#would be a horrible note to end such a good series of games on for the foreseeable future

[alertarchitect]

So! A new Doom game got announced!

Here's the trailer for those interested, it will help with what I'm about to go into:

As a bit of a Retro Throwback Shooter Shitter myself, I have some Thoughts. Read on if you're interested.

So, first of all I like the premise of exploring the time the Doom Slayer spent fighting demons alongside the warriors of Argent D'Nur. It's a time period that was purposefully left pretty damn vague in Doom Eternal, and the Slayer's lore before waking up again wasn't even really talked about much - if at all - in Doom 2016 from what I remember, since they were trying to play it a little safe due to Doom 2016 being a soft reboot of a series that hadn't gotten a new game in 12 years at that point, with the last title (Doom 3 and its various editions that attempted to improve it a bit) being a pretty big departure that had a wealth of issues, such as it being a Doom game with one of the worst shotguns ever put into a shooter. So it's a cool idea to explore this time frame of the Doom Slayer's history, and possibly show the events leading to the Slayer's imprisonment in Hell before he was rediscovered and subsequently awoken by Samuel Hayden in Doom 2016, including the Makyrs' fall from grace.

Second, I'm actually kinda hyped to see id Software still working on making retro throwback shooters. I was worried they'd get shuttered and their IP sold off after Rage was such a flop back in 2011, and they didn't make anything after it for 5 years until Doom 2016 came out, so it's nice to see they've found their groove again - making some of the best examples of the retro throwback shooter subgenre. Doom 2016 started the BoomShoot Renaissance, and Doom Eternal is still one of the best examples of the genre, mechanically. They are masterclasses in using an old formula while keeping the level design and visuals fresh with modern game design principles that have improved a lot since the 90s, along with new game mechanics to keep the moment-to-moment gameplay feeling fresh as well (such as the weapon / stat upgrade systems, the movement abilities you get in Doom Eternal, etc.). Seeing them pushing that even further is a treat to behold, and I'm confident it's going to be a pretty damn fun game, as long as it doesn't get forced into being $70.

Final point, though, is a bit of a downer for me personally. Why in the fuck are they making a game in the Doom series that's going for a more medieval-ish feel, when the Quake franchise is right fucking there and begging for a better modern entry than goddamn Quake Champions?? Seriously, making a Quake game calling back to the first game in the franchise - with the Lovecraftian inspirations, the more medieval-ish setting, the unique monsters like the Shambler you didn't see much of past Quake 1 - would be a fucking money printer. But no, Microsoft wants them to play it safe so they can get a guaranteed blockbuster because Quake Champions hasn't done very well since it came out of early access in 2022, which is definitely a fault of the Quake franchise not having any consumer interest and 100% for sure not because Quake Champions pivoted into being a fucking hero shooter trying to emulate the feel of old arena shooter deathmatching!! It's not like a soft reboot wouldn't be sorely needed after the goddamn disaster of a story that was the Quake 4 campaign! It's not like a modern Quake game that actually relies on having a fun weapon sandbox instead of relying on taking your opponents off guard with fucking superpowers on cooldowns is something the fanbase they're trying to pander to would nut in our fucking pants over or anything!!!!

TL;DR: This game looks really good and fun, and I like to see id is still making banger games, but I'm actually kinda angry that they'd rather make a Doom game with medieval vibes rather than using that other fantastic retro shooter IP they own to make something that kind of vibe would actually fit into better.

[rivwritesiguess]

Lost and Found - Chapter 1: Lost

Chat I fell down the Task Force 141 rabbit hole a while ago and now this is here

Word Count: 8.6k Angst, like hurt no comfort angst Poly!141 x gn!omega!reader Chapter Summary: A mission goes wrong. The pack loses a member. What happens when that member isn't as lost as they though? Warnings: Character death, horrible attempts at doing European accents/dialects, probably a few plot holes, military inaccuracies Notes: It's an omegaverse fic, the 141 is a pack and they all love each other. Also reader is gender neutral, they/them pronouns. this story does not follow the Modern Warfare story whatsoever, none of the main people are gonna die (no headshots), and it will be filled with military inaccuracies because I'm just here to love hot men and babygirl-ify the men in a military propaganda video game :). As said in the title, this is chapter one, so the there will be more. The guys might be a bit out of character in this, oopsies. I might end up rewriting this in the future but for now this is it. I also made an entire sims 4 build of the pack house for this fic alone and spent way too long on it 💀 there will be smut (afab) in this fix at some point in the distant distant future Made the little banner thing with Canva and the divider with Photopea Navigation Series Masterlist (this is currently the only chapter) Also on AO3 next

  “C’mon up now and we might spare you. Make us come down there and your death will be a slow one.” It’s not good. None of this is good. It took such a turn. Everything had seemed to be going well until Kyle said that there were cars approaching the building. “Don’t be stupid. 15 versus 1 is not a fight you want to start.”

  “They think there’s just one o’ us.”

  “Could make use of that. Catch ‘em off guard.”

  “It’d be easier tae surprise them if we weren’t cornered in the damn basement.”

  “Didn’t seem like you had any better ideas.”

  “Anythin’ but a damn basement.”

“That’s enough.” John cut the conversation short with a sharp tone. It wasn’t like an actual argument, just playful bickering. Now, however, was not the time.

  John’s brain was going a mile a minute. There wasn’t much he could think to do at the moment. They were cornered. He didn’t know how this happened. The mission had gone well. It was only once they got to the safe house to rest for the night that things went wrong. 

  You were just getting ready to fall asleep with Johnny on the bed upstairs. John had taken the bed in the living room near the door. Simon was on the front porch while Kyle sat on top of the building, both keeping watch until it was their turn to sleep. You were pulling Johnny under the covers with a smile, ready for the cuddles the beta would offer you. However, then you heard the sound of Kyle coming over the radio. 

  “I’m seeing two cars coming towards us.”

  John had ordered Simon to come inside so you could all come up with a plan. It should’ve been easy, but the cars got to the house much faster than the group expected. There was no time to run, so Kyle suggested getting down into the basement to come up with a plan. With two cars, you all thought there would be at most 10 people. Not 15.

  There weren’t supposed to be any problems. No one was supposed to be anywhere near this safe house, no one was supposed to even know about it. Obviously, Laswell’s information was wrong.

  John was beginning to feel a bit anxious. It wasn’t much, but that underlying feeling that this wouldn’t be ending well was starting to set in the pit of his stomach. He looked back at you. You’d been quiet since the group moved down to the basement. 

  He never would’ve brought you on this mission if he saw this coming. It was supposed to be simple, something that wouldn’t put you in too much danger. He knew you could handle danger, but that didn’t mean he liked you being in it. But now you are. He let you come along, and now things are looking bad. You’re in danger. His pack is in danger. He needed to find a way to get you all out of it. It was not only his job as Captain, but also his job as the pack alpha.

  “Captain, if we go up there they might get overwhelmed. We’ve got a shot at takin’ them by surprise,” Johnny suggested once more.

  “A chance. It’s not guaranteed,” Kyle injected.

  “Is anythin’ ever?”

  “It’s risky.”

  “We only saw twa cars. They could be bluffin’, trying tae scare us.”

  “Not ‘us’. They only think one person is down here.”

  “They’re idiots if they can’t tell there’s more than ane person. Captain’s got blankets on the couch and Ace and ah had blankets on the bed. If they’re stupid enough to no’ notice that, it might be easy tae take them doon.” Simon shook his head.

  “Even if they’re all stupid, they’ve got weapons an’ we’ll all be coming out of a little door for them to point those weapons at. Stupid men and weapons are ne’er mix well. Even if there’s not 15, we’d still be outnumbered. People will get hit and hurt.”

  “It’s better we get hurt than stay stuck doon here waitin’ fer them tae come tae us.”

  “Or we could stay here an’ take up positions ‘round the room. They come down an’ we start firin’. It doesn’t risk someone getting hurt just ‘cause you wanted to rush in.”

  “Ah didnae say that.”

  “I never said you did.”

  “Stop it.” You were the one to speak up this time. You didn’t need a commanding tone like John. The group listened to you regardless of your tone or not. You were you. You were their omega. If you wanted something, they wanted to give it. And right now? You wanted them to stop arguing, so they’d do just that.

  The attention was directed back to John as he stood up silently. He glanced around the room, coming up with a plan. He nodded, more to himself than the rest of the group. He faced all of you, starting to talk.

  “Alright. Soap’s right. Those guys up there aren’t expecting five of us. We’ve got the chance to take ‘em by surprise. Ghost’s got a point as well. The door up there we’d walk out of probably has all their guns trained on it as we speak. They’ll shoot us down. But we can’t stay down ‘ere. It’s giving ‘em time to plan for any possibility. They might catch on that there’s more than one of us.” He took a breath. “I’ve got a plan, but it’s a bit dodgy. They think there’s only one of us, so one of us goes up. Plays at surrendering. Once those guys up there aren’t all holding their weapons at the door, the person who went up will say something to let the rest of the group down here know. Then, the four left will go out and start shooting.”

  The group was quiet. No one seemed to really like this plan, but John was right. Waiting down here only gave them time to realize what was going on, and going out as a group only gave them a large target. 

  “Ah’ll gae up,” Johnny said, starting to pull his gun out of his holster.

  “No, you stay down here. I’ll go.” Kyle put his hand on Johnny’s, stopping the other beta as he started to put his own weapons to the side.

  “Neither of you are doin’ that. I know how to handle this. I’ll be the one to go up.” Though Simon said this, he didn’t make any immediate move to disarm himself. He probably wouldn’t do so until the very last second. 

  “It was my idea. I’ll be the one to surrender,” John argued. 

  They were arguing about who would be putting themselves closer to death’s door. They didn’t want to let another member of the pack do it, not when there was no guarantee that the people upstairs would actually spare whoever went up. 

  You hated it. This argument wouldn’t end any way you wanted it to. Someone could die. That couldn’t happen. No one in your pack was going to be dying. You couldn’t let that happen.

  You quickly tried to think of something that could solve this issue. A plan better than John’s. You’d seen the blueprints of the house. The basement didn’t have an exit that would lead outside. There were, however, a bunch of weird rooms down here. There was even a small holding area with soundproof walls. There was even- 

  Wait.

  That’s it.

  “I think there might be a way out from down here. A different exit.” 

  Everyone’s head turned to you so quickly they could’ve flown off.

  “Why didnae ye say anythin’ earlier, Ace?!” Johnny asked. 

  “I- I’m sorry, I didn’t think of it till now.” 

  Lying was never something you enjoyed doing. Doing it to your pack made you feel disgusted with yourself. If you weren’t lying for a good reason, the omega inside of you might’ve been screaming and crying. But even it understood this was necessary. You had to keep your pack safe.

  John sighed.

  “It’s alright, sweetheart. Just show us where it is.”

  The focus was now on you. You turned around, walking out of the small room after making sure that the guys upstairs had stayed upstairs. Once seeing that they had, you walked quickly and quietly, occasionally glancing back to make sure all of your pack was still behind you.

  You debated if you were really going to go through with this. If your pack caught on to what you were doing, they’d stop you without hesitation. You’d have to deal with their disappointment and then have to deal with one of them going up and potentially getting themself killed. You couldn’t let one of them get killed. They were too important. Not just to you, but in their fields. To each other. You didn’t even know if this would work, but you had to try. You’d rather this than the world losing one of them. You could only hope it went how you wanted. You could only hope that your pack trusts you enough to listen.

  You got to the end of the hallway and opened the door in the left corner. It was a sitting area, but this time there were two doors on the far side of the wall. You took a deep breath before looking back at your pack, who all seemed confused.

  “That door, over there. Get in there.” You pointed to the door on the left side. You stepped out of the doorway so the rest of them could walk past you. They, however, hesitated. You sighed. “Just trust me here, okay? Please?”

  You didn’t want to exploit their trust in you, but there was no other choice right now. You had to get them into that room. 

  Another thing you had to do was control your scent. Sure, you were wearing scent blockers, but your scent was naturally pretty strong. When your emotions got too high, your scent normally pushed past the blockers. So you had to focus on keeping it suppressed right now even though you were full of fear. They wouldn’t go in first if that was the case. They wouldn’t think you were lying, but they’d want you to be closest to safety if you were feeling fear.

  “We’re following you, love.” Simon pulled the ‘love’ card. You weren’t hiding your scent well enough. He only did that when he was trying to keep you calm. They were following you to stay in between you and the danger that lurked upstairs. You needed to do better. Suppress your scent. It gives you a headache to do, but if they don’t walk into the room first, the whole plan would go up in flames.

  You couldn’t argue with them walking over now without looking suspicious. So, with a small nod, you turned and walked over to the door. You had to think. Think. Think.

  Once closer, you opened the door. It was a heavy one, which you suspected since it was supposedly soundproof. You hoped that was true. There was a small window in the door that slid open and closed from the outside. You stepped around and used your body to keep the door open, still trying to figure out a way to get them to go in without you.

  As the door was pressing against your back, you realized you could simply continue to hold the door as they walked in. That was the only way this could work. They just needed to listen to you.

  “Go on,” you said, motioning inside with your head. Johnny stepped forward, approaching your side to take the door from you.

  “Let me hold it, Bonnie.” You moved away from him slightly, stepping back and moving the door away from him as well. You shook your head.

  You saw the confusion on their faces when you did this. There was no exact reason for you to not give Johnny the door. He could hold it just fine. You had to think of something to make them not confused. Something natural. Something that said you were calm and not terrified.

  You rolled your eyes.

  “I can hold a door, Soap. Let me do one thing, won’t you?” You plastered a playful smile on your face, doing your best to get it to reach your eyes as well. You weren’t feeling playful. No, you were full of terror. Your senses had always been higher than others. Right now you could hear the people upstairs starting to pace. Their patience was running low. They’d be coming downstairs within the next few minutes.

  You couldn’t let your pack realize this. They could end up feeling cornered and decide to fight. Someone would get hurt during the fight, and that wasn’t what you needed. You couldn’t let them realize your terror either. If they did, they’d get suspicious. You shouldn’t be feeling such terror if you knew a way out. They’d realize something was off. They’d catch on. They’d never listen. They wouldn’t do what you wanted. They’d go through with John’s plan, or they’d go fight and then one of them would die and then you would lose them and you would’ve failed and then-

  “‘Right, ‘right, I get it. Ye’re independent an’ aw that,” Johnny said, hands raised in mock surrender as he smiled at you. It’s playful. You were starting to feel thankful for that one theatre class you decided to take back in school.

  You could tell the group felt a bit relieved as well. They were starting to be hesitant about your supposed ‘exit’. They were also worried you’d be panicking and doing this just to stop one of them from going up. But if you’re being playful and you’re able to joke around with them, then it’s fine. 

  Johnny walked past you and into the room with a smile in your direction. Kyle did the same. John followed behind. Simon went in last, and you seemed to follow.

  Once they went in, they realized something was wrong. The room was pretty dark, not able to properly be inspected from outside. But now that they’re in, they realize there are no more rooms attached to this one. This was a dead end. 

  John was the first one to realize this, but he was too late. He turned around to see you quickly stepping away and letting the door shut with you on the other side. He ran over, only to find that there was no handle on this side of the door.

  “Ace! What are you doing?!” He moved over slightly as Simon started to try and open the door. John looked through the little window on the door, trying to get an explanation from you. Simon had no success with the door. Johnny and Kyle were now standing behind them, confused and starting to feel a bit panicked.

  You were staring at the door with wide eyes, shaking slightly. You looked back at the exit door to the room you’d just come in from and then back to him. Your breathing picked up slightly as you pulled your bag around your front, pulling out a burner phone.

  “What are they doing? What’s gaun on?!” Johnny asked from next to John. He didn’t want to push, but he was trying to angle himself so he could see you through the window as well. He wasn’t able to, making his panic only start to increase. Meanwhile, Simon took a few steps back from the door, starting to pace through the room. 

  “Ace? C’mon, hun, talk to us, what’s going on?” Kyle asked, standing anxiously behind John. He couldn’t see you. He needed to see you. See what was going on in your head. Why the hell you’ve locked them in here. He needs to know your plan. He wants to trust you, but he needs to see you first. He has to,

  “I-... Laswell knows the safe house isn’t safe. She knows where you are. Once the people upstairs leave, then- then our people will show up to let you out. It’s- it’s gonna be fine.” Your voice was shaking. Your terror was full force now that you’d gotten them safe. The next part of your plan wasn’t a part you enjoyed, but it was a part you had to do. You glanced at the exit door of the room again.

  “Darlin’, whatever you’re doing, you need to rethink it. You need to let us out. We can’t do anything from here. Let us out. Now,” John said. It started soft, but his tone turned commanding towards the end. He might be your alpha, but he’s also your superior as well, and you weren’t listening. 

  “Look, this- this isn’t the best scenario, obviously, but it- it’s needed, and- and I know you guys won’t agree with me, but- but-”

  “Agree wi’ what?! What are ye tryin’ tae do?!” Johnny asked. 

  John saw the tears that gathered in your eyes. He was so confused. Normally, he could read you like a book. He could always tell what you were thinking and why you were thinking it. But now he had no clue what was going on in your head. What were you trying to do here?

  Simon’s thoughts were racing. There was no way out. You locked them in. Why would you do this? Why would you just lock them in here? Could you possibly be a traitor? Had you been one all this time? Were you about to call whoever was upstairs down here to turn them in? Did you tell them that the group was here?

  No. That wasn’t the case. Not only did he refuse to believe that you’d betray them due to his own bias, but there was also your scent that was in the air. When your panic slipped through the scent blockers during missions, it helped him push through the mission just to get you out of the situation. When you two were falling asleep in his bed, your scent helped ground him. It helped keep him calm. Now, your scent was anything but calm. There wasn’t any satisfaction that there would be if you were a traitor. There wasn’t any happiness. You weren’t feeling smug. No, he could smell it, you were feeling terror. Panic. Hesitation.

  And yet, underneath all of that, Simon could sense the smallest bit of relief. He was hurt at first, taking it as relief that meant you were a traitor. But with everything else on top, he was mostly confused. He couldn’t understand why you would be feeling-...

  When the realization hit him, he froze. He looked to the door where John, Kyle, and Johnny were still trying to get you to explain. 

  “Just tell us what you’re doin’, please.”

  “They’re going to risk sacrificin’ themself.” 

  The room froze once Simon had muttered the words. Johnny turned back with the same force that he’d looked back at you earlier when you mentioned a way out. That isn’t right. Simon’s wrong. You wouldn’t do that. Simon’s lying. It’s a joke. A cruel, cruel joke that was out of place and he had no right to be saying right now.

  Kyle turned around as well, looking at Simon. He needed him to take his words back. Just take it back. Why would he ever suggest that? You- you couldn’t- you wouldn’t- you wouldn’t-

  Meanwhile, John stayed facing you. He’d gone quiet the minute Simon spoke. He stared at you, trying to read your face. You stood on the other side of the door, staring back. Your eyes were sad, but your stance was set. You made no move to let them out. And that was all John needed to see to realize that Simon was right. This was your plan all along. You never knew a way out. You hadn’t brought them here with the intention of getting everyone out. You didn’t even have a way to get them all out.

  No, you’d brought them here with a different intention. You’d brought them here to save them. To trick them and keep them safe while putting yourself in the line of danger. You were having no thoughts about letting them out now, dead set on your own plan. 

  It wasn’t right. John had a plan. It would’ve kept you safe. None of them would’ve ever let you be the one to go upstairs. And John knew that you knew that. He knew that you knew if you suggested being the one to surrender yourself the others would have shot you down immediately and brushed you to the side before continuing to argue. You wanted to keep them alive, and this was your way of doing that.

  John didn’t approve of your way. Not at all. He would’ve changed the plan. Would’ve gone with Simon’s instead. Anything but this. Anything but you being the one to get hurt. He was desperate to try and get through to you, but just looking at your eyes told him you were set.

  “Don’t do this, alright? Don’t,” he tried. He knew it wouldn’t work, but he had to try. His voice was desperate. Quiet. He wanted you to listen. He’d be on his knees right now if you would still be able to see him.

  “I’m sorry,” was all you said in response to him.

  And those words were what told Johnny and Kyle that Simon was right. You were trying to risk sacrificing yourself here. Kyle couldn’t even talk. Maybe this was a bad dream. He’d had a few like this before, ones where you sacrificed yourself to save them. Maybe it’s just one of those.

  Johnny, on the other hand, no longer had the restraint that he had before. He lightly pushed John to the side, who was too busy trying to think of a way to get you to not do this to care. 

  “Bonnie, ma heart, hen, luvbug, please, dinnae dae this, ‘kay? Open this door. Ye dinnae have tae dae this for us, ye understand? This isnae what needs tae happen, what needs tae happen is ye openin’ this door, aye? Just open the door, let us oot, we can figure it oot! One of us will go up, follow through wi’ his plan, no’ this.”

  You shook your head.

  “I can’t let any of you do that. You’re all too important.”

  “No’ as important as ye! Let us oot! We can dae somethin’! Talk, come up wi’ a different plan, kick their sorry arses, an’ if we get beat then we go down kickin’ an’ screamin’ together! Anything but this. We cannae lose you. We can no’. Open this door, come on, please.”

  “Technically, I’m not. You are all more skilled than me. I offer the least amount to the team. I’m the loss that won’t cost as much compared to the rest of you.”

  “According tae who?! Nae one who actually matters thinks that way aboot ye, open the door!”

  “The people upstairs still think there’s only one person here. They are expecting someone. I’m going to make sure they don't stop thinking that it’s only someone. None of you have to go up there and get into a fight you might not walk out of.”

  “No, no. That’s not what we do. We’re a team. We’re a pack, we stick together. Ye don’t get to just decide this fer aw us! Open the damn door, Ace, please!”

  You took a few steps forward towards the door. For a second, they thought Johnny’s pleading had gotten through to you. They nearly felt relieved when you lifted your hand.

  But why would things ever go their way? Your hand kept moving up, grabbing the smaller door to the window on the door.

  “Luv, no, no please-”

  “I love you. All of you. You’ve been better to me than I ever thought any pack would be. I’m eternally thankful for the way you all welcomed me in and everything you all have done-”

  “Cut it out. Quit it, you’re not saying goodbye.” John took his place in the window again as Johnny was dealing with the fact that you were shutting them out. He nearly stumbled when John lightly pushed him to the side, mind racing.

  John was fuming. How could he not have realized this? How could he not have seen the signs? He should’ve gone over the blueprints with you. Then he never would’ve fallen for you saying that there was a way out. He shouldn’t have brought you on this mission. He should’ve kept you at home. His gut had told him to do that, didn’t it? Or was he imagining that feeling in order to give himself more of the blame? He should’ve realized. You were his omega. You were their omega. How could he not have realized?

