#this is such a fun story to write! <3

[kyuponstories]

So I finally started the rough draft of OCB ep 1 again! :D It's already smoother and farther than I got the first time. Even thought of a couple headcanons (is it weird to have those for an OG wip? lol) that'll make the story pop out a bit. Like Akachi's grandfather speaking through sign language due to being hard of hearing, and then Akachi having a crush on Kiki. It'll make one of his goofy choices in a future episode make a lot more sense later lol.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

got a worm nibbling my brain. can someone help me find a piece of obscure media?

webcomic/indie comic from the 2010s. basically a sci-fi short story about a young girl (with red hair?) who was being raised by scientists as part of an experiment. she receives a haircut/has her head shaved, in preparation for her annual brain scan/testing. it is revealed that while her body is human, her "brain" is artificial, made of computer implants throughout her skull and spine. at some point her biological mother (also a scientist on the same campus?) encounters her and is repulsed, viewing her as a machine who has murdered her daughter.

it was very poignant and it bruised my heart and i can NOT find it anywhere

[lorelune]

dreamer's envy

|| dan heng x reader || E/18+ || first time, comfort, lore || wc: 13.4k  || ao3 ||

Dan Heng is haunted by the memories of a man he no longer is. You are all to willing to help him.

minors, antis and ageless blogs dni

notes: ahhh!!! beloved dh... df... yx... this fic is a bit of a love letter to reader insert character studies and ship fic. making my two faves kiss on the mouth fr. thank you so much to @yinyuedijun for beta reading along the way!! hope you enjoy 💗

CW: reader is referred to with they/them pronouns and afab anatomy, previous dan feng/yingxing, descriptions of gore, descriptions of intimacy issues, author-created lore (plot crafted prior to penacony release), interpretations of HCQ lore, multiple characters experiencing post-trauma

NOTE: this piece is written in two points of view. one is from dan heng’s perspective, where the “you” he is referring to, is you, as in the reader. the other perspective is second-person pov where the narrator ('you') is dan feng. in these portions, 'you' have a cock and the assorted anatomy. these portions are written in italicized text.

Your hands shake. Your thighs tremble. Yingxing lays between them, your cock nestled in his mouth. It’s not sizable enough to hit the back of his throat, but Yingxing, ever the sensitive man, still has tears pricking the corners of his eyes. You stifle a moan into your hand, hastily slapped over your mouth.

Yingxing will not have it.

A strong, calloused hand grabs your wrist and yanks it. He pins your hand by your side, intertwining your fingers. He pulls off your cock with spit-slick lips and smiles. 

“Beloved,” Yingxing speaks in a purr, soft and gentle and comforting against your ears. “You know I love to hear all of those sounds of yours. You’re not getting shy on me, are you?”

There’s a hint of mischief to his voice. You huff and kick at his back.

“Hurry up,” you snap at him. There's a bite to it; you mean there to be. Yingxing only looks amused by your tone— the only one on the entire Luofu who could possibly look joyful, when met with your distinct ire.

“Can’t I take my time?” Yingxing asks, licking from your balls, to base, to the head of your cock. You’re— wet. Leaking pre down your shaft. “May I undo you, my flower?”

“You’re an awful man. I will have you imprisoned.”

“You’d never.”

“You’re right, I’d do worse.” You have so many ideas brewing behind your eyes— ways to punish this wretched man for toying with you. Treating you so kindly and with such humor and wit. There is no one else like him— no one else in your many, lonely years who has lanced you in the way that Yingxing has. How treacherous of him, to steal your heart. 

“You’ll have to tell me all about the ways you’ll punish me,” Yingxing hums, pushing the tip of your cock against his lips. It’s obscene. The skin at the corners of his eyes crinkle. “After you cum down my throat, though.”

Yingxing, that bastard of a man, takes you into his mouth against, bobbing his head, sucking and running the flat of his tongue over the bottom of your cock. It’s too much, all at once—

And how prettily you moan when you become undone (again) under this wonderful, awful man—

✶    ✶    ✶    ✶    ✶   ✶

Dan Heng wakes up with such a start, he nearly vomits. He does dry heave, snatching the conveniently placed trash can nearby and dropping his head inside to sputter. Spit dribbles off his lips and falls in globs to the bottom of the basket.

He sets it aside and rubs the heels of his hands over his eyes.

Again.

Again, again, again— he has these dreams all too often. Of a life that is not his, of a lover that couldn’t possibly, ever be his. They’re visceral, vivid— as though Dan Heng is experiencing them in real time, and they’re not some awful figment that clings from a past life.

They plague him, simply. He hates every moment of them.

The pleasure of them feels poisonous. That man is not him. Yingxing— is not his. The body that writhes and gasps is not his own. He’s an onlooker, a distant stranger looking in on something intimate and dead. It’s torture, really, but Dan Heng is an expert is quiet endurance, so he copes. 

He stands, still wearing day clothes, and drags himself from his sleeping bag on the floor. His companions on the Astral Express all stated their initial concern with his choice of lodging and lack of a bed, but they’ve since calmed. Everyone on the Express has their quirks. It’s like how March sleep walks, Stelle occasionally glows from her chest, and you only sleep once every few weeks and never in your own room. Dan Heng enjoys his spot in the Archives due to the various motors and machinery that lay under the floor. It’s warm, far toastier than any other room, or bed for that matter. 

(He is not Dan Feng. However, Dan Heng cannot deny that his more draconic instincts are somewhat intact.)

Dan Heng throws on his slouchiest sweater, threadbare and worn, and wanders to the parlor car. An hour or so of pacing usually cures him of any antsiness, and he can nurse a cup of tea while he walks too.

This night, however, you sit in the parlor car as well. Dan Heng slows as he sees you.

You’re— an enigma to him really. Everyone on the express is a bit of a misfit, but you are a newer addition to the bunch, and he and the rest of the crew are still grappling with your oddities. 

Dan Heng has, since the moment he first met you, accepted he would never fully understand you. He made peace with it, moved on and has kept his distance except when necessary. It is better this way.

You’re staring, side-long, out of one of the wide windows of the car. Your chin is perched on your palm and your perpetually blood-shot eyes are half-lidded. Dark circles are punched beneath them. You look like shit. You always look like shit, and you have assured the crew that this is normal, despite March’s initial fretting. 

When you notice him staring, a kind smile curls on your lips and you wave, good-natured.

“Hey there, sleeping beauty. Are you doing alright?”

“I’m fine.” It’s not the first time you two have met like this. The Parlor Car is empty, except the two of you and the dimly glowing whale fixture that hangs from the ceiling. It feels familiar, much more comfortable than the... unwelcome familiarity of his own dreams. “I’m just fetching a cup of tea.”

“Ah, a night cap?” You hum, and crack your neck. “Sounds needed. That last dream of yours was wild.” 

Dan Heng frowns, “I’ve asked you before to quit that, please. It’s invasive.”

“I would if I could,” You shrug. “But, I can’t. Besides, your dreams are loud, Dan Heng. I’d be unable to ignore them even if I was at the back of the train.” 

“Can you at least not mention them?”

“I mean, I can not. But... they clearly upset you, don’t they?” You tilt your head, eyes soft. “Would you like to talk about them at all? I don’t mind listening.”

“They aren’t your concern.”

“I’m aware of that, but that doesn’t stop me from caring. I know they’re distressing.”

“You’re prying.”

“I’m asking, Dan Heng.” You sound a little desperate. Standing, you pass by him, in the direction of the passenger car. “You can say ‘no, my fellow Nameless, I would like you to never speak of me and my upsetting sex dreams,’ and I won’t ever mention them again. I don’t mean to be a thorn in your side, but the past is easier to bear in the present if you can lean on folks.”

Dan Heng is silent, stewing and stirring under his skin. 

By the time he has a reply formulated, you have left the parlor car. The only sign that you’d ever been there to begin with is a patterned knit blanket left where you were sitting. 

Dan Heng snatches it up before he can convince himself not to and returns to his room to add it to his ground-bound nest.

...

Welt had found you outside of a space station, idling around a refueling station. You’d been wearing a dirty utility jumpsuit with the emblem of some IPC-owned subsidiary screen-printed on the pocket. Your eyes had been glassy and far away. When Welt asked if you were alright, you had smiled and told him, “Actually, I’ve never been worse.”

The Express loves strays. It’s ultimately what he, Stelle, and March are. Welt to some extent as well, especially considering his several layers of mystery. Himeko has the disposition of a kind leader and the heart of a mother, and for all of Pom Pom’s fretting, they are always interested in a new face aboard the Astral Express, for however long they choose to be there.

It’s sensical that you were given a shower, a hot meal, and a room before you even fully understood what you were signing up for with the Express.

Dan Heng was, notably, wary of you. It was the way you looked at him after the first night you slept on the Express (one where he had predictably been plagued with images of a body that wasn’t really his being fucked and loved in a way Dan Heng couldn’t conceptualize his actual self receiving). There was clear concern etched in your expression, however you never voiced it. Not at first.

It was only after a few weeks that March pointed out you hadn’t slept since your arrival that you revealed your hand.

A bloodline blessed by the Aeon of Dreams, Sacha. 

Dan Heng had heard of the Aeon, distantly. A seldom-traveled path, one for those with imagination run wild and a penchant for long naps. There were whispers that the Aeon was asleep, constantly. Otherwise, dead. Regardless, you bore the Godbeing’s blessing in some way.

You revealed this during a routine coffee break, just before Welt, March and Stelle descending to a little sandy moon. Perched on a chair, legs curled over your chest, you’d laughed when March pointed out your lack of good sleeping practices.

“I don’t need to, so I tend not to. It’s a difficult habit to break.” 

You had explained to Dan Heng and Himeko that you and your kin, a race descended from a small planet from a dead solar system, all bear this blessing. No need for sleep and—

“I perceive the dreams of others.”

Dan Heng had questioned, immediately— “Perceive?”

“That’s the best way to put it.” You meet his eye and you look slack in your shoulders. Unbearably calm and tired. “What you dream, I experience along with you. The more I focus in, the more vivid it is.”

(Dan Heng is horrified and doesn’t speak to you for a week.)

After some significant, quiet panic, Dan Heng had politely asked you to not perceive his dreams if you could help it. 

You’d told him you’d do your best.

And Dan Heng— appreciates the effort. Even if it's clear it's not working. You are so often up when he rises for his customary tea and jaunt, and tend to prod him a little. At least stop him to chat for a moment or tea. You’ll sneak in a cheeky comment or two, usually, but they’re so quick Dan Heng can’t do much more than blush and stumble over his next sentence.

You look highly amused and soft, those nights.

You never ridicule him, which he appreciates. More often you look pleasantly neutral, as if trying to emulate the aura of a familiar house plant near a skittish black cat.

(Dan Heng knows he is the skittish black cat.)

It’s— too much really. Dan Heng would rather bear it alone, take his cup of tea and do his laps, but he also can’t find it in him to tell you off too harshly. You tend to favor the parlor car, anyway. You get lost in the stars and galaxies they traverse easily. It would feel cruel to ask you to sequester yourself to your room simply so Dan Heng can brood more effectively.

Dan Heng does not know what to do about his own haunting (arousing) dreams, nor does he know what to do with you and your unfazed smiles.

...

You straddle Yingxing’s lap, thighs tense as you roll your hips. Your lover’s length grinds inside of you, stroking something small and hot and so good you could get drunk on it. You chase the sensation, selfish. Your hands are braced behind you, on Yingxing’s thighs as he is sprawled below. 

His cheeks are flushed and his hair is a knotted mess. A hastily ripped piece of fabric binds Yingxing’s wrist together and secure to the stained wood of the bed frame.  You were kind enough to carefully pull out his favored hairpin (a gift, one you commissioned him to make... for himself. Without his knowledge. Yingxing was moderately huffy about it until you tucked it into his hair yourself.) and set it aside. 

Yingxing is not a weak man, but you are a Dragon, and therefore keeping him restrained and tethered is not difficult. Usually, you allow Yingxing the privilege of carving out your insides at his leisure and pace. There’s a sweet torture to it you have found yourself having grown fond of. 

There is no other soul, mortal or otherwise, short-lived or long-lived, that you would allow to exert such control over you. Yingxing is an exception for you in so many ways. How dear this (foolish) craftsman has become to you.

“B-Beloved,” Yingxing’s voice is tight, strained. There’s sweat beading on his temples. “Might I persuade you into moving?”

You hum. Your tail wraps around his leg, from ankle to thigh and squeezes. The feathered tail flicks at Yingxing’s tense muscle and he jolts under you. A glittering laugh leaks from the corner of your mouth.

“Persuade me then.”

“Y-You’re not making this easy, are you?”

“I told you I wouldn’t. And you still agreed.”

“I thought the great Yinyue Jun would grant me some mercy at least. Excuse my wishful thinking. I thought that my dearest husband would forgo being a brat for at least a single night—”

You scoff.

You roll your hips, slow and deliberate. Yingxing’s words are cut off, killed in his throat as his eyes roll back into his skull. Keeping your core tight, you bury his cock in your hole to the hilt. You’re flush together, panting. It’s a tight squeeze, it always is. But the slight burn is familiar and welcome as you throw your head back and moan.

The sound is sin. If any of the Preceptors knew what this man did to you, he’d be drowned in Scalegorge within the day. 

Yingxing curses in a tongue you don’t know— it’s his mother’s language, he once told you. He tries to buck up into your heat, but you hold him down and steady. Clicking your tongue and racking your nails down his chest. Thin welts rise in your wake. Yingxing lets loose a choked gasp as you slide down on his cock. The stretch is so, so good. You crave this ache. You fantasize about it when you surely shouldn’t. It haunts your—

Dreams?

