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artistic-writer · 3 years

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The Contract :: CS Omegaverse :: Ch 14 :: Rated E

Title: The Contract

Rating: E

Summary: Emma had never wanted much in her life, despite being married to one of the richest men in the world. For ten years she has felt like a prisoner in her own marriage, denied the one thing she wants the most, but her husband cannot help but bargain her want like a cheap business deal. Enter Killian Jones, the Alpha her husband has hired to make sure she gets what she wants. And then some.

Chapters: [1] - [2] - [3] - [4] - [5] - [6] - [7] - [8] - [9] - [10] - [11] - [12] - [13]

AO3 - Ko-Fi (100% of coffee’s bought go towards buying @adognamedkillian toys and treats!)

A/N: Here lies the final chapter of this fic that has taken me far too long to write. I am sorry, but you know, 2020. Thank you to all my lovely beta bitches; @hollyethecurious my person, my heart, my bestie. I you person. @shardminds my fellow angel <3 @courtorderedcake @zaharadessert @thisonesatellite for lurking and encouraging and ALL THE LOVELY LADIES IN THE DISCORD <3

Artwork by me, @artistic-writer

This is an Omegaverse fic featuring A/B/O dynamics. Whilst this varies from fandom to fandom, for the purposes of my fic, there will be no mpreg. Just so you know. There will however be knotting, breeding, heats and other delicious things that come along with A/B/O. If you do not know what A/B/O is, feel free to message me :)

If you wish to stay away from this fic, blacklist the A/B/O tag.

Taglist: @resident-of-storybrooke @hollyethecurious @kmomof4 @hookedonapirate @winterbaby89 @courtorderedcake @cocohook38 @branlovesouat @teamhook @snidgetsafan @shireness-says @wingedlioness @therooksshiningknight @ilovemesomekillianjones @bmbbcs4evr @blowmiakisscolin @deathbycaptainswan @onceuponaprincessworld @chinawoodfan @seriouslyhooked @snowbellewells @wordsmith-storyweaver @jennjenn615 @delightfully-difficult-pirate @doodlelolly0910 @tiganasummertree @hookedmom @thejollyroger-writer @rachie1940 @unworried-corsair @cs-forlife @notoriouscs @killian-whump @darkcolinodonorgasm @mariakov81 @strangestarlighttree @shardminds @donteattheappleshook @thisonesatellite @carpedzem @lfh1226-linda @strawberryfieldsbricksonwalls @itsfabianadocarmo @stahlop @elizabeethan @reggieshamster @shardminds @ultraluckycatnd @jrob64 @swanslieutenant @veryverynotgoodwrites @jonesfandomfanatic @tiganasummertree @fuckurghh

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The car journey home was a blur. The entire way Emma whispered sweet nothings into his ear as her scent surrounded them, suffocating him and making it almost impossible to keep his eyes on the road. Killian had been so engrossed in beating Graham, making sure he knew that he was nothing to them and would never hurt Emma again, that he had failed to notice the change in Emma as she watched them battle. It wasn’t until he was with her in the car, sealed in with her heady musk, that he realised that the primal Omega spirit inside of her had come alive, baited by the sight of blood and the smell of him, that he realised her intentions.

Emma was leaning over to him having ducked under the body strap of her seat belt, and was rubbing her eager hands over his thigh, gently scraping her nails over the material of his pants and making him shiver. Killian sucked in a quick breath but it felt like there wasn’t enough oxygen left in the car to oxymoronically put out the fire in his lungs, but he was quickly distracted from the pain in his chest when Emma softly, but forcefully, pushed on the growing bulge between his legs, a wry smile on her lips that he only managed to see for a second before his eyes fluttered closed.

He felt Emma’s hand on the steering wheel next to his, helping to keep the car on course whilst her other one massaged his cock, making him hard in seconds. Blood surged around his body, making him lightheaded and he eased his foot off the accelerator pedal, unable to even comprehend his own name, let alone tell how fast he was driving. He heard Emma laugh, her breath hot and wet against its shell as she purred into his ear, her fingers clutching the girth of his erection through his pants, her touch like a both a gift and a curse for his cock which strained painfully to be free.

“I want this,” she whispered darkly. Her fingers grabbed at the zipper of his fly, slowly and deliberately sliding it down, the sound of each tooth coming apart from its twin deafening him.

“Fuck, Emma,” Killian panted, lifting his hips off the seat in an attempt to relieve his aching cock.

“Omega,” she purred sweetly, sliding her hand into his pants through the now open zipper and past his underwear. She traced a single finger over his balls, loving the way they shrunk under her touch and the skin pulling tight around them. She continued her assault, dragging her finger over the skin covering the bulb of his knot and grinned wickedly when she felt his cock twitch and his chest expand with another huge breath. “Use my title,” she cooed, mirroring his earlier command.

Killian was so aroused by her words that he almost didn’t see the light they were approaching turn red, slamming his foot on the brake and the car skidding to a stop just over the line. He heaved a breath, his knuckles aching from how hard he was gripping the wheel, the strain of his erection only momentarily soothed from her assault by the fact her hand shot out to brace herself against the dashboard.

“You need to stop,” Killian ground out, trying to blink his vision clear.

“Why?” Emma whimpered innocently, cuddling back into him and resuming her caresses.

Killian looked over at her and gave her a dark stare, a warning glance that just made her grin even more slyly. “Because you and I both know I can’t fuck you in this car, and the apartment is another five minutes away.”

“Who says you can’t fuck me in this car?” Emma pouted, batting her eyelashes at him as her fingers twirled around in what chest hair she could see poking from the top of his shirt.

Killian took a moment to lick his lips and could swear he could already taste her arousal on his tongue between the tang of blood and his own excess saliva. He looked at her, long and hard, the sheen of sweat on her skin catching his attention in the street light, displaying her own arousal as if she was in heat, something Killian knew to be impossible. Or maybe it wasn’t? She was a new Omega after all, recently come of age and still not entirely in control of her hormones. She was a slave to her own desire and what she wanted the most was currently trying to force its way out of its sheath into the cool air of the night from her sultry look alone.

“Omega,” Killian soothed reasonably but with a black lustre to his tone that had her audibly shuddering in the seat next to him. “We both know there isn’t enough room for me to fully enjoy you here.”

“Oh?” Emma questioned softly, her mind racing with all of the possibilities of what ‘fully enjoying her’ meant.

Pulling one of his hands from the steering wheel, Killian stroked over the shape of her skull, bunching her hair into a loose ponytail and giving it a gentle tug. Emma wrenched her head sideways, gasping with need, every cell in her body crying out for more than just a promise of his touch. Killian’s lips curled into a knowing smirk, watching her still wide pupils dilate even more as he leaned over to inhale the scent of her skin, exaggerating his action as he skimmed the tip of his nose up the side of her cheek, deliberately ghosting a sigh against her scent gland that pulsed and coaxed him closer with a wave of scent.

“I said not here,” he growled with finality.

Before Emma could explain how his words had affected her, a wave of slick had expelled itself from her body and she clenched her knees together in an attempt to relieve some of the ache that had settled there. Killian watched the light turn green and let her go like nothing had transpired between them, fixing his eyes on the road once more and setting off towards the apartment. Emma fell back into her seat, her head spinning from his dominance.

“Hurry,” she pleaded, the pleasurable pain on her scalp from his rough handling sending a jolt of arousal to her clit. “Please, Alpha, hurry.”

If he was honest, Killian had sped all the way back to the apartment, not caring one iota for the safety of other drivers. Emma was his, officially now, and the thought of having her, marking her, was making him almost rut-like aroused. He wanted to give her everything, more than just sex, and even that had his already hard cock twitching in the confines of his pants all the way through the apartment complex. When they reached the elevator that would take them up to the right floor, Emma giggling like a giddy teenager as her hand clutched his, the only part she could in public, she busied herself with gently stroking his index finger as if it were his cock, the hard glance he gave her only encouraging her further.

"Are you okay?" She purred innocently, watching his Adam's apple bob in his throat as he swallowed. "You seem distracted, Alpha."

Killian chose to ignore her taunt, head tilted back and eyes fixed on the numbers above the elevator door as they illuminated with its impending arrival. When the translucent 'G' lit up, the chime of a bell and the grinding of the opening doors accompanying it, Killian gave her hand a squeeze, a gentle and yet forceful pressure that had her mouth turning dry and the ache between her thighs throbbing once more. He stepped inside, giving her arm a tug, the doors sliding shut with only inches to spare between the metal and Emma's hair, before throwing her against the back wall of the elevator with a possessive growl.

Emma hit the hard surface with such force the elevator wobbled from side to side, scraping the walls around it with a grinding sound as it began to move. Her eyes lit up with anticipation as Killian stalked his way to her, closing the gap in less than a second and pinning her to the wall with his weight. His hands were on her face, a gentle but forceful grip of her jaw that had slick soaking her underwear yet again, the widening of Killian's pupils in response sending a shiver up her spine.

"I could take you right here," he growled, his nose brushing her cheek as he grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back, inhaling the scent of her. "But I won't." One of his hands snaked between their bodies, pushing its way into her pants and a single finger slipping through her folds. Killian's eyes fluttered closed when Emma whimpered, a needy plea that sent a rush of blood to his cock, something he knew she could feel as she attempted to move her hips against his.

"Please," Emma begged, her limbs weighty and numb from his most minute of touches, her mind racing when he dipped his head and ran his tongue along her collarbone.

Her skin was different somehow, the taste of her sizzling on his tongue, and he grew even harder than he already was at the smell of her scent gland. She wasn’t in heat, he knew that, but there were so many different senses firing the synapses in his brain all at once that the beast within was roaring, clawing at his insides in an attempt to take her where she stood, but by some miracle, despite the huge, watery doe eyes she was giving him that were anything but innocent, Killian managed to remain externally composed, and simply ran his tongue over her gland in an attempt to quell the fires within with a grin.

"Please, what?" Killian commanded wickedly, pausing his ministrations over her scent gland. He could practically feel the throb of it, hear the blood rushing around her body from how he was touching her, the primal beast within him begging for what was to come.

"Please, Alpha," Emma breathed.

Killian growled, a low rumble emanating from his chest, the surge of adrenaline from the fight still coursing through his veins. Beating Graham was more than just satisfactory. Killian felt like he had liberated Emma into a life of more love and admiration than she could ever conceive, and there would not be a single day he wouldn't show her that.

The chime of the elevator had him tearing his body from hers just in time for the doors to pull open and reveal one of the neighbours. Emma innocently gave him a courteous nod, but the man, also an Alpha, couldn't stop his gaze when the flushed, heavenly smelling Omega in front of him whimpered with desire. A warning snarl rumbled from Killian as he stepped through the doorway, the much smaller Alpha shrinking away and retreating along the hall, disappearing through a stairwell door instead, something that had Emma giggling in excitement and clutching Killian’s hand even tighter as he pulled her behind him down the hall.

“Quickly, Omega,” Killian snarled, feeling the buzz of anticipation on his skin as he passed each and every door of his neighbours, all Alpha is nature. “Your scent only serves to entice more Alpha in your direction.”

Emma fell into step behind him and felt the hairs on his forearm prickling to attention under her fingers when her hand slipped around his wrist and pulled him to a stop.

“So?” She challenged, just shy of their front door. “I am yours.”

Killian stepped into her space and she took a step back, the cold panel of the front door shocking her and making a gasp escape her lips. He was so close he could feel her suck the breath from between them and his eyes fell to the softness of her lips, slightly parted in silent invitation of his kiss. Emma heaved a breath and Killian could feel her breasts touching his chest, hot and nipples hard, poking his skin like there was no material between them. He licked his lips, imagining them under his tongue, imagining them and so much more as his eyes shifted to the throb of her scent gland, innocently tempting him to mark her where they stood.

“Not yet,” Killian whispered huskily, his senses on high alert. He heard a door open behind them and smelled the unmistakable musk of an Alpha in rut, coaxed out of his hiding hole by the waft of an unclaimed Omega and the possibility of sating his urges. Killian’s keys were in the front door before she had time to object or even look behind him at the grunting Alpha, Emma was being pushed inside with little resistance, the door quickly locked behind them.

“Alpha?” Emma’s voice was soft and enticed Killian to look at her, feasting on her beauty like a man starved. She had taken a step back from the door, shedding her clothes without preamble, tossing them aside garment after garment until she was gloriously naked in front of him. “What you did to Graham,” she began, swaying her hips as she walked towards him.

“Don’t say his name,” Killian growled.

“How you hurt him,” she continued, ignoring his possessiveness before reaching out and taking his hand. "It got me all worked up."

Killian grinned wickedly, drinking in the sight of her with a predatory state that was further darkened when she slipped his hand between her parted thighs and slowly dragged his fingertip through the slick there. She was so wet it also coated the outside of her lips and a mournful sigh slipped from her mouth when she pressed Killian's finger against her slippery clit.

"If I'd known it would have this sort of effect on you, I'd have beat his arse long before now," Killian growled, letting her ride his fingers.

"Is this...is this…" Emma couldn't find the words she needed, rendered speechless when Killian took over the torture between her legs. His thumb stroked her clit whilst his fingertips teased her opening, the muscles contracting in an attempt to pull his finger inside, desperate to relieve the ache there.

"This is being Omega, aye," Killian finished for her. "This is how your body reacts to your Alpha," he purred, quickening his pace between her legs, the sensitive nub throbbing with every rough swipe of his thumb. Emma's hand clutched his wrist but he did not let up, stroking her in just the right way to coax a very quick, easy orgasm from her that had her gasping for breath and her knees buckling. Killian held her up, driving two stiff fingers inside of her core until slick coated his palm, his other hand stopping her from toppling with a firm grip on her lower back. "This is how your body reacts to me," he growled.

Emma felt like her insides were going to erupt from every orifice, her entire body tingling from head to toe. The orgasm had been small, ebbing away inside of her, muscles gently throbbing against Killian's fingers, but it wasn't enough. She needed more. She needed the burn and stretch of his knot, the full feeling only he could give her and the welcomed pain of their frenzied love making. When her eyes finally fluttered open, her irises a mess of arousal tinted emerald and gold flecks illuminated by her recent release, there was a ferality about her that had Killian pausing momentarily with a sly, knowing smirk.

"There you are, Omega," he praised huskily but before he had any time for any more quips, Emma was pushing against his chest, hard, and he fell backwards against the front door.

Killian barely registered the shooting pain up his spine before Emma was on him, tongue running along the seam of his lips and into his mouth for a ravenous kiss. He strained his neck to push back against her, fingernails clawing at where her clothes once were and leaving welts in their wake. Her kiss was hot and needy and everything he would expect from an Omega in heat but with the clarity and determination of a woman who knew exactly what she wanted. The thin barrier of clothing between them was too much. Emma needed his skin on hers and a ripple of lust travelled over her entire body when Killian’s hands framed her face in his hold.

“So wanton,” he teased, licking her lips. Not impressed with him breaking their kiss, Emma nipped at his bottom lip a little too hard, causing him to hiss in pain and tug it from her teeth when he wrenched his head backwards. Killian touched his lip and inspected his fingertips for blood, finding none but raising an eyebrow at her with a sinful smirk. “And so naughty,” he droned darkly.

Emma looked up at him through her lashes, leaning her entire weight against him. “Your naughty Omega,” she purred. She dragged her fingertips through the underside of his jaw, her nails catching on the scruff there and her eyes focused on the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed.

Killian surged forward and almost knocked her off her feet with his kiss, fusing his lips to hers and wrapping her up in his embrace. Emma leapt into his arms in response, wrapping her legs tightly around his waist and slipping down until the hardness of him was deliciously rubbing her clit. Killian’s hands were on her arse, kneading the fleshy globes as a way to rid himself of the frustration of desire she was causing by grinding against him, but it was futile, and the only relief he felt was when he sat her on the back of his couch and popped open his pants.

Emma giggled excitedly, raking her nails down the front of his shirt, quickly yanking the material up and helping him rid himself of it. Killian growled, the rumble vibrating through her fingertips when Emma clawed through the newly exposed chest hair before her, a hum of appreciation escaping her lips as the soft, raven coloured hair caressed her skin. Killian's muscles twitched, as did his cock, full of blood and yearning to be free and inside of the Omega so intent on suffocating him in her scent.

"What is it?" Emma noticed his hesitation, even in the split second it took Killian to furrow his brow.

"Nothing," Killian lied, letting her balance on the couch whilst he rid himself of the last remains of his clothing. He kicked them away, lest he trip over them later, and took one of her hands to move it to his cock, letting the cool tips of her fingers brush over the velvety soft shaft ever so gently. It felt like a torture but from Heaven itself, and even though he was controlling the pace, the mere thought of marking Emma has his forever would see him spilling himself in no time if he didn’t make a drastic rectification of the topic.

“Don’t lie to me,” Emma cooed, slipping her fingers between his legs where her gentle touch sent all the hairs on his thighs prickling to attention. She stroked at the skin there, inexplicably smooth compared to the rest of his body, and loved the way his cock bobbed in response and his eyes fluttered closed.

Killian gave her a half drunk stare and smirked. “I would never,” he pledged with a hand over his heart.

“Good,” Emma purred, parting her legs a little wider.

Killian watched her slip a finger through her folds before lifting the digit to her lips, slick hanging from it in an elongated droplet of viscous arousal, before she licked it with a content groan, her tongue caressing the slippery tip like it was his cock. A tiny bit fell to her chin and he was on her in a shot, cockhead bumping the inside of her slick covered thigh as his tongue darted out to lap it up, the taste of her on his tongue minute but setting his already heightened senses into overdrive.

“There is more where that came from,” Emma whispered huskily into his ear whilst he busied himself with dry humping her thigh, the slick there more than adequate to avoid the burn of friction for both of them, the tease of entering her a blinding torture Emma always welcomed with him. She cast her eyes down and he followed her gaze, dropping to his knees with her gentle pressure on his broad shoulders until he was eye level with her sex and the scent of her womanly arousal was even more a cross to bear. “Taste me, Alpha. Take what is yours.”

Killian licked his lips and hooked his arms around her upper legs, holding her steady before diving into the apex of her thighs with a feral growl. His taste buds came alive when her essence coated his tongue, sweet, juicy slick pouring from her sex in reposnse to his tongue diving into her core. He held her steady when she rocked backwards, angling her hips so she could soothe the throbbing pain in her clit by brushing it against his nose tip, an action that caused him to retreat from his salvation with a wry smirk.

“Easy, love,” he soothed darkly, skimming his hands over her behind and dragging his fingernails over her skin down to her knees. “We have all the time in the world,” he muttered against her inner thigh as he planted a kiss there.

“I want you now,” Emma sulked and attempted to drag him closer by hooking her heel into his shoulder. Killian looked up at her pouting lips with a fond smile, knowing that he would never tire of anything she did, now or ever.

“And you’ll have me,” Killian assured her, kissing one knee and then the other before spreading her leg even wider for his greedy tongue. “But not before I have you,” he droned seductively, diving back into her sex like a man starved, his hot, stiff tongue diving into her slick laden warmth once more, his eyes only leaving hers when her taste overwhelmed his senses and he had to close his eyes.

“Oh, fuck,” Emma panted in repsonse. One of her hands fisted his hair, grabbing at the darkened locks to hold him in place, having utter faith that he would hold her steady, even when her legs began to shake.

Killian only took her gasps as something to chase, like a dog after a hare, eager to hear her empty her lungs of every last breath she had, suffocating herself in desire, ready to die a thousand deaths if his tongue was how she was to go. Her bones dissolved inside of her limbs, a sudden weightlessness overtaking her and her core clenching at nothing in desperation to feel something. In honesty, she would never feel complete until his knot was filling her up, but for now the mastery of his tongue would have to do, and by the way he was giving every part of her sex his absolute fullest attentions, she was in no doubt of just how much of a master he really was.

Killian hummed in content, stopping for a moment to just take a breath before returning to the ecstasy between her thighs with a new goal in mind. The sharp intake of Emma’s breath told him he had hit the mark, his lips applying just the right amount of pressure as they closed around her clit to steal her words and render her a complete, babbling mess. He loved it. He loved the way her body reacted to him, and when it did, the way she was constantly surprised, like she was learning everything again, like she was experiencing colours or sounds for the first time, only for him to cruelly rip them away with the talents of his tongue, or his cock, and leave her quivering and unable to form anything but a smile. He loved her smile and he loved the way she smiled for him. He just loved her.

She was the finest thing he had ever tasted and he could tell just how close she was simply by the way her slick awoke every single one of his taste buds from their slumber. He didn’t even need to double his efforts, relishing in how easy it was to bring her to another orgasm that would only serve to intensify the sweetness of her slick, on which he could languishly feast on for as long as Emma’s body produced it. Everytime she came it was different and Killian savoured every last drop of her ever hungry for more, he pulled her clit between his teeth, grazing the nub with a featherlight touch that had her careening off the edge she had been balancing on.

“Ki...Killian! Oh my God, Alpha, I’m coming!” Emma screamed incoherently, her entire body quaking as euphoria ripped through her for a second time.

Killian grinned against the wetness of her, broad strokes of his tongue slurping her slick into his mouth where he swallowed it with a greedy groan. His fingernails dug into the flesh of her thighs, holding her sex against his mouth as she tried to writhe away from him, the sensitivity on her clit almost too much to bear. Emma sucked in awkward breaths, her gasps turning to laughter as she smiled much wider than she ever had before, her skin alive, every inch crying out for more of the touch Killian was so carefully denying her as she came down from the high of her orgasm.

“There’s a good girl,” Killian soothed, steadying his licks and pressing kisses to her lips until Emma’s fingers released the clump of hair she was gripping onto for dear life, stroking his soft, dark locks instead.

The praise sent a ripple of warmth spreading through her body and when Killian rose to his feet, cock hard and proud against his deliciously thatched abdomen, Emma grabbed his hips and pulled him to her until he was nestled between her still parted thighs. Killian put up little resistance, only stopping when his erection slipped between her sodden folds and her lips met his in a fiery kiss.

Emma's body reacted instantly, her stomach falling away into the nowhere of desire, her hands clutching his face to hers. Her fingernails clawed at his scruffy cheeks and the sound it made was amplified in her ears, barely audible above the sound of her own blood in her veins, but still so loud she didn't hear the growl that rumbled deep in Killian's chest. His tongue sought entrance to her mouth, skimming along the seam of her smile until access was granted, the taste of herself in his mouth sending another, new wave of slick to expel itself between her still trembling thighs.

With a cant of his hips, Killian was sliding his erection through the wetness of her folds, the head of his cock grazing her clit and making her gasp. He gobbled up her sigh, grabbing her hips and repeating his thrust just to hear the sounds she made, breath stole from her lungs with such an intimate gesture, silent and yet saying everything that Killian wanted to convey. He would go to the ends of time if it meant he could hear her mumble profanities and, most of all, his name and title, and so when it came to marking her as his forever, Killian was going to make sure she was thoroughly exhausted with pleasure.

Just how Killian could know her so well, despite hardly knowing her at all, had all become clear. An Alpha would go to Hell and back for an Omega, would even die in some cases, and Emma couldn't even imagine the turmoil Killian had felt inside thinking she was a married Beta and so confusingly addictive. Now her true nature had been revealed, and Alpha law had seen to her sorry excuse of a now ex husband, there was nothing standing in their way of eternity together. Their love was hard, and it had come fast.

"I love you," Emma breathed against his lips, a sheen of sweat sticking their foreheads together. Her breath, still ragged from two orgasms, fogged across his mouth and Emma felt his tongue touch her lips when it darted out in search of her sweet slick that now lingered on both of them.

"And I you," Killian rasped, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I'll always love you."

Emma had no words in reply, simply smiling as wide as the muscles of her face would allow.

“There’s that smile,” Killian said in awe. He traced the outline of her jaw with his fingertip, brushing his thumb over the plumpness of her lips before hooking a bent finger under her chin and tilting her head up until their eyes met once more. “You’re so beautiful, Emma,” he purred sweetly. “I am the luckiest Alpha in the world.”

“No,” Emma shook her head. “I’m the lucky one. You found me and saved me.” She watched the quirk of his mouth as his lips curved into a knowing smile, a slight blush colouring his cheeks just visible as he bowed his head. Her palm on his cheek brought him back to her and he lifted his head, grey blue hues meeting hers once more, a sly grin on her face.

“What?” He asked shyly.

“You’re so soft, Alpha,” Emma teased.

“Oh, soft am I?” Killian growled, the coarseness returning back to his voice and the dark veil of craving flooding back into his eyes.

Two firm hands slapped her thighs, pinning himself between them, before snaking his hands beneath her buttocks and hoisting her into his arms. Emma weighed next to nothing and without prompting, her legs wrapped around his waist, his still hard cock rubbing her deliciously and earning him another soft whimper. Emma clung onto his neck, loving the strength rippling under her fingers, her vision a haze as they moved through the room. Killian was sure footed in the way he moved, his destination marked out in his mind and a smirk on his face. Emma’s skin came to life under his hold, the fine, dandy hairs reaching out as her skin tightened under his digits, her anticipation silent but evident and finally quelled when Killian reached the floor to ceiling windows of his apartment and slammed her body into the cold, hard, pane.

Emma shrieked, scrambling to settle her aching skin against the glass, confident Killian would hold her aloft, and he did, until he used her slightly sweat soaked skin to his advantage and let her slide down the pane to where she was quickly impaled on his waiting erection. He buried himself to the knot bulb, toes curling against the floor in his effort, making sure Emma could feel every inch of him inside of her. The silent gasp she emitted told him that she was nowhere near sated, her inner muscles clenching and pulling at his length in an attempt to coax out his knot, something Killian staved off with a clenched jaw.

The chill on her back did nothing to quench the fire inside of her, Emma’s body instinctively reacting to his aggression, slick coating his knot bulb that threatened to slip inside of her. Emma was so wet and couldn’t feel any of her limbs. The only part of her body she could feel was her clit and it was painfully throbbing against his pubic bone as Killian held her against the glass, her only reprieve from the precipice of her impending orgasm was when he added another forceful thrust to his assault. She thought she was dying, held in the void before another orgasm by the way Killian knew her and her body so well, each cant of his hips and drag of his cock an agony she would gladly endure for the rest of her life if he promised never to stop.

