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cryoculus · 27 days ago

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the art of war (and other distractions) ⟢

as a mandatory part of your post-grad program, you're required to log 200 hours as a teaching aide—which would’ve been fine, if you had any say in who you were working with. instead, you're assigned under professor jing yuan: esteemed war historian, charming bane of the faculty lounge, and the one man who makes grading ancient battle essays feel like a tactical skirmish of your own.

★ featuring; jing yuan x f!reader

★ word count; 11.1k words

★ notes; hiiii part two is finally here! quick note that there's a brief timeskip between this and part one, so you might want to read that first although imo it's not necessary. just puts more depth and context into jing yuan and the reader's relationship :3c i was supposed to have this up yesterday but #i forgot lol

MASTERLIST ✧ READ ON AO3

II. A (SLIGHTLY) FUTILE RESISTANCE

You’ve been living in Yaoqing for over three years, and the city still surprises you.

It’s quieter than the Luofu, more grounded—there are no sky bridges between buildings here, no gilded corridors echoing with history. What Yaoqing has instead are sun-drenched lecture halls with cracked windows, noodle stalls that open at sunrise, and students who never take office hours for granted.

You like it. You’ve even grown fond of the bus ride from the apartment you share with Jiaoqiu downtown. It’s a little far from campus, but the rent is reasonable, and it’s walking distance from the hospital he works at. Your best friend is rarely home, always working rotations or crashing face-first into textbooks. But the place feels lived in and more importantly, shared.

That morning, like most mornings lately, you’d left before Jiaoqiu even stirred. Your coat still smells faintly of the congee stall you passed by on your way to the university gate.

Now, eight hours and three departmental fires later, you’re standing in the symposium planning room. You stare at a whiteboard, or what’s left of it. Beneath the mess of color-coded arrows, neon post-its, and someone’s increasingly unhinged handwriting, there might be a white surface. You haven’t seen it in three days.

But then again, this is the chaos that typically accompanies inter-campus symposiums at Xianzhou University. They don’t happen very often for a reason.

“Yingyue,” you say slowly, “why does the keynote slot just say ‘??? + pray’?”

Across the room, Yingyue doesn’t look up from her laptop. “Because we’re still waiting for confirmation from the Luofu guests. And also,” she adds, tapping something out furiously, “because prayer is the only action item I can complete on time.”

You squint. “I gave you three backup names.”

“Two are out of town. One said he’ll only accept if we introduce him as a ‘transcendent thought architect.’”

You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Absolutely not.”

“Agreed,” Lihua chimes in from the corner, crouched over her laptop and what looks like a seating chart for a diplomatic summit. “You let one person change their job title, next thing you know Zichen will demand we call him an intellectual athlete.”

“I would never,” Zichen says, stepping through the door like he’s been summoned. He’s holding two cups of coffee—he hands one to you before continuing, “Though I do think ‘scholarly gladiator’ has a nice ring to it.”

You take the coffee. “You’re late.”

“You’re welcome,” he replies. “The line was twelve people deep and someone ahead of me ordered six oat milk lattes with the emotional weight of a thesis defense.”

The door slams open. You all flinch.

Feixiao storms in with a folder under one arm, a thermos the size of a fire extinguisher, and the kind of expression that makes grown men reconsider their careers. You instinctively straighten up, like all people do in the presence of the Dean of your department.

“If the Facilities Manager tells me one more time that our lighting request is ‘aspirational,’” she announces, “I will replace every fixture in Lecture Hall Two with interrogation lamps from my uncle’s militia days.”

Silence.

Yingyue lowers her glasses. “Is… is that a real option?”

“No,” you say automatically. Then, because it’s Feixiao, you add, “…Probably.”

Feixiao tosses the folder on the nearest table and points at you. “Update?”

You resist the urge to salute. “We’re still locking in the final keynote, but everything else is on track. Zichen’s confirming the catering, Lihua finalized the panel schedule, and Yingyue—”

“Is praying,” Zichen offers helpfully.

Feixiao exhales. “Good. Because I just got the finalized guest list from the Luofu. And you,” she pauses before pointing another finger, “are going to love this one.”

She slides a printed page across the table toward you. One glance—and your stomach drops.

Professor Jing Yuan Department of History Luofu Campus

Guest speaker. Confirmed.

And just like that, the air shifts. You hear Zichen humming “Taps” under his breath. Lihua raises an eyebrow. Yingyue silently writes oh no on the whiteboard, underlining it twice.

Feixiao’s eyes narrow. “That bad, huh?”

You press your lips together and manage a steady, “It’s fine.”

She nods once. “Good. Because he’s giving a talk in the same time block as your keynote.” Then your superior smiles, just a little too sharply. “Think of it as healthy competition.”

“Healthy competition,” Zichen deadpans. “Sure. Like a knife fight with footnotes.”

You barely hear him. You’re still staring at the name on the page. The printed letters don’t blink, but they may as well. Professor Jing Yuan. You know the cadence of that name too well. Know the quiet weight he always carried into a room. The way he used to lean against the edge of your desk like he had all the time in the world—

“Right,” Feixiao says, breaking the silence with a snap of her folder. “Glad that’s settled.”

You blink. “What?”

“Oh, I mean I settled it,” she says, casually flipping to the next page. “He requested the keynote slot opposite yours. Said it would be a nice mirror—your work on literature and emotion, his on emotion in wartime. Complementary perspectives. Lovely, right?”

You open your mouth, close it again.

Yingyue is now pretending to type something on her laptop with the kind of focus that means she’s listening very hard.

Zichen stirs his coffee and doesn’t look at you. “So. Old mentor of yours?”

“Something like that,” you mutters, shifting your weight. “We worked together. Years ago.”

“And now,” Lihua says, “you’re crossing academic swords on your home turf. Classic.”

You shoot him a look, but Feixiao cuts in before you can respond.

“He mentioned you,” she says. Calm. Too calm. “Back when we were coordinating speakers. He asked how you were adjusting to Yaoqing, and maybe mentioned it’d be good to see you again.”

You glance at her. She’s not smiling, but there’s a glint in her eye like she’s waiting to see whether you’ll retreat or dig in. Classic Feixiao—direct, but never cruel.

“I’m sure he meant that professionally,” you say evenly.

“Mhm,” she replies.

The silence stretches. Everyone is trying their best to look productive.

But Zichen ruins the illusion by coughing into his cup. “So, any chance he’s hot?”

You nearly drop your coffee. “Zichen.”

“What? I like to be prepared for these things. If I’m watching an academic rivalry unfold in real time, I need to know if I’m rooting for drama or emotional devastation.”

“Academic ri—? I used to TA for him in grad school, not try to score higher than the guy in every exam. You think I’m that old?”

Lihua giggles to herself. “Oh, he’s an older gentleman, then? I totally understand.”

Sometimes, you think handpicking these idiots for the symposium task-force committee is a grave mistake. But you don’t have the energy to argue anymore.

Just when you thought you can get away with your non-rebuttal, Feixiao decides it’s time to give her own input.

“He’s six-foot-something, speaks like a poem, and has the kind of hair that makes old generals weep.” She smirks. “So yes, Zichen. He’s hot.”

Yingyue nods solemnly. “It’s true. I looked him up. It’s upsetting.”

“Great,” Zichen says. “So we’re definitely in emotional devastation territory.”

You groan and shove the folder back toward Feixiao. “Can we get back to the actual symposium planning?”

“You’re the one who got flustered,” Lihua points out.

You were not flustered. Probably. Maybe. You take a long sip of coffee and start listing panelist names under your breath like a warding spell.

Somewhere deep down, you already know the rest of this week won’t be easy. You’ve worked hard to build something new here—quiet mornings with students, long evenings working beside the hum of city traffic, lectures given with your own voice instead of someone else’s echoing behind it.

You’re not the same person who left the Luofu. And he’s not the same professor you walked away from.

But still.

You feel the shift in the air already. The pull of something unspoken, just ahead. You square your shoulders and reach for your notebook.

Let him come.

You get home just past ten.

The hallway light flickers twice before it steadies—just enough to remind you to finally submit that maintenance request. You kick off your shoes and lock the door behind you, shrugging off your coat with a sigh that seems to come from somewhere deeper than your lungs.

Your apartment is dim, save for the warm glow spilling from the kitchen. You catch the faint sound of a rice cooker ticking, something soft playing from Jiaoqiu’s old tablet speaker.

He’s leaning against the counter, dressed in hospital scrubs, one socked foot tapping gently against the cabinet. His hair is a mess and there’s a pen tucked behind one ear like he forgot it was there—which, knowing him, he absolutely did.

Jiaoqiu looks up when he hears you. “You’re late.”

“You’re one to talk,” you say, dropping your bag onto the chair by the door. “I thought you had a night shift.”

“Shift ended early,” he says, holding up a bowl. “I made enough rice for two. The stew’s reheating.”

You pause. “Did you actually make the stew or did you just add ginger to something frozen and call it a day?”

He doesn’t answer. Which means you’re right.

You smile a little despite yourself, dropping into the seat across from him. “Thanks, Jiao.”

He slides the bowl across the table, then leans on his elbows, watching you like he’s measuring your posture the way he does vitals.

“So,” Jiaoqiu starts. “You want to talk about it, or should I guess?”

You freeze for half a second. “Talk about what?”

He raises both eyebrows and flashes you a look that would've made a lesser person shy away from his gaze. Jiaoqiu is much too perceptive for his own good.

You stir your rice. “It’s nothing.”

He waits.

“…Feixiao confirmed the Luofu guest list today.”

“Ah. For that symposium you mentioned.” He nods slowly. “And?”

You don’t answer. You don’t need to.

Jiaoqiu exhales and leans back, resting his head against the cabinet behind him. “He’s one of the guests in question, isn’t he?”

You glance at him, startled. “How did you—?”

“I’d have bet money,” he says simply. “You’ve had the same expression since you graduated whenever his name comes up. Like you’re thinking too much and trying not to show it.”

You focus on your bowl. “It’s fine. It was years ago.”

“You left the Luofu literally a month after you last spoke to the guy,” he says, not unkindly. “And you didn’t tell me until after you got the Yaoqing offer. That was years ago.”

“I didn’t leave because of him.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

Silence stretches between you. The rice cooker clicks off.

He turns down the speaker volume and says, a little more gently, “You okay?”

You nod. Then hesitate. “I think I will be.”

Jiaoqiu watches you for another moment, then reaches for the ginger-stew and starts dishing out a second portion. “If he says anything dumb, or makes you cry again, I’m filing a patient complaint.”

“He doesn’t even live here, Jiao.”

“Details.”

You laugh—quiet, but real.

And for a moment, the weight in your chest eases.

Despite the looming symposium that’s got your attention pulled in ten directions at once, you’re unfortunately still a professor at Yaoqing.

Throughout the week, you had to manage your time between meeting student volunteers, making sure all the necessary permits are in order, as well as showing up to your own lectures with at least a thirty-minute power nap squeezed somewhere in your schedule.

But come Thursday, things have started to mellow down and you can at least afford to grade assignments in your office without having to think about the Luofu delegation’s lodging. Yingyue told you she had it covered—something you were somewhat skeptical about, but were too exhausted to insist otherwise.

Just as you’re filing away this batch of papers, you hear a soft knock on your door. You glance at the clock—technically after hours, but you’re not the kind of professor who locks her door the moment class ends.

“Come in,” you call.

The door creaks open, and a student steps halfway inside.

You recognize her immediately—Yinyan, from one of the general lit seminars. Smart. Soft-spoken. Always takes notes like she’s transcribing scripture.

“Sorry to bother you,” she says, already fiddling with the corner of a printed essay. “It’s not for your class—I just... I didn’t know who else to ask.”

You motion her in, already reaching for a pen. “If you’re asking whether I’ll take a look, I will. But you might regret it.”

That earns a nervous laugh. “You’re just easier to talk to than—well. The others.”

You raise a brow but don’t push. Instead, you take the essay when she offers it, skimming the title.

‘The Evolution of Strategic Positioning During the Warring Alliance Era.’

Something tightens behind your ribs, but you flip to the first page without thinking.

The dates are off. One of the campaign names is misattributed. There’s a common myth included as fact about the Fall of Feilin Pass. You catch all of it, circling details and jotting a few quick notes in the margin before you realize what you’re doing.

It’s muscle memory. From another life.

From long nights in a military history seminar where the man at the front of the room spoke about tactical retreats like they were poetry. Where you learned to fact-check casualty records like you were tracing footsteps in the snow.

You blink, pen paused above the page.

You don’t touch this stuff. Not anymore.

“I—I didn’t expect it to be perfect,” Yinyan says, misreading your silence.

You look up, startled out of the haze. “No, it’s not that. You’re asking really good questions here. I just...” You set the essay down gently. “I don’t want to make learning harder than it already is. You’ve got strong instincts. This? This can be fixed. But I can’t go over everything right away. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

Yinyan’s shoulders relax, and you think yours do too. She nods, looking genuinely relieved.

“I’ll make sure to revise once you’re done,” she says. “Thank you, Professor.”

You smile as she leaves, but your fingers linger on the edge of the paper a second longer.

It’s been over three years since you last held a red pen over a passage about the Warring Alliance. But even now, part of you still knows the terrain.

You sit still long after Yinyan leaves, the door clicking shut behind her like a question mark you haven’t figured out how to answer.

The essay rests on your desk, marked in your neat red scrawl. You meant what you said—her instincts are good. But the familiarity of the content wraps around your thoughts like an old scarf, warm and unwelcome.

The Fall of Feilin Pass.

You remember the first time you heard that name spoken aloud.

Jing Yuan’s voice had filled the lecture hall—measured, deliberate, always just a little amused. He’d paced the front of the room with his hands behind his back, white hair catching the light like a lion in a sunbeam. You’d been his TA for almost a month by then, already accustomed to the way he made military maneuvers sound like the rise and fall of poetry.

He called it a masterstroke of misdirection, that battle. Pulled up diagrams, quoted journal fragments from commanding officers, invited students to challenge his interpretation like they were strategists themselves.

Not wanting to dwell, you get up and cross to the window like you can outpace the memory.

Outside, the Yaoqing campus is quiet. Students crossing the quad below, jackets pulled tight against the early autumn breeze. There’s a flicker of movement near the gardens—someone tending to the bonsai by the administration building.

You press your palm to the window’s cold glass.

You’ve worked so hard to leave all of that behind. And yet the facts still live in your hands. The timelines, the tactics, the battles—they never really left.

Just like he never really did.

That night, an unwelcome stranger infiltrates your dreams for the first time in months.

The city hum fades. The streetlight outside your window flickers once, and then you’re no longer in Yaoqing.

You’re somewhere else.

The light is too gold. The air smells of tea and spring dust. The walls are lined with old maps, books worn soft at the edges, a potted dracaena bending toward a narrow beam of sunlight. The desk is familiar. So is the man leaning against it, arms folded, eyes like liquid amber tracking your every move.

“You’re early,” Jing Yuan says, like he always did when you arrived exactly on time.

You open your mouth to answer, but your voice doesn’t come. You look down at your hands. They’re full of papers, disheveled in a way that reminds you of old habits. The syllabus, a half-graded quiz—fragments of a life you left behind, scattered at your fingertips.

When you look up again, the room is dimmer.

“You haven’t changed,” he says, his voice softer now, like it’s almost a confession.

You almost laugh. Almost. "I’ve changed a lot."

He doesn’t respond immediately. Instead, his eyes linger on you with that same unflinching focus, the kind that has always seen you too clearly. His gaze is unreadable, but his silence speaks louder than words.

“But not where it counts."

Your throat tightens, a visceral reaction, like there’s something he’s seen in you that you don’t want to face. You don’t want to ask what he means. You don’t want to know.

The documents in your hands flutter, and suddenly you’re outside—same campus, different time. The greenhouse near the old west gate. You recognize the planter box you tended to for a while, filled to the brim with daffodils that seem to mock you.

You don’t turn around when you hear footsteps. But he speaks anyway.

“Would it have been easier,” Jing Yuan asks, “if I hadn’t acted like I cared so much?”

The question burns in your chest, but you push it down, far down. Instead, you clench your fists, fingers digging into the soil as if you can anchor yourself to this moment, to anything other than the weight of his words. You can almost feel the sharpness of the past, the ache that never really went away.

You say, without turning, “It wouldn’t have mattered.”

The next moment, you’re in the lecture hall. His lecture hall.

It’s empty, save for the two of you. The rows of seats are abandoned, the air still, save for the faint echo of past voices.

