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leidensygdom · 29 days

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Commission scams: A guide on how to avoid them and find legit artists

Hello! I am writing this guide in order to hopefully help people spot scammers and art thieves, to teach people how to deal with them and to give people ways to actually get real artists for commission work.

For those who do not know, there is a recurring, extremely widespread type of scam where someone will advertise their commissions using stolen artwork, or (sometimes) traced or AI-generated pictures. This started (as far as I know) on Twitter, but it is currently in all sorts of social media (I have found them in Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky and Tumblr) and also on Discord servers, often large Discord servers requiring no invites or that are easy to find through Discord advertisement places.

These do obviously hurt both, the people seeking to buy a commission (who will either get their money stolen, or given a product that is not of the quality that was advertised), and the artists whose work is being stolen, who are not getting the work themselves. It is important for people to learn how to identify these people, and to quickly take action when possible. This post is kind of lengthy, so please press the Keep reading button below for the full guide! (And please do share this post around if possible- This is a very common scam and I have met far too many people who have fallen to it or have got their art stolen due to it, including friends and myself.)

So, how do they work? (in Social media)

In my experience, a lot of these scammers either run multiple accounts or are part of a larger scheme, operating in organized groups that follow similar tactics. They will very often use automated means to advertise en masse. Those in social media will make accounts that post some example artwork, often with a myriad of tags, in styles that do not match (see first example, featuring my stolen art :'')). They very rarely post anything that isn't stolen artwork, or have any actual real following they interact with properly. They will then very often spam heavily through replies (such as it happens in Twitter), posting hundreds of really similar messages in a short period of time. In the second example, you can see an account from one of these scammers that is using automated posts to garner attention, which are shared by similar accounts (notice the same exact wording between the first and third post). The third example (in the Replies tab) shows how one of this accounts replies "Hi" to every single message they get.

They will often seek posts from people who are searching for commissions, answering them (often with a "I do commissions, DM me") or other variants of that. (They often only share their "art" on DMs to not be caught stealing by the original authors.) You can see an example of that on the first screenshot below. On Twitter, Instagram and pretty much any place where you can DM people, they may also come to your DMs, often starting with a "Hello" or something so you answer to them, and then they will suddenly share their commission information (as seen in the second picture).

In any case, they rarely have publicly available commission sheets, and will only disclose their prices on DMs. They may share more stolen artwork in there. From there on, they will often speak in fairly broken English, and try to lead you to commission them. They will haggle the prices if they can- But they tend to be fairly steep, with them going up to $300 a fullbody, which tends to be unusual in people without a fairly established following or popularity.

They will often give you a payment method that does not allow for refunds- Such as sending the money to "Friends and Family" in Paypal. This is actually illegal for commercial work, so if you get an artist telling you to pay them through such a method, please do be incredibly wary: Professionals will use methods that do have an option for refunds.

2. How do they work? (on Discord)

On Discord, they will often enter in servers where there may be a place for them to advertise, or servers available through Disboard and other Discord-community searchable sites. Then, they will often not interact at all with the community itself, but they will jump to advertising channels and post about "seeking for work". I have found out that scammers operating on Discord do only very rarely also have socials, so look out for that. Do reverse searches if you can. Legit artists don't tend to join Discords solely to advertise, so look up "from: [name]" on Discord and check how they have interacted in the server, if they have done that in any way. See the first and second example for an example on how they behave. First example has art from @ydteus (in the second message, the dragonborn's source is unknown.) Second example is from one of these accounts who entered on a Streamers' Discord. Streamers and VTubers are very popular targets for these scammers. Third example (with art from absent_lambeth on instagram, and unknown for the second picture) shows another important point, which I'll explain below.

Many of these scammers do not have solid commission sheets showing examples and prices for them. The third one even mentions "it is under construction", fully knowing a commission sheet is expected. Not every professional artist has them, but most do. It is often expected that people who do commissions will have some sort of Terms of Service at the very least, even if they do not have a commission sheet.

3. What do they do?

They scam you. You may never get any art from them. You may get traced art, or art that is not of the quality they advertised, because the art they used for promotion wasn't theirs on the first place. Or you may get an AI-generated picture, too. In either way: You will find yourself with +$200 less in your pocket and no way to seek a refund. So, it's very important you know how to spot them BEFORE they scam you. I have known people who have lost their money

4. How do I actually spot them?

Simply put, they do not act like normal artists would. Let's make a handy list of suspicious behaviours to look for, though.

Most people who draw commissions won't directly DM you unprompted to ask you to pay them for work. If you get such a DM- Report as spam and block.

Most of them don't act like bots, either. If you're on Twitter or similar pages, seek for extremely repetitive posts, hundreds of Replies in their Replies tab that are copypasted or very similar. If you see that, report as spam and block.

Reverse search is sadly very unreliable nowadays, but it does not hurt to try. A lot of them will modify the picture so it doesn't show in reverse search, but try it- And seek if it links to a different account with a different name.

As an ESL, I hate to say this, but the grand majority of them have really broken English, so look out for that. Not every person with broken English is a scammer, but it is something common amidst them. You will notice they fail to communicate general information. Try to ask them for Terms of Service, for example: They will probably be unable to provide you anything (if they do even understand you.)

You will rarely find them on your own unless you frequent specific tags, such as "commission" or "openforcommission". Or even using completely unrelated tags in their posts. I found one of them using a tag about someone's death to cop violence on their anime art. These people mostly only interact with their fellow scammers, but not with artists you'd find through other means.

As mentioned above, they won't provide you a payment method that allows for refunds the grand majority of the time. If someone tells you to send them money "as friends and family" in Paypal, or through something life Ko-fi's donations (although this one is rare), do not pay them. This is a general advice: Do not use payment methods that do not allow refunds for people you don't know.

Ask them for a commission sheet, a webpage, their Terms of Service and other things. Professionals should be able to provide at least one of these, usually.

5. What do I do if I find out they have stolen art/if my art has been stolen?

If you have found stolen art, let the original artist known ASAP if you can find them. Ask for help from friends if you cannot find them.

If you're the artist, DMCA claim. Every page has it, it is required for them to have it. If you search "dmca form (and the website's name)", it should show up. Bsky only has it in mail form right now, but it's there. A DMCA claim is a Copyright claim, and as long as you can show that you posted your picture somewhere before they did, you can do it. The form may seem scary, but it is not all that much. They will ask for your legal full name, address, a mail + a telephone, the url of the post stealing your art, an url to where you posted it first, and to sign/agree to some terms. DMCA claims tend to be processed swiftly (in about a day) because websites can get in trouble if they allow for copyrighted content to be stolen. And you actually do have rights to any picture you have created without needing to trademark it or anything.

You may also want to ask your friends to help you report the account and/or posts. Often, reporting it for spam will give you the best results. DMCA claims will take down the offending posts, but sadly, reports in most major places are rarely taken seriously, but they may limit an accounts' reach or auto-flag it as spam in DMs, so it is still a fairly effortless option to follow. DO still DMCA claim them though.

6. Where do I actually find real people to commission?

Your best bet is through other real people. Let me explain some good methods for this.

Do you have friends who are artists? Ask them if they have commissions open, or if they know other people who take them. Artists almost always know other artists, and they can quickly find you someone you can trust.

Did a friend of yours get a commission? Ask them who was it from if you like the style, and they may be able to get you a link to their social media!

Do you follow artists for any sort of content you're interested in? (General art, fanart/fandom stuff, people you look up to, etc). You can check their work first and see if they have commissions, or if they share art from other people, and then check those.

Scammers really don't partake in fandoms or have art-related posts go viral (some get some follower-begging bait going viral, but that's it). Chances are that, if you found a cool art in your dashboard or timeline, it is from a real artist.

I think places such as VGen need verification for artists and have ratings. I am not personally experienced with it, but you may want to check that out.

You can always ask people to double check with you if you found someone but are doubtful about them being legit. If you are part of any community, do ask there! If you have artist friends, tell them! A lot of artists are acquittanced with the scam issue.

I have seen people do lists of artists available for commissions in places such as bsky, too. These can be an option, but always do verify that the people doing the list in the first place do seem like an actual person.

Ending notes

This is a very long post, but I really wanted it to be very thorough. I would greatly appreciate if you could share it around, as it is a very widespread issue that not many know how to identify. If you do find out scammers in Discords, please DM the servers' admins and link them to this post so they can get banned, in order to prevent scamming and art theft.

If you have any question or you need someone to help you verify an artist being legit or a scammer, my DMs are open for that too. I have talked about this a bunch in other places and I am fairly experienced with these cases, and I would be very happy to be able to lend a hand and find you an artist, if you do need the help. Thank you for reading!

#commission #commissions #scam alert #scam awareness #scam #scammers #art #digital art #art commissions #info #artists on tumblr

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kyra45 · 1 month

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Scammers pretending to be Palestinian v6

(Scammers pretending to be Palestinian v6)

This guide is meant to inform you on some ways to differentiate legitimate fundraisers from those created by scammers who have been impersonating Palestinians for several months now. While originally I tried to list the scam blogs in these posts, Im just making this now a general overall method to spot scams.

Disclaimer: This guide is not to say all Palestine based asks are from bots or a scammer. Rather, it is meant to explain the reasoning why something is legitimate or not. Do not use this guide as an excuse to claim every single Palestine fundraiser is a scam.

TL;DR: In the span of you saying someone’s bot, you could be using tumblr search instead of telling me your reporting every ask you get as a scam without looking at the account.

One of the first things to keep in mind is that most asks you get will come from accounts who check the notes of a post. Meaning they saw you and decided to send you the ask or DM to share their fundraising post. This is not bot behavior and often is done by those is unfortunate situations that desperately need funding and as a result is a common occurrence across the internet. If this bothers you, it is suggested to turn off your askbox or limit DMs to mutuals instead of the posting in the scam tag that every ask you get is from a scammer when it’s a gfm account that has been vetted by a well known blog that may even be on a list of verified fundraisers if you bothered to look it up.

Secondly, while originally a non-gfm fundraiser may have been suspicious (such as PayPal or gogetfunding) it has since been decided and clarified that such fundraisers are now used when a gfm is shut down unexpectedly and the original creator informs the donors that they will need to resend it their support to a new fundraiser. If you do not see any mention of a previous gfm in a PayPal/gogetfunding post there is a possibility that searching parts of the post may show that the content is from someone else and the source may still be active with no mention of tumblr itself indicating the tumblr post is impersonating the real gfm.

Thirdly, due to language barriers legitimate accounts may use asks from other vetted fundraiser blogs with only minor edits. While this isn’t something I’d suggest doing, it’s understandable the situation unfortunately relies on copying someone else’s words to ask for support. However, please don’t reuse the post content unless you were given permission or are related to the original fundraiser such as being a family member. Images may be borrowed from other accounts, though they may be stolen from offsite places. This is not full proof of a scam, as it’s suggested to search around for proof of who originally posted the images. Please understand not everyone is natively an English speaker and Google translate isn’t always accurate. Some may reuse someone else’s posts unaware that it’s suspicious behavior.

Fourthly, most scam accounts have reused a certain style of ask often mentioning needing insulin (Humalog) for a relative, having nose freezes due to asthma, being down to their last pen and asking for “nt much”, or referring to their family being in the ruins of a church. The frequency of these asks is so common searching them in tumblr search should bring up plenty of posts. Additionally, the names used by these accounts generally appear across multiple blogs that have been seen running different kinds of scams later on. A majority of their posts are almost always stolen off a real fundraiser they don’t link to.

Fifthly, in regards to verification it is very easy to search a username and see who vetted an account. Scammers will often say they’re verified but don’t list who or even paste a username that has never existed at all when you go to check. If asked about it, they generally will opt to block you without responding. There are people who will take time out of their day to ensure someone’s legitimate just be patient.

Lastly, don’t just assume every Palestinian gfm is a scam and stop acting like sharing a scam is fine because you don’t want to accidentally ignore someone in need. If you regularly see the posts from legitimate blogs and share them you would eventually be able to tell the day old private PayPal account asking for insulin funds is suspiciously asking for a low amount of funds compared to everyone else.

If I’ve missed anything, please let me know.

#kyra45 speaks #scam #how to spot a scam blog #Palestine #long post

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tossawary · 11 months

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The visible camp and sleeping setups in Baldur's Gate 3 make no sense for many reasons, but the one I'm focused on now is... where did all of this stuff COME from?

Presumably there's some in-universe explanation about fully furnished tents that you can summon or a magical bag or whatever, but I don't particularly care, honestly. Handwaving the exact mechanics in favor of fun fic ideas.

It doesn't make much sense for all of the characters to have even magical camping gear at the ready, especially at the beginning of the game: Lae'zel was part of a larger force and may not have been in charge of supplies in any fashion, and Astarion is a city boy. As far as I can remember and understand it, Gale and Shadowheart are the magical ones, and Shadowheart is the only one between them who was actually intentionally traveling on a quest. Wyll and Karlach having camping gear, yes, I buy that (although it easily could have been wrecked by or lost during all the shit that they've been through), but you also meet them both a little later than the others.

It is FAR funnier to me to imagine the party, post-crash at the beginning, being absolutely WRECKED. Everyone is covered in mind flayer ship slime, blood, and ash. Shadowheart's eyeliner is dripping down her face and there are guts in her hair. Astarion when you first meet him is a MESS who tried to fix himself up after tripping into a river. Lae'zel is missing half her clothes, perhaps, due to the fighting on the ship earlier, and she's making the awkwardness everyone else's problem.

They have no food (Lae'zel suggested cannibalism as a joke, but no one could tell that it was a joke) and one water skin. Their armor and weapons are damaged or stolen. Everyone is resigned to sleeping in the dirt, because the only other option is sharing Shadowheart's ONE single-person tent and bedroll between them all. A cuddle pile seems like a potentially deadly option.

And then they all meet Gale. And I know that he's Mr. Stay In My House For A Year Post-Break-Up, so he doesn't really seem like a camping guy, but it's really funny to me to imagine everyone being Not Very Happy to have Gale joining them (his robes are actually cleanish somehow, what the fuck, that's not fair, fucking wizards), until he starts summoning plush furniture and cooking pots out of some pocket dimension and heating water for people so they can wash their hair. And he COOKS. Holy shit. Everyone's favorite party member immediately.

Yes, it is revealed later on all of the (possibly dubiously real) tents and luxurious cushions and blankets and mirrors and atmospheric magical torches that Gale is summoning WERE all part of former magical romantic fuck-pads from his days with Mystra, so there is a non-zero chance that Gale fucked or got fucked by a goddess on every single piece of furniture in the camp. ("They're CLEAN!" Gale insists. "I WASHED THEM.") But at that point no one is willing to give up their throw pillows or sexy furs or the bathtub that could fit two people, so they all just live with it.

#tossawary baldur's gate #gale dekarios #shadowheart #lae'zel #astarion ancunin #wyll ravengard #karlach #fic ideas #spoilers

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creatingblackcharacters · 2 months

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How to spot a Stereotype: An Example

Okay, so I talked about this in my Lesson 6 Stereotypes series, but I feel like people haven't quite... Understood what I meant. So I'm doing a mini lesson/application. First, I'd really appreciate it if you take the time to read the links in my posts, because that will provide you the historical and social context necessary. If you lack it, you will never be fully able to understand this. Remember, all I do here is provide the beginning steps. You have to be willing to do the rest!

One thing I constantly emphasize is that it's not the description of a character that (always) reveals an existing stereotype, but the writing! And again, until you grasp why anti-Black stereotypes are what they are, you will continue to be frustrated with how to avoid incorporating them, both in your writing and in your mindset. I'm going to use one stereotype as an example.

The Mammy Stereotype

"[Black woman character] is very fond, doting, and protective. She's like the team mom of the group."

On the surface, people who are worried about this stereotype will worry, because Black readers have long rolled their eyes and said we're tired of seeing this as one of the Only Options for Black women characters. And we are. Here's the disconnect: the attributes are not what we're tired of, but how they were utilized in the writing- often by non-Black writers!

Mammy: put simply, the caricature of the Mammy is the Black nursemaid that would take care of the Master's white children and the Mistress, prioritizing them above the well-being of herself, her own children, and her own community. She is fat and homely (so as not to attract the Master from the Mistress), unthreatening, sweet and subservient.

In other words, the only value she held was to serve white people's needs (and quench their guilt).

While the image of the Mammy herself is a strong imagery that has faded from its specific origin, I would say the modern day fan archetypes that ring of the Mammy stereotype are the Black woman character that "holds the Braincell", the "begrudgingly fond mother of the group", the canon love interest now relegated to the "mommy/mean lesbian" whose feelings are erased altogether, her new role to help the two white characters get together without acknowledgment of her own potential. She has no real story of her own, or as mentioned, has her own story stolen because "it doesn't look good with her in it" (which is its own bag of worms).

Now, people often give these characters motherly (or what society deems motherly) traits: caring, sweet, protective, loving, self sacrificial. Because they want to defensively show that "they're a great person! Nothing bad! I still think they're good! I'm not racist!"

But upon learning of the stereotype, there appears this insecurity- "oh, my Black woman character has these traits, is she playing into this stereotype?" When you get to this question, what you really need to be asking yourself is:

What makes the Mammy a Mammy?

They are a tool, a utility to white people with more power.

They lack autonomy. How they feel is irrelevant, if it does not serve the white person.

Nonthreatening so as to feel "harmless" to white people who bask in her "selfless" care.

