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rcksmith · 2 years

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Untouchable - Five Hargreeves

You can find the 2 request here: anonymous 1, anonymous 2.

Resume: The villain falls in love with the girl.

Trope: “ Who did this to you?” “Touch her and you are dead.” “i´ll find you in every lifetime”

Couple: Five Hargreeves /Fem!Reader.

Warnings: A LOT OF ANGST, swearing, mention of death, blood, fight between the Hargreeves and the Sparrows,a little enemies to lovers in the end, fluff, SMUT, degrading talk.

Word count: 15k.

A/N: Spoiler from season 3.

OMG THIS IS HUGE JAHHSHDAHSDJAHDHND it turned out bigger than i expected.

Because I have a lot of requests in my box, I compile orders that are similar and put together, but I took care to added all the elements that were asked for individually, and made sure that all ideas were respected and written down.

We not tolerate any pedophilia here!! I write about Five with their 20s. I write the same about the characters of Harry Potter, MHA and others fandoms.

English is not my first language, so I so sorry if have a mistake.

Requests are OPEN. Love you ❤️

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Honor comes from the Latin honoris. Indicating a person who lives with honesty and probity, basing their way of life on the dictates of morality. A principle that leads someone to have a righteous, virtuous conduct, which allows to enjoy a good reputation in society.

Five Hargreeves thought of himself as a callous man with no honor and, somehow, able to drown out the voice of morality in his head. He was very knowledgeable about literature and history, and his physics and math skills could surpass Tesla's, but philosophy for him was a bunch of weak principles and dictated by people who didn't really know the world, who didn't pass 1% of what he passed by, who did not see what he saw. Not even Socrates, Plato or Machiavelli had known the worst of humanity like him, the truth about realities. A big part of his existence came down to surviving, fighting, winning, crushing everything that threatened his life.

His cynical outlook on life led him to pragmatism, and he knows that if he wants something done, he will have to do it himself.

His actions were more about getting things done than about displaying a display of rebellion or power. However, Five was not afraid of pain or even killing. He didn't mind being the author of the worst massacres if it meant going back to his family.

Five Hargreeves don't give a damn about being the villain of the story. He did what had to be done.

It was why, when The Handle ordered him to carry out the death sentence of a Duke and Duchess in 1730, Five did not question or hesitate.

Even though in the back of his mind, in a very small part of his brain, the question arose as to why people from such an old and outdated date, he did nothing about it, much less pulled the thread from the ball of yarn that would trigger a series of questions in a row. His job was not to ask why, to investigate step by step, to go through file by file. Five wasn't on The Commission to know the reason for each death, he was on the execution.

So he went, letting the suitcase unfold before his eyes an ancient era, from a faraway time, introducing him to carriages, flowing dresses, gigantic balls. And, as much as some people considered that era poetic, Five never liked lack of practicality.

So he killed the couple as quickly as possible, determined to escape from the need to spend more hours in that old-fashioned place.

It was like any other murder he had committed over the years on The Commission; he came, killed, and left. No looking back, no questions, no hesitation. Drowning in the deepest wave any second feelings that might have submerged, ensuring his emotions were chained very well at the bottom of the ocean.

It was easy, normal, routine. He was once again the villain, and could sleep very well the night with that.

But something began to change gradually in the atmosphere, in the air.

On some mornings, it was as if Five's hands were tingling for no apparent reason, eager to catch up something he had no idea what it was. On some afternoons, his heart vibrated in his chest, like a ground being punished by an earthquake, shaking his balanced state of mind. And, on some dawns, Five's mouth was as dry as the Sahara desert, thirsty for something that not even the coldest water could appease.

Wherever he was the air stayed suddenly thin, stuffy. And sometimes, in the middle of a mission, the wind seemed to blow in only one direction, hitting Hargreeves' back as if pushing him to go in a path. At those moments, his heart returned fluttered in his chest, as if he knew that one north was calling him and was that where he needed to go.

Everything inside Hargreeves began to be affected by strange reactions, spurred by banal, mundane events.

An in a few seconds, if Five stood completely still, silencing his thoughts and hollowing out any inner voices, he could hear something in the wind calling for him. Small seconds that swept away any balance that one day he ever had.

Five Hargreeves was going through a peripeteia, and he had no idea what was causing it.

What hell is going on?

It was wen, on an afternoon where the sun hid with shame among the dark gray clouds, The Handler gave him another murder.

In 1750.

His soul shuddered inside him in that second, echoing through his bones, keeping Five's egyptian green eyes fixed on the paper in his hands, unable to look away from the bold numbers that indicated the date of his next mission.

The icy breeze ruffled his dark hair, but he didn't move. There seemed to be something important and unspoken in the air, and this time, the voice calling his name on the wind grew softly louder. Now, it didn't seem to come from the back of his mind anymore, but from a place far away.

Five looked around, in an instinctive movement in the pathetic and vain attempt to find the source of that voice.

Nothing. As always.

“Five.” The Handler snapped her fingers in front of his face “May I have your precious attention?" The irony didn't go unnoticed, but his eyes flickered to hers. “As I was saying, the time and place of this mission is strictly important. Viscount Sebastian needs to be killed in his office at midnight, in the middle of his daughter's debut ball, not a minute less and nowhere else.”

Hargreeves gave a nod. Not because he had devoted all of his attention to her, just because he wanted her to stop talking. Much of his concentration was still on the way his body and the hemisphere around him behaved. Mission times and places were standard, no need to focus on this nonsense and listen to someone reiterate the rules as if Five were a child. He was 26 years old, a child was the last thing he was.

Something seemed to be happening, occult like a current that rattles under the sea. And the knowledge that he couldn't see the bottom of the ocean unnerved every cell in his body. Hargreeves couldn't stand things he couldn't perceive, understand how it works, take it apart and put it back together again.

This time, when Five returned to the eighteenth century, with 20 years having passed in that time after his visit and only 2 weeks for him, what hit him first was not the impracticality, the carriages, the big dresses. But the wind. Strong, cold, bringing with it the voice who called his name for weeks, now loud and clear.

The dark strands of his body prickled, and he could feel his heartbeat in his throat. Suddenly, anxiety snaked through his body like venom, stirring every fiber in his body, pumping something into his veins that made his blood heat like lava. An emotion he couldn't name what it was.

In the last mission, Five had a string of complaints about the way the black waistcoat squeezed the white linen shirt over his abdomen, and how heavy the straight-cut coat felt heavy under his shoulders. But in this time, he wasn't bothered with the clothes he had to wear so as not to attract attention and go unnoticed. Now, with his heart pounding in his chest, his throat dry and the constant feeling that he had to be somewhere urgently, his clothes were the last things on his mind.

It was an emotion that squeezed the pit of his stomach, made his hands itch and his body shot with an adrenaline that screamed that he needed to move. That he had a more important place to be. All the sensations he'd felt leisurely over the weeks now came back with absurd force, as if he were getting close to the source of it all.

What was happening?

The moon in that far away era shone sovereignly in the sky, blessing the houses, carriages and large mansions with cascades of distilled light in the purest color of silver.

Las time, the feeling that came over Five was to get out of there as quickly as possible. But now, looking around in search of the source of the voice calling him in the wind, the last thing on his mind was leaving.

His watch still read eight o'clock, but the sensation was like he was already late.

The most practical plan was to stay hidden somewhere near the mansion where the ball was being held. Avoiding crowds, witnesses, minimizing risk and being a shadow. As always did. The most rational thing to do was to stay away from that place at all costs, until the inevitable arrived and he was forced to enter through one of the windows.

He should have done it. But he didn't.

Just as a sailor follows a siren's song on the high seas, Five followed that voice on the wind. His brain screamed for him to seek a hiding place, but his soul rebelled with an absurd ferocity, ricocheting tremors through all his bones and ordering his legs to follow a path his conscious did not know. His whole mind was confused, but his soul carried a certainty that no other living being had ever had in they life.

With no other option, stunned by the sensations in his own body, he found himself walking towards the front door of the only place he was supposed to avoid until midnight.

If Five Hargreeves had to describe what was happening to his five senses, he would say that his vision was mildly blurred, as if were searching for focus. The smell was of climax and the ambient sounds were drowned out by his own heartbeat. It was like being there in flesh and blood, but not in soul.

He didn't focus on the details of the world around him, but he knew when he finished climbing the front steps. He couldn't focus on the conversation around him, but he knew that a few people were walking beside him.

His mind saw everything, but processed nothing.

It was a mistake not to be 100% aware of the environment, not to study each individual's body language, not to constantly calculate the odds of a move going wrong. But... it was as if something prevented him from emerging to the surface.

Five didn't respond when the butler greeted him at the entrance to the great hall, but looked around as the wind from outside hit his back and his name rang in his ears once more.

It was a female voice. Now he could tell.

Going deeper into the hall, the melody of the orchestra invaded his ears while thousands of people, talking, dancing and drinking, took his view. Everything resembled a blur on a painting, the sounds were still muffled as if Five were at the bottom of the sea, and the smell transitioned between flowers, feminine perfume and poetry.

Five Hargreeves was a pragmatic, cynical and austere man. Everything that made up his being was based on rationality, laws of physics and mathematical concepts, he wasn't oscillated by tender things and he certainly wasn't carried away by things of the heart or soul. He always followed what rationality dictated. Until now.

Until now.

Like a violin string that ruptured, Hargreeves was gripped by the feeling that something very important was about to happen. Something that would not only change his existence forever, but change him for eternity. This fact stared him at back, bold, warm and as inevitable as the setting sun. And very hair on his body stood on end at once while everything inside him pulsed with a brutality that could shake his bones.

Now, the sound of the orchestra was drowned out by the soundtrack of his life, which was coming closer to apex by the second. It was like being submerged in a slow-motion, in a moment that preceded an momentous event.

As magnets are pulled one by the other in an impassable way, his eyes, as if they already knew where to look, were drawn to a figure among the others who danced in the middle of the hall.

You.

Was like an explosion. Loud and brutal. He suddenly submerged from the bottom of the sea, bewildered, desperate, out of breath. The stupor released itself all at once, bringing his mind back to the reality. Instantaneously, nothing was blurred anymore, sounds weren't muffled, and he abruptly returned to his conscious state. But his soul was not so lucky. Like being whipped by live eels, his heart pounded in his chest with such fury that he leaned over forward millimeters, his throat was drier than the Egyptian desert and now his hands itched in a hellish, bestial, uncontrollable way.

Five Hargreeves has released himself from a wave of numbness only to be hit by a tsunami of sensation.

His eyes were seeing everything clearly now, but he couldn't take his attention away from the female figure dancing in the middle of the room, her bouffant gown swirling gracefully across the floor as if deities were blowing the fabrics.

There were a lot of people around him, in front of him, behind him, but Five Hargreeves only had eyes for you.

In an insane, magical and inexplicable logic, Five had the purest certainty that it was your voice that called him in the wind, that was by the desire to touch your skin that his hands itched. Five would never be able to explain it to other people, but at that moment, there was nothing more concrete on Earth, in physics and science, than the certainty that was because of you that his soul felt, so many times, that he should be somewhere else.

Like the indubitability that you need oxygen to breathe, touching your skin has become just as indispensable. It was a matter of needing, something that now not only itched his hands, but corroded the bones in his fingers.

There was no reason for all those absurd feelings, Five had never even seen you before. But rationality had no space in that moment.

There, in that rift between the past, future and parallel realities, there was no discernment, lucidity, judgment. It was a hideaway free of any cohesiveness, with the smell of romance, an atmosphere full of emotion, passion and poetry. A distant era that allowed, for the first time in many years, that the soul of Five Hargreeves to take control of his body.

He moved, one step after another, his focus petrified on you. With each centimeter closer to your body, the more he felt able to breathe again, relieving the brutal anxiety that had been beating him for weeks, giving a truce to the martyrdom that lacerate him day after day without even him even knowing why.

You had finished your dance, clapping along with the other guests for the orchestra that started the new melody, this time more lyrical.

Your hair, the tone of which seemed to be the personification of poetry, of art, was tied in a bun that allowed a few strands to fall under your neck, the skin of your bust was speckled with a few little droplets of sweat, the perfect amount to glisten under the yellowish light of the candles in the chandelier, making a divine, almost celestial aurora radiate from you. The dark blue gown referred back to the night sky in its greatest splendor, highlight your full breasts at the straight neckline and opening at the hips in a skirt that preached the illusion of you being floating across the hall. Your lips were a red that Five had never seen in his life. A red that seemed to exist only to serve you, enhancing the color of your eyes.

You were like a mirage. An oasis in the farthest desert. One of those paintings that people come from all over the world to see in person, capable of sweeping, taking they breath away, making they cry for having to live with the burden of never having the possibility of knowing you in life.

The romantic period was going on in that century, society was tired of trends in intellectual thinking, rationalization, industrialization and the veneration of science. People longed for an escape into emotionally charged images and fantastical fiction in the visual arts and literature. And Five Hargreeves was certain that you were one of the greatest inspirations of this movement. It was so clear that you were the influence of John Waterhouse's paintings, sweeping the hearts of artists and illuminating poets. Lord Byron was thinking of you when he created the short lyric poem “She Walks in Beauty”, completely fascinated by you.

That thought shuddered Five's soul even more. And an acidic emotion rose in his throat and burned his eyes. In his chest was injected the feeling that he was facing one of the greatest beauties in history, the person the poems and paintings were based on, the inspiration for so many names of literature and art that would become renowned.

There, in front of him, was more than a person. It was a piece of history, art, literature, a beauty that was immortalized and that would be admired even after centuries. Five had already gone to different times in the past, but nothing touched his soul as much as now. As much as you.

Five Hargreeves went in your direction like a sailor following a siren's song across the seven seas.

You were relatively distracted when he got to you. Lungs catching breath from the last dance, body preparing for the next, your mind was on that ballroom but your heart was far away. It was universally true that girls your age should revel in balls like this one. Full of potential husbands, dancing and music, governed by a perfect night for falling in love. You came to like it in the past, but now, after so many similar events, everything didn't have the same magic anymore.

You've heard enough stories - filled with adrenaline, pirate ships and dangerous waters - to crave adventure in your life. It was also noticed that you spent too much time with your books, and that the consequence of spending so many hours in the fictional world brought you very high standards for men and love. The whispers through the darkened streets were that you would end up a spinster. Since you took no interest in any gentleman who courted your hand.

In your defense, it wasn't your fault. The men in your reality were terribly...tasteless.

That was until he showed up.

You don't know where he emerged, or what lineage he was from, much less his name. But he came towards you like that was more important than breathing. In a virile, perfect posture. As if he knew all the secrets of the world and was able to show you them.

One of the first things you noticed were the eyes. The room was partially dark, lit only by the flickering candles in the candelabra, but the darkness only made his eyes clearer. Intense greens. Of such a pure emerald tone that it shone like a mystical cat, calling you to sink in his greenish sea. The stranger had hair as black as midnight, which fell softly and romantically over a face with firm features; jaw as sharp as a razor and a nose full of masculine personality. Although was well dressed, all his clothes, with the exception of the white linen shirt, were as dark as the strands of his hair, something unusual among the sophisticated gentlemen who were invited.

Looking at that gorgeous face, you were left speechless. The deities had been generous to this man, gifting him with bold, aristocratic features and iris as green as Egypt's most precious jewels. The mystery and secrets contained within in those eyes were a fascinating contrast.

“Can I have this dance?” Just a sentence.

He didn't introduce himself, he didn't say who he was. He just dropped that sentence as if it was the only thing he really cared to say.

The gravity of his words made your heart flutter. What a beautiful voice that man had. With a provocative huskiness, a touch of superb, as if he were an oracle at his peak in ancient Greece. The sound seemed to seep into your body and run through you like warm honey.

The truth was, you had reserved the dance for another gentleman, but in that second, you couldn't care less.

“Of course, milord.” That's what you said, accepting the hand he extended to you.

Never taking his eyes off yours, an unfamiliar sensation washed over your mortal body and engulfed everyone around you. You wondered if it was just the stuff of your imagination or if he too felt the electricity whip through his body as he positioned you closer to dance.

Single women weren't allowed to touch men's hands if you weren't wearing gloves, and that rule had never bothered you. Until now.

Until be affected by an insane, visceral desire to feel that man's skin. Of experiencing the heat radiating from his hand against yours, of feeling those white fingers, slender and pale, holding your denude skin. You've never been touched by a man without a layer of clothing intervening. No brushing of elbows, no bumped of fingers, no errant caresses. And you wondered what it was about that man that made you aware of this deprivation. That stranger radiated secrets in an inexplicable but extremely palpable way in the air and you wanted to feel the touch of mystery on your skin more than you wanted to breathe. A will as strong as fear, as intense as hunger.

Your soul screamed in frustration because of the dress when his hand cupped your cover waist. In a touch so firm it only existed in the romance novels you read. Your heart raced, your breath disappeared, and you didn't notice when you rested your hand on his shoulder and your feet began to follow the rhythm of the waltz.

It was pathetic the intensity of your emotions for a man you had just met and didn't even know his name. But, it was like you'd found something didn't even know you'd lost.

Well… if it was the lack of knowledge of his name that was making things a little difficult…

“Aren't you going to tell me your name? Mine is Y/n”

Your voice, sweet as molasses, velvety as suede, made the hairs on the back of Five's neck stand on end. He recognized the timbre now, he had already heard you calling for him in the wind, but nothing surpassed hearing you from inches away.

This was one of those moments where, if you asked Five why he was doing this, he couldn't answer. He couldn't find any logical answers to his actions, reactions, thoughts. But, once again, this rift in space and time was an environment free of rationality. He didn't need this here. He felt he didn't need to. Not when had you in his arms.

A name…

Five Hargreeves was the name of a villain. Someone who would carry on his shoulders to the grave the weight of the thousands of souls he killed. Someone whose hands were marked, eternally, with thick, hot blood. A proof that his destiny was traced directly to hell. His name was the personification of a freak created to be a hero, an orphan in the apocalypse, a man who belonged nowhere in the timeline, someone without family for many decades.

He looked at the hands that held you. The hands of a serial killer. And then he looked at you, full of beauty, life, happiness and innocence. It was like committing a crime against nature to hold something so pure in such infamous, disgraced, death-scarred hands. And something inside he twisted with something like pain…disgust, for the fist time.

His soul didn't want to hold you in the hands of Five Hargreeves.

Five Hargreeves was the villain. And he didn't want to be that man right there.

His mouth, which looked so beautiful yet so dangerous, softly approached the foot of your ear, while the body of you two continued to follow the steps of the waltz. "We don't need names here."

A current of electricity slammed into your body like a whiplash from a live eel, raising goose bumps on parts of your skin you didn't even know you had. My goodness, it was a sin for a single man to have that much charm.

Sensible young women would have turned away at once. Practical girls who appreciated rationality, sincerity and transparency, who had no estimate for games, mystery and sensuality, would have rolled their eyes. But you were not sensible, practical or appreciative of the good customs of the epoch.

You were romantic, hungry for a good charade, adventure. And that man seemed to be built by those two things.