✶    ✶    ✶    ✶    ✶   ✶

Dan Heng wakes up so hard it physically hurts. He gasps, muffling a half-there sound into his pillow. It’s shameful. He feels out of his mind as he flips onto his stomach and ruts into his nest of blankets. The friction is dry, scratchy, and barely enough. However— the phantom sensations of a dead lover crawl over him. Nostalgic and tragic and nauseating.

He comes with a sob that he prays no one hears. He stains the front of his boxers as he grinds his oversensitive cock against the wet fabric. It’s too much. He’s too sensitive. It hurts, but Dan Heng doesn’t know what else to do.

He feels ashamed as he sits up and runs a hand over his face. 

It’s usually not this bad. Usually he can will away any arousal with logic. Reminding himself that the pleasant touch and face he remembers is long gone and was never his to have to begin with. Only on a few occasions has he woken up disoriented enough to forget himself to actually get off.

He needs to shower.

Dan Heng blearily leaves his room with his towel slung over his arm. The showers are on the other side of the passenger car. Dan Heng turns the spray on the highest heat, cooking himself as much as he can bear. There’s a latent energy in him that always swirls, begging him to push and pull the water around him, harness it for even a moment—

Before Dan Heng can entertain such things, he exits the spray, flushed bright red with his towel around his waist. 

As he exits the shower, he finds you. 

You’re perched one of the plush couches, tucked into a nook in the passenger car. Your signature blanket is not with you. You look— like shit. Dark circles stamped but your eyes look alight.

Dan Heng freezes as you notice him.

“... You alright?” You ask him.

“I’m fine.”

“You sure, bud?”

“Yes.”

“Uh-huh.”

”You’re patronizing me.”

You stumble, “I don’t— I don’t mean to. That was just—”

“Please do not—”

“A lot.”

Your cheeks are flushed as you rub at them. Your gaze flits up to his then averts to the floor. You look... shy. It’s an expression he’s never seen you wear before, even when you were pulled onto the express filthy and in a heavily patched jumpsuit. 

Something in Dan Heng’s chest squeezes. He doesn’t know what to say. He feels entirely too exposed. He’s not fully dry, and he can feel droplets of water dripping from his hair down to his shoulders. His throat bobs as he gulps you watch the movement with rapt attention. 

He coughs.

“I asked you to refrain from viewing my dreams.”

“That one was loud.” You frown. “Incredibly loud. Like banging pots and pans, fireworks and explosives kind of loud. I couldn’t have ignored it, even though I very much want to. I’d love to give you your privacy, Dan Heng, but sadly the intricacies of your mind happen to make your dreams essentially unignorable.”

“Must you comment on them?”

“... I heard you crying after.” Your expression looks uncharacteristically torn up. Your lackadaisical smile and humor are nowhere to be found. “I was worried.”

“I can assure you, I am fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I do, regardless. The whole Express does.”

“I appreciate it. Though, it’s unnecessary.”

“Of course. Sure. Because you’re the paramount example of ‘not needing care’.”

“I’m self-sufficient.” This time, he frowns.

“You are.” You stand up and walk toward him. “‘Sufficient’ implies adequacy, not prosperity.”

“What are you implying?”

Your hands ball into fists at your sides, “That you, Dan Heng, seem like you could use some help. I won’t pry at your past, I’m aware it’s not my place to do so— however routinely having uncomfortably vivid sex dreams about a man who you clearly have complex feelings about, probably isn’t good for you. There’s an inevitable amount of strain. One that I think that you’re ignoring.”

“What help do you think I need?” His voice remains level, but your proximity has him wriggling under his skin.

“... I— could be a decent listener. I have all the time in the world. I’m always around at night.” You struggle to meet his gaze, but after a moment, your usual, easy smile erupts on your face. “Or, would you prefer more... direct assistance? I could help with that too.”

“Speak plainly.”

“Was the last time you had sex with the man in your dreams?”

Dan Heng’s throat closes up. The cloudhymn that are under his skin thrum and encircle him, for just a moment. Your eyes widen at the colors and hum of it and jump back. You almost stumble. The surge of power and energy shakes the passenger car. The whale-shaped light fixtures dance above you. 

Dan Heng swallows.

“And if it was?”

You look at him, really look at him, and your eyes soften. Your center looks wide and vulnerable despite the churn in the air, “Then, do you think it could, perhaps, be helpful to add some more recent, pleasurable memories for your dreams to play with?”

Dan Heng flushes so quickly, he feels faint.

The instinctual cloudhymns around him die in an instant. He retreats, a firm grip remaining on the towel around his waist to keep it in place. He mumbles out a hasty ‘goodnight’. 

He is unsure if you hear him.

... 

In the days that follow, neither Dan Heng nor yourself, bring up your proposition. 

The next morning, you look expectedly exhausted, but do not prod or pry at him any further. You sit at the long table for breakfast and munch on a piece of bread and some jam while Himeko goes over your next destination. 

The few times you look at him, your smile is lazy and easy, however you turn away quickly. 

You continue to skillfully avoid him. 

Dan Heng— feels a bit bad about it. Maybe a lot. If he enters common spaces like the parlor car or dining car, you quickly leave after a peripheral greeting. You must be doing so as to not tip off the rest of the crew that there’s some amount of… tension between the two of you. Under different circumstances, Dan Heng would have appreciated the purposeful discretion, however something about it irks him. 

The Express’s next destination is a repurposed space station at the edge of a solar system. A false sun, powered by a Stellaron— something to that effect. Stelle’s bodily composition is of some intrigue to the scientists looking to craft a replacement, while other factions wish to harness the Stellaron more directly than a not-so-distant source of light and heat. 

Himeko’s engineering expertise is being requested, along with Welt’s understanding of Imaginary energy. March wants to go due to the complex system of bioluminescent algae that teems in the space station’s plentiful aquaponics infrastructure. (“It looks so pretty! I need photos!”)

There are very few reasons for Dan Heng to accompany them; the party’s already full. There are even fewer reasons for you to join, who, despite all of your assurances, looks particularly haggard and worse for wear. Both March and Himeko mother hen you into staying aboard the Express to keep Pom Pom company.

Dan Heng should make an excuse to leave as well. Something in his gut tells him it would be best to keep his distance from you.

(It would be easier that way.)

However, Dan Heng finds himself waving goodbye to his companions as they dock at the small port. Pom Pom has requested at least a single treat from their excursion while they wave exuberantly from his side. 

You stand on Pom Pom’s right, lazily waving as well. Your shoulders are slumped.

As Pom Pom aways to dust the fixtures in the parlor car, Dan Heng faces you and speaks without thinking.

”You should rest.”

You blink owlishly at him. “… That’s not necessary.” 

”You don’t look well.”

”You’re quite the charmer, aren’t you?”

”I am being serious.”

”So am I.” You roll your eyes and shrug. 

You attempt to walk away from him, but Dan Heng finds himself reaching out to grab your arm. His hand wraps around your forearm securely, firmly. 

You still, wide-eyed.

”You can sleep, can’t you?”

”… I mean, yes?” You frown, glancing at his hand then back to his face. 

“Would it help?”

”Help what?” 

Dan Heng deadpans. “You’re exhausted.”

”… Dearest Dan Heng, I am always in this state. I apologize if my withered countenance has caused you grief. I am fine.”

You attempt to wrench your arm from his grip, but he doesn’t let you go. Your frown deepens. 

“Being intentionally daft isn’t wise.”

You stare at him, “I’m not being ‘intentionally daft.’”

”I beg to differ.”

You mutter something in a tongue that Dan Heng doesn’t recognize. “What’s your deal? I apologize for getting into your business previously. I have been trying to give you ample space and shut out your dreams to the best of my ability. Is that not enough?”

”No.” No, no, no— that’s not really. It. Dan Heng isn’t sure what it is, but at this moment, his mood has little to do with your knowledge of his horrible, awful, persistent wet dreams, but something else. “I’m not upset at you for that.”

You stare and your hands ball into fists, “So, you’re really pestering me over my well-being?”

”Yes?”

”Aeons, Dan Heng.” You say his name in a croon and it makes him shudder. He wants to scream. “It really isn’t a big deal.”

”Is it straining you to not… perceive my dreams?”

Your expression goes blank. “I mean. Yes. But, it’s not a big deal—“

“You look awful.”

”You can’t have both.” You are clearly frustrated. Dan Heng’s grip is unrelenting. “I can’t— I can’t attempt to block out your silly sex dreams without a not-insignificant amount of effort. I’m either going to be very keyed into that pretty silver-haired man who you clearly wish was in your bed, or I’m going to look a bit more worse for wear. The latter, Dan Heng, does not bother me. Fretting over me isn’t going to make me less worn down.”

”And you just… don’t care that you’re tired?”

“I’m always tired.” You smile then, the same lazy, curling quirk of your lips that you so often wear, ever since the Express dragged you aboard from that rest stop. Dull-eyed and wearing a filthy utility jumpsuit. “I don’t want to cause you all any additional grief. I wish you wouldn’t worry about me.”

Dan Heng doesn’t know what to say.

“... That isn’t your choice.” The words feel paltry, half-there.

You pull your arm from his grip, thumbing at the spot where he held you. Your soft day clothes have rumbled under his grip, “That’s hilarious, coming from you, Dan Heng.”

“This is different.”

“How so?” 

“Because—” Dan Heng clicks his tongue. Something— something simmers just under his chest. Something bigger than himself, salty like the sea and heavy like green stone that writhes as you stare him down. “Because my dreams are my business. The man— men— in my dreams are my ills to carry. They should not affect my present. You shouldn’t be affected by them.”

“Well, crazy, but I am—” You go nose-to-nose with him and huff. Dan Heng backs into a railing behind him, back curving. “Because I don’t like seeing you in pain—”

Something kicks Dan Heng’s shin and he hisses. You jump away from him with a stumble, looking down at a glowering Pom Pom. Their tail twitches.

“No fighting in my parlor car!” Pom Pom huffs. “Does Pom Pom need to get Miss Himeko’s ‘get along’ shirt?”

“That’s not necessary,” Dan Heng rushes to say.

You’re already walking away, out of the parlor car with a shake of your head and one last wistful look.

...

You tear your heart from your chest.

It is expectedly painful, even if you braced for it. Even if in your deepest meditations, you simulated the pain of such a loss with cloudhymn to prepare for this moment, on the off chance you would need to lose your heart from between your ribs and give it to your beloved. So few of Long’s scions retain the ability to rebirth with multiple hearts— only a handful of high elders, really. You can imagine what they will say about you, think about this act you’re committing.

Sin. And a painful one.

The blade in your hand clatters to the ground as you hold your heart in your own palm. It’s large— a dragon’s heart. It will not fit in the chest of a mortal. 

(But, you will make it fit.)

Yingxing is— is— he’s dead. He’s a corpse on the ground below you. One of his arms is missing, while the other is twisted at a most unnatural angle. His star silver hair is a tangled knot in the dirt, Yingxing’s favored hairpin shattered somewhere in the foreground. The color is no longer pure. It’s a dirty scarlet. A mix of your beloved’s blood and Shuhu’s. 

Yingxing’s eyes are half open and dull. Purple turned bruised-petal lilac. His lip is split and blood trickles from the corner of his lips,

This is not to say anything about his middle which is—

Not really there.

It makes inserting the heart easier. You think so anyway. Your hands shake (they never have before, not like this) and you cry (you have not cried like this before) as you shove the heart into Yingxing’s necrotic chest. You have to further break his ribs to shove your heart into him. Cloudhymn spins around you— a storm, a gale for you. It dulls the screams from your younger companion begging you to stop. A beast roars in the distance, above it all. The sound makes the air tremble and split. Your ears would bleed, were you a weaker species. 

(A necessary sacrifice— she— she was already dead. Past saving. You only have two hearts. One which is yours and one which is now—)

Yingxing’s.

Your beloved flinches. Lurches as unnatural growth burgeons from him. He wails on the ground as magics spin within him. You are doing the most unholy thing to him. But, you must, right? You cannot lose him. You cannot lose Yingxing. You have given everything, always, as every self, to your role and its meaning— can you not have this one thing? May your beloved not stay by your side, however unfair and painful the circumstances?

Unblemished, ghostly pale tissue regrows from Yingxing’s body at an alarming pace. It rejoins his upper and lower halves together as he screams. 

Yingxing’s hands wrap around your neck and you’re shoved into the dirt. You are not expecting the force and the impact, even less so. The air knock out of you and the cloudhymns shudder. The magics are thinner for a moment, you could see your other companions if you chose to. You could see how many Xianzhou cloud knights have fallen to the beast you created.

You ignore them.

You ignore them all to look up at your beloved. Eyes now a wild red, teeth glimmering white and stained with blood. His hair has darkened, silver turned dark, like it had been dipped in thick, viscous oil. Yingxing bares his teeth and screams at you. 

“WHAT DID YOU DO!”

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, DAN FENG!”

—!

✶    ✶    ✶    ✶    ✶   ✶

Dan Heng awakens to a silent Astral Express. The trainship is still docked and it’s running on ancillary power in the meantime. 

It’s entirely too quiet. All he can hear is the pounding of his own heart.

He scrambles to grab at his own chest— there’s no gaping hole. There’s no— there’s no blood on his hands (not real, material blood anyway . Various parties would beg to differ as to if he has any actual blood on his hands. But, the past is the past, isn’t it? These dreams are the afterimages of the life of a deadman. That’s all they can be. The man that chases him across the universe bears a different name and a younger face. The man who will always make time for him on a Godship, so very far away, may use his name ‘Dan Heng’, but is that who he truly sees when he looks at Dan Heng?)

Dan Heng dry heaves into his hands.

