#where i get to have a real home ie not having to hide

[pomefioredove]

*does a little dance*

vil prompts you say? Can i get your take on Vil being confronted by Yuu's real and imminent return home? And it's their only chance too (ie. the portal can only be opened with a meteor traveling overhead and surprise surprise its passing NOW they have three days max)

*does a little jig, going away*

you guys love torturing this man omg. so much angst. I'm about to pour all my abandonment issues into him ikyk

summary: yuu leaving type of post: short fic characters: vil additional info: romantic, reader is gender neutral, reader is yuu, angsty, post-book 7 author's note: my partner has been ignoring me for the past few days (I can't figure out why) so vil is about to experience pain, as he should

There are only six visible letters in lonely, and a thousand more hiding behind them.

The word carries such a weight with it, its meaning and its leaden implications, crushing the lungs of all who dare to shoulder it. It's a sore, tender sort of hurt, one that constricts the chest and numbs the limbs. Paralyzing, strangulating.

They say beauty is pain, but Vil has never felt more hideous in his life.

He had known; of course he had known. There was always a possibility you'd get your chance to return to your home, a world alien to him, and never come back. He'd been preparing himself for that reality from the moment he met you.

It didn't make it hurt any less.

Love is blind, but it's ignorant, too. Vil had pushed that thought to the back of his mind, covering it up with an if rather than a when, like throwing a veil over a tombstone. He had convinced himself that the chances of you leaving were slim, that when the time came, years from then, he'd be ready.

He wasn't counting on a few months.

"It works for about three days," you explain, a giddy smile on your face. He forces himself to share the expression. "The spell is so powerful, it can only be cast under specific circumstances... if I miss this, who knows when my next chance will be?"

Vil is an actor, yes, but this is different. This isn't something he's reading off a page to a room full of production assistants and actors. This is you and him, alone, tangled in an uncertain future with no ending in 12-point Courier.

His voice cracks. "That's wonderful,"

Sevens, is he selfish.

A part of him wants to slap you across the face and call you an idiot for even thinking about leaving him here, let alone being excited about it, but he can't even move his feet from where he's standing.

He should be celebrating with you.

He should be happy that you get to escape this terrible place. You get to go home, where you're accepted as you are, and loved, and where you belong...

But you belong with him. He accepts you. He loves you. Why do you need anyone else? What can they offer than he can't?

It's an egotistical fantasy Vil holds in the back of his mind for the rest of the day, one where you wake up and realize that your place is here, by his side, and not a world away from him.

He tries to convince himself it's not the end yet. Perhaps the spell will fail. Perhaps Crowley will change his mind. Perhaps someone else will overblot and throw the school into chaos. Each thought is more indulgent than the last, but without them, he might have lost his mind before noon.

What is he supposed to do?

Smile and wave while the only person who has ever understood and loved him unconditionally leaves him forever? Make a fool of himself pretending to be happy for you?

Every second without the certainty of seeing you the next day feels like an eternity.

It's wrong. He knows that. He can't keep you chained to the foot of his throne like a pet. You want to go, don't you? That's what you've wanted all along.

Once again, Vil only comes in second.

[manwrre]

don’t ask me why but i have this THING where headcanon? my headcanon? is that billy just loves jewelry.

i fully believe that he had pendants upon pendants and chains and links of gold (real or otherwise) that he’s collected while growing up. maybe it was something that his mom did with him as a kid ie. they’d go to thrift stores and all of these little, rundown antique places and spend hours there— just looking for the prettiest things.

and if they were lucky, they’d return home with necklaces and earrings and other trinkets. and she’d string together the shiniest, most beautiful ones and give them to him; to her sweet, summer child. she’d press a kiss to his forehead and his cheeks and hold him close and they’d spend the rest of their time together showing of their purchases and doing try-on hauls.

and the necklaces? they were all dazzling in their own right but billy’s favorite one was a golden pendant, the size of a quarter and engraved with a semi-wonky ‘w’. his mama had found it hidden in the dingy back room of some store and in her haste to get them home, hadn’t even bought a chain. instead, she’d reached for the one around her own neck ( a delicate, long line of looping oooo’s) and had presented them to her boy.

and as he got older, his little collection only grew more or more; seashells and shark teeth, saints and angels, hearts and stars and butterflies. and of course, it pissed neil off to see him wearing them but his mom would only shoo him off and coo over all of billy’s newest additions.

in her absence, however, he’d begin hiding them from neil and tucking the shoebox of treasures into all sorts of nooks and crannies ( beneath loose floorboards and inside the fluff of his mattress).

but in the instances where he’d slip up and forget? in the moments where he’d get caught? neil would do his damndest to remind billy of just how much he looked like his ‘whore of a mother’ and that she, herself, couldn’t escape his violence.

the first time steve sees him wearing his necklaces, (all layered against the curve of his neck and dazzling atop his sun-kissed, freckling skin) he’d promptly lose his mind. i mean, just stop functioning like a human being and stare at him. he’d dream of kissing the hollow of billy’s throat and running his fingers over the odd shapes and letters. he’d splay his hands out across billy’s chest and take the ‘w’ into his fist— warm with evidence of a day spent in the sun. drink in the sight of billy beneath him. savor the blue of his eyes and the heat behind his smile. and think,

‘god, he’s beautiful.’

‘he’s bright and blinding and i can’t look away.’

‘he’s it— all i’ve ever wanted. he fills me with something so sweet, so warm.’

s w e e t , s w e e t ,

s u m m e r c h i l d

‘he’s the sun.’

[hockeynoses]

Served Just the Way You Like - R/oy x Jam/ie snz fic

Summary: Jamie is sick on game day but thinks he can still play. Roy refuses to let him, but he finds a way he can still be useful – infecting the opposing team with his cold.

Rating: PG-13 (as far as non-snz stuff goes). 4.5k.

Warnings: MESS! Some D/s elements. Malicious contagion via snzing on food. (The results of said contagion are implied, not shown.) If this sounds like too much for you, turn back now! I cannot stress enough how the main part of this fic is just Jamie snzing on the opposing team's catering setup.

Notes: I never thought I'd reach the point where I was comfortable not only writing something like this, but sharing it. So I hope you all enjoy! It took me three months on and off to finish this. And this goes without saying, but I would never condone something like this IRL, and in fact, I would hate it!

The title is a lyric from Table for Two by Joe. What a throwback!

-

Jamie drives to the club, excited to finally see Roy after a long five days apart. Roy had taken his sister and Phoebe for a long weekend in Germany – a trip to indulge Phoebe’s niche cultural obsessions and because Ruth and Roy are such workaholics that they’d both promised to push each other to go on vacation every so often.

The trip had been planned before Roy and Jamie were even a thing, and Jamie couldn’t go anyway - he had a photoshoot for a brand deal that weekend. It ended up being for the best – Jamie started coming down with something the day Roy left. It’s developed into a real bitch of a head cold – they’d had to put extra makeup on his face for the photoshoot so he didn’t look like he was dying, and he’d been constantly asking for tea to soothe his burning throat.

Missing Roy was a fierce ache that lingered all weekend. He selfishly wanted nothing more than for him to be back home so he could take care of Jamie. But Jamie was trying to be an adult, and that meant he wasn’t allowed to be clingy or call his boyfriend to whine at him while he was enjoying his vacation.

They had only exchanged a few texts over the weekend, Roy sending him pictures when he could. His flight had gotten in late last night, so Roy had gone straight to his own place, barely having time to unpack before he fell asleep.

Jamie had an early night as well, his body aching and exhausted. Still feverish, he’d had a night of fitful sleep, dreading the game the next day.

Now that Roy’s a coach, he has to get to the club earlier on game days, and Jamie usually sleeps in, going about his usual game day routine, heading to the club in the early afternoon.

At last, Jamie rounds the corner and sees the locker room doors, his small waist pack weighing more heavily on him due to how wrung out he’s feeling, though the added weight could be from the packet of tissues and some cough drops he’d stashed into one of the pouches. He’s dreading the game today, but is determined to suck it up and play. It’s his job as a professional athlete, and he doesn’t want to let the team down. He’s pretty sure he’s played through worse.

A whisper of a memory floats through his foggy brain – his dad’s voice, calling him a fuckin’ pansy for complaining of a fever before a game. He’d only been a teenager, but he’d quickly learned to hide any sign of weakness around his father, and by association, around the team.

At least he’ll get to see Roy after such a long weekend away. It’s still fairly early in their relationship and he knows Roy doesn’t mind, but Jamie still feels the need to dial back his neediness sometimes. He knows he can be a lot, and he doesn’t want to scare Roy off by being too much at once. He’s been dying for Roy to come back and take care of him, but they’ve never been in this situation before, and he isn’t sure how Roy will react. Maybe all the bedside manner in the Kent gene pool had gone to his sister.

Before he enters the room, a telltale prickle creeps through his sinuses and he stops in his tracks, bringing a hand up to pinch his nose as a painful stifle tries to force its way out. “ha-kxxSH!” His exhale is a relieved sigh. There’s a good chance that no one heard that. But pinching his nose has turned it an even deeper shade of red, one he can’t do much to hide. And denying himself the release of a sneeze has his sinuses feeling like they’re packed with cement and buzzing unpleasantly.

Once he’s certain there are no more sneezes about to creep up on him, he steels himself and heads into the locker room, greeted by the sound of teammates chatting.

He sets his stuff down on the bench by his locker, turns, and immediately he locks eyes with Roy, who’s been keeping an eye out for him from his desk. If Jamie wasn’t fluent in Roy by now, he would’ve missed the slight quirk of his lips and the way his eyes brighten at the sight of Jamie. It makes Jamie feel properly warm in a way he hasn’t felt in days – a gooey, happy feeling that floods outward from the center of him.

Roy moves first, coming out of his office to greet him. Even though they’re out to the team, a one-armed hug and clap on the back is all they usually allow themselves at work.

“Welcombe back,” Jamie says, voice genuine, as he clings a little longer than mere colleagues would. He can’t help himself; it’s been a shit weekend and he’s allowed this one comfort. He wants nothing more than to sink into Roy’s arms and bury his face in the warmth of his neck. It takes all he has to fight the urge.

“Thanks,” Roy says, rubbing his hand across Jamie’s shoulders before pulling back.

Jamie drinks in the sight of him. “Looks like you godt sombe sudn, Grandad.” He gives him his most charming smile, jealous of the sun that got to kiss Roy’s skin all weekend.

Roy rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “Yeah, it was hot as fuck, and Phoebe had us running all over on all sorts of adventures.”

“Looks good odn you,” Jamie says, voice low. The intensity in Roy’s eyes is telling. He’s been missing Jamie just as much, and can’t wait to get his hands on him later tonight.

“You look…” Roy pauses, truly taking him in, “a bit tired, actually.”

“Oi!” Jamie protests, his throat burning with the effort. He whacks Roy’s shoulder with the back of his hand, indignant. “Thad’s dnot a dnice thing to say.”

“I’m saying it as a concerned coach!” Roy argues. “Did you sleep okay last night?”

Before he can answer, Jamie has no choice but to snuffle up some congestion, his runny nose finally getting the best of him. He wipes it with his palm, rubbing the tip of his nose in circles to stave off a developing itch.

“Yeah, bmate, got plendy of sleeb.” The forcefully chipper statement is immediately followed by a shaky inhale, and he snaps his hand up just in time to stifle a telling, “ha-kxxxgt!” into his fist.

“Tartt, if you’re sick-” Roy studies him with a stern look.

“I’b nodt sigck,” he says, betrayed by a marshy sniffle. “Idt’s allergies.”

“You’re not allergic to anything.”

Right, Jamie thinks, as a coach, he’d have had a look at all the players’ medical files.

“People can develop allergies as adults.” His croaky voice turns petulant, aware that he’s fighting a losing battle.

Roy stares at him, knowing that Jamie will give in to the need to break the silence and eventually say something incriminating. He doesn’t have to wait long before Jamie’s nose does it for him. It starts to twitch, his eyelids fluttering closed before he’s forced to cup his hands over his face and curl forward with a massive- “heh… heh’eehhRRRSSHOO!” It coats his palms in enough spray and spit that he has to wipe them on his pants. Jamie looks up sheepishly, embarrassed at having his cover blown so quickly.

“It sounds to me like you’ve caught a hell of a cold.”

“I’b fine.” The corners of Jamie’s mouth pull down in a frustrated pout.

“Where did you even pick this up?”

