#this is completely unrelated but writing that forced me to remember

[genshingorlsrevengeance]

(Genshin Impact) Lisa, Eula, Yae, Shenhe, Chiori, Rosaria, Navia, and Furina's S/O feeling insecure

No one requested this, just writing away some blues tonight since I can't sleep. Totally unrelated, Just Give Me A Reason is a really good song.

Lisa immediately noticed something was bothering S/O.

The way their hands fidgeted on the teacup, staring out into space with their brows creased.

(Lisa) "...S/O?"

She gently calls out to them, snapping them out of whatever they were thinking about as they blinked a few times in surprise.

(Lisa) "Is something the matter?"

S/O gave a smile, one she immediately knew was forced.

(S/O) "Ah, it's nothing.-"

Their expression vanished the moment they saw how concerned Lisa was getting. There was no point in lying to her, was it?

S/O sighed as their fingers resumed rapidly tapping against the side of the cup, struggling to look her in the eyes.

(S/O) "This is going to sound really dumb but...I've just been thinking lately. You...still love me right?""

Lisa's back straightens at their words, where was this going?

S/O shook their head in a slight panic as they realized how their words came across.

(S/O) "I-It's nothing you've done, I promise! I just...I'm just worried that I'm not good enough. And that...you'll leave me because of it."

Lisa for her part remains silent for a moment. Not because she didn't know what to say, it was the opposite.

She was just relieved that it wasn't something more serious. But regardless, Lisa's arms reach over the table and hover over their hands before gently squeezing them.

(Lisa) "S/O, you've always been perfect for me. Whatever thoughts you have right now, don't listen to them."

Her smile and soothing voice makes S/O thankfully relax, with them meeting her gaze.

(Lisa) "Of course I still love you. I always will."

Lisa gets up from her seat to embrace S/O, letting them take a second to let their emotions out.

(S/O) "Lisa-"

(Lisa) "It's okay. Take as long as you need."

Eula is completely stunned when she hears S/O voice their thoughts.

Leave them?

Eula's mouth opens to immediately rebuke that, but quickly silences herself.

Truth be told, she felt that fear herself. The fact that S/O chose to love a Lawrence was a fact she still struggled to fully comprehend.

S/O was the first person to show her true love, and it felt like a knife to her heart to hear them think so little of themselves.

Instead, Eula's palm slowly caresses their cheek, letting their head rest into it.

And with a voice that grows softer by the second, she takes a deep breath and replies:

(Eula) "You mean more to me than anything I could ever say or do, S/O. Don't ever think that you're not good enough for me, because there's no one else I'd rather have."

(S/O) "...Thank you, Eula."

Once she sees that smile she loves, she gives one herself, not being able to help the teasing that follows up.

(Eula) "Remember, our feud is for the long-haul. Don't think that you can escape it that easily."

(Eula) "Hah, of course..."

Yae exhales deeply, processing S/O's words as her ears uncharacteristically twitch for a split second.

A soft chuckle from Yae is the sound S/O hears, making them turn their gaze from the ground to her.

(Yae) "Frankly, I thought when you began that sentence, it would be far worse."

For once, there's no sign of a mischievous smile or anything resembling that she'd tease them.

Yae gives a soft kiss to their forehead before taking their head to rest on her chest in an intimate hug.

(Yae) "I certainly hope you'd know by now, S/O. If I didn't love you, I wouldn't be here right now."

(S/O) "...S-Sorry, Miko.-"

She cuts them off by squeezing them tighter, her voice still as affectionate.

(Yae) "Don't apologize. Just remember that even if you doubt yourself, that I won't."

S/O pulls away after a small eternity, with Yae's expression going back to normal.

(Yae) "Good, that's the face I like to see."

Shenhe is terribly confused.

Why on earth would she ever leave without a good reason to?

(Shenhe) "You don't have to worry about something like that, S/O."

Abandon the person who made her feel human again, to feel love when she thought it was completely gone?

She would have to go completely insane to do that.

(S/O) "I-I know...It's not fair to you at all and-"

Shenhe instantly hugs them tightly, her face and voice not fluctuating all that much despite the strength that held S/O.

(Shenhe) "I am still struggling with emotions, but I know the feelings I have for you are real."

She's put at ease when S/O hugs her back. Thank the Archons she was saying her piece correctly.

(Shenhe) "I'm sorry that I have ever made you doubt me, but I love you, S/O."

(S/O) "I'm...I'm sorry I ever doubted you."

Neither of them move out of each other's arms for a long while.

Chiori sighs before she speaks up in her usual stoic tone. Though this time, there's a hint of kindness in it.

(Chiori) "Well, you're right about sounding dumb."

...Wait, shit that's not what she meant-

(Chiori) "I mean, you know I'm not the type to beat around the bush. If I wanted to leave, I'd have done it. I'm still here, aren't I?"

...Chiori shakes her head, mostly at herself. Even at times like these, she still can't help her choice of words.

This time, she moves to give them a tight hug, wiping away the tears forming at the edge of their eyes.

Chiori feels their heartbeat, giving her time to think of a way to not sound like a bitch.

(Chiori) "Too direct right now, aren't I? Then how about this, my feelings for you haven't changed, and they won't."

She hears S/O give a small chuckle, making her a little more at ease.

(S/O) "You have such a way with words, Chiori."

(Chiori) "Remember, you chose me...And I chose you, S/O."

Rosaria is silent, much of her actions mimicking S/O's.

She didn't look them in the eyes as she took her time, coming up with a response in her head.

Once she glanced at S/O and saw how uncomfortable they had become, she figured out what to say.

(S/O) "I shouldn't have brought this up, sorr-"

(Rosaria) "I'm glad you did, S/O...If anything, I feel like I haven't been there for you enough."

And she was proven right, seeing how they were tonight.

Rosaria hesitates before letting her hands hold S/O's, closing her eyes.

(Rosaria) "I know I'm not here a lot of nights to reassure you, and I know I'm really bad at this kinda stuff..."

Instead of saying anything, she gets up to kiss them, hoping that gets the message across.

(Rosaria) "...Don't worry about me leaving, that's not happening."

She makes it a mental note to come home sooner than usual now, if at the very least to wipe any tears S/O may have away.

Navia thoughtfully listens to S/O's troubles.

Her expression is completely serious, not saying anything until they finished their sentence.

Her first instinct is to wrap her arms around them and tell them that it's okay, but she knew what they really needed.

(Navia) "S/O. I don't think I could imagine my life with anyone else. And I never want anyone but you."

Seeing them relax got her to do so as well, Navia leaning in to kiss the top of their hand.

(Navia) "Don't ever be afraid to tell me these kinds of things. I'll make sure that you won't think that way about yourself ever again."

Now, she allows herself to give them a bone-crushing hug, making her giggle.

(S/O) "Thank you, Navia..."

(Navia) "It's what your wonderful girlfriend is here for, right?"

To brighten their mood, she puts her hat on them, before tilting it down and giving a cheeky smile.

Honestly? Furina completely understood the feeling, more than S/O could ever know.

She was so afraid that the people of Fontaine or that those closest to her would leave upon knowing what she was really like.

Centuries of feeling that she wasn't good enough for anyone ate away at her every night.

So to hear S/O voice the same words, thinking they weren't good enough for her?

The person who loved her despite everything? That broke her heart.

Furina's arms wrapped around their back before her head rested on their shoulders, hugging them tighter than she ever had before.

(Furina) "...Thank you for telling me, S/O."

She had no room to tell them that they shouldn't think this way about themselves. After all, she was still struggling with the very thing plaguing their mind.

(Furina) "I'll love you, no matter what you think. Because you'd do the same for me."

[targaryenluvs]

HIDE N SEEK’ / DEMON!DEAN WINCHESTER

Pairings: Demon!Dean Winchester x Fem!Hunter!Reader

Summary: Sam had placed you in a safe home when learning that Dean had somehow gotten away. But Dean promised you, a few games have to be played, and maybe you might just get away. Silly you, a Demon never keeps his word.

Warnings: Dark themes per usual, established relationship, chasing, taunting, use of force, threats & anger, hair pulling, threats, dacryphilia, sexual implications, vulgar language

Word count: 1.7K Words

A/N: Here it is! My first Supernatural fic, I’m so excited to write for these two! I'm still on season one so forgive me for any inaccuracies <3

Gif not mine, credits to the owner!

Your heart was beating erratically, and rightfully so.

The literal demon version of your own boyfriend, Dean, was currently chasing you around your place. So much for safe home.

“The more you run, the more angry I get Y/n/n.” His voice sent chills down your spine but you knew you had to keep going. You rounded the corner and grabbed the stair case banister to haul yourself upstairs. You could hear his footsteps, loud and clear.

“I gave you a chance, remember that.”

The house that was now trapping you inside, used to be your safe haven.

“Why won’t you just tell me what’s going on Sam?!” His eyes wouldn’t meet yours, the entire time he drove. Sam’s knuckles kept wrapping around the wheel, his knuckles were white and his grip unrelenting.

You’d met Dean not long ago, whilst you were still a baby hunter. Only a year had gone by since you’d lost your best friend whilst she and her boyfriend were on a hunt. It was your first time, and when you’d found out about the supernatural world. A wrong swing, a sharp knife and the dark of night caused her to pass away that night.

You were thoroughly traumatised from losing someone you were so close to, and the job wasn’t complete yet. But Jake called in reinforcements, in the form of Sam and Dean.

From then you’d continued to keep in touch with them, mostly Dean, talking to him helped you immensely when dealing with the pain of losing someone you loved. And when you’d run into them in California, and Dean asked you out, you were jumping for joy.

Within the two weeks you’d spent with them, hunting, travelling and living, you’d never felt happier. So when Dean asked you to stay with him, to be his?

You agreed with no hesitation.

But with a sick family member, you drew back. It’d been over a month and in that time you’d missed so much. So when your family got better and they all dispersed to their rightful places, you were surprised when Sam all of a sudden came to pick you up.

And you’d wound up at your safe home. With no explanation and a lack of communication, you found yourself lonely. Dean never reached out, Sam only checked in on mornings to make sure you were okay. Sam had literally taken your phone, giving you another with only his number.

Of course you’d asked questions, but you trusted Sam. So when he told you it was for the best? You’d listened. You’d wanted more information, but not like this.

The ringing of your phone had awoken you that night, you groaned as you turned over glancing at the alarm clock to your side.

3:30am.

“Sam what—,”

“Are you okay?”

You furrowed your eyebrows as you sat up in your bed, “I’m fine, what’s up?”

“You need to check the doors. The windows— god everything. You need to make sure you’re safe. Do you have access to your weapons?”

“No, I left them in my car. Most of my weapons stash is downstairs, I only have a few handguns and knifes in the bathroom. What’s wrong Sam?”

“It’s Dean, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you Y/n. He’s not safe, he’s…” You got up from your bed, heading downstairs. You needed water if you were going to continue with this weird conversation.

You refrained from rolling your eyes, what hell is up with the dramatics? “He’s what Sam. A vampire?” You joked whilst grabbing a glass from the cupboard.

“Nope, not a vampire sweetheart.”

The glass shattered on the floor at the sound of his voice, it’d been far too long since you’d heard it.

‘Y/n? You still there?’ His voice was so close yet so far.

‘'Y/n? Is he there?" His voice was so close yet so far. Dean’s eyes were dark and black, nothing like the green you found yourself loving everyday. As if the eyes weren’t enough to tell you something was wrong, the hammer in his hand and the dark expression on his face.

Demon. 

It was the one word that seeped into your mind from Sam’s screeching through the phone. Dean’s smirk made your heart beat faster. "If I was you sweetheart, I’d get to runnin’."

So you did. 

With all the energy your drowsy body could muster, you ran past him and into the dining room before turning the corner. His taunts followed as you turned a corner, only to be met with a hard chest. “You’re making this too easy baby. How bout’ this, you hide and I seek. And if I catch you,”

You tried to pull away from him, but Dean was stronger now. “If I catch you, well you don’t wanna know.” His eyes flicked from green to black, and your heart dropped. His grip faltered and you took it as your chance to go. You ran to the back door, only to find it locked.

“Thought I told you to hide?”

“Shut up! I’m not playing!” You shouted as you ducked behind the kitchen counter, hopefully he hadn’t seen you by now.

As you peaked from behind you noticed the black boot by your foot, “You always looked best beneath me.” A wave of disgust rolled through as you grabbed onto his leg and pushed, swiping it from underneath him.

You ran back to the stairs.

“I gave you a chance, remember that.”

The words echoed through your head as you ran upstairs into your bedroom when the alarm system began blaring.

A bit late for that, you thought.

The crimson red seeped through the whole home, indicating an intruder. Shivers went up your spine at the thought of a demon chasing you, red consuming you.

You were a hunter, yes. But not emotionless, so a literal Demon chasing you through your home with the face of your boyfriend was more than enough to cloud your judgement. On one hand, all you can see is Dean. You can stare into his eyes, whether they're green or black, you can see the familiar stature that always cuddled you.

You could hear his voice, and boy was it hard to not listen.

Leaning against the door, you closed your eyes and breathed heavily in an attempt to calm yourself down. Was Sam on his way? Or were you defenceless against him?

As you calmed down, your eyes widened in terror. The bathroom door to your right was open, and led right into your room. You scrambled to your feet and rushed to the door but were knocked back down.

You were right, a Demon's much more menacing with a red glow. he was entering the bathroom with a smile on his face.

"There you are, sweetheart." He raised his arms outwards in a mock hug, those open arms were usually your safety. But now? You weren't so sure if they'd be the best place to be.

"Now I told you not to run, you can't get away. Be realistic baby." His footsteps were slow and menacing, but he hadn't entered the room yet. Your eyes flickered momentarily to the door, and an idea rushed through your mind.

Dean seemingly caught on, "Don't you dare—,"

The slamming of the door cut him off as you swiftly rose to your knees, turning the lock. A sigh of relief escaped your lips as you got up with the help of your bed. "Okay, now I'm mad."

And you sure as hell were not in the mood to experience it. So you slowly tiptoed over to the bedroom door, unlocking it. The eerie silence did nothing but raise your heartbeat. Where was he?

You turned to look back at the bathroom door, you couldn't spot any shadows. Either you barricade yourself upstairs and pray for a miracle in the form of a certain Winchester, or you take your chances with the stairs and risk getting grabbed.

You had a good feeling about the stairs, and if Dean was following then you'd for sure hear him with how loud his steps were, right?

The bedroom door closed behind you as you slowly made your way to the top of the stairs. You couldn't hear anything, or see anything besides red. So you ran.

With each step your faith in getting away was renewed.

But as you made your way to the ground an arm harshly dug into your stomach as you screamed. "Told you I'd getcha." You squirmed in his grasp, clawing at the door to pull yourself away from him. "Keep moving like that and I'll crush your skull in." That got your attention, your arms dropped to your side as you stood on the ground.

"Always so good for me baby, yeah?" You shook your head as he chuckled, "You don't want to be my good girl?" His voice was hot in your ear, and his words went straight down to your--

"I'm talking to you." Dean spun you around, you were chest to chest now, his eyes bore into yours as he awaited a response. His stare was too intense so you settled for staring at the ground. He didn't like it.