They are not allowed to show frustration or upset at their lot or at life; it is seen as a negative attribute because if they are not caring, they have no use (and may now even be considered a threat).

They will also disagree with anyone else, even to the detriment of themselves, to the benefit of the white person. This is considered "selfless", rather than sacrifice (consider that "real" Mammies were originally slaves. They probably hated every single day with the people they "cared" for, but God forbid they speak on it. To white people, they were supposedly so happy and grateful! Smile and nod!)

Notice, out of the things I listed, "strong", "protective", "intelligent", and "caring" weren't there! Because those aren't bad attributes for a Black character to have! Why would we ever suggest that?? Why would I be mad that a Black woman was any of those wonderful things to her peers? That's not the issue. The issue is that they are often used in service of usually white characters and their stories. They're a tool of the writer to coddle their white characters, versus a character that has their own inner workings and existence.

Knowing what you know now; things that would make your strong, protective, and caring Black woman character fit the Mammy stereotype can include:

If she is pushed to the side with no autonomy or inner life of her own, as the narrative centers the white characters and their needs.

If she is never shown to have any reason for acting outside of to the benefit of the white characters around her. That's the only time her presence counts.

If her disagreeing with, getting upset with, or refusing (or really, just not being "motherly") the white characters is deemed trashy by the narrative (whereas anyone else receives nuance or reason for their behavior).

If the white characters in the story treat her poorly, and it is treated as a good thing that she "stays calm" without any sort of reflection on her feelings.

You can come up with any sort of setting, plot scenario, and description of your Black woman character. But at the end of the day, what's going to make it the stereotype is how the narrative treats her, which you will only find out by writing it, and then reviewing your own work!

You're going to have to approach any stereotype this way. It's part of the *intent* thing I keep pushing 😅 if you don't intend to write a stereotype, you're going to have to actively understand what it is, which will help you actively avoid it.

#creatingblackcharacters #writing #ThatsJustTips #stereotypes

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oldmannapping · 7 months

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Mama - a Red Hood fanfic

Directly inspired by this post by @webshood

Excerpt:

You don’t jack a car in Crime Alley. And you definitely don’t jack a car in Crime Alley that almost certainly has a child in it.

The “Welcome To Gotham: 10 Things You Need To Know” pamphlets that Harley Quinn earnestly distributed to newcomers to the Gotham underworld were very clear about Red Hood’s list of Dos and Don’t.

Among the top Don’ts were:

Crime in Crime Alley

Crimes against women in Crime Alley

Crimes against children in Crime Alley

Mama

It wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t been so goddam cute.

Felicia Aidia, barely a year old. Couldn’t quite walk yet, but she could stand unassisted for five seconds of startled jubilance before her own shock at the situation would send her flopping back on her adorable diapered butt. Huge almond eyes that were nearly black, wispy black hair and full pink cheeks, she looked altogether too cherubic to be real.

Felicia had been strapped safely in a booster seat, poking at the condensation on the window of the rideshare car she was in with her babysitter, when they were carjacked by an idiot with either a death wish or less situational awareness than a stoned beetle.

There was no other excuse for why this man jacked a She-Share, one of the brightly-marked cars in a fleet that was famous for being Gotham’s first rideshare company to boast child seats in every one of their vehicles at no extra cost.

They were famously affordable and primarily utilised by single parents in low-income areas such as Crime Alley.

You don’t jack a car in Crime Alley. And you definitely don’t jack a car in Crime Alley that almost certainly has a child in it.

Among the top Don’ts were:

Crime in Crime Alley

Crimes against women in Crime Alley

Crimes against children in Crime Alley

The car thief had shoved the driver and Felicia’s babysitter out of the vehicle but utterly failed to notice the giant car seat and the appropriately-sized child occupying it.

A city-wide Amber Alert was out within minutes, which honestly was pretty good considering it happened in Crime Alley and Gotham police liked to pretend that area was just a mysterious Bermuda Triangle kinda place where people just mysteriously went missing, who can say why, oh well, what can you do.

The police were fast but Red Hood was faster.

The vigilante was leaping across rooftops with the speed of a panther. One police helicopter pilot completely forgot their assignment and started following him instead of the stolen car. People livestreamed blurry videos of the car careening around corners that hadn’t yet been blocked off, panning up to catch a glimpse of red metal and brown leather streaking across the sky in pursuit.

The end was anticlimactic. Hood crashed onto the roof of the car from the awning of a deli like a feral beast and punched straight through the driver’s side window. He knocked the driver out and wrested control of the vehicle until it skidded to a stop a few blocks away from the official police cordon.

Before any officers got there, Hood had hogtied the unconscious car thief and carefully extracted Felicia from her carseat.

She let out a small, uncertain wail at the sight and sound of cheering locals, crowding close to film and too boisterous with relief to realise they were scaring a baby.

Felicia pouted. It had been loud, and then fast, and then unfamiliar, and then loud again, and suddenly she was outside, and she was supposed to be napping, and she didn’t know any of these people.

Wait, yes she did. The man cradling her protectively with one arm and holding the other out to the crowd, telling them to, “Back off, back off, give her some space,”, she’d seen him before. She didn’t know how but he was familiar. His big red face (no eyes, very strange, no mouth too! How did he suck his thumb?) wasn’t scary. He was the man on the wall painting! The big wall near the playground had a picture of him painted on it. The playground was safe, and he reminded her of the playground. He was holding her protectively and he was all nice and warm.

Felicia didn’t know many words. But she did know the word she used for the person who felt safest.

“Mama!” she said loudly, clinging to the red man’s arm. “Mama!”

“It’s okay, kiddo,” he said in a very soothing voice for someone without a mouth, “We’ll get your mom.”

A police officer arrived and tried to take Felicia away. She did not appreciate it.

“Mama!” she cried louder, torn between frustration and fear. No one ever listened to her! She reached for the red man. “MAMA!”

Well. Like we said. She was so goddam cute. All eyes were on her fat little face, her adorable, freshly-rescued, chubby little hands reaching out to Red Hood. Everyone was filming her on their phones.

And she called the Red Hood “Mama”, in a perfectly clear, tiny, adorable little baby voice.

Of course it went viral.

For a while, it was a fun in-joke between Gothamites. People playing vigilante bingo to see who they’d spot each night would jokingly ask each other if they’d seen “Mama” down by the docks. Goons blustered amongst themselves that “Mama” didn’t scare them, as they kept their heads down and prayed he didn’t notice them. One bold news website captioned a picture as “Red Hood/Mama” in a story about Felicia’s rescue, while the commenters lost their minds either rofl skull skull skull dying laughing or warning the editors that they should be careful in case the trigger-happy vigilante didn’t have a sense of humour.

Closer to Hood’s home though, the reception was different. And, to him, wholly unexpected.

It started with Felix, the 16-year-old who’d been a sex worker until Hood cleaned up the under-18 scene in the Alley, and who now helped shuttle street kids to the lowkey safehouses Hood and his team had set up. Felix was a good middleman the kids trusted to take them somewhere with food, water, electricity, and no one called CPS. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a good compromise until Hood could clean the stink out of the city’s social services.

Felix was smoking on a stack of crates one night, chatting to a couple of his friends, when Hood strolled over.

“Hola, Mama,” Felix greeted casually, taking a drag of his cigarette as his friends choked.

Hood just sighed. “Not you too.” With a weary exhale, he got to business. “I got those extra blankets you needed for the safehouse on Cedar. They’re at the Warehouse B if you want to run them over tonight. Sheila knows you’re coming, she’ll sort you out.”

And so, with Felix not dead and two witnesses with big mouths to tell the tale, word spread. It was open season on Red Hood’s new nickname.

“Hey, mama!” called the girls on the corner as Hood checked to make sure none of the johns had gotten too rough.

“Mama’s here!” crowed the gays and theys across the block as he dropped off condoms and hot soup.

“It’s mama!” announced the receptionist at the shelter when Red Hood stopped by to do an inventory check.

Everywhere he went.

Whatever. It would pass. People’s attention spans were shot to shit, and the loudest viral jokes always burnt out the fastest. At least, Hood was pretty sure. He wasn’t really online much but it was impossible to exist in the world without hearing a few meme references, and they always seemed to die out fast. When was the last time anyone talked about Baby Shark? Or that kid who said “corn” weird? This would blow over.

Granted, it was taking a bit longer than Hood initially expected.

When Dick gleefully changed his name in the Family Chat, Jason ignored it. He never replied to that thing anyway.

When Red Robin said, “Mama, you’re clear,” in perfectly neutral tones during an otherwise routine surveillance operation, and several comm lines immediately muted themselves, Jason ignored it.

When Damian’s new black kitten, with huge blue eyes and a white streak on the forehead, was named Mama, Jason started to get annoyed. Even DAMIAN?

When Roy answered his call with, “Mama, I missed you!” followed by thirty seconds of unhinged cackling, Jason hung up the phone and didn’t speak to Roy for three days.

When Cass used the ASL sign for Mom to relay information to him during a mission brief, his shoulders dropped.

When Alfred gave him an exquisite pink cupcake on the second Sunday of May, Jason thanked him, left the room, walked into the nearest bathroom, carefully put the cupcake on the bench, and screamed into a towel for six minutes.

When Duke finished a story about growing up in the Narrows with, “Mama knows what I’m talking about, right?”, Jason was defeated.

Fine. They win. Everyone wins.

He worked so hard on a legacy. He dug out of his own GRAVE. He clawed himself back from insanity and anger and reclaimed himself, reclaimed Red Hood, reclaimed his home. He carved a new space for himself, not quite a vigilante, not quite a villain. He made his own rules. He built an empire.

And now, he’s FUCKING Mama.

Life isn’t fair. Sometimes the Joker kills you and you sever heads and butcher bad guys and build up a reputation and then one goddam adorable child says two goddam syllables and you’re fucking MAMA for the rest of your goddam life.

Fuck it. He’s going home. He’s too tired for this shit.

#batman #red hood #jason todd #dick grayson #batfamily #roy harper #tim drake #damian wayne #duke thomas #harley quinn #batman fanfiction #crime alley #crack fic

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mysunshinetemptress · 4 months

Text

How long till I see Heaven

Leah Williamson x cowgirl!reader

Warnings: None

You return to the Ranch and back to work like you had never even caught a glimpse of the heaven that was Leah, as she returned to England and back to training for the upcoming England features back to training mode no distractions no cowgirls.

The one thing you both had in common though was every waking moment you couldn't stop thinking of the other and the short time you both shared. Yet it's months later when Leah sees a glimpse of you, Leah scrolled through Instagram mindlessly. Training for the upcoming features had her in a focused frenzy. Then, a sudden stop. There you were, grinning alongside Mitch, both caked in red dust, your hand resting casually on his shoulder, with Dakota wrapped in Mitches arms: "Congratulations to this buckaroo on another win! Thank you Y/n/n for being his rock and keeping him safe out there!"

A laugh, sharp and humourless, escaped Leah's lips. Safe? You, with your gentle eyes and calloused hands, had become the most dangerous thing in her world. A world that had shrunk to the confines of the training gym and the echoing emptiness of her flat. Every burpee, every lift, was fueled by a phantom memory - your laugh under the Nashville sky, the brush of your fingers as you'd passed her a beer.

The ache in her chest intensified. Months had crawled by since Leah had boarded the plane back to England. Reality had slammed shut, leaving the Nashville summer a bittersweet memory. She'd thrown herself into training, but the fire that once fueled her competitive spirit felt like a dying ember.

With trembling fingers, Leah tapped the comments section. Hundreds of congratulations poured in, but her eyes snagged on yours. A single, short comment: "Always a team. Time to head home and get ready for the next one." A team. The word sent a jolt through her. You weren't just a fleeting memory; you had a life, a purpose, a team. And she was just a passing ship for god sake you guys only spent a few hours together, she shouldn't be this hung up on you.

Leah stared at the screen, the weight of your comment settling in her gut. A team. It was true, you weren't some fantasy she'd conjured. You had a life, a world that existed far beyond that whirlwind Nashville night. Shame burned hot in her cheeks. Here she was, pining over a girl she barely knew, clinging to a few stolen moments.

A tiny spark flickered amidst the embers of her dulled spirit. "Time to head home and get ready for the next one." Your words echoed. Maybe that was what she needed too. Not just physically returning to England, but rediscovering the fire within herself, the one that had propelled her to the top.

Taking a deep breath, Leah pushed away from the phone. She wouldn't let this consume her. She couldn't a few hours in your presence wouldn't have her falling so hard, it shouldn't have her falling so hard.

Meanwhile, on the ranch, your phone buzzed with a notification. A new comment on Mitch's win post. A simple emoji - a single burning flame. It was from Leah, and a thrill shot through you. Leah was watching.

The next few weeks were a blur of focused training on both sides of the Atlantic. You were doing your daily ranch jobs with your father's ranch hands while helping Mitch train in your downtime Leah rediscovered the joy of the game, her passes sharper, her shots more powerful.

It had been months since the two of you had talked, months since you had seen Leah's face in person let alone heard her voice but, you hadn't expected to open Instagram to a message request from her. "Fancy coming to watch a football match."

You hesitate for a moment, replaying her comment and the burning flame emoji in your mind. You wrestle with conflicting emotions. Should you respond? She's giving you a chance to see her again.

As the week drags on with no response from you Leah begins to doubt if she should have ever sent the message but with England set to play a friendly in Kansas City against the USA the thought of possibly getting to see you again had driven her actions.

You take another two days to respond "Is it actual football or that thing you call soccer."

Leah laughs relief flooding her sense at your response "Rude, will you still come if it's my version."

You can't help but smile at your phone sitting on the side of the ring as Mitch gets thrown off the young stallion you're both trying to break in.

"I don't know the rules." Leah laughs out loud in front of her international teammates and best friends "What you laughing at." Georgia moves trying to see Leah's phone screen "No one just trying to sort out who is getting tickets for our upcoming US game." Georgia looks at Leah trying to read her before turning back to Lucy.

"All you have to know is you want me to win." You smile at the screen as Mitch shouts at you from the ground "Alright give me that your turn to get thrown."

You don't get to respond as he takes your phone pushing you towards the stallion before looking down at your screen and smiling "Alright I'll come, but I'm going to need a ticket for Mitch."

#woso #awfc #woso fanfics #woso one shot #woso imagine #leah williamson #leah williamson x y/n #leah williamson imagine #leah williamson x reader #leah williamson x you #cowgirl #cowboy #ranch life #woso soccer #soccer #montana

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paper-mario-wiki · 11 months

Note

and also if ssniperwolf doxxing is such a Bad Thing. Why hasnt there been a police report about it? Jacksfilms is a white man who owns a house, its not like the police arent gonna believe him.

but i guess its easier to just shit on women the moment they do something bad. 🤷‍♀️

got this and one other ask from this person, and im definitely not posting all that shit.

im a pretty firm believer in the "just let girls live" philosophy, but nah sssniperwolf is a bad person who is actively causing harm. sssniperwolf is SIGNIFICANTLY larger than jacksfilms, each of her daily uploads getting millions of views. YouTube constantly promotes her channel on twitter because she makes them a shitton of money, and her content is made ENTIRELY of stolen videos. She sometimes doesn't react, she just steals content. She refuses to even give a single piece of credit. It's not that she's a reaction channel, it's that she is unethical and getting rich anyway.

And Jacksfilms FAMOUSLY has been ripping on reaction channels since the fucking RayWilliamJohnson days. This is like, one of his things. He is part of OLD YouTube, and is a huge proponent of defending the rights of small creators and encouraging original content. The channel he has about this, jjjacksfilms, credits every creator they can find that she doesnt, and also gets in touch with some of the creators, all of which have reported never being contacted before her stealing their videos.

Sssniperwolf, despite being a woman, is fallible. Don't come into my askbox defending her from this, frankly, extremely manageable backlash she is getting. It started with asking her to simply look at the names of the people whose videos she was stealing and putting them in her video. Crediting them. And she has not only been aware of this the entire time, but she's been actively and publicly mocking Jack. It is getting out of hand because she STILL refuses to do this extremely simple, reasonable thing. Something that, one might even say, she is obligated to do.

Also, doxxing is a bad thing even if it isn't illegal (which it is). It's a threat. Showing someones home online is a deliberate tactic to make someone feel as though they are vulnerable and powerless. What about that is not a Bad Thing? Dunce.

I'm sorry to tell you this anon. But women are capable of being bad people too.

#anon #dont come into my askbox calling me wrong #just unfollow me and then bounce #cuz this is a pretty open and shut case and theres really nothing more to say on it

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sundrop-writes · 10 months

Text

Better Than Sleeping

Jason Todd x Fem!Reader

Summary:

You and Jason are friends with benefits. Though you have come to realize that the relationship doesn’t always ‘benefit’ you when he ends up annoying you after a long, tiring day of training.

(He quickly makes you come to see that his annoying persistence can benefit you, even if you would never admit it aloud.)

Jason Todd x Fem!Reader. Friends with Benefits. Smut. Set during Season 2.

Word Count: 5,300

DC Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link

THIS IS A RE-POST. This is a fic from my old blog (a blog that was shadowbanned, forcing me to move). This fic is not stolen, it is completely mine, and I am just re-posting it to help people find my new blog, and to make my masterlist complete when I post new fics for this fandom.

