck, he knew that was mostly the reason there wasn't anyone on his team. no one wanted to get hurt and gain nothing on an adventure. no one wanted to bring a bunch of medical supplies for when an accident that was bound to happen, happens

★no one but you

★you were the only member in Bennett’s team; you were a duo. you didn’t wield a vision, but that didn't make Bennett think of you any less, in fact, he thought you were the bravest person ever for being just a feet away from him outside of Mond, and now you were a team member of his

★injuries were common for you. there would always be some sort of scratch or bleeding whenever you went out on an adventure with the pyro vision holder. if there wasn’t a monster encounter, the two of you would accidentally trip and fall into a lake

★but when the latter happens, Bennett would have a fire for the two of you, and settle in an empty (at least, you hope was) hilichurl camp nearby to warm up in

★it was the norm now, and despite Bennett wanting you to just choose another team because he couldn't handle seeing you in pain from his luck, you had always reassured him that the unexpected turns of events because of his luck was just what you had loved about adventure, and you always trusted him to take care of you whenever something like that happened

★but of course, it was only a matter of time until it was Bennett himself who had hurt you

★you were both fighting a cryo abyss mage, the bastard’s protective shield already broken by Bennett’s elemental skill, causing the creature to start crawling on the ground pathetically

★you were sure its health had already decreased a significant amount that one slice could kill it off instantly, and you had wanted to give the final blow

★but Benny seemed to have a different idea

★the moment Bennett had saw you coming, it had been too late for him to stop, because the same moment you had ran towards the abyss mage, he had raised his sword and sliced the creature hard to the point that his sword had accidentally sliced your stomach as well

★thankfully, your clothes were thick enough that the cut hadn’t been deep enough to get stitches, but it still hurt so badly that you had fallen to the floor, clutching your stomach

★“y/n, what happened?!” he asked, too worried to remember that it had been him who did it, “are you okay?!- wait, no, that was a stupid question, let me see,”

★Bennett was an excellent team leader, but sometimes, he could be a little oblivious

★he gently lays you on his lap, taking out supplies from his belt. he had saw a glimpse of red, so he takes out towels to wipe the blood

★he had gently asked if he could lift your shirt, and when you had weakly nodded, he assessed the damage

★and that was when he had saw the burns by your cut

★burns. the abyss mage was a cryo one, and there wasn't any source of fire where you were but him

★Bennett felt his breath hitch, hands holding the towel clenching in fear. what had he done?

★“no, no, no,” he says in slight panic; this was exactly what he was afraid would happen, “no, no, y/n I’m so sorry. I was supposed to protect you,” his voice broke, gently pressing the towel on your wound to soak up the blood, and when he heard you hiss in pain, he felt tears well in his eyes, “I’m so sorry...”

★he knew the cut wasn’t deep, and you were going to be okay, but the mere thought that the fact you couldn't move and were in pain was because of his doing had caused Bennett to be unable to focus

★you were taken to Barbara immediately, Bennett carrying you bridal style the whole way back (he had been silent, while you had tried to start a conversation with lighthearted banter with him, he had only given you a half hearted laugh before focusing on his journey back) and was healed with a simple swish of the deaconess’ hands

★but afterwards, Bennett had started to spend less time outside of Mondstadt, saying that he had preferred to read at the library with you, and that was extremely unlike of him

★you knew it was because he was blaming himself for what had happened, so you had to let him know that you were fine, and that you knew that it was bound to happen anyways

★It would take a lot of reassurance for Benny to agree to even step a foot outside again, but in the end, it would be worth it to see his adventurer spirit once more

[yesimwriting]

Would you write a Kaz Brekker request where the reader is a bookworm and a crow and basically Kaz asks the reader to read to him as his way of apologizing after a argument that was his fault?

 it ​​a/n i did something kinda similar in a 'promise of rain' blurb,, but this concept is so cute to me:)) love it sm i moved it up my request cue lol

also IM IN COLLEGE NOW!! WHAT?? AND IVE BEEN TO A PARTY! AND IM JOINING A SORORITY AND I DID DRAMA AUDITIONS AND AHH !! SO DIFFERENT! I MISS MY MOM AND SISTER AND DOG AND EVEN MY DAD BUT IM HAPPY HERE!! 

also im a little worried this might not portray kaz superrrrr accurately bc it's been awhile so just let me know,, feedback leads to improvement:)) also kinda set this up for a part 2 bc...well youll see 

--

They've always said a lot of things about him, and I've always heard them. But I've never quite believed them. Sure, I get why the dark things that have flourished in the poisoned soil that is Ketterdam consider Kaz Brekker the darkest thing of all. I understand the nickname 'Dirtyhands' for the gloved criminal who has fooled each crime boss at least once. I understand each terrible thing they've said about him.

But I've never agreed with them. I've never even considered agreeing with them. Until today.

The thought that maybe everything people say about him is correct in a simple context struck me worse than the silence after our argument. It made me feel like both a fool and hypocrite. Kaz and I have had our fair share of spats over the relatively short time we've known each other, but never like this. Never so badly he stormed out of the room before I could. I squeeze the book in my lap even harder, desperate to focus on the words on the pages.

You didn't hurt him. He walked away because he decided you weren't worth the cost of his expensive time. I repeat those thoughts in my mind over and over again, letting them bitter me further. It's a lot easier to be mad than hurt. A lot easier to fuel your pain than try to understand your mistakes. Besides, tiredness is already dredging around in my chest and if I don't calm down a little I won't be able to fall asleep.

I had escalated the fight more than I should have. Knowing Kaz is like performing in a tightrope act. One must always be aware of where they're going. Watching what's in front of them without ever thinking too much about what's beneath or behind them. Today though, when I needed my balance most I chose to fall. I chose to dive, and apparently there was no net.

"Oh, you're doing that thing."

I roll my eyes at Jesper's voice as I fight down a yawn. I wipe my face with the back of my palm before turning. The burning behind my eyes never resulted in full tears, but I feel better after doing so. "What thing?"

"That terribly noble thing where you find it in yourself to take full blame for every single conflict you and boss man fall into." The slight humor in his voice is enough for me to roll my eyes again. "Between you and me, I'm sure the reason he's so angry now is because you didn't do that for once."

I press my lips together as my chin angles itself upwards slightly. "I never do that." He raises an eyebrow. The slight sympathy that colors the look is more offensive than his accusation. "If I pick and choose my battles, it's for good reason."

"Clearly."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He shrugs once before further entering my room. I say nothing when he sits at the foot of my bed. "Oh, you know," Jesper stretches back casually, resting his back against the wall and extending his legs, "You and Kaz--Kaz and you."

Has he been drinking? Perhaps he's not here because of my unusual absence from downstairs after my fight with Kaz but because he's already too tipsy to think right. "What?"

At my confused look he grins, flashing all of his teeth with an arrogance that outshines the whiteness of them. He taps the still open book in my lap. "Let me put it in terms you'll understand." Jesper sits up a little further, amusement clear in his features. "You two make a shameful Elizabeth and Darcy--"

"Oh, shut up," I groan, glaring at him, "This isn't Pride and Prejudice. And Kaz and I," Jesper's smugness returns when I can't quite think of what I want to say, "We're barely friends--we're barely anything, let alone what you're implying."

Jesper pulls his legs up and shoves me gently. "Dearest, y/n," he ignores my glare, "You should know better than anyone that 'barely friends, barely anything' with Kaz is more than it is with anyone else?"

"That doesn't mea--"

"You two say goodnight to each other." Once. Kaz and I said good night to each other in front of Jesper once. How dare he assume it happens regularly? He's right, but that doesn't mean I'm okay with it. "You play cards with him. Not for money, not for skill--"

"It's for practice." The look Jesper gives me is enough to tell me that my defense didn't land.

Damn him for ever finding Kaz and I on one of those strange nights. One of those nights in which he lurks at the stairwell...the one that divides my room and his attic. One of those nights in which it feels like he's a phantom and I'm the only one that can really see him. A night in which we both silently find each other.

