#need a concise date

[datshitrandom]

spring is so close yet so far…

📸 via Jessica Wang | Cellist | January 5, 2025 | Power Station at BerkleeNYC

[lovinthosecrits]

Saw a tag on a post. Made me mad. Have a little rant - both about how I've seen people talk about d20 PCs and also the cast

It was saying that what we "know" about van is that she's a straight woman who loves her husband. Under a post about how maybe we shouldn't assume identity about someone based on their physical characteristics (to vastly simplify). The post even mentioned biphobia!!

There is no one way to look gay. There's no one way to look straight. There is NO RELATIONSHIP that you can look at from the outside and know all of the intricacies of. That does not mean what we "know" is that she's a straight woman married to a man. Straight isn't default. No, seriously, look at me. Being straight isn't the default. Neither is being gay

We literally only know that she is a woman married to a man - because that's what we're told.

The text has shown us that she is devoted to him, and they love each other deeply.

But, do you see how that's it? That's all we know. The default isn't straight. Women being women however they're fucking going to be and look and feel and sound ... Just makes them women. Look at the breadth and width of women we get just in the three female PCs this season.

People are like this about the cast too. People assume everyone is straight until told otherwise. Can't we just assume we don't know? Emily and Murph are married. Brennan and Izzy are married. What can we know about their relationship or their individual identities? We know they're married. That alone tells us nothing about their orientations, relationship style, or gender, for that matter. The cast are all people. They are not your friends. You don't know them.

The FICTIONAL characters that they choose to play are also not your friends. You don't know them. They are storytelling devices. They aren't even real people. But how y'all treat some of these characters and the cast that makes them up makes me worried for the real people in your lives, ngl.

[campbyler]

hello! im a big acswy fan! this is not a question, i just wanted to thank you guys for making acswy mike wheeler be a one direction stan, a glasses-wearer, a book annotation enthusiast and a pin collector. representation matters and i am being represented!!!!!! he is me!! i am him!! we are one!!!! super excited for what's to come (this isn't pressure in any way shape or form, just thought i'd let y'all know im looking forward to the rest of our camp whiteman journey!!) 💙💛

you know, i was actually just talking to someone about this the other day but i think it’s so interesting that we gave both mike and will glasses in this fic (astigmatism4astigmatism so true to me) but we get so many more comments about people loving mike with glasses than we do will! i do know some aspects of mike’s characterization are more intertwined with the plot/more written in than will’s are (the zeldaisms, annotations, etc) but i can probably count on one hand the comments we’ve gotten about glasses wearer will LOL. maybe i should conduct an official study or something? i feel like that could be interesting data to collect. ANYWAYS, just thinking aloud there for a mo bc it reminded me and i have a hard time shutting up but THANK YOUUU and you are so welcome!! i think we have adequately represented ourselves in our mike and will and pretty equally as well (and also very bravely refrained from projecting when it wouldn’t feel right. even when we Reallyyyyy wanted to 😔) not to delve too much into the details of Everything but book annotator mike specifically is such a real and true hc to me!! i think his copies would just be so well loved and dog eared and scribbled in, except for maybe some special editions or gifts, etc. i just see him as someone who really enjoys and appreciates his things but without feeling the need to keep them perfectly preserved or pristine. and — this is very important, i don’t think it has officially come up here before —the lore behind the 1D part of his characterization is that mike is a happy victim of Guy With An Older Sister Syndrome and was exposed to their full discography when nancy was into them during their peak. i think the combination of the music being catchy and fun and all around good and enjoyable + the nostalgia of rare sibling bonding time would have really made it stick for him! (<- spoken as someone who spent years holding her younger sister hostage in the car and playing music for her. can guarantee it works)

[pikadxtra]

Super Smash Bros. UltiMelee

Status: Active Tag: #UltiMelee

Super Smash Bros. UltiMelee is a hack of Super Smash Bros. Melee that ports every character's Super Smash Bros. Ultimate moveset and attributes back into Melee, as well as some mechanics and tweaks them in an effort to balance the cast.

Some mechanics from Melee are tweaked or removed as well, though the fast paced nature of Melee is here to stay.

More in depth changes below the cut.

Mechanics changed/added:

Powershield (Reflecting projectiles by shielding) has been removed.

Meteor Cancelling (Jumping out of hitstun of a move that sends you downwards) has been removed.

Airdodges don't leave you in freefall. (Need to find a way to keep falling in airdodge to avoid air stalling with floatier characters)

Ledge invincibility works like shields (Regenerates while you're not in ledge) to avoid abusing going to the ledge.

Grabbing ledge prioritizes closest player.

Two players attempting to grab at the same time will cause a tech grab, sending both players back.

Buried players are unburied by strong knockback.

Hitbox angle 367° (Autolink, connects multihit moves automatically) has been added.

Various bug fixes: Throw hitstun bug fix, Freeze glitch fix, Invisible ceiling fix.

Wobbling disabled after 3 hits.

C Stick uses normal function in Single Player Modes.

Other changes:

Names can be longer.

Neutral spawns on competitive legal stages.

HUD becomes transparent while players are under it.

Game rules default to 4 stocks, 6 minutes, Friendly Fire on.

Alternate character toggle on Character Select Screen by pressing Z over a character (Male/Female Wireframes, Sheik, and Giga Bowser selectable). Victory screen removed for now to avoid crashes when Wireframes and Giga Bowser win.

[karlachismylife]

Writing Russian-speaking characters

So I have once again been chuckling at some adorable clumsy Russian in Nikolai and Nikto fics, and thus I decided to make a little list that might be helpful for fellow COD writers here. And yes, please, feel free to reach out to me if you need any proofreading of your Russian phrases, I would be glad to assist since google translator can butcher it in ways non-speakers won't be able to notice.

I would really appreciate if you guys shared this post and helped it reach people that might need it, I put way more effort into it than I expected myself <3 Also, I might make a followup with some more words and/or phrases that can be useful, so please feel free to request some, since here I am mostly focusing on terms of endearment.

I will write down Russian words, their (approximate and wonky, sorry for that) transcription/transliteration and what part of speech they are (keep in mind that adjectives can be used as nouns when used to address someone) and provide according translation and use.

Keep in mind that in Russian the gender of the word is important!!! I'll write down them in following order: he/him (он/его) version/ she/her (она/её) version/ they/them (они/их) version. However! They/them is NOT traditionally used as gender-neutral pronouns, it's plural only. Some queer and younger folks do use they/them (myself included), but it does sound wonky as it's direct copy from English. Unfortunately, Russian is not very suitable for gender-neutral writing, but there are ways to go about it (I'll try to note some of that too).

*however, since Nikto is sometimes using plural they/them to describe himself, that would be okay with him since it's plural. I hope that makes sense, lol.

So if you're putting an adjective with a noun (example: милый котик) you have to use an adjective in the correct gender form FOR THE WORD! If the noun (котик here) is masculine, you use masculine adjective form EVEN if you're referring to a person with she/her pronouns.

What is love?

The main thing I noticed is that y'all use a direct translation of the word "love" - "любовь" [l'ubov'] (n) to refer to a person. As in "how are you doing, love?". However, that's wrong. "Любовь" is either a word to describe the feeling, or a name (short version would be Люба [Lyuba]). If you wanna use an affectionate pet name, consider one of the following!

дорогой/дорогая/дорогие [dorogoy/dorogaya/dorogiye] (adj) - means "darling". Often used between spouses. Mostly used to refer to person directly, sounds a little quirky if you use it to refer to them in third person (as in "my darling went out to buy some strawberries").

любимый/любимая/любимые [l'ubimiy/l'ubimaya/l'ubimiye] (adj) - means "beloved/loved/loved one" and is probably the closest to "love". You can use it to refer to person directly or to talk about them in third person (as in "can't wait to see любимую". Also yes, the endings are changing depending on the case and I'm not entirely sure how to explain this concisely without going deep into grammar lol).

милый/милая/милые [miliy/milaya/miliye] (adj) - the word means "cute/cutie", but is also used as a general terms of endearment, like "sweetheart". Mainly to refer to someone directly, using it in third person is a little old-fashioned I'd say. Also commonly used by people outside romantic partnership, a kind old lady can definitely call you over with this one asking to help her read expiration date on a milk bottle or something.

любовь моя [l'ubov' moya] (n + adj/pronoun) - okay, I kinda tricked you saying you can't use the word "love" to refer to a person. If you say this (means "my love"), you can! It's pretty romantic and I am actually the one person that uses this daily, otherwise it's either very romance-novel/old-fashioned sounding, but there are moments when it's perfectly suitable. Have that fairytale moment! Also please note, that while "моя любовь" [moya l'ubov'] (adj/pronoun + n) is grammatically correct, it sounds kinda weird if you use it to address the person directly (like in a phrase "my love, you shine brighter than the stars"). While Russian doesn't have particularly strict rules about word order, it does matter to some extent, and this is a prime example: people just use one order way more often that the other.

Pocket-sized

I've already told somewhere here my favourite Nikto fic moment: the sweetest, romantic moment, interrupted by him calling reader "детёныш", which means "cub" as in baby animal. And while my parents do use this word affectionately, I can assure you, most people don't, and it was clear that this was a result of a clumsy translation of "baby" or something like that. So here are some variants for words like baby, little one and such!

малыш/малышка [malysh/malyshka] (n) - I'd say this feels more "little one" than "baby" to me, it's a tad less sexually charged if you get what I mean. Also, you call "малыш" a person of any gender/pronouns, while "малышка" is strictly for she/her. Obviously can be used for kids too.

детка [d'etka] (n) - this one is definitely "baby" or "babe" as a term of endearment, calling a real kid this would be WEIRD if you're not a really old granny. I would also say that it's more commonly used to refer to female partners, but that might be just my perception and experience. It's still okay to use both ways. Also this word can be very much used if you need a little bit of sleazy/catcalling/bad pickup line energy, like someone shouting after a girl passing by on the street. Yuck.

маленький/маленькая [mal'en'kiy/mal'en'kaya] (adj) - this just means "little" or "small", I'd say it's used less commonly and usually in this form "маленький мой/маленькая моя" [mal'en'kiy moy/mal'en'kaya moya] (adj + adj/pronoun). I will expand on this a little later here! Can be used to refer to kids too.

All kinds of fauna

While poor детёныш is reserved for furry freaks like yours truly, there are some animal nicknames that are very widely spread! Here are some that I think would be most useful for y'all. Granted, some people think that these are a lil' bit cringey, but I think it really just depends on what you're used to hear around you. So if I think calling someone a cub is cute, and bunny is cringe, that probably says more about me :D

котик [kot'ik] (n) - this is a term of endearment for a cat. NOT same as kitten, mind you! Mostly used to refer to men (since the word is of masculine gender) - in my experience.

котёнок [kot'onok] (second o here is like ö in German) (n) - now THIS is "kitten". I would say this is more gender-neutral than the previous one, but the word is still masculine gender.

зайка [zayka] (n) - I believe this would be an equivalent to "bunny", although it's actually a cute word for a hare, not a rabbit. Definitely used for all genders (also the word can be both masculine and feminine gender), also is okay to use referring to kids (even teachers that are into endearing nicknames can call pupils this and it's not weird. well, in elementary school). You can also say "зайчонок" [zaych'onok] (n) which is a word for baby hare, even cuter.

рыбка [ribka] (n) - a term of endearment for a fish. I think it's viewed as a bit old-fashioned and thus only used jokingly nowadays, but you know what? Nikolai could pull this off 100%. Bonus points if it's "рыбка моя" [ribka moya] (n + adj/pronoun). Only used for women and the word itself is of feminine gender.

медвежонок [medv'ezhonok] (n) - now, I actually have never met someone who would call their partner this, but I myself would (and I definitely saw it in some media, but that's obv not too reliable). It's a word for a bear cub, so I think it's cute to call a huge ass bear of a military man this word. It's of masculine gender, but I would say it's okay to call a she/her person this too. ALTHOUGH there is a grammatically incorrect (but this only adds to cuteness as it often happens) word "медвежонка" [medv'ezhonka] (n) - this would be a female bear cub. My family uses this word, I use it, no, it won't be in a dictionary, but everyone will understand what you mean. Is okay to use for kids too.

щенок [sh'enok] (if it helps, щ is like German "schtsch", like in Borschtsch, like sh but soft) (n) - now, this actually is not used as a term of endearment, it's "puppy" and it's suitable for degradation. The word is of masculine gender, but you can call anyone this to be honest. You can tell Nikto he's "глупый щенок" [glupiy sh'enok] (adj + n) (silly puppy) and that man will either bark for you or gut you. If you say "тупой" [tupoy] (adj) (dumb) instead of "глупый" [glupiy] (adj) (silly), it will be downright offensive. You can say "щеночек" [sh'enochek] (n), which is an endearing term for a puppy, so it's a little bit sweete. OR you can use my personal favourite - "щен" [sh'en] (n), which is actually also incorrect, but if you've ever heard of a great poet and poetry innovator Mayakovskiy, he was called this word by Lilya Brik. I do NOT have the time to unpack that wild relationship (there was a throuple involved. Russian poetry scene of early XX century was WILD and it's my favourite poetry period hands down), but it's pretty famous. The word "щен" consists of the word "puppy" but with the end diminutive suffix cut off. The trick is, that while some words return to their non-diminutive form with such procedure, this one does not - so you're basically inventing a new word that now sounds quite degrading and harsh, but also sexy as hell (personal opinion). I would definitely call Nikto this word.

птичка [ptich'ka] (n) - that's just "birdie", but I actually wouldn't say many people use it to refer to each other. HOWEVER, Nikolai 100% calls his steel bird this. The word is of feminine gender and if you are calling a person this, it's probably more suitable for a woman.

цыпа [tsipa??] (n) or even цыпочка [tsipoch'ka] (n) - that's a chick, like a baby hen, used only to refer to women (feminine gender word). Honestly I only heard this in foreign films dubbed in Russian or like in jokes/sarcastic phrases. It's kinda rude/indecent/vulgar and the only man that can say that and stay attractive is Captain Jack Sparrow (he used this word in Russian dubbed Pirates like once maybe, talking to Elisabeth, and that was funny cuz he be crazy like that). But maybe you want this, idk.

And everything sweet

Unfortunately, I haven't seen anyone translate the word "honey" as "мёд" directly, that would be another brilliant laugh (cuz it's wrong to refer to a person like that), but there are some "sweet" words to use!

сладкий/сладкая [sladk'iy/sladkaya] (adj) - this just means "sweet", like the taste, and it can be sexy or sleazy or just cute. You can call a kid this word too, BUT for a child would be better сладенький/сладенькая [slad'en'kiy/slad'en'kaya], which is like one step further into diminutive-endearing department.

конфетка [konf'etka] (n) - this is a diminutive word for a candy, a sweet, like a caramel or chocolate or whatever. Not very common, but is cute. Also a way to describe a sexy/good-looking person (more likely a woman, the word is of feminine gender) or just something really good (a bit jokingly). The latter is usually used in a phrase build like "не ..., а просто конфетка", which is roughly translated "that's not ... that's just plain candy". Might have an actual English equivalent that I can't think of right now. Maybe "a total snack"? Probably that one, yeah. Can be said about anything, a car for example.

Shiny

I wanna stick in a few more words of endearment and they all are kinda shiny, lol, so here you go!

солнце [solntse] (n) - this means "sun", like that big glowing thingy in the sky, but it's very welcome as a term of endearment. This word is NEUTER gender (explained in the next section). Viktor Tsoy (a famous rock musician with an unfortunate fate and immortal cultural heritage) had a song ("Cuckoo" - "Кукушка") with the words "солнце моё, взгляни на меня" [solntse moyo, vzgl'yan'i na m'en'ya] (my sun, look at me), so "солнце моё" (n + adj/n) is a good one. You can also use "солнышко" [solnyshko] (n) which is an endearing version of "sun", so it's like "sunshine". Also of neuter gender! Can and should be used to address kids too.

золотце [zolottse] (n) - this literally means like... a little gold? A little golden piece? I don't think there's a proper equivalent in English. It's a word of neuter gender and it's very much used for kids too. Another version would be "золотой мой/золотая моя/золотые мои" [zolotoy moy/zolotaya moya/zolotiye moyi] (adj + adj/pronoun) - this is "my golden", it's a little less common and I feel like it's often used to be condescending, but it's not inherenrly bad, so you can use it for a loved one.

сокровище [sokrov'ish'e] (once again it's щ, look previously) (n) - this is a word of neuter gender and it means "treasure". I personally adore this one and it's pretty common. Can be used for any gender and for kids!

звёздочка [zv'yozdoch'ka] (n) - this is like a little star/starshine. Wouldn't say it's that common, but I use it a lot. The word itself is of feminine gender, but you can call anyone that! Or you can say "звезда моя" [zv'ezda moya] (n + adj/pronoun), which means "my star". Also feminine gender word, but can be used for anyone.

This dog belongs to...

I am not going to go too deep into sexy/sex-related words in this part, because I'll just get overwhelmed with the amount, but I want to go over some words of ownership quickly.