He’s standing at the podium, his posture poised, authoritative, like he belongs there. Like this is still his domain. And you? You’re sitting halfway up the stairs, knees drawn to your chest, tucked into the corner of your old spot, as if you’re still his assistant. Still waiting for something from him.

He opens his mouth to speak—

—and then the scene fades, all of it washing to white like chalk under rain.

You wake to the sound of Jiaoqiu boiling water in the kitchen. The apartment smells faintly of ginger and morning mist. There’s sunlight on your curtains and a text from Feixiao already on your phone.

Feixiao: Your keynote segment for Day 2 has been moved an hour earlier.

Me: Is it worth asking if that person’s segment has also been moved?

Feixiao: That’s a pretty cold way to address your old mentor.

Me: You’re just reading into it too much.

Feixiao: But, yes. Jing Yuan’s segment was moved as well.

Feixiao: At least the two of you can serve back-to-back cunt right after lunch.

Me: …who on earth taught you how to use those words?

Feixiao: Zichen.

You lie still for a moment. One breath. Then another. Though Feixiao’s attempt at imitating newer speech steals a chuckle from you, the dream you had still clings like mildew in the back of your head. Because part of it is true—you just didn’t want to admit it to yourself.

You changed.

But not where it counts.

You arrive ten minutes early and still feel late.

The banners are already up—elegant cream and crimson, catching the wind just enough to look important. A student volunteer is fiddling with a welcome stand, and Zichen is already leaning against the pillar near the humanities building like he got there by accident and decided to stay out of curiosity.

“You look like,” he says, tilting his head, “you’re about to face a firing squad.”

“Worse. I’m facing a university welcome committee,” you reply.

He offers you a thermos. It smells like jasmine and guilt. “Feixiao told me to give you this.”

You take it with a sigh. “She thinks I’m going to choke, doesn’t she?”

“She thinks you’re going to be too composed and it’ll freak everyone out.” He shrugs. “Honestly, she might be right.”

Before you can reply, the last of the expected shuttles pulls up to the curb.

You see the rest of the Luofu delegation stepping out in stages: a couple of assistant professors, a senior archivist you vaguely recognize from an old conference, and—

Him.

He moves like he always did. Each step measured and easy, like gravity’s just a mere suggestion.

Jing Yuan steps out of the van last, adjusting the collar of his coat with that absent-minded elegance that fools people into forgetting how calculated he really is. His hair’s longer than you remember, gathered low at his nape, a few strands brushing his cheek like they belong there. His expression, as always, is unreadable.

And those eyes—golden, sharp, too steady for comfort—sweep across the campus like he’s surveying old battlegrounds. Taking stock. Mapping exits. You half expect him to start assigning formations.

Three years.

It’s been three years since you last saw him.

Then his gaze lands on you.

And for the briefest second, something flickers. Familiarity? Surprise? That strange, quiet relief that feels too much like longing?

You don’t know. Because just as quickly, it’s gone—smoothed away like it was never there, replaced by a polite smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

He nods.

You nod back.

It’s all very professional. Very academic.

Zichen says nothing, but you can feel him staring like he’s watching fault lines splinter beneath centuries of pressure. Something in the stillness holds, but only barely.

Jing Yuan turns away first, speaking low to the assistant at his side. You can’t hear the words, but you know the cadence like an old song. That steady rhythm that always made his lectures feel like lullabies and warnings in equal measure.

The welcome committee descends on the group like a well-rehearsed ambush. Hands are shaken. Names exchanged. You feel someone clap your shoulder—it’s Feixiao, brisk and bright-eyed as always.

“Battlefield’s open,” she says under her breath. “You ready, soldier?”

You square your shoulders. “Always.”

Feixiao smirks and marches ahead, calling out greetings to the delegation with the booming energy of a woman who’s organized half a dozen international symposiums and never once let an itinerary slip by more than five minutes.

You fall into step beside her, thermos still warm in your hand, pulse ticking under your collar. Zichen stays behind, lingering near the edge like a cat who knows better than to step too close to a dogfight.

The introductions begin.

Names pass like ceremonial offerings—titles, departments, affiliations. You bow when it's appropriate, shake hands when offered, and smile just enough to seem gracious but not overly eager. It’s choreography you’ve mastered by now.

And still, you feel him.

Jing Yuan is silent at first, content to let the others go ahead of him. But when Feixiao gestures toward you with her customary flourish—“This is the stellar professor who’s been overseeing logistics from our side. She’s younger than she looks and deadlier than she sounds”—he steps forward.

You brace.

“Hello,” he says, voice as smooth as ever. “It’s an honor.”

There it is again. That pause. That moment where the rest of the world seems to blur just slightly out of focus, where the air seems to thin.

You extend your hand. “Professor Jing Yuan.”

His hand is warm. The handshake firm, but not too firm. His eyes hold yours, just long enough to make it feel like a conversation. Just long enough to remember.

Then the moment passes before he turns to speak to one of the archivists, asking about something on the schedule. Feixiao nudges you as she moves ahead, eyes gleaming with something suspiciously close to amusement.

You don’t look back at him again.

Instead, you fall into line with the rest of the Yaoqing faculty, escorting the Luofu delegation across the stone path that leads to the main conference hall. The banners flap gently in the breeze, just loud enough to remind you that this is happening. That it’s real.

As the group moves ahead, you find yourself walking beside Yingyue and Lihua. The former gives you a look.

“Well,” Yingyue murmurs, “if that was just ‘professional,’ I’m very curious to see what unprofessional looks like.”

“Yingyue,” you hiss.

“I’m just saying,” she singsongs under her breath. “The air around you two felt… loaded.”

Lihua nods solemnly. “Like a scene in a film right before someone gets emotionally wrecked.”

You say nothing. You sip from your thermos. The jasmine tea is scalding, but you don’t flinch.

“Should we be worried?” Yingyue asks, feigning innocence.

You keep your voice neutral. “There’s nothing to worry about. He’s a visiting scholar. That’s all.”

Zichen catches up from behind with a smirk that suggests he saw everything.

“Right,” he says. “And I suppose I’m just here for the coffee and not the front-row seat to whatever this is.”

You walk faster.

But you don’t deny it.

The panel room is packed.

Faculty from both campuses line the rows, notebooks open, styluses ready. The translator charm hums faintly over the room, a soft shimmer in the air for any non-native speakers.

You’re seated at the center table beside Lihua and one of the Luofu delegates. There's a placard in front of you with your name and mastery in literature and cultural theory embedded with a glossy print.

You catch Feixiao’s thumbs-up from the sidelines and roll your eyes just enough to make her grin.

“Let’s begin,” says the moderator. “Our first discussion will be on narrative authority and the reinterpretation of classical texts in post-crisis literature.”

He calls your name, saying the floor is yours, and you stand. The mic hums to life.

You start by thanking everyone who graced the room, and by extension, the symposium with their presence. How honored Yaoqing is to host such a convergence of sharp minds and generous spirits, and how rare it is to see so many brilliant scholars under one roof without a single turf war breaking out over footnotes.

A ripple of laughter follows when you glance toward the back and add, “And if all goes well, I might finally convince Zhuming's Department of Humanities to participate next year—willingly, I mean.”

Then, you ease the audience into your piece for today's panel. Softly, yet also deliberately.

“Don’t you think,” you say, letting the pause linger just long enough, “there’s something quietly liberating about rereading a nation’s pain through fiction?”

You catch yourself smiling when a few heads pop up to look at you. “Post-crisis literature doesn’t just record trauma. It reclaims it. It reframes grief into metaphor, and in doing so, it softens the blow. That’s not erasure—it’s survival. And survival, I’d argue, is the most honest form of storytelling we have.”

Your voice is steady. You speak like you belong here—because you do.

Gone is the girl who used to linger in the back of lecture halls, afraid her questions might sound too unsure. You know the shape of your own ideas now. You carry them without apology.

And when you speak, the room listens.

Until—

“Do you believe,” Jing Yuan begins from his seat near the back, “that fiction built on softened truths still holds moral weight?”

The room turns as one. And there it is—Jing Yuan’s unmistakable drawl, the one you used to hear more than you care to admit. It’s not challenging, exactly, but there’s something wry in his tone, a touch of that old teasing sharpness that used to curl around the edges of every conversation you had. A raised eyebrow, not a reprimand, but an invitation to push back.

You meet his gaze evenly. “I do. Fiction doesn’t owe us pain to be powerful.”

His eyes don’t leave yours, but there’s a subtle shift in his posture, a slight lean forward as if testing the ground. “But doesn’t the omission of pain risk distortion?”

The question hangs between you like a weight. You can feel the tension in the room, the way everyone has drawn closer, waiting for the next exchange.

A part of you almost wants to laugh, the absurdity of the situation rising in your chest. You’d thought this moment would come. You’d told yourself you were prepared. But facing him again—this way, in this context—feels like you’re falling right back into the rhythm of a dance you didn’t even realize you knew the steps to.

“It’s not omission,” you counter, before you can stop yourself. “It’s transformation. Rewriting the aftermath isn’t the same as denying the disaster.”

The room holds its breath. There’s a beat of silence, and then a quiet murmur ripples through the crowd. Someone behind you murmurs an appreciative “Mm,” as though savoring the taste of a well-crafted argument.

Jing Yuan leans back, fingers steepled. “And if a nation prefers the transformed version to the truth?”

You smile, and it’s not sweet. “Then the burden falls on the reader to know what they’re looking at.”

Another pause, this one heavier, stretched thin by the weight of your words. The tension in the air is thick enough to cut with a knife. You could almost hear the collective breath being held in the room.

Then, from somewhere behind you, Zichen mutters, “...Hot.”

The moderator coughs, startled. “Err—thank you, Professors. Let’s open the floor for questions?”

There are questions. Thoughtful ones. Smart ones. You field them with practiced ease, each answer flowing naturally from the previous one. You’re in your element now, calm and controlled.

But part of your mind stays on him. On that deliberate little push. Those questions with too much timing to be innocent.

Jing Yuan remains quiet for the rest of the discussion, and you can’t quite tell if he’s satisfied or just waiting for another opportunity to test you. But every time your gaze flickers toward him, you feel that familiar spark, that old pull that neither of you has ever fully escaped.

After the panel, as the crowd disperses into murmurs and clinks of tea cups, you feel a soft tap on your shoulder.

It’s him, standing beside you now. Closer than the panel format allowed. You try not to dwell too much on how warm his hand is in the vastly air-conditioned space, but the sensation lingers in your chest, distracting you.

“You’re scarier than you used to be,” Jing Yuan says, his tone soft, a hint of something almost nostalgic in his words. His smile is small but real, like a shared secret between you both. “I didn’t expect that.”

Instead, you arch a brow. “And you’re exactly the same.”

“Am I?” His smile is quiet. “That’s disappointing.”

You don’t answer, feeling the weight of those words more than you should. Instead, you take a sip from your water, a small, nervous gesture to buy yourself time, before turning to walk toward the exit—where your team is waiting. Zichen’s face is aglow with the joy of watching chaos unfold, and Lihua gives you an approving nod.

But as you pass by them, you can still feel Jing Yuan's gaze on your back, trailing after you like the start of a new chapter you didn’t agree to write.

There’s a shaded bench under a plum tree that your team has unofficially claimed.

Zichen's sprawled across one end like he owns the place, Lihua’s nibbling on a red bean bun she definitely smuggled in, and Yingyue’s already pulling up the playback recording from the symposium like it’s a drama she can rewatch at leisure.

You sit with your back against the cool stone ledge and let out a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding.

“So,” Zichen says casually, “on a scale of one to scandalous, how inappropriate is it to ask if academic foreplay is a thing?”

Lihua nearly chokes on her bun.

“Zichen,” you groan, covering your face. “I’m begging you.”

“What? It was electric. That entire back-and-forth was like watching two swordsmen flirt via carefully cited historical examples.”

“I was defending a thesis,” you protest. “Not flirting.”

Yingyue taps her screen. “Okay, but the eye contact? The tone shift? The part where he said ‘that’s disappointing’ and you visibly inhaled like you were about to bite back something unholy—”

“You guys were eavesdropping?” You scowl. “And no! I was going to tell him he hasn’t changed since he assigned three chapters of military ethics over a long weekend.”

Zichen gasps. “Three chapters? Oh, no. You were in love.”

That gets them both going. Lihua’s laugh is high-pitched and unfiltered, and Yingyue is practically vibrating. “Wait, wait—so is that a yes? Was there, like, a thing?”

You hesitate.

Not long. Just enough to betray yourself.

“He was a professor. I was his TA. That was it.” You keep your tone light, looking down at your hands. “...But maybe I respected him more than I wanted to. Maybe I admired him a little too much. It wasn’t anything serious.”

There’s a pause, heavy with understanding.

Then Lihua asks gently, “Did he know?”

You smile. Not sad, exactly. “He didn’t act like it. And I didn’t want him to.”

There’s a quiet empathy in the air now. They all know that it’s not as simple as that, that it’s not something that can be neatly wrapped up in a few words.

Zichen, always the one to break the tension, swings an arm over the back of the bench, his gesture surprisingly soft. “You ever think he figured it out anyway?”

You look across the courtyard, past the rustling trees, where the symposium banners are fluttering gently in the breeze, and the familiar silhouette of Jing Yuan can be seen through the glass window of the atrium. He’s talking to someone, calm and composed, exactly as he always is.

It’s hard to ignore the way your heart catches in your chest for a split second, or how your breath hitches just a little when you see him.

You shrug. “It doesn’t matter now.”

But it does.

A little.

And they all know it.

Day Two sessions are always where the real academic showdowns begin.

The scholars who flew in just to be seen have already made their exits, leaving only the ones who care too much—the ones who take themselves and their work just a little too seriously. You arrive before most of the others, coffee in one hand and your tablet in the other, already reviewing the panel order for the day.

This morning was calm—enough time for polite discussions over coffee, for setting the tone. But now, with the afternoon panels, the real program begins to take shape. You can feel it in the air, in the way the faculty members file into their seats, the way the hush of conversation spreads across the room like a slow tide. There’s an edge to the anticipation. Today’s centerpiece? The keynote speeches.

One from the Luofu. One from Yaoqing.

You.

And him.

You move toward the large hall, where the cream-and-crimson banners hang tall behind a dignified podium. Rows of lacquer-backed seats stretch out beneath cool, carefully placed lighting. The hall feels both expansive and intimate, the kind of space where every word carries weight, where every gesture is scrutinized.

As you settle into your seat near the front, you can’t help but notice the faint hum of excitement that permeates the air. Most of the audience knows what’s coming. There’s a buzz of whispered names, of scholars shifting in their seats, adjusting their glasses, preparing for the intellectual clash they’ve been waiting for all day.

Then, the doors open, and Jing Yuan takes the stage.

His entrance is the same as always—unhurried, graceful, and deliberate. It’s as if he’s stepping into a rhythm only he can hear. The murmurs in the room settle almost immediately, like the air itself is being drawn into his orbit. Someone behind you whispers his name in reverence, the tone respectful but edged with a quiet awe.

You don’t turn.

His voice fills the room with the same calm authority it always has. “Thank you to the organizers, to the faculty members, to my colleagues, and to everyone who has come today.” He nods to Feixiao in the front row, offering a smile that’s both respectful and distant. Then, he begins, his words measured and steady, like a soldier reciting a well-practiced speech.

His topic: Strategic Retreats in Military History: Calculated Loss, Preserved Legacy.

You want to laugh.

Of course it’s that.

He speaks of war, of victory and loss, of the delicate dance between pride and pragmatism. But what stands out to you, as it always does, is his discussion of restraint. The power of stepping back. The clarity of knowing when to withdraw, not out of fear, but out of a clear-eyed understanding of what matters most.

It’s a subject he’s always been passionate about, and as he talks, you can hear the deep layers of memory in his voice, the weight of years spent navigating both war and peace.

You try not to dwell on the subtle way he emphasizes “timing,” “discipline,” and knowing when to act, when to hold back. You feel it, though. It’s there, tucked into the cadence of his words. Meant for you, even if it’s not obvious to anyone else.

Your hands are folded neatly in your lap. You’re aware of Zichen sitting beside you, his posture a little too eager. He leans in, his voice low enough that only you can hear.

“He’s quoting your old seminar discussion notes,” he whispers.

You don’t answer. You don’t need to look at Zichen to know that he’s right.

Of course, Jing Yuan would bring up those discussions. The ones you had, years ago, when the subject of strategic retreats was just a theoretical exercise for you both, a way of dissecting history without fully acknowledging how personal it might feel.

It was one of those days when he got close to converting you into becoming a history major. Luckily, you didn't.