His hands dug into your chin, forcing you to look up at him, "Yes or No?" Your lips inched closer to his as he grinned, "Missed me have you?" The distraction was all you needed, the hunter in you telling you to run. Dean groaned as you ran towards the door having swiftly kneed him in the groin.

As your hands fumbled with the latch, a hand twisted around your hair before yanking you back, "You bitch, you think you're slick?" You cried out as he climbed ontop of you, his eyes flashed back to black as a scowl overcame his face.

His hold never relented as he dragged you upstairs, “Please Dean!” Despite your pleading he continued to walk, your pleas seemingly driving him. “You want to be a bitch? I’ll treat you like one.” You wheezed as you made impact with bed, courtesy of Dean’s harsh push.

You turned over, trying to crawl away as his hand wrapped around your ankle, “Stop!” His chuckle was deep and his hand bruised you. You couldn’t help the tears that ran down your face, this wasn’t your Dean.

“Fuck you look pretty when you cry. Y’know, I’ve missed this.” His hands ran down your stomach, and back up your chest as you attempted to shimmy away. A hand wrapped around your hip, digging in to hold you down.

“Missed these tits too.”

Your eyes widened as his hand unbuckled his belt.

“We’ve got time to spare, right?”

[paper-mario-wiki]

what's ur favorite erb?

i dont have "favorite" as much as i have "the ones i watch every now and again".

"Blackbeard vs Al Capone" i might just like the way EpicLloyd speaks as Capone, but i also cant help but be utterly entranced by a shouting match between to middle aged men who want the other one to be scared. Favorite verse: Capone 1 (of 2)

"Wonder Woman vs Stevie Wonder" although this one still has the signature simple and cheesy bar structure that ERB is known for, this is PEAK in terms of performers. nicepeter and epiclloyd (the main guys) are great, but after the first 30 videos it became very easy to detect their individual deliveries and cadences. t-pain is pretty iconic in his performance of stevie wonder. Favorite verse: Stevie 2 (of 3)

"Stephen King vs Edgar Allan Poe" watzky was unfortunately cursed by god to forever look like a little twerp, but he works with it really well and it fits very well for the real-life twerp that was Edgar Allan Poe. and zach sherwin is always a charismatic force to be reckoned with, his uniquely clever writing style and flow shining. Favorite verse: Stephen King 2 (of 2)

"Steven Spielberg vs Alfred Hitchcock" this one's just good fun. its a little battle royale among a bunch of really famous pop directors. i know that the character-appropriate cgi background is a staple of post-season-one ERB, but i really appreciate these ones specifically for some reason. Favorite verse: Alfred Hitchcock

"Kryptonite" this isnt an ERB and is in fact a completely unrelated normal rap song but i was listening to this one today. my oldest brother listened to a lot of rap when i was young and this one was one of his favorites. i remember listening to it all the time when he would drive me to blockbuster to rent gamecube games. i didnt listen to it for a few decades, but i looked it up on youtube a few weeks ago on a whim and i really liked it a lot. it's all about smoking weed which i love doing, and the chorus is really catchy, plus the instrumental is one of my favorites. Favorite verse: Big Boi 1 (verse 3)

"The Joker vs Pennwise" both rappers somehow look like different versions of matpat in heavy makeup, and joker works in a natural "we live in a society" which i like. i think that's all i got for this one. Favorite verse: Joker 3 (of 3, because this is the one with the we live in a society bar, but all of his bars were actually really solid)

"Tony Hawk vs Wayne Gretzky" another one for the "zach sherwin is one of the best thing ERB has" pile. he delivers in a quaint (if a bit cartoonish) canadian accent a scathing comparison between the actual real-life achievements and significance and skill between the two actual athletes. which i think is very spiritually fulfilling considering the name of the series. Favorite verse: Wayne Gretzky 2 (of 2)

"James Bond vs Austin Powers" might unfortunate austin only gets 1 verse because it's far and away the best part of this one. aside from a clever pussy eating joke near the end between the two feuding bonds. Favorite verse: Austin Powers

"Nice Peter vs EpicLLOYD 2" this is an actual real-life catharsis event between the main two artists behind ERB who seemingly put very real and deep-seated creative and personal frustrations they have with each other into their verses, plus a very real burnout over this series that they put all their money on being The Big One, creating a legitimately tense feeling in watching their performances. for reference, Peter rips on how Lloyd is an alcoholic and is unwilling to let the channel grow or change, and Lloyd talks about how Peter is obsessive and manipulative, referencing a real life issue involving a friend they fucked over in the separate video he appeared in. Favorite verse: Lloyd 1 (of ??? this one is almost a duet at times really)

"Babe Ruth vs Lance Armstrong" this one is specifically here because babe's second verse goes extremely hard in an almost uncharacteristic way for a series with very middling raps in general. Favorite verse: Babe Ruth 2 (of 2)

i could keep going i think but i just scrolled to the top of the list and my face flushed with embarrassment at how long its getting so im gonna end it there. you get the idea.

[musamora]

hi muse! could you possibly write a dazai oneshot where he takes care of the reader after a hard day? lots of angst please. thank you! (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡

𝖕𝖑𝖊𝖆𝖘𝖊, 𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖐 𝖆𝖙 𝖒𝖊 「𝔬𝔰𝔞𝔪𝔲 𝔡𝔞𝔷𝔞𝔦」 ༉‧₊˚

content. gn!reader. hurt no comfort, death of a child (not your child), ambiguous unhappy ending, mourning. not proofread.

author's note. i highly suggest reading this with laufey in the background. i accidentally made myself cry a bit.

would you like to see more? join the taglist or comment under this post!

The buzz of infectious energy that normally surrounded the agency had abandoned the hearts of each individual, leaving in its wake a trail of mindless typing and mournful sighs. An unrelenting clock ticked onward. It had started as an average morning, with some agents assigned to a simplistic mission regarding another dangerous ability user. The same old routine. However, something was different — something had gone awry.

In the events of the morning, a child had been killed in the crossfire.

You couldn't help but remember the expression of the parents, watching sorrowfully from the windows above as Kunikida broke the news. Your trembling fingers closed the window and pushed the others away as the mother's hollered cries echoed across the street, wailing for a life that had been lost too soon. 

The rest of the hours had been a complete blur, your numb mind forcing you to follow the routine as it hazed in synchrony with the pouring rain above. You wanted to embrace that rain, to feel the water slick the hair against your neck as it chilled your skin. To feel your brain blank as lightning scattered in the sky, to lay in the puddles as you succumbed to the storm. But there was no time to grieve a life that had barely intertwined with yours, one that had crossed paths with your own by sheer coincidence. 

Still, you couldn't help the occasional quiver of your lips, biting back the urge to scream into that same storm but not having the strength to even try. And so you carried on, your body working mechanically as your mind strayed far away. It needed to be a normal day — if you just pretended it was, then it would be. The hours ticked by, blurred footsteps blending together until you found yourself inside the kitchen you shared with Dazai — the young detective stood and watched carefully from the entrance of your apartment.

"I'm gonna start dinner. Do you want crab or-"

"Stop."

You paused as you were rustling through the ingredients, his stern tone rattling your already cracking foundation.

"(Name), look at me."

An invisible hand squeezed at your throat, any words that you tried to muster failing to leave your lips as your eyes scrambled to find something to save you from looking at him. You wouldn't look at him; you couldn't. It would break you.

"I don't - I don't think we have enough radishes left. I'll have to - have to go to the store." You pivoted on your heel, the door feeling too far as your footsteps pounded heavily against the floor. You refused to look at him. "I'll be back home in a bit."

"(Name)." A bandaged hand caught your own.

"Stop pretending you're okay."

You struggled to swallow down your shattered heart, the jagged edges painfully scraping against your throat as it clung to the air. Hands gathered your own — warm hands that kneaded and pressed circles into your cold, shaking ones. You trembled at his gentle touch, your heart yearning to succumb to his comfort as your mind prayed that he would slap you out of your emotional stupor. But he would never do that. Not now. Not to you.

"Baby," his voice shook ever-so-slightly. "Look at me."

A soft touch brushed against your chin, slowly tilting your head so that your matching pairs of somber eyes could meet. Your lashes fluttered stubbornly, but you were unable to hold back anymore as your heart leaked from inside your chest. You leaned into him, hiding your face from the rain.

"It's not fair," you croaked.

He brought you in further by the waist, nestling his nose against the crook of your neck as he held you tight. He kissed your shoulder with firm protectiveness, but even you could feel the way his lips trembled against your skin. The dreary weather worsened out the window, enveloping you both in a reality neither of you wanted to accept. And in that sorrow, you stayed, knowing that there was nothing you could do.

"I know."

© 𝐆𝐔𝐀𝐂𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐋 2023 — do not repost or modify my works for any reason. do not steal graphics w/o explicit permission. reblogs are appreciated.

[queerfortress2]

Oh my god, I loved the way you described the support classes in an argument, I feel like it was totally spot-on. Would you be willing to write how the other classes would be in an argument, as well? Or, at least maybe the defence classes?? Thank you and have a wonderful day! 🥰

another engineer (technically) one, im in heaven. also, thank you! (also so very sorry for how short it is, my brain is so very very fried from art fight.) — mod engie

GN!READER X DEFENSE CLASSES ; ARGUMENTS

DEMOMAN

out of all of them? he is the best. he can actually recognize that he is wrong in an argument after the fact and apologise, which is crazy by mercenary means. after all, most of his problems are solved by alcohol and bombs, but he cares about you enough not to blow you up, so be thankful for that.

that being said… he’s also drunk most of the time, so the former may not even apply when you’re arguing. he most likely won’t recognise he’s even arguing— hell! he might not even remember he’s arguing halfway through and begin talking about a completely unrelated topic. it’s kind of difficult to continue from there, considering he’s either too drunk to recognise you, sleeping, or taking another swig out of a comically large bottle.

"Aye..! I know y’er mad aboot th’ match but in—" His glassy eyes looked around, almost not at you, rather your general surroundings, his leg limp slightly. Be tilted to the right as he looked towards the fireplace of the lounging area, stumbling slightly, "—Wh’teva’ ‘s really jus’ ah… hic!—" Almost on cue, the man had practically fallen, stumbling over, falling asleep momentarily. The second his body loses balance, you seem to have been forced by your instinct to catch him. The impact between him and your arms almost knocked you both over, but thankfully he slowly rose back up to his feet and looked you in the eyes. Unfortunately for you, he already forgot about the argument, and began incoherently babbling about how he missed being this close to you. ..Maybe bring it up another time. One of the rare hours when he’s sober.

when he's sober afterwards i imagine its a lot easier to have a conversation with him, after all he's usually willing to admit he was in the wrong, and a lot of the time, its not a big argument. he's just not a man easy to anger. while the support classes are much easier to aggravate. a common theme seems to be the defense class men are just a loooooot more patient. (also a lot more apologetic)

ENGINEER

its genuinely really hard to argue with this man because he is (most of the time) correct. even if it is an argument you thought you knew all about he's INFURIATINGLY on top. why? well, he does his research really. he's not as willing to win silly little debates but when it comes to much more serious decisions being made. or, say, doing something utterly STUPID at work that could've gotten you killed. yeah, the respawn exists, but darn it that don' mean you can play with it!

so when you, say, fuck around with dangerous technology, he will 100% start arguing. not because he hates you for messing with his latest trinket, but because you could've gotten seriously hurt! that's not a game he's willing to play. unlike the medic, he doesn't often fuck around with satan, the poor texan doesn't want to grow more grey hair in his... beard? eyebrows? i don't know, dell is practically bald.

"WHAT were you THINKING?" The Texan dropped his hard hat onto the desk beside him. The man works late nights to make sure no one gets royally fucked by that dangerous machine his Grandfather created a few generations before, and you're skipping out of it like it's a playground? It's safe to say his blood pressure suffers due to your recklessness. Though it was clear his volume was unwarranted, he finally started over with a long sigh, talking at a normal volume. "Y'know that thin' wasn't always 'dere? Dontcha? Don't get too comfortable with that thin'. I don' wanna see you get hurt, y' hear me?" Dell really didn't want to hear your side of the argument, after all, in his mind there was no reason in hell OR heaven for you to just casually run at the flames of the opposing Pyro for 'funsies'. Imagine how it is for him to see you die in numerous ways on the battle field. It AIN'T NICE, to say the least.

no matter how long the argument went on, he would eventually shut you down with a good 'don't pull that shit again' and move out to take a lap. he takes a lot longer to cool down than the other two defense mercenaries, mostly because whenever he argues genuinely, it gets rather personal. even if to you it seemed rather 'impersonal' and 'professional' feel-y, in his heart it was because all the machinery is what gives his family their name. whenever he sees someone messing around with it? it genuinely ticks him off.

HEAVY

man of little words argues the least, mostly because, unlike engineers, everything is rather impersonal. he's definitely heard it all, and while i don't think he apologises as often, it's also just difficult to get him to argue THAT BADLY. the most you get out of him is maybe two words telling you not to do something, and even then there's not that much room for argument is there? you either do what he's asked of you or you don't. both are things he can't quite control. he's just as stubborn, as you can tell he just does his own thing, only following directions when he can see it's vital for his or others' survival.

not impossible to argue with him, however. there are times when you can get him to argue, but its usually not anything important. perhaps you had a different opinion on how a cliffhanger was supposed to be interpreted? now we're getting somewhere. maybe you have a rather negative imagine of fyodor's brothers. he's not gonna let you pass without explaining why.

"I just didn't understand what the Father was supposed to mean in all that!" You may have exclaimed as you sat across from the largest mercenary on the team, yet sat composed in a comfortable sofa chair, with small glasses and a comically small book in hand. He wasn't usually seen like this, after all, most people see him screaming violently on the field. It's only this side that you see most commonly late at night. The way you seemed to speak of it was rather surface-level. Which, not to blame you, it's a Russian novel, not many are reading it at all. Heavy never owned books in English. So it's really just for you to 'suck up and take' while reading with him. Thankfully, he's taught you enough to have you fill in the blanks with common sense. Perhaps it was just American society getting to you. Back at home, the meaning was a lot easier to grasp, knowing that most were under a similar crushing situation under the new rule. At least in Russian society, where a lot of knowledge is needed to even begin to understand the book, the brothers' differences were clear in what they represented and what their father represented, especially in the modern day with the uprising and new government, filled with Soviet control. The man stared lost in thought at you, which is mighty intimidating on its own, before actually speaking up. "Ah, no." He simply shook his head, leaning forward in his chair for you to hear him better, "He uses father in metaphor not..." He snapped his finger attempting to remember the English word for his sentence. "Literal. Father mean more than just caretaker. Mean oppression." It sounded as if he were to continue before he simply sat back and relaxed back into his chair.

it didn't exactly feel like an argument, in fact it felt more like he was informing you. but that's genuinely the closest i could ever imagine him getting to an argument. he just doesn't seem like that type of guy.

[wingedcat13]

Synovus: A Wishing Star

[Canonically, this takes place before ‘Call Me Menace’ - which is why there’s a notable lack of Alexandria and Minerva in this segment. This was requested by an Anon, with the prompt of Synovus being asked for by a Make a Wish child, through the Make a Wish foundation.]

[Trigger warnings for childhood cancer, descriptions of illness and hospitals, and discussions of suicide. Reference is also made to the possibility of substance abuse. Unlike most of my writing, for this, I cannot promise you will find this ending happy.]