“I don’t know, bman.” Jamie tries and fails to keep the tired whine out of his voice. A cool hand presses to his forehead and he sighs at the feeling.

“Jesus, you’re burning up.” Roy says. The concern in his voice floods pleasantly through Jamie, always grateful for Roy’s attention. “You can’t play like this.” At that, Jamie snaps back to attention.

“The fucgk I cadn’t! Me legs work jusdt fiiiihh hih’AEESSHH’IUE!” Into his hands again, followed by an irritated cough that’s just starting to move into his chest. A few heads turn their way, and the guys nearest to him take a step back in unison.

“Jamie, you’re clearly not well enough to play. And as your coach, that’s my call to make.” Roy says firmly, voice deep with authority. He places a placating hand on his shoulder. “It would be irresponsible of me to let you play right now.”

Jamie’s gaze cuts downward, feeling like an unruly child being scolded. He drags the back of his hand under his nose and gives a thick sniffle, still fighting against his runny nose.

“Christ, you even look contagious. Do you want to get the whole team sick? You should have told me sooner.”

“You were on vacatiodn! I didn’t wadnt to mbake a big deal oudt of idt.” His dad’s comments filter through his head again, and he decides he’s not going to have that conversation in the middle of a crowded locker room.

“You still could have told Ted or Beard. Or texted me this morning. I wouldn’t have been mad, Jamie.”

“I’b sor- ehh…hih’TTSSHOO!” The inner elbow of his very expensive hoodie gets a generous spritzing.

“Hmm? What was that?” Roy asks with raised eyebrows.

“I said I’b – ggsh’IISHIEW! SNF. I’b sorry!” He has to wipe his nose on his sleeve before he can show his face again. It seems like each day of this horrid cold has brought with it increasingly messy sneezes, with no end in sight.

“Good boy,” Roy offers, a dash of condescension mixed in with his genuine tone. It affects Jamie all the same, warming him down to his toes. He should be embarrassed, but he’s too worn down to care. He almost sways with the relief of it - or maybe that’s the fever he hasn’t managed to shake. Roy drapes an arm across his shoulders, holding him in place.

“Let’s get you out of here. God knows we don’t need a fucking virus taking down the entire team at this point in the season, with the league table being as it is.”

A spark of an idea lights up Roy’s face at that, and he pauses, considering. Once again taking in Jamie’s sorry state – his cheeks ruddy with fever, his glassy eyes, and his poor raw nose. So clearly full of cold and extremely contagious. Having made up his mind, Roy gestures to Ted and Beard that he’s taking Jamie home, and that he’ll be back in time for the match. Business taken care of, he turns back to Jamie.

“Follow me,” Roy says as he manhandles him out of the room and down the hallway. Jamie has to muffle a few sneezes into the collar of his hoodie along the way, Roy holding him steady through each one. He’s so out of it that it takes him a while to realize they’re not taking the usual route out of the stadium.

“Where we goin’?” he asks, groggily wiping at the clear mess seeping out of one nostril.

“Just trust me. And try not to draw too much attention to yourself,” Roy says, as though that’s something that comes naturally to Jamie.

Roy uses his employee badge to get them into a door deep within the maze of the staff-only areas of the stadium. Opening it slowly, he scans the room to make sure it’s empty before pulling Jamie inside.

“Whadt are we doin’ ‘ere?” Jamie asks, blinking hazily. They’re in the lounge area for the visiting team; he recognizes it from when he played here with City. It’s outfitted with a full kitchen, dining tables, couches, TVs – the works.

It should still be about 30 minutes before the opposing team arrives, but the room has already been prepared for them. The fridge is stocked; silverware, plates, and glasses are all arranged on one end of the long counter, and the catering team has set out trays of food on beds of ice to keep them cool. There’s a tray of sushi, a gorgeous charcuterie board, a large bowl of salad, and some cold cuts for sandwiches, among other hot dishes being kept warm by small heaters under their covered metal trays.

“I have an idea,” Roy says with an evil glint in his eye. Jamie recognizes that look from training and knows well enough to be very, very afraid.

“…What?”

“You’re gonna contaminate their food and get all these fuckers sick, like the plague rat you are.” Roy shares an intense, secretive grin with Jamie, clearly proud of himself.

A shocked grimace pulls at Jamie’s features.

“Roy, that’s sigck. We cadn’t…” His breath scissors in and out. “We c-cadn’t do that! Hih…ha-ESSSHH’uh!”

“Of course we can.” Roy’s strong fingers give Jamie’s shoulder a shake, caught up in the excitement of his plan. “Think of the standings, mate! If a bunch of their best players are out the next couple of weeks, their numbers are gonna tank and we’ll move up a couple spots!”

Jamie stares at him in awe. “You really - hah…ha’XXGSH’uu! You really are a sadist.” Roy pins him with a knowing look. A flush prickles across Jamie’s cheeks and neck, and there’s a tug of heat in his core. Roy follows his lead, crowding into his space. He thrusts his fingers into Jamie’s thick hair.

“Well, you’re the one who showed up for a game that you’re obviously too sick to play, and you risked getting the rest of the team sick, so now I’m the one making the decisions.” He pulls Jamie closer to him, tugging gently on his hair. The words are growled softly against his cheek like a secret. “Which means I get to use you however I want, and you’re gonna let me.”

Jamie chokes on a moan, breath catching in his throat. Roy pulls back, his eyes flashing dark.

“Yeah?” Roy asks, giving him an out if he needs it. They’ve been together long enough that they can read each other clearly. Even though they might have their communication issues outside the bedroom, sex and its related power dynamics have always been something that they’re really, really good at.

“Yeah,” comes Jamie’s answering rasp. His eyes are needy, reverent. He can trust Roy. Roy will take care of him. And he gets to be useful. He can still help the team win, even in this twisted roundabout way that Roy’s found.

He’s afforded the soft brushing of Roy’s fingers against his cheek before he’s abruptly caught by the elbow and firmly escorted towards the long counter with trays of food on it.

“Right then,” Roy surveys the room, creating a plan of attack. “We should probably hit all the cold stuff first… not bother with the hot trays since they’re probably warm enough to burn off the germs… or something. Right?”

“Fugk iihh- hep’TIISSHuh!” Jamie sneezes down into his cupped hands, held inches away from his face. “Ugh. Fugk if I know.” He glances at his moist palms before swiping them dry on his pants.

Roy rolls his eyes. “Don’t waste all those sneezes before we even start.”

“Sorry, Jesus.” Jamie’s brows furrow in a little pout as he wipes his damp, squishy nose on the side of his hand.

Roy, anxious to get started and with an eye on the clock, grabs Jamie’s arm with gentle authority and steers his body towards the tray on the end of the counter. It looks like a lovely house salad, Jamie thinks absently, staring down at it. When he glances back at Roy, the other man is watching him expectantly.

“Alright, go for it.”

“I cadn’t just… do it odn commband!”

“Now’s not the time for performance anxiety, Tartt.”

“Ha-ha. You’re bloody hilari-hihh!” He sucks in a sharp inhale as the fuzzy sensation in his nose starts up again. “ihh...hih…ha’iigg’SHH’IUE!” On instinct, he turns his head down, bringing his elbow up in an aborted attempt to cover. About half the sneeze escapes and mists the salad below, the rest of it ends up on the sleeve of his hoodie.

“Christ’s sake, the whole point is to not cover!” Shifting behind him, Roy gathers Jamie’s arms together behind him before clamping a large hand over both wrists. Heat thrums through Jamie’s veins, his awareness narrowing to the squeezing pressure of Roy’s hands. He fights the urge to squirm.

“Try again.” The husky command rings low in his ear. It vibrates through him, sending shivers across his skin.

His cheeks tinge pink to match his chapped nose, which is currently running freely onto his upper lip. His hand jerks in Roy’s grip, his brain on autopilot trying to get him to clean himself up. He settles for a desperate sniff, scrunching his nose up in an unsuccessful attempt. He’s so congested he can barely get any air through.

It sets off a new round of tingling, so itchy and persistent that he shakes his head to try and dispel it. His chest expands as his breath stutters and his brain goes pleasantly fuzzy. “heh…ha’EESHHH’OO! Ha’ITTCHH’uh!” The full-bodied sneezes burst from him, showering the salad with a hearty amount of mist. He blinks woozily, catching his breath as they watch it settle.

“Good job,” Roy says, and Jamie’s shoulders melt. He lets Roy shuffle them a step or two over so they’re standing in front of the tray of sushi.

“This next.” Roy taps the tray before moving out of the way.

“Give be a binute, Jesus,” Jamie whines, twin trails of mess clinging to his cupid’s bow. Roy surprises him by blowing a breath of cool air across his nose, and it turns out that, yeah, he really is that ridiculously sensitive right now. “Fu-uhhh-ck…” Jamie fights against it for a moment before remembering their purpose. His nose is stuffed so full right now, he just knows it’s going to be a fucking mess.

Tears spring to his eyes as his nostrils flare, the plaguing itch too intense to control. “Eh…hih…” His chest swells with a gasp before the air is blasted from his lungs – “AEEEISHH’IEW! Huh…Ha’AEEESHUH!” as he barks two huge, wet, cold-laden sneezes down over the waiting food.

It takes him a minute to come back to himself, his breath sounding heavy in his own ears. Roy presses bodily into him, rubbing a reassuring hand across his shoulders.

“Impressive,” he offers, generous with his praise. It only adds to the floaty feeling shimmering through Jamie’s body.

“Christ, look at you. Such a mess.” Roy says, velvety and raw.

Jamie’s face grows hot, humiliatingly conscious of Roy’s scrutiny. He’s sure his face is a disaster. Can feel the remnants of spit and spray all the way past his curved, parted lips down to his chin. He must look like a walking biohazard.

“Roy…” Jamie gives a waterlogged snuffle. “Cadn I have a tissue?”

Roy seems to enjoy Jamie’s struggle to recapture his composure.

“No.” Roy’s fingers clamp over his chin. He brushes a kiss to Jamie’s temple. The gruffness of his voice shoots straight to Jamie’s cock when he says, “I’ll clean you up when we’re done. Right now, I want you messy.”

A soft whine escapes him. “Roy…”

“Such a pretty boy.” Roy’s hand comes down over the back of his neck possessively. “I can’t help but want to see you looking like a right fucking mess sometimes.” His words slink down Jamie’s spine and pool low in his gut.

As Roy moves them further down the line, Jamie’s nose surprises him with a sudden, “hih’EGGSSH’iew!” that mostly ends up glistening on the stainless-steel counter.

“Use your aim, you Muppet. Or do you need me to do everything?” Roy asks with no real heat behind it.

His fingers thread back into Jamie’s frosted tips and he tugs, firmly pulling Jamie’s head back and positioning him right where he wants him - directly over the painstakingly arranged charcuterie board. It really is gorgeous - If Jamie wasn’t feeling so poorly, he’d want to dig in. He braces his arms on the table, his hands finally free of Roy’s hold. Apparently Roy had decided he was trustworthy enough to have his arms back.

“S-sorr-ehh…ha-eh’kkgh’ISHHOO!” The sneeze rockets through him. His muscles tense as he curls forward with the force of it, dousing the food below with a heavy amount of viscous, virulent spray. He moans, catching his breath. That one nearly tore his throat raw. He sags into Roy’s solid form, the achy torment of the past few days starting to catch up with him.

“I almost feel bad for these poor fucks.” Roy says, his arm a firm, comforting presence around Jamie’s waist. “There’s no way they’re not gonna catch this.”

“Mmm,” Jamie hums in response. Resting his fever-warm forehead against Roy’s neck, he sniffs up some of the gunk in his nose, the miserable, squelching sound of it echoing through the room. The bottom half of his face is still in a right state, but he isn’t about to wipe it on Roy’s shirt. He’s being good, and Roy promised he would clean him up after they’re done.

“I bet these fuckers’ll be so smug when they hear our star striker isn’t playing tonight.” Roy smirks. “But they’re gonna find out the hard way that you’re still our secret weapon.” A hand squeezes Jamie’s bicep and gives him an encouraging shake.

Jamie pulls back, his exhausted eyes smiling at Roy, basking in the praise that helps him find his second wind. Roy’s grin is wicked, confident in the success of his plan.

“Ugh, I dodn’t feel good,” Jamie says as he continues to lean on Roy for support.

“Good. Probably means you’re more contagious.” Then he softens. “Just a couple more and we’ll get you out of here.”

Jamie groans but lets himself be pulled along to the next tray made up of various cold cuts and sliced cheeses for sandwiches.