мой/моя/мои/моё [moy/moya/moyi/moyo] (adj/pronoun) - this means my/mine. It goes really well with many words in this list, especially the adjectives, like "мой дорогой" [moy dorogoy] (my darling) or "солнышко моё" [solnyshko moyo] (my sun/sunshine). The last version, "моё" [moyo] is neuter gender, it's NOT gender-neutral! It's the "it/its" I guess (not exactly, but let's just stick with this simplyfied explanation). Previously there were some words of that gender, so here you go. BTW I would say that in speech it's more common to put this word before adjectives and after nouns (like in my examples), just sounds better, but it's not wrong to do otherwsise. You can also just say "ты мой" [ti moy] (you're mine). Also can be used to refer in third person, like when you're discussing your man with your gossip girls, you can just go "а мой вчера..." [a moy vch'era] (and mine yesterday...) and everyone will understand that you mean your man. Unless you wee discussing pets, then they'll probably assume it's your cat.

хозяин/хозяйка [khoz'yain/khoz'yayka] (n) - saw this one too btw. This means "owner" or kiiiinda "master/mistress", and they are gendered, so it's actually wrong to call a woman "хозяин" unless there's some kinky genderfuckery going on (which I'm all for, but like. you get what I mean).

господин/госпожа [gospod'in/gospozha] (n) - okay, THAT is definitely master/mistress, also gendered. Standard BDSM terminology and yada yada.

And that's where I'd like to wrap up for today! However, if needed, I can write more - perhaps with curse words or with sex-related words, or some phrases? I dunno, you tell me! Once again, I kindly ask you to share since I think this will help people (and while I understand the struggle of writing in another language and especially using words from language you don't speak at all, I can't help but be a little thrown off every time I see a wrong use of words in text).

Also remember: while Siberia is bigger than USA or even Canada, there are still other regions in Russia that deserve to be mentioned <3 a lot of places with mindblowing nature, cultural heritage etc.

[gojover]

i was debating making this post for a long, long time, because i don’t like getting political on a fandom space, but as an indian, i felt the need to talk about this. i can’t engage in fandom content without feeling deeply guilty & worried for all the soldiers and innocent lives already lost and at stake, so here’s a brief masterpost to spread awareness about what’s going on in jammu & kashmir at the moment.

i have linked all my sources, and have aimed to be as unbiased as possible. if you find any discrepancies or inaccuracies, please don’t hesitate to tell me so that i can edit accordingly.

before i get into any of the actual details, i want to talk about what triggered this entire conflict between india and pakistan: the pahalgam attack, which took place on april 22, 2025.

(it’s also worth knowing that the india vs pakistan conflict over J&K is not something that was caused by this isolated incident; there are decades of history between the two countries dating back to the partition of india. you can read briefly about it here.)

the pahalgam attack was an attack on 26 tourists by five armed militants in a popular tourist destination known as baisaran valley (located in india-administered kashmir), which is surrounded by dense pine forest and is only accessible by foot or horseback.

the militants singled out the men & asked for their religion, before shooting the hindu and christian tourists. the attackers also asked some tourists to recite the islamic kalima to identify non-muslims. of the 26 people killed, 25 were tourists and one was a local muslim pony ride operator who tried to wrestle a gun from the attackers before being shot. the tourists included several newlywed couples, and the men were shot point-blank in front of their wives.

some hindu men were forced to remove their trousers to check for a lack of circumcision before being shot at close range. the militants also told some hindu women that they were spared so that they could narrate the horrors of their mens’ killing to the prime minister of india, narendra modi.

the national investigation agency (NIA) formally took over the pahalgam terrorist attack case on april 27. the lashkar-e-taiba proxy the resistance front (TRF), claimed responsibility for the attack.

in retaliation to the pahalgam attack, india launched operation sindoor on may 6, 2025.

the indian armed forces carried out precision strikes at around 1 am on terror infrastructure in pakistan and pakistan-occupied kashmir (PoK). nine sites were targeted, and each were selected because they had a history of association with major terror plots and infiltration attempts against india (such as the 2001 parliament attack, the 2019 pulwama attack, and the 26/11 mumbai attacks). no pakistani military facilities were targeted, as stated during the press briefing on may 7.

you can read about the nine sites & why they were targeted here.

as an additional note, it is worth noting that the central government directed all states and union territories to conduct mock drills on may 7 across 244 categorised civil defence districts in the event of a hostile attack.

following the indian attacks on may 7, pakistan resorted to unprovoked artillery shelling across the line of control (LoC), resulting in 13 casualties, with the poonch sector in jammu being the worst hit. this is not the first time pakistan has violated the LoC ceasefire agreement.

as of the time of writing, several cities/districts present on the border of the two countries have been facing blackouts. this comes as a counter-offensive against pakistani drones and missiles which violated the indian airspace several times over the entire western border with the intent of targeting indian military facilities along the western and northern frontiers. however, india was able to neutralise this attempt to hit military stations in jammu and other locations.

tl;dr: this thread on x offers a more concise version of the same events.

the main reason i wanted to make this post is because i saw this post on x and had to take a minute to recover because. genuinely what the actual fuck. in my opinion, a caucasian british person should be the last person speaking up on this matter. the selective activism and hypocrisy is glaringly obvious.

edit: here are a few more resources that provided good insights into what’s happening

articles on the pahalgam attack and its immediate aftermath: one two three

regarding the TRF statement: one

more articles about india/pakistan escalating the war: one two three

posts about what’s been happening in azad kashmir: one two

how to download tiktok (if you’re indian): here

please take the time to read through these and educate yourselves if you’re unaware of what the conflict is about.

[yandere-daydreams]

How do you think divorcing any jjk man or genshin character would go? Like straight up just leaving them cold when you had the chance.

tw - non/con, controlling relationships, abusive themes.

hmmmm i've never actually written a divorce fic have i. anyway we're going jjk with this because i've thought long and hard and come up with neat and concise categories that encompass all of their freak needs.

some less controlling men, like gojo and nanami, might let you go through with it, less because they understand why you want to leave them and more because they don't fully believe you ever would. you're their soulmate, the love of their life, the light of their existence, and even if you're a little angry now, you'll come to your senses eventually. sure, they'll talk to your little attorney and go to your little court dates, but the moment you actually start to physically remove yourself from their vicinity, try to strip them of the parts of yourself that they've already taken ownership of, they'll put a stop to your temper tantrum with a few more locks on the front door and a long night or reminding you why you got married in the first place, followed immediately by burning those silly papers you brought home and sliding the ring that you tried to return back onto your finger, where it belongs. they'll let you have your fun, sure, but at the end of the day, they're your husband, and they'll remind you as many times as they have to until it sticks.

others, like geto and yuuta, never present divorce as an option. geto's a special case - if you got married legally, then there's a very, very good chance that he's got you locked away too tightly to so much as see a courthouse, let alone step inside of one long enough to file for something as time-consuming as divorce. if you ever get away from him, you should be fleeing the country, not hiring an attorny. you know better than to waste your time on something so petty.

as for yuuta, there's only a small chance you consented to marriage in the first place. it's much more likely that you simply woke up with a ring stitched surgically onto your finger and a strange man calling himself your husband in your bed, and 'divorce' just isn't a word in his vocabulary. he's going to be your husband until the day he dies, and no scrap of paper you might show him is going to change that.

and others still, like toji, are going to panic. you can't leave him. i mean, you can - it's not like he's around often enough to stop you - but you can't leave him. you can say that you're sick of him crashing on your couch, that you don't like how often he comes home covered in blood, that you concerned about the well-being of his kids, but that doesn't mean you have to start yelling about ""restraining orders"" and ""calling cps"". you two are good together, and he's sure you'll see that after he gives you a good reason to stay with him - namely, a broken leg and his cock shoved deep enough inside of you to push every other thought out of your mind. you're lucky he loves you so much. if you're lucky, he'll even recite his vows as he fucks the concept of divorce out of your head entirely <3

[crowttore]

Anyway, you're dating Alhaitham while Kaveh is still living there. Kaveh is on a trip into the desert, should be coming home in two days, you and Alhaitham have just bathed and are having slow sex in his room. You hear the front door open and mutter out a confused "Kaveh?" - but poor Alhaitham... He thinks you just moaned his roommate's name. Suffice to say, his hands grip your hips a little harder and his thrusts grow deeper while his chest burns with a need to make you forget everything but him. Alhaitham is not a jealous man, he trusts you wholly, but he does appreciate being concise with words, so how could he possibly let you misspeak in such a way?

Poor Kaveh hears the bedframe creak and promptly backs out the door.

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt for Jan behind the cut; “mistaken identities and interdimensional refugees”. (( chrono || non-chrono ))

“No, man, I was talking to both of you. I mean he's hot but I have enough daddy issues of my own, thanks, I don’t need his too,” he says with a sigh. “I'm dating a different younger brother. Specifically one who is legal, legally adopted, and also is not actively murderous and did the least amount of time in the League of Assassins. Though apparently that’s just . . . not a thing here, I guess.” 

Dick and Jason stare blankly at him again. Even Jon stops sniffling into his shoulder long enough to give him a confused look of his own. Kon just tries to figure out how to explain literally anything about himself without having to say the word “clone” out loud in a reality that may not be all that clone-friendly. Said figuring does not “figure” very well. 

Or like . . . at all, really. 

Goddammit. 

“Who the fuck did any time in the League of Assassins?” Jason demands disbelievingly. 

“. . . don’t worry about it,” Kon says. “So like, uh . . . I can explain. Probably.” 

They all look at him again, up to and including Alfred, who somehow left and came back with tea without Kon even noticing and is now just barely raising an eyebrow at him. How the fuck he even made that so quick is beyond Kon. Doesn’t that shit need to steep or whatever? He feels like that shit needs to steep or whatever. 

“. . . okay,” Dick says slowly. “So when you say you’re not Superman, you mean . . . literally not Superman. As in, not Clark Kent.” 

“Bingo, World’s . . . eh, what’re you, Third-Greatest Detective, y’think?” Kon asks, cocking his head as he looks the guy over consideringly. 

“Bullshit, you look exactly like him!” Jason protests indignantly, pointing accusingly at him. It’s incredibly novel, as an experience, actually, given he’s not doing said pointing with the barrel of a gun. Like, whole new experience to be having with a version of Jason. 

“That is really not as rare a quality in the multiverse as you apparently think it is,” Kon says. “Actually it’s like . . . ridiculously common, in my experience.” 

“How?!” Jason demands, again like he just . . . what, thinks Kon’s gonna answer honestly? Like, genuinely appears to think that? 

Weird. 

“It is such a long story,” he says. “Or like, such a short story that I’d really prefer to see Batman’s immediate reaction to, just in case he feels like whipping out the kryptonite over it.” 

Technically this reality’s kryptonite shouldn’t work on him, but they’re all having a very weird interdimensional crisis right now and also it’s, like, the principle of the thing or whatever. Whether it works on him or not, when you get to the “whipping out the kryptonite” stage, you’ve kinda crossed the Bat-Rubicon or whatever. 

The bigger concern right now, though . . . well, like . . . 

“Wait, you’re not a version of my dad?” Jon asks uneasily, just barely tense in his arms. “You mean–not at all?” 

“Yeah, no, sorry,” Kon says, hoping that if he doesn’t make a big deal about it, the kid will at least, like . . . semi-match that energy. At least this version of Jon almost definitely hasn’t met an Ultraman, so . . . fingers fucking crossed, he guesses. He is being way too optimistic about this shit, frankly, but what the fuck else is he supposed to do with a literal ten year-old? “Thought you realized that earlier, and then the conversation got complicated.” 

“Then who are you?” Jon asks, looking even more uneasy. 

“I would love to have a concise answer to that question,” Kon says. “Like. Ever. Listen, I am sorry, kid, I wasn’t actually trying to pass for your dad. Hell, I wasn’t even trying to pass for their . . . also-dad, apparently, god that is so weird, I’m sorry.” 

“Bruce being our dad is weird?” Dick asks with a frown. 

“You specifically calling Bruce your dad is weird,” Kon clarifies, sparing him a quick glance. “Like, congrats on all the family therapy I’m assuming you did, seems like that worked out real well for you and all. Clearly did the work there.” 

“What?” Dick frowns, looking a little uneasy himself. Kon . . . probably should stop saying shit that’s going to make people associate, like, negative emotions and shit with his presence, considering. 

Like. Definitely he should, at this point. 

“Sorry,” he says again, then looks back to Jon. The kid hasn’t freaked out on him yet, at least, but he’s still pretty tense. Which . . . yeah, well, the kid saw him toss Killer Croc’s teakettle like less than half an hour ago, so probably he is feeling a lot less safe than he’s used to feeling right now. Especially a lot less safe than he’s used to feeling when he thought he was with his fucking dad. 

Kon really, really feels like an asshole over that. 

“Are you okay, kid?” he asks. “Like . . . you need me to put you down, or . . . ?” 

“I want my dad,” Jon says, abrupt and just barely cracked as he stares at Kon’s very El crest-less chest, his hands fisting in Kon’s jacket. 

“Sorry,” Kon repeats, trying not to visibly wince. “Like–listen, I meant it when I said I had you. And we are family, in my book. Like, I’m not your dad or even Superman, but I am a Kent. And an El, too. Though I’m assuming in your case you’re gonna care more about the ‘Kent’ part, far as I know my reality’s version of you’s never been all that concerned with, uh . . . any of the Kryptonian shit, gonna be honest. Which, like, I have a limited amount of dog in that race myself, just I was an ‘El’ first and–yeah, never mind. Sorry, rambling here. Uh. Do you need to put me down, or are you good right now?” 

“What’s your name?” Jon asks, rubbing anxiously at his big wet eyes, and Kon literally does not even know how to compute the question. It just . . . it is very much the last thing he would’ve expected the kid to ask him right now, he guesses. 

“Kon-El,” he says. “Conner Kent.” 

“. . . are you from Krypton? Like–from Kandor, or . . . ?” Jon asks hesitantly, and Kon . . . sighs, a little. He really did not wanna explain himself pre-Batman, but the literal ten year-old definitely deserves at least an explanation, at this point. 

Also he doesn’t want the kid to be worrying he’s from the fucking Phantom Zone, considering. So yeah. 

“Not so much, no,” Kon says.

[eebeewrites]

DILF Mafia! Elf BF x Nanny! Chubby Reader

Synopsis: After getting unexpectedly fired from your previous nanny job, you take the first job offer you can find; even if it seems a bit shady. It's really not too bad; you're living in the most gorgeous house you've ever seen, your paycheck is more than you could ever imagine, their father is kind, and even if their mother is out of the picture, the kids are sweet. However, you quickly learn what kind of occupation pays for such a nice house, and your handsome salary.

Tags: 18+, modern fantasy, mafia au, sub reader, dom love interest, fem chubby reader in mind, parenting au, eventual violence and drug references, eventual smut, smut with plot. Potential slow burn depending on if my adhd cooperates

WC: 4.1k

Continuing with rewriting stories for some of my older OCs, with all of them being somehow connected to each other! Here's the rewrite for my lovable mafia dad Ronan; you can read his original story here. The other connecting stories in this universe can be found here!

You didn’t watch the news much. 

Why would you? Your job kept you plenty busy. Being a live-in nanny was a job that kept you on your toes, days lasting ten, sometimes twenty hours. Yet you were paid well, and you liked the family you lived with well enough. When you were called into your boss’s office, you thought little of it. You were on a first name basis with both parents, and they seemed happy to have you. Yet when you walked into the room, sitting down in the fine upholstered chair, there was a sense of tension lingering in the air. 

“Is…is everything alright?” You asked, breaking the silence. 

The father sighed, mumbling your name under his breath before pausing to composure his thoughts. “We…were incredibly grateful, for your years of service to our family.”

Immediately you knew. You were being fired. 

“Please, know you haven’t done anything wrong, and we’ll give you a glowing recommendation to whatever you pursue next, but…our financial situation has…changed, to say the least.” 

You listened carefully as he vaguely explained what caused such a change, but all you could think about was what to do next. This wasn’t just a job, it was where you lived. It was a good job too; would you find another employer who would compensate you like this? Who’d be so kind and understanding? You weren’t sure. 

It was hard, telling the children you worked with how circumstances had changed. Yet you couldn’t wallow for long; perhaps two weeks' notice was generous in some fields, but it still didn’t feel like nearly enough time. You spent every waking minute of your free time scouring job offers, yet none of them came close to matching what you were making now.

All but one. It looked sketchy; a Craigslist ad advertising $10,000 a month for a live-in nanny; fifty miles outside of the city. It looked like a scam, but you were just desperate enough to give it a shot. Like any other job, you submitted your resume and hoped for a response. 

You got one quickly, within just a few hours. The message was short and sweet; the top of the message read just “INTERVIEW” alongside a date, time, and address; tomorrow at six PM. The time wasn’t too out of the ordinary, given half the reason you were hired was due to parents needing to work. 

