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undiscovered-horizon · 6 months

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[Sanji finds you crying and pretends to believe your excuses. Is anyone up for slow dancing in the rain?]

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When the time for supper came, Sanji knocked on your door to let you now. He was met with silence, so he naturally assumed you were sleeping. Not much of a problem - he'll set aside a portion for when you wake up hungry.

The problem is, that was around two hours ago.

Sanji knocked on your door again and when silence answered him this time also, he allowed himself to peek inside. Only to discover your bed is empty. He grew suspicious, if not worried, when no one could tell him where you went. It's the middle of the night and the rainstorm doesn't stop. Sanji also noticed how quiet and upset you've been most of the day, making him all the more tense that you are unaccounted for. The thought that you're obediently suffering in silence breaks him more each time he entertains it.

Sanji is scrubbing the cutting board with feverish vigour. The faster he finishes, the faster he can get to making sure you're fine. As though the fish scales knew his thoughts, they simply wouldn't get off the wooden surface.

The steel scrubber escapes his hands. It hits the sink with a quiet clank. He takes a deep breath to calm himself down and looks away from the pile of dishes. That's when he finally sees you through the smudged porthole. The rain outside obscures your silhouette. Nevertheless, Sanji is beyond convinced that it is, in fact, you. Despite the initial relief, he feels his chest tighten. You look like a marble statue, forever frozen still in grief.

Leaving the cutting board in the sink and grabbing his suit jacket, Sanji dashes out the door, making haste to you. What on Earth do you think you're doing out in this weather?

The cold rain hits him like a wall of ice. True, the cool water may feel refreshing after the hot and humid daytime hours but not at this rate of rainfall. Even if the nights in the open sea weren't so dark, it would still be impossible to see anything beyond the ship.

He has to come close to you to see the heartwrenching details of your silhouette. You're hunched over, staring at the turbulent waters below. The clothes you're wearing are absolutely drenched, no dry string in their material. Every now and then, your freezing body shivers violently.

"Love?" he calls out to you in an unsure voice.

But you don't react - at least not in the way he has been expecting you to. Instead of looking at him, you turn your face further away, quickly wiping it with your hands.

Sanji wastes no time. In long strides, he finds himself pressed up against your side and forcing his jacket around your shoulders. Considering the heavy rain it won't do much in the long run but maybe it can keep you warm until he convinces you to go back inside.

"Hey, look at me," he pleads in a soft voice.

Too tired and heartbroken, you let his warm fingers guide your face towards him. As if time suddenly slows down, you notice each wrinkle that appears and disappears when he studies your sorrowful expression. If he was a little less perceptive, Sanji would think your face is just wet from the heavy rainfall. The red veins of your bloodshot, puffy eyes are hardly visible in the darkness of the rainy night but not black enough to remain unseen by Sanji.

"What's wrong? Why are you crying? What happened?" he keeps asking. With each question, he feels the tension in his chest only rising.

"I'm not crying, I'm perfectly fine," you reassure him. Your forced scoff is followed by a pathetic sniffle. "It's just the rain. Saltwater irritated my eyes."

Of course, with your whole "I'm brave and strong and I can manage on my own" facade, you're not going to openly admit to weakness in front of anyone, even if it's painfully obvious. As much as Sanji considers your tough image charming, he wishes you would discard it once in a while - for your own sake.

"How can you be fine with saltwater in your eyes, princess?" Sanji goes along with your poorly constructed lie. His arms engulf you in a warm, albeit drenching wet, hug. "It must burn."

"Yeah, it does," you mumble against his soaking shirt. With a little more light, you would be able to see his bare skin from underneath the wet material. "But it's getting better."

One of Sanji's hands is keeping your head against his shoulder while the other drags up and down your back in a soothing gesture. The jacket he has put around your arms is already drenched, too. He feels your body shaking but can't be sure whether it's because of the "saltwater" or the cold weather. In any case, his heart breaks each time he feels those spasms. His mind panics in search of something that could possibly lift your mood.

The noise of the rainfall is disrupted by a soft, low hum. A melody you vaguely know rumbles inside Sanji's chest. Dean Martin...? Strong arms hold you tightly against his torso as he ever-so-gently sways you to the rhythm of the song.

A quiet giggle escapes your lips as you let yourself sink into the comfort of him. Up until this moment, the cosiness of a loved one's arms confronted with the coldness of a rainstorm, you've thought that scenes like these exist only in sappy novels written for naive young women.

"Slow dancing in the rain," you finally speak up. If it wasn't for the rather unpleasant rain drenching you to every last string of your clothing, yous wear you could fall asleep like this. "Aren't you a hopeless romantic, Sanji?"

"I'm just getting started, love," he murmurs against your hair, still slowly swaying your bodies despite having stopped the humming. You're inclined to believe that his chivalry ventures far beyond dancing in the rain.

"Oh, yes, please."

A low chuckle rumbles inside his chest. It merges into a symphony with the soft thrumming of his steady heartbeat.

"Feeling any better?" he asks in a serious tone.

To Sanji's dissatisfaction, you lean away from him to look at his face. Your eyes are still red but the curious glint he's learned to associate with you has found its way back into them. It seems like your grit, honesty or facade, has returned.

"What will you do if I say no?" you ask back.

As relief washes over him, Sanji smiles down at you. His hand slicks your drenched hair out of your puffy face.

"I should figure something out just for my baby," he answers without missing a beat. His fingers brush along your jaw and chin.

Before you have a chance to inquire, Sanji leans down and lifts you. A yelp of surprise is pulled out of your chest. Without much problem and clearly with a lot of enjoyment, he carries you back inside the lower deck of the ship.

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swampjawn · 1 month

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Dungeon Meshi Episode 13 is a simple one in terms of animation, but its simplicity makes room for subtler framing choices to shine. The first and most obvious choice is this striking wide shot of the most pivotal moment of the episode where episode director and storyboard artist Kōdai Nakano uses the wide frame and this silhouette effect to show more of the scene, while maintaining a sense of mystery, framing Thistle and Falin hauntingly under the architectural shapes of the dragon's stripped ribs.

But the choices made in the latter Chilchuck-centric half of the episode are just as important.

Chilchuck said early on that he only considers the other members of his party to be business associates and nothing more, but whether that was true or not at the time, it certainly isn't anymore. He has his guard up and is hiding behind this fabricated version of himself that's just frustrated at his friends for being stupid.

But it turns out Leed is a great listener and very perceptive and that's all he needed to let go of this emotional defense mechanism and realize that the emotion he's feeling isn't anger, it's fear. Fear that his friends (who, despite his best efforts, he's grown emotionally attached to) will get hurt. He doesn't even seem to realize that he wasn't being honest until she points it out to him.

The anime adds several shots throughout this section of other characters watching and listening to Chilchuck as he paces around sorting through his thoughts and feelings. (FINALLY, pacing around representation!)

He's not even being honest with himself about what he's feeling, so it's an outside perspective on his words that leads to the honest conversation that gets through to Laios at the end.

Simply by showing Leed watch him talk, the audience is invited to view the scene from her perspective rather than Chilchuck's

Hell, even the wargs get their own shot where their soft yellow eyes seem to show a sense of understanding and compassion.

My man was in desperate need of a therapy session and wouldn't ya know it, he ended up getting it from an orc girl and her giant beautiful dog-bears.

I broke down the whole episode in this video here, so if you liked this mini-essay, there's more where it came from!

Thanks for reading.

youtube

#dungeon meshi #mini essay #animation analysis #anime #delicious in dungeon #falin touden #chilchuck #video #Youtube

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pedge-page · 2 months

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Sub!Himbo!Jealous!Joel! The people demand it!!!

Statement

Sub!Himbo!Joel x F!Reader

Notes: the people have spoken! This could takes place between Closer and Mine is Mine when reader is in mid pregnancy but not required to read those for this.

Warnings: sub!Joel, Himbo!Joel, Jealous!Joel, possessiveness, breeding kink, hand job, doggy style, pregnant reader, unprotected sex, pregnancy sex, Joel fucks rough but acts subby, Mommy kink, multiple orgasms, creampie, one slap on the face for Joel

18+ ONLY

- - - -

While you mind your business at the coffee shop, engaging with friends and neighbors upon your visually evident bump now, Joel is fuming in the booth in the back. You hadn’t noticed him when you walked in, and he was about to greet you until he saw Brian launch over smiling, gesturing surprised to your belly and then kissing you on the cheek.

That set off a nerve.

A few others joined in to create a little circle. Joel sits back, visibly fuming as everyone else touched your swell or held your waist, swarming over you for your attention.

Out here, he’s a big, scary, reserved kind of guy. Joel Miller.

The two of you … haven’t exactly come out and made it official, despite reassuring each other you weren’t seeing anyone else. He always avoided you in public, like you weren’t truly connected in more ways than one now. And to keep it emotionally simple, you usually never attempted to engage with him either outside the bedroom to keep it less obvious. If he didn’t want to be linked to you, then fine. It was too difficult trying to understand him when he wasn't humping you like a desperate bunny.

You feel good conversing with other people. You had spent so long being entangled with Joel’s limbs on the bed, ignoring the outside world to instead indulge his inner needs to be dominated and dumbed by you.

This was probably the first time you’d been around others now entering the heavily rounded phase of your pregnancy that could no longer be kept hidden.

You did not notice Joel was here too, steaming in a mix of rage, anxiety. He feels unsure when he sees you out like this. You’re not the same. He’s not the same either, and he fears he preach his masculine demeanor, knowing just one look from you would have him on his knees in this whole shop in a second.

He grinds down along his jaw, slitted eyes unable to tear away from the silhouette of your gorgeous body and the hands that don’t belong to him getting too friendly with his baby inside you.

What were you telling them? That you had a boyfriend? A husband? Or some random fuck that turned into an accident?

It wasn’t a fucking accident.

With one last flirtatious laugh towards Brian, Joel’s had enough.

He aggressively cuts between all of them and closes you off.

“Joel—“ you begin, surprised by his presence.

Brian goes to put a firm palm of Joel’s chest, ready to step between this raging bull and his pregnant friend. “Hey man, be gentle—“

“FUCK—OFF,” he snarls at Brian. The rest of the group backs away. The shop goes quiet as all fearful eyes are on Joel, his chest puffed out to intimidate.

“It’s okay,” you say softly. Your hands grasp gently around Joel’s bicep, and he takes a deep breath. Though his eyes are still murderous towards Brian, he feels that wave of relief overcome him when you, only you, make contact with him. “It’s okay, Brian. Joel’s just been helping around my house. Getting the nursery built for the baby. Right, Joel?”

You stroke along his plaid shirt, begging the muscles under there to relax. He rolls his tongue along the inside of his lip before nodding.

He steps between you and Brian entirely, grasping your arm an yanking you out of the shop. You try to give a final reassurance to your friends that you were late to discussing wall paint with Joel, but your words were cut short as the door closed on you.

You’re not even through the house entrance when he starts aggressively undressing you. The tearing screech of your top makes you flinch, “J-Joel,” you stammer, but it doesn’t stop him from ripping you down to your bra, your swollen belly not quite to full mast but so quickly evident. “Joel,” you say more firmly, but he just growls, avoiding your eyes as he makes quick work to rid you of your bottoms, until finally you ball his shirt in your fist and slap him hard across the face.

“What the hell is the matter with you?"

He goes soft, eyes blinded like a deer in headlights. The stinging pain in his cheek reverberates over his body, and if you were any of the people in that shop today, you’d be scared shitless of what aggressive Joel Miller might hold for just slapping him.

But you’re not one of them.

Then, to that of a scolded child, a wounded wolf pup that doesn’t know its own strength, he goes still, shoulders slumped and head tilted down in guilt.

"I don't like it,” he says just barely above a whisper.

“Don’t Like WHAT?"

"When they—touch you.” He blurts out the last part like it’s a curse. “I thought. I thought I was yours. Why do you let them touch you?”

You sigh heavily. It looked really bad, the way he jumped in and started manhandling you. Even if you were used to it here, in the confines of your apartment where the two of you made extremely passionate love every day. Out there, to others, it was more complicated to explain. Had you known he was there, you wouldn’t have let others touch you—knowing it would go the wrong way in his caveman brain.

You didn’t care about anyone else but Joel. It’s just hard trying to make him understand that when he makes a 180 on you and keep up the lone tough world appearance with other people. So, of course, he misunderstood it all. That no one there was trying to take you from him.

Poor thing.

You cup his scratchy cheeks in your hands. “You are mine.”

His eyes look downward still, and you can see each etch and fine line of his wrinkles, the grays turning to white in his beard, the tension so strong in his jaw that you need to rub your thumb over it to remind him its ok to relax for you.

His hands drift down to smooth over the sides of your belly between you. At the same time, one of your palms trace flat against his massive chest, down his flanneled top until you reached the bulge in his jeans. Your hand sneaks below the belt line.

