#so i can go ahead and publish this chapter

[the-dragon-hearted]

I have once again spontaneously decided that this update shall include two chapters.

What can I say I wanted to kill off both of Makarov's parents in the same weekend :D

[derinwrites]

How can I make money writing fiction?

I'm gonna be straight with you. There is no guarantee that you'll make enough as an independent writer to make it worth your time. You very well might -- I make a liveable wage as an independent writer -- but many don't. Most writers I know also have a job. And luck plays a big part in it.

If you're interested in going forward in spite of this, you have two main options for monetisation open to you, and you are going to have to pick one. I call them the sales model and the sponsorship model, and you are going to have to pick one.

The sales model involves writing stories and selling them to readers. You can put books up on Amazon or Smashwords, sell them direct from your own website, enlist the help of a traditional publisher to handle that for you and let them decide where to sell, whatever -- the point is that your money is made from the sale of books to readers. If you go with a traditional publisher, you're using this model (though they will give you some of the money ahead of time in the form of an advance). Most indie authors also use this model, publishing through draft2digital, Ingram Spark, direct through Amazon, whatever. I've never relied on the sales model and can't give you any advice on how to do this, but Tumblr is full of indie authors who probably can.

The sponsorship model involves soliciting small amounts of money from various readers over time. This is ideal for web serials, and it's what I use. I use Patreon, which is designed specifically for this purpose, but you can use other sites such as ko-fi. This model involves providing regular content for free, with bonuses for those who support you.

"Can't I do both? Sell books and have a Patreon?" You absolutely can! I know several indie authors with a Patreon. I sell my completed books as ebooks and will eventually sell them as paperbacks. But your time and attention is limited, and so is your audience's, and you're going to have to half-arse one of these in order to have enough arse to whole-arse the other. You're going to make a lo of decisions that benefit either the sponsorship model or the sales model, not both. So pick your primary income source early and commit.

I can only advise on writing web serials and using the sponsorship model, so I'll go ahead with that assumption. If you want to make a liveable wage doing this, not only will you need luck, you'll also need patience. This is not a fast way to build a career. at the end of my first year of doing this, I had one single patron, and they were a real-life friend of mine. When I reached an income of $100/month, I threw a little party for myself, I was so happy. It had taken such a long time and was so much work. I reached enough to cover rent/mortgage after I'd been doing this for more than four years. It's a long term sort of career.

Here are some general tips for succeeding in this industry, given by me, someone with no formal training in any of this who only vaguely knows what they're talking about:

Have a consistent update schedule and STICK TO IT

The #1 indicator for stable success in this industry (aside from luck, which we're discounting because you can't do much about that) is having a consistent update schedule. Your readers need to know when the next chapter is coming out, and it should be coming out regularly. Ideally, you should have no breaks or hiatuses -- if you're in a bus crash or something, that might be unavoidable, and your readers will understand if you tell them, but if you're stopping and starting a lot for trivial reasons, they WILL abandon you. You can't get away with that shit if you're not Andrew Hussie, and I'm pretty sure Andrew Hussie doesn't message me for career advice on Tumblr. If you find you need a lot of hiatuses to write fast enough then you're updating too often; change your schedule. A regular schedule is more important than a fast one (ideally it should be both, but if you have to pick between the two, pick regular).

2. Pay attention to your readership, listen to what they want from you

Your income is based on a pretty complicated support structure when you're using the sponsorship model. this model relies on people finding your story, liking your story, and continuing to find it valuable enough to keep paying you month after month. This means that your rewards for your sponsors should be things that they value and will continue to pay for ('knowing I'm supporting an artist whose work I enjoy' counts as a thing that they value, to my great surprise; there's a lot of people giving me money just for the sake of giving me money, so I can pay my mortgage and keep writing for them without needing a second job), but it also means supporting the entire network that attracts readers and keeps them having the best time they can with your story -- being part of a rewarding community. Because this is advice on making money, I'm going to roughly divide your readership into groups based on how they affect your bottom line:

sponsors. People giving you money directly. The importance of keeping this group happy should be obvious.

administration and community helpers -- discord moderators, IT people, guys who set up fan wikis, whoever's handling your mailing list if you have a mailing list. You can do this stuff yourself, or you can hire someone to do it, but if you're incredibly lucky and people enjoy being a part of your reader community, people will sometimes volunteer to do the work for free. If you are lucky enough to get such people, respect them. They are doing you a massive favour, and they're not doing it for you, but to maintain a place that they value, and you have to respect both of those things. My discord has just shy of 1,300 members and is moderated by volunteers. I'd peel my own face off if I had to moderate a community that large. If you've got people stepping up to do work for you, you need to respect them and you need to make sure that they continue to find that rewarding by doing what you can to make sure that the community they're maintaining is rewarding. Sometimes this means taking actions and sometimes this means staying the fuck out of the way. Depending on the circumstances.

fan artists. Once you have people drawing your characters, writing fanfic of your stories, whatever, treat these like fucking gold. Give them a space to do this, and more importantly, give them a space to do this without you in it. Fanworks are a symptom of engagement with your work, which is massively important. They are also a component of a healthy community, an avenue for readers to talk to each other and express themselves creatively to each other. Third, fanworks act as a bridge for new readers. When readers share their art on, say, Tumblr, it can intrigue new people and get them into the story. Your job in all of this is to give them the space to work, encourage them as required or invited (I reblog most TTOU fanart that I'm tagged in on Tumblr, for instance), and other than that, stay the fuck out of their way. These people are vital to the liveblood of your community, the continued engagement of your audience, and the interest of your sponsors. Some of the fan artists will be sponsors themselves; some won't be. Those who aren't sponsors are still massively valuable for their art.

speculators, conversers, theorists, livebloggers, and That Guy Who's Just Really Jazzed For The Next Chapter. Some people don't make art but just like to chat about your story. These people are a bedrock of the community that's supporting your sponsors and increasing your readership, and therefore are critical to your income stream. Give them a place to talk. Be nice to them when they talk to you. Sometimes, they'll ask you questions about the story, which you can choose to answer or not, however you feel is appropriate. They'll also want to chat about non-story-related stuff with each other, so make sure they have a place to do that, too.

that guy who never talks to you or comments on anything but linked your story to ten guys in his office who all read it now. Some of your supporters are completely invisible to you. You can't do anything for these people except continue to release the story and have a forum they can silently lurk on if they want to. But, y'know, they exist.

If you want to focus on income then these are, roughly, the groups of people that you will need to listen to and accommodate for. You can generally just make sure they have space to do their thing, and if they want anything else, they'll tell you (yes, guys, paperbacks will be coming eventually). Many people will fit into multiple groups -- I have some sponsors that are in every single one of these groups except the last. Some will only be in one group. A healthy income rests on a healthy community which rests on accommodating these needs.

3. If you can manage it, try to make your story good.

It's also helpful for your story to be good. Economically, this is far less important than you'd think -- there are some people out there writing utter garbage and making a living doing it. Garbage by what standards? By whatever your standards are. Just think of the absolute laziest, emptiest, hackiest waste-of-bandwidth story you can imagine -- some guy is half-arsing that exact story and making three times what you'll ever make on Patreon doing it. And honestly? Good for him. If he's making that much then his readers are enjoying it, and that's what matters. Still, one critical component of making money as a writer is writing something that people actually want to read. And you can't trick them with web serials, because they don't pay in advance -- if they're bored, they'll just stop. So you have to make it worth their time, money and attention, and the simplest way to do that is to write a good story.

This hardly seems mentioning, since you were presumably planning to do that anyway. It's basic respect for your audience to give them something worth their time. Besides, if we're not interested in improving our craft and striving for our best, what are we even writing for? I'm sure I don't need to tell you to try to write a good story. The reason I list this is in fact the opposite -- don't let "I'm not a good enough writer" paralyse you. The world is full of someday-writers who endlessly fuss over and revise a single story because it's not good enough, it's not perfect, they're not Terry Pratchett yet. Neither was Terry Pratchett when his first books were published. If you're waiting to be good enough, you won't start. I didn't think Curse Words was good enough when I started releasing it -- I still don't. I started putting it out because I knew it was the only way I'd get myself to actually finish something. I don't think it's all that great, but you know what? An awful lot of people read it and really enjoyed it. And if I hadn't released it, I'd have been doing those people a disservice.

Also, it taught me a lot, and based on what I learned, Time to Orbit: Unknown is much better. If I'd never released Curse Words, if I hadn't seen how people read it and reacted to it and seen what worked and what didn't, then Time to Orbit: Unknown wouldn't be very good. And it certainly wouldn't be making me a living wage, because it was the years writing Curse Words that started building the momentum I have today.

And Time to Orbit: Unknown as it is today has some serious problems. Problems that I'm learning from. And the next book will be a lot better.

So that's basically my advice for making money in this industry. Be patient, be lucky, be consistent. Value your community; it's your lifeline, even the parts of it that don't directly pay you. And try to make your story as good as you can, but make that an activity you do, not a barrier to prevent you from starting.

Good luck.

[har-rison-s]

whatever you need | coryo snow x fem!reader

a/n: don't mind me, just eating pomelo and writing smut. i daydream about this piece every and all work day i have rn, it's pretty unhinged bcs i'm working as a gift wrapper for the holiday season and just staring ahead thinking of.... things. i'm technically an atheist, but i would need forgiveness for those thoughts. ANYWAY JEEZ. this took me like four days, help. i'm so insecure abt my smut writing, tho so ooohhh god am i actually dreading posting this. i'll just publish and run away from tumblr for a week. happy reading

talk to me about coryo here

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coryo masterlist main masterlist

word count: 7.2k (sawrry)

themes: smut

warnings / disclaimers: smut, unprotected p in v, brief mutual masturbation, cum eating (SCREAMING), fingering, crying, ENJOY jsdfjhsadsd

gif credit goes to owner <3

something strange was happening in the arena. something was being done to the camera feeds that were supposed to livestream every second of what was happening in it. only because something seemed to have gone wrong in the games y/n was stuck to the television screen in her living room slash lounge. her parents were called into urgent work in district three a few hours ago, so it was only her and some of the maids in the house. they kept to themselves, though, and were probably asleep in their quarters at the mansion’s far-end wing. except for the main housekeeper, who was adamantly guarding the entrance of the house, in case anyone came by.

her parents were counting on someone coming by - with the way she was recently behaving at school and with the rebel bombs, they were real worried about her well-being. she was always alone at home, because there was no one to bring home. except the dean, but he came by himself and only to serve his usual scolding and threats about y/n’s rebellious nature and behaviour at school. her parents hadn’t felt such worry for their daughter as they felt now since the war days. 

what soothed her mother’s worried heart and mind was the presence of the maids and the housekeeper. y/n appreciated their staying around and liked hearing noises made by someone else in the mansion, even if it was only a far-away creak of floorboards or a door closing. but she didn’t need anything from them, ever, she’d been very independent since her early childhood, and maids seemed like such an excess right now, an even backwards concept for y/n. her family employing them, unable to live without them, made her feel like the rich princess everyone deemed her being. 

y/n had felt fine being home alone until the feed from the arena turned strange. darker, blacker, and the audio seemed warped or otherwise manipulated. she’d caught sight of a familiar figure entering the arena – who was that? how did he get inside? who can tell... – and then the feed changed. there was nothing much she could see, but her eyes had been glued to the screen of her television for the past half hour, anyway. all the while she was straining her eyes to try to see who it was, and at some point that figure was joined by another by Sejanus’ tribute Marcus’ bruised and wounded body, and then the feed darkened nearly completely. 

she sat in her sofa in an embryo pose, blanket over her stressed form, covering her back and the bare feet and legs that the knitted bedtime jumper couldn’t. she realized the gamemakers or the Capitol were trying to hide something, nothing else could explain the feed changing and audio going wobbly and earning static in the process. 

the bell ringing at the front door startled her so bad that y/n gasped and jerked in her position on the sofa. her head whipped in its direction and she watched two figures entering her family’s mansion from the far end of the hallway. she could already tell who the two were, but she remained sat on the sofa, her legs unmoving out of anxiety. she shut off the television and just watched them walk towards her through the unlit hallway, arms wrapping around her knees underneath her beloved blanket.

“ms y/l/n, a mister Snow is here, for you,” the housekeeper announced as she and Coriolanus entered the living room, Coriolanus stumbling into the room more than walking into it. he looked like he was falling to pieces. his breath was heavy, hair and academy uniform in disarray, face just... bewildered. y/n nodded at her housekeeper, extended her arms towards Coryo like a child reaching for its favourite toy and sniffled quietly.

“thank you, Nora,” she told the housekeeper, “please leave us. you can go to bed, i won’t need anything else for the night.” she said in a hushed voice and the housekeeper nodded, knowing to listen to the child of her employers. y/n hated giving anyone orders, much less this spectacular lady, but she did want to be alone with Coryo. and by the look of him, she could tell he couldn’t be around anyone else but her. he was a man of privacy, after all.

as soon as Nora shut the door behind her and left for the maids’ quarters, Coryo accepted the plea in y/n’s extended arms and stumbled over to her on the sofa. “i—i’m sorry,” he said the first words out of breath, in a voice so broken and frail that y/n’s lips twitched downwards and she felt the need to cry, “i didn’t know where else to go, i couldn’t... i couldn’t f-face anyone else...” as he sat down before y/n’s bare feet peeking out from the blanket, she noticed in the poor lighting of the room that his clothes were dirty. there were cuts in his shirt, dirt, gravel, sand... blood. 

“what happened?” her voice wouldn’t go any louder than a whisper, and her lips were turning into a pout as she looked Coryo over, her meek hands reaching out for him but unsure whether she should touch him or not. he could fall apart like the frailest glass, it seemed, if anything touched him right now. his face was bruised. there were small cuts on his cheek, blood on his chin. she noticed how they had already been taken care of.

Coryo still took heavy breaths, but finally he felt like his vision was real and not fooling him, and he took in his surroundings. the dim lighting in the posh room, y/n’s bare feet touching his red academy pant leg, her legs pulled up to her chest under a cute throw-blanket in the pastel colour of chocolate milk, her small hands reaching out to him, unsure, unsteady. he lifted his head to look at her, and the expression on her face made his heart lurch in his chest. her glassy eyes – no doubt matching his –, the pout on her lips, her rosy cheeks, eyebrows scrunched in worry and confusion. he could never decline that face. “dr Gaul sent me inside the arena to get Sejanus out,” he finally said, and he spoke in a whisper tone that could only be meant for secrets, “but the tributes heard us... i’m not sure i should even be telling you about this at all,” he admitted.

y/n shook her head. “your secret’s safe with me,” she assured with a gentle nod.

“yes, but dr Gaul—” Coryo began, but she interrupted him in the voice of a faint whisper. 

“i know how terrifying she is,” y/n persisted, “she won’t know that i know.” she said even quieter and looked, really looked, into Coryo’s eyes, and nodded gently again at him. he searched her eyes for a few seconds, weighing the risk of her knowing this, trying to decide if he should tell her more or just cut short here. but really. she’s a loose end and she knows it. it’s not like dr Gaul was in high thoughts of y/n or deemed her more valuable than any other student, and her nature played a big part in that opinion of the young girl. how would she know that y/n found out about this night in the arena? she wouldn’t. it would never come up in conversation. y/n wasn’t part of this.

“the tributes heard us,” Coryo started to say as he sat closer to y/n, his body turned to face her, and almost loomed over her. he’s always been much taller than her, and sometimes that played a part in their dynamic. he took her hands in his above her bent knees and the blanket. he licked his lips and y/n searched his eyes, his... stoic blue eyes. there was a change in them, “they came after us and i...” he shook his head, “i didn’t want to hurt him,” Coryo’s voice broke and his head dropped onto y/n’s covered knees. 

she heard a sob from him, and it shook her entire form, making her gasp quietly. she’d never seen him cry before. the night on the rooftop, in the garden, she knew he was close to it, but she knew he’d never let his pride down so much that he’d let anyone see him cry. and Coryo didn’t feel so good about crying now, about opening himself up to her like this, he felt disgusted with himself. but he also couldn’t stop. and he couldn’t hide everything from her, after all. 

y/n shuffled around until her legs were tucked under herself and she moved closer to Coryo, taking his scarred cheeks between her small hands and lifting his face up so he would see her. she knew she made him nervous usually, but she calculated that that effect flipped around on itself when he was in this state, or one similar to this. breaking apart. feeling vulnerable. beaten down. she looked into his eyes and he back into hers, not really having any other choice. she had this compelling power over him, even if he didn’t want to admit it, and he didn’t want to hide from her. not really.

his breathing slowed down as he just looked into her wondering beautiful orbs, full of so much determination, courage and kindness. she was almost smiling at him, even though she wanted to cry, too, and her eyes were glassy with produced tears, but she wanted to appear strong for him. because right now he really needed a strong anchor to hold onto, he was the one in need of support. y/n took that role mainly in their friendship-relationship, especially at school, when she got herself in trouble, or at home, when her parents were giving her an earful about her irresponsibility and all the jazz they usually gave her an earful about.

last time Coryo and y/n saw each other, she realized he had the ability to ground her. and now she realized she had the ability to ground him, because by looking into his eyes she could see his emotions and mood changing by the second. and all because she’s holding him, and he’s looking into her eyes. he didn’t need much more than that. 

and yet maybe he did. he didn’t know which part of him had the urge, but all of him acted on it by ducking forward and kissing her on the lips. he could taste the sweat she had made on her lips out of stress, and the blueberry tartlet she must have had as a late snack not too long ago. and his hands couldn’t keep away anymore, either, they were taking hold of her face like hers was holding his cheeks between them. y/n would have gasped at his sudden action if she had any air to breathe, and she sighed heavily when he did give her a split second of air after fiery kisses to her delicious lips. 

he kept his eyes on her as he pulled his academy blazer off and threw it to the ground beside the couch, then came back closer to her, one hand on her cheek and the other pulling the adorable blanket off her legs. y/n placed a palm on that hand of his, which made Coryo furrow his eyebrows and look at her with puzzled eyes. didn’t she want this, too? she gulped, eyes averted from his shyly. “i’d rather we talked about it, Coryo,” she admitted and looked back at him carefully, eyes so un-knowing and yet more clever than most people’s. Coryo tilted his head slightly at her words. 

his hands took the bull by its horns, pulling the blanket fully away and welcoming the night air of the mansion upon y/n’s bare legs, making her gasp again. Coryo used the moment of surprise to his advantage and pushed her down on the sofa, sneaking in between her legs like the slippery mastermind he was, and he slid a hand under her knitted jumper, raising goose-bumps in his wake across her stomach and waist. y/n hated that she felt aroused, meaning she felt exactly how he wanted her to, was right where he wanted her, but she couldn’t exactly pull away. she hated being at someone’s mercy, but.... it was Coryo.

she surprised him when he found she wasn’t wearing a bra under her jumper, nothing was standing between his greedy hands and her naked breasts now, though her not wearing a bra at home wasn’t exactly a surprise. it’s just that his inexperienced self was shocked to find a part of her naked, and right there, at his disposal. watching her face, he placed his palm over one of her breasts and ran his thumb over her nipple, which hardened immediately under his touch. and her face, oh, the expression on it was to die for. eyes softly shut, eyebrows gently spasming as she was feeling something very new to her, her teeth biting her lower lip, cheeks turning more red and no doubt burning up. Coryo placed a kiss on her bare stomach, just above the elastic of her underwear, and watched her still as she whimpered for the first time. her thighs fidgeted around him, feet unsurely digging into the soft cushions of her couch—she really didn’t know what to do with herself and these sensations she was experiencing. 