You drove over to the address; despite the eerily concise response and quiet drive, the house was impressive; right on the water, not another house for miles, but built with the same grandiose architecture as the houses of other families you had worked with. 

Despite the beauty of the house, you couldn’t help but be a bit on edge. You looked around, noticing quite a few cameras. Not the most abnormal thing you had ever seen, most people with this kind of wealth invested heavily in security. Still, the feeling of being watched was more intense than other interviews. 

You walked up to the door, and before you could even knock, the door opened. Standing before you was a well-dressed man; Elvish, fit, blonde hair and pale skin, and oddly familiar. You could’ve sworn you had seen him before; perhaps in the newspaper or on television? It’d make sense, given the fancy house. “Hey. The nanny, I assume?” 

“That’s right.”

“Great. Come on in.” 

You followed him inside, looking around at the tall ceiling of the foyer. The walls were adorned with all sorts of paintings in various styles, some much older than the other. You had seen both old and new money, but it was apparent they were the first. 

He led you over to the living room, “just uh, sit there for a moment. He’s still in a meeting. My brother, I mean.”

“Oh, that’s no problem.” The more you looked at the man, the more certain you became. You had seen him somewhere before. You couldn’t pinpoint where, but you were sure of it. He looked around the room, tapping his foot impatiently. “You do this a lot?” He asked. Clearly, he hadn’t read your resume. 

“For about a decade, yes.” 

“Nice. He should be done any minute.”

“That’s fine. I um,” you were given no other information outside of the interview. Most families at least told you their occupation. “May I ask what he does? Your brother?”

“Ah, intrigued I see?” He asked with a smile. “We own several businesses across the city. He runs the back-end, I run the front-end. After all, someone’s gotta be a pretty face,” he laughed. “No offense to him. Well, maybe just a little,” he joked. “You know the big casino downtown?” 

You nodded. 

“Yeah, that’s us.”

You looked around the room. There weren’t many signs of children from what you had seen, the house so far seemingly clean and well-organized; something you didn’t see often when nannying. “How many children does he have?”

“Two. Twins. Spoiled little bastards,” he laughed again, but you weren’t sure if he was joking. You heard a door open, and out came a man. Just like his brother, he was well dressed; long blonde hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, pointed ears clear to see. “Ah, so nice of you to join us.”

“Sorry, things got a little heated,” he said with an awkward laugh. “I’ll take it from here, Finn.” 

“Of course,” his brother gave both of you a nod and left. 

“So, let’s get started,” he held out a hand for you to shake. “I’m Ronan, the father.” 

He seemed nice enough. Once his brother left, the interview felt fairly…normal. He asked you about your job history, your education, if you’d be comfortable living with them, all sorts of standard interview questions. By all metrics, the interview seemed to be going well. 

He walked you around the house, giving you a tour of the property. The first floor of the house was immaculate, but the second floor made it obvious he had children. 

“They’re twins,” he said. “Five years old, one boy, one girl.” He seemed to light up when he spoke of them. His brother wasn’t entirely wrong about them being spoiled. Each had their own sizable bedroom, along with a playroom that envied any you had ever seen; it even had a sink and refrigerator in it. All sorts of shelves lined the wall with materials for arts and crafts, toys, dress-up costumes, anything a kid could want. “Adriel’s really into dinosaurs and animals and stuff, and Amara’s really good at ballet. Well, I don’t know for sure, but she says she is, so I take her word for it,” he laughed. 

Throughout all of your conversations, never once did he mention the mother of these children. You were having a good time, he seemed sweet, but you couldn’t help but be curious. Was she not in the picture? Perhaps she worked? You weren’t sure. 

“So…where are they now?” You asked, now standing at the end of the deck facing out onto the water. You didn’t expect to meet the children on the first interview, but you were curious why they seemingly weren’t around. 

“Oh, I had their cousin take them out for a few hours. He’s uh, he’s in college, but you know, family business,” he shrugged. “A lot of people come around here, it’s uh, kind of our base of operations, in a way,” he said with a laugh. “But that’s about it. So…” 

“So?”

“You’ve got the job, if you’d like it.”

A huge weight was lifted off your shoulders. You didn’t question the speed of it all; your new job was secured. “I’ll take it.”

——

Leaving your last family was emotional. You thought you were prepared, yet you couldn’t help but shed a few tears seeing those kids for the last time. 

Arriving on your first day with your new family, you were much more nervous than you had been for other first days. What were you thinking, taking a job without even meeting the kids first? 

You had elected not to unpack your things right away, not wanting to overwhelm the twins you had heard so much about. You knocked on the door, and this time, your employer had answered. 

He seemed happy to see you, again well-dressed in a white shirt, slacks, vest, and tie. This time though, his sleeves were rolled up, revealing several tattoos. You couldn’t get a long enough look to discern what they all were, but you could tell there were quite a lot of them. 

“Hey, come on in. I uh, gave them a bit of a rundown, and they’re super excited to meet you.” You followed him inside, walking towards the stairs, seeing two shadows quickly disappear as you walked up. 

You followed Ronan to their playroom, both of them sitting on one of the couches. Both of the children seemed to struggle to sit still, although in different ways. The boy seemed nervous, perhaps even a little scared as he stared down at the floor and away from you. The girl on the other hand was brimming with excitement, wide eyes tracking your movements as you sat down across from them. 

He introduced you to them, “she’s the person who’s going to help take care of you both while I’m working.” 

The little girl wasted no time getting up and grabbing what appeared to be a bunch of construction paper stapled together. She sat down in between you and her father, leaving the other little boy alone. “I made this. It’s a book about me and my brother.” 

“Oh, that’s very-” you instinctively reached to grab it, thinking she was giving it to you, but she pulled away, opening up the ‘book’.

“I’m gonna read it to you.” 

“Oh. Okay.” 

Her brother moved closer, sitting on the floor next to the couch as she started to read. The pages were filled with crude drawings of her, her brother, and other family members.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Ronan smiled, leaving the room as if to give you some time to bond with both of the children. 

“‘My name is Amara. I’m five. I love ballet and chocolate and I can do a handstand,’” she spoke slowly as she read her own words, scribbled down in crayon. It was quite impressive for a five year old. She turned to face you, “do you wanna see me do a handstand?” 

The last thing you needed on your first day was something going wrong. “Maybe a little bit later. Why don’t you keep reading me your book?”

She nodded, turning the page. “‘My brother is named Adriel’. That’s Adriel,” she said as she pointed at her brother. 

“Hi,” he said quietly. 

“‘Adriel is shy but likes dinosaurs and rocks. He’s a picky eater and he wears glasses.’ Sometimes he doesn’t like to talk. But that’s okay.” 

You gave him a warm smile, and he seemed to relax a little bit. 

She turned the page yet again, this time showing a drawing of the house, several stick figures in front of it, one of whom was crossed out with a large red X. “That’s me, and daddy, and Adriel. That’s mommy, but she’s not here anymore, so that’s why she’s crossed out.” She pointed to a few other figures, one in a suit and the other in a skirt. “That’s Uncle Finn, he’s kinda scary sometimes, but he brings us cool stuff from the city. That’s Callon, he’s our cousin. He wears really cool clothes and has a boyfriend, but I’m not supposed to tell you that.” 

The little boy finally spoke up. “His boyfriend looks scary, but he’s nice. Him and his other friend played video games with me, and they brought us pizza.”

She pointed to two other people in the background, “Cedric is our uncle, I think. He’s kinda quiet when he’s here, but he’s really smart. And then that’s Serena, she’s mean sometimes, but she helps us if we get sick.”

It was quite a group to remember. “And do all of these people live here at the house?” 

“Only sometimes. They all usually come over once a week for daddy’s big meeting, but sometimes they come  stay if it’s an emergency.” You weren’t sure what kind of emergency she was referring to, but you didn’t ask. “Sometimes there’s other people that daddy says we’re related to, but I don’t know all their names. I think we’re related to a lot of people. But that’s it!” She exclaimed proudly as she shut the book. 

You spent the next few hours playing and getting to know them. Amara seemed as if she could talk for hours and hours, whereas Adriel still seemed a little hesitant at times. Still, you felt as if things were going well, the rest of your first night uneventful. You had worked for quite a few rich families, but never one so wealthy. You ran into even more faces as the day went on, ones Amara’s book hadn’t covered; a personal chef, a housekeeper, a gardener, and other household staff came and went as the day went on, yet you hadn’t heard any names you recognized from Amara’s story. It made your job easy; you didn’t need to cook or clean, you could devote all your attention to taking care of them. 

You got them cleaned up after dinner, reading them both a story before bed. They scampered off to their rooms, and as far as you knew, your work was done. There were still a few things left in your car, so you decided to finish unpacking. You walked out through the garage, only to find nearly every spot was now occupied, along with a few cars out front. When did all these people show up? And where were they? 

You brought the rest of your things inside, and the house was suspiciously quiet. There were more people here than before, you were sure of it. You walked back down to the first floor, unable to hear any additional voices as you walked between each room. You decided to look around, but when you heard footsteps from below, you panicked. It had to be the door that led to the basement; you moved behind one of the walls dividing the hallway, the kitchen, and the living room. You weren’t sure why you were so on edge; you had no reason to be. Yet something felt…off. Why was he having a meeting this late at night? How’d they get inside undetected? You hid behind the wall; so long as whoever was approaching stayed in the kitchen, you should be able to stay undetected. 

“I’m so fucking tired of this shit,” said a man’s voice. He sounded younger, perhaps in his twenties, yet his tone was one of exhaustion. “I don’t get it. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable!”

“Not really,” it was a woman’s voice this time, sounding a bit older; perhaps thirties or forties? Although, this was a family of elves; it was highly likely your guesses were completely off. “Although, it’s not…uncommon, in our field.”

“In our field,” he repeated in a mocking tone. “It’s weird. Besides, just because I was alright with it once, did they think I’d be willing to do that kind of shit forever?”

“Alice did.”

“Well, Alice is a cunt, so there’s that.”

Silence lingered between the two of them, a brief moment of tension before they started to laugh, the smell of cigarette smoke wafting towards you. 

“You gotta be careful kid,” she paused, presumably taking a drag from a cigarette. “Ronan hears you saying that shit, he’s gonna beat your ass.”

They were talking about your boss. Who was this ‘Alice’ person? 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I just…if I did it…I mean fuck, what would I tell him? ‘Sorry I cheated on you, my dad needs blackmail material on a CEO, hope that’s okay.’ Yeah, no.”

The statement left you in shock; did running a business like this really mean accruing that many enemies? Who was making this boy blackmail a CEO? Why? Ronan didn’t mention having any other children. Perhaps this was his brother’s son? You tried to remember his name, but you had learned so many names today it was lost on you, still in shock over the boy’s declaration. 

“Well…” the woman hesitated. “You wouldn’t need to tell him.”  

“Yeah, but I’m not fucking evil. By the way,” he continued. “You missed a spot, last job. He got all freaked out, I had to tell him I fell through a window.”

“Did he believe you?”

“Of course not, he’s not an idiot.”  

She sighed, “much to your dismay, you’re not the only one I have to patch up. Your paper cuts are not as important as others gunshot wounds. Be more careful.” 

You thought back to Amara’s words; “And then that’s Serena, she’s mean sometimes, but she helps us if we get sick.” Was it common for rich families like this one to have a healer on-call? Was she being facetious? She had to be. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I need to get back to school, I have class tomorrow,” the boy sighed, both of them starting to walk off. Once you couldn’t hear their footsteps, you walked back to your room. You weren’t necessarily afraid, but it was clear something wasn’t right. 

You tried not to think about it. You had taken the job, the kids were sweet, and you really shouldn’t have been listening in on them anyway. 

Still; gunshot wounds?

You had almost finished getting ready for bed when you heard a light knock on the door, the clock reading 10:47. 

You answered it, and there was your boss Ronan. “Hey, I know it’s super late, but-”

“That’s okay,” you tried to stifle a yawn but failed. “What’s up?”

“I don’t wanna take too much of your time, but I just wanted to ask if everything went alright? They seem to really like you, I just didn't want you to feel like I was hovering over you, and then I had my meeting, but I just wanted to check-in.”

You nodded, “things went well, I think. I’m glad you think so.” You had so many questions you wanted to ask, but you kept things brief. “Do your meetings usually go this late?”

“Yeah, it uh…it can be tricky getting everyone’s schedules to align, so you know. Is what it is. Well, thank you for your hard work, let me know if you need anything.” 

You quickly learned he was a busy man. A kind father, doing his best to spend time with the two kids while running a collection of successful businesses. As days passed, you started to notice the way others within the house looked at you.

It was a look of disgust, or fear, but hesitancy; as if there was something they all knew that you just didn’t. You tried not to pay it any mind, but couldn’t help but return to the conversation you overheard the first night. 

The boy seemed to have grown attached to you rather quickly, Adriel always taking the chance to hold your hand or lay on your shoulder. It made sense, given how he’d lost his own mother. This wouldn’t be the first time you’d be ‘filling in’, so to speak. Amara seemed to like you, but she wasn’t nearly as clingy, opting instead to show you things, like her drawings or dances she had made up. 

“You’re good at being nice,” the little boy mumbled as Amara twirled around the room, a movie playing quietly as Adriel was about to drift off to sleep. 

“Oh, well thank you. I try my best.” 

“There’s a lot of people being mean lately. But you’re nice.” Before you could question what he said, he was asleep. You looked back over to Amara, blissfully unaware of the world around her. Yet something about the boy’s words felt almost cryptic. You were curious, but…you didn’t want to lose this job. So, you decided ignorance was bliss.

You were woken up in the middle of the night by a knock on your door, a tiny voice calling out your name. Technically, these were your off hours, you shouldn’t need to do anything; but you weren’t going to just turn the kid away. You opened the door, and there was Amara, standing there in her pink pajamas. 

“Hi.”

You yawned, rubbing your eyes, “hi, what’s going on?” 

“Um…can I sit with you for a bit? I…I can’t sleep.” 

She was so sweet, you couldn’t say no. Between her and her brother, she seemed to be much more independent, being the shoulder for him to cry on often. Yet she had gone through the very same things he had with their mother gone; you were more than happy to sit with her. “Sure.”

She walked in your room, heading for the window. She looked outside, your room facing the dock down below, the moonlight reflecting on the water. Her eyes widened, letting out a gasp. “Boat! The boat’s out!” 

You were still half asleep, you hadn’t even registered the quiet hum of a boat engine coming from outside. You looked out, and sure enough, there was a boat. Despite the lights being out, the people down at the dock didn’t bother to quiet their voices. One of them was almost definitely Ronan. Him and his brother were standing out at the dock, calling out to whoever was on the boat. 

“Can you open the window? I want to say hi to daddy.” 

“Sure, but…just wait a moment, we don’t want to interrupt him if he’s…”

What was he doing?

“We don’t want to interrupt him if he’s working.” You opened the window, their conversation much easier to hear. 

“Ronan, I promise you, every source I have has told me this address is still off the feds radar,” said his brother, speaking at a normal volume.

“It’s not the feds I’m worried about. The feds may not see it, but every other organization will make the connection once the news breaks.” 

“Even so. The only people that come here are blood. They’re more likely to hit me in the city than come all the way out here. The most likely scenario is they’re gonna go after the safehouse up North. We know that, we can prepare for that.”

“No, we don’t know that.”

“Yes, we do. These people are nothing if not predictable. And again, they can’t act on information they don’t have. Besides, name one other time you’ve seen anyone else out here on the water. No one comes through here, it’s your own little oasis. Now come on, let him finish the job, and we can determine our plans for the safehouse tomorrow. Hells, they won’t even know he’s gone until a week I’d say.” 

He relented, letting out a sigh. “Fine. But I want someone out here for the next month. Just in case.”

“I can arrange that.” Finn turned to look back at the boat, walking back to the edge of the dock away from the window. He held his hands up to his face, amplifying his voice. “Hey, Callon?”

“Yeah?” His voice was barely audible, but it sounded like the man you overheard before in the kitchen. 

“You can drop it now. Well…actually, back the boat up just a little more.” You could hear the boy groan, before the boat engine kicked back on. “Yeah, right there’s good, international waters and all that.” 

You heard the sound of something falling into the water, the waves slowly rippling forward. Whatever he dropped into the water, it must’ve been heavy. He drove the boat back to the dock, and when he got out you saw he wasn’t dressed the same as Ronan and his brother; instead of the fine suit, he was sporting an outfit of all black, complete with a mask over his face. As soon as the boat engine was off, the three of them on the dock, Amara stuck her head out the window and called out to them. 

“Hi!” 

The three of them looked up at the window. Ronan and Finn looked horrified, while her cousin, Callon, just laughed, walking back inside. You stared back at them, all of you in disbelief. Finn gave Ronan a pat on the shoulder before following Callon inside, Ronan now the only one looking back at you.

“So…I suppose we need to talk about some things.”