You begin stroking his cock. “—And I’m yours.”

He whimpers at your touch, your words. Like silk settling over his flaming ego and soothing the sting in his heart once again. The agitation deflates, and you can almost feel the physical shedding of his barren skin into the soft, sweet, dumb little boy you know best.

"They were asking me who the lucky man who made me a Mommy.”

He hisses in your hair, his eyes closing at the sweet smell, the aroma of you filling his senses and taking over. “M-mmm-m me.”

"Mhm.” You nod, making his eyes meet yours. You continued stroking along his hard cock, fishing them out of his pants. His tip weeped into your belly button with each gentle tug against his length. “They were so jealous of you, baby. Not the other way around. You did this to me. You bred me full of your seed. You made my belly grow. My tits swell.”

Joel lets out a rasp, eyes closing and knees bent, like he’s unable to hold himself up now when surrendering to you. You pump his cock faster, refusing to let him shrink away from you.

“M-Mommy!” He groans, hunching over, but you wrap your fingers in a tight o around the base of his cock, cutting off his flow and preventing him from cumming just yet.

“You need to owe up to it now.”

"I ... I like you…like this. Full. Full of my—Fuck. I want—nnffgggg—“

"Use your words.”

"I want to keep you like this,” he breathes out, eyes hypnotized by your pregnant tummy. “Forever and ever, just mine, just for me.”

You laugh and grant him mercy, slowly stroking his weeping length once again. "You wanna keep breeding me, hun? Wanna knock me up every chance you get, keep me pregnant forever with your babies? Give ya a whole class full of kids? A fucking soccer team? Thank what you want?"

His head rolls along your cheek, collapsing forward in pathetic ruts as you work his brain and his dick over and over. “Yesyeyes so pretty, so full of me, wanna keep you mine for everyone to see all the time. Don't want them touchin’. Just wanna touch you, only one to touch you, have you, breed you, please.”

“If you want to claim me for yourself,” you hum, teeth gliding along his jaw and pinching his bob in his throat, “Then you need to fuck me like it.”

So doggy it is. Not a position he likes to get in until you coax him. but tonight, he needs to feel like he has possession over you... and he's still learning to be gentle.

You need him to let go, to use that physical power and fuck you to his hearts content. You don’t want him holding back, so normally concerned for you a your pleasure. Tonights about him.

A smile cracks through your parted lips as he forces a particularly deep thrust into you. While he's so fully capable, strong, leader oriented, when he's with you in the safety of the bedroom, all thoughts go out his brain. He can't think for himself, goes so fucking dumb when thinking about getting inside your pussy that you have no choice but to take control and guide him and his little dumb thoughts.

His hips slap against you hard and fast, his meaty hands clamped so tightly around your waist that there will be bruises there. Your baby is safe, for now, at this size, even if your lower back is killing you with each rough crash against your ass. But the coil tightening in your core feels too good to think about anything else.

“Fuck—FUck Joel, feels good, huh? Feel good fucking your pussy?” You pant, arms propping you up on the bed that rocks violently back and force.

“Mommy’s pussy Mommy’s pussy Mommy’s pussy—“ he chants. His gaze is plastered on the sight of his cock disappearing into your squishy heat, practically sucking him in with each stroke.

“Yeah, good boy, my good fucking boy,” you voice cracks, eyes rolling back as your orgasm plows through you. "Love seeing your baby grow in me? getting all—mm—big—my body's changing because of you, Miller. You did this to me."

You feel his pace stutter, desperate whimpers escaping his throat. His cock can barely handle your walls convulsing around him.

“Love Mommy's body, love everyone seein' what I done to ya, knocked Mommy up," he rasps, swallowing hard as your warmth clenches around him. "Warm,wet,tight,mine,mommys pussy mine, all mine, warmwarmwarm fuck—Put my cum in mommy’s pussy’s n now she’s mine!”

He pulls you up, one arm strapped over your chest and the other with his palm splayed possessively over your swell. You both make eye contact in the mirror, watching him hump you with such speed you’re seeing spots in the reflection. You don’t dare look away, nodding to him despite your oversensitivity, and whispering yesyesyes to make sure he keeps going.

You feel his jaw clenching so hard against your cheek, straining his neck nearly blacking out. His sweaty chest pressed flush against your back, pinning you too him.

The hand on your belly glides gently down so that his thumb can rub along your clit. You flinch for a moment, but his strength and the speed he’s slapping his balls against your ass leave you with no option but to take the second orgasm that screams through your body.

“Fuuucckkkkk Joel!” You cry, closing your eyes and grinning. You pull his hand back onto your belly. “Fucked me so good, Daddy. Everyone’s gonna see the baby you put in me, gonna know you’re gonna be the daddy that bred me.”

“Bred—my—Mommy,” he grunts with each forced breath, and with one final slam, he croaks out a drawn out moan, hips spasming as he drains his seed into you.

“That’s it, that’s it baby. There you go. All for you, my good boy. Mommy loves taking your cum. That’s all you gotta do, baby. Empty your balls into Mommy’s belly. Just like that. Doin so good. My good Joel.”

He buries his face into your neck. He’ll never want to draw away from your sweet scent, like nectar to a gluttonous bear. As his balls twitch with the final spurt of his cum into you, he sighs heavily. “Mommy’s good Joel,” he repeats. The two of you look in the mirror, still propped up on your knees, cupping over your little swell together and marveling at the hard work that’s now finally evident to the world.

- - - -

Sub!Himbo Joel fics:

Safe, Closer, Mine is Mine

Taglist:

@harriedandharassed @lola8888673 @its-nebuleuse @zliteraturehoe @merz-8 @joeldjarin @pascalscoffin @pedroshotwifey @ghostslillady @innerpersonunknown @missladym1981 @mrs-oharaxx @survivingandenduring @milla-frenchy @cockykookiee @fairytale07 @daddy-din @pedropascalsbbg @spookyxsam @somehopeatlast @millercontracting @pedrostories @mishala005 @theoraekenslover @animez96 @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @puduvallee

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woewriting · 3 months

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wednesday addams is good at everything.

──

The sun was setting in the distant horizon, the orangish color painting the sky, the dim lights automatically turning on as the room became darker, all you could see was the silhouette of the girl sat in her chair, rapidly typing on her writing machine. Watching Wednesday work on her novel always left you mesmerized, she wasn’t allowed to make a single mistake as the antique machine didn’t have an erase button and the writer refused to stain the paper. She was brilliant.

“You’re good at fencing, botany, writing, and I’m sure you’re great at killing people too, but…” You stop, unsure if you should proceed with your, stupidly and terribly planned, plan.

“But?”

“But I doubt that you’re good at kissing.”

Wednesday’s hand stopped typing as she turned her face to the right, her side profile illuminated by the fairy lights that, somehow, you convinced her to hang over her working desk. The perfectly drawn nose, the plump lips, and God, her jawline! So sharp that you’ve always wanted to run your finger over the bone to see if it would cut.

The girl kept her eyes on the wall, her brain working in what her next step to this, obvious, teasing should be. You could almost see the engines twisting inside her skull.

The moment she stood up, her eyes were fixed on your face, jaw tensed up, hands in fists. It was like she was ready to throw a punch at you, it wouldn’t be the first time… but when she took a step closer and you closed your eyes, waiting for the collision, her fingers pulled you by the collar of your shirt until you felt her hot breath against your lips.

“I’m good at everything.” Her voice was serious.

Tilting your chin up, a small smirk tugged the corner of your lips. Eyes slowly opening, meeting hers.

“Why don’t you prove me wrong then, Addams?”

Wednesday loosened the grip on your shirt, the stretched fabric showing your collarbones, a few moles adorning the skin. For a second, in an intrusive thought, the brunette wanted to count each one that covered your body. She had seen a few whenever you wore sleeveless shirts or shorts, they decorated your skin like stars in the night sky, but there was one she had never seen before and, now, got her full attention and became her favorite, a small mole near the vale of your breasts.

She wanted to touch, her hand reaching down to invade the ruined fabric in a curious act, but she stopped midway when she felt the deep breath you took, she could see goosebumps all over your chest with the sudden proximity. You had been next to each other before, but not like this. Not with her eyes peeking through your shirt, her plump lips taking all your attention, so close to yours.

Wednesday was so kissable, and she didn’t even know that.

Not with her hands on your neck as she looked up, big brown eyes staring at your soul. She took a deep breath, swallowing the air to her lungs almost as if it was hurting. And when she closed the gap between you two in a bruising kiss, it felt like a burning knife pierced her throat.

Her nails dug the back of your neck, her teeth biting your lower lip. You knew Wednesday wasn’t gentle, but this was a whole new level. Wrapping your hands on her thin waist, you finally pulled her impossibly closer.

Her tongue licked yours deliciously before sucking hard on it, a struggled sound escaping you, a small string of saliva connecting your lips before she kissed you again, the ragged, unsteady breathing making your lungs burn, begging for air. Pulling back, your chest rose and fell aggressively, your lips lingering over hers, almost touching, uneven breathing colliding with your face.

Before you could kiss her again, her hand pressed down to your chest, pushing you away. Your knees buckled against the bed frame, and you awkwardly fell onto the mattress.

Wednesday was blushed, eyes half open and red, swollen lips. She looked like a mess, and you’re sure you look even worse, you could feel the burning feeling on every centimeter of your body, your hair all over your face.

“Good enough for you?”

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fawnpires · 1 year

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AMORAL SILHOUETTES. — SIMON "GHOST" RILEY.

༉‧₊˚ ┊ PART 2.

꒰ ୨୧ ꒱ synopsis: infatuations with older men were morally wrong, but never applying to him.

꒰ ୨୧ ꒱ contents: afab!reader, manhandling, breeding kink, pet-names, praise kink, oral sex (female receiving), size difference, creampies, reader is in her 20's, ghost is a single dad, touch-starved, domesticity, squirting.

You've seen him around the neighborhood before — towering in height, bulging biceps, and a skull balaclava sheltering the structure of whatever laid under, the structure of his concealed face. It was a known fact that you bear an attraction to him, but you just couldn't own up to it, feeling a little too shamed to be conscious about a little school-girl crush on a man much older than you. A man who was a hard-working, ex-military, single father who paid no attention to girls in the same line that you found yourself in — but was it hard not to steal a view glances whenever he was seen around the neighborhood whether it was for a few minutes or seconds despite his lack of ability to communicate with others, though it was obvious he chose not to be around others for a good waste of his time excluding his children.

So when he came strolling up the slope of your driveway and a gloved fist beating at your front door, you had thought you were in another one of your trances — molded daydreams of him; minor fantasies of Simon Riley in that same balaclava giving you all of his affection, kissing you, treating you as if you were his pretty wife — a life that you could never make a single complaint about.

Ghost — his more preferred name used on other's tongues — stands eerily underneath the giving-out light of your porch, with nothing but a set of dusky eyes and a whole lot of muscle beneath the puny fabric of a black v-neck. You, stand on the opposite side of the door and impassively stare, nonetheless avoiding the eye contact when he gapes at you for longer than intended.

"I'm assuming you're the daughter." he said, reserved, dull.

"Sure am, did you need something?"

He clears his throat. "Well, this might be a strange thing to ask — and a bit sudden," He brought his hands to tuck in his pockets. "But would you mind looking after my kids for a while? I'll pay you for every hour, just a couple days of the week."

His offer was the last thing on the brink of your mind when he happened to show up, asking you for a favor — being in his house, where he lived, with his presence ghosting around. It sounded creepy. A bit stalker-ish to think of it like that — but you played it off as an innocent favor he asks of his neighbor, just a few hours of your day taken off to go kid-watching for the man who you admired the most.

"A couple days of the week?" You repeat his words back to him.

"I'm certain."

"I mean, sure, I'll take the offer, but when do you want me to start?"

"Tomorrow. Tomorrow evening is fine, around six."

You bit your lip. "Got it. Have a good-night, Mr. Riley."

"Knew I could rely on you, thanks, doll."

A single wave was managed. No verbal good-bye, just a wave from the hand that was freed from the confines of his pocket — and a pet-name taken straight to the pinpoint of your heart. You watch as he turns his back and finds himself across the street to where he coincidentally had lived — watching as he outstretched his arms and embraced a young girl with no emotion that had intentionally been shown to the public. Doll. It was unknown if his label for you was something he did purposely or had just slipped from his masked lips.

Either way, it made you feel like cherished like never before, his doll.

The day in which Ghost's favor was asked of you passed by quickly into the day the favor was actually supposed to be performed, straight at six, right in the center of where the sky was going through modifications of warmth to a bitter cold. Much like him with more anxiousness residing in your chest, you were across the street and bound to his porch, a dress shrouding your figure up to the bottoms of your thighs. Dressing and dolling yourself up made you look like you were going more on a night-out rather than a baby-sitting shift. Unintentional was the word for it. Unintentional to be all formal when in the same proximity. You half-recover from your birthing nervousness and thump on the door gently.