The pleasurable pain of his fingernails digging into the flesh of her behind jolted her senses and Emma knew Killian could somehow sense her impending release before she could. He had tripled his efforts, changing the angle of his thrusts so that his cock rubbed her spongy core just right, the steady rhythm of before now gone and a more powerful force overtaking him. Emma cried out with each inflicting ram of his hips, her hand fisting a clump of his hair telling him she was almost there, her orgasm just out of reach, but Killian knew just how to settle her whines and pleas. He reached under her to where they were joined and stretched the apex of her already parted thighs even wider, one last pound from his entire length and just the promise of his knot bulb sending her careening into the abyss.

Emma wasn’t sure how, but her orgasm tore through her with such force she was temporarily frozen, her limbs stiffening when Killian continued to coax more slick from her by massaging her core with his determined thrusts, only slowing his assault when Emma reached the heights of her numbing pleasure and released the hold she had on his hair. Killian lifted his head, intoxicated by the now overly sweet scent of her gland, primed with temptation and dizzy from the way she sighed his title with what little air she had left in her lungs, and kissed the underside of her jaw with a tenderness he didn’t even know he could possess whilst being so close to his own release.

“Please,” Emma whined and he almost lost himself then and there.

“Please, what?” He ground out, pushing his cock inside of her impossibly deeper, his face pressed against her cheek as he inhaled the scent of her.

“Please, Alpha,” Emma begged. “I don’t think I can take it anymore.”

Killian pulled his hips back and then thrust forward with such force that all of the air left Emma’s lungs and the pane of glass she was pinned against audibly shook. He did it again and all of her insides began to tingle again, not the slightest bit recovered from her latest climax, her toes curling and her fingernails scoring lines into his back with such force, Killian could feel the rush of warmth to the lines as his skin broke and blood welled from the scratches. It spurred him on, his ferality within breaking the surface of his resolve, his head bowing and teeth scraping over the now engorged scent gland at the juncture of her neck. It called to him, Emma’s blood singing in her veins, drawing him closer still with its rhythmic thumping and making the points of his canines sharpen in anticipation of marking her.

“You smell so good, Omega,” Killian rasped, letting the point of his tooth nick her skin. “But I want more.”

“More?” Emma asked breathlessly, her core throbbing with need.

Killian pulled his cock out of her to the head and snapped his hips forward again, making her cry out and dig her heels even harder into his spine.

“The more you come, Omega,” Killian purred, licking the sweetness of her blood from her collarbone. “The better you taste.”

Emma whimpered, the darkness in his voice sending a shiver up her spine. “I can’t,” she pleaded, every single cell in her body crying out for his torture to end whilst simultaneously needing it to last forever.

“Come now, love,” Killian cooed, pausing his thrusts and brushing the sweat soaked hair from her flushed face, stroking the apple of her cheek until her eyes fluttered open to meet his. “You’ve got one more in you,” he praised with a dirty smirk. “I know you have.”

A glimmer of a smile graced Emma’s lips and melted his heart.

“See? You know it too,” he teased. Another press of his knot bulb against her sex had her gasping and her gland releasing another whiff of her heavenly scent. “And you want it, love, you can’t deny it.”

“Not here,” Emma whispered, framing his face with her shaking hands.

Their eyes locked and he saw all the last traces of the longing and hopelessness her life had been about until now disappear, and the bright spark of hope and happiness filled the space that had formed. He had done that, or at least he felt like he deserved the credit for it, helping the woman he had met become the Omega Emma was now, held aloft by the sheer will of lust alone, enticing his Alpha urges to the crest of his being. Killian might have signed Graham Humbert's contract to earn enough to live, but in finding Emma and her true nature, he had found a way to survive.

"Alright, love," Killian nodded and with a grunt of exertion he was wrapping her tightly in his arms, face buried into the swell of her gland, and making his way through the empty doorway of his bedroom.

The freshly washed bed clothes were harsh and starchy against Emma's back as Killian laid her down, letting his cock slip from her core much to both their dissatisfaction. It wasn't long before Killian was silently rearranging her until she was underneath the duvet and finding his spot right behind her, his rock hard cock still ready for its task, nudging between the crease of her buttocks as he nestled in even closer and rested his chin on her shoulder. Emma's hum of satisfaction told him he had done right, but what sort of Alpha would he be if he didn't know what truly made his Omega happy? Or how, after multiple orgasms, what could finally send her into bliss once more and finally get his knot she so eagerly desired.

"Are you comfortable?" He asked softly, the arm slung over her midriff snaking its way to her chest where he wasted no time cupping a perky breast and pulling her back flush against his chest.

"I am," Emma replied, silky smooth chest and body hair caressing her skin. “But I’m still in need of my Alpha.” She wiggled her body, arse grinding against his length, and he growled in response.

“Naughty, naughty,” he purred into the back of her ear. A hand on the jut of her hip stilled her movements whilst his knee nudged between her clenched thighs. “And what do naughty Omegas get?” He skimmed his hand from her hip down over the shape of her stomach, over her mound and between her legs, fingers slipping through the wetness of her slick that had prepared her body for what was to come. His question was met with nothing but a breathy moan and Killian wasted no time in seeking his answer, pulling back his hips and aiming his cock through her legs until he was settled between her sodden folds. “I said,” he repeated darkly. “What do naughty Omegas get, love?”

Emma sighed something incoherent that made him grin wickedly. She reached behind her and fisted his hair, the pleasurable pain prickling over his scalp just making him cant his hips more aggressively. Emma let out a squeak when the head of his cock bumped her clit and a jolt of euphoria shot through her, pooling in her lower stomach and signalling yet another impending climax, something that had Killian’s knot poking out of its sheath before he had even entered her.

“Omega,” he warned with the same blackened tone that had her coming earlier.

“The knot,” Emma sighed, grinding her soaking wet opening over the ridges of his cock, hoping beyond hope that even just the tip of him would slip inside and stretch her wide with deliciousness. “Naughty Omegas get the knot.”

Killian pressed his lips to her scent gland and his teeth ached in anticipation. “Aye, love, they do,” he hummed through his kiss.

A quick move of his hips had the angle changing so that the tip of his cock was finally slipping inside of her, slowly at first to allow her to adjust to his size, but then with a force that had stars pricking behind her eyelids and all of the air leaving her lungs once more. Killian was relentless in pursuit of her orgasm, and he knew, as he was pushing his way into her encapsulating warmth slowly, and agonizingly, that this would be her last. Marking an Omega was always easier as they came undone, the quakes and trembling of climax enough to mask the bite mark on their gland that would undoubtedly leave a scar. But it wouldn't just be a scar. Emma’s mark would tie her to him forever, a reminder that she was more precious than anything she could ever comprehend, and there wouldn’t be a single day of his life Killian wouldn’t be reminded of that by his bite mark on her skin.

With a gentle push, Killian rolled them over until Emma was laying flat on her belly and his weight was pressing her into the mattress. He pushed himself up, his muscles rippling across his back, elbows threatening to buckle when the new angle buried his cock even deeper inside of her. Emma sucked in a breath and he smirked, pushing his hips against her buttocks even harder, his knot bulb parting her cheeks when Emma pushed back against him until he could feel her slick coating his balls.

“Oh, she’s wet,” Killian purred with menacing desire. He lowered his head, brow sweat from his exertion dripping onto Emma’s back, and pressed his lips to her spine, loving the way the tiny hairs covering her skin stretched upwards for his attention. “You’re so wet, Omega. So ready for your Alpha’s knot.”

“And your mark,” Emma sighed, the word changed by a particularly forceful jab of his cock.

Killian stopped his thrusts, sucking in a breath. He’d dreamed of the words Emma had just uttered since the day he had first laid eyes on her. It seemed even his subconscious had known her true nature. Reluctantly he pulled out and sat back on his heels, encouraging Emma to roll over onto her back by gently caressing the delicate bone of her ankle.

“What’s wrong?” Emma asked breathlessly as she rolled over. “Did I do something?”

“What? No,” Killian assured her quickly with a smile. He looked down at his cock, heavy and throbbing in his hand as he stroked himself, the corner of his lips tugging into a smirk. “Does it look like you did anything wrong, love?”

A pink glow bloomed over her cheeks and she shifted her eyes. “Something I said then?”

Killian licked his lips and shook his head in assurance, falling forward and crawling up over her body. Emma welcomed his bulk, her legs falling open to accommodate him and her entire body shivering from the kisses he left over her stomach, breasts and, finally, over the scent gland on her neck.

“I assure you, my love,” he said, nuzzling the divine smelling gland. “There isn’t a single thing you could ever say to offend me in any way?” He peppered more kisses to her skin, his tongue finally licking over the sensitive, heady scented bump just above her collarbone. “Alright?”

Emma’s eyes fluttered closed and she could feel the length of him pressed to her entrance, her body begging for him to cant his hips and fill her up once more. “So, what is it? Why do you shy away from marking whenever I bring it up?”

“I don’t,” Killian whispered into the underside of her jaw as he continued his ministrations.

“You do,” Emma told him firmly but without a hint of malice. She planted her hands on his face, dragging his head up until his darkened grey eyes met hers. “Are you being soft again?”

One eyebrow jumped up on his forehead and his lips pulled into a wry grin. “You love that, don’t you?” Killian teased, nuzzling her nose before pressing his lips to hers. “Look, love, I just…”

“You won’t hurt me, Killian,” Emma interrupted him, stroking the faint line of a scar on his cheek. “You could never.”

He lifted his head again, eyes searching hers for the answer to a question he wasn’t even sure how to ask, a question he already, in fact, knew the answer to. Emma wanted him to mark her, claim her as his for as long as they both lived, but he had never actually done it before. In fact, Killian had spent most of his life actively avoiding the subject, but here, pinned beneath him, was one of the most beautiful, precious and sometimes intimidating Omegas he had ever had the pleasure of meeting. Plenty of Omegas had sought him out of the years, but none like Emma. None compared to her enchanting good looks, her sharp wit, or her winsome smile that had beguiled him the very second he had laid eyes on her in person. He wasn’t willing to jeopardize any of those things with the process of marking unless Emma was absolutely sure it was what she wanted too.

“Killian,” she prompted, shaking him from his reverie. “I want this.”

“I’m afraid,” he confessed, the words catching in his throat. “Marking is romanticized by people who’ve no knowledge of how it happens, or what happens, when, in reality, it’s quite different. I’ve never done this before. What if...what if I can’t control my nature and I hurt you? Gods, Emma, I could never forgive myself.”

“Hey,” Emma soothed, calming his rant with a palm pressed to his stubbly cheek. He swallowed hard and let her lift his bowed head until their eyes met again. “I know marking will hurt. I’m not a fool, Killian, it leaves a scar,” Emma said firmly, but her smile faded. “If you don’t want this, I’ll understand. It’s a lot to ask-”

His lips on hers cut off her words and her last connection to reality. Soft, plump, kiss bruised lips on hers made every worry fade away instantly, quickly morphing it into desire that pooled between her legs once more. Killian nudged his cock into her entrance as he kissed her, his tongue mirroring the actions of his hips, a dirty smirk spreading over his parted lips when Emma dug her fingernails into his bicep in anticipation. She was still so wet, ready and aching for the stretch of his knot, her legs unable to spread apart any wider in a silent invitation of his length. One of Killian’s hands found her breast, softly kneading the delicate peak of her nipple with the pad of his thumb until her back arched off the bed into his touch and she whimpered into his mouth. His tongue licked at the roof of her mouth because he could swear he could taste her slick there from their kiss, and his hand continued its journey down to her hip before clutching the flesh and pinning her firmly to the bed.

“I’ll be as soft as I can,” he promised against her lips, angling his hips so that his cock was inching back inside of her.

Emma gasped aloud. “You still want to mark me as your Omega?” She ground out through her pleasure.

“Love, I beat up a Humbert for the right to claim you,” Killian reminded her with a sly grin. When he was fully sheathed inside of her once again, he held fast, letting her body relax around him, the throb of blood in the walls of her core massaging his length.

“Mmmm, don’t remind me,” Emma purred coyly, grabbing his face for another fierce kiss that tested his resolve.

Killian had meant to go slow at this point; to really make sure Emma could feel every single inch of his length and his girth in the hopes she would realise just how important she was to him, and how much he loved, and would always, love her, but the instant her lips were on his the tables were turning and Emma was clenching her core muscles in a measly attempt to pull him deeper, when in reality, all it did was serve to antagonize the feral baser beast within him. The gentle hand on her hip, meant to steady her, changed, fingernails digging into her delicate flesh and scraping ruby lines across the pale surface.

“I absolutely want to claim you, Omega,” Killian growled, breaking their kiss to watch her features as he tortured her with his cock again. He pulled out, hand slipping between them to guide himself inside of her, fingers wrapped around the bulb of his knot to stop it from slipping inside her. “But first, something to relax you, my love.”

“Alright,” Emma agreed in his accent, biting her bottom lip. “You’re knot, maybe? To ease the pain?”

“As the lady wishes,” Killian purred in agreement.

Emma relaxed under his weight, the glide of his cock, coated in slick, a torturous heat that pooled in her stomach and between her thighs. Excessive slick covered her inner thighs and the bed, the languid pumps of his cock causing it to gush out of her in time with her breathy moans, hindered in their expulsion by the grip he had on her waist and his weight pushing her into the mattress. Emma could feel him everywhere, greedy kisses gobbling up her moans and roaming hands skimming over every inch of her skin leaving fire in their wake. The scent gland on her collarbone was itching, swollen and throbbing, trying to temp the Alpha into biting down, her body desperate for Killian to do so and end her agony.

“Please, Alpha,” Emma whined. “Your knot. I need it.” She raked her nails over any part of him she could reach, her vision blurry from his Alpha musk that surrounded her senses and rendered her unable to form any thought other than those of her primal Omega nature. The desire was threatening to devour her whole, and only Killian could take it away.

“Oh, you’re going to get it, Omega,” Killian growled sultrily.

His hand found his cock, his knot almost out of its sheath, and a quick tug had it completely exposed, Emma’s slick coating the straining bulb and sending a shiver up his spine. He just wanted to be inside of her entirely, the feeling of loss far too great having seen her come three times already, but not once on his knot. He wanted the tight contractions of her core around him, his body called for it, and as he slanted his lips over hers and peppered hot, open mouthed kisses down the column of her throat, he could sense her body wanted it too. Emma’s thighs began to quake and the tell tale hitch of breath told him she was close, his efforts doubling in an instant and pressing his searing hot knot to her opening in a temptation she could only beg for.

“Please,” she whimpered. “Mark me, Alpha. Make you yours.”

The sound Killian made was animalistic, the deep, reverberating rumble filling the entire room, but it wasn't enough to drown out Emma’s cries of ecstasy when, with sharpened canines and a feral snarl, Killian sank his teeth into the soft swelling of her scent gland and her whole world turned a blinding white. Her shriek was different to what Killian had ever heard, the sound of her shuddering moan something he would never forget as long as he lived. Killian pinched his eyes closed, willing the feeling to never end, and with a final, forceful thrust of his hips, his knot was pushing past the slippery opening of Emma’s sex and he was home.

Emma went stiff in his arms and the taste of blood filled his mouth, the coppery tang enhanced by the surge of scent from her gland. The beast awoke, finally freed as he’d knotted her, and in a last ditch effort to stay as soft as his Omega liked, Killian skimmed his hand up her forearm and pinned it above her head, sucking on her gland and pushing his hips even harder into her, toes scrambling against the soft sheets beneath his feet, all to make sure that there wasn’t a chance of his knot slipping out as he trembled in pleasure and followed her into euphoria. Emma’s cry was followed by a content giggle, the flesh of her cheeks warming Killian’s forehead as he released his white knuckle grip on her hip and hand, relaxing in the afterglow of their orgasms as the intense tightness that had tipped them over the edge, ebbed away.

It took everything Killian had not to collapse on top of her, instead sinking down onto his elbows and framing her with his bulk, his chest hair sticking to the sweat that shimmered across her body. His head was spinning, the intensity of her scent almost too much. It was different now. It had become indubitably sweeter somehow, the essence of her very being and everything about it reeked of a claimed Omega, but was still indescribably still Emma. With his head on her bosom, Killian inhaled her scent like it was the air he needed to breathe, the sound of her thundering heartbeat the only thing he could hear as Emma cradled his head and stroked his hair.

“My soft Alpha,” Emma soothed, his welcome weight making her smile.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Killian said softly between kisses. With every one he felt the flutter of her muscles around his knot which just prompted him to pepper her skin with more. “You’re glowing, my love.”

“You did that,” Emma said matter of factly.

Killian pushed himself up until he was towering over her again, careful not to tug at where they were joined. “I did?” He teased playfully.

“Don’t play dumb, Alpha,” Emma chided gently.

“Mmm, I like hearing that,” Killian purred, pressing his lips to her scent gland.

“That you’re dumb?” Emma chuckled.

“No, Omega.” Killian growled seductively, staring into the green abyss of her blissful post coital stare. “That you’re mine.”

#cs fic #cs au #the contract #A/B/O #a/b/o dynamics #omegaverse fic #cs fanfic #alpha!killian #omega!emma #ch 14

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ofaprilflowers · 4 years

Photo

- part 2: home? -

warnings: descriptions of injuries, not too detailed.

tags: shout out to my first-ever requested tags, @sista7-7 @softieus and @marrambles yay! Thank you for reading and sorry for the late update TT. Hope you guys enjoy :)

disclaimers: I am not a medical professional, this is all part of my imagination and totally made-up therefore is in no way accurate. If you find any part I could improve on, do tell. I would appreciate the feedback. Other than that, enjoy! <3

previous/next

It took another week for me to finally be discharged. A week of rehabilitation and physiotherapy (which Dr. Hwang said would be continued after my discharge TT). I had lost strength in my extremities and also my sense of balance. This, I found out after almost falling down right on my face when I attempted to climb out of bed for the first time. Almost, well because thankfully, he was there.

My parents had arrived the night I woke up. My mother immediately cupping my face, tears brimming in her eyes while my father just took my hand in his and smiled every time I looked his way.

It felt surreal, honestly. My family and I were close. But we were not exactly the type to be crying and holding each other, or professing our love for each other. We were the laugh-at-each-other’s-life-problems-cuz-I-had-it-worse-than-you type of family. Then again, for me it felt like I was waking up from a long nap, while for them, they didn’t know whether I would make it or not so, fair enough.

Turns out, the accident was pretty bad. My head had to be stitched up and so now there was a nasty gash above my left eye (it was definitely gonna scar but let’s not think about that right now). My arms where full of cuts and scrapes from the broken windshield. My legs and chest, badly bruised. Dr. Hwang said they had healed fairly well in the past two weeks, but I still cringed at how ugly they looked every time I caught a glimpse. He also mentioned that I was lucky not to have sustained any other serious injuries other than my head trauma. I was grateful of course, but losing my memory was deleterious enough.

I woke up every morning feeling confused as to why the heck I was at a hospital and it took a few groggy minutes to remember. Sometimes it took seeing Jaehyun- either curled up asleep on the armchair or standing next to the window with a cup of coffee in hand- for me to come crashing back into reality.

I learnt through my mother- who had attempted to fit the past 2 weeks of my unconsciousness along with the last 6 years into a 2 day crash-course- that Jaehyun was the only one who stayed at the hospital every day and night. My mother had stayed the first week, as my condition stabilised however, she opted to visiting daily. That also depended on whether my father was available to drive her 45 minutes to the hospital from home. You see, my parents were rational people, but I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of hurt. I mean I was laying unconscious on a hospital bed yet there were still other important stuff to be handled. Well, as they say, life goes on, right? Kind of made me think if I had just hallucinated the tears brimming in her eyes the other day.

While my mother would babble on about looking on the bright side and starting my life again, Jaehyun’s presence was like having a burden be lifted. I know I’ve lived most of our “acquaintence-ship” hating him, but I made a mental note to properly thank him for this in particular. On every occasion that my head felt like it was about to burst from the overwhelming information my mother was flooding me with, he’d interject, naturally bringing her focus to something other than trying to piece me back together. Often times he’d ask her to join him for a cup of coffee, or show her things he was currently working on. I’d close my eyes then and pretend to fall asleep.

“So, you’re saying, I should continue my life ‘as normal as possible’. Meaning?” We (the doctor and I) were currently in his office. By tomorrow morning I was finally leaving. Goodbye to the sanitary, boring hospital, hello to......well, life?

The doctor had explained all the procedures and follow-up appointments that were to come. Both to Jaehyun and I. Then, we talked about going home and that’s when I realised, home had changed. I don’t know how we had avoided addressing it, or maybe I was the only one in denial of it. I mean throughout the week after regaining consciousness, although Jaehyun was there, we barely talked. Mostly because I became a selective mute, and he, well I guess he was respecting my space?

Dr. Hwang had noticed the awkward silence that had passed after he mentioned about going home and quickly changed the subject, calling in a nurse to guide Jaehyun in signing my discharge papers or something. After he left, the doctor didn’t hesitate in putting on what I call his “uncle-face”.

“As normal as possible, meaning that it’s better if you return to your daily routines prior to the accident,” he explained for the nth time.

I fidgeted in my seat. “But, wouldn’t that cause me more distress? It’s a life a barely know.” “Astrid,” he began, straightening his back. “I understand how hard it my be for you to wrap you head around all this. 6 years is a lot. But it is your life. Your experiences and memories throughout that period were real, and you deserve to remember them. You need to give your life a chance.”

Well, damn. He had a point. He should’ve been a therapist instead.

“And, what if my memories don’t come back?” I prodded.

“Well then, at least maybe you’ll learn more about yourself.” Okay, then. Here we go, Astrid.

We live in a loft?!?!

Pretty sure my eyes were bulging out of my head but wow.

Eyes wandering around the space, I tried to take in everything at once. This was certainly NOT what I had expected. This can’t be real right? I must absolutely be dreaming.

“Welcome...home?” Jaehyun said.

My head snapped in his direction, mouth agape. He smiled sheepishly, his infamous dimples popping out, his hands tucked into his jean pockets, his shoulders lifted briefly. He looked like a child, shyly presenting to the world his greatest creation. I almost smiled. Almost.

“You like it?” he asked.

I scoffed. “For real?”

My eyes turned back to the space he had referred to as home. Well, it didn’t feel like home (yet. Remember Astrid we’re giving this a chance), but yes, I absolutely love it!

I took in my surroundings again and this time, couldn’t help the smile that crept up my cheeks.

The space was gorgeous. It was big, but not huge. It was small, but not tiny. It was spacious enough to have everything and more. There was an L-shaped sofa that could probably fit 5 or maybe even 7 people if squeezed in together. There were even 2 more smaller ones in front of it. Perfect for a small gathering. Opposite the living room was a kitchen, with a small kitchen island. God, I’ve always dreamed of having an island. There was another floor and at the stairs leading up to it were ceiling-high windows with a bumped-out seat, all set with pillows on one end and potted plants on the other. It looked like the perfect spot to read or stargaze at night. I walked into the living room, the brick walls were covered in framed movie posters and artwork, some smaller frames containing pictures which I guessed were probably a collection of memories.

I stepped closer and caught a glimpse of some familiar faces in unfamiliar settings. One photo caught my eye. It was a photo I remember, taken earlier this ye- I mean well, early 2017, right after graduation. I was sandwiched between Jungwoo and Ten, holding up a peace sign to the camera. Jaehyun on Jungwoo’s other side, hand around the latter’s shoulders. Others in the picture smiling widely, so many poses, so many expressions. Literally, it felt like yesterday.

“You remember that?” Jaehyun probed.

I smiled. “Yeah, just a couple weeks before Taeil’s birthday bash, right?”

Then, something flickered in my mind. Of Jaehyun, smirking at a table with his friends, of them exchanging words and laughter, of me hearing something I probably shouldn’t have. Jaehyun had many circles of friends, being the typical extroverted, super-friendly campus sweetheart. This circle was one I wasn’t quite familiar with, least to say I didn’t really like them. I felt my cheeks heat up as my blood boiled at the thought of that memory.

“You wanna see upstairs?” Jaehyun’s voice pulled me back into reality. I turned to look at him. He was standing right next to me, looking almost exactly the same as the Jaehyun I knew. The Jaehyun that I couldn’t stand being in the same room with. The Jaehyun that always had a competitive, mischievous glint in his eye. The Jaehyun that would take every chance he got to argue with everything I said. The Jaehyun that made me feel like I had to defend everything I had.

There was a slight difference, though. The competitive, mischievous glint was somehow...softer. It made me confused, because I was angry, but looking at him now, I don’t know who to be angrier at. Me, or him?

“Ummm, I think, I just- I just wanna lie down,” I tore my eyes away from him and took a step back, putting just a little more distance between him and I.

I saw his fists clench and unclench a bit at his sides. A moment passed until he said, “Yeah. Sure,” walking back towards the doors he picked up my hospital bag and gestured towards a room behind him.

“This is actually, um, our bedroom, but don’t worry, I’ve moved most of my stuff upstairs so this space is all yours,” dropping the bags on the bed, he stepped aside to allow me in. It was a beautiful room, with slanted windows, decorated with some more plants.

“So, feel free to look around, get used to the place and all. Oh yeah, um, this is the bathroom,” he opened a door on the left of the room, then gestured toward a closet in front of the bed, “Your pyjamas are in the top drawer and, uh, well, um, everything else is-”

“I’ll take a look,” I smiled at him briefly.

His eyes landed on mine for a moment, then quickly looked away.

“Yeah, okay, so um, I’ll be outside, if you need anything just, um,” his hands, one scratching at the back of his neck, the other gesturing undecidedly, “yeah.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay,” he replied. He stood there for a second, then turned to leave the room.

“Jeahyun?”

“Hmm?” he snapped his head towards me, eyebrows lifted in question.

“Thank you,” I breathed.

I saw a bit of tension leave his body. “You don’t need to thank me, Astrid,” he replied softly. “This is- this is your home too.” With a tight-lipped smile, he closed the door behind him.

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toastedbuckwheat · 5 years

Note

Hello! May I ask how you draw? I'm currently learning how to myself and would be highly interested into a step to step process by you! Like from sketch to the done thing (no color necessary)

Hello there!

I dunno how I feel about showing how I work/giving advice to someone who’s learning (and I say it as a pro artist who went through years of traditional art education) because when I do the illustrations you see here on my tumblr I BREAK THE RULES you’d learn though life drawing routine, and give in to bad habits, and my methods are rather unplanned and chaotic which makes it difficult to pinpoint significant stages. But I used my portable potato to take some photos during working on my last piece, so I’ll throw it here with a bit of an explanation of what’s going on.

