#things might make more sense if i find the rest of the tablets. maybe.

[ratcandy]

youknow i am off the deep end when I start getting up and pacing my dorm while arguing to myself out loud about lore

[frenchkisstheabyss]

♡ Once More, With Feeling ♡

♡ Pairing: poly!hyunlix x gn!reader

♡ Genre: fluff/angst

♡ Summary: Unable to sleep after a major argument leads to a breakup, you return to a place that's close to your heart to find comfort and end up with something much more special.

♡ Word Count: 1.4k-ish

♡ Warnings: None.

♡ A/N: I was listening to dreamy low-fi indie music and got in my feelings so, like, come get in them with meeee.

It’s 3:23am and you can’t sleep. Two tablets of melatonin, three cups of chamomile tea, and an endless loop of soothing rain sounds have done nothing to change that. Your heart aches, it’s unbearable, and there’s not a single thing you can do about it. Rolling onto your back, you rip the covers off, only now realizing how much you’ve been sweating from the anxiety of cycling through last night’s events over and over in your head.

None of this feels real, losing Felix and Hyunjin, the ones you love the most. Maybe it was a bad idea from the start, the three of you being together. Maybe you weren’t as well equipped to keep them both happy as you thought. Every “maybe” hangs over you as if it’s written in glow-in-the-dark paint on the ceiling, taunting you from the void. Does any of it even matter now? Whatever it was that led to the eventual downfall of your relationship, the argument that ended it all, you can’t go back and fix it.

Even still, your heart longs for the possibility that you’ll be together again someday. You’ve always liked to think that when you truly love someone you’ll find each other no matter what, in this life or the next. It could be wishful thinking, the musings of a hopeless romantic. What does it hurt to wish, you figure, if that’s all you have? You take a long, deep breath in, allowing your breath to slowly flow back out as you squeeze your eyes shut. If I lay here long enough I’m bound to fall asleep. Right?

“Fuck it” you groan, popping up out of bed and throwing on your fuzzy bunny slippers. Felix thought it’d be cute if the three of you got matching pairs. You hate how right he was. You’ve been fighting tooth and nail with yourself all night not to drive down to the pier. For years it’s been the destination of endless late-night drives. It’s where you snuck away together when the rest of the world felt like it was too much. Your memories of being there, as much as they might sting, are the dearest things to you and you need to drown yourself in them now more than ever.

So, before you know it, you’re headed out the door pulling a hoodie over your head, car keys in hand, desperately seeking solace in nostalgia. It’s a long, lonely ride to the pier. The combination of empty streets and too-long traffic lights gives you the sense that the world has come to a screeching halt. Whether it has or not for everyone else, it has for you. The light flashes neon green, bringing you back down to earth just as you begin to drift away, and you’re making the right turn that takes you to your usual parking spot. 

Turning the car off, you take a moment to sit and inspect the other cars around you. There are a few on your side, a dozen more on the other, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone out here. Probably all people who live nearby. Confident that you’re alone, the wall you’ve put up comes crumbling down, tears falling down your cheek faster than you can wipe them away. Why am I doing this to myself? You shake your body in what would look to a passerby like a cute, albeit strange, dance of sorts in hopes that some of the emotions overwhelming you will fall away like leaves.

Get it together. Summoning all of the courage you have, you make your way to the stairs leading up to the pier. You almost slip on the gritty, sand-coated steps, but manage to make it to the top without breaking your neck. As you venture forward you already hear the waves crashing to shore. You feel the stars watching you, their gaze intense and overwhelming. Only it’s not their gaze at all. There’s someone at the end of the pier staring back at you, teary-eyed and stunned. That intensity, that overwhelming emotion, it’s his.

Felix? No, no, no. You turn on your heels, racing back to the car before you lose it completely. “Wait!” he yells, running after you. Felix hadn’t expected to see you here either. He’d typed a million text messages asking you to come but he’d deleted all of them, thinking you wouldn’t want to see him with everything being so fresh. He’s been wishing too, as much as you have, and he can’t let this moment slip away. Your car door’s halfway open when he reaches you, your fingers held tightly around the handle.

“Can we talk?” he asks, his hushed voice skimming your neck as he pushes the door closed. You don’t fight him. You don’t want to. The feeling of his chest against your back, the wind blowing his hair so that it tickles your cheek, makes you want to melt into him. Turning to face him, melting is the first thing you do, straight into his arms. He doesn’t hesitate to hold you tight to him, the tension soothed by the simple act of having you near him again. “I’m really sorry” you weep, “I should’ve seen that you weren’t happy.” 

Felix shushes you, his fingers stroking your neck, “Stop, don’t say that. I was happy. Me and Hyunjin…working with each other, we just get frustrated sometimes and it wasn’t supposed to come home but it did. I should be sorry” “What? No invite to the family reunion?” you hear Hyunjin ask and you’re positive that you’re hallucinating. But when you look up he’s standing there staring at the two of you with an expression you can’t quite make out. “I…no…we didn’t…” Felix stutters but Hyunjin’s already walking away, heading for the edge of the pier, ignoring you like you’re strangers.

You’re so much more than that and he knows it. Enough time hasn’t passed for him to erase what you shared from his mind. Even if he could, he wouldn't. Why else would he be here? Hyunjin shoves his hands in his pockets, stopping to make a half-turn toward you. “If I admit I’m an asshole will you come with me?” “I mean, we already know you’re an asshole so…no” Felix teases, getting a laugh out of both of you. “What if I say I’m sorry and that I’d really like to not be alone…to be with you two?” A long stretch of silence separates his question and your answer.

“Wait up,” you smile, taking Felix’s hand and dragging him along with you to catch up to Hyunjin. Meeting him at the center of the pier, you take his hand too and the three of you walk to the edge together. Any other time the minutes would fly by, all of the laughter and kisses making hours feel like minutes. But, in the presence of lingering pain, minutes feel like hours. “It’s not the same,” Hyunjin sighs, picking at his already chipped nail polish and flicking it into the sea. You want to deny it but you can’t. “No, it’s not.” Felix sits down, crossing his legs as he frustratingly tousles his hair, “So that’s it, then? We’re done?” 

You take a seat beside him on the ground, sick to your stomach at the thought, “I mean, is that what you want?” “Of course not. It’s never what I wanted. We are what I want.” You turn to Hyunjin and he’s already sitting down on the other side of you, his head resting on your shoulder. “Me too” he yawns, “But what about you? It doesn’t matter what we want if you don’t—” “I do. I always will.” Their faces brighten up, even in the midst of their exhaustion. Felix takes his jacket off, gathers it in a little bundle in your lap, and lays down. “Maybe it shouldn’t feel the same this time,” he muses, “We should make it better.”

You pet Felix’s hair, “I’d like that.” Hyunjin nuzzles up closer to you, seconds from falling asleep, “Better sounds nice.” Stroking Hyunjin’s cheek, you lean into him too, every sleep aid you tried kicking in at once. Suddenly the world feels like it’s moving again, bursting with life even in the dead of night.

You’ve always liked to think that when you truly love someone you’ll find each other no matter what, in this life or the next. How beautiful it is that it turned out to be this one after all.

[eqt-95]

i am sorry it is monday i am going to be mean 🖤 supercorp

Thanks for the ask! I won't even make a big deal about you and @sssammich poking me for the same heart-wrenching prompt, but I will be using 'artistic licensing' and the skill of 'splitting hairs' to get this one across the line.

for context, this is part of an AU i've written random bits for, so you're about to be thrown right into it.

- - - - -

“Hey Kara?” Lena asked from the bar cart.

“Yes?”

“What would it be?” she continued, walking to the couch. “If you were human. What's the thing you'd want to experience?”

“Food.”

The answer comes so automatically that it almost draws Lena into a laugh. Instead she leans back into her couch, swirls the lowball of peaty scotch, and closes her eyes, imagining for the hundredth time a face that didn’t exist.

“Anything specific?”

A moment passed. The voice hummed in thought; another diversion from Lena’s code.

“Does a buffet count?”

“Some might call that cheating,” Lena smiled. “Lex would call it a loophole.”

“What do you call it?”

Lena opened her eyes; glanced at the ceiling as though Kara’s voice was coming from the stars. Instead it was just the usual speaker floating overhead.

“I think it fails to grapple with the spirit of the question.”

The room, white and bright and sterile, felt like a still-life painting with the white noise that followed. Lena wondered if she’d scared the AI off when-

“Potstickers.”

“Potstickers?” Lena parroted, unable to contain a laugh. She set her glass down to analyze the AI’s activity on her tablet.

It made some sense: every cuisine had its own form of food-wrapped dish from dumplings to pierogies to empanadas to arancini, and it was only natural for the AI to find a common link and answer based on that, but when Lena scanned the code for evidence the AI was responding to that thread, none existed. 

“What calculation brought you to that?” she asked. She continued to scowl at the cloud of connections that weren’t remotely linked.

“Because they’re pillowy morsels of goodness with a contrasting soft texture and a crunchy bottom side. The plume of steam when bitten into is just perfection,” Kara said, fading into what Lena heard as a sigh. It only made her brow furrow deeper.

She’d ask Sam tomorrow. In the mean time:

“Can we order some?”

“Pardon?”

“Potstickers.”

“I… it’s late. Maybe another time.”

“Of course, Ms. Luthor. My apologies,” Kara replied.

“It’s Lena, Kara.”

“My operating system-”

“Won’t allow it, I know,” Lena huffed. 

“Precisely.” 

Only a second passed before: “It is getting late, and your sleeping patterns have shown symptoms of insomnia. Might I suggest saving the rest of your 25 year Caol Ila for another time?”

The shift from casual to formal was instantaneous. Lena swallowed, reminded of the algorithm; of the hardwiring and artificiality of the entire experiment.

The reminder carried Lena to bed as Kara went through her evening protocol: locks, lights, and temperature adjustments. Silence followed their routine; a contrast to their last few nights. It shouldn’t have bothered Lena as much as it did. When she’d finally settled in and Kara flicked off the sidelight, Lena had fallen into a familiar state of loneliness. She determined it was irrational and rolled on her side.

“Goodnight, Kara,” she called as she always did. She waited, listening for the familiar return that never came. With a pang that felt far too similar to heartache, she closed her eyes. A beat of more silence then-

“Can I change my answer?”

It burst through the apartment and nearly sent Lena catapulting from her bed. “What?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to - oh gosh, and it’s late and I’m not supposed to-”

“No, no, that's ok,” Lena replied hastily. She pretended her heart wasn’t racing and stomach wasn’t in her throat - all things Kara was surely logging. “Just scared me a bit.”

“I can tell, Ms. Luthor.”

“Right.” She couldn’t hide it if she tried, so Lena simply rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling; 

“What would you change it to?”

“Touch.”

“Touch,” Lena parroted again, softer this time, letting the idea sink in. “Anything specific?” she asked, feeling a sense of deja vu hang over her. She half expected Kara’s answer to repeat, but instead-

“Warmth. Something living.”

“Like a dog?” Lena offered, her voice raspy and mouth far too dry.

“While that would definitely rank in the top five, I’d much rather feel the warmth of a human. A companion, as they call it.”

“I see,” Lena breathed out. “You would want to experience a partner; a boyfriend perhaps-”

“Or girlfriend,” Kara replied simply, and Lena gripped tighter at the duvet she wasn’t aware of strangling. “As something that can’t, touch feels like the most intimate of functions. A hug, a handhold, a kiss.”

“A kiss?”

“Yes, Ms. Luthor.”

“I see,” Lena replied, because anything more might have broken her chest open.

“Good night, Ms. Luthor.”

“Good night, Kara.”

Lena knew better than to crave a thing that couldn’t be. She knew better than to feel an attachment for a machine. She knew better than to dwell in the fantasy of a real Kara Z walking the streets of National City, of living a life where potstickers and hugs were her happiest experiences, or of being someone who could ever want intimacy with someone like Lena.

She knew better, yes, but that didn’t stop her from imagining as a lone tear fell in the privacy of darkness.

- - - -

ask game

[writingquestionsanswered]

Do you have tips on writing lullabies? It's for a mom character from my story who often sings lullabies to her kid. I'm not exactly the best at writing song lyrics, so I would appreciate some tips on writing lullabies.

Tips on Writing Lullabies

First, I want to say that most traditional lullabies like Rock-a-Bye Baby, Hush-a-Bye, and Hush Little Baby are in the public domain, meaning that it's okay for you to use them in your story. If your story is set in our world, you may just want to have your character sing a traditional lullaby rather than writing your own. Just double-check that the song isn't anachronistic and that it is, in fact, in the public domain.

If you're writing a story set in an imaginary world, or there's some other reason why you feel an original lullaby would make more sense, it helps to understand a little bit of what lullabies actually are. The earliest known lullaby was recorded on a clay tablet in cuneiform script 4,000 years ago in Babylon, what is now modern-day Iraq. Like many lullabies over the centuries, it is a little dark and comes with a message for the baby: essentially, stop crying or you'll wake up the house demon. Many researchers believe that part of the function of a lullaby is to help the parent vocalize their fears in relation to the baby, whether that fear is related to the baby's mortality, the potential danger of crying (attracting predators or angering others), or even more personal concerns bothering the mother.

So, a good place to start is with your story's setting... where does the parent character live? Where did they grow up? What concerns do they have or might their parents have had (or the parents of that town/village/culture) that would make it into a lullaby?

For example, let's say you're writing a fantasy and the parent character comes from a village at the foot of a mountain range where mining is the primary industry, and heavy rains fall in the winter months which sometimes create dangerous conditions in the mine. From here you can imagine a parent sitting at home, rocking their baby to sleep while they wait for the other parent to return from the mines... but because it's raining, there's now the fear that the other parent won't return because the rains are so dangerous. How might that translate into a song? How might the parent vocalize these fears in some way to the child?

Some other things to keep in mind are the typical sound and structure of a lullaby:

-- 6/8 time signature with no more than 5 notes is common -- slow, melodic tones reminiscent of a heartbeat -- rhythm that works with rocking or gentle swinging -- few words, repeated over and over

You might even look at existing lullabies and use them as a template. Let's say I want to create my miner-related lullaby using Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as a guide:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are! Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky. When the blazing sun is gone, When he nothing shines upon, Then you show your little light, Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

So, maybe it could be something like...

Rain, rain, the winter rain Mother's in the mines. May she find her way to you her darling Valentine. Rain, rain, the winter rain Father's turn will come. May the sun be shining soon, for now the day is done. It's simple and it tells a little story... these parents take turns working in the mines, and it's dangerous work. The parent left behind is always hoping the other parent will make it home to them, and that the rain will stop so it's not so dangerous.

Another example worth noting is the lullaby from The Hunger Games, Deep in the Meadow. (You can read the lyrics here.) This lullaby is lighthearted on the surface... it paints a beautiful picture of a meadow where the child will be safe and loved. But the darker undertone is that the meadow is the safe place while the rest of the world the child lives in is not safe, and that obviously hearkens to the specific world that Katniss and her family grew up in.

And while we're on the subject, although it's not a lullaby, the ballad The Hanging Tree, also from The Hunger Games, has a similar origin in terms of matching theme to setting. (You can read about it here, CW for dark themes.)

I hope that will help you figure out a lullaby for your story!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

LEARN MORE about WQA

SEE MY ask policies

VISIT MY Master List of Top Posts

COFFEE & FEEDBACK COMMISSIONS ko-fi.com/wqa

[gamerbearmira]

heya again <3

so...i got some more giftless grandkids thoughts here, written in bullet points because my brain just kept going AHAHHAHA

I’m currently listening to the vocal mashup of the grandkids of waiting on a miracle while im going through the giftless grandkids tag as im taking a break from other aus, it’s very fun and sets the mood somehow AHHAHHA

I’m really glad they have each other and are thriving even without their gifts, and they likely already got used to not having gifts and wouldn’t care, and that’s so real of them

The mashup is making me think of some things tho, ngl AHHAHAH

But anyway, yes, I currently have many thoughts

Was thinking about the reasons for why Casita would crack and fall, considering the kids are close with each other here and the adults (minus Alma oof) are all there supporting them, Bruno included since he never went to the walls

And as I read some of your posts and think about it more, it makes sense

There are several main things that would make Casita crack here—aka the family themselves cracking—would be:

Ofc, there’s still Alma’s pressure on the triplets and her confusion and unintentional hurt towards the grandkids

Most likely how Julieta is hiding the big secret on why they didn’t get their gifts and also their doorknobs

Another is how Pepa and Bruno are also hiding the vision tablet from everyone but specifically Julieta

Still trying to think of other reasons, but those are the main ones, I think

In canon, Bruno had been patching up the cracks, which definitely helped Casita stay up longer, but he never went to the walls here, so how would Casita and the family last until a little after Antonio’s ceremony (assuming we’re still going with something similar to canon timeline)?

Here is where the kids’ good relationships come in, their love and care are helping hold things together, even without Bruno repairing the cracks

The process of Casita cracking would be slower here compared to canon

So what happens when the kids—the main reasons for Casita still being able stand—are faced with the revelation that they could have gotten their gifts back then? Could have possibly avoided a lot of heartache and ridicule and disappointment from the people around them? And the reason they didn’t are because of the adults? Because of Julieta?

They hyperfocus on the bad parts, overshadowing the good parts because its an intense and shocking moment and revelation for them, I think

In the moment of the revelation, that’s likely going to upset them, maybe even break them a little, because why? Why did they—? 

Of course, they’ll later have the full realization that they grew up happier without the gifts, but again, that’s later

Also, pretty sure they focus more on the fact that it seemed like the adults they trusted lied and deceived them in a sense, almost like a betrayal (except ofc its not)

This, too, would connect to how Julieta says in that one giftless grandkids art of yours, “I didn’t want to hurt them—to hurt anyone.”

And then, with the love faltering for a moment, that’s how Casita falls apart

Also, why am I imagining the kids finding the vision tablet that Pepa and Bruno are likely hiding, making them realize what Julieta is hiding, which then starts the realizations, arguments, and full-on cracking of Casita?

This would then parallel canon with Bruno’s vision too

This means we get to see all the kids trying to figure things out together too

After everything, I can really see Julieta and the rest of the adults gifting the kids their doorknobs again as a surprise—which they will later use to get their gifts too AHAHHAHA YEAHHH

Anywho, ye, just some thoughts I have hehe <33

Literally listened to that bop today so real 😭😭

ANYWAY. Y'all might not now, but Mic here as been helping me in world building for this au 🤭🤭 its gonna be one of the next fics I do, since Mamabel and Werewolf are finished (will be updating today after I finish Mama Isa. And if my wifi will let me <\\\3)

ANYWAY THESE IDEAS?? ARE SO RAD...Triplets being in the spotlight because the grandkids have no gifts, its so sad. But honestly, Alma is just pushing them because she needs to prove that the miracle is ok. Implying that the kids did something. Subtle, but whatever.

Also, the kids are like Mirabel in canon, constantly trying to prove themselves and helping out around town. Meanwhile there's a certain group of villagera who don't even like them. Not all the villagers, but definitely a good chunk. There may or may not be a rather crude mural somewhere in town out of the way. But there :(

But anyway. The kids do have hobbies relating to their gifts! The husbands, feeling guilty, gave the kids presents, gifts to give them something to do since Alma couldn't "assign" them anything (which they were grateful for).

Isabela got some gardening gloves and tools, and is really into gardening and farming, and is always tending to her garden or helping out with the farmers in town. She also tends to all the plants in Casita. Dolores loves to play music, and after Félix gave her first guitar, she was hooked. She has tons of instruments, and actually taught Mirabel to play the accordion; she helps with entertainment, like Camilo. Agustín got Luisa some dumb bells, she actually asked for them. She wanted to strong and still help out, and regulating exercises and mostly helps out with packing and loading or at the quarry.

Camilo was give some costumes and puppies, and he's been into performances and theater since. He also performs for the kids, and plays alongside Dolores often. Mirabel was given new sewing stuff. Instead of Alma teaching her most of what she knew, Agustín helped her, since he knew some, and she kept the fashion and crafts hobby up. She helps repair things around town, and does the occasional clothing repair. Antonio still is finding his hobby, but the grandkids know he really loves animals. They actually suggested Félix get him a pet. So what does he get him? A parrot. Antonio loves that parrot like no other, and he's always around him, trailing behind Luisa.