The world was just a shapeless blur, other people were no more than wandering silhouettes, and the atmosphere was enraptured by the flickering orange light of the candles in the candelabra. The smell was of poetry, romance and freedom, which intoxicated the brain and alcoholize any common sense. Was like a magical place in the middle of space and time, a rift that allowed just being. Time passed slowly, as if dancing together with you two.

‘One second can change many things...’

Just as Five could hear his father's voice saying 'I told you so' during his years in the apocalypse, he could hear his words now.

‘you can crumble empires, win battles...’

Five swirled you around before pulling you into his arms once more, his heart pounding with each passing moment. Neither of you realized it, but every second you spent together, every step, more messed up the timeline.

You smiled full of romance and magic as he leaned you back, his hand firm on your spine, bringing you to the surface and returning to dance around the hall with the waltz that dandle yours bodies.

‘you can fall in love.’

With every strong step the two of you took on the floor, in an apocalypse dance, realities were immediately misaligned. With each spin, lines of events were exploded into other universes. With each look shared, with each smile, with each heartbeat full of romance, people were erased, born, disappeared.

An apocalypse was brewing somewhere because of his hands on your body. A mystical waltz that brought the ascension of chaos in other timelines.

Neither of you two knew about it. But if Five knew, he wouldn't keep his hands off you anyway. Five Hargreeves was the villain in many realities. And he would accept the burden of being in a few more if it meant having you in his arms.

In an inexplicable and irrational way, what was happening now had more importance than everything he had ever lived and would live through in his entire life.

"You dance very well." You praised him, and his hands on you tighten a little more.

"No more than you". Then he gave that smile.

The half smile that lifted only one corner of his mouth. Malicious, sagacious, sphinx. Who promised to know all the mysteries of the world and show you all the sins of life. What man was that? So full of charm, sensuality, beauty. He seemed out of this world and you found yourself wishing that time would freeze in that moment, that you could hold onto your chest and live in that dance for the rest of your life.

There was something different in the air. A soul-deep feeling that whispered that your life would never be the same again.

Not after this man.

“It is not difficult to find women who dance.” You joked. "You've certainly danced with others to know."

Yes, with his mother and Allison.

But even if he had been dancing with all the women in the world, they would have disappeared in that moment. No memories memory experiences with other women could stand out at that moment.

"If I danced, they all disappeared the moment I waltzed with you." He realized he might have said the right thing, because he could see the breath go out of your lungs and cheekbones flush deliciously.

God in heaven… this girl was breathtakingly beautiful.

Five led you around the hall masterfully, committing your features to his mind like the tattoo on his wrist. Permanently, eternally. Suddenly, he was struck down by the insane desire to know more about you. To hear more of your voice, to taste the way the words flowed from your lips like the purest honey.

You were like a drug, an obsession. An addiction that had stuck with him since the first time he came into that century, since he breathed the same air as you, since he coexisted under the same night sky as you. There was insane logic in the fact that his soul felt your presence without even seeing you on that first mission. He would never be able to explain it, but somehow it made sense inside in him.

Five Hargreeves didn't think about what would happen when he had to leave. He didn't think about the withdrawal his body would suffer when he was away from you. Much less noticed the way there seemed to be something important in the air. If he had been in full intellectual faculties and grounded in rationality, he would have managed to understand that that something was the temporal lines collapsing, an apocalypse forming elsewhere, pure and perfect chaos destroying parallel realities.

But he was not being led by rationality. And even if he was, he wouldn't have minded a few worlds burning if it meant having you next to his body. He didn't care. But The Commission was a different case.

But Five Hargreeves wasn't thinking about any of that.

He conducted a conversation with you the way he conducted that waltz. He discovered that you liked the high seas even though you were never allowed to be on a ship. You loved nature and enjoyed good books. He heard your eagerness to know the world and learn about different cultures, that you wanted to unravel the mysteries of Egypt, see the architecture of Greece, visit Spain and wanted to go swim in the beaches of Brazil. You were an adventurer, and Five's heart skipped a beat for it.

But in a corner of his soul, deep down, he felt an ache reverberate through his bones. The urge to tell you about the world came with overwhelming force, and something inside him died when he realized he could never tell you the truth about the subjects you cared about.

He could never tell all that the world already knew about Egypt, about its tombs and its pharaohs. He could never be able to show the beauty of Brazil's beaches that become famous tourist spots, and he reserved a note in his brain that you would have loved to visit Genipabu in Brazil, a beach with huge sand dunes that seemed to be the junction of a huge desert whit a beach. He could not tell you what science, oceanography and marine biologists already knew about the oceans. He could never say about the cruises that roamed the seas in all the luxury and comfort, much less about the planes.

Five Hargreeves would never be able to show you the world. And his soul decided to torture itself even more thinking about what it would be like if you were from his time. The things you would do, the freedom you could enjoy.

He could show you anything you wanted, tell you the secrets of the universe…His secrets.

When the waltz was over, on a note as dramatic as the situation, you couldn't say goodbye to him. Your soul, enchanted and completely enraptured by the man in front of you, vehemently refused to remove your hand over his. It seemed that every molecule in your body, every corner of your spirit, every fiber of your being, had defined that it was with that man that they wanted to stay. Forever.

What was foolish.

The truth was that the sensation of poetry, romance and magic that surrounded you two throughout the dance, had evaporated from the air like mist in the sun. Now the sure that you two weren't meant to be together hung in the air like a black cloud, thundering and flashing. This feeling oppressed you with an overwhelming force, so tangible it was possible to cut it with a razor.

No words needed to be said, but it was stamped into the environment, filling every millimeter and gap, putting that magical dance into a category that would never go beyond that: a dance.

A feeling of melancholy jabbed your throat like a scorpion's sting, injecting an emotion of sadness and helplessness into your blood like distilled poison. You didn't want that to be the end. You didn't want to say goodbye. Even with everything in the air indicating that whatever existed between the two of you, ended here, now.

Five's eyes seemed to exude the same as you. Feeling the end heavy and resounding in the air, reverberating like thunder, as every corner of his soul roared the opposite. The green sea of his irises looked like it was in the middle of a storm. Full of pain, anger. With colossal waves and revolts, which promised to destroy everything they saw ahead. Just like the oceans did in the apocalyptic events in the era of Younger Dryas.

Somehow, without having to utter a single sentence, you both knew you were feeling the same thing. Wishing, with all their might, that this wasn't the end, that they were able to hold time against their chest in a tight, desperate embrace, an attempt to freeze the pointers.

At that moment, Five clamored, to any god who would listen, that you not be taken from his arms.

However, like the evil joke that was his life, his thoughts were cut short by the chiming of the clock. 11 chimes. That echoed in his soul like the trumpets of hell, laughing at him, mocking him, making fun of a murderer thinking he would be graced with something like you.

Five Hargreeves was a villain. And he was destined to have the things villains deserve. And none of this things included someone like you.

In that sadistic moment, Five finally understood a sentence from one of the books Grace read to them at night; ‘If I were to kiss you then go to hell, I would. So then I can brag with the devils I saw heaven without ever entering it.’

Yes. Now he understood. Five Hargreeves leaned in, bringing the back of your hand to his lips, laying a kiss that, however much it was impeded by the muslin layer of your glove, he prayed that this kiss could transmit all the feelings he could never say. This are the only kiss he could give you. That sentence echoed in his head like a fact, as sure as the sky is blue, as true as the salt in the oceans.

And when he went to the core of hell, paying for all his sins, he would brag to the other demons that he had been to heaven without ever having entered it.

You wish you'd said something, asked where he was from, stopped him from going. But none of that happened. This was one of those moments that we regret forever, that are branded in a red-hot iron in the soul, in the mind, in the body. Everything inside you was screaming to go after him when Five turned arund and walked into the sea of guests. But he disappeared in the waves before you could even move your feet.

No one had to tell you, but you knew you'd never see him again. And your heart would never beat for another.

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Five Hargreeves has had to do a lot of horrible things over the years. Actions he wasn't proud of but he knew needed to be done, nights awash in blood and the smell of death.

But nothing has wobble him as much as you have.

His soul, body and mind, trained since he was a child not to develop any weakness that would prevent him from being a perfect hero, then perfected and aggravated by the Commission to be the unbeatable assassin, were rarely stirred by feelings.

He was cynical, hard-nosed, crotchety and arrogant. He never got carried away by emotions and, as much as his desire to save his family is pure, he will cross any ethical lines for the greater good. And all of that made him the Commission's best weapon.

Until now.

Until his emotions messed up not just one, but thousands of timelines. Created catastrophes, formed apocalypses, killed people. Hargreeves meeting you was something that could never have happened. Repudiated not just by nature but by the gods. Having you in his arms was like a crime against the timeline, against the balance of the world.

And heavens and hells would make him pay. With work, blood, or his heart. Promising to take not only the soul, but any hope of laying eyes on you once again. As Icarus had his downfall for the sun, so Hargreeves had for you. In a triumphal ruin.

“Do you have any idea what you caused ?!” It was the first thing The Handler said as soon as Five returned from his mission, seconds after he had killed his target.

Her voice was loud, suffused with anger and rage and… despair. Five frowned, soul still aching from having to leave you, your warmth still in his arms. He didn't have the head to deal with her right now. Not when he had so much to process.

“A death.”

“Don't play smart on me!” Her roar was loud enough for Hargreeves to realize that something really serious was going on. The Handler was many things, but she never got worked up without good reason.

The clatter of her heels echoed through the room as she walked towards him, her eyes full of fierce emotion.

“You had only one job to do! One! Kill the man and get out of there. Like always!" Her voice was as rough as desert sand. “But not only did you mess up entire timelines, but created apocalypses on thousands of worlds that were to happen only thousands of years later!"

Five's mind was racing like a Catarina wheel, spinning at full throttle as it tried to put the pieces together. He blinked once, twice, his heart starting to race with the feeling that something devastating was about to be revealed.

He looked at The Handler, who understood his look. "That's right! Your little feat of dancing with that girl shattered thousands of timelines! People were killed, disappeared, events took a completely different course because of your little impertinence!"

She pulled his arm towards the thousands of screens that monitored infinite realities. And what he saw was chaos. Pure and perfect. Some worlds succumbed to fire, others to water, others to war. But they had devastation as a resemblance.

Five can hear the voices of other Commission workers in the background, in another corridor, other rooms. Some sounded desperate, others irritated, and others helpless, but all seemed concerned. He couldn't even say that he didn't know that little things had chain reactions. Because he knew. There was nothing to justify his actions, for he didn't even have a good reason for himself.

But the truth was, even staring the apocalypse in the face across nine different monitors, he felt no…remorse. There wasn't a part of him that would have done differently, that wouldn't have touched you, that wouldn't have known you. Deep in his soul Hargreeves knew he didn't care how many worlds he had destroyed just by touching you. He was going to hell anyway, it was better to have a memory of you to remember for eternity.

"...we'll have to kill her." It was just that sentence that Five's messed up mind paid attention to.

Then everything stopped.

The weather, the conversations. The world seemed to have held their breath, suspended, staring at Five. Everything inside him fell silent into scary silence, and he turned slowly toward The Handler, all his senses heightened, heart still, mind clear.

She seemed to notice his state. "What did you expect?! You know how things work. Causers of apocalypse get killed, that's our job! And because of that dance of yours, this girl has caused nine different apocalypses.”

There was a kind of insane, evil logic to the situation. The last riddle of gods and life to see Five Hargreeves on his knees. Broken, empty. To punish his sins, taking from him what he took from so many people. They engineered his downfall perfectly, writing with a red-hot iron on his soul the sentence that he could never be happy. His curse, the price to pay. Cosmic fit.

What the fucking hell.

“I'll send some agent to kill her immediately and...”

But Five Hargreeves has never been one to accept sentences imposed on him with his head down. Limitations, rules. He made his own destiny, no matter what he told him, and lived with the consequences. No god, destiny or universe dictated his life.

Everything inside him roared like a beast. Exploding, bursting, sending any control flying away. In an action without any hesitation, delicacy or ambiguities, his hand closed on The Handler's arm. In a firm, strong, tense grip that started hurt her very soon.

She looked at him in a mixture of shock and annoyance. There were very few people in the world willing to face a woman on her level, some too fearful, others who value life too much. But Five Hargreeves was none of those things. He'd never known any predator he should fear, everyone knew he was capable of anything and everything. Maybe there was no line he was able from crossing, or plan he wasn't capable of executing.

Five Hargreeves was the predator she should fear.

And The Handler realized that. For in that pair of eyes she saw danger, rage, pure and perfect hate. His sea of green gave way to red, glittering waves, shining with all the blood he had already spilled. And with a warning that he wouldn't mind spilling more.

“Stay. away. from. her. ” he guided each word with a tighter grip on her delicate arm, sure to leave marks that won't go away anytime soon.

Bewildered, she looked at him like a man possessed, filled with a rage that could fuel hell all by itself. The Handler had never seen him in that state, he was always angry, annoyed, acidic, but that… that was hatred, a bloodthirsty hate.

Five Hargreeves promised to go to hell and drag anyone with him without saying a word.

For the first time in her life, The Handler was afraid.

“Five...you know her need to die...”

"Listen to me" He vociferate, shaking her by the arm. “I don't give a fuck what you have to say. I swear, for all that exists in this world, that if you lay one finger on her, there will be nowhere on earth you can fuck hide from me.”

Five Hargreeves was a tall, masculine man, wrapped in a macabre and sinister aura when he wanted to. He pulled The Handler closer, his face filled with colossal rage being etched like a tattoo into her soul.

“I don't give a fuck about how many worlds are ending, I don't give a fuck if fucking people are dying! You won't touch her until the day I'm dead! And you can bet that, even seven feet under the ground, I'll find a way to take you with me to hell if you do fucking something to her."

You were untouchable.

All of his work on The Commission was about killing a number of people to save even more. But he would never, ever, sacrifice you for the greater good. Not even if it meant millions of dead people.

It didn't matter as long as you weren't one of the dead.

Without waiting for further discussion, he led The Handler towards the exit door, leading her out of the room and locking the door when he returned. Five wasn't stupid or naive to think that she would follow his orders. The handler might be afraid of him, but she knew how to get what she wanted, no matter how long it took. And now that he'd bruised her ego, Five knew she'd make it her primary mission to kill you.

Something he would never let happen.

If someone asked where so much anger, so much sense of protection came from, Five Hargreeves couldn't say. Because he didn't even know. In the same way that he still didn't understand everything that had happened, everything that he had been feeling, he still hadn't reasoned where such primitive, territorialist impulses came from. He had no idea where it all came from, but he was sure he could never let anything bad happen to you.

In a twisted and somewhat obscure way, you had gained a villain as a protector. A fallen angel who didn't promise to do good to people, but only to you. Who swore allegiance not to humanity, but solemnly, exclusively, to you.

It was a sensation that filled his entire body like boiling lava. And Five put his hand in the fire for the certainty that he would never be able to get rid of his feelings for you again.

His soul said that, as long as he was alive, he would be yours.

Making his mind work faster than it ever had before, Five Hargreeves concluded that every record of you had to go. There could no longer be documents proving that you were part of humanity. That once you had a name, a house, a reality. Five would have to erase you from any and all records. Forever. The only way to keep you out of the hands of the people who had access to every form of terrestrial existence, was to erase you from the world. Only then, hidden from the Commission, could you live happily. Fully.

But throwing all your documents away was signing the sentence that he was took the risk of never getting to see you again. Without them, finding someone was nearly impossible, much less accessing their reality. Five could start a calculation to find you one day, but that could take years, ages, and even if he memorized your documents number by number, did the calculations and managed to get to you without any side effects, The Commission could follow him and find you.

And finding a civilian's documents was much easier than finding a special agent like him and throwing them away too.

Once again, his life was a cruel joke of the gods, which served as entertainment for any higher power. Five strongly believed that, if there was anything above or below him, they designed his life for they own amusement.

Five Hargreeves spent hours in the file room, locked in that cubicle, not letting anyone in, not getting out. Once he disappeared with your documents, he would be declared a traitor and deserter, where his punishment would not only be more years of work, but death.

The world was spinning. Head ached. A sound gnawed at his mind, a scratch without melody, like a rustle of paper. Someone had taken a scream, a memory and a fear, crumpled it into a jagged ball, and used it to stuff Five's skull. He need to think of a plan that covered all the rough edges, but his eyes were bombarded with futures he didn't want to think about. Every time he blinked he felt the tragedy lurking in a dark and dismal corner, ready to catch him in their sharp mouths and take him somewhere he feared to go.

A place where the worst had happened to you.

Suddenly, the world was filled with secrets, fears and terror. Just as his soul took control of him in that night, it was the same in this moment. Five Hargreeves wasn't someone to get carried away by anything, but the feeling that something very bad was about to happen to you haunted him to the bone. That would be the perfect ending to his sinful life story; having the one person who touched his feelings so powerfully killed in the same way he killed so many other people.

Life was taking its toll on all the things he had done. For a second, he was afraid of that reckoning. Because the worst is not the bullet hitting yourself, but someone you like.

The feeling outside of being torn apart. All the patches and pieces of what it was to be Five Hargreeves - which he had been painstakingly piecing together throughout his life - were coming loose again, all at once. The clock was ticking, the hours were ticking, and he knew that just as he was coming up with a plan, so was The Handler.

It was a macabre race against time, in which if he lost, he had the feeling he would never fully recover. Not without a part of his soul dying along with you.

When he found your documents, the photo they had of you was a portrait made in that last century, a small painting of your face, eternalizing your smile. Suddenly, the memory of how you'd smiled at him like that gripped him like a demon. And when the memories of you intensified, they brought no comfort, just only fear and dread. Five Hargreeves could not live with himself if those memories were tainted by the knowledge that he was the cause of his tragedy. He would never be able to remember those tender moments again if memories of you were vandalized by images of how you were killed.

It was too late to remedy the consequences of what he had unleashed. The macabre possibilities of what The Handler could do to you were there, tattooed on his brain, as if they would snap open and bolt to reality at any moment. So, as panic rose, Five Hargreeves' mind slammed shut like a heavy book. He wouldn't let any of that happen. Never.

After scheming and checking all the plans in his mind, Five decided that he had already orchestrated the almost perfect scheme. He would destroy all of your documents and, when he had done that, he could no longer remain on the Commission. Thus, he would steal the mission from one of the agents about killing John F. Kennedy, the time that most closely matched his calculations to return to the family in 2019. Then Five Hargreeves would evade The Commission and deal with them without being an employee anymore. And even if they went after him, they would never find you.

Not even Five.

And so it was done.

-----------

Five Hargreeves went through the reunion with his family, faced the commission agents coming after him to kill him, dealt with The Handler and put up with his siblings drama.

In a matter of weeks, he had already gotten himself into so much trouble and confusion that sometimes he didn't even have time to breathe. Processing events and digesting them had become a luxury he no longer had, and saving the world from one apocalypse and falling into another had seemed to become a family pastime.

But there were nights. Cold, when the moon reached its apex in the sky and the rain poured down on the ground, when he was finally able to be alone and clear his mind. In those rare moments, the only thing on his mind was you.