I couldn't quite believe it the first time it happened. I'm not exactly a Crow--I don't feel enough a connection to the Dregs to join them without some kind of guarantee--but I was needed for some obscure job. but I was needed for some obscure job. The Crows needed an insider who could blend into high society, and I needed a place to stay away from my father.

It worked. I worked. And with each passing day I found myself enjoying the Crows more and more. That's why I stayed. That's why I started checking the stairwell practically every night, a set of playing cards in my hand.

The first time had been awkward. I couldn't sleep and my room felt too quiet, but the rambunctious club felt too loud and a little unsafe considering the hour. So I settled for the only space in between. When Kaz found me sitting on the steps and playing a solitary card game I had been so stunned by embarrassment I just offered to deal him in. I had been more shocked when he silently accepted my offer.

"Practice?" Jesper repeats. "You were laughing, I heard you."

"That was one time--how do you know we didn't just happen to play cards together the one time you saw it?"

"Because you laughed about a play you considered 'predictable'."

Sighing, I sit up a little straighter. "I'm not having this conversation. Occasionally saying 'goodnight' to someone who lives in the same space I live in and sometimes playing cards with said person because we both happen to be up at a certain time doesn't mean anything."

"And the way he looked at the contact that was flirting with you?"

Oh...this conversation again. "For the last time, the contact wasn't flirting with me. We had to dance to blend in and when he leaned towards me to whisper in my ear...it was to tell me the intel Kaz just had to have."

"And when he tucked that strand of hair behind your ear?"

"He just wanted to sell our cove--"

"Y/n, he kissed your cheek and I'm fairly certain he would have kissed you if Kaz and I hadn't made it to the corridor at that second."

Why is everyone so obsessed with what would have never happened? The contact had been attractive, tall with fair eyes and hair. But it's not like I feel anything for him, nor would I have been so foolish during a job. A fact that Kaz refuses to believe. I'm tired of this argument...I'm just tired. This job required me to start getting ready early in the morning and lasted long into the night.

"I wouldn't have kissed him and even if I had, the fact that Kaz is so mad about feels...sexist." A stupid argument, considering that Kaz couldn't care less if the person he's working with is female, male, or anything in between because the only thing he cares about is profit. "It's a stupid thing to be mad about, but you hit on anything with a pulse at any time and--"

"I resent that--"

"For the first two weeks I was here I thought you might've been a prostitute."

I can feel him holding in a laugh. "Did you at least think I was a good prostitute?" When I glare again, he finally actually laughs. "Not the point--got it."

"Then what is the point? You're bored and obsessed with gossip so now you're shaking me for information you don't need."

"The point is you're oblivious." Rude...I move my leg in a weak attempt to push him off my bed. Jesper catches my ankle easily, ignoring my attempt at a fight. "You thought the contact was only doing his job and you don't know the real reason that Kaz blew up at you for the first time the way he blows up at everyone."

"Okay, well since you know everything, tell me why he's mad."

He lets out a sigh like he can't believe I even needed to ask that. "It's not the best look that the first time you let him pick a fight with you happens to be about some guy."

...Maybe he is drunk? "Don't be so cryptic. I don't like you enough to put up with that."

Jesper half-sighs again before pushing himself off my bed. "I'm going to pretend I think you're smart enough to piece things together from that."

"Asshole," I mumble instinctually as he walks towards my door. "Are you not telling me because I tried to push you off the bed?"

He turns when he reaches my door in order to lean against my door frame. "It's not not because of that." I should throw my book at his head. "In all seriousness, think about it. If you don't you'll either kill each other or kill me."

Ugh...he's so confusing. This time, I let him go. He leaves he door open, which is beyond annoying. I stand up to close it, promising myself I will focus on my book the second it's in my hands again. As I walk back towards my bed, my eyes land on the deck of cards on my nightstand.

Does it send a signal I don't want to send if I don't go the stairwell tonight? Do I want to send a signal? I don't know...actually, the only thing I know is that I don't want to think about this a second longer. I don't ease as I read, but my eyelids become heavier with each word they cross. I feel the weight of them as my focus slips, farther and farther away until I can no longer focus. When my eyes fall shut I can't bring myself to think or force them open.

--

I notice my surprised before I register that I've just woken up. Falling asleep feels so far and yet the crick in my neck confirms the obvious. Rubbing the eyes with the back of my hand, I push my book from my lap and sit up. The only indication of how much time has passed is how much my bedside candle has melted.

How long have I been asleep? How did I manage to fall asleep? I thought I was too mad at Kaz to manage anything but pouting in my room. I hadn't even decided if I wanted to talk to him.

I stand even though I haven't decided anything. I should at least change if I want to go to bed. But is leaving this alone for even longer a bad idea? I think Jesper thought so...though my conversation with him is far from clear. It's not the best look that the first time you let him pick a fight with you happens to be about some guy. I'm going to pretend I think you're smart enough to piece things together from that. What does he want me to do with that?

Maybe he was partially intoxicated and felt the need to play the role of a good friend. Or maybe this is his idea of a joke.

Whatever--regardless of Jesper, I have a choice to make. A tiny part of me hopes it's insignificant, but I know Kaz enough to know that nothing is insignificant to him. He holds onto things the way he holds onto his kruge. Perhaps I'll seek out Inej, she seems to be the best at rationalizing. Though she might be asleep by now, or on a job or...I don't even know.

How late is it? Is it late enough to be one of the few hours Kaz claims to reserve for sleep? Maybe my bad luck is still around and he's already in bed for once. Does that mean his anger will extend to tomorrow?

I shouldn't care. It's not like I'm in the wrong. Did I escalate things? Maybe a little...but I won't apologize for defending myself. Even though that makes everything a little easier. I feel stuck, like in some kind of place of half sleep. A single knock at my door is enough to make me want to jump. I rub my eyes a little more firmly in hopes of waking up more before someone sees me.

I approach the door without worry. Maybe it's not as late as I assumed. Or maybe it's really early? I open the door while still fighting against my slight disorientation. I'm so focused on acting normal, I almost don’t register the person standing at my door. 

I don’t know who I expected, or what--maybe Jesper, much more tipsy than he was before, slumped against the doorframe, only knocking because he’s too tired to push the door open. Maybe even Inej, on her way here to deliver some kind of job or notice of dismissal. But it’s nothing I could expect. It’s...Kaz. 

The Dirtyhands stands at my door, expression as hard as ever yet something behind his eyes that burns the sleep away from me. “Uh--hi.” I bite my tongue to avoid cringing at that very awkward beginning. “Are you here to kick me out yourself?” The only response I get is the slightest shift of his gaze off of my face. “No? Well then I think I’m going to bed. It’s late.” 

My tone and words are clear. Get out of my doorway, I’m in no mood to go back to arguing.  When he still doesn’t say anything, I’m emboldened by my nerves. I push the door between us without breaking eye contact. 

Before the wood can meet the doorframe, he moves his cane, wedging it between us. “Y/n.” I don’t understand the way he says my name, but I’m certain he’s never said it like that. “I...” When he’s not prompted by the uncomfortableness of silence, I raise an eyebrow, my grip on the door tightening. “What I said shouldn’t have been said.” Wait--is he admitting fault? I’m so thrown I almost melt entirely. “Not to you.” 

The addition leaves him so lowly a part of me wonders if I’ve imagined it. I’m so thrown by it I don’t even think to reply until a long second has passed. “You seemed to believe the opposite a few hours ago.” 

His lips press together for a moment. “You didn’t ask me to play cards tonight.” He took that as intentional? At least that got me some kind of apology? I keep my mouth shut, greed making me want more information. I guess he must sense my silent tugging because he head inclines slightly. “Don’t push.” 