“Get this,” Roy directs, arranging Jamie until he’s directly in front of it. He hardly has to work at all to get another tickle started up. Taking a couple deep sniffs is enough to irritate the sludge that’s packed in his sinuses, begging to be released. His vision goes blurry as the itch builds and builds. His wet nostrils flare as his mouth falls open, his hitching breaths finally reaching a peak. “iihhh- hih’GGKSSHH’IUE!” He’s thrown forward with it, covering the food in an unrestrained torrent, the mist and spit visible as it settles. The dish takes it all.

“Guh…” Jamie leans back, tilting his head back to stop his sinuses from draining down onto the food. The bottom half of his face is a glossy mess. Roy snakes a hand into his hair again and pulls so his throat is exposed.

"You look wrecked...” Roy says, and a needy sound escapes Jamie’s throat. “Love it when you look a wreck for me."

“Roy,” he breathes out.

“I leave for four days and look what a mess you’ve become.” Roy’s teasing voice burns hot in the shell of his ear. “Next time you’re gonna tell me when you’re feeling poorly. Doesn’t matter if I’m clear across the world.”

“Yeah… Yeah, ‘course I will.”

“Promise?”

“Prombise.”

There’s a pause, and Jamie’s eyes search Roy’s face, his throat tight.

“Idt was five days,” he says.

“What?”

“You said you were godne for four days. Idt was five.”

Roy stares at him for a moment, his expression softening. “Counting down the days, were you?” He chuckles, a deep sound that reverberates through Jamie. “Fuck… Love it when you get all needy.”

And really, Jamie can’t help but go all melty at that.

“You gonna let me take care of you when we get home?”

“Uh huh,” he breathes through his mouth.

“There’s a good boy. I’ll handle everything; have you feelin’ better in no time.”

Jamie makes a little sound and curls into Roy for a hug. He feels Roy reach his arms around Jamie’s waist and squeeze him tight.

“Vacation was nice, but I missed your constant yammering in my ear,” Roy says into Jamie’s hair. Jamie laughs weakly – a wet thing that turns into a cough.

“Come on, just one more, then we’ll get you home.” Roy turns them to the tray of silverware laid out at the end of the table. “Finish ‘em off.” He brushes the hair from Jamie’s forehead as he takes in his clearly contagious mess of a face.

Jamie leans forward, willing to do anything Roy says at this point. He can feel a monster of a sneeze building, and tries to sniff through his clogged sinuses to help it along. Nostrils twitching, he rubs the tip of his nose in circles, his hand coming away wet with snot. Fuck, it’s going to feel so good to just get this crud out. “hah… Cobme ond… ihh… huh’IGG’SSHHAH! Hih’ZZSHHHUUHH’UE!” The sneezes shudder through him as he sprays the silverware with all the filth that has built up in his head. Roy holds him steady with an arm around him as they watch it settle, their mission accomplished.

“Good job, babe.” Roy gives his middle a squeeze, looking nearby at the basket of sandwich buns. “I should shove your face in one of these, but I’ll be nice and let you have a tissue. Since you’ve been so good for me.”

Jamie sags into him and groans – in relief, pleasure, exhaustion – he isn’t sure which.

“Oh, you’re so out of it.” Amusement shines in Roy’s eyes, along with a quiet sort of love. “Here, let me.” He grabs a napkin from the pile on the table and gives the bottom of Jamie’s face a cursory wipe before cupping it around his nose. “Blow.”

Jamie obeys, blearily filling the tissue with the muck leftover in his sinuses. It seems to never end. After several blows, he finishes, not quite gasping for breath. He still can’t breathe through his nose, but he feels about a hundred times better than he did a moment ago.

“You may be a mess,” Roy grunts at him, his lip curling up into a smirk. “But you’re my fucking mess.” He kisses Jamie’s forehead and pockets the soggy napkin. Despite the aches in his body, Jamie feels like he’s floating. He’s so gone on Roy, it would almost be pathetic if he wasn’t sure that Roy was equally as obsessed with him.

“Take mbe hombe?” Jamie asks, hand skimming down Roy’s arm to toy with his fingers. Roy threads them together.

“Of course, love. Let’s go,” he says before pulling Jamie along, leading the way as they make their escape into the echoing halls of the club.

[ihni]

Things I love to read in Billy and/or Harringrove fanfiction:

(Inspired by @grey-sides and in the hopes of spreading some love)

Billy and Max overcoming their problems to form a united front and start working together, and become better siblings to each other.

Realizations. The "oh" moments. The "oh shit" moments, the "oh fuck" moments, the "oh no no no..." moments. ALL the realizations! (So, like ... the boys finding out they're into each other, anyone finding out about Billy's home life, Billy finding out about monsters, both of them finally seeing another - more vulnerable - side of each other, etc etc etc)

This whole post

Billy getting to fight monsters too, especially if he can use it as an outlet for all that aggression and be badass and save people's asses and then be all blasé about it like "what? it's not like it's hard" *hair flip* (also Billy and an axe will NEVER be over-played!)

Physical whump (bruises, blood, hiding injuries, fighting, being pushed up against surfaces, threats, hands grabbing faces and throats and hair, being made to kneel, incapacitation, fighting through exhaustion/illness, manhandling, etc etc. I'm a whumper at heart, I want to inject all these things into my veins).

Emotional whump (being left out of things/ostracization, feeling lonely, overhearing something hurtful, keeping a straight face even though you're hurting inside, not expecting someone to come and save you when you're hurt/captive etc etc - ie my bread and butter).

Billy patching himself up (BOTH phisical and emotional whump, so, like a double-whammy!)

Billy in the upside down, as a very capable survivor. Give me Cast Away, only with Billy, and the Upside Down instead of an island ... ALL THE VERSIONS of that. I like my boy capable, and fighting for survival (I'm normal, I swear)

This post

Billy being touch-starved. I eat that up with a SPOON, all versions of it but especially the ones where he gets touch (angsty version; it's not a good kind of touch but he seeks it out anyway, fluffy version; he gets all the pets and hugs!)

The boys coming back from the upside down and having gotten used to being close, so they get anxious when they don't have eyes on each other (yes I've written it. yes I've read it. yes I love it)

Having to share a room/doing a project togehter because their last names both start with H. Like forced proximity, school version. Mmmm, delicious.

When Billy is ridiculously weak for Steve and would do anything for him (especially if Steve has no idea about he power he wields). Basically Steve as the Billy-whisperer.

Billy getting good parents. I don't even care who at this point, I'll read all of them: Joyce, Hopper, Claudia, Mr Clarke (Mr CLARKE <3), Bob, Flo, that grumpy librarian ... Just give him good parental figures (and let him STRUGGLE with accepting that he's finally safe!)

Scars. All the fics about scars. Angsty scars, proud scars, mental scars, scars on the skin, first time someone is allowed to touch someone else's scars. Just, <3

Badass, BADASS moments, by both Billy and Steve. Smashing demodogs to pieces, rescuing themSELVES from bad situations, etc.

Guilt. <3 That usually comes after the realization moments, but mmmmm, a side of guilt to that? Fucking delicious, I will live off that for weeks. Like, having someone realize what Neil is doing and then feeling GUILTY about it (maybe they caused Billy to be hurt, or maybe they made it worse, or maybe a beating could have been avoided if they'd acted differently), that's my JAM.

That moment when Billy/Steve start calling the other by their first name instead of their last name ...

Self-sacrifice (filed under whump, but can be both physical, mental or simply implied). There doesn't even have to be a real threat of getting hurt, the self-sacrificing idiot (I prefer Billy) just have to THINK there is.

Basic needs not being met ... until they are. (So, say ... Billy being hungry, thirsty, tired, thrown out of the house ... and then finally getting to eat, drink, sleep, get inside)

[softpine]

what r some of ur fav hints/easter eggs from past posts that u can talk about now? any that ended up being scrapped?

oooh this is a fun question!! the first thing i thought of is caroline not knowing how to swim. it was mentioned a few times when she was a teenager

because my original plan was for caroline to have a near-death experience while drunkenly falling off a boat in DSV, which would've been a wake up call for her and would've made her start thinking about returning home (ie. returning to safety). but that was before i decided to go down the supernatural route with asa's story (actually, this was before i even decided that cara would have a kid someday), so i scrapped that idea and decided the real turning point for cara would be seeing that vision of asa! but then i still had to give an explanation for why i kept mentioning she can't swim, so i had beth teach her how to swim, as a way of signifying caroline's growth and newfound ability to step outside her comfort zone :)

...

ALSO THE SCRAPPED CHEATING SUBPLOT FJKSJDSKJ

okay. hop into the time machine with me. stevie and matt have been not dating, but not not dating, for a year now. matt has just seen some texts on stevie's phone which make him think she's seeing other people on the side. you can tell he's not mad, in fact he's openly joking about it with her. so he's really confused when stevie says she hasn't been seeing anyone other than him. truthfully – and i can only say this now – matt wouldn't have cared if she was. but they establish that neither of them has been seeing anyone other than each other. there's an unspoken agreement that they're exclusive now, even though they still don't put labels on their relationship.

okay now we're at the dock where stevie professed her love, but here's where things deviate: matt was not supposed to break up with her here. in my original draft, he would've said he loves her too and then continued to date stevie (WITH labels now), knowing they're a dead end, but being too cowardly to say anything. it would take stevie a few weeks to realize matt isn't as enthusiastic about their relationship as she is, but she convinces herself that she's being paranoid. things start to get worse as matt loses interest and gets worse and worse at hiding it. it's not that he doesn't love or care about stevie, it's just that the guilt of lying to her is making it hard to even want to be around her, so it seems like he just doesn't give a shit about her anymore.

eventually, stevie confronts him about it. she's not trying to guilt trip him, but she can't hide how upset she is, and it makes matt dig his grave even deeper because he feels this instinct to assure stevie that he DOES love her and he DOES want to be with her. he apologizes for acting weird lately and he's honest about the fact that he had a contrasting idea of who stevie was before they started dating, so now he's trying to reconcile the person he invented in his head with who stevie actually is, but he still loves her and he promises he'll make a greater effort. so they KEEP DATING...

but things don't get better. because of their prior conversations, stevie believes she's the problem. as a test, she tries to act the way she acts around strangers: loud, funny, and impersonal – and the worst part is, matt actually seems more interested now.

nearing graduation, matt and stevie go tour a college campus a few hours out of town. they get invited to a house party. (it's a just chill gathering, not a PARTY party. they smoke a little but neither of them are drinking.) matt is having a great time impressing everyone with his ~extreme sports~ stories, but stevie is becoming increasingly upset because of something that happened earlier (which might still happen so i can't say anything about it lol) and she just wants to go home, but they took matt's car, so she can't leave until he does. he doesn't even notice when stevie goes outside alone. she's sitting in the cold for a while before this guy approaches her and offers her his jacket. he has this vibe

and if you know anything about stevie, that's literally her type fjkjsds

so this guy, cameron, sits with her and they start talking. he's a freshman studying aeronautical engineering. stevie obviously thinks this is fucking awesome and wants to know everything about it. they talk for a LONG time. when stevie realizes how cold cameron must be, since she's wearing his jacket, she's like omg let's go somewhere else... so they walk back to cameron's dorm and keep talking. matt does check on her via text, but stevie says she found another ride home, and matt doesn't push further. she and cameron talk for literally hours, long after the party ends and matt has undoubtedly gone home, but stevie is just so relieved to be herself around someone, not worried about how she's acting or being perceived.

eventually, of course, they kiss. stevie is overwhelmed with regret immediately and blurts out that she has a boyfriend, which cameron is shocked by because she hasn't mentioned anything about him even though she basically shared her entire life story. stevie realizes she doesn't have much of anything to say about matt. she loves him, but at this point she's really just punishing herself by staying with him when she knows he doesn't feel the same way, and because she's afraid no one will ever pursue her the way matt did. but here's cameron, disproving this theory in real time. she kisses him again. thankfully he knows she's not in the right headspace to do anything more than that. they end up getting snacks from the vending machine and continuing to talk all night, falling asleep together just as the sun starts rising. (and if you've ever cuddled with someone in a TINY dorm bed, you'll know that's somehow more intimate than sex lmao)

when stevie wakes up, she feels awful about what she'd done and she sneaks out of the dorm before cameron wakes up. she calls her dad to come pick her up. considering he finds his daughter crying outside some guy's dorm in the same clothes she left in, owen assumes the worst, so stevie has to awkwardly tell him what really happened so that owen won't drive them straight to the police station. she doesn't even know why she called her dad of all people. as soon as he finds out it was consensual and stevie just feels guilty about it, owen tries to cheer her up by being like "aww don't worry, i've cheated too!! 👍🏻 it doesn't make you a bad person, you can't help it, you're just like me and your mom :D" which is just about the worst thing stevie could possibly hear in this situation...