Warning: This fic contains Dubious Consent. One character ‘wears down’ the other and ‘convinces them’ to have sex, and both of them display verbal consent that goes against their true actions and desires (they say no to having sex when they do truly want to) and they think of convincing the other person to agree as a kind of ‘game’. It is a relationship that is playful in nature, and this consent is based on bodily queues, facial expressions, and knowing a person’s safety and comfort based on being in a relationship with them for a period of time. If this makes you uncomfortable, please don’t read the fic.

List of detailed warnings and author’s notes below the cut.

Warnings: friends with benefits, this is primarily a smut fic, the reader character uses she/her pronouns and has a vagina, Jason is more dominant and the reader is more submissive (once the sex begins), the reader could be considered a brat, Jason calls the reader ‘babe’ (it is a canon event), Jason calls the reader ‘baby’, Jason calls the reader ‘good girl’, dubious consent - coercion (please see the above for an explanation about this), mentions of masturbation (watching someone masturbate), mentions of fucking someone to sleep/fucking someone while they are asleep, mentions of free use kink, mentions of cumming inside someone/unprotected sex, marking/biting, groping/touching through underwear (reader receiving), orgasm denial (toward the reader), ‘just the tip’,teasing, there is a point where Jason’s dick is inside her without a condom but he doesn’t cum, and he puts on a condom before fully penetrating (what would you call that?), begging, slight mentions of subspace (but it’s more so described as a lustful drunkness), there is implications toward the end of fucking someone to sleep/fucking someone while they are asleep with their permission. I believe that is everything.

A/N: This is definitely one of my favourite things I have written. I thought maybe I was going to edit it some before re-posting it, but I was rereading it the other day and I actually realized that it's really good the way it is, so here you go - some random cocky Jason smut, inspired by the 'just the tip' trope. I hope you enjoy!

...

You knew that becoming a Titan was never going to be easy.

But fuck, this was a lot harder than you imagined it would be. Dick Grayson was quickly becoming your least favorite person. Between the 5am wake up calls and the endless workout routines, paired with the bland ‘nutrient filled’ meal plans he had everyone on to ‘fuel your bodies’ for training - he was becoming a menial drill sergeant that you couldn’t get away from. One of the only things that made it better was the fact that you had friends around - the ability to joke about him with Rachel, Gar, and Jason behind his back. Was it a bit mean-spirited? Yes. Did you feel less guilty about it whenever he added more onto the training routine? Also yes.

You had no clue when these skills you were working so hard on were ever going to come into play. Every single night, Dick retired himself into the comms room full of computers to ‘monitor the city for threats’ - but he seemingly never found anything worthy of the team’s attention. At least not yet. So you went about the routine of training hard, becoming exhausted, falling into bed to sleep and then doing it all over again.

Oh - and there was the other thing. The not so occasional part of your routine where Jason fucked your brains out. The fact that the two of you had developed a mutually beneficial relationship to help ‘relieve’ each other when you were horny, a quintessential friends with benefits situation. But with your muscles sore from training and your entire body so exhausted, that was the farthest thing from your mind on this night.

After a long, hard day of training, the last thing you wanted to hear was a knock on your bedroom door. You hoped that it was simply Gar asking to borrow some of your body wash again (because he liked the smell), or Rachel asking you to kill a spider in her room, and not Dick alerting you to some surprise training drill that he had suddenly thought up.

You shoved your pajama top over your head, finishing getting changed for the night, and rushed across the room to the door. When you opened it, you barely had time to gauge if you were pleased or displeased at seeing Jason before he spoke.

“I’m horny.” He announced abruptly, being very abrupt about delivering his feelings.

But it was in character for him, and didn’t surprise you in the least.

You hated that your stomach jolted at his words, even if just out of Pavlovian habit. It had been only two days since the last time he had fucked you. He had caught you in the shower in the morning, snuck into the bathroom with a condom between his teeth and opened the shower door to join you while you were distracted meditatively washing your hair. It had been steamy, soapy, slippery, and goddamn wonderful.

But it had left you sore and stiff before training, and you were wondering how much give and take there was - if you truly needed his cock.

“Hello to you too.” You said, your tone just as dead tired as you felt.

You wouldn’t admit that you were a bit horny too. You were tired, and you wanted to go to sleep. So that made you annoyed with his presence. (It should have made you more annoyed than you were.)

Jason bit his lip, raking his eyes up and down your body with an intense heat lurking there. You glared back at him.

Jason was intensely attractive. He was a good looking guy, that was just a fact. And while you did enjoy the way he was looking at you, staring you down like you were a porn star when you were slumped with exhaustion, wearing baggy old pjs with mascara smeared on your face with sweat, your hair a mess from the day - there was barely a spark stirred in your stomach at the idea of fucking him right now. You were just too damn tired. Dick had been running you all into the ground, instituting the same training that Batman had given him, and it was fucking exhausting.

“So - can I come in?” Jason asked.

He gave you a very expectant curl of his lips and tilted his head toward you when you didn’t say anything for a few seconds. You just stood there and stared at him bitterly.

You sighed hard through your nose, not wanting to answer the question.

Fucking him might be nice. A good orgasm before bed. But you needed to put what little energy you had left into your nightly routine and then get a good, long sleep before Dick woke everyone up at ass o’clock again.

“No.” You finally told him. “I’m going to bed.”

You turned and walked back into your room, but left the door open. You hoped that he would get the hint to leave on his own. You grabbed your bottle of makeup remover and a cotton pad and began taking off your makeup.

You weren’t so lucky.

“I’ll go to bed with you, babe.” He announced proudly. You could practically hear the smirk in his voice.

He then came up behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist from behind. You felt the half hardness of his cock pressing into your ass as you wiped away your makeup with stern hands. You tried your hardest not to let him wear you down, even as you felt a tingle between your thighs. He was used to training this hard, so it wasn’t as exhausting for him. Clearly, he didn’t understand how tired you were - how badly you needed the rest.

“Go get in your own bed.” You barked, your tone becoming more strained.

As you leaned closer to the mirror to inspect your face, to make sure that you had gotten all the tiny specs of makeup off, you unintentionally arched your back, pushing your ass much closer to his crotch. Jason let out a quiet moan and you caught him smirking at you in the reflection of the mirror.

He leaned in close, draping his warm body entirely over your back, trapping you there as he put one hand on the dresser and the other on the wall and leaned his body weight on you. You could have shoved him off you if you wanted to - but as you felt a tingling heat creeping up your back, you weren’t entirely sure if you wanted to.

“Come on, babe.” He sighed into your neck.

His hot breath on such a sensitive place caused a shiver through you that you would deny.

“Why are you being like this? You know if you want a good sleep, getting fucked nice and hard is the best way to get it.” He told you, so entirely cocky. “My cock will put you right to bed, baby.”

The words sent a hard jolt of electricity through you, settling a hard heat through you from your gut all the way to your face, burning uncomfortably through your skin. Combined with the way he ground his increasing hardness against your ass, you were forced to suppress a whimper.

It made you even more annoyed with him - the fact he could play your body like an instrument he had finely tuned. And you reacted with that intense annoyance.

“Why can’t you just masturbate like a normal person?” You scoffed at him, entirely firm, not giving away an ounce of weakness in your voice.

“As if.” He held intense disgust in his voice at the very idea.

He gave another firm dig of his hips, causing you to be pressed into the sharp edge of the dresser - a small twinge of pain that only added to the heat growing in your stomach.

“Why the fuck would I resort to touching myself when I have the sweetest pussy ever to fuck right down the hall?” Jason explained. “But ya know, if you want to watch me jack off, that can be arranged.”

Instead of responding to that, you just rolled your eyes. You hoped that he wouldn’t notice that subtle shift of lust in your features that said this was definitely a new fantasy of yours because he had brought it up.

“You can’t deny that you need it too.” Jason whispered into your ear.

“I need sleep.” You grunted in return.

You then shucked out of his hold, using one of the evasive maneuvers that Dick had taught you in training, ducking under Jason’s arm when he wasn’t expecting it. Before he could blink, you were across the hall and in the bathroom. It was mostly because you knew that if you stood there any longer with his warm body pressed against your back, you would have given in far too easily.

Naturally, Jason followed you.

He stuck by your side through your entire night time routine, trying to wear you down. You weighed the pros and cons in your head without truly listening to him as the exhaustion seeped into your bones and battled with the lust growing inside of you.

Jason brushed his teeth standing next to you in front of the sink while you brushed yours, all the while mumbling excuses through his toothpaste about how the sex would be good aerobic exercise to help with your training. By the time you got to doing your skincare, you ended up putting a face wash and moisturizer on him just to mentally drown out whatever he was saying - something about orgasms and endorphins and how it helps mental health.

As you pulled back the covers to finally settle in, he snuck his way into your bed under the guise of ‘just cuddling’. Though you weren’t anywhere near convinced of that sentiment, you didn’t kick him out of the room or protect. You were surprised, but grateful when he took off his shirt, laid down, and seemed to finally shut up. You weren’t sure which you were more grateful for - the quiet or the stunning eye candy of his tight body on full display. But you didn’t question the fact that he had finally stopped nagging you.

You crawled into bed beside him and settled into his arms. You gave him a kiss on the cheek as a goodnight (knowing that if you kissed him on the mouth, it would turn into something more heated). It was only about two minutes after you shut off your bedside lamp, shrouding the room in darkness, that the talking began again.

“You could sleep through it.” He noted quietly.

You sighed with deep annoyance.

“If you want to. I could be gentle about it.”

His voice continued on from behind you as he spooned you, one arm under your head underneath the pillow and the other laid almost possessively around your waist.

Of course, he didn’t even have to be too descriptive for you to know what ‘it’ was.

The idea of him gently fucking you while you fell into a lazy sleep was entirely too appealing. But he didn’t need to know that. He didn’t need to win. Especially not after you had put so much of your very little remaining energy into deterring him all night.

“Go to sleep.” You told him with a huff, shoving your head further into the pillow.

He simply chuckled.

You hoped that if you just ignored him, he would shut up and go to sleep.

You would never admit to him that heat bloomed in your stomach at the idea of Jason crawling into your bed when you were already in a deep sleep, using you for his own selfish pleasure and leaving you sore and full of cum to wake up to in the morning.

“Hmm… no.” He replied, as easily as a petulant child, his breath fanning out over your neck once again.

Your heated thoughts easily blossomed into a moan from your lips when he latched onto your neck without warning. He picked a particularly tender spot, sucking hard with teeth and the fullness of his lips, easily knocking the wind out of you. You shoved your heated face tightly into your pillow, praying that he wouldn’t notice your reaction. That he wouldn’t realize he so blatantly had you like putty in his hands. If he knew that, he would know that he could just take whatever he wanted and you wouldn’t protest. Not in the slightest.

Jason already knew that. But he wasn’t just going to pull down your shorts and slam his cock into you. As much fun as that would be - he wasn’t barbaric. Plus - now that he had one of your sweet little sounds in his ears, he wanted more. He wanted to hear you beg for it after denying him for so long.

He moved his arm from being so tightly around your waist, and pushed your shirt up. You tried your best to put up a wall of indifference toward this. He began skimming his touch oh so lightly along the roundness of your stomach, right above the band of your shorts. You knew he felt the shiver that ran through you, but you refused to say anything. You weren’t pretending to be asleep at this point, but it was a game to the two of you. You still refused to give in.

But he was playing to win.

He shoved his hand into the waistband of your shorts, touching you outside the fabric of your underwear. His skin felt like he could have burned you, even through the fabric. You had to make a conscious effort not to buck forward into the touch. When his fingers skimmed across your hotly beating clit (when had you gotten so turned on?) you swallowed another whimper and steadied your voice.

“Jason.” You said his name firmly, like a warning bell. “If you don’t behave yourself, I’m gonna kick you out.”

“I don’t think you will.” He whispered into your neck, defiantly cocky once again.

He sucked another hard, hot mark onto your skin as he cupped your pussy whole in his palm and began grinding the heel of his hand against your clit.

You let out a wobbling moan and your body thrashed, your energy so depleted that you could no longer hold back your body’s natural reactions to him. You were met with the hard wall of his body behind you, so firm and perfectly hot as he pressed himself tighter into you.

He gave a satisfied grin into your skin and only doubled down, putting more pressure on your throbbing clit and causing hot waves from that point, adding to the rolling boil that raged under your skin.

With the beautifully firm pressure and Jason’s talent, the way he knew your body so well, you could have come from this alone. Especially as the pleasure throbbed through your core, your underwear became more soaked through and it was all so beautifully smooth and wet.

Jason began grinding his cock - still trapped inside a pair of sweats - against the back of your thigh. He groaned into your neck when he felt a pleasurable tingling of his own spreading through his gut, though he craved to be inside of you. As much as he was enjoying this - the sweet, needy sounds falling from your lips, the way your thighs clamped around his wrist, as though desperately trying to keep him in place while your hips humped against his hand like a bitch in heat - he knew that he needed more.

And he was going to make you beg for it.

When he felt the signature twitch of your legs that said you were about to cum, he stopped. He held his hand completely still, his strong arm easily pinning your hips down to the bed to prevent you from humping against him and simply taking what you needed. In that moment, he even curled two of his fingers up to shove the fabric of your underwear inside of you slightly, creating a sharp sting that reminded you just how empty you were feeling.

“Jay-!” You let out his name in a petulant whine, about to scold him for the ruined orgasm, but he cut you off.

“You gonna ask me nicely now?” He rumbled into your ear. “Admit you were wrong?”

You wanted to bark out ‘either make me cum, or go to your own damn bed’ - but you knew that Jason was just as petty as you were. At that point, he would have gotten up and left for his own bed just to prove a point.

“You’re keeping me awake right now.” You huffed out, trying your best to sound annoyed. (Which wasn’t too difficult, considering how badly the ruined orgasm had frustrated you.) “My point still stands.”

Of course, sleeping was the farthest thing from your mind now. The sexual frustration had injected a new wave of energy through you, and you knew that you wouldn’t be able to rest until you were truly satisfied.

Unfortunately, Jason knew that too.

“Okay.” Jason sighed quietly, giving a click of his tongue.

He then completely pulled his hand out of your shorts and pulled away from your body. It seemed like he was moving to get out of the bed - you worried you had accidentally triggered that signature pettiness in him.

But as usual, Jason Todd surprised you.

You bit your lip to hold back a cheer when he reached for the waistband of your shorts and underwear pulled them down all at once, exposing your hot, soaked cunt to the cool air of the room. (At some point, the blanket had been accidentally shoved off you.) You took a glance over your shoulder and of course, he was shoving his pants down to his knees. You caught a glimpse of his long, thick, hard cock bobbing out of the fabric in the darkness. But you didn’t dare to spend too much time admiring it, for fear of making him too cocky.

You relaxed against your pillow in satisfaction, waiting for Jason to grab a condom out of the bedside table’s drawer so that he could literally fuck you to sleep.

You were surprised when he scooted back toward you, pressing himself right up against your back once more. He proceeded to simply press his hips against yours - his cock laid flat against the bare folds of your leaking pussy, immediately becoming slick with your wetness. But be made no moves to grab a condom or even tease you by pushing inside of you raw.

(Which - yes, the two of you had agreed to always use condoms, but it was secretly a fantasy of yours that he would go against the rule because of his overbearing need to feel you raw - or even the need to cum inside of you).

But instead of doing any of that, Jason seemed to be settling in to relax.

Jason draped himself across your back, wrapped his arm around your waist again, and gently laid his head on your shoulder. But he made no effort to move, or fuck you. Your pussy throbbed with need, feeling the hot, hard length pressed against you, entirely unmoving. When you clenched around nothing, you let out a wave of slick that you knew he could feel right on his cock. You felt a groan catch inside his chest, but still, he didn’t move.

“Jason.” You breathed out, having to question him after a few more moments of silence and stillness. “What are you doing?”

“Going to sleep.” He answered, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I thought you wanted me to just shut up and leave you alone so that you could get some rest?”

That. Little. Shit.

You resisted the urge to elbow him in the face.

Obviously, being so close to you, he felt your entire body tense up with anger and annoyance. He was only able to partially hold back his satisfactory laughter. When the quiet snickers met your ears, you became even more annoyed.

“Jason.” You scolded him gruffly.

“Oh? I’m sorry,” He said, entirely sarcastic. “Did you want something?”

“Did you want something?” You parroted back, mocking his words in a childish voice.

Essentially, you had no more clever comebacks left. He had won.

“I guess I can give you something for your troubles, babe.” Jason sighed, as though it were a grand inconvenience to him. “Maybe just the tip, though.”

“Just the tip.” You sighed, finding yourself repeating his words once again. Though this time your voice was dead and sarcastic rather than mocking - mostly because you didn’t believe him.

You knew that in Jason land, ‘just the tip’ meant slamming his entire cock into you after the tip lingered in your entrance for a moment. You clenched down on nothing again at the thought.

Once again, you were expecting him to grab a condom so he could fuck you freely without worry. You were surprised when he peeled his body away from you slightly and reached down to grab his cock. After a moment of rubbing the fat cockhead along your folds to get it nice and wet, he did as promised and pushed the tip inside.

It was the first time he had ever been inside of you without the barrier of a condom, and feeling his hot, raw skin touching yours - even just a little bit, made you gasp.

“Jason!”

Your voice was whiny even to your own ears, so needy for him after so much teasing. Upon instinct, feeling that painfully empty ache coming from deep inside you, you arched your back and attempted to shove your hips toward him - attempted to pull more of his thickness inside of you. But Jason was quicker, and he had his hands on both your hips, shoving you down onto the bed so hard and fast that the tip of his cock fell out of you with a wet pop.