I fight down a grin. “Push what?” His only response to stiffen further. “I’m going to tell you something as a peace offering.” That seems to intrigue him in some way. I can’t tell if it’s a good kind of interested, but I note the slight raise of his eyebrows and his intentional silence. “I didn’t chose not to ask you to play cards.” He gives me no indication of anything, which is fair...considering my vagueness. “I was mad, obviously, and in the middle of deciding on a course of action...and then I fell asleep.” 

A long pause of silence. “You fell asleep?” 

I’m not sure if his incredulous tone should offend me or not. If I wanted to lie, I’d like to think he knows me well enough to know that I’d have thought of a better excuse than that. Or at least a less embarrassing one. “Yes, it’s not that difficult to believe. Today had been long and all I wanted to do was read, but then Jesper came in to say the oddest things and then leave me to...” 

Oh--oh. I guess there’s a reason people say to ‘sleep on’ something. Because now, actively remembering Jesper’s words for the first time since I fell asleep...I understand what Jesper was implying in the oddest way possible. He meant that Kaz and I...that perhaps there is a Kaz and I in a context that’s more than just grammatical. Wow. I really had to realize this with Kaz right in front of me. 

My face feels warmer than it did before, an irrational bout of anxiety forcing me to consider that me might be able to read impossible, embarrassing thoughts from my expression alone. 

“What did Jesper say?” I’m too lost in my own spiral of confusion and panic and some feeling I can’t recognize to register how Kaz asks his question. There’s an edge to it, an odd one, but that could easily just be Kaz. 

This is most definitely the last conversation we need to be having. I’m still mad at him for his earlier dramatics. So I just shake my head, feigning an exhaustion I could lose myself in. “Nothing and everything all at once.” I resist the urge to rub my eyes again. “I’m pretty sure he was drinking, and I wasn’t really listening. I was just trying to read.” 

Kaz’s expression hardens briefly as he takes in my words, and then he exhales, nodding once with the breath. “What were you reading?” 

My lips part instinctually, ready to spew off details about the latest novel that’s captured my attention. But before I can let myself take off, the reality of the situation strikes me directly in the chest. This is not Nina, or Inej, or even Jesper after what he considers a ‘good night’. This is Kaz Brekker, the man believed to not have a soul. I’ve spoken to him before about casual things, though most of the nights in which we end up playing cards or just sitting near each other are spent in silence. But he’s never prompted me before. Not in the one topic he knows is guaranteed to turn me into an overenthusiastic, gushing fountain of poor summaries and character analysis. 

I guess this is his peace offering. This shouldn’t warm the way it does. He was still unbelievably dramatic and treated me like I’m some kind of unreliable fool. “It’s late, and you know how I can be. I’d hate to keep you for nothing more than a poor summary and honestly, an embarrassing rant about plot or characters, because there’s just nothing as frustrating as when two people so clearly care about each other and both are too stubborn and oblivious to acknowledge it.” 

Kaz’s eyebrows draw together just enough for me to be able to make out a shift of expression in the poor light. Perhaps his lingering irritation is preparing to rear its ugly head. The corner of his mouth seems to threaten to tilt upwards as Kaz angles his head to the side slightly. “I can’t imagine that position.” 

No kidding. I bite my tongue to keep the sarcastic comment and awkward laugh that would sure follow it away. “Who can? That’s like half the point of reading.” 

How can interaction feel so over and just at its beginning all at once? I press my lips together to avoid filling the silence with things I’d no doubt instantly regret. It’s easy to be mad at Kaz in the moment. Too easy. But to stay mad at him when his temper has passed and he returns with some kind of begrudging and admittedly awkward and uncertain truce is another task entirely. 

“I’ve never understood your attachment to written words.” 

“It’s not about understanding, it’s about everything else.” 

“And you say I’m cryptic.” Is he...kinda almost joking? I straighten my spine, too tired to fight and too wounded to forgive. “There’s understanding in everything, nothing can survive on sentiment alone.” 

“If you read the way I did, you’d understand.” 

His lips press together as his expression remains unwavering in its hardness. “Read to me.” 

...Interacting with Kaz in any way often leaves me feeling like I’m wandering through unknown territory. But this, this is undeniably different. So different I can’t even think of a way to react. I watch his expression as cautiously as possible. He’s purely reserved, no distinction from the look he wears during business propositions. Except there’s a tightness I can’t quite understand.

Maybe it’s because I don’t want to fight anymore. Maybe it’s because exhaustion is leaving me partially delirious. Or maybe it’s the weird feeling in my chest that I can’t quite place. That I don’t want to place. “Okay.” I shift carefully. “If for no other reason then to prove you wrong.” 

Never did I think I’d end up in the position of sitting in my bed, book in hand, with Kaz Brekker sitting next to me. But here we are. I’m so tired, I almost let out a nervous laugh when he first walked in. So brooding and tall, gripping the head of his head cane as he sits at the foot of my bed, on my pastel quilt. 

I’m glad for the excuse to keep my gaze away from him and on the words in front of me. I read out loud, feeling more and more comfortable with each page I finish. But as my inhibitions slip away, so dos my hold on consciousness. My eyelids seem to grow heavier with each word that I read. 

“You’re falling asleep.” 

I straighten my spine on instinct. “Am not.” I’m not sure why I feel the need to deny something so simple. 

“You’re impossible.” 

From him, that statement is laugh worthy. “I’m impossible? Do you not remember earlier today?” 

From the way his jaw locks, I realize that he’s in no mood to be light about this topic. I don’t understand why. It’s not like I’m the one that wronged him. “I remember your lack of focus.” 

Keeping my hands at my side to avoid rubbing my eyes, I frown. “If you want to have this argument again, fine. Jesper is more ‘distracted’ than me half the time and you’re much more lenient on him. It’s not like I was flirting with someone or gambling or doing anything but having a two second conversation. One that I needed to have to get information that you wanted.” 

The last time we fought, I had more energy to restrain myself. This could be atomic. I hold my breath, waiting for Kaz’s retaliation. He exhales, eyes not meeting mine. “Arguing with you when you’re present is exhausting enough. It’s not worth it when you’re half asleep.” 

This angers me further. I hate that he’s right. “I’m not half asleep.” He leaves it at that. I glare even harder at him, slumping further into my bed. “But for the sake of argument, I’ll drop it. Something you’re incapable of doing.” 

At that, his eyes meet mine. I try to hold his gaze, but the harder I think about not seeming tired the more exhaustion slips in. A yawn escapes me before he looks away. Great. “I know when to lie in the grass in wait.” 

Rolling my eyes, I shift back slightly. He’s incapable of being less dramatic than this. Still, I can’t imagine the effort it’s taking on his part to not start an argument. Maybe this is why Jesper spent so long implying that there may be a Kaz and I in any capacity beyond a vague kind of friendship. “I’ll admit you’re tactful.”

“Resourceful people recognize that trait in other people.” 

Blinking twice, I lower my book slightly. Am I truly exhausted, or did he just compliment me in a way? “Careful, I may start to think you find me tolerable.” 

“Let’s not exaggerate.” Okay, now I know I’m exhausted because I think he might have just attempted a joke. Rolling my eyes, I decide not to acknowledge this lightness in fear that I’ll scare it away. “Y/n?” 

I press my lips together, worried about the destruction of our peace. “Yes?” 

“What did Jesper say to you? Earlier?” I pause, slightly unsure why we’re moving backwards. 

We’re in a decent place now, and I’d hate to ruin it. I’m too half asleep to lie eloquently. And it’s not like he’s an easily convinced man. “Oh, he said it so cryptically it took me longer than it should have to understand. And it didn’t help that it was something so...well, you might find it funny. As funny as you find anything, anyways.” Wow...I’ve spent such a long time talking. Rubbing the back of my eyes, I avoid his gaze. Exhaustion and awkwardness mix in my stomach oddly. “It seemed like he was trying to imply that you and I...me and you...” Why is this a difficult thing to say? It’s not like I was implying it and Jesper’s known for his oddness. “I think Jesper was implying that there was a you and I, or at least that there could be.” I’m too lost in a haze of almost sleep to watch his reaction. I let my head rest against my headboard even further. “Isn’t that odd?” 