"Mr. Riley, it's me." you blatantly said, the door still closed.

With your words blurted out the door seemed to open on command — aggressively, as if it were going to be discharged from the hinges. Rather than a giant of a man in the doorframe there stood a girl half the size of it, lightly-shaded blonde hair up in pigtails with a cherubic face, staring right up at you as she titled her head. Honestly, you weren't good with children, but kindness was fundamental as of that. You give her a forced smile pressed up into the corners of your mouth as if held at gunpoint, whispering a small greeting and a wave. How maternal of you.

From further into the house came footsteps, blaring footsteps, and the little girl was no longer stood two feet on the surface of the ground but lifted into her father's arms with a brief giggle. You weren't going to stand here and be blamed a liar if that didn't advance an adoration for him in the moment.

"Thank you so much for coming and apologies, it's my fault for letting you in late," he said. "Make yourself at home."

"Don't worry about it." you reassure.

Ghost's house was clean and neutral, but gave off a decent interior of a past lieutenant's home well. There were a few toys littered around, a locked exhibition cabinet of ex-military trinkets, piled-up envelopes, and one other silhouette of a little girl bearing similarities to the one in his arms. Nothing in his house gave off a girlish ambience, besides two daughters, but it was masculine; like an adequate, suburban variety of a old-fashioned farmhouse with rifles and deer heads on display replaced with military collections.

There was a microscopic chance of danger with a bunch of firearms and artillery gear laying around but as someone as wise as himself, of course he kept a lock on it. Chain, even, if he wanted to get that far into territory.

"Bedtime's at eight, food is already ordered, and you have the entire house to yourself past the eight-o-clock mark." Ghost said. He provided you with a spare key, his bared fingers brushing against yours as he placed it in the middle of your hand. "So you have plenty of time to, you know, relax."

"When will you be home?"

"Around ten, but wait up on me — I'll give your pay up before you leave."

"So I stay until ten?"

"Sure do."

"You can trust me, for sure."

"I know I do." he said.

His eyes trail over you for a minute longer before bending his knees and and allowing his daughter to be freed from his grasp, legs straightening up again as he pat your shoulder. "Thanks, kid, I'll see you later."

All of these nicknames were blurted from his mouth like nothing — first it was doll, now kid, and it just left you anticipated for what he would grant you next with. That though stuck to your mind like a nail screwed by a hammer, watching as he took his jacket and folded it in his arms, swearing that he gave you one last glance before he unlatched the door and shut it behind him — leaving you to bathe in the first touch he acted on you, his effortless terms of endearment, and the two resembling daughters he relied to be cared of.

Spiraling. You had to be spiraling.

Your hours spent with the children were calm. They had warmed up to you pretty fast and had dragged you nearly to every spot of their home. Up the stairs where their shared bedroom stood at the hall, a couple of bathrooms downstairs, a storage closet, the showcase of weaponry, and even Ghost's bedroom. They declared his room was some kind of secretive hideout, only being in there a limited amount of times, but urging you to take them in there along you. It was going to be difficult to get out of the pressuring so, having your own fun, you let them explore around his room — like you were a cool older sister, or mother, to them.

The title "Mother" exclaimed from one of the girls, ultimately leading into them repeatedly a series of them calling you variations of mom, mommy, mother, throughout the night instead of the name you had given them to call you. You weren't extremely irritated with it, you actually found it slightly adorable considering that they didn't even have a mother and latched onto you as some sort of female parent never obtained, nonetheless it was practically harmless and brought no harm down on you.

Baking cookies, some sort of role-playing they convinced you to star in, doing their hair in all sorts of girly ribbons and accessories almost made you feel like you were a little girl again — it had drained them out pretty easily but gave them a sense of girlhood, giving no offense to Ghost. A vision crossed your mind, eventually spearing your mind, that you were the real mother to these girls. A female figure to look up to and issue them a full family with a packed set of two parents. It had been drilled to you the other half of the the night, you kept a close eye on them as they had gotten ready for bed and prepared themselves under the covers.

With a deportation of reading a shabby bedtime story and a few ruffles to both of their heads, you finally had his home to yourself. Anything you wanted to do was accessible, easy-to-do, but with no danger of waking up the girls. Exhaustion was present, though, with all of your lone ideas to-do in mind you ended up on the couch. Your head tilted in one palm as you legs crossed under the skirt of your dress, the illuminations of late-night talk shows on television glowing your face in shades of dissimilar hues.

Staying up and waiting for Ghost to walk right through the front door was starting to become a challenge. Blaming his daughters for putting you in a state of pure fatigue was never the right thing to do, although it was easy to admit. Your eyelids were heavy with one more glance at the clock, which read a quarter to nine, meaning that this night could come to its finale and you could see that face of his — physically, up-close, like you did three hours ago.

As you were right at your breaking point into a slumber the doorknob trembling and echoing into the room where you were buzzed you awake. Stretching over the arm of the sofa and sloping your head to where the door was visible, knob had stopped with the commotion, the door silently opening a crack before blew open. To your relief and satisfaction it's the man who've you longed for the entire day, like a depressed stay-at-home housewife. His jacket is thrown on a nearby table as he could only stare at your laid figure over the couch, eyes squinting.

"Welcome home."

"Appreciate it. Are the girls upstairs?" Ghost asked with a finger pointing to the floor above.

"All knocked out."

"Jesus, what did all of you do?"

"Just a little girl-fun, that's all, baking — stuff like that." you said with a no-teeth grin.

"I could only thank you again for that," he sighs and pulls out a couple dollar bills stuffed in the jean of his pocket. "You don't have any idea how hard it is to get those two asleep."

"Really? They're like little angels, they loved me."

"I bet they did," he said while setting your pay on the coffee table. "Here, an entire hundred stack."

"Hundred?"

"You deserve it, do you not?"

"I'm only a part-time babysitter, Mr. Riley, not a full time worker."

"Yes, but you're a good girl, are you not? Going through all the trouble to make time for me and my kids — so I can assure you this is my pay for you, think of it as a prize."

"God, well, thank you." you said, processing his terms of good girl, heat rising to your face. "You really love those girls, don't you?"

"They're my pride and soul." he said while taking a seat next to your half-laid body, dipping the cushion of the couch. "I only want the best for them, that's why I chose you to look after them."

"Me, why?"

"It's difficult to explain, and a bit strange but — you've always reminded me of my past wife, kind and loved her kids, soft spot even for the people she didn't really know."

"I didn't know I could resemble someone so much." you said, mouth going dry.

Ghost laughs. "Yeah, she was quite beautiful too, like you."

"Was that a compliment?"

"Why wouldn't it be? Hell, love, you've got the looks any man you could fall for.

His hand comes to gently rest on your thigh and you look up at him through droopy eyelids, this didn't feel real. This couldn't be real, right? It couldn't be proved as false when his calloused fingers started rubbing tender circles into your skin, eyes of his own half-lidded and crinkling around with the tar-like paint staining skin. You and him were playing a dangerous game, pent-up tension right in here in his living room, a man by all means older and more mature than you've ever been — it was so easy to give into him so fast.

"You like that, huh?" he keeps his voice low and continues the strokes on your thigh. "You ever been touched like this, dollface?"

"No, sir."

"Mm. I liked the way you called me sir, honey. Come here, sit-up."

You balance yourself on twitching elbows and Ghost moves in between your thighs, his body weight heavy compared to your smaller physique as he lifts the cloth-edge of his balaclava for you, revealing a light stubble peppering the anatomy of his face and somewhat coarse lips that pressed up against yours. Your hands hoist to caress his face, kneading into his sinking cheekbones with each move to intensify the kiss. His pink muscle of a tongue forces your lips open and laps at every crevice of your mouth — your arms linking around his head, his fingers once at your thighs now under your skirt and massaging in circular motions at your fabric-clothed cunt. Small whimpers of shame leak into the kiss, evolving into moans, his massaging enhancing with every finished motion.

Ecstasy ran through your veins, pulsing with adrenaline and contentment. Your legs are fragile, trembling, alongside your cunt flourishing a moistness in its fiber confinement. The man of your daydreams no longer is just a fragment of your delusional head, but right where you've longed for him to be, taking and compelling you to be obedient for him. Only him, always him.

The ministrations on your veiled cunt withdraws and drags a moan from the depths of your throat. One of his hands instead crawl underneath your pushed-together legs and the other supports your back. You dive into his lips with a hunger once more and he manhandles you so delicately despite the tough behavior, you're drunk on the taste of Ghost as he works through the house up the stairs, through the hallway, and brings you into his room where you once stood earlier — the click of the lock confirms your status, you're safe as long as you're with him.

His hands pressing into the flesh of your body is loosened up as he lays you gently on the mattress as if you were created of porcelain — which did have some sense in it bearing in mind that you, essentially, were his doll of a girl by his own words. Defines of his eyes stream your body up and down, towering over you in height, yourself much more reduced and small. Fingers assist you with stripping your dress, leaving you in an arrangement of panties and bra complimenting every curve and bow of your figure. He curses mutely under his breath, huge palms cupping and kneading at your breasts, his knees resting on the bed.

Your whimpers are more pristine and clear to his naked ear. Looking through your languid-like eyes, a bulge is positioned right at his jeans, and his shirt had been ripped off of him — possibly during the time where your eyes had been closed to immerse in his touch.

"Such pretty tits, love." He said with a grunt. A deep guttural grunt.

"They're all for you, mister, always have been."

"Not mister, not even Ghost — Simon to you, and it's going to be Simon when I'm pounding into this tight little cunt of yours."

His words add on to the wet arousal staining your panties, swearing a second heartbeat could be felt, a throbbing and senseless feeling.

"You like this pair?" Ghost asks, nudging at your panties.

"Not important." you reply through short, cut breaths.

With your consent, he takes both of his hands, ripping the fabric in half. A gasp delivers from your open mouth — both at the cold air's impact on your exposed entrance and the material ripping apart. He has a look in his eyes that resembles a feral animal, one that is undomesticated and always in a repetitive state of hunger. Ghost backs you up to lay against his pillows to allow more space for him to climb on the mattress with you. He wastes no time with leaning himself down and hooking your bare legs in a hold around both arms, resting right at his broad shoulders. Those same eyes of hunger peer up at you with the bottom half still exposed from the bruising make-out session.

You feel a mushy lick bumping at your clit, causing your back to arch to the ceiling with a high-pitched moan, who knew such a motion could make you so submissive in a short span of time. The palm of your hand is instantly cupped around your mouth like a guard as Ghost continued his ministrations on your lips — no longer kitten licks but long, dragged out ones that had your eyes rolling into the back of your skull and struggling to muffle such sexual noises deprived from your mouth for the sake of his daughters fast-asleep down the hall.

"You taste like heaven," he grunts. "You're such an angel, making those sweet noises all for a guy like me."

"Only you, fuck, you feel so good." you whined, fisting the bedsheets at your sides.

"That's my girl."

The slant of his nose stimulates your clit while he proceeds with his longer, stroking tongue advances reaching deep inside your cunt. Your surroundings are heated with an addition of pure wetness, sweat, and mess clogging your brain up. His tongue provides you with a pleasure even your own fingers couldn't drive out of you, drool pools at a corner of your mouth while his grip on your legs hardens, strokes of his tongue becoming more aggressive — driving you quicker over an edge, your stomach in knots and oversensitivity. Your vision starts to blur out once you realize you can't control the sounds that he forces out of you, his tongue again and again savoring you as if you were his last meal on death row — he was desperate and willing to lap up your juices staining his face and your inner-thighs, Ghost was just as deprived as you were for him.

A thick sensation adjoins his tongue and nose, overwhelming sparks of emotion possessing you. The palm around your mouth is useless at this point, it lays flat and abandoned as a fist clutching at the sheets, moans chased out humiliatingly. You needed to come, come for him, for your own sake — but that was hard to think about when Ghost was mouth-fucking and finger-fucking you at the same exact time, much like some pornographic type video. A cliche one.

You were squeezing around whatever he stuck in you next — his tongue, his fingers, his tongue, or an combination, you were with no doubt tight and squeezed around any of his body parts.

"Fuck, you gonna come, sweetheart?" he asked, muffled with your clit puckered between his lips. "It's okay, come for me, just like that."