Always you.

His point of peace, his refuge from his constant stress and pressure was in the images of you. In the way your body fit perfectly in his hands, in the way your gaze, enchanted and completely shining, did not leave his. Five Hargreeves felt that, like him at that moment, there was no other place you would rather be.

Twenty years could go by, but he would still feel what it was like to have your warmth in his arms, in the smell that your perfume exhaled and in the way the candles in the candelabra glowed on your skin. You were like a goddess, dancing at that ball as if the world would never be graced with such beauty again.

When Five Hargreeves closed his eyes, he could see you perfectly. Swirling around as if the ground were your clouds and everyone there were mere mortals, watching what the angels in heaven looked like.

It was like a dark paradise. He managed to slake some of that suffocating tightness in his chest whenever he returned to those memories, but it resulted in more flagellations in his poor, tortured soul. The notion that he would never have anything but memories, dreams, and mowed wishes, would skin him alive until his last days. Five would forever be haunted by the notion that, even when he died, you wouldn't be waiting on the other side.

You would be in heaven. And he belonged in hell.

But, it was worth it.

All the pain, all the desperation his soul struggled with, all the shortness of breath that coiled in his lungs, all the feeling of being stabbed with a dagger knowing his would never lay hands on you again, it was all worth it when he reviewed your face in his memories.

Five Hargreeves didn't clamored for relief from his pain, balm for the cuts deep in his soul, a minute's mercy. No, he accepted all of his fate with his head held high. He clamored for you to be okay. Safe, happy. Free from any worries or tribulations. He wished you had forgotten about him, erased that night from your blood, because it would be impossible to live if he knew you were suffering just like him.

Five Hargreeves had never given you a single kiss, tucked your hair in his fingers and tasted your tongue, but he didn't need it. His soul didn't need that to fall madly in love with you.

Yes, pure and perfect passion. It was the only logical explanation for how he felt about you.

Even though he never tasted your skin in his mouth, or touched you without the interference of a piece of clothing, Five Hargreeves was in love with you.

And it would be for the rest of his life.

-----------

All the Hargreeves siblings thought all was well when the Commission was defeated and they got a briefcase to take them back at home. The nightmare of the second apocalypse had already passed and now the feeling that invaded their bodies was one of relief. For a second, Klaus thought that everything would now be back on track; with the family together, stronger ties and improved relationships.

Everyone thought so, actually.

The shimmering blue flash engulfed all the brothers, passing through the barriers of space and time, leaving the Hargreeves in the mansion where they grew up and spent most of their lives. Everyone looked happy, relaxed. And Five also shared the same relief.

Until that fateful moment.

Until a draft of wind enter through the window behind him and hitting his back, bringing a feeling that immediately made every hair on his body stand on end. In a matter of seconds, all sense of relief, calm, and peace were shattered, exploding one by one with the same aggressiveness of a nuclear bomb. The world seemed to stumble and stoped, the colors of the hemisphere fluidized into a vintage orange, flickering, almost as if the lighting came from candles.

As much as his siblings were laughing and making noises, everything for Five was quiet, in a tacit silence. The sound of cars on the streets did not exist anymore, the conversations disappeared, and, little by little, the only thing he could hear was his own heartbeat. Increasing in tempo gradually, like a soundtrack.

Then, in the apex of silence, when Five could already hear the blood rushing through his veins, he listened.

Five.

Your voice in the wind, almost like a whisper. Calling for him. Just like you did a long time ago.

His soul gave a scream that shook him to the very bones, and he didn't notice when his eyes widened and his breath hitched. Suddenly, his whole body came back to life, being pulled sharply from the bottom of the ocean, submerging, desperately, breathless, astonished. Abruptly, the heat returned to his hands, to his cheeks, to his heart. Five could feel warmth coursing through his body as if they had rekindled the flame of his soul.

Was like resurrect.

He looked back in one jerk, spinning in place, heart pounding in his ribcage, his frantic, frantic eyes darting around every corner.

Nothing.

“Hey, are you okay?” Klaus looked back, focusing on his brother, but Five didn't respond.

He walked past Klaus as if he couldn't hear him, his eyes and hands trembling visibly, his step tight. Five chased the wind current as if he were chased his life, oblivious to anything or anyone.

His siblings, finding the situation strange, followed him without hesitation, accompanying the owner with green eyes entering more in the house. They had no idea what to expect, or what to think, but they stopped behind Five as he froze in the middle of the living room, eyes petrified, wide, fixed on a very specific spot at the top of the stairs.

But nobody noticed what he saw.

While all the Hargreeves were taken aback by Reginald's appearance in the outer corner of the room, stunned and petrified, growing more and more stunned as their father went on to explain the situation, Five couldn't take his eyes off the top of the stairs. Nothing in the world would have made him look elsewhere.

You.

Fucking hell...you.

There, standing next to people he didn't care to find out who they were, looking down, observing at the people who had just entered.

Suddenly, everything inside him was whipped by currents of electricity, as if he'd been struck by lightning. An argument seemed to be brewing in the background, but Five Hargreeves didn't fucking care. May the world explode, may everything end up in dust, fire or water. He didn't want to know.

You were there. With the sunlight coming through the large windows behind your back, and illuminating your silhouette as if you were a deity, a goddess, a muse. You shone. Like the gates of heaven. At that moment, the soul of Five Hargreeves fell to his knees in front of you. For you.

An extremely strong emotion invaded him without asking permission, destroying everything he once was. Five felt like crying.

As a war in the background unfolded, the people who were beside you started to descend the stairs one by one. But he couldn't take his eyes off you.

“Five. Five.” Luther seemed to call out to him in the background, but he didn't care.

You walked down the steps the same way you glided through that ballroom, as if the floor were your clouds. Yours robes were uniform this time, but Five was pretty sure that behind that high collar, your skin harbored a birthmark on your collarbone. Your hair was down, but he knew how you looked with your strands tied up.

With each step you took, more his pulse quickened. It was like a dream, a mirage, his oasis in the scorching desert. At some point in the battle against the Commission he had died, and that was his dream.

However, Luther's hand gripped his arm, forcing his green eyes to meet his brother's.

“Dude, what's wrong with you? Didn't you hear dad saying that we're in another reality?”

“I am not your father.” Reginald countered. “Not in this reality.”

Five frowned, rationality slowly returning to his body, his brain taking over once more. A parallel reality. That explained a lot. A reality where…you existed.

Holy shit.

Someone said the Hargreeves had better go, and Five would have laughed out loud if he hadn't submerged in thoughts. If they really was in a parallel reality, that meant you didn't remember him. You didn't even know him. The version who have danced with him was still in another century, in a timeline far, far away.

But…Five looked up. You radiated the same beauty of the romantic period as before, your skin still looked feather soft, your lips still where able to take away his complete self-control, your eyes still have… the same glow that he remembered so many times during so many nights.

You didn't know him, but that didn't matter. Because Five knew you.

He suffered the worst of martyrdoms all this time, and now that he'd finally, finally found you once more, he wasn't going to leave. Even if it meant having to make you fall in love with him all over again. In fact, Five Hargreeves would dedicate his entire lives to making you fall in love with him all over again in every reality there is. He would have as many times as necessary a first dance with you.

He didn't realize it, but his lips lifted in a smile. In a snap of fingers, everything reached a apex, higher than the buildings, higher even to the clouds. All the problems evaporated like mist in the sun, and being in a parallel reality, with a father that wasn't his, in a house that wasn't the one he grew up in, seemed to be extremely insignificant.

For the first time in a long time, Five Hargreeves was happy. And nothing would change that.

That's when, amidst all the arguing the Hargreeves and Sparrows were having around, your eyes met his. And for him it was like coming home after an excruciating winter.

You cocked your head slightly to the side, intrigued by the way that man was looking at you so…surrendered. You understood the gravity of the situation, of those strangers breaking into your home and trying to claim everything as theirs. You were also irritated just like your siblings.

But... when you looked at that man… with eyes so green and hair so dark, something inside you caught your breath. A shiver went up your spine. And maybe you were crazy, but you can swear that felt your soul heave a sigh of…relief. A strange, emotional feeling reverberated through your spirit as if…somehow you'd just found what you've spent so long waiting to met again.

It don’t make sense.

As the confrontation unfolded between the two families, you couldn't help but notice that, minute by minute, you found yourself wanting to look at this man more. As if it were never going to be enough, as if the second you turned your head, you were overcome with an insane urge to see more. You should be focused on trying to get those strangers out of your house, not admiring one of them.

But Five realized that. A spark inside him vibrated with hope, and he delighted in being able to relive the feeling of what it was like to be looked at by you again.

But before he or you could even do anything, the physical feud between the two families broke out with astonishing speed, spreading like the plague. Diego, as usual, was the first to go into battle, followed by Luther and Allison.

See, you didn't consider yourself a confrontational person. Your peculiarity was to manipulate the natural elements and, although that made you one of the strongest figures among your siblings, you had a more adventurous spirit than a fighter. There was no such homeric thirst in your blood to be the best, the strongest, the most brutal. Ben said that was the most unattractive thing about you, but Sloane saw this feature with good eyes. Like you, she wasn't much inclined to brutality.

The fight drove you and Five away from each other, separated by rooms, siblings and war. You saw your family appeal to brute aggression very quickly, while, if you're honest, you didn't want to hurt anyone. Is trut that you were irritated by the way they claimed your house as theirs, but you didn't think they were bad people.

Or all this bland resolutions were for the fact that you didn't want to hurt him. Because, in some way you couldn't explain, you knew he wouldn't hurt you.

But that's when Alphonso yelled at you from upstairs. “Y/N! Do fucking something too!”

Everyone was scattered around the house, but you still remained downstairs, in the living room, arranging a way to help without being very aggressive like your siblings were being. You had no intention of killing or seriously injuring them, but you also weren't willing to put up with the scolding your brothers would give you if you continued to be omitte.

So, when one of the strangers came running to get away from something, the tail of his dark overcoat dancing in the air and his black hat toppling along the path, your reaction was to do the one thing that couldn't seem to do any real damage. In a wave of the hand, the windows were shattered by large, sprawling tree roots, that came out of the garden earth like thick snakes and entered the house in a steady stream.

The man gave a high-pitched scream, but his feet were already entwined by the roots and he was knocked to the ground. The roots, which spilled earth over the floor and exhaled a forest smell, wrapped themselves around the man's body up to his chest, with the only purpose of immobilizing him.

You weren't putting force or brutality, and you were sure the roots were just putting considerable pressure on, like a bandage around an injured arm. But the man didn't seem to notice this, because he kept screaming.

The fear should still be clouding his senses, and you revealed the situation. For it wasn't often that someone was wrapped around by giant roots that moved of their own accord. In your place, you would have reacted that way too.

“Hey, hey” you tried to get closer “It's ok, they won't hurt you and…”

But your speech was interrupted by shrill hum, which cut through the air with force and passed like a bullet in front of your face, shaking a few locks of your hair. The speed were frightening, and for a second your heart stopped in your chest. The fright made you take two steps back immediately, but in a matter of seconds any feeling was replaced by a very strong burning in your left cheek. In the same second, a hot liquid began to ooze from your injured skin like water in a current, spreading pain wherever went.

Two seconds that were able to put you face to face with death. Because that attack was not joking.

The bearded man ran to help the one who was lying on the ground, forcing his freedom between the roots that were now weak due to your distraction.

Unlike you, Diego didn't care about the things he had to do to save his family. He was willing to injure, inflict permanent damage, even killing if that was the only way out. He would have a guilty conscience later, but in the heat of the moment, he wouldn't hesitate. Diego did this to the Commission agents hours ago, and he would do this to you if he had to. As sure as the sky was blue, the Sparrows were the enemy. And he was the hero. Thats it. Two polar opposites, destined to face each other into the death.

And that was why he didn't hesitate to attack when he saw Klaus lying on the floor, screaming as if he were being killed. After getting a small taste of the kind of things your powers were capable of doing, it was pretty clear that you were one of the first ones that needed to go down. So Diego didn't hesitate either when he pulled Klaus off the ground, and wielded yet another dagger. Aiming not to hurt, but to kill.

But love could drive even the smartest minds crazy.

Because when the dagger was thrown in the air, a blue flash invaded the scene and a male body enveloped yours, pushing both of you aside in a rough, protective, intense gesture.

Five Hargreeves was on the stair railing, fighting Jayme, when Klaus's screams grab his attention. He didn't have much time to process what he was seeing, but the moment one of Diego's daggers slashed across your cheek, the primal, visceral instinct he'd felt so long ago, with The Handler on The Commission, roared through him like an angry beast. So when another dagger was wielded and thrown into the air, he didn't think twice, didn't hesitate, didn't blink.

Dropping everything behind, Five Hargreeves dove into the blue flash, having you as the only focus in mind.

As soon as the crash of his body with yours caused you both to leave the deadly path, the arms, masculine and wide, wrapped around your back as if he were holding the only anchorage on the high seas in the middle of a storm. His heart was pounding in his chest, and as much that adrenaline, primal instinct and rage were bubbling through his body, he still managed to feel his soul sighing in deep relief when felt your warmth again in his arms.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?"

Diego's angry roar seemed to shake the walls, but didn't stop the obstinate, angry look that swallowed Five's expression.

“Diego…” his voice didn't match the situation the Hargreeves found themselves in. His tone was serious, steady, so calm it was terrifying, like the warning of darkness to the light. “Stay away from her.”

His brother's confused and perplexed look couldn't have been more accentuated. And even Klaus, known for being the least serious about situations, looked completely astonished. Five Hargreeves didn't held you like he was preventing a murder. No. He held you like Cerberus should have held the only person he was ever loyal to.

"You are fucking crazy?!" Diego gestured with his hands “Let go the enemy now!”

The Hargreeves have been through a lot, seen a lot. Many of them being absurd, beyond any rationality or law of physics, moments in which they had to deal with situations that were not possible to be of this world. But nothing, and no one, could have prepared Diego and Klaus for what they heard from Five;

"Never."

The moment was dispersed when Viktor appeared in the room, shaking, hurt, out of his mind. His head fell back in a single gesture, his arms opened up and the fists closed, as white lights began to shoot out from within his eyes and chest.

Five Hargreeves knew what that meant.

He didn't think twice before running to the side, hiding you behind the bar counter and lowering you two bodies to the floor. His body in front of yours, blocking access to the roughest impact in you.

You two had three seconds, three seconds to look into each other's eyes before the flash explodes. And in that three seconds, the only thing that passed in the soul of both of you was the feeling of finally being where should be.

-----------

"They're stupid villains who think they're smart!" Ben was furious in the kitchen, pacing back and forth.

The last few days had passed like this. With Ben angry about the invasion, Ben angry about the fight, Ben angry about Marcus disappearing, Ben angry about... well... he was always angry.

Of all your siblings, he had the worst temper. Fei and Christopher were practically his dogs, going along with all of Ben's stupid plans just because... you really didn't know why they followed him so fervently, but had a theory that it was because they both thought they would have more power when Ben's plans came to fruition.

A hierarchical system that filled the family with toxicity.

On the other hand, there were Jayme and Alphonso. You never really understood the two, but you described them as bullies. A duo who liked the power they had and how they managed to exert it over people.

The only one you could relate to more deeply was Sloane.

"It would have been better if Y/n had made an attack." Alphonso brought your name up in conversation, his gaze full of rancor.

"Fuck off, asshole" It was the only thing you deigned to say, because you didn't have the patience to deal with his comments at the time.

The truth is, since the invasion, you couldn't get him out of your mind.

It was like a drug, an addiction, that had seeped into your blood from the first time you laid eyes on him. There was something there, something you could never explain. He should be the enemy. Your enemy. But…

The way he saved you from the knives, the way his arms wrapped around you. Almost like he already knows how to hold you. How to protect you.

Your heart couldn't slow down whenever your thoughts returned to that man. From the memory of him placing his body in front of you, standing at the forefront of the explosion.

He saved you. Everytime. And there was something that told you he would save you every chance he got.

The truth was…you wanted to see him. Know his name. Talk with him. There was no longer a fiber of your being that saw the situation as your siblingsdid, your body was facing the complete opposite north.

You wanted to touch him, not fight with him.

When time passed, and Luther showed up at the mansion as someone who was kidnapped, you, again, did not see the situation as a beneficial opportunity for your family. But for you.

Suddenly, your entire soul was gripped by a completely unsettling anxiety that made your hands itch, stomach churn, and your legs unable to stay still. Then you were swept by a feeling of deep sadness, as if you'd already experienced what it was like to spend your whole life wanting to see that man and never getting.

There was no more logic, rationality or coherence to what you were feeling, but finding him was as indispensable as breathing.

That's why you volunteered - more like an imposition - that you would be the one to escort Luther home the moment Ben said he could leave.

“It was kind of you to accompany me” The blond man smiled at you, as the two of you walked through the night streets.

"It was nothing." You tried to sound casual, but with every step toward your destination, the more your hands itched, the more your heart was racing, and in a moment, you found yourself picking up the pace to get there faster.

“I have to confess that you were a topic of discussion between my brothers.” Luther laughed, his odd way of bringing up the subject and not mincing words.

But that got your attention. "What do you mean?"

“A-ahem…well…from what I understand, Diego wanted to kill you, but Five stopped him and…”

Five…Five

His name was Five.

Something inside you stirred. An unfamiliar emotion, but one that made a smile rise to yourcheeks.

“Five” you tried to say aloud, and his name just… felt right on your lips.

You went the rest of the way not being able to pay attention to a single syllable Luther was saying. You don't wanted to be rude, but you just… couldn't stop thinking about Five.

“How long before we get there?” you cut off something Luther was saying about Sloane, and the blond eyebrows drawing together in strangeness.

“Actually” he looked at the big hotel in front of him “We already arrived and…”

But you couldn't stop yourself. All of your muscles felt like they had undergone countless electrical discharges, your heart was faster than any living soul has ever been, and your blood was rushing through your veins like marathon runners. You increased your pace considerably, quickly climbing the steps and opening the doors of that building as if you had just walked through the gates of paradise.

You needed to see him.

Luther came up behind you, giving you a suspicious look and walking towards a bar, where the outlines of several people were talking.

-----------

"I returned." Luther's voice brought Five out of his thoughts, and a part of her brain tried to remember the time his brother had left.

And he didn't find any answers.

To his defence, Five's mind had been elsewhere these days. Moments when he rewound in his mind once, twice, three times. Not even the impending new apocalypse knocking on the door seemed to have any effect on Five. To be honest, he… saw no point in trying to save the world this time. Meeting you once was a miracle, but meeting you again, in an entirely different reality and without The Commission making things difficult, seemed like too much of a luxury for him to ignore.

The truth was that in the first attempt to escape the apocalypse he ended up sending the family to different times, with intervals of years between each one. And, deep down, he didn't know if he could handle trying to take you with him to another reality and end up losing you too.

Five had been through this once before. He knew pain too well not to be willing to risk it.

“What is the enemy doing here?!"

