#SHE LETS HERSELF FALL INTO THE OCEAN AND LETS HERSELF SINK THERE SO SHE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE SOMEONE ELSE ANYMORE

[monogramsalarm]

in the last two days i've reread two of the three "airhead" books by meg cabot and y'all.... no wonder these were some of my favorite books in fifth grade, it's INSANE

#m.txt #so y'know. meg cabot. author of princess diaries and other teen rom com-esque books #she went okay so what if.... i made a book with a sci fi esque premise.... and topped it all off with Capitalism Is The Root of All Evil #and i'm eating this shit up i didn't even remember HALF of this #the protagonist is in someone else's body and has to pretend to be her #and fuckin HAS SEVERAL MENTAL BREAKS AT THE FACT THAT SHE CAN NO LONGER BE HERSELF AND IS LEGALLY DEAD #SHE LETS HERSELF FALL INTO THE OCEAN AND LETS HERSELF SINK THERE SO SHE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE SOMEONE ELSE ANYMORE #IT'S W I L D #i'm gonna read the third one today when i get off work

[fandomxpreferences]

Secrets Secrets Are No Fun

Masterlist

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x female!reader, past Barry x female!reader

TW:18+, mentions of alcohol consumption and drug abuse, angst, fluff,smut, oral (f receiving), dominance, mild breeding kink, I think thats all

Summary:Rafe discovers some interesting information about your past and reminds you who you belong to.

Word Count.3.6k

Rafe has never been one for involving you with his work. He insists that you're too sweet and pretty; his perfect girl that should never have to lift a manicured finger. 

Deeper than that though, is his desire to protect you. It's no secret that Rafe has gotten involved in shady dealings in the past, and he wants you nowhere near it. 

He isn't aware of your own suspicious past; your younger years before him spent on the cut and around less-than-moral people. 

One of the things that drew him to you was your natural ability to be the life of the party and he was hooked when you beat him in a game of beer pong. He never stopped to ask where those qualities came from though, and you never offered up the answer. 

To say you're surprised when he brings you along to a "business" meeting on the cut is an understatement. You're not entirely sure what he could possibly have arranged on that side of the island, but you don't press for details. 

Familiar streets and houses blur by as you draw closer to your old stomping grounds, and your stomach sinks when he pulls up to a house you recognize all too well. 

His hand falls to its usual place on the small of your back as he leads you up the yard, the man you were hoping never to see again slamming the screen door behind him when he hears your arrival. 

You stay tucked into your boyfriend's side, his fingers digging into your waist as a reminder that you're safe. Little does he know, this used to be a place of solace for you and danger isn't even a thought in your mind. 

Your eyes lock with Barry's momentarily, widening the slightest bit to try and communicate as Rafe looks forward. 

"Shiiiiiit, if it ain't the princess herself. Long time no see."

He flashes a toothy grin and you do your best to conceal the panic clawing up your throat as you shift on your feet. 

Rafe frowns a bit, unaware that the two of you have met. 

"You know him?"

He's turned to you now, confusion swimming in his ocean eyes as your gaze stays locked on Barry. 

"Yeah, she knows me re-"

You cut him off suddenly, tilting your head to peer up at Rafe.

"We've met at a few parties and talked some. We're just acquaintances, really."

You give him a blinding smile that seems to convince him, and Barry eyes you knowingly. A devilish grin splits his feathers as he casts his eyes toward the ground and shakes his head.

"Yeah, country club. Acquaintances."

Rafe glances between the two of you suspiciously, picking up on unspoken tension and the slight edge to Barry's voice. He doesn't like being in the dark, and he has a nagging feeling that you're not telling him something. 

Still, he lets it go for now and takes a step forward. You hang back with your arms crossed, toying with the grass beneath your feet as you tune out their conversation. This is a new level of trust from Rafe; he's never let you know any details in the past. 

It causes an ache in your chest; guilt eating at you as he puts his heart in your hands while you hide the truth. You try to convince yourself that it's not particularly deceitful, you're just not giving him the entire story. It wouldn't do anything but cause problems anyway; so what's the harm in a little white lie?

What he doesn't know can't hurt him. 

You're lost in your thoughts; images of white lines and passion-filled nights flashing behind your eyelids. It's not your proudest moment, climbing into bed with a drug dealer. You're ashamed of that part of your life; you were lost and willing to risk everything just to feel something. 

You've since grown up and found purpose. You're happy and it's all behind you. So really, why does it matter? It led you to where you are. 

Your little fling, if you can even call it that, with Barry was short-lived. You only hooked up with him while high, so honestly you could argue that it wasn't really you. It was an alter ego that comes out when you're under the influence, on a war path to make bad decisions. 

Granted, you were sober when you woke up still in his bed and decided to stay, but that's neither here nor there.

Is that a little toxic and twisted? Perhaps. At this point, you're making up any excuse to convince yourself that you aren't wrong for keeping it from Rafe. 

Besides, what were you supposed to do? Stroll up to him and casually say 'By the way, I used to do coke and fuck my drug dealer. Love you!'? That most definitely wouldn't have gone over well. 

You're torn out of your thoughts when you feel Rafe beside you again, and let him lead you back to his truck wordlessly. You don't cast Barry a second glance, though you can feel his gaze burning into your back. 

The drive back is silent, and you can tell by the tortured look on Rafe's face that he has questions. His fingers are tapping the steering wheel rapidly, deep creases between his brows as he scowls. 

As soon as you get back, you hop out and make a beeline toward Tannyhill. He's hot on your heels, ready to pick a fight, but you don't give him the chance. You grab your keys, spouting off an excuse about an errand you need to run, before practically sprinting to your car. 

He lets you go, a sinking feeling in his gut as he watches you peel out of the driveway. 

You're not exactly thinking clearly as you follow the route you know by muscle memory, panic clouding over any logical thought. You need to make sure this stays a secret. 

Your tires squeal as you skid to a stop, and you nearly gag at the victorious look on his face when he sees you. 

"Couldn't stay away, huh?"

You march forward, hands coming up to shove him back before pointing a finger in his face. It does little to deter him, his eyes darkening with lust at your defiant and bratty attitude.

"Don't start with me. Our deal still stands, Barry. Whatever the fuck happened stays between us."

You take a step back when he moves toward you, wanting to keep as much distance as possible. 

"Ah, so I was right. Country club doesn't know."

You scoff and roll your eyes, hands coming to rest on your hips. 

"Yeah, I told him that I used to fuck a low-level dealer on the cut that I didn't even know he was aware existed. Of course he doesn't fucking know, Barry!"

He barks out a short laugh, bringing a joint up to his mouth before holding it out as a peace offering. You shoot him a harsh glare, and his hands come up in surrender. 

"Just figured you would've told your boyfriend about us, baby doll."

Your nose scrunches at the nickname and a new fire surges through your veins as you step into his personal space. 

"There is no us, Barry. There never was!"

He raises his eyebrows, not convinced that you believe your own line of bullshit. There were one too many mornings spent over with tangled legs and a few too many secrets shared for it to have been nothing. 

"That's not what you were screaming when I was buried inside you and doing a line.." His finger moves to trace the valley between your breasts as he continues. "Right here."

You shudder at his touch, not from desire but rather disgust at feeling his hand on you again. 

"Don't worry, I won't say nothin'. But if he ever fails to satisfy you, you know where to find me. I still remember where all those little spots are that make you sc-"

You cut him off, not able to bear the rest of his sentence. 

"Yeah, whatever. See ya never."

You flip him off before turning on your heel, but stop mid-stride when his voice rings out. 

"Oh, and doll? The two of you may have more in common than you think. How you think he knows me so well?"

The question swirls around in your brain as you climb back into the driver's seat and start toward your boyfriend's house. That hadn't even occurred to you. Barry was known for one thing, so how the hell would Rafe know him? Let alone come to be in business with him. 

Your thoughts are racing by the time you arrive, questions that don't have logical answers plaguing your mind. 

Rafe is in front of you within seconds once you cross the threshold, concern and anger clear on his face. It seems that both of you have had time to stew and come up with various scenarios. 

You walk past him casually, finding a glass to fill with water as he leans against the kitchen island. 

"You know, I was thinking,"

So it begins. Rafe thinking is never good; but in this case, he doesn't know that you have ammo of your own. He's going to regret pulling at this thread, that much you're sure of. 

"You said you've met Barry at parties, but he wouldn't be caught dead on Figure Eight. Which means you were on the Cut. So you wanna tell me the truth before I go beat it out of him?"

You turn around slowly, sipping leisurely as you hold eye contact over the rim of the glass. He falters slightly at the steely look in your eyes that rivals the fire in his but holds his ground. You take your time, giving him a chance to back down. 

When he doesn't, you set the cup down and lean forward to match his stance, pursing your lips for dramatic effect. 

"You know, Rafe, I could ask you the same thing. It seems neither of us have been completely honest."

Satisfaction blooms in your chest when his eyes widen slightly, no doubt wishing that he had just dropped the subject. His mouth opens and closes a few times as he flounders, and you cock your head to the side in a mocking manner. 

"Cat got your tongue, country club?"

His eyes darken when you repeat the nickname he loathes, and he stands up straight while moving to loom over you. 

"Don't change the fucking subject."

His voice is deeper than usual, dripping off his tongue like molasses as anger bubbles up inside him. 

"I'm not changing the subject. I'm just asking how you know Barry since you seem so pissed off that I know him. We both know what he does and you said yourself that he wouldn't come to Figure Eight, which means you sought him out on the cut. Seems like your casting stones from a glass house."

Your tone is far too casual as you shrug your shoulders like you're discussing what to have for dinner and it pisses Rafe off more.

"What was the errand you had to run, sweetheart? You came back empty-handed."

Your silence seems to confirm his suspicion and he nods his head, his tongue darting out to wet his lips as he chuckles. 

"Did you fuck him?"

The question is dripping with venom, but you don't miss the heartache lying just under the surface. You soften a bit at the realization he thinks you cheated and shake your head. 

"Today? No. Ever? Yes. It was a long time ago, Rafe. Way before I even knew you. I used to do some fucked up shit, but that's not who I am anymore."

Your voice is timid as you finally give him the answer he was looking for, a weight lifting off your shoulders as your last secret is revealed to your boyfriend. 

His eyes dart back and forth as he processes the new information, and he cages you against the counter while dropping his face to be level with yours. In any other circumstance, it would be intimidating. However, when you see the raw vulnerability he's displaying, it's anything but. 

"Were you in love with him?"

Your eyes widen, realization hitting you that he doesn't have all the information. As far as he knows, you were in a relationship. 

"No, Rafe. Not even close. We would do blow and then hookup. It started turning into something more towards the end and that's why I walked away from it all and never looked back. I wanted more for myself."

Your voice is soft and comforting, and he searches your eyes for any sign of deceit. 

"You did coke?"

You nod slowly, unsure how he's going to react to your confession. Against your better judgment, you decide to circle back to your question. 

"How do you know him, Rafe?"

The fury returns to his eyes at the prospect of being held accountable, and any compassion that was there just a second ago is gone. 

"I'm not done with my interrogation, baby. Did he fuck you right?"

Your mouth falls open at his brazen inquiry, unsure what the right answer is. The truth is yes, he did. However, telling Rafe that doesn't seem like a good choice so you remain silent. 

"Did he make you scream like I do? Huh? Did he know all the right places to touch? Did he know your body the same as me?"

You release a sharp gasp when his hand shoves into your pants, instantly finding the bundle of nerves and pressing tight figure eights. You choke on a strangled moan when the coolness of his signet ring grazes across your folds, his index finger dipping down to collect your slick. 

"Is this for me? Or is it for Barry?"

There's a cruel glint in his eyes, blue irises barely peeking out behind blown-out pupils. You can't bring yourself to respond, too focused on the sparks of pleasure jolting through your body. 

"Answer me! Or I won't let you come for a week."

You know that Rafe is nothing if not a man of his word, and try to muster up the strength to speak. 

"You, Rafe. It's always for you."

His lips press to the pulse point just below your ear, his hot breath causing goosebumps to erupt as he whispers into your skin. He tsks, not satisfied with your answer. 

"I don't believe you."

You're about to plead your case, when he picks you up and sets you on the counter, forcing your legs apart and ripping your shorts and lace thong off in one fell swoop. 

"Does he know how sweet you taste?"

It's a rhetorical question; and even if it wasn't, you wouldn't answer anyway. Rafe is too far gone when he's like this, anything you say will only make it worse. 

Before you can process, his lips are wrapped around your clit sucking harshly as he shoves two fingers into your soaking heat. 

Your hips jolt up as you let out a scream, his large hand resting on your lower stomach to shove you back down. 

"Don't fucking move. I want you to scream my name so loud he can hear it all the way across the island. You're never going to think about him again. Do you understand?"

You give a short nod, only to be met with a sharp sting on your clit when he bites down. 

"Words."

A shrill whine rips from your throat, desperation leaking out of every pore. 

"Yes! Yes, I understand!"

You're rewarded with his fingers curling up into that spot he knows by heart, eyes fluttering closed at the blissful sensation. 

"Look at me. I want you to see who's making you feel this good."

You do as he says, prying your eyelids open and propping up on your elbows so you can watch him devour you. 

"Fuck, Rafe."

He groans into you, alternating between licking and sucking as your high approaches at record speed. Your pussy clamps down on him, mere seconds from release when he suddenly pulls back. 

You whimper at the loss of contact, and he pulls you down to your feet. His hand presses down harshly on your head, pressing your hips into the counter hard enough to leave bruises. 

"Whores don't get to come. Maybe if you're a good girl for me and take this cock the way you're supposed to, I'll give you permission."

You moan out at his filthy words, a chuckle reverberating from his chest as you hear his belt buckle clink. 

"You just love when I treat you like a little slut, don't you?"

His hand comes down on your ass in a sharp slap when you don't respond quickly enough, and he teases your entrance with the tip of his cock. 

"Answer me or I'll leave you here dripping."

"Fuck, yes. I love when you treat me like your slut!"

He nudges inside you just enough to draw a deep moan from your chest before stopping and leaning forward so his body is covering yours. 

"Yes, what?"

The raspiness of his voice has you keening for more, now willing to do anything just to find relief. 

"Yes, Rafe."

"Good girl."

He thrusts into you suddenly, your body lurching forward at the force, and sets a brutal pace. 

"God damn, you're so ti-tight. Did he fill you up this good?"

You shake your head from side to side, turning to sink your teeth into his bicep resting beside your face. 

"No, Rafe! Fu-fuck, never."

You push your hips back to meet him, and nearly come from the groan he lets out. 

"Keep doing that, baby. So good for me."

You follow his command, a thin sheen of sweat coating both of you as you're lost in the throws of passion. Rafe can feel you tighten around him, a sign that your high is imminent. His nimble fingers reach around to rub fast circles on your clit, blistering heat itching to explode. 

"Oh, my- Rafe!" 

Your voice echoes off the walls as you scream out for him, and he remains consistent in his efforts. 

"I know. Come for me, pretty girl. Give it to me."

His words send you over the edge, and your body convulses against him as every nerve ending ignites. Your repetitive screaming of his name never ceases as your vision goes white, Rafe's strong arms holding you steady. 

"Shit, I'm close. Gonna fill you up and give you a baby so everybody knows you're mine. Taking me so well."

The desperation in his voice hurtles you into your second orgasm, barely giving you time to come down from your first. This triggers Rafe, his movements becoming erratic as he coats your walls.

He pumps into you a few more times before slowly pulling out, a combination of your fluids dripping down your legs. His fingers reach down to fuck his cum back into you as your body trembles, completely spent. 