stevie doesn't even try to keep this a secret from matt. she tells him exactly what happened on that same day. i'm not going to get too far into the aftermath of this, because obviously i scrapped this plot and it doesn't really matter anymore. but matt's reaction to finding out he had been cheated on... it's kinda interesting. he gets frustrated with stevie because she's the one who wanted to be exclusive in the first place, while matt had a "take it or leave it" kinda attitude towards exclusivity (in fact, part of the reason he'd been drawn to stevie in the first place was because she didn't want to tie herself down so quickly). so matt has been completely faithful because stevie asked him to be, but then stevie is the one who cheated? it really bothers him. in the end, matt is the one who breaks up with her. he leaves the relationship feeling like he was the one who got burned. he's never forced to acknowledge the ways in which he fucked up long before stevie did – essentially she gave him an "out". meanwhile stevie now believes she's incapable of staying in a committed relationship and swears off love for a while (which is where she's at right now in canon, so, hey. we circled back).

the reason why i didn't go down this route is because, for the main plot to progress, i needed stevie to be at rock bottom AND estranged from elaine. i also needed elaine to be angry at matt, and be disappointed in austin. it would've taken way too long to get to all those points if i went ahead with the cheating plot, so i cut it. but i still feel like all of these actions are in-character and this easily COULD have been the reality if matt hadn't had that one burst of courage on the dock lol

[yassentheassassin]

I’m seeing a lot of discourse about Miguel being out of character compared to his comic self. I kinda disagree because I think Miguel is going through a character regression. In the comics, Miguel started off (in Xina’s words) “an arrogant pompous jerk” who relied on an authoritarian system (Alchemax) to achieve stability, something he never had in his past. In a way, Miguel retreads similar ground in ATSV where he comes off as an antagonistic force (a jerk :P) who relies on an authoritarian system (the Spider Society) to maintain stability for the Spiderverse after being traumatized by the destabilization of his alternate dimension. I think the creative team is implicitly tying this aspect of Miguel’s origins into his film arc while placing it in a new context to better fit the Spiderverse trilogy and introduce new audiences to his story.

I think the reason why Miguel is retreading this aspect in the film is because he’s trying to hide his true comics origins. Despite Miguel’s first intro showing a near replica of his first comic issue (creating the assumption that he’s going to tell his comic origins like the other Spiderpeople thus far), he instead states that he’s the leader of the Spider Society (essentially making up his own origin story where he’s framed as the “ultimate” Spiderman). One reason why he might be hiding his true origins is that it might delegitimize his position as head of the Spider Society, since the majority of Spiderpeople get bit by a spider. Another reason could be that he views his origins and the implications of his transformation being too traumatic to disclose (something Miguel in the comics does as he hides the abuse he faces from Conchata). With both of these reasons, Miguel uses his high position at the Spider Society to create a fresh start where he’d only be seen as Spiderman. This way he doesn’t have to deal with the trauma of his past nor the lack of closure he has regarding his relationships with Gabriel and Xina (considering the ending of the 90’s comics).

However, Miguel ignoring his true past ends up becoming his folly in ATSV. While becoming Spiderman was the catalyst for Miguel’s growth in the comics, Spiderman becomes the facilitator for his regression in the film as he delves into the responsibility and guilt aspect of this persona. By trying to shed his civilian self and donning his Spidey persona full time, he forgets the true essence of Spiderman (which is to always try to save people) and the progress he made in the comics as he’s now boiled down to his fatal flaws: rage, guilt, and self-hatred. Plus, since the Spiderverse films are “a meta-commentary on art while still being art,” Miguel not mentioning his backstory and him constantly going in and out of different dimensions could be a comment on how modern iterations of his comics don’t take place in his home (dimension) of 2099 or feature his full cast.

I feel like Miguel’s true self would emerge once his real comic origins and story are revealed in BTSV, which includes the loss of his interpersonal relationships in his home dimension. By being truthful to himself and others, Miguel would be able to merge his Miguel and Spiderman persona together instead of viewing them two separate entities (something he struggled with in the comics). This could even lead to reconciliation between him and the Spider Squad as the other Spiderpeople (ie. Peter B, Gwen, Miles) experienced the same issue in the trilogy. Overall, I think BTSV will truly do Miguel justice by allowing his backstory to be told, affirming him as both Miguel and Spiderman, and by going back to his home dimension to show that his issues can be fixed ( hopefully seeing Gabriel and Xina). Hopefully after BTSV, it will inspire creatives to continue/reboot Miguel’s story from the 90’s and have it be set in 2099 with his full cast in the future.

(I’m sorry this is so long! It’s just SV Miguel isn’t really popular in the sm2099 comic fandom rn, but I can’t help but draw this connection and believe this is Miguel’s direction in the trilogy. Hopefully, you can share your thoughts on this, but I really just need to get this idea out there, privately. Thank you for reading all of this though!)

hey! this is an interesting read and i'm glad you shared it with me, i can see what you're saying and agree with elements of it but personally (and this is purely my opinion) i'm not sure i'm seeing all of it the same way as you

firstly, i do think it's a bit too harsh to describe the spider society as authoritarian - there are thousands of spideys in the society who all belive in miguel and what he's set out to do, he's not forced them to be there and demanded they do everything he says, and in the movie we only see a couple of events out who knows how many they've dealt with overall - and we can gather from the reactions of others that this is the first time miguel's reacted like this. miguel is their leader but he's not an authoritarian leader, he doesn't demand absolutely obedience in fact we know from dialogue that he's discussed how to handle miles with a few of them at least and he tries to explain everything to miles to give him all the information about what's going on, he doesn't just lock him up straight away and refuse to divulge any information, so he leads them yes but being a leader doesn't make you authoritarian, if he was not one of those spider characters would have joined him because they wouldn't trust him?

i'm also not sure he's ever tried to frame himself as the ultimate spiderman, he says he leads an elite strike force which is true? miguel is a man who can be very self assured yes but this is normally in the context of his work, not acting like he actually believes he's the greatest man to ever walk the planet and i don't think he'd ever do that as spiderman either - to have him act like he's the ultimate spiderman is so ooc for how miguel faces being spiderman, he thinks he has to do this because of what happened to him and he still doesn't think doing so makes him a good person let alone better than everyone else who is also has a spiderperson - i don't think he's even framing leading the spider society as his origin i think he just considers that to be all anyone needs to know about him because his origin is so traumatic to him that it's too personal for him to be sharing with gwen (and therefore the audience) right off the bat. he's painfully open about the elements of himself that are relevant for people in the society to know, namely him going to the other universe and its subsequent destruction, and therfore why he believes the things he does about canon events etc. i do agree with you that he's probably keeping his origin completely to himself because it's traumatic, because this way he can be viewed as the person he chooses to be not what other people in his past have made him to be.

honestly i don't think miguel has forgotten the essence of being spiderman and trying to save everyone, he has every reason to believe that letting canon events play out will save more people in the long run by preventing the destruction of entire universes, he is trying to save people, that's his entire goal with the spider society - to preserve the multiverse and prevent complete destruction and the loss of billions and billions of lives - whether the canon theory is 100% accurate we don't know yet but i don't think it's fair or accurate to suggest that miguel isn't trying to save people because he so clearly is, he's just doing it by letting events play out as its projected they're meant to instead of miles' approach which is to believe he can, in his words "do both" when it comes to saving the many or the individual, neither of them are bad or stupid for doing it their particular way - they're both unlimately trying do to the right thing

i absolutely agree that sharing more of who is is outside of spiderman would help reduce that separation he has between spiderman and miguel o'hara, because the spider society is a huge support system for people who understand each other and i think it would help miguel greatly to be open with even just a few of the other spider characters, but like you said we also know that his personal identity and how he sees himself is something he really struggles with in the comics

i do hope btsv does him justice and shows us more of the miguel characteristics from the comics, i like the idea of us getting a solo movie/series that's much more grounded in the 90's run so we actually get to see more of miguel outside the spider society (and the spider society is set in his home dimension but i get the gist of what you're saying)

thank you again for sending this though, it's interesting to see other people's interpretations!

[gendrie]

sansa ii

in the previous chap littlefinger comments that joffrey will never let "his plaything" go but here starts his plan go abduct her

this whole scene with sansa leaving her room is great. its not entirely her own initiative but its is a highly active moment. 

she pulled out a knife! and said she would stab him! and thinks of arya while doing so

acok is easily sansa’s most active book and i like that a lot. she doesnt feel like just an observer. she’s participating in the story. grrm seems to have really lost steam with her in asos and affc bc like where is this energy? even agot is superior. it ends on her most intense note to date.

its a 2 for 1 special on alcoholic men hiding in the shadows

sandor is an asshole when theyre alone but when others around he steps up to defend her

arya v

arya insisting the they dig yoren a grave is so poignant to me. he was a man of the NW and tried to get her home. she had to repay that. even if he was a dirtbag. rip. 

the gods eye is calling to her

the swan passage is a good example of arya wanting to dream like a little kid, but not having the luxury bc she needs to worry about practical concerns. ie: her next meal. 

cutjack and tarber aint shit

"he said she looked like a weasel which wasn’t true" breaking news: meanspirited people’s cruel nicknames arent accurate character assessments

the kids bickering feels very real. they’re scared, stressed, hungry and lashing out at each other 

maester luwin shoutout <3

gendry said its us against the world

as m'lady commands! just an iconic scene and a necessary lighthearted moment bc its about to get dark 

arya making herself look at the bodies of the hanged men. 

i know how all this plays out (obvs) but the tension is insane. they smashed gendry in the face. the sobs and screams of those inside the barn. 

"what if the wolves come?" "YIELD" nymeria’s wolfpack really is THE chekhov’s gun of asoiaf 

arya took hot pie's hand and told him fear cuts deeper than swords. thats so sweet and an underrated leadership moment too. she’s trying to keep him from panicking so they can rescue their companion. 

arya, 10, is punched in the face by a grown man with a mailed fist which nearly knocks her head off and leaves her on the ground crawling.......really makes so many takes about her just seem insane

grrm spared arya having to see neds death and anything bad happening to weasel and for that i am grateful 

raff the sweetling got off easy actually. arya shouldve made him suffer more. 

[runningfrom2am]

6. reader telling sejanus how they should trust each other but her being out to get coryo and coryo being out to get sejanus.

7. coryo thinking that reader staying in the capitol was better than her being in district 12 all the while he knew she would be dead or missing a tongue.

8. the slight implication of reader possibly looking older than her age.

9. the trauma and in the absence of the authority figure how it turns to rage.

10. coryo and reader having mirroring thoughts.

11. between freedom versus security, reader choosing the latter time and time again even though she wants to want freedom.

part two!!

same thing, tea and spoilers and thoughts and all of it below the cut:

6. no literally like she genuinely does not see a problem with it. i feel like in her head she’s like “we saved his life, why wouldn’t he trust us” and literally cannot look past that to see anything else she’s ever done wrong in her entire life. she’s new here, everything that happened in the capitol is “erased” (except for when it conveniences her. ie., having risked her life to save sejanus and coryo and/or using her anger against her father to justify hurting someone else (ash), she said she wanted to kill him, would she tho?)

7. his selfishness has almost no limits imo. he claims he cares about her, which i think is a scary shift for him considering at the beginning she perceived him as her best friend and he considered her someone he merely tolerated (even if that wasn’t fully true). so i think he’s subconsciously clinging onto the idea that he doesn’t need her, but that is slipping from him quickly and he doesn’t know what to do besides convince himself he’d rather she just be gone than see her with someone else.

8. okay, yes. she’s been forced to simultaneously grow up extremely quickly in the need of self-preservation, and i think that is evident in the way she carries herself, and at the SAME time i think her immaturity is what really draws her to a shorter dress. a child’s dress. she wants to go back to naivety in a way, a “fresh start” where she gets to reclaim the childhood she missed out on back home while the country was in a war and she spent her nights sleeping in a bunker instead of her bedroom littered with toys and typical objects found in a kids room. but ALSO she still does feel the need to be protected. at this point specifically, she’s thriving on the idea that coryo would hurt for her (he had seen him to just that at the hob bc she was only dancing with someone) and wants to weaponize that to her own benefit. idk i could go on ab this for hours.