  “I’m sorry, John. I’m sorry, Johnny. I’m sorry, Kyle. I’m sorry, Simon.” You whispered your apologies one after the other, voice soft. You never said their names on a mission. You were a bit paranoid in that regard, not wanting any enemies to potentially hear and use it to get any information. You saying it meant you had truly made up your mind. There was no swaying you.

  John felt helpless. Johnny couldn’t get through to you, and neither could he. How would this even work? If you went up there and died, how would his life be without you in it? How would he function, how would he live? How would he wake up in the morning and not be met with your happy smile when he left his room? How would he get through his day without your random short texts of encouragement? How would he go to sleep without having seen you curled up on the couch, cuddling with Johnny and Kyle? How would he eat breakfast without seeing you dragging Simon along to eat with them?

  He shook his head. He wouldn’t have to do any of that. This… This wasn’t happening. None of this was happening. You were all at home, in the pack house. You were in the living room; there was some sports game on the TV that he wasn’t paying attention to. Simon was poking fun at Johnny for his enthusiasm; Johnny was overreacting to it. Kyle was bringing over some snacks. You were leaning back on John, your back against his chest as you smiled watching the other three. He was watching you. Their omega. His omega. Safe. You were safe. You had to be safe.

  Simon stepped forward, a bit more aggressive than he meant to be when he pushed John to the side.

  “Open this door. You’re not doing this. You’re not allowed; you understand me? I am ordering you to open this bloody door.” You only shook your head. The tears that had been in your eyes were now starting to fall down your face. A growl started to form in Simon’s chest as his fist slammed on the door. “Open it!”

  “I love you, Simon. I love all of you.”

  “No, no, don’t you fucking dare, I can’t lose y-”

  You closed the window.

 Johnny moved back over, slamming his hand on the door as he called out for you. Simon let Johnny push him over, currently in a state of shock. You ignored him. You always listened to him. You always listened to him. Why didn’t you listen? Why didn’t you just fucking listen?! Why were you doing this?! You crawled your way into their hearts, into his heart. Their hearts had built new walls around you to keep you inside, and yet now you were breaking those walls down from the inside without warning. How could you?

  John was the first to do something. He stepped forward, grabbing Johnny and pulling him away from the door.

  “What the fuck, Cap-”

  “You need to be quiet. This room seems to be soundproof, but if it isn’t, then they’ll ‘ear you and come down here. They’ll catch Ace.”

  “They’re gonna catch them anyway! They could end up gettin’ themselves killed, we need tae stop them!”

  “No, no, they-” John shook his head. “They said they might show mercy. When Ace goes up, they’ll buy us time for backup to get here. They’ll get out before they get hurt. They’ll be alright.”

  John had to believe it. He had to believe it wasn’t your plan to get yourself killed. The thought of you dying made him feel like vomiting. The thought of you going up there with all those people, not even trying to fight. The thought of your body- no. No, there’d be no ‘your body’, you were going to be fine.

  “That was a goodbye. They don’t plan on coming back to us alive.” Kyle said quietly as if he’d just had the realization himself.

  “Exactly! We have tae get oot o’ here, stop them, shout at them, drag them oot of here, somethin’! We have tae-”

  Simon walked over, grabbed Johnny, and pulled him further away from the door as he put a hand over Johnny’s mouth.

  “We can’t. There’s nothin’ we can do.” Johnny struggled for a moment, muffled disagreements leaving him as he tried to get out of Simon’s grip. Simon shook his head. “We can’t do anything except shut up and wait. If we get the attention to come down here, then what they did is for nothing. They might have a chance of bein’ spared, but if the people up there figure out they’re lyin’ and hidin’ us down here, they could get pissed off and just kill them anyway.”

  Johnny managed to push Simon away, going back to the door. He wasn’t planning on listening to Simon. Not when you were still alive and he could be trying to do something.

  “We could stop them, we just-”

  “No, we can’t,” John said, his tone final. It wasn’t a realization he wanted to come to, but he had to. There wasn’t anything they could do. 

  John motioned for Simon to grab Johnny again. Simon did just that. He grabbed Johnny, pulling him and getting him against the back wall. The beta froze before crumbling to the ground, his head in his hands. He was speechless.

  John and Simon stood still, not knowing what to do next. They couldn’t look at one another. They’d failed as alphas. Their betas were suffering. You were in danger, and they hadn’t gotten you out of it. Their omega was going to get hurt and they couldn’t do anything to stop it. 

  It was quiet for a few moments before Kyle spoke up.

  “...maybe they did know a way out and we all just couldn’t go through. Maybe the plan’s to get out and draw the attention away from here. Or maybe they’ll be able to fight their way out. I mean, yeah, sure, they’re outnumbered, but they do well in training. Maybe- maybe they’re quicker than they let on and they’ll take them lot down.”

  “They are definitely cleverer than we thought. Underestimated ‘em. They managed to trick us down here without us even fully giving it a second thought,” John said with a sigh.

  “No, they didnae trick us. They didnae trick us, they just….. It wasn’t trickin’. They wouldn’t. They…” Johnny was speaking quietly, a big difference from the anger and action he had shown only moments ago. He couldn’t properly grasp this, but he knew he didn’t like the idea of you ‘tricking’ them. That made you sound like a bad person. You were not a bad person.

  Kyle walked over, sitting down next to Johnny, feeling a need to try and comfort the other beta. He put a hand on Johnny’s shoulder, nodding.

  “This… This is just a confusing situation. They’re gonna be fine. They’ll find a way ou-”

  Kyle was interrupted by the muffled sounds of gunshots echoing through the house. It went on for about five seconds before they stopped.

  The group went silent. They stayed silent for another five minutes, waiting for something. Anything. More gunshots. The sound of you fighting. Maybe it stopped because you had managed to get away. Or maybe you managed to handle the people firing at you and the gunfire would start up again with you handling more of them. Or maybe there’d be more fighting and that would be the rescue team who would have a medevac to get you out. Treat whatever wounds you received. Maybe the door would open. Maybe it’d be you, coming to let them out. You changed your mind, the gunshots upstairs were actually the group of fifteen fighting amongst each other, you were coming back to them.

  However, nothing came. No pounds of fighting. No gunshots. No door opening. Instead, there were just quiet footsteps above their heads. Footsteps that walked out of the house and never came back.

  It was about 30 minutes before the door opened. It wasn’t you.

  As they exited the basement, they saw there were discarded guns on the floor. Bullet casings on the ground. Holes in the basement door and the walls around it. Blood on the floor.

  The blood pooled right in front of the basement door. It trailed out the front door like a body had been dragged. The trail went outside, the blood mixing with dirt and grass. It stopped and gathered at a spot in the driveway as if someone had dropped a body there before throwing it into a car.

  If that blood all belonged to the same person, there’s no way that they lived.

  There was a lot the group noticed. The blood, the guns, the bullet casings, the holes in the wall and the basement door.

  The main thing they noticed was the one thing that wasn’t there. 

  You.

  You were gone. They had lost you.

  They failed.

  It’d been a year. One whole year.

  The first three months were the worst. They’d given a bunch of lies to the psychological evaluator, claiming they were fine to work. It was a lie, and everyone knew it, but taking one of the best task forces out of the playing field wasn’t a good idea, even if it was temporary. They were silent on base. They didn’t talk to anyone unless it was during training or mission related. They didn’t look at each other. They didn’t spend time in the pack building unless it was to sleep. They were silent on missions. There were no playful jokes, no joking jabs. Nothing. Dead silence aside from orders. The base watched the closest group of people there become the most distant from each other.

  It was worse behind closed doors. In their pack building, tensions were high. The air was thick with the smell of anger and hurt. When they had to be in a room alone together, it was terrible. They’d screamed and shouted at each other when it was just them, pushing the blame back and forth. It wasn’t until Laswell caught one of these screaming matches that she was able to get the team into therapy. She’d talked to John, told him that it was for the better of the pack. At first, she was understanding of the refusal. However, when she asked the third time and was met with nothing, she knew she had to take a different approach. When John tried disagreeing, she told him that the pack had no choice. Either they went through with the therapy or else they’d be put on an indefinite leave. It’d been two months since your death when they all had their first meetings.

  It was one month of therapy before pack counseling had started. All of them were against it at first, not wanting to see each other. However, each of their therapists managed to convince them eventually. When the group first got together, it was silent. The only person talking during the session was the therapist. This went on for the next few weekly sessions. That was until the therapist managed to push a button.

  “You all blame each other… isn’t the omega the one at fault?”   It had been chaos. The screaming and shouting went on for about ten minutes. It turned into them screaming at the idea of any of them being blamed for what happened. Then, the group realized that the therapist hadn’t reacted at all. 

  “You’re still a pack. You think your omega dying has torn you apart, but the way you all just jumped to defend them? To defend each other? You’re still close, you still want each other. You just need to let yourselves want that. You think there’s no way to recover, but this has the opportunity to bring you all closer together than you were before. You just have to let it.”

  The sessions changed after that one. It was still quiet in the beginning, but they ended up willing to talk to each other. Then they ended up wanting to talk to each other. They started spending time together outside of sessions, started doing more things in the pack house. About half a year after losing you, they found themselves sitting on the couch together again. Cuddling. Holding each other. Helping each other.

  They got their act together. They had to. You never would’ve wanted them to tear themselves apart. You’d given yourself up for a reason. For them. If they were to throw that away, they’d be betraying you. They couldn’t do that. Not after what you did for them. Not after the sacrifice you had done for them. You’d given your life to keep them together, and they didn’t plan to let anything come in the way between them again. Your memory kept the pack strong.

  Missions had gone back to what they once were. They were similar to how things were before you had joined, but never the same. They all felt more protective over one another. The idea of losing another member of the pack kept them on their feet. Some thought it’d be their downfall, that it would distract them. It was the opposite. It encouraged them to work even harder to return home. If they died, your sacrifice would be for nothing. 

  Their next mission had come across John’s desk a few days ago. It was one where they’d be working with someone not on the task force, something they had only done one or two times since losing you. The only information on the person was their abilities and skills. John tried to find more on the person, but there was nothing. When he asked Laswell, she had told him it was all classified information. They wouldn’t know anything up until the mission briefing the day of. So, when the group walked into the meeting room, it was safe to say their curiosity was piqued by the lone figure against the wall.

  The figure wasn’t looking at them. They weren’t looking at anyone. They had a hood up and their face down, making it impossible for them to make out their features. Along with that, they had no scent. It wasn’t that their scent was just bland, it was that it wasn’t there. Even when they’d met the rare person who didn’t have a designation, that person still had a scent. It was normally something bland and basic, but it was still there. However, this figure had absolutely nothing.

  There wasn’t much time to ask questions before the briefing started. The four of them listened, but ever since seeing the figure they had a strange feeling in their stomach. A feeling they couldn’t quite describe. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t feel bad either.

  “I’m glad all of you could make it. We’ve got some very important intel on the line here, so I need everyone to listen very, very carefully.” 

  The Colonel giving the briefing was British, but it wasn’t someone who John had met before. Laswell knew him, and when he was asking Laswell for assistance with a mission, Laswell had offered the 141. The Colonel had the scent of an alpha. He looked to be much older than John, maybe in his mid-50s. 

  “There’s an organization that is attempting to weaken the military to open up the space for a larger attack over the past five years. They’ve been attacking officers in their homes away from base, attacking actual bases, and stealing intel. We don’t know why they are doing it, but we plan to find out. There’s a safe house we’ve been watching for a while now. The organization has been using it lately as a stop between transporting illegal weapons. We’ve seen a few of their higher ups go through here. Hawk-” The Colonel motioned to the figure. “-has figured out the next time one of these higher-ups, Christopher Stone, is going to be passing through. It’s going to be today at 2200. Grabbing this higher up is the best chance we have at getting the information we need to finally bring these people down.”

  “So we’re going in and nabbing a guy?” 

  John looked over to the other side of the table. He recognized the soldiers on that side. He’d seen them around base. They were from one of the better platoons on base. The man who had spoken up was the sergeant. John could smell the alpha all over him. It was as if the man was purposefully pushing his scent out into the world, trying to establish dominance. His lieutenant sat next to him, right across from John. The sergeant was sitting across from Simon and there were two other soldiers sitting across from Kyle and Johnny. All of them seemed to be alphas. They weren’t a pack, but John knew they worked well together. Not as well as his team, of course, but well.

  “You’re not doing that. Lieutenant Evans, you, Sergeant Brown, Corporal Davies, and Corporal Walker will be leaving here at 1800. You will be sat in different lookout spots around the base. They have a routine they do every time one of the higher-ups is passing through. They clean things up, set up more lookouts, get more people on the roof of the building with weapons. You will be looking for these things to happen. If they aren’t happening by 2000, then the mission will be aborted. If they are, however, then you need to let us know. Once we have confirmation that it’s happening, Task Force 141 will head over with Hawk.”

  “Understood, Colonel.” Lieutenant Evans said with a nod. Sergeant Brown didn’t seem all too happy about his task, but he stayed quiet.

  “How are we goin’ about this once we head o’er?” Johnny asked. The Colonel nodded towards Hawk.

  “They developed a plan to get you all in and out without needing to fire a bullet.” The group looked over to where Hawk was still leaning against the wall. Their position hadn’t changed, but they did seem a bit more tense than before. Their head was moved slightly further down, something that Simon may not have even realized if he hadn’t been paying such close attention to them in the first place. It was when Johnny spoke that they changed so slightly. They’d been a still figure the entire time, up until Johnny said something.

  “Without a single bullet? How many people are going to be in this safe house?” John asked, skeptical of this plan.

  “Fifteen to twenty people. But Hawk is smart. The plan is for you all to drive about a mile away from the house. Then, three of you will get out, along with Hawk. One of you will set up a lookout spot about halfway to the house while the other two keep moving forward with Hawk. Once there, Hawk will move forward while the two of you will stay in the trees. Hawk’s going to go through an unlocked window. Hawk broke the window lock last time they snuck in. Hawk will sneak through the house to unlock the cellar door. They’ll give you a signal over the radio and you two will get to the cellar door without drawing attention. From there, Hawk will lead you through the house. Hawk will take the lead. They can get rid of any threats you come across without raising any alarms. Not only that, but they know the safe house better than any of us. They know where to hide the bodies so you won’t get caught."

"At 2300, Stone will be sleeping. Hawk will sneak into the room while you two will take guard outside the door. They’ll knock him out. One of you will need to carry Stone while the other watches their back. Hawk will be focused on moving forward and creating a clear path for you to carry him back out through the basement and through the cellar door. Once out, you will alert those who stayed behind. You will meet halfway between the house and where the lookout is set up and then you will get in the car and drive. By this point, it is expected for someone in the safe house to realize Stone is missing or to find the bodies. You all need to be in the car and driving away, no delays. Do you understand?”

  “We understand, Colonel,” John responded.

  “I asked for the 141 because Laswell speaks very highly of you. This is an incredibly important mission. It can not go wrong.” 

  It was a surprise to everyone in the 141 when a familiar alpha scent of a warm fire entered the room.

  “And I told you, it won’t.” Through the door walked Laswell. She walked around the table to stand next to the Colonel as she spoke. “The 141 has had a near 100% success rate on all missions they’ve been on.”

  “I’m allowed to be cautious, Kate Laswell.”

  “And I’m allowed to tell you you’re being overdramatic, Oliver Green.”

  The Colonel sighed, shaking his head slightly, but there was an underlying small smile on his face.

  “I told you I could handle this briefing. You didn’t have to fly out.” Colonel Green stood up, shaking Laswell’s hand as she took her spot next to him.

  “You know you’re going to need my help with this. It’s complicated.”

  “You’re the one who suggested-”

  “I know, I know. Just let me do the talking here, alright?” Laswell turned away from Colonel Green, looking to Evans, Brown, Davies, and Walker. “You four are dismissed. Take the files in front of you with you. They have everything you need to know for when you leave in four hours.” The other four stood up with a nod, saying words of acknowledgment before doing as told and leaving the room. Laswell looked back to the 141. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”

  John gave a smile.

  “‘Bout six months, I think.” He said as he stood up and leaned over the table, shaking Laswell’s hand. Laswell shook it, but she remained standing when John sat back down. There was an open chair next to Colonel Green, but they’d both been standing since Laswell walked in. Why hadn’t they sat down?

  “Six months too long. I meant to make it out here for your last mission but got held up at home. My omega seemed to be going into heat, had to stay back to make sure they were alright.”

  Kyle nodded.

  “We understand, no big deal. Your omega comes first, yeah?” Laswell smiled.

  “Thank you.”

  “Ah take it they’re doing better? It’s aw good?” Johnny asked. Laswell’s smile widened.

  “Definitely. It’d been a false heat that got triggered by pregnancy.” The group’s eyes widened. John returned Laswell’s smile.

  “That’s amazing, we’re happy for you.” Laswell nodded.

  “Thank you, again. We’re very excited.”

  Simon spoke up next, and it changed the mood in the room.

  “Why’s this mission so important that you left your omega to come here?” Simon asked. 

  No alpha would leave their omega in another country without a reason. Laswell only did it a few times during the year to come over and check up on the task force, something she didn’t technically have to do. For Laswell to have left her pregnant omega, something big had to be going on. Something huge.

   When Simon asked his question, the rest of the room seemed to realize this as well. Well, the rest of his pack. Laswell already knew this, obviously, and it seemed like Colonel Green did as well. Hawk stayed against the wall with no reaction. 

  John sat up in his chair slightly along with Johnny and Kyle. he narrowed his eyes at Laswell, suspicion setting over him.

  “Ghost makes a good point. Everything alright, Kate?” He asked, glancing between Colonel Green and Laswell as the two exchanged a glance.

  Laswell sighed. She looked back at Hawk and then back to Price.

  “This is about to get really weird. You and your team might be very upset. Enraged. I need you all to try your best to stay calm.”

  John looked at Hawk who was becoming stiffer. He glanced at the rest of his pack, meeting their eyes and seeing the same confusion reflected. He slowly looked back at Laswell.

  “...what’s going on?” He asked. He was hesitant. He looked at Hawk once more, who’d turned their head away from the group entirely. 

  Colonel Green and Laswell exchanged another look before he sighed, looking back at Hawk.

  “Come on, kid.” Hawk did not move. “Hawk.” Once again, no movement. Colonel Green turned fully. “We discussed this already. You can’t get through this mission without your partners knowing and seeing your face. Come on.”

  The pack watched as Hawk stayed completely still. Despite the Colonel’s tone of instruction, Hawk didn’t move. They didn’t even begin to move. Colonel Green sighed, looking to Laswell.

  Laswell nodded, patting Colonel Green on the shoulder before walking over to Hawk. She stopped a few feet away.

  “Come on. We’ve been getting ready for this. You have to let them see.” Laswell’s voice was soft. The only time John heard that tone of voice was when Laswell was first suggesting therapy for the pack. It was meant to reassure, to convey empathy. To convince. 

  Johnny went to say something. This person didn’t need to show them their face. Sure, it’d make things a bit weird, but Simon hid his face during missions all the time. And Simon had his reason, so this person probably has them too. Before he could say this, however, Laswell shot him a look, shaking her head. Johnny stopped and no one else said anything, beyond confused.

  “At least the hood, alright? You can keep the mask, but the hood has got to come off.” 

  Hawk was still for a moment before their shoulders slowly dropped with a quiet sigh. Laswell nodded, taking a few steps to the side so they weren’t blocking the 141’s view of Hawk. 

  Hawk’s head lifted. Through the shadow of the hood, they could see that Hawk was wearing black a surgical mask. Their eyes were shut before they took a shaky breath, lifting their hands and pulling their hood back as they fully lifted their face, letting the light hit them and revealing themself to the group.

  Half of their face is covered. There aren't many notable features that can be made out through the mask. The one thing that can be made out, however, is their eyes. Those same eyes that all four members of the 141 saw in their dreams. Those same eyes that all four members of the 141 saw in their nightmares. The same eyes that they had last seen filled with tears, pleading for forgiveness and understanding. The same eyes that had once looked at them with such adoration and joy, now filled with a deep darkness and sorrow that the boys felt sinking into their very skin. 

  The quiet sits for a moment before it’s broken by a quiet whisper of your name.

[burreauxsss]

nobody has to know

background: y/n goes to a frat party and defies every warning her friends give her about the newest LSU quarterback joe burrow.

(all pics from pinterest, all rights reserved.)

notes: mix of social media/messages and fic writing, short blurb. also why do i lowkey want to go to the masters for the golf? its my dream

word count: 570

warning: implied smut, 18+, not proofread (similar storyline to my lamelo ball x wmba reader series)

As you're in your dorm getting ready for a party, the atmosphere calm as All the Stars by SZA and Kendrick Lamar murmurs in the background with your friend group waiting on you to finish up. Once you did, the group heads to the nearby off campus bar.

Walking into the bar for the party, after a long duration to find a parking spot due to almost being at max compacity, many girls stood around, talked, drinked and other things while the lights flashed. Almost everyone at the event attended LSU, including the athletes.

But you saw a group of people yell as the football players came in one by one, and one locked eyes on you as he walked in. Joe Burrow.

Your friends immediately pulled you to the side right after, like you were a puppy running away from its owner without a leash, as if it were a game. Obviously, you became defensive, but they looked right at you as they grabbed your drink mid-sip.

"Y/N. We're all going to tell you this one time, but Joe's a known player. He's a new quarterback from Ohio State, but he has a girlfriend, and he's just scouting side pieces so he can be pleasured here." Kamryn, your roommate, says as she continues to hold the drink in her hand.

If you deliberately roll your eyes, he wouldn't do that. Plus, if he had a girlfriend, they're probably over because he didn't take the starting quarterback offer somewhere closer you thought.

"Actually, we're not joking. We don't want you to get hurt when he blocks you one day or worse. Just stay away from him, okay?" another one of your friends calmly says as they give you the drink back and they go back to partying with other people.

Just as you start to walk towards him, you feel a hand tap your shoulder. You turn around and its Joe.

"Hey, you dropped your ID back at the bar. I was looking for you," the tall blue-eyed boy says, looking down at you.

"Oh, well thanks."

Keeping it simple as you take the ID out of his hand and you walk up to the bar, he offers to buy you another drink.

"Your outfit is really nice, lemme buy you a drink."

You thought about turning it down, but was this the only chance you'd probably have to talk to him before he goes to someone else? 'Backstabbing' your friends would be horrible, but he seemed nice. So what was the worst that could happen between you two?

After rebuying your drink of choice, somehow you both end up in his car an hour later. Sitting in the passenger seat, talking about why you're both at LSU, what it's like being from Ohio, and the differences in the humidity. You check your phone andsee a message in the group chat from your friends.

Joe saw a small fragment of the messages and immediately smiled. Although on his phone, he saw a text message notification. He ignored it as he turned off his phone, and undid his seatbelt and got into the backseat, then as he let y/n straddle him as he grabbed her shirt, knowing what was about to happen.