Diego's voice snapped Five out of his thoughts, and an electric current shot through his head and reverberated down to his toes. Immediately, without any hesitation, his eyes flew away, finding not just Luther - whit several bags in hand - but you beside him.

You.

Something inside him ignited, his heart raced and, for a moment, the whole world around him fell away.

But just for a moment, because Diego was already getting up from his seat.

“Hey. Hey!” Five teleported away, once again placing the body in front of you . “What the hell do you think you are doing?”

“What would anyone do to the enemy! What are you doing? Defending a stranger again?!"

“She is not a stranger, Diego. Now be quiet in your place before I have to do it for you.”

"She is not?" Klaus and Viktor said in unison

"I'm not?" Your voice, the only one that mattered to him, came from behind his back, quieter than the others but loud enough for him to hear.

Five turned towards you, turning his back on his siblings. Unlike how he looked at Diego, his eyes held all the softness and attention in the world when they met yours. A small smile appeared at the corner of his left mouth, a secret smile, hidden from the world but revealed only to you.

"It's a long story," he admitted, having no idea how to start. How to tell something that even to him don't make sense.

“I came to see you.” you rewarded his honesty with another truth, a gleam crossing his eyes like shooting stars. “I have time to listen.”

A smile blossomed on his lips, and Five was overcome by the purest feeling of happiness. Without saying anything, or giving anyone satisfaction, his hand laced into yours, and he disappeared with you in the blue flash.

-----------

Any sensible, practical, centered woman, would have laughed at what Five had just told you. Anyone who didn't get carried away by matters of the heart and didn't believe that two people, when destined to be together, are helped even by the wind, would have turned around and walked away.

But you weren't a sensible woman, nor practical, much less centered. Your being was composed of romance, adventure and magic. You fervently believed in destiny, soulmates and that some loves are capable of overcoming the barrier of space and time.

What's more, if all that wasn't enough, you also felt, from your soul to your bones, sensations that couldn't be explained. Feelings he was also saying he felt too. You believed in him. And that fact came as soft as the droplets of dew, as the brightness of the moon.

After his account came to end, with him letting himself be vulnerable in telling all the thoughts that ever crossed his mind about you, the urge to say just one thing screamed your blood rumbling. “You’re no the villain in my story” your words hung in the air.

“I am,” Five's voice brimmed with a liquid honesty that was able to chill your bones, but nothing in his words hinted at remorse for the things he'd already done. “But i'll be the villain for you. Not to you. I'll let worlds burn again if it means keeping you alive. In a problematic way, that I'll never be able to explain, I don't feel guilty about doing something if it means your safety.”

Five Hargreeves expected many things. Many different reactions. Many words of contradiction. But never what happened next.

Your mouth, without any hesitation, joined his in a kiss that was capable of making his world explode. His body was ignited by a fire that swallowed even his soul, washing away all his sins and giving a demon a taste of heaven.

So what was it like to kiss a goddess? An angel, a muse.

If before, without even touching your skin without the interference of clothing, Five would have happily accepted going to hell, now, with your hot mouth melting into his like warm honey, he would accept the torture of eternal fire with a smile on his face.

And when the small kiss intensified into something much bigger, his hands, warm and masculine, wrapped possessively around your waist. There was no going back. There was no turning back. Five would keep you for himself in the same selfishness that a villain steals a princess. And there was no hero in the world capable of pulling you away of his clutches.

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” He found the last bit of strength to let you know when your hands untied his tie “I could really hurt you.”

But all good intentions evaporated when your eyes, eager and full of desire, blinked at him. There was an addictive sweetness in that look. The way your lashes fluttered against your cheeks, the way your eyes held tinges of delicious submission but hid an incendiary fire behind them.

Fucking damn. He wanted you so badly.

"I don't care." Your breathless whisper invaded the room. But he didn't know if you understood the seriousness of the situation.

“Y/n.” his hands cupped your face. “I spent a lot of time contenting just for the way you looked at me. Spending sleepless nights reliving what it was like to feel the contour of your waist in my hand.” His voice was serious, deep, rough like sand scraping against stone. “Do you have any idea of the things I'm going to do to you now that I can finally, finally, have you?” his pitch lowered a few notes, like a predator talking to its prey.

You didn't know it, but only imagination made yours thighs tighten.

“I can destroy you.” his lips went to the foot of your ear, down to the curve of your neck, inhaling your scent and tasting you. “I can leave your body purple, your breasts bitten, your hips marked by the aggressiveness of mine whenever I enter on you.”

A moan escaped your mouth, fingers tightening on his arms, head lolling to the side.

Oh lord, please he do that.

Five's hands went up to your shoulders, in a touch that became more and more possessive, gluttonous, as if he wanted to swallow you.

“I can spend hours fucking you.” his fingers lowered the straps of your dress, letting the fabric fall unceremoniously to the floor. Five pulled his face away enough to be able to look at your body fully, and a husky growl followed right away. “I can kill you.”

Here, in that moment, Five Hargreeves was giving you one last chance to give up, to make him tame the villain he was and who would destroy you for any other man.

If you slept with Five Hargreeves, you would never stop being his.

"Do it." but you didn't have an ounce of self-preservation in the inner body "please."

You didn't have to beg twice. His hands pulled your legs up, making you place your feet on his hips and hug him with your legs. Your back hit the closed bedroom door as Hargreeves' mouth claimed all it could of his. Twisting your tongue around his, biting and sucking on your bottom lip, he was beginning to mark you as his in a single kiss.

“You have no idea how much I want you.” his confession was more of a hoarse groan, hands fumbling with his belt and lowering the waistband of his pants.

Under other circumstances, he would have sucked you until drive you unconscious, pushing your walls with his fingers until you begged for his cock. But he didn't have the presence of mind to do that now. Not now. Not today. He warned of the consequences of wanting to continue at that moment. But you wanted, you begged, and now he was no longer afraid of being able to fuck you with all the vehemence he needed.

Your moans invaded the room very quickly, your waist, even if limited by the door, moved in his groin, exorcising any common sense and control that Five once had.

He pushed your panties to the side impolitely and entered you in one single, glorious, primal thrust. His cock slid in with extreme ease, being completely soaked by the way your pussy was so slick.

“Oh fucking hell” his growl sent even more waves of pleasure to your uterus, and you pressed your mouth to his neck to keep from screaming.

That's when he withdrew and pushed himself into you. Strong, brute. Hitting until found the bottom of the well. His thrusts began relentlessly, thrusting in and out of you aggressively, possessively, almost animalistic. Five's hands were all over yourbody, fingerprinting every bit of your flesh. The nails digging into your waist when you contracted and squeezed him within your plush walls.

“Fuck. fuck.” his groans mingled with the attrition of the bodies of you two against the door, which sent loud, telltale noises throughout the hotel.

But you would rather die than stop.

His cock suddenly hit a place that made your moans come out too loud. Tears began to pool in the corner of your eyes, and your toes curled.

“Oh do you feel this, baby?” Five teased you, digging himself as deep as possible anatomically and rubbing the tip of his cock there, eliciting sly, desperate cries from you "That's your cervix."

Then he went back to fucking you aggressively, this time pulling his chest away from you and digging his hands hard into the flesh of your hips, pulling you towards him at a intensity that could only be described as animalistic.

This was better than anything he had ever tasted in his life. Better than any sin. Better than any whiskey.

His cock desecrated your pussy like it was the only thing that mattered in the world, pulling thick liquids out of you that enveloped him in pasty white rings. Five Hargreeves would ensure that whenever you thought of any man, your mind was invaded by the way he fucked you.

"I will… I will…" your tearful voice blended with the noise of the door slamming and your bodies bumping into each other.

“Thats right, baby” his mouth covered your “cum for me. cum so I can fill that gluttonous pussy with my cum.”

If the way he thrust in and out of you wasn't enough to make you come, his lines had done the job. You came in a glorious explosion of stars, colors and sensations. Your body contracted with absurd force and relaxed like the best of massages. Your arms went limp around his neck, and you could feel his cock tremble and the hot, thick liquid fill your entire pussy.

The noise of the door stopped, his moans calmed down and now the only thing that could be heard was the heavy breathing in the air.

You thought it was over, until Five climbs a hand to your neck and lets out a broken growl "'You look so good with my hand wrapped around your throat, baby."

His cock moved inside you, moving in and out smoothly, pushing his cum even deeper inside you. Make sure you gobble it all up.

“Did you think we were done, princess?” he chuckled evilly, his lips moving closer until they were inches from yours. "I'm just getting started. I'm going to show you how much I've wanted you this whole fucking time.”

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sh1-n0bu · 9 months

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dan heng, Dan heng IL (hsr, romantic)

Dan heng received a mysterious mail. The letter was cased in a beautiful elegant white and gold envelope. The envelope is decorated with small real golden roses and gold stripes decorating the sides of the envelope. The effort can be seen on the envelope alone about how.. How much emotion is put into this letter.

The letter itself is nothing short of elegance, the hand writing is.. Uniquely familiar to dan heng for some reason. But he couldn't tell why. The letter was unsigned and it is fully unknown who the sender is and how it arrived here.

My dearest dragon,

I wish to be able to stand by your side.. Though you may not remember me, no, i know that you don't remember be, but alas i am indeed was once, and is still, you, your past self's, imbibitor lunae's husband. His "mate" If you will.

My heart broke when i heard the news that he was sent to the shackling prison for a forced rebirth. And it broke even more when i heard that he, well, you, will be banished from the luofu. It has been decades, yet i still wish to be able to see you again. To be able to hold my, was once, lover again.

You don't know how happy- no, ecstatic i was when i accidentally saw you in the devine commission. You looked different, but also the same at the same time. I know it's you, dan feng. We were once, and is still bonded. I wanted to approach you, to hug you, to hold you again. But i hesitated, fearing that i might just be hallucinating. Or that you might no even remember me.

The latter was confirmed when you just asked me for directions, seemingly not recognizing who i am. It broke me deeply, but i do not wish to bring my burdens of the past over to you.

Therefore with this letter, this will be my final and last words dedicated to you. Dedicated to my, was once, lover.

my most beautiful sun.. I wish to be able to hold you again.

𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜! 𝙣𝙤𝙗𝙪’𝙨 𝙢𝙖𝙞𝙡 𝙙𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙞𝙘𝙚!

to: dan heng from honkai star rail

the events at the xianzhou luofu was certainly draining to the astral express crew. if not, more so to certain someone of the crew than the rest simply because it brought back so many old and unfamiliar memories to him. unfamiliar memories, feelings and emotions rushing through him with so much vigor, ones that doesn’t even belonged to him but to someone else entirely. so it would be safe to say that dan heng wanted nothing to do with his past reincarnation and his feelings and memories.

but you can’t just get what you wish for, right?

even after coming back to the familiar warmth of the express and its surroundings, accompanied by the feeling of safety his companions bring, dan heng was still restless. there was this… odd feeling inside him. as if something had been awakened and was begging to be let out for an inkling of a moment ever since he asked a stranger with an eerily familiar face about directions on the xianzhou.

he tried to escape the weird feeling of deja vu by sleeping yet it only served to bring more torment rather than rest that he so desperately seek. in his dreams, he would see his past self — dan feng, with the old familiar faces that he always sees.

there’s the foxian woman — bright, cheerful and full of life — jumping around, giggling at things and bringing forth joy to the group of five. there’s the light blue haired woman, whom he later on recognized as jingliu — cold as the element she wields and yet with a certain hint of warmth alongside it, sipping on wine from the small jade cup. there’s the arrogant blacksmith, yingxing and the former self of blade before he was tainted by mara — laughing along with his friends, pointing a few fingers and saying a joke. there’s jing yuan — younger, more wild, rebellious and with a certain hints of cockiness that his current jaded self lacked.

and then there’s dan feng, his past reincarnation, the one who brought this suffering and pain onto him, the one who is refusing to let him live on, the one who is so cold and cruel and… huh? was he mistaken when counting? why had this group went from 5 to 6? who was this new face amongst the group?

this new face that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere in his dreams, or was it memories?, was kind and gentle yet carrying a hint of strength under it. seemingly a simple man at first glance but proving himself to be more with the way he carried himself. elegant, regal yet so humane. this new man approached dan feng, greeting his fellow friends and comrades with a few jokes and podding here and there as he reaches the former high elder. but when reaching the high elder, the two shared a kiss. the vidyadhara visibly softening, teal eyes staring at the man with hearts in his eyes as his tail wraps around the man’s ankle possessively.

ah, that explains it. they were lovers. or in vidyadhara terms, in dan feng’s eyes, his mate. his other half. the one he promised himself and his life to for the rest of his life. the soft teal colored mark of a dragon on the back of the man’s neck proved it.

seeing them, dan heng felt an odd emotion swirling in his chest. was he… jealous? but how could be jealous when he was dan heng and not his past self? he was dan heng, not dan feng and that man was not his mate. yet he still felt it. that annoying green monster swirling in his chest and refusing to leave. but his jealousy was at least slightly explained when he woke up that morning, with the strange letter on top of his currently reading book.

teal eyes skimming through the letter, taking in every word and syllable, rereading it over and over again, did he come to a conclusion. sudden and unexpected but the astral expressers accepted and supported his decision nonetheless.

“himeko, i need to visit the luofu for… a reason. there’s someone i would like to meet. again”

with that, the dragon set out to reunite with his husband. with his mate. just a single moment to clarify the person’s words on the letter — was what he was lying to himself about. when in truth, he knew that there was more to it. the dragon wanted to meet his husband again. the dragon wished to hold his mate again. dan heng, wanted to reunite with his lover again.

“and this time, nothing will tear us apart”

#nobu.writes #hsr x y/n #hsr x you #hsr x reader #hsr x male reader #honkai star rail x you #honkai star rail x reader #honkai star rail x male reader #dan heng x reader #dan heng x you #dan heng x y/n #dan heng x male reader #dan feng x reader #dan feng x you #male reader #x male reader #male!reader #5k followers

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vakarians-babe · 4 months

Text

Some of you may be familiar with Amani's story already. Her campaign has been shared by my friend @/nabulsi, and over the past eight months we have become all too familiar with the stories of displacement, loss, and suffering in Gaza.

For those of you who haven't heard of Amani before, she is the mother of three beautiful sons. Together, they have been displaced five times already. Their home in Nasr was destroyed. They now live in one of the camps in Rafah, exposed to the elements, to disease, and lacking food and water. Israeli attacks and massacres threaten them daily.

Because of the genocide, Amani and her children are seeking passage into Egypt. They need help, before it is too late. So far, Amani has raised approximately $3,000CAD toward her $17,731CAD goal, which converts to $12,875USD. We can get her there. Share her campaign, reblog her posts and follow her at @amani93gaza, and donate if you are able. If you can, I invite you to match my donation.

Please, let's help Amani.

#vetted #palestine #gaza #pls rb

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 5 months

Text

The Man 1

Warnings: non/dubcon, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Character: mob!Lloyd Hansen

Summary: a demanding customer complicates more than your work life.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

You stand behind the counter, ready to serve the next customer that comes through the door. If you thought the rush was bad, the lulls are worse. The time drags by as the clock seems to taunt you. You sigh again as you hear Bre clattering around in the back room. You’d rather be back there folding up empty boxes and scouring trays.

You yawn and waver on your feet. The small local cafe doesn’t have the consistent traffic of the franchised kiosk just down the block but there are still hectic rushes. The mornings just after nine, then at noon when the office workers run out for a refresh espresso or a lunchtime sweet, but the afternoons usually deliver no more than the errant college student on their laptop or a few friends in between visits to boutiques.

The door opens and you glance over at the man who walks through the door. He strikes you as out-of-place as he struts across the cafe, hitting a table with his thigh, and sneering at it as if it insulted his mother. He’s tall with broad shoulders, and his hair is slicked back while the sides of his head are buzzed. He wears a black turtle neck under and open jacket and a pair of matching slacks that show off his ankles. His loafers are a rippling grey and black snakeskin print with a shining silver buckle.

You grip the sides of the till as he approaches but he doesn’t look at you. You stare, a little put off by his lack of acknowledgement as he peers up at the menu. He steps forward, tapping his fingers on the counter as he blows out between his lips. A golden signet ring flashes on his pinkie. You’re still not sure he’s in the right place.

“Hello, sir, can I get you--”

“Shh,” he hisses and holds up his finger. You snap your mouth shut and blink. He squints at the menu. He hums, clucking as he gives a thoughtful look to the hand-painted letters. Alright?

You wiggle your foot impatiently, biting your tongue. You’re not an inherently rude person but some customers make you wish you were. You watch him and he finally lowers his chin.

“Oat latte. Half blonde espresso, half regular, with the toffee nut syrup and a sprinkle of cinnamon.”

You nod as you punch in his order. It’s quite the drink. Sometimes you think people just pile on to see how far they can push service workers. They can’t just have a simple drink. Some even request the temperature to the digit.

“Alright, got it, it’s fifty cents for the syrup, is that okay?”

“Fifty cents?” He echoes haughtily, “no, that’s not okay.”

“Um, okay, well, it’s uh, on the menu,” you crane to look behind you, “fifty cents for a flavour shot, twenty-five for whipped cream.”

“I didn’t ask about goddamn whipped cream. They don't charge me here, doll. Get me the goddamn drink,” he demands.

You reel. Admittedly, you’re new. You’re learning but your first lesson was simple; customers are awful.

“I can just take the syrup off, I guess,” you hit the x and the whole order disappears.

“Didn’t you hear me? No charge, honey. It’s on the house.”

You purse your lips and look at him. You raise a brow. Alright, this is a new one.

“Um, if you’d just hold on, I think... uh, I should ask--”

“Yeah, you better fucking ask,” he sneers as swipes at a stack of paper cups and sends them flying. You flinch out of the way and spin to burst through the door to the kitchen.

“Uh, Bre,” you say, “there’s a really angry dude out there and he wants a free latte so uh, what do I do about that?”

She looks over at you as she puts a tray of cookies on a cooling rack. She frowns and her forehead stitches. She pulls of her oven mitt and checks her fitbit.

“Shit, it’s Thursday,” she mutters as if it’s the end of time.

“Yeah, it is, so uh--”

She waves away your words with the mitt and tosses both on the counter as she hurries past you. Confused, you turn to follow her through the swinging door. You stay behind her as she goes to the till.

“Mr. Hansen, so lovely to see you, what were we getting today?” She chimes, more lively than you’ve ever heard you. At any other time, she’s dulcet, almost monotone, completely over the cafe lifestyle.

He scoffs and his eyes drift from her to you. He pokes his tongue into his cheek, “oat, toffee nut, half blond, half regular, cinnamon on top,” he notes each element tersely, “and how about you teach this one some goddamn manners.”

He glares at you and you give a wide-eyed look. You shrug at Bre as she glances over at you. She shakes her head subtly. You take a step back.

You grab a cup and she quickly takes it out of your hands, “I got it, stay out of the way.”

You put your hands up and back away. You don’t know what you did wrong. Who is this man? He smirks and hovers on the other side of the counter as he crosses his arms over his puffed chest. Bre brews a fresh espresso and steams the oat milk.