He finishes his speech with a bow, not too deep, nor too distant, the same kind of gesture that’s both professional and intimate in its simplicity. The applause that greets his exit is raucous, as expected of a seasoned scholar. But you don't let it deter you.

Because it’s your turn.

You rise from your seat with practiced grace, your body moving automatically, every step taken with a spine straight and sure. You can feel the gaze of the room settling on you. Every eye is fixed, waiting for your words.

The podium is yours now—not as a reply, not as a counterstrike to what he’s just said.

This is your space. Your voice. A place for you to carve your own place in the conversation.

Then, without missing a beat, you guide them into the heart of your keynote.

The Intersection of Literature and Human Emotion: Love and Loss as Universal Themes.

Your thesis.

The one that earned you the best dissertation award back in grad school. The one you bled into for months, and stayed with you even years after. Every line of it felt like a scar you chose to wear. You don’t need your notes for this. You know it the way you know your own name—intimately, instinctively.

Because it’s not just an argument you once defended. It’s a piece of you.

A truth you lived.

You speak of the silence between words, the unsaid things that carry just as much weight as the spoken ones. You discuss the way ancient texts often depict longing, exile, and loss—not as clear-cut emotions, but as complex tapestries woven through silence and space. You talk about the characters who would rather suffer in silence than confess their feelings. You talk about how those unspoken emotions still speak louder than any words ever could.

When you speak of unspoken affection in the epics—of missed chances and deliberate distance—you don’t look at him. Not once. But you feel it. The air tightens. The weight of his presence is undeniable. You know exactly what he’s hearing.

There’s a subtle power in the silence you speak of, and you feel it intensify when you near the end of your speech.

It’s not a grand flourish you’re after. No dramatic exclamation. Just one quiet line from a favorite text, a line you’ve always held close to your heart:

“Some wars are won not by holding the line, but by stepping away from it.”

The silence stretches after you finish.

It feels more like the world is catching its breath than anything else. The weight of what you just said settles, deeper than you anticipated, heavier than you thought it would feel. You stand there for a moment, just letting the words linger in the air, letting them settle.

Then the applause begins.

At first, it’s hesitant. Measured. But soon, it builds—slowly, steadily—until it becomes something real. Something you feel in your chest.

You bow—not to Jing Yuan, not to anyone in particular, but to the room, to the audience, to the words you just shared. To the fact that you’ve made it here, and you’re standing on this stage; that your voice, after everything, is still your own.

You step down from the podium, each movement graceful but touched by a quiet fatigue—the kind that settles in only after you've laid your heart bare beneath a roomful of lights and eyes.

The stage lights stretch your shadow long across the floor, following you as you make your way down the aisle. You don’t look at him—not at first. But you feel the depth of his gaze. Steady, unmistakable, like a thread pulling gently at something deep in your chest.

Against your better judgment, you glance his way.

Just once. Just long enough.

What you find isn’t surprise. Not pride or regret either. It’s something gentler. Something unguarded. A look that holds recognition, yes—but more than that, reverence. Like he’s seeing you not as you were, but as you are now. And somehow, that means everything.

Maybe, just maybe, he is seeing you for the first time.

And perhaps that’s the moment you’ve both been waiting for all along.

When night falls, so does the final curtain on the symposium.

The function hall glows in soft amber light, casting delicate shadows on ivory linens and polished glassware. It’s elegant by design—curated to impress, to invite conversation between brilliant minds across disciplines. But beneath the laughter and clinking glasses, something else simmers: rivalry dressed as camaraderie, nostalgia edged in ambition. A quiet current running just under the surface.

You find yourself by the refreshment table, fingers curled loosely around an untouched glass. The keynote glow has worn off, and what’s left is a strange sense of dislocation. You were just on that stage, commanding the room. And yet, now, surrounded by colleagues and strangers, you feel slightly out of place. Like you’ve slipped back into an old version of yourself, ill-fitting and over-aware.

You’re still replaying that moment—after your speech, when everything in the air felt thick with something unspoken—when someone steps into your orbit.

Zichen, drink in hand, angles in with that lazy, knowing grin. He doesn’t need to say anything—you already know that look. But of course, he says something anyway.

“So,” he says, his voice loud enough to cut through the quiet room, “was I right? Was it like watching a pair of sparring poets trying to outwit each other with footnotes?”

You don’t roll your eyes, but you definitely feel your chest tighten. “I think I’m going to need a second drink to survive this conversation, Zichen.”

“Can’t blame you.” He leans closer, still grinning. “If I were you, I’d need several. Honestly, though, I started wondering—were you two that in sync, or is there something else going on?”

You sigh, half-laughing, half-groaning. “You’re infuriating.”

Before he can needle you further, Lihua materializes, her presence like a breeze. She’s trailed by Yingyue, who offers you a small smile as she cradles her glass.

“Alright,” Lihua cuts in, no-nonsense and warm, “let’s not corner her before she’s even had dessert. We’ve pulled off something incredible, and that deserves more than your conspiracy theories.”

Yingyue’s laugh is softer, but no less amused. “Honestly, we’ve earned this. Two full days of chaos, zero disasters. Let’s just bask in that.”

You smile, genuinely this time. The four of you raise your glasses—an unspoken toast. To the symposium. To the effort. To being seen and recognized, even if only by each other.

But Zichen isn’t one to let the moment pass without his usual jab.

“So,” he drawls, swirling his drink, “now that we’ve toasted… is it safe to ask the real question? You said it wasn't anything serious, but why does it feel like you two were reading off the same script?”

Your stomach twists. The weight of his words lands, heavier than it should.

Your thoughts ricochet back—to that look from Jing Yuan, the stillness between you, the way his gaze lingered like he hadn’t meant to.

“I’m getting some air,” you say quickly, voice light but clipped, and step away before anyone can follow.

You step into the evening, where the air is crisp with the kind of quiet that only comes after too much noise. The campus is still now, wrapped in the soft hum of cicadas and far-off footfalls, the faint lights casting long shadows over stone and grass. Out here, the symposium feels a thousand miles away.

You lean against the railing, hands curled loosely around the cool edge of the stone. The stillness should be a relief, but your chest is too full—of adrenaline, of memories you’d meant to leave behind. You exhale slowly, letting the silence wrap around you.

And then, footsteps.

You don’t turn. You don’t need to.

“Shouldn’t you be inside?” Jing Yuan’s voice drifts through the quiet, low and unhurried, like it always is. But there’s something else there—hesitation, maybe. Or restraint. It ripples across your skin like a breeze you weren’t expecting.

You don’t answer. Just breathe in the night and hope that if you stay silent long enough, he’ll take the hint and go. That you won’t have to open the door to this—whatever this is.

But the footsteps don’t fade.

There’s a rustle, and then he’s there, beside you, not quite touching, but near enough that you can feel the heat of him. The railing holds both of you now, like a boundary you’re pretending not to lean across.

Neither of you speaks. The silence stretches, but it's not awkward. Just... thick with things unsaid.

When Jing Yuan finally does speak again, it’s softer. Not the voice of a professor or a speaker. Just a man beside you.

“Your friend’s right, you know,” he says, a touch of amusement coloring his words, though it’s tempered by something deeper. “You and I... we’ve always been in sync. Even if only for a short while.”

You let out a breath that’s almost a laugh, but not quite. Yet another person has eavesdropped into your conversations.

“I think Zichen’s just trying to make something out of nothing.”

“No,” he says, and there’s a subtle warmth to his tone that catches you off guard. “It wasn’t nothing.”

You glance at him, finally, but don’t quite meet his eyes. The tension you’ve been carrying since his keynote, since the moment your speeches mirrored each other, is there. In the air between you. And it feels like a weight you can’t lift.

Jing Yuan doesn’t press. He simply waits.

And somehow, that’s worse.

The air hangs thick with unspoken words. You can feel the weight of the moment pressing down on you, as if the entire day has led to this. It’s not just the speeches, or the research, or the people inside—the real conversation has always been between you two. You just haven't been able to face it until now.

You finally look at him. It’s hard to miss the way his expression flickers when he sees you meet his gaze—golden eyes heavy with anticipation.

You exhale slowly, your voice steady despite the turmoil inside.

“You know, Zichen also said,” you begin, “that it was like we were reading from the same script today.”

He arches an eyebrow, but doesn’t interrupt.

“You and I… we’ve always had this thing, haven’t we?” you continue, your gaze not leaving his. “This back-and-forth. This... tension. You could say that some of your habits rubbed off on me while I was your assistant. That I carried them further down my career. But it's always been more than that, isn't it?

"And I’m tired of pretending it doesn’t exist.”

His jaw tightens. The calm façade he always wears is slipping, but you push on.

"Three years," you say, voice barely above a whisper. "Three years of silence and distance and professionalism, and still—this. Us. Whatever it is, it’s never gone away. And maybe that’s what’s so hard about this."

The quiet between you pulses with meaning, full and sharp.

Jing Yuan finally steps closer—not quite touching, but close enough that the night feels smaller now. His voice, when it comes, is rougher than before, stripped of its usual polish.

“I never meant to make you carry it alone,” he says. “I just... didn’t know how to be close without crossing a line.”

Your breath catches. “And now?”

His eyes search yours. “Now I'm certain we both crossed that line a long time ago. We just pretended we hadn’t.”

The words hit you like a tide—relief and fear, ache and recognition.

You don’t know how to answer that. Your throat tightens, and for a moment, you feel the sting of old memories—those days spent working together in his office, when things were easier, but so much more complicated beneath the surface.

Instead of speaking, you just take a slow breath, willing yourself to steady your shaking hands.

“I’ve always been good at distance,” you say, your voice steady despite the tremor inside. “I made a whole life out of it. But standing here with you… I don’t think I want to be good at it anymore.”

And this time, when his eyes meet yours, you feel it. No more games. No more pretending. Just the quiet recognition that something has shifted between you two.

For a long moment, neither of you speaks.

Then, Jing Yuan leans in just slightly, his breath warm against your skin. A large hand cradles the side of your face, and you instinctively lean into his touch.

You can feel his lips almost brushing against yours, the tension so thick it’s almost unbearable. He smells like cedarwood and rain and everything you shouldn't even want.

But just as it feels like he’s about to close the distance completely...

“Ahem!”

You both startle, just slightly. And then she appears—Feixiao, with that all-too-familiar grin, already stepping between you and the moment like it’s nothing at all.

“I’m not interrupting, am I?” she says, tone breezy as she links her arm through yours and casually steers you away from Jing Yuan. She gives him a polite nod, her eyes sharp with mischief before turning back to you.

“Dinner’s starting soon,” she adds, a playful lilt in her voice, followed by the faintest nudge. “And you’re not about to keep me waiting, are you?”

You blink, still caught somewhere between heat and hesitation. “Feixiao, I—”

You glance over your shoulder. Jing Yuan hasn’t moved far, but the look in his eyes says enough: the moment is slipping, and he’s letting it.

Feixiao keeps her arm linked with yours as she walks you a few paces away, lowering her voice just enough to keep it private—but not too serious. She never does serious unless she has to.

“Look,” she says, “you’ve always been the type to stay sharp, keep your eyes on the goal. Not a bad thing. But if you’re thinking about sorting things out with him... don’t rush it.”

You shoot her a look, still reeling. “What are you talking about?”

She hums, thoughtful. “Just saying—he’s not going anywhere. You don’t need to run headfirst into something before you’ve figured out what it means to you.”

You pause, the words landing somewhere heavy. Shame creeps up, uninvited and quiet.

“Yeah…”

Feixiao softens then, rubbing your shoulder in easy circles, a rare gentleness beneath all the bravado. “I don’t know what’s between you and Jing Yuan,” she says, “but whatever it is? It’s been cooking a while. So don’t serve it half-baked.”

Her words pull at something deeper—something buried. A memory: something Professor Fu Xuan said, years ago, over noodles and pork dumplings.

He’s not built for half-measures.

Neither are you.

Before you can speak, Feixiao’s already shifted gears. She pats your arm, a bright smile smoothing everything over.

“Anyway! You’re still coming to dinner, right? Or would you rather stay out here and stew in all that dramatic tension?”

You hesitate, heart not quite caught up with the rest of you. But she’s already tugging you gently toward the building, her cheer disguising something more careful beneath it.

You glance back, just once.

Jing Yuan is already gone.

The key clicks in the lock.

You step inside, letting the door fall shut behind you with a soft thud. The lights are low. Your heels echo dully against the floor, and your bag slips from your shoulder with a sigh that feels like it came from your chest.

Then you hear it: bright, canned laughter drifting from the living room.

Jiaoqiu is half-swallowed by a blanket on the sofa, legs tucked under him, a bowl of popcorn in his lap. His eyes are fixed on the TV and you don't have to glance to know he's watching his favorite sitcom.

He jumps a little when he sees you, fumbling for the remote. “Hey,” he says, voice too casual, as if you haven’t just walked in with the weight of a night trailing behind you. He pauses the episode mid-joke. The room goes still.

“You’re back.”

You nod faintly. But for a moment, you don’t move. You just stand there, the quiet thick between you. Your thoughts are a thousand miles away, still chasing the afterimage of something you almost said. Something he almost did.

Jiaoqiu watches you carefully. “Bad night?”

You shake your head. “Not bad,” you say, low. “Just… a lot.”

He doesn’t ask. Just shifts over and lifts the blanket in silent invitation. “Come sit.”

You cross the room and sink down beside him, shoulder brushing his. The couch cushions exhale. He presses play again without a word, as if the hum of dialogue and background laughter can buffer the ache you brought home.

The screen flickers.

A punchline. More laughter. Someone throws a pillow on-screen. Someone dodges it.

Then, softly, without looking at you, Jiaoqiu says, “You don’t have to talk about it. But if you want to…”

You let out a shaky breath, then press your face into your hands. “Jing Yuan.”

He nods impercetibly, like that name holds all the answers to life's curiosities. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he say anything stupid? Make you cry?” he asks, reaching for the popcorn.

You manage a breath of laughter—thin, but real. “No. Worse. He didn’t.”

That gets a knowing hum out of him. Jiaoqiu holds out the bowl like it’s an offering. “Popcorn therapy. It’s not peer-reviewed, but I’ve had great results.”

You take a handful, the corner of your mouth twitching. “Thanks.”

Finally, he turns to look at you fully, expression careful. “You okay?”

You pause, leaning your head against his shoulder. “I think so. Or I will be.”

Jiaoqiu doesn’t say anything else. The sitcom carries on, voices flickering in and out, but neither of you is really watching.

And that’s okay. Some nights aren’t for talking.

Some nights are just for not being alone.

The final day of the symposium begins with brisk air and brisker goodbyes. Yaoqing runs like clockwork, and the send-off is no different—efficient, unceremonious, almost surgical in its precision.

Delegates file out one by one, boarding shuttles with handshakes and nods. You’re stationed nearby, clipboard in hand, checking names against lists, pretending you don’t feel the knot in your stomach.

You know he’ll be here.

You expect him to be cordial. Maybe even distant. You expect him to act like last night never happened.

But Jing Yuan isn’t predictable in the ways that matter.

When his turn comes, he’s not alone—his aides beside him, belongings packed. The lines of his coat are as neat as ever, but there’s something softer about his expression when his amber eyes find yours.

Jing Yuan steps forward, says something low to one of the attendants, then turns to you.

Before you can speak, he holds out a small pouch made of familiar linen. Twine wrapped neatly around it. You don’t take it right away, but your fingers brush his when you do.

I've seen this before...

He doesn’t explain. Doesn’t try to. Just watches you, gaze steady.

Then, just as he’s about to leave, Jing Yuan offers you one last look—a long one.

And says, quietly, “Be well.”

The words hit harder than you expect.

Because that’s what he said to you the day you graduated, three years ago. Beneath that shade tree in the Luofu courtyard. Your last conversation, before the silence settled between you like dust.

You don’t reply. Can’t trust your voice to hold.

He nods once and walks away.

You stand there long after the shuttle door hisses shut behind him, the pouch clutched in your hand and that old goodbye echoing through your ribs like a bell you’d forgotten how to hear.

Later in the day, you hole yourself up in your office—avoiding your colleagues (even Feixiao) to the best of your ability. You’d told yourself you’d get started on writing the midterm; outlined three prompts, even booted up the document

But the pouch sits in your drawer like a challenge, and your curiosity, traitorous thing that it is, wins out.

You untie the twine.

Inside, you find once-vibrant blossoms that have faded to a muted violet, their edges curled inward like they’ve been holding their breath for too long. You know these flowers.

Scutellaria lateriflora. Skullcap.

You inhale, and there it is again—that same earthy, herbal scent. He gave you this once before. Years ago, when you were still his teaching aide, and he’d just started that absurd little project at the Luofu campus greenhouse. He's still tending to it, from the looks of it.