Before I begin - and because you’re about to look at a mess of a WIP - I’d like to give you some general advice that generally makes life easier when you draw (again, things that I learned in traditional arts education - another artist might advise you the complete opposite, dunno!)

Work holistically. Forget them satisfying-to-look-at clips on instagram showing someone produce a hyperrealistic portrait starting from an eye, with each and every element emerging being finished before they proceed to another part. It takes a lot of talent, yes, but these are ppl redrawing a photo in a kind of a mechanical manner. Most artists don’t work this way. Especially if you’re working without a reference, or if you’re doing a life drawing - your process will be layering and changing and finding what works best to give an impression of what you’re drawing rather than reproduce the exact image, and your artwork is likely to look messy most of the time.That said: don’t start with the details. Don’t spend too much time on a particular part while neglecting others. Your goal is to keep the whole piece at the same level of ‘finished’ (even though it’s unfinished - do I make sense?) before you’re confident that everything is where it should be and proceed to the details. So sketch out the composition first. See how things fit, what’s the dynamics. You’ll save yourself from limbs sticking out from the frame, odd proportions etc etc.

Because it’s a game of relationships between different parts of the picture/scene. I ask you not to worry about finishing a single element before laying out the rest because you’ll find that said element will look different once the other part appears! For instance - you might think that the colour you picked for a character’s hair is already very dark. But once you’re done with the night sky background, you’ll find that it’s in fact too light, and doesn’t work well with the cold palette. You’ll have to revisit different parts of the image as you go to balance these relationships and make the picture work as a whole.

Give an impression of something being there without actually drawing it ‘properly’- because details are hard, mate. You’ll see that my lineart usually has hardly any, and my colouring is large unrefined stains, but the finished thing looks convincing. Like, fuck, I can never focus on how Crowley’s eyes are really shaped. So I just turn them into large glowing yellow ellipses crossed by a line, and heard no protests so far.

Don’t panic if you messed up (you probably didn’t anyway). It might turn out to be a completely unnoticeable mistake - because, remember, things work together to balance each other, so another finished off prominent element will probably drown that badly placed line that looked so visible and out of place a second ago.

It might not look good before it’s finished. I’m mostly immune to it after years of drawing, and my recent illustrations all follow a specific method (ykno, my sunset glow effects and all that) so I can kinda predict the next stage. But I do my linearts on a specially picked crap paper, I don’t bother erasing the smudged graphite, and it looks messy af until I make the background white in Photoshop. Conclusion: you might have a moment of doubt as you work through a piece, but try to break through it - I often suddenly start to like what I cursed a minute before! - and try to finish it even if it’s meant to be bad. This way, looking through your past pieces, you’ll see the progress. And trust me, I can’t even look at my art from literally three months ago. It’s normal.

Now, pics! The sketches are paler in real life, but I increased the contrast a little so you can see something.

1. Laying out the composition!

I wanted to just show them kissing, but I got carried away due to some Art Nouveau inspiration. As you might have noticed, most of my illustrations are quite self-contained (ykno - they look like a sticker on a plain background). So I wanted a tight swirl bordered by Aziraphale’s wings creating a sort of rounded, yin-yang like bubble around them. Consequently I made the whole composition revolve around their heads.

2. Adding more details to the sketch. It’s messy af. It will be messy until I’m done. It’s fine.

3. These are the fineliners I use for the linearts! They are made by Uni-ball and come in light and dark grey. I also sometimes use the guy on the left - ‘Touch’ sign pen by Pentel, when I want more brush-like, wider strokes. I work in grey because when I scan it and do my usual boring trick with sunlight highlights - which is an Overlay mode layer in Photoshop - the highlights ‘burn out’ the lines too and make them vanish a little, and the lighting effect gets more striking. I also like to use the light grey ones to make something look pencil-y without actually using pencil, because pencil fucking smudges.

4. It smudges! So because I am right handed, I start inking from the right hand side, no matter how tempted I am to do their faces first.

5. You can see the composition directions here. I made it intuitively, but ofc some ppl actually use grids etc to lay out their drawings.

6. See how pale ans thin the lineart was at first? I kept adjusting it as new inked parts were appearing. It starts to look nice and consistent now!

7. Finished lineart? There are some mistakes which I later corrected in PS. Notice that Aziraphale’s face has hardly any details on it - I tried to make the drawing suggest his expression rather than risk overdoing it.

8. Photoshop time!! You can totally do what I did here even if you don’t have a graphic tablet. I used Curves tool to enhance the lineart, then Quick Selection Tool to select the background around around my sticker-like piece and filled it white (on a new layer ofc). I keep this white layer on top of the layer order so it works as a mask as I colour. I decided I did not like the hatching shading underneath Aziraphale’s halo, so I erased it with a Stamp tool (because I wanna keep the textured grey fill my crap paper naturally gives me!). It’s done roughly but won’t be visible once the thing is coloured.

9. And the reason why I keep the grey shade instead of easily getting rid of it by using Curves/Levels is because when I set this layer to Multiply mode and colour underneath, it gives me this nice desaturated look like from an old cheap paper comic page. It works as a natural filter! But of course I can’t do bright colours this way, so all my glowing highlights happen ABOVE the lineart layer - on a separate layer in Overlay mode!

Finished thing here!

_____

Commission infoBuy Me a Coffee - help me with my transitioning expenses!Prints and stickers and things on my Redbubble!

#ask the buckwheat #long post #tutorial #drawing advice #drawing tutorial #good omens #ineffable husbands #good omens fanart #good omens art #my illustrations #doodles #toastedbuckwheat

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snkpolls · 4 years

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SnK Chapter 130 Results

The chapter poll closed with 1775 responses. This month’s poll results were brought to you by u/staraves, Crunchwrap, Luna, Momtaku and Giovata! Thank you to everyone for your support!

RATE THE CHAPTER

Maybe it was finally getting Eren’s POV, or maybe it was finally seeing the rumbling in nine glorious double page spreads. Either way “Dawn for Humanity” was very well received with close to 70% giving it the highest possible rating, marking this the most acclaimed chapter since chapter 123.

Beautifully drawn and written. I like the teasing of Eren's PoV

Good to see some Eren and Historia (finally!!) but the lack of answers is really hurting my heart, cmon yama!!

Epic chapter, amazing artwork. And astonishingly, with 5-6-7 chapters left i still don't know where this is going.

Definitely in my top ten best chapters. The ending was gloriously horrifying to read. Also, we finally got some Historia content, which is a big plus.

Cool as hell chapter.

I feel like this chapter wasn’t that great. It kind of gave way to more speculation without giving many concrete answers. The things that it DID answer felt like stating the obvious.

Tease me more, daddy Isayama

This chapter most likely is the best i've ever seen. So many answers and sooo many questions left behind. This chapter directs us to think about the previous chapters and obviously ISAYAMA'S THOUGHTS. That thing makes me happy. I'm very grateful.

Death is on its way, ladies and gents. Also the end is almost here. What the fuck is going on? I just want some answers about E V E R Y T H I N G (especially about Eren's psyche).

Is there a singular word for the feeling of a mosquito bite?

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOMENT?

“The revelation of Eren’s freaky final boss form” was our favorite moment (22.7%) followed by “Eren’s POV finally! Sort of?” (15.8%) and “The rumbling! At last!” (13.4%). “Historia and Eren’s tense discussion on the farm” came in fourth (11.6%).

Fuck yes! Erens back!

Our Queen has finally returned!

The whole chapter was building up to the reveal of Eren's titan form, and I enjoyed it.

Finally back at our one and only true hero Eren.

SWIMMER TITANS ARE NOW THE GOLD MEDALIST FOR THE SWIMMING CATEGORY IN OLYMPICS 2020 special edition

FINNALY HISU POV, even if it’s just a flashback. Honestly I’m just happy to see her again, becuase she’s my favorite character, and even if the flashback gives more questions than answers.

loved zeke-eren bro talk

everyone who thought that Floch was lying in charter 125 are 🤡🤡🤡

reiner tiddies

WHO WAS THIS CHAPTER'S MVP?

“The colossal synchronized swim team” made an impressive showing (28.5%) but their majestic moves across the ocean were not enough to topple Eren (53.6%) for chapter MVP. Historia (8.1%), Zeke (5%), and Annie (3.5%) also received some love.

EREN IS THE GOAT

Eren is the worst boy in the world.

EREN JAEGER GENOCIDAL MANIAC

I really missed Historia, so it was nice to see her.

can the rumbling start a synchronized aquatic dance?

WHAT DOES THE CHAPTER TITLE "DAWN FOR HUMANITY" REFER TO?

I thought of it as some sort of "End of the world" titling.

Dunno; but it doesn't really work if the rest of the world gets rumbled, does it?

I want to see the japanese title to decide

Eren wants to kill “animals” to give a new life to “humanity”

A dawn, or a beginning of a new day, has arrived. Whether this new day is a good or a bad one for humanity, we do not yet know. Everything is still possible, but once this day is over, the world as we know it is no longer here, for better or worse.

A new age for humanity is incoming. The story will end as a tragedy with Eren achieving his goal.

Dawn means the start of the day. So I think the start of the rumbling will be the start of humanity for this world. I think we started to see this with the world fleet being there to try stop eren. I believe every country is helping people flee regardless of race. Maybe I'm just too idealistic.

Ce chapitre fait reference au fait qu’eren est pret a tout pour sauver ses amis

Eren will achieve his goal (end the cycle of hatred)

Hope for humanity outside the walls. Dawn for me is something like hope, even if today was a bad day, tomorrow, after dawn, things might get better. Maybe the Warriors-Paradis alliance will somehow reach Eren and stop the Rumbling?

dunno but got the vibes of ‘it’s darkest before the dawn’ might be a tip for a change coming

Eren has now officially started eradicating the world and also it's dark ideas against people on paradise and conquering freedom for his people and that is why this moment onwards is "the dawn of humanity "

Dawn for Eldians to be exact. Dusk for Marleyans.

Finally defeating Eren, ending the curse of Ymir and freeing everyone from the shadow of Titan powers.

Dawn of Terror? Dawn of "What The FUCK Is That??" Dawning that the remaining places of humanity are to be trampled?

It could refer to a ""dawn"" for the alliance, who intend for neither side of the conflict to be eradicated, as they believe everyone is part of ""humanity"". Despite their deliberation at the beginning of the chapter, the fact that they're finally setting sail to stop Eren is testament that they've not lost their hope in the pursuit of this ideal, hence they can be interpreted to be the ""dawn"".

Eldians in Paradis Island being free from the wrath of outsiders and being avenged

I think it refers to a new beginning a new start for the eldians living on the island or it can be used as an ironic way that the humanity outside the walls is going to end so it's complete destruction hence the beginning of the new cycle

The Rumbling & Historia's child, humanity's destruction and its rebirth

Continuation of "End's Eve" as this is the dawn of the day where humanity fights for its continued existence

"Dawn" refers to Humanity's realisation of many things. Eg: how Eldia is not a weak nation, how the Rumbling wasn't a lie, how people are people and they are all the same - wanting to live and shedding the same blood no matter what nationality they have. "Humanity" refers to those still alive and realizing these things.

Dawn of the final day - 24 hours remain

WHAT ARE THE FUTURE IMPLICATIONS OF ANNIE DECIDING SHE'S TIRED OF FIGHTING AND NO LONGER WANTS TO STOP EREN?

Despite learning that her hometown is doomed, just over half of respondents feel confident Annie will stay the course and continue to work with the alliance. Among the rest of responses, 27.4% think this will trigger Annie’s exodus, selecting “Annie will leave the alliance and try to be with her father,” 16.9% believe this will cause Annie to do something stupid resulting in her death, and lastly 4% of the fandom believe this bad news will trigger Annie’s homicidal instincts causing her to switch sides and join Eren.

Annie saying she didn't want to have to be prepared to fight mikasa, Connie, armin, jean, Reiner and eren again made me feel sad for her ;-;

I just wanna say that it wouldn't make any sense for Isayana to bring Annie back and then write her out so it's obvious she will continue in the alliance lol (but I don't really agree with any of the options offered, I think she will decide by herself to stay)

Poor Annie's breakdown made me feel terrible for her. I still think she wants to leave but I think there are chances of the Warriors and/or Armin convincing her to stay and fight. As one of the nine shifters, she kinda has the responsibility to fight, even if she doesn't want to, and I get completely why she doesn't want to, poor thing. I have a sneaky suspicion that she might choose Porco's way out and we might yet see a new holder of the Female Titan power. :(

WHAT WILL BE THE FATES OF THE ELDIANS IN LIBERIO, SPECIFICALLY THE WARRIORS' FAMILIES?

When asked about the residents of Liberio and the fate of the Warriors’ families, a combined 58% believe that they are alive for the moment selecting that they were evacuated (39.3%) or else managed to escape (18.4%). Close to 30% aren’t so optimistic, believing Liberio is flattened and they are dead. We also had plenty of write in responses:

They are going to die, but I can see Annie meeting her father and die together in each others arm by the rumbling. It's sad I know, but it would be a fitting end for both of them :(

They are probably arrive. Either they overcame the Marleyan authorities that tried to surpress, or The Rumbling avoided Liberio entirely. I just doubt they would kill off Mr. Leonhardt offscreen.

They may have started to fight the Marleyans and then ended up flattened by the titans since they didn't escape earlier.

They took a ship to the south and we will meet them including Reiner's family and Mr. Leonhart.

Am I supposed to feel sorry for these people? I don't. The Warriors don't deserve happy endings for everything they have done.

Bands of survivors have made it out but Annie will meet her dad when he is dead or dying

some died while revolting, some are alive, annie's dad is wounded

They're currently fineish because Eren didn't go where Hange was expecting, hence why all their estimations have been off

I mean, they must be alive somehow. It seemed that there were only soldiers in Liberio and the others evacuated so I'm hopeful that at least Annie's father survived

I want to have hope ;-;

I just want Annie to see her father again, and for Reiner to get what he wants.

What if the city Eren attacked isn't Liberio? I feel like it's too important to be flattened just like that (thematical resonance + too many side-characters like Eren's own grandfather are there) and we're being misled about the place Eren is attacking.

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT HISTORIA'S STANCE ON THE RUMBLING?

Many of us had expectations about Historia going into this chapter. Her initially disagreeing outright with the rumbling but seemingly giving in was a surprise to 8.4% who thought she would have been all for it all along, and 19.9% who never expected her to agree with it at all. 6.4% of you expected her to do the opposite of what is implied, with agreeing at first but changing her mind in the conversation, while 23.3% reported expecting the exact turn of events. However, a huge 41.5% of you aren’t taking everything at face value and do not believe Historia does or has ever supported the rumbling.

DO YOU BELIEVE EREN IS THE FATHER?

After almost 2 years of the fandom fighting over the identity of Historia’s baby daddy, this chapter has finally definitively proven that… we still know nothing. Nonetheless, the narrowly winning belief (37%) is that Eren is the father, closely followed by those who believe he is not the father (34.4%). Some are unsure what to make of the situation (18.2%), and some of you don’t care enough to speculate (10.4%).

there is a TON of hints, him being the father makes prefect sense.

i will bet on my freedom that eren is the father

Historia x Eren ftw!

Eren being the father would be the most meaningful for both the story, as well as for Eren and Historia and their chemistry together if you ask me, though I can accept otherwise.

Whoever disagrees eren is the father doesn't read the manga seriously

I have not any positive thoughts about Eren-Historia's flashback. Just pain, I feel pain for her. I don't get the point to destroy her character like that.

I really hope Eren isn’t the father — it just doesn’t seem right.

I don't believe Eren is the father since it will contradict what he said to Zeke: "I'm only left with 4 years"

Sorry shippers, I don't think we'll ever get a straight answer about who's the father. But I kinda prefer it that way, because then we'll each get to decide what we thinks is correct.

IF YOU DONT STOP THIS I WANNA MAKE BABIES WITH YOU

Still don't care about who's the father

Who is the father?

HOW HAVE YOUR FEELINGS ON THIS CHANGED DUE TO THIS CHAPTER?

35% went into the chapter thinking Eren was not the father and 30% believing he was, with this chapter doing nothing to change their minds. For those who were affected, this chapter influenced 14.2% to join the team #DaddyEren and 5.6% to burn their membership card. The remaining 15% don’t care enough to speculate.

If Eren is the father, I think it's possible Historia wanted his baby to keep a part of him with her after the rumbling is over, or perhaps it was an attempt to make him want to come back when he's done or even not commit genocide.

why does everyone keep saying Eren is the Father confirmed? There is literally no evidence to support that, and it actually contradicts Erens statement when Zeke discusses Mikasas feelings towards him.

I just want Eren to be the father

Historia's pregnancy smacks of her own plan but I'm not sure Eren is on board with it.

I want confirmation on the father cause if it's not eren ima be pissed off

don't care who the father is, whole world is ending.

I can't stand the mystery surrounding Historia's pregnancy anymore, this is worse than serum bowl.

WHO THE FUCK IS THE FATHER

SO THEN WHAT'S THE REAL DEAL WITH HISTORIA'S PREGNANCY?

“What’s the deal with Historia’s pregnancy?” Jerry Seinfeld asks. But we cannot answer – we can only sustain ourselves on memes and ship wars. Despite Eren and Historia’s somewhat uneasy conversation, a solid third of you are still pretty sure that Eren is the baby’s father. A little over a fifth of you think she did the dirty with Farmer-kun instead. And another fifth is convinced something else is going on (watermelon baby?), but aren’t sure what. Some of you scream to the sky, sick of all the drama. And a few of you wouldn’t rule out a baby created through PATHS. It might be Ymir’s doing! No, not that Ymir. THAT Ymir.

Historia is playing 5d chess I just know it. I just don't know how yet

Why'd Historia act like that if Eren wasn't the father?

ymir is the father

Eren has to be the father for the good dev of eren & historia characters

I really hope the pregnancy thing is just a red herring, but it wouldn't be the first-time Isayama appealed to fan-service if not.

If I see more speculation on whether Eren is the father I'm gonna puke. I mean how about focus on the real story? Like how the world is about to be destroyed??

We need more Historia. We literally need her POV for the story to make sense right now. I can't believe that with ""5% of the plot"" left Isayama is *still* pulling this all this time? There *has* to be more.

I always knew Mikasa was the father

WHY DO YOU THINK HISTORIA IS PROPOSING A PREGNANCY?

Despite a majority of respondents believing the pregnancy is authentic, there is no consensus as to why Historia would propose it. The most popular answer when asked was “I don’t know” (32.2%). The remainder of the fandom is split between Historia proposing the pregnancy in support of Eren (23.1%), as part of an alternative plan (21%) or as an act of defiance against Eren (17.6%). Only a small percentage (6.1%) believe she actually wants a child.

What the hell is the pregnancy for? It doesnt make any sense for Historia to suggest that all of a sudden

How did getting eren and historia's conversation make things more confusing😔Like what went through historia's mind when she thought of having a baby i-

What if the "what if I have a child" scene with Historia actually happened EARLIER than the rest of the conversation? It would explain why they switched places, and if Eren really is the father, would explain why he feels he has such a say in Historia's child's future ("even if you agree, I don't" ) , and why when he spoke about the MPs he said "WE have two options: fight or run". It would also give him a motivation to oppose his friends, since they are trying to stop him.

I don't see his conversation with Historia in romantic light. She was scared of him and Eren was trying to manipulate her with her own words about being ""the worst girl on the world"". We still miss some important parts of their conversation, but if she agreed to help him because he reminded her how ""the worst girl"" she was, then I would be very disappointed. I saw her as strong woman and I hope she will not turn to be a mild sheep who isn't brave enough to follow Ymir's wish and ""live her life with pride"" (or ""live sticking her chest out"").

I have no idea for which purpose Historia want to become pregnant, but I'm glad that I was right that she decide it for herself and doesn't get forced at all!

Historia has a trick up her sleeve and I can't wait to see what it is.

WE LEARNED WHAT ZEKE REALLY TOLD EREN ABOUT THE ACKERBOND. ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH EVERYTHING WE HAVE LEARNED ABOUT THE ACKERMAN CLAN?

75% of the fandom wants more resolution to the Ackermysteries with 38.4% wanting MOAR and 32.3% wanting at least a little more. Only 22.3% are satisfied with the ackercrumbs we’ve been tossed and 7% have no opinion.

love guru zook

ackerman bond means LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!! sweet for all ackerman related shippers ohhhh

I'm satisfied to see yet another example of people trying to pin eren's BS onto zeke (with the ackerman theories) be proven completely wrong

Mikasa's charachter wouldve been a lot more interesting if her ackerman genes had an effect on her decision making and her trying to overcome them would be a lot more intriguing to see. Instead it turned out to be some lovey dovey pancake bullshit. I mean what would Zeke even know about Mikasa??

WHAT IS UP WITH HISTORIAS PREGNANCY AND ACKERMANS BLOOD AHHHHH

I think the fact that the Ackermans can access the Paths without being shifters is going to be super relevant. My pet theory is that Mikasa will be able to cross into the Paths dimension to kill Eren and truly free Ymir Fritz, but let's see how that goes.

HOW ACCURATE WAS ZEKE'S ASSESSMENT OF MIKASA'S FEELINGS TOWARD EREN?

One of the few areas of agreement in this chapter was with Zeke’s assessment of Mikasa’s feelings towards Eren. Close to 80% think that despite having never met Mikasa in person, Zeke correctly understands that Mikasa’s concern for Eren has little to do with genetics and everything to do with reasons of the heart. However, the majority of people who took the option of writing in their answer cited both as a factor in Mikasa’s bond.

Eren, when your sadistic and bloodthirsty big bro can see how much Mikasa loves you, you probably should take it seriously lol

Zeke. Is. Big. Bro

He's a lying liar who lies.

usually when panels sway to the right, they are true, so I believe this is the case.

Did anybody honestly not already know this? We learned nothing new from this as far as I'm concerned.

Mikasa really cares for Eren but the Ackerman genes amplify her love for him.

Everybody's emotional attachments have some basis in biology. It doesn't make them any less real or meaningful

we learn Zeke ships eremika 🤔unexpected but naice

The ackerman blood does boost her physical abilities but i believe it doesn't affect her mentally (she probably has ptsd and seperation anxiety)

What is between Eren and Mikasa?There is something we still Dont know.I wish for more Mikasa....

I think the bond itself is clearly related to her trauma but the intensity of it probably has more to do with her Ackerman genes

Both ? Even tho Ackerman genes could have a big part in it

I think Mikasa loves Eren but it's not JUST romantic or JUST familial.

Her devotion is strong on its own- but her Ackerman abilities definitely have played a role in her saving his ass all these years.

Very accurate, he is Love Master Zook.

Only a fool believe that shit regarding Ackerman bonds and so on. [...] The hate speech I believe is some kind of Eren pathetic attempt to release her of her feelings towards himself, just in case the worst scenario is coming up in not too far future.

The Ackerman instincts amplified her love towards Eren.

Zeke was right [...] As much as Mikasa being ready to snap titans necks in two for Eren is due to her love for him, Eren being willing to go through with a world genocide to prevent Historia's sacrifice definitely results from his love for her.

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT THE PLACEMENT OF FLASHBACKS DURING THIS CHAPTER?

The majority of the fandom really enjoyed the inception-like flashbacks, but 1/5th just found it confusing as all hell. A sixth of the fandom is just fed up with Isayama blue-balling us. We’ve been in this relationship 10+ years, Yams, it’s time for you to give it up!

Loved the interwoven flashbacks, and made sense considering a lot of the "unknown" conversations(Eren with Yelena, Floch, Historia....) all tie into each other. Made sense to them like this, and plus there is still some mystery from his talk with Historia.

E-H convo should've been shown months ago; now is not the time for flashbacks.

Just Yams trolling the shippers

The confusing flashbacks also reflect Eren's state of mind. The placement was well done.

I don't mind it, but i feel Isayama was, to a certain degree, struggling to work all of this information organically into the story, so he was forced to choose this flashback method to get it out there.

The juxtaposition is very purposeful, while I don’t necessarily like what it implies, it is indeed impactful.

The way the flashbacks were placed would look amazing in the anime, but in manga format it looks a lot more confusing!

People might say this is Isayama being mysterious and showing us everything but revealing nothing as he always does, and yeah and if this was 10 chapters ago I might see that as a positive, but this late into the series it feels like it was just a waste of a chapter.

They were good because they connected with each-other; though I had to reread the chapter several times to distinguish who was talking because it flipped so much.

These kinds of chapters are slightly annoying in the moment, but are more than worth it in the long run.

The Historia flashbacks are confusing af

WHAT IS THE MEANING BEHIND EREN IMPLYING HE "WANTED THIS", REGARDING THE FUTURE OF THE RUMBLING?

Continuing Eren’s ongoing theme of the question of free will and determinism, this chapter presented us with the possibility that Eren wanted everything that has happened from the start. Depending on your interpretation, of course. The majority of respondents to this question (54.7%) believe that Eren has been convincing himself there was no other possible future due to seeing said future play out in front of his very eyes, and 17.1% somewhat similarly believe Eren did not want this in the conventional sense, and he is an unreliable narrator. A smaller 12% believe this is confirmation that Eren’s vengeful nature caused this, closely followed by 9.5% of you who just think he is a lunatic.

Despite him talking as if this future was fated to happen he still seems aware enough that his own decisions still led to this outcome. From his perspective all of this was meant to happen because he already saw his future memories, but he doesnt deny that the path he took was still by his own will.

Eren said from the start he would, "destroy them all." He hated being a slave. I think he *does want this. He wants whatever will guarantee freedom.

Both future can't be changed AND Eren is a fucking lunatic

Even if the future could be changed Eren preferred the full rumbling

He literally had no option from the very beginning , his actions is definitely justified .

it's probably all the attack titan's will, not his.

he's trying to fool himself into thinking he never changed

Eren has accepted that the future cannot be changed, and has realized that the unchangeable future is the future that he has always wanted

Eren is so close-minded & immature

I've given up trying to understand Eren's logic. It's just too bizarre. I will wait until the story is finished to form any opinion about him.

Eren was bored in his original universe and wanted humanity to have a threat so he made the aot universe via Ymir and became that threat himself.

