#man my shoulders are really fucking misaligned

[barbwalken]

wanted to do the ArtvsArtist2023

I use a lot of red for someone who isn't a fan of it 🥴. Im always trying not to use it, but it's just too damn good for contrast 😩🤏

This really was the year of drawing lot of zelda stuff, but mostly ganondorf, I could easily fill this with only ganondorf images haha

Also this year I finally got my tablet (with screen and shit) and man, I love it.

[robininthelabyrinth]

consider: trans girl jiang cheng

Untamed verse:

When Jiang Chen was little, she told her mother that she wanted to be like her when she grew up.

Madame Yu thought it referred to her cultivation and was very proud, even smug, but actually Jiang Cheng had been eyeing her beautiful skirts and delicate jewelry, her proud back and gentle curves.

It wasn’t until Jiang Cheng was a little older that she realized that she couldn’t be like her mother – that she was supposed to be like her father. Because she was her father’s son, and not his daughter.

She was never going to be like her father.

It was both a relief and a terrible heartache when Wei Wuxian joined the household – he was everything her father had ever wanted in a son. Jiang Cheng’s competitive streak was spurred on for a little while, trying to show that she could be just as good a son as Wei Wuxian, but she failed, and failed, and failed some more, and in the end she realized she really wasn’t.

She wasn’t as good a cultivator, she wasn’t as good a leader, she wasn’t as good a person.

She certainly wasn’t as good a son.

(She wasn’t a son at all, but who was she going to tell? Who would ever believe her?)

-

She thought for a while that she might be a cutsleeve – it was said that men who liked other men were feminine in behavior and in their thoughts, a result of their being lacking in yang and overabundant in yin – but the pornography she got Wei Wuxian to get for her, after she’d egged him on to do it under the guise of a dare, ended up leaving her cold and more than a little bored.

(It’d been Wei Wuxian who’d ended up staring at it for hours and hours, mouth slightly agape, before slinking away with hunched shoulders and look on his face; she assumed that was the normal reaction to pornography, for boys who weren’t defective the way she was, and sighed again over her own failures.)

At any rate, the first time her heart had ever been moved, it ended up being for a woman after all: Wen Qing in her red dress and her head held high, proud and a little above-it-all, carrying a sword like any man and needles in her fist like the doctor she was.

It had been a relief to think that she might be normal in some ways, some obvious ways, that she might be a boy in the ways that mattered, like love.

She even bought a comb for her, wondering if it would be rude to hand it over – presumptuous, maybe. Wen Qing was a Wen, after all, even if she didn’t seem to think she was the sun in the sky the way the other Wens did…it probably wouldn’t work out.

Jiang Cheng put the comb away.

They had an encounter in an inn later, faces suddenly an inch apart so that Wen Qing can whisper words of warning, and Jiang Cheng expected her heart to speed up when it happens – it did, a little, but not as much as it had before.

It occurred to Jiang Cheng that she wasn’t sure if her heart had been moved because she liked Wen Qing or if it was only that she wanted to be her.

Jiang Cheng almost asked, the next time they met – Wen Qing was a doctor, wasn’t she, so surely she’d have some sort of insight – but after a few moments realized that it would be unbelievably rude to dump issues of sexuality and attraction onto Wen Qing’s shoulders at a moment when they were surrounded by the ghost puppets of Wen Qing’s family who were trying to kill them.

Plus, Nie Huaisang was there. That would have made everything even more awkward.

So she didn’t ask, said “Never mind” when Wen Qing asked what she had been going to say, and ignored the thoughtful look on Nie Huaisang’s face – he was probably just thinking that Jiang Cheng had a crush.

Wen Qing probably thought she just had a crush.

It would be easier if it was just a crush.

-

It turned out that Jiang Cheng had underestimated Nie Huaisang, and also she might be a little in love with Qinghe – her father had always said they were a bit odd, in a tone that didn’t quite suggest approval, but it turned out they were just the right kind of odd for Jiang Cheng.

“Are you a girl?” Nie Huaisang asked, idly fanning himself – Wei Wuxian had wandered outside with his jar of liquor after the feast, and Lan Wangji was nowhere to be found, very likely already leaving.

“What?” Jiang Cheng said, then turned to glare incredulously at him. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve walked into our rooms in the Cloud Recesses without knocking often enough to know the answer to that.”

“Not on the outside,” Nie Huaisang said, rolling his eyes. “On the inside. Are you a girl when you think?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jiang Cheng asked, suspicious, and her heart was racing faster than it ever had around Wen Qing – mostly in terror.

Nie Huaisang heaved a sigh as if Jiang Cheng was being especially stupid. “Misaligned reincarnations,” he said. “Two births, one man and one woman, happening at the same hour, same minute, same second – except the man’s soul gets lost and goes into the woman’s body, and the woman’s goes into the man’s. Think of it as a filing error by the heavenly bureaucracy.”

Jiang Cheng had never heard anything so stupid and wonderful before in her life.

“You’re joking,” she said, accusing. “There’s no such thing.”

“There is! I swear! It’s not uncommon in Qinghe – we have at least a dozen misaligned reincarnations in the Nie sect right now.”

Jiang Cheng crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t believe you. Name one.”

“My older brother,” Nie Huaisang said promptly. “I swear that’s why he’s so pleased over that stupid mustache of his; it’s a sign of how good his cultivation is, putting all that yang energy in the right place.”

Jiang Cheng blinked, not quite understanding. “Why would he be pleased about having a mustache if his soul was actually a woman’s?”

Certain Jiang Cheng went to extraordinary lengths to keep her own chin clean-shaven. The thought of having a beard repulsed her.

“What? No. His soul is a man’s.”

“But you said he was misaligned…?”

“He is. What, do you want me to ask you to look inside his robes to see what he doesn’t have between his legs?”

Jiang Cheng gaped. “But he – he dresses as man!”

“He is a man,” Nie Huaisang said. “He just happens to be a man who, if you’re talking physically, would be the one to bear children, not the one to sire them.”

Jiang Cheng felt the need to sit down. It was as if her entire world had changed to spin the other way around.

“I’d really like him to marry Meng Yao,” Nie Huaisang said thoughtfully. “He likes him so much – he really respects him and listens to him, and my da-ge doesn’t listen to anyone. And that way I could have some nieces or nephews! But maybe he’ll decide to marry a woman instead, and then they’d have to find someone else to sire the children. Maybe Lan Xichen; he seems like the sort of person who’d agree to donate without demanding a share of filial piety…”

“I am,” Jiang Cheng said quickly, forcing the words out of her mouth before she became too shy to say them. “Your – question. From earlier. I am.”

Nie Huaisang smiled brilliantly. “I thought you might be,” he said. “Would you like to spend the evening trying on some of my mother’s old dresses? She had your shoulders – da-ge’s biological mother, you understand. Very tall. I’m sure we could find something in purple…”

Maybe it was bravery inspired by the liquor they’d all drunk at dinner, but Jiang Cheng agreed.

It was a good night.

-

It was something she thought about a lot, later, when they were stuck in the camp with the Wens, and after, when they’re back at home again.

Wei Wuxian’s words, reassuring her that she would be Sect Leader no matter how unorthodox – his reminder that Lan Yi was Sect Leader Lan, and just as valued as any other despite being who and what she was – made Jiang Cheng wonder if Wei Wuxian somehow knew.

She hoped he did.

After that, though, she didn’t – there wasn’t time to think about anything as stupid as identity.

Not for a long time.

-

Everything after Wei Wuxian came back was a disaster, every last bit of it.

Wei Wuxian was different, cold and unfeeling; Jiang Cheng tried to reach him, over and over again, but nothing seemed to work. She even wondered, in a panic, if Wei Wuxian hadn’t known, and maybe had somehow found out – he certainly seemed to be avoiding her in specific.

She didn’t know what else it could be.

Everything was falling apart around her – her older sister was remaining at Koi Tower, her shixiong had turned from mere negligence to outright rebellion…

She followed him to the Burial Mounds.

“You should disown me,” Wei Wuxian said. His face was cold.

It had always been cold, ever since he’d disappeared – they’d been with the Wens then, too.

“Fuck that,” Jiang Cheng said, and just gave up, sitting down on the ground. “No. Fuck you.”

Wei Wuxian scowled at him. “Don’t be so indecisive, Jiang Cheng; it doesn’t suit you. Disown me as a rebel, and the shame of my actions won’t be reflected onto the Jiang sect.”

“The shame of my actions,” Jiang Cheng said mockingly. “Don’t call it a shame if you don’t think it is one, Wei Wuxian! You’re proud of what you’ve done. I suppose in the end it’s a good thing my father didn’t have a son like you!”

“Oh, that old thing again,” Wei Wuxian said, his face twisting. “I’m telling you, you’re his son –”

“I’m not,” Jiang Cheng snapped back, pushed beyond her limits. “I was never his son; you were the only son he ever had, no matter how little blood there was between you. You keep pushing this, Wei Wuxian, and I never want to see or hear of you kneeling before his memorial tablet ever again, you hear me?! Neither as son, nor nephew, nor disciple!”

It was a low blow, she knew, but she didn’t know how else to reach him. Even if Wei Wuxian, the new Wei Wuxian, didn’t love her as much as he loved the Wens, then surely – surely he loved Jiang Fengmian enough?

Or had all her father’s love been pissed away into nothing?

Wei Wuxian stared at her, his brows pulled together, and promptly fixated on the wrong thing entirely. “What do you mean you’re not his son? Madame Yu would never –”

Jiang Cheng jabbed a finger at him.  “Do not accuse my mother of adultery!”

“I wasn’t going to!” Wei Wuxian protested, and then looked around almost as if he though she was going to overhear him and order him to go kneel.

It was so familiar a gesture that Jiang Cheng let slip a hysterical giggle, which somehow set Wei Wuxian off laughing, and then that set Jiang Cheng off in turn.

“This is so stupid,” Jiang Cheng moaned, her hands over her face to hide her tears. “No one even said anything funny…you don’t make any sense, Wei Wuxian.”

“I don’t make any sense?” Wei Wuxian was hiccupping. “You don’t make any sense. What was that about not being Jiang Fengmian’s son?”

At this point, Jiang Cheng couldn’t see any path forward that didn’t involve banishing Wei Wuxian from the sect, to never see him again except as strangers – or at least to only ever see him in secret. They’d already grown so distant…there was no point in holding anything back.

So she told him, borrowing Nie Huaisang’s words to explain the concept.

“I didn’t know,” Wei Wuxian said, wiping his eyes. “I really didn’t. I didn’t even know enough to guess.”

Jiang Cheng sniffed and pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and putting her chin on her knees – disgracefully childish, really, but she felt that way right now. She felt hollowed out, as if telling Wei Wuxian her greatest secret had left her with nothing else inside.

“You’re the one who can’t be guessed,” she said bitterly. “I don’t understand you, Wei Wuxian. You said you’d be at my side, that you’d help me, but you’re picking these people over me without a second thought…did I do something wrong?”

“What? No!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed. “No, that isn’t – it isn’t – it isn’t about you at all.”

“Then why didn’t you ask me to help you with them?” Jiang Cheng asked. She’d wondered that for a long time. “It’s not like you were the only one Wen Qing helped back then, when we were running from the Wen sect! She hid me, too! If that’s the debt you want to repay, shouldn’t I have every right to repay it, too? But you never told me you were going…”

“You couldn’t have come! What it would have done to the Jiang sect’s relationship with the Jin sect –”

“Oh, now you give a fig for politics? I’m Sect Leader! Those guards that you say fought you; they would have had to listen to me – if they challenged me, the scandal would be about their conduct, not mine! I could have helped, I could have explained it, we could have figured out a way to do it together…no,” she said, suddenly certain. “I’m not kicking you out the Jiang sect. You’re the only man we have left in the family, Wei Wuxian; you can’t just run out on me now. Especially given that jiejie’s leaving, too.”

Wei Wuxian jerked as if he’d been stabbed. “What do you mean, shijie’s leaving?”

“She’s going to accept Jin Zixuan’s offer of marriage,” Jiang Cheng said, and had Wei Wuxian really not known? Had he paid any attention to anything related to the Jiang sect in the past few weeks? “Maybe not yet, but…soon. And then I’ll be alone in the Lotus Pier, trying to run the entire damn sect without any help at all – no, I’m not kicking you out. I refuse.”

She’d been willing to agree, even a few short moments earlier. But then they’d taken the time to sit and talk about other things – she’d taken the time to make sure Wei Wuxian knew who she really was, to bare herself to him, no matter how stupid it might feel to be concerned about her self-perception when put in comparison with the destruction of her entire family – and the pause had given her time to think it over again.

It had made her realize that she didn’t want to give up on Wei Wuxian, even if he was giving up on her.

“Aren’t we a Great Sect, after all?” she said, scowling, gathering her strength of will. If she was going to need to stand up against the rest of the cultivation world, Wei Wuxian included, to keep her family together, then so be it; she would do it if she had to. It was better than the alternative. “Sect Leader Jin is always making noises about being able to show strength – fine, then, we’ll show him strength! You have the Yin Tiger Seal, I have my forces, and jiejie – maybe jiejie can convince Jin Zixuan to help us –”

“Lan Zhan let us go,” Wei Wuxian said abruptly, and Jiang Cheng turned to him in surprise. “He encountered us on the Qiongqi Path; I told him to fight me if he wanted to stop me, and he didn’t. He let me go – he let all of us go.”

“So maybe he’ll help us again, if we asked?” Jiang Cheng hazarded a guess. “That’s good! And we’re old friends with Nie Huaisang, and we worked with Nie Mingjue during the war – the Nies are very upright, very straightforward. If we showed them that most of the people here are non-combatants, showed them everything…well, everything but what you’re doing with Wen Ning, anyway; what are you doing with Wen Ning? He’s not really a ghost puppet you’ve brought back from the dead, is he?”

“He’s not dead,” Wei Wuxian said. “Just very close to it. He’s been infected with resentful energy and his qi circulation has been thrown out of alignment with…it’s complicated, and I don’t think you care.”

“I don’t,” Jiang Cheng admitted. “But that’s fine. You talking about it like an academic is better than you talking like you’re about to raise armies of corpses to send against the rest of the cultivation world…anyway, start packing up your things. I left my people at the bottom of the mountain; I’ll go get them, they can help carry both things and people, and we’ll move you all back to the Lotus Pier.”

“Back to the Lotus Pier,” Wei Wuxian murmured, looking dazed.

“Yes, back to the Lotus Pier! Possession is nine-tenths the law,” Jiang Cheng said, thinking out loud. “If necessary, I’ll throw a fit and claim that Sect Leader Jin wants to invade the Lotus Pier the way the Wen sect did. He’ll never forgive me for it, and things might be a bit tricky for a while…he’ll probably say I’m too emotional to be sect leader. With your backing, though, I think we should be able to get through it.”

That was the key bit, though, wasn’t it?

“Do I have your backing?” she asked.

“Yes,” Wei Wuxian said. “You do.”

[heresathreebee]

Morning Of and After

SMILF Jesse X Female Reader

Summary: You meet Jesse in a bar and take him home. Masterlist

Word count: 3.3k words

Warning(s): +17 | swearing, drunk sex, porn with(out) plot (?), p in v sex, from behind, morning angst, mutual masterbation

AN: bitch I watched a 30 second clip of a tv show JUST to see an underdressed Alex Brightman. What has my life come to. Ah well, I'm gonna enjoy it while I can. Blame these lovely, inspiring fools @hoodoo12 @go-commander-kim @escape-your-grape

Jesse's not sure why you were hanging off of him at the bar but he's basking in your attention now. You didn't hesitate to give the cabbie your address, arm permanently looped around his shoulders for balance. You had both been drinking– exactly how much was a mystery– and Jesse was eager for a breakthrough in his dry spell. 

Your lips are wet and on each other as he kicks your door closed. Pulling your clothes from your body proves a little difficult, especially with you wrestling to take off his. He catches a case of the giggles when you get his head stuck in his shirt but the laughter quickly turns into a moan when he feels you slip a hand into his underwear to fondle his junk. He remembers gripping your wrist like iron and ripping his shirt from his face. He gives you a gentle push backwards, right onto the edge of your bed (he didn't know that was there but he would have been happy to take you on the floor too). 

Your top is misaligned but far from off, however you are bare from the waist down and wrap your legs around his hips to pull him towards you. Jesse's just as desperate and he slips his pants down midthigh, then stops to rummage in his pocket for a condom. He has to bat your grabby little hands away or he won't last. It's a little hard to see through the haze of lust and alcohol but he manages, and then he's pressing you into the mattress leaning on an elbow and sliding his fingers through your slick folds. 

He groans and plants a kiss on your mouth. "Fuck you're wet..." 

The man wastes no time and hooks two fingers inside you, eager to stretch you out and make you come now because you're fucking gorgeous and it's driving him to the edge without any stimulation. 

You mewl beneath him, nails scratching his scalp and chest heaving as if begging for his attention. Jesse's mouth waters heavily as he sloppily licks and sucks at your breasts, pushing your top aside and just nipping at the lace bra still intact. He has no idea how high you are until your inner walls contract around his fingers so hard he worries they might break. And with a practiced motion, he eases you down from your orgasm, fingers slowing down until he slips them out. 

And just for the hell of it, he flicks your clit and feels you jump beneath him. Suddenly your teeth are digging into his neck and he howls. 

"Fuck me already," you growl. 

You spread your legs wider to fit his hips to the center and drag him into another rough kiss. Jesse has some trouble maneuvering with his pants half on, but he catches the head on your lip and pushes in groaning at the familiar feeling of being engulfed. Bottoming out inside you sends an electric tingling sensation down his spine and he has to stop for a moment and catch his breath. 

He feels your feet sliding up his thighs, one foot still in a heel which catches on his waistband. His hips give a test rock and you moan against his collarbone, legs twitching at his sides. 

Jesse sets a subtle pace, rocking into your heat and drooling a little. You feel so fucking good underneath him, so right, like eating apple pie on the Fourth of July. His balls start to tighten and he almost lets go, but the feeling of your pussy twitching draws his attention to your face. You're close to coming again but not anywhere near where he is. The sloppy drunk part of him wants to just keep going and finish but the real Jesse wants this to be good for you too and what's a little second orgasm between drunk strangers? 

He pulls out and despite your immediate protests, you quickly become curious when Jesse's hands push and pull on you as if trying to move you. 

"What are you doing?" 

His chin has a small glisten and his eyes are so watery. There are hickeys forming on his neck and a scratch or two rising on his shoulder. The hairy expanse of his chest is turning red from friction and he looks as unreal as a dream until he says, "turn over." 

Your legs twitch and you definitely soak the quilt on your bed. Did you hear him right? This guy? Soft, pretty boy who was just a second ago gently rocking your world? 

He licks his lips and says, "turn around. I wanna do it the other way. On your knees." 

Fuck. Well you're definitely shaking with excitement as you fulfill his command. You finally manage to slip your top off and fling it into the abyss off the bed. You wiggle your hips into the requested position and shiver as a warm hand slides up your spine. Another warm hand locks around your hip and you feel him enter you with no resistance. The rough material of his jeans scratches at your thighs as he begins to thrust, longer strokes that leave you empty and full, empty and full again. You quickly slide off of your elbows and press your face into the blanket, loving the way he seems to lose himself again inside you. 

God, does he even know he's moaning right now? It's so hot, somehow hotter than him driving his cock deep inside you. The slapping sound of his hips against your ass sendings endorphins straight to your head. After Jesse breathes another 'fuck,' you slither a hand underneath your body to circle your clit. The first touch of your fingers to your sticky little button causes you to tighten around Jesse's cock and you hear him choke. He leans over your back and settles a hand on the bed to proper himself up, changing the angle of his thrusts and hitting some spot deep inside you that makes you see stars. 

"Fuck, so good," Jesse mumbles, sweaty forehead pressing against your shoulder. "Mmmm… gonna come…" 

Fuck that's exactly what you needed to hear. Your whole body turns tuat like a bow string and your walls constrict into a vice. Your legs quiver from the strong shocks of your orgasm, forcing a long, broken moan to escape your chest and black to creep into your vision. 