“I’m waiting, sweet lips,” he cups a hand to his ear, his other arm still over his chest.

You look back and forth.

“Apologise,” he demands.

Bre clears her throat and you glance over, your mouth falling open dumbly.

“Oh, uh,” you face the man again, “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t know--”

“Well, now you fucking do,” he sneers as Bre places a cup down before him and a paper bag.

“Mr. Hansen, there’s a cinnamon bun for you too. We just took em out of the oven.”

“You’re such a dear, Bre Bear,” he cooes, sending you a venomous snarl.

You cringe as he spins and strides out with his fare. You watch after him, still thoroughly perplexed. Bre wipes the counter with a cloth.

“The next time he comes in, give him whatever he wants,” she says quietly.

“Oh, I didn’t... who is he?” You garble.

“Better you don’t know. Just think of him as the boss,” she sends you a desperate look, her eyes gleaming, “if you know what’s good for you, you’ll smile and listen.”

She brushes you with her shoulder as she goes back into the kitchen. You furrow your brow and glance towards the door. The man’s just outside the windowed walls, watching you. He winks before he disappears beyond the next facade

#lloyd hansen #dark lloyd hansen #dark!lloyd hansen #lloyd hansen x reader #the gray man #series #drabble #the man #mob!au #au

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powdermelonkeg · 6 months

Note

Holy moly I just beat all the shrines. PLEASE tell me you have theories cooking because I am losing my mind here 😭

Ancient Hero's Aspect theory time.

Look at this funky lil guy.

See this man?

Not a Zonai

Biologically, cannot be a Zonai, or Zonai-Hylian hybrid. There's a major feature of the Ancient Hero that gives it away, but let's start with the basics.

This is Rauru:

He has large ears covered in fur from the top of his head, golden horns, a third eye, and white hair with colored edges. His eyelashes are white, green, and gold, and the sclera of his eyes are white.

Proportionally, he's built more like a Zora than a human. His hips are low, with his torso the same size as his legs.

Let's look at Mineru and compare, to account for variation in Zonai physiology (the sample size is bad, but there's not much we can do about that):

Large, fur-covered ears, a third eye, white hair with colored edges. Her eyelashes are white, pink, and gold, so we can assume that some of these colors are from makeup, but her sclera are still white.

(Model ripped by WhiteMageSunny on DeviantArt)

Like Rauru, she has those weirdly proportioned hips and torso. No horns, though, so that could be a male Zonai thing, or just a him thing.

Bonus evidence, in lack of sample size, the dragons:

The three elemental dragons all have the same kind of hair as Rauru and Mineru, fluffy with spiked ends that have colored edges. And we know, from experience, that dragons keep the hair of their previous forms as their mane:

Now for our little scamp.

First off, his skin is gray-green. Not an indicator of itself, could just be a different fur color.

However, he also has:

Red, silky hair with no secondary color

Black sclera

No lashes

No horns

No third eye

Pointed ears on the sides of his head

We've established that the horns aren't a requirement, so that's also not a direct indicator. Maybe he's missing the third eye because that's a royalty-is-different trope. Maybe the red hair means he's half-Gerudo, and the ears are a byproduct of that. The black sclera is weird, but not entirely unforgivable. Zelda's done weirder (see Yeta and Yeto, or King Zora and Ruto).

(Model ripped by WhiteMageSunny on DeviantArt)

And now we get to the proportions. There's no strangely cinched waist like Mineru and Rauru have. The legs are proportional to the torso in a way that's almost human.

Still could be half-Hylian or Gerudo, right?

Wrong. Look closer.

That is a TAIL.

Neither Mineru nor Rauru have tails. But there's something even more damning here.

Mineru. Five toes. Plantigrade (on the floor) feet. Big toe to little toe, like a human.

Rauru. Five toes. Plantigrade feet. Big toe to little toe.

Hero's Aspect! Four toes! Two large middle toes! Cat toes!

Digitigrade (catlike, heel raised) feet! That spoke on the end of the sandal never touches the ground!

Where did the tail come from? The black sclera? The change in skeletal structure? The literal paws for feet?

This is not a Zonai. I'm calling it a Lomei, and I rest my case.

#long post #ask bee #zelda #loz #totk #theory #worldbuilding #ancient hero's aspect #lomei

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makingqueerhistory · 1 year

Note

How do you read so much lol?

Great question!

Time! I have the privilege of time! This is put as number one because it is important to keep in mind. I am lucky enough to be my own boss and have a flexible schedule (Thank you patrons <3) I would not be able to read nearly as much without this fact.

Audiobooks! At 3x the speed! Honestly, my reading skyrocketed when Libby added the ability to listen to audiobooks at three times the speed. Also because I read almost exclusively audiobooks, I get to multitask, so I can read and do errands or busy work at the same time!

Library! My local library is incredible, and I take pains to keep it that way. I fill out all five of my (and my wife's) request forms, every month.

Community! Honestly, I am sort of intensely involved in the book community. As an author (of MQH, and hopefully one day fiction) and an avid reader, I am regularly engaging with other readers and getting fantastic recommendations. Check out my bookstagram if you want

Queerness! I am making up for a large lack from my childhood. Though I have almost always been a reader, I have only had access to queer books in abundance as I have become an adult. A part of me is always trying to make up for lost time.

All of these things have an element of privilege attached to them, so please don't ever feel bad for not reading as much as someone else!

#answered

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thydungeongal · 12 days

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You've inspired me to make my own megadungeon (or at least run one), are there any good examples you know of? Since you did once mention current megadungeons doing things wrong.

I also want to say your blog and those like yours have been a major inspiration and make me want to create stuff! And have a great evening :)

Oh, I think the person who you want is @maximumzombiecreator, she's the one who's talked about modern megadungeons doing things wrong! (I think the one she was talking about was some megadungeon for Pathfinder 2e?) Oh, there was a time when @tenleaguesbeneath and @imsobadatnicknames2 vagued about one particularly catastrophic attempt by one blogger to make a D&D 5e megadungeon that never amounted to much. But yeah, I've reblogged those posts in question, and now I've summoned them so they may articulate their thoughts on the matter better.

I don't want to speak over anyone, but if I recall correctly: MZC's criticism of that PF2e megadungeon hinged on it lacking procedures for random encounters and restocking, two important things for making the megadungeon feel alive and reinforce the idea that it can't actually be meaningfully cleared, whereas the criticism of that 5e megadungeon was based on the idea that it was like. A dungeon shaped succession of linear D&D 5e adventure days. I think it was characterized as a "megadungeon-themed theme park ride," which feels very apt.

Personally, I'm a fan of the megadungeon on a conceptual level but have not had a chance to run one, but of the ones I have looked at I have a few that have stuck out to me:

Highfell is a megadungeon plus mini sandbox setting centered around a dungeon on a flying island. So, besides the dungeon itself, it immediately presents the party with the question of HOW THE HELL DO WE GET UP ON THAT FLYING ISLAND?

Rappan Athuk, originally released for 3e but having since been converted to almost every retroclone as well as Pathfinder and 5e, is pretty dang huge. I haven't delved deep into it (ha!) but it also features a whole sandbox surrounding the central dungeon, so there's potentially years worth of content in there.

Finally, not one I have actually read but that I am looking at hungrily, Halls of Arden-Vul. Everyone says it's basically a masterclass of megadungeon design, and I believe them, but also the complete version of that dungeon costs like a hundred bucks. Which is understandable since it was originally released in five volumes. But yeah, it has appeared in Bundles of Holding in the past for as little as twenty smackaroos, so I'm waiting for it to come back.

Anyway, of course a lot of classic TSR modules pretty much fit the megadungeon description these days: Temple of Elemental Evil and Undermountain I feel definitely count, and those two seem to appear on every "greatest D&D adventures ever" list. I've only skimmed through the former, but if you happen to find it floating around somewhere, maybe check it out for ideas!

#thydungeongal answers #dungeons and dragons

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wttcsms · 9 months

Text

a very old atsumu draft from 2021 that im afraid won't make it out the gdocs, but i reread it and realized how silly and light it was & maybe you guys will too!!!!

atsumu miya’s guide to escaping from the friend zone, atsumu miya x f!reader

third year au, enemies to lovers, shoujo manga vibes* features romcom elements, knowing each other since childhood, he falls first AND he falls the absolute hardest, getting together, miscommunication as a means to be comedic not for poorly manufactured drama/angst, lighthearted with a happy ending, no angst 1k written, est. ~10k when completed

STEP ONE: ACTUALLY GET TO THE FRIEND ZONE FIRST

You’re in love with Atsumu Miya — you just don’t know it yet.

At least, that’s what Atsumu claims as he speaks with his mouth full, bits of rice flying out of his mouth, leaving everyone in his immediate vicinity disgusted.

“She doesn’t even know you exist, idiot.” Osamu doesn’t look amused as he pulls his bento box closer to himself, trying to avoid the hailstorm that is Atsumu’s half chewed grains of rice.

“She does!” He’s awfully indignant when he replies, looking like he’s about to make a move to slap his brother but thinks better of it. As captain of the Inarizaki Boys’ Volleyball team, he has to learn to behave lest he lose the title altogether.

“Wanting you dead isn’t the same thing as loving you,” Rintarou is quick to chime in, and the first and second years on the team snicker.

“It’s a work in progress.” Atsumu snaps, failing to mention that you loving him has been a ‘work in progress’ for the past decade and counting.

(Not like he’s, you know, obsessively keeping track. Definitely not.)

The two of you have been attending the same school since your elementary days. On the first day of class, your teacher made everyone hold hands with the person next to them, and a five year old Atsumu just so happened to be the person seated next to a five year old you.

“This person is going to be your buddy for the rest of the school year!” Your teacher exclaimed, clapping her hands together and smiling too cheerfully for so early in the morning.

Then, someone had exclaimed that boys had cooties, and every girl buddied with a boy immediately took back their hand, either on the brink of tears and dramatically turning up their nose in disgust.

Atsumu likes to claim that this is where things went wrong (never minding the fact that you had been the only girl not to drop a boy’s hand), but what really started your dislike for him (that has since spiraled into his closest friends thinking you want their captain dead) happened in middle school.

As fate would have it, you were seated in front of Atsumu for math. He had (still does) a bad habit of chewing gum as loudly and obnoxiously as possible (from your perspective, anyway; truthfully, Atsumu just lacks self-awareness). He made it hard to concentrate during lectures and tests, and midway through the year, you complained to your teacher.

(“Why do you not want to be seated close to Mr. Miya, hmm?” Your teacher smiled at you, his tone light and teasing. “Is it because of a crush?”

“Gross! No! I do not have a crush on Miya!” Your eyes were wide, and you were shaking your head. “He just gets on my nerves. He’s always stealing my pencils and smacking on gum and hiding my textbook-“

“You know, Miss [Surname], middle school boys are mean to girls they like. I’m afraid that my seating charts are always permanent, but even if they weren’t, I think I would make Mr. Miya very upset if I moved you.”

“Who cares about that? He’s so annoying. Let him bother someone else!”

“Ah, [Surname], class is only in session for a few more months. If it gets worse, then we’ll see to adjusting the seating arrangements. For now, let’s get you back to your desk and focused on these fractions.” Your math teacher doesn’t bother hiding a smile as he jokes with you. “You better be careful; he might yank your hair and think it’s a proper declaration of love.”

Your math teacher never tells you that Atsumu spent two weeks of summer break cleaning this classroom to get seated next to you.)

The complaining didn’t work, and you were still stuck in the same seat in front of Atsumu. Then, one day, while he was ignoring the teacher’s lecture and giving his attention to something more worthwhile (such as the back of your head), Atsumu noticed a spider crawling from your back and aiming upwards, towards your hair. He watched in morbid fascination as the spider made its way into your strands of hair, and he reacted quickly, not quite thinking things through.

He grabbed a fistful of your hair and pulled, forcing you to tilt back with a yelp, which then caused the entire class to turn and stare at the two of you.

The spider was nowhere to be found, at least, but your teacher had to stop his lesson, shaking his head while he walked to the classroom phone.

“Honestly, Mr. Miya, what goes on in your head?” The teacher sounded like he was holding back laughter as he dialed the principal’s office.

Meanwhile, you straightened yourself out and turned to glare at Atsumu, who could only give you a sheepish grin in return.

“Sorry,” he told you, not sounding the least bit sorry. “Ya should be thankin’ me—“

“Thanking you?” You practically yelled it out. “I should be beating you. What is your problem with me, Miya?”

And that was the moment when Atsumu Miya realized that getting you to fall in love with him might be a bit of a struggle.

But that was then, and this is how. Now, you’re both in your third year of high school. Now, Atsumu is the captain of a team that’s an absolute powerhouse. Now, Atsumu is a box blond and despite his harsh attitude, girls are still vying for his attention.

He figures it’s only a matter of time before you come to your senses and join them.

You never do, though, and now he’s stuck rethinking his master plan. His friends are no help whatsoever, and the school year is going to fly by if he’s not careful. He knows you’ve been accepted to Tokyo U, and he knows that he’s probably not heading to college — not when professional scouts are watching his games and have the power to sign him right after graduation. He’ll never have a chance to be this close to you ever again, and he has to act now.

“Work in progress, my ass.” Rin snorts. “You’ll be lucky to even be her friend at this point.”

Now, Atsumu doesn’t like to consider other people as geniuses, but he’ll settle for considering Rintarou his muse. All this time, Atsumu’s been trying to get you to love him, completely disregarding the fact that you have to like someone before that can happen.

And people like their friends. For the most part.

“Ya know what, Rin? You might actually have a point.”

“There was no point. I was making fun of you. Whatever you’re thinking about doing, here’s actual advice: don’t.” No one on the team is particularly surprised when Atsumu doesn’t take that advice.

#my gdocs is literally hell

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lesbiansforboromir · 4 months

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Been scouring your blog to see if you have a specific take and i only managed to find the post where you said you are more for people coming up with their own meaning for Tolkiens work. anyhow, after reading you boromir post on how hope is his poison I am super curious as to what meaning you personally ascribe to it all. A lot of scholars will tout hope over despair as the ultimate meaning here (and the ultimate meaning of real life...ugh) and considering your very gut wrenching but meaningful takes on boromir i was just curious. Your thought process is fascinating from a scholarly viewpoint (which is not my strong suit) but also an artistic, emotional, philosophical, and human viewpoint. Whew sorry this ask is so long and disorganized! Have i mentioned I am not a scholar? :D

First off I love this ask it made me so happy to read I had to do so like five times before I felt qualified to answer it and then I spent like months writing this response which is over 4000 words now if you want to know. And, on that note, dw about scholarliness or whatever this ask has more desire to engage with lotr in nuanced ways than most tolkien scholars achie- (gets hit by a piano) anyway~!

It's also just extremely flattering that you're curious of my personal opinion at all so thank you so very much!

(this is the post anon is talking about for context)

As with all things, my answer has many layers. At the most basic and applicable level, and when taking only my Gondorian/Stewardship investment into account, I am engaging with the story for personal catharsis.

The fact that Gondor felt hopeless, that the enemy was merciless and invincible, that even those figures who were supposed to help had only judgement and platitudes to offer until it personally benefitted them, that Boromir and Denethor were isolated and generally condemned and that many only showed them pity after their deaths, feels extremely cathartically familiar to me and my story with chronic illness. I've spoken about this before here and there, but that is the kind of simplistic, energy giving, 'he's me fr fr' comparison that brings me uncomplicated comfort and inspiration.

But that is definitely not 'what lord of the rings is about' not even just to me, it's not even just what BOROMIR is about to me, it is an element of the story and worldbuilding that I have isolated and consumed but that still exists within a far larger whole. And that whole is also fascinating and compelling but in a far more esoteric and harder to define way.

BUT before we get into it, I do also feel the need to explain the limitations I percieve within the 'lotr is about hope over despair' narrative since you've brought it up but neither your ask nor the post you mentioned properly explains it and it'll enhance my point later. SO.

As far as my experience has lead me to believe, when people say 'lotr is about hope triumphing over despair' they mean it in a moralising fable kind of way. This is definitely the narrative the films latched onto, like a leech. Good characters have hope, lose it only to reclaim it again, teach others to have hope etc, and that is good of them. Bad characters are despairing and therefore have no hope, and they do evil deeds because of the despair and lack of hope. The Aragorn vs Denethor film paradigm.

But nothing within the books is anywhere near as cut and dry. As I said in the linked post, Boromir gains hope after having none (the hope that he can save Gondor by using the ring) and that is bad, it is something he has to 'pay for' according to the narrative. Meanwhile charmed and blessed Faramir admits that he never had any hope quite a few times, yet he is not punished for it. Theoden also has no hope and is explicitely going to war to die, but his death is not considered evil or selfish by the majority. Saruman is very hopeful, he's hopeful that Sauron can be reasoned with, that if they work together they can make a better world, but he suffers 100 indignities and then is killed by a cannibal! And most of all, Frodo also rarely (if ever) shows any signs of hope, he merely doggedly marches on regardless and in the end even takes the power of the ring for himself, essentially the ultimate evil act of desperation, but that saves the world!

For the record the idea that LotR is a fable-narrative of any kind seems exceedingly erroneous to me, like the idea that we are supposed to glean any universal Good Moral from the tale due to Tolkien's 'emminent wisdom' feels bizarre in and of itself. But at the very least this aspect is more complex, I think we can all agree.

But even more than that (and this is more perspective than narrative analysis I suppose but I think it bears saying), ‘despair is evil’ is a kind of horrible thing to teach! If the villainisation of people driven to desperate actions or anhedonia because of the deep despair they are suffering is what LotR is about then that’s.. awful! That sounds like a bad book and I don't think I'd want to read it. But lets put a pin in the concept of condemning people for despair for now, look out for the pin cus it’ll be coming back later.

FOR NOW lets get back on topic, if I don't think LotR is 'about' hope triumphing over despair, what do I think it's about?

Well. I know what I'm about to do appears highly out of character for me so please remain calm and gird yourself before I say this but; Let us start with hearing what Tolkien had to say on the subject.

I do not think that even Power or Domination is the real centre of my story. It provides the theme of a War, about something dark and threatening enough to seem at that time of supreme importance, but that is mainly 'a setting' for characters to show themselves. The real theme for me is about something much more permanent and difficult: Death and Immortality: the mystery of the love of the world in the hearts of a race 'doomed' to leave and seemingly lose it; the anguish in the hearts of a race 'doomed' not to leave it, until its whole evil-aroused story is complete.

(this quote is actually from a letter to a fan who suggested lotr was an allegory for atomic power and he was pretty mean and dismissive about it in reply, it's kind of funny)

Now I've been a bit glib about this in the past, along the lines of 'tolkien's own opinion on what his book was about changed for every year of his life and by the time all his friends started dying around him it became about death, what a surprise' mainly because, again, we've had enough people caring about Tolkien's opinions to do us for the rest of civilisation. But I've always known this glib comment to be pretty baseless and unconsidered, since death was a major aspect of his life from his earliest childhood and it makes sense for that to have been a large part of his work. And since I am being sincere I will, just this once, take Tolkien's hand instead of ignoring him.