“Your name came up today,” Rosie called up to you, laboriously walking laps around the cafeteria.

“Of course it did.” You replied laconically, keeping a careful eye on her progress from a perch in the rafters. Your shadows were ready to catch and steady her if she stumbled, though you both pretended you were too occupied with your knitting. “I am an incredibly interesting person. On a completely unrelated note, tell Dr. Grouch that he will receive payment shortly.”

That wasn’t an epithet, ‘Dr. Grouch.’ It was genuinely the man’s name. Dr. Jeremy Grouch, a pediatric cancer specialist, who had the good fortune of being the best choice for you to kidnap when Rosie had finally told you why she’d been half-joking about retirement. He was no longer your ‘guest,’ having returned to the mainland full time a few weeks prior, but he still communicated with Rosie quite often.

A bark of laughter had Rosie pausing, out of breath, to brace herself against the wall. She turned to rest her back against it, but since she didn’t sit, you didn’t jump down to see if she was alright. Even if you had stopped knitting.

“Not for the money.” Rosie assured you, when she had caught her breath enough to reply without wheezing. “He thinks you’re more than generous.”

“Dr. Grouch could stand to live up to his name a bit more.” You tsk’ed, “I kidnapped him, forced him to work for me. He didn’t even haggle.”

Not that this would have done him much good in the beginning. Historically, you did not respond well to threats or extortion. But you did respect a good hustle, and you were fairly certain that Dr. Grouch had been aware he could’ve pushed for more of a reward once Rosie was declared in remission. He hadn’t taken the opportunity.

“He isn’t hurting for wealth.” Rosie pointed out. The sardonic note to her voice had made you smile. You and your minions were in the business of exploiting greed and committing evils, but that did not make any of you less inclined to judge others for anything less than your own morality demanded. And that often included each other.

But Rosie’s tone shifted, becoming something lighter, “He said one of his patients asked to meet you.”

“What?”

“One of his patients wants to meet you.” Rosie repeated patiently. “Wished for it, even.”

You forced your tone to remain light, glad you were up in the rafters where she couldn’t see your body language. “Well, there’s a rarity. How many people ever say ‘I wish to meet Synovus?’”

Rosie sighed. “Usually just people who want to kill you.”

“Are we certain that isn’t what the child wants? I’m assuming it’s a child, adults usually know better.” You picked up another stitch, fumbled it, did it again. This time it stuck.

It wasn’t the idea of a child trying to kill you that had you so… disoriented. You’d been responsible for the deaths of a lot of parents over the years - you wouldn’t be surprised if there had been hundreds of vendettas sworn against you, or all villain kind, or even the heroes who had failed to stop you, over the years. But kids - children - you had a soft spot for.

You remembered too clearly what it was like to be young, sheltered, and out of control of your life. It was debatable, some days, how much of that still applied to you in some way or another.

“I’d bet on the kid.” Rosie remarked.

“I-“ You twirled one knitting needle, intending to point it at her, and snagged it in the trailing end of your yarn instead. It didn’t matter, because she couldn’t see you. “- take offense on the child’s behalf that you would doubt them.”

“Oh yeah?” Rosie perked up, “Offended enough to defend their honor in person?”

Frowning, you set down your knitting again. “What are you asking me here, Rosie?”

“I want to know if you’ll honor the kid’s Wish.”

There was something in the way she said it that gave you pause. You mulled it over.

“When you say ‘wish,’ you don’t just mean a general expressed desire, do you.”

It wasn’t much of a question, but Rosie answered anyway, “Nope. I mean the Wish. Apparently they hadn’t wanted to say anything, because they didn’t think anyone would let them, but they were talking to Dr. Grouch, and asked where he’d been -“

You groaned. You’d been assured of his adherence to HIPAA, but hadn’t pushed too hard on the ‘never tell anyone where you’ve been, ever, on pain of excruciatingly over described death’ angle. Maybe you should’ve.

“- yeah, I know, but apparently he only told the kid and asked them to keep it a secret, and the kid ‘lit up like it was Christmas.’” Rosie relayed this information, complete with air quotes, without moving from the wall.

To avoid thinking about the idea of being anyone’s last, true Wish - the big W, the heart’s desire, the crown of a bucket list - you instead thought about how Rosie had trapped you. You couldn’t just disappear because then she’d be alone, and could still collapse. You couldn’t call her physical therapy completed for the day yet either, because she hadn’t finished this lap.

Evil, your minions. Absolutely evil.

You sighed, sure Rosie would feel it, even if she couldn’t hear it at this distance. “Very well.” You conceded, morose. “When are we meeting this little miscreant?”

—-

Hospitals were not easy for you to break into. Not when you were in costume, at least. You could get terrifyingly far in a white coat with a coffee cup and a clipboard, but that came down to timing and confidence and an aura of ‘fuck off, I am incredibly busy’ that you’ve always felt most doctors cultivated on purpose.

That didn’t really work when you were in all black with a cape and a helmet. And this was a children’s cancer ward, so it wasn’t like you could just wait till everyone went home. Windows didn’t open up here either.

So you’d had Dr. Grouch let you in from the helipad on the roof.

“You’ve taken the precautions I requested?” He asked, as you paused outside of the ward itself. “Fully clean, as you would have for Ms. Rosie? You will not touch anything you do not have to, and will call for assistance if she seems overwrought?”

“Yes, Dr. Grouch.” You replied, accepting another antiseptic wipe for your gloves. “I am here to answer a summons. That is all. I swear that your charge will not come to harm from me.”

You did not point out he had been the one to arrange this meeting. His face made a strange expression, as though he were surprised, and surprised at being surprised, and a bit disappointed in himself for that sequence of events. Still, he recovered quickly.

“At least I do not have to remind you to wear a mask.” He granted, in an attempt at levity. Luckily for you both, you didn’t actually need to reply, because he was already triggering the ward doors for you to enter.

While Grouch moved to the ward station, motioning to calm the various staff on duty, you moved with purpose for the room you’d been directed to earlier. Grouch was telling the staff that he’d found someone willing to stand in for you, as a way of reassuring them. You weren’t sure they’d buy it, but it really wasn’t your problem for the moment.

You moved quietly. You weren’t sure whether or which other rooms were occupied, and you didn’t intend to scare anyone who hadn’t requested to see you tonight. For that same reason, you double checked the number on the door you opened, and lifted it faintly on its hinges, that it would open smoothly and as silently as you could make it.

The room beyond was dim, if not completely dark. The corridor behind you was also dimmed for the night cycle, trying to give the ward’s occupants a chance at sleeping, though the ward station was still well-illuminated. You made sure its light wouldn’t give you a halo or shadow as you entered, and quietly shut the door behind yourself.

You aren’t familiar enough with hospitals to say whether this room is average or not. Tiled floors, the bed that is also a gurney, sparse furniture, windows on the far wall. There are signs of life here, in the form of some decaying flowers on the dresser, with several cards propped around their vase where the bed’s occupant can see. A television is mounted near the ceiling on an extendable arm, but it’s off for now.

There’s a few sources of dim light - the distant aura of the streetlights casts the bars supporting the windows on the wall across from the bed. A floor light illuminates the tile enough to show any potential tripping hazards. The odd blinking light on the medical equipment provides a dash of color to the gloom.

And in the bed, there is a lump curled on its side, as far as the IV line and monitors will allow it, blankets pulled tight over the shoulder and tucked near the chin. Dr. Grouch told you some basics about the patient before you reached this floor, so you know who you are supposed to be meeting. You feel bad for waking her, but you’ve been assured she doesn’t sleep well anyway, and is likely awake. Judging by the faint rustling of a body’s small movements, that judgement was accurate.

You are reminded of Dr. Grouch’s planned lie, out in the hall. You do not want this child to think they are being tricked. So you stay where you are, in the deeper shadow of the door-well, and you summon your shadows to life.

The window frame shadows make an excellent trellis for your branching additions - they stretch out, forming words in deeper darkness than the natural shadow from which they are woven. If you are mistaken, if this is the wrong room, if the girl sleeps, you won’t have disturbed them.

But you see the streetlight illuminate the planes of a too-sharp face as it turns to focus bleary eyes on what you’ve written.

Hello, Loralai.

At fourteen years old, Loralai should still have the roundness of youth. She does not. Nor is she quite skeletal, despite the advanced nature of her illness. It almost seems, in the half light, as though a slight push would be all that was necessary to send her in either direction: back to the hale softness of health, or further on to the sharp stillness of death.

She blinks. Her eyes widen, then narrow, then widen again. You belatedly wonder if perhaps she needs glasses. Or what if she’s dyslexic? Your shadow-words are hardly the easiest things to read. Damn it, Synovus, now is not the time for posturing and-

“Synovus?” Asks a breathless, whispering voice.

“In the flesh.” You reply, because you are a melodramatic moron. Still, your voice is quiet, and you remain unmoving.

There’s some more rustling. The bed is already mostly elevated, so Loralai doesn’t need to try and sit up so much as readjust how she’s sitting. There’s a click of a lamp - and then there’s a real light source in the room, even if it’s dulled by the lampshade.

You step forward as Loralai rubs the spots from her vision with one hand. There’s an IV catheter taped to the back of it from some recent event, the bruising around it just beginning to ripen. You don’t remember what that might mean, if anything.

As she gets her vision back and examines you, you turn your helmet, pretending to survey the room. Eyes bright with curiosity flick from the helmet to the cape to the patterns of padding over your torso. She does not seem scared, but then, why would she be? Dr. Grouch had informed you she was well aware her case was terminal. You may be a specter of death to some people, but this child has already started staring down the real thing.

“You are Loralai Weber?” You ask, turning back to face her directly.

She nods, leaning back against her pillows. You can see exhaustion on every line of her too-young face, but it seems not to have any power over her at the moment. “Yes. I didn’t think you’d actually come to see me.”

You gesture aimlessly, “I am not often asked for.” You reply candidly. “You’ve piqued my interest. And.. one could say I was in the neighborhood.”

Loralai’s expression brightens, “Are you going to attack the hospital?”

You frown. The prospect seems to excite her. Still, you keep your voice casual, noncommittal, “Not tonight, at least.”

“Damn.” Loralai sounds disappointed now. You muffle your amusement at her cursing as she continues, “Any time soon, maybe? Like, in the next week?”

She can’t see you raise your brows, so you tilt your head to one side, “You sound almost hopeful, Ms. Weber. Why could that be?”

Loralai averts her gaze for a moment, plucking slowly at the top blanket of her bed. This is the moment of truth, really. You spent hours trying to figure out what you might be asked for:

Could you kill someone for her? A doctor, a nurse, another patient who was really annoying? Or could you attack the hospital, so she could help you wreak havoc, and have the chance to feel as powerful as a Villain? Alternatively, what if she were the one to stop you? You were dreading the deathbed request that you ‘turn good,’ but that doesn’t seem to be forthcoming. Maybe she simply wishes to witness a hero battle up close, and needs you to initiate it. Or-

“I want you to kill me.”

You freeze. Most of you, anyway, as your stomach seems to have left out the ground floor entrance. You had not anticipated this. You feel like you should have.

Remorseless for your shock, Loralai continues, managing to look directly at your helmet face as her words spill over each other, “I know I’m dying, and that I don’t have long left, but I’ve been dying for months, and I just feel worse and worse every day, and I - I want to die fast, not slow. I want it to be over. You - you could make it quick for me, couldn’t you?”

You have not been inclined towards religion for a very long time. Yet, in this moment, you see the appeal of dropping to your knees and offering a fervent prayer of gratitude to whoever or whatever might be listening that you gave Dr. Grouch your word in the hall. You do not want to answer Loralai’s question, or know what your answer would be. You refuse to acknowledge the burgeoning answer within you.

The horror of it all still threatens to overwhelm you. The shadows in the room thicken, automatically reaching for you to provide shelter from unfortunate truths and uncomfortable conversation. This is why she asked for you. Because you are evil. Because you are terrible enough to meet a child face to face and kill them at their own request. Because you are not beholden to law, morality, or sympathy.

The black pit of despair yawns, and it is only by the barest shred of your willpower that you stay out of it - as awful as you feel in this moment, as much as you know you have only delayed your own suffering, the fact remains: you are not the one dying here.

It does not matter how you feel, looking at someone younger than you were when you finally found freedom, and knowing they will never reach the same age, the same feeling. It does not matter how you feel about their request. Loralai Weber sits in a hospital bed, terminal at 14 years old, and she is suffering badly enough to seek the Scourge of the West Coast.

So you scrape yourself together, and move to the end of her bed.

“May I sit?”

Loralai nods, brow still furrowed, and shuffles her feet so you can avoid accidentally sitting on them. You perch there, partially leaning on the rail at the foot of the bed, and watch her for a long moment.

“Yes.” You say, finally. “I could make your death swift. There is little you could do to stop me.”

You have Loralai’s undivided attention. When you stop speaking, she waits. The clearer it becomes that you will not say more, the further her face falls. “Could.” She says tonelessly. “But won’t.”

“No.” You confirm quietly. “I will not.”

“Why?” Loralai cries. She tries to gesture to herself, to the room that she’s in. “You’ve killed so many people! What’s one more to you? Why not me? Is it - do you want me to suffer, is that it? Would this be too merciful for you?”

You let her yell, and gesture, even when she comes within several inches of you. “No, Loralai. I do not want you to suffer. But nor do I think this would be an act of mercy.” You avoid addressing the issue of your body count.

Loralai looks offended and confused, gaping at you for a moment. “Does this look like a life worth living?” She demands.

Your answer is without hesitation, “Yes.”

The girl’s face contorts with incredulity, then despair, then anger. Her eyes are increasingly red-rimmed, and there’s a wet quality to her wavering voice when she responds, “Fuck you.”

Grimly, you brace yourself for much worse before the night is over. She hasn’t ordered you out yet, so you have to attempt to explain. Even if you cannot give her what she wants, you can be an outlet for her anger, and the face she cannot show to her doctors.

“There are cards on the dresser.” You point out.

“Classmates I’ve never even met.” Loralai responds flatly.

“Flowers, too.”

“Another parent bought some for the whole floor after their kid bit it. It’s a pity gift to make them feel better, nothing to do with me.”

“You still have family.”

“So they should get the honor and joy of watching me die? Paying a fortune for every extra hour I sit here and wait for it to be my turn?”

“It is worth it, to them.” You explain, matter-of-fact. “Every penny. Every extra shift. Every loan. Every night on your fold-out couch. How did you convince your mother not to be here tonight?”

Loralai flinches. “She has a bad back.” She mutters, “She - it’s better for her to be home, in a real bed. And so what if it’s worth it to them? What if it’s not worth it to me? Can’t I choose how and when I die?”

You sigh, “If that were true, the world would be full of immortals. And suicides. You realize that is what you asked of me, yes? An assisted suicide?”

Loralai draws back at the word, but doesn’t deny it. “It’s not like it would be anything new for you.”

The truth of that statement is painful. For a moment, you hear a distant ringing with no physical source. You are acutely aware of the shadows in this room - their patterns under the bed, on the wall, the sky behind the window, in the spaces under your skin-

“I am not your tool.” You rasp, before remembering that Loralai couldn’t possibly know about your past. She is a teenager. A hurt one. They always have a gift for striking true, even when they lash out blindly.