9. i think i kinda covered this in 6. but yes. crazy how that happens 🤔

10. YESSS SO this concept of them having similar thought processes and impulses and actions is SO important to me, because i think that’s the only way things could ever work out for them. they have a lot in common and they always have- the only real difference being that coryo is practiced in subtlety and class, hiding his hunger and his struggles while she makes her problems everyone else’s too. other than that, they really aren’t much different. (almost like… they’re on a level playing field with different strengths and weaknesses that perfectly balance each other out)

11. YES okay so security (however painful it may have been) is 100% the only thing she’s used to in life (up until the mentorship and the games). so much so that coryo even says at the very beginning that the tantrum was so in character for her and arachne said she had to “be sedated again”, so obviously this childish act of defiance is an integral part of her character (as she is perceived by her classmates and authority figures), but only outside of her home. at school, she’s not afraid of any consequence because she has this blackmail and her fathers money as a constant security blanket making her essentially untouchable. this, quite literally, is all she has ever had outside of her implied friendship with coryo, who is the only one of her peers who can really stand her. so going into this completely different world, the change of pace provides a high, in a sense, but she chooses the only bit of security she has left, her best friend, over that unfamiliar freedom every time. i feel like she needs him to feel safe, no matter how “free” she allegedly is.

okay so i totally know that i’m just repeating your thoughts here a lot but ive been DYING to get this out of my system so thank you for granting me this outlet bestie <3.

[floralxhemmo]

home. (c.sb) - chapter 1

soobin x puppy hybrid! trans male! oc

content includes: hair colors aren’t from one particular era because i said so, completely self indulgent bc i fucking can that’s why, hybrids (obviously), past + mentioned hybrid abuse, mistreatment, and experimentation (ie. oc was in a lab), suggestive/possible smut in late chapters, fluff, angst, panic/anxiety attacks, angst but hopefully not too much, “owner” may be used to describe soobin in oc’s pov (know that i don’t really like that term so i may change it to something else later)

He awoke to silence. It was still in the early hours of the morning, light just barely peeking through the curtains. The six other hybrids in the room with him were all fast asleep in their beds; soon they’d be awake and pay him no mind, like they’d been doing for the past fifteen years.

He looked at his corner, pulling the ratted blanket tighter around his shoulders. He was crammed up against the furthest bed with a small, dirty cushion he used as a pillow. He lay there curled up in a ball, his tail in between his legs, watching the room slowly become brighter as the day came to a start.

The other hybrids woke up, gossiping about today’s adoption process, bragging about who would be able to leave and go out into the real world. He was never a part of these conversations, though he often imagined himself interacting with them. Being their servant—and the only boy, not that anyone cared to see him that way—meant he'd never be able to join them. So, he stood there, saying nothing as he made their beds.

He let the others get ready, knowing they’d leave him to clean up their mess. He’d be fed scraps in the other room while the girls dined on fancy meals. He’d bathe in ice cold water and be forced to stay inside while the others got to see the sunlight and play games. He was stuck cleaning and being treated like dirt. This place was supposed to be a sanctuary for hybrids, and it was, just not for him. 

The adoption process would take place in the afternoon and, like every other time, he wouldn’t be picked. Fifteen years in a place like the Moon residence was enough to make him lose hope. 

---

“Okay ladies, line up! Our guests will be arriving shortly!” Mrs. Moon instructed. From tallest to shortest, the seven hybrids lined up. She looked at the end of the line, her brow furrowed.

“Ms. Haerin, what have I told you? Servants are not to be adopted.” He nodded, holding back his tears, while the hybrids giggled at him. He moved over to the farthest corner, trying to hide from sight. Mrs. Moon went to each girl and straightened them up, adjusting their posture or clothing when necessary.

A few minutes passed, before a knock sounded at the door. Mrs. Moon went to answer it, and shortly returned with a man. He was tall and slender. He wore a suit made of silk, and his blonde hair was slicked back neatly. He was extremely attractive, Haerin could tell that much from where he stood. Mrs. Moon had called him Mr. Choi. 

Mrs. Moon started to introduce the girls one by one, though Mr. Choi didn’t seem the least bit interested. Not even the “princess” herself, Priscilla, caught his eye. As he neared the end of the line, he spoke, turning to Mrs. Moon.

“Are these six all you have to offer?” His voice was prettier than Haerin had expected.

“Yes,” Mrs. Moon said, “I’m afraid these girls are all we have to offer at the moment. The others are too young.”

“What about that one in the corner? Is she too young?”

“Oh, you mean Haerin? She’s not exactly for sale.”

“And why’s that?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Why, she’s just a servant. Besides,” she leaned towards Mr. Choi, “she…she thinks she’s a boy. I mean, how absurd is that?” Mr. Choi looked at Mrs. Moon, his eyes turned back towards the hybrid, “I’ll take him. I’ll even pay double.”

Silence filled the room. His heart pounded in his chest, his heartbeat thundering in his ears. He couldn’t hear the rest of what was said. All he could do was stare as the rest of the girls left the room. Mr. Choi walked over to him. He could faintly hear him ask if he needed to grab anything in his room. He shook his head, his ears ringing as Mr. Choi led him out of the Moon residence. 

It was only when they reached the car that the ringing stopped. He stood there while Mr. Choi went to the other side of the car. The last time he was in a car was when he was five. His breathing started to pick up as he backed away slightly. Mr. Choi came back around to where he was standing.

“Is everything okay, Haerin?”

“I…I’m sorry, Mr. Choi. It’s just that, I haven’t been in a car since I came here.”

“Ah, I see.” he looked down at them, “That’s okay, we’ll take it slow, yeah? I’ll help you get in.”

Slowly, just like he said, he helped him get into the passenger’s seat of the car, even buckling their belt for them. He felt stupid for freaking out about something as simple as getting into a car, but soon calmed down when Mr. Choi got in on the other side.

“Thank you, Mr. Choi.” he said quietly.

“You’re welcome, Haerin. And please, call me Soobin. Mr. Choi is too formal.”

“In that case…could you maybe call me Rin? I like it better,” he whispered.

“Of course,” He reached over to rest his hand on top of the hybrid’s. “I’ll call you Rin, if that’s what you’d like.”

“Also, if it’s not too much to ask, I’d like it if I could be a boy and not a girl. I-I’ll still wear what you want, I just don’t wanna be called a girl.”

Soobin laughed and then smiled brightly, “First of all, you get to wear whatever you like, you’re no longer a servant. Second of all, if you say you’re a boy, then you’re a boy. It doesn’t matter what Mrs. Moon or the girls think. Because guess what?” He held Rin’s hand gently, “You’ll never have to worry about them ever again.”

Rin smiled shyly, looking at Soobin, “Thank you, Soobin.”

“Now then,” Soobin squeezed Rin’s hand before pulling away, “Let’s get you home, shall we?”

[mdhwrites]

Idea Pitch: BasiLuz AU

TL:DR: An AU where Luz is actually half basilisk because Manny was the first basilisk that Belos made and managed to escape long before any of the others. Main issue was figuring out things about the story, or even Luz’s character, this really changed without feeling mostly redundant, but there were definitely possibilities. It’s just that I never figured out a great way to integrate them, partially because the show struggles to integrate its OWN elements into the plot. Two decades ago, a basilisk ran from Belos’ castle. He couldn’t save the other, smaller ones being made but at least he got away. He was powerless though and any report of a witch losing their magic would make it too clear where he was. He could feed off the land but how long could he run? There were always breaks between the Isles and the human realm though. Ones that monsters can find to make new legends and rumors. Demons and monsters naturally were attuned to them as being descended closer to the Titan than the witches and so he found one near an abandoned tower and slipped in. He wouldn’t be able to only live in the human realm but some time there could make Belos think he was dead.

Meanwhile, a woman in college for animal care was in the woods, enjoying the fresh air as she worked on homework rather than being stuck at home. She heard some crashing and stumbling and the next thing she knew, she saw a handsome young man who was more than a little awkward. When asked for his name, he said “Man...ie? and so his name stuck as Manny.

She made sure he never returned for more than a couple days as his heart fell hard and fast. Camila was too practical to admit to her own feelings but his awkward ways and how much he marveled at the world, much like how she marveled at the sci-fi planets that she sometimes desired to run off to, won her over eventually. That was also when things became too real and Manny decided that it was best to tell Camila the truth before they went too far in their relationship.

Camila had always found the aliens on the show more attractive than the humans though, so it was hardly a problem by then.

What did become a problem was Manny’s failing health. He was by no means a perfect creation. He was successful but especially without constant magic, his body was beginning to deteriorate. He managed to hide it from Camila until Luz was five. By ten, they would move back to the town they first met in and get a house right next to where a crack in the worlds was so Manny could try to recover. It wouldn’t be enough. The only solace Camila could take in was the fact that as far as either could tell, Luz didn’t need magic nor possibly had magic in her. She seemed, by all intents and purposes, entirely human.

At least until she proclaimed how human she was to Camila on the day she was supposed to go to Summer camp. It was all too familiar to the first time she’d met Manny but she didn’t reject Vee. She just begged for an explanation before setting up Vee in the house and heading to where the crack between realms was at Sunset.

She would find a confused Luz who was worried as to why the human only barrier had singed her before being absorbed by her and instead of demanding she come home, she decided it was time Luz find out what she truly was and get a taste for the other half of her heritage. She never wanted to lose her Latino heritage just because she lived in America after all and she and Manny had talked so many times about bringing Luz over the first time she shifted. It just... Never happened. And that was the main portion of what I’d figured out when someone pitched the idea of Basilisk Luz to me about the same time I started an Abomity story with another author (it was taken down at their request). Obviously potential changes could be made just because Camila was there and Luz had the potential to use magic. She just needed to steal it. Speaking of changes that appealed to me: Covention would have ended differently. As Luz cried out for Amity to stop from stepping on the trap, the panic and fear would create a pull in her that she felt back home but it had nothing to latch onto. Now it did as she drained Amity of her magic. Amity tries a spell but it fails and she runs off. The talk is not about glyphs then but that Luz would give Amity back all of her magic if she knew how. That she swear she didn’t mean to hurt her and if there’s anything Luz can do to make her feel better, she’s entirely open to her. Luz mumbles about sitting still as she tries, scared, to summon a fist or a fireball or something to hit Luz with. In that moment, Luz glows and Amity can do it. Her magic isn’t necessarily returned but in close enough proximity to Luz, she can still cast magic. Which led to the biggest change besides Camila being there that I could really think of dynamic wise: Luz becomes friends with Amity and her friend group so as not to let people realize that Amity doesn’t have magic. Honestly, probably the biggest issue for me with this idea besides asking just how much actually changes from Luz being a basilisk is that it’d be fun to play with the dual heritage aspect. But, well, I’m not Latino so I have problems there and the Isles barely has a culture if it does, so there’s not really a heritage to speak of there. There would be cute things about Vee and her being sisters, or potentially jokes about Vee being Luz’s aunt, but I just don’t know how much characterwise, besides the normal “WHAT AM I!?” stuff that normally comes with this (that I think Luz’s excitement for a fantasy adventure would lead to her taking in stride) would really change. Obviously things would change, there is definitely something to be done here, but no idea grabbed me enough for what would still be a very long project. So instead, here is a concept pitch for anyone who wants to play with it.

[astorichan]

20 and 23 with uh, whichever you prefer?

Grollow! The babies

20. How do they comfort each other when one of them is upset? Is this method of comfort effective?

Shatter: Hollow hovers close, starting with giving love through acts of service. They're very, very quiet but also there for everything he might want, all the smallest things - they know exactly, after a while in the relationship, what might comfort him and better his mood. If that doesn't help, they gently nudge him to talk, tall them what happened and how he's feeling about it; after he does, they validate that and then try to search for an answer (what set him off so bad and how to avoid it in the future? why does he feel like his reaction is unreasonable, maybe?) or for a solution. They're definitely the type to go "who upset you. i just want to talk to them. who did it." while holding a nail in their hand. Grimm goes for distraction tactics a whole lot. If he notices they're upset, he will go out of his way to "annoy" them, mostly just telling them random pleasant stuff (a lot of eloquent "i love you"s may get dropped - they act like they hate that, but it helps them immensely and he knows it) and making cute noises/cuddling them if they feel up for it. If the upset's bad, he will drop everything and just straight up ask them to talk. No assumptions, no hidden meanings, everything that they're thinking despite how unpleasant and ugly it may be. Usually, just talking out loud and having him direct them towards a resolution solves the upset.