“i’d rather we didn’t,” he said to her finally, though his actions were more than enough of a response to what she said, but she hardly heard him now. there was a gentle static in her ears, and heat all over her writhing form. her pure, supple, untouched form. all for him to touch, to explore. Coryo took his shirt off in a hurry, as if y/n might disappear if he had his hands off her for a second longer, and returned to her half-naked body a hungrier man. hands raking the insides of her thighs, he kissed her again, hot lips making their conversation just moments ago seem like the far past, making her almost forget it happened. y/n could hardly feel her legs, though she knew this was just the beginning, and she wrapped her arms around Coryo’s frame and held onto him as he moved his slender torso against her chest. she could feel the bones of his hips jutting against her own, his growing crotch pressing against her panty-covered soaking cunt, teasing her, making her pant heavily and whimper like a kitten. 

having her like this satiated the hunger that rose from the deep hole he’d created inside himself, gnawing at him like a big black hole with eager, starving claws. every stroke of his hips against hers beat the monster down but dangled the bait in front of it at the same time, leaving him in quite the paradox. this was more than enough, yet Coryo knew he could go further with y/n, further than enough, and that she’d let him. everything in him wanted to, and he couldn’t stop himself. adrenaline was pumping blood from his heart into his veins, she was available and the only one who could help with the hole growing inside him. 

but y/n couldn’t go further without another word spoken. he was avoiding her question, he was avoiding the whole last hour of this night. “Coryo,” she whispered softly as his lips kissed at her neck, tongue sweeping over a particularly bruised-with-kisses spot on her sculpture-like skin, he was an animal let loose. and his affections almost made her forget what she wanted to ask, and she thought maybe she doesn’t really want to know. but y/n sighed, trying to clear her mind, “tell me what happened,” she plead in a quiet voice and it made Coryo raise his head and look into her eyes again. 

he framed the side of her face with only a hand, his thumb on her chin and the rest of his palm splayed across her burning cheek. he loved seeing the look of lust and confusion on her face, in her eyes most of all. the pads of his fingertips softly pushed into her skin. “no,” he remained stubborn, and y/n would have been surprised to have him do otherwise. she gulped softly, hoping he wouldn’t feel it, but no, he felt every motion any part of her made now. his mind came up with a new idea as he slid a hand of his across her stomach, making a wave across her supple body, and then he reached her underwear. he knew, like everyone else did sort of matter-of-factly, that women were to be touched there. he knew it was the spot in her with which he could get her full attention. and he also knew he’d have to fabricate having experience in this field for y/n. he didn’t want her to think him inexperienced, which he was exactly, or least of all that he’s experimenting with her—which was also what he was doing. so he improvised by cupping her warmest place in the body, and he felt an immediate reaction. her thighs fidgeted around his waist again and her stomach lurched. her eyes shut, but he wanted to see them, “open your eyes,” Coryo urged her, and y/n had to force herself to comply, her beautiful eyes looking into his again. they held eye contact as he ran his middle finger in a straight line between her clothed folds, and he watched as her face contorted, caused by the new strange and pleasant feelings. she felt like warm honey on his fingers, “right now all i need is to feel you,” he told her and did the same motion with his finger again, only this time slower, making it pleasurably agonizing for her, coaxing quiet whimpers from her lips, “and this tells me you need it, too.” 

god, she hated that he was right. at first it was want, she wanted him to stay over, to touch her, to feel her, to do things to her that no one else had ever before. now, she felt so desperate for it that she felt she could explode if she didn’t get what seemed to be promised to her. the want grew to need. she wanted to shake her head, wanted to push him off—that would really be characteristic to her. but instead she brought herself to really look into his eyes and nod in response. Coryo’s lips almost made a smile or a grin, almost, she caught the ghost of it in the corner of his lips before he kissed her again. “alright, Coryo,” she whispered against his lips, “but if you don’t touch me properly right now, i willkick you out of my home.” she said surely, admitting to her desperation without shame and in turn – with pride, and now Coryo grinned. her feistiness was one of the things he liked about her, and it coming out in this setting was more than he could have asked for. in a weird way it got him going. 

y/n placed both of her hands on the sides of his face and kept him close to her as he reached his hand into her underwear, breaching into unexplored territory. she was all the warmer for him, and soaking wet. he hummed, their lips nearly touching, but not completely. it was torture for him. he wanted to devour her lips, her whole face, her whole existence. her lips were like the food of life for him, the sounds she made music to his ears and air in his lungs. “you’re just perfect for me,” he confessed to her in a shudder and y/n smiled lightly. his fingers ran through her naked warm folds, just testing the waters, until they found the opening between them, where the wetness and warmth were seeping from. Coryo would have dropped his head onto her shoulder if her hands weren’t holding it up right, but he just felt like he lost his damn mind at how incredible her walls felt around his fingers, and he could collapse right there on top of her. 

“Coryo,” she sang his nickname in a beautiful moan when two fingers prodded inside her, beating any expectations she had about this beforehand. they were long and thick, touching every inch of her, it felt like, and reaching just far enough. she was barely holding onto him, and her body was reacting to his touches immediately. hips moving, back arching, thighs squeezing his body between them, breaths shuddering. 

“no one’s done this to you before, have they?” Coryo asked, but he hardly needed an answer. by the way she was reacting, he could tell that she’d never felt like this before. y/n shaking her head at his question was merely the last dot on the confirmation, yet it still made him more aroused. knowing he was the first one to do this to her, with her. he grazed her upper wall with his finger pads, being careful not to let his nails scrape her, and it brought a moan from her that he’d never heard anyone make. guttural, coming from the very depths of her lungs, her vocal cords, from her very core. it made him shudder. he repeated the motion, slower one time, then faster the next, all the while watching her reaction. he loved seeing her eyes shut, her cheeks become redder, her lips parting, stretching, pushing breaths and whimpers out from between them. Coryo felt one of her hands sliding up into his hair, and he groaned. her hips bucked and she grabbed onto his perfect curls between her fingers when he reached farther inside her with his two fingers, and it made them both moan into each other’s mouths, y/n letting his lips rest over hers. he’d reached that great point inside her, feeling her hot and spongy against his digits. it’s almost like she was sucking him in. “you’re so good for me,” Coryo told her and y/n whimpered at the praise. 

“more, please,” she begged with no shame and Coryo obliged, picking up the pace of his fingers and massaging over her folds with his thumb all the while. when he accidentally grazed over her clit, y/n made a high-pitched moan of the utmost sensitivity, and he knew he’d done the right thing. and by accident, no less. he was on the winning team, “Coryo,” she cried with her eyes shut and he noticed a tear on her cheek, kissing over it immediately. next his lips were on hers again, lapping at her tongue with his own like the starving man he was, knowing nothing of tomorrow or the next hour, just so engulfed in her that he knew nothing else. she was the perfect getaway.

he could feel her body behaving in a different way, thighs trembling around him, walls squeezing his hand in, hands nearly powerless, chest shuddering. she wasn’t far off her release, he guessed. with another press to the sensitive bundle of nerves that made her cry, Coryo once again watched her reaction in amazement. but he didn’t want to feel her release like this, he needed them both different. Coryo pulled his fingers away, once again making y/n cry out, this time in the most desperation she could manage, and she looked up at him with pleading, tearful eyes. he offered her a gentle smile and moved down her body, dragging her underwear with him. down her legs and away, the light pink garment went, and y/n bit her plump lip in anticipation as she watched him. 

Coryo tucked her underwear into the trousers of his academy uniform that he was still wearing and returned to her body, laying kisses across her thighs on his way up to her. y/n squirmed under and around him, mewled, muttering his name in a mewl here and there, relishing in the feeling of his lips on her untouched skin and his hands roaming all over her body, under her jumper, over it, trying to cover every inch of her. she hated that he had stopped touching her right when she was closest to that one sacred edge she wanted so badly to reach, he was teasing her, taunting her, testing her waters. it was clear to her that he had never done this to another girl before. Coryo was just like her, and yet he’d put up a different façade. 

he dug his fingers into the flesh of her naked hips, which made y/n throw her head back into the sofa cushions, baring her delicious-looking neck to Coryo. he used that to his advantage, licking and kissing at the skin of her neck which he had already bruised marked with his lips just moments ago, he was devouring her with a hunger only she could really satiate, and yet he couldn’t get enough of her. his growing crotch pressed against her bare cunt, and y/n gasped at the feeling. eyebrows scrunched, cheeks and lips red and puffy, she looked up at Coryo again, and he returned the gesture. he took one of her hands in his and guided it down to between them, where he was growing harder and in size, it seemed, watching her face all the while and taking notice of her biting down on her lower lip in anticipation. Coryo made her feel him through his trousers, and he couldn’t hide the effect her touch had on him - shuddering throughout his whole body, eyelids fluttering, he was barely able to utter the next words, but he did so in a quiet voice. “feel what you do to me?” 

y/n nodded with lustful eyes, hungry like the wolf for the boy above her. her boldness came back and with it y/n unzipped Coryo’s custom-made trousers and reached into his boxers to really feel him. he had girth and he was solid, she could feel that all with her hand on him. she was making him a panting mess, giving his length a sure stroke, Coryo’s head falling into the crook of her neck and him moaning, though she knew the piece of his pride that died for him to do that. he hardly let anyone see his inner world, his true feelings, so for him to be this vulnerable with her took a great deal of courage. “do i make you... feel like this often?” y/n asked quietly, and Coryo nodded with a whimper as her finger flicked over his tip, pink and sensitive. y/n wrapped her fingers around his shaft and stroked up and down, slowly, looking at his face all the while, wishing she could see his beautiful eyes now, see the emotions swimming around in the blue of them.

Coryo fisted the pillow right beside her, heavy breaths leaving his parted lips, “yes, yes, yes, god, yes,” he chanted in her ear as the pace of her strokes grew faster, and y/n could feel each breaths in his lungs against her own, his chest rising and hitting against her so intensely. she’d made him crumble beneath her so quickly, it surprised her, “i need you, y/n, i need to feel you,” Coryo confessed and managed the strength to raise his head and look at her again. he was too afraid to utter the phrase i need to be inside you, feeling just too shy all of a sudden to say that. the look on his face was pure desperation, he looked like he could start crying the next moment, and y/n’s heart lurched in her chest at seeing that. seeing and recognising that she could make him as desperate as he’d made her. that she could make him small, “no one’s ever made me feel like this before,” he confessed more, breaking his own façade down, and y/n smiled at him sheepishly. she knew, of course, that what he said was true. she knew everything about him.

“you have me,” she assured him and brought him out of the confine of his boxers, making Coryo breathe in relief. he had felt so restricted in his own clothes, “but god, Coryo, will you fit? you feel too big in my hand,” y/n said shyly and bit down on her lip again, a habit that Coryo had noticed her having for quite a while now, and he looked down between them two. y/n knew her comment went straight to his growing ego, but she just couldn’t resist teasing him a little. and when he caught onto it, he looked at her again, with a smile on his lips this time. she grinned wide and giggled before she took his face in her hands and kissed his lips, as if it was her first time doing so. simple, loving, affectionate. 

suddenly she fully took in the look of his naked torso, his amazingly sculpted shoulders and arms, his pearly chest... the sight of him was so breath-taking and delicious that she nearly forgot all her other surroundings. Coryo, though the look her eyes were giving him flattered him so, took the bull by its horns again and pushed the very tip of his hard length through her folds, where her warm opening welcomed him. y/n felt a strain while Coryo felt the beginning of a true release, but he noticed her awkward expression, felt her hold on his face falter, and he paused his movements to just check in. 

“alright?” he asked quietly, as he couldn’t tell what to do next by her face, “too big for you?” he teased and it made them both smile, then erupt into mad giggles in unison. y/n would never have expected Coryo to have humour in a moment like this, but she was relieved that he did, and god did it make the whole thing easier. she wasn’t worried, wasn’t anxious anymore, wasn’t feeling insecure about any aspect of herself anymore. except the thing she’d heard that happened to most women on their first time – the bleeding, the pain, his reaction to it. those were the few things she wanted to avoid happening. but if Coryo was his sweetheart-self, then she had no bad reaction to worry about. she was glad he was the person she was doing it for the first time with, she’d really lucked out.

“just a little,” she finally answered after their giggle fit while holding each other in their arms, “try going deeper,” she urged in a hushed voice, and Coryo complied, adjusting his hips forward, slowly, not to accidentally hurt her more. he couldn’t deny how incredible this felt, how incredible she felt around him, her walls sucking him right in so tightly, “ohmygodohmygod,” y/n pushed the words out in a quick breath, feeling a burn and stretch inside of her at the size of him. she didn’t have anyone to compare Coryo to, and no one else had been inside her before, but he felt big enough. 

Coryo appreciated her arm on his back, her nails digging half-moons into his pearly skin, and her other hand splayed across his cheek, thumb almost digging a hole in his cheek. “you feel so perfect around me,” Coryo praised against her parted lips, and y/n could only look at him with strain and tears in her eyes as he inched himself further and further inside, her face changing by every inch, it seemed, until he had bottomed out with a groan and she’d only felt a momentary sting of pain. and the worst part was over—what a miracle it was that it had been so quick for her, she’d expected otherwise. Coryo could see the immediate relaxation on her features, and he smiled. 

he kissed away her fallen tears, but more kept falling from her eyes and y/n could only explain them as being happy tears, though she scolded herself for being so emotional in a meaningful moment like this. but maybe it was just right. Coryo smiled at her and she could see his orbs being glossy, too, and she was glad. it was no wonder, really, taking how shaken he was when he came into her home and sat down on her couch beside her. he was still in turmoil, but that didn’t matter now. he had her. 

“can i try... moving? you feel alright?” he asked her in a whisper. this slow thrust inside her had already felt like heaven, he couldn’t wait to repeat it over and over and over. 

y/n nodded, “yeah, go ahead,” she said and Coryo complied. she took in the feeling of him pulling out gently, slowly... teasingly. he was grinning, she saw, and she shook her head in disbelief as a beautiful smile adorned her features. and then he thrust inside her again, stuffing her walls with his great length, making her back arch and moans that she’s never made before escape her lips. he could hardly concentrate, but he didn’t want to miss all the different facial expressions she would make, the look in her eyes, while he made love to her now. he made himself keep his eyes open as he began to move rhythmically now. 

y/n’s legs wrapped around his waist, engulfing him in her more and more, and each of his thrusts earned him a squeak from her from the movements. god, he just adored her beyond measure. she was everything he needed now, and later, and forever. Coryo kissed her neck, licked at it, as he had before, and it only made her moan more, each moan in its own unique high or low pitch, and dig her fingers into whichever part of his skin she was holding. Coryo adored her touches, they turned him on, and he wanted her hands on him always, they were a lifeline. his hands gripped her waist, her sweater bunched just above them, only covering her arms and her breasts, though barely even those from how much Coryo was moving her.

“you're doing so good for me,” he breathed into her ear, and the praise only spurred her on. she clenched around him, and it made Coryo break his focus completely, his head dropping onto y/n’s chest, where he breathed hot air onto her skin, “i’m sorry, i think i’m close,” he confessed, and y/n raised his face with her hands, looking at him with puzzlement across her face. 

“me too, it’s okay,” she assured him and then took one of his hands in hers and lead it down to where their bodies met. she laid his palm over the bulge that had formed in her lower stomach from him. the sight and feel of it made Coryo groan, getting him all the more closer to his release. 

“fuck, that’s amazing,” he said into her neck, and y/n nodded.

“you’re so big, Coryo,” she complimented him again and felt his dick twitch inside her at the words, “made a bump in me,” she put it into words and it made the boy nearly lose his mind. then she guided his hand just a little lower and pressed his hand onto her clit, where he recalled was her most vulnerable point, “come on, touch me. we’ll do it together,” she urged him on in the sweetest of angel voices and Coryo didn’t need to think twice before complying. he loved her ordering him around a little, it was much needed tonight especially. 

he pressed his thumb against her clit as his hips had nearly reached their fastest pace, and watched as her face twisted in pleasure. eyes shutting, lips spasming, closing, opening, teeth biting, voice singing out to him. “oh, Coryo,” she called his name and he felt it go straight to his heart. there wasn’t much more that he needed in order to come now, and he prided in himself for lasting so long at all, all the while feeling a little ashamed about it. he wanted this to last longer. but since he could tell she was coming, too, his thumb drawing harsh circles on her clit to bring it on, he revelled in them both finishing at once. 

“fuuuck, y/n, i love you,” he whimpered into her ear as he spilled himself inside her tightly-squeezing walls while y/n all but chanted his nickname like a mantra. her hands almost drew blood on his back from how tightly she held onto him, and she shuddered around him at the feeling of her own release coating his entire length. her thighs trembled and she panted heavy breaths against his neck. she’d almost missed his quiet confession, she’d actually heard it amidst their joined euphoria, but she had thought it a hallucination. 

but that assumption dissipated as she came to and looked up at Coryo, whose eyes were worriedly, with tears streaming from them, looking down at her. she quickly moved her hands to his cheeks and tried to sit up in their awkward position. best she could do was position herself higher on her pillow against the sofa’s armrest, and she gulped. “you love me?” she echoed in the smallest of voices, searching his eyes. they were worried, fearful. what if he’d said the wrong thing? what if she felt different about him, different than what he felt about her? what if he’d said it too soon? what if he’d just ruined all this with her? 

but he did love her. he was sure of it. so he nodded, his curls bouncing with the confirming movement. y/n ran her hand over them and smiled wide at him. 

“you love me,” she said again, surely this time, in a happy tone of voice. as if she’d discovered the best, most well-wishing secret in the whole world. and perhaps that’s what it was. her favourite secret about Coryo was that she knew he loved her, “i love you, too,” y/n told him before he could assume otherwise, and kissed his trembling lips. Coryo felt on top of the world. he had said the right thing, he’d played his cards right, he’d told her how he felt. of course, his actions spoke volumes, but hearing him say it in words meant the world to y/n. 

“thank god, you had me worried there for a bit,” Coryo half-joked between their kisses, and it made her laugh. she pulled back from his lips and admired the boy above her. forehead glistening from sweat in the dim lighting, curls messily falling over his beautiful face, his pearly chest rising and falling with each heavy breath he took. 

“who would i be without a little suspense, huh?” she asked and smiled at him again. she could see complete love and devotion in his eyes, two things she’d seen on his face only partly or half-meant before, and only towards herself. Coryo used the moment of silence to pull out of her and stuff himself back into his trousers. sitting against the sofa cushions to do it, he glanced at her cunt and saw it leaking with his white substance. y/n looked at him with sultry eyes and her teeth biting her lower lip, arms crossed over her chest, and she spread her legs just a little further to tease him with a wider look, “like what you see?” she asked quietly.

he just gave her eyes of total surrender, he was waving the white flag for giving up and he took a deep breath. y/n giggled as Coryo shook his head in disbelief and lowered his face down to her center, once again giving her anticipation. “you look so pretty,” he complimented and ran a finger through her folds, making her shudder as more of the snow-white liquid pooled out and coated her cunt, “pretty with me dripping out of you,” Coryo sneaked a glance up at her and saw the clear-as-day lust in her eyes. feeling that animalistic urge take over him again, he brought out his tongue and lapped up each drop coming out of her. y/n felt sensitive, sore, and Coryo was giving her a mix of both pleasure and pain as he drank at her. she had him right where she wanted him. the question was – would he stay there? 

his tongue prodded at her entrance just a tad, heightening her sensitivity, and he moaned against her folds at her shudder under him, giving her folds a kiss over once he was done. he wanted to leave most of his spill inside her, only having lapped up and gulped down what was excess. sitting up before her, between her legs, Coryo licked his lips and leaned over her form. y/n pulled him in for a kiss, and could taste something salty and something sweet all at once on his lips and tongue. it was both of them. 