You take a deep breath, and suppress the shadows again. You don’t want to know how far up your arms they reached before you regained your senses. “And I will not be baited into killing you either. You are right - I’ve killed. Plenty. I will again. But I do so for my own reasons, and not because someone asks me to. You asked for me by name, Ms. Weber, out of all of the villains on the West Coast, so I’m guessing you know that.”

Loralai opens her mouth to respond - then looks away.

“You have every right to be angry.” You continue into the silence, “With me, with the people around you. With the doctors and nurses for how often they check in and the poking and prodding they do. With the kitchen for the quality of the hospital food. With your parents for not sparing you this life, or being overbearing in their concern, or not being able to balance what it is you really need.”

You pause. Loralai doesn’t respond. You continue, “I would be angry. I would be furious with every car that passed by and honked its horn, because I’m stuck up here dying, and they only care about the stupid traffic. And I would be even more angry about the fact I can’t tell anyone that without becoming the bad guy, who can’t take their situation with grace.”

“But you won’t kill me.” Loralai says finally, “Before I do something I regret. Or become a husk of myself.”

This time, it’s your turn to remain silent. Loralai turns to look at you, even if she can’t find your eyes in the mask. She’s crying now, but so far managing to hold off actual sobs, “Why can’t I be selfish? Just once?”

You offer her your hands, and aren’t surprised or offended when she doesn’t take them.

“You should be selfish.” You tell her, and the ferocity in your voice takes her aback. “You should be as selfish and greedy as you can. You should seize every moment - every conversation with your parents, every breath of conditioned air, every chance you get to actually smile. Even if you only get one more of those, Loralai, it’s one more than you would get if I did what you’ve asked. Dying isn’t selfish. It isn’t selfless either. It just is, the same way taxes are due and commercials always take too long and the drivers outside your window have road rage. It’ll happen whether you want it to or not. Don’t lean into it.”

Converse to your own advice, you lean towards Loralai, adding, “Kick the bastard in the balls.”

On reflex, she gives you a confused, watery half-smile.

“Yes!” You cry, as though this is a great victory. “Just like that! Rip and tear your joy from the universe.”

That wins you a snort - though the amusement doesn’t last.

“I’m not strong enough to do that.” Loralai deflects, turning a hand over in your general direction. “I’m not like you. I can’t literally steal happiness from - banks, or whatever it is you rob.”

“Banks.” You admit, “Though usually their corporate offices instead of the average buildings. Irrelevant, however: how many of my fights do you actually see me win?”

Loralai frowned. “Uh….”

You don’t leave her hanging long, “It depends on your definition of ‘victory’ really - but if I count it like the heroes do, where a victory is when I have my opponent in my custody, I haven’t won a single fight in over ten years. My track record is abysmal.”

(This is not strictly true - but it does count for your fights with heroes. Interpersonal villain matters you handle rarely make the news.)

“So, what, you’re bad at your job?” Loralai says bluntly, sarcasm tingeing her voice.

“I’m fantastic at my job.” You can’t help the rebuttal, it’s too much in your nature. “Because even if I don’t take down the hero who comes after me - and let’s face it, they’ll keep sending them endlessly, it’s exhausting - I still do what I set out to do. Sometimes that’s steal something. Kill someone. Make a scene. On bad days, just get out and away. And if you use that metric, well, darling, my track record is spectacular.”

Loralai considers this for a moment, staring into the middle distance between you. It’s impossible to figure out what she’s actually thinking of.

“Your metaphors suck.”

Well okay then. “My metaphors are elegant contrivances -“ You give up when Loralai gives you a look, and sigh instead.

Still, what you’ve said seems to have made some difference. Loralai has stopped crying, and she doesn’t feel as.. raw, as before. You hope it’s the right kind of difference, and that you haven’t just chased her further into a shell. You wait for her to break the silence again.

“So you think I should live, for the people around me?” She challenges, indicating the flowers and cards. You both know that’s only a fragment of your argument, but you’re willing to play ball.

“Nope.” You reply succinctly. “I think you should live for you and your own experiences. However, I think you are currently in a position where you have to see your joys in others before you can see them for yourself. If they anchor you, use it.”

She’s staring at you now, expression unreadable. “And you think that will get better.”

You almost answer ‘yes’ - but you know that isn’t quite what she’s asking. There’s a second half to that statement that is a question, left unspoken: ‘will it get better before I die?’

And for all of your lies, you answer her honestly. “I don’t know.”

Loralai nods. You want to clarify, to explain that even a chance is a chance worth taking. You want to give her some of your own rage at the world, the defiance that makes it possible to simply refuse to die. The conviction that let you kill a god.

No, maybe not that. You’re not sure that would be a blessing after all.

“Okay.” She says, after several moments. “Fine. I get to live. For now. But when I die -“ Loralai’s attention abandons the far wall and the middle distance, zeroing in on you, “- if my life gets any worse between now and then, if I don’t get any more good stuff like you’ve described, I’m haunting you.”

You believe her. “I believe you.” You say solemnly. “And there are few things in this world more terrifying than a teenage ghost. No, that isn’t sarcasm, I’m serious. Once-“

—-

You spend the rest of the hour telling stories of the teenaged ghost you’d met once in New Orleans, back when that wasn’t quite anyone’s territory. It’s not nearly enough time to share all of her stories - but it is enough that you remember her fondly, and smell the faint scent of bergamot and citrus that always heralded her presence.

When you spoke to her more regularly, you teased her about being a ghost who smelled like Irish Spring, and she ensured your cape got caught on everything it possibly could. You feel a tug on it, as you are moving to leave, and understand the prompt.

“Here.” You tell Loralai, unclasping your cape from your shoulders, and draping it over the bed.

“Does this have magic powers, or something? Is it bulletproof?” Loralai lifts it’s edge, rubbing the fabric between her fingers. She’s in higher spirits, but the bags under her eyes have deepened. She’s also cold, though you don’t think you’d be able to get her to admit it.

“Nah.”

“Then why would I want it?” Remarkable, how little your status matters to teenagers. You aren’t sure if it’s your curse or a trait of the species.

“Capes are cool.” You reply confidently.

There are other reasons too - it gives your ghost friend an anchor to stay with her better, it’s warm, it will remind her this wasn’t a dream. If her family needs to, they can sell it to cover some of the medical bills, since (unlike some heroes and villains) you rarely leave a trace behind, and collectors would love to get ahold of one of your capes. Actually, Tallflawes might even buy it at an exorbitant price, just to taunt you with it. But this isn’t a lie: capes are cool.

“Whatever.” Loralai says sleepily, resting back on her pillows, your cape tucked up under her chin. “Goodbye, Synovus.”

“Goodbye, Loralai Weber.” You say gently. You aren’t sure if she even notices your shadows flip the switch on the bedside lamp, returning the room to darkness. Your shadows muffle your exit back into the hall.

You leave as quickly as possible, after that.

—-

The good thing about being a dramatic fool on purpose, is that when you are having a public meltdown, it can appear as though you are simply performing again. The shadows contorting and swirling around you? Ah, Synovus, making an entrance. Disappearing between one blink and the next to the unobservant, because you’ve turned and booked it into the dark? A classic exit.

Your minions know you too well for that facade to hold. They also know you too well to ask.

You stalk down the halls, lights seeming to ripple in your wake with the amount of shadows you’re dragging, like a toddler with their blanket on their way to throw a tantrum. But you skip the training room. You wind up in the kitchen, as Oflok watches from a distance.

You spend an indeterminable amount of time staring at the collection of alcohol. You don’t indulge, because you are terrified of what might happen if you lose control of yourself. You know you are a walking bomb. Your minions can partake as they like, however, and today, reminded of how destructive you are, you want very badly to join them. To get wasted beyond memory.

“I want you to kill me.”

You get as far as reaching up one hand for a bottle. You don’t know which, you didn’t bother to read the labels. You lower your hand. Spin on your heel. And leave.

—-

It’s Rosie and Doll who hover in the corner, silent witnesses while you dig through the cabinets in the infirmary. You grab the first ampoule of a drug that looks like it would force you out of your mind that you can get your hands on. You have a tray laid out with syringe, bandages, tourniquet, disinfectant wipes, before you realize what you’re doing.

“Does this look like a life worth living?”

You walk out without a word.

—-

The grave at the bottom of the island is not well tended. It is not a monument to be remembered. This is the third time you have visited it since you stopped obsessively checking for signs of disturbances, in case it’s occupant decided to crawl back out.

You tell the empty space about Loralai Weber. What she looked like, what she asked of you, what that means. This time, you’re free to cry, though whether it’s for her or yourself, you’ll never be able to parse. By the end, you are screaming in the dark cave, knowing it’s all pointless at this stage in the game.

The man in the grave could heal himself, when he wanted. And very rarely, when he was convinced it was ‘appropriate,’ he could heal others too. He wouldn’t have counted Loralai Weber as ‘appropriate’ for his gift. You would. It doesn’t matter, though.

It’s the one part of his powers you never inherited.

—-

[Thank you for reading Synovus: A Wishing Star - if you want to read more of Synovus, you can find the rest of their stories on my blog, in the pinned post. Further, if you want to find out more about the Make A Wish Foundation, you can read stories of children they've helped (in rather different ways than Synovus) on their website, or donate here.]

[I do not have a personal story to share for Loralai's inspiration. However, I did tap into my experiences as a chronically ill individual, and the mental state I experienced both before and during treatment. There are still days I wonder as Loralai does - but I wholeheartedly believe as Synovus says: This life is worth living. It is for you too.]

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

Controversial Character Tournament Round 2: Kromer from Limbus Company vs Anders from Dragon Age 2

(remember that these characters are fictional and your fellow tumblr users are real. please be normal in the notes, i will not hesitate to block if you harass people)

Propaganda under the cut:

Kromer:

HATE: - "Nasty, scrungly, murders people for having advanced prosthetics, but yet the fandom still loves her, I will never understand that"

Anders:

LOVE: - "So Anders blew up a chantry as a symbol of mage rights. He's wild. Completely feral. I love him so much. He's canonically Bipolar (like me) but it's written in the worst possible way. He is possessed by a demon, technically. He's so unhinged. So many people hate him. He is technically a terrorist. The later game literally changed it so even if you agreed with him, no you didn't" - "hes SOOOOOO." - "He has a controversy page on wikipedia (It is not about that time he blew up a church). He likes cats. He gives poor people free magic healthcare. There is so much discourse about him all the time. His writer hated him. He escaped a cult. He's canon bipolar AND bisexual. He's possessed by a spirit of Justice (who rocks so hard.) He hates the Catholic Church. He lives in a sewer. He's really mean and petty. He was put in solitary for a solid year. He's one of two openly queer (i.e. mentioning it outside player romance) companions (the other being Isabela Dragonage) in his main game. Anders isn't even his birthname, it's a nickname given because he didn't speak for months when he got taken to the Catholic cult prison at 12. He drank long-lasting poison to fight an evil corrupting force because he wanted to not be murdered or have all his emotions lobotomied from him by the Catholic church prison guards (This is almost completely unrelated to the possession.)" - "Anders! He's a medic for those too poor to afford healthcare! He loves cats! He has a cat named Ser Pounce-a-Lot because he's a perfect man. Anders absolutely says ACAB, except in DA2 it's ATAB: All Templars Are Bastards. He's canonically bi! He runs an underground railroad-type deal for mages to escape from abusive institutions! He blew up the in-universe Catholic church for opressing his people (mages)! Some say this makes him a terrorist. I say this makes him a babe ❤️❤️❤️ He is unreasonably mean to Fenris, but imo that's just Bad Writing we can handwave away ok? ok. cool." - "there is a controversy section on his wiki page bc his bisexual ass made the straight male gamers angry by flirting with their characters. ppl in the fandom have also been arguing nonstop for 12 years abt his actions at the end of da2. do u want to go to anders discourse? too bad we're going to anders discourse."

BOTH: - "I really liked Anders in Dragon Age Awakening, I thought he was fun and funny, but he's insufferable in da2 and his fans and apologists are so annoying. He's a terrible person in that game and they have to make stuff up and ignore all the awful stuff he says and does. He's so awful I always kill him at the end of the game because I hate what he became."

[mabelstone]

can you write smut where reader distracts matt and gets him worked up while he’s on an online interview and he ties up and punishes the reader?

mabey is here to deliver <3

Payback

CW: 18+, dacryphilia (arousal by tears), bondage i guess?, rough sex

word count: 2055 (sorry!)

"Well, yeah!" You heard Matt laughing in his office through the gap in the door. "And that's the part nobody thinks about!" Hearing him genuinely laugh made your heart happy. You recalled him telling you about an online interview he had today, so that explains all the South Park talk. You decided to finish folding the washing while listening in on his interview. It was always a trip for you when you remembered just how famous he was.

You continued to eavesdrop, listening to the interviewer ask the same old boring questions they always did.

"So, how did South Park come about?"

"Would you ever do a sequel to Team America?"

"Blah blah blah... BASEketball?"

You chuckled to yourself, seeing right through his nice guy act, prepared for him to complain to you the minute the interview was over. Then it caught your eye. The tiny but powerful phone-controlled vibrator he used on you at dinner last week. You pondered for a moment before shooting him a text.

hey, remember when u made me cum in front of all your employees last week

he replied almost instantly. Luckily, Trey was in the call and leading the conversation, so Matt could get away with this for now.

Not now doll x

yes now. move the camera away from the door

You heard him clear his throat, subtly turning his computer away from the door. You took the opportunity to slip in, crawling over to him on your hands and knees completely naked. He shot you a warning glance before returning his eyes to his screen, forcing out a well timed laugh. You situated yourself between his legs, unzipping his jeans as quietly as possible, watching the way his jaw clenched when you gently ran your fingers across his bulge.

For context, you, Matt, Trey, nearly all of the South Park Studios staff, and a large number of Comedy Central higher up's were out for a celebratory dinner. Of course, what nobody at that dinner knew was that Matt was a bit of a masochist, and in turn, it was safe to assume you were too. He loved to fuck with you in public, especially since he'd recently bought a bunch of phone controlled sex toys. As there were so many people at the table, he could torture you with sweet vibrations and fly completely under the radar. No one even noticed the way you were squirming in your seat, or the way you had to put all of your focus into your breathing. Nobody besides Trey of course, who just had to tell a few of their friends... Who then told a few of their friends. Before you knew it, half the table was watching you play off an orgasm while Matt acted oblivious to the situation. He played it off so well, nobody would've ever known that your nails were digging so deep in his thigh, you nearly drew blood.

You raised your open mouth to his clothed cock, breathing warmth onto the head, instantly excited by the way his brows furrowed in attempt to focus on anything but you. He reached his hand out to push your head away, and you could practically hear the blood rush to his cock when you took two of his fingers into your mouth. Satisfied with the cough he faked to mask his unsteady breathing, you hooked your fingers into his waistband and watched his dick spring out before you. Eyes hooded and hungry, you wrapped your hand around him and started working his length, thumb flitting over his slit to use his precum as lube. Though he was 'laughing' along with the other guys in the interview, you could see his nostrils flaring slightly, and feel his hand impatiently urging your lips toward his pulsating head.