Your orgasm is the end of your partner. Jesse's hips stutter to a stop as he fills up the condom, unable to breath for a few seconds as he forgets his name, his location, and his sense of self and all there is left is you. Eventually Jesse's soul slams back into his body and he collapses his full weight on top of you unintentionally crushing you. He feels you laughing and at the urge of an elbow in his ribs, he rolls over and off of you. You're still giggling, boneless and satisfied as you try to catch your breath. 

You turn your head towards him to look over his blissful features. His skin glistens in the half light and he's probably seconds from falling asleep. You put a hand out on his chest and shake him awake despite yourself, knowing you need to clean up. 

"Up," you command. 

Jesse shifts off of the bed sluggishly, disposing of the condom in the bin by your desk and grabbing the waistband of his jeans like he's not sure what to do with them. You reach out mischievously and slap his ass causing him to yelp and look back at you in disbelief. 

"Take those off and get back here." You fling the quilt of your bed off and curl under the topsheet with a hand out to him. 

Jesse looks confused. He moves slowly, crawling back in naked and incapable of meeting your eyes. You place a guiding hand to help him lay his head on your silk encased pillow. "Stay," you command, and dip into the bathroom to clean up. 

Jesse lies awake but not for long, his body thumps with the beat of his heart and it lulls him to sleep. He's snoring softly when you come back and flip the lights off. 

~

Jesse's head is pounding in the morning, but he's had it worse. Like way worse. The bedroom curtains are drawn but the sun is direct and the light reflects off the walls a little too strongly for his liking. You look pretty in nothing but sheets and it's turning him on a little bit. 

What the fuck was a girl like you doing with a guy like him anyways, he wondered, over his skinnier and better looking friends? And then he wondered, how much did you have to drink last night? It unnerves him that he doesn't know the answer. You left the bar together but you didn't walk in together, who knows how many jager bombs or tequila shots you had before you met him? 

Jesse's really hyped himself up now, his hands are getting clammy and he's about to start fidgeting if he doesn't figure something out soon. When you wake up will you remember him? Did you know his name like he knew yours? Would you throw him out in disgust? Maybe you were the type who took them home because you knew they'd be gone at first light. Maybe you liked it that way. 

Jesse takes a deep breath to steel himself. He's intent on thinking things through until… until he realizes it took 10 minutes. From the time you entered the apartment to the time he came, it took 10 minutes. Oh god… that is the nail in the coffin for him. 

He slides out of bed as quietly as possible. His face is hot and his hands are cold as he slips into his underwear, then his pants. He lets his feet carry him out of the bedroom and into the hallway where he finds his shirt, and he gets distracted looking at your soaked lace underwear as he reaches for the keys by the door. 

You actually live really close to his work, which is where he left his car last night. If he can just get some distance maybe he can think better. He could probably use a tylenol more than anything right now. 

Jesse's waiting for a light to change at a crosswalk when he realizes these are not his keys. All regrets about leaving his phone number on a paper somewhere at your place go out the window when he realizes he doesn't have his phone either. 

"Fuck," he mutters in defeat.  

Returning back to your apartment is the real walk of shame. He hopes someone will stop him, ask him if he lives around here or something so he can chicken out and maybe get a friend to get his stuff back. The cute like trinkets hanging off your car keys do give him some interesting insight into the things you like. 

He can't remember if he left the door unlocked and celebrates when he doesn't have to knock and wake you up. He probably should have clued in when he heard the sound of a sink turning off, but he's actually more hungover than he thought. He fully freezes like a deer in headlights when you appear with a towel on your head and fresh lounging clothes. 

The look you give him should have turned him to stone. "Hey Jesse. Forget something?" 

He opens his mouth and nothing but a weak "heeeeyyy," escapes. His mouth flaps like a fish and he suddenly remembers to put your keys back from where he found them. Busted. "I ee I was just going out to grab some coffee… and like a tylenol… but guess I grabbed the wrong keys, hahah..." 

The twist of your mouth is a little cruel. You let the towel rest on your shoulders and toss him his keys from the kitchen counter, warm hand lingering over his heart in an affectionate but threatening way. "Coffee sounds good. There's a shop a mile that way, honest to god espresso and cheaper prices than the usual dig. I'm sure I've got a bottle of tylenol somewhere around here, I should find it by the time you come back." 

Oh...K? Are you… planning something? Should he fear for his safety? Apologize? Not knowing what else to do (and distracted by the feeling of you caressing his chest), Jesse simply nods and turns to obey you. Only at the door does he turn back and gesture with his key hand, "you uh, haven't seen my phone, have you?" 

You're smiling. You've got no bra on beneath your baseball tee, hair soaking your shoulders, and tiny tiny shorts with pockets– a pocket carrying what he clearly recognizes as his phone– and you're smiling. 

"I like my coffee strong. Just tell them my name, they'll know what to make." Jesse doesn't know what else to do except sputter and leave. 

~

It would have been a short walk but it's an even shorter drive. Jesse stands in line assessing the menu with his hands in his pockets. You were mad at him. 

Ok, that was fair. 

You were upset that he left you without a goodbye and had stupidly forgotten his things and had to come crawling back. So you weren't that kind of person. He knows that now. But you also weren't screaming at him or begging him to stick around. 

Jesse didn't know what to think of your reaction. But you knew his name. He told you his name in the cab and if you remembered it's because you weren't blackout drunk. That's good for both of you. You didn't seem too hungover either, maybe you'd had less to drink than he did or at least the same. This is good, these were good things. 

It didn't make going back to your place less terrifying though. 

~

You left the front door cracked and Jesse pushed his way in with a cup in each hand. "Boy, they sure do like you down at that coffee shop! Extra this and extra that. I'd kill to have a place like me like that." 

You seem… calmer now. The tension in your movement is gone and you peck his lips with a kiss as you take your coffee. You reach around him to shut the door and walk to the couch expecting him to follow (and of course like a dog on a leash, he did). You passed him a tylenol and took a few yourself, washing them down with your drink before leaning back with your arm over your eyes. 

"I'm sorry," Jesse blurts out. You peak at him from under your arm. "I… I didn't know if you wanted to see me when you woke up so I…" 

You snort. "Jesse, honey. If I didn't like you, you would have never made it to my room. Not even close. And if I didn't want to see you in the morning–" 

You sat up and pressed yourself almost into his lap– "I would have fucked you at the club." 

Now is not the time for a boner, this was a serious conversation. In any case, you eased up on your dominating stance and fell into his side like you belonged there. It felt nice. You smelled like fresh laundry and peaches (definitely your body wash or something), and weren't mad at him anymore. In fact you passed his phone to him and settled back. Jesse wrapped an arm around you and rested his cheek on your head. He had almost drifted back to sleep when his text tone dinged. 

MASON: Where the fuck are you? 

Jesse sighed. You knew exactly what that sound meant and became determined not to let him go without a fight, but Jesse stopped you from climbing into his lap very firmly, by flipping you onto your back and holding you down. He can't help but blush, his ears turning red as he glares at you. 

"I have. To go," he scolds. "My buddy Mason's got this project he needs help with and I promised I'd be there to help him move his stuff." 

You whine, grabbing his wrists and sliding his hands up to cover your breasts. "Can't it wait a little longer? We can be fast." 

Jesse's brain short circuits and his hands inadvertently flex. "What?" 

He knows your nipples are hard because he can feel them, and you're looking at him in that way that makes his pants tighter. You don't have to say it but when you do, he falls hook line and sinker. "Come on, babe. Round 2? Before you go?" 

How could he say no to that?

Jesse kisses you roughly. His hands squeeze your tits before he plants one to hold himself up and the other to draw you closer so he can grind his hips into yours. You gasp, pulling at his hair and then fumbling with his pants for a second just as you change your mind. Jesse protests as you push him backwards, then he stares as you slide those tiny shorts off. He goes right to circling your clit with his thumb and takes a long look at the dark spot on your new panties. 

"So easy to get you wet," he praises, swiping his thumb down over the wet patch before returning to his pronounced circular motions. 

You let him toy with you, feet resting on his shoulders until you remember your little game. you gently kick his hand away and replace it with your own, sliding the fabric aside and making him watch two of your fingers glide deep inside you. Jesse groans, intent to help out but you stop him. 

"Just me," you gasp. "Just you." 

Jesse seems momentarily confused. Then you see it click in his head and he scrambles to take his cock out, already fully erect and dark in color. He starts to stroke himself, eyes bouncing around your form and drinking in the sight of your self administered pleasure. His eyes roll back at the squelching sound filling the space between you, continuing to stroke himself with a dry rasp. 

Jesse calls your name and grasps your wrist. His tongue swirls around your fingers hungrily to suck the slick from them, groaning as he does. It's a moment's distraction as his own fings dip into your wet heat and come out coated in more. He replaces his soaked hand on his cock and strokes with renewed vigor. 

"God," he hums. It feels so good, watching you watch him is turning him on way more than he thought it would. He's getting close to coming at the thought of painting your stomach when his phone starts ringing. 

He grows an annoyed glance at the offending device, then does a double take and pounces. "Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck– hey boss!" 

You looked at him, completely stunned. Jesse pretended not to notice you and listened intently to the voice on his phone, nodding his head absently and to your horror, tucking his cock back into his pants. He doesn't look too happy about it, but he swallows his pride and tells his boss he'll 'be right there.' 

He's already apologizing as he pulls you up from the couch and sets your clothes right. Jesse peppers your sour face in light kisses, rubbing your arms as if to soothe you from a blinding rage. 

"I promise I'll make it up to you," he says donning his jacket. "I don't know when or how but I will I–" 

"Arcade. Thursday. 7 pm." You zip up his jacket and glare at him so he knows there's no room for argument. 

He smiles, "I can't wait," he drops a hearty kiss to your lips. "Thursday, 7 pm. Want me to pick you up?" 

"Only if you plan on staying the night." 

"That's a yes then." Jesse leaves and you cannot wait for Thursday.

[asktheghosthost]

Homecoming

Jai belongs to @catinabag, and is used with their permission. This was a little drabble gift that kept growing until I finally decided to just finish and post it. It’s a little lengthy, hence the Read More. Enjoy!

Fog was rolling in thick that night, but it wasn't doing much to dissuade the man lumbering along the edge of the road. Occasionally, he'd glance up at a damp street sign, grunt in acknowledgement of it, and keep going. He really wasn't relying on them, anyway. It was an... instinct, a feeling that pulled him to where he needed to be. And the closer he was getting, the stronger the pull became.

"Come to the Square," a voice whispered, simultaneously at his ear and in his brain. "Come to the Square, and you'll be home..."

Home... He hadn't seen home-- hadn't had a home-- in... God, how many decades now? Time had lost all meaning to him.

He tugged his pinstripe jacket closer around him. Fuck it was cold. Wasn't Louisiana supposed to be all muggy and swampy and hot? How many more miles of this did he have to deal with? Was it even worth it? What the hell was he even doing, really--

The honk of a car horn made him turn away from his thoughts. He glared at the car, a dull yellow taxi, as it slowed to a crawl next him. The window rolled down, and a scruffy faced driver leaned over the passenger seat and called out, "Y'all need a ride?"

Standing there, arms stiffly around him, the man hesitated to say anything. "Uh..."

The driver grinned. "Tell you what, brah, if you goin' the same way I am, and it's under five miles, no charge. Lagniappe. Deal?"

The man nodded, and quickly got into the car. "Thanks," he grunted. "'Preciate it."

"No problem, no problem." Pulling away from the road's edge, the driver continued forward. "Y'all  ain't from around these parts, are you? What's your name, ami?"

"No," he said, gruffly, shaking his head. "It's Jai. Ghast." He hadn't said his real last name in years. It was almost like saying a foreign word, like his tongue didn't know how to curl around it properly.

The driver let out a short, relieved laugh. "For a moment there, I thought you was gonna say 'Gracey.' Ah, there's a family no one wants any part of. 'Cause of them, most drivers won't make rounds 'round here."

Jai furrowed his brow in confusion. "They a crime syndicate, or something?"

"Non, ami. They're all dead." His grin glinted in the rearview mirror. "Now where you heading to, Monsieur Ghast?"

Go to the Square...

"Um, the Square?" Jai cringed inwardly.

Now it was the driver's turn to look confused. "New Orleans Square?"

Jai pursed his lips and his gray eyes darted from side to side. He wagered, "Yes?"

The driver's grin widened. "You in luck, ami! That's where I be headed to." The cab took off with such force, Jai was pressed back into the seat. "Ol' Gabe, he get you there tout suite!"

Jai's knuckles faded to a pale beige as he gripped the door handle. The vehicle-- and his stomach-- lurched. And then there was a strange sensation under him, or rather, a lack of sensation. It was subtle at first, hard to pin point, and then he realized what it was: there wasn't any road under them. There should have been the familiar pings of grit and gravel under the tires. A steady whoosh from below his feet. There was an eerie whistling, however, and he forced his head to turn to look out the window.

They weren't connected to the road. They weren't connected to anything. Tiny points of lights--streetlights-- barely shown through the mist dozens of feet beneath them.

"The hell! What're you doing, you crazy Cajun?!"

"Why, I'm gettin' you to your destination, of course!" Gabe cackled. Moonlight flashed through him, betraying he was transparent.

Jai let out a heavy sigh and slumped back against the seat. How had he not figured it out? "This some kind of show you put on for tourists?"

"Gotta get my kicks somehow, ami." He gave a good-natured shrug. "Besides, one of us had to let on we was dead."

Jai was quiet for a few seconds. "Fair."

The next few minutes were thankfully uneventful, and the cab touched down on centuries old cobblestone.

Jai didn't open the door right away, instead rolling down the fogged window.

Up ahead loomed a massive, white house, a plantation-style mansion.  It shone like a bleached tooth, a beacon in the misty night.  The imposing black, wrought iron gate ahead of it was almost easy to miss in comparison.  Even easier to miss were the strange, misshapen large stones scattered across the front yard of the property.

"This is the Square?"

"New Orleans Square is the town, but this is the place you need to be. Gracey Manor." Gabe's grin shifted into a gentler smile.  "Safe travels, ami. And when you see old Beauregard, you tell him Gabe Guidry says hi."

"Beauregard?"

But Gabe was gone. The cab was gone.  Jai was suddenly standing outside that menacing gate. With a long, high creak, it slowly opened, gesturing he should enter.

Jai licked his lips and ran a hand back through his shaggy black hair. Graceys. The dead people.

He straightened his jacket and stepped forward, a dirt path becoming more and more visible under his black leather shoes.

Moving forward, he got a better look at the property. A cement bird bath was to his left. A small pool was in it, but was too dark to see through. Jai had a feeling he'd regret sticking his hand in.

Near the bird bath was a statue of a smug, fluffy Persian cat.  This in turn was flanked by multiple tiny bird statues. Nearby were other stone animals--a duck, a snake, a few different dogs, a monkey...

Wait...

The spacing between the animals led him to look at tiny placards under each, which all listed names and dates.  This was a pet cemetery!

Cute, he thought. But then it dawned on him what those larger stones were.  Who has a house flanked by a graveyard?

Beauregard…

With a new sense of urgency, he bounded up the front steps and barely stopped before gripping the enormous bronze door knocker and slamming it down three times. "Open up." His throat was suddenly tight. Angry tears welled in his eyes. "Open up, you creepy bastard!"

As if responding to his impatience, the door was pulled open with such force, Jai was flung inside. Skidding, he caught himself before he could fall.

A low voice greeted him in the darkness of the foyer. “Welcome, wayward soul.” An unseen hand helped him straighten up.

That voice… Jai knew it. It’d just been so long since he’d heard it. That tightness returned to his throat.

“Beauregard?”

A man appeared in front of him, one who was simultaneously familiar and a stranger. Thin, lanky, like him, with long, shaggy hair, only shock white instead of black. Taller than Jai by a few inches, but he always had been. They stared at one another, jaws agape, eyes wide.

Jai took a couple of unsure steps forward, but the other ran to him, and then flung his arms around him and hugged him so tightly Jai thought he’d never break free.

“My baby brother!” He pulled away, only to hold Jai’s shoulders and look him over. “It’s been so long.” His voice cracked. “You… You look… so grown up.” A tiny sob-chuckle escaped him, but he was grinning.

Jai took a moment to take in some of the new details of his sibling—the pale, blind right eye, and the scarring over it that ran from brow to cheek; the bruising left behind on his thin throat, and its answer, a thick noose that hung loosely under it like some kind of macabre tie. His green coat was threadbare at the shoulders and elbows, and his purple waistcoat was slightly too long. The pinstripe slacks were all right, but his spats were misaligned.

“You look like shit.”

Beauregard laughed and wiped his eyes. “That’s fair.”

“Sorry,” Jai said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess those last few years weren’t so kind to you, huh?”

Beauregard shrugged a shoulder, not denying it, but not providing details, either. “It’s been a long time since then.”

“And you’ve just been here, in this big ol’ house, for…?”

Another shrug. “I’m honestly not sure how long now. I don’t keep track of time anymore. I know I died January twenty-ninth of 1901, at exactly 10:35 p.m. Beyond that…” He pulled out a pocket watch and flashed the face of it at Jai. It had been stopped since his time of death. “Time has lost all meaning for me.”

“So, you’ve been here…”

“Yes.”

“All this time?”

“Yes.”

“You died here?”

“Yes…” Beau was trying not to show the mild annoyance growing at the questions. “What are you getting at?”

Jai suddenly pointed at him accusingly. “You’ve been here, living here, for ages, and you ain’t never tried to contact me even once? Even once!”

Taken aback, Beau sputtered, “Well, you—Who do you think sent out the message for you, hmm? Who do you think led you here?”

“But that was just now! You’ve had literal decades! Decades! Decades that I’ve spent away from the very last little bit of family I had left!” There were tears in his eyes. “If Eulie were here…”

“Eulie is here. This was her house.” Beau looked over his shoulder at the grand staircase leading to the bedrooms above. “I’m surprised she hasn’t come down to investigate the ruckus yet. Her or Dorian…”

Jai took a tiny pause for confusion. “Is that her husband?”

“No, her son.”

“I have a nephew?” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “And you all were livin’ in a mansion! And not one of you saw fit to find me?!” Turning on his heel, he headed back to the door.

“Now stop!” Beau bellowed. A chair cut Jai off, knocking him down into it, and it scooted back to Beau. “You disappeared!” Pointing at Jai, Beau floated above the floor. “You were the one who forsake the family! You went off to who-knows-where, while Eulalie and I were dealing with our parents’ funeral expenses, and bank possessing the house, and—” He let out a frustrated groan. Slipping back down to the floor, he slowly exhaled, and started again, in a much calmer tone. “It was like you had fallen off the face of the planet. And… And I knew you were grieving in your own way. By the time we wound up here… H-How was I supposed to find you, Jai?” Beau put a hand on his shoulder, gazing into his eyes, imploring. “When you clearly didn’t want to be found?”

Turning his head aside, Jai looked away. It was true. He hadn’t wanted to be found, not at first. But when he’d found himself deep in trouble, that’s when he’d started thinking about his family and what he’d left behind. Then… Then it was too late. Far too late. You couldn’t scream for your big brother with a mouth full of dirty handkerchief, and lungs full of river water.

Jai blinked, sending tears cascading down his cheeks. “I—I missed you, Beau. I needed you. And—And I couldn’t find you. And I couldn’t face you. Not after what I’d done. I’ve… I’ve done horrible things, Beau. I…”

“Shh,” Beau shushed him. “Do you think I’m proud of this?” He gestured to the noose. “We’ve all done regrettable things, Jai.” Gripping the arms of the chair, he leaned down. “The important thing is we’re back together, eh?” He grinned his cock-eyed grin that always seemed just a little too wide. “The Ghast boys wreaking havoc from beyond the grave!”

Jai allowed himself a small smile. “You mean it? Back together like old times?”

Beau yanked him up, and put an arm around him as he led him further into the mansion. “Not exactly. Far fewer things to worry about now. I’ll give you the tour, and you can tell me everything you’ve been up to.”

“Eh…” Jai rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s a tall order.”