“will you please stay?” y/n asked her in her small voice again, looking into Coryo’s eyes. she hoped to not find any resistance or decline, and her hopes were fulfilled. “please,” she plead more as he teased her with his silence. he nodded, and it made her smile wider than ever. he would stay over, like he promised her he would someday. it meant he didn't view her only as a secret anymore. maybe they could even go to Heavensbee hall tomorrow together, maybe hand in hand... “why did you say sorry? about being close?” she reminded him of the few moments before their euphorias. Coryo bent his head low for a moment. 

“just felt embarrassed,” he answered, “about not lasting long. i just... i just wanted this to last longer for you,” he told her and managed to look at her again. y/n made a comforting face and stroked the side of his face. she understood. 

“yeah, but it’s okay,” she assured him, “there will be other times,” she pointed out and laid a kiss to his cheek, “it was your first time, so please don’t worry your beautiful head over it.” Coryo managed a ghost of a smile just for y/n to kiss him and make his smile more life-like. “you did good, Coryo.” those words of praise went straight to his dick again, and he blushed. she had made him blush. y/n giggled. 

“you did great, too,” Coryo told her and kissed her hair, “thank you. i never would have wanted to do this with anyone else but you,” he confessed as they held tight eye contact. y/n’s heart surged at his words. 

“me too. i’m glad it was you,” she said and it made Coryo smile with shut lips, “now, can i get my underwear back?” she’d made a joke again, and Coryo felt like playing along further. 

“no, i’m keeping it,” he said in a hushed voice, shaking his head and y/n made a playful pout. she’d want to make him think he could keep it and that she’d steal it back later, but she couldn’t. Coryo having her underwear in the pocket of his academy trousers made her feel somehow proud. a piece of her with him wherever he goes. and if he went home and stashed them somewhere in his wardrobe cabinet, that would be fine, too. she loved knowing her underwear was a token for him. 

she only said, “alright,” and took his hand in hers, “let’s go shower and then to bed. you’ve exhausted me.” she admitted and Coryo took it as a compliment. he wanted this treacherous-turned-great day to end, too, and she was the cherry on top of it all. he wouldn’t have gone home tonight for anything. 

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[swan-of-sunrise]

...Is Love, Sweet Love (Part II)

Summary: Eight months later, (Y/N) and her daughter Molly have settled in well at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, with (Y/N) teaching a Classical Literature class and six-year-old Molly taking courses while learning more about her telepathic skills. Charles, having fallen head over heels for the school's new professor, debates whether or not to act upon his feelings.

Pairing: Charles Xavier X F!Reader

Word Count: 5.3k

Warnings/Disclaimers: None

A/N: Yes, I know, it's slightly unhinged to write a Part II to a one-shot that I published over 2 years ago, but I couldn't get this idea out of my head and here's what I came up with! Again, "What The World Needs Now Is Love" by Jackie DeShannon partially inspired this fic, so you should totally give it a listen if you haven't heard it before :)

…Is Love, Sweet Love May 1980 Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, Westchester (Previous Chapter)

Despite living in his family’s mansion for the majority of his life and spending countless hours of his childhood eagerly exploring its sprawling grounds, Charles Xavier hadn’t truly grown to appreciate the tranquility that the estate provided until he’d re-started Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. The sight of young mutants happily playing on the playground and partaking in group sports without feeling the need to hide their differences away brought a smile to Charles’ face, and the cheerful laughter of his students paired with the beautiful spring sunshine inspired him to once again enjoy his lunch outside with a good book…although, it was difficult to deny that he spent far more time listening in on Professor (Y/L/N)’s nearby Classical Literature class than actually reading his novel.

“Can anyone tell me why the characters of King Lear worship the pagan gods and not any form of Christianity?” (Y/N), who was sitting cross-legged on the grass in front of her small class, arched a brow as she surveyed the silent group of teenagers before her. “C’mon, guys, you know this. We went over the background of the play during our last lecture, and I seem to remember some of you even taking notes…” After a moment, a timid hand went up from the red-headed girl in the front and (Y/N) smiled. “Yes, Jean?”

“The play is set in ancient Britain, long before the arrival of Christianity.”

“Very good, Jean!” Jean Grey’s shoulders relaxed and beside her, her friend Jubilee gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “Now, why would Shakespeare choose to set this play in this specific time period? Think about the time period in which Shakespeare lived, and what the social and political climate in England was like.” A dark-haired boy towards the back of their group raised his hand. “Go ahead, Remy.”

Remy LeBeau lowered his hand and began fiddling with his deck of playing cards as he spoke in his distinct French-Creole accent. “Well, Professor, that was when there was a lil’ trouble brewin’ ‘tween the Catholics and Protestants over there, right? He prob’ly didn’t wanna ruffle any feathers by puttin’ a popular religion in his plays, so he had his characters worship the gods from ol’ Roman mythology; anybody who’d be offended would’ve been long dead, so Willy did what any guy’d do to keep his head on his shoulders.”

Charles smiled to himself as the class laughed and (Y/N)’s lips curved upwards into a reluctant grin. “A little unorthodoxly put, Remy, but you’re absolutely correct. In the play, Lear states that-” She was cut off when the familiar sound of the school bell rang out and her students started to pack their things away. “Remember, on Monday we’ll begin performing your assigned scenes so be sure to work on memorizing your lines with your groups over the weekend. Have a good rest of your day!”

While they laughed and talked amongst themselves, the students headed back towards the mansion for their next class and with a fond smile on her face, (Y/N) looked away from them and finished packing her binders and books into her messenger bag. The novel in Charles’ hand was all but forgotten in favor of admiring his colleague and friend, who’s effortless beauty almost always succeeded in making him stutter over his words and caused him to blush in a way that he hadn’t since he was a schoolboy; she was dressed casually in a striped button-down blouse tucked into a faded pair of high-waisted jeans and well-worn Birkenstocks, with her (Y/H/C) hair pulled away from her face by a blue headband and her reading glasses dangling around her neck by a colorful beaded chain. Charles took in all of her striking figure, but it was her content smile and the happy gleam in her (Y/E/C) eyes that made him release a lovelorn sigh and look down at his lap.

Charles was infatuated with Professor (Y/L/N). Well, it perhaps started out as a simple infatuation, back when she’d first arrived on his doorstep pleading for him to help her daughter; her kindness and caring nature in regards to Molly’s safety and well-being was touching, considering how many parents he’d met who were overly eager to pass their mutant children off to a complete stranger just to be rid of them. After hearing their story, he knew that she couldn’t bear to be separated from her five-year-old and so, he asked that she stay and teach at the school to ensure that they would remain together. That was eight months ago and since then, the infatuation had evolved into a full-blown romantic crush; Charles was captivated by (Y/N)’s capacity for compassion, enchanted by her quick wit and natural beauty, in awe of her progressive idealism in regards to mutant rights and more than appreciative of her boundless consideration in regards to his disability.

Yes, Charles was enamored by his school’s newest professor, but he was also plagued by insecurity. The last woman he was romantically involved with was Agent Moira MacTaggert of the CIA, all the way back in 1962 when he was a dashing young man who’d just earned his doctorate and possessed an egotistical streak wider than the English Channel; nowadays, his ego was tempered and his youthful good looks were beginning to give way to wrinkles and streaks of silver. While a ten-year age gap between two consenting adults was hardly an insurmountable obstacle to a happy relationship, a part of him couldn’t help but think that (Y/N) would be happier with someone younger than him. Both Alex and Hank thought that he was overthinking the situation, and perhaps they were right but whenever he started to consider asking her out, that little voice of doubt whispered on in the back of his mind.

“Hi Charles!”

Looking up, Charles’ face reflexively broke out into a grin when he saw (Y/N) approaching the bench he’d parked his wheelchair beside. “Hello, (Y/N)! Holding your classes outside today, I see?”

“It’s such a beautiful day, so you could hardly blame me for taking full advantage of it.” The professor adjusted the strap of her messenger bag and tilted her head as a teasing smile played across her cherry-red lips. “Enjoying your lunch outside today, I see?”

“Touché, Professor,” Charles chuckled, slipping his bookmark into his novel to mark his place and tucking it into his wheelchair’s saddle pack. “Hank seems to believe that my vitamin D levels are too low, so I decided that eating outside was the quickest way to get our resident worrywart off of my back. Not only did I soak up plenty of sun, I had the added pleasure of listening in on your fantastic lesson on Shakespeare’s King Lear; no offense to the Bard, but it’s refreshing to see an Classical Literature professor teach her students about one of his historical plays instead of one of his romances.”

(Y/N) shrugged nonchalantly, but the way she began to fiddle with her pendant revealed the bashfulness she was attempting to mask. “Well, I remember what it was like being fourteen; you’re around the same age as Romeo and Juliet, yes, but you don’t know a damn thing about love and it’s not easy to understand why they do the things they do.”

“As a former fourteen-year-old, I heartily concur. At that age, I could scarcely understand myself let alone an emotion as complex as love, no matter how beautifully Shakespeare described it,” Charles replied, looking out across the manicured grounds as he recited, “‘My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep-’”

“‘-The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite,’” (Y/N) finished and when their eyes met, Charles’ heart fluttered and he could feel his face beginning to warm; his brows rose in surprise when the professor hastily turned her head to try and hide her besotted smile, a flicker of hope igniting within him at the sight. “I, um, I-I should go and find Molly…”

“She’s at the playground with Alex’s second graders. Speaking of which, I need to speak with Alex about tomorrow’s scheduled book delivery…” Charles awkwardly cleared his throat before giving (Y/N) a tentative smile. “Would you allow me to escort you there?”

(Y/N)’s own smile widened at that. “Of course!”

While Charles wheeled himself along the stone pathway and (Y/N) kept in step with him, they eagerly discussed the school’s ongoing library expansion and all the new books they’d obtained for the students; any progress made at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters filled him with a sense of accomplishment, but expanding his ancestral home’s library was one of his greatest desires and he was thrilled that the children would soon have access to more knowledge than many of the country’s best private schools and universities. (Y/N) was just as excited about the expansion as he was, and he couldn’t help but admire the enthusiasm written across her beautiful features while he listened to her talk about all the lesson plans she’d brainstormed involving their new books.

They reached the playground sooner than Charles would’ve preferred, but his disappointment was set aside by the sight and sound of his school’s youngest students happily entertaining themselves on the elaborate structure; so many of them came from broken homes and were sent away without any second thoughts by families that couldn’t care less about them and while Charles couldn’t change their heartbreaking pasts, he did all in his power to give each and every one of his students a loving home and bright, promising futures. For the first time, I find myself truly understanding the blinding rage that fills Erik in regards to mutant rights, he thought with an inward grimace before glancing over at (Y/N) and smiling as the human woman affectionately watched her mutant daughter play, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve lost my faith in humanity’s innate goodness.

“Hi Mommy!” Molly exclaimed from the top of the structure, a toothy grin stretching across her face as she gave them both an enthusiastic wave. “Hi Professor ‘Zavier!”

“Hi Molly-Bear!” (Y/N) called back while a beaming Charles returned the little girl’s wave with one of his own. He’d always maintained that a good professor shouldn’t have favorites, but no one would blame him if he came out and admitted that Molly (Y/L/N) was – hands down – his favorite student; she was as exuberant and carefree as any human six year old, but her mutant abilities as a psychometric telepath meant that she was more insightful and tended to see the world around her with sage eyes. In truth, Molly reminded him so much of himself when he was a child and knowing first-hand how challenging having telepathic abilities at that age can be, he was grateful that he could help her by teaching her how to control and accept her gifts.

While Charles scanned the playground for Alex, he caught (Y/N) looking over at him and the tender expression on her face nearly took his breath away; she quickly looked away and pretended to adjust the fasteners of her messenger bag, but not before Charles noticed the glimmer of affection in her gorgeous (Y/E/C) eyes. A familiar whistle cut through his racing thoughts and when he glanced over, he spotted Alex leaning against a light pole that bordered the playground; a knowing smirk curved across the younger man’s face, widening as he brought a hand up to his temple and wiggled his fingers to signal for Charles to read his mind.

“I told you so.”

“Alex…”

“(Y/N)’s into you, Charles, and you’re clearly into her. So, what’re you gonna do about it?”

After taking a steadying breath and running an anxious hand through his hair, Charles cleared his suddenly dry throat and hesitantly spoke. “(Y/N)?” The professor looked over at him expectantly and his finger drifted upwards to loosen his shirt’s collar while he clumsily continued. “I, ah…well, I-I was wondering if I…(Y/N), would you and Molly care to join me for dinner sometime? There’s a wonderful Italian restaurant in Salem Center and a little movie theater just down the street from it that I think you’ll enjoy…”

(Y/N) blinked, looking dumbfounded but slightly hopeful as she took a moment to find her voice. “Charles, are you asking me out on a date?”

Charles nodded and offered her the barest of smiles. “Over the past few months, I’ve grown…immensely fond of you; I wake up every morning looking forward to our usual discussions over breakfast, I find myself spending far too much time styling my hair and picking out what to wear in the hopes that you’ll take note and every time you smile at me, my heart skips a beat.” The professor shyly smiled at that and he couldn’t help but lightly chuckle, the weight in his chest already feeling lighter with each confession he uttered. “Yes, just like that.”

“And you…you wouldn’t mind Molly coming along?”

The anxiety that filled (Y/N)’s eyes as she awaited his answer nearly shattered Charles’ heart; based on what little she’d disclosed to him about her past, he knew that she’s struggled with dating as a single mother and he could only imagine how disillusioned with romance she’d become as a result. “Of course not, (Y/N),” He softly replied and in a bold move, he reached forward and took her hand in his. “You two are a team, after all; Molly is your entire world, and I want you to know that I respect that more than anything. It’s also…well, let’s just say that it’s been quite a while since I’ve gone on a date, and I’d…”

“Like to go slow?” (Y/N) gently offered and when Charles wordlessly nodded, she gave him the smallest of smiles before looking over her shoulder and calling out, “Molly? Sweetheart, can you come here for a second, please?” After coming down the slide, Molly skipped over to them and the professor knelt down so that they were eye-level, her hand still holding onto his. “Professor Xavier wanted to know if he could take us out for dinner and a movie. Does that sound all right to you, Molly-Bear?”

The little girl’s head tilted to the side as her (Y/E/C) eyes studied Charles, and he was forced to mask his amused chuckle with a cough when she brought a mitten-clad hand up to her mother’s ear. “Like on a date?” Molly loudly whispered, and (Y/N) pursed her lips to keep from chuckling as she nodded; her daughter lowered her hand to reveal her excited smile and she gave her mother an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “Sounds good to me!” Molly looked back at Charles with a conspiratorial giggle. “Mommy likes you, Professor ‘Zavier.”

Charles arched a playful brow as his eyes flicked between the embarrassed elder (Y/L/N) and the beaming younger (Y/L/N). “She does, does she?”

“Mm-hmm, she likes your eyes and your smile and your hair and your-”

“Okay, young lady, that’s enough out of you,” (Y/N) hastily interrupted, tickling her daughter’s neck with both hands and smiling when she shrieked with laughter and scurried back to the playground. Shaking her head in fond exasperation, she stood and glanced back at Charles, who was trying and failing to muffle his laughter. “Well, I guess that settles it. Does six o’clock this Friday work for you?”

He emphatically nodded. “Yes, of course, it’s perfect!” He felt himself begin to blush at his obvious enthusiasm, and it was (Y/N)’s turn to chuckle as he awkwardly cleared his throat and tried again. “…I-I mean, Friday at six o’clock works for me.”

“Good. I guess that Molly and I will see you then.” The professor turned to walk away but took Charles by surprise when she turned back around and bashfully smiled at him. “I’ve…I’ve grown immensely fond of you too, Charles.”

Before he could say or do anything, she’d bent down and pressed a feather-light kiss onto his cheek, an infatuated gleam in her (Y/E/C) eyes as she flashed him one last smile and left to meet her daughter on the playground. A broad grin slowly spread across Charles’ face and while he watched her walk away, he leaned an elbow onto his wheelchair’s armrest and rested the side of his head against his palm, releasing a love-struck sigh and barely taking note of the familiar figure that moved to stand beside him.

“See what happens when you actually take my advice?”

Charles straightened his posture and glanced over at Alex, who was wearing the smuggest of smiles on his faces as he stared back at him. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re an impertinent ass, Alex Summers?”

Alex’s smirk widened. “Heard it all my life. So, when’s the big date?”

“This Friday at six o’clock. And since you and Hank have taken such a keen interest in my love life, I’ll be requiring your assistance on Friday.” The younger man quickly sobered and with a grin of his own, Charles chuckled and patted his arm. “There’s a good chap. Now, about tomorrow’s book delivery…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Although it was a far cry from the hazy evenings spent at Oxford’s many lively pubs and in the company of the college’s most flirtatious female students, Charles’ date with (Y/N) and Molly was undoubtedly the most enjoyable one he’d ever been on. He’d met the mother and daughter in the mansion’s foyer with two bouquets in his hands – daisies for Molly and vibrant pink roses for (Y/N) – and he happily watched them admire their flowers while simultaneously hiding the fact that he was studying (Y/N)’s figure; the professor was wearing a knee-length yellow dress with long billowing sleeves, a bright pink sash tied around her waist and matching high heels, and her carefully styled hair was pulled back by a pink headband. She was beautiful, far too beautiful to be going out with the likes of him, but his fears of inadequacy were quickly alleviated when she looked over at him and smiled.

Hank and Alex drove the three of them to Salem Center in Charles’ maroon 1959 Jaguar Mark IX, the pair of them opting to stay in town and catch a showing of the newly-released The Empire Strikes Back while they dined at La Mensa. Sensing Molly’s apprehension with being around so many non-mutant strangers, Charles distracted her by playing ‘tic-tac-toe’ and ‘hangman’ with her on her paper place-mat and (Y/N) threw him a grateful look as she asked her daughter about her schoolwork; while they enjoyed their food, (Y/N) entertained them with stories of her students’ antics and after some goading by Molly, she even balanced a spoon on the end of her nose much to her daughter and Charles’ delight. After dinner, they made their way down the street to the small movie theater and while many of its patrons were queued up to watch the latest Star Wars film, the three of them decided on watching the re-release of Disney’s Lady and the Tramp; Molly adored the classic cartoon and while Charles was impartial to the film, he thoroughly enjoyed exchanging enamored glances with (Y/N) over the little girl’s head.