The next morning you wake up in your dorm hungover but a sense of satisfaction and soreness coursing through your body, on the other side Joe's phone blows up from his girlfriend Adeline clearly pissed about how shes being ignored per usual.

totallynoty/n

❤️ 2,300 💬 40

Liked by: itskarmyn joeyb_9 journ3y and others

totallynoty/n: we had a TIME last night

itskarmyn: hungover core

username_1: get back on that basketball court girl

journ3y: do we need to talk about what condition your dress is in right now or even where is it? totallynoty/n: nah im good.

username_2: joe liking this.. whats going on

*load more comments*

authors note: something different because im running off of god knows what right now. hope everyone liked this.

[supercutszns]

bitter to the taste; luke castellan

series masterlist

wc + pairing: 5.5k, luke castellan x f!reader

synopsis: a sharp blade, a black eye, and (more than) two kisses.

warnings: this is even sluttier than the last one, language, sword fighting, sharp objects, blood/injuries, reader is still a horrible person and so is luke but he's also a loooser, making out, allusions/mentions of sex but no super explicit descriptions, kind of fluffy at the end

notes: i’m starting to hate this bc i think i’ve been staring at it too long sorry if this is not as good as pt.1 but i have plans for this series ok. also READER AND LUKE ARE NOT GOOD PEOPLE!!! THEIR RELATIONSHIP WILL NOT ALWAYS BE GOOD!!! THEY SUCK!! they are also not real but keep that in mind :) synopsis inspired by crush by ethel cain; designated song for this fic is unpunishable by ethel cain (i’ve got a whole chronological playlist for these freaks like it’s serious)

You’ve always had a taste for violence. And an equally powerful penchant for sloth. 

You prefer to watch the carnage, not participate. It satisfies something inside you that you know, if it wasn’t for your laziness, could cause something irrevocable. Who the hell has time for that?. You’d rather lie back and watch instead.

This flaw of yours is the only reason you haven’t stirred more trouble, you think. It’s the reason you never attend camp games or sparring lessons. Sometimes, when you do, a dark muscle flexes inside your heart to curl out of its slumber, forming a hunger you don’t have otherwise. The second it starts to pry you have to rear yourself back and tuck the monster in. Banish the need for something more.

You don’t want to feed it. You don’t know what happens if you do. So you let other people do the feeding for you.

Luke cuts through two dummy heads in one swoop. It’s fucking gorgeous. The moon reflects off his sword, a silver sheen casting his face when he’s in the right spot. His brows are set, eyes so dark they blend with the night. Every motion is ruthless. Satisfying. 

You don’t know how many times you’ve watched him like this. He called you out for it last night, but you’re sure he doesn’t know the half of it. The shadows are a sacred cloak to you, and you wait inside them until you want your presence known. 

Meet me tomorrow. 

It runs through your head like a broken record. You can still feel his breath on your lips and your neck is still tender—had to wear a sweater in the blazing heat to hide the marks. Since you were created you’ve accepted a universal truth about yourself: you don’t harbour affection for anyone or anything. There’s not a single thing you’ve felt drawn to or protective over but yourself. It’s solitary, yes, and lonely, yes, but that’s the way you’re supposed to be. 

But you think about last night. You think about the moments between the kisses and the rush. When he teased you against your ear. When his hand brushed a certain spot on your back and something much lighter fluttered inside of you. When you crawled into sleep and thought about him, those were the moments that struck you the strangest. 

His gaze pans over the treeline every once in a while, the anger diluted. Then it comes back twice as hard as he shreds another dummy to pieces. 

He’s waiting for you. Oh, this is rich! A better person would probably turn around and go spoon their offerings into the bonfire the second they understand what they’re doing is incredibly destructive. But who are we kidding? You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t. 

So you take a step forward, slip out of the comfort of the dark, and the next time he looks to the treeline he knows you’re there. He can’t see you, but he knows. 

You wait. His strikes are less tenuous, much smoother. It almost makes you laugh. Some fucking showman he is. 

Eventually, he buries his blade in the dirt and wipes his brow. “Are you gonna come talk to me or are you gonna stare at me all night like an owl?”

You relish in the feeling of shedding the darkness, coming into the light of the moon. “Hi,” you say flatly, but there’s a tiny smile on his face when he sees you that almost puts you off. 

“Hello, rotten.” He tries to lean on the hilt of his sword but it isn’t quite tall enough so he stumbles. It’s so pathetic it almost makes you laugh. 

“Don’t call me that,” you grimace.

“Okay, back to heathen?”

“Don’t call me that either.”

“Well, you don’t seem too happy when people call you by your name so pick your poison here.” 

You don’t say anything, your mouth set in a scowl. “All right, both it is,” Luke shrugs.

He’s different from last night. Less impatient. You hope it’s not because he thinks he has you now—he’s got another thing coming. “I almost thought you weren’t gonna come,” he says with a crooked grin, neither bashful nor ashamed. 

You’ve made your way closer to him, the soft grass turning to dusty earth. “Don’t know why I did,” you mutter crassly. 

Having abandoned his sword, Luke chuckles wryly. “Yes, you do.”

That bitterness he hides from everyone else pierces through. He tilts your face up like he did yesterday, the press of his fingers beneath your chin almost burning you. You know he’s peering at the marks on your neck. 

“If you made me come here just to hook up with me you’re delusional,” you glare. 

“What, like that’s not why you’re here?” He pushes your face up a little higher, grinning a little when you add resistance. “I’m a gentleman, you know. I can be patient.”

This guy is full of fucking shit.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” you snipe. The only point of contact you have is his hand on your chin, but you’re a hair’s breadth away from having everything else. The air drifting between you is almost palpable, shrinking smaller and smaller like it’s terrified of being trapped between you.

He keeps your face still. He’s studying you, and you’re suddenly curious about what he sees. You remember all those looks you’d share at the dinner tables that made this happen in the first place. What did he see then? 

“You wanna fight?”

It takes you a second to react. “What?”

“You want to fight. Pick up a sword, let’s go.” He smiles as he finally lets you go, waltzing away from you to unbury his sword from the dirt. His touch permeates through your skin and you hate it. 

“What the fuck are you talking about? I can’t fight.”

“Sure you can,” he replies, grabbing another sword from the training rack. “You need to burn off a little steam.”

You laugh sharply. “And you think me waving a sword around is gonna do that?”

“Uh, yeah,” he grins. “It’s the method that lets us keep the most clothes on.” 

You glare at him. His smirk is a mile wide. The way your stomach is simmering almost makes you sick; it’s like gorging yourself on candy except this time the candy has a sword and maybe wants to fuck you. 

You just watch as he hands you his sword, and the moonlight glinting off the metal has you believing it’s not the kind used for training. “I’ll use the dull one,” he assures. “C’mon, heathen. I know you’ve used a sword before, they force us to.”

“I usually skip those classes.”

He laughs. You can’t tell if it’s at you or with you. “Of course you do.”

You don’t like following orders, but oh, what the hell. Luke knows something about you, just like you know something about him. You’re only a little curious about it. 

“Straighten your back,” is the first thing he says once you’ve taken your stance across from him. The blunt of his sword reaches out to tap your hip. 

You begrudgingly do as you’re told. He watches you mirthfully, and the press of his sword against you starts to feel like a substitute for his hand. All the closeness you’re hungry for, dampened by cold steel. It still makes you buzz. 

He gives you the barebones—the right grip, how to maneuver, the proper balance. But long gone is his easy disposition. The motor inside him that powered all those dummy beheadings and disembowelments is running again, except this time it’s for you. He wants a fight. This is his battlefield. All right, you’ll bite.

You start to spar with the skill of an overgrown toddler. The sword feels like an unnatural ligament hanging off your body. Luke is precise, convicting, far more enthusiastic than you. “You can do better than that,” he prods after your swords clash lazily for the billionth time. “Stop going easy.”

“You’re going easy,” you shoot back. 

“Yeah, but I’d really rather not. Come on.” 

There’s a moment of hesitation. You think about that dark thing you keep harboured. A muscle aching to be used. 

“Come on,” he says again, and he almost sounds pissed. “All of a sudden you’re playing nice? What are you afraid of?”

Something flares inside you. “Nothing!”

“Then pick up the sword and fight me.”

You huff and roll your eyes, but your next swing is far more inspired. Luke blocks it easily, but you don’t care. “There we go,” he nods. “Again.”

This is more than you bargained for when you decided to come see him. All you want is to make out with this hot, awful person and have him tell you hot, awful things about yourself you probably already know. Why do you have to fight to get it? 

He keeps provoking you no matter how hard you try. Your temper picks up the more you swing, discordant clangs bruising the air, but it’s still not enough. Luke doesn’t let up. Of course the one time you try to be nice, you’re not allowed to. On second thought, why are you reigning yourself in for Luke? The only other person in camp with a real, consuming viciousness? If anything you should hit him twice as hard, since he’s so sure he can take it. 

“No wonder you’re so angry all the time,” Luke heaves out, and it gives you a swell of satisfaction. “You don’t have a proper outlet. Maybe you’d be nicer if you didn’t sit around and complain all day.”

“Shut up,” you gnash your teeth. 

“Just saying, maybe you should do something about it.”

You’re getting lost in the rhythm of the swords, the adrenaline, the sweat passing the scar on his cheek. Every swing you think less and less, and that dark muscle flexes more and more. It feels like home to you. Like a good meal. Your bones ache and the world has darkened, but that rotten pit inside you cracks open in full bloom. 

Luke keeps egging you on but you can’t hear him. Not like he still needs to. You think you’re smiling, or huffing furiously, or both. The sharpness of the sword intrigues you. A million terrible things reflect off its blade and you imagine them, all at once, until you are out of your body and the black hole inside you has properly wedged itself open. 

Luke jabs at you and you bring your sword down with a vengeance. But it’s a little too low. You only notice when he drops his weapon to the side and staggers back.

The fog of violence falters. It fades almost completely when he hisses long and hard, eyes screwed shut, and you see the tear in his shirt. In his skin. 

“Shit,” you say. “Fuck.”

You don’t sound sorry, you don’t think you are sorry, especially when he laughs. It’s a wheezy one through his teeth as you come up to him, but a laugh nonetheless. “Knew you were going easy,” he remarks through a wince. 

You ignore him, looking down at the injury. A  gash across his abdomen. It’s bleeding a little, but not enough for it to drip. You did that. Just looking at the blood, you feel the bitter taste of it in your mouth, the reward a temporary hunger for carnage brought you. This is why you don’t play camp games. 

“I’ve got thick skin. I’m fine,” Luke says casually. “I’ve got a medical kit under that tree over there in case I beat myself up too bad.” He’s no longer scrunched in pain, and you’ve got a feeling he’s telling the truth. So you go fetch the kit where he said it was. You need to wrap that slash. Not because you’re sorry for him, but because looking at it makes you angry. 

You kneel and pop the lid of the small tin kit, covered in dirt. It’s mostly gauze and bandages. Rubbing alcohol too. “Just give me the gauze, that’s all I need,” Luke gestures. 

“Shut the fuck up, I’m doing it myself.” You’ve already torn off some gauze, sitting all the way up on your knees. 

“Most people just say sorry.”

“You pushed me,” you spit back, surprisingly forceful. Luke’s smile drops. You take a deep breath, adjusting yourself to get eye level with the injury. “I told you I don’t fight.”

You’re not sure what makes Luke give in, but he doesn’t say a word as you lift the hem of his torn shirt and he holds it up. There’s no proud remark about your eyes lingering on his stomach, or the hesitation in your hands. You stare at the wound. It really is shallow. Your thumb presses at the skin around it and he winces. “My bad,” you mutter. 

As you sterilize the cut and wrap the gauze around his torso, you try not to let your fingertips cling to the warmth on his skin. You try not to notice the other scars littered there, most faded to the point they should be impossible to pick up even in the sun. It’s obvious he’s staring at you. Your neck is crawling with warmth. But you don’t engage, you just wrap the gauze a few times and do your best not to notice the rise and fall beneath his muscles as he breathes. Then you fasten things neatly and put everything away so you can get up. Any second. Come on. 

“Good?” You ask instead, exhaling. 

“Good,” he affirms. He slides a hand under your forearm and gets you up. It stays there once you’re standing. The night stills. 

“I’m guessing you’re adding ‘attempted killer’ to your list of horrible qualities,” you go on to break the silence.

He holds your gaze unyieldingly. “I’d consider that a pro, actually.” 

You are entirely fed up with this drawn out evening, but you can’t bring yourself to speed anything up any more than stepping closer so your chests brush. “I will give you one, though,” he continues, craning down to your ear. You smell his skin and it sends you back to the position you were in yesterday. 

He finally kisses your jaw, just once, then your neck. You shiver. “You’re too tense.” Another kiss behind your ear. It’s not enough. “Do you even know how to have fun?”

“I don’t want to have fun,” you reply bitterly. I just want to make out with you, asshat.

Luke’s breath frosts over your face when he chuckles, but before he can get any further away you catch his mouth with yours. Almost instinctively his arm winds around you to pull you in closer, your hand looping through his curls. It's a relief, knowing last night wasn't some freak accident. This does feel good, actually, and it can happen. Everything you felt yesterday is only more urgent now, hungrier, and you're pretty sure the way you kiss him gives that away.

He indulges you, squeezing the base of your hips as his other hand thumbs across the marks on your neck. This is so fucking embarassing—you think you whine when he bites down on your bottom lip. You’ve never needed something this bad, you’ve never needed anything. But you press yourself as close to him as you can manage and his hand runs lower, slips against your inner thighs, and it’s difficult to worry about anything else. 

Until he pulls away. Like a dick. 

He doesn’t go far, his forehead pressed to yours, but you feel like pulling out all his hair. It’s a muddling mix of frustration and longing you’re starting to associate with him. “Dude,” you groan, an inner coil only starting to unwind begrudgingly compressing. 

“Let’s go for a swim,” he says. The enthusiasm is almost alarming. Almost makes him look younger.

You’re homicidal. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Yes, heathen. Let’s go for a swim, come on.”

He’s rubbing circles on your thigh, which only makes you want to strangle him. “But I—I don’t have my bathing suit,” you string out. 

The smile gets more boyish. “Wow, whatever shall we do?”

It’s another challenge. Another dare. And he knows what you want, fucking jerk. You’re going to kill him. 

“Fine,” you grunt, and the second the words leave your lips you’re pulled to the lake. 

It’s a warm, sticky evening, only made worse with the sweat and the half-assed kissing, so the water doesn’t seem all that bad. Unfortunately, you don’t like giving into demands. So you stare ghoulishly at your fingernails as Luke tosses off his ripped shirt and his shorts so he can plunge into the lake. “Aren’t you going to at least come in?” He asks, but you don’t look at him. 

“I don’t like swimming,” you lie. 

“At least your feet. It’s nice, I swear!”

A splash, like smoke moving through wind chimes. You look up and Luke has completely submerged, popping his head up closer to the mouth of the dock. “Please,” he says with such conviction your resolve turns to butter. Gods, what is happening to you? You still need that lobotomy! 

You sigh, roll your eyes, turn your back to him. “Fuck this,” you mutter under your breath. You undress to your undergarments and you’re not sure if you want Luke to be watching or not. The moon touches your bare skin and a chill trickles through you. 

You take a seat at the edge of the dock, knees tucked to your chest. Luke swims over for you right away. His hair is dripping against his skin, and you hate how beautiful it looks. The waterline is high tonight, almost ridiculously so, so he props his elbows up on the dock with no problem. “Come in,” he urges. 

“No.”

“Just your legs?”

“No.”

“Gods, I’ll make it worth it, just throw your damn legs in!” 

Your eyebrows shoot up. His face is stubbornly pink. Oh, so now he wants something. You take your time uncurling yourself and Luke wades away from the dock so you can put your feet in. The water goes up to your calves, and you shiver. “So fucking difficult,” he mutters, and your pulse flickers. 

“Sorry, what was that?” You let yourself grin for the first time all night. 

“Nothing,” he hums. This time when he comes to the dock, he wraps his hands around your calves. You’re pretty sure he can stand here because he stops treading. The warmth of the water seems to spread further, long past the threshold of your knees. 

He rests his chin just above your knee, water pooling on your skin. “Stop dripping on me,” you complain. 

“Sorry.” He fake pouts when he kisses the damp spot. You see, ever so faintly, a diabolic shift in his expression. He nudges your leg with the point of his nose, then kisses it, then starts to move it aside. “Feel bad about teasing you all night,” he murmurs, still with an edge. He presses more kisses on your legs. “I really did want to see you.”

The irony that he’s still teasing is not lost on you. You’re not loving how desperately warm you’re starting to feel. “Why’s that?” You lean back on your palms. 

“You’re a very interesting person,” he quips innocently. His hands are cupping the backs of your calves. He’s pulled you a lot closer to the water, and somehow you’ve just noticed. Another blistering kiss on the inside of your thigh. 

“You’re fucking evil,” you scathe. 

He looks up at you from between your legs. “You have literally done nothing but berate and injure me this whole evening.”

“Yeah, and right after I patch you up you jump in the water for shits. You’re playing infection roulette, Castellan.”

“See? You’re so mean.” He sighs, and in a move that almost surprises you to death, he hoists both your legs over his shoulders and they dangle into the river behind him. “And here I am anyway, making it up to you.”

You are suddenly illuminated on the purpose of this situation. Why Luke is between your legs. Your heart jolts. “Luke, you can’t be serious.” 

“Mmhm.” He leans forward to kiss right under your navel. 

You hate how much you want him to do it again, how your body burns, but you avert your eyes. “Someone’s gonna—someone’s gonna hear us.”

He snorts, “No they won’t. Either this or you come in the water with me. Or both. We’ll see.”

A huge smile cracks across your face before you push it back down. You’re going to spend a lot of time coming back to this moment, this night, wondering why. “What is wrong with you.”

It comes out like a compliment when it leaves you. You want to vanish. Luke chuckles, and something foreign to the both of you buzzes through the air. 

“Are you going to be nice?” He asks against your skin. 

“Are you going to be quick?”

His mouth finds your hip bones and yeah, why the hell would you say no to this? He nods, “Swear.” 

That’s all you need. You let your eyes slide shut and your head tilts towards the sky. Luke takes your permission and runs with it, pries you open with his mouth until the stars soak through the black of your eyelids. 

You discover pretty quickly neither of you are good at keeping promises. 

The next time you need Luke’s med kit, he’s already awake. 

It’s been happening more and more often. You lurking around camp past moonrise and finding Luke outside his cabin, going for a walk or a stretch or a … something with you. 

“Do you ever sleep?” You ask him sometimes between flurries of kisses with your back against a tree. 

“Could ask you the same thing, heathen,” he squeezes your hips and nips at your neck, but never answers the question. And neither do you, so you’re both okay with it. You’d hate to give up this feeling, but he doesn’t need to know that.

This is the first time in your punitive life you have felt alive. Like a person, with bones and flesh and soul, a real presence. Not a ghost of smoke and shadow. You are real. 

Fooling around makes you feel like an actual teenager. You’re young, you remember when Luke joins you in the dark. You’re having fun. His hands under your shirt and his mouth on your collarbone, the way he bites down and winces when you do something a little too well, when you string out his name and he rewards you for it. You’re both greedy, insatiable people, so there’s a push and pull only the two of you would ever be able to handle. And nobody has to know. Despite all the bruises, the sleepless nights, the swollen lips, all you and Luke share in the daylight are noxious looks, and that's only if he can find you. A perfect crime. Camp Half-Blood’s angel and the vice that lives in the shadows. But in the dark, it’s hard to tell which is which. 

“Luke,” you whisper. “Luke.”

“I’m up,” he grumbles, peering up at you. “You shouldn’t sneak into my cabin.” He was already sitting up in his bed when you slipped in, and he didn’t notice you were there till you were right in front of him.

“Worried someone will catch me? You should know better.” 

He follows you outside so you don’t wake the other campers. There’s a thrill knowing just one interaction between the two of you could ruin both your reputations forever. 

“What is it, heathen?” He asks as the door closes behind him. It’s so dark and your back is turned to him, but his voice is drenched in smugness. “You don’t usually want to put up with me more than once a night.”

“Don’t have a choice,” you mutter, staring out at the camp. You go to chew on your bottom lip, but you wince immediately. “Where’s your kit thingy? The one we used after I impaled you.” 

“You mean after you lightly grazed me?” 

“Just tell me where it is, Luke.”

Your sharpness could cut through any sleepy daze he possibly has. He’s silent behind you for a second. “Why?” He asks.

“Because I need it.”

His hand curls around your shoulder and before you can think to submerge yourself in darkness, he turns you around. When he sees you, his face breaks from something proud to something … you’re not sure you like. “Oh, heathen,” he murmurs. “What happened to you?”

You guess it’s a semi-appropriate reaction, although you expected at least a grimace. To put it lightly, your face looks gnarly as fuck. There’s a bruise on your cheekbone and your lip is split. But what really draws attention is the half-formed, garish black eye swelling up your right side. 

“Just the usual. Pissed someone off.” It hurts the skin on your lip that’s caked with blood. 

He rests his thumb on your unbruised cheek, but somehow it still stings. You know he can’t see much of you in the dark but he tries. The prolonged eye contact without the imminent promise of a kiss feels foreign. “You need to go to the Apollo cabin,” he concludes, brows pushed together. 

A laugh slips past your broken lips. “No fucking shot. They would not help me.”

“Why not?”

“Because one of their shit-eaters did this!”

The words take a moment to register. You see them filtering through Luke’s brain. He blinks absurdly. “An Apollo guy beat you up?”

“Not beat up. Just … tussled.”

“How much tussling earns you a black eye, exactly? From Apollo kids.”

“Gods, just tell me where your kit is so you can go back to fucking sleep.”

His fingertips inch around the back of your neck, thumb still against your face. “Already wasn’t sleeping. I might as well help you,” he shrugs. “I move the kit every once in a while so some other campers don’t ravage it.”

“I don’t need help.”

Luke opens his mouth, then sighs deeply. He takes a firm hold of your arm and starts to tug you along. “Hey, what—” you swat at his arm. 

“You’re ridiculous,” he huffs. “Come on.”

It’s strange. Luke’s never done you a favour before. At least not one like this. You’re disgruntled enough that you had to go ask him in the first place and now he’s dragging you around? “This isn’t such a big deal, Luke,” you badger. “I’m fine.”

“Sure, whatever. Wait right here.” He lets go of you and only then you realize you’re in front of the Apollo cabin. You grimace, and Luke must have noticed because he says, “Don’t worry, I’m just gonna go inside and grab some things. No one’s gonna jump you.”

You scowl at him, and he just laughs. A part of you hopes he hits his head on the way in. You hide anyway. 

It’s a few minutes of waiting in the oppressive summer heat, until Luke emerges from the cabin with his hands full. He looks around, hesitantly calling, “Heathen?” Then again. You move out of your hiding spot and he jogs over to greet you. 