Even if a significant part of Eren wants to eradicate his enemies out of rage/revenge, really deep down it’s been shown he wishes there was another solution but right now he doesn’t want to admit he’s surrendered to his destiny. So Isayama’s going to come back to this by having Eren admit to himself he isn’t really free/this isn't what he wants, which will be the culmination of his character arc (what will he do then?…).

Eren kinda forgot about the mothers

THIS BURST OF PANELS SHOWS A VARIETY OF SCENES FROM EREN'S POV, BUT SOME SCENES APPEAR TO BE FROM A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE OR ENTIRELY NEW SCENES. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Nearly 45% of the people who voted, thought it was a deus ex machina move from Founding Titan by Proxy, which granted Eren a glimpse at all Eldians’ memories. Almost a third think that Eren was actually able to control their memories. 14% of all voters are just “wtf…? I dunno” at all the Pathsnanigans.

I don't know and I don't like it. Hope it isn't another pathsfuckery while all I want in life is KRUEGER'S POV.

Eren's path shit also implies the story has always been bending to that moment too. From the pigs, to even Dina from that Bert shard. If it's ever revealed he orchestrated Carla's death to stimulate Grisha and Eren's hatred, the whole demonisation of RBA gets turned on his head.

I don't like the idea that Eren controlled the Smiling Titan but it's starting to feel more and more likely...

The second one except it WILL come up again cause it’s fucking Isayama like tf do you expect lmao

The new POV scenes are definitely intentional but I hope the explanation isn't some magical PATHS stuff where he orchestrated characters (like Dina's) actions or is suddenly an all-seeing almighty being. Grisha was enough pls.

DUDE, THIS MEANS THAT BIRD HAS P A T H S!

dumb answer choice

FT/Ymir lets Eren see the memories of all Eldians. It will come up again. I don't get some of the angles/perspectives though.

It's possible some of these things haven't happened yet, or that Eren has access to the memories of more shifters somehow. For example, Berthold might be a memory Annie or Reiner have and Eren will receive if he eats one of them while they try to stop him.

I have absolutely no idea what the deal is with the Falco and Bertolt memories but I'm sure they're not inconsistency errors considering the care that went into showing that the Mikasa/Grisha/Levi etc. panels are clearly from Eren's POV. I expect answers really soon (and no, I do not think he controlled Dina’s titan to kill Carla, that would be pure character assassination). Hange's panel looks like it's from the future, as well as Mikasa's unfamous 'see you later'. The geese are also interesting but I have no mindblowing theories about them unfortunately..

Excited to see from where Hange without glasses memories from though.

Eren is the air, the trees, the birbs, everything

Marcel is more like to come back from the dead before I ever understand half the shit inside Eren’s head.

If Eren somehow got his mother killed that'll be the ultimate bruh moment

THIS CHAPTER SHOWED US ANOTHER MEMORY OF FEZ-KUN, FINDING HIMSELF IN TROUBLE AGAIN. WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE MEANING BEHIND HIS HIDDEN STORY?

The mystery of the Fez persists once again, with this being the tenth chapter since he was first shown. Though by a small margin, the consensus is that the purpose of his story is to reaffirm Eren’s determination to wipe out the world at 44.8%, with 33.4% of respondents believing he will be a tie to Eren’s compassion and remorse for what he is doing, and 17.1% believing it highlights Eren’s inherent hypocrisy for caring for him even though he will die by his actions later. Many write-in options expressed confusion at who this kid is.

Eren believes that suffering and oppression of minorities will never end just by small acts of kindness and simular "passive" acts, like what Levi did, it does not provide a long term solution or prevent Fez-kun'sfrom furder torments, which is why Eren feels like the extreme solution of the rumbling is his only option

Eren gave a mission to Fez-kun

Eren using another kid to get his way without caring about his life. What else is new.

He's the "even someone on the street" part of Kruger's advice to love someone to break the cycle of tragedy.

He’s showing that little boy he has to fight to survive, like he did with Mikasa when they were kids.

I think he found himself in trouble again (he looks to be bruised on the cheek in 120) and Eren will come to his rescue. However I think Eren will not just save him by beating up or killing the Marleyans, but inspiring the Fez kid to take action and "fight" just like he did with Mikasa. This arc has had a lot of focus on the almost inhumane level of violence Eren showed as a kid when killing those kidnappers, so I can see that being for the purpose of a direct parallel where Eren pressured the kid with the fez to stand up for himself.

I think Eren saved Fez-kun of those guys, but then he will kill him later, showing his own hypocrisy (those guys can't do bad to a child but I can).

I expect his shard(s) to contrast the other previously unknown panel from 120: Historia’s shard was revealed to be yet another instance of Eren manipulating a friend by putting his desires above her own, thus robbing her of her free-will. I hope that Fez-kun symbolizes the "beauty in a cruel world"

It show that Eren just have an other plan and not just kill everyone for no reason???? Lest not be that blind :) what esle u want to understund thats an option too? you want isayama to told u?

maybe eren intends for some people to escape when he announced the rumbling which allows people to prepare themselves, idk.

Eren will save their family and he told Fez to lead his family to a certain location that the rumbling won't reach?

What are all these crappy options? He represents Eren’s journey to changing his viewpoint about everyone being an enemy, as he told Reiner.

Just thought he was part of the collage of events, no further meaning.

Who’s Fez-kun

SWIMMING TITANS?

88% of you welcome your Swimming Titan overlords, but 12% aren’t so convinced - there’s a pretty even chance it’s because the image is just too absurd, too terrifying, or a pants-wetting combination of both.

SWIMMING TITANS

swimming titans

Seeing those colossal titans was crazy

The panel of the titan swimming underneath that ship haunts me in my dreams.

HELL YEAH FUCKING SWIMMING TITANS

WHEN THE MILITARY SIGHTS ERENSAURUS AT THE END, RATHER THAN CALLING IT THE FOUNDING TITAN OR EREN JAEGER, THEY RECOGNISE IT AS THE ATTACK TITAN. WHY?

Despite the threat of Eren Jaeger previously being referred to by name or as “the Founding Titan”, this chapter encapsulated the horror of the allied forces as they recognised it as the Attack Titan. The plurality (40.3%) is that this was just for the purpose of Isayama being able to drop a “Shingeki no Kyojin” in this climactic chapter, though a close second option (34%) is that there is historical information to distinguish the Attack Titan from the others. 15.2% of you believe the Attack Titan is the Titan Bogeyman for Marleyans, and 10.4% attribute the naming to the fact that it’s attacking them, duh.

I think the Maryleans/World Forces knew it was the Attack Titan bc of the Eldians in Marley (like Annie's dad) warning them ahead of time. I think once they realized The Rumbling was happening, they asked for more deets from the folks who heard Eren's message in the Path's Realm.

I wonder why the rest of the world was only using Mikasa ships instead of various ships lol

IT CAN'T BE STOPPED ANYMORE

NOW THAT WE FINALLY GOT TO SEE EREN'S SPINE-CHILLING (BADUM-TSS) FORM, WHAT DID YOU THINK?

This manga has turned into a horror show, and y’all seem to be loving it, according to over fifty percent. Thirty percent are aghast at the sight before them, and nearly a tenth of you don’t really know what to think of the Grim Reaper titan yet. Some of you wanted something more fully formed, but this creepy crawly is freaky enough, isn’t it? Let’s just be glad none of us live in Marley right now.

My jaw dropped when I saw Eren’s titan form. Horrific.

I love Erensaurus a lot. This chapter gave the same level of anxiety that Zeke's attack in Shiganshina gave me. Good

YEAH EREN IS SCARY AS FUCK I LOVE IT MORE FREEDOM MORE FREEDOM MORE FREEDOM

Eren's titan looks a little like the earth devil

Did Eren pick the design of his new Titan or did Ymir just give it to him?

Really interested in where it is going especially because Eren's Titan got lips which could be an indicator for it to have the ability to speak

Eren’s Founding Titan form looks like something out of Silent Hill

I'm not saying anything about Eren's titan. What even the actual fuck, Yams

Oh lawd he comin

WHY IS EREN'S CURRENT TITAN FORM A SKELETON WITH NO FLESH?

Eren is looking awfully spooky right now. That’s a good sign, isn’t it? I guess looking like a death metal album cover is better than looking like whatever Rod Reiss was supposed to be. 34.9% figure that as this is probably the largest titan ever, it’s just too big for flesh. It’s not like PATHS sand is infinite, after all. 34.6% think that the form is incomplete because of the missing titan powers; this is only a third of his potential scariness! 23% think there’s no real reason he looks like this. Not an in-story reason anyway. Finally, 7.6% think Eren is still not done forming this devilish beast.

Eren's upper skeleton body thing looks like wings of freedom...

The reason Eren's body was like this, if he was muscular, he would radiate a lot of heat, so the Allience's couldn't reach him. But now, no muscle, no heat. They can reach easily.

Eren's form is creepy as hell! I also think he might be dead/dying/the titan now.

Seriously, how the fuck does Eren's Titan move?

When a shifter generates a titan body, they need to have a special task or purpose in mind. Is Eren's titan meant to be a bridge between Paradis Island and the continent?

WHAT IS ISAYAMA TRYING TO SAY WITH THE PUPPET-LIKE MOTIF OF EREN'S TITAN?

Many have noticed the puppet-like strings connecting Eren’s torso and head to his stegosaurus spikes in the final panel (though not in the first shot we get of Eren -- we’ll just ignore that), but what does it mean? Him being a slave to himself (38%) just edged out him being a slave to fate (36.7%), with a slim minority (3.3%) believing Ymir could be the true puppeteer. Of course, there are the 21.9% of you who are remaining steadfast in the belief that Eren is NOT a slave, he is FREE.

He is a slave to the future memories and instead of trying to find a different way, he is convincing himself that this is what he wants from the start to compensate for how little freedom he has.

He's trying to justify to himself that he isn't a slave

Eren is a slave to that sweet sweet feeling of self-righteous rage.

Ymir might be acting through Eren.

I think eren has become a vessel for ymir and it's ymirs will that we're hearing.

WHERE IS EREN'S HUMAN BODY MOST LIKELY RESIDING?

The results for this are a mixed bag, with the three most popular answers extremely close in votes. It’s most agreed upon (29.1%) that Eren has no human form, and has merged with the Titan on some level, with a close second (28.8%) being him being separated from the Titan but not in the conventional sense, and using the Warhammer Titan power to operate it from the ocean. 27.9% of you believe he is in the standard position of the nape, and only 14.2% of you believe the head of the Attack Titan could be his true location.

So, does Eren now only have his head left or was he fully healed thanks to Ymir?

where is Eren (No,not his titan)? There is no nape on that thing, just bone

I NEED TO KNOW HOW EREN IS TRANSPORTING HIMSELF

THE CHAPTER ENDS WITH CHILD EREN'S DETERMINATION TO "DESTROY THEM" OVERLAPPING WITH ADULT EREN COMMANDING THE RUMBLING. WHICH STATEMENT IS THE MOST ACCURATE REGARDING THIS COMPARISON?

This curious panelling choice ends the chapter, giving us a peek at Eren’s inner monologue – but in true Isayama fashion it’s not clear exactly what it means. 45.6% believe it shows that Eren hasn’t fundamentally changed the way he views the world, his will and titan powers giving him the means to influence it. 26.4% think it’s a reminder of Eren’s tragic tendency to believe that peace cannot exist without the complete elimination of an opposing force. 16.8% think it demonstrates Eren’s willing or unwilling continuation of the cycle of hatred and revenge. Finally, 9.1% think there’s a hint here that Eren’s childhood self was cursed with thoughts from his future mind.

ALL OF THE ABOVE

All of the above, minus the P A T H S.

I hate eren do the same thing as what he had been through

It's Eren's tendency to lose himself to the desire for vengeance, which in the mange is always depicted as leading to a catastrophe in the end.

His childhood trauma comes back to him when he sees a loved one die / about to die and feels the powerlessness of having been unable to do anything because of being weak. Then pain and anger return for this reason

It's a parallel showing his determination to fight back against those who would deny he and his comrades their freedom.

It is once again Eren reassuring himself he's doing what's right, by telling himself that the cycle of hatred is what's causing this and that he needs to break it

The thoughts are child Eren, simply overlapping with the current situation. It may not be adult Eren’s thoughts.

THIS BITCH CRAZY.

I just want to say that the history is repeating its self . What we thought it was the past it's actually the future

He is using this memory of his mother being eaten to motivate himself, like a main drive. It's not the first time. Anger/Rage was always the main drive that he used to keep fighting/seeking for freedom

This is already similar to some of the options presented, but I like the idea that this is showing deep down he is driven by his childlike rage, and as much as he tries to convince himself it's for his friends, he really just wants to revel in violence because he's broken and he thinks wiping everyone out is the only way he will be at peace.

THIS CHAPTER ALSO PRESENTED US WITH TWO ALMOST DICHOTOMIC MOTIVATIONS FOR EREN, BETWEEN LOVE FOR HIS FRIENDS AND HATE FOR THE ENEMY, BUT WHICH DO YOU BELIEVE IS THE STRONGER DRIVING FORCE?

The two most powerful and conflicting emotions driving Eren right now have the fanbase somewhat split over what pushes him further. It seems that most are optimistic about Eren’s prime motivation being the wellbeing of his friends at 59.7%. Meanwhile 40.3% believe that Eren’s love for his friends has been eclipsed by the roiling hatred and thirst for vengeance within him. Even at this point in the story, it’s hard to be absolutely certain – safe to say Eren is a real menace when he feels this strongly about anything.

I feel like I finally fully understand Eren's mindset, even though there is probably still more to his POV. He just wants his friends to be happy and live long lives, so he had to push them away especially after Sasha's death.

This chapter Eren can't disentangle love from fear/hate/loss due to what happened to his mother, which is why his feelings about his friends now manifest so destructively.

Eren's memory chain went from remembering his friends smiling, to Sasha's death and Fez-kun being beat up, and eventually to his mother's death and his vow to kill all titans, showing that deep down he knows his motivation to protect his friends is bullshit and that his "enemies" are mostly innocents, but he keeps moving forward due to hatred and revenge.

Eren has never healed his trauma. It was "eating" him slowly and turned him into this he hated the most - a devilish monster.

I think the chapter settled very well that revenge surpass even his wish of protect his friends

The transition to Eren's pov and the fact we didn't learn anything new beside some basic confirmations, is really strange. And if Eren ends killing the friends he wanted to protect, he will be a complete disappointment. I really am afraid of SnK's ending.

"I want my friends to live long happy lives" he says after treating them like shit, breaking their spirit, and partially ruining their home island with millions of titans. I hope he doesn't act surprised when they show up to stop him (assuming they can catch up of course).

I don't believe the word "animals" align with Eren's current perspective, nor how he sees his "enemies". He holds the same ideals as he did as a child, but realises the nuance of his enemies and how people on both sides are ultimately the same. He just believes this radical action is the only necessary way to end an unstoppable inter-generational conflict in his lifetime so these problems aren't handed down to future generations anymore.

he's being driven both by hatred and love, but right now his rage is winning and he's using the safety of his friends and Eldia as an excuse to appease his conscience.

ON A SCALE FROM "SECRET PLAN" TO "KILL 'EM ALL", WHERE DO YOU STAND ON EREN'S TRUE INTENTIONS?

This chapter all but confirmed that Eren indeed plans to wipe out the entire outside world for most of the fandom. The majority are skewed towards the opinion of Eren definitely rumbling everything, with less and less respondents holding onto hope that Eren has an alternate plan.

Eren wants this rumbling and he's ready to sacrifice others to get what he wants, even his friends.

I gotta say, I thought Eren would've had a real plan that wasn't just massacring everyone else on the planet. I was already against the plan, but I suspected he'd walk the other side of the ocean and then announce to the world that the existence of titans was no more and destroy all the titans as proof, and all the shifters would just be normal people again.

His goal is to wipe the titans out of this world, and not to flatten it.

I support the rumbling, cause Marley deserved this by trying to eliminate Paradis, but at the same time there are so many good people there(including eldians themselves) that haven't done anything wrong. Military and leaders of marley should be eliminated, but not the poor people that had no choice.

This hateful world is needed to be purged and I support Eren for this. And when Rumbling is over that beast piece of sh** must die by Levi's hand.

I thought eren had a secret plan for the rumbling but after getting his pov this chapter looks like he really is going for it

Somehow, I can't shake off the feeling that we still haven't seen 100% of Eren's plan, there is still some twist waiting. I am not trying to justify Eren's current actions, it's more like ""if there is something that will throw this whole scenario upside down it better come up soon, because right now IT DOESN'T LOOK GOOD"".

I want to believe thtat Eren has a secret plan in the rumbling but the chapter says that this is what he wanted, he had always been like this, he was always “free” sadly, he’s enslaved by his beliefs of freedom that he resorts to these drastic measures.

I think that this chapter confirms two things: one, the Rumbling is Eren's true plan [...] BUT two, there is "something beyond that hell", which is the "scenery" Eren says he saw in ch. 121. I think it's the endgame after the Rumbling is stopped (no way is it going to be completed), and it's what caused both Grisha and Historia to go along with his plan in the end even though they didn't agree with it and thought it was awful. Eren's "everything is still ahead" and the weird cut in Historia's flashback are too... strange and seem to point to this being a game changer and the final plot point of the series.

If the rumble will succeed, then I've spent 7 chapters seeing characters do nothing to accomplish nothing. I don't wanna feel my time wasted.

I unironically want Eren to kill everyone outside the walls. Nuff said.

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE REPEATED BIRD IMAGERY?

Birds are a focal point of this chapter, with the combination of a four-panel tracking of a soaring seagull and a flash of a memory of some nearby geese. The majority of respondents (62.5%) believe the birds simply tie into the theme of, and likely Eren’s motivation of freedom. In a distant second (20.9%) is the answer that it relates to the idea of everyone being connected under the same sky, a fitting motif amidst this chapter’s exploration of the conflict as well as unity of different groups. 12.7% of you are hopping on board the “Eren is a bird now” train, and 4% of you just really don’t like birds.

The two birds from the Paths panels appear in episode 1 of the anime iirc, not sure about the manga though.

Eren is bird confirmed thank <°^°>

I like the Bird Theory that says he’s transferring his consciousness to a bird. yeah it sounds a bit odd but it’s interesting and I’m willing to accept anything at this point

The birds are secret surveillance cameras

I like birds

idk man this shit is confusing as hell.as for falco thing i think eren has become the bird. anything can happen at this point.

Eren is the Eagle we see in the chapter 91 that Falco says to fly away lmao

THIS CHAPTER HAD SOME AMAZING ART, SHOWCASED IN THE MANY DOUBLE SPREADS (EXACTLY 9... OH GOD WHAT DOES IT MEAN ISAYAMA??) WHICH WAS YOUR FAVORITE DOUBLE SPREAD?

Whether it was the break back in May, or Isayama’s dedication to highlighting this chapter’s importance, the art has definitely taken a step up and blown us all away. Though it is very split, the final double spread showcasing the commencing of the rumbling garnered the most votes (18.2%). At second (15.7%) was the imposing silhouettes of colossal titans rising from the ocean, and at a very close third (15.5%) was the very next spread, of these titans wiping out the battleships as casually as if they were wading through seaweed. If there’s one thing to make of this from what the winners have in common, we have all definitely been waiting to see the rumbling for a while.

Isayama's improvement as an artist it's inspirational.

the art is god tier

Those Rumbling pages are so gorgeous they make me wanna say "Kill them all, Eren ! Destroy the fucking world !"

Mappa has their work cut out for themselves

MAPPA's fucked lol I hope they're up to the task.

That Attack Titan spread has the single GREATEST bit of shading in this entire manga.

Solid Art, phenomenal design and usage of double spreads

I just wanted to add that this is visually one of the most beautiful chapters I've seen in a while. The colossals, holy shit. I can't wait to see this animated. All of those double-page spreads were pretty fantastic but I have to say there's nothing quite like the chill that runs down your spine when you see all those colossals emerging from the smoke and the mist, where you see for the first time how huge and terrible they are (and also when you realise the first line of defense is already down). I had legit goosebumps.

CHAPTER 130 MARKS THE END OF A VOLUME, WHICH HAS BEEN FILLED WITH ALLIANCE-FOCUSED CHAPTERS. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS NOW THAT WE'VE FINALLY RETURNED TO EREN?

After six consecutive chapters focusing on the alliance with no Eren, the majority of you (57.6%) are relieved to finally move beyond the alliance, though have enjoyed the recent chapters, with 20.4% being completely over the alliance. 7.4% say they were originally sceptical but the chapters did well to make the alliance likeable to them, and 14.6% are open to more chapters just focused on the alliance.

Please for the love of God more of this and less of the alliance, the alliance was so rushed and as it's continued it hasn't been developed much further beyond plot convenience. The less of that I have to read before I get to read amazing stuff like 130 the better

i wanted more on the alliance, not flashbacks smh

it was something enjoyable after a while. Especially 126 made me grimace all over the volume till 130 came up. Not saying I was waiting for Eren but it was so cheesy.

Eren chapters are written worse than Alliance ones

This chapter single handedly made up for the below average, cringe-inducing chapters 126-129 Alliance bullshit. I have faith Isayama will create a very satisfying ending for this series now.

This chapter was legit a great way to end the volume off, it truly feels like its really the beginning of the end

DESCRIBE THIS CHAPTER IN ONE WORD

The top 5 write-ins are below, followed by the average chapter score for each description. This months’ average chapter score was 4.59.

Amazing [4.89]

Epic [4.84]

Eren/Ereh [4.69]

Rumbling [4.46]

Confusing [3.88]

Honorable mention: Ragnarok

We’d also like to mention that there were a lot of write-ins related to genitals and coitus… seems like y’all were really hyped up by that first fanlation >.>

WHAT ARE YOU MOST HOPING TO SEE NEXT CHAPTER?

Despite this chapter theoretically giving us everything we had hoped for in a while, the responses show that we still want to have WAY MORE answers (34.6%), MORE Historia (16.9%) and MORE rumbling action (14.5%). We’d also like to know where on earth Zeke is and if Floch is going to be the little troublemaker that we know and have strong feelings about. Will the boat make it to Odiha? Will Levi do a thing? Stay tuned!

There's still some mystery that have yet to answer and I want answers

Where the fuck is Zeke

WHERE. IS. LEVI.

i want more eren, historia and zeke. They're interesting. I don't care about the alliance.

"Zekey-dekey-doo, where are you?" ...I'm so done with you guys.

need update on zeke and historia's situation.

I want it to end soon #TeamEren

I expect in the next chapter something more around the alliance and maybe (hopefully) Floch's comeback!

Enough of Hisu, she is just a side character.

Want more Rumbling

All I can say is, I'm beyond anxious to see how the series ends, and it's eating me up inside.

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES?

Most of our lovely respondents are rambunctious Redditors as usual, followed by a fair few from the flock on Twitter, distinguished Discorders, and discussors who want for nothing. Then there are some ravishing real-lifers, titillating Tumblrites, ...aaaand the rest (you’re all great). We’re still side-eyeing you Snapchatters though.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE CHAPTER?

Honestly I just wanna let it out, but not on google Poll for obvious reasons

Not about the chapter... but you guys always come up with funny answers that I feel compelled to chose even if it’s not really what I think. I love to answer this. Thank you!

Zeke the relationship expert, huh?

This chapter went through far too many dodgy translations for its own good, and even the official typeset had one big mistake in it even though it conveyed the mood of the convo between Eren and Historia far better than all the others.

this is all so confusing I miss erwin

I don't want genocide to be how this ends. I believe Isayama doesn't intend a story this complex to send a message that genocide is great. Considering some of the mindscrews he's already pulled via Paths, I'm hoping the best mindscrew is yet to come.

Reiner was a snacc

Historia the Antifascist Queen

This is the best chapter

this series is so great man

This whole chapter was a certified Bruh moment (in a good way)

This whole chapter was about Eren dehumanising. And he killed his mom. I wouldn't be surprised if he'll eventually want to kill all Eldians and his friends either.

Loved everything except for Historian's forced reluctant pregnancy.

Here's to 3 more weeks

I hope Eren doesn’t love anyone from the series.

I feel like Isayama is still increasing the pressure to help his final plot twist, I’m still lost as I really don’t agree with Eren’s actions while I see the fandom going crazy over him. Maybe I missed something, maybe I’m wrong, maybe I don’t fully understand Eren. This chapter felt good, I don’t hate the Alliance because they’re part of what I think is the right choice for humanity, but we all honestly wanted to know Eren’s thoughts or a bit of it, as we didn’t see him for a while. English isn’t my first language I’m sorry in advance, loved your poll

I honestly have no idea what's going to happen and the whole time I was reading it I was internally screaming.

Ok I know Ymir (the lesbian) has been dead for years but I miss her so much. She was the dad. Forget Farmer-kun, forget Eren, it was all Ymir.

okay no offense but where’s Levi ☹️

One big tease of erens pov and who the father is

One of the best chapter I ever read! Love it!

Didn't expect the Eren POV but welcomed it anyway. We now have confirmation he wanted everything that happened to happen and even the implication he orchestrated the death of his own mother. That's very tasty

Eren's pov has been hidden for too long and right now I don't think the payoff is worth it

eren exhibits bird behavior & he killed his mom 😕

Eren is a bird confirmed or some shit

Eren later takes Ymir's place in Paths as a sacrifice for many years to fix everything, learning everything he needs by traveling around as, say, birds, as needed to send to his past self to guarantee "that scenery"

Eren is in control of more than we previously thought and this shows evidence of a timeloop scenario

Eren can see the future and can probably manipulate the pure titans at different points in time like the Founder does. It's also likely he's gonna fuse with more shifters to visit other pieces of memory.

Eren is able to use the full power of the FT, that why he can see not only his own memories, but also the memories of other Eldians. All of them are connected to him after all.

He will turn into a bird in the end

So exited that we finally got to see Eren in his Founding Titan-like form!!!! Can’t wait for next month (AoT fan from Japan)

Enjoyed the chapter due to a return to debating the morality of the Rumbling, and seeing it in progress. Also tend to enjoy interaction between Eren and Historia. However, I think the chapter is slightly let down by being cryptic. It's hard to tell what is going on with Eren due to how scenes from this issue and others can be interpreted.

nah mate do people actually read this?