It was a sound that made heat beat through your cheeks, and the feeling of his wet cockhead brushing against the backs of your thighs took your breath away.

“Oops.” He chuckled, and moved to slot himself back into position.

You had no clue why it was so dizzyingly hot.

But this time he held you down firmly so you couldn’t simply fuck yourself back onto his cock. You moaned as the thickness of the cockhead popped back inside of you - you yearned for more, but he stayed still.

After a moment, he began to move his hips so slightly, feeding no more than an inch of his cock into your throbbing cunt before pulling it back out. It was an entirely careful movement on his part where he fed you the first inch, and didn’t let the tip pop out again, in pathetically shallow thrusts that could barely be called sex. Your pussy ached, tingled, yearned for more.

You mentally cursed Batman for teaching him such good self discipline and him using it for this.

“Jason.” You whined, trying fruitlessly to fight against the firm grip he had on your hips in order to fuck yourself on his cock.

“What, babe?” He chuckled, leaning down to kiss a line across your shoulder.

“You know what.” You replied, your tone even more frustrated and whiny.

You wiggled your hips desperately, trying to get more of him inside of you. You yearned to feel the perfect ache of his thick cock splitting you open, hitting all of those perfect spots so deep inside of you.

“No, I don’t.” He told you, his voice somehow steady and confident. “You’re gonna have to spell it out for me.”

You couldn’t see it or feel it, but his hips were trembling and his abs were tight with the pure resistance of his self control. All of the energy he was using not to slam his cock into the tight, warm velvet of your cunt, especially as he felt it leak so freely around the tip of his cock, knowing how badly you needed him. He wanted nothing more than to watch you whine and babble and fall apart on his cock - but he wanted to win just a little bit more.

There was a distinct pause. The last shreds of your own stubbornness hanging in the air, even as your cunt throbbed with need.

Even if Jason couldn’t see your face from this angle, he could feel the warring in your body. He knew you too well. And he knew how to break you down so perfectly.

“If you want anything more than this,” He told you, emphasizing the point with another pathetically shallow thrust. “If you want anything more than just the tip of my cock,” His voice was low and silken and creating even more heat that almost drowned you. “Then you’re gonna have to beg for it.”

“Fuck you, Jay.” You whined out in protest, once again trying to fight his grip on your hips to fuck yourself against him.

He viciously dug his fingers into the fat of your hips, causing a sharp sound from your throat at the beautiful pain.

He leaned down and pressed his lips to the back of your neck, and growled out his next words in a low tone that dragged through your insides in the exact spot where his cock should have been.

“Come on.” He urged you on. “Fucking. Beg.”

That was when you broke.

At least you hadn’t given in too easily.

“Please,” You whined out breathlessly. “Please, fuck me! Fuck me, Jason! I need it.”

“What else?” Jason asked expectantly.

You could have killed him. But when your desperate cunt unconsciously clenched down on the fat head of his cock and you felt yourself growing only more hot and needy, you knew that there was only one thing to do.

“I’m sorry, Jay, I should have - I should have just asked nicely in the first place. I do need it. I need your big cock inside of me so badly.” You poured it on thick, emphasizing the last words in the most pornographic voice you could muster, hoping that he was running low on self control as well.

And he was. So he was very satisfied with this. He grinned into your skin, leaving a surprisingly tender kiss on the back of your neck before he mumbled out ‘good girl’ - something that made you moan out sharply.

You let out a sharp noise of disappointment when his cock popped out of you again.

“I need a condom.” He told you, giving you a reassuring pat on the ass. “As much as I’d love to cum inside you, we do have an agreement.”

You weren’t sure which was hotter - his sex-thick voice admitting that he shared one of your deepest fantasies, or the fact that he was caring so deeply for you, making sure that he protected you with a condom even when you were in that floating headspace and willing to let him do just about anything do your body.

Your mind was swimming contemplating it, and next thing you knew it, he had the condom on successfully. He then slammed his cock inside of you in one firm, smooth movement. Any thoughts were easily pounded out of your head by the practiced movement of his hips.

“Better now?” Jason grunted into your ear.

You could practically feel his smugness radiating through his cock, spearing into you.

But you were now alight with intense pleasure, warm satisfaction rolling through you - so you couldn’t bring yourself to truly care about how smug he was. Every bit of cockiness he had, he did back it up with a pretty big dick that he knew how to use well. Not that you would ever say those words aloud to him. Not even on your deathbed.

“Just shut up and fuck me.” You ordered, though it was breathless and had no bite.

“As you wish, babe.” He replied, and then doubled down - his hips fucking into you with an intense fury.

You moaned like a whore at this, finally feeling that dizzying fullness that you had been craving since he had snuck his touch into your shorts. Jason drank up your sounds and easily wanted more - more of your perfect pussy squeezing around his cock, more of that wetness coating his inner thighs, more of that filthy wet smacking as he fucked into you.

He leaned down, draping his body fully over yours once again, creating a pleasantly smothering weight on top of you as you laid on your stomach on the bed with your face nearly drowned in the pillow. He slowed the pace of his hips to a dangerous torture of a grind, fucking you so deeply now that you were sure you could feel him coming up inside of your throat. You let out a wounded noise, and he hushed you gently.

“Shh, babe, I’ve got you.” He whispered into your ear. “Gonna make you feel so good.”

He moved one of his hands from your hip and shoved it between your body and the bed, and once again he was cupping your mound fully in his hand - but this time there was no fabric barrier, and he was settled deep inside of you. It was filling your whole body with lava, turning every place he touched you to boiling ash. You were sure that you would have dissolved into nothingness if not for the anchor of your cunt hanging onto his cock, keeping you grounded in reality with that slight nip of pain as your muscles clenched onto him.

“Now say thank you.” He told you, his voice so gruff in your ear, so thick with desire that it made you dizzy. “Thank me for giving you my cock.”

He used two precise fingers to rub circles on your neglected clit, immediately sending shockwaves through your body that made your muscles jump and jolt.

You gulped for air and struggled to move your face out of the fabric of the pillow, and Jason saw this. He moved his other hand and slid it under your cheek, gripping under your jaw to fully lift you up.

He stilled his hips completely once again, causing a pained sound to emanate from your lungs as you clamped down on his cock deep inside of you while he continued to relentlessly work over your tender clit. He gave you a couple of seconds to catch your breath. But you were so cock dumb that you had to be reminded of the goal.

“Come on, baby.” He encouraged you, pressing his lips to your cheek that he wasn’t holding onto. “Say ‘thank you’.”

“Thank you.” You easily repeated back, now completely pliant to his desires. “Thank you for-for your cock.”

“Good girl.” Jason praised you once again.

Then he began fucking into you once more - it only took a few careful thrusts of his hips and the talent of his fingers on your clit to finally bring your orgasm to life. He shoved his tongue into your mouth as you screamed through it, imitating some sloppy version of a kiss while you flailed and creamed on his cock, your body becoming truly boneless and tired as the orgasm rocked you.

When it was finished, he was still throbbing hard inside of you, and you let out a whine of disappointment. You were absolutely dead tired now, and you couldn’t even think of how much energy it would take to finish him off. Mister ‘Twice In A Sunday’ could last quite a long time, and that didn’t exactly work for you in that moment.

“You can go to sleep now, babe.” He whispered into your ear. “I’ll clean you up when I’m done.”

He began thrusting into you once more, and you couldn’t help but let your eyes drift closed.

It ended up being a good night for both of you.

...

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matchavellichor · 1 year

Text

All My Riches for Her Smiles

Ominis Gaunt x f!pureblood!MC - NSFW/Angst - 4.7k words - ao3

Tags: Ancient Pureblood Bonding Rituals, Post-Graduation, Arranged Married, Loss of Virginity, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Post-Coital L-Bombs, "Un"requited Love

Summary: Forced into an arranged marriage for the benefit of their pureblood families, Ominis struggles to make his closest friend-turned-wife feel less like a prisoner.

For as long as she could remember, there had always been a special sort of familiarity between her and Ominis. A comfortableness that only came from some morbid form of trauma-bonding, a shared understanding of just how horrible their respective pureblood families were.

Plights and sorrows shared under the blanket of moonlight with their feet dangling off the edge of the Astronomy tower. Laughs drenched in the smoke of shared Muggle cigars after they’d snuck off to some secluded terrace together during another ridiculous high-society event. A passive form of rebellion. They’d confide in each other about every expectation placed upon their shoulders, the weight suffocating at times.

He knew her inside out, just as she knew him. Knew her dreams and aspirations. Listened to her rave on and on about how after graduation she’d gladly leave it all behind, run off to pursue being an Auror, regardless of if she was disinherited and left without a sickle to her name. He’d just laugh and make her promise she’d take him with her.

Even if they were just tall tales, words without real action behind them, he’d never admired anyone more than he admired her. Just how much braver she was than him, a vivid fire inside of her that hardly ever even flickered. He never had the courage to do half of the things she did. Never had nearly as much fight inside of him that she had, always falling quiet and obedient at the hands of his family.

Despite all of their years of friendship, it felt as if a complete stranger led her through the morose, darkened halls of the Gaunt Manor. A vaguely recognizable figure with lean, broad shoulders and neat, blonde hair.

Ever since the bonding ceremony, the both of them had hardly spoken a word. Exchanged less than meaningful glances, faces schooled into careful stoicism throughout the entire ordeal. There was an almost unbearable ache in his chest at just how hollow she sounded reciting her vows, that everlasting fire inside of her seemingly snuffed out. He felt he could be sick with remorse.

An uncomfortable silence settled over the room as soon as he closed the door to their now-shared chambers. He stood frozen near the door as he thought of a way to make any of this even remotely right. He could offer her empty platitudes, express his apologies, but he knew none of it would do any good. Nothing could change what had already been done, what the both of them had been subjected to.

Whatever he was feeling, he knew her enough to know she was feeling indescribably worse.

Trapped. Suffocated. Her hopes and dreams following graduation cruelly stolen from her, replaced instead by a future her parents had carved out for her. A wife, a mother. Quiet, submissive, and obedient. A mere possession for some powerful pureblood scion.

It was a role he could never envision her in. His headstrong and steadfast best friend, who’d drag him on every single one of her thrill-seeking adventures. Who’d fight acromantulas and poachers all day and still make it in time for dinner at the Great Hall.

He wanted to reach out, comfort her the way he had done for years when things with her family had gotten especially difficult, but considering the circumstances, he felt he had no right to even touch her.

Instead, he wrung his hands together and swallowed the lump in his throat. “I’m sorry.”

The first genuine words he’d spoken to her throughout the entire procession of the wedding ceremony, that had stretched for several, long days. She glanced up from where she had been staring at the carpet.

“Why are you apologizing?”

His mouth set into a rigid line. “Because I never wanted this to happen to you.”

“Well, it’s happened.” She said bitterly. “Not much use in wanting anything, is there?”

A pit of guilt carved itself into his chest. He repeated himself, regardless of the lack of good that it would do. “I’m so sorry.”

She made her way over to the ornate vanity situated on the adjacent wall and began undoing the intricate chignon her hair had been styled in for the wedding, pulling out pins and pearl-crusted hairpieces. Her voice was quiet, tired.

“This isn’t your doing, Ominis.”

His guilt burrowed itself even deeper into his chest, sinking into his heart like the dull blade of a knife.

She stared down at her perfectly manicured nails on the mahogany surface, such a stark contrast to the haphazard, chipped manner they were normally kept in, a byproduct of her unladylike hobbies —as her mother referred to it.

“If it weren’t you, it would’ve been someone else. I never would’ve escaped this fate.”

His mind stumbled over a million possibilities of how to rectify this, of how to make his new bride not feel like such a prisoner, not feel even more trapped than she’s felt her entire life. He felt just as trapped in his inability to correct this, bound and gagged by his own powerlessness. He took a fortifying breath.

“I’ll make this work. I’ll find a way to send you to Auror training and– and we can—”

“We both know that’s not happening.” She interrupted. “My job is to be nothing more than arm candy at high-society events and produce your next heirs.”

His heart ached at just how easily she seemed to have given up. Her fate sealed. He was willing to do anything to make her happy, but deep down he knew the only way to do so would be the dissolution of their marriage, something that was out of his hands. He couldn’t give her the freedom she craved.

Some selfish part of him hoped that one day she’d learn to accept his devotion. That she could learn to love him the same way he loved her. He knew it was a sick thing to wish for out of something born of coercion, but he was desperate for it.

“I’ll do everything in my power to make this as easy as possible for you. I swear it. Anything — whatever you desire, it’s yours. Just say the word.”

The corners of her lips twitched, pulled into a rueful smile, her fingers twisting the Gaunt heirloom ring around her finger. “Not everything can be fixed with money. Some things are simply out of your control, Ominis.”

Deep down he knew she wasn’t the kind of woman to be acquiesced with riches and luxuries, even if he was more than willing to give her every last sickle. What he didn’t tell her was that he was prepared to give himself to her just as wholly, devote mind, body, and soul to making her happy. It wouldn’t change anything.

He felt just as hopeless as she did.

Forced to witness the woman he loved become a prisoner in his own home, knowing he was the very lock and key that restrained her. He couldn’t bear the thought of one day being the object of her resentment. Of her slowly growing to despise him.

She broke him out of his dismal worrying by rising from her seat and walking over to where he was still planted near the door, turning her back to him. “Will you help me with my dress?”

“Oh,” He swallowed hard. “Yes.”

His fingers reached out to feel for the laces of her corset, running tentatively down the length of her spine. He pulled softly at the ties and they unraveled easily in his hands, one-by-one, trailing down her back.

He seemed to have forgotten how to breathe, and took a sharp inhale when she finally stepped away after the last of the laces had been undone. He heard the ruffling of fabric as she divested herself of her gown and suddenly he was acutely aware of the sound of his heart pounding in his ears.

They both knew what they were expected to do now. What they had to do to finalize the bonding ritual, a consummation of their eternal union. Neither spoke a word.

She moved silently to the lush, king-sized bed poised in the center of the room, decked in creamy jacquard linens and comforters. He followed just as quietly and sat beside her, hands clasped nervously in his lap.

Of all the times he’d fantasized about a moment like this with her, this one was a horribly twisted act of fate. A morbid joke being played on him by some higher power with an awfully sick sense of humor. He felt nauseous at the thought of what he’d have to do to her, what she’d probably resent him for.

He flinched when he felt her reach over to squeeze his hand in his lap, her fingers warm over his. Her tone was sympathetic, reassuring. “It’s alright.”

He cleared his throat and tried to ignore the anxiety coursing through him, the unsteadiness in his voice. “I won’t kiss you.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Or touch you anywhere, or–”

She breathed a huff of amusement. “I think you might have to touch me, Ominis.”

“Right, I– I just meant—”

“I know.”

There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch for an eternity. He heard the sound of the comforter underneath her ruffling as she shifted to face him more comfortably.

“Should I lie back?”

He nodded. “Please.”

She laid her head back against a mound of pillows, soft and faintly-smelling of vanilla. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the circumstances were different.

That the bedding underneath her was just a bit scratchy and a vivid emerald green. That they weren’t in the Manor, but tucked away behind the curtains of her old four-poster at Hogwarts, like the world outside didn’t exist.

That this wasn’t something forced on them, but something soft and kind and tender, born of confessions of true love and not forced matrimony.

That when she opened her eyes, Ominis wouldn’t look faintly horrified and sickly pale, but instead she’d be able to see the soft creases in his eyes that only appeared when he smiled.

She couldn’t bear to look at him as he began on the buttons of his outer robes, divesting layer by layer with a practiced slowness. When he was stripped down to his undershirt and briefs, he grabbed his outerrobes to rummage through the pockets in search of his wand.

She finally picked her head up to look at him. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, er— lubrication charm.” He reddened as he said the words.

“Put your wand away, Ominis.” She sighed and took hold of his hand, urging him to drop the garment and make his way over to her.

Her entire life had been stolen from her by her family, she refused to have them steal this from her too. Her first time wouldn’t be something cold and rigid and unfeeling, with lubrication charms and calming draughts to ease her through it. She wanted to at least have this. To at least share something pleasant, something genuine, even if his only love for her was platonic.

He let her guide him to kneel beside her on the bed, her fingers wrapped around his wrist, an oddly grounding gesture. She parted her legs slightly and he felt the skin of her bare thighs brush against his.

“Here, just—” He gasped when she brought his hand down to make contact with her clothed center, strikingly warm under his fingertips. “You can touch me, Ominis.”

He froze, his fingers unmoving. She half-expected him to pull back. His voice was quiet, nervous. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. “It’s alright.”

He swallowed hard and gently, tentatively, ran his fingers over the heat of her with feather-light touches. He had always been so careful with her, and she should have expected he’d be just as tender now.

“Is this okay?”

“Yes, just like that,” She sighed in content. “A bit more, maybe.”

He noticed her voice had developed a slightly breathier quality, her breathing having grown heavy. The sound coursed through him, lighting every last one of his nerves on fire, and leaving him with the desire to coax even more soft noises out of her.

He applied a bit more pressure, his strokes becoming more focused, swirling tenderly against the little nub he could feel through the gusset of her knickers.

The softest moan escaped her parted lips and he couldn’t help himself. He leaned closer to her, one of his hands coming to part her thighs wider for him, the other continuing to rub tight, focused little circles.