Part 2

thanks for reading!! i hope you enjoyed it! definitely going for more of a slow burn with him, but who knows how long that slow burn is going to last. lots of setup in this first chapter, but i hope you liked it!! also for those who read the old version, pls no spoilers for anyone in the comments! this is an alternate version of Ronan's story, so some things will be a bit different :D

RONAN TAGLIST: @damnitimasimp @sketchlove @madam8 @jar0fhoney @hikaakox @gurlie919

[m1ckeyb3rry]

Synopsis: Sunday is your mirror, as you are his — or, how meeting him spells your doom, just like losing you spells his.

HSR Masterlist

Pairing: Sunday x Reader

Word Count: 7.2k

Content Warnings: female reader, second person in some parts and third person sunday pov in others, religious themes because…it’s sunday…, not canon compliant because idk wtf happened in penacony and i don’t feel like figuring it out, not lore compliant either because i’m #toocool for that, ooc because i wanted to make sunday a freak, major character death but not really on screen just mentioned/implied, unreliable narrators, halovians are Very Different (both from their canon depictions and from humans in general), robin mentioned but she’s also probs ooc idfk i’ve never written for honkai star rail and i’ve played for like a month tops, sunday is a d1 piner, sunday loses it, sunday crashes out, weird narrative structure, very nonsensical, in terms of endings we have no endings (it’s like open to interpretation ig), m1ckeyb3rry’s monthly drop of MID

A/N: i wrote this really quickly for my beloved illu’s birthday!! unfortunately i didn’t get the idea until like two days after the date itself so it’s a bit late LMAOO also it sucks but. it has SUNDAY !! my first foray into the hsr verse…hehe…anyways illu i could go on about how much i appreciate you and how glad i am that we’re friends but for the sake of conciseness i shall leave it at HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY GOAT @milksnake-tea I LOOK FORWARD TO ANOTHER YEAR OF CRASHING OUT TOGETHER 🙂‍��️💖 LOVE AND KISSES I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS A BIT!!!

There is a ghost waiting for him in the confessional booth. Velvet curtains cover the latticed wood, obscuring its contents from his view, but the effect comes to nothing. He knows she’s there, he always does, he can feel her presence. It’s a chill seeping into his bones as he kneels — he doesn’t need to kneel, of course he doesn’t need to, but it’s a habit he’s yet unwilling to break — and clasps his hands together. It’s a supplication for something, but it isn’t until his mouth is opening of its own volition, his wings fluttering in alarm and his eyes widening as the words are wrenched from his lips, that he realizes what he’s begging for.

“Please,” he whispers. His voice echoes in the empty room, mocking him, teasing him. Please. Please. What right does he have to ask her anything? He’s sure that’s what she’s thinking. He’s sure she’s laughing in that odd way of hers, and his throat constricts at the image. “Please—”

Forgive me? It reverberates in his mind, that fragment of a thought, jagged at the edges, sharp like a blade and twice as cruel. Isn’t that it? Forgive me. Forgive me. Please, forgive me. 

“Condemn me,” he says instead, and then he’s struck by a burst of anger, hot and unyielding and entirely at odds with the weight of his tongue in his mouth, which is all leaden and unwieldy and clumsy and despicable. “Condemn me or forgive me or what have you!”

He waits, as he always does. One, two, three. He counts on his fingers, an invisible metronome ticking in his mind, mechanical and perfect in rhythm, keeping time for his vigil. Four, five, six. The curtain flutters in a phantom breeze, and for a second he can pretend that he sees a flash of bright in the darkness of the booth, a dancing shade like a glittering iris peering back at him. Seven, eight, nine. He doesn’t care what she says. He doesn’t care about any of it. As long as she says something, it’s fine. Condemn me. Forgive me. He’s not sure which he would prefer at this point.

Ten.

The ghost is silent.

The first time you met Sunday, it was raining. Everything about him was limp in the storm — his clothes, the fabric clinging to his slender frame; his hair, spilling onto his pale brow and trailing down his mannequin-straight back; even his wings, which drooped miserably towards his shoulders, the preened feathers translucent at the edges from dampness. 

When he turned to glance at you, you expected his demeanor to shimmer with the famous benevolence of his family. Sunday Oak, the heir, the young lord; certainly there would be a kindness to him, a gentleness permeating throughout the very essence of his being. Certainly he had been born a saint, anointed in the waters of his mother’s womb before he could even draw breath, incapable of humanity’s many shortcomings and fallacies. Certainly these things were true, and that was why it frightened you all the more when, for one singular moment, his impassive mien crumpled into a glare, as baleful as it was captivating.

His eyes were a sharp, canny gold, feline in both shape and shrewdness, framed by lashes clumped together with wet. They were terrible in the way of a dying star, that peculiar brand of horror so beautiful that it was impossible to look away, and indeed you stood transfixed until he cleared his throat and arranged his face into a polite smile. 

“I wasn’t aware we had visitors today,” he said. He spoke carefully, perfunctorily, reading from a script he must’ve memorized long ago. You stiffened, for although he had not given you any reason to think it, you were suddenly very certain that you were not supposed to see him like this, his fingers curling over the slick rail of his balcony, his dark abdominal wings folded tightly over his stomach and his halo dull in whatever light struggled through the clouded sky.

“I was just leaving,” you said. “I must have made a wrong turn. I apologize for disturbing you, sir.”

“You needn’t apologize,” he said, and there he was, the man who you had expected: Sunday, the scion of the Oak Family. Gracious Sunday; magnanimous Sunday; Sunday the prince and Sunday the saint. He was so finely constructed it made you wince, his blinding delicacy and keen refinement eerie, preternatural. A baser instinct of yours told you to run, reminding you of a time when those of his kind ruled over humanity with impunity, pleading with you to save yourself before it was too late.

You bit back your fear so hard that blood exploded over your palate, salty and sweet in turn, viscous as you swallowed it back and offered him a smile. He did not return it in full, but the corners of his mouth curled up slightly. That should’ve been soothing, but it only served to worsen the electric anxiety running through your veins.

“I shall call my sister and tell her to fetch you,” he said. “I would hate for you to find the Oaks remiss in our hospitality. I am sincerely sorry that you were not given an escort earlier.”

There were so many things you could say to him. I ran. Does that make me remiss? I’m the one who ran from them. You could reassure him, promise him that you would be alright on your own and there was no need for Robin to come. You could do any of these things, yet you were frozen like an insect in the amber of his stare, and so you did not.

“Thank you,” you said, bowing slightly, lowering your eyes to his leather shoes in a valiant attempt to free yourself, “for your generosity.”

“Do you think it’s possible for people to forgive themselves?” he asks his sister. They’re sitting in the parlor, porcelain teacups in their hands, pinkie fingers raised primly in the air. His sister’s cup is chipped at the base, but every time he tries to throw it away, she pitches a fit, which is so uncharacteristic of her that it renders him speechless. This one is special, she insists. There’s doves painted on it. See?

It isn’t special, there’s countless others exactly like it, but he caves to her whims far too easily, as he always does. He’s prone to it, after all; she wants for things so rarely as it is, which means denying her few requests when she makes them is nigh-impossible. So he allows her to keep the ruined cup, on the condition that in his presence, she holds it in her left hand, for he never wants to see the blemish again.

“I’m not sure,” she says. Her voice is always dreamy, but as of late there’s been a tangible sadness to it. He’s asked her what’s troubling her countless times, but his every attempt is met with a shake of her head and a solemn oath that it’s nothing. “Maybe.”

“I don’t think that it is,” he says. “At least not at first. You can’t forgive yourself before you’re forgiven by anyone else.”

“If you were already so sure of the answer, brother,” she says, cocking her head at him, “then why did you ask?”

“Hm?” he says, furrowing his brow. She takes a sip of her tea, and maybe it’s the angle or maybe it’s a trick of the light, but he swears that that dammed chip is taunting him, smarting like a peeled-off scab.

“It’s a strange practice of yours,” his sister says, batting her eyes at him in a way that makes him feel shrunken and tiny, as if she knows everything and he knows nothing, although by all rights it’s the other way around.

“What do you mean by that?” he presses, voice coming out harsher than he’d like. Cringing, he sets his teacup down and folds his hands in his lap. “My apologies, sister. I — I did not mean to speak to you in that way.”

She raises her drink to her lips, smiling at him over the dove-painted rim, and says nothing more.

Robin Oak was like nightshade, the most beautiful flower you had ever seen and, incidentally, the most poisonous. She was lilac where Sunday was silver and sapphire where he was gold, but although the edges of her halo and her face were rounder than her brother’s, as malleable as he was rigid, she was no softer than he. Perhaps she was even colder for it, all the more deadly, unassuming and quiet, poised to strike with a warbling song and a tittering giggle.

“Hello,” she said, and although the two of you were ostensibly having a normal conversation, she still talked like there was a song in her voice, her cadence lyrical and amused. “We’ve been looking for you for a while.”

“I didn’t go very far,” you said, following after her as she navigated the hallways without hesitation.

“Of course not,” she agreed. “But who would’ve thought you’d end up in Sunday’s room?”

“It wasn’t on purpose,” you said, cheeks heating up at the sly implication. “I sincerely thought I had happened upon some study or restroom where I might recuperate.”

“He does keep his surroundings austere,” she said. “I’ve tried to convince him to hang up paintings or photographs, but he refuses. He’s like that.”

“I see,” you said, as neutrally as possible. Robin must’ve sensed your disinterest, for with a soft, breathy, chuckle, she steered the conversation away from her brother and to another subject entirely.

“Ah, you mentioned recuperation? Do parties tire you, too?” she said, and maybe it was manipulation or maybe it was genuine kindness, but it disarmed you all the same. Bashfully, you nodded, your shoulders hunching in on themselves involuntarily as you continued down the corridor.

“They are exhausting. I can never handle them for more than a few minutes at a time,” you confessed. She wrapped an arm around your torso, a companionable vice of a grip, and although you shouldn’t have been, you were surprised to feel that her skin was blazing to the touch.

“Nor can I,” she said. “There’s a commonality. Let’s be friends.”

It was a command, not a request. You knew better than to believe that Robin Oak would request anything; the world was at her feet, the universe shifting so that her words became truth, so why would she bother with questions and hesitance the way the rest of you did? She was no more human than Sunday. She was even less, only just as good at pretending, at painting on a doll-like mask to disguise her lies.

“Well, then it is a pleasure to be your friend,” you said.

“Don’t talk like that,” she protested.

“Like what?” you said.

“Like I’m somebody important, or like I have a status worthy of only the highest respect,” she said.

“But you do,” you said. She nudged you in the side with some measure of eagerness.

“No, no, forget about that,” she said. “I’m just like you, okay?”

“Okay,” you said, even though that could not be further from the truth, even though she could not be further from you.

“I swear on truth,” he says to the congregation, the beige churchgoers in their beige robes with adoration sparkling in their devoted eyes. “I swear on the calendar. I swear on words. I swear on values. I swear on rules. I swear on meaning. I swear on—”

A chill rushes down his spine, icy fingers grabbing onto the roots of his wings and yanking. He hisses under his breath, prayers of rebuke and protection, nails digging into his palms as he chants furiously, lips moving too fast for the gatherers to understand what he is doing.

Anxious murmurs arise like the songs of a choir the longer and longer he is frozen. Somebody coughs. A child whines audibly. He continues his chanting. 

Ena, the Order; Xipe, the Harmony; defend me in this tribulation. Curse this evil, bind its spirit and banish it to whence it came. I swear on truth, I swear on the calendar, I swear on words, I swear on values, I swear on rules, I swear on meaning, I swear on—

The hair by the nape of his neck is ruffled, and then the sensation vanishes and he is left alone once more. He is grateful for only a moment before he mourns her absence with a sudden savagery that takes even himself by surprise. It’s a contradiction, but she is a contradiction, so it’s fitting. He could never understand her before, so why should it be different now?

Clearing his throat and subtly adjusting his lapels, he raises his hands to silence the throngs of worshippers. They do his bidding at once, and he closes his eyes so that he does not have to see their naïveté at this final part, so that he is speaking to himself and the ghost alone — because nobody else matters in the end.

“I swear,” he says, his heart beating faster and faster until it is almost bursting from his chest and pounding in his skull, “on human dignity.”

What do Halovians know of human dignity?

“Nothing,” he says, responding to the unasked question as he turns away from the others, away from their applause and their grins. His wings cover his eyes and his hands cover his ears as he leaves the cavernous hall, the thunder of laudation fading and fading, replaced with nothing but a whistling, lonely emptiness. “They know nothing.”

He pauses, his eyes darting around surreptitiously. Then, when he is sure he is alone, he continues, under his breath so that no one can hear even if they try very hard to.

“I know nothing.”

He is sure of this much, at least.

On Halovians:

They abide by a so-called “divine creed” which they refuse to divulge to outsiders. However, they maintain that if they break these secretive laws, they are punished severely in what amounts to a foreshortened process of decay. Their holiness and altruism is, thus, not a choice but a compulsion; the one sin they are permitted is lying, and many will spin tall tales as a form of indulgence.

They are comparable in ability to the sirens from Lucyke — indeed, many researchers believe the species share a common ancestor and are one of many examples of divergent evolution found throughout the cosmos. They are nonthreatening when approached, capable of rational thought and intelligent speech, and have advanced societies with defined familial structures; hence, they are classified as a Level 0 Intelligent Species.

His halo is cracking. He doesn’t know when it began, or perhaps it’s more accurate to say he doesn’t want to know, but regardless it’s happening. The burnished gold, once a plain, gleaming expanse, is now marred by thin, unmistakeable fissures in the shape of spiderwebs. At first, he can only stare at his reflection in abject horror, but then he’s stuffing his fist in his mouth and screaming. 

What will people think? When they see it, they will know what he has done. It’s tainting him. It’s above him and behind him and all around and he can’t escape, he can’t do anything, his halo is cracking and he’s screaming and she’s there again.

“Stop it,” he snaps. “Stop coming back. If you’re only here to torment me, then — then stop it!”

Is she laughing? She must be. She always laughs at him, always finds him so curious. An oddity. A Halovian. He’s not like her, she’s fond of reminding him, he’s different. He’s born for the Harmony and the sky. He’s born for a purpose greater than hers, with black wings and a bright halo and a tongue made to lie.

“Don’t leave,” he says when she begins to withdraw. “Hey. Hey. Don’t leave — don’t leave me — I can’t — don’t!”

Her absence is like a hole carved into his stomach daily anew, and if his wings weren’t losing their feathers so rapidly, he’d fold them over the gaping wound in an attempt to disguise it, to transform it, to hold himself together until he can once again become whole in earnest.

It’s pitiful. He’s pitiful. He longs for a ghost who he despises, a ghost of his own making, a ghost who is pulling apart his halo and his wings and his sanity alike. She is ruining him and he is powerless to stop her; somewhere deep inside of him, he’s not sure if he even wants to. This is what he’s owed. This is what he deserves. No matter how much he begs, she will not forgive him; no matter how much he prays, he will not forgive himself.

This time when he screams, he does not bother with muffling it.

You were certain that, in the pools of her mind, in places unknowable and unreachable, Robin believed that she loved you. She repeated that lie so often that she fooled everyone, even herself — everyone, of course, but you. You knew the truth. You knew that she never had, that she never would, that she never could.

“This is my very best friend in the entire universe,” she’d say, holding your palm against her heart. “I love her.”

She carried it like a trophy or a weapon, that meaningless phrase. I love her. Lilac instead of silver. Sapphire instead of gold. I am not a Halovian. That was what she really wanted to say. That was what you really meant to her. I am human, too. Treat me like I am human. Talk to me like I am human. Love me like I am human.

I am human.

I am human.

His sister is worrying about him. He wishes he could allay her concerns like he always does, wishes he could promise that it’s nothing, that he’s fine, but whenever he tries, he can’t. It sticks in his throat, and he’s left to stare at her miserably, helplessly.

“If you need anything…” she murmurs, voice trailing off into nothingness as she pretends like she’s not looking at his halo, which is on the verge of collapse, or at his wings, which are approaching a skeletal state. “Maybe you should stay home today. Someone else can pray.”

“No,” he says. He has to do it. If he doesn’t, then he has nothing left — which is the truth, really, but he can’t accept it. Not yet. “No, I—”

He wants to say I can do it, but the words won’t come. She waits, but when he does not finish his sentence, she only sighs and nods.

“If you think that’s what’s best,” she says. If she’s expecting a response, she won’t get one, or at least not one that’ll satisfy them both. He can’t maintain his facade anymore. Those carefully constructed falsehoods which were once his birthright have abandoned him; now, he is left with nothing but the truth in its harshest form, his eyes sewn open to it and his wings tied back so he can no longer cower behind their trembling defense.

Unlike his sister, Sunday never pretended to love you. Indeed, he treated you no differently than he treated everyone else, keeping a polite, reserved distance between the two of you at all times. He was kind when you spoke, though he tended to avoid such occasions, and he took great pains to ensure that he appeared as harmless as possible, pulling his wings close to his body, averting his eyes from yours and shifting so that his halo was always partially obscured.