Dreams: Hollow stays close with a very, very big puppy eyes often, not sure how to really help - they ask how he'd like them to help rather than do stuff silently. Bad upsets they're great at solving and working through emotions; they're honestly great at that whenever it's not them feeling those emotions. Where they'd doubt their own reasonable-ness, they will tell him every time that what he's feeling is very real and very worthy of upset. Grimm is, like Cutie, the type to have his hands on fire and ready to incinerate whoever hurt them. (It's true for other Troupe members as well: he's very, very protective and possessive of them all.) He gets angry for them very easily, and it scares them at the very beginning, before they get used to it and begin to feel very, very safe. Oftentimes, he won't drop his bantering/teasing tone with them even when solving upsets - but if it's bad, he will go serious immediately, and has quite a talent for finding that one phrase that can make them reconsider the entire situation and see another perspective on it, thus solving the primary issue of "i shouldn't be upset in the first place" and letting them move on to the actual fixing of the problem.

23. What are the defining characteristics of their relationship?

Both AUs: trust. Trust and understanding. Understanding of each other so deep that they don't need words or any other communication to know what they need to know. IE: Shatter Hollow sees cues in Grimm that no one else, save for one of the Troupe members, does. They know how to react to all of those. They know how to enhance the best of his days and how to make the worst of those better. It works in reverse as well. They both know what the other is really feeling, no matter how much they may try to hide that. And it doesn't matter how they act on the surface, as is more prominently the case with Dreams pairing: they're way less straightforwardly mushy and they both suffer from the Wordy Bitch Disease, but they just don't... misunderstand one another after a while. Because love, to all of them, is safety. It's home. It's a place where you will never be invalidated or belittled, where you never have to watch your step lest you shatter the thin ice you're walking on. It's knowing that no matter what you do, no matter how much you fuck up, no matter how much you hurt and what words you say, the other will not give up on you without trying. "I don't want to require you - I want to want you. I want to be on my own, a full piece with no parts missing, and choose you despite that. Over and over, every waking and dreaming moment, I want you to improve something already great."

[grandpasorchard]

Why finding the right person takes time and effort.

You gotta know yourself, right? You already do, you just need to write to your self, your dream career, dream home, and dream life. Some of it might change, but you'd be surprised how much it doesn't. Now you need to write down what you want to give to a mate, and what you want to recieve, and make a third colomn, what you want to share, at the top of that needs to be, the same kind of place to live, and same lifestyle you want. A fourth colomn needs to say, Things I dont want to Share. If you dont have anything in that colomn, you are not yet honest with your self. Some people do not want to share their money, or their fame, or road time. Some people dont want to share their mate/spouse. That one is a healthy thing to not share, as long as its not taken too far, like keeping them from making friends. Trust is not something you build, trust is something that the other person shows you over a year. If someone acts fishy or callus or runs over you, they are telling you, "I come first, you can't trust me.".

So you see, finding someone takes time enough for them to show you who they really are, how mature, how selfish, and how much they can be trusted, and how reliable they are. If you don't share the same ideas of a great life, you both will be crushing each others' dreams.

Some of you are so independent and opposed to owning and being owned that marriage is not really your cup of tea. You need good friends you know well. Don't get married just because everyone thinks they have to. Its only good when its real and each person is owned by the other equally, and they share a common dream, and have trust and also, very importantly, like each other. Hormones can make you love someone you actually dont like!

To find someone takes effort, you have to go where they are, ski slopes, antique stores, libraries, writer meet ups, poetry readings, theater classes, painting exhibits, dance clubs, if you actually like that, farmer markets, garden clubs, science fiction clubs, gamer parties etc. What ever fits your dream life needs to fit theirs too.

And be cautious, as always. And look for one other thing or things, what they are already married to...

Its amazing the things people can be married to and not truly realize it. They can be married to gaming, religious fighting, their art, their ex's, their parents, their cars, their free time, their ego, their fame, their fear, their anger, their vengence on a parent placed on you, their loss, seeking a mom or dad's love through you, something that takes decades to grow out of, but usually, they need couselling and a mother or father to adopt them as a friend. People can be married to greed, selfishness, ie themselves, to addictions... Addictions can hide pain and soothe it at the same time. Sex addictions come from habit or need for love, or need for excitement, the last is hard to trust, if a sex addiction goes past the screen or page into the real world, it means they are addicted to excitement, and they are not ready to be owned. Besides chemicals, which mainly numb you, the greatest addiction is gaming. The world has pushed people into cardboard boxes and nearly slave labor just to survive, gaming is a place where you achieve and win and build, why would it not be addicting right now?

It is not a safe world, but little by little, you can find friends and build a life together and have each others backs, and eventually find a dream mate. I pray you are blessed in this endevor, because loneliness kills you.

[imlyfie]

Vincenzo headcannon

After three years of being the Cassano mafia boss and taking care (wiping out) their rivals aka Lucianos and relocsting the Cassanos to their original home cack in Italy after the disaster that was Paolo's leading, Vincenzo readily gives the job to someone else, say his cousin and his wife is the main consigliere of the family now.

He does not have many responsibilities but because of his connections, reputation, skills, bonds and the fact he cannot just part with the mafia, Vincenzo becomes a part-time consigliere where Ie usually becomes an ambassador of sorts cleaning up the trash (like babel but like 10% downscale). His main job is to take care of and run the safe haven that is Pagliuzza and it's residents. So Vin gets in touch with Mr Ahn and Mr Cho where they have cleared his name and created a new identity and personal particulars with the name Oh Joo Hyung.

Vinny takes the legal exam to become a lawyer in Korea and gets his license online (idk if it's real bear with me here it's a headcanon).

After the initial shock and get-together of the Geumga Plaza, Jipuragi has an additional member to its growing team of one paralegal and paralegal in training, one hell of a tenacious lawyer who also dubs as a CEO and three interning lawyers, an new lawyer by the name Oh Joo Hyung arrives.

And there is gossip from the interns that the two older, experienced lawyers are long lost lovers who reunited from their long distance relationship and decided to work back to strengthen their marriage.

Our resident couple decides to humour them and the other teamts as well, mainly because why not.

And besides, it's not like a confirmed relationship on paper to show the government is gonna change their dynamic of finger flicks bets on whose method of convincing their witnesses or where they sleep together in the fluffy bedroom of the mini apartment, where a certain pigeon has visited again after a three-year-long break and has learnt manners, to increase convinience, or its tying up money-hungry detective and threatening them by kicking the wheeled chair off an abandoned building.

Their marriage is not a big deal. It just happens so suddenly and secretly. It starts with him casually joking about it in one of their pillow talks.

This leads to her sending him an envelope via post which contained a contract for the registration of a marriage certificate with her signature already on it.

He returns it to her casually the next day along with the other documents for their current case, followed by a box. Form signed and a box containing a ring. Her ring. She raises an eyebrow and catches the sight of his left hand's ring finger already sporting a platinum band with a plate encrusting small diamonds. No wonder he had shoved that hand in his pocket long than usual. From her desk, she could see that bastard smirking like no tomorrow, hiding behind his papers.

After everyone has left and it's just the two of them, Vincenzo well now Joo Hyung is now stopped by Cha Young straddling him holding out the box to him

"I don't recall you asking me to marry you"

"I definitely did, remember three years back? Surrounded by an orchestra and flashing cameras? And art gallery was it? Ragusang. You forgot to process the papers so they were delayed sweetie."

"Omo! Yah, that wasn't you it was Mr Anderson wasn't it darling"

"Hmmm, fair point."

*takes ring and holds it out but instead of and awkward hesitancy, he leans into her ear and asks*

"Will you marry me"

*she smirks and pulls him by his tie to crash their lips together as he slips the ring onto her finger*

"I better go process the registration then."

"Hmmm, yeah you do that, makgeolli and ramyeon tonight?"

"Add fried chicken, beef jerky and pajeon as well. Oohh! Also buy soju and wine and whiskey. I wanna get wasted tonight. Ah! It's a great day to be alive!"

The next day Mr Nam sees their hands and sends a picture to the Geumga plaza chat group the photo.

It blows up with replies varying from "Finally!" "Why weren't we invited, I made him my baby girl's godfather" "He's a mafia you idiot, we cant be there for safety reasons." "Wait, they were not married three years ago?"

For Vincenzo and Cha Young, weddings were a waste of time and money and an unhealthy amount of words and worries That doesn't mean they didn't go to Pagliuzza for their honeymoon, rather honey month, and took endless wedding photos with Cha Yong rocking every dress from satin ball gowns to mermaid styled body cons with tulle accents and to velvet evening dresses.

[chiwhorei]

𝐀𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐚

✞𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐁𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐞��: 𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜 𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧✞

Pairing: Shouta Aizawa x Fem!Reader

Genre: Smut, Dark Content, 18+ MDNI

Word Count: 3,175 [Link to Ao3]

Tags: Darkfic, sacrelige, coercion, corruption, dubcon and noncon elements, intonations and parallels to incest, but not actual incest (ie. ‘Father’ Shouta), choking, age-gap, oral, Priest!Aizawa, Virgin!Reader

From Chiwhorei: Aizawa is where this all started, so it’s fitting he is the subject of my anniversary fic. To everyone who’s followed me along this journey despite the long bouts of radio silence, to everyone that’s participated and supported this collab, to all of my lovely, devious friends— truly, completely, thank you for this past year. Xoxo.

The pain was so sharp that it made me utter several moans; and so excessive was the sweetness caused me by this intense pain that one can never wish to lose it, nor will one’s soul be content with anything less than God.

** ** **

There’s not a soul awake this late.

The rosary wrapped between twitching fingers feels like a hot lashing against the skin. The glass and metal itch in your hold, the devotional was a gift for your confirmation-- it holds a decade of sins.

Your family has been asleep for hours now. Slipping through the back door as soon as you’re sure. Nineteen. A legal adult. Yet the only way to leave in the middle of the night is in secret. The cool, summer air hits your cheeks, it’s still for a moment. It’s so quiet, you feel like you’ve mistaken the real world for a snow globe. Static— in the moments after all of the glitter settles, all of the quiet, iridescent tears laying at your feet. It waits, patiently, until someone comes by to shake it again.

Moving into a cramped dorm room a few hours away, your childhood home feels bigger every visit. It’s bigger because nothing fills the space inside. There’s nothing but tense words and the clatter of silverware against dinner plates. Your father reminds you of an old briefcase— stern, rigid leather, unmistakably empty; your mother’s rose garden smells like poisoned wine.

Roses and leather, the combination suffocating enough to repel you in the hours you should be unconscious.

The walk from your parent’s house to the church is the most familiar thing in the world. Down to the cracks on the sidewalk and mossy steps leading up to a set of large, cherry doors. So routine it almost feels good for you.

There’s not a soul awake this late, you decide, that must be why you’re here.

That must be why he’s up too.

Pushing open one ornate door just enough to peek inside, you’re met with that distinct waft of incense and dusty missals. It smells like every Sunday morning and Easter Vigil, it smells like home.

Only votive candles light the space around you, flickering with intentions from fellow parishioners. You wonder if there’s one burning for you.

You know where to find Father Shouta, and suspect he’s waiting. He can trace every step from your parents home to the front gate. You open the confessional booth and crawl inside, the wooden space around you is cramped. It smells like incense masking cigarettes. Kneeling into the leather cushion, you face the screen partition.

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was,” the memory has you falter, “three months ago.”

You remember the last hollow confession like it was yesterday. You were back in town for spring break. After mass that Sunday, your dad told Father Shouta how deplorable it was that your friends had tried, in vain, to drag you to the beach a few hours away from campus. “A week of drinking and sex, not for my daughter.”

Shouta met with you that evening and you cried your sins to him. How you had been dared to kiss boys at a party during midterms week, how you drank who-knows-what mixed with cheap beer at a frat house. He consoled you then, he told you that God will forgive all transgressions. “Even the sins of a whore.”

The memory makes you want to cry all over again. Yet, here you are— knees pressed to the very same leather, face against the same dusty screen.

He’s so still, so quiet, you jump out of your skin at the sound of his voice, “What is it that you’d like to confess, my child?”

Your body aches, stiff and tense to the bone. You breathe in, shallow and suffocated, before you speak again.

“Father, forgive me I—” you can tell his posture is just as rigid, he’s only a shadowed outline and the slightest glimmer of color from his eyes. They warn you, but you ignore the familiar feeling on the back of your neck.

