#phewww finally done

[soleilnomoon]

hi i would like to order a honey lemon drop with frozen yogurt for nanami. and ftm he/him pronouns if possible

so sorry for the long, long, long wait omg 😭 so ty for being patient💛, but i finished and i really like how it turned out (i hope u do too 😊) anyway i think this is my first nanami fic, so naturally i love that you wanted angst

1.9k words, ftm reader (he/him), sfw (surprise surprise), 18+ mdni, angst city all dayyy, no real warnings except that reader is a little bit of a coward (but i, too, would be unable to confess to nanami ok i understand), feat. one bed trope, forced proximity, nanami being capt. of the delulu squad (as usual), i think that's it! maybe.

“how can i not love you violently when / all i have ever known is / violence in the name of love?” — fatima aamer bilal

on a rainy thursday night, you find yourself in a second-rate motel room with one nanami kento. the situation you’ve found yourself in is less than ideal, but it’s too late to travel back home now — the distance alone puts both of you at risk, especially since you sustained an injury on your mission.

you wince as you canvas the room — a habit you’ve yet to break since childhood — and when you find that it’s safe enough, you relax a bit. but even with a soft exhale, you find yourself holding onto your side with your hand, a strained expression etched carelessly onto your soft features. you tell yourself that it’s not a big deal, that you can take whatever pain comes your way. it works to distract you quite a bit, until you remember that you’re not occupying this space alone.

nanami kento thinks you’re an idiot — possibly a bigger one than gojo satoru, although that’s debatable depending on the time of day. his reasoning is simple. only an idiot would leave themselves wide open during a fight; only an idiot would push their superior out of harm’s way without any regard for their own life; and only an idiot would wave off an injury like that and pretend that they’re fine when they’re clearly not.

but, most importantly, only an idiot with a heart much too pure for this line of work, would consider the life of someone like him worth saving.

nanami clenches his jaw for what feels like the hundredth time that day, his nerves frayed despite the nonchalance he insists on presenting to you. the room is tinier than he expected, but he doesn’t have the option of being picky right now. he shrugs off his jacket and neatly drapes it on the back of a nearby chair before running a hand down his face.

you groan a little louder than you mean to as you try to find a comfortable position while sitting on the bed, which only furthers his frustration with you.

when nanami caught you just as you fell over, he thought he’d lost another partner — although, is partner the right word in his instance? he’s not so sure now. the thought of you losing your life when you have so much more to live for, forces a different kind of fear to settle heavily in his stomach.

humans — both sorcerers and non-sorcerers — are fragile, much more prone to crumbling under the strength of supernatural entities. nanami’s wondered for a while if this line of work is suitable for someone like you. someone who, despite him telling you to save yourself first, has a blatant disregard for their own well-being, even in the face of danger.

it's absolutely infuriating to him. he was being careless, which is wholly unlike him. maybe it’s because his focus shifted slightly, where he watched you a little more closely than he should have — to ensure your safety, of course — and by the time he realized, you’d already taken the hit for him.

foolish. very, very foolish.

you watch nanami carefully, biting down on your bottom lip, wondering if he’s going to lecture you to death over your actions. he was silent during the car ride and hasn’t said much since you arrived at the motel — so you’re nervous, and why wouldn’t you be? you’re sure he doesn’t hate you, but sometimes you wonder; you always mess up in front of him, and no matter what you do you can’t seem to keep it together.

if only you could channel some courage to tell him that it’s alright, that you didn’t mind getting hurt, that you just wanted to make sure he was okay. you know that he’s much more adept at fighting, his own physical prowess out ranks yours significantly, but he’s always given you credit for your determination and insistence on trying over and over again. you assume that his silence is his attempt at keeping his anger at bay — and you’re partially right, it is.

but not for the reasons you think.

nanami hasn’t gotten the hang of properly expressing himself, because you also make him nervous — and it annoys him greatly. he recognizes it as some sort of affection for you on his part, but since he’s so good at denying himself — of the things he really wants, of anything that might bring him a sliver of happiness — it took months for him to piece together his feelings.

maybe it’s because your own feelings for him overwhelm you constantly; they make it difficult for you to keep eye contact for longer than a few seconds, makes it damn near impossible for you to be near him without feeling like you’re out of your element. you don’t entertain those outlandish daydreams anymore — the intimate ones, where he sees you as something more than a colleague — but from time to time, the compulsion hits you.

you happen to glance down at your shirt and realize you’re bleeding through it, so you unbutton it without thinking, careful to not agitate your wound. nanami’s frown deepens; he reminds himself to never be that careless again. and although he sighs that signature sigh of his, he grabs the first aid kit and walks over to the bed.

“let me clean that,” he says quietly, placing the supplies on the bed next to you before rolling up his sleeves.

the sight of his forearms is enough to send you into cardiac arrest. thankfully, you somehow manage to survive the ordeal — although your heart feels like it’s beating faster than it should, you’re surprised nanami doesn’t hear it.

swallowing hard, you try and stop him. “n-no, that’s fine. i don’t need your help.” you continue rambling and stumbling over your words, face burning from embarrassment. he grabs a chair and sits in front of you, barely paying attention to your protests. your voice is comforting — dulcet tones, soft and unsure, but very much you; it helps to take the tension away from him, and he suddenly starts to feel himself relax a bit.

when you impulsively grab his wrist to stop him, he fixes you with a stern look, effectively snuffing out any rebelliousness on your end.

it’s not that he thinks you’re incapable of cleaning it yourself, it’s that he knows you’re still in pain, and it will be more efficient if he does it himself. his excuse is that he’s gotten quite good at patching himself up over the years, and he somehow rationalizes that it makes the most sense for him to be the one to help you with this.

you let go of his wrist and try not to move, instead finding yourself watching nanami up close. heat beat slowing, yet somehow still a thunderous sound in your ears, you try to remain calm despite his close proximity. a heat radiates off your body — one he certainly feels but ignores for the sake of his own sanity. acting on emotions, on physical impulses, on outlandish dreams — those are things nanami simply cannot do.

or, rather, that he shouldn’t do.

nanami is classically handsome, with sharp features, an elegant nose, and long, fair lashes. you think you’re being inconspicuous as you watch him, committing his face to memory, so that you can think back on this exact moment later and anguish over unsaid words and actions you were too cowardly to take. you’re not exactly as subtle as you think you are, so nanami catches you fairly quickly. not that you realize any of that, you’re still trying to piece together your courage as nanami’s fingers graze your skin softly.

he moves with precision, albeit much slower than he normally does; he’s not sure if it’s an inherent selfishness on his part, but this is the only form of intimacy he’ll allow himself to have with you — as he knows the likelihood of you both living a full, enriching life is slim. still, he cleans your wound much faster than you’d like, the tips of his lithe fingers lingering dangerously close as he runs them along the bandage.

that touch alone causes you to sit up straight, breathe in sharply through your nose and grit your teeth together; it’s an attempt at grounding yourself, despite the goosebumps that crop up along your arms. still, you feel… full, somehow — and hopeful. your heart also feels too big for your chest now, almost as if there’s some sort of possibility of this being something more than a daydream.

nanami goes to wash his hands, although he looks over his shoulder at you to tell you, in that low, gravelly voice of his, that you can take the bed while he takes the armchair.

“that’s ridiculous,” you blurt out without warning, “we can share the bed, it’s not that small.”

there are so many reasons why he should not get in that bed with you, but none of them come to mind now; he wants to protest, though, very badly — but there you are, looking so fragile and seemingly angelic, that he acquiesces right away. you try not to let nerves get the best of you, as you didn’t think nanami would really agree to the demand. and by the time you both settle on the bed, nanami does his best to keep a respectful distance from you.

on a whim, because the lights are off, the rain soothes you in a way that easily invites fatigue to claim you right away, you shift closer to him. nanami stiffens immediately, not understanding why you keep insisting on trying his patience like that but relaxes eventually. he won’t admit it, but he likes that you’re completely vulnerable with him.

your eyelids grow heavy, making it impossible to stay awake, and you start mumbling as you drift off to sleep. holding his breath and keeping still, nanami strains his ears to hear you — almost like he knows that if he doesn’t, he’ll miss out on something very important.

the courage you’ve been desperately seeking comes unexpectedly, and of course it would happen while you’re delirious with exhaustion. you talk sometimes in your sleep; normally, no one is around to hear it, but tonight, nanami will be subjected to the one confession you thought you’d never be brave enough to say out loud.

you say, “i’m a little bit in love with you,” so quietly that nanami thinks he imagined it. he closes his eyes briefly and takes a deep breath, telling his mind to settle, before looking at you again. your words will haunt him for eternity, mostly because you didn’t mean to say them to him — not now, anyway — and he understands that.

but—

what is he supposed to do now that he knows? it complicates things even more for him, and as someone who hates unnecessary complications, he now has to reconsider his approach with you. still, he doesn’t get off the bed, doesn’t move away from you; instead, nanami traces the shape of your lips with his finger — slowly and with purpose. he doesn’t know what compels him to do that, except that he just wanted to. when your lips part, he pulls his hand back, nerves barely keeping together. he closes his eyes again and prays that sleep finds him soon; at this rate, he’ll end up telling you how he feels too, and he can’t possibly have that happen. not now, not ever.

[tamaharu]

punches the air i finished my piece ive been agonizing about for months lets gooooooo

[lightwise]

TBB S3E8 - Reactions

- Poor Echo—he really is not getting any screen time is he

- Crosshair’s look of concern when he tells Omega she should be staying away from Rex and Echo 😭

- Okay Omega’s guilt is so clouding her judgement at this point. Poor kid really thinks it’s her fault that all those clones died—no baby girl, the shadow assassin would have gone there anyway whether you were there or not. My heart aches for her

- Hunter 🤝 Crosshair: keep Omega safe at all costs.

- Hunter’s lil “come on” head tilt 🤩

- PHEE!!!! I have been waiting for you!!!

- Crosshair: Who!?! 😶 PRICELESS. EXACTLY WHAT I EXPECTED FROM HIM MEETING HER 🤣🤣🤣

- Not Omega serving as the narrative admitting that Phee is, in fact, much to our dismay, a pirate 🏴‍☠️

- I’M GETTING BOTH MY GIRLS BACK IN ONE EPISODE

- Just slipping a Tech mention in there, why don’t you stop ripping my heart out

- Fennec!!!

- And Cross has the same reaction to Fennec 😆 —he’s finally starting to learn about the life that his family has lived during their time apart

- Hunter being in full dad mode and also being very perceptive about Crosshair hiding his hand issues. He may not always be able to say this about himself, but Hunter admitting that ignoring something won’t make the problem go away is huge growth from him.

- Thank goodness Hunter can pilot. This would be a very short season otherwise

- Cool space station

- I love when Star Wars is grimy city underbellies and neon lights 🤩

- The guys look SO GOOD in purple. Jus sayin

- As does Fennec (Queen that she is)

- I’d let those boys hem me in a booth anytime

- Ming-Na Wen is really pulling out all the stops for Fennec’s voice

- Hunter in neon bar lighting is something so personal to me

- “Ruined one of my scores” lol Fennec is salty tonight

- “More than you’ve got” she doesn’t even know how much they have on them but she knows it’s not enough 🤣 but also where is that 30k credits that Omega won?? They could have used that?