He’s quiet for a long second, and then he finally speaks again. “Odd, even for Jesper.” The response doesn’t satiate me...what’s that about? I exhale, deciding that feeling is tomorrow’s problem. When I blink, I decide to let my eyes stay closed. Just for a moment. The sound of something shifting is what makes my eyes squint open. Kaz is standing, his expression unreadable as he straightens. “Goodnight, y/n.” 

At that, I sit up slightly, ignoring the exhaustion behind my eyes. “I haven’t finished the chapter.” 

“You’ve convinced me of enough.” A concession? How exhausted do I seem? My lips press together as I think of my next argument. Before I can get it out, Kaz leans forward. He grabs the quilt at the end of my bed and tosses it onto my legs casually. “Goodnight, y/n.” The meaning of his repetition is clear. His word is final. 

I find enough energy to manage a glare, but I pull the quilt over my legs anyways. “Goodnight, Kaz.”

[actualbird]

Oh god!

I really love the poly headcanons they are so sweet.... (or don't but that's part of it and i think the tot boys+MC deserve all the love the world has to give).

But, liking it or not, our 4 beloved boys are kinda complicated (that's what makes them perfect). Plus I never thought about how people get in poly relationships. So i was thinking, how do you think they all get into a polyrelationship together?

(I really have no idea of how that would happen)

hi, two anons!! im glad you guys liked my nxx team polycule stuff!! i'll answer these in one go, my "headcanon" (in quotes because i think this kinda turned into a character analysis/minific of sorts HAHA) being what first anon asked, How They Get Together.

heads up, wc of this is 1.9k words long so buckle up for a bit of a read jfsjdfkjbf

because first anon, youre right!!! the boys are stupendously complicated which i love so so much but canon has also shown us clearly that each of the boys' quirks and habits and tendencies causes a lot of (mostly played for laughs) friction. the bickering, the backhanded insults, the "im the best one here" preening contests. theyre all SOOOO RIDICULOUS and it is hilarious but yep! the boys r complex!! and that means this beautiful ship, imo, has a lot of phases to get to the actual romantic relationship bit.

how they get together, in my opinion, starts because of mc.

not in the sense that she matchmakes them all, but like.

phase 1 of the nxx team polycule is this:

through being in love with her (which we all know the boys 100% are), each of the boys come to terms with their own flaws and weaknesses. it's very apparent to me in all the story thus far that these boys are flawed as hell, it's very compelling but even more compelling to me is how all of them also do intense mental gymnastics to Not Confront Those Flaws. like, marius is a dickbag always teasing and toeing the line of insincerity, vyn is a controlling mf who always tries to sway situations to his benefit, artem is so repressed to the point that he has genuine trouble with emotions, luke is a self sacrificial bastard and also a huge hypocrite about how no, actually, hes the only one that should be hiding his pain and being dishonest, no dishonesty from other people!! in the beginning of the story, all the boys have their flaws and seem to have just kinda...not addressed how those flaws are harming them and the people around them.

and then mc rolls around and they all fall in love with her. and she sees those flaws and she doesnt let them slide. she challenges the boys in her own ways to see another side of the situation, to acknowledge what theyre doing. she doesnt want to get rid of flaws, thats impossible and also not cool. she just has this beautiful hope for like, all of humanity, that goodness can prevail with the right work. so when she sees her beloved nxx boys, she believes that for them as well.

which leads to phase 2 of the nxx team polycule:

the boys, more aware of themselves, become more aware of each other.

they werent Unaware of the others of course. it's just that they didnt like...truly connect on a personal level just yet. they saw the other teammembers with their emotional armor and flaws and saw a wall that wasnt worth looking past.

but after mc makes them realize that hey, flaws arent the end of the world actually, it's alright and the person behind them may just be worth it, the boys like. end up understanding the others. A LOT OF THIS BIT IS UNINTENTIONAL, ON THEIR PARTS KJDSBFS. like they stumble into understanding each other by accident, they didnt plan it, but over the course of nxx investigations, it's inevitable that they end up seeing the depths of the others. i delve into this a little bit in my fanfic "filler eps of the lost gold" where the boys are just going thru their actions and then trip over another boy's fears or desires and through that, gain a deeper understanding mutually.

and with understanding, sometimes, comes trust.

phase 3 of the nxx team polycule goes like this:

everybody in this team, whether they like it or not, whether they know it or not, has a heart that wants to give love so desperately.

marius lives in a world full of snakes so he cant have his heart on his sleeve for his own protection. vyn wants to be seen as perfect and the heart is inherently messy so he holds it back. artem for a very very long time was focused on work and success and achievement that he neglected his heart. and luke has been giving love all his life in a sense but in a way thats hidden.

all these tendencies that are brought upon their life circumstances results in this: they want to love honestly but they havent been able to do this

until mc. and all of them want to push back whatever fears or patterns their life has instilled in them because they see her and see somebody so unwaveringly good that all their hearts begin giving love to her to make her happy and to make themselves happy as well.

but heres the thing. the boys dont just see mc. by this point, they have connected and understood and come to trust each other as well, and the consequence of that is that They Can See Each Other Now Too, Truly.

and heres the thing. all of the boys are unwaveringly good as well.

one by one, each of the boys realize that what they feel for the other boys in the team starts to...change. yeah theyre all friends, they pick on each other a lot of the time, but the bedrock of the relationship is solid and strong now. but when marius is with luke, marius sees a light inside of luke so bright that he seems unaware that he gives off. when artem is with vyn, artem sees a goodness inside of vyn that hesitates to make itself obvious and known because vyn is scared of getting hurt thanks to it. all of them see the other and their goodness and, unbidden, their hearts want to give love to each other as well.

and because theyre all a bit stupid in their own way theyre like, huh, weird! wonder why this feeling is so familiar! and yet i cant seem to name it...and then they all independently compare these feeling with the feelings they have for mc, a feeling they do know the name of, and theyre like.

WAIT.

THESE FEELINGS ARE...VERY BASICALLY EXACTLY WHAT I FEEL FOR MC.

which only means one thing: theyve fallen in love with everybody else

marius: //goes to his studio to Think and sees that a bunch of his recent art actually had little crumbs of these feelings already, etched into the brushstrokes and scenes. has an emotional crisis about it

vyn: //records a 1 hour long entry in his audio diary to examine and gain control of his feelings but by the end of the hour all he knows is that he wants to hold these people and be held by them

artem: //quite literally just bluescreens, artem.exe has stopped working, sits at his study and slowly, slowly, thunks his head down onto his desk, valiantly trying to ignore the fast pulse of his heart

luke: //manically vents about it to peanut who, by virtue of being a bird, doesnt get it. just keeps talking at peanut to get a grasp of it all and then lies down on the floor, overwhelmed

mc, sitting in her apartment watching some netflix: ...why do i inexplicably feel as if something very, very important has just happened?

phase 4 of the nxx team polycule is basically:

pining: extreme difficulty level

because pining is already hard when ur pining for one person. what more for an additional 3 more people. and those additional 3 more people are pining back.

and all these boys are SOOOO OBVIOUS with their romantic feelings, in their own special way. the way they show their affection to mc starts to bleed into their interactions with the others and everybody can CLEARLY SEE WHAT IS GOING ON, LOL, but also all the boys are too chickenshit to confront it, because if they confront it, what will even happen??? being in love with each other, all of them, thats going to be such a complicated fucking relationship, holy shit. it's 2030, yeah, being a polyamorous group relationship isnt completely unheard of, but sue them, theyre scared.