He barely manages to crawl to the little bathroom attached to his room to puke his brains out. He hasn’t had much of an appetite over the past few days, and most of what comes up is water, pile, and half-digested rice porridge.

By the time he withdraws and flushes, wiping his hand over his mouth, he feels winded. Disgusting. Sweaty and entirely too wet. 

Shower.

Dan Heng methodically grabs his few supplies and walks across the silent Astral Express to the showers. He could take a bath— maybe it would help. March keeps minty bath products out and available that are so strong that they tend to pull any of the Express’s passengers out of a funk if used. There’s a little basket of them in the tiled common area of the baths. There’s a hand-written note in March’s perfect scrawl that says “Please take one❤️!) 

Dan Heng snatches a few before picking his favored, individual shower. There’s a little atrium before entering the shower itself, where he sheds his drenched bedclothes and hangs them, along with his towel. He turns on the shower and idles for a moment, listening to the dull roar of it.

Water splashes onto him in droplets. There’s a (dormant. Dormant. He swears it’s dormant) instinct to ball the errant water up and toy with it with cloudhymn. The pearl that idles in the center of Cloud Piercer has many different ways to harness its power beyond a weapon of steel that—

(Isn’t his, is it?)

Dan Heng wants to vomit again. He steps into the spray before the nausea overtakes him.

The spray is cold— he usually takes cold showers, regardless of if it’s after a particularly intimate dream. He prefers cold water. He enjoys cold baths, but they’re a luxury he enjoys only once in a while, and usually for the better part of a day. He’ll stay submerged for what would be a worrisome amount of time (if he didn’t bear the spare parts of imbibitor lunae) and, despite his assurances, worries the rest of the crew. As sedentary and reclusive as Dan Heng can be, camping out in the baths for the better part of a day causes a stir amongst the express.

They’re a treat, a bothersome one.

Now, he washes himself thoroughly. It’s a mechanical and rhythmic thing. It soothes him. His breath comes steadier.

Dan Heng hasn’t had a dream that unpleasant in quite some time. He has always had the more gruesome— of tragedies beyond this knowledge. But, they’re rarer. He is haunted more frequently by memories of pleasure and that almost makes the shadow of Dan Feng more cloying. The gruesome are just that— gruesome. He has put together pieces of Dan Feng’s sin, though he refuses to touch the Archive’s documents ported from the Luofu on the subject. 

Ignorance is bliss and Dan Heng feels knowledgeable enough. The breach between his own memories and Dan Feng’s is less solid than it once was. Dan Heng will more than likely find out with time.

It despairs him for a moment as he turns off the water and towels off. He feels— more lucid. Better. 

He’s surprised that you haven’t sought him out.

There’s— no way you didn’t perceive that dream. Dan Heng can’t be entirely sure what you mean when you call a dream ‘loud’, but he knows the very real pain he felt during it could constitute as such. He listens closely as he dresses in new bedclothes. The Express is still quiet aside from machine hum.

Dan Heng could check on you. He thinks about it. Your room is just past Stelle’s and considering you weren’t in the parlor car, you’re probably there.

You shouldn’t have seen that. But, it’s not like Dan Heng can help it, right? 

The tangle of feelings within Dan Heng writhes as he exits the showers. It grows even more unruly as he notes a change in the parlor car.

Resting on one of the plush seats is a hastily folded blanket, a still-steaming cup of tea, and a small, folded note.

Dan Heng approaches and reads.

DH

i’ve noticed you like my blankets. take this one. it’s one of my favorites.

have some tea and rest if you can.

— [name] ╰(*°▽°*)

The penmanship is shaky, and clearly quickly written. None of the paper’s folds match up with each other. There’s a spill of tea on the coffee table that looks half-wiped away. 

Something heavy settles in Dan Heng’s gut. He gathers the blanket, the tea, and your note and heads back to the archives with a pit in his chest.

Like he’s still missing a heart.

...

Things come to a head a few days later. The rest of the Astral Express crew is still sorting things on the space station, and you and Dan Heng only have so much space to dodge each other.

And, truthfully? Dan Heng stopped avoiding you the day before yesterday. Now, he is actively (read: passively but passionately) trying to seek you out. This involves listening keenly for when you leave your room, but lately, those trips are few and far between. And always occurring while Dan Heng is asleep. Pom Pom confirms this, looking increasingly uneasy at the clear tension between the two of you.

Dan Heng— doesn’t know what to do. He is good at running from his problems. He put Cloud Piercer through— Blade’s chest any number of times and hopped to the next planet more times than he cared to think about. He ran from the shackling prison, the Luofu, and its General without looking back even in a cursory way. Dan Heng finds sentimentality to be a new feeling, a new fixture within his person and does not know how to handle it. He does not want to run away from you— he wants to run toward you.

The blankets of yours (three in total) are in his nest. He paces the passenger car each night hoping you’ll reveal yourself. He hovers outside of your door, hand poised to knock, but he never does.

He does not know what he’d say. 

Dan Heng does not have confidence in his words in that way. He can speak well— it’s an overhang from Dan Feng, and he is grateful for it, but on more than one occasion, March has (rather explosively) shouted at him for being so... blank-faced in the heat of an emotional conflict. The two of them occasionally do butt heads, usually when March is attempting to run headfirst into a situation without proper forethought, and those encounters have ended with March tearfully screaming at Dan Heng to just be “honest with his face!” 

His lack of expression is also an overhang for Dan Feng. 

No matter how well-crafted his sentences and well-spoken his words, Dan Heng cannot connect them to how he feels... effectively. It’s disjointed. Like armor made with incorrectly sized plates that cannot possibly be pieced together. Clothing created with a misdrawn pattern, never able to be sewn in a wearable way. 

If he were to face you, he is certain he will not be able to voice how he feels.

He can at least— do something. Give you something, since you seem so hellbent on leaving him special tea blends you’ve stashed away and BLANKETS. 

(Do you have any idea what you’re doing to him?)

Dan Heng stops trying to run from you. He resolves to do something or say something because it's better than the widening rift that’s currently being run through the Astral Express, between the two of you. 

Dan Heng gets his opportunity in the late evening. He’d— feigned sleep. Intentionally. A deep state of meditation for long enough that you might think he was enjoying a dreamless night of sleep, however, he’d only be idle, waiting for sounds of any of your activity in the direction of the parlor and meal car. 

Dan Heng hears your door slide open down the hall as he sits upright, cross-legged in his nest of many blankets and pillows. Your steps are quiet, the lightest pad against the flooring outside. He strains to hear you.

He does notice, however, how you move even slower as you walk past his door. So clearly intentionally trying to keep quiet for his sake.

Dan Heng waits a few minutes until he’s certain you’re either in the Parlor Car or Meal Car before uncrossing his legs and bounding from his room. He means— to be more put together about this. But, he’s nervous he’ll miss his chance, and you’ll retreat, and be gone for longer—

Dan Heng finds you in the meal car, poking over cold dinner leftovers with a sullen expression. Your brows are heavy, eyes dull. You look— awful. You always look awful, he’s sure you’ll assure him, but now you look bad. You look ill. Unwell. The oversized shirt hanging from your shoulders billows in an uncomfortable way. It has too many undone buttons, leaving a deep v, exposing too much of your chest.

You look up at him, eyes widening.

“I thought you were asleep.” You say softly, putting down the tongs you had been using. You didn’t bother picking up any food, your little bowl is entirely empty. 

Dan Heng opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He snaps it shut a moment later.

Your eyes soften and you sag. You look like you could melt into the Express’s floor at any moment. Your eyes radiate... pity. 

“Did I wake you? I try to be quiet.” You laugh, looking sidelong, out one of the many windows. “Sorry about the fuss. I’ll get out of your hair.”

Dan Heng is frozen.

You idle, only for a moment, holding your breath, before shaking your head minutely. It— it makes his palms sweat. You try to shuffle past him. Dan Heng is blocking your only exit, and you attempt to side-step him as he gapes at you, unmoving. Unsure.

Dan Heng grabs you by the forearm as you pass.

He holds you there. Steady. His grip is firm and unyielding. Maybe too tight, based on your sharp intake of breath as you wobble in place. Dan Heng steadies you with his other hand. Without— thinking, his palm lands on your ribcage and you jump with the contact.

You stare at him, wide-eyed. 

And you face each other.

“You’re avoiding me.” Dan Heng speaks first. His words feel sure, but there’s a sticky feeling in his chest.

“... Perhaps.” You smile easily, despite how worn you look. “It seems like you have a lot on your mind. I didn’t want my presence and what it entails to burden you, dearest Dan Heng. I apologize if that wasn’t clear.”

“What do you mean by your ‘presence and what entails’?” 

You look like you’ve been punched. Dan Heng feels ill. 

“Exactly what it sounds like.”

“Please be straightforward. 

“Kind Dan Heng, I am—” 

“Please, explain yourself.” Dan Heng feels— frustration bubble up into the back of his throat. It’s acidic. He looks from the grip he has on your arm to your face, lingering on the chapped lines of your lips before meeting your eyes. “Why do you think you would burden me?”

You look at him sadly, “I thought we’ve been over this.”

“We haven’t, to my knowledge.”  Dan Heng frowns. You look like you’ve been slapped.

“I apologize.” You shouldn’t be. “Dan Heng, don’t I know too much?”

He locks his jaw. 

You continue. “You’re an incredibly private person. I don’t want to know about a past you’re clearly not comfortable sharing. I cannot help what I am able to perceive, however I can create some distance between the two of us, so as not to suffocate you with the fact that I know about your dirty laundry without your expressed consent.”

Dan Heng’s mouth is dry. 

You’re an unbearably earnest individual. As mysterious as you make yourself, you don’t tend to lie. You’re blunt in a way that’s disarming, heart flayed open as if rended with a short, sharp blade, on display for anyone who would like to view and poke at it. 

“I apologize for communicating that more effectively,” You add more softly. You place your hand over his, the one bracing your arm. You squeeze. “It must be hard to bear those things, and you’ve made it clear you wish to do so alone. I want to respect that and you, Dan Heng. My door is always open, but I thought it might be easier for you to not... be reminded so easily, by my presence.”

Your eyes are wet as you look away from him, to the floor. You take the smallest, most guarded intake of breath. It looks like you’re trying not to cry.  

Dan Heng feels something cold and large in his chest. Big enough to swallow him whole. 

He says your name, even and unwavering, with the weight of the sea behind it. You glance up at him, straining to give him your same lazy, forced smile—

And he kisses it off your lips.

It’s not an action Dan Heng thinks about. You’re almost close enough to feel each other’s breath regardless. One moment, he is staring at you with his own frown, and the next his lips are on yours, tilting his head to search for the best angle. The force of the action has you stumbling back into the wall behind you. The hand he kept on your ribs moves to your waist, bracing you.

It takes a moment for you to react. A startled little (whimper, a whimper) sound gets muffled by his lips as he cradles your jaw. Deepening the gesture. You react and— return it. Moving your lips against his, leaning into his grip. 

Only to freeze, and shove at his shoulders a moment later, “W-Wait.”

Dan Heng pulls back, panting.

“You don’t have to do this,” you tell him. There’s an urgency in your voice like you’re scared. You nervously run your hands up and down his arms. Dan Heng doesn’t even think you’re aware you’re doing so. “I— I offered sex to you seriously, but— don’t just take my affection because you want to close the distance. There’s other ways to be intimate, you know?”

“I’m aware,” says Dan Heng. Your lips are just barely kiss bruised. He wants to make it worse. It’s an easier expression of the gulf in his chest that writhes with your closeness. “However, I want to fuck you.”

The dullness of your eyes is stolen as they widen. Heat rises in your cheeks. You’re stunned speechless.

...

Dan Heng wants to eat you.

As in, he wants to have you in his mouth, under his teeth and tongue, and get you in his gut so you never go away again. It’s— a draconic instinct. Something carnal and old that could swallow him alive. It is another overhang from Dan Feng. Such bloody impulses aren’t... uncommon for Dan Heng. However, he has learned to temper them with training, combat, and more recently, some expression of cloudhymn.

Never sex, however. Because your initial guess was correct. Dan Heng has not ever had sex, and the last time Dan Feng had had sex, he is fairly certain was a teary, bloody affair with a half-dead, bloodied Yingxing. 

This encounter, however, is very different.

There is no swirling Scalegorge and broken, coral-lined streets. There is no sand grating against his knees over Yingxing's almost-corpse. There is no tempest of his own making, cracking the sky in two, and tearing the world asunder.

Rather, there is his nest of blankets and pillows, and your soft body below him. He straddles your waist, protecting the curve of your thighs with his own. The lights of the Archive’s room are dim, the machine hum below is lulling background noise and comforting. And you— you’re warm— not cold or bloodied. Your eyes are soft, but keen in a different way from the man in the echoes of memory. There’s no sharpness to you, not in your words or your presence.

You’re gentle as you cup Dan Heng’s jaw and drag him closer to kiss him.

“You’re thinking pretty hard.” You murmur against his lips. “Are you sure you want this?”

The question makes him— angry. He still doesn’t know how to voice it, so instead he pressed you down into the floor. A bodily expression.

Your hands tangle in his hair and stroke at the lower curve of his skull. It’s gentle, rhythmic and lulling. It’s nothing like—

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

Yingxing tears at your scalp, hands wound into your long hair. His cock is buried in your throat, bullied there at your request. He’s seated so deep that your nose is buried in the bristly, silver hairs at the base of him. His scent is intoxicant, musky and unclean. Instinct tells you it’s impure, but you have learned that’s conditioning.

You want to swallow him whole.