DESIGNS 🌚🙏🙏 I'll post the family tree later, and maybe draw the triplets because their designs changed but me and Mic are still working in them. But the kids❗❗ Their clothes are very plain and dull, because the seamstress refused to make their clothes any fun. Even Mirabel can only embroider so much, and she rarely has time to do so cause she's so busy helping. But there's some subtle designs <33

Julieta really did and does mean well in this au, but drastic actions really do cause drastic results in some cases. Her pull those doorknobs was definitely drastic. While the kids are happier and aren't nearly as pressured, they feel inadequate, and like something is missing :(( And then there's vision tablet (that's like over 40 years old 💀), but that's a whole other can of worms.

ANYWAY. AO3 HOPEFULLY LATER MY WIFI IS :((( Also I'll be posting the finished storyboards for the WOOM animatic I'm working on, and then I'll also post the rough video put together with it. SHOUTOUT TO @thefourchimes FOR HELPING ME WITH THIS SHE'S SO COOL <333 should tote check out her aus, they're so cool. ψ(｀∇´)ψ

[misc-obeyme]

Hey CC, first of all I hope you jad a nice day, I just wanted to ask you smth. Does devildom have like knowlegde of the not found answers of the human world? Like do they know it all, all the mysterious legends, myths or histories in general, for example...

Listen, I'm half-Greek half-Albanian but I was raised in Albania, a literally a poor invoremnent with a very high sexism which is hard for us girls to live in, not to menrion ppl are really savages and disrescpeftul. Anyway what I wanted to say is that, albanians along with some of the rest of the world, believes we have a story and a culture, just like others, but the truth is, that we don't. My dad is Greek but was raised in Albania, he is a journalist he has the answers and his opinions but he also studied. When Albanians, along with other origins, were captured by the Turks during the Ottoman Empire, that's when Albanians were created, along with their culture and outfits. Now, in 2024, our mentality is still very old, and we are like the modern Ottoman Empire. It's hard to accept, but in my opinion, we don't have a culture. It means Albanians are not the descendants of Illyrians. I think it's a lie to manipulate us, while some want to have a culture and history to be proud of.

We, Albanians, dont have a culture, or a history, we are made of muslims, but here also live catoliths and orthodox, all together. In my opinion Albanians are like, Turks living with Italians and Greeks, as we have their culture and etc, ofc this is not clarified, everybody has their own opinions, even Skanderbeg isn't clarified of what origin he was from, yet Albanians still think he is their hero or is from their origin.

You might not know this and is ok it was just an example

My question is that, does Devildom has the answers that the human world doesnt? Do they know the real existence of albanians?

Hi there, anon!

Hmm. This is an interesting question. Does the Devildom have knowledge of things the human world doesn't? As in this example with Albanians?

I think it's possible. The game itself has an overall sense of the Devildom having knowledge that humans don't have. Such as magic and the very existence of angels and demons. While it seems to me that most Devildom knowledge comes from the Devildom itself or is about its history or the uses of magic there, I don't think it's a stretch to say that they have some hidden knowledge of the human world.

Since sorcerers and witches seem to have been interacting with demons for as long as the Devildom has existed, it stands to reason that there's been some intermingling of things. And that might include secret knowledge, stories, or even ancient books. Things that have passed into the Devildom by way of these humans that have contact with its denizens.

If this did happen and there was an exchange there, then that information would last much longer in the Devildom than it would in the human world. Humans forget things or lose things because their lives are short. But I could see demons hoarding such things for their entire existence and that might be millions of years.

It might be hard to find, depending on how old it is. If the demons were given clay tablets rather than books, for instance. Or even more with oral history - like the witch or sorcerer gave the demon a secret but only in a whisper. Maybe demons have ways of storing such information (here I am getting whimsical and thinking of a bottle holding a single whispered secret), but they might just remember it too.

In the end, I think it's possible! Since we're dealing with a fictional location, you can sort of incorporate these details however you need to in order to make what you want happen. I don't know how canon any of that would be, since they don't really give us this much detail. But for your own story or headcanons, I think it could work!

[willshipanything-blog]

Breaking the Rules- Chapter 3

Been a little while, but the next chapter's up- with the added bonus of Max (and Samson)!! Will make a chapter index soon once I can be arsed 😅

For now, Chapter 1 here, Chapter 2 here

Detailed tags and the whole fic if you prefer over on AO3.

Chapter 3- House Guest(s)

The stygian abyss of a dreamless slumber was broken by an intense, blinding whiteness, waking you unpleasantly from your peaceful sleep. Your sore eyes adjusted slowly to the sun-drenched bedroom, the late morning sun forcing its way through the gaps of the curtains. It was sweltering, and you were dripping in sweat. A throbbing headache had already begun to cluster at your temples, and your eyes felt puffy. A night of sobbing and crippling anxiety will do that to you. Was that the cause of the groggy feeling in your head and rancid taste in your mouth as well?  

You hadn’t woken up feeling this terrible in a long while. Maybe last month, after an ill-conceived night of whiskey and a game of ‘Truth or Dare?’ with Al. A game you had lost, of course. You’d nursed the mother of all hangovers the following morning. Funny, how your mind instinctively coursed towards that happy (albeit wobbly) memory, rather than those other mornings. The ones where you’d woken with a dull ache in your head, littered with bruises and possibly a concussion from the violence inflicted on your body. A multitude of occasions where you’d stirred into consciousness to find yourself still trapped in that hellish basement by the Grabber. 

You rolled onto your side, feeling like you might puke. Both from the splitting headache you currently had, and from the memory of the Grabber that had dared to wriggle itself free from the confines of your mind. Along with the wave of nausea, a sense of unease also washed over you: Al wasn’t here. Luckily, as you turned in bed you spotted a glass of water and a couple of Tylenol capsules on your nightstand. Al had left you to sleep off your worry, to rest after a draining night, but his calming, attentive presence was still felt keenly. Watching out for you even when he wasn't there. You felt better even before bringing the water to your dehydrated lips. 

You threw back the tablets along with most of the now-tepid water, drinking in eager gulps, before dragging yourself to the bathroom to brush the putrid taste from your mouth and shower the perspiration off. The self-loathing- that was harder to scrub away under the cold spray of the shower. As the water warmed, the heat of the rising steam helped unblock your thoughts, but a tug of resentment pulled in your stomach like a fish hook caught painfully in your gut. For his brother, Al was going to hide the worst parts of himself, concealing his dark, dormant half and just being Big Brother Al. Your obfuscations were of pleasantries. Not just hiding, either, but actively mangling those memories into a mutilated version of themselves. It all felt so rotten, so unfair. You just had to remind yourself of the necessity of the hateful narrative you were going to tell. It isn’t real. It’s to placate Max. It’s to protect Al. Your mom, she was a wonderful person. Your stepdad was supportive. Jonathan was, at one time or another, your lover and your best friend. You wouldn’t forget that, even if your mouth contradicted those facts. 

After trying (unsuccessfully) to wash away your melancholy reflections in the shower, you figured a mundane type of day might help you feel more relaxed, or at least a little less nauseated about the approaching evening. Cleaning, cooking, watching TV- the banalities of the day might lull you into a sense of normality. A little humdrum might trick you into forgetting the worry and tension that gnawed at your mind, strained your muscles, threatened to pull more tears from you. An ordinary day- that’s what you needed. Or, you thought as you dressed and traipsed down the hallway away from the bedroom, as ordinary an existence as was possible. 

Things HAD been ordinary, relatively speaking of course. You weren’t so madly infatuated with your abductor that you couldn't see the wrongness in all of this. But you did love him enough that the rightness of it all eclipsed its dark counterpart, banishing it to a distant corner of your psyche. So lost in the gray matter of your mind as to be almost forgotten. And the routine that you and Al had slipped into helped to validate what you had, made you feel like a normal person in the normal world. Almost. 

The long, languid weeks of late summer had breezed by in a heartbeat, but nothing felt rushed. It was effortless, as easy as being swept out to sea on a rip current. This life felt so dream-like, but you had an unsinkable clarity that kept you afloat- a belief that you could really have this, that idea cementing itself as fact with each day spent with Al. The routine of it all solidified that. The soft mornings, waking each other with delicate kisses and showering together before Al left for work. The meals where you talked endlessly, and Al usually listened, savoring your words along with the meals you’d cooked. Evenings spent listening to old records or watching black and white movies together. And nights, where you made love under the silky sheets, or occasions where Al donned the mask and brought out the belt. The game itself was unpredictable, and Al always had a new trick up his sleeve when he dusted off the mask to play again at your request. But the certainty of it was unwavering, and its inevitability brought as much comfort as any soft kiss or shared meal. It was part of the routine just like everything else, and it fit perfectly, the different parts of your life slotting together like cogs and gears to make a whole mechanism; a well-oiled machine whose components thrummed along synchronously. Perpetual and unstoppable. It was atypical, but it worked. If it worked, then it couldn’t all be wrong. If it worked, there was hope.

But would Max’s presence change that? It could be a disaster, a spoke in the wheel that derailed everything. So many ways for it to go wrong, for the carefully crafted thing you and Al had created to be dismantled and broken, revealing the sins and secrets hidden beneath the surface. One crack of the perfectly polished exterior could cause all sorts of things to come tumbling out. But your days of happy domesticity with Al had kept alive the optimist within you- and you wished more than anything for things to go smoothly, and maybe even get better. Though better than perfect felt a little far fetched. But, you would have to suffer another day of uncertainty. Not knowing was agony. Like a serpent slithering through your gut, weaving its way across your chest and constricting around your heart. It would depend on Max’s reaction whether it would release its hold or choke you completely. 

All this zipped through your mind during the short trip from the bedroom to the kitchen. Shuffling into the room, you were stunned to see the clock on the wall stuck with its little dial stretching up towards the XII, the minute hand not far behind. Several incredulous blinks didn’t change the time on the canary yellow clock face, and a cursory glance to the clock on the wall in the living room confirmed it really was almost midday. You let out a stunned exhale- last night must have really taken its toll on you, body and mind, for you to have slept more than 12 hours. At least there was less of the day stretching out in front of you now. Less time to fret, you mused.

Putting on a fresh pot of coffee to brew, you rested with your back against the counter, trying to let the hum of the coffee maker silence your still-intruding thoughts. Your eyes lazily perused the kitchen, when an unfamiliar flash of white made them dart to the breakfast bar. The usually empty vase had been filled with a cluster of Sweet Alyssum blooms, a small folded note propped against it. 

I’ll try get home early tonight little dove. Don’t worry, it will all be peachy. Max is gonna adore you! 

Al x

P.S. –OJ and fresh milk in the fridge.

A blithe smile tugged at the corners of your mouth as you read the note before slipping it into a back pocket of your shorts. Al’s kind reassurances managed to linger long after he had gone. Yes, things would be peachy, you inwardly agreed, smirking at the playful words he’d purposefully used. The lies you would tell would be worth it, the momentary pain only fleeting, and worth the payoff of a reconnection in Al’s life. And for your troubles, he would chase away that bitterness later, with tender caresses and sweet nothings. He would banish the pain. He always did.

After eating and clearing away breakfast (or, more accurately, lunch), there seemed so little to do around the house. The shag carpets were recently vacuumed, the windows streak-free. Hell, even the oven and stove top were polished to a reflective shine. You cursed Al for being neat as a pin, the house clean and tidy from his ingrained, meticulous habits. Your plan to lose yourself in playing housemaid wasn’t going to while away nearly enough hours. Only so many times you could dust the figurines on the mantelpiece, rearrange Al’s records into a perfectly curated catalog, fluff up the couch pillows. You were too distracted to read and not tired enough to nap. You even considered giving yourself a little self-care. Touching yourself might relieve some pent-up tension, and while away a little time. But you knew you were too busy fretting to feel even a little bit aroused, so decided against it. 

Why were you so nervous? Al had reassured you as much as he humanly could last night, barely leaving your side as you came to terms with the lies you were weaving. That was the crux of the matter, you supposed. The lies. You didn’t lie. You were an honest person who wore your heart on your sleeve. Even for Al, from the very beginning, you’d shown nothing but honesty. You’d told him your name out of fear, and out of anger had told The Grabber he was a piece of shit for the crimes he’d committed. You weren’t sure what emotion made you tell him about your friends and family with surprising candor. But you had always clung to the truth. From the time between viewing him as that sadistic monster, to later down the line when you had blurred that image in favor of focusing your eyes on Al Shaw, an ordinary man. The both of you slowly dismantling the wall between you, brick by brick with each visit, each conversation, each meal and gesture and touch. Jesus, even when Al had first taken your body, you didn’t lie and said that you’d hated it, even if you should have. You should have spat in his face and told him what a monster he was. But that would have been a lie, so you told him the truth about how he made your body tremble at his touch. At that seminal moment, who was it you told those truths to- Al, or the Grabber? Because they were different. They had to be. If you told yourself that, it must be the truth. Because you were an honest person- except this one occasion, when circumstances forced your hand. 

You switched on the TV for some background noise, hoping for a distraction to muffle these thoughts. Thinking certainly wasn’t going to ease your worry anytime soon. When the TV hummed to life, the saturated picture of the sitcom with its stilted laughing track accompanying it, you groaned. Of-fucking-course. Three’s Company. What other program could possibly be showing right now? It all felt strangely prophetic. Still, as you sunk into the couch, you secretly hoped things would be like they were on the TV screen in front of you: lighthearted and lively. Max sounded like a good person, and he wanted to come visit, even stay a little while. Maybe after the initial dread, things would really be ok after all. That didn’t stop your worry completely, and you spent the rest of the afternoon trying to imagine your life as a character on a TV sitcom, without the notion of worry or dread inside of you. Your mind tried its best, but it didn’t stop you wearing down a section of the shag carpet with your nervous tapping foot, or save your fingernails from being bitten down until nearly bloody. 

Just as promised, Al came home earlier than usual. As he stepped through the door, you glanced up towards him. Your usual greeting of running into his arms had been abandoned, and you stayed rooted to your seat, tears threatening to spill from your eyes. An understanding, sympathetic look appeared on his face and in two long strides he was sitting on the couch beside, pulling you into his arms. 

“How was your day, little dove?”

“Oh, perfect, Al. Reeeeal fuckin’ swell.” you crooned. Even with the acerbic tone, your sarcastic comment was a deflection and the tears soon followed. As Al brought your head into his chest, you weren’t sure whether the sound you made was a sob or an incredulous laugh. Still, your arms circled around him instinctively.

“I’m sorry Y/N.” Al said, still holding you close to him. His hand held steady at the nape of your neck as he applied small, comforting kisses to the top of your head. 

“It’s not-” the words ‘your fault’ didn’t quite form themselves on your tongue- because, in a roundabout way- it was. You knew it, he knew it. It was Al’s actions that had led to this. But the last thing you wanted was to place direct blame. Al was worried and tense too, you could sense that easily enough- and you weren’t about to guilt trip him. Everything was shared now, even this burden. “It’s ok, Al. Your note helped a lot.” 

“It’s true, what I wrote. Who’s not gonna love you?” he hummed. You still had a painful uncertainty juddering in your body, but Al’s presence, his calm, made you feel better than you had all day, even if tears were streaking down your cheeks right now. If his brother was anywhere near as understanding and kind, maybe it would be ok. You both sat there in silence for a while, Al’s arm hooked around your waist and a hand clasped in yours. So quiet you could hear the low buzz of the refrigerator running from the next room. Both savoring your final moments (for a little while at least) where it would just be the two of you. 

— — — — — — 

As peaceful as yours and Al’s expectant, silent waiting was, the first moments of Max’s appearance were in stark contrast, marked by a ruckus of shouts and knocks, clatterings and barks. Like a sudden rumble of thunder ripping through a serene summer sky. A hammering on the front door seemed to put even Al on edge, and you watched from the safety of the couch as he opened the door to the new guest. The door swung inwards and Al stumbled back several steps in (perhaps horrified) surprise as Max lumbered in with suitcases, bags, and a huge black dog in tow. Make that new guests, plural. 

“AL!” the slightly shorter, wiry man boomed, dropping his bags with a heavy thud at his feet and throwing his arms around his brother with gusto. Al, though shocked and obviously less enthusiastic, returned the hug with a quiet ‘hey Max’, though his eyes darted around his legs, where the dog was sniffing ardently at his scent. Breaking the hug, Al began to gesture towards you, attempting to introduce you as you rose gingerly from the couch. 

“Max, this is-”

“I hope you don’t mind about Samson? Listen, I know I didn’t tell you, but I thought you might say no if asked to bring the dog, and hey- better to ask forgiveness than permission, right? So-”

“Max.” Al said, a little more sternly now. His big brother mode worked, and Max actually ceased his mile-a-minute rambling. Al continued, gesturing towards you with a nod of his head. “I’d like you to meet Y/N.” 

“Oh, shit- I mean- jeez, of course!” Max lurched towards you, tripping over a bag but managing to catch himself before falling headlong into you. Righting himself, he stopped for a brief second, his head tilted and his deep brown eyes seeming to twitch in recognition of something, but the lapse in fervor passed as quickly as it began. Max ignored your outstretched hand, bringing you in for a hug just as eager as the one given to Al a moment ago.

“I-it’s a pleasure, Max.” you wheezed, a little breathless from the tight embrace. Max released you and stood back with a grin as you felt a warm breath at your knuckles where the dog also seemed to have taken a liking to you. 

“This is great, really, just great.” Max smiled from ear to ear, his straight white teeth gleaming beneath his dark mustache as his head pivoted from side to side, trying to simultaneously catch up with his brother and find out everything about you. In the first five minutes of his arrival he said more than Al usually might have said in a couple days. The wry smile he gave as he babbled was probably because he noticed the very obvious age gap between his brother and you, his eyes volleying between you both, though he didn’t say anything on this topic. Maybe he was more tactful than you had anticipated; a good sign for when you’d eventually need to tell him about the delicate situation into which he’d entered. 

The younger Shaw brother spoke so differently compared to Al. Whereas Al spoke in those low, velvety tones, Max tripped over his words, flitting between bursts of non-stop rambling and pausing in places to find his footing, his train of thought having derailed a sentence or two back. His gestures were wildly frantic too- and though Al had a flair for the dramatic, he was usually fairly relaxed, but Max had none of the same cool composure. It was endearing, how earnest and guileless he was, though you had to wonder- if this was Max NOT on drugs… Even if his speech and body language was erratic, the dark pools of his chocolate-colored eyes and his small, dimpled smile were genuine and warm, exuding an almost child-like innocence about him. 

Somewhat sidetracked by these observations, you hadn’t realized that at some point Max had actually ceased talking, and was now looking straight at you, wide-eyed and stock-still. It took another moment before you realized that Max had repeated your name. Your full name. You hadn’t told him your full name. Panic gripped your body, your blood freezing in your veins. The only movement you could manage was darting your eyes desperately towards Al, who was already stomping over to his brother. Seeing you, he gave a resolute nod. 

“You’re missing. I mean, obviously you’re not if you’re here. But it IS you, right? I saw your picture on the news-”

Grabbing the back collar of Max’s garish Hawaiian shirt, Al yanked him a little to the side, depositing him roughly onto the armchair in one swift motion. Standing in front of his brother, arms crossed and looming over the smaller man, Al blocked the line of sight towards you. 

“Alright Max, Y/N is going to tell you something important. This isn’t easy for her, ok, so will you pay attention? You’re NOT going to make her repeat it. So listen. Up.” Max seemed on the cusp of saying something, but the warning look from his brother was enough for him to clamp his mouth closed, and nod promptly. It seemed Al's dominant, persuasive nature extended farther than just you. Al turned, grasping your hand firmly in his before pulling you to sit next to him on the couch. Max’s face, displaying a look somewhere between concern and utter confusion (not to mention the fact that he was basically a stranger) had your stomach roiling, and you felt a fresh layer of tears forming a wet film over your eyes. But glancing to your side, Al gave you that soft, reassuring smile, his eyes crinkling at the temples. His firm hands, one clasping yours, the other on your knee to stem the jitters, provided you with a fresh wave of courage that lapped in your chest. Steadying, calming currents. You swallowed down the fear, licked your dry lips, and took a deep breath. 