Her breathing hitched at the change of pace and her hand came up to brace herself on his forearm that was parting her legs, her nails digging little crescent-shaped marks into his wrist as her head fell back against the pillow. He had quickly grown achingly hard in his trousers.

Before long, he could feel wetness seeping through to his fingers, dampening her knickers and clinging the fabric to her cunt. He cursed under his breath at the sensation and resisted the urge to climb down her body to tongue at the slickness, the same way he’d fantasized about doing for the longest time.

Even though the original aim of touching her had already been accomplished, he found he couldn’t bring himself to stop. He continued to hold her thighs parted for him, to rub at her in a desperate quest to hear her come apart at his fingers, to pull more pretty noises past her lips.

He could feel her tense underneath him, her hips instinctively coming up to grind against his hand, desperate for more friction. Shamelessly, he brought his own hand to palm at the almost painful ache that had grown in his trousers, rubbing himself through the fabric while he continued to swirl his fingers around her dripping cunt.

She let out a strangled gasp and then she was pushing at his hand between her thighs, a frantic pleading. “S-stop, stop, stop, please—”

His hand shot back like he’d been burnt as soon as he heard the word. His eyes widened, guilt washing over him immediately, that maybe she hadn’t wanted it, that maybe he had hurt her. “I’m — I’m so sorry.”

She took a moment to catch her breath, panting as she tried to compose herself, having been brought so close to the edge with just his fingertips. “It’s…It’s alright.” When she sat up to look at him, his face was pale, blanched with remorse. “I shouldn’t have touched you like that.”

She reached over to give his hand another reassuring squeeze, her voice quiet and faintly tinged with embarrassment. “I…enjoyed it.”

“Oh.” There were soft splotches of pink painting his pale skin, peeking out from the white linen of his undershirt, his cheeks and the tips of his ears flushed a bright red.

She couldn’t help but find it a bit endearing. “I think I’m ready now.”

“Right.” She watched the lines of his throat bob as he swallowed down his anxiety, wiping his hands nervously on the front of his trousers.

It was a bit too dim in the faint glow of candlelight that was bathing the room, but she glanced down to his lower body and tried to make out if maybe he’d like her to return the favor.

“Do you need…help?”

His cock throbbed in his briefs, a sticky bead of precum bleeding a damp spot through the front. He shook his head sheepishly.

Slowly, he made his way closer to her, settling himself in between her legs. He placed his hands on either side of her on the pillow, hovering over her for a moment as he tried to compose himself as best as he could.

Finally, he tentatively brought his hands down, skimming faintly over the chemise covering her torso, and down below it to rest at her hips. His fingers paused at the hem of her knickers, an index hooked on each side.

“May I?”

She nodded. “Please.”

He pulled the fabric down her legs, and she felt her cheeks warm as she realized just how wet he had gotten her, a glistening string of slick painting the inside of her thighs.

She brought her hands to the waistband of his briefs. “Would you like me to—”

“No.” He pulled her hands away immediately, mortified at how she would react if she realized just how much he wanted her. “It’s…it’s alright, I can do it myself.”

She nodded and tried to not let her curiosity get the best of her, keeping her eyes trained on his face as she heard the sound of fabric rustling as he unsheathed himself.

She gasped when she suddenly felt him pressed against her, slipping under where her nightgown had slightly ridden up, warm and throbbing against her stomach.

He closed his eyes at the feeling of her soft skin, his lips parting in a faint, shaky exhale. He noted with shame that all it would probably take was a few, pathetic ruts against her stomach and he’d be painting her skin in milky white.

“Are you alright?”

He nodded, embarrassed. “Yes, I just…need a moment.” A sticky bead of his precum dripped out to wet her skin, coursing even more mortification through him.

He took a deep breath before he reached a hand down between them to position himself at her entrance. His mouth dropped open when he felt just how wet she was, coating him so easily.

“Fuck,” He gritted under his breath, rubbing himself slowly through her folds.

She couldn’t help but tug up her chemise the rest of the way over her waist, filled with the strong desire to expose more of herself to him. Her nipples pebbled as they came in contact with the cool air of the room and she let out a breathy pant at the sensation.

His voice was strained when he finally managed to speak. “If I hurt you, tell me, please. I’ll — I’ll stop.

She nodded, and even if she felt safe with him, she couldn’t help but tense as she felt him slowly press against her entrance. She gasped at the sensation.

“I’m sorry,” He brought a hand down to stroke soothingly at her skin, his fingers splayed broad and warm over her waist, a gesture strangely grounding and comforting. “Try to relax, I know it’s difficult.”

He was so soft-spoken, so tender with her, that she felt herself ease immediately. He pushed in a bit more, letting out a quiet groan that he tried desperately to stifle.

He paused, brows furrowed in concern. “Okay?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

He continued to sink into her, his thumb rubbing gentle, soothing circles on the soft skin of her stomach, calming her with reassuring whispers. She felt so full already, yet she knew she’d barely taken even a quarter of him, a delicious sting around where he was stretching her out so achingly slow.

He looked almost pained when she looked up at him, his features pinched and strained, his hand fisting the pillow beside her head, the other digging into her hip.

Tentatively, she brought a hand up to soothe him herself, smoothing her thumb over the tense lines of his brows, his lips. “It’s alright, you’re not hurting me.” She whispered. “You can give me more. Give me all of you.”

He shuddered, at the feeling of her hand caressing him, at her soft, encouraging words. He lost himself in the sensation, bringing his palm up to keep her hand pressed to his cheek, before he brought his hips down to connect with hers, sheathing himself completely inside of her.

They both let out sharp, strangled gasps in unison.

His head dropped down to her shoulder, overwhelmed by the feeling of her squeezing so tight around him. She brought a hand to run her nails down the nape of his neck, equally as overwhelmed by the feeling of being so full.

His voice was destroyed when he spoke. “Okay?”

She nodded fervently.

Slowly, he eased his hips back, and just as slowly, eased them back against hers. She could feel his warm breath, panting heavy where he had his face buried in the crook of her neck, breathing her in. He nosed at her throat softly as he settled into an excruciatingly languid pace, terrified of hurting her.

“More,” She breathed out against his ear. “Please, Ominis.”

His hand on her waist tightened at the sound of her pleading. “I’ll hurt you.”

“You won’t,” She begged. “Please, I just want to feel more of you.”

He let out a groan, his composure crumbling, and then he was bracing himself over her, hitching one of her legs up until her knee was pressed to her chest, and thrusting himself fully inside her again.

He let out a guttural, depraved moan at how the new angle felt, his cock pushing right up against her walls.

“Oh my gods,” She cried out, feeling him so much deeper inside her like this, her head falling back against the pillows.

He pressed his forehead against hers as he continued to rut into her just as she asked, her smaller body jolting as his thrusts became more forceful, more unrestrained, ones he couldn’t stop himself from giving her. He could feel every little whimper he tore from her, every soft pant ghosting his lips.

He resisted the aching urge to kiss her. It would be so easy, to just tilt her chin up slightly for him, to lick into her parted lips and taste her the way he’s always wanted to taste her. To have her moan into his mouth while he continued to thrust into that sensitive little spot on her walls that made her see stars.

Thankfully, she didn’t make him resist any urges.

He nearly broke down when her hands came up to thread her fingers through his hair, bringing his lips down to crash into hers. The groan he let out against her mouth was utterly starved, a sound stemming from years and years and years of longing.

Her tongue tangled with his in a frantic quest to taste him just as eagerly, leaving them both spit-sticky and kiss-bruised, a messy desperation, too hungry for any sense of decorum. He wanted to completely drown himself in her, until his lungs were filled with only the air that she allowed him, until he was filled with nothing but her.

Having her moan into his mouth, feeling her lips start to falter against his when he rutted into that sensitive little spot deep inside her that made it overwhelming for her to kiss him back properly, was enough to push him straight to the edge.

His thrusts grew sloppy, on the verge of spilling inside her. He hurriedly brought his hand down to rub focused swirls on the spot he already knew she liked, desperate to feel her cumming around his cock while he filled her.

She let out a strangled moan, her walls fluttering around him, and he could tell she was just as close as he was. Right on the precipice of it, dangling over the edge. He’d never wanted something more, and feeling her writhe underneath him, he wasn’t above begging her for it.

“Please, please—” He brought his other hand up under her dress to rub at her nipple, kneading the little nub between his fingers while he mouthed hungrily at the soft skin under her jaw. “Let me have this. Please let me have this.”

She obliged happily, in that moment willing to give him just about anything he asked of her.

He tore her orgasm out of her with a few final ruts of his cock inside of her, hitting up into that spot that made her whimper. She came apart around him with his name spilling from her mouth, over and over again, as if it was all she’s ever known.

“Fuck, fuck—” He groaned at the sensation of her tightening, pulling him over the edge along with her, milking him until he was painting her insides with his cum.

He had never experienced greater euphoria, feeling her tremble against him from the aftershocks while he continued to pump inside of her until he was spent.

“Thank you.” He kissed her sweat-damp cheeks as if in worship, trailed his lips to press against her hairline in gratitude, breathless. “Fuck, you did so well. Thank you.”

Her response was a lazy hum of acknowledgement, her eyes half-lidded, limbs syrupy and loose from the way her climax destroyed her.

He kissed her then, sensual and slow, as if he wanted to prove his devotion to her with his lips. Head buzzing with endorphins, still buried deep inside of her, he whispered against her lips what had been playing through his head on a loop the entire time he’d fucked her.

“I love you. I love you so much.”

She froze, her eyes opening, as if all of the air had just been knocked out of her lungs. He noticed the way her body immediately tensed underneath him. His stomach sank.

“I’m so sorry. That was — I shouldn’t have said—”

“Do you mean it?”

There was a heavy pause, as if he was considering carefully how to respond. Weighing his options. Ultimately, he decided there was no use in denying how he felt for her now. He noted wryly that he had little reason to worry about ruining their friendship with his confession when they were now married.

“I’ve meant it for years.”

Suddenly, she laughed. A delighted exhale, incredulous. His brows furrowed.

Then, she said it. Words he’d wanted to hear from her for years, words he’d fallen asleep to countless times fantasizing about coming from her mouth. She said it so easily, as if it were a simple thing to admit. “I love you, too.”

An anxious, dreaded feeling settled in his stomach. He grimaced. “You don’t have to say it if you don’t—”

“Ominis,” She interrupted him. “I mean it.”

His breath caught in his throat. “Swear it.”

“I swear it.” Her hands cupped his face. “I love you.”

He huffed his own soft, incredulous laugh. Then, he broke into a smile.

Stupid and giddy, the kind that made her stomach do somersaults, and left her with a warm, syrupy feeling all over. The kind where little creases showed up at the corners of his eyes.

“Say it again.”

She repeated it happily, as if it were natural. “I love you.”

He took her face in his hands and peppered kisses all over her face, overwhelmed with every little thing he was feeling for her in the moment, filled to the brim with nothing but relief and glee and satisfaction, his heart feeling like it might burst out of his chest with how full it was. He paused at her lips.

“Again.”

She laughed, amused, before she grinned and humored him anyways. “I love you.”

He kissed her again. Sweet and soft, enough to make her head spin, and she felt in that moment like she had been suddenly dragged under the warmth of a sunbeam.

A soft, amber glow that shone itself on the dreary, dark future that she had envisioned for herself. That melted away her anxieties and replaced them with images of gentle caresses and smile lines and blonde hair threaded through her fingers.

When he finally broke away, there was concern etched over his expression. “You trust me, don’t you?”

“More than I’ve ever trusted anyone.”

“Then trust me and let me make this right.” He brushed his thumb across the line of her cheekbone, traced her features with feather-light touches. “I’ll turn this into something good, I swear it to you. Whatever it takes, just let me make you happy. Please.”

She smiled then, hopeful. A flicker in her eyes. That little spark reignited inside of her, the everlasting fire. “We’ll make this into something good together, won’t we?”

He pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead, pulled her into him until she was tucked safely into his chest, enveloping her in layers and layers of adoration that he prayed she could feel in his embrace. He closed his eyes.

“Just like we always have.”

#ominis gaunt #hogwarts legacy #ominis gaunt x reader #ominis x mc #ominis x reader #angst #hogwarts legacy smut #hogwarts legacy fan fiction #hogwarts legacy imagine

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cottonlemonade · 4 months

Note

Hello darling💖💖💖 congratulations on your milestone🥰🥰

For the event: can i please have an iced tea from menu A, with matcha roll and purin? I am sitting next to Kita🙈

(you have single handedly revived the Kita brainrot)

have a lovely day love!

Tutoring You

word count: 917 || avg. reading time: 4 mins.

pairing: Kita x chubby!Reader

genre: fluff

warnings: none

request: fluffy, upperclassman crush Kita tutors you

A lazy late spring gust gently tugged at the pages of the books that covered the whole surface of the low square table. Papers filled with densely written notes lay here and there across and underneath your homework and the words in front of you turned to gibberish. Birds chirped and insects hummed loudly through the open sliding door of Kita’s home. But other than that and the occasional breeze making the little paper on the wind chime dangling from the awning flutter, it was quiet. You sighed.

“Is everythin’ alright?”

You jumped at the question and felt your cheeks turn pink.

A few days ago when you had finally worked up the courage to ask Kita for help studying and he had readily accepted your request, you quite literally skipped on your way home. Having had a crush on the class president since your very first day at school, you only admired him from afar and soaked up every bit of information floating around the corridors about the quiet third year captain. He was studious and hard-working, of course, but had a reputation of being cold and scary which you never agreed with. Most of your knowledge came from “horror stories” of your fellow second year Atsumu who never let an opportunity slide to tell you in great detail how only one look of his captain could make the blood freeze in his veins. You had only frowned at these comments and were desperate to see for yourself what Kita was like outside of school.

But somehow you had a much more romantic notion about studying together.

It was a lot more “sitting quietly and working” and less “laughing and stolen glances and accidental touches”.

And now you obviously weren’t as subtle in expressing your frustrations as you thought.

“I’m sorry.”, you said immediately, “I just don’t get this one. The formula worked up here in exercise 2, why doesn’t it work with this one?”

“Because they are two entirely different problems.”, Kita explained calmly.

Unable to stop yourself, you slumped over and buried your face in the workbook, letting out another groan that you didn’t even attempt to hide.

“We should take a break.”, Kita suggested, putting his pen down and taking yours from your fingers.

For a few moments he regarded you thoughtfully, then tapped his fist into his open palm, “I have an idea. Come on.”

He stood up and walked out to the porch, sitting down for a moment to put on his shoes, then turned, obviously waiting for you.

Scrambling to your feet you followed his example.

Pebbles crunched under the soles of your clean white sneakers as he led you around the back of the house to the garden that was mostly taken up by vegetable plots.

Kita took a pair of flowery gloves hanging from a fence post and held them out to you. Confused, you took them and watched as he grabbed a second, equally flowery pair from a chair that sat between a few tomato plants and put them on, crouching down and looking at you expectantly.

“W…hat are we doing?”

“Weedin’.”, he said as if it was obvious and began pulling delicate little green things out of the soil at his feet.

“Why?”

“Because whenever I’m stuck there is nothing like a bit of manual labor to clear my head. Come on, try it.”

You rolled up the sleeves of your school uniform and slipped into the gloves. They felt as rough on the inside as they looked on the outside.

Careful not to step on any greens you joined him and bent down to copy his movements.

“Oh no, don’t do that.”, he remarked immediately.

“But you just told me-”

“No no, I mean, don’t bend down like this, ya’ll hurt yer back in no time. Try crouching like so.”

You swayed a bit as you did, the pose feeling unnatural and unsteady. But he nodded approvingly and quite frankly, that was all you needed. You began pulling little sprouts here and there, amazed by how fast he worked.

“Be sure to not use too much force at once or the roots will stay in the ground and the weed will just regrow.”

You nodded, tongue sticking out between your lips in concentration.

Wanting to impress him, you grabbed a particularly large weed in front of you and pulled. It resisted, so you added your second hand and pulled again, wiggling a bit from side to side.

It finally came free but you also plopped down on your chubby butt next to a tomato plant, holding the thick white stem out to him.

“That was a nasty one.”, you announced proudly, hoping for more praise.

Kita turned and blinked, “That’s a spring onion.”

“Oh my god, I am so sorry!” You quickly stuffed it back into the earth, covering it with dirt. It stood for a second, then slanted over, the root coming back out of the loose soil.

He stared, then his shoulders shook and then he broke out into laughter. You had never heard him laugh before and the melodious sound sent a pleasant shiver through your body. Although at the same time you wished you could burrow yourself into the earth and never come out again.

“Yer quite the city girl, ain’t ya?”

He was still chuckling when he grabbed the spring onion and placed it next to him. “Don’t worry. I can use that later when I make dinner for us.”

a/n: hey sweet pea, thank you for the kind words and I proudly wear that “giving you Kita brainrot” badge. I hope you like this one 😉

for requests see here

#sunnys school lunches #kita x chubby reader #haikyuu x chubby reader #chubby reader #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu x reader #kita shinsuke x you #kita shinsuke x reader #kita imagine #haikyuu kita #kita shinsuke #kita fluff #hq kita #kita x reader #kita shinsuke x chubby reader #kita shinsuke x y/n #haikyuu x curvy reader #haikyuu x y/n

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shitouttabuck · 1 year

Note

oh my god nina!!! 8 for the bedsharing prompts if it takes your fancy <33

thank you sweet peach this scratched an itch !!!

bed-sharing prompts: whispering “Oh, you are going to be very embarrassed when you wake up.”