You swallow around his cock as Yingxing grinds into your throat. You gag, you always do, but Yingxing ignores you in favor of fucking your face with more vigor. The sounds that drag from you are obscene. Ugly things, guttural sounds. Tears drip down your cheeks, spit down your chin—

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

You kiss him softly, pliant beneath him and snake a hand lower, easily. It’s practiced. Like you’ve done this a hundred times. The rhythm of intimacy seems easy. You palm over his increasingly hard cock and smile against his lips.

“Does it feel good?” you ask, voice soft and curling. 

Before Dan Heng can reply, you’re licking up his jaw, to his ear. You nip and suck and Dan Heng can’t help the way his eyes roll back in his head. He groans, rolling his hips against your hand. The friction is dry, but it’s something. Something new and different and not an arousing nightmare. But an arousing reality.

He moans at the contact. The sound startles him.

You seem pleased as you hum against his ear and kiss down from his most sensitive spot, lower, licking over skin with practiced motions. You nip at his collarbones, laughing under your breath when Dan Heng twitches with the pressure of it.

Dan Heng feels— thoroughly disarmed. The feeling grows more intense as you coax him to flip your positions in the next moment.

His back hits the mound of pillows softly. You cradle the back of his head as he moves and massage his scalp.

It’s— the care of it that feels different. There was clearly care between Dan Feng and Yingxing. Too much, in Dan Heng’s opinion— (they shared the kind of care that tore history asunder, love so brilliant and cloying that it could only bring sticky destruction). The kind you give him is different. There’s a warmth in your gaze which is foreign. Yingxing held passion and a brightly burning heat that would surely burn itself out too young. Branding heat.

Yours is tender, the warmth of a hearth you stacked and lit yourself. You beckon him closer with a smile on your lips and hands tangled in his hair. You tug on it, with the barest edge of pain. Dan Heng likes it. 

Your knee slots between his thighs, something to grind onto. He can’t help the way he yearns for more contact, and seeks the friction. His pants are too tight, but he doesn’t want to remove them yet.

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

Yingxing tears off your clothes. Your finest robes— the ceremonial ones, silks with intricate embroidery and beaded with perfectly cut crystals— are in tatters by your bedside within moments. Yingxing’s want is unyielding. The lips that move against your own are so much, and so good. You crave it. Yingxing licks into your mouth and you moan loud enough for your entire home to hear. Never mind your attendants and preceptors. 

Let them talk. Let them gossip. You have never cared for legacy regardless.

Yingxing rips away your undergarments. Gossamer things, thin and mostly see-through. You’re already hard, leaking, aching for touch. Yingxing spits on his palm and strokes you. He doesn’t stop as you squirm. You’re not used to touch, especially not like this. No matter how often Yingxing takes you like this, your body cannot fully acclimate quickly. 

It takes a moment.

Yingxing uses this to his advantage. He holds you like he has something to prove as he swipes away pre from the head of your cock and licks it off his thumb. He looks smug, smitten, vibrant, and enthralled.

“How many times can I make you come tonight?” Yingxing purrs, voice rough and silken all at once. You feel your cock twitch in his hand. He smirks. “What if I break you?”

“I’d throw you through a window.” You snap at him.

“You wouldn’t.” Yingxing rubs down to the base of your cock and plays with your most tender parts. You try to kick him and he catches your ankle. Yingxing, the bastard he is, presses a kiss to your ankle. Reverent. “You like it when I break you.”

“You’re terrible.”

“And I’m yours. And I’d like to make Yinyue-Jun cry tonight.” 

It’s— humiliating the way he speaks to you sometimes. He adores you. He loves you. And for that reason, he knows he can get away with goading you on and shoving you around as he does. He knows intimately what it all does to you. The way your cheeks flush and your cock leaks down its shaft are enough of an indicator. No one sees you bare. Just— him.

Just him.

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

Dan Heng starts to remove your clothes. 

You seem surprised when he does. You try to take over the task yourself, but Dan Heng bats your hands away.

He wants to do this.

Dan Heng is methodical with each button and overly careful. He watches the rise and fall of your chest, noting how it hastens as he works on the last few buttons. The garment is pushed off your shoulders and discarded into his nest.

Seeing you bare is— vulnerable. Surely. You attempt to smile but— Dan Heng sees the cracks in it. As lax as you try to be, this is something different for you as well. Another mystery woven into you that Dan Heng wants to pick apart.

He rubs at your hips, up your ribs and to your chest. You gasp with his touch, leaning back to brace yourself on his thighs. It exposes you more, and— gives him more room to indulge. He cups your breast and steels his resolve when you whine.

Dan Heng has never done this. He wasn’t sure he ever would. It feels foreign and odd to touch you this way, but Dan Heng likes it. The heat that rises in your cheeks when he pinches your nipples. The soft puffs of breath and the sweat of arousal that’s growing on your temple. You roll your hips down onto his clothed cock, seeking the same contact he does. 

There’s a tumble to it then. The task of disrobing continues, and you end up entirely nude on top of him, while Dan Heng is still fully clothed.

“... Is this more comfortable for you?” You ask. You aren’t... shy about your body. But there’s an unfamiliar squirm in your upper half that Dan Heng reads as discomfort.

You’re exposed. He is not.

“Somewhat.” Dan Heng lays his hand flat over his navel. He imagines what his cock would feel like inside you and he nearly blacks out.

“Why?”

Dan Heng thinks for a moment—

(It’s because Dan Feng liked power. He loved the games where he could have all of the power and control in his hands, and those where it was torn from him as well. He reveled in both. This— want is an afterburn. One that is not Dan Heng’s. Just like every other thought of intimacy and sex that Dan Heng has ever felt—)

“Dan Heng,” You breathe his name and pet his cheeks. You’re closer now, chest to chest. “Can you tell me why? It’s okay if you can’t.”

“It’s too complicated.”

“... Could you try to tell me, still? We have time.”

“I want to fuck you.”

“You can. After.”

Dan Heng frowns at you. He wants to tell you that— he wants it now. And that patience is something he has in spades but you are testing the limits of. Your poking and prodding, he wants to toss it aside in favor of the literal you in his lap.

He wets his lips as you look at him expectantly. You stroke over his cheek, soothing him as if he were an angry kitten.

“I like that—” Dan Heng starts, and his words die in his throat. What he wants to say—

(“I like that I can see all of you, while not revealing any of myself.”)

You seem like less of a mystery like this, bare and sweaty over top of him. There’s less of you that you can obscure. You’re not hiding from him, dodging him, or flaying him open with honesty while so much of you remains tucked away. You cannot hide your own arousal. Your cheeks are hot with it, your pupils dark and dilated, and your lips are licked and wet. 

“Hm?” You hum, a devious smirk stretching over your lips. You grind down onto his cock, with enough pressure that it almost hurts. His eyes roll back into his head. “Can’t you tell me, Dan Heng? Why do you like hiding the way you do?”

Dan Heng stills, opening his eyes to blink at your incredulously.

“... Why do ‘I’ hide?” Dan Heng asks. His tone is rude. He internally slaps his own wrists then forgives himself, because in the next moment, you have your palm over his cock, gripping the length of him through the fabric of his pants. You flick your thumb over where the head is concealed and look smitten with the way his hips jolt.

“I am not a fool.” You toy with the button on his trousers. “Dan Heng, the Nameless, who hides and hides and hides. And feels so infinitely bad when a single card in his hand is revealed. The shame you carry, doesn’t it burden you?”

Dan Heng’s mouth is dry, “I—”

“You can hide like this. I won’t stop you,” You hum, still smiling, still lax in the shoulders. You run a hand up his navel, over his shirt, careful to retain his frail modesty. “Perhaps a bit bashful, yes. But, you’re hiding. How can you crave intimacy when you’re seeking it from behind a veil? Dearest Dan Heng, I will indulge you, because you are dear to me, but will it be fulfilling—?”

You prattle on.

Dan Heng is... seething. Quietly and carefully. Because, you are not wrong. There’s truth to your accusations. You speak no lies, yet the way you’re... delivering the truth is frail and in fragments. Your own eyes look hazy. Your touch grows shaky. Your voice is too soft around the edges for the sharpness of your words. 

Dan Heng—

He knows that look.

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

You have never had sex before. 

You’ve read about it, because your Preceptors made sure you did when you were young. This was in the case that you were raped, that you would know what the experience was, so it could be reported in an appropriate and timely manner. 

Your exposure to sex beyond that was minimal. Though Vidyadhara copulated, it was not for the sake of procreation. It was based in pleasure, supposedly. You had learned that the humans and foxians of the Xianzhou had sex for the sake of pleasure and power which... you cannot understand. You don’t endeavor to understand it, as you have all of the power that you need. 

(You are naive for this, you will learn in time.)

The first time Yingxing implores you to have sex, you know the rote motions. You assume— that since he is a human, this is what he wants from you. You let Yingxing push you down on your own mattress, and you lay there. Yingxing speaks as he disrobes himself, then tends to you.

Each layer of clothing he removes from your body feels like you’re being cut with a knife.

You haven’t let any attendants dress you since you learned to adeptly use Cloudhymn to assist yourself instead. You frequently wear three, sometimes four, layers of silken clothing, even when you are around your own home. 

No one sees Yinyue-Jun bare.

And yet, Yingxing peels back each garment without much reverie. He undoes metal and mother-of-pearl clasps with a dexterous flick of his fingers and a dashing, sharp-toothed smile over his lips. 

You look down at his own chest when he pushes away the final layer. Your skin is milky, untouched cream. You’re too skinny, the muscle you have is wiry without enough fat. You watch your own chest rise and fall— so quickly. Too quickly. 

When you look up at Yingxing, whatever smile he had worn is gone. He wears concern so transparently over his brow as he cups your cheek. His lips move, and you do not hear him. Your own lips still move, an instinctual reply even if you do not register your own words. You can predict what you’re saying.

(“I am fine.)

(“There is no need to worry about me.”)

(“You are foolish for worrying about me.”)

Yingxing softens after you speak, and thumbs over your lips. The pads of his fingers are rough. You can feel the heat callouses, born of friction and incidental burns. It’s so much different from your own flesh, constantly-healing, pure and so rarely bruised.

Yingxing deftly falls to your side, and scoops you in his arms. He smells like iron and smoke. You’re stiff at his side. 

He speaks directly in your ear, nosing the shell of it, “As much as I would love to bed Yinyue-Jun, I can recognize when I need to be a gentleman about it.”

“... Pardon?” You swallow. Your voice is foggy in your own ears.

Yingxing’s hand settles on his hip. He pulls back just enough to look at you, nose to nose, violet eyes soft in the amber sway of candles in the room. 

“Yinyue-Jun is very brave, for a virgin.” This time, Yingxing smiles like a menace. You punch his back and he seems unperturbed. “Let’s take our time. You have plenty of it, and I have enough to show you how to enjoy this well.”

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

Dan Heng understands, then. 

In a smooth motion, he raises his palm to fit over your mouth. You stop speaking beneath it, and you snatch his wrist up in your own grip.

“If I am hiding, then so are you,” Dan Heng says. There is no waver to his voice anymore. “And you are terrified.”

You freeze above him.

It’s enough of an opening for Dan Heng to knit his legs with your own, and drag you down into his nest. He wraps his arms around you, chest-to-chest (covering you, hiding you himself, keeping you safe and sating that fanged, draconic howl in his chest that will never fully quiet). You remain stiff in his arms, eyes wide and you’re not smiling. 

Your gaze flickers up to his and holds it, unrelentingly.

“I don’t mind doing things scared.” You tell him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders.

“Will you enjoy it if you’re scared?”

“... Maybe less, but it’ll feel nice.” You shrug, nosing at his jaw. “I like you, Dan Heng. I wouldn’t have offered sex if I didn’t want to have it.”

Dan Heng locks his jaw. He noses down your jaw, down your neck, to the juncture where your shoulder meets it. The flesh is tender. You have your free arm draped carefully over your chest, covering your most exposed, vulnerable portions as he tries to do the same to you. Your breath is soft, bated as he hovers.

“I don’t want to have sex with you if it will only feel ‘nice’,” Dan Heng says into the hollow of your throat. 

“How demanding.”

The bar is on the fucking ground. “I do not think so.”

Dan Heng slides a hand lower, between your thighs. You’re only wearing shorts, soft amiri-cotton that sparkles in the lowlight of the archive’s room. It’s a thin garment. It takes nothing for Dan Heng to cup a hand over your sex. With dexterity and focus, he presses his middle finger closer. The seam of your cunt is wet, even through the fabric.

“Are you scared or nervous?” He asks.

“Hm, what about you?”

“Do not dodge my question.” He squeezes over your cunt and you clutch at his shoulders with a gasp. “Just answer it.” 

You consider his question, and open your mouth like you’re going to attempt to parry him, then close it again. Your lips are smooth, petal-soft as he thumbs over them, urging them to stay closed until you have an answer. 

Dan Heng struggles with eye contact, but forces himself to stare you down. 

“Both?” You ask behind his finger. There’s a hint of mirth behind your words.

Dan Heng frowns, “How can it... be enjoyable for you?”

“... That’s a good question.” You look far-off for a moment, not there in his nest. “Not quite sure, but I’m sure I can.”

There’s an implicit ‘I have before’ that you do not say. However, with the way your head falls limply to the side in his grip, Dan Heng immediately knows he hit one of your rare soft spots. He— he immediately regrets it. He’s in uncharted territory that he strong-armed his way into. And he— he doesn’t know the way out. He’s a sexless virgin who masturbates once every three months and his most emotionally (and sexually) charged relationship is with the living ghost of a man insistent on killing him.

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

Yingxing does not remember much of his youth.

Dan Feng knows this intimately. 

The short-lived have expiring memories that seem to muddle the old over time. Dan Feng cannot understand, as his memory is pristine and clear from the time he emerged from the ancient sea in a jade-colored egg.