"That's a first."

Your eyebrows furrow at his statement, turning just enough to see what he's referring to. Your jaw goes slack when your eyes land on the puddle at his feet, along with his soaked thighs. 

"Holy shit."

He chuckles with pride, his large hand coming to smooth down your hair. 

"Yeah, you made a mess baby."

He kisses your spine a few times before cleaning up quickly, his arms encompassing you once he's done. Your legs wrap around his waist as he carries you up to his bedroom, allowing you to cling to him with ease while he turns on the shower. 

Once it's to the desired temperature, he steps inside with one arm completely wrapped around your back and his other hand on the underside of your thigh. 

You release a sigh when the warm water hits your skin, nuzzling your face into his neck when he kisses your temple. 

"You have to get down if we're going to wash up, baby."

He's met with your face rubbing against him as you shake your head, and laughs loudly. 

"Come on."

He sets you down slowly, not relinquishing his hold until he's sure your legs aren't going to give out. It's peaceful for a few minutes while he goes through the motions of washing your hair, lips pressing soft kisses to your bare flesh every few seconds. 

It's a stark contrast to his persona twenty minutes ago; the side of him you love more than anything. 

"He used to be my dealer."

Your head jerks up at this, your eyes meeting his as an encouragement to continue. 

"I had a coke problem when we met. As soon as I realized you were special, I quit cold turkey. Haven't touched it in almost two years. Withdrawals were a bitch, but I just kept picturing your face and it got me through."

You nod slowly, taking in his honest answer before pressing a tender kiss to his lips. 

"Why didn't you tell me about you and Barry?"

His finger rests under your chin, gently guiding your face back up when you turn it toward the floor. 

"You never asked, and honestly I didn't think it mattered. Probably the same reason you didn't tell me. It's in the past and I don't read books backward. Once a chapter is closed, it stays that way and I didn't want to revisit it."

He hums in understanding and presses a lingering kiss to your forehead. 

"I love you."

You lean into him, allowing your body to press flush against his toned abdomen as he blankets you in comfort. 

"I love you too."

@genius2050

#rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron fic #rafe cameron angst #rafe cameron #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron fluff #rafe cameron smut #outer banks fic #outer banks #outer banks angst #outer banks imagine #outer banks smut #obx fluff #obx angst #obx imagine

[iknowsescapingjourneys]

Synopsis: Being in love with Coriolanus Snow is putting her life in his hands. She trusts he'll treat it kindly. She trusts wrong.

aka: reader has hanahaki disease for a man she's not sure is even capable of having feelings.

Pairing: Coriolanus Snow x Reader ; third person perspective

Words: 5.7k

18+, mdni

tw: author's first smut, brief mentions of vomiting, suffocation, mentions of blood, unrequited love, death, angst, handjobs, oral (male receiving), headpushing, minor humiliation, nipple play, nonconsensual oral (female receiving) if you squint (reader gets overstimulated and wants to stop, coryo doesn't), piv, unprotected sex, creampie, minor orgasm denial

a/n: please let me know how this is, i have never written smut in my life but this man deserved it.

_________________ ✾✾✾ _________________

Roses.

What a lovely flower. The overlapping intricacies of the petals, the meadow honey musk that filled the air in their presence. The romantic connotations. The connotation to him.

What a lovely flower indeed.

She’d found they were awfully persistent too. Her knees were raw and red from the recurrent contact on the cold marble floors of the Academy bathroom. Bloodied petals littered the water of the gaudy gold toilet bowl, an attempt of the Capitol’s to show off wealth they’d only just regained after the war.

Her trembling frame lurched forward once more with another fit of coughs mixed with the sickening feeling of needing to vomit. She was well aware that nothing from any of her meals would find their way back up, but the nauseousness in and of itself was enough to find herself desperately wishing the agonizingly long school day would be over. More than anything she wanted to curl into her plush mattress and excessive amount of blankets and drift off to a slumber full of dreams of a better life.

Maybe a life where she wasn’t plagued by unrequited love. Crushes, she’d dealt with. She wasn’t exactly used to rejection, but she was certainly able to realize when she wasn’t someone’s cup of tea and excuse herself. Crushes weren’t the same thing as being in love though. That was something she was well aware of.

To fall in love was to put your life into another person’s hands. In fate’s hands, even. A good person would cherish and appreciate the paramount responsibility that had been placed upon them and do anything in their power to ensure that no harm was caused. Unfortunately, even the best of people can’t compel themselves to truly love someone that they don’t harbor genuine feelings for.

So in the grand scheme of things, all she could really do was force the remaining petals up her throat and into the water below her tear streaked face, rise to her feet, and flush the toilet on the way out of the stall. She stopped for a moment when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, drudging forward until she was face to face with herself.

She wasn’t sure if she still recognized that woman. The dark circles under her eyes, the smear of red at the corner of her lips. The light in her eyes drained to a pitiful dullness. She turns the sink on, wetting her thumb and dragging it along the corner of her mouth. At least that was something she could fix.

Her hands smoothed out the skirt of her uniform, and she did an unsteady spin in front of the large mirror to ensure that she was looking, at the very least, presentable. When she was tolerant of her appearance, she pushed the large wood door open, scampering back into the hallway and back to a class she hadn’t been able to focus on for the last week and a half.

A dozen eyes flickered to her face when she came in through the side entrance, though she found only one lingered on her after all the others had returned to the papers on their desk.

There was an entire ocean in that gaze. An entire sky. The entirety of the very planet they stood on swirled in the orbs that followed her from the door to her seat. His thin lips curled into a polite smile and she felt her heart skip a beat, accompanied by that ever familiar itch in her throat. She pressed the back of a shaky hand to her lips and muffled a cough, hoping to ease the feeling.

Coriolanus Snow was beauty incarnate. Platinum blond curls that fell in his face when he was deep in thought, sharp features that softened when he spoke about something that excited him, and those eyes. She could get lost in them. Some days she was sure she already had.

Ever perceptive, she watched as the blond cocked an eyebrow at her, a silent question. She waved him off with a less than convincing hand movement, which only caused him to cock his eyebrow higher.

Her second attempt was slightly more convincing with a jesty eye roll and a significantly more convincing wave of her hand, which she’d finally managed to subdue the shakiness in.

Still, it was no surprise that when the class had been dismissed and she’d finished collecting her things, Coriolanus was waiting outside of the classroom for her. His large hand found the small of her back, easily guiding her into the divot between a classroom and the hallway. She shuddered as the pad of his thumb brushed against the corner of her lip, the feeling quickly bringing on a coughing fit she had to turn away from him to subdue.

“You’d flounder as an actress.” His voice fills the air, and her body stiffens. He was far from stupid, and she’d known that from the beginning. Still, she’d thought at this point that she was doing well enough to hide it so that she’d be able to finish out the school year.

She turned to him, heart so far into her stomach that she could feel it thudding there, only adding to the nauseousness that was flooding her system once more.

“I never claimed to be a good liar.” She responds, her eyes falling to the crimson liquid pooled on his thumb. Delightful.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asks, taking a step forward, and she takes a step back on instinct. The muscles in his arm flex like he’s holding himself back from doing something, and she finds herself wishing he’d either touch her or go the fuck away.

There’s a tone to his voice that she doesn’t quite recognize. It’s certainly not loving, but it’s not feeling like rejection either. She tries to clear her throat, (easier said than done), before she croaks out, “I didn’t think you’d want anything to do with me.”

To be fair, her reluctance doesn’t come from any form of self depreciation. She knew Coriolanus though, and she knew that in the entirety of the time she’d known him, he’d never shown interest in any of their fellow classmates. He always seemed too busy to bother with the base instincts of attraction. There had even been a rumor at one point that the Snow heir had been asexual, far too logical to indulge in senseless behaviors such as romance.

His voice dips lower for a moment, “Assumptions are rarely beneficial.” The words come out in a drawl, or at least, they replay in her head that way. He takes another step forward and her back hits the walls roughly, unaware that she’d run out of space.

“Let me walk you home. We can talk about this more in private.” He offers his hand, long nimble fingers stretched out in a proposition. She takes it carefully, each one of her manicured fingers individually slotting themselves between his. The feeling sends warmth through her frame, spreading out through each and every nerve in her body. She finds herself squeezing it idly, almost in an attempt to reassure herself that the events were grounded in reality. When he squeezes her smaller hand back, she allows some of the tension to flood from her body.

Coriolanus is nothing short of a gentleman the entire walk home. He opens the doors for her, walks on the side of the sidewalk nearest the road, and pulls her closer when they walk past a group of men that he surmises makes her uncomfortable. Her heart pounds so wildly that she makes him stop halfway to her family home so that can clear her throat of the abundance of silky petals that had jammed themselves in the soft tissue.

She’s surprised at how gentle he is with her, the way his hands collect her hair and hold it out of her face, how his free one strokes up and down her back to comfort her. She has to stop him despite her appreciation when it only causes more coughing.

It’s not unusual when she finds her home empty when they finally arrive. Her parents, ever busy people, tended to not return until sometime in the late evening when her mother would throw a meal she’d prepared into the oven, and they’d have a silent and often uncomfortable family dinner. A true Capitol tradition, if her friend’s accounts were to be believed. She found herself wondering if anyone in the “happiest place in Panem” actually even liked each other.

When she wiped her lips and felt the sticky, hot blood transfer to the back of her hand, she was reminded of why so many affluent names might stifle those emotions.

“Can I get you anything? A water? Some apple juice?” She knew that was showing off by her offer of fruit juice, still such a scarcity in the Capitol. Agriculture had been hit hard in the war. But Coriolanus was in her home, and she was going to pull out all of the stops.

His lips twitched up into a smile, and her heart fluttered once again. “Water is fine. I won’t waste your delicacies.” He responds modestly, and she’s reminded again of what a gentleman he is. She knew that her parents would approve. Now she just needed to play her cards right. Nothing in the world sounded quite as sweet as being paraded on the arm of the young man of Snow.

She happily pours him a glass of water, the thick engravings of their family crest sparkling in the ray of sunshine that slipped through the silk curtains. Wealth was something her family far from lacked.

Love, however, was scarce.

She hoists herself onto the marble counters, watching him as he sips from the glass. She can’t help but to think to herself that she could sit here for the eternity of the day, watching his lips part around the cup and his Adam's apple bob with each sip.

The silence should be awkward, and she worries that it is for him, but she finds herself woefully unable to figure out where to begin a conversation like this. She lets out a breath of relief she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding when he rises to his feet, sets the water on the dining room table, and begins speaking for her.

“I’m astounded that someone as beautiful as you could be fearful that a man would not reciprocate their feelings.” He says, and his voice is so hushed and he’s suddenly so close to her that she can feel her throat close up in a mix of anxiety and absolute and utter infatuation.

“You always seemed so preoccupied and I feared that perhaps romance was something that didn’t cross your mind, and-” She cut herself off when she realized she was blabbering on, the words dying suddenly in her throat. She feels like a fool around him, as if her brain is no longer connected to her mouth. She’s convinced something in him causes her entire body to short circuit.

“No one else seemed worthy of distraction.” He replies when the silence hangs in the air for a moment too long, and she’s thankful for the words, not just because of the way they make her heart swell and her limbs feel electric, but also because it gives her a moment to regain her footing instead of opening her mouth just to verbally tumble around the floor once more.

“I’m nothing special,” She replies humbly, her eyes trailing to the floor. It was not as if this was her first time being courted, but it was certainly the first time she felt inclined to accept. Still, she knew there was a game to be played here. Everything in the Capitol seemed to be a game of some sort.

“You can skip the modesties with me,” He begins, lithe fingers reaching forward and gripping her chin softly, forcing her eyes to his. She found herself getting lost in the oceanic pools once more. “I can see right through them. I much prefer honesty.” He finishes his thought with a finality that cuts her denial from her lips before she can even speak it.

“May I kiss you?” He asks before she can even right herself on this new playing ground, but after a moment, she nods, stricken wordless even further. He wastes no time in pressing his lips to hers, and she finds that he’s not nearly as gentle as she would have imagined. His lips are forceful and she’s jolted back slightly by the force. In response to this, his hands find her hips, fleshy and pliable, and he pulls her forward again, devouring her whole. There is no fighting for dominance, she needs no verbal cues to know it would be pointless. Despite this being her confession, she is clearly no longer the one in charge.

The room seems to be spinning for a moment as her brain struggles to catch up to the rushed intimacy, and when she finally regains her footing, her hands desperately reach out for his broad shoulders, digging into the red wool of his Academy jacket. He peels himself away from her to shrug it off of his shoulders, letting it pool on the kitchen floor beneath their feet. He stares at her face for a moment, stroking his thumb along her flushed bottom lip, and she parts them instinctively.

He falters for a moment before he shoves the digit into her mouth, stroking across her tongue. Her lips seal around the digit, her tongue moving to explore every centimeter of his salty skin. Coriolanus grunts at the sensation, his eyes flickering back and forth between her lips and her eyes, shifting slightly to accommodate the tightening in the front of his pants.

Emboldened by his response, she eagerly sucks at the pollex, letting her eyes fall until half-lidded, imitating acts she was sure they’d find themselves in relatively soon.

With more restraint than she’d previously given him credit for, he pulls his thumb from her lips and dives back down to encapture them once more, bending and molding her until she’s not sure where she ends and he begins. Her teeth clash against his once and he grunts at the unpleasant feeling, his hand moving to her jaw and keeping her steady as to ensure that he could take what he wanted without her petulant, inexperienced movements.

His roughness is unprecedented, so unlike the gentle hesitant touches from any of her prior romances. She finds it’s not unpleasant, though slightly surprising. The unfamiliarity of it doesn’t stop the heat that continues to pool between her thighs, especially when his pearly white canines sink into her bottom lip, drawing a cry from her throat before her brain has even finished fully processing the feeling.

The residual stinging was clue enough of a puncture in the sheer skin, only proven further when he pulls away and the carmine fluid has tinted his teeth. His pink tongue glides over them effortlessly, and her mouth falls agape slightly when his azure eyes flutter shut and he groans at the taste, his hips stuttering forward just enough to catch her attention.

It’s clear he’s growing impatient with the lack of true intimacy, especially when he wraps a hand in her hair, guiding her roughly to the tiled floor in front of him. She resists slightly as her bottom slips from the high counter, and as a result, she hits the ground rougher than she’d intended.

He seems to find it no priority to ensure she’s okay, instead spending the time eagerly pushing down the flowing kilt like fabric of his uniform, followed by the slacks beneath them. His eager cock twitched behind the cotton fabric of his briefs, and despite her discomfort on the way down to her resting place, she finds herself reaching out wantonly, her hand trailing over the thick outline in the fabric.

The man above her sucks in a choked breath at the sensation, and it encourages her to continue on. She crawls forward on the cold floors, her fingers hooking into the elastic waistband and helping the fabric bunch at his knees where the rest of his clothing resided. His cock sprung up, heavy and leaking, hitting his stomach and leaving a smear of precum on the blue undershirt of his uniform.

She reaches up, hand curling around the velvety length, solid and hard at its core but oh so soft and smooth as her hand glides along the skin. She pulls her hand back, spitting on it eagerly. Saliva runs down her chin slightly, but she finds it easy to ignore as she slathers the makeshift lube over his erection.