Molly fell asleep on the drive home, cuddling against her mother’s side as she lovingly brushed her fingers through her daughter’s (Y/H/C) hair. In low whispers, (Y/N) assured Charles that Molly had a wonderful time and that she hadn’t seen the little girl so happy since before she’d come into her mutation; although aware that Hank and Alex were clearly eavesdropping from their front seats, Charles quietly asked her if she’d care for a quick nightcap in his study after putting Molly to bed, and he was thrilled when she readily accepted his invitation. When they arrived back at the mansion, (Y/N) carried the still-sleeping Molly inside, but not before giving Charles one last smile as he maneuvered into his outside wheelchair.

“So…” Hank arched a curious brow as he walked beside Charles’ wheelchair and steadied it when they reached the top of the ramp, where Alex was waiting with his motorized indoor wheelchair. “How was it?”

“Charming, but I could’ve done without the rather offensive Asian and Italian stereotypes-”

“Not the movie, Charles, the date,” Alex interrupted and when Charles chuckled in amusement at his friends, he leaned a shoulder against the doorway and crossed his arms over his chest. “C’mon, you finally ask out the woman you’ve been head over heels for and you’re not gonna give your two best friends the four-one-one?”

Shaking his head in faux exasperation, Charles shifted himself into his motorized wheelchair and arranged his legs as he airily answered, “(Y/N), Molly and I ate a truly magnificent meal at La Mensa that we followed up by watching a classic Disney film at the movie theater. What more is there to say?”

Alex heaved a sigh but moved to allow Charles to wheel himself into the mansion. “A little help here, Hank?”

“Oh, he’s having far too much fun messing with us to stop.” The scientist tucked his hands into his jacket pockets while a mischievous smirk played on his lips. “But speaking as the school’s resident genius, I couldn’t help but notice the good professor clearly checking (Y/N) out before we left and blushing when she smiled at him just now.”

A reluctant blush warmed Charles’ cheeks at that. “Don’t you two perverts have morning classes to prepare for?”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday, lover boy,” Alex smugly countered, nudging Hank’s arm with his elbow as they walked beside Charles’ wheelchair down the vacant hall to his study. “Well, Beast, there’s no doubt about it: Charles here’s got it bad for our lovely Professor (Y/L/N).”

When they reached his study’s door, Charles nudged it open and wheeled himself inside, but not before giving both men a look of genuine sincerity. “Thank you, for your assistance tonight and for your encouragement; the pair of you can occasionally be a pain in the ass, but tonight couldn’t have happened without you.”

Hank’s smile softened. “You’re welcome, Charles. We’re just happy that we succeeded in making you do something selfish for once.”

“Yeah, you’ve helped us both out so much over the years and it was high-time we returned the favor,” Alex added as he clapped Charles on the shoulder, his earnest expression morphing into a knowing smirk while he continued. “Enjoy your nightcap with (Y/N), and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, lover boy.”

“Oh, and don’t forget protection!”

“Goodnight, gentlemen.”

Chuckling, Alex and Hank left the study and closed the door behind them; after pausing for a moment to take a calming breath, Charles wheeled himself over to the oak cabinet near his cluttered desk and unlocked it, pulling out a glass decanter of scotch and two glasses and setting them down on the coffee table. He bit his lip as his eyes surveyed the messy state of his study, cursing himself for not tidying up earlier, but a part of him knew that (Y/N) wasn’t the type to mind a little clutter; she liked to joke that the best professors had the messiest studies because they spent all their time teaching instead of worrying about how others perceive them. It was the good manners instilled in him from birth that saw him gathering stacks of loose papers, binders and leather-bound books and unceremoniously shoving them behind his desk before lifting himself out of his wheelchair to sit on the couch; with nothing else to distract himself from the anxious anticipation building up within him, Charles plucked the maple-colored queen off the chessboard and nimbly twirled it around his fingers as he waited for (Y/N).

Minutes later, there was a quiet knock on the door of his study and after scrambling to straighten up his chessboard, Charles called out, “Come in!” The door opened and (Y/N) stepped into the room, her gentle smile widening when she spotted him seated on the couch. “How’s Molly?”

“Out like a light.” (Y/N) crossed the room and sat on the couch beside him, her fingers playing with the flowing yellow material of her dress’ skirt as Charles poured their drinks. “She wanted me to tell you that she had a really fun time tonight, and she wanted me to thank you.”

“She’s been working so hard these past few months to complete her schoolwork and training, so if anyone deserves to have a little fun it’s undoubtedly her,” Charles replied, a surge of fondness for his youngest student and her kindheartedness bringing a smile to her face as he turned to (Y/N) and offered her a glass of the amber-colored liquid. “As do you, Professor.”

Accepting the glass, (Y/N) hummed thoughtfully before holding it up and angling it towards him. “In that case…to having fun.”

“To having fun,” Charles repeated, lightly clinking his glass of scotch against hers and taking a sip, his eyes appreciatively roaming along the professor’s figure while she took a sip of the strong liquor. “Do you like it? It’s top shelf scotch whiskey, all the way from Scotland.”

(Y/N) arched a playful brow as she crossed her leg over her knee and angled herself to face him. “Expensive, imported liquor? Are you trying to impress me, Professor?”

“Well, that all depends…” Following his instincts, Charles set his glass down and rested his elbow on the couch’s back cushion, his lips curving into a playful grin. “Is it working?”

Her (Y/E/C) eyes softened and after setting her own glass down, she rested one of her hands on his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Charles, I was impressed by you before the top shelf scotch, before the fancy Italian restaurant, and before I ever laid eyes on this beautiful mansion.” His brow furrowed in confusion but she merely smiled and rubbed small circles along his knuckles with her thumb. “Eight months ago, the letter that I sent you asking for help with Molly was my Hail Mary; I had nowhere to go and no way to protect my daughter from the people who hated her for who she was, so I decided to write to the one person I knew could help her. And when you sent me a letter back – that incredibly kind and empathetic letter – you gave me hope, hope that I hadn’t felt in so long. So, you see? You managed to impress me before we’d even met, Charles Xavier.”

Charles, touched by her sincerity and feeling a little emotional, reached forward with his free hand and carefully cradled her warm cheek in his palm. “Oh, my darling (Y/N)…you’re not the only one who’s had their hope restored; I gave up any hope for romance not long after I lost my legs, choosing to focus my attention on the school and my fellow mutants. Over these past several months, however, you helped me to see that there was still hope.” His thumb traced along her cheekbone as he smiled and slowly began to lean in. “And now, I would very much like to kiss you, (Y/N) (Y/L/N).”

(Y/N)’s smile widened. “I’d like that very much as well, I just…” He could feel her cheek flush beneath his touch, and a look of embarrassment flashed across her face. “God, it’s been so long since I’ve done anything like this. Would it be silly to say that I’ve got butterflies in my stomach?”

“Not at all, darling. Truth be told, I’m a little nervous myself,” Charles murmured, his eyes flicking away from hers to stare at her enticing lips before glancing back up. “The last time I kissed a woman was in 1962, so you’ll have to forgive me if my technique has gotten slightly rusty over the past eighteen years.”

“Well, we won’t know unless we give it a go, will we?” (Y/N) breathed and her (Y/E/C) eyes burned with desire as they both inched closer. “Charles, dear…please kiss me.”

Wanting nothing more than to please the professor, Charles’ eyes fluttered closed as he tentatively brushed his lips against hers. (Y/N) wasted no time in returning the kiss, kissing him softly and sweetly as her hand left his to rest on the back of his head, her fingers tangling in his hair and eliciting a blissful groan from him; with one hand still cupping her cheek, he rested the other on her waist but soon found himself winding his arm around her in an effort to bring her closer. (Y/N)’s lips were soft and oh so addictive, slowly but firmly caressing against his as her fingers carded through his locks, and Charles surrendered himself over to the woman wrapped in his embrace.

Eventually, they were forced to separate for some much-needed air, the both of them out of breath and almost dizzy from their impromptu make-out session; Charles felt a surge of pride as he took in (Y/N)’s kiss-swollen lips, heaving chest and the dazed smile on her face, and he couldn’t resist leaning forward to lightly rub his nose against hers. When he pulled back, he huffed out a breathless chuckle at the incredulous look that she was giving him. “That’s a rusty technique?”

“Mm-hmm. Dreadful, wasn’t it?”

(Y/N) giggled at his joking question and pretended to consider it. “You know, I think I need another example before I can definitively say.” They both laughed but when Charles moved in for another kiss, a sharp twinge in his lower back caused him to recoil with a hiss of pain. “Charles, are you okay?!”

He mutely nodded, his eyes squeezed shut as he straightened his posture and leaned his back against the plush couch cushions. “I’m fine, it’s just a muscle spasm.”

“Is it…?” (Y/N) trailed off and when Charles finally opened his eyes as the pain began to fade, he could see the worry written across her face. “Is it because of your spinal cord injury?”

“That, and I’m afraid that I’m getting on in years; I’m not as young and spritely as I was in 1962.” Instead of stammering out a string of apologies and getting up to leave as Charles feared she would, the corner of (Y/N)’s lips curved upwards into a lopsided grin that left him slightly confused. “(Y/N)?”

The professor shifted closer to him. “Did you know that Molly’s father was fourteen years older than me?” Charles’ brow rose in surprise and he silently shook his head, watching as she reached over and brushed a lock of hair behind his ear. “You could say that I’ve always had a thing for older men…” Before he could think of something witty to say, (Y/N) swung her leg over his to straddle his lap and rested her hands on either side of his face; Charles couldn’t help but grin and, inspired by her delectable boldness, he placed his hands on her waist to hold her securely to him, his grin widening as her breath hitched. “Go ahead and read my mind if you don’t believe me, but it’s true.”

Shaking his head, Charles rested his head on the back of the couch so that he was staring up at her, softly smiling as one of his hands traveled upwards to cradle her cheek. “I believe you, darling. Would it be too sappy to say that I don’t want this night to end?”

“Not at all, dear,” (Y/N) shook her head before closing the distance between them and captured his lips in another passionate kiss; when they finally broke apart, she rested her forehead against his and returned his blissful smile with one of her own. “We can make this work, can’t we? Balance the two of us with running the school and raising Molly?”

“I believe that you and I can do just about anything, so long as we’re together,” Charles replied, his thumb and forefinger moving to guide her chin forward and pouring all his emotions into another kiss; there was no place on Earth he’d rather be than in the arms of the lovely Classical Literature professor who’d captured his heart and judging by the way she kissed him back, it was clear that she was thinking something along the same lines.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: I had so much fun dipping my toes back into the Fox X-Men Universe (I still have a massive thing for 80's Charles Xavier and his flowing brown hair lol) and I loved that I finally resolved Charles and (Y/N)'s mutual attraction with this cute Part II! I may or may not have a few ideas for a possible Part III, so let me know if you'd be interested in reading more! Thank you all so much for reading and enjoying!

Story Tag List: @mostlymarvelgirl @holb32 @f1uveryysblog Marvel Tag List: @brooke0297​​​​ @deadlymistletoe Permanent Tag List:​ @momc95​​​​ @crowleysqueenofhell​​​ @groovy-lady​ @yasmin12312

[genderqueerpond]

You know, I think Clara knew about Amy.

Not at first, of course, but Clara grew up with her --- that is, grew up reading Amelia Williams books. And they were precious to her, books she's read many times over the course of her childhood -- how else does she know exactly which chapter holds what in the book she gave Artie? Perhaps she has always felt connected to her, this moderately obscure children's fantasy author, following in the footsteps of E Nesbit; this contemporary (and sometime friend (oh yes!) ) of Edward Eager's; although not nearly as widely known as either of these. Perhaps because of her choice to publish openly under a "woman's name", thus, in the time in which she lived, relegating her books to the inferior realm of "girls' books", despite the more than equal balance of male viewpoint characters.

But Amelia Williams is different from these authors too -- often fantasy, but sometimes more like early science fiction, a barely- recognized pioneer in both genres. Her views were feminist and daring. In so many ways she was ahead of her time, and the innovations she imagined! almost as if she knew what the future would hold.

And if Clara knows and loves her books so well, she can hardly fail to recognize the most frequently repeated character archetype in them. especially after she rereads a few on a subconscious hunch, during that summer after the Maitlands found a permanent nanny and she insisted that before anything else, she go off and fulfill her original travel plans from 101 Places To See. (The Doctor purported to leave her alone to forge her own way with this, but was in actuality very bad at that, and kept popping up nearly every place she went.) She's Clara, she's clever, how can she fail to look up from her book and notice that the person who's just appeared out of nowhere to stand in front of her with a plate of jammie dodgers and a goofy smile has stepped directly out of the pages?

And then of course, there are the dedications. Sure, there's normal stuff like "to my daughter", "to my loving and patient husband", and "to my parents, who are children now" which is rather weird and whimsical, but fits in with the fantasy author's signature style of dream-like imagination.

But the majority of Amelia Williams' dedication pages say things like "to You", "to My Doctor", "to My Raggedy Doctor" "to my raggedy man" (weird but clearly connected to the other variants), and, cryptically, over and over again: "to you", "to you", "to you", "to you (wherever in time and space you are)".

There's "to my imaginary friend" and "to my imaginary friend, and to all children who have an imaginary friend" and "to my imaginary friend, and every child in the universe who's ever met him, or ever will". Nerds and English teachers have occasionally debated what, if anything, she meant by all this, and now Clara thinks she knows, but she can never say....

And then there are the nights that the Doctor wakes up crying out for "Amy!" and then refuses to talk about it when Clara asks, refuses to acknowledge ever even knowing an Amy, "well everyone shouts random things when they're asleep, it doesn't mean anything" and "I don't remember." if pressed for details about his dreaming. And later he might go off somewhere and cry quietly, reading a book he never lets Clara see.

And then he regenerates, and calls out for "Amelia!", "the first face this face saw."

There's newborn twelve, with his Scottish accent, letting her name slip. It's the first - and only - time he's spoken of her while awake and not actively dying. And Clara is too busy with the immediate threat to their lives to think about it in the moment, but at this point she at the very least has a hunch about the connection between him and the Scottish-American author with the rather opaque background --- that as far as anyone can trace it (although to be fair, no one really cares enough to try very hard) she and her husband just kind of appeared out of nowhere in pre-WWII New York. It seems kind of obvious, now, that the doctor would have had a hand in that.

And now with all the books everywhere, the library gradually migrating into the console room, what else is obvious is that he owns every single one of her books. multiple copies, first editions, last editions, signed copies, mass paperbacks, everything. There's a TARDIS key hidden in a well-worn, well-loved, tear streaked copy of The Cuckoo And The Doll's House, which Clara finds when she's cataloging all the locations of TARDIS keys, just in case she should ever need that information one day.

This all is enough for Clara to know. There doesn't really need to be any more proof, but there is. What totally and fully clinches it are the pictures. Tucked in the pages of another tearstained book (The Beast Below this time), are photographs of Amelia, looking just as she does in her black and white author photos, but younger, and in 21st century clothes. Elsewhere, later, she finds photo booth polaroids of a still younger Amelia, goofing off and smiling. Some of them feature another young man Clara doesn't recognize, and some of them feature the Doctor. He's wearing a tweed jacket instead of his purple wool, and no vest, but otherwise he is exactly the same as the Doctor she first met. The three of them hang off each other like old friends, like family.

idk how to end this.

[coco-loco-nut]

tumblr

pairing: Oscar Piastri x Reader

summary: idek, an unedited fluffy short blurb

requests open masterlist

———————

Usually your period isn’t this bad, but your body decided to rebel against you.

“How are you feeling?” Oscar asks, handing you a mug of tea as you are curled up on the couch watching your ultimate comfort movies.

“Like shit,” you groan, ignoring the cramp you just felt.

“I can make you a warm bath, maybe light some candles,” Oscar offers, sitting beside you.

“It’s okay, there is nothing Barbie doesn’t cure. You don’t have to sit here all day with me, go ahead and do your training,” you tell Oscar, watching to watch the old Barbie movies in peace, without Oscar worrying about you. He takes your hint without being hurt about it, he’s a big boy.

Honestly, you don’t know how you ended up with Oscar, he doesn’t really look like any of the princes, and those guys are definitely your type.

When Oscar reappears a few hours later, freshly showered, he notices you scrolling on your phone, humming to the music from the movie.

“Babe, I’m going to order pizza, what do you want?” Oscar asks, opening the app on his phone.

“Hold on, I’m about to get with you,” you say, fully invested in your phone.

“What?”

“This has been the slowest burn ever, but we are finally about to get together, in like chapter 20. I hate slow burns,” you huff.

“Babe, we are already together. You married me?” Oscar says confused. You finish the last paragraph and look at him.

“It’s fan fiction, Osc. You know, on Tumblr,” you show him your phone and his eyebrows are furrowed.

“Why?” is all he can say, unsure of how to react.

“I got bored of writing,” you say, closing the app and refocusing on the movie.

“You write the fan fiction? For me?”

“Ew no. That would be weird. I write for the more popular drivers. You know, Charles, Lando, Carlos, Max, Daniel, Lewis,” you list and Oscar just stares at you. You are literally besties with Lando and Charles, but you don’t write for your own husband? He’s honestly offended.

“What do you mean ew? I think how you scream my name most nights contradicts that,” Oscar smirks, your face flaming.

“That’s why it would be weird. I’ve written it but it will never be published,” you admit, a little embarrassed.

“Anyway, pizza. Yes or no?” you quickly reply yes, hoping to move on from the conversation. That night, once you fall asleep, he scrolls through your account, reading the fan fictions you wrote and reblogged. It’s weird, but he enjoys your writing.

The subject isn’t brought up again until one drunken grid and WAG dinner, where Oscar drunkenly blurts it out.

“Y/n’s written fan fiction about us,” he says and all the guys look at you.

“The girls love it. Some of your antics make for great stories,” you defend yourself.

“So true, I love reading them,” Kika says, the other WAGs voice their agreement about it.

“What?” Charles is confused, but Lando, being the child he is, gets excited.

“Which one of us gets the most written about?” he asks and none of you waste a second replying.

“Charles,” the answer is in unison, causing the Monegasque to blush. None of you will admit that Lando is a close second.

Over the next week, you get random texts from them, asking which ones you wrote, but also their thoughts on different ones. Charles is appalled and flattered by the amount of smut written for him. Lando and Daniel are the opposite, they love the smut and how they’re talked up. They also told you that they got ideas from some of them, causing you to want to bleach your eyes out.

Eventually, they found out which account was yours, sent it to each other, and started spamming your inbox with requests. Lando’s tend to be about him winning a WDC, poor guy can barely win as is.

After a week of them spamming your inbox with requests, you decide to post an announcement on your account.

Dear readers,

Unfortunately my account has been outed. I know you all love my works and when I post some behind the scenes information about GPs. Sadly, my friends who work in an important role in F1 found my account and it no longer feels right to write this anymore out of respect for them.

Thank you all ❤️

↪️ user1 she knows a driver doesn’t she

↪️ user2 or an engineer

↪️ cl16racer don’t stop 😢

↪️ y/username sorry buddy, it’s time

↪️ oscarpastryy yeah, it’s a little weird now

↪️ landomorewins it doesn’t have to be!

“Wow, the guys are really torn up about it,” you laugh, Oscar’s arms around you as you cuddle on the couch. You had been thinking about stopping writing them anyway, so it was just a good excuse.

“I just wish you’d publish what you wrote about me,” Oscar kisses the side of your head.