- “We made a deal. I’m going to keep it as long as you hold up your end”

- “Ten? For THAT? That’s what I thought”

- Gosh that water looks nasty

- Wet helmet Hunter instead of WET HAIR HUNTER??? Fffffffsssss Jennifer *clicks tongue in disappointment*

- That is so many mines

- “Close doesn’t count” 🥺

- It’s really interesting to me that this show has been focused solely on the Batch as a family this season. We’ve been on Pabu multiple times and have seen hardly any other residents, no one trying to be neighborly or prying (even though we know Shep has tried to make sure Crosshair is comfortable). The focus is on the Batch themselves this time, not their dynamic with the outside world.

- “You don’t like anything” “true” at least he’s self aware by now lol

- Batcher’s like “you like meeee!”

- Hunter’s senses are back baybee

- Never knew I needed to see Wrecker yeeting space alligators until today. Glorious. Straight up punching them in the face 🤣🤣🤣

- Ohhhh Wrecker giving back her sass blow for blow!

- “So what happened with the kid?”

- I will die on the hill that Fennec cares about Omega deep down

- “Just…seems odd. Considering our past”

- Love that the atmosphere on this planet is orange and it’s Fennec’s episode

- “They thought Omega would be safer with you guys. Guess they were wrong about that” she is not pulling any punches

- “Money’s not everything” you right boy

- “That’s because you don’t have any” phewww 🤣🤣🤣

- Pulling the blaster across the throat in a kill motion?? Hunter what are you doing to me right now 🥵

- “Pretty much” lolol

- This dude is so creepy looking. Giant bug eyes were not what I was expecting

- “You heard me!!” Oh Wrecker is done, done

- Man this guy does not go down easy.

- Bug spit. Nuff said

- “I doubt that” oh Cross, honey, I know, I get it

- THEY HELD HANDS

- I REPEAT SHE HELD HIS HAND

- Sorry I’m having Kenobi show Obi-Wan and Leia handhold flashbacks 😭😭😭😭

- Okay okay I’m back. I think.

- “You’ve missed a lot” “I know”

- Okay just rip my heart out why don’t you

- That is one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen

- Pointy finger scrunched brow Hunter is the best Hunter

- “You can either fight me or trust me. Good choice” 😮‍💨

- Hunter getting tipped off that ramp is uh…is ummm…doing something to me. What, I’m not sure 👀🫠

- I also find it really interesting that they’ve barely had us on the Marauder at all this season. Foreshadowing?

- Both Fennec and Phee make the same two fingered salute to the boys after talking to them. Cute.

- Ohhhhh is she…is she selling them out?? Who is she talking to? Cad?

- Wait no she wouldn’t pass them over to someone else if any money could be gained on her side. I bet she’s talking to Ventress. I really wanna know how those two know each other 👀

- Wow. Things are really going to get interesting from here. Can’t wait.

[hidey-writes]

six sentence sunday

encouraged by @strangegeology mwaaaah!! thrilled that you are starting this off <33333

When it's done, Shen Wei kneels there for a moment, unmoving. It’s over. Maybe this will not be the end, but almost certainly it will be. Kunlun’s eyes start to flutter open and Shen Wei yanks himself into motion, eyes averted behind his mask. He clambers out of the bed and bows his departure in silence, his voice too thick in his throat to speak. The sound of the door sliding shut ricochets through him like a physical thing.

phewww im finally! done outlining the second draft of this fic oh my god its been five days but it feels like two WEEKS! i have no idea where to end this fic, despite now knowing more about what will happen in the middle. i feel so unable to draft i am having to trick myself into it so so much, but at least that is working somewhat!

tagging uhhhh @mister-eames @forerussake @bananacanwrites @frogiwi @crehador if you want?? literally no pressure, only if you'd like!

[joocomics]

wait okay I have TWO THOUGHTS 🤭 and they’re both about jungsu bc I have issues anyway

Jungsu who lets you get away with your teasing and bratty behavior in public but at home?? Oh as soon as that front door closes he has you bent over the counter, panties down and he’s suddenly livid. Talking about how you’re a dirty whore and deserve to be punished. His favorite form of punishment is fingering you until you’re at the brink of an orgasm only for him to pull his digits out and mock you!!!!! 😮‍💨 he’s slapping your pussy so good tew like?!?!? snickering in your ear about how “you need to be a big girl and take the punishment he gives” AH OKAY? Or maybe even a little bit of “sluts don’t deserve to cum do they? don’t think so, sweetheart” pls I’m losing itttt

THE SECOND THOUGHT I HAVE… so like jungsu who is OBSESSEDDDD with marking and will silently beg for you to mark him up during sex and whatnot. Jungsu who purposely buys you the pretty pink & red lipsticks because he wants to have them temporarily stain his skin alongside the sloppy hickeys you leave on his chest and neck, maybe even a few on his jawline so he can brag about you to the other members (jungsu would totally be the type to constantly talk ab his s/o imo!!!) imagine wearing one of the said lipsticks he’d bought you and giving him the best head of his whole damn life phewww and when yours done his dick has delicious rings of pink and red up and down the shaft, like little tattoos of where your mouth had been. He’d be so impressed and elated by it too he’d take a few pictures JKSSWOSIJZ

in conclusion I really really really want this man to ruin my life!!!!!!!! Also if this is incoherent PLS ITS 1 AM AND IM KINDA GOING CRAZYYY😭😭

and here you are RUINING MINE with these thoughts oh my GOD listen … HEAR ME OUT

why not combine both?????????

jungsu who is once again frustrated with your bratty attitude, but is trying to think of a new way to get it back at you. the number of times he’s punished you is not small, and his techniques are beginning to repeat themselves, so he wants something new. something he knows is going to really make you mad and wet ofc. so he starts his punishment early - he doesn’t fuck you for days. one day he’s busy practicing, another he’s working on a song, the next he has a meeting. and so on, and so on. until one night he’s finally chilling in your bedroom, and you get on top of him fully naked. he reminds you about the punishment you still have yet to take, and you get soo excited. you’re so freaking needy and horny, you will take anything - you cannot wait for him to make your behind red, all marked with the shape of his palm; you cannot wait for his fingers to ruin your pussy with an hour long edging and multiple orgasms that feel like forever. but he has something different in mind. instead, he makes you wear your new pretty lipsticks he bought you and give him the best deep throat you’re capable of. he picks you by the hair to check if the color is still there and if it’s not he makes you reapply it before sucking him back into your mouth. after he cums he erases completely the lipstick with his mouth, giving you mindblowing erotic kisses that make your legs shake, and then he puts another color himself - this time hot red maybe? he squeezes your jaw harshly, putting the lipstick on very carefully while you think that maybe now he’s going to touch you. however, he lays down forcing you to cover his whole body up and down with kisses while his orgasm cools down. “press harder, sweetheart, i can barely see this one.” you even draw a few hearts on his chest with the lipstick 🥲 you suck his neck desperately while sitting in his lap and he’s soo happy to feel you dripping. your hole is probably clenching around nothing too. after you’re done with this task, he orders you to make him cum again. he fills your mouth and you swallow every drop like the good girl you are trying to be. he swipes your lips with his tip, enjoying the red stains all over his length. “made my cock look all pretty, baby,” he smirks tapping your face with it. “wish i could fuck your pussy while it looks like this.” you blink at him confused??? “but… aren’t you—“ “nah, baby.. wait, did you think i’m gonna fuck you? awh, sweetheart” he strokes your cheek with a pout. “bad girls don’t get to cum.” and he goes to sleep <3

the next day he’s giving you the best orgasm tho

[the-wild-candy]

Phewww finally done with the pac

[ontheporchofdesire]

What does it mean to find belonging? The kind of seenness that you’ve been waiting for all your life? Like the words taken from you, that your eyes long for and your heart breaks for? For you parents to see all along how special you are, how unique you are, what you’ve made for yourself, who you are to people. For them to love you all the same. But to see, to see, to say, to say. Like when Richard Gilmore says to Lorelai, “It takes an extraordinary person to inspire this.” As they look to a town full of people, love, under a homemade tarp in the rain, everyone beaming with belonging.

The tears of hearing the words you’ve always wanted to hear. Maybe I’ll watch this show again. Maybe there’s more to it to glean, to learn, to feel the second time around.

I love Luke’s smile…have you ever seen anything so warm? Someone who is of the people, of you, not in learned ways that we may never speak the language of, but in the most genuine and heart warmth of ways.

I long for that belonging. A place to rest my head. That feeling of a graduation, people gathered around you. Unequivocally celebrating you, so in love with you. Clarity. It has been so long since I have felt anything that clear. Where something I’ve done is seen so universally as something to celebrate. A place where I can exhale and say uhhh phewww, okay I know I can let go now. They will love me for this. I can let go. They love me. I’ve earned it.

I’ve felt it only once - when I got into Stanford. 13 years ago. But does it ever really feel like what you want? What you want them to say? No. That’s not it. We’re somewhere in between. Not the approval of the parts of you that were never the deepest parts. And not the occasional going along with it amidst general confusion and mistrust about you following your actual path. Something else, something else that I guess is found in continuing to walk that path on your own faith, on your own self-trust, and celebration.

But I would really like a place to rest my head along the way. The way Rory is celebrated. But the truth is I’m Lorelei. And I think it will take longer to get to that place - where my life reflects the deepest parts of me and the people who I long to see me finally see me and all that ripples out from the type of person it takes to inspire such a life. A life of such belonging.

[tamlouwriter]

The breakthrough

The cold winter breeze bit at her soft exposed skin as she came to rest on the wet green pitch beneath her. Her oversized Canberra United jacket was her seat as she wrapped it up over her knees to try to insulate her from the harsh Canberra winter night but to no avail. She blew and puffed, trying to get her breath back steadily but sounding like the most unfit person in the world. No those are negative thoughts, she said in her mind and tried to think of nothing, feeling a trickle of sweat slip it’s way down the side of her face from her hair. She tugged the beanie tighter onto her head trying to reheat her almost frozen earlobes. It was now time for the most difficult part of her session. She chuckled to herself as she readjusted on the icy cold grass, trying to get comfortable. Ask her to do the toughest training session of her life, so tough she’d vomit or pass out due to exhaustion and she’d do it every single time without complaint. But it took all her self discipline and dedication to her footballing career to sit down and do 5 minutes of gratitude-based meditation. It was her biggest weakness as a player, although she never thought so until recently. A yellow card and a chip on her shoulder in the national team was embarrassing and to add insult to injury came the injury. That awful ACL tear. She ran her fingers over the tight purpling soft scar tissue on her knee and tried to push all this aside. This was really not the best headspace to be in to begin, yet she always began her meditation this way. Which of course made her frustrated. Stop! Focus! Her brain snapped her back to the reality of what she was supposed to be doing. That and the rain that began to fall lightly onto her face. She looked up at it and all too quickly felt her face become covered and wet. She had to do this though. Maybe tonight she would finally get a breakthrough. She dropped her head back, stared at the goal for a minute to try to visualise. Then slowly closed her eyes. She had listened to the guided one so much she almost knew it word for word. Not that she ever thought more than reliving that night.

“Get yourself into a nice comfortable position and close your eyes.” She’d already done that bit. Next!

“Begin by taking ten deep breaths, thinking only of the weight of your body centering you to the earth.” Deep breath in. Deep breath out. And deep breath in. Oh, shit she can’t go deep enough with that breath. It’s alright. Just hold it! Phewww big breath out! She was getting restless. But tried to focus on the goal again. Trying to picture it in her mind. But failed to see anything.