Your hands are steadier than you expect as you unfold the linen further. Tucked beneath the sprigs is something else.

A calling card.

It’s plain. Cream cardstock, gold embossed lettering. You find it almost funny.

Jing Yuan used to scoff at these, said they were for pretentious academics and bored aristocrats. “Too performative,” he’d once told you, half-asleep in his office, tea cooling by his elbow.

You flip it over.

There, scrawled in that infuriatingly elegant handwriting of his:

I'd love to speak with you—about this, and whatever else you've been stockpiling behind that diplomatic smile. On your terms, of course. If you prefer the art of futile resistance, by all means. But if not... I'm just a correspondence away. — JY

You stare at the words for a long moment, unsure how he even squeezed all those words in such a tight space. Only then do you let the card fall flat on your desk.

The dried skullcap rests beside it, patient. Familiar.

And you—

You sit back in your chair, heart too full of memory to be still, and let the thought bloom quietly in your chest:

He remembered.

Subject: Follow-up on the Symposium From: Me To: Jing Yuan

Dear Professor Jing Yuan,

I hope this message finds you well. I wanted to extend my thanks again for your presence at the Yaoqing symposium. Your insight during the panel sessions was both illuminating and deeply appreciated by the faculty and students alike.

If you ever wish to collaborate on a joint lecture or discussion in the future, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Warm regards.

(You stare at the draft for a long time. Then delete “Professor.” You don't send it. Not yet.)

Subject: About the Gift From: Me To: Jing Yuan

Hi,

I wasn’t sure whether to write at all. But the pouch you left... I remember it. Of course I do.

I haven’t decided what I want to say, or how much. Only that I don’t want to pretend it meant nothing.

(…You get this far and stop. You never hit send.)

Subject: Your Dramatic Correspondence From: Me To: Jing Yuan

Jing Yuan,

Only you would make dried herbs feel like a grand confession. Should I be flattered, or concerned that you're now resorting to calling cards?

...I haven’t thrown it out, if that’s what you’re wondering.

(You read it back, scoff at yourself, but save it as a draft anyway.)

Subject: Fine. Let’s talk. From: Me To: Jing Yuan

You said you’d wait until it was on my terms.

Well... I’m writing, aren’t I?

Just tell me you meant what you said. That it wasn’t just leftover sentiment from too many missed chances.

If you do, then maybe we can talk. Really talk.

(You go over it twice, heart pounding. Then close the laptop before you can think too hard.)

It’s been a month.

The pouch still sits in the top drawer of your desk, tucked beneath a stack of grading rubrics and office supply receipts. You haven’t moved it since the day you opened it. Some part of you thinks if you don’t look at it too often, the weight of it will lessen. (It hasn’t.)

You never sent the emails. Not the formal one, not the funny one, not the almost-brave one. They’re still sitting in your drafts folder like ghosts.

And you—well. You haven’t changed as much as you wanted to believe.

You still choose silence when things get too complicated. Still fear the what-ifs more than the what-is. Still worry about what others might say, what the faculty might think, what it would look like to the world if you stepped just slightly out of line.

Maybe you're still that same graduate student—ambitious, yet scared. The one who looked at Jing Yuan like he was both everything she wanted and everything she couldn’t let herself want.

The one who left before it could become real.

A knock on your office door brings you back. You straighten, push the drawer closed, and return your attention to your laptop.

You half-expect a student with late homework, but when you glance up, it’s Feixiao, leaning in with a grin and a folder tucked under one arm.

“I come bearing gifts,” she says, stepping inside without waiting for permission. “Or at least, a very polite summons.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Another invitation?”

She waggles the folder. “Guest lecturer. Luofu campus. Smaller-scale than the last one, but good turnout.”

You sigh. “Feixiao…”

“I know, I know.” She plants herself in the chair across from you before you can object. “You were going to say no. Again. But hear me out.”

Your silence is permission enough.

“It wasn’t Jing Yuan,” she says plainly. “Not the invitation, not the event, not the committee. It came from their Literature Department directly—someone named Ying, I think?”

Professor Ying.

The instructor that you were supposed to TA for, before all the administrative mishandlings. You want to laugh. The universe really does have a sense of humor sometimes.

“...He doesn’t know?”

Feixiao shakes her head. “Not a clue. And if you go, you’re under no obligation to see him. I’d bet he’d rather vanish into the stonework than bother you uninvited.”

You study her face. “You sound sure.”

“I am. Military kids don’t grow up without learning who respects a line in the sand.” She pauses, then adds, “Besides, my uncle served with his father. That family’s got a reputation—long memory, even longer patience.”

You let that settle for a moment.

Jing Yuan wouldn’t push. He never has.

Still, your mind flickers. You remember Yanqing, all sharp edges and earnest questions. Jing Yuan mentioned that he was close to that boy's family through their ties in the military as well. You wonder how old he is now. Then you recall the literature department where you once spent late evenings with your peers, poring over old poetry and marking drafts by hand.

Lastly, you think of Jing Yuan himself.

And how—despite everything—you miss the way he listened when you spoke, how he salutes the dracaena in his office like it's a real person, and the fact that he never once called you foolish for drawing back.

The silence stretches.

Feixiao quirks an eyebrow. “So? You going to keep saying no to opportunities just because they come from the same direction?”

You look down at the folder, then up at her. “Tell them I’ll do it.”

She smiles. Not triumphant, but satisfied. It feels like she knew you’d say yes eventually.

Your superior rises, flicking a casual salute. “Knew you were smarter than you looked. Not that it would've mattered—I already filed your leave request with HR this morning.”

You gape. “You what?”

Feixiao just grins. “Contingency planning. If you’d said no, I would’ve told you after the paperwork cleared.”

You want to be annoyed. You really do. But instead, you laugh—quiet, incredulous, warm.

She’s halfway out the door when she glances back. “Don’t overthink it, okay? Just go. See what happens.”

The door clicks shut behind her.

You look down at the folder again, fingertips brushing the corner.

Maybe it’s time to stop holding your breath.

MASTERLIST ✧ READ ON AO3

#honkai star rail x reader #hsr x reader #jing yuan x reader #honkai star rail #hsr #jing yuan #jing yuan smut #hsr smut #honkai star rail smut #cryoculus

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notadreamurr · 7 months ago

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RUN RUNNNN!!!! YA'LL ARE GIVING CAINE SO MUCH LOVE <3333

Dude, this looks so sick!! Thank you so so much!!

SCAMER GET SCAMED

BRO DON'T STEAL THE PACKAGE!

Interdimention post office caine belongs to @notadreamurr

#love PO caine in your style!#your color choices are awesome!#your posing is fanatistic #thank you so much!!#run forest run!#caine #the amazing inter dimensional post office

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malvoile · 6 months ago

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Me and the Devil ; i

ɪᴛ ʀᴀɪɴꜱ ᴏɴ ᴄᴀʟᴀᴅᴀɴ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ ʀɪᴘᴘᴇᴅ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ʏᴏᴜʀ ɴᴇꜱᴛ ᴏꜰ ᴅᴀʀᴋɴᴇꜱꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ꜱʜɪᴘᴘᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴀ ɴᴇᴡ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ.

word count: 7k warnings: arranged marriage, politics, graphic scenes of blood, violence, & death of family. trauma, past abuse (harkonnen&feyd rautha warning) not much else. mutual mistrust. notes: hi! tysm to my new followers ily all <3 here's chapter one remastered of this fic [originally posted on @tremendum ] - (inspiration for reader's family is taken from the family of tsar nicholas ii, so if it feels familiar that's why.) feedback very much appreciated :)

prelude series masterlist

Penitent Crimes of Retaliation;

“In accordance with the legal doctrine of the 'Reprisal Accord', as sanctioned by the High Court of the Landsraad, attacked houses are granted the right to retaliate against proven offenses committed against them; This action shall such be labelled as ‘Penitent Crimes of Retaliation.’

Under this mandate, should sufficient evidence be presented, the aggrieved house may initiate a retaliatory strike and is sanctioned to engage in warfare against the offending party. While reparations for damages incurred during the conflict are mandated, perpetrators shall be exempt from criminal sentences ensuring a balanced recourse within the framework of inter-house disputes; as deemed by a jury of the Great Houses Major and Minor at court."

- From the Reprisal Accord, Office of the Padishah Emperor. Imperium, 10041.

There was once a time when green was your favorite color.

You'd enjoyed a childhood of it – Peridot stones glittering upon headdresses, jade figurines, the velveted forest of winter dresses; halls draped with verdant portraits of the faces which came before you, and before you, and before you – all shroud in that forested pride; an ancient thing, to know the ground of the planet and to take life from the same roots as the trees around you.

A life cushioned in the nested hearth of mountainside and jade pools of glacier; and of course the breathstealing height of the sacred Pine. Viridescent flicks of the woven banner of your house, waving in the snow-whipped wind; A snarling green wolf upon grey armor, a hall of decadent verdant heirloom stones.

And in the three months each year when the ice melts off the lower glaciers – the glacial lakes, thawed into that deep emerald green. Your brother, your sisters and you, charging with wild hollers and flailing limbs as tutors and soldiers alike chased after you; scolds and yelps of fear dying on chapped lips as young bodies leapt into the glossy pools, rippling screams through the woods.

In the yawning abyss of childhood, there’s always been that lingering haunt color; When the men of a faraway House Major arrived to retrieve your older sister, she'd been shroud in that very same sacred pine-satin. An elegant dress, you remember quite clearly – draped in gold and jade, haunting the mouth of the ship in her shining emerald headpiece as she turned to wave goodbye for the last time.

A constant source of home, perhaps; and a reminder of the ever-churning yield of abundance the planet gifted your family. Gifts of life, spurting through the ice, growing over centuries within the warm breast of mountain caverns – miners returning to the villages and towns surrounding the castle, hands stained with verdant dust. Green, that gift of life.

Even at your sister's funeral.

A glossy forested casket, laid to rest in the ground of a foreign planet – the wind was sharp against the dark emerald veils of the women of House Bourbon the day you said goodbye to your sister.

Killed by the birth of her first – a son. You became the oldest of your siblings that day.

It was an honor, your parents had told you through tears as the earth swallowed the emerald peeks of casket through handfuls of dirt; an honor to serve your family, to serve the Sisterhood, to serve the Imperium.

Years churn on, as they always do – and somewhere across the Imperium, perhaps a new life has sprouted ,evergreen above the plot where your sister lies in eternal rest. But you can hardly stand to look at green anymore.

No, instead, you mostly see black.

They'd sent you away to make for your house a fortune; a son, they'd wished, for your sake - and, by whispers of your Lady Mother, a daughter – but the nest you made was one of fear and survival; a place crawling with shadows and monsters and deadly smiles.

Your na-Baron.

If Feyd-Rautha ever had a semblance of hesitancy, it was when you first met four years ago. You were at the end of your seventeenth year and he, freshly eighteen – a cordial boy by at least Harkonnen standards; escorting you with an arm held out, eyes malicious and teeth glinting but nonetheless tamed to curved glances and sickeningly sinister grins.

He'd even called you Lady Bourbon those first few months on Giedi Prime.

Perhaps in many ways, you can consider yourself lucky. Even if only for your bloodline, or the power laced through the syllables of the name you come from – or even, Maker forbid, in some way for yourself – Feyd-Rautha has indeed taken special care of you. Perhaps he does care for you – the care a panther reserves for his chosen prey.

Despite his endless vanity, he still has stooped so as to admit he waited too long to claim you as wife; a feat which, in some way, might bring him just a step higher in the chokehold his family holds the Imperium – and you, with tongue as sharp as your mind, know when to push and when to dissolve into those dark shadows he loves so much.

So you’ve let him stew in fury, avoiding eyes and sneaking from column to column; ears pressed to oaken doors with a trembling hand.

The accusations had come from Baron Vladimir; House Bourbon has been stealing the precious refinery codes, committing treason against the trading accords along the Harkonnen-dominated exportation route. And perhaps, he thought, you’ve been the one to plot against your beloved future family.

But Feyd-Rautha knows better – knows you'd never dare betray him for the sake of your life or purely through the denial of access. Feyd was, after all, the one to demand a public execution of your family and, in the same breath, redirect your sentencing to imprisonment. As if you weren't already.

Don't look away. See what we do to scum, my pet?

Hatred flows thicker than blood; and perhaps if you'd had your blade this morning, you would have finally plunged it right into the junction of creamy skin upon his neck, right there in the stands.

You were, in some ways, relieved when their bodies hit the sand fast. You've never seen your brother's skin so reflective as you did this morning; and the black sun, oppressive as it is intense, still could not hide the blood that had seeped from him.

A deafening roar of the crowd still did not muffle the glistening cries of the two girls; the ones no older than seventeen and nineteen, the ones who carry your nose, and your hair, and your laugh, and your blood. The crowd could not muffle the sharp loss of breath as the blades slid slow across the seam of their necks to spill that which you share so intrinsically.

You'd swallowed thickly, twitching to look away, gasp – to cry; but any semblance of pain was concealed under layers of unbudging, seething hatred. There is no space here for anguish; Your na-Baron would love it too much.

Why don't you leave me with them, then? You'd hissed through your teeth.

Though he was wild and psychotic, growling with hunger at the bloodsport in front of him, he heard you for what you'd said. Feyd's fingers pulled your hair hard, forcing your chin up towards his crazed stare. A sickly glint in the black sun, his teeth shone with hunger.

You'd have me throw you to your Wolves, and lose my prize? He'd tutted, kissing your forehead with a sickening sweetness; enough so that the servants had turned away their spider-black gazes. They didn't care much for the acts of affection you'd occasionally show one another – they know just as well as you that in a world marred by ugliness, any glimpse of beauty becomes a hauntingly grotesque show of power.

He'd snarled, a growling rumble through the chanting crowd of spectators screaming kill the Wolves; His breath was hot against your cheek. You're mine to keep – there's plenty of life left for you to serve.

He'd held your hand tight as they slit your father's throat – he was too drugged to put up a fight worthy of retaining his life; after minutes, his blade fell. It was then both of your sisters, swift deaths prolonged only by the wisps of prana-bindu that remained in their muscles’ memories, by the screams that heightened the jeering crowd in bloodthirst. Next came the assassination of your brother; the Tsarevich, the boy whose grasp on his knife shook as he looked up towards your seat helplessly.

Your mother had fought as much as she could in her drugged state – a Weirding Woman, whose flashing arms and darting legs outsmarted the Harkonnen fighters for far longer than what must have been expected. A Ginaz fighter until the end.

You saw it all with nails torn into your palms; the Harkonnens are ruthless, and Feyd-Rautha had sat calmly beside you with a sickly grin.

Your mother met the slow knife’s blade against her throat. It should have finished quickly – but in your horror: The neckline of her gown was too high, and too thickly inlaid with encrusted heirlooms.

Bless their voided souls.

The emeralds that tore from her gown as she'd spilled her blood to the sand sent a ripple of pain out of your throat; and Feyd had buried his face in your neck, teeth sharp and gaze glued to your own ruby blood beading out of your clenched palms, blackened in the sun's light.

If anybody would have bothered to look before burning the bodies, you know they'd find all the family diamonds sewn into the fabric of their clothing. Centuries of your House, melted away.

And Feyd-Rautha had drank up your agony with his lips, smiling as his hand wrapped around your throat.

Now, alone and away from the thick industrial air, your chambers are cold and suffocating.

There are screams coming from the hall – not the kind that you've grown to associate with your na-Baron testing his new blades, but the kind that comes with danger. With change.

As it turns out, you are not Feyd-Rautha's to keep any longer.

A loud noise outside of your quarters jolts you from your bed with shaky legs, whispering to yourself. They're coming for you. The sheets are crisp against your awaiting, tensed body; the blade gifted to you on your nameday three years ago by your husband-to-be grasped in your palm; still tainted with the ghost of your own blood.

Your whispers reverberate in the empty room, a spiny crawl of black moulding curling around your bed and awaiting the coming voices. "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me–”

Your voice shakes, despite yourself. Air puffs from your lips as your blood rushes - few things remain from your early days of training, before you were sent off to become a Harkonnen; This remains a relic.

A loud clash outside – blades against the failing force of shields.

For a moment, a hand grasps your arm; ghost-white and possessive, it claws at your skin, voice rumbling through your mind. Don't look so sad, my pet.

The door to your chambers begins to slam with an external force; Soon, the soldiers will enter, and you will do what must be done.

The hand squeezes upon your wrist harder – you bite back a cry. I will never let them keep what is mine. I will find you again.

You almost wish he will.