“Hm, we have all eternity little brother.” Beau squeezed him to his side.

[thepixiepaige]

Shes still got another 2-3k in her I think but here, have the first couple thousand words because I can't sleep.

Tw: misaligned kink, huge misunderstandings,bruises/marking, rough sex,

Pairings: reki/langa, adam/langa, (and soon adam/langa/reki wheneverI can get my tippy typers on board again u.u)

⛓❄⛓

Langas voice went low, smoothed over, and languid around a single syllable as soon as Reki's hands touched his throat, tipped his head up, and held him there with hard, calloused fingers.

 "Oh."

Reki flailed back, pulling his hand away in a flourish of motion, "Oh?! Shit, are you okay? Did I hurt you? I'm sorry I got kind of carried away. "

 Langa grabbed for his fingers, placed them against his throat again almost eagerly. "No! It was good. I... I liked it."

 When Reki's eyes snapped to his face, Langa could almost feel his uncertainty. He shifted his hips up against Reki encouragingly, working a shocked and bashful huff from his lips.

 Reki made a noise like he was drowning and met the motion eagerly. His fingers on Langa's throat stayed gentle.

 "Reki please," Langas voice, high and sharp, begged through their shared gasps. Settled, bone dry and cutting, against Reki's heart.

 He jerked his hands away again, fit them tight around the subtle arch of Langa's waist instead and fucked into him harder. The sound of skin and wailed gasps, the burn of Langa's fingers as he gripped at Reki's wrists and held felt like an apology.

 ⛓❄⛓

 "Would you be upset? If I saw Adam."

 Reiki’s fingers slipped on the truck he was tightening, sending the bolt, the wrench, and the entire board flying even as he shot out clumsy limbs to try stopping them all. “Upset? What? No. Of course not. Why would I be upset? Should I be upset?”

 Langa’s smiles were always a sight to behold. And this one was no different, small, and hidden behind the lock of hair that fell in front of his face as he ducked his head. When he looked back up the smile was still there but it was tinged with something more… heated. Steely.

 “I want to try some of the things you can’t do, Reki. It’s not that I don’t love you. Not that I don’t think you wouldn’t try. But I don’t think that’s fair to you. I don’t want to hurt you but I- I just want to know what it’s like. I think he could do that for me. With me.”

 Reki felt his heart break and mend and stutter all within the span of a minute.

 “Oh?” he said and then followed it with another, softer. “Oh.” He swallowed as he bent to pick up the fallen board and set it back to rights. “Yeah, of course. It’s been years, Langa. I’m not scared of that old asshole anymore. He doesn’t upset me. Of course you can see Adam.”

 Langa’s face lit up and Reki knew he’d done something Good. When he leaned in to kiss him Reki laughed, warm and bright, relieved by the touch he hadn’t known he’d been doubting. He brought his hand up to run gentle fingers through Langa’s faded blue hair. He pulled the taller man down to him, kissed the place where his hair was growing in dark at the roots. 

 “Thank you. Thank you. God, I love you.”

 ⛓❄⛓

 It started with a single day in an another wise innocuous week. The first of the month and a Saturday. Reki knew it by the fact that he had a showcase to work. One of the rare sort where he had to be a professional and talk numbers and couldn’t have Langa by his side so they could goof off and demo the new builds. 

 “I’m gonna see Adam today,” Langa whispered into his shoulder, pressing kisses into the side of Reki’s throat as he tried to shave in the foggy bathroom mirror. Reki angled his head to the side with a hesitant expression that he schooled fast, a skip in his heart that he ignored. 

 “Yeah, have fun with that,” he taunted, sarcasm dripping from his teeth as he tried to run the razor down his cheek without taking his entire face off. Langa’s eyes met him in the mirror. Watched his face as Langa slipped his hands beneath the towel wrapped around Reki’s hips and out of sight. 

Reki dropped the razor into the sink with a groan like satin, gripped the edge of the basin, and held on.

 He came home after Reki did, limping, and favoring one of his sides as he moved but his smile was huge and the relaxation in his frame was obvious in the way he poured himself onto the couch and into Reki’s lap. Reki snorted, cupped his palm over Langa’s shoulder, and kneaded at the knotted muscle beneath. 

 “Jesus, what did he do? Throw you into moving traffic?”

 Langa’s voice was soft and warm, “Something like that.”

 “Did you have fun?”

 “Yeah. Fuck, yeah.”

 Reki chewed on his words for a few seconds, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, “I’m glad.”

 Langa snorted then.

 “No really, I’m happy you’re enjoying yourself, you ass.” Reki pressed with the heel of his hand into the shoulder he had been massaging, feeling Langa’s entire body go taut with something that didn’t quite look like pain. He slid his hand around under Langa’s chin and tipped his head up. “I am, like, a nice person sometimes. Even about him.”

 “You are a very nice person, Reki. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

 Reki kissed him soft and then kissed him harder. Langa went liquid beneath him, rolling to his back and hissing in pain even as he tried to snake himself up for more contact.

 “God, what did y’all do?” Reki laughed.

 Langa pulled back, eyes focused and searching as he pushed Reki’s hair back from his face. 

 “Do you wanna know?”

 Reki thought about it. Remembered months of being jealous and bitter and mean over Adam’s focus on Langa. Over Langa’s returned interest. Remembered the fights and bloody knuckles when the two of them had finally had enough of trying to force too much emotion into wild, reckless, competition. Remembered the days of Langa forcing the two of them to sit down and actually talk it out and smooth things over into an antagonistic truce. 

 The resolution they eventually reached had taken even longer than Adam and Cherry’s had. But Reki got the feeling they’d done a lot more of their, "working it out" with their dicks out, though. He’d rather be forced to endure another month of Adam trying to force-feed him concrete than take part in that.

 And now, years later, that truce still held. Adam had even been at the housewarming party when Langa and Reki had finally decided that paying rent on two apartments was ridiculous when neither of them was ever alone in their own place for more than a few hours at a time.

 “Nah, y’all can have your thing. Just- don’t get hurt too badly, yeah?”

 ⛓❄⛓

 Langa did get hurt. Regularly.

 Watching him strip down in the washroom at the end of another day, one where he knew Langa had spent at least an hour or two at Adam’s, Reki was confronted with the darkening spread of newly forming bruises up the side of his partner’s thighs, cresting high onto his hip and over the curve of one side of his ass. The skin was flushed red, tight, and broken open in a few spots and-

 “Holy shit is that from Adam’s fucking board?!” 

 Langa turned, looking over his shoulder and pressing his long fingers into the forming crossbar shape of the crucifix skateboard Ainosuke had used in their final beef so many years before. “Yeah, kind of-” he breathed, voice low.

 Reki reached out to run his fingers over the mark before laying his palm, cool and comforting in comparison, over the whole of the wretched bruise already blooming. “I didn’t even realize he still had that thing. What the hell are y’all doing?”

 Langa grimaced, pressed into Reki’s palm, “It’s a lot to explain. You could... come. If you wanted.” His expression was nervous, vulnerable, as he watched Reki’s face.

 “Pffft. Trust me, I want nothing to do with whatever adrenaline junkie wild shit y’all get up to. I’m gonna keep my ass firmly planted in a design chair and just… stay out of it.”

 He reached around Langa to start the bath, letting the water warm before nudging the Canadian into it. “Let me wash your hair?”

 “Yeah. Please.”

 The next time it was a nasty cut on the top of his ankle, scraped skin bordering a gash that wrapped itself from the front of his leg almost entirely around to his achilles. It was stitched in one spot toward the center. Neat little sutures that were bathed in antiseptic but kept open to the air. His wrists were bruised as well, shocking and dark against his pale skin.

 “Langa, what the fuck!?”

 Reki shoved a set of chopsticks into his mouth to free his hands up to shove the pot he was stirring off the burner and shut it off. He spat them out unceremoniously and made his way into the entryway in a flurry of grasping arms and spinning limbs.

 “I’m okay, I’m okay. I’m good, Reki. Look at me.” Langa held his frantic partner's face in his hands. “I’m fine.”

 “What happened?”

 “I panicked a little. But it’s alright. Tadashi took me to the emergency room and I got stitched up in no time. Right as rain.”

 Reki’s expression went stormy, “Tadashi took you?”

 Langa turned his hands, fit his fingers over Reki’s mouth. “Not because Adam didn’t want to. It’s complicated. He felt bad about it, I promise. It’s okay, Reki. It was just an accident.”

 Reki believed him, kissed his fingertips where they still rested over his lips, and huffed out a frustrated noise. “I don’t want you getting hurt, Langa. This is the same shit as before and I want you fucking -”

 Langa’s laugh was bright and unexpected, still rare in its verbosity. “No, I can promise you this is nothing like before. Trust me.”

 Later that night Reki’s fingers worked fast over the touch screen of his phone;

[Text to Adam:] hurt him like that again and they wont be able to find all your pieces

[Text from Adam:] Don’t be jealous, Third Wheel. It’s a shitty look on you.

 ⛓❄⛓

 Reki did trust Langa. He trusted him with everything he had, with everything he was. And Langa was happy. For all of his bruises and pains and cuts, he came home from his visits every week or so sated and loose-limbed in a way that Reki could only remember having seen on him under street lights, stretched out and panting after landing tricks that felt impossible beneath the watchful eyes of the stars.

 That must have been why, when Langa came home with what was very clearly not a skateboarding injury, Reki saw red, blood boiling hot and livid with a rage that ached all through.

 “He’s fucking you? You’re letting him. Fuck. You.”

 Reki had his hands fisted in the collar of Langa’s shirt, had him pulled down to his face in a vice-like grip that threatened to tear the fabric at its seams. Beneath the stretched opening was a bruise in the shape of teeth, skin so close to broken it looked almost black at the spots Reki could almost see Adam’s teeth sinking.

 Langa looked confused, his eyes searching across Reki’s face for something. His words were careful, hushed, and so so quiet. 

 “Reki we… you said this was okay.”

 “What the hell are you talking about?”

 Langa wrapped his hands around Reki’s wrists, turned his head to press his lips to Reki’s palm only to have them wrenched from his clothing as quickly as they’d been put there.

“Don’t fuckin’ touch me. I don’t know how to handle this right now I-” he scanned the room, brushed his hair back from his face, spun, and took a few hard steps away. “Stay here. I just- I need space for a minute.”

 He had his hands on the deck of one of the boards they kept lined up and neat by the door before Langa had fully dropped his hands. He wasn’t sure if the click of the door or the sound of his knees hitting the floor was louder.

 It was hours before Reki was home, the street lights flickering out with the rising of the sun as he shut the door quietly behind himself. He toed his shoes off and found Langa tear sodden but still awake, wrapped into himself in the corner of the couch.

 “Reki-”

 The redhead held up a scraped palm, condensed it into a single finger. “We need coffee. But then we’re gonna talk.”

 Langa nodded, scrubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes, and nodded somehow harder. When Reki turned to make his way into the kitchen he paused and waited, watched over his shoulder as Langa unfolded himself from the couch and climbed to his feet. When they stood together in the doorway Reki reached out scarred and calloused fingers to the place they both knew a bite lay blooming beneath layers of mindfully chosen fabric. 

 “I want you to tell me everything”

 ⛓❄⛓

[pressedinthepages]

For the physical affection prompts. 22. kissing someone’s cuts/bruises/scratches. Platonic or romantic. Jaskier/Valdo?

eheheheeehehheh yeth. i made it a lil moody. cause ya know. bards be like that. warning for a brief description of a dislocated shoulder, but nothing graphic. just the bit of pain.

Jaskier...well. Jaskier found himself yet again in Cidaris, yet again searching out his fucking...friend after a season with Geralt. It had become tradition by this point, Jaskier popping in to visit his oldest friend/rival/lover for a good few weeks before heading off in search of more adventure.

Now though, he was arriving right at the cusp of winter, night frost crunching beneath his boots as he strode to the edge of town where the villagers had only just started to begin their days. Ladies through open shutters, the blacksmith could be heard already clanging away on his anvil. A bright red door at the front of a cottage with brightly-dyed laundry hanging on the line outside beckoned Jaskier, and he followed the summons with a smile.

His fist hit the weathered wood softly, knocking twice before he stepped back, rolling his aching shoulder. It had been...well, Geralt had said ‘dislocated,’ but Geralt was prone to exaggeration, in Jaskier’s opinion. He had been a bit bruised up, and he was still a bit sore where his skin had yet to dispel the yellow-ish purple splotches.

After a moment, the door swung open, revealing a man right at Jaskier’s own age, with long curls of auburn hair and soft cheeks, little crinkles around his eyes hinting at just how often his brows twisted into a smirk. Now though, dusky pink lips broke into a smile sweeter than syrup as he threw his arms wide.

“Jaskier!” The man bodily hauled him into his arms and held him tight, squeezing on Jaskier’s tender shoulder, “You’re terribly early, I’ve not even gotten around to prepare for your visit, by the gods.”

Jaskier shook his head as he looked his friend in his shock-green eyes, trying to hide the pained grimace behind a smirk. “Valdo, you’ve not changed at all. Never ready for me, not even when I send ahead.”

Valdo’s eyes narrowed and he backed away. “You’re hurt. What happened?”

Jaskier sighed, deigning to stride past Valdo into his home. It was a soft little place, one that not many people knew about. It was filled with instruments and blankets that he had woven with his own nimble fingers, and he knew that if he looked hard enough, he’d find a bowl of herby goat cheese from the young lady who lived just down the road. “Nothing, really. Got caught up in a hunt, wasn’t watching where I was going. Tripped over my own damned feet, knocked around my shoulder. ‘M fine, truly.”

He set down his pack and lute and did a little spin on the balls of his feet, taking in any new changes around the space that he could find. None, really. Nothing noticable since the last time-

A shock of pain shot through his shoulder and Jaskier yelped and jumped away from where Valdo had snuck behind him and softly poked his finger into the meat of Jaskier’s shoulder.

They narrowed their eyes stubbornly at each other, neither one daring to break until Jaskir finally sagged his shoulders. “Alright, fine. It’s painful. Not much I can really do, it just needs to heal.”

Valdo nodded and stepped closer, “May I see it?”

Jaskier rolled his eyes and started undoing the little fasteners on his doublet. “You really needn’t make such a fuss, I’ve had much worse over the years…”

The doublet hit the floor, followed soon by his chemise. Jaskier wilted under Valdo’s intense gaze sweeping over the blossoms of watercolor bruised onto his skin. He shivered as Valdo’s fingers just barely swept over his tender flesh, before he leaned down and pressed his lips to Jaskier’s shoulder.

Jaskier sighed and reached up with his other hand, carding his fingers through Valdo’s fiery locks. “I promise, it looks worse than it feels.”

Valdo huffed and rose back to eye-level. “Why must you dive so deep into your passions? Every time that I find you on my stoop, you’ve got some scrape or bruise or misalignment, all from your travels. When will you stop, let yourself just be the bard that you want?”

Jaskier sighed and pressed a gentle kiss to Valdo’s cheek. “You don’t understand. I already am the bard that I wish to be. Bruises and all.”

[ofhoneyandrosepetals]

Summer Roads - Chapter 2

Pairing: Sean x Fem! reader

Description: You’ve always been Lyla’s best friend, but since Sean moved you became an inseparable trio. But who could say that, after all these years together, you would start growing feelings for Sean?

Warning: no warnings yet. The reader does swear, nothing big of a deal.

Word count: 1.945

A/N: Just passing to remember that the fic takes place during summer 2014!

“I’ll be the judge,” Lyla states as you arrive at the park. 

“You got it, boss,” you make fun of her.

“I am going to be the judge.”

“No one said otherwise.”

“Keep that behaviour young lady and we might have some problems,” Lyla points a finger at you.

“Whatever you say, Ms. Judge,” you raise your hands.

“So, recapping: Sean,” she points at the boy.

“Here.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re going to blunt to fakie, right?”

“That’s the thought…” He says a bit intimidated. 

“And Y/N,” she points at you. “You got the reverse box grind, 180 exit.”

“I hope so,” you chuckle. “You think we got too much ahead of our abilities?” You whisper to Sean.

“Say for yourself, I’m kicking your ass,” he answers.

“Not with that unstable voice, you won’t,” Lyla says.

“I’m not scared,” Sean assures.

“Yeah, right,” Lyla grims. 

“Dude, what kinda judge are you?” Sean complains.

“The intimidating one.”

“It’s more the impartial one to me,” he mumbles.

“Uhn… excuse me?” Lyla crosses her arms.

“Yeah, you know Y/N way longer than me.”

“And?” Lyla raises her eyebrows.

“No fair,” Sean complains, shrugging.

“What, do you really think I’m going to give Y/N the advantage?”

“Yeah?” Sean says.

“Well, I’m not.”

“You’re not?” You ask.

“Sweetie, that’s what I have to say to him,” Lyla whispers to you.

“I knew it!!” Sean points at you two.

“C’mon Seanie, you know I’m messing with you,” Lyla wraps an arm around Sean’s shoulder. You bite your lower lip at the sight of them getting this close. Gosh, what’s wrong with me? “You have ten minutes to get prepared. Let’s go!” Lyla claps her hands and you go to the skate ramp.

While you stretch a little, Sean gets near you. “I’m having second thoughts about that.”

“What, macho man, I thought you said you were going to kick my ass,” you mock him as you put on your roller skates.

“It’s just… it was my idea, if I get hurt it doesn’t mean anything, you know? But if you get hurt then I’ll feel bad.”

“Sean, I’m not gonna get hurt.”

“Yo! Less talk, more action! You have five minutes left before we start!” Lyla shouts from afar.

“I do hope so, Y/N. Be careful,” Sean pats your shoulder and you feel a little aroused at his words, hoping you didn’t blush.

“Yeah yeah, right back at ya, now go to the other side,” you start pushing him.

This wasn’t something new for Sean, not so much - being worried about you or Lyla -, but it was new for you.

At least after you started thinking how cute he started to look.

Get your shit together, you thought to yourself. Remember all the times Sean has been like this with you - with Lyla even.

And you did.

You remembered the first time you tried the roller skates. Sean was there by your side, holding your hands and making sure you didn’t fall. Then, after you felt more secure to try it at the park, he always told you to be careful at some specific points he knew it was tricky for his skateboard. The first couple of times you fell he always helped you getting up.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t that good of an idea to remember those things - your heart was definitely beating faster.

Fuck it, he’s the exactly same with Lyla, you thought. But was he really? At the beginning, of course, but lately you haven’t noticed this kind of behaviour of him towards Lyla. Maybe it’s because they’ve been at this for longer than you were. 

“It’s no good thinking over this,” you mumble to yourself. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

You get up and start skating around. Every time you get past Sean you two clapped hands - it was a thing you did for so long that you didn’t even need to think about doing it. 

You do a quick entry before Lyla screams it was time.

You skate over to Sean. “So, who goes first?”

“How do they say…?” He holds his chin and looks up. “Ladies first,” he gives you a smile then goes to his side of the ramp. 

Sean sat on the top of the ramp, watching you. You even thought about asking him to maybe turn around so you don’t get so nervous, but that would be just silly.

“Stay cool, Y/N,” you say to yourself. 

Catching impulse, you go for your trick.

Arriving at the top of the ramp, your front foot sliding and your back foot grinding, you slide to Sean’s direction, being careful to not stumble on him.

“Oh my freaking god I’m doing it,” you say as you go. “Lyla, I’m doing it!” You turn your head to Lyla, excited.

“Careful Y/N, otherwise you won’t be able to finish it,” she shouts at you.

“Y/N?” You hear Sean calling your name.

“Yeah?” You turn your head to Sean and, as you do so, you lose your balance, your front foot misaligning. 

“Oh my god Y/N, careful,” Sean gets up to hold you as you start falling, but your sudden weight on him push you two down the ramp as you two fall rolling, tangled at each other. 

As Sean’s back hit the ground he lets out a grunt of pain and you fall on top of him, your foreheads bumping into each other.

“Ouch!” You two cry out.

“Are you okay?!” Lyla run towards you.