Eddie’s not old—he’s not even 30, despite the near-constant jokes about his senior citizen-isms he seems incapable of shaking. And he wouldn’t even say he’s a man of creature comforts. He just likes familiarity, and routine, and his own goddamn bed.

Quarantine has brought a lot of change: being away from Chris, living in a single-occupancy apartment with three other people, and sharing a bed with all six-foot-two of Evan Buckley.

Currently, this means waking up at some wretched hour and squinting in the moonlight filtering in through half-open blinds, because the aforementioned best friend has stolen Eddie’s pillow from right under his head yet again.

Eddie groans quietly, easing his neck out of the crick it’s cramped in. He glares at the enormous lump snoring serenely beside him and pats the mattress blindly for his pillow. Eyes adjusting to the dark, he’s greeted by the same sight he’s woken to at ungodly hours thrice this month already: Buck with his gigantic thieving arms wrapped happily around Eddie’s goddamn pillow as he clutches it to his chest, dead to the world.

“Fuck’s sake,” Eddie mutters, reaching out and tugging the end of the pillowcase to no avail. Buck’s vice-grip doesn’t falter even in sleep. Eddie’s usually able to coax it out of his grasp without waking him, but it takes a minute, and their last shift had been a full-body workout from hell, and Eddie just wants to go the fuck back to sleep with a single measly pillow supporting his exhausted head. Surely that’s not too decadent a luxury to expect.

He tugs again, harder and meaner than he normally would. The pillow inches out of Buck’s hold, and Eddie grabs a firmer handful to yank it away, grunting triumphantly when it pops free.

“Hrmmph,” Buck grumbles, crease appearing between his eyebrows. Eddie stills, holding his breath as he gauges Buck’s proximity to consciousness. He thinks he’s in the clear, but then Buck murmurs unhappily and rolls ever-so-slightly towards Eddie.

“S’your turn to be th’ li’l spoon,” he slurs, and Eddie freezes even further. “’M th’ big spoon t’night.” He pats half-heartedly at the mattress between him and Eddie, jaw going slack again after a few seconds.

Eddie grins, just barely containing the snort that bubbles up at Buck’s sleep-talking. There’s enough distance from Ali and even Abby, post-train debacle, that means he can wring weeks’ worth of teasing out of this. Whichever one of them it is Buck’s dreaming of, Eddie thinks multiple nights of interrupted sleep allow him a little good-natured—if merciless—ribbing.

He shifts onto his back, shoving the pillow under his head and shutting his eyes with a sigh, but the movement has Buck mumbling again. His face is mashed into his own pillow, words barely intelligible when he says, “Y’re littler than me. C’mon, lemme be big spoon.”

The snort sneaks out of Eddie then, just a bit. He barely knew either woman, but he can’t quite picture them indulging Buck in this line of conversation. It’s—sweet, if deeply mortifying for Buck himself to know anyone else has heard it.

Buck snuffles discontentedly, forehead scrunching as he reaches out in search of the pillow, still asleep.

“Oh, you are going to be very embarrassed when you wake up,” Eddie whispers, wondering if there’s more entertainment about to be provided and if it’s worth getting up to unplug his phone and catch the tail end of this on video.

“Urgh,” asleep-Buck responds, patting the bed a little more insistently when he’s unsuccessful in his pillow-retrieval endeavours. “Wh’re—c’mere. Eddie. Y’re li’l spoon.”

This time when Eddie freezes, it’s such a sudden locking of every joint in his body that his neck cricks in the opposite direction. He barely feels it, singularly focused on Buck’s latest garbled complaint, because—is Buck awake? Is Buck dreaming about him?

He’s frozen so still he doesn’t realise Buck’s questing hand is now well in range of Eddie himself, and he jolts back into his body when Buck’s strong, calloused fingers wrap around his wrist.

“C’me back,” he whines, tugging at Eddie while shuffling closer at the same time. Eddie holds himself carefully still, hardly daring to breathe as Buck slowly but surely plasters his long, long body along Eddie’s side, hitching one leg over Eddie’s thigh before flinging an arm across his torso and dragging him nearer.

“Mm,” he hums, brow smoothing out. His cheek rests on Eddie’s shoulder, face smushed but seemingly satisfied. Eddie’s arm is trapped between his own side and Buck’s stomach, and he worms it under Buck’s body almost on autopilot, more to get comfortable than anything else. This leaves him basically cradling Buck to him, and Buck gives one final happy grunt before burrowing his face into Eddie’s neck and going limp, a dead weight over Eddie’s right side.

Eddie makes his fingers relax where they’re clutching the back of Buck’s t-shirt. This is—fine. Normal and fine. So Buck isn’t dreaming about cuddling an ex-girlfriend, he’s dreaming about holding Eddie. They’ve been living out of each other’s pockets more than usual recently, leaning on each other a little heavier through a global pandemic and missing Christopher. Eddie’s told himself it’s because of constant proximity, and maybe it is, but whatever the reason, if Buck’s subconscious is embracing that vulnerability in this way, that’s fine. He’s an affectionate guy, and while it’s relatively new for Eddie to be on the receiving end of that from another man, he’s not one to shy away because of someone else’s archaic ideas of masculinity.

And—hold on. Y’re littler than me? Was that what Buck said? Eddie huffs indignantly, and then huffs again for different reasons, feeling his cheeks heat. He doesn’t know why, but he pulls Buck a little closer.

It’s still normal and fine, he finds, turning his head to press his nose into Buck’s curls. That surprises him a little, that there’s no freak-out of any kind accompanying—whatever this is. Buck smells like vanilla, because he used Chim’s fancy shampoo that’s actually Maddie’s fancy shampoo because both of them are missing her something fierce, and he’s definitely drooling onto Eddie’s neck, and now that he’s not sleep-talking he’s back to snoring like a motorcycle, and Eddie’s slipping under before he can marvel any more at just how normal and fine it all is.

When the moonlight is swapped for sunlight, Eddie stirs to Chim singing along to radio in the kitchen downstairs. Buck blinks awake right alongside him, cheek imprinted with creases from Eddie’s collar and turning pink as he hastily peels himself away.

“Oh, um, sorry,” he says, voice rough with sleep. He contorts his body in surprise trying to roll off Eddie’s arm. “Did I—sorry, Eds.”

Eddie works his arm back under Buck, easy and deliberate. “S’fine,” he yawns. “It was my turn to be the little spoon.”

In his peripheral vision, Buck turns a brilliant red, and Eddie gives him a reassuring squeeze before taking great joy in telling him just how embarrassed he should be about the contents of his dreams.

(Buck’s mortification is blessedly short-lived, since the contents of Eddie’s dreams are equally embarrassing in the very exact same way, as it turns out.)

#911 fic #buddie fic #wrote this then had GRUELLING therapy so now posting this and legally u have to be nice. please #i have missed writing silly stuff i know it’s just been a few weeks but this was so fun thank u sami it’s exactly what i needed!#911 #buddie #writing tag #ok running on three hours sleep and a therapy hangover and a regular hangover so. posting and snoozing xoxo #bed sharing prompts #mine

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aclowntiny · 1 year

Text

Meeting Pirate!Ateez (Female Reader)

This is an old request I'm so sorry OMG! But thank you @matzbear for giving me inspiration to get (semi) historical 🏴‍☠️😁 I GOT SO CARRIED AWAY HELP 💀😂

Warnings: hints of violence/death mentions, fire in one, suggestive at times, depiction of poverty/homelessness in one, LONG POST! lmao the way I’d write a part 2 to this at the drop of a (pirate) hat

☠ Hongjoong ☠

He smirked as he strode into the tavern, satisfied, evidently. Even if you had yet to see the wanted posters, shivering in anticipation-and maybe even something else-at even the depiction’s intense stare, you would have been able to recognize the man as a pirate. It was the way he walked, tilted slightly, legs used to a sailing surface. The confidence with which he moved, swagger suggesting he’d gained control of many a situation and lived to tell about it to anyone who’d listen. The long, roguish coat swirling at his booted feet, the single hoop earring dangling from his left ear, ruby stud adorning the right. Cutlass at his hip.

Outlawed, this man was. Bountied by the crown for what they claimed egregious theft, an epithet you found laughable. They got their knickers twisted over art, artifacts, riches they had stolen from countless around the world. Thieves righting the work of thieves, that was the crew they called the Eightfold.

And the man seating himself boldly before you was the captain. Kim Hongjoong, according to the posters. A face more beautiful than criminal, he glanced around the room with a look of anticipation. Waiting on the rest of his crew, you imagined. Your tavern was one of few that turned a blind eye to piracy, so it was a safe bet the other seven would arrive.

As it was, you made your way to Hongjoong’s table. “A drink while you wait?”

His eyes slid over to you, smile spreading across his face as they met yours- for all the talk, all the images, he looked upon you kindly. “That would be great, thank you, Madam. Nothing too strong, just a light ale if you have it.”

You liked the way he called you Madam. Liked it very much, in fact. “I do indeed. If I was running a tavern without ale, we would be in trouble, wouldn’t we?” You teased, heading back to the bar to grab and fill one of the pewter tankards lined atop the wood.

Foam rose rapidly to the top as you carried it over, setting it gingerly in front of the captain, who fixed you with another look.

“You knew I was waiting for someone,” he said.

You nodded. “The other seven are on their way, I imagine,” you replied matter-of-factly.

Hongjoong grinned, message well-received. “I love this place.”

“I try,” you answer with a smirk, “there is fresh bread in the oven and meat on the stove for when the crew lands.”

He raised his tankard, intense eyes positively glinting in the firelight. “You’re a goddess!” He called out before taking a sip, honeyed words sliding right to the core of your chest.

Smoke choked your lungs, wracking your chest with coughs. With a massive crack, a beam crashed from your tavern’s ceiling behind you, sending you jumping as you pulled your shawl tighter over your face. The torch had almost struck you, but thank the stars, it missed your skirt, leaving your clothing and skin intact for the time being. The heat was closing in on you, though, as panic shot through your steadily pumping limbs.

All you could think of was your next motion, of escape, even as laughter rang out. They’d taken everything from you.

Pirates, the lot of them. Not the Eightfold, but a band of sorry thieves that killed without reason or care. The kind who kept every cent of it, that should have been wanted by the crown, but they pillaged ordinary villages, not crown jewels. Their goal was a slow domination of your country, your home and business their latest target.

Another beam fell, this time closer, and you jumped, arms flailing uselessly above your head in a weak defense. Unlike the torch, this one did connect with your dress. Sweating beneath your layers, you strained, trying fecklessly to free your hem from the fallen, burning wood. For the first time, you risked the shooting pain to your chest to scream for help, scream for someone in your desperation. The fabric of your dress strained also, not giving yet but threatening to rip as your body heaved, almost falling to the wood planks that once rang out with dancing boots. Tears streamed down your face at the mere thought, a sob escaping you with a heavy breath.

But then, you heard it: a voice. “They didn’t.”

You didn’t bother a direct answer. “Help! Help, please,” you called out, voice weak and vision blackening.

And that had been the last you remembered until you woke up in an unfamiliar room, the floor rocking beneath you and a hand closed around your wrist, feeling your pulse as your eyelids fluttered open.

“I knew you’d make it. You’re a goddess.”

You didn’t even have to see clearly to know the voice’s owner was none other than Hongjoong, the pirate captain you’d served numerous times. The one who always threw troublemakers out for you, especially the ones that tried carousing with you. There were times you’d even suspected you’d seen him pull out a knife once he got outside with them, assuring you upon his return you’d never be troubled again, but you could never be sure. You smiled weakly, but your eyes sought a window, the motions feeling awfully like…

“We are still docked. I would hardly whisk you off to sea yet,” he chuckled, the sound a bit uncertain, “Please, please Madam (y/n), stay still.”

Everything you knew had changed in the blink of an eye, but one thing was certain, it hit you as you sat up, coughing and feeling a rasping burn in your fluttering chest: whether by debt or by initiation you would see, but your life was now inexplicably bound to the Eightfold.

☠ Seonghwa ☠

The market was bustling, shoulders knocking yours almost every moment. Flutes and fiddles filled the air from performers hoping for a coin, and the scent of sea breeze wafted through the sunny air. Shouldering your sack, you wound between a fishmonger’s table and a farmer’s honey, wandering closer to the woodworkers and painters.

That day, you were not seeking the necessities, rather preferring something fanciful, indulging the brushes of your fingers over blown glass and thickly-spread paint. A woman’s weaving caught your eye, cords tied into ceiling hangings and finely shaped tapestries of interlaced color. But somehow, there among it all, your eyes fell upon a man with an inkwell.

He sat alone, at a table too small to really be selling much, quill moving deftly, carefully. His dark eyes never moved once from the parchment he bent over, revealing a handsome, serene profile.

“What are you drawing?” You asked, stepping carefully to his side.

Flinching, the man moved his arms to hover over the parchment, his eyes finally leaving it to meet yours widely. “Why?”

You stepped away slightly, taken aback by the startlement in the man’s sparkling eyes. Your hand drifted to your chest and back out as if unsure what to do. “You just looked so focused, that was all. I meant no offense, truly.” Bowing your head, you made to leave again, but his voice beckoned you back.

“It’s a map,” he said, raising his spread arms back from his work.

Gazing over the parchment, you found a detailed representation of your town’s coastline, down even to the groves of trees, all rendered in thin ink swirls quite gorgeous to your eyes.

So many words rose to the front of your brain, then died at your lips. “You are…not from here, then?”

“No,” he shook his head, smiling sadly, “this is only a stop. At least for now. The map will help us remember our way back.”

“So you’re sailing,” your eyes lit up as you gushed, bringing an eager smile to the cartographer’s face, too, “oh, the beauty you must see! How I’ve dreamed of the works of faraway lands, the amazing art!”

“You sound like my captain,” he chuckled, “quite an art lover as well. His vow is to contribute somehow every place we go.”

“That is wonderful,” you continued, a hand resting on the table near the map, “but be warned: I have heard talk of the Eightfold approaching our waters. That their skeleton crew drifts into towns, pillaging, even killing!”

The man’s smile fell into something more thoughtful as he lowered his quill at last, tilting his head as his gaze fixed you. “What if I told you the truth was more complicated than a townsfolk tale? Perhaps not even so bad?”

“What would a man like you know of pirates?” You gaped at the gentle artist. “Unless…you are one of them! Someone like you, and yet you stand with the Eight?”

“I do, and I shall until death.” He rose from his seat, voice dropping lower, tone intent as he stiffened, bracing himself for the descent of his words. “Park Seonghwa, First Mate of the Eight at your service. I think my captain would like to speak with you.”

You gasped, stepping back from the table. “With me? Forgive me, I am but an apprentice. Surely you want my master, or-”

Seonghwa’s eyes saddened slightly. “I beg your pardon, ma’am, but the secret is out. Our faces are being plastered around town squares as we speak. It would hardly be safe for either of us if I let you return to town now.”

Your face fell. This elegant man was taking you as a pirate’s hostage? “But- But I- The market,” your words flopped hastily, clumsily out like freshly netted fish upon a deck. As if the market was your greatest concern.

“I know,” the man whispered, soothing tone of his voice almost infuriatingly calm, “have you a handkerchief, by chance?”

“Why?” You bit out.

“If you have one, let me see it.” He didn’t sound angry, in fact this adoptive tone was more akin to that of a disappointed parent.

Sighing, you reached into a fold in your sack, handing off a wad of cloth. Tying it over half his face, Seonghwa motioned out to the stalls you’d just wandered. “As long as nobody questions me, ask it and it is yours. That is the least I can do.”

“You’re going to rob this whole-”

“Buy you what you want before we go,” you heard him chuckle beneath his makeshift veil, “I don’t do it often, but I will remind you that I am in something of a lucrative business. Have you seen the blown-glass figurines yet?”

Something about the upward tilt of his tone clued you in- he was just as excited as you were. Perhaps he’s been looking for an excuse to do more than carry out orders. Shaking your head, you moved back to his side. Telling yourself you were only doing it because the man was likely armed, you agreed to go shopping with the first mate of one of the most famed, feared pirate crews in the seven seas.

He bought you each five little glass animals before ushering you onto his ship, one of which contained a silvery effect because that was his favorite color. Maybe you really did need to learn the truth behind the tales.

☠ Yunho ☠

The sky was bluer than the sea that day. Shifting your grip on your parasol, you made your leisurely way down the wooden steps, careful not to step on your skirts. The beach was your happy place, the spot you sought to quiet unwelcome thoughts beneath the roar of waves.

Inheritance was not supposed to be so lonely. Being the only heir to a fortune was the dream of many, but you’d have far preferred not being the final member of your family, the only one alive to receive the estate. Take all the fine furniture, every painting on your walls, if you could give back your loneliness in exchange. Certainly you’d receive marriage proposals soon enough once the word got out, but why would anyone marry a suitor who only sought your hand for the money they thought it held? Would marriage to a stranger not be simply a small plaster over a larger, bloodier wound? You wanted nothing more than to fall in love, but until then solitude was the finest, nay, the only, solution.

Instead of dwelling on it, you tried to use your newfound fortunes for good and calmed those thoughts that flitted like troublesome mosquitoes at the sea’s edge.