“Nice haul,” you comment. There’s an ice pack, cotton pads, a few miscellaneous items. “How’d you get them?”

He smiles widely. “Everyone loves me, heathen. It’s not hard.”

“…So you stole them.”

“Yes, but only because I’m too tired to talk to people and I’m protesting for your sake,” he rattles off. “Now hold this ice pack before it gives me frostbite.”

The two of you make your way down to the docks again. It’s morphed into your usual meeting place, since the waves lapping at the shore mask when Luke gets a little too noisy just to piss you off. (At least that’s what he tells you.)

He’s stashed his little tin in a different tree this time. After he retrieves it he sets everything out like a chef preparing to make a meal out of gauze and rubbing alcohol. 

Your head has been throbbing for the past few hours. You’re not proud that you antagonized the wrong Apollo kid and got a shiner for it. You’re less proud that you came to Luke for help. Just like everyone else does.

“Come,” he gestures, tugging at the waistband of your pants. You scoot closer to him and swallow the weight of your pulse when he touches you. 

Luke slowly presses the ice pack to your black eye, letting you hold it. “What did you do to earn this, anyway?” He asks, head tilted to the side. 

You’re hissing because of the ice, half-consciously shifting into him. “The usual. Spat at him. Made fun of his daddy a little too much. Tripped him so he landed face-first in his offerings.”

“You did not,” Luke laments as he dots alcohol onto a cotton pad. 

“You’re allowed to say you’re proud of me, Saint Castellan. I won’t tell. You can be mean.” Your voice drips with irony, and you hope it bothers him. The flex in his jaw gives it away. 

“You’re always gonna be meaner,” is all he says back. “This is gonna hurt.”

It’s all the warning he gives before he presses the pad against your lip. The sting envelops you immediately, and your good eye squeezes shut. “Shit, ow!” 

“Stop moving your mouth.”

“Fuck,” you swear anyway. Your lip burns so hard you can feel it in your teeth. 

Luke holds your jaw with his other hand so you can’t shy away. “I’ll kiss it better,” he teases. “Almost done.”

You roll your eyes, but Luke takes the pad off a few moments later. “Serious question. How are you so awful to people all the time?”

A groan tears through your throat with such force your head tilts back. “Not you too! I don’t need a fucking reason, there is no reason. Why doesn’t anyone get that?” 

“I’m not asking why. I’m asking how.”

He’s oddly serious, the caress of his thumb on your cheek far slower. You hate it when people want a reason why you’re like this, just to help them sleep at night. But from the bags lining Luke’s eyes, sleep doesn’t seem to be on his radar. 

“I just don’t care,” you admit, shrugging. “I don’t care about any of them. I don’t care about what they can do to me. I don’t care about anything.”

“…What about the Gods?”

It makes you cock your head. “Huh?”

“You wouldn’t care about them, either?”

You think, but only about which words to use. “No,” you decide, “They don’t scare me. They’re nothing. What are they gonna do to me?”

Luke snorts, almost nervously. “Uh, punish you for saying that, for one.”

You turn back to him, ice pack leaving your eye as you gesture. “How? By killing me? Pecking out my eyeballs? Burning me alive? I’m telling you, I don’t care. I don’t care about anything. It’s all just nothing to me. I’m fucking unpunishable, I’d like to see them try.” 

Huffing, you look back up at the firmament of stars. Luke says nothing. 

The grass rustles as he shifts, and his mouth ghosts over the bruise on your eye. “Unpunishable,” he murmurs, like he’s testing it out. Then he places an uncharacteristically gentle kiss just beneath your eye. And another just above. “We’ll see about that.”

You get that feeling again, the unbearable lightness in a place it shouldn’t be. Mixed with the poison lodged in your heart. 

Luke kisses you, still so delicate that you wonder if he’s been body-snatched. If anything, your bleeding lip feels soothed against his. His hands cradle your face with no ferocity at all. It seems wrong. 

“How do you feel?” He asks after pulling away, dark eyes nebulous and wide. The night usually sharpens his features. Now, they’ve been hushed.

“Um, better,” you reply. 

He hums, laying a slow trail of kisses on your jaw. “Did you at least get the other guy?” He asks between kisses. “Like, did you hurt him?”

“Not really,” you divulge, wondering if you should feel shame. 

“Why?” He’s made his way to your neck now, nudging your jaw up so he can kiss behind your ear. 

“I’m not a fighter.” And, without warning, for a reason you will never, ever be able to explain, your tongue adds, “I’m a killer.”

Your own brows furrow. Luke pauses for a moment, but knocks his nose against your neck. “Guess one of us has to be.”

There’s no more fooling around. No snappy insults, no feverish kisses, no hunger to be satiated. Luke just checks you over a few more times, hides his med kit, and you both get up to sleep. But his hand wraps around your wrist, far less firm than when he dragged you here. “Stay in my bunk, heathen,” he offers. “Leave in the morning.”

You think you’re making a mistake when you agree, but it doesn’t feel like one. 

The next day, after you’ve left Luke’s bunk, rumours float around camp that Luke Castellan accidentally butted some Apollo kid in the face with his sword during training. Caused a bloody, broken nose. Luke was very sorry, apologized profusely. 

But you know, by the way he takes you behind the stables that night, that he didn’t mean a single damn word.

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[kikitakite]

I saw your callout in the Gale tag for that one user (no comment on them, tho ty for the callout bc i'd seen them in the notes of my fics) and was curious if you could elaborate on some of the Mystra incidents you described towards the end of the post? I'm new to the lore of the setting and find it hard to research (which makes sense given its importance to dnd), so I've heard a lot of conflicting things about Mystra's portrayal in the wider series. No pressure, obviously!

No problem! And yea, I've seen her arguing in the posts of a few people I follow or just Gale-related posts I find interesting. Usually I don't get involved in stuff like this, but I noticed a constant pattern and then all the homophobic shit so I went off a little.

Unfortunately it's hard to find exact examples of the Mystra lore because certain modules aren't very popular or even free to access, but if you're interested the best way to learn about her is by reading the Elminster novels. There's twelve total, dating all the way back to 1994, and they detail Elminster's adventures. I'll be honest though, some of them are a hard read and written through the lens of a man who's admitted very creative, but also has a lot of problematic ideas.

In the first book Elminster is a child. His entire town gets wiped out by mages, thereby making him hostile toward magic. He sneaks into Mystra's temple to deface her statue one night, but she appears before him and basically gaslights him into learning magic and becoming her rare Chosen. He becomes a wizard and cleric basically overnight, until eventually he multiclasses into pretty much every class type in DnD. As you can imagine a lot of players aren't too fond of Elminster, as he's a well known self-insert of the author and pretty annoying to run into during campaigns. None of my dungeon masters like him anyway.

He also becomes one of Mystra's most loyal followers, but she fucks with him over and over, turning him into a woman to teach him a lesson and SLEEPING with him in that form, berating him when he struggles with the torture he endures when he gets stuck in the hells, making him reproduce without his knowledge and getting jealous when he gives his partners more attention. Because she's a very jealous goddess, which I think the game vaguely touches on but not really.

I wish I had the time to flip through all the novels and give exact citations but the best I can do is suggest them, because they're so eye opening. She's considered a neutral good goddess, but neutral gods often do terrible things for the sake of their domain. I think it needs to be noted that Mystra, as with all gods in the pantheon, only cares about her portfolio. She isn't wrong for that, but it doesn't mean she's blameless when she messes with people's lives. She's done a lot of good but she's also made horrible decisions, especially where her followers are concerned.

For example, Elminster having children he doesn't know about. He has a daughter named Narnra. Her conception was... pretty fucked up. Basically a song dragon named Ammaratha Cyndusk was an occasional lover of Elminster's (he has a lot of those because of course he does) and she wanted to bear his child, but since he's a Chosen of Mystra he can control his fertility. Magic birth control, basically. He didn't want a kid so Ammaratha went behind his back to learn a counterspell that would make him fertile during sex. The man she asked refused to teach her because...duh that's messed up, but then Mystra intervened and told him to teach her the spell because she wanted Elminster's "seed to spread". Ammaratha never told him and neither did Mystra. No matter what the reasons, that was NOT consensual on Elminster's part, and it happened two more times, resulting in two more daughters with different women. If I remember correctly Elminster did eventually find out waaaaay later when they were all adults, but it never amounted to anything.

The sisters I was taking about are the Seven Sisters, Mystra's "daughters". And I put "daughters" in quotations because Mystra possessed the body of a woman named Elué and impregnated her without her consent. She slept with the woman's husband (again, while possessing her body) and made them sire seven children. This of course lead to Elué's death because the constant flow of magic in her body was too much for her to handle. Her grieving husband broke after she died and eventually left, abandoning his daughters and earning Mystra's scorn...as if he was in the wrong. The sisters were then orphaned and raised by foster families.

That said, most of the awful things anyone can say about Mystra were the doings of her previous incarnations so ultimately it doesn't apply to the Mystra of BG3. In fact, this third Mystra is supposed to be a new and improved goddess who's nicer to her followers. So her portrayal in BG3 annoyed a lot of DnD fans. I should also point out that Mystra has two types of fans: ones who will defend everything she does, even when it's fucked up beyond all comprehension, and the ones who will tell you she's a true neutral goddess capable of good and bad. I'm the latter. There are plenty examples of Mystra sticking her neck out for innocents, but there's also examples of her doing the most horrendous shit imaginable.

A lot of veteran players, at least the ones I know, are upset with the portrayal of Mystra in BG3 because her plan to end the Absolute is, quite frankly, stupid. Your party is the best chance anyone has of ending the threat, but she asks Gale to nuke himself and possibly tens of thousands, which makes no sense because she could've just sent her mages/clerics to deal with the problem. And there was no guarantee the bomb would've worked anyway. She put all the responsibility on one man and it DEFINITELY comes off as vindictive. That isn't out if character for her but she's not SUPPOSED to be that bad anymore. For a lot of DnD players it felt like she was reverting back to her old habits.

I think there's also a part in the game where you can directly ask Gale why she doesn't just blip the Absolute out of existence and he says something like, "She could but Ao won't allow it." That was also really strange for a lot of veteran players to hear because Gale drops Ao's name like it's nothing. Most people (especially if they're new to the franchise) wouldn't know this but most people in Faerûn don't know who Ao is! Because he wiped people's memories of his existence! I suppose it does make sense for Gale to know that name, since Mystra probably explained the pantheon to him, but it's VERY unlikely tav would know it. So during that conversation all I could picture was tav tilting their head like, "Huh? Who? Whaaa?"

And on top of that......Ao absolutely WOULD allow it because the Absolute effects the Weave and every other god! It had the potential to ruin the balance of the universe, which makes Ao a very angry boy. Balance is one of the ONLY things he cares about. The Dead Three were stealing souls and worshippers, which gods needs to survive, and dying gods disrupts the balance. It's a whole circle of chaos. So the only conclusion left for me to extrapolate is this: Mystra just really, really wanted Gale to kill himself to prove his devotion to her. Which...isn't great. Bad look for her.

It's kind of like how Raphael thinks the Crown of Karsus is going to help him end the Blood War and take over the hells. DnD players laughed during his epilogue because...no it won't lol. He doesn't stand a chance even with the crown. He's arrogant and he's gonna get slapped by his daddy and all the other archdevils, the same way Gale gets slapped by Mystra if he ascends. Even the Absolute ending of the game wouldn't last long because the gods would go to war with the Dead Three, wipe them out and rebuild Faerûn, which has happened many times in past DnD campaigns. Mystra alone has torn worlds apart and glued them back together. The main crisis of BG3 is saving the world you live in or everybody dies. For the gods it's just a Tuesday. I mean look at how Withers owns the Dead Three with a wave of his hand at the end of the game. Mystra COULD'VE killed the Absolute, just as she could've removed the orb from Gale's chest the moment it happened. She just didn't WANT to. She wanted him to die. She wanted him to chastise himself. She wanted him to suffer and come crawling back to her as an obedient follower. She wanted him to learn a harsh and honestly unfair lesson, which is a terrible throwback to her previous incarnations.

[hellvst]

OFFSEASON – quinn hughes

featuring ; quinn hughes x fmc (sydney gray)

✮⋆˙ warning & content ; swearing

✮⋆˙ word count ; 4.1k

✮⋆˙ previous chapter – series masterlist – next chapter

a/n ; hey...it's been over a month oops! was in a bit of a writer's block, but i'm here now. i am not abandoning this lol, i have a lot of ideas planned for this fic :D not proofread! happy reading <3

CHAPTER SEVEN

SYDNEY

Note to self: No matter how desperate a coworker asked you to fill in for them on a Saturday, don’t do it. 

I hadn’t planned on working today. The weekends were my days off, but Micah–one of the other instructors at the studio–had texted me this morning, practically begging me to cover for her classes because she had an emergency.

The moment I stepped inside the studio, I was met with a full day of back-to-back sessions that absolutely drained me. 

Although, that was all my fault–I probably should have refused the moment she asked–considering Micah was notorious for her heavy workload. We have been coworkers for a while now and she promised to make it up to me someday, so a part of me didn’t mind it. 

Now, exhausted, I finally made it home. I was quick to drop all my things onto the floor and had barely made it to my living room. My muscles ached, although the quiet hum of my apartment was a welcoming contrast to the loud and constant chatter in the studio.

I caught a moment to breathe–before my thoughts were instantly flooded with the session with Quinn earlier in the week. It was like a loop replaying in my head constantly. I could’ve easily shut them out, but no, it was easier said than done.

After I had embarrassingly fallen on top of him, I tried not to let it get to my head before the next session. But strangely enough, the following Thursday had felt like a regular routine between us. 

He came in as he always did, we stretched, and we talked during the session. A lot.

I had introduced Quinn to a different style of Pilates such as Cadillac Pilates, a bit of a challenge at first since the new equipment–the straps and bars–had intimidated him. 

But he was determined–I’ll give him that–almost stubborn in his refusal to back down from a challenge. To no surprise, by the end of the session, he had managed to hold his own.

I had to admit, seeing his drive to improve was oddly satisfying.

After getting comfortable on my couch and sinking deeper into the cushions, the weight of my eyelids were getting the better of me. Just when I was about to fully shut my eyes, my phone buzzed. A text from Diane.

‘On my way over. #readytogetfuckedup’

I groaned, tilting my head back against the pillows. 

I hadn’t forgotten about Diane’s birthday, but I hoped Diane might. Unlikely, though, she had been talking about it all week. Her birthday had been lingering in the back of my mind all day, but I’d barely had time to process it with training sessions and classes, it became a fleeting thought.

We had unofficial plans–or rather, Diane told me what we were doing later in the night.

Going to the club and getting absolutely fucking wasted. 

A page taken straight from Phoebe’s playbook. Diane and Phoebe lived by the same philosophy of go out and have fun.

It honestly concerned me how similar they were–like Diane was the younger version of Phoebe. If I didn’t know any better, I’d believe that they were related. 

I sighed, staring at the text. 

I wasn’t against clubbing. Not entirely, it wasn’t my scene. But I would be lying if I had said that I hadn’t stepped foot in a nightclub before.

There were several occasions that I had been dragged out of my own will–losing a bet to Diane, celebrating milestones or birthdays, losing more bets to Diane. I was horrible at rock paper scissors.

I wasn’t much of a drinker either, but I never shied away from drinking games or an opportunity to dance when the music was good. And if I was being honest, sometimes Diane and Phoebe were right–it was fun.

Before I could reply to Diane, my phone buzzed again. This time with an incoming video call. Simon.

Why was he calling? 

Then again, I haven’t heard from him in over a week. I promised not to bug him, knowing that he had a lot on his plate with Cassie and the baby. I told him to update me whenever he could, I just wasn’t expecting him to call this late.

“Hey, what’s up?” I answered.

Simon’s face filled the screen, then the camera shifted to show a tiny bundle in his arm. “Look who’s here. Syd, I’d like you to meet your niece.” 

I sat up straight, my eyes going wide. My heart melted immediately. “Oh my God–Simon!” I cooed at the screen, voice softening. “Hi, sweet baby girl. Simon, she’s beautiful.”

The baby stirred slightly but remained asleep, her cute little nose scrunching, her tiny face peaceful as she rested against Simon’s arms, and my chest instantly tightened with warmth. Simon was finally a father. 

“What’s her name?” I asked.

My brother offered a smile before looking at the baby. “Her name is Stella.”

Wait. I paused at the realization. “Stella? As in our grandmother?”

He nodded and smiled down at his daughter. “Funny story actually. Cassie was sleeping when the nurses gave me the birth certificate to fill out, and I was so set on naming my kid after me somehow. But then, I thought of Grandma Stella, and it just felt…right.” 

I let out a small laugh. Of course, he’d name his own daughter while Cassie was asleep. I wasn’t sure if I was more concerned or impressed that Cassie had let that slide. 

But the name was only fitting, perfect even. Our grandmother had been a significant part of our childhood. Despite our parents introducing us to our respective sports on the ice. Grandma Stella was the person who taught both Simon and I how to skate. 

The tears threatened to fall, but I blinked them away just in time. Although, my brother couldn’t miss an opportunity to tease me. “Don’t get all emotional on me now, Syd.”

“Shut up.” I rolled my eyes at him before I let one tear escape. “That’s really beautiful, Simon. But–” I frowned at him when I took note of what he said earlier. “–you filled out the paperwork without consulting Cassie?”

Simon let out a soft chuckle. “Don’t worry. When she woke up and found out, she ended up loving it. It was perfect.”

I smiled, shaking my head at him. “It really is. Grandma would’ve loved that and would’ve loved to meet her.” 

Our grandmother was my absolute world. She was everything you could ask for–sweet, kind, caring–most of all, very supportive of her grandchildren. She couldn’t make it to all of my competitions, or Simon’s games, but she still cheered us on from the sidelines even if she was ill and had already passed years ago.

Simon’s voice broke through my thoughts before I could reminisce. “Sorry I’ve been MIA recently. This past week has been crazy, and I barely touched my phone. But, I should’ve at least texted you.”

“It’s alright,” I said. “I figured you were busy with everything that was going on.”

Simon nodded, gently setting down Stella into her crib. “Mom and Dad are already on a flight out to San Diego.”

“Oh, really? That’s great.” The ‘enthusiastic’ tone in my voice wasn’t necessarily believable, Simon didn’t miss that either.

“Have you talked to them?” He asked, watching my reaction carefully. “Mom was asking about you. I thought you said you already spoke with her.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. I haven’t spoken to our parents much lately. I was so caught up in work and life that I let it slip my mind. But if I were being honest, there was more to it than that.

My relationship with my mom was fine–we still talk every now and then–but with my dad, it was different. Simon was his pride and joy, the son that made him proud and made his dreams come true–making it to the NHL. Meanwhile, we hadn’t been the same since my accident.

I had been his talented figure-skater daughter he was once proud of. Now, I was just his daughter, and that didn’t seem to be enough.

“No, not yet. I’ll call her soon.” I answered back vaguely.

It was enough to let it go by Simon, he knew he was walking around eggshells just by mentioning it the first time. 

He was well aware of our family dynamic over the years, and we had a few conversations about it. Simon had always encouraged me many times to talk to our dad about the problem, and I appreciated that he cared strongly about making amends, but he didn’t understand how hard it was.

I wasn’t ready for that, at least not right now. 

So my brother didn’t push any further. “Alright. Just making sure.” He paused before shifting gears and letting out a deep exhale. “So, why didn’t you tell me that the cross-training program was still happening?”

Shit.

“I didn’t want to bother you. You had more important things going on, and I figured–”

“Figured what?” Simon cut in, his voice slightly sharper now. “That I’d rather hear it from someone else? Because that’s exactly what happened. I had to find out from the guys instead of hearing it from you first. You’re my sister, Syd. And that sucks.”

Guilt rested heavily on my chest, like it was about to crush me. “I’m sorry. I just…didn’t want you to explode or freak out when you heard about it.”

He sighed, knowing I was completely right about that given his reaction. “Well, too late for that. When JT told me, I was about to lose my fucking mind. To the point that I was debating on booking a flight back to Vancouver to give Tocchet hell for continuing the sessions.”

I snorted. It was exactly how I called it–my brother proving me right yet again, he’s always been so dramatic.

“So, how’s it going? Have you been making Hughes work? I sure hope you are.” He said.

“Yeah, you could say that.” I tried to play it off. “But, he’s surviving and doing much better than I expected.”

Simon rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I wanted to hear, Syd. Perhaps ‘no, he’s doing terrible,’ or ‘no, he’s the worst student I’ve had.’”

I shook my head at him. “I would much rather have him cooperating and trying his best, than him not trying at all, Simon. If anything, I think he’s doing better than you would have if you were still here.” 

“Ouch, that one hurt,” he grimaced playfully. “But I am glad he’s not giving you a hard time, because if he was then I would’ve–”

“Simon.”

“What? I’m being serious, Syd. I would rather fly back to Vancouver than let you deal with Hughes alone. Especially when he’s…”

I blinked. “Especially when he’s what?”

What if he found out about the incident at the studio? He definitely knows that I was in Quinn’s car and drove me. What if he found out that a part of me actually liked training with Quinn. Simon was going to kill both of us.

“Especially when he’s such a dick,” Simon said after hesitating for a second. “He’s such a teacher’s pet, so don’t ease up on him just because he’s keeping up. Also, don’t let his pretty face get to you. I haven’t seen him with any girls yet, but how would I know? He and his brothers are popular with them, so probably gets with girls all the time and–”

“Okay, okay. I get it. I’ve heard enough, Si.” I stopped him before he continued to spout out things that probably weren’t true at all, or could be, who knows?

I let out a loose breath out my lungs. Good, he didn’t know about the media incident.

“Remind me again–” he started. “–you still don’t have a thing for hockey guys, correct?”

Now that caught me way off guard by the way I almost choked on air. Where was this coming from?

I narrowed my eyes at him. “No? Why are you even asking–”

“Nothing. Just making sure that Hughes has zero chances with you.”

My body almost leaped out of my couch after hearing those words from my brother’s mouth. The last few times Simon had talked about Quinn, I barely knew him. Now, after spending time with him, I wasn’t sure that was entirely true anymore. 

Quinn wasn’t at all what Simon painted him to be, he was quite the opposite.

“Unless you’ve changed your mind,” Simon added, “because if you did, I swear, I’m going to end him. Seriously-”

“God, Simon.” I groaned, I wasn’t about to talk about my dating life with my brother. “I am not looking to date anyone right now. It’s not a good time.”

“Good, let's keep it that way.” His expression seemed to relax, like a weight lifted off his shoulders. But,  he believed me–I hoped. He nodded but then suddenly frowned. “That still doesn’t explain why that prick left me on read after my texts.”

Texts?