This chapter marks something that has changed everyone's thoughts. Not just about Eren, but Annie, Historia, Zeke, etc. We heard them speak differently, and got a few answers to our questions. We got to see that Annie does indeed have emotions. That Historia did not want this. That Annie never really wanted to kill, nor does she want to anymore. That Zeke actually cared for Eren. That the father is most likely farmer-kun. It's one of the best chapters we've had. Each chapter we get, we get closer to the end of this wonderful story. I can't wait to see what Isayama has planned for in the final chapters. Truly hoping for the best!

reiner's tits dammit

Despite the devastation, I now feel like there is meaning hidden beneath the madness

Creepy and interesting chapter. The official translation confirms further that Eren is going to destroy the world. I’m hoping that the next volume shifts focus to Reiner a little more. I’m also excited for more loose ends to be cleared up.

Damn, only 5 more to go before the end of the greatest story of all time

Enjoyed it but I’m really hoping for some more insight into what’s going on with both eren and historia, I’m not a huge fan of the pregnancy subplot

eren just wants to see if marleyans are made of cake

Eren makes the most amazing villain ever. Will go down as one of my favorite characters ever if the story ends how I hope it will.

Everyone forgets Historia saw her dad’s memories without eating him, without being a shifter, and without touching Eren. We’re still waiting for the payoff...

Fantastic chapter, though it felt really short

Floch was Eren's lieutenant all along, he was his representative, and his actions are therefore Eren's responsability all the same. Get fucked those who didn't want to believe that Eren would consciously choose Floch, believe in him or to set things up for Eren in Paradis.

I'd like it if the Ackerbond was not as supernatural as it was claimed before. Not because of EreMika, MikaHisu would be much better than both options of this chapter. Now we know that Levi or Kenny's loyalty were real, and it warms my heart. Also, my bastard wasn't lying! He knew about the plan.

It confirmed everything we already knew: Historia didn't support Eren's plan, Ackerman weren't slaves, Mikasa's feelings for Eren doesn't have to do with the fact she's an Ackerman and the fandom is stupid for still believing Eren is the father despite him literally telling Zeke that he can't answer Mikasa's feelings, because he only has 4 years left to live.

My heart was beating so hard during Eren and Historia's conversation because I just couldn't believe we were actually seeing her again, it had been 2 years since we got anything this relevant from her and I also just really wanted Isayama to get on with it and tell us who the damm father was so that we could finally move on to other things. I still don't believe it's Eren, but I'm done with that theory, man. No more teasing, please. Two years is far more than enough.

Chapters like this one, which perfectly captures the culmination of Eren's entire journey, make me glad to be alive at this moment in time to experience Isayama's masterpiece. I'm not ready for this story to end in just one more volume.

The ending of this story will not be a gentle tapping of the brakes but a screeching halt followed by hydroplaning and crashing into a ditch

What if the rumbling is all one big sex reveal party for Historia's baby and the Colossal Titans are arranging all the corpses into a female symbol or something.

For 8 months I have been waiting for Eren Jaeger. My favorite fictional character ever. He comes back in best way possible, wow.

Great chapter, too bad half of this dumb fandom misunderstood it and are falsely claiming it confirmed Eren as the father. *facepalm*

Obligatory mention that eren is a manipulative bastard and is a little too far gone in his goal

Ambiguity: The chapter. More questions than answers, no way this ends in 4 chapters. Overall we are all going "Wuh?" like Historia after this chapter.

We are being fucked with.

I cry, eren has been one of my favourite characters in the AoT universe

I didn't think it was possible for Eren to get any worse, but he always manages to surprise me.

I don't care about eremika or erehisu. I just need my rivaere (: haha

i don't care for the alliance and the ship-baiting was making me weary. I just want more eren, zeke and historia. They're the interesting ones.

‏I don't know what the end will be but i know it will be sad ending!..We all suffer and I mean the world of AOT and the fans who read manga... I will accept all probabilities and the death of heroes, but please do not make Mikasa kill Eren..I mean after all this love that will kill him .. I read many analyzes of the possibility of this happening and I see it as a very bad and irrational end..It is not logical at all..If you did it, the AOT would be one of the worst deeds and to the landfill..Isayama If you have suffered a lot in your life and childhood, we have also suffered in our lives, but please do not bring this suffering into the AOT world

I dont want this to end @ isayama

I hated what direction this story was taking, now I really hate it.

I just feel Isayama hasn't answered so much stuff yet and has also raised the stakes so high that I can't possibly imagine how the story will end. I believe Mikasa's slowly been established as the character who will defeat Eren, but I have no idea how she'll do it... But at least there were beautiful Mikannie crumbs, so I'm happy af and hope they'll have more scenes together now that Annie's about to give up (I mean, there are parallels™ everywhere when it comes to our wonderful lost girls...)

I just hope it's building up to a really good ending.

i just wanna know what's gona happen next man this shit be driving me crazy

I love everything! I hope floch dies though

I love you eren

I need answers!!!

I need Zook back

I really hope this series doesn’t end with a message like “genocide is necessary for peace” I hope someone stops Eren

I really loved the art and double spreads, and seeing Eren's POV after a while

I think it's the 2nd best chapter we've gotten this arc. The 1st being 123. I loved it. I also think it's putting to rest the secret plan theories regarding Eren. I've made my final prediction for the series. I think it's a tragedy that will end in Eren destroying the world & manipulating everyone's memories except for Historia & Mikasa & a new age for humanity will begin.

I'm so glad my girl's back, but I'm confused as hell. There's definitly more to her meeting with Eren and her choosing to be pregnant, we'll see. Also Zook being a love conselor and having a Ackerman phd was hilarious, I love him even more. Erefloch canon.

If he wanted to protect his friends why didn’t he just forge some Marleyan passport/citizenships for them, god wtf

If you think about it we actually didn’t learn anything that wasn’t already heavily implied

im shook

Isayama gave more than i wanted my heart can't take it.

it was very good thank you for asking

It's finally moving forward (as isayama likes to say)

It’s a good chapter but I still with doubts.

JUST DO IT EREN

Just wanna see ZEKE

Kiyoger Theory!!!!!

l'm glad we got to see a bit from Eren's POV. But I still need more answers ;_; why choose rumbling, Eren??? not looking for justification for his actions here but i just want to know /why/ he did it. Still feel like theres a missing link somewhere tbh.. I just hope the ending of snk wont be a disaster like game of thrones where Daenerys' switch came out of nowhere. At this point I just want the series to end asap, the tension build up is killing me lol.

Leaks for 131 when?

Let’s get rrready to RUMBLEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

Loved seeing the rumbling but I wish we could have gotten more character driven moments

Loved this chapter! I'm glad we finally got to learn more of Eren's POV and finally learn what was Historia's role in all of this (or at least beginning to learn her involvement in the plan). Seeing him initiate the Rumbling was epic. The destruction is about to begin!

my brain is too small to understand some of these theories

Now we know that Eren and Floch just pretending to follow Zeke's plan ever since from the beginning but I want to gain more explanations of Eren's secret plan

Oddly placed Eren flashback, but I'll take it

Something's up. I'm still not convinced we can take any of this at face value.

So many flashbacks were a bit hard to follow, but it really seems like the series is gonna end soon and I’m a bit nervous about how well any ending will play out

thank you Isayama for this masterpiece

THE ART IS JUST AMAZING but for me its so short 😭😭😭

That Eren with mid long hair is baby

the alliance has come together way too fast and theyve only really had 1 dispute so far. there needs to be more conflict to make it more realisitic. I think annie saying that they won't be able to/don't want to kill eren is foreshadowing this.

the Art is amazing but flashback scenes were a little mess

The chapter was full of messy memories, so it symbolized Eren's brain well :)

I think that now I understand Eren better. I used to believe he had some secret plan, but the true was always there - Eren is not any master mind. His plan was simple - destroy the whole world. The trauma he had after losing his mother has never been healed. It was always in him, growing bigger and bigger. He still cares about his friends, but he is also lying to himself saying that ""he is doing the rumbling because he wants to see them having long, happy life"". He is doing it because his hatred to the ones who are responsible for Carla's death took control over his heart. Eren is adult, young man but deep down he is still the same, hurt crying child who bears painful memories of losing his mother.

The cycle of war and hatred is saddening. This ain't something fictional, it's something we have always been observing from the earliest human consciousness :(

We all got a big storm comin

We are NOT ready for this shit

we need annie to live longer pls

Well here’s our proof eren is actually going through with the rumbling.

What it would feel like to be Eren right now

what kind of eva BULLSHIT

what the hell is going ON

Where is Floch

where is LEVI

Wheres zeke?

Yams, you're so diabolic. You just want to make the real-life's rumbling with all that "confusing' ship tease xD

Yooooo, we need more explanation about maybe, everything? But amazing and bomb ass chapter though

#snk polls #snk poll #snk poll results #snk chapter 130 #snk 130

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iwritethingstoo · 4 years

Text

On The Run

Character: Dark!Gambit/Remy LeBeau x OFC (Kimi), Dark!Marvel

A/N: This is written for @sweater-daddiesdumbdork‘s #sweatersanyficchallenge . Written with insporation from the Taylor Kitsch version of Gambit

This is a follow-up to In The Cards, but it’s not necessary to read that one before reading this. It is appreciated though.

Prompt: If I die, I’m haunting you first

Warnings: Dark!Gambit, mentions of loss of virginity, abuse and Non-Con, violence, swearing

Word Count: 2.4k

Summary: After a tough first night, these 2 unlikely companions will have to work together to survive.

Kimi sat at the small table shuffling her tarot cards absent-mindedly while looking around the motel room she and her companion had chosen for the night.

She looked to the man whom she had been traveling with. In the time they had been together, she had come to know him as two people: Remy and Gambit.

Remy was strong and smart, but seemed a touch sad and lonely. He was also a flirt; often calling her Cher and kissing her hand. Kimi couldn’t tell if he liked her if that was just his personality shining through.

Gambit, on the other hand, was mysterious and a bit scary. He had forcefully taken her virginity on the first night they were together. At first, she was intrigued by him, but now she wanted nothing to do with him.

They were currently on the run from the X-Men. Their leader, Charles Xavier, wanted her to join them, but didn’t tell her that she wouldn’t be able to leave. She only learned that when Remy grabbed her from Xavier’s car and carried her away. That was 1 week ago. Since then, they had been staying in a new place every night.

Kimi shook her head and brought herself back to the little room. She looked down and saw that one of her tarot cards was lying face up on the table: The Tower. ‘What kind of sudden change?’ she thought as she drew another card. She stared at the 5 of Cups and she began to worry. Kimi had the ability to read tarot with unerring accuracy. This was why the X-Men wanted her. She took a deep breath and tried to calm her mind. The 5 of Cups signified loss, bereavement and all the emotions that came with it. She didn’t have any family or close friends and that really only left herself. ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean….’ Her thought broke off as Remy stood from the bed.

“Are you sure you want to go back there, Cher? You and I both know, they’ll be waiting for us.” he looked sincerely concerned.

“We have to.” She nodded. “There’s something I need to get.” Today, they would be within walking distance of her old shop with her upstairs apartment. She hadn’t seen it since the day her life changed courses. She gathered her cards and slipped them into her pocket as she stood up. They left the motel room and headed towards the shopping district.

Kimi was about to turn the corner to her old block, but Remy stopped her and looked first. When he turned around, he took her hands in his and looked into her eyes.

“Last chance to back out.”

She shook her head and he handed her his bo staff. They turned the corner together and, even though they didn’t see anyone, walked cautiously to the shop. Just as Kimi reached the door, she noticed that it was open. She nudged it open with the staff and what she saw, brought her to tears. The place had been ransacked. All the drawers were open and their contents thrown across the room. The table and chairs where she used to read the cards for customers had been upturned and lay broken amongst the mess.

“Cher, we have to hurry. I hear someone coming. Go. I’ll stay here and keep whoever it is, busy.” Kimi wiped her eyes and nodded. She ran up the stairs and knelt on the floor where her bed should have been. One good thing about this mess was that she didn’t have to move it to get to the loose floorboard that was normally hidden. It looked as though no one had discovered her secret. She pried the wood up and looked into the small hole. There was a small box, no bigger than her tarot deck. She lifted it and examined it.

To any other person it was just a small block of wood with no opening, but she knew how to open it. Her grandmother had given it to her with her tarot deck and told her that the two were connected. She could still hear her grandmother’s words, ‘The right card will be the key to both this box and your life. When the time comes, it will open.’ Somehow Kimi knew now was the right time. She reached into her pocket and drew a card from the deck. As she held it against the box, she looked at the artwork. It depicted an angel with one foot in a river and the other on land. The angel was pouring liquid from one jar to another. Temperance showed a need for balance; a coming together of two things or people.

Kimi heard a small click and returned the card to her pocket. The box was open and inside was a silver oval-shaped locket. She took it carefully in her hand and set the box on the floor. Holding the locket to her chest, Kimi remembered her mother wearing it daily and only removing it to sleep.

“I didn’t think you would actually come back.” Kimi hadn’t heard anyone enter the room. She turned around to see Cyclops standing there with a stern look on his face.

“I have got to ask you. What’s up with the visor?” She clasped the locket around her neck as he began to speak.

“It helps me to control my powers.”

“Oooo. What kind of powers do you have?” Kimi smiled giddily.

“Energy beams that can destroy mountains.”

“From your eyes? Like laser beams? Can you only destroy mountains?”

“Do you always ask this many questions?” It was obvious that he was quickly becoming exasperated with her.

“You don’t have to be such a grump about it.”

“How about this? Come with us and I will answer all of your questions.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you or your paraplegic leader.” Kimi took a fighting stance with the bo staff held in front of her. She was nowhere near proficient with it, but Remy had shown her a few moves. She didn’t want to be a burden to him in a fighting situation so she begged him after their last confrontation with the X-Men until he gave in.

“I don’t want to hurt you. Please, just come have a civil conversation with us. Let Xavier tell you about all the good we do.”

“Why are you defending him? He’s an ass that will use whatever he can to get his way and I won’t stand for it.”

“You don’t understand. He wants to help you. He can train you, help you learn and strengthen your abilities.”

“Help me? That must be a joke.” She scoffed. “After what I’ve been through? And have you seen the state of my shop? That man is insane and so are you if you think this is helping anyone.” She spat at him.

“If that’s the way you want it, we’ll do this your way.” He reached up and pressed a button on the side of his visor. A red energy beam shot out of his eyes and made contact with the floor at Kimi’s feet causing her to fall through to the shop below.

‘I guess that answers one of my questions.’ She waved the dust from the air and saw Remy fighting a woman with white hair and skin the color of chocolate. At the moment, she had lightning crackling around her hands and up her arms.

“Storm? What are you doing here?” Cyclops jumped down the hole and spoke to the woman.

“The Professor sent me to help you.” Storm relaxed and the lightning subsided.

“Leave it to Xavier to send one of the most powerful X-Men to help retrieve a simple woman.” As they spoke to each other, Remy extended his hand to Kimi and helped her to her feet.

“Is she really that strong?” Kimi whispered to Remy who nodded.

“We need to get out of here. This is too dangerous now.” he whispered back.

“Remy, I want you to know that if I die, I’m haunting you first.”

“Is that a promise, Cher?” He gave her a smirk and turned back to Storm and Cyclops who had already returned their attention to the runaways.

Storm’s blue eyes glowed white and the air began to stir. She sent a forceful gust of wind at Remy that sent him flying backwards into the wall. He stood and shook the rubble from the crumbling wall off his shoulders. Kimi saw that his eyes had darkened. She gulped; the situation just went from bad to worse. She hadn’t seen Gambit in a week. Her heartbeat picked up as she relived the trauma.

‘No, not now.’ She fought against the thoughts freezing her in place and took a deep breath. She tightened her grip on the bo staff and faced Cyclops. She swung the staff and aimed for his legs to knock him down, but he jumped, avoiding her attack. This left her wide open and he took the opportunity to punch for her jaw. Kimi’s wide swing caused her to stumble back and she watched as his fist passed inches from her face.

She regained her composure and tried again; this time aiming for his head. Kimi felt the vibration up her arm when Cyclops grabbed the staff before it could hit. He pressed his visor to send an energy beam that would hit her directly, but a tornado from across the room picked her up and the beam missed her. Kimi was thrown against the wall and landed next to Gambit. He let out a growl, grabbed Kimi and ran out of the building, stopping only to throw several of his playing cards which exploded when they reached the two X-Men.

When they were far enough away to be safe, he set Kimi down and she saw that his eyes had returned to their normal color. ‘Thank goodness.’ She couldn’t deal with Gambit on top of everything else right now. They continued walking and after a few minutes Remy spoke.

“What did we go there for anyways?”

“This.” She grabbed the locket. “It was my mother’s.” She looked down and saw that it was now charred and mangled, no longer resembling the oval it once had. Tears formed in her eyes and spilled over onto her cheeks. ‘Maybe the inside is still salvageable.’ She tried to pry it open, but that only resulted in the whole piece crumbling to dust. Kimi dropped to her knees and put her head in her hands as she let it all out. She had lost her only home and the last possession of her mother’s in one day. What did she have left? She only had the clothes on her back and the cards in her pocket.

As though on cue, she felt the pull of the deck. She tried to ignore it, but the tarot had a mind of their own. She took hold of a card and raised it to eye level. It was the 10 of Swords; rock bottom. How could things get any worse? She returned the card to the deck, but did not move from her spot on the ground.

“We can’t stay here, Cher. We have to find somewhere to shelter for the night.” Remy took her gently in his arms bridal style and started for the nearest motel.

The next morning, Kimi woke up with a determination she had never known. The X-Men, and especially Xavier, needed to pay for taking everything from her. She and Remy decided to train more with the bo staff today. After an hour of practice, Remy suggested that they take a break for the day and find something to eat and drink. He left to grab food and while he was gone, Kimi took a shower.

They sat on the motel floor and ate in silence until Kimi had finished half of her sandwich. She washed it down with a sip of water before clearing her throat.

“Tell me about the X-Men. I need to know more about our enemies.”

“You can’t go looking for trouble. I’m teaching you to protect yourself against one or two, but there are more of them than a small army.”

“I need to know what we’re up against. Obviously, they aren’t going to stop.” Remy paused and let out a sigh before starting.

“Most of them are mutants; a type of human with superhuman abilities. Some are normal humans. The most important thing to know is that they are all trained and dangerous if you oppose them.”

“We’re already opposing them and we can’t run forever. We have to take a stand at some point.” Kimi argued.

“I’m sure we will, but I want you to be more prepared before that. No sense walking in there with nothing, Cher. You have to be patient.” He looked into her eyes hoping that she could see how serious this was. “For now, we have to move. Can’t stay in one place for too long.”

They had been walking in silence for a couple hours when Remy grew tense. He grabbed several cards from his trenchcoat’s inner pocket and threw them. They exploded just moments after Kimi saw a blur move from that spot and towards them. Where the blur landed, a man stood with broad shoulders and what looked like metal blades coming out of his knuckles.

“We need to talk.” He had a deep gruff voice.

“Logan.” Remy said curtly. “Not you too.” He didn’t wait for a response before running in and throwing a punch. Logan countered by running his blades through Remy’s abdomen. Remy fell to the ground, bleeding. Kimi felt tears welling in her eyes. She did the only thing she knew to do and took an unsure stance. She couldn’t possibly win, but she wouldn’t go down without a fight. She waited to see what the man would do and was surprised when he retracted the blades into his knuckles.

“Don’t just stand there. We need to get him inside and treat his wounds.” He picked up the unconscious Remy and waited for Kimi to follow him.

“I don’t understand. Why are you helping? You just stabbed him.”

“Remy is too hasty for his own good, but your mother asked me to help you.”

“My mother died when I was 6.”

“No,” He shook his head. “She’s alive and in the Xavier Institute in New York.”

“Why would she be there?”

“Your mother is a mutant.”

Also tagging:

@nellblazer, @official-and-unstable-satan

#sweatersanyficchallenge #dark!marvel #dub-con #non-con #loss of virginity #violence #Dark!Gambit #Dark!Remy lebeau #fanfiction #dark!fic #dark!fanfiction #abuse #tarot #writing challenge

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lizziestudieshistory · 4 years

Text

Books of 2020 - April

April was a strange reading month for me, on the one hand I read 10 books which is double my average 5-6 books a month! On the other I completely failed to read my OWLs Magical Readathon tbr... I did manage to read books that worked for the prompts but they weren’t the books I meant to read. Oops!

(Once again I haven’t proof read this and I’ll just apologise in advance for any mistakes, I’m lazy...)

OWLS Magical Reathon: Hogwarts Professor (what subject I specialise in will depend on the NEWTS...)

Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett (Discworld #6, Witches #1)

OWLS: History of Magic

I loved reading Wyrd Sisters, it was so much fun! Pratchett retold Shakespeare’s Macbeth from the witches view point, but with his usual satirical twist. Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick shine through the narrative, offering a no nonsense, ridiculous, and lovable take on witchcraft (or headology) as worked to protect Lancre from Duke and Duchess Felmet after they assassinated King Verence.

The Shakespeare references, puns, and reworkings in this book was sublime! I had a great time picking them out and watching as the acting company performed the most ridiculous versions of Shakespeare’s greatest works. I adored the witches - which was a bit surprising. I’d gone into this thinking I’d dislike the Witches sub-series after reading Equal Rites a couple of years ago (to this day it is my least favourite Discworld book...) However, Granny Weatherwax is a very different character here and the story is so separate from the narrative in Equal Rites that I refuse to see this book as the second installment in the Wtiches sub-series. I’d highly recommed reading Wyrd Sisters, and it would be a fantastic place to start with Pratchett if you like retellings and/or Shakespeare!

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Anon, trans. by J.R.R. Tolkien

OWLS: Potions

I enjoyed this translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Tolkien’s style and tone suits this style of poetry (would you call it epic? It’s more of a romance...) Tolkien brought the story in Sir Gawain to life for me, in a way I’ve never experienced in other versions I’ve read. I fell in love with this simple tale from Arthurian Legend, which I’ve never done before... It’s beautiful, simple, and captivating. I would highly recommend reading this edition if you’re interested in Sir Gawain.

The Last Hero - Terry Pratchett (Discworld #27, Rincewind and the Wizards #7)

OWLs: Astronomy

This is a book of two halves for me. The story itself is a bit too simple for my tastes... We see Cohen the Barbarian (the only Discworld character I actually hate) heading towards the Hub to return fire to the gods, however, Ankh-Morpork sends a party afte him to prevent him from destroying the Disc. This party was hilarious: Rincewind, the Librarian, Leonard of Quirrm, and Captain Carrot Ironfounderson all confined to a tiny ‘spaceship’... This was not a combination of characters I ever expected to see and their personalities, particularly Carrot and Rincewind, created several spectacularly ridiculous moments I loved! But the plot itself wasn’t great, I was expecting a bit more from Pratchett at this stage in in the Discworld.

However, the artwork in this book was stunning! It worked so well to elevate the story, I couldn’t help but love it... If the artwork hadn’t been included this book would have been a lot weaker... It’s hard to rate the book because of this, but I did really enjoy it (and hopefully this will be the last time I have to read about Cohen the Barbarian and the Silver Horde.) Also, look up Rincewind as The Scream, it’s brilliant!

We Should All Be Feminists - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

OWLs: Arithmancy

I usually don’t read essays for pleasure, nonfiction has been relegated to academic pursuits for the last 5ish years... Yet, this classic (I’m calling it a classic, everyone should read it) essay from Adichie was incredibly powerful. It emphasised the importance of feminism to non-western/European women and highlighted how important and beneficial feminism is for everyone. It’s a really important piece for people to read and I’d highly recommend finding the audiobook, or a reading, done by Adichie as her passion for the subject shines through her words.

Beren and Luthien - J.R.R. Tolkien (Middle Earth)

OWLs: Transfiguration

I ADORED Beren and Luthien, it was the best book I’ve read all month. I was expecting to dislike this book because of it’s formatting. It’s told through several fragmentary versions of Beren’ and Luthien’s romance that at Tolkien wrote throughout his life. Christopher Tolkien edited together 5 or 6 (maybe?) manuscripts along with his own commentary, introduction, and parts of the Earendil story to give us a fleshed out picture of Tolkien’s greatest romance. Unlike The Fall of Gondolin, which I read earlier this year, the format worked beautifully for Beren and Luthien, probably because the different versions that have survived were incredibly different and more complete.

I was feeling a bit so-so about this collection until we started seeing the Lay of Leithian (sp?) woven in between a few prose versions of the tale. The verse in the Lay of Leithian was gorgeous, it was beautiful, etherial, and passionate. I actually cried reading a few sections from it, such as the end of Felagund’s part in the tale. It was such a shame Tolkien never finished the Lay as it probably would have been his best work within the Middle Earth legend. It was captivating and the poetry suited the tone and style of Beren and Luthien’s story. The verse would have made the final acts of Luthien in the Halls of Mados exquisite, poignant, and heartbreakingly tragic.

I cannot love this book more - it might be my favourite in Middle Earth, knocking The Silmarillion off the top spot... But, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book for everyone. If you’re a Tolkien fanatic then I’d consider this a must read, it contains Tolkien’s most beautiful writing along with his most tragic romance! If you’re only mildly interested in Middle Earth then I don’t think you’re going to enjoy it.

The Children of Earth and Sky - Guy Gavriel Kay

OWLs: Charms

The Children of Earth and Sky was an incredibly read, it’s a powerful but understated historical fantasy set in a world based on (I presume) renaissance Italy and the Ottoman Empire at its height. There’s not a vast amount of story here, however, the character work, world building, and thematic discussion around history, religion, the ability of an individual to change the fate of nations, corruption of power, and so much more, was stunning. It was a beautiful study of characters and cultures, which was complimented by Kay’s sumptuous writing style. This was a gorgeous read!

My biggest criticism is for the romances, Kay had 4 main characters - two men and two women - and rather predictably they ended up in relationships by the end of the novel... The relationship between Danica and Marin did make more sense to me by the end of the book than the relationship between Leonora and Pero. However, both were a bit instalove-y and could have done with more development.

Nevertheless, I’d highly recommend this book! It would be an excellent read for people who aren’t fantasy fans as the fantastical elements are minor. The focus is on the historical influences, themes, and character development. It’s an excellent standalone fantasy book and I’m excited to read more of Kay’s work in the future.