"Baby! Oh my go-"

Your back arches to an impossibly high rate when the knot in your stomach unties itself willingly, a wave of arousal gushing in streams on his face. Audible whines fall from your lips as you fall back right in contact with the plush of the bed. Sweat and the scent of sex reeks around you and Ghost, your chest rising with each hefty breath that is fished from your lungs. Your blurred vision is somewhat returned to its original shape, enough to make out Ghost — with his bare chest and your arousal at his face, tongue used to make said arousal transpire licking around at it, and his inked forearm. He was sticky and sweaty, a little tired, but obtained the right amount of stamina to be right inside you, just like he had wanted.

"Simon." you heaved out below, his fingers pressing into your hips. "Fuck me, please. I need you so bad, needed you ever since you've first moved here."

Ghost releases a low grunt and within a few seconds, he's messing with his belt — shakily unbuckling it and shrugging his pants to the floor. His boxers are no place of concealment, the prominent outline of his bulge protruding beyond the fabric, the sight provoking you to press your thighs together and rev-up that weakness present in your knees. He tugs at the waistband and slowly, painfully, lowers the border bordering item down — his cock almost immediately coming to press against his lower abs, at his lower stomach, really giving you the idea of how big he was. His balaclava is fully suited back on his face as the he leans down to give a final stream of soft kisses at your stomach through the mask, a hand pumping from the base of his cock to the tip.

"You want this, angel?" he groans with his pumps before he releases himself from his hand, positioning the tip of his cock right at the entrance of your swollen cunt as he provided a pre-fuck with only his tip. "Want my cock deep inside your pussy, pounding you into the mattress?"

"Oh god, I do, want you to fuck me as if I'm your wife, your pretty little housewife."

With one unforeseen jolt of his hips, he slams into you, your tight walls fondling him as if you were made for him. Your arms link around his torso as he moves his hips slowly, nails etching into the muscles of his back.

"Fucking hell, I can feel you squeezin' around me, love," he pants out, thrusts developing into a more faster pace. "This pussy is so good to me..."

"You're so fucking big, fuck."

Ghost jackhammers his cock into you, pressing his face into the crook of your neck, your legs squeezing around his waist. Your mouth widens with each moan and whimper he could drain you of — he pounds into you, fucking you like an animal rabid, sinking fully inside with each thrust of his hips. There's a composure and steady rhythm he keeps, allowing him to punctuate each of his plunges with his cock kissing at your cervix, his hand moving down to your clit. His thumb rolls over the bud and correlates it with how he fucks you, your nails digging at the skin of his back.

"Want to put a baby in you," he groans as his hips rock faster, nearly knocking the breath out of you, his fingers ghosting over the imprint of his cock in your lower stomach. "We'll have a perfect lil' family together, such a pretty little mother to my kids. You would let me do that, yeah?"

He's pistoning his hips in-and-out of you, your cunt naturally squeezing around him as your whines grew in pitch. His words held so much meaning — an entire family with him? Spending a lifetime with the older man you've adored from across the street? It had sounded more like paradise, anything that you've ever wished for in life. He knew he loved you so much, and you knew you loved him as equally, so much that he could imagine your cunt all full of his seed — stomach swelling with his child.

You nod as an agreement and he grunts, thrilled at the idea of you and him birthing something so intimate with each other. A family, your family, his family. It was a scheme he never thought he would be overly-obsessing, despite his disagreement with it during his time serving the army. But he dropped it, as long as he had you, and a devoted life.

"Want that so bad-" you squeal out, the sensation of a knot in your stomach on its last support heels, each of his drilling thrusts pulling you nearly to a climax. "Wanna have your baby, yours forever." Your phrase comes out slurred as the knot is broken of the last support it was on, sending you back into another session of short paradise.

"You're so beautiful. Going to breed this pussy with all my cum, honey." He sinks into you more erratic as he feels the walls of your cunt grasp abnormally tightly around him, his head going bare and distorted, the only initial thought in-tact was to keep the flow of thrusts he had fabricated — though, said flow was quickly dismembering.

His fingers of projecting veins running up his knuckles that were conveniently gripping your hips with such a pressure molded your skin into his contact easily. Your moans coming from a thrown back head against his cologne-scented pillows merged with Ghost's persistent heavier grunts — it's almost like a choir, using two valid voices, and delivering some sort of out-of-tune melody but with a hint of great profound beauty behind it.

The sensitive nipples of your breasts rub up right against his sweat-sheen chest in company with the dog tags strewn around his neck swaying in your face. He's leaning into you and has you caged in with no escape, his flow of thrusts gone, both of you desperate for a release. His muted breathing is irregular and heavy, your legs trembling and weak encircling his waist. His name is on your tongue and it leaks into the air, chanting it like your life was depending on it at the moment — depending on him. The lewd squelching of the head of his cock kissing your cervix, his noises combined with yours, the slapping of skin-on-skin — all of it was such an erotic sight to the human eye.

His head is back resting in the expanse between your head and shoulder, balaclava raised to expose the area of his lips once again, the warmth of those lips stamping sloppy, wet kisses into your neck; you squeal out as you're driven to your breaking point, a rush of arousal pressuring from your cunt and spraying onto his lower abs while he douses his cum deep into your swollen cunt. His own high-point doesn't stop him from sneaking a few more smaller thrusts for a bit, assuring all of his seed stays remains inside you.

"Fuck," he mutters, voice breaking off, his knuckles are ghosting a shade paler than white while he keeps purchase on both sides of your hips. He's stuttering over breaths as he tries to catch up with them, eyes falling to your immobile self. Your mouth is vaguely unfastened with breaths taken, eyes nearly closed, body slightly shuddering with the collisions of his cock still felt up inside of you — leaving your filled cunt fluttering around nothing.

"Too rough on you, sweetheart?" He asks, raspy.

"I think I'm okay, besides —you made my night even better."

He chuckles, a rare vision coming from a man like himself. "I'm happy to assist with that."

"Also," you imposed a dopey grin on your lips. "You should ask me for favors more often."

#. ˚ ʚ — ꒰ simon riley. ꒱#simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #simon riley x f!reader #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley smut #ghost smut #call of duty mw2 #mw2 fanfic #oneshot #female reader #.୨୧ fawnpires

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hellotailor · 1 year

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In IWTV, Lestat wears several pairs of trousers where the belt loops are below the waistband. I've never seen/noticed that in anything else before. Is that a historical style? What is it called? Google is giving me nothing and I'm dying over this detail.

these are known as "drop-loop" trousers! i love this detail - it's very distinctive, although i'd associate it a bit more with the 1940s/50s than the earlier decades of IWTV season 1.

IWTV's costumes really embrace the high-waisted silhouettes of menswear in early/mid-20th century america, something that some historical dramas tone down to fit in with modern tastes. (21st century suit pants tend to be tighter and sit lower on the hips, aiming for a "swimmers build" aesthetic.)

sam reid has the perfect figure for 1930s/40s fashion: a narrow waist and wide shoulders. pleated suit trousers have extra fabric around the hips/ass and are cinched in at the natural waist, which a) is comfortable and b) makes the waist look narrower, creating an almost hourglass shape depending on the cut. to modern eyes it can look more feminine than contemporary men's suits, which plays into lestat's Whole Deal.

one pair of lestat's drop-loop trousers (i wish i could find a better pic!) create even MORE emphasis on the waist by leaving a cummerbund-like waistband of fabric above the belt. it's the kind of finicky tailoring detail that makes it obvious that lestat is a real clotheshorse. he and louis clearly spend a ton of money on tailoring.

i also suspect that lestat's american wardrobe was influenced by the fact that he socialized with and lived alongside black people in the new orleans jazz scene. the most exaggerated styles of drop-loop trousers are something i'd associate with Zoot Suits, which were not a white/anglo style and would presumably have been worn by young black men in early 1940s new orleans. (in ep 1, louis is extremely fashionable and accessorized to the hilt, whereas lestat looks like he's wearing a historical costume.)

on a final note, i love that louis continues to wear high-waisted trousers in the present day. his modern outfits are quite soft, vulnerable and minimalist - close to the kind of simple-but-expensive clothes we'd expect to see on one of the cooler young tech billionaires, but with a silhouette that calls back to his youth.

#nervous-breakdown-hat #lestat #costume design #iwtv #interview with the vampire #asks

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toxicanonymity · 7 months

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Hey look at that! That's your stepdad!Joel 😁

roadside (set in the past)

700 words, stepdad!Joel x f!reader

stepdad masterlist

A/N: Alright, I guess I'm doing another alt timeline where he gets in trouble, damnit 😭. SUMMARY: Alt. ending to uber. WARNINGS: I8+ PWP, groping, BJ, mutual touching, humiliation, the usual baiting/pressure from reader.

You feel a damp spot under your palm as you grope him through his joggers. When you reach into his waistband and feel the smooth skin of his shaft for the first time, he swerves, and red and blue lights flash behind you. "FUCK. Happy now?"

The cops make him do a field sobriety test and his massive erection is tenting his sweats the whole time. Holding his arms straight out with his hair sticking every which way, his tight white t-shirt rides up and his silhouette in the red and blue lights looks like a slutty scarecrow with a raging hard-on. The cops get a kick out of it. Combined with the little damp spot, it's obvious the real reason he swerved, but they cuff him for a few minutes just to teach him a lesson while they give you both a lecture about how there's a time and a place. Then when he's uncuffed, he can finally adjust himself. One of the cops nods toward Joel's crotch and says, "shouldn't drive with that big'a distraction" and fails to suppress a smirk. "If ya needa finish, just put on your hazards, k?"

The cops laugh as they get in their patrol car and drive off. You get in the car in silence and put on the hazards then reach for his cock again. He throws your wrist away and you say "you heard him, c'mon." He shakes his head, jaw clenched, glasses beginning to fog up, refusing to look at you.

"Just lemme get it wet for you," you plead.

"FUCK," he yells and bangs the steering wheel. "God damnit," he mutters and checks you out. "Fuck," he whispers and tilts his seat all the way back.

He buries his eyes in the crook of his elbow, bulging arm muscles straining his sleeves, and his shirt rides up again, exposing his happy trail. You take his hard cock out and inhale his musk, memorizing the scent. Your clit twitches and you just barely move his smooth, warm skin over the stiff shaft as you admire it. God, he has a nice one. It could be used a sex toy mold, no shit. You lick from base to tip then swirl your tongue around the tip and he gasps as you take his length into your mouth, the tip hitting the back of your throat. You suck and tongue him hard, and before long he's moaning, and his chest is rising and falling with heavier breaths.

"Alright," he grumbles when he's close, and you keep going. "That's enough," he snaps. Then he pulls up his shirt, takes his cock from you, pumps it twice, and begins to release with a shudder. You clench your thighs together as you watch and the sight alone almost makes you cum untouched.

Holy shit, the cum. The look on his face. His brows furrowed, eyes pinched shut, mouth hanging open with rope after rope making a mess of his tummy.

"Holy shit," you mutter, knowing that whatever happens, this is something you won't forget. Your cunt spasms just thinking about what if you were on his dick right now getting all of that pumped into you. You reach between your legs and rub yourself for a frantic 10 seconds. Holding a breast with your other hand, then you moan. And Jesus, he's just now finishing. When you moan, he shoves his hand under you to catch your release. He's catching his breath, hand soaked between your legs, and says "it aint happeninn, sweetheart," slowly withdrawing his hand which goes straight to his nose and mouth.

You use your balled up stockings to dry yourself off, then he yanks them away from you and stuffs them in his pocket. He puts the seat back up, starts the car, and drives you home in silence with his t-shirt sticking to the massive trail of cum on his stomach.

--------

For another alt timeline of stepdad getting in trouble, see "what if you bailed Joel out for indecent exposure?" 😭

NOTE: In SD canon you, don't jack him off or blow him until subsequent parts of the story.

#stepdad!joel #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #stepdad!joel miller #joel miller drabble #stepdad!joel ☠️#joel miller fanfic #toxicanonymity ☠️

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makenoplans · 7 months

Text

all gale banter! (that i am currently aware of)

hiii gale enthusiasts, i just spent the past few hours picking through videos trying to find all of gales party banter and transcribing it! check under the cut for verbose details

copied directly from the doc i transcribed this into so youll have to bear with the initials to denote who is speaking when! generally speaking, initials are a=astarion, g=gale, h=halsin, j=jaheira, k=karlach, l=lae'zel, m=minthara, s=shadowheart, and w=wyll

(except for two minsc quotes that are also m, both where he mentions his name so like... it's obvious)

transcribed with attention paid to particular noises characters make that aren't quite whole words and also words that are emphasized!

please let me know if youre aware of any banter ive missed!

warning: long

G: Karlach! A hypothetical question for you. If someone - not me, of course - detected a hint of romantic interest in them from another… unnamed individual, erm, what might that someone… do about it?

K: Whoever it is, just talk to them, Gale! And leave out the hypotheticals.

G: Talking. Right! I'm good at that!

A: So, Gale, how is your sad, hopeless pining going?

G: [Ach!] I'm hardly pining! Been a year or more since Mystra cast me aside!