“Fuck, darling.” He hisses, and she finds herself wondering if the exclamation is at the sensation or at her eagerness. She decides she won’t deprive him of either, just in case. Her hand slides up and down his dripping cock, collecting what she can of the precum droplets pooling on top to help the slickness of her ministrations. When she finds there’s no resistance to her movements, she tightens her fist around him, speeding up the strokes around his velvety shaft. His hips stutter a few times in an attempt to find her rhythm before he’s fucking her hand, hunched over as his nails dig into the thick fabric of her jacket. Every jut of his hips pulls a soft grunt from his lips, his eyes falling closed as he enjoys the pleasure that she’s happy to give him.

When she’s sure he’s sufficiently hard, and his length is throbbing eagerly in her soft palm, she gently pulls her hand back. His hips thrust into the empty air once before he realizes she’s not got her hand curled around him anymore, and he whines, oh god, he whines, at the loss of contact. The noise sends heat directly between her legs and she unconsciously shifts in an attempt to lessen the sudden increase in pressure.

She eagerly sits up on her haunches, sticking her tongue out as far as she can as she moves forward, letting the heaviness of his cock rest on the pink muscle. His fingers curl in her hair and attempt to guide her forward, but she glances up at him with a look of warning, pressing gently into his hip bone to keep him from sliding any deeper. She was going at her pace, and he’d find a way to respect that.

She slowly dips her head further down his shaft, taking him in centimeter by painfully slow centimeter as his nails dig into her scalp punishingly. She finds his lack of patience almost comical in a way. How a man so poised and level headed in most circumstances can be brought to primal nature by the minutest amount of pleasure. A man is a man, after all.

It doesn’t take long for her to crave more from him, desperate to see him crumble at her hands. He’s so incredibly prepossessing, and she finds that this is better than anything her clearly uninventive mind could have conquered up. The way his blond curls cling to his forehead encourages her further, and she wraps her hand around the base of his dick to ensure she doesn’t get too eager and choke herself on his length. Her cheeks hollow when she begins to bob her head, spit quickly budding on the edges of her lips. Coriolanus groans above her, his grip growing tighter in her hair. Her eyes widen when his hips snap forward, her lips meeting her wrapped hand in less than a second. She gags suddenly, hints of sickness swirling in her stomach as tears prick her eyes. His cock twitches in her throat, and she notices the way the veins in his wrist bulge with how roughly he’s gripping onto her.

She’s just managing to gather her bearings when his patience seems to fade completely, and his hands move to the back of her head, shoving her hand away from his shaft before thrusting forward once more, her nose pressing into the course curls of his pubes. Her stomach heaves and she struggles to swallow down the much stronger surge of nausea. He wastes no time in pulling himself back out until his tip brushes against the inside of her lips before he’s back down her throat once more.

He leans over her, the tight V of his adonis belt pressed into her forehead as one of his hands rests on her shoulder to keep him upright. His groans fill the air around them, accompanied by the noise of her gagging around his cock with each thrust. Spittle drips down her chin, dirtying her uniform. She has no time to swallow any of it, instead focusing on staying alive as she’s used as a living sex toy.

“Such a pretty mouth, baby. You’re doing such a good job,” Coriolanus chokes out between licentious groans, and just that smallest amount of praise seems to make his rough treatment that much easier to handle. His dick leaps in her mouth, once, twice, and then he’s pulling out of her mouth, his hand wrapping around the base of his shaft so tightly that she watches as the color drains from his fingers. He leaks precum so heavily that it drips to her tiled floor, and a few moments later, when he seems to have effectively staved off his impending orgasm, he pushes her head down towards it.

She cocks an eyebrow, looking up at him in confusion. “Lick it up, doll. Don’t want any of it to go to waste.” He smirks, shoving her head down once again. Her face blossoms into a blush, humiliated by the thought of licking something off the floor like a pitiful dog, but she leans down, pink tongue dragging across the porcelain flooring. The thick liquid is salty and clings to her tongue, lingering behind no matter how many times she attempts to swallow it down.

His fingers grip her chin gently, a sharp contrast to the way his hips brutalized her mouth moments before, and tilts her face up. Her eyes meet his icy orbs, and his lips curl into a soft smile. “What a good girl. So obedient.” He hums, and her dripping cunt clenches around nothing.

“Let’s get you undressed, hm?” He supplicates, and she nods, swallowing heavily, the saliva soothing her sore throat as he helps her to her feet, guiding her until her back hits the closest wall. He guides her jacket off her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor in the pile with his. His agile fingers easily undo the buttons of her shirt, and his head dips down, placing kisses on each expanse of newly exposed skin.

When the final button is undone, the fabric bunched up around her arms, he shoves it away eagerly. Her bra is unclasped with such ease that she has no doubts that he has some form of experience with them, and the realization causes a confusing heaviness in her chest. She does her best to shove it down, especially when his pale lips find the soft flesh of her breast, white teeth nipping hard enough that it draws a yelp from her. He quickly drags his tongue along the reddening flesh before his lips suction around it, sucking harshly. She writhes between him, pleasure blossoming in her lower stomach. Her pussy throbs needily, soaking the pink cotton underwear hidden beneath her skirt.

His nose drags against her sensitive skin as he makes his way down to her nipple, the bud already hardened by her arousal and the cool air. His tongue brushes against her and her back arches slightly, her mouth falling open in a soft whimper. She opens her mouth to implore him to continue, but before words can even fall from her lips, he’s picking her up, carrying her back over to the counter, settling her on it before his large hands drag her pants down her legs, growling under his breath slightly as they get stuck on her shoes, impatiently tugging until both her shoes and burgundy pants fly halfway across the room. He doesn’t even bother with her skirt, simply shoving it up until it bundles around her stomach.

She bashfully closes her legs, embarrassed of the slick arousal that’s soaked a nearly transparent oval into the crotch of her panties. Snow’s lips turn down at the corners, glancing up to meet her eyes before he’s pulling her thighs apart, his tongue running across his bottom lip as he takes in the sight. He runs a finger down the front of her underwear and she squirms, her canines biting into the soft skin of her bottom lip.

He shoves her panties to the side, exposing her glistening cunt to him. He groans deep in his throat, his head falling forward slightly. “Shit, darling, all this for me?” His voice is deeper than she’d ever recalled hearing it, and it only serves to get her more excited, legs spreading slightly wider to give him a better view. He whistles lowly, a seductive grin climbing his lips before his hands find her thighs, pushing them even further apart as he leans down towards her. His tongue meets her clit immediately and she jolts slightly, the sudden, intense pleasure too much to handle right off the bat. Her reaction only seems to fuel his enthusiasm, and he begins to lap at her bundle of nerves like a dehydrated dog. She undulates frantically, attempting to escape further up the counter but held in place by his strong hands. The sensation is overstimulating, overwhelming, far too much far too fast.

“C-Co-Coryo!” She cries, tears beginning to bud in her eyes as she writhes in desperation. Her hands shove at his head, trying to push him off. His gorgeous blue eyes glint as he stares up at her, taking in every movement, every reaction. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t even slow down. If anything, his grip tightens on her legs, delving further into her sopping heat.

The coil in her stomach tightens in a way that’s so intense that it hurts, her legs shaking as he continues to eat her out like it’s the last meal he’ll ever have in his life. Her vision goes black when his lips wrap around her clit and his lips form a suction that’s so pleasurable that she sees stars, and she’s not entirely sure she hasn’t died on the spot. Her hips jerk uncontrollably, her protests devolving into nothing but incoherent babbling as she orgasms so violently that it genuinely hurts more than it brings her pleasure. She doesn’t even realize she’d been crying until she’s in a coherent mindset again and finds that her cheeks and neck are drenched in the evidence of just how overstimulating his mouth had been.

In the time it had taken her to come back to some semblance of reality, Coriolanus had already spread her juices over his dick, the angry red cockhead and shaft glistening in her arousal as his hand pumped over it a final few times.

“You ready, pretty girl? I know you’re gonna take my cock so well.” He purrs, his lips still glistening with her fluids. She jolts slightly when his tip rubs against her entrance, her pussy sore and overwhelmed from his onslaught. The hand not guiding his cock presses into her lower stomach, keeping her stationary as he presses into her, her cunt clenching around him so tightly that she’s not even sure he’ll be able to stuff himself inside her.

His head falls forward, chin to chest as a strangled noise leaves his lips, and she watches as his knees buckle for just a moment. “You didn’t warn me you were so fucking tight.” He grunts, his eyelids fluttering as he struggles to gain control of himself. His hips snap forward in one, swift movement, and her fingers find the edge of the counter, a scream ripped from her lips. His palm covers her mouth quickly, his lips finding the shell of her ear as he shushes her, stilling as deep inside her as he can.

“It’s okay, baby. Just gonna hurt for a second. It’s okay.” He comforts, or attempts to, and she finds herself brought to the brink of tears for the third time during their encounter. She struggles to control her breathing, her toes curled tightly in an attempt to distract from the pain.

His impatience blossoms again, and rather than waiting for any semblance of approval from her, he waits until he’s no longer at risk of blowing his load like a preteen boy before he pulls out to the very tip, thrusting himself back into her roughly. She cries out in discomfort, but it seems the two noises sound similar enough for him to take the noise as assent.

He ruts into her with such force that her breasts bounce with each thrust, slapping against her skin roughly. Each time his cock sinks into her wet cunt, he lets out a strangled grunt, ever vocal of the pleasure her body supplied him with. One of his hands travels down her leg, gripping onto her calf. He forces it up and back up into the air, the angle letting his girthy cock press even deeper into her. His nails dig halfmoon circles into the soft flesh, marking her up. Pleasure begins to wind in her stomach as the pain subsides, and she whines wantonly, her forearms shaky as they pressed into the granite counter tops, keeping her upper body raised.

It’s barely been three minutes but she can already feel his cock twitching inside of her as his thrusts lose their rhythm, falling into a directionless pounding of his hips into hers. His breath comes out in pants, his free hand grabbing at any part of her he can reach, squeezing and groping her needily.

“Gonna… fucking hell, dar-ling, gonna cum for you.” He rasped, and not a second later, his hips stuttered as his cock pulsed inside her. She could feel each twitch of his fill her up with rope after rope of hot cum, the warmth radiating from inside of her before beginning to pour out of her aching hole, pooling on the counter below her. He stays inside her for a moment, hips pressed into hers before he slowly withdraws his cock, shuddering as the head slides out of her cunt. His eyes immediately fall to the combination of their fluids beneath her, and he collects them on her fingers, trailing them back up her sopping pussy before shoving it back inside her. She can feel the kindlings of pleasure die in her stomach, forgotten and discarded.

He pulls his fingers away, wiping them on her thigh before pressing a chaste kiss to her sweaty forehead. He helps her down from the counter before beginning to collect his clothing, redressing in a way that settles an unwelcome feeling of rejection in her stomach. “Are you leaving?” She questions softly, and he turns to her, a soft smile tugging at his lips.

“I have a project due, doll. Surely you understand.” He replies in a tone that she can tell should have been reassuring but was decidedly not. “Of course.” She swallows roughly, giving a polite nod of her head as he grabs his bag from her kitchen table. She pulls her clothes on with the unsteadiness of a baby deer, watching him collect his things as if nothing had happened.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then?” She asks, looking up at him pleadingly. He places a kiss on her cheek, running fingers through her messy hair. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He replies before he’s out the door and heading in the direction of the Corso.

The relief from impending death doesn’t feel as good as she’d imagined. Requited love feels like soreness between her legs and a heaviness in her chest. She chokes down the feelings, busying herself in cleaning up the kitchen. Her parents would be the cause of her untimely death if they found what she’d done.

She finds that despite the sun being out, she’s dreadfully tired. She vows to wake up early in the morning to finish her homework, and stalks up to her bedroom, burying herself in the plush sheets of her overly expensive bed. She doesn’t know when she starts crying, but she knows it doesn’t end until she’s exhausted herself asleep.

_________________ ✾✾✾ _________________

She’s startled awake gasping for air. It doesn’t matter how many times her mouth opens, she can’t suck in air. She flails frantically, falling off the side of her bed with a thud on the carpeted floor. She wrestles with the blankets, suddenly killer constrictors. Panic rises in her chest, and she coughs, swallows, heaves frenetically. She crawls, hands and knees to the in suite bathroom, hunched over the toilet.

She shoves her fingers into her mouth, desperately attempting to clear her airways. It triggers her gag reflex but nothing comes up. Her stomach heaves, tears streaming down her face. She can see the darkness of death begin to seep into the corners of her vision. She tries to scream but the sound dies in her throat with her breath.

She continues to shove her fingers down her throat, increasingly frantic as she feels herself growing weak at the lack of oxygen. She heaves again, and finally, she feels the object loosen. Her fingers brush against it the next time she shoves her fingers down, and finally, she gets it up, accompanied by such an excess of blood that she’s not sure how she’s still somewhat upright.

Lying in that puddle of blood is a full rose, stem and all. The thin stalk of the flower is littered in thorns, the petals covered in droplets of crimson liquid. She doesn’t understand. This should have been over. He’d loved her back.

Her hands move to her throat suddenly, the suffocating feeling returning. Her hands clench into fists, pounding on the granite flooring. She knows this one isn’t coming up.

She finds that more than anything, she’s tired. She curls up on the cold floor, fingers curling around the rose. Her cheek presses into the warm puddle of her own blood. The thorns on the rose draw more from her shaking hand. Coriolanus Snow was just like his roses - beautiful.

Beauty - a deceitful bait with a deadly hook.

#coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus snow #coriolanus x reader #coriolanus x you #coriolanus snow smut #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #the hunger games

[peaches2217]

Peach is crying again.

The panic that might normally strike Mario at such a sight is nowhere to be found, because this has been happening a lot lately; she gets misty-eyed over just about anything, a stark contrast to her usual fortitude in the face of great emotion. She's craving cake but realizes she'll have to wait for it to bake before she can actually eat it? Tears. Toadette brings her some tea just as she notices her throat's feeling dry? Tears. Mario uses her name alone instead of one of the plethora of endearments he normally assigns to her? Tears.

This is perfectly normal, Toadessa has assured them both. Her hormones will begin restabilizing as she approaches her second trimester, and until then, Mario has no reason to worry if she's suddenly weepier than usual.

That doesn't mean he likes it, and it certainly doesn't mean he'll just sit back and let it happen. If Peach is going to be inconsolable over every little thing, then she's going to be inconsolable while he attempts to console her anyway.

Right now she's leaned back in her chair in the royal office, making a half-hearted effort to compose herself, sniffling and dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief that looks like it's already seen a fair amount of use today. "Mario," she starts, and he already knows she's about to apologize. He doesn't give her the opportunity.

"Hey," he says, crossing the room with wide steps and reaching his hands out to her, "what's wrong? It's alright. Tell me what's wrong."

She adjusts herself so that she's facing him just as he reaches her, and he cups her right cheek in his left palm to look her over. Her face is blotchy and wet, yet her makeup is untouched. He's not sure if it's her magic keeping her cosmetics pristine or if she's just begun using waterproof mascara and eyeliner. Maybe some combination of the two.

Sniffling again, Peach leans into his touch and closes her eyes. "It's so silly," she sighs. "Please don't... y-you would laugh. Don't worry about it."

Mario debates pulling away to take his gloves off, offer her the comfort of his skin against hers, but she looks so relieved to be on the receiving end of his touch that he can't bring himself to do it. He summons his Firebrand into that hand in compensation, so at least he can offer her warmth.

“No.” He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear with his free hand, his voice as soothing and sweet as he can possibly muster. “Tesoro mio, no, your pain is my pain. I would never laugh at you."

Sniffle. Peach opens her eyes to fix him with a grateful smile, and more tears slip out as she does so. He wishes now more than ever that his leather gloves were made of a more absorbent material. "I..." Another deep sigh. "I started thinking, and then I couldn't stop thinking... and I wondered if you would..."