but mc (who i forgot to mention already knows of the boys' romantic feelings for her, shes just hasnt made a move yet on any of them because SHES IN LOVE WITH ALL OF THEM AS WELL and shes been trying to figure out how the hell to make that work, she cant bear to choose just one of them, she'd be heartbroken over leaving the rest of them behind) sees that the nxx investigation team is now all pining for each other FULLY and she kinda wants to laugh when she realizes whats going on because like, what are the chances? that this would happen? that they all found each other and their feelings fell into just the right place for nobody to be left behind?

theyre all scared, she can tell. and she is as well, she wont lie.

but shes always had a belief that goodness can prevail with the right work.

and love is one of the greatest goods out there.

phase 5 of the nxx team polycule:

It's Time For Communication, Baby!!!!!

the exact scenes of how this happens is a bit vague to me. it could go two ways: mc going to each of the boys independently to talk about feelings, hers about everybodys and his about everybodys as well. OR they have a fucking meeting about it all together and artem literally schedules it in his google calendar, or something.

either way, they like, actually talk about this. starts casual, maybe over a chill date, maybe over dinner at a nice restaurant, maybe over a walk in the park as the sun is starting to set. but where ever it happens, the end result is the same: a heart is laid out bare and it is taken in gentle, grateful hands.

marius: OKAY, NOW THAT THE FEELINGS ARE OUT OF THE WAY, CAN I PLEASE KISS ONE OR ALL OF YOU, PLEASE, IVE BEEN WANTING TO KISS U GUYS FOR FOREVER

vyn, laughing fondly: has anybody ever told you patience is a virtue? we quite literally just talked it all out.

marius: //needy whining noises

artem, embarrassed: ive...never kissed anybody before

luke, embarrassed but trying to play it Cool: ....same here

mc: kissing is great, you two will love it!

marius: awesome, awesome, so is ANYBODY going to give me a go ahead or WHAT????

phase 6 of the nxx team polycule:

i dont want to say it's happily ever after, once they all get together. thats not really realistic.

they all have their quirks and tendencies and habits. and those will inevitable clash against each other. theyll have their arguments, theyll get upset, theyll sulk and be angry, sometimes. but also...

theyll see each other smile and feel like their love shining so brightly. theyll reach out for another's hand and be held in such a way that makes them think that their heart is in a safe place. theyll love each other and theyll put in the work to continue loving each other. because goodness will prevail.

and they all see each other as the most good people in the world.

so whatever happens, theyll get through it together.

[ladyartemesia]

The Praetor

◐ PART VI of THE ALPHA ◐

◐ Series Masterlist ◐

◐ Part I ◐ Part II ◐ Part III ◐ Part IV ◐ Part V ◐

Pairing: Alpha Werewolf Jimin x Omega Reader

Rating: Hard Mature 18+ (for this installment)

Warnings: sexual content including grinding and marking, some light (and totally consensual) manhandling, ABO sexual dynamics including discussion of scenting, marking, mating, and claiming. Violence and discussion of violence relating to ritual combat, possessive behavior, injuries and discussion of injuries

Special Note: Yoonji and Yunli are NOT the same person. Yoonji is Yoongi and Yunli’s cousin. She is sometimes affectionately called “Ji-ah.”

Word Count: 5500 (wow)

Author’s Note: Life has been really hard. I won’t beat around the bush. It was hard to do anything... but your kind words and support really kept me going. Truly you guys straight up manifested this chapter with your incredible support. As always, my angels @ppersonna​ @xjoonchildx​ @untaemedqueen​ and @underthejoon​ were the best betas and the best friends anyone could ask for. My thanks to ALL of you for helping me bring this story to life!

“Alpha.” 

Namjoon’s voice echoed through the clearing with profound resonance. 

There would be no more fighting. 

There would be no more doubt.

It was a complete surrender, the kind only a true Alpha could compel. 

A frantic whimper suddenly split the air, drawing every eye to you-

 But you saw only him. 

“Untie me,” you pleaded, struggling impatiently against the restraints. 

One of the elders moved to release you, but before she could, Jin produced a knife and cut you free with the kind of terrifying precision expected of a man who was every bit as deadly as he was beautiful. 

Then you were running - and this time, no one could stop you. 

Your body crashed into his and fiery joy shot through you as he pulled you into his arms. 

His scent wrapped around your senses like a warm blanket, covering the fear and pain of the past days in unimaginable relief. 

 “Jimin.”

“I’m here. I have you,” he whispered. 

Your entire frame seemed to shake as you sobbed against his chest. It was as if you could not draw close enough - could not hold tight enough - to be satisfied. Part of you was still terrified that you would wake up and discover that all of this had been a dream...

Then you heard it.

Another set of knees hitting the ground. 

“Alpha.”

Then another-

“Alpha.“

And another 

“Alpha.”

Till the air was filled with hundreds of voices, all speaking the same word.

“Alpha.”

Namjoon remembered very little of what happened after his surrender...

Just pain. 

His limbs seemed oddly disconnected from the rest of his body. There was blood everywhere (and he was reasonably sure it was his). 

He knew he should feel defeated, broken - ashamed even.

Instead he felt strangely...

Light. 

As if a great weight had lifted from his shoulders. 

The last thing he saw before losing consciousness entirely was Yunli’s tear-stained gaze - still fixed on him - even as the others turned to face their new Alpha. 

He breathed out her name in a quiet, desperate plea as the darkness overtook him. 

Jimin was only in your arms a few moments before healers and half the elder’s council came rushing forward on all sides. 

You snarled instinctively at the first elder who tried to collect him, but a healer eventually got close enough to reason with you after pointing out that the wound on his shoulder could possibly become infected if left untreated for much longer.

An Alpha’s injuries always took the highest priority, but Jimin directed them all toward Namjoon, brushing away anyone who attempted to tend to him. 

By that point Jin and your mother had found their way to your side and were gently trying to pull you back - even as more elders reached for your mate. 

Everyone was speaking at once - words about preparations and plans and ceremonies - but none of it registered over the waves of frantic adrenaline still pounding through your system. 

You didn’t know what they wanted or why they were so close-

just that they were trying to take him away again. 

No. 

Suddenly a senior elder placed his hand on Jimin’s forearm and your wolf snapped entirely. 

Omegas were known for their speed and as a Luna, yours was unparalleled.

Two council members and a healer went flying into the dirt within the space of a single second as your body instinctively assumed a defensive stance. The remaining elders stumbled back in alarm and your mother fainted dead away forcing Jin to catch her rather inelegantly. 

Your canines began to lengthen as you pressed your back to the Alpha, letting primal rage guide your movements. 

They had tied you up. 

Forced you to watch as he was attacked again and again and again-

An omega would defend their mate to the death and you had spent days knowing he was in danger...

Feeling powerless, feeling paralyzed- 

Your wolf had simply had enough. 

“Luna please-“ the chief elder began cautiously, but you cut him off with warning growl and lunged - fully prepared to end the next person who attempted to separate you from-

Strong arms closed around you, pulling you back to the comforting warmth that enveloped you moments ago.

Jimin. 

“Luna,” he whispered against your skin and you shivered, letting your eyes flutter shut. 

Then you felt it. 

The gentle pressure of the Alpha - your mate - nosing softly at your neck. 

It was a gesture of soothing affection. 

Of gratitude. 

Slowly he turned you in his arms till you were facing him once again. The fire in your blood began to fade as you simply took him in, struck by the sensual beauty of his face and the possessive heat in his gaze. 

“So fierce,” he hummed, tilting his head so you could bury yourself in his scent once more. His hands brushed soothing circles over your back, leaving delicious sparks of pleasure in their wake. 

“I’m safe,” he promised as you nuzzled into him needily. “You can rest now...” 

The pleasant pull of his command wove heavily through your senses. You felt your feet leave the ground as he lifted you fully into his arms...

Then you slipped into a blissful sleep. 

The healers worked for hours on Namjoon. 

Some betas were blessed with minor healing abilities - a valuable gift stemming from a type of energy transference. He could feel the heat of their hands as they poured themselves - literally - into mending his battered body.  