Robin told you that he was a proud man, so the fact that he shied away before you meant something. I’ve never seen him like this, she would ponder when he would sidle past, his feathers blending in with his pale hair, a coat thrown over his shoulders and his gaze trained directly ahead even when he greeted you. It’s unlike him.

It’s kind. That was all you ever said when she prodded at you for answers. He’s being kind to me.

Unlike her brother, Robin didn’t understand what that meant, so she would only embrace you, deceptively strong despite her frail figure, wings extending to skim along your skin in what she must’ve considered a sign of affection.

I’m glad you’re getting along, she’d say, and then you’d wonder, invariably, what it’d take to break the chords of her speech. Was she capable of producing dissonance? Or was it one of her many blessings, that avoidance of discord, of cacophony? I’m really glad. I hope one day he loves you, too.

She never asked you to love him back. She never dared to even hope for it.

“I can’t recall you ever laughing at me this much when you were alive,” he says, lying on his bed with his limbs splayed out. He’s looking up at the ceiling, which is bare, as are the walls, and the furniture — entirely by design, of course. Periodically, his wings will flap weakly, wracked with nervous tremors as he waits for her to quiet.

He doesn’t reprimand her anymore. The prospect of chasing her away is unbearable, even more unbearable than the sound of her mirth, which is as wrong to his ears as music from an untuned piano. So he ignores it, and when it is particularly agonizing, he speaks to the empty air, saying everything and nothing all at once in an attempt to silence her.

“You would ask me questions,” he remembers, drumming his fingers against the mattress. “But you wouldn’t laugh. I don’t think you found me amusing, unless I tried very hard to appear that way. I was better at it back then. At becoming what people expected of me.”

She’s not laughing anymore, but he knows she hasn’t vanished yet. She’s there in his periphery, poised to disappear as soon as he turns his head but there nonetheless. Taking advantage of the rare silence, he sits up, hugging his knees to his chest and closing his eyes.

“I didn’t pretend quite as much when it was you,” he says. “You know that, right? By the end, I couldn’t bring myself to at all.”

Does she believe him? He can’t tell. If he were her, he wouldn’t believe himself, so likely not. Exhaling heavily, he collapses backwards, tangling himself into a pile of blankets that he pulls over his shoulders.

“I should have lied to you more often,” he says, eyes drifting shut. “Maybe things would be different if I had.”

 On Halovians:

Halovians are the only Level 0 Intelligent Species that do not choose long-term mates, although there is evidence to suggest that in the distant past, they remained with the same partner for life. According to legend, this is because they gave up fidelity for falsehood, trading their ability to love eternally for their freedom to lie at will.

Research disagrees with this old story, and many alternate theories have been proposed. The most common and widely-accepted is the claim that the Halovians once faced extinction and thus had to procreate at speed, leading to a permanent shift in their mating habits. The most substantial proof for this, of course, is the otherwise-inexplicable population boom…

You couldn’t say for certain when you began visiting Sunday in his room. It had happened so suddenly and yet so gradually that by the time you realized what you were doing, it was too late for you to stop. He never did anything untoward — you doubted he was capable of it — staying at his desk and scowling at his work while you wandered about, familiarizing yourself with the confines of the space.

“Why don’t you decorate?” you asked him one day.

“Decorations are only needless distractions,” he responded promptly, signing a paper with a flourish that, somehow, represented his name. Sunday Oak. You didn’t know how something so enormous and grand could be summed into two squiggles and a cross, but he seemed confident of it, so who were you to question the method? “I cannot fathom sleeping with such clutter surrounding me.”

“I see,” you said, and that was the end of it.

Your conversations with him typically went as such, endless games of question-and-answer, where you would ask whatever was on your mind and he would respond as truthfully as he was able. You often wondered when he would grow tired of it, of you, but he never did. You asked Robin why it was so, and she only shrugged enigmatically.

“Maybe he’s glad to be the one speaking for once,” she said.

“What do you mean?” you said.

“You ought to ask him,” she said. “He might not tell anyone else, but if it’s you…if it’s you, then he’ll definitely answer.”

His sister’s hands are frigid on his shoulders. She’s warm by anyone else’s standards, but for a Halovian, she’s always been cold. Even when she was born, half the size she should’ve been and with eyes as boundless as the sky, she was freezing, a shivering slip of a baby shoved into his arms by his bleeding mother.

“Your halo is breaking,” she says to him, but she’s angry, her melodic voice wavering as her fingers dig into his muscle, shaking him back and forth. “It’s breaking. Why is it breaking?”

She’s glaring at him, tears welling at her lash-line. He wants to reach out his hand and wipe them away, but more will replace them in an instant, so what is the point? She shakes him again, harder and harder, and he allows her, because he’ll always allow her impulses, and because he’s never seen her like this before.

“Why?” she says. “Why is it breaking? Tell me what you did, brother, tell me what you did!”

She isn’t asking because she wants him to give her the answer. She’s asking because she wants him to deny it, to tell her that she’s wrong, that the conclusion she’s arrived at is incorrect somehow. Once, he could’ve. He could’ve made up some story about tragedy and misfortune, and she would’ve believed him, as she always did.

That was their relationship. He lied and she believed him. She asked and he obliged her. But now that he can not lie and she has nothing to ask for, what is left?  

“You know already,” he says. She gasps in the manner of an injured animal, berry-stained lips parting, indubitably to hurl accusations at him.

He doesn’t think he can handle hearing them, not from his sister of all people, so he leaves before he gets the chance.

“Does it feel strange when people touch your wings?” you said. Sunday was in his bed today, afflicted by some illness of the lungs, and you were rummaging through his bookshelf, pulling out volumes at random before putting them back where you had found them. 

“Huh? Why do you ask?” he said, raising a porcelain cup to his lips. It was prescription, a medicine reeking of menthol but wearing the guise of peppermint tea — the only way, according to Robin, that he would drink it. A servant had brought it and presented it to him with a bow, walking out of the room with a look thrown at you over their shoulder, concern and envy blending into something razor-thin and cutting.

“I don’t have any,” you explained, taking out a book and tracing your fingers along the gold lettering of the title. “I can’t fathom what it’d be like.”

“Come here,” he said, and although it was mildly done, you obeyed immediately. You could never forget what he was, not completely, no matter how hard he tried to make it so that you did. You would always be human and he would always be Halovian; this fundamental disconnect was insurmountable, and anyways, you had no interest in surmounting it. It’d serve you well to remember these many little differences between yourself and the Oak siblings, between yourself and Sunday in particular. 

He extended his hand, the palm facing up, and dipped his chin towards it. You tilted your head in confusion, for the act was all but inexplicable, and at this he smiled. He did not smile very frequently, and it transformed his face when he did, lighting it up, turning it into something close to human — not quite, but close. Closer than he ever was otherwise.

“Here,” he said, setting aside his teacup and using his other hand to place yours against his, wrapping his fingers around your wrist and then waiting. “Does that feel strange?”

“No,” you said. 

“It’s the same for me,” he said. “To you, my wings are bizarre and outlandish, but to me and those of my kind, they are simply another body part. No more or less fantastical than an arm or an ankle.”

“Ah,” you said. He settled back against the cushions of his bed, allowing the wings by his ears to stretch out comfortably, closing his eyes and letting out an exhale that shook with the remnants of a cough.

“You want to touch them,” he said. He phrased it as a statement, not a question, and when you paused before answering, his smile grew imperceptibly larger. “I don’t mind it.”

“You don’t?” you said. He shrugged.

“It’s only fair,” he said, pressing down on the point where your veins nearly surfaced, tapping in time with your pulse before drawing his hands back and clasping them together in the cavity below his ribcage. “I wouldn’t have told you you could if I’d hold any resentment for it.”

“Aren’t Halovians known for lying?” you said. He snorted.

“Have you been doing your research?” he said.

“It’s common knowledge,” you said.

“We are,” he said. “But I swear I will always tell you the truth.”

“How can I believe that? What if that’s just another one of your lies?” you said. He cracked one eye open so that he could peek at you, and whatever he saw must’ve proven your seriousness, for he hummed in thought, carefully considering your words.

“I suppose you can’t,” he said. “It’s your prerogative. Do as you’d like, then.”

He closed his eyes again, which you supposed was his version of an invitation. Waiting until his breathing stilled and he was caught in some form of repose — whether he was truly unconscious or not escaped you, but either way he was certainly in some altered state of mind — you extended your arm and brushed your index finger against his feathers.

They were as soft as you had anticipated, cottony and shapeless compared to the firm flight-feathers of the pitch-dark wings jutting out at his sides. The bones were hollow and slight, as if you could break them only by taking them into your fist and squeezing. This was such a contradiction to the appearance he so carefully maintained that your heart softened to him despite your greatest efforts to guard it.

“Those ones are mostly down,” he said, startling you out of your daze. You had assumed he was asleep and had allowed your movements to become casual and complacent. Jerking your hand back as if he had burnt it — which he just as well might have, given the temperature of his body — you held it to your chest and took an involuntary step back while he adjusted himself in his nest of bedding. “In antiquity, back when we still ruled the skies and rarely touched the ground, it was considered a sign of friendship for Halovians to groom one another’s upper-wing feathers.”

“And now?” you said.

“And now it means nothing,” he said. “Fetch me a new cup of tea if you have the time. This one has grown cold, and I am yet unwell.”

The feathers he used to be so proud of are fraying at the edges. He hasn’t cared for them in so long, hasn’t carefully misted them or doused them in diluted soap in ages, and now they have come to this. Scraggly and broken and bent and wrong.

Sticking a finger in his mouth, he rubs it along his teeth and the bitten flesh of his inner cheeks. Decay. This is decay. He’s seen it so many other times, in so many other forms, but never did he think he’d experience it himself. And least of all so quickly! Yet it has come for him, as it comes for everyone in the end.

He finds it’s different this time. It’s different when he’s the one who’s dying.

“They say it haunts us,” Sunday said. His arm was heavy over your waist, his blankets pulled up over your chin and tucked tightly around your shoulders. Your forehead was flush with his collarbones, your eyes fluttering shut as he played with the hem of your shirt while he spoke. “The first time we kill something. It haunts us to death.”

“Is that why you’re vegetarian?” you joked.

“Yes,” he said, and although he sounded grave, you could tell he was joking, too. “Can you imagine being followed around by the ghost of a chicken and then dying while it watches?”

“A horrible way to go,” you said, laughing at the image of Sunday plugging his ears and running from the shadow of a bird as it chased him, his own wings flapping furiously as it squawked at him with no small amount of indignation. 

“Indeed,” he said with a laugh of his own. Then, after a pause, he hummed thoughtfully. “You should laugh more often.”

“I’ve been told my laugh is grating,” you said.

“It’s not,” he said. “Not at all.”

“Then I shall endeavor to do as you ask,” you said. “I will laugh until you tell me to stop.”

“I’ll never tell you to stop,” he promised, and you should’ve known better than to trust him, because he was a Halovian and donning that impenetrable mask of his was a part of his nature, yet you couldn’t help yourself. You did, you trusted him more than anything or anyone, and didn’t that make you a fool? A happy, laughing one, maybe — but a fool nonetheless. 

He is close to collapse when he drags himself to his bathroom. Leaning over the counter of his sink, he grips the marble edge, noticing in fascination that his knuckles are almost as white as the stone. He almost can’t endure the thought of looking in the mirror, but in a last burst of inspiration, he drags his gaze up to his haggard reflection.

His heart skips a beat when he realizes he’s not alone. Standing there, beside and behind him, is her. The ghost. His ghost.

Her face is placid — she’s not laughing, and neither is she frowning. He doesn’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but he can’t change it, so who is he to complain? He waits for her to speak, but she is silent, and he considers calling out for his sister before deciding that this time, this once and never again, he will be selfish.

“It’s you,” he says, reaching out and placing his fingers against the mirror, where the image of her cheek is distorted by imperfections in the silver.

The metal is cold under the involuntary curve of his palm, which tries to follow the contours of her face but finds it to be impossible in the second dimension. Then again, to him, she was always cold, so there’s no difference, except that she is flat where once she was whole, empty where once she was everything.

“I killed you,” he says. It’s the first time he’s spoken it aloud, the first time he’s spit out the words that he’s been dancing around ever since she appeared to him, almost a year ago exactly. Somehow, it feels like a dagger driven into his heart and a weight lifted off of his shoulders simultaneously. If he had the strength, he’d run down the hallways of the mansion and scream it at everyone.

I killed her. I killed her and now I am dying for it. You bowed your heads in reverence to me, and all along I have had this blood on my hands. I killed her! How does it feel to have followed a sinner for so long? How does it feel to know that I am forsaken, and that one day, if you are so lucky, you will be, too?

Sunday’s mouth on yours was hot like a furnace, clumsy and demanding, with a lingering aftertaste like menthol. At first, it alarmed you, the overwhelming sensation, the much of it all, but before you could even pull away, something in the back of your mind twisted, and then you were grasping for anything you could. His hair, his wings, his shirt, it didn’t matter, nothing mattered, you only needed to hold onto him in some way. You could not breathe without him. You could not live without him.

That was your first indication that something was very, very wrong.

On Halovians:

Much like their presumed cousins, the sirens of Lucyke, Halovians are irresistible to their prey. Unlike the sirens, the Halovians no longer hunt; some assume that this must be one of the religious laws they abide by, while others argue that it is mere ecological responsibility.

Simply put, the Halovians were too efficient as hunters. Several lesser species have been driven to extinction by their efforts, and it is only due to the reduction in Halovian numbers, their vows of vegetarianism, and concentrated conservation efforts that the food webs on the Halovians’ native planets have stabilized in recent years.

“Sunday,” you said to him one day, when the sun had not yet risen in the sky. “I think that I will die soon.”

His mouth moved, but no sound came out. No, it seemed he was trying to say. You won’t. His lips formed the words, but they wouldn’t take shape in his throat, wouldn’t bloom into existence, and you watched as he struggled for a while before pressing the heels of his hands to his forehead.

“Yes,” he said.

“It will be your fault when I do,” you said. You weren’t accusing him; you said it simply and plainly. You were dying. It was his fault. He was the curse and the cure, if a mere prolonging of the inevitable could be considered as curing it.

He was quiet for so long that you assumed he had forgotten about the question entirely. You did not begrudge him for it — how would he answer, anyways? There was nothing that he could say which would change it. There was nothing that he could say which would reverse what he had, knowingly or unknowingly, done.

“Yes,” he said when you were halfway to dozing off.

“What?” you mumbled, the contents of the conversation already escaping you.

“Yes,” he said. “It will be my fault.”

The ghost doesn’t say anything, watching him as he turns on the sink and splashes the water onto his face in a futile effort to cool himself off. He’s feverish as he pushes himself back into a semblance of good posture, pacing back and forth along the length of the bathroom. He can only see her in the mirror, and he wonders if he somehow trapped her there or if that’s her way of teasing him; she must find him so absurd, storming away from her visage before crawling back to it like he is starved.

“I didn’t know,” he says. “You must understand that. I didn’t know! Not at first, anyways. I would’ve sent you away. If I had known, I would’ve sent you away…”

He can hear her feet against the tile, copying his own path, but he dares not turn around. What will he see if he does? What emotions will reflect in her eyes? The first time he saw her, it was fear, unadulterated and pure and choking him with its overwhelming intensity. Then, over time, it warmed into something resembling indifference, which in turn became fondness and then, finally, a sick sort of dependence, the former liveliness and curiosity glazed over with vacancy and fixation.

“I did this to you,” he admits. He’s read that accursed book on Halovians and their accursed vestigial organs and accursed archaic hunting methods so many times that he knows this for a fact. He killed her. “But I didn’t — it wasn’t my intention, please, it wasn’t, you must know that. Did you die knowing that?”

When he halts, she halts. When he takes a step forward, she does the same. It’s maddening. He doesn’t want her to echo him. Her steps sound like a prophecy, the drumbeat to a seer’s chant, and they clang in his head, the antithesis to everything he holds precious. Order. Harmony. And then there she is, discord, cacophony, waiting for him at every turn, inescapable and unavoidable.

“It’s the truth!” he snaps. The argument is entirely one-sided; the ghost never speaks to him, after all. She only laughs and sighs in turn, but no matter how hard he tries, he cannot convince her to say anything. “I can’t lie anymore. Although, that’s irrelevant; when it comes to you, I haven’t been able to lie in a long time.”

Ena, the Order; Xipe, the Harmony; defend me in this tribulation. Curse this evil, bind its spirit and banish it to whence it came.

I swear on truth. I swear on the calendar. I swear on words. I swear on values. I swear on rules. I swear on meaning. I swear on human dignity.

He’s murmuring every prayer he can think of. They play in an endless loop, springing to his lips at random, more like nonsensical jumbles of words than anything coherent. A prayer for salvation. A prayer for forgiveness. A prayer for protection. A prayer for order. A prayer for harmony. A prayer to banish her. A prayer to bring her back. 

A prayer to bring her back. A prayer to bring her back. Bring her back. Bring her back. Bring her back.