You obviously understood, lips immediately wrapping around his length, taking him all the way into your mouth at an unrelenting pace. You loved watching him pretend to be unfazed around others; meanwhile, his fingers had a vice grip on your hair, pushing you impossibly further down until your nose connected with the small tuft of curly hair below his navel. You snaked a hand down to massage his balls, eyes carefully trained on his movements. He let out a big breath and played it off as a yawn, yet you watched his toes curl against the carpet.

You realised this wasn't necessarily payback, but rather an exhilarating boost for his secret sadistic persona. You decided this was going to go your way instead. You began making obscene and obnoxiously wet sucking sounds around him as if you were in a porno, loud enough that no doubt, all of his fans could hear. His eyes shot open, and he slammed his laptop shut.

"What the fuck was that, Y/N?" He growled angrily, ripping you up to your feet by your hair. His eyes were angry, and you couldn't help but chuckle to yourself. "It's not funny at all. You're gonna get me in trouble."

"Hey, it's fair game. I'm just getting you back for last week's dinner." You threw your hands up in self defence, smile faltering slightly when he grabbed your wrist tight and dragged you into your bedroom.

"On the bed, on your back." He commanded, but of course you were in the mood to stir the pot, so you just stared back dumbly. He sighed in annoyance, roughly grabbing you by your arms and forcing you back onto the bed. Excitement rose in your chest as you realised what was coming. If you pushed him hard enough, he'd often punish you for whatever you did. You had a safe word, not that you ever used it. You both loved pushing each others boundaries, seeing who would break first, who was willing to cross a line. For the two of you, the line was near impossible to breach, meaning he'd forgive you for this as long as he could watch you cry an apology.

Incredibly turned on by this side of Matt, you decided to oblige, laying in the centre of the bed with your arms and legs extended for him. You knew where this was going. He huffed under his breath at the desperate sight of you. Breath already laboured in excitement, twitching against the constraints he tied to you. You giggled at the sight of him, annoyed, flustered, and incredibly horny.

"Why are you laughing? Look at you," he taunted, scoffing at the state of you as he rummaged through a drawer of toys you'd bought together over the years. A grin stretched across his lips as he found what he was looking for; a black ball gag attached to leather straps that hugged two tacky metal hearts. You writhed against the constraints, feeling arousal pool between your thighs. You whimpered as he approached, making his way beside the bed. You went to say something to set him off, but were instantly cut off with rough fingers gripping your jaw.

"Open," he commanded flatly, shoving the ball gag in with such force, your eyes widened and a surprised moan was ripped from deep inside your chest. He moved down to remove the restraints from your legs, rubbing your already red ankles with a faux pout, teasing, "I know, baby, I know." You whimpered in a mix of arousal and anticipation, unsure of what he was going to do to you next. He pushed your legs up to your chest by your ankles, licking a flat stripe up your slit, causing your legs to jerk. He adjusted himself so he was holding both of your ankles in one of his large hands; the pain of your ankle bones rubbing together causing you to wince. Matt didn't care. He just used his free hand to roughly squeeze your breast, his warm fingers digging painfully deep into the soft flesh. He teased your clit with the tiniest, most underwhelming licks imaginable, his tongue barely making contact with the sensitive bud. You impatiently jerked your hips as best you could with his strong grip on you. His nose brushed your clit so deliciously, and it were times like this that you truly believed he was given that nose for a reason. However, this caused him to moving away from your aching heat, also releasing your ankles in the process. You whimpered at the lack of contact.

"You wanna get fucked that bad, huh?" He taunted, gripping your hips tight enough to leave fingertip shaped bruises. "So desperate... So needy."

Your wide eyes followed his every move, watching him climb off the bed to strip his clothes, before crawling back between your legs. Your breathing hitched under the gag as you felt his slender fingers collecting your slick, coating his cock with your arousal before lining himself up with your entrance. Even after all this time, you still needed his fingers to stretch you before you had sex. Not that he was astronomically big, no. Just... painfully, painfully thick. Thanks to the little stunt you pulled, he was ramming into you with no warning.

You practically screamed, eyes screwed shut, teeth digging into the gag that muffled every sound you made. "Fuuuuuck," Matt let out a low groan that sounded so pretty, your stomach to flipped. He continued fucking you as if you were his personal toy, your legs up over his shoulders at this point. Sounds of your muffled moans, Matt's laboured breathing, and wet squelching accompanied by the clap of skin on skin echoed through the room in an orchestra of pleasure. He raised a hand, brazenly bringing it down to collide with your ass with a loud smack. Tears of pleasure and pain formed at your waterline as your eyes rolled back, Matt not once slowing his pace. You could feel him hitting that dizzying spot inside you repeatedly with so much force, you were sure he'd bust a hole in your cervix. Your wrists were tugging against the restraints tied to your bedposts, your head rhythmically hitting the headboard. Tears began to stream down your face, your cries muffled by the ball gag, the only noises coming from you sounded pathetic and strangled.

He finally halted his pace, briefly breaking out of his sadistic demeanour to pull the gag out of your mouth. "Do you want me to stop?" He asked, genuinely concerned.

To which you replied in the whiniest, most desperate tone ever, with tears continuing to stream down your cheeks, "I swear to god, Matthew, if you stop I will fucking leave you."

The next thing you knew, the gag was back in your mouth and he was fucking you harder than he had ever fucked anyone. You continued to sob, your tears rolling down your cheeks, drenching your hair and the pillow beneath you. Matt swiped a tear away with his thumb, sucking the salty liquid pleasure from it with a grin. His other hand was still firmly gripping your hip, guiding you up and down his length.

You couldn't even form words, let alone sounds at this point. You were so deep in pleasure that your jaw slackened around the gag, eyes rolling to the back of your head completely, legs spasming around him as you experienced the most intense orgasm you'd ever had. Your voice came back just as you reached your high, chanting his name like a mantra as he removed the gag from your mouth.

Whiney, fucked out cries of "oh, Matt! Matt, Matt, fuck! You feel so gooood." He watched as tears continued to stream down your face, never having seen you in this much pleasure before. His orgasm seemed to sneak up on him too, abruptly painting the inside of your walls with thick, hot ribbons of lust. He slowly pulled out, resting his sweaty forehead against yours, your hearts bashing against each of your ribcages in unison.

"Baby?" You began breathlessly, receiving a half-assed hum in response from an exhausted Matt. "Can you, uh... untie me?"

3 New Messages From: Trey Parker

You two are unbelievable dude...

Just because you left the room doesn't mean we couldn't hear you in the call

How the fuck am I supposed to explain this to Anne??

Guess he didn't shut the laptop properly.... You're gonna get it for that.

[hot-take-tournament]

let's all just forget the last 2-3 hours - here's a birthday poll!

HOT TAKE TOURNAMENT

TOURNAMENT OVERTIME #184

Submission 603

Birthdays are Not Good

You get sung at. It's the one day where it is completely impossible to blend into the background- even PRESENTATIONS cannot possibly be compared to the agony that is having a day that everyone is like "oh hey its you happy birthday". At the end of the day you're left with many many gifts that you aren't ever going to use and an even more numerous amount of guilt at not ever using those, and you need to thank people and compose decent sentences to thank them WITH, and figure out what to do with the gifts and what to write to the people who sent THOSE gifts and it's just... a whole ordeal I have little patience for. I have tried asking people not to give me gifts and I keep getting them anyway. Everyone seems to think that you are going to do something big and exciting and that that's the default for a birthday, and honestly I'm very paranoid that people will think I'm being rude for not having a birthday party but that's unrelated to this justification. And then even when you DO have a birthday party you need complete the task of curating a guest list and making sure nobody is annoyed that they're not invited, and picking a place and notifying people and making sure that people CAN attend and oh my god. I respect the opinions of people who do in fact celebrate their birthdays and enjoy the celebrations, and I WILL force myself to act as social as I can because you deserve it, but I personally cannot stand the idea of having a day that I need to act social on since I'm the center of attention. ((Also getting the happy birthday song sung at you is not fun, but what's worse is telling people not to sing it because it's the NORM why.))

If you were born near Christmas or a sibling, vote the first option.

Anyway, propaganda is always encouraged, and remember to reblog your favourite polls for exposure and invite everyone you know to your birthday except fo-

This blog's birthday is July 8th!

[insomniacsystem]

Azrael and Ashton pre and post bein held as POWs by Barkov aka when they meet again after Ash fakes his death and they both join SC.

As always at this point Bases by: @mellon-soup

It's been ages since I wrote anything but take a lil writing snippet for the second picture↓

Let's just say Azrael had been having a rough few days; his desk is chock-full of paperwork that he's slowly ending up more and more behind on as even more piles up, and his rookies keep causing damn issues left and right. And worst of all, it was November, the shittiest damn month Azrael could think of. At least when it comes To his mental health that is. And, of course, as always, he hadn't told anyone about it. And he's pretty sure only Graves, Vance and a few other higher-ups are really the only ones who'd know why as they likely would have access to what the SAS would actually give them in terms of the documents detailing his capture because, of course, their stupid secrets mattered more than his superiors being informed…

Azrael sighed, carrying his coffee down to his office, his eyes half-lidded, looking as if he'd barely slept yet again, but that was normal this time of year. They were already a day into the anniversary of his capture, the second day out of a week and a half. It's not exactly surprising he hadn't slept despite the scoldings he'd always get from everyone. But really, I mean, how was he supposed to sleep with his nightmares waking him up constantly? He'd rather just start work at 3 am like he is now than focus on the lingering sensations he feels over his skin. He shakes his head, trying to shake away the thoughts, yelping as he runs into another Shadow, his hot coffee running down his clothes as his mug shatters on the floor, a pained hiss escaping his throat at the burning sensation.

“Christ-! Do you mind being a bit more-” Azrael's heart stops in his chest the moment his eyes meet an eerily familiar shade of green still having to look up at the much taller redhead just like he used to. For a moment, Azrael is completely and utterly convinced he's losing his mind. He hadn't properly slept in 24 hours, and suddenly, he was literally running into long-dead men.

The lieutenant takes a few shakey steps back almost stumbling as he stares at Ashton the older, very different looking Ashton his stupid fucking ex-fiance who was supposed to be dead… and here he was, His hair now straightened out no longer in the firey red natural curls he remembered.. God he even has the piercings he'd constantly ranted about wanting but that he'd always too scared to get due to his mother and her controlling religious abuse… he wasn't dead… Ash. wasn't. dead.

“You- you… fuck no- god, you're kidding me. You're actually fucking with me right now! right…?” Azrael forces out trying desperately to hide the shaking of his voice behind his frustration, his breathing picking up before he can even notice it.

“Shit-! Rhys sweetheart I can explain alright- fuck you weren't supposed to be here-” Ashton stammers out practically stumbling over himself as he tries to explain and apologize immediately attempting to pull Azrael into a hug, something that probably would have worked 10 fucking years ago but, not now not anymore, hell Azrael could barely place the last time he let someone hug him by now.

Azrael pushes his gloved hand against Ashton's chest stopping the taller man in his tracks, an unrelenting cold glare in his eyes as he stares up at the man he used to love ~~the man he still loves~~. A glare Azrael knows damn well he doesn't actually mean he can't actually hate Ash not even now…

“Don't. Touch. Me… And It's Azrael nobody calls me Rhys anymore, and I don't want you to either. now get wherever the hell you're going-” Azrael has to Pause, glancing at Ash’s dog tags and finding his rank. “Get wherever the hell you're going, Sergeant, and fast…” The lieutenant forces the words out as a growl, desperately trying to hide the fact he felt like breaking down.

The smaller man pushes past Ash harshly, walking towards his office as fast as he can manage inconspicuously, his hands clenching and unclenching tightly as he walks slamming his office door shut behind him and locking it tightly. Finally, he lets himself sink to the ground with a choked sob, still fighting back his tears even now that he's alone, burying his face in his knees and just trying to breathe…

[chaoticdelinqueerwithglitter]

Reborn Again (and again and again)

(Sanzu's bday fic with tones of angst)

(Bonten HaruMai)

It's been a while since I posted my fics here bc no spoons kept my away of tumblr ( I'm gonna try to post all of them and they are always on ao3!)

But.... Sanzu Haruchiyo birthday seems like the perfect occasion for this!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY LIL PINK GREMLIN, I LOVE YOU DEARLY AND YOU DESERVE THE WORLD! (but I'm gonna give you angst and a lap full of Mikey, oopsie?)

(link to ao3 in case someone wants to read it there)

Summary: Sanzu remembers his last birthday, bittersweet memories that keep his delusions afloat.

And of course, he'll never lose his faith in his king.

(even when Mikey's eyes are completely devoid of all emotion)

Warnings: Manga Spoilers (Bonten timeline, so yeah), Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Suicide, Mental Health Issues (issues is an understatement xD), Toxic Codependent Relationship, Heavily Depressed Mikey, Burn Out Sanzu, Unrequited Delusional Love, and idk, is Bonten they are so totally not fine and it shows, okay?

Yeah, this fic is an emotional roller coaster, it felt like it writing it and is not less of it as a reader (or I've been told that). Oh, Sanzu is sad and horny bc you can't tell me Bonten Mikey has energy to fuck (or live)

There is a part of the fic inspired on this art, bc Mikey sleeping on Haru's lap is for some reason precious to me 💜

Sanzu was bored, his feet kept tapping the ground, his mind drifting far away from here. He should be paying attention to his surroundings, guarding the building where his king was. 

Instead, he was lost in the memories of his last birthday, almost one year ago. Wondering if it would be different this time, if Mikey remembered his promise. He shook his head, immediately feeling guilty for daring to doubt it. Of course he did, Sanzu was only feeling insecure, nothing new. 

(He had to repeat it as many times as necessary, to convince himself that Mikey’s eyes had not been completely devoid of all emotion for more than a month)

To be fair, the fact that Hangaki didn’t represent any type of threat to his king, wasn’t helping him focus on the present or to keep his thoughts from wandering back to the previous year.

Sanzu was having a shitty day. That wasn’t exactly unusual lately, he had become more and more tired during the last years few months. Exhausted would be the right word, but he couldn’t afford to rest, to even entertain the possibility that he should delegate some of his responsibilities to others if he didn’t want to end up completely burned out. But of course, he couldn't trust anyone else to perform his duties, so Sanzu was forced to continue stretching himself thin.

(If he was more honest with himself, he could admit that he had been falling apart for way too long. But he wasn’t, he couldn’t)

Whatever. He was used to it. He’s handled this weariness before — today wasn’t unique. He was a grown ass man, who definitely wouldn’t throw a tantrum just because everyone forgot it was his birthday. And twenty-seven wasn’t a memorable number either, so who cared? 

This was just Sanzu being salty, tonight's job took up more time than he anticipated, so he had to see Takeomi’s ugly face for way too long. Yeah, it was totally unrelated to the pang of jealousy he felt when he overheard the older man explaining to Kakucho how this week was special, since the anniversary of Senju’s death was close. He wasn’t that pathetic, to hold a grudge because, even now, his sister kept hogging all the attention.

(What sister? Sanzu was an only child, his own mind was playing tricks to him again)

He sighed, using his own set of keys to open the door of Mikey’s penthouse and trying to be as silent as possible. He was fully aware his king wouldn’t be sleeping — it was getting harder each day to convince him to even try it.

It was better to be quiet anyway, at least, until he had a clue of which mood he was going to find. Would it be one of those days of empty glares and cold words, where he was only ‘Sanzu’? Or…

“Haruchiyo?”