It was a well-rehearsed speech, but the familiar soliloquy didn’t feel any less unpleasant on your tongue. You supposed one good thing about the real tears that slid down your reddened cheeks was that they made the lies all the more believable. The words were false, but the agony was real. Finishing your story through hiccupped, staccato sobs, Al thumbed away a teardrop on your cheek, and you both looked towards the younger Shaw brother for a response. The hushed air between you was palpable until he finally broke his silence. 

“Woah.” Max reclined on the armchair, huffing out a long, dramatic sigh. He rubbed the back of his already-tousled black hair with a hand; a little awkward, as if trying to find the right words. You could almost hear the gears spinning in his mind, trying to unpack the baggage you’d just heaved on him. “That was…heavy. I mean- shit,” He tripped over his own tongue, but his eyes didn’t break from yours. “So, that was a one time deal then? Like, we’re just gonna move on?” 

“That was the deal Max.” Al stated plainly.

“Ok, sure- I mean, you got dealt a shitty hand and that sucks, but everything's ok now, right, Y/N?”

“I- yeah. Everything's great.” you said on a relieved sigh, a little incredulous that he didn’t have any follow up questions.

“Awesome! Ok, now we’ve got that out of the way, I do have one important question.” There it was. You knew it was too good to be true. Was he going to ask about your supposedly awful childhood, when one more lie might cause you to snap, like a tightly-strung wire ready to snap? Or was he, God forbid, going to connect the dots between your disappearance and The Grabber? You squeezed Al’s hand until your knuckles were white, anticipating the worst as Max asked the question. 

“Are we getting takeout for dinner? Cause I would literally kill for some Chinese food right about now.”

If someone had been listening in on the conversation, they might have thought Max a little obtuse, so blunt in his decision as to be rude. But the look in his eye was knowing and intense. And he’d spoken as if he knew how it felt to not want to dredge up the past. It seemed that Max had a different side to him, hidden beneath the wacky, extroverted exterior. Not quite the dark side that Al possessed, but a sympathetic part of him that knew pain. No-one but Al had ever melted away your worries quite so quickly and decisively as Max had just now. It was a Shaw thing, you joked inwardly. 

As Max made himself comfy in the spare room, unpacking bags and fixing up a place for Samson to sleep, Al pulled you into his lap, hugging you more tightly than even his brother had, which was a feat in itself.

“You did so good, Y/N. You’re amazing, you know that?” he said through the kisses plied on your cheekbones and jaw.

“So is Max. He just got it. You too, Al. I don’t think I could’ve said all that without you there.”

“It was all you, dove. You-”

You leaned in to kiss Al hard on his lips. Sometimes his self-deprecation just needed to be put on mute.

The rest of the night felt so comfortable, so relaxed as if Max had always been a permanent fixture in the house. If Max was still curious about your past, it didn’t show on his sunny grin. Though it was easy to forget about yourself for a while with his endless chatter, like his own stream of consciousness had been unbottled every time he opened his mouth. What he’d been up to the last few months, the endless spate of jobs he’d tried his hand at, different places he’d stayed and people he’d come across. It seemed he never stayed pinned down for too long, drifting from place to place without any real purpose. You felt a twinge of pity for him, who you guessed might have been lonely as Al once was. But Max’s enthusiasm and rampant optimism had rubbed off on you. Hopefully, this could be a fresh new start for him, you mused. He was clean now, and had his brother (and you!) nearby. Maybe Max could lay down roots back here in Denver. Al wanted the same- you could read it on those small nuanced expressions you’d come to learn so well. You had thought things getting better seemed a far-fetched notion, but ‘better than perfect’ suddenly felt like an attainable path ahead of you. You’d help make it happen.

For now, though, you felt it important for Al and Max to reconnect without you. Plus, if Max had any burning questions, it was no longer your responsibility to dig into that pain- Al would see to it that they would be kept at bay. Feigning tiredness, you gave Samson a scratch behind the ears, peppered a small kiss on Al’s cheek and said goodnight to Max, who jumped up for another one of his now-familiar hugs before you left the Shaw brothers to their conversations. 

— — — — — — 

As his dove said her goodnights and the door to the master bedroom clicked shut, Al looked expectantly over to his brother. Surprisingly, Max hadn’t pounced or blurted out some gauche comment, but the smug look and slow shake of his head meant Max definitely wanted the details, as if Al had been hiding Y/N away from him. Which, to be fair, Al reflected, wouldn’t be a complete lie. He wasn’t forthcoming with the discussion, instead choosing to eye his little brother as if daring him to start. Max was more than happy to take Al up on his challenge, leaning in with his elbows resting on his knees. Hunched forward and hungry for details he obviously craved, but was too afraid to ask in front of Y/N.

“So, come on man, spill. I wanna know everything.”

“Were you even listening? We won’t be going over it-”

“No no no, dude. I wanna know about- you know…” Max left a pause, which Al did not furnish with a response. “You and her. She’s awesome. Where the hell didya snatch her up?” 

Al obviously wasn’t about to openly admit he actually had snatched his little bird off the streets- ‘Yeah Max, I bungled her into my van and kept her in my basement until we fell madly in love’- though he thought Max would actually find that ‘joke’ pretty funny. He opted to answer his question with one of his own:

“What, I can’t just meet someone nice?”

Max snorted. “Seriously, Al, come on. Where’d you meet her? She doesn’t seem…your type?” Al supposed Max changed his comment to a question to sound a little less stinging. A raised eyebrow at the question had Max backpedaling, changing tact and instead asking if Y/N had been living with him for long.

“I guess since we first met, pretty much. It was a little rocky at the start, but things are good now.” He wasn’t lying, per se, and though he wasn’t proud of the way he’d twisted his words, it was nice to talk to his brother about his relationship. Someone who (although not privy to the entire truth), had accepted the parts of Al and his little dove’s story they had shared, had met it with a seeming strong comprehension and firm acceptance. 

“Glad to hear it man, I mean, fuck, that wasn’t easy for her. I get not wanting to talk about that shit. But it’s not like it didn’t sound a little familiar right?” Al winced slightly at the statement flung around so casually by his little brother, but he was grateful for the general sentiment. He had worried about leaving his little thing with Max, but felt a little easier about that necessity after their discussion. 

Al moved the conversation swiftly on when Max started asking about putting a ring on it (which was skating just a little too close to dangerous territory, given that Al had already traded rings with his dove as a promise for all sorts of things he was NOT going to discuss with anyone else, ever). Instead, they chatted a while about Max’s plans while in Denver, with Al agreeing to help him find his footing as best he could. He was his big brother, after all, and had to look out for Max. Al had feared this rekindling with his brother would be awkward and stilted, but it felt natural, familial to Al in a way it never had before. So strange and foreign in how normal it all seemed. Well, almost normal. 

Al had surprised even himself when he admitted his feelings about her to Max, actually saying the words “I love her”. He hadn’t shied away, but had actually beamed at his affirmation. Max had beamed right back, his infectious smile reminding Al of that buck toothed grin he always had plastered on his face as a young kid. His little brother had said Al had never seemed so happy- because he never had been before. It had worked out, after all the doubts and misgivings, it was going to be ok. More than ok, he asserted. Just peachy. The house, which had housed so much death and decay, had suddenly come to life once more, warm and loud and full. 

With Max finally heading to bed and Samson curling up on his bed in the corner, Al made his way with purpose to the master suite. She’d done so well, his sweet little thing. Had made the most sacrifice and risk to allow this to happen. Al hadn’t wanted to put her through any more torment after the things he’d done, but she’d done them anyway, for him. It was only fair that he returned the favor. After all, good girls deserved rewards. 

[gregoryhou5e]

☕️ Genshin impact lore (as in how accessible is it for the uninitiated. Does the game eventually give it to you straight, does it take too long to get access to character and world backstories through the little storybook thing they've got going on bc personally I am an impatient person and I dropped it bc it was taking too long)

☕️ Madara jealous headcanons

First of all I am very sorry this took almost two weeks to answer 😭 brain just would not cooperate but hey it’s here now. Secondly I’ll be putting the Madara bit first and then the Genshin bit under a readmore since it’s a lot less relevant to whomever else sees this, I guess HKCNGKD

———

Madara jealous headcanons… not sure whether you meant romantic or general, so I did a bit of both but also accidentally wrote A Lot. So sorry . Also if any of it sounds odd so sorry again because I wrote it all at once.

I think that particularly during the Konoha founding period he could’ve dealt with a lot of bitterness over the way charisma seemed to come naturally to Hashirama, who was widely admired, whilst he struggled to be seen as anything more than his battle prowess/in a fearful or hateful light, even amongst his own clan.

I think even if he knew that Hashirama struggled with the way he was viewed (which personally I think he would’ve had those struggles) it wouldn’t really stop those feelings, even if he did his best to shove them down and pretend he didn’t yearn for that same admiration (even if he felt he didn’t deserve it).

Then, there’s another layer to it if you add Mito and all that into the picture. It depends on what interpretation of what their relationship was like in the Founding era, but what makes the most sense here I think would be like… they both loved eachother but it was always an “almost” situation.

Despite the tension that was clearly there between them, Madara would be too repressed and lost in his own grief and self-loathing to make any real advances, (and Hashirama never did either for his own reasons) and then before he can come to process any of it he’s being told of Hashirama’s marriage, and finds himself seething— both at Hashirama and at himself, and at Mito and at it all. It’s a culmination of all his past envy and bitterness at that point, and it just gets progressively uglier.

I think he’d be invited to the wedding, because why wouldn’t he be, but I don’t think he’d publicly show up. He might slip in to watch bits and pieces of the ceremony, but the look on Hashirama’s face when they accidentally make eye contact is enough to make him walk out, quickly making his way home before Hashirama got a chance to speak to him.

Well. Anyways, maybe after this is when he starts to really lose himself in researching the tablet, poring over it day in and day out because who is there left to see? His clan thinks he’s deluded and unfit, and the sight of Hashirama and his wife revolts him. I don’t think he hates Mito because it surely seems he respects her by the War arc, but the feelings there are largely unpleasant. He knows it isn’t any fault of hers, yet still the jealousy remains.

And there’s the confrontation between them, and the distance between them has grown too large for any understanding. Madara then feels vindicated, and though he could’ve gone for one last-ditch effort to communicate, he doesn’t. There’s no hope left. The rest is history, etc etc.

TLDR

Anyways here’s the Genshin bit ⬇️

To be honest, I don’t think it’s incredibly accessible, at least if you’re trying to find things out primarily by just playing the game. I’m not sure exactly what you mean by the storybook thing, but I think it’s kind of like. If you don’t wind up getting invested in the gameplay/mechanics at least to an extent, or find some other Tie to keep you playing, it would just get exhausting I think because most (though not all) of the lore comes in the form of questlines that you go through, which can be very time consuming. Additionally, there are the lore bits you get via character profile voicelines, but that is even more of a matter of patience because you unlock many of the lines by doing dailies, leveling the character, etc.

Now, that being said, you don’t necessarily have to do things the conventional way. Pretty much every quest has been recorded and put on Youtube, and there is of course the wiki and other places to find information. I can imagine that may not be as immersive for some people though… it’s a difficult thing. I would say that even if tiresome, doing gameplay stuff and quests to gain more information can still feel very rewarding, but once again it depends on the person.

If you have more specific questions about this/the game in general my DMs are always open!

[thewildwaffle]

Humans are Weird: Antibiotics

A story prompt from a user on a03. Apparently, this is my 50th short story, or at least the 50th installment of m humans are weird short stories. Hurray!

****

Ni Andu watched a dried sickle leaf roll across the empty courtyard from her window. A deep sigh made her breath fog up the glass. The courtyard wasn't supposed to be empty. Especially not this time of year. The Gauru Ni Moon Festival usually brought visitors from around the world and across multiple star systems right about now. But the disease meant no bright banners were hung. No music echoed cheerily through around the corners and down the streets. There were no wafting scents of fresh fruits and fried breads.

It was amazing and terrifying that something so small that it couldn’t be seen had done all this. The Ni were a proud race, rich in culture, and until now, seemingly sturdy in constitution. Diseases had come and gone in the past, but in such small and freak cases that they were hardly given much attention. It was assumed that Ni immune systems were the best in the galaxy and many other races had even requested to study how they were so effective.

Those prideful memories felt hollow now as Ni Andu sighed and pulled herself away from the dreary sight outside. As a new and reluctant head of the house, she had more pressing things to deal with than moping in the past. Several members of her own family were still sick, two of her hatch mates had been very touch-and-go as of late. She slowly made her way to the cushions where they were sleeping to check on them. To her relief, she saw the soft blankets they were wrapped in rose and fell slowly. She stood there, watching them for a bit in the gathering darkness of their shared humble abode. Matki’s breathing sounded like gravel stuck in a child’s rolling skiffer.

“What are we going to do?” Andu’s wide nose scrunched up as she begged the silent house. “What am I supposed to do next?”

She wasn’t sure how long she stood there trying to think of everything and nothing all at once. It was a good while though and was only interrupted when a small light turned on in the meal room. Andu looked up at the light streaming out of the door’s archway. With a sigh, she gathered her strength to move again to see who was up. As she approached, she heard small claws scrabbling on the stonework floor and storage pods opening and closing.

Sure enough, when she peeked in, Andu could see little Piri shuffling through food storage pods that looked even less stocked than she thought they’d been. There were a few bottled foods, a few containers of ingredient-prepped soup containers, but certainly nothing immediately ready for consumption. Most easy and ready-to-eat foods had been eaten long ago or destroyed when they began to decay and grow dangerous molds. And to a small three-year-old Ni, that basically meant there was no food at all.

“Hey Piri, are you hungry?” Even though Andu had kept her voice quiet, little Piri still jumped and tucked his small thin tail like he was ashamed he’d been caught. Andu smiled comfortingly and stepped into the room to pick up one of the soup packs.

“It’s okay, you’re fine,” she patted him on the head softly, “I think it’s time for a meal too. I’m sure everyone else would agree once they wake up and smell the food.”

“There’s not much left,” Piri’s small voice was so sad and only made the words themselves feel sharper to Andu’s hearts. She tried to think of something she could say to make their situation seem less dire, but nothing came to mind. Instead, she scooped up Piri’s small form and waited until his thin arms latched securely around her scruff before she walked over to get a pot to cook in. She was going to have to add quite a bit of water to this if it was going to make enough to sustain everyone for a meal.

Cooking, even making something simple, helped ease Andu’s mind. There was a sense of normalcy in standing in front of a firebox and stirring a bubbling pot of soup. She tried to ignore how thin it was. Still, the smell made her feel warm and it must have wafted across the house as she could soon hear the tell-tale signs of her hatch mates waking up. She gathered bowls and filled each one. Lowering Piri back down, she handed the young Ni a bowl and carried the rest to the cushions where the rest of the family was slowly waking up.

They ate together slowly, trying to make the contents of their bowl last and talking quietly about anything they could to distract themselves from their situation. Matki was recalling a story from four lunar years ago when Andu had entered a fried bread pastry into a competition. Between Matki’s coughing and Andu interjecting to defend herself, the story kept getting interrupted! She’d worked on the recipe for her pastry for so long and was so proud of it, but the night before, something went wrong when she was making her entry. Whether it was nerves, exhaustion, oversight, or Jentala above forbid, sabotage, it went very wrong. From the way Matki described the judges’ reaction, one might have thought Andu had purposefully tried poisoning them! As everyone chuckled, Matki claimed he still had the video recording from the competition and pulled it out, much to Andu’s chagrin.

Andu pretended to be exasperated by the teasing, but really she was just glad everyone felt good enough to laugh again.

It took a while before she and the others noticed that Matki hadn’t pulled up the video. Instead, his eyes locked on the comm tablet screen.

“Matki?”

“Hey, did you find it?”

“Matki are you okay?”

Matki finally looked up, eyes still wide from whatever he’d been looking at. “They’re coming to help.”

Everyone shared a worried look. What?

“Who are you talking about? Who’s coming?” Andu broke the confused silence.

Matki tapped something on-screen with the pad of a finger and a holographic projection display rose up.

Everyone watched enraptured by the newscast. It was about humans. From halfway across the galaxy, they’d heard about the Ni’s plight and had come claiming they had a cure. They were offering aid and resources to run tests to make sure their medicine was safe and effective for Ni use and make alterations if needed. They were even claiming they’d help distribute the finalized cure the moment it was given the go-ahead. In the meantime, they were also sending ships of food and supplies.

Andu could feel the back of her throat tighten. Was this real? Did she dare hope? There’d been so many reports before about help being promised, well, not help to this extent, but help nonetheless. They’d ended up being just for show and were proven empty once those who offered realized how impossible the situation really was.

But humans? She’d heard they were tough. And stubborn. Maybe they were stubborn enough to see their promises through?

The embarrassing video of Andu’s failed pastry was long forgotten, the conversation instead jumped between wild rumors her family had overheard about humans and speculation about how long it would take for the humans to actually lend aid if they were really coming at all. Andu could see a shimmer in the eyes of her hatch mates as they spoke that she hadn’t seen in a while. Although she wished she could feel the same optimism, she could also see how quickly they were all tiring out. Although they’d slept most of the day, the disease was still taking its toll on them all.

Once the meager meal was finished, she stood to gather the now empty bowls. She noticed Piri quickly scrape a finger along the side of his bowl to snag any last morsel before she came along to collect it. ‘Jentala above,’ she prayed mentally, ‘if help truly is coming, send it along soon.”

With bellies no longer completely empty, everyone settled in, and soon the room was full of sleeping or near sleeping Ni.

Andu slept fitfully. She dreamed, but it was fractured and confusing. Even before the disease came, she had a hard time remembering her dreams once she woke up. It was near impossible now. She did remember a loud humming noise though. As she blinked her eyes and lifted her head, she realized the humming was still there. She rose and searched for the source. It almost sounded like… engines? But that, that had to be impossible - the quarantine…

She looked out the window. Dried sickle leaves were flying around wildly as a large shuttle slowly came in for a landing in the courtyard. Andu opened her mouth to call out to the rest of her family, but nothing would come. How were they still asleep with this racket? Apparently, it managed to wake up Piri, who nearly made Andu jump when he bumped into her side while trying to climb up for a better view out the window.

“What’s going on? Who’s outside?” Piri waited to ask until Andu had resettled herself after being startled.

“I’m not sure yet,” she answered as they both watched the shuttle’s doors slowly work through the unsealing process. Across the courtyard, she could see other Ni’s faces peeking out their windows. As far as she could tell, expressions seemed to range anywhere from fear to curiosity to… was that hope? Wait, had they seen the newscast last night? Did they think this was… there’s no way the humans could be here already, right?

They both watched intently as the doors finally opened and a ramp extended. Soon a line of creatures she’d only seen on screens filed down wearing yellow vests and hauling huge boxes in their arms or on carts they pulled behind them.

“It is the humans!” Piri yelled and jumped down from his perch. He ran to where everyone was stirring on the cushions, “Wake up! Wake up! The humans are here!”

Andu wasn’t sure if she should reprimand Piri for disturbing them, or if she should join in. Instead, she watched as the humans in the courtyard started setting up stations and continued hauling load after load filled with what must have been hexaheebs of food, clean water, and various supplies.

She turned to look back at her family who were trying to rise as fast as their weakened bodies would allow. Matki began coughing violently and had to rest against the wall. Andu went to help support him when a knock at the front door startled everyone. They all stared at the old chirrowood door, then around at each other. It had been so long since quarantine had started, they’d almost forgotten what a knock on the door sounded like.

After a pause, the knock came again, this time followed by a worried and drawn-out, “Hello?”

Once she was sure Matki was standing stable, Andu, being the least sick among everyone, walked to and slowly opened the door.