“Become present with your breath and body.” Ok focus your mind. Things began to run away in her head. Players whizzing past and she was back in Matildas colours. Great. Why did she always end up here? Burning for her shot, she roared at the forward for sitting too high and giving away a free kick. Assert her dominance, make her feel better. The veteran gave her daggers as she ran back onside. Good. Ruffle her feathers. But no. She had to push this aside. No reliving what happened next. She tried to focus on a dark room again.

“Notice any sensations you feel around you.” The freezing rain on my shoulders. Oh man! It’s starting to soak into my clothes!

“Let your muscles become heavy.” Any heavier and she’d fall asleep!

“Release, relax, let go.” She sighed. Beginning to feel defeat crawling into her mind. Maybe she could finish this one at home?

“Thank your body for allowing you to relax.” She felt foolish doing it out loud so mouthed it quietly to herself. Then realised this probably looked even more ridiculous! If she was watching herself right now, she’d be laughing her head off. She felt her cheeks flush.

“Think of a moment you are grateful for.” Hmmmm. She always got stuck here. She shivered from the coldness running through her body and it invoked something. Something hiding deep inside. And all so suddenly an image came into her mind. Her first coach. Their finest moment together. The cold Canberra weather roared down on her tiny self, but he stood firm against it in front of her. His warm comforting hands gripped her shoulders and his kind dark eyes smiled at her. In his Northern English accent, she remembered vividly the words he uttered. “You’ve got this Rosa.” She nodded at him knowing in her heart this was her time. Her chance. She felt her little legs move forward softly, gracefully. Placing the dripping wet ball, bigger than she remembered, onto the penalty spot. The goalkeeper staring her down. Vicious with his hands and tongue. He’d already stopped two of her goals that day and called her shit. She was about to prove him wrong. She ran in and kicked it, almost slipping in her attempt. The way the ball felt coming off her boot, the way it flew through the air and into the goal, right at the top left corner, her favourite place to score. How it sailed in past his grubby fingers. How the crowd had roared. How she had felt. When her coach carried her on his shoulders off the field. How he’d cried.

“Think about how this moment has improved your life. Remembering to let go of any negative thoughts and hold on to the positive ones.” She found herself reflecting. That was the game that gave her the rush. When she knew she had it in her. When everything was looking hopeless that she played her best football.

“Think about the people in your life who have been involved in this moment.” She shivered with a thought about how she’d not been to visit him recently. How she’d always promised she would. What he’d sacrificed for her.

“Thank those people, out loud or in your head, for providing you for this thing which you are grateful for.” She had no second thoughts. Out loud she muttered it loud and clear for all to hear. “Thank you, dad.” feeling her voice falter, she held on to any emotion about to spill out of her.

“Thank you.”

“And now thank the moment you are grateful for. For being accessible and helpful to your life.” She again muttered it out loud in time with the voice in her head.

“Thank you.”

“Continue to think about this moment as you slowly open your eyes and return to the rest of your day.”

She slowly opened her eyes, no longer distracted by the lightly falling rain or the icy winter wind. She silently got up off the ground gathering her bag. She wandered over dripping wet to her car and got in. She drove and drove, getting further and further along Canberra Avenue until she saw the signs for Lanyon Drive. She turned onto the road and sped along the dark wet road. Slowing for a handful of kangaroos at the entrance to the lawn cemetery she made her way inside. Down the dark road to the well-lit areas. She got out of her car shivering again at the icy wind as it jabbed at her skin once more. She pulled her damp jacket over herself and wandered down three rows until she stopped at the simple dark coloured grave. The light hit the golden lettering making it almost look like it sparkled. The words “In loving memory of John Arthur De Costella” Headlined the damp grave. She sank herself down and felt her world begin to crumble around her. She sat and cried for a time. She cried about her chance. About her injury. About his loss. And when she had no tears left to cry, she rose with a lighter heart. She whispered her farewell before making her way back to her car. Sitting in the dark for a moment she took another deep breath. Finally, a breakthrough, she thought to herself. And for the first time in months, she felt a genuinely happy smile spread across her face.

[angrycloudcrown]

Phewww.... finally done liveblogging episode 2 of TADC.... that was a TON of posts oh my

[kazoohaa]

Hi!! I'm the anon who requested for the Artem Wing comfort headcanons. Thank you so much for taking the time to write it. I hope things go well for you in school as well and that your food tastes yummy 🤲❤

aaa you're welcome !! i do apologise that its contents wasn't fully tied to the initial request, though :[ (i realised i skipped a line when reading the request originally 💀)

but thank you as well ! after this week, all my tests should finally be over and done with (phewww)

[mnovenia]

3 MORE MONTHS to 2023

From my human eyes, jujur takut banget nulis ini.. but it's said feed your mind with faith.

That picture is what I've been having in head for few years. It's my ideal place to have a date, romantically chilling while in the autumn/cold, and even my pre-wedding photo theme. I think I had this picture since in NL, and with that Koko, Oppa or whoever oriental guy I had in mind.

But nope, no guy come to that yet HAHAHA, kapan ya gw nulis di tumblr kalo that one guy has finally come :''' God knows (merinding sendiri nulisnya).

Ok let's flash back. So the last update about the singaporean guy is called TWY (chinese name GUYS). At first, I thought he was alright, similar passion, way of thinking, live in Bali, but on our 2nd date (meeting), I found out that he is a Buddhist, with Kwan Im shrines in his villa. Well, well, well I was so disappointed, I asked God why, I got myself out of him, knowing that God is either giving me mission to help him see the light or tempting me HAHAHAH. Anyway I withdrew from him, went to Jakarta, Bandung and had a pleasant trip. I was shown that there are plenty of guy out there better than forcing myself to end up with TWY. Also during the service at HMCC, God showed me that I should move on and not playing with fire.

May's highlight: I went to Singapore, also a hightlight cos I download Coffee meet bagels, and found many single christian guys, its just none of them like me or has a future with me in Bali. HAHAHA. Experiencing other country for the 1st time since pandemic is a blessing. I love my freedom, chinese culture, foods, good public transport, but oh my the kiasuness n expensive life made me so grateful when I returned to Bali

I close 6 deals in the kavling PD, also another 4 in Apple. Thank God thank God I cannot be more blessed and surprised, it's all Him. Thank you Mba Gathi, Ochi dkk, Nic, Ivan & Pak David.

July, I went crazy with house sale in Bandung, but also so relieved that I no longer have that burden back home. I also managed to buy a land, OMG my 1st property in Bali, thank you God for replacing what I left, sold, sacrificed in the past. You made it so easy just to do things according to your will.

Me n TWY remains friends as we got close a bit during my HMCC friends came, also Pak David n Ivan. However it made me realize we better just keep remaining be friends. He gave me idea to build a villa for rent with the money from Bandung. So I had a deal with the Architect, Pak Hendra, he's the best. I'm still hesitate to choose a contractor and also to decide how much should I put in money to this investment.

with all those things I'm grateful for, I also have many days when I struggle, trying to motivate myself to stay alive for another day, some days are depressing cause I lose hope, I don't find life exciting anymore, etc.

However, God also answer my prayer regarding church in Bali. Maybe beginning of June, HMCC Jkt decided to only hold onsite congregration so I was kind of forced to resign from membership. I was confused, trying online Grace Church sgp, GKY, etc until Bella shared that she will open a new service at her parents' house. Idk if it's not an answer to prayer.

And afterwards, her Dad got so sick n I was the only person available to accompany, take care, etc. And God was just so gracious, that it happened when I had so much savings from commisions and house selling. I borrowed her fam money and did everything I possibly could, while staying in Marlene's jie house while she & the fam back in NZ. Phewww..

Since then, I commit to Yewon church Bali, being in touch with Bella's fam, and even her Korean guests, etc. In my heart, idk what else is God trying to work in me. Also I got cheap ticket to Seoul on July, then decided to go for Yewon's church conference and a bit of trip with Nongky n her bro sis. HAHAHA, seems like my KDrama life will come true. I'm still praying for my visa though, been struggling these past 2 weeks, however God's will be done, I'm applying for multiple entry visa.

With all these, I just have to remind myself, to pray like Elijah:

Know and acknowledge who He is (God of Abraham)

Know who I am (servant)

Answer my prayer Lord (boldly)

Bring the people back to You (His Kingdom first above all else)

"Answer me Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you Lord are God and that you are turning their hearts back again" - 1 Kings 18:37

Oh ya, I'm leading BSF now, also still teach Norman, thinking of joining Ministry at church, and still approaching new clients (PRAY PRAY PRAY so I have more confidence to build the Villa for God's glory with humble heart) and Visa Korea, and View-ture husband HAHAHA. Alright goodnight kind Lord, Love You, saranghaeyo.

[bethdutten]

Wouldn’t Dare to Hope

summary: After your night with Bucky in Italy, it takes another four months before you, Steve and Sam find him in Romania. By then, it’s clear you fucked up.

words: 4.1k

a/n: ok I might do a part 4 because... well you’ll see I just think I need a short epilogue to this series lmao ugh someone hold Bucky and make him better and let it be me

part 1 / part 2 / part 3

There he was. Standing a few feet from you, eyes darting from you and Steve to the door, but he looked more scared than hostile. Apprehensive, at best.

Steve held out a hand, eyes on Bucky. “Do you know who I am?”

Bucky blinked. “You’re Steve.”

That pulled a small smile from Steve, and he nodded. “Yeah, Buck. That’s good.”

You watched his eyes flicker to you, brows furrowing. You suddenly felt sick, stomach churning as his gaze seemed to hold no type of recognition while he studied you. You swallowed. “Do you know you I am?”

He was thinking, breath coming out a little heavier, like he was panicked for not knowing the answer right away. Finally he shook his head.

“No.”

You have two seconds to turn away from Steve and to the sink in the small kitchen before you threw up.

Everything got a bit fuzzy after that, the crackle in the comms making you wince.

“Sam! Get her out of here! I’ve got Bucky!”

The sun was blinding, and your head was throbbing. There were gunshots somewhere, but you couldn’t place what was up and what was down, gasping when a pair of arms scooped you up and suddenly jostled you, holding you close.

“Just me, I’m gonna get you somewhere safe.” Sam. Safe. You shut your eyes, and waited until you were safe. Somewhere safe didn’t seem to exist anymore.

—-

It felt like only minutes later when you were yanked out of sleep, the sound of zippers filling the hotel room. You looked over and saw Steve, a sheepish look on his face.

“Sorry. We gotta get out of here ASAP. Are you feeling good enough to walk, or do you need me to take you?”

You groaned, getting to your feet and only feeling slightly dizzy. You stood and were happy to find your stomach settled, at least for now. “I’m good.”

Steve gave you a glance, swinging his bag over his shoulder. “Okay. Flu, or something? We should get you to a doctor when we get back.”

You nodded, throwing what little you brought into your own bag. “Yeah, probably just caught a bug. Sorry for fucking things up back there. Where to next?”

He looked at you over his shoulder, tapping in a number to his phone and pressing it to his ear. “We got him. We’re going home.”

—-

The jet ride home was surreal. You were across from Bucky, and couldn’t stop looking at him. It had been four months since Italy… he’d filled out even more, hair a bit longer. But he seemed almost timid, in a way he wasn’t before. Less Soldier, more… man who was just realizing he used to be a person before all that. And he could be a person again, now.