A weak whisper, but more than enough for him to quickly locate the source. Mikey was sitting on the sofa, completely in the dark except for the dim light that came through the window, proving the outside world was still there, uncaring and merciless. 

“Hey… I’m back.”

His heart sank when he got closer, finally noticing Mikey’s puffy eyes and his tear-streaked cheeks. He wanted nothing more than to comfort him, caress his beautiful face and erase any trace of pain in it. But he knew better. Years of walking on broken glass around his lover taught him better.

(Was ‘lover’ the right word? When he had to repress his own feelings, pretending there was no love in order to stay by Mikey’s side? Probably not)

“What’s wrong?” 

He asked cautiously, sitting on the nearest armchair. Mikey blinked a couple of times, looking at him in awe, almost like he was processing that Sanzu was really here.

“I thought you wouldn’t come tonight.” 

There was no point in reminding him that he could just text or call —that no matter what he was doing, Sanzu would leave it in a heartbeat to run to his king's side. Mikey was fully aware of it, but he refused to show this type of weakness.

“I’ll always come back to you, Mikey.”

He gave him a soft smile, hoping it was somehow reassuring. It seemed to work, considering the next moment he had a lap full of Mikey, wrapping his arms around Haruchiyo’s neck and hiding his face in it. He didn’t have to think twice before hugging him back and gently pulling the thin body closer.

“I’m sorry, the deal took longer than I thought.” 

A noncommittal hum was the only answer he received,  another sign that Mikey cared less every day about his own organization. It was fine, Sanzu could keep the gears turning and perfectly greased, waiting until his king was ready to step back in the game and take what was rightfully his. 

“But I’m here now, I’m right here…” 

His voice dripped with affection, his touch conveying the same feeling as he started to play with the white locks. The soft caresses spoke louder than the words he’ll never say. It was fine — he was good at hiding parts of himself, burying it with all his secrets.

(So many secrets, weighing him more every day, slowly drowning him until he couldn’t recognize his own reflection)

“You are.” Mikey finally lifted his head, looking at him like he was trying to figure out something. “Even if this morning…”

“No idea what you’re talking about.” 

It was a lie, they both knew it. Of course he remembered how detached his king had been, how disgusted he looked by his weak attempt at cuddling. The cold voice, clearly commanding him to disappear from his sight. ‘Don’t you have work to do, Sanzu?’

It was a lie, one of the many he carefully crafted for Mikey’s sake. There was no need to dwell on it when Sanzu wanted to comfort him, not burden him with guilt. Especially when the cause was his own inability to hide his stupid hopes and desires. 

“Apparently about nothing.”

“Yep, nothing at all.” He repeated, softly brushing a strand of hair out of Mikey’s eyes and kissing his forehead, earning a simper in return.

Wait, what? A smile? A coy one, small and probably easy to miss for anyone else. But not for him, Sanzu was able to spot the most subtle change in his king’s expression, and this wasn’t subtle. A genuine smile on Mikey’s face? And thanks to him? 

Sanzu’s inner turmoil disappeared. The fatigue that he constantly carried with him was gone too. Just like that, a simple gesture from his king, made everything better, all the problems more than worth it as long as it meant protecting these rare moments of happiness.

(A necessary reminder of why he kept fighting, always so restless, refusing to let go, reinventing himself over and over)

He leaned in to cross the small distance between their lips, kissing him slowly, wanting to savor the moment. There was no rush for once, and even if he longed for more, even if his body reacted to the closeness and the familiar taste, he knew too damn well Mikey’s libido had been practically nonexistent lately. 

No matter how much he yearned to go further, he’d take whatever his king offered to him without presumptions. For now, Sanzu was content with the way Mikey’s lips parted, allowing his tongue to explore freely. He couldn’t stop himself from moaning inside the kiss, realizing he sounded too desperate. 

Damn it, when was the last time they actually had sex? He couldn’t recall when it was, but he could clearly see the memories – the way Mikey whimpered in his ear, his body pressed against the shower wall… 

Fuck, he had to calm down before his own neediness tarnished this moment doing something stupid — Like pressing Mikey’s warm body down onto his growing erection, bucking his hips slightly, rubbing himself just enough to feel the friction against that tight ass he adored so much… Stop it, brain!

“Sorry…”

Sanzu pulled away from the kiss with a flustered face, looking at Mikey with glossy eyes and pressing their foreheads together, still catching his breath. 

“Why are you apologizing, Haruchiyo?” There was a sad undertone in his voice that didn't go unnoticed. “It’s me, I can’t even give you that, you should…” 

“Don’t go there.” He gently placed a finger in front of the other’s lips. “I don’t need it, okay? I can live perfectly fine without fucking.”

“But you want it.” Mikey deadpanned. 

“Of course I do, because you’re gorgeous and I can’t help feeling attracted to you.” He gave him a soft peck. “And that’s on me, you don’t owe me anything, alright? Having you in my arms like this is already the best birthday gift I could ever wish for.”

“What?!” 

“Nothing.” It was too late — he knew as soon as he saw Mikey’s eyes widening in a mix of surprise and clarity.

“Fuck, it’s July… That’s not nothing!” He groaned in frustration. “Did you get to celebrate it at least?” 

Judging by the way Mikey looked at him, the answer to this was probably written in his face. That was the exact reason why he didn’t tell him, to absolve him of the guilt, to prevent him from falling deeper into self-loathing. 

“It’s okay, we can still celebrate it together if you want-”

“It's not even your birthday anymore.” 

His rage was icy cold, Sanzu was sure the temperature of the whole room dropped a few degrees. Suddenly he was freezing, despite the anger not being directed at him for once. 

“Then we don’t? It’s not a big deal, really, there will be other occasions. It happens every year, right?” His gaze stared at him with disbelief. “What? I’m serious, I don’t need some fancy ass shit, this is already perfect.”

“Haruchiyo…” Whatever his king wanted to say, the way Sanzu hugged him tighter seemed to change his mind. Instead, he sighed, burying his face on the crook of his neck. “Fine. Next year?”

“Next year it is.” 

He started to stroke his hair once again, wanting to leave this conversation behind. It was true, his day got infinitely better the moment Mikey sat on his lap and hugged him. Sanzu couldn’t ask for more, because there was nothing but him.

“I won’t forget it, I promise.” 

Sanzu gasped at the honesty in those words, a lump in his throat that threatened to make him cry, touched by his king making a promise to him. It wasn’t going to happen, he couldn’t put his own burden on Mikey, it was his to bear alone. 

(Alone and isolated inside of his own mind)

“I know you won’t Mikey, I believe in you.” 

He whispered with raw devotion. He will never lose his faith in Mikey, because as long as his king kept breathing… Everything was possible. 

Sanzu smiled softly, melting slightly with the memory of how Mikey ended falling asleep on his lap, of how he made sure to stay still, to not interrupt the other’s dreams. If he closed his eyes, he could see how perfect Mikey looked when he woke up hours later, well rested for once. The way his face lit up when he saw that Sanzu was still there, hugging him for hours and making sure he was comfortable. He could even feel the lingering sensation of his lips on his own… Damn it, how could he miss Mikey so much when they were almost living together?

(It was due to Mikey fading in front of him, disappearing somewhere out of his reach. No, he couldn’t admit that)

He sighed, frustrated with himself. He was doing it again, yearning instead of being grateful for what he was given. 

A sudden change in the white noise from nearby pedestrians forced him to snap out of his inner turmoil. He lifted up his head, scanning the surroundings to find the source of the commotion. 

Sanzu’s eyes widened with panic, the world went silent. Except for the echo of his own delusions shattering into thousand pieces, ringing in his ears for a split second that lasted for ages.

“Mikey?!!”

[shinycollarboneapologist]

thinking about you and matty pining for each other for months until one day it gets too much and one thing leads to another your fucking and he’s so rough with you and it’s the best sex you’ve ever had GOD i’m feral

this .. is right up my alley. i love a good friends to lovers.

it was supposed to be a song writing session. something easy and simple and a feat the both of you have overcome before. but he's sat there, tongue poking through is plush lips and fingers fiddling with the pencil in his hand as his other hand gently traces over the manuscript paper. you've been staring at him for a few minutes now, thighs pressed together and heart racing. he looks so good when he's focused. sooo good. and the thoughts in your head no longer mirror the goofy little images of you and him wrapped up together watching movies on your couch. or the blush that rose from his neck everytime you say his name. its been months (you were introduced by sir. jack antonoff himself after the wrap of bfiafl, hitting it off and quickly becoming two peas in a very cramped pod) of back and forth and waiting for him (or you) to muster up the courage to make the first move. you're both stagnant though. maybe he gets up to go get something, you don't realize as you also get up. you're both sat so close together that you basically almost collide. he steadies you, hands resting on your arms for a little too long awakening a fire under your skin. you expect him to recoil away as if he had been burnt, but he doesn't. instead he just stares down at you, eyes piercing your own. and you swallow hard. he notices, and you swear if he leaned in any closer he would be able to hear your heart beating against your ribs. he does lean in though and when his lips capture yours, you're not sure you can remember the next time you pull away. its fast, heated and he's taking your clothes and his own off before either of you can process what's happening. its not until he's above you, taking you apart (with his fingers first) with his cock buried deep inside of you and thumb rubbing incescenantly on your clit that you are pulled from your matty induced haze. the only sounds heard in the room are the repeated slamming of his hips into yours, hard and fast and the gruff whispers in your ear "been waiting so long for this" "tell me how bad you wanted this, could see it." "you're taking it so well, being so good for me" "let me hear you, pretty baby." he's all encompassing, surrounding you and spearing into you. "can feel you clenching around me, want you to beg me to cum. let me hear it" his free hand is gripping at your hair from the roots, pulling your head back from his neck and forcing you to look at him. "can you do that for me?" and of course you do, your strained pleas falling fast and melting into the air as they pass through your lips. he;s smirking at you, "go ahead baby." and as you fall into the bliss of your orgasm, he doesn't relent. his hips are still snapping quickly against your own at a bruising pace. as quickly as you fell before, you're falling into a pit of another unrelenting climax. the waves are bleeding into each other. he doesn't let up until he falls into his own pit of pleasure, and you're both left panting messes, the manuscripts and scribbled lyrics long forgotten as he leans down and presses his lips to yours gently. its a complete antithesis of the way he was manipulating your body before. and he giggles, breathlessly. not to quote miss swift, but it's been a long time coming.

[samcarpentersgirlfriend]

hii, can you please do a liv mckenzie x fem!reader headcanon? like, an enemies to lovers where liv doesn’t like reader at first, then slowly falls for her. thank you sm <33

thank you for the request, writing for liv is so fun <3 hopefully this is what you wanted!!

ENEMIES TO LOVERS HCS || LIV MCKENZIE X READER 𖤐₊˚.

warnings: swearing, fem!reader, mentions of reader wearing makeup, a little bit of chad bashing but it’s just for story purposes… I love him i promise <3 I’ve never done enemies to lovers before so sorry if anything feels off or rushed

⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦ ⊹

- the funny thing is, nobody even really remembers why you and liv are seemingly incapable of getting along together.

- all anybody knows is that innocent conversations within the group slowly divulge into petty arguments between you and liv, snarky comments exchanged constantly.

- for example, one time, a conversation about where everybody wanted to eat quickly turned into a utterly unrelated spat.

- “liv, did you even listen to a fucking word I said just then?”

- “no, because every word you say is stupid!”

- “wow, harsh. how long did it take you to come up with that one, hannah montana?”

- “you know, I’m not stupid. maybe if you got off of your high horse and stopped judging me for once-

- “why should I, when you make it so easy! besides, if you want to talk about judgemental…”

- chad and wes think the two of you’ll work it out eventually, tara doesn’t understand why you can’t just be real friends, amber thinks the bickering is completely entertaining (and instigates most of the time) and mindy thinks you both just need to make up (and make out).

- from why you can tell, liv thinks you’re a prissy, pretentious know-it-all.

- and from what liv can tell, you take her for a shallow party girl with more mini-skirts than brain cells.

- you both try your hardest to avoid each other, but seeing as she was dating chad and tara had been your best friend since you’d moved to woodsboro, so were forced to run in the same circle - because why should one of you have to make new friends just to avoid her?

- but it seems the universe just seems to hate the two of you - because you were forced together constantly.

- you have to sit next to eachother in chemistry and art, and you both live practically right next next door to each other- meaning you walked the same route and, when wes would offer to give you all a ride home, you’d be huddled in the back seat with liv whilst everybody else got dropped off first.

- and you mean huddled; you’d be so close that your legs were touching and you could smell her perfume (it was infuriatingly perfect and reminded you of strawberries and summer and warmth - not that you’d ever tell liv that, though).

- when she’s feeling particularly annoying, liv has a habit of flashing you her most shit eating grin - mostly because she knows it irritates the living hell out of you.

- seriously, most of the time, you want nothing more than to wipe it straight off of her face.

- “liv, I swear, if you don’t stop that right now…”

- “what are you gonna do about it, huh? we both know you’re not gonna stop me- that would require little miss princess to lift a perfect finger!”

- but fine, whatever. she could be as immature as she wanted - you weren’t going to rise to her bait - except from all the times you did, obviously. you regarded yourself as being better than that.

- arguing over partner work in class, and making sure liv knew when you’d scored higher than her in a test.

- really, it was just all pettinesses - but in your defence, it was always liv that started it (at least, you think it is - nowadays, it’s rather difficult to keep track).

- one friday night, when the rest of your family was out of town, you’d thought you’d invite a few people over.

- though, of course, when chad and mindy were involved, a few people turned into practically half of the school.

- seriously, your house was filled to the brim with people you didn’t even recognise - which meant you inevitably bumped into someone and, just your luck, spilt the entire contents of your drinks down the front of your shirt.

- and aw, damn it, you’d liked that shirt. so you were forced to go upstairs in an attempt to find something else to put on - except, when you open your bedroom door, the last person you expect to see is liv mckenzie.

- a crying liv mckenzie, nonetheless, sitting on your bed as mascara runs down her pretty face. and as bad as it sounds, a part of you is tempted to pretend you saw nothing and creep back down to the party, stained shirt and all.

- the thing is though, deep down, you know that it wouldn’t be right - no matter how much you and liv tended to disagree.

- you uncomfortably shuffle beside her as she looks up from her spot on your floor, all teary eyed.

- “shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude in your room. I can go-“

- liv apologising to you is never a good sign, so you catch her arm and slowly urge her to sit back down, imploring what’s wrong.

- “it’s chad! he fucking dumped me- he says there’s somebody else! you know what, I bet it’s tara- I’ve seen the way the look at each other! god, how could I be so stupid?”

- and, oh. you though chad and tara were a little touchy-feely, but you’d never suspected it was like that. and you’d definitely thought chad had more decorum that to dump liv at a party for one of her best friends. god, what a moron.

- you tell liv exactly that - albeit a little awkwardly - and she gives you a smile at that. a real smile.

- “you really think he’s a moron?”

- “yeah. moron, asshole, whatever you want to call him- that was totally shitty of him! and you deserve better than that - better than him.”

- so you change your shirt and sheepishly, you offer to help liv fix hey ruined makeup. and when your fingers brush against her skin as you apply a fresh layer of concealer to her face, you definitely don’t feel jolts of electricity run down your spine. you don’t.