“That’s far too dirty and intimate. It’s what I read when you are away,” you say with a blush. “You can read it if you want,” you hand him your phone. He holds the phone where you can both read it, his other hand running up and down your side absentmindedly at first but more intentionally the longer you read, until you aren’t reading anymore. That might’ve been some of your best sex.

“From now on, when you write like that when I’m away, you send it to me. Promise, Mrs Piastri?” Oscar says, kissing you.

“I promise,”

[kiwiana-writes]

WIP Wednesday

Thanks @cha-melodius and @three-drink-amy for the tags! And… look. I want it on record that this is all railmedaddy’s fault, okay? OC POV/Outsider POV you terrify me but here we are.

(Okay, MAYBE I was the one who sent a voice note talking about the fact that while I understand why CMQ didn’t include it in the book given it was still in the future when they wrote and published, in a covid-free 2020 the Tokyo Olympics should have happened during the timeframe of the book, somewhere around LA/pre-Lakehouse; and that the Paris Olympics aren’t mentioned but would be, per the timeline in the bonus chapter, around/right before they get engaged; and that’s INTERESTING, three Olympics covering their rivals - FWB - lovers arc. But what I’m actually writing? THAT is Rae’s fault, hands down.)

Rio de Janeiro, 2016

Ari Katene never realised how many famous people go to the Olympics.

Pretty fucking stupid, when he thinks about it. Of course they do. But when he was little, the Olympics was just the thing his family crowded around the TV to watch once every four years, muttering about timezones as they did so; when he got a bit older and started taking diving seriously, when he started getting noticed and his coach started talking about the Commonwealth Games as a real possibility, the Olympics became a goal. He was no longer thinking about who may or may not be there, but on how he could be there.

And here he is. Representing his country on the biggest stage there is—even if it is in a sport Aotearoa has never actually medalled in. But it doesn’t seem to matter that no one’s expecting him to place; there are celebrities everywhere, and they’re all keen to chat with an Olympian. Any Olympian.

Which Ari is, now. Fucking wild.

He’s been trying to stay in the zone for the most part, ahead of the finals later today, but he can’t resist taking the chance to grab a selfie with Alex and June Claremont-Diaz. He hasn’t been paying a whole lot of attention so the circus that is the US election campaign, especially given his full-on training schedule all year, but even he’s aware of who the nominees are—and that if America actually elects Ellen Claremont instead of fucking it up, that selfie is going to be a pretty big brag in a few months.

Tagging @agame-writes @affectionatelyrs @anincompletelist @blueeyedgrlwrites @cactusdragon517

@celeritas2997 @clottedcreamfudge @cricketnationrise @dumbpeachjuice @everwitch-magiks

@firenati0n @getmehighonmagic @happiness-of-the-pursuit @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @indestructibleheart

@inexplicablymine @junebugclaremontdiaz @larkral @leaves-of-laurelin @lilythesilly

@littlemisskittentoes @lizzie-bennetdarcy @myheartalivewrites @ninzied @nocoastposts

@nontoxic-writes @notspecialbabe @orchidscript @piratefalls @porcelainmortal

@read-and-write- @rmd-writes @sherryvalli @ships-to-sail @sparklepocalypse

@stereopticons @thesleepyskipper @thinkof-england

@tintagel-or-cockleshells @welcometololaland @whimsymanaged and, as always, anyone who wants to play! (If you take the open tag please tag me so I can see!!)

[misguidedasgardian]

I need to (13)

... Beat your ass

MASTERLIST

Summary: tie your hair up, put glitter on your face, wear whatever grey, blue or green you have in your closet, prepare your favourite hot beverage and grab a blanket… it’s the first game of the season!

Pairings: Cregan Stark x Fem!Reader 

Warnings: cursing, implied smut, talks about contraception, fluff, a bit of angst, might miss some warnings

Wordcount: 2.5 k

Notes: Sorry for the delay my loves, I had a dilemma with the storyline ANYWAYS… I can’t wait to publish the summer special chapters! But they are in the middle of the semester! Haha I’m gonna rush things a bit… I want to say this is my comfort fic, and I want to repeat the fact that this is some sort of romcom, and as such will have silly problems that they will face… but nothing much angst after the first chapters with Aemond… more like “PG 13 teenage/college drama” sort of drama… perhaps some gossip girl level drama haha

“I don’t want to go to class”, you whispered, caressing Cregan’s chest as he hummed his approval of your statement, “I want to stay here all day with you”

“Me neither”, he chuckled, “but we have to go”

“I know”, you sighed deeply, gaining strength to leave this bed, the sun just appearing in the horizon through the window, “.... I was wondering…”, you said softly, perhaps you were getting ahead of yourself, but you needed to know

“What?”, he said, his finger tracing indivisible figures in your back

“Are we… becoming exclusive?”, you asked, the softest way you could think of

“I don’t want to be with anyone else”, he said softly, you smiled widely

“Great, me neither”

“Good”, your chest soared with happiness

“So with that out of the way…”, you said, looking at him, “what are we going to do in the future?”, you asked

“What do you mean?”

“As a contraceptive… if we are… you know… monogamous…”

“Whichever you feel comfortable with”, he said softly, “but after that I might have a problem with abstinence”, you laughed

“I can go back on the pill”, you suggested, even though the idea didn’t attracted you

“I thought they have a lot of side-effects”, he said gently

“Yes I know, but it’s worth it if we can… do it without further protection you know…”

“No, I won’t be silly, and I’ll wrap my willy”, he sang sing, with a teasing smile he booped your nose, you just laughed

“Cregan, I can take them”

“No”, he said grabbed your face softly with his hands, “not in my account, I’ll put a condom, two if I need to, and besides… love making is more than me just plunging my cock into you over and over, we will figure it out”, he whispered sweetly, and leaned in and kissed you softly, “you are not taking those for me, not if you don’t need them”, he said

“But I want us to be safe”, you said, “and I want to feel you”, 

“You will feel me”, he said, kissing the top of your head as he held you in his arms. You almost purred, “you felt me last night didn’t you?”, he teased, you smiled and nodded, “but we will have to try another time  because we HAVE to get up”, you growl, hiding on his chest

You had a walk of shame to walk, and Cregan had a shower to take, so with a longing kiss, and after he served you breakfast, you parted ways

“Are you going to watch me train?”, he asked sweetly

“Of course!”, you teased

“Can’t wait”, he purred as he accompanied you to the door 

You didn’t saw Jace as you left their place, maybe he had spend the night elsewhere 

The day flew through you

You didn’t even care when your lead designer asked you “what did you smoke?”, when you were pitching the design for a new terrace.

You didn’t care, everytime you moved… you could still feel him, Cregan, and you wanted to giggle like a little girl

You were dating Cregan

You had sex with him! 

Oh you were so excited 

Even though you were nervous too, gods, how were you supposed to take this??? 

Did you go slow? Could you text him? How did you act with him in public? 

Gods

What stage were you at?

Dang it 

While you were changing classes, your phone dinged

Thinking of you, can’t wait to see you later ❤️

It was Cregan! Heart emoji and all, and you melted

You had no reason to be nervous

Cregan was showing himself to be the kind of guy that didn’t ask himself the same questions you were having, he just did it! He was thinking of you and texted you, that’s it

So you giggled, and texted back 

Aren’t you tired? because you’ve been running through my mind all day long ❤️🤭

The damage was done, you thought, as you put away your phone, it dinged inside your bag, and you giggled excitedly

“Ohhh someone got railed last night!”, laughed Rhaena as she sat by your side in the common room of the ADA

“How do you know!?”, you asked, laughing nervously

“Oh I can smell on you!”, she giggled, “figuratively speaking, bitch you glowing”

“Thanks”, you giggled

“So you and Cregan?”, she kept teasing

“Are you a witch?”, you asked back

“Nah, just a very observant person”, she said simply, shrugging

Your phone dinged again, and you decided to pick it up

HAHAHA A CLASSIC! My lady, I will have to start charging you rent… because you have been permanently living in my head

You giggled silly, answering with another cheesy pickup line

“Ah, young love”, Rhaena sighed dramatically

“Do you sometimes get this feeling like… “it’s too good to be true?””, you asked her sincerely

“Yes”, she said, “I would say that usually is… but with Cregan? Not that much, he is as good as it gets”, you smiled dreamly

“Good to know”, you muttered, “what are you going to do in the summer?”

“We are like two months away!”, she mocked, “but we are going to Pentos with my family”, she said

“You are not going to the lake?”, you asked, she shook her head

“We haven’t been there in years!”

“So sad”, you whispered

“Anyways, why are you asking?”

“I don’t know”, you laughed, “I just… now that I reconnected with Jace, I just wondered…”

“Those summers were fun!”, she said with a smile

“Totally”

You had lunch with Rhaena and then another class, and you were ready to freeze your ass on the bleachers for your boyfriend

You met with Sara just outside campus, and together you walked towards the football field, just on the other side of the campus and the city

It was still chilly, though the snow had resided only on the mountains 

When you got there, they were already warming up on the field, so a kiss was out of the question, but both of them waved at you as they saw you approaching, and even from the bleachers you could hear their teammates mocking them.

“Sooo…. How was it?”, asked Sara teasingly

“I’m not going to discuss this with you I’m sorry”, you laughed, and she stick out her tongue in a mocking/disgusting manner

“You are right, I went too far, but what I would like to know is… are you continuing your… thing?”, she asked

“I think so”, you murmured with a silly smile, and she almost jumped from joy, “what about you and Jace?”

“I think so”, she repeated with a complacent smile

As you got distracted talking to Sara, you missed your boyfriend struggling in the field

As always, they practised amongst the team, divided in two.

You knew little about football, it was a sport practised mostly in the North, so you didn’t notice anything strange, until almost at the end, Cregan removed his helmet and you could see the pained expression on his face, he grabbed his side.

“Perhaps you should rest, cousin”, muttered Robb removing his own helmet

“Screw ou Robb!”, that surprised you, you had never seen him like that

“I’m benching you”

“Fuck off”, he removed himself tot he side of the field, taking a sip of water of his plastic bottle 

You frowned when you saw him, he looked tired and sad, even from afar, you shared concerned looks with Sara

But as soon as he saw you, in the top of the bleachers, he smiled brightly, waving at you.

You felt warm spread all over your body, but yet there was something else…

“This is bullshit!”, demanded Cregan as he rubbed his face with his hands in tiredness

The boys wasted no time in filling you in on whatever happened in training, only after you went back to the apartment. Robb was pushing Cregan out of the team, even though he had made varsity fair and square, even though this was his second year playing the sport, his cousin was the captain, he had a couple of more years of experience.

Robb was trying to ruin Cregan, first in that party that night when you kissed, then at his own apartment, now at the playfield 

You and Sara shared looks, and couldn’t help but laugh.

Jace and Cregan looked at you surprised

“What?”

“That basic bitch is pulling a mean girl on you both, that is what’s going on!”, you laughed.

The basic bitch in question was Robb 

“A mean girl? What does that mean?”, asked Cregan

“Oh you poor naive summer child”, mocked Sara, “Let me guess, you are better than Jace, but still, he got in, and you got benched”

“True”, admitted jace

“He made you say something in front of everyone, in turn diminishing your teammates and your best friend?”, you asked him, they shared looks

“Yes sort off”, he mumbled, not his finest moment 

“Jace did something not quite spectacular but got blown out of proportion, leading to them inviting him somewhere to eat or to a party where Cregan wasn’t invited”, guessed Sara, Jace was embarrassed, his cheeks pink with shame

“Yes actually, they added me to a group chat”

“And they asked you not to tell Cregan”, you said then

“Yeah, sorry mate”, he whispered

“I forgive you bro”

“That’s sweet”. Mocked Sara

“Alright, so, what’s next?”, asked Cregan, you both shared looks

“Your sport, check, your best friend, almost check… only three things follow”, you said

“What?”, he asked, scared

“You education, your family”, you said pointing at Sara, “and… me”

“Alright so he is trying to cut me off, but why?”, he asked, scared

“He is jealous”, you suggested

“Of what?”, he asked, “he has his parents, he is… objectively handsome, he does great in school… what could he possibly be jealous of?”

“You clearly have something he wants, or he is jealous about”, said Jace

“He is popular, he is drowning in women, he is successful…”, he tried

Your phone dinged, and even though you didn’t have his number, you could see it in his ID, no nobody’s surprise, it was Robb

You showed Sara and she snorted

“Just in time”, you said, bored, you opened what he had sent, a picture of Cregan, taken from behind, hugging some girl, “apparently, darling, you are cheating on me”, you said, showing Cregan the picture, he paled

“I didn’t!”, he said, hurried, “I swear, this looks like Arra, but…”

“I know”, you said surely, “he wants to split us up, like we said, friends, family, girlfriend”

“BUT WHY?”, asked Cregan

“He can’t deal you do as well as he does”, you tried, but he shook his head. “Arra! Did he like her?”

“No possible way”, muttered Cregan, “he and his friends used to bully her because when we started dating she… looked very differently”, he said softly, looking away

“So what do we do?”, asked Jace, “how do we stop this?”, you and Sara shared concerned looks

“I don’t know”, you whispered sadly 

“You know what? Jace you stay in football, I’ll change…”

“What? Why?”, he asked

“I’m messing in his territory, I better leave him alone, besides… the captain of the rugby team owes me, so I will call him”, he muttered 

Jace frowned but nodded

It was what it’s best for everyone involved, Cregan raised from the table, scratching the back of his head and went to the bathroom 

You sniffed

“What’s the matter?”, asked Sara, concerned 

“Nothing is just… I knew nothing about football so I payed for a subscription for a youtube channel for this creeper teaching the basics and now I won’t need it”, you explained, Sara barked out a laugh, “and besides I had pre-ordered Cregan’s football shirt and number for me”

Sara laughed even more.

It was night and a friday, so you found yourself cuddled up with Cregan on his bed, still dressed, just cuddling watching tv over his bed

“Are you alright?”, you asked him, he caressed your back as he hugged you tightly by his side

“Yes”, he said shortly, “I still don’t understand why he is acting this way, we used to be so close when we were young, but, I don’t mind the football thing”

“You will grow out of it”, you assured him, caressing his chest

“I’m sure”, he whispered… “Even if I’m out, I talked to the coach, I will play tomorrow, even if they bench me for half of it, I would love to see you there”, he whispered

“Of course I will”

The energy all around a football game was electric, made you feel ecstatic… the music blasting presenting the teams like they were gladiators, people cheering, colours, glitter on your face. 

You had on a Winterfell Jersey with Cregan’s name on it, colourful bows in your hair and glitter on your face, and Sara was there next to you screaming like a woman possessed, wearing Jace’s number.

It was contagious

Like you said, you didn’t care for the sport until Cregan, now you felt so energetic, screaming the team’s name

They were playing against White Harbor, mortal enemies according to everyone, and you were met on the bleachers by Baela and Rhaena, and the rest of your group of friends 

 When the winterfell team entered the field everyone lost it, they were playing at home, so it felt extra-special

Where were not going to lie… once the game started you had trouble identifying who Cregan was… but still you managed to sync in with the rest of the crown and scream, chant or boo accordingly, to your own amusement 

There was again… another sentiment of freedom and relief, that you could goofy around and nobody would care, nobody will chide you

It was refreshing 

What has gone over you? You wondered

A few months ago you were a mess, and now, here you were, having the time of your life… 

You were so lost in your thoughts, that you missed the playout…

Robb and the team completely neglected defending Cregan, which cause the other team to find an opening, letting them tackle him without mercy, it was a nasty movement that threw your boyfriend a few feet away tumbling into the grass

Everyone gasped but he was soon on his feet, grabbing his side 

Cregan was benched then, and even the crowd booed the decision 

Cregan took out his helmet and looked for you in the crowd, once he found you he raised it in the air 

He looked so hot, sweaty and bothered, you wanted to give him a hot shower and rub his muscles with a sponge and…

Get it together.

You smiled widely at him, greeting him, oh you couldn’t wait to pamper him after this… and again… really?

It had been a nasty movement, Cregan was hurt and Robb had let it happen, and in Cregan’s mind, violent thoughts began to take shape, the need to tackle his cousin on his own was mainly present, but he couldn’t do that… not like this

A family feud was looming 

Summer was coming 

A love was settling

Cregan’s emotions were heightened as yours when he saw you wearing his jersey, chanting his name and cheering for him. He couldn't believe it either, then in such a short time, there you were, perhaps it was too soon to say, but he couldn't wait either, to spend as much time as he could with you.

Summer was coming

Notes: i WANTED TO GET THIS CHAPTER OUT THERE, LIKE I said... SUMMER IS COMING! HEHE CAN'T WAIT! Sorry for the long wait! <3 love you all

taglist!

@mxtokko @princesssterek @thefandomimagines @iamavailablesstuff @misspascalpunk @sweethoneyblossom1 @ipostwhtifeel @lunamoonbby @ahristata @watercolorskyy @yazzzmints @n4tforlife @littleshadow17 @alexa4040 @speedyballoonpainter @hc-geralt-23 @rayrayredpanda @eralen @yentroucnagol @valeskafics @iloveallmyboys @schadenfreude-and-sarcasm @ttkttt @aleemendoza2425-blog @drwstarkeyy @casualfansoul @urmomsgirlfriend1 @bruher @@toms-cherry-trees @happinessinthebeing

[nanowrimo]

Pro Tips from a NaNo Coach: How to Write a Novel in 30 Days

NaNoWriMo can seem like a daunting task sometimes, for NaNo newbies and veterans alike. Fortunately, our NaNo Coaches are here to help guide you through November! Today, author Adiba Jaigirdar is here to share her advice on how to set yourself up for noveling success:

Welcome to the very first week of NaNoWriMo! I’ve done NaNoWriMo for (almost) every year since 2008. I’ve won some, I’ve lost some, but I’ve learned a lot along the way. In fact, I apply a lot of the tactics I learned in NaNoWriMo to all my writing. When I wrote my second book, Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating, I ended up with a first draft of 74,000 words written in 30 days. That wasn’t something I would have thought possible in 2008 when I was slogging through my very first 50,000-word novel. That’s why I’m here today to share with you a few tips and tricks I’ve picked up through my writing journey, in the hopes that they serve you and your novel this November: 

1. Accountability 

One of the most difficult parts of writing a novel is that it requires so much self-discipline. It’s not like a job you show up to where your boss is holding you accountable for how many words you’ve written. Only you are ultimately responsible for how much you get done—which is why it’s easy to get demotivated and give up. So, you need to figure out ways in which you can be accountable for your novel this month.

You’ll be glad to hear that you’ve already taken the first step in doing this: you’ve pledged to do NaNoWriMo. You’re here, ready to write. But you can go a step further: ask your friends and family to hold you accountable by checking in on your progress during the month. If you have friends who are doing NaNoWriMo that’s even better; you can hold each other accountable. If you’re on social media, you can share updates every day and be accountable to your followers. There are a lot of ways to do it; so figure out what kind of accountability works best for you! 

2. Planning 

Planning a novel is definitely not for everyone. This is coming from someone who has pantsed many books! Planning can look different for different people. If you are a true-blue plotter, you might have your entire novel planned from beginning to end, with comprehensive chapter outlines. But if you’re not someone who plots out your entire novel before you’ve written a single word, planning is still important.