For him, the theme of his book was not power or domination (or the evils of war or hope over despair), it was about death. It was about people trying to deal with the realities of death existing for them, not existing for others, and what love (loving the world) meant in that context.

On it's surface I find this quote kind of clinical in it's first impression. There's a prescriptiveness to it that does not inspire me, which isn't surprising since this came from a letter full of veiled snootiness on his part.

But mostly, as a concept.. it seems pretty distant from what actually happens in the story itself, right? What aspect of death and immortality was the fellowship embodying? Boromir certainly died, but he was not looking for immortality and his death is far more concerned with guilt than the fact that he is dying. Theodred is dead already, but not even his father appears all that bothered about it and it's quickly set aside to focus more on the war. Denethor kills himself but his and Gandalf's last interaction says far more about despair and faith than death.

And then no other main character 'dies' at all, unless you count Gandalf. And the only main immortal character we have (other than Gandalf) is Legolas whom, whilst he does have quotes associated with his immortality, is far more invested in his and Gimli's relationship than anything else. It's no wonder people choose 'war is hell' or 'hope over despair' narratives over 'death' as the main theme for lotr from their perspective.

It also does not satisfyingly link to one of the most compelling aspects of the books as a whole; that of how they are presented. The thread connecting death and immortality to writing a story that is from in-universe historical accounts, editted and compiled by many subsequent in-universe hands, is there but hazy. The intense catholic-ness of the story is also intuitably related to death and immortality, but not explicitly.

In essence, death does not feel like the main theme of the books when you are reading them, at least I don't think most experience them that way.

However, in spite of all that, Tolkien's opinion on what his books are 'about' is still the closest I have seen anyone come to my own. Which I assume is hard enough for you all to hear, but imagine how I feel 😩

To me, LotR is most themactically consistent when viewed through the lense of Frodo and Gandalf's ever misquoted early interaction;

"Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.’ ‘It is not,’ said Frodo. (emphasis mine)

It is not comforting to know that the suffering in front of you was always meant to happen, no matter how comforting the idea of a divine plan might be to some. And that is what Gandalf is offering Frodo in this moment, the relief of a divine plan and its ‘high beauty for ever beyond [the Shadow’s] reach’. But this is never comforting to Frodo in the books, the comfort he finds on his martyr's journey is in Sam. Indeed, it is actually Sam who finds comfort in 'the high beauty', this reminder that beyond all his own suffering there is an imperishable and eternal light that can never be dimmed.

But not Frodo, how can he? His eventual fate is to grasp the power of a weapon so unholy it sickens his soul, to do that which he has been told is irreversible and unforgivable, so that he can never be at ease or even survive in the lands he has loved ever again. The 'High Beauty' is what is doing this to him, what made the rules, what meant for this to happen, what he is doing this in service of. And Gandalf, whose soul will be present to see the very end of this tale, cannot possibly understand what it is for your whole life to be encapsulated by just your own small painful part of what Gandalf would propose was a beautiful and universal tapestry.

And lack of agency against the divine plan is precisely the narrative thread that ties every character together. To some it is a comfort, Aragorn and Gandalf and Sam are all gladdened and encouraged by the knowledge that there is some higher power ordering their lives, some greater beauty they are all a part of beyond any earthly pain or suffering. They are not in control and to remember this is a relief. It inspires them to better fulfill their ordained duties and drive themselves through terrible trials.

To others it is no comfort at all, Boromir and Frodo have no faith in the prospect that the divine plan will include success or happy lives for them at the end of their tasks. But it is a hopelessness and uncertainly that they both accept. They simply believe their duties must be attempted anyway, hopeless or not, even if it makes no difference to the outcome in the end. Lack of control is just a reality they live with.

And to some it is a horror. Denethor and Eowyn want to fulfill their duties, but these duties are torture. They demand loved ones die, they demand relentless fear and sacrifice, they demand ceaseless and hopeless toil. And in the end both of them are given rebellious breaks from these duties by the narrative, ones that are horrifying in and of themselves (and portrayed as wrong to one degree or another) but that are still extremely cathartically presented as attempts to reclaim control of their lives away from a callous divine. Even if, ultimately, this also was out of their control.

Merry, Pippin, Legolas and Gimli appear to have never quite had to confront the realities of their powerlessness before. But through the story they become intimately aware of it in ways that force them to make choices they are not ready to make. For Merry and Pippin, this leads them to ultimately empathise with Eowyn and Denethor’s positions, wracked with guilt and equally horrified, attempting to find agency in death where (it appears) none can be found. For Legolas and Gimli, they confront the spectors of lack of agency/death for the first time in the narrative (sea-longing and the Paths of the Dead) and are irrevocably changed by them, eventually leading them both to attempt to circumvent their fates by illegally sailing to the uttermost west. Obviously fandom likes to believe they made it and live happily, but narratively it is also suggested that they died at sea in the attempt.

Now, at the risk of indulging in my ever-derided biographical criticism, I do think that all of these characterful arcs are represented in Tolkien’s own life. I feel comfortable saying that Tolkien was not a happy man by default. He was wracked with guilt from a very young age (wow a catholic with guilt, groundbreaking) but that guilt followed him and found new reasons to manifest until the very end of his life. And a lot of this guilt had to do with death, his father's death, his mother's death, his friend's deaths. And a lot of it had to do with fear of leaving unfinished or poorly finished business behind him at the time of his own death: guilt about how he had taught his students, about his scholarly work, his parenting skills, his so-oft-mentioned faith.

And being a man of faith, he would have experienced all these things as a part of the divine plan, even as they were also his guilt to bear. So, clearly, Tolkien's experience encompassed all of these characters, right? The despair and the torment and combined love-of and frustration-with the divine. The failure. He knew them all. And within all of them, as well as within the narrative and world itself, there is a wrestling, there is an ever-shifting complexity and multitude of different opinions to how one experiences a life that hurts in a beautiful world that you love but that you eventually must leave, with the sensation that you have no control over any of it.

However, a complication to any declaration of ‘what LotR is about’ is that it is a self-admittedly unreliable narrative. If you cannot necessarily believe everything the narrative is telling you, then suddenly additional layers of complexity come into play in determining the meaning within an already complex text. In LotR you can actually track which characters are recounting which parts of the story to Frodo or Sam at the time of writing. But it is also just obscured enough to make it ambiguous and to enforce the idea that this is a version of this original story edited and compiled for many generations after it's writing.

So not only are these characters and events transient, uncertain and being (sometimes bluntly) misrepresented by the narrators, YOU are now complicit in that. You are yet another interpreter to alter this narrative through your perspective, just as all works and all lives are interpreted by those who view them, with no way to control that judgment. You are also a character now, making it even more difficult to make definitive judgments about a question like 'what LotR is about'.

The clearest example of how this narrative unreliability and reader interpretation comes into play within the text itself is when Frodo describes the fellowship's entrance into Lothlorien to Faramir. He is being blindfolded in order to be lead to Henneth Annun, and he recounts;

‘As you will,’ said Frodo. ‘Even the Elves do likewise at need, and blindfolded we crossed the borders of fair Lothlorien. Gimli the dwarf took it ill, but the hobbits endured it.’

But we, as readers of the previous book, know this is a gross mischaracterisation of Gimli. He did not take issue with being blindfolded, he took issue with being singled out as the only member of the fellowship who needed to be blindfolded.

‘As was agreed, I shall here blindfold the eyes of Gimli the Dwarf. The others may walk free for a while, until we come nearer to our dwellings, down in Egladil, in the Angle between the waters.’ This was not at all to the liking of Gimli. ‘The agreement was made without my consent,’ he said. ‘I will not walk blindfold, like a beggar or a prisoner. And I am no spy. My folk have never had dealings with any of the servants of the Enemy. Neither have we done harm to the Elves. I am no more likely to betray you than Legolas, or any other of my companions.’

In this one moment Frodo has taken what was a reaction of justified indignation against racial prejudice, and made it sound like a minor tantrum over a shared burden. He has also used it to further aggrandise his own people in Faramir's eyes. And it is up to YOU to notice this, to review it in your mind, to choose what it leads you to believe about all characters involved. The narrative certainly never helps you, or addresses it ever again. You have to wrestle with what it means in your mind.

I believe this is the reason I have observed that every person who reads LotR and loves it and keeps rereading it feels like they are excavating something. There is a narrative under the narrative for every new pair of eyes on the tale. And that narrative is you, it's who your experiences and sympathies lead you to listen too harder, it's the story of the experiences you understand. And in that excavation, you are also reclaiming a moment of control for yourself in conversation with the story and whatever you have chosen to excavate. One might say these are all aspects of every story, but LotR is unique in its investment and immersion into the concept.

Because, to me, when Tolkien says his story is about 'death and immortality', what I read is that it's about the ultimate lack of control we have (death) and trying to empathise and accept the unfairness of what will become our inherently false legacies (immortality). And then just the vast spectrum of experiences and emotions those things conjure. It's not just about those things, it is an attempted soothing of those fears and struggles, it is an offer of comfort or catharsis or applicability. It is also an acknowledgement of the love that drives you and that you will eventually grieve.

Frodo leaves the shire to save it because he loves it, but he knows the entire time he will never be able to fully return. He is frustrated, it hurts, but a piece of the Shire in Sam comes with him and whilst it cannot save him, Frodo is still comforted.

Sam leaves the Shire because he loves Frodo, and he loves the high beauty as embodied by elves and magic and history. He also knows implicitly that this is a task he cannot refuse, but these things comfort him. He is glad to be guided and strengthened to even greater feats the more he trusts in a higher power, but he has a life and a family in the end. And if that is what the Higher Beauty decrees for him, where it has doomed Frodo to incurable soulful wounds, are we surprised at either of their choices? Can we blame anyone for their hope OR despair in the face of powerlessness? Oh! Look at that! It’s that pin I mentioned quite literally last century ago. TOLD you it’d be back.

And that brings us back to the question, what do I think LotR is about.

We are all powerless in the face of death and in writing a book about death Tolkien’s work has an inherent universal applicability in this regard. Tolkien asks an unconscious question within lotr, how should we cope with being creatures that love the world but that are doomed to die and leave it? And then he leaves that question entirely unanswered. This is what sets lotr apart and truly creates a story in which people can read narratives therein that appear entirely separate from death or any other recognisable theme others might see, without losing the sense of universal appeal. He offers multiple perspectives, including that of the dominant religion’s prescriptive decrees of right and wrong, but there is no solution brought forth in the story that saves anyone from grief or death or regret in the end. Not even Aragorn or Arwen, who are in essence the most holy and faithful characters barring Gandalf within the story, end without heartbreak and despair!

‘‘I speak no comfort to you, for there is no comfort for such pain within the circles of the world. The uttermost choice is before you: to repent and go to the Havens and bear away into the West the memory of our days together that shall there be evergreen but never more than memory; or else to abide the Doom of Men.’’ ‘‘Nay, dear lord,’’ she said, ‘‘that choice is long over. There is now no ship that would bear me hence, and I must indeed abide the Doom of Men, whether I will or I nill: the loss and the silence. But I say to you, King of the Numenoreans, not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall. As wicked fools I scorned them, but I pity them at last. For if this is indeed, as the Eldar say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive.’’ ‘‘So it seems,’’ he said.

There is no such comfort!! … Or is there?

To me, the appeal of Boromir is in the solution he offers; the comfort is in the wrestling!

Aragorn and Arwen did absolutely everything they were supposed to do, unquestioningly, to the point that Aragorn goes to the Silent Street and just lies down to die because it’s ‘the right time’ and he mustn’t become ‘unmanned and witless’. And then he dies and he makes a beautiful holy corpse that cannot comfort Arwen or his children or his people for even a moment.

But Boromir dies with a smile. Aragorn promises that Minas Tirith will not fall, and that does comfort him, because that was the wrestling he chose, the love he decided to hold, the meaning he decided to find and fight for beyond all his powerlessness to protect it. So that’s the answer I find and it might be different from yours, but it’s in LotR to be read because the story is about the wrestling as much as (if not more than) it is about the end. The road DOES go ever on and on, after all!

So ye das wat lotr was about I fink thanks 4 askin 👍I REALLY hope it makes sense. I also really hope Anon manages to see it after it took so goddamn long to respond 😂

#chats #Anonymous #tolkien #lotr #lord of the rings #erran vs tolkien #boromir #long post

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pancake-breakfast · 5 months

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Another recommendation for Trigun Fanfiction Appreciation Week (@trigunfanfic)!

I know I'm bending the rules a bit for this one, but just because it's a comic doesn't mean it's not a story, and it's well worth the read. (Trigunfanfic host-mod, if the rules are being bent too much, let me know and I'll remove the event tags.)

I don't believe this recommendation has an official title, but it's a post-canon fancomic where Wolfwood lives, by @artofalassa.

Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Status: In progress

Rating: Mature

Relevant Tags/Warnings*: Vashwood, Vash the Stampede, Biblically Accurate Vash (so many wings), Nicholas D. Wolfwood, Livio the Double Fang, Razlo the Tri Punisher of Death, Miss Melanie, Meryl and Milly Mentioned, Blood, Body Horror, Grief, Hospitalization, Trauma, Nudity (both sexual and non-sexual), Sex (genitals aren't shown during the sex but are shown in scenes around it), Fix-It Fic (?), TriMax AU

Summary: During the battle against Razlo, Wolfwood is suddenly caught up in a flash. Five years later, he appears just as suddenly, a bloody mess dropped on the doorstep of the orphanage with no memory of the intervening time. Now he's left trying to figure out what happened to him... and maybe find Vash in the process.

Oh, boy, has this one been tugging at my heartstrings.

If I had to choose one thing this story really shines with, it would be how well it portrays how Wolfwood's and Vash's worlds are incomplete without each other, how deeply they need each other, how much they each bring to each other's lives. Maybe that's three things, but I'm gonna let it slide.

Las does a great job of capturing the personalities of ALL the characters that show up in their story, and an excellent job of using the comic medium not simply as a way to tell a story in sequential pictures, but as a storytelling tool in itself. Their use of color (and/or lack thereof) brings certain elements to the forefront or moves them to the background as suits the tale, and the art itself is a gorgeous display of talent.

But back to the heartstrings bit. I don't want to say too much because I don't want to give things away. I also don't want to incoherently gibber about all the feels this story gives me. So I guess I'll just say I hope that, when you read it, it tugs at your heartstrings, too.

*This one's not from AO3, so I'm very much making them up myself here.

#vashwood #vash the stampede #trigun vash #trimax vash #vash trigun #vash trimax #nicholas d. wolfwood #wolfwood trigun #trigun wolfwood #trigun #trigun maximum #trimax #trigun fanart #trigun comic #trigun fanfiction #trigunfanficappreciation #other people's writing #artofalassa

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leiflitter · 11 months

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Gale Dekarios and The Wizard of Waterdeep

Aka Leif vents their brain into Tumblr again because I have Thoughts About The Wizard! Is it coherent? PROBABLY NOT I'M DOING THIS FOR FUN.

General rambling below the cut!

Firstly- this little braindump is based upon my interpretation of Gale as a Neurodivergent Individual, so I guess if you're not on the "Gale would be so fuckin into magic the gathering if he was in this realm" train, then this may not be for you. Which is fine! I'm just yelling into the void here.

Also; characters are fun because we can interpret them in different ways! This is in no way meant to stomp on anyone else's headcanons of Gale, and may even be entirely overwritten if more info comes out about him from Larian.

I wrote a ton and then fuckin lost it all but hey that's fine I can condense it WAY more now. So let's go, bullet points!

Gale of Waterdeep is Gale Dekarios' mask.

If you don't know what Masking is- a quick definition for ya-

Neurodivergent masking refers to the practice of concealing or suppressing aspects of one's neurodivergent traits or conditions, in order to fit in with the norms of the workplace or society.

Let's begin at the beginning-

Gale as a child would have been insufferable. He was a prodigy, yes, but also clearly lacked proper consequences for his actions (his punishment for Blackstaff hijinks in his first year? Writing lines. HE OPENED A PORTAL TO LIMBO AND ALMOST DIED). This may be due to Mystra's influence, even if it was indirect, but there's no faster way to alienate a child from their peers than to both mark them as Very Special and let them get away with everything. Gale's magical education likely left his social education lacking.

As Gale's also mentioned that he was a prodigy, and was using 4th level spells (summon elemental) when he was living at home (at least part of the time), he may even have been younger than his fellow first year apprentice wizards when he was admitted- further isolating him. He specifically says he was a child when he, uh, "borrowed" the blackstaff- we just don't know how old Blackstaff first years tend to be.

Also, from Gale's story about the Blackstaff, he seemed to be attending Wizard Boarding School (he wanted to get to the first year dorms). So he was not only set apart from his peers, he had to live in a dorm with them.

To navigate this difficult social situation, Gale Dekarios becomes Gale of Waterdeep- he starts Masking. He puts on his Wizard Suit and acts the way Wizards should, because those are the Wizard Rules.

For an example of these Wizard Rules- the closest equivalent we have to Pre-Folly Gale would probably be Lorroakan - and Lorroakan is a great example of Wizard Language and Wizard Rules. Yes, Lorroakan is an absolute shitweasel, but let's consider him an extreme example- pre-folly Gale turned up to 15. Heck, he even does the little ☝️ when you speak to him (Gale does it better bro, sorry).

Elminster is also a good example- he's almost allergic to just saying something straight out until he absolutely has to, but he'll dance around the point repeatedly. A trait Gale shows before he reveals the orb:

Gale. Seriously. He'd get you a birthday present and make five billion hints about it, I swear. But again- that's How Fancy Wizards Talk in this canon. And Gale does it excellently.

Gale masking also explains how his Wizard Rizz and his loneliness coexist. Gale of Waterdeep has a practiced tongue and has totally had sex with mortals. Gale Dekarios, on the other hand, is stuck inside Gale of Waterdeep like that little alien in Men in Black.

The Wizard of Waterdeep can only facilitate shallow connections because there's nothing behind the Thesaurus Vocabulary. The confidence he projects is essentially an illusion, but it's one he relies on to navigate his world. He's isolated by default- as you grow closer, he admits this:

Note how he says Tara was "always" telling him to get mortal friends- we know that Gale conjured Tara when he was young. Assuming that he's not exaggerating to an exponential degree, we can assume that Gale's never really had a friendship based on actual mutual appreciation- more that any connections he had were entirely due to his magical ability and proximity to Mystra.

Thus while he may not be a virgin on the physical plane, I doubt that his experiences were in any way personal or meaningful.

We know Gale's a romantic at heart- but again, he cannot remove the mask. From personal experience, masking can often lead you to do things you don't quite "get" because it's what "normal" people do.

Although it could be explained by scripting limitations, I would have expected any meaningful romantic encounters to be mentioned- especially as you directly ask him if you're his first mortal partner. Gale is an expert at oversharing- I would consider it in-character for him to ramble about his first mortal love before realising that he's cramming his foot into his mouth and shutting up (similar to the "Mystra once took the tiniest piece of weave and-" scene).