You open your eyes, rubbing your forehead. You’re still on top of Sean.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” you say as you realize how close you were. You try not to think of it. Sean is holding your arms as they support you on the ground, not sure of what to do next.

“Do you… uh, need any help?” He asks, stuttering.

“Oh, no no, I’m fine,” you try to get up in a way that you don’t sit on his lap, but given to your position it was kinda difficult not to do so, so you just get up really fast, which was a bad idea - everything turned black. “Oh,” you stumble as someone holds you. It was Lyla.

“Well, that was one hell of a fall, are you two alright?” She asks.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Sean says. “Just hit my back, but that should be fine.”

“And your forehead,” Lyla adds. “Oh no Y/N, you scraped your knee.”

“Did I?” You look down to your knee - the right one was scraped. “That’s fine, I barely feel it. My head hurts the most.”

“Yeah, I always said that Sean’s head is as hard as a rock.”

“Hey!” He complains. You chuckle.

“You guys want to call off the bet?” Lyla asks.

“Hell no!” You protest. “I just tripped and fell. It’s nothing. It’s Sean’s turn.”

“You okay?” Lyla asks to Sean. He nods.

“How did I go?” You ask Lyla.

“You mean before or after the fall?”

“Ha-ha,” you say sarcastically.

“Don’t worry baby girl, I recorded it.”

“I’m not sure how to feel about that,” you say with a pout.

“C’mon, let’s record Sean’s fall.”

“My what?” Sean shouts.

“Trick! I said trick!” Lyla shouts back.

“Am I too mean if I want him to fall too?”

“That depends. Here, take my phone. Film him. You totally got the trick, y’know? You only fell at the end of it. If Sean get his done, and doesn’t fall, then I’ll have to call him the winner,” you nod.

“Yeah, I definitely want him to fall.”

“Then yes, you are mean. Is this for today or what?” Lyla cups her hands around her mouth as she shouts. Sean shows her his middle finger. You giggled at that. It was cute.

“Oh, he’s going. There he goes,” Lyla narrates. “Okay, he’s about to blunt. Blunt to fakie. Blunt to fakie,” her voice starts to raise as Sean gets to the other side of the ramp and start to go up. “Yeah! Yes! And…! Oh,” Lyla says a bit disappointed.

“I’m pretty sure that… wasn’t it… I guess?” You say.

“Nope. Turn to me,” Lyla motions to you, meaning the phone. “And that, folks, was a nose stall. Not a blunt. Not a blunt to fakie. Nose stall.”

You see Sean going to you guys.

“Seanie loser!” Lyla says.

“Yeah yeah yeah, I know. I tried, I really did. It’s just… it’s tricky.”

“That’s why they call it a trick, dude.”

“I thought I was gonna make it.”

“I think it was pretty close,” you say shrugging. 

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a close trick or not. Sean did the wrong one. Congrats, Y/N, you won the bet. Now let’s go to my place and celebrate!” You reach your hand to Sean and bite your lips, raising your eyebrows. With a half a smile and a look you couldn’t quite read, Sean holds your hand.

“Dude,” you say.

“What? Isn’t that what you wanted?” He says cocky. Oh, fuck, you think. Fuck fuck fuck.

“Bucks!” The word go out of your mouth quite out loud. “I mean, you owe me. Twenty bucks.”

“Oh man,” he complains with a chuckle. “I thought I could get away with that.”

“That pretty face of yours is not that powerful yet,” you say without thinking. What could you possibly worry about? You three always teased each other like that, it wasn’t now that Sean would suspect anything. Or so you hoped. He clicked his tongue as he gave you twenty dollars. “Pleasure making business with you, Diaz,” you gave him a smile as you run to catch up with Lyla, who got your hand on hers as soon as you got close. 

“Hey, it’s not because I lost the bet that I should be left behind,” Sean says as he catches up with you two, breaking you two apart to be in the middle, both his arm around your and Lyla’s shoulder. You looked at him and took a deep breath.

This should be fine, you thought as you give a side look to his hand hanging from your shoulder. We’re best friends, you think before lacing your fingers to his, which he does the same.

“Why don’t we get sleeping bags?” Lyla suggests as you go up the street to her house.

“Sleep outside, you mean?” Sean asks.

“Yeah, why not? Y/N? What do you think? You’re the winner.”

“I thought you were the judge,” you answer.

“That’s right, I make the calls here,” she says proudly. “And I say we sleep outside tonight.”

“How’s your knee?” Sean asks you.

“It’s fine,” you say looking at him.

“It was a pretty bad fall. I feel kinda bad…”

“Don’t start with it, please. I’m fine. Afterall, I won” you tease him.

“If you can brag about it than you’re fine,” you three laugh.

“Hey, did you guys remember that time when Sean was supposed to blunt but instead he did a nose stall?” Lyla teases him.

“Very funny, make fun of the only guy here.”

Your loud voices and laughter could be hear from afar, and soon enough the sun was about to set. Tilting your head you took a good look of your friends as they passionately discussed. You paid a little more attention to Sean’s features, how his dark skin looked even more pretty against the sunbeam. 

“What are you weirdo looking at?” Lyla asks.

“Nothing,” you say smoothly. “I’m just really looking forward to have the best summer ever.”

“And we’re going to!” Lyla shouts to the sky as she pushes Sean aside to give you a kiss on the cheek.

[unfinishedsentenc99]

I played a text-based adventure game on the dark web. I can't undo the things I did.

I spend a lot of time on reddit. I’m sure you do, too. I’m on a lot of video game subs, and in particular ones about text-based games. I’m talking games like *Zork*. I wasn’t alive when *Zork* came out, but I got really into it in high school. When I made it to college, I took an even deeper dive, playing all the sequels, all the knock-offs, and every shitty game that people had cobbled together and released online. I had to refocus a bit, adding work on top of college courses so I could afford my shoebox apartment, but eventually I came across a post called “Apartment Complex.”

Not a super promising name.

But I was bored, and it was free, and the fact that it was hosted on some weird site that I couldn’t access from regular browsers appealed to me. It added an element of mystery. So I opened a Tor browser, entered the link, and got to a profile creation page. Basic stuff: username, preferred resolution, etc. It didn’t ask for any personal info, so I kept going.

The screen went blank, then a text box opened up.

“Welcome to Apartment Complex! You have been assigned your very own apartment building to run. But this isn’t any apartment building, because the tenants are going to be experiencing some pretty scary ordeals. You get to decide what happens next. Will your tenants survive? Will you accidentally butcher them all? The power is in your hands! Are you ready? \[Y\]/\[N\]”

*Why not,* I figured. I typed in a Y. More text appeared.

“Excellent. We’ll start you off with an easy management level. You have six tenants, numbered 1-6. None of them know each other well. Enter a number to learn more about a tenant and begin to make decisions.”

I grabbed a 6-sided die off my desk and rolled it.

Three.

“3,” I typed.

“Intriguing choice! The tenant in apartment 3 is Cherie. She’s 19 and a sophomore in college. All her friends know her to be outgoing and flirty, and she brings new guys back to her apartment multiple times a week. She doesn’t want a commitment. She enjoys sex, but mostly she just likes not being alone. It’s possible it’s related to how she was repeatedly abandoned by foster parents. Tonight, she brought home a young man named Thad. She plans to have sex with Thad, and he will pressure her not to use a condom. She will say yes because she doesn’t want to scare him off. But you can help her out! Should tonight be the night she stands up to Thad and tells him she won’t sleep with him without protection at the risk of spending the night alone? \[Y\]/\[N\]”

I didn’t realize this game would be so...domestic soap opera? *Whatever,* I thought, *let’s see how this plays out.*

“Y,” I typed.

“Intriguing choice! Thad and Cherie start to get hot and heavy. When they are naked on her couch, Thad starts to try penetrating her, but Cherie stops him and says he needs to use a condom. Thad complains that it doesn’t feel as good. Cherie tells him that it’s more important that both of them are protected from STDs. She’s feeling a little tense. Thad calls her a whore and a tease and throws his clothes back on. Cherie cries as Thad goes to storm out. Unfortunately, Cherie’s door won’t open. Thad checks, and the door isn’t locked, but it refuses to open. Furious, Thad storms back to where Cherie is still laying naked on the couch, crying, and begins to scream at her. Would you like to continue making decisions for Cherie, or try another tenant? \[1\] for Cherie, \[2\] for new tenant.”

This game was weird and pretty retro, but I also found myself pretty intrigued by Cherie and Thad’s story. The clunky stories in these games had a certain charm that made them very engaging. Fuck it, lets keep going.

“1,” I typed.

“Intriguing choice! Thad continues to scream at Cherie, who can’t stop crying. She’s afraid he might hit her. Thad hasn’t decided if he will or not, but plans to let his anger and lack of concern for Cherie as a human being guide his behavior. If things continue as they are, Thad will most likely beat Cherie to the point she will need to be rushed to the emergency room. Should Thad be stopped? \[Y\]/\[N\]”

“Fuck,” I mumbled out loud to myself. “This got intense.”

“Y,” I typed.

“Intriguing choice! A ceiling tile falls off. The edge cuts across Thad’s jugular. Blood gushes everywhere. He is dead in seconds.”

“What the fuck,” I said to myself. “This game is whack.” The text continued to appear.

“Cherie is horrified. Much of the blood sprayed all over her. She’s so scared, she starts to shut down. Cherie won’t be taking any more actions for a while. Choose a tenant: \[1\], \[2\], \[4\], \[5\], \[6\]”

*Damn,* I thought. *Looks like I’m not going to finish this game with a decent score. Keep plugging away though…*

I rolled the die again. Five. I typed it in.

“Intriguing choice! The tenant in apartment 5 is Clyde. He is 35 and works at the local First State Bank. His hobbies include snowboarding, tennis, recreational murder, ‘90s sitcoms, and fishing. He’s home alone tonight after his girlfriend, Alicia, texted him and told him she was leaving him for his brother. He bought a gallon of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, and is working his way through that and the third season of *Frasier*. He feels the itch to strangle someone. It’s been a while, and he’s trying to kick the habit, but the deep well of emotion seems to be so deep that ice cream alone can’t fill it. He’s hoping to quench the urge with a tv binge, but just as he’s settling in, he starts to smell gas. Should he investigate? \[Y\]/\[N\]”

Not investigating would be boring, so of course I typed in a Y.

“Intriguing choice! Clyde gets off the couch and follows his nose to the kitchen, where a heavy propane smell is blasting out of one of the burners. He’s familiar enough with gas leaks to know that he’s one spark away from Clyde flambé. Should Clyde leave, or keep sucking up the fumes? \[1\] Clyde leaves or \[2\] Clyde stays.”

*Seems weird to release the murdered,* I thought, *but it would be boring to just gas him to death*.

I type a 1.

“Intriguing choice! Clyde exits his apartment and heads down the stairs to the front door. When he makes it to the floor below his, he sees that the the stairs are blocked by fallen ceiling tiles. There are stairs on the opposite side of the floor. On the way, he would pass two other apartments, which would likely have phones to call the fire department to handle the gas leak. Should he stop at the first apartment \[1\], the second apartment \[2\], or take the stairs \[3\]”

“1,” I typed.

“Intriguing choice!” That was it. No more text.

“What the hell…” I said under my breath. And then there was a knock on my door.

I froze.

“Hey, anyone home?” a voice called from the other side of my door. “My name’s Clyde, I live on the floor above you. My phone isn’t working and my apartment smells like gas. Can I borrow your phone?”

I sat as still as I could, making no sound.

“Seriously, it’s an emergency. I’m pretty sure I heard some noise in there. I need help!”

On my screen, I saw more text pop up.

“Should Clyde keep trying the first apartment \[1\], try the next apartment \[2\], or take the stairs on the far end of the floor \[3\]”

As gently as I could, I pressed 2. The clack of the key sounded like a gunshot in my head.

“Whatever, asshole. I know you’re home. I hope you enjoy being a piece of shit,” Clyde said. Then I heard his footsteps go down the hall. The apartment building I’m in is new and pretty well insulated, but I could faintly hear knocking on the apartment down the hall from me. I knew a college girl lived there. Hopefully she isn’t home.

Wait.

College girl?

No, it couldn’t be.

Text started filling up my screen again.

“Clyde went to the next apartment and knocked on the door. He heard sobbing from inside. When the tenant inside didn’t open the door, he tried the knob. It turned, but the door wouldn’t budge. It looked like it was misaligned, and with the heat wave, the wood had swollen and jammed the door in place.”

Suddenly, I heard a smash from outside. I tore my eyes to look at my front door, but it was still solidly shut. The sound had come from down the hall. I looked back at my screen.

“Clyde used his shoulder to slam the door, and it popped open. He stepped in, calling to whoever was in the apartment. Walking further in, he saw a shocking sight: a man on the ground, his neck slashed open. A ceiling tile on the ground next to him. On the couch, a completely naked young woman. And, covering everything, a massive splatter of blood. Clyde grinned. Are you going to help Cherie \[leave your apartment and go to hers\] or do nothing while Clyde murders her \[1\]”

This was so messed up. I couldn’t just let someone muder my neighbor, even if I barely knew her. But I was terrified. I got up, ran to my kitchen, grabbed the biggest knife I could find, then went to my door. I took three deep breaths to steady myself, then I unlocked the door, threw it open, and ran out into the hall. I looked over to where the other apartment was, and I could see where the door had been broken in. I ran as quietly as I could over there, and when I reached the door, stopped short and stuck my head around the door frame to see what was going on.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t see what was happening from where I was. I crept in as stealthily as I could. The first thing that hit me was the bitter stench of blood. Then I got close enough to see what was happening. Cherie was on her back on the couch, Clyde leaning over her with his hands around her throat. She was scratching at him, but the blood made everything slick and it looked like her nails were sliding around more than doing damage.

I ran up to them and drove my knife straight into Clyde’s back. He roared and whirled around.

“You bastard,” he yelled, and dove at me, tackling me to the ground. He started pummeling me with his fists. There was little I could do to stop him. With each blow, I felt myself getting weaker, my vision going darker.

And then Clyde screamed.

I focused as best I could. Above Clyde, Cherie was raising the knife for another blow. She stabbed Clyde over and over until he collapsed on top of me, and then she stabbed him some more. I screamed at her to stop, to let me up, and eventually I broke through her terror. She helped me push his body off.

I threw a blanket around Cherie and then called the cops. We spent a lot of time going over our stories with them. I left out the dark web stuff because I didn’t want to get in trouble. Finally, the cops left. Cherie went to go stay with her parents and I went back to my apartment.

When I got back, words were flashing on my screen.

“Remember: Everything that happened tonight was your choice.”

And below that:

“We hope you play Apartment Complex again!”

[whumphoarder]

Them’s the Breaks

Summary: Peter is home alone and ends up breaking his ankle. Figuring his super healing will fix it overnight, he doesn’t tell anyone and tries to sleep it off, only to wake up in the middle of the night in agony. Cue Tony, saving his ass yet again.

(Alternative title: Super Healing is Not All it’s Cracked Up To Be Tibia)

Word count: 3,174

Genre: Whump, hurt/comfort, fluffy angst

A/N: Thanks to @sallyidss for beta reading!

Link to read on Ao3

Prior to being bitten by a radioactive spider, Peter had broken exactly one bone in his life.

He was eleven. Someone dared him to do a flip on a trampoline at a classmate’s birthday party. The flip itself was mediocre, but the landing was legendary. Blood streamed down Peter’s face from his now crooked, throbbing nose, ruining both his brand new stormtrooper t-shirt and the horrified birthday girl’s pink dress.

Ned—ever the sympathetic friend—had puked on the spot, which hadn’t done wonders for either of their middle school social statuses.

Peter managed to hold it together pretty well for the twenty minutes it had taken Ben to arrive, but the second the car door was shut and they pulled out of the driveway, the façade crumbled. Peter’s shoulders shook and tears ran down his cheeks, stinging his nose, because, as it turned out, broken bones just really hurt. Almost as much as Peter’s pride.

But Ben was there, and Ben always knew how to make Peter feel better. He cracked jokes about his nephew’s failing gymnastics career and tossed wadded up Burger King napkins at the kid’s messy face all the way to urgent care until Peter’s choked sobs turned to quiet giggles.

The doctor reset Peter’s nose and May fussed over him all weekend, making sure he was icing it appropriately. Three weeks later, he was back to normal.

But that was before the bite—before Peter had taken the unofficial job of crime-fighting teenage vigilante.

He’s up to eight bones now, lifetime total. Besides the nose, there were four ribs last summer (for the record, being thrown into brick walls really sucks), his collarbone back in January (missed a web and crashed onto the roof of a parking garage), and two fingers just before spring break (got stomped on by some dude gallivanting about in a rhino costume, what even is his life?). Luckily, super healing came as part of the package, so what had taken Peter’s sixth grade body weeks to repair, he now accomplishes in mere hours.

Today, however, it’s not Spider-Man who injures himself. It’s just Peter Parker, fresh off an evening patrol, wiping out in the goddamn shower.

“Oh shit!” Peter gasps sharply as his feet slide out from under him on the wet surface. His hand flies out on reflex and grasps the shower curtain, which he pulls down on top of him. As he slams onto the floor of the tub, his ankle rolls sideways underneath him. A split-second later, the metal curtain rod hits him in the face.

“...Rude…” he groans.

Water is still streaming down from the shower, splashing onto the sheet of vinyl now covering Peter’s body. He pulls the curtain off himself with another groan and gingerly pushes himself up to sitting. Half-blind from the shampoo running into his eyes, he reaches up over his head and fumbles for the shower handle. The water stops.

Peter makes to stand, but a sudden jolt of pain just above his ankle stops him. With a grunt, he lets himself fall back against the tub, teeth clenched.

Oh yeah, he’s never gonna live this one down.

It’s not his most graceful moment, but somehow Peter manages to extricate himself from the tub. Thankfully May is out of town this weekend so no one is around to hear the crashes and muffled curses issuing from the bathroom. He quickly dries off and pulls on some clean sweat pants and a t-shirt before hopping on his left leg to retrieve a bag of frozen peas from the kitchen. Once back in his bedroom, he carefully props the already-swelling ankle up on pillows and rests his makeshift ice pack on top.

It’s times like these when Peter curses his mutated spider metabolism for burning through normal painkillers so fast that Tylenol and ibuprofen are about as effective as Skittles. Tony has better drugs at the compound—the kind that actually work on him—but Peter isn’t too keen on explaining to his mentor how someone who’d stopped a runaway car with his bare hands and walked away without a scratch a few hours ago was no match for his own bathroom.

Plus, it’s really not that bad. He can deal. He’ll just sleep it off and everything will be fine by the morning.

X

Peter wakes to nauseating pain.

It takes him a moment to orient himself. He’s lying on his bed in a tangle of covers, a deep, pulsing ache radiating from his right ankle. He flaps his hand around under his pillow until he locates his phone and lifts it to his face to check the time. It’s 1:13 a.m.

God, this sucks.

When Peter pushes himself up to sitting, he can’t help but let out a muffled cry as a fresh wave of agony shoots through his leg all the way to the hip. It’s healing—he swears he can actually feel the bone knitting itself back together under his skin—but something about it feels different. Wrong.

Flipping on the bedside lamp, he pulls his covers off his aching foot and instantly gasps at the sight. It’s purple with bruises and swollen to double its usual size. On the side, right where the ache is deepest, the bone is jutting out at a weird angle and his stomach rolls at the sight. When he tries to move his foot slightly, searing pain nearly makes him lose his dinner.

This isn’t right. None of his past breaks have ever hurt this much. He can’t do this anymore—he needs help.

Fingers trembling, he types out his message: Mr. Stark? Are you awake?

It’s about thirty seconds before Peter sees the three dots indicating that Tony is typing: Haven’t slept since the 90s, kid. Why?

Peter steels himself with a deep breath as another pulse of pain stabs his ankle. He types out and backspaces a few different variations of his confession, ranging from ‘I fucked up my ankle and it’s killing me pls send help’ to ‘Nothing, just couldn’t sleep, sorry’ before finally settling on a vague version of the truth:

I might have done something dumb

Within five seconds of sending the text, Peter’s phone starts ringing, startling him. His fingers fumble to accept the call. When he speaks, his voice comes out more like a squeak than anything else. “Yeah?”