This planning can look like a rough outline of your book or finishing your writing day and jotting down a few quick ideas of what to write when you come back to writing the next day, or it can be leaving yourself voice memos as ideas spark when you’re nowhere near your novel. Going into every new day of writing without any idea of what the blank page will hold is very, very daunting, which is why planning ahead can be just the motivation that you need to fulfill your word count goal for the day. 

3. Figure out what works for you 

I have published four books so far and I’ve written many more. The process of writing each of these books has been very different. I drafted one in three months, one in 30 days, one was completely plotted with a rigorous outline, while one was plotted with a flexible outline, and two were completely pantsed. What I’ve learned about myself is that to make a book work, sometimes I have to try something different.

The only thing NaNoWriMo requires of you is to write those 50,000 words. How you go about it depends on you. You don’t have to write every single day if that doesn’t work for you. You can write at the same time every day, or a different time every day depending on what sparks your creativity. You don’t have to participate in writing sprints if writing with a countdown doesn’t help you focus. The point is that now’s your time to figure out what works for you and what doesn’t. You might be surprised by what methods you swear will never work for you but ends up helping you over that finish line. 

4. Have fun!

This is easier said than done, but try to enjoy writing your novel. Especially when it feels difficult. When I wrote 74,000 words in 30 days, it felt like a breeze because I was having a lot of fun with my book. Try to remember what makes you excited about your novel and go back to that when it’s tough. If writing is what you love, find the joy of it and nurture it throughout this month. The more you enjoy it, the more likely you are to keep writing.

Adiba Jaigirdar is the award-winning, critically-acclaimed and bestselling author of The Henna Wars, Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating, A Million to One, and The Dos and Donuts of Love. A Bangladeshi/Irish writer and former teacher, she has an MA in Postcolonial Studies and a BA in English and History. She is the winner of the YA book prize 2022, the KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards 2021, and was a finalist for the 2022 Lambda Literary awards. When not writing, she is probably ranting about the ills of colonialism, playing video games, or expanding her overflowing lipstick collection.

[pascaloverx]

OUR SECRET — MYG

final chapter

Summary: You and Yoongi are having an affair. No, you are not being his lover. But the world is not ready to know that an idol is dating someone. So you two were doing your best to make sure no one found out. Until he breaks up with you. His mistake.

Author's note: It was a beautiful journey to write this fanfic. But unfortunately, it comes to an end in this chapter. I will miss all the readers of this fanfic, which was so precious to me. Thank you all, and until next time.

PREVIOUS NEXT

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Upon reflection, this philosophy could be right, but no one mentions that sometimes, just sometimes, life gives you lemons and you don't have the strength for anything else. It's been two months since your baby passed away. You're trying to move forward, but the path ahead seems so murky, as if there's nowhere to go. Since your daughter's passing, you and Yoongi have been trying to maintain a sense of peace, but it feels like a hollow peace. He works all day and only comes home late at night. You've returned to work as a book editor, doing some freelance work from home.

"How is this going to be?" You ask, with the laptop in your lap, as you stare at the corrections needed for the new book that some new author wants to publish at the publishing house where you work. Yoongi looks at you, bringing a plate of food that he's trying to learn to cook.

"What do you mean by that?" Yoongi speaks as he hands you a plate and takes another for himself. You look, trying to understand if he hasn't noticed that you've been treated like a child since your daughter died.

"I mean, husband, that I know you've been neglecting your concert schedule and what should have been your tour with the boys, because of me. It's noble of you, but you know that I can take care of myself, right?" You say, tasting the macaroni that Yoongi made. He's a good cook.

"Wife, I'm not just doing this for you. It's just that I didn't plan on working at this time. But believe me, I'm working on a new album." Yoongi says as he turns on the television to watch the sports channel. At least that's what you think he's watching.

"Even so, I may seem fragile, but I can be alone. I can even call you while you're away. I don't want you to neglect your life because of me. I'll be here when you come back, no matter where you're from." You say as you set your laptop on the table and sit close to him. You continue eating the macaroni he made. Eventually, both of you finish eating, and you decide to put some music on the television. He looks at you angrily for changing the channel from sports. Then you extend your hand to him, hoping he'll take it so you can dance. After some grumbling, he gets up and pulls you close by your waist.

"You know it's weird for us to dance like this, for no reason after dinner, right?" Yoongi asks, and you feel a bit awkward about saying that you're trying to be spontaneous. It's been a while since you and he have done anything cute together.

"Loving someone means doing senseless things with them, you know? And I think it's been a while since the last time we were romantically together. Our beginning was all secretive and full of passion. Then we had a dramatic breakup that resulted in a surprise pregnancy that left us both grieving for our daughter. We're married now, but I feel like we barely dated. Maybe now is the time for us to do cute, silly, and romantic things." You confide in Yoongi as you rest your head on his shoulder, and you both continue dancing slowly.

"I don't regret any of this, though. Our love story is confusing. Maybe even complicated. But at least I have you. And you have me. And I may not show it very well, but you are the most precious thing I have now. I love my fans, I love my group, but my love for you is greater than the success I have. I know it took a long time for me to say this to you, and I'm really sorry for not being the man you deserved, but I want to be now. Know that." Yoongi says, pulling his head back slightly, looking at you, and you immediately kiss him. A calm and peaceful kiss. Exactly how you want your love to be.

"You know… I could go on tour with you if you need me to. And I think in the future, we can consider expanding our love, but for now, it would be good to take some time to reconnect, you know." You say with your mouth still close to Yoongi's, who gives you a few pecks while seeming very lost in your lips to care much about what you're saying.

"I think this part of reconnecting is very important. Do you want to start now?" Yoongi says and kisses you. A deeper kiss, and extremely needy. Needy for you. You try to show that you feel so much I miss his kisses as much as he does. The truth is, you want Yoongi. You want to give a chance to a flame that has been extinguished for some time. Yoongi holds your face gently but firmly and intensifies the kiss. His hands roaming your body make you feel alive.

"Honey, I think we should take this reconnection to the bedroom, don't you think?" You speak as you move away from him a little and walk at a pace very slowly to your room. Your heart feels like it's going to escape through your mouth, because of your nervousness. But then Yoongi grabs your hand and spins you around.

"I love you." He says smiling slightly and kissing you. You know he loves you. And you feel the same way about him. You then pull him to bed and there you reconnect in the most beautiful way.

Your story continues to be a lesson for some time that not every love story happens in the same way. You loved each other and just when you were separating, you discovered that together you could be better. With Yoongi you faced grief. And with you, Yoongi matured. Fortunately, years later you adapted to married life and he was able to return to being a world-famous singer. You have a mature relationship filled with reconnections. Every year you go to the cemetery to take flowers for your daughter. It seems that sometimes finding a happy ending means going through many barriers. But you're trying to live your happily ever after with Yoongi.

[primofate]

The Ruthless Prince: Illustrated on Paperback book (Giveaway!)

LAST 24 HOURS EVERYONE!

LASTHello everyone! After hundreds of hurdles and an infinite amount of time I’m finally able to publish The Ruthless Prince on Amazon! 

I know this may seem like I’m gunning for money, but please don’t misunderstand, this is just something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, print my own book! (Also the whole story is still available on tumblr FOR FREE, it’s your own choice whether or not to support me by buying the paperback/ebook version) 

I’m well aware that this is fanfiction, so before anyone goes ahead and messages me that I’m not allowed to sell fanmade items, Mihoyo very much allows the sale of fanmade items, all you have to do is send in an application!

Nevertheless, original story, fanfiction, whatever it may be...I believe that this is still a work of art. I’m just glad that I was able to see it through. 

On to the good stuff!

The whole story is still available on tumblr but the paperback/ebook edition has some extras, mainly:

1. Two extra chapters

2. There are 6 coloured illustrations included.

GIVEAWAY TIME! (under the cut)

I really appreciate all the love that everyone has given me here on tumblr. So I decided that I would give 7 lucky followers of mine a copy of the paperback version.

Here are the steps you need to enter the giveaway:

1. Reblog this post!

2. You don’t have to follow me, but if you do I’ll add your username twice into the lottery! (I do want these books to go to my loyal followers so I’ll consider adding your username a third time if I know you’ve stayed with me for a while and have interacted with my posts a lot!)

3. Enter your username and email into this form and you’re good to go! Please note that if you change your tumblr username/email address and for some reason I can’t contact you, I will have to draw another winner from the lot. 

Giveaway ends on 17th February 2023 10pm PST, winners will be announced and contacted individually by 18th February 2023 10pm PST! Please note that it may take up to a month for the book to arrive at your doorstep!

If you want to buy the ebook/paperback book, you can get it here on Amazon. (The paperback version doesn’t ship worldwide unfortunately so you can only get it if you are in a certain country) It now ships worldwide!

Thank you so much for sticking with me on this journey! :)

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is: Wormdebut! Wormdebut has published 18 fics on AO3 all in the steddie tag!

@thefreakandthehair recommends the following works by @wormdebut:

Tell Eddie He Looks Sexy With His Hair Pushed Back

Kiss Your Knuckles (Before You Punch Me In The Face)

Hell Bent For Leather

All You Have Is Your Fire

It Feels Like Fourteen Carats But No Clarity (When I Look At The Man Who Would Be King)

Worm is incredible! For a humble worm, they sure know how to write fanfiction. ;) But seriously, Worm has a way of exploring different dynamics in such depth with an immense amount of care that's so obvious in the finish products! -- @thefreakandthehair

Below the cut, Wormdebut answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

These two idiots inspire me. I mean look at them. I think the thing I love about Steve and Eddie is that to me they are destined to be together. Post-Canon, Alternate Universe. It doesn’t matter. They are meant to be together in any scenario. I could and will write about these two forever.

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

Rockstar Eddie, baby. I love some good sex, drugs and rock and roll.

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

Is safe (mostly)sane and consensual BDSM a trope? I like to write that. 😂

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

Tuesday’s Gone With The Wind - Thisapplepielife there is nothing quite like reading this for the first time. I truly thought I was going to explode as it was being updated.

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

Omegaverse! I have a fic in the worm vault that will come out eventually. Wormegaverse. It’s coming. I’m fucking stoked for it.

What is your writing process like?

Hoooboy. It’s a mess. I cannot write an outline to save my life. (I’m looking at you King of Hell Eddie fic. I know you need an outline okay?) I tend to write in order, but if I get stuck I will skip a scene or two ahead so I can figure out how to squish two pieces of a story together OR I will write little notes about my intentions and skip it and come back. (My favorite note of all time is when I wrote “spit kink shit.” So I could remember my very pure intentions)

Do you have any writing quirks?

Boy do I! I tend to go into like writing fugue states where I will just bust out thousands of words in a sitting and if I am not doing that I am thinking and over thinking about when im gonna fugue out again. I also get really stressed when it actually comes time to write a sex scene? Weird, I know. But every single one is super important to me and I want to make sure they read well. My friends can attest that I am an absolute basket case when it comes to me writing Steve and Eddie getting down and dirty.

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

God when I’m done. I am NOT great at posting chaptered fics but I am trying to get better with it? I prefer writing larger pieces though. I am an over-thinker to a fault and for some reason I stress less with one-shots.

Which fic are you most proud of?

It’s gotta be Kiss Your Knuckles. That fic is everything to me. But my Boys Who Kiss series is also so fucking important to me. Those two have so much more to tell y’all and I can’t wait to share their lives with you. I’m a musician so any of my fics that are heavily laced with performance and song are very special.

How did you get the idea for Kiss Your Knuckles (Before You Punch Me In The Face)?

I remember listening to Twin Size Mattress one day and I was like—Holy Shit, this is so Steddie-Coded it hurts. And it’s post-canon AND Rockstar Eddie? Incredible. The words just screamed Eddie Behavior and I knew Steve had to write a one-hit wonder about how he felt.

When writing Kiss Your Knuckles (Before You Punch Me In The Face), what was something you didn’t expect?

Oh I sobbed when I finished it. I couldn’t believe that I had actually finished it. It truly means the world to me and I wanted to share it with you all so badly. I cried for like an hour.

What inspired It Feels Like Fourteen Carats But No Clarity (When I Look At The Man Who Would Be King)?

Honestly? Tumblr user @ghosttotheparty had made a post about the scenario that Fourteen Carats is about and I messaged them and was like hey listen I want to take a shot at this, if that’s okay. Fourteen Carats is the first fully formed fic that I have ever posted aside from tumblr Drabbles and while I personally don’t love it I keep it up just in case someone somewhere does. 😂

What was your favorite part to write from All You Have Is Your Fire?

OH. Absolutely just eluding to Tattoo Legend and Icon, Jim Hopper. God he so fucking hot neat.

How do/did you feel writing Tell Eddie He Looks Sexy With His Hair Pushed Back?

I felt some type of a way, clearly. I think this is my favorite Eddie that I have ever written (My favorite Steve is Kiss Your Knuckles Steve) and he just kept getting more and more interesting. Like who the hell fucks you and speaks French while they do it? Tell Eddie Eddie does. And thank god for that guy.

What was the most difficult part of writing Hellbent For Leather?

Writing sub/bottom Eddie! I did this fic as a gift for tumblr user @gorgeousgreymatter-x (love you bitch) and it was hard because I don’t often write that dynamic, but god damn I loved these two Steddies.

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

Ah— “It is, and I do.” Something about French chef Eddie, really—yeah. I am proud of everything I have written but if I can be honest with you I rarely remember what I have done. I often joke that it’s simply Steve and Eddie in my brain just writing what they want, because people will quote my work or talk to me about a scene and I’m like—‘I wrote that?? Nice.’

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

WELL. Once I can break myself out of this accidental hiatus I am so excited to share more of For Your Entertainment with yall. I am also so fucking excited to share King Of Hell Eddie with the world. I can’t fucking wait. I am working on a ‘Came Back Wrong’ fic that is less scary and more comedic and I am stoked for that. I have quite a few things that are happening and I am just so fucking excited to share them all with you. 

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

Just thank you. Thank you for reading and thanks for letting me be a part of all of this. I have not felt this inspired and loved in a long fucking time and I’m not going anywhere so I hope yall will stick around for the wild ride. Fucking love you.

Thank you to our author, Wormdebut, and our nominator, @thefreakandthehair! See more of Wormdebut's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[eirenical]

Done Playing Games (2201 words) by eirenical

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 莲花楼 | Mysterious Lotus Casebook (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Di Feisheng/Li Lianhua | Li Xiangyi Characters: Di Feisheng, Li Lianhua | Li Xiangyi Additional Tags: Dual Cultivation, Episode Related, Missing Scene, episode 13, Fight Sex, Fighting As Foreplay, First Time, Banter

Summary:

"Di-mengzhu… what are you doing." Di Feisheng worried at the distended meridian beneath his teeth for just one moment more before shifting to nibble at the collarbone just beside it. And as the muscles beneath his hands tensed, prelude to a shift that would send an elbow flying back into his stomach, he stepped back out of reach. "Li Xiangyi, Li Xiangyi… what do you think I'm doing?"

  ...a.k.a. the dual cultivation fic that we all wanted to write when Episode 13 first aired and that I somehow never got around to posting? Oops? ;D

September 6, 2024: OK, so this actually was the first fic I wrote for this fandom. I started it back on July 31st, 2023 and finished it not long after. It wasn't the first fic I posted, though, because my original plan for it was for it to be much much longer than this one scene. But since then, my ideas on whether or not dual cultivation would actually work to solve LLH's poison problem have shifted dramatically and I don't think I can write more of this as it is. But I'm still proud of this little part of it and I think it can stand alone, so I'm just going to go ahead and publish it. ...enjoy? ;D

My original reaction when I hit this episode is still amusing to me, so feel free to visit. ;D

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

SNAIL & THRUSH (II)

|| COV MASTERLIST || NEXT: CHAPTER III ||

PAIRING: Kyle ‘Gaz’ Garrick x F!Reader

WORDCOUNT: 8.4k

WARNINGS: Angst, self destructive tendencies, insinuations of PTSD, talks of death, thoughts of violence, banter but it’s more just straight up attacks

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

“Can you—” An aggressive sigh sounds out over the air as your fast-walking form continues on; the earth molding to your shoes. “The area isn’t locked down this far out, Ma’am. Can you just get in the bloody car, please?”

Your eyes stare straight ahead, half-lidded, and could probably melt a sheet of metal if they had to. 

Not answering, you continue to walk back into town, ignoring Gaz entirely as he attempts to coax you into the large car he’s driving. The window is down, his accented voice hitting your ears and bouncing off the invisible barrier you had put there to block out his prattle about a mile back. 

You utterly refuse to enter the vehicle, even if you were already as tired as a marathon runner. The person driving followed you at a snail’s pace at his wit's end.

Stepping on gravel that crunches under your weight, your fists swing clenched beside you in small clipped arches. If volatile had a picture attached to the definition page, it would be you.

Not only had you figured out Samson Row was dead before you could kill him yourself, but now you had to deal with weapon and drug lords who had it out for you and your mother.

Under your breath, quick worded mumbles are missed over the car’s engine, the slow forward motion of tires that stir the dust and leaves you blinking quickly. 

You’d both been at this ever since you’d forced your way out of the garage back on Base and had restrained yourself from making a scene because they had refused to give you your laptop back.

“Protection detail,” your lips curl, thinking over Laswell’s clipped sentences. “Like I want your help after all of this. Just open your home, why don’t you?” Sarcastic flails of your hands leave Gaz groaning and rolling his eyes at the childish scene, a hand going to rub over his neck soothingly. The attempt to bring clarity back to himself only barely works. “Just accept that we can’t keep our own operatives on a leash—but here! Just take the one that forced you into the back of a van and put a revolver to your forehead—God!”

“Are you done out there yet?” Kyle calls, single grip over his hat as he glares out the windshield, no longer wanting to look at you as your teeth bare else he’d get to the end of his rope before he even started climbing. “Bit of a walk back to town, y’know. Not exactly how I’d want to spend my morning, copy?” He mutters the last sentence under his breath. 

Don’t want to spend any bloody mornings like this.

“If you tell me one more time to get into the car,” you level as you crush a weed in your way, “I’m sprinting off into the field and making you run after me.” 

A long scoff and an exasperated shake of his head later, Gaz is growling an acknowledgment; tapping his fingers over the wheel. Did you not understand the severity of the situation? Hell, it was like you didn’t even care! This was his job, and he took it very seriously. There was no room for fuck-ups.

The car continues to waste gas and slug along, even if the Brit wanted to hop out and drag you into it like the stubborn brat you were acting like. 

“How many years overseas?” He asks himself as your form stomps farther away before he presses his foot to the gas lightly and hears the gears squeak. He pulls up beside you moments later, lips tight. “Fuckin’ hell mate. Have a go at this.”

“I can hear you, idiot.” Your voice sounds off, face turning slightly his way. The mid-morning sun was warm, but the breeze from the not-so-far-off Lake Michigan was a welcome feeling as it went over heated skin. “Talk quieter so I don't have to.”

Kyle didn’t understand how you could wear that thick jacket, though. It was slightly chilly, sure, but not that bad out. But he certainly wasn’t going to ask. Not when you were acting like you were going to shank him in the kneecap for breathing in your direction.

“Brilliant.” He spreads his digits from where they curl over the steering wheel, shrugging his shoulders to himself mockingly. “Anything else I should know, Ma’am?” 