- but you do go to bed that night, after everybody else has finally left, replaying that rare, real smile on a loop in your mind. and you try not to think about what that means.

- and after that night, you make more of an effort. you really, honestly do.

- because when you aren’t too wrapped up in yourself to notice, you realise that liv doesn’t exactly have it easy within the group, what with mindy and amber’s apparent dislike for her as well as your own.

- and sure, she was irritating at times, but that didn’t mean everybody had to call her out on it, right?

- you don’t magically get along immediately - how could you, after months of pointless arguments? - but you seemed to have forged a civil, unspoken agreement; you were the only ones who could insult each other now.

- and even then, insult was too harsh of a word - the jabs became more light hearted, and you slowly found yourself often laughing in retort instead of being on the immediate defensive.

- as much as it pained you to admit it, you start to find yourself often having actual, genuine fun with liv.

- which somehow, happens to lead to the pair of you spending more one-on-one time.

- and before you know it, you’re suddenly going to the mall together, picking out clothes for yourself and each other.

- you find yourself visiting to a lot of museums too, because as it turns out, liv has a total interest in all types of art - and god, who would’ve expected that? maybe you, if you’d actually taken a chance to get to know her when you first met her.

- you start to notice a lot of things about her that you never had in the past: the way she pouted when she was confused, the way she fiddled with her jewellery when she was nervous, and the way most of her necklaces were completely handmade.

- the more you found out about her, the more you wanted to know.

- the first confession between the two of you comes when you were hanging out in a cafe near your houses.

- “you know, I never really hated you,” liv randomly says into the quiet as you take a long sip of your milkshake. “I thought you were annoying as hell, but I never hated you. we just irritated each other- that’s the way it always was with us.”

- you take a second before you speak yourself. “you know, I don’t think I ever really hated you either. hell, I can’t even remember why I was supposed to dislike you in the first place.”

- the realisation is so stupid that you can’t help but laugh, and suddenly, everybody else in the place is staring at the two of you as you giggle over the ridiculous nature of it all.

- by then, the two of you are inseparable. liv even seems to be getting over chad, and she doesn’t even flinch when she sees him and tara holding hands.

- you know the two of you have really bonded when amber comments on your newly discovered friendship, saying how weirdly quiet it is without the bickering and that she wishes you’d hate each other again.

- you both pointedly ignore that comment - well, liv does give her the finger, but that’s neither here nor there :)

- the real confession - rather ironically - comes in the place where you realised that liv mckenzie wasn’t as bad as you’d thought she was; your bedroom. you’re both sprawled out on the bed, legs messily intertwined, as liv flicks through some shitty magazine and declares that she’s found a makeup look that she wants to try out on you.

- “come on, it’ll be funnn!” she promises, and she looks so adorably desperate that you can’t help but give in to her.

- and before long, you find yourself fully vertical on the bed, with liv somehow ending up practically straddling you as she paints your eyes and lips a bright pink .

- “stop moving,” - she warns, so close that you’re breathing in that perfume or hers again. you take a breath, and if fills your lungs once more. “seriously!” she says as you stir, dragging a thumb slowly across the bottom of your lip. “see, you’re smudging it!”

- you don’t care about that, though. it doesn’t even cross your mind. no, instead you’re too focused on how you can see the brilliant blue of liv’s eyes perfectly from this angle, how her pretty pink hair tickles your throat as it spills over her shoulders. how soft her lips look from down here.

- you’ve barely even registered what you’re doing before you’re suddenly leaning up, your lips pressed against hers in an instant. you know she’s not expecting it, what with the way her body tenses up and she all but drops the brush in her hand.

- and no. you’ve gone and ruined it all, you’ve kissed liv and why would you do that because she’s never going to talk to you again and you didn’t even know you liked her like that and-

- and she’s kissing you back, and it’s absolutely perfect. it’s everything you’d never known you were missing in life, and you can’t help but wonder that if you hadn’t wasted all that time arguing, you could e been doing a hell of a lot more of this a damn lot sooner.

- but you just promise yourself you’ll have to make up for all of that wasted time <3

- when you walk into school the next day, hands interlocked, amber nearly throws up, tara gives you a cautious thumbs up, and mindy - well, mindy said it was just a matter of time, and declared that wes owes her 15 bucks.

⊹₊┈ㆍ┈ㆍ┈ㆍ✿ㆍ┈ㆍ┈ㆍ┈₊⊹

(had to insert THE iconic wlw reference pic I was thinking of when I wrote this)

[tsarisfanfiction]

Eclipse: Chapter 18

Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Teen Genre: Family/Adventure Characters: Apollo, Hades Another fun chapter I absolutely loved writing~ Completely unrelated, this chapter also comes with a bit of an ichor warning. I have a discord server for all my fics, including this one!  If you wanna chat with me or with other readers about stuff I write (or just be social in general), hop on over and say hi! <<Chapter 17

HADES XVIII Too Many Curses and Too Much Pain

They were not fortunate.

Apollo’s warning was sharp, and the snap of his bowstring followed immediately as he loosed an arrow at the shape that came hurtling out of the trees.  Hades’ hand gripped the hilt of his sword tightly, and grimaced as a shriek announced that the arrow had struck its target.

“I said not to kill,” he scolded, but Apollo seemed unaffected as he nocked another arrow.

“I didn’t kill,” the younger god replied.  “It wasn’t a fatal shot.”  As if to prove his point, he fired another one as the shape lunged again.  “This is the home of the Curses?”

Hades wasn’t sure why Apollo felt the need to ask, but humoured him regardless.  It had been a long time since the Arai had last left Tartarus to inflict curses upon the living.  “It is.  Do not kill them.”

“Or they impart the curses your foes have unleashed upon you,” Apollo finished, his eyes smouldering.  “I remember.”

Remember what, Hades wondered, but brushed the errant thought to one side.  The Arai were not known for assailing gods – indeed, the gods had often used them, or at least let them pass unchallenged, when they wished to punish a particularly obnoxious mortal.  However, he and his brothers had learned the hard way that they could, in fact, target gods.

Zeus had never been claustrophobic, to Hades’ recollection, but when one curse had struck him down and compressed him as though he was trapped inside-

The worst thing about that particular curse was that Hades still had no idea who had cursed Zeus to be consumed like the rest of them.  It could have been their father, but it could equally have been any of their siblings, in a moment of jealous rage.  Hades himself had more than once muttered something to the effect of his youngest brother not knowing what it was like.  With the knowledge of how Zeus had changed over the years, paranoia creeping in and turning him cruel in his fear, Hades felt less sorry about it now, but at the time there had been an unease that he might have inadvertently inflicted his own pain on the only brother that had escaped it.

He did not impart this story upon his nephew; despite the cavernous abyss that had yawned into existence between himself and his youngest brother since then, there were still some things Hades would not betray.

Besides there was a more pressing matter at hand; how to escape the Arai now their attention had been caught.  Truthfully, Hades did not remember how, exactly, they had fled the first time.  He suspected they had killed them all and suffered the curses until they wore off, but that was hardly an ideal solution.

A flap of wings exploded into existence directly in front of him, and Hades jumped back, out of range of the lashing claws and talons belonging to the Arai assailing him.  She was unmistakably a sister of the Erinyes, with similar lines to her face and the same wicked grin Alecto bore when she unleashed her wrath upon Sisyphus and her other favourite victims within the Fields of Punishment.

None of the Furies had laid eyes upon Hades with such vindictive glee in their expressions, however, and Hades was forced to duck and weave as she lashed at him again, and again.  More wings rustled, and he moved faster, dodging the second, and then the third, and the fourth Arai as they descended upon him.

Off to one side, he could hear Apollo’s bowstring singing as he let arrows loose, and the shrieks of hit Arai as they were struck – if it were any archer than one of the Twins, Hades would fear a misfire killing one and inflicting their borne curse upon the younger god, but if nothing else, he could hold belief in Apollo’s aim.

He also had to mind his own aggressors, rather than letting his attention be caught by how Apollo was faring.  His Helm was designed to conceal his presence utterly, but daughters of the Night hellbent on passing on the curses of the no doubt thousands of souls who had taken umbrage with him at one point or other appeared to track using something other than sight as their claws dug into his armour.

Loud shrieks merged with the distant screams from the Acheron, causing a ringing sound of dissonance that Hades disliked intensely.  He also disliked the words the Arai spat in his direction – promises of torment, of agony and finding out what it was like to be the one stuck in eternal torture.

It did not surprise Hades in the slightest that many of the curses levelled at him came from the punished souls from his realm, who sought to break free and take their vengeance on him and any other soul involved in their eternal punishment.

He could not cut the Arai down, for fear of unleashing the curses upon himself, so he used the flat of his blade to swat them away, breaking wings and arms and claws with each hit but forced to hold back from a fatal hit.

Non-lethal defences could only hold the myriad of curses at bay for so long.

Apollo cried out.

Hades slapped away the nearest Arai and ploughed his way directly to his nephew’s side; ichor was dripping down one side of his face, deep gouges from claws narrowly missing his eye.  By itself, it was hardly an injury to faze a god – Hades had seen Apollo weather far worse in his existence, and that was before he included anything from Tartarus – but the physical injury was not the concern.

The death of the Arai was not the only way they could impart their curses.

What curse had taken hold of Apollo, Hades could not tell.  From the way he snapped another arrow into existence on his string and levelled another shot at an Arai’s wing, downing her immediately, it did not seem to be a serious one – some curses could be nothing put pettiness – but the flock of Arai sensed weakness, and struck.

Distracted by Apollo’s state, Hades almost failed to notice the Arai lashing at the back of his neck; when he did register it, the claws skimming at his form, he twisted around and slashed with his blade before common sense could override instinct.

The Arai burst into dust and the curse slammed into Hades like the rampaging Sow, stunning him for an instant as he waited for it to bloom into existence.

The last time, the curses that had been inflicted upon him had been unbearable torment, to the point he had forcibly banished them from his recall.  Doubtless, they had been from the Titans, uttered on their dying breaths as Hades and his siblings had defeated them, with an agonising cruelty to match.

This time, Hades braced for more of the same.

Nothing happened.

He could feel the curse, thrumming away on the edge of his essence, but it seemed unable to activate.  A cautious flare of his essence had it dissolving away into nothing, much to his confusion.

There was no time to dwell on the strange phenomenon, however.  The Arai had not ceased their relentless attack after a single death, and Hades was forced to resume defending himself, the unease set aside but not forgotten as he continued to bat the daughters of Nyx away with the flat of his blade.

Another sound, this time a grunt, came from Apollo, and he caught sight of a flash of gold as the archery god’s bow fell to the ground.  Deep gouges this time tore through the younger god’s bicep, ichor flowing freely down his arm.  It did not appear to faze Apollo, who punched an Arai away from himself with his bare hands before scooping his bow up once more, but the cackling of the Arai unnerved Hades.

“No archery!” one declared.  Her laugh was hoarse, as though it came from the wizened old throat of a mortal who should have let Thanatos take them decades earlier.  “No archery, son of Zeus.”

Sparing only the bare minimum of his awareness to the Arai targeting him, Hades found most of his attention focused on Apollo as he nocked another arrow and draw the bow back, only to falter almost immediately.

“What?” his nephew asked, his voice a little gasp of surprise which quickly turned to horror.

“What happened?” Hades barked out, slamming a trio of Arai away with his blade and moving so that he was back to back with his nephew, blasting away another Arai headed for Apollo’s rear.

“I- I can’t draw it back!” Apollo exclaimed, his voice descending into a wail that Hades was fairly certain had been unintentional.  “The string won’t move!”

Whoever had cursed Apollo to lose his archery was a mystery to be solved at a later date.  “Then fight without it!” Hades snapped at him.  “Did you or did you not once defeat Ares in a wrestling match?”

“But-”

“Phoebus Apollo!” he thundered, interrupting his nephew’s panicked protest.  “Now is not the time to freak out.  Fight.  The curse-”

Talons caught the side of his neck, his attention having wandered too far for too long, and the cackling of the Arai filled his ears as ice flooded his essence.

“Hades?” Apollo asked; there was a desperation in his voice all of a sudden.

“Fight,” he growled out, slashing out at the Arai responsible for the ichor dripping down onto his shoulder.  It was only when she burst into dust that he realised he hadn’t used the flat of his blade.  “By the Fates,” he cursed, then choked on nothing as the ice continued to coil within him, freezing him from the inside out.

He knew exactly who had placed this curse, but the knowledge did not help prevent it.

“Daughter-thief!” the Arai cried, and Hades felt his legs shudder, felt himself stumble.

“Uncle?” Apollo’s voice had leapt up several tones – what did his nephew call it, again?  An octave?  A warm back pressed against his own, burning against the ice within, and a noise tore itself from Hades’ throat.

It was not a scream.  Hades did not scream, even when the full brunt of his eldest sister’s fury upon the world was focused solely into his essence.  It was, however, an admission of great discomfort, and he felt Apollo still for a brief moment before his nephew tore away.

A roar of rage came from behind him, and the shrieks of the Arai shifted away from delight into something more raw, more primal, to match the wrath of Apollo.

Hades wasn’t entirely certain what had provoked it; perhaps he had been hit by another curse.  He had no time to ponder, however.  The coldest depths of winter the Overworld had ever experienced wrapped him in a crushing embrace and he could barely keep his grip on his blade as he swung it at the ever-approaching Arai.

Dust showered him, the edge of the blade catching more than the flat, and curse after curse crashed into him.  Some – several – dissipated much in the same way as the first, gnawing fruitlessly on the edges of his essence, but not all, and Hades found unbearable pain biting wherever the winter didn’t reach.

Apollo’s fury was a background roar, not comforting because nothing could be a comfort when the curses of all those that had ever, for however fleeting a moment, wished ill upon Hades surrounded him, but a reminder that he was not alone.  He had not been alone last time, and he was not alone this time, even if water gargled out of his mouth and his limbs trembled as lightning coursed through them.

He could hardly blame his brothers when he, too, had muttered many curses towards them in his darkest days, but after his last time handling the Curses, when it was those same brothers who had covered his back, the sting of betrayal was raw.

Now, his back was being covered by his nephew.  There was no familiar song of a bowstring, a curse stripping Apollo of one of his core skills, one of his first, if Hades recalled correctly, but there were shouts and grunts and the sound of impact as one thing struck another.

Until the shouts silenced.

Hades slashed another Arai in half, feeling a wave of scorching heat roll over him – Hyperion, perhaps, or maybe Hephaestus had a bad day in the forge several centuries ago? – and whirled around to see his nephew clutching at his throat with one ichor-coated hand, eyes wide.

Slowly – glacially – Hades crossed the brief distance between them and slashed away an Arai that lunged forwards.  The Curses numbers had not dwindled in the slightest, despite how many he had cut down.

“Fight,” he repeated to his nephew.  The sound he got in response was grating – a descriptor that barely scratched the surface of how terrible it was to hear.

It was a cacophony of every broken instrument Hades had ever had the misfortune to hear, and then multiple more besides, discordant and clashing in a way that physically hurt to hear.  An orchestra of the damned, torn from the hoarsest throat to ever exist.

Apollo flinched as if the sound pained him – if it pained Hades, there was no doubt it pained the god of music.

“Fight,” was all Hades could say, because until the curses stopped coming, they could not even begin to attempt to lift them.