“I won’t come back, you know,” she says. That’s the first time he’s heard her voice in so long, and he’s startled to find that it’s almost foreign, like he’s already begun to forget her, like she’s turned into something entirely beyond his understanding.

“Why not?” he says, his voice cracking as he scrambles for purchase against the wall. “I’ll do anything they ask. Anything you ask.”

“It doesn’t matter what you do or who you beg,” she says with a snicker. “You can’t bring someone back once you’ve killed them. You should’ve regretted it earlier; it’s meaningless now. Well, anyways, I have a question for you.”

He swallows but nods, his back to her, vision blurring out of focus as he squints at the plain wall in front of him.

“If you could meet me again, would you?” she says.

“Yes,” he says without thinking, because of course he would. How could he not?

“Knowing that it would kill me?” she adds, giggling. 

Is this what it’s like for those who he interrogates? Now he is the one who cannot hide behind the comfort of fabrication, who must strip himself bare to an unsympathetic audience. He hates it, in truth. He hates it more than anything, but — but he doesn’t hate her, so clenching his jaw, he nods once more.

“Yes,” he says.

“Oh, my,” she says. “How romantic. Careful, or I’ll think you really do love me.”

He whirls around. “I do—!”

There’s nobody there. He wonders if there ever was.

[nonsense-by-nell]

"Aw, is my pretty girl getting close?"

Warnings: alcohol consumption, fingering, face sitting, multiple orgasms, scissoring, public sex (empty field). Word count: 1.9k NOT PROOF READ

It was well-known amongst the pillar's - and anyone who ever spent a slither of time with the mochi-haired girl - that Mitsuri Kanroji was the CEO of picnics.

From the assortment of all kinds of sweet home-made goods, arrays of beautiful flowers and selections of all the fruitiest alcohol's, you knew it was true. You also knew you were well over your limit on alcohol and were in fact very very drunk. From the baby pink blush that stained your lover's cheeks, you could see Mitsuri was too. Perhaps that was where you're confidence came from, a burst of braveness spurring from the sweet drinks you were both sharing.

You were sat opposite your green haired girlfriend, leaning back on both of your palms, long legs outstretched and crossed at the ankle. Mitsuri was half way through her fifth slice of cake, mumbling to you little facts on how she made it between bites. You uncrossed your legs, bringing your knees to your chest ever so slowly, allowing the fabric of your floral dress to slip up to your thighs.

Mitsuri stopped eating and eyed you curiously. The sight of your sneaky eyes and bare thighs caught her attention and when she saw the tortuously slow glide of your legs opening she began watching your every move with bated breath. You giggled upon revealing your sneaky surprise to her: you'd gone to the date commando.

It never took longer than a moment for your lover and her ridiculously high sex drive to get in the mood. She wasted no time, freshly manicured hands gripping the plush of your thighs and dragging you to her with that inhumane strength of hers. You gasped, falling from your palms to your elbows, gazing up at her with a shy smile and legs wide open, revealing your glistening core that has been desperate and throbbing for her the entire date. "Oh my poor baby," she whispered once observing you were absolutely drenched, sitting up on her knees to stroke your thighs, "you must be aching."

"Been thinking 'bout you all day" your voice was shy yet seductive as you thrust your hips towards her to emphasize your need to be touched. She giggled, a sweet and playful sound; the complete opposite of the sinful actions she was about to do to you.

"Oh honey, It's okay now, I'm here." With that, her free hand travels down to your core, two fingers calloused from years of swordsmanship slowly entering you; your hole was weeping, allowing her to glide into you easily.  You sat back up on your palms to lean back, keeping your legs spread wide for the dual-haired hashira as she started a leisurely pace, pumping her fingers into you sweet and slow. 

"Oh, Mitsuri." Your voice was airy, relief that your cute lover was attending to you evident in your moans. It was almost embarrassing at how fast you could feel the burn beginning to boil in your stomach, you gazed at your lover with lidded eyes and flushed cheeks, panting and gasping at the overwhelming sensation. You couldn't  possibly bear it any longer, hips grinding desperately into her hand to attempt to deviate the intensity.  

"Aw, is my pretty girl getting close?" The love pillar coos, slow and concise pace not faulting for a second. You could do nothing but moan and whine as your eyes squeezed shut, attempting to ignore the pulsating of your clit, a clear sign it was crying out to be touched by her skilled fingers. Every extra second the thudding bundle of nerves was neglected, the heat in your stomach would get hotter and practically burn. You thought the scorch was going to kill you  from inside out, overpowering the build of your orgasm and causing it to start to fizz away.  

"Oh god! 'suriii, more, please  please  more!" You cried out to her, eyes pleading with her pretty green orbs that were admiring your unabashed state of pleasure. Pouty pink lips tucked between her pearly white teeth, beginning to feel hot and bothered at your whines and mewls - so much so her free hand was squeezed between her  squirming thighs - attempting to alleviate the edge. 

"What do you need, honey? Is this where you want it?" She teased, knowingly. Her thumb came up to the aching group of nerves and applied the perfect amount of pressure, gliding up and down seamlessly.  It was just what you needed, you didn't even have the sense to formulate a response; how could you? Not when the pleasure was building up too fast for your brain to keep up with. All you could do was fall onto your back, using one of your hands to grip underneath one of your knees and hike it up as far as it could go. 

The change in position you put yourself in allowed you to feel her deeper, that with the sensation of her thumb on your clit and your desperate grinding on her fingers quite literally broke you. You were concentrating so hard you couldn't find the strength to moan, just gasping and panting at the pleasure, fingers clawing into the picnic blanket. You could feel the orgasm approaching and somehow found the words to beg "pl- puh- please don't st-op." Not even a second later your orgasm crashed over you; your mouth dropped open, eyes squeezing shut in pleasure as your toes curled. Your chest was heaving as you threw your head back in a silent scream, rendered speechless as intense waves convulsed through your body. 

"Did that feel good, honey?" Mitsuri inquired teasingly, eyes glued to the exquisite sight before her, because truly, nothing could be a more beautiful picture than you in your post orgasmic bliss.  Especially sprawled out in front of her, floral dress bunched up above your hips, arms stretched over your flustered face, hair spread out on her pink picnic blanket and the golden rays of the sun spilling over you, making you look ethereal - like a goddess, she mused giddily to herself. 

You smiled up at her as you slowly calmed down from your intense high, a truly sweet and giddy smile that practically oozed your profuse love for her. "C'mere pretty." You rasped, voice a little sore from your previous cries. She happily moved to straddle your waist, the sun was still bright behind her, painting her silhouette in the most surreal way. "You're so pretty," you spoke honestly from below her, your hands stroking her hips in the most gentle manner. "The prettiest." You hummed, admiringly. 

You saw her beautiful eyes glaze over, her cheeks darkening as she looked at you stunned to silence. And then before you could process it she was squealing, falling on top of you and cuddling you, squeaking out loving words and thankyou's in a pitch only animals could hear as you giggled, a hand moving from her waist to cup her head that was now nuzzled into your neck. 

Your other hand also strayed from her waist, moving expertly to untie her obi. She gasped when she felt the fabric fall and when she sat up, oh, what a sight. Her kimono fell open, her well endowed chest spilling out completely along with a sliver of her toned tummy and her thighs, oh her thighs. "Well hello, pretty." You grinned up at her, nudging her to hover over your face. "Wanna take a seat?" 

You couldn't help but laugh heartily at her eagerness, her knees coming to situate on either side of your head as she lowered herself down. Your hands gladly wrapped around her plush thighs as you dragged her down to actually sit on you. She squeaked in surprise, but before she could protest having her full bodyweight on you, you'd already dove in, licking a bold stripe from her hole to her quivering clit. 

"Oh! Ohhh, yes." Your pink-and-green haired lover cried out, you wasted no time, tongue flicking up and down rapidly, groaning into her folds as her sweet taste enveloped your taste buds. The vibrations had Mitsuri screaming out, you wouldn't be surprised if she'd scared away a flock of birds at this rate. It had barley been a matter of minutes, but you could see she was more responsive than normal, moans more frequent and louder, hands frantically finding purchase in your hair as she threw her head back. Her hips were grinding ruthlessly against your face with so much fervor her clit would bump up against your nose. 

You were in awe as you watched her chest heave from below, pillow like breasts bouncing in her frantic movements. She was truly heavenly. And she was yours. 

One of your hands left her thigh, stroking her back softly. You felt one of her long braids and grabbed it, tugging on it gently and oh was the reaction worth it. Mitsuri's back arched dramatically as she cried out your name, giving you the perfect view of her little waist and heaving breasts. Her thighs were shivering around your head as her body racked with shivers and tingles from her orgasm, continuing to ride your tongue and prolong her pleasure. 

She didn't give herself time to calm down from her high or for you to catch your breath; instead she moved down on shaky legs to kneel between your open ones. You shivered at the light breeze that made your wetness feel freezing, as you curiously watched your lover. She leaned forward and dragged your dress up and above your breasts, exposing them to the cool wind; she then grabbed the back of your knee, hiking your thigh up and exposing you even further. 

"Darling? What are y- fuck!" She'd straddled your other thigh, perfectly aligning her core with yours before dropping down and grinding against you. It was too much. Breasts bouncing, your wet cores rubbing together and both of your mewls mixing together into a cacophony of sounds. "Ffuckk, Mitsuri. Th-this is- so," you couldn't even finish your sentence. 

"I kn-ow, oh god love, I know." Her voice cracked. Your hand scrambled to hold onto her free one that was next to your head, fingers interlacing lovingly, whilst the other rested on her waist, aiding her desperate grinding. It was almost embarrassing with how fast you both were tumbling towards your second peak, but the love shared in the adoring gazes you were giving each other made it hard to care. You squeezed her hand. She squeezed back harder. You couldn't look away from each other's teary eyes. "M' so in love with you 'Suri, m' gonna cum, oh god m' gonna cum. Please."

Her grip on the back of your knee tightened, pushing it further back next to your head as her forehead rested on yours. "I- I love you, I love you so much." And then you were smashing your lips together, tongues enveloping each others mouths hole, sucking and nibbling and muffling moans. And then you were both convulsing, cores throbbing as you rode out your highs together, only breaking apart to whimper sweet nothings and cry out at the intense waves of pleasure. 

And then you were both breathless, staring at each other lovingly as the sky surrendered to hues of pink and orange, setting your mostly bare bodies in a heavenly glow. 

It was a perfect date. 

[amethystarachnid]

HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEART

⤷ ANTHONY “TONY” E. STARK

ᯓ★ Pairing: Anthony “Tony” E. Stark x fem!reader

ᯓ★ Genre: romance fluff

ᯓ★ Request from: MARVEL Multiverse

ᯓ★ Story type: one shot

ᯓ★ Word count: 5.5k

ᯓ★ Summary: Everyone in school knows that you and Tony are endgame, probably the best couple in school. But when a new girl arrives in school and tries to get between you two things get a little heated, but the love between you and Tony is strong, so you have nothing to worry about.

ᯓ★ TW(s): a girl tries to get between you and Tony so drama but really nothing serious that needs a tw

ᯓ★ AU: high school

ᯓ★ Request: Can you write High School AU with Tony? High dose of fluff, study dates, and kisses? ❤️ (female reader, and you can add more topics, for sure 💕) (@little-angel-oc )

ᯓ★ Comment if you want to be added to the taglist (specify if you want the everything taglist or for a specific character)

ᯓ★ My Masterlist

ᯓ★ MARVEL Multiverse - choose an AU, pair it with your favorite character and make a request!

ᯓ★ Songs & Superheroes tales - The Game (to make a request, follow the rules on the link!)

ᯓ★ MARVEL Bingo

ᯓ★ English isn’t my first language

You’re not sure what to make of Tony Stark when you first meet him. He’s brash, cocky, and has a grin that seems to be permanently fixed on his face. It’s your first day at Midtown High, and of course, he’s the first person you bump into—literally. The books in your arms scatter across the hallway floor, and you barely have time to react before he’s crouching down to help you gather them.

“Whoa there, new kid. You okay?” His voice is smooth, confident, and it makes your heart stutter for a second, though you’re not sure if it’s from nerves or irritation.

You mumble a quick thank you, avoiding his gaze as you stand, adjusting your backpack awkwardly on your shoulders. You expect him to walk away—guys like him usually do—but Tony doesn’t. He leans casually against the lockers, eyes sparkling with amusement as he looks at you, like you’re some puzzle he’s eager to solve.

“Where you headed? I could show you around,” he offers, but the smirk on his lips suggests there’s more than just friendly assistance on his mind.

You decline politely, trying to disappear into the crowd of students rushing to their classes. But Tony Stark isn’t the kind of guy you can avoid for long.

Weeks pass, and somehow, you find yourself drawn to him despite your initial impression. He’s everywhere—at lunch, in the library, and most annoyingly, in your chemistry class. Tony's always surrounded by friends, always the center of attention, yet whenever you catch his eye, he winks or sends you a sly smile. It’s infuriating and kind of… charming?

One day, as you struggle to understand the periodic table, a familiar voice breaks your concentration.

“Need some help with that?”

You look up to find Tony leaning over your desk, his eyes scanning your notes. Before you can protest, he slides into the seat next to you, grabbing your pencil and scribbling something in the margin of your notebook.

“Here. You were just missing this part.”

You stare at the neat, concise explanation he’s written. He’s actually right. You glance at him, surprised, and he grins, looking far too pleased with himself.

“I’m not just a pretty face, you know.”

That’s the beginning. The moment when everything shifts.

The first time you agree to study with Tony is in the library, after school. You think it’s going to be more of the same—him goofing off, you trying to stay focused. But when you sit down at a table together, Tony’s different. He’s serious, focused, his brow furrowed in concentration as he explains things in a way that makes everything click.

He’s smart. Really smart. And it catches you off guard.

“You didn’t think I’d actually help, did you?” he teases when he notices your stunned expression. You shake your head, laughing softly, and for the first time, you feel something warm and soft bloom between you.

Study dates become your thing. You meet at the library, then sometimes at his house, where the Stark mansion looms large and intimidating. But inside, Tony’s room is a mess of textbooks, blueprints, and scattered projects. He talks excitedly about tech and engineering, his hands moving as fast as his mouth. And slowly, you start to feel at ease with him.

One evening, after a particularly long study session, Tony’s hand brushes yours as you both reach for the same notebook. You freeze, your heart hammering in your chest. You glance at him, and he’s already looking at you, his eyes softer than you’ve ever seen them. There’s no teasing, no smirk—just quiet, unspoken words between you.

And then, he leans in.

It’s gentle, almost hesitant, the kind of kiss that makes your entire world slow down. His lips are warm against yours, soft and sweet, and it’s over before you can even process it. When he pulls back, Tony’s eyes search yours, waiting for your reaction. You smile shyly, and his grin returns, wider than ever.

“Study break,” he whispers, before kissing you again.

After that, everything changes.

You spend more time with Tony, not just studying but talking—about your dreams, your fears, your lives outside of school. He opens up to you in ways you didn’t expect. Beneath the charm and bravado, there’s a boy who’s constantly under pressure, trying to live up to the Stark legacy while carving out his own path. You see his vulnerabilities, the cracks in his confident façade, and it makes you fall for him even more.

One evening, you’re sprawled on the floor of his room, surrounded by notebooks and textbooks, when Tony suddenly leans over and rests his head on your lap. You freeze, your heart doing that weird flip-flop thing again. He looks up at you, his brown eyes soft, a small smile playing on his lips.

“You know, you’re the only person who’s ever really seen me. Like, really seen me.”

Your fingers hesitantly brush through his hair, and he closes his eyes, letting out a contented sigh. It’s moments like this—quiet, intimate—that make you realize how deeply you care for him. You never expected to fall for Tony Stark, of all people, but now you can’t imagine your life without him.

Weeks turn into months, and your relationship deepens. There are more stolen kisses between classes, more late-night study sessions that end with you falling asleep on Tony’s shoulder. He walks you to your locker every morning, his arm casually draped over your shoulders, and everyone at school knows you’re his girl.

But it’s not just the romantic moments that matter—it’s the little things. The way Tony makes sure you have your favorite snacks during study dates, how he’ll randomly text you at 2 AM with some random fact about the universe, or how he insists on carrying your books even when you tell him you can manage just fine.

One rainy afternoon, you’re sitting together in the library, your fingers intertwined under the table. Tony’s explaining something about quantum physics, his voice low and soothing, when he suddenly stops, looking at you with that soft, unguarded expression you’ve come to love.

“I think I’m in love with you,” he blurts out, his voice quiet but firm.

Your heart skips a beat, and you can’t help the smile that spreads across your face. You squeeze his hand, leaning in to press a soft kiss to his lips.

“I love you too, Tony.”

He grins, wide and brilliant, and for once, there’s no cocky retort, no snarky comment. Just the two of you, lost in each other, surrounded by textbooks and the quiet hum of the library.

It’s in these moments, wrapped in soft kisses and whispered words, that you realize Tony Stark isn’t just the arrogant genius everyone else sees. He’s yours—the boy who fell in love with you over study dates and late-night conversations, the boy who makes your heart race with every kiss.