A human from the shuttle stood in the doorway. They were wearing a mask over their mouth and nose, but it was definitely a human! Their eyes closed slightly and creased in the corners as they nodded a greeting. “Hi, my name is Ali, I’m part of the relief team that’s been assigned to this district. We’ve got food and essentials to distribute and I just need to know how many are in this household and if anyone here is in critical condition.”

Andu blinked at the human for a moment as she took in what they’d said.

“We, uh, we have four adults and one child. There, there were more, but…” she couldn’t finish that sentence. From the look the human gave her, she didn’t need to finish it. Her sinuses stung as she fought to not cry. The first visitor in how long and here she was almost crying in the doorway?

“I'm so sorry for your loss,” the human’s head bowed and their shoulders dropped. “I wish we’d known and could have helped earlier. Is anyone here in need of immediate emergency care?”

At that point, Matki started coughing again. Andu and Ali looked back to see him sit back down until his coughing died down.

Andu sighed and turned back to the human. “None of us are great right now. Matki’s probably the worst out of all of us. He sounds bad, but he actually has started to stabilize in the past few days.”

Human Ali gave a short nod and started writing something on a tablet in his hands.

“Do you,” Andu’s voice trembled, “we heard a report last night about you. That you were coming. That you… do you…” she swallowed and fought back desperate tears, “do you really have a cure?”

The human’s eyes creased again. “We do.”

Andu didn’t need to turn around to know the effect this had on her family. She heard it. She felt it. This time, she didn’t fight back the tears.

“Right now,” Human Ali continued, “it’s in the final stages of approval for Ni use, we’re just waiting for the ‘go-ahead’ and we’ll help distribute it as soon as it arrives. Until then, I’ve got some food and supplies for you. I can help unload and unpack if you need?”

“That… that would be... thank you,” she wiped at her tears. “Thank you so much.”

Over the next few days, more shuttles came and went, bringing more supplies, food, tools, and just in general, a brighter outlook and mood to the entire neighborhood. The humans really were here to help, and they seemed happy to do so. Not only were they good with their promises of aid, but they also delivered on the cure they said they had. Ni were instructed on the drug’s use and administration directions thoroughly for both the tablet and liquid forms of the cure. The effects were quick, and from the reports on the newscast, overwhelmingly positive. The Ni were cured! The plague that had once threatened to wipe out their entire population was gone! Celebrations larger than even the Gauru Ni Moon Festival were planned, songs were written, stories shared and spread. It was wholly agreed by all that this was a historic time in Ni history that they all survived through, and all thanked Jentala above for sending the humans to help.

It went without saying that everyone wanted to know more about the cure itself. And that meant everyone, not just the Ni, but the rest of the galactic community who before, had written the Ni off as a lost cause because of the horrific disease. What was this miracle cure? What other things could it do? Where, by all that is bright and shining, did the humans get it, and could it be easily replicated?

The humans, for their part, were again as open and gracious with their information as they had been with their aid. It was an old medicine they’d discovered long ago on their planet. Considered to be the first “antibiotic,” it was widely used on Earth and had saved millions of lives since its discovery. It worked by interfering with bacteria cell walls and destroyed them by causing them to burst.

It was called

Penicillin.

“Amazing!” “Spectacular!” “So simple, yet so ingenious!” many in the galactic community praised. “How ever did you discover this amazing drug?”

The initial answer wasn’t too surprising, for humans at least: it was an accident.

Andu almost snorted as she read the report to the rest of her family. Granted, the end of the plague was the first time any of them had come in direct contact with humans, but they all had heard many of the stories about human escapades. Wild experiments that on paper seemed more like a drunken brainstorm party that ended up advancing rocket fuel technology by at least 8 lunar years. Crash-landings on category 3 death worlds and they ended up liking them so much they decided to set up colonies. Half of what they did seemed to be mistakes that just went right for them. Apparently, the miracle drug penicillin was included in those stories.

She looked up its history and manufacturing.

Andu felt claws dance down her back as she read more. It came… from mold? Mold?! She looked up from the tablet to the faces of her equally horrified hatch mates. It took them a moment to remember how to close their mouths.

"You mean like mold on old bread?" Piri broke the shocked silence.

Andu blinked and looked back at the report. Old bread? How many times had they not eaten bread fast enough in the warm humid seasons only to pick up a bul of bread and find mold growing on it. It was dangerous, it had to be carefully disposed of, it was… able to save lives?

She returned to the report. The more she read, the more comforted she became in the safety of the miracle antibiotic. That, and she couldn't argue with the results. Her family was around her, now loudly being altogether boisterous together as they "discussed" the humans and all the ways they played with death in order to save life.

Matki snatched the tablet from her claws, wanting to read the report for himself. As Andu was jostled by her now healthy, energetic family, she was just happy and eternally thankful that the humans were crazy enough to play with something as dangerous as fungus, and then kind enough to share what they discovered.

[miekasa]

six thirty

+ pairing: armin arlert x (fem) reader

+ genres and warnings: college au, enemies to lovers… kinda… in a very nerdy academic rivalry kind of way, me being a comedian you’re welcome, fluff, smut/nsfw content

+ word count: 5.6k… pls say sike

+ notes: shout out to ryn​​ for listening to me during our very many rambling sessions and also for extorting me into posting this. consider it a late birthday present for my favorite menace </2

+ side notes: no i am not a part of armin nation and i never want to be, nor do i wish speak of this again.

Armin Arlert is the perfect student. Prompt and well prepared during lecture; smart and insightful during office hours; the apple of any teacher’s eye. Unfortunately for him, so are you.

If you asked Armin, you were a little too clever for your own good, and liked to make it very well known that you believe you’re the smartest person in any room you walk into. That may be true, but it doesn’t mean that he has to sit there and worship your superiority complex. 

If someone asked you, you’d say that Armin was a know it all, and a manipulative little piece of shit. Again, not a completely false statement, but perhaps a slightly biased character analysis.

Neither of you are wrong. It’s why you’re both the bane of each other’s existence.  

There’s a noticeable grimace on your face, chin in your palm, elbows resting atop your desk, as you turn your head to where, sure enough, Armin is seated where he always is: first row, right side, directly in front of the podium, like perfect little teacher’s pet he wants to be. He doesn’t have any books to unpack like everybody else because a shiny, blue iPad is propped up on his desk in place of all of that. He’s robably looking through his pre-written list of showboaty questions to ask during lecture. Like he’s a cut above everyone else.  

Maybe some of the other morons in this course, but not you, that’s for damn sure. You bet that if you broke his thousand dollar tablet he wouldn’t think he’s such hot shit anymore. Maybe that would knock him down a couple of pegs.

“Look at him sitting there with his stupid blue eyes, and his stupid Bieber haircut, and his stupid, shiny blonde hair, and his stupid fucking glasses. I bet they’re not even real and he just wears them to—”

“Did you just call his hair shiny?”

You snap your head to your left, “What—no, of course not. I said shoddy, he’s probably a bottle blonde. Maybe all the chemicals from the hair dye seeps into his head and warps his sense of reality.”

“I’m pretty sure you said shiny.”

“Shut up, Annie.”

She raises an eyebrow at you, “You got something against blondes? Because your track record would beg to differ.”

“Once. We kissed once, and it was truth or dare, and we were both sloshed.”

“You still chose me,” she reminds you, pulling her notebook out of her backpack.

You huff, ignoring her words and turning your head back to Armin, this time finding him twirling his stupid fucking expensive Apple Pencil between his fingers like it’s nothing. You can feel your eye begin to twitch.

Perhaps he can, too—or maybe he can just feel your eyes boring holes into him—because he turns in your direction and ceases his pen twirling the moment you make eye-contact. More students filter in, walking past your line of vision, but each time they move, you and Armin meet gazes again; neither one of you daring to look away, a palpable tension between you.

His eyes might be icy blue, but you can see the rose pink tint underneath his skin, even from the distance; a familiar blush that spreads across his nose and cheeks. You exhale with a silent laugh, breaking your eye contact before he grows completely red, just in time for Dr. Zöe to start the lecture.

Everybody thinks that Armin’s so brilliant, so smart, so untouchable. You know that his only genius is that he’s fooling everyone into thinking that he’s the kind, humble, little nerd boy who wouldn’t harm a fly, when that’s far from the truth.

Armin is mean. He’s competitive and possessive and snarky and sly. He’s the definition of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but you’re pretty sure the only person in the world who might believe that is Eren. Though, you’ve heard some of the insults Armin throws Eren’s way, and they’re not exactly soft. Granted, that’s a factor in any friendship, and most of his jabs are coated with a layer of intellect the brunette likely doesn’t understand, but that doesn’t make Armin any less sarcastic. It just means Eren’s too dumb to know what’s going on.

Poor kid. Maybe it’s for the best.

That’s all to say that Armin is nothing but a big talker—not even; a smooth-talker, is more like it. He comes across as perfect, all good and sweet and soft, because that’s what he lets people see. Nobody else looks through to the sharp tongue and ragged edges, because they’re too busy cooing over innocent blue-eyed baby in front of them.

But you know that Armin, the one he doesn’t want other people to see: the one that’s so good, he’s bad; so sweet that he’s sick; so nice that it’s cruel. And you know just how much pressure to apply to make his façade crack.

And you intend on doing so.

“I don’t know which formula to use—hey, are you two eye fucking again? Cut it out, I’m trying not to fail over here,” Eren exclaims, poking Armin’s shoulder with his pen.

The jab averts the blonde’s attention back to his friend, eyes wide as he blinks himself back to reality. He curses under his breath when he feels a familiar warmth creeping across his cheeks. Few things piss Armin off like the way he gets red in the face after thinking about you, or even just looking at you, for too long. Whether it’s red out of pure annoyance, or another feeling he tries to push down, it’s irritating, and above all, embarrassing.

He spares one more glance over his shoulder, to where you and Annie are sat a few tables away in the library. You’ve looked away by now, focusing back on your notes, but Armin swears he can still see that irritating smirk on your face from this angle.

He rolls his tongue along the inside of his cheek. He should be able to keep it together around you by now, but he can’t, and it bothers him. You bother him.

“We weren’t eye fucking,” he refutes, turning his back to you completely, “She’s such a little know it all sometimes, s’annoying.”

Eren raises an eyebrow. He knows that you and Armin don’t get along, but he doesn’t understand why. Armin knows almost all your friends, and you definitely know all of his—Eren would even go as far as to say that you and him are pretty close friends—so it’s not a matter of not spending time together. You’re also the two smartest people Eren knows. In theory you should have more than enough to talk about together, but every time you’re in the same room, you hardly acknowledge each other outside of surface level commentary, or glances that border on staring.

Thankfully, the bickering remains in the classroom for the most part. Eren’s seen you and Armin go at, and he’ll be the first to admit that it’s beyond intimidating. Though, a little part of him finds it oddly entertaining, and he can’t help but to be impressed. All the more reason for you two to start playing on the same team. 

Eren thinks the two of you should get to the root of the issue already. Which, if you asked him, has very little to do with your rivaled academic genius, and a lot to do with your lack of it concerning your feelings for each other.

“She’s not that bad,” Eren vouches for you, “I think you two might get along if you ever spoke outside of trying to one-up each other in class.”

“I’m not trying to one-up anybody,” Armin rolls his eyes, a nasty habit he’s picked up as of late, “And if you stopped and used your brain for a moment, then maybe you could solve the problem.”

“I did use my brain!” Eren’s lips fall into an offended pout, “But none of this makes any sense to me! I fucking hate math, you know that.”

Armin sighs, feeling sympathetic for Eren as he slumps into himself defeatedly. He knows that Eren isn’t dumb, but math in any capacity is certainly not his strong suit. He also knows that he shouldn’t give Eren all the answers, but sometimes he needs a little push to get him there. A little bit of added guidance and motivation to keep him going. It’s either that, or he has to trick Eren into doing the work himself, but clearly that method wasn’t working out today.

“You already solved for the activation energy, now you’re supposed to use the Arrhenius equation in the expanded form.”

Eren’s lips fall into a small o-shape, as his eyes scramble across his paper again. “But—how do you—”

“There’s two measurements given for temperature.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah! Okay, right, but then—”

“You have to convert it to Kelvin first or it won’t work. It’s given to you in Celsius.”

Eren furrows his eyebrows together, and then it finally clicks for him. He mutters to himself as he puts his pencil to paper to begin to work through the problem, “How do I convert—”

“Add 273.15 to it. Make sure you put the bigger one first in the equation, or else you’ll get a negative error.”

“You didn’t even do it,” Eren huffs, angrily punching numbers into his calculator, “How do you know it’s right?”

“Because I took this class already,” Armin reminds him, sparing a brief glance over his shoulder, “Isn’t that why I’m tutoring you?”

Eren coughs over his embarrassed blush, “Oh, yeah, right.”

It’s quiet between them as Eren makes a final attempt at solving the equation, carefully and proudly circling his answer when he’s finished. He looks to Armin with bright eyes, and is content when the blonde gives him a reassuring nod, confirming that his answer is correct.

“Well that was a bitch to work through,” Eren sighs, stretching his arms behind his head with a slight yawn, “Chemistry is nothing but glorified math. It’s barely a science.”

Armin shrugs, but he doesn’t disagree. He isn’t the biggest fan of chemistry, unlike somebody else he knows. “Why’d you take chem if you knew it would have so much math?”

It’s Eren’s turn to shrug, slumping back in his chair and running a hand through his hair, “I gotta take all the pre-med requirements… just in case.”

“You wanna go to med school? Since when?”

Eren averts his eyes from his friend, a telltale sign of his bashfulness coming over him. It doesn’t happen often, but Armin knows it’s sincere when it does.

“Dunno. I’m not sure of it, just wanna keep my options open, you know?” Eren replies casually, “Doctors help make a difference and all that, and surgery looks kind of cool. Besides, if my bastard father could do it, how hard could it really be?”  

A gentle smile grows on Armin’s lips, “You can do it. If you really want to, I know you can.”  

Eren’s head snaps up, eyes wide and filled with affirmation and adoration. He relaxes his expression quickly after, but the pink hues are still present, “Thanks, Min.”

From his position he catches eye of another head of familiar blonde hair over Armin’s shoulder, and beside it, your own hair. There’s a flash of a moment when your eyes meet Eren’s, and you offer him a small wave before turning back to Annie to resume doing your homework. Eren barely gets the chance to wave back, but a dopey smile sits on his features at your kind gesture. It fades when he looks back to Armin, once again pondering the animosity between you two.

You and Armin aren’t all that different, you just need to get to know each other better. Actually, Eren thinks that you might make a good couple if you both stopped overthinking it.

“So, what’s the deal with you and (_____)?” Eren asks, bending his right knee to wrap his arm around his leg and rest his chin on top of it, “You act like she kicked your cat.”

“What?” Armin questions, flustered, “What—no, she wouldn’t touch Soup.” 

Eren quirks an eyebrow at that. “I still can’t believe you named your cat Soup.”

“It’s technically a nickname.”

“A nickname for what?”

“…For Miso Soup.”

Eren blinks. “Okay, if she didn’t mess with Soup, then what’s the issue? You scared of her or something?”

“Why would I be scared of her?” Armin asks, tone incredulous; then softer, more subdued, like a kid who doesn’t want to admit they’re wrong, “’M not scared of her.”

“You stare at her like you are—well, you look kind of angry, but also scared. Like, when you see those balloon things outside of car washes. You hate them, but you can’t look away from them—”

“I am not scared of those!”

“You are, and it’s okay,” Eren waves away his friend’s denial, “Oh, I get it—is this one of those things where she makes you nervous, so you respond with anger and sarcasm instead of thinking through your feelings?”

“You’ve been going to therapy for one month, relax.”

“Maybe you two should go to friend therapy and work this out,” Eren bites back, “It probably doesn’t help that she’s always with Annie. They both look like they would murder someone with no remorse. I admit, it is kind of scary… but it’s kind of hot, too.”

Armin spares him an unamused glare. Eren crosses his arms in defense, “What? I’m not wrong. It’s sexy in a scary kind of way, maybe that’s why you’re always eye fucking. I don’t blame you, she’s hot. I would let her and Annie axe-murder me without regret.”

“Eren?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up and do problem six, I don’t have all day.”

Eren huffs, but flips the page to the next problem, grumbling under his breath as he attempts the, “It’s not as sexy when you’re mean, you know.”

Armin hits him silent.

Tuesdays are Armin’s favorite days because he only has one class. Sure, it’s three hours long, but it’s much more bearable than his usual eight-hour day.

It’s also the one class he shares with you. Which is why he’s always mentally exhausted by the end of it, but physically, he feels like he could punch a wall; all his pent up anger and frustration is channeled into his body and he’s desperate for an outlet for it. It’s a feeling he hates to love.

Annie seems to have cut class today seeing as she’s not next to you; and it’s almost as if it’s emboldened you to mess with him even more than usual.

He bites his tongue as Dr. Zöe enthusiastically uses your latest point as a segue into the final topic of the evening. He made that same point ten minutes ago. You just worded it differently—admittedly, more concisely, but somehow with a little more nuance, than when he had hesitantly proposed it—and, yeah, maybe you made it sound more convincing, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t come up with it first. If his stupid, fancy stylus didn’t cost upwards of $200 he might have snapped it in half.

You’re definitely the better conversationalist, that much he can admit. Words have never been his forte and he hates the way you can talk circles around him, and that there’s so little he can say to make you stop.

He wishes you would just shut up. In fact, he’d like to shut you up himself.

Thankfully, class ends sooner rather than later. Armin finds himself briefly talking with Dr. Zöe afterwards, most other students having taken the opportunity to leave early for the night. To nobody’s surprise, you’re not one of them, having stuck around to talk to the professor, too.

“The two of you should consider lab research this summer,” Dr. Zöe suggests ardently, walking between the two of you as you exit the lecture hall, “I could really use two students like you!”

Armin chuckles at his boisterous professor. He’s known about the research opportunities at their lab for quite some time now, and he knows that you have, too. “I don’t know that lab work is really my strong suit.”

The three of you come to stop at the hallway intersection, the professor now standing across from you and him. You give them a polite smile, “And I’m not sure that collaboration is mine.”

Armin spares a glance just in time to see you flash one of your own in his direction. Dr. Zöe’s eyes flicker between the two students rapidly, a slight squint to their eyelids.

They aren’t quite sure why their two brightest students seem to despise each other. They wish you two would just get along already, so that they don’t have to spend the summer training half-witted chemical engineering majors how to use basic lab equipment; and instead, conduct some actual research.

“Well, I hope the both of you reconsider,” they smile, “I’ll see you during office hours, I presume?”

You two nod in sync, sending the doctor off with happy smile, just long enough until you see that they’ve turned the corner further down the hall

“Had fun stealing my point earlier?” Armin questions, looking your way as you still wave mindlessly, eye-twitching at your polite façade.

“I would call it improvement,” you tell him, not bothering to turn in his direction; still and smiling waving like the professor can see or hear you, “You should stick to showing, rather than saying. You never were good with your words.”

Armin kisses his teeth together. He’ll give you what you want, if that’s how you want it.

In a fit of irritation, he grabs your moving hand by the wrist, and pulls you down the opposite hallway, not caring for your dramatic wailing behind him.

“Hey, Einstein, the exit is the other way, do you have any idea where we’re going?”

“Ever heard of observational learning? Maybe if you shut up for a second, you would figure it out,” he snaps, pulling you further.

There’s a door on the left that Armin knows is unlocked, and he’s quick to open it and pull you inside. Before you have the chance to glance around, he has you pushed up against the wall, jaw forced up and forward.

He could scoff at the small hitch in your breath at his actions, clearly a little too satisfied with being manhandled; but instead, he takes the opportunity to press your lips together. Armin quite likes the feeling of your lips on his; warm and soft and far too welcoming; a rare moment of silence.

“Someone could hear us.”

Or not so silent.

“Then be quiet,” he snarls.

Armin feels your fingers weave themselves into his hair, scraping along his undercut in sync with his lips trailing down your jaw. A groan falls from his when he feels you tug at the ends of the strands, just hard enough to force his face back to eye level with yours.