Well, that definitely piqued my interest. “Wait, what texts?”

“Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything.”

“Simon. What. Texts?”

Before he could even answer, a constant knocking sound at my door. I already knew who it was–she was the only one who ever knocked on my door like a drum.

“Who’s that?” Simon’s overprotective instincts kicked in.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s just Diane.” 

I made my way over to the door and sure enough, Diane bursted through it. “Let’s get partying! Wait–” she eyed me up and down. “–why aren’t you ready?”

I glanced down at myself, I was still in my studio clothes, sweaty, no makeup, looked completely burnt out. Definitely not club-ready opposed to Diane’s attire–tight black mini dress, hair that was styled to perfection, and a vibrant red lipstick smeared on her lips. 

“I just got home from work,” I sighed at her. “Do we really have to go?”

“Where are you going?” Simon butts in, his skepticism was practically palpable through the screen. I almost forgot he was still on video call for a second.

Before I could answer, Diane beat me to it, bringing her face to the screen to see Simon. “Hey, Simon. It’s my birthday, so we’re heading to the club. Can you convince your sister to come with me, she seems pissy today…”

“Excuse me,” I gave her a look. “I’m standing right here.” 

Simon let out a chuckle. “You should go. It’s her birthday after all, Syd.”

They were both right. But more surprised with my brother’s instant support. He would be barking at me for even considering going to the club–just like the other time. He practically wouldn’t let me out the door. 

I struggled to find the words, but there was no reason to refuse Diane. I wouldn't miss my friend’s special day just because I was tired or didn’t feel like going–then I would be a shitty friend for that.

“Okay, okay. Give me a few minutes to get dressed.” I caved in.

Diane squealed in my eyes and clapped her hands together excitedly. 

I quickly said my goodbyes to my brother on my phone, and made sure he would give updates to me whenever he could before ending the call. 

I looked over to Diane, a very mischievous expression written across her face. “Oh, we’re going to make you look so hot tonight.”

I rolled my eyes before she dragged me towards my closet, raiding it without asking, and began looking for something to wear. She had suggested a few dresses–which I forgot I owned–and I quickly shut it down, saying they were too revealing for the occasion.

As Diane was working through my wardrobe, I was lost in my own thoughts as I couldn’t help but revisit what Simon had said earlier: Just making sure Hughes has zero chances with you.

I thought about it for a brief moment.

And I wasn’t sure if I could say that was still true.

Diane and I agreed if this was the night we were getting absolutely fucked up, there was no way in hell either of us were driving. 

It might’ve been the smartest decision we made tonight.

The Uber ride to The Inferno mostly consisted with Diane’s excitement, her voice buzzing with anticipation. Majority of the time I just nodded along, my mind was too preoccupied with what the rest of the night could spiral into. And they weren't necessarily good things.

I should’ve known better than to let Diane pick my outfit. The moment we stepped out of the car, a gust of wind sent a shiver down my spine, and I tugged at the material of my thin dress. I regretted my decision entirely. 

The city was alive, buzzing with the kind of energy that only a Saturday night could bring. Bright neon lights glowed, illuminating the crowded streets as groups of people filed into nightclubs and bars, so eager to drown themselves the only way they knew how–in alcohol and music. 

The Inferno stood center of it all, one of the hottest new clubs in downtown Vancouver. Its name alone promised chaos. I would know, considering this wasn’t my first rodeo here.

The line outside stretched far, but Diane barely seemed to notice. 

She bounced on her heels, gripping my arm ever so tightly. “This is going to be the best night ever.”

I wasn’t so sure of that. 

Once the bouncer checked our IDs and waved us through, we walked down a long hallway leading to the main doors. With each step, the pulse of music grew stronger and stronger, vibrating through my bones.

As soon as we stepped inside, we were hit with an explosion of sound and light.

The Inferno was infamous for its massive, open-concept that it was hard to believe a nightclub like this existed–that you would only find in the lively cities like Vegas or Florida. 

There were two sleek bars on either side, a second-floor balcony overlooking the entire club, and the center filled with booths and couches for those who wanted a more chillaxing scene–to escape the chaos.

The real action, though, was further back, where the dance floor stretched beneath flashing strobes and a DJ booth commanded the large crowd of people. 

Diane’s fingers wrapped around my wrist as she dragged me straight to the bar. “First round’s on me!” she shouted over the blaring music.

I slid into one of the empty stools next to her, my gaze flicking across the sea of people. There were way more bodies packed in here than the last time we came. The heat, the scent of booze mixed with expensive cologne and perfume–it was intoxicating and overwhelming all at once.

“Don’t you think there are more people here than last time?” I asked, shifting on my seat uncomfortably.

Diane barely glanced around before dismissing my concern with a shrug. “I don’t think so. Seems about the same to me.”

Of course she’d say that. Diane didn’t have a care in the world right now–she just wanted to get shitfaced. 

She wouldn’t let me ever stop her from doing so, especially when she turned to the bartender, and ordered two shots. He sent down the glasses, I immediately recognized the bottle he began pouring in front of us.

“Tequila?” I winced. “We won’t make it home in one piece, Di.”

Diane rolled her eyes, lifting her shot glass. “Syd, it’s my birthday today. So for the love of God, take the shot.”

She glared at me, waiting. I hesitated, glancing down at the golden liquid.

I thought about it. Taking this shot would be the beginning of a very, very bad–or possibly great–decision. Either way, there was no turning back. It’s my friend’s birthday after all. Don’t ruin it for her.

With a sigh, I clinked my glass against hers. “Cheers to turning twenty-four.”

We downed the shots in one go, the burn racing down my throat. I hissed, shaking my head. “I forgot how much I hated this.” 

Diane only laughed, knowing what we both got ourselves into. She tapped the counter for another round. “It’s going to be a long night, Syd. I hope you’re ready for it.” 

I was definitely not ready.

By the time we hit our fourth–or was it fifth?–I could feel the alcohol settling in my system, warm and intoxicating. My limbs were lighter, my movements became more sluggish, and my heartbeat thundered faster.

I thought I had a higher tolerance for booze, I didn’t remember being this much of a lightweight. And soon enough, five shots turned into eight and I was starting to feel incredibly drunk.

Diane, naturally, was in her element, feeding off the energy of the club, throwing back drinks like water. At some point, we found a group of strangers to drink with, all of them laughing and clinking glasses as I raised mine–very out of character for me to do so.

“Everyone, it’s my best friend Diane’s birthday today!” I shouted, my voice louder than I intended at the group circling us by the bar. “I want everyone here to wish her a happy birthday!”

“Happy birthday Diane!” The group cheered, and we all easily tipped back another shot. 

Moments have gone by as I chatted with a few girls by the bar, while slipping in another glass. 

Until a familiar song blasted through the speakers, and my eyes lit up. My body reacted a lot faster before my brain had even processed it–I wanted to dance. 

I turned to Diane, only to find her head resting on the bar’s counter, her eyes barely open. 

“Diane, I love this song! Come dance with me, please?” I shook her shoulder, trying to get her to move. 

She groaned, lifting her head just enough to meet my gaze. “I’m not really feeling good right now.”

I frowned at her. “But you were the one who said to have fun tonight. That’s what I’m trying to do, silly.” 

“I did,” she laughed, though it was much weaker now. “But now that I’m on the fucking verge of throwing up, I think I might tap out.” 

I let out a deep sigh, glancing at the packed dance floor. The energy was electrifying, the kind of moment I wouldn’t want to waste. “I’m having such a good time, but it would be even better if you danced with me.”

“And I’m so glad that you are enjoying yourself. I wouldn’t want to be the reason you aren’t.” Diane gave me a sleepy smile. “I’ll watch you from here. Now, go dance–I know you love this song.” 

I hesitated, giving her a look before nodding anyways. Who was I kidding? I wouldn’t miss this song for the world.

“Okay, but don’t die.”

“No promises.” 

She sent me off, shooing me away from her as I weaved through the crowd.  I found my way to the center of the dance floor, singing–more like screaming from the top of our lungs–with a few girls surrounding me to the song Promiscuous by Nelly Furtado.

The beat pulsed beneath my feet, and I let myself go, moving fluidly and effortlessly with the music–like there was nobody else in the room. My body swayed, arms raised, my hair swinging side to side as I lost myself in the moment.

It felt good, better than I had in a long while.

Then a pair of hands landed on my hips.

I froze instantly. Then I turned my head just enough to see a man. Tall, smirking, and too fucking close.

“Hey, get your hands off me!” I stepped away from him. 

He leaned in closer, voice smooth. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. You looked so hot while you were dancing, I’m just trying to have fun here.”

Almost immediately, panic and disgust clawed its way up my spine. “I said, get the fuck away from me! Fucking creep.”

He didn’t listen. His hands reached for me again, and this time–I smacked them away. My eyes flicked to his, only to find his gaze burning through my skull. Oh fuck, he didn’t like that. 

I tried to step back, but he followed. The more I moved, the gap between us closed, the smaller my world became as bodies pressed around me. I was starting to feel trapped, my body has never felt more stuck and unable to move.

But then I hit something–no, more like someone. A hard, unmoving chest.

I turned, ready to push away whoever the fuck it was, until my eyes widened when I met his familiar green orbs.

Quinn.

“She said to get the fuck away from her,” his voice was cold and sharp. “And I think it’s best that you do that. Now.”

all rights reserved © 2025 hellvst. please do not copy, translate, or modify my works in any platform.

[maeedrg]

What are we ?

part 3

fake dating Gojo X fem reader

ᯓ★

MASTERLIST of the series

part 2 part 3 part 4

Synopsis : After months, you and Satoru are still stuck in this dance of playing to pretend. But you both never mentioned back what happened to the jacuzzi. The tension became unbearable, but everything goes down the hill when the higher ups attempt to get rid of you as you were considered useless now. At the same time, they take matters in their hand to find a new suitor for him. Gojo can’t bear the thought of losing you, and he makes a decision for your safety. One that was apparently for the best.

Words count : 7.8k.

Warnings : many deaths and attempt murder, blood, angst, spoilers of the shibuya incident and what comes after, some satosugu implied, beginning of the smut, doomed love, but still some fluff.

જ⁀➴ ⠀ׂ Autor’s note : "I can’t wait to show this amazing chapter to other people !" I said with excitement. "Hey what do you think of this chapter ?" "It’s fucking shit !" Said the fuck you guy.

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Months. It’s been months, damn months now, that you and Satoru were fake dating. You didn’t know if you turned crazy, the tension being too thick, too palpable, too much. After what happened in the jacuzzi, Satoru and you never did such a thing again. Even in public, when having to prove a point, the touch of his lips against yours was short, quick, way too quick, actually. Like something burning you, but aching to play with fire longer. Yet, you were left wanting, needy. Months of dreaming of being able to feel again what you had at the hotel. Months of dying to have more. Months of turning mad, as waiting became now impossible.

You didn’t know what Satoru was thinking. Entering the head of The Strongest was something you couldn’t hope to succeed. Years of keeping everything to himself made him extremely good at hiding his feelings and real emotions. This dangerous game of lingering touches, sentences, playing the role of your boyfriend way too realistically, made you wonder what was happening. But unable to know was making you want to rip your hair off your head.

You weren’t the only one to turn crazy. Satoru was as well. Truly falling in madness at stopping himself from going farther. After what happened in the jacuzzi, he realized that if you didn’t stop him, you two would have crossed a line that he was dying to cross, but terrified as well. Because he knew damn well, that once he would, he would be doomed. Doomed because it would be impossible to run away from the responsibilities of his love for you. Satoru was used to loving you in secret. He couldn’t accept that all the time he spent hiding his feelings would go to waste. Because even if he was deeply in love with his best friend, he couldn’t have a happy life dating her. Dating you. He understood that well when playing pretend, even if he understood it already back in highschool, years ago, when his love just started blooming in the innocence of the youth.

Being The Strongest meant any happiness would be taken away from him. Because of his title, and also because of himself. He felt like what happened to Suguru was his own fault, and he would never forgive himself if something happened to you as well. He couldn’t bear to lose you, destroying everything because of his carelessness. After all, in his eyes, dating someone was a far greater commitment compared to friendship. What if he hurted you, and would be a horrible boyfriend ? What if overworking himself would make you hate his absence ? What if him being scared of vulnerability would make you resent him from not opening up ? What if you would break up with him and leave him forever ? He already struggled to be a good best friend, because he did fail once. So being a good boyfriend ? It was terrifying. 

In the end he only danced on the line of real and false, enjoying flirting with you, acting like your boyfriend, without the real commitment of his feelings, of his fears, of his nightmares. Satoru wasn’t strong, he was weak, for you. It was better that way, he thought. He wasn’t yours, you weren’t his. But at least, you stayed by his side. 

“Satoruuuu, you’re zoning out. It’s your turn !” you exclaim, waving your uno cards in front of the white haired male, that quickly snapped him out of his thoughts.

“Uh ?” he blinks, before looking down at his cards and remembering he had to play the combo he wanted to do. Quickly, he puts three cards on the top of the pile.

“I’m soon leaving for my mission, so let’s finish playing before I go,” you explain, your turn now.

“Hmmm, yep,” he hums, still trying to forget whatever he was deeply thinking about. He had to act like everything was okay, and avoid looking too much at your face, or else… he might lose it and kiss you senseless before he could even realize what he was doing. He clears his throat before asking, “where was your mission again ?”

“In an abandoned hospital. Apparently it’s only some grade 3 curses, it would be easy,” you explain, looking at your cards.

“If you need my help, call me. I’ll be very happy to ditch my meeting with the elders and instead come save your ass,”he says, flashing you his usual cheeky grin.

“I don’t need you to save my ass for some low grades, Satoru,” you chuckle, rolling your eyes at his bravado. 

“I just want to be your knight in shining armor,” he pouts, answering that, before suddenly putting a +4 on the pile. You groan, glaring at him, before taking your due, annoyed. You only had two cards left, and now, six ! He could go to hell, you thought.

“Just say you don’t want to go to your meeting,” you end up replying a bit bitterly, and he just looks smugly at you, grinning widely like an idiot. He was proud of himself. This bastard.

“Exactly, I don’t want to go there and see their annoying old wrinkled face. They changed the location last minute too, it’s not where we usually go,” he huffs, shaking his head.

“Where ?” you ask, raising an eyebrow, intrigued. It wasn’t common, so it seemed weird to you.

“Somewhere in Tokyo, around 20 minutes away from the campus,” he explains, shrugging, putting his hand in his hair.

“Then once you finish your meeting, and once I finish my mission, let’s go to the arcade,” you propose, deciding to cheer him up, and mostly wanting to spend time with him.

“Is it a date ? You charm me, honey...” he coos, winking at you behind his sunglasses, and you can’t help but giggle at his antics.

“Yeah baby girl, I’m a good girlfriend, aren’t I ?” you joke back in a teasing way, hoping to make him cringe, but that only fuels his amusement and eagerness.

“The best,” he drawls, charming, before continuing in a calmer manner, laying back in his seat, “then let’s go to your place after. I wanna eat fast food and binge watch the last episodes of the show we were watching last time.”

“Why my place ? It’s always my place !” you exclaim, faking the feeling of being offended.

“I like… almost live there, so your place it is,” he shrugs nonchalantly. And damn, he was right. 

“You should pay rent,” you add, huffing. 

“Me spoiling you with food and shopping counts as rent,” he replies confidently, giving you a look with his eyes that means business, and you can’t help but fluster slightly.

“Yeah sure-”

“Uno !” he suddenly cuts you by screaming the word. You open wide your eyes, horrified that you lost and didn’t realize he only had one card now.

“No !”

Quickly after, he wins. You are left defeated, and end up leaving annoyed as he on purpose teased you non stop, saying you just were a sore loser. Satoru could be the loveliest when he wanted, but the most obnoxious and infuriating person in the world as well. Yet, you still loved him for that.

Walking towards your mission, you sigh, needing to snap back of your thoughts and get concentrated and focus your mind on your task. Even if it was supposed to be only some low grades, you could never let your guard down.

And you were right for that. Because Satoru and you weren’t the only one that were going crazy after months of ‘dating’ and nothing happening. The elders weren’t happy at all that you both didn’t fulfill your duties ; marry and then produce heirs. Their old fashioned way of thinking was the way they thought was right. After seeing there was no progress, they decided to seriously act and change plans. You were useless in their eyes. For their sexist mind, if you were unable to be a good woman, becoming a wife and giving children to The Strongest, then you could die. After all, they just wanted for their strongest sorcerer to quickly create new soldiers (his children). 

Now, they had to get rid of you in a way or another, and on the other hand, to find someone more suited for the role of becoming Gojo’s wife. You were like a pawn, he was one too. The game didn’t play the way they wanted. Now, you were thrown in the trash.

Walking towards your mission was the steps towards your upcoming grave.

And Gojo walking towards his meeting with the higher ups, was actually his walk towards a closed destiny, and towards the new pawn that would be his supposed future wife. 

Truly, fake dating Gojo Satoru brought you bigger problems than you ever expected.

જ⁀➴ ⠀ׂ 

Satoru was sitting in his car, parked some streets away from the place the meeting would normally be. He sighed, clearly not wanting to deal with any more bullshit the higher ups would give him. He groans as he tilts his head backwards, staring at the ceiling before pulling his phone off his left pocket. The home screen was a picture of you and him, one where his arm is around your shoulder, and his mouth biting your cheek as you laugh heartily. He chuckles slightly, staring at the screen like an idiot, as if it would give him some strength for what was about to come. He decides to send you a message, even though you still didn’t answer the last one he sent since you went to that mission thirty minutes ago. Obviously, you were busy. But Gojo was clingy, and had no real personal space with you.

Two minutes pass. You still didn’t answer. He decided it was surely and sadly time to get out of his car and meet the elders. He checks his watch : he was late. Who cares ? He shrugs and closes the door behind him before walking nonchalantly towards the building, hands in his pocket.

Once he stands in front of the location, he realizes it’s a restaurant. A fancy one that he already had to attend to once, for a gathering with some head clans. Alright, that wasn’t so weird, but still unusual to have the elders wanting to discuss with him in front of a meal. He enters, and is quickly greeted by a waitress that makes him follow her. He arrives in front of a door, as each room was separated to allow the clients to eat in privacy. He takes off his shoes and enters the private room, before stopping dead in his tracks.

“Oops, sorry miss. I got the wrong room. Enjoy your meal,” he says, flashing an awkward smile to the woman sitting in front of the table that had numerous plates full of food. But the woman elegantly raises her head and flashes him a smile. He ignores it and turns around, ready to leave.

“Gojo Satoru, it’s nice to meet you. This is not a mistake, we were meant to meet,” she simply answers in a calm voice while sipping on her tea. He raises his eyebrow, turning around to face her. She knew who he was, so that meant... He notices the type of cursed energy moving inside her body. She is a jujutsu sorcerer. But not a very strong one.

“I’m here to have a meeting with the higher ups, miss. Sorry, I can’t be your date,” he replies, tilting his head to the side to eye her down and analyze the woman sitting calmly, but something cunning emanating from her. He directly was on his guard, staying put on his feet.

“You are my date.” 

“I have a girlfriend,” he corrects immediately.

“Not anymore,” she whispers, glancing at him. He frowns, not liking at all where this was going.

“What do you mean ?” he snarls, stepping closer to loom over here.

“You don’t have a meeting with the elders, but a date with me. Pleased to meet you,” she explains in a soft voice, but the smirk drawing itself on the corner of her lips betrayed her calm figure. He frowns, all cockiness leaving his face to look at her emotionless. The higher ups had the fucking nerve to trick him, and they will pay for that. Did they think he was stupid ? Did they think they could control his life as they wanted ? Him having you as his girlfriend should have stopped them from trying to force him to meet possible arranged wives. But forced to notice, he was wrong. They barely lasted some months before going back to their bullshit and trying to force him to marry someone. He understood the reason why : since you and him decided to only ‘date’, and nothing more, they got impatient that nothing was happening like they wanted. So, they decided that your couple was now useless, and they wanted to replace you. That was predictable, now that he thinks about it. 

He sighs, and then she says her name. He directly recognizes her as the sister of someone he had to deal with for some business of the Gojo Clan. Least to say, this family was annoying to work with.

“Ok, what the fuck is going on ? Don’t tell me these old geezers lied to my face, and instead sent me on an arranged date ? Look, you are very lovely, but this won’t do. I already have a girlfriend,” he spats, annoyed now as his eyes portrayed the coldness of blue he only had when being mad. Which was rare.

“As I said, not anymore,” she corrects, a hint of arrogance in her voice.

“Aren’t you too confident ? Thinking you can take her place like that ?” he says threateningly, not wanting to joke around like he usually does. He had no time nor any patience for that right now. This really struck a nerve.

“No. It’s just how it is. The elders arranged this, as I will soon be your wife,” she shrugs answering that, sipping on her cup of tea before putting it down and looking back at him, clearly not intimidated.

“Excuse-me ?” he chuckles, offended. Wife ? Seriously ?

“An arranged marriage, if you prefer,” she adds unbothered.

“And you agree to that ?” he asks, narrowing his eyes.

“Yes. It’s a dream to marry The Strongest and give him heirs,” she answers as if it was the most logical reply she could give him. Oh, this poor girl was brainwashed. For sure. 

“Look : you and I will never marry, and nothing of that shitty plan they try to arrange. If I had to marry someone, it would be my girlfriend, and nobody else. Yeah, understood ? Good. So, goodbye,” he ends up exclaiming before turning on his hills, opening the door of the private restaurant room to leave. He puts on his shoes in a swift move, before getting interrupted by her voice.

“You can’t marry someone that is dead.” Satoru freezes. What did she mean by that ?!

“Dead ?” he asks, unsure.

“Dead.”

He slams the door behind him, his blood turning cold. It didn’t take more than a second for Satoru to understand what was happening. He was far from stupid, after all. And he was used to the doings of the corrupted elders. The mission you got sent to was your grave. One meant to kill you.

His stomach drops, and he doesn’t waste any more time, trying to call you while he rushes towards the location of your mission. An abandoned hospital that was close enough of the campus to go there by walking : there was only one place possible. His heart quickens, but then stops when you don’t answer.

Fuck. Dread is written all over his face, and Gojo Satoru is panicking. Panicking like he never panicked before. He teleports, entering his car and rushing towards the road, not caring about the red lights. You could be dead right now, cold body covered in blood, alone and forever. No, no, no. He couldn’t accept it.

He never regretted more in his life the decision to have you pretend to be his girlfriend. It just confirmed that Gojo Satoru could never have the chance to fully love someone before getting all hopes destroyed, and them getting hurt because of him.

He prayed to Gods and Heavens that you were alright, believing in the faith that you were a strong girl that could defend herself even against death itself. His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel, accelerating dangerously on the road, near causing many accidents.

Please, please, please. Be alright. 