But he kept his right hand close to a gun, and you bet it took a hell of a lot of convincing and fighting for Steve and Sam to get him here.

And every once in awhile, his vigilant surveying of the jet landed on you, and every single time, it broke you to see his eyes completely move past you without a hint of recognition. Something must have happened between the time you last saw him and now. In some ways, he was doing a lot better—he was clearly eating, his hair was clean, clothes well taken care of. But he barely remembered Steve as a person he was supposed to know, and didn’t remember you at all.

Steve was watching you watch Bucky, and you hoped he just thought you were making sure he didn’t attack Sam while he was flying or going to lunge at Steve with a knife or something. You doubted it, though. He was too observant, and it was making you wish you weren’t around your best friends as your heart broke into a million pieces.

You were suddenly overwhelmed with a wave of longing as you thought back to what he had said in Italy, right before he left:

“Listen… if I forget. If I go back to… him…” Bucky met your eyes, a shadow of pain in them even having to do this. “If I can’t come back to you… you have to know how much this meant to me. How much you mean to me. What you did in New York, and last night—I don’t think anyone else would have cared about me, trusted me like you do. I don’t deserve it, but I’m going to do everything I possibly can not to forget it.”

Your worst fear. Sitting right across from you.

You jumped up from your seat, reaching the bathroom at the back of the jet just in time to vomit the small amount of food you’d forced yourself to eat that morning.

—-

Steve made you head straight to medical while he took care of Bucky, but you already knew what was wrong.

You felt numb, but also like all the suffering in the entire world was being shoved into your chest and held down so it couldn’t escape until you ripped this thing out. Then the reality of the situation set in, and you hoped you stayed numb for awhile.

When Dr. Cho confirmed that you were pregnant, she asked if you’d like to inform anyone else on the team. What she really meant was, ‘Is there anyone you’d like to personally explain the reason why you’d be pulled from missions for awhile or just wait until they eventually figured out’.

An hour later and Steve was walking into the room you’d been in, looking so concerned you’d think he was expecting you to be dying or something. Well. Right now, you felt like that might be a better scenario.

“What’s wrong? It’s not just the flu, is it? I shouldn’t have let you go out in the field, I--”

“I’m pregnant.”

He stopped, and you could practically hear the wheels turning in his head trying to figure out the best response. Finally he swallowed, approaching you like one would a wild deer they didn’t want to spook, taking both your hands in his. “How do you... how do you feel about this?”

You broke down. 

Steve held you while you wept for what felt like hours, the racks of tears unable to stop. You eventually slowed down to pathetic little sobs, and you just wanted to disappear, to be in any situation except this one. There was no good outcome to this. There couldn’t be.

Rubbing your back soothingly, Steve rested his cheek on the top of your head, his body completely engulfing yours like he thought if he could physically shield you from the world, he could keep all the other bad stuff away.

“Is this how I’m going to be for the next five months?” you managed to get out, voice still hitching. Everything hurt. Everything.

“You’re not alone, you know,” he murmured, squeezing you just a bit tighter when you sucked in a shaky breath. “If... if the father doesn’t want to be around, you’ve got a whole team that would die for this kid.”

And that-- that just made your heart wrench, a choked sob coming out as you started crying again. “That’s just fucking it, Steve. He is around, he just doesn’t know who he is enough to be a dad even if he wanted to.”

You felt Steve freeze, body tense as he slowly pulled you away from his chest enough to meet your eyes. “What do you mean, ‘he is around but doesn’t know who he is’.”

Steve already knew the answer-- he just also knew it was an impossible answer so he needed to hear you say it before he even let his brain think it.

You wanted to look away, but you couldn’t. Once you said this, you couldn’t run away anymore. 

“It’s Bucky.”

You watching the pieces fall into place for Steve; why you were so adamant on searching for Bucky with him, the confusing obsession you had with making sure there wasn’t a single stone unturned until you found him, the way you’d reacted when Bucky didn’t know who you were. 

“I don’t understand. How... how did this happen? When did you-- how did he--”

“After the helicarrier,” you whispered, knowing you were about to get your ass handed to you for not tell Steve sooner, “He was at my place when I got home from the hospital. I don’t know why. He didn’t have anywhere else to go, Steve, and I wasn’t just about to turn him it—“

“He could have killed you,” Steve cut you off, but his voice was surprisingly calm, in a way that kind of scared you more than if he was yelling. “He just about killed me. You couldn’t have known how stable he was, he was still the Winter Soldier.”

You nodded, feeling tears filling your eyes again. God damn it. “But I just kept thinking… he’s your best friend, somewhere in there. He’s your Bucky, and he didn’t hurt me, that entire week—“

“A week?” Steve interjected, eyes going dark but his voice remaining steady. Now you were really freaked out.

Shoving your face into Steve’s chest, you felt the wetness soaking into his shirt, but he didn’t loosen his hold on you. If anything, his embrace got a bit tighter.

“He was just starting to show these little flashes of what I think he used to be, what he could be if all that programming Hydra did disappeared. We kissed, but… then he left. Said he knew we’d find him, but he wasn’t going to make it easy.”

You felt Steve let out a large sigh, and you wondered what he was thinking. You were clearly alive, so even if it was stupid and irresponsible letting Bucky stay with you, it turned out okay.

“That still doesn’t explain how you’re pregnant with his baby.”

Ah.

You chewed on your lip, pulling out of Steve’s grasp and taking a seat on the bed. He stood with his arms crossed, giving you his best no-nonsense Captain look. Here’s where that calm and collected facade was going to snap.

“Those two days in Italy, between France and Germany. He was there, waited until you left then found me. I swear, Steve, I never intended for this to—“

“Fuck,” he breathed out, and you felt your bottom lip wobble, eyes rimmed with tears once again. 

“Now he’s here and he doesn’t know who I am. And I’m pregnant. And there’s no way this ends well for me, is there? I mean, fuck, I didn’t even think this was possible! It was one time! And he’s in his 90′s for Christ’s sake, not to mention the cyro--” You were practically hyperventilating at this point, hands shaking as you ran then through your hair.

Steve moved in and pulled you back into his arms, sighing in resignation. “Look, I’m pissed. And we’re going to have a serious talk about not doing dumb shit like that ever again. But… I want him back, too. And it’s already done, so— so we’re still going to be here for you. And I’m hopeful Buck can be, too.”

You sniffled, clutching on to Steve’s shirt. “He has to come back. I can’t do this without him. He promised… he wouldn’t forget.”

Steve held you until you couldn’t stand, then took you back to your room where you fell asleep and hoped you woke to a world where your Bucky remembered everything.

—-

You came back to your apartment, grateful for a reprieve from the team, and the former assassin who was currently being housed at the Tower. You took a long, hot shower, harshly scrubbing at your skin until you were as raw and broken as you felt on the inside. It didn’t wash away the pain, just made it more exposed.

Unfortunately, you knew you’d have to tell the team sooner or later, since Dr. Cho already put in the orders to Steve that you were forbidden on any missions (not that he would have allowed it, anyway). You called Natasha and Clint, the two most likely to hug you and not punch you after hearing you were carrying to child of a somewhat reformed killer that nobody even knew you had spoken to before now. 

“Oh my god!” Natasha squealed, squeezing you tightly before she pulled away, hands gripping your shoulders. “This is amazing. My first niece or nephew. Already I would die for this kid, okay?”

“Same,” Clint grinned from his perch on the chair opposite where Natasha was basically cradling you in her lap. “They’re gonna have a hell of a good life, that’s for sure. Congrats.”

You could help cracking a smile. “Yeah, I know that. How could they not when they have the best aunt and uncle in the world?”

Natasha was practically vibrating, going on about looking for a new place with two bedrooms and the best place to buy baby clothes and how to limit the amount of influence Tony may have before she paused, tilting her head.

“You don’t have to tell me, but... you haven’t been seeing anyone in quite a while, at least not that I know of. Is the father... in the picture?”

The question you were dreading, the one that already had tears welling up in your eyes. You couldn’t keep this from them. You let out a wet laugh, shaking your head and looking down at your lap. “Uh, yeah. It’s, um. It’s Bucky.”

It was silent, before Clint cleared his throat and leaned forward. “Bucky... like Bucky Barnes? Like Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes? Like the guy we just found a few days ago?”

“He’s not the Winter Soldier anymore,” you mumbled, like that made the situation better. Natasha was frozen, her arms slowly loosening around you.

“Full explanation. Now.”

You told them everything you told Steve, and neither of them had any judgemental glare or even an angry glint to their eye. Natasha sat quietly, watching you very carefully while Clint stared off at the wall to your left, nodding every once in awhile. 

“So... yeah. I, um. I don’t really know what to do. It’s a really fucked up situation but--”

“But we’re still going to be with you every step of the way,” Clint spoke up, meeting Natasha’s eyes before he looked back at you. “You’re not doing this alone, no matter what. We’re your family, and we’ll support you, always.”

You suddenly couldn’t see past the tears, and he was over beside Natasha in a second, the both of them wrapping their arms around you and holding you together, literally.

“Th-thank you,” you managed to get out, gripping on to both their arms. You still weren’t sure you could do this. But at least you could be unsure surrounded by your team.

---

You went to the Tower a week later, after there had been a mission everyone had been on except you. If that happened again, you’d be forced to tell them anyway, might as well get it over with.

Everyone was gathered in the kitchen, talking amongst themselves as the pizzas finished cooking while Tony tinkered around with some tiny AI that would replace the earpiece comms the team currently used, when Steve squeezed your hand and cleared his throat, waiting until everyone had their attention towards him.

“There’s some news everyone should know, since it’s going to affect us all pretty soon.” He looked down at you, urging you on. You nodded, letting out a shaky breath.

“I’m, um. I’m pregnant.”

There was a split second of silence, before the kitchen erupted in happy cheers, everyone who didn’t already know coming up to give you a hug. You somehow found a genuine smile on your face, laughing. “And no, it’s not Steve’s!” you added, giving a pointed look at Tony before he could even make a joke. 

After a minute the kitchen settled down, a few people circled around you talking about the new addition to the team, when you looked over and saw Bucky leaning in the doorway.

Your breath caught in your throat. He didn’t often join in with the team when they did things together, but you guessed food was an exception.

Your heart started beating quickly as he pushed off from the doorframe and slowly weaved his way through the bodies, stopping to slide a few slices of pizza on a plate before he walked past you.

“Congratulations,” he said softly, voice void of any real emotion, then he was gone. 

You swallowed, vision suddenly unfocused. That... that was not how you were imagining telling the father of your child he was going to be a dad. He had no idea. There was not even a slight memory, if that reaction was any indication. 

You went home and cried yourself to sleep that night.

---

Over the next two months, you kept to yourself at home, doing yoga with Nat and reading all the books you’d forgotten about and catching up on all the shows you’d been meaning to watch. You made at least four desserts a week for the team, and tried out a different recipe for supper every night.

You’d worked out a good enough argument with Steve for returning to the team after the baby was born-- yes, this life wasn’t exactly conducive for a child, but Nat and Clint were right; they would be the most protected kid in the country, and you were good enough at your job with enough superhero babysitters that you wouldn’t feel guilty about leaving for missions and never coming back. And maybe-- maybe one day they’ll have two parents to watch out for them.