A: Oh, my dear wizard, I wasn't talking about Mystra.

W: I used to believe the beauty of first love was unable to be surpassed, but Gale, you are so much more tolerable now that you've found your second.

G: I'll take that comment with the sincerity and good will I assume it was intended.

G: Have you noticed any attachments of the more, er, romantic variety flourishing in our camp, Wyll?

W: I think I'm not the right person to be asking. I can recognize a troll silhouette on a far horizon, but I wouldn't know a flirtation if you whacked me alongside the head with it.

G: I see you waste no time pursuing your quarry, Astarion.

A: Hmph! I rather thought I was a little slow this time. Usually they're begging me to dream them on the first night.

G: Tell me - you always woo your lovers with such patient attention?

A: As the vampire ascendant I can grant my lover immortality and bind them to me forever.

G: Hmm. I trust you speak of the bonds of love, not the shackles of servitude.

G: Am I to understand that you are in love now, Karlach?

K: I sure am. [heh] If there's hope for me, there's hope for anyone.

G: I'm surprised you're permitted to choose a partner outside of your own people.

L: We had to use and misuse each civilization in the stars in every way we know. I do not conquer by blade alone, Gale.

G: I can't imagine Mother Gith would approve. Doesn't she prefer us lesser species enslaved? Or eviscerated?

M: You've been smiling like a fool of late, wizard. Explain yourself.

G: I found love. Surely even you wouldn't begrudge me some happiness?

M: All I can say on the matter is that you were wise to lower your standards from the godly to the ghastly.

G: Tell me, Lae'zel: is it common for githyanki to fall in love?

L: Love? Is that this feeling in me, then? This passion to peel every layer of one's heart to see what light and shadows lurk there? I doubt I am the first githyanki to… to feel this way, but few would ever declare it. Githyanki have playmates, thrill partners but I've never heard anyone profess love, nor read of it in our slates.

L: Gale, I've heard you talking in your sleep. Your mate needs better rest for our journey.

G: And deprive them of the pleasure of hearing my nocturnal postulations? I'd never be so cruel. The mind absorbs much while we believe ourselves dormant. To lie beside Gale of Waterdeep is positively educational.

G: If you're feeling faint after your bout with Cazador, Astarion, I don't mind donating some blood.

A: Aha! Well, you're still full of that Netherese bile, I'll pass, thank you! Besides, I have someone else to nibble on, and they are delicious.

G: I'm glad to know you have a softer side, Minthara. I was beginning to think you rather… heartless.

M: Loving another is not soft, wizard. It is one of the hardest things a person can do.

G: So you admit you found love! Aww. How delightful. I'm happy for you both.

A: So, how was your night with Gale? Did you have a long, hard debate?

G: Ugh. Ignore him. Astarion envies the depth of a bond because he's of a shallower inclination.

G: So Astarion, I hear your relationship has taken on a new aspect recently.

A: My life has taken on "a new aspect." It's only natural that my relationships change as well.

G: Halsin! You must have accumulated considerable wisdom on matters of the heart in your long life. Anything you'd like to pass on to a… strapping, lovestruck wizard such as myself?

H: [hehehe] Dispensing advice on matters of the heart would be like swapping boots. What suits me may be a… poor fit for you.

G: Ah. Well. There's no faulting that logic. At least you didn't tell me to "be myself."

H: Oh no, perish the thought. That can be outright cruel advice to offer in certain cases.

G: Indulge me, Lae'zel, as someone unfettered by Faerunian beauty standards: how would you appraise my appearance?

L: Your beard looks like the hairy tufts upon the [surlon], the largest of wyrmkind that sliver our skies.

G: Hm. I suppose that's… a bad thing? No. Don't answer that.

G: Wild-shaping must sprinkle some spice on your love life, Halsin.

H: Heh. Indeed it does. Did you… never experience such delights with Mystra? I, uh, hear the gods enjoy taking on the forms of swans, horses, eagles and the like when… visiting with mortals?

G: Oh no, quite the opposite, actually! She mostly preferred our interactions to be abstract, and incorporeal. Most invigorating.

G: So, Lae'zel, have you ever been tempted to use psionics in your, uh, romantic endeavors?

L: Only once. Did you know, in low-gravity settings, githyanki can maintain aerial suspension for hours at a time?

G: Fascinating! I think the arch-mage Tasha described a spell with similar affect! I really must look that up.

G: I've always felt flames to be a rather perfect expression of love, Karlach. Passionate! Primal! Capable of bestowing the most life-affirming comfort - or - inflicting the profoundest damage.

L: That's… pretty nice. Never thought about it like that. But… now I will.

G: I've been pondering something, Lae'zel. Why is it that githyanki have bellybuttons, hm? When they hatch from eggs?

L: I did not grant you permission to gaze upon my midriff.

G: I- I wasn't gazing! Merely observing! Though that can hardly be said for a certain someone else.

G: Y'know, Karlach, there are other ways to express love beyond run-of-the-mill physicality.

K: Ugh! Are you going to try and teach me about exceptional uses for a mage hand or what?

G: W-well actually, I was thinking of poetry!

K: Oops. Sorry. But, uh, now that I think of it… is mage hand especially hard to learn?

G: Even shaped by shadow as it is, Sharran architecture has a kind of beauty to it.

K: Beautifully intimidating. This place was meant to scare people into submission.

G: There you go. Cutting right through the ephemera to the heart of the matter. Hm! Your finest quality, I think.

K: Uh. Here I thought I rubbed you the wrong way.

G: Nothing wrong with a bit of friction now and then. You help me keep my mind sharp.

K: Aw, thanks, pal! I think.

G: When we met, Shadowheart, your gaze seemed to linger in the distance on some unseen goal, some insubstantial purpose. But I notice now your gaze settles on something or someone much closer.

S: Is it that obvious?

G: Of course! There's nothing escapes a wizard's powers of observation.

A: I gave my return to Baldur's Gate a lot of thought. I never pictured this, though.

G: Ah, what did you have in mind? A quiet party? Toasting your own return with a few good friends?

A: Less "quiet party with friends", more "days of hedonistic debauchery", but otherwise… yes!

G: Hmm. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. But you know what? I'm learning to enjoy the taste of chaos. Count me in.

G: I've heard that in Baldur's Gate, "wizard" is also a term used for one who eschews their more, [hr-hrm] carnal desires. Is that true, Wyll?

W: Where are we going with this, Gale?

G: Oh, nowhere. Just think it's a rather cruel misnomer, not at all reflective of the glamor wizarding life affords.

A: So Gale, you laid with a goddess? You must have some sordid tales to tell.

G: Sordid? I lay with the Mother of Magic herself! What we had was… transcendent. Euphoric. Incandescent. Not sordid!

A: You actually made sleeping with a goddess sound boring. Hm. Incredible.

A: I am enjoying our walks together, aren't you, Gale?

G: Uhh… sure! In silence.

G: When you've loved a goddess as I have, people often think you less experienced in the way of romance.

S: She just lives on another plane! [heh] Only jesting. I'm in no position to judge, especially after what happened with Shar.

G: It's true for a time, I neglected the physical in favor of celestial euphoria. But our relationship was no less real for it.

G: I feel I've been rather hasty to judge you, Astarion. One heartbreak was quite enough for me, but to experience it as many times as you have… must change a person.

A: Thank you, Gale, but let us both hope that broken hearts are a thing of the past.

A: So, do you have loves waiting for you once this is all over?

G: You know what, that is not the easiest of questions for me to answer.

S: You mean just… waiting? Like a lovesick puppy?

M: Do you have elder siblings, wizard?

G: You're about to say something awful, aren't you?

M: In Menzoberranzan, after a house has two sons, every subsequent male-born child is slaughtered at birth, as it is useless, even for breeding. You have the aura of a third child about you.

G: The architect who built this must have been remarkable. Pity their vision didn't stand the test of time.

K: All's not lost. I mean, just look at this place!

G: You've quite the knack for finding the bright side of things, haven't you?

K: Hope keeps you going.

K: So Gale, got any book recommendations for me?

G: You can read?

K: Hmph. Yes, very funny. I can read. School put me off big, boring tomes. Sometimes I wonder what I'm missing.

G: Ah! Say no more. I'll find the perfect book for you. I might even lend it to you from my library in Waterdeep, ooh.

K: Ooh, something with magic please! And no devils!

G: Do you feel that? The darkness, pulling at the strands of the Weave?

K: Er, you'll still be able to do your wizard thing though, right?

G: Of course. Doesn't make the shadows less dangerous.

K: Joy.

M: Gale. Minsc worries you might send a fireball up his butt with all of this… stringy hair in your face.

G: Is that why you keep your head shaved? I assumed it was a custom of some sort.

M: Oh, no. Most warriors of [Rashinan] wear long battle braids weighed down with stone. Minsc can show you, when next we camp.

G: Thank you, but I'm more wizard than warrior. Not sure my scalp would stand up to such a plaiting.

A: Gods! We're not back, are we?

G: On the Nautiloid, no. This is a different nursery. Similar, but not identical. There's likely one in every colony.

A: I don't care what's in every mind flayer colony, Gale. Nobody does. Except you.

A: Ugh, another ruined temple full of foul-smelling beasts spoiling for a fight.

G: No mere temple. This was a monastery, devoted as much to study as to worship.

A: Oh, how ignorant of me. So it'll be free of foul-smelling beasts then?

G: Quite the opposite. Some monastic orders celebrated their pungency as proof of their devotion. "To think is to stink" was the motto of one ill-fated brotherhood near Arm. Oh! Huh, but you meant beasts of the life-threatening variety. Yes I'm sure it's teeming with those.

A: Moonlanterns to keep the curse back? Burly guards to fight off any monsters? I could get used to this place.

G: Don't get too comfortable. We shouldn't overstay our welcome in such a place.

A: No, of course! Why stay somewhere safe and comfortable when we could be in mortal peril?

H: Ah, Last Light Inn. Half aglow and lanterns lit. Just like a hundred years ago.

G: I imagine the vista was more idyllic back then. As were its patrons' chances of surviving the walk home.

H: [Grunt.] Still though, when you are expecting nothing but desolation, even a small glimmer of hope fills the heart. To think long ago, the druids feared this market down would grow into a city and threaten nature's realm… little did we realize what the true threat was.

G: Divination is a skill few can master. The rest of us must simply muddle along, content to view the past with a clarity the future rarely offers.

H: Perhaps I can yet turn hindsight into foresight, provided the curse is lifted. The better way for all. Whole generations were denied their chance to flourish… I must put this right, for them.

A: That orb seems powerful. What could it do once it's extracted?

G: Nothing good can come of it unless it is contained. Why.

A: It might be useful. Who knows?

G: I must tell you, Shadowheart, the bathing waters here leave much to be desired. The ablutions offered at the Temple of Beauty in Waterdeep were far superior - and, they have the most excellent soaps.

S: Hmm. I was wondering why you always smelled like a wealthy dowager.

A: From sweet woodland to stinking swamp. Can you do tricks like that, Gale?

G: Easiest thing in the world. Though I'd do it the other way around.

H: Brickwork and stonework. This place is far out of balance with nature, but the Oak Father will reclaim this all eventually.

G: Not too soon, I hope! I've a craving for a soft bed, a hot bath, and a large glass of Arabellan Dry. None of which I've ever found hidden under a log.

H: Hah, you may thrive, but what of other life? A city is no place for wild creatures.

G: Cities teem with life! Rats, pigeons, flies… they count no less, for all their more pestilent qualities.

G: The Society of brilliance has quite the reputation. Even Waterdhavian academics refer to their works from time to time.

S: They talk a great deal but do very little. Which may be for the best.

G: I take it you're not inclined to study the wonders of the Underdark?

S: Its inhabitants and cultures, maybe. Its fungi and cave slime, no thank you.

W: Ethel mentioned Netherese magic. What in blazes does that mean?

G: Magic from the fallen empire of Netheril. Ancient. Exceedingly dangerous. And quite unrivalled.

A: Wonderful. I'd hate to be destroyed by any common old magic.

G: Home and hearth, reduced to ruins. The shadow curse stole more than the light from this place.

H: That is why it must be stopped. Imagine a whole century of life and love denied the chance to ever take place.

G: A hidden shrine dedicated to the Moonmaiden herself. Even amidst this darkness, Selunites are stubborn enough to cling on.

K: Pretty beautiful, isn't it?

G: Look around you! Indulge your curiosity! Sorcerous Sundries is the finest purveyor of magical miscellany for miles around.

K: Where's the axes?

G: What they sell is far more precious than mere sword or shield! They sell knowledge! Ingenuity! The wisdom of mages past.

K: [yawns] Ugh, sounds like more your thing than mine.

K: Doing alright, Gale?