Slow as a predator, you rise from the sheets; a preparation for a fight that will end before it begins. A fight that has already been won.

Even when the hand upon your arm is gone into the shadows, succeeded only by a whispering ghost of bruises clutching your skin, you do not stop the old prayer; in fact, you hardly notice that you're saying it at all.

Even as the doors give in.

"-and when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing – only I will remain–”

The soldiers arrive in a burst of splintered doors and smooth movements; the one at the front, flanked by only two others clad in Atreides-tan armor, triggers some faint memory from a lost childhood.

He moves towards you in the sickeningly familiar stride, and it fills you with rage.

Duncan. Why did you wait so long?

It is too late. You lunge, snarling like the wild beast you've become; You fight, because that is the only thing you know how to do. It is the only thing you have left.

Your blade falls within minutes and you're taken by the man from your past not a minute after; you're on a ship, watching the black Opiuchi B disappear in an hour.

“My Lady.”

There is a buzzing downfall of drizzling rain that slides over the umbrella’s spine above you. The air here is thicker, laced in salt and terra; the voice snaps your mind back to the ground. Wind whips the veil draped over your head as you step forward stiffly, arms sore and eyes heavy.

The dress you wear, salvaged from your family's old castle, is dusty and pressed.

It clings to your skin, drowns you, as the rain falls. A staff of House Atreides holds the umbrella above you, shielding the intricate detailing inlaid along the trim of the dress as you walk.

The dress upon your shoulders is as tight a cage as the one you inhabited on Geidi Prime; and though it was an effort of good intentions, the Atreides' insistence of providing you with the necessities for you to perform your Sabberon's traditional customary mourning rituals has left you with a prickled spine and a saturation of spite bleeding into your heart.

Your family may be gone, but the ghosts of their deeds remain with you; a hard goodbye to give when you alone remain to pay for their transgressions. Still, you have found yourself draped with the veil, the dresses, the jewelry; you, alone on a strange planet with the symbols of their crimes, of their betrayals, of their poisoned love. It's what they would have wanted.

It is a death march from the hangar into the covered acceptance hall – banners of Hawks climb high towards the ragged cliffs, whipping and cerulean in the afternoon light. And ahead, stoic and proud, the members of House Atreides await you.

Your hands brush against the dark velvet – a texture you have not felt in years. It is odd, you notice, to catch the light of your skin not wrapped completely in black fabric; It has been many years, too, since you found yourself in green.

It is with a prickled glance that you slow your pace behind Duncan Idaho – the man turns and glances at you when you begin to ascend towards the House members, but you can't bear the look of unfamiliarity that flickers over him when he looks at you now. Your chin remains high, your eyes over the line of cliff climbing towards the sky.

Duncan, after these years, still looks the same – perhaps less tall, but that has more to do with your growth than his own; You, however, are not the same girl he last saw on Sabberon. Your hackles raised, your talons flexed within your palms: A coiling beast of hatred backed into a corner.

There is a coastline far beyond the hangar – and it calls to you quietly; a vast thing, cerulean, cold, and deep. You’d been otherwise occupied when the ship entered atmo to Caladan this afternoon; the sea remains something only within your mind, a figment whispering of golden lips and curling tides in the corners of your dreams.

An urge strikes you as you begin to ascend the stone stairs towards the welcoming party; and subtly, you crane your neck outwards to catch a glimpse of that sea – a crashing call in the distance, the circle of gulls cutting through the clouded rainfall. But there is no ocean within sight; only jagged cliffs which rocket hundreds of feet above or drop off sharp below.

Duncan stops just before you; Your spine straightens once more, vision concealed in hues of pine and evergreen as you take in the retinue standing before you.

Duke Leto Atreides at the center; a man with peppered age, a tall pride and commanding stare – beside him, a woman in a gown of the same deep cerulean – Lady Jessica.

A flood of knowing penetrates you the moment your eyes find hers; through the veil she stares at you, before flicking her sight beyond you, to the Reverend Mother who’d travelled with your retinue as per High Court orders. A voice curls in the back of your mind, stalling your heartbeat for a slow moment. Hello, sister.

Your lips purse as you look to the right, stood tall next to Lady Jessica; a boy intense in stare and proud in ceremonial uniform, eyes already awaiting your gaze with a sharp curiosity. Paul Atreides.

The son to whom you're now destined.

Even from your obstructed vision, there is no hiding such sharply beautiful features – a sculpted visage kissed with a smattering of freckles from the Caladan sun, pale from the weather; a curve of pouted lips, full, furrowed brows – curled dark locks and eyes wide and just as penetrating as his mother's. A properly handsome heir, you allow your heart's skip; But Maker, you realize as he solemnly watches your veil shift in the breeze, those eyes are so green.

And most peculiar – within them, there is no hunger; nor hatred, no inkling of emotion besides a giveaway twitch of curiosity in the dragging gaze over your shrouded form. Some ancient stirring in your chest, a hibernated anger, a desire to bare teeth towards such an unassuming and altruistic stare – though you do no such thing, remaining balanced upon your feet and tense with the coiled hibernation of an awaiting serpent.

There are eyes upon you with each movement of breath from your chest, and it stirs your fear in a way you’ve not felt in a long time.

It was easy to go unseen with the Harkonnens; by nature of arrogance and brashness, they paid no mind to the girl hiding around the shadows, slinking through the halls with a dark stare but blood that still bleeds green. The Atreides are no fools, and you are not one to think so; where Harkonnen honor lacks, Atreides honor flows in abundance. Though still, any such action that might come from a place of intrinsic value sets your teeth to edge.

The Great Houses of the Landsraad have charged you to leave your nest of shadows, and you have done so. You have been shipped to a new world, a new chain to which you will forever be shackled.

You have learned to find the betrayal of emotion that lingers within the stare of men like Feyd-Rautha and Vladimir Harkonnen – the hunger, the greed, the danger; you have learned to sharpen your edges with the blade of their power, and you know now what your place in this galaxy must be.

And yet, Paul Atreides: His stare betrays no emotion but duty; a foreign thing to you in these times, though as you scrutinize the twitch of his brow or the brush of eyelashes against cheek, you find yourself struck wary and off-balance.

He does not have that wolfish hunger in his stare that you’ve come to know – in truth, if not for the boyish pout of his pink lips and his freshly-shaven jaw, you might have dared mistake him for his father; A Duke.

You might have remained in your study of your betrothed if not for the echoing voice of Duke Leto speaking your name. A snap of your gaze towards the man in front of you as he nods warmly, “Welcome.”

It is an effort to bow in return to him, wincing through your stiffened muscles as your headpiece chimes with your movements.

“We are honored to welcome you to Caladan.” It is an exceedingly polite, humane tone with which he addresses you; you, a stranger who has been delivered from the protection (which itself might even be a laughable term) of their sworn enemy.

Though despite the sincerity, you find yourself struck with a stinging embarrassment: There is no honor to your presence, not anymore.

It gives you a moment to gather your expression, however hidden behind the veil it may be – perhaps they can't quite make out your face, but Lady Jessica watches closely. She sees.

You take a sharp breath, swallowing away the lump of emotion in your throat.

“Thank you, Duke Leto.” It is steel which grinds the melodically polite veneer of your voice; and without a hesitation you turn to greet the Lady of the House.

“Lady Jessica, it is a pleasure.”

In response you are offered a smile as warm as the Duke’s voice; there is a flicker of understanding which floats along the line of blue in her irises, and it compels you to continue, “Thank you for welcoming me to your home,” You finish, hoping the steely reflection within your voice does not bleed unto the other ears.

The rain falls quietly overhead, sliding over the high-drawn ceiling of the open acceptance hall. “We understand that these are trying times,” Lady Jessica begins; your legs feel weakened in a moment of shortened breath, though she finishes in a quiet nod. “We are relieved to have you on Caladan.”

The spin of worldchange has caught up with you at the reminder of such trying times – a day and a half’s travel between systems behind you, and yet the deaths of your family meet you still with a fresh sickness of shock each time you close your eyes. Your headdress chimes lightly when you bow your head once more in appreciation of her words.

The welcome feels rather intimate, in this moment – a retinue of four strong flanks behind you: Duncan Idaho, the Reverend Mother, and two Atreides soldiers; and before you stands the Duke and Lady, their Heir, and a party of five men in Atreides uniforms. Your eyes sweep them efficiently – no weapons; a surprising show of trust, knowing who indeed you have just been delivered from the clutches of.

Perhaps they'd thought they'd be taking in some injured little dove; a cooing thing, wings clipped and battered by the ferocious boy who'd gifted her with a knife plunged between her ribs on her eighteenth nameday. A bitter thought.

The scar that lies just below your breast on your right side is not a reminder, but instead fate carved into flesh – it does not ache; it hums with the echoes of pain grown to purpose.

It echoes of the months spent thrown into a pit under the glaring black sun; Not the arena that rang in the end of your family, no – this pit is smaller, with one large seat for the na-Baron himself; one not with a crowd of vicious jeering but with drugged concubines and slaves clutching blades to service his na-Baroness.

A place to watch his pets play.

Your eyes glance to the curved wounds scabbed over your hands – little half moons, skies of pain, etched into the palms of your hands. Destruction: the only thing you and Feyd-Rautha may have ever had in common.

Unfortunately, you endured; a hard lesson, to live with Harkonnens, to be one of them – and with a clip of fear, you worry you may never be able to unlearn.

It has been long enough for a bout of thunder to rumble up in the heavens above; you turn to the young man who stands next to Lady Jessica.

Your betrothed watches you in a peculiar tilt of head – subtle, but analytical; a gaze so green you have to look away, nodding slightly as you speak once more. “My Lord,” your heart thuds in your chest uncomfortably, wondering if he, too, will be as displeased as Feyd so often was when you spoke to him; though Paul does not so much as move as he inhales softly, eyes coasting over your jaded silhouette.

“My Lady.” He returns the formality with a voice much softer than expected; your heart is struck with a cool unease, distrust tightening its clutches around your throat.

A silent moment hangs thick between you; it is only then that you see the tense coil of Paul’s shoulders – surely a mirror of your own. Defiance, your mind tells you. Though Duncan Idaho’s voice cuts through your observations quickly. “We have much to discuss.”

Cutting to the chase, as always; you are relieved for the attention to fall off your presence as you let out a short exhale. “Yes–” though the Duke lifts a brow, eyes caught on the lump of gauze which wraps around Duncan’s bicep, concealed by his uniform. “–Idaho, Do you need to see treatment?” He questions the Swordsman.

As Duncan laughs, your shoulders tense; and before you can consider some quieter death, he begins to speak. “No. Harkonnen blades are sharp – but so are Lady Bourbon's nails.”

It is immediate, the prickling of eyes which befall you from all sides, and a heated stare from your betrothed that you steadfastly ignore for the sake of glaring at Duncan. There is a smirk growing on his lips as the Swordsman addresses you. “You fight differently than I remember, Little Bourbon.”

An old nickname, unearthed from the catacombs of the life you once lived in the wintered palace of Sabberon; a nickname so cherished in your youth and so foreign now that it knocks the air from your chest. Resentment curls within you at the warmth upon his tongue.

The shame floods you just as fast as the pride does, and in the aftermath, you stand just as rigid as before, hands clenched into the velvet of your skirt, seething under your veil.

There is no hiding the shock upon the Atreides' countenances; before them stands some monster, some savagery wrapped up in a gown and a pretty smile hidden beneath a veil.

It had been a habit – rabid hounds don't tuck tail when cornered, do they?

Nonetheless, you smile tight behind the veil, trying not to think of the life you've just left – of what cold life lies ahead.

When you respond, your voice is frigid. “It has been a long time, Duncan.” You muse; Paul’s piercing gaze of green penetrates the veil, but you ignore him.

“Threats demand evolution.”

The rain is gone into mist by the next day.

It rolls in fog along the moors outside, taunting an echo of tides far below the castle – in the morning room, forks scrape over blue-plated China. A grandfather clock lives in the corner; the seconds pass in quiet, insistent ticks.

A cleared throat, a swallow of water – air blown across a plane of steeped tea.

Your eyes burn from exhaustion.

To your relief, your arrival last evening held no such time for small talk – you were whisked away by the service staff to make sure your quarters were comfortable; in the minutes you’d been given to yourself, you’d found the clothing of a former life – dresses, tops and trousers of yourself, your sisters and your mother; the dressings salvaged from the Castle on Sabberon in the week leading up to the trial at Harko Arena.

All washed thrice of soot and rubble, hanging in wait of your touch within the wardrobes in the room. A sickening feeling had haunted you the moment you’d slipped your mother’s old ceremonial ferronnière and hair chain; the reflection of your stare in the mirror resembling too close the sharp gaze of her own. And that feeling had lingered in the shadows of your room still as you shut away the diadem of gold and emerald, the gowns, the old trousers your sister would wear to ritual; your eyes, burning along the skyline in the distance as you locked the wardrobe with trembling fingers.

Late in the evening, you'd attended a meeting in a small conference hall.

There, sat across from Paul, Masters of War and Swords and Strategy, a Mentat, and Lady Jessica, the Duke had asked you questions, ensuring you were not harmed – and perhaps more importantly, trying to ensure there was no malicious intent to your presence. It was in your sleepy haze you first detected the twitching motions of Lady Jessica's hands, the flicking gazes of the others as your voice carried to them. A war language, you’d realized quite quick. They think I am lying.

You'd only been there for ten minutes before you were escorted by a handmaid back to your chambers, where you sat without rest through the night.

Truthfully, you're breaking fast this morning with Lady Jessica and Lord Paul out of courtesy; You were up far before the sun had teased the horizon this morning, staring emotionless at the ghost who stood in the corner of your new chambers.

He is not a new visitor; in the hazy world between waking and dreaming, you’re well used to the ghost – how he smirks by the foot of your mattress, whispering with sharp teeth, with sweet memories, with promises of blood and pain. You’d grown used to his presence, and you’d remained upright for most of the night – until something moved in the corner of your vision, and you screamed.

That had woken one of the servants.

She came in with her head tilted down, holding a pitcher of water; you asked her to stay.

Her name is Hestia; close enough in age if not younger, as she must be merely twenty – the silence was hesitant but not wholly unpleasant as she’d sat, wary but willing as you shared the pot of tea brought for you.

It wasn't until she'd brought you breakfast a few minutes later that you realized the staff must have been informed of your ancestral customs before your arrival – she said nothing as you ate silently, staring out towards the coast of rocky cliffs and rolling moors you could just barely make out from your chamber windows. She’d helped silently to smooth your hair under your veil as you’d drawn it in preparation to leave the room; and with a beat of hesitance, you’d almost admitted to her you did not wish to wear it.

Now, you sit quite similarly; hands perched in your lap, tea in front of you untouched as the food on your plate.

Your future husband sits across the table from you – with a motion sluggish and ruminating, he pushes the omelet around on his fork. You find the boyishly restless knee from Paul, one which shakes the table just slightly, jilting your glass full of water.

A polite and quiet conversation follows; some throw off observation of the weather this coming week, how you seem to have brought the sunshine – a comment that makes both you and your betrothed share a sharp glance; heat following the sudden shared connection.

Efforts to bring you into such discussions are met with your polite, quiet words – and after a short time, a woman enters and whispers something to the Lady at the end of the table. Nodding, Lady Jessica takes her leave with a pointed look at Paul, suggesting he might escort you around the castle to settle you in.

Some cold dread licks its way up your spine, though you force yourself to nod – to adapt. “–If you have time, my Lord, I'd appreciate it.”

He seems equally pricked by his mother’s suggestion, though he hides it quite well – a quiet, chivalrous demeanor suits his striking features, and you find your distrust mounting in some self-preserving effort.

Lady Jessica’s leave brings a gust of air through the morning room, and soon you’re met with the scent of forest; a warm soap, sharp with the efforts of Caladan’s bright ocean salt and wooded hills to the west that lingers upon his skin. Your face flushes in the heat of the sudden morning rays, exposed by a gap in the clouds.

It's silent for a few moments as only the two of you remain; Your food untouched, his half-eaten.

The wall behind Paul boasts an intricate geometric wall of wood and empty-space; a fascinating architectural choice which complements the beauty of Caladan’s moors – you find yourself intent on tracing each line laid before you, ignoring the glossy glint of Paul’s hair in foresight. In the silence of youthful discomfort, the quiet feels inescapable – until it isn’t.

“Are you one of them?”

His eyes trace you when you return to his visage. Them?

In a slow realization, it occurs to you that Paul might assume you are just as bald and sickly as each Harkonnen; that perhaps their soil, so poisoned, might have penetrated the evergreen veins that carry your life to each part of you – might have wilted the very things that make you so uniquely yourself.