The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare

OWLs: Divination

Most of what I could say about The Merchant of Venice has already been said before. Shakespeare’s portrayal of Shylock is incredibly problematic (I haven’t got the time or energy to go into why, but there are literally thousands of books, essays and blogposts about this, go forth and read if you want more details), the relationship between Portia and Bassanio makes NO sense, and I cannot believe that ending means anyone is going to be happy...

However, this play has a certain charm that I loved. I couldn’t help but like the relationship between Antonio and Bassanio, Portia and Nerissa are darlings, and I had fun reading the wacky plotline and (yet more) crossdressing shenanigans going on in here! I think most of my enjoyment came from the RSC version I watch alongside the play (currently availbale on Marquee TV). Either way, I’m happy to have read the play AT LAST and be one play closer to my goal of reading every Shakespeare play!

Assassin’s Apprentice - Robin Hobb (Farseer #1, Realm of the Elderlings #1)

OWLs: Defence Against the Dark Arts

We all know how I feel about Robin Hobb and the Realm of the Elderlings. I adore this world, Fitz and the Fool are (probably) the best written characters in fantasy and two of my all time favourites! I reread this for the Elderlingalong (that I somehow missed...), which gave me the perfect excuse to pick up the new 25th Anniversary edition with the GORGEOUS illustrations from Magali Villeneuve. I had a wonderful time rereading this and if you’re a fan of Hobb and you haven’t seen the work this book already you MUST get your hands on it ASAP.

Non-OWLs books

The Gathering Storm - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (Wheel of Time #12)

I wrote WAY to much to include it on this long list of books... I’ll post my thoughts on The Gathering Storm separately.

Conclusion of my ramblings: I really liked it, there were flaws in Sanderson’s writing and treatment of some characters (Mat in particular), however, it was a really good installment in the series! Sanderson really impressed me and I’m slightly nervous and very excited to read the last two books in the series!

The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings #1)

I’ve already put up a lot of my thoughts on my latest read of The Fellowship of the Ring here. I really loved rereading this book (as I always do), I had a lot of new thoughts, and I gained a new appreciation of Boromir and Tolkien’s poetry. My annotation reread will continue in the near future with The Two Towers - I just need to clear a few urgent reads off my shelves first!

Currently Reading

Nevermore: The Trials of Morrigan Crow - Jessica Townsend

Buddy read book! I’ve actually finished this at time of posting but I’m trying to give an accurate view of my April reading!

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers

I was supposed to read this for Arithmancy, but I didn’t get round to it... I’ve also finished this one early this month.

Words of Radiance - Brandon Sanderson

Another buddy read with @towerofleeza! We’re not the best at reading this at the same time (sorry dear!) but I think we’re both loving it, I certainly am!

Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett

I couldn’t help myself I needed more of the Witches! I’ve also finished this one at time of posting this and enjoyed it.

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wychive · 4 years

Text

tagged by : @neo-shitty (toffee! ilysm hehe)

tagging: @noya-sannnn , @vitriosan , @hwanami , @luthenia and anyone else who wants to participate

slight warning : mentions of food

this is kind of long so it can help you relax if you want to do this!

[ one ] tell me the first song that made you stan your current fave group and why did your faves attract you so much?

wave // ateez

when jane showed me and fely (she already stanned ateez) the mv i was like :00 this song is really good and it goes with my type of music; pumped up and really fun. i decided that i wanted to stan them because of this introduction video that they did during pirate king where san broke the toy hammer trying to smack yunho’s ass SHHSSIJS,, i found them really funny and comforting! they made me so happy and that’s why they attracted me so much. + their amazing music ofc

forever // exo

alright so i originally just casually listened to exo from wolf era up till 2017 when the kokobop teasers came out. they looked really pretty and so i watched them up till kkb was released. it’s what baekhyun’s voice in the forever teaser that captured me into stanning them. everything about the exo’s attracted me, their vocals, their dancing and ofc their visuals. bonus: their time on the ‘360 show(??)’! im not sure of the actual name for the programme but it was where yixing kept pronouncing jurassic park wrong pls that was so cute and funny how could you NOT stan them!

[ two ] answer the ten questions given by the previous person and write 10 of your own for the next person!

what’s your favorite season and why?

we only have two types of seasons here but if this includes western seasons, i would pick spring! flowers give me a sense of calmness whenever they start to bloom so being in a season where it’s just different coloured plants all around you? sign me up pls

are you a cat person or a dog person?

im a cat person! i currently have two cats as pets

what’s your current favorite song and why can’t you stop listening to it?

it would probably be fever by ateez! this is because it gives off freedom vibes and i’ve been stressed lately so the song is a little oasis for me

if you had the ability to do either of the following, would you rather change something in the past or see into the future?

i would choose to see into the future so that i could change what i do now, whether its related to me being lazy or me being selfish,, i would like to keep the past the way it is even if i had some scarring moments. it’s nice to look back on those and see how far you’ve come as a person.

what’s your favorite movie?

my favorite movie would either be spirited away or paper towns,, i actually don’t have a favorite movie because all of them have affected my life in different ways so yea :D

what did miss rona ruin for you this 2020?

probably the food fair this year,, my group of best friends were supposed to go there to celebrate jane and another friend’s birthday. the food fair happens yearly so it wasn’t anything big to anyone else, but to us it was something special. there are a lot more things but this was one of the major things she ruined :/

what’s your favorite album? (you can name one for each genre you like or you can just name one, it’s up to you.)

toffee why my top three would be day6’s sunrise, bts’ you never walk alone and lauv’s ~how i’m feeling~

if you could talk to your past self (person who lived your past life), what would you tell them?

“hey, dude, i hope you’re doing okay. stop being so selfish all the time alright? and stop comparing yourself to others, it wouldn’t do you any justice. make sure to spread A LOT of positivity even if no one acknowledges it. its okay to cry sometimes too. is my soulmate doing okay? i hope they are. i’ll make sure to find them in this timeline, and the next. whatever it takes. learn to love yourself.”

do you have a go-to person? who is it?

uh i dont have a go-to person,, i can’t vent or rant without feeling like burdening the other person or spreading negativity to them. instead i just kind of rant to myself on discord.

if you could tell your younger self something, what would you say?

“hey, kiddo. don’t fall in love too much nor fool around. it’ll affect you badly. appreciate the things your parents do for you, okay? don’t take anything for granted. ignore the people who call you names, they don’t matter here in the future. just be you.”

how do you spend your free time?

who or what is your biggest inspiration?

if you were a character in a horror movie, which stereotype do you closely resemble? and why?

your top 3 fanfiction tropes! (can be nsfw)

do you believe in soulmates and why?

painting or sketching and why?

what is on the top of your to-do list right now?

list down the top 3 things that make you happy.

who are you simping for right now?

what is your first core memory?

[ three ] bold the statements that apply to you, italicize your aspirations.

AIR ༉⋆͙̈

i have small hands / i love the night sky / i watch animals and birds when i pass them by / i drink herbal tea / i wake to see the dawn / the smell of dust is comforting / i’m valued for being wise / i prefer books to music / i meditate / i find joy in learning new truths from the world around me

FIRE ༉⋆

i don’t have straight hair / i like to wear ripped jeans and overalls / i play an organized sport / i love dogs / i am not afraid of adventure / i love to talk to strangers / i always try new foods / i enjoy road trips / summer is my favorite season / my radio is always playing

WATER ༉⋆͙̈

i wear bracelets on my wrists / i love the bustle of the city / i have more than one set of piercings / i read poetry / i love the sound of a thunderstorm / i want to travel the world / i sleep past midday most days / i love simply lit dinners and fluorescent signs / i rewatch kids shows out of nostalgia / i see emotions in colors not words

EARTH ༉⋆͙̈

i wear glasses or contacts / i enjoy doing the laundry / i am a vegetarian or vegan / i have an excellent sense of time / my humor is very cheerful / i am a valued advisor to my friends / i believe in true love / i love this chill of mountain air / i’m always listening to music / i am highly trusted by the people in my life

AETHER ༉⋆͙̈

i go without makeup in my daily life / i make my own artwork / i keep on track of my tasks and time / i always know true north / i see beauty in everything / i can always smell flowers / i smile at everyone i pass by / i always fear history repeating itself / i have recovered from a mental disorder / i can love unconditionally

[ four ] the ultimate tag: answer whichever ones you want to because there are a lot.

personal

name: [REDACTED], alachi nickname: teja, kai birthday: april 11 zodiac: aries nationality: malaysian languages: english, malay, learning korean gender: female sexuality: biromantic height: 160 cm / 5"2’ or 5"3’

blog stuff

inspiration for muse: music, other people’s work meaning behind my url: fever (current fav song) + core (aesthetic??) blog established: around 2018 but i started becoming active in late 2019/early 2020 followers: 146 ( i love you all )

favorites

favorite animal/s: anything connected to the cat species favorite book/s: the authentics (abdi nazemian), satellite (nick lake) favorite color/s: lighter shades/mid-tones of cool colours, a dash of yellow

random

average hours of sleep: 6 cats or dogs: cats coffee, tea or hot chocolate: tea current time: 11:34 pm dream trip: south korea, japan, europe dream job: song producer, lyric writer hobbies: listening to music, browsing the internet hogwarts house: ravenclaw last movie watched: harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban last song listened to: no. of blankets you sleep with: 1 random fact(s): my favourite subjects are biology and english!

[ five ] 10 songs i can’t stop listening to:

eternally - txt

fever - ateez

blue - keshi

lights out - exo

00:00 - bts

strawberries and cigarettes - troye sivan

maze in the mirror - txt

i loved you - day6

illusion - ateez

stolen moments - the vamps

#this took wayyy too long hhh #but thank you to toffee for tagging me <333 #tag game #tumblr game #kpop #about alachi !#alachi thingz #alachi's bffs!

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fandomlife-giver · 4 years

Text

Beacon Maid - 5

Summary: So, you’ve invited us to a ball at the Trancy mansion? Very well. I’m happy to let you dance to my tune for an evening. Butler who does a graceful, subtle dance, one to which I am more accustomed to than you. Next time, ”Beacon Maid” Surely, you jest. If I couldn’t dance to that, what kind of maid would I be? One, two, three…one, two, three…

Pairings: Sebastian X Demon!Reader X Claude

@wintersdoll @naniky @danabuggxd @redryderdesigns @inumorph

Word Count: 2865

Warnings: Mild language, Implications of sexual themes

Your name: submit What is this?

Sebastian held a longing stare at the ceiling, a small ping of regret hitting him as he thought about the fact you were off exploring on your own and trying to keep it hidden from him.

He tried to shrug off the feeling as he moved on to the next room. Once he opened the door, his eyes scanned the interior from top to bottom. He allowed the door to shut behind him while he moved to the drawers sitting on either side of the bed. However, when he moved to open one, a sudden painful ping hit him, seeming to vibrate throughout his entire being.

He glanced down at his stomach as he steadied himself against the beam of the bed, cursing under his breath.

“Oh dear, it’s becoming even worse now.”

He regained his balance and sighed. “But never mind the hunger. Let’s see what Trancy has kept away from sight.”

He opened the drawer and his eyes widened.

There lay the shattered remains of what was once the ruby ring worn by his mate. His eyebrows furrowed, his mind wrinkled at the pondering of why it was there, of all places. He had witnessed her throw it down the well…

In a flash, he grabbed the ring’s corpse one the door to the room opened and he turned around, giving the newcomer a smile.

“This is an immaculate room. Everything is perfect from the neatness of the bedclothes to the placement of the artwork. I can tell how much care you took to properly prepare it. I find it most...educational.”

Claude kept no emotion on his face as he eyed Sebastian’s clenched fist and the opened drawer.

“I am pleased to be of help. Though, I find your willingness to stoop to petty thievery in service to your master more impressive.”

Sebastian’s smile briefly grew in response.

“You flatter me.”

He stepped closer as if he was going to leave, then paused when he was right beside Claude’s face.

“I will not let you have my young master, I am his butler. Come hell or high water, that remains.”

Claude practically cut him off as he locked eyes with him. “My master’s orders are absolute.”

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed at him, while he only smirked. “You see, I am one hell of a butler, too.”

There was silence for a moment, Sebastian’s face being unreadable as the tension in the air grew.

‘Sebastian, come here this instant. I have something to discuss with you.’

He finally smiled and stepped away from him, proceeding to walk out of the room. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“Felis seems to be quite irritated with you. You have all your attention on your master. What a cruel thing to do to a mate as wonderful as her. Perhaps you should appreciate what you have more.”

Sebastian’s foot hovered over the threshold of the door, seemingly paralyzed by Claude’s words.

Claude couldn’t help but hum in amusement.

“You never know when you might lose it.”

●●●

“Master, I simply won’t allow myself to wear such a distasteful costume.”

Ciel smirked at Sebastian as he menacingly glared at the clothes Ciel had chosen for him. “You don’t have a choice. I ordered you to, didn’t I?

His gaze slowly moved over to Ciel and he could practically feel his anger in the room. It looked as if he wanted to say something, but he didn’t and only continued to stare.

"Stare or don't, it won’t change anything." Ciel had a way of not mincing his words, arms folded tightly over his freshly ironed pirate costume. For such a small boy he had a subduing stare; Sebastian only raised an eyebrow at it.

“Well, It could change the outfit.”

He sighed once Ciel gave him an annoyed look and reached over to grab the laid out outfit, clenching his jaw as he looked it over.

“There wouldn’t happen to be a reason why this was chosen over all others, would there?”

He merely shrugged in response. “It seemed fitting. You are a tremendous fool sometimes.”

Sebastian hummed, disregarding his minor insult. “And what of Y/N? Has hers been chosen?”

Ciel sat on the edge of the bed as he placed his chin in his hand. “Lau hasn’t told me anything. Apparently, he wants it to be a surprise. But according to him, it’ll be enough to make you grovel at her feet. And he said something about it showing her true self but I don’t care enough to know what he means.”

A smile threatened to pull at his lips as he imagined how much you were probably hating this as much as him and it slowly fell when he remembered the anger you held toward him.

“That reminds me, I have something to discuss with you concerning Y/N.”

Sebastian glanced at Ciel with furrowed brows. He suddenly stood up and stared up at Sebastian, his jaw clenching.

“She is off-limits. You are not allowed to be intimate with her.”

●●●

“Well, what do you think, darling? Simply breathtaking! Aren’t I a genius?”

Your eyes were trained on the so-called ‘outfit’, your heavy eyelids a fraction too slow to blink, your irises too stationary. It was as if your brain was suffering a massive short circuit and was struggling to compute.

Lau stood with his arms stretched out as he proudly displayed the most humiliating mockery of yourself to you with so much pride that it made you feel annoyed beyond reason.

Your eyes snapped back to his face, a seething rage clear within them. And you laughed. “Surely, you jest. I am not wearing that ridiculous thing. I’ll look as if I’m a mistress of the night.”

He looked at you like you were stupid. “Well, of course, that’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

Your jaw clenched as you rolled your eyes. “If my master and my fellow servants see me in a thing such as this, that would ruin their image of me, don’t you understand?”

He took a long inhale of his pipe and only shrugged. “Not my problem, love. Now be a good kitty and put it on, would you?”

In one swift motion, you raced forward, claws bared, and fangs out as you attempted to attack his annoying face. However, his companion Ran Mao was just as fast, holding the blade of her sword to your throat.

Lau looked up at you as he exhaled the smoke and chuckled. “Oh, I’m sorry, love. I didn’t mean to offend you. But the party is starting about now and if you please would just make it more entertaining for all of us, put it on and get out there. You do want to have that mate of yours a drooling mess, don’t you?”

You took a step back, your fangs going away but your claws still out in a threatening manner. He grinned and gestured to the cat costume once again.

“So, shall we?”

●●●

“Have any of you seen Y/N?”

The servants turned to look at Ayani, who had a worried look on her face. “I don’t mean to sound disturbed, it’s just that she hasn’t been back for a while, I’m afraid something could’ve happened.”

Bard tilted his head at her. “Like what? Nothing here seems to be alarming so I bet she’s just enjoying herself.”

“Oh!” Mey-Rin suddenly gasped. “I think Finny said something about helping Mr. Lau with her costume!”

Said person had actually walked up behind them as she spoke. “What about me?”

Bard turned when he heard his voice and smirked, though you couldn’t see it behind his mask. “Oi! There you are. Finny, you know where Y/N is, right?”

Finny eyebrows raised. “Oh, um, she should actually be on her way down. She was just having a little trouble figuring out how to put it on, ‘cause how tight it is.”

A hint of a blush went across Bard’s cheeks. “T-tight?”

“What’s tight?”

Everybody jumped, letting out mini screeches when Ciel and Sebastian appeared beside them.

Ayani was about to answer him until her eyes landed on the tall fool behind him. Her jaw dropped from trying to process what he was wearing. “Sebastian, you look, um…”

She didn’t get a chance to finish once the servants began to laugh until their lungs were on fire.

“Look at this! He’s finally lost it!” Bard dropped to the floor, gasping for air.

“Oh my, I never thought I’d see Sebastian like this!” Mey-Rin’s cheeks were red as she rested a hand on Finny to steady herself.

“I’d say he’s doing his job right, he’s certainly making me feel happy!” Finny held his sides, nearly falling into Ciel as he continued to laugh.

Ciel smirked at their reactions, completely enjoying every second of his humiliation.

It wasn’t long until their laughter ceased the moment they saw the look on Sebastian’s face. His eyes flashed with indignance and anger, much like lightning on a pitch-black night.

Bard quickly stood, all of them regaining their posture. “Sorry, sir. It’s just we’re not used to seeing you like this.”

When he spoke, his voice was ice cold. “Don’t. It’s not happening again.”

Ciel chuckled and began looking around. “Now that that’s over, where is Y/N-”

He froze, making everyone turn to see what had stopped him. It felt as if the whole room moved it’s attention to the three figures that entered the room. Or, more specifically, the woman dripped from head to toe in a very revealing, and very tight spandex black bodysuit. But with the boots, the ears, the tail, the gloves, and the collar, she became the alluring cat known as Y/N.

It was as if Sebastian’s brain had been reprogrammed within a few seconds, overridden. It was as if all his previous interests had been deleted and replaced with the current image of her and the feel of her gaze as she locked eyes with him. He could hear the murmurs of the guests as they took in the sight of her.

“Breathtaking…”

He looked at Ciel, who was still gawking with a blush now on his cheeks, but then realized that it wasn’t him who said it. He suddenly heard a fast heartbeat and his sight landed on Claude, who was staring at you so hard he thought you’d catch on fire.

His fists clenched, a wave of anger pooling in his core. He was looking at you. He was longing to touch you. And no one was allowed to think of you that way. You were his.

Ciel snapped out of it as Sebastian stomped passed him, headed straight for you. “Sebastian?”

●●●

You rolled your eyes at the longing looks you received from the men and perhaps even a few women in the room. Lau placed an arm around you proudly. “Well look at you, our very own belle of the ball!”

The glare you gave him made his arm disappear. When you saw his eyes widen, you turned, nearly gasping at the sight of Sebastian coming at you at full speed, wearing a...court jester costume?

Your eyebrows raised when he stopped in front of you and you tried so hard to keep in your laughter. “Interesting choice.”

He seemed to ignore your comment, his eyes never leaving your figure. “You look gorgeous, kitten. So much that it makes me want to take you right now, with everyone to see.”

You bit back a grin at his fantasy. His hand took yours as he kissed the back of it. “Y/N, my beautiful mate, will you do me the honor of dancing with me?”

You giggled at how sweet he was being. “Of course, my dear fool.”

He narrowed his eyes while pulling you to the dance floor, the orchestra beginning to play as he did.

So you started to dance and spin. The lights were twinkling with every step as you spun in delicate circles, your glued tail billowing out. You used to love things like this, the pressure of a warm hand on your back, and the feeling of your small agile feet gliding along the floor. You had always felt like a small bird learning how to fly, flailing around, and finally taking off with outstretched wings and windswept feathers.

The slow music twirled like thread around you. You rested your head on his chest, and let him sway your body 'round and 'round again. The violins came in, then the piano, and then the slow and sure beating of a drum. It felt like forever since the last time you two danced or even had a moment as intimate as this. By feeling the fast beating in your heart, you knew the way he made you feel was more than what typical mates had. And whether or not he felt like this too, you at least knew it for a fact.

You loved him.

It wasn’t long before you could hear the music slowing down. Feeling dejected that it was ending, you looked up at him, only to realize he hadn’t even been giving you any attention. You followed his line of sight to see he had been staring at Ciel the entire time.

Worry struck your mind as you whispered in his ear. “Sebastian, what is it? Is there something wrong?”

He seemed to break out of his trance and returned his gaze to you, smiling at your adorable face. “No, I’m just worried for the young master, that’s all.”

You frowned at his answer. “Oh…”

When he realized you had stopped dancing, his hands dropped from your waist and looked at you apologetically. “Do forgive me, my kitten, but I have something to attend to.”

He moved to leave, but not before grabbing you and kissing you with such passion that it nearly knocked you off your feet. He pulled away after a few seconds and stroked your cheek, then turned and disappeared into the crowd.

You stared after him, saddened by his departure. You touched your cheek where his fingers were just before, missing his warmth already.

“Well, wasn’t that sweet?”

Your neck turned violently at the male voice, your eyes flashing demonic when you saw who it was.

“You. What are you doing here?”

He removed his hat, his steel-blue eyes sparkling with mischief. “You know, it’s funny, I was about to ask you the same thing.”

His eyes scanned you up and down. “How fitting. It’s so ironic, it makes me wanna laugh.”

“I asked you a question!”

His lips curled in amusement. “Skipping the small talk, are we? That hurts my ego, you know.”

There was no trace of humor on your face, which he took as an answer.

He sighed and placed the hat back on his head. “Well, alright, since you asked so nicely.” He crossed his arms as he beckoned you over. “But not here. This way.”

You followed him cautiously, weaving through all the people and ignoring their stares. As you were about to enter a hallway, a person suddenly bumped into you. You caught the familiar clothing pattern, recognizing it as the Trancy uniform.

“Out of my way.”

You ignored the rude manner of the maid, though you remembered how before she was quieter than that. Stealing a glance at her, you hurried into the hallway where he stopped and turned around to face you.

“Alois Trancy is as stupid as he is childish. He’s employed me to trade an instrument in my collection for a certain object I need. It’s all part of this plan of his to separate your master and your mate from this party and hold its occupants hostage. And this device requires the sacrifice of a human that has been marked by a demon.”

You held up your hand, signaling him to stop talking. “I know the instrument you’re talking about. But what I want to know is how on earth did he find out about the nun and where you fit into all of this.”

He hummed as he rubbed his chin. “Well, I’m not sure, but I think he mentioned a connection he has in town. It must be someone close to you.”

You looked away, your teeth grinding as you thought of a certain person.

“But as for me...well, this is kind of what I do.”

Your eyes snapped back to him. You then shook your head when something came to mind. “Hold on, who even are you? The first time I met you was back on that boat and you never even told me, seriously, what kind of demon does all of this?”

His eyes widened as a smile spread on his lips, a laugh passing through them. “Oh! Well, um...see, I’m not actually a demon.”

You grew confused and stepped away from him.

He raised his arms and shrugged as if it weren't a big deal. "They call me Uriel."

The moment you heard the name come off his tongue, your eyes darkened and your claws once again came out as you took an attack position.

He only smiled at this.

"I'm an archangel."

#sebastian michaelis x reader #sebastian michaelis #kuroshitsuji #black butler #demon!reader

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inikavulpixelreviews · 5 years

Text

New Game Special: Let’s Talk About Pokemon - Sword and Shield

Just as a warning, this thinkpiece WILL contain minor to major spoilers of the newest games.

So. Sword and Shield, huh?

While the Pokemon reviews themselves might not be starting for a while just yet, I think these games and the little discourse that comes with them warrants a little “introductory” thinkpiece to drop my thoughts and hot takes out there. I've played all the way through Sword, beaten its postgame epilogue, and am currently working on a Living Galardex.

Honestly? As flawed as it is, this is the most fun I've had with Pokemon since Black and White. No way I would call it better than BW, or even my second-favorite game HGSS. But it was far more engaging than the Gen 6 games and its ideas felt like a far better way to “revitalize what is familiar” than Sun and Moon did. The Wild Area is a wonderful addition I want to see expanded on tremendously in future games. And I mean like. Almost every route should be a miniature Wild Area in and of itself.

So yeah, I've had a lot of fun with it. It's not entirely scratched the itch that I've been feeling about the Pokemon series taking a serious overhaul to its mechanics (more on that in a bit). And like I said, its flaws are very apparent. Graphically it's still not caught up to modern games, and it's still very much a Pokemon game anchored down by conventions that have been with the series since the very start. And online interactions leave a lot to be desired. The story is back to a much more simple structure, which is a shame since there's a handful of really good characters present between Bede, Hop, and even the game’s main villains that all had a lot of potential. I would love to see them in a story that was handled with the same finesse as Black and White.

But in the end? I did enjoy it quite a bit. A solid 7/10 from me. But with the little micro-review done and over with, we're gonna move onto the two bigger points I'd like to drop my thoughts on.

The Pokemon Themselves:

I mean, what else would it have been?

While Gen 8 is one I wouldn't say is in my top two favorites or anything, it's still very solid and has a lot of fun Pokemon within it. Without giving a ton away, and since I've posted this publicly already, here's a first brush tier list of what I think of em. Though Gigantamax form are missing obviously, and some Pokemon are just not here. For some reason, it's hard to find one of these tier lists with all the new Pokemon on it. Just know that Skwovet and Greedent are around C-range and Galarian Stunfisk, Darumaka, and Darmanitan would be in A.

These can change with time of course, there's quite a few Pokemon that my opinion has changed on once I've examined their design more closely. Yeah, leaning a lot more into the positive! I think Gen 7 edges out just BAAARELY ahead, but 3rd place behind the greatness of Gens 5 and 7 is not bad at all! All that really holds it back are some lackluster cover-legendaries and, tragically, the lack of any new Ultra Beasts.

Figuring out an order to cover these in is gonna be a thing. I'd rather cover new the lines in their entirety, but because some new Regional Variants evolve into entirely new Pokemon, it's puzzling to figure out where they aughta go! In the end, I might go in the order of covering Regionals with no relation to new Pokemon first, then Gigantamax forms, then go through the 810 to 890 in order, plus whatever Galarian forms are related to new Pokemon when they come around.