Drive into a tree, you want to snap, but refrain. Even if seeing the Brit’s eyes go small and jaw go tight was a smirk-inducing sight, what you wanted was silence. A silence that you would probably never get now that your house was being invaded without your say. 

At least it’s only him, trying to find light in the situation was your father’s specialty–not yours. Your body forces out a tight breath to calm down. Could you imagine what would have happened if Laswell had forced the one with the dead eyes to watch me? Ghost?

Your body shivers tightly. If Price was at the top of your list of people you feared, Ghost was second. You couldn’t stand to feel those blue orbs lock on you in the rear-view mirror when they’d brought you in. You already had enough ghosts living at the mansion, you didn't need another.

A few seconds later, the car beside you comes to a fast halt with a ruckus of crunching gravel. You hope for a moment the car will turn around and disappear into the background.

“...Y’know what, yeah? I’m solid walking.” The clashing of keys being ripped from an ignition makes you blink in horror, head whipping to the side to watch as the car door is shoved open. 

Sergeant Kyle’s tall form greets you as your legs stall, shock coating your lungs.

“The hel–” you stop your sharp tongue. Gritted words fall instead. “And what are you doing?”

Gaz’s body goes to the back of the car, popping open the trunk and throwing out bag after bag as your jaw drops. He grasps one of the largest—a duffel bag—and slings it over his back. Two more are taken in one hand as his muscles writhe, though it looked like the apparent weight doesn't bother him much. 

The Brit ignores you, striding past as his long fingers go to his right ear. 

“Actual this is Bravo 2-6, I’ll be needing a pickup for a vehicle about a mile down-road. Parked near the edge. You copy?” A pause as you watch him continue on, looking back and forth from the still metal to his clenched fist over the straps of his belongings. A small sound escapes your throat. “No,” Gaz huffs a stiff laugh in response to the conversation you can’t hear. Your ear tips burn. “No, there’s not a damn thing wrong with the bastard, believe it or not.” 

“Hey!” Calling loudly, you stare at the figure as it gradually gets farther away, feet spread apart and the air smelling of corroding anger saturated in lake water.

“Affirm, Actual. Will do.” Kyle smoothly utters, taking his hand off his earpiece and fixing the black cord that descends from it so it won’t get in the way of his shirt collar. 

Not thinking much of your absent footsteps, the Brit’s head tilts. His ball cap blocks out the sun from his eyes yet they still squint at your practically vibrating silhouette. 

“You coming then, Love? Long walk.” Your hands snap to your pockets, the one finding the small coin immediately and bringing it into a tight grip. Suddenly, Gaz’s dark Adam’s Apple was the most offensive sight you’ve ever laid eyes on. “Best get to it, then.”

You can no more say you were fighting off a string of curses more than you were struggling against the rampage of your heart. Kyle just turns back around with a small smirk growing at the apparent slackness of your jaw; brown eyes crinkling. His internal scoreboard marks a point under his name.

Staying stationary for a good minute, stance tight and mind running, Laswell's words come back to encompass your consciousness in between the seething hatred you hold as the two of you become more separated. The price on your head—the threats to your mother’s safety as well as yours. 

Your thighs tighten. 

For better or for worse, you had to stick close to Kyle for the simple fact that he knew more about this than you did. Trained to be a killer and not hesitant to pull the trigger of a gun for the sake of his precious orders. Even now your eyes snap to the open expanse of the military base’s outer fields; the long grass and the dark ruts in the dirt. Blinking, your tense feet slam the ground as you start forward begrudgingly.

Fine. I’m an adult. I can handle it. But…maybe getting in the car would have been better than walking beside him. Your jaw clenches, not willing to admit that small fact to the man ahead of you. 

“Do you get tired of being a piece of work?” You call loudly, catching up quickly at your pace as though the man was hanging back purposely, also knowledgeable of the situation. 

He couldn’t just abandon his charge.

Kyle glances at your side profile, quirking a dark brow and sloping his chin. Being this close to him made your nose scrunch at the smell of his cologne, the scent not unpleasant but ultimately still attached to him.

“Actually, Ma’am, I take it as a compliment. Means I’m doing my job.” A pause as he fixes the hold on his gear, grunting. Not able to help himself now that the opportunity presents itself. “Do you?” 

Keeping a wide berth between you too, your face tilts to the sky, finding the whizzing forms of water birds and growling like a dog choking on a bullet. The hatred in the air was palpable; none too eager for the job ahead. 

My protection detail, you send long glances at Kyle thinking over the title again, studying his strong back and the sharp stab of his nose as it twitches to the scent of native switchgrass seeds. Keeping your studious attention far away from his brown orbs, you peel at the sides of your nails inside your pockets. The person I need protection from is already right beside me. How ironic can my life get?

But you can’t really be surprised, after all, you had expected to see him and the others again someday. Just…not like this. In the ground would have been preferable.

As you both walk in a strangling silence, your thoughts go back to your mother; wondering if she would be okay. The woman was far more stubborn than even you—there were few things that pulled her away from her work in helping others. 

Taking one hand to itch at the skin under your left eye, you stifle a yawn. 

At most, you’d text each other perhaps once a month. Quick updates and brief conversations about the weather like strangers. You couldn't talk about your nightmares or your father even though she’d been informed about the accusations on her deceased husband. 

You didn’t know if the CIA agents had told her the specifics about how he died when they delivered a detailed condolence letter and forced signatures of silence. It would destroy her if they did. 

Maybe I’ll call her when I get my phone from my nightstand back home. 

You narrow your vision. An urge to hear your mom’s soothing voice hit you like an anvil. She couldn’t make this better, but she’d certainly be able to help. 

Gaz’s eyes rove and observe the land, his combat boots leaving prints behind him. But his inspections always lead him back to you. His charge. The phantom from his past that had never really been forgotten just pushed to the side in between missions. The girl who seemed to not give a damn that he was the only person able to keep her alive at this point.

The line on Kyle’s forehead deepens. 

Part of him was completely fine with keeping his voice in his throat; listening to the chatter of birds and the clink of his bags’ zippers as he carried the great weight of them with no complaint. Another piece, the loose, reliable, part of him that followed procedure was hesitant to try and articulate how dire this was out loud to you because that wasn’t how this usually went. 

The target on your back was no joke, even Laswell knew it. But the soldier carries the burden of detail. 

Would she take me seriously if I don’t try to tell her, is the question. The Sergeant makes a noise in the back of his throat.

First impressions are a lock and seal as he was sure you were well aware. 

His lips part, half a word formed before the skin gradually falls shut again. Kyle takes a glance at you once more, looking at your wound-tight form and the utter mental exhaustion on your face. Despite his reservations about you, a sliver of regret finds his heart.

You hadn’t asked for any of this, and while you weren’t giving him much slack, his dry sarcastic nature hadn’t helped either. The two of you were just good at making the other go insane, no matter how much time you did or didn’t spend together. 

Kyle would never admit it, but it slightly impressed him.

“Should be back in town near o-twelve-hundred.” He clears his throat, trying to lose the bleeding of his stoic words. Make them lighter; airier. Attempt to be cordial. “If we keep this pace, of course. Then I can set up and be out of your hair for a bit.” 

Your feet had come to a slow drag-legged stop. Gaz blinks, noticing from the corner of his vision, and does the same—his tightness immediately going to confusion. He looks around the area, though spots nothing out of the ordinary.

Hell, what did I say now? 

But he sees your distant gaze with a stilling of his facial features, gaze falling to what you were staring quite hard at. 

You blink down at the corpse near the side of the road. 

Its small body was covered in dirtied feathers; colors of orange, gray, black, and white speaking through despite the obvious decay. A beak so long it took up larger space than the skull. 

Belted Kingfisher. 

When an animal dies the eyes are always the first to go—maggots and flies, whatnot. Soft and squishy. You don’t know why, but looking down at that small, dead, bird you longed to know what its eyes had looked like. The color, the intelligent sheen of them. Now only a black eye socket gives its voided opinions like a mute judge. 

You’d spotted it quite by accident, just looking over the landscape as the Brit tried to speak to you. A breeze ruffles the feathers that are left over the frail being and you find for the first time in a long while your head is completely silent.

Your muscles loosen.

“...Ma’am?” 

Violently flinching, the brief contact to your shoulder is snapped back in an instant, Kyle going to splay the offending hand in a sign of no harm. Dark eyebrows tight. Taking down a full breath, you miss the concern in the Sergeant’s expression, the steady look. There’s a moment when the world holds its air; the animals nearby fall wholly still as the wind carries every unsaid word better than you can annunciate it. 

Your stomach rolls at the reminder of his touch, even through layers of clothes. Gaz murmurs a question of which you ignore.

Shoving past him, on your way past his tilted face you growl upwards, “Keep your hands off of me, Garrick.” 

You increase your walking speed, trying with all of your might to fight the impending explosion of anger and anxiety. It was like your hands wanted to grip him by his neck, shove him down to the floor and let him know what it felt like to hurt the way you do. For a moment glimpse the life draining from his amber optics.

But any sort of physical pain, or even death, could never amount to knowing what you’d gone through. Not to mention you’d probably get your ass handed to you in mere seconds. 

Staring after with wide, creased, eyes, the Brit waits for a moment before he looks down at the small bird carcass you were entranced by moments prior. 

His head tilts, lungs filling.

“...Poor bugger.” He frowns and observes the way you quickly walk on with emotion on his lips. Gaz sighs and shakes his head, raising a brow back down at the now-soulless body as the telltale signs of a migraine start to pulse. “Recon I’ll be ending up like you in a bit, Mate.” 

He catches up easily, even with the weight of his bags and you have to wonder how anyone thought that this was a good idea. 

The devil beside you walks so far removed from normal life that it astounds you, and the rest of the trip is stuck in an uncomfortable silence reserved for those who dislike one another. 

Town can’t come soon enough, and you’re stopping at Hector’s Café along the way to your Estate. 

“It’s best to go straight back,” you thin your lips and slip into the building, the door creaking behind you as Gaz waits at the entrance. “I need to secure the property ASAP.” 

“You’ll get to wreck my home all you want in an hour.” Your backpack was on the main counter, and you walked to it slowly; drawing out the Sergeant's annoyance as much as you could. If you can’t hurt him physically at the moment, mentally was just as good a substitute. “I need my backpack.”

“Oh, you mean the one that left a dent in my skull.”

“Yes. I think I’ll end up keeping it as a family heirloom. Frame it maybe.”

“Ah, Lovely. Glad I can be a part of such a defining moment.” Strap in hand and a sarcastic retort on your breath, a great ruckus sound off from the backroom. 

Before you can react your jacket sleeve is being pulled sideways, a form shoving itself in between you and the kitchen door. Your eyes widen, feet stumbling to a stop before adrenaline stabs itself into your heart.

“Son of a bitch!” Rushing out, Hector wields a skillet in one hand—raised halfway above his head with a rabid snarl. “You!” He points it at Kyle, who has a small pistol gripped in his hands; bags haphazardly dropped back near the entrance. Your lips pull to a smirk when the Brit’s ready stance lessens. His wide shoulders lower like a dog’s neck fur. “You think I don’t know a government conspiracy when I see it! I lived in Jersey, motherfucker! What have you done with ‘er?” 

“Hector,” you peek over Garrick’s shoulder as the Sergeant spares you a look. “Easy with that, man….Aim for the throat, though, would you?” 

The skillet lowers, bright eyes landing on you while yours stick to his growing smile and twitching mustache. 

“Kid!” Loud laughs echo. “Holy hell, you scared the shit out ‘o me this morning. What was that all about?”

“Misunderstanding, Sir.” Gaz tries to explain, placing the pistol back into the belt of his pants as you clock it before stepping out from his shadow. It looked like an X12 to you. 

When did he get that, your eyebrows tighten and store that thought for later. There might be a chance to use that against him if you could get your hands on it.

The Café owner glares at the Sergeant as you fix the backpack strap over your shoulder. “Did I ask you, Son? I’m speakin’ to the lady.” 

“An Ex.” You lie smoothly, feeling Kyle’s shocked eyes on you instantly. Itching at the back of your neck, you feign embarrassment. “Cheated on me in high school. When he showed up, well…I did what I’d wanted to do for a while.”

Letting the sentence trail, you were excited for what came next. Genuine giddiness builds in your lungs; fighting a smile as the Brit stutters beside you. Gaz’s eyebrows pull up even higher.

“Cheated…” Hector’s accent becomes more prominent as you twist on a heel and begin heading to the door—only then do you anchor a hand to your mouth to stop the belly-deep laughter. “Oh, you’ve some nerve, showin’ back up, Son. How dare you make her see your face—!”

“Sir, I, bloody hell, I’m not—” Gaz grumbles, shooting heated glances at your disappearing form. “This isn’t….” Stuttering like a rookie. Everything in VIP Protection Training and his copious years in the army was pulling null. 

But no one was ever pulling his strings like you and it’s only been a few hours.

“See you, Hec!” 

“Hey! Come get this piece of trash out of my building.” Your face turns sideways, and Kyle notices the smirk immediately. His chest goes heavy with a wave of seething anger. 

“C’mon then, Kyle. You heard the man, didn’t you?”

If looks could melt people like gold, you would be a puddle of great Midas's curse before your skin hit the air outside, kicking the Sergeant’s bags away with a foot. 

Oh…she’s wicked, she is. The steps he takes are firm, a great cloud over his head as he re-situated his cap with taut fingers and grunts aggressively under his breath. Insulting him directly was one thing, but the chips at his character were cruel. Can I even do this? Hmm, Laswell might still be able to pull me out, let me join back up with the boys.

But everyone was counting on him for this and his stubborn side knew that he’d gone through far worse than a few verbal attacks. Physical strength was needed for this job, but many overlook the larger aspect. And if there was a single thing that Kyle Garrick was prideful about, it was his mental fortitude. Rare were the times that rigorous interrogation even put a dent into his psyche. 

“Just hold out,” he grumbles, ignoring the Cafe owner’s now-known disgust and picking up his bags. Gaz almost felt regretful for being so swift to place his body in front of a possible threat but scolded himself for thinking that immediately. This was his job. “She’s just scared, yeah? Doesn’t want to be around the bloke who,” he slightly cringes and lets the building’s front door close behind him, seeing your jacket ahead and rubbing at the back of his neck. “Who shoved her in a fucking van and put a gun to her head…Christ, Kate, what were you thinking assigning me to this?”

For the remainder of the small journey, Gaz stayed behind you, calming down as your enjoyment of his torment swiftly ended. Small victories weren't worth it, especially when the Brit says nothing in retaliation. Did your little dig at his character really insult him that much? It wasn’t the worst thing you had thought you could say. Not by a long shot.

Sure it seemed that you could piss him off, even if he never snapped and exploded with anger—he didn’t seem the type beyond back-handed comments—but if he didn’t respond it made no difference. 

You…you wanted to hurt him. Make Garrick suffer. You just didn’t know how to do it effectively, or if you could. Now you knew, though, that attacks on his person and morals were the way to go for quick results of muteness.

The iron gate of your home was up ahead, and with a delving of fingers, you produced a key from your back pocket, moving your wallet out of the way to grasp it firmly. 

I want them all to suffer. Your mind wanders as you twist the lock, hearing the metal shriek at you in figurative suffering. Blinking, the shadow behind you causes your body to be hyper-aware. A plan forms grimly, and you have to think if you even have the courage to try it. 

“Hm,” you huff, shoving open the gate and calling over your shoulder. “Close it behind you!” Tossing back the key. 

Kyle catches it, you know, because of the small thump of material meeting a ready palm. A moment later you’re walking through a path of weeds and overgrown bushes, eyes scanning the hedges blandly. You hear the gate close and a moment later, footsteps.

Gaz twirls the key in between his fingers, trying not to say something about the state of the place. But his brown vision roves from one area to another with muted shock.

Didn’t expect this.

Everything was falling into disrepair, even the gargantuan mansion of white and black coloring which normally would have been a grand sight to anyone with sense. Windows were all shut, the lawn looking more like a forest; the concrete underfoot was layered with dirt and insects—grass bleeding into the cracks. 

What should have been a multiple-million-dollar home was looking more like an abandoned lot. 

Kyle turns his confused stare to the back of your head, looking down at the key in hand. 

“Past its prime, I’ll say that.” He speaks to himself, keeping his manners despite the discourse between the two of you. 

It was one thing to bark back and forth like animals, but another to involve the place where one lives. But, your family was well off. There was no reason for it to look like this.

“Any staff I should be aware of, then?” he needs to ask as you ascend the front steps to the double doors. “Gardeners,” Garrick glances quickly at the greenery and coughs, “or, butlers, maids…anything like that” 

“Everyone quit because of the publicity.” Your voice is unusually distant, and you push aside a raggedy welcome mat to produce another key. This one is smaller and rustier, belonging to the main entrance. “Shocker, people didn’t like being harassed on their way to work by camera crews and news anchors. Didn’t hire after that.” 

Kyle’s feet shift, a strange feeling entering his skin as he blinks at you. 

You slip through the doorway first and immediately dart to the side table to the direct right—dropping your backpack dismissively with a quick, yet silent, slam. Heart jumping, your adrenaline spikes. 

Normally the small table would be reserved for purses and other small belongings, but before Gaz can come into the mansion you grab the slick body of a penknife and shove it into your sleeve with twitching fingers. Eyes snapping to the corners of the large foyer and looking over the gray walls and navy curtains. Creaking hardwood. 

“Nice place you got ‘ere,” Kyle tries to lighten the mood, if not for your stubborn sake than for his. Easier to get the job done if at least one person was willing to engage, and he’s willing to attempt it again. The bags in his hand are carefully placed down.

A hand snaps to your father’s gag and you yell when he rages, body shifting forward feebly before a shadow descends upon you. A swift force keeps you back, and your head snaps upwards. 

“Been in the family forever.” You slowly slip the blade out, trading weight from one hip to another and keeping it hidden. “Not really mine, at the end of the day.” 

The hand digs into your shoulder, forcing you to stay in your seat as your lips quiver. It’s not delicate, the hold, and when your eyes scrunch in pain, he somewhat lessons it though not enough to stop the sting. 

A slight relief at the non-confrontational action lets Gaz force out a chuckle. 

“Lots of places like that over in England—you have to wonder how they’re still standing, eh? Solid foundations.” A pause. “Proper interesting pieces of history.”

Never would the image of sepia-colored eyes like those leave you again. Inlaid in brown skin and below dark eyebrows.

You stop fidgeting, all thoughts for a moment stilling. What had he said? 

“You—” Stopping yourself, you turn and tilt your head in his direction, watching the rise and fall of his chest as he looks around the stairs to the second level and the small seating areas. Your voice echoes like it usually does; like a ghost unwilling to go to rest. Kyle closes the door behind him with one hand, only looking at you directly when it’s fully shut.

“What’s that, Love?”

Your feet rearrange over the rug.

“You’re…interested in that kind of stuff?” Kyle sees your hands clench but thinks nothing of it. His curiosity fills his lungs when he becomes familiar with the deadly expression on your face. 

The material of his clothes moves as he shrugs, turning his gaze away when he knows it makes you uncomfortable. Gaz wasn’t ignorant—he knew you didn’t like looking people in the eye. As his orbs find the dusty and dim chandelier hanging dangerously above them, he notices your eyes now settle back on him. 