You shake your head, thankful for the lack of chains upon the crown of your head today; you are not a Harkonnen, and you never will be.

Perhaps that would have been the preferred choice of words, but instead from your lips fall a curt sentence: “I have hair.”

In the morning light, you glance at the skin of your arm; The skin that boasts arm hair, none of the sickly pale skin that knew of no clean air nor healthy sunlight – your skin, glowing with real melanin and health.

It is a brash choice to speak with such frivolity; You'd not dare speak so freely on Geidi Prime – stars, you'd never have spoken this freely at home on Sabberon, either – but there is no home anymore.

And if you've learned one thing in your years since coming of age, it's that the Great and Noble Houses of the Landsraad are crawling with perjurers, fabricators; Paul is likely the same.

If the Atreides boy must be wed to you, you cannot help that; They can dress you, insist on your traditional customs – but you will not go down easy. No matter how cold the home, you can be colder – you are more than the bones which hold you up; crueller than the demons that kept you in their ghostly grip for four years.

Though at your words, Paul’s cheeks flush a peculiar pink – and his lip twitches in a momentary lapse of stoicism. A lost battle, it seems, as you are rewarded with a small, boyish grin flickering over his visage. “No,” he starts again, eyes penetrating your own somehow, even beneath the layers of green that wrap around you. His breath comes in a short exhale, “Not Harkonnen,” His elaboration grows quiet as he continues, “I meant…Bene Gesserit.”

Your stomach chills.

His eyes seem to know the words which whisper around your mind, and a faint sense of memory gnaws at the cage within your head. After only half a moment’s hesitation, you shake your head. “No, my Lord.”

It must be what he expected – he does not so much as blink; though a flicker of knowledge passes over his face and he closes off, eyes flashing.

You are – despite your resolve – coaxed by his expression to continue, “I suppose I was…” Your hand tugs the sleeve of your gown.

“–Or, I was supposed to be.”

Your tone, unemotional; Paul bites back the suspicion that climbs up his throat. He’s no fool; he saw the glances between his mother and you, however short – in those breaths, the buzzing of his mother’s whispers behind shut doors, her eyes quaking and steadfast in the same.

And, of course, the lapping memories of dreams upon a beach of consciousness; a face beneath a shroud, a whisper from golden lips, a pathway dimly lit and forked into the foggy horizon.

He stands when you rise from your seat.

The dress you wear is unlike any he’s seen outside of your culture’s books; a waterfall of emerald that pools and flows – some frozen-limbed weeping willow, kissing the face of a thawing lake. He offers an arm to you, and you loop yourself to him with only a breath of hesitation.

Your voice comes again from those lips so hidden behind the veil of pine. “I was supposed to be a lot of things.”

Your voice is undeniably beautiful; strong, cold, unwilling. Polite, yes – but calculating, aggressive. Coiled in a nest, watching, waiting to strike.

She tells the truth.

His mother had signaled during the council the night before a dissection of your honesty; Yet trust is a fragile thing, and as much as he places faith in Duncan and his father, the thought lingers of distrust.

He saw the claw marks you'd left upon Duncan; a man you've known since you were a young girl. By decree, Paul is now bound to you in marriage; but he has spent endless hours unraveling the Harkonnens — their cunning, their strategy, their thirst for power – and yet, according to Duncan, the Baron and his brutish nephew simply let you go, unscathed and unpursued.

It gnaws at him, such inexplicable mercy from a house that knows no such thing.

Paul’s wariness does not bleed through his posture, as indeed it does not with you: You walk with your chest out, back as straight as a soldier’s; your words are cordial, indifferent.

Halls pass as he murmurs a light overview of the castle’s history, introducing you to Houseworkers as you stop to greet them; he is rather surprised by your indifferent charm that seems to enrapture the workers and scare them all the same; he wonders, then, what this life will be like, when you become the Duchess and he Duke.

A revolt in his heart; one childish and quelled by duty and understanding – and by his father’s words, burnt sharp into his mind.

Duty often requires us to navigate paths we may not have chosen for ourselves, Paul. You may not always like her, but you will treat her with the respect and care befitting of a future wife.

Love may come to you in other ways. But you will marry her, you will respect her, and when the time comes, together you will sire an heir.

Outside the walls, it is quiet – the wind is calmed, the tide drawn by the looming moon in the morning sky; you and Paul share no more than one unintentional glance broken up by wind-warmed cheeks and a softly cleared throat.

It is not until he escorts you along a path that winds down out of your sights that he notices your change in demeanor. Beside him, you take a deep breath, footsteps faltering as you slow – a blink of concern until he follows the direction of your veil towards a clump of moss sprawled across the earth. Curiously, Paul slows to a stop beside you.

For a moment, you stare down at the dirt and fallen tree limbs, the grassy field and rocks; though as if an invisible string pulls you upwards, you snap your head, voice sheepish behind your veil. “Apologies, my Lord.” You start to turn, “I've read of plants like this, but never seen them before in person.”

It is an odd moment in which Paul comes to understand: He knows what Giedi Prime is like, and your homeworld, from what he's read in the books on Sabberon, is mostly Glaciers, forests, and high altitudes.

The notion of you finding interest in Caladan’s flora and fauna is as bizarre as it is endearing – and so instead of moving along, Paul bends to grasp a bit of moss from a fallen trunk.

Your veiled visage tracks him as he returns to his full height; The earthy dirt spreads between his nimble fingers, green and soft against his skin. You watch him silently, curiously.

“It absorbs up to twenty times its dry weight in water,” He explains in an echo of an old ecological lesson, pushing the spongy material with the nail of his thumb. “Banks of it grow just around the brackish tidepools below the castle.”

Your interest, piqued, causes your head to crane slightly from your small height – he can tell, even without seeing any part of your face, that you are fascinated; it brings him a moment of pride.

At his gesture towards the coastline just peeking below, you follow in a slow move of interest, breath coming soft from hidden lips. He watches the side of your silhouette flutter in the breeze. “Am I allowed to see?” You ask stiffly, arms hanging at your sides.

An odd request – one which penetrates any semblance of protectiveness for his homeworld and instead strikes alarm in his chest. What such monsters do you come from that you must ask such foolish questions?

He lets the moss fall back to the stump, brows furrowing. “You are to be Lady Atreides one day.” His voice does not reveal any hint of his resistance to this fact, and for this, he is grateful. “You do not have to ask permission to see your own land.” He finishes, cheeks warm with the insistence of the seabreeze and the alarm which still thuds through his heart.

You have grown quiet – in the rushing blow of wind, you are still as an evergreen.

The wind from the sea whips in misty breaths even this high; inky tresses swirl around his vision and are swept away by his own hand – there are no words from you for several very long breaths, in which you clear your throat.

“I…do not feel well.” Your voice is sudden, thick with some hint of insistence – though your spine does not bend, it does not yield; a small breath as your head cranes up. Paul sees a glint of eyes through the ripple of green. “Please, if you would excuse me.”

It is not below Paul to entertain your fib – for your sake, sure; but rather for the growing weight of bitterness that festers in his chest each time he thinks of what is to come. Paul escorts you to your chambers in a tense silence that echoes only the footfalls and the swishing of velveted fabric.

You slip into your chambers with a polite and half-whispered thanks to his looming frame. Paul watches the fabric of your dress curl around the corner as the door shuts.

Upon his return to his own quarters, Paul catches Hestia; a girl known long before she began working for the House. He requests she bring you some bread and cheese, and send Dr. Yueh to check on you once more.

An insistent tapping grates in his mind as he stalks the corridor towards his rooms; a clock from halls away, ticking away the seconds – hands clench, flex; an itching shiver down his spine as he turns corner towards his chambers. A flicker of green around the corner just across the hall sends his stomach to tense, stilling in a moment of suspicion; hackles raised, Paul blinks away paranoia as a Houseworker trims a houseplant. A hand swipes over his visage, massaging his eyes.

Threats demand evolution.

The memory of your voice pierces his thoughts – and without a second thought, he turns heel and makes towards the training room, fingers itching for a blade.

follow @sandpoet for notifications & updates.

#the more i edit this story #the more i see the leaking traits of house Stark #its so awkward #i would NEVER be in that fandom!#<- me when i lie #paul atreides x you #paul atredies x reader #dune fanfiction #dune 2021 #dune movie #dune part one #paul atreides x reader #paul atreides fanfic #paul atreides smut

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wttcsms · 1 year ago

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sweet everything, atsumu miya ; one shot collection

SWEET EVERYTHING┆this just in: maybe he can be fixed. atsumu miya used to make news as a longtime bachelor who considered marriage to be "settling down" and as someone who prides himself on "never settling", it's clear the only ring he cares about comes from a championship. barely seven years after this iconic interview, atsumu miya walks away from professional volleyball as a devoted husband and father to the most adorable little toddlers who test his stamina as he chases after them.

a collection of inter-connected (mostly fluffy) one shots and drabbles centered around husband/dad!atsumu, maintaining the honeymoon phase of marriage, and the family antics that occur when his children inherit his wild, brash nature <3

triple trouble┆before his early retirement from the game, new dad atsumu steals every reporters' attention as he shows the world his triplets during a post-game conference; only, it's really his babies that have everyone so entertained.

number one┆atsumu's always reassured you that he doesn't mind leaving behind his professional career to spend more time with the family, but the media gets to him. his creeping doubt and feelings of regret only amplify when he walks into his office to see that his sons have accidentally destroyed his trophy case, all his awards and plaques dented, ruined, or shattered into pieces on the floor. — coming soon!

my heart hits rewind┆noted as one of the longest standing (and healthy) relationships in celebrity circles, people online always speculate on how you and atsumu are still so in love with each other, especially after having kids that are constantly vying for your attention. alternatively: 5 times you and atsumu try get some alone time + the 1 time you two finally get a date night. — coming soon!

honeymoon fades┆you and atsumu celebrate your wedding anniversary (nsfw). — coming soon!

i want your dreary mondays┆before the marriage and your kids, it's just you and atsumu trying to figure things out. or: atsumu realizes he wants to spend his whole life with you and does everything in his power to convince you to stay by his side (even though you never really did need much convincing). (nsfw) — coming soon!

author's note a little throwback to my bleedinqhearts days lol!!! i hope you all miss dad!atsumu as much as i did <3

fan art inspired by the fics (from my old blog <3) triplets ami & atsumu

#atsumu miya x you #atsumu miya x reader #dad!atsumu #domestic fluff #fluff #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #hq fluff #one shot #drabble #haikyuu headcanons #series: sweet everything #atsumu x reader #smut #hq fanfic #atsumu smut

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salty-tang · 22 days ago

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favours owed (three-shot pt3)

Congressman!Bucky Barnes x Congresswoman!Reader (mostly canon compliant)

Summary: Congressman Bucky Barnes does not like owing favours, least of all to you.

congressman bucky x congresswoman reader (set just before, and crosses into the beginning of, Thunderbolts*)

Warnings/tags: EXPLICIT SEXUAL CONTENT, Original Characters, Porn With Plot, Explicit Sexual Content, Oral Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Teasing, Massage, Begging, Cunnilingus, Semi-Public Sex, Political Drama, No established relationship, Enthusiastic Consent, Female Orgasm bucky barnes may not know how to politic but he does know how to eat a lady out, Congressman Bucky Barnes, Congresswoman Reader, mild thunderbolts* (the movie) spoilers

A/N: These interns are OCs with common names, which is a gamble given how large the Marvel universe is. If there's a name overlap, it's not intentional!

favours owed masterpost || AO3 || congressman bucky masterpost

Back on the museum floor, the auction is just about to start. Low murmurs drift across marble, silver taps gently against crystal – it’s the kind of orchestrated civility that only ever happens in rooms lined with stolen antiquities and stress-tested diplomacy.

You and Bucky re enter through one of the side entrances, composed. The interns clock you immediately from their post at the welcome desk. They’ve been posted there under the pretense of helping with donor inquiries, but are, in practice, operating the universally understood intern backstage pass.

Jenna, Bucky’s communications intern, is the first to spot you. She stiffens, nearly dropping her phone. “They’re back,” she murmurs, low and urgent without once looking away. “Side entrance, eleven o’clock. Act normal.”

Three heads swivel in sync instantly; there is nothing normal about that.

Devon, one of yours, exhales and squints. “That’s not a ‘we needed a break’ walk. That’s a ‘we just gave the Ethics Committee a case study in inter-office violations – in a utility closet’ walk.”

Mills, who’s been shadowing your policy team for the better part of the year, looks troubled. “I sincerely hope it’s actually not a utility closet. That would just be… awful.”

Jenna’s gaze sharpens to a surgical point. “She’s touched up her lipstick,” she notes, voice flat. “But not her dress. And his tie’s just that bit off-center.”

Tapping rapidly, she captures a photo. Timestamped. Filed.

Micah, Bucky’s other communications intern and last of the four interns present tonight, leans in, voice tight. “You really think they’d do it here?”

Jenna cuts him off without sparing him a sideways glance. Her phone is out and she is typing like a woman possessed. “I think we’re moments from a once-in-a-generation Congressional scandal. And I, for one, plan to be first on the witness list.”

They watch as your steps align – smiles fixed, elbows exactly five inches apart, not four – clearly the result of careful calibration. Bucky trails a half-step behind, jacket back on, tie slightly off-center, hair losing the slick polish it had hours ago. Jenna’s eyes flick to the distance and back like she’s reading classified intel.

“Choreographed,” Devon whistles, voice laced with respect. “No way that’s instinct. That’s West Wing-level blocking. Romantic espionage, but policy-adjacent.”

The four interns, with the silent intensity of people who are definitely not doing what they’re paid to be doing, observe your return like analysts monitoring foreign dignitaries at an unannounced summit.

“For sure something happened,” Micah whispers to Devon.

“No kidding,” Devon mutters. “They left in the middle of cocktail hour. And now she’s holding her wine glass in her left hand. She always holds it in her right.”

“And Barnes is blinking weird,” Jenna’s voice is sharp with suspicion. “Like he’s trying not to look at her, which means he’s absolutely thinking about looking at her.”

Micah comes to a stand beside her, craning his neck so he can get a better view. “He adjusted his tie three times since they walked in. One more and we’re officially in DEFCON territory.”

“Look at how they move around each other,” Mills murmurs, eyes narrowing like she’s trying to solve a diplomatic crisis using only the power of observation. “That’s not tension, that’s aftermath.”

The group falls silent as they watch Bucky murmur something to you. You don’t laugh, but you smile in that slow, familiar way that suggests that the words were not just funny, but intimate. You nod, eyes fixed on the stage where another lot is being presented, but your body is angled toward him just a fraction more than is necessary. Five degrees, maybe. Enough.

“I feel like I need to file an ethics disclosure form just for witnessing this,” Jenna mutters.

Mills exhales. “Do we… say something?”

“We gather evidence,” Devon says simply. “We compile a list. We bide our time.”

“And then?” Mills asks.

“We wait for them to slip,” Devon replies, calmly. “They always do.”

Micah snorts. “You mean like right now?”

Jenna doesn’t reply. She’s already typing something into the shared team Slack, fingers moving fast.

#team-barnes-internals

Friday, 8:17 PM [JENNA] BARNES UPDATE: he’s back. With her. They disappeared for almost an hour. Hair: wrecked. Tie: loose. Moral high ground: gone. [MIKE – COMMS DIRECTOR] what level of DEFCON are we talking [JENNA] 3? 2.5? higher if she calls him “Bucky” in public [MIKE] ok. smiling through it. regroup after auction. god help us if NYT gets photos

Devon glances up from peering over Jenna’s shoulder – and locks eyes with you across the room. You raise an eyebrow, ever so slightly. It’s a half-second flicker of recognition.

He immediately looks away, face heating. “She knows,” he mutters under his breath.

“She always knows,” Mills says, half in awe, half in dread. “She can spot a leak through three layers of metaphor.”

“Either way,” Devon sighs, “we’re so, so screwed.”

⁕⁕⁕

Released from their welcome table duties, the interns reconvene near the canapé station, where they are loading up on free food, debating the merits of EVOO, and covertly observing you and Bucky’s every move.

Jenna opens the shared spreadsheet titled Operation StarCrossed: Circumstantial Evidence Log and begins to narrate while typing:

Returned together via side entrance (suspicious)

Sustained proximity = 5 inches (measured against wine glass)

Charged eye contact x3

Silence tense enough to power the entire wing

Shared smirk cadence = 1.6 sec delay = deeply practiced

“I mean,” Devon says between bites of an unremarkable crostini, “Barnes just laughed at a joke from that German philanthropist. Barnes doesn’t laugh. He scowls. At best he does the exhale-through-nose thing.”