I’d still say reviews will likely not start until 2020. I’d obviously wanna wait until the official artwork of all the Pokemon in a decent resolution would be available, plus I’d like to put a bit of extra oomph into these reviews. I’ll save what exactly I mean by that for when I start the Gen 8 reviews proper.

But of course, Sword and Shield isn't all sunshine and rainbows. As I'm sure any Pokemon fan has heard, in the middle of this very year, Junichi Masuda himself came out on E3 with the very unfortunate announcement that Sword and Shield will be the first games in the series' long run to not feature every single Pokemon. And indeed, that this will very likely be the standard for all Pokemon games going forward, electing to chose different Pokemon that are best suited to the theme of the region, and all others will be completely incompatible. Fans didn't take this news lightly, to say the least.

And I've thought about it long and hard on my own time, occasionally listening to what others had to say about the matter. Which of course, brings me, the person who mind you hasn't bothered trading their team to the most recent games in a LONG time BUT also had their top favorite Pokemon of all time axed from the Galardex, to my own hot take, gulp:

How badly do we really need the National Dex?

Okay, before I get into it any further than that, I wanna preface this by saying if you're one of the people that are genuinely upset about the National Dex cut, I understand. If you don't think Sword and Shield are worth buying because of the National Dex cut, it's your money to do with what you please. If you think Pokemon from this point forward won't be worth playing anymore due to the possibility that it will never feature every single Pokemon ever again, I totally get it. I'd be a fool to deny that there's a lot to be upset with Gamefreak with at the moment. But I will rather boldly make the statement that, after all the consideration I've done over the last few months, the Nation Dex has been a long-running mistake that should've never happened and the very concept of having every single Pokemon in every single game should've died when Gen 2 ended.

While I have taken its presence much for granted over the years, since it had been such a matter-of-fact thing. Of course every Pokemon would be in every game, why wouldn't they be? Turns out, Gamefreak's insistence on making sure all Pokemon are present for every game could very well be a root for a good chunk of the series' problems, both in the long run and recent.

Implementing the entire Pokedex, for one, is a huge waste of resources and time. People have already proven that putting in the Pokemon themselves doesn't take too long; modders have already stuck their favorites not in SwSh into the games and they are more or less fully functioning (albeit with the need to program your own moves and stats onto them). But to take that as evidence that maintaining the Nat. Dex shouldn't be a problem would be fairly disingenuous. For every single Pokemon, form, ability, move, and whatnot that they add to the game adds to an ever-inflating problem in terms of Pokemon's scope. With how many combinations of Pokemon, moves, abilities, and held items there are, I can only imagine that making sure no catastrophic game-breaking bug is going to happen in-battle due to an extremely and stupidly specific interaction is a QA nightmare that eats up far more of the work force’s time and energy that could be better spent... literally anywhere else.

And all this for what? So that a small and ever-shrinking minority of the fanbase can fulfill the increasingly difficult if not outright impossible dream of catching them all. Especially given how many of said Pokemon are only obtainable during a limited time. Not to mention how you are required to own multiple games to catch them all at this point. And there's obviously FAR too many to reasonably pile into a single region. The other side of that particular coin is the opposite; the people that usually only bring over anywhere between 2-16 favorites. Even that, as much as it is understandable to be upset that Cacturne's biggest fan won't be able to have their favorite Pokemon in the newest game at all, is so much commitment to a relatively tiny part of the game.

...Which is a real shame, since the very existence of the Nat. Dex has only encouraged the deep rut of series stagnation the franchise has suffered. Most if not all other major RPG franchises have had the room to experiment and do major mechanical overhauls because they never have to worry about whether or not the most recent title is reliably compatible with previous entries in their respective series. Because Gamefreak has been so insistent that every Pokemon, move, ability, and item has to be present in all future games, it's lead to a bigger issue in ensuring that everything functions the same way it did in previous games (barring tiny changes made to numbers more than anything). Meaning even the most recent games in the series have been bound to game design decisions made in 1996 on the goddamn Gameboy. Because of Gamefreak adamantly making sure EVERYTHING can function in future games now and forever, the franchise has not been given the room it needs to properly evolve or have a major update to its battle mechanics. For every new major mechanic that's added to the game, they would have to go back and ensure that it works with EVERY Pokemon, their alternate forms, and whatever moves they all may learn. And all the other major mechanical features in the battles. Is it any wonder that it was only twice that an entirely new feature was added that drastically changed the way battles played out? Only twice! Once when Held Items were introduced in Gen 2 and again when Abilities were introduced in Gen 3. There's been other, comparatively tiny updates here and there (The physical/special split in Gen 4, The streamlining of the battle system and the Pokemon themselves finally being animated in Gen 5, etc.) Is it any wonder Mega Evolution only effected a select handful of Pokemon? Or that Z-moves were a feature that affected moves more than they did the Pokemon themselves?

If you chop down the number of Pokemon to say, 400 or so per game, it would be considerably more reasonable to experiment with each new title. It's disappointing that this couldn't be evident in SwSh itself (though I would attribute a lot of that game's problems to questionable mid-development decisions). I personally would just hope the backlash has them listening to the criticism but not take it so much to heart that they backpedal entirely. Otherwise we'll just wind up neck-deep in the first problem again. I really want them to commit to this because it feels like there's a golden opportunity to make a truly modernized Pokemon game.

(A bit of a side-note, but I’m also noticing that now that the Pokedex is down to a much more reasonable number, a lot of people, myself included, are actually attempting to complete Galar’s Pokedex.)

NOT TO MENTION that it'll free up opportunity to make more new Pokemon. A lot of the reason recent gens have slowed down in Pokemon numbers is simply because the the National Dex was getting too big. Now that there's no more National Dex, perhaps we can start having generations of 100+ Pokemon again? In fact, I think SwSh would've been all the better had they pulled another Gen 5 in conjunction with the natdex offing to say that Sword and Shield will ONLY have 200 or so ENTIRELY new Pokemon, and not a single returning one. Fans would've still gotten upset, but the prospect of a game with ONLY new ones in the form of a soft reboot would've gotten people excited to see a sizable generation again. It'd also have shown a bigger commitment to making up for the lack of a National Dex, even before large gameplay changes would be made. (Although again, who knows how plausible that would've been given the implications SwSh had a rocky development)

Could Gamefreak have handled this mess better? Absolutely. I love what y’all do but I’ll give brutal honesty when I feel it’s warranted; they have been ultra trash about communicating with the fans correctly. Between citing “to make high-quality animations” as a reason for the Dex cutting as if you wouldn’t have expected every single animation in the game to be under heavy scrutiny as soon as you said so. Plus rather tone-deaf responses to the backlash. Something that should’ve been communicated was a reaffirmation that this decision was made for the betterment of the series’ longevity, and that it’s a choice that would make the series better in the long run (Even then though, that sounds like admitting SwSh aren’t as good as they could’ve been. And I doubt PTC would ever let anyone at Gamefreak say anything like that.)

This next point is just a personal one more than anything, but it’s a lot better of a solution than the other thing I was fearful might happen at some point: a hard reboot on the National dex. As in, most if not ALL Pokemon get permanently booted from the series and they start over, only keeping a select few. At least with this, so long as they prioritize Pokemon that haven’t been featured in a regional dex in while, I’m all for it. Friggin CHARIZARD aside, the Galar Dex feels like it has a healthy balance of fan favorites and niche Pokemon as far as returning ones go, which is good.

And of course, the Nat Dex isn't the ONLY problems in the Pokemon franchise. For one thing, I'd love it if this annual release schedule just stopped right the hell now. It's hardly a secret that crunchtime because of Pokemon game development is a huge problem at Gamefreak, all because of decisions most likely made by Nintendo and The Pokemon Company, though I'm sure some blame can be shafted on GF upper management as well. It's literally as easy as making the supplemental media stop being so caught up in doing the exact same thing the main series is doing. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the recent anime arc being “Globetrotting with Ash” is a move to distance the anime away from the games so the two don't have to be so coincided at all times. Like, Pokemon can literally do anything and make money off it. Why arbitrarily chain down the main series to a tight one-generation-every-3-years deadline.

Also Gamefreak REALLY needs to expand its workforce. There's evidently only 150 or so employees who natively work for Gamefreak, in which they have to rely on a lot of freelance work. Even so, that's a tiny work force to be working on a game that should be, by all accounts, treated with Triple-A game quality.

And again, let me just say that as much as I genuinely believe that the removal of the National Dex will be better for the series in the long term, nobody is wrong for being upset about it, and nobody is wrong for deciding they don't see the games as worth buying anymore. It's not your fault that Gamefreak made a promise to all of its players that they wouldn't be able to keep forever. And it’s certainly understandable to be upset given the very marketing has trained us to get very emotionally invested in these fictional animals. Like, as much as I saw this day coming, my first gut reaction upon hearing the news was genuine shock. And a slight tinge of disgust that Zorua, my top favorite of all time, could very well not be in the first home console main Pokemon games. At least until I realized “oh wait, I limit myself to only using new Pokemon anyway.”

And obviously this is by no means a guarantee that Gen 9's games will feature massively sweeping changes that fix all the shortcomings of the battle mechanics and will feature the vast Breath of the Wild-esque open world experience that fans have been clamoring for and 250 new Pokemon (plus 75 regional variants!). Gamefreak has been conservative enough about Pokemon to have landed themselves in this problem in the first place. Just forgive me if I hold onto even just a little bit of cautious optimism for the next games.

#Pokemon #Pokemon Sword and Shield #Pokemon Reviews

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let-it-raines · 5 years

Text

Catch Me If You Can (28/40)

298 days. That’s how long Killian Jones was away from a baseball field. It’s less than a year, only part of a season for him, but it might as well have lasted a decade as he alternated between physical therapy and spending an excessive amount of time sitting on his couch.

But then he came back and won the World Series.

It’s something no one saw coming, and it’s certainly not something anyone who knows about his arm would predict. Now it’s a new season with new possibilities, and anything could happen. On-field reporter Emma Swan will be there to cover it all even if she is not his biggest fan right now.

Asking her out live on-air will do that.

Rating: Mature

A/n: I know everyone is caught up in JJ Sneed land if my dash is any indication, but I know some people are itching for a new chapter today! So here we are!

Also, everyone go check out this FANTASTIC piece of artwork from @imagnifika | here | because it’s awesome, and I’m still blown away by it and seeing this story come to life in someone else’s eyes! Let me stare at it forever. Thanks to @resident-of-storybrooke for reading all these words and being a great encourager! 💙

AO3: Beginning | Current

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Tag list: @stunningswan @eala-captian @galaxyzxstark @xellewoods @mariakov81 @ultraluckycatnd @royalswan @shey-starsfury @superchocovian @sals86 @iam2307 @ashley-knightingale @karenfrommisthaven @scientificapricot @captswanis4vr @ultimiflos @jamif @idristardis @nikkiemms @resident-of-storybrooke @tiganasummertree @bmbbcs4evr @onceuponaprincessworld @jennjenn615 @mayquita @captainsjedi @teamhook @notoriouscs @kmomof4 @ekr032-blog-blog @cs-forlife @andiirivera @jonirobinson64 @qualitycoffeethings

-/-

There are technically eight different types of cookies, and it all depends on how exactly they’re baked or, well, not baked. This isn’t something Killian knew until about two o’clock this morning when he was googling cookie recipes desperate to find something other than chocolate chip cookies to bake. But then he got sucked into a wormhole of research and discovering the difference between rolled cookies, bar cookies, and dropped cookies.

Seriously. There is an entire website on the history of cookies. He looked at it for an hour. It’s kind of insane.

It’s also not really important to him, but weird things happen in the middle of the night, especially since he hasn’t been sleeping well the past few days and his mind needed to focus on something concrete.

That’s also how he ended up wandering to the nearest twenty-four-hour market at three in the morning to buy ingredients for black and white cookies, buckeyes, and sugar cookies. He doesn’t even know how or why he picked those three. All Killian knows is that he’s been stress baking for days now, something that’s a bit hard to do when he’s trying to take it easy on his right arm, and he’s pretty much wiped out all of his cabinets of the good ingredients.

His refrigerator, however, looks like a bakery threw up inside of it. He really needs to take some of the things to Liam and Elsa, but when he went to their house yesterday, all Addy and Lucy wanted to talk about was his arm and Emma and even though it was completely innocent, it was too much for him. He can’t quite go back to give them cookies if all they’re going to talk about is Emma.

Every bit of this is his fault. He owns up to that.

But it’s still too much.

The fact that Ariel, Eric, Will, and Robin are all pissed beyond belief at him doesn’t help. He’s sure that for the four of them things will go back to normal soon. He doesn’t know for sure, but he thinks they will. He’ll never be able to clutch his shoulder again without having someone yelling at him to go see a doctor, but that’s likely for the best.

(Killian should have gone to a fucking doctor.)

They all deserve the multitude of sweets in his fridge. He’d take them to each of their apartments now, but they’re all still too pissed that he lied to them over and over again. Plus, they’re leaving for Boston tomorrow morning and likely busy even though today is their last day off from the small break that they got after Labor Day.

He’s not leaving for Boston. He’s staying right here sitting on his ass surrounded by cookies.

Emma’s going to Boston. At least, he thinks that she is. She should be. He’ll have to ask her when she comes over.

When she comes over.

Emma is coming over today. In about fifteen minutes actually, and that’s entirely why he’s been stress baking (more than usual) throughout the entire night. Killian doesn’t even know how he looks right now. There are probably some major bags under his eyes and his hair is all over the place, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he had flour or icing or even both smeared all over him.

Shit. He hasn’t shaved in four days.

For some reason, it’s that that thought that has Killian dropping his piping bag he was using to frost the sugar cookies to turn the corner in his apartment and run down the hallway to get to his bedroom so he can shower. In the past few days, in all of his moping and self-inflicted misery, he managed to pick up all of Emma’s clothes and hung them in the closet. That might be a little too hopeful thinking, but it seemed like the natural thing to do.

The sticky notes, though, have stayed exactly where they are, and he looks at them before quickly twisting the nobs on his shower and stepping inside the moment the water gets to an acceptable temperature. He doesn’t have much time, so Killian picks up his body wash, leaving Emma’s where it is, and scrubs over his body while doing some light stretches with his shoulder. He needs to put another ice pack on there.

That’ll have to come after this.

Six minutes later, Killian is out of the shower. Two minutes after that, he’s dressed in a pair of his gym shorts and a t-shirt, one from a charity game he played last year, and after looking in the mirror, he knows that he doesn’t have time to shave, not if he wants to brush his teeth again.

He should probably brush his teeth for…reasons.

That’s optimistic.

Killian can’t help it. For four days he has felt his entire world crumbling around him, and it’s been his fault. He’s known that it was. There was no denying it even when he most wanted to, and he’s wanted to a hell of a lot.

Missing the rest of the season, possibly having to miss parts of the play-offs which could mean that he could miss the World Series, is obviously crushing. There’s no denying that. The game has been his life for nearly twenty-three years, and he doesn’t want to keep screwing things up. His track record might not show that, but it’s true. He’s going to try to be better. He’ll go to all of his therapy, tell those who need to know when he’s hurting, and he’s not going to overdo it. He’s not.

But as much as all of the stuff with his job is killing him, not having Emma to talk to is worse.

The game was his life for so long, and while he doesn’t want to say that Emma is his entire life now, she’s up there in the most important category.

Probably topping the list.

Everything about his life has her mark on it. From the clothes in his closet and the bottles in his shower to the coffee creamer in his fridge and the throw blanket that she left on his couch. There are all of these physical signs that show how she’s changed things, but he knows that a hell of a lot of how Emma has impacted his life comes in the way that he’s more conscious about spending times with his loved ones or the fact that his demons don’t seem to find him as much in the dark of the night. The smile that was missing for so many years has found its place again.

Emma didn’t fix his flaws. They’re all still there. But she has inadvertently helped him to be a better person.

Even if he is still screwing up and will continue to.

Killian loves Emma, and there is no denying that. None at all. He’d never try to.

“Why does it smell like Little Debbie threw up in here?”

Killian’s head turns at the sound of Emma’s voice, and even though it causes the slightest sting to his shoulder, he doesn’t care. Because she’s real and standing in front of him wearing running shorts and a tank top, her hair tucked into a Yankees cap so that he can’t really see the green of her eyes. But he can see the timid, hesitant smile, and he never wants her to be hesitant to see him again.

“How did you – ”

She holds up a key. “I have a key. Figured it was still okay for me to use it.”

“Yeah, love.” Killian smiles and grabs a clean hand towel to dry off his hair so he’s not soaking wet. “That’s perfectly fine.”

“Good. So why does it smell like Little Debbie threw up in here?”

“Stress baking. Do you want a cookie? Or brownies? I have a large parfait. There’s also a cake that was meant for…the other day, but it’s a damn mess.”

Emma lets out a small laugh and shakes her head while her hand reaches for the chain around her neck, her fingers fumbling with it. His breath hitches at the sight. Over the past few days, his hand has instinctively clutched for it, reaching out and trying to find something to hold onto, and every time he comes up empty. He gave that to Emma because he wanted her to have it, and nothing about that has changed.

His mom would want her to have it. She’d love Emma. Killian doesn’t remember that much about her, but he knows that she would love Emma. They have that same kind spirit and an infectious laugh that makes everyone else in the room want to laugh along.

Bloody breathtaking.

And hopefully the ring brought her luck and comfort when she got to commentate the other day, and hopefully she knew that he was cheering her on the entire time. He still hasn’t heard how that went. He almost watched the replay of the game so that he could see for himself, but it felt wrong to do that without Emma and to know that most of the tape would be focused on his injury anyways.

That’s not how it should be.

And maybe a part of him couldn’t handle hearing her voice as she had to speak after seeing him leave the mound.

“I might want a cookie later,” Emma says, shrugging her shoulder. “I feel like if I start eating now, I’ll consume everything like I’m a vacuum.”

“Isn’t that how you usually eat?”

She’s closer now, so he can see her roll her eyes. “I’m still mad at you, so I’d watch what you say.”

That sobers Killian up, the playful smile tugging at his lips disappearing into a firm line, and he nods his head while his left hand reaches up to scratch behind his head. “Aye. Do you want to go talk in the living room?”

“Yeah.”

Emma turns on her heel and walks out of his bedroom, and he’s following right behind her. As much as his stomach is absolutely churning right now, Killian knows that the sooner they have this talk, the better. Unless, of course, it ends with Emma ending things between them. That’s not for the better. If it’s what she wants, it’s what she wants, but he can’t believe that it’s for the better even if he is an idiot who likes to mess things up.

Emma grabs her throw blanket from the basket and sits down in his oversized arm chairarmchair, settling herself in like she’s comfortable here, and he likes that she’s still comfortable here. That comforts him. Killian doesn’t grab a blanket, but he does sit down on the couch and pull a pillow to his chest so that he has something for his hands to do.

Is his heart still working? He’s not sure.

“How’s your arm?” Emma starts. This is probably the conversation she feels most comfortable with, and he doesn’t blame her.

“It’s okay. I need to ice it soon, but I’ll be fine. Just a lot of resting it, which is harder than I thought it would be.”

“Do you want to ice it now?”

“No, no, Swan. It’s fine. I promise. I know – I’m sorry that I lied to you.” They aren’t the words Killian meant to say quite yet, but he does mean them. “I truly am. I can’t express how much of an idiot that I am. I hid away something really damn important from everyone when I should have shared it the first time my arm started hurting. I should have gone through the steps of preventing this. I should have told you what really happened with my accident. I should have told you everything that I didn’t tell you, and I can’t imagine how shitty it makes you feel that I didn’t.”

Emma scoffs. “Pretty shitty.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I just – ” She lets out a big sigh and adjusts the blanket over her legs again. “You don’t have to keep apologizing. I know you’re sorry, and I believe you when you say that. I’m sorry that you’ve been going through all of this alone and that you haven’t felt like you could tell someone, but it did…it does hurt me that you couldn’t tell me. People have always let me down, and – ”

“I never intended to let you down.”

Emma smiles, something soft and a little sad, and he swears that it breaks his heart the slightest bit. “I know that. It took running far too much, eating my weight in food, and then having Ruby talk some sense into me, but I know. And it’s why I’m going to choose to see the best in you.”

Good.

Good. This is going a hell of a lot better than he thought it would, but he’s still terrified that maybe he doesn’t deserve this forgiveness from her.

“And I you.”

“I mean, there wasn’t a lot of bad to see about me.”

Killian laughs, for what is probably the first time in days, and something inside of him rights itself so that the pieces of the puzzle continue to click into place instead of being all mixed together.

“Well, not in this particular situation, no.”

Emma’s smile is a little more hopeful now, and he watches it change as she tugs on the brim of her baseball cap. “Why didn’t you tell anyone, Killian? Be honest with me. If we’re going to continue to make this work, and I really do want to make this work, you have to be honest with me. I’m done with guys who aren’t honest.”

He knew this question was coming, has had to answer it before, but no answer seems like it’s enough. They all fall short, and he knows that’s because he fell short in who everyone was expecting him to be. In who he was expecting himself to be too.

“I was scared. That sounds like such a pathetic excuse, but it’s my truth. I have been through a hell of a lot of ups and downs in the past nine years, and I had finally gotten out of the downs when the accident happened. I worked so damn hard, love. I – ” He stops to take a breath, still at a loss for words since it all sounds ridiculous and yet makes perfect sense in his mind. “I finally had my life back on track. Things were going really well for me, and I was pissed that it was all taken away from me because some kids were drunk and driving a boat. I didn’t think I’d ever get the game back, but I did, you know? I was on top of the world, so when my arm started to hurt again, despite all of my better judgment, I figured if I never said anything, I’d never have it all taken away from me. And not telling you about any of it…I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want you to think of me as being any more broken than I already am.”

That’s it. That’s his truth. There’s no altering it or making it better or making him seem like less of an idiot. That’s simply it.

Emma said she’d see the best in him. He hopes that’s true.

For a moment he thinks it’s not because Emma is rising from her chair, and he fully expects her to walk out the door despite everything they’ve already said today and when they talked in Elsa’s office. But she doesn’t leave. Instead, she walks toward him and very slowly places her knees on either side of his thighs and leans down to sit on his lap so that they’re nearly eye level when the palms of her hands land on his cheeks and he can finally see the green of her eyes again underneath her baseball cap.

He’s now realizing the cap is his.

And it feels really damn good to feel the touch of Emma’s hands again. That’s also what has him wrapping his arms around her lower back and tugging her closer while Emma continues to rub her thumbs under his eyes in soothing circles.

“Killian, I am obviously not the most emotionally equip person in the world and am not the best with words, but you have to know that you and me, we both have shitty pasts. We both have things that we’re terrified of and sensitive to, and I think that’s why we work. You understand that I’m not going to leap head first into things, and I understand that you have this weird sense of self-loathing that you shouldn’t have. You were terrified of losing something you love. I would be too.”

“You were pretty damn good with words there.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve had a lot of time to think about things.”

“I like you thinking.”

“Funny, most men don’t.”

Killian chuckles and leans forward to rest his head against Emma’s shoulder, and he takes the moment to breathe her in and breathe in the smell of her perfume. The pillow next to his has smelled like hers for the past few days, but it’s nothing compared to the real thing.

“I’m not going to lie to you again,” he mumbles into her skin while her hands start messing with his hair so that vibrations are running down his spine. “Or my family. Or my teammates. I promise I’ll be smarter, yeah?”

He tilts his head up to look at Emma, and he’s about to say something else when she leans forward and presses her mouth to his. He’s kissed her hundreds of times, probably more than that – he’s not counting – but there’s something different about the way that her mouth moves over his now. It’s slower, more passionate even if he knows it isn’t leading to something more than this, and the raw emotion of it all travels from his lips to the pit of his stomach before moving back up to his heart and constricting it.

But in the best way.

Killian has missed her.

He has missed the sound of her laugh and the way that she hogs the entire couch. He has missed the way she tastes and the fact that she never seems to put her dishes away on time. He has missed the notebooks she leaves around with all of her mid-game scribbling and the way that she can’t seem to make up her mind on what she wants to eat for dinner. Barely any time has passed, but not knowing exactly what’s coming next even more than usual has put a hell of a lot of things in perspective for him.

His love for Emma is one of the most important things in his life, and he doesn’t want to ever jeopardize it again by not being able to own up to his past and how it still has a stranglehold on his present.

Killian gently pecks her lips one, two, three times before trailing along the side of her neck and peppering kisses against her skin, never moving his hands from where they’re holding her to him.

“I love you so much,” he murmurs, the desperation obvious in his own ears. “You have no idea.”

“I think I might have a bit of an idea,” Emma laughs as he leans back to look at her again, the brightest smile he’s seen all day stretched across her lips. “I love you too, by the way. But I still hope everyone you know gives you shit about this whole thing until we all know for sure that you’re not going to keep hiding things as important as your health.”

“I would expect nothing less,” he sighs. “Now, I don’t know about you, Swan, but my girlfriend had a very big day at work the other day, and I still haven’t heard about it.”

“Oh, we don’t have to talk about it.”

“No, no. I want to hear every detail. I almost watched the tape, but I figured that’d be a little miserable hearing your voice while watching myself be an idiot on the field.”

“Yeah, that would probably suck.”

“Exactly. So, tell me all about it. I’m all ears.” Emma opens her mouth, but he stops her. “Aye, I know – little pointy ones.”

Emma does tell him all about it. For a few minutes, she’s kind of fumbling around trying to find her storytelling stride, but then she settles in and knows exactly where she’s going with her tale. She’s not one to talk a lot, even when it comes to him, but when it’s something that Emma is passionate about, she could talk for hours without taking a breath.

Emma is passionate about this.

He can tell in the way the smile on her face rarely dissipates and with how she keeps using her hands far more often than she normally was. Plus, her voice gets that little bit higher in pitch, and he has to bite his tongue not to tease her about it. He also has to bite his tongue when she starts detailing all of the petty little ways that Isaac and James tried to demean her instead of acting like professionals. Emma promises that it wasn’t too bad, but Killian can tell that their little digs bothered her, especially the ones about her integrity and him.

Killian shudders at the thought of their relationship becoming public because of the hell hole that it’ll put Emma into no matter how respected she is in her field by those who actually know what they’re talking about.

A part of that will always be on him and his actions of ten months ago, but he’s under strict instructions not to apologize for that again. And right nownow isn’t about him and his own self-loathing. He’s already taken away days of both of their lives for that, and he’s not going to do that any longer.