Tony cuts right to the chase. “How dumb are we talking here?” he asks briskly. “Because my lawyers generally appreciate a heads up.”

“No, it’s not that kind of dumb,” Peter manages to grit out through the pain. “It’s um… it’s just…” he trails off, not sure quite how to word this.

“It’s one in the morning. Just spit it out,” Tony prompts.

Tears are pricking at the corners of Peter’s eyes now, the ache somehow finding a way to become even deeper. “I-I got hurt,” he manages to say.

Tony’s tone instantly sobers. “Where? How bad?”

“No no, it’s not that bad,” Peter says quickly. “I just messed up my ankle or something. I thought I could just sleep it off and my healing would fix it, but it’s like”—he takes a shuddery inhale—“It just… it just really hurts, Mr. Stark.” He wants to cry; he feels absolutely pathetic.

Tony curses under his breath and Peter hears a lot of movement from the other end of the line. “Why didn’t I get any alerts from Karen on this?” he demands. “Because I put all those safety features in your suit for a reason and if I find out you coerced that Ned buddy of yours into disabling yet another layer of security, I swear to god, Pete—”

“I didn’t, I promise,” Peter interrupts. “Karen doesn’t know because it didn’t happen on patrol.”

“How did it happen then?”

“I just… kinda fell?”

“You fell?” Tony questions, confusion in his voice. “Fell where?”

Peter’s face flushes. “You know what, I-I’ll be okay,” he says. “I’m sorry to bother you, it’ll be fine in the morning, just—” Another pulse of pain shoots daggers up his right leg and his breath hitches.

“I’m already on my way,” Tony says, and Peter can hear the sound of wind rushing over the line now. “ETA, thirteen minutes.”

“Oh no, you don’t have to come out here!” Peter protests. “I just need some of those painkillers that you and Dr. Banner made. I dunno, maybe you could just send a couple over in one of your suits...?”

“Cute,” Tony remarks. “It’s adorable how you think I’m gonna let a fifteen-year-old dose out a drug strong enough to knock the Winter Soldier on his ass.”

“I’m sixteen now,” Peter argues. “Sixteen and a half, actually.”

“Equally adorable how you think stating your age in fractions helps your case,” Tony quips. “Listen, just hold tight, kid—I’ll be there soon.”

Peter sighs as the call disconnects.

X

Eleven minutes later, Tony arrives at the apartment and lets himself in with the spare key May had given him when it became apparent Peter's internship was more than just a run-of-the-mill semester-long program. He pauses in the doorway of Peter’s messy room to gaze at the miserable teenager sprawled out on the bed.

“Jesus, kid,” Tony swears quietly.

Peter gives a small wave. “Hey,” he mumbles. The nausea is back and he’s sweating slightly now. “Did you bring the drugs?”

“I did,” Tony says, his gaze narrowing as he steps closer to the bed, “but given that your ankle is currently resembling Violet Beauregarde’s, you’re not getting any until FRIDAY does her thing.”

Peter huffs, but he’s in too much pain to come up with anything witty to say. He holds still as Tony taps twice at the nanotech armor’s housing unit on his chest. A light appears and quickly scans over Peter’s body from head to toe.

After a moment, the light disappears again. “Scan complete, boss,” FRIDAY reports. “Partially healed misaligned fracture detected in the lower right tibia.”

“I broke my leg?” Peter balks. “I thought it was the ankle?”

“Your ankle is made up of three bones,” Tony explains. He pulls out his phone and starts typing something as he goes on. “Tibia, fibula…”—he pauses and glances up, frowning—“and that one that doesn’t rhyme.”

“The talus, boss,” FRIDAY supplies.

Diverting his attention back to the phone screen, Tony gives a short nod of acknowledgment. “Yeah, that one.”

“Oh.” Peter glances down awkwardly. “Um, I’m gonna take anatomy next semester.”

Tony hums absently. He finishes tapping out whatever message he’s been sending and pockets the device again. “In the meantime, I’m sure Bruce can tell you more fun bone facts when we get to Medbay.”

“Whoa, wait, what do you mean Medbay?” Peter demands, a fresh wave of panic and guilt crashing over him. “All I need is some meds so I can sleep through the worst of it and I’ll be fine,” he insists.

Tony huffs. “Your knowledge of anatomy might be lacking, but last time I checked you were getting an A in English so you should know that ‘misaligned’ isn’t a word you want connected to ‘fracture’. It’s healing wrong. You need x-rays. And a real doctor.”

With a groan, Peter drapes his arm dramatically over his face. “Great. Even my super healing is against me.”

“Not to mention you still haven’t told me how you fell,” Tony continues with a pointed look, “so if you’re trying to hide some other injury, or a vertigo thing, or—”

“I’m not,” Peter mumbles into the crook of his elbow. With a sigh, he lowers the arm from his face and looks miserably up at his mentor. “I just slipped in the stupid shower.”

To Tony’s credit, he doesn’t laugh.

(Even though his lips do twitch.)

Instead, he steps out of the bedroom and returns a moment later with a cup of water, which he hands to the kid along with two of the super strength painkillers from the orange pill bottle in his pocket. Peter downs them gratefully.

“Your aunt’s got her car here, right?” Tony checks.

Peter nods. “She took an Uber to the airport. Won’t be back until late Sunday. Conference for work.”

“Think she’d mind if we use it as a makeshift ambulance?”

Peter just shrugs.

“Alright then.” Tony presses the housing unit again and this time the armor encases his whole body. “Now I’m gonna pick you up and carry you down to the parking lot, and you’re not gonna make a big deal about it. Capisce?”

Peter suppresses a groan of embarrassment as he’s gathered carefully into Tony’s arms. Maybe next time he wipes out in the shower, he’ll get lucky and just drown.

X

The painkillers are strong and Peter ends up sleeping through most of the two-hour drive back to the compound. By the time they pull into the parking garage—May’s little dented Ford Focus looking positively ridiculous next to Tony’s array of expensive sports cars—it’s nearly four in the morning.

Bruce is waiting for them with a wheelchair, which Peter instantly balks at using.

“I don’t need that—I can totally walk,” he protests.

Bruce gives him a sympathetic smile. “Yeah, that’s not a good idea. Judging by the scans FRIDAY sent ahead for me, your bone rotated as it healed—that’s why it looks so deformed right now. Walking on it is only going to cause further problems.”

“You heard the man,” Tony says, gesturing to the chair. He smirks. “Unless you'd prefer me to get the suit on again.”

With a groan, Peter transfers himself into the chair. His ankle really does feel better now. The swelling is down and the pain only flares up when he jostles it too much—he can tell the bone has mostly knit itself back together.

Once back in Medbay, they’re joined by another doctor—someone from SHIELD called Helen Cho who Peter has never met before. She does some x-rays and an MRI while Peter half-dozes, still foggy from the medication.

When the scans are complete, he’s transferred back to a hospital bed while the two doctors talk over the results with him and Tony. Peter tries to pay attention but he’s still groggy and exhausted, so the medical jargon sounds more like irritating droning than actual words. Then all of a sudden, the three of them start throwing around words like ‘rebreaking’ and ‘inserting pins’ and ‘realignment surgery’ and Peter snaps right out of his haze.

“Whoa, whoa, what do you mean surgery?” Peter demands. “It’s fine, oh my god.”

Dr. Cho gives him a half-smile. “Look here, Peter.” She holds up the x-ray and points to the bulge on the side of Peter’s ankle. “This malunion is going to significantly reduce your mobility, as well as potentially cause chronic pain. Given your”—she pauses for a moment—“unusually active lifestyle, I would highly suggest surgical correction sooner rather than later.”

And that’s how, several hours later, Peter finds himself lying on a bed in a pre-op room at SHIELD Medical, waiting for some surgeons to take a bone-saw to his freshly healed right leg.

“How you feeling, kiddo?” Tony asks, plopping himself down in an armchair beside the bed.

“Really stupid,” Peter answers honestly. He gazes down at the deformed bones in his ankle. “All this from falling in the shower.”

Tony huffs out a laugh. “Eh, this shit happens. One time in college, I threw my back out during a ping-pong match with Rhodey.”

Peter’s eyes widen. “Seriously?”

Tony nods. “Bodies are dumb. Even enhanced ones—did you know Steve once sneezed so hard he dislocated a rib?”

Peter gives him a skeptical look. “Now you’re joking.”

“Cross my heart,” Tony chuckles. “Then Thor clapped him on the back and popped it back in.”

Peter opens his mouth to express his disbelief at this information, but before he can do so, a nurse dressed in light blue scrubs comes in to take him to the OR. A fresh wave of anxiety comes over Peter and he shoots his mentor a pleading look.

“You’re really sure this is necessary?” Peter tries one last time.

Tony gives his shoulder a squeeze. “You’ll be fine,” he assures. “As soon as you’re healed up, I’ll teach you some sweet ping-pong moves.”

Peter smirks. “Maybe I should get Rhodey to show me so I don’t throw out my back.”

“Nah, you don’t want him either,” Tony says, waving his hand dismissively. “I might have thrown out my back, but he ended up with a concussion.”

Peter blinks at him. “What kind of ping-pong games did you play?”

Tony locks eyes with him. “Ball is life, kid.”

X

The surgery itself goes as well as can be expected. Peter wakes up groggy and disoriented, with three new metal pins inside his ankle and a bright red cast around the outside. Bruce feeds him ice chips, and Tony video calls May from his Starkpad so she can fuss over her nephew a bit from Denver. Peter silently marvels at how this ridiculous life he leads has somehow brought him to the point where Iron Man and the Hulk are functioning as his postoperative caretakers.

Then his thoughts are derailed when he suddenly throws up bile all over the bedsheets and Tony’s tablet.

“It’s okay, Peter,” Bruce assures the thoroughly humiliated boy—who is now clutching a pink plastic basin to his chest as if his life depends on it—as he helps the nurse to strip the bed. “Nausea is a really common side effect of the anesthesia, and especially considering how much you had to be under for your metabolism, this is to be expected.”

Standing off to the side, wiping the tablet down with disposable disinfectant wipes, Tony huffs. “I mean if you knew that, Bruce, you could have warned me…”

Whether the antiemetics the doctors give Peter do their job or simply knock him out through the worst of the nausea, Peter will never know. But when he wakes again a few hours later, life is significantly better.

X

He’s released from Medical the next morning and Tony brings him back to the compound to finish recovering in his own room. The cast comes off Sunday morning and Peter’s good as new.

Late Sunday afternoon, Tony drops Peter back off at his apartment—Happy tailing along behind in a much shinier, undented, and heavily upgraded Ford Focus—and thanks May for loaning him her vehicle before asking permission to use their restroom.

Emerging from the bathroom a few minutes later, Tony ruffles Peter’s hair and tells the kid to take it easy before driving off again.

When Peter goes to take a shower later that night, he finds the floor of the tub covered in adhesive non-slip rubber duck decals.

(Yeah, Peter’s never gonna live this one down.)

X

Fic Masterlist

For more Tony helping Peter out sticky of situations, try:

 You Broke Tony 

 The Five Times Peter Denies an Illness or Injury + the One Time He Doesn’t

[set-phasers-to-whump]

we are, we are, we’re gonna be alright

fandom: grimm

whumpee: nick burkhardt

hi this is a completely self-indulgent fic which i wrote for Me but like if you wanna read it go right ahead!! it’s some nick/hank bc. where the Fuck is the content for that. but it’s mostly in the second chapter while the first is more whump focused. anyway i hope u like this!! (title from afterlife by ingrid michaelson)

Chapter 1

Nick and Hank sprint through the halls of an abandoned apartment building, chasing down their suspect. He shoves over a piece of metal shelving, kicks an old ratty couch cushion at them, skids around corners, and jumps over junk with the practiced ease of someone who’s been living here for a while. 

Nick leaps over the shelving, and Hank slides under it. They both step out of the way of the cushion, doing their best to keep up with the suspect, who, unfortunately, has the advantage at the moment. 

They reach the opening of a perpendicular hallway. The suspect rushes down it, and Nick and Hank split up, Hank turning after him and Nick continuing straight on, in the hopes of trapping him between the two of them.

Nick races along, grateful for the lack of obstacles being pushed in his way. He sidesteps a cinder block - and his leg drops straight through the floor with a cracking sound. He collapses for a second, collects his bearings, then pulls his leg back out of the floor, feeling it twinge slightly as it scrapes the rough edges of broken wood. He pays it no mind, and gets back to his feet quickly, taking off running again. 

Sure enough, he spots their suspect at the end of the hall, hurrying off to the left. He doesn’t see Hank following close behind, though, so he speeds up even more, feeling like his feet barely even touch the ground. 

He catches their suspect in a matter of seconds, tackling him to the ground (there was that strange sensation in his leg again). They scuffle for a minute, but Nick quickly gains the upper hand. He’s about to cuff the man when Hank comes running up, breathless. 

“Nice catch,” he says, as Nick clicks the cuffs on. “Bastard threw a metal chair at me.”

Nick nods, then stands, pulling the suspect to his feet. He has to pause a second as his leg starts to hurt - that’s the adrenaline starting to wear off, he knows. He ignores it as best as he can, hoping it’s not hurt too bad. The two start walking back down the hallway, Hank pushing the suspect along, Nick lagging a little behind.

“You okay?” Hank asks. Nick knows he’s limping, and he can feel now that something is definitely wrong. Nevertheless, he says, “I’m fine,” and wonders if Hank believes him at all. 

They’re not more than halfway out of the building when Nick’s leg gives out from under him, and he collapses to the ground. 

“Nick!” Hank fairly shouts, stopping in his tracks. “Nick, what’s wrong?”

Nick grimaces, just barely biting back a groan of pain. “Think...I might’ve hurt my leg,” he confesses, taking a steadying breath that trembles on the exhale.

“How bad?”

Nick shrugs, not wanting to say quite possibly broken. “Not too bad.” He shuts his eyes against a wave of pain. “Don’t know if I can walk all the way out of here, though.”

Hank thinks for a moment. There’s no service in this building, and Nick is insisting he’s not hurt that bad. While Hank doesn’t believe that line for a second, he also knows there’s little point in arguing. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he decides. “I’ll go put Mr. Downey here in the car, you wait right here.”

True to his word, Hank is back in slightly over sixty seconds. Nick knows because he’d counted. Anything to distract him from just how bad his leg is hurting. Broken, he thinks. Great. 

Hank gives him a hand up, pulling Nick’s arm over his shoulders and starting off at a very slow walk. 

Nick sucks in a deep breath as his hurt leg touches lightly against the ground. Hank notices, but Nick doesn’t tell him to go slower, or stop, or do anything as reasonable as pick him up and relieve the pressure on his leg, so, naturally, Hank takes matters (and Nick) into his own hands, picking him up as carefully and gently as he can, trying not to touch his hurt leg and make it worse while also supporting it enough so that it doesn’t move around too much. 

It’s a testament to how much Nick must be hurting that he doesn’t even protest beyond a quiet, “hey-” which is cut off by a sigh of relief when his injured leg is relieved of its duties.

Hank walks as evenly as he possibly can out to the car, and deposits Nick into his spot in the passenger seat. He apologizes to the suspect for the delay, not really meaning it since it was chasing him that got Nick into this situation in the first place. 

That done, he asks Nick if he wants him to call an ambulance as soon as they get back to service. Nick, predictably, shakes his head no. 

“Just get us back to the station first. Drop Downey off, and then maybe we can drive there.”

Hank doesn’t argue, just glad he won’t have to force Nick to the hospital against his will.

The ride back to the police station is dead quiet. Hank hates the silence, but doesn’t dare break it. When they arrive, he wordlessly removes Downey from the backseat and maneuvers him towards the front doors. 

Meanwhile, Nick leans his head against the cool glass of the window. Thus far, he’s done a pretty good job of sucking it up. He’s scarcely made a sound. But his leg hurts. He’s sure it’s not the worst pain he’s experienced, overall, but at the moment, semantics like that do absolutely nothing. It hurts now, and it hurts a lot, as though it’s on fire, a feeling only reinforced by the hot tears that have begun to run down his face. He takes a shuddering breath, fogging up the glass, and hopes that Hank will be back soon.

Hank throws open his door about five minutes later, having passed Downey off to Wu practically as soon as he’d seen the man. He owes him a box of donuts and a week’s worth of paperwork, but honestly, he’d have agreed to just about anything if it would have gotten him out of there and back to Nick.

Who looks absolutely miserable. He’s crying, on its own a rare sight, and seems barely aware of that fact. Some of the color has drained from his face, and, now that Hank really looks, his leg is definitely broken. He has a pretty good idea of what that feels like, and he’s amazed (but not entirely surprised) that Nick is keeping it together this well. 

It can’t hurt to ask one more time, he reasons, and once again poses the ambulance question. They are sitting right outside a police station, after all. Nick only shakes his head, and he looks so pained and so sad that Hank doesn’t even care. He thinks he’d probably drive to Canada right now, if that was what Nick wanted. 

—

Hank parks as close as he can to the Emergency entrance of the hospital. “We’re gonna have to walk,” he warns. “Unless you-”

“I know,” Nick says, and before Hank can stop him, he’s unbuckling his seatbelt and stepping out of the car. 

Hank rushes around to the passenger side just as Nick takes a step. His leg folds up under him, and Hank grabs him, wrapping arms around him and pulling him close to prevent him from collapsing to the ground for the second time today.

Nick’s hands latch onto Hank’s jacket automatically, like he’s trying to hold himself up by that force alone. Hank feels them shaking through the fabric. 

“I could run inside and see if they have a wheelchair,” Hank offers. Nick shakes his head, face pressed firmly into Hank’s shoulder. 

“We have to get there somehow, man,” Hank points out.

Nick shrugs halfheartedly, not moving. Hank gets the message that he knows Nick is far too...Nick to actually say out loud, and picks him up again, being, if it’s possible, even more careful than before. Nick still makes a terribly fragile pained noise anyway. It’s the first real sound he’s made, and Hank mentally shudders to think how bad the pain must be for Nick to just let it out. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Hank says, over and over, walking slowly up to the entrance. “You’re okay, it’ll be fine.” Nick only grabs his jacket tighter in response.

As soon as they get inside, Hank gently deposits Nick on one of the waiting-room chairs. He joins the thankfully-short line of people at the desk, and explains their whole situation as quickly and clearly as he can to the person behind it, who hands him a clipboard of papers to fill out, promising they’ll get Nick in as soon as they can.

Hank sinks down into the chair next to Nick, who is staring intently at the floor, leg held out at an angle like he doesn’t know what to do with it, clearly not having heard a word of that conversation. 

“They’ll see you as soon as they can,” he repeats, and he begins to fill out Nick’s paperwork while Nick himself continues staring at the floor. Hank generously pretends not to notice the tears that are once again tracking their way down his face. 

—

About fifteen minutes later, Hank is flipping idly through a magazine while Nick is back being examined. He hates not having any idea what’s going on, and the front-desk person had apologized profusely but insisted that Hank wasn’t allowed back with him. He knows, logically, that Nick will be fine, but he can’t stand not knowing for certain.

It’s perhaps half an hour later when a nurse pushes Nick out into the waiting room. She gives Hank a warm smile and hands him a small paper bag, explaining the painkillers it contains. She disappears for a second and comes back with a pair of crutches, which Hank also takes. 

“He’s been given a mild sedative,” she explains to Hank, who is looking at Nick, who is looking at absolutely nothing. “He had a displaced fracture, which means that the pieces of bone on either side of the break were misaligned. We performed a minor nonsurgical procedure to realign them, but it can be painful, hence the sedative. It’ll wear off in a few hours, and he’ll probably sleep for most of that.”

Hank thanks her, gives Nick the bag (at least he’s aware enough to grab it), places the crutches across the armrests of the hospital wheelchair, and heads back to the car. It could have been worse, he thinks to himself. At least he didn’t need surgery.