“He’s soft-smiling,” Mills mutters. “Which he really only does when she’s around. Remember the Jarkata trip pitch?”

Micah nods grimly. “She said his closing needed tightening and he actually said thank you. With a smile. I’ve seen him take military briefings with more defensiveness.”

“To be fair, it’s not like he’s had great history with the army,” Devon retorts.

Across the floor, the bidding continues at an unhurried pace. Bucky leans in slightly to say something. Your expression doesn’t change, but your hand tightens almost imperceptibly on your glass. A flicker, a microsecond reaction. To most, it would pass unnoticed.

But the interns are trained to notice.

“If they drop one more ‘we’re just colleagues’ look,” Devon mutters, “I swear to God I’ll leak it to Legal on an anonymous post-it.”

“They’re not obvious to normies,” Jenna says, typing with renewed fervor. “They’re obvious to us. The chronically observant. The permanently caffeinated.”

Meanwhile, your chair is now angled slightly toward Bucky’s. Not a full pivot, it’s tilted just enough that, under the linen, your knees might brush. He passes you the auction program with a neutral expression. You take it without looking at him.

Five seconds later, you both smile at the stage at the exact same time.

Not at each other. Never at each other.

But the timing is suspiciously perfect.

Mills exhales like she’s watching the final act of a Jane Austen drama. “God, this is slow-burn torture.”

“They invented emotional repression and now they’re using it against us,” Micah mutters. “And everyone thinks we’re just out here learning about macroeconomic policy and the inner mechanisms of governance.”

Jenna saves and closes the spreadsheet with a flourish. “All I’m learning here is how two people can radiate tension so thick it could set the building aflame, all without ever losing their damn composure. A masterclass in mutually assured emotional destruction.”

Micah raises a plastic flute of flat prosecco. “To emotional detachment and its close cousin, unresolved trauma.”

They all clink.

From the stage, the auctioneer calls the next item. You lean over to whisper something to Bucky – his brow lifts, and his smile does that restrained, corner-only thing. Your fingers almost touch on the tablecloth.

The interns die a little more inside.

And so the auction goes on.

⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕⁕

A/N: and that's a wrap on this!

EDIT 26/05/2025: full-fledged chapter fic announcement! i love the idea of congressman bucky so much it inspired a whole slow burn on capitol hill romance LOL join the fun at For the Record

<<pt 2 || AO3 || -END-

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notadreamurr · 1 month ago

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Oh, pomni, you exist purely for my amusement.

#the amazing inter dimensional post office #po pomni #i hate her so much #i just wanna squish her #i hope her and that got damn post office explode #tadc #the amazing digital circus #art #fanart #tadc fanart #tadc au #pomni

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seat-safety-switch · 9 months ago

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"Get in the fucking car, loser. My name is Detective Tina Clownhater, I came from Upper Precinct, and we're going to the fucking circus. One of the clowns was found dead in among about 72 others stuffed into a tiny car, and we think it's Japanese."

"The car?"

"The clown."

I'd heard of Detective Clownhater before. Read some of her reports when they came around the inter-office mail. Circus division. She also did carnivals, which people think is the same thing, but really it isn't. As we rode in silence to the Carny District, I decided I wasn't going to like her. Mostly, it was because she still clung to an outmoded, indulgent, and inefficient mode of transportation known as the 2003 detective-issue Crown Victoria. My own City II Turbo would have been a much more enjoyable ride, but I didn't want to press the issue. Chief was already getting on my case about racking up the mileage per diem anyway.

Maybe I should introduce myself, too. My name is Archibald Shitpope, and I'm a detective for the city police. Every detective here specializes in something – they figured it was more efficient than having us all fight over the same books in detective school – and for me, my passion carried me to Japanese-made economy cars. You'd be surprised how often they crop up in my cases. This was going to be a bit outside of my remit, being a Japanese-made economy clown, but I'm a professional. I'd do the job.

I regretted that promise as soon as we stepped onto the crime scene. Besides the copious amount of blood and viscera thrown about the scene ("explosive decompression," explained Todd the CSI, in between Instagram updates of the most grotesque parts,) the clowns had been stuffed into a Fiat. An Italian-made shitbox. It's amazing they weren't burned alive. From what we could tell from interviews, the clown used to be Takenobu Unchipiero, a famous clown actor in his home country. Top of the industry, I was assured. After a series of gambling scandals, he was forced to retreat to North America, where our standards for clowns are much lower.

I was about to ask Detective Clownhater to buy some business-class tickets to Tokyo so we could "chase up some leads" – I wanted to buy an S660 while the auction market was still soft – but the amount of boiling rage behind her eyes indicated to me that she had already assumed I was going to do that. Instead, I returned to my work of checking the crime scene and interviewing witnesses, only intermittently pausing to take a look at the latest wheels posted to Up Garage's terrible website.

That's when Todd cracked it for us. While mopping up what was left of poor Takenobu, an artificial heart fell out. I couldn't help but notice its unique design: a triangular pump that spun eccentrically in a housing. A rotary engine, in other words. No normal person would have such a heart. Mr. Unchipiero was up to his neck in debt with the Wankel Mafia.

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zangelone · 7 months ago

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Artist time intruder!

(couldn't decide which one to post, so both it is!)

Post office au by @notadreamurr

Also-

Mascot AU Gangle design revealed!

Bonus stuff under cut!

#tadc au #au #the amazing digital circus #art #original art #the amazing digital mascots #amazing digital mascots #mascot au #sketch #mascot!gangle #gangle the amazing digital circus #gangle au #gangle fanart #tadc gangle #gangle #the amazing inter dimensional post office

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otherkinnews · 7 months ago

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Russia proposes banning quadrobics and furry fandom

[This article was originally posted on the main blog for Otherkin News, on DreamWidth: https://otherkinnews.dreamwidth.org/95252.html Orion Scribner @frameacloud wrote it on December 8, 2024.]

The Kremlin-aligned Safe Internet League is an organization for censoring the internet in Russia and educating the public about risks they may encounter there. The State Duma Committee on Family, Women and Children helped establish the organization in 2011. The League’s Ombudsman is Irina Volynets. In the spring of 2024, Volynets said that the furry fandom and quadrobics are both dangerous hobbies. She said that furries dress as pigs and eat from troughs. (Later, a furry explained to the news that they don’t do that.) Soon afterward, Volynets claimed to have received death threats from quadrobists, which she said shows they’re generally hostile. The League doesn’t plan to ban cartoons for having furry characters. Instead, they want to ban quadrobics and furry fans for encouraging “crazy” behavior and having direct connections with LGBT. Russia bans LGBT for allegedly being an extremist movement.

At the end of the summer of 2024, Russian pop singer Mia Boyka humiliated a small child for expressing an interest in quadrobics. Boyka derided the cat-masked child to tears on the concert stage in front of a booing audience. Boyka then posted a video clip of that to her TikTok, asking her followers what they thought of quadrobics. The child’s parents filed a police report, because they hadn’t consented to Boyka doing any of this. The child had been brought on stage because she had gotten lost at the concert so her parents could come find her. Other celebrities and authorities scolded Boyka for her cruelty. Yekaterina Mizulina, head of the Safe Internet League, wrote to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation that she thought that what Boyka did was unacceptable treatment of a child, even though she didn’t support quadrobics either.

In September, soon after Boyka’s video clip went viral, Russian Senator Natalia Kosikhina proposed banning quadrobics. The Senator claimed that the sport was dangerous because supposedly, quadrobist teens attack and bite people who visit parks. So far, I haven’t found names, dates, or proof that those sorts of attacks actually happened. State Duma deputy Svetlana Bessarab says the ban is unnecessary, because the Code of Administrative Offenses would cover any bad behavior that could develop in connection with the hobby, whereas the hobby itself is a healthy form of play.

Something consistent across the articles that I read about this is that they describe quadrobics as a fashionable hobby among children and teens, derived from normal ways that smaller children play, and connected with the furry fandom. They don’t mention therianthropes.

About the author: Orion Scribner is a moderator on the Otherkin News blog. I used machine translation to get the gist of the Russian-language sources, which isn't a real translation, so I welcome corrections to that from fluent speakers. However, I never write articles with the assistance of procedural generation or so-called artificial intelligence (AI), and that type of content isn’t allowed on this blog.

Annotated List of Sources

Fliskaya, Anna, and Lomeiko, Alexandra (Анна Флиская, Александра Ломейко) (September 11, 2024). “Больше запретов — выше интерес. Кому и чем не угодили квадроберы.” (“More bans, more interest. Who and what did not please the quadrobists.”) 360.ru. https://360.ru/news/obschestvo/bolshe-zapretov-vyshe-interes-komu-i-chem-ne-ugodili-kvadrobery/ Archived September 27, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20240927163837/https://360.ru/news/obschestvo/bolshe-zapretov-vyshe-interes-komu-i-chem-ne-ugodili-kvadrobery/

Bessarab’s interview with 360.ru, where he said the ban isn’t necessary. 360.ru is the news site counterpart of the TV satellite channel called "360°," which has 24-hour news. It's owned by the Russian government, and I noticed in one of the other articles from them that they had distorted the facts of events.

Kedr.Media (September 12, 2024). “«Может привести к трагическим последствиям». В Совфеде заявили о необходимости запрета квадробинга — детского подражания животным.” (“‘It could lead to tragic consequences.’ The Federation Council has declared the need to ban quad-racing — children's imitation of animals.”) Kedr.Media.https://kedr.media/news/mozhet-privesti-k-tragicheskim-posledstviyam-v-sovfede-zayavili-o-neobhodimosti-zapreta-kvadrobinga-detskogo-podrazhaniya-zhivotnym/ Archived December 4, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20241204123625/https://kedr.media/news/mozhet-privesti-k-tragicheskim-posledstviyam-v-sovfede-zayavili-o-neobhodimosti-zapreta-kvadrobinga-detskogo-podrazhaniya-zhivotnym/

About the proposed ban, and how psychologists and authorities don’t support the ban and think it’s okay for children to be quadrobists. Kedr.Media is an independent social media blog that usually covers news about the environment.

Kholodov, Vlad (Влад Холодов) (April 26, 2024). “Психиатр Федорович: Увлечение «фурри» может нарушить психику ребенка.” (“Psychiatrist Fedorovich: The furry fandom can violate the psyche of the child.”) Общественно�� службе новостей (Public News Source). https://www.osnmedia.ru/obshhestvo/psihiatr-fedorovich-uvlechenie-furri-mozhet-narushit-psihiku-rebenka/ Archived May 26, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20240526235959/https://www.osnmedia.ru/obshhestvo/psihiatr-fedorovich-uvlechenie-furri-mozhet-narushit-psihiku-rebenka/

This is the original interview with the children’s psychiatrist Alexander Fedorovich about the furry fandom. Despite the clickbait headline, Federovich says that the furry fandom isn’t inherently bad for children, but parents should supervise and pull children out of it if they get into age-inappropriate risks. That seems reasonable, but he does make a strange claim that role-play can interfere with a child’s developing sense of identity, and that it would be healthy only if they do not have an animal character all the time.

Kosolapova, Tatiana (Татьяна Косолапова) (September 12, 2024). “Психолог рассказала, как вести себя при встрече с агрессивными квадроберами” (“The psychologist told how to behave when meeting with aggressive quadrobist.”) Vzglyad. https://vz.ru/news/2024/9/12/1286730.html Archived November 8, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20241108083139/https://vz.ru/news/2024/9/12/1286730.html In Russian.

An interview with a psychotherapist from Moscow State University, Vera Sukhikh, about what she thinks of quadrobics. She praises their athleticism as they play outside, and doesn’t think it’s inherently any harm. The journalist claims that quadrobists attack and bite people. The psychotherapist doesn’t actually agree that that happens, but advises that if they do attack you, they’re only children, so you should just explain to them that’s not appropriate behavior. Media Bias Fact Check rates this newspaper as a questionable source with propaganda and many failed fact checks.

Lutsenko, Nadezhda, and Petrov, Anatoly (Надежда Луценко, Анатолий Петров). (September 5, 2024). “«Замаскированная форма экстремизма». В России призвали запретить движение квадроберов.” (“‘A Disguised Form of Extremism’: Russia Calls for Banning Quadrobics Movement.”) 360.ru.https://360.ru/tekst/obschestvo/zamaskirovannaja-forma-ekstremizma-v-rossii-prizvali-zapretit-dvizhenie-kvadroberov/ Archived October 8, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20241008065407/https://360.ru/tekst/obschestvo/zamaskirovannaja-forma-ekstremizma-v-rossii-prizvali-zapretit-dvizhenie-kvadroberov/

Political scientist Alexei Yaroshenko has an interview with 360.ru about what he thinks of quadrobics. He says Russia should recognize quadrobics as an extremist movement and banned. He says quadrobists attack passersby because when people imitate animal behavior, they are no longer guided by human morals. He says it’s the same as how people can be transgender in the West. He compares it with the “Blue Whale Challenge,” and says that quadrobics is also a deadly game. (Orion’s note: the Blue Whale Challenge is an urban legend. It was a moral panic in 2016 where people were afraid that millions of youth were committing suicide as the climax of a specific series of dares being given to them by administrators on social media.) He says that if children play on all fours, then next they will want to cross the street at the wrong place, as animals do. Everything he said was out of touch with reality. This is also the only source I read that claimed that the pop singer hadn’t really insulted the little child, that she had told her she was beautiful without her mask. That’s a distortion of facts, because independent news sources and Kremlin-aligned ones had all agreed that the pop star had gone too far in mistreating the child.

Moscow Times Reporter (September 13, 2024). “What Is Quadrobics, Russia’s Viral But Divisive Youth Subculture?” The Moscow Times. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/09/13/what-is-quadrobics-russias-viral-but-divisive-youth-subculture-a86370 Archived October 8, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20241008073201/https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/09/13/what-is-quadrobics-russias-viral-but-divisive-youth-subculture-a86370

Media Bias Fact Check rates this as a high credibility source with a left-center bias. This is the English-language source where I first heard about this. Hat tip to Mord for having posted a link to it in the Discord server for the Otherkin Wiki. Many of the other sources that I’m listing here, I learned about them from this article.

Mustafa, Samer (Самер Мустафа) (September 11, 2024). “В России предложили запретить квадроберов.” (“Russia proposes banning quadrobics.”) Gazeta.ru. https://www.gazeta.ru/politics/news/2024/09/11/23896279.shtml?updated

Media Bias Fact Check says this is “one of Russia’s leading online newspapers,” but rates the newspaper as a questionable source, lacking in transparency. This article is a secondary source. It says RIA Novosti is the primary source for this news. That one is elsewhere in my list of sources.

Nekasrov, Ivan (Иван Некрасов) (September 3, 2024). “«Позор тебе и твоим фанатам»: Миа Бойка унизила ребенка со сцены — теперь ее требуют отменить.” (“‘Shame on you and your fans:’ Mia Boyka humiliated the child from the stage – now they demand to cancel it.”) Chita.ru. https://www.chita.ru/text/culture/2024/09/03/74039252/ Archived September 9, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20240909054834/https://www.chita.ru/text/culture/2024/09/03/74039252/ In Russian.

This magazine article goes into the most depth about the pop singer publicly humiliating a small child for liking quadrobics.

RIA Novosti (November 9, 2024). “В Совфеде предложили запретить субкультуру квадроберов.” (“The Federation Council proposed banning the quadrobics subculture.”) RIA Novosti. https://ria.ru/20240911/kvadrobery-1971964812.html Archived October 8, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20241008010414/https://ria.ru/20240911/kvadrobery-1971964812.html

About the Senator’s proposal to ban quadrobics. I think this article may be the primary source for her proposal. It sounds like she said it directly to this newspaper. If there’s a legal source for the proposed ban itself, I don’t know where to look for it. Media Bias Fact Check rates this Russian government owned newspaper as a questionable source with state propaganda and many failed fact checks.

Titorenko, Danila (Данила Титоренко) (April 23, 2024). “В Татарстане рассказали о новой вредоносной субкультуре с Запада.” (“Tatarstan talks about a new harmful subculture from the West.”) Gazeta.ru. https://www.gazeta.ru/social/news/2024/04/23/22855358.shtml

Volynets says she will fight the furry fandom because it is from the West. She says that furries engage in psychologically destructive behavior, such as– she claims– eating out of troughs like pigs.