Yingxing remembers the Zhuming, vaguely, and then remembers arriving on the Luofu. He vaguely remembers his first meeting with Baiheng, and sleeping on a little cot in her tiny apartment while he worked his way up in the Artisanship Commission. Lucidly, these are his earliest memories.

Outside of lucidity, Dan Feng knows Yingxing remembers more.

Occasionally, something will make Yingxing remember his unpleasant, smallest youth. The loud boom of the Luofu’s biggest fireworks. A snarling dog. Splintering wood. The scent of burnt hair.

It makes Yingxing stiffen, tense, and draw up in himself.

Dan Feng has done his own research early on. In his adolescence, Yingxing was nothing more than a scrappy refugee with nothing to his name.

Yingxing’s home planet, a lush-planet... abundant in jungle lands and river systems, was plundered by abundance. Borisins. Most of its population was wiped out. Yingxing escaped due to good fortune, luck, and no doubt sacrifices he couldn’t remember.

He understands Yingxing’s passion and revulsion much better after he learns these things. 

It all enrages Dan Feng.

Yingxing’s fragmented memory, which continues to weather with time, can only give him the basest impulses when faced with something that makes him remember that frightening time. Even if he cannot remember in the mind, then he does in the body.

Dan Feng does not tell Yingxing that he knows. Yingxing is too proud a man— he’ll take offense and cause trouble. Dan Feng thinks it is better that he himself hold the knowledge, and soothe him how he can. Dan Feng can stew within himself, hone Cloud Piercer, and cut those who slighted his beloved. 

It is something beyond duty. 

An expression of care, one that tastes briny and bloody on Dan Feng’s fangs.

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

“Can I help?” Dan Heng asks.

You blink at him. He strokes down your cheek. You hum and press your lips into his palm.

“Can you?”

“I— I will,” Dan Heng stammers. “How can I make this less... scary, for you?”

Can he?

Your gaze penetrates him. It’s something sharp, seeking. Looking for his weak spots for a moment. You’re searching for danger in him.

You soften and cozy up closer, a moment later.

“Just... take your time, and I’ll take mine.” You kiss him, and speak against his lips. “It’s easier if we both can ease into it.” 

Dan Heng nods. He... he wants to fuck you. He will.

...

You pick each other apart. Bit by bit, piece by piece. 

It is a slow affair, one neither of you truly lead. You spur Dan Heng on, and he follows. 

He guides you when he can, when it feels natural and normal. You seem content in those moments, more relaxed and soft-eyed.

You do not wear a full facade all of the time, but Dan Heng now knows that you are careful to keep yourself skillfully hidden. 

Dan Heng finds this out, intimately, while he is between your thighs, tongue against your slit. He laps at you, in the motions you describe. Your hands are buried in his hair, directing him with your grip and the gentle grind of your hips against his face. It is— heavenly. Your thighs around his ears, the scent of you. He left a few pointed bite marks on your thighs, which you had yelped at.

He enjoyed giving them.

You fall apart against his mouth in a way he hasn’t seen before.

It’s— so good to watch. When he looks up at you, you gasp, you whine, and throw your wrist over your mouth to muffle the sounds you’re letting out. Each gasp has Dan Heng earnestly trying to wring more out of you. He watches your eyes roll back as you crest. Your thighs clamp around his skull and a broken sound rips from your throat. He guides you through it, then moves to your hole, lapping at your essence until he’s sure he’s drenched in it.

You pull him up for a kiss, and lick into his mouth. Your hands shake as they pet over his cheeks and jaw. Against his lips, you tell him— “you did so well”, “that was so good”, “thank you” —

The praise is almost unbearable Dan Heng has to hide his burning face in your neck to escape the vulnerability of it. 

You pay it no mind, and just laugh at him, smothering your lips into his mused-up hair.

It’s— it’s good. It’s good and soft and nothing like the dreams he’s carried with him for fair too long.

“Did you enjoy that?” You ask him, forcing him to look at you.

“I did.”

“Good.” You’re smitten with the answer and rub at his waist. You’d— clawed off his shirt at one point. Bare to each other. Dan Heng only has on his final layer of underwear that is increasingly tight and wet, with a growing patch of pre on the front.

“Do you want me to suck you off?” You ask. Your hand, gentle, slides down his front, between your bodies to rub over his cock. 

Dan Heng— struggles to find words as you tease the head of it with the tip of a finger. The smile you wear is devilish. 

“Maybe later—” He manages. “I want to— be inside you.”

He wants to be closer.

You look content with that, and pet him some more.

“In due time,” You kiss his cheek. “Will you allow me to be cruel, and make you wait a little longer?”

“It’s not cruel.”

“Okay, mean then.”

“You’re the furthest thing from mean.” Dan Heng frowns. He bites your cheek in retaliation without thinking and you squirm, pinned beneath him. A laugh bubbles from your throat, and Dan Heng can’t help but twin the sound. 

“So kind.”

...

Time stretches out, between languid kissing and the feel of your bare bodies so close, the night and day cycles the Express regulates do not seem of consequence. It’s the most relaxed Dan Heng has been in recent memory. You make it easy to be so.

You have no expectations when you touch him, other than the easy exchange of heat and spit. 

By the time Dan Heng has your legs wrapped around your waist, cock against your hole, he’s light-headed. He wants, so much. The image of you laid out before him, bare and covered in various marks of his, will be with him for years. There’s nothing lazy or unfocused about your gaze now, there’s only desire, so hot and needy that it makes Dan Heng’s throat feel tight.

You flex your hips, pushing the tip of his cock against your clit. You both gasp.

“Please, Dan Heng?” You say smugly as you play with the sweaty hair at the nape of his neck. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“I—” The words die in his throat.

He strokes up and down the flesh of your stomach. Your muscles are relaxed, soft. You’re no longer playing a role, he thinks. You’re here, wanting, edging toward begging him. The head of his cock is purple from strain and prolonged arousal. 

He presses into you slowly.

You are stretched, and Dan Heng isn’t particularly large, so he does not see any strain cross your features. If anything, there’s relief. If you were relaxed before, you’re boneless now, taking as much of him as he will give you.

Dan Heng fucks you in earnest then, under the glow of the Archive’s many machines and fixtures. You grab at his shoulders and bury your face in his neck. Dan Heng didn’t think he shared Dan Feng’s proclivity for pain, however the way your nails wrack down his back has him throbbing from inside you.

By the time he spills inside you, he’s gasping, sobbing with each thrust because it is so much. Closeness— like this— that’s real and tangible and in his grasp and within his body (only his, no one else’s) feels so vibrant and violent, it cleaves him open. He comes with a broken sound muffled into your throat, sinking his teeth into the soft flesh there. You let him, spasming with the pressure and letting out your own half-cry with the pain. Dan Heng fucks you through his orgasm, until he can’t support his weight on his knees, and he falls on top of you.

You let out a little ‘oof’, and then laugh, wrung out and happy. 

Dan Heng cherishes the memory.

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

You are most tired, but you must continue to move forward.

Despite your aching rear and scratchy eyes, there are duties to attend to. Never mind that your husband is in your bed, knocked out, regardless of whatever regenerative cloudhymns you could give him. Yingxing is mortal, and no matter how much of you he consumes (figuratively), it only slows his aging, never stopping it completely.

Yingxing will die, long before you do. And that is if he dies of old age and not the diseases and maladies of the short-lived. Or some violence that you and the rest of the Quintet will be unable to protect him from.

This will not do.

You enter your study with sweeping, loose robes. You tell your attendants to leave you be. Your ritual obligations are not until the evening. Until then, you will be confine yourself in your study and continue to pour over the scrolls, documents, and books you have been able to find. It has been hard to procure some of them— having Sanctus Medicus texts brought to the home of the High Elder would be treasonous. It has required careful planning to amass the library you have, and you are diligent in keeping it hidden. Even from your lover.

He would not forgive you, were he to know.

You have never been selfish, not once in your life. In any of your lives. You have lived for your people, the Luofu, and a dead Aeon that you remain the after-image of. You have played the part well, smiled when necessary and remained cold enough to rarely stir dangerous interests. You have healed many without complaint.

As you settle into your nest of pillows and blankets, and pick up your newest scroll, you don’t feel that guilty. You will let yourself have this one thing. If nothing else in any of your lifetimes, this one fucking thing will be yours. 

You unfurl the scroll with a yawn. It’s a text, an old one, from the High Elder that followed Yubie. They lived a short life for a high elder, two hundred years. However, they were a prolific scholar. Most of their works have been hidden away with time, as some are downright blasphemous and utilize the Abundance in a way that both the Vidyadhara’s high council and the Luofu’s Charioteers could not tolerate. 

This particular one has not seen the light of day since that High Elder’s time. It is titled:

[The Twin-Hearted Dragon Theory: The Permanence and Abundance’s Coalescing] 

✶ — ✶ — ✶ — ✶

“What a weird one.” You say with a yawn. Dan Heng can hear your voice through your chest, where his cheek is pillowed on your bare chest. He— there’s a spot of drool that’s cooling unpleasantly. He blinks awake and rises off you, to rub the stickiness away, blushing furiously.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. It was cute. You were sleeping good, for once.” You tell him and muse up his hair. “Besides, you’ve gotten me far messier than that.” 

You both are messy. Dan Heng can feel the stickiness on his softened cock, and he imagines you’re leaking between your legs. He sneaks a hand between your body and gently feels along your thighs to confirm his suspicion.

You gasp when he grazes your core. You— you are dripping. Cold, too. It must be uncomfortable. Dan Heng frowns.

“Don’t worry about that.” You assure him, voice shaking. “We can clean up in a little bit.”

“Isn’t it uncomfortable?”

“Maybe,” you hum, unsure. “I don’t mind it, regardless.”

Dan Heng raises himself up off of you, and braces his hands on your inner thighs. He’s warmed with the combined heat of the Archives, his nest, and you. You’re chilled under him and— Dan Heng. Can’t have that. He can’t totally trace why, he pulls a blanket up and over your bodies. 

You let him arrange you as he sees fit. He brings you to his chest, and fits your head under his chin. He tangles your legs, indulges in the contact and tries to transfer some of his volcanic heat into you. You look content as he does, nuzzling into his throat. 

Your own eyelids droop.

“Are you going to sleep?” He asks. 

“... Probably not.” You say with a yawn.

“You look tired.”

“I am,” You nod and push closer. “But, I don’t need to, and it’s hard to get myself to sleep. It’s more trouble than it's worth, trying to sleep.”

Dan Heng doesn’t think before speaking. “Has it always been hard?” 

You pause, breathing even and slowly, “Not always.”

“Why did it get harder?”

You choose your words carefully then, despite your evident exhaustion. Your brow droops, and you rub at Dan Heng’s sides. Your thumbs skitter over his ribs.

“How much do you know about the Kin of Sacha, Dan Heng?” You ask. “It provides context. I’d hate to bore you.”

“... Very little. The databanks only has limited information.”

“Oh, you looked for me?” You nip at his jaw, playful, even as Dan Heng prepares a nervous rebuttal. You soothe his distress before it can get anywhere. “I’m kidding— and it makes sense there’s not much about us out there. There aren’t that many of us to begin with.”

“... How many?”

“I’m not sure, truthfully. Probably less than a thousand. Maybe half of that. Unless Sacha has... awoken to bless more. But I doubt that.”

You rarely mention the Aeon who provided you your sleeplessness and dream-seeing. You even more seldom mention anyone you knew prior to your time on the express.

You sign, “Typically, the Kin of Sacha work as mystics or laborers. Some societies we encountered saw the Aeon’s gifts as a psychic boon to be cultivated. Others, like the one I was raised in, saw the Kin as a well of infinite, tireless labor. You learn quickly under those expectations that even if you could sleep, it’s more ideal not to.”

Conditioning, then.

Dan Heng thinks back to when he first saw you at that rest stop. How you’d swayed on your two feet, eyes glassy and far away. How long they took to focus. How the embroidered logo on your breast must’ve belonged to whatever company you’d been under the employ of. Pieces fit together, and Dan Heng feels slightly sick.

“You don’t— need to be like that, now. You should sleep.”

With your hands braced on his chest, you lean back to look at him. Your gaze is soft, unguarded. You look almost plush with it. 

“... I guess I should.”

(I guess I could.)

That’s all it takes, really. You nearly collapse back into the nest, and Dan Heng settled himself to be curled around you. If— If he still deigned to manifest his Vidyadharan tail, perhaps it would be curled around you both. 

But, Dan Heng does not manifest any tail. You do not need to stay awake. You both rest under the filtered, soft light of the Archives, and that is all you must do. 

[ghost-proofbaby]

It's summer for you, winter for me. Warm me up with strawberry fluff! As always, my muse, your muse, the one and only, Eddie.

Midsummer's night, because I don't have a lot to inspire you with. I'm thinking something cute but weird? Maybe some human body softness where Eddie is a bit of a freak and we love him for it. And we're told our bodies are lovely, even when they're doing weird shit.

I lalalove youuuuu. xo Rhi

RHI!!!! <3 i adore you. thank you for this prompt - i had far too many ideas for it, but ended up on settling for this one, which coincidentally feels like the most subtle of them all? either way, it definitely turned out being the softest. give me an eddie munson who just wants to sniff me like a dog. this definitely got a bit long but i hope you enjoy, my dear <3

the smell of you

warnings: weirdos in love? idk. i have a skewed sense of what is actually weird i think. mentions of death and coffins jokingly. eddie 'manhandles' reader sort of. not edited.

wc: 2.2k+

come enjoy a sweet summer treat with me <3

“Eddie?”