“I have been having impure thoughts. I’ve been thinking about a man,” one more deep breath in an attempt to keep your voice neutral, “a much older man.”

If you could hear a smile, Father’s creaks like floorboards.

His silence prompts you to continue, you knot your fingers together and hold them against your stomach, the Rosary tangled in between threatening to cut off circulation.

“The boys in my youth group, the ones in my classes— they’re all nice but,” you leave the second half of the sentence to rattle around in your mind, “but they aren’t you.”

“Impure thoughts are one thing, sinful, but,” his voice is indifferent, cold, “the true sins are ones of the flesh.”

“I- I haven’t,” you start to stutter, trying to defend yourself, “I haven’t done anything, Father.”

Despite himself, he laughs.

“It’s true Father,” you wonder why you hadn’t just stayed at home, “I’ve only ever kissed a boy— it wasn’t even a real kiss. I’m still a virgin.”

From the screen, you can only see him in fragments. Little cutouts of a dark figure and sickeningly bright red eyes. The color peaks through like pieces of a puzzle, chasing through the patterned wood before you can catch that he’s stepping out of his side of the confessional booth.

“It wasn’t a ‘real’ kiss,” each word is mimicked, emphasized by the tap of his shoes against the tiles below, “no, of course it wasn’t. Not with some boy.” Your legs are unsteady as you stand from the kneeler. There’s nowhere to hide, Father has you trapped in a toy box. Just for him to play with.

“Of course that wouldn’t have satisfied you.”

The door to your side of the booth creeks open just as your back hits the wall. You can see his face for the first time in months, you trace the features illuminated with candlelight. Father Shouta’s face is strong, even more sharp with his long, black hair tied back. His presence looms over where you’re sunken into the booth. Even standing and puffing out your chest, he’ll still be able to look down at you.

He bares his teeth. You know this by now, stupid little girl, you know he likes to play with his food.

Long fingers grip the small door frame and curl around the wood like an omen, his body slithers into your personal space until he’s only an inch away.

“Lust, greed, what is it that you want?” Each vowel cradles a hearty dose of poison, the consonants bite away and spit you out. Your skin feels raw under his attention, “You can’t atone for sins you’re not really sorry for.”

Those same fingers slide up either curve of your neck, he crawls from shoulder to jaw, slowly. So slowly it seems like he’s trying not to get caught. He holds steady against your skin, thumb rubbing lightly at your bottom lip. You must have just fallen asleep after your parents went to bed, that stale, poisoned house even lulling the restless. You must be dreaming right now.

“Don’t make me ask again.” His timber hits the three walls and brings you back to the present. There’s no rest for you, only a weak answer to his question. What is it that you want?

“I want to be a humble servant of our Lord.” Your voice shakes, battered against your throat on its way to meet the stiff air.

Father’s lips are on you, he traces the words of Luke over your trembling mouth, there’s only a breath of space between you,

“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other,”

The hands holding your cheeks move down to circle your neck, each long finger lays a trap. He tightens around the skin, just enough to make you forget how it feels to breathe freely. He could do anything to you right now, and your cries for help would be swallowed by stained glass.

No one can serve two masters.

The scream caught in your throat meets his wicked smile, it fizzles into little more than a whimper. The small booth you’ve been trapped in is burning hot, you feel sweat beading on your forehead. The last ounce of courage, of restraint, tumbles out before you can catch it.

“Who do you serve, Father Shouta? God or the Devil?”

He answers you with a thick tongue finally pushing into your mouth. He smells like perfumed oils and votive candles, he tastes like sugar free gum and Seven Stars.

His grip around your neck is the only thing keeping you on your feet, you’re sure if he were to let go you’d melt into the floor below. Father’s lips against yours are a siren, dulling all other senses, rendering you malleable to his will. Whatever his will may be, whatever it is that he wants from you— you’d let him have it anyway.

He breaks away, the kiss that’s felt like hours disappears far too soon. Your body jolts forward of its own volition, trying to connect yourself to him again. You’re sure you look desperate, but you’re too intoxicated to care.

“I serve only myself.”

Father lets go of your neck and you’re allowed the first deep intake of breath you’ve had since walking into the church. You swallow hard, looking back up to him. He scares you, he always has, but that fear draws you towards him.

Does a moth know what the flame will do to it? Does the moth know their fate?

You feel like crying, really crying, but all that comes out are a few frustrated tears. Father leans over you once more, eyes trailing the tear waxing over your cheek, “You’re a wretched little girl.”

Is that why they fly towards fire, because they like the burn?

** ** **

You step forward in line, it’s almost your turn. Mother first, she’s always thought of Father Aizawa as such a “charming young man''. The notion always made you scoff, in reality he’s only a few years younger than your parents.

Your dad is behind you, he’ll give him a friendly handshake after the service and remark how beautiful the homily was. Today, he spoke of the devil tempting Jesus. You hung on every word.

Mother steps aside and makes the sign of the cross, you’re next. A sheep guided by the dutiful shepherd, a lamb onto his slaughter.

Your chin tilts upwards, eyes locked onto your part-time captor. He only has you for a few seconds this time, but his attention is a hallway— every door is a pitfall. Aizawa’s gaze turns red when he looks upon you again— a bright, bloody, captivating red. You’ve convinced yourself it’s a trick of the light. But you see them in the dark too.

“The Body of Christ,” his voice is a welcome mat in front of an asylum, holding out the wafer and obscuring one painfully beautiful eye.

“Amen.” You know you’re part, but you can’t hear your own voice.

Father watches as your eyes close and your mouth opens, a quiet obedience, nothing at all out of the ordinary. Your fingers tingle with how tight you’re holding them together.

He places the Body to your awaiting tongue. It tastes like a harsh nothing that will stick to the back of your throat for the rest of mass. You take Christ in pieces, letting it start to melt into the roof of your mouth.

Shouta brushes your bottom lip before retracting. It’s subtle, an accident— the smallest touch of chilling skin. No one notices, the earth doesn’t stop on its axis for anyone else. You step aside and follow your Mother back to the wooden pews like nothing out of the ordinary stirs in your heart.

You feel Father’s eyes on the back of your skirt. They feel red.

“Your sweet girl here has offered a helping hand getting prepared for a youth retreat the church is hosting next week.” After mass, the stop to shake Father’s hand is inevitable, a pleasantry every parishioner makes time for before shuffling out for Sunday brunch.

He speaks over your quiet, “Good morning, Father Shouta,” right as your family turns to leave, almost as if he had been mulling over whether or not it was worth a mention. He regards them with a veiled casualty, never once looking at you.

Father’s face is kind when he wants it to be, laying a hand in the middle of your shoulder blades, it's a feeling of comfort you can’t help but lean into, “We’re discussing how to remain chaste in a sinful world.”

The word ‘chaste’ is pinched into your spine and despite yourself, you smile. A heavy heart has found home at the bottom of your stomach, but you can’t let on to the sick churning in your gut. Your parents gleam with pride for their daughter. A perfect example of a good Catholic girl.

“I’ll have her meet at my office this evening, is six okay?” His question sounds like your dowry, talking past you and asking for your parents permission.

Your dad shakes Father Shout’s hand once more, delighted at how his diligent parenting must be the reason you’ve found yourself in holy favor. Said ‘parenting’ is definitely to blame, but not in the way your dad assumes.

*** *** ***

The walk through church and into the sacristy is like a meditation in fear, every step begging you to turn back, to run home like a scared child. You tread steady, feet searing on hot coals until you’re met with the sound of Father Shouta just beyond the threshold.

“You’re late.” Something sinister fills Father’s quarters as soon as you open the door. It’s scary how offhandedly he can lie. You’re at least ten minutes early, the evening toll of church bells will signal the hour. He wants to see if you’ll stutter, if you’ll argue. You stay quiet, busying your hands with the hem of your skirt, fingers lifting it slightly before you remember who owns the eyes sitting across the room. They look golden from here, a honey you could drown in. You cough at the feeling of sugar in your lungs before collecting yourself and awaiting instruction.

Seemingly pleased with your docility, he smiles wide and crooked. It’s bound into a book he will whisper into you page by page. It’s written in a language only he knows.

Shouta motions you farther inside, leaning back in his seat. He corrects you when you move to sit in the chair on the other side of his desk, waiting with little patience as you settle against his side instead. Your posture is stiff being this close, being this alone.

His facial hair is trimmed neatly, small scars litter his face, the most pronounced a jagged trail under his right eye. From the dim evening light, you see a shadow of loose hairs make a pointed crown around his head.

“St. Teresa of Avila,” Father starts, tapping his fingers against a small stack of papers, “what do you know of her?”

You’re disarmed, the question seems so innocent-- not a note of ulterior motive detectible. Even so, your guard remains high. His intentions need no subtext.

“St. Teresa of Avila, the patron saint of headache sufferers,” you’re struggling to see the point, but Father prompts you to continue, “she was a Spanish nun, she wrote about a prayerful life,”

After another moment of measured silence, you grow even more tense, “Father Shouta, forgive me, I don’t understand,”

You’re hushed with a laugh, the small collection of papers placed in your hands. The first leaf is titled with large letters, “The Life of Teresa of Jesus.”

“I’d like you to read the section I’ve highlighted.”

You shake, thumbing through until you find a block of text traced in bright yellow. You scan its contents, but are quickly interrupted by Shouta’s next request.

“Out loud.”

There’s no escaping the toy box.

His stare is unwavering, giving you no room for objection. They’re not soft like honey anymore, Father Shouta’s eye’s are harsh, bloody gemstones.

You know better than to keep him waiting, adjusting in your half sat position on the side of his desk, you begin reading with hoarse inflection, “In his hands I saw a long golden spear, and at the end of the iron tip I seemed to see a point of fire. With this he seemed to pierce my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails.”

Wincing, the words sound like a stranger in your ears. After every sentence, Shouta’s fingertips inch closer to the end of your skirt, right above the knee. You’d be stoned for this kind of hemline at home, but with Father it seems to be exactly the sacred skin he wanted to see.

His hands move, unwavering, as you continue with the annotated paragraph, “When he drew it out, I thought he was drawing them out with it and he left me completely afire with a great love of God.” Fingers stop their gentle assault before adding pressure to your inner thigh, he peels apart your legs with a wordless prompting to keep going.

“The pain was so sharp that it made me utter several moans; and so excessive was the sweetness caused me by this intense pain that one can never wish to lose it, nor will one’s soul be content with anything less than God.”

By the last several words, Father Shouta’s lips are centered in between your open thighs, you feel tears frozen in the duct. You want to pull away, to escape, but his lips hold something you’ve never been this close to.

“Piety is a virtue,” you can feel the hot breath against your most intimate planes of flesh, “but our God is one of pleasure too.”

His kiss feels like branding. An aimless, confused lamb seared with the mark of its owner.

You cry out, loud and broken, when his mouth meets the cotton covering your pussy. Shouta uses his pointer and middle finger to move the fabric away.

No one has ever seen these parts of you, kept locked away for your future husband until now, sitting in the heart of your family's church, writhing from even the slightest touch.Hips buck of their own accord, and you’re granted one last open-mouthed lave against your twitching cunt. His tongue peaks out slightly to catch your clit before pulling away.

You move as if possessed, falling to your knees in front of your Father. Your mouth opens, that same quiet obedience, and his finger brushes your lower lip again. “No one” you think, eyes fluttering shut at the feeling of fingers wrapped into the back of your hair, “no one can serve two masters.”

“Body and soul, you’re mine.”

But there’s not a soul left in sight.

✞ 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞: All writing is chiwhorei’s original content, please do not repost or modify. Do no read my content as asmr. Do not recommend me on TikTok.©️

[mixelation]

may i ask why people are complaining about sexual dimorphism and why they would need it explained? feel free to ignore this!