Right here, right now…this is about Emma finally getting to do something she’s dreamed about.

He does get up in the middle of her going on about what it was like after his injury – which sounds more than horrific for her – to get his ice pack, and that causes them to trail off onto all of the exact details of his tendonitis and his treatment. He promises Emma that it’s truly not that bad, but that his case is a little bit more intense with his history and the particular severity of it all. That’s when she asks him when exactly it hurts, and the pain on her face when he tells her he can feel it pretty much any time he moves his right arm more than a few inches is not a pained face he wants to keep on seeing from her.

But it only gets worse when Killian details that sometimes it’s so bad that it wakes him up from sleep, and Emma starts to piece together all of the times she’s woken up in the middle of the night to find him out of bed at odd hours.

Bloody idiot. That’s exactly what he is.

It’ll get better though, with rest and physical therapy and a little bit of luck, and as much as it sucks, it could be worse. This could all be worse. He’s not going to let it, though, as he’s not going to be dumb enough to not get treatment and to keep pushing himself further than his physical limits.

And as much as Killian would like to be able to hover over Emma and roll his hips into hers and join their bodies together after what feels like forever apart even if it’s only a few days, he knows that he’s not quite physically able to today. Emma, though, the spirited lass that she is, lets a smirk curl across her lips as she directs him back to his bedroom and tells him to lie on his back as she takes the lead so that he doesn’t have to move his shoulder too much.

Creative solutions have always been the best solutions.

It’s glorious being joined with Emma again, feeling her warmly wrapped around him as she moves above him in slow circles that have him dying in the haze of ecstasy. His mom’s ring falls between her breasts with each movement, and his good arm reaches up to toy with it. She’s going particularly slow, each roll of her hips seemingly meaning something deeper, and as good as it feels, a part of him thinks it’s some kind of torture since she knows he can’t do most of the things he’s usually capable of doing.

The sly smile on her face when he tries to thrust up into her and go deeper inside of her tells him that he’s right.

The minx.

And if slow and steady is what Emma wants, it’s exactly what she’ll get. She’s always been one to take charge.

The heat simmering between them must eventually begin to burn, however, because the rolls of her hips become faster and she places his hand where they’re joined so that he can help her find her bliss in the few minutes before he finds his, little shocks of electricity working down to the base of his spine as he comes undone with Emma’s name on his lips and his love for her curling around each and every other word that he manages to mutter.

Almost losing her, even if he didn’t think this would truly tear them apart despite the way his mind kept convincing him that it would, has made him appreciate Emma in ways that he hadn’t before.

He thought he appreciated her in every way, but there are always things to learn.

“I have so many damn cookies,” Killian laughs later, after they’ve cleaned up and crawled back under the covers, a new pack of ice on his shoulder and his body pleasurably aching. “I have no idea what I’m going to do with them.”

Emma laughs against his chest where she’s curled up, her hand over his heart and her feet tucked in between his calves so that they’re back where they belong. “I would say I could take them with me on the road trip, but then I’d have to check a bag to get them with me through TSA. Or maybe not. I’m always confused on the food thing.”

Oh.

He’d nearly forgotten that life was moving on outside of his bedroom and this bed and the freckles scattered over Emma’s skin. The only clothing she has on is the necklace, and he’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible.

“So, you are going to Boston then?”

Emma hums. “And then Detroit after that. I have off for the Blue Jays, though, so I’ll be coming back home instead of going to Canada.”

His hand scratches against her back, drawing lines and words and anything that he can simply to feel her again. “I hate that I’m not going to be traveling with you.”

“It’s going to be kind of weird,” she whispers before pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “I’m going to have a hotel bed to myself.”

“To be fair, you pretty much always have the bed to yourself even when I am around.”

“You have been forgiven for about two hours now, and you’re already talking shit about my bed hogging. That’s a bold move there, Jones.’

“Oh, I know,” he yawns, his lack of sleep catching up to him even if it’s only six in the evening, “but I’ve slept alone for a few days now, and let me tell you, it’s glorious.”

Emma scoffs against his chest before sitting up so that she’s looking down at him under her mess of wild blonde hair that’s curling over her chest. “You’re being an ass.”

“Well, we have undoubtedly decided that I am an ass, right?”

“Pretty much.”

Emma’s arms stretch over her head, the muscles of her stomach on display, before she’s rolling off of the bed and standing up so that he has a particular good view of her ass that has his body humming. But then she’s walking to his dresser and pulling out a t-shirt to put on. She obviously pulled it from the back because it’s an older one he hasn’t seen in years, and he imagines he’ll probably never see it again with Emma’s penchant for stealing his things.

“You going somewhere, love?”

“Yeah,” she sighs as the t-shirt lifts from her thighs when she’s pulling her hair back up into a messy bun on the top of her head. “You have a bowl of icing in your kitchen, and the TV in the living room is better than the TV in here. If we’re not going to the US Open because I don’t want to leave this apartment until I absolutely have to, I’m going to watch it here.”

“Do you want me to join you?”

“Eh,” she teases, shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t really care. Apparently, I am a bed hog, so I’m leaving you here to have the entire bed by yourself while I go lounge about on the couch eating the sweets you made while you were mooning over me.”

“You’re impossible.”

Emma winks. “And you love me for it.”

#catch me if you can #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan fic #captain swan

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formeitsalways-haylor1989 · 5 years

Text

We Come Back Every Time

Author's Note: Here we are again, another story in a space of a week woahza! Originally I was going to make this more than one chapter but since I’m only just getting back into the writing game I figured let's not make it too difficult for ourselves. ‘Cause of this, I’m sorry if the start is very in depth and the rest feels kinda rushed. I originally didn’t mean to go that deep and detailed to the start but it just happened. Anyway this starts of in the 1989 era and moves into the Reputation era with mentions of Calvin/Adam, Tom and Joe. I really really hope you enjoy this. The idea was one I originally had back in 2015 for a one shot that was going to turn smutty but like I said, it’s been a while. A smutty one may be coming up next before I take One Night can Change Everything. Anyway, you know the drill. Comment, vote, like etc. It really inspires me to write more when I know people are reading and enjoying my stuff. This is also the longest fic I’ve written in a LONG while.

*insert line break*

August 2016

Taylor scrolled through Instagram looking at fan posts while the car drove down the busy streets of London. They pulled up to a red light, at the same time receiving a text from Adam that read “ Goodnight beautiful.” She smiled, not responding to the message.

The car began to move again, taking her the remaining distance to the hotel that Adam was currently staying in. He was in town for some festival and Taylor was sad she couldn’t join him originally. With some work by her team, they were able to shift things around so she could surprise him on a last-minute flight to London.

The pop-star wore a trench coat and a pair of heels with a black lace dress underneath. She managed to get changed on the jet before stepping into the awaiting car. Pulling up to the Ritz-Carlton, she grabbed the Louis Vuitton duffle bag and made her way to the reception desk collecting the key that her team had already called ahead for. Taylor made her way up to the 14 th floor, excited and eager to surprise her boyfriend, little did she know that she was the one in for a bigger surprise.

After a good 5-minute walk from the elevator doors, she inserted the white key waiting for a click and its accompanying flashing green light. Taylor quietly opened the door, hoping not to wake Adam just yet but was surprised to see the main light on in the room. Gently closing the door behind her, she walked further into the room to reveal a sight she never hoped to see.

“Adam!?” she asked in shock and surprise.

There, on the bed was her boyfriend of just over a year on his back with brunette’s legs wrapped around him, naked.

“Taylor?” he said in complete surprise, trying to remove the girl who was bouncing on top of him.

“What the fuck Adam?!” Taylor’s voice was getting louder. “I loved you! How could you do this to me?” she asked while tears were running down her face.

“T I’m sorry,” he said while trying to grab his underwear. “I never meant to…”

Taylor scoffed, tears still flowing, “Never meant to what? Get caught!?” She shook her head.

The brunette began to move from her position on the bed, reaching for her clothes.

“No, don’t. You stay. I’ll leave,” Taylor said, wiping the tears off her face with the back of her hand.

Picking up her bag, she took one last look at Adam. Shaking her head again she spoke, “And after all that, I told you. How I felt, what I’ve gone through. For you to do this to me. I can’t believe you would stoop this low. If you wanted me out of your life, you could’ve just said it.”

Walking to the door, she didn’t look back. She didn’t want Adam to have the satisfaction of seeing her cry even more or how her heart was now broken into two. Slamming the door behind her, Taylor made her way to the elevator with her head held high.

I will not break down in this elevator. I will not break down in this elevator, was the mantra she said to herself over and over again.

In her hurry and daze, Taylor realised she hadn’t called her driver when she made it to the lobby. She was in too much pain to pick up her phone and wanting to get far away from the hotel as quickly as she could. It was at that moment, a London cab pulled up dropping guests. She made a b-line to the opened car door and placed her bag on the seat next to her.

“Where to miss?” the driver asked in his North London accent.

“I don’t know, just drive. Anywhere.” Taylor handed him $200 pounds.

The driver stared at her through the rear-view mirror, shrugged and started the engine.

*insert line break*

Sitting in the back of the taxi, Taylor thought about where she could go. She could get a room somewhere, that was always an option but she didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts. She needed a friend. A distraction. She mentally ran through all of the people she knew in London. Ed was currently on tour in Australia and Cara was walking some runway in Belgium. The only person she knew could potentially be in the same city was Harry.

Taylor gave the driver the address of what she hoped would be her final destination for the night. She considered texting him in the 35 minutes it would take for her to reach his place. They had become friends again in a way. They texted each other from time to time. Saw each other here or there. She knew that Harry would always be there for her and she would for him too. They didn’t talk much but the little speaking they did do, became even less when Taylor started dating Adam. She didn’t really understand why.

Pulling up at the house, she thanked the driver before handing him another $300 pounds.

“Thanks for this sir. Also sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused. I’d also really appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about tonight.”

“No problem. I’ll take your secret to my grave.”

Taylor smiled at him, thanking him once more before exiting the cab. Walking the stone driveway, she was grateful to see lights on. She also hoped he didn’t have company. Or if he did, it was someone she knew. Taylor didn’t want to walk in on two people in one night. Tentatively knocking on the door, she waited for what felt like forever until it opened, revealing a shirtless Harry Styles with his hair up in a bun and a toothbrush in his hand.

“Taylor?”

“Hi,” she said quietly. Clearing her throat, she continued, “I’m really sorry to do this to you, and it’s late and unexpected…”

She began to ramble, which gave Harry the chance to look at her face. She had been crying. He knew what Taylor looked like after she was upset all too well. He was sometimes responsible for those tears.

“It’s ok,” he said, stopping her from rambling on further. He motioned for her to come inside. “Is everything ok? You look like you’ve been crying.”

“Is it that obvious?” she asked while dropping her bag in the corner.

“Not to everyone, but to me it is.”

Harry stared at her, he could tell she was trying to put on a brave face.

“Taylor, you know you can always talk to me, right? My guess is, you needed someone to talk to otherwise you would’ve found yourself a hotel room.”

She looked at him and gave a small chuckle trying to put on a brave face. However, it didn’t last long. She felt Harry’s green eyes knocking down her walls and began to cry again. Tears started streaming down her face again. Before she could say or move Harry was beside her, scooping her into his arm and holding her tightly. He felt her hot tears on his skin, running his hand up and down her back in an attempt to soothe her.

He didn’t expect that his night would turn out like this.

The tears begin to subside, she’s no longer shaking his arms.

“I walked in on Adam cheating on me,” she reveals by pulling away from the hug to look at his face.

“Tay,” he says in a whisper. He moves the hair that has fallen in front of her face behind her ear. “I’m so sorry.”

“He said he loved me you know. For him to go and do that! I mean, I gave him a hit single for goodness sake. I loved him and that’s how he repays me!” Taylor starts to shout out of anger and disgust about what happened. Harry heads over to his bar to make her an Old Fashioned in an attempt that it will calm her.

He hands her the drink and she downs it quickly.

“Thanks.” Taylor wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. She takes a seat on her couch and stares at the artwork on his wall. There’s silence between the two for a while.

“Thanks for letting me in,” she says. Her eyes had moved from the artwork to her fidgeting hands in her lap. “I just needed someone to talk to and I don’t know a distraction. I figured I shouldn’t be left alone with my thoughts in case I decide to do something stupid like wait for him to fall asleep and go back and chop his balls off.”

Harry chuckles at the mental image.

“It’s no drama, Taylor. You’re welcome here anytime. You are my friend after all.”

Taylor smiles at him. “Yes, that you are. And friends, don’t let friends drink alone at times like this.” She makes her way off the couch over to his bar to begin making a drink for both of them.

Harry laughs and watches from his spot of the couch. He notices that despite what she’s just been through, Taylor still looks beautiful. Her gorgeous face, beautiful blue eyes accompanied by her signature red lipstick she wore. He eyes the black dress she wears that was obviously meant for Adam’s eyes only. He notices the way it clings to her and how painfully thin she looks. She wasn’t the same Taylor he dated years ago. Granted, he wasn’t the same Harry. She seemed like a ghost of her past self.

Taylor makes her way over and hands him his drink. She holds it up to toast, “To friends being there for friends during shitty times”.

Their glasses clink and Harry took a sip before getting up to grab a shirt.

Taylor was a little disappointed at the view that had just disappeared.

“The bedroom is through there,” he said, pointing to the right of the corridor.

She shakes her head, “Harry, this is your house. I don’t expect to show up in the middle of the night and for you to sacrifice your bed for me. The couch is just fine.”

Harry looks at her and figures it’s best not to argue with her.

“Fine,” he says picking up his glass. “Just don’t complain to me in the morning when you have a sore back.

Taylor gestures a zip and locking a lock next to her mouth.

Harry laughs before he decides to get up and grab a beer for himself and a glass of red wine for Taylor.

She thanks him for the drink before he sets off down the hall and comes back with a scrabble board. Harry figures while she’s here, he might as well have a worthy Scrabble opponent.

They play well into the night in between making cocktails and light conversation. Taylor gets changed into a pair of sweatpants and borrows one of Harry’s many white t-shirts.

They fall asleep next to each other on the couch, with Harry’s arms wrapped tightly around Taylor. It’s the best sleep Harry’s had in months.

*insert line break*

The next morning Taylor extracts herself from Harry’s arms and makes breakfast as a thank you for letting her stay. Harry laughs when he wakes up, realising that it’s such a Taylor thing to do.

She makes arrangements for her driver to collect and take her to the jet, wanting to get home to the company of her cats and eating all the ice cream and chocolate she can find in her New York apartment.

“Thank you again, Harry,” she says while pulling away from another hug. “It means a lot.”

“I’m here anytime you need me. Remember that. After all, we’re friends.”

“Friends,” Taylor replied with a nod and smile on her face .

Harry watches the car until it’s no longer in sight.

*insert line break*

The two start to talk more and more as the days go by. Facetime video calls and text messages back and forth about anything and everything. From cats to music, Harry even facetimes her on the set of the movie he’s staring in.

“Am I going to see you up there winning an Academy Award one day?” Taylor asks while turning the camera around so he can see Olivia doing her classic Meerkat pose

“Ha. I don’t think so Tay but who knows.”

They talk the longest when they’re in a crisis. She vents to him about her problems with Tom. How her team is wanting them to make everything so public. Taylor’s ears are open anytime whenever he and current girlfriend are having dramas. They figure they’re the only two that truly understand what it’s like having their respective partners get thrust into the spotlight. Taylor was all too familiar with it while Harry experienced it himself during his career.

Meetups happen as much as they can, though they’re sparse. With constant traveling on Harry’s end to Taylor’s current reclusiveness from the media, it’s hard. The majority of the time it’s in London, usually hanging out with Ed and Cherry.

He’s one of the first to find out apart from Ed and Selena that she’s got a new boyfriend. Another English actor only this time he’s younger than her. Harry’s happy for her as much as he can be, his true feelings for her being pushed down as much as he can so they can remain friends. Harry came to the conclusion that he wanted Taylor in his life. If he had to have her only as a friend, then so be it.

Harry released his debut album and Taylor is the first to send him flowers and a congratulatory bottle of champagne. “I’m so proud of you,” the note read in her cursive handwriting. “ I always knew you could do it. P.S. Kiwi is a killer track.”

He shoots her a message thanking her for the gift. He never tells her outright that Two Ghosts and Woman were about her. It was self-explanatory.

*insert line break*

July 2018

Harry’s wearing a black Reputation Stadium Tour hoodie and jeans, standing the sound booth watching the crowd go wild at FedEx Field.

He hadn’t physically seen in her a while but that was normal for them. However, Taylor’s calls and sending of memes grew less frequent by the day. He thought nothing of it but it occasionally chewed at the back of his mind.

Taylor’s glowing all over, not just from the body glitter she has on nor from the thrill and adrenaline from performing on stage. She’s glowing just in general and notices how she’s filled out. No longer is she painfully thin but she looks like the Taylor he dated at 18 just a little older.

He heads backstage to see her, congratulating her on a fantastic show.

“Thanks Harry, I’m glad you came.” Taylor hugs him tightly. “Thanks for taking the time to come see the show. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to make it out to one of yours.”

“Not to worry love,” he responds while pulling away. Harry sees a blond haired man walking towards them.

The blond wraps his arms tightly around Taylor’s waist. “Great show tonight,” he says before giving her a chaste kiss to the lips.

“Thanks babe.” She turns to face Harry.

“Harry, I would like you to meet Joe. Joe this Harry.”

The two Englishman shake hands and exchange pleasantries.

“Nice to meet you, big fan of the movie you did,” Joe says with an awkward smile on her face.

“Thanks mate, nice to meet you too.”

Taylor thanks Harry again before giving Joe a quick kiss on the cheek before heading off to change for Rep Room. The two boys stand there awkwardly in the hallway backstage of the stadium before Harry’s phone buzzes telling him that his driver is here.

“Nice to meet you again,” he says before giving him another awkward handshake. “Tell Taylor I say bye and to enjoy the rest of her tour.”

“Will do.”

Harry can feel a set of eyes burn a hole in his back as he leaves.

*insert line break*

“She’s keeping the conversation to a minimum ‘cause it’s interfering with her relationship apparently.”

Ed tells him over a glass of whiskey.

“What do you mean interfering?”

Ed shrugs, setting down his glass. “Don’t know man. I’m guessing it’s more coming from Joe than from her.” Ed grabs the bottle of whiskey and starts pouring them both another drink. “She told me that she was happy when you started talking again. Despite knowing that you’re not responsible for her happiness, I know that you haven’t been happier since becoming friends with T again.”

“Well, it’s not my fault if he feels so insecure about his relationship that our friendship should impact it.”

Ed stares at him. “You are her ex, mate.”

Harry just sits there not knowing what to say. Ed was always the one friend they both shared that helped and understood their relationship. Ed was always in Harry’s corner but he would never admit it to Taylor.

“Who told you this?” he says sipping on a drink.

“Selena.”

Harry looks up in confusion. “Selena? Since when did you two start being all buddy buddy.”

“Well we always have been somewhat friends, but it was ‘because she was here with Niall the other day.”

“Wait. Selena and Niall?”

“Yep,” Ed responds, taking a sip from his drink and ignoring the cat brushing up against his feet.

“I’m not entirely sure what they are. I found it too awkward to ask.”

*insert line break*

Taylor doesn’t know what to do. The one person she would normally talk to about this was off limits, as it involved him. Taylor was a little heartbroken when Joe approached her after the night of the concert in the car to the hotel.

“I don’t really feel comfortable with you talking to him, to be honest.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s your ex, Tay. It’s not that I don’t trust you. I just…”

“You just what?” Taylor asked, a little annoyed.

“I don’t trust him. Look, you said it yourself when we talked about things early on when we were getting to know each other. He was a big part of your life and how am I supposed to know he’s not here trying to win you back?”

“Harry’s my friend Joe. What am I supposed to do?”

“I’m not asking you to not be his friend. Can you maybe keep the conversation light? Don’t go messaging him constantly and meeting up with me? Please? For me?”

Taylor stayed quiet for a moment before nodding her head. “Ok,” she replied quietly.

Joe kissed her on the cheek, “Thanks babe.”

*insert line break*

Taylor decided to confide in Selena. She thought about talking to Ed but figured he would have a more bias opinion with Harry being one of his best friends and all.

“I don’t know what to do Sel. I love Joe. I’m happy with him. But he’s asking me to do something big that doesn’t feel right.”

“Well, he’s not asking you to not be Harry’s friend T.”

Taylor switches the phone to her other ear.

“No, but he’s asking me to keep it a minimum. Harry and I don’t talk much to begin with. Just here and there, I send him a meme or a funny tumblr post about him on occasion. It’s not like I spend every night staying up late talking to him.”

Selena stays silent.

“It feels like he’s asking me to not be his friend without saying the words.”

Selena doesn’t respond.

“Come on, I know you. Spit it out Gomez. Give it to me straight.”

She hears Selena sigh. “Ok, I love you just know that. I also love that you’re happy and I love that Joe makes you happy. I mean he’s a great guy, got no doubt about it. I mean he’s holding the record for not getting in my bad books yet but…”

“Buuttttt…” Taylor responds trying to coax an answer out of her.

“I’ve always felt that guys shouldn’t dictate a girls life. I know from experience after everything happened with Justin. In my opinion, I don’t think Joe has the right to say who you’re friends with, who you’re not friends with and who you’re talking to. By all means, it’s not like you’re one of those crazy girls who constantly ask their boyfriends who they’re talking too and trying to read all their messages. He should pay you the same respect that you give him T. I mean if he asked you to not be friends with me, would you?”

Taylor remains silent.

“I think you have your answer babe.”

*insert line break*

Joe goes away for a week to promote his latest movie when Taylor has time to truly think.

She knows she shouldn’t throw away the wonderful thing she has with him over a friendship. A friendship with her ex. The one who inspired a whole album. The ex who she always felt like would be the one to run in and stop her wedding, whoever was up with the alter with her. Screaming out her name and asking to give him another chance. The guy who after all this time was still writing songs about her.

It was during her week alone that Taylor came to the realisation why Joe’s response hurt her so much. She loved Harry. Having him as a friend instead of a lover made it easier for her. No reason to get angry at him or no reason to doubt him. There were no obstacles in progressing their relationship further as there was nowhere to go. Taylor didn’t have to risk her heart being broken by the same hand twice by just being friends with Harry.

The real question was, was he worth taking the risk of having her heart shattered into a million pieces again?

*insert line break*

“We need to talk,” was how the message began that he received from Taylor at 2 am.

“I don’t know when I don’t know where but we need to talk. I’d rather do it face to face.”

He responded, “I’m in LA at the moment. I’ll be in New York next week.”

Harry figured she’d prefer to let him down and break their friendship in a more personal and polite way than just ghosting him altogether.

“Are you decent?” she sent back. Before he could respond he saw the white cloud of bubbles appear at the bottom of the screen. “‘Cause if you are, I’ll come over right now.”

Harry responded with a simple “ok” before getting up to grab a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt.

Before he knew it, there was a knock at his door.

He turned on the lights on his way down the stairs, greeting her and letting Taylor enter.

She was the only person he knew who still managed to look presentable at 2 am in a Law and Order t-shirt and cat pajama pants.

“I’m sorry for kinda springing this on you.”

Harry shrugged, “It’s ok. If I recall, our favourite time to do stuff is either 2 am or midnight.”

Taylor laughed and smiled wide at him. Her smile causing a chain reaction on Harry’s face.

“You wanted to talk?”

“Yeah, um….”

She stood there awkwardly, not knowing where to start. She had it all planned out mentally but as she was standing in Harry’s living room, all words escaped her. “So first off, I’m sorry that I haven’t been speaking to you as much.”

Harry nodded, sensing the slight nervousness in her tone. “It’s ok.” He wanted to tell her he knew but didn’t want to rat out Ed or Selena.

“No, it’s not ok Harry.” Taylor took a seat on his couch while Harry decided to sit on the armrest.

“Joe asked me to kinda stop speaking to you. I guess he was worried about what might happen between us. He knew how much you meant to me and how our relationship was a big part of my life and help me define who I am today.” Harry stays silent while Taylor looks at the ground.

“I was honestly really hurt. I already kinda started to speak to you less when I started going out with him so he had nothing to feel insecure about, but I guess it didn’t really help.”

“So is this your way of apologising and telling me our friendship is over at the same time?” He asks, a little bitter. He honestly would’ve preferred a text.

She shakes her head, “Quite the opposite actually.” Taylor removes her eyes from the floor to Harry’s face.

“When Joe implied that I break our friendship, I didn’t understand why I was so hurt. I mean yeah ok I found it a little controlling. I never asked him to stop talking to people or checking his messages to see if he was talking to other girls. I realised that he shouldn’t really have much of a say on who I can and who I can’t talk to.”

“Well, I’m glad you came to that conclusion. For both our sakes. I’d miss my facetime chats with Olivia.”

Taylor smiles at him, “I also realised why it hurt so much.” She stands up from the couch and makes her way closer to where Harry is sitting.

“I realised that letting our friendship go meant a big part of who I am would disappear. Our relationship may have not worked out the first time but it made us into better people and I’m thankful for that.” She was in front of Harry, placing her hands around his neck she continued, “Having you as a friend was the next best thing to being in a relationship with you. We got everything apart from you know, the intimate parts, without having to worry about screwing up, what the media or fans thought or risk getting our hearts broken again.”

Harry looked up at her, “So what are you going to tell Joe?”

She stared into his green eyes, a small smile on her face. “I don’t have to tell Joe anything.”

Harry shook his head.

“Some people are worth the risk of having your heart broken for a second time.”

Harry stood, Taylor’s arms remained in place while he wrapped his around her middle.

“Do you mean?” he asked quietly, his forehead resting against hers.

Her blue eyes closed before nodding her head. “I love you Harry Styles. Always have, and always probably will.”

Harry smiled wide before leaning in to kiss her. His arms tightened around her waist while Taylor’s hands made their way into her hair. Pulling away, Harry finally responded, “I love you too Tay. After all, we come back every time.”

#Haylor #haylor fanfiction #Haylor fic #harry styles #Harry Styles fanfiction #Taylor swift #Taylor swift fanfiction #Taylor swift fan fic #harry styles fan fic #my babies #OTP #longest thing I've written yo #across the eras #my writing #haylor swyles #swyles

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