The entire apartment is quiet – too quiet – as you drop your keys into the old crystal bowl on the counter. The clink resonates through the air, louder than the soft murmur of the stereo static you can hear from down the hall. 

“You dead?” you call out again, slipping off your running shoes and tossing down your headphones onto the counter as well now, “Do I need to call the coroner?” 

Your tone is lilted, teasing with airiness as you continue to wander deeper into the apartment and head straight for the room you know Eddie has to be in. Like the waves pulled by the moon, there’s an incessant string tied around one end of your soul that connects you to his, and you follow it all the way down the hallway. The bedroom door is wide open, and you can hear his mumbled yell of a response without clarity before you even cross the threshold. 

You wouldn’t have even needed him to verbally respond to find him in this tiny apartment. You two could get separated on the streets of a bustling city, of a buzzing New York sidewalk, and you still wouldn’t properly lose him. It’s more than just soul ties and his gravity that keeps you pulled to him. 

Something unspoken. Something homely. 

“Sorry, what was that?” you hum as you spy him face-down in the bed, pillow muting him by the mouthful, “Say it one more time, and this time not into the pillow.” 

When he finally properly turns over, he’s a vision. Sleep lines folded into his skin and a bit of drool in the corner of his mouth, eyes squinting in irritation not at you but the sunlight flooding in through the bedroom window. Messy hair, messy shirt, messy everything. A kind of mess you just want to collapse into currently, curling up in all that he is from the day’s exhaustion. 

He’d mentioned wanting to take a nap before you’d left for the gym. Something about the summer heat draining him, trailing off as he’d rambled about how he’d probably thrive as a vampire. 

“I said,” he huffs, sitting up, the frizz of his hair becoming a makeshift halo, “If you call the coroner, request the comfiest coffin possible.”

“Why do you need a comfy coffin if you’re already dead?” 

“You dare deny me of being buried in tempurpedic memory foam? In my hour of need?” 

You roll your eyes as you huff out a little laugh, forcing yourself to turn away from him long enough to strip out of your socks. But just as you reach down for the pieces of clothing, you catch sight of the source of that stereo static flooding the room. 

Your shared record player, spinning a blood red pressing of one of your more recent vinyl purchases. The album has been played through, but the player no longer had an automatic stop mechanism, probably from years of use. 

The center of the record is probably scratched, and Eddie knows it, from how sheepish he looks when you glance over your shoulder at him. 

“Speaking of death,” you walk over quickly, purposefully, before carefully lifting the needle and cutting the static finally, “Care to explain why you’re burning scratches into my Momento Mori vinyl?” 

“I’m sorry,” he quickly apologizes, nearly flinging himself off the bed as he scooches quickly to the end, clearly fully awake now, “I put it on and thought I’d just lay down for a quick second, but then the bed was so comfy, and I thought it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick nap, and then…” he trails off, looking up at you through his lashes with big eyes already pleading for forgiveness, “I’ll buy you a new one. Swear it.” 

It’s impossible to be mad at him when he’s looking like this, inhumanely soft and easily forgiven, “You’re lucky you’re cute, or you really would be dead.” 

He doesn’t respond with words, but instead the outstretch of his hands, fingers flexing as he beckons to you. The needle rests on its perch, the vinyl left behind to gather dust for a few extra moments, as you go straight to him. 

When his palms slip beneath your old t-shirt and meet your skin, they’re pleasantly warm. 

“You were right,” you admit as his knees spread, delegating even more room for you to stand in front of him as your hand wanders to cradle the side of his face, fingers tangling in sweaty curls from his rest. Your thumb mimics his on your own skin instinctively, tracing a large arch right up over his cheekbone, “It’s hot as balls outside.” 

“Told you so,” he murmurs, smiling softly in satisfaction as he leans lazily into your touch. 

“You did,” you agree quietly, half-entranced by his relaxed face, no sight of pride in the room currently. 

He resembles a cat as he continues to preen under your gentle hand, and you almost expect him to start purring right before you find the strength to pull away, removing his hands from where they'd wandered to your lower back. 

One swipe of his finger along your sweaty spine, and you’d remembered what your original intentions had been immediately upon getting home. 

“Wai- Where are you going?” he’s seemingly brought back down to Earth the moment he loses the pattern your thumb had been tracing, the press of your fingertips into his scalp. When he reaches back out to latch onto you again, you take a step back, “Get back here-”

“I need to shower,” you laugh, shaking your head and smacking his hands away as he continues to barter, “I’m all sweaty and smelly, let me go clean up and then we can nap togeth-” 

“You can shower after we nap,” he nearly whines, finally catching your shirt between his fingers and tugging, uncaring for if he stretches the fabric. A small price to pay to have you close to him, “C’mon, sweetheart. I know you’re just as exhausted as I am.” 

You swear you meant to take another step backwards, but somehow, you end up back between his knees, “Did you not hear me, Munson? I stink.”

“Good.” 

He doesn’t give you any time to react – in an instant, he’s throwing his face forward, burying it against your stomach as you let out a gasp and immediately try to pry him away with far too gentle of hands in his hair. 

“Eddie!”

If it were anyone else, you’d probably be mortified. But Eddie just takes a dramatic deep breath in, nose buried just shy of your belly button, and when his shoulders start to shake with muted laughter, you can’t stop the smile from breaking. Your fingers are still twisted in his hair, still pulling back in an attempt to get him away from you, but he’s resilient. 

And all your faux resistance is weak in comparison. Soon enough, you’re back to melting into him. 

Only once you’re relaxed once more, no sign of trying to pull away again any time soon as his hands once more evade the space beneath your shirt to wander up and down your sticky skin without a care in the world, does he lift his face away from you long enough to breathe and speak, “I’ll have you know – I love your stink.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious.” 

“You’re an idiot.” 

“I’m your idiot.” 

The game of banter is cut short when he goes back to pressing his nose into your clothes that surely can’t smell good. No amount of deodorant or perfume could erase that underlying stench of sweat. Hell, the shirt is still a bit moist from it all: from the walk to the gym, from your workout itself, from the walk home. It’d been through the ringer, and you’re back to tugging him away from you. 

“I refuse to believe you like how gross I smell right now,” you reinforce, eyes darting towards the bathroom connected to your master bedroom, “I promise I’ll be quick with the shower.” 

“Baby,” he fights back, wrapping his arms around you securely, no intention of losing this battle, “You remember that time we went to the fair, and you were complaining about how you were sweating, so I tried to lick your face?” 

Your nose scrunches quickly at the memory, “I do, unfortunately.”

“You really think I’d be willing to lick the sweat off your body but be afraid of you smelling a little bad while we cuddle?” his shoulders drop as he looks up at you, head tilted, almost as if amused with the conversation, “What kind of man do you take me for?” 

“The kind that gets off on annoying me.” 

His jaw drops, putting on a fake look of offense before he dramatically throws himself back onto the bed, laying flat as he makes a fist to mimic stabbing his chest, “You wound me.”

You’ve heard those words a thousand times in a hundred different ridiculous voices. You’ve seen this scene enough to have it mesmerized at this point, down to the over-exaggerated pout of his lips and the lingering of the fist against his sternum. 

You never grow tired of it. You never will. 

“Need me to kiss it better?” you joke as you prop a knee up on the bed, following the same script as always. 

And he hits his queue perfectly when he lifts his head eagerly at the expected response, wiggling his brows a bit. “Absolutely. Doctor’s orders, in fact.” 

“Great,” you see an opportunity, and take it, “I’ll get right to it, after my showe-” 

You don’t even get the final syllable of the word off your tongue before he’s clenching his thighs around your own, knees pressing hard before he wraps his legs the rest of the way around your waist to pull you in. A squeak of surprise leaves your lips as you begin to fall forward, but Eddie is quick to break the fall with ease. Catching you with his eager hands, maneuvering for you to half drop to the mattress while some of you still lands atop of him. 

He has you right where he wants you, turning his head to be face to face with you, noses nearly brushing, “Unfortunately, the doc said you have to kiss it better now, or else you’ll be comfy coffin shopping.” 

“A fatal wound?” you gasp, nearly mocking him. It doesn’t offend him – if anything, his boyish grin only grows wider, “First, I’m smelly-”

“Again, I like when you’re smelly.”

“-And then I inflict a fatal wound upon my lover? Oh, how dare I.”

Slowly, all your insecurity of how you currently smell is simply fading. The entire ordeal has become an art of childlike, whimsical jokes – and Eddie is an artist. A professional at the dance, locked and loaded with his incomparable skill set equipped for disarming you this way. The ability to make someone feel loved, imperfections and weirdness aside. 

He likes you, even when you claim you don’t smell your best. And you like him, even when his hair is tangled beyond recognition and one of his socks is half-hanging off his foot from a nap.

You like him when he’s embarrassing you in public, tongue chasing after you with the threat of licking your sweat away, and he likes you when all you can do in response is a weak palm to his chest (that isn’t even making an effort to push him away) as you giggle relentlessly. 

You like each other on the good days, the bad days, the weird days. 

Disarmed entirely, you don’t even notice when his face conveniently slots itself far too close to your armpit as you two scooch further up into the bed. You’re more occupied with the way your legs tangle up, toeing each other’s socks off properly as he slings a heavy arm across your torso. 

“We’re gonna have to wash the sheets,” you mumble, exhaustion catching up as the two of you finally settle. 

He hums absentmindedly, nuzzling into your skin a bit further as he makes himself comfortable. “And wash away your sweet, sweet stink? I don’t think so, sweetheart.” 

“Oh, fuck off,” you laugh, unbothered as your fingers start to trail up and down his back over the t-shirt, smoothing out wrinkles along the way, “I’m serious. We need to change them soon anyways, I think I got crumbs in the bed the other night with those crackers.” 

“Bury me in the crumbs of all your midnight snacks,” he almost slurs, clearly drifting back off. 

You snort in response, relaxing and letting your own eyes shut. Matching all your deep breaths with his own, a million different last words crossing your mind to whisper to the boy you’re sure is once again asleep. 

I love you.

I adore you. 

I would like to spend the rest of my life with you, if you’ll have me. 

And maybe some of those unspoken thoughts slip out without you realizing, because he squeezes you just a little bit tighter, presses his face just a little bit deeper into your skin as his scruff tickles you. 

The only actual thought you can know for certain that you say, though, is, “Do you think they actually make coffins with memory foam inside?” 

To your surprise, even despite the almost-snores that had been escaping him, he answers in a heartbeat. 

“Oh, definitely. We’ll order two.”

[leapdayowo]

I am learning that writing my own story is akin to unraveling a ball of yarn. I find one end, unravel it and it’s satisfying and fun, then BOOM massive clump of knots! But no worries! I’ll just- if I can get this loop over this bit- oh for the love of- how did that happen??? And then most of the knots are out of that section (ignoring the ones I just tighten so much I cannot get them out). And then more unraveling fun! Yippee! until the mother of all tangles and knots appears from the center somehow like a writhing king rat and there’s yarn everywhere :’) some piles are meticulously folded or laid out nice and neat on the floor while other parts are a Mess. And I’m sitting there, looking at this creation/project at 2am realizing, I can’t put it back. Maybe I could have at the first hiccup, but Oh No. I have to finish this now because look at how much progress I’ve made! And made if I. Just. Keep. Chipping. Away. At. It-

nope.

I’m sleepy

so I carefully scoop everything up and place it in a basket until six months later when I have more important things to do that I really don’t want to do, I find that basket and dump its contents back out and start retracing my steps and progress I made on the yarn. I ‘tsk’ at the tight knots beyond help and resolve to take it slower. There is no rush with this particular ball of yarn to unravel it and get it ready to be used. So this end goes over here, then over here, put this piece in my mouth to create tension over here, pull this through then under- AHA!

and so it goes :)

[averlym]

fairest of the fair

[silverwhittlingknife]

hi Silver! o/ because that fanart made me wonder - would you happen to know when/where Dick's stuffed elephant plush Zitka turns up in the comics?

GREETINGS CAM <3333 THAT ART WAS SO CUTE

Yeah, I think your instincts are right - it's a truly adorable bit of transformative fandom, but I'm 95% percent sure it's not comics canon. Barbara has canon plushies, but I don't think anyone else does.

I got kinda invested in the investigation (it's hard to prove a negative!) and I ended up typing out an entire History of Elinore/Zitka, so, uh, if you're curious, meet me below the cut for:

Where does Elinore / Zitka - the animal - appear in comics?

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

Where does Elinore / Zitka appear in comics?

We're gonna go in chronological order!

Dick's circus elephant friend was first created for practical reasons: in Batman 436, Marv Wolfman does a big expanded flashback to Dick's circus backstory as a way to subtly show us Tim before officially introducing him (so that we can have a technically-solvable mystery-of-Tim's-identity in LPoD). In this comic, there's an elephant named Elinore who loves Dick:

Aww. Such a cute elephant!

Batman 436 comes out in August 1989. New Titans 60 comes out a few months later, in November, and guess what? When Dick visits the circus, he is suddenly surprised by an unexpected blast from the past! It turns out that even though it's been years, Elinore still remembers him!

Here's the part where Elinore remembers Dick:

SUCH a cute elephant. I love her.

(Guess who else still remembers Dick even though it was so long ago. Guess which other character is about to be an unexpected blast from the past. Guess which character Elinore is directly paralleling guess guess guess sorry everything is about Dick and Tim in my mind but I can focus I swear)

Four years later, in 1993, Batman: The Animated Series retells Dick's origin story. They like and keep Wolfman's elephant, but they change her name to Zitka:

Wolfman doesn't return to the elephant beyond those two appearances, and a few years down the line, New Titans gets cancelled and Wolfman's not writing Dick anymore anyway. So the animal gets abandoned for a while, until Devin Grayson, a fan of both Wolfman and B:tAS, revives the Wolfman-era Titans team in JLA/Titans and then the ongoing series Titans 1999.