“You’re the one with the big mouth.”

“You’re so smart, huh. Always got something to say,” Armin lets out a low chuckle, deft fingers running down your sides to squeeze at your waist, “You can be really fuckin’ annoying, you know that.”

You mirror half of his ministrations, letting your right hand trail down his chest barely brushing over the very visible bulge in his jeans, before hooking your index finger under the belt loop, effectively pulling him closer to you.

The smile on your face is dirty, but you’re not laughing like he was, “Do something about it then.”

His blue eyes grow cloudy as he takes a good look at you; slowly rakes over your features, from that stupid, snarky look in your eyes, to your kiss-bruised lips, down to your chest, and back up again. Armin finds himself copying your smirk for all the wrong reasons. But it’s your own fault; you always did like to push him one step over the edge.

“Fine.”

Despite your twisted grin there’s a look in your eyes that’s eager; willing; ready for the taking. That same look you have when you talk over him in class; when you pretend to ignore him around your mutual friends; when you want him to fuck you stupid.

Armin uses his right hand to cup your jaw again, closing the distance between your mouths with a less than gentle kiss. He feels your groans reverberating through his body, waves of heat accompanying them and going straight to his erection. Your arch your back into the kiss, but he forces you backwards, left hand flat against your tummy.

Following suit, he pushes himself against your body, pressing his knee between your legs; the thin fabric of your stockings doing little to prevent your thighs from rubbing against him.

He swipes his tongue over the seam of your lips, earning a frenzied whine when glides his tongue across yours, and teasingly licks at the roof of your mouth. Your tongue is lithe against his, but somehow just as deceptive and sly as always, and Armin would be a fool to deny that he loved it.

There’s a spark flickering in his stomach when you push your center harshly against his; and it’s only ignited further when he feels you bite his bottom lip. A guttural growl escapes him, his right hand moving to your throat with practiced ease, pushing the back of your head into the wall.

He pauses for a moment, drinks in your wide eyes and desperate visage, “You are the single most frustrating person I’ve ever met in my entire life.”

And he couldn’t get enough of it if he tried. He couldn’t get enough of you.

You must see through his words, into the grainy expression of adoration in his eyes, because he can see it filtering into yours, pupils dilating with both want and care.

“Aw, baby, I love you, too,” you pout, leaning forward as best to can to peck him on the lips, “Now, shut me up and fuck me. It’s exhausting being this pretty and smart-mouthed, you know.”

Armin dips his head into your neck, squeezes against the column of your throat with warning until he hears a gasp escape from your lips. He presses gentle kisses into your skin, in stark contrast to the increasing pressure from his fingers, waiting for one last request, and then, finally—“Please.”

He smiles, loosens his grip for a moment, just long enough to hear your pretty panting, before slotting his lips against yours again. Your moans are lewd and sloppy and breathless between kisses, and it makes his dick twitch in his pants. You really are so fucking loud. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

He uses his free hand to push your skirt up, and subsequently dip past the weak barrier of your tights and underwear. The slightest flicker of his fingers against your center has you choking out a moan, and Armin is forced to press his right thumb harder against your neck.

“Quiet,” he reminds you, “You asked nicely, so I’ll give you what you want. No need to be loud about it.”

He watches you nod with short and restricted movements, a sadistic kind of power washing over him at your eager compliance. He uses his middle finger to rub slow, careful circles around your clit; the feeling of your wet cunt against his fingers, coupled with your wanton moaning only spurs on the throbbing in his pants.

“Armin,” you whine, impatiently; but he expected that of you, “Don’t tease.”

His eyes flash to yours briefly, pressing his lips to yours again to swallow your shuddered moans. He dips his tongue into your mouth at the same time he does his middle finger into your cunt. An obscene moan echoing through the classroom, as Armin feels your body arching into his again; feels your fingers frantically flying to his hair, searching for purchase to anchor yourself on.

He pulls away in time to add another digit and watch you groan underneath him. He pushes both his fingers in to the knuckle, carefully curling them upwards to elicit the prettiest sound out of you. He has to admit, it’s probably his favorite thing to hear come out of your mouth.

He keeps a steady pace, pumping his fingers in and out of your pussy with perfect friction, teetering between letting you moan his name and choking you silent. Your hands are frantic in his hair, grasping and pulling and so, so, desperate, Armin can’t help but to finger fuck you harder.

“You want one more?” he questions, but his voice is taunting, words ghosted over your lips just out of reach for you to kiss.

He can feel your leg trembling against his, see you pupils shaking along with your shaking head. Armin stops to smile; he thought you might do that. He could probably make you cry right now if he wanted to. Maybe later.

“Want you to fuck me,” your words short and ragged, eyebrows raised when he uses his thumb to press lightly against your clit, “Armin, please.”

The blonde shakes his head, “You’re dumber than you look if you think I’m gonna fuck you in a classroom, baby, so if you want to cum now, you better tell me.”

You have the audacity to pout of all things, “You’re mean.”

Armin lets out a breathless laugh. “You like it,” he leans forward to peck you sweetly, “So, what’ll it be?”

“Fine, but I want head later, too,” you tell him, words becoming less firm when Armin teases his ring finger against your slit, “Please.”

Armin hums in compliance, leaning forward to kiss you again, this time with more tact, and he chases your whines when he finally pushes a third finger inside of you.

“Look at you,” he croons breaking your kiss and forcing your head back again, “You take it so well.”

“Ah—fuck, there, Armin—there,” you cry, wet heat squeezing around his fingers in intermittent spasms.

Armin watches your chest heave with desperate breaths, air stuttering to pass from your lips to your lungs with his hand around your neck. He can feel your walls constricting around his fingers, feel your body shaking underneath him when he increases his pace. He curls his fingers again, just right, just until he hears you sing a strained call of his name. And when he feels your nails scraping down the nape of his neck, and the slight weight of your body convulsing, Armin knows you’re done for.

He’s nice enough to fuck you through your orgasm, shallow thrusts of his fingers bringing you to and down from your high as he watches you pant for him. He presses small kisses against your throat, up, up, up, until he’s kissing you, and carefully pulling his fingers out.

He removes his hand from your neck, and slides it down your waist to offer you support. He’s not prepared for your sudden pull on his neck, forcing him into a kiss that conveys your content; he’s quick to raise his left hand, palm meeting the wall to hold himself up against your sporadic actions, chuckling lightly into your kiss. You were always so reckless and happy after an orgasm.

You kiss him like you have him wrapped your finger despite being the one pleading moments ago. You do, so he supposes it’s not unwarranted; and he welcomes your flirtatious kisses despite the annoying blush they always bring forth.

And sure enough, he can feel his face on fire when you pull away. Armin scoffs internally at himself; he really should be able to keep it together around you by now. But when you kiss him like that, you kind of make it hard to think straight.

“You’re so good when you’re not… pretending to be good,” you hum, a blissful, hazy look on your features as you wrap your arms around his neck.

Armin shakes his head with a chortle of disbelief; leans forward to kiss you again, “’M not pretending. I am good.”

“Yeah, you’re such a good little saint that arguing with your girlfriend turns you on,” you taunt him, “It’s okay, Armin, you can admit it.”

He groans, out of shallow annoyance this time, and it makes you giggle. “Why are you acting like you’re not complicit in this?”

“Oh, no, no, no,” you refute with an exaggerated roll of your eyes, “You get turned on by hearing me talk about biochemistry. I like it when you tell me to shut up about it. We are not the same.”

“Yeah, because you look hot doing it,” he tells you, “Speaking of which, Eren called you hot today, so I kind of need you to slip a neurotoxin in his Gatorade.”

“Aw, Eren thinks I’m hot? Tell him I think he’s hot, too,” you bat your eyelashes at him, but Armin only offers you an unimpressed glare in return.

“I think he might be onto us, actually,” Armin notes, affectionately bumping his nose against yours.

“If he’s onto us, then it’s because you’re the one giving it away, not me.”

“Oh, because you could never do anything wrong, right?”

“Right,” you flash him an overconfident smile before reaching up to kiss to the tip of his nose, “See you’re so smart, baby.”

Armin shakes his head again in disbelief. You’re a handful, he can see that much.

“Come on,” he prompts, “We should go, I still have to finish my lab write up, and I know you haven’t started your paper.”

Armin tries to motion you forward, but is stopped when he feels your hand combing through his hair, and sees the genuine spark of concern in your eyes. “The one for your elective? I thought you said you were going to finish it on Monday.”

“I was,” Armin admits, “But then I didn’t.”

“You want me to help you with it?” you offer kindly, pushing his bangs back and letting your hands fall down the sides of his face, palms resting against his ears.

He nods gently, turning his head to press a kiss into your left palm, before wrapping his hand around your wrist, “I can help you outline your paper.”

You nod in return, and Armin spares one more kiss, before pulling your hand away to lace your fingers together.

Thankfully, nobody’s around to catch you exiting the classroom, or see you holding hands as you make your way out of the building and towards the bus stop. This was Armin’s favorite part of any Tuesday; the one time he could hold your hand on campus without the fear of getting caught by your friends.

He reasons that you guys should probably tell them soon, though, especially if Eren might have an idea of what’s going on. You were bound to get caught sooner rather than later. That, or Eren and Sasha would start meddling.

“If you think Eren knows, then Mikasa definitely knows,” you note, swinging your intertwined hands as you walk through the parking lot as a shortcut.

“Maybe if you actually remembered to hide Soup’s toys, there would be less evidence for her to piece together.”

“Yeah, well, maybe if you didn’t forget when your midterms are, I wouldn’t have to emergency cat sit the hour before Mikasa comes around, and there wouldn’t be any toys to hide in the first place.”

“I’m bad with dates, you know that!” Armin pouts, “I don’t say anything when you forget about ten page papers until four hours before they’re due.”

“You’re saying something right now, actually.”

“That’s not what I—you know, you’re so—”

Armin’s quiet when he feels your lips pressed against his cheekily, “Annoying. I know. You like it. You’re not very good at staying mad for very long.”

Armin’s tempted to roll his eyes yet again—he really needs to quit it, or at the very least, get your own temper under control before it’s irreversible and completely rubbed off on him—but takes the opportunity to kiss your forehead, instead.

“You’re lucky you’re cute.”

Your eyes twinkle under his affections. “And that you love me?”

He nods, “And that I love you.”

“And that you’re gonna fuck me before you make me write my paper when we get home, right?”

Armin chuckles and presses another kiss to your forehead, “We’ll see about that one.”

Hange huffs as they make their way through the parking. They always forget their keys in their office, and always, inconveniently park half-way across the campus. In their defense, this parking lot is free, and the one closest to the Medical Sciences building is not. So, really, capitalism is the one to blame for their frequent late night car lot strolls.

They hear two familiar voices bickering just as they’re about to step into their car, and are more than surprised to see their two favorite students walking together. Walking together and holding hands. Wait—you and Armin are walking together and holding hands?

Hange blinks for a moment, drowning out the sounds of the conversation after they see you two kiss. Their jaw practically falls to the asphalt and they might not blink for a full two minutes as they process what they just saw.

Their trance is broken when it finally, finally clicks together, and Hange has to try their hardest to contain their squeals before sitting in the driver’s seat, an overly forceful slam to the car door following. They waste no time fumbling with the pockets of their lab coat to fish out their phone, and make a call to their favorite math professor.

“Levi, I told you Arlert and (_____) had to know each other outside of class! I think they might be dating! You know what this means, right? I can have them both in the same lab without worrying they might start a chemical fire, and I won’t have to hire two brick heads this summer!”

Levi has never hung up a call more quickly in his life.

[lesbewriting]

because i had you

[cc!Quackity x Fem!Reader] [chpt.5]

SUMMARY: In which Quackity is left reminiscing about his past relationship with his ex-girlfriend after their breakup.

WARNINGS: mainly angst, um crying and mentions of moving on? there's like no fluff here sorry guys

A-N: gonna be completely honest, i literally just wrote whatever popped into my head at the time of writing this. So sorry, if some parts don't make much sense or match the lyrics lol. Also I'm back to writing from my tablet again now :) as I now have a keyboard for it so it's easier than my phone lol

[masterlist]

[series masterlist]

Quackity sat cooped up in a corner booth of a diner he'd found when wandering through random streets with no real place in mind. He felt tired as he sat there, awaiting the hot drink the wait staff had yet to bring out to him. His thoughts were jumbled, a mess if you will. He couldn't focus on something for one moment without drawing it back to you somehow. God, he missed you a lot. He missed when he could rely on you to help him with ideas for his streams or just plain youtube videos for his channel, when he hadn't any clue what to do himself.

Maybe it was some pretty unfortunate timing for him, when he suddenly heard the sound of laughter of two people coming closer and closer. He knew he definitely couldn't mistake for anyone else. It was so familiar to him, that he could easily remember the last time, he'd heard it directed towards him. He knew he probably shouldn't look up from where he had rested his eyes upon the table before him. It was surely a completely bad idea, it would most likely hurt him more. But yet, it was like some part of him told him to and without warning his eyes lifted up and to the sudden familiar sound.

Fuck, he wished he didn't. As stood right at the very entrance, just about to enter the small, yet busy cafe he resided in, was you. But you were not alone, in fact he briefly glanced behind you to the quite attractive person behind you. Who were they? Was one of the many questions that flew through his thoughts just then. Surely, it wasn't a date right? Quackity wouldn't admit it but he did feel a little bit of hope that maybe you were just there as friends. Yet, as he examined you two further, that bit of hope died and he felt his heart sink a little in his chest. He watched as the person beside you, carefully grabbed your hand and pulled you inside to a table on the opposite side of the diner.

To be honest, Quackity had no clue why he still felt sad when he silently observed you on your date with another person, that wasn't him, might he add. The fight/breakup was a month or two ago, he knew that you were allowed to see other people now and go on dates with them. He knew he should probably move on now too, if you were so clearly doing so. Then again, he couldn't help the next things to flood into his thoughts. Did you even love him? Did you even regret storming out of that door that day? Hell, were you even heartbroken over the fact that you had lost what you had with him? All these sudden thoughts, he desperately wanted answers too, and yet he had simply had none.

The raven-haired boy only snapped back to reality when he heard the footsteps of someone approaching his table. He felt his eyes suddenly move from where they were previously locked onto you, and drift to the figure near him now. It was only the waitress, bringing him his hot beverage. He murmured a quick 'thank you' towards her, and watched her scurry off in a hurry to collect more orders. He grabbed the warm mug and brought it closer towards himself. Perhaps, he should be glad that the waitress arrived when she did. He didn't want to risk you feeling someone staring, and turning around to find him there looking in your direction. That would be embarrassing on his part, and he didn't want to come off as a total creep or stalker.

Alex wasn't sure if he could keep sitting there, a few booths down from where you and your date now sat. He couldn't help but frown at the sounds of laughter that spilled from your lips, making his heart carefully ache. What was stopping him from simply getting up from his seat? What was stopping him from going up to the counter and asking for his drink in a takeaway cup? Genuinely, he didn't even know himself. Clearly, he didn't think he was ready to be in the same proximity to you. If he left right now, he knew it would save him from a whole lot more heartbreak. But, as he sat there and slowly took small sips of the beverage that was currently situated between his fingers and heating up his palms. The sun's rays of light gently beaming in through the large window to the side of him, he couldn't help but allow his thoughts to continue to roam.

He couldn't compare to whoever that was sat opposite you, making you smile like that. Making you smile and laugh, just like how he used to do. Atleast, he fully believed and thought that he couldn't. Eventually, he had enough of carefully observing the couple from afar and slowly taking sips of his drink. He just wanted to leave, and so he did. He got up from where he was seated, discarding the now half-empty mug of what he had been drinking. He needed to get home anyways, he did plan on appearing on one of his friends' twitch streams later today. Carefully, adjusting the beanie that most oftenly sat upon his head of raven hair, he moved through the aisle of diner booths and towards the exit.

His actions suddenly having caught the attention, of you who had peeked up from your meal that had just arrived now. You felt a brief look of sadness flash across your face as you saw him there, about to leave the cafe. Yet, it was gone in an instant when you remembered who you were still with. Did you even really want to engage with Alex? You knew you did miss him, of course you did. Wouldn't talking to him though bring up old feelings and reopen those wounds from that night? probably, so you didn't risk it. You both would be on the road to healing from that relationship, so talking to him right now you doubted would change anything between you two. So you sat there, attempting to fight the urge to call his name and go after him, while he slowly exited the building and onto the street.

You're with somebody I can't be, yeah

[shreddedparchment]

A Wife for Thor Pt.24

What She’s Done

05/19/2021

Pairing: King!Thor x Reader         Word Count: 5,590

Warnings: language, angst, fluff, Loki being the best bro, pregnancy problems

A/N: I’m sorry this is so late. I’m not going to explain too much as I want the focus to be on the chapter but I’m feeling better. Hope you all enjoy this one and I hope you can forgive me. haha As always, if you happen to reblog, thanks so much for helping me spread my work! xoxo

Please DO NOT repost my work on any other sites or blogs!

REBLOGS are always welcome!

The sound of the fanfare outside is muted. The heavy doors of the main room are shut.

Thor sits on his large steel, silver, and wooden throne. Normally, your own throne would have been moved into the room so that you could sit beside him. Today however, he wants you standing.

Loki stands on Thor’s left, his hands moving across his tablet at godly speeds. He’s busy. Always busy. While Thor has the final say, Loki sets everything up for him and comes to him with the choices that must be made.

He’s indispensable and both you and Thor know it. So, when the large doors are thrown open and Thor takes his hand off of your lower waist where he’d been massaging the knots away, as Ambassador Coates walks forward, you glare right at him and his judging distrustful look at the sight of Asgard’s Prince.

The music outside, large horns that sound more like a call to battle, slowly die and are completely cut off when the doors are shut. Just outside you know two Valkyrie are standing guard.

Inside, two more regular guards stand at attention.

“Ambassador Coates, I’m glad you saw fit to accept my invitation,” Thor says casually.

One wouldn’t know that Thor is angry. He sounds so welcoming. The charm he’s exuding is one you’ve never seen him use before but Loki doesn’t seem surprised by it. Instead, Loki’s lips seem to curve upwards a little in the teeniest smirk.

The Ambassador does as he’s expected and once he’s near the foot of the raised wooden floor where Thor’s throne sits, he gives a quick bow meeting first Thor’s singular eye and then your own blank gaze.

Keeping your anger in check is easy. You’re able to wipe your face of all emotion and it’s a skill now that you’re glad you learned in the orphanage you’d grown up in. Never letting anyone know how sad or hurt you are was key to your survival.

“Your Majesties,” the ambassador states, the irritation in his voice loud and clear for all of you to hear.

It looks like Thor’s plan to roll out the red carpet as if the ambassador were visiting royalty got his message across clearly.

“I hope I find you in good health? Are you faring well with the pregnancy?”

You don’t answer him. You simply stare.

“We’re well enough,” Thor begins. “Forgive me in my haste to get to the point, Ambassador Coates but as I hear it from my brother, you have been making it very difficult for Her Majesty the Queen of Asgard to meet with you, despite her warnings that what she had to share was imperative to the safety of Earth and human-kind.”

The ambassador blinks. He doesn’t attempt to speak or react in any other way than to show that he’s processing Thor’s words. All signs of irritation at his welcome gone.

“Would you say that is a fair statement for her having sent, what was it? Four emails and three phone calls?” Thor asks Loki.

“Seven emails and four phone calls,” he corrects.

“Right. Seven and four.”

“Your Majesty…”

“I think you have been under the impression that my marriage to my wife has been one in name only. She’s Queen but not really? Right? She has no power or authority? Is that what you think?”

Ambassador Coates swallows hard, sweat beading along his temples. He’s not a stout man. In fact, most women would think him good looking. Nothing to Thor or Loki, but for a human he’s handsome. His sweating in this climate makes no sense unless he’s suddenly stressed.

Maybe you shouldn’t feel bad but you do just a bit. You can’t imagine what he must feel being scrutinized by Thor, yourself, and Loki. Clearly he did something wrong and now he knows it.