G: Oh, you know. Still alive and kicking despite being surrounded on all sides by an endless manifestation of… darkness and decay.

K: I feel it too. Here if you need a pick-me-up.

G: It strikes me that, for a mind flayer colony, there are remarkably few mind flayers about the place.

K: Squiddies have gone to war, is my guess.

G: On the Absolute's behalf? Now there's an alliance I'd've been quite happy without.

K: Aw, man, adventuring is thirsty work.

G: There used to be a monastery in this region known for producing a wonderful ale.

K: Ah, that sounds like heaven. Wait. Used to?

G: Oh yes, long ruined, I'm afraid. No chance of a frothing pitcher awaiting us there, but still. At least your thirst for knowledge is quenced!

K: Ugh!

W: It might seem a bit ramshackle, but this place is a boastworthy bar.

G: A bar is only as good as its cellars. Which vintages can we expect on its racks?

W: Here, a bottle is judged more by its ability to crack heads than the quality of its contents.

G: Ah. If that's the main criteria then I shall reset my expectations accordingly. Water it is!

K: We're not taking a boat to Baldur's Gate, right?

G: And give the Absolute free reign to use us as target practice from the banks? I think not!

K: Ugh. My mum always said the Chionthat was unlucky.

G: I don't suppose you've any clue where we are in relation to Waterdeep?

K: From this distance between Elturel and Baldur's Gate, I'd say… a long way away.

G: Ah. That will make getting word to my mother rather tricky. No matter. What she doesn't know can't hurt her. Not at this distance, anyway.

G: Nothing like a brisk stroll through the forest to invigorate the spirit.

K: I was just thinking the same thing! But… poetically.

G: And without so much as a stirring from our tadpoles.

K: A girl could get used to this.

L: These children and their pets lack discipline. Were they githyanki, I'd recommend further training.

G: Not everyone approaches the raising of their young with such militaristic vigor.

L: That is the very purpose of training. To determine which children shall be warriors, and which are suited to other roles. As for the unruly animals, they would make for nutritious marching rations.

G: Mm, that's certainly one way to make them behave.

L: These flowers are quite vivid, not to mention pungent. Not to my liking.

G: Are there no flowers in [tunirath]?

L: In the city of death, the m'lar cultivate the fruiting bodies that sprout from the corpses of the slain.

G: Huh. I'd rather get them from my florist in Waterdeep, if it's all the same to you.

G: That zaith'isk you mentioned intrigues me. Care to tell me a bit more?

L: An intricate device crafted by m'lar, our most gifted artisans. I am sworn to say no more.

S: Why must the Dead Three be so obvious and ugly with their decor? Blood and bones, bones and blood… Pointy nonsense. At least Shar had some panache.

G: As did Mystra's home on Elysium. Her ribbed vaults and buttresses created a magic entirely of their own… not to mention their pleasure domes.

S: Hah! Pleasure dome.

G: It's a perfectly legitimate architectural feature!

G: The road to Baldur's Gate is a long one. Who knows how long it'll take these folks to get there on foot.

S: If they make it. They're slow, vulnerable. Half or more will die long before Basilisk Gate.

G: Doesn't seem to trouble you a jot.

S: What good would it do for me to be troubled? We can't save them all.

S: You seem to know a good deal about our condition, Gale.

G: Everything, really. Not to put too fine a point on it.

S: A humble specimen, aren't you?

G: On occasion.

G: They're not mutually exclusive! The weave is served best with a dash of eloquence.

G: There's magic here, but it's of a rancid, impure form. Nothing like the true Weave at all.

L: This is why I appreciate a sharp blade to a ball of fire or a bolt of lightning. The Weave is inconsistent, unruly.

G: The Weave is constant, but its users - anything but. We must be on our guard.

L: A githyanki warrior hardly needs to be told that.

L: What is this? This place makes me feel sad, melancholy.

G: Ah, so you're susceptible to the tragedy of a broken home. Maybe you've more in common with us weaker beings than you thought.

L: There's no call to be insulting.

G: Not to diminish our efforts, but. Was rather simple getting here in the end, wasn't it?

L: The obstacles ahead prove to be higher still, which will make the pleasure of overcoming them all the more potent. Imagine the glorious din of it all, the streaming banners, the charging knights. The piles of severed limbs and heads.

G: Mm, I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you.

G: Whatever I expected to find lurking in this cursed gloom, it certainly wasn't this. A glimmer of hope amidst the darkness.

S: That's one way of looking at it. You could also say it's a prime target, the one pocket of light in the gloom.

G: Oh pragmatism, thy name is Shadowheart. You're not wrong, though. Best we keep our sojourn here to a minimum.

G: So! Shadowheart. Such a name implies yours is a difficult heart to find.

S: It's not that hard to find. Perhaps any difficulty is more telling of you, Gale.

G: I always wondered what a vampire's lair would look like. Can't say I pictured it being quite this… theatrical.

L: I find it surprisingly similar to Queen Vlaakith's aesthetic.

G: That makes sense. She does have a flair for the dramatic.

G: No day, no night. It's as though time itself has abandoned this place. Similar to the Astral Plane in some ways, wouldn't you say, Lae'zel?

L: Mm, hardly. It is said that the Astral Plane is threaded with light and silver, life-giving and wondrous in all directions. Nothing like this dismal abyss.

G: Tell me, Lae'zel, what is it like on the Astral Plane? Your home realm intrigues me.

L: Githyanki lay their eggs on other planes. They cannot mature in the Astral.

L: A tadpole nursery, as on the Nautiloid.

G: Quite right, so long as the attempt won't leave us similarly dismantled.

L: Caution is commendable. Boldness is extraordinary. In this case, I recommend the latter.

W: You're an impressive fighter, Gale. You should consider a new name.

G: I take it you have some suggestions?

W: The Wizard Wonder. Or, how about… the Master of the Weave?

G: Tempting, but I think we already have the maximum number of theatrical titles.

G: Pigeons, gulls, sparrows. These streets would make a fine hunting ground for a tressym like Tara.

M: In the Underdark, we have packs of winged hounds to deal with vermin like your precious Tara.

G: Flying hounds? Come now, you're pulling my leg. Aren't you?

M: Yes, I am. It is the bats that would make a meal of her.

M: Umberlee. Her clerics possess a nasty streak as wide as her oceans.

G: So their reputation suggests, especially among the good folk of Waterdeep. I'm curious to learn how you fell foul of them.

M: Blasphemy, said the temple priestess, but Minsc says do not give horns to your statues if you do not wish the visitors to try and make them toot.

G: Yes. That would probably do it.

W: I admire your courage, Gale.

G: Thank you! Any particular reason?

W: Between the orb and the bug, you've got more than your fair share of unwelcome passengers.

G: What can I say? Mother always told me to be a gracious host.

G: My, my. Well I'll say this for the bonecloaks: they know their mushrooms.

S: Perhaps they should expand their horizons. Too much time spent obsessing over fungi seems to leave them a bit, well… like them.

G: Oh, a byproduct of their profession. Few can spend a lifetime inhaling fungal spores without turning out a bit… muddled between the years.

W: This is it, Gale. Today, we annihilate the heart of the Absolute's power.

G: Entirely unnecessary. Though, if they are so inclined, I might be convinced to share a stanza or two of my own for inspiration! Whatever outcome of what's just ahead… it will be the stuff of legends.

G: I knew you were a graceful man, Wyll, but I hear you're quite the dancer, too! I've been known to trip the light fantastic myself. Mine was a popular hand at the annual Blackstaff's Ball.

W: I'd have loved to have witnessed it, Gale. I wager you are as elegant on the dance floor as you are on the battlefield.

S: What did you mean before, Gale? "A woman with shadows for eyes", you said.

G: Merely that if the eyes are the mirror to the soul, yours have dark curtains across the mirror. No offense taken, I hope.

S: Not necessarily. I haven't made up my mind about you yet.

A: Ever heard of a vampire called Cazador, Wyll?

W: I don't think so, no. Why? Friend of yours?

G: He's patriarch of the Szarr family. Nasty fellow, if the histories are accurate.

A: I imagine they are.

L: The right of these prisoners to die in mortal combat was stolen from them.

G: Hardly the worst atrocity the Absolute's committed.

L: One of many, but by no means the least. To die properly is a matter of honor.

W: This is no aimless horde. The Absolute's forces are organized. What do you make of it, Gale?

G: All enemies have some chink in their armor, no matter how much they like to believe themselves invulnerable.

W: And if we don't find any clear weakness?

G: Then we hope our mutual strengths are enough to dominate them. Or! We die nobly in the attempt.

G: I was wondering about your queen, Vlaakith. What tales of her reach us are terrifying. I suppose that's not how you would describe her.

L: Vlaakith is unity. Fear and beauty, life and unlife… eyes like onyx, teeth like daggers. There is none more perfect.

S: Sounds vile. I assume the meaning of perfect was lost in translation.

G: Moonrise Towers lies ahead. We're nearing the heart of the Absolute, I'm certain of it.

W: Then let us push forward, head high, weapons in hand, and turn this tower to rubble.

G: Your confidence is encouraging, but a little premature. Let's keep our eyes on the task ahead- or eye, as the case may be.

W: Who's in charge of the mind flayers, Lae'zel? Is there a squid king or something?

L: No. Each ghaik is servant to an elder brain. No king unites elders, only their collective tyranny.

G: A mind flayer monarch! Imagine that. Such a thing could shatter worlds!

K: Ready to enter the belly of the beast?

G: Ugh. It's the stairs I'm dreading.

G: No sign of tentacles so far.

S: The same. Except for a knot of worry in my stomach that's in no rush to go away.

G: That I can relate to.

G: The masons here thought they were building something to last. How wrong they were.

W: Perhaps it's a blessing that none of them survived to see it fall to the shadows.

G: No need for such a grim assumption. Halsin helped many to escape these shadows before the town was consumed.

W: Then some masons were more blessed still, if they could put their talent to use elsewhere. Perhaps some of their work even graces Baldur's Gate.

S: You seemed quite forward with your compliments earlier. We'd only just met.

G: Seize the day, I say. More now than ever.

S: Careful you don't pull a muscle in this place.

S: Isn't it so that every time you speak as you cast a spell, you're endeavoring to call upon Mystra? I'm surprised she still listens to you.

G: She has no choice. She's sworn to hear all magic users. Even me. I'm sure she at least stuffs her fingers in her ears to muffle my invocations.

G: The history of the city itself is captured in the archives here. A fascinating resource.

W: I wonder what those archives will reveal about us a hundred years hence.

G: Only the most excellent and complimentary things. With some encouragement from us, of course.

G: Look at this place. Such horrors defy description.

S: Silence can be best. Give it a try sometime.

S: What if this creche doesn't work out, Lae'zel? What if your kin fail you?

L: If I can reach the creche, my kin will provide. Any failure will be mine alone.

S: If you say so. Just don't expect me to put all my eggs in the same basket.

G: That expression must sound curious to a githyanki ear, given the way they're birthed.

G: Gods. Who knew such a vile abscess lurked in the bedrock of this city? The very stone reeks of misery and despair.

J: Mm. A sad shrine kept by the lunatic and the lost. The last time I was here, I promised myself I would die beneath open sky. I have not changed my mind.

G: Nor should you. Far better to feel a cool breeze on your skin than whatever foul expirations blow through these halls.

A: Eh, can't say I love what they've done with the place.

G: Unsurprising, really. Fanatical cultists tend to care more for ambience then aesthetics.

A: Hrm. Reason enough to put them all to the sword, I say.

A: Heh, what's this? A clever little hideaway. A little too clever, if you ask me. Watch out for traps.

G: Not just clever. Rather ingenious! Somehow its construction keeps the shadow curse away.

S: The end must be near. No regrets, Gale? You may have been better off staying inside this boulder.

G: Unlikely. Had I stayed there much longer, the orb would have reduced it to rubble. Besides, think of all the fun I'd've missed out on.

S: Fun? Well, yes… I suppose we did manage to make the best of things.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #bg3 gale #gale bg3 #bg3 party banter #party banter

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ghouljams · 8 months

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A Fair Trade (A First Date) Word Count: 2.7k Tags: Price x oc/reader, minor descriptions of reader but only if you really squint, fluff, first date awkwardness Summary: The Witch promised Price dinner and by God he's going to be fed. Price promised her a date, and that makes this whole thing a little harder.

You are trying and failing not to think of tonight as a date.

You've been on dates. Not good ones, and they never came to your house, but you've been on dates. You were never this nervous before. You smooth your hands over your apron, trace the embroidery with your fingers before you pat your thighs to stop your fidgeting. You're going to change while the meat is still cooking, your usual work clothes feel too plain.