"Yes," Mario encourages, and now he takes both of her hands into his right hand, squeezing gently. "It's okay. You can tell me."

Sorrow washes over her expression, and Mario steadies himself with a deep breath. He hates seeing her like this. He wants to take all of her pain, all of her sorrow, put it in a bottle and put that bottle into a safe and send it sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

"Would you..." With a shuddering inhale, Peach finally presents her question: "Would you still love me if I were a Wiggler?"

Silence overtakes the room. Mario's so hopelessly baffled that he can't even begin to figure out how he's supposed to feel right now, much less respond.

"...Oh." Fresh tears well up, falling with renewed vigor, and that's enough to snap him out of his stupor.

"No no no," he quickly shushes, wiping what tears he can with his thumb, "I'm sorry! You just— I mean, I wasn't expecting that, but yes, I would still love you!"

“But what if I didn’t recognize you?” And now Peach sounds genuinely distraught, her voice breaking every third or fourth word. “What if I saw you and you tried to speak to me but all I could think about was munching on the tasty shrubbery you were standing next to?"

She's full-on weeping now, and as much as he hates the sight, it's taking all of Mario's willpower not to start laughing. Of all the hypothetical scenarios she might have imagined up wherein he might feel anything but overpowering love for her...

"Peach," he says, and he kisses her soaked cheek, "mia dolce principessa, l'amore della mia vita, that would change nothing! I'll love you to the very end no matter what."

The affirmation combined with the gratuitous usage of endearments wretches a sob from Peach's lips, and she frees her hands from Mario's grasp to pull him into an embrace, taking advantage of the more absorbent fabric of his shirt. He lets her cry, slipping his gloves off and stuffing them in his back pocket before returning her embrace.

"I'd love you too," Peach chokes out, her nails digging into the thick denim of his overalls. "If you were a Wiggler, I'd still love you just as much!"