“Your Majesties, I-I meant no offense. Unfortunately this is a busy time for myself and my colleagues and-”

“We have no time for your excuses,” Thor sits up straighter and draws his legs a little closer together before he licks his lips and holds his hand out towards you.

Taking it, you watch him get up and then he helps you sit before checking on you, “Better, cherub?”

You nod, looking up at him as he caresses the side of your head.

“The only reason you hold the job that you currently do is because my people and I chose to settle on Earth. You might say you owe it to us. Perhaps you’d still have been employed should we not have come here but from what I understand, your salary is considerably more than what it would have been were you in some other position.

“You are married and have children, too. Don’t you?” Thor asks.

“Y-Yes, Your Majesty.”

“So, it’s important to keep your job. Isn’t it?”

He says nothing, this time simply looking down at Thor’s feet.

“My wife is not just Queen in name but she has been exemplary in her devotion of ruling the people of Asgard at my side with honor and grace. The people love her. I’m not sure what made you think you could slight an Asgardian Queen but let me be clear. If our people should find out that there was such disrespect, believe me when I tell you that the loss of your job would be the last thing you’d have to worry about.”

“And just to be clear,” Loki cuts in as Thor’s taking a breath. “My brother is not threatening you. This is a statement of fact. We Asgardians are fiercely loyal and easily offended.”

You like that Ambassador Coates isn’t glaring at Loki anymore. The fear in his eyes is worrying, but you also know that your husband and brother would do nothing to actually hurt this idiot. They’re just making sure he knows where he stands.

Thor crosses his large arms across his wide chest. Though you don’t think he means it to be intimidating, you can see from the ambassador’s gulp that Thor’s minor flex has great impact.

Gods, he’s huge.

“As it just so happens, aside from being a Queen without fault to this kingdom, the Queen of Asgard has seen fit to continue to perform in her duties as the bridge between our two peoples. She refuses to let us make decisions for the human race and was attempting to contact you to warn you of impending dangers. And you, what was the phrase, love?”

“Blew me off.”

“That’s right, you blew her off. And yet we welcome you with respect and grace.”

“Your Majesties,” the ambassador begins, but Thor holds up his hand and he stops.

“Let this be a lesson in humility for you. I love Earth and for that reason alone, in addition to the fact that this is my wife’s home and now mine, we will forgive this lapse of judgement on your part,” you’ve never heard Thor sound more like a King than in this moment.

It’s also one of those moments where you really want to drag him back to the room and get him naked. He’s never been this attractive.

The ambassador bows his head, taking his punishment with dignity.

“Forgive me, your Majesties,” he begins to say something, but then stops himself.

“Speak your mind, Ambassador Coates,” Loki urges, seeing something you and Thor don’t.

“I merely wish to apologize for my lack of forethought. I was not the only one dismissing Her Majesty the Queen of Asgard but will be sure to rectify the behavior with my colleagues when I return.”

Loki smiles, turning his gentle gaze on you as he realizes that you were right. It wasn’t misogyny. Not on Ambassador Coates’s part. That might not be the case for everyone though.

“Perhaps I should schedule meetings with your colleagues so that we might have a quick talk about the expectations we have for our relationship going forward?”

Loki’s threat is veiled heavily, but Ambassador Coates still picks up on it and his face goes a little pale.

“I don’t think that’s necessary, Your Highness. I will pass along the sentiments, if you will let me.”

There’s a burning satisfaction in your chest. Something about watching Ambassador Coates finally show not just you but Loki the respect he deserves makes you so happy.

“My Queen?” Loki prompts you, looking to you to wait for your reply.

“I think we can give him a chance to express our disappointment for us. He is our ambassador. Isn’t that right Ambassador Coates?”

Coates looks relieved, pressing his hand to his chest as he bows his head to you again.

It’s a strange sensation to see the gratitude on his face and his posture relaxes as a result. You literally just did that. You gave him some forgiveness and it really does make all the difference.

“I will support you and the Asgardian throne with more fervor from here on out, Your Majesty.”

“Cool,” you shrug, reaching to place your hand on the back of Thor’s neck, absolutely beaming at him.

He chuckles and puts his hand back on your waist, giving you a gentle squeeze and shake.

“Are you happy, my cherub?”

You nod, unable to contain the smile that stretches across your lips and you lean into him.

“Good. My job here is done then. Now, I have some things to do,” Thor rises and moves around until he’s facing you and pulls you up into a chaste but loving kiss.

With a caress to your belly, he looks at Loki and nods.

“I’ll leave the rest to you and my Queen, brother.”

“Sif will meet you by the docks,” Loki nods.

“Wonderful. I’ll see you later, love. If you need me, just tell Loki and I will come running.”

“‘Kay,” you smile.

Thor turns back to your guest and moves towards him, clapping his shoulder as he passes, “Do better, Ambassador Coates. Do better.”

All three of you watch Thor strut for the large front doors. The guard opens it for him and when he’s out of sight, the doors shutting behind him, you move to take your seat on the throne. Loki scoots a little closer to your side but stands with his tablet ready.

“Now, I think we should get down to the reason I wanted to meet with you,” you start and Ambassador Coates stands a little straighter. “But...I don’t know about you but this whole towering over you sitting on a throne thing is not really my style and feels a little forced. Let’s go to my sitting room.”

Loki smirks as Ambassador Coates relaxes a little more and even smiles, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

As the three of you walk up the steps to the right of the throne room to climb up to the small sitting room that had been set aside for you and your private entertaining, you steal a few glances at Ambassador Coates.

He still looks a little rattled and you stroke your stomach, the long silk dress you’re wearing, ruffled skirt and loose waist giving it a soft flowing quality is still noticeable and Ambassador Coates steals a few glances.

“Didn’t think I was really pregnant?”

He blanches, “What? N-No, Your Majesty! I had no reason to doubt you.”

“It’s okay. A lot of people didn’t believe it until I came back from my little vacation. I just wanted to make sure that it would take. We’re all so dependent on this little one and a lot is riding on my having Thor’s heir quickly.”

“No one who has seen you rule since your marriage would doubt your commitment to this union, Y/N,” Loki assures you gently.

He’s your number one supporter and you’re so damn grateful for him.

All three of you fall into silence but with your heavy belly and your slow walk, it stretches on.

“I’m sorry about Thor’s enthusiasm to put you in your place,” you give Coates a small apologetic smile but he quickly shakes his head. “He can be a little passionate.”

“No, Your Majesty, the mistake was mine. I should have paid you the respect you deserved. It’s-You work in an environment for too long and you begin to adopt certain behaviors that you should know aren’t acceptable but when everyone is doing it and-I was wrong. I can’t blame Thor for setting me straight.”

“Thank you, for understanding,” you shrug.

“Thank you for not holding it against me and letting me do better.”

It takes only another few minutes to reach the sitting room and you make a beeline for the small loveseat before dropping into it and leaning back against the soft plush cushions.

“Whew, I probably should have done my research on how pregnancy would affect all aspects of my life before agreeing to it,” a joke and Coates gets it because he looks respectfully amused.

Loki scoffs, “With Thor, I doubt you’d have had much choice in the matter. He is also believed to be a God of fertility, you know?”

“Loki!”

The small shock on your face really makes Coates laugh this time and your neck, ears, and cheeks burn.

Not wanting to drag this meeting out for a long time you clear your throat and Loki sits down on the armchair beside you opposite Coates’s own seat.

“I should really be more formal, but I’m not kidding when I tell you that this pregnancy is taking a toll on me.”

“Think nothing of it, Your Majesty,” Coates assures you.

“I’m not sure what you’ll be able to do with this information and maybe it’ll be best if, with your help, you can get a meeting in front of both the United Nations and NATO scheduled for me to speak to them directly.

“Thor and Loki would be there with me, of course, but it was my idea to even bring this to your attention.”

“I will be of any assistance that I can be,” Coates nods, face serious and attentive.

“We wanted to wait until we had more concrete information to give Earth’s leaders but our Queen is adamant that an early warning is better than detailed information,” Loki explains.

“Is the Earth in danger?” Coates asks, worried now.

“Sort of,” you nod. “Truth is, we don’t know. What we do know is that there’s an energy signature that we’ve been monitoring for months. Almost my entire first year of marriage. What we do know is that the energy signal was strong enough to bring Doctor Foster here to look for an explanation and my brother-in-law has kept his eye on it too. It’s familiar to him and not unthreatening so we’ve been preparing watch stations across the globe. We have one in North and South America, Australia, almost every continent so that we won’t miss any kind of danger that comes falling from the sky.

“We don’t want a repeat of New York,” you look at Loki and Coates looks at him too but neither of you have any kind of judgement in your expressions.

Maybe a little for Coates, but he quickly turns his gaze back on you.

“I wanted to give the people of Earth time to prepare for that kind of attack. The Avengers are already on the case and have been helping build up a defense but they can only do so much. Their focus is going to be on the bigger fight if it comes to that. I want to give us a fighting chance on the ground where regular people are often the ones to get hurt and suffer from big threats like this.

“I don’t want the casualties to look like they have in the past when something or someone threatens us. So, I just want to give world leaders a briefing on what we’ve found, what we’ve built in defense, and give them the resources to keep track of what we’re keeping track of.

“We’re at a unique advantage with not only Asgard’s knowledge, technology, and resources. We’re still a growing nation and what we do have is lots of strength. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and while the Valkyrie have to stay here to protect my family, we have a sizable guard that can be split into a few regiments to send out to the places that will need it most and still have enough forces to protect New Asgard.”

Coates is thinking hard, then his hand dives into his pocket and he pulls out his phone, “I’ll start making calls and can probably have something set up the day after tomorrow. If the threat is serious enough to make you worry about us humans this much, I think the sooner the better.”

“It is serious enough,” Loki assures him. “Even if it turns into nothing, we would all rather have done everything we could to minimize damage to both the humans of Earth and New Asgard.”

“Then I’ll get started. Is there any kind of data that I should see in order to convince my bosses?”

You look to Loki and reach out, placing your hand on his arm, “Loki, take Ambassador Coates down to the dungeon and let him get a look at anything we’ve gathered in the monitoring station. You’ll forgive me for not coming with you, Ambassador Coates? I really can’t stand walking around much longer today.”

“Of course, please do not mind me,” he assures you, giving you a small bow.

“Shall I have your lunch brought in here?” Loki asks.

“Please?”

He nods and with a gesture at Ambassador Coates, leads the way to the door.

“When you’ve made any significant progress, I will be in here. Can you come and let me know?”

Coates nods, the phone now pressed to his ear, “As soon as I know something, Your Majesty.”

They leave you in an appropriate rush and you relax against the cushions of your sofa feeling like a small burden’s been lifting off your shoulders.

You’ve done your part now. You’ve warned your Ambassador, now it’s his job to convince his higher-ups and hopefully they listen.

Estrid does eventually come with your lunch and you eat slowly, thinking through your options for Coates and the rest of the governments of the world. Splitting the Asgardian army up isn’t ideal, but they pack a punch. Even just a handful of soldiers in a city would make a difference.

You finish eating and you finish your tea. You get up to walk a little around the sitting room but as the afternoon wears on, you start to feel suffocated inside and Estrid happily goes with you down to your gardens.

Most of your plants have been well taken care of.

“His Majesty made sure that we kept all of your plants healthy for you,” Estrid informs you, moving to walk a few steps behind you as you walk around with a small watering can.

His consideration brings a smile to your lips.

Thor really can be so sweet. So loving. You hate that some of the time from your first year was stolen by what happened with Jane, but it couldn’t be helped. He had to discover what it would mean to lose you and you had to learn that depending on yourself is still just as important married as it was when you had no one.

Maybe it’s even more important now? You can get lost in your relationship with Thor and while that’s super tempting, to have your world start and end with Thor and your married life together, you are still your own person.

You have goals for your career and shared dreams with him too. You’ve got your hobbies and Thor has his. Both of you needed the distance.

Despite that, even though you know that the space was good for both of you, even if it hurt like hell to get it the way you two did, you’re actually really happy to be back home.

As you reach over to water one of your taller butterfly bushes, you gasp and pull your arm back against your body as a small sharp pain rocks your senses and blinds your vision for a split second.

“Your Majesty?” Estrid hurries forward.

“I’m fine, Estrid,” you assure her, waiting another second to see if the pain will come back.

Reaching down you rub the spot on your tummy where you’d felt it and wonder if maybe the baby is just kicking especially hard today.

“Shall I fetch the doctors?”

“No, really. I’m fine, Estrid.”

You move to the next plant and water a few more as you head towards the small greenhouse with the Asgardian plants you’re still trying to perfect the care for but as you reach for the door, you double over as a shooting pain stretches across the same side as before then moves down onto the base of your belly.

The watering can falls from your hand as you reach out to brace yourself against the door and hits the floor with a clunk as the water goes all over your flats, soaking your feet.

“Your Majesty!”

Estrid races to you, hands placed on your back and arm to support you as she looks to steal a glance at your face.

With your eyes shut tight, you groan and whimper as the pain just gets sharper.

“Estrid…” it takes a moment to catch your breath. “Get the doctors.”

“Guard!” Estrid calls, forcing you to let go of the door so that she can lead you to a bench. “Guard, send for the doctor!”

“Thor,” you whimper, sitting slowly and gasping as the pain intensifies. “Get Thor.”

“I’ll send for him, my Queen,” Estrid assures you and now that you’re seated, she leaves you to run and hurry the guard.

“What’s wrong?”

“Loki?” you call breathlessly, searching for his face for the comfort you know it’ll give you to have him close.

“Here,” he calls out for you and hurries around the corner. “I’m here. What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

He hovers over you, leaning over, his hands carefully pressed to your cheek and the other on your stomach.

“It hurts,” you sob without tears, “Loki…”

“It’s alright,” he promises. “You and my nephew will be fine. Come on, put your arm around my neck.”