His ribs were set and wrapped tightly and the swelling and bruising were already beginning to fade due to the assortment of vile tasting herbal concoctions they insisted on ramming down his throat. 

Accelerated healing and potent herbal intervention truly went a long way, but it would take time and rest to restore him fully.

Despite his lingering soreness, Namjoon was finally lucid enough to think for the first time since the fight and there was certainly a wealth of things to think about…

Yet his mind kept going back to that moment-

To her. 

“Kim Namjoon.”

Every hair on his body raised to attention. 

“Alpha-” 

He struggled to pull himself upright, but Jimin placed a hand on his arm to still him. 

“Please,” he spoke softly, “let me sit. I’ve caused you enough trouble for one day.”

A painful chuckle stuttered out of Namjoon and he shook his head. 

“Shouldn’t I be the one saying that? We both know this is entirely my fault.”

Jimin’s eyes dropped in reluctant amusement.. 

“You think rather highly of yourself,” he said with a barely perceptible grin, echoing his words in the chief elder’s chambers a day - a lifetime - ago. “I believe I had something to do with it as well.”

Namjoon laughed and winced immediately. He rubbed gingerly over the binding on his ribs before voicing the question that had plagued him from the moment he awoke. 

“How quickly?” 

The Alpha tilted his head in confusion. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“How quickly,” Namjoon grunted, pulling himself to an upright position, “could you have killed me?”

There was a strange sort of acceptance in his eyes, a profound and untainted respect that Jimin was wholly unused to receiving from a man like him. 

It was equal parts humbling and overwhelming. 

“The first hit... a little to the left - at full force -  would have fractured your sternum and penetrated your heart.  You’d have been dead in a matter of minutes.”

Namjoon was silent for a long time. 

“Why did you spare me? ...I challenged you, threatened you, intended to lay claim to your mate which-” he rubbed idly at the back of his neck, “I’m beginning to understand is enough to enrage any man… So why am I still here?”

“Because,” Jimin sighed, “apparently I think very highly of you too, Kim Namjoon.”

“Well… I’m flattered, but I - I still don’t understand… I’ve done nothing but underestimate you. Most wolves would have made an example of me.”

“Oh I intend to make an example of you,” Jimin smiled and Namjoon felt his blood run cold for the briefest instant, “but not in the way you’re thinking.” 

The Alpha’s eyes took on a strangely solemn light. “I have no intention of ruling through fear and violence.”

After a moment, his gaze met Namjoon’s again. 

“You were right… Without your challenge, the pack would never have trusted my leadership. You were the obvious choice to be Alpha and without defeating you decisively, they would always look to you as an alternative.”

Namjoon eyed his collection of injuries sardonically. 

“Something tells me you won’t have that issue now.”

“And I have you to thank for that.”

“So … you spared my life in gratitude?”

“I spared your life because it was well worth sparing. You have always led your clan with honor and dignity. You don’t strike me as someone who enjoys killing, yet you were willing to do so for the good of our people. Such a man is a far better example alive than he is dead.”

Namjoon could not help but be impressed by the younger alpha’s insight and perception. 

Our goddess has chosen well. 

“I am grateful for your mercy, Alpha... Though I’m sure there are some who believe I should have chosen death over the disgrace of defeat.”

Jimin’s jaw clenched. . 

“Defeat is not a disgrace. I have learned some of my greatest lessons from it. Defeat is often a vital stop on the path to victory.”

The elder alpha grinned. 

“I wouldn’t know. This is the first time I’ve lost.”

Jimin laughed and Namjoon’s impish smile suddenly became oddly serious. 

“I want you to know…  You have my loyalty - without question - and not simply because you spared me. It is clear that you were meant to lead.”

A subtle hint of awe crept into his tone as he continued. 

“Honestly… I’ve only ever heard stories of primal alphas. I never thought I’d meet one,” he snorted, “or be foolish enough to fight him.“

Jimin drew back in confusion. 

“I’m not familiar- ...I’ve never heard of a primal alpha.”

“Really?... Well ...I suppose that makes sense. I forgot how often you skipped camp.” He sighed and shifted into a more comfortable position before answering. 

“A primal alpha is goddess-blessed. They cannot be compelled. Their command is powerful enough to compel members of other packs and even non-wolves. It is a rare gift.”

Jimin’s face easily betrayed his shock. 

“I-...That’s-” he shook his head. “Why do you believe I have such a gift?”

“I suppose the first hint should have been your coloring. Silver wolves are never born to mundane destinies... But the real proof is in your eyes.” Namjoon leaned back against the headboard, quietly reliving the moment he discovered the depth of Jimin’s ability. “When you commanded me to yield, your eyes flashed gold. It’s the true sign of a primal alpha... of a king.”

King. 

The word fell heavily between them. 

A human king was a politician, a figurehead whose power became more symbolic as the ages passed. 

But to the wolf nations, a king - an Alpha - was the heart of their pack. A warrior who bore the burden of leadership alongside his Luna. 

The power of a wolf king was quite real. 

The Alpha shifted uncomfortably 

“I never thought I would be a king.”

“And I never thought I wouldn’t be.” His eyes dropped to his hands. “I’m not quite sure what I am anymore.”

“Perhaps I can help with that.”

Namjoon’s gaze met his with cautious curiosity. 

“Oh?”

“You said yourself I skipped Alpha camp every year. I may have been destined to lead, but I won’t pretend that I’m completely prepared for it.”

All at once Namjoon realized why Jimin was there. 

The transfer of power was a long and intricate process that should remain essentially uninterrupted until its completion. 

There could only be one reason the Alpha had come to his bedside. 

He was here to appoint his Praetor. 

A Praetor wielded nearly as much authority as the Alpha. In terms of pack hierarchy, only the Alpha outranked him (or her). The commitment required was immense. Their role encompassed everything from ‘chief advisor’ to ‘the last line of defense.’

Praetor were expected to cut all obligations to their own clan and serve only the Alpha. They were an extension of his authority and vision. It was a lifetime appointment which could be extremely dangerous (depending on the number of territorial disputes one’s pack might be involved in). 

If anything were to happen to the Alpha, a Praetor would assume the responsibility of protecting the Luna and ruling by her side (without any romantic obligations as Praetor often had their own mates) until their death. 

“What about Taehyung?”

Jimin shrugged. 

“What about him? I assure you, he has no interest in this at all.” A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Besides, he serves me well as a best friend... A Praetor must be willing to disagree with me from time to time without worrying too much about my feelings. They must be in tune with the needs of the pack. Kim Taehyung is a good man… but he isn’t the right one. Not for this.”

The elder alpha considered his next words carefully. 

“What you’re asking is no small request.”

“True,” Jimin nodded, “but how about this…” he grinned mischievously, “I promise to put in a good word for you with Min Yoongi when he finds out what you’ve done to his little sister.”

“I haven’t done anything to his little sister.”

“Yet.”

Namjoon cleared his throat guiltily. 

“You realize this means we’ll have to talk every single day.”

“It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for the good of the pack.”

Namjoon laughed and Jimin smiled back, more sure than ever that he was making the right choice. 

After a moment the Alpha held out his hand in an age old ceremonial gesture and finally voiced the question he had come to ask. 

“Kim Namjoon, will you forsake your place in the clan of your blood to serve your Alpha and your pack as Praetor. Will you protect my blood as your own and fight by my side till the paths of our lives be complete?

Namjoon’s gaze locked with his as their palms met, letting the force of his resolve color each word. 

“I swear it shall be so.” 

It was well past noon when you stumbled from your bedroom to find Jin spread luxuriously over your kitchen island, popping berries into his mouth like a debauched satyr. 

“I feel very odd…” you yawned, “almost like I-”

“Attacked half the elders council in a fit of horny rage?”

Your jaw dropped. 

“I did no such thing!” A few choice memories began to flood back and your staunch defensive tirade stuttered in shock. “Wait...Did I-”

“You did.”