Your belly was big enough now as you approached the third trimester that you were very obviously pregnant, and you only went out to the Tower a few time, afraid you’d run into Bucky. It didn’t sit right with you that you were carrying his child and he had no idea. But you knew every time you saw him, you’d just be tempted to tell him, to tell him it was his because you’d known him before and he had to come back to you, he promised he’d come back...

It was just easier to stay away.

Steve kept you updated on how he was doing; he was slowly remembering things from back when him and Steve were young, from the war. He was making progress, and there had yet to be an incident where any sign of the Winter Soldier showed up. 

“You saw the files. It took them almost a decade to erase all the memories completely. It’s going to take a long time to get that back, if we can. Every little thing is a good sign, though. If we can get back part of himself from back then, chances are he’ll remember the past year a lot easier.”

You knew that. And a selfish part of you didn’t care if he remembered any of his life before they made him into a brainwashed, subhuman killing machine-- you would be fine with him remembering when he broke free, after the helicarrier, when he met you. Then you felt guilty as hell for thinking that, and spiralled from there.

The young princess from Wakanda was apparently close to figuring out a way to permanently remove the activation words from his brain, so he would never turn into the Soldier again. Then, it was just getting the all-clear from the government so he wasn’t a war criminal anymore, which the federal prosecutor was already working on, and then Steve was hopeful he might join the team.

You couldn’t blame morning sickness on why that thought made you sick. What if you had to see him every day? Raise his child in front of his eyes with him never knowing? 

You shivered, going back to the red velvet cupcakes you were currently baking. You heard your phone ring from the living room, and you let out a low groan when the oven beeped at the exact same time. 

“Fuck,” you hissed, resting the bowl against your belly as you slipped on your oven mitt and pulled out the first batch of cupcakes. Your phone had stopped ringing for a moment, but now it was buzzing again, someone clearly very adamant about getting in touch with you. 

You placed the bowl precariously on top of two other bowls that needed to be cleaned, just realizing that your kitchen counter space was really lacking as you grabbed your phone and answered it without checking the name.

“Yeah?”

“Bucky is on his way. Tony told him to drop off your new prototype stealth suit to get you to test the fabric because if it was comfortable while pregnant than it was probably comfortable during a mission--anyway, I told him I’d do it but he said Bucky could do it, he wasn’t busy and nowBuckyisonhiswayoversorryItried--”

Natasha’s rushed warning was cut off by your doorbell, and you shut your eyes, willing yourself to anywhere but here. “Um. Ok. He’s here. Thanks for calling.”

You ended the call, steeling yourself as you headed towards the door. You had red icing on your white t-shirt and your jeans were still dirty from when you were in the garden and you might pass out when you see Bucky because all you want to do every time you see him is wrap your arms around him and hold him and--

You plastered on a relatively-normal smile, and opened the door.

“Hey, Bucky.”

Bucky looked up, and froze.

You awkwardly shifted, brows furrowed as you tried to read what was happening behind his eyes, but it looked like he wasn’t even here, he was--

He moved in and pressed a hand to the small of your back, the other coming up to cradle your head as he kissed you, hesitant and gently at first, until your brain came back online and you clutched at his back, deepening the kiss with a tilted of your head.

You distantly heard a thunk of something hitting the concrete steps, but you were too busy drinking in Bucky’s scent, the same somehow as it was in Italy, and the taste of his mouth as he devoured yours, and the feeling of his hands on your body, so gentle despite the bad they were forced to do.

You had to pull away to breath, and didn’t even realize your face was wet until the salty tears hit your lips. “Bucky, what--”

“This place. I came here, after I pulled Steve from the river...?” He started out so sure, but it ended up coming out as a question, one which you nodded too.

“Yeah, you stayed with me for a bit. I made sure you were okay, before--”

“Before I left. I had to keep you safe, weren’t safe with me around,” Bucky murmured, giving you another kiss, then another, peppering them along your cheeks and temple and jaw until your tilted your head back, moving down to your throat. “We found each other in Italy.”

Your eyes had drifted shut, positive this was a dream now. “Mhm. This you keeping your promise, Buck?”

You fully expected him not to know what that meant; but he pulled back and met your eyes, nodding. “I thought... something kept tugging at the back of my mind, with you. Like it was trying to remember, so hard.  But there were no clear memories, nothing to prove I knew you before now. But this house, you standing there-- it brought it all back.”

You smiled, laughing through tears that wouldn’t stop now. “I’m going to have to thank Tony. Not something I thought I’d ever say.”

Bucky grinned, and it was that same smile he gave you that first week, while you were cleaning guns side by side and he’d kissed you. This time, you kissed him, arms wrapped around his neck and pressing yourself as close to him as you could get. You pulled him backwards into the house, letting him kick the door closed and smiling against his lips.

When you pulled away, you saw him looking downward, and your heart stopped. Shit. You’d somehow fucking forgotten in the bliss of Bucky remembering you that there was another big thing he didn’t know.

He looked up, and you could tell he was doing the math in his head, tears forming in his eyes as he whispered, “Is it mine?”

You nodded, taking his left hand and placing it on top of your bump, your own hand rest on top. “I know, I didn’t think it was possible--I should have told you, before. But, I thought it would fuck with your recovery, something this big--”

He shook his head, cupping your face with his free hand and kissing you slow and deep, smooth as honey as his tongue licking into your mouth. He pulled away with a broken laugh. “I don’t deserve this. I knew I didn’t deserve you that first week, and I know I don’t deserve you giving me a family. Are you sure you want me...?”

You sighed, lacing your fingers together on your belly and kissing him gently. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, or how this is going to work with two parents being Avengers, but... just promise me you’ll try. Just don’t make me do this without you, Buck.”

He met your eyes, as stormy and broken as they were that first night but there was something else in them that wasn’t there before, than you saw a flash of in Italy, but that was clear as day now.

Hope.

“I promise. As long as you both will have me, I’m yours.”

“I’ll always want this, Buck,” you whispered, resting your forehead on his. “Whoever you were before, whoever you are now, whoever you’re going to be-- I want you.”

Suddenly you were in his arms, legs around his waist as he leaned up to kiss you, this time frantic and messy and with a growl that made arousal pool between your legs. “I think my memory of Italy is still a bit spotty... might have to show me again how we conceived this one.”

You moaned against his lips, a needy gasp at the back of your throat as he carried you to the bedroom (the layout of your home was clearly not forgotten) before he carefully laid you out on the bed. 

“Barnes, you are terrible.”

“Hey, I had my memory forceable taken from me for seven decades, give me a break.”

You pulled away from where you were sucking a mark onto his neck, ignoring his smirk. “Okay, you only get so many of those before it’s not funny anymore. Use them wisely.”

[essercipertuttienonperse]

lt2 tracks as book covers: Copy and Change

[withyouandthemoon]

Scream with Your Eyes (and I Shall Hear You)

Written for @klarosummerbingo​ . The prompt is “Babysitting Adventure”, but I guess whatever I wrote into this counts as babies too, sort of ;)

You can also read it on AO3 or FF.net.

Author’s Note: Fairy tale The Wild Swans AU. Some violence with Caroline in a dungeon and some flashback smut, so proceed at your own peril. Also the Silas backstory is different here - he’s just a warlock, and the cure is for him to break his immortality curse. Nothing more.

***

When he bites her she sees the branches of her life.

There used to be so many possibilities, tiny shoots and leaves that even she can’t keep track of, can’t even begin to dream in detail.

But the moment his poisonous fangs are buried into her pulsing artery, they disappear into a void, leaving only two paths tracing into her imminent future.

Life, or Death.

He’s almost tender in such an act of violence, his hand cradling the back of her head, lips soft and scorching pressing down on her skin like a lover’s kiss. The fangs of a hybrid, sharp and willful, dive into her flesh with the familiarity of thousands of kills, and hovers. In that moment Caroline can feel no pain, no fear, just him inside her, his venom dripping into her rushing blood, the faint thrums of his heartbeat, echoing in the bones, under her own skin.

She can’t help but be reminded of those fangs, only hours ago, scraping over the tip of her breasts, just short of breaking the surface. They were eager then, fumbling, barely controlled, an impatient huff of a promise to wreak havoc on her body only through teasing and goading. But now cutting into her deep they are an illusion of intimacy, calculated, cold.

Caroline doesn’t find it in herself to suppress her untimely moan.

She watches with hooded eyes as Klaus withdraw from her neck, his lips still only inches from hers, tinted with her own blood. She can almost see herself reflected in his slightly dazed eyes, but in one blink he sharpens, throwing her back into the hard wall of the dungeon cell with little care. He smiles as she struggles to sit up, wiping away the blood on his lips with a thumb, then licking it with the idleness of a true connoisseur. She knows he tastes weakness and vulnerability – feeds on them as only nightmares would.

“Now sweetheart, I can be very generous when I want to. So I’ll share my secret with you, even when you’re holding onto yours.”

It won’t change anything, though she doesn’t tell him that. It’ll only make him argumentative. Call it bad taste, but she’d rather see him smug and vindictive. It brings just a hint of comedic relief to her bleak situation.

He’s towering over her, exacting his dominance, his voice smooth as silk, “there is a cure to the bite of a werewolf.” He’s looking at her expectantly, smiling like he can barely contain his giddiness.

Caroline rolls her eyes, “let me guess, you’ll give me this alleged cure if and only if I tell you all you want to know.”

“Smart. I quite enjoy that about you.” His silky voice turns to a stream of ice, “but not as much as I’ll enjoy your stupidity.” He knows she’s turning him down.

“Look, Klaus, can I be honest with you?”

“Your honesty may worth less than you think.”

Caroline takes that as a yes, “you bit me. Good for you. But right now, out of the both of us, you are the only one with a choice. If there really is a cure like you just said, then you can choose to save me, or let me die. Either way, my answer stays the same.”

He squints his eyes at her, seemingly intrigued, “and were I to choose the latter, you would be silently welcoming your fateful end? Just like that?”

“Like I told you, my choice was made a long time ago. It has nothing to do with you.”

Klaus huffed, “why do I not believe you?”

“That’s a question you really should be asking yourself.”

A smirk creeps back to his face, “wait until the hallucinations set in, love. You’ll be asking your own mind a lot more questions than I do mine.”

He doesn’t wait for her reply.

***

 Caroline has heard of the infamous werewolf bites. It was one of the first things she learned when she became a vampire.

“Stay away from the sun, any wooden objects, and werewolves. Have fun.” Damon has said to her with all the sarcasm he could muster out of his petty mind. Caroline is very sure that he regrets turning her every moment when he’s not obsessing over Elena, or terrorizing everyone in their village. He only ever saved a human Caroline who suffered a lethal fall from horseback because of her best friend Elena.

Funny how that’s the only reason she’s trying to save him right now.

But not just him. It’s Elena, and Bonnie, and Stefan. The only people she has left in the world.

Although people is a questionable word now that they are stuck in their duckling forms. Caroline laughs humorlessly. She thinks of the fluffy little creatures she compelled a maid of the castle named April to take care of. Their constant little chirps that have more than once given her away when she was trying to stay hidden during her long long journey to this side of the continent. Their warm bodies nestled in the basket that she carried with her for the past year, not a moment apart.