The wind whipped about your head, whistling in your ears as your bare feet fell upon warm, dry sand, ground shifting beneath their gentle weight. Taking step after step further, uncaring of the grains sticking to your feet and clinging to the hem of your skirt, you soon approached the powerful waters. It was low tide. Small waves formed wide crests some distance out from where you stood just out of the water’s reach. Stooping, you picked up a sand dollar, rubbing rough sand off between your fingers. It would go in your shell jar with other pretty seaside offerings.

The sea kept you company, dulling your desire for a conversational partner. Restlessness took over your feet, carrying you toward a gathering of rocks near the raised hills. As a child, you loved squeezing into little hollows and pretending you’d found a new home.

Nostalgia propelled you toward the hill, where you found your lips parting in surprise. A hollow you had found, yet this one looked quite a bit deeper than a divot to crouch in. This was truly a cave.

It was dim, curtained with dangling dried seaweed you timidly parted with the back of your hand, heartbeat picking up as you realized you could have stumbled upon a makeshift home on the sea built beneath the hilltop houses.

You jumped as your foot struck something cold, lifting it at once with aversion before you realized it wasn’t wet, it was…gold?

Gold coins covered the cave floor as if sprayed upon it. Kicking them aside, you squinted into the dim space, moving toward the rocky edge and sliding along that wall toward the center. There, a chest sat, a padlocked box opened to overflow with riches like in every tale of pirates you’d heard.

Your next breath was interrupted by a hand clapping across your mouth, suppressing your shout of alarm. The cold steel of a knife’s edge rested against your throat. Straining, you fought to sink your teeth into the large hand, which released your lips and whirled you around as your body struggled against your captor’s.

“Wait, you’re a woman?”

Your captor was tall, younger than you’d have imagined- near your age, it seemed. His wide-eyed expression was surprisingly innocent for one pressing a blade to your jugular. Clad in a loose-sleeved, open black tunic, high boots, and a much larger blade sheathed at his side, it was little wonder what you’ve stumbled upon.

This was the hiding place of a pirate.

“Yes, I am,” you whispered, fear rising as heat to your face with each small motion of your neck, “why? What do you want with me?”

“I don’t know yet,” he admitted, deflating slightly, “what brings you here?”

“I- I used to like pretending to explore caves as a child.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Let me go and I leave. I return home and never speak a word. I wish no further fortune. Please,” you begged.

The pirate lowered his knife, a different look in his eyes. Sympathy? Calculation? Then, it fell in favor of a smile.

“That is refreshing. Your…your husband is waiting, isn’t he?”

You shook your head. “I have none. Who but a lonely fool would go running off into a cave?” You joked weakly, a hand waving at the dim expanse. “Truly, I want no trouble. Just admiring the sea.”

“I understand,” the pirate replied, look softening still, “guilty myself, quite frequently. Come, let us leave this hole, huh?”

Not that you had any choice, you thought grimly, glancing one more time at the pair of sheathed blades the man carried as you stepped carefully back out of the rocky hollow and into the sun. With a breath of relief, you looked out upon the calm blue-grey waves again.

“I love looking at the clouds, too,” the pirate told you, pointing a surprisingly fair hand, one which bore a single silver ring upon the little finger, at one fat shape drifting across the sky, “like that one there. Reminds me of a snail!”

Reminds me of a snail? However you thought pirates behaved, this was not it. You chanced another laugh and the man smiled.

“What?” He fixed you with a smile of surprise.

“Not what I expected, that is all.”

“I’m sorry about the knife. That chest, we- This land is very affluent. My friend’s hometown? They have nothing. These riches could rebuild the whole thing from the ground up.”

“Oh, is that what pirates do?” You asked with an arch of your brow and a sardonic smile.

Guilt flashed across the tall man’s face, then steel returned to his eyes. “Not all of it, no. You would not believe what happens unpunished on other shores, though.”

“And you give that to them?” You asked.

“Sometimes,” he nodded, “and that is why I need the comfort of the sea, of my companions at my side. The sea quiets many a memory.”

“I understand that,” you reply, “perhaps both of us are lonely fools, then.”

“You needn’t be,” he shrugged, glancing out along the water again, “care to take a walk? I suppose I owe you.”

“All you pirates deal in is favors,” you tutted, but you still followed him.

You strolled in oddly comfortable silence for some time, feet caked then with sand they sunk into every time the man stooped, plucking something from the sand he never revealed. He looked down at his hands a great deal, occasionally nodding at fallen jellyfish or clouds to show you and once bursting into a run, chasing a squawking seagull and bringing another smile to your lips. You two had entered the shallow edge of the sea, feet submerged and rocks housing the cave were specks on your eyes’ horizon when he finally held out his busy hands. Dangling from them was a string of dainty orange shells. Your head tilted in surprise, you extended your right wrist when he nodded at it, letting him fasten the shells there. This time, his grin was wide, childlike, and he was a new man.

“So,” he asked proudly, “are we even now?”

“For threatening my life? Not yet,” you replied, shaking your head, “not until I meet the whole crew.”

Baffled, the pirate spoke again. “You seek an audience with my captain and crew?”

You crossed your arms, stealing his prior look of victory with pride lifting your chest. “Do you want a safe house on these waters or not?”

☠ Yeosang ☠

“Well, what say you, handsome?”

The man in question’s eyes bugged, tavern torchlight reflected in the shine of their deep irises. “What say me?”

“Yes, you,” you teased, a hand raising to rest on his shoulder, “care for a dance or not? If no, well, I suppose I-”

“I do,” he blurted out, glancing at your hand, “I definitely do. Let us dance.”

And as if he were a different man he stood up from the stone bench and took you in his arms, holding you like you were made of glass and yet turning you effortlessly in time with the crowd’s other couples.

You’d been sat across from him, sipping your drink and listening to him tell a stupid joke about two fish when you decided you had to be his. Something about the dreamy smile, the way he said he wrote a few poems out at sea, the way he was the last to laugh in the little group and how his eyes so clearly lit up with late recognition. So you’d asked him to dance, not even knowing he’d been blessed with that, too.

Soon the raucous tune was melting into a softer shanty, something begging for a slower sway, and you took the opportunity to slide the man’s hands about your waist.

“The moon is full. Why are you not sailing?” You asked him.

“We have business in town here.”

You quirked a brow, head jerking towards the group of three men he’d been sat with. “Like singing and drinking?”

“You may not see it, but I am conducting it.” He smiled cheekily.

“Much like writing your poems, I imagine,” you replied, “it is always on your mind.”

He nodded, then burst into a giggle, eyes falling from yours. “Something like that. And what fine work do you find yourself in?”

“Me? I am a jeweler’s daughter. Unconventional, perhaps, but I am learning the trade.”

“Good at identifying stones, then? And putting all the pieces together? Not to mention the beautiful designs- a valuable skill set indeed,” your dance partner flushed, pulling you that much closer, and something in it sent an ache through your beating heart.

“Thank you,” your eyelashes fluttered, “I try. Say, shall we go where we can see the stars?”

Your bodies stilled, the man nodding and taking your arm, leading you out to the surprisingly solitary patio. As you tapped across the wood, you saw him stealing glances, lips breaking into a wide, involuntary smile.

“Beautiful, just beautiful.” He glanced very fleetingly between the sky and you, as if your chest hadn’t turned enough somersaults for one evening.

You told him your name. He told you his- Yeosang, it was. And that, that and the way he muttered about his favorite constellation being visible, was enough. The two of you had stood about peering widely into each other’s eyes, frozen, waiting on a word- a word you had no need for. Surging forward like the waves you could hear crashing on the shore below, you cupped Yeosang’s cheeks, pulling his lips into yours and smiling at the hum of surprise he gave into the kiss before responding.

Soon, your tongues had resumed the night’s prior dance, each of you pulling back just enough to get a breath in, never daring end the kiss. His lips were soft, never once challenging yours, just savoring the feeling of them, the taste mingled with the salty breeze as he clutched your waist for dear life.

Finally, though, you parted, lips swollen and smiling as you stared into those wide eyes, his hands still resting firmly on you.

“Wow. And here I thought pickpocketing a solid gold watch was my highlight for the evening,” he chuckled, shaking his head, “but I’d turn on my heel and give it back if it meant you’d run off, come with me.”

This time, it was your eyes that bugged, forgetting briefly the starlight reflected in his. “You’re a thief?”

“A pirate,” he corrected, “one who loves shiny things as much as you, I daresay.”

“Ah,” you laughed the shock away, “now I see why my skills are so valuable.”

“I appreciate the craftsmanship too!” He shot back indignantly, hand that wasn’t on your waist rising to rest above his heart. “For pirates, we all love beautiful things, us eight. Building them, taking them apart, sharing them, stealing them. You would be a natural. And even if you weren't I would have you anyway. So, what say you?”

☠ San ☠

Inhaling deeply, you breathed in the warm, comforting aroma of the stew being ladled into the bowl you held out, barely suppressing a sigh. Thanks fell from your lips again and again, yet the old woman just smiled.

“You remind me of my daughter when she was your age. Can you tell me what happened? If you wish it, if you wish not to speak of it, I understand.”

Shaking your head as you took a spoonful of stew, its warmth radiating through you, you spike when you were ready. “I was orphaned some years ago. My family’s landlord had no pity on a young girl, so my meager income was not nearly enough to satisfy him.”

In your hometown, you’d been known as the shoe-shine girl, for that was how you made your money. But years of your former neighbors, people who knew your name and acted as friends, barely doing more to help you than dropping a coin in passing ached nearly worse than homelessness or hunger. A lot of the help came as just enough for them to feel better.

So you found a town with a boardinghouse welcoming enough to let you stay, your first night there heaven as you fell upon a feathered mattress for the first time in what felt like an aeon. Your new home’s proprietor even prepared you a hot meal, and it took everything you had not to yank her into an embrace. No one had hugged you in so long- not that you’d entirely blame them. This was your first day with a full bath in quite some time, too.

After you told the landlady this, she nodded, and without speaking pulled you into her arms just like you’d imagined. Leaning into the warm embrace, you smiled, energized for the first time in quite a while.

You’d shined three pairs of shoes when he sat down. The sound of boots hitting the plank of your makeshift seat alerted you to another presence as you prepared a new rag. As soon as you turned around the man smiled, and you were taken by how handsome he was. Around your age, the man had sharp features, but the kindest face to greet you upon traveling beside your landlady’s. Black hair fell upon his forehead and his dark eyes lit up when you met them. His clothes were nothing formal, in fact you took him to be a worker despite his regal features and the elegant, sweeping bow he gave you from his seated position. Maybe a docker, judging by the muscle his tucked, sleeveless white tunic revealed.

“Might I shine?”

“I daresay you already do,” you replied with a smile, pleased at the flush of his face- did he not receive many compliments? “Few in this area have been so polite or kind to me.”

His mouth fell open in genuine shock. “Even the townsfolk?”

“This one has proven more friendly than my former home,” you replied as you began working on his boots, alternating between looking up to meet the man’s eyes and cleaning the leather as best as you could.

“The people seem good here,” the man agreed, “fair.”

Smiling at the way he glanced at you with the final word, you found yourself torn between drawing out your work and giving the man the most efficient shining you could. He distracted you from your duties enough, pointing out birds that flew overhead and gleefully calling a cat over to stroke while you worked, making sure you took a break to pet her, too. He told you stories of the sea, too- a sailor, it seemed, not just a docker. It made you long for the glittering expanse yourself, the sound of the waves even louder than it could be heard a bit inland at town’s center. The sight of water lapping upon wood, your hands dangling down to greet it, you could almost see it as your customer spoke and scrawled with charcoal on a little pad.

In the shine of it all, the glow of all the kindness you’d suddenly come to enjoy in a day, you forgot to push your coin hat forward when he left, but caught the glint if him dropping something into it regardless as he left, shaking your hand warmly. It was as if life was making up for lost time, apologizing for your wanderings. Good things coming to those who waited.

After watching your latest customer’s trim figure disappear around the corner, sparing you one more glance and wave that fluttered your heart, you turned around, picking up the old hat of your father’s off the cobblestone to peer inside.

Your jaw dropped. Rather than coin, the sailor had placed within the battered band the most gorgeous necklace you had ever laid eyes upon. Dripping with soft pink and yellow topaz, the gold chain sparkled in your hand. The number of gems shocked you, too- its wearer’s neck would be entirely ringed with the oval-cut gems, the largest of which hung on the bottom row. You began rising, ready to chase after the man and tell him you couldn’t accept something like that. How on Earth could a simple sailor even afford something like-

A torn piece of parchment tumbled into your lap, bouncing of your unfolding knee as you stood. Holding the necklace gingerly with your left hand, you smoothed it and picked it up from the ground between your thumb and forefinger. As you walked, hat and necklace clutched tightly in hand, you scanned the note.

‘Miss (y/n),

The way your eyes lit up when I spoke of the sea sparked hope in me- hope for you, hope for the people of this town. Even more now do I wish to give back to them. If you care not to join me and my crew, I will still smile at your beautiful memory, hoping to be met with it again someday. And of course that my gift has helped you earn your deserved lot (though it would look very nice too!).

Fondly,

Choi San (don’t tell anyone this though on account of the wanted thing- I trust the shoe shine girl!)’

Rounding a corner, you picked up speed, taking your skirt in hand and feeling a flood of relief that the lane was not crowded. Soles thudded against stone as you wound past the baker’s stall, catching a glimpse of black hair and white tunic. As if playing a child’s game, you tapped his shoulder as he caught up, relishing in his jump of shock as it melted into a smile. Words failed you as his head tilted, ready to listen; all you could do was hold up the note, nodding.

☠ Mingi ☠

The moment the sound of the windows shattering pierced you, you were on your feet, scurrying towards the nearest doorway. Clanging metal and gunshots rang out behind you as you crawled as close to the ground as you could.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” a deep voice rang out from behind you.

With a shudder, you turned around, seeing a tall, hatted silhouette surrounded by the chandeliers’ light. “You don’t?” You asked, shuffling to a half-seated position, legs folded at your side.

“These people aren’t your friends, are they?

“What makes you say that?” You shot back, arms crossing defiantly in spite of the way your eyes avoided the pistols slung at each of the man’s hips.

“You were willing to leave them for dead,” he chuckled, “you were only interested in saving yourself. Something about that told me these people haven’t exactly shown you much kindness.”

Posture softening, you sighed. “You are, unfortunately, correct. I’m all but being sold into a marriage to a man who’s been nothing but horrible to me.”

The man in the hat glanced beyond the counter you’d been ducked behind. “Er, fellow with a purple jacket? Ponytail?”

You nodded.

“I suspect you will no longer have to marry him. Will you show me up to this house’s main chambers?”

“I will,” you nodded again, wondering if you had much of a choice, “but what are you saying?”

“I’m saying you’re free,” the man stepped forward once more, this time revealing the kindest smile you’d seen in a long time. Quite a contrast to the guns. “Free, just like me.” He extends a hand, helps you up. “You could even join us on the ship if you find no happiness here.”

As you left the room, making for the stairs, you glanced down at the stiff, fine clothes you hated being yanked into every day. Clothes someone else’s money bought to fabricate a standing, a life for you. You were silent as the tall man, grinning like a charming, eager young boy, shot the lock out of the estate owners’ vault, and filled a sack with jewels.

“What do you want?”

Your brow furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”

He waved his revolver over an array of fine rings, necklaces, bracelets, furs. “I offer you your pick. Even if it is to be your last, this is your first plunder, isn’t it? We always keep a sign of it.”

Eyes drifting across the glittering spoils, one standing out to you immediately, your hand darted out with speed surprising even to you. An onyx seal ring, the shining black surface stamped with the crest of the family you would now never join. You strung it on a chain and fastened it around your neck.

As you looked up to the hatted stranger, your eyes hardened. “I’ll join you on the trip, pirate.”

The pirate with the pistols grinned at you proudly, though a good percentage of it seemed to be self-satisfaction, that he knew you would. “On one condition.”

Your fingers curled into a fist instinctively, used to strings being tied around your actions. “What?”

And then the smirk melted back to the boyish smile as he patted your shoulder gently, reassuringly. “Call me Mingi.”

And as he led you out of the foyer, trying his best to distract you from the handful of bodies laying about the room with sea stories, somehow all you could feel was your numbness fading away, turning to excitement.

☠ Wooyoung ☠

“Hey, now what is a beauty like you doing in a place like this?”

Your eyes practically got sprains from how hard they rolled. As if such words had not been spit at you five times already that very evening. Badly as you wanted to ignore the man, you were serving him. In title of vocation only.

Swiveling on your heels, you bit out, “Making the best bit of coin I can without selling myself.”

At that, the man winced, black hair flowing back as his head bowed slightly. You smirked. Half the men that came through the tavern were all bark, no bite, and that was fine by you. You had enough bite for two after a few years there. Several bruised patrons would have been able to attest to that.

“You’re trying to survive too, aren’t you?” His voice, boisterous moments before, softened to just above a whisper.

Eyeing him suspiciously, you remained where you stood, tugging up the far-too-open-for-your-liking bodice of your dress. “What do you mean?”

“That this world isn’t kind to orphans and outcasts,” he shrugged, running a hand through his hair. He was handsome in a roguish sort of way- clearly not high society, you could tell that much. But you’d have been able to say the same for any clientele of a tavern such as that which employed you. “You are far too beautiful to be cast to the fringes. You should be sailing the high seas, your name inspiring fear, terror, and arou- er, well, anyway, you do not deserve this drudgery.”