“I wouldn’t call it horny rage,” you muttered, massaging your temples as you struggled to process your own actions. 

“I don’t know, the whole thing looked very horny to me.”

“Everything looks horny to you.”

Jin grinned but didn’t bother denying it. 

“What do you remember?”

“I remember…” you pulled a water bottle from the fridge and took a long drink before answering,”...Jimin’s victory... People kept trying to take him away and then-”

Heat streaked across the back of your neck as you recalled the press of his lips on your skin.

“Oh...”

You shivered deliciously.  

Jin sighed. “Yes, you were quite the spectacle. Who knows how many throats you would have ripped out if the Alpha had not intervened.”

“Oh goddess,” you moaned, burying your face in your hands. “He probably thinks I’m a lunatic.”

Jin rolled his eyes. 

“I wonder if there is a celestial punishment for smacking the Luna upside the head.”

“Punishable by death - for sure,” you pouted, “and why would you even want to do that?”

“Because you’re an idiot. The man risked his life for you in ritual combat and then carried you home in his arms all the way from the sacred circle like a fairy tale princess.”

“He... he did?”

Your cousin nodded and tossed another berry in his mouth. 

“The whole scene was so disgustingly romantic. I would have swooned if I wasn’t left to haul your mother back. Honestly I think I threw out my back.”  

“And - and the pack?”

“They were free to swoon since they weren’t carrying your mother and most of them did. The man has become a bit of a legend already. Namjoon is one of the strongest alphas in the mountain kingdoms and Park Jimin dispatched him like it was nothing.” He paused to dab berry juice off his absurdly full lips. “I’d be surprised if every pack for a hundred miles hasn’t heard about it by now.”

“How is Namjoon?”

“Alive. He will make a full recovery.”

You sighed in relief. Truly, you had no desire to mate with the Kim alpha, but (despite the grumbling of your bloodthirsty wolf) you never wanted him dead. 

Not to mention the loss of Namjoon would have cast a heavy shade over Jimin’s leadership. He was wise to spare him. 

“Where is he? I want to see him.”

“Namjoon is with the healers-”

“Kim Seokjin,” you bopped him with your now empty water bottle. “I am obviously not talking about Namjoon. Where is my mate?!”

“Calm down, cousin. You’re getting that throat-rippy gleam in your eye again and I’m far too beautiful to go out like that.” 

He reached for another berry. 

“I need to see him.”

You were already marching toward the door when Jin yanked you back. It was always a surprise to see how fast he could move when he wanted to. 

“My dear sweet Luna, you have one murderous rampage and forget all about our tedious traditions. The elders will be drowning him in the preparations and expectations of leadership for at least another ten hours.”

None of Jin’s sensible reminders mattered the least bit to your wolf. She was already suggesting all sorts of reasons you should just march into the council chambers and take him. 

Park Jimin was yours. 

You’ve waited long enough. 

Your hand tightened on the doorknob. 

“He left something for you.”

Kim Seokjin really was a wickedly clever man. He knew exactly which cards to play and exactly when to play them. 

Your heart stuttered wildly in your chest as Jin nodded toward a small box on the table. 

“He sent Taehyung to drop it off not long after the elders dragged him away from your bedside.” 

If you had even an ounce of dignity left, you might have been embarrassed by how quickly you scrambled over to the gift, but you were well past caring about such things when it came to him. 

Your cousin shook his head as you eagerly tore into the wrapping, impatient to discover what he could have possibly-

You gasped. 

There, laying nestled in an ornate wooden box with a lavish blue satin interior, was the most beautiful pair of gloves you had ever seen…

Your fingers reached out to brush the soft white leather, custom stitched with intricately embroidered vines that wound around a beautiful silver wolf. 

“They’re exquisite.”

Jim’s brow furrowed in confusion. 

“They’re not just exquisite, they’re one of a kind.” His fingers traced over the emblem on the box. “This is the mark of the Bangtan Leatherworkers Guild. Every one of their pieces is unique.” 

Your head tilted curiously as Jin began to lift back the satin lining.

“What are you doing?”

“You can only buy their merchandise directly from the shop in Seoul. There’s no way he could have gotten these today.”

“R...Really?”

Jin nodded. 

“I’m about to find out for sure. Each piece produced by the guild comes with a certification. It includes the date of manufacture and the date of sale.”

After a moment he withdrew a small card embossed with gold writing. 

“Well... what does it say?” you pressed impatiently. 

An odd little smile drifted across Jin’s lips as he considered the information in his hands. 

“These gloves were sold to Park Jimin three years ago... a few days before your 17th birthday.” 

Min Yunli slept for most of the day after Taehyung brought her home. 

The Alpha ordered his second to secure her and see to her safety not long after lifting the Luna into his arms. 

In the end, Tae had to compel her again.

She fought to stay near Namjoon, but he needed medical attention and there was no real reason to allow her any access to the fallen alpha. 

She had no claim on him. 

She was nothing to him. 

Nothing at all. 

When she finally opened her eyes the sun was already dipping low on the horizon and the world around her was dim. 

Aching emptiness sat heavily in her chest. The Change was another six days away which meant the connection between her consciousness and her wolf was not fully solidified…  but she could still feel acidic pain of rejection festering in both halves of her heart. 

Tears fell silently down her cheek as she considered her actions and what the consequences might be. 

Namjoon probably hated her now. She had ruined everything for him. 

An angry growl rumbled up from her stomach. 

Yunli snorted humorously and shrugged off her dirty clothes, throwing on an oversized t-shirt before trudging out to the refrigerator. 

Of all the problems she was facing, hunger was the easiest to fix. 

“Do you normally walk around without pants?” 

She just barely bit back a scream. 

There - sitting on her couch (and looking significantly better than he had the last time she’d seen him) - was Kim Namjoon. 

“How did you get in here?!” Yunli squeaked. 

Namjoon held up a key. 

“Yoongi gave it to me years ago.”

Though I doubt he intended for me to use it like this. 

Her fists clenched and unclenched reflexively at her side. 

“Have you… come to yell at me?” she whispered.

Namjoon didn’t respond right away, he was too distracted by the shapely curve of her legs and the soft glow of her skin under the warmth of the living room lamps. 

Yunli, however, took his silence as confirmation of her worst fears. 

“I’m so sorry...” she trembled, her beautiful eyes glistening poetically with unshed tears. “I don’t - I don’t know what came over me - I know I cost you the fight and I-”

Namjoon felt a chuckle bubble up in chest and winced. 

“Yunli...your screams, however affecting, could not undo the will of the goddess.” He shook his head, “Park Jimin was born to be the Alpha.”  His fingers rubbed idly at his chest. “I’ve never come across anything like his power.”

Her eyes traced over the damage to his body with obvious remorse. 

“Are you ok?” she asked finally. 

He had four cracked ribs, several critical lacerations, a concussion, two sprained elbows, countless contusions, and a split lip. 

“Ah, it’s nothing,” he shrugged, barely suppressing a groan. 

Yunli grinned, helplessly endeared as always. She opened her mouth to ask again why he was here, but he cut her off with a surprisingly curt question. 

“Has Taehyung seen you like this?”

Yunli blinked. Twice. 

“T-Taehyung? Like Kim Taehyung - your cousin?”

“Second cousin,” he growled, “I was told he brought you home.”

“Well. Yes. He did… I’m really grateful to him actually. I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t caught me and calmed me down.”

A loud ringing was building in Namjoon’s ears. 

“Do you have an understanding with him?” he snarled. 

Yunli’s jaw dropped. 

“An understanding? With Yoonji’s Taehyung?!” She snorted. “I don’t have a death wish.”

“What’s Yoonji got to do with this? Isn’t she in Europe?”

“Never mind that. Why would you think Tae and I-”

“Tae?!”

Yunli’s eyes narrowed. 

“What’s going on in that busted up skull of yours, Kim Namjoon?”

Namjoon was off the couch and pressing her against the wall faster than she would have thought possible in his condition. 