Sometimes she wonders if they recognize her at all. Or if they are just blissfully oblivious, thinking their duck thoughts. Caroline doesn’t know which one is better – which one she expects. She doesn’t go down that road very often, since she has little time for her own thoughts these days, even though other than the four balls of feather that’s all she’s left with. Her, alone with her thoughts, and the fragile hope that hangs in a myth.

vervain.

Caroline would admit it was a brilliant joke on Silas’s part, if she isn’t the one bearing the consequences.

The herb has long since disappeared from the Mystic Land, the name of which most people have never caught a whiff of. Caroline only learned of it when she was first turned. Stimulated by her heightened senses and the fresh memory of death, she was combing through every book she could find, determined to get to the bottom of each and every means to endanger a vampire. She stumbled upon the name vervain in one of the old grimoires that were past down generation to generation in Bonnie’s family, the herb said to be able to physically hurt and weaken a vampire.

“Don’t worry about it,” Stefan tried to calm her down at the time, “no one has seen it for hundreds of years. All the better for us, right?”

She nodded and smiled at his words, feeling relieved. Stefan was the one who taught her how to be a vampire. How to use her senses, how to hunt, how to control the cravings, how to stay sane.

But he certainly didn’t teach her what to do when all of her friends were cursed into the bodies of ducklings by one of the most powerful warlocks in the history of Mystic Land.

Caroline laughs again, this time louder, more hysterical. Maybe the wolf venom is already attacking on her frazzled nerves. She reaches into the secret pocket sewn into her shift, and feels the burn on her fingers. At least all hope isn’t lost. She was very meticulous in her instructions when she compelled April. In the case of her own death, April will try to locate her body and get the vervain to her duckling friends. She doubts Klaus will be bothered with body clean-up.

She’s always been a great planner. It has got her this far. Her friends can put that on her tombstone when they are returned to their former selves. When, not if. Caroline refuses to think about the possibility that her imminent death may not mean anything.

Especially when her short life is going to mount to nothing.

 ***

 Caroline startles awake from the accusing eyes of her father and the crying ones of her mother. The sudden movement brings another fresh bout of pain through her body. Every inch of her feels on fire, her throat dry and parched. She realizes that she’s been reliving the moments when she was first turned, of her parents shunning the monster that was no longer their daughter, the last time she saw them before they moved away without even a note. Moments she’s buried deep into the corners of her mind, in the dark places that she never touches, never speaks of, however they plague her nightmares.

“I see the hallucinations have started.”

She hears Klaus above her, his voice full of complacent amusement. She doesn’t dignify it with an answer.

“How young and innocent,” Klaus hums, “still seeing your human parents in the illusions of your mind. Pity if you have to end the journey here.”

She scoffs even though it hurts her even more, “last I remembered I did not commit suicide.”

“Didn’t you though?” His voice wraps around her senses like the finest silk, somehow cooling down her scorching insides, “infiltrating my ball, seducing me, breaking into the secret vervain garden that my family has kept hidden for centuries, and then not revealing your intentions when very politely asked. I’d say those are quite suicidal attempts.”

Caroline wills herself to look at him, using the last of her strength to keep her head up, her voice now raspy and lined with erratic pants, “twist this all you want, but you are the one who sentenced me to death. I have answered you with honesty.”

“Is that what you call it? Honesty? When you deliberately withheld the truth?”

She huffed, her frustration growing as the pain in her body does, “I can’t tell you right now! That is the truth!”

Klaus bends down then, his face so close to hers she can see the speckles of gold in his blue irises, dangerous, enticing, “right now? What are you waiting for, little vampire? For whoever’s behind your little act of betrayal to rise against me and my family? Will you tell me the truth then?”

His voice is barely a whisper now, almost intimate, but it sends a shiver down Caroline’s spine even when she’s burning from the venom. He’s too close to her secret, too close to her, and the predatory glint in his eyes tells her that he knows. He knows exactly what effect he has on her, if her screams of ecstasy echoing in his chambers just hours before weren’t enough proof.

He tilts his head and lands his lips on her jaw line, the touch feather-light, and Caroline whimpers when he sucks the spot just below her earlobe. She feels weak all over, her head dizzy, and he’s lighting yet another fire in her that has nothing to do with the lethal bite.

“Get off of me,” Caroline grates out, hating the hint of desire in her own voice, “why are you so paranoid anyway? You can’t die. Does it really matter what I plan or not plan?”

His lips leave her, a sense of hollow in their wake, but she should know that he will not leave her alone. Their encounter may have been short – and will probably be kept short at the rate everything is going down – but Caroline can feel how much Klaus revels in exacting control over others. His hands are on her sides, seemingly just to hold her up, but the thumbs circling at the bottom of her breasts is stirring something inside her, and when she involuntarily trembles she only feels them more keenly on her skin.

“Oh sweetheart, you don’t live for a thousand years without learning the dangers of even the most insipid betrayal. Better nip them in the buds.” He gives her a slight pinch almost playfully to stress his point, making Caroline’s already overwhelmed body jerk before falling pathetically back into his clutch.

“Why do you keep using that word?” She glares at him, “I let you take me to your bed. I didn’t swear my allegiance.”

The circles under her breasts are back, slowly making their way down her sides, little flames of fire scorching her ribcage, and each bone they touch stands out in her senses, tender like a sigh.

“Don’t try to play it down, sweetheart. It was a whole lot more than my bed that I took you to.” He licks his lower lip, his eyes hooded for a second, eyelashes casting shadows on his cheekbones that she, for whatever reason, still yearns to kiss, “I particularly liked that chaise in our gallery. Mahogany, very well crafted. The line of that armrest was simply divine.” His fingers roam to the back of her thigh, caressing her through the thin fabric of her shift where that armrest has dug into, “you remember the wood, don’t you?”

“Wherever you took me to, it didn’t mean anything,” she bites out, knowing that it isn’t completely true. She was not supposed to get close to him at all. Her plan was to sneak into the Original family’s castle as a singer for the ball, wait until everyone retired to their chambers, find the vervain, and get out. Klaus was an unexpected distraction, and against her better judgment she threw herself into the distraction with abandon. She remembers his whispers at the crook of her neck while he cages her between his warm chest and the cold marble of the bannisters just outside of his ball room, “you have a beautiful voice, Caroline. But even your silence would be stunning enough. I would’ve picked you out of that sea of dancing imbeciles, and you would still be mine.”

He thought that he picked her, that he was the one who first noticed her, the lowly little vampire singer. Foolish man. It was her who noticed him, the only other person in that grand ball room who needed to be there, but was dreaming not to be.

She was not seducing him. She just couldn’t resist those few moments of escape, for herself, and maybe for him.

But she’ll never tell him now. Not when he is pinning her down with such hatred in his eyes, his face contorted from the rage that he no longer wants to contain.

“I am the King of vampires! Sworn or not, your allegiance should be to me and my family since the moment you were created.” A cold smirk twists on his lips, “but you are right. It didn’t mean anything. You are nothing but a stupid little whore who doesn’t know any better. But let me remind you, sweetheart. One will never betray again when one is dead.”

As he storms out of the dungeon, Caroline briefly wonders if he’s reminding her or himself before she succumbs once again to the never-ending rounds of hallucinations.

 ***

 “Look at you lot,” Silas shakes his head, the sinister smile plastered on his face sending shivers down her spine. She’s paralyzed against the tree he has thrown her into, unable to move even the tip of her finger, when her mind is running wild in thousands of questions and scenarios which she’s sure Silas can see as vividly as if they were his own.

“A baby vampire who shouldn’t have been one in the first place,” Silas idly plays with a strand of Elena’s long hair, snorting at her defiant eyes before sauntering to Damon and Stefan, who are also frozen in place, in their shock and fear, “a rascal who thinks too much of himself, and a lovesick fool. A little Bennett witch,” his eyes are taunting towards Bonnie, “though she clearly doesn’t deserve the Bennett name. Fraternizing with vampires, going after what is mine. What would your ancestors think, little Bonnie?”

Caroline sees the hurt flashing through Bonnie’s face, and her mouth runs before she can even realize what is happening, “probably that she’s loyal and fearless, and will make way better a witch than you, old creep.”

Silas turns to her and her bones chill, “and then there’s you. What are you even doing here?” She can feel the cold sharpness of his magic ruffling through her psyche by now, having been tortured for months by his mind control powers, being kept on edge day and night not knowing what was real and what was just a cruelly-crafted trick. But still it hurts when he throws what he finds in her own mind back at her.

“That one wants an out of vampirism,” Silas points to Elena, “those two want her. Little Bonnie here is just too weak a witch not to be manipulated by vampires. What about you, huh? The cure’s clearly not for you. You can’t fight, you don’t know a single thing about magic, you can’t strategize. Why are you even included in this group of miscreants?”

Suddenly there he is again, her father’s face with Silas’s sadistic features, crushing down on her heart with but a frown, “is it because you need to forcefully babysit your friends to feel a sliver of self-worth? Because you foolishly mistake childish codependency for loyalty? Or because you have no meaning or cause to your pathetic life, that you have to cling onto someone else’s?”

She wants to tell him to shut up. To yell at him that none of those things are true. That he’s a vicious vindictive snake and he’ll never find peace in his after life even if he’s got his cure of immortality back from them months ago.

Yet she can’t. Her mind seems paralyzed just like her body, and all of a sudden she just feels tired. So tired, not only from these past months of hell but all of it. She’s bone-weary like an old person who has seen wars upon wars, and she doesn’t have the strength to utter a word.

“You shouldn’t have crossed me. Messing with an ancient being whose power you can’t even fathom...” A leaf falls on his shoulder. Annoyance flares in Silas’s eyes for a second, and then the leaf is crushed into dust with an invisible force. “It’s been fun, little sitting ducks. But now I’m bored. I’m going to rid you of your oh-so-detested immortality since that’s all you lot have wanted.”

“No you won’t.” Bonnie’s voice brings her out of the haze, and she snaps her eyes as much as she can to see the young witch with an almost triumphant smile on her face.

“Oh?” Silas smirks, “why not?”

“Because you owe the Bennett line. Thousands of years ago it was my ancestor who made that cure for you when you were cursed into your fate, living forever without peace. And in exchange you promised her you would never take the life of a future Bennett or anyone that they deem fit. You will not break your blood oath.”

Slowly Silas turns to fully face Bonnie, “I didn’t expect that you can still surprise me. How did you find out about that one?”

“I have my means.”

A long silence unsettles her for an eternity before Silas’s emotionless voice breaks it, “you’re right. An oath is an oath. But Bonnie Bennett, you should always remember that there are worth fates than death.”

With a wave of his hand she sees it all happen in a blink. Her friends that she has known all her life, the only people remotely near family that she has in this world, exist no longer. In their place are clueless little ducklings, feathers wet, eyes empty.

“See there little Caroline? I find something you can cling onto, forever. Better act fast though, before there’s no return.” There’s a sick smile in Silas’s voice, like turning her life upside-down is just a joke that he would cast aside in mere seconds, “but then again, maybe that’s what you wanted all along?”

 ***

 She’s shaken out of her hallucination this time, the bones in her arms almost fractured under Klaus’s grip. She coughs uncontrollably from the sudden movement, more blood splattering onto her already blood-soaked shift. The pain in her body is excruciating now. Every breath hurt, and every living moment just a long-winded ordeal.

“How did you know Silas?” His eyes are frantic and calculating, but she doesn’t care. She’s going to die anyway.

“You see, that’s a part of the story that I said I can’t tell you.”