You crossed your arms, but leaned closer to where he reclined, boots on the table. “And what would you have me do? Risk whatever the ruffians on the nearest pirate ship would do to a woman?”

He shook his head. “You have that wrong, my dear. Have you hear no tales of the pirate queens? We have much greater respect for women than you’ll find here.”

“Cute words for the man whose first line was the cheapest flirt I’ve ever heard,” you countered.

“I’ll get you a sword as sharp as your words,” he shot back, leaning closer, your noses almost touching. You could feel his breath on your face.

He didn’t back down, so you didn’t either, eyes steeling further.

“I can’t believe you are not a pirate already,” he chuckled, smiling widely, giddily, as he leaned back again, “if you join us, you can smack around all the deserving scoundrels you want. Like those horrible officers you put in their place earlier.”

You’d seen them grab women and throw innocents in their carriage enough times, not to mention not tipping you. Trying their old routine on your coworker was the final straw, and you knew just how to make a tipped tray look like an accident. So did the young, roguish pirate that grinned from your table, apparently. You couldn’t help a proud smirk, one he gladly returned.

Your fingers twitched. The part of you that had been on edge for so long, tired of being grabbed by rowdy patrons and ordered around, wanted nothing more than to land a solid punch upon this man, and yet your heart fluttered with excitement. Perhaps your fighting spirit was in need of a vessel. Seafaring pun intended.

“You take me to your ship tonight,” you told the man, “and I speak to your captain. Anything goes wrong, I will not hesitate to make the seas run red.”

“Oh, I doubt it not,” the man purred, leaning his elbow on the table, chin upon a gloved hand, “well, to celebrate, how’s about a dance?”

Curse the fool, you loved dancing. Well, at least he looked quite fit for it, you reflected as he stood up, movements graceful as he took your hand and whirled you off toward the tavern’s music. And judging by his earnest smile, the pirate loved it as much as you did. He spun you dizzy until you couldn’t help but laugh.

“There we go, now we’re smiling! Can I have a name, then, or do we save that for the captain?”

“Only if you tell me yours,” you chuckled, grip on his firm shoulder tightening a bit when you careened close to an open stool.

“Wooyoung. I sail with the Eightfold- though perhaps we have room for a ninth after all.”

“Don’t push it,” you told him, but the smile you shared as you bobbed about the room said otherwise.

☠Jongho☠

Fortuitous had your father's connections become, it was said, that you had been invited to such a ball. Couples danced in sweeping circles, women's skirts opening like blooming flowers as they whirled around, and you hoped to join them soon. A new dress had even been purchased for the occasion, so you were decked out in a winsome cut of your favorite color as you crossed the glittering ballroom with your drink.

Your opportunity came in the form of a young man you had never seen before approaching you, serious expression melting into a small, handsome smile as he carefully extended a hand, asking if you'd like to dance.

"Certainly," you agreed, and as he led you to the floor you couldn't help staring into the allure of his deep brown eyes.

His hands held you firmly as you waltzed a few songs through, his expression careful and calm as you eventually introduced yourself, asking his name in return.

"Choi Jongho," he replied quietly, as if it were a secret. You hadn’t heard it before, you were certain.

"Well, it truly is a pleasure. Is this your first of such occasions?"

"It is."

You lit up. "Mine too! And who are you acquainted with here-”

A loud smashing of wood resounded behind you, killing your sentence on your lips as you cried out in alarm. Turning you away from the sound, Jongho kept a hand on your shoulder, scanning the room with such calm on his face, you could hardly help but wonder if he expected destruction wherever he went. Leaning into the warm point of contact, you watched awestruck as he launched into the ballroom, meeting a blow by another far more roughly dressed man.

Your hands flew to your face as your dance partner landed a punch himself, the other man attempting to shove him into the drink table in retaliation. He stood his ground, though, as couples scurried across the dance floor, some screaming and some simply muttering indignance, thinking them drunkards. You watched as Jongho lifted the ruffian like he was but a sack of flour, flipping him onto his back and pinning him beneath the heel of his shoe.

“You think I had no cover? The others had you running, it seems,” he shook his head, expression still as if it was a casual conversation, “fight with honor next time. This is our bounty.”

Wide-eyed, you watched as Jongho stood the man up, wiping off the front of his dirty tunic, and hauled him out the door. Half his words were lost upon your ears, but you couldn’t help flushing a bit at his strength. You gaped as he made his way back over to you, bowing his head in apology.

“I am sorry you had to see that,” he told you, smiling earnestly, looking only slightly ruffled for the first time as several ball-goers crowded him, shaking his hand in thanks.

“You have no reason to be, that was amazing!” You gushed, laughingly pulling him free of the crowd to sit at a table. “It was like you knew that man would come crashing in! In fact, it was almost as if…you knew each other.” Your eyes narrowed.

Talks of thieves had drifted through the city of late. Robberies during a dinner or ball, right under the cover of pandemonium. Had that fight been staged?

Jongho sighed. “I was hoping you hadn’t heard that. Believe me or not, that man was no one I care to associate with. Murderous thieves, all they want is gold to line their pockets.”

You frowned slightly, tugging on the sleeve of your fine gown as you searched his eyes. “And you and your…others? What do they want if not that, then? What is your bounty?”

“I won’t lie to you- we steal,” Jongho replied bluntly, straightening his jacket as well, “have you heard the tale of Robin Hood? Think of our crew as the Merry Men, then.”

Cocking a brow, you stepped back and forth. “Robbing the rich to give to the poor?”

Jongho nodded. “The aristocracy has gotten out of hand. Er, no offense.”

“None taken. I am only here for a rare bit of fun. Call my family middle class,” you answered, biting your lip as you processed your dance partner’s admission, catching his stately reflection in one of the estate walls’ looking glasses, “though we are working our way up. Station is the only way to succeed in this world, after all.”

“We want to change that,” Jongho shot back, crossing his arms, gaze lighting as a newly-oiled lamp.

“I cannot blame you. My only task in this world is to marry well and hope I enjoy it. These balls are quite nice, though.”

Jongho snickered at your words before his gaze softened again. “And are you enjoying it?”

“I have no suitors,” you replied, “dancing tonight was my opportunity. All I could hope for was to fall in love tonight.”

“Well, sorry I derailed that. I’ll let you get back to it, then.”

Your chest sunk as he started to walk away, though, every tap of his shoes against marble echoing louder even than the orchestra to you. Without thinking, you reached out, catching his elbow. “No.”

He arched a brow, sending it all but disappearing beneath his shining black bangs. “No?”

“I cannot in good conscience turn back to this all. You are right. Let me help you. I can pretend to lead you out to the garden for a stroll. Meet there with your others.”

And for the first time, Jongho grinned widely at you, an expression joyous enough to send your already jittery heart leaping straight out of your chest. He nodded.

“The Merry Men were never complete without Marion.”

#ateez #ateez imagines #ateez reactions #ateez x reader #ateez scenarios #hongjoong #seongwha #yunho #yeosang #san #mingi #wooyoung #jongho #ateez x female reader #female reader #pirate au #requested #matzbear

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koolades-world · 2 months

Text

Spellbound Secrets

prologue: calm before the storm

synopsis: The House of Lamentation caught fire one night, and you were the only one they recovered from the wreckage. The brothers were in the house as well when you went to bed that night, but they were nowhere to be found. The pact marks are faded, and seem to be getting more and more indefinite by the day. You and Solomon get to investigating but oddly enough, nobody can seem to remember the missing brothers. It’s up to you, with the help of Solomon, to find your beloved demons, lest you never see them again.

navigation: playlist | prologue (you are here!) | chapter one (coming next saturday)

authors note: this was postponed because a roach haha, but! it’s finally here and I’m excited to share the product of my hard work with you all! what do we think of the banner? made it myself! i think it’s nice but I’ll probably hate it in a couple of years haha. please do check out the playlist i made too. more explanation will be made on the post about it :) special thanks to @aaliyahxxvi and @rcbsbb for beta reading each and every chapter for me, as well as being awesome friends <3

While your several years of living in the Devildom came with its challenges, you wouldn't trade it for anything. It was hard to adjust to, and it felt like every day came with a new hurtle for you to overcome. From almost having your soul stolen, to almost failing several classes, to almost dying, you'd seen it all. But, every time, the key word was almost. You always made it out relatively unscathed, to the point where it was a running joke between you and the brothers, some more so than others. (Lucifer didn't find it very funny.)

You really couldn't ask for more. Despite how things seemed early on in your stay, you'd really begun to enjoy everything about the life you hadn't expected, no less asked for. There was so much about living you truly looked forward to now.

Every morning, you knew to expect Mammon either in your room already because he spent the night over, or barging in as soon as he was awake so you could get ready together. More often than not, in the middle of getting ready, Asmo would burst into the room and ask your opinion on what to wear that day. He and Mammon would bicker and if you didn't end the fighting, they'd disperse on their own once they realized you'd walked off. Lucifer wasn't a morning demon, which took you longer to learn that you'd thought, still took the time out of his morning to brew you a cup of coffee.

Every afternoon, you enjoyed a tea with Satan while you read or did some homework together. Sometimes, you didn't say a single word to each other, but just being together was comforting enough. Then, you'd spent a while with Levi, playing whatever game he'd selected for that day. If it was a game you couldn't play together, you'd happily talk about your day while the other played the game. Finally, once it started to get later in the day and the Devildom began to cool down, you accompanied Beel on his second workout of the day. After a long day, you snuggled with Belphie and unwound. As much as he protested about it, he made a great pillow.

You always had a movie night at least once a week which everyone was required to attend; the brothers didn't have it in them to say no. More often than not, the members of Purgatory Hall and the Demon Lord's Castle (if Barbatos permitted it) came over to join you. It was just a fun excuse to get together and enjoy each other's company.

The routine was comforting, to say the least. You'd all grown into it. You felt safe, and content.

That night had started and ended just like any other. It had been Asmo's turn to cook dinner, and as part of a deal the two of you had made together, he'd agreed to make your favorite. In exchange, he made you promise to reserve one evening just for him. Lingering in the kitchen while he cooked was one of your favorite pastimes.

That night, you were almost certain you feel asleep with three demons in your room. Mammon had claimed your right side, as he usually did, which left your other side up for grabs. Satan laid on your left with a book in hand, one you recognized as one you'd gotten together in the human world, and a little reading light. Levi was at the end of the bed, on his Devilswitch. You and Mammon had briefly argued over the remote, but in the end, you selected what you watched even though he had the remote. You chided Satan for having the light on, to which he apologized for and tried his best to keep it out of your eyes. He didn't move though, because he wasn't willing to give up his spot. Levi didn't cause too much of a disturbance, only the occasional exclamations about whatever he was playing.

It wasn't anything out of the ordinary: how things should be. You looked forward to tomorrow. You could already picture what the next day held. You had plans with Satan to head to a new bookstore at the edge of town, and Beel wanted to go on an evening hike and picnic in a nearby park, to which you weren't going to refuse.

If only things were to play out as you imagined.

You weren't sure exactly what time it was when you woke up, but it was blistering, and you couldn't identify a reason why. Your sheets were dangling off the bed, likely the doing of Mammon. You fan was at the highest speed, but it actually only seemed to be making the heat worse. Even stranger was the fact that not a single one of the demons you'd fallen asleep with at your side was present. Not Satan, not Levi, and even not Mammon. In your sleepy stupor, you peeled off the fluffy jacket you were wearing in an attempt to cool off, leaving you in a thinner undershirt. As you plodded around the room, you saw they were nowhere in sight. Their belongings were scattered about, as if they were only going to be gone for a short amount of time and might be back any minute.

Perhaps you might've gone back to bed if you didn't hear the sound of a voice you thought you recognized through the door, accompanied by a muffled roaring. The doorknob burned to the touch, waking you up fully. You wrung out your hand and hissed, cradling it close to your body. It would surely result in a burn later, but for now, that was the least of your concern. The smell of smoke flooded your senses. The was a fire happening in the House of Lamentation, and you were trapped in your room with no way out.

You retreated back to your bed, ripping it apart in search of your D.D.D. Once you found it, you struggled to dial the Devildom equivalent of 911. Thankfully, the call went through and if nobody else had already made a call, they would be on their way.

"666, what is the address of your emergency?" The operator on the other end of the line spoke calmly and clearly.

"The House of Lamentation. The big, haunted creepy house. On Hollow Avenue. I think my house is on fire. I'm trapped in my bedroom." You kept your voice as even as you could so she could understand you.

"The fire department is on their way, sweetie. Are there any other exits?" You could hear the sound of the operator typing.

"No. The only way out is my door, and I burnt my hand on the doorknob. I know you're not supposed to open the door." You weren't sure when you had begun to shake, and struggled to hold the phone up to your ear.

"Alright, put a towel underneath the door to block smoke. Stay low to the ground if you can. What floor are you on?" You could hear the information you were giving to the operator being relayed to others. Doing as she asked, you threw open your closet door and shoved as many towels as you could between the door and the floor.

"First. I'm on the first floor. First floor. I'm not the only one who lives here though. They might be trapped too. I heard someone else before." You thought you heard someone yelling when you'd first approached the door, but you became quickly preoccupied with your own matters. You wished you hadn't.

"Don't panic. Someone is coming to rescue you. I'll stay on the line with you, alright?" She reassured you.

"Thank you." There was a slight pause in your conversation, so you continued to speak. "What's going to happen if they can't get to me in time?" A sort of morbid curiosity crossed your mind. You didn't want to find out, but the thought lingered.

"You're all going to be alright. Talk to me. What's your name?" You didn't know much about the tactics of dispatchers, but maybe she was trying to keep you calm.

"Mc. I'm Mc. I'm one of the human exchange students." You stumbled over your own name. You had no clue what to do besides answer her questions. You felt useless just standing in one spot, but were rooted there.

"How many other people are in the house?" She remained calm, and you took a deep breath, so you could continue to answer her questions. You could feel the panic creeping in and begin envelop you, not unlike the smoke you were trying to block out.

"There should be seven others. A family. I don't know where they are. They were in my room, but they're gone." She probably already knew who the brothers were, and who you were, but you couldn't stop the words from tumbling out of your mouth.

"What are you wearing?" She asked you.

"It's really hot in here, miss." You were quickly growing lightheaded, and drenched in sweat.

"I know. I'm sorry. What are you wearing?" She repeated herself.

"Um, a white tank top and some blue checkered pajama pants." Neither article of clothing belonged to you. The pants were Lucifer's and the tank top you'd stolen from Mammon. It was the one thing about the situation that managed to get you to think a little more positively.

"What's the charge on your device, Mc?" Her using your name shocked you a little. It took you a second to realize you'd just given her your name, which is how she knew.

"It's getting low." Because of the brothers staying over in your room, you never had the chance to plug it in before you went to sleep. Mammon had told you he would do it, but it seems you'd both forgotten.

"What percent?" She asked.

"Twenty-nine." You hoped the battery would last long enough.

"Don't hang up. Help will be there shortly." You tried to respond, but it felt as if all the breath had been knocked out of you. You felt as if your legs were going to give way, so you took a seat on the edge of your bed.

"Miss, I don't feel good." Sweat rolled down your forehead and would've gone into your eyes if you didn't swipe it away, which was growing more and more difficult by the second. The heat was agonizing and you almost felt like you were melting.

"Keep talking to me. How old are you?" When you didn't respond, the operator prompted you again. "Mc? Are you still there?"

You tried to continue to speak to her, but you couldn't form the words you wanted to. Nothing came out correctly. She continued to speak to you, but you just wanted to lay down. She grew quieter the more time passed. The room had started spinning at some point. The urge to close your eyes grew stronger and stronger, so you told yourself just a moment wouldn't hurt.

The next thing you remembered was waking up in what had to be a hospital room. You didn't recognize anything in the room, and everything was unusually bright. Whoever had last been in your room had tucked you in carefully in your hospital bed. You could see from your chest down, but your arms were sitting on to of the covers. An IV drip was in your left arm, and from the elbow down, your right arm was wrapped in bandages. The TV in the room was on to your favorite Devildom cooking channel. It was an episode you'd seen before, so you didn't bother to focus on it. Besides the sound of the television you could hear hushed whispering and shuffling from the hallway, and the constant beeping of the machine connected to you.

As you were taking in your surroundings, the door just out of your line of sight opened. You expected it to be one of the brothers, or a nurse maybe, but it was Solomon. It was nice to see a familiar face regardless of who it belonged to.

"Mc! You're awake. I'll call the nurse." With a smile befitting of the gods, he moved to leave the room again.

"Wait, please." He paused with his hand on the doorknob. "What happened?" Solomon backtracked and pulled up a chair to sit beside your bed. You stared at him expectantly, as he thought about, presumably, what to say next.

"The House of Lamentation caught on fire, but thankfully, you were alright. You got some burns but the doctor says it could've been much worse. You've been out for about a day now. How much do you remember?" He flexed his fingers.

"Not much, but I think that's a good thing. How are the brothers? I hope they're doing well." You expected Solomon to just answer the question, but instead, he cocked an eyebrow.

"What are you talking about?" At first, you just assumed he was kidding, but this was an odd thing to be joking about.

"You know, the seven brothers? They're the avatars of sin? They should've been in the house. Are they fine or did they get hurt in the fire too?" When he only stared at you blankly, you didn't know how to react. "You're scaring me, Solomon. This isn't funny." You thought back over what you'd said. It all made sense in your head, but something just wasn't clicking for Solomon.

"Who are 'the brothers?'"

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