His heart was beating so loudly that he could only hear the heavy throbs of it. Once he arrives at the location, he teleports inside the veil that you casted. If it was still up, you surely were still alive. But at what cost ? He promised himself that once he will have you back in his arms, safe and sound, he will avenge you, and make them regret what they did to you. He promised himself that he would never cause any hurt to you. He failed. And he promised himself that if it was the only right solution for you and your safety ; he would never see you again. Being close to him only brings you misery, that’s what he thought. Actually, he brought misery to anyone that got too close. Suguru was the proof, the one and only that he had to kill by his own hands because of his own failing.

He searched for your presence, ears ringing loudly and only having one goal right now : finding you.

He was as quick as light speed itself, dread eating him all over, like a plague consuming his body. He stopped dead in his tracks when he entered the left building, and found the walls of the destroyed courtyard covered in blood. Not human blood, but curses blood. Every single one of them exploded and shattered to dust in what seemed like agony, all around… you.

He murmured your name, eyes wide open, sensing you standing in the middle of your domain expansion. He entered it without any difficulty ; it was prone to crumble any second, feeling how your cursed energy was getting weaker each second that passed.

Trembling, scared, here you were, barely holding to life, standing in a sea of red in the strange calmness of your domain. The moment you feel a presence entering it, you try to see what or who it was, but your weak body only allows you to see blur. In an ultimate attempt to protect yourself, you lift your hand, ready to unleash your one last bit of cursed energy to destroy your opponent, even if you would die doing this.

Satoru rushes towards you, and as you are about to strike in a last breath, you feel strong arms surrounding you and cradling you like a broken doll against a chest.

“Y/n ! It’s me, it’s me. Everything is over, everything,” he whispers in a wavering voice, hugging you firmly. You recognized that familiar scent.

“Satoru… ?” you mumbled, panting and having a hard time inhaling. Satoru was beyond relieved, thanking the universe and thanking your resilience to having managed to survive. He couldn’t bear the idea of having to go to your funeral. Gladly, you were alive. Alive became his favorite word as he looked at you with tears in his eyes. Was he crying ? He didn’t know, didn’t have time to focus on himself when you were in the crook of his chest.

“You did so well. You killed all the curses. You survived. I’m so proud of you. Let’s get you home. Ok ?” The moment his voice murmurs softly in your ear these reassuring words, your body shuts down. Immediately. Your domain expansion disappears, the veil as well, and you simply faint for good in the arms of the person you loved the most, and almost died for.

Satoru kisses the top of your head, checking your vitals. That was bad. Very bad. He scoops you up, and doesn't wait any more minute, bringing you to the campus. His new priority right now : keeping you alive.

Killing the higher ups would come later. Even if it takes months to plan. 

જ⁀➴ ⠀ׂ 

“Gojo, she’s alright. It’s been days now. Let her sleep. I promise she will be able to go home tonight,” sighs the brown haired woman, taking off her gloves as she finished to check your vitals, looking at the white haired sorcerer sitting next to your bed in the infirmary of the school.

“I can’t, I have to make sure that she truly is safe,” he answers firmly, his gaze not leaving your peaceful face. You weren’t in a coma or anything, just sleeping. After the mission, Gojo brought you to Shoko, her having to directly perform urgent rct over your body before it would be too late. Since then, you stayed at the infirmary for monitoring, making sure you would soon be back as healthy as before. The first time you woke up, Satoru didn’t say much, only telling you that everything was fine, and explaining to you what actually happened.

But, he strangely was silent. Just staying by your side, barely talking to you and doing nothing aside from holding your hand, keeping you company. He clearly was lost in thoughts, and too tired to ask why he was like that, you stayed silent as well the following days. On this friday afternoon, once you would wake up from your nap, you would finally be able to go back to the usual. But what would be the usual if your relationship with your best friend, supposed boyfriend, became like that out of nowhere ? You were confused.

“Who would have thought you could care so much for someone to the point of not letting them breathe ? She’s fine. Drop it, geez,” adds Shoko, shaking her head and looking at Gojo’s back facing her.

“I have a heart, Shoko. I’m not as insensitive as you think,” he ends up answering more coldly than he wanted. She stares at him, realizing that he really wasn’t acting like usual. Normally, he would laugh it off. Not now.

“You only are for a very few people,” she continues more softly, and she was right. Gojo knew she was damn right. 

“Because I can’t become emotional for every person around me getting hurt and dying. In this line of work, it’s something way too common. If I got worried for everyone, it would never end. That’s how it is,” he explains sighing, squeezing your hand while talking. Gojo being Gojo, for the sake of his title and his duty, he couldn’t allow himself to get affected by his work. That was taking away a part of his humanity, but he couldn’t fight against it. After all, somewhere along the way there was a line he drew not as a human, but as a living creature.

“I know. Everybody becomes like that eventually. But it’s still shocking to see you acting this way. The last time I did see you like that, was with Geto. You... didn’t even want to let me autopsy his body,” she answers, recalling the very few moments in life she saw The Strongest crumbling, which was extremely rare. And what happened on the 24 of december, was something that Satoru himself didn’t want to talk about, because it would be too painful. 

“...” he doesn’t answer, keeping his gaze steady on your sleeping face.

“We still don’t know what you did with his body, after you killed him. But, I’m not forcing you to talk about it. So, I’ll let you be for now,” Shoko ends up saying more softly, giving him what seemed like an apologetic smile before walking towards the door. As she puts her hand on the door handle, she stops, hearing his voice.

“Shoko.”

“Yes ?”

“Let me deal with y/n once she wakes up. I want to be alone with her. I’ll bring her home myself,” he asks, more like orders, not wanting it to be another way.

“As you wish…” she whispers, and steps out of the room, leaving the two of you alone in the lingering silence of the infirmary.

Not so long after, you woke up from your nap. Gojo helps you sit down, even if you don't need any help, and you stretch.

“I’ll bring you home,” he simply announces.

“Will you stay at my place ?” you ask, unsure, trying to see if he would react like usual. Meaning he would cheerfully say it shouldn’t even be a question, and that your home was basically his home. Hell, he would even correct you saying ‘our place’. But, he does none of that. You frown at his lack of answer as he silently takes your bag that was on the chair some meters away.

“I’ll bring you home,” he repeats instead, and makes you follow him. You look disappointed, not liking what was happening. Why was he suddenly so distant yet so close ? Not leaving your side for days, but emotionally far away ?

The walk is silent, occasionally trying to make conversation, but it just ended up in a fail. Was he mad at you ? But why would he ? Once you arrive at your apartment, Satoru doesn’t even take off his shoes, staying at the entry. You frown, turning to face him.

“You’re good ?” he asks, looking at you as if to memorize your face one last time.

“Yeah, I am. Shoko healed me perfectly. I’ll probably eat something, I’m starving. Want me to order food for you too ? Some pizza ? We could watch a mo-” you start to propose, desperately trying to make it seem like everything was normal, silently begging him to accept and act like your best friend. Like the usual, normal.

“Y/n,” he interrupts you. You lift your head, and the look on his face makes your stomach drop. Pain and coldness was written all over his face. Why was he looking at you like that ? What the hell was going on ?

“Yes ?” you reply in a smaller voice, scared of what was about to come.

“I think we should stop seeing each other,” he announces, dropping it like a bomb. You swear you just felt your heart crumble into pieces. Damn pieces. 

“What ?” you stutter, voice cracking.

“It’s better like that, Y/n,” he says, unable to look anymore into your eyes, staring away. You frown, putting your hand over your chest, stepping closer.

“What the hell are you even talking about ? Are you serious right now… ?” You couldn’t believe it. That couldn’t be real. That was a living nightmare. No, no, no.

“I am,” he simply answers. 

“You- you can’t just break our friendship like that, after more than ten years being at your side !” you yell, breathing heavily, anger rising and blood boiling. You couldn’t just accept that. 

“I can, I’m sorry,” he whispers, jaw clenching and slowly looking back at you. He felt like dying when he saw the tears in your eyes ready to spill all over your pained face.

“No, you’re not sorry ! And what about this whole dating thing ?! That means we did this for nothing ? The higher ups will have the opportunity now to arrange a marriage and-”

“This will not happen,” he interrupts you firmly.

“But- and us ? Was my help faking being your girlfriend useless ?” you question, your voice breaking even more, feeling betrayed and as if your world was crumbling all around you.

“Look where it brought you, y/n. You nearly died because of me !” he snaps, raising his voice at you, which makes you flinch. Because Gojo Satoru never yelled at you before. Not since you first met him in highschool. And that was a long time ago, longer than a decade.

“It wasn’t your fault ! You did nothing wrong !” you scream back, not caring if your neighbors could hear you now. All that mattered was trying to arrange this situation, one that felt like you were doomed. 

“Asking you to pretend to be my girlfriend was a mistake,” he ends up saying, looking dead into your eyes. Your mouth is agape, your brows frowning, and you feel like you can’t breathe anymore. Air knocked out of your lungs.

“I don’t understand your problem here. If you want to stop acting like boyfriend and girlfriend, then there is no problem. End of the plan. But breaking our friendship over that ?!”

“You and I know that it wasn’t friendship anymore, since a long time,” he corrects, stepping closer. And the look in his eyes showed his inner turmoil, the tragedy happening in his head.

“I- Satoru, you are my best friend, I can’t lose you,” you end up whispering, unable to argue against his saying because you knew he was right. You try to touch him, but his infinity is on. His infinity is damn on. You can’t touch him. Can’t touch your clingy best friend, who once said he would rather die than not feel your touch. Can’t touch the person that couldn’t spend a day without being all over you. Wow, your world just shattered. Completely. 

“I can’t love you, y/n,” he whispers painfully.

“What are you saying… ?” you have a hard time pronouncing your words, tears rolling down your eyes pathetically, chest tightening and heart feeling like it stopped beating.

“We can’t continue like this. Because if we do, you’ll just get seriously hurt again. I can’t let it happen another time, not to you,” he shakes his head murmuring this.

“But Satoru, this was none of your fault !” you exclaim in an attempt to make him understand that whatever he was saying was just nonsense, a poor mistake.

“It was. If we continue what we have, you’ll hate me,” he steps back, and you can’t even stop him, as the invisible walls around him stop you from grabbing his hand. 

“Don’t say that, you know I would never- Satoru. Please, listen to me,” you beg, tears falling on the floor. 

“I don’t know how to properly love, y/n. I’ll just curse you. I already did with Suguru,” he whispers, putting his hand over his face, trying to hide how broken he is from doing this, from seeing you like this.‘This is my personal theory, but there’s no curse more twisted than love.’ That was the words he once said to Yuta, his student, around two years ago. He still firmly believed in them.

“No, don’t leave me,” you try to say in between choked sobs, your voice cracking in an attempt to sound less pathetic. It was a fail. 

“I’m sorry, it’s better like that,” he says before turning his back to you.

“You’re not sorry…” you fall on your knees, gripping your pants, looking at him leaving and closing the door behind him without one last glance.

“You’re not fucking sorry !” you scream one last time, in a desperate attempt to make him react, to make him come back. But he doesn’t.

Gojo Satoru was your best friend, supposed boyfriend. Not anymore. 

Almost fifteen years at his side thrown at the trash for a supposed “it’s better for you”.

જ⁀➴ ⠀ׂ 

Weeks passed, months even. You and Satoru didn’t talk to each other again. You at first desperately tried to, but he ignored your texts, your calls, and even went on long missions abroad. The only thing you had left of him was his belongings at your place, which he never came to take back. You thought about burning them down, but you just couldn’t.

You tried to forget about him, but forgetting such a long friendship was impossible. It was like breaking your soul and throwing it in the void. You couldn’t, even if it felt like it. And it was hard to forget as well, when all you could hear was endless rumors going about arranged marriages with Gojo Satoru. But no one of them ended up being true. Against your will, you felt relieved. It meant the higher ups kept failing their attempts of trying to force him to fulfill his supposed duties.

But everything went quickly once bad things started to happen. Curses attacked the campus, breaking Tengen's barrier. Apparently there was a traitor in the school, the Tokyo one. Gojo and you became incredibly busy, that you barely had even time to rest and think about what happened in between you and him. 

Chaos came to life the day of halloween. Shibuya became hell on earth, and Gojo got sealed. He got damn sealed, for god’s know how long. Maybe forever, maybe until you die and everyone else dies.

Your world once more shattered, as well as the rest of Japan. Because Geto Suguru was back, even if apparently it wasn’t really him. 

Nanami died. Nobara was in between life and death, and many other sorcerers and innocent life died as well. But, you had an ultimate new goal, no matter how shattered you were after this war in between sorcerers and curses started. No matter what happened in between you and him, no matter how your relationship ended, you had to unseal him. You still firmly believed that he was the love of your life. And even if he wasn’t, he needed to get out of this damn cursed box.

The plan was on. And you weren’t alone in wanting this. Many were ready to sacrifice their life for the sake of unselling Gojo Satoru. 

જ⁀➴ ⠀ׂ 

When Satoru got unsealed, the first thing he hoped to see when getting out of it was Suguru and you waiting for him. But none of that. Instead, he was surrounded by chaos all around him. Kenjaku, this impostor, greeted him, and then Sukuna, possessing his dear little boy Megumi appeared. It was hell on earth, and you weren’t there.

Were you dead ? What happened during his absence while he was sealed ? He couldn’t fathom that you were gone, killed. Did his decision of getting away from you for safety went to waste once he got sealed ? 

Once things got calmer, preparing for the upcoming fight in December with Sukuna, Satoru heard about you. You were alive, and apparently you actively participated in the plan of unsealing him. He was relieved, you were alive, maybe not safe and sound, but alive. 

Alive became again his favorite word.

Even if not everyone was alive anymore. 

One thing was sure, he wanted to see you again. Because he knew that once his battle with Sukuna would arrive, he maybe would never be able to have you in his arms again, to hear your voice again, to laugh with you again. To damnation his decision of staying away from you. He just couldn’t anymore.

But first thing first, he needed to get rid of some pesky rats before going to find you, wherever you were.

જ⁀➴ ⠀ׂ 

You were in an abandoned hotel, taking place here after what happened in Shibuya. After all, everything in Tokyo was abandoned with the war. Everyone got evacuated, or killed. Numerous places were left unsupervised, you took the chance to stay there, as the area around your original apartment was unsafe right now. Since Gojo got unsealed, which means three days ago, you barely went back to the campus, knowing he would be there training for his upcoming battle with Sukuna. You only went around it to help the remaining students, but nothing much. You were scared to see him again. Terrified. Even if the only thing you wanted was to take him in your arms, relieved that he was back, and not in this damned box. But before the Shibuya incident he stated that you and him should never see each other again. You didn’t dare to break that promise.

As you step out of the shower of the hotel room, changed into pajamas and sighing tiredly, someone knocks at your door. You freeze. Nobody knew where you were exactly, nor the building nor the number of the room. So who was that ? A curse ? Kenjaku ? Your blood runs cold and ready to strike, you open the door, preparing yourself to attack.

That maybe was worse than what you imagined.

“Satoru… ?” you whisper, not believing your eyes.

Here he was, breathing heavily, face and clothes covered in red blood, eyes boring into yours, trying to eat your soul.

“I killed the higher ups. All of them,” he simply says. His first words to you, after months of avoiding you, getting sealed and then getting unsealed, were that. 

You open wider your eyes, shock written all over your face, mouth agape. He did it. He killed them. You actually were happy that the jujutsu world finally got rid of these corrupted people. But that meant he had to put more sins over his shoulders, more duties to carry as The Strongest. Something you knew he promised to not do. Something he promised Suguru back in highschool.

“Yuta told me to stop bearing the burden of being a monster alone anymore. But there’s nothing that can be done about that. Back then I was left in the dust. I had to catch up,” he starts to explain, looking at you, and wiping some blood from his pearly white skin. You knew he was talking about Suguru when he deflected years ago.

“I had to do it too, because they were the main reason why I couldn’t love you freely,” he finishes, staring at you. You shiver head to toe, swallowing the lump in your throat.

“I missed you, y/n. More than anything. I’m sorry for everything,” he continues, stepping closer to you, but you can’t seem to talk. He was sorry, damned sorry. You try to hold back a nervous chuckle.

“I heard you helped the students to unseal me. Thank you,” he adds, trying to make you talk, and truthfully wanting to thank you for what you did. You stiffen.

“I did,” you finally pronounce. Silence, seconds pass, where the both of you stare at each other. The hands of Satoru twitched, like he was holding himself back. He takes a deep breath.

“I want to take you in my arms and hug you until I can’t breathe. But I don’t want to stain you with their filthy blood,” he whispers, stepping closer, yet still not getting too close. His heart was aching for this, and you bite the inside of your mouth looking at him.

Without uttering a word, you approach him. His infinity directly turns off, allowing you to touch him. You unzip his stained jacket, revealing underneath a clean shirt. Without waiting, you take him in your arms. Satoru feels like he can breathe again, wrapping his hands firmly around your body and finally having you close to his heart.

God, he missed this, so so so much. He can’t believe he managed to survive this long without your touch, without your voice, without your jokes, without you. The only thing that kept him sane was staring at his home screen, or the folder of photos and videos he had of you and him.

It’s suffocating, his hug. Crushing you in his embrace, never wanting to let you go. He stopped himself from burying his face in your neck. If he did, he would put the blood on his cheeks everywhere. He didn’t think about cleaning himself up once he finished exterminating the higher ups. He just wanted to go see you immediately.

“I don’t want to stop, but please, let me go wash my face. I truly don’t want to put anything on you,” he whispers, slowly stepping back against his will.

“What if after this I don’t want to take you back in my arms ?” Lies. You were aching for more. You just wanted to somewhat get back at him. It was mean, but you thought he deserved it.

“Y/n..” he says desperately. You look away.

“Go wash your face before I make you leave,” you turn your back to him. Lies, again.

“Yes ma’am,” he says, trying to lighten the mood. Typical behavior of his, even if it wasn’t the right moment for jokes.

You hear him going towards the bathroom, turning on the water of the sink and washing his face. You look at the window, staying in front of it, letting your gaze linger on the destroyed streets of Tokyo.

When will peace be back ? Surely only once Gojo would fight with Sukuna. But, will he come back alive from this ? Your heart throbs at this idea. Even if the past few months were chaotic, your relationship destroyed, Satoru was still the man you had loved for almost fifteen years. You couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.

You then see him in the mirror reflection, standing behind you. You slowly turn around to face him, and the look in his eyes makes you weak. Longing, yearning, loving, desperate.

“I said I couldn’t love you, it was a lie. I love you, y/n. More than myself,” he admits, stepping closer, slowly, scared to make you back down and go away.  Your eyes shine as he says the three words you longed to hear, dreamed about day and night, even after he left you.

“I said I didn’t know how to love. That was right. But I just understood that I didn’t need to know how to love for loving you. Because it just became natural, since it’s as easy as breathing. I love you, y/n,” he continues, carefully taking your hand in his, scared that you wouldn’t accept his touch. But you did. And he was glad, because here he was peeling all the layers around his soul, destroying the walls around him, and putting his heart on a silvered plate just for you. Something he never did before, to anyone.

“I love you, y/n,” he repeats for the third time, like a pleading, bringing you closer and kissing softly your hand. You look into his eyes, that had tears in them. Gojo Satoru was crying. In front of you. Vulnerable like an abandoned dog on the road.

“I don’t care if you don’t love me anymore, if you resent me, if you hate me. But please, just let me love you before it’s too late,” he begs, falling on his knees and hugging your waist, his head buried in your stomach. You look down at him, and your hand softly cradles his cheek. He raises his head, his eyes red from the tears, lashes wet, like pearls decorating his irises.

“Earning my forgiveness shouldn’t be an easy task. But I can’t deny how much I missed you, hoping for you to come back. And I can’t deny how scared I was when you got sealed. But now, you soon will have to go fight against Sukuna, and just the mere thought of you never coming back- I.. I can’t just not make the most of our possible last weeks together. I love you, Satoru. So much that it’s dangerous, because I could surely forgive anything you do, as long as you’ll come back to me,” you end up answering, voice shaking from the inner turmoil you had. 

Life is brought back to his eyes, and before you can even react, he is on you, kissing you senseless. He is back on his feet, hands cradling your face, lips crashed against yours and molding together. Air enters your lungs like a salvation. Your soul just got healed back by the loving touch of his lips. You gasp, before wrapping your arms around his broader shoulder, and you realize that since the last time you saw him, he gained muscles. His body has changed. What else changed about him ?

As if he would die without your lips against his, he continues to kiss you like it was the last time. You fall on the bed behind you, and he gets on top of you, tilting his head to the side to deepen the kiss. His tongue swirls against yours, his left hand softly and gently caressing your stomach under your pajama shirt. You shiver at his touching, realizing how much you craved to feel his touch one more time.

You longed for this, and now you were having it. It was like a dream coming true inside this nightmare all around the two of you. But only this moment mattered right now, nothing else did. His burning fingers go higher, under your breast, and his knee slides in between your thighs to separate them, inching towards your core.

“I need you so bad, y/n,” he ends up saying, panting, his lips finding your neck and trailing burning wet kisses all over your sensitive skin.

“Me too- I can’t wait anymore,” you whisper in between a restrained moan as his knee presses against your clothed heat. You shudder, and his pupils blow when he hears you reacting to his touch like that. 

“Don’t say that to me or I will not be able to contain myself,” he murmurs, fingers brushing against your breast, lightly, like a feather. You bite your lower lip, and feel him sucking your neck, leaving a mark, before going down your collarbones.

“Then don’t. Don’t hold back, please,” you practically plead, he lifts his head to look at you in the eyes.

“Are you sure ?”

“More than anything,” you whisper against his lips when he kisses you again, his hand cupping your breast underneath your shirt, before unbuttoning it with his other. You let out a moan of pleasure, and he drinks it up happily, feeling like his heart would burst at finally being able to touch you like this. He dreamed of it, almost every night. It was sinful.

“You’ll be the death of me,” he mutters, opening the shirt to reveal your naked torso, half lidded eyes staring at beauty itself. His breath is caught in his throat, and his growing desire becomes unstoppable.

“Don’t say that,” you answer, caressing his cheek tenderly.

“I mean it. If I had to die, I wish it would be in your arms, against your lips. For me, that is Heaven,” he ends up confessing, looking deep into your soul.

And he meant every word of that.

Now, Satoru couldn’t wait to finally become one with you. After more than a decade of yearning for this, he would make love to you like he always dreamed of. He didn’t care about the consequences of crossing that line anymore. If he had to be doomed for loving you, then so be it. He’ll gladly accept it as long as he’ll have you. 

જ⁀➴ ⠀ׂ 

Part 4 (final part) is out !