“You think you can get away with this? That I wouldn’t make your last moments in the land of the living even more unbearable than it already is? Think again, little girl.”

Caroline snorts at that, even though it only brings on another coughing fit. He can try. She doubts he can top Silas. Caroline is probably more well versed in torture than any other person on this land now. She learned through the best and worst ways that there are – through her own blood, tears, screams, and nightmares.

Suddenly she’s angry, the fury burning even hotter than her body temperature, “you know what? I think exactly that. The only thing that you have done so far is coming down here every time I’m finished with a round of these bullshit hallucinations, knowing fully well that you will get nothing from me. Why are you really here Klaus? To taunt me, or to check up on me?”

Klaus bites his teeth so hard his jaw locks into the most elegant line that she’s ever seen, but it doesn’t appease her. Not right now, when all the pent-up frustration she has with her fucking life and her fucking situation is blowing up like a raging storm.

“Tread very carefully with your words, love.”

“And why would I do that, when I’m apparently going to die, and you’re being the stupidest jerk there ever is?”

“That’s enough!”

“No!” She takes a second to catch her breath, her body so weak she can’t even scream at him properly. And miraculously, Klaus let her. His eyes hard as steel, but his eyelashes tremble in the tiniest motion when he sees her wince from the pain. “I’m the one who’s suffering from your bite, so if anyone’s going to say it’s enough it’s me. Admit it Klaus, you don’t want to hurt me, but your stupid pride wouldn’t let you stop doing that.”

Klaus balls his hands into fists, “oh I will hurt you however I want, sweetheart, for plotting against my family, against me.”

“How many times do I have to tell you this before you get it through your thick paranoid skull that I’m not plotting against any one of you!”

“Yet once and again, you withhold the truth.”

“For reasons that don’t concern you!”

“And I’m just supposed to take your word for it?”

“Yes!”

The word is out of her mouth before she hears the weight in it. She’s asking him to trust her, no strings attached, and based on what? A few shared looks while she was singing at his birthday celebration? The acts of passion in a hedonistic night where supernatural creatures find one way or another to feel alive in the confines of this ancient castle? The barely intelligible whispers and lingering touches, searching eyes and answering kisses, while he was inside of her? How can any of that be even remotely enough, for someone as jaded and guarded as him?

But she finds hope digging out from unknown parts of her heart, painfully.

She expects scorn or distain, but she doesn’t expect him to pounce on her, one hand pushing her into the cold hard wall, the other clutching onto her thigh where her shift has ridden dangerously high. She can feel the hint of wolf nail biting into her, breaking skin and flesh.

“You dare ask for my trust,” the hand starts creeping inside the hem of her shift, sharp nails slicing all the way up to the end of her thigh and Caroline finally starts to panic. But just as he grazes the edge of where he has devoured her in the middle of the night, the fingers turn to grab onto the secret pocket that she sewed to her shift, “when you have your secret stash hidden right here?”

Her breath hitches. So he knew.

When he caught her in the wee hours of the morning in his family’s vervain garden, covered in blisters and burns, her hands still sizzling, she had already got enough vervain stuffed in her pocket. She thought she’d escaped his prying eyes since he never brought it up during her imprisonment. Until now.

“You think I wouldn’t notice?” He presses the vervain-filled pocket deep into her thigh and Caroline hisses from the pain. But Klaus doesn’t even seem to notice, his fingers digging so hard into the cloth she’s afraid he’ll break it, “you stink of it. I’ve been waiting to see when you’ll confess – if not your sob story behind all this trickery, then at least what you have wrongfully taken. A betting game with myself, if you will.”

Caroline looks into his eyes, and sees the acrid bitterness eating him inside. For the first time since she’s been thrown into the dark dungeon she feels saddened. How pointless, to always be betting against yourself. However much he wins, he loses all the same. His face is distorted with a myriad of expressions ebbing and flowing, ones that Caroline isn’t sure even he himself can interpret. He seems cornered, lost, fatal. It reminds Caroline of the moment he finds her in the vervain field, his hair tousled and shirt lose, revealing a him that only few has really seen.

“Klaus...” She tries to reach out to him with her bloodied fingers but he bristles.

“Tell me this, love. Did you keep your little stash to fund whatever curse you and yours have been concocting, or to prevent me from compelling you?”

Caroline freezes. The coven she sought out to solve Silas’s riddle didn’t tell her that. They tormented her, sent her jumping hurdle over hurdle like their lap dog, yet they failed to mention that the Originals had the ability to compel other vampires. And now she’s again paralyzed in place, with Klaus’s hand just one slight tug from ridding her of a sane mind. Something that she’s sworn she will never subject herself to ever again.

“Klaus...”

“Is that fear I smell on you, love? Much better than the bloody vervain, I’ll have to say.” He rises then, his hands withdrawing from her so devoid of thoughts or emotions, as if she’s already lifeless, meaningless. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to take it from you. It’s too easy, and I happen to enjoy a challenge. But make no mistake, Caroline – no matter what you say or don’t say, this ends in only one way. You, buried six feet under, with what you stole from me.”

 ***

 Caroline leans her forehead to the cold glass, her eyes half-closed, the sea of candlelight beneath her too bright to handle in her post-orgasm daze. Her body is still shivering uncontrollably from the last high that he pushed her onto, her boneless hands having nowhere to grab but to wind up in his surprisingly soft curls in between her barely standing legs. In her peripheral vision she can see Klaus smirking so smugly while licking his lips, the hint of wetness on his chin shining.

“Count, sweetheart.”

“Two,” she breathes out, her brain straining to remember what he’s referring to. When the band started to play this particularly intricate piece he whispered in her neck, “nice number, a long one. Let’s see how many times I can pleasure you before it ends, hmm?” She didn’t expect him to be so literal.

 “Good girl,” he gives her oversensitive bud another lick. Caroline’s body jerks, one hand flying up to clamp on her own mouth trying to contain the moan, the other floundering to reach for any edge she can hold onto.

“Careful there, love,” Klaus steadies her around the waist, caressing her so sensually another moan almost leaks out of her tight fingers, “wouldn’t want any one of them to find out.”

They are currently in the recess of a giant stained-glass window overlooking the entire ballroom, above all the people dancing and chandeliers burning way after midnight. Klaus led her here through one of the secret passages built into their castle hundreds of years ago. She doesn’t know how many girls from how many balls he has taken to this exact spot, but she doesn’t really care either. Her mind is blissfully detached, just like her body, away from the rest of the world. But somehow she feels the most in tune with herself in months, or maybe years, focusing on nothing other than not letting out too loud a scream, and not falling from her precarious position half standing half leaning against the round surface.

“Let them look,” she bites back a whimper when Klaus’s nimble fingers tease her entrance.

“Tough little thing, aren’t you?” He chuckles and the sound goes straight to her center, clamping onto the void his tongue has left, “saying things like that, when you are blushing down to your breasts from the shame. Such a pretty color.”

A finger thrusts into her. Caroline lets out a strangled groan, her hips chasing after his movements out of their own will.

“But maybe you truly don’t care. Maybe you’d like for them to watch,” his finger slides in and out of her so smoothly she can hear the sound of her own wetness, “hundreds of eyes looking up at you, while you have your legs wide open, breasts out, panting and moaning like the wanton little vixen that you are. Would you like that, sweetheart? For them to strain their necks and worship you, all those eyes of greed and jealousy examining every inch of you on display, just barely out of their reach?”

He adds another finger, and then another, until she feels so full, so stretched out, the only thing she can sense is his presence in her. The softness of the fingertips, hardness of the knuckles, pressing, grazing, rubbing, pinching. Consuming her. She bites on her lips so hard but still moans and whimpers are pried out of her, only just covered by the music.

She can still taste him in the back of her throat.

“You make the most delicious little noises. No wonder you’re a singer. Always responding so beautifully to the music...but not as much as you respond to me.” he pumps in and out of her, building her up, and he knows exactly how to unravel her into an incoherent mess, always moving against the rhythm of the melody, hitting all the right spots at all the wrong times. It drives her crazy.

“I’ve wanted you like this ever since I saw you on that stage. You were the most magnificent thing, love,” he presses down on that sweet spot inside her and Caroline keens, “just standing there singing your song like nothing else existed, while my brother murdered the band one by one. You don’t know how much I wanted to tear your corset open right there and see if you could still keep on singing, for me.”

Caroline’s upper body jolts up when he suddenly swallows her clit between his full lips.

And he doesn’t relent. Soon Caroline is panting so hard she can see stars behind her eyelids, her whole body shaking from the waves upon waves of pleasure. She’s so close, and she knows Klaus can feel it. With a wicked smirk he leans up to palm one of her breasts, while his lips and teeth latch on to the other.

“Oh you look divine, love,” he says while rolling his tongue around her nipple, “remember to count three.”

“Shut up and get me there,” she grinds out, but the last word is cut short when he pinches her nipple and her clit at the same time.

“Happy to oblige, my lady.”

He starts pumping her so fast it almost burns. But oh does it burn good. Caroline can barely take it with his assaults on multiple fronts. She’s drowning in all the sensations building higher and higher still, her body writhing and head thrashing uncontrollably, a string of “yes” and “there” and “don’t stop” flowing out of her in a blur. In the complete frenzy one of her legs slides off the edge of the recess, dangling above all the dancers below them, but she doesn’t have one bit of strength to lift it, too overwhelmed by her release just hanging over the precipice.

“That’s it sweetheart, give it to me,” he kisses her hard and rough, his lips molding into hers so perfectly swallowing all her whimpers and barely-contained screams.

She’s tightly wound like a bow string, her toes trying in vain to balance the slipper on her dangling feet. It can’t fall. But she needs to fall. Free and hard into the sweet abyss that’s looking right at her. So close. She feels conflicted and desperate, all thoughts and feelings warring inside her making her sob into his shoulder that she’s been clinging to in a death grip.

“Let go, sweetheart,” he coos at her, brushing the tears at the corner of her eye, his eyes suddenly tender and telling, “let go.”

So she does. She comes so violently her body nearly snaps. Waves of never-ending pleasure crash into her, breaking her all over only to put her back together again. She doesn’t know how much time has passed, shivering in her haze. until she realizes that Klaus has hitched her once dangling leg onto his elbow, hand holding her blue slipper safe in its place. His thumb rubs soothing circles on the back of her foot as he lays a sweet kiss at her ankle.

“And that’s three.”

 ***

 She’s been drifting in and out of hallucinations, whose border with reality is blurring by the second. It’s been...how long? A few hours? A few days? The pain is clawing at the seams of her bones, the fire of venom still burning her insides, but the hallucinations she’s getting are more mellow now, more memories than nightmares. Even good memories, soothing. Freeing.

She guesses that’s a sign that she’s knocking on death’s door.

“Why are you still trying to trick me?” Klaus asks her, leaning on the door of her cell, his arms crossed in front of his chest in a semblance of boredom. But his eyes are boring into hers, the blue so dark now, almost black, with sparkles of gold. He looks beautiful, but against all odds, scared.

“What are you talking about?” Her voice is too weak, that even he with the superior hearing has to come closer. Or maybe he just wants to be near her even when hatred is burning both of their insides, albeit in different ways.

“This. Moaning my name, pretending to hallucinate about me. If this is all you’ve got, then I’m sorely disappointed love.”

“I’m not tricking you.”