Again, without further info from Gale's writers, we've got space to play in- my personal feeling is that Gale has had hookups, most likely with his wizarding peers, but as he didn't let his peers see beyond the Wizard of Waterdeep, anything more than casual just wouldn't happen. He couldn't let anyone close enough to get behind the mask, especially not another wizard- as other wizards are those he's most trying to blend in with.

Enter Mystra (Derogatory) + a lil more Lorroakan (Derogatory)

A minor sidetrack here- part of why I tend to see Gale as early-mid 30s is to do with the Mystra timeline and my own personal experiences. So- firstly, as BG3 is set in 1492. Mystra was slain (aw yeah) in 1385, which started The Spellplague, but she was restored (boo, hiss, we were fine without her) in 1480. So there's about 12ish years where Mystra was, y'know, alive and able to interact with Gale. Gale spent one of those years with the orb, and before that he had to go and find the orb. So let's say he and Mystra spent about a decade together, from teacher > lover.

I've already expounded about why I think Mystra doesn't give a single shit about Gale in my previous GaleRant- my basic thoughts are that Mystra's relationship with Gale was a form of damage control to prevent him becoming Karsus 2.0, but as she didn't actually care enough about him to get to know him, her plans actually made him more likely to go all Netherese Magic.

We're going to hop back to Lorroakan for a sec. Again, he proves to be a good analogue for Gale. Lorroakan has been in residence at Ramazith's Tower for about 10 years- even though context clues show us that he's definitely not up to Gale's standard, so we'll assume he's probably a little bit older than our Child Prodigy- and he's definately less of a go-getter, seeing as how he's paying folks to go get the Nightsong instead of doing it himself. The big baby.

Lorroakan is important because he demonstrates the sort of shit egotistical wizards do when they aren't distracted by Mystra's blue sparkly tits. Again, a minor assumption that he's maybe a little older than Gale- he has taken ownership of a famous Wizard's Tower, absolutely upped his PR game to Kardashian tier over a decade, and now he's trying to find the Nightsong. Is it just me, or is there HUBRIS in the air?

Now, back to Gale. We know he was trying to prove himself from childhood. Elementals, Tara, The Blackstaff- and, frankly, does he seem like the kind of guy to leave it at that? I doubt it- hence why I peg him at early-mid 30s, depending on when Mystra tried the Godly equivalent of danging keys in front of a cat. I reckon he'd have dashed into some sort of cataclysmic bullshittery as soon as he graduated from Wizard School. And we know he probably became a full-fledged wizard early, given that he's a smart lil guy.

HOWEVER, back to my actual point about Gale's general social life/etc- Gale absolutely lacks real-world experience.

I'm not talking him hanging out in the Yawning Portal. I'm talking his actual, prolonged exposure to the world outside of Wizard Life.

(Yes, it is absolutely possible that he spent however-long just quietly studying for Wizard in between him becoming a full wizard and his exile, but! With age comes exposure- and Gale is actually a fairly adventurous lil dweeb. He's curious- and again, had he been given true freedom, he probably would be off gathering eldritch relics and causing havok)

My main point, though, is that a major point of Gale's entire plot is that he is being forcibly unmasked by the circumstances he's in- and this is in many ways the catalyst for late-game stuff.

Gale's primary conflict isn't truly against Mystra, because let's be real- Mystra doesn't give much of a shit about him one way or another. I'm not even convinced that she cares about The Absolute- I think she just doesn't want to go through the hassle of dying again, and she doesn't respect Gale enough to even consider a way to actually communicate with him about it.

Gale's arc is a struggle between Gale of Waterdeep and Gale Dekarios- and Gale coming to terms with himself as a person. Not as a wizard. Not as a prodigy. Not as anything special- just a man.

You see it in the language he uses- he goes from speaking in monologues to telling you to stop licking the damn thing!

You see it in his emotional range expanding- when you yoink him from the portal, he's immediately cheery! You could whack him in a faculty party and he'd probably behave in the exact same way- and then the night before Moonrise he's terrified. He even becomes more honest in his aspirations- yes, he still dresses it up to be persuasive, but he doesn't try to play it cool. He's absolutely geeking out about it alongside everything else.

Gale of Waterdeep demands a lot to be maintained, and it's a comforting outfit to wear. He slips, but the beauty in the story is that you can take Gale Dekarios by the hand and show him that he can be mortal. He can feel pain and greed and desire, disgust and shame and sadness, and it isn't a bad thing. He can be confident for real, and not as camouflage- he can be horny on main and as long as it's genuine, he's absolutely rockin' it.

And as someone who was and is going through it, it's made me appreciate him immensely.

#leiflitter rambles #bg3 #gale of waterdeep #leif is on about the wizard again #when am i not tho?#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 theory

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welcometothejianghu · 1 year

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Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 成化十四年/The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty

(The) Sleuth of (the) Ming Dynasty (it's hard to get an agreement on how many definite articles should go where) is a beautiful, high-budget 2020 drama about a weenie genius detective, his long-suffering and deeply traumatized sugar daddy, and the eunuch with the most difficult job in the Great Ming: keeping these two dumbasses from getting their fool selves imperially executed.

Depending on how you like it, it's either an OT3 or an OTP with an intense, underage third wheel, and either way, it's delightful. I wouldn't call it a comedy, but it has very many funny elements that keep the drama fun and engaging. The first half is full of shorter mysteries that are clever and thoughtfully plotted, and the second half goes in on the longer mystery that ties them all together.

I've already done my quick guide to the early-episode characters, if you want a taste of just how many people are running around and how wonderful they all are. But in case you want to know a little bit more before you commit yourself to a 48-episode series, here's five reasons I think you should watch it!

1. The whole thing smacks of gender

Yeah, this was originally going to be selling point #2, but I know what the people want.

This is not a show about gender. But boy it is a show that has a lot to say about gender, and not just by way of critiquing premodern Chinese gender roles (though it does do that!). Many of the cis characters are either a) somewhat gender nonconforming, b) canny enough to weaponize binary gender expectations, or c) both. Sui Zhou's entire third-act storyline is about how expectations of masculinity exacerbate PTSD in veterans. Three different AFAB characters either dress or live as men. The part where one of the male characters goes undercover in drag is played for laughs, but the joke isn't 'ha ha, a boy in a dress,' it's 'ha ha, this particular boy in a particular dress, and also he's terrible at it.'

And that's even before we get to the eunuchs.

There are several professionally dickless, permanently unmanned characters running around. One-third of the OT3 canonically had his external genitalia nonconsensually removed when he was five years old, and because of this, he has been given unimaginable authority. He's basically the second most powerful man in the entire empire, and he only gets that way by being unquestionably, ostentatiously, and genuinely submissive to the first most powerful man.

I have seen other Chinese media where eunuchs are treated like sinister clowns, good only to be the bad guys and the butts of jokes. Sleuth's main eunuchs are real and complex characters, and because of this, the show gets to explore what it is to live in this weird third-gender category of incredible power and powerlessness.

Now, don't go into this expecting woke gender treatises. Wang Zhi's never going to sit down and go, "You know, my friend and fellow eunuch Ding Rong, because of my lack of a penis, I understand my relationship to masculinity differently than other men do." But the show understands that even if he doesn't say it, it's true. And that makes a lot of the characters and their relationships just so much more interesting.

2. Uncle Jackie Money

Sleuth was the was the fourth c-drama I dove into, following the Untamed, Word of Honor, and Guardian -- or, Some Money BL, Less Money BL, and No Money BL. So imagine my absolute wall-eyed shock to find this was All The Money BL, courtesy of its executive producer, Jackie Chan (seen here with some of his handsome boys):

Sleuth looks good. The costumes are amazing. The sets are stunning. The cinematography is beautiful. Everything is so detailed, and while I can't speak to the absolute historical accuracy of all those details (see point 3), they're still gorgeous. In fact, you know what? I'm going to shut up and show you some of the promotional images.

(For actual screenshots, I'm just going to point you at @rongzhi's tsomd photoset tag, as they have done a tremendous service to the fan community -- though do beware of spoilers.)

Uncle Jackie's influence doesn't end with the money, though. Even though things get a bit goofy and wirework-y near the end, most of the drama's fights are shows of real martial arts skill. You can see his fingerprints on a lot of the choreography -- I'm thinking particularly of the time Tang Fan tries (and fails!) to stab Sui Zhou three times, which is pure Jackie Chan high-speed dexterity.

Add this one to the category of shows your Average American Television Enjoyer Who Can Handle Subtitles would like. In fact, I have shown the first episode to my normie father-in-law, who was impressed. Show it to your dad! See if he picks up on the gay!

3. I am from ... HISTORY!

The Chinese title translates to "The 14th Year of Chenghua," which works out to the year 1478. There are some clear anachronisms, but they tend to be played for comedy, so it's hard to hold that against them. On the whole, though, the show is trying real hard to evoke a very specific moment, and I feel it does so beautifully.

This does, however, mean that several of the characters are real people. I don't even have a good sense of how many of them are based on historical figures, that's how many. Hilariously, Wang Zhi's tag on AO3 used to read "Wang Zhi (?-1487 CE)."

Moreover, these are characters I've seen pop up in other media, played very differently! In particular, Noble Consort (up there in blue) tends to be written as an uncomplicated villain elsewhere, whereas Sleuth gives her a chance to add some goodness to her badness, until, damn, you can't but root for the bitch. (It also downplays the cradle-robbing, which, honestly, is for the best.)

You may have guessed from the eunuch section earlier, but it bears repeating: Wang Zhi is straight-up the best character in the show. He's smart as hell, and he has to be, because the second he's stupid, he's dead. I actually consider it helpful to know ahead of time that he's never going to do a heel turn -- I feel like on my first watchthrough, I was holding my breath for the first two-thirds of the show, waiting for his sudden but inevitable betrayal. It does not come. Wang Zhi is one of the heroes.

He's also, like, evil. He orders people flogged, tortured, and executed. The very first thing you see him doing is sinister as hell. And the show clearly doesn't think this is good, but it also doesn't judge him for it. He's a traumatized seventeen-year-old who has not had a normal moment of his entire life. He's working thanklessly for a boss who could kill him on a whim -- and he's doing it because he literally, physically was made for his job. He's mildly freaking out because he has no emotional grounding to help him understand that these weirdos want to be his friends.

Was the real Wang Zhi like this? That's beside the point. The point is, you get to see how someone in that position could wind up as the war-crimes-committing platonic ideal of a little meow meow.

4. oh my god the food

Warning: This show will make you hungry.

Again, beware of spoilers, but @peppersandcreamsicle and @qinzai have put together an entire cook-along Google Doc so you don't just have to drool -- you can do something about it! Or you can just read it and learn about Chinese cuisine, which is a little more my speed.

But it's not just about how good the food looks. Food is a vital emotional part of the series. People bond over it. They make and share it as a sign of love and care. It indicates status, ethnicity, interest, personality. The show's message about the healing power of cooking for the people you love will bring you to tears.

And yes, Sui Zhou is the main one doing the cooking, so get ready to drool over both the dishes and the handsome man preparing them.

Oh, and as though that weren't enough, Fu Meng Po can actually cook in real life. He's so dreamy. Absolute unreal handsome man with a devastatingly sexy voice. (I know my opinion might be different if I could hear his Taiwanese accent, but I can't so it's not!)

5. An Unsunk Ship

So like I said, my intros to c-drama couples had been WangXian, WenZhou, and WeiLan. That meant I'd basically come to terms with the idea that you can't have a main couple in a BL-but-not-really drama without splitting them up at least a little in the end, for no-homo plausible deniability reasons.

Tang Fan and Sui Zhou are still definitvely, unequivocally together when the story ends, as the iconic pentultimate scene of the series confirms with beauty and simplicity. I refuse to give any more details than that, but that ship's afloat.

(These shirtless pictures aren't from the end, but I wanted to include them, and I didn't have a better place to do it. ...Also, you know, ships and water? Yeah?)

And I think their winding up together reflects Sleuth's entire attitude. Tang Fan is made of sunshine, and the series loves him for it. There is tragedy aplenty in this show, but there's no misery. It is ultimately a hopeful show that believes in the power of second chances, if you're willing to take them. Time and again, the moral of the story is that you are only ever as good as the people who have your back -- but you have to be willing to let them have your back. Let people help you. Let people cook for you. Let people give you a reason to keep living. And then keep living.

Also, Sui Zhou gets two good kabedons off on that little twink, which means they're legally married now. I don't make the rules.

Bonus: Banger opening theme

youtube

This is one you will watch all 48 times.

Bonus #2: The Halo Video

youtube

This is the video that made me go, huh, these Sleuth boys seem like other boys I've enjoyed! Perhaps I shall enjoy them as well! And then I did. So if that might be convincing to you too, well, have at it. Even if it isn't, it's a fascinating three-minute study of shared those-boys-are-in-love visual language across these shows.

Fair warning that it contains shots from right up to the end, so if you'd rather go in completely blank, give this one a pass until later. (Excuse me while I now go watch it for the 10000th time.)

Have I convinced you to watch it yet?

It originally ran on iQiyi, though Viki's got it as well, and Viki's is free if you're willing to put up with some ads about it.

...I just noticed iQiyi's description of the series reads, "When the two handsome leading actors Darren Wang and Fu Meng-Po work together, what will happen? A lovely prefectural judge and an arrogant embroiered [sic] uniform guard join hands to crack unusual cases! Are you going to choose a new idol?" And you know what? Yes. The details are a little off, but that is the correct spirit. Thank you, thirsty blurb.

#sleuth of the ming dynasty #the sleuth of ming dynasty #tsomd #成化十四年 #sloof #i made this #rec post

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ceriisetheflower · 4 months

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Self Care (M)

omega!renjun

wc: 4.8k

synopsis: renjun decides to take on his first heat the best way he knows how, as luxuriously as possible.

cw: smut...a lot of it. in immense detail. sex toys, pornography, multiple orgasms, unrealistic amounts of cum, stomach bulge, male squirting/watersports (depending on what you consider squirt to be lmao), overstimulation, cum eating, dildo sucking, mentions of fictional heat related illnesses, america-centric world building, a bitch with no friends attempting friendly dialogue.

a/n: well here it is! first full fic. believe it or not this was meant to be no longer than 1k, then i realized i get kinda pissed when fics don't include enough context for elements in the fic so i'd be a hypocrite if i didn't paint a likely unnecessarily vivid picture. feedback is much appreciated!

we love u very dearly junnie B💛

❈ ❈ ❈ ❈ ❈ ❈ ❈ ❈ ❈ ❈ ❈ ❈ ❈

The sound of the dryer finishing its freshly washed load of delicates interrupted his fifth run through of his checklist. “Ok, let’s see….lube? Check. Waterproof blankets? Check. Three hour long Alpha on Alpha porn playlist? Check.” Renjun finally sighed with relief. It’s not everyday he obsesses over the amount of lube he has in his arsenal (he restocks his eight oz bottle of sliquid sassy every eight weeks on the dot), but it’s a special occasion. The special occasion.

He rebukes the term “late-bloomer”, despite the average age for an omega’s first heat occurring around eighteen. Renjun has always justified his lack of mating cycles with his ever present practicality. “You were absolutely ridiculous for a week straight until your heat broke.” He recalls to Donghyuck during their semi-regularly scheduled facetime catch-up they’ve adopted post grad school.

“I had so much going on freshman year, it would’ve made no sense for me to have to deal with a heat. Twenty-four is a way better age anyways, my prefrontal cortex is like eighty-five percent done, I can actually handle my brain being scrambled eggs for five days”. He says passively, ignoring the unimpressed look coming from the boy on the other side of the phone.

He unfortunately remembers the horrors of hearing Donghyuck’s first heat through their paper mache dorm room walls when they were eighteen, and the next heat three months later, and the next eighteen heats he endured as Donghyuck’s roommate. He’s convinced the boy has had enough heats for the both of them, especially considering Renjun was held solely responsible for ensuring his dear friend didn’t die of hunger or dehydration through them. It's a thankless job, but someone had to do it.

“Right, so I guess twenty-four is also the age where you’re finally gonna finish growing huh? Prime time to finally reach big boy height.” Donghyuck quips back, taking a break from grading assignments to goad the blonde boy giving him a deadpan stare through the phone.

“Bitch you’re literally 5’6 1/2 what are you talking about?” Renjun retorts, “it’s no way you’re calling me short when you just complained about how you cant find shoe lifts in canada.” Donghyuck widens his eyes in shock. “Talking about shoe lifts when you just begged me to ask Doyoung if he could hem those jeans 6 inches shorter is crazy work Renjun.”

They continue their childlike bickering over their similarly petite frames for an unreasonable amount of time, before Donghyuck remembers the real reason for today’s meeting. “Ok but seriously, how are you feeling about this whole thing? I know it’s kinda a lot at once, be honest with me?” Donghyuck starts. He woke up two days ago to Renjun’s frenzied calls, knowing his friend was well aware that waking hours for him in Atlanta were still Donghyuck’s “dead to the world” hours in Vancouver, he was for certain there was an actual emergency.

Renjun had woken up with a pounding headache, abdominal cramps, and the unsettlingly wet mouth feel that comes right before vomiting. He knew what that meant, but refused to actually confront what was happening until Donghyuck got a look at him and convinced him to go to the omega urgent care. Donghyuck sat on the phone with him while he waited for the doctor, cheered as Renjun got the confirmation he was in pre-heat (much to Renjun’s dismay), and helped him pick the best painkillers to aid his cramps and headache. It was the best he could do from another country, fighting the urge to book a flight to go support his best friend in what’s easily the most important event in an omega's life. His husband only barely managed to convince him it was unnecessary and that they could just send him a nice care package in the mail on expedited shipping, Mark was always the level headed one in the relationship.

Renjun sighed before he could answer. “To keep it one-hundred percent real with you, I’m terrified. Like am I gonna be okay? What if I fuck up somehow and I end up never being able to have kids or something insane? Anything could happen?” Renjun said, ever the worrywort and full of trepidation about new experiences. Donghyuck scoffed, rolling his eyes at the catastrophization of the world’s most natural activity. “Friend, how could you possibly fuck up jerking off? You’ve had a solid twelve years of experience for this, relax!” Renjun shut his eyes and huffed in annoyance, “Obviously that’s not what I’m worried about idiot. I’m worried that I won’t be able to actually satisfy myself through the whole thing, and you know what happens if I can’t be fully satisfied.” Donghyuck sighs in acknowledgement.

Continuous Heating Syndrome, colloquially known as a heat frenzy, is a rare but unfortunate side effect of a heat that goes unsatiated. Nonstop migraines, vomiting, loss of motor function, seizures, or shit...even worse. Donghyuck has heard horror stories of omegas having perfectly normal heats that turn into three week stints at the hospital after they couldn’t break. Scary shit. Rare for all omegas, but increasingly likely for an unmated omega without consistent access to a knot, a category which Renjun unfortunately falls into. “Look at it this way” Donghyuck starts, “It’s not like you have no options at all. You don’t necessarily have to do this alone.” Renjun grimaces. He knows exactly where Donghyuck is going with this, and he’s not even remotely here for it.