“Not overly, but I can say History was one of my best subjects back in Secondary Education—erm,” his lips pull tight, a tiny pinch of a smirk on his face, “high school as you call it.”

You fiddle with the weapon secretly, unblinking vision stuck to Kyle’s feet. His comment made you think about the assignments you still had to complete for college; the papers to write. After all, if you flunked out of all the courses, you’d never be able to take your father's place at the museum. It was your ultimate goal, at the end of the day. Become like him.

The inability to move made your teeth bite down, but common sense won over. You place your hand into your pocket and slip the penknife inside, your other holds itself out loosely.

I have to be smarter than that. Discreet.

But you really wished you could have slid the blade home.

“Key.” Gaz nods, moving over and dropping it into your awaiting clutch before you rip it away and toss it to the side table. 

“Ma’am,” the Sergeant’s face twists, but you’re already stalking past him, going off deeper into the house. Brown eyes follow. “I know you don’t want me here,” his voice bounces at the stark emptiness of the mansion, “but the only reason I’m staying is to keep you safe. I’m not expecting you to—”

“East wing is all yours.” You’re halfway up the stairs and still going, feet silently stomping over the various moth-eaten rugs. But the man cannot see your face as he’s left with a line on his forehead and a blunt frown on his lips. So much for your few seconds of compliance. He’d thought he was getting somewhere.

“I’d rather be closer. Encase there’s—” Again, he’s cut off. There’s going to be a lot of that. 

“Keep to it after your little exploration. And don’t try anything, my father installed security cameras.” You didn’t give away that you didn’t know how to operate them, but that was beside the point. 

Reaching the top, you head to the west and disappear down a hallway. Kyle hears one last comment bounce.

“I leave at eight every morning!” He’s left alone with only faint light and silent walls. 

But, with a shake of his head and the grabbing of bags at his feet, he can’t say he’s surprised. 

Looking about, Kyle takes in the lack of personality and blandness all around, forgetting for a moment that this home once belonged to a late museum director. He had expected more character—more expression. Certainly more light. 

This place was at a stand-still, like time didn’t begin or end in this house and it simply was. 

He sighs, nodding. He’d just have to work with it. “East wing. Brilliant.” 

His mind still held doubts about this—had ever since Price had given him the order straight from Kate. How can you protect someone that rightly hates your guts? You had more of a chance of tearing him a new one than he did of getting you to cooperate. And that was saying something, considering he was professionally trained in hand-to-hand. 

Again, Gaz had to ask himself if he was capable of doing this job. He thinks back to that mission three years ago, expression pulling tight as he jogged up the stairs and took a swift right. 

He regretted what had happened, yes, but at the end of the day, it was just another target who had gotten what he deserved. It was what the Sergeant did—got his hands dirty to clean up messes and keep everyone else safe.

Your father couldn’t have been any more of a good influence than a bad one. Gaz had seen the file on him. The countless dead. 

He wasn’t a good man, how couldn’t you see that?

“Mate, that was her fuckin’ father.” Growling, that sliver of civilian common sense slithers back in like a rope around his neck when he goes deeper into the house, past various open doors that show meeting rooms, libraries, offices, and art rooms. No bedrooms yet. “Christ, you’re losing it. Man got his bloody head blown off right in front of ‘er.”

When had he become so desensitized to this? 

His brown eyes glared at the floor when he realized he couldn’t remember being horrified by anything he had seen in the last few years. 

Death was death—didn’t matter how bloody it was, or how drawn out. At the end, all of it was just red. 

But he’d never taken a moment to think about how that would be for someone like you. Unused to violence. There was a grand question that Garrick still didn’t know the answer to. Were you a hostage in that little stunt, or were you just leverage? 

The Captain knew the answer—leverage. There was never any intention to actually pull the trigger on you. Kyle would have flatly refused if there had been, as would Soap. Ghost was still an enigma, but part of the Sergeant wanted to believe that he didn’t want that either. 

Samson Row. 

An overwhelming hatred struck the back of his skull as he entered the first room he saw with a bed in it, setting his bags on the covers and pushing his fingers to his nose bride. Eyebrows pull in. 

No use getting like this over a dead man. Stay focused. 

His fingers had only just begun to toss off the duffel bag from over his back when he first saw it. 

His hands paused, body going as still as a stick when he breathed in tightly. 

It was a portrait of your family. Picturesque. Mother on the left father on the right, and you—younger, of course—in the middle. Gaz blinks away to study the rest of the room.

It was incredibly large, with chairs and a couch covered by white cloth to imitate oddly-shaped ghosts and the same navy curtains over a wall of nearly all window panes. And yet no personal belongings other than the picture. 

Brown eyes filter back, staring long at the small girl with a wide smile; the mother with a hand on her shoulder, and the father looking down at his daughter with a nearly missed look of adoration. Garrick half expected the image to bed down and kiss you on the forehead.

Looking away with a clenched jaw, he huffs.

Wordlessly, the Sergeant once more grabs his belongings and walks out the door. 

—

You shook above the bathroom toilet, your breaths a heaving mess of warring instincts. Take down air or let the swirling of your gut cease—the offers were tempting. You’d been in here for most of the day, knees grinding into the tile with the efficiency of a blunt chisel; clothes ruffled as your jacket lay tossed on the floor back in your dark room. 

Throwing your empty stomach up. 

Struggling to think over the day, you force yourself back from the white porcelain, shuffling on jerking legs to rest your back on the opposite wall. 

“He’s in my house. Oh, Dad, one of them is in your house.” Fingers weave through locks and clench tight, hitched words loud in the silence you’d grown to comply with like an old God. Cryptid horrors that stalk the hallways that you see from the corners of your eyes, ghosts that won't leave. “I couldn't do it, why couldn’t I just try?” 

The penknife. It would have been instantaneous. 

But you knew deep down you’d never even be able to get close. 

Sweating and panting, you can almost hear him walking the halls, studying the layout with invasive digits. A parasite. And you’d just let him in. 

The price on your head was scary, sure, but there was already a threat in your very home; learning the rooms like he had any right to be here—like he knew the memories that lived in the walls. Holidays were spent in the main living room, meals made as a family in the kitchen as the butlers watched with happy eyes. The man-made pond in the back behind a wall of green trees because your mother loved to watch the birds. 

This house was generations of your very bloodline. Stories along every surface. History.

“He can’t be here.” You gasp, curling inward as you try and suck down larger breaths. Trying to calm yourself down with reassurance. “He’ll leave soon. He has too. He will.” 

Just wait until Mom gets back, she’ll make them go away. The thought makes air return to your lungs; shaking come to a drawn-out ceasing point. Blinking, you let your hands fall to your lap, body slouching forward. She’ll make it all go away. 

When you find the strength to rise, your feet only stumble slightly, propelling you out of the bathroom towards your bare-bones room. A bed, nightstand, dresser, and couch are the only articles of furniture seen outwardly; a fireplace set into the wall with a rug by it. Curtains drawn closed and smelling of charcoal and old linens. 

Peeling back paint, you stare heavily at the nightstand’s drawer, seeing the copper handle and thinking. But you shake your head and dispel the thoughts.

The acidic taste in your mouth made you smack your lips, almost enough to make you want to gag again. But as easily as the high of injected panic came, it went with a low of immeasurable depths. Still, though, your fingers twitched with unruly nerves; anxious at every creak in the wood outside the door. 

It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.

Exiting your room, your socked feet know where to step so the wood doesn’t talk back at you, one hand rubbing up and down your face to bring the aliveness back. You needed coffee. Something with caffeine or an immensely high sugar content to keep the rest of this at bay. 

As you turn a corner, your stomach grumbles, sweatpants bunched at your ankles. Food too, you decided.

Walking through the large, arched, entry to the kitchen, you make your way through in complete blackness. You frown, though aren’t surprised you’d spent most of the day inside your room—past the fabric barrier, the hidden French doors to the patio let in the faint light of a dying sun. 

Around seven, if you had to guess. The loss of time to you should have been concerning, but you had in fact grown used to it. 

Year number one after your father’s death was…really nothing more than a blank slate. But you didn’t want to remember any of that, truth be told. 

Stumbling to the fridge, you grip the handle and pull. 

“Bit late for supper.” Yelling, you jerk your hand back and whip to the shadow in the entrance. 

The light snaps on with a flick of a finger, and the sheepish smile on Gaz’s face leaves vexation perforating the large room. 

“Shit, sorry.”

“Do you mind, Garrick?” Your eyes go to his chest, looking away just as quickly when you spot he’d taken off his outer later and was only in the white t-shirt that hugs his physique. The army pants still remained. “What are you even doing down here? I told you to stay on your side.”

“Not really able to do my job from the corner, yeah?” He walks closer, noticing the layer of dust over the gas stove, and raises a brow; wisely knowing not to comment. “Heard you comin’ down, thought I’d make sure everything was solid.”

“I’m fine.” You take out an old carton of milk, nose wrinkling at the smell emanating from the interior. Kyle’s eyes narrow, crossing his arms over his chest. “Now leave.”

You were too tired for this. 

Slamming the milk back into the fridge and closing the door, you plan to make the trip back to your room on an empty stomach. Kyle clears his throat, seeing an opportunity presenting itself. 

I have to get her to at least tolerate me. 

He’d take every occasion he could get.

“How about I have a go at it?” He speaks quickly as you freeze in the entryway, light from the kitchen spilling out into the hall. “Sandwiches?” 

Your gaze stays dead ahead, numbly stuck to the paint of the wall as if it was going to move and entrap you. Lips pulling back you feel your heart skip a beat. 

Kyle continues, hopeful. 

“Can’t say I'm an expert at it, but I spent a good few weeknights fixin’ my own meals on Base.” You can hear him moving behind you, opening the fridge back up, and grabbing the few items you had that weren't expired. Opening cupboards that your father opened. Grabbing pans that your mother made eggs in. “...Ma’am? That alright?” 

Your eye flinches minutely, cheek pulling upward in response. Yet the churning in your stomach was volatile, and if you went another hour without food you’d probably be passing out every time you stood up. What harm was there in taking advantage of the man? A meal was a meal, and you’d only had coffee today anyways.

Saying nothing, you take one step backward and pivot. 

Gaz watches in shock, not expecting you to take him up on his offer. By the heat in your eyes, he supposed you wished you didn’t. 

I didn’t see her at all after she disappeared into her room—not even when I was doing a sweep. The Sergeant had memorized the entire mansion layout in only two hours, going into every room except the one that had been closed tight. Yours. 

It wasn’t hard for him, though it was tedious the fourth run of the place. He’d counted every window and every entrance or exit door and had locked every one that led outside. 

But he kept re-walking past that closed door; his feet taking him back even as his mind stayed focused. 

Gaz’s hand had been poised to knock at one point during that time period but had only stayed stationary before it fell back down to his side. It was best not to push too hard. Inch before the mile.

In the kitchen, he sees you slip onto the island bar stool, always keeping a side-eye on his hands as they dig through sparse ingredients. 

Egg sandwich it is, then. 

Your voice rasps out, “I don’t remember ‘cook’ being in the detail description.” 

“Well, I sure hope it wasn’t.” Kyle chortles. His brown optics spare you a quick dart, seeing your form tense over the marble countertop as he swishes away dirt from the stove; placing a pan on top. You seem subdued…fingers twitch over the handle before his eagerness to earn your favor slowed. Sickly. 

Your skin is sunken, eyes blinking fast and snapping back and forth at every sound his body makes as if he’d pounce on you. Keeping an ever-heavy glare to where his pistol was sitting in the clutch of his belt—visible from over his shirt. 

The Brit swallows and looks back. 

“My job’s just to make sure you live another day, yeah?” The man’s voice lowers and you look to the coffee bar near the abandoned family table. “I’ll be in the background the entire time.” Leaving the chair, you go to it and speak as the sound of cracking eggshells hits your ear like a caving skull.

“I have rules.” 

Garrick nods firmly, but you don’t see it as you open a bag of fresh grounds and grab a mug.

“Copy, Ma’am. It’s your house—I’ll follow what I’m told.” He shifts his arms into a crossed position and leans back against the island as the eggs sizzle. You know he wants to say more, and too tired to care to give a retort or interrupt him, you let Gaz continue. “But I’m not willing to let that interfere with my mission. Any order I’m given’ll override what you tell me if it has to, even if it’s dodgy.” 

You watch dark liquid fill the coffee pot in a deluge of blackness like a wave of ink, and with that inkiness, the pit in your stomach gets larger. 

You could always poison him. Your eyes blink, hearing the slight beep of the machine in front of you as you grip your mug. 

Nightshade.

“Well, then,” Kyle looks for plates and finds a stack in a cupboard near the entrance. “What do I need to know, Ma’am?”

Hemlock.

“I don’t like people messing with my things,” you level, filling your cup to the brim as Gaz takes the pan off the heat; putting out the flame. “Stay out of my room and the room next to it if you insist on walking around.”

Choosing the opposite end of the wide island, you put your cup down and sit. A plate with a piece of bread with the yellow and white sight of scrambled eggs is slid into view. Kyle does what’s best and goes as far away from you as possible to eat his fill as well. 

The built man stands. 

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” he admits, “I’ll be taking a look around every day, but I doubt anyone would try and break in.” 

The fingers which had picked up a small piece of egg paused with it halfway to your mouth.

Castor Bean.

“Why do you say that?” 

“The curtains.” You spare a glance at his nose, watching him take a bite out of the bread and act like the answer was obvious. He swallows and you follow the action with a tight throat. “Erm, no offense, Ma’am,” you raise a brow slowly, “but am I safe to assume you never open them? Least, not all the way?”

“What do you think?” You eat your food and take a long sip of your drink, downing half the mug in one go. You really just wanted him to disappear like a bad dream.

Large quantities of Daffodil.

“Less of a chance of anyone else knowing where your room is—would take too long to figure out. Wasting time like that isn’t how foreign cells operate…quick and easy, y’know?... Any others?” Kyle finishes his plate quickly, moving to place it in the sink; not wanting to dwell on the comment.

You take a few bites of your own, wondering silently how he can eat so quickly, and nod.

“If you hear me screaming in the middle of the night, leave me alone.” 

The air thickens.

Kyle blanks as you continue eating slowly, taking brief intermissions between bits to sip down more coffee. The tired moments of your sluggish eyes and twitching fingers. You don’t think to explain further, content to hear in those few moments absolutely nothing besides the beating of your own heart.

Rosary Pea. Induces tremors, high heart rate, and burning in the back of the throat. Fatal. 

Your mother also liked her plants, though you doubted the fauna in the back garden was still alive. You hadn’t bothered to keep it up after the gardener quit.

“I’m…not following.” Gaz scratches at his chin, face pulled back in confusion, lightly shaking his head. “Screaming?”

“Screaming.” Taking the empty plate, you wipe at your mouth with the back of your hand. “In the night. I was quite clear.” A devious smirk whittles itself over your flesh like wood. “You’ve heard my scream before, you’ll recognize it. Sound carries.” Dismissively you toss your free hand. “As I said, it’s an old property.” 

Gaz tries his best to not engage, but the words he’d been wanting to tell you slither off his tongue after a moment's thought. He had to make you understand. Strain forms again.

His head shakes with a slight parting to his lips. No matter what, every conversation always led back to an argument. “Do you think this is a joke?”

You’re walking back to your seat with the coffee pot in hand, scooping up your mug with the intention of bringing both back to your room. 

You don’t answer right away, causing the man to call your name sternly; seriously. 

“I hate you. That’s not a joke.” Your words bounce, not at all hollow like the wound in your heart. Violent and utterly true. 

You didn’t want this man around—you didn’t want him in your house, you didn’t want him in your city, you didn’t want him living. 

Walking off, the suffocating air trails after you as you disappear into the darkness, avoiding the truth. 

But this situation is not a joke. Not at all, but you can never say that out loud. Where would your thin bit of control go? The brief moments of pleasure when you make Kyle’s patience and lax nature devolve into annoyance—even anger.

The words follow after you in a deep, aggravated, sigh. 

“Yeah, trust me, Love, I’m well aware.”

Cold was a day in hell before you admitted to this boy you were terrified.

But how many more days could you keep that act up? Three? Five? Ten? How long was this even going to go on?

Your mind was scattered, torn between duty and self-preservation. Killing the Sergeant would lead you down a dark path, one you weren't sure you could take by yourself. But was that justice?

Is that what Dad would want? You have to ask yourself as you make your way back to your room in pitch blackness, guided only by the old walls of a home even more dented and destroyed than you were. 

But the worst part was that you didn’t even know the answer anymore. And everybody who could help was limited to a stray cat that didn’t like you and a mother who left you here alone during your darkest moments.

The house was filled with ghosts, but you’d never felt more alone.

TAGS:

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[flowerandblood]

Inside Alphabet

Inspired by the NSFW Alphabet, I decided to create my own, with a slightly different function − to give our characters a better look inside their heads.

Often chapters alone don't manage to describe everything (the author also sometimes doesn't have the space or strength to do so) and it's also nice sometimes to establish certain things and canons from which readers can learn something interesting.

I decided to make one for my favourite characters and I'm also publishing it as a template, if anyone feels like using it for themselves, go ahead! You can tag me, I'd love to read how you use it for myself.

A = Anger (do they get mad and how they react to it)

B = Behavior (tics, reflexes, things specific to them)

C = Crying (whether they cry & do what when someone else cries)

D = Despair (who they seek help from first)

E = Enemy (who they hate or argue with most often)

F = Friends (do they have and who they consider friends)

G = Gifts (whether they like gifts and give them themselves)

H = Hobby (what they do for pleasure in their free time)

I = Idol (their role model)

J = Jokes (how they react to jokes and if they laugh)

K = Kids (do they want to have them)

L = Love (anything to do with falling in love)

M = Manners (how they behave in formal situations)

N = Nightmare (their worst nightmare)

O = Origin (their childhood)

P = Proximity (what they are like when they are intimate)

Q = Quiz (whether they like to play and how)

R = Routine (do they have a daily routine and what is it)

S = Safety (whether and where they feel safe)

T = Touch (who they allow to touch and how)

U = Unforgivable (things they would not forgive)

V = Vengeance (whether they are vengeful and how)

W = Warderobe (what they wear, what style they have)

Y = Yearning (whether they yearn and how they express it)

Z = Zone (their comfort zone)

Let me know which of my characters you would like to read about first, they can be both male and female protagonists!

[pangur-and-grim]

I know it’ll be a while but I am Literally rattling the bars waiting to read your book im chewing at the walls

man I'm chewing at the walls with you, I've got such tunnel vision about getting this book out right now!

so far I've:

sent 60 queries to literary agents

received 20 rejections (40 are still unknown)

entered a contest to work with an editor (unknown results)

paid two agents to review my query letter and synopsis so that I can improve my querying package

added 2,500 words to the book in the form of chapter titles so that I can meet a 70k word count and better my chances

and still ahead of me I have:

a list of 150 literary agents and indie publishers who seem promising that I have yet to query

many, many, many agencies that I have yet to look through, meaning my to-query list is going to grow

I think I may have more luck with indie publishers because the book is such a weird gay clusterfuck, but I'm trying the agents first.

indie publishers are small presses that usually choose 1-10 titles to publish a year, so they're very competitive, but they also care less about how commercial and marketable your book is, and more about whether it's interesting and artsy. and I dunno if mine is artsy, but it's certainly interesting