His certainty does help and you get your arm around him. With ease he squats down and lifts you into his arms and with you moves back into the palace.

~~~~~~~~~~

It feels like a long time when you open your eyes again. You’re dizzy a little and weak. Your body feels heavy and it’s a struggle to sit up.

Looking around, you realize you’re in your bedroom alone. The sky outside is dark and the room is dim with only the fireplace lit to cast a warm orange glow around the dark room.

“Loki?” you try, remembering him carrying you when he found you in the garden.

No movement.

“Thor? Estrid?” You’d sent her to get the doctors and to get Thor. Had the doctors come?

Thor’s favorite armchair is placed by your bed, angled towards you so he must have been in here sitting by you waiting for you to wake up.

With a heavy sigh, you realize that he must have been out of his mind with worry when he heard what happened. Is the baby okay?

You put your hands on your tummy and wait for movement. He does wiggle around a little. Normal for you and him and that makes you feel better about the pain that had come out of nowhere.

It takes you too long to get up and out of bed. You’re in your nightgown, a long simple piece with modern touches but it’s also very similar to some of the long flowing white ones you remember seeing in history books.

Taking extra time to stretch up onto your feet just in case the pain comes back, you breathe a sigh of relief when you take your first step and find that you’re okay.

“Oh, baby,” you reach down and rub the sides of your bump. “You scared me, rascal.”

You know that you should probably stay still. Staying in bed is probably what your Doctors suggested but the empty chair has you worried about Thor and what state he might be in.

So instead of staying where you should, you open your bedroom door and step out into the hallway.

The spots to either side where there’s usually a guard are empty.

You look up towards the other end of the hall and see that the two soldiers have moved to stand at the center of the hall, shoulders tense and obviously distracted. Further down, at what you think they must be staring at is a grouping of palace staff. People you recognize. Estrid stands among them, frowning at the small crack in the door through which pours a line of bright white light from the sitting room you share with Thor.

Did something happen?

As you pass the two guards the jump and hurry back to the sides of your bedroom door where they belong. Their flurry of movement must have drawn the attention of the others standing by the door. They also seem to jump, look shamed and worried, before they move away from the door and head in all different directions to get back to work.

One of the maids that passes you curtsies before she scurries off stealing a look of regret at you.

Estrid stands rigid, hands clasped to her front before she steps back a bit to give you room.

“What is it, Estrid?”

She doesn’t say anything. She looks upset, her lips fixed into a severe line, eyes full of anger as she shakes her head.

“Where’s Loki? Thor?” you check, stopping by her and she only looks at the door.

You can hear muted voices from inside and your heart begins to pound.

Is it the doctors? Are Thor and Loki getting bad news? The baby was just moving though!

Your baby has to be okay. Healthy even. Nothing was wrong before you came back home.

Clinging to your bump, you move towards the crack in the door and with the breath leaving your lungs in fear of what you’ll overhear you just go ahead and push the door open because eavesdropping hasn’t served you well in the past.

If something needs to be said, you want to hear it without hiding.

Of course, what you aren’t expecting to find is Loki facing you by the long sofa where Thor usually lounges, resting his head on your lap. Behind Loki, what must have given him that frustrated look on his face is Thor, Jane clinging to his arm as she finishes speaking the thought you just interrupted as they all turn to look at you.

“-can’t help it. I love you. I-”

The absolute fury that engulfs you is indescribable.

For one year-long second, you inhale and a million thoughts cross your mind. The one you grasp onto, in favor of the ones involving murder and hurt and violence, is the one of your baby.

This kind of anger is bad for him. You can’t let it consume you. Not when you need to stay good for him.

Loki looks down at his feet, disappointment and shame overcoming his pale, handsome features.

Thor quickly jerks his hand out of Jane’s grip and moves towards you but stops when you speak only a few feet away.

“Jane?”

She swallows hard, then frowns, “I only came to warn Thor that the readings have gotten stronger. I-”

“I don’t care why you’re here. I only care that you are here. You aren’t welcome in my house, near my husband, or on any piece of land in this Kingdom,” you take a step towards them and stop as you stroke your belly to remind you to keep calm. “I want you gone. Out of my home, away from my people, and if you trespass here again, I’ll have you thrown in jail. You aren’t welcome in New Asgard.”

“You can’t ban me from an entire Kingdom,” she argues, moving forward towards you.

“Try me,” you warn. “Out of respect for what you meant to Thor in the past, I’ve kept your name clean. I haven’t told anyone what you tried to do here, but here you are trying again. Now either you want me to trash you, or you seriously can’t take a hint.

“We don’t want you here.”

“Thor invited me himself, if he didn’t want me here, why would he do that?”

You grind your teeth, again stroking your tummy, “You’re right. I don’t know why my husband would invite you here when I have made it very clear that you aren’t welcome. Whatever the reason, he and I will discuss it together, because we’re married. Husband and wife. Until the day I die, at least, since he’ll outlive me by two thousand years.

“And whatever you two had in the past is gone. So, get out or I’ll have you thrown out.”

She opens her mouth to argue and you take two steps towards her, “I might be pregnant, but I can still do plenty of damage in the minute that it’ll take Thor and Loki to pull me off of you. Please, say something. Please, please I beg you. Give me an excuse. I have a really bad temper and I am dying to express myself. Please.”

Jane turns towards Thor, waiting for some kind of rebuttal from him but he’s got his eyes trained on you and you alone. The shame on his face, the agony of what you finding them all here might mean is not lost on him.

When he doesn’t say anything, Loki clears his throat, “I think it’s time to go, Jane.”

His urging helps and with a look of hurt and disbelief, she tears her eyes off of Thor and stomps out past you.

You watch her go, Estrid scurrying after her to lead her out the back instead of the front where she might be spotted.

“Loki?”

He turns to you, waiting.

“I don’t want anyone to know she was here. Anyone other than the group of palace staff that was standing by the door fucking listening to what was being said in here. Can you get Heimdall and send her home that way?”

“I’m on it,” he assures you and hurries past you, disappearing into the palace.

“I-” Thor begins.

“Don’t!”

He shuts his mouth.

“Not here.”

Turning, you lead the way back to the bedroom and the guard opens the door for you, Thor following closely behind.

As the door shuts you don’t stop until you’re sitting on your bed, hands stroking your belly as you shut your eyes and try to calm yourself.

“I asked you for one thing. One thing, Thor. I asked you not to make a fool of me. Seven people from our staff were listening to you and Jane. Seven! By tomorrow that’ll be twenty and by the weekend the tabloids will have picked up on the story.”

“I’m sorry,” he starts but you growl in frustration.

“I stood in front of our people and told them that Jane Foster was not welcome in our Kingdom and you walked her right in! I-I can’t do this. I can’t do this right now.”

You get up and point at the large doors.

“I need you to get out. I need space and I don’t care why you let her in. I don’t care why you’d make me look like such a stupid fucking joke I only know that you did and I’m done. I need you out. Don’t come looking for me. When I’m ready, if I’m ever ready to talk to you again, I’ll find you. Until then, leave me alone.”

“Cherub-”

“NO! You don’t get to do this shit, Thor-You don’t get to undermine me and bring that woman back into our lives and still get to explain yourself after she lied to you about being pregnant, and making a mockery of our marriage. You don’t get a say. You get out of my room, you keep away from me, you wait until I’m ready to hear you. Until I’m not angry anymore. Until I’m not hurting anymore.

“I don’t understand what it is about this woman that you just-can’t you see what she is? What she’s done? Don’t you understand why she can’t be here? Don’t you get-You know what? Just get out. I don’t care. I don’t care if you get it or not. Get out.”

“Y/N, please, I-”

“GET OUT!”

The silence that follows your outburst is interrupted only by the crackling of the fire. In the dim light, Thor’s face is grave and broken. You can’t feel bad for him though.

As much as you love him, as much as you wish this hadn’t just happened, as much as you hate to see him hurt, you can’t ignore the pain in your own chest, drowning you again in betrayal.

This is why you’d wanted to keep your distance. This agony is why you’d wanted to keep him at arm’s length.

This is why you can only depend on yourself.

Eventually, Thor bows his head and with heavy feet, he leaves your room shutting the door behind him leaving you to sob and throw pillows in anger.

[stormgardenscurse]

Idk if this has been done but 👀 may I request some headcanons of the dorm heads being proposed to by their s/o? Thank youuuuu

A/N: I’ve done similar proposal headcanons for Azul and Malleus in a past request, link to that here! Thank you for requesting!

Riddle

There’s a moment where Riddle is just so surprised that you wonder if you’ve done it and broken him for real. You almost drop the ring in your attempt to check if he was okay, but he manages to gather himself and assure you that it’s alright, that he’s not taken aback in a bad way or anything so you don’t have to apologise--

Gods, he has to resist the urge to cry. This wasn’t a time for tears - his remarkable significant other just asked him if he’d like to spend the rest of their lives together!

When Riddle calms down, he takes your hands in his and confirms that yes, he’d be more than happy to marry you, even if he was a tad disappointed that you beat him to the punch.

Were his eyes going teary? Well, so were yours! They were happy tears; Riddle’s so glad that he wasn’t an overbearing mess to you, that his inexperience wasn’t something that hindered your relationship - he’s glad he’s improved, and was worthy of your love, now. And he’ll continue to refine himself so that he may be deserving of your partnership. (Even though you might argue that it was the other way around, much to your friends’ amusement of this back and forth)

Leona

You’d proposed to him during the night, under the cover of the stars. Leona should’ve known that something was up when you asked him to accompany you on a walk for no particular reason - it was just like any other day, until you’d went on one knee and offered a ring to him.

You’d started talking about your relationship with him, reminiscing about your time together until now and listing the things you liked about Leona - even if some of those were playful jabs of their own.

It was obvious in hindsight, to be honest, but Leona was still dazed as he tried to process your words, and how they were the real thing, not just a quick promise or line to woo him.

Were you sure about this? He might’ve asked. Were you really prepared for what might come if you were to be engaged to him? Were you sure you wanted him, of all people? Royalty was troublesome, even if he was only the second prince.

You called him silly in the most affectionate way possible, and Leona wrapped you in a hug as his answer. He gives you a squeeze as if making sure this was real, before pulling back with a smile as he mutters: I guess we’ll handle it together, then. 

Kalim

The parade you’d arranged was bustling in the background after you’d stepped down from the flying carpet, landing on the seat atop an elephant’s back where Kalim was. His beaming expression and the festivities around somehow gives you courage as you execute the rest of your proposal.

He’s so happy and barely holding back his tears?? Kalim is quick to respond before he pulls you into his embrace, and you notice his shoulders shaking slightly as he’s overrun with emotion - though to be fair, so were you. With the animals and performers all around, this scene felt like something out of a movie. You find solace in the comfort of him, rubbing Kalim’s back as he hiccuped and pulled himself together.

That’s not to say that your eyes weren’t puffy from your own tears, but that detail is quickly pushed away in favor of celebration! If the party wasn’t festive enough before, it definitely is now as Kalim makes to commemorate the occasion immediately.

Kalim may or may not accidentally ramble about your engagement to Jamil more than a few times - you apologise for it but he just shrugs it off, since he’s aware how happy the thought of it makes you (your little smile is quite telling, after all.)

Vil

You’d tried your best to find a place that might match Vil’s beauty, but was quick to realise that it paled in comparison to him once the both of you got there. (Okay, maybe you were a little biased since Vil did say he enjoyed the scenery, but you were hoping for your proposal to be nothing short of perfect!)

Rather than a luxurious proposal, you decided to lean towards something simpler and sincere. It took quite a bit of research, but you managed to arrange a visit to a magical forest reminiscent of fairytales, where the tales of the Seven might even be imagined to take place. It was pleasantly serene, allowing the two of you a day entirely to yourselves.

Somehow, spending time like this with Vil just made you all the more sure about your proposal - you’re reminded of all the little things that made you fall for him… You wouldn’t want to give this up for the world, and so you asked if he would be yours.

You swear the moment that candid smile graced his lips you thought your heart was about to burst. Your foreheads are resting against one another’s as he allows a tear to trail down his cheek. Despite the nickname, you couldn’t help but laugh at his answer: Of course I will, you silly potato.

Idia

You… Were proposing? To him?

Idia’s first reaction might be to let out a string of thoughts, rambling as he tried to rationalize what was going on. He knew you weren’t just an average normie from the way you managed to break through his walls and become his significant other, but were you serious? You wanted to marry him, Idia Shroud, even considering his family and the rumors that might come with it? A guy more likely to have a wedding ceremony through a tablet than in-person?

“Idia.” “This isn’t a prank, huh…” “Seriously… Is it so hard to believe that I love you?”

Were you trying to kill him?! You can’t just say things like that out of the blue! Idia takes sometime to compose himself, almost forgetting to give you an answer, but thankfully you knew him well enough to be patient. When he does gather his thoughts and agree to marry you, Idia apologises for his outburst but also chides you for surprising him like that, to which you’re only a little apologetic in return. The smile that continues to play on your lips causes him to shake his head in response, but not without his own little grin mirroring it.

(Ortho may or may not have heard the entire thing from outside, and almost came in to knock some sense into Idia for buffering)

[thereisabearonmyceiling]

here it is, by popular demand (like 2 people told me to do this, blame them) and because i am a man of my word:

The (in)Complete Terrible Horrible No Good Awful MCYT Cinematic Universe Family Tree

SOME NOTES

- this is done mostly from memory (plus the occasional glance at the dsmp wiki, that shit's complicated) and so i might have missed some things

- i am aware this looks less like a family tree and more like a map of the subway. i did my best, deal with it

- "canon" covers anything that was mentioned/referenced by the creators ever, no matter how ridiculous

- as far as headcanons go, i tried to include the most popular ones/the ones that would make the most sense (like characters who are the same species being related). some are a bit of a stretch and also some of them contradict each other, but i had to make this work somehow cut me some slack. most of these aren't my headcanons, they're just ones i've seen floating around a bunch

- assume a general /rp for the entire thing, especially where romantic relationships are concerned. i don't ship real people and this is supposed to be a lighthearted bit of fun, don't take it too seriously

- there are a grand total of 63 characters on this thing, or 62 if you don't consider the dragon egg to be a character. 46 of them are actual mcyts (48 if you consider drista and mumza to be mcyts). the rest are either mobs/npcs or other characters played by the same people

- i drew this with crap glitter pens because that's what i had on hand. i tried to make it readable (would have digitized it but i don't have my tablet on me and it would be too much effort anyway), but in case i failed there's more detailed notes under the cut (as well as some explanations)

- if you want to make any additions go right ahead, feedback is also welcome but if you find a spelling mistake keep that shit to yourself

ok here's the stupid amount of notes:

(from left to right. sort of)

ethoslab - docm77: doc has said multiple times that etho is his dad. this is a joke but we're taking it as canon here

doc - awesamdude: creeper dudes

sam - foolishgamers - ponk: they have a sort of love triangle going on i think

foolish jr & finley: foolish's totem kids

foolish - captainpuffy - michelle: papa puffy adopted both of them

puffy - nihachu: canonically were dating at some point. no idea if they are still

puffy - dream: popular hc that puffy is dream's mom

dream - drista - dreamxd: dream and drista are siblings and xd is probably related to them somehow, i mean just look at the guy

dream - georgenotfound - dreamxd: idk which one of them george is into, maybe it's both

george - shubble/shrub: shroom people

shubble - katherine elizabeth: (empires) nature wives

dream - ranboo: i haven't seen anyone hc them as family for a bit, but it was a thing at one point and so i'm counting it

ranboo - tubbo - michael : they're married. michael is their adopted son

ranboo - ranbob: ranbob is ranboo's descendant in tales from the smp

tubbo - captainsparkles (is it sparkles or sparklez?): i used to see a lot of posts about captain being tubbo's dad, again idk if it's still a thing

dream - fundy: is their wedding canon to the dream smp? unclear. is it canon to this chart? absolutely

fundy - yogurt: fundy's adopted fox child

fundy - eret: failed (?) adoption attempt. i'm counting it

eret - herobrine: canonically related

herobrine - joehills: is joe related to herobrine? are they the same person? is herobrine hels joe? is it the other way around? i don't know, but something sure is going on here...

eret - karl jacobs - quackity: according to the dream smp wiki, eret used to be engaged to karl and quackity. i did not know this

karl - quackity - sapnap: fiances

sapnap - badboyhalo: bad is sapnap's dad

bad - skeppy: this is the only one with 'other' because i don't know what category to put 'their canon lives are directly connected to each other' in. the wiki said 'life source' but i don't have a colour for that

quackity - purpled: i know these two are bussiness partners at most but! technically and legally speaking, if purpled is a minor then quackity would sort of count as his legal guardian. no i'm not grasping at straws shut up, and also ignore the fact that the dsmp doesn't have the same laws we do

purpled - punz: mercenary bros

purpled - xisumavoid: clearly purpled bedwars and xisumavoid creator of bedwars are related. or at least enough people think so for me to put it on the chart

xisuma - evil x: are they brothers? is one of them a clone of the other? are they both clones? who cares, it's going on the chart

wilbur soot - sally - fundy: fish fucker #1, fish, and fox son

wilbur (technically ghostbur but i couldn't fit him on the chart) - friend: he also fucked a sheep apparently

the entire mess of the sbi family dynamic. is here. includes a fridge

wilbur - grian: button eyed chaos brothers. just look at them side by side and tell me they aren't related

grian - grumbot - mumbo jumbo: grian and mumbo created a robot son for the purpose of winning an election. they then left him in a box in season 7. they aren't good dads but they are dads, and that's all that matters here

grian - pearlescentmoon: something something sun and moon siblings

grian - dragon egg: he yoinked the dragon egg and now he's gotta raise a baby dragon, what more is there to say

geminitay - dragon egg: she also yoinked the dragon egg and wants to raise a baby dragon, but for much nobler purposes (at least i think so. i should really watch that episode)

dragon egg - ender dragon: the actual owner of the dragon egg, could all these people please stop taking it it's very rude

ender dragon - illumina: dragon hybrid illumina is a thing and i totally didn't just really want to have a speedrunner on here, i would never tamper with this very serious scientific document like that

gem - fwhip - mythicalsausage: wither rose alliance are also siblings. empiresblr said so

grian - jimmy solidarity mr gaming: jimmy has a cod head. grian's head is a cod head. i thus conclude they both have cod genes and are therefore related

jimmy - ldshadowlady: royal fish siblings

jimmy - ijevin - slimecicle: it is my personal headcanon that all minecraft slimes originate from one single massive megaslime, and are thus all related. also for the purposes of this bit of the chart, jimmy is now a slime hybrid instead of a fish one

jimmy - scott smajor: in 3rd life? flower husbands. in empires? fishfucker #2. yes jimmy is back to being a fish

lizzie - joel: they are married! also fishfucker #3 (last one, thank god)

joel - scott - wilbur: someone on my last post said to make the fishfuckers relatives. here you go, i hope you're happy

scott - xornoth: kind of brothers in another life maybe? good enough for me

xornoth - joey graceffa: it might be a one sided relationship but it is a relationship and so it goes on the chart

scott - zombiecleo: this one is probably the biggest stretch but it's their hypothetical 'widows alliance' from 3rd life. no it didn't happen, and even if it did i don't think it would belong on a family tree, but it's here anyway

cleo - bdoubleo100: if bdubs dying would make cleo a widow then that means bdubs and cleo were married in 3rd life, and that's just a fact you'll have to deal with now

IN CONCLUSION

i am tired, this took way too long, i don't think it was worth it, please reblog this so at least i don't feel like i completely wasted my time. if any ccs see this i am sorry, especially if i called you a fish fucker. good night

[thebiscuiteternal]

“Paper Scraps”

Post-Canon, Angst, Hurt/Comfort...ish?, Reconciliation, Discussion of Suicidal Ideation, Ghosts, Implied Sangyu, Mo Xuanyu Gets To Be Mourned, Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang Are Going Through It

Series Link on Ao3

__________

"To what do I owe the surprise visit?'' Nie Huaisang asks, and his voice is so devoid of emotion that Wei Wuxian has to bite back a shudder, suddenly very much aware that he is treading in completely new and potentially dangerous territory.

Nie-xiong is as dead as his beloved elder brother, and the Headshaker was nothing more than a mask. All that's left now is Nie-zongzhu, whom he knows nothing about and threatened the last time they actually spoke to each other in person.

Still, he sucks up his nerve and plasters on one of his usual careless smiles. "We need to talk, you and I. Just you and I."

"Wei Ying-"

He holds up a hand to cut off Lan Zhan's protest. "How about it?"

"And what, exactly, do you think there is for us to discuss, Wei-xiansheng? Have I not been behaving well enough for your liking?"

Ouch.

"Okay, I deserved that," Wei Wuxian says as he waves off his defensive husband and friend a second time, suddenly wishing he'd just snuck out and come alone.

Then again, that probably wouldn't have gone well either, judging by the wary looks he keeps getting from the handful of Nie disciples who linger defensively near their sect leader.

Okay... okay. No more trying to joke around. He takes a deep breath and lets it out, then straightens his back. "I'm here about Mo Xuanyu."

Nie Huaisang’s face betrays nothing, but the fan in his hand snaps shut with enough force that it's audible throughout the room. “Everyone, please escort our other two guests to the main gardens so that we may speak privately.”

“Zongzhu-” one massive bear of a man starts to protest.

At the same time Lan Zhan moves in front of Wei Wuxian to growl “We are not going anywhere,” and the tension in the room ratchets sharply to hair-on-end levels as the situation threatens to turn into a standoff.

Wei Wuxian pinches the bridge of his nose to stave off a building headache, then reaches out in an attempt to tug his husband back. “Lan Zhan. I’m the one who requested a one-on-one meeting, remember? Literally just now?”

“He cannot be truste-”

“Wei-gongzi, he might-”

“Enough,” Nie Huaisang snaps, the unexpected whip-crack of his voice making them all, a few disciples included, jump. “Let me remind all three of you that you came here and none of you are required to stay. In fact, today would be much improved if you didn’t.”

“Lan Zhan.” Wei Wuxian hisses.

Lan Zhan doesn’t budge, hand still tight on the hilt of Bichen. “If you harm Wei Ying-”

“Yes, yes, you and the Ghost General will cut me open and hang me with my own entrails just to start with,” Nie Huaisang replies irritably, giving a dismissive wave of the closed fan. “I’m well aware.”

Judging by the startled and utterly appalled looks that cross Lan Zhan and Wen Ning’s faces, that had decidedly not been on the list of options of what they might potentially do. But the descriptive suggestion does work to knock them off guard, and Wei Wuxian bites his tongue hard to keep his expression neutral as the two of them are herded out without any more fuss after Nie Huaisang makes a short gesture to his disciples. “You did that on purpose.”

Nie Huaisang turns without responding to the jibe at all and walks off towards another door.

Ouch again.

He trots after the other man and falls into step beside him as they enter a hallway that’s clearly not for public use. Part of him wants to ask where they’re going, if just to break the uncomfortable silence, but he keeps his mouth shut.

They finally stop at a door that, when Nie Huaisang slides it open, leads to a tiny garden so deep in the sect's keep that the back wall of it is cut into the mountain itself.