“I’m not calling the heat hotline.” Renjun was scared, not desperate. He had no reason to hire a random Alpha who needed extra money to come fuck him for five days straight, he could figure something else out for sure. “Oh girl please!” Donghyuck exclaims, “That’s literally exactly what you need right now! They’re super strict about testing so you won’t have to worry about that, plus it’s covered by your insurance? What is the issue?” Renjun rolls his eyes, ‘The issue is that you think i’m supposed to just randomly fuck the first alpha who doesn’t look like he snuck on the planet just to stop myself from going into a coma, I have options bitch!”

Donghyuck scoffs, “Sure you do. Is now the time when Jen and Jae finally jump through the screen of their newest edging scene to keep you company through your heat? Porn only takes you so far, friend.” Renjun hates that Donghyuck knows him well enough to know he’s been anxiously scouring his favorite alpha pornstars’ onlyfans to find some semblance of relief through his rapidly approaching week of agony. “I have toys! So many toys! I don’t need an alpha at all, I have like six different vibrating cocks to choose from” Renjun grumbled. He was a fully self sufficient twenty-four year old omega who doesn’t need an alpha! Or so he continues to force himself to believe.

“If you’re gonna be stubborn about it, the least you can do is be safe.” Donghyuck says, his worried expression softening the defensive stance Renjun has adopted. “You do have someone nearby right? Just in case you need someone to check in on you in person?” “Of course, Yangyang and Chenle are in the building down the street, if I need a restock on anything or if I start overheating and dying I can call them.” Renjun replies, in an attempt to calm his friend from his concerns. “You’re not gonna die girl. Especially since I found the perfect thing to help you out!” Donghyuck beams, giving Renjun his signature “I’ve done something I know you won’t like but I’m smart enough to know it’s what you need" look.

“Is it a dick? Don’t buy me a dick Hyuck I swear to god.” Renjun says, “Is that what you’ve been doing this whole time? Dick shopping instead of feeling sorry for me? I can't believe this.” “If it makes you feel better it’s not a dick, you have so many other ones another would be excessive, even for me. You’re gonna love it though! All those fears of heat frenzy are gonna go right out the window!” Renjun eyes the brunette through the screen suspiciously, Donghyuck’s odd enthusiasm has been the catalyst to multiple cautionary tales Renjun is saving for his grandkids. Now might be the worst time to let his guard down. “I swear to god, if it’s something weird i’m sending it back and getting a restraining order.” Donghyuck giggles in nefarious delight, “It’ll be at your doorstep in two days!” Renjun groans in horror.

Renjun is shaken from his daydream riddled with Donghyuck’s alarming cackles by the sound of the doorbell being rang for the fourth time. “Oh! Coming, coming, so sorry!” He yells out, rushing to the front door to see his instacart delivery driver struggling to hold Renjun’s last minute groceries. The poor guy takes a deep breath and tries not to look nearly as phased as he is by Renjun’s sweet bergamot scent. “I-I wasn’t able to find the caramel pecan cookies, so I got you an extra box of kitchen sink cookies, I hope that’s ok?” The man stutters, clearly fighting the urge to comment on what smells like the sweetest omega he’d ever met. “Oh no worries! Thank you so much, they always go out of stock pretty quick.” Renjun replies, now increasingly aware of the alpha’s growing nervousness and intensified teakwood scent.

He hurries to grab the groceries from the boy and set them on his kitchen counter. “Here you go!” Renjun says, handing over his nice ten percent tip for the guy’s troubles. “T-T-Thank you!” he replies, after making a horribly obvious attempt at trying to inhale as much of Renjun’s residual scent on the ten dollar bill. Renjun awkwardly waves him goodbye, and closes the door of his apartment asking whichever deity that watches over him why he couldn’t have already been mated to avoid having to endure that. The plights of a single omega, he thinks to himself, now rapidly moving towards his kitchen to take final inventory.

His heat is scheduled to begin sometime tonight, made clear by his overwhelming scent and his unbearable body temperature. He’s already considered turning his air conditioner up higher, but realizing that his poor plants would hate to live in a house that’s fifty-five degrees for a week straight, he suffers in a scantily clad haze. He’s stocked up with seven cases of water, four boxes of cookies, six frozen pizzas, and three family sized bags of chicken nuggets. His poor air-fryer will be working overtime this week, Renjun is fully prepared to only have twenty minutes of energy between heat spikes to keep himself semi-sufficiently nourished. He grabs an armful of waters and sports drinks he’d picked up earlier that week to carry them to his room. He placed them next to the other small snacks he’d put in his mini fridge conveniently sitting next to his nest, there was no way he’d be able to make it to the kitchen after the first few rounds and immediate hydration was a non-negotiable.

Renjun took a moment to be proud of himself. He was a single omega preparing for the most intense and important event of his life. All those incredibly awkward sex-ed lessons he endured in middle school, and the trauma-inducing nights spent handing Donghyuck and Mark bottles of gatorade and fruit snacks while trying to avoid seeing any genitals had finally led up to this moment. Renjun was fully prepared. Renjun was gonna be okay.

His doorbell rings again. This time unexpectedly. He opens the door to find another delivery man, this time an omega, Renjun can tell by the soft lavender scent. “Order for Renjun Huang?’ The man asks. Renjun grimaces at the horrifically American butchering of his name, giving a pleasant but unsure smile. “Yes! That’s me” Renjun replies, taking a look at the ominously large box the man is holding. "Great, sign here please” He grumbles, trying to make quick work of what Renjun can only presume is his last delivery of the day. Renjun makes quick work of scribbling his signature on the dotted line, before mumbling a quick thank you and grabbing the box. It’s oddly heavy, which wouldn’t be too concerning, until he took a closer look at the label and read ‘From: Mark and Donghyuck ♡,” in Donghyuck’s messy half cursive half print handwriting.

“Oh dear god” Renjun thinks, now the weight of the box is a genuine cause for concern. He heaves the box to his counter and takes a deep breath before cutting it open. Much to his surprise, it’s all normal nice things. He pulls out a box of the maple cookies Renjun became obsessed with when Mark brought them back a box after returning to campus from his thanksgiving break in Vancouver, the ones Renjun was pissed to find out aren’t available in Atlanta. He sees a stuffed bear and stuffed cheetah wrapped in plastic, Renjun pulls them out to admire the resemblance to his dear friends before he realizes they were both scented like Hyuck and Mark. Renjun could just cry. He felt so loved and cherished by his best friend, how loving and thoughtful Donghyuck always was despite being a smug piece of shit ninety percent of the time. He’s been wanting nothing more than to experience one of their “cuddle puddles”, that while Renjun would always protest, he secretly loved. He pulls out a lovely soft yellow blanket with pretty little ruffles on the ends, perfect to go in his nest for added comfort. Wrapped in the blanket is a little note:

“You’re gonna have a great time Junnie! Don’t overthink things, just relax and enjoy the ride! We love you so very much! - Hyuckie and Markie”

Renjun is tearing up, his friends love him so much, he’s gonna be okay! Then he sees another box at the bottom, hidden by the blanket and other gifts before it. He shimmies the black box out of the larger brown one and places it on the counter, now able to get a full look at what the picture on the box is displaying. The tears instantly dry. The feelings of love and admiration are replaced with immediate annoyance.

In a scary showcase of friendship telepathy, his phone rings, lighting up with the picture Donghyuck took of his flared nostrils freshman year. Renjun sighs, then answers the phone. “Why would you buy me a fuck machine?” Renjun stares into the phone, hoping to look as menacing as he can in a hello kitty headband holding his blonde strands from his face. “I see you got our present.” Donghyuck replies, shit eating grin so intense his lips were threatening to split apart. “I told you I had just the thing in mind for your heat girlie!” Renjun huffs with the full intent to call Donghyuck everything but a child of god, but he’s getting hotter and the throbbing between his legs is getting more intense. Tonight he chooses peace. “In seven days you’ll begin to cough” he says, and hangs up the phone to let out a loud exasperated grunt.

Now the real preparation begins. Renjun walks over to his dryer and pulls out his satin robe he’d freshly washed for the occasion. He makes his way over to his bathroom to begin the most intense shower he’s had since his last failed date with an alpha he met on Wolfr. “Nice dick, horrendous vibes.” Renjun shudders at the memory. “Maybe that’s just how guys from Connecticut are? Connecticut is barely a real place, who cares.” He pauses his internal monologue for a moment to place a vanilla scented shower steamer in the corner of the tub. He lights himself a few overpriced indie candles he got from a small business bazaar in the city, and starts easing himself out of his tiny shorts.

He takes his time pulling the silky fabric of his briefs, gently coaxing his dick out of the fabric. He shudders at the cold air hitting his half-hard cock, sending shivers up his spine and another light stream of slick out of his tip. “Fuck,” He moans softly, entirely too aroused for his own good. He pulls his shirt over his head, shuddering again when the air hits his puffy swollen nipples. He takes the time to get a full look at himself in the full size mirror. “Fuck I’m hot. No wonder that Alpha almost popped his knot earlier,” Renjun smiles to himself confidently.

He makes his way into the shower, taking a deep breath of the warm vanilla scent circling him, meshing wonderfly with his own light citrusy aroma. The hot water of the shower electrifies Renjun’s body, he takes a moment to soak in the amazing feeling of the heat comforting his aching limbs. He starts with his favorite lemon and honey scented body wash to begin carefully massaging his arms and chest with the warm and fruity bubbles.

The sensation of the lather was already driving him crazy, absolutely loving the way his hands gilded seamlessly over his hips and ass. Renjun wasn’t normally the type to be so turned on by his own body, he guesses it’s just the excess hormones making any sight of bare skin immensely arousing. He snaps out of his hormone induced stupor to remember that he has a whole shower routine to get through, so he gives his soft chest a final squeeze, then moves back under the welcoming stream of the water to rinse himself clean. He grabs his body scrub and locks in for the remainder of his shower.

Renjun emerges in a cloud of sugary citrus air, intoxicating even to himself. He wraps himself in his gold satin robe, and makes his way to his vanity for his finishing touches. Renjun digs through his copious amounts of products to find the expensive body oil he’s been saving for this very occasion. He strips off his robe, and starts massaging the oil into his skin, starting at his legs. Every dip his fingers make into his skin brings him closer to ecstasy. Closer to what he knows is gonna be the most intense feeling of his life. He’s just barely finished rubbing himself down when he starts leaking a new stream of slick from his puckered asshole.

“Oh shit, that must mean it’s about to be time huh?” He figures, moving to wrap his robe around him yet again to avoid his neighbors getting a free show through his open blinds. He draws the curtains, dims the lights, and connects his television to his laptop for an optimized viewing experience. He already has his nightly entertainment pulled up, three hours of Jen and Jae’s best material. Nothing that riles Renjun up more than seeing an alpha take a eleven inch dick like he was made for it.

He settles into the spot he carefully carved into his nest, when he lays his eyes on the pretty yellow blanket Donghyuck sent him in his care package. Then he thinks about what else was present in the care package. He pauses for a second, thinking about how he actually hadn’t even taken the fuck machine out of the box. “Well obviously I didn’t take it out the box, I’m not giving Hyuck the satisfaction of knowing I used a toy he gave me,” Renjun thinks to himself. Then again, it’s not as if Hyuck has to know Renjun used it. Then again, it’s not as if using it could be a bad idea, Renjun considers.

He drags himself out of bed to collect the box from the kitchen counter, setting it down on his bed as he begins to actually open the machine. He definitely recognizes the machine, it’s pretty famous among omega content creators due to its lightweight build and convenient suction cup base to accommodate any dildo the user pleases. He looks over at the extended assortment of toys he’s curated for tonight’s events: a vibrating fleshlight for his cock and three different dildos in ascending length and thickness for his differing stages of need. Renjun felt his hole flutter with excitement as another gush of slick slid down his thighs.

He thinks about it for a moment, considering how much nicer it'd be if he didn’t have to be responsible for thrusting his toys in and out of his slicked hole. He decides to use the suction cup base of the fuck machine to attach it to the headboard of his bed, checking the height of his placement to ensure it would be the perfect height for him to comfortably get backshots from the toy. If he’s desperate enough for it he, reasons, first choosing to hold off from letting Donghyuck be right about something for as long as possible. With the machine firmly secured, Renjun settles back into his comfy spot in the nest. He takes off his robe, presses play on his laptop, and reaches for his fresh bottle of lube to start massaging his warm cock.

He’s 10 minutes into watching Jae eat Jen’s ass when Renjun finally has his first orgasm. His little heaves and moans fill the room as he milks himself of his well deserved release. “Ooh…ahh…ahh...fuck!” He shouts, pulling himself further into overstimulation as his vision starts to haze over. He’s laying in a puddle of hot slick, constantly pumping out more and more as he keeps toying with his cock. He’s using his other hand to pump his fingers furiously in his asshole, loving the searing sensation of his hole stretching over his digits. “Mmm fuck...fuck, ooh make him cum Jae” he moans, picturing himself as the pornstars’ third wheel in their bedroom.

He realizes his hands aren’t gonna cut it though, he releases his cock from his vice grip and winces as he pulls his fingers from his ass to grab his fleshlight and the smallest dildo from the pile. “Oh shit,” he hisses, feeling that same intoxicating stretch to the next degree as he tries to slip the seven inch toy deep inside. He needs another large squirt of lube to get the job done, a sign he hasn’t completely gone into heat quite yet, letting his semi-delirious brain know he still has some semblance of self-control.

He pours another squirt of lube directly into the fleshlight, giving it a few pumps with his fingers, and then using those same fingers to pump his cock, before squeezing his drained but solid dick into the tight slippery hole. He’s fully entranced in the sensations of his body now, leaking so much slick his toy keeps slipping out of his hole. The throbbing between his legs is reaching an ungodly peak, rushing his second orgasm into him like a train. “Ahhhh FUCK,” he screams, feeling the pulse of his prostate send him into overdrive. His cum and slick is pooling at the base of his dick, overflowing the fleshlight and adding to the lewd sounds deafening his ears.

He makes a move to turn up the vibrations on the toy, barely getting a chance to move his hand from the button before the pulse of his third release shakes him to the core. Renjun is completely lost at this point, barely aware of anything around him other than his seemingly never ending fountain of cum and the hypnotic sights and sounds of his favorite muscle bottom getting dicked within an inch of his life. God he wishes that was him taking alpha meat. Then he remembers it totally can be him. He grabs the biggest dick he owns, neglecting any more prep that the fifteen minutes of intense pounding hasn’t provided, and sticks the heavy dildo to the waiting base of the fuck machine.

He positions himself comfortably in front of the plastic cock, taking a moment to admire his mess on his satin sheets. “S-Shit…ohhh fuck,” he hisses as he shoves the toy into his ass. He barely gives himself a moment to adjust before he reaches for the remote to start the lowest thrusting pattern, desperate for the feeling of his hole getting stretched to its limits. Renjun lets out a low groan while the toy picks up speed. He clicks it up to the second level and jolts as the tip of the cock starts hitting his prostate. “Ohhhhhhhhhhhh,” he groans, spilling more slick onto his sheets and sliding into his fourth orgasm, leaving his mind completely broken. He sets his fleshlight to its highest vibration and suction level, and shakes himself into another release.

If he had any ability to think critically he would be concerned for the amount of fluid leaking into his mattress, considering he’d completely forgotten to lay down the waterproof blankets he was so intent would save him a massive cleaning bill, especially since the cock in his ass causes another surge of slick to shoot from his hole. Nearing delirium, Renjun decides the dual stimulation still isn’t enough. He wants even more, he needs even more.

The smell of his slick and cum is intoxicating, leaving his brain just as fried as the underpaid alpha that nearly sprung a leak at his door earlier. He grabs the smaller dildo that he used to work his ass open at the start of his playtime, and gave it a slow lick from the balls to the tip. Tasting himself on the toy made his next orgasm even harder, sucking the head of the dildo like it was an actual alpha. Throating the cock to it’s hilt like Jae himself was fucking his throat. Renjun was officially in heat, too spent to think, and too horny to care.

With the last bit of his reflexes he has left, he manages to switch the fuck machine to it’s highest setting, and prepares himself for the ride of his life. “Ohhhhh Shit! Oh Shit! Fuckkkkkk,” he stutters, forming the last coherent phrases he’ll be saying for a while. His head is absolutely pounding, reality is bending, and all he knows is fact are the loud moans he and Jen are churning out along with the surge of energy rushing through his ass and cock. “Ahh oh my god, oh my god,” he screams, ushering himself into otherworldly realms of pleasure.

His cock is being milked to extremes he didn’t know were possible, the pumping motions of the fleshlight sending streams of cum all over his balls and thighs from where the toy could no longer hold his load. He groans as the cock in his ass pounds into his prostate, sending him further into the orgasmic spiral he has no intention of leaving. He’s coming down from his tenth orgasm when he finally decided to give his dick a break, pulling the toy milking him for the last two hours off his cock and throwing it to the side, in the interest of laying face down ass up, fully submitting to the plastic cock he’s worshiping with every fiber of his being.

He can barely make any sounds other than small gurgles when he starts craving his own musk again, grabbing the fleshlight and sticking his tongue as deep as he can into the sopping wet hole, basking in the scent of his pleasure. He slurps up his essence as he feels his ass getting tighter, the dildo seemingly rutting rougher and rougher to break through his grip. He slides himself back even further on the toy, taking all eleven inches impossibly deep, crying out at the feeling of his stomach bulging from the cock mixing up his guts. Renjun is lost in the vortex of his heat, unable to do anything but scream in pleasure in between licking his fleshlight like it’s a real asshole, when he feels it.

His eyes go wide, his ass locks up around the plastic knot completely, the overwhelming pleasure forcing his body to mate with the cock rearranging him. The toy stops moving in and out, too suffocated by Renjuns slick walls to complete a full cycle of motion, instead sending deep thuds of pressure directly on his prostate. His eyes start rolling back as his body starts convulsing, unable to control his movements. His loud moans turn to deafening screams when a long stream of clear liquid shoots from his cock. He cries out in pleasure as he lets out endless gushes of liquid, soaking through whatever parts of his mattress weren’t already sticky with slick. His voice starts to taper off into quieter whines, soon after, Renjun’s vision goes black.

Renjun wakes up thirty minutes later, slightly less attached to the toy. Its batteries must’ve died sometime between him squirting and passing out, but Renjun has little recollection of anything that occurred once his first heat spike hit. He hears the faint sound of his pornstars giving each other aftercare from what must’ve been a similarly intense scene in the background, figuring he should follow in Jen’s footsteps and have a bottle of water.

He rolls over in his nest, taking in the absolutely ruined state of his bed, along with the extremely satisfied feeling in his body. “Woah,” he thinks, “I gotta get Hyuck a Waffle House gift card or something.”

#renjun smut #huang renjun smut #whew chile #nct smut #nct dream smut #i promise this wasn't supposed to be this long lmaoooo #junnie b<333 #ieezysfics #omegaverse smut #nct a/b/o

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