Grayson then brings back the elephant in a flashback to Dick's past in Titans 16 (Jun 2000), where she imports the B:tAS name. Sometimes I'm skeptical of TV-to-comics imports, but honestly, I endorse this one. You lose the alliteration, which is a shame, but IMO Zitka is a better elephant name than Elinore.

Here's Dick with the newly-christened Zitka in Titans 16:

Grayson also briefly references the elephant in Gotham Knights 20 and - in a final angsty callback - in Nightwing 88 (Feb 2004), where Zitka tries futilely to comfort Dick in the midst of his trauma conga line:

... And... honestly, I think that's it for comic appearances? The two Wolfman comics plus the three Grayson comics.

Both Wolfman and Grayson are writing multiple titles - Batman, New Titans, Titans, Gotham Knights, and Nightwing between the two of them, spanning a big chunk of Dick's post-Crisis canon - and both writers use the elephant for heartwarming moments of nostalgia, which means if you're doing a post-Crisis readthrough for Dick, Elinore/Zitka feels memorable. But I don't think she actually shows up that much.

For post-2011, I am not as well-informed - throwing this out to the dash? anyone know? - but I feel like Zitka the heartwarming symbol of Dick's heartwarming circus past is, uh, thematically very at odds with the Court of Owls evil!circus vibes, so my instinct is that this story element was almost certainly dropped in the reboot.

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

In WFA, yes; in main comics continuity, no. Technically, I have not read every comic ever published, so I could be wrong!! But I don't think so.

Below, find my rambling reasoning on the tonal vibes of pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and post-2011, and why this particular story element doesn't seem right to me for the first two.

Pre-Crisis (...okay, mostly the Silver Age): stuffed animal, yes or no?

tl;dr no, requires too much background knowledge on the part of the reader, plus the elephant wasn't a thing until later

Elinore doesn't get created until post-Crisis, but also just generally, pre-Crisis callbacks are more along the lines of this reference in Batman 129 (published in 1960), where, wow, Batman and Robin are hunting jewel thieves - and it turns out Robin recognized this strongman! BUT HOW?!

The comic goes on to recap Dick's entire origin story in flashback, on the assumption that you may not know it.

(BTW, if you'd like to know more about Haly's Circus throughout the years, nightwingology has a great post here summarizing a lot of fun plotlines and characters!)

Basically: Silver Age comics are very self-consciously episodic and kid-friendly; they're not generally gonna do overly-elaborate callbacks because they don't know what comics their kid readers may have randomly picked up or remember.

By the time of post-Crisis, comic books were being written for an adult audience buying from the direct market, i.e. readers who are collecting whole runs & don't need or want Dick's origin story to be recapped to us in full every time it's referenced. That's why in post-Crisis, we get stuff like "hey, neat, this particular soda brand is getting mentioned in several different books!!" or "in order to understand this story arc, buy SIXTEEN DIFFERENT COMICS in FIVE DIFFERENT RUNS and read them ALL ACCORDING TO A NUMBERED ORDER and also you better be following the individual plotlines and recognize these five minor characters who we don't bother to introduce!! Good luck!!" But the elaborate post-Crisis plotlines - and subtler worldbuilding like a stuffed animal callback to Dick's backstory - don't make a lot of story sense UNLESS you're imagining your readers as completionist adult fans.

So IMO a stuffed animal wouldn't be a pre-Crisis thing unless it was The Episodic Story Of the Week, and I don't think a stuffed animal is action-adventure-y enough for the fast-paced storytelling of the Silver Age. (Unless it, like, came to life and tried to eat you or something.)

Post-Crisis: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr: no, Dick's a manly tough guy, he's not gonna have a stuffed animal, that'd be lame, like something Tim might do

Part of the edgy grimdark adult vibes in 80s/90s comics is that some characters who used to be kinda silly & goofy & lighthearted - like Batman and Robin - get reimagined as Serious and Angsty and Edgy in a Tough Cool Manly Brooding Way. This massively affects characterization for Bruce, Dick, and Bruce and Dick's relationship.

(I obviously love this change & love the tense Bruce-and-Dick interactions, but plenty of fans of the earlier fluffy comics really disliked the edgy retcons of Miller / Wolfman / Starlin / et al.)

The upshot is that post-Crisis is a period when you could have a recurring reference like a stuffed elephant, but you wouldn't have a stuffed elephant, not for Dick. I think a toy like that would be too cutesy / childish / effeminate to give a male character in post-Crisis, unless you were poking fun at him.

Now, you could probably let Tim have a stuffed animal, because Tim is sometimes cool but also sometimes a tryhard loser who is faking being cool and not entirely pulling it off (see e.g. the Robin comic where he practices tough-guy faces in the mirror, or the Teen Titans comic where Conner discovers his cringy Enya CD, or when he's fanboying over Connor and it's awkward, etc etc.). A stuffed animal would be deeply embarrassing, and you'd have to be careful to compensate by having Tim do something cool afterward - but Tim's character concept allows for "he's kind of a loser sometimes."

But Dick isn't!! In post-Crisis, Dick's a tough / impressive / "cool guy" character, the kind of guy anyone would want to be, even in the flashbacks where he's Robin, and even in the stories where he's more lighthearted than angsty. It'd be kinda lame for Dick to have a stuffed elephant, so he wouldn't. I feel like Dick would be more likely to poke fun at it if someone had one, like when he's making fun of Wally for liking the Hardy Boys. Dick could have a Batman action figure, at most, and if he had one he would have it ironically.

Basically: in post-Crisis, a male character hugging a stuffed elephant feels more likely to be a punchline to me, not something poignant. (Even with Tim, Tim could have an embarrassing stuffed animal, but he couldn't hug it when sad - that's too far. Maybe Booster Gold might do this. Probably he wouldn't, but spiritually, he would. Sorry Booster ilu! <3)

Instead, Dick instinctively deals with his inner turmoil like the TORTURED ACTION HERO he is: by punching things and brooding and yelling and joining the mob and sleeping on rooftops and going on obsessive secret missions and acquiring Angsty Stubble!! Just like Batman!

(Technically I don't know if Bruce ever joined the mob but you know he would.)

Anyway as you know this is my favorite continuity and I am poking fun affectionately, but uh, yeah sdfsfdsfs. No stuffed animals.

Post-2011 / Infinite Frontier / Wayne Family Adventures: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr it's in WFA! Probably not anywhere else, but it could be.

Post-2011 stuff tends to be cutesier overall, most of all in the current Infinite Frontier era. So I don't feel like this would be tonally out-of-line with IF comics. Taylor tends to go for more meme-y references rather than fanfic references, though.

So the obvious best fit is WFA, which is aiming for a rough approximation of Silver Age family-friendly vibes - wholesome, episodic plots, Teaching Good Moral Lessons For The Youth, etc. - plus lots of Easter eggs for fanfic readers and some comic references.

And look, here we are:

Aww.

Whew - that's everything I could find!

Anyway as you can probably tell, I LOVE the elephant, so this was a very entertaining rabbit hole to go down, thank you <3

[iwoulddieforienzo]

Something really great about the persona 2 cast is that they all individually fucking SUCK to talk to casually. Every single one of them. They are all infuriating. We have:

Tatsuya, who will stare at you blankly if you try to initiate conversation (IS) and will dip without saying a word afterward (EP)

Batsuya, who will scoff and brush you off/otherwise act dismissive

Eikichi, who might honestly be the best to talk to in the IS crew and that is not saying much, who WILL talk extremely loudly over you (probably not on purpose?) and will not be paying particularly close attention to the conversation beyond whatever he wants to say (gets points for talking about his gf. gets points taken away for constantly talking about his gf)

Lisa, who will automatically assume bad faith and will be rude to you the entire conversation unless you manage to defuse her temper (good luck)

Jun, who is uncommunicative at BEST and requires an encyclopedic knowledge of flowers, metaphor and body language just to get a HINT on what he’s thinking, and who will be extremely polite but completely unhelpful. If you tried asking him what he wants for dinner I guarantee it will be the longest 30 minutes of your life as he goes “oh I have no opinion :) whatever you want. :))” EXCEPT HE DOES HAVE OPINIONS. He has SO MANY OPINIONS. He is Expecting you to be able to pick up on his “obvious” clues. He will be passive aggressive if you don’t. (Jun babygirl you suck so bad I love u)

Maya, who is a delight but will very quickly become grating if you try to talk to her about anything serious as she hits you with the white suburban mom's "how to live a happy, healthy life" lifecoach slogans. You can’t even mention, like, stepping in a puddle or something without her hitting you with the positivity beam.

Yukino is great actually. 10/10. She’s fabulous we love her. Incredible conversationalist, chill and fun and easy to get along with. But she’s from Persona One, she doesn’t Count.

Ulala, who WILL bring up her relationship problems in every conversation within 10 minutes at least once. Any longer and she will start talking about Maya.

Do I even need to explain Baofu. Have you seen him.

And finally, Katsuya, who is a cop and a kiss ass and Very Obvious about these things. Also he can't talk to women. He can barely talk to men. Help Him.

And yet they all work wonderfully as a group. They are so annoying I love them

[midnightmarev]

I had a vision.

Young Cellbit finds his way to the arctic where Phil and Techno live and as soon as he sees Techno and Techno sees him out in the forest, the boy just fucking chomps down on Techno's right arm. Despite his sharp teeth, he doesn't do any damage cuz piglin and piglin hybrid skin is so tough and hard to break. Techno just looks at this little kid who latched himself onto his arm with his teeth.

Techno's like, "uh, pls don't do that? Let go?" shaking his arm slightly and Cell just chomps down harder on Techno's arm. Techno shrugs, hiding his arm back into his cape, and thus also Cellbit, and goes back home where he calls for Phil.

Phil's like, "hi m8, what's up?" and Techno goes, completely deadfaced, "I need your help," which makes Phil tilt his head in confusion like the birb he is.

Techno then reveals his arm, stretching it out so Cell's eye level with Phil. "The feral orphan child won't let go," he says, still completely deadfaced, to which Cellbit just chomps down harder again.

Phil, of course, finds this super hilarious and starts cackling, wiping away some tears of mirth from his eyes. This naturally earns him a glare from his friend.

"Get it off me, Phil," Techno says, shaking his arm, a hint of confused desperation leaking into his monotone voice.

Phil's laugh teeters off but is still very present in his voice. "Okay, okay m8, I got it." He then takes a steadying breath before speaking to Cellbit. "Hi m8, could you please let go of Techno's arm?" Another chomp. "You're just gonna end up hurting yourself before you break his skin." A glare.

Phil taps at his chin in thought before he looks slightly above Cellbit's head and his eyes land on a discarded and broken shield in the snow.

"You know… we get a lot of nasty uninvited hybrid hunters knocking on our door all the time. How about instead of you trying to eat Techno's arm, you get to snack on them instead?" Phil's smile is a mischievous one and Techno just raises an eyebrow, arm still outstretched and unmoving.

Cellbit thinks this over, chomps down one last time on Techno's arm, just to see if not this time he would break skin, and then pouts when he still can't. Then he lets go and falls down into the snow where he just sits like the child he is and looks up at Phil expectantly.

Techno lets out a sigh of relief with a quick "oh thank god" under his breath as his arm drops from no longer having a child attached to it by the teeth. He also very deliberately steps out of Cellbit's reach, making Phil chuckle again.

Cellbit's thoughts are just "that's a dad, must do what he says because he's getting me lotta food," and Phil's allowed to pick the kid up without him trying to bite him, much to Techno's dismay and disbelief.

They now have a slightly feral guard dog child running around eating hybrid hunters.

[mysicklove]

Imagining ? Idk who for but maybe Yuuji?

He loses a bet or he owes you or something so you make him wear kitty ears and get on his knees n lick his hand and he's all glossy eyed and blushing embarrassed when he robotically meows and u laugh at him

i love yuuji more than anything, and i can go hours on and on about him in cat ears, but THIS particular situation reminds me of bakugou soooo much.

like it is him to the tee i literally have thought about this exact situation a thousand times i just havent writen a fic on it. his entire body is a vicious shade of red and he wears pink lingerie, frilly and cutesy, with a matching pink collar (with the bell of course). he wears white cat ears, and you have even gave him fingerless gloves that has pink paw pads on them.

but ofc, it is katsuki, so he is glaring at you the entirity of it, and you have to be careful with whatever you say, because one wrong word and he is locking himself in the bathroom for awhile to spite you. but if you craft your coos sweet enough, rub at his face a little bit, he will eventually find comfort on his knees in front of you. of course the twinge of humilation sends blood straight to his cock, but he pretends it doesnt exist for the sake of his pride.

it will take alot of convincing to get him to act cutesy for you, but eventually when his mouth is swollen from kisses and his eyes are hazy from the constant positive attention, he may follow your comands. lifting his hands up to his face in the standard cat pose, and letting out the smallest, awkward meow out there. it of course makes you giggle, and depending how deep his into the play, he will either throw a hissy fit and curse at you, or he may just bury his head into your legs and whine from embaressment.

[boxboysandotherwhump]

I polished an old piece of mine, trying to get into creating stuff again :3

[ruvviks]

All That's Left follows two journalists and their friends in post-apocalyptic United States as they travel from the fallen east coast megalopolis Opportunity back to Los Angeles, crossing through a harsh wasteland overrun with zombies— only to find out that there is a lot more life left than what the protected cities want them to believe. On their journey they meet dozens of people living their lives as peaceful as possible away from military forces, corporations, and corrupt governments; and they learn that the same mutated ghouls that took down Opportunity are spreading rapidly through the country, destroying everything in their path. Will this finally be the end of the world as we know it?