It’s painfully clear you don’t dress up often as you look through your closet. Actually it might be more accurate to say you have no concept of dressy vs too dressy. Your usual uniform is casual to you, but you often have clients tell you, you look nice. Whatever that means. You shake your head and grab whatever is clean, staring at the coven clothes in the back of your closet. Too fancy. You twist the little pearl buttons on your blouse into their holes, and make a face in the mirror. It’s all too obvious you’re trying to look nice for someone.

It’s the silhouette, you think, the nipped waist and tight skirt. You huff and don’t bother to do the last few buttons, searching around your drawers for something more casual. You think you have a pair of jeans somewhere. You know your sister has tried to force denim on you enough times. God, this skirt makes everything so much harder, you’re not used to clothing sitting so close to your body.

Fuck everything you’re changing, you’ll wear one of your dresses it’ll be fine.

There’s a solid knock on your front door, your wards light up excitedly. You squeeze your eyes shut and beg for it to not be Price. You know it is. You’ll just have to tell him to wait while you finish getting ready, slipping on a pair of heels as you make your way to the curved oak door.

You tug the door open, feeling more than a little frazzled. Everything is already going wrong and now you don’t have any time to fix it. Price smiles down at you, he looks the same as always. Fantastic, once again you’re overdressed. You step to the side, bid him a quiet “please come in” and hold the door for him. He slips his hat --your hat-- from his head as he steps inside. His eyes drag over your body in a way that makes you feel far too exposed.

"Did you dress up for me?" He asks, you feel a little silly the way he says it.

"You said this was a date," which makes you feel even sillier to say.

“I did say that,” Price hums, reaches towards you, gentle fingers finish buttoning your shirt. You tip your head back instinctively for him as he twists the satin ribbon tie at the collar into a neat bow. Your breath sticks in your throat, the gesture far too intimate for a first date. “Are you nervous, sweetheart?” His fingers caress your throat and you snap your chin down, take a step back before your heart can jump out of your chest. You suppose changing is out of the question now.

“No,” Liar, “should I be?”

“Probably not,” You hate how he smiles at you, with just barely contained amusement, it’s far too charming.

“You know to behave yourself,” You turn away from him to go check on your roast, “otherwise the wards will throw you out just like last time.”

“Last time,” He mumbles, and you feel yourself wince, the ache in your chest at his tone. You shouldn’t have brought it up. Price is quiet, you’re not exactly used to him being quiet. You can feel him, his magic like a still lake, deep dark waters hardly stirring the secrets at the bottom. You still glance over your shoulder to make sure he’s actually in the house when he’s gone too long in silence.

He’s looking around your living room, picking up framed pictures and smiling down at the happy faces. His eyes dart to the wood beams of your ceiling, to the overstuffed couch, the knitted afghans, nothing you find terribly interesting. All of your materials are kept closer to the kitchen. If he wanted to snoop he should’ve chosen one of your glass cabinets, not your bookshelf. You shrug and pull your ceramic pot from the oven, you don’t have anything that needs to be hidden.

You settle your main on the counter and go to grab plates. You figure you can get dinner plated while he’s busy putting his scent all over everything. You can feel his magic clinging to whatever he’s touched. It’ll take you weeks to get it fully out of your house. You try not to think about the magical cleaning you’ll have to do when he leaves, focusing instead on slicing thick cuts off the bread you’d baked earlier.

Your grandmother would be quite proud of you for all the cooking you’ve done. Everything is fresh and cooked to perfection. It’s quite a nice plate if you do say so yourself: warm bread, tender meat with a rich thick sauce, and roasted vegetables with just a hint of char. Everything smells of warm herbs and careful preparation. Cooking is a magic in and of itself, one you’re thankful you had a good teacher for.

You grab both plates to set at their respective places on your table. Not exactly formal dining, but then again your family has never been a formal dining sort of people. Still, you have the prerequisite candles, wine, cloth napkins and butterflies in your stomach. You look for Price, finally having made his way to your curio cabinet. He turns a pair of dragonfly wings over in his hand.

“Dinner’s ready,” You raise your voice enough to be sure he’ll hear you over whatever he’s thinking. He settles the wings back in their place as he looks at you. His eyes drift down to the table.

“You served me,” Price sounds, almost confused, but- hm, indulgent, maybe. His voice is thick with something you haven’t heard before, deeper in his chest than it usually is. Something about it makes you want to touch him, conjures the feeling of sitting on his lap as you take your own seat.

“You’re my guest,” You tell him, “I’m a good host.”

“So you are,” He pulls his designated chair out to sit, and pauses again, leaning to pick up the fork you’d laid out for him. “This is fairy made,” He twists the intricate wooden utensil between his fingers, you nod.

“You’re not the only fae I deal with,” You pick up your own fork, the wood curves comfortably in your hand.

“Apparently,” Price smiles, finally sitting, “anyone I should be jealous of?” You snort.

“I should hope not. If I had to deal with anyone half as stubborn as you-” You shake your head, clear the sentence from your thoughts, “Besides I rarely cook for others. Too much-” you wave your hand, “idle magic to keep track of.”

Price hums. What you want to tell him is that cooking is such a labor of love, that it’s almost impossible to serve anything to anyone who isn’t going to stick around. That clearing your intent and keeping it clear the whole time you cook is far more than what a normal person has to go through, even if they’re just making toast. That every recipe seems to call for the same herbs that love and health spells call for, and you’ve never been able to shut your brain off from the association. That even sharing a meal with your friends makes you worry you’ll accidentally put a spell on them, and they’ll never trust what you give them again. That even though you love cooking you never stop being a witch, putting magic into everything that touches you.

Price watches you, your faux casual air. You know he has a better nose than your mundane friends, you dread to hear if your food smells like a spell. His eyes are so warm as you meet his gaze. It always surprises you that such an icy blue could be anything but cold, and yet.

“You’ve gone to a lot of trouble for me,” He says, picking up his knife and beginning to slice through the meat on his plate. You open your mouth to refute it, and grab your wine to sip instead. There’s no point in lying when it’s so painfully clear.

Wood, ceramic, copper, your kitchen seems almost made for fae comfort in its current state. Not a lick of iron anywhere it could’ve infected the food.

Instead you flick your wrist, your little record player excitedly switching itself on and carefully setting its needle on your pre-approved vinyl. You let the machine deal with the fiddly bits as your magic works to try and even itself out around the traces Price has left.

“I promised you a meal, you should be able to eat it,” You finally manage, doing your best to focus on your own food when your stomach is twisting itself into knots.

“Thank God for that,” Price tells you, “if I can’t eat you, at least I can eat your food.” You both watch the candles burst in crackling flames, bright enthusiastic licks of fire that you do your best to calm down. Magic reacting to your emotions. The record player skips a beat with your fluttering heart. “Cute,” He says it so casually, like your flames don’t crackle with his every word.

“Shut up,” You grumble.

If you’d thought dinner would be the hardest part of the evening you were horribly wrong. Dinner is easy. You’ve taken tea with Price enough times, had enough conversations with him, that you find it easy to fall into your familiar groove. Though you can feel time passing, can hear the soft click and chime of your clocks, you get lost talking. Before you know it hours have passed. Your candles burned down, your plates clean, the previously full bottle of wine neatly polished off. You think your record has reset itself at least once.

It’s nice, comfortable. Price always gives you his full attention, listens without simply waiting for his turn to speak, and you return the favor. Although with how intelligent he is, it would be hard not to give him your full attention. This date thing is easy. You don’t know why you were so worried.

All of your awkward anxiety rushes at you as you stand at the door. You’ve never been good at ending dates, and you’ve never had a date go well with someone you’re- Well you suppose you can admit that you like Price more than you should. Like him enough to hesitate the ending. You stare at him, trying to get a read on his mood, trying to silently ask him to do something. Please tell me how this is supposed to end, you think at him.

“You have to tell me if you want something little witch,” He smiles down at you.

"Would you kiss me?" You don't know what else to say, how else this could possibly go. You want him to kiss you more than anything. You had it once, and you haven't stopped thinking about it since. Price smiles, and pulls you into his arms.

He kisses you and it's nothing like it was last time. The blind panic is gone for one. It's slow and soft, it's not perfect, you don't know what to do with your hands or really what to do with your mouth, but it doesn't matter. Price kisses you like he never wants to do anything else, like the world can wait for him to finish. You're warm from the dinner and you can feel it bleed into the kiss. His beard tickles a little but the way he holds you and the soft slide of his lips make everything else melt away.

When he pulls away you can still feel the phantom press of his lips against yours, and it makes giddy bubbles pop in your ribs and across your cheeks. You want to kiss him again. Price smiles and brushes your hair back, his rough calloused fingers gentle as they skate across your skin. You really must be greedy to want so much more of him. You try to coach yourself, too much of a good thing blah blah blah.

He cups the back of your head and kisses you again. Soft, soft, soft. You didn't know kissing someone would feel like this. You've seen movies, read books, but you'd thought those must be exaggerations. When you'd kissed him before it had been so insistent, all teeth and tongue as he tried to devour you. If you'd thought he was trying to steal you away then you can't even imagine what he's trying to do now. Your chest clenches tight, pulls taught, bursts with gnawing desire, you think you might be trying to steal him, or at least convince him you're worth staying for.

Not that he needs convincing, you are more than worth staying for. You're so sweet and warm from the wine. Your lips are plush against his and your pretty little fingers hold onto him so tightly, he wouldn't leave you if the whole court called him. There's a slight tang of alcohol on your lips that makes your kiss all the sweeter.

Your hands slide to his shoulders as you press up on your toes, press closer against him. He wraps his arm around your waist, keeping you flush against his chest. As if he could keep you any closer, feel any more of your warmth. Oh you sweet thing, if he could sink into you he would, each honeyed kiss, each gentle breath, plucking at the last string of his resolve. Precious darling, do you even know how well loved you are?

You pull back, turn your head so his next kiss just catches the edge of your mouth. Price is ravenous for you, sliding his lips to your jaw, he can smell your pulse, the soft powdery rose of your perfume. How could he still be so hungry after eating? He can feel the syrup drip of your magic down his spine, languid and entirely too enticing. Actually, everything in the house seems to tremble just on the edge of your breaths, seems to weigh heavy against his shoulders, anticipatory.

It’s not just his hunger, is it?

His lips still against your neck. No, it’s yours as well. He can smell it, taste it on your skin, your want. You’re a spell, as much as you try not to be, just begging to be adored. You’re nervous. He pulls back, takes in the pout of your lips, the draw of your brows, wanting but unsure. He can’t. You deserve better than just hungry wanting. You should rest safe in the knowledge that he won’t leave in the morning.

Unfortunately that morning won’t come tomorrow.

Price strokes your cheek, kisses your forehead. It’s the end of an exchange, a decision made for both of you. you thought he’d be pushier. He was getting what he wanted, right? Maybe that was your own inexperience shining through, but you’d thought- Well you’d thought this was why he wanted you.

“What now?” You ask, trying to hide the confusion in your voice.

“Now?” He sighs it like it pains him, “Now, I leave, and you see me tomorrow.” You can’t say you aren’t relieved. Grateful that he isn’t pushing you for more so quickly. Still, you can’t help feeling a small sting of rejection.

"Even if I ask you to stay?" You push up onto your toes to try and meet his lips again, but he leans back to keep you a breath away.

"Especially if you ask." He tilts his head, and you feel like you’ve edged too close to a dangerous line. "When I fuck you," Price breathes, brushes his lips against yours, "and I will fuck you, Sweetheart," he assures you, "I want it to mean something.” He brushes your hair from your cheek, his fingers cupping your face like you’re something precious to him.

“Then, I’ll see you tomorrow?” You hope. Price smiles, and kisses you a final time. The feeling of him lingers when he pulls away. Gentle magic sticking to your lips as he pulls his hat on.

“And every day after that,” He promises.

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greynatomy · 22 days

Text

dazed & confused

leila ouahabi x reader

it’s your bday @sleekswosobession !!

———

You’ve been dragged to the go out by your friends after a stressful day. Declining at first, they insisted, so you were now at the bar, drink in hand.

The bass was thumping in the dimly lit club, tension radiating off of everyone. Watching everyone let loose, your eyes lock on a mysterious figure from across the room.

You came in swinging like Apollo I'll be feeling it tomorrow No, I ain't seeing straight, hyperventilate Knees begin to wobble

Igniting a spark of curiosity and attraction, your feet began to move, pushing you through the crowd of people, with determination in each step.

You cut my brakes and hit the throttle I couldn't stop it if I wanted Dizzy silhouette, makes me break a sweat I'm in trouble

“Mind if I join you?” you shouted, over the music, giving her a charming smile.

She glanced at you, lips quirking up in a grin. “Depends on whether you can keep up.”

It was a challenge that you willingly accepted. The club was dark, bar from the little spotlights all over. You matched her movements, bodies syncing as one in a dance of seduction and intrigue. Tension growing with each beat.