And somehow, against all odds, you know he always will be.

The school hallways are buzzing with the usual morning chaos—people rushing to their lockers, friends calling out to each other, and the faint chatter of gossip floating through the air. You’re standing by your locker, waiting for Tony like you do every day. It’s become part of your routine. He’s always a few minutes late because he stops to mess with one of his gadgets or gets caught up in a conversation with a teacher.

But right on cue, you hear his voice echo through the corridor before you see him.

“Morning, gorgeous!” Tony’s familiar grin spreads across his face as he approaches, slinging his arm around your shoulders like it’s the most natural thing in the world. His lips brush your temple, soft but enough to send a little flutter through your chest.

“Late again, Stark,” you tease, closing your locker and nudging him playfully.

He rolls his eyes, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “I was testing something in the lab. You can’t rush genius.”

You laugh, shaking your head as the two of you fall into step with each other. It’s a typical morning. Just you and Tony, strolling through the halls like you own the place—except neither of you care about that. It’s just about being together, hand in hand, oblivious to the world around you.

But then, you notice her.

A new face, standing by the school entrance, hair perfectly styled, her gaze following Tony like a hawk. You don’t recognize her, but she’s clearly new, and it’s obvious by the way she’s staring that she’s already heard about Tony Stark. Who hasn’t?

As the two of you pass by, she does a double-take, her eyes lingering on Tony in a way that makes your stomach tighten. You’ve never been the jealous type, but something about the way she looks at him makes your chest ache. It’s not just a passing glance—it’s an intention.

Tony doesn’t seem to notice. He’s too busy rambling on about his latest project. You try to shake off the feeling, but it sticks with you all morning.

By lunch, you’ve forgotten all about the new girl. You and Tony are sitting at your usual spot, surrounded by your friends. He’s telling some ridiculous story about how he almost set off the school’s fire alarm during chemistry class, and everyone is laughing, including you. Tony’s arm is draped lazily over the back of your chair, his knee brushing against yours under the table—a constant reminder of how close you are.

But then, she walks into the cafeteria.

Her name, you’ve learned, is Olivia. She’s the kind of girl who commands attention without even trying—perfect posture, bright smile, every strand of her hair exactly where it should be. And she walks in like she owns the place, her eyes scanning the room until they land on Tony. Again.

Your stomach twists as you watch her make her way across the cafeteria, straight toward your table.

“Oh no,” one of your friends mutters under their breath. “She’s coming over here.”

Tony, completely oblivious to the tension, is still talking. “So, then the whole beaker just—”

“Hi, Tony,” Olivia interrupts, her voice sugary sweet. She stands directly in front of him, smiling brightly as if she’s known him forever. You feel his arm tense slightly behind you, but he doesn’t immediately move it.

“Hey…?” Tony trails off, looking at her with a confused tilt of his head.

“I’m Olivia. I just transferred here,” she explains, her gaze flicking briefly to you before settling back on Tony. “I heard you’re kind of the genius around here. I thought maybe you could show me around sometime? Help me get the lay of the land.”

The cafeteria feels like it’s holding its breath, everyone at your table now staring at the interaction with thinly veiled interest. You sit a little straighter, trying to stay calm, but you can’t ignore the way Olivia completely ignores your presence, like you’re invisible, like you’re not literally sitting in Tony’s arms.

Tony, to his credit, doesn’t miss a beat. His arm tightens around your shoulder, pulling you a little closer as he offers her a polite smile. “That’s nice of you to ask, Olivia, but I’m kind of booked with…” He glances at you, his eyes softening, “…well, everything.” He doesn’t need to say more. The message is clear.

But Olivia isn’t easily deterred. She leans on the table, her voice dropping into a flirtatious tone that makes your blood simmer. “Oh, come on. You can’t be that busy. I’m sure we could make time—”

“He is that busy,” you cut in, your voice sharper than you intended. The entire table goes quiet, and Tony’s eyes flick to you, wide with surprise but also admiration. You never get possessive. This is new for both of you.

Olivia straightens up, finally acknowledging you with a raised eyebrow. “Right. You’re his girlfriend.” She says it like it’s something temporary, something that could change at any second. Her eyes flick between you and Tony, as if she’s sizing you up, figuring out if you’re competition.

Before you can respond, Tony does. He leans forward, his arm still securely around you, his voice low and steady. “Yeah, she’s my girlfriend. And trust me, Olivia, I don’t need to make time for anything else.”

The look Olivia gives you is brief but sharp. She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Well, if you ever change your mind…”

She doesn’t finish her sentence, just winks at Tony before walking away, leaving the tension behind her like a storm cloud.

You exhale a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, trying to shrug off the unease that her presence left behind. Your friends are already muttering about her under their breath, but you stay silent, unsure of how to feel.

“Hey,” Tony says softly, shifting in his seat to face you more fully. His hand moves from your shoulder to cup your face gently, forcing you to meet his gaze. “You know I’m crazy about you, right?”

You nod, though the knot in your chest still feels tight. “Yeah, I know.”

“I mean it,” he says, his thumb brushing your cheek in that soft way that makes your heart skip. “There’s no one else I want, okay? Just you.”

You smile despite yourself, leaning into his touch. The rest of the world fades away, and for a moment, it’s just you and him again, like always. He leans in, pressing a soft kiss to your lips, right there in the middle of the cafeteria, in front of everyone, like he’s making sure everyone knows exactly where he stands.

Including Olivia.

For the rest of the day, Olivia doesn’t bother you again. But you can still feel her eyes on you from across the room, watching, waiting. And though Tony spends every spare second reassuring you with kisses and soft words, there’s a part of you that can’t shake the feeling that this isn’t over.

You trust Tony. But Olivia? You’re not so sure.

The afternoon sun filters through the large windows of Tony’s room, casting a warm golden glow across the scattered textbooks and notebooks. You’re supposed to be studying for tomorrow’s physics test, but it’s hard to focus when Tony’s lips are pressed against yours, his hands gently resting on your waist.

You’re sitting on his bed, your books long forgotten as he leans in closer, his kiss becoming slower, more intense. The air between you feels electric, and everything else fades into the background. Tony’s kisses always start soft, teasing, but they quickly grow deeper, more consuming, until it’s like nothing else exists.

But then—ding.

A notification from Tony’s phone interrupts the moment, but neither of you react. His lips still move against yours, more urgent now, like he’s trying to drown out the noise with you.

Ding.

Another one. You feel Tony stiffen slightly, but his hands stay where they are, pulling you closer, his kiss deepening. It’s like he’s deliberately ignoring it, and you try to focus back on him, but the third chime pulls you out of the moment entirely.

Ding.

You pull back, breathless, your heart racing from both the kiss and the annoyance bubbling up inside of you. “Tony,” you murmur, your hands gently resting on his chest as you push him back just enough to meet his eyes.

He looks at you, his brows furrowing slightly as if he doesn’t understand why you’ve stopped. “What?” he asks, his voice low, rough from the heat of the moment.

“Your phone,” you say, trying to keep your voice calm but feeling a twinge of frustration. “Who’s texting you so much?”

Tony groans, glancing over at his phone on the nightstand as if it’s the last thing he wants to deal with right now. “Probably just Happy, or something about my dad’s company…” He starts to lean in again, his lips brushing your neck, but you’re not convinced.

It’s not like Tony to ignore his phone for this long. You push him back a little more, your voice firmer now. “Tony. Check it.”

With a sigh, Tony finally reaches over and grabs his phone, unlocking it with one hand while the other stays on your waist, like he’s unwilling to let go of you completely. But as soon as his screen lights up, his face changes. His eyes narrow, and his jaw clenches.

“What the hell?” he mutters under his breath.

Your heart skips a beat, that uncomfortable knot of worry tightening in your chest. “What is it?”

Tony doesn’t respond right away, his thumb scrolling through what seems like a string of messages. You lean closer, trying to see the screen, but before you can, he pulls it away from your view.

“Tony,” you press, your voice quieter now, a mix of confusion and concern lacing your tone. “Who’s texting you?”

He sighs heavily, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “It’s… Olivia.”

You blink, not quite believing what you’re hearing. “Olivia?” You remember the way she’d practically thrown herself at him in the cafeteria earlier today, completely ignoring your presence. “How does Olivia have your number?”

Tony winces, looking genuinely confused. “I have no idea. I didn’t give it to her. I swear.”

But that’s not the worst of it. He swipes to open the messages, and your eyes flick to the screen. There’s a string of texts, one after another:

Hey, Tony :) I heard you’re amazing at physics, could really use some help tonight. Studying alone gets so boring… Maybe we can work something out ;)

You feel your face heat with anger as Tony keeps scrolling. There are pictures too—selfies of her in a tight top, smiling at the camera with her lips slightly parted, each one more suggestive than the last. She’s not even being subtle.

Tony’s face hardens as he scrolls through the texts, clearly just as annoyed as you are. “This is insane. I never—”

You cut him off, trying to keep your voice calm but unable to hide the anger bubbling up inside. “She’s acting like a complete pick-me. And she knows you have a girlfriend, Tony. She knows.”

Tony’s eyes snap up to meet yours, and his expression softens immediately, his hand reaching for yours. “Hey, I didn’t ask for this. I don’t know how she even got my number. But you have to know this is ridiculous. I don’t care about her. I don’t even like her.” He squeezes your hand, his voice earnest. “It’s you. Only you.”

You bite your lip, trying to push down the wave of frustration building up inside of you. The rational part of you knows he’s telling the truth, but that doesn’t stop the sting of seeing those messages, the blatant way she’s throwing herself at him, completely disregarding you.

“Then block her,” you say, your voice quieter now but firm. “Right now.”

Tony doesn’t hesitate. He goes back to the message thread, and with a few taps, Olivia’s number is blocked. He throws the phone back onto the nightstand with a look of disgust before turning his full attention back to you. His hands gently cup your face, and the warmth in his eyes melts away some of the tension in your chest.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his forehead resting against yours. “I didn’t mean for that to ruin everything.”

You sigh, leaning into his touch, your heart still racing but for a different reason now. “It’s not your fault. I just… I don’t get why she’s doing this.”

“She’s not worth even thinking about,” Tony says, his voice firm. “I don’t care about her, okay? She’s just trying to cause drama, and I’m not playing into it. I’m with you. No one else.”

You nod, feeling the weight of his words sink in, grounding you. His thumbs trace gentle patterns on your cheeks, and he tilts his head slightly, his eyes soft and filled with nothing but affection.

“Come here,” he whispers, pulling you back into his arms, his lips finding yours again. This time, the kiss feels different—deeper, more tender, like he’s trying to prove something. Every movement of his lips against yours is filled with reassurance, as if he’s reminding you, with each soft touch, that you’re the only one who matters.

And even though Olivia’s messages still linger in the back of your mind, they start to fade away as Tony’s kiss consumes you again, drawing you back into the warmth and comfort of being with him. Here, in his arms, it’s clear that no one else stands a chance.

The library is quiet, as always, the only sound the occasional rustle of papers and the soft hum of a distant conversation. You’re smiling to yourself as you push open the door, balancing a snack in one hand and a drink in the other, a small treat for you and Tony to get through the rest of your study session.

Tony had seemed a little drained when you left, leaning over the pile of notes and textbooks, muttering about how the periodic table was starting to look like some kind of puzzle he couldn’t crack. You thought some fresh air and snacks would do you both some good.

But as you step into the room, the smile slips from your face.

Sitting in your seat, right next to Tony, is Olivia. Her legs are crossed, her arm casually draped across the back of your chair as she leans toward him, her voice low and flirty. Her head is tilted slightly, that same smirk on her lips that she wore in the cafeteria. Tony looks uncomfortable, his body stiff and tense as he stares down at the open textbook, his eyes flicking up at her every now and then, clearly trying to keep the interaction as brief as possible.

“Come on, Tony,” Olivia’s voice drips with sweetness, but there’s a sharpness beneath it that makes your stomach twist. “You can’t be serious. Why are you wasting your time on her?”

She says the last word like it leaves a bad taste in her mouth, and that’s when something inside you snaps.

You walk over, as calmly as you can manage, but your heart is racing, and your grip on the snack bag tightens. Tony catches sight of you first, relief flashing across his face as he sits up a little straighter.

“Hey,” Tony says quickly, his voice clearly trying to break the tension. He immediately reaches out for you, as if to remind both you and Olivia where his loyalty lies. “You’re back.”

Olivia doesn’t even look your way, her eyes still locked on Tony. It’s like she doesn’t care, like she’s deliberately ignoring your existence even though you’re standing right there.

You take a deep breath, setting the snacks down on the table in front of you. “Olivia,” you say, keeping your voice calm but firm, “you’re in my seat.”

She finally turns to look at you, her expression unreadable at first, but then a slow, condescending smile spreads across her face. She leans back in the chair, like she’s not planning on moving any time soon. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t see you there.”

You clench your jaw, your hands tightening into fists by your side. “I’m pretty sure you did.”

Tony looks between the two of you, clearly ready to step in, but you put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. This is your fight now.

Olivia’s smile widens, and she shrugs, her voice filled with fake innocence. “I was just talking to Tony. You know, trying to understand why someone like him would waste time with… well, someone like you.”

Your blood boils at her words, but you keep your face as composed as possible. This isn’t the time to let anger get the better of you.

“Olivia,” you start, stepping closer so she’s forced to look up at you from your seat, “we both know what you’re doing here. And I’m telling you now, it’s not going to work.”

Olivia rolls her eyes, completely unfazed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

You take another step, your eyes narrowing. “I mean, Tony’s my boyfriend. He’s made that clear to everyone—including you. So, whatever little game you’re playing, you can stop, because it’s not going to change anything.”

For a second, you see something flicker in Olivia’s eyes—maybe surprise, or annoyance—but she quickly masks it with another smile. “It’s cute that you think that, but let’s be real. Do you actually believe that Tony’s going to stick around with you? He deserves someone who can keep up with him. Someone who doesn’t… bore him.”

The words sting, but you don’t let it show. Instead, you take a deep breath and glance at Tony, who’s now glaring at Olivia, his jaw tight. He looks like he’s about two seconds away from saying something, but you speak before he can.

“You really think I’m boring him?” you ask, your voice steady despite the fire burning in your chest. “Because from where I’m standing, it seems like he can’t get enough of me.”

Tony finally speaks up, his voice sharp. “She’s right.” He looks at Olivia, his expression darkening. “I’ve told you already, I’m not interested. I’m with her, and that’s not going to change. So, maybe you should find someone else to flirt with, because I’m done with this.”

Olivia blinks, clearly caught off guard by Tony’s bluntness, but she recovers quickly, standing up and smoothing her skirt as if she’s not at all affected. “Fine,” she says, her voice still dripping with venom. “But when he gets bored of playing house with you, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She brushes past you, her shoulder bumping yours slightly as she leaves, but you don’t move. You stand tall, watching her walk away with her head held high, even though you know she didn’t win this time.

Once she’s gone, you let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, your shoulders sagging a little. Tony immediately pulls you into his arms, his face softening as he tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear.

“You okay?” he asks, his voice gentle, though you can hear the edge of frustration still lingering.

You nod, leaning into him, the warmth of his arms grounding you. “Yeah. I just… I can’t believe her. She’s so persistent.”

Tony sighs, kissing the top of your head. “She’s not going to stop, but she can try all she wants. It’s not going to make a difference.”

You smile up at him, your heart swelling with affection. “Thanks for standing up for me.”

He chuckles softly, brushing his lips against yours. “Like I said, there’s no one else. She can throw herself at me all day, and it won’t matter, because all I care about is you.”

The knot in your chest loosens completely, and you lean in for a soft kiss, your hands resting on his shoulders. The library is still quiet, but the tension from before has vanished. Now, it’s just you and Tony again, like it always should be.

As the kiss breaks, he gives you that familiar smirk, the one that makes your heart flutter every time. “Now, where’s that snack you promised?”

You laugh, handing him the bag of treats. “Only if you promise not to let anyone else take my seat again.”

He grins, pulling you closer. “Never again. That seat—and everything else—is yours.”

It’s late afternoon, and the sky is painted in soft hues of orange and pink, casting a golden glow over everything as you and Tony walk through the park. The crisp autumn air makes it perfect for a cozy date, and Tony’s hand is warm in yours as you stroll side by side, talking and laughing about everything and nothing at the same time.

You’ve both ditched the textbooks for the day, deciding that spending time together was more important than stressing over schoolwork. Tony had suggested the park, and now, you’re both content walking the leaf-covered paths, taking in the peaceful quiet of the world around you.

The last few days had been tense, with Olivia constantly trying to get between you two, but today feels different. Everything feels lighter, like you can finally breathe again. And as if on cue, the universe gives you the proof.

You glance up as you pass by the small café near the park and spot Olivia sitting outside at one of the tables. But she’s not alone. Across from her sits Jason, one of the guys from the football team. He’s grinning at something she’s said, and Olivia is laughing, twirling her hair around her finger like she always does when she’s flirting.