Mario finally lets himself laugh, carding his fingers through her hair. "I know. I know you would."

~~~

That night, reclined on the couch with her head in Mario's lap, Peach cries for an entirely different reason.

"Why did you play along?" she groans, her voice pitched in embarrassment. "You should have been honest with me!"

"I was honest with you," he reasons.

"No you weren't! You didn't once tell me how stupid I sounded!"

"No," Mario corrects, "I told you nothing but the truth, mia amata. I would still love you if you were a Wiggler."

Peach buries her face in her hands and groans again, and Mario wipes at the tears that escape anyway with a tissue, shushing her softly.

#super mario bros #smb #mario #princess peach #mareach #mario x peach #peaches has opinions #peaches' fancy fics #tw pregnancy #it’s not super prominent but it IS the catalyst so the warning’s there anyway!

[paragonrobits]

Marceline strums on her guitar one night at the treehouse, after the stuff with Ash and her memories got fixed. She doesn't like thinking about the past, more than she has to, but just now it doesn't hurt so much anymore. She thinks, memories are a funny thing. They come and go; she thinks about the tide. It rises and it falls.

The echo of the past, of the days and thoughts and times that made you, hurts more some days, and others, it hurts less.

It was funny, she realizes slowly, her fingers gently working out a tune and below her floating body, a human boy and a talking dog are winding down, getting sleepy. It's a comforting thing, immersed in what feels like family to her.

There's a lot of feelings right now. Most of them don't hurt much.

(She can see the spiky heights of the Ice Kingdom from here. They sit there like a huge brooding beast; not the kind of monster that chases you, but like the kind that just sits and waits. It's like inevitability, too. The worst kind is the one that stays there, and you can't forget it no matter how much you try.

She thinks about Hambo, lost in the clutches of a witch, and she wants to cry. It's an old hurt, but the day's events have her mourning all over again.

Nonetheless. She did think 'most' for a reason. Just for a while, she can pretend its all okay, that being on speaking terms with her dad is the best she can do.

Marceline doesn't know it, but from a distance, the Ice King has noticed her. He is sitting there, and his brain is a painful stew of compulsions and misfiring memories and vague reminders of stuff he thinks he wants. Maybe tomorrow it'll be something bad. Maybe tomorrow he'll just forget about until her name pops up like a buoy too big, too important to be ignored, something so heavy that a huge part of his mind orbits around it even if there's no context for it anymore. 'Marceline', he says to himself, and wonders why he wants to cry but feels good about it at the same time.

He's a long way from coming back into her life. He is a long, long way from making the slow climb back up from what he has become, to being pulled back into love and light and leaving the cold behind. It can't happen for a while. But Finn and Jake are there, sometimes, sometimes enemies but just as often the closest things he has to friends, a warm and happy feeling inside that makes him want to try for them instead of just shouting until he gets his way.

Not yet. But soon enough.)

Marceline Abadeer closes her eyes. The past is an anchor, its an ocean. It sinks her deep, and pulls her under, and it seems there's no end of the things that hurt her; the things she said or did, the things she wanted to say or to do but didn't do them or didn't think to do them until it was too late or she only realized she should have done it with the benefit of hindsight.

She thinks of people like Ash. She's known her fair share. She also knows, in an intellectual sort of way, she lets herself get taken in by cruel men and mean women and lets them walk all over her; the willing victim to people who knew vulnerability no matter how much she tries to snarl and bite.

She strums, the beginnings of a gentle lullaby. She looks down, at a small human boy and a dog contorted into an impossible shape that sort of looks like a smile.

She remembers a little demon girl, alone in a world with nothing quite like her. She knew there were plenty of monsters in it, and she thought she was one of them. She certainly met a lot of them, one way or another.

She didn't think she was the kind of person who deserved to live in a time of heroes, or to meet real heroes.

She glances, out of the corner of her eye, at Finn. A human, she thinks. Probably alone in all the world, as best as she can guess. Almost as much as she was, once.

She closes her eyes and keeps strumming, as he falls asleep.

She looks around the treehouse.

Funny. She thought it would hurt, hanging out here again, after thinking about Ash.

None of it felt like him here any more. It was just Finn and Jake's place.

She let herself drift away into a kind of half-sleep, and she let one eye open for a moment to look out the window at the Ice Kingdom. She let the reminder stick there, just needling into her heart for a bit, and it felt okay. She was fine with hurt.

Finding love like a family all over again was scarier than just being hurt.

She wondered how long it would last, and she was surprised to think that she didn't mind finding out.

#adventure time #memory of a memory #marceline #my writing #fics #finn mertens #jake the dog #queued

[nevertheless-moving]

Headcanons for Ladrian children!

Maxillium (waxillium. Who let you flip the first letter of your name upside down. Why.): grows up to be something of a 'gentleman miscreant.' Even at the time, Steris and Wax knew that hiring a pickpocketing tutor for their noble firstborn son was a bad idea, but Max had pleaded that Uncle Wayne had promised him lessons when he grew up. And...well...Wayne would have, no matter how much they tried to stop him...anyway. Sentimentality won the day. Mistakes were made.

Despite his deliberate and consistent flouting of propriety, he's still almost universally well liked. Genuinely charismatic. Doesn't put his foot in his mouth. Smart without being considered mean or dull.

His parents have no idea where he gets it from.

People think he must be a soother but his actual allomantic power is generally considered useless. I'm leaning towards gold auger for true self confidence brought about by super powered self reflection. A+ use of C- skill.

Adrenalin junkie. Likes fast cars. Very fast cars. Only one of the kids who remembers Uncle Wayne, though they all get stories.

...

Tindwyl: somehow oldest, middle, and youngest child syndrome. Wax and Steris reign things in a bit after they realize they've inadvertently been raising their firstborn to become a highly effective career criminal. I'm not saying they're bad parents, they really do care, listen, and adjust. But they're imperfect people and the clash of personalities is the hardest on her.

Hmm twinborn, but still insecure about it, so it's gotta be one of the less flashy combos. Bronze or cadmium compounding, making her very good at either not sleeping, or surviving indefinitely at the bottom of the ocean awaiting rescue after her boat sinks, neither of which is immediately useful ... i mean the sleep thing is pretty cool but might cause some internal issues..

Similar to her parents in the more neurotic ways. Her father's eye twitch, her mother's anxiety. But not much inclination towards the more heroic arts, something her parents love, glad they raise one child unlikely to die in a fire, but she feels ashamed of. No fascination with danger, except in the deeply abstract. She tends to fixate on novels, not disaster planning or solving murders.

Gets motion sick :/ When Wax tries to take her for 'rides' she's giggling until she suddenly pukes without warning, and then she's crying. Wax feels guilty forever about this, but she insists on trying again every so often throughout her childhood.

Oh! Heavily involved in the allomancer jak fan community, first as a joke, but eventually she gets into it despite herself. She delights in discussing his stories around the dinner table and watching her father grit his teeth. I mean, comparing them with her father's own tales - which claims are really less likely, once you break things down, piece by piece -

...

Third child: I don't know their gender! I don't even know their name! But I do know that they're going to be the first natural born mistborn in over three hundred years, and it's going to cause soooo much chaos.

Lotsa religious nuts following to school. Lotta kidnapping attempts. They catch dad yelling at death, no wait, false alarm, hes just yelling at death to pass a message to God, because he doesn't want to talk to God directly. Cool, cool. Something about wanting a promise that that 'they wouldn't be made a sword'

They seem to most consistently run into ladrian luck - things explode around them, they say the exact wrong thing to the exact wrong person. If there's a murderer loose, they end up in the same tree house, if there's a lion escaped from the zoo, it steals their lunch. Assigned protagonist by the narrative, despite the adults in her life genuine and consistent efforts to intervene.

Mixed feelings about it.

Generally Max bails them out of the social faux pas, but, much to tindwyls annoyance, when worst comes to worst they can fall back on the 'mistborn aura' growing 'mysteriously grave' and then jump out an airship window. Mildly jealous of Tindwyl because when she gets lost in the city she doesn't accidentally discover a cult, or get adopted by a circus troupe, or , anyway. If they also get a ferrochemical power people are going to lose. their. shit.

Snaps (I believe snapping is gentler in era 2, but still) way too young during their first kidnapping attempt, possibly same time as/ before older siblings. All kidnapped together?

Please Imagine Max age 12, breaking Tindwyl, age 9, and Misty age 6 out of their cells (of course he pickpocketed the keys from the guards). They all down a full spectrum vial, which of course they all carry in a secret aluminum lined pocket for LITERALLY this EXACT traumatic event because their mother is Steris. Max gets nothing (would gold even be in the vial?), tindwyl is a seeker or cadmium burner.

Cue ridiculously OP six year old bendalloying past the guards, pewter punching their way out... Max takes more than a few hits for them when they accidentally iron pull some loose nails at themselves... it's not pretty, but they do escape and the media goes absolutely bananas.

Please, please imagine tiny child carrying two medium sized childs, and jumping out a window. They're very carefully arranged, Tindwyl clinging to Max's shoulder, Max on Misty's, feeling absolutely ridiculous. Misty breaks the window - Max yelling steel push directions as they just need to get to the next building - Tindwyl yelling, ok they're all yelling now as Misty loses balance -

Ooh Wait if Tindwyl can cadmium create slow time then she burns that as they're falling, so it's extra terrifying from all their perspective, but to other people's view they're just hanging there, dropping very, very slowly. Either way-oh thank the Survivor, Dad's here now, catching them.

Some of this is caught on evanotype. Like I said - absolute media storm.

...

Fourth child: An accident and everybody knows it. The other three are mortified to discover that their parents are still having sex. Steris is mostly bemused that the one (1) time she said 'it'll probably be fine' instead of immediately drinking moon tea after the sheepskin broke, she gets pregnant. Wax is concerned for her health, but after a scare or two, it all goes fairly smoothly.

A good 15, 20 years younger than the rest and maybe a little isolated because of it, doesn't feel like she has the same sibling relationship the other three do, though they all adore her and compete relentlessly for 'best big sibling.'

Cool twinborn combo??? Like pewter allo and gold ferro for super healing. Or zinc super speed, because that's honestly excellent by itself.

Or no powers, because angst and also being underestimated and getting really competent at tech or whatnot. Possibly allomantic status is less important as time passes, and she actually doesnt really have as much issue with it as people assume she will. Infiltrates and takes down some shady hemalurgic group due to the misperception.

Only one of the children to go into law, but ends up more secret agent/spy genre then western/action hero.

Regardless, while Max is effortlessly charming, she's effortlessly cool. The middle children, and possibly parents, are amazed and maybe slightly jealous, though dad insists he used to be cool, honest-

#Mistborn #Wax/steris #Non negotiable: they are good parents. Not perfect #but pretty rusting good #none of that time skip protagonist to awful parents bullshit #Mistborn Era 2 #Nevertheless meta #mistborn era 3 #cosmere #nevertheless cosmere

[birgittesilverbae]

prompt: Camila + Shannon + Piano

The music begins hesitantly, a few notes turning to quiet scales. On the mats, Shannon leans forward over her knee, sinks into the stretch until the tension in her glute releases all at once. She holds the pose a moment longer before switching legs. 

The piano bench scrapes across the stone floor, followed closely by a rustle of fabric, a thud, a soft exhalation. Shannon presses deeply into her stretch, trying her best to see around the pillar that blocks her view of the piano.

Shannon slumps onto her back, starfished across the mat, but this position doesn't afford her any better a view, just flashes of navy. She knows it must be a member of the newest recruit class, though. It's been almost three years since they'd last had a pianist among their ranks. 

The thought pinches between her shoulder blades and she smacks a hand flat against the mat in protest. The twinges have grown more common of late, unsurprising given the tension she can't help but carry in her shoulders. No amount of stretching is enough to fully free her of aches, not when the weight of the Halo is their cause just as often as not. Not when the unease is almost all in her head.

Shannon flops onto her side, stretches her arm out to make an attempt at grabbing her hoodie. She's an inch short of the fabric, though, and has to squirm on the mat until her fingertips just manage to hook the edge of the hood. She reels it in towards her and rolls back up to a seated position, tugging the hoodie on before popping up to her feet. Her back cracks ominously at the rapidity of the motion, and she has to twist from side to side before it feels quite like it's fully supporting her again.

Her soft shoes render her footsteps all but silent, so she makes a show of yawning loudly as she crosses towards the piano. The pianist stiffens, her hands going still on the keys, and then glances back over her shoulder.

Shannon smiles softly as she closes the remainder of the distance to the piano. "Camila, right?" she asks, settling herself on the piano bench at the girl's side. 

Camila nods, matches the smile with one of her own. "That's me."

"I'm Shannon," she replies, and she watches amused as Camila seems to bury an urge to respond with something along the lines of "Clearly". "Don't stop on my account," she adds, knocking her elbow against Camila's arm.

"I hadn't seen anyone else use it, so I wasn't sure if I was allowed–" Camila starts.

Shannon cuts her off with a laugh. "Oh, you're very much allowed. We just haven't had anyone to play for us in a while."

"Is that why it's so out of tune?" Camila's nose crinkles in barely concealed distaste.

"It is?" Camila nods emphatically. The smile that pulls at the corners of Shannon's mouth feels unfamiliar. "Straight-shooter Cam telling it like it really is, hey?" Camila's cheeks darken slightly, and Shannon nudges her again. "I admire that. I'll ask Mother Superion to see if we can get it tuned up for you."

"You don't have to–"

"Oh, this is purely selfish. I can't pester you for concerts if your instrument's not up to snuff, can I?"

"I guess not."

"See, purely selfish intent. We're all in the mood for a melody around here, and you'll have us feelin' alright." 

A chuckle bursts out of Camila, seeming to surprise her, and then just as quickly her face falls. "Billy Joel is my mom's favourite," she admits, and there's a heavy weight to the words. But her face shifts again, rapid fire, a cheerful mask slipping back into place. "I learned to play Piano Man sitting on her knee."

They'll tackle that conversation later then, Shannon decides, mentally adding yet another sister to the parental baggage list. "And you? What's your favourite?"

Camila glances back over her shoulder before leaning in conspiratorially. "I really like covering Frank Ocean," she admits, catching the tip of her tongue between her teeth when she grins. 

"I don't think I've heard of him."

"No? Let's rectify that!" Camila shoos Shannon down to the very edge of the piano bench and settles her hands on the keys. "This one's called Pink + White." 

And she begins to play.

#ty for the prompt! #ask #knightsofrayx #warrior nun #sister camila #sister shannon #shannon masters #myfic #mywn #fic: tmtl #tmtl canon: the last pianist was the Halo Bearer before Shannon xoxo

[dendenmazing]

The In Between

It's a Saturday and I was doing the laundry then I saw this quote while I'm scrolling through my socmed feed. "There's only 4 months left in 2023." Then I laughed. It didn't sink in to me immediately. I just. I don't know what to feel. I think I'm just amazed or like confused like, how did that happen? like, why does time move so fast like that? How can time do that shit? hahahahaha. I smiled. I am just so grateful because God is really helping me to go on and live my life not just here in my own little world but also out there. I am so proud of myself because, even though my anxiety is attacking me, depression is visiting me, and sadness wants to take my place again, I saw myself handling things better this time. I saw myself out there trying something new, trying to get along with others, learning a lot of new things in school, showing up as herself and just doing her own thing, protecting her peace of mind, prioritizing her needs, continuing on building her healthy balance in her life, she values the important relationships that she have in her life, helping others, reaching out first, asking for help, stepping out there even if she's nervous and afraid, starting even though she doesn't have any idea what to do, focusing only on her own growth, focusing on all the efforts she's giving for her progress in everyday, focusing on loving herself more, remembering her mama's words, healing better, making herself happy again, giving herself the happiness that she knows she deserves, letting people in, but setting some healthy boundaries, working hard and smart but still prioritizing rest, being a furmom to P-Dawg, nourishing her relationship with God, talking to Mama about her day, spending time with her family and friends, with her own pips, balancing her diet, taking care of herself a little extra this time, crying her heart out, saving money, writing her thoughts and feelings, moving her body, laughing a lot, smiling a lot, being grateful for everything, feeling everything that she's feeling, making time for all the important ones in her life, giving herself the quite time that she always needs, she's giving herself the life that she knows she deserves. She's being as free as the ocean. I found myself handling things better this time. I found myself making herself happy again this time. I found myself shining so bright again and I smiled. She's living her life for herself again. She's still healing, she's still not whole, but I know she's still her. My Girl is still in there and she's doing better again this time. After all the storms she's been through, after all the dark times, the fall, drowning in the big waves for a lot of times, climbing the mountains, being in the rock bottom for so long, died a lot of times, tasting all the pain in the world, heart being broken into pieces, unstoppable tears, deep wounds, fake smiles, sleepless nights, died several times, she came out from all of it different this time. She's stronger, wiser, and better. She came out as a warrior. Being the woman that she always wanted to be is a long progress but I can already see her progress. She's becoming the woman that we've always wanted to be. I am so proud of myself because even though she's in between of pain and healing, sadness and joy, chaos and peace, hardships and light, grief and living, she still gave herself the life that is worth living. She chose to rise than to fall again. I knew she'd come back. I always knew. Still not whole, but she will.

[redjaybathood]

Sorry had to share more thoughts.

Cassandra's head is ringing with the impact, the world around her blurring and swirling as she crashes into the water. The shadows of Cobblepot and his enforcers loom large over the ocean as she sinks into the darkness.

Careless.

Failure.

Weak.

She has been broken for a long time, maybe since forever, but now its gone to far and she can't put herself back together again. She can't even find the will to resist as water fills her lungs.

But then she sees it, an outline, a splash of color in the water, eggplant a familiar now dead voice whispers in her ear.

'I must be dying... I wonder if it will be peaceful?'

.

.

.

She awakens spluttering and coughing, her chest burning as water spills from her lips. A strong arm encircling her chest and holding her close, as the figure keeps them above water by holding onto a floating ocean marker she never learned the word for.

The voice is familiar but hoarser than she remembers, "Hey there sleeping beauty," the humor touching the tone is tried and taught.

Cassandra opens her eyes, the face before her burns its way into her mind, blond hair, tan skin, sharp scars old and new lining strong, hawkish features.

"Steph?" She whispers, the realization hitting her, "I'm dead..." She's not as upset as she should be, at least her friend is with her.

The girl who had been Robin blanched, "Not dead Batgirl, just swimming with the fishes," There's something wrong there, Cass can't place it, but her mind is coming back to her and she can't... What?

Steph gives her no time to think, "Oh lookie, the good doctor is here, you need a check up?" Cassandra registers the speed boat pulling up alongside them second and its driver first.

"Leslie..." She murmurs, the woman looking to have aged decades since Cassandra last saw her.