Vesnina, Alexandra (Александра Веснина) (April 27, 2024). “«Размытие границ»: Волынец увидела в квадробике расчеловечивание.” (“‘Blurring the Lines’: Volynets Sees Dehumanization in the Quadrobists.”) Национальная служба новостей (National News Service). https://nsn.fm/society/razmytie-granits-volynets-uvidela-v-kvadrobike-raschelovechivanie Archived November 1, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20241101212302/https://nsn.fm/society/razmytie-granits-volynets-uvidela-v-kvadrobike-raschelovechivanie

Volynets announced in Russia's National News Service press center that after she spoke against quadrobists, she received death threats.

Vesnina, Alexandra (Александра Веснина) (April 27, 2024). “«Дурачество!»: Милонов предрек исчезновение квадробики через полгода.” (“‘Stupidity!’: Milonov predicts quadrobics will disappear in six months.”) Национальная служба новостей (National News Service)https://nsn.fm/society/durost-milonov-predrek-ischeznovenie-kvadrobiki-cherez-polgoda Archived April 27, 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20240427112916/https://nsn.fm/society/durost-milonov-predrek-ischeznovenie-kvadrobiki-cherez-polgoda

Vitaly Milnov is the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Family Protection, Paternity, Motherhood and Childhood. He says that the furry fandom and quadrobics are foolish teen fads that come from Japan and Korea. He says everyone will forget about it later this year.

Zakarian, Ekaterina (April 23, 2024). “Фурри заявили Ирине Волынец, что не подражают свиньям и не едят из корыта.” (“Furry told Irina Volynets that they do not imitate pigs and do not eat from troughs.”) Gazeta.ru. https://www.gazeta.ru/social/news/2024/04/23/22856132.shtml?updated

An anonymous administrator of a furry fandom community on the social media network VKontakte spoke up about how Volynets is spreading misinformation about furry fans. He says they don’t imitate animal behavior or eat from troughs, as Volynets claimed. Instead, they appreciate cartoon animals that behave like humans, including those from Soviet cartoons, not just from the West.

Zamanova, Rosalia (Розалия Заманова) (April 26, 2024). “Психиатр заявил об опасности субкультуры фурри для психики ребенка.” (“Psychiatrist warns about the dangers of a furry subculture for the psyche of the child.”) Gazeta.ru. https://www.gazeta.ru/social/news/2024/04/26/22877533.shtml

This is a secondary source reporting on the Public News Source’s interview with the children’s psychiatrist Alexander Federovich, which I have elsewhere in this list of sources.

Zamanova, Rosalia (Розалия Заманова) (May 2, 2024). “Волынец заявила об угрозах от представителей квадробика.” (“Volynets reported threats from representatives of quadrobics.”) Gazeta.ru. https://www.gazeta.ru/social/news/2024/05/02/22918993.shtml

Volynets claims that after she started writing on social media that quadrobists are dangerous, she received death threats from them.

Zamanova, Rosalia (Розалия Заманова) (September 12, 2024). “В Госдуме не поддержали идею запретить квадроберов в России.” (“Duma did not support banning quadrobics in Russia.”) Gazeta.ru. https://www.gazeta.ru/social/news/2024/09/12/23906437.shtml

This is a secondary source about the interview with 360.ru.

#quadrobics #quadrobist #quadrobists #quadrober #quadrobers #quads #furry #furry fandom #furry fan #furry fans #endogenic safe #квадроберов #Фурри

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darsynia · 3 months ago

Text

Crew Resource Management | Lloyd/f!reader

HAPPY APRIL FOOLS! This is not okay. At all. Though it's me so that's probably hilariously naive of me to say.

Summary: Lloyd pulls a practically unforgivable April Fool's prank WC/Warnings: 2,400 | Explicit sex, the mustache gets WORSE

Excerpt:

Lloyd’s leaning up against the wall reading a Russian newspaper when you bring the completed folder over. You can tell by the way his hands tighten on the newsprint that he heard your high heels clicking on the marble floor, but you’re wholly unprepared for what you see when he lowers the pages.

“Holy shit, is that a, a Chaplin mustache?” one of the armorers stutters, almost dropping the gun he’s cleaning.

“Not at all,” Lloyd says warmly--but now that you can see his face, there it is, clear as day. You can even see a little hint of stubble on either side of the damned thing.

The entire office falls silent.

CREW RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

“Wait, you’re dating that guy?”

“Dating? No. I’m not crazy.” You make a note to buy a pack of thumbtacks to jam into Raoul Belloq’s leather seats the next time you cross paths. “You should know your boss only told you my boss and I are involved to fuck up your dynamic on this op. Do better.”

“Rich to hear that phrase from a woman with so little self respect,” the woman says, but there’s an uneasy edge to her melodic French accent that tells you she doesn’t know about the Hansen-Belloq rivalry. Amateur.

“There’s self respect, and then there’s knowing what it’s like to be railed by that big meaty dick.” Your eyebrows lift skyward, and as you speak you can feel your neck doing that sassy thing Lloyd does when he’s being a douche. Ugh. Fucking is one thing, but mannerisms?

Belloq’s loaner (Isabeau? Isolde? Whatever) is staring now, but Hinata just calls out from behind two monitors; “Oh, does he have a big penis too?”

You snicker a little louder than you otherwise would have, just to ruffle ‘Isabette’s’ feathers. Before you can retort, a voice booms from the open doorway.

“You’ll never find out, Hin. You’re too ugly for a pity fuck.” Lloyd Hansen strides in, a rumpled folder in one hand. He holds it up in front of his face. “Someone pull out and redo the pages that have blood on them. I need these font-matched and printed in 30 minutes.” You hold out your hand, but he stops a foot away from the newcomer, waving his hand near his nose with his free hand. “Someone smells French.”

“Raoul told me you’d be rude,” the woman snaps.

“He told me you’d be mostly useless. Disprove the ‘mostly’ part.” Lloyd thrusts the folder right into her chest, spins on his heel, and stalks off to the coffee station.

“Free computer right here,” you offer.

‘Isadora’ rushes over, which is something, you suppose. She starts sorting the loose pages and mutters, “How can anyone work well together like this?”

“Closed ecosystem. Believe it or not, that ‘ugly’ line was a compliment.” Hinata grins. “He has terrible taste in women.”

“And that was an insult. A pretty lazy one, too,” you chime in, tuning your voice to a lower register to add, “Maybe it’s deserved; I have even worse taste in men.” From across the room, you see Lloyd tense up for a few seconds. He loves when you use that voice on him, but you’ve never done it at work before. Then again, your track record for reading him is abysmal, even weeks into… whatever the fuck the two of you are doing.

You focus on the task at hand, glad to see that Belloq isn’t as shitty at picking operatives as he is at inter-organizational ‘warfare.’

It’s just about 28 minutes later when you and ‘Isabert’ finish the job. You’d decided to print out everything and post-stress the paper so it doesn’t feel so ‘fresh,’ in case there’s a non-zero chance of matching printer quirks.

Lloyd’s leaning up against the wall reading a Russian newspaper when you bring it over. You can tell by the way his hands tighten on the newsprint that he heard your high heels clicking on the marble floor, but you’re wholly unprepared for what you see when he lowers the pages.

“Holy shit, is that a, a Chaplin mustache?” one of the armorers stutters, almost dropping the gun he’s cleaning.

“Not at all,” Lloyd says warmly--but now that you can see his face, there it is, clear as day. You can even see a little hint of stubble on either side of the damned thing.

The entire office falls silent.

“I give up. This is no fit place to work!” Belloq’s tech declares, clutching her things in front of her like a shield.

Lloyd smirks. “I knew you’d surrender.”

The rest of the day is taken up by work. Lloyd heads off to meet with an informant, leaving his phone behind as requested. Every so often it buzzes with messages and the screen wakes up, showing off that he’d changed the image to a movie poster for The Great Dictator. It’s almost the end of the day when you pass by the phone again, right as it buzzes with a rejected call.

The name listed is one you recognize. It’s a woman your team uses for disguises, including prosthetics and wigs. The message says, ‘Let me know how long it lasts. You know, for science.’

You’re almost disappointed--but just then, a string of profanity sounds out from behind one of the tech analyst’s computers.

“Share with the group?” you ask, instantly recognizing Lloyd’s influence in your vitriolic tone. Goddamnit.

“It’s April Fool’s today. I can’t believe I got excited about a DC/Marvel crossover film! Fucking Disney!”

Everyone left in the room starts talking at once, most of them saying they’d held back pointing out the ‘holiday’ to keep from ruining the ruse for anyone who didn’t realize. Soon enough they all trickle out, and you’re the only one left.

It’s the day you and Lloyd usually have your Toxic Coworkers With Benefits time, but you pack up anyway. Far be it from you to meddle with science! He almost certainly didn’t get enough attention for his stunt, and you’d love to see him try to sleep without fucking the thing up--or will he show up with it looking ratty tomorrow and wait for someone to comment?

You go to lock up the main room, but the key doesn’t want to go in. You struggle with it for a second before you’re suddenly pulled back into a solid, familiar body. Lloyd’s hand slides around the waistband of your suit skirt, seeking the clasp. You stay silent and enjoy the adrenaline rush as he finds it, sliding all four fingers past it and abruptly turning them sideways.

He swears under his breath and pulls his hand back, growling in your ear and nipping at your shoulder through your jacket and blouse.

“Oh no, did the metal clasp give you a boo-boo?” you croon. “I had to start buying the expensive ones because you popped the buttons off like four different ones, asshole.”

He doesn’t say anything, but you can feel the evidence of his interest through both sets of clothes. You arch your back for the friction, held close by his other hand heavy against your stomach. Lloyd chuckles and brings his injured hand up against your lips.

“Suck.”

You flick your tongue out to push against the boundaries of both his injury and his patience. Both are puny. You’re almost knocked off your feet by the suddenness of his movements, spinning you around and yanking the hem of your pencil skirt up to your waist. You catch a glimpse of his unzipped cream-colored trousers straining around the bulge of his dick, held up only by his still-cinched belt. He’s wearing dark crimson boxers, and it’s so fastidiously hot, you can’t resist pressing up against him, grabbing two handfuls of his preppy-ass shirt to pull his head down to kis--

You shove him away.

“Take it off.”

“Which part, honeymuffin?”

“The rat-tail under your nose.”

Lloyd strokes a languid hand along the thick line of his cock jutting through his gaping zipper and tuts. “You called this meaty earlier.”

You’re horny and pissed off, and absolutely not. In seconds, you’ve got your fingers digging at the edge of his outrageous lip prosthetic, ripping it off. Lloyd doubles over, one hand at his face and the other at his crotch, and all you can think is that he deserves it. Which is probably the most Lloyd-like thought you’ve ever had, Jesus fucking Christ, the things this man does to you.

You’re still standing there like a vengeful spurned lover (which you are. No way did he think you’d fuck him wearing that), the thrice-damned fake mustache prosthetic dangling from your hand when he stands up. He’s undone his belt buckle, so his pants drop to pool around his shoes, which is somehow hot. It’s unfair.

“I should have expected that,” Lloyd says, but he doesn’t sound angry. He sounds like he’s barely holding in the kind of glee that only comes out when he’s sniped Belloq’s target out from under him for free.

Then his hand drops.

The Hitler mustache is still there.

“Somehow you’re more quiet now than when you’re choking on my cock,” Lloyd observes, obviously amused. “As usual, you didn’t see this coming.”

You shiver just thinking about it. He’s really good at getting you to orgasm unexpectedly. It’s his full lips and those clever, thick fingers, even more so his chaotic, corrosive personality.

“I can’t believe you made it worse!” you groan, unable to maintain your fury with the heat of arousal burning you up. Damn him.

He kicks sharply, pulling free of his puddled pants while somehow still looking darkly menacing as he advances on you, lips curving into a smile underneath that damned mustache.

You lift your chin. “I’m not fucking you with that thing on your face. No one is. No one hates themselves that much.”

“You do.” He’s approaching with stupidly sexy menace. “But you’re no desperate, obedient bitch. You’re a thoroughbred. You need to be broken.”

He stops two feet away and pulls off his polo in a single, fluid movement, reaching for his undershirt next. The two of you are standing in the foyer of your office space, and he’s stripping you emotionally bare even as he takes every scrap of his own clothing off.

“Fuck off.”

“Oh, I will. Inside you.”

You are so screwed, because this is maybe everything you ever wanted.

Crossing your arms tightly over your chest, you fix your eyes on his ridiculously offensive mustache and ignore the rest of his spectacular physique as best you can. He’s moving toward you, stalking you like prey, and you’re so wet he’s going to mock you for it.

“We’re both punishing ourselves here,” Lloyd says conversationally as he hooks the index finger from each hand into the thin lace of your panties, pulling them away from your hips as if testing the elastic. You tense up, ready for him to turn feral, ripping and taking and wrecking--but his expression turns as tender as you’ve ever seen it. He inclines his head, but you know him. His kisses are dominant, careless, pleasure-seeking on his behalf only.

You turn your head away, gritting your teeth, and that’s when Lloyd drags that motherfucking mustache from your chin across your cheek, ending with his soft lips whispering in your ear.

“Beg me.”

You’re corralled with so much tension on your underwear, his naked, muscular body looming over your mostly-clothed one, and one word keeps echoing in your head, his favorite rebuke, the one he’s somehow never wielded during your reckless intimacy.

“Boring,” you spit. “Predictable.”

As you knew he would, Lloyd rips his hands away from your hips, tearing the delicate lace to shreds. With your head held high you yank your skirt back down, turn away from him, and head for the door, the sharp retorts of your high heels echoing off of the high ceiling.

You expect to be grabbed, for your sopping panties to strike the back of your head, for Lloyd to make a cutting remark that ends this tumultuous mistake between the two of you once and for all. Instead, you make it all the way to the elevator unmolested, and you don’t turn around, not even when the doors close and the car starts to move. It’s the only concession you make to the shameful ache in your chest.

You tell yourself it’s because you don’t want that goddamned mustache to be the last part of his face you see--because he’s absolutely going to fire you.

Maybe you can go work for Belloq.

Deep breath in.

Long, unsatisfying breath out.

Too soon, the car stops and the doors open. You don’t have time to turn around before you’re propelled into the corner of the elevator by a panting, still-naked Lloyd. His expression is distorted in the reflective walls of the elevator, and you have to remind yourself to be scared instead of desperately turned on. He jabs his hand against the control panel and throws himself against you, hot and angry. An alarm starts to sound.

“I hired you for this,” he growls, thrusting three fingers inside you. It’s shocking and erotic, taking your breath away. “Only this. It’s all you’re good for.”

We’re both punishing ourselves.

“I love it when you talk dirty, baby,” you tell him in your most sultry, honeysoaked voice.

He lets out a grunt, grabbing your hips to anchor you for a punishing, glorious thrust. As ready as you are, the angle is almost too much, leaving you bruisingly full, fluttering your cunt against the intrusion in a way that draws a shuddering breath from Lloyd. Your hands ache from your tight grip on the railing, but you know what’s next; any second now he’ll start to piston in and out of you, driving both of you into a haze of pleasure-pain. With every second he waits, you crave that movement even more.

Lloyd holds still.

“Look at my reflection.”

“No.”

With the alarm blaring insistently, he presses his upper lip against your ear. The inveterate asshole has done this before, but his mustache was wider then.

“Look up.”

You need to be broken.

You close your eyes.

The crackling static of the intercom startles you into bearing down on his cock, prompting the hitched, involuntary moan you recognize as Lloyd’s highest praise.

“Is uh… Are you being-- do… do you need help?”

Lloyd lifts his head. “That depends. You allergic to nuts?”

“Huh?”

“Turn off the alarm and fuck off, or you’ll show up at the ER with a throatful of your own testicles.”

“But--”

“Do as the gentleman says,” you rasp, deliberately using Lloyd’s favorite voice and arching your back. He starts to chuckle, caressing his hand against your hip before slamming first one, then the other against either side of the wall.

You open your eyes without meaning to, embarrassment heating your face when you fully understand the rutting position he’s adopted. He rocks back and you make eye contact right as the static flares up again. The hapless building manager is completely drowned out by the noises both of you make when Lloyd starts fucking into you like he needs it to breathe. It’s ruinous, life-altering, far and away the best fuck of your life, eyes locked onto the ice blue triumph of your boss and his goddamned Statement Mustache.

note: the word 'pants' snuck in, sorry about that! Reader's in a skirt also I use 'somehow' a million times

#lloyd hansen x reader #lloyd x reader #the gray man fanfiction #lloyd hansen smut #happy april fools #i am going to hell #hate sex #unforgivable 'literary' choices #oblique references to hitler's mustache #just its existence is bad enough no other similar references #'friends' with benefits if by 'friends' you mean 'your toxic boss is inexplicably sexy so you deal with him being an asshole' with benefits #i'm not even sorry

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