“Stop. With. The lies.” He bites every word with a vengeance, like they physically hurt him, “you can put on a show like the cheapest hooker in a brothel and it still won’t save you.”

“I’m not expecting you to.” She knew from the start that she wouldn’t be spared. Why would he? She carried a secret to his home, gave him a night of pleasure, and then she stole from his family. That’s all this is to him. A trifling nuisance that he must have seen countless times in his years. It’s nothing new. And he’s not going to act any differently.

Relentless. Heartless. Evil. That was what the coven told her about him. Right after they finally revealed to her that to save her foolhardy friends she had to bathe them in freshly harvested vervain, which could only be found in one of the most dangerous places on the entire Mystic Land.

“And you can’t tell another soul about this,” the head of the coven told her then, gloating amusement in her eyes at the tragic fate of a vampire. “Or your friends will forever stay in the form of ducklings. Remember, vampire – not a word.”

Day and night the secret’s been eating piece and piece at her life, her thoughts, her sense of self, until she is only a shell of a person. Sometimes she would hold duck Bonnie up in her palms – she’s the only duckling that has shown a modicum of affection to her. The little ball of fluff, her only connection to the world. Warm and fuzzy and biting in her hands, so unbearably fragile and ignorant. Once in a while the thought of giving up slithers into her mind, giving her one moment of illusion that she might be free. Afterwards she always beats herself up inside, shame and guilt of her selfishness crushing her.

Maybe, just maybe, she should thank Klaus. She’s finally at the end of her journey, and for once the outcome is out of her hands.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he’s coaxing, “it’s not too late yet. Tell me the truth, and I promise you’ll live.”

She huffs a laugh at that, “we both know that’s never going to happen.”

“Then you’ll die.”

“Yes, another young vampire with a shorter life span than a human. It happens.”

“You seem oddly calm about all this.”

She ignores the question in his words, “if I had known I’d die in a dungeon, I would have taken some more time walking in the sun. It’s so dark down here, I don’t even know what time of the day it is.”

“It’s dusk. The sun was just about to set when I came down here.”

She’s surprised that he willingly offered that piece of information, but she doesn’t let it show, “that sounds beautiful.”

“And you can still see it. A thousand sunsets, and more. As long as you tell me.” There’s earnestness mixed with urgency in his voice. Something Caroline can’t quite understand, but doesn’t have it in her to dwell on.

“Stop trying so hard, Klaus. I have already told you,” she tiredly draws in a shaky breath. “I have made my choice. You just have to make yours.”

He kneels down beside her then, holding her up carefully, looking into her eyes. She looks back with all the honesty in her soul. She has nothing to hide now. So she gives him all of it. The weariness, the fear, sleepless nights and restless days, the loneliness carved into her bones; Her hopes, her dreams, everything that she knows she’ll never have in life. All of it. She doesn’t avert her eyes until his flutter shut, a whisper echoing in the darkness that traps her. 

“I can’t.”

 ***

 She’s floating in a void of darkness, without any sense of her existence. The pain’s gone, so are the imageries swirling in her mind. Nothing is there, maybe not even her.

Is this what death feels like?

But then she tastes it. Warm and pungent and bitter, as if life itself on the tip of her tongue. She clings to it, nails and fangs.

Long moments pass as she sucks and swallows on instinct, barely recognizing the hand caressing her hair, let alone the tremors of it.

When she releases his wrist with the gnarled wound, she asks quietly, without turning to him, “what changed your mind?”

She hears and feels Klaus sighing into her hair, “I don’t know.”

She simply nods, still a little disoriented. Now that she’s not dying, she has so much to see to. Sooner or later she needs to confess to Klaus, which might turn into a long discussion or even several fights about the foreseeable future, and before that she has to go take care of her duckling friends. But for now she’s satisfied with staying in his arms for a while longer, away from the missions and puzzles that life keeps throwing at her. She burrows herself into her temporary escape a little deeper, glad that Klaus seems no more eager to let her go, his arms circling her tight and close.

She looks up at him with a smile that hasn’t appeared on her face for much too long, suddenly giddy and hopeful, “now how about that sunset?”

He sighs again, this time with a hint of a smile that almost matches her own, “I’ll admit – you have very persuasive eyes, sweetheart.”

[angelprinz]

hi laven ! sorry for the lsck of asks, college is so stressing for me,,, i had so much shit this week and the worst thing that couldve happened was my lighter and cigs running out and not being able to buy any.

anyways, so i was scrolling on twt (ykkk httpdaddy👀👀) and something popped up into my mind.

!!! corruption kink , mayb? and some hcs scaramouche, childe, diluc, zhongli and ayato r in this!!

y/n and genshin boys in a? doing a ? whatever, just - bukkake. if you dont know what a bukkake is, its like all the dudes cumming on ur face!! your mouth is open, and your eyes are ready to close - youve never done this, no, but you were still acting like such a slut. looking up at the men all right in front of you stroking their dicks so lovingly at the sight of you on the floor, looking so innocent yet so naughty with how you were clenching your thighs, and how your hand was so close to touching yourself. :((

when they finally cum, your face is absolutely covered in it. white paints your face and some even landed in your mouth. you greedily wanted a taste of it and licked it all up. your hair needed some washing now, though,,

i feel like diluc nd zhongli would b so nice,,calling you pretty petnames and moaning and groaning your name in such a needy way... i am a firm believer of switch zhongli and diluc !!! soft when dom and whiny and obedient when sub :(((

childe? totally in the middle of degrading your slutty, whorey face but also praising you and whining like a bitch. his cock is so big and his balls are so full of cum, and hes also so so pent up !! he wants his ass to be fucked too while he can also get his dick into something. but hes fine wit cumming on ur face !! he'll have something so pretty to look at while fucking <\33 hes the type thay goes " youre my slut, yeah?" "be a good little whore for me,, god u make me feel so good" yk yk

scaramouche and ayatoooooo... mean. so mean. very mean. INCREDIBLY mean. theyre so so so very mean with u :(( but u like it, dont you, little whore? you like it when he makes you seem like youre just- nothing, a simple toy, a plaything. they edge you, they insult you so much for writhing and begging to just have ur ass fucked already, they call you such distateful things and it almost makes u cry (it also turns u on. a lot).

phewww that felt so reliving? relieving?? whatever, nevermind that. so, tell me, what have you been up to laven,?? me? ive been just rlly busy with my studies <\\3 i dont even have time to fantasize ab my genshin boys. i hope youve been having an amazing week !!!

- with love, 🕊

uwahhh same dove, i‘be been super stressed abt studies and uni.. all i ever do is think abt diluc to deal with it. i quit smoking like a year ago? though sometimes i do wanna pick it up again and you know relax, but ugh moNey!! hopefully the upcoming week for us is manageable n filled w tons of delicious thirsts!

recently i’ve been digging thru twt for dark content videos and ugh, is it hard to find. but it’s so yummy when i do find it hehe~

the switch agenda in positions for all of the genshin boys ugh!! so true, they fuck ass and get fucked in the ass!! i similarly would love to see their faces dripping with cum, facials are just oh so cute! (my fav that i wanna see with a face painted in cum is venti, i just… ugh to see it clinging to his eyelashes and with his cute fucking face and teasing voice i can’t- he makes me so turned on.)

[captnjacksparrow]

Character Commentary - Sasuke Uchiha - Part 1

PART 2

I really started this blog just to write about how I feel about characters in Naruto series. And I feel Sasuke should be the first pick since he really subverted all my expectations time to time. Since this is a lengthy series which spans more than 500 episodes, I would like to divide into many parts since a single post won’t do any justice. While this is just a commentary, I am just going make a series of posts without my shipping goggles ON and as it progresses you can see how I started to ship gradually. Let’s go.

Me : Ahhh!!!! Here we go... A typical hero who is cold and cool just like the ones you see in K Dramas, C Dramas where girls fawn over him and he simply ignores everyone. Since this came out in 2002, probably Naruto set this trend???? Anyways, not my cup of interest. I have seen 100s of characters like this and am tired, man. I’ll probably stick with Naruto who just graduated against all odds. 

Since he is a No.1 Rookie, probably he is better at ninja skills than Naruto which makes up an interesting dynamics.

My reaction for Sasuke is exactly how Naruto looks below:

Me : I, too, want to know. Naruto!!! What’s so great???

By the way who is that annoying girl, fawning over this guy who clearly don’t even returns her Good Morning but pushing Naruto away like a garbage!!!! Phewww!!! A guy glaring at another guy with enmity. Why is she annoyed with that? What’s her beef anyway? It’s a guy thing, you dumbass. Oops!!! this is not a Sakura commentary..

Aaaaaand then this happens......

Me: It’s an unexpected twist, even to me who have seen Game of Thrones. 

And not only that what’s more surprising was this

Me: Yo Sasuke!!!! With your looks and attitude, I was hoping that you are going to punch him to pulp. Not to give him an empty threat.

As expected, Naruto clearly doesn’t like Sasuke in his team. And Sasuke doesn’t care either way. 

Me: By the way, Naruto, Why do you keep bugging Sasuke anyway? You even went as far to instigate a fight??? Anyways, Sasuke tied you up finally.

Ahh Sakura!!! Why don’t you be nicer to Naruto?? He is just asking for you to have lunch together.

Me: Ahh Jerk!!! So that was all an act to be cool and aloof while in reality you are playing Tsundere. Shit!!!! I am tired of this type of characters even more!!!

Me: Ohooooo!!!!! So That was Naruto!!! A deadlast beat a top rookie.... Hmmm Interesting!!!! But funny.

Naruto!!! Your pranking ability is way beyond what I can Imagine!!! 

Me: Hmm!!! Naruto... Sasuke is just going to beat up the shit out of you and looking for you!!

Me: Sakura... You Bitch!!! Do you have any idea what you are talking? You are just badmouthing your teammate to another one regarding a sensitive topic which offends both of them. If you really want his kiss, I imagined you would be familiar enough to know that Sasuke is the sole survivor of his clan. So, clearly you don’t know anything about him but already expecting a token of love!!! Pathetic!!!. And yet if, by any chance, you do know about his tragedy and yet badmouth like that, you are even worse than garbage. Even a 8 year old me, knew not to talk about something when others don’t have it. Geez....Annoying!!!

Also Me: Woooow!!!!!! Sasuke..... You really are not a jerk or some aloof person. I like the way you gave a murderous stare and put that annoying bitch in her place. Well done!!! But wait........ Why are you standing up for Naruto??? Didn’t he just kissed you in front of your classmates and openly voiced his dislike for you being in his team and beat you up for no reason???? Maybe you know about him after all. 

Me: Sasuke!!!!! You really are a good guy... Atleast I hope so for the rest of the series... You just spoke my mind...

Me: Are you really not going to beat him up???? Sasuke??? If I were you I wouldn’t have openly stood up for Naruto. Maybe a disgusting glare at Sakura for her mean comment and that’s about it. And definitely not leave Naruto off the hook for what he did. Anyways..... My opinion of you was subverted by a wide margin. Interesting!!!! Unlike those girls, who were vying for your attention, whom you were clearly annoyed with.....for you it doesn’t seems to be the same case with Naruto  even though I feel like he is bugging you!!!

Thanks for the read!!!!! :-D

Disclaimer: Since this episode gave me a variety of emotions in a span of 20 minutes, It seems like an episode review. But as I progress I will include what’s only necessary instead of spamming screenshots.