"Cassandra," She intoned, her tone unparcabale, but her body screaming with shame and fear.

Steph pulls them onto the boat, Cassandra's limbs are hers against but she doesn't want to let go yet, doesn't want to wake up yet.

Doesn't want to let go until she knows why Steph's body feels wrong.

Steph rubs her back gently as the engine revs to life and they turn towards the coast and Cassandra reaches to stop them.

"Penguin, weapons shipment!"

"Its cool," Steph said gently, "I crashed a jet ski into his boat, its half sunk already and... Oh yeah he looks pissed, Doc can you pick up the pace?" Steph asked, rummaging around the boat and pulling out a flare gun before pulling off her soaking wet jumper.

Cass doesn't gasp, not quite, she knows scars, she has countless, but it seems Stephanie has finally beaten her in something.

Cassandra wishes she never had.

Because the blonde's bare arms and barer legs as she reveals form fitting shorts are riddles with scars. Drills, cuts, burns, entire chunks of flesh looking to have been carved out by a butchers knife.

Cassandra knows the human body, knows Steph's better than maybe any other. She should not be able to stand so firm with those scars, her body look to spasm even as she moves with something like but not like her once cocksure manner. Her muscles are engorged in ways Cass can't say, she is still Steph, she is still beautiful. The bones feel wrong, her steps are right, its....

Steph's body is wrong but it moves right, its... Its... Uncanny is the word.

Their speedboat swerves into the docks and Cassandra moves to push Steph behind her, "I can take them."

Steph never listened, she had already opened fire, jus as Penguins boat lost any chance to maneuver, the blast of light and fire drawing pained howls from its occupants.

Steph is jumping, Cass matches the motion with practices ease.

They spiral in the air and deliver a double kick to the gorilla head, the beast falls with a violent thud and crack. He will not die, but he will hurt for a long time.

They land on either side of the boat, familiar, practiced, like nothing had changed, like the last five months had been a bad dream.

The woman, Madam something Cass didn't care about, stretched her inky black arms. Cass dodged, Steph grabbed it, snarling, "I wanna hold your hand~"

The Madam uses her free arm to swing at Steph.

Cassandra is behind her, tazers bury themselves in her ears and her brain sort circuits. She will live, she is not normal flesh.

The blond chuckles as Cobblpot begins to curse, "Well this is familiar, me, you and this trash." There's something more vicious in her tone, Steph's eyes look strange to her, not... Not right, too pale.

She cracks her neck and that is not the sound her bones make as she picks penguin up by his shirt and he gasps.

"But you're dead!"

The fury dies and she knocks him out with a single, violent headbutt.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she muttered.

Cassandra's brain cannot see much of her friends body, but something in her gut says that is a lie.

NOTES:

There's likely much more, but I imagine the way Leslie & Steph cover for the explanation is by using some 'recordings' Leslie 'made' while Steph was 'alive' under her 'care' to explain the situation over doing it themselves. Cass would know this is odd, but she's also concussed and tired and relieved and thinks Steph looks one wrong word or touch from freaking out and bailing through the nearest window. So she keeps her peace for the moment.

Thoughts?

Yeah!!! And Cass, you know, she just had a near death experience, and probably is indeed concussed, and Steph coming back is a shock, and she keeps thinking something is wrong but she can't put her hand on it, and maybe it's the concussion talking? Maybe it's her who's wrong? This is Steph! She is alive! That's not a clone, that's not Lazarus Pit's work, she's not an alien or meta or magic. So it's stands to reason that she did not die. Right?

Sorry, I didn't quite get the bit about recordings.

#stephanie brown #cassandra cain #asks

[fruit-salad-ship]

Love the haunted house ideas, also love the ideas of ghost Pokémon being excited to have helpful jobs being playfully scary. Maybe Plum and Grey get some of the ghosties around Dotaku to sneak up on Peach when they know it won’t cause too much trouble (Plum’s threshold for “too much” being much higher than Grey’s). Maybe a surprise pumpkaboo mixed in a normal pumpkin patch in the fall

A number of horrible tricks plum has played, that worked:

Ghastly inhabiting the mannequins that the gift shop use for displaying things. Peach going to a store room to get supplies for work, lights don't work, fuse probably blew (plum removed it) so she just uses the torch on her phone, reminds herself to fix that later. Sees something move, suddenly eight of these faceless human looking things are running at her and she just fucking BOLTS. No hesitation, scared out of her god damn mind, she's out the building before anyone knows whats going on. Plum has to coax her out of a tree after explaining...after she stopped laughing of course.

An entire pack of Palossand mimicking a beach, waiting until Peach goes for a run, like clockwork hitting the same stretch, immediately finds it impossible to stop sinking, weird sand hands trying to drag her further in, totally panicking, Plum's cackling somewhere in a bush. Before anything rational can be done, Val floods the beach with flames, peach is able to get out of the sinkhole she was being dragged into, its resistance suddenly gone, the hands turn to weird glass and shatter, and she is sprinting out there onto solid rocky ground, trying to figure out what happened, trying to catch her breath. The sands start to move again, recovered from the heat, turning back to the pokemon's original form, waving with big sand hands in a jovial way, Plum's horrid little giggle somewhere, Peach just shouting into the abyss, insulting her, she knows she's listening in close by.

Misdreavus told to move around in mirrors for a week, stay unseen but shift things, play with the reflections. Peach almost doesn't notice, until about day 3 in the week, she passes by a window, and notices for a split second her reflection turns its head to look at her, impossible, she didn't move her head. Again at night, she turns the bathroom light off, and notices she's still visible in the mirror across the room, in a...totally different place to where she should be standing. light back on, everything's normal. Even in the black screen on her computer she notices things standing behind her when theres nothing there. By the end of the week she's covered all the reflective surfaces in her home, Grey thinks she's having a breakdown, Plum has to let him in on the trick, so he doesn't worry. The final straw before the prank becomes clear? Peach gets brave, tries to catch the reflections out, sits up all day and night, eyes glued to a mirror so she doesn't miss anything, expects nothing, thinks she's going mad, but her sitting form in the reflection GETS UP AND STARTS WALKING TOWARDS HER. The mirror seems to want to crack as it reaches the surface, putting a hand on it, its form vibrating, threats to break. She fuckin' RUNS, out into the middle of no where, no reflections, no surfaces, shouting nonsense about how she knew she wasn't going crazy! When Plum reveals the trick, you can see the final shred of patience in her tighten, she'd have snapped if she wasn't so tired.

Double whammy, Jellicent, echoing the sounds of someone calling for help, forcing peach to peer over an edge into the ocean, reluctant to get too close. Ice cold long arms grab her by the leg, pulled down into the water, scrambling to not lose her grip, fails, Jellicent have a paralytic nature to their grasp, she's freaking out trying to figure a way free of the situation, head just below the water, before an irritating purple blur appears above, and the grip is released suddenly, she's free to get back to the surface, get out there fast. Plums sniggering, loves to push Peach, like poking a bear, gets a kick out of it. That one perhaps went too far, she realises this when peach does not get up off the floor, just lying there trying to calm the panic, a real menacing look on her face, plum is aware she is dead when the feeling in the professors legs come back. Gets a head start on running to safety.

All in all, plums so cruel, but always stays in control, ranger levels of preparation and organisation, theres very small windows for serious harm to occur. You'd think its unkind but Peach gives as good as she gets, just in different ways.

#plums a dick #defo pushes her too hard #peach gets revenge #fruit salad #brainrot

[loominggaia]

Lets say for some reason the FGG can't be mercenaries anymore so what do they do?

We'll just say the crew peacefully disbanded on friendly terms...

Evan: In "Pig Bait", Evan says he has a deep respect for medical professionals and if he were more educated, he would have become a doctor himself. But he knows he doesn't have the brains for it, and he still craves adventure, so I could see him being a bodyguard for an Athenaeum field researcher instead. (Maybe Sage?) He'd still get to travel, put his muscle to good use, and quench his thirst for knowledge along the way.

Lukas: Lukas has mentioned in several stories that he's been sick of mercenary work for a long time, and the only reason he's still in it is to protect Evan. He's tried to convince Evan to quit the business and get a "normal job" many times to no avail. If Evan quit, Lukas would probably put his art degree to good use and paint professionally. His relation to King Jelani would give him enough clout to score big commissions. I could see him painting things like city murals and royal portraits.

Glenvar: Poor Glenvar would be lost without his crew. The mercenary lifestyle is such a perfect fit for him, I don't think he'd do very well anywhere else. He'd probably turn to his religion for answers and become an off-grid recluse, living purely off the land.

Alaine: She'd fall back on her old entertainment career. That includes singing and playing instruments, yes, but she knows the real money is in stripping and prostitution. As much as she hated that aspect, I think the pay would tempt her back into it.

Jeimos: Jeimos has so many degrees and certifications, it wouldn't be hard for them to score a high-paying engineering job somewhere. The main problem is their crippling social anxiety, which is why they were a mercenary in the first place. It's not a glamorous job, but there is so much flexibility, it can accommodate their quirks in ways that traditional jobs usually can't. Realistically, I think they would end up homeless again, selling scrap metal and not realizing their true potential. The support of their crew does a lot for them, and without that they'd just kind of sink.

Isaac: He'd try to become a priest for the Order of Love and Light, if only to get closer to Karenza, who he suspects might be his mother. But the High Priestesses would be onto him immediately and reject him. So failing that, I could see him just turning feral and living with wolves or something. Fuck a job.

Linde: Linde would throw herself completely into her dressmaking, with mixed success. She doesn't handle failure or criticism well, so I think she'd be stressed out and overwhelmed constantly. Dressmaking was always a hobby for her, but turning it into a full-time job would suck all the fun out of it.

Balthazaar: His father was a barber, so Balthazaar might try to follow in his footsteps. He lacks the creative vision and the finesse his father had though, and his business would quickly fail. Balthazaar isn't a very motivated guy. I imagine he'd just start drinking heavily after that and become a bum, believing he isn't destined for anything better.

Skel: No one wants to hire Skel because he's an arrogant dick. He was raised among royalty and demands to be treated like nothing less than a king, and that attitude doesn't really fly anywhere. He ends up homeless and probably addicted to drugs to cope with his neurosis.

Javaan: Javaan could just get a normal labor job somewhere...but he knows damn well there is a lot more money to be made by sliding back into scams and thievery. Long story short, he ends up in prison, breaking rocks for a living.

Elska: Immediately joins the Folkvar military. Uses it as an opportunity to sharpen her combat skills and take revenge on Evangeline Kingdom all at once.

Mr. Ocean: Tries to become a full-time magic teacher, but forgets to show up to his own lectures half the time. Eventually ends up as a busking beggar, playing his sitar for change.

Zeffer: Goes back to being a vampire slayer. Given enough time and trauma, I think he would eventually succumb to his disease and start his own clan, becoming just as ruthless as the very creatures he used to slay. He has eliminated the competition around him, and now his clan can take over the whole region unopposed.

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

#ask #askliterature

[kyofsonder]

Find the Word

I was tagged by @on-noon to find a specific set of words in my WIPs, and tag others to keep the game going. Thank you for the tag, the more times I play this game the more fun I have and the more I enjoy the perspective it gives me on my own writing.

My Words: grow, worse, wind, snow, and wake.

I’ll tag @aohendo, @junypr-camus, @starlightscribe, @did-i-do-this-write, and @marinesocks this time. It's also an open tag for anyone else who wants to join, as always!

Your Words: voice, equal, second, purpose, and greed.

I found grow(s) in an original short story WIP, titled “Kiyo”:

Kiyo herself is pretty small, also like me, but her leaves are strong. They're bright red and her vines are a soft orange, so it's less that she grows like a regular plant and more that she spreads like a flame. She's a little wizened, with some crunchy edges of brown on some of her older leaves and a lot of black in her veins, but her roots keep pushing their way down through the soil. Reaching for water or more soil or whatever it is they find for her. The guy selling all those half-neglected plants hadn't acted like there was anything special about this one in particular, but I haven't heard of plants that look like Kiyo... pretty much anywhere.

I found worse in my novel WIP “To Be Honest”, although it does show up in a scene where there’s (magic-related) self-injury and mentions of blood:

The feeling from earlier is practically screaming at him now, rattling his bones until he thinks the vibration might knock him out. The way David had greeted him. The way his voice has been changing. The fact that Micah hasn't been able to see his face this whole time. The repeated circles when he'd tried to walk. Something is wrong. Micah can feel the magic in his own blood, warning him that if he takes too long to figure this out he'll end up trapped here. Not just here in the woods, but somewhere much worse. He can't control his breathing anymore and every spell he knows is gone from his mind. Alright. Fine. Screw patience, then. The witch takes as deep and steady of a breath as he can manage, wincing each time it catches on the way down to his lungs. Without sparing a second more to think, he brings the knife down on his arm at whatever angle fate decides. If he's lucky, it won't catch any major arteries and he'll be able to bandage himself up later.

I found wind in a draft of a Given oneshot fic “Present Tense”:

He steps toward the water, bracing himself against the wind. It isn't cold, somehow, but he still feels like he should be wearing a jacket of some kind. The sound of the ocean makes it feel like Winter, steady and calm. Rolling like the sand, only stronger. Moving steadily. Making itself known. White noise, washing away the feelings of early afternoon sunlight that had been so vivid just a few moments ago. He finds himself sinking into a crouch, closing his eyes again and holding his knees close to himself. He buries his face into his arms. Ah. He wants to sink into this sound. Let it wash him away, too. Out toward the sunset. The gradually darkening blue and fading light pink of nightfall. The warped yellow and orange of a sun saying its goodbyes for the night. He wants to fall into these soft colors like a fluffy bed and rest.

I found snow in a Sk8 the Infinity fic “True or False”, although it shows up in a scene where Langa is experiencing a type of unreality that might affect some readers:

It's quiet for a while, then Langa adjusts himself so he can speak -- still holding as tight as possible, "Sometimes... I have dreams. They aren't like normal dreams. When I wake up, I can't tell if they were real or not. If I was remembering things that really happened, or dreaming things that never did. It feels like I'm awake and just thinking about real memories, but it also feels like I'm asleep and dreaming. That doesn't make sense, but... the dreams don't make sense. They get... it happened for the first time after I got lost on a mountain as a kid. I was out in the snow all night. I kept thinking that I remembered the way back -- then I'd realize that it was the wrong way. The path I remembered was from a dream. No matter where I walked, it didn't get me home. It got... really confusing. Ever since then, I'll get that way again sometimes. Confused from dreams like that, I mean."

I found wake in my novel WIP “Apricots” when the main character is talking about how long it’s been since his girlfriend died:

Noah doesn't let him get away that easily, "The beginning is the day Jess died, whatever day or month or year it was when that happened. I think you know that much."

"Kade's lost track of time since then, too. More than usual. It feels like he started talking to her ghost months before she died, every time he was at her bedside, like he'd already known it was coming. I guess... when her condition... that's probably why you got mad at me. You knew she would die so much earlier than I did. I still don't think you should have blamed me for not knowing. I did the best I could to take care of her. It's been two months and I still wake up thinking I'll take the bus to her place to... I think I'm still not convinced that she's even gone at all."

Thank you again for the tag – there was a little more original content mixed in with the fanfiction this time! I'm learning to balance how much I write between original and fandom projects, which is encouraging to see when I play this game.

#writing #find the word #sonder stories #sonder snippets #both Apricots & TBH made it this time #also there were no Lingering Scars excerpts #how rare for this game #bonus fact #what Micah does is not how blood magic is supposed to work #it is a crude #dangerous #imprecise #last-ditch method of spellcasting #yes blood witches bleed for their spells #but by getting a few drops at a time #pricking their fingers or similar methods #or by having their blood drawn #by professionals #using actual medical gear #not by slicing their arms open #self injury #blood #unreality #death #a few rough topics get mentioned in these excerpts #fairly lightly I think #but still

[sansxfuckyou]

Thanks, I guess

Summary: You've been stuck underwater for the last month due to a shipwreck, in that month someone saved you and has been protecting you, you dislike it.

Warnings: Blood, near death, she's not yandere she just doesn't want anyone getting hurt, check tags for further warnings.

Authors Note: Fourth fic, also, if you saw my Ao3 and found the erikar one isn't on the every ship challenge its because I have a different rendition of that pairing for the challenge, once again, I take reblogs a form of currency over likes.

You wish you hadn't been shipwrecked.

you wish you hadn't slipped under the waves.

You wish you weren't being pampered every second.

You wish gills hadn't been cut into you.

But all of those things have happened and are happening as you think.

The Fuchsia blood herself spend most of her time doing what you assume she normally does, but refuses to let you out of her sight. You could get hurt you know, you would absolutely be fine out there, it would take a while to learn how to swim, but you would be fine. It's acceptable being taken care of, but she won't let you train, she won't let you even risk tearing open your skin, as it wouldn't heal properly underwater.

You ignored her warnings about being careful, you went to grab a cup, underestimating how gravity works underwater. It slipped from your grasp and shattered as it hit the edge of the counter, you panicked and tried to clean up the shards. One of them cut open your hands and Indigo started to cloud up the water, and it the salt stung in your wound, it had you immobilized. She found you, she helped your and she berated you for not being careful, and that the wound wouldn't heal down here for months.

You were getting sick of being underwater, sure it was great for your hair and disinfected your broken horn, but it was boring.

So here you were, perched on the ledge of the window on the highest spire in her tower, ready to leap. The water far enough down was pitch black in an infinite abyss, but that didn't fully scare you. You leapt from the edge and started treading water, sinking slowly but making enough distance that you didn't fall into one of the abyssal pits.

And you fucking booked it, it was slow, and the sand was slimy under your feet and sticking to you, but you were running. The entire ocean was dark, and it was near silent, your gills fluttering rapidly to filter in enough water and oxygen alike. You didn't even hear the gun being fired, you only felt it tear through your skin, it was laced in something that fucking hurt.

You released a throat tearing scream of agony, gripping your upper arm as Indigo clouded the water, someone came walking over. It was another Troll, square glasses, scarf, rifle, streak of Violet hair, an asshole for sure. He scoffed at you before leaving you to die out there in the darkness all alone, everything hurt so much.

Eyes fluttered shut.

Darkness.

Eyes fluttered open.

Brightness.

Ah fuck.

Feferi stands hovering above you, looking very, very concerned about you, she moves away after you give a groan. There's gauze on your arm, its drenched in Indigo and your wound is absolutely still open as is the one on your hand, now in fresh gauze. You sit up and find Feferi holding a water bottle, offering it to you, you snatch it away from her, agitated.

"I told you naut to head out there, I was reely scared for you," Feferi said, sounding a little bit agitated at how you acted out.

"I don't like it down here, very, very bland and not immaculate at all, like many theorize the ocean is," you responded with, crossing your arms just a little bit, Feferi frowned.