He didn’t remember how long it had taken the effects to wear off last time, but they must have done.

Lightning sparked in his legs and he stumbled again, crashing down to one knee.  Apollo let out another of the hideous gargle-shrieks and stumbled forwards, one fist colliding with an Arai aiming to gouge Hades’ eyes out.

With a grunt, Hades hauled himself to his feet again, mumbling complaints against his siblings – only Hestia, it seemed, had not inflicted some form of curse upon him, based on the phantom bites of beaked creatures with resplendent tail feathers representing Hera’s own frustrations – and awkwardly staggered until he was once again back to back with his nephew.

Short of killing all of the Arai and suffering the full force of all the curses, he had no idea how they were going to escape.  His vision was swarmed with flapping wings no matter where he looked, and against his back Apollo was shaking.

Hades was shaking, too, as the chill of winter and jolts of lightning continued to ravage him and he drowned again and again on dry land.  It hurt, to know that his siblings had cursed him, for all that he knew he’d cursed them, too.  Demeter, he understood – she had always been forthright in her fury over his relationship with her beloved daughter, and the curse clearly dated back to their original fight, before the truce.  His brothers, and Hera, he couldn’t place the timing.  It could have been millennia ago, or it could have been last week, for all he knew.

The Arai lunged at them again, and his sword joined Apollo’s fist in bashing them back, away even as Apollo’s chest heaved like a mortal starving of air and Hades’ grip on the hilt of his blade faltered.

The screams didn’t register above Apollo’s hoarse tormented cries and the shrieks of the Arai until Hades felt the ground beneath his feet falter and his balance wavered.  Next to him – they were no longer back to back, had shifted to side to side at some point between one curse and another – Apollo stumbled and realisation crashed over Hades.

He caught Apollo’s armour as his nephew overbalanced backwards, and normally that would be enough, but his physical form hadn’t been so wrecked since the last time he was in Tartarus and while his grip didn’t fail, his own balance did.  They toppled backwards together, Hades realising far too late that during their battle they had been herded backwards, away from the trees and towards something altogether more painful, and the screams began.

Hades couldn’t move.

Poseidon’s descriptions of the full viciousness of the Acheron in Tartarus had been woefully inadequate.  Every molecule of Hades’ being was set alight, freezing and sparking and drowning from the curses while burrowing invasively deep into his essence, dragging it out for the Pit to see.  His form flickered, losing the fight to stay intact as everything beneath it tore to shreds.

When his younger brother had touched the water, Hades and Zeus had pulled him back, but Apollo had fallen with him and there was no-one left to haul them out.  They would have to get themselves out of the Acheron, but the Acheron clearly had no intention of letting them go, no matter how much they struggled.

At least, Hades thought he was struggling.  It was difficult to tell when everything that made him him was being flayed alive from the inside out.  It was difficult to tell anything at all.

He didn’t expect the hands that pulled him up.

He didn’t notice them, to start with.  His awareness was restricted down to agony and the way his essence was raked over boiling sands and frigid ice all at the same time, lanced through with electricity and drowned for good measure.  Hands tugging at his unravelling form as the Acheron whisked him directly towards the delta failed to register at all.

Then he was going up, leaving the water behind as the bank dug into his raw essence.  Faintly, he could hear an agonising cacophony of sound that wasn’t quite screams, and grunts of effort, and then he was on the bank, burning and freezing and twitching but intact, and Hades was forced to do nothing but lay in his crumpled heap, too shattered to even register how undignified he must have looked.

Another form slumped down next to him, and his eyes met the blazing currently-blue flames of Apollo’s.

His nephew was barely recognisable.  His form had almost entirely sloughed away, leaving him a flickering bundle of light covered with occasional scraps of flesh.  Golden liquid coated the ground around them, running down in miniature rivers to the Acheron.

As Hades watched, a golden shimmer slowly passed over Apollo, restoring his appearance.  For the god of healing, it was slow regeneration, especially for what was clearly only surface level restoration rather than a full heal, but Hades could feel his regeneration was even slower as his own form also re-congealed around his essence, an outer shell to simply contain himself.

As Apollo’s face reformed, tears of agony spilled down his cheeks.  Hades couldn’t comment on that, considering he was well aware of the saline tracks forming down his own reforming face.

River of Pain was far too tame a moniker for the Acheron.

For an eternity of an instant, they lay by the bank of the river, unable to move and fully vulnerable to anything that approached.  It was a state Hades despised, and as soon as the exterior of his form solidified again he hauled himself into a sitting position, surveying their surroundings in an attempt to regain his bearings and forcibly ignoring the essence-deep pain that had not been erased by his reformation.

There were no trees on their side of the bank; across the river, Hades could see the thin spindles protruding from the surface of Tartarus, and he wondered if they’d crossed the river again – but no, they’d travelled downstream and the water was still flowing as though they were on the same bank.  That did not make sense; there were no trees upwards of the Acheron, only below.

Then he noticed that the river whose bank they were upon was not the Acheron at all.

The Acheron wound almost directly towards them, intersecting with the river whose bank they sat upon before the water flowed down, towards the abyss and Chaos.  This river must have been the sixth, although Hades could not identify when they had crossed it.

At least, it put the Arai behind them, and while Hades couldn’t place exactly where they needed to head, they were also further along the route they’d needed to take, rather than having been sent completely off course.

Beside him, Apollo had also pulled himself upright.  One ichor-covered hand was massaging his throat, and his eyes flickered with distress, reminding Hades that Apollo, too, was currently under the thrall of multiple curses.

Hades could not recall if he had ever mindlessly cursed his nephew.  He sincerely hoped he hadn’t.

“We should move further from the river,” he said after a moment.  His voice sounded raw.

Apollo nodded, but when he opened his mouth to speak, the same grating, discordant screech jolted straight through Hades’ essence.  His nephew looked devastated, and Hades wondered who had cursed him to that extent.

His own curses still plagued at him, his brother’s lightning coursing through him while he drowned and froze and trembled from the combined effects of everything, but Hades pulled himself to his feet.  Apollo staggered upright, still massaging his throat as though he hoped that would restore his voice and in silence, Hades led them further from the banks of the river.

They did not travel far; unlike the upper reaches of the Pit, there were no convenient caves full of weak monsters to repurpose for their own ends.  Here, everything was exposed, and the best shelter Hades could find was none at all, simply placing them in the centre of a large, flat expanse where nothing could sneak up unseen.

The curses would not last forever; Hades suspected that they were supposed to, for mortals, but the regenerative powers of gods would, in time, overpower the Arai’s intent.  He and his brothers had huddled together and waited it out – that much, he now recalled, although he did not recall how long it had taken.  No doubt, he and Apollo would need to do the same, and he brought them to a stumbling halt.

“We must rest,” he said bluntly.  Apollo nodded, no longer attempting to speak to the thanks of Hades’ battered essence.  He had no desire to be assailed by the sounds that tore themselves from Apollo’s throat if it was not necessary.

Somehow, he hadn’t lost his hold on his sword, and he laid it on the ground as he slumped down, his nephew beside him.  Apollo’s bow was nowhere to be seen, and his quiver was empty.

There was nothing left for them to do, but rest.

Chapter 19>>

[fandomfluffandfuck]

How’s your day going? Any thoughts on your mind you want to share? Anything you feel like venting about? Anything exciting?

Hey, thanks for asking, sweets <3

I've been doing fairly well. I wanted to be writing yesterday for Tumblr but Father's Day and all that jazz, lmao, so I didn't have time to. I'm pretty excited about some of the asks I have right now, but thank you for asking if there's anything I want to share, fandom or otherwise. That's such a cute ask!

Unrelated to fathers or cuteness, though, and maybe this is just me being a typical guy, not wanting help or ignoring problems or whatever, but I finally went to the doctor's today after... who really knows how long of having headaches nearly every day? I hit a point a few months ago where I went, huh, you know I can't remember the last time I didn't have a headache. That's weird. I wonder if it will go away. Then it, uh, didn't. I can ignore shit like that and force myself to keep doing what I'm doing, so I did that. BUT, I'm not completely dumb, lol, so I started writing down whenever I got a headache, and... yeah. I have one way, way more days than not. I don't know what's going on yet, but I did tell my doctor and we started brainstorming some ideas of what could be going on, so that's something

[ilyuu-archive]

*drops this in your inbox because it was originally for my blog but ended up being a little too self-indulgent* i’m a bit drained, so i’ll answer asks later, but for now, i’m sending this on anon (even though you can probably tell who this is)

the summary is basically that the reader thinks crowds are icky. that’s it. i wrote it with heizou, kazuha, scara, and xiao because i could!! i don’t actually remember what i was thinking while writing this because it’s been in my drafts for so long, but after reading it again, all i can say is ⚰️

HEIZOU

“My intuition tells me that something isn’t quite right,” Heizou murmurs as he examines your expression, quietly mulling over your downcast gaze.

You tense up. It doesn’t take a genius to notice that you’re currently not in the best mood. Dark, sorrowful clouds eclipse all other emotions shining in your eyes, and in the moment, everything feels overwhelming. Your mind is focused on the noise, and the noise only. It’s too much for you. Every single one of your instincts is screaming at you to get away.

“Hey, just take a deep breath,” your boyfriend’s smooth voice cuts through the pandemonium, bringing you a sense of peace amidst tumultuous seas of noise.

When you look up and meet his gaze, you see concern swimming within his verdant irises like crystal raindrops in the presence of an unrelenting storm. Something about the way he’s looking at you helps alleviate some of the anxiety weighing your heart down, and although it doesn’t feel quite feather-light just yet, you’re still grateful for the reassurance.

Heizou reaches out for you and caresses your cheek with a touch akin to a gentle spring zephyr. His fingers barely ghost your skin, and yet as they leave, a tingling sensation remains in their wake — a tiny bit of respite in the middle of your chaotic surroundings.

“Man alive. You don’t have to force yourself to stay here just for me,” Heizou takes your hand and drags you away from the crowd. You don’t focus on your destination. The only thing you manage to observe is the way the voices recede like a steady tide.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Heizou stops. You realize that it’s quiet again, and a wave of peace washes over you.

“You don’t have to stay in an uncomfortable situation for my sake, you know.” Heizou tells you. “I care about you, and I want you to feel comfortable.”

Your boyfriend’s words are all the reassurance you need to lean in towards him for a chaste kiss. He reciprocates, and your lips meet in a clash of tenderness and affection.

KAZUHA

A cacophony of chatter and laughter rings out in the crowded space, mingling in a dissonant song of overwhelming noise. There are too many people around, and it’s far too loud for your liking. You want nothing more than to get away.

“Love?” Kazuha says, his voice as soft as an autumn breeze. “Are you alright?”

His maple-hued irises fill with concern as he fixes his gaze on you. He takes your hand in his, intertwining his slender fingers with yours. The warmth of his touch alleviates some of the tension in your body.

“Please look at me,” he whispers, using his free hand to cup your chin and lift your head slightly. Upon making eye contact, you can tell Kazuha feels the same as you. Glints of unease shimmer in the galaxies that are his eyes, and the smile dancing across his lips looks just slightly forced.

“You’ll be okay,” he tells you, tracing circles on the back of your hand with his thumb.

You don’t completely understand how someone as sensitive as Kazuha is able to stay composed in such an overwhelming situation. You’re sure the situation is extra unbearable for him due to his sharp sense of hearing.

Your boyfriend gently pulls you away from the crowd, and you allow yourself to lose yourself in the comfort of his touch. You zone out, trying to tune out all the voices around you, paying no mind to the direction that Kazuha is leading you until…

He stops.

The world falls silent.

And everything feels right once more.

SCARAMOUCHE

How you managed to get yourself into this situation is something you’ll never be able to fathom. Both you and your boyfriend dislike — or in his words, detest — crowds. So it’s rather unusual that you’ve now found yourself in the middle of one.

It’s too much for you. Noises seem to turn all coherent thought null, and the feeling of having so many strangers so close to you makes shivers run down your spine.

Fortunately for you, Scaramouche is by your side, and while you’re completely overwhelmed at the moment, he’s just irritated beyond measure. His resentment towards the people around you only grows when he takes a look at your expression.

Scaramouche isn’t one to care for others. In fact, he could probably count every person he’s felt concerned about in the past few hundred years on one hand. But with you, things feel different. With you, everything is different.

So instead of leaving you to deal with your problem by yourself, Scaramouche gently laces your fingers together.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says in a voice that sounds just a tad bit softer than what you’re used to. It’s reminiscent of peaceful night encroaching on vivid day, turning vibrant hues into something softer, more calming.

Scaramouche leads you through the crowd, clinging to you with a firm grip as you trail behind him. Along the way, you notice that he “accidentally” pushes a few of the more rambunctious people aside while scowling at them. Although you feel slightly bad for Scaramouche’s victims, you know he’s not doing any real harm in the long run. He’s just caring for you in his own eccentric way.

And before you know it, you’re in the clear. The feeling of panic that had once trapped your heart resides, and in its place, gratitude surfaces.

“Thank you,” you whisper under your breath, subconsciously playing with Scaramouche’s fingers.

“It was nothing,” he reassures you, his tone dismissive. “I can’t say that I relate to all of your emotions, but I understand how it feels to hate crowds,” he mutters, “so if you’re ever feeling uncomfortable, just say the word, and I’ll deal with it.”

XIAO

Xiao can tell that you’re uncomfortable. The way you’re looking down at the ground and crossing your arms as if you want to protect yourself from the tidal wave of noise threatening to swallow you whole tells him all he needs to know.

In your state of panic, you don’t notice the way his golden eyes narrow. Irises that are always filled with summer’s warmth whenever he glances at you turn icy when his gaze drifts to the crowd before you.

You feel a tap on your shoulder, prompting you to look up at Xiao and meet his stare. When he sees the emotions running through your eyes, his expression softens ever so slightly.

“Are you okay?” His voice is calming. It’s a familiar sound, and it cuts through the static-like chatter ringing in your head.

When you look up and meet eyes filled with lakes of molten amber, a sense of ease washes over you. At the moment, everything feels overwhelming. There are too many people around for your liking, and sounds of people talking crash down on you like waterfalls.

In that instant, you immediately know that no matter what happens, everything will be fine because your lover is here to protect you. Although his presence doesn’t completely dispel the anxiety overtaking your heart, it helps clear your mind.

You feel a warmth enveloping you as Xiao’s arms wrap around you. Typically, your boyfriend is rather shy about giving affection. However, now, he sees that you need him more than ever.

“There’s need to worry,” he tells you, “I’ll protect you.”

NONNIE (i think i have a pretty good idea of who you are) I LOVE YOU SM FOR THIS AAAAAAAAAAAA 💝💞💞💗💗💝💞💗💞💗💝💞💗💞💝💞💗💞💝💞💗💞💝💞💝💞💞

literally passed out reading this (in a good way ofc) halfway because of kazuha dude,,, andnjssnjdbnd making me feel things so early in the morning how dare you do this to my heart as it beats at like,,, idk 100000000000 mph!!

i really like the concept tho, it might seem a bit self-indulgent to you but it’s something i can relate to as well since i’m not that all good with crowds either and would rather curl up in my corner of webs and mushrooms heheheheh

this is my little pick-me-up every time i’m shoved into the outside world when i’m not feeling too well,, nonnie come over here i wanna give you a kith C’MERE!! MWAH!!