I bet you guys didn't expect this fic to suddenly turn so angsty (oops, my bad), but hey, I actually love to write Gojo's angst. Nah, don't worry, next part includes the smut, and I know a lot of you are waiting for it. It’s like an apology. Anyways, See you !💋

Tag list : @just-another-idk

[izelthewashbear]

Screw this, yet again instead of studying for an exam I have tomorrow (Lord have mercy upon my gay soul) I'll be dissecting my favorite blorbo because why not. I can't stop thinking about one thing.

Today was probably the first time I've watched an entire Rats SMP stream - I was watching Ren goof off with his lieutenant for two hours and it was amazing. Seeing them having absolutely no idea how to play checkers was so funny. But what Martyn said at a certain point instantly flipped my view of him.

He basically said that he's not good at card games and overall strategy games, including checkers. That he has a hard time thinking three steps ahead and only focuses on what's here and now. At first I was like "wait a second, but you're the strategy guy"- Is he? It was only then that it hit me that seeing him as a strategist was kinda wrong.

Let's take 3rd Life as an example. I always saw him as this guy who'd make strategies that Dogwarts would utilize. And to some extent, yeah, maybe- but let's think about his first death in the series. He was so adamant, so headstrong about getting the Dogwarts banner back that he basically chased Scar around the whole server. Without a plan, without even a good reason. And what happened when he finally got the banner back? He basically had to plan on how to return to Dogwarts, which led to him going down and being killed by a skeleton. And I'm sure that if I wasn't trying to stare at my exam notes right now, I'd think of many other examples. Such as, him accidentally killing Cleo in Double Life. Or him trying to do a mass Boogie kill in Limited Life and that going horribly wrong.

What that one moment of these gay rats playing checkers made me realize is that his primary role is not a strategist. He has a basic idea of a plan - but the thing he's good at is basically improvising every step on the fly. This guy can do a 30 minutes long improvised roleplay of pretending to be a demon and almost not lose the lore in the meantime. He cannot stick to a singular plan, instead coming up with solutions to problems as they come and go. He may not be the best at planning, but he can notice little opportunities and take them as they come. He has basic ideas for his lore, and he utilizes them whenever he notices an opportunity. He may have planned to betray Ren in 3rd Life, but ultimately did not end up doing it because of all the choices he made during the series. But the moment there was a perfect poetic opportunity to betray his Mean Gill, he grabbed it and sunk his teeth into it.

I guess he really is the manifestation of 'fuck around and find out'

And now back to studying, wish me luck 🫡

[targaryenmarvel]

Fallin' All In You (Part 6) - Wanda Maximoff x Reader

Summary: You’ve known Wanda Maximoff since you were children. She was the shy and exceptionally beautiful twin sister of your best friend, Pietro. For the most part, you two never interacted, but that changes when against your better judgment, you begin to develop feelings for the girl. 

Warnings: Only cursing for now

Note: Hey, everyone, I hope you are all doing well. I just wanted to share the last chapter of Fallin' All In You. I'm sorry it took so long, but I had a horrible writer's block for the ending. Good news: I'm already working on my next series. I'll share more info soon. Happy reading, everyone!

Word count: 3,162

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

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"Y/N," the blonde boy's voice pierced the air, a potent mix of urgency and confusion. He abruptly halted before the temporary fence enclosing the Ferris wheel, his eyes wide in suspicion.

You were frozen in your tracks as his voice hit you like a splash of cold water. At your side, Wanda gently let go of your hand and took a step away, causing a pang of pain in your chest at her sudden distance.

Pietro's eyes danced between you, yet yours remained fixed on the boy. The longer you remained silent, the more suffocating the atmosphere became. Crystal bounced on her feet uncomfortably and could no longer withstand the tension. She loudly clasped her hands together, drawing the attention of the group.

"I'm just gonna head to the restroom. I'll be right back, babe," she announced, awkwardly walking backward. Pietro half-mindedly nodded as he returned his gaze to you and Wanda.

"This is unexpected," he finally said, scratching his head. "I thought you were doing photography with Shuri today," he told Wanda with a quirked eyebrow before addressing you, "You said you were hanging out with Daisy, but instead, I found you here with my sister."

From your side, Wanda shifted, shooting you a questioning look. You internally kicked yourself for not thinking of a better lie than hanging out with another girl.

Wanda twisted her rings, eyes settling on anything but her twin brother. "Piet, I know you're upset. The last thing you expected to see tonight was your sister and best friend together."

Pietro scoffed and violently shook his head. "Is that what you think? Wanda, I've known about you two since before either of you did." The two of you shared a bewildered look, and Pietro released an exasperated sigh. "Sistra, anytime I mentioned Y/N, you'd grow flustered or hide away when she came over." He turned to you with a scrutinizing glare. "And you're no better, Y/N. Third grade, when Wanda shared her favorite color with the class, you suddenly started buying all things red despite blue being your favorite color."

You froze in place, utterly speechless, as his words hit you like a bolt of lightning, leaving you stunned and reeling. Your brain raced as the haze of the childhood memory disappeared at his words, and you suddenly remembered ruining your school supplies so your mother would have to buy you everything in red.

"I would have to be blind not to notice your little interaction while you're on the field. You were throwing lovesick glances at eachother throughout the game, for god's sake." He waved his arms around to make his point.

Your face flushed red, and you stuttered embarrassingly, trying to deny his words, yet you couldn't. Similarly, Wanda shifted in place, her face burning, as she stared at the grass.

"I'm not mad about you being together. In fact, I couldn't think of a better match since I love you both. Which is why I am hurt you were so afraid to tell me." He stopped stepping closer to you as he took a deep breath, calming himself. "It was fun at first watching you scramble around me, but now, are you that scared of me?"

Your heart dropped.

"Don't be mad at Y/N. She wanted to tell you, but I was too scared. You two have been friends since we were kids, and us being together..." She cast her gaze down, wrapping her arms around herself, and continued in a small voice, "If you want to blame anyone, blame me."

For the first time, you opened your mouth. "Wanda, you can't take the blame for a decision we made together. We are both at fault." You pried her hand away from its confinement, securing it as you turned to Pietro. "I'm sorry we kept it from you, Pietro. And no, it wasn't because I was scared of you. I lied because I was afraid of ruining our friendship."

Pietro's face softened at your declaration. "Y/N, unless you plan on hurting Wanda, you will never lose me, and I doubt you would ever do that to her."

"Never," you assured, shaking your head and glancing at Wanda. The young woman stared down bashfully with a tiny smile, and your heart swelled. You said the following words, staring directly at her. "I'm serious about us. I would have never risked our friendship if I wasn't."

"I know, and I'm sorry if I overreacted earlier. It's just you're my baby sister," he said, looking at Wanda.

She rolled her eyes, muttering, "It's only 12 minutes."

Pietro ignored her, turning to you, "And you're my best friend. That fact that you are together doesn't change anything. I still want you to rant to me when she nags you over playing too many video games like she does with me. Or whenever Y/N is being an idiot because we all know how dense she can be. I mean, it took her ages to figure out she liked you."

You turned red, and Wanda snorted, bringing her hand to cover her mouth in a futile attempt to save you from further embarrassment.

"No matter what, both of you can come to me."

Wanda lunged forward into his arms, hiding her face in his neck. He enclosed her in his arms, squeezing her tightly as he gave you a goofy grin.

"Bring it in." He removed one of his arms from Wanda and extended it to you invitingly. In normal circumstances, you would have pushed the boy for subjecting you to the embarrassing public display of affection. Yet the rollercoaster of emotions you endured clouded your judgment, and you soon joined the siblings, wrapping your arms around the two.

Although you could feel a few curious eyes on you and a tinge of self-consciousness, you still wrapped your arms around the two.

"Aw, how cute," Crystal cooed, settling next to you three, effectively ending the moment as you scrambled away from eachother. "Oh, don't stop on my account."

"Anyway, I wanted to ride the Inversion, but Crystal's a chicken," he flinched as she slapped his arm. "Are you down?"

You looked at Wanda, and she nodded. Yes, you were whipped.

"Lead the way."

The four of you made your way to the ride, only separating as you and Pietro got into the line, leaving the girls to wait on the other side.

Wanda and Crystal leaned on the metal railing, observing the spinning contraption in complete silence. Despite their lack of interaction, Wanda felt comfortable with the girl. Wanda had been around many of Pietro's conquests, and although she knew little of Crystal, she seemed different from the frivolous, self-centered girls his brother liked to date. Of course, she was otherworldly beautiful with her flowing strawberry-blonde hair, striking green eyes, and alluring personality: charismatic, confident, intelligent, athletic, but most importantly, kind. No wonder she was popular, and no wonder Pietro had gone after the girl.

Crystal shuffled on her feet while watching the operator open the railing gate, and more people, including you and Pietro, entered the ride.

"You know, when Pietro mentioned Y/N and Daisy were hanging out today, I thought the girl had finally mustered the courage to ask Y/N out," Crystal mused thoughtfully.

Wanda's furrowing face sharply twisted her way. "Ask Y/N out?

"Yeah, everyone knows she's had the biggest crush on her since freshman year, but you beat her to the punch. I'm not disappointed, though. You two make a cute couple," she explained dismissively, not sensing Wanda's distress, before waving to the moving ride. "Oh, there they go!"

She watched as the platform spun, and the two continued in silence. Wanda's mind lingered on the so-called Daisy. Who the hell was this girl who had a crush on you? Why did you tell Pietro you were hanging out? Did you know of her feelings? Wanda's head filled with insecurities like a dark cloud lumming in the sky.

The thoughts continued as you and Pietro rejoined the girls. However, they eased into the back of her mind as you took her hand and flashed her a bright smile—a reminder that she had the privilege of tasting your lips; she was on a date with you, and you wanted her.

Wanda squeezed your hand as the two of you followed Pietro and Crystal to the game stalls after deciding to continue as a group. The two of you teased her brother as he attempted to outsmart the rigged games as if you hadn't faced the same predicament earlier as you tried to impress Wanda.

"Why don't you try hook-a-duck? Maybe you'll have better luck," you playfully suggested as Pietro failed to knock down the entire tower of cans for the third time. Wanda snickered into your shoulder as her brother fixed you with a glare.

"Fuck off, Y/N. ," he said as he handed the boy in charge of the stall more bills. He recoiled his arm, preparing to throw, before an idea crossed his mind. "In fact, why don't you show me how it's done?" he offered, extending the bean bag to you.

You huffed nervously, looking to Wanda for help, as you remembered how you could only knock over a few cans earlier. Wanda had cleared all the cans.

"You should give it a try," she said with a devilish smirk, crushing any hope of evading the challenge. You stared at her in betrayal, eyebrows drawn together and mouth agape. Wanda revealed in your reaction, finding it humorous and equally adorable, so much so that she leaned in to kiss you on the cheek and whispered, "Aim for the bottom middle, detka."

A blushing mess and dazed, you took the bean bag from Pietro and positioned yourself behind the stall. Detka. The word rang through your skull, and you tried to recognize its meaning. For all you knew, she could be calling you an idiot, yet the soft and endearing tone made you think otherwise. You would ask her later, you settled.

You experimentally swung your arm, analyzing the pyramid. The base consisted of four metal cans, and per Wanda's instruction, you were to aim for the second and third. You inhaled deeply before releasing the bean bag in an underhand throw. It hits the second tier's third can, and three crumble, leaving seven remaining. You run your tongue between your lips, irked that you have missed your target, and you readjust your position. You throw again, this time hitting your target. The remaining cans in the second and third tier fall, and they miraculously knock the first can in the fourth tier, leaving only one left.

Wanda cheers you on from behind, and so does Crystal; Pietro complains beside her. "Babe?" He questioned reproachfully, and you stifled a laugh.

You aim the final bean bag at the remaining can, calculating how much strength to use. The bean bag grazes the can, moving slightly but not falling over.

"Fuck," you whisper defeatedly.

"Not so cocky now, huh?" Pietro mused, quirking an eyebrow at you.

"I don't think you have any room to talk, Piet. She still did better than you," Wanda defended, crossing her arms as you returned to her side with your new keychain.

"She's right, babe," Crystal joined in, biting back a laugh when Pietro turned to her with a look of betrayal.

"Oh, so that's how it's going to be. You're going to gang up on me, now?" He scoffed, his eyes jumping between the three of you. "Traitors."

The three of you could no longer contain your laughter at Pietro's antics. Oh, how you had missed him the past few years. Though you chatted frequently, nothing compared to the banter you shared when you were together.

"You're such a drama queen, Piet," you say, wrapping your arm around Wanda's shoulder, who hides a snicker behind her hand.

Pietro turns to respond, but Crystal takes him by the arm, leaning in to kiss his cheek. The boy's face softens, and the bright lighting of the stall allows you to notice a faint redness on his face as he grins, pleased with himself. He had accomplished what he sought: charming Crystal.

Some of you wanted to tease the boy, yet how could you when his sister had you following her like a lost puppy? Her kiss or a simple touch had you melting like ice on a scorching summer day. The evidence came when Wanda turned to you, a radiant smile spread across her face, causing your chest to tighten and leaving you momentarily breathless.

The group of you wandered around the fairgrounds, and before you knew it, it was 9:45 PM. You could feel your body growing tired, your feet aching after so much walking, and you could tell Wanda felt the same way. As your arms circled her waist with your chin resting on her shoulder, you could see her head tilt up and release a long yawn.

When Pietro and Crystal invited you to watch a local band the organizers booked to play, you and Wanda declined in favor of going home. Wanda fell asleep within ten minutes of your journey home, perhaps lulled by the soft voice of Lana del Rey. Unlike the night she had stayed over, you couldn't afford to admire the sleeping girl lest you wish for disaster. Then, you would undoubtedly replace Jarvis for the worst date ever.

You contented yourself by humming to the music and tapping on the steering wheel. When you parked in front of her house, Wanda remained deep in slumber, her chest rising slowly with each breath. How could she become more beautiful each time you look at her?

You reached over, gently rubbing her arm, and Wanda groaned, scrunching her face into a scowl, disgruntled by being disturbed.

"Wake up, sleepy head. We're here," you said, biting back a laugh.

Her eyes snapped open at your words, embarrassment washing over her face.

"Sorry," Wanda said, rubbing at her eyes.

Your lips twitch upwards, arching a singular eyebrow. "What for?"

"I fell asleep."

"I don't mind. In fact, I immensely enjoyed the little nose scrunch you do when sleeping. It's cute," you teased, recalling the small detail from the one time you risked a glance.

"Oh, god, stop," Wanda grumbled into her hands.

You hummed, your teeth grasping your lower lip, lost in deep contemplation.

"I don't think I will. I like making you blush. It makes you even more adorable," you stated matter-of-factly.

"Is that so? How about you then? You were red as a tomato when Pietro exposed you. Hmm, buy everything red because it's my crush's favorite color."

You opened your mouth to counter, yet nothing came out. She had you.

"Touche," you said.

"Oh, let's not forget all the staring you do. Just so you know, I have noticed. I preferred not to call you out, but why not since we are discussing what's adorable? Definitely adorable, don't you think?"

"I invoke the fifth," you said with a pout, glad for the lack of lighting, which concealed your burning face.

Wanda reveled in her victory with a knowing smirk. She would have happily continued her teasing were it not for a yawn that reminded her of her fatigue.

"I should get going," she signed.

"Okay," you agreed reluctantly, knowing you could talk to her for hours. However, you would not prevent her from getting her much-needed sleep.

Wanda moved to grab the door handle, but you stopped her.

"Let me," you said, rushing out to her side of the car to open the door. "Oh, let's not forget this."

You opened the back door, retrieving the bear you had gifted her. You then accompanied her to her front door, where you both lingered, trying to prolong the moment.

"Thank you for today. It was fun." Wanda wrapped her arms around herself, shielding herself from the light night breeze.

"Best date you've had, right," you remind, and Wanda rolled her eyes with a smile tugging at her lips.

"So far," she countered before giving you a chaste kiss. "Goodnight, Y/N." She turned to leave, but you reached out, grasping her elbow, fueled by the sudden kiss, to ask something you had been dying to.

"Wait," you drew out the word, heart hammering in your chest. "I was waiting to ask you because I wanted to do it right. You know, after we told Pietro—not that I need his permission or anything," you fumbled, scratching the back of your neck. Wanda watched, amused yet curious.

"Anyway," you said, taking her hands into yours and looking straight into her forest-green eyes. "Will you be my girlfriend?"

Wanda remained still, processing your words. For a moment, you thought she would reject you, telling you it was too early to commit in such a way. Then, something shifted, and you noticed the unmistakable twinkle in her eyes, reflecting pure happiness. Her wide grin stretched from ear to ear, revealing a set of radiant, pearly white teeth. Her answer came in one word.

"Yes."

"Yes?" you questioned, unbelieving eyes switching her own to her lips as you pulled her closer.

She only nodded, closing the gap. Your lips locked together, fitting like puzzle pieces in a gentle kiss. You quiver under her delicate hands as they settle on the curve of your jaw. Your hands found a home on her waist, pulling her closer and sealing any gap that remained between your bodies. Your lips moved gracefully and in perfect sync in a kiss of pure tenderness and devotion. There was no rush as you parted with a gasp, searching her face and finding her swollen red lips gaping for air and unbridled affection in her green eyes.

The mesmerizing sight ignited a surge of emotion as you retook her lips with intensified passion, causing your teeth to collide in a fierce kiss. Your surroundings disappeared, unconcerned by being discovered by the neighbors or Wanda's mother. You could only think of Wanda, the warmth of her body, and the hunger with which she returned your kiss. You felt your body ascend as you bit down on her bottom lip, and she moaned.

The kiss and the day's events quickly overwhelmed Wanda with emotion, from cracking jokes or intentionally making a fool of yourself just to make her laugh to the heartwarming way you had gifted her your skeeball prize—the same one she had dropped in favor of grasping your jaw. She would have to take better care of the bear. Even being discovered by Pietro had ended pleasingly. Everything had been perfect—everything except...

Wanda suddenly pulled away, lips smacking from the action. The brunette arched an eyebrow and tilted her head to the side in the menacing manner you loved. Although confused by the action, it only made you want to kiss her more. It was only her following words that stopped you.

"Who the hell is Daisy, and why did Pietro think you were out with her today?"

You chuckled nervously, looking at anything but the brunette. You were so in trouble.

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A/N: Thank you to all who have read this story and liked, commented on, or reblogged it. I was hesitant to share my writing, but your support has given me the confidence to continue posting my work. Hopefully, you'll like what I have planned next!

Taglist: @alexawynters

[kaija-rayne-author]

Dragon Age, as a series, deserved so much better than Veilguard.

Spoilers for Veilguard and maybe other DA stuff.

Obligatory 'I'm not an asshole' disclaimer. Feel free to jump to the cut if you've read it.

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I was on media blackout while I played DAV. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Though, every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you bozos ever played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

Note. None of my writing on DA, but especially DAV, is edited. This is just my off the cuff writing. I don't have the time, energy, or heart to edit them properly.

The Solavellan romance deserved a much better end than 'die and go to fade prison'. I agree that Inky would likely be happy to leave. She's as traumatized as Solas for having to lead when she didn't want to. But I needed more than a craptastic Romeo and Juliet ending.

I refuse to do the heavy lifting for the writers. If it wasn't shown in the game or in supplementary materials, it didn't happen. Showing us the story was the writers' and devs job, not mine.

I mourn what will never be, even as I work on a Solavellan fix it fic.

How could they betray the IP so badly?

How could they betray their fanbase so badly? The fanbase that kept hope for that game alive for 10 years. I've seen so many people saying they've lost their interest or passion for the entirety of Dragon age. That they're not even remotely interested in another game because absolutely none of the choices we made in previous games matters anymore. They've wiped everything clean... or blighted it anyway. (I have absolutely no interest in another DA game. Not with Epler/Busche/Weekes involved. And whoever designed that ridiculous fighting system.)

The only way I could possibly be interested in another game would be if they loudly decanonized DAV, gave us a DLC (they've already confirmed there will be no DLC) that showed us Solas and Inky happy and not in a horrible place. One that showed us that somehow, something changed for the elves.

But that's so unlikely it's laughable.

The elves deserved a better ending. Are the survivors still enslaved or living in alienages? What actually changed for the elves except the largest portion of the Dalish being dead from blight? (That’s a real elvish win, isn't it?)

I'm a stubborn person. I refuse to let Epler's 'hate-revenge on Solas fan fic' ruin something I've loved for years. I still have the first 3 games. I'll make an actual happy ending and a decent romance for Rook in my fic.

And by the fact they paid a fortune to big gaming magazines while denying game keys to bigger honest reviewers... they knew.

They knew gamers wouldn't like it and tried to blow so much smoke up our asses with the interviews and AMAs.

How do they even sleep at night?

I'm a creative too, I write, do graphic design, digital (learning) and traditional (good) art.

My stories are important to me. They deserve not only an ending, but an ending that respects the characters, lore, and world that I've created.

My readers deserve that, too.

I, as the creator of my stories, deserve a decent, respectful ending.

Dragon age deserved it, too. A good, well thought out, and well written ending to the story of the Dreadwolf storyline, which, if you're paying attention, is intertwined through all 3 games. It's not just in Inquisition. One that made sense to the collected Lore, his struggles and mistakes, his literary role as an anti-hero.

I would never be able to do what they've done to a beloved series. I could never knowingly mislead fans like they did.

It's just a really painful reminder that beloved stories can be utterly destroyed in the wrong hands. And a reminder that there's so much talent and skill in Fan fic.

Busche worked on the Sims. No wonder the companions often feel as interesting as wet cardboard. Most Sims NPCs do, too. (I actually enjoy the Sims, but the NPCs aren't why I like it.)

And she had the gall to blame 'culture wars' and 'identity politics' for why the game is tanking. Rather than take ownership of the incredibly bad calls made for DAV.

It's just gross. I wish I could stop thinking about it. But Dragon Age got me through some tough times. It means a lot to me.

And it just deserved better. So did we.

[aethon-recs]

Tomarrymort Dead Dove Recs, Part 1 🕊️

Welcome to Part 1 of Dead Dove-themed Tomarrymort recs. I like fluff and soft and light-hearted fic as much as the next reader, but at the end of the day, Tomarrymort is a dark ship, and there are some brilliantly talented writers here creating incredibly dark & twisted absolute mindfucks of works that I want to pay tribute to. 

Please note there can be found potentially triggering and disturbing content in the rec list below, so this time I will be placing all 30 of these recs below the cut. Keep in mind don’t like; don’t read, so feel free to scroll on by if non-con/dub-con is not a theme you would like to explore. 

This list was made in collaboration with @danpuff-ao3’s Dead Dove Diaries Series. Check it out for other HP dead dove recs!

*

Tomarrymort Non-Con/Dub-Con Recs

A Single Love by Vera_DragonMuse (E, 23k, complete)

If Tom had been raised by Harry instead, would he have grown up to be Lord Voldemort?