"I suppose you have good reason for naut liking it down here, but it's naut that eelsy to leave," Feferi said, taking a seat beside you, you edged away from her, she had you trapped down here, and you couldn't leave because of her, "my Lusus would naut be pleased if you left, they quite like you."

"Well, will you help me out of this ocean anyways?" You asked, turning to stare at her, she gave you a shark like grin before speaking, only now did you pay enough attention to see the rows of fangs down her throat.

"Of coralse I will!" Feferi responded with, grinning, her scales glinted and her gills fluttered.

"Lovely, we should start planning then,"

#homestuck #homestuck fanfic #homestuck fic #every ship challenge #equius zahhak #feferi peixes #eridan ampora #moirallegiance #writing #fanfic #fanfiction #fan fic #fan fiction #fluff #tw blood #tw wounds #tw guns #tw gunfire #tw teeth #tw fangs

[s-talking]

🚨 // push my muse to the ground & straddle them .😏 // give my muse a hickey . [She can be as demanding of him~]

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐋𝐀𝐘 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐎𝐅 𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐒;      a  large  meadow  hidden  deep  within  the  woods  where  nobody  can  possibly  find  them.  there  are  wild  strawberry  bushes   &   poppies  everywhere,   &   the  only  sounds  are  those  of  the  distant  birds   &   grasshoppers,  as  well  as  the  riverbank  which  rests  somewhere  over  the  yonder.  they've  been  here  for  almost  an  hour,  but  for  him,  this  moment  between  them  feels   eternal  ──  like  time  itself  has  stopped   &   everything  aside  from  the  falling  leaves  just  stands  still  ──  painting  yet  another  precious  memory.  one  that  too  will  eventually  fade,  but  the  young  serial  killer  doesn't  let  his  mind  wander  as  a  blue  butterfly  flutters  right  over  their  heads,  vanishing  into  the  vast  crown  of  whispering  trees.

it's  beautiful,  don't  you  think,  he  wishes  to  ask,  but  just  before  the  pale  lips  have  a  chance  to  part,  the  young  woman  turns   &   suddenly  climbs  on  top  of  him  with  the  cool  autumn  wind  sweeping  through  her  luscious  locks,  making  their  reddish-brown  strands  glisten  like  millions  of  threads  floating  underwater.  they  bring  out  the  colour  of  her  eyes,   &   his  thoughts  instantly  sink  into  the  ocean  of  her  sterling  gaze,  becoming  lost  at  their  endless  depths.   ❝  . . . . .  ❞   how  captivating.  she  is  just  like  venus,  albeit  far  more  breath-taking  than  any  painting  he'd  ever  known.

alas  he  reaches  out  gently,  taking  but  a  handful  of  strands  into  own  wicked  grasp.  they  are  utterly  soft   &   velvety  as  she  slowly  descends   &   bit  by  bit,  peels  the  turtleneck  collar  away  from  his  bruised  neck  ──  only  for  the  free  hand  to  suddenly  grasp  at  her  wrist,  squeezing  it  tight  as  to  prevent  any  further  movement.  now,  slowly  looking  back  up,  the  dark  lashes  raise   &   black  eyes  peer  deep  into  those  sterling  oceans  as  if  wordlessly  warning  harmony  of  not  treading  too  far,  of  minding  herself  when  it  comes  to  his  secrets.  after  all,  every  human,  no  matter  how  weak  or  strong,  they  all  had  bitter  taste  of  anguish  at  some  point  in  their  lives   &   his  just  so  happens  to  be  far  darker  than  most;     the  deep  dark  bruises  being  nothing  but  a  shallow  scratch  'pon  the  surface.

            the  very  same  that  she  wishes  to  unravel,   &   he  to  forget.  

still,  after  searching  through  the  many  expressions  fleeting  across  her  face,  the  little  killer  gradually  eases  his  wolfish  grip   &   finally  let's  her  go,  even  though  hesitantly.  there's  a  brief  look  of  knowing,  like  a  wordless  sense  of  trust  between  two  people,  between  a  predator   &   prey  caught  on  cross-roads  of  life.   ❝  . . . .  ❞   releasing  the  locks  of  her  hair,  he  slowly  reaches  up  to  hook  a  lone  black-nailed  finger  'pon  the  high  collar   &   without  words,  yank  it  down,  revealing  the  terribly  marred  flesh;     a  heavy  slipknot-like  bruising  now  in  plain  sight.  averting  own  soulless  gaze  just  then,   envy   closes  his  eyes  gently   &   much  to  own  surprise,  instead  of  words,  he  feels  her  gentle  lips  kissing  him  across  the  long  years  of  torment,  causing  for  the  once  shallow  breath  to  hitch.

wait...  is  she... ?   bewildered   &   confused,  the  young  serial  killer  crooks  a  single  brow  for  a  moment  yet  does  not  proceed  to  stop  her,  he  just...   puts  himself  out  there  in  the  open,  as  open  as  a  wild  animal  can  possibly  get  while  exposing  such  vulnerability.  will  she  perhaps  think  any  less  of  him  for  it  now  that  she  has  seen  it...?   will  she  think  him  mad,  just  like  everyone  else...?  exhaling  a  slow,  shaky  breath,  envy's  toned  body  slowly  softens  beneath  her  as  the  kisses  savor  him  entirely,  little  by  little,  replacing  the  thoughts  of  hesitation  into  ones  of  pleasure.  a  purely  somatic  act,  yet  in  depths  of  his  delirious  mind  harmony  has  already  engraved  herself  as  the  only  woman  whom  he  trusts   &   one  day,  perhaps,  just  maybe....  he  will  giver  her  no  less  than  his  own  dead  heart.

#// this doesn't get anymore endearing than this. #if he let's you see his neck - let alone touch it - you are truly one of a kind. #🔪 ❝ ᵀʰᵉ ᶫᶦᵗᵗᶫᵉ ᵏᶦᶫᶫᵉʳ⋅⋅ ❞ {{ ;; ‘𝓔𝓷𝓿𝔂’ }}

[thedelusionreaderbitch]

Kaz Brekker/Platonic! Crows x fem! Reader - Silence

A/n: So I know I haven't been very active lately but hopefully that will change! Also I don't really love this fic it's not very good and I might rewrite it in the future but for now, you guys can enjoy this shit!!!

Warnings: Abuse, sexual abuse, rape, violence, mentions of death, technically mentions of suicide, THIS FIC IS A MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING!!!!

Summary: They used to be happy. That’s what Jesper says anyways about his sister. When he’s asked where it all went wrong it’s usually responded with an I have no idea. When Kaz comes to confront them in front of the Crows why you came back all bloodied and carrying back a body, they know this isn’t going to end well…

Death clung to you. That's what people muttered in the streets of Ketterdam, 'if the Blackbird is on a strike don't go outside for a week and remember, pray to the saint who wears the most colour.'

Great bedtime stories for children.

Your legend would never end, though it must have begun somewhere. Someone who you decided could witness one of your killings must have made up a story. Started it up and told it in fright to someone and the people not believing a word they say. Before their dead of course. And then it spreads like the plague.

The Blackbird was once a hopeful girl, full of dreams and happiness. She had beautiful feathers of all different kinds of colours, and they sang to the heavens and it was as if she was a child of the saints. Then one day - the bird that brought kindness and sunshine to everyone's lives fell into a trap.

There was a hyena that people all thought was bad news but she thought she could help him become a better person.

The little birdy was wrong.

He hurt the bird of colours so badly that one day he burned her feathers and they became pitch black. The hyena thought that he had won at last and had gotten power over the bird.

It was said that she ran and escaped the terrible beast that day. And because he had changed her to the very soul she wasn't the same anymore, no. She was only used for revenge, and it was said she turned her backs on the saints for not saving her. When the saints did decide to intervene the little bird was shattered and could no longer sing. Her voice reduced to a vengeful whip, it was no longer beautiful but fearsome.

It was said that on that night the Blackbird used her wings on Ketterdam so she could cover the sky in darkness so the stars in the sky, the only things the saints could use to watch over mankind was blindfolded in a merciless fog.

And there the Blackbird was born.

Maybe death clung to you, but not the same way that trauma and the cruelness of the world does.

And that's a fate worse than death.

You remember strike one, you and Jesper were kids - happy kids. And the neighbour's son of was considerably older than both of you offered to babysit the one time your Da, and Ma was out.

Jesper was playing in the back, perhaps practicing shooting so he could impress your Mum but you stayed inside saying something along the lines that you wanted to cook some cookies for Dad.

How you wished you hadn't.

That teenage boy had put his filthy little hands on you. He left you in the kitchen tears running down your face and bile that you had to force back down your throat.

Your mother had found you like that and she instantly knew what had happened and she made everything much more bearable. When you had nightmares you would get up and knock on her door quietly enough for her just to hear and because your Ma was a light sleeper but your Da was not, she would get up and see you alright.

The poor woman never told her husband because you had pleaded with her not to. She always did blame herself and she made sure the boy never came around again but she did thank the saints that he didn't go all the way.

She wasn't sunshine, (she always said that was you!) No, she was the faint moonlight in the distance that helped guide you on your way home.

Then she died.

Strike two, was your mother dying. You remember that day where she went to take the poison out of that child and when she did she sucked it back into herself. In your arms was the last place your Ma took her last breath.

That was the day the world had lost its guide home and it always seemed to be in peril after that.

Strike three came almost immediately after strike two. Your father wouldn't talk to you. You became a ghost in your own house, you understood your father though,

she did die in your arms.

Jesper was the only one that didn't make strike three the last strike where the rope was at its point and snapped. He was your armour against the world, with his funny quirks and quips. He was the older brother you needed in those moments.

But armour slowly breaks over time and your dear brother wasn't getting enough out of life at the farm. So when your Father sent Jesper to Ketterdam you went right with him.

You attended college for a bit but eventually, your armour had finally left you. It broke under the stress of everything in his life that he couldn't keep up with yours.

So you meant him.

He was kind but knew when the world was being too cruel. He was wealthy, but not rich. He was sweet, but not puke up rainbows kind of way. He knew you like the back of his hand and always knew how to comfort you. Jesper had actually meant him once before he got too busy with the Dregs and said maybe he knew you too well.

You yelled at him at the time and said that was absurd! He would never do anything to hurt you!

Strike four was falling under his spell.

Strike five was when he told you terrible things about yourself and you thought he was always right. He could do no wrong in your eyes.

Strike six was when he finally started beating you and you had just expected it at this point.

Strike seven was when you weren't allowed to go to school anymore.

Strike eight was when he wouldn't let you see anyone, not even your brother. But you never questioned it, he was basically a saint to you, why would you? Besides Jesper never seemed to have time for you anyways.

Strike nine was when he cheated on you and told you you had to be better.

Strike ten was when he started raping you.

Then one day he was worse than usual and you grabbed the hot poker from the fire pit, that he had used to beat you before, and you had told him to stay away.

Then you ran.

It was the straw the broke the camel's back, it was the saints giving up on him or maybe it was the saints giving up on you.

You didn't care, you were free.

You made one promise that day, that you would never love again.

You learned quickly what Ketterdam was like even before you had meant him, so perhaps that was why it was so easy to become the Blackbird. The girl who never smiled, the girl who only lived only for revenge. The monster that will wipe your existence off of the earth like it was nothing. The ghost that will haunt you when your sins line up too high.

Eventually, you joined the dregs and you connected with your brother once again and he knew something was wrong the moment he felt your presence. He didn't believe you were the Blackbird, the girl who terrorized the streets of Ketterdam.

But he learned to accept it, they all did except for that blasted Brekker boy.

With your time in the Dregs, you had slowly begun to form something with Kaz but you quickly remembered your promise to yourself and you let him go.

Although you don't like to admit it, the Crows had become your friends - family even. You would do anything to protect them even though it didn't seem like it. You were you though, and that was being afraid to even semi-connect with them. Of course, you were, because you were growing a bit too fond of Kaz Brekker and last time that lead you to a fate worse than death.

So you distanced yourself for a while to recollect your thoughts and if you really wanted to stay with them. Did they ever manipulate you? No. Then you came back and you stayed, maybe you weren't the perfect friend or a very good one at all but the Crows knew you even considering to stay was a blessing all in itself.

They were always so patient with you even Kaz, especially Kaz, and you never gave anything in return to them. Guilt would often cloud your mind when you were near them but they were always so amazing something you could never be.

But one day they came to their breaking point.

Killing people wasn't anything new for them, much less you killing people but coming back with a bloodied body and losing contact with them for weeks was probably not the same as just 'killing.'

Jesper pulls you by your bicep into Kaz's office with the other Crows following behind. You stumble in as Kaz slams the door shut being the last one in the room. They stare at you with beady eyes almost like the ones on the infamous birds around the Slat.

"What the fuck Y/n!" Jesper finally yells. Everyone around doesn't even bother to tell him to lower his voice their faces held the same anger that Jes's did.

Silence drowns you in its ocean keeping you in its waters. A chain is wrapped around your throat as you sink deeper and deeper into its depths. You try and swim away, run like you always had before, but the weight around your neck is too heavy, too dense and it slowly drowns you.

You just shrugged your shoulders. How could you explain all that you went through? Why would you want to?

"We can't just brush this off Y/n, we always do, but you crossed a line," Wylan states calmly but firmly at the same time putting a hand on his boyfriend's shoulder trying to ease the tension in the room.

You laugh, you hadn't even been walking a line at all. No, you had been jumping from rooftop to rooftop as they created a chalk line at how far you could go. Balling your hands into fits you snarl, they have been keeping you back. Maybe it's a good thing but you didn't want to admit it.

What about Kaz? A voice whispers in the back of your head.

Your eyes travel to his form in the back. He's leaning on the wall slightly but also using his cane to make himself look up-right. The darkness in the back compliments his angular features making them stand out as if saying he was above you. And to most people he probably was and he deserved that position.

But it didn't matter to you, he was just Kaz to you. Even if you saw him as someone... Important in your life, nevertheless he didn't matter. He was just another powerful man drawing a line that you couldn't cross as the line became smaller and smaller till you were trapped against a wall with nowhere to go.

When you first became the Blackbird, you climbed up that wall, you knew what was going to happen next. And you would never let anyone do that to you again.

"If you think I crossed the 'line' then your wrong." Your voice started out light-hearted (never does a fake smile crawl on your face though) but slowly became menacing and terrifying.

You spin of your heels turning to Jesper. "You've kept me in a cage giving me freedom but always locking me back up in the night."

You turn to Wylan and you mock his voice from earlier. "It was only a matter of time before I would break out." Your eyes lock onto Kaz's and your voice softens while you look at him.

"You knew it was going to happen sooner rather than later. A bird needs to stretch its wings somehow."

"That doesn't mean you get to cut off communication with us for weeks than bringing in a body all bloodied. What you said before doesn't even explain why you did that Y/n," Inej says quietly.

You growl and the people closest to you jump back a little.

"Oh, what are you going to do, kick me out? Half of your businesses wouldn't have even succeeded without me!"

Jesper balls his hands into fists. "Gee for fuck's sake Y/n would just tell us!"

"HE'S THE REASON I'M A MONSTER!"

Your shout makes everyone freeze in their place and there it is again. The overbearing silence that takes over everything with its darkness. Running threw out the room, swirling around you and making it impossible for you to even hear anything other than your own terrible thoughts of madness.

But one voice isn't in your head of that hyena howling at you no, it's real and you can hear it among the darkness. You close your eyes listening in and hearing something other than darkness.

"Y/n." Your eyes snap open and you meet Kaz's eyes and you feel something dangerously close to relief.

"Everyone else out."

The Crows file out of the room one by one following Kaz's order. Everyone leaves but Jesper hesitates at the door and you see your broken armour trying to come back to you again and although it's harsh he wasn't there when he should have been. You understood that he had other problems he needed to sort out but you were his little sister.

You were supposed to stick up for each other.

"Out." Your voice would sound cold to anyone else but to Jesper, it sounds tired and unhappy. Lonely also however it has a hit of love and revenge as well.

The taller brother just sighs though and close's the door.

Kaz's eyes meet yours and your hands start to fidget with the cuffs of your bloodied shirt.

He doesn't say anything, he just stares at you. Willing you to spill information with just a glance. Any God would fall prey to those eyes and they would disclose all their knowledge while also thanking him in the end.

Kaz Brekker had something more powerful than Godly power over you.

So you couldn't help but tell him the real more dark story behind the Blackbird, he had already told you his so maybe, just maybe you could trust him.

"Do you know the Story of the Blackbird?" Your voice rings out against the muteness of the room fighting against it for once in your miserable life.

Kaz nods his head showing you that he knew. Of course, he knew it, was Brekker he probably knows every single version by heart.

"And I assume you know it's about me?"

Rolling his eyes but nodding once again.

You hesitate, knowing that after this you couldn't go back. That these next few words could change everything and why are you even telling this to the bastard of the barrel?

Because you love him.

It's simple and you promised yourself you would never love again but possibly that promise wasn't real because perhaps you never really loved that hyena. Some form of peace has definitely come from killing him, but maybe there's more to moving on from trauma than just revenge.

So with those thoughts in mind, the words tumble out of your mouth and you wouldn't be able to stop them even if you tried.

"Around the time where Jesper was just starting in the Dregs I had gotten a boyfriend. He was... Well, he was the perfect boyfriend but looking back he was too perfect. Basically fake, he was a manipulator and he knew me like the back of his hand. He knew where to press and I was under the impression that he could do nothing wrong." You pause to take a breath but you don't look up from your spot on the floor.

"It started with the small things like little insults thrown my way, but then it grew into bigger things like calling me a slut and what not. I wasn't even surprised when he started beating me."

Your eyes slowly come off the floor and they travel up Kaz's body but never meeting his eyes. You didn't want to see the disappointment that would be held in those eyes. That was inevitable.

"Then every day it started to get worse till he-" You cut yourself off and your legs wobble underneath you and as you collapsed Kaz jetted out and caught you before you could fall.

Tears were running down your face as you gripped Kaz's shirt as he picked you up bridal style and carried you over to the bed. He place's you down and slides in beside you yet there was a good distance between the two of you. But it still gave you comfort and for the first time in a while, you didn't question why it did, you just went with it already knowing the reason why.

You loved him it was as simple as that.

"Then he-" You choked on a sob again and you bring your knees to your chest.

"You don't have to say it." He says gently nothing like what that hyena used to do to you.

"Noah used to rape me." The words come out in a blur and the tight feeling in your chest slowly falls apart and for the first time in a while, you truly feel like a Blackbird - free. Stuttering to breathe in a realization comes to your mind; Noah that monster will never hurt you ever again.

"Oh, my Saints! He's dead!" You cover your mouth with your hand and you lean back onto the headboard tears of happiness smear down your face. You don't laugh though but you feel even clearer than before. You could get used to this feeling.

Slowly you look over to Kaz and you realize the two of you were broken souls beyond repair and maybe just maybe that's what you needed. Perhaps that's what you both need, each other.

"Thank you." You whisper and the ends of Kaz's mouth curl's up a bit into what looks like is almost a smile but not quite. You would get there too one day.