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @hibernationsuit, @stars-of-the-heart;

@vvanessaives, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree

[trailerparkdad]

welcome to the life of a quiet lab technician

[might-be-tiny-gt]

Last year I wrote a story about a streamer who shrinks based on chat donations. I meant it as a one shot, but guys…. GUYSSSSS.

I think about this story ‘s universe a lot. I have lore notes just collecting dust and I need to share it or I might go absolutely mad XD Made these visuals charts to get the basics across but if you’re interested in my lore and semantic ramblings, feel free to read below the cut.

Consider this my unofficial pitch bible for Down Played.

General premise: Monica Diaz is Twitch streamer with steadily growing fan base. Her tag is MiniMushroom and her aesthetic is cottage core. She loves all things magical and tiny, especially toadstool mushrooms, that’s the image most associated with her “brand.” She’s approached by a mysterious benefactor who has developed technology specifically for Monica to test and utilize for her streams. It’s called Byte-Syzed Tech and it connects to a user’s twitch stream and based on the user’s preferences, gives the audience the ability to change the user’s height. The one shot I wrote takes place during Monica’s first live use of Byte-Syzed tech on stream. If I were to develop this into a full story I’d probably go back a bit and start around when Monica is first approached about using Byte-Syzed tech then continue to follow Monica adjusting to using Byte-Syzed more often. How she deals with the size change on camera, off camera, how her social and personal life are affected, all that good stuff. I think it would like a slice of life feel good kinda story.

Characters:

- Monica - Main character and primary user of Byte-Syzed tech. Surprisingly enough, she’s actually a law school grad who probably would have put her degree to use if she didn’t accidentally gain a massive following on twitch. Funny how life works out. She stands at 6’4 and always was fascinated with the idea of being small (Basically, she’s a g/t nerd who doesn’t know what g/t is) so being gifted Byte-Syzed and being able to use it on stream is kinda a dream come true.

- Kim - Monica’s girlfriend, roommate, and stream moderator. Kim and Monica were high school sweethearts but drifted apart in college due to personal matters in Kim’s life including having to drop out of college. Kim and Monica rekindled their relationship a few years later and Kim cites Monica and her encouragement as a big reason why she’s been able to get her life back together. She’s currently back in college working on getting her degree in Mathematics.

- The Twitch Team- Moni hosts solo streams but also very often collabs with three of her online friends. Ariel (@Lifeisthebubbles), a Vtuber who is the only one Moni has met in person. Corey (@McDonuts) an NB asmrist on youtube who started streaming games for fun. And Phin (@UrguyPhin) Corey's bf and the competitive gamer of the four. All three of them were streaming with Monica when she first used Byte-Syzed and have since gotten used to pausing their games so an ever shrinking Monica can adjust her set up.

- The Benefactors- Keeping their (Plural, there are two of them) exact identity to myself for the time being, but basically they’re mad scientists with the best intentions. Their antics have garnered attention across the internet as they have created and gifted inventions to up and coming online creators that seem to defy all laws of physics. Anti Gravity chambers, a literal money tree, a mask the morphs the wearer’s face, and now the Byte-Syzed size changing tech. Despite their inventions going viral, their identities have remained hidden. So what is their deal? They’re just big fans of these creators and for lack of drawing skills have gifted them weird inventions instead. Nerds… Due to the nature of Byte-Syzed and the possible effects it can have on the human body, Monica and Kim remain in close contact with them.

How Byte-Syzed Works in Universe: This I wrote tons of notes about when I first thought of the idea. Byte-Syzed can be divided into three key components; The program, the arm band monitor, and the sync suit.

The Program is installed on the user’s computer and connects directly to the arm band monitor and sync suit. The program has user friendly set up that allows the user to input the direction of height change (Shrink or Grow), The minimum or maximum height change, How height change occurs (By views, chat commands, donations, etc.), and rate of height change (How much height is gained or lost with each instance of viewer interaction.) EX: If height is based on donations, the user can set it up so they lose 1 inch for every 10 dollars donated. They can set the minimum height to 6 inches, so once they’ve received enough donations that they have shrunk down to 6 inches, Byte-Syzed will hold at that height. More donations may come in after, but the height will remain at 6 inches for the duration of the stream.)

The Arm Band Monitor, is the device the physically changes the user’s height after connecting to the Byte-Syzed Program. It also monitors and display’s the user’s current height and vitals. All data collected from the arm band will then be saved and can be referenced later if the band is connected to the computer. The arm band must be kept on at all times during active use and active reset of Byte-Syzed. Active use is the time in which Byte-Syzed is being used in a stream and the user’s height is actively changing. Active reset refers to time after the stream has ended and the user is either set at their new current height or in the process of returning to their normal height. After a stream has ended the user will remain at their changed height until they press the reset button on the monitor. Once the reset button is active, the user will return to their normal height at 1.5 times the amount of time it took to change to their current changed height. EX: A user has finished a stream that was 4 hours. They hit the reset button which will return them to normal over the course of 6 hours. (4x1.5=6) This only applies for time Byte-Syzed was in use, not how long a size change occurred. EX: If the user’s stream was 4 hours, but they reached their minimum height in 3 hours, the reset function will account for the 4 hours the stream lasted. This is a safety procedure to reduce stress on the user’s body. Note: If the reset button is not pressed, the user will remain at their changed height for a period of 12 hours. After 12 hours, the reset function will kick in automatically.

The Synchronized Suit or Sync Suit is directly connected to the Byte-Syzed program and will grow and shrink with the user at the same rate as the user. Normal clothing can be worn above it but they will not change size with the user, only the sync suit. The sync suit Monica received came with the suit, shoes, and a headset with a built in microphone to keep audio input even over the course of her size changing. More sync suits are in the process of being designed and produced, with the goal of making sync suits that resemble everyday clothing like t shirts or skirts.

Fun Story Ideas:

- Origin story. How Monica met the benefactors and was gifted Byte-Syzed, her and Kim’s gripes about using it, actually going through with it and the pros and cons she noticed, the end of her first size changing stream and dealing with being tiny in her own room and her girlfriend’s hands. Etc etc

- Monica finished a late night stream using byte Syzed and forgets to press reset when she goes to sleep so instead of growing back over the course of the night she wakes up at her tiny size. After realizing her mistake she begins the growth process but now has to do it while attempting to do her regular day time activities.

- Monica is approached by a doll company to collaborate on a new doll based on her, only issue, their studio is several hours away and they want her to model at both her full height and at the height of the dolls. After some consideration Monica and Kim decide to take a road trip to the studio and use Byte Syzed at the studio under Kim’s careful supervision. What could go wrong?

- Months have passed and Kim and Monica have grown well adjusted to the major size difference between them after Monica finishes a byte syze stream, however curiosity has gotten the best of her and Kim wonders what it would be like to be the tiny one for a change.

If you have read this far, you have my eternal gratitude. Thanks for reading this far, I really hope you liked it XD Maybe if time and motivation allows I can flesh the story out.

[jillvalcntines]

━━ THE TITLES & NAMES OF KATHRYN DAYNE

"Sand. Dayne. Frost. If I learned one thing in this world, the name you are born with does not hold much weight. It's the names you're given during your life, the names people either love or fear, that count as much as any coin or land." —Kathryn Dayne

(inspo 1 & 2)

tag list: @mandalhoerian @kingsroad @idohknow [you want to be added? send me an ask/chat ❤️]

[starguardianniom]

Stupid headcanons for Billy Kid from Zenless Zone Zero

I just thought the stupidest headcanons for Billy Kid and I'm gonna make it everyone else's problem, here goes:

Billy is immune to acid, in a mission he once got send in a huge vat of acid and then walked out of it completely fine, just without his clothes (they melted) and The Girls (he lost his grips on them when flying so they didn't take the acid bath with him). Hell, Billy is so immune that the acid actually cleaned him up and made him shine as if he had been polished, Nicole, Anby and Nekomata were half sobbing half laughing at the whole thing because they were so relieved that he was ok but also the stress of thinking him gone and then seeing he's fine and in better shape than before made them stress laughing, and also because Anby actually had made a joke about how if Billy would be thrown in acid he would actually get out of it in better shape and polished like a mirror like that one robot from one of her movies, only for her to regret it when she saw him go in the acid, and then being beyond shocked when Billy just came out looking exactly like she and her movie predicted. Billy was mostly mad that his clothes melted, do you know much he loved that jacket? But to Billy acid is like hot water to him, it will just make all his gear and system runs more smoothly because it will melt all the impurities away from his body, so he'll really end up cleaned like never before, oh and his hair also is completely fine too, yeah.

This goes hand in hand with headcanon number 1, if Billy can survive acid, he cannot stand the cold, and will actually frost all over if it's too cold, so he always wear several layers during winter, otherwise he literally won't be able to move, and it also freeze his system so he will be extremely slow to react and answer, Nicole and Anby learned it the hard way on their first winter with him, he was shocked too, though given he's always been living in the Outer Ring before where the whole palce is a desert all year long he quickly adapted, so he has several warm blankets and an heat fan. Also not recommended to try to lick him like kids try to lick something frozen, your tongue will get stuck on him to his utter embarassment, Anby learned it the hard way too.

Billy doesn't charge like other stuff do, when he goes to sleep, he actually stays offline for 8 hours straight afterwhat in sleep mode, so it's literally impossible to wake him up before he finished his 8 hour sleep, his system is locked that way, he's never been able to change it and the Cunning Hares have just accepted that if they get ambushed during the night they will have to defend Billy until morning. The girls tried everything to wake him up, not unlike the Sons of Calydon before, but yeah Billy can't be woken up before his 8 hours are over, so that's really annoying but after that he can toughen up the longest days without problem, and only needs sleep for his 8 hours. Sleep mode is his biggest weakness alongside the cold.

Billy doesn't hide his past because he's actually ashamed of it but because he's so infamous that if words got around about who he truly was he would be arrested immediatly the moment he's recognized by the police, so he doesn't want the Cunning Hares to go down with him so he keeps quiet and never talks about his true identity. He does remember his days in the Outer Ring fondly but also chose to leave it behind and adapt to a new environment purely for the challenge and because he got one good excuse in his old boss no longer being around, so he decided it was his time to try something new. Unlike Lycaon he hasn't changed at all deep down, he just hides it more, but he's just as ruthless as he was back in the day, it just so happens that he just prefers to follows the orders of whoever he lets be in charge of him and Nicole just happens to have more morals than his old boss, otherwise the Cunning Hares would be very infamous very fast with him doing anything in extreme ways to send the message, as he was fond of doing in the Outer Ring, which led to his infamy in the first place. This is the only reason why the siblings aren't in prison right now, otherwise Billy would have sold them out to the Police in the Prologue right there and then. To him it's pretty clear that Nicole is the "nice one" of the Cunning Hares but she is so cunning that he respects her for it and follows her around just because she impressed him that much with it. And given her morals are higher than his are, he doesn't tell her what he did because he's pretty sure she would fire him on the spot if she did (she wouldn't but he won't risk it) and he doesn't tell Anby because he knows that she'll eventually tell Nicole anyway given how she can never shut up about spoilers.

Billy is Quigyi's prototype older brother. He was made first because his creator wanted robot soldiers to fight wars so they could spare more human lives on their sides, and made Quigyi after using Billy's blueprints but made her more human looking to make her a spy, while Billy stayed more android looking as to be easier to identify on the battlefield. Billy and Quigyi pratically won the war by themselves, the former by being unstoppable on the battlefield and ending the army pretty much by himself and the latter by dismantling the other country's government and killing all the ones calling the shots. They were then hailed as war heroes and treated like royalty, until some accident happened that caused most people of their country to be wiped out, but because of their android nature they survived and later got separated because they wanted to do different things, on top of also having to lead different lives, since Billy couldn't integrate himself completely to society because he wasn't too human looking and also fighting was literally in his program so he couldn't stay away from any fighting for long less he goes insane while Quigyi could because she looked like one more and was build more for socialities more than fighting.

Billy's clothes are a nightmare to clean because his body gets dirty a lot with the oil he use and his body just making stains sometimes so his bill to the cleaner is always higher than Nicole's. He eventually just decided to buy several times the same clothes in the end and just changes them when they are too dirty or too much in tatters for him to continue wearing.

Billy is the best liar of the Cunning Hares, if he doesn't want to tell a secret, you'll never find out. This is the one thing Nicole trust him more than Anby for.

Billy can't swim, so if he gets stuck underwater, he won't drown, but he'll also be stuck at the bottom so he can just walk back until he gets out or jump out.

Billy acts childish because his true personality would scare the Cunning Hares, so he keeps his true nature a secret and just play pretend, but he actually ends up liking to play pretend, and if he acts scared sometimes, in reality he is listing everyone's position and scans around to check for any surprise, but sometimes he will just try to act like he got jumped on to check if the rest of the Cunning Hares are battle ready and sharp. See if they keep their wits. He's always doing little things like that to be sure that the Cunning Hares are ready for everything, he secretly trains them but they are too used to his antics to actually notice that he's putting on a show and actually is much more aware than they think.

Billy has a crush on Monica because he actually used to date her before she was a movie star, she was actually someone of the Sons of Calydon before she left and became a movie star and they dated briefly before that, so he really likes to watch her in her job and has bought everything that has her face on it and he is still so very proud of her. He let her go because she wanted to have a new life, he didn't want to leave his old boss behind, and when his old boss bit the dust, that's when he decided to go to New Eridu to try and seek her out, and when he learned that she was famous and stuff, he just decided to let her live her life in peace but also decided to keep supporting by being a fan, not knowing that Monica would take him back anytime the moment she knew he was in New Eridu.