“So, what’s your name?” You lean in closer, lips brushing against her ear.

“Leila.”

“Leila, hmm.” You smirk, leaning back, face still close together. “I like that.” Leila shakes her head, flustered, but trying not to make it obvious. “So, what brings you here?”

“Maybe I’m just here to look for a dance partner.” She shrugs, a look of mischief on her face.

“Well, you certainly found one.”

Your bodies moved in perfect symphony, Leila could feel your breath against her neck as you moved to the beat. As you lean in closer, Leila pushes your face out of her neck and puts you face to face.

“It was nice dancing with you, but I gotta go.”

With that, she bids her goodbye, leaving no trace of her. Days turned into weeks and Leila was someone who you couldn’t get your mind off of.

People would call you pathetic, but you’ve been back to that same club every few days hoping to catch a glimpse of her again.

Oh, I've been dazed and confused From the day I met you Yeah, I lost my head And I'd do it again

Nursing on a drink, the ice began to melt as you swirl the glass around. Sighing, you look up, eyes scanning the crowd for a second before they’re back staring down at the glass.

“Who’re you looking for?”

Your head shoots up, eyes widening at the sight of her.

Either I've seen the light Or I'm losing my mind There's something 'bout you That's got me dazed and confused

“You look like a lost little puppy.” Leila jutted her bottom lip out in a pout.

“Leila.” You manage to get out.

“That’s me.”

I bet you know just what you're doing You're not the type that's used to losing First, you build me up, then with just a touch Leave me here in ruins

Her eyes meet yours and you swear that time stopped.

Something 'bout your eyes I can't even walk in a straight line Under the influence

You felt your knees buckle, barely able to keep yourself upright. The world around you is spinning while Leila was the center of it all.

She grabs your arm, dragging you to the dance floor. You forget about everything else, focused solely on her. The whole night felt like a blur.

You’ve picked up where you left off, the heat between the two of you was undeniable. You’ve, once again, surrendered yourself to her, following the way her body moves against yours.

I don't know if this is real life, real life What happens if I open my eyes, my eyes? Will I ever get my head right, head right? I don't know if this is real life, real life

You wonder if all of this was just a dream, that once you open your eyes, everything disappears. But it wasn’t a dream. You have this beautiful girl in front of you, dancing with you. You are in euphoria.

“Hey.”

A whisper breaks you out of your thoughts. Leila pulls you in by the neck, noses touching.

“Why don’t we get out of here?”

Goosebumps littered your body, words getting stuck in your throat. She grabs your hand, leading you out of the building.

It was a question that never needed answering.

#woso #woso x reader #greynatomy #woso community #man city wfc #man city women #manchester city wfc #espwnt #espwnt x reader #leila ouahabi #leila ouahabi x reader

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thebiscuitlabryinth · 2 months

Text

"...We're two sides of the same coin, aren't we?"

The whispered confession falls clumsily out of Pure Vanilla's mouth, almost dragged out, bitterly sweet and strange on his tongue. The words are addressed to his own stained candy glass visage, spilling tendrils of bright blue light across the Solarium of Unity despite the almost suffocating darkness invading the rest of the space.

He knows this isn't really the Solarium of Unity, and he knows he isn't just speaking to a window. The lurking shadows, thick like molasses and blinking every once in a while, give that away. Even if it didn't, there is a haziness here that exists only in dreams, and a lack of the deep tiredness that has been plaguing him as of late.

"Oh, are you finally ready to admit that?" Sure enough, Shadow Milk Cookie's voice comes from all sides, far too cheerful. The candy glass melts and warps before him, the blues darkening until Shadow Milk stands in his place, far more detailed than the artisan silhouette he replaced. His grin is mocking as he looks down at Pure Vanilla, who cannot help but feel uncomfortable at the sight of their appearances blurring together like that, even though he had been expecting something along those lines. "Too bad though – you can't admit something that's wrong!"

"Huh?" It catches Pure Vanilla by surprise. It had been difficult emotionally, but logically straightforward to admit they were two sides of the same coin. He couldn't imagine how that could be wrong, and acting upon an old habit from his student days, he finds himself frantically unravelling that conclusion in his head again to figure out the issue.

Shadow Milk doesn't give him the chance, tutting as he shakes his head in mock disappointment. "You must have a brain in there, can't you use it?" He laments theatrically, contorting himself into an odd shape against the edge of the window pane. Then, again barreling on before Pure Vanilla can reply, "Look, think of it like this. To say we're two sides of the same coin means that we have similarities, even if we are otherwise opposites. That is true to an extent, but it makes our differences sound way more clear cut than they actually are. It may be easier for you to believe, but we aren't really opposites. That would imply I am not whole, and I can assure you, Soul Jam aside, I am just as I always was!"

Ah, so it's a matter of wording. Pure Vanilla isn't sure why he is entertaining this - no, it's because he doesn't want to give Shadow Milk the satisfaction of turning away from the truth. Even now, Shadow Milk's eyes squint cheekily at him, daring him to try and end the conversation.

"Then... we are made of the same components in a different composition." Pure Vanilla tries, a little frustrated with his own hesitance, but it is difficult to tell how Shadow Milk wants him to answer when he isn't making it blatantly obvious.

"So close!" Shadow Milk sighs dramatically as he snaps his head to the side so sharply it makes Pure Vanilla wince, imagining the cracks that would cause on any other Cookie. "But you're relying on technicalities. It's much simpler than that."

It dawns on Pure Vanilla, then, exactly what Shadow Milk is aiming for, the realisation making his insides crawl. He doesn't have to say it, not really, but he isn't sure what Shadow Milk will do if he doesn't, and he unfortunately doesn't have the ability to wake himself up on command.

So he takes a deep breath, fidgeting with his staff as he says, even less than a whisper yet twice as loud. "We're... We're the same. Is that what you wanted me to say?"

"Ding-ding-ding!" Shadow Milk trills, suddenly reaching through the candy glass to grip the window frame and lurching forward across the threshold, leaving a mess of shattered glass behind his head like a halo. It startles Pure Vanilla, who instinctively shifts his foot back, only to be instantly locked in place as the reaching shadows soldify around his legs, its eyes winking up at him playfully. His grip on his staff tightens, willing it to shed its light, the beginnings of panic stirring within him at the restraint. The staff does, but the shadows seem to eat the light without a problem.

Pure Vanilla is so distracted by the shadows that he doesn't notice Shadow Milk's hands until they grab his face. His heart jumps in alarm, and his eyes dart up to find half of Shadow Milk leaning down out of the window, far too close. He is grinning at him, wide and self-satisfied, and his hands are cold and harsh. "See, I knew you had a working brain! Yes, the right answer is that we are one and the same."

He pinches and pulls at his cheeks, and Pure Vanilla tries to cringe away, tries to manuver his staff between them. It doesn't work, if only because hands emerge from the darkness to anchor his staff too.

"But that isn't true." Pure Vanilla mumbles when he isn't able to wiggle his way out and Shadow Milk still shows no signs of stopping, hoping the argument will make him lose interest in his face. "I admit that there are similarities between us, but we aren't really the same."

Shadow Milk pauses, his grip tightening until it borders on pain, and for a moment, Pure Vanilla thinks he may have miscalculated.

But then Shadow Milk snickers to himself, releasing his face entirely and pulling back, his hands resting lightly over Pure Vanilla's shoulders. The brush of weight keeps Pure Vanilla from relaxing, but it is a bit of added distance, at least.

"Aren't we? Well, you are the biggest liar, so I should have expected you would lie to yourself too." Shadow Milk hums, almost sounding delighted at this turn in conversation. It unnerves Pure Vanilla, because he had assumed his disagreement would annoy him.

Instead, Shadow Milk smirks, his many eyes glinting gleefully at him. "Listen carefully, Vani, because here's the truth." He says, his voice dipping into a wicked purr that seems to shudder through Pure Vanilla's whole body. "All the things you hate that I have done, you have the capability of doing too. After all, you've already used people for your own gain, haven't you?" Shadow Milk leans closer with a condescending lilt to his words, shifting his hands so he can wrap his arms loosely over his shoulders, and Pure Vanilla freezes under the touch. "Oh, I know you think it was necessary, but you still sent those naive, tiny Cookies off to carry out your errands for you, regardless of the dangers. That's only a few steps behind what I've done, you know, making people dance to my tune. The only difference between us is severity and time."

The words sink heavily to Pure Vanilla's stomach, not quite true but not quite not true, and he feels a little lightheaded, fingers twitching against his staff. Maybe it's because of that, or maybe it's because of his discomfort from the close proximity, but he finds himself distracted by the way Shadow Milk is talking. He carries his usual air of showmanship, but it is nowhere near as exaggerated as during his brief takeover of the Faerie Kingdom. With his insistence of specificity, his mention of technicalities, his structured method of explaining things, he almost sounds like a–

"We are the same," Shadow Milk repeats, tilting his head to the side, the glow of his eyes burning holes through Pure Vanilla, "and one day, you'll end up just like me."

A scholar.

That makes sense – at some point, his virtue had been Knowledge, and nobody seeks it out as fervently as a scholar – but it still feels like a surprise. Pure Vanilla had always known that Shadow Milk was different, once, but only in the sense that the fact existed in the back of his mind.

"No rebuttal, hmm? Are you ready to accept that?" Shadow Milk asks smugly, slightly impatient with Pure Vanilla's lack of response, but mostly watching him expectantly, as if waiting for a bomb to go off.

Pure Vanilla has never thought about what Shadow Milk might have been like, before he became like this. There was no reason to even consider it. But now, he can't help but wonder, because while he cannot imagine this chaotic, brutal Beast, this great unknown evil, as anything else – Shadow Milk still carries echoes from a past life that he doesn't seem to notice enough to hide with his lies.

"...If we are the same," Pure Vanilla finally scrapes his thoughts together enough to reply, carefully, "then doesn't that make the opposite possible too? That, one day, you will become like me and return to the light?"

Shadow Milk blinks once, his face falling blank. He blinks again, all of his eyes in quick succession.

And then he throws his head back and laughs, the movement jostling Pure Vanilla in the process with his arms still firmly around his shoulders. It sounds unhinged, ricocheting across the room, but it is openly amused. It makes Pure Vanilla antsy, especially with how it rings in his ears like an explosion from their closeness.

He wonders if Shadow Milk's laugh was different, before everything. It must have been. He wonders what it sounded like, and immediately realises that he's being ridiculous. The realisation that a before exists seems to have opened the floodgates in his mind, and now thoughts of hypotheticals can't help flitting in.

"You say such silly, silly things." Shadow Milk bites out offhandedly as his laughter winds down, the lingering remnants still dancing on his tongue. Without warning, he pulls Pure Vanilla even closer, the darkness that had been keeping him in place swirling and shoving him forward. Pure Vanilla gasps, the sound catching in his throat, and one of his hands fly off his staff to reach for something to steady himself on. It finds an edge of shattered candy glass, flinching back and falling down to scrabble against its smooth, intact surface.

Shadow Milk is giggling at him and Pure Vanilla is mortified, horribly so. They are far, far too close, Shadow Milk's face taking up the near entirety of his vision and their upper bodies almost pressed together. It feels claustrophobic, which should be impossible in such a wide, open space.

Shadow Milk makes matters worse by pressing their foreheads together, the gesture weirdly tender and doing nothing to make Pure Vanilla any calmer. His bright blue eyes look directly through him, dissecting him piece by piece.

"Why don't you cut down the Silver Tree and find out?" Shadow Milk coos, his voice overlapping with the Light of Truth's in a deeply unsettling way. His presence is overwhelming.

Pure Vanilla's eyes flicker downwards to escape his piercing gaze, and finds their chests so close that their Soul Jams are overlapping. Overlapping, and not touching, because Shadow Milk's Soul Jam seems to fizzle out of existence where the other makes contact with it, as if it were an illusion. Behind it is an empty space, black as the abyss. With the way they are lined up now, it is obvious that Pure Vanilla's Soul Jam would fit perfectly into the crevice with a little turning. He knew that already, but it still feels strange to see it.

Pure Vanilla sighs, a long, thin, shuddering sound. "...You didn't truly believe that would work, did you?"

In the edge of his vision, Shadow Milk smiles tauntingly, all teeth, but he doesn't say a word.

And Pure Vanilla wakes up, off kilter, exhausted and oddly cold.

[next]

#sm flirting: hey wanna debate the fluidity of ur identity and morality and have a crisis? wanna make out over it?#if ur confused dw i was confused writing this too. sm strikes me as the type to say the most convulted stuff for funsies #also he is scheming. idk what exactly but he certainly is!!#and poor pv is just along for the ride #pure vanilla cookie #shadow milk cookie #shadowvanilla #vanilla milkshake #echo paradox au #the biscuit library

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