“What’s going on is that for the past year you’ve been a real problem for me, Min Yunli.”

Yunli gasped as the muscled lines of his body weighed firmly into her own. Deep curls of pleasure flared up at every contact point. 

Yes. Oh goddess, yes. 

The force of his desire burned hot in the air between them. She had waited years for him to see her like this - to touch her like this...

“I wasn’t supposed to feel anything when you looked at me with your heart in those pretty brown eyes,” he murmured, brushing the tips of his fingers up over her arms till he was cupping her chin. 

Yunli’s wolf keened in delight as she melted helplessly into his embrace. 

It felt good. It felt so so good. 

“I was convinced you were a challenge - a divine temptation put in my path to test my resolve-” his jaw clenched, “or simply an endless source of torment because you wanted me so badly and I could never have you.”

The sound of ripping fabric split the air as Namjoon clawed through the neckline of her t-shirt, baring her pert little breasts to him like an obscene feast. 

“I was supposed to want the Luna,” he growled, squeezing the soft mounds roughly in his palms till she was whining and writhing against him, “-not Min Yoongi’s sweet little sister.”

Her gaze was so open - so trusting. Adoration shone through every inch of her regard and it was intoxicating. 

She was intoxicating. 

His hand slid down to grip her thighs, lifting her body till she was forced to wrap her legs around him for balance. 

“Namjoon,” she whimpered as the sensitive folds of her core ground into his growing hardness. 

“You just kept pushing and pushing-” he hissed, punctuating each word with delicious thrusts till the maddening pressure in her center was nearly unbearable. “Then last night you offered me a taste and it nearly destroyed me.”

His mouth finally descended on hers again and she opened to him eagerly, wrapping her arms around his neck with wanton desperation. A tortured groan slipped past his lips as he dragged her away from the wall and onto the sofa where she first discovered him. 

“Is this what you wanted, Min Yunli?” he rasped between the fervent mating of their mouths. “To make me desperate? To take me apart until I’m half-mad with wanting you?”

“Yes,” she sobbed as he sucked mark after mark into her flesh, painting her body with the evidence of his passion.

She slipped her hands greedily under his shirt, aching to feel more of his skin against her own. Needy whines and moans fell from her mouth like a siren’s call, beckoning Namjoon to lose himself in the lush warmth of her body. 

“If Kim Taehyung puts his greasy hands on you again, I’ll kill him.”

Yunli mewled in primal gratification at his bold words. She had waited far too long to hear them. 

“All those months I suffered because my wolf recognized what I was too ignorant to see.” 

The last shreds of her shirt flew across the room and Namjoon pinned her wrists above her head like a pagan offering, allowing his free hand to explore her curves with impassioned reverence. 

“You are mine, Yunli,” he swore. 

And she was. 

She always had been. 

Following Jimin’s victory, the pack exploded into a chaotic storm of gossip and ceremonial preparations. The story of his unlikely path to power had already spread beyond the borders of the mountain kingdoms. 

“-messages are coming in from the high packs of Delhi and Beijing requesting to meet with him-“

The rise of new pack leaders typically brought with it a buzz of excitement, but the Luna and her newly victorious Alpha were anything but typical. 

“-he’s a silver wolf. I always knew he was meant for more than just heading up the Park clan-“

The last Alpha king (the current Luna’s great-grandfather) died peacefully in his sleep nearly thirty years ago and the elder’s council ruled in the interim while they waited for a new Alpha to rise. This was the first (and likely the only) coronation most people would see in their lifetime. 

“ - my friend from Seoul is begging me to invite her. Outsiders aren’t allowed to attend unless they’re the guest of a pack member- “

Preparations to transfer power were every bit as tedious and time consuming as the rest of pack law. 

“-the council just announced that he’s chosen a Praetor. I’m sure it will be Taehyung-“

Aside from sneaking out to secure his Praetor (who was not Taehyung), the new Alpha had been holed up with the council, the heads of the ten major clans, and an army of envoys from other packs for nearly twelve hours. 

“ -grandfather worked with him all day. He claims that the future king has already impressed the council-”

Park Jimin’s name echoed through the mountain kingdoms. People could speak of nothing else. 

But there was one member of the pack who had not yet heard the news...

Yoongi took a deep breath as he waited for the woman on the other end of the line to accept his call. He was mentally and physically exhausted, but he had promised to tell her what happened as soon as he could.

Silence lingered eerily in the first few moments after she picked up. 

“I really debated answering this,” Min Yoonji whispered at last. “I don’t know if I can bear to hear you say that Park Jimin is dead.”

She sighed heavily as she ambled down the stairs of her tiny apartment in Paris. 

There were too many happy memories connected with him. He was Tae’s best friend... His loss would tear her former lover apart. 

And she could not be there for him when it did. 

She could never be there for him...

Several thousand miles away her cousin smiled. 

“Park Jimin is not dead, Ji-ah.”

Yoonji missed the last step and crashed down inelegantly on her tail bone. 

“WHAT?!” Her fingers scrambled to hold the phone secure in her precarious position. “You mean to tell me that Kim Namjoon lost - to PARK JIMIN?!”

“You sure picked a wild time to move to Europe,” Yoongi chuckled. 

“I didn’t really move here per se... I just relocated temporarily but indefinitely.”

“Yes, I’m well aware. Your mother is still howling about what a disgrace it was to go through the Change away from your friends and family. So thank you for that.”

Yoonji sighed. 

“What’s done is done... I know you don’t understand, but I promise to explain someday.” Her eyes drifted shut as she forced the pain in her heart aside. “... I can’t believe I missed all this. You have to tell me how he did it.”

“I will later, but I need to head back to the council chambers. We had a brief recess and I figured I’d call since it’s still early over there. However… I do have one last shocking revelation for you before I go.”

Yoonji rolled her eyes at her cousin’s dramatics. 

“I’m not sure anything could shock me after finding out that Park Jimin is our new Alpha.”

“Jimin just made Namjoon his Praetor.”

Apparently I was wrong. 

“WHAT!? So wait - that means Jinwook is now head of the Kim Clan?”

Yoongi’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. 

“Jinwook? No, how could - ah never mind. You were already in Europe when he left.”

“Jinwook left?!”

“Yeah, he was finishing up a consultation in Bangkok when he met his mate in one of the packs up there. It's an older pack with almost no alphas so they asked him to stay. He’s lived in Thailand since August.” Yoongi yawned. “Believe it or not Kim Taehyung was just sworn in as the Kim Clan alpha.”

Dead silence met his declaration. For a moment he wondered if the call had been disconnected but then-

“...What... did you just say?” 

Yoonji’s voice had taken on a strange hollow quality that had her cousin frowning into the receiver. 

“I said Taehyung was just sworn in as a Clan alpha.”

“That... no that can’t be right... You’re saying Kim Taehyung - my Taehyung-”

“What do you mean your Taehyung?!”

“- is a Clan alpha?”

“Yoonji. I can’t believe I’m repeating this a third time. Yes. Tae is the new head of the Kim Clan. I watched him take the oath twenty minutes ago and I have to say-”

A heart wrenching sob cut him off abruptly. 

“Oh goddess what have I done,” she gasped. 

Yoongi’s eyes widened in fear and alarm. 

“Ji-ah? What’s wrong?... Ji-ah?... Ji-ah?!”

But the line was dead. 

Don’t Miss Chapter VII: The Luna… Coming Soon!

If you would like to be added to the taglist, please comment on this post. If you have already asked then you will be automatically tagged in all future updates.

Guys I cannot emphasize enough how much your support has meant to me these last few weeks. 

Your comments and your love kept me going. I truly value it so much and it fuels my creativity. Please let me know what you thought? It is incredibly rewarding and motivating to hear from you!

I really struggled with this update. It was much longer and took a lot out of me... I hope you love the final product as much as I do…

Bonus: The gloves Jimin sent his Luna...