===========TIME SKIP 4 Months======================

You jump from the rooftop gliding through the air and landing on the window sill of Kaz's office. You tilt your head to the side affectionately as you see The Crows getting ready for a heist only they're really just fooling around. Everyone but Kaz of course, he's in his desk chair drawing out some maps.

And they tell you you overwork! Hypocrites.

You open the window silently and you slip into the room unnoticed. You tiptoe over to Kaz's desk and you leap on top.

Kaz raises his eyebrow at you and you just shrug your shoulders, he probably had to stop anyways.

"You know there are other ways to get my attention other than acting like a child?"

"Oh, I know this is just more effective." You playfully respond.

Before Kaz could continue with the banter Jesper interject's just realizing you were here grabbing everyone's attention and placing it on you. Still not a fan of that.

"How the hell did you get from that rooftop to that window!" Jesper points outside in a slightly worried, big brother voice.

So you look him dead in the eyes and say; "I flew."

Jesper laughs along with the rest of The Crows but they stop at your deadpan look on your face.

"You didn't really?!"

"No, I didn't." You roll your eyes, "I didn't even think you knew that I did that."

Jesper comes over and wraps an arm around your shoulders and you immediately tense up.

"I do know some tricks! I am your older brother after all." His tone does get a few octaves of sombre at the end remembering the memories of how he didn't protect you before. But he's here now so you guess that's all matter's now.

You scoot off the desk out of his arm range but you do send him a sorry glance. The memories were just too much to handle sometimes. He just sends me a tiny knowing smile and nods and walk's off quietly (for the first time in his life) over to Wylan.

You watch everyone interact and it almost brings a smile to your face but something is missing and you wonder what it is.

Your question is quickly answered though as Kaz stands up beside you. His ungloved hand slowly garb's onto yours's and slowly you intertwine your fingers together.

"You really are the leader of a bunch of idiots." You say as Nina dares your brother to down a whole bucket paint.

"Yes, that's what it seems."

"But we love them." And for the first time in a while, you smile and it's not full-blown, it's tiny yet it has the whole galaxy in there.

"Yes, Yes I do." But Kaz isn't looking at The Crows he's looking at you.

Words 3517

-thedelusionreaderbitch

Shadow and bone taglist: @kaqua @rika90 @thefandomplace @musical-theatre-obsessed-dumbass @gallysonegoodlung @navs-bhat @sumsebien @dontjudgeabookbythecover

#shadow and bone #six of crows #kaz brekker #kaz brekker imagine #kaz brekker x reader #kaz brekker x y/n #six of crows x reader #shadow and bone x reader #the crows #the crow club #Blackbird #the crows x reader #inej ghafa #fahey reader #x reader #x you #jesper fahey #wylan van eck #matthias helvar #nina zenik #grisha #grishaverse

[druigswhores]

you’re alive in my head

summary: in which natasha no longer had to live in a world without you, there you were in her arms once again. but why can’t she remember your life before westview?

content warning: natasha romanoff x fem!reader, set after endgame, angst, mentions of death, trauma, their relationship ending on a bad note, trust issues & previous steve x nat, there is some hints to homophobia in this chapter :/ (WANDAVISION SPOILERS!)

note: sorry this chapter was late!! it’s 3.3k words and i got my friend to spell check and edit it, ty ashy ily <33

REQUESTS ARE OPEN! (lmk if you want anymore content like this!)

‘моя любовь’ = ‘my love’ in russian <3

‘принцесса’ = ‘princess’ (i used google translate so idk how accurate it is

SERIES MASTERLIST

PART THREE COMING SOON

Death.

It's a complicated thing; A theory.

Nobody knows what happens to you after you die. Nobody knows what happens to your soul after you die. We make things up to make ourselves feel better, and convince ourselves that our deceased loved ones are watching over us, all the while convincing others that our loved ones are in a better place now.

But in reality, those are just dreams dying to be true.

Natasha didn't know if you were dead or alive. She just knew your body turned into particles of dust, your soul disappeared along with the rest of you. She didn't want to believe that you were truly gone, so she spoke to you.

She spoke to you, thinking you were listening to her; believing you were listening to her and that you were still around.

It was almost as if she was speaking to your ghost, the mere presence of you that remained with her, the piece of you that was a part of her. It felt wrong being in the compound without you, she felt as though she was trapped; trapped with the many reminders of how she failed you. The walls were suffocating her. Every time she thought about what had happened it felt as though the rooms were becoming smaller. The large 'A' plastered around the compound taunting her, reminding her of what they lost. Of what she lost.

So she had to get away.

Natasha found herself taking trips to the beach, the one the two of you adored oh so much. She'd walk along the sand, the harsh wind blowing against her face. The air smelled of salt, and she'd take a deep breath in with a smile. She'd reminisce all the times the two of you managed to get away from the compound, how effortlessly gorgeous you'd look with the breeze blowing through your hair, your laughter sounding like a melody that Natasha now longed to hear once more.

If she stood really still, she could, once more, feel the warmth of your fingers dragging against her skin, gently tracing shapes onto her body. Her heart would ache whenever she'd turn to the side, finding that nobody was beside her.

She had to get used to living in a world without you.

"моя любовь..." She sighed, fumbling with a stone she'd picked up, before swinging her arm and throwing it into the rippling water. The temperature was dropping. Christmas coming closer and closer every day. Natasha wrapped her coat tighter around her body, staring at the waves in front of her, observing the way they'd hit the shore before pulling back into the ocean. In the distance, she could see boats, and although they were far away, she noticed how the water carried them; the movement of the ocean pushing the boat into the direction of the wind. "No sailors.." Natasha realized, her eyes following a lifeguard boat making its way to the empty boats, likely checking for any survivors.

Yet another reminder of how the Avengers had failed.

It's only been a couple of months since the battle yet the traces of you continued to fade away. The sweater that was once yours now clung to Natasha's body as she made her way back home.

She'd do anything to bring you back. She'd do anything to have you in her arms again, complaining about something you'd undoubtedly forget hours later. She missed the way you'd never share your snacks with anyone but her. The feeling of warmth that would blossom inside her when your eyes met in a crowded room. All the times when your knee would brush against hers during a meeting. She missed the way it felt to lay next to you. She missed forgetting the world with you.

God, she missed you so much.

But there she was. In the same room as you, years later, preparing breakfast. Her hair was coiled and pinned up, keeping it in place. Her dress fit her perfectly, the skirt swaying with her movements as she elegantly makes her way across the kitchen floor. Her every movement seemed like a performance; like she was the performer and you were the audience, watching her in awe. She was captivating in every possible way, her enchanting voice pulling you in like a siren.

"Good morning, honey! I've been up all morning making us a delightful breakfast." Natasha greeted you with a kiss on the cheek, her performance almost seeming comical. "Nat... it's just peanut butter and jelly sandwiches." You pointed out, glancing over your shared kitchen, seeing the mess that was made. Somehow milk spilled all over the counters, dripping onto the ground, you immediately recognized the smell of burnt toast that hung in the air as you continued looking around.

"Peanut butter and jelly is your favourite, remember?" Natasha reminded you. Your eyes widened at the realization, thanking her. You helped her bring the food to the table, making a note to yourself to tidy up the kitchen before the dinner at Wanda and Vision's that the two of you were invited for.

But you couldn't recall Wanda telling you about the dinner?

"Are you okay, моя любовь?" She placed her hand above yours on the counter. The two of you sat in front of each other, your half-eaten breakfast resting between the two of you. "Of course, why wouldn't I be? I'm with my best girl." You smiled softly at her, and though your words said one thing, Natasha could easily recognise the distant look on your face as you stared off into space, lost in your own thoughts. "What's going on in that pretty little head of yours принцесса?" She teased, squeezing your hand gently.

"What time are we supposed to be at Wanda's?" You asked her, snapping yourself out of the trance you were in. Natasha hesitated, eyebrows furrowed as she watched your every move. Something was bothering you. "We're going to Wanda's in the evening моя любовь, she asked us a while back if we could help out before the others arrived, remember?" Natasha stated as the two of you brought your plates to the sink, beginning to tidy up.

"I'm not sure how much help you'll be sweetheart." You teased, pointing at the mess that was created due to Natasha making breakfast. She feigned hurt in response, "Oh принцесса, you're breaking my heart!" She made her way around you, passing you the cutlery as you rinsed the plates. You chuckled softly at her playful behaviour. "I think we should stick with me making us breakfast so our kitchen doesn't end up getting flooded, wouldn't you agree?" You chuckled, as you made your way around the kitchen, the two of you tidying up the mess Natasha had created.

"If only we were a robot," Natasha sighed, wrapping her arms around you from behind. You leaned back into her, embracing the warmth which radiated from her body, "or had powers." This was a position you were so very used to. "If only," she responded playfully. You turn your head back at the grinning redhead, as she leaned in for a kiss, her eyes fluttering shut as she felt your lips meet.

"You know," Natasha started, "we do have some time to spare-" you then cut her off.

"I like the way you think, sweetheart," You smiled softly, turning in her arms before making your way to your shared bedroom. Natasha followed closely behind.

The two of you were dolled up, looking your best.

Your dress ended just below your knees, the skirt extenuating your hips; it swayed with every movement you made. The short sleeves of the dress looked as though they were about to fall off your shoulders. Natasha's dress, however, was much more slim fitting and hugged her hips perfectly before flowing down, much like a waterfall, making it harder to look at anything else but her.

"Do you think Wanda will get mad at us for arriving a bit later than expected?" You asked nervously, fumbling with your fingers as the two of you made your way down the path that led to Wanda and Vision's home. Natasha shuffled around balancing the tray of pastries you'd prepared in one hand while using her free hand to rub your back gently, comforting you, "I'm sure she won't mind, моя любовь," she reassured you. As you near the house you could hear mumbling from the inside; you heard three or more different voices.

"Is that- is Vision singing?" You asked worriedly, glancing at Natasha who was mirroring your reaction. She knocked on the door, and the singing inside had abruptly stopped. "Oh, that must be our other guests," You heard Vision exclaim, "perfect timing!" You could hear his footsteps gradually get closer. The door swung open and Vision gave a nervous smile, glancing down at the tray of food Natasha was holding before letting out a sigh of relief. He hugged the both of you before welcoming you into his home. He introduced you to Mr. Hart, Visions boss, and Mrs. Hart, his wife.

"Oh hello," Mrs. Hart greeted, "no need to be so formal tonight honey." she smiled at you, pushing away the hand you had extended for her to shake. Instead, she pulled you into a tight hug which quite honestly surprised you. You awkwardly pat the older yet noteably shorter woman on the back before pulling away to quickly greet her husband. He glanced at you and Natasha in confusion, opening his mouth to say something before getting interrupted. "Oh here, let me take that, Natasha. You stay here and I'll go get a plate to put these on." You glanced at everyone in the room, offering them a smile before making your way to the kitchen, Vision stopped you before you got to the door, extending his arm out.

"Thank you," he leaned down to whisper to you. You squeezed his arm in response. You weren't used to seeing Vision in this form. He looked human. You rushed into the kitchen, startling Wanda, "I've figured you needed help." You smiled sheepishly at her, placing the tray down onto the counter, taking in all the chaos that was going on in the kitchen. It reminded you of this morning.

"Well, this isn't the first chaotic kitchen I've walked into today," you teased, reaching out for a plate before neatly plating the pastries onto it. Wanda laughed nervously in response, as she flicked through the recipe cards, searching for the right one. You walked back into the living room, placing the plate onto the coffee table prompting Vision to jump up out of his seat and offer Mr. and Mrs. Hart an appetizer. Looking to Natasha, you gave her a wink before swiftly turning around, your dress swaying with your movements as you made your way back into the kitchen, missing the frown forming on Mr. Hart's face.

"Oh, what was I supposed to do next?" Wanda began rambling, "what was the main course again?"

Making your way to the recipe cards floating in the air you attempted to help her find the card with the right recipe, steak. You could hear Vision playing a song on the ukulele while Natasha unwillingly sang alongside him.

"That's not it" You sighed, sifting through the cards, "is this one steak?"

"Steak," Wanda started, "Diane!" she accidentally yells. Her eyes widened as she realized what she'd done. She looks to you with a frown. You just barely heard Vision respond with a, "yes dear?"

"This is going terribly," Wanda frowned, leaning her head upon your shoulder. You chuckled, rubbing her back gently before pulling her away, forcing her to look at you, "Hey, you can do this, okay? You're not alone," you reassured her, attempting to raise her spirits. She sighed in relief, repeating to herself ", "I can do this, I can do this, I can do this..."

Vision barged into the kitchen unexpectedly, his nerves radiating through room. Wanda panics, accidentally using her powers to throw the lobsters out of the window.

"How can I be of assistance." Vision asks, mirroring Wanda's expression.

"Well," Wanda started, "the chicken is no longer a chicken and the lobsters just flew the coop, so the steak is the last man standing," she explains, making her way around the kitchen. You held the recipe card in your hand, skimming the instructions, "it says here you could cut down the prep time with a meat tenderiser." You recited, looking at the couple once more. "Excellent plan! Where's the tenderiser?" Vision questions, ready to help in the kitchen.

"I'm looking at him," Wanda began, holding her hand out to pass the tenderiser to Vision. You pull her hand back before Vision reaches out for it. "No. What you need to do, Vision, is go entertain your guests. Have faith in your wife and I, okay?" You pushed him out of the kitchen, before turning around and clapping your hands.

"So, where were we?" You asked, hopefully.

After a stressful couple of minutes, a brief visit from a woman with a pineapple, and Natasha almost spilling water on her dress; dinner was served.

Well technically, breakfast was served.

The six of you sat around the dining table, nervously looking around. Mr. and Mrs. Hart looked at the food in confusion, staring at the cooked bacon and eggs paired with the red wine and chocolate covered strawberries.

"Breakfast for dinner?" Mr, Hart began, with obvious judgement written all over his face. "How very-" "European." Mrs. Hart cut him off, smiling reassuringly at the two of you.

"European?" You muttered, glancing at Wanda in confusion, who then motioned her hand in a 'I'll tell you later' sort of way. "Oh, let's have a toast!" Vision began, raising his glass up. All of you followed suite as Vision continued.

"To my lovely and talented wife," he gloated, unable to take his eyes off her.

"And to our esteemed guests," Wanda added. You didn't miss the wink she threw at you and Natasha, causing the two of you to stifle your laughs. Everyone clinked their glasses together and dug into their food. It wasn't long after when the questioning began.

"So, where did you move from?" Mrs. Hart began, "what brought you here? How long have you been married? And why don't you have children yet?" She interrogated Wanda and Vision, and you glanced over at Natasha, hesitantly, who shrugged in response before continuing to eat her food. Her eyes then met Mr. Hart's, who's eyebrows were furrowed at the interaction, waiting for his wife to finish speaking so he could say something. You didn't notice Wanda struggling to answer the questions being thrown, while Vision looked at Wanda desperately waiting for an answer. It was almost as if the two of them didn't know themselves.

You also failed to notice Wanda zoning out of the conversation, staring off into the distance as Mrs. Hart continued pestering her for answers. "And what about the two of you, huh? You two roommates?" Mr. Hart questioned, noticing how closely seated you were next to Natasha.

"Something like that," Natasha responded, biting back the smirk that was fighting it's way onto her lips.

"Two lovely women such as yourselves shouldn't struggle to find a man. Why don't the two of you have husbands yet?" Mr. Hart asked, leaning forward. You felt the hair in your arms rise as you realised where the conversation was leading. Glancing at Natasha nervously, you noticed how her fingers were clenched around her cutlery.

"We just prefer each other's company," you stated simply, shoving a forkful of eggs into your mouth to distract yourself.

"What do you mean? Are you- that's unnatural!" He ranted. You ignored him, noticing that Wanda was still trying to answer questions about her and Visions marriage.

"Yes, yes, we were married in," Wanda paused, getting lost in her thoughts. Mr. Hart continued his rant to you and Natasha as You, Vision and Natasha glanced at Wanda nervously.

"You're both women! That's wrong!" Mr Hart argues.

"Well, what's your story?" Mrs. Hart questions Wanda.

Mr. Hart began shouting, slamming his fist onto the table as Mrs. Hart continued to grill Wanda for answers. Wanda snaps back into reality due to a sudden, unexpected noise. She turned to face Mr. Hart who began to choking. You stared at Natasha, frightened and unsure as of what to do in this situation.

"Oh, Arthur, stop it!" Mrs. Hart laughed. She repeated the words 'stop it' over and over again, her tone gradually becoming more panicked as her husband continued to choke. His hand rested on his throat. Vision stared at Mr. Hart in an unsure manner, his hands resting against the table almost as if the were pinned against it. You only just noticed how Mrs. Hart turned to Wanda as she continued repeating those same words.

"Stop it," she pleaded, her voice shaking as she looked at Wanda, who was staring at Mr. Hart in shock. Mr. Hart fell off his chair and onto the ground as he continued to choke. You wanted to rush over and help him but it felt as though your hands were bound to the table and you couldn't move your legs. You were only able to watch as the man continued to choke while his wife chuckled.

"Stop it."

"Stop it."

"Stop it."

"Vision, help him," Wanda demanded. Vision rushed out of his seat and next to Mr. Hart, phasing his hand through his throat and removing a whole chocolate covered strawberry.

When did Mr. Hart pick up the strawberry? You thought to yourself.

"Let me help you up," Vision offers, helping Mr. Hart back to his feet. The atmosphere in the room had immediately changed, going back to exactly how it was before. It was almost as if a switch had been flipped and everyone forgot what was happening.

"Would you look at the time!" Mr. Hart exclaimed making his way to the door as his wife followed behind him.

"Well," Wanda started, "are you both alright?" she questioned nervously, as she stood up. "Yes, we better be going. We had such a lovely time!" Mrs. Hart reassured. The couple left the house very abruptly, mentioning something about a promotion before exiting the front door.

"Oh, we must be going as well!" Natasha exclaims, pushing herself up out of her seat before saying goodbye to the two. She hugged them both before making her way out of the door. You hugged Vision and thanked him for having you over before making your way to Wanda.

"Tonight was wonderful, Wanda," you reassured, pulling her into a hug. You felt her shoulders slacken in your arms, sighing softly as she returned your embrace before pulling away from you, her arms resting on your shoulders.

"Thank you, thank you for everything."

As the two of you made your way home, you couldn't help but let Mr. Hart's words play on repeat in your mind. You could tell Natasha knew what was bugging you as she squeezed your hand gently. The two of you continued to hold hands as you made your way home.

"I know we can't get married," you started, as you stood in your living room, staring at the woman who made you feel most at home. She nodded, waiting for you to continue as she rested her hand against your cheek, allowing her thumb to gently stroke your face.

"But I just want you to know that I'm here for you. For better or for worse. I never want to be apart from you," you chuckled softly, staring at her in awe, allowing your eyes to glance at her lips before you looked back into her eyes.

"I know, моя любовь. And I'd do anything for you," Natasha began.

"Even die for you."

natasha romanoff taglist: @blackxwidowsxwife @severepeanutartisanhands @madamevirgo @starsvck @umsolikeblog @baddecisions-png @yourmcu

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