Chapter 2

Hank drives the two of them back to his house, practically without thinking. If Nick minds this, he doesn’t speak up about it. Not that he’s doing much speaking up about anything. In fact, Hank realizes, he’s sleeping, his cheek pressed against the window, breath fogging up the glass. He looks utterly exhausted, and if he were anyone else, Hank might tack on cute, but it’s Nick so he can’t. He just gives him a little smile (which he obviously can’t see) and shakes his head fondly. 

By the time he pulls to a stop at his house, Nick has woken up and is, predictably, insisting he’ll be able to make it inside using his brand-new crutches. 

It’s not a very far walk, so Hank somewhat reluctantly hands Nick the crutches, watching critically as he attempts to balance. Surprisingly, he manages to make it to the front door, which Hank has already unlocked, seeing as how he’d reached it a full minute before Nick and his crutches. 

Hank ushers Nick inside, directing him to his bedroom and not giving him a chance to protest. Nick, thankfully, is out of it enough to not question Hank’s decision, and he promptly flops himself down on the bed. 

And then nearly falls off when the weight of his cast, hanging off the bed, pulls him down. Hank pushes him back onto the bed and heads to the closet to grab another blanket. 

He’s gone for scarcely twenty seconds, but when he returns, Nick is already asleep again, head turned so his face is pressed into the pillow. Hank gently drapes the blanket over him, smoothing it out and tucking it in slightly in a way he never would if he thought there was any chance of Nick waking up and asking him what the hell he was doing. 

--

Two hours later, Hank is stretched out on the couch, watching a wildlife documentary and eating a slice of his favorite pizza (he’s earned it, he thinks). He’s wondering whether he should go check on Nick again when a quiet noise from his bedroom makes up his mind for him. 

Hank stands in the doorway of his bedroom, watching as Nick slowly wakes up, looking around in confusion and mild alarm when he doesn’t immediately recognize where he is. 

“How you feeling?” Hank asks from his position in the doorway. 

Nick blinks at him a few times, processing, before he asks, “why’m I here?”

Hank shrugs. “You broke your leg,” he offers. 

“Oh. Yeah,” Nick agrees. He reaches down a hand to touch his leg. “I don’t remember getting this,” he says, as his fingers brush against plaster. 

“You were pretty out of it already, and they gave you a sedative.”

“Why?”

Hank tells him. Nick winces. “Glad I don’t remember it,” he decides. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost seven-thirty,” Hank says. “I didn’t think you’d be hungry, but there’s a couple slices of pizza if you want them.”

Nick shakes his head. “I’m good.”

“You wanna come sit on the couch?” 

The moment the question leaves Hank’s mouth, he’s kicking himself. No, he doesn’t want to. His leg is broken, he doesn’t want to move. 

“Yeah, that sounds nice.”

Oh. “Okay,” he says, and hands Nick his crutches.

Several minutes later, they’re both on the couch, and another wildlife documentary is playing on the TV. Nick’s broken leg has been stretched carefully out onto the coffee table, and he won’t say that it hurts, but it hurts. 

Hank knows, of course, and he wordlessly hands Nick two of the pills that the nurse had given him, along with a glass of water. 

Nick stares at him for a moment. What do you expect me to do with these, he seems to say. 

“I know it hurts, man. Just take them.”

Nick heaves a sigh, but accepts the offerings. He swallows the pills and makes a face. 

“Was that really that bad?” Hank asks teasingly. 

Nick shrugs, looking suddenly morose. “No,” he admits, but the tone of his voice tells Hank there’s something else on his mind. 

He doesn’t push, though. Just moves a tiny bit closer and shifts his legs up onto the table to join Nick’s. 

Nick falls asleep yet again shortly thereafter, his head dropping to the side in a way Hank knows will make his neck ache when he wakes up. He frets for a moment over what to do before deciding fuck it, and carefully rearranging Nick so he is lying across the couch, his leg propped up by a small stack of pillows. He grabs the blanket from the bed, refills the glass of water, and sets out two more pain pills on the table. 

He stares at his sleeping best friend for a moment, simultaneously trying to encourage and stop himself. Before he gives it too much thought, he thinks, oh what the hell, and bends down to press a light kiss to Nick’s forehead. 

It’s ridiculously soft and gentle and it makes his face heat up the second he pulls away, but he looks down for just a second and swears he sees the faintest of smiles wash over Nick’s features. 

It’s gone in a second, but it’s there, and Hank smiles in response, feeling strangely happy despite the day’s events. He collapses into a chair, intent on keeping watch over Nick until the morning. 

—

They both wake up the next morning sore and hurting - Hank from falling asleep in his chair, and Nick for obvious reasons. There’s a quiet second where they both just look at each other - clothes wrinkled from sleep, the book Hank had been reading splayed across his lap, a crease on Nick’s face from where it had been pressed into a pillow. 

What I wouldn’t give for this to be my every morning, Hank thinks, as Nick pushes himself up on his elbows. His arm slips out from under him, and Hank reaches out instinctively, helping him up. 

Nick turns and looks at him, his face unreadable but soft in the early-morning glow that pours through the windows. He smiles, a soft, still sleepy, slightly pained smile, and presses his forehead against Hank’s. “Thanks,” he says, so soft it could hardly even be called a whisper. 

“Anything,” Hank tells him, and maybe that’s too much, but he means it, and then Nick is kissing him, soft and quick, a little unsure and tasting of morning breath and absolutely perfect. 

Hank pulls away first, blinking in mild surprise. “Thanks,” he says, and then thinks to himself, could you have said anything dumber?

Nick grins, a full-on smile with not a trace of pain in it. “Anything.”

hi yeah this might have been ooc but i don’t care i love them and i wanted to make this Soft so i did and nobody can stop me....anyway if you read this i love you (and also you are now legally obligated to drop me an ask saying if you think i should re-dye my hair to dark brown/black before senior pictures or not)

[kumeko]

A/N: For the @todokamizine. I both hate and like this piece. Ahahaha.

Summary: Denki hadn’t expected to get a ride to work from a hot stranger. Then again, he didn’t expect the snowstorm or his car breaking down either. Hopefully, his luck was turning for the better.

…

…

…

…

There were few things that were as soul-crushing as the colour white. To be precise, as seeing the entire neighbourhood blanketed in the colour white. Denki had expected snow; almost everyone had texted him complaining about the winter storm on its way and the shovelling they’d have to do. He had expected it and yet, somehow, the sight of it still surprised him.

 It was just so much. The roads, the houses, and more importantly, his car was just buried in snow. Maybe on the weekend, it’d be fine, but today was Monday. He was already late enough as it was without having to stop and clean his car.

 “Fuck,” he swore as he took a deep breath. The cold cut into his lungs and this was going to be one those days. He just knew it. Mondays were the worst. Donning his gloves and hat, he reluctantly pushed open the lobby door and stepped out into ankle-deep snow. A little bit spilled into his boot, sending an ice-cold chill up his spine.

That was okay. He could do it. He just had to make it to his car, which was like three lots further down that it should have been because Bakugou was a bastard who stole other people’s parking spots. Denki glared at his neighbour’s window. Tonight, he was totally going to sick Kirishima on him.  

 Buoying himself with that thought, he marched toward his car, ignoring the bone-chilling winds and ice water in his boots. Maybe Kirishima would cook, and that thought fueled at least twenty minutes of distracting images of food as he brushed the snow off his car.

 Before he left, he tossed a pile of snow at Bakugou’s car. The bastard had it coming.

 -x-

 Denki squinted at the roads over his steering wheel. Traffic was at a crawl and he wasn’t sure if he was in a lane anymore. The cars in front of him were misaligned from one another, like two lines that were trying and failing to merge into one. As long as he didn’t slide off the road, he could manage. At least, considering how bad the weather was, his boss had to be late too. Hell, maybe he could get to work earlier than his boss and ask him What took you so long and—

 He wasn’t moving. Cars trudged forward around him, merging back into the single lane ahead of him, and he wasn’t moving.

 Fuck.

 “Oh no no no,” he muttered, pressing the gas as hard as he could. The car still didn’t move. He was trapped. Stuck. Panicking, he watched as everyone ignored him, heading straight to work. No one was going to help him and he was going to die and—no, he could do this. Hatsume, his mechanic, had prepared him for a situation just like this. What was the first thing she’d said again? She said to check the engine. Denki stared at the dashboard. The lights were on. Good. He pressed his foot on the gas and the engine rumbled as the car strained to go forward. Also good; his engine was fine.

 Actually, no, this was terrible. Denki grimaced as he realized just what that meant. His tires were stuck. His tires were stuck in snow that was piled higher than his ankles in subzero temperatures. Well, there went his dream of getting to work today. Or anywhere at all.

 Opening the door a crack, Denki flinched as a stream of cold air entered the car. Quickly, he slammed the door shut. Shit, that was cold. Maybe he could just call a tow truck. Pulling out his cell, Denki impatiently tapped on the screen to no avail. The battery had died. Of course it’d died. Today was Monday.

 Nothing ever went right on Mondays.

 Steeling himself, Denki opened the door once more and forced himself out. Snow spilled into his boot again, causing a chill to run up his spine. Resisting the urge to jump back into the car, he trudged to the back and checked the back wheel. A pile of dirty, mushy snow had gathered, stopping the car from moving any further.

 Maybe if he pushed it—Denki laughed at the idea. With his scrawny arms? Impossible. The car would just roll back and hit him. No, he’d just have to rely on strangers. Waving at the incoming traffic, he gestured at the wheels. “I’m stuck! Help!”

 No one stopped.

 Okay. Maybe they couldn’t hear him. Clearing his throat, he yelled louder. “HEY. I’M STUCK. I’M GOING TO DIE. HELP.”

 Still no one stopped. Fine, that was fine. Denki knew just what to do in situations like this. It was time to pull a page from Bakugou’s book. As the next car passed by, he jumped in front of it. “STOP DAMNIT!”

 Which might not have been the best thing to do, but traffic was slow as it was. The car struggled to stop, skidding through the snow as the driver tried to avoid hitting him. It stopped just centimeters from his legs. Through the windshield, he could see a driver staring at him with wide eyes, just as surprised as he was.

 “Oh, god, it worked. It worked.” His shoulders relaxed and now that he was paying attention, his heart was going a mile a minute. That had been scary. Pressing his hands on the hood of the stranger’s car, he bent over and took a deep breath, releasing his tension.

 He’d stopped a car. He was going to get help. It would be fine.

 “What the hell was that?”

 Well, it would probably be fine as long as this guy didn’t stab him out of anger. Standing up shakily, Denki smiled shakily. “Car troubles?”

 The other man stared at him, speechless. In the pale light of the morning, Denki stared at the guy’s hair, a half-red, half-white combination. Did the guy grow too old on one side? Was it a fashion statement? He wasn’t sure only that it looked really good on him. Maybe it was to distract from the burn mark that covered half his face. There was a pun to be made, about how hot he looked, but that would probably be insensitive.

 Cars honked, angry that now half the road was blocked, and Denki remembered why they were here. Right. Clearing his throat, he gestured at his car, “I’m stuck.”

 “I can see that,” the other guy replied dryly, and damn, his voice.

 No, this wasn’t the time to get distracted. “Help?” Denki pleaded, clasping his hands together.

 The man stared at him for a long moment. He then glanced at the road ahead and at the snow at his feet. With a resigned sigh, he ran a gloved hand through his hair and nodded. “Alright, I guess. It’s not like I was going to get there on time anyways.”

 “Oh, thank you thank you thank you!” Denki resisted the urge to just hug the guy. He was saved! He was rescued!

 “So, it’s just that your car’s stuck?” the guy asked, stepping closer to inspect the car.

 “Yeah, the engine’s fine and everything. The back wheels are…buried.” Standing by right back wheel, he crouched and pointed pitifully at the pile of snow around the wheels. It looked even worse than it had before.

 The man crouched beside him and now that he was closer, Denki could pick out a musky cologne. “Well…we could try pushing it out.”

 “Pushing it out?” Distracted, he watched as the stranger went to the trunk, resting both hands on the car. His thick jacket didn’t indicate much of his physique. Maybe the guy was jacked. He certainly acted like he was.

 “Yeah.” He stared at Denki expectantly. When he didn’t move, the guy sighed. “The steering wheel?”

 “Right!” Denki flushed a dark red as he hurried to the driver’s seat. Turning the car back on, he slowly pressed down on the gas. There was a small jolt as the stranger pushed and for a brief second, he though the car would move.

 Then a snowman knocked on his door. Before Denki could scream, the snowman wiped his face revealing a now really grumpy hot guy. Gingerly, he rolled down the window. “It didn’t work?”

 The glare the guy gave him could have melted ice.

 -x-

 Half an hour of struggling to move the car didn’t do much for traffic. It was still slow as hell, but now Denki was finally moving with it.

 Though, not in the way he’d expected. He glanced over to the driver, the stranger he’d more or less forced into this situation. Now that they were sitting in a cozy car, the guy had unzipped his jacket a little, revealing the top of a suit. A businessman, then. Resisting the urge to ogle, Denki smiled nervously. “It’s, uh, so nice and warm here.”

 “We’re in a car,” was the deadpan response.

 He wanted to bash his head against a wall for the stupidity of his comment. For once, he couldn’t even blame his job for this. “Yeah. Uh…Oh! I’m Denki Kaminari.” He almost held out his hand to shake before remembering they were in a car.

 The other man stared at the road, his brow furrowing, before he finally replied, “Shouto Todoroki.”

 A name. That was a good start. “Thanks for helping out and giving me a ride and, well, everything.” Denki sighed, remembering the call to the tow-truck. “I can’t believe it’s going to take an hour for them to get here.”

 “Considering the weather, that’s pretty fast,” Shouto disagreed shortly.

 “Oh. Right.” Was he going to say anything right? “Still, thanks.”

 “Couldn’t let you freeze out there.” Shouto shrugged. Taking a hand off the wheel, he pulled out his phone and handed it to Denki. “Do you need to call anyone else? Your office?”

 “I didn’t want them to know I’m late, but this is a great excuse, right? Man, though, they’re going to give me so much shit for not charging my phone.” He was rambling. Denki was aware of it and yet his mouth refused to stop. It was the curse of the passenger seat: he had to say something, anything to keep the silence at bay. “I’m an electrician, so the jokes kinda write themselves.”

 “An electrician?” Shouto’s brow furrowed even more and for a moment, Denki wondered if he’d said something wrong. Did this guy have a vendetta against electricians?

 What if he was an axe-murderer or something? He’d seen movies about hitchhikers getting murdered in the woods. With all this snow, his body wouldn’t be found till spring. “You’re not going to kill me, are you?”

 “What?” Shouto stared at him, perplexed.

 “Nevermind.”

 Giving him one last confused look, Shouto shook his head and chuckled. “No, it’s just…you’re an electrician.” He laughed a little louder, his shoulders shaking and a smile growing on his face. “And your name is Denki Kaminari.”

 Well, damn. If he looked hot stoic, Shouto looked even better when he smiled. “I get that a lot,” Denki managed to reply.

 “Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh.” Shouto swallowed back his laughter, but he looked a lot more relaxed now. Denki couldn’t tear his eyes away, it was like watching the beast transform into a prince. “It’s just…”

 “My friends said the same thing.” Denki grinned, rubbing his neck as he remembered his best friend’s face. “And my parents were just—well, they didn’t really get to talk since they named me.”

 “It’s really on the nose,” Shouto agreed. “Not that my name is much better.” He gestured at his hair. “This is actually natural.”

 “Really?” Leaning to his side, Denki stared at Shouto’s strange half-and-half hair. “How?”

 “A strange mutation.” Shouto shrugged. “Half my mom and…half my dad.” The last word he almost spit out, his expression darkening.

 Clearly there was some bad blood there too. Trying to lighten the mood, Denki forced a laugh. “I guess we have really literal parents! Don’t tell me you’re a fireman, that would be too much.”

 Shouto blinked before breaking into a smile again. “No, that would be too much. I’m a lawyer. It’s my first day, actually.”

 “A lawyer?” Denki rubbed his forehead, remembering just how he’d jumped in front of the car. That wasn’t legal. There was definitely some law he broke. “You, uh, won’t sue me for this?”

 “No, don’t worry about it.” Shouto laughed again and Denki felt an irrational surge of pride. He was getting good at pulling laughter out of him. “I’m only after actual criminals.”

 It’d be better not to mention the stockpile of speeding and parking tickets he had, then. He glanced at Shouto. They looked like they were about the same age. “Your first day, huh. That’s gotta be fun.”

 Shouto’s expression darkened again and he bit his lip. “I suppose,” he answered, sounding almost as frigid as his name.

 “Or not.” Denki backpedaled as fast as he could. Wow, today was a great day for putting his foot in his mouth. Mondays. “First days suck, they’re the absolute worst. You have so much paperwork and it’s boring.” Was that a hint of a smile he spotted? Motivated, he rattled on, “Jobs suck too but not as much as first days. Or Monday’s.”

 Shouto glanced at him, quirking his brow. “Hate your job that much?”

 “Well…” Denki shrugged. “It’s not bad, I like everyone there, but.” He paused, mulling it over. “I’d just rather be home, playing video games.” Realizing he’d said more than he’d meant to, he covered his mouth. “I mean I…” What was a sophisticated hobby? “I play pool.”

 Judging by how Shouto’s cheeks puffed with barely suppressed laughter, pool wasn’t half as cool as he thought it’d be. Sighing, Denki slumped against the door, staring morosely through the window. “I’m sorry, I’ve been told I ramble.”

 “Don’t be.” Shouto looked cheerful as he turned the steering wheel. “I’ve been told I don’t talk enough.”

 “No, really?” Denki couldn’t stop the sarcasm and he covered his mouth with a hand before anymore escaped.

 Somehow, Shouto didn’t look the least put out. As the car slid to a stop, he merely nodded. “Yeah.”

 Maybe he didn’t get sarcasm. Denki didn’t know if he should correct Shouto or just let him continue down this tragic path.

 “To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to work.” Shouto turned toward him now and Denki got the full brunt of his stare, the bright blue eyes boring into his. His expression looked tranquil now, nothing at all like the stoic man who stopped his car. “But…I don’t know. I feel better about it now. Thanks.”

 Denki flushed a bright red. His skin only burned hotter as Shouto reached forward and shook his hand. “I-I didn’t do anything.”

 Shouto shook his head. “No, you did. Thanks.”

 For a long moment, they sat there in silence, staring at one another. Denki didn’t know what he wanted to do next but a not-so small part of him wanted to lean forward and kiss the man. Which was stupid, he’d known this stranger for like thirty minutes. Sure, he was hot, but come on. As much as his friends teased him for being a disaster, in more than just the bi way, he wasn’t so far gone that he’d get attracted to someone that quickly.

 Dimly, he was aware that Shouto was looking at him expectantly. Did he feel something too? Want something too? Denki was about to say something when he realized where they were: a parking lot at Starbucks.

 “OH!” No wonder the guy was staring at him. This was the part where he was supposed to get out. Scrambling to pull on his hat and gloves, Denki tried to keep his voice even as he thanked Shouto. “Didn’t realize we were here—thanks for the ride.”

 “It’s nothing. You’re the one who stopped me.” Shouto’s eyes shone with withheld mirth and Denki wanted to pull the laughter out of him one last time. “Literally.”

 “You did say you wouldn’t sue me for that,” Denki replied playfully. “Guess I got lucky you weren’t cop.”

 Shouto pursed his lips and for a brief second, Denki wondered if he’d said something wrong again. Just as quickly, Shouto pulled out of whatever dark thought he had, his lips twitching as he tried not to smile. “My dad is one.”

 “Seriously?” He paled. What sort of cursed luck was that? “You, uh, aren’t going to get me arrested, are you? I swear I’ll pay my tickets. All of them.”

 “He’s not in traffic either.” Shouto laughed and Denki watched, mesmerized. “You’re safe, though you should probably pay those tickets.”

 “Yeah.” Denki reached into his pocket, scrounging around for one of his business cards. His fingers hit a hard edge and impulsively, he pulled it out and pressed the card into Shouto’s hand. “A-anyways, if you need anything, just let me know. I owe you one.”