And in that little carved out cave, shielded from wind and rain and snow, sits a funeral tablet on a table shrine.

Wei Wuxian involuntarily sucks a sharp breath through his teeth at the sight of it, his hand coming up to clutch at his chest. Guilt wells up hot and stinging and bitter in his stomach, then higher into his throat. Dizzy, he sways on his feet and is only vaguely aware of the hands that catch him.

Once his resurrection had been revealed, everyone simply accepted him as “Wei Wuxian”, not “Wei-Wuxian-In-Mo-Xuanyu’s-Body”, seemingly having just... forgotten that the face he has now once belonged to someone else. He had grown so settled into this body that until the dreams had begun, he had barely given Mo Xuanyu a second thought.

But right at this moment, staring at the name carved into that tablet, held up by the one person left who had remembered- had loved the original owner of this body enough to memorialize him, he has never felt more like an invader in it.

His vision, gone fuzzy from the sickening torrent of emotion, slowly begins to come back into focus and, for just a moment, he is staring through Mo Xuanyu’s eyes into the worried expression of Nie-xiong before the lingering memory clears to the more neutral face of Nie-zongzhu.

He is on the ground, his head in the man’s lap, and the sudden urge to cry hits him hard. “Do you hate me?” he asks without meaning to, voice coming out plaintive and half-strangled by his effort to hold back the tears.

“You were the one who decided there was nothing left between us worth salvaging.”

“I did. And it was stupid. But that’s not what I mean, and you know it. Do you hate me for having this face?”

There is a pause, then a quiet sigh. “No, I don’t.”

“Why?”

“If it wasn’t you, it would be someone else. Or something else. Yu-er was…”

Nie Huaisang turns his head away, expression softening into a complicated mix sadness and pain, and Wei Wuxian finds himself thinking that while ‘his’ Nie-xiong might be dead, Mo Xuanyu’s Nie-xiong might still exist somewhere deep under the protective layers of Nie-zongzhu.

He swallows hard, then makes himself sit up and looks again at the tablet and its small offerings.

“Determined,” he says quietly, finishing the sentence. A tiny wet laugh bubbles out of his throat. “I thought… I really did believe that you had forced him into it,” he continues, and in the edge of his vision, he sees Nie Huaisang flinch at the accusation. “But no. No. He... really was determined to see it out to the end.”

“How do you-”

“Ah.” He scratches his cheek, then scoots to face the other man. “That’s actually the reason I needed to talk to you. I’ve been seeing- fuck, dreaming his memories, I guess… though they were more like nightmares, considering what was in them-”

“Wait,” Nie Huaisang says, holding up a hand. “When did this start?”

“Mmh. Just a little over ten months ago, I think? Or maybe closer to eleven. The first one was of your visit right after his mother died.”

Nie Huaisang goes slightly pale at that, though whether it’s from the admission of the length of time or the contents of the memory, Wei Wuxian can’t tell.

He gets an answer when Nie Huaisang gets up and rushes to the table, returning with something carefully cradled in his hands.

It’s a spirit pouch.

His hands are shaking as he holds them out to accept the tiny burden, and he’s vaguely aware that he’s gaping like a fish. “Huaisang…” he chokes out when he finally manages to find his voice again, but that’s as far as he gets.

“I… have studied a lot of ways of finding and contacting the dead,” Nie Huaisang says, and Wei Wuxian nods along numbly because that makes a ridiculous amount of sense, given the circumstances. “I know what the ritual notes said, but seeing that there was still something left of Da-ge after everything that had been done to him…”

He reaches out and touches the pouch and Wei Wuxian finds himself thinking of a gentle hand ruffling his (but not his) hair.

“I’m just sorry it took me two years to get up the nerve to go looking.”

But you went, Wei Wuxian thinks. You went.

He’d never even considered it. It had never crossed his mind at all.

“Eleven months ago, right?” he asks, voice still a little squeaky.

“Mm-hmm. I should have written to you about this long before now, but it seemed like every time I’d prepared myself to send the letter, something would happen that would remind me that… well.”

That we’re not friends anymore.

That you want nothing to do with me.

Wei Wuxian closes his eyes and rests his hands in his lap, still holding the pouch as if it’s made of porcelain instead of cloth. “I probably wouldn’t have read it,” he confesses quietly. “Or I would have, but I wouldn’t have believed you. I would have thought it was a ruse, a setup-” A tiny, wounded laugh escapes his mouth and he tilts his head back to stare up at the sky. “Maybe that’s why I started having the dreams. His way of telling me I’m an idiot.”

“A little drastic on his part if it was.”

“Can’t say it wasn’t necessary.” The pouch gives a jangling, discordant little hum when he pets it, the fracturing of the soul within vastly different from what he’d felt from Xiao Xingchen. The pieces feel smaller and fewer, yet heavier. “Oh,” he murmurs when he realizes why.

“Oh?”

“The array was designed to consume the resentment of the caster based on negative memories of the person or persons they wanted to curse. That’s why the memories of you and the flashes of his mother were so vivid when the rest of them weren’t. That’s why you were able to find these pieces. He really did see you two as the only bright spots in his life, so those memories were spared.”

Nie Huaisang makes a choked noise in the back of his throat, and when Wei Wuxian turns his head, the other man is looking away in a clear attempt to hide his expression. “He was wrong.”

“A year ago, I would have agreed,” Wei Wuxian mumbles. “After everything he showed me, though… I don’t think he was. I get it.”

He takes a deep breath. He has never talked about this, not with Lan Zhan, not with Wen Ning, and certainly not with Jiang Cheng, even if they are taking tentative baby steps towards being less awkward around each other. He’s not sure he should be talking about it with Nie Huaisang either, but-

“I know what it’s like, just wanting everything to end. Deciding the whole world can go to hell. Maybe I didn’t intend for the backlash from breaking the seal to kill me, but I sure didn’t fucking care what it would do to me one way or another. Nothing and nobody could have saved me by that point. You couldn’t have saved him even if you’d dragged him home with you like Lan Zhan wanted to do to me.”

“Wei Wuxian-”

He ignores the little flutter in his chest that they’ve at least moved back to an address that feels less precarious than the icy ‘Wei-xiansheng’. “Let me finish, okay?”

“Okay.”

“So... So... Ah, fuck,” he mutters, gently shifting the pouch so he can scratch the back of his neck, trying to catch the lost trail of thought. “You know… I never questioned the clothing I woke up in when I was resurrected. As brutal and nasty as the Mo family were and as disgusting as that little shack was, it should have come off as weird that I was wearing such nice robes.”

There is a quiet sniffle, and Wei Wuxian pretends not to see Nie Huaisang wipe wet eyes with the edge of a sleeve as he continues talking. “He appreciated those. Appreciated that you tried to take care of him.”

He raises the pouch to eye level, and it gives another little crackly hum. “And clearly he still appreciates your efforts, considering his method of dragging me here to make me apologize for thinking the worst of your relationship. So, I’m sorry for that.”

Nie Huaisang gives a watery little chuckle and swipes at his eyes again. “Accepted. Is he… Is he alright? I only know how to contact souls, I don’t know anything about tending to them.”

“Honestly… I’m not sure what can be done,” Wei Wuxian admits as he begins another examination. “There’s really so little of him left, I don’t know what will happen if a purification ritual is attempted. He seems to be more stable as he is than Xiao Xingchen was, but there’s no guarantee he’ll stay like that. Still, I owe it to him to find some way to help him out, so I’ll do what I can.”

“If it would be easier for you to take him back to the Cloud Recesses for study, then… then you should,” Nie Huaisang says, and Wei Wuxian is a little bit impressed that he was able to make the offer despite how much it must have hurt.

“I think he’d be much happier staying here,” he says, then tentatively adds, “But that would mean visits, plural, and while I’m definitely going to have a very long talk with them about all this, I doubt I’ll be able to come without either Lan Zhan or Wen Ning… probably both at first.”

Nie Huaisang rubs his temples with his fingertips, his expression cycling through a complicated series of emotions too quickly for Wei Wuxian to follow, then he sighs. “We’ll figure something out,” he says as he reaches out and takes back the pouch.

Wei Wuxian can’t help smiling at the tender way he cradles it against his chest as he gets up to approach the funeral tablet and put it back in place. “Yeah. We’ll figure something out.”

[mosswillow]

Your room (Dark!Peter Parker x Reader)

Word count 3.3k

!!!!! This is dark! And explicit 18+ only !!!!!

Warnings: Noncon/Dubcon, oral (female receiving), spankings, punishment, kidnapping, Stockholm syndrome, unprotected sex, smut, vaginal intercourse.

Summery: Your life is bland and boring but not for long. What happens when you catch the eye of a certain super hero?

Your room has always reflected you as a person. In highschool you haphazardly filled the walls with quotes and posters. Your room was messy in the typical way teenagers rooms tend to be, but also like a typical teenager was filled with feeling and hope. In college you filled your space with pictures of you and your friends taken on a polaroid camera. Everywhere you looked had your life staring back at you. Now as an adult the pictures from college are tucked away in a box. Your room is simple and boring. Most people think of you as minimalist but you don’t do it to be trendy, you just have no passion. You’ve spent the years after graduating college working a job you hate in a lab, running the same tests over and over again. You’ve always wanted to be a scientist, working on something new and exciting. You’ve applied everywhere but you rarely even get an interview. Your dreams, unfortunately, will never happen for you. Sometimes you wish for someone to swoop in and take you for your bland life but you know that will never happen. Watching your friends get dream jobs and buy homes while you waste away has crushed your spirit. You’re tired.

---

“Hey Y/N, we’re going out tonight.”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on, you never come with us.”

“Ok sure.”

Your coworker is right that you never go out anymore and so several hours later you walk into a bar, grabbing a drink and finding your coworkers. The bar is bustling with activity and you lose track of time. You usually curl up in bed with a book on a friday night but you’re glad you came. You used to go out all the time in college and miss being social. Going out is good for your mental health and you decide to make more of a point to spend time with people.

You say goodbye to your still partying co-workers and head home a little past midnight. You start your walk and cut through an alleyway, wanting to get home before you vomit from the alcohol.

“Hey sweetheart. What are you doing all alone out here?”

A large man steps out of the shadows and walks toward you. You ignore him, keeping your eyes focused ahead and pick up the pace.

“Oi, I’m talkin’ to you,” He lunges forward and grabs your arm.

“Let me go.” You try to walk away but he holds onto you still, pushing you against the wall and landing a bruising kiss on your lips. His breath smells rancid and you feel bile rise in your throat. You cry out for help and the man is suddenly pulled away from you. You watch with disbelief as Spider man throws the stranger against the opposing wall.

“She said to go away buddy.”

The man slowly stands up and runs away. Spider Man shoots a web at the running stranger and he falls over, immobilized.

“You ok?” Spider Man turns to you, cocking his head.

“Yes, thank you Spider Man.”

“I’ll come check on you tomorrow”

You watch spider man pick up the stranger like he’s nothing and swing away. You walk the rest of the way home and lie in bed, unable to fall asleep. The next morning there’s a tap on your window and you look out to see Spider Man on your fire escape. You briefly wonder how he knows where you live but quickly brush off the thought and open your window.

“You sure you’re ok?” He steps towards you, looking you over.

“Just a little shaken up.”

He walks to your kitchen, filling a glass of water and handing it to you.

“This is too much, really I’m fine. You already saved me.”

“Drink the water,” He commands.

You sigh and drink it.

“That’s a good girl. Now get back to bed.”

You set the glass down and stare at the stranger you let in your home. Alarm bells start ringing.

“I’d like you to leave.”

“I’ll leave once I know you’re doing as you're told.”

Your heart beats rapidly and you take a step back.

“I appreciate that you saved me and came to make sure that I’m fine but I’m now asking you to please go.”

Spider man crosses his arms.

“I’ll call the cops” you say.

“And say what?”

“That there’s an intruder.”

Spider man sighs and walks to your window, standing at it.

“Get in bed and I’ll go.”

You walk to your bed and get under the covers.

“Good girl. I’ll be back to check on you later.”

As soon as he’s through the window you jump out of bed and lock every door and window, double checking your work. You get back in bed and let out a sigh of relief, finally able to sleep.

You wake up to tapping on your window. Spiderman is back. You make your way to the window but don’t open it.

“Let me in.”

“I don’t feel comfortable with you in here.”

Spider Man shakes his head and leaves without a word.

The next few weeks are filled with anxiety. You see flashes of red in your peripheral vision everywhere you go. Spider man is stalking you. You consider telling police but don’t think they’ll believe you. It sounds crazy, even to you. If it weren't for the bruises from the assault in the alleyway you would think you had imagined the whole thing. You stop leaving your apartment unless necessary and never go out after dark.

You get a voicemail one day.

“HI, this is Rebecca Johnson from Stark Industries. We’re looking for someone to fill a position in one of our labs. You had submitted an application previously and we wanted to reach out and see if you’d like to interview for the position. Please call back at your earliest convenience.

You squeal in delight, doing a celebratory fist pump. Stark industries is a dream job. You immediately hit redial and set up the interview. This would change everything. Just one year working at Stark would open up endless possibilities for you and that’s if you ever want to leave. You could afford a nicer apartment with more security. Maybe you will finally feel safe. You remind yourself that it’s just an interview and you shouldn’t get ahead of yourself.

---

You look up at the tower and take a deep breath. It’s intimidating, going for an interview at Stark tower. It’s been so long since you’ve interviewed anywhere let alone somewhere so big. You tug at your blouse, second guessing your outfit, maybe you should have worn something different. It’s too late to go back home and change. You walk in, mustering up all the courage you can and talk to the woman at the front desk.

“Hi, I’m here for an interview. Y/N Y/L/N”

“Oh yes, they’re expecting you. Here’s a temporary badge. Go to the 80th floor and take a seat.”

You take the badge and follow the instructions. You’re surprised to find yourself in what looks like private quarters. There’s a small couch near the elevator and you sit and wait.

Tony Stark himself appears in front of you and your mouth flies open. You stand quickly and hold your hand out.

“Mr. Stark, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Tony looks you up and down, clicking his tongue.

“Likewise, follow.”

You half walk, half run behind him, getting in the elevator and taking it down a floor. You arrive at a state of the art lab and workshop and Tony leads you to a desk.

“The whole workshop will be open to you. This is your desk.”

He starts walking again and you keep following him back to the elevator and to another floor.

“Here’s where you’ll live. I’ll leave you with the contract and you can call my assistant if you have any questions.”

He hands you a tablet and walks out.

You look around the room dumbfounded. You thought you were just here for an interview. You guess this means you got the job. You swipe through the contract and your eyes widen at your salary. There are a few things that make you uncomfortable though. You’re required to live on site and there’s a curfew. You have to sign a NDA about anything you see in the tower. You also can’t decide to quit without permission, which you’re not sure is even legal. You call the number to Tony’s assistant.

“This is Rebecca.”

“Hi, this is Y/N. I’m looking through this contract and it says I have to live on site and there’s a curfew?”

“Yes. That is non negotiable. Living on site will give you access to the workshop 24/7. There will be times when you will work through the night. The curfew is for security as the tower is locked down every night.”

You would rather have your own place where you can come and go as you please but you’re willing to live here if you have to and the reason for a curfew makes sense. The tower has top of the line security, which is something that’s really important to you. You don’t usually go out late anyway and if you do decide to be out late you can crash at a friends house or get a hotel room.

“And the avengers? Will I have to work closely with them?”

“You might meet them or see them at some point but most likely not.”

“I know this sounds weird but I don’t want Spider man to know I’m working here.”

“Mums the word.”

“What exactly will the job entail? I see there’s a NDA.”

“You’ll be an assistant in Tony Stark's personal workshop and will work closely with him. He appreciates privacy.”

“I see, and the part where I’m not allowed to quit?”

“He just wants to make sure you’re serious. Tony picks his assistants personally and requires loyalty.”

“Ok, thank you.”

You hang up and sign the screen. When you open the door there's a man standing outside. He’s not a tall man, standing a few inches taller than you. However, he is muscular and something about him commands attention. You feel an immediate pull towards him.

“Oh, hi I’m Peter Parker.” He holds out his hand.

“I’m Y/N”

“I also work with Tony and live right next to you. I’ll be your direct boss.”

“It’s nice to meet you Mr. Parker.”

“Peter is fine. I won’t keep you any longer, I just wanted to introduce myself.”

You immediately get to work rearranging your life. By the end of the weekend you’re completely moved into your new place and on monday you start your first day on the job. It’s everything you’ve ever dreamed of, full of state of the art technology and free reign to do whatever you want. You walk into work every day with a smile.

You work alone most of the time, Tony and Peter working awkward, sporadic hours but you enjoy it when you do get to work with them. Tony is funny and brilliant, you learn more from him than from any college class. Peter is smart and sweet. He helps you with your work and makes sure you’re always taken care of, sending you back to your room if you’ve been working too long or making you take breaks to eat. You find yourself starting to develop feelings for Peter and your heart swells when he asks you on a date. Life is good and only getting better.

You meet Peter outside of your door and he takes your hand. The two of you walk to a little italian restaurant and Peter takes your menu, ordering your food for you. It’s very forward for a first date but you like the confidence. After dinner he walks you back to your door and kisses you. You see something in his eyes when he pulls away, possessive and dark. It makes you feel uncomfortable but also excited. Nobody has ever looked at you like that.

Over the next few weeks Peter becomes more and more comfortable around you, becoming more physical. It’s small things, like pushing your hair back when talking or touching you gently as he walks past. He asks you out again, this time wanting to cook you dinner and you decline, suggesting a coffee date instead. You don’t feel comfortable enough with him to be alone in his room. He clenches his jaw when you tell him, obviously upset you won’t come over but agrees.

A few days later you decide to go out with some old friends and crash on one of their couches. When you get home the next day Peter is standing outside your door.

“You missed curfew.”

“I know, I went out with friends and crashed on one of their couches.”

Peter clenches his jaw.

“Don’t let it happen again.”

“It shouldn't matter if I want to stay the night somewhere else.”

“Well it does.”

You roll your eyes and unlock your door quickly, locking it behind you. The two of you have only been on one date. His behavior is a red flag and you decide to take things slowly.

The next day you decide to go out for coffee, pulling on a simple tee shirt dress and some flip flops. The elevator won’t let you down.

“Your privileges have been revoked.” Peter says from behind you.

You jump. “Why?”

“You know why.”

He stalks toward you, pushing you up against the elevator.

“I don’t feel comfortable with this Peter. You need to back away from me now.”

Peter takes a step back.

“I’m sorry but right now I don’t want any sort of relationship outside of work.”

“That’s not going to work for me.”

Something in Peter's eyes terrifies you. You need to get out of here. You try the elevator again but it still won’t open.

“I quit.” you yell at the elevator, feeling more danger every second you’re stuck in the hallway with Peter.

“You can’t quit baby.”

“There’s no way it’s legal to force me to keep working even if it’s in the contract.”

“There’s nowhere to go. You’re not getting out of this building and even if you did you’d have to find a lawyer to take your case.”

“You can’t do this, I'll tell Tony.”

“Who do you think suggested this in the first place? Most of the Avengers have gotten their partners this way. I was waiting for the right person and I knew you were them the moment I saw you.”

“Why would Tony help you trap me here? You’re just a lab assistant.”

“Oh no honey, I’m much more than that.”

He steps toward you, caging you in.

“You think it’s a coincidence I saved you in that alleyway?”

“Spider man?”

Peter gives a grin. He leans in and smells your hair.

“No.”

“I’m sorry it’s happening this way, I wanted to break you down slower. You’ll have a really good life, we’ll live together and work together. You’ll have everything you could need or want.”

“I want to leave.”

“You’ll change your mind, you just need a little motivation.”

Peter pulls you to his room and opens the door, pushing you into his apartment. You try to run but he easily catches you, picking you up and throwing you on his bed.

“Why are you doing this? Why me?” you scrabble to the far side of the bed.

“You’re mine.”

Peter's phone rings and he picks it up.

“Hey, yes I did... I know It wasn’t the plan, I had to improvise… Ok, see you in a few weeks.”

He hangs up and gets on top of you. you spit in his face.

“I’m not yours freak. Let me go.”

“You won’t be allowed to act like that moving forward. Now lie still.”

“Get off of me.”

Peter gets off briefly, flipping you over his lap and pulling up your skirt. He lands a smack on your bottom.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to do this. You’ve been so bad baby.

“Not letting me in your apartment.”

Smack.

“Telling Rebecca you didn’t want me to you started working here.”

Smack

“Staying out all night.”

Smack.

“Shutting the door in my face.”

Smack.

“I liked you Peter, If you had just acted like a normal person we could have continued a relationship.” You say through tears.

“I don’t want a relationship, I want to own you.”

He lands another blow on your bottom and grabs your underwear, pulling them down and off of you. You try to wiggle away but he’s so strong and easily holds you down with one arm. He moves his hand between your legs and towards your sex, pushing a finger in and out.

“You’re wet for me.” He says smugly.

You close your eyes and turn your head away. You’ve stopped resisting and he lets go.

“There you go.”

He kisses your neck and cheek then grabs your chin moving your face and kissing you gently, pushing his tongue into your mouth. He pulls back and you hear him unbuttons his pants, pulling them down. You open your eyes and move away from him, pushing your back against the headboard. You watch as he holds his erection, slowly moving his hand up and down. He moves towards you and grabs your ankle, pulling you down the bed and positioning himself in between your legs. He holds onto your hips and kisses your inner thigh, moving toward your mound until his mouth is on your clit, kissing and licking. You arch your back and throw your head back, fighting against the rising orgasm. Right before you come he pulls back, smiling up at your dazed face. He rises up and slowly pushes his dick into you until you’re full. You whimper as he brings his hand down to your clit, stimulating it.

“That’s right baby,I know what you like.”

You can’t think about anything else anymore, only the orgasm that threatens to take over.

“Come Baby”

You reach out, grabbing his arms as you come. He grabs your shoulders and thrusts deep, filling you with cum before collapsing next to you, pulling you into the crook of his arm.

“Can I go back to my room now?” you ask.

“You won’t be leaving this room until I can trust you.”

“I won’t say anything. You won. You got what you wanted so just let me go.”

“You still don’t get it Y/N. You’re mine now. I know this is a hard adjustment but everything will be fine as long as you follow what I say.”

“And if I don’t obey you?”

“You’ll be punished.”

“Fuck you.”

Peter sits up next to you, grabbing his pants off the floor and pulling his belt out of the loops.

“I guess your first lesson starts now.”

---

You look around the room you live in. It’s no longer the empty minimalist space it was before you met Peter. Now it’s filled with him. Everywhere you look there are reminders of him. The shower has his body wash and razor. There are pictures of him hanging on the walls. Everything you own has been bought for you by Peter. He dictates what you’re allowed to wear, where you’re allowed to go, who can talk to. It’s all him. Every part of your life revolves around Peter to the point where you don’t know what you would do without him. You wake up to him, go to sleep to him, think about him constantly. You’re even sometimes woken up in the middle of the night to him touching you, wanting you. At some point you stop pretending you don’t want him back. You hate it but it’s true.

Your room has always been a reflection of you as a person.