A Special Day by @vdoshu (E, 3k, complete)

“I think a fresh start is important. I’d like one, and I think this can be it.” “It’s a bit late for a fresh start for me, don’t you think?” he retorts snidely.

Aconite; Thistle by @kushimanii (E, 32k, complete)

Voldemort decides to keep Harry alive and impregnate him to bear children that he can raise into loyal Death Eaters.

Aftertaste by @hiredhorse (E, 4k, complete)

Harry noticed the handsome stranger before the game began.

At the expense of the world by @itsevanffs (E, 24k, WIP)

"He had a lover, you know," Jenkins says to Remus once Harry's behind a wall and out of sight again. "A boy, and a gorgeous one at that. Nobody really knew where he came from, and Tom didn't seem to favour him either, at first, but by the end, he was besotted." Jenkins pauses. "Might have been a girl," he says. "We don't have any drawings, and all the texts are warnings that the God-Emperor is a jealous man - do not seek his puer, or you will be slain where you stand."

Cloudy by @dividawrites (E, 5k, complete)

Trapped alone in a prison on an island, there are many things Tom forgets. But he never forgets Harry.

Dark Light by CrazyJanaCat (E, 3k, complete)

Nineteen years after the defeat of Lord Voldemort, the Wizarding World is at peace, and for once, everything seems right. But what no one knows is that their hero has a dark secret...

Eulogy by @meles-merrivale (E, 6k, complete)

You run through the things you have to do for the day. It is, admittedly, a very short list. Wake up. Be clean. Be ready. An empty life, some might call it. You don’t. It is the life He has given you, and so it is what you deserve.

For He is the Sun and I am His Shadow by @aglassroseneverfades (E, 13k, complete)

The date is September 1st, 1996. Lord Voldemort is about to get everything he's ever wanted.

Frigid by @mrviran (E, 3k, complete)

In which one of Voldemort's horcruxes is broken, and needs to be fixed.

golden boy by @exarite (E, 3k, complete)

They thought Harry Potter was dead. Months after the battle at Hogwarts, the last of the Resistance finally gets captured. Voldemort shows them just how very much alive Harry Potter is.

Guaranteed Safety by Assapanick (E, 13k, complete)

The only problem would be convincing the Dark Lord to impregnate him, but Harry doesn’t plan on asking.

Harry Potter and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Rut by @neurowriter14 (E, 6k, complete)

Harry goes into the forest to confront Voldemort and his death, and all the while his rut waits in the wings, drawing Voldemort's curiosity.

Heartbeat by @phantomato (E, 24k, complete)

Harry, dumped into the past, communes with dangerous men.

Honeyguide by @cannibalinc (E, 7k, complete)

“I need an Alpha," Tom states. "Someone older. Someone already established within the Ministry with strong connections. Someone kind, a bit stupid, and rich. A Pureblood, ideally. Someone who will soften my image.” “A sweet-hearted, good-looking, oblivious moderate, you mean?” Scorpius asks. “Well, that’s Harry Potter to a T. Too bad he’s married.” This is not the problem Scorpius thinks it is.

in bad faith by @cindle-writes (E, 3k, complete)

Voldemort, despite looking thin and skeletal, is heavy enough of a weight on Harry’s chest that he’s having trouble breathing, each breath feeling like a thick, syrupy effort to draw in. “Don’t worry, Harry, I’ll take care of you,” Voldemort murmurs, hot breath ghosting over Harry’s ear.

Insatiate by @vdoshu (E, 2k, complete)

Voldemort stole both Harry and the Philosopher’s Stone, and doomed Harry to live a half-life. That was ten years ago.

Legacy by Pengress (E, 6k, complete)

His Horcrux stared at him with wide green eyes. Voldemort could see the panic, the fear. He had accepted his place in the ritual reluctantly, but he had given the important permission for Voldemort to use his body, and while the preparation seemed to have scared his Horcrux, Voldemort would make sure he would not go back on his word.

Lingering Warmth by anon (E, 2k, complete)

In the aftermath of Harry's death, Voldemort admires Harry's corpse, and when Harry comes back to life he finds himself in a perplexing situation.

My Lord, Master, My Soul by FletchleyRose (E, 69k, complete)

During the Battle of Hogwarts, Lord Voldemort learns that Harry Potter is his unintentional Horcrux. He decides to make him his – mind, body, and soul. Harry is not on board with this plan. But when the Dark Lord starts using pleasure instead of pain to convince him, will he be able to resist?

on the other side by @philolust (E, 3k, complete)

Someone abducts Harry Potter and the Dark Lord in an effort to get them to cooperate and end the war. It goes horribly wrong.

Precious Horcrux by @loneamaryllis (E, 127k, WIP)

"Precious Horcrux..." The two possessive, cloying words, hissed low, made Harrie feel nauseous. "I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to keep you."

Research and Development by @cannibalinc (E, 6k, complete)

Primary Objective: Establish with certainty that Subject IS or IS NOT a living Horcrux. Captured audio sample from Subject: You can’t keep me in here forever, Voldemort! Why don’t you come in here and face me, you COWARD! I’m not scared of you! Dumbledore will find me and—

rise anew by @duplicitywrites (E, 5k, complete)

“I must thank you for this new body of mine,” Voldemort continues in an amused tone as he flexes the fingers of his new hand, examining the unnatural length of them. “It is unexpected but not… unpleasant.”

silk of midnight and dawn by @ilya-zzz (E, 3k, complete)

Harry approaches, quietly, arms raised in front of him. It doesn’t take long before pale skin transforms into soft fur as dark as the night sky. Red eyes, now green, look at Harry with such an intensity that he has to take a step back. Four-legged and as imposing as he is when standing in two, Tom Riddle has transformed into a panther.

Such a Noble Villain (part 1) / Monster Under the Bed (part 2) by Run_of_the_mill (E, 4k, complete)

Harry and Voldemort are in a classroom, and Harry is stuck to a chair. Some very weird, creepy stuff happens next because Voldemort is who he is.

The Tattoo by @crowcrowcrowthing (E, 5k, complete)

Tom gives Harry a tattoo that creates a bond between them, giving Tom some control over his mind.

The Ties That Bind by @mosiva (E, 8k, complete)

Harry finds the locket at Grimmauld Place, but it has a curse laid on it. When Harry triggers it, he finds himself trapped with the locket version of Tom Riddle, both of them stuck within the enchantment until they can find the way out. Or so Harry thinks.

Tom Riddle and the Quest for Vulnerability by lejf (E, 16k, complete)

Auror Harry Potter has eighteen-year-old Tom Riddle bent over the table barely a day after he becomes his ward.

Violent Delights by @katsitting (E, 5k, complete)

“The Golden Boy is no more…” Voldemort whispered, voice high and reedy, amused. Harry was shoved against something hard and unyielding. It scratched along his back, chafing the skin. Harry didn’t so much as flinch, refusing to make a sound when more jeers sounded in the clearing, the words cutting through the rush of blood flooding Harry’s ears—

*

[inanshalla]

yeah um these new writers didn’t know wtf they were doing when writing for veilguard and OBVIOUSLY they did not play any of the previous games, didn’t even look at the spark notes version

below the cut

they changed mythal’s motivation of being avenged for her betrayal and death by the evanuris

to her actually caring about modern elves all along and admits to a elf rook that she in fact cares a lot for them also that she did not approve of what solas was planning:

which wouldn’t be so bad… when that’s a big contradiction. Other than saying the dalish inquisitor makes The People proud, she says to a dalish inquisitor who can ask her why she was not there for them then and even now:

what is strangest to me is that… the fragment of mythal inside flemeth that was so focused on her own reckoning and revenge that she didn’t do anything for the elven people is said to have gone through considerable character development while inside flemeth by morrigan who now has a fragment of mythal:

morrigan is clear about the mythal in the crossroads is still bitter and vengeful over not just her betrayal by the evanuris but also by solas as well after the events of inquisition when he killed her for her power:

so according to veilguard, the mythal that was inside flemeth during inquisition actually cared about the modern elves all along rather than getting revenge for her betrayal and murder by the evanuris and did not agree with solas’ plans of tearing down the veil to restore the elven people… but in inquisition this same fragment told a dalish inquisitor to their face when they asked why didn’t she help as they prayed and prayed for her to help them by saying “what was could not be changed” and that by asking mythal to do something NOW they don’t know what they were asking, asking for her help to help the modern elves… as she clearly cared more about her own retribution by saying mythal came to her “for a reckoning that would shake the very heavens” and she would see her avenged

this is horribly inconsistent… which keeps showing up :/

and to get the good/best ending, if you obtain mythal’s essence: either through a fight or convincing her, as I don’t think that matters, she will appear with morrigan’s help to stop solas… so basically putting her love for modern elves above her revenge so quickly… but that can be explained with rook convincing her to help the veilguard but… nevermind

Oh lord,

but then again considering the new devs didn’t know who half the damn original cast of the series were and clearly didn’t know jack shit about what they were talking about I’m not surprised

[darksturnioloqueen]

TreeHouse - Chapter 16

"You've been spending an awful lot of time in the treehouse lately."

Summary: Sienna slips up.

"If you don't try, you will never know."

⚠️This Fic Series will NOT be for people with triggers. This Fic Series will have very descriptive moments of abuse.⚠️

Please Read At Your Own Risk.

⚠︎Trigger Warning: angst, threatening, anxiety, lying, being uncomfortable, mention of bruising and blood, cut lip, mention of being punched, pushing self boundaries, sad shit. ⚠︎

Sienna's POV:

After Chris ran off, I knew I had pushed him too far. I felt horrible. I also wasn't sure how I felt about myself. I loved Chris; that was always a given, but did I love him? When I kissed him, all I could think of was the boy who abandoned me, and I had grown to despise him for it. But that boy wasn't Chris. Chris wanted to kiss me back. Chris wanted me to. I pushed the double door to the library out of my way. His blue eyes locked on mine, and his smile grew.

"Hey."

"Hey, can I talk to you?" I was playing a dangerous game, but I needed more answers than Chris was willing to give me. I also didn't want to keep pushing him too far.

"Yeah, of course." Matt pulled out the chair for me to sit in. I set my bag on the table and swallowed hard. I could already feel the regret for this idea settling in the pit of my stomach.

"It's hard to -" I felt myself choking.

"It's okay, Si. You can talk to me about anything." There was a moment in his voice when I believed him. I felt like I could. But he didn't know that I knew. He wasn't aware of what I was about to say or all of the things I wanted to say.

"Are you related to Chris?" I avoided looking at him as best as I could, but eventually failed. He was stiff. I felt like I needed to explain why I was asking. "I got paired with him for a school project and I -"

"Yes, he is Nick and I's long-lost brother. We don't talk about it." He lied, which I figured he would. Why wouldn't he?

"Long lost?" I played into his cover story.

"Yeah. He disappeared when he was young, and we were recently reunited. It's weird for us, so we don't discuss it. We are still trying to understand it all." His voice was so genuine, I almost wanted to question Chris now.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to -" I wanted to end this conversation as quickly as I started it.

"It's fine. Just don't tell anyone." His hand gripped the back of the wooden chair, trapping me. His piercing eyes were glaring at me. This was a threat.

"No, I would never," I whispered. The bell rang, saving me from this uncomfortable situation I put myself in.

"Want me to walk you to class?" He asked, standing up, grabbing his things. I watched him closely.

"Uh, yeah." I raised my voice, trying to sound normal. I couldn't let him know he got inside my head. We walked the halls, and everyone stared at us. Being with Thee Matthew Sturniolo was a big deal. He was the one everyone wanted, but only one person was allowed to have him, me. I mentally cursed Julia for getting me into this situation. It was her note that sparked his interest in me. He dropped me off and kissed me on the cheek. I brushed it off with a forced giggle, only because I didn't want him to kiss me ever again. The way Chris tried to kiss me was better; it meant more to me.

School finished up, and I didn't see Chris once. It always worried me. It sent my mind into a dizzy spiral of what-ifs, and none of the what-ifs were good. I got on the bus and sat next to AK.

"What's new?"

"Matt and I are good." I lied immediately. We were far from good. For all of five seconds, I might have believed him about Chris being a long-lost brother, but then he made a very clear threat againstme. I couldn't bear the thought of pursuing him, knowing what he does to Chris.

"Ohhh." He gave me a slight shove, and I flinched. "I hope it works out. Cause lord knows I'd do anything to get -"

"Nick." We both said at the same time with differing tones.

"You can't tell me that man doesn't just ravish you in bed." AK gushed. He never missed a chance to talk about the Sturniolo twins. Triplets?

"I'll text you," I said, getting off the bus and walking away from him quickly. I made it home, shut the door behind me, and sighed.

"Rough day at school?" I opened my eyes to see both my parents staring at me with expressions that were odd.

"Yeah." I sighed again as I walked into the kitchen. My mom started getting me a snack from the fridge.

"We are going to a work meeting tonight. Are you going to be okay?"

"Yes, Dad." I smiled, knowing it meant I didn't have to worry about them seeing Chris. I knew he wasn't ready for it, and I wasn't really sure how to explain it to him yet. "I think I'm going to do some homework in the treehouse." I said in a nonchalant manner, grabbing the plate with my snack.

"Honey, are you okay?"

"You've been spending an awful lot of time in the treehouse lately."

"Yeah, I just got reminded how special it was." I immediately thought of Chris.

"Okay." My mom had a skeptical look.

"Okay." I accidentally gave her a little attitude. I just needed to get all my thoughts straight, and it was hard doing that, feeling like everyone was watching me and judging my every move. I left and went into my room to change into something comfortable for the treehouse. I grabbed a book and my phone to take with me for something to do. Once I crawled up the wooden ladder, I sat in my designated spot. I sighed a different kind of sigh—one of relief. Something about being back in the treehouse evoked a sense of nostalgia. I felt like myself again. I was always myself with my friends, but the piece of me I left here was slowly reattaching back to me, and I couldn't explain how it truly felt. I started playing some tranquil music on my phone and reading. After a while, my parents interrupted my reading to let me know they were leaving. I hollered back and then looked at the time. It was getting late. I felt that same sense of worry from whenever I didn't catch a glimpse of him at school. I kept reading to distract myself, waiting. After clearing several chapters in my book, I lay down on the matted rug. I felt my eyes starting to get droopy, waiting.

"Nessie?" I fluttered my eyes open.

"Chris?" I whispered.

"You fell asleep. Why are you out here?" I sat up and looked around. I settled my gaze on Chris's face. His lip was split with fresh blood dripping. His eyes were dark. His cheeks were pink.

"Chris," I said, focusing on his face more.

"I'm sorry it took so long. I -"

"What happened?" I asked, sitting up and really looking at him. I wanted to know, but I didn't. It was a weird feeling. I wanted to know everything, but at the same time, my heart couldn't take the truth.

"Why are you still out here?" He asked again, avoiding my question. I huffed, annoyed with the circles.

"I was waiting for you," I answered first. "Now, tell me what happened to you?" He looked down, ashamed. "Chris?" I whispered. His head slowly lifted again.

"Matt was angry about something." My breathing stopped. Could it be me talking to him today? Talking about Chris?

"Is it bad?" I wasn't sure what else to say. I felt the ache in my hands from wanting to reach out and grab his face and hold him, but I knew better.

"No, just some punches. It didn't last long." Chris looked around the treehouse, and I saw his shoulders visibly relax.

"Calming isn't it?" I chuckled, knowing he was feeling the same relief I felt from being back in here.

"Safe." He was short, but I knew what he meant. The treehouse was a safe space for him. After a long silence, I spoke up.

"I won't kiss you unless you ask." I just wanted to let him know I respected him. I knew he was unsure of his boundaries, and I didn't want to be the one to push him. "We can go at your pace," I reassured him. I personally had no experience with a situation as sensitive as this. I needed to be careful. He nodded in understanding.

"Can we... try again?" He finally let his eyes meet mine.

"Are you sure?" I asked. I wanted to kiss him more than anything. My stomach was twisting thinking about it.

"Just don't touch me." His voice was very serious. I moved over to him and sat down carefully in front of him. He lifted himself to his knees and looked at me. Since I was closer, I could see more bruising and his split lip more clearly. He leaned in first, so I knew he felt comfortable. His slow movement was building the flutter in my gut.

"Are you sure?" I had to ask again. I couldn't imagine him feeling uncomfortable because of me. He moved his lips closer to mine and pressed them lightly. I saw him close his eyes, feeling every push his lips started pining for. I closed my eyes and felt my breath being stolen. This was how it was supposed to be. This time, Chris took his hand and cupped my jawline firmly. "Okay," I whispered. I wasn't sure if I was asking him if he was or if I was telling him I was. Chris pulled me up to his level. I noticed a slight metallic taste invading my mouth. He was really into this. I felt him brush my hair out of the way. He was pushing his boundaries for me. I lifted my hands and grabbed his waist. He immediately pulled back and shoved me away. "Fuck. I'm sorry." I stuttered. "Did I hurt you?" I asked, worried I just ruined this moment, too.

"No. No. I'm fine." Chris mumbled. "It's late. I should go." He started leaving the treehouse. I was starting to learn one thing: I couldn't keep him here. I couldn't make him stay.

Royal Subjects:

@emely9274 @alexisa78 @iloveduckssm

[slugtranslation-hypmic]

Hello slug! Do you have any piece of advice you wish you knew when you first started out as a translator? (Or just something you want beginner translators to know)

I could go on about this all day if you let me, so I sat on this ask for a few weeks and tried to condense it down to five of the most helpful-- if a little abstract-- points. Hope this helps!

Usual reminder that I'm referring specifically to J->E media translation, although I would imagine most of this applies to media translation of other language pairs.

Edit: Ohhh Tumblr's being a nasty little man and not letting me post everything. Try to curtail my verbose ass, eh? We'll see about THAT! More in the reblogs it is.

A translation is a piece of creative writing informed by the unique needs and limitations of its author, audience, and medium. Before I write a single word, I always consider what approach is most appropriate for translating the work. This is informed by many things, including but not limited to: - Author(s). A work with a single author (most books, indie games) usually demands stricter fidelity, as the words you write become representative of this person's views within the English audience. A work with multiple authors (most bigger games, virtually all anime) may allow greater creativity in the pursuit of other goals. The author's purpose is also paramount. If the author's primary goal is to make people laugh, you will often want to make your work do just that. Serious works should read seriously. Romantic works should tug at heart strings. Occasionally, authors will provide specific guidelines to follow. You do not always have the ability to push back, even if you think they are horribly misguided--in many cases, the company you're working with can lose business if translation teams cause too much of a fuss. If the end result looks silly, you may be blamed for it in reviews and public perception. Responding publicly is not a good look and may hurt your chances at finding employment elsewhere. Conduct yourself professionally! (End of tangent.) - Audience. While rewriting a text to cater to an audience is almost never appropriate, it will often make you and the audience happier if you consider their expectations for translations. Fan translation readers often want to receive a black-and-white, "correct" interpretation of the text--an understandable desire; I'm not knocking this--and therefore may be more receptive to inappropriately detailed translation notes while less receptive to looser interpretations of the text. Readers of professional translations, especially paid works, often demand a higher level of polish and are less tolerant of juvenile goofery that can sometimes be gotten away with in fan translation. Similarly, genres affect the work. BL audiences are more likely to be LGBT+ than isekai action audiences and will expect translators to use more politically correct language. Some niche genres expect (at least, the appearance of) stricter fidelity at the word level than genres that attract a wider mix of casual and serious fans. - Medium. Even if one translator works on multiple iterations of the same series, the nature of the medium will force them to produce two very different translations. Anime and manga are often more understated compared to works of straight text (visual novels, actual novels, some RPGs) to avoid overwhelming the visuals. Anything that is voiced (anime, some video games) must follow the tone and sentence structure (Ie, "short clause, pause, long clause" is often translated as "short clause, comma, long clause" even if there are many, many other ways to express this idea) of the voiced line. Anything with character limits (anime subs, video games, manga) must be concise and punchy. In manga, the script's visual presentation--line length, what words should be placed together to create a nice shape, word length in skinny bubbles--must also be taken into consideration.

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

Ugh. Heroes and Battle Amy was awful. In fact, since Heroes was my intro to the franchise and it and some of her more egregious moments in X and even Generations (original- the “I was afraid I would never be able to flirt with you again”) was why I ended up despising her up until Boom.

“There’s no way outta marrying me!” Is arguably one of the worst things I’ve seen the games do that wasn’t, ya know, simply a game not being good (note I have not read Archie but I know it’s got some extremely questionable bits which is why I won’t say the series). Making a hero a creepy stalker was a horrible call.

It took until Forces for me to fully accept that she’s no longer a creepy fangirl. Almost two decades.

Now I’m stupid excited for Sonic 4 because that badass moment in the end credits fits faaaar more in line with post Forces Amy, who I’ve really grown to love.

yeah like. i know everyone loves heroes but i personally kinda have trouble getting into it solely bc of how they framed amy in that game. like... did people in the mid-2000s actually find that funny or were execs always out-of-touch?

[psychhound]

first game of the year

happy new year everyone :) last night around 12:40 i played my first ttrpg of 2025!! it was pocket delver by @imsobadatnicknames2 and i had such a good time

it took me about an hour to get through 8 rooms and then horribly beef it and i had a blast. i was really hesitant as i've only done a little bit of dungeon crawling, much less solo, and i was feeling unsure as i read through the rules but i wanted a new experience to start off the year. and it was so worth it!! fell in love with the game quickly, twirling my hair kicking my feet etc

the game really invites you to give it some flavor by asking you to set three goals for the dungeon before you start playing. once youve reached your third goal you've beaten the dungeon. you also get to decide for yourself what the dungeon actually is, and what form the enemies take (but dont really Have to if you just want to roll some dice). i got past my first two goals but lowered the chances i would reach the third one quickly each time because i wanted to keep playing!!

i ended up flavoring mine as playing as one of my npcs from my homegame. this is a nightmare she's having after a big fight, trying to find her partner and the chekovs gun of the game right now while working to escape a nightmare labyrinth version of her family home. she ended up getting killed by three "warriors" in the dream, which worked perfectly, since three mysterious masked figures joined the last fight but ended up running away - the same people who killed her deputy years ago. i thought it was fitting she was taken down by those same three before she startled herself awake. and since both the room she started in and died in were fairly close to each other on the map and had beds in them, i decided these were the nightmare version of her and her sister's bedrooms

the story i laid on top of it wasnt really necessary to enjoy the game at all, but it added some more depth for me!!

[ID: photos of a notebook with writing in it. the first page is the character sheet, showing the character lizzie no, with her hp, mana, stats, inventory, gold, and two completed plot points. the second photo shows the dungeon map, with the goals at the top, and a series of interconnected squares representing rooms. the rooms each have notes in them about what was in the room, and the places where plot points were hit are marked. there are also three enemies written in pencil, showing their hp being depleted. two enemies were killed, and one was on 2hp when the game ended. end ID]

anyway, check it out :)