 Without waiting for a response, he burst out the door and ran into the Starbucks. Okay, so maybe he was just that level of bi-disaster. Making a beeline to the closest power outlet, he pulled out his phone charger from his work bag.

 Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d find a text when his phone turned on.

 Maybe Mondays weren’t so bad after all.

[babybluebex]

Habibah

it’s my ahkmenrah fic! i have so many little things going on and it’s driving me insane but i keep wanting to write so here (also be on the lookout for a dad!rami thing soon @a-small-fuck-you) 

The Egyptian air flowed through the opulent palace, rustling his robes around. The jewels and gold tinkled as it shifted, and he paused to admire the view of his kingdom. A golden heaven laid before him, given to him by Ra. Ahkmenrah was as blessed as a man could be, except for one thing. She was so close, nearly in his reach, but the vows and virtues of brotherhood kept him from having her. Ahkmenrah, for as long as he had known Princess Alexandria, had been entranced by her beauty and kindness. She was closer to his twenty years than her husband’s thirty, and this made them grow close upon meeting. Alexandria, or Dria as many of her friends called her, was a very educated woman, having been seeking education when she came to Cairo and met Kamunrah, but her conversations with Ahkmenrah obviously meant more to her. Ahkmenrah had considered for years of telling Dria how taken he was with her, but that would cause his brother to be even crueler than he already was. Silent suffering was best.

“Ahkmen,” her gentle voice blew down the hall with the breeze, and the king turned to see his sister-in-law. Her hair, its light brown Greek roots the color of the roasted sugar candies sold at festivals, was pulled messily out of her face, her green eyes lined with thick black kohl. “Why do you look so forlorn, Your Highness?”

“Not forlorn, Dria,” Ahkmenrah told her. “Only thinking.”

“Only thinking?” Dria teased. “You say that as if pondering isn’t one of the greatest gifts that Zeus gave us.” 

Ahkmenrah smiled at the mention of Dria’s gods. “Very true, Your Highness,” he said. “Zeus and Ra are kind gods.”

“Do you think that the two of them would get along?” Dria asked.

“I believe so,” Ahkmenrah said. “Their beliefs and worshipping are similar.”

Dria looked at the king, devoid of his crown, and she playfully nudged his arm. “Tell me, Ahkmen,” she said. “What’s going on in that funny little brain of yours?”

“I was…” Ahkmenrah began. “Only looking at the kingdom. Wondering what will happen when I cannot rule.”

“That day will not come soon, Zeus and Ra forbid,” Dria said. “You are in good health and spirits. By the time you are chosen by Anubis, you will have sons to rule your kingdom. Or perhaps nephews.”

“Daughters, maybe?” Ahkmenrah asked. “Or nieces.”

Dria wrapped her arms around herself. “Perhaps,” she said softly. “Ahk, you… You have been so kind to me since my first day here. I feel like I should let you know that-that… Kamun is-- will be, rather-- a father.”

Ahkmenrah stared at Dria, his mind already spinning. “And you are telling me this why?” he asked softly.

Dria shrugged. “I am afraid to tell my husband,” she said. “He will raise our child to be as cruel as he is. I cannot, in good conscience, let that happen. I need your help, Ahk. I really…” She looked at him with tears in her eyes, and she gently laid her palms on her stomach. “We really need your help.”

“Of course,” Ahkmenrah said quickly. “How?”

“I need you to claim the child,” Dria said. “Kamun cannot know that it is his.”

“Dria, you know that I cannot--”

Dria reached forward and grasped his wrist tightly, her fingers pressing harshly into the jeweled bracelets. “Ahk, please,” she whispered quickly. “It is either this or give the child up, and I cannot do that. I need you to do this for me. Please, brother.”

Ahkmenrah wet his lips as he thought about it, and he looked down at where Dria was holding him. “I will do it,” he told her. He lifted his hands to cup her warm face in his palms, and he said, “Anything to protect you, Your Highness.”

___

It was dark. She felt fabric covering her face and binding her arms to her sides, and she took a deep breath. She had a few seconds of thought, and she curled her hands into a loose fist, just tight enough to identify what she was holding. A curved staff, just like the ones that royalty were buried with. Buried. Had she been mummified alive? Not possible. She had studied the process and knew that too many organs were removed for a mistake like that to happen. There were barely any other options left. 

There was a loud crack around her, and distant muffled voices. A few people with smooth voices spoke, then a few with rougher voices, and suddenly there was dim light filtering through the bandages around her eyes. She began to struggle, crying out and trying to speak to threaten her attackers. “... Of Thiva,” a man’s voice said. “She’s one of yours?”

“No,” a woman’s lightly accented voice said. “Those are Egyptian bindings.”

“But she’s from Thiva, Minnie,” the first man said. “Why would an Egyptian queen be from Thiva?”

“Unwrap her,” a second man said. “I can say from experience that those bindings are awfully stuffy.”

Suddenly, hands were on her, unwinding the dusty bandages from around her. The light brightened and she cowered away from it, and she finally peeled her eyes open. Above her, a circle of people were staring at her, a few men, a woman, most wearing robes and skirts that she recognized. She sat up quickly, but a sudden wave of sickness washed over her, and a gentle hand pushed her to lie down. “Excuse me?” the first man said. “Umm, ma’am?”

“Your Highness, Larry, please,” the woman said sharply. “And go slowly. The poor dear’s been asleep for eons.”

“Where’m I?” she managed through a lead tongue, and she shifted her eyes to the others. The first voice belonged to a man with dark hair, wearing dark blue clothes with a white emblem on the shoulder. The woman had gray hair and striking green eyes, and she glanced to the second man. He had brown skin, wearing precious metals and jewels, his blue eyes full of worry. Something tugged at her stomach, a faint hint of remembrance, but nothing could come to her mind.

The man cracked a small smile. It was crooked, misaligned along his full lips, and he said, “Your Highness. Did you sleep well?”

“Where am I?” she said again, more urgently than the first time. She clutched her staff to her chest and slowly sat up, and she saw two more men a few steps away from her, along with a few men that were no larger than a sewing needle perched on the first man’s shoulders. “Who are you?”

“Your Highness, I understand that you are confused--” the man in blue said, but she gritted her teeth and thrust her arms out at him, hitting him squarely in the jaw with her staff. 

“Who are you?” she demanded. “And where am I?”

“Dria,” the smiling man said gently. “Calm down, love. You are safe; nobody will hurt you here.”

Dria narrowed her eyes at the man, and quickly attempted to attack him the same way she had with the first man, but he expertly dodged it and blocked it with a firm palm. “You forget that I am the one who taught you to spar,” he chuckled. 

“Who are you?” Dria repeated. “I know that I know you, but I… I can’t remember.” Her shoulders sagged, and she looked at the group around her. “I apologize for my hostility.”

“Fear of the unknown,” the man said. “Queen Alexandria of Thiva, we have a lot of explaining to do.” 

“Please answer my questions,” she mumbled. 

“I am Ahkmenrah,” the man said. “Your brother by marriage. This is Larry Daley, Guardian of Brooklyn, and his son Nicholas.” He gestured to one of the men in the back, who gave a weak wave. “And Mr. Roosevelt there, along with Jed and Octavius here on Larry. And this lovely madame here is Minerva, goddess of battle.” 

Dria glanced at the group around her, and she asked, “Are we in Cairo?” 

“No,” Ahkemrah said gently. “Dria, darling, we are in London.” 

“Kamun,” Dria said quickly. “My son! Where are they? We must stop him!” 

“Calm down, darling, please,” Ahkmenrah said and sat on the edge of the opened box. “Kamunrah is not a threat to you any longer. He has been banished to the underworld.” 

“My son,” Dria said quickly. “Ahkmen, where is my son?” 

Ahkmenrah sighed. “Dria,” He began. “We are in London, England. Only… You have been asleep for a long time, love. This is a different world than the one you knew. And Atarah… I heard he was a great pharaoh.” 

“Ahkmenrah,” Dria began and took a fistful of his robes. “If you do not explain this right this instant—“ 

“God, those accounts about her weren’t joking,” Larry Daley chuckled, and Dria flashed him a dark look that made the smile melt off of his face. 

“Dria,” Ahkmenrah began. “Your reservations against my brother were correct. He was cruel and unjust and… He murdered us. I claimed your son as mine to ease your mind, just as you requested, and Kamun began vengeful. He knew that our parents would allow me to take the throne before him if I had a child, so he… He had you killed, Dria. He tried to murder you and the child— his child— and our workers were able to save Atarah. But you did not survive. When I found out what my brother had done, I tried to have him jailed for it, but he attacked me.” Ahkmenrah gently lifted his shendyt to expose a series of scars around his stomach, and Dria took in a deep breath. “He stabbed me. Seventy-three times in total, to my stomach and back.”

“Ahkmen,” Dria whispered faintly. “You did that for me?” 

“Yes, Dria, I did,” Ahkmenrah said. “I would do anything you asked of me.” 

“Truly?” Dria asked. 

“I am a king, darling,” Ahkmenrah chuckled. “Kings do not break their word.” 

“Then, tell me,” she said. “What year is it?” 

Ahkmenrah looked over his shoulder to Larry for a moment, then turned back to Dria. “You were asleep for a long time,” he began. 

“Ahkmen—“ Dria began. 

“And I don’t want to upset you so quickly—“

“Ahkmenrah,” Dria began. She pulled herself from the wooden box and brushed off bits of straw from her bindings, which were still securely around her middle and legs, and she advanced on Ahkmenrah. “If you do not tell me the whole truth this instant, I swear that I will call upon Hades himself to drag you to the underworld! Answer me!” 

Ahkmenrah hesitated, then mumbled, “You have been asleep for four thousand years.”

[deniigi]

I heard you that you were taking prompts and I thought that maybe seeing Brett or Foggy interact with Daredevil and Miles-Spidey from your ITSV verse would be pretty cool. Feel free to throw this away if it’s not what you’re looking for!

OH

I actually have something similar-ish to this in my drafts.

I’m putting this one under the cut since it’s a little longer.

Lol, so the premise of the larger piece this is from is that Technicolor Peter’s mutation reacts violently to the appearance of other spideys and kind of puts him into a berserk mode so all he wants to do is tear them limb from limb. Doesn’t show up much in this bit, but that’s the working idea here.

———–

“Put your hands up,” Brett called, full-voice.

Surprisingly, the four masks did this without question.

“Get on your knees.”

It was almost like they could sense the guns. Brett didn’tlike to aim one at anyone, but this shit was going too far. And Peter wasspeechless with fury this time. He’d tangled with a few of these characters onthe way to this particular alley and, to Brett’s surprise, had come out onbottom. Scrambling off from beneath one after the other.

Brett wasn’t sure if it was the quality of the costumes or thedesigns that pissed him off, or if it was the challenge to his territory, but anywayaround, little Pete was not havingthese cosplayers that night. He stayed crouched low against a nearby wall, morespiderlike than Brett had seen him.

Unhappy.

This was one unhappy Spidey.

He realized belatedly that his suspects were chatteringamong themselves and repeated the command for them to kneel.

“Dude, we gotta kneel,” one of them—the smallest one—hissedat the others.

“We don’t have time for this,” the one in the white suitsnapped.

“We don’t have timeto get shot either,” the small one insisted.

Boy had some sense in his head, then. That was a relief.

“He won’t shoot, he’s got no reason to—”

“Now. He’s got noreason to now.”

Brett really liked the small one. He glanced over to Peter,still sunken into the wall, and jerked his head a little. Asking him if he hadanything to say to these guys before they got to the hand-cuffing part of theevening. He didn’t respond.

Well, alright then.

“This is the last time I’m gonna say it, y’all. Get on yourknees,” Brett called.

“Hey, can you take a bullet?” the second tallest of thegroup asked the tallest over his shoulder.

“Take a—do I look like Superman to you???”

The second tallest Spidey turned his head to the side justbarely and shrugged lightly.

“Well, I mean. You dowork for a newspaper.”

“Is that seriously your baseline for bulletproof right now?”

“Yes?”

“Hey,” Brett called to get their attention. All four wentrigid and then eased up.

“Okay, alright, everyone shut up,” the tallest guy said tothe others. “This might be a good thing. We can make this work.”

Make what work? And why the fuck were they still blabberingon?

“This is it,” the smallest one moaned, “This is it. My dadis gonna kill me.”

“Same,” the white spidey sighed.

“No one’s dad is killing anyone,” The tallest guy said. “Weare just going to explain to this very nice officer and his very nice,marginally feral Spidey what’s goingon and through exuberance and charm, we will find the chain and then be righton our way—right, officer?”

Oh. That had been for his benefit, then, had it?

Ha.

Nice try.

 ****

“Name?”

“Parker.”

“Given name?”

“Peter.”

“Listen, sir. This is not a funny joke.”

“No, you listen, my friend. I am hilarious, but also 100% not trying to be funny right now. Name:Peter B. Parker. That one’s just Peter Parker.”

“So he’s your nephew, sir?”

This made the blond kid scream into his cuffed hands andsent the other two kids—kids becauseof fucking course they were—into peals of muffled giggling. The big uncle wasbeyond unimpressed.

“Yes,” he said, totally deadpan.

“Oh my god, no,”the blond kid burst out, “No, no, no.”

“He’s my nephew,” the uncle said tightly.

“I’m not. We’re cousins at most—”

“They named him after me ‘cause I’m so fucking handsome.”

“Oh my GOD, B. Shut the fuck up right—”

“They saw greatness and knew exactly what to do.”

This guy was. Well. He actually was kind of a riot. Half thestation was pretending like they weren’t giggling.

Funny, they were. Yes. But that did not make the situationone iota less unbelievable. Peter B. Parker had a state ID which literally,actually read ‘Peter Benjamin Parker’ and, for all that Brett could tell, itwas not a fake. He snuck it off to forensics to see if they thought it was afake, and while he and Steph held it, it fucking buzzed and zipped andshattered into color before resuming its normal corporeal form.

“Well, this is interesting,” Steph said.

Interesting, on the forensics team, was code for ‘bad.’

Steph and Kev came with Brett back into the bullpen wherethe blond kid was firmly renouncing any relation to his uncle. He was kind of ariot too.

“I’ve never met this man in my life,” he kept insisting. “Ionly know these guys. They were all, hey let’s do Halloween early—let’s allpretend to be Spiderman which is just silly,right?”

“Sir, do you have an ID?”

“And I said, like an idiot, no, yeah. That’s sounds likeit’ll be a great time, and really,it’s only karma that we’d end up getting arrested.”

“Sir,” Isabel said slowly, with immense patience.

“It’s a onesie, ma’am, not a whole lot of room for pockets.”

“Sir. It will be easier for all of us if you have an ID.”

“Yeah, Peter,” theuncle said nastily, “You heard the lady. The cheek of you, talking back likethat.”

“Oh my—he’s not myuncle. I swear.”

Isabel looked between the two of them and like. Even Brettcould see the resemblance there. From a distance even. Nah, man. Nice try.

“He’s not. This isjust a biological accident—”

“That’s what his mama calls him,” the uncle stage-whisperedto Isabel. He had absolutely charmed Isabel. They needed to get him a differentofficer for booking ASAP.

“Oh my god,” Blondie moaned into his hands. “This was amistake.”

Isabel could not keep her face straight. She asked for theID again and this time Blondie dug through his suit and shoved it at herwithout eye contact.

“Peter Parker,” she read.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You know, we’re familiar with a kid with this same name.”

“I am not even a little surprised, ma’am.”

“Are you guys all related?”

“Biologically and theoretically speaking—”

“Yep.” Uncle had this shit on lockdown. Blondie glared athim and pursed his lips. Kid looked like a model. Also a little homicidal. Heand Uncle probably ought to be placed in different holding cells.

Steph and Kev were entranced by these people. Even more sowhen Blondie’s ID did the same buzzing-zapping thing that Uncle’s had inIsabel’s hand. She nearly dropped it.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Well, most likely,it was the misalignment of particles from—”

“Act of god.”

Thanks, Uncle B. Blondie mugged at him with every bit of hisjaw he could weaponize. The kids were just about in tears. The girl looked kindof familiar, actually, now that Brett got a good look at her.

“How old are you?” he asked.

Silence among the children.

“Sixteen,” she said.

“Name?”

“Uuuuuh.”

Yeah, that’s what he thought.

“Need your name, honey,” he said. “Ain’t no use in making upone now.”

“Gwen.”

Now, was that so hard?

“And you?” he asked the young black boy next to her. Hedropped his eyes immediately.

“Miles.”

“How old are you, son?”

“Uh.”

Gwen elbowed him right in the ribs and gave him a Look.

“F-fifteen?”

Ummmm, no. Try again.

“Fourteen, sir.”

That was better. Someone had disciplined the ever-lovingshit out of this boy. He was good and respectful.

“What were you two doing out in the middle of the night withthe dream team over here?” Brett asked. “You guys forming a cosplaying club orsomething?”

“Uh.”

“We aren’t cosplaying,” Blondie snapped. “That guy’s thereal Spiderman.” He pointed at his uncle, who was offended as hell at theaccusation. “He got bit by a radioactive spider and then I got bit by a radioactive spider and then Gwen got bit by a—”

Okay, Brett got the idea. He looked at Uncle B.

“You’re Spiderman, then,” he said flatly. Uncle B thoughtabout it like a guy trying to remember where his damn keys were.

“Mmmmm, sure why not?”

What.

Who the fuck was he?

“Peter B. Parker,” Brett repeated. “Spiderman.”

“Pretty much.”

“Peter Parker,” Brett started.

“No, no. Peter B. Parker. The B’s important.”

This was ridiculous. Steph and Kev poked at the guy from theside and he lit up like he’d touched a live wire. His body jerked and burstinto colors like his ID had.

What.

The fuck.

“I’m—okay, you. You seem like some kinda scientist,” Brettsaid to Blondie who went stiff as a board and started stammering. “What thefuck is happening?,” Brett demanded. “I already got the night crew to dealwith, I don’t need any more crazy in my life right now.”

“Uuuuh. Can I? Have counsel?”

[gold-from-straw]

Frozen Heart - ch4

Absolute complete self-indulgent silliness - Tony is hyperactive and loves science!

Read on AO3 from the start if you like!

Tony wanted to dive straight down into the lab for a marathon session of alien research. He couldn’t wait to find out what Loki could do! But it became clear on the jet that the alien was exhausted. He lowered himself into the seats, his head hanging low between his shoulders and his hands curled palm upwards on his lap.

Tony shut his mouth and waited, just breathed for a moment. What would Pepper have liked in a situation like this? “So, uh, what kind of food do you like to eat? Like, vegetables, fish, meat? We can have food delivered, and then… eh, I guess we can sleep for a few hours before getting started on the whole science thing.”

Loki’s head shot up and he looked at Tony like a starving man in front of a banquet. “You are sure? You don’t… I can handle some experiments.”

He visibly struggled to sit straight up in his seat and Tony nodded to himself. “Yeah, I don’t think so, Smurfette, you’re going straight to bed as soon as you’ve had enough to eat. Now, is there anything you’re allergic to?” He frowned to himself. “Not that you guys probably have the same food. Hey, how come you speak English?”

“I speak the Allspeak,” he said. “It translates to all languages simultaneously, and I hear your voice in my own language.”

Tony leaned forwards, perching right on the edge of his seat. “No way, how does that work? Is there, like, a neural implant? Will it screw it up if I put you in an MRI machine? Uh, magnetic resonance imaging machine? Does that...”

Loki narrowed his eyes at him. “What are you planning to resonate with these magnets?”

“Oooh, our first instance of culture shock, awesome. OK, magnetic resonance imaging uses the alignment and misalignment of protons - a magnet lines up all the protons in the hydrogen atoms in your water molecules, and then a radio pulse knocks them out of alignment. As soon as you turn the radio waves off, the protons go back into line, in the process emitting pulses of radio waves themselves. Protons in molecules found in different tissues return to alignment at different speeds, so we can detect what tissues are found where.”

Loki rubbed his eye and frowned. “Sounds like the same sort of principle as electron excitation at different quanta of energy,” he mumbled.

Tony’s mouth fell open. “Uh… yeah, I guess. Oh my God, yeah, it’s… analogous, the leaping up a level and then returning, giving out a certain package of energy in the process. You know quantum physics?”