LOL okay, well first, for anyone not playing along at home: sexual dimorphism is when there are physical differences between sexes, usually implied to be differences beyond just genitalia. obvious examples are the manes on male lions, antlers on male deer, male peacock coloration.

people usually complain about sexual dimorphism in fiction when the males of an alien/fantasy species are distinctively non-human, but females just look like sexy human women in a halloween costume. for example, these are orcs in Allods Online:

calling this sort of design out is totally justified and content consumers should be doing it, because the motivations behind the design choices are clearly sexist. HOWEVER, the internet machine is basically a centrifuge, with people's opinions and ideas being flung to extremes. as a result, i sometimes see the take that any sort of sexual dimorphism in scifi/fantasy species designs is automatically bad. i particularly saw this take a lot when the trailer for How to Train Your Dragon 3 came out, because people were mad female Night Furies were implied to be white which doesn't really make much sense given what we knew of their biology, but people didn't understand why it didn't make sense. this resulted in bizarre posts about how sexual dimorphism either isn't real or doesn't make sense (undeniably biologically incorrect), or that including it in fictional designs is somehow morally wrong (it definitely often has sexist or otherwise questionable motives but it's not wrong AS A CONCEPT)

now, for me as a biologist, sexual dimorphism is really cool. it's interesting to me that some species have almost no dimorphism and some have huge amounts of dimorphism. in a sexual species you're getting half your DNA from the egg donor and half from the sperm donor, so in cases of extreme dimorphism, it's fascinating that you can get such a huge different even though have of everyone's DNA is from either sex.

sexual dimorphism is the result of sexual selection-- ie, how natural selection works on separate sexes due to differences in life strategies between sexes, usually revolving around how energy is allocated into acquiring mates, mate choice (ie, what the species thinks is Sexy), producing sperms VS eggs, and then the degree of parental investment in offspring. in the night fury example, we're shown toothless (the main character's night fury partner) is able to blend in perfectly with a night's sky, presumably to help him hide from potential prey/human trying to shoot him down. if the females of the species are all white, they'd lose that advantageous camouflage when hunting/hiding. so, to explain why females are white, we'd need to be shown that they don't need to blend in with the night sky for whatever reason. do they have a different hunting strategy? what is it and why is it different from males? is there some sort of wild effect of mate choice going on, where light colored female Night Furies are more likely to get a mate even if the color is maladaptive (usually you'd see this in males-- like peacocks-- but there's always exceptions)? without being told this, this color dimorphism doesn't really make sense. however, there could be a plausible reason! the fact that it's there at all isn't automatically "biologically inaccurate."

when people complain about sexual dimorphism in fiction, usually they just want to complain about sexist design choices. this is why it would be inappropriate for me to go "oh but what if maladaptive male orc tusks are there because it got correlated to a gene for female mate choice, so males with big tusks had more children because they were seen as a more desirable mate, creating bigger and bigger tusks in males via sexual selection?" like that would be cool to discuss but it's absolutely derailing the point most people complaining are trying to make lol

.....although it does bother me when people are like "sexual dimorphism isn't real/doesn't make sense/is morally wrong to include in fiction." as a writer and as a scientist i am Offended lmao

[dreamkidddream]

So my birthday is on April Fools, (how deserving 🤪) and I decided to be self indulgent again and write something! These are short and reader is gender neutral!

WARNING: Lesson 16 spoilers in Beel and Belphie’s part (nothing too heavy but read their sections at your own risks)

The Brothers Celebrating your Birthday!

Lucifer

Expect the most grandest/high class celebration you’ve ever seen MC!

As much as he’s not a morning demon, he’s got a noticeable pep in his step this morning because it’s your special day

Expect him to be one of the first people to text you at midnight because he’s still up doing paperwork

But don’t worry, he won’t be doing any work when it’s time to celebrate

Little messages throughout the day, hinting at something big to come along with small gifts (atleast to him) such as: new outfits, lunch at Ristorante Six with him, basically stuff that he pleases you both and that he would love to see you in (not that he would ever tell you)

Expect his gifts to be high quality too (ie. very expensive)

You expected a huge party, but you didn’t expect him to get so sentimental

After everything ended, you ended up in his room, with him just holding you in his lap, unconsciously caressing you with his mind deep in thought

The impact that you made on his brothers- the impact that you made just on him- it’s far bigger than you could imagine. And that scares him

He’s gotten so close to you that he forgot that you can’t stay here forever, both in the Devildom and mortality. What would he do when you have to leave his brothers? When you have to leave him? It makes his chest pang with pain every time the thought crosses his mind, but he refuses to let it ruin the moments he does get to spend with you

You’ll never know how grateful he is for deep down, and he never wants to lose you. Who would have thought that the mighty firstborn would fall so deep for a mere human?

Mammon

ITS PARTY TIME

Get ready to have the best birthday ever with no one other than the Great Mammon!

Tries to be the first one to tell you, fell asleep and immediately felt bad

Celebrates your birthday like a national holiday but is still somehow tsundere about it. He’s only being like this because you don’t know how to party, and he doesn’t want to hear you complain later, got it?!

Has his crows bring you small gifts leading up to the big party. Bracelets, candy, mini love letters that he swore that he threw away...

Definitely snuck off during your party, because he wanted to hand you his gift personally (and he didn’t want to hear his brothers say anything about it). Prays (how ironic) that you don’t hate it, tears up when you say that you love it

Definitely got some kisses as thanks and can expect some more later

He just really appreciates and loves you okay? You’re important to him, and today’s the day that you were brought into the world, the reason that he’s able to look forward to something everyday. You’ve made a change in everyone’s lives, even that grouch Lucifer, and he has to say thanks somehow

Plus, you’re important to him- so he does see this as a special day regardless of what comes out of his mouth. He still gets embarrassed about being emotional, but he makes sure that you know that he loves you

He always will

Leviathan

It’s just another day normie, nothing special...

Hey quit trying to figure out what he’s hiding behind his back! He doesn’t have anything okay?! It’s nothing! And ignore that he called you, he just butt dialed you and didn’t expect you to answer! And he just decided to say happy birthday because everyone else was, not because he actually cares!

He is so stumped on how he’s going to celebrate your birthday, he hasn’t stressed about something non-otaku like this in decades. He’s so anxious that he’ll ruin your big day. What if he gets you something and you hate it and then hate him?!!

This day is making him more nervous than it should, but he can’t help it! You’re his best friend, a person that he can confidently say that he’s fortunate enough to know and that he loves-

OKAY he can’t exactly say it out loud yet without turning 50 shades of red, but he really does. He just needs a way to show it

Believe it or not, he was too excited to wait to tell you his gift after the party, so he told you after he said happy birthday. Free range to his manga collection??? What could be better than that?! The perfect gift if you asked him

Plus he rather you be holed up with him in his room than being anywhere else. That’s how it should be: just his Henry, his anime/manga/game collection, and Henry 2.0

It’s the least that he can do for how much you’ve been there for him, and even though he still has a hard time saying how he really feels, he hopes that this atleast gives you a glimpse into his true feelings

Ugh this feels like he’s a love interest in an otome game or something...

Satan

Honestly is the chillest of them all

Don’t get me wrong he’s super excited like everyone else, but he has a very detailed itinerary that you both need to follow for today, starting with breakfast.

Get down here before Beel eats your breakfast!

He made it with all of your favorite activities and places, along with things that he just knew you’ll love (and him too, but seeing you smiling is more than enough to make him content). He put a lot of effort into this whole day, especially with your gift

He put thought into it (no surprise there), he didn’t want to give you just anything and he has to one-up Lucifer and he needed to give you something to show you how much of a change you’ve been in his life. How much you influenced him to make better choices when it comes to channeling his anger and rage

He got you a magic photo album last year, and the way that you reacted to that (which was obviously positive), the pressure is on this year to impress you even more

Which he ended up doing! But he won’t lie, he was just a tad bit nervous in disappointing you, but everything worked out well, so you didn’t need to know!

Although, he did feel a bit shy in handing you his gift, he felt relieved in seeing you accept it so quickly

Also invited you to read any of his books, and even offered to teach you some spells, both safe and simple enough to where it won’t cause any real damage to anyone. Might teach you a spell to spite Lucifer to make the LYS club proud

You don’t know how much you mean to his brothers, how much you mean to him. You’ve made a bigger impact that you think, and while he knows that nothing he does will ever show you how eternally thankful he is for your presence, he at least wants to show you a sliver of his appreciation. What better way than the day you came into the world?

Also expect him to try and fluster you the whole day. You’re too cute for him to leave you alone, and your reactions are better than that brand new cat cafe

Actually he might have to test that theory, and the only way to do that is if you both visit the cafe. Either way he’s not complaining! Cats and you? A match to die for

Asmodeus

You’re the only reason he’ll interrupt his beauty sleep

Wants bragging rights to say that he told you happy birthday first

Today is a big day after all! It’s the day that you came into the world, and that you’re able to even be down here with him- I mean them!

Will be your designated fashion designer. All your outfits already have to not only be on point, but they have to be iconic. No exceptions! Doesn’t matter if you’re just going to Purgatory Hall, you’re going there in style!

Gifts are in style too! He got you stuff that you would absolutely fall in love with. He’s not that self centered, give him some credit MC!

After the big celebration with everyone, of course you’re going out to The Fall! He has to show you off of course, it would be a crime if he didn’t

But once everything is over and you guys are home, he takes his time in doing his nightly routine on you both. Honestly just basking in your glow and just enjoying you. No sharing, no interruptions, just you and him

He catches himself thinking that there’s no way he can love someone more than he can love himself, it’s impossible, it has to be

But he loves you so much that he’s starting to doubt that theory

But would that really be a problem?

Beelzebub

He’s so excited! And he takes today VERY seriously

He’s gonna make sure you eat SO GOOD today that Lord Diavolo would be jealous

As soon as you get up you guys are hitting every restaurant and I mean EVERY

You’re getting the best of the best because you deserve the best

And as a gift he got you so much food that you’ll probably have enough to last you both for the rest of the year...if he doesn’t eat it all

He knows that food is his thing, but he got you so much because he knows that it makes him happy, and he wants you to feel the same way. It makes him feel all warm inside, and when you’re with him it’s like he’s eating all of his favorites at once, but even better

And you guys eating food together?? It makes him feel like he’s back in the Celestial Realm again

But I feel like with Beel, another way he shows love is through acts of service and quality time. For him, even if you guys are doing absolutely nothing, he’s 100% in bliss

So his gift to you was in the way of snacks to share and having him at your mercy (not that you would ever take advantage of him like that). Also promising to take you wherever you want, it’s your day!

You see past his sin, and enjoy Beel for Beel. You don’t just see him as Gluttony, you helped bring his twin back to him, you even sleep and listen to him after his nightmares of Lilith. It’s only right to show gratitude for all that you’ve done on your birthday

And all of his brothers love you, especially him. You’re basically family at this point, and no takebacks either

Just don’t leave him MC, you’ve became a big part of his life now, and he honestly would be very sad without you

Belphegor

There’s no way that this sleepy king can stay up until midnight so you’ll get your happy birthday when he sees you in the morning (if he’s up)

No but fr in the game he DOES NOT CALL YOU OR EVEN TEXT!!! LIKE I STAYED UP THINKING HE FELL ASLEEP AND HE JUST STRAIGHT UP- okay sorry back to the headcannons 😭

He’s very optimistic on the inside trust me, he just doesn’t show it very well on the outside, but he’s trying!

He can’t help it that he’s sleepy but...you put some energy back into him, and he is ecstatic about celebrating with you, he just has a hard time showing it

His brothers were a little peeved about his nonchalant attitude AND not getting you a gift, but Beel already knows what his twin is doing, he just didn’t want anyone else to know because he wanted everything to be perfect

After the party, he snuck you away to the planetarium, which is designated as your sacred spot. This was nothing new, but you still laid in awe cuddled with Belphie looking up at the sky

But tonight was different, as the stars up above spelled out...your name? And did that star basically let out miniature fireworks? And are those stars over there shaped as a cow and mooing?

Seeing your eyes light up meant that it was worth it to skip out on some of his naps to talk to Solomon and practice out some new spells (but you won’t ever know that)

Belphie really cares about you. Really cares about you. No matter how much he may be sarcastic or act like things aren’t a big deal, they are to him, especially when it comes to you. After the ill-fated events in the attic, he would have not been surprised if you hated him and want nothing to do with him ever again; it was his fault after all, he couldn’t be upset with you. But you were willing to forgive him, and start over

MC, you will never know how much indebted he is to you. You’re the reason that he’s out of the attic and reconnected with his twins again, the reason that he’s apart of the family and not separated. Yes, he still has some issues that he may need to work on for himself, but he’s able to take the right step because of you

He doesn’t really have a choice in celebrating your birthday (at least to him but he’s gonna celebrate either way), because without you, he doesn’t know where he would end up at, he would be lost. He owes you enough to see you safe and happy, and he swears that he will keep you that way. A happy and safe MC means a satisfied Belphie

And having you curled up in his side, going on about the show he planned, has him feeling very light, and he can’t help but wonder if this is how his sister felt

If it is, he can’t help but start to see everything a little clearer now