You nudge Tony gently, nodding toward the scene. “Look,” you whisper with a hint of amusement in your voice.

Tony follows your gaze, and when he sees Olivia, he smirks, shaking his head. “Looks like she’s finally found someone else to bug.”

You smile, feeling a wave of relief wash over you. It’s strange to think that the girl who had caused you so much frustration just days ago is now wrapped up in her own world with someone else. And honestly? You’re just glad it’s over. Olivia’s attention has shifted, and for the first time in days, you feel completely at ease.

“Well,” you say with a small smile, “at least now we don’t have to worry about her anymore.”

Tony chuckles, wrapping an arm around your shoulders as you continue walking. “Good riddance. Now I can focus on what’s important.” He pulls you a little closer, leaning down to press a soft kiss to the top of your head.

“What’s that?” you tease, glancing up at him.

He grins down at you, his brown eyes warm and filled with affection. “You, obviously.”

The rest of the date is simple and perfect. After the park, you and Tony grab ice cream from a small stand by the water, sitting on a bench and sharing bites of each other’s cones. The sun starts to dip lower, casting long shadows, but neither of you are in any rush to leave.

Tony keeps cracking jokes, making you laugh until your stomach hurts, and in between the laughter are soft moments—his fingers brushing against yours, his lips pressing gentle kisses to your temple, your cheek, and eventually, your lips. It’s a perfect day, one that feels easy and light, like everything is exactly where it should be.

As the sky turns darker, you both make your way back to Tony’s place. It’s quiet when you arrive, his parents out for the evening, so the house feels like it belongs to just the two of you. Tony leads you upstairs to his room, and the moment the door closes behind you, it’s like a blanket of warmth and comfort settles over everything.

You sit down on his bed, kicking off your shoes and leaning back against the pillows. Tony follows, lying beside you, his head propped up on one arm as he looks at you, a soft smile tugging at the corners of his lips. The light from the lamp on his bedside table casts a gentle glow, and in that moment, it feels like the world outside doesn’t exist—just you and him, wrapped up in the quiet of the room.

“Today was nice,” you murmur, your fingers tracing idle patterns on his arm. “I missed this. Just us.”

Tony hums in agreement, his eyes soft as he watches you. “Me too. No distractions, no Olivia… just you and me. That’s how I like it.”

He leans down, capturing your lips in a soft kiss. It’s slow and tender, and every movement feels like a quiet promise. His hand rests on your cheek, his thumb gently brushing your skin as he deepens the kiss, but it stays gentle, soft—like he’s savoring the moment. There’s no rush, no urgency, just the two of you wrapped in the comfort of each other.

You pull back slightly, resting your forehead against his, your eyes fluttering open to meet his gaze. His fingers thread through your hair, and he smiles softly, the kind of smile that makes your heart skip a beat.

“I love you,” he whispers, the words filling the space between you like a warm, quiet confession.

Your heart swells at his words, and you reach up, gently cupping his face in your hands as you smile back at him. “I love you, too.”

Tony grins, leaning in to steal another kiss, his lips soft and warm against yours. You melt into him, feeling the weight of the world slip away, leaving just the two of you in this moment of pure, quiet love.

When the kiss breaks, he pulls you closer, his arms wrapping around you as you settle into his chest. You can hear the steady beat of his heart beneath your ear, and the gentle rise and fall of his chest is enough to lull you into a state of peaceful contentment.

“Stay over?” he murmurs, his fingers trailing lightly down your arm.

You smile against him, your eyes closing as you nod. “Of course.”

And just like that, the world outside disappears. It’s just you and Tony, the soft glow of the lamp, and the quiet hum of love that fills the room. You fall asleep wrapped in his arms, knowing that there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.

soft Tony my love <3 If you liked the story don't forget to leave a like, a reblog and drop a follow if you want to read more!

[plaidos]

people are describing scenarios they would flirt with you or take you on a date because thats how they would shoot their shot? like a lot of people would not consider a tumblr ask to have enough depth for shot shooting at all, at least because a lot of flirting is about body language and such? not only that but there's lots of situations where 'shot shooting' is incredibly inappropriate or offensive so the context of like 'well id flirt with you in a bar or something' is needed to make the 'shot' not make the 'shooter' come off as an asshole. not to mention a lot of autistic folks on this site probably are having trouble with your use of an unclear idiom that could mean different things to different people, and would include the context to their 'shot' because they dont really know what you mean without concise language.

girl why are you getting fresh with me about my own sexual preferences here??? 😭 sorry that i turned you down i guess. like i feel like if i’m doing a whole ask game dedicated to shooting one’s shot it isn’t sexual harassment to you know. proposition me. but tumblr asks have been enough to get me going before. skill issue if you can’t do it. you are incredibly pathetic, this is legit like whiny incel behaviour

[stllmnstr]

sacred monsters [teaser!]

pairing: lee heeseung x f reader

genre: academic rivals to lovers, vampire au, slow burn

teaser word count: 1.7k

teaser warnings: swearing

release date: saturday, august 3, 10 PM EST

soundtrack: still monster / moonstruck / lucifer - enhypen / everybody wants to rule the world - tears for fears / immortal - marina / supermassive black hole - muse / saturn - sleeping at last / everybody’s watching me (uh oh) - the neighbourhood

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

A literature student in your third year of university, you’ve been dreaming of having your writing published for as long as you can remember. With a perfect opportunity dangling at your fingertips, the only obstacle that stands in your way comes in the form of a ridiculously tall, stupidly handsome, and unfortunately, very talented writer by the name of Lee Heeseung. Unwilling to let your dream slip out of reach, you commit to being better than the aforementioned pain in your ass at absolutely everything.

But when a string of vampire attacks strikes close to your city for the first time in nearly two hundred years, publishing is suddenly the last thing on your mind. And, as you soon begin to discover, Heeseung may not quite be the person you thought he was.

note: this fic is my BABYYY so I really hope it’s well received and you all have a good time with it. it’s probably no surprise that still monster is one of my absolute favorite enha songs, and this story is essentially (my interpretation of) it in written form. this is going to be a multi-part story, and as of right now, the first part is almost ready to share. for now, enjoy this snippet!

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

Crossing a dark line through the word you just penned, you sigh. 

This is the fastest you’ve put a story together in ages. It’s cohesive, and the writing is solid. Your use of metaphor is strong and concise, and the prose feels true to your identity as a writer. 

But something in you withers a bit with every new word you commit to paper. It’s not that you hate your topic. If anything, it’s just that you have no stake in it at all. It doesn't feel innovative or exciting or representative of your creativity. 

No matter how easily the words flow out of you, something about it just feels… flat. One dimensional. 

You need something new. A different angle or an alternative perspective or… Or a fresh set of eyes. 

Struck with a sudden idea, you pull out your phone, plan taking form in your mind. The literature club at your university hosts bimonthly peer review sessions, and you haven’t taken advantage of them nearly as much as you should. They’re a chance for any writer, literature major or otherwise, to come together and workshop any piece of writing of their choice. 

Tapping your finger impatiently on the table, you wait for the page to load. The fall semester did end almost a week ago, so it may be a long shot. You’re not sure if the club typically holds sessions over winter break. But as you pull up the club’s calendar of events, a small smile tugs at your lips. 

Luck seems to be on your side this time. It’s written there in plain, bold font that there will be a session this upcoming Friday evening. That means that if you attend the session and get some solid ideas for revision, you’ll have exactly five days to refine your draft before you present it to Professor Kim. 

The idea of having not only a topic, as the schedule outlined, but an actual complete,  well-written draft to show him next Wednesday, turns your small smile into one that overtakes your features. 

Energized with a new vigor, you reach for your pen again. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you remind yourself, even as a turn of phrase makes you cringe. Even as a piece of punctuation feels out of place. It just needs to be written. You just need to have as much content as you can to share on Friday. 

Besides, you’re sure that a second opinion will help you fine tune this story into something you’re proud to share, something you’re excited to attach your name to.

The afternoon is quick to blur into early evening, and you’re still bent over your favorite corner table. Coffee long drained, you’re full of a new confidence. The thought of proving yourself suddenly doesn’t seem like such an unachievable, out of reach task. 

And when you do finally gather up all of your belongings and make your way back to your apartment for the night, you’re sure that this is the exact boost you needed. 

That same stroke of self-assuredness carries you all the way through a finished first draft. It’s rough and messy and littered with loose ends, but it’s tucked away in the bottom of your tote bag with a smile as you haul it to classroom number 105 in the university liberal arts building Friday evening. 

You pause at the door to the classroom, only for a moment. The inhale you breathe in is deep, full. Nodding to yourself once, you push open the door. 

You haven’t been to one of these workshop sessions since the second semester of your first year, back when you had just switched to a literature major. You remember being wide-eyed and incredibly protective over your work. It was hard to part with it, to let anyone else read over the sentences you were so unsure of. The writing you had little confidence in. 

But your partner had been kind. Another girl in her first year, she had nothing but gentle feedback to give and reassurance that your writing was worth reading. Honestly, it was such an overwhelmingly positive experience that you would have come back for more sessions if you weren’t constantly struggling to find minutes to spare in the day. 

You’re hoping that tonight will be just as rewarding as you enter the classroom, tote bag in tow. But as you survey the space around you, your face falls flat, easy going smile dropping from your lips. 

You weren’t expecting a big crowd, considering that it is winter break and most students are deliberately avoiding campus right now, but you were hoping there’d be more than one other person in attendance. 

Well, you think, deciding to look on the bright side of things. At least you’re not the only person. 

The other attendee is sitting in the far corner of the room, occupying a desk near the front of the classroom. At the sound of your entrance, they turn to face you. 

With that, your small disappointment is quick to snowball into an intense wave of exasperation. Because why is the universe so hellbent on playing games with you?

Your mouth drops open without your permission. “Heeseung?” 

Your sudden outburst fills the room and lingers long into the awkward silence that follows. You hadn’t meant to say anything, but really, what are the god forsaken odds?

If he’s bothered by your reaction to seeing him, Heeseung doesn’t show it. Instead he looks strangely… relieved. It makes absolutely no sense for him to feel any sort of relief at the sight of you, but it’s hard to put a more apt descriptor to the way tension drains from his shoulders, crease between his brows softening as he looks at you, scans you from head to toe. 

A moment of stilted silence passes between the two of you. Another. Your heartbeat feels too loud in your chest.

You exhale, a cross between a scoff and a laugh so humorless it could freeze a flame. Weighing your options, the most tempting by far is to just turn on your heel and exit the way you came. 

Heesung seems to read your intention before you can commit to it. 

Breaking the heaviness in the atmosphere, he acts as if you’ve greeted him like an old friend, not as the source of all your recent headaches. 

“Hi,” he nods, so tentatively you almost want to let your jaw drop open in shock. Almost. 

Because what the fuck does he mean by ‘Hi?’ This has to be some kind of mind game, some way to get in your head and ruin this for you. 

“Right.” Your lips pull into a tight line. You don’t bother to return his greeting. “I’m just gonna go, then.” Hiking up your bag on your shoulder, you turn to do just that. Your first draft will just have to be unpolished. Oh, well. You’re sure Professor Kim will have better feedback for you than Lee Heeseung ever would anyway. 

Once again, Heeseung’s voice cuts across the classroom. “Wait.” There’s a command in his voice. Gentle, but firm. Insistent. So pervasive that you find yourself following without really meaning to. 

Mind made up and dead set on leaving, now you’re just annoyed. What a waste of a Friday evening.

“What?” You turn back to him. You’re not sure if there’s more venom in your voice or your eyes. 

And Heeseung, who commands a classroom with quiet grace, with his steady, unwavering presence, suddenly looks so damn unsure. As if tormenting you is uncharted territory. As if he’s never once left you in the cold with flaming cheeks and a thoroughly shattered ego. 

“I…” he trails off, not quite meeting your furious gaze. “Didn’t you come here to get feedback?”

“Right.” You scoff again. “Because I’m sure you’d love nothing more than to tear my writing to shreds. Forgive me, but I’m not interested in being the butt end of your joke tonight.”

“What?” If you didn’t know any better, the ignorance he feigns would be rather convincing. “That’s not why I’m here.” He shakes his head. “I brought something I want reviewed too.” 

Your brow arches. He can’t be serious. “Even if I did stay,” you counter, “you’re actually the last person I would want to read my work. Feel free to be offended by that, by the way.”

For a solid minute, Heeseung just looks at you. He wears that same damn deer-in-the-headlights expression he had after you brushed him off when he intercepted you in class the other day. He pauses, weighing words on his tongue. “Look, ____.” The sound of your name on his lips strikes a strange chord in you. Until now, you were certain he didn’t even know it. “Did I do something to offend—”

And no. Absolutely not. No way are you rehashing that day in the quad with him now. 

“You know what,” you interrupt. You need to go. Now. You need an out. “I’m actually, like, super tired. I think I’m just gonna head back, and—”

But then it’s his turn to cut off your train of thought. “It’s your piece for Professor Kim, isn’t it?” Heeseung takes your silence as confirmation. “Publishing is a big deal. A second set of eyes will only make your work stronger. And if you hate my feedback, it’s not like you have to use any of it.”

You hate it. You despise the way his reasoning matches your internal monologue nearly word for word. The way your thoughts align exactly. 

You pause, a decision weighing heavy on your mind. He is an excellent writer… There would probably be substance to his feedback. Real, actual, good substance that you could use to make your writing bloom into something truly amazing. He could be the exact spark you need to make your story come to life. 

You purse your lips. “What’s in it for you?”

Heesung smiles, a nearly imperceptible quirk of his lips. He knows he’s won. “Like I said, I brought something I’ve been working on.” There’s an intention you can’t quite read behind his gaze when he adds, “I want to know what you think of it.”

Hook, line, and sinker.

With a grumble, you take reluctant steps towards where he sits on the opposite side of the classroom. And if you slide down into the seat next to him with a little more force than necessary, well, it’s just because you’ve had a long week. No other reason. None at all. 

“Fine,” you relent, reaching to pull your notebook out of your bag. “You get twenty minutes.”

“That’s not nearly long eno—”

“Thirty,” you concede. “And don’t push it.”

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

TO BE CONTINUED...

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖

note: thanks for checking out this little snippet! I can't wait to share the full first part soon. this one is going to be so much fun I'm buzzing already. I don't have a tag list, but I will most likely update this post and reblog it once I have a confirmed release date. like I said in the note at the beginning, I'm anticipating it will be ready to go by this sunday (august 4 EST) at the latest. woo!

[alienaiver]

wordcount; 483

content; father's day, shinsou x reader but focused on aizawa. mentions of disconnect between reader and their biological parents. gender neutral reader. erasermic family. [fathers day is june 5th in my country]

aizawa stares at his phone, puzzled. the notification is short, concise and straight to the point. its the type of texts he enjoys the most, but this one just confuses him.

"happy fathers day" is all the text reads. theres just one issue though;

you're not his kid.

youre dating his kid and while he doesn't know a lot about child rearing, he knows he doesn't automatically become any kid's father that he meets.

besides, you're in your late 20's. are you sending this message on behalf of shinsou? is shinsou pranking him, messaging him from your phone to mess with him?

"what's up, darling?" yamada asks from the kitchen island where he's preparing the salad for tonight. aizawa doesn't register the question though, frozen in time with his phone held up boomer-style, the screen gone dark after all the time spent staring.

yamada rounds the island to reach his husband by the dinner table, petting the top of his head. aizawa shakes his head with the movement and clears his throat, "ah. a happy fathers day text."

"aw, thats so sweet. from eri? i havent gotten one," yamada replies as he returns to reach for his phone, to see if he also got a greeting.

aizawa clears his throat again, putting his phone down onto the table, saying your name. yamada looks at his husband beaming, "aw, they sent you a fathers day greeting? thats so sweet of them!"

aizawa looks at yamada with a raised eyebrow, "i'm not their dad though."

this makes yamada throw his head back in laughter, hand holding his stomach. aizawa doesn't think he was being funny though. when he notices the confusion in aizawa's features, he wipes a theatrical tear from his eye, "shouta, you've practically adopted them, too. you went to the doctor with them last week."

"so? hitoshi had a shift and they needed the support."

"you have a monthly movie night with them."

"well, eri's part of that, too."

yamada shakes his head and gives him The Look; a look that signifies that he needs to pay attention.

"look, you're there for them when their own parents aren't. that's a good thing, y'know."

aizawa looks away, a small pout on his features. yamada raises an eyebrow, "are you somehow unhappy about this?"

there's silence for a while, and then aizawa sniffles and wipes his nose while looking away. yamada's heart melts as he observes him, "'m not."

after a moment aizawa exhales sharply, "...i'm happy, it's just.. overwhelming. they're not a former student, they're someone who met me as an adult. they had no ties to me personally, they... chose me."

yamada giggles and returns to aizawa's side, wrapping his arms around him from behind, kissing his cheek, "i'm happy for you, too. they really need a father figure and you ARE amazing."

aizawa smiles softly, leaning into yamada's embrace, "i'm glad they think so, too."