Loki shrugged. “It forms the basis of a lot of my magic,” he said around a yawn.

“Oh. Oh my God. I love you even more now, magic is actually science, you are my favourite alien. I mean, you’re the only alien I know, but you’re my favourite. Shit, you’re really tired. OK, I’m gonna nerd out tomorrow, no more nerding tonight. Tonight, we eat like princes, I’m feeling sushi, you like sushi? Let’s get sushi.”

Sushi turned out to be a winner. Loki was slow to start eating, not willing to try anything until Tony had eaten some first, but it was clear from the way his eyes fluttered shut as he bit through a salmon nigiri that fish and rice was the way to go.

Tony caught himself staring and twitched his attention away quickly, shaking his head. It wouldn’t do to get caught ogling his new alien buddy, humans found that awkward enough, who knew how insulted aliens would get. But Loki was just so pretty, with his royal blue skin, all marked with raised scarification, a pair of curved horns rising from his jet black hair.

Tony smirked to himself and nabbed another roll. The Westboro Baptist Church had been saying he’d sleep with the devil given half a chance, they’d feel so totally vindicated if they could see him making eyes at a blue horned alien right now.

Loki tried to suppress another yawn and Tony nearly smacked himself in the face. “Right, c’mon, sleepy times for Stitch.” He led Loki down the corridor to one of the impersonal guest rooms, flicking on the light. “It’s not much,” he said, grimacing. “I’ll get something more personalised as soon as I know you a bit better, but yeah, visiting diplomats don’t seem to mind boring white rooms and Pepper won’t let me put something interesting in each one like Black Sabbath posters or a Disney Princess bedspread. I think it would be cool, you know? Like, a conversation starter. But nah, she said it could start a diplomatic incident.” He frowned into the air. “I mean, honestly, when was the last time I had visiting diplomats? I should do it anyway. JARVIS, open up a new tab, we’re gonna redecorate.”

He started wandering out of the room, his head in calculations of how many crazy themes he could work on, then stopped and reversed. “Uh, sorry. Night, Lokes.”

“Goodnight, Master Stark.”

“Oh god, it’s Tony, please. I beg you.”

“I meant no offence,” he said, bowing stiffly.

“None taken, Bluebird of Happiness. Sleep well now - ‘night!”

As Loki’s door closed behind him, Tony stood still just outside it. Then he jumped up and down and punched the air. “Holy shit, JARVIS, did I just make first contact? I fucking did, suck it, world! I made friends with an alien! How fucking cool is that?” He bit his lip. “And he’s hot!”

He was in the elevator by now, still bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. JARVIS sounded distinctly eye-roll-y when he replied. “Sir, might I suggest not flirting with the alien just yet? You don’t know how it would be received culturally.”

“I’m willing to be Kirk to his Spock any day,” Tony smirked.

“I’m well aware of your personal fantasies, Sir,” JARVIS said dryly. “But if you insist on initiating more personal relations in the name of intergalactic harmony, might I recommend some sleep and a shower?”

Tony whined, but he knew JARVIS was right. He hadn’t slept for going on thirty hours, and he still had grease in his hair from the last project. Even if his decision making didn’t usually improve with sleep, he could at least make his breath smell better.

Tags for last chapter’s notes - if you want me to tag you in the next chapter let me know by leaving a like, comment or reblog please ^_^

@aformingsiren, @lorcats, @senpaiweird, @hellosparklinguniverse, @cronusamporaofficial, @just-another-corpse, @red-voices, @saturnjuice, @livevilokikol, @sam-cipher

[teethfaerie]

Blood Red Luna; chapter 1 (homestuck fanfic)

a vampire kanaya fanfiction which was based on this comic: https://melisslay.tumblr.com/post/184356731681/inspired-by-these-posts tw: implied sexual relationships and criminal activity. please enjoy :)

Your name is Rose Strider-Lalonde, and you are about two minutes from securing the biggest deal of your life.

You toss a glance towards your brother. He stands a ways away from you, and crossed and his aviators perched perfectly on the bridge of his nose, shielding his eyes from sight. A tall, slender blonde stands across from him. Good. This is where he should be. Getting the senators wife involved will be the deciding factor in your success. Through research, you’ve come to the conclusion that she’s not a happy woman. Her marriage is slowly decomposing under the pressure of the media, just like so many cases you’ve seen before, and you know that a tall, well built blonde boy will be exactly what she needs to let her guard down.

You notice a subtle nod from Dave. Maybe he’s meeting your eyes; you wouldn’t know, but whatever the case, all is going according to plan. Your turn.

You turn back to the man before you, who seems to tower over you. He’s probably not that large really. It’s only how short you are that makes it seem that way. For the past five minutes, he’s been going on about himself. You have heard about 20% of it, but you get the gist. I’m handsome, I like you, and I am so god damn rich. He finishes and smiles. You take note of a gold tooth shining under the party lights. I wonder how much that’s worth. You take a deep breath. Showtime.

“Mr. English, that’s all so interesting. My mother has been looking into your business for quite some time now, and I must say- you are intriguing.”

He grins at you again. You smile back, and perform a memorized puckering of the lips which you know is undeniably sexy. Pretend not to notice him breaking eye contact for a moment, glancing down at more important things.

“I believe that you’ll find our relationship... very rewarding.” You feel him being drawn in. She licks his lips. Time to tie the knot.

“So, Mr. English. Would you care to join the Strider-Lalonde empire?” He meets your eyes. You bat your eyelashes once, twice...

He extends a hand towards you, and you take it, smirking. His fingers are calloused with age, yours smooth with the help of about 5 types of lotion. After a good 5 seconds, you release his hand.

“I look forward to our correspondence.” And with that, you turn around, blonde hair lightly bouncing around your chin. Oh no. You frown. Dave is gone. The only trace of him is a door closing and a dress shoe disappearing behind the wood.

“Seems as though my work isn’t completely done.”

You slink your way over to the table housing the alcohol. Men begin to stare at you, while you stare at your watch, pretending not to notice where the attention now lies. The clock reads 11:54. You’ll give the woman who’s stolen him away 2 minutes. Their sloppy makeup should take about one, and getting that no doubt far-too-right dress off of the wife should take another. Just enough time to save Dave, but still secure the fact that she’ll want to invest with you and he.

You look around to pass the time. Golden lights illuminate the large ballroom with a glowing aura. What you wonder is whether it’s more one of danger or desire. You cast a glance towards the men, who quickly look away from your exposed thigh. Probably a bit of both. The clock reads 11:55 now. One more minute till you make your escape.

The mansion belongs to the man who you’ve just conned into handing over a good portion of his family fortune. Your mother, who calls herself Lady Lalonde, tasked you and your stepbrother with the mission of making a deal with Lord English. After an exchange of information, the work will be handed over to Roxy and Dirk. This is how things work in the family business. You and Dave are the informants, and your cousins are the ones who get in and out of their bank accounts without a trace. Their work is not easier by any means. But it is certainly a bit less... sacrificial.

Speaking of sacrifices, it’s 11:56. You approach the door, and give 3 sharp knocks. From inside the room, you hear a scuffling- it’s a wonder that her antics haven’t been discovered already. Then again, based on the way Lord English had been staring at you so hungrily, maybe it’s not much of a secret to him at all. The door opens, and a familiar face emerges. You look him over. Messy hair, yes, but his lack of misaligned buttons and the fact that his pants are still on properly tells you that she must not have gotten too far.

You smile up at him. “Redo your tie, Dave. It’s time to go.” He nods and says nothing. You pretend not to notice the pink dusting his cheeks and the how tight his shoulders have become.

You walk in sync with one another as you make your leave. Your signature black lipstick smile in addition with his stony gaze sends a clear message to those around you. Don’t fuck with the Strider-Lalondes.

[raendown]

I am weak and I wrote more for the Uchiha Courting Rituals au. 

Pairing: MadaTobi, HashiIzu, HashiMito, ToukaAndHerHarem Word count: 2675 Summary: Wedding bells chime in the nearby future but who are they chiming for?

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

As Many As It Takes

Less than decade ago if someone had asked Tobirama to sit down in the company of even just one Uchiha without reaching for a weapon he would have laughed in their face. Now he sat calmly in a room with six different men and women all from a clan he had once considered his mortal enemies, all of them intermingled with the members of his own family, calmly enjoying his shochu and very carefully planning out how he would later seduce Madara in to calming the fuck down.

Seductions, he had found, were his most effective weapon against Madara’s rage. Evidently his partner found it very difficult to remain angry with his cock halfway down another man’s throat.

Taking another fortifying sip, Tobirama reflected that life was strange and the Uchiha were stranger. There wasn’t a single person in here wearing the Uchiha fan who wasn’t currently bearing some sort of injury with loving pride. However they had come to the conclusion generations ago that violence should be connected to romance, he at least applauded them for being so straight forward. His own dating history was rocky and sparse due entirely to the fact that social subtleties just weren’t his forte. At least with Madara the only flirting he needed was a swift punch with loving intentions.

It was very likely, however, that he would soon be witness to violence sans the loving intentions. He knew exactly why they had all been gathered here tonight and it was only in part to congratulate Touka on her successful hunting endeavors. Truthfully they were here to reveal a secret to the only person here who still didn’t know, the only person here whose reaction they had all been slightly wary of.

Rightfully fearful of his brother’s reaction to learning he’d entered a courtship of his own, Izuna had pulled a few strings and recommended Madara for a diplomatic mission repairing current relationships with Kirigakure which had kept him away from home for a full three weeks. In that time Izuna and Hashirama had gone through the entirety of the lightning fast Uchiha courtship and come out the other side ready to be married – and that was when they hit a small snag, the same snag Touka had hit upon in her own adventures. Marriages in the Uchiha clan required the permission of their clan Head. With Madara out of the village there could be no marriages performed.

Tobirama rather carefully avoided mentioning the slight tyrannical overtones that suggested to him. Keeping peace was a delicate balance and he could only get on his knees so many times in one day to calm his beloved down.

His thoughts were interrupted then by the thundering of a fist against wood: Touka rapping her knuckles on the table in the center of the room. A large portion of the room immediately looked up at her with worship in their eyes, something Tobirama knew he would have to get used to seeing at family gatherings yet still struck him as a bit overwhelming. One was all he needed, thanks.

Nevertheless, he politely gave the desired attention to his cousin.

“Alright. We all know why we’re here. And most of us know the other reason we’re here but I’m obviously more important so listen up. Group wedding. Two weeks. Madara, I need those marriage licenses.”

“Ugh, do you know how much paperwork that’s going to be?” Madara crossed his arms and settled closer in to his partner’s side. Feeling generous at the moment, Tobirama wound one arm around his shoulders and held him protectively, fortifying him against the coming administrative duties that came with being clan Head.

“Don’t care,” Touka replied with a grin. The candles providing light in the room gave her face an eerie cast as the shadows danced between her teeth.

At her feet, a dark haired woman in Uchiha robes let out a dreamy sigh and rested her head against Touka’s leg. From next to both of them there came a light growl which made Touka look down with an inquisitive expression that quickly turned in to a smug grin. Leaning over, she petted her hand across the top of the Hikaku’s head.

“Now, now. Be good and maybe we can spar before bed,” she murmured. Like a steel trap the man’s jaw snapped shut, his face immediately falling in to a startled expression which almost seemed to question how he had gotten here. Noticing the raised eyebrows from her family, Touka laughed. “They’re still learning how to share.”

Fascinated by how well the Uchiha traditions suited her own personality, Touka wasted no time following in the footsteps of her two cousins, marching herself straight in to the Uchiha district and committing violence against several members of their clan. Although her partners might appear to have been chosen on a whim, in truth she had carefully considered each and every one of them, attaching herself only to the strongest of the ones she had actually spoken to and whose company she already knew she enjoyed.

Of the four she had chosen to court there were two men, one woman, and one person whose gender appeared to shift fluidly towards whatever felt right to them at the time. Upon learning that they would all be expected to share the same wife there immediately sprang up an informal hierarchy among them, at the top of which sat a very tired looking Hikaku. His entire face looked slightly misaligned from all the hits he had taken in the name of love and it was hard to tell if he was up on cloud nine from it all or if he was regretting his decision to fight his way to the top of the heap so harshly.

Tobirama had never seen a man face palm while wearing a reverent expression before but Hikaku was getting pretty good at that. He was also getting rather good at watching Touka with stars in his eyes even as his hands absently wrangled one of the others in to better behavior.

“So yeah. Get it done, Uchiha. I have lovers to love and – oh shit, yeah. Cousin, can you extend my house? I need room for all these yahoos.” Touka gestured broadly to the four sitting around her. Still pressed against his own partner’s side, Madara snorted.

“In my own time,” he grumbled half to himself. She snorted back at him.

“Well make your own time fast.”

“Extending your house won’t be a problem,” Hashirama said from where he was sitting primly next to Izuna. Their bodies were carefully placed to allow for the proximity which came with sitting together on the same couch yet keeping their posture straight enough that they couldn’t be accused of having sat together on purpose.

Touka nodded with as much grace as she was capable of. “Good. Well. Here’s to me and my – what did Izuna call it? My harem! Here’s to me and my harem!”

She raised her glass with another cock grin, her free hand absently tracing the ear of the woman cuddled up to her leg again. Uchiha, as it turned out, had a startling tendency towards cat-like behaviors such as butting their heads against their partners. If Tobirama weren’t so fond of cats himself he would never have made the connection but once he had it had explained a great many things. And he had, of course, immediately passed this observation around to the others of his family who had embroiled themselves in the clutches of the fire-breathing maniacs.

Case in point: as soon as Madara had taken a sip from his glass of shochu he went right back to fiddling with the tie of Tobirama’s obi, batting at the dangling bit of fabric without seeming to consciously realize he was doing so.

Once everyone had taken a drink as a toast, Touka gave her eldest cousin a smug leer.

“Anyway, didn’t someone else also have some news they would like to share?” She cackled at the way he flushed and Mito hid a smile behind one hand. Hashirama cleared his throat awkwardly, glancing over at his best friend, then handed his cup off to Mito and very carefully laid one hand on Izuna’s knee.

Madara tensed, eyes narrowing immediately. Hashirama swallowed nervously but forged on with a brave face.

“Yes! Ah. Um.” He squirmed in his seat, twisting up the brand new robe he was wearing. He’d been seated in the same place since before everyone arrived so no one had seen the back of it but Tobirama would have bet his favorite sword that there was a red and white fan stitched between the man’s shoulder blades. “We have some news for you, my friend. I-Izuna gifted me some new, um, clothing about a week ago. And I’m wearing them. And I was hoping that it wouldn’t be too much trouble for you to maybe – pleasedon’tkillme – write up a marriage license for us too?”

“Perhaps I’m going deaf but that sounded as though you were asking my permission to marry my little brother, Hashirama.” Madara’s face had gone dark and his tone foreboding. Across the room, Hikaku sighed and dropped his head between his knees, covering his head protectively with both arms just in case. The rest of Touka’s partners followed suit immediately while Hashirama continued to squirm.

“Yes? I mean. Yes. I mean! I don’t…need your permission?”

Izuna bit his lip to keep from laughing even as he laid his hand over top of Hashirama’s for support and gave it a light squeeze. “We sort of do, love.”

“What the hell! I thought we were friends, Hashirama! Then you go behind my back and seduce my baby brother!?”

“Uh…Madara?” Hashirama’s nervous expression fell away as he turned his head to give a pointed look at his own younger brother before turning back to his friend with one eyebrow raised. Madara flushed.

“Shut up! I thought you knew what I was doing the whole time so that’s different!”

“Aniki, come on,” Izuna said. “We’re in love! You wouldn’t really deny me the chance to marry for love, would you?” He paired the question with a shameless wobble of his lower lip. When it was mirrored with the same expression from Hashirama, every other person in the room came to the sudden realization of the monster they had allowed to be created right before their eyes.

Madara, on the other hand, retained his indignity through sheer habit.

“I – but – you – it’s not fair! And it isn’t right! You’re my baby brother and you’re not allowed to have sex. Baby brothers are never allowed to have sex!”

Beside him, Tobirama rolled his eyes and calmly reached out to snatch up one of the candles flickering away on the table beside him. Without so much as changing expression he shoved the flame straight at Madara’s face, jerking it away just in time to avoid burning him yet not in time to save his eyebrows.

A hush fell over the room as a whole, all eyes on Madara, who sat blinking in astonishment with one hand slowly rising up to feel around the area where his eyebrows had been only moments ago. It appeared to take a few moments for the truth to sink in that they were, in fact, no longer there. When it did he whipped his head around to stare at an unnaturally calm Tobirama.

“You just…did you…?”

“I think a group wedding for all of us might be nice,” Tobirama said, entirely ignoring his partner’s spluttering. “Just to get it all done and out of the way at once. Less planning. More efficient.”

“You just proposed.”

Now openly leaning in to Hashirama, Izuna snickered. “I sure hope it was on purpose this time.”

Touka eyed the candles closest to her and then eyed her four lovers. Each of them looked back up at her with brilliant grins, some of them still with patches of hair missing from where their own faces had been met with flame. Definitely a weird clan.

“Yes, yes,” Tobirama was saying. “Of course it was on purpose this time. Now. You don’t mind writing up a couple more marriage licenses, do you? Wouldn’t it be nice to be married at the same time as your brother?” He waited for Madara to nod dreamily and then turned to his own sibling with a look which said you’re welcome.

“Thank you,” Hashirama chirped in return.

“And congratulations,” Mito added.

Shaking his head, Tobirama tugged Madara back down in to the crook of his arm and stroked the back of his hair soothingly while he continued to murmur softly to himself in a dazed voice, successfully distracted from freaking out over Izuna and Hashirama. The pair of men in question both gave Tobirama a grateful look while Mito continued to struggle with holding in her amusement.

Touka drained the rest of her cup of shochu in one long pull before slamming it down on the closest table with a satisfied sigh.

“Alright, now that all that’s settled, me and mine should probably head out. I’m really digging this idea of a spar before bed. Whoever gets a good hit on me first gets first dibs on fucking me in to the mattress!”

None of her partners needed any more encouragement than that to scramble up on to their feet and make a break for Hashirama’s front door. Tobirama noted with mild interest that Hikaku made it through first, if only by tripping up his other male contender and using his longer legs to gain speed as soon as he was out on the front porch. Beyond enjoying the spectacle they made of their competitiveness, Tobirama tried not to think about the reason behind it, only waved goodbye as his cousin followed them all out.

“Should we go home as well?” he asked the great cat of a man curled up against his side. Madara’s muted ramblings paused and he tensed with indecision; should he go home with Tobirama and enjoy a pleasantly violent round of celebratory sex? Or should he stay here and guard his younger brother’s already questionable virtue simply on principle?

“I don’t know…” Madara scowled indecisively until Tobirama leaned over to whisper in his ear.

“What if I promise to tie you to the headboard when we get there?”

“Home – go – now!” No one saw fit to comment on the way Madara’s voice cracked on his words, although Tobirama did allow himself a smirk as he calmly rose from the couch to lead the way back to the Madara’s home, which he had all but officially moved in to at this point.

Izuna, Mito, and Hashirama all waved goodbye from their spots of the couch, Hashirama wearing a smile fit to outshine the sun. Just before he made it out the front door Tobirama was able to catch a glimpse of Izuna and Mito both leaning in to use their lover’s broad chest as a pillow and in the silence of his mind he offered his congratulations to them all for finding a family that would bring them happiness. It seemed to be going around lately.

Less than a decade ago he would have laughed in the face of anyone who dreamt up such wild things as a Senju marrying an Uchiha. Five years ago he would have scrunched up his nose is distaste and declared it plausible but not for him. Now every day of the rest of his life would be filled to the brim with more Uchiha than he ever would have thought himself able to handle – one of whom he would wake up to every morning. And by some crazy circumstance he could hardly wait.

Perhaps at some point he should get around to thanking his brother for standing by his own dreams and building the village, for laying down the foundations to make so much happiness possible. For now, however, he planned on being quite